LOST Recap: “316″

SPOILERS AHEAD!
“We’re not going to Guam, are we.”
Good call, Frank- we’re not going anywhere near Guam. We’re going back to the island with Ben and the Oceanic 6, and it seems like that’s where we’ll stay for a while now.
It’s a good thing, too. While tonight’s episode answered a couple of overarching questions, for the most part it lagged due to the fact that the island is more interesting than the real world. So it’s nice to know that all of our favorites (save for Desmond and Penny) are back on mystery island, LOST once more. Click on for a review/recap of this week’s ep.The opening was fantastic. Deja-vu: Jack’s eye opens in the jungle. He gets up and sprints around as he hears the call for help. But this is not the pilot all over again- a quick little smile comes over Jack’s face as he realizes that he’s back. He quickly takes an impressive dive into the water to grab Hurley, then wakes up Kate and lets her know what we’ve already assumed: “We’re back.” Awesome.
The rest of the episode simply filled in the blanks. This was one of the few episodes where the sole purpose is to tell a single story over the course of the hour, joining “The Constant,” “Expose,” and “Meet Kevin Johnson.” Sometimes these work brilliantly (”Constant”), other times just OK (”Johnson”). “316″ was somewhere in between.
We went deep into Mrs. Hawking’s fortress and “listened carefully” to a lot of exposition. Basically, the island was found by the Dharma Initiative when they realized it would be easier to predict where the island was going to be than where it already was- in time, of course. To get back to the island, the O6 need to enter through one of the “windows” that open every once in a while. The particular “window” they need to go through conveniently shuts in just over a day, meaning that as many of the O6 as possible NEED to get onto Ajira Airways, flight 316 to Guam.
Following? You don’t really need to be. As much as we would like to believe that this is one of LOST’s biggest mysteries being solved, it really isn’t. This is simply the producers’ general explanation about how the island can be found. Don’t think too much into it.
The rest of the episode was a lot of intrigue. Mrs. Hawking explained why “all of them” needed to go back- they needed to to try and replicate the initial crash. Unfortunately for Jack, this requires replacing Locke’s shoes with his dad’s. A lot of the episode dealt with Jack’s boring connection to the shoes. Meh.
Episode Highlights and Intrigue:
-Mrs. Hawking tells Desmond that the “Island is not done with” him. Then he storms off, making him the only series regular not on the island by the episode’s end.
-Kate crashed Jack’s pod and decided to go back with him the next day. But before passionately making out with him, she warned him NEVER to ask about where Aaron is again. But wait- where IS Aaron?
-Ben’s mysterious phone call. Bloodied up, he called Jack and told him that he needed to retrieve Locke’s body himself. What was Ben doing? Could it be related to the “promise he made to an old friend” that he told Jack about the night before? My guess- he tried to fulfill his promise to Widmore and kill Penny, but ended up VERY unsuccessful.
-The big payoff. Sun, Jack and Kate are all at the airport. But wait- there’s Hurley! He bought all of the plane’s remaining seats! And there’s Sayid being escorted by a federal marshall! Good surprise, they’re all back together.
-Locke’s suicide note: “I wish you believed me.”
-Then Ben shows up, still bloodied and crippled. Finally, our pilot’s voice comes over the PA and it’s none other than our good friend Frank Lapidus! A great twist in an episode that didn’t have many.
-The plane does not crash (also intriguing), but instead falls into our familiar white light. Jack, Hurley, and Kate end up together, as the opening scene is replayed. Ben, Sun, Sayid, and the other passengers are nowhere to be found. And here comes the twist: they’re approached by a Dharma van, an armed Dharma worker, none other than…time-traveling Jin! BOOM.
For me, “316″ was a good one, but never reached the greatness that it could’ve. By regular TV standards, excellent, but by LOST standards, just very good. I’m giving “316″ a B+. What’s your grade?
Next week’s episode likely won’t deal with this one’s twist. Called “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham,” it will be another self-contained episode following Locke’s mysterious off-island journey. Can’t wait.