This Week In Lost - 2/16/10

Sorry for the lateness, busy schedules and what not.

Episode 4 - "The Substitute"

Zach says: This week focused back on evil Locke and the story at hand, or at least that's how I like to view it. However, we didn't get to see anything from Claire, which was disappointing, but I'm sure that's where the story will go next week. In this episode, we see "Locke" seemingly try to recruit some people to his cause, whatever that may be exactly. Richard is a bit of an interesting case. He refuses him outright, even though apparently Richard doesn't know too much about Jacob's overall plans, but still trusts him and completely distrusts Locke. So, Locke instead goes to Sawyer, who agrees to follow him to get some answers.

Locke takes Sawyer to a special cave where there are many names scribble on the walls, most importantly of which, are those of the Oceanic 815 and main characters, who also have very familiar numbers by each of their names. Another important scene takes place where Locke sees what would seem to be a young Jacob, who tells him that he can't kill Sawyer, as it would be breaking a rule. To this, Locke replies that he can't be told what he can and can't do, which is exactly what real Locke said when people denied him because of his disability. So it was very interesting to see this correlation here.

Aside from that, not too much else happens. We see what John's life would have been like if flight 815 didn't go down, and he seems to have not had too much faith, which is completely different then who he became on the island. We see a little bit from Sun and Ben, who I would think will come into their own further into the season. This week was definitely better than the drama driven events of the last episode, and hopefully the final season will keep up with the pace in exposing the rest of the island and the overall plans of Jacob and his adversary.
Zach's Score: 8/10

JDW says: Hard to say was hasn't already been said, but I'll try. Was definitely strange for this episode to disregard the whole "sick" Sayid/evil Claire revelation that we saw last week, but at least it also left out Kate... regardless, this was a Locke centric episode, and if we have learned anything from previous seasons it's that Locke episodes are usually good and full of answers. Though, unlike the rest of our island dwellers, this episode was split between Jacob's rival (in Locke form, of course) and Locke if he had landed in LA.

The parallels of these two different men was really interesting (even if one was in the form of the other), to the point that one questions if they're really different at all. But, as much as it is fan service to see the alternate versions of Helen, Rose, and Ben in Locke's post-landing life, their inclusion still feels irrelevant to me. It's like, I'm not really sure what to make of the post-landing storyline because the island storyline still feels like it's the "real" storyline. This episode didn't really help with that, as the island storyline actually revealed a greater importance of 4 8 15 16 23 42, but otherwise I still feel a bit unfulfilled.
JDW's Score: 8/10

Overall Score: 8/10

Missed the episode? Watch it on Hulu