Come Downstairs and Say Hello. A Review of "There's No Place Like Home"

A few years ago, one of my favorite bands (Guster) came out with a brilliant song called “Come Downstairs and Say Hello.” Lately, I’ve felt there’s a connection to this song and Season 4 of LOST. It’s got Wizard of Oz references, self-actualization motifs and a title that screams, “Orchid Station.” After last night, I’m making it John Locke’s new theme song. Read the abridged lyrics below to judge for yourself.

Dorothy moves
To click her ruby shoes
Right in tune
With Dark Side of the Moon
Someone, someone could tell me
Where I belong
Be calm
Be brave
It'll be ok

To tell you the truth I've said it before: “Tomorrow I start in a new direction.”
I know I've been half asleep I'm never doing that again
I look straight at what's coming ahead and soon it's gonna change in a new direction
Every night as I'm falling asleep these words repeated in my head

Voices calling from a yellow road
To come downstairs and say hello
Don't be shy just say hello

Come downstairs, John Locke. And say hello to your destiny. Don’t be shy. Just say hello.

We’ll get back to John Locke going downstairs. But man, last night was remarkable. LOST brought us a lot of answers (for LOST, anyway) and did it with some scenes that wrenched our hearts as quickly as they warmed them. As expected, there’s a lot to cover: the Frozen Donkey Wheel, the coffin reveal, the list goes on.

But first, the most explosive scene of the night.

Boom Goes the Dynamite
Last week, Michael informed Sun that he wasn’t working for Ben Linus; he was working through Ben Linus to redeem himself for what he did. Last night, Michael’s mission of redemption came full circle.

And with Christian Shepherd as his witness, Michael was redeemed. It happened when Mike told Jin to get out of the dynamited room and go be a father to Sun and their unborn child. It was a perfect act of redemption for Michael: it was selfless, it involved being a good father and it was sacrificial. In short, it was all the things he hadn’t been his entire life. And where suicide attempts failed him in his post-Island life, his selfless sacrifice ultimately delivered Michael “Kevin Johnson” Dawson from the man he never really wanted to be.

Christian’s brief cameo and succinct reassurance to Michael (“You can go now”) was absolutely perfect. It also reinforced the idea that people can’t die until they finish their business. And it appears that Christian – as someone who can speak on Jacob’s behalf – is Jacob’s gatekeeper, responsible for determining when that business is finished. I wonder if Jacky boy will ever have a similar meeting with the Island’s Saint Peter…

Then there’s Jin. I could almost hear the tears rolling down Maggie’s face from halfway across town. Jin’s desperate run through the freighter underbelly was, for me, a devastatingly unavoidable death march. Jin wasn’t going to make it, and we all knew it. As pregnant Sun’s cries pierced through the whir of the helicopter, the Kahana exploded into a million pieces. And with it, the father of Ji Yeon was killed.

Last week, Sun blamed her father and one other man for the death of Jin. Last night, it seemed that “other man” turned out to be Jack, who refused to let Frank Lapidus dip back down to the Kahana to pick up Jin. Such is the burden of leadership and the price of acting on behalf of the greater good. It’s a lesson Jack keeps learning, forgetting, relearning and re-forgetting.

Let’s also not forget about Saywer, who sacrificed his own freedom for that of Kate’s. What did he whisper to her before taking the swan dive off the chopper? I’m guessing something along the lines of, “Take care of that daughter, Clementine, I told you about. You’ll find her in Albuquerque.”

But in the end, Jack, Kate, Sayid, Hurley, Sun, Aaron, Desmond and Frank Lapidus escaped the Kahana explosion. And so, the O6 + 2 flew toward the Island. Until the Island disappeared.

The Oceanic Six: Case Closed. Then a Bunch More Cases Opened.
I have to credit LOST with actually filling in the blanks of the Oceanic Six story. We learned a lot, and had some really interesting set-ups for the next two seasons. Let’s start with what we now know.
The Great Lie
I figured this elaborate Oceanic Six story was concocted to save the non-O6 people in some way. But I’ve believed all along that the O6 were forced to lie – and fed a story – by Ben Linus, Charles Widmore or one of their many intermediaries. Wrong! It was John Locke’s idea to lie. And it was Dr. Jack’s idea to agree with him.

In what may have been the final confrontation between the Man of Science and the Man of Faith, John Locke pled once more with Jack not to leave the Island. Jack, stubborn as ever, stuck to the script – believing Locke to be off his rocker and promising again to rescue the 815 survivors.

But once upon the lifeboat was in sight of rescue, reality struck Jack. The world believed them to be dead, and whoever made the world believe that would make the fake deaths a reality if the O6 told the truth. Jack knows that the O6’s Island knowledge jeopardizes the island, so, in order to save the O6, Jack convinced his fellow survivors to “let me do the talking.” Of course, that initially overwhelming task of deception was lessened when we learned that Captain Penny Widmore was in charge. At that point, Des and Pen took over, stole the spotlight and – once again – put the love scenes of Jack, Kate, Sawyer or Juliet to shame. It is, without a doubt, LOST’s best love story.

Catching Up. Moving Forward.
But I expected the tying up of those O6 loose ends. I didn’t expect the introduction of loads of O6 storylines that will surely permeate the scripts of Season 5.

Jack, Kate and Aaron. Season 4’s finale picked up exactly where Season 3’s finale left off. Kate reiterated the absurdity of Jack’s “We gotta go back” plea. Jack tried to make her understand. It’s here we see that Jack & Kate haven’t just lost touch, they’ve lost each other. While Jack remains mired in the past, Kate wants nothing more than to look ahead to being Aaron’s mother, to being free from the law and to forgetting the Island.

Hurley, Sayid & Walt. Wow. Wesley Snipes is playing Walt now!! That’s great. I’m glad he found work. Seriously though. He’s getting older faster than he should. And I’m going to spend the next 8 months figuring out how he becomes Matthew Abbadon. This I swear.

Hurley’s impending despair was foreshadowed earlier this season in his conversation with Jack, where he questioned if they should go back. Last night, we saw a Hurley that was utterly confused. Between chess matches with Dead Mr. Eko and awkward conversations with Walt, Hurley has become a malleable little piece of clay. By the end of the episode, Sayid easily convinced Hugo to follow him into – presumably – another Ben Linus rabbit hole (“safe place,” my ass). Didn’t matter though. Hurley would’ve followed anyone – and that could help Jack later.

Sun & Widmore. Sun’s a bad ass. Really. She doesn’t mess around. And her sneaky little meeting with Widmore only placated my conspiratorial belief that Paik Industries and Widmore are in cahoots. Golf reference? Check. Small talk? Check. It’s got all the signs of a business partnership. And the more I learn about Charles Widmore, the more I suspect anyone who does business with him.

All these flash-forward O6 storylines are really just seeds for what I believe will be Season 5’s pivotal question: if, and how, Jack can convince the rest of the O6 to return to the Island. He’ll have some tough sells (Kate) and some easier ones (Hurley). But know this: the reluctant leader’s job isn’t over. It never is.

Best-Laid Plans
"How many times do I have to tell you? I always have a plan." Okay, Ben. I believe you.

First, we learned that the bit of mirror signaling he did in the jungle last week was Linus Code for “Find Kate and Sayid, use them as pawns to distract the freighter folk, then work together to kill those mercenary bastards and set me free so that I may assist John Locke with this ‘Island-moving’ business.”

Pretty sweet move. The Sayid vs. Keamy vs. Richard Alpert fight scene was classic. And when Keamy pulled a Mikhail Bakunin and traveled down to the Orchid, I soiled myself a little. Most interesting was the unnerved Ben Linus. When Keamy’s taunting of Alex’s death reached a boiling point, Ben snapped. In doing so, he sacrificed the freighter folk. But when you’ve got a grander scheme in mind – and Ben always does – what’s a few dozen freighter lives?

So with Keamy out of the way, Ben gerryrigged the Orchid Time Travel device, blowing a hole between it and its adjacent electromagnetic material stockpile. And that, my friends, is how we got to our Frozen Donkey Wheel.

I Like to Move It, Move It. I Like To Move It, Move It.
Man, I didn’t think there would literally be a frozen donkey wheel. I can’t believe I’m about to analyze the implications of a frozen donkey wheel. I’ve lost my mind.

Here’s the deal (as I see it). There’s this electromagnetic anomaly, right? Basically, it creates a shell around the Island that renders it impossible to find and near-impossible to navigate toward. When Desmond turned the fail-safe key a while back, the electromagnetic shield was retracted, and the Island was locatable by outside forces (Widmore).

When you "move" the Island, you take it one step further than the fail-safe key. You don’t just retract the electromagnetic shield, you rebuild it in another place (or time) around one of the world’s “hot spots.”

Hot spots, Charlie? Yes, reader. Hot spots. Remember when Rose visited Isaac of Uluru (the healer), and he told her that different spots in the world had these intense levels of energy? Isaac’s hut was one. The Island was one. And wherever they moved the Island to was another. The turning of the treadwheel (or donkey wheel) by Ben simply refocused the Island’s electromagnetic-dependent elements to another electromagnetic hot spot.

That’s what I think, any way. And it’s the simplest I can put it. It also might be very wrong. But what you need to know is this: wherever the Island was geographically located, it was still untraceable by traditional means. Once Desmond exposed and compromised its location, Ben knew it might come to this: changing the electromagnetic hot spot upon which the Island’s healing energy is centered. The Island relies on this physical condition. But it can rely on it in a different location.

The question remains: what are the “consequences” of this move? What we know is, it doesn’t kill everyone. John Locke obviously lived enough to travel to the real world, assume a fake name and make contact with the O6. As for the Others and the 815 survivors who were left behind? That’s a question for Season 5 to answer.


Human Chess
Though he wasn’t as prominently featured as Jack, Ben or even baby Aaron, this episode was about John Locke. Don't be shy, John. Just say hello.

John worked with Ben to learn how the Orchid worked. Once Ben gave him the tutorial, it was time to pass the torch. But didn’t Ben seem emotionless about that passing? He shook Locke’s hand, apologized for making his life miserable, and strolled into the tunnel toward the donkey wheel. He told Locke to go lead the Others, that they would listen to him, that the torch had been passed. For someone who worked so hard to build an entire culture of people devoted to his power, Ben really didn’t seem to broken up about giving it away to John.Why?

Because Ben didn’t pass the torch to John Locke. He passed a temporary set of problems onto him.

The “moving of the Island” is done with certain consequences, as Ben told John at the outset. Ben also knows that John’s lack of confidence in himself and inability to comprehend his connection with the Island will render him unable to deal with those consequences. Need confirmation of that? Fire up your DVR and check out John Locke’s face when he emerges from the Orchid and meets up with the Others. He comes just short of saying, “What the hell did I just agree to?”

I’m going to assume this: the moving of the Island causes problems that Locke feels can only be solved by the O6’s return to the Island. Taking a page out of the Linus Notebook, Locke assumes the identity of Jeremy Bentham and ventures to the real world in order to convince the O6 to come restore balance to the Island. (Interesting Wikipedia note: Jeremy Bentham was a philosopher who opposed the idea of Natural Right, a concept championed by, yes, John Locke. A Bentham/Locke analysis is prudent, but it’ll have to wait for another day.)

What’s important about last night is this: Jeremy Bentham/John Locke is the man in the coffin. And two men visit that coffin. One, Jack, is visibly broken, confused and uncertain of where to turn. The other, Ben Linus, is alive, well and seems to be fit as a fiddle. Ben reiterates the message of Jeremy Bentham to Jack (you have to go back - all of you!), but does so much more convincingly, with greater credibility and with a greater sense of purpose and urgency.

So Locke is dead. Jack is lost. And Ben is alive, well and still pulling strings. If you think Ben Linus doesn’t have a plan, reread the last few paragraphs. He didn’t pass the torch. He passed the buck. He passed it a man who he knew would drop the ball. And he knew just what to do and where to be (the funeral parlor) when that ball dropped. When the dust settled, Ben Linus was still the man.

To me, this is pretty poetic. John Locke’s long search for purpose led him to an Island where he was inflated with a sense of meaning, only to be used (yet again) as a pawn in a greater game of human chess. So after all the heal-clicking John did to find his “home” in the world (as referenced by the “Welcome home, John” line last night), I think he’ll find that there’s often much more to learn in the journey then there is in the destination.

Tying it All Together
Anddddd…. Exhale. That’s a lot to digest, I know. I’m still processing a lot of it in my own mind. But here’s what I think we can take from There’s No Place Like Home.

• Desmond and Penny are reunited. And it feels so good.
• Jin really does pass away, as does Michael. But only once they’ve redeemed their shortcomings.
• The O6 lied to avoid undermining Widmore’s cover story. Why? To avoid getting themselves (and possibly their friends) killed.
• Locke takes over for Ben. Ben leaves him with a mess. Locke screws it up. Ben swoops in to save the day. Ben is still in charge.
• The O6 have a lot of internal rifts to heal. And Jack is going to have to heal them. Why? Because after all the Man of Science vs Man of Faith debates he had with Locke, Jack has finally learned that there are some instances when empiricism and reason are no match for a man’s inclination to yearn for something bigger. After a life of living on facts, Jack is finally ready to believe in something.

And… scene.

A final note: this show was made to be discussed. Each week, Maggie and I get the privilege/pressure of discussing it in this very public forum. We hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as we've enjoyed writing it. We'll have a few debriefing posts in the coming weeks, then it may be off to our own hiatus until Season 5. But thanks for reading, and thanks for loads of kind words over the months and years.

Namaste.
.charlie