Review: Lost 4.13: There's No Place Like Home (Part Two)

Ben and Locke meet in the Orchid

One thing to bear in mind with these last two episodes is that they were meant to be shown back to back, as opposed to the more stand-alone nature of the first part. This will affects a lot of things, and I'm prepared to be much more lenient than usual because of it. Not that I particularly need to be, of course, because this episode is brilliant! It kept a fast pace and a tight sense of tension while still being enriched by those gorgeous character moments that make Lost the great show it is.
     Part Two follows directly on from the latest of all the flashforwards - the ones at the end of Season Three, where a bearded Jack tells Kate that they have to go back. Jack has invited her to the funeral of a man called Jeremy Bentham, who's been visiting all of the survivors. Kate refuses to return, saying that she will never do so. Later, Walt visits Hurley in the Santa Rosa institution, and Hurley tells him why they're being secretive about the crash. And that's it for the flashforwards, which were left rather out of the loop here. I don't really have a problem with that, though, as we've a lot to get through in the present.
     Somehow or other, the present storyline felt much less manic than usual, as all of the storylines started to merge together. Kate and Sayid, working with the Others, helped to rescue Ben at a battle at the Helicopter. Jack and Sawyer arrived at the Orchid, where they met Locke and Hurley. For the first time since this season's opener, Jack and Locke had a civil chat with one another - the one where Locke told Jack that they had to lie about the Survivors should they ever leave. I love this particular scene because it's the last time that they really speak (on the island) and both of them stick by their guns - they still have the same ideologies as they did in the beginning, but they have changed as characters and thus they aren't boring. Like a certain show I could mention. Merlin, it's Merlin.

We have to go back.

     Ben saved, he and Locke headed down into the Orchid as Jack, Sawyer, Kate, Hurley and Sayid went in the Helicopter towards the Freighter, where Desmond, Jin and Michael were trying their desperate best to diffuse the bomb. As the Helicopter is losing fuel and needs to lose weight, Sawyer gives Kate one last kiss and jumps into the sea, swimming back to the Island as his friends head to relative safety. In the Orchid, revealed to be a time-travelling station, Martin Keamy stalks Ben while he reveals his evil plan - should he die, a device on his arm will send a trigger to explode the Freighter. Taunting him over Alex's death, Keamy is killed by Ben in a fit of rage. When Locke tells Ben that he has just murdered dozens of people, we get out delightful cliffhanger line - "So?"
     And yet... it doesn't feel whole. But there's a good reason for that - it isn't whole. It's only one half of a story. But, for the sake of argument, I'll just say that this episode is brilliant by itself. It's tense, powerful and the pace is extraordinary, our characters heading in places that really keep the series fresh. After our season of flashforwards, it feels really fulfilling to finally see our characters making progress towards those events.

Thanks.