TV episode review
US airdate 4 May 2010 (ABC)
UK airdate 7 May 2010 (Sky1)

Ned Hartley and Martin Eden discuss the latest Lost episode…
WARNING: Contains possible spoilers!

The Losties make plans to escape the island, and not everyone survives the attempt...

MARTIN: Welcome back, Ned! First up, have you caught up on the episodes you missed while you were away? I was a bit ...critical...! What did you think?

NED: Yep, sorry for missing the last few reviews – was it volcanic ash that kept me away or was it the smoke monster? I’m not telling! I thought your review for The Package was quite fair, it didn’t really do that much, but I really loved Happily Ever After, it was one of my favourite episodes this season.

Everybody Loves Hugo was a little slow, but I have to disagree with your review of The Last Recruit, it was a great Lost action episode. I’m really starting to feel that Lost is kicking it to its endgame now. What did you think of ‘The Candidate’?

MARTIN: I was quite impressed by ‘The Candidate’. Stuff happened! I’m still reeling a bit from losing Sayid, and that Sun and Jin ending... Wow, very powerful. I do have some reservations about the whole thing, though... But first up, what did you reckon?

NED: I thought it was great! There were a few things that didn’t make any sense (like why didn’t Locke turn into the smoke monster for the fight?), but stuff happened, things blew up, and poor Sayid, Sun and Jin died! Also Frank Lapidus, but no one seemed to care too much about him. Martin, you’re a big fan of Sun and Jin. Did you cry?

MARTIN: I didn’t cry, but I had a really ‘tight-chested’ feeling, which I used to get all the time with Lost. It was a really moving scene...

My problem with Lost at the moment though, is the writing. It’s just so – I’ll use my word again from last time – hokey. How on earth did Sun get trapped behind all that wreckage? Was she just looking for attention after three years of doing nothing? It was just a transparent, convenient plot-point for the writers. Where’s Ben/Richard/Miles? (Yes, I know where they are, but you can’t just leave them in limbo like that for several episodes.) Why did the gang leave Claire behind?? Couldn’t they have waited two minutes for her? What happened to Sayid being an evil zombie?? And yes, why did the new, crap Others think they could win a gunfight with a guy who can turn into a smoke monster? (Although we never really see him transform, as I guess the budget won’t stretch...)

I’m really not sure what’s going through the writers’ minds. I think they’ve ‘lost’ the plot (ha ha, geddit?)... Am I being too harsh?

NED: I didn’t worry too much about those problems, I don’t have any idea how a sub works, so I don’t know if you can get trapped by parts of it or not. It seemed to make sense to me. The Claire thing was because Fake Locke was about to jump on the sub, and also I kind of thought Sawyer didn’t want her on the sub that much anyway.

As long as the writers can keep the pace up then I’m happy, when they slow down to answer every little question then it slows the show down and it gets boring for me. I’d way rather have an episode like ‘The Candidate’ which gives more action than answers than an episode like ‘Everybody Loves Hugo’ which spent too long explaining things.

MARTIN: I disagree! If you think about it, what was ‘The Candidate’ all about? I felt like I was watching The Poseidon Adventure. It was a lot of action and running around but did we learn anything new? Lost is about many things, drama, mysteries, etc, but I know for a fact that I will re-watch the seasons and there will be dozens and dozens of unanswered questions, and I’m going to find that unsatisfying and a waste of my time.

At the end of the day, to me, Lost isn’t about Widmore being a pantomime villain or about big action scenes on a submarine (I hate the submarine!) and maybe that’s why I’m having so many problems with season six.

NED: ‘The Candidate’ was all about the themes that I love in Lost; sacrifice, redemption and the difficult choices that reflect them – both in the Earth 2 universe and the main timeline. Anyway, this episode made me think, made me cry and then everything exploded – the three main things that I need from an episode of Lost. That’s what I’m going to miss when the show finishes.

VERDICT
Ned: 9/10
Martin: 8/10