LOST - "Ohhhh, man I wish I could go back in time. I'd take state."

On last night's LOST ...

- I've been down this road before, but I'll say it again: Lost does so much right, it's so well-done, it's just a shame that it never seems to come through in the clutch. Last night, Lost delivered an episode that, in nearly every way, was simply outstanding. In many ways, I'd go so far to say that last night was Lost's best episode of the season. Superb acting from Michael Emerson and Terry O'Quinn. Tension that, pardon the cliche, was so thick you could dut it with a knife. I mean, wow, I was completely on the edge of my seat for the entire episode, right up until the final moments. As Locke and Ben got closer and closer to the old, isolated house that promised to hold the secrets to the identity of the mystrious leader known as Jacob, I was practically screaming at the TV in anticipation. I couldn't wait a moment longer to find out just who this Jacob was. The intensity was off the charts.

It's just too bad then, that Lost so often fails to deliver on the big reveal. As Locke and Ben entered Jacob's house, I kept thinking "please tell me this isn't going to be another ladder." I was referring, of course, to the now infamous Season 1 finale cliffhanger, where after weeks of anticipation as to what was in the Hatch, the episode ends as the hatch is opened, and inside is ... a ladder. And suddenly a year's worth of built-up tension and anticipation deflated like a popped balloon. This wasn't quite on that level of disappointment, but couldn't they have thrown us SOME kind of bone here? Sure, I realize that internet fans have already posted screen caps that show an etherial old man sitting in Jacob's empty chair - some have even speculated that Jacob is Locke himself. And that's all well and good - but for the viewer at home, the reveal of Jacob came off as something of a mess. There was Ben talking to himself, some Poltergeist-y stuff going on with the room shaking and whatnot, and that final plea of "help me." It was one of those scenes that I wanted so badly to be cool, but after I saw it I just couldn't help but feel dissatisfied. And the funny thing was, I actually kind of liked the idea we were initially presented, which was that Ben was going Norman Bates and that Jacob was some aspect of his twisted psychosis. To be set up for a big reveal, and then have that reveal simply be another mystery on top of the already-existing mystery - well, when are the Lost producers going to learn that that particular tactic is not really a good or fair way to tell a story.

At the same time, as I said, so much of this episode was simply phenomenal. Up until that one moment of letdown, I really thought I was watching one of the all-time best episodes of the series, a flat-out "A." The flashbacks here were extremely well done, some of the best we've had in a long while. As we watched Ben Linus' backstory unfold, I couldn't help but be struck by how perfect of an origin this seemed to be. Like so many great villains, Ben was a tragic figure, whose birthday was never celebrated because it also marked the day his mother died. Brilliant. Seeing the beginnings of Dharma and the odd life of its members on the island was a lot of fun, and the kid actor who played young Ben was really great, as was UNCLE RICO as Ben's broken-down dad (see the title of this post). These flashbacks still left me with some questions - (Who were the "hostiles?", why did they need to be "purged?", why was that one Other guy who was a Hostile in the flashbacks seemingly older in the flashback than he appears in the modern day, and what's his deal anyway?). Overall though, these were the type of questions that I can live with, that can be addressed in further flashabacks. It's the ambiguity of the storyline in the here and now that gets me.

For a while, I was reminded of the classic Twilight Zone episode "The Old Man in the Cave," in which a postapocalyptic society is led by one guy who claims to receive orders from a mysterious, omnicient Old Man. When the vilalgers grow restless and demand to see the Old Man, it turns out that the Old Man is simply ... a computer! (This blew my mind when I first saw it back in the day). But what you see here is a classic mystery - a setup, a growing mystery, and a satisfying, thought-provoking reveal as the final twist. I realize that Lost is an ongoing serial and not an anthology, but still, the writers could take a lesson from that classic bit of televised storytelling.

Again, this was in most ways a superlative episode. The pacing, atmosphere, and tension was built up perfectly. The ending, in which Ben seemed to betray Locke and left him to die in a mass grave, was shocking and perfectly executed. The flashbacks, as I said, were handled with great care and thought. Even the growing subplots on the island leading into the finale, as Jack and Juliette stand on the verge of showing their cards to the rest of the castaways, was an improvement over last week, and set the stage well for the season's endgame. I almost don't want to complain about this episode, it was so well done. But the elephant in the room is this: the reveal of Jacob, after so much build up, was a letdown - with a whole new mystery offered up in place of any answers or cool, Old Man In the Cave-style moments. If not for that, this episode would have been an A.

My Grade: A -