REVIEW: Lost- Season 6 Ep. 3 "The Substitute"

Submitted for Your Approval- Ivey Rhodes

Thank you writers of Lost. Thank you for hearing my plea last week. This past episode was the episode I have been waiting for since the season opener. I don't know what it is about Lost but the second episodes of the seasons seem to be stinkers and the third episodes seem to be thrill rides.

WARNING: Spoilers will follow

Overall Experience
This Locke centric episode answered a few questions but opened up plenty more. John off the island and John on the island are completely different characters, yet this episode seems to be purposefully showing many similarities of the two.

Crippled John's story has always been interesting to me. I'm even more intrigued now. I think bringing Helen back into John's life was an excellent choice. She seems to be that strength that poor Locke needs. But all that opened more questions. Why is he crippled? Is his dad really invited to the wedding? Did his dad cripple him? If his dad didn't cripple him who did? Locke's meeting with Hurley was great, and I'm so happy that Hurley has money. Hurley is generous and I like that, but in the end it appears Locke's pride gets the best of him by not accepting president Hurley's help. John decides to be a substitute teacher instead. Through that decision we see fate smack us in the face with the reveal of Benjamin Linus. I think all everything happening off the island is going to be bring them back to the island. Why else would everybody be meeting each other?

I believe the writers are purposefully trying to draw similarities between John Locke on the island and John Locke off the island. The scene where John is chasing the boy through the jungle and falls on his face matches up nicely with the scene of John falling on his face in his front yard. The most erie part was when Fake Locke started shouting, "Don't tell me what I can't do!" That made me wonder if there isn't some of the actual John Locke left in the Fake Locke's body. Fake Locke seemed to be playing Satan. He acted as if he was revealing truth but he never gave any real answers. Every time Sawyer asked him a question Fake Locke would divert his answer. Some are saying that Jacob may be the evil one. I disagree. I think the Fake Locke is using his wiling ways to trick Sawyer and the viewers into thinking Jacob is evil. When Sawyer asked about the numbers the answer from Fake Locke was, "Jacob had a thing for numbers." Yeah, sure, you want me to believe those numbers are useless. If "The Numbers" really are that useless I'm going to be 1- mad at the writers and 2- confused. That, to me, proved Fake Locke was only giving the part of the truth he wanted to give. He used the truth to serve himself (Genesis 3 anyone?).

What was my favorite line from Fake Locke you might ask? Sawyer- "What was that?" Locke throws a white stone and says- "An inside joke."

Richard seems to be scared. His parts in this episode didn't jive with the calm cool and collected Richard we've come to know. But I was proud of Richard standing his ground when Fake Locke started tempting him.

Sun, Lapidus, Ben, and Ilana's story didn't do too far, but it did give us a great scene between Ben and dead Locke during his burial. Ben's confession was real and even a little moving, if still evil. I thought it put a nice end to Locke. Ben seems to finally be a broken man.

Sawyer, the conman, was getting conned, and he couldn't see it! Fake Locke was so transparently fooling Sawyer. He was feeding him enough answers to keep him following, but never really giving any real information. The fact that the Fake Locke makes it out like everyone's live on the island have been wasted points to him at least twisting the truth. Come on Fake Locke, it's only been a few years that Sawyer's been on the island. He changed on the island, he met his love on the island, and he got a great tan. Life not wasted, in my opinion.

This episode was much better than last week. I was glued to the TV. Where will Fake Locke lead Sawyer? What's up with Richard running around like a crazy monkey? What's going to happen with Locke back home? Will he get married? Questions to be answered soon.

...Oh yeah, what's up with that creepy kid Fake Locke keeps seeing?

Crap

Several misuses of D*** and H*** as well as some heavy drinking by Sawyer. We see a very graphic depiction of a dead body. John is taking a bubble bath presumably naked while Helen hangs out right with him. Helen and John start smoochin' on each other. Besides that pretty clean.

O.E. 8.5

C.I. 7.0

GT Rec 7.75