Live together, die alone. Early in Lost’s history, that phrase was strip mined for as much emotional currency as the show could draw from it.

Last night, the castaways in both universes moved ever closer to making it once more a reality. Finally, with quick, broad strokes, the series headliners are bringing all the characters together for the kind of sweeping ensemble interaction that made those first few seasons such a pleasure to watch. Jack and Claire finally meet one another after discovering they are siblings, Jack confronts the thing wearing the skin of the man he’s grown to respect, and Sawyer, of all people, starts organizing the gang for a trip off the island.

It was a good episode, all things considered, although calling it hectic would be an understatement. There’s a lack of fluid movement, but that probably had a lot to do with the attempt to cover so much ground in both realities and give each character as much screen time and impact as could be fit into a single episode. I counted more reunions than have possibly ever occurred on the show.

First up, there’s Jack and Dark Locke, in a scene I quite enjoyed. Something of the Smoke monster’s personality and opinion towards the man whose body it’s using is on display here. Several episodes ago, when the monster was talking to Sawyer or Ben (I don’t actually recall who right now), it said it had chosen Locke because he had sought something more, dared to find meaning. He was almost reverent in his choice of words. When confronting Jack, who seems to have adopted the similar path of John, the monster berates Locke and calls him stupid and paints him as a pathetic loser.

Jack defends the real Locke, but the dark one mocks him for it. I think here we are finally seeing that Smokey is actually fearful or at least confounded by the kind of fidelity to the island that John had, and perhaps more threatened by men of faith than men of science like the former Jack or men of war like Widmore. For Jack’s part, it’s an interesting character arc that brings him to a place where he’s championing the beliefs of a man he once despised and openly opposed.

On the island Jack was also reunited with Claire, who seems genuinely glad to see him and while emotionally manipulated by the monster, she doesn’t seem to have been stripped of her identity in the same way that Sayid has. It is also finally revealed that the Smoke monster was using Christian Shepherd’s visage to lead and direct Jack, and presumably it’s also the same force that told John he must go to the mainland and bring everyone back. How much of what the original John thought of as the ‘will of the island’ was just Smokey pulling the strings.

Later, Sun and Jin would get a touching reunion, and Sun’s voice would return just as she found what she was looking for. Just one question there. What exactly was the purpose of the entire ‘losing your ability to speak’ plot thread. Was there a reason?

One of the more ambiguous island moments was Sayid’s mission to kill Desmond. Turns out the well wasn’t that deep, and Des was still alive. Sayid was going to shoot him, and seemingly was turned from that task when Hume asked him what the woman he was doing all this for would say about his current actions. We never learned what happened to Desmond, although Sayid insisted to Smokey that he had killed the man. You could smell the lie a mile away, though, and I think Flocke did too.

Then, there was Sawyer’s plan to grab as many of the remaining sane castaways and get them to the submarine so they could escape without Smokey, and thwart his plans. I found it interesting that Jack doesn’t push harder for his sister’s inclusion on the boat, but Kate does, prompting Claire to put down her rifle and join them. In another moment of perfect symmetry echoing the relationship between John and Jack from season 3, Sawyer gives Jack a choice; give up the quest to stay on the island, or get off the boat. Jack jumps into the water and heads back towards the shoreline, and when he gets there he finds Dark Locke and his remaining army, right before Widmore’s people strafe them with what appear to be bombs of some sort. The episode ends with Locke carrying Jack into the jungle and exclaiming, ‘Don’t worry, you’re with me now.’

I presume then that this makes Jack the last recruit? Also was I the only one fearful that the wilderness version of Tina Fey was gonna shoot Sawyer and or Sun and Jinn down on the beach? For one terrible moment, I thought the show was really going to throw us for a loop and murder all of them, what with the sideways world being a safety net of sorts. Thankfully that didn’t happen. Yet.

Speaking of sideways world, there’s a damaged John Locke is on the brink of death, potentially remembering his other life, with Jack Shepherd poised to save his life. In fact, sideways world finally put almost every one of the big names into everyone else’s orbit last night. Sun recognizes Locke from the island when she is taken to the hospital, and Jack and David meet Claire for the first time, and Ilana, who is a lawyer in this world. What is less clear to me is how Desmond recognizes Ilana as part of the plan, as I don’t think he has met her in either world. The answer is most likely that he didn’t, but managed to piece together the connection between Jack and Claire. Maybe Ilana is just along for the ride.

Ben is in the ambulance with Locke, and Kate’s chilling at the police station with Sawyer, who later heads out with Myles and arrests Sayid Jarrah as he’s planning to make a getaway. Slick bit with the garden hose Sawyer.

The pieces are being moved into alignment, and now the biggest question I have about this world is this. Without an island to hold him, what happened to the Smoke Monster? Where is he? And for that matter, where is Jacob?

Great work guys, and I’m hoping you can sustain the momentum for the final four.

See ya next week on the island, when the show teases to give us more insight into the smoke monster’s identity.

Remember Me is a tragedy.  

I’m not talking about the film’s plot or themes, or even the idea that it’s a dead-on-arrival romance. In fact, it isn’t. Surprisingly, Rob Pattinson and Emile De Ravin make a believable and interesting couple and the film actually delves into some effectively dramatic family relationships.

What’s tragic about the movie is that after finding its legs and delivering several wonderful and on-point moments, Remember Me destroys every single thing that came before with an ill conceived, nearly flabbergasting ending that doesn’t just cheapen the film and its characters, but renders them all inconsequential.

Imagine going to the house of a casual friend who often irritates you, sitting down and then being treated to some wonderful cooking and great conversation. Just as you are thinking what a great idea it was to get together, said friend sneaks behind you and brains you with a shovel, and then immediately bolts out the door. It’s exactly like that and it hobbles what was working as a good, poignant romantic drama.

But let me digress from the ending and its obvious troubles and focus on something else. Rob Pattinson is acting here, and on top of that, it’s good acting. Lost’s Emile De Ravin (she’s Claire) shares much of the film’s screen-time with him, and they take this slight, New York-centric indie chick flic and give it honest, emotional gravity. This is particularly an amazing feat given how contrived and heavy the general premise feels.

Pattinson plays Tyler, another angsty twenty-something (as opposed to Ed Cullen’s  angsty 220-something), who’s a heavy drinking, rebellious mess of daddy issues and deep grief. The daddy issues come for distant businessman, Pierce Brosnan, who spent his life financially providing for his family, and saw that as pretty much the end of the responsibility. The grief is from the death of Tyler’s brother, who killed himself 6 years prior and shattered the family even further as a result.

 One night, Tyler drunkenly shoves Sgt. Craig (Chris Cooper) and gets a face full of windshield for his troubles. Craig himself is a brooding type, and with good reason; his wife was murdered on the subway in front of his young daughter. Now that daughter, Ally, is grown-up and played by Ravin. Tyler’s sleazoid roommate, Aiden, identifies her at school and pushes Tyler to date and dump her, as revenge for the officer’s brutal handling of him.

Of course, as is the case of things in a movie like this, they fall for each other and Tyler abandons his plans of vengeance in favor of cuddling, sharing sob stories, and eventually, doing things with Ally that will no doubt make any Twilighters  in the audience pass out and choke on their gummi bears. This plot is old, old news, and I’m not so sure I liked it the first 400 times they walked it out of the gate. But, when you have the right people and the right pieces in the right places, any formula can work (except for torture films and anything with Stephen Baldwin). This one does, I’m almost loathe to admit, largely because of Pattinson.

What the Twilight saga has so thoroughly obscured is Pattinson is a gifted actor with his own sort of charm. Yes, that charm is based off of an aloof, sulking kind of persona, but if you can build a character that exists under that, then there’s something that an actor and an audience can unwrap; you aren’t left with just a pale, pasty straw man eyeing up your neck. Pattinson really pulls up some emotional baggage in Tyler and then he gets to show the young man in the process of throwing that baggage away, and it’s largely due to Ally’s influence on him.

The most welcome surprise of the film is that Pattinson’s best scenes aren’t just reserved for his time with Emile, and he gets some stellar interaction with Brosnan, who’s making a new career out of very juicy bit parts. Tyler also has a kid sister, played by Ruby Jerins, and they have this very warm, sweet relationship that could have generated a different and likely better film all on its own. 

Ravin began as a pretty face on Lost, but she built Claire out of strong stuff and pushed the character through several emotionally tricky circumstances. She’s got a very disarming way of playing notes of distress or sadness, and it helps that she manages to soften and radiate during moments like that. It makes Ally not just credible, but her attraction to Tyler credible too. This isn’t a pairing based off of long moody stares, but shared pain and struggles with family, and the movie has the courage to let the characters work through both factors; the pain and the family.

Unfortunately, we’ve reached that point of the review, where it becomes necessary for me to bring up the film’s end and issue a disclaimer for what has been a positive review. I’m not going into a single spoiler, but quite frankly, there’s no single good reason why the choice was made to shoot this ending. Understand, it’s not just bad, or dishonest, or even inherently divisive to the rest of the film. It’s worse than that; it’s completely overwhelming, the kind of broad, shocking statement that is trying to create context and give us something we can socially connect to.

So, take that into account. If you leave the moment Rob Patt walks out of his dad’s office, you will have still seen a good movie and can go home with the integrity of your 10 dollars intact. If you stay, well I warned you. Some may suggest I should be harder on the film, but the truth is that most of it works and it will serve as a good reminder to fans of Pattinson’s vampire stuff that not every love story is based around pouty looks.

Rating: ★★½☆☆ 

Heroes has a web series coming out and this would be the promo video for it straight from NBC. Enjoy

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