“There's No Place Like Home” | |||||||
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Lost episode | |||||||
The climax of the season finale, in which Benjamin Linus pushes the large metal wheel—nicknamed the "Frozen Donkey Wheel" by the show's producers in discussion about the end of the fourth season—in order to move the Island. |
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Episode no. | Season 4 Episode 12, 13 & 14 |
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Written by | Carlton Cuse Damon Lindelof |
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Directed by | Jack Bender Stephen Williams |
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Guest stars | Malcolm David Kelley L. Scott Caldwell Jeff Fahey Nestor Carbonell Kevin Durand Anthony Azizi John Terry Sonya Walger Alan Dale Francois Chau Alex Petrovitch Starletta DuPois Veronica Hamel Andrea Gabriel Byron Chung June Kyoko Lu Lillian Hurst Cheech Marin Michelle Forbes Susan Duerden Noah Craft Esmond Chung Garrett Hughes David Michael Souhil Nimeh Eul Noh Alicia Rae Joe Sikora |
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Production no. | 412, 413 & 414 | ||||||
Original airdate | May 15, 2008 (Part 1) May 29, 2008 (Parts 2 and 3) |
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Lost (season 4) List of Lost episodes |
"There's No Place Like Home" is the season finale of the American Broadcasting Company's fourth season of the serial drama television series Lost, consisting of the twelfth through fourteenth episodes. They are also the eighty-first through eighty-third episodes of the show overall.[1] The three constituent episodes were split into two broadcasts; "Part 1" first aired on May 15, 2008 and "Parts 2 and 3," serving as the two-hour season finale of the fourth season, first aired on May 29, 2008 on ABC in the United States and on CTV in Canada.[2] The episodes were written by executive producers/show runners Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof; "Part 1" was directed by co-executive producer Stephen Williams, while executive producer Jack Bender directed "Parts 2 and 3".[3]
The narrative of the episodes focus on a confrontation between the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 and the mercenaries from the freighter Kahana, as some of the survivors escape the Island and Ben Linus (Michael Emerson) succeeds in moving the Island in late December 2004. Flashforwards show the first actions of the resuced Oceanic Six after returning home in January 2005, and their lives approximately three years after they leave the Island (late 2007). "Part 3" resolves the cliffhanger from the previous season finale, "Through the Looking Glass," by revealing John Locke (Terry O'Quinn) to be the dead man in the coffin whom Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox) visits in that episode. The title is a reference to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Production and broadcast of the fourth season were interrupted by the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike and following its resolution, ABC announced that five more episodes of Lost would be produced for the fourth season, in addition to the eight previously produced episodes. The writers, however, were unable to compress the season finale into two episodes[1] and successfully convinced executives at ABC to extend the finale by producing another episode. A side effect of this was that the second and third parts of "There's No Place Like Home" were pushed back to after the conclusion of May sweeps.
The first part of "There's No Place Like Home" was watched by eleven million Americans, and the second and third parts were watched by twelve million Americans, making Lost the most watched show of the week.[4] All three parts were met with mostly positive reactions. Matthew Fox's acting in his flashforward scenes was praised, as was Michael Giacchino's musical score. Critics also commented on the fast pace of the episodes, with some liking it and others calling it sloppy. The latter two parts of the episode were nominated for an Emmy Award for editing, but did not win.
Contents |
In flashforwards, the Oceanic Six—Jack Shephard, Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly), Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews), Sun-Hwa Kwon (Yunjin Kim), Hugo "Hurley" Reyes (Jorge Garcia) and Claire Littleton's (Emilie de Ravin) infant, Aaron—arrive in Honolulu where they are greeted by Sun’s parents (Byron Chung, June Kyoko Lu), Jack’s mother (Veronica Hamel), and Hurley’s parents (Lillian Hurst, Cheech Marin). In the ensuing media circus, the Oceanic Six give a press conference where they tell a cover story to the numerous reporters. Afterward, Sayid reunites with Noor Abed “Nadia” Jazeem (Andrea Gabriel), his old girlfriend. Sometime later, Sun visits her father and informs him that she used the money from her settlement wtih Oceanic Airlines to buy a controlling interest in her father’s company because she blames him for her husband Jin-Soo Kwon’s (Daniel Dae Kim) death. In the United States, Hurley’s parents have thrown him a surprise birthday party and his dad shows Hurley that he rebuilt their old Camaro. Hurley is disturbed when he notices that the odometer displays the Numbers. In the final flashforward, Jack eulogizes his father, Christian Shephard (John Terry), at the latter's funeral. Afterward, Carole Littleton (Susan Duerden), Claire's mother, inadvertently reveals to him that Claire is his half-sister.[5]
On December 30, 2004, Jack and Kate follow the signal from a phone dropped onto the beach from a helicopter by Frank Lapidus (Jeff Fahey).[6] They encounter James "Sawyer" Ford (Josh Holloway), Aaron and Miles Straume (Ken Leung); Kate takes the baby and Miles back to the beach. Jack and Sawyer meet up with Lapidus at the helicopter, but they decide to rescue Hurley before leaving. Meanwhile, Sayid arrives at the beach on the freighter's Zodiac raft just as Kate returns. Sayid and Kate go after Jack and Sawyer, but are instead captured by Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell) and the rest of the Others. Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies) bids farewell to Charlotte Lewis (Rebecca Mader) and starts ferrying people to the freighter Kahana; Sun, Jin, and Aaron arrive at the boat, only to discover a large amount of C4 explosives on board.[5]
Meanwhile, in their quest to move the Island, Ben, Locke and Hurley arrive at the Dharma Initiative Orchid station, which is disguised as a greenhouse. Ben sends Locke to the "real" part of the station and surrenders himself to Martin Keamy (Kevin Durand) and the other mercenaries from the Kahana, who had previously arrived.[5] A final montage shows the Oceanic Six and Ben in their respective predicaments.
On the Island, Jack and Sawyer go to the Orchid station, where they are reunited with Hurley and Locke. Jack and Locke once more argue about the Island; Locke pleads with him not to leave the Island, but Jack refuses and Locke tells him to lie about the Island once they leave. Meanwhile, Keamy, the mercenaries, and their prisoner, Ben, return to the helicopter. Kate, Sayid, and the Others ambush and kill the mercenaries, except Keamy, who feigns death. In exchange for freeing Ben, the Others allow Kate and Sayid to leave the Island on the helicopter. Ben goes to the Orchid, where he advises Jack to leave the Island soon and gets in a hidden elevator with Locke.[7]
Inside the underground chamber, Ben puts every metal item he can find into a small compartment at the back of the room, while Locke watches the orientation video for the Orchid station. On the tape, Pierre Chang (François Chau) begins to discuss time travel involving exotic matter and rabbits when the VCR malfunctions and the tape rewinds itself. Shortly, Keamy arrives and tells Locke that if he (Keamy) dies, the C4 on the freighter will detonate, due to a remote trigger linked to a heart-rate monitor he is wearing. Regardless, Ben kills Keamy with no remorse or sympathy for those on the boat, in order to avenge his adopted daughter Alex (Tania Raymonde). Ben then tells Locke that whoever moves the Island is forced to leave it and never come back. Ben says that he must do it so that Locke can stay and lead the Others. Ben bids farewell and Locke goes to the Others, who welcome him home.[7][8]
Ben seals and then activates power to the compartment he had loaded with metal items, blowing a hole in the back of it. After donning a parka, Ben climbs through the hole and into a frozen chamber. While descending into the chamber, he falls and cuts his arm. He then turns a very large metal wheel, to initiate the process of moving the island. As he completes the rotation, an eerie sound and flash of white-yellow light soon envelope the entire island. Ben disappears, only to reappear several months later in the Sahara Desert (as seen in "The Shape of Things to Come").[8][9]
Jack, Kate, Sayid, Sawyer, Hurley, and Frank Lapidus leave the Island on the helicopter, but discover a fuel leak on board. In order to lighten the helicopter, Sawyer jumps out, but not before whispering something in Kate's ear and kissing her. The helicopter makes it to the Kahana in the nick of time; they refuel it, fix the leak, pick up Desmond Hume (Henry Ian Cusick), Sun and Aaron and leave before the C4 detonates. The resulting explosion kills Michael Dawson (Harold Perrineau),[10] who has a vision of Christian Shephard. The status of Jin, who is still on the boat, is left uncertain as a cliffhanger. Sawyer swims back to the Island and commiserates the destruction of the boat with Juliet Burke (Elizabeth Mitchell).[7][8]
The people on the helicopter decide to return to the Island, but as they approach, they see the Island vanish in the white-yellow light. With nowhere to land, the helicopter runs out of fuel and the survivors are forced to ditch into the ocean. They drift in a rescue raft for several hours, where Hurley suggests that Locke succeeded in moving the Island, but Jack disagrees. At night, the survivors encounter a boat owned by Penny Widmore (Sonya Walger), who is subsequently reunited with Desmond. Jack then convinces the other survivors that they must lie about the Island, to protect those left behind. They arrange a cover story and one week later, they are dropped off near the island of Sumba, some 3000 miles away from where they were picked up.[8]
In a series of flashforwards, Kate, Jack, and Walt Lloyd (Malcolm David Kelley) all recount stories of being approached by Jeremy Bentham, the man in the coffin that Jack visits in "Through the Looking Glass". In London, Sun confronts Charles Widmore (Alan Dale) and tells him that they have common interests involving the Island. Meanwhile, Sayid breaks into the mental hospital where Hurley is staying and convinces him to go "somewhere safe." Sometime later, Kate has a dream in which Claire tells her not to bring Aaron back to the Island. In the final flashforward, Jack returns to the funeral parlor, where he is confronted by Ben, who says that the Island will not allow Jack to return without everyone else who left joining him, including Locke, who is revealed to be in the coffin and has been contacting the Oceanic Six under the alias Jeremy Bentham.[7][8]
The episode features the last appearance of actor Harold Perrineau, whose character Michael dies in an explosion, as a main cast member. The character of Michael was absent for the entire third season of Lost and returned midway through the fourth season in "Ji Yeon." Perrineau was disappointed that he was brought back to the show only to be killed and that Michael does not get a chance to reunite with his son, Walt, saying, "there are all these questions about how [the writers] respond to black people on the show ... Walt just winds up being another fatherless child. It plays into a really big, weird stereotype and, being a black person myself, that wasn't so interesting."[10] The fate of Jin, who is also on the freighter when it explodes, is left uncertain. Actor Daniel Dae Kim was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol, which prompted speculation about his future on the series, due to co-stars Michelle Rodriguez (Ana-Lucia Cortez) and Cynthia Watros (Libby) leaving Lost after DUI arrests.[11][12][13] Kim was not named as a main cast member in season five in an ABC press release,[14] although Cuse has stated that he will continue to be on the show "in some form."[15]
The Writers Guild of America went on strike on November 4, 2007[16] after the writers had only finished the first eight episodes of the season.[17] Show runners Lindelof and Cuse wanted to hold the eight episodes until they were able to produce more of the season,[18] but ABC decided that the eight episodes would be aired from January to March, regardless of whether any more episodes were produced in the 2007–2008 season.[19] After the resolution of the strike, ABC decided to produce five more episodes for the fourth season. This conflicted with ABC's earlier plan to broadcast seasons four, five and six in uninterrupted blocks of sixteen episodes each.[20] Despite this, ABC prioritized scheduling Grey's Anatomy, Ugly Betty and Lost's returns all for April 24.[21] The decision left the three unproduced episodes of season four "in the bank" to be used later in seasons five and six.[1]
After the resolution of the strike, Lindelof said that the effect of the strike on the fourth season would be minimal and the season's story arc would be completed as originally intended.[22] However, when writing "There's No Place Like Home," Lindelof and Cuse found that they could not compress the story of the season finale into two episodes.[1] Subsequently, the show runners went into "advanced talks" with executives at ABC to produce one of their episodes "in the bank" as part three of "There's No Place Like Home."[23] However, this caused a scheduling problem with Grey's Anatomy and Ugly Betty, which were both already scheduled to air their season finales on May 22, 2008. To allow Lost to have a two hour finale, ABC moved it one week later to May 29, 2008 and aired all three parts of "There's No Place Like Home" back-to-back.[24][3][25] Ultimately, this left thirty-four episodes to be split over seasons five and six, which will each have seventeen episodes. [26]
Scenes featuring Alan Dale (who plays Charles Widmore) were filmed in secret in London as Dale was appearing as King Arthur in Spamalot there at the time. Dale was not made aware of the plot of the episode, saying that "the wording, the title and all the headings on the scripts were changed. Only [he] knew they were the Lost scripts, along with the director." Production staff were flown to London and sets for Dale's scenes were constructed at Shepperton Studios.[27] Location filming was also done at great expense at Connaught House and a restaurant beneath Tower Bridge.[28]
Two alternate endings were shot for the episode in order to minimalize the risk of the real ending being leaked. Both versions were shown on Good Morning America on May 30, 2008. In the first alternate ending, Sawyer is in the coffin and in the second, Desmond is in the coffin.[29]
In "Meet Kevin Johnson," Tom establishes that the Island has some control over whether characters can die, as demonstrated when Michael unsuccessfully attempts to commit suicide. Damon Lindelof confirmed that "a cosmic intervention of fate" also played a part in the car crash that averted Jack's suicide attempt in the third season finale, "Through the Looking Glass".[30] Following the broadcast of the fourth midseason premiere, "The Shape of Things to Come", Lindelof further confirmed that this Island force prevents Ben and Widmore from dying.[31] Christian represents the Island and finally allows Michael's death in this episode.
"There's No Place Like Home: Part 1" was watched by 11.40 million American viewers, achieving a 5.0/14 rating in the key adults 18-49 demographic in the Nielsen Ratings.[32] This means that 5.0 percent of all households with an 18 to 49 year old living in it watched the episode, and 14 percent had their televisions tuned to the channel at any point. The episode was watched by 464,000 viewers in Australia and was the thirtieth most watched program of the night, a feat that David Dale of The Sun-Herald thought proved that "there's hope for the world".[33] Patrick Kevin Day of the Los Angeles Times praised Michael Giacchino's musical score,[34] writing that "I'm reminded of the heights of emotion this series can evoke."[35] Jarett Wieselman of the New York Post thought that the finale's split and two-week break was "not cool", but asked "how brilliant was Sun's smackdown on her bad daddy?".[36] Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger wrote that "when Lost is at its best … it manages to balance revelations … with great character moments. I don't know that I'd put this one in the pantheon (again, a lot of it was set-up for … [Parts 2 & 3]), but it was definitely in the spirit of what I love about the show."[37] Kristin Dos Santos of E! praised the chemistry between Naveen Andrews and Andrea Gabriel, who play Sayid and Nadia, respectively.[38] Chris Carabott of IGN gave the episode a 7.9. He commended the music and called it "a good opening to what should be an exciting season finale"; however, the lack of suspense in favor of set-up was cited as the reason for the modest rating.[39] Dan Compora of SyFy Portal called "Part 1" "an excellent setup episode [with] fast pace, important revelations, and nearly a full utilization of the cast". Compora decided that "certain characters work much better in very small doses … a little bit of [Hurley] goes a long way [and] it was nice to see Jack featured without completely dominating an episode."[40] Oscar Dahl of BuddyTV summed up Part 1 as "very good", but said that the opening flashforward in which the Oceanic Six are reunited with their families was anticlimactic and "although each flashforward scene had minor and major revelations, it felt patched together and a little sloppy, like Lindelof and Cuse had all this ground to cover in their quest to link all the action up to the final scene of season 3 … That said, the flashforward scenes all played out exceedingly well."[41] Daniel of TMZ welcomed the return of Richard (on the island) and gave the episode an "A", saying that it had "more than a few fantastic scenes. All the flashforward scenes tonight were right on the money as far as I was concerned."[42] Jay Glatfelter of The Huffington Post "really liked this episode" and concluded that it "definitely showcased the new breath of life the fourth season gave to the show."[43]
Matthew Fox received much praise for his performance in the scene in which his character Jack reacts to the revelation that Claire is his half-sister. Jarett Wieselman of the New York Post called this "brilliant acting",[36] while Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger said that "Fox played Jack's anguish beautifully" and called this scene a contender for "Fox's single best moment in the history of the show".[37] Kristin Dos Santos gave Fox "mad props" and Chris Carabott of IGN said that "Fox hasn't been given much of an opportunity to stretch his acting muscles this season but he gives a great performance [in this scene]."[39]
"There's No Place Like Home: Parts 2 & 3" was watched by 12.20 million American viewers, achieving a 4.9/13 rating in the key adults 18-49 demographic, also making it the most watched show of the week.[44] The episode was watched by 603,000 viewers in Australia.[45] Robert Bianco of USA Today said that "a great season of Lost ended with a suitably great finale, which … ended with the … whoa-inducing discovery that Locke was the man in the casket. Didn't see that coming—and I can't wait to see what this terrific TV series has coming next."[46] Matthew Gilbert of The Boston Globe wrote that "the episode was dynamic and busy enough as it relied heavily on action-adventure… but the finale wasn't as mind-bending as [the third] season's farewell, during which we received the show's first flash-forward."[47] Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger enjoyed the triple-length "There's No Place Like Home", but ranked it in the middle of his list of the season's episodes from best to worst and decided that "'There's No Place Like Home" (all three parts) played fair with the audience 100 percent, answered [many] questions … and yet … I feel ever so slightly disappointed by all of this." He also found the special effects "looked much shoddier than usual" and praised the score.[48] Frazier Moore of the Associated Press thought that "it might be the most rewarding, deliciously challenging episode in the history of this mystical ABC serial."[49] Dan Compora of SyFy Portal wrote that "Part 2" "was perhaps the most action-packed, meaningful episode of television I've watched all year. The pace was excellent, and the revelations were plentiful." Compora also wrote that "though the pace was considerably slower, ['Part 3'] delivered in a big way … it was [not a letdown, being] well written and well directed in its own right."[50]
The second and third parts of the episode were nominated in the category of "Outstanding Single-camera Picture Editing For A Drama Series" for the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards,[51] however it lost to the pilot episode of Breaking Bad.[52]
Lost | |
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Production | Cast • Episode list • Music • Season 1 • Season 2 • Season 3 • Season 4 • Season 5 |
Main characters | Ana Lucia • Ben • Boone • Charlie • Charlotte • Claire • Desmond • Faraday • Hurley • Jack • Jin • Juliet Kate • Libby • Locke • Michael • Miles • Mr. Eko • Nikki and Paulo • Sawyer • Sayid • Shannon • Sun • Walt |
Supporting characters | Alex • Bernard • Christian • Ethan • Keamy • Rose • Rousseau • Tom |
Groups | Dharma Initiative • Hanso Foundation • Oceanic Airlines • The Others |
Miscellaneous | Awards • Find 815 • Lost Experience • Lost: Missing Pieces • Lostpedia • Lost: Via Domus • Mythology |
Lost Season 4 |
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"The Beginning of the End" · "Confirmed Dead" · "The Economist" · "Eggtown" · "The Constant" · "The Other Woman" · "Ji Yeon" · "Meet Kevin Johnson" · "The Shape of Things to Come" · "Something Nice Back Home" · "Cabin Fever" · "There's No Place Like Home" |