The Substitute (16 Feb. 2010)

On the island, the being now occupying Locke's body turns to Sawyer and promises to tell him why he's on the island. Back in Los Angeles, Locke loses his job and encounters a number of familiar faces.

Director:

Tucker Gates

Writers:

Jeffrey Lieber (creator), J.J. Abrams (creator),

Stars:

Naveen Andrews, Nestor Carbonell, Henry Ian Cusick

Cast

Episode cast overview, first billed only:
Naveen Andrews	...	Sayid Jarrah (credit only)
Nestor Carbonell	...	Richard Alpert
Henry Ian Cusick	...	Desmond Hume (credit only)
Emilie de Ravin	...	Claire Littleton (credit only)
Michael Emerson	...	Ben Linus
Jeff Fahey	...	Frank Lapidus
Matthew Fox	...	Jack Shephard (credit only)
Jorge Garcia	...	Hugo 'Hurley' Reyes
Josh Holloway	...	James 'Sawyer' Ford
Daniel Dae Kim	...	Jin Kwon (credit only)
Yunjin Kim	...	Sun Kwon
Ken Leung	...	Miles Straume (credit only)
Evangeline Lilly	...	Kate Austen (credit only)
Terry O'Quinn	...	John Locke
Zuleikha Robinson	...	Ilana Verdansky

Storyline

On the island, John Locke tries to convince Richard to follow him. Meanwhile Ilana asks Ben what happened to Jacob and to her friends and Ben tells that Locke turned into the smoke monster and killed all of them and burnt Jacob; Ilana takes his ashes. Locke meets Sawyer and he asks who he is since John was a frightened guy. Sawyer follows Locke and they see a boy in the woods. When Locke chases the kid, Richard warns Sawyer about Locke. But Sawyer follows him to a cave in a cliff by the sea and Locke shows the reason why they are in the island. Ilana summons Sun, Frank and Ben to go with her to the temple and they bury John Locke first. In the parallel reality, John Locke lies about a conference in Sidney that he missed and is fired by his chief, Randy. When he is leaving the company, he meets Hugo, who owns the company and offers him to call an employment agency that also belongs to him to find a new position. John has an interview with the supervisor of the agency, Rose, and asks ...

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Plot Keywords:

man in wheelchair | handicapped parking | rope ladder | pov | monster | 

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Genres:

Adventure | Drama | Fantasy | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Certificate:

TV-14

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

16 February 2010 (USA)

Filming Locations:

O'ahu, Hawaii, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Bad Robot, ABC Studios

Technical Specs

Runtime:

43 min 50 min 60 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Each of the names written in the cave has a number next to it. These are the doomed numbers seen through the entire series. 4-LOCKE; 8-REYES; 15-FORD; 16-JARRAH; 23-SHEPHARD; 42-KWON.

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Quotes

[Locke and Sawyer are on a very tall cliffside]
James 'Sawyer' Ford: No offense, but you already died. So this is great that this isn't a big deal for you. But if you think I'm climbing down there first, your off your damn mind.

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Soundtracks

"Search and Destroy"
(uncredited)
Performed by The Stooges

User Reviews

Inspiring urban John story but average island one, sweet connections and references, unoriginal and rushed editing

The past episode was about Kate and this one was about What John Does. On the island we know Locke is dead and that the Smoke Monster uses his appearance. In the city John is alive and we witness his daily life, in a wheelchair. In What Kate Does he made me realize why I was so disappointed by James Cameron's Avatar. It's because I couldn't help comparing its protagonist, Jake Sully, to John Locke. His character grew on us for five seasons when in Avatar we only had five minutes to relate to Jake. As expected he ran into other characters, like it happened to Kate. These encounters were short but very helpful to better understand him. Different scenes and dialogs brought their lot of emotions so I found his urban destiny quite inspiring.

As for John of the jungle it seems he has a plan and we learned more about what he had in mind for Richard and the others. However I was slightly disappointed by how his arc was written even if it was intriguing enough. The end was nearly a disaster because it just didn't make sense. But the decisions that were made could lead to some intense events so I guess we'll have to wait a little longer for the story to surprise us. As for Sawyer I really liked his reference to Of Mice and Men because it was quite pertinent and smart considering what was happening to him.

The Substitute was only about John and the temple was only mentioned. I didn't miss it considering how I feel about it. Moreover like for Kate both stories developed in parallel and I'm quite fond of these new twin connections and cross-references to past bomb events. It's refreshing and original compared to the usual character ones. For example in the past episode Claire appeared on the island right after Kate left her in the city. This time it also happened to John but that sparkling moment was far much more subtle. So it's definitely the kind of episode you might want to watch again to make sure you haven't missed something. However I can't help thinking, in fact since LA X, that Lost and its viewers deserve more for a finale season. I was expecting to be blown away every single episodes when it seems they have decided to follow their own recipes, specially the featured character one. Don't get me wrong John's story was great but the few cons I mentioned left me with a mixed opinion.

So I really hope they'll soon take things to a whole new level or else I might lose interest. For the moment what's happening on the island is not really interesting and I'm far much more convinced by the urban stories. I just wish the constant jumps between the two weren't so sharp. It's like they directed the stories separately and relied on the editing process to blend them. Well it's not enough. I prefer Spartacus : Blood and Sand creative transitions. It would be great if city characters had daydreams about their parallel lives on the island for example. I'm sure crazy things will soon happen but I worry they won't. It reminds me of how the story became conventional in the first season after the polar bear was shot. I was expecting Lost to turn into a twisted version of the video game Far Cry but instead the events leaded to the hatch and The Others. Things greatly improved in season four so I hope Lost will soon amaze us like it did in the past, so many times.