Lost: There’s no place like home Part 1

This is a recap – so their will be spoilers.

Lost was good but this was a set up episode for the season finale which will be May 29th. It is two hours and will have this episode kicking off the three hour night of LOST.

We start off with the Oceanic 6 coming home. They are headed for a base in Hawaii (convenient since they film the show there). So Jack, Sun, Kate, Hurley, Sayid and Aaron are on the Coast Guard plane. There were a few mentions of luck and rabbits feet in this episode. The co-pilot had one and there was one on the keychain that Hurley’s dad gives him later.

Okay, let me break this down by teams and off island stuff.

Team Jack –
The team on the beach is now deciding what to do wit the phone from the sky. Jack and Kate are going to go find the chopper because Jack is convinced that it was dropped so that they should follow the signal. I didn’t agree with this last week but it looks like I was wrong. So Jack and Kate go after the helicopter. They first listen to the monitor and hear about the Orchid station. Jack tells Kate to get the guns. Daniel has a memory trigger and goes to his notebook, he realizes what is in store so he tells Charlotte that they have to get off the island, now.

Jack and Kate find Miles and Sawyer and Aaron. Sawyer warns Jack about the guys in the chopper, this is where Jack dumps Aaron on Kate and presses on. Of course Sawyer goes with him. They find the helicopter and Frank. But then Sawyer remembers that Hurley is with Ben and Locke and so they have to go save him.

Kate gets back to the beach with Aaron and dumps him on Sun, Sayid is back form the freighter and Daniel has the task of ferrying people to the ship, 6 at a time. Sayid and Kate go after Jack and Sawyer. Eventually they are surrounded by the remaining Others led by Richard Alpert.

So at this point we have Jack and Sawyer on their way to the Orchid to save Hurley, Kate and Sayid are among “The Others” and that brings us to…

Team Locke –
Locke and Ben and Hurley are headed for the Orchid Station. I am really enjoying the interaction between Ben and Hurley “Those crackers are 15 years old”. Ben comes across a cache of supplies including a mirror and binoculars. He uses the mirror to signal someone up on the mountain. They make contact and Ben sends some sort of message, he won’t tell Locke what he said either.

So Ben, Locke and Hurley arrive at the Orchid Station. The Mercs are already there so Ben goes in alone, not before he tells Locke exactly how to get into the true Orchid Station. Ben gives Locke his retractable baton (right, that was what he gave him) and he heads off. He tells Locke that he always has a plan. I hope that plan included getting knocked out by Keamy because that is what happened to Ben.

The Freighter –
On the Freighter Michael has fixed the engines and the freighter can then head towards the island. The problem is that there is a radio signal messing with the radar so they cannot hold the course bearing. Desmond goes looking for the source of the interference and find a wicked freaking huge piles of C4 rigged to destroy the entire freighter. I wonder where that trigger is, Keamy’s arm perhaps?

Sun, Jin, Aaron, Daniel and some random losties make it to the freighter. There Sun and Jin find Michael. They confront him and accuse him of working for Ben. Michael denies it and tells them that he is there to make things right to save everyone.

So now we have the oceanic six all in different places, Sun and Aaron on the Freighter, Hurley with Locke, Jack with Sawyer, Sayid and Kate with “The Others”. We find out how they get rescued in the finale but the things that really are going to be important is who is gonna live and who is gonna die in the finale. What sort of cliff hanger will we get here.

The Oceanic Six.
They are back, they have their story straight. They are going to talk to the press. There is a big press conference in an airplane hanger. Jack gives the base story and each person gets to say something. Kate’s past is brought up, there is a mention at Hurley’s weight.

After the press conference family members are there to greet the Oceanic 6. Hurley’s parents are there and it was good to see Cheech Marin again. Hurley pulls Sayid over to meet them. That was a sweet moment because there was no one for Sayid. Jack’s mother was there and Sun’s parents were as well. Kate had Aaron.

As life gets back to normal for the Oceanic 6 Hurley returns home to whispers and voices. But it isn’t anything supernatural it is an “island” themed party. I am glad that Sayid said something about the theme. At the party we have Sayid and Nadia (Oh yeah, Nadia arrived at the hanger after everyone else had gone). Jack was running late but Kate and Aaron were there. Sun went back to Korea.

Hurley’s father has restored the Camaro and he is giving it to Hurley. Hurley wants nothing to do with the money but since his father rebuilt this on his own he is okay with it, that is until he looks at the odometer. On it are the numbers. Yes the numbers return to the show. Man that is nuts.

In Korea Sun used her substantial settlement money to buy a controlling interest in her father’s company. That was a fantastic part of the episode and she really put him in his place. She blames two people for the death of Jin and her father is one of them. I want to know who the other is.

Jack has a funeral for his father, and in the end Claire’s mother is there to tell him why Christian was in Australia. Jack’s reaction to finding out that Claire was his sister was spot on perfect.

I don’t think I can wait two weeks to see this season wrapped up. There are gonna be so many more questions.

The Orchid is going to be a very interesting place. If you want to know more about it watch this orientation video.

That was freaky. Oh and try and look up Orchid Night Dress from Old Navy, it doesn’t exist.

Here is what TV Squad had to say.

The Office: Goodbye Toby (Season Finale)

This is a recap so their will be spoilers.

Recap: This has to be one of the best episodes that I have seen all season, it had everything. Starting with an awesome Jim prank. It is great to see Jim doing pranks again even if he is being serious about his job now. And involving Pam in the prank was awesome also because we haven’t seen them work this out in a while. Seeing the two back in action was indication that this was going to be an incredibly special episode.

The focus of the episode was that is was Tobey’s last day, he is actually going to Costa Rica. Michael is beside himself with joy over Tobey’s last day. He comes in early, dances around the place with joy and even sets his watch for the end of the day.

The Party planning committee is putting together the going away party. He wants this to be a huge party. So he gives the party planning committee his own money. The money came from his grandmother who has dementia and who sends him 9 or 10 checks for $50.00 for his birthday. He wants an anti-gravity machine. Angela refused to get this for him and doesn’t want his ‘foot money’. So Michael asks Phylis if she will get it for him. She says yes.

The Holly appears, Holly is the new Human Resources rep. The Female Toby? You can already tell that she has a sense of humor.

Pam gets into the Pratt School of design and tells Jim all about it in the break room. She will be there for 3 months in New York. Jim and Pam will work this out. Pam realizes that this is the first time she uses the word ‘perfect’ in the Office.

Michael and Dwight plot against Holly. Michael actually has a moment of lucidity and realizes that Dwight simply agrees with Michael. They decide to haze Holly. Michael is simply awful to Holly. Spoiler Alert “I’m gonna win”. “He tortured me with his awfulness” At this point Holly endears herself to Michael by putting Toby’s tour down in front of him. Michael is smitten.

Phylis has an interesting time trying to find the anti gravity machine too. It was funny watching her try to plan the party and then going to Angela for help and seeing that Angela has shredded her files.

Creed got some screen time too and it was hilarious. Holly asks what Creed does, he doesn’t know. Apparently he is in Quality assurance but when he tries to figure it out that is hilarious.

I think one of the funniest parts of the season was when Dwight convinced Holly that Kevin was on a special work release program. Holly treats him like he is special and Kevin is just Kevin but man he is funny. “I Do The Numbers”. Kevin even thinks that Holly is interested in him. They meet again in front of the vending machine and Kevin is having a hard time deciding what to get to eat. Holly helps him and he feels even more that Holly likes him. This continues a bit throughout the episode and even in the end when Holly is trying to get close to Michael and he passes her off to Kevin to get dessert.

Poor Toby is still so smitten with Pam, she gives him a photo of the entire office that she is not in. He is bummed out by this and shouts to the office in a pained strained and depressed, desperate way, “Does anyone have a camera here?!” He then runs out to go get one. Later Meredith takes a ton of very uncomfortable photos with Pam.

Jim calls Ryan with the big news about the huge sale. Ryan is a real jerk to him and presses him to re log the sale in the website. We find out later that Ryan has been committing fraud. And he gets hauled out of the main office. The office ends up seeing this on YouTube. Jim also spends some time with Michael and gives him advice on office romances. Michael is full on balls to the wall crazy about Holly but he does try and follow Jim’s advice and things do work out pretty well for him. The courtship between the two is hilarious and I love the chemistry. As Jim gives Michael the advice he realizes that he is going to propose to Pam that night at the party. So Jim gives Phylis money for fireworks at the party because “Toby is a heck of a guy. Doesn’t matter.”

Once Jim decides he is gonna propose he grows a set and give Ryan a phone mail message he will never forget.

Michael and Holly spend some nice time getting to know each other as Holly is working on putting her chair. They even spend some time doing silly things like talking like Yoda. It was cute and sweet. Holly is funny and even says some inappropriate things like Michael does.

Michael and Toby then have to get the exit interview completed. Michael has been steeped in anticipation. “Captain Brusin'” starts up the interview insulting Toby and then Holly comes in to be part of the interview. Then Pam comes in. The room gets a bit more uncomfortable. Michael’s questions are a riot like “Who do you think you are?” and “What gives you the right” Michael trying to make those questions more palatable was very funny. And Michael gives him a gift which is a Rock that says “Suck on This”. Pam then tricks Michael into giving Toby his watch. Michael tries to blame it on Dwight and Dwight is such a great straight man.

The group watching Ryan being arrested was awesome and we find out that Dunder Mifflin Infinity was a fraud and having Oscar tell this story was spot on perfect punctuated by “The real crime here, i think, was the beard.” So perfect. The having Kelly talk about visiting Ryan was funny. Jim calls Ryan again and taunts him. So funny.

Finally we get to the party, the parking lot was all set up for a carnival with a bouncy house “Take your shoes off Kevin”, a Ferris wheel, fireworks and Darryl and his band playing music. Pam takes notice of the fireworks and suspects that Jim is going to propose and tries to get this out of the of the cameraman.

The playful hazing continues and Dwight, Meredith and Mose put a raccoon in Holly’s car. Michael then dresses down Dwight and says some really nice things about Holly. Then Holly touches Michael’s arm. His taking it slow is really working great for him. He even stifled a “That’s what she said”.

I must have missed the part where Kevin and Holly had another moment together when Kevin goes for BBQ sauce. Michael sings a song parody for Toby based on Goodbye Stranger from Supertramp. A very funny little scene and the song wasn’t even too bad. Holly even liked it and asked to hear Beers in Heaven sometime. Things are going so well for Michael and then a phone call comes in from Kevin. This changes everything.

At the supermarket we see Jan and she is pregnant. Michael is so excited and happy for her till he finds out that this isn’t Michael’s baby. She went to sperm bank. Poor Michael he is gonna get walked on all over again. Jan tells her that she only had one shot and wanted to get a good one so instead of Michael she went to a sperm bank. After all of that she asks Michael to come to the Lamaze class, he says he has to think about it.

As the episode winds down the fireworks start and Jim is preparing to propose but Andy totally steals the thunder by grabbing the mic and proposing to Angela. He even has his parents there at the party. So funny. Angela says okay. Andy is beside himself with excitement. You know that these things have to happen to throw off the perfect night for Jim. Dwight is now totally dejected and recognizes that it is his own fault.

The night is over and Holly clearly wants to spend more time with Michael. Michael passes this off and instead Kevin says he will go with her. Michael ends up in his office telling Jan he will go with her to the class. But not before he has Toby escorted from the building with the security guard.

The kicker is the very very end where Phylis is done cleaning from the party and she walks in on Angela and Dwight.

The episode was the best of the season in my opinion. For one thing there were so many quotable moments from the episode and many great revelations and twists. The build up to Jim proposing to Pam just to be squashed by Andy proposing to Angela. Angela and Phylis fighting over the party, Phylis standing up to her and then walking in on her and Dwight.

The whole Kevin is special part of the episode was done so well. I loved the interaction between Holly and Kevin. It is something that will work well carried through to next season. I think that almost everyone had a moment to shine except for Stanley. He was there but that was about it. Having Ryan arrested was genius and Oscar recapping what happened was perfect.

I can’t seem to find anything wrong with this episode. It was a perfect end to the season. It made you laugh all the way through and then instead of what you would be expecting it sends you off into the wild with tons of splintered storylines. If only Lost will end that well on the 29th.

Things I really liked –
Jim and Pam prank on Dwight
“Mother tell Fahzer I have married.”
“You are not talking to Dwight Schrute!”

Angela – I don’t want your foot money.

Dwight convincing Holly that Kevin was ‘special’
That worked perfectly and I hope it continues a but next season because I really want to see Holly Back. “This is a button.”

“I’m totally gonna bang Holly, she is totally cute and helpful and so into me.”

“No anti-gravity machine though.”
“I don’t think they are real.”
“The Ferris Wheel is cool”

“Mr Andrew Bernard, it has a nice ring to it.”

“I can see Andy proposing to Angela, I can also see him proposing to Oscar”

“I should go, I gotta buckle him in”

“I’m going to be, Kind of a daddy.”

What TV Squad says.