SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't yet seen this episode of Lost, you should avoid reading this article and the user comments, as they will discuss events that happened during the episode.
| 93 |
Season 6, Episode 11: "Happily Ever After"
Our quick take: If only that had been the season's first episode.This week's Desmond-focused story, which spent most of its time in the "sideways" world of Los Angeles, seemed to suggest a reason for all of the L.A. stories we've seen so far this year (or, at the very least, added some much-needed momentum going forward).
And the critics? They loved it. We'll get to individual critic scores and comments for this week's episode, and a comparison of each of this season's scores, in just a moment. But first: a quick poll ...
| Episode | Score | Episode | Score | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Episode 1/2: LA X | 89 | Episode 7: Dr. Linus | 92 | |
| Episode 3: What Kate Does | 64 | Episode 8: Recon | 76 | |
| Episode 4: The Substitute | 88 | Episode 9: Ab Aeterno | 93 | |
| Episode 5: Lighthouse | 71 | Episode 10: The Package | 72 | |
| Episode 6: Sundown | 82 |
| Score | Publication | Reviewer |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | Chicago Tribune | Maureen Ryan |
| That was a fantastic episode of "Lost." It might be in my all-time Top 10. | ||
| 100 | Entertainment Weekly | Jeff Jensen |
| “Happily Ever After” was the episode we’ve been waiting for all season. [Full recap forthcoming] | ||
| 100 | HitFix | Drew McWeeny |
| It was a triumph for the series, bringing several major players in the series to center stage again after sidelining them for a while, and the way they did it seemed to me to fold the show's reality in on itself in a fascinating way. | ||
| 100 | Los Angeles Times | Todd VanDerWerff |
| "Happily Ever After" is just a sublime episode of television. | ||
| 100 | The Onion A.V. Club | Noel Murray |
| It’s fair to say that the bar was set pretty high for “Happily Ever After.” And damned if Darlton didn’t clear it. With room to spare. [Grade: A] | ||
| 100 | Television Without Pity | Cindy McLennan |
| [Full recap forthcoming; Grade: A+] | ||
| 100 | TV Overmind | Sam McPherson |
| The episode was exceedingly fantastic. [Grade: A+] | ||
| 100 | Zap2It | Ryan McGee |
| The most emotional, most satisfying hour of the season. ... "The Substitute" and "Dr. Linus" were outstanding, but this was all-time great. | ||
| 95 | IGN | Chris Carabott |
| While not necessarily on the same level as "The Constant" or even "Flashes Before Your Eyes", "Happily Ever After" does deliver many game changing moments that will alter the way we view the alternate universe from this point forward. | ||
| 92 | TV Fanatic | M. L. House |
| Halfway through this Desmond-centric episode, I was actually annoyed at the Sideways storytelling ... But then Desmond had his conversation with Eloise Widmore and everything changed. | ||
| 90 | Cultural Learnings | Myles McNutt |
| While there isn’t a single question that it answers, there also isn’t a single question that it stops us from asking, which is where the show wants us to be at this stage: rather than knocking off easy answers to pave the way for the conclusion, the episode gives us a series of tools and ideas which help us unlock the meaning of what we’ve seen thus far and will continue to be instrumental in how the show reveals things in the future. | ||
| 90 | Time | James Poniewozik |
| After "Happily Ever After," I am finally fully confident that [the alternate universe] means something, and this leaves me feeling very good about the remaining episodes. | ||
| 80 | What's Alan Watching | Alan Sepinwall |
| So now there are stakes to the sideways stories. ... That knowledge doesn't retroactively improve dull sideways stories like "What Kate Does" or last week's "The Package" in the way that we might have hoped, but it does make the sideways world matter moving forward into this last rush of episodes. | ||
| 50 | St. Petersburg Times | Eric Deggans |
| Cool as this twist was, stretching it out over an entire episode seemed more like a justification for putting Cusick's name in the opening credits than anything else. | ||
What did you think?
Did you enjoy this episode of Lost? Is the season headed in the right direction? Let us know in the comments section below. As a courtesy to other users, please do not include spoilers of any kind in your posts, although you are welcome to discuss all events shown in this particular episode of the show.
