(click here for Part One)
So, after watching last week's finale again, after Amanda got home on Saturday, I've got a few new theories, I think. We'll get to those at the bottom. Picking up where we left off ...
22. Hurley was visited in the institution by Walt, who may or may not have made his grandmother drive him from Brooklyn to Santa Rosa to do so. I once asked my grandmother to buy me the Guns N Roses "Appetite for Destruction" tape when I was 11. She said no. Yet Walt was able to persuade his grandmother to take him almost 3,000 miles to visit somebody that she's never even met, who lives in a mental health facility? Man, that kid IS special!
23. While visiting Hurley, Walt complains that nobody visited him after they got home. Quit crying, kid. Did you visit any of them? I mean, they were all on the news when they got home, right? He does tell Hurley that Jeremy Bentham visited him, though, and asks Hurley why they're all lying about what happened. (Is it just me, or wasn't it Locke's idea in the first place for them to lie??) Hurley tells him they're lying to protect everyone who didn't make it back.
24. "Like my dad?" asks Walt, who seems to have been heartbreakingly waiting for three years for Michael to get home. What Walt doesn't know is that Michael, who, despite repeated attempts to end his own life, was seemingly being kept alive by The Island until he redeemed himself, and redemption, it seems, is immediately followed by a visit from Christian Shephard.
25. Michael did a few bad things before he left The Island with Walt, including turning Jack, Sawyer and Kate over to Ben and The Others, as well as unforgivably overemoting in just about every episode he was in for the entire second season, screaming "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLTTT!!!!" every chance he got. Seriously, he used that like punctuation. Oh, and one of the other bad things he did was to shoot Libby in the stomach, and right after she had done a load of sheets and towels in the hatch's laundry room. Not cool, man.
26. Libby seemed to take a bit of a shine to Hurley, who, in turn, also took a bit of a shine to her as well. Strangely enough, though, she also showed up in one of Hurley's flashbacks, when he was in the institution. He had that imaginary friend, Dave, and when the doctor was showing him that the picture he took of Hurley and Dave really only had Hurley in it, the camera panned over and showed a very creepy and dishevelled Libby, who also seemed to be a patient in the same facility. I'd love to get some more background on that one day.
27. Libby also met Desmond in a coffee shop years ago, randomly, when he asked her for some change because he didn't have enough money for his coffee. They got to talking, after she bought him the coffee, and as it turns out, he was planning to enter a boat race, and Libby just happened to have a boat she didn't need! So, to recap, Desmond asked her for some change for his coffee, because he didn't have enough money, and, naturally, she bought him a coffee and gave him a boat. I've seen it happen hundreds of times.
28. Desmond needed this boat so he could enter Mr. Widmore's "Great Race Around the World Designed to Maroon My Daughter's Douchebag Boyfriend on a Remote Island, Never to Be Heard From Again." I'm sure it sounded promising in the brochure.
29. Mr. Widmore was trying to get rid of Desmond because he didn't think he was good enough for his daughter, Penny, who then spent the next 3 years or so obsessively searching for him, most likely using her father's money to do so. Nice one, jackass.
30. Let's get back to Libby for a sec. So, not everybody saw this, but when they replayed the first part of the finale, before airing the 2-hour episode, they added one extra question into the press conference of the Oceanic 6, after they returned to civilization. What was asked was whether there were any other survivors of the crash, to which Jack responded that there were three other survivors of the plane crash, but that they all died after reaching the island. He named Libby, Charlie, and Boone as those survivors. To me, that is just too random (especially with the inclusion of Boone) to not have some meaning, or be explained at some point why they chose to name those three.
31. Boone hasn't even been seen (other than in one of Locke's hallucinations) since the first season, when he died helping Locke uncover the hatch. And it is worth noting that he slept with his sister, Shannon. She was pretty smoking hot, but it was still a strange thing to do.
32. Charlie was also named as one of those survivors, which doesn't seem to make any sense either, aside from the fact that he died heroically trying to save everyone's life. His connection to Claire is fairly obvious to anyone who ever saw the show in the first 3 seasons. And if you're reading this, and you never saw the first 3 seasons, then stop reading and go Netflix them this minute.
33. Claire, as we all know, is the real mother of Aaron, who is being raised (and passed off as her own) by Kate. Claire came to visit Kate in a dream sequence in the season finale, when she told Kate to never bring Aaron back to The Island. It was creepy, to say the least.
34. Kate and Sawyer have always had an on again, off again kind of thing. They're like Ross and Rachel from Friends, only if Ross and Rachel were both criminals with a history of murder. They even had sex in a polar bear cage while in captivity (but really, who hasn't had sex in a polar bear cage while in captivity?). Kate was busted by Jack a few weeks ago, doing some favor for Sawyer, about a year or so after they left The Island (possibly checking on Sawyer's daughter?). This may have been what Sawyer whispered to Kate before kissing her (take THAT, Jack!) and jumping out of the helicopter, heroically sacrificing himself so the rest of the people wouldn't throw Hurley overboard when the chopper was losing fuel.
35. After jumping out of the chopper, a fully-clothed Sawyer started his mile or so swim back to The Island, where he emerged shirtless (??) from the water, and happened upon Juliet sitting on the beach, drinking some Dharma Rum, watching the smoke from the freighter explosion. Hmm... No Jack, no Ben, no Kate. Dharma Rum. Bow-chicka-bow-bow. Somebody's going to be getting busy in the Burger King bathroom.
36. Switching gears, we saw Sun confront her father, Mr. Paik of Paik Automotive (like Bob Vance of Vance Refrigeration), having used her settlement from Oceanic to orchestrate a takeover of his company. She apparently used five banks in the deal, which could be a misdirection pointing toward the settlements received by Jack, Kate, Sayid and Hurley. I don't imagine that her settlement from Oceanic was large enough on its own to buy a controlling share of Paik Automotive. Amanda thinks maybe Hurley helped her out with his lotto winnings. That's possible also.
37. But she blames her father as one of the two people responsible for the death of her husband, Jin. Jin got out of the engine room a little too late and missed his chopper ride, standing on the deck of the ship while Sun (in an absolutely terrific acting display, all joking aside) went completely bat-shit as the chopper flew away. Seriously, that was heartwrenching. And also, upon my second viewing, it was also interesting how she kept screaming "WE HAVE TO GO BACK!!", echoing Jack screaming "WE HAVE TO GO BACK!!" to Kate in the flash-forward at the airport. Speaking of Jack...
38. Sun also blames Jack for Jin's death, or so he seems to think. But is Jack really the other person she blames? We'll talk more about that later.
39. Jack and Locke. These guys are like the Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton of the crash survivors. The bad guy is really Ben Linus (or Widmore, or who knows what the hell is really going on), who we will feature in this analogy as our John McCain. Anyway, instead of banding together against the real evil party, they attack, attack, attack each other every chance they get, until finally their bitterness infects the entire "Party" and they splinter off into two groups, never to be allies again. Though, it does seem that 3 years into the future, they will be briefly reunited, but that doesn't really fit into my analogy. Or does it ... ?? No, probably not.
40. Locke, after being pushed out of an eighth-story window by his loving father, was in physical therapy in a rehab facility when he was visited by Matthew Abbadon, who was posing as an orderly, and suggested to Locke that he travel to Australia to go on a Walkabout. Locke, skeptical as always, noted that he was in a wheelchair and couldn't walk anywhere. Abbadon left him in the elevator alone, as the doors were closing, and said "when we meet each other again, you'll owe me one." Weird.
41. Abbadon also visited Hurley in the Santa Rosa facility, after he returned from The Island, posing as a lawyer for Oceanic Airlines, asking him something like, "Are there still people alive on The Island?" or something like that, before Hurley freaked out and Abbadon left before anyone could talk to him. Weird.
42. Abbadon ALSO is the one who hired Naomi (Locke's favorite knife-throwing target) to lead the helicopter mission, with Faraday, Charlotte, Lapidis, and Miles, who were all hand-picked by him to go on this mission. And he may or may not work for Widmore, and he may or may not represent the interests of The Island. Weird.
43. Charlotte and Faraday have been with the beach camp (Jack's group) for pretty much the whole time since their chopper landed on The Island. Faraday has a little crush on Charlotte (that must be why he never took off his tie for like 3 weeks), which she knows about and appears not to care. He tried to get her to come with him when he was ferrying people back to the freighter, and she opted to stay on The Island, because she's still looking for where she was born. Huh?
44. "If anything goes wrong, Desmond Hume is my constant."
45. "See you in another life, brutha."
46. After the Oceanic 6 shove off from The Searcher in their raft, Lapidis stays on board with Penny, Desmond, and Penny's small army of Portuguese sailors. They should have all been wearing matching outfits like Team Zissou, that would have made my day.
47. Truthfully, I have absolutely no idea why I connected Lapidis to Locke and numbered it "47." I'm sorry. I can't think of a single reason why this would have made sense to me at the time. I might have just been on overload, though. This does get a bit confusing.
48. But since we're back to Locke, can we discuss why he was visited by the ageless wonder Richard Alpert (he's like Dick Clark, this guy!) as a baby, as a little boy, and as a high school student (via his science teacher pimping out his Mittelos "science camp")?? Obviously Richard has always known of Locke's destiny, though 6-year old Locke really wanted that rusty old knife, and Richard sure didn't like that one bit. I would also like to reiterate what I said a few weeks ago, which is that the drawing of the smoke monster by a young John Locke is one of the weirdest things I've seen on this show. It might be weirder than the smoke monster himself.
49. John Locke is now the leader of The Others. The King is dead, long live the King! I was going to go with "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss," but made the switch at the last minute. I think either would have gotten the job done, though. Locke's going to struggle in this role, and I think it's going to make Ben's actions over the past 3 years look a bit more sympathetic.
50. Locke will also have to deal with Sawyer and Juliet, in one way or another. His first rule should be a strict 8:00 p.m. curfew for these two, because they're totally going to be doing it every chance they get. They're like a couple of horny teenagers who've found their parents stash of Dharma Rum.
51. Locke and Ben. Starcrossed lovers, except, not lovers. Both born 3 months premature (which is conspicuously when the women on The Island die during pregnancy), both have mothers named Emily, both know how to do that thing with their eyes where they look really crazy. These two are like Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, or Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston. Sure, they spent a lot of time fighting and making each other completely miserable. But in the end, they need each other, and the sooner Bobby and Whitney realize that, the better off we'll all be.
That's it. Finito.
Now, there are a few things I didn't get into in this Island flow-chart expository thing I've wasted everybody's time with.
First of all, John Locke changes his name to Jeremy Bentham. Something unforseeable has to happen to make everyone who already knew him as John Locke call him by his new name. Like, I mentioned to my buddy Will the other day when we were talking about this, if Will decided to change his name to George Miller, I'd still call him Will. Something's gonna go down, and it's going to be big.
Second, according to Miles, Charlotte has been trying for so long to get "back" to The Island. What could that mean? Some have speculated that she was with Dharma before the purge, and she's clearly not an "Other". We never saw what happened to Ben's little friend Annie, though I don't think she is Annie. But could she be Annie's sister? Or daughter?? The best part of that scene was when Charlotte asked Miles "What do you mean?" and he said "Yeah, what DO I mean??" and just walked away with a smirk. Well played, sir.
Third, and I know I've been saying this for a few months now, but I will say now I think I might have been wrong. I'm going to reverse course and say that I no longer think Jin is dead. I thought he was going to die all season, because I didn't think that Sun could (or more to the point, would) keep up the facade that they were the only survivors if he were still alive on The Island. But now, after seeing her completely freak out as that chopper pulled away, she clearly thinks he IS dead. Which makes me think he is alive, and that maybe he jumped off the ship and was able to swim away before it exploded. Unlikely, sure, but come on. People die and come back all the time on TV, especially on this show.
Fourth, and this is the one that's been giving me headaches for the past few days, is, who is the other person that Sun blames for Jin's death? And what are the "common interests" she was referring to when she approached Widmore in London.
Jack told Ben that Sun blames him for Jin's death (I guess because he wouldn't let Kate go after him when they jumped on the chopper). But I think that's just his own guilt talking. I think the person she really blames is Desmond, because Desmond and Jin were both in that engine room with the bomb, and all she knows is that Desmond got out and Jin didn't. She doesn't know that Jin tried to stay to diffuse the bomb, and even if she did, it would probably offer little consolation.
As far as the "common interests" she mentioned to Widmore are concerned, she also said "As you know, we're not the only people that left The Island." At first I thought she was referring to Ben, and was telling him that because she knew that Widmore had been after Ben for so many years. Then I changed my mind and thought she was referring to Desmond, because Widmore was probably still looking for Desmond and Penny. And while that may be true, I don't think that's what she meant, either.
That scene seemed to take place in the same three-years-in-the-future time frame as the rest of the flash-forwards did in that episode, because she was on the phone talking to her daughter, who was born about 6 months after they got off The Island, so it would have to be far enough into the future for her daughter to be able to talk to her mother on the phone, even for a short conversation. In that time frame, three years into the future, we know that Jack and Kate (and Walt) were all visited by Jeremy Bentham, and we know that Sayid and Hurley have some knowledge of Bentham, because Sayid came to get Hurley after Bentham was killed.
So, presumably, Bentham was visiting everyone from The Island, to try to get them all to go back, going so far as to tell Jack that some very bad things had happened after they left. But we never saw or heard any mention of him from Sun like we did from the rest of them. I'm guessing if he visited the rest of them, he visited her as well, and probably told her some of the same things. And I'm guessing that she didn't like what she heard, which may have involved Keamy's death (and Locke's failure to prevent it) setting off the explosion on the ship. And knowing what she does about Widmore, I think Sun went to him to avenge Jin's death by giving him information about Jeremy Bentham, leading to Widmore finding and killing Bentham (making it look like suicide, like Sayid said). So, what I'm saying is, I think Sun, who is clearly a different woman than she was before crashing on The Island, went to Widmore to turn over what she knew about Bentham.
Don't ask me to explain it any further than that, because I can't. It's just a hunch. And since my hunches are usually fairly wrong, don't put any stock in it.
6.03.2008
I've Been LOST Since She's Gone, The Piano She's Really On, I Don't Want You to Marry Me, Make Believe You're Debbie G (Part 2)
5.30.2008
I've Been LOST Since She's Gone, The Piano She's Really On, I Don't Want You to Marry Me, Make Believe You're Debbie G
I don't know about you guys, but I'm going to have a hard time waiting until January 2009 for the next season of Lost to start. By then, I'm going to be fully bearded, washing pills down with vodka, and blasting the Pixies in my jeep, screaming, "WE HAVE TO GO BACK!!" (Actually, I'll probably be fully bearded long before then, and clean shaven again, without the drug problem, but still blasting the Pixies in my Mazda 626. Man, I love the Pixies.)
After last night's finale was over, I wasn't as instantly mind blown as I was after last season, with the reveal of the flash-forward, but this was so much more of a big-picture kind of thing, that it has been kind of tough to get my head around it all. I am very excited, though, for the next two seasons of concurrent storylines between the civilization group and The Island group. I might have more to say later on, after it sets in a little, but last night featured so many aspects and characters, that I was thinking earlier about who all was on the show last night, either in person or just in name, and it was a staggering amount of characters. At lunch today, I tried drawing out sort of a flow-chart, to better visualize who was tied to who, and I think I ended up confusing myself even more. See for yourself (you can click to enlarge) - though please understand that this image may be a bit disturbing, as it is direct evidence of my level of obsession with this show.
So, I figured the best way for me to conceptualize and get some thoughts down would just be to take one red line at a time and literally spell out each connection. I have no idea if this will be interesting or not, but it could take awhile. I might have to post it in more than one installment.
1. Ben Linus and Charles Widmore, aka Caleb Nichol. Obviously, they hate each other. Widmore is angry with Ben, presumably, for purging the Dharma Initiative people, and possibly for having The Island moved and preventing him from finding it (or returning to it?). Ben, clearly, blames Widmore for Alex's death, but can't kill him for some reason. It seemed like Ben's episode a few weeks ago showed him jumping through time, and that maybe he couldn't kill Widmore because Widmore was his constant. However, after last night, I'm not so sure. It is possible that by moving The Island last night, it sent Ben through some sort of time-space wormhold, in which he would need a constant, but whereas a few weeks ago I thought he could just jump back and forth, I don't think that anymore, and I think last night was his only shot. Now he's in real world time, along with the rest of the Oceanic 6.
2. Ben told Widmore that because he "changed the rules" and killed Alex, that he was going to take revenge by killing Penny. Which leads us to...
2a. If Ben wants to kill Penny, he's going to have to go through Desmond to do so. I read in an interview that Ben and Desmond have never had a scene together yet. Could be a good one if they end up colliding in season 5 or 6.
3. Widmore and Mr. Paik, Sun's father, have some sort of business relationship, though I'm sure it will be revealed to run deeper than that.
4. Widmore hired Keamy, a mercenary with a bloodlust rivaled by nobody, to find Ben at all costs and bring him back alive. Keamy was also going to follow "secondary protocol" and torch The Island. (I read in an interview - no real spoilers, I promise! - that Keamy was going about his job with such efficiency and zeal because it had something to do with his family. So, despite the fact that he is ostensibly dead in the Orchid Station, he may show back up in a flashback, or his family may show up - or be someone we already know?)
5. Keamy was killed by Ben in the Orchid Station, which in turn set off the 1.21 gigawatts of explosives on the freighter. Since we're back to Ben, ...
6. Ben's got a pretty large connection now to the Oceanic 6, in that he's now a "castaway" from The Island as well. But he's trying to get back, it seems, and he's going to help (use?) the Oceanic 6 to get back as well.
7. Ben showed up at the funeral parlor last night, scaring the crap out of both Jack and myself, after Jack busted the door in to get a look inside the coffin of ...
8. Jeremy Bentham. JEREMY BENTHAM?? Holy cow, man. Jeremy Bentham, according to Wikipedia, was a utilitarian, advocating for the greater good. The two things that stuck out about the article to me were: 1. He was one of the earliest proponents of animal rights, claiming that the benchmark of how we treat other beings (such as animals, babies, and those with disabilities) should not be based on their ability to reason, but their ability to suffer; and 2. In accordance with his will, his body was preserved and stored in a wooden cabinet at University College of London, and if the College Council's vote on any motion ends in a tie, his body will always break the tie by voting in favor of the motion. That is weird, man. God bless Wikipedia.9. So, Jeremy Bentham is John Locke, but what we don't know is when, how, or why that name change takes place. And why do they all call him that in the future, when they all knew him on The Island as Locke?? Is it going to be, like, a Jacob (Jacob?) wrestling the angel, then changing his name to Israel, kind of thing? Or is it just an alias that he uses when travelling to South Central LA, because it sounds so down to earth??
10. John Locke. Jeremy Bentham. Whoever he is, he's dead. And, he's got to go with the Oceanic 6 back to The Island, if they ever want to get back there again. Why is that, do you ask? Could it be that he needs to be brought back to The Island in order to rise from the dead? Hmm, transporting a casket to The Island in order to have its occupant become undead. That sounds familiar, no? Sort of sounds like ...
11. Christian Shephard!! You may know him alternatively as either (a) guy who speaks for Jacob in Jacob's cabin, or (b) creepy dude holding babies in the jungle. You might also know him as ...
12. Father of Jack, or ...
13. Father of Claire, which makes Claire ...
14. Jack's half sister. Sorry, if this is getting boring.
5.16.2008
Things Are Not What They Used to Be, Missing One Inside of Me, Deathly LOST This Can't Be Real, Cannot Stand This Hell I Feel
(Metallica, Fade to Black)
Wow! I thought this was a great episode, and although it was mostly just an hour of set-up for the 2-hour finale in two weeks, we still got a lot of good stuff from it, and I mean a LOT of good stuff. I was thinking of not writing until after the finale, since this was just part one, but I'd probably be on overload if I did that, so I'm gonna go ahead and get a few things down now. I'm going to have to watch this one again, though, before the finale in two weeks. Anybody want to come over and watch?
1. Was anybody else covered in goose bumps as the "Oceanic 6" got off the plane?? What a great scene, when they were reunited with their families. That was a very well shot scene, very touching, and also very humanizing, to see these people who we've pretty much only known as fighters and survivors (pardon the expression), to let us see the other side of them, their relief and their vulnerability, especially Kate and Sayid, who were heartbreakingly standing there alone while everyone else's parents came running over to hug them. I like to think Cheech found a way to calm everybody down while they were waiting, if you know what I mean.
It reminded me of the end of The Goonies, after they get away from the Fratellis and their families are all waiting there on the beach for them. So, in my analogy, that probably makes Ben Linus the "One-Eyed Willie" of the bunch? I'd say it would be Widmore, but I think Widmore's more like the rich douchebag who wants to buy the Goon Docks and evict everyone. And, naturally, Hurley is Chunk, right? I was going to link to a video of Chunk doing the truffle shuffle and go for the easy joke, but the way Hurley brought Sayid over to meet his parents made me think this one was a bit more fitting.
2. I don't know about you, but I was so happy to see Sawyer cock his rifle and head out with Jack to find the helicopter. I can appreciate that they've added some depth to his character lately, showing him being nicer to Hurley and caring about Claire and the baby, but did anybody else notice how he gave the baby a little kiss before handing him off to Kate? That was a bit much. Come on, man. Sack up and go kill some bad guys!
3. 4-8-15-16-23-42. AWESOME!! In the camaro, man, that was creepy! I've always wanted to give that as my fake phone number, but I've never had the balls to do it, or been in a situation where I've needed to give a fake phone number. (481) 516-2342. Like that wouldn't be so fun to do. If 481 were an actual area code (it's not, believe me, I checked years ago), whoever had that number would probably be driven to the nuthouse with Hurley after all of the calls they'd be getting. I guess you could still give it out, though. Just tell people it's a Portland area code...
4. I like the way Ben walked right into the Orchid station where Keamy and his men were. For so long he's been putting people in harm's way "for The Island," but now we see that he is also ready to put his life on the line for The Island, which makes him a bit less of a bastard, I guess. And I loved his line to Locke: "How many times do I have to tell you? I always have a plan!" The way he was telling Locke to get into the Orchid station was pretty confusing, though, like trying to get unlimited men in Contra. Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Select, Start. Booya!
5. Ben's lockbox was also an interesting twist, though I would imagine that hiding a wooden box in the jungle for 15 years might have some negative effects on the contents of the box. Like the Dharma saltines that Locke immediately handed to Hurley. But really, why would you hide a box with a mirror and binoculars in it, on the off chance you might need it at some point in the future?? Either, where they hid the box is sort of the entryway toward the Orchid station, requiring some mirror communication before it's safe to go any further, or maybe Ben somehow went and hid it there a few weeks ago when he disappeared into the Batcave and summoned the smoke monster to come after Keamy and his men. Come to think of it, why didn't the smoke monster have more success against those guys? It scared them pretty bad, but only killed one of them? That doesn't seem very effective, especially considering the way we saw it grab Mr. Eko and slam him into the ground a few times.
6. I've said it before (#2), and I'll say it again. Jin's days are numbered. I really don't think it's a charade that Sun is keeping up for the sake of their story. I think it is going to be very sad, and I think it's going to happen in two weeks. Granted, the date of death on his tombstone was the date of the crash, that part is for the sake of their story. But yeah, he's a goner. And somebody is responsible for his death!! That was a great scene, where Sun told her father that she orchestrated the purchase of a controlling share of his company.
6a. Boy, Sun, Jack and Hurley are facing their fathers head on, right? Jack finally gets to put his father to rest, but we know that won't last long, because we've seen the visions Jack has in the future (and we also know Jack's dad is alive on The Island, or something like that). I wonder if Sun faces her dad early on, like we saw last night, and then has some other confrontation with him in the future, over the company, or maybe over something Island-related??
6b. I was also stricken with the aforementioned bumps of goose when Claire's mom showed up at the funeral and told Jack that Claire was his father's daughter. Wow. In fact, I just got goose bumps again thinking about it. Then the way he looked at Kate holding Aaron, his newly discovered nephew, conveyed such shock and a hint of disgust, probably directed at himself. Given Aaron's age at the funeral (3-4 months old, at the most) and at the end of Kate's trial (2-3 years?), I guess a pretty significant amount of time passes before Jack decides he's ready to be around Aaron again. This leads me to two questions: First, whatever happened to the right to a speedy trial? Second, exactly how far into the future was last season's finale, with Crazy Bearded Jack screaming to Kate, "We have to go back!" ?? 4 years? 5 years? (I stand by my theory that, to most people's incredible dismay, that scene is as far into the future as we are ever going to get on this show. I don't think we're ever going to know if they (or just Jack) get back or not. You heard it here first.)
7. Anybody notice how they sort of worked the tsunami into the storyline? 105 (she did say 105, right? not 108??) days after the plane crash, the typhoon washed up, blah, blah, blah; I don't remember exactly what she said at that press conference. But everybody seems to have been waiting for that tsunami to show up and affect the story, which I have always thought is a ridiculous theory. Why writers of a purely unrelated fictional show would use something so tragic as an ancillary story line would make absolutely no sense. Could you imagine doing that with the September 11 attacks, or Hurricane Katrina? Would never happen. Not this soon, at least. Anyway, I hope that's the last we hear of this typhoon, and I hope the tsunami-theorists will give it a rest already.
8. Um, so, that was a whole lot of explosives on the freighter, huh? I guess that could be why Keamy had that weird device strapped to his arm last week. So, if he planted those explosives there before he left, that's why he held up his arm and said, "You don't want to do that," when the Captain pointed his gun at him. What a dick.
9. Death is lurking around every corner. It seems to me that a whole lot of people are going to die. There are still two seasons to go, so I'm sure they won't all die in the finale in two weeks, but think about this:
The Oceanic 6 get back to the real world. Ben is still ok in the future, and according to Future Jack, Sawyer made a decision to stay on The Island, so presumably, The Island is saved from Keamy and his men. Which most likely means that Keamy and his men are going to die. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
The Oceanic 6 get rescued, some people (Sawyer, and probably Locke, at the very least, and possibly Rose and Bernard, to stay on The Island to avoid her cancer back in the real world) decide to stay on The Island.
But what about the people on the boat, and the 4 helicopter people? What reason would they have, after getting back to civilization, to keep up the charade that the Oceanic 6 are portraying? I'm guessing the boat people and the helicopter people all end up biting the dust at some point, otherwise, they'd be around to counter the story that has been cooked up, regarding the plane crash and survivors.
I also think Michael is going to die. He couldn't die after getting off The Island, but that's because The Island wouldn't let him die, because he still had to redeem himself for what he had done. Helping Ben sabotage the boat, and helping the Oceanic 6 get rescued will take care of that redemption, and he's toast.
What about Desmond? The jury's still out on Desmond, but the fact that he so solemnly vowed never to set foot on The Island again makes his outlook a bit more bleak, considering the amount of explosives on that boat. However, I'd say that the ensuing battle between Ben and Widmore probably means Des will be around awhile, otherwise, why should we care whether Ben is able to find and kill Penny, since we only know her through Desmond anyway? My question is, why hasn't Desmond had any more flashes of the future, like the way he did with Charlie? Can't he see any of this stuff coming? Might have been helpful, before Keamy planted all that C4.
See you in two weeks.
5.09.2008
Give Me Some Skin, Give Me Some Gin, I Want Some Wine, I LOST My Mind
(The Ramones, Lost My Mind)
You know that scene in the Matrix, where Larry Fishburne is trying to explain things to Keanu Reeves, and his brain sort of goes on overload, and he starts foaming at the mouth and passes out? That was me on the couch during last night's episode. I'm still a little shaken up, and I'm not sure if I'm really able to process what happened last night, but I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that last night was one of the best episodes in the show's run to date. My mind is officially blown.
1. So Locke's dad was a con artist, a killer, and evidently, a bit of a sexual deviant. How old was his mother, like 15 when he was born? (Roger Clemens: I see no problem with that. Karl Malone: Me either.)
2. When they showed Richard standing outside of the hospital room where little baby Locke was in the incubator, I lost it. I mean, I lost it. I was yelling ("Is that Richard? F*CK!!") and throwing my hands up, basically acting like a crazy person. And at that moment, 800 miles away in Houston, Texas, Mom looked at Andrea and said, "Ben is freaking out." True story. Exciting, I know.
3. That scene with Horace talking to Locke, where he was chopping down the same tree over and over again, that was also very Matrix-esque, the way they explained deja vu as a glitch in the system. Very creepy. And the nosebleed that kept appearing and disappearing, was kind of freaking me out as well.
3. That scene with Horace talking to Locke, where he was chopping down the same tree over and over again, that was also very Matrix-esque, the way they explained deja vu as a glitch in the system. Very creepy. And the nosebleed that kept appearing and disappearing, was kind of freaking me out as well.
3. That scene with Horace talking to Locke, where he was chopping down the same tree over and over again, that was also very Matrix-esque, the way they explained deja vu as a glitch in the system. Very creepy. And the nosebleed that kept appearing and disappearing, was kind of freaking me out as well.
4. Sorry, I couldn't resist that.
5. I loved Richard showing up at Locke's house when he was a kid, repping his "special school," like he's some sort of Charles Xavier, and I didn't catch the significance of all of the items he laid out on the table, but you just knew little Locke was going to grab that bottle of sand, right? I mean, that was Island Sand, for sure. Incidentally, when Amanda and I were in Hawaii a few years ago, I was going to put some beach sand in a little bottle like that to bring back, but Andrea told me it was a bad idea, because taking sand from the island was supposed to be bad luck. I guess Richard and Locke are under no such constraints. And why was Richard so upset when Locke held the knife? The sand and the rusty compass are ok, but the knife isn't? That was weird, considering the Locke we know now is all about the knife-play.
5a. My second "holy crap!" moment of the show was during this scene when Richard noticed the drawing that Locke had done. The f*cking smoke monster!!??!???!??!?! I don't even have anything else to say about that (other than the fact that it was a pretty crappy drawing to be hanging on the wall of a living room).
6. I loved that this was yet another episode that opened up (on Island time) with a closeup on an eye. That was how the show started, with a closeup of Jack's eye on the plane, right before the crash, last week's episode started with a closeup of Jack's eye as well, and there was also a prominent closeup of Desmond's eye in the first scene where he was reliving past experiences, when he was passed out on the floor of his and Penny's apartment with the red paint all over the floor. I'm sure there are others, but those are the only ones I can really remember. I love the continuity on this show.
7. I am willing to go along with the fact that the pilot, the drunk Mel Gibson type, may not be in favor of killing everyone on The Island, and might even be on their side (and how did he throw that backpack out of the helicopter without being noticed by Keamy?). But the captain of the ship, why is he helping Sayid, Desmond and Michael? He might not like Keamy, I don't like Keamy, but Keamy is a big dude with big guns (and some sort of explosive device strapped to his bicep?), and unless I had a dog in the fight, I'd probably be doing what Keamy wanted me to do. So maybe Captain Gault has a dog in the fight, is what I'm saying (or did, until he got capped).
8. The doctor floats ashore last week, with his throat slit, and Faraday uses the sat phone to morse code a question about it to the boat. Then this week, that morse code question hits the boat, and the doctor is still alive. And then he get his throat slit and thrown overboard!! This time shift between real time and Island Time is so weird, but here's my question: Earlier in the season, when Faraday did his little model rocket experiment, the rocket was sent from the boat and the person on the boat said that it landed. Then, like 30 minutes later, it landed on The Island. Why would that time shift reverse, then, with the doctor showing up dead on The Island before he was even killed on the boat?
9. I loved high school John Locke being rescued from the locker, then telling his guidance counselor, or whoever that was, where he could stick his stupid Mittelos science camp speech, squarely refuting the guy telling him that he was a man of science (Jack's the man of science, Locke is a man of faith). "Don't tell me what I can't do!" Awesome. He's been dealing with that his whole life.
10. Richard sure is determined to get Locke on The Island, though. He shows up three times before he's even out of high school, and can't seal the deal. Then after his accident, he sends Matthew Abbadon to his hospital as an orderly, to plant the idea of the walkabout! That was another big freakout moment for me, because as soon as Locke started talking to the orderly pushing his wheelchair, and they were making such a clear effort not to show his face while he was talking, I knew it was going to be him. So he put together the team of people in the helicopter, he visited Hurley in the asylum, and now he's basically responsible for getting Locke to Australia in the first place. I wonder who else he influenced in getting them to Australia, or on Flight 815.
(It just hit me that this is the first real flashback episode we've gotten since before the season finale last year! I read that the producers were saying that they were only going to use flashbacks from here on out if it was important to the story of The Island. I'd say this one was.)
11. One of my other favorite parts of the episode was the heartwarming "Lifesaver, son?" moment when Hurley shared his Snickers bar with Ben, while they were sitting there waiting for Locke. That was hilarious. And you know that took some serious thought on Hurley's part.
12. So, Christian Shephard was just chilling in Jacob's bungalow, having a spot of tea with his daughter, Claire, in the dark? Why does Christian Shephard fit into this part of the story!! Why can he speak on Jacob's behalf, why does he have a connection to The Island, why is Claire sitting in there like she knows exactly what's going on, why wasn't Jacob there, where was Jacob, where is Richard and the rest of the Others, why is Aaron "where he needs to be" and why is that not with Claire, ... (/gasping for air) ...
And how in the hell are they supposed to move The Island?
I'm feeling a little sick.
PS - Just to make my self sicker, I just looked up Richard Alpert on wikipedia, and he was a Harvard professor who was associated with Timothy Leary, and were both dismissed for their experiments with psychedelic drugs. He then travelled to India where he was guided barefoot from temple to temple (currently, on The Island, Richard was last seen receiving instructions from Ben to take the rest of the Others to "the temple" and wait for him there) before meeting his guru, who gave him the name Ram Dass. He then returned to the United States teaching harmony among all people and religions. That's probably all mostly irrelevant to the show, but it never hurts to learn something new.
5.05.2008
You Think You're a Radical, But You're Not So Radical, In Fact You're Fanatical, Fanatical!
(Flaming Lips, Free Radicals)
And now for more LOST ramblings.
I'm going public with my new radical theory that I developed (and then immediately discredited) this morning. I watched last week's episode again on Sunday, b/c Eric and Shari hadn't seen it yet, and they came over to watch. I know I said it wasn't that good of an episode, but after re-watching it, I definitely enjoyed it more, and started thinking a little more about it. Here's the new radical theory (discrediting to follow):
Jack is dead (or in a coma) and the flash-forwards are his "life" flashing before his eyes (or his coma-induced dreams).
Jack either did not survive his appendectomy procedure, or slipped into a coma during it, as it wasn't exactly done under the most stable or sterile conditions. First of all, like Rose said, people don't get sick on The Island, they get better. So, if Jack's sick, there's a reason, and it's probably pretty bad.
The flash-forwards are a product of Jack's subconscious, either how he thinks things will play out, or, more likely, how he wants things to play out. Think about this. The people who get off The Island are all people Jack likes. Kate, he's in love with. Hurley, he has always liked. Sayid has always been loyal to Jack in times of trouble (when they had Ben as their prisoner, and when Jack and Locke split off into separate camps at the beginning of this season), and Sun he wants to get off The Island so she doesn't die during childbirth.
Conversely, look at the people, by and large, who do NOT get off The Island. Juliet, who is Kate's rival for Jack's affection. Sawyer, who is Jack's rival for Kate's affection. Locke, who Jack clearly hates and even tried to kill earlier this season.
So, Jack's subconscious creates this future where the people he cares for get rescued and the people he doesn't care for do not get rescued for one reason or another. He said in the last episode that Sawyer made a choice to stay on The Island? That's very convenient, and probably would make Jack very happy, but Jack, due to his surgery, didn't yet know that Sawyer has realized that Locke is completely insane, and is helping Claire make their way back to the beach to be with the rest of the group. To me, that doesn't sound like someone who wants to stay, it sounds like someone who wants to be rescued when the time comes.
Now, because it's his own subconscious, all of his demons are still there in the future. He still sees visions of his father, and he still develops the pills/drinking problem (which he inherited from daddy as well). His subconscious also invents a reason for him not to trust "future Kate" (she's helping Sawyer!!) and be too controlling (which was the same problem he had with his first wife before the plane crash). His guilt over Charlie's death explains why his subconscious led "future Hurley" back to the nuthouse with visions of Charlie telling of bad things to come. His subconscious is also so untrusting of Ben that "future Sayid" is now working for Ben as an assassin, putting his torture/weaponry skills to work.
Now for the discrediting:
"Future Jack" made a point of telling "future Kate" that she's not even related to Aaron, implying that he knows he is related to Aaron. That realization has not yet happened in Island time, unless it has happened and we don't know about it yet, and it might be revealed to us in an on-island flashback. If that is the case (which it probably isn't), then add Aaron to the list of people Jack cares about, since he's his nephew. Or maybe even wants a little kid to be taken to safety - could you blame him for that?
I know that the producers have said that the explanation of the Island is not going to involve being in someone's dreams or in someone's head. BUT, this theory isn't an explanation of The Island, it's an explanation of the future events we've seen. Still possible that it could happen.
5.02.2008
LOST In Love and I Don't Know Much, Was I Thinking Aloud? I Fell Out of Touch.
(Air Supply, Lost In Love)
Happy?
I was nowhere near as captivated by this episode as I was by last week's, when Ben "don't call me Henry" Linus went all Jason Bourne on those dudes in the desert. We did get some minor answers, but I think I like it better when they introduce more mystery, and there wasn't that much mystery introduced last night. Although, to be fair, I was still in a bit of a food coma from the steaks and grilled veggies Amanda and I had for dinner.
1. Jack proposing to Kate might have been the single most boring moment of this entire series that didn't involve Nikki and/or Paulo. I don't need non-stop action all the time, but if I wanted to watch a chick flick, I'd pop in my You've Got Mail dvd. (Disclosure: I don't own You've Got Mail on dvd. I own it on vhs. But I don't have a VCR. Life's funny like that sometimes.)
2. I certainly did not mind Kate's casual wear. That is one smokin' hot someone-else's-baby-raising woman.
3. Speaking of raising someone else's baby, in the beginning, before we saw Kate in the shower, Amanda nailed that Jack was at Kate's house, but how awesome was it that Jack stepped on one of Aaron's toys and it just happened to be the Millenium Falcon?? For those of you who are inexplicably not Star Wars fans, what I'm referring to is that Luke Skywalker was raised by his Uncle Owen after his father was "killed in battle". Raised by his uncle? Sound like someone else who got off the island and calls Kate "mommy?"
3a. At some point, my guess is before they leave the island, Jack finds out that Claire is his father's daughter. (Christian Shephard sure has spread his seed, hasn't he?) That's why Jack didn't want to be with Kate (and see Aaron) after the trial, which Kate conveniently alluded to last night with her "I'm so glad you changed your mind" comment. Snoozeville. Now go get me a beer so I can wash down these painkillers.
4. I almost crapped my pants when drunk Mel Gibson ran out of the jungle with the first aid kit. I like that guy, though, and the tension between the helicopter people and the rest of the boat people is good drama. Sawyer should have taken out that Keamy guy while he was hiding in the bushes.
5. The scene when Jack went to visit Hurley would have been the creepiest scene in the show, if it wasn't for the creepiness of Claire waking up and seeing Christian Shephard cuddling with Aaron in the jungle. Seriously, that gave me the willies. He looked like he was some sort of zombie or something, like he was about to eat the baby. I couldn't tell if he was holding the baby because he knew it was his grandson, or because he was hallucinating and thought it was a candied ham.
5a. And how about that scene with Hurley? "You're not supposed to raise him?" We're to assume that he's referring to Aaron. Either way, Hurley's not doing very well.
6. I love that Sawyer sleeps with a gun in his hand. And Sawyer chose to stay on the island! So, we know that it wasn't necessarily a case of the Oceanic 6 saving their own asses at everyone else's expense. What was it that Kate was doing for him, though? (I was hoping she'd say she was doing something for Ben. That would have been jarring, to say the least.) If he chose to stay on the island, what could he need her to do back in the real world? Maybe something regarding his daughter? I never really thought there was a daughter, I totally thought he was getting conned by that chick and the warden, in that episode where he was in prison last season, but maybe there really is a daughter.
7. Miles has turned out to be a pretty cool character - his "I see dead people" thing is not bad at all. I thought it was awesome how he heard Rousseau and Carl when they came upon that clearing in the jungle. He's slowly taking over from Daniel "this tie must be double-knotted, otherwise I'd have taken it off by now" Faraday as my favorite of the four helicopter people. Bringing up the rear, again, is Charlotte Staples Lewis, despite the fact that she speaks Korean and evidently has no control over her facial expressions. Seriously, what was she doing with her face when Jin walked away after their little discussion? I've never seen anyone make that expression before. If anybody has this episode on their DVR, go back and watch this part, and tell me if you can figure out what this is supposed to be.
8. Who is this Bernard dude? He's a dentist, right? I get that he would be helpful in a surgical procedure, but last week he's deciphering morse code, and last season he's a sharpshooter in the beach attack?? A dentist? Got to be some more to that.
Next week should be good stuff. Btw, check out that picture of the Lost character toys at the top. Hurley's accessory is a scale. Hilarious.
4.25.2008
See, I LOST My Money and I LOST My Wife, Them Things Don't Seem to Matter Much to Me Now
(Bruce Springsteen, Darkness on the Edge of Town)
Wow, so, it feels good to have Lost back in my life, if only for a few more weeks. This season has been so good that I don't want it to end, and January 2009 seems so far away. Last night's episode was awesome, I thought. A few questions answered, a few new ones to ask. Par for the course, I guess.
1. Everybody saw the code on the invisible sonic fence, right? 1623. THE NUMBERS!! I love the numbers, and while I've sort of resigned myself to the fact that they probably don't have some sort of overarching importance to unlocking any of the show's secrets, I still get all giddy when they show up.
2. The look on Locke's face when the phone rang was priceless. He was like the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. "Your ringing voice-transmittal machines scare and confuse me!"
3. The jury's still out on Ben, though I guess it's entirely possible that he's a good guy who is also an enormous douchebag. Sort of like Bill Clinton. I mean, really? Using the "she's not really my daughter, so go ahead and shoot her" angle? The scene when he went to "say goodbye" to her before leaving the barracks was a little forced, but the closeup on Ben's face right after Meaney shot Alex showed, I thought, really excellent acting. The guy's facial expressions are money. (Say what you will about Godfather Part III, but this is how you grieve a daughter who's just been shot in front of you. This gets me every time. The silent weeping of Pacino, man, that's just powerful.)
4. Aside from the Nikki/Paulo debacle of season three, has there been a semi-regular character on this show who contributes less than Charlotte Staples Lewis? All she does is stand around looking surprised and pissed, like somebody crapped in her shoes but she didn't realize it until after she put them on. The other helicopter people are working overtime, man, earning their money. The pilot (the Nick Nolte lookalike), he's a likeable guy who hung out on the boat with Sayid and Desmond until being sent on a run to Costco for more lima beans, Miles has already been imprisoned and released by now, and Daniel Faraday actually seems to be one of the more important characters in the overall explanation of the time/space thing. But Charlotte, man. Do something, already!
5. Ben's flashforward was pretty solid, and opens up a whole new can of worms. October 25, 2005, he checks into a hotel in Tikrit under the name Dean Moriarty, which was the name on the passport that Locke (or Sayid?) found in Ben's little hidden closet earlier in the season, and also happens to be the name of the character in Jack Kerouac's "On The Road." Interesting book. Lots of heroin. Ah, the 60s. Good times. I like how Ben basically manipulated Sayid into practically begging him to give him more people to kill. You can take the torturer out of the Republican Guard, I guess, but you can't take the Republican Guard out of the torturer. That sly smile as Ben was leaving that alley was great. (see: facial expressions, Bens = awesome)
5a. I loved how, when he was in the Sahara and was found by the two dudes patrolling what looks like the worst patrol beat possible, he dispatched of them rather handily with that asp baton. I played with one of those things before, a number of years ago. I was told that they were illegal for personal ownership, but whatever, a friend of mine who will remain nameless (but has lots of weapons, and may or may not be very tall) had one, and I was messing around with it. Trust me when I say that you do NOT want to hit yourself in the head with one of those things. Not even lightly. Please.
5b1. So Ben goes to visit Widmore (the artist formerly known as Caleb Nichol) in the middle of the night, not to kill him, but just to talk a little smack about how he's going to kill Penny (which, btw, I called as soon as they showed "London, England" on the screen at the beginning of the scene), oh, and by the way, Charles, you really shouldn't drink so much scotch. I wonder if he ever considered the fact that these nightmares of his might be scotch-induced? I bet he tried Ambien already but didn't enjoy the side effects. Anyway, here's point number one: He asks "Are you here to kill me?" to which Ben replies, "We both know I can't do that." Why can't Ben kill him? And if we are to believe that Ben really can't kill him (which would also likely mean that Ben also can't arrange for his death or have anyone kill him), then Charles Widmore cannot be the boss of the woman that shot Sayid in the "The Economist" episode earlier in the season, because Sayid was clearly under Ben's orders to kill that man, whenever he finally showed up. So who was that man Sayid was supposed to kill?
5b2. Ben's going to kill Penny, because Widmore "changed the rules" and his men killed Alex. I wonder how Desmond is going to feel about that. And since Sayid is now Ben's angel of death, is he going to send Sayid after Penny? And if he does, will Sayid really kill Penny, especially since he knows who she is after spending time with Desmond on the boat?? And is Desmond going to be there to try to protect her?
I'd have more to say about the smoke monster, Sawyer's new paternalistic sensibilities, or Bernard's convenient Morse Code knowledge, but I need to get some work done.
Update (10:55 am): OH. MY. GOD. I think I just realized why Ben can't kill Charles Widmore. It has been brought to my attention that Ben's flashforward might not have been a flashforward, that it might have been him travelling through time (based on his sickness after waking up in the desert, and asking what year it was at the hotel). If that is the case, he needs a constant, someone who he has a strong emotional connection to. His daughter, Alex, whom he clearly loved (almost enough to save from execution), is dead, so she can't be it. Ben's constant has to be Widmore! He doesn't have to love him, it just has to be a strong connection, and I'd say hate is a pretty strong emotion to attach to someone. And if Ben's constant is Widmore, he can't kill him!! Otherwise, Ben wouldn't be able to time-jump and do his nefarious deeds!!
3.20.2008
Well I'm a Little Down Under But I'm Feeling OK, I Got a Little LOST Along the Way
(Bruce Springsteen, Light of Day)
So many great aspects about this episode. So many that I probably didn't notice them all, especially considering the fact that it's NCAA Tournament time, and I've been worked up into a frenzy all day. Earlier this afternoon, during the Purdue/Baylor game, I was so worked up about it that with about 10 minutes left in the game, every time the score changed, I was running it through Bill James' lead safety calculator (which is AWESOME, by the way, despite the fact that I have no idea why it is even right in the first place), just to see how it changed. I picked Baylor. Baylor lost. I was less than thrilled.
On to more pressing matters.
1. So, one of my big theories, and probably most people's theories, was shot right to hell this week, and I mean faster than Elliot Spitzer's fall from grace. During Michael's flashback, his mother tells him she thought he was dead for two months before he came back. Two months?!?! That's all?!?! I was really hoping that the time elapsing OFF the island was different from the time elapsing ON the island, but that makes me think I'm out of luck. Does anybody else have a different take on that? Any chance it was just a screwup, an oversight by the dialogue writers?? Probably not, I guess, but man. If not, and if the time is the same on the island as off the island, what an unceremonious way to let us know about it. Very disappointing.
(Actually, I just had another thought about this, because it's been bugging me. What if, by following bearing 325 exactly, Michael and Walt were able to pass through the only "portal" that keeps the passage of time between the island and the real world the same. What if the plane crash, the helicopter ride, the rocket experiment by Faraday a few weeks ago, what if all of those things did NOT pass through bearing 325, so their time is still screwed up. What if the Oceanic 6 who get off the island might not pass through it either? Is this making any sense? Basically, it could be that bearing 325 is the only way to get on and off the island without having a time jump. I'm holding onto that, because I really want this time differential thing to play a part in the story. -Updated 3/21/08, 10:55am)
2. I was excited for the return of Michael, but I was ecstatic about the return of Mr. Friendly, at least for this episode. He was a great character, and I was sad to see him get killed off after the failed ambush at the end of last season. Also, I loved the fact that he was gaying it up in his suite at the Hotel Earl. Remember when Kate didn't want to change clothes in front of him back in season 3, and he was like, "Kate, you're not exactly my type." When Michael showed up, I made a joke about having room service deliver some chocolate covered strawberries, but he already had some dude in there with him! Hilarious. (According to his wikipedia page, he only learned his character's beard was fake toward the end of season two, and he's the only Other to appear in all four seasons. Interesting.)
3. You do not want to piss off Sayid Jarrah.
4. Michael seems to be living a Groundhog Day-esque life, now that he's off the island. Nothing he does will kill him. All he needs is for Punxatawney Phil to come out and see his shadow, then things will be back to normal, right? Speaking of Punxatawney Phil, I've got to give my favorite line from Groundhog Day (and one of my favorite Bill Murray lines of all time, delivered with his perfect brand of sarcasm and smugness) right here: This is one time where television really fails to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather. I don't know why, but this completely cracks me up.
5. Captain Gault beats his men to save their lives. I'm no lawyer, but that seems like a violation of their rights. Personally, I think he was just upset that Purdue beat Baylor. And speaking of the Captain, he didnt' seem too surprised when Sayid tattle-taled on Michael, did he? Of course, this being the last new episode for a month, it's gonna be awhile before we find out.
6. Who shot Carl and Rousseau? Was it a setup? Was it Maggie Simpson? Did Ben lead them right there so he could eliminate any other emotional connection Alex had besides his own? And is Alex even safe? Or is she walking right into harm's way by identifying herself as Ben's daughter?? I guess we'll find out in a month.
7. Ben is the bad guy. Widmore is the bad guy. Ben is the bad guy! Widmore is the bad guy! Ben is the bad guy! Widmore is the bad guy! Ben is the bad guy! Widmore is the bad guy! It's rabbit season! It's duck season! Rabbit season! Duck Season! Rabbit season! Rabbit Season! Duck season! Rabbit season! I say it's duck season, and I say fire! What are they doing to us?? I feel like Elmer Fudd, and I'm pretty sure that's not a good thing.
3.14.2008
Hello, I'm Sorry I LOST Myself (I Think I Thought You Were Someone Else)
(R.E.M., Pop Song 89)
Well, well, well. Looky what we have here. Michael on the boat? Check (#4). Sun off the island without Jin? Check (#7). I even called the flash-forward for Sun and flash-back for Jin last night about five minutes into the episode, the first time Jin was in the store buying the ginormous panda (why did he pay so much for that thing when all he had to do was knock down three bowling pins with a softball?), but only Amanda and Hannah can attest to that, so on their behalf, I'm going to have to say, Check. In the immortal words of Chucky, Ben Affleck's character from Good Will Hunting,
"Just cause I go to Haavaad doesn't make me a genius, although I am very smaaat."
I thought last night's episode was really good, and really sad. I don't like knowing that Jin dies sometime in the future. Looks like all those English lessons are going to end up to be an enormous waste of time. Too soon?
1. Did anybody notice the tv show that Sun was watching in the very beginning of the episode? I'm pretty sure it was that old soap opera that Nikki was on, during her flashback episode last season.
2. Jin's tombstone said 2004. This means he dies very soon. Possibly next week, which I'm not thrilled about. Bear with me. Two weeks ago, Desmond called Penny from the boat. It was Christmas Eve, 2004. The calendar on the boat was also on December 2004. I still don't think that's the real date on the island, but they may never find out (which means we may never find out) what the real date on the island is. (Maybe it's years in the past, and Ben made $3.2 million betting on the Sox to win the 2004 World Series in Vegas.) Either way, Jin dies in 2004. I didn't think about it at the time, but Hannah noticed the date last night and said it out loud. This is the last time I mention Hannah in this post.
3. Hurley in Korea? So, if Sun was two months pregnant last night and has to get off the island in three weeks before the "complications" start, then it would stand to reason that last night's flash-forward happened about 6-7 months after they get off the island (and time starts moving at a normal pace again). Now, does Hurley go crazy after this, or has he already gone on his camaro joyride, avoiding the ghost of Charlie like the plague? I would imagine that his trip to Korea was after his freakout, because he was relieved that nobody else was going to be there in Korea, but I'm not really sure about this.
4. When that note was pushed through the slats of the door to Sayid and Desmond's holding cell, I was hoping it would say something like, "Sayid, are you still mad at me? Check yes or no. Michael." Glad he's back, but everybody on that boat is some kind of creepy, possibly brought on by eating so many lima beans. I never liked them either.
5. Captain Ahab, or whatever his name is, telling them about Charles Widmore? I was expecting more of an outburst from Desmond on that one. Seriously, if I were stranded on an island for 3 years, narrowly escaping death on multiple occasions, suffering nosebleeds due to my occasional time travel, and looking like the lost member of the Bee Gees (though in my case, I'd probably look like the lost member of the rabbis who wrote the mishnah), and somebody made me eat lima beans for two days, then told me Charlie Abrams had something to do with the whole thing, let's just say that I'd be doing a little of the old freaking out. In fact, I'm a little pissed at him just thinking about it.
6. And, in closing, let me express my extreme disappointment in the writers and producers of this great show. Juliet, in her haste to be a good doctor, taking care of her patient at all costs, totally goes rogue and shatters the doctor/patient confidentiality to pieces by telling Jin about Sun's affair with the guy who looked like E.T. And they're on an island, where it rains all the time, so there's got to be plenty of mud around. See where I'm going with this? And all we get is a slap on the face? Come ON, Sun! Take her down! Show her what you're made of, your daddy's a MOB BOSS, for crying out loud! I can't even count the number of times we've seen two girls in a knock down, drag-out fight on this show. Last week, Juliet and Charlotte Staples Lewis were smacking each other with fire hydrants in the Tempest Station. Even Kate and Juliet were at each others throats in the rain last season while handcuffed together!! We couldn't even get past a slap on the face for this one??
7. Yikes, I almost forgot! The discussion about the wreckage being staged! Holy cow. I didn't think about the fact that 324 dead bodies would be needed for that. Amazing. But we've seen that before, in Daniel Faraday's flashback/flashforward, which until last night we didn't know was actually a flashback. It could have been either, but now we know. And he was crying and didn't know why, but now, with what we know about his possible time-jumps, maybe he was going a little crazy, a-la Minkowski, back in his recliner, covered with the blanket, in that flashback. And since he hadn't been to the island yet at that point (though he would go there in the future), he hadn't yet met Desmond, who would be his constant. Maybe that's why he was all upset and couldn't figure out why?
8. Man, I keep forgetting things I wanted to say and updating it after I publish. Sorry, if anybody read this and didn't get these last 2 (or 3?) items. I loved Bernard and Jin's little fishing trip. It was like Tim "the Tool Man" Taylor having family problems on Home Improvement, then talking to Wilson about it. Bernard's Wilson, in this analogy, in case anyone didn't pick up on that. Anyway, it was a very heartfelt scene, and I am doing my best to ruin the sentiment with my snarky comments. It's what I do.
9. What kind of "errand" is Lapidis running with the helicopter? Possibly on his way to Costco for another 1,000 cans of lima beans.
(PS - Thanks to Seth for the picture of Jin's tombstone.)
3.07.2008
Phone My Family, Tell Them I'm LOST on the Sidewalk
(Wilco, Kamera)
Well, I didn't think I had too much to say about last night's Juliet episode, but I guess I do.
1. Ben sure is a creep, huh? "You're mine!" They should have taken that even further, like when Juliet came over for the dinner party, instead of opera, he should have been playing Michael Jackson & Paul McCartney's "The Girl Is Mine" on repeat on the stereo. And what about him sending Goodwin off to probable death, just to get him out of the picture! Very King David of him.
2. Where did Ben get that footage of Mr. Widmore (aka Caleb Nichol) beating the crap out of some dude in an airplane hangar? It would have been awesome of they had used old footage of him from The OC for that scene. I probably would have crapped my pants. I considered it just thinking about it.
3. Speaking of crapped pants, I mean, speaking of Ben having the videotape of Mr. Widmore, it was on the tape marked "Red Sox." Are we to assume that footage of Mr. Widmore was taken AFTER Ben showed Jack the footage of the Red Sox winning the 2004 World Series (after stunning the Yankees to come back from 3 games down, no less!)? If so, that means it's fresh footage, and would have been obtained sometime after that, but before Ben became Locke's prisoner again, which seems to be roughly a three-week window, notwithstanding any time-shift issues. Of course, it could be that Ben is just a huge Red Sox fan and has an overabundance of "Red Sox" labelled videotape, or that he labels all of his videotapes that way, in case anybody finds his porn collection. Anything's possible.
4. Harper, the therapist. Goodwin's wife. Did they get married because neither of them had a proper first name? They were probably making a list of possible baby names including Miller, Jones, Smith, McKenzie (in case they had a girl), and the like. And what happened (other than Juliet sleeping with her husband repeatedly, leading ultimately to his death) to turn Harper from a normal looking and sounding person in the therapy sessions to some sort of terminator-type robotic-voiced woman standing in the rain talking to Juliet in the beginning of the episode? Speaking of, how did she disappear so quickly? Are the Others all ninjas?
5. I say again, Michael is Ben's man on the boat. Bank on it. I was hoping we'd get that news last night, but I can wait another week.
6. Not sure what to think about Faraday and Charlotte Staples Lewis disarming the nuclear gas leak, or whatever that thing was, in the Tempest station. It seems like there's no other explanation for what they were doing, since once they were done, things stabilized and the warning sirens stopped going off. But here's the thing. They claim that the gas is Ben's personal stash of WMD's, basically, and it clearly looked like some bad mojo was about to happen until they stopped it. But if that was the case, who set it off in the first place? Ben, or someone who works for him? And if THAT is the case, then why did Harper warn Juliet about where they were going, since Harper is still clearly on Ben's side? Is it possible they really were trying to set it off and kill everyone on the island, and they had to stop at the last minute because Juliet showed up and went Superfly on both of them, ripping off their gasmasks so they'd be exposed as well? It seems like they'd probably still have gone through with it, if that was their intention, so I'm sort of confused on this part.
7. The preview for next week says we will meet "the LAST member of the Oceanic 6." That means that we've either got the first 5 already, or they're going to give us both 5 and 6 next week. I think, based on that, we've got the first 5, then, otherwise, they would have said something like "the last 2 members of the Oceanic 6." I could be wrong, it's just what I think. If that is the case, and we know Jack, Kate, Hurley and Sayid are in, that leaves only Ben and Aaron as possibilities, since those are the only other people we've seen off the island in the future (aside from Charlie's ghost). I don't like either of them as part of the group, because neither of them were on the plane, but if that's what we've got, then I think it's got to be Aaron. Either way, as far as what we're getting next week, my money's on Sun. Without Jin.
Feel free to leave comments below, let me know if you think I'm insane, or just disturbingly obsessed.
2.29.2008
I'll Be Counting Up My Demons, Hoping That Everything's Not LOST
(Coldplay, Everything's Not Lost)
Wow. What a great episode. The Desmond episodes always seem to give us a bit of foundation for what is going on, don’t they? Those time jumps were awesome, but I kept expecting him to end up on stage with the rest of the BeeGees, having forgotten the words to "More Than a Woman."
1. Desmond called Penny on Christmas Eve 2004. That was the date when she answered the phone, and that was the date on the calendar on the freighter. I don’t necessarily think that was the date on the island. I think that calendar was there so they would be able to know what date it was back home, while they were out on their mission.
2. I love the return of the numbers!! 8 (years in the past for Desmond’s time jumps), 423 (Penny’s address), and 2.342 (what Faraday was supposed to set his machine to). Awesome!
3. If anything goes wrong – Desmond Hume is my constant! Now we know a bit about why Faraday didn’t know why he was crying when watching footage of the wreckage being found underwater. He wasn’t covering his head when doing these experiments, and was clearly exposed to mass amounts of radiation, which will cause him to have the time jumps as well (thus the need for a constant). It’s possible that scene where he was crying a few weeks ago wasn’t a flashback or a flashforward, but a time jump just like we saw Desmond have last night.
4. I am now more certain than ever that Ben’s man on the boat is Michael. I thought that the second Ben said it in the second episode of the season, but then later I thought maybe it might be Sayid, once they got to the freighter, like, they’d somehow worked out a plan. But now, after the door was opened last night while they were all locked in the room, I guarantee you that Michael is the man on the boat. (Amanda thinks that Michael and Walt are the other 2 members of the Oceanic 6, but I disagree. She does have another theory that I think is pure genius though. Maybe I’ll give her a guest blogger spot so she can put it out there for all 4 of you who read this blog.) Think about how long ago he and Walt left the island on that boat. Not very long. Even disregarding for a second that time on the island is different than time in the real world, they probably left the island no more than a month ago. Enough time for Michael to make it to wherever Ben sent him, and be convinced (or forced?) to somehow get a coveted deck hand position on the S.S. Where the F*#% Are We.
5. Mr. Widmore, a/k/a, Caleb Nichol. That dude only plays creepy rich guys who don’t get along with their daughter’s boyfriend/husband, and who may or may not be the embodiment of pure evil. He’s eyebrows-deep in all this Dharma Initiative, Hanso Foundation, stuff (that painting in his office with “NAMASTE” backwards on it?), and he now has the journal written by the original captain of the Black Rock, who either started the Hanso Foundation, or one of his kids or grandkids started it? I can’t decide if it’s just too cliché for him to be the big bad mastermind behind the whole thing, or if they’re going to just make him a pawn in someone else’s big game? Is he “The Economist?”
6. Minkowski was a great addition to the story, even just for an episode. I couldn’t figure out where I knew him from, so I looked him up on IMDB, and I was kicking myself! Awesome.
It's nice to finally watch an episode and be able to (waste hours) think about it without worrying I'll forget something about Torts or Contracts.
2.22.2008
I'm All Lost in the Supermarket (I Can No Longer Shop Happily)
(The Clash, Lost in the Supermarket)
I don't have much of an in-depth analysis about last night's episode of Lost, but I do have a few thoughts, so I'm just gonna do a quick 5-Points, and then go study:
1. I know the big twist at the end was that Kate is raising Aaron as her own, but I suspected that could happen as early as the season premiere 3 weeks ago, and around midway through the episode, when they were making a big deal about Kate having a son and not wanting him to be put on display and dragged into the trial, but not showing him or referring to him by name, I was sure of it. It's still a HUGE piece of evidence, though, as to what must have happened on the island before they got rescued, because Claire would absolutely never allow Aaron to be taken off and not go with him. Which leads me to...
2. So, clean-shaven future Jack testifies at Kate's trial, and clearly perjures himself by telling the little lie about nurse Kate fixing everyone's boo-boos after the crash. But we now know part of the story that Jack didn't want Hurley talking about 3 weeks ago. According to his testimony, there were only 8 survivors of the crash, and 2 of them died on the island. Well, well. That is quite a story, and despite the fact that it is a lie, it could be a sly hint as to what is yet to come. Namely, if Aaron is off the island with Kate, and she clearly was not pregnant when the plane crashed, there's no way (barring a severe time discrepancy, which is also still a possibility) the baby is biologically hers, so part of their story has to involve Aaron's mother being one of the survivors who doesn't make it. Claire dies, there's my point. Claire dies. Just a prediction.
3. The scene where Charlotte Staples Lewis is helping Daniel "Why Am I Still Wearing a Tie After Being on this Island for At Least 2-3 Days" Faraday with his memory exercises cracked me up. I'm sure it's going to have more significance (as in, maybe that's why he didn't know why he was crying in the flash-forward showing him watching television footage of the "wreckage" underwater), but to me, last night, it just looked like she was teaching him how to play 3-Card Monty.
4. When Locke brought Ben breakfast and a book to read (how sweet), Ben told him that he'd already read it. Locke's response was something to the effect of, "Read it again, you never know what you might have missed the first time." That means, I'm going to go back and watch this episode again, to see what I might have missed. BTW, Locke sure went off the reservation, huh? Stuffing that grenade in Miles' mouth was pretty harsh, notwithstanding the fact that it was probably a dud, intentionally. Speaking of Miles...
5. 3.2 million dollars? Seems like quite a specific number, if you ask me. Possibly the amount that each of the "Oceanic 6" receive in their settlements? Either that, or it's some sort of code, and Miles is actually Ben's spy on their boat (not Michael, as I originally thought).
6. I know, I said 5. Sue me. But don't really. Anyway, I also wanted to say that I don't think Aaron will count as one of the "Oceanic 6", because he wasn't actually a passenger on the flight. So I still think we only know 4 of the 6 (Jack, Kate, Hurley and Sayid). I also thought that Ben didn't count as one of them, and maybe he still doesn't, but at this point, I think it could be possible that he ends up giving Jack some sort of advantage over Locke in exchange for being taken off the island himself, since he no longer has the power he once did there. Maybe that's part of their secret as well, in that he would have to assume the identity of someone who was on the flight but died, either in the crash or afterwards. Then again, this could be a pretty ridiculous line of discussion, so I'm gonna drop it now, but reserve the right to analyze further at a later date.