LOST Mindgrapes

Lost Finale: The Flash-Sideways Sound

2010-05-28T07:57:00.001-07:00

I just realized something kind of cool. All this season, while fans have been trying to figure out what the flash-sideways were (no one guessed a magical waiting room), there was some debate over why the flash-back noise changed.

For the first five seasons, whenever there was a flashback, the sound was a whooshing sound that we've all become pretty familiar with. But starting with Season 6, whenever they went to a Flash-Sideways, the whoosh was replaced with the sound of a plane flying by. I always just assumed this was because blowing up the Jughead bomb worked, and the Losties were whoosing back onto Flight 815. Or that it was supposed to represent this alternate reality where the plane landed safely in LAX.

Butnow, watching the last scene of the finale and knowing what the flash-sideways really are, I noticed something. The sound of the plane they've been using to jump to the flash-sideways on the show is ALSO the exact same sound effect used when the plane flies over Jack's head at the end of the finale when he dies. He lies down, wondering if he saved anyone, and then sees his friends flying off the island and hears the whoosh of the plane as he passes into the afterlife. Pretty cool.

So as soon as Jack died, he went to the flash-sideways world that began as we saw it begin in Season 6's opening episode. One other cool thing about that: Season 6 actually opened with a shot of clouds, before pulling back through the window of the plane into Jack's seat. Was this a nod to Jack's soul ascending into the afterlife? A nice touch, methinks.

Lost Finale Further Thoughts: Why I'm growing to love the ending.

2010-05-24T09:28:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, been thinking a lot about that ending.

Hands down, it was an unsatisfying ending to the flash-sideways storyline OF THIS EPISODE. They'd been building up to an unbelievably awesome climax, and then suddenly seemed to throw it all away. It felt weird. But I'm starting to come around that it was the right way to end the series as a whole. Everyone awakening to a perfect new world time line which they got to keep living in would have been an awesomely satisfying ending in a Shawshank Redemption kind of way. But would it have been real? It would have negated the time line that we originally knew and it would have ultimately cheated the Losties out of the realest parts of life: That there are consequences for your actions, you have to own them – and every choice you make matters. What the flash-sideways showed us is that everyone we love eventually made peace and were able to go to Heaven. But their choices on earth during their life on the island and in their past were not without weight or import. This is the right way to go. The fairy tale perfect ending that they teased us with throughout the episode would have felt right, but in retrospect have just been wrong. So, it was the right way to end, but in the context of the episode it felt like someone pulled the rug out from under our feet emotionally.

That said, upon reflection, I think the SATISFYING ending is actually in the REAL time line. Let's think about it. Jack made the ultimate sacrifice to save the world from evil being released, and died content knowing that his friends got off the island. (In my interpretation, which is the right one.) Frank, Miles, Richard, Sawyer, Kate and Claire flew home, and lived out the rest of their lives somewhere off screen. Claire probably reunited with Aaron in the real world, and worked hard to heal her relationship, and mentally recover from years of axing dudes in the chest. Frank saved them all, and made up for the time he overslept and sent another pilot to his death in the original crash. Miles was able to cash in Nikki and Paulo's diamonds and buy as many fish tacos as he wanted. Richard got to live out the rest of his life, having made peace with his past. I'm assuming he got to die a noble death, complete with gray hairs. Kate and Sawyer probably ended up together, but apparently made the switch back to their true loves in the afterlife. And best of all, Hurley and Ben protected the island together for an untold amount of time. Given that they can both have immortality, I'm assuming they lived there for a long, long time and met many new people and fought new and interesting battles together keeping some new form of an old evil at bay. Imagine the cool fan fiction and graphic novel ties-ins possible there. Pretty sweet. Even Rose and Bernard got to stick around and die of old age. It's a pretty awesome wrap-up, with not as nearly as many deaths as you would expect. I'm guessing even Michael and the other whispers were released when the Man in Black was killed, or when the cork was pulled.

On top of that, we got to see all the characters reunite right as they go into Heaven. Like I said, it felt like a let down in the context of the dramatic arc of the episode, but when you think about it, that's a pretty great ending.

It even makes me want to go back and watch all the flash-sideways again. Christian said that our Losties "created this place". Since they all teamed up to help blow up the hatch and reboot time, I think it makes sense that they would be convinced in the after life holding room that they had succeeded. Knowing that they "created this place," you can really start analyzing the entire season's worth of flash-sideways in a new way. Was David actually young Jack himself, dealing with his own father issues? Locke did say, "He looks just like you." Was Aaron actually there, or just in Claire's mind to help her deal with what happened? Was Keamy actually there, or just an apparition to help Sawyer work through who he really is? And Sawyer apparently still had issues to work out with the death of his parents, but because of his time on the island in the 70s as head of Dharma, he now viewed himself differently – a hero instead of a villain. Locke's purgatory is also very interesting. The fact that he had created a world where he was punished for killing his father in a plane crash was very interesting. Because 815 did crash in a place where he would eventually arrange the murder of his father. It was like he was trying to forgive himself for that. And Anthony Cooper's state in this inbetween place, to me, suggests that his actual soul is somewhere else, somewhere much hotter.

There's so much to analyze, and really, it's great that all our beloved characters not only got a chance to live a full life on earth after the island, but we also got to see that they eventually all found redemption – and they were so connected in life that they ascended to the "other side" together. Pretty cool.

Or, you can be a cynic and think that the ENTIRE thing was in Jack's head. And that there's nothing to believe in at all. The writers gave you that option with the ending, but my guess is that they cast their votes on the "faith" side by having the plane fly overhead. It certainly didn't have to, if they were trying to say it was all in Jack's head.

What I'm saying overall is don't discard the ending just because it didn't feel right in the flow of the episode. They made a bold move and ended it the right way, in my opinion. And we all have to deal with it, just like the Losties themselves.

Lost Finale – Quick thoughts

2010-05-23T22:12:00.001-07:00

Hey guys, for a variety of reasons I'm not going to be able to do a long post tonight. But I did want to give you my initial reactions. The first 2 hours and 15 minutes were some of the most rewarding moments in television history. I loved every second. The last 15 minutes or so, I'm going to have to digest for a while. I did not hate it. Overall, I think the show is genius, even up to its last frame. Do I wish the flash-sideways had been reality and not purgatory? YES. But I also thought the last shot was beautiful. (In the jungle, not in the church so much.) I think I will grow to love the ending in its entirety more as time goes on. The show was called LOST y'all, and it was fitting that it ended in a church. I just wish that it wasn't "couple's heaven" with folks makin' out in pews. That was kinda weird.

My least favorite thing about the ending, however, was the stained glass window. A history of being subtle, thrown out the window. I didn't mind so much that it had all world religions (I get it, they're just talking about faith, and aren't going to just pick one to put people off) but that it was so darn corny and painfully symbolic.

As I see it there are two interpretations of what happened at the end. Either the flash-sideways was like purgatory and the entire show besides that was REAL, or the whole ENTIRE SHOW was like purgatory. The plane flying over Jack's head at the end seemed to suggest that Frank and the crew flew home safely after Jack somehow washed out of the cave (water pressure, I guess). I think this is the case. I think the island was real, they all left and kept living, except Jack, who died, and Hurley and Ben, who stayed on the island for a while leading, sent Desmond home, then eventually died themselves. There is no "NOW" where they are in the flash-sideways world, so it's possible everyone lived a full and complete life after the island, dealt with their issues (looking at you, Claire) and then moved on, all arriving in the afterlife at the same time, because time doesn't exist there. Which is why time could get so jacked up on the island, because it was the closest place on earth to the afterlife. I still think it is the Garden of Eden.

I think that the magic island stuff we've been watching for 6 year was real is really the best version of the ending. The other way, that the WHOLE SHOW was purgatory, that doesn't really work so much for me. Because why would Jacob and MiB be there, having their own issues? They would have just been deities, and not frail humans if the island was there to be purgatory. I think everyone in the show, Jacob included, had their own stories of redemption to work out while on the island. And they eventually did, as evidenced by their appearance in the flash-sideways world. And interesting that some of them still have some work to do in the this inbetween world. Ben, for instance, I'm assuming has to help Danielle and Alex "let go" and receive forgiveness from them as well.

A couple of questions: Were Helen and Nadia in on it, helping Sayid and Locke let go? We know Helen died long before Locke, so maybe she knew and was like an angel, helping out? Were Danielle and Alex in on it, too? What about Ben's dad? Was that just Ben dealing with the fact that he killed his dad, and paying penance for gassing him in the real world by hooking him up with Oxygen tanks in the flash-sideways?

And... what's up with David? I'm assuming Jack needed to make peace with his daddy issues, and David was there to help him work it out. I'm more surprised they didn't name him Peter, as in keys to the pearly gates St. Peter.

Already, the more I think about it, the more I like this ending.

Did you notice the shots of the wreckage after the "LOST" logo? I think this was to get debate going on whether or not Jack died in the crash the first time and the whole show was all in his head, or if he truly died saving the island. To me, the plane flying overhead answers that. What plane would it have been otherwise? But these shots of the wreckage may convince other people that the first crash was the only one. I'm not sure about that. I did notice some footprints in the sand (forgive the lame reference) in one shot. But even that could mean different things. It could mean that people survived the crash, just like we saw in the pilot episode, and everything went exactly as we saw through Sesaons 1 through 6. Or it could mean that the plane crashed, Jack was the only survivor, and he got up and walked over to the water, took a drink, walked through the bamboo, then died. It's actually up to you. Was it all in Jack's mind? Or was the island real? Are you a man of faith, or a man of science?

If it was ALL in Jack's mind, then what was Horace and the Dharma Initiative all about? I think, like Christian said to Jack, everything that happened to Jack was real. The island adventure was real. The flash-sideways are more in question. They're real, but occurring on a spiritual plane. Get it? Plane?

Ouch.

I'm going to bed. More later. What did you think?

Top Ten Worst Ways Lost Could End...

2010-05-23T17:42:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, I'm watching the pre-show right now. Very fun. As promised, here's my complete list of the ten worst possible endings that could happen, followed by a vague last minute prediction. No spoilers here! Read on:

Here's the ten worst things that could happen in the last moments of Lost:

10. Space hibernation pods. (see post below)

9. A sentient race of polar bears that live under the island.

8. Jack, Sawyer and Kate are asked by a mystical angel to stand in the three points of the magical "love triangle" to keep the island safe.

7. Jack's son David turns out to be the Man in Black, and unveils his evil costume and a huge bomb at the piano recital.

6. Right at the last moment, a Dharma drop lands on top of the Man in Black, killing him, but is still never explained.

5. The last scene ties the show into Flash Forward.

4. The Losties find a second hatch under the island, and the last shot is them peering down into the new hatch. Cut to black.

3. A nursery full of familiar looking babies, and the Losties start life over again.

2. A giant dance party breaks out at the piano recital, featuring the entire cast.

1. However the Matrix trilogy ended.

Last minute prediction:

Maybe we learn the island is the source of all the myths in the world: The fountain of youth (the cave), the lost city of Gold (the temple), Adam and Eve (man in black and fake mom), Atlantis (the sunken island in the flash-sideways), the bermuda triangle (Ameila Earhart is there), The Garden of Eden, etc.

Wow. Just saw the KVUE news promo that features the Lost logo and says Namaste. Shocking.

Worst Possible Ways Lost Could End, part 1

2010-05-22T22:55:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, up until the finale airs, I'll hopefully be posting my ten worst ways that Lost could end. Prepare yourself. I'm basing these on endings that would be SO bad that they would ruin the show forever.

Here's the first one, which I call:

SPACE HIBERNATION PODS

Open on a close up of an eye.

Pull out to reveal — It’s Jack’s eye. And he’s lying frozen... inside of a space hibernation pod.

An alarm is going off. It’s a familiar sound — much like the one in the hatch.

The pod opens on its own, and oxygen starts to fill Jack’s lungs. He coughs violently. Then sits up.

He rubs his face. He’s wearing an astronaut uniform. His beard is long.

Another pod opens next to him, and a female coughs. It's Kate.

KATE
Ugh, space hibernation. It’s the worst.

Jack has a strange, distant look on his face.

KATE
Jack, what’s wrong? (checking her gauge) Hey, we weren’t supposed to wake up yet.

JACK
I just had the weirdest space dream.

COMPUTER VOICE:
Hello Jack, Hello Kate. This is J.A.C.O.B. And… I woke you.

KATE:
Computer, why? We’re not even near home.

COMPUTER VOICE
There was a problem in The Source. But proper levels have been restored.

JACK:
The power supply of the ship? Give me the error code.

COMPUTER VOICE:
4 8 15 16 23 42.

JACK:
Smoke damage? in the heart of the ship?

COMPUTER VOICE
Something became… locked up.

A recorded image of the ship’s engine appears before Jack’s face on a floating screen. The engine is jammed; shaking and sparking. It's making a familiar clicking sound – and it's emitting dark smoke.

COMPUTER VOICE
I thought you were the perfect candidates to help dislodge the drive. But it seems I awoke you prematurely.

KATE:
You've already fixed it? How?

COMPUTER VOICE
Using the Faraday equation combined with Hume's constant. I ran the numbers then rebooted the system. We’re back on track. Things are as they should be. You may return to space hibernation. Sorry for the inconvenience. And namaste.

KATE:
Namaste. (to Jack) You okay?

Jack pauses, rubbing his face. Exhausted.

JACK:
Yeah. (sighs) Namaste.

He glances at Kate. They smile at each other, then lay back as their pods seal shut.

We then pan across the other pods near them. Rows and rows of pods. We see Hurley, Sayid, Sun, Jin and other familiar faces, all frozen in hibernation, sleeping in clearly numbered pods.

We pull out further and see the exterior of a massive spaceship, with a Dharma logo on the side, along with a name:

The U.S.S. Island.

Cut to black.

LOST

One more theory: David is the Man in Black

2010-05-22T15:09:00.000-07:00

Ok, there's only one day left before the end of Lost, but I have a quick theory for you that's probably not true, but kind of cool to think about.

What if David, Jack's son in the flash-sideways, is actually the Man in Black, reborn? I'm not saying David's evil, but hear me out. What if next episode, on the island, Jack finds a way to kill the Man in Black just as Smokey's destroying the island. But as he does so, Smokey is reborn as a child. We know from Allison Janey's lines in "Across the Sea" that the island's source is all about life, death and rebirth, so maybe this final battle takes place close to the source. Jack takes the child and then wakes up in the flash-sideways time line with an erased memory, and raises him as his own, good child. And maybe his mother turns out to be... Claudia, MiB's real mom. Crazy theory, but it would explain why in the flash-sideways Jack suddenly has a child AND why the writers went through the trouble to introduce Young Jacob appearing on the island this season after Jacob's death. And why the writers have kept the mom's identity a secret for so long.

But his mom will just probably end up to be Juliet.

One other quick observation about the "concert" everyone's headed to in the flash-sideways timeline. It is very possible that it's Ms. Hawking's concert that she was planning a few episodes back. Which means Charlie, Daniel, Mr. and Mrs. Hawking and Widmore will all be there. And we know Penny was on the guest list. Jack's going with David, and David's mother is going to be there. They will probably bring Claire with them since she's staying with them. Desmond and Kate are headed that way in the Camero. Miles told Sawyer he was going and that Charlotte would be there. I'm guessing Miles' dad Mr. Chang will be there as well. Sawyer said he wasn't going, but once he learns Kate escaped, he might track her there. Hurley and Sayid left in Hurley's Hummer, and my best guess is that they're headed to the hospital to pick up Sun and Jin. So the only people left to be there are Locke and Ben. Interesting. Keep checking the site because I plan to have more posts before the finale. Exciting!

Lost Episode 6.16: "What They Died For"

2010-05-18T19:47:00.000-07:00

Awesome episode. Pretty much a Ben & Desmond-centric episode, which is never a bad thing. There were several deaths: Richard (I guess, hard to say), Unfunny Tina Fey, and Widmore all hit the dirt. Ben got evil again, the remaining Losties joined forces, Jacob had a long fireside chat, and for once the flash sideways were just as interesting as the island stuff. The only thing that left me scratching my head was the voice-over choice for next week's preview. I'm pretty sure that was Eartha Kitt's voice, and yet she's been dead a couple of years. Creepy. What exactly do they have planned for next week? Anyway, let's pick this show apart one second-to-last time, starting with the on-island stuff...

KATE IS GOING TO BE JUST FINE. FOR SOME REASON: The on-island action this time around felt VERY much like season one Lost to me, including Jack doing some island-ghetto surgery on Kate. Meanwhile, everybody else emotionally stares into the ocean. I was 50% sure Frank was going to crawl out of the sub wreckage at one point with a witty one-liner, but it never happened. Maybe it's not gonna. Either way, I like how the Losties agreed they were going to kill Smokey, and I'm glad Sawyer didn't ditch them in the process. Good stuff.

BEN, MILES, AND RICHARD HAVE A VERY SHORT ADVENTURE: So we learned that Richard's group was very slow in getting to the Barracks. Basically, they've just been walking around the island for an episode or so. Once there, Miles accidentally reminds Ben about Alex's death in a nice set up moment for Ben's switch to the dark side that comes later in the episode. Ben takes the gang to his secret bookshelf behind his secret room, and basically says that he realizes that the smoke monster has been using him the whole time he's been on the island. Or, as he put it, the smoke monster's been "summoning" him. They hear Tina Fey rummaging in the kitchen (what is she looking for?) and then Widmore makes his entrance.

JACOB INVITED WIDMORE TO THE PARTY: Well, if we're to take Widmore at his word, Jacob came to him after the Freighter affair, scolded him for his actions, but still invited him to come back to the island. I think, upon hearing this, that Ben realized that it was NOT Jacob's fault that Alex got shot, but Widmore's. So Ben began planning his revenge. I think the entire reason he waited to talk to the smoke monster was to reveal Widmore's hiding place. He even helped trap Widmore for Smokey. But more on that later.

SAWYER REALIZES HE BLEW IT, LITERALLY: Walking through the jungle, Sawyer and Jack have a poignant moment together as Sawyer faces the fact that his actions caused Sun and Jin to die. Jack knows that Smokey planned it that way, and pins the blame on Smokey instead, in a classy move. I hope Sawyer gets over it and gets back to being awesome soon. By soon, I mean in the last episode ever.

YOUNG JACOB IS JUST ALSO JACOB: Somewhat confusingly, young Jacob shows up and steals Jacob's ashes from Hurley. Then, when Hurley catches up with him, it's older Jacob instead. And he's burning the ashes so that he will finally be free from the island. I guess this means Hurley won't be dumping the ashes on Smokey to watch him wilt, Wizard of Oz-style. How will they kill Man in Black? Not sure. Also, how did the ashes survive Hurley's swim from the sub underwater to the beach? To that point, how did Hurley survive such a swim? Also, are we going to see young Jacob anymore? What was the point of him being on the island if he's just going to disappear along with his older version?

RICHARD'S LAST STAND: In an odd moment, Ben takes the walkee talkees from Widmore, who trusts Ben at exactly the time he shouldn't. Ben gives one of the walkee talkees to Miles. Why? What's Ben's plan with that? Does he really plan to find Miles later, or just find out where he is and give him to the man in black? Richard bravely goes first and gets smacked aside by the smoke monster. We're not shown his dead body, so there's still hope for a comeback, in my mind. Maybe Richard and Frank will show up at the last minute driving the Dharma bus loaded with C4 and numbchucks. To that point, did anyone follow the path of the backpack of C4 this episode? Richard had it last, I think, but he set it down before discovering Tina Fey looking through the cabinets for some Teddy Grahams. Not sure if the C4 will come into play later, but it might. I really hope Richard's not dead, but at this point I know some folks are going to have to go so I'm not really mourning him too much. Can the smoke monster even kill him? Jacob made him immortal, right? Next, fake Locke walks around the corner and Ben offers him a glass of lemonade. At this point, Ben agreed to talk to Smokey. Does that make it too late for Ben? And does that make Ben's scale start to tip to the darkside more than normal?

TINA FEY'S LAST STAND: In a really tense scene inside Ben's hidden closet, Smokey nastily takes out Tina Fey. He says since Widmore told her not to talk to him, that she was useless. Was this just sass on the Smoke Monster's part, or is talking to Smokey really a dangerous thing to do? Probably the latter. Just what happens when Smokey talks to you? Smokey then threatens to kill Penny when he gets off the island, unless Widmore tells him his plan for Desmond. Widmore agrees to whisper it in his ear, and watching two grown men of such dramatic heft whisper to each other is a little off-putting, if you ask me. Not exactly sure why. Ben agrees and ends the conversation by shooting Widmore, while also fulfilling one of my predictions from this old post. Ben then asks who else Locke wants him to kill. I'm not completely sure if Ben's completely returned to being a villain. I know he wanted to kill Widmore. But I suspect he also hates the Man in Black for using him for so many years. I'm even guessing the Man in Black is the one who told Ben to kill all the Dharma people in the Purge. And Ben has to be realizing that he's been used. I think if Ben ends up being the one who eventually kills Man in Black, it would be a pretty fitting way for the show to go.

JACOB TELLS ALL: Back in the jungle, suddenly all of the candidates can see Jacob. None of them seem to remember him from the times he touched them in the real world, but I'm not sure they would given his brief encounters with them. Kate gets really sassy with Jacob and questions his motives pretty harshly, but I have to say I didn't really mind. Given what we know about Jacob after last episode, he kind of needs to explain himself a little bit more. Jacob tells them that he made a mistake, and that's why he brought everyone to the island. He wanted them to replace him because he knew the monster he released was going to try to kill him. And if he didn't get a replacement, the monster would get off the island and kill everyone they've ever loved. Sawyer then says that he shouldn't have messed with their lives, that they were doing just fine without him, but Jacob disagrees and says he plucked them all out of miserable, flawed existences. He chose them because they were alone, like him, and they needed the island as much as it needed them. This explains why everyone on the history of Lost has had such messed up back stories. I'm trying to think of someone who came to the island who had a happy life before hand, but I can't. So I guess this reasoning holds. We also learn that Kate's name was scratched from the wall because she became a mother. This makes sense, because she had something to care for besides herself, and Jacob didn't want to take her from her mom. But why weren't Sun and Jin's names scratched off the wall? Is it because they were still separated from each other, and therefore unhappy? Is this desire to have no mothers be candidates partly why infants began dying on the album? I don't think so, but it's an interesting thought. Either way, Jack agrees to be the guardian, and realizes that he will have to kill the Man in Black. If I were Jack, I would have asked to see the complete job description, but whatever.

JACK HAS A CUP IN HIS BACKPACK: Really? Well, okay, I guess. Very convenient. Luckily for him it wasn't a Big Gulp cause that might have been embarrassing.

JACOB TELLS JACK WHERE THE HEART OF THE ISLAND IS LOCATED: And it's right next to where Jack landed at the very beginning of the pilot episode. Jacob says an incantation over the water, and according to Lostpedia it's latin for: "For we do not accept this just as a common drink, but as if that he should be one with me." Cool. Jack asks how long he will have to do the job, and Jacob says, "for as long as you can." I'm guessing one more episode max. Or, will the show end with Jack alone on the island? Now that Jack is "like" Jacob, does he know more things that he didn't know before?

WHO RESCUED DESMOND? Smokey and Ben get to Desmond's well, and find it empty. Who let Desmond out? Miles? Richard? Frank? Or did Sayid give him some rope? I don't think Sayid let him out, because he told Jack that Desmond was still in the well. Locke is glad that Desmond's out of the well, because he's going to find Desmond and use him to destroy the island. Seems like he would be more glad to have Desmond sitting in the well waiting for him, right? But Smokey likes to look on the bright side. And much like Season 4's "I'm gonna move the island.", Flocke gets to say "I'm going to destroy the island." Does Smokey succeed in using Desmond to destroy the island? Is that what sinks the island and causes the Flash Sideways to start up? Guess we'll find out next episode. Or else not at all.

Now on to the flash-sideways:

SO, JACK SLEEP SHAVES? Jack wakes up in flash sideways land with another nick on his neck, just like in the first episode this season. What's that about? I have no idea. Maybe the island is like the matrix, and Jack's avatar in the matrix is Tina Fey lady, who got cut in the neck? Man, I hope not. That's the worst theory I've ever had. I checked, and the cut is on roughly the same spot both times. I even checked the pilot episode to see if he had the cut on his neck in the opening scene there, but he didn't. I don't know what to make of it folks, but my guess is that it ties in with the very last reveal of the show, the twist ending that's coming that none of us have predicted.

DAVID'S CONCERT: Jack's son David says he's going to have a concert that night, and I had no idea at that point that the concert was going to be a pivotal part of the next episode. But it apparently is, since Desmond is planning to take Kate there at a later point. David's mystery mom is also going to be there. Juliet's pretty much the only one left. Unless it's Allison Janey. But that would be too freaky, for a variety of reasons. I'm afraid Jack's not going to be able to keep his promise not to do anything weird at the concert. We learn later this episode that Miles is going, and that Charlotte's going to be there. I'm guessing Daniel Faraday will be too, wearing his music hat. Will Charlotte and Daniel finally meet in this time line?

DESMOND CALLING: So, why does Desmond call Jack and say that he's with Oceanic? Seems like a weird move since he's also planning to go to Jack's son's concert. Desmond is like George Clooney in Ocean's Eleven in this episode. Watching his plans come together had a very heist-movie feel.

BEN GETS BEAT UP A LOT: Desmond beats poor Ben up yet again, punching him directly in the memory center of the brain. I think at this point Ben remembers everything that happened on the island. Which is pretty cool, given the scene that he has later with Danielle and Alex.

ONE SUSPECT BRUTHA: Desmond turns himself into the police, and Sawyer puts him in a cell with Kate and Sayid. I really liked this jail-break scene, and it was fun to see the flash-sideways folks start to see the bigger picture.

DANIELLE HEARTS BEN: Alex invites beat up Ben over for dinner, and in a surprisingly touching scene, Danielle is clearly thankful for Ben's support of her daughter, and even describes him as the father she never had. She talks as if he's going to be invited over for many more dinners, which is very nice. But I'm not sure it can last. If, like everyone else, Danielle wakes up to her past memories, then Ben might have to answer for his alter egos kidnapping and other failures. But nice to see that there's a time line possible where the three of them could become a functioning family unit, although a kind of creepy one. Again, I think Ben is somewhat cognizant of both time lines at this point.

MAN OF SCIENCE, MAN OF FAITH: Locke wheels into Jack's office, and it's the Locke we remember from Season One. He believes in fate, and is again trying to convince Jack that something important is happening. I'm very curious to see how the whole operation thing works out. Will Locke be able to walk again? And will that have anything to do with Smokey's defeat?

PAY ANA LUCIA ENOUGH, AND SHE'LL BE BACK: Desmond and Hurley are now working together, which rules. And Ana Lucia makes an appearance as well. This was a great scene. I like that the finale is boiling down to a couple of A-Team style missions in a bitchin' Camero and a bright yellow Hummer. Not sure I love the fact that in the final act of Lost, all the characters are headed to David's piano concert. But there it is. Matthew Fox was right when he said we'd never be able to guess how it ends. Anybody guess piano recital? Not me.

Very fun episode. Sunday's episode is going to be unbelievable. Will it star the creepy voiced lady from the promo for next week? Man, I hope not. You guys notice anything else interesting?

Lost: Episode 6.15: "Across the Sea"

2010-05-11T20:24:00.000-07:00

"Every question I answer will simply lead to another question."
– Jacob's mother (by murder)

"Am I good?"
– Jacob

I imagine somewhere in the world, somebody decided they were going to check out this show "Lost" that they've been hearing about, and they started with this episode. What on earth would they be thinking? Don't get me wrong here, I thought this was a great episode. But if the show had kicked off Season One with this episode millions of people would have never tuned back in again. This is a lesson on how to successfully pace a sci-fi story with mystical elements. You start with a first season featuring mostly hot bods on the beach and love triangles. Then you slip in a Dharma initiative here or there, then go safely back to the love triangles and the family relationship dramas. Pause for a bit, toss in a little time travel, then when no one's looking you go completely Land of the Lost on everyone right in the last three episodes. I like it, Lost. Bold move.

Another observation: Is there an hour of television LESS suited to be the follow-up to Dancing With The Stars? I don't think so. Dedicated 'Stars' viewers who left the TV on while mourning the loss of the latest contestant were abruptly greeted with the image of a pregnant woman getting her head bashed in with a rock.

I'm afraid, yet again, I don't have time to do my traditional step by step run through (big day at work tomorrow, must sleep) but I will try to cover my main interpretations of some of the major points, then revisit the details later this week.

So here's what I think about "Across the Sea" in random order. In a few places, I think I'm on to something:

DANG! WHAT THE HECK? That was my first thought. Then I watched it a second time and I can now elaborate further.

WHO IS 'WOMAN'? WHAT ARE HER POWERS? Once again, one of my subheads would make a pretty good title for a book. So, In the script, character actor Allison Janey is known only by the name 'Woman'. And right off the bat, she's a conflicted character. By that, I mean she will sincerely apologize in a empathetic voice before killing you via repeated blows to the head. My wife and I debated somewhat if she was sincerely crazy or if she really was protecting something hugely important. I lean towards the latter, but definitely question her methods and her violent streak. So we have no idea who she is, how long she's been there, where she came from, or what she knows and doesn't know. Also, what powers does she have? Here's two powers we know right off the bat: She said she made it impossible for the brothers to kill one another (how?), and she seemed pretty omniscient at times (like when she knew the boys had found the gameboard.) Here's what I think: I think she's fulfilling the role of both Jacob and MiB. By that I mean, she's both light and dark, and she's also a freakin' smoke monster. See next paragraph.

IS THE FAKE MOM A REAL SMOKEY? I think so. She told Jacob that if he went into the cave of light that he would suffer a fate worse than dying. So, I think she knew this because she went in there herself, some time before. That's the only way I can explain how she was able to kill an entire village of people and fill up a well with rocks in a short amount of time. And I think it's why she liked MiB better, because she knew he had a dark, rebellious side. But at the same time, she also was fulfilling the 'guardian of the Island' role that Jacob later took. My wife Erin suggested that she saw her opportunity to be released from that role when she saw the pregnant woman, and took the babies to pass on her mantle. She didn't know she was going to get twins, though, and the roll was split into two. I think that's a good guess on her motivations. Is this how the legacy of stealing babies got started?

NOBODY'S PERFECT IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN: So, the main take away of this episode is that we got a little more understanding and empathy for the MiB, and we learned that Jacob was no saint when he threw his brother into the cave of light to face a fate worse than death. I don't think this is the same as saying there is NO good and NO evil, though. I think we're just seeing that Jacob and MiB are also human. But there is obviously good and evil on this show. I think the light in the cave is a lot like the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden. And I think its existence points to a source of all Goodness–that is, God. But just like the Garden of Eden, God instructed people NOT to eat from that tree, or in this case fall down the log flume of light at the end of the Fraggle Rock tunnel, and if someone does it, they will become aware of the existence of evil. And then that evil will try to get into the world, just as all evil entered the world through Adam's sin.

TO THAT POINT, SAY HELLO TO 'ADAM AND EVE': So, we learned who Adam and Eve are this episode. And, is it possible they're ACTUALLY ADAM AND EVE? As in THE Adam and Eve? Neither MiB or his mom have ever been named, except in this one instance, by our Losties, when their bodies are discovered. I think this is intentional, because they represent the biblical Adam and Eve. And I don't think we'll ever get any other names for them. Think about it. The Woman showed MiB the source of light and knowledge from which they were not supposed to partake. (Just like Eve showed Adam the apple.) Then MiB became obsessed with it, and wanted to find the light to experience it and harness it. He found it, became 'sin', and now he wants to get out into the world. It's also interesting that tonight's story echos Cain and Abel's story (a brother killing a brother) and Jacob and Esau's story as well, in ways. As my wife put it, the backstory of the island is kind of an Old Testament hodgepodge. I think this early Island mythology (and maybe the show at large) is a sci-fi attempt at retelling the mythology of the Bible as a whole in a different setting. Maybe in the Lost universe, we're even witnessing the actual stories and myths that would become the stories in the Bible as we know it. Interesting. In a clever twist, for the first time a show's 'mythology' attempts to tackle a retelling of the entire mythology of the Western Civilization. Not bad for a show on the same network as "Cougar Town."

DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE SERPENT: So, if the Island is a Garden of Eden type scenario, then I think that explains why MiB is seeing dead people. When Claudia first appeared in ghostly form to young MiB, I was all, 'huh?' But I think I get it. The island is the home to the cave of knowledge that the boys are forbidden to enter, but it's also the home of a familiar serpent–the source of all evil. MiB as a child is not the embodiment of evil, not at this point. But he starts to listen to the serpent when he chooses to follow the visage of his dead mother and takes her advice. Just like later, when people warn others not to listen to the Man in Black, he listens to the ghostly form of his mother. I think the ghostly mom is not a good person, and is basically the devil appearing in deceitful ways. After all, she takes MiB to the village where he will begin his dangerous quest to find the light in the cave, despite having been told that it would release evil into the world. Also another interesting point:When MiB tells his fake mom he's going to build a wheel to escape from the island, she asks him how he knows how to do that. And he says it's because he's "special." But it's not. I think "special" people are just the ones that the serpent has appeared to as dead people. It's because the serpent in Claudia's form has TOLD HIM HOW TO BUILD THE WHEEL. The serpent is the one that wants to get off the island. To bring evil into the world. The same plan the serpent had in the Garden of Eden. And that's why MiB's mom knows she has to stop him.

DRINK FROM THE CUP: After knocking MiB unconscious, the Woman kills everyone, fills up the well, and then knows it's time for her to appoint a successor. She makes Jacob drink from the wine which makes him immortal, freezing him at his current age forever. (Later, Jacob will use the same wine to do the same thing to Richard. But why would he then give what's left of the magic wine to the MiB to smash over a log? I have no idea.) One important question: Why did Jacob's fake mom need a successor? There's only one reason I can think of. I think she knew after killing the villagers and closing up the well that MiB wasn't dead. And that he would come for her. In fact, I think she let him live on purpose, because she loved him and couldn't bear to kill him. Then, when MiB killed her later, she said "thank you" because she was immortal and only a candidate could kill her. She was tired of her post. And MiB had been a candidate, one of the only people who could kill her.

BTW, THAT MATT DAMON BOY IS JACOB: Now we know without a doubt that the boy that MiB has been seeing around the island this season is actually young Jacob. That was everyone's best guess, and it turned out to be true. (I think I had guessed Aaron, but I also thought MiB was Aaron, so what do I know.) What does it mean that he's been walking around the island all season smiling at Flocke? I have no idea, but I would assume it means he's got the upper hand, and he's found his own loophole and created his own game with its own rules.

WHAT JACOB BELIEVES: It was interesting in this episode to see how the MiB and his Mother by Murder both agreed that people were bad and deserved to die. People were never, ever good in their mind. Jacob's Mother by Murder also kept saying that Jacob didn't have a choice, and that she didn't have a choice. But we know Jacob believes the opposite. He believes people can learn to be good, and that people always have a choice. How did he start to develop these beliefs while living alone on the island for so long? Also interesting was MiB's line "Why are you watching us, Jacob?" Jacob responded, "I watch because I want to know if mother's right" – he wants to know if people really are bad. I guess he wants to know so bad that he eventually builds a magical lighthouse viewing machine.

OH, ALSO, DID SHE SAY "JOSE"?!? Ok, I know I've already stated that I don't think they'll ever give Adam and Eve any other names than Adam and Eve, but when MiB's mother by murder got stabbed, did she roll over, see him and say, "José?!" Erin and I watched it three times and couldn't figure it out. It really sounded like "José." I looked online but so far no one else has mentioned it, but several people have mentioned that we still haven't gotten MiB's name. So I think maybe we misheard. Maybe she said "Hey." But that seems even more doubtful given the circumstances. I don't know why, exactly, but I would be pretty darn disappointed if the final showdown was between Jacob and... José. I'd almost prefer "Gary."

That's all I've got for now. All in all, it was a pretty dark episode. The darkest moment (besides the two brutal head bashings by the Fake Mom) was probably Jacob's brutal head bashing and worse-than-death-ifying of MiB. His regret was palpable as soon as the deed was done. Who knew that MiB was telling the truth all along, that Jacob made him into the smoke monster? Though I do think that MiB was already on his way to becoming the smoke monster. If he had tried to find a way into the light to install the wheel, it probably would have happened anyway. And I think the evil presence on the island wanted him to do that, wanted MiB to become his vessel. I also think that the real MiB died after Jacob found his body. His body was empty. His soul had become one with the darkness that wanted to escape the island all along. Just like how Locke is literally dead, but his soul and memories are now a part of Smokey. Same deal with MiB, in my opinion.

Deep stuff. What's scary is that for a second during writing this it all started to make sense. Looking back over it all now, though, I'm not so sure. Your thoughts?

I would mention the preview for next week, but it showed absolutely nothing at all, and featured a Doors song.

Lost Episode 6.14: "The Candidate"

2010-05-04T20:04:00.000-07:00

Hey folks. That was a fast-paced episode. Not my favorite of the season, but by no means bad. I just prefer the more weird, character-driven episodes to the action-packed, gunfight episodes. And I don't mind a little sadness and saying farewell to a few characters, but the parts that were supposed to make me tear up just didn't do much for me this episode. I don't have the time or energy to do a full synopsis tonight (been running on a lack of sleep due to kid issues) but here's a few thoughts. Pictures have not been posted online by the time I wrote this, so you'll have to rely on your own mind-pictures.

IN THE FLASH-SIDEWAYS...

JACK AND LOCKE MEET... AND NOTHING REALLY HAPPENS: After all the build-up and wondering about what it would be like when Jack and Locke meet at the hospital (after Desmond sent Locke there), there was very little payoff in this episode. Locke didn't seem to fully regain his island memories, though he said a few key words in his sleep. And Jack basically just became obsessed with learning why Locke wouldn't want to be able to walk again. Erin and I guessed the reason pretty early on... that he was punishing himself for hurting his dad in an accident. Meh. It's kind of cool that Flash-Sideways Locke has his pilot's license, though, if they do try to go back to the island or if his consciousness does start to drift back to the other time line into Flocke's body that might come in handy.

BERNARD? REALLY? Guys, you've only got four episodes left. Please don't use them on Bernard the Dentist. This may shock you, but I don't care where flash-sideways Bernard ended up, especially if it's in the same place he was in the regular time line before the crash.

CLAIRE AND JACK AND A MUSIC BOX: I liked that Jack was getting freaked out in the Flash-Sideways by all the coincidences taking place. The music box was strange, mostly because of the song it played, which was the creepy lullaby that Claire sang in the "Sundown" episode. Why did Christian give that to her? Also interesting that Claire is going to move in with Jack. Will she give birth to Aaron while staying with him? We did note that Claire and Jack looked at their own reflection again...

BACK ON THE ISLAND:

WHAT'S WIDMORE'S DEAL?: Widmore takes Kate hostage and says he will shoot her if they don't get in the bear cages. He reveals that the only ones he cares about are the four candidates, which I guess at this point are Hurley, Jack, Sawyer, and one of the Kwons. This is really confusing to me. Why did Widmore come to the island? To exploit it or to protect the candidates? And if he's trying to protect them, why would he plant a bomb on the plane? If he just wanted to stop the Man in Black from getting off the island on the plane, then he should have just blown it up before they got there, not just rigged it with explosions to trigger later. The explosives make me think that he wanted to kill the candidates, too. Confusing.

HOW DID MAN IN BLACK KNOW ABOUT THE EXPLOSIVES? Ok, remember when Flocke snapped those dude's necks who were guarding the plane? Well, he stopped afterward and grabbed one guy's watch, which was weird. But then we later saw the same watch on the C4 he put in Jack's backpack. So, if he grabbed the watch before seeing the C4 in the overhead compartment, then he must have already known it was going to be there. Maybe he's just a step ahead of Widmore mentally? He must be really good at chess.

WHY IS KATE'S NAME CROSSED OFF THE CAVE WALL? Any thoughts? I have a few wild guesses. Is it because she did something evil to join Man in Black's side without knowing it? Or because Jacob knows she's only there for Aaron's best interests, and not there to protect the island? Or, on that note, is it possible the Man in Black IS Aaron, and Jacob knows that once Kate learns that she will join his side, because she cares for him?

SAYID IS APPARENTLY GOOD AGAIN: So, we learned that Sayid listened to Desmond's advice not to shoot anybody just to bring your lover back from the dead, because if you do she will think you're gross and weird. And now he's a changed zombie, and ready to help the candidates. This is a pretty quick change, because a couple of episodes ago he was staring blankly as Claire tried to kill Kate. He later proves his goodness, though, by exploding himself to save the others. But not before telling Jack: "It's going to be you." I guess he means Jack is going to have to save everyone, and become Jacob's replacement. Cool. I thought that was a pretty good send-off for Sayid. Which brings me to two disappointing send-offs.

FRANK!!!! IF THE OTHER CHARACTERS DON'T GRIEVE FOR YOU, I WILL: Hey writers! Don't kill off Frank. One, because he rules. And two, because you haven't done ANYTHING at all with his character yet. He gets like one line an episode: "Aw hell" or "Probably." He could have at least done something cool before dying. And what was up with Hurley and Jack crying about Sun and Jin and Sayid but not even giving Frank a shout-out? Poor Frank. I'm only hoping that after he got hit by the sub door, his body floats out of the sub and into a secret underwater hatch full of numb-chucks, where he awakes, arms himself, then makes a dripping but awesome return at the last minute in the finale. The other option is that he's just dead now, because he got hit with a door. 'Hit with a door' is officially the worst Lost death ever, if that is the case.

SUN AND JIN, SELFISHLY DYING SO THAT THEIR CHILD CAN BE RAISED BY KOREAN MAFIA: As a parent, I could not stand the Sun and Jin death scene. First of all, Sun should never have left her kid to go to a secret island from which escape is highly unlikely. Secondly, when trying to convince Jin to leave her in the sub so that he can live, it didn't even come across her mind to point out that one of them should survive to raise their child. Lame. One point to bring out here... So, we know that candidates can't die, unless they kill each other. So is everyone's death here Sawyer's fault? Because once he touched the bomb, unplugged it, it became his action and not Man in Black's? I think Jack was right, if they had left it alone they wouldn't have died (except maybe Frank and Kate, who are not candidates.) Also, Did Flocke know that Jack and Sawyer would find the bomb in his backpack and try to unplug it, causing their own deaths?

ONE MORE THING ABOUT THOSE EXPLOSIVES: Flocke put the bomb in Jack's backpack. How did he know Jack would get in the sub? Jack was planning not to. Was Flocke counting on the fact that Widmore's men would be there to chase them onto the sub? Either way, you don't mess with Smokey because he's always one step ahead. Also because he can turn into a deadly pillar of smoke.

FLOCKE FEELS A DISTURBANCE IN THE FORCE: So, Flocke tells Claire that he knows the sub has drowned, and that he knows some folks are still alive from the blast. How does he know this? I'm guessing when they're all dead he'll feel that he's free of the island, and he knows he's not free yet because he's still stuck there.

That's all I've got for now. More later when I'm not exhausted. Did you notice anything else interesting? I did notice Kate got shot, but somehow that was one of the least eventful parts of this action-packed episode. Plus she got shot in that area between the shoulder and the heart that is totally safe to get shot in, if you're starring in a movie or TV show.

Here's what I saw in the preview for next week's episode:

Clearly this is a Man in Black/Jacob focused episode. Awesome. I predict that minds will yet again be blown. The preview opened with Man in Black and Jacob sitting down for a game of some kind involving long sticks. I'm guessing it's not Jenga. Then we see a cool clip of Locke from Season one, explaining backgammon to Walt and holding up the white and black game pieces. Then we see that young blonde kid running through the jungle. Then a super says, "There are two sides to every story." Cut to this really creepy shot of Locke, sent to me by Zach, which features Locke with both light and dark eyeballs:

Wha? A dream sequence maybe? Looks weird. Then a super says "Good/Evil" and both Jack and Locke and Man in Black and Jacob are shown. Then it ends on Man in Black's threat to Jacob at the end of Season 5, "Do you have any idea how much I want to kill you right now?" I hope we'll finally get Smokey's name next week. The episode is strangely entitled "Across the Sea." Can't wait.

That's all for now. Must. Sleep.

Lost Episode 6.13: "The Last Recruit"

2010-04-20T20:34:00.000-07:00

So, who was the "Last Recruit"? In my poll up since last week, most of you (including myself) voted for Frank. A few of you voted for Jin. Looks like it was actually... well, it's hard to say, but I'm guessing it was ironically referring to Jack, a reluctant recruit, trapped in the role against his will by the end of the episode. A lot happened in this episode, we got some more answers, and the stage was set for the last few episodes. Let's look back at all that happened:

WANT ANSWERS? THEN JUST ASK. Locke sticks one of the island's many eternally burning torches into the ground and he and Jack sit down for a little "catching up." First up on the agenda? Jack asks if Christian Shephard was actually Smokey. Was it me or did he even say, "Hey, way back in Season One, was that you appearing as my dad?" I'm sure he didn't really say Season One, but it went something like that. The answer? Yep. Smokey is Christian. I guess this was the most obvious answer, but I was kind of hoping for something even weirder to be going on. But I guess with four episodes left you gotta keep it kinda simple. And a smoke monster is weird enough. But with that in mind...

CHRISTIAN SHEPHERD'S OTHER SMOKEY APPEARANCES: Let's pause here for a second. Now that we know Christian was always Smokey, let's recount all the times we saw Smokey/Christian appear on the island, just for fun and to see if we can make sense of his behavior.
– HE TALKS TO DOGS. In a 'mobisode' released on the web that took place right before the Pilot episode, we saw Vincent the dog wandering through the 815 wreckage. Christian calls him over, and tells him to wake up his son, because he has "work to do." What was his work? Why would smokey want Jack to start saving people? I guess so that he could enact his REALLY complicated Locke body-stealing plan? If you haven't watched these "Missing Peices" mobisodes, you should.
– HE LEADS JACK TO WATER. He then appeared to Jack in the season one episode White Rabbit (that Jack referred to in tonight's episode.) Jack, taking Locke's advice, followed Christian to see where he would take him, and he led him to a cave and a source of water. So, why would Smokey want them to have water? I guess everything he's done is to help them survive and get off the island, so he could escape too? Then why did Smokey attack the pilot of flight 815? I'm guessing maybe because the pilot was about to call for help, and Smokey didn't want them to be rescued too soon, before he had time to enact his plan.
– HE SPEAKS INTO INTERCOMS. In Season 3, Jack heard Christian's voice briefly through an intercom in his cell in the Hydra station, saying "let it go." Interesting, since Jack has been talking about "letting go" a lot lately. Juliet later said the intercom hadn't worked in years.
– HE HIDES IN A BI-LOCATING CABIN. In Season 4, Hurley saw Christian sitting in Jacob's Cabin, which had appeared near him in the woods. I guess this pretty much confirms that Smokey had taken over Jacob's cabin.
– HE CODDLES BABIES. Later, Christian appeared holding Aaron, and Claire wandered off with him in the woods. Sawyer then found Aaron sitting in grouping of trees. Why did Smokey want Claire and Aaron separated? I'm not sure. Smokey sure acted a lot freakier back then. Now he carves sticks, smiles a lot, and throws an occasional zinger.
– HE OFFERS LOCKE ADVICE. Next, Locke found Claire and Christian/Smokey sitting in Jacob's cabin, and Christian claimed he was speaking for Jacob. He told Locke to ask him the "only important question." Which is very similar to what Smokey told Jack in this episode. (This episode he said "What is the question you really want to ask me?") Locke's answer to Christian was "How do I save the island?" Funny now, because we know that Smokey hates the island. Anyway, Smokey/Christian told Locke to "move the island". So moving the island was Smokey's idea, then. I guess it was all part of his plan to get Locke killed and take his body, which seems like the most complicated loophole the world has even known.
– HE SETS OFF SMOKE ALARMS. This next one is kind of interesting, because it happened OFF the island. Working late at the hospital, Jack hears a smoke alarm beeping (nice touch) and Christian appears on the couch behind him. He disappears when a coworker shows up. Jack asks the coworker to write him a prescription for more drugs. Maybe this vision can just be chalked up to the drugs, but it's also possible Smokey is able to send his form off the island. But if that's the case, I'm not sure why he would need their help to get home, unless the "home" he's talking about is the other time-line, and that's where he wants to get back to.
– HE MATERIALIZES ON FREIGHTERS. He then appeared to Michael on the freighter, right before it exploded, and told him "he could go." Not sure how to interpret that one. Especially since we now know that Michael was really not free to go at all, but became trapped as a ghost on the island. Also, Michael was kept alive off the island. Was Jacob doing that, or Smokey? Not sure.
– HE KNOWS ABOUT THE DONKEY WHEEL. Next, he appeared to Locke underneath the Orchid station, and chastised him for letting Ben spin the donkey wheel in his place. He also told Locke that what Richard said was true, he would have to die to save the island. Sneaky dude. Smokey also told Locke to say hello to his son, which I think was Smokey's way of making sure that Locke got the other candidates to come back with him.
– HE ADMIRES DHARMA PHOTOS. Then, in one final appearance as Christian before permanently taking Locke's form, Smokey/Christian appeared to Sun and Frank at the barracks and told them to go to Ben's old house and wait for Locke. I'm assuming he was trying to round up all the candidates.
Wow, that took longer than I thought. If you want to waste even more time, check out the Man in Black's page on Lostpedia to try to peice together all he's been up to in all his Smokey forms since the beginning of the show.

WEIRD QUOTE FROM SMOKEY: Smokey also said to Jack, "Jacob chose you, so you were trapped on this island long before you even got here." What does that mean? It could just be general talk about fate, but it might possibly mean something more. Could the Losties have been on the island way longer than they remember? Smokey then calls Locke a "sucker," which seems a kinda mean-spirited attitude towards a dude who's body you are currently walking around in.

"IT'S HIM, IT'S HIM!" Meanwhile, in the flash sideways, Sun and Locke are getting out of ambulances at the same time. Sun sees Locke – I'm assuming because she's having a near death experience – and she recognizes him. Where is the plot of the flash sideways going? I really have no idea, but this scene was cool.

SISTER CHAT: Jack and Claire catch up in the jungle, and Claire is still acting weird. And, like any crazy relative, she wants to spend lots of quality time together. Jack says he hasn't decided if he's with Smokey yet, but Claire reaffirms Dogen's theory that if you let Smokey talk to you, it's already too late and you're part of the team. Interesting.

"WHO THE HELL'S ANAKIN?" Oh, to live unaware of the presence of the Star Wars prequels. This was a funny exchange between Hurley and Sawyer, and also a funny reunion between Claire and Hurley. Hurley looks shocked to see the state she's in and says awkwardly, "You look great!" They start to hatch Sawyer's doomed plan of escape.

MEANWHILE, ON A COP SHOW FROM THE EIGHTIES: Flash-sideways Sawyer and Kate sit in the precinct and Sawyer offers Kate an apple. Is this a reference to Adam and Eve, hinting that Sawyer and Kate are the skeletons of the same name found in Season One's cave? (My wife gets credit for that thought.) Maybe, but right now the best guess is that the skeletons are Kate and Jack. Also, note that Flash Sideways Sawyer is still TERRIBLE at conning, as Kate sees right through him. This scene ends with Miles shouting out a bunch of racial epithets for some reason as they spot Sayid on an ATM camera. Sawyer says, "That's our bad guy" which is definitely a line referring to both time-lines at once.

COOL LOCKES DON'T LOOK AT EXPLOSIONS: Zoe walks out of the jungle into Locke's camp and demands Desmond back. Locke lies and says he doesn't know what she's talking about, so she signals to Lutz to launch a 30 Rock Air Assault. Widmore brought in UAV support!? Looks like the writers' room has an Xbox and a copy of Modern Warfare 2. Zoe gives Locke until nightfall to call her back, and Locke smashes her phone with his stick, which, in its final form, turned out to be a pretty good phone-smashing device.

ILANA'S LAWYER-BASED SPIN OFF SHOW: Maybe instead of Damages, Ilana's show could be called Bandages? Needs work. Anyway, Desmond oddly knows Ilana in this flash sideways, and somehow knows she is looking for Claire Littleton to complete Christian Shephard's wil arrangements. So he introduces them, then darts off. (Ilana's law office is on floor 15, which is Sawyer's assigned candidate number, by the way.) Also, as Desmond tries to convince Claire to see his lawyer, he says this phrase to her, which definitely is a play on her character's predicament back on the island: "You could end up in a situation that is irreversible".

WORST MAP EVER: Sawyer begins the plans to steal Smokey's boat and escape to Widmore's arms. Not sure what happened to Smokey's intelligence this episode. He really should not have trusted Sawyer with the task of delivering the boat, especially since Sawyer's been doing nothing but questioning his moves lately. Then, Smokey let Sawyer take Kate with him. Why? Why does Smokey trust Sawyer? Also, did the prop department slack off on their map making skills, or is Smokey just a terrible artist?

LIKE SHOOTING DESMOND IN A WELL: Sayid heads to down to the well to do Locke's murderous bidding. Desmond, yet again, seems to completely know what's going on. He guesses that Sayid is killing him in exchange for receiving a gift from Smokey. How could he know this? Is it possible that this Desmond is really Jacob? Maybe Desmond died in the electromagnetic blast a few episodes back, and just like when Sayid was taken over in the temple by Smokey, Desmond was taken over by Jacob? I hope not, but it would explain his calmness and his insight. We don't see what happens, but it's interesting that last week in the preview for this episode, they actually showed Sayid firing the gun, though we couldn't see Desmond getting shot. Did they change that? Or just decide to wait and show it later? Desmond challenges Sayid by asking him what he's going to tell Nadia when he rescues her. In a nice writing move, we cut from that thought to the flash sideways and Sayid returns to tell Nadia that very message: "Everything will be okay for you now. I took care of it." And Nadia responds nervously, "What do you mean? Did you hurt someone?" Did he shoot Sayid? We won't know for a couple of weeks, but I'm guessing no. Later, when Locke asks him if he followed through on it, Sayid tells him to check if he doesn't believe him. Smokey decides to trust him, and Sayid smiles behind his back. Is Sayid turning good again?

SUN'S UNLIMITED SUPPLY OF NOTEBOOKS: Locke's camp starts marching towards the Hydra Island. Smokey notices that Sayid is gone longer than he expected, and asks Sun if she's seen him. Sun pulls out her notebook and writes, "You did this to me." (Seems like she should be conserving those notebooks.) Smokey seems legitimately confused by that. Or he's just a good liar. I'm guessing the latter. Since it looks like the writers are not going to explain it any further than this, I will now agree with all of you who said this "Aphasia" memory-loss plot line is super lame.

SO, WHICH BOAT IS THIS, ANYWAY? I looked it up, The boat they're sailing on is apparently "The Elizabeth", the one Desmond sailed to the island, orginally given to him by Libby. (What? Yep. Remember?) Sun's been on it before, when she shot the Other named Colleen in the stomach. I guess flash-sideways karma returned the favor by letting Sun get shot in the stomach. Right before the Losties can take off in the boat this time, however, Claire comes out of the jungle with a rifle, kind of pissed that they were going to leave her again. "We thought you were crazy" is not he best defense, so Kate throws herself in the line of fire and talks Claire into leaving Locke and coming with them. Claire still seems a little iffy, so Kate wisely takes her rifle. It's nice that Claire is possibly going to make a recovery, but I'm not sure it will be easy to go back to being a healthy, mentally stable mom after spending three years in the jungle putting the ax to dudes' chests. But time will tell.

WE HAVE TO NOT GO BACK: On the boat, Sawyer decides it's a good time to gloat and tells Jack he's gotten good at taking orders. Jack says leaving the island doesn't feel right to him. Sawyer tells him to get off the boat, and, much like Sawyer jumping into the water from the helicopter in Season 4, Jack jumps overboard. Before doing so, he apologizes for getting Juliet killed. Little does he know he also created an alternate timeline and possibly totally jacked the universe up. Kate freaks out and Sawyer keeps on sailing. Jack swims an amazing distance back to shore, and then Smokey amazingly knows where to exactly where to stand in order to meet him.

SUN AND THE BABY ARE FINE: I don't have much to say about this, but it's important to note that getting shot in the stomach is only a minor stumbling block for Sun, who's perfectly fine, as is their unborn child. This surprised me. I thought for sure that things were going to start going badly for some characters in the flash-sideways. Right now only Locke, Sayid, and Kate have lives that are a little up in the air in the flash-sideways. Everyone else seems to be doing pretty well. Will this end up being the time-line that becomes the ONLY timeline?

JACK & DAVID, SUIT BUDDIES: Meanwhile, Jack and his son David are dressing alike and spending a super day together at the law office and the hospital. The writers seem to be going out of their way to show that Jack and David are getting along perfectly now. Jack fields a call from David's mom, just to remind us that we have no idea who she is. I'm still guessing Juliet. It could simply be his first original wife, and maybe in this time line they had a child before she moved on to star in Modern Family. Who do you guys think Jack's flash-sideways wife is?

BACK IN THE DURAL SAC: Jack gets called to the hospital to perform surgery on Locke, and it's a familiar surgery. His dural sac is injured, which I'm pretty sure is the gross thing that Jack sliced on Ben to gain bartering leverage back in Season 3. Jack seems to be a much more confident surgeon in this time line. Will he heal Locke? Will he even fix his back where he can walk again? At the end of the scene, he recognizes Locke, so it will be interesting to see where the flash-sideways go after this point.

WIDMORE IS BAD AGAIN: Sawyer and his crew swim ashore the Hydra Island, hoping to receive help from Widmore. And the reunion no one really cared about finally happens: Jin and Sun see each other for the first time in like three years. Jin tells her he loves her, and that they will always be together. The second thing out of my mouth would be: Why did you leave our daughter alone off the island? Meanwhile, Zoe calls Widmore, and Widmore tells her to take them all prisoner. So, he IS bad? I'm thinking yeah. But we also know that Zoe and her team were spying on Sawyer with night-vision goggles and hidden microphones a while back, so maybe they just heard Sawyer tell Kate his plan to steal the sub and now Widmore's just being a little more cautious. Zoe gives her teammates the go ahead to start firing missiles at Locke, and all the dudes wearing red shirts near Locke on the island's beach get decimated in a powerful precision strike. Locke saves Jack and tells him it's all going to be okay. Jack looks concerned.

That's it for this week. Notice anything else?

Here's a couple of things you should check out that I've tweeted about recently, but are pretty cool. First up: this amazing Wired Lost article. Make sure you click on all 8 pages or so at the bottom. There are some cool charts and sidebars. One page has a weird Dharma logo on it that I'm pretty sure is some kind of puzzle or clue that some smart person needs to solve. It even spells Dharma wrong so something HAS to be up:

Second, check out the Lost Slapdowns on youtube if you haven't already. They're just funny skits from the producers and stars, really, but they're pretty entertaining. There's a ton of them, but here's one of my favorites:

Okay, and now here's what I saw in the preview for two weeks from now (they're showing a rerun next week.) There were a lot of scenes in this one that actually gave away some plot points, so beware of minor-ish SPOILERS:

PREVIEW FOR NEXT WEEK: A super says "His soul had gone mad from being alone in the wilderness" which is a line from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. We see Locke shooting dudes near the Ajira plane. He says in voiceover: "I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna kill every single one of your friends. And there's not a thing you can do to stop me." We see Kate in a cell. And since they're on the Hyrdra island now I'm pretty sure it's those darn polar bear cages again. Claire and Locke face off, and Locke seems to be throwing her around. Saywer looks out from behind the bars of a cage. Locke is shown by the Ajira plane holding his cell-phone smashing stick. Widmore is shown near the cells, and he says "He's coming." So it looks to me as if the Losties are going to be locked up in those cells by Widmore, but then the smoke monster is going to show up and kill everyone else while they are trapped in the cells. We see Jack in the flash-sideways operating room. It looks like Locke's POV as he's waking up to Jack's face after surgery. We see a ring being put on a finger, in a close up shot. Looks like Sun and Jin. We see people running in the dark near Widmore's new pylons. We see Kate in her cell again, and the voiceover says "He doesn't need you, Kate." One of Widmore's men is violently thrown by Smokey up against the wall of the cell. Hurley says, "We're dead." Locke pulls a wire underneath the plane. Is this Locke discovering Ben and Richard's freshly-rigged explosives? We see Sayid, Jin, Sun and Hurley near a plane on the runway. We see Jack and Claire looking into a mirror on a jewelry box. Then a reminder that there's only four episodes left until it's ALL OVER. Can't wait. The next episode is called "The Candidate." I'm assuming that means the person who will take over for Jacob. Who could it be? Vote in the poll on the right.

Lost Episode 6.12: "Everybody Loves Hugo"

2010-04-13T20:31:00.000-07:00

Everybody Loves Hurley episodes. Including me. And that was a great one. But, honestly, I don't know what to say about it, or how to expound on it here on the blog, because I honestly have no idea what is happening. Every now and then I think I understand it all, then it magically evaporates and I realize I understand nothing. It's either great writing, or its all crumbling in on itself. Or my brain is unhinged. Either way, I'll give it my best shot. Maybe as I go through the episode, I'll figure things out. Care to join me?

HURLEY IS THE MUSEUM'S 'MAN OF THE YEAR': Really? The museum gives out 'Man of the Year' awards every year? Are there that many people who still go to museums? This was a fun opening, with Dr. Chang's great narration. Things I noticed: A red-headed woman sitting in the front row, probably Charlotte. Locke's Box factory showed up in the photo montage. The Cluck's Chicken Shack that got hit by a comet in "Tricia Tanaka is Dead" reappears here, and must have gotten hit by a comet in this time line as well because it had a banner on it reading "Grand Re-Opening." And I'm not sure about this next one, but in the slide of Hurley opening a home for kids, I'm pretty sure Alex and Emma were two of the kids in the photo with him, to his right. Cool stuff.

MICHAEL HAS BAD TIMING: I'm not sure why Michael was the chosen ghost to come to talk to Hurley, but it was good to see him again. And at least he wasn't yelling "WALT!" It was strange that whispers preceded his arrival, though. Previously, Whispers have never been part of Hurley's visions of dead people. And lately they seem to have centered around The Others' appearances. In fact, when Ben as an other attacked a young Danielle Rousseau last season, he said "If you ever hear whispers, run the other way." And we heard them in the temple when the Losties went in, right before the Losties were grabbed by the Others. So, I thought they were related to the Others. But according to what we learn later in the episode, it seems that's not the case. So...Is Michael bad or good? Is he working for Smokey and trying to stop Hurley from blowing up the plane so Smokey can escape? Or is he really trying to help Hurley? How does he know the future? Here you see my confusion showing. I have no idea. Also, didn't Michael look kind of scraped up? If it's scrapes from the explosion that killed him on the freighter back in Season 4, I would say that he should look a little more scraped up. Otherwise, I'm not sure what that was about.

LIBBY'S FAJITA FIELD TRIP: So, Libby is back in the flash-sideways, and spots Hurley at a Mexican restaurant. AND she KNOWS HIM. Crazy. Apparently, no matter what the time line, Libby's got to check into Santa Rosa for a bit. This time, she checked in because she saw Hurley's face on TV and started remembering things from other realities. I guess they're each other's constant, and yet again the power of Love is making people in this time line aware of the Island time line. Cool. By the way, the waiter that took Hurley's order also once played a "redshirt" on the island. For those of you that don't know, "redshirt" is a term used by Star Trek fans to describe the one guy (usually in a red jumpsuit) that beams down to a planet with Kirk and Spock that you know is just there script-wise so the bad guys can kill him. Lost uses that terminology as well, and has put red shirts on several people who die on the show in the background. Anyway, apparently the actor who played the waiter has been standing around in the background in the group scenes on the Island before. TRIVIA IS FUN!

ILANA NEEDS MORE BANDAGES: So, despite the fact that Ilana's been "training her whole life" to protect the candidates, she goes to the Black Rock and picks the most unstable, rotting pieces of dynamite she can find and throws them in a dangly shoulder satchel. Let's don't blame Jacob for that one. She even starts chunking them around willy-nilly. Erin and I the explosion coming the moment we saw the dynamite in her purse, and I'm sure you did too. But it was still shocking. Before she blows up, Hurley mentions that if they blow up the plane, then Smokey will just get angry and kill them. And he also says it's possible Richard doesn't know what he's doing. These are good questions. I definitely see this script headed for the 11th hour moment, where it looks like all is doomed for the Losties, but before it ends nastily, things will make a turn and start to go the right way. But I basically just described the last section of a story arc, so I'm no fiction Nostradamus. I'm sorry that Ilana had to kick the bucket for this tension to build story-wise, but it makes sense to build the tension by getting rid of the person in the "protector" role. And her death also causes a split with Richard, the Losties' advisor. Interesting.

LOCKE IS A-WHITTLIN': I thought this was interesting. Sawyer asks what Locke is carving, and Locke responds "When the time is right, it'll tell me." I have no way to look it up, but I'm pretty sure Locke has said those words before, back in Season One or Two. If not, it still seems like a Real Locke thing to say. Is Locke's consciousness still around inside Smokey, and as I predicted in earlier posts, will it start to make a comeback to defeat evil Locke? More later on that.

DESMOND THE PEACEFUL CAPTIVE: Sayid comes back and takes Locke to see Desmond, who is acting innocent, but definitely giving off the vibe that he's actually a super awesome secret agent. Does Desmond know more than he's letting on to Locke? I think so. Locke says "Do you know who I am?" And Desmond replies, "Of course." Staring at him, before adding calmly, "You're John Locke." Locke looks concerned. Desmond told Locke about Widmore's tests on him. Does Locke suspect what Widmore plans to use Desmond for? Or is he in the dark? I'm not sure.

HURLEY GETS THE JACOB DUST: After Ilana's explosive exit, Hurley looks through her things, and finds a book in Russian. It's apparently a Russian copy of Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground. (Side note: Does BookPeople have a "Books from Lost" book club? They should.) He also finds a bag of Jacob ashes that he takes with him. This is good to note given how the episode ends with Hurley basically leading everyone unarmed, right into Locke's camp. I'm guessing that the magic dust will come in handy pretty soon.

BEN CAN'T NOT BE EVIL: Ben's poison tongue is still in effect, spreading doubt and fear as the Losties trek through the jungle. He's saying what everyone's thinking, though... Why did Ilana die, if Jacob wanted her help? And did she die just because she served her purpose, and the island was done with her? Here's my thought on that. Dead, Ilana may turn out to be more able to help Hurley's crew. After all, she will still be able to talk to Hurley, and may be able to help him while being unseen by Smokey later on. But who knows. Hurley appears to be getting to be a very important part of everything, though. And Jack is finally smart enough to trust him.

HURLEY CLUCKS HIS SORROWS AWAY: Hurley heads to a Mr. Cluck's and orders a family-sized bucket from the kid from Freaks & Geeks who was working behind the counter in a nice cameo. As Hurley's sitting and eating, he notices Desmond staring at him. Desmond comes up and joins him. Desmond is obviously on a mission, and at the chicken shack on purpose. Which is a weird sentence to write. Desmond tells Hurley to believe Libby, and is obviously encouraging him to remember. What is Desmond up to? Desmond gets his order number called, and it's 42, one of the Numbers. Weird that it wasn't Hurley's assigned candidate number, which is 8. 42 is the one that had "Kwon" written next to it on the cave wall. Anyway, Desmond leaves, saying on his way out, "It was nice bumping into you." Which is funny, because later he will REALLY bump into Locke.

GOODBYE, BLACK ROCK: Totally believably, Hurley uses his elusive ninja skills to escape detection, dash ahead of everyone into the Black Rock, light some dynamite (with... matches?) and then dash out before the whole ship explodes on everyone. Richard is super pissed, and leaves the group with Ben and Miles. An odd trio, if there ever was one. It will be interesting to see what happens to the three of these guys. If Miles survives, I will be surprised. But happy. Miles questions Hurley's blind following of dead people, and Hurley says that dead people are more reliable than live ones.

THE HUGO REYES REC ROOM: Hurley decides he likes the kind of crazy that means you find him attractive, so he heads to the asylum to ask Libby on a date. To do so, he throws around more of his benevolence. I really liked the fact that they didn't just throw Libby back in the mix in some kind of alternate-reality Charlotte kind of way, but instead made her play a major role in connecting this time line to the other one. Nicely done.

THE BOY IS BACK: And this time he looks more like Matt Damon than before. Did you know the actor who plays this kid is 14? I would have guessed like 9 or 10. Anyway, who is he, what's he doing here, why does Locke look pissed when he sees him, why does the kid smile, blah blah blah. I don't know. I'm glad that Desmond saw him, though. Maybe he'll rescue Desmond from the well later. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

DESMOND GETS THROWN INTO A WELL: I liked this scene a lot, though I think it would be a lot harder to push me into a well if I knew you were evil. I think Desmond does know that Locke is not Locke. We get some interesting insight into the well in this scene. According to Smokey it was dug by hand by people with compasses who were "looking for answers". Their compasses would go crazy right over spots like the one at the well. (BTW, compasses are thought to have been around since the 2nd century, and the earliest ones have been found in China. If I'm to believe Wikipedia.) I guess these are the electromagnetic pockets that Widmore's people referred to, like the one the hatch was built over. Smokey also says that Widmore is just interested in power, and finding these pockets. I could believe that, actually, because I'm having a hard time thinking Widmore's really motivated by helping those he loves, when he says things to flash-sideways Desmond like, "Oh to be unencumbered by attachments" or whatever he said last episode. Or I guess, Smokey could be lying. Either way, Desmond's not buying it, and much to Smokey's chagrin, he's not scared either. "What's the point of being afraid," Desmond asks. So Flocke sends Desmond's love down the well and Desmond gives a nice Wilheim scream as he plummets to the depths. Is he dead? No, but I only know that because of the preview for next week's episode.

"LETTING GO," THE JACK SHEPHARD STORY: Jack tells Hurley that he's done leading people to failure, and is going to start wearing his "Let Go and Let God" T-shirt more often. This is interesting. Does Jacob want people to let go? Or does he want them to just start making better choices? I dunno. Either way, this moment is interrupted by more whispers.

SO THE SECRET OF THE WHISPERS...IS THAT THEY ARE BASICALLY PURGATORY: So, as I mentioned earlier, we finally get an explanation for the whispers. They're the voices of people who are stuck on the island because of what they did. They can't "move on". So, is every Whisper someone who committed evil in some way while on the island? Are Nikki and Paulo whispers now? What about Boone? What about Mr. Eko? Who moved on, and who didn't? Where did they move on to? The after life? Hurley asks if there's anything he can do to help Michael move on, and Michael says "Don't get yourself killed." What does this mean? Maybe if the Man in Black is defeated, they can "move on"? Before Hurley leaves, Michael tells Hurley to tell Libby he's sorry, which seems only appropriate since he shot her in the stomach.

FINALLY, THE PICNIC: This was a nice scene with flash-sideways Hurley and Libby, who after a kiss both get confirmation about the existence of another time line. Desmond watchese them from a distance. Clearly flash-sideways Desmond is on a mission.

HURLEY GOES TO CAMP: Upon returning from throwing Scottish dudes into wells, Locke slaps his buddy Sayid some skin and turns around as Hurley walks back into the camp, surprising everyone. Hurley asks for a conversation, and says they are unarmed, asking Smokey not to do anything. Smokey says, "You have my word". Then the rest of the crew walk out and Smokey looks right at Jack and says: "Hello, Jack." I have a theory for this. Is it because HE'S CHRISTIAN SHEPHARD? We still don't know if Smokey and the creepy version of Christian Shepard hanging out in Jacob's Cabin are the same person or not. So, I'm just saying, this "Hello, Jack" could be a father talking to his son.

DESMOND SHOCKS US ALL: We see Desmond at Locke's school, watching Locke from a distance. Ben is concerned and talks to Desmond, who makes up a son named "Charlie" and starts to exit. But not before HE RUNS OVER LOCKE WITH HIS CAR. Um, to say this was shocking is an understatement. What's Desmond doing? My first thought was that he was taking some weird revenge for being thrown down the well (because at this point I thought island Desmond was dead) but my wife Erin had a better theory. She thinks he's doing the same thing that Charlie did to him last episode when he drove Desmond off the pier. If Desmond can't convert Locke with a love relationship that spans the time lines (because Locke's lady Helen wasn't on the island), then perhaps he has to use a near-death experience to get Locke to wake up to what's going on. I think this is a great theory. Also possible is that Desmond knows that if any of them die, they will mind-travel back to the other time line. That's why Charlie wanted to die last episode, so he could be with Claire. Is it possible if Locke dies in this timeline, that his spirit will re-enter Fake Locke's body and start to fight for control of it? I think so.

TIME LINE CONVERGENCE: Beyond that last theory, I think its possible that we might see people getting to choose what time line they stay in. If they all become aware of the two time lines, it's possible that those who do better in one could choose to stay in it. And those who have a nasty fate in one can just switch to the other. That's only if it's feasible for both time lines to exist. And which time line is Man in Black from? And is one of the time lines his home?

SMOKEY NEEDS EVERYONE: Another thing we learned this episode is that Locke needs all of the Losties to ride in the plane with him so he can recreate the circumstances of their arrival. Is he trying to recreate the Oceanic 815 passengers or the Ajira 316 crew? I'm unsure. But either way, he needs folks alive. At this point, I'm unsure of everything.

Notice anything else, or got any other good theories as to what's going on?

Here's what I saw in the preview for next week:

"THERE'S NO EARTHLY WAY OF KNOWING WHICH DIRECTION WE ARE GOING": First of all, what a creative song choice for next week's preview. If you didn't recognize it, it was the creepy song sung by Gene Wilder as the boat entered the terrifying tunnel in the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie. (Click here to watch it and relive your 70s childhood nightmares.) It was totally appropriate lyrically, because I honestly no idea where they're headed with everything. And how they can possibly end this show in the 5 episodes we have left. The preview started with Jack looking over his shoulder, and a shot of some rocks on the ocean. Then we saw Claire and Sayid being evil looking at their camp, and the evil campers looking at Hurley's group that just arrived. We see Sun's notepad with the note "You did this to me" on it, which I'm assuming she's showing to Smokey (see my theory on that from two episodes ago.) We see Locke, still alive, and staring up from a hospital bed being rolled into the emergency room. Is he remembering his other time line, and wondering what the evil dude is doing in his body? We see Sayid approaching Desmond's well. We see Locke leading his crew through the jungle. We see a map of the island, and a view of Desmond looking up at Sayid from the bottom of the well. We see Evil Tina Fey pushing a button in front of Locke and a huge explosion occurring behind Locke. Then, shockingly, we see Sayid shooting a gun into the well. The super says "THE TIME IS NOW", a statement which is always pretty much true without saying anything much. Next week's episode is called "The Last Recruit." Who is the last recruit? Recruits refer to people who will join Locke's side (as opposed to candidates on Jacob's side). Who will it be? I'm not sure we can count everyone who showed up with Hurley at Locke's camp this episode a "recruit" since they were just there to talk, so it could be any of them, or Jin, or somone else all together. Vote for your guess in this week's poll. (My vote: Frank. Smokey needs a pilot.) But remember, you have no way to know the direction they're going, so it may be better to just sit back and enjoy the ride. Which I'm unable to do, apparently, with out blogging for hours afterwards. Oh well. See you next week.

Lost Episode 6.11: "Happily Ever After"

2010-04-06T20:06:00.000-07:00

I just felt a great disturbance in the force. Like a million brains exploding at once. Honestly, I'm not even sure what to think or write after that episode, which my wife declared "best Lost episode ever." I wouldn't go that far, but it definitely was exciting and revelatory, while also somehow still managing to remain super confusing. I'm not sure if I understand things better or not after that. We'll have to work together to figure this one out. Fortunately, there was no "V" countdown blocking the screen this week. I'm a little sad about that because I had a good line ready in case it returned: "They should count down the minutes left until V is canceled, then it would be up for less time." Oh well.

For this mind-numbing episode, I'm going to try to break things down to new stuff we learned or new questions that arose, as opposed to a straight play-by-play of what happened. Though it might be a little of both. Ok, brace your eyeballs and brain-containers, there's about to be a lot of words to read.

WIDMORE KIDNAPS DESMOND FROM THE HOSPITAL: The last time we saw Desmond, he was in a hospital in LA after getting shot by Ben. Widmore was last seen outside the same hospital getting slapped in the face by Ms. Hawking. So apparently, he went inside and somehow was able to smuggle Desmond out. I guess because he has tons of money, he was able to just pay people off or something. Speaking of Widmore's vast resources, now that he appears to be a good guy, what are we to make of Widmore's business partnership with Mr. Paik, Sun's father? Does Paik know about the island, and even possibly the danger of the alternate timeline? Because in the flash-sideways, it looks like both Sun and her baby might die. Does Paik know about that and want to prevent it? Anyway, Desmond was under for 3 days before awaking on the island to become the savior of everyone, so I think maybe this episode counts as a Lost Easter Special.

DESMOND HULKS OUT: Desmond is apparently related to the Beserker line of Scotsmen, as demonstrated by his smacking Widmore on the head with medical equipment and his Lou Ferrigno-like demolition of the chair he was restrained in while inside the crazy electromagnetic box. The box itself was pretty cool, kind of a Jurassic Park/Primer combo. This box might be similar to the "magic box" described by Ben long ago to Locke, which he claimed Anthony Cooper came out of (and later claimed was a metaphor.) Is there another box like this on the island somewhere built by Dharma that Widmore and Ben know about? Just wonderin'.

WHAT'S WIDMORE'S PLAN? So, apparently electromagnetic pulses can send Desmond to the flash-sideways time line. But I'm still not sure what Widmore's plan is with Desmond beyond that. He claimed this first blast of magnetism was a "test." And he told a confused Jin that he needed to know if Desmond could withstand the test or they would would all die. He also told Desmond later that he would be asking him to make a sacrifice. What is the sacrifice? What is the plan now that Desmond can travel between time lines? How does that help Widmore?

WIDMORE'S SACRIFICES: Widmore claims he's made several sacrifices in order to carry out this plan. He lost his son Daniel, his daughter hates him, and he's never met his grandchild. Here's what my wife and I think happened to cause the rift between Penny and Widmore. First, Desmond comes to Widmore to ask for Penny's hand in marriage. But Widmore already knows about Desmond's destiny. Perhaps he read about Desmond in his dead son Daniel's journal, which must have been on Daniel's body when he got shot by his mother on the island back in the 70s. (We know that Daniel's journal talked about Desmond, and even said that Desmond was his "Constant".) So Widmore would also possibly know from the Journal all about Desmond's capabilities (which Daniel knew about somehow) and that Desmond had a possible role to play on the island. So he immediately decides to object to the marriage, because he knows that Desmond's fate is linked to the island, probably at the cost of his life, and he doesn't want to see his daughter become devastated like he saw his wife become devastated by losing her son. He also begins to do his best to get Desmond to the island. Including hiring Libby to offer him a boat. I'm not sure how much more explanation we'll get on that topic, but I think given what we know that scenario kind of makes sense.

REFLECTIONS OF A BRUTHA: The electromagnetic box works and after a flash of light we see a shot of drifting clouds (very Donnie Darko-esque) before fading to Desmond staring at his reflection in the Oceanic Six airport display. And so begins the flash-sideways that lasts for the majority of the episode. At first, Desmond is not conscious of his sideways travel through time. He meets Claire at the terminal and accurately predicts her baby's sex, so perhaps he does remember some things subconsciously. Then he offers her a ride in his car, and I think the writers had him do this in order to demonstrate that he's lonely and that his life is missing something. That fits with what we learn in the very next scene, when George Minkowski (the communications officer from the Freighter) crassly offers Desmond some lady companionship. Desmond refuses, illustrating that he's not looking for a one night stand, but a real relationship. We also learn that Desmond's job is to work for Mr. Widmore as a "Fix-it Man", which I guess is very similar to George Clooney's job in the movie Michael Clayton.

WIDMORE'S BAD ART: Widmore's painting of the scales on the wall is interesting. Who's painting these things for him? Seems weird if the whole island drama is such a matter of life and death to even bother getting a painting done of it. Maybe he's really into the mythology of the show. If I'd been through all Widmore has, I'd probably be more into peaceful paintings of flowers or meadows.

CHARLEY'S DEATH WISH: Widmore gives Desmond the assignment to escort rock star Charlie to what sounds like the worst Charity event known to man, and we soon see Charlie emerging from the police station and into Desmond's care. Unfortunately, in this timeline Charlie seems to be playing his annoying character from the show FlashForward. Kind of grating. Charlie demonstrates right off the bat that he's not concerned for his life anymore, and attempts to Bowfinger across the street. After his accidental near-death experience on the plane, he's become aware of the existence of the other time line and his relationship with Claire. So it looks like now Charlie WANTS to die, so he can be reunited with her. But would that even work? All we know at this point is that if you're about to die, you can peek into the other time line. This is similar to when Juliet glimpsed the sideways world right before her death in Sawyer's arms. Why does being near-death let you see this? I'm not sure. Apparently magnets, near-death experiences, and love are all able to give you glimpses of alternate time lines. You know, like you would expect.

TIME LINE ENVY: So I think the show is now building to a very messy situation. Some people's lives appear BETTER in this time line, while some people's seem to be worse. In fact, despite the fact that both Daniel and Charlie want to get back to the original time line, they both die pretty nasty deaths in there. And their love interests either die or go bugnuts insane. So, do they think the momentary experience of love is better than never having love? Or do they not know about the death part? I guess that's what's implied, but based on this show's logic I would actually recommend now that Daniel and Charlie just track their girlfriends down in this time line now that they know they're meant to be together and start working their charming magic anew. Much easier than crossing the streams or whatever's going to have to happen to fix things otherwise. But, instead of doing that, Charlie decides to end it all and take others with him by driving their car off a pier and into the familiar marina water below. (It's the same marina Ben shot Desmond at in the other reality.)

TAKE ME DOWN TO THE HOSPITAL: After the crash and a cat scan in the hospital, Desmond is able to start remembering things from the other time line. He tries to find Charlie, then chases him down a flight of stairs in a scene that was just like Alice chasing the white rabbit through the rabbit hole, even ending similarly with Desmond discovering the existence of another world. (Thanks to Zach for that catch.) This might be a lame stretch, but I noticed Charlie's also wearing black and white checkered vans as he runs from Desmond. Like the black and white stones, maybe? Or an Alice in Wonderland inspired chess thing? Or just coincidence? I'm insane. Jack gets involved briefly as well, and seems to be confused at all the folks from his seemingly benign flight showing up in the same hospital. Join the club, Jack. Charlie claims "none of this matters" and proves that by running off naked in his hospital gown.

LADY WIDMORE: Here's where things get zany. Desmond goes to the site of the ill-conceived Classical/Modern Rock Fusion Charity Event to tell Mrs. Widmore that the Modern Rock part is not going to make it. Mrs. Widmore/Hawking seems okay with that, and I assume that's only because she's relieved that she's not going to have to witness the promised musical performance. Desmond overhears "Milton, Penny (solo)" on the guest list and freaks out. (Penny's last name is Milton? As in Paradise Lost? Uh-oh.) Mrs. Widmore freaks out and tells Desmond that he's committing a "violation" and needs to stop. He asks her how she knows what he's looking for, and she replies "Because I bloody do". Ok, this is mildly confusing so let's pick it apart. First of all, I'm assuming she does not want Desmond to fix anything. She's now reunited with both her son and her husband. Is this why in the other time line she was so committed to making sure that Daniel became a physicist and went back to the island to detonate the bomb? I'm guessing she had to go through with that with the hope that the bomb going off would change everything. Now that it has, somehow she's able to retain the knowledge of both time lines (too many CAT scans?) and doesn't want things to revert back to the time line where she shoots her son. Which is understandable. But why did she tell Desmond long ago that the Island wasn't done with him? Wouldn't she want Desmond NOT to interfere? Because it seems like Charles Widmore wants Desmond back in order to STOP this flash-sideways from happening. And I'm assuming that's because something BAD happens in the flash-sideways. Like maybe, as I theorized before, the Man in Black is from the Flash-Sideways and is going to do something evil there?! I dunno. (As I side note, I was featured on the last Jay and Jack Podcast as a call-in listener with that last theory. Kinda cool. My voice sounded insane, but it was a nerd validation of sorts.) Also curious is Mrs. Widmore's parting comment that Desmond can't see the guest list because he's not "ready yet." So does she want him to continue his mission or not? Or is it just that SHE'S not ready yet, even though she knows the right thing to do? This show is pretty amazing. By amazing, I mean totally confusing.

WHAT DOES FLASH-SIDEWAYS WIDMORE KNOW? It seems like flash-sideways Mrs. Widmore is somehow fully cognizant of what's going on. Is Charles Widmore? It looks like he's not, or he'd be offering more instruction to Desmond, I think. Though who knows.

IN THIS TIME LINE, DANIEL WEARS STUPID HATS: Daniel is back (perhaps my favorite Lost character), and he's wearing the dumbest "musician" hat I've ever seen. It looks like the hat a piano player would be wearing on a snazzy tie from the 80s. No wonder he wants to get back to the other reality. He desperately needs a girlfriend bold enough to tell him to take off that ridiculous headpiece.

CHARLOTTE EATING A CHOCOLATE BAR: For Daniel, just the sight of Charlotte eating a chocolate bar was enough to propel him sideways in time, at least mentally. He didn't need a near death experience or an expensive magnet. So, I have to wonder: Was it an Apollo bar? I would guess yes. I have a quick, lame Apollo Bar theory to throw out here. I still think the Man in Black is trying to get to the alternate time line in order to somehow kill everyone in the world. That's his home, where he's from, somehow. And, that's why that time line can not be allowed to exist. But how is he going to kill everyone? In the Lost Experience game, there was a mention of deadly chemical testing going on in the world. Could this be part of his plan? Could he be planning to spread a deadly infection... THROUGH EVERYONE'S APOLLO BARS?!? Once again, it's probably a good thing I don't write for the show.

DANIEL IS SORRY HE BLEW UP AN ATOMIC BOMB: After espying Charlotte from afar, Daniel jots some quantum physics into a notebook. Ah, love. Yet again, the mysterious paradox of this mysterious journal. So, WHICH notebook did Ms. Hawking give Daniel at his graduation dinner in The Variable? The one from this time line? An empty one? The full one from the original time line she found on his body after shooting him? *Brain explodes.* Either way, Daniel is now aware that he is the cause of this flash-sideways world. And he wants to set things right. I'm assuming he doesn't know that Charlotte will die a horrible death if he does. He also confirms to Desmond that Penny is alive and real.

THE STADIUM?? WHA?? So Desmond tracks Penny down, and in this time line she jogs in the same stadium that Jack and Desmond jog in during the original time line. Then Penny and Desmond have a REALLY awkward meeting which Penny seems to take in stride. Personally, I would have been a little more freaked out by it. After all, he just basically walks up to her and says "Are you Penny? Hello, I'm Desmond." Then passes out. Then awakes and says they've never met before. Then asks her out for coffee. I guess it's quite an entrance. Anyway, Desmond touches Penny, his constant, and is instantly transported mentally back to the island. Ah, love.

DESMOND UNDERSTANDS EVERYTHING?!: Oh, man. I wish he'd explain it to me. I liked Desmond's renewed sense of purpose upon his awakening, though. But is there more to it than what we know? What does Desmond know that he needs to do? How much does he know? He tells Widmore: "It's alright, I understand. You brought me here to do something very important. When do we start?" Is Desmond being totally truthful? Wouldn't he wonder why Widmore would NOT want to live in the timeline where his son, daughter, and wife are totally alive and well? I kind of hope we can just take Desmond's word for it, and assume that Widmore is good and Desmond is on board with his plan. However, the next scene kind of left things a little open ended...

LOOK OUT FOR THE FLASH SAYID-WAYS: Desmond is being escorted somewhere by Zooey (one of the least cool Lost characters to date) when Sayid appears out of nowhere and takes everyone out. He tells Desmond he's in grave danger, and Desmond just calmly replies "Of course, lead the way." What's going on here? My vote is that Desmond somehow knows that Sayid isn't right and is just trying not to get himself killed. Or does he want to be taken to the Man in Black to defeat him? But how would he know about the man in black? Argh. 5 episodes to go and I'm still not sure 100% who's good and who's bad and who's fighting who for what and why. *Brain explodes.* All I know for sure is that you DO NOT want the island to be uncorked. Whatever that means.

MANIFEST DESTINY: We jump back to the flash-sideways and Desmond gets back in the limo. He accepts George's offer for help and asks him to get him the flight manifest for Flight 815 so that he can "show them something." Awesome. Little does George know, if he helps Desmond out, in exchange things will switch back to the other reality and George will die a painful death on the freighter as his nose bleeds from time travel complications. That said, it's cool to know we're finally going to start seeing these flash-sideways stories connecting to our regular show, already in progress. Now, here's a question: At this point in the limo, is Desmond still jumping back and forth in time? I mean, is the progression of time exactly what we've seen in this episode for Desmond's consciousness? Desmond walks away with Sayid but then suddenly finds himself back at the stadium? I don't think so. Could be, but it's also possible that Desmond only flashes back ONCE, and what we're seeing in the taxi is a part of what happened BEFORE he awoke in Widmore's box. Maybe he goes and talks to the other 815ers, figures out what's going on a little more clearly, and THEN wakes up and asks, "How long was I unconscious?" That would explain his resolve a little better. Guess we'll have to wait and see. Gets pretty confusing, though.

That's it. I skipped over a ton, I'm sure, so please feel free to bring other stuff up in the comments. One thing I do want to get into, though... It occurred to me that some folks are going to really benefit from the flash-sideways timeline, and some folks are going to benefit from sticking to the original time line.

Let's take a look at where a few key players stand:

DESMOND: Loses current son if everything goes to sideways time. ADVANTAGE: Regular time line.
JACK: Loses flash-sideways son if he stays in this time line. ADVANTAGE: Flash-sideways?
JIN: Possibly loses both Sun & Ji Yeong to death in Flash Sideways. ADVANTAGE: Regular time.
WIDMORE: Actually seems better off in the flash-sideways, strangely. His only loss would be a son-in-law, as he already has Penny, Daniel and his wife. (One possible, lame explanation: He does mention in the flash-sideways that he envies Desmond's unencumbered lifestyle without wife or kids... Could his motivation simply be to get more alone time? I kind of doubt it, so I'm going to say ADVANTAGE: Flash-sideways?)
CHARLIE: Doesn't meet Claire in Flash-sideways, but doesn't drown either. But according to him: ADVANTAGE: Flash-sideways
MS.HAWKING: Better off in Flash-Sideways for sure.
SAYID: Looks bad either way, but less bad in flash-sideways, perhaps.
BEN LINUS: Better off in Flash-Sideways for sure.
SAWYER: Juliet's dead on the island. In the Flash-Sideways, he's not a criminal and not a murderer, yet. Unless he still shot that guy in Sydney while looking for Anthony Cooper. ADVANTAGE: Flash-sideways.
KATE: Mother of Aaron in one, on the run from the law in the other but we don't know why yet. ADVANTAGE: ??
CLAIRE: In the flash-sideways, she lost the adoptive parents, but isn't a crazy person raising a creepy squirrel baby. ADVANTAGE: Flash-Sideways??
ANGSTROM THE BUNNY: Seems to be fine either way.

POLL RESULTS: For those following the polls on the right column of my blog, the winner of last week's "What mystery do you most want solved?" was a tie between "Who was that kid Smokey chased?" and "What up with Christian Shepherd?" Out of those two, I'd much rather learn about Christian Shepherd, personally. Cause he's been freaky since Season One. The kid was cool for a second, but now I find I don't care as much. Plus, I'm pretty sure we'll get an answer to that. A close second was "What up with Walt?" followed by "Adam and Eve?" No one cares about the Dharma supply drops, I guess. HOW DID THEY KEEP COMING? Bad paperwork?

PREVIEW FOR NEXT WEEK: Here's what I saw in the preview for next week. Hurley visits Libby's grave. Michael's ghost appears there and says "people are gonna die and its your fault." Then a totally out of place rock song kicked in and we saw a ton of shots of characters spinning around to face the camera. Which was odd. It ended on Hurley saying to Jack "I know what we need to do, trust me." Next week's episode is obviously Hurley-focused. It's entitled "Everyone Loves Hugo." I'll let you know if more things start to click in my exploded brain before then.

Ten Interesting Influences on LOST

2010-04-05T10:06:00.000-07:00

Getting ready for tomorrow's Desmond episode? According to Damon Lindelof, the next episode is going to totally "change the conversation." Crazy. Before the game gets changed on us, I thought it would be fun to put together a list of the various pop culture influences on our favorite show. So, here's a list of ten interesting shows/movies/books or whatever that seem to have been an inspiration for the creators of Lost.

THE ANGEL OF DEATH IN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS:

Remember the 1956 Cecil B. Demile version of The Ten Commandments? I do. As I child, it was hard not to be freaked out by that creepy scene where the angel of death comes to take all the Egyptians' firstborn. The monster is a black cloud of smoke, killing all the first born it comes into contact with and passing over the ones with the blood of a sacrificial lamb over their doors. This is obviously the special effects precursor to Smokey. Check out the video here, and scroll ahead to about the 6 minute mark to see the smoke monster's grandpa in action. There's always been a ton of Jewish/Old Testament inspired aspects to Lost, but until I watched this clip again I could never figure out how all the Egyptian imagery on Lost could fit in with anything. Could it have something to do with the Egyptians being the Jewish people's captors during this Biblical period? I don't know, but kind of interesting.

ALTERNATE TIMELINES IN DONNIE DARKO

Donnie Darko, the original (and better) cut, was a very mysterious movie that actually required you to do a little research away from the film itself to understand what it was about. When the movie first came out, I spent a lot of time on the Donnie Darko website, which was actually a really well-designed game that gave you more info about the movie the more you dug into it. As you progressed through the game you were rewarded with the excerpts from Roberta Sparrow's book "The Philosophy of Time Travel". After reading the rules of time travel in that book, the plot of Donnie Darko came to light and the movie made much more sense. Donnie was supposed to die as a plane's jet engine crashed into his home, but he avoided that fate and in doing so created an alternate timeline. The very existence of this alternate timeline created an unstable world, that would ultimately lead to the destruction of all time lines (according to facts gleaned in the text of Sparrow's book). So Donnie had to face his fate and travel back in time to die as he was originally intended to, in order to save the world. I think this is a Lost influence that we'll see pay off more as the flash-sideways are explained.

THE ENTIRE SERIES OF THE PRISONER (1967)

Lost has lifted so much from the great, classic British Sci-Fi series The Prisoner that it's hard to keep track of everything. First, the main character on the island is classified with a number (like our Losties). Number 6 awakes to find himself in an oceanfront Village where he is kept prisoner by unknown forces, and desperately tries to find his way out of the village (ie. off the island). In the pilot episode, a mysterious monster appears (called Rover) that attacks anyone who is trying to fight the system established in the Village. The monster's arrival is announced by an odd sound (not unlike Smokey). The Village itself is surprisingly bright and cheerful, like the Other's Barracks were revealed to be at the beginning of Season 3. In the headquarters of the Village, there's an observatory room that looks a LOT like the inside of the hatch. There's even an episode in the middle of the series where The Prisoner actually escapes the Village way before you expect him to (not unlike when the Ocean Six escaped in Season 3.) In the end, Number 6 is given various injections and is tested by the leaders of the Village, before finally finding away into their inner chambers, which is underground. The scene where Number 6 starts to walk into the inner chambers is identical to the scene where Jack first walks into the Hatch in Season 2. Remember how weird it was at that tense moment, when a Mama Cass song from the late 60s started playing as Jack crept down the hallway of the Hatch? You can thank the Prisoner for that as well, because as Number 6 walks down the rocky hallway toward the reveal of the contents of the inner chambers, "All You Need is Love" ironically plays. Watch the video here, but if you haven't seen the show before, stop it right as they unlock the final door with a key or you're getting some pretty serious spoilers. Now, I will warn you that the show The Prisoner ended SO BADLY that its creator and star Patrick MacGoohan had to leave the country because people were so angry. Hopefully, Damon and Carlton won't have to do the same. That said, The Prisoner is still worth watching as a sometimes frustrating, but always incredible show that was WAY ahead of its time. For the record, the newly made Jim Cavezial/AMC version sucks.

THE BATTLE PLANET OF SECRET WARS:

Back in 1984, Marvel Comics released a 12-issue miniseries called Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars. In it, a large gathering of heroes and villains find themselves brought to an isolated planet by a cosmic entity known as "The Beyonder" who wants to observe them. The Beyonder tells them: "Slay your enemies and all that you desire shall be yours! Nothing you dream of is impossible for me to accomplish!" I guarantee you that Damon Lindelof has read this series, but most nerds with street cred have. Anyway, the whole plot of Lost is turning out to be our Losties brought to the island for some kind of cosmic battle of good and evil, so this definitely seems like an influence.

THE GUNSLINGER

Now, I haven't read all of Steven King's fantasy epic The Gunslinger, but I've read enough to know it involves alternate time lines and a cosmic battle of good and evil. And I know the villain is referred to as "The Man in Black." And I know that the Lost writers are Steven King fans. I read the original version of The Gunslinger way back in the day, like when it came out, and in my recollection it ended that the whole thing was happening inside a droplet of water on a blade of grass. Or something crappy like that. I think King has sense revised that ending to allow the story to evolve into other chapters. Let's hope Lost doesn't end that way. Side note, but did you know the show St. Elsewhere ended with the reveal that the entire show was taking place inside the mind of an Autistic child as he looked into a snow globe? Unbelievable.

THE STAND

While we're on the Steven King kick, it's impossible to ignore Season 6's similarity with The Stand. It starts with an infection that kills 99% of the population on Earth. Those who survive find themselves drawn to two camps, one camp is evil and led by a guy who becomes the embodiment of evil, the other is good and led by an elderly 108-year-old woman who is goodness personified. (108 is the sum of all the Lost numbers combined, by the way). In the end, they stage an epic battle between good and evil, known as The Stand, which determines the fate of the human race. Read more about the similarities here.

TIME TRAVEL RULES OF DOCTOR WHO

Okay, this one's a little bit of a stretch but I love Doctor Who so here goes. Remember the Dharma Orientation film for the Orchid? In it, Pierre Chang is holding a bunny and talking about time travel, when suddenly a second version of that bunny appears, and everyone freaks out. "Don't let them near each other," Pierre yells. Now, on the beloved (by me) original series of Doctor Who, there was a TON of time travel, because that was the whole premise of the show. But the one rule was that you couldn't meet your former self in time travel or the universe would basically explode. I've searched for the reference episode on that, but can't find it. But trust me, that was the rule (even though they found ways to break it quite often.) Not sure if the new (and less good) Doctor Who series carries on that rule, but I thought it was a fun explanation for the bunny scene in this video. I'm also not sure if this influence is intentional or just coincidental, but at least I got to talk about Doctor Who.

THE HIDDEN PARADISE OF LOST HORIZON

In the book Lost Horizon by James Hilton, people crash land in a plane and discover a hidden paradise in the mountains of Tibet. Once they're there, they find peace, love and a sense of purpose... however, they are forbidden to leave. When people enter the secret place, their aging slows. I haven't read it, but heard about the similarities from my friend Robert. Definitely sounds like a close relative of the island. (It also claims to be the first paperback ever made, but apparently that honor actually goes to the Good Earth, at least if you trust Wikipedia.)

THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND

Well, this connection is pretty obvious from the title alone, but The Mysterious Island is a book by Jules Verne. In it, men traveling in a hot air balloon (Henry Gale-style) crash onto an island that seems deserted but they soon learn that they're not alone as they find stockloads of guns and other strange signs of life. In the end, the mystery's solution is oddly (SPOILER) that the book is a sequel to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and that the people living on the island are Nemo and his crew. Strange, but kinda cool.

TIME-JUMPING IN SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE

In honor of tomorrow's Desmond episode, I saved this one for last. Remember how Desmond kept jumping around in his own timeline, yet he was aware that he was doing it the entire time? That's exactly what happens to Slaughterhouse Five's protagonist Billy Pilgrim, as he finds himself "unstuck in time". He is able to visit various points of his life and even knows how and when he will die (likeDesmond knowing about Charlie's death.) The book also deals with familiar LOST themes of fate vs. free will.

What do you think? Noticed any other influences while watching the show? Put your nerd hat on and leave a comment below.

I should also point out that this list leaves off some references that have been already called out specifically in the show itself, like Alice in Wonderland, the Bible, the Wizard of Oz, and of course all of the other books that have actually appeared on screen. (If you're interested in learning more about the books featured on Lost, check out this site dedicated to them.)

Tomorrow's episode is entitled "Happy Ever After."

Lost Episode 6.10: "The Package"

2010-03-30T20:25:00.000-07:00

A pretty solid episode. I really thought tonight's show was going to be a disappointment after last week's great Richard-centric episode, but it wasn't. We learned a lot more, and right off the bat one of my Ten Lost Predictions (listed on the post below) was disproved. Shows what I know. Anyway, I liked it. But even as I write this, certain folks are texting me (Jay) and telling me that the episode sucked. I disagree. To me, it opened up some interesting theories. What I do agree sucked was the stupid "V" logo taking up the bottom right hand corner of the screen. THE ENTIRE TIME. Stupid Abc. I can only take comfort in the fact that they clearly have no idea how or why Lost is such a big hit and they will never be able to replicate it. Muhahahaha. Anyway, let's get into it, starting with the flash-sideways. WARNING: I did not proof this. Too tired. Must... sleep... sometime.

FLASH-SIDEWAYS TIME LINE:

"NO ENGLISH": We opened on Jin in the airport, receiving the bad news that the government was taking the $25,000 he was transporting to his mobster friends. Can the government do that? Well, it's almost April 15th, so I'm sure a lot of you out there are learning that they can, and indeed will. Sun & Jin could have filled out some paperwork to clear it all up, however, in this time-line it appears that Sun can't speak English. She wasn't learning English in this timeline, because she's wasn't planning to leave Jin. I have an interesting theory about Sun's language skills that I'll save for later in this post, but I will just say it has something to do with Sun losing her English on the Island as well as in the Flash-Sideways...

SUN EXPOSURE: Next, we learn that Sun & Jin aren't married in this time-line (which readers of my blog already knew, because she was called Ms. Paik by the airline employee in the season opener, and because she wasn't wearing a ring.) So they get separate rooms, but it doesn't take long before Jin comes knocking and then Sun starts unbuttoning things. What's up with the flash-sideways turning into Cinemax after hours? First Charlotte was a victim of the Lost After Dark treatment with her clichéd red dress and sultry pick up lines (c'mon, she should have been more of a nerd than that) and now Sun gets the saucy treatment. Oh, Lost, you could rise above. I will say this about Lost, though, you see a lot more naked dudes than ladies, overall. They're at the least fair and balanced in their desire for peeking.

SUN LOOKS IN THE MIRROR: We next find Sun & Jin together the morning after, and Jin has unwisely skipped his appointment with Keamy, forcing Keamy to come knocking on Sun's door. Before Sun answers it, though, she looks at herself in the mirror. Remember my post about the main character in each flash-sideways looking at themselves in the mirror? At least I'm right about that. It happened again here. She even seems to remember something. Now, I didn't notice Jin looking in the mirror this episode, so if I had to guess, I'd say Sun is the candidate Kwon based on the ol' mirror test. Also, I should point out that Sun gives herself a really strange look in the mirror, like she recognizes something's wrong. That keeps happening to people. I wonder where it's leading?

JIN IS TERRIBLE AT HIDING: Keamy & Omar come in Sun's room, looking for Jin. Omar comes in and searches the place, and finds Jin by opening the door to reveal him standing there in the doorway like a dude from the board game Mystery Date. Nice hiding, Kwon. Sun & Jin try to talk their way out of it, and Keamy makes a TERRIBLE joke about Godzilla movies, then tells Omar to fetch... Mikhail. Who we all know as Patchy, from the Flame station.

PATCHY WITHOUT THE PATCH: is way less cool looking. Man, eyepatches. Is there any thing they can't do? Patchy takes Sun to the bank, where they learn Sun's secret account is closed. Patchy is not that surprised, because he already knows that Paik knows about the couple. I guess Keamy was hoping that Sun would actually be able to get the money, and that's why he tied Jin up, to wait until she got back to the restaurant with it. I guess his plan after that was just to shoot Jin right after getting the money.

KEAMY'S EVIL PLANS: Keamy starts monologue-ing Jin by revealing his evil plans, which is fitting, since he's about to get killed by Sayid right afterward in true villain style. Apparently, Jin was carrying his own hit money with him right to his hit man. Man, that Paik guy is pretty cold. Keamy says, "The heart wants what the heart wants" which is interesting only because it sounds really familiar to me. Did someone else say that on the show before? Is it from The Notebook? I can't place it. He also says "Some people just aren't meant to be together", but I guess we'll have to wait and see about that.

SHOT IN THE EYE: Sayid shows up, kills a bunch of folks, then gives Jin a box opener. Mikhail shows up with Sun and finds Keamy dying on the ground. Keamy's last words are "Look behind you, you idiot," which seems fitting for his character. Jin is forced to shoot flash-sideways Mikhail in the eye. I'm assuming he's dead now. There's a lesson to learn here, MIkhail: No matter what, fate hates your eyeball.

WILL SUN DIE? I know it's a little late to be adding predictions to my last post of Lost predictions, but one that I honestly forgot to add which I had thought of a couple of days ago was "A MAIN CHARACTER WILL DIE IN THE FLASH-SIDEWAYS". I wish I had remembered to put it on the list, so you guys would think I was cool instead of lame for starting with the Widmore theory right out of the gate. Anyway, I think that will happen. I think Sun will die in this time-line, and therefore Sun & Jin will not have their baby. Meaning their only hope in keeping the baby alive is in the island time-line, where they have to destroy the plane, the catch-22 being that this is their only possible means of escape. I think in the end Jacob will still help them get home to their daughter, though, somehow.

Ok that's the end of the flash-sideways timeline. Let's get back to ISLAND TIME...

TERMINATOR CAM: We open on some night vision goggles creepily watching Kate and Sawyer drink "cocoa". Looks like Widmore wasn't going to wait around for Sawyer to do his dirty work for him. And, I'm guessing since they've been watching and listening to Sawyer they already know how he told Smokey everything that happened on the sub.

COMFORTABLY NUMB: After Locke tells a quickly healing Jin that he's off to find Sun, he stops by Sayid on the way out, and Sayid complains, "I don't feel anything." Creepy, and sad. Locke responds that perhaps that is better to help Sayid "get through what's coming." This fits in really well with a theory I heard on the Jay and Jack podcast. A caller there suggested that Smokey cannot kill a candidate – only other candidates can. Therefore, Smokey needs Sayid in order to use him as a hitman, to kill all of his old friends. Could be scary.

DARTS IN THE NECK: Jin tells Sawyer, wisely, that he's going to get out of there before "that thing" comes back. Unfortunately, he's shot in the neck by a dart, like everyone else is. I thought the use of darts by Widmore's team was interesting, because we saw The Others do that to the Losties back in Season 2, and Widmore used to be their leader. Maybe darts are an old school others method of attack. Anyway, the cast of 30 Rock show up with hi tech gear and drag Jin out of there. For those who like to have names of characters, the girl is Zoe (not Zooey as I wrote previously) and her doughy companion is Seamus.

BEN IS PUSHING IT WITH ILANA: Ben sure has adopted a sassy tone when addressing the lady who hours earlier was making him dig his own grave. Just an observation.

WATCH OUT FOR THAT TREE: Sun gets angry that Ilana won't let her leave to find Jin, and runs off to find her old garden. Jack tries to console her, but Sun yells that she doesn't care about Jacob, candidates, Rick Warren or a Purpose-Driven Life. Right on cue, evil Locke shows up and starts talking his smooth-talkin' talk. Sun's not having it and dashes off through the woods, aiming for a tree from a mile off. And apparently, it was an Amnesia Tree, because she wakes up not remembering how to speak English. Now normally, I would cry foul at an amnesia storyline, and at first, I actually did yell my complaints at the screen. But, then a super-awesome theory hit me and I kind of liked it. Here goes...

MY AMNESIA THEORY: Ok, in the Flash Sideways, Sun can't speak English. AND, on the Island, she suddenly forgets how to speak English. On the island, when does this happen? AFTER she speaks to Smokey. Perhaps Smokey even touches her when she's unconscious, Jacob style. So here's my theory. I think that the Man in Black is from the Flash-Sideways time-line. It's his "home" that he keeps talking about returning to. In that time line, the island is underwater and he's free to enact his evil plan to wipe out the "guilty" human race by killing everyone. I think to prevent that catastrophe from happening, Smokey was somehow taken from that time-line and made a prisoner on the island, which was created to exist outside of regular time. (Using Frozen Donkey Wheel/Egyptian/Magnetism technology. You know.) Jacob is put there to guard him, and is trying to convince Smokey that people are good and shouldn't be killed. If this is true, the time-line from the first five seasons of Lost is the "good" time-line that Jacob wants to happen, and the flash sideways is bad, leading to the destruction of life as we know it. Think about what Widmore says to Jin later this episode. Jin is looking at picture of his daughter for the first time, and Widmore says if they don't stop the man in black, everyone Jin knows and loves will "simply cease to be". This is the first time anyone has used the phrase "cease to be." I think it means if the man in black escapes, he will eradicate the time line in which Jin's daughter exists, and the alternate reality will become the main one. And the alternate reality leads to the end of the world. Does that make sense? I think when Smokey got near Sun, someone from the alternate time-line and someone from the real time line got too close together and it had weird crossover effects, causing Sun to lose her English-speaking skills. What do you think?

ROOM 23 IS BACK: I thought it was cool to see good ol' brain-washing Room 23 again. Not sure why Dharma would build a brain-washing room, but it's interesting to note that if Dharma made the video playing in that room, than they may have known about Jacob, because the original video said "God loves you as he loved Jacob" in one section of it. Though it's possible that Ben made his own video to show in there when he took over Hydra Island with the Others. Also weird to think about now that we know Jacob's goals better: Why did the Purge happen? Why did the Others kill all of the Dharma Initiative if Jacob brought them there. I'm guessing because Ben wanted them dead? Maybe because Ben had been taking orders from Jacob's Cabin, which was possessed by the Man in Black? Weird.

DON'T TAZE ME, ZOE: Zoe comes in and tazes Jin, then asks him if he's the same Jin that signed the map of the islands pockets of electromagnetism. Cool to see another map of the island. I think the reason we were shown this is to remind us that Jin knows a lot about the island as a security guard. I think this is important because he would therefore know about any dormant volcanoes that may or may not come into play later this season. (See last post.)

"WE'RE TAKING THE OUTRIGGER": Meanwhile, back at Camp Evil, Smokey and Sayid head off on a mission to talk with Widmore, and they take an outrigger and a gun. I thought this was going to show us the scene from Season 5 where Juliet and Locke and Sawyer got shot at it from a distant outrigger, and that the shooter was going to be Sayid, but alas, it did not happen. Doesn't mean it didn't happen offscreen, though.

WHAT EVER HAPPENS TO KATE, HAPPENS: I thought it was creepy how Smokey basically told Claire that if she stuck around long enough to help him get off the island, then after they got on that plane, "whatever happens, happens." So he basically admitted he was using Kate and didn't care whether or not she lived or died. Also interesting to learn that Kate's name was on the wall, but then it was scratched off. Why was it scratched off? Because she didn't come back to the island for "Destiny" but because she came back to rescue Claire? I dunno.

"NO, CAUSE THAT'D BE RIDICULOUS" Sawyer got off a couple good zingers in this episode as he asked what I asked a couple of blog posts ago... why does Locke need a boat if he's made out of smoke. Locke says that he can't get to that island otherwise, and Sawyer quips, "No, 'cause that'd be ridiculous." The writers are really beating a lot of fans to the punch this episode. The same thing happened when Sun got amnesia, and Miles quickly commented on the ridiculousness of the situation.

RICHARD IS BACK IN ACTION: I love that Richard is back and instantly has a plan. Which I assume is: blow up the plane. Cool. Sun doesn't think so and freaks out again.

LOCKE VS. WIDMORE: It was nice to see Locke and Widmore chatting outside the sonic fence. Locke asks if he knows who he is, and Widmore responds, "I've heard myths, ghost stories, and jungle noises in the night." Which is a cool line. Locke is mad that Widmore stole Jin, and Locke throws Widmore's line back at him that "War is coming to the island." So, like I mentioned before, it looks like I was wrong about my Widmore theory, and that Widmore is a good guy. If so, then I think he was keeping Desmond and Penny apart on purpose, so he could get Desmond on a boat to go to the island. Because Desmond is important to stopping the "bad" time-line from happening, because he is able to cross between them and change things in time. I think Widmore was dead-set on removing Ben from the island because he knew that Ben had been corrupted by the Man in Black, who was disguising himself as Jacob inside the cabin. I don't think he told Keamy to kill his daughter. Or maybe he did, we know he wanted Ben to kill Alex as a baby, so maybe Widmore's kind of an EXTREME follower of Jacob who's a little too zealous but means well? I don't know, I guess the jury's still a little out on Widmore being totally good, but he's at least on the right side, like Ben is now as well. My wife would like me to point out that she's always thought Widmore was good, at least since last season.

"COLONEL, YOU'RE ON A ROLL." This wasn't a line from Lost, but it was a line from a KFC commercial that played during it which I thought was hilariously awful. Get it, 'cause the sandwich is on a Hawaiian roll. My apologies if I know you and you wrote that ad.

ZOE IS A GEOPHYSICIST: I only think this is interesting because there's a volcano on the island, as I keep mentioning. Both volcanoes and electromagnetism are mentioned on this Wikipedia entry for Geophysics. What does Widmore want her to do?

SUN IS A STUBBORN TOMATO: Okay, Jack pulling out the tomato was kind of lame. But, I do think Jack's line about "No one told it that it was supposed to die" was DEFINITELY the writers making an allusion to Sun herself. Because, as I mentioned before, I think we're going to see that she dies in the Flash-Sideways. I like the new self-confident Jack, he's a much better character this way. He even reminds me of Jacob in his calm coolness. Right after this scene my DVR died, and my heart almost went with it. Luckily, my DVR is not smart enough to remember that V is a terrible show, and it still recorded it. So oddly, that V counter in the bottom right actually helped me remember that I could switch to V to watch the end of Lost. And the V counter even showed me how many seconds of the show I missed... :06. Guess that V thing wasn't so bad, after all. But don't ever do it again, ABC.

THE PACKAGE IS A WHO: So, Widmore tells Jin that he's got a package on board, but it's a who, not a what. I immediately complained, "So if it's a who, why did you call it A PACKAGE?!" To which my wife responded "Some ladies would agree that Desmond IS the total package." Touche. So it IS Desmond after all. And Desmond must have been really confused to see Sayid poking out of the water near the dock. Things are going to get interesting next week.

THE PREVIEW FOR NEXT WEEK: Clearly, the next episode is going to be Desmond centric. The bagpipes alone told us that. The first shot looked to me like it was a shot of ruins in Scotland. After that we got a lot of old footage cut together in order to tell us nothing about what we're going to see next week. There was a shot of the Oceanic Six, a shot of Sawyer in the rain, and a shot of the freighter sinking in the water from Season 4. The supers make the word poem: "DREAMS LOST, LIVES LOST, LOVE LOST" and then Desmond's face is shown waking up as Widmore says, "I'm going to ask you to make a sacrifice. The island isn't done with you yet." Yikes. Sounds like it's gonna be an episode that will have me up typing all night.

Thoughts? Did I miss anything cool? Did you like it? Hate it? Love it? Only 7 episodes left...

Mid-Season Lost Predictions

2010-03-30T11:34:00.000-07:00

Well folks, last episode was number 9 out of 18 (if you count both hours of the finale as two separate episodes), so we're right in the middle of the last season of Lost. What better time for me to make some random predictions about what we'll see before the end of the entire show. Here goes, listed in no order. Also, I make no guarantees, and am probably wrong about the majority of these.

TEN LOST MINDGRAPES SEASON 6 PREDICTIONS:

1. WIDMORE IS A VERY BAD MAN: Widmore is not working for Smokey or Jacob, but wants to harness the power of Smokey as a weapon, or harness the powers of the island for profit.

2. JACK AND JACOB ARE RELATED: Jack Shepherd will be from the line of Jacob. Jacob's last name is possibly Shepherd. Or, Jacob is Aaron and Jack is his uncle. Either way, in some form, Jack and Jacob are related.

3. THE MAN IN BLACK'S NAME IS... actually, I think it's possible we will never learn the Man in Black's name. Because he's just all the evil in the world. "Please to meet you, hope you guess my name" and all that.

4. THE VERY LAST SHOT: I think the very last shot of the show will change everything. Duh, I know, but I just mean get ready for a game-changing ending. Somehow the curtain will be pulled back and reveal everything we've been seeing happen is actually happening inside... something. This isn't much of a prediction, but I definitely think the last few seconds of Lost will blow our minds, and I don't think the last shot will explain everything, but rather raise more questions and possibilities. Here's another Lost trivia bit that I find very fascinating: Matthew Fox is the only actor who claims to know what the last shot of Lost is. Why would the show runners need to tell him that? There's got to be a reason, and I feel like if you could figure that out, you could figure out the ending to the show. Did he need to know in order to prepare physically? Did he need to lose a lot of weight to play the part? Or, did he need to know to guide some of his acting decisions back in Season 5 and 6? Interesting.

5. BEN WILL KILL WIDMORE: I'm pretty sure Ben will kill Widmore. Revenge for Alex. My guess is that he'll have the option to let him live, and won't take it.

6. THE WHISPERS ARE RELATED TO THE FLASH-SIDEWAYS: I think we'll learn that the whispers are our main characters "other selves" trying to communicate and guide decisions made on the island.

7. THE VOLCANO WILL COME INTO PLAY: Remember when we first saw the Dharma Initiative in action in the 70s in Ben's first flashback episode? The teacher of the class was teaching about volcanos. Ever since then there's been a popular theory that there's a volcano somewhere on the island. I think it will come into play in Man in Black's plans to get off the island.

8. DESMOND KNOWS JACOB: Remember when Desmond told his ex-girlfriend Ruth why he joined a monastery right before their wedding? (In the episode Catch-22.) He told her that one night he was drunk and woke up on the street and a man "with a rope around his waist" offered him his hand and said "can I help you, brother?" I think this man was not a monk, as we were led to believe by the episode, but Jacob. And I think that this is the moment that Jacob "touched" Desmond. I also think that scene is very interesting, because Ruth says rudely to Desmond after hearing that story, "It's a good thing you weren't found by a shepherd or you'd be off with the sheep". I think he was found by a Shepherd. Jacob Shepherd.

9. ILANA'S STORY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOU THINK: I'm kind of hoping now for an Ilana flashback, mostly because she seems to know a LOT about what's happening on the island and who Jacob is. I don't think we'll get one, but I think her story is very important to getting some backstory that we need. Especially because she knows that the man in black is trapped inside Locke's body. How could she know that, unless Jacob has confided in her with a little more of what's going on? Which leads me to my last prediciton:

10. JACOB WANTED SMOKEY TO TAKE LOCKE'S BODY: Jacob is one step ahead of the Man in Black. He knows that Locke is stronger than Smokey thinks, and the fact that Smokey has put himself into Locke's body in order to escape has also made him more vulnerable. Now he can be killed. And, I think the person that's going to kill Smokey, and thereby save the entire world, is Locke himself. I think Locke's spirit will start making a resurgence inside Smokey and thwart him at the last moment, causing his downfall.

And one bonus crackpot prediction:

11. THE FLASHBACKS ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM: I think we'll learn all of the flash-backs from the first three seasons (and possibly the flash-forwards, and flash-sideways) are not what they seem. I think the folks have been on the island LONGER than they think. And maybe haven't been off of it. Ever. The flashbacks are something the island is doing to them, trying to get them to become better people by putting them in various scenarios. But that's just conjecture. I have no proof. I just think it would be pretty mind-blowing if we learned that somehow. That said, I don't think the island is a psychological experiment of some kind. That would suck. I think the island is more spiritual in nature.

And last but not least, not really a prediction, but one thing I'd like to see:

12. A SCENE OF THE ISLAND IN ANCIENT TIMES: So far, the earliest we've ever seen the island is when the Losties jumped back in time to see the statue for a second near the site of the Orchard. That's the farthest back we've ever seen. I'd love to be able to see who built the statue and why, but I'm not sure if we will.

That's it for now. I bet at least one of these will be proved untrue in a few hours when we witness the next episode, which is called "The Package". The only prediction I have for that episode is that "The Package" refers both to what Jin is delivering in LA to Keamy and also to whatever it is that Widmore has locked inside the sub. My guess is still Desmond. I also heard a cool theory that whatever is in the sub is a device that will be used to trap Smokey. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

Got any predictions of your own? Or thoughts on these predictions?

Hanso & Mittlewerk = Jacob & Man in Black ??

2010-03-29T14:20:00.000-07:00

Hey folks, just some random Lost thoughts for you guys. I was wondering why we didn't get to see Magnus Hanso, the captain of the Black Rock. His name was mentioned long ago on the Blast Door map, where the Black Rock was listed as the "known last resting place of Magnus Hanso". And then Whitfield, one of his officers, told Richard this episode that he now belonged to Magnus Hanso. So I was surprised when we didn't get to meet Magnus himself. Why haven't they shown his face?

We know that Jacob is responsible for bringing everyone to the island. Does that mean Jacob IS Magnus Hanso? At first I thought maybe so, but if that's the case how was Jacob on shore watching the Black Rock at the end of Season 5 and not on the boat itself? (By the way, the producers have confirmed in the official podcast that a storm kicked up right after the conversation on the beach in that episode.) I think, instead, it's more likely that Hanso works for Jacob, just like Richard.

And does Magnus have eternal life like Richard? We also know the name Hanso from its connection to the Dharma Initiative. Rumored to be a distant relation of Magnus, Alvar Hanso was shown in the Dharma film in "Orientation" as the CEO of the Hanso Foundation, and friend to the DeGroots, who started the Dharma initiative. The Hanso Foundation, interested in showing benevolence to mankind (not unlike Jacob) even funded the Dharma Initiative, making it possible for them to come to the island. Which had to be Jacob's will, knowing what we know now. Here's a pic of Alvar:

I think that both Magnus and Alvar Hanso are the same person. Like Richard, maybe Hanso was touched by Jacob and allowed to live for a long time in order to help Jacob defend the island. I don't think he really died on the Black Rock as was indicated on the Blast Door map, because otherwise we would have seen it happen this episode. I think he's still in service of Jacob, helping him bring people to the island to keep the world safe from the man in black.

Here's where it really gets interesting. During the alternate reality game between seasons 2 and 3 entitled "The Lost Experience", a woman named Rachel Blake tried to expose the Hanso Foundation as a corrupt company that claimed to be doing research about extending people's lives, but secretly were doing murderous tests on human subjects. But the shocking twist to that story was that Hanso was actually a good guy, who had been taken prisoner by a evil man named Thomas Middlewerk, who was now running the company with his nefarious intentions in Hanso's place. Rachel tracked down Hanso at his home, planning to confront him for his evil deeds only to learn this truth. Their conversation makes a lot more sense in now that we're deep into Season 6. Check out this part, in particular:

TRANSCRIPT:

Alvar: The men you see here, work for the Foundation, they do not work for me. Their job is to keep me inside. To keep me from talking to anyone of importance. I’m a prisoner…

Rachel: No! You are not dodging the blame.

Alvar: No. I’m not. I am to blame. For training Thomas Werner Mittelwerk. For grooming him to be my successor. For giving him all the tools he needed to do the awful things he has. He cannot kill me, but he can keep me locked up while he kills millions of what…

(Rumbling from outside the room spooks both Blake and Hanso, and Rachel has to momentarily cover the camera)

Alvar: ..he is the one who has done all of the things that you have exposed. And much worse, all in my name.

END TRANSCRIPT.

Pretty crazy. Sounds like Hanso was training up his own "candidate" to be his successor: Mittlewerk. But Mittlewerk rebelled and started killing people under the name of the Hanso Foundation. And, for some reason, Mittlewerk was not able to kill Hanso, so instead he trapped him and made him a prisoner. Sounds like the opposite of the Jacob/Man in Black saga to me. Here's a pic of Mittlewerk, who's obviously evil:

Also interesting is what exactly Mittlewerk was up to. He was apparently testing a deadly virus on people in Sri Lanka. Was that test in order to later spread that same virus all over the earth, killing everyone, carrying out the will of the man in black?

Is this what happens when Smokey is unleashed into the real world, the "going to Hell" that Hurley warned us about? If not, why the similarities? It can't be an accident.

Or, Is everything happening on the island a reflection of this actual struggle going on in the real world?

Read the full transcript here (where, lamely, Hanso also turns out to be Rachel's dad ala Star Wars).

One more thing.

Who is The Economist? Remember when Sayid went on a shooting spree for Ben off the island as a member of the Oceanic Six? Ben said he was killing people that were a threat to Sayid's friends on the island. I've always assumed that Ben was actually having Sayid kill off his own personal enemies, or Widmore's guys, and I'm sure that's part of what was going on, but was Ben also telling the truth a little? Was The Economist someone who was out to hurt the folks on the island, someone who worked for the Man in Black? If that's the case, I'd say that The Economist could be Thomas Mittlewerk, Hanso's enemy.

Okay, I'm on the borderline of confusing myself, so I'd better stop. But I think I may be on to something. Or, I'm just going insane. Thanks, television! This is my last TV show for a while.

Lost 6.9: "Ab Aeretno"

2010-03-23T21:03:00.000-07:00

Wow. Pretty darn good. But it's a deep one, so get your theology waders on. I'm so glad Richard didn't switch over to the dark side. I thought it was realistic that Jack's dynamite trick from a couple weeks ago wasn't enough to keep Richard from a crisis of faith, he really needed a whole episode to work through it on his own. He deserves it, he's an awesome character. We also got a lot of answers this time (some more satisfying than others) and of course a lot more questions, too. Turns out Richard is apparently like an Old Testament prophet, kind of a Moses figure, which I will elaborate on throughout the comments below. Let's start breaking it all down.

ILANA'S EYEBALL: This episode surprisingly opened on Ilana, instead of Richard, and with another close up of an eyeball. Yet again, we see her suffering, covered in bandages. What happened to her? I guess we'll find out sometime. I'm kind of doubting she'll get her own flash back, but we'll see. She seemed to be ready to serve Jacob despite her wounds, but also a little shook up at the same time. Was she overcome with emotion because she was shocked to see Jacob off the island? Was she simultaneously realizing she was about to get healed? The second time it cut back to Jacob and Ilana's flashback, it appeared that they were in the same place and Jacob was wearing the same clothes, but that Ilana was completely healed. We get to see Jacob telling her to protect the six candidates and telling her to take them to the temple.They didn't show it, but I guess Jacob told her to put on some fancy boots and seduce Sayid in order to get him on the plane, too. Or maybe that was her idea.

RICHARD HELL: Back on the island, Ilana asks Richard what to do next, and he laughs a kind of pathetic laugh and then angrily runs off in the woods with a convenient torch to find Smokey and try and switch teams. Before leaving he brings everybody down by telling them they're all dead and actually in hell. Worst bonfire party guest ever. At first, I was pretty annoyed at the whole "hell" angle being brought back up. Locke's father Anthony Cooper already brought up that theory, so, like all theories brought up by people on the show, it must not be right. Richard brings it back up again, but thankfully, it paid off later in the episode as we learned more about what Richard's early experiences on the island.

RICHARD STEERS A MEAN HORSE: In a flashback, we quickly learn Richard is from the Canary Islands in 1867, thanks to a helpful super. There's already been some nerd debate online about whether or not this causes some continuity problems, because back in the episode The Constant, we were told at an auction (that Widmore was attending) that the Black Rock's final voyage was in 1845. Whoops. Surprising, because Gregg Nations was one of the writers of this episode, and he's the guy on staff who's main responsibility is to keep up with the continuity and to know EVERYTHING about Lost. That would be a formidable job, though. Anyway, we soon meet Isabella, Richard's dying wife, who gives him a golden cross to give to the doctor as a payment for his services... A process that has continued throughout time, up until today, when Obama signed the health care bill to change all that. A REALLY big deal, at least according to Vice President Biden and his overenthusiastic swear words.

THE DOCTOR IS IN...BUT HE'S A JERK: Richard bursts in on the doctor, who apparently became a doctor because he hates people and wants them to die. Worst doctor ever. Richard agrees and accidentally manslaughters the dude. Which is easy to do, at least if you're a character on this show. By the way, here's the first similarity in this episode between Richard and the prophet Moses. Moses accidentally killed an Egyptian in anger and had to flee from Egypt. Which I guess isn't exactly the same, but still, kind of similar. Richard rushes back home to discover his wife is dead, and the police are close behind. Richard is placed in jail, where he learns to speak English by reading the Bible. He's got the book open to Luke 4:37 when the priest comes in. Not sure what the significance of that passage is, but it's the part where Jesus comes back from the wilderness after being tested and heals someone who is possessed by a demon. Richard tries to get absolution by confessing his sins to the priest, who says, nope, you're going to Hell no matter what, you have to work for grace (not true) and instead sells him into slavery for a bag of coins. He even takes Richard's Bible with him when he leaves the cell. Worst priest ever.

MANGUS HANSO: I kinda wish my name was Mangus Hanso. It's a pretty awesome name. We learn from the new character Whitfield that Mangus Hanso was the captain of the Black Rock slave ship. We had seen his name before on the blast door map, where the Black Rock was listed as the site where Mangus was buried. I'm kind of surprised we didn't actually get to see him, but I guess there wasn't really time for that. His ancestor Alvar would start the Hanso Foundation, which funded the Dharma initiative. For some reason. Read more about Mangus here.

THE BLACK ROCK HITS TURBULENCE: So, this is probably going to be the most controversial part of the episode among fans. We see the Black Rock on the ocean in what I would say is a pretty decent bit of CGI for Lost. And the ocean is going crazy. I'm a little confused by this, because in the season 5 finale we saw the Black Rock approaching the beach near the island in the daytime on a pretty clear day. Did Jacob cause a storm? One of Richard's shipmates peeks through the ship's hull during the storm and spots the grotesque Tawaret statue and thinks the island is guarded by a devil, which I guess begins to plant ideas in Richard's head that make him think he's in Hell. Then the controversial part happens. The water kicks up really high and the boat smashes into the statue, destroying it and landing way inland. Um, what? Wouldn't the boat just crash on the statue? Aren't statues generally made out of stone? Wouldn't everyone in the boat die when hitting the statue? How far inland can a boat be pushed by a wave if it hits a statue on the way? My first thought was that they tried to actually show the mammoth wave so that the crash and the statue collapsing would be more believable, and that the CGI just didn't look good so they redid the scene with the ship point-of-view cam. Either that, or we'll get a better description later of what actually happened. But I do have to say I'm a little disappointed with the kill two birds with one stone approach used here. How the statue broke and how the Black Rock got so far inland seemed like two separate fascinating mysteries before. And now the answer is... a really bad storm. Hmm. Well, it was still an amazing episode.

SMOKEY FINDS THE BOAT: Richard wakes up to a long nightmare inside the hull of the ship. I have to say, Richard doesn't get a break this episode. Immediately Whitfield walks in and starts stabbing all the slaves. I thought at first that he got "the sickness" but then he explained his actions were more of a precautionary, practical nature. Worst slave driver ever. Oh wait, I guess they're all pretty bad. Scratch that last one. Anyway Whitfield stops when he hears familiar noises outside the ship, and Smokey violently answers his request to "Report!" by pulling him through the ship's grates. Then Smokey kills everyone but Richard. Is Smokey killing them because he didn't want them to come to the island in the first place? It's also really interesting after this point how Richard's experience inside the boat mimics the Losties experience upon first arriving to the island. He encounters the smoke monster, who kills off some of his fellow survivors. Then he sees a boar, then he starts seeing dead people. And then he witnesses sudden rainstorms on sunny days, like we saw a lot in seasons one and two. It was also interesting how the smoke monster came into the boat, looked at Richard, and then let him live. It could have been because Richard was praying, but it's more likely Smokey scanned him, got the memory of Isabella from him, and decided to manipulate Richard instead. Interesting to think that scanning people is possibly how Smokey gets to bring their loved ones back to life. Explains what he was doing the time he scanned Eko, which later led to Eko seeing his brother on the island, alive.

THE BUTTERFLY: One thing I did think was interesting was the CGI'd blue butterfly that flew into the boat and past Richard. Was that just a butterfly, or was that Jacob somehow checking on him? Remember, we've seen animals before that have been "magical", like the Hurley bird and Kate's horse. Were those Jacob? Because neither of those seemed to be evil in a Smokey kind of way.

ISABELLA APPEARS ON THE BOAT: So, Isabella appears and we know it isn't really Isabella. This brings up some questions. Was it the Smokey? If so, why would he make it look like the smoke monster killed her? And how could he be in two places at once, since we hear him coming from a distance? It could be some other force on the island, or the island itself, who is appearing to people as ghosts. Like Ben's mom. Or Eko's brother. But in this case it makes the most sense if it is Smokey, because the apparition tells Richard he is in hell, and that the devil is after her. Which is a story that Smokey later uses to manipulate Richard. Probably the best bet. And it makes sense because Smokey is always offering to bring people back from the dead in order to get what he wants. What's confusing is Hurley's ability to see ACTUAL dead people. Because I'm assuming the Isabella he sees later is really her, while the one in the Black Rock at the beginning is someone else, since Richard could see one and not the other. So the island can host both real dead people and fake dead people? Confusing.

RETURN OF THE MAN IN BLACK: It was cool to see this actor again. But I'd REALLY, REALLY like his character's name now. It seems more and more likely that his name is Esau, but who knows. Do you think it's possible they'll NEVER give us his name? I hope not. Anyway, Nameless Guy with Black Shirt begins conning Richard instantly, telling him he's in Hell and needs to rescue his wife from the Devil. He also gives Richard some water. When the butterfly went by earlier, it started to rain right afterwards, and Richard tries to reach the water to drink and cannot. Was that Jacob, in his "don't interfere" mode, trying to help indirectly? And yet the Man in Black is not above stepping in and offering water if it will get him what he wants? Interesting. Richard agrees to help Smokey and then Smokey repeats the line "It's good to see you out of those chains" which he said as Flocke to Richard in the season opener.

RETURN OF DOGEN'S KNIFE: Smokey gives Richard a shinier version of the knife we know later ends up in Dogen's possession (presumably after Jacob gave it to him.) Oddly, Smokey gives Richard the exact same instructions that Dogen gave Sayid. I'm guessing here that only candidates can kill Jacob. Otherwise Smokey could have done it himself or gotten someone who would. And I'm guessing that Richard's a candidate. Speaking of the knife, what is its origin? In this scene, Smokey also tells Richard that he is the black smoke, which, unlike Sawyer's reaction last episode, causes Richard to start asking all the right questions. So... you killed everybody? And my wife? Smokey responds by saying, "You aren't the only one that lost something. The "devil" (Jacob) betrayed me, he took my body, my humanity." What does that mean? I guess that Smokey was a person once, and to keep him on the island Jacob cursed him or something happened where he lost the right to a corporal form, hence the cloud of smoke. Richard says he can't kill Jacob, because murder is what got him sent to Hell in the first place. I like Richard's logic. The Man in Black gets all philosophically vague and starts to talk about gray moral areas like, "who knows what's right and what's wrong". You really shouldn't accept this kind of ambiguous talk from a man dressed in a black shirt that symbolizes his own complete dedication to evil. Just a little advice for life.

WRESTLING WITH JACOB: Richard goes to the statue and we get to see bits of it floating in the ocean. Jacob starts to beat the crap out of him, which made Erin and I think about the scene in the Bible where Jacob actually wrestles with God in order to receive a blessing. So, if this is the actual biblical Jacob, then it's no surprise that he's a pretty mean wrestler. Jacob doesn't have time for all the "this his hell, we're actually dead" theories that were only popular with fans back in season one, so he splashes Richard in the ocean for a bit until he begs for his life and comes to his senses. Maybe Jacob needs to work a bit on his people skills, but personally I'm kind of glad that they're not making him out to be a milquetoast kind of good guy, like the wimpy oil painting feminine Jesus that got top billing in all of my Sunday School classes in the 70s.

THE ISLAND IS A CORK TO STOP THE WINE FLOW OF EVIL: Jacob and Richard sit down for a talk, and we get more answers than we got in all of season 3 in one conversation. Here's a rundown of what we learned: No one comes inside the statue unless Jacob invites them inside. The statue being off limits without an invite is reminiscent of the inner sanctum in the Old Testament Jewish temple, where only the priests who have purified themselves from sin by sacrificing animals could enter without being killed. We also learn the island is a place to keep the Man in Black prisoner, and Jacob is tasked with keeping him there. If the evil there gets out, it will spread. The island is the only thing keeping the darkness where it belongs. The Man in Black thinks everyone is corruptible because it's in their very nature to sin. But Jacob disagrees. He says when people get to the island, their past doesn't matter. Everyone he's brought to the island has been summoned there in order to learn for themselves the difference between right and wrong. He wants to do this without forcing people to do good, because without free will, morality is meaningless. But Richard, says "If you don't step in, he will". At this point, Jacob seems to honestly realize for the first time that Richard is right. He needs to take a more active role in what's going on. I think this scene is A LOT like Moses and God's conversations in the Old Testament. Moses pleads with God to spare the people who have betrayed him, and God actually listens and relents. Then for a while, God appoints prophets to go and tell His people His will. But then God changes the rules entirely in the New Testament by coming down to earth himself in the form of Jesus and REALLY getting his hands dirty. In the Old Testament, God lays out the laws and gives people a chance to be good by following written commands. But they can't hack it. So in the New Testament, God sends his son to pave a way for us, dying on our behalf to help us. I think Jacob's doing the same thing somehow when he allows Ben to kill him. Jacob's definitely got a plan to defeat the Man in Black, even from beyond the grave. Bare with me for a little more deep talk... Theologically, this conversation took a weird turn for me right at the end. Jacob says he can't forgive sins. Why is tht ? Is he God or not? I guess it's more likely that he's just a representative of God. Or he might even be the biblical Jacob. Whatever the case, this is probably the most theologically dense episode of Lost yet. Whew. Here's hoping there's a Hurley episode soon to provide a little levity before the final showdown. After Richard accepts Jacob's job offer, then he gives Richard eternal life, which for some reason he does have the right to do. Is it because he is the biblical Jacob, and he has a special blessing? Oddly, Richard's request for eternal life is because he's afraid to die and go to Hell for murder. If Jacob can't grant forgiveness for that murder, where then is Richard supposed to receive it? Because just about every one on the island has killed someone either intentionally or accidentally. Are they all out of luck, too? Or should they all just live forever to avoid the problem? Does Jacob want Richard to find real spiritual forgiveness in a more meaningful way while he's on the island, instead of just doling it out as fire insurance to the dude who doesn't want to go to Hell?

THE WHITE ROCK: Richard goes back to the Man in Black, who's sitting at the weird stone picnic bench. He gives the Man in Black the white rock. The Devil lets Richard know he'll always be there for him if he wants to be evil, then ironically hands him a cross. I think in this case the cross is a reminder of Isabella, and Smokey's unholy offer to bring Isabella back Pet Semetary-style. We then cut to the same location in present day, now overgrown, as Richard finds the cross in the dirt remarkably quickly and tries to call Smokey. Luckily Hurley comes out instead, and we get a really nice twist on the movie Ghost, where Hurley is Whoopi Goldberg, Richard is Demi Moore (they kinda look alike) and Isabella is Patrick Swayze. And the circle of life is complete. Does Richard start hearing Isabella at the end? It seems like it. I like how they ended this scene with Hurley saying there's one more thing that Richard had to do: Stop the Man in Black from leaving the island or "we all go to Hell". Scary.

ANOTHER CASUAL CHAT BETWEEN GOOD SHIRT & BAD SHIRT: We cut back to Man in Black and Jacob having a chat on a log. The Man in Black has been tossing around the White Stone so long that it's become smooth. I thought that was a nice touch to show how obsessive Smokey is. Irritated by losing Richard, the Man in Black says he will kill Jacob and anyone who takes his place. I wish they had cut after that, but instead Jacob leaves and Smokey smashes the glass bottle of wine on the log, which was a bit goofy. But, whatever. The rest of the episode was pretty darn awesome.

Thoughts? Unfortunately, my DVR didn't get the preview for next week, so I can't pick it apart like I usually do. I do know the next episode is called "The Package" and I would guess it's Sun and Jin-related, after the last cliffhanger where Sayid found Jin in that freezer. Sun and Jin episodes are usually pretty decent, so it should be a good one. See you then.

Lost 6.8 "Recon" - Reflections on Reflections

2010-03-22T15:40:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, getting excited about the upcoming episode focused on our favorite proponent of the purple-shirt, Richad Alpert? We are at our house. A couple nights ago, my wife and I rewatched the last episode, and I noticed a couple of things that I thought would be worth posting in the meantime:

MIRROR, MIRROR: One thing I noticed is that every flash sideways so far has featured its main character looking at their own reflection in some way or another. Cool, huh? This week it was less subtle (which is what made me notice it) as Sawyer symbolically punches his own refection in anger after Miles confronts him about lying. But it wasn't until I rewatched the Sayid episode "Sundown" that I noticed it happens in all of the flash-sideways. Sayid is waiting for Nadia to answer the door, and as he's waiting the camera noticeably pans over to reveal he's staring at his own refection in the glass door. In both the season opener and Jack's centric episode, Jack looks at himself in the mirror to check various scars. Kate looks in the mirror after changing at the mechanic's garage. Ben looks at his refection in the microwave as he heats up his dad's food. I haven't rewatched the Locke episode, but I'm betting it happens there somewhere as well. I think it's a pretty nice touch from the writers. Mirror imagery fits in nicely with the whole "alternate reality" angle this season has taken, and in fact, for a while now we've been getting "through the looking glass" references, so maybe those will make more sense as the season progresses.

CLAIRE HAS ANOTHER BUDDY: Here's another thing I noticed on the "Recon" rewatch. Take a look at the left hand side of the above image. Looks like Claire made herself another friend besides her creepy squirrel baby, a little tennis ball funnel coil guy. I would like to see a Mystery Science Theater type show where instead of the Satellite of Love it's Claire's Stick Shack, with her puppet buddies Squirrel Baby and Tennis Ball Eyes. Actually, that show would be horrifying.

PIERRE CHANG WORKS AT THE MUSEUM: Also worth noting: In the flash-sideways, Miles tells Sawyer that the girl he's setting him up with on a blind date (Charlotte) works with his dad at the museum. I didn't think about it the first time I heard it, but I guess that means Charlotte and Pierre Chang work together at a museum in LA somewhere as scientists. I wonder if Pierre has several different Museum badges for all his other aliases? Also, let me take this time to point out yet again that Sawyer and Charlotte made a HORRIBLE couple.

Can't wait for tomorrow's episode, which is entitled, "Ab Aeterno". Apparently that's a figurative expression in Latin for "since the beginning of time." Or another translaton, "Always wearing that purple shirt."

Lost Episode 6.8: "Recon"

2010-03-16T21:40:00.000-07:00

This was basically one of those filler episodes. Or, more accurately, a story-building episode. Seems pretty clear that they are setting us up for things that will pay off later. I get that episodes like this are necessary, but I'd put it somewhere above the Kate episode of this season if I was ranking my faves so far. Because some of what happened in this episode was definitely NOT necessary. But a okay episode of Lost is better than the best episode of any other show, so I'm okay with that.

I'm starting writing this super late, thanks to a late night at work, so we'll see how far I get. WARNING: It is not proofed. There will be run-ons and half-thoughts.

Let's start with the Flash-sideways stuff, off-island, which begins with:

JAMES FORD, GIGOLO COP: Is it standard for undercover cops to sleep with their target's wife? And, I'm pretty unsure of the cop's overall plan here. Was the plan that he would give her a briefcase to take to her husband with a camera in it? I'm no stake-out scientist, but couldn't they have found an easier way, more effective ways to get cameras in that guy's home? Send in someone posed as a cleaning lady or something? I dunno. Anyway, apparently Miles was listening in the whole time, which is creepy. And their code word was Sawyer old standby: "LaFleur". This is a huge opportunity for ABC to do a spin-off series of Sawyer and Miles doing car chases around LA as detectives. CODENAME: LAFLEUR? MILES & FORD? THE REDNECK FILES? Hmm. Needs work.

CALLING ANTHONY COOPER: So, next we see Detective James Ford at his desk, busy calling Anthony Coopers, trying to find the guy who conned his parents and destroyed his family. It's interesting to note that in this time line, Anthony Cooper is still a bad guy. But in the Locke flash sideways, he seemed to be playing the role of Locke's dad in a more healthy way. Does that mean that Locke doesn't know his dad is a con man? Or in this time line, did Cooper USED to be a con man but then had a change of heart and went straight? It will be interesting to learn what Anthony's story is in this reality. Interestingly, Miles sees through Sawyer's lies when he tries to cover up what he was doing on the phone. The woman in the opening scene also saw through Sawyer's lies. So, in this time line, is Sawyer a bad liar? Everyone seems to be able to call his bluff. Interesting.

CHARLOTTE AND SAWYER = CHARYER? SAWLOTTE? Clearly it wasn't meant to be. Not only because they were an absolutely terrible couple, but also because their names don't make any cool and easy mash-up name. Also, Charlotte should be with Daniel, the coolest nerd ever. I thought Charlotte was kind of a nerd, too. Here, she's playing kind of a different character. I didn't like this twist, it seemed like a different show – in a bad way. Also, is she up to something? When she looks for a T-shirt in Sawyer's dresser, it looked like to me she knew she would find something in there. Is she working for someone, or just really bad at recognizing a drawer full of pants when she sees one? Anyway, Sawyer kicks her out for finding his top secret revenge trapper-keeper. They're leaving us hanging in this one, I think. I still believe whatever decision folks make on the island determines their ability to remain at peace off-island, somehow. And the jury's still out on Sawyer. Is he at peace yet? Does he stay on the Man in Black's side? I'm guessing no, he'll ditch the man in black on the island and do the right thing at the last minute, and then he'll deal with his revenge bitterness in a healthy way later on in the flash sideways. I also predict he'll find Juliet in the flash sideways. Or will he end up with...

KATE ON THE RUN: Sawyer confesses to Miles sitting in their car that he's on a revenge mission, and that he wants to kill Anthony Cooper. Miles says he would have tried to talk him out of it, so I'm wondering if stays a good guy on the island. I hope so. A car crashes into them suddenly, and Kate pops out in a hoodie. And Sawyer catches her. Will they fall in love again. More importantly, is there ANY female in the cast that Sawyer won't end up sleeping with? Ana Lucia, Kate, Juliet, Charlotte... ? Who's next?

OH YEAH, THE LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE SCENE: I have no idea what to make of this little house on the prairie scene. It was very surreal. But, as my wife pointed out, it somehow was a very appropriate show for Sawyer to be watching. Very realistic in an odd way. I'm sure the dialogue of the show was significant, but I'm not sure HOW significant. It was referring to life after death, and obviously Sawyer was thinking about his parents. But was there more to the dialogue than that? Lostpedia claims that Sawyer mentions watching Little House as a child in the episode "Tricia Tanaka is Dead", so enjoy that delightful nugget of continuity.

Meanwhile, back on the island:

JIN HAS THE RIGHT IDEA: He wants to ditch the camp and head into the woods on his conveniently sized oar-crutch. He says he knows that Locke is not Locke, so I guess he took Claire at her word when she said as much. Locke and the straggling Others come back to the camp, and creepy evil Locke pretends to be a kind leader, and promises the kids he'll look after them. He also says that everyone at the temple was "killed by the black smoke." I thought Cindy and the Others knew HE was the black smoke, if they didn't know that, why were they afraid to let him in the temple? Confusing. Meanwhile, in a few short scenes, Claire does a bunch of creepy things including hold Kate's hand for no reason and check on her precious tom servo squirrel-baby.

"I'M THE SMOKE THING" Says Locke, and at this point It's hard to tell if the writers are trying to make sure we all get that. But I guess Sawyer didn't know that. Seems like he would be less likely Smokey after realizing he is the monster. I mean, the monster killed Eko. And If the monster wanted to get off the island, then why did he kill the original pilot of flight 815? Maybe to keep him from calling for help? Anyway, Smokey sends Sawyer on a mission to check on the other island. He SAYS for a recon, but I think he knows somewhat what's happening over there. Or at the very least, he knows about the dead bodies over there. Oddly he says "Some of the passengers want to do us harm." Is he thinking about Ilana and Bram? Because he already saw them. Maybe he thought there were more of them left near the plane. This episode was REALLY confusing on the bad guy front. There was never quite enough info to figure out who was really bad and who was really good. One more confusing thing... Smokey says he wants to fly the plane off the island. Um, really? My wife asked, is he going to drink a Sprite on the flight? Seems like a weird way for a magical smoke creature to travel. Why doesn't he just turn into a cloud of smoke and float over the water back home? I don't think he's really meaning to take the plane. I think he's just trying to get Sawyer to help him with Widmore, I think he knew exactly what Sawyer was going to do, con-wise.

SAWYER FINDS KATE'S DRESS: And remembers the time they totally made out in some cages. I was under the impression she put her dress back on afterwards, not sure why it's just sitting around in the cage.

KNIFE FIGHT! Kate sits down next to a VERY disturbed Sayid and starts to realize that she's joined the wrong camp. Claire jumping on her with a knife doesn't help. Locke violently breaks up the fight, but not before Kate picks up the gun by the barrel, apparently planning to use it as a club to defend herself. Pretty intense. Locke slaps Claire up a bit, and generally freaks me out because he's a weird and creepy dude.

THE MYSTERIOUS TRAIL TO A MYSTERIOUS PILE OF DEAD BODIES: I think that header would be a great title for a book. Or at least to a chapter in a book. What's up with the pile of bodies? And the trail? The trail was perfectly made. I guess there are a few options with this pile of bodies. Option one: Smokey killed them, then pushed their bodies over there. Option two: Smokey killed them, but Widmore's people dragged their bodies away from the plane. Option three: Widmore's people killed them. Option Four: Ilana and Bram killed them before heading off to take Locke's body to the statue. I don't want the last option to be true, I think Ilana is the good guy, but if you remember in the episode "Dead is Dead" last season, Ilana and Bram pointed a gun at Frank on the beach and asked him the secret question "Who lies in the shadow of the statue". Apparently they were taking charge of the camp with guns. My guess is that it was either Widmore or Smokey. I kind of want Widmore to be a bad guy, because the freighter folk he sent were so bad that I think he kind of has to be.

EVIL TINA FEY IS NOT WHAT SHE SEEMS: Again, good book title there. Sawyer finds a creepy lady near the bodies, and she weaves a pretty believable tale (for some reason) about what happened to the survivors. I guess her plan was to sneak into the enemy camp and count the number of guns they had? Or just get Sawyer to give her the gun count and then she would run away? I dunno. Either way, Sawyer doesn't believe her, and just like Sawyer did in the opening flash-sideways scene, she gives a whistle and her rather doughy goons pop out of the woods. Sawyer asks to be taken to their leader.

KATE HIDES IN THE TREES: I thought the setting for this scene of Kate crying was an interesting choice. She's sitting in the same kind of trees that the Losties used to run into in order to hide from the smoke monster. I think she and Juliet sat there once while the monster "scanned" them. What was that all about? Anyway, Locke comes over and tells Kate that he lied about the Others having Aaron in order to give her something to hate, to keep her going. I think this is insightful, if he is evil incarnate or Satan, it makes sense that he would think of hate a necessary tool to keep you going in life. Smokey then tells Kate he wants to show her where Sawyer went. Which leads to the most interesting info we got all episode, in my opinion:

SMOKEY HAS MOMMY ISSUES: So, sitting on the edge of the island, Smokey tries to win Kate over by sharing a little about himself. He says he knows what Kate's going through, because his mother was crazy. She lived a long time ago, and was a disturbed woman who caused him to have growing pains of his own, and prevented him to be able to work through all of his problems. He even says, wistfully, "had things been different..." Then he points out that now Aaron has a crazy mother, too. This is all super confusing, but there's lots of crazy possibilities here. First off, is Smokey actually Aaron? That's one possibility. After all, Claire was told that it was very important that SHE raise Aaron. And yet, she didn't. Did the loss of his mother, and then the loss of Kate as a second mother cause Aaron to get bitter? And then he grows up, goes back in time way to an eariler time on the island and somehow (and I have no idea how) becomes the smoke monster? When he slaps Claire, is he slapping his own mom? Or, is he someone else altogether? Or, is he pretending to be Locke to Kate, referring to Locke's actual mother, who went off the deep end, and had manic disorders? Very interesting.

WHAT'S IN THE ROOM? Ah, another 'what's in the box' mystery from Lost. They work every time. What did Widmore bring to the island? A weapon? Prisoners? A bomb? Guess we'll find out soon enough. I still can't believe the show is ending.

SIDE NOTE: Was one of the sub guys Michael Chiklis? Even Sawyer's kind of looking at him like, hey, are you that guy from The Shield?

WIDMORE THE GOOD OR BAD GUY: I really was hoping Widmore would claim allegiance to one side or the other in the conversation he had with Sawyer. Right now, he appears to be against Smokey. And we know he was against Ben, when Ben was leader of the Others. Is he loyal to Jacob, and Ben had him thrown off the island? Or is he only in it for himself, trying to capture the island for his own uses? I wish I knew. Instead, we have to guess. Sawyer makes a deal with him to get everyone off the island, but we soon learn his real plan is just to get Kate off the island with him. Unless he's lying to Kate. Man, it's a little hard sometimes to watch a show where you cant believe ANYTHING that ANYONE says.

CLAIRE'S CREEPY CONDOLENCES: Kate comes back from her chat with Locke, and Claire breaks down and says she's sorry, crying in Kate's arms. But she does it in a creepy way. According to Dogen, Claire is infected, and she did axe a guy in the chest, so I don't think this is a legitimate turning over a new leaf from Claire. I think she's just scared and confused, but still basically full of evilness on the inside. Just like Sayid seemed to be somewhat aware of his own not-okayness, I think Claire has some realization of that as well. Either that or Smokey threatened her if she didn't make up with Kate, because I think Smokey wants Kate on his side.

A QUICK SMOKEY THEORY: I had this theory last week, and forgot to post it. It could turn out to be just a wacky idea, or it could turn out to be true. (And it doesn't work if Smokey turns out to actually be Aaron.) Remember that bleeding blond kid that Smokey chased through the woods? I think that's Smokey's son. Remember how Smokey told Sawyer he was once a man, who lost someone he loved? And remember how Smokey told Sayid he could give him back someone he loved? We've seen a lot of dead people "brought back" by the island, and when they appear they're almost always brought back in a creepy Pet Semetary kind of way. I think that Locke is not the first evil person on the island. Just like Jacob, I think people in his role find other people, or "candidates" to replace them. I think Smokey is trying to find a replacement for himself, so he can leave the island. And I think the way he was tricked into staying on the island and taking on the evil role was with the promise of getting back someone he loved from the dead. I think he lost his son, and the evil person before him offered him his son back in exchange for being the evil entity on the island. But, when his son came back to life, it was in the creepy Christian Shepard kind of way. I think Christian Shepard and every other dead person we've seen is actually the Island itself, a third force in the war between good and evil. And I think Smokey realized that his son was really this other entity, and that he had been tricked into staying on the island. That's why when the island appeared as his son again, he chased it down, and it spoke to him about the rules of the game. Anyway, that's all confusing, and I may just be chasing rabbits, but it seems like a plausible theory.

SPEAKING OF RABBITS: Kate is cooking "Rabbit, I think" (which is one of the grossest possible things to say when someone asks you what you're cooking) and Sawyer walks up to her and starts calling her "Freckles" again. Guess all it took was finding Kate's shabby old post-lovemaking dress in a cage to erase Juliet from Sawyer's mind. He then says that he's planning for both of them to escape in the sub, and Kate's only concern is not "What about everybody else, including Claire" but instead is "Can you fly a plane?" Sawyer responds by saying they're going to take the sub, which is not really a solution unless one of them knows how to drive a sub. I actually think I'd rather take my chances flying a plane with no experience before I'd submerge a sub with no experience. At least there's a steering wheel on planes. Who knows what they have on a sub.

That's all for this week. Anything that I missed? I know Charlie's brother made an appearance in the flash-sideways. Anything else interesting?

Here's what I saw in the preview for next week's Richard-centric episode (which will be awesome, I'm sure): Richard stands up around the fire that Jack's losties are gathered around and says "want to know a secret, something I've known a long time?" Um, yes. I hope he doesn't get hit by a flaming helicopter right after saying that. He then follows that up by gesturing around him and saying "All this is not what you think it is." Which better not mean that this whole show has taken place inside a snow globe or something. Then they show a bunch of clips of Richard from past episodes, including his controversial non-purple shirt long hair phase. Then clips from next week, of him walking through an overgrown jungle and near some ruins or some headstones. Then Sun holds somebody's hand. Then my DVR cut off early, for some reason. Anybody remember anything cool after that?

Lost Episode 6.7: "Dr. Linus"

2010-03-09T20:32:00.000-08:00

This was a great Ben episode. I've heard on podcasts that the writers have said that this season can be thought of as three distinct acts, each lasting about six episodes. Act one ended last episode. Tonight's episode kicked off act two. I can see that, it definitely felt like things were gearing up and new settings were chosen for each group of characters. Locke's people are on the Hydra island, Jacob's team is on the beach. Pretty familiar set-up, kind of like when the Losties were on the beach and the Ben-led Others were on Hydra. Now, let's get into the details. But first, yet another disclaimer: I didn't have time to proof this at all (beware of run-ons and tangents) or add as many pictures as I would like, because I'm super swamped at work right now. And I basically kept to the major events to save time.

Let's start with the off-island stuff. And the first major event is:

DR. ARZT SHOPS AT MARSHALLS: So we get to see Dr. Linus the teacher, and he turns out to be a pretty good teacher. And, we quickly learn that Leslie Arzt works at the same school as Locke and Ben. Arzt is complaining about formaldehyde on his shirt (ironically, later Hurley will complain about once having Arzt on his shirt) and Arzt says he's going to have to go back to Marshalls. I wonder if this was a paid endorsement or just a joke? I happen to work at the agency that does their advertising so I'll have to ask around and find out. Anyway, after hearing Ben complain, Locke plants a seed of temptation in Ben's mind that he deserves to be principal. I don't think Locke was meaning to be anything but encouraging here, but it gets Ben's mind working in Machiavellian ways and it mirror's Locke's temptation of Ben later on the island. Nice writing in this one. I'm really a fan of the Edward Kitsis & Adam Horowitz written episodes. (You can follow Horowitz on Twitter.) As a side note, the same writing team wrote the upcoming Tron Legacy film, so I bet it's good.

ROGER LINUS IS STILL THRIVING: Good old Uncle Rico/Roger Linus is still kickin' it, but this time he doesn't seem to be as resentful of his son, who faithfully changes his oxygen tanks. I thought the oxygen tank was a brilliant counterpoint to the deadly gas canister Ben used to kill Roger back on the island. In this scene we learn that Ben and his dad left the island at some point, obviously BEFORE it sank to the bottom of the ocean. Why did they leave? We're not told, but we are told the reason they went there in the first place, which was never a question I had, but now that you mention it, it was a weird career move for Roger to make. Roger apparently wanted to get Ben in with the Dharma geniuses so he could reach his full potential. A nice thought, but even on the island Ben was still a "workman" and living with his dad until his mid-30's so maybe Ben needs a little more support than that to reach his dreams.

ALEX GETS SCHOOLED: I don't have much to say about the return of Alex, but it was nice to know that Ben had a more healthy and less kidnapp-y relationship with Alex this go around. And that somewhere, not too far off, Danielle Rousseau is alive and well, sitting on a couch eating cheese puffs and watching Man vs. Wild. During Alex's first scene, Lost's credits were still rolling, and a really shocking one (to me) came up: Directed by Mario Van Peebles. Really? Crazy.

THE GHOSTBUSTERS GUY IS A PERV: Anybody else recognize Principal Reynolds as the whiny lawyer guy from Ghostbusters? About whom Bill Murray's character proclaimed, "Yes, It's true. This man has no (male genitalia slang term)?" That line always confused me as a child, because I missed that it was a joke and mistook it for a literal statement, my entire perception of his character changing in the process. I felt sorry for him instead of angry at him, which was not how I was meant to feel at all – but I couldn't help thinking that it must be hard to go through life mocked by your peers for being flat like a Ken doll in the lower regions. Well, as Prinicipal Reynolds, he has quite the opposite problem and apparently is having relations with nurse Kim Kondraki, who I looked up on Lostpedia and is not anyone we've heard of before. However, the principal's last name Reynolds IS on the wall of Jacob's cave. Is he a candidate? Or was Jacob referring to the more logical choice, Burt Reynolds?

BEN THE BLACKMAILER: So, Ben tries his hand at conniving his way to Principal, but fails because he chooses Alex over his quest for power, unlike he did on the island. As he's dealing his way to the top, Arzt calls him a killer, and Ben seems to pause for a moment. Is he remembering other timelines? Or just liking the sound of it? I'm going to vote on remembering. Because, as I've said before, I think all this is happening after the events on the island, and is the epilogue to the show. And whatever side people choose on the island is reflected in this off island life. OR, and here's a mind blower – is there NO off-island life? Does the island make you have flashes, but they're not real? Is what we've seen in flashbacks all along what the island does to you? Have the Losties always been on the island, and their entire past is fabricated by the island itself? I just exploded my own brain. I have no idea.

Now, let's go back to the on-island events, starting with the teaming up of Jack, Hurley and Richard, which I loved.

HURLEY WAKES: Saying "Cheese Curds", which is kind of a cheap shot, but I laughed. One weird thing: Hurley asks for breakfast and Jack says they should be able to get to the temple by nightfall. So, the Lighthouse was a day's walk from the Temple? Huh? I need a Tolkien map of the island, pronto.

RICHARD HAS A CRISIS OF FAITH: Much like Jesus' disciples doubted and disowned Jesus during the three days that Jesus was dead, Richard is having trouble dealing with the thought that his long, long life has been meaningless. I loved the direct questions that Hurley threw at Richard about his anti-aging properties ("Are you a cyborg?"), but Hurley never saw Richard in the 70s, so that was a little weird. Richard admits that he received a gift from Jacob, and says that Jacob touched him. Does that mean that Kate, Sawyer, Jack, Hurley, Sayid, Locke, Sun & JIn are all immortal now that Jacob touched them? I would assume NOT, since Locke and Sayid both kinda died after the fact. And also, youngsters Kate and Sawyer still aged after Jacob's touch. Guess he super-touched Richard.

JACK HAS A RENEWAL OF FAITH: At first I REALLY, REALLY hated Jack in this scene for going all Kevorkian on Richard without a second thought, but thankfully I was just falling for the writers' clever tricks. Jack's long, deep stare at the ocean apparently worked and now he's fully grasped what Jacob was trying to show him: He's there for a reason. Oddly, he tests that in front of Richard by seeing if a stick of dynamite will explode in their faces, but to each his own. Perhaps under other circumstances, Jack would have become a snake-handler. Anyway, he convinces Richard they have purpose, and man am I glad, because Richard's only cool when he's cool. Otherwise, he's kind of a Captain Bringdown. Oh, also, we totally got confirmation that Richard came in on the slave ship in chains. I suspect we'll see more of that story in flashbacks in the next couple of episodes. And, as far as Jack goes: I've put him down pretty badly recently, but it looks like his whiny days are over and he's ready to finally start kicking some butt and being a leader again, like he was in season one.

Now let's go to the Ben, Ilana, Frank, Sun & Miles storyline:

ILANA'S ASHES: Looks like Ilana didn't gather the ashes for a spiritual reason, but a practical one. She didn't trust Ben when he said he didn't kill Jacob earlier this season, so she hands the bag to Miles and he sorts things out. Ilana gets angry and says that Jacob was the closest thing she had to a father (warning: future daddy issues Ilana flashback possibly looming ahead) and then turns her back on Ben, angrily leading the crew back to the beach.

ONLY SIX LEFT: They start to clean up the beach to be livable again, and Sun and Ilana chat about going to find Jin. Ilana wants to find him as well, to protect him because he's possibly the Kwan that's a candidate to replace Jacob. Sun asks, "To replace him? Doing what?" And Ilana answers, "If you're the one selected, then I imagine you'll find out." Mysterious talk. I feel sorry for the actress that plays Sun, because all she ever gets to do lately is ask where Jin is or try to find him. Ilana also mentions that there are only six candidates left. Who is she referring to? I'm guessing she's written off Sayid after hearing he killed Dogen. But I don't think she knows about Sawyer joining Locke. So maybe her six are: Jin, Sun, Jack, Hurley, Sawyer and... Ben? Or Miles? Miles' last name Straume was on the wall of the cave, but it was crossed out. Oddly, now that more time has passed and more screenshots examined, the wall has been shown to contain both the last name Austen and the last name Linus, but both of their names were crossed out as well. Why? I guess Frank could possibly be the sixth candidate, though I don't think his name has shown up anywhere yet. Check the updated candidates' list here.

WHERE ARE ROSE AND BERNARD?: And Vincent the dog? Just wanted to ask. Did they jump back to this time with everyone else?

FRANK OVERSLEPT: I liked the short exchange between Frank and Ben, where Ben asks why Frank wasn't the pilot of the original Oceanic flight like he was supposed to be. Turns out he slept through it. Kinda funny. I like Frank, but I'm wondering at this point why the writers had him return to the island. So far, he hasn't played much of a role besides awesomely landing the second plane safely and a throwing out a few nice quips here and there. Ilana interrupts their conversation to tell Ben to dig a grave. His own.

BEN THE GRAVEDIGGER: I have to say, Ben is a pretty good gravedigger. That grave was perfectly square by the time he got it done. I guess if it's your own grave you're digging, your quality control standards are pretty high. Miles stops by to throw out some great zingers and Ben tries to make a money offer to him. Miles points out that the graves of Nikki and Paulo next to them have 8 million dollars worth of diamonds in them he could have if he wanted, and at first I wondered how he could possibly know that but my wife quickly reminded me that Miles speaks to dead bodies. I also enjoyed the shot later in the episode where Miles had already dug up the diamonds (probably while Ilana was chasing Ben.) Oh yeah – Miles also gives out another huge piece of information: As he died, Jacob was hoping he was wrong about Ben. This was a great moment, and helped built up to the life-changing decision Ben was about to make later. I really love what they did with Ben's character this episode.

LOCKE THE TEMPTER: Smokey shows up and starts to pretend like he's a helpful, nice guy again. I think this episode showed that throughout his time on the island, Ben was trying to follow Jacob, but was tempted with power and was corrupted by it. I think just like Locke suggested that Ben should be in charge of the school in the alternate timeline, Smokey's been saying the same thing to Ben during his time on the island. I think Ben was a candidate brought to the island by Jacob for good, but like the horned-one himself Smokey started whispering self-aggrandizing thoughts to Ben and caused Ben to make selfish decisions that hurt those around him. Locke tells Ben to make a run for it to a gun he hid in the woods a few hundred yards away. Couldn't he have just handed him the gun?

BEN'S CONFESSION: Ben runs through the woods like a schoolgirl and nervously grabs the gun and shakily points it at Ilana just in time. I keep wondering what happened to the matrix-like tough Ben that chopped up dudes in the desert with karate and a crazy knife-stick. Why doesn't he have that confidence all the time? He then explains his actions to Ilana in a really great speech. I liked how at first he was saying that he let Alex die to serve Jacob, and was mad at him for it, but as he kept talking he admitted that it was power that he wanted, and that his desire for power was more important that Alex, and he regrets that. He also says he regrets killing Jacob. He thinks his only choice is to basically go to the devil, and at that moment I think Ilana realizes that Jacob wants her to forgive Ben. "I'll have you" was a great moment, and a VERY Christian moment. Not to get too deep here, but the only reason I became a Christian – the only reason anyone else I know who's serious about it became a Christian – is because I got to a point in my life where I felt just as worthless and guilty as Ben did in this scene, and admitted it to God, and he said that he would still have me. He forgives even the Bens of the world. And asks his followers to forgive them as well. A really great scene, and I loved how it wasn't an easy decision for Ilana. She broke down into tears on the beach afterward, apparently angry, doubtful and unsure she made the right decision following Jacob. Unsure of what would happen next and how she would get through it. I can't think of another time I've seen a better example on televison of how messy walking in faith can be (and is for all the Christians I know) but at the same time showing how obviously right it is to do so. I was really afraid she would let Ben go, and was relieved she gave him a second chance. Great stuff. Ilana's tears are interrupted by the arrival of help in the form of Richard and two of her candidates, so that had to make her feel a little better that she was on the right track. When suddenly...

SUBMARINE MUSIC! That periscope really surpised me. Especially when it was joined by what sounded at first like the Mission: Impossible theme. I really thought the periscope was going to be the entire cliffhanger, but was suprised to see them cut inside to reveal: Widmore! Crazy. His first mate (or whatever) asked if they should stop, and Widmore said, "Proceed as planned." Is this who Jacob said was coming? It's very possible, but I'm not 100% sure. I don't think Widmore is a good guy. I was starting to feel that way after meeting his younger self and after his talks with Locke off-island, but I can't get past the fact that he hired Keamy to shoot Alex in the head. Seems like a mean thing to do. Unless that was just Keamy's idea. My guess is that Widmore is a free agent, like Ben used to be, and is acting in his own best interests. Or, does "Proceed as planned" mean head to the hydra station, to meet up with Smokey? Time will tell.

That's it for now. They haven't released the name of next week's episode yet, but if I had to guess I would say we're due for a Sawyer-centric episode.

Here's what I saw in the preview for next week: First, it featured a song, which is unusual. I think it was Leonard Cohen's "Bird on a Wire". First it showed Locke walking through the jungle with his people. Then it showed Kate crying. Next, Jack was sitting near a fire on the beach. Kate & Sawyer looked at each other lovingly. Sawyer's voice: "Whaddya say you and me get off this island?" Then a wide shot of the beach Losties around the campfire: Jack, Hurley, Miles, Sun, Frank, Ilana and Ben but no sign of Richard. I wonder how Ben and Richard will get along now? My guess is Ilana will stand up for Ben.

What did I miss? Anybody have a good poll suggestion for the sidebar?

Lost Episode 6.6: "Sundown"

2010-03-02T20:38:00.000-08:00

In tonight's episode, the Lost writers really let their Stephen King influences show. Much more stressful than last week's light fantasy romp through the jungle, this one really had a claustrophobic sense about it, getting darker and darker as it approached its "sundown" ultimatum. Really well done, and pretty shocking. All in all, I would say it was NOT an episode of Two & a Half Men. Let's get into the details. This time I'm going to split it up and discuss the flash-sideways and the on-island stuff separately. Let's start with Uncle Sayid.

OFF ISLAND FLASHES:

SAYID'S YOUR UNCLE: Well, the big twist here was that Nadia married Sayid's brother, Omer. I guess the one who couldn't kill a chicken turned out to be a lady killer instead. Nadia and Sayid are clearly in love and Omer clearly has no redeeming qualities, so Sayid's nieces and nephews feel their only option is to go through Sayid's luggage and pull out his well-worn picture of Nadia in front of everyone. Awkward! (Here I have to pause a moment to make sure everyone out there learns the only word I've ever invented. Seriously, I'm pushing to make this an actual word. Here's the deal. When you're referring to brothers and sisters, you say "siblings." But when you're referring to nieces and nephews, you have to say "neices and nephews." Well, that's an oversight, my friends, that you no longer have to worry yourself about. Introducing the word "nieblings". Even now, my spell checker is trying to tell me that's not a word. But it is. At least it should be. Start saying it. You'll wonder how you ever lived without it.)

USE CAUTION WHEN WAKING SAYID: Omer wakes Sayid, and surprisingly it's not to tell him to stop hiding pictures of his wife in his luggage. Apparently, Omer's borrowed money from some bad people. He tries to convince Sayid to YET AGAIN use his torturing power for evil. Man, people are always trying to corrupt that "gift." (Is torturing REALLY a skill? I think I could probably figure it out without any formal training.) Sayid turns down this suggestion by saying he's "not that man anymore." At first, I assumed this was because he had found peace in this flash-sideways life. After all, Locke and Jack seemed to be on their way to finding peace. However, before the end of the flash-sideways we see him go back to his unforgiving, gun-shooting self. So, instead of being a new Sayid, is he really the same Sayid? This parallels what happens on-island when Sayid tries to tell Dogen he's really a "good man" but ends up turning evil. So, let me try out a theory on you, based on this. I think we're going to see that whoever sides with Smokey on the island is going to stay troubled in the flash-sideways reality, but those that side with Jacob on the island will have peaceful, happy endings in their flash-forward. What do you think?

"I DON'T DESERVE YOU" After Omer gets hospitalized by thugs, Sayid does what Nadia asks and goes to her house and babysits his nieblings. Nadia lets us know that she really loved Sayid all along but questions why he pushed Omer towards her instead. Perhaps in this reality Sayid is more concerned about the ethical ramifications of one dating someone they tortured in a war. He claims "I can't be with you, because I don't deserve you." If this scene really does take place AFTER the events we're seeing on island (as myself and many others have theorized), than maybe Sayid really CAN'T be with Nadia because on the island he chose to let the evil side of himself win by joining up with Smokey?

KEAMY THE CHEF: Ok, this is where it might get a little confusing. Sayid's brother's name is Omer. But the familiar looking thug who picks Sayid up outside of Nadia's house is named Omar. With an "a". This guy is the same Omar who came to the island to help Keamy do his evil deeds in Season 4. I spotted him right away but for some reason was still really surprised to see Keamy a few minutes later. (By the way, kind of awkward for Sayid to sleep at Nadia's house while Omer is in the hospital. I'm assuming that if he doesn't deserve her, though, than he sleeps on the couch.) So, Omer takes Sayid to a restaurant, which I'm pretty sure is the same restaurant where Naomi took Miles to speak to a dead body in the episode "Some Like it Hoth." I always assumed that restaurant was owned by Widmore. Is it the same here? Does that mean that Keamy, even in this timeline, works for Widmore? That would explain why Jin was also locked up here (great twist, by the way), because he was delivering something for Mr. Paik, and we've learned in the past that Paik and Widmore definitely know each other. Maybe Jin was stealing money from Mr. Paik and Widmore's guys are taking care of it? Anyway, Sayid shoots them all, but not before Keamy relishes in evil and fried eggs. That Keamy actor is either really good at playing an evil guy, or he should actually be arrested because he really is evil. Hard to tell. I do have to say that Sayid was kicking a lot of butt this episode, both as a good(ish) guy and a bad guy.

Ok, that's it for the flash-sideways, now on to the

ON-ISLAND STUFF:

SAYID SAMURAI SHOWDOWN: This was a cool scene but pretty much your typical Iraqi Republican Guard vs. a Samurai Baseball Fan in an Egyptian/Aztec Temple Fight Scene. It had all the elements you expect from such a staging: logs to the head, bonsai trees thrown in anger, a baseball falling to the ground with oddly-muted foley. Pretty exciting, though, nonetheless. But before all those shenanigans, we got more info from Dogen about Jacob and his nemesis, The Dude That Refuses to Be Mentioned By Name. Or, rather, we learn more about the nature of man. Apparently "for every man there is a scale: one side good, one side evil." Is the island a place where people go to get rid of the evil side that everyone has within them? They can follow Jacob and be delivered from it or follow Smokey and surrender themselves to its evil pull. One theory out there (vocalized often from Jack on the Jay and Jack Podcast) is that Jacob and Smokey are two sides of the same person. The ultimate and physical expression of the two sides – light and dark – within us all. I'm not sure I buy into this theory but it does seem possible, especially after this episode and Dogen's speech about the scales. It would explain, at the very least, why they haven't given us Smokey's name yet. What was up with Dogen's baseball falling to the floor? I'm assuming it was a reminder that he is not allowed to kill anyone, or maybe just doesn't want to kill anyone after accidentally taking his own son's life in an accident. Did Jacob push the ball off the table, causing the weird sound effects? Or did it just fall and the sound was just for dramatic purposes, showing its significance?

CLAIRE SENT BY "YOU KNOW WHO": Creepy Claire goes into the temple and tells them to send someone out to speak with Johnny No Name. Smokey really played this whole Temple invasion like a chess game, sending in a pawn (Claire) in exchange for a knight (Sayid), which he sent back in later to take out the King (Dogen) and the Queen (Lennon). (Here I should point out that I have no idea how to play chess. Just go with me and pretend that last example made sense.)

DOGEN'S DAGGER: Dogen selects Sayid to be the one to go out to meet Locke, and hands him a dagger with the instructions to kill Locke before he has a chance to speak. (Maybe Smokey's name is actually Saruman. What? Lord of the Rings reference? Yep. Cause it rules.) Dogen tells Sayid that Smokey has been trapped for years and wants to kill every living thing on the island. How many years has Smokey been trapped? And if he was trapped, how was he killing folks left and right, all over the island throughout the years Lost's been on? Confusing.

KATE FAIL: As Sayid leaves the temple, he spots Kate on the way out. Did you think he was going to stab her? I did. But I guess she's not someone he knew was dead. Still, it looked bad for Kate for a second there. And we're definitely in that show-ending zone where anyone could die. Speaking of Kate, she sure didn't try to look for Claire very hard. I didn't even see her peak behind a solitary leaf. She just filled her canteen at the barracks and walked directly back to the temple. Nice mission-questing, Kate. At least she's welcomed back with Miles' excellent zinger: "Sawyer sent you packing, huh?"

STAB FAIL: Sayid stops to drink some water and Smokey shows up. Here I feel it is important to note that Sayid failed. He paused on Smokey's arrival. There was a clear second there where he could have stabbed Locke without thinking. But instead Locke said "Hello, Sayid" and, as Dogen predicted, it was all over. Could Sayid have killed Locke if he didn't let him speak? Did the speaking activate something in Sayid? Or was it really just Dogen hoping that Smokey would dispose of his messy Sayid problem? Either way, it was too late and Smokey had the chance to start using his evil powers of persuasion to pull Sayid to the dark side. The last place we left this scene, Smokey was insinuating that he could bring Nadia back for Sayid. After we cut away, did Sayid fully give his soul over to "evil incarnate"? Because after this point, the Sayid we know and love sure seems to be fully gone. And I think Smokey gave him more complete instructions on what to do next. Specifically, take out Dogen.

SAYID THE MESSENGER: Sayid marches back into the Temple and proclaims loudly to everyone that because Jacob's gone, they're free. Cindy looks doubtful. But if they don't choose to follow Smokey, then they will be killed by midnight. I think Smokey was completely bluffing at this point. I don't think he was allowed in the temple. (Speaking of which, if he wasn't allowed in the temple, why was he allowed underneath it in This Place is Death?) Apparently, Dogen's life somehow protected the temple. I guess maybe because Jacob blessed him specifically to that effect when he approached him off island? Reluctantly, Cindy and the two kids nobody cares about decide to join many of the Others who leave the temple to put themselves under Smokey's "protection." Probably a bad move.

IT PUTS THE AARON INTO THE BASKET: Meanwhile inside the temple, Kate finds Claire at the bottom of the Silence of the Lambs Hole. She basically brags on and on about how great a mother she was. Claire seems legitimately surprised to hear that Kate took Aaron off-island, so I guess she believed Jin's cover-up at the end of last episode. But it seems Claire should realize at this point that, yes, Jin was lying to her, but so was Smokey. Smokey had been telling her for three years that the Others had Aaron when clearly they didn't. But, she didn't seem to mind when she saw Locke at the end of the episode so maybe that's just one of the perks of being crazy as a rabid squirrel.

SAYID RETURNS THE DAGGER: Sayid finds Dogen in the temple and surprisingly waits until his long depressing monologue about his estranged son is over before drowning him. Dogen's story was interesting, though. Am I understanding it right? It sounded to me like Dogen accidentally crashed his car after picking his son up drunk. Then, Jacob came to the hospital and offered to bring his son back from the dead in exchange for coming to the island to help him. I have to say, I don't think this is the same offer that Smokey made Sayid. I think Smokey is offering Sayid some kind of evil Pet Semetary option that involves selling your soul to bring a zombie monster replica of the person you love back into the world. I think what Jacob is offering is what we saw in the flash-sideways. Dogen had a son who was alive and well, playing the piano at David's recital. I think Jacob's plan is to somehow get all of these people back in the timeline they SHOULD be in, which is the one we're viewing in the flash-sideways. Jack's probably the one that's going to do that, somehow. Maybe that's the task he's got to complete for Jacob after he finishes crying off the side of a cliff. After Dogen's tale, things get shocking really fast as Sayid kills off both Dogen and Lennon in a sudden burst of violence. I was not SUPER sad to see these characters go. I was more sad to see Sayid go off the deep end. Though he did do it with gusto, so you gotta applaud that. We learn from Lennon that Dogen's death means Smokey can enter the temple. Sayid grins and says he already knew that. Does every actor on this show have a hideous evil grin they've been working on? Seems like it.

MILES IS NOT DEAD YET: The most stressful moment of the episode? Thinking that Miles was going to get killed by the Smoke Monster. I'm so glad he didn't. It turns out it was just the weirdest rescue squad ever. But I was glad to see them, even their spunky sidekick Ben. I like Ilana, but I feel sorry for her. On Lost, typically a character only gets one costume for the entire season, and hers sucks. It looks like she works at a pool hall:

BEN BACKS AWAY SLOWLY: Ben goes to find Sayid, but finds his old buddy grinning over some corpses and backs cowardly away. I get that Ben can be a coward, but what happened to the Ben from that episode The Shape of Things to Come that had ninja skills and a skull-thumping stick? Ben says "There's still time" and creepy smilin' Sayid says "Not for me." It looks to me like Ben did not catch up with everyone else, but he says to Sayid that he knows a way out, so I'm guessing he's going to follow close behind Ilana and the Others in their secret Scooby Doo path.

MASS TEMPLE EXODUS: So Frank, Miles, Ben, Ilana and Sun head out the back of the temple to safety. Meanwhile, Kate jumps in the Silence of the Lambs hole to avoid the smoke monster. For a second it looked like there was a person screaming in the smoke as it passed by. Was that a victim or a part of the smoke monster consciousness or something? Eventually the smoke monster passes and Claire and Sayid walk like drones across the battlefield back to the exit to meet up with Locke, giving him the evil 'sup nod. What was the creepy song that was playing during their exit? I'm pretty sure it was Claire's voice singing the same song she was singing at the bottom of the hole earlier in the episode, but I couldn't make it out either time. Was it the song she always sung to Aaron in past episodes? That would be my guess. Shockingly, Kate decides to follow Claire and Sayid out of the temple. I can only assume at this point she doesn't know Sayid is bad, and she's still hoping to "save" Claire. In fact, she doesn't really know that Locke is evil, does she? It will be interesting to see where that group goes next in order to get off the island. If that's really Locke's plan. One other thing I noticed: Sun is on Jacob's side and Jin is with Smokey. I'm guessing that he's an unwilling member of the Smokey team, kind of like Kate, so maybe they'll escape together and meet back with the others. Will Sawyer desert Smokey and go with them?

That's it for this week. Here's what I saw in the preview for next Tuesday's episode. (Caution, if you did not watch it there are some more spoilerish spoilers than usual):

Locke lifts his eyebrows. Kate looks shocked. Ben says to Jack (I think) "I can't believe you're just gonna stand by and watch this happen." Sayid looks mean. Ilana is at the beach near a funeral site holding a gun. Over a shot of Ben, the announcer says: "The man who brought death to so many people is going to face his own demise." Um, spoiler alert? Why don't they just start with: "We want you to watch next week's episode so bad, we're going to tell you how it ends." I hope it does not end that way. Ben needs to be around until the finale, for sure. Next, Ben digs some hole or a grave. Is Ben trying to bury all the Others that died in the Temple? Or is he finally giving the Dharma folks a proper burial? Interesting. Ben looks out of a grave he's digging and hears Smokey's ticka-ticka sound. Ben says: "Forgive me." Close up of Miles opening his eyes. The announcer says: "There are only ten more episodes until the incredible season finale." Smokey POV cam shot. Sawyer running. Ilana running. Hurly running. Sawyer looking. Jack looking. Ben, Sun, and Miles looking around at night with torches. Ben looks up from the ground, where he's apparently fallen down. He looks terrified.

Next week's episode is called "Mr. Linus."

Lost Episode 6.5: "Lighthouse"

2010-02-23T20:27:00.000-08:00

This is going to be another slightly briefer post, as this time I had to pause mid-post to pick my mother-in-law up from the airport on a super-delayed flight. Apparently a millimeter of snow will cause that to happen here in Austin.

I think besides the first episode, this was my favorite episode this season. The flash-sideways was a little sappy, but on island we got lots of crazy new sci-fi elements, more island exploration, and, in Hurley's words, some "old-school" island quests. Also, as my wife noted, it really feels like the show is starting to come to an end with the information we're getting. And that's kinda sad. Anyway, lots of answers and of course a couple of more questions... let's take a look...

JACK'S APPENDIX: So we start in the flash-sideways with Jack in his apartment after his flight, and this time in the mirror he notices a scar from getting his appendix out. Remember in Season 4's episode "Something Nice Back Home" when Juliet operated on Jack in his tent on the beach? It looked like Jack was remembering that, too, for a moment, and even asks his mom about it and she says it happened as a child. He says "I guess I remember that." Which is kind of a weird thing to say if you're not having dual timeline fatigue. Curious.

JACK'S OFFSPRING: Next we meet yet another new character, with yet another biblical name: David. Jack's son. We quickly learn that even as a dad, Jack's got daddy issues. And we have another new mystery: Who is David's mom? Someone we know? Jack's old wife Sarah? His brief smooching affair partner Gabriela (the dying Italian dude's daughter?) Someone else we know? Surely not Bai Ling? It's probably someone we know who was NOT on the alternate Flight 815. Maybe Juliet? Ah, Lost. You promise us answers yet give us more questions. It's fine with me, though, the questions are more fun. Plus I need something for my poll. Anyway, David's a big fan of music (my guess is he was probably listening to the piece he was preparing to perform on his headphones) and oddly, he's reading Alice in Wonderland. Which is a reference to the episode "The White Rabbit", where Jack saw his father on the island for the first time. Of course, the book also features a looking glass, which comes up in the lighthouse scene later. And there's a rabbit statue on David's mom's doorstep.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE TEMPLE: Miles and Hurley entertain themselves the way that the Others do... by playing Tic Tac Toe. I guess the others don't have board games? Or horseshoe technology? Or anything else to do at all? No wonder a bunch of them left to go live in the barracks and host book clubs. The game ends in a another tie (foreshadowing the larger game of Smokey vs. Jacob? I hope not) and Hurley heads toward the kitchen when he sees Jacob, who's doing something with the fountain. Why is the dude that plays Jacob so awesome? He hardly says anything but he's super sanguine and all, "hey. how's it going." Maybe that's why the actor is up for a Saturn award this year for best guest-starring role. Either way, I'm really digging the Hurley/Jacob scenes. They're a lot of fun. Jacob tells Hurley "Someone's coming to the island." I'm assuming this is the "They're coming" people that he was referring to in the Season 5 finale? Who's coming? The number Jacob was going to have Hurley put in the lighthouse was 108, which is the sum of all the hatch numbers added together. Does that mean everyone's alternate timeline selves are coming to the island? That would be weird and a little annoying in a Parent Trap kinda way to have a bunch of doubles on the island. Is it Desmond and Penny that are coming? More of Widmore's people? Anyway, someone's coming and we have no idea who it is.

CLAIRE GETS ALL 'MISERY' ON JUSTIN: Ok, let's talk about all the Claire scenes. They were creepy. Apparently, when everyone left she started out hanging with Christian Shephard (who MUST be on Smokey's side) but then was captured by the Others and 'tested'. She escaped and then Smokey and Christian have convinced her to set up crazy traps, wander around, wear a wig of straw and be a loon. Meanwhile, she built a baby out of creepy pelts and skulls, which was beyond the call of duty, even for a crazy person. Christian was probably even freaked out a little by that. Claire stitches Jin up then puts the axe to Justin for telling the truth, which I think we all saw coming but was still hard to watch.

"I JUST LIED TO A SAMURAI" Hurley tries to follow Jacob's orders without involving Jack, so he starts wandering around a hallway scooby-doo style looking for the secret escape tunnel. This was a really funny scene, and also informative. Apparently the castaways have had tons of power all along, all they had to say was that they were a candidate. This whole candidate thing is fine, but it does feel a little late in the game to be introducing a new rule like that, especially one that's apparently the point of the whole show. If candidates are so sacred, why did Ethan and Goodwin sneak into the Losties ranks and start killing people willy-nilly in Seasons one and two? How could Ethan get away with the whole "I'm going to kill someone everyday until you bring me Claire" if Jacob values candidates so much? I guess Ben told the Others to kill people without having Jacob's blessing, and we've seen that Ethan, even as a child, was pretty willing to get the killing started. Were they just a couple of bad seeds in the bunch? But, beyond that why would the Others fear the Losties once they learned the smoke monster had killed some of them? At that point, wouldn't they realize the Losties were NOT on the side of smokey and were brought there by Jacob and needed protection? And why would Richard go along with Ben's mismanagement for so long if he knew that Ben wasn't even talking to Jacob? I have so many questions about the Others and why they have acted the way they did. Don't even get me started on the fake beards and old timey outfits. Because I thought they were just costumes, but apparently that's how they dress in the temple. It's all so confusing.

CHRISTIAN'S WILL: Really the only interesting thing about the scene where Jack visits his mom is that it sets up that the Shephards now know about Claire Littleton, Jack's half-sister, which I'm sure will come into play in a bigger way in upcoming flash-sideway stories. Also we learned through Jack's mother that they already had the funeral for Christian, without the body. And it's hinted at by Jack's mom that Jack might have been an alcoholic at one time when she congratulates him on not drinking anything. Maybe that's what caused Jack's divorce?

HURLEY AND JACK START THEIR TREK: I love how easy it is to get Jack to go with you on an adventure. You just have to say, "You have what it takes." He would probably respond well to greeting cards or motivational cat posters. With what we learn later, it's obvious he's really going because he wants to see and perhaps confront Jacob, because he's interested to know how Jacob could know intimate details of his life. Could he have guessed it's because he watches people from his magic lighthouse peeper machine? Probably not.

KATE MAKES AN APPEARANCE: And is going to go look for Claire. Could Claire kill Kate? Seems drastic, but I guess anything's possible. Hurley urges Jack to leave Kate behind, and Jack invites her anyway because for some reason all episode long he's being a total jerk to Hurley. She turns Jack down and says "I hope you find what you're looking for" which is the kind of motivational greeting card talk that really gets Jack going.

CAVE SWEET CAVE: Hurley and Jack spot an asthma inhaler and realize they're outside their old cave. Is it me or is the geography of this island totally out the window these days? When it's all over and done with I want a complete, accurate map of the island in a cool Tolkien-like poster illustration so I can nerd out over the island's proportions and see if these treks make any sense geographically or not. Anyway, I loved how they went back in the cave and reminisced about their old skeleton buddies Adam and Eve. (Side note: Would you have slept in a cave with two skeletons in it? I would have totally buried those things.) I'm not sure what to think about the writers going ahead and pointing out what fans have been predicting for years–that the skeletons are really two people we know, who have traveled back in time. Now that they said it out loud, it seems like they won't explain the skeletons that way. Or maybe they're just trying to set it up clearly so everyone gets it? I dunno. I love when Hurley's around because it's like the fans are in the show and able to ask the things that we're all thinking. Jack also reminisces about smashing up his dad's coffin "because he wasn't in it." This made me wonder briefly if Jack's dad faked his death somehow in both timelines, but in season one Jack actually went to the morgue in Australia and identified the body, so who knows. I would really like the Christian Shephard/Smokey connection explained, though.

WHY DID JACK COME BACK: Once again Jack is asked why he came back to the island, this time by Hurley. Seems like his answer changes every time. I guess it's to embarrassing to say "Kate" so he says "because I was broken, and I thought it could fix me." This is a another Christian-esque thought. People come to Jesus when they're broken and have no more faith left in themselves. We know Jack's at that stage because last episode he confessed that he didn't even trust himself, which is an important realization to make before you can really reach out to God for help. This episode's really piling on the spiritual metaphors. Especially in Jacob's last speech to Hurley outside the lighthouse, which we'll get to in a bit...

THE LIGHTHOUSE: This was a pretty cool setting, and a really bizarre turn of events. Hurley tries to set the dial to 108, and we see that the dial is made up, yet again, of names and numbers of people we know. I'm sure later this week as more screengrabs are posted we can go back and see who's listed. One big one to note: Austen, as in Kate Austen, is number 51. Check it out:

Does that have anything to do with Area 51? Probably not, but if it does even I might give up on this show. (Not really. I would totally be up for that). Anyway, she is a possible candidate, or at the very least Jacob's been spying on her with his adjustable lighthouse peepers. Probably they need a better name than that. Lighthouse Looking Glass? Whatever the mirrors are, they're broken now, because Jack's a baby and he couldn't think of any other possible use for the most awesome invention he's ever seen. Maybe he could have gotten on the web through the glass and booked a ticket home? Or did he think maybe the Kwans would have wanted to look at their daughter, to check up on her? He finds one fool proof way to connect to the outside world, and then, Locke-style–he totally smashes it. Good one, Jack. Here's another screengrab with more dial-names on it, for your perusal:

THE RETURN OF JACOB'S FRIENDLY, KNOWING HALF-SMILE: Jacob reappears and makes the above compassionate but slightly over it face and Hurley scolds him for not showing up on time. Yet again we see some parallels between having a relationship with Jacob and having a relationship with God. Hurley is mad because Jacob knows what is going to happen but insists on letting free will be involved for Jack, and doesn't take advantage of his omniscience to make things easier on everyone. And Jacob, like God, is clearly more interested in relationships and what happens to the people involved than in the quest itself. I really liked the whole "some people you can hop in a taxi and tell them what you need them to do, and other people need to stare into the ocean for a while." I do think the reason Jack smashed the glass is because he was embarrassed and angry that Jacob had been watching him and had seen the way his dad mistreated him. Jack feels like his dad is right about him, that he doesn't have what it takes. So when Jacob says the very words that Jack longs to hear, trying to affirm him, to Jack it seems like he is mocking him or looking down on him. Man, this show is really headed for longevity with all the layers they're creating that are open to interpretation. Jacob also confesses here that he wanted Jack and Hurley away from the temple because it was about to get ugly there, Smoke Monster style, which I'm assuming we'll see next episode. I'm concerned because Miles is there. I hope Smokey doesn't get him. Sayid, I'm sure, will be collected since he's already been marked. It's interesting to note that Miles' last name, Straum, was on the cave wall last episode and was scratched out. What does that mean? Is Miles already dead?

THE PIANO AUDITION: Man, these scenes were well written but it was REALLY hard to cut from Jack smashing the lighthouse glass and all the info we were getting on the island to the off island scenes of some kid playing the piano. I like these scenes, and I liked seeing Dogen in this setting, but it's really quite a pace change they're trying to balance in these episodes. It feels like they're starting and ending a show at the same time. If they pull this off all the way through to the end of the series and pay it off in a great way, they've really done an amazing thing. I did like the "Welcome all candidates" sign at the entrance of the auditions.

"THAT'S NOT JOHN, THAT'S MY FRIEND, WHOSE NAME I WILL NOT GIVE YOU AT THIS TIME." The cliffhanger on this one was pretty decent. Jin realizes that Claire has gone completely overboard, so he lies to her (in order to protect Kate?) and tells her the Others have Aaron. Just as Jin finishes his lie, in walks Locke. Claire says, "That's not John, that's my friend. You know, the one I conveniently don't name." It's important to note that Jin doesn't know that Locke is evil. Like Sawyer, he's probably heard from his buddies that came back on the Anjira flight that Locke is dead. I hope they doesn't go the route of having Jin on Smokey's side and Sun on Jacob's side, but for some reason I don't really see that happening.

Sorry all that was a little more rambling than usual. What did I miss? Did you guys notice anything else?

Next week's episode is entitled "Sundown". The preview for next week was purposely vague (and unnecessarily snarky) and only showed a few quick flashes of what we'll see next week. Never fear, I watched them in slow motion and will break it down for you: Locke walks away from the temple. Sayid looks up at the camera from inside the temple. Claire comes into the temple courtyard with her hands up. A baseball drops to the ground inside the temple. (Oh no! Dogen's baseball!!!) We pan briefly through the jungle in what looks like another Smokey POV cam. Then Dogen pins Sayid to the ground. My prediction would be a Sayid-focused flash-sideways, but I really have no idea. Guess we'll find out in a week.

Just for the heck of it, here's a picture of Claire's creepy button-skull-fur baby. Looks kinda like Crow T. Robot. Enjoy:

A few LOST thoughts before tonight's episode

2010-02-23T08:38:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, here's a few random theories I've heard since my last post, and I wanted to get them up here before tonight's episode...

NOT JACOB'S CAVE? Several people have suggested to me that the cave Smokey showed Sawyer was not really Jacob's cave, and I'm starting to come around to that. I can see Smokey lying to Sawyer in order to get his allegiance. The isolation of the cave itself also makes it seem more like an outcast's cave, like Smokey would be. Especially compared to Jacob's posh accommodations in the four-toed statue (a place I've heard referred to on podcasts as "Club Foot". Ha.) It also seems more like Smokey to scrawl in creepy handwriting all over the ceiling of the cave. Perhaps he's scratching people's names off the list as he kills them? And in that line of thinking, the name Burke (Juliet's last name) was also scratched out on the wall. And Jacob died before Juliet did, so he couldn't have scratched her name out. Also, the cave seems to go deep underground, and we know that that Smokey has been summoned through the ground by pulling a plug out of the puddle toilet under the Dharma barracks. Maybe this cave is Smokey's attempt to keep up with all the people Jacob is bringing to the island. Even the scales at the entrance could suggest the Smoke Monster, since we know people go to the smoke monster in order to be judged. Stuff to think about.

IS LOCKE STILL IN THERE? One theory I've heard that I really think makes a lot of sense: there's still some of Locke's spirit inside of Smokey, and he will start coming through more and more, eventually saving the day. We heard Smokey yell out Locke's catch phrase last episode ("Don't tell me what I can't do!"), is he going to start to take on more of Locke's characteristics? And if so, will we begin to see an internal struggle for Smokey as Locke starts thwarting his plans from the inside? It would be a great way to redeem Locke's story (especially now that he's dead and buried) and it would also seem like a good way to bring peace to the island. If the island constantly has a struggle between light and dark, but now a candidate for Jacob is in the same body as the Man in Black, maybe they will cancel each other out, or Locke will regain control completely and bring safety to the island as the first smoke monster/island guardian combo?

FLASH-SIDEWAYS TALK: There's definitely something suspicious about these flash-sideways. A couple options: This is what will happen after the end of the events in Season 6 on the island. We're basically seeing the happy ending for all our Losties now, and the timelines will somehow link up toward the finale of the season. OR, what if the flash-sideways are what happened the FIRST time? What if they're flash backs to the first flight 815, and at some point they will be reset and everyone will get on the Flight 815 that we all know about? Who knows. But I don't think they're throwaway stories with no real importance. Something's going on. Also, if you look at the above picture embiggened, you will see a photo pinned in Locke's cube of his dad Anthony Cooper wearing a beret.

Tonight's episode, "Lighthouse," is apparently Jack-focused.

LOST episode 6.4: "The Substitute" more thoughts

2010-02-17T07:09:00.000-08:00

Ok, after a full night's sleep (kinda) I'm ready to write some more about last night's important episode.

Let's start at the beginning:

LOCKE'S WHEELCHAIR TROUBLES: Is there anything more depressing than Locke repeatedly falling out of his wheelchair? Maybe Rose's cancer. Locke finds himself face down in the grass while the sprinklers come on, and who should run out to rescue him but Peg Bundy, I mean Helen. And we quickly learn that in this timeline, they're planning a wedding–one which they plan to invite Locke's dad to. Weird. I still maintain these Flash Sideways are a glimpse at what would have happened if the island was never involved in these people's lives, so maybe the evil dad Anthony Cooper wasn't even Locke's real dad, but someone hired by Smokey to play the part in order to get Locke to the island? Or in this timeline is Anthony Cooper just a real nice guy? And if that's the case, how did Locke get in a wheelchair? Also, we know in the other time line that Helen died in 2006 of a brain aneurysm. Is that still her fate in this timeline?

SMOKEY CAM: Man, the sound effects in the Smokey Cam were pretty crazy. Also cool was seeing the reflection of the monster in Sawyer's window. And what was up with that knife he picked up? Was that a knife we've seen before? Maybe his smoke hands just can't carry knives around with him so he had to set it down for a bit while he zoomed around the island, but it would be cool if it turns out to be a knife we've seen before.

LOCKE GETS FIRED, HURLEY IS NICE: I wish Hurley was my boss. Also, Hurley's tremendous luck apparently kicked in again when Locke's wheelchair ramp jammed right before scratching Hurley's hummer.

RICHARD IN A BAG: Smokey uses the knife to chop Richard out of a tree. Poor Richard. Smokey tells Richard he wants him to "come with him" and that he used Locke's body to get close to Jacob because Locke was a candidate. Surprisingly, Richard doesn't know what a candidate is. Locke tries to make Richard feel used by Jacob by saying he would never have kept Richard in the dark. This, again, is the same approach the serpent took in the Garden of Eden, promising us the same knowledge that God has, so we can be like God, and not a "slave" to Him. Even though it will obviously result in a machete to the throat Richard responds, "I'm not going anywhere with you", and is, yet again, awesome. Smokey is clearly going to kill Richard when the blond boy with bloody arms shows up. More on him in a minute.

ILANA AND BEN GET TO KNOW EACH OTHER: Ilana is crying and Ben walks into the statue to see her. She asks what happened to her friends, Ben says she wouldn't believe him, and Ilana says, somewhat cheesily: "Try me." My wife and I groaned at that line. Just kinda cliché, and also maybe because she delivered it like she was in a Revlon commercial. Ben lies and says that Locke killed Jacob, then threw him in the fire, and Ilana collects his ashes. I'm assuming these are the same kind of ashes they were using before to protect themselves from Smokey? Some kind of time loop thing? Ben asks why Locke took Richard into the jungle and Ilana says, "he's recruiting". Is this the beginning of the "war" that's been said to be coming since season 3?

SAWYER LIKES IGGY POP: And drinking in his underwear. I don't want Sawyer to go bad again, but I guess that's where the death of Juliet and his involvement with Smokey is taking him. I liked how unimpressed Sawyer was with Locke's ability to come back from the dead. Sawyer instantly knows that Locke is not Locke, because he's not scared like Locke was. Smokey says he can answer why Sawyer is "on this island". Which is, of course, because Jacob brought him there.

ILANA KNOWS ABOUT JIN: Ilana tells Sun that Jin is probably in the temple. I'm assuming Ilana knows all about everyone brought to the island because of Jacob's list. Clearly she knows more than Richard, because she also knew about the whole "candidate" thing when she suggested to Bram that Frank might be one. I'm interested in getting her back story just because we would learn more about Jacob that way, I'm guessing.

THE BLOND KID: Locke and Sawyer are walking through the jungle when they come across the mysterious blonde kid, who's apparently had time to dress his wounds. Sawyer can see him, too, unlike Richard. Maybe because Sawyer's a candidate? The kid seems to have the upper hand on Smokey, and I'm not sure why Smokey doesn't chase after him as the smoke monster. The boy says: "You know the rules. You can't kill him." Fake Locke latches onto one of real Locke's catch phrases by yelling "Don't tell me what I can't do!" If that kid is not Jacob reborn, then I'll be surprised, because he looked and acted just like Jacob.

RICHARD POPS OUT OF THE WOODS: And tells Sawyer that he doesn't know what he's dealing with: that Smokey won't tell him anything and that he's going to kill Sawyer and everyone Sawyer cares about. Yikes. Apparently this talk does convince Sawyer somewhat, because in the next scene he pulls a gun on Smokey and asks him "what are you?" He answers that he is "trapped". And says before that, he was a man just like Sawyer, and that he's felt joy, pain, anger, fear, betrayal, and what it feels like to lose someone you love. And then he says "You're so close, James. It would be such a shame to turn back now". Seems like Smokey keeps playing on everyone's sense of destiny or desire to know what's going on, with the real goal of supporting his own needs. I'm assuming Smokey getting off the island would be the worst thing imaginable, and that it would cause lots of damage to the outside world? This would explain what's at stake in this show, at least a little bit.

"HE'S STUCK THIS WAY" Ben and Ilana carry Locke's body across the beach and Ben asks if Smokey can still take other forms, and Ilana replies that he's now "Stuck this way". Weird that she knows that, and also possibly untrue, because we saw Smokey in the form of Ben's daughter Alex last season. He was in Locke then, yet still appeared as Alex. Unless Jacob dying stuck him into this form? It's really unclear, but more and more it sounds like some kind of cosmic board game is taking place and we currently don't have a copy of the rules that Ilana has access to. Then they reach what I assume is the burial ground that our Losties were using all along, with Mr. Eko's frame of a church standing in the background. I'm surprised they were able to trek all the way from the statue to the survivor's camp so quickly, I was under the impression they were far away from each other. Ben delivers Locke's eulogy, claiming Locke was a "believer" and that he was "sorry that he murdered him". Juxtaposed with this tribute to "believer" Locke is Flash-Sideways Locke's discussion with Helen where he claims he does NOT believe in miracles, but she disagrees and says
she's just been waiting for him to come around and then rips up Jack Shepard's business card.

THE CAVE: This season we're seeing a lot of new parts of the island and doing a lot more exploring than we've done in the last few seasons, and I'm pretty happy about that because the exploration parts of Season 1 and 2 were among my favorite moments of Lost. I was really sad to see that angle go when the story line shifted to the Oceanic Six's departure and return. So here we have an entirely new setting: Jacob's cave. Upon entering, Locke tosses a white stone into the ocean as an "inside joke". I guess even though they didn't have Steinbeck in whatever time this dude is from, they still had inside jokes. (Side note: since Smokey retained Locke's memories, wouldn't he have known about Steinbeck that way?) And here's where we get to the interesting part... the writing on the cave walls. Here's everyone's assigned numbers, thanks to Lost Easter Eggs.

As predicted, there were a bunch of other interesting names on the wall, too, although I will say that the set designer did a GREAT job of writing names that were unreadable. Either that or Jacob has poor penmanship. Click here to read a comprehensive list of names written on Jacob's cave. A few to note: Littleton is written there (which is probably Claire) and, interestingly, her name was scratched out. I'm assuming because she's technically dead. Also, I saw that Goodspeed was written down (as in Dharma's Horace Goodspeed), and I guess that's confirmation that Jacob even had a hand in bringing Dharma to the island, which I wasn't sure about before.

FLASH SIDEWAYS BEN LINUS: teaches European History. I would have guessed science, but I could see history. My guess is that Ben and Locke will become friends, and then Ben's cancer will kick in and Locke will recommend Jack Shephard for the surgery. And Jack will remove Ben's cancer yet again.

LOCKE'S THREE CHOICES: Smokey offers Sawyer three options: 1) Do nothing, and eventually get your name scratched from the wall when you die. 2.) Become Jacob's replacement and protect the island. "From what?" "From nothing, that's the big joke. It's just a damn island." (I think there's a little more to the island than that, obviously. I mean, there's a crazy wheel of time, at the very least.) And choice number 3.) We just go, get off this island, and never look back. Together. Sawyer chooses option 3 and I'm afraid that means it won't go very well with him in the long run. Even though he's probably the best hero on the show.

Next week's episode is called "Lighthouse". Here's what was in the preview: Locke looks at the camera. Scary Claire looks over her shoulder. Jack sits on a cliff, looking out at the ocean. A voice says, "Someone's coming to the island." Maybe Lennon or Ben? The voice was hard to recognize. Jack looks at his reflection in a puddle or a fountain. Jacob looks up at someone and smiles. Scary Claire walks through the jungle. Jin wakes up and looks startled. Jack yells "What does he want from me?", then there's another flash of Jacob's face, then Jack smashes what looks like a Lighthouse beacon with an ax. Weird. I guess there's a real lighthouse somewhere. And who's coming to the island? Anyway, next Hurley looks at the camera. Kate pulls a gun. And Locke smiles.

Lost Episode 6.4: "The Substitute"

2010-02-16T19:14:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, unfortunately I'm very ill with some kind of virus and I won't be able to stay up tonight to write my normal post. I'll try to do it in the next couple of days. But, here's a few questions or big issues and we can go ahead and get the discussion going in the comments section. Feel free to post whatever you noticed or thought was interesting.

That was a much better episode than last week, overall. Maybe because Kate didn't appear in it anywhere. LOTS of answers, or at least the beginning of answers.

Highlights:

• Smoke monster POV cam: Kinda cool.

• Smokey was about to kill Richard when he saw a little boy (covered in blood? I think? At least maybe the first time.) Is this a reborn Jacob? Aaron?

• Sawyer figuring out Locke was not Locke was a nice scene.

• Smokey spends the episode trying to recruit Sawyer to whatever his cause is.

• Smokey keeps talking about revealing all of the truth, unlike Jacob, who he claims hides the truth. This is a lot like the serpent in the Garden of Eden trying to get Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge so they can know things that only God knows.

• Ilana gathers some of Jacob's ashy remains into a bag that looked a lot like Bram's bag of ash. Is this some kind of time loop thing?

• Locke's funeral: Ben's speech was very nice. Frank's comment at the end was great.

• The first, creepy Temp Agent interviewer was also Hurley's psychic back in Season 2: check it out.

• A scared Richard is not as cool as a non-scared Richard. But still, when he's scared, it kind of freaks you out. I'm glad that he stayed loyal to Jacob (which I'm assuming was the right thing to do.)

• Smokey's older than Steinbeck but not older than books. And, he's not fully in control either, as he freaked out over seeing the child.

•Jacob's Ladder? Interesting that Jacob had a ladder to his cave.

• The scales were also interesting. Black and White stones just like the skeletal remains of "Adam and Eve" had in their hands back in season 1.

• Wow. How about that ceiling with all the names on it. "Jacob's into numbers." Although I didn't really like that line, it was really interesting to find out that the numbers correspond to people on Jacob's List: Sayid, The Kwans (or maybe just one of them), Hugo, Shepherd, Locke, and Sawyer. Weird that Kate's name was not on the wall, even though we saw a flashback of Jacob touching her in the Season 5 finale. The flashbacks jammed into this scene were very "Monk" and not my favorite part of the episode. But I would be interested in seeing a screengrab of that wall to read other names on there. This scene overall was a huge moment as far as cluing us in to what's going on in the show.

• Ben works at Locke's school? It will be interesting to learn about Flash Sideways Ben. The coffee bit was funny.

• Lots of "Candidate" talk. And apparently that means a candidate for replacing Jacob as guardian of the island. Thoughts? There was also some more "rules" talk...

• Why does Smokey want to get off the island?

Sorry, got to crash now. Thanks for reading, though! More later when I feel better...

LOST Episode 6.03: "What Kate Does"

2010-02-09T19:27:00.001-08:00

Aka "Why Kate Sucks".

...although despite all the Kate focus, it was still a pretty good episode. Not without flaws, but way better than any other show ABC tries desperately to convince us to watch during each Lost commercial break. (Like the promo for The Forgotten this week were they show they've cast Alex and Bernard in tonight's episode. Heads up, ABC: Nobody watches Lost for Alex and Bernard.) Now, let's get into the details.

First, on the island:

THE LENNON & DOGEN COMEDY HOUR: So, this episode starts abruptly with the flapping sounds of Lennon's bare feet running through the temple halls towards Dogen, who's sequestered himself away, deep in the temple, doing what he loves best—typing random letters onto an old typewriter with one finger. Maybe he's writing the Others' Christmas letter? I have to say, I like how Lost adds new characters every season but this time they're pushing it a bit. I'm sure in a few weeks I'll come around and I'll be posting how awesome both of these new characters are. (And they're way better than the duo of Justin and Aldo we meet later this episode, who made the Others seem like a lame, whiny fraternity. Anybody shocked they got killed?) Lennon and Dogen are surprised to find out Sayid's alive, maybe because they drowned him to him to death pretty thoroughly with a timer last week.

SAYID IS "INFECTED" AND "CLAIMED": Ok, so I guessed in my last post that whatever happened to Sayid is what happened to young Ben last season. But now I'm not as sure. Instead, it looks like we're finally getting insight into what the all the quarantine & infection talk was about in Season 2. I'm guessing it some kind of smoke monster infection...? Miles seemed to sense something was up, and was concerned that Sayid didn't glimpse anything in the afterlife. I'm assuming the other dead bodies he talks to tell him a little more. The writers also snuck in a joke about zombies, which was nice, because they've always joked that if ABC makes them do another season of Lost, it will be a zombie season. Which I personally would like to see.

SAWYER LEAVES: Sawyer escapes right off the bat, fearing a repeat of the slow, prolonged capture by the Others that we all endured at the beginning of Season 3. (Remember how many times Sawyer and Kate got put in and out of those polar bear cages? Felt like eternity.) He looks directly at Kate and says "don't come after me" but he might as well as said "I like pie" because she was going to follow him no matter what.

KATE FOLLOWS: So, in seconds she convinces the Others to let her go after Sawyer. At this point, I'm not sure why the Others care where Sawyer went (Jacob's list, I guess) or why they would want Kate to go after him. I can only assume they were glad to let her go after that "I can be very convincing" line. I was also confused as to why she couldn't give Sawyer a break. He's been trying to ditch her ever since she got back on the island, but whenever he turns around she's there pouting in his face. My wife and I figured out early on that Kate was hoping to find Claire, but I think she was also secretly hoping to score some Sawyer smooching on the side.

SAWYER BOUGHT A RING: So, in another attempt to clue Kate in and get her off his back, Sawyer says he was about to ask Juliet to marry him. He even bought a ring. Where did he get that thing? Is there a Zales Hatch on the island? Did he take the submarine into town one weekend to pick out a ring? This also begs the question: Did Sawyer and Juliet ever leave the island in the 70s on that sub? I'm assuming no, but I would have at least gone once to see Star Wars on its original opening night. Anyway, Sawyer cries, then chunks three months of Dharma wages into the bay. Next season, Zombie Juilet will rise out of the water with the ring on her finger and eat Kate's brain.

SAYID GETS TORTURED: Dogen goes all Sayid on Sayid with some ash, some jumper cables, and a scalding iron. I'm not sure what he expected to happen or how Sayid failed the test. Because if you did that to me, I would also scream and yell "please stop," and I haven't even been near the murky water fountain. Whatever Dogen was watching for, I'm assuming this is exactly what Rousseau was testing for way back in Season One when she also tortured Sayid with electric current (in the episode "Solitary.")

SPEAKING OF ROUSSEAU, OR TRAPS THAT AREN'T ROUSSEAU'S: Meanwhile, Kate, Jin and the Others Brothers argue on their way through the woods. Aldo makes some lame jokes and suddenly they see some traps hanging around them. Jin says they must be Rousseau's and Justin points out that she's been dead for a while (since 2004, technically.) He starts to say that this trap belongs to someone else, and I think we all know now that he means Claire. Which is pretty shocking, to say the least.

THE POISONED PILL: Dogen tries to get Jack to give Sayid a suspicious pill by appealing, wisely, to Jack's huge guilt complex. Because apparently the pill, in true Jacob fashion, only works if powered by free will and Jack must convince Sayid to take it. Dogen's manipulation of Jack made me wonder if Dogen and Ben ever hung out or if they liked each other. They're both Others, but It's hard to imagine them getting along. I'm pretty sure Ben would have cut someone else's hand besides his own to test the healing waters. Maybe Ben lead a separate Others faction that decided to live away from the temple in the modern day barracks and hold book clubs? Anyway, Jack talks to Sayid about the pill, then comes back in Dogen's room and they sit and chat for a bit. This time, instead of a typewriter or a bunch of Mr. Myagi plants, Dogen is playing with a baseball. I guess he's one of those prop comics? Or maybe he's a big baseball fan and was the one that Ben filmed the Boston Red Sox game for back in Season 3. Jack tries valiantly to get some answers for us about who the Others are by asking Dogen if he lived on the island all his life. Dogen says he was brought to the island, just like Jack. I'm guessing by Jacob? So, was everyone brought there? My guess is that Jacob and the Man in Black have both constantly been bringing people to the island in order to wage what ever battle they're waging. Which brings me to the next question:

ARE THE OTHERS GOOD OR BAD? I can't believe it's season 6 and I still don't know who the bad guys are. Remember in season 2 at the end when Ben claimed the Others were the good guys? That sounded creepy and like a cult or something but now we know they work with Jacob, and he seems pretty decent. So are they good? And what's up with all the killing and baby-grabbing they did in Seasons One and Two? Or the whole thing where they were trying to get Locke to kill his dad? I'm wondering now if Jacob has been away from them for a while and under Ben and Widmore's leadership the Others became more corrupt and evil? We know Ben wasn't talking to Jacob, and can probably assume he was manipulating the Others into doing whatever he wanted them to do instead. Maybe the Others were supposed to be good and that's why Jacob angrily said "What about you?" to Ben inside the four-toed statue. Jacob was angry because Ben, on a power trip, misled his people for years. But I guess we'll have to see.

"BECAUSE IT HAPPENED TO YOUR SISTER": So in anger, Jack swallows the pill and Dogen responds by Judo-Heimliching it out of his mouth. The Others are apparently so concerned about the infection that they were going to kill Sayid to stop it from spreading. They offer Jack some tea (which he finds hilarious) and then Dogen tells him that Sayid has been "claimed" by a darkness growing in him that's trying to reach his heart. And they know this because "it happened to your sister." This brings up a ton of questions. How did they know and why did they care that Claire was Jack's sister? Because of Christian Shepard being on the island? And is Christian a part of the smoke monster? (I'm assuming yes.) And how did Claire get "claimed?" Was she actually dead when that grenade launcher blew up her Dharma house in Season 4 during the freighter people's attack? I'm assuming maybe so, and then Smokey brought her back to life. I'm really interested to see more of Claire's story. And to find out if she really is evil or not. Evil Claire? Creepy. (Also, side note: Is Claire's face bigger this year? I think maybe so, but I'm not sure why. I'm certainly not one to talk, however, because those who've observed me over time witness that my massive head enlarges about 20% every year.)

So, now let's talk about the Kate-centric Flash Sideways. Here's what I noticed:

KATE MAKES A FRIEND. Kate finds the only mechanic in town who thinks it's humorous to be held at gunpoint by a murderer. Ah, murderers. (chuckle.)

KATE STOLE SHAMU: Kate steals Claire's bag which has the stuff in it she was going to leave for Aaron after giving him up for adoption. Including a stuffed killer whale. I know we've seen that whale before. Was it in Aaron's home when Kate was raising him? Or in Claire's creepy nursery that the Others made for her?

KATE GOES BACK FOR CLAIRE: And finds her, somehow. Then, also amazingly, Claire gets in the taxi with her, even though she knows Kate has a gun and will point it at pregnant ladies. Claire, you're dumb. You know what else you could do? Call a real taxi. That moment definitely felt HIGHLY CONVENIENT for the writers. But I wanted to see the characters hang out so I could learn more about this alternate reality, so I was okay with it.

ADOPTIVE PARENTS SUCK: Or at least that's what all TV and movies seem to want you to think. Thanks, America, for being PC about every topic in the world except adoption. Bigamy? Sure, you can't judge people. But adoptive parents? Worst kind of people imaginable. (For the record, it's also not PC to make a character discovering being adopted the punchline to a joke. Think about it. Very rude to adopted kids and adoptive parents. Still happens regularly on sitcoms. I'm talking to you Parks & Rec and 30 Rock.) Sorry, pet peeve. Anyway, a lady who was so into adoption that she found a way to adopt from Australia (which I'm pretty sure is not open for international adoption, but my wife can fact check me on that) decides not only to abandon her plans, but also to skip the call to the agency or to Claire to let them know. MAYBE if your husband died in a terrible accident I can see losing your sanity briefly in despair and not even picking up the phone. But you would surely find a way to handle that situation if your husband simply left you. You would make the call. Anyway, I was surprised by this because I really thought we were going to see Aaron get adopted and that his new parents would name him... JACOB. But that's another theory for another time. And it could maybe still happen.

CLAIRE GOES INTO LABOR: Also as I predicted last post, things are starting to happen that echo events we've already seen occur on the island in the original timeline. Kate was the one with Claire when Aaron was born on the island, and now we see Kate with Claire as the baby is almost born early in the alternate timeline. And who is there to help?

ETHAN GOODSPEED, M.D. Oh, creepy Ethan. Is there anything horrible your face can't insinuate? Even while being nice and sweet, Ethan manages to retain his "portrait of a serial killer" glow. One line of interest: "I don't want to poke you with needles if I don't have to." Remember my theory from my last post that THIS is the real timeline, and what happens on the island is the version that SHOULDN'T have happened? This line kind of implies that, I think. He'd rather do things this way then be the guy he had to be when he was brought to the island. Also, he's still known as Ethan Goodspeed (Horace's son) but in our regular timeline he was known as Ethan Rom. I'm assuming this version of Ethan never went to the island, and therefore didn't have to turn on his parents and participate in the destruction of the Dharma Initiative. Is there even a Dharma Initiative in this timeline? Or are the Goodspeeds just a happy family now? Maybe Ethan's dad Horace is just retired and on tour with Geronimo Jackson?

THE NURSE: Also of note, the Nurse was Kate's nanny Vernonica in the other timeline.

OFFICER RASMUSSEN, P.I. And even more noteworthy, they introduced a character named "Officer Rasmussen." Which is kinda goofy, although apparently a real name people have. Maybe she's a character from the other timeline, too? But I didn't recognize her. After the officer leaves, we have the single most unrealistic moment ever on the show Lost... a show that has featured time travel inducing frozen wheels and bi locating polar bears. I'm referring to the moment where Claire offers Kate her credit card. REALLY? Claire, c'mon. Kate accepts it ('cause she's klassy) then says she's innocent and that Claire should keep Aaron, which really isn't her business but it's Kate so she can say whatever she wants.

Whew. That's it from me. What did you guys notice? Here's what was in the preview for next week (mild spoilers):

Fake Locke says "Hello, James" to Sawyer, who's sitting in a Dharma house. Sawyer says "I thought you were dead." Locke responds "I am." Richard says something to Sun and Jin (who are together) that sounds like "Everyone you care about. All of them." Sawyer pulls a gun on Locke in the Jungle. Locke says in voiceover (I think it was him, anyway): "It would be such a shame to turn back now." Sawyer (I think) falls a long, long way off a rope ladder. Sawyer walks through the jungle and says "What is this place?" (Are they in the Dark Territory, perhaps? Or is he suffering from memory loss? I hope not.) The last shot is Locke saying to someone (looks like Richard's hair) "I promise I'll tell you everything." My prediction? He won't.

LA Xtras

2010-02-09T12:34:00.000-08:00

Getting mentally prepared for Lost tonight? Here a list of some things I learned or additional thoughts I had since last week's post.

IN THE FLASH SIDEWAYS:
• Desmond was wearing a wedding ring. Is he married to Penny? Or someone else?
• Sun and Jin were NOT wearing wedding rings.
• Sun was referred to as "Ms. Paik" by the customs agent. Her maiden name.
• Jack received only ONE bottle of vodka, not TWO this time. (significant because he used the second bottle as an antiseptic on a crash victim in the original pilot episode. Guess he didn't need it this time.)
• Charlie was probably trying to commit suicide. That's why he swallowed a bunch of heroin and why he said "I was supposed to die".
• Apparently, the producers don't like to call this an "alternate reality". They claim this is because they feel it lessons the importance of this timeline, while they consider it just as valid as the other timeline. As I mentioned before, they prefer the term "flash sideways."

A RANDOM THEORY: Ok, so I have a theory about these "flash sideways". I think perhaps in the flash sideways we're seeing what was ALWAYS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN. This is the real timeline. The one we've been watching for the past five years is the one that diverged from destiny's path when outside forces intervened (through people like Jacob,the Man in Black, Widmore and Ms. Hawking). That's why Ms. Hawking was trying so hard to get her son Daniel back to the island even though she knew she would accidentally kill him, because she was trying to correct their messed up reality and put it back to the way it was supposed to be. And Locke does have a purpose and a destiny, but the man in black corrupted it and took it away from him in the timeline we've been watching, so maybe he'll actually get to fulfill his destiny in this real timeline.

Confusing, I know. And maybe not right. But either way, because time is hard to course correct–because whatever happened, will still happen somehow–I think we'll see that things that happened on the island will still happen in similar ways in this "flash sideways" timeline. For instance, Locke got healed on the island. I think we'll see Jack heal him in this timeline. The US Marshall died on the island. I predict we'll see him die pursuing Kate in the flash sideways. Events will echo each other in these parallel timelines. The things that DON'T happen in similar ways will be highly significant, because they will be things that were purposely manipulated or adjusted in whichever one turns out to be the 'wrong' timeline. For instance, perhaps Hurley doesn't have the curse with the numbers in this timeline because that was all a ruse in order to get him to go to the island.

Eitherway, I suspect something is up with these "flash sideways" and the rug is waiting to be pulled out from underneath us by those clever Lost writers.

OTHER PREDICTIONS:

SAYID: Sayid is NOT possessed by Jacob. I've been thinking about it and it doesn't make sense. When the man in black possessed Locke, Locke's body was still in the coffin. Sayid's body comes back to life. And seeing a Sayid vs. Locke battle play out doesn't really pay off what the writers have been building toward in the series overall. I think that whatever just happened to Sayid is the same thing that happened to young Ben when Richard took him into the temple as a child. And the same result will come of it. Sayid will "lose his innocence" and never be the same again. If a realitively nice (albeit creepy) kid who makes chicken salad sandwiches for people turns into Benjamin Linus, what does a former torturer and assassin become? I think this is going to be used to explain what happened to Ben as a child. It's also somehow fitting that it happened to Sayid, since he's the one that shot Ben and created that monster in the first place. Also ironic that it was Ben's dad that shot Sayid in the same spot, only to be saved in the same way.

LOCKE AND RICHARD: Locke will take unconscious Richard to the temple and simply ask to be let in, claiming that Richard is hurt and needs the Others' help. The Others will let him in because the Losties will say they know Locke. If this is going to happen my guess is that it will happen at the end of tonight's episode, as the cliff hanger. (Only because I know this episode is focused on Kate, so I'm sure the majority of it will be her and Sawyer/Jack's story.)

That's it for now. More after tonight's episode...

LOST Season Premiere: Episode 6.1 "LA X"

2010-02-02T23:50:00.000-08:00

Wow. That was a good one, folks. Ready to get the LOST conversation going for one last season?

My wife and I agreed that was one of the best episodes yet. And I was glad that even though we started getting answers to our questions (somewhat) it didn't feel as checklist-y as last season's rushed question-answering dash through time. But now the main question is... what the heck's going on? Let's take a closer look.

JACK ON A PLANE: Well, we opened with Jack on a plane. A very familiar sight. And, for a second, Jack seemed to have his own Deja Vu moment as well. Things appear to have started over, but are now slightly different. How long before Jack or someone realizes it? It makes sense to start the story on the plane, because all the characters are gathered in one place and we can see how things are going to be different this season. And they sure found a cool way to show us how things are different in this timeline. Because not only did 815 NOT crash but also, hey guess what....

THE ISLAND IS UNDERWATER!!! Wha? This was a great scene, and even though it felt a little computer generated it was still super cool to see our favorite landmass now buried undersea. And quite shocking. Twists like this are why I love this show. I also noticed the shark swimming by the four-toed foot was none other than the official Dharma-stamped Dharma shark (nicknamed Ezra James Sharkington, according to the producers).

So, how did the island get underwater? And, what timeline are we viewing? I'm assuming the explosion of the bomb caused an alternate reality, and that the rest of this season we'll be flashing between this new reality and the one from before. More importantly... what will we call this reality? It's not a flashback. An Alternative Flash? Sounds a little like a bad 99x FM radio show. FlashAlt? Hmm. Too computer keyboard. I'm gonna stick with just a Flash. Hmm, just googled it and apparently the producers are calling them FlashSideways. Sounds doable. In this reality, did the explosion at the Incident cause the island to to sink to the bottom of the sea?

I was so excited about the underwater scene that I forgot to mention two small things that happened right before it:

JACK CUT HIS NECK: And I think he thought about crying about it for a second. That's one dude that always looks ready to get his cry on. How did he cut it? During the turbulence? That doesn't seem very likely. Maybe we've seen him get cut there in a past episode sometime before? Maybe having an alternate reality version of yourself is hard on the skin? Also, this is weird:

DESMOND'S ON THE PLANE?? Why is Desmond on the plane? Shouldn't he be in the hatch? But, if this version of the island is underwater, then I guess he can't be down there making the plane crash. Though, he did disappear strangely later in the episode. I will say I was surprised to see that Desmond didn't appear to be aware of what was going on, timeline wise. I always assumed if the writers went an alternate reality route that Desmond would be the only one aware of it because he's "special". Still, I bet the next Desmond-centric episode will be pretty informative.

KATE IN A TREE: So, after all that we go back to 2007 time in our more familiar timeline and see Kate up in a tree. It looked to me a lot like the tree that the pilot's dead body was in back in the very first episode. Why was Kate in a tree? All the other guys got to be sleeping comfy on the grass below but the flash throws her up in the air? Remember when she flashed onto the island from the Anjira plane and how she flash landed onto some sharp rocks? Maybe the island just doesn't like her. I'd have to agree. Anyway, she meets up with everyone else, who's right where we left them after "the Incident."

SAWYER BEATS UP JACK: And I don't blame him. Jack's whole plan was to blow up a bomb so he wouldn't have to meet Kate because she hurt his feelings. Jack is maybe lamer than Kate these days. I thought Sawyer deserved a few more swings at the ol' five o'clock shadow.

JACK, MEET KATE, AGAIN: Next we flash back to Flight 815 and Jack's headed back to the bathroom (yet again), and this time the US Marshall/Tommy Lee Jones-wannabe guy is standing there waiting on Kate to come out. I can't say I was thrilled to see that guy again. Kate comes out and bumps into Jack. Jack smiles like a dork. I'm guessing this must be the moment that Kate steals Jack's pen in order to plan her great escape later. Back at their seats, the U.S. Marshall takes away Kate's dangerous silverware but still lets her have the lasagna. I can only assume this leads to a great deleted scene on the Season 6 DVD where Kate has to eat a messy Italian dish with her face. (SIDE NOTE: Apparently in this alternate timeline there are still meals on flights. Ba-da-boom!) Sawyer walks by and sees Kate's handcuffs, smiles, and the Jack-Kate-Sawyer love triangle starts all over again. Except, with two timelines now I guess the writers have actually devised a way that Kate can end up with Jack in one timeline and Sawyer in another. Let's hope for a more definite answer to the whole Jater/Skater debate so that fans of the show in the future don't have to hear the terms Jater or Skater ever again.

LUCKY HURLEY: Right after the lasagna scene, we see good ol' Doc Arzt (who I am glad to see return) talking to Hurley about owning all the Chicken Shacks, and Hurley professes to Sawyer that he's the luckiest guy alive. I'm guessing then that the numbers are now not cursed. Or whatever happened to the island after the explosion in this timeline did not allow the numbers to happen. Or did Hurley even use the same numbers? I'm starting to see how this alternate reality can later answer questions for us in a backward way by showing us what could have happened. Or I'm really confused.

JULIET'S NOT GONE YET: Back in the future, by which I mean at the site of the exploded Swan hatch site in 2007 (this show is getting harder and harder to write about clearly), Kate starts looking for something in the rubble. Here I have to give my wife props, because she called it right away that Juliet was still alive. I disagreed and guessed that Kate was looking for a medical kit for Sayid among the hatch rubble, but I'm glad I was wrong. Finding Juliet was way more interesting. (Guess it's good I'm not a writer for Lost: "Here's a medical kit!" "Great, Sayid will be fine." "Let's fix him, then maybe go sit down somewhere? Or something.")

JACOB APPEARS TO HURLEY: This scene was cool. That's really all I have to say. I'm glad Jacob's back in some form, he's a really great character. He tells Hurley that he died about an hour ago and that he was "killed by an old friend". They're going to have to give us the name for the other guy soon, because they kept working around it this entire episode and they can't keep that going all season. Can they?

BOONE IS BACK: Meanwhile on Flight 815, Boone is back on the show, but without Shannon. Everybody okay with no Shannon? Yep, thought so. Also, Jin is back to being a jerk that doesn't want anyone to see the top of his wife's bosoms.

BEN STANDS IN SHOCK: Now we finally get back to Ben and Fake Locke (or Flocke) and Ben is standing in shock (rather awkwardly) over the burnt remains of Jacob. (Except I didn't really see any remains. Jacob must have been highly flammable.) Ben is suspicious that Jacob didn't fight back when he stabbed him. I can only assume Ben's realizing how similar his fight was to Darth Vader and Obi-Wan's brief fight in the original Star Wars movie and now he's thinking, "Oh crap, in this scenario, I'M DARTH VADER." Which is a sobering thought for anyone. Locke wants to talk to Richard, so he sends Ben out to fetch him. Richard, by this time, has had enough and finally loses his ancient s***, throwing Ben to the ground next to Locke's body. I love Richard.

DIGGING FOR JULIET: The gang continues to try to dig for Juliet. Sawyer strains mightily to lift giant metal beams in a struggle with time to rescue his lost love–and if you go back and watch it, Jack mildly bends at the waist a bit to see if he can help out a bit without overly exerting himself. Sawyer eventually gets under the rubble and finds Juliet and tells her, "We're all going to go home together" and of course Kate, listening from above, ruins the tender moment between the couple by yelling "Sawyer?" at the top of her lungs at the worst possible time. Then Hurley and Jin drive over with the Dharma van to pull off the beams and I wondered for the first time why the Dharma van flashed in time with everyone else. I guess it was the same as when the paddle boats flashed in time with Sawyer, Locke and Juliet back when they were jumping around in time in the early part of Season Five? Apparently the time flashes take into account the convenience of getting around the island quickly for the writers' sakes.

CHARLIE IS BACK BUT NOT THRILLED ABOUT IT: Jack gets called up to the bathroom again (he can't stay away) by Cindy the mysterious flight attendant and is asked to help them with Charlie, who's locked himself in the bathroom. Somehow Sayid–the middle eastern guy on a plane in 2004–is allowed to rush up to the front and kick in the door without getting tackled by a racial profiling group of nervous passengers and Charlie falls out, choking. Jack can't find his pen to perform some hasty surgery (thanks, Kate) and decides to just dislodge the item with his finger instead. Makes sense. Maybe I'd start with the finger, then progress to the pen, but what do I know? During the long search for a pen, I really expected Boone to pop in and offer Jack one since that was a joke from the pilot episode. (Again, good thing I don't write for the show.) Charlie revives and says "Am I alive?" which is kinda neat because that's what the actor Dominic Monaghan had written on his hand when he appeared at Lost's ComicCon panel last summer as a surprise guest, revealing that he was returning to the show this season. I did think it was interesting that Charlie said to Jack that he was supposed to die. Is there ANOTHER timeline that's the RIGHT one, where Charlie dies on the plane? I can't even go there. Just one alternate timeline please. Also, why does Charlie want to die? I've seen the show FlashForward. He should stay on Flight 815 as long as he can.

FAKE LOCKE GETS SMOKIN' Back at the Four-Toed Statue, Richard asks Ben what happened in the statue and Ben resorts to lying and being evil in his classic Ben way. The big guy Bram (who I really liked, sadly) is not having it, so he grabs Ben and takes him inside the statue, where Fake Locke reveals his true nature by releasing the smoke monster all over everyone. Bram tries to hide inside some magic ash but is prevented by some cartoon-like trickery from the Smoke Monster and is eventually killed. Weird. But cool. I guess we know for sure now that the ash around the cabin was keeping the bad guy trapped inside. We don't know how he got out, but I think that he somehow got out in Locke's body. The question is how long has Locke been carrying around the smoke monster guy inside of him? My guess is since the very first time he went in the cabin and heard "Help Me" way back in season three. That would explain how he survived Ben shooting him and why he stabbed Naomi in the back without a second's hesitation. I think at that point he was half Locke and half smoke monster but the Locke half didn't know it. Kind of like a possession that could trick Locke into doing things because he was in his mind all along. It was interesting to finally hear the smoke monster guy admit that he could hear what John Locke was thinking as he died. That could explain how the ghostly apparitions we've seen on the island so far have been able to know things about the people who's body's they've been using. (SIDE NOTE: I think in a way, this is somehow connected to Miles' power to hear the thoughts of dead people. Miles' power used to seem to be coming from nowhere plot-wise, so it's nice to see that the writers have known that communing with the dead is a key part of what happens on the island, at least in connection with the smoke monster.)

FAREWELL, JULIET, BUT FOR REAL THIS TIME, MAYBE: Back at the hatch, Juliet and Sawyer spend a last few moments together. I totally misheard one of Sawyer's lines during this part and was really confused. This is what I heard:

JULIET: (dying breaths) James, kiss me. SAWYER: But you're really bloody.

when in reality, as my wife pointed out (in a voice that seemed to imply that I ruined a moment) the lines were actually:

JULIET: (dying breaths) James, kiss me. SAWYER: You got it, blondie.

which I guess makes more sense but is maybe not as funny or memorable. Again, probably good I don't write the show. Juliet then said something really vague about going dutch and grabbing some coffee with Sawyer, then told him she had to tell him something important, then died. I would have cried fowl at this somewhat cheap cliffhanger if they hadn't resolved it soon thereafter with Miles getting the message for us, which was "It worked." So apparently for a moment as she was dying Juliet could somehow get a glimpse of the alternate reality. Does that mean when Sayid dies briefly later this episode that he sees his alternate reality as well? I think Juliet's somewhat random line about coffee will definitely come into play later this season. Maybe she and Sawyer will meet somehow near a coffee shop and get flirty in the alternate timeline?

LOCKE BACK IN THE WHEELCHAIR: We cut back to the plane to see everyone land at LAX in slow motion, and Locke climbs back into his wheelchair. Jack glances at him, and again I have to give my wife credit because she said "Jack's going to offer to fix Locke's back" and I was all, "No, he wouldn't do that" but sure enough it happened before the night was out. It could be cool to find out Jack was meant to heal Locke all this time, and not the island.

SAWYER BURIES JULIET: I liked how during this scene Sawyer called Kate "Kate" and not "Freckles". Kate was already trying to make a move (literally over Juliet's dead body), so it was good to see Sawyer draw a boundary or two and basically tell her to get lost. My guess is that's all over next episode, though.

CHRISTIAN SHEPHERD'S BODY IS MISSING: In LAX, Jack gets paged and learns that yet again Christian's body has gone missing. This is really cool and intriguing, and I have no idea what it means. It definitely seems like Christian is a really important part of understanding the mystery behind the island.

THE TEMPLE! So Hurley leads the Losties to the temple to save Sayid, and we finally get to see what's behind the wall. I was shocked to see so many new characters in there, but it was kind of cool. Also worth noting was that we heard the whispers for a few seconds before the Others started grabbing the Losties in the corridors. I think that whatever the Whispers are we now know for sure is directly related to the Others. But how do they do it? And why? Two new others finally open Hurley's guitar case. (I think these two new guys are named Lennon and Dogan, from what I can tell on Lostpedia. Lennon is the one with Lennon glasses. Dogon is the Asian one who tastes distasteful English on his tongue.) Dogon finds a really crappy 70s Ankh wall hanging in the guitar case, and is so angry at Jacob's crappy gift that he cracks it over his knee and finds one of Jacob's lists inside. I thought at first that it was the same list that they had back in Season Two (when the Others sent Michael to bring people to them in exchange for release from the island) but that list was Hurley, Sawyer, Jack and Kate. Jin and Sayid where not on that list. Guess this is a new list. There have been several mentions of lists on the show, read up on them here.

SUN SAYS NO ENGLISH: So, customs gives Jin a really hard time for carrying his mobster Father-in-Law's cash around, and Sun chooses not to intervene. Probably in order to make the escape that she failed to make at the Sydney airport. It's also possible that she doesn't speak English in this timeline, but I doubt it. It's much more interesting if she chooses to let Jin go to jail in order to get away from him.

SAYID'S BAPTISM: So Sayid gets taken to a spring inside the temple, which is dirty for some reason (I'm guessing because Jacob's dead.) Dogon tries to purify it with his blood, then they hold Sayid in until he can't breathe anymore. This is very similar to a Christian baptism, which is a symbolic representation of dying to yourself and then rising again, alive in Christ. (Except at most churches they let you up to breathe actual, non-symbolic air after being dunked. The better churches, anyway.) This is all pretty interesting. Jacob died first in a sacrificial manner (much like Jesus) and then appears to Hurley (much like Jesus appeared to his disciples after his death.) Afterwards, Sayid is baptized in what looks like a bloody pool and then is dragged out with his arms laid out on both sides like a cross before being brought to life again. Now that he's "reborn", is Sayid now one with Jacob? Will we get some good Sayid and evil Locke standoffs later this season?

KATE'S ESCAPE: Meanwhile, back in the Flash Sideways, Kate escapes from the Marshall, meets Sawyer in an elevator, fails to hide behind Hurley (which seems pretty easy to do) and is spotted by the Marshall yet again. She hijacks a taxi with Claire in it and takes off. It was nice to see Claire again. She's a regular this season so we should be seeing a lot more of her in the future.

THE OTHERS SHOOT A FIREWORK: Hurley tells Dogon and Lennon that Jacob is dead, and in response they freak out, fire a rather unimpressive firework, and start spreading ash all around "to keep him out".

WHO IS HIM? Then we cut back to fake Locke who tells Ben how he could hear Locke's thoughts, and how he used Locke because Locke was the only one who didn't want to leave the island. I'm guessing that means he was the only one he could convince that the island was good and to do what it said. Which he claims is ironic, because he's using him to get OFF the island and go home. So, that's crazy. The smoke monster wants to get off the island?

RICHARD IN CHAINS? Outside on the beach, Richard sees the firework and somehow knows that the ash has hit the fan, so to speak. Fake Locke bursts out from the foot, sees that Richard now knows who he really is and says "It's good to see you out of those chains". Richard says "You!" The mystery dude responds "Me." Then punches the crap out of Richard's neck. I thought the "chains" comment was interesting. This could mean that the last time they saw each other, Richard was literally in chains, maybe even as a slave on The Black Rock? But I think it might also be taken figuratively. Richard was in the service of Jacob who gave him immortality, so maybe Fake Locke is just saying that now that Jacob is dead, Richard is free from both his servitude and his immortality. I think that's probably what he meant. Sounds like something the devil would say after killing Jesus. Or causing the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden. I'm not sure why Fake Locke carries Richard off on his shoulders, but I'm sure he's not up to anything good. Before he leaves, Fake Locke yells that he's "very ashamed of all of you". I'm confused by that. Is he still pretending to be Locke to all the people that followed him to the statue, and telling them he's ashamed? Or do they all recognize him now as someone from the past?

SAYID WAKES UP: The last scene of the night is Sayid waking up, which we've already discussed. Is he now Jacob? Did he see a glimpse of the alternate timeline like Juliet possibly did? Also interesting...why was Miles being all freaky for a second? Hurley noticed and asked him what was wrong. Did Miles sense that Sayid was coming back? Or is he hearing something else?

All in all it was an amazing episode. I'm not sure where it's all heading but here's a rough guess. I think that the bomb caused an alternate reality (obviously) but that something's bad about having two realities coexisting that's dangerous for life as we know it, and the direction of this season will be trying to end the alternate line and join it back in with the other to keep the galaxy from exploding. Or something like that. Kind of a similar take as Donnie Darko's alternate reality premise. Although I'm not sure which time line will turn out the be the correct or "right" one. Is the new one what should have happened all along? What are your thoughts on it all?

Next week's episode is entitled "What Kate Does" which is a twist on the season two episode title "What Kate Did". Whether it's what Kate "does" or Kate "did" I guarantee it will be done in a pout that displays her disdain for everyone around her.

Here's what I saw in the preview for next week's episode (MILD SPOILERS): Sayid, Jin & Hurley try to stop a fight breaking out in the temple (probably Jack vs. an Other, he was in a fightin' mood at the end of this week's episode.) Sawyer says he's leaving the Temple and tells Kate "Don't come after me." (Yeah, I'm sure she'll listen.) Frank & Sun walk through a graveyard with makeshift crosses on the hillside. (Will Jin and Sun find each other soon? They're in the same time zone now. Hopefully Frank and Sun won't fall in love first, creating another unwelcome love triangle.) Jack asks the Others "Who are you?" Kate says "You think they care about any of you?" And Jin gets sassy and says "What do you care about?" Then Kate says she's going after Sawyer. (It's not even the end of the preview and she's already going against Sawyer's wishes.) Anyway, should be good, despite the Kate-centric nature of it all. This is going to be a great last season of Lost.

Extra Hour / Shannon might return

2009-07-01T12:27:00.000-07:00

On Lostpedia and Aintitcoolnews.com today there's a couple of Lost news items that have surfaced. First is that the producers of Lost have asked ABC for an additional hour next year. Which I find odd. How would they know in advance that they need another hour to tell their full story, even before they begin shooting? I've guess they've got it more planned out than I imagined. But cool, nonetheless.

Second is that rumor has it that Maggie Grace has been hinting she may return in some capacity during Season 6. (She played whiny Shannon in season 1.) I don't think anyone has been begging for her return, however if it's true it would fit into my theory that Season 6 will open just like Season 1. After the jughead bomb detonates, Jack and his friends wake up back on the beach after the 815 crash and start living Season 1 over again, however things are slightly different this time and they slowly start to realize that they're stuck in a time loop that's been repeating for a while now. That's still my best guess for what's going to happen in Season 6.

On a side note, the other day I was thinking about the Time Loop theory and remembered the ending to the Lost: Via Domus video game. SPOILER ALERT, if you're planning on playing the game, skip this paragraph. (Also, if you're planning to play the game, prepare for a lot of frustratingly aimless walking around in dark caves, struggling to light a torch then accidentally falling into a hole.) Anyway, that game was about a photographer named Elliot who crashed on the island along with the 815 Losties. Over the course of the game, through flashbacks you learn how he got to the island, and see how off the island he witnessed the murder of his journalist colleague/love interest Lisa by the Hanso Foundation. But the ending of the game is what's really interesting (unless you like bartering with a video game version of Michael for mangos). At the end of the game, Elliot is about to escape the island in a boat when there's a flash (like when the hatch exploded) and he wakes up on the beach right after the crash, just like at the beginning of the game... except this time his friend Lisa appears and says "Oh my God, we made it, we're alive." So, he's experienced a time loop, except something's different this time around – this time, his friend was actually on the plane and survived. The producers later said the game was not canon, but I think this could have been a retraction because they realized they gave away too much...

One final crazy theory... I saw someone posted a theory on Lostpedia that a cool opening for Season 6 would be to see Jacob waiting on the beach for The Black Rock ship to set anchor, but when they do, Jack and Kate and the other Losties get off the boat. I'm not sure how that would be explained, but it would be cool. I guess maybe they could have gotten flashed back to the 1800s or whatever. Just an interesting thought.

Not sure what other Lost news is on the horizon. ComicCon 2009 happens in late July, so it will be interesting to find out what hints the producers give us towards Season 6 then. Stay tuned...

Wired Magazine's LOST numbers puzzle SOLVED

2009-05-28T14:37:00.000-07:00

Ok, so if you haven't seen last month's issue of Wired Magazine that was guest edited by J.J. Abrams, it's worth checking out. It was an issue all about mystery and it had secret codes hidden in it throughout the issue. Seriously hidden. Like, even some of the design elements were Morse code and Braille, and there was some cleverly hidden semaphore and binary messages, as well. All of the puzzles linked together to provide you with a message that led you to a website for another secret message. If you aren't planning to solve it yourself (which I would not recommend, because I think it's virtually IMPOSSIBLE), check out the insane solution here. It's really an amazing amount of effort put into one issue to make it cool. I can't believe anyone solved it.

But, more interesting to Lost followers, there was also a spread that featured a picture of Hurley's lottery ticket and had a bunch of numbers on it, obviously some kind of code. The solution for that is here. It's pretty amazing, basically one side of the puzzle told you to "Use the Letters Backward from end". For a while, folks had that solution on the web, but no one knew how to use it to translate the rest of the code.

Well, it turns out a clue to the solution was hidden in an episode of Lost. Remember when Widmore came to talk to Daniel in the episode The Variable? There was an issue of Wired magazine from the year 2003 on the chair that the camera showed briefly:

I thought that this was just a shout out to J.J.'s guest-editing gig, but apparently it was also a huge hint. There is an article in that issue on time travel, and if you go to the end of the article and count backward from the end using each number from the puzzle, you get this phrase:

The Four Toed Statue is Taweret.

Wow. Pretty crazy. So, now we have confirmation on which Egyptian God's foot Jacob chooses to reside in. Taweret is the hippo Goddess and is supposed to have something to do with fertility and protecting pregnancies, and may or may not be evil. Read up on her here. I have NO idea what on earth this could have to do with Jacob. Weird stuff.

"The Incident" – The Time Loop Theory

2009-05-19T20:44:00.000-07:00

"It only ends once. The rest is just progress." - Jacob.

"One day I'm going to find a loophole." – Jacob's enemy.

Ok, here's a theory. I think the island is stuck in a continual time loop.

Let's say that Juilet banging on the bomb really does reset everything. But instead of landing in LAX, the plane crashes on the island AGAIN. Desmond said that time has a way of correcting itself. So, if they're meant to be on the island, even if the hatch doesn't bring them there... maybe something else does. I don't know what, but it's still possible.

If I was a writer on Lost, that would actually be the most interesting angle to me. They've done stuff like this before. When we all thought, "There's no way they'll actually leave the island" they did – at the end of Season 3. After that, I'm sure it was like writing a whole new show for them. And then we thought, there's no way they'll bring Locke back, they did. Kind of. This show loves to go where you would think is unsafe. They love "Game-changing" finales. So, I think that it's a strong possibilty that Juliet's final sacrifice worked. But only to recrash them on the island, yet again.

So if there is a time loop going on, then I think the Losties have been on the island several times before, and that everything that has happened on the island has happened before. That's what Jacob was talking about when he said "It only ends once." I think life on the island keeps ending the same way. Jacob always gets stabbed, but then the Losties detonate the bomb and reset everything. And it all happens over again. Jacob keeps trying to change it by bringing people to the island but his nemesis thinks he's making it worse.

If I'm right (which I know is a long shot), then only Desmond can stop the loop now, because he's the only one that's truly special and doesn't answer to the rules of the time loop.

It's just a theory. But it explains a lot. It would explain how Jacob knew exactly what time to be waiting for Locke after his 8-story fall and even how he knew exactly when to be there to save Sayid from getting hit by the car that killed Nadia. It explains a lot of the fate-like things and coincidences we've seen all along. And it explains Jacob and his enemy's weird conversation and modern-sounding language.

Also, maybe things are slightly different everytime the loop resets. Like an alternate reality based on the one that came before. Maybe everyone who dies stays dead... and becomes part of the smoke monster consciousness? I dunno.

I'm still working this theory out, but what do you guys think?