Tuesday, May 26, 2009

5.17 The Incident, Part II

Well, it’s back to work. I hope to avoid being repetitive and covering again some of the material of the first part of this 3 part saga, but we shall see. Work was kicking my ass this week, so I barely had time to do much on this until Sunday, which is now today. Oh, and I failed to mention how much X looks like that gay naked guy on Survivor from Season 1, Richard Hatch. Holy hell, I thought it was a cameo at first.

The Others arrive at the statue, and as Richard identifies it as where Jacob lives, Xlocke basically goes D’oh why didn’t I figure that out. Sawyer demands 5 minutes with Jack alone, while the fate of the world hangs in the balance. Must be nice to put everybody in jeopardy like that without a care in the world about, well, the world. Jack flashback, where we see the origin of his surgery story that he told Kate way back at the beginning of the series. Jack apparently accidently sliced open a woman in surgery, and her nerves were falling out of their sack like a leaky plastic bag full of soup. Or when Jack tilts his head, oatmeal *bloops* out of his ears. Either way. Count to 5. I was surprised as anyone that Jack didn’t go One, Two, Elventeen, Zebra, Kumquat, Five, Ollie, Ollie, Oxycotin. But, at least Jack screwed up getting a candy bar. Yes, it was our favorite brand of Apollo. Jack is mad that his father called a timeout on him in front of his staff. This marks the first time in the history of modern discipline that a timeout actually worked. Personally, I think Christian should have taken off his belt and chased Jack around the surgery table. Like Homer Simpson chasing Bart down the street with a medieval mace, swinging it around and around, yelling “I’ll mace you good.”
Jack: I need my team to believe in me.
Oh, what else can I say here. A bit selfish, but fine. Jack has bigger things to screw up. Jacob hands over the candy to Jack and touches Jack’s fingers for about 5 seconds. If I wasn’t suspicious of all the touching by now, I surely would not have missed it in this scene, the way the camera stayed on the hands for an excruciatingly long time. Can you be more obvious? Well, at least it was the second time I watched. Sawyer and Jack have a pow wow, and as Sawyer told Jack about Christian drinking himself to death in an Australian bar back in Season 1, this time Sawyer explains his own parent’s gruesome death much to Jack’s boredom. Sawyer is still clinging to WHH, as he could have tried to prevent the death of his parents by leaving the island in the last 3 years, but chose not to.
Sawyer: What did you screw up so bad that you need a second chance?
Exactly. Holy hell, did Sawyer read my mind or what. All this hydrogen bomb stuff is about Kate. It’s not about saving hundreds of lives, ending misery. No, it’s about a woman that is rotten to the core but pretty to look at. These are two alpha male gorillas beating each other over the head with sacks full of bananas over a broad that is one day away from boiling Dharma bunnies in a kettle of Dharma box wine. Jack puts out the weak argument of Locke wanting us to come back, and it’s destiny. Yeah, nobody is buying it. Much to the show’s credit, they come clean rather quickly since Sawyer stumbled onto the truth.
Jack: I had her. I lost her.
Sawyer is incredulous, as am I, as is 99% of the people watching this show. Hey, she is right over there. Go talk to her.
Jack: It’s too late for that. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.
Jack Sucks Moment of the Week. Have I handed this award out yet so far? Well, even if it’s the first one…you lose a girl, and instead of talking to her, you decide detonating a hydrogen bomb is a better option? Are you kidding? Hell, don’t get me wrong. I’d try to slam my skull into Jughead repeatedly until it went off or I knocked myself out before getting trapped by Kate’s wily ways. Well, we are talking Jack here, who still is in the mode of going up to a girl in his class and pulling her hair to get her attention. Except, this time it’s a BOMB. So, all your destiny stuff is bullsh!t. It’s the equivalent of Obama seeing Michelle making googly eyes at whoever is running Canada. I assume it’s either Doug or Bob McKenzie. How‘s it going, eh? Hoser. Take off. Next thing you know, missiles level Saskatchewan, and Moosehead beer ceases to exist. And I can’t begin to fathom the fallout from such a selfish action. The horror. Does anybody realize how great Moosehead tastes. It’s the best beer EVAH. The nectar of the gods. A fight a long time coming breaks out and of course you have to be rooting for Sawyer out of principle. Imagine this happening in Season 1.Who are you rooting for? Exactly. Things change.
Sawyer: I had a life here.
Indeed, you did. But it was on borrowed time. Jacob and Xlocke had other plans, and it wasn’t forever. Sorry buddy. As the slugfest starting to slow down a bit, Sawyer kicks Jack in the balls, much to my amusement. I was reminded of the scene in zombie flick Grindhouse: Planet Terror, when Quentin Tarantino was determined to sexually assault Rose McGowan and took off his pants. His junk started to melt and like a chilled bottle of pancake syrup, started to glub, glub, glub, pull away from his sensitive groinal region and ever so slowly in a gelatinous sticky mess streeeeeeeeeeeeetch towards the floor. I hope somebody reading this is eating their breakfast right now, sincerely. I think this writeup just got a “R” rating if not worse. Anyway, Jack takes the nut shot. For Sawyer, it’s clobbering time. He gets on top of Jack and starts to wail away on him, like Tawny Kitaen on that poor baseball player husband of hers. Oh, stop with your accusations. I think women are lovely and do not spend my whole writeup bashing women. Consider the women on this show that I dislike:. Kate, Sun, Charlotte, Kaite, Jack’s ex-wife, Kayte, Shannon, Qate, Rose, K8, Claire the first 3 seasons, Khate, Amy, Cate, Jack, Nikki, Ate-kay…well, that’s not the entire female cast, so stick that up you ass and smoke it. Juliet comes along and tells Sawyer you know, I’ve changed my mind. Arrgh.

Juliet flashback, and a huge red herring. You have to notice that this flashback did not contain Jacob. It was merely a vehicle to explain her impending break up with Sawyer. Apparently Juliet’s and Rachel’s folks split up. But since there was no Jacob, this was the end of the line for Juliet, and as I’ve been harping on it all season long. Even if you love one another, you aren’t always supposed to be together. I call bullsh!t. I love a bottle of rum, and you better believe me and her are together every weekend. So why, Juliet?
Juliet: I saw the way you look at her.
Welcome to the party, pal. Hans Gruber Austin has been running amok on the island for a while, and you just noticed the dead body land on your windshield. Ay caramba! And they breakup. Well, at least it’s more civil than say Paul McCartney and ’ole Stumpy Mills. At the Swan, Radzinsky and Chang are fighting as only nerds know how. Phil tips them off about the bomb. But let’s keep drilling. Geez. Radzinsky has never heard of taking a deep breath and counting to 5 apparently. Hell, at least you get a candy bar out of it. Kate takes a look at Jack’s beaten and bloody face.
Kate: Does it hurt?
Kate is a Stupid Wh0re Moment of the Week. Actually, no Kate, it doesn’t hurt. No, Kate, it doesn’t hurt. I found some wild strawberries; since I have an eating disorder, I couldn’t manage to find my mouth so I smeared them on my face. Or, no Kate, it doesn’t hurt. A polar bear just gave birth to me, and I’m wearing it’s afterbirth as a skin moisturizer. Or, no Kate, it doesn’t hurt. But Sawyer just kicked a field goal with my bean bag, and let me tell you, I’ll probably feel the pain from them once these stupid cuckoo birds stop circling my head. After a question about Aaron, Kate gets fiesty by declaring that she was mad that Jack made her come back. Well, last thing I remember at the dock is that Kate yelled at Jack and drove off with Aaron. Next thing Jack sees is Kate laying in his bed, ripping off her clothes. Um, Jack must have persuasive powers greater than that guy that could bend spoons with his mind. Which is fascinating since Jack has the brain size comparable to a milk soaked Cheerio. Kate is still sticking to her fraud Claire excuse of coming back.
Jack: Nothing in my life has ever felt so right.
Run away. Run far, far away. OK. Let me pose this question. Has Jack been right about anything, ANYTHING, on Lost island. Name one thing. Just one. Fine. Name one thing Jack has been right about anywhere on the planet Earth. I felt incredibly more comfortable when ole Jack was busying making bologna sandwiches for everybody back at the Barracks while Little Ben was dying. I’m sure not more than 2 or 3 of those sandwiches exploded. Jack wants Kate to rub his aching nuts…um, to believe in him. Kate agrees. This author groans. Stop with the I believe in you stuff. You have a bomb. Kill yourselves, and make it snappy. Radzinsky keeps drilling. There Will Be Blood. By the way, fantastic movie. I wish Daniel Day Lewis wasn’t quite so picky with what he does. Geez, Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York and now an oil baron maniac. A treasure for sure. “I drink your milkshake. I drink it up.” I get goosebumps. Then I see him pick up the bowling pin, and I get the giggles for the next 5 minutes.

Hurley reluctantly uses his Get Out of Jail Card, and catches a cab with Jacob. Jacob spends an awful long time talking with Hurley. This makes me wonder if this is because Hurley needs extra convincing and positive reinforcement, or because Hurley is extra special. Of all the people on the island, for me and for nearly everybody else, Hurley remains some kind of pure character, never doing horrible things like nearly every other main character, a real life Scooby Doo. A pure soul. Jacob corrects Hugo’s I’m cursed rant and calls him blessed. Jacob also touches Hugo’s chest, not unlike Mr Anderson doing so to Neo in the 3rd Matrix movie and the final battle in the Matrix. Hugo ends up with the mysterious guitar case, containing God knows what. Unless it’s the Ark of the Covenant, which in that case would be God. I’d love to see Jack open it and have his face melt. While Jack is being told to get the bomb as close to the source as possible, I am left mystified by how quickly Kate changed her mind about the bomb being evil. I think she was excited to see Jack and Sawyer fighting, and thought it must be over her, so she needs to continue to feed her ego by agreeing to whatever is necessary to keep her the center of attention. Meanwhile, the Others at the foot wait at the foot until night falls, rather than doing something right as they arrive in the middle of the afternoon. OK. But, note. It’s night time 30 years late, and day time in 1977. If there is a time jump by the Losties to the right time, it won’t be an exact jump to meet with the other group.
Richard: Jacob would have come to you.
Locke: I’m tired of waiting
Well, it’s not like Locke was waiting all that long. What, a day? No, Xlocke needs to act right now, to take advantage of the loophole he has exploited. Xlocke has been on the island for quite some time, so I’m sure he is tired of waiting in general too. Ben tells Sun that the statue was like that when he got here, but Sun doesn’t buy it, and I am not so sure that I do either. I wonder if Ben and Richard and the Others knocked down most of the statue to chase Jacob out. Jacob sought refuge, and chose the cabin. Then, Ben and Richard trapped him in there with the ash. Since Xlocke was been using the cabin, Jacob escaped elsewhere, but what none of them realized was that Jacob fled back to the ruins of the statue. During this time, as punishment for damaging the Tawaret statue, goddess childbirth, children on the island became a huge issue. Richard protests Ben going in to see Jacob, as only the leader can do it. Strange that a former leader is not afforded the same privileges. Richard moves the wall, Ben get a knife, and Xlocke claims all will be different once Jacob is dead. Indeed.

Miles questions Jack’s mission of the bomb, as he is the only one in the group who was not used to seeing Jack come up with a half-assed plan, and everybody falling in line behind them, full of dread knowing that it won’t work. What if the bomb causes the incident, which if a normal question, one that myself and characters on the show have been speculating about. As the group sees Phil go bouncing by in his jeep, Juliet mutters the overused “Live together, die alone.” Can the writers throw anymore clues to the viewer that Juliet is about to die? Holy smokes. Just throwing a subtitle on the bottom of the screen “Juliet is about to die.” would be a bit less subtle. We get it. Sawyer calls Juliet “blondie”, yet another attempt to distance Sawyer from Juliet to lessen the blow for the audience. Jack’s gun accuracy continues to impress me, blasting away at the Dharma folks. Then again, I’m sure Dharma wasn’t trained to be commandos, so it’s possible they are leaving themselves wide open as targets; therefore, I will quickly take back my compliment to Jack and pretend it never happened. Jack takes cover behind a mound of dry dirt, since obviously a bullet can’t possibly pierce that obstacle. Tell you what, faithful reader at home, go get your gun and a bag of sugar. Try to shoot a bullet through the sugar. And what did you learn? Exactly, don’t listen to me. You can trust me, but don‘t listen to me when I give you instructions. Now go get your broom and dustpan. I’ll wait. Trust me. Oh, don’t be ridiculous, I’m not waiting. And what did you learn now? Never trust me. So while Jack continues to play Neo from the Matrix and breaking rules of physics with his Kevlar dirt, Hurley pulls up in his superhero van yet again, saving the day…he’s like a free safety, showing up at the last second, exactly when he has to. Hey, Dharma sees the faux Hostiles have a bomb. Let’s keep shooting at them. Brilliant. Looks like everybody forgot their logic pills today. Instead they all took Cialis and are a hell of a time trying to lay face down in a foxhole. Sawyer clobbers Radzinsky, captures Phil, and gets Dharma to throw down the weapons. Game over. Let’s all go home. But that would be disappointing, with so much time left in this episode, and with many, many more commercials that need to air, so let’s instead say that the drill can’t be stopped as the electromagnetic pocket is sucking it down into the earth. That sounded vaguely erotic. Uh, oh. Jack looks at Kate, Sawyer looks at Juliet, Hugo looks at a jar of ranch dressing, Phil looks into a mirror and wonders why he never plucked his eyebrows, and Jack drops the bomb into the hole. Nothing happens. Jack Sucks Moment of the Week, #14 or whatever hell number we are up to. Did anybody out there, anybody at all think it would go kaboom? This was JACK. Everything he does turns to sh!t. However, the magnetism kicks in, the same that was pulling objects in the Season 2 finale just before the Swan hatch blew up. Remember, that explosion had a profound effect on Desmond, and a somewhat lesser effect on Locke and Mr Eko, who were in close proximity. Right now, there are a bunch of people hanging around, so you have to wonder what effect, if any, a possible upcoming explosion will have on them. Random metallic objects are being pulled down the drill hole, Dr Chang’s arm becomes pinned, which will lead to an eventual amputation, so that when we see him in future, or at the very least we saw him in the Losties past on orientation films with a fake arm. Now we know why. Phil corners Sawyer, and is going to get his revenge for Sawyer punching him. But this is Hollywood, and it doesn’t work that way. Instead, Phil is impaled. Just goes to show, if you hit a woman (Juliet), bad things are bound to happen to you in the end.

5.15 Follow The Leader
Then Phil comes on down the aisle and slugs Juliet in the face. Well, I was a bit surprised at that punch, sort of the reaction I had when Mongo in Blazing Saddles punched out a horse. Not from Juliet taking a punch, which was funny in an absurd kind of way. But you know windshield wiper eyebrows Phil will die in the season finale. Hell, Sawyer just said “I will kill you”. So, even though we won’t have Phil to kick around anymore, at least he brought a comedy element to his upcoming death


But if she happens to bring you a warm beer and makes you a terrible sandwich while you are watching the big game, hell, all bets are off.
5.14 The Variable
The more troubling sight is seeing Juliet in a red shirt for the second straight episode. JJ Abrams is directing this upcoming Star Trek movie, and as all Trekkers know, red shirts get killed all the time. Uh, oh. I predicted at the beginning of the season that Juliet would not survive much longer. I was wrong about how quickly it will happen. But it’s about to happen nevertheless, much to my disappointment.


Juliet manages to get more chains wrapped around her, preventing escape than David Blaine, Criss Angel, or a dominatrix role playing. She has more chain links around her than a suburban property trying to keep the awful neighborhood kids from doing a dip and dash in their underground pool. She has more chains wrapped around her than Regina, a worker on the freighter during Season 4 who walked off the ship and straight into Davey Jones’ Locker. As Juliet is hanging on for dear life on the edge of the drill hole. Sawyer and Kate spring into action to save her. Sawyer is desperately holding on, knowing that if Juliet dies, he will have Kate stalking him forever. Meanwhile, Kate is doing her part by stretching out her arm about 6 inches, maybe a foot, like she was offering a hand shake to somebody, and proclaims “I can’t reach her.” Kate Is A Wh0re Moment of the Week, # 1700. What kind of effort is that? You sticking out a baby arm , a Tyrannosaurus teeny tiny arm barely into that hole to help the girlfriend of the man you want to idolize you…oh, right. While Juliet is screaming, about to fall, you call hear Kate whispering “So, Sawyer, now that you are about to become single..” I heard it. I swear I did. Trust me.
Sawyer: I got you.
Juliet: I love you, Jamesssssssssssss.
Sawyer starts to cry. Fantastic, touching death scene, really giving the Juliet character a dignified ending. I admit that I choked up too, and shed a couple of tears. Why, oh why, oh why, couldn’t that have been Kate falling down the hole? Oh, so sad, my friend. Sniff.

At the statue, Sun is in search of booze. Hell, who isn’t? It’s 7:30 AM on a Sunday morning, and I’m drinking a warm beer. Hey, it’s 10:00 AM somewhere in the world. Probably Alabama. Illana’s group appears and they are looking for Ricardo. “It’s Richard.” Makes you wonder. If Star Trek and Fringe can reintroduce Leonard Nimoy, why can’t Lost bring back Ricardo Montalban. He’s dead? So what? That hasn’t stopped this show before. Next year, we will find Charles Widmore feuding with Heath Ledger and Bea Arthur off the island.
Illana: What lies in the shadow of the statue?
Richard: (Latin, translated) He who will save us all.
So, is Illana’s group part of the off island Others, which Ben has shown to us over the years exist, and Jacob, to whom the Othes swear their allegiance, has meet with Illana off island, does this indeed make Illana and Richard allies? Xlocke said that the Others must deal with the Ajira survivors, most likely kill them. So what will happen next if Xlocke shows Jacob dead, declares himself ruler of the island, and obey my orders. Now, Richard, kill Illana. Illana has something to reveal from the cargo on the plane, and it turns out to be Lock’s dead body. Inside the foot, Ben and Locke are moving into a room we saw at the very beginning of this episode, apparently Jacob’s home. Looking up, you can see the sky through the open ceiling. Which bothers me to no end, since there seems to be a perpetual fire burning in a pit. Does it never give off smoke? How could nobody have seen that smoke drift out of the foot and realized somebody was living inside of it? Was if because Jacob was trapped in his cabon with the circle of ash, and only very recently set up shop here, not allowing enough time to be discovered. Still, it is taking an awful big chance, as smoke can rise quite high, or can be blown inland quite far with wind from the ocean. Ben admires the tapestry that Jacob has created. It’s a Greek phrase, from Homer’s Odyssey, “May heaven grant you in all thing’s your heart’s desire” Seems like a witty foreshadowing, as Locke has spend all day, hell, a few days goading Ben into wanting to kill Jacob. He is borderline consumed by the thrill of the task.
Jacob: Well, you found your loophole.
Xlocke: You have no idea what I’ve gone through to get here.
Let’s step back for a second. First of all, let’s mourn the loss of Locke. We spent 5 seasons heavily invested in this lovable character, a guy that had a trying existence, a meek, kindly soul willing to believe in people even when they constantly let him down. Up until the end, he kept doing what he thought the island wanted him to do. But as we have mentioned many, many times, for a couple of years now, the island is not equal to Jacob is not equal to Smoke monster is not equal to Christian. Turns our there are at least two competing entities here and that thinking they were all one and the same would have been a mistake. Since the there is a Book of Laws, as seen by objects put in front of young Locke off the island by Richard, this book is likely the reason Jacob and X can’t kill each other. Jacob is probably either above being judged or simply a pure soul himself. When Locke told Richard to tell time traveling Locke and he needed to kill himself to get back to the island, it was actually Xlocke telling him that. Locke was not going to be resurrected into Super Locke, but rather Smokey Locke. Right now, the man in black, Smoke Monster, and Locke are all wrapped up into one neat little package. It will still be nice to see Locke in his new possessed role, as I enjoyed evil Terry O’Quinn in TV shows like Millennium and Harsh Realm. When Ben was being judged, it was all a big setup. Don’t forget, when Ben summoned the Smoke Monster when Sun and Frank were around, Smokey never showed up. Because he was already there, as Xlocke. When Smoke Monster went to attack Keamy’s men, it didn’t do much damage, like it did to Mr Eko or the pilot from Oceanic 815. At the time, I expressed by disappointment and confusion over it. Now, it’s clear that Smokey needed Keamy to stay alive long enough to blow up the freighter. X has been doing one giant long con job. Smoke would have killed Ben in the Temple unless it needed him for manipulation down the road. Notice, that Locke and Smokey/Alex never appeared in the same scene while Ben was in the Temple. Ben was told to do everything Locke told him to do, and don’t even think about killing him. Alex is the only one that could have delivered that powerful message to Ben and have Ben listen. Which meant Alex had to die for Smokey to take her form. Which meant Keamey needed to be on the island to kill her. Which meant…you get the idea, and how much thinking ahead Xlocke had to do. Jacob is looking for the loophole where he can prove a pure soul can stop the event loop that he and X are battling through with chess pieces in the form of humans. He needs to prove his point to break his cycle. And the only candidate like that which springs to mind is Hurley. I don’t feel comfortable knowing Hurley can save the world, but I’m not the head writer. Can you imagine the storylines with me in charge? Lost: starring Nikki, Paulo, Ethan, and Artz. Kate dies in the pilot episode. X believes that all humans are corrupt, and his loophole is to have the only person that can gain an audience with Jacob, the leader of his followers The Others, to kill him willing. Xlocke managed to go to Ben at an early age when Sayid was manipulated into shooting Ben, triggering a visit to the Temple to save him yet strip his innocence. X most likely lives in that Temple. Ben grows up to be the leader after “tricking” Widmore into leaving the island, maybe Ben pretends that’s what Jacob wants. Jacob never talks to Ben, so Ben over the years grows resentful. Now, Alex is dead, the rules were broken, and Ben is pissed. And image the subtleness of X to have Ben move the island and not Locke. It causes the island to time skip which may have changed events in the future by way of the past, Ben and several others return, and now the moment of truth for Xlocke. A Judas Iscariot in Ben is about to betray his Master. The manipulation of the characters goes much deeper, as I will no doubt see when I rewatch the first 5 seasons of Lost over the next few months.
Xlocke: Do it, Ben
Jacob: Ben, you have a choice. You can go.
Ben: All I ever heard was Jacob, blah, blah, blah. I did as I was told. Why did I wait? But Locke didn’t? Why him? What about me?
At this point, we may have to accept that maybe Locke was special, and by killing him and assuming his form, Xlocke becomes more powerful than ever. The other point is maybe Locke is nothing special. He was simply used to get Ben pissed off.
Jacob: What about you?
A very defiant statement, one made by someone that knows what comes next. Jacob knows that he can calm Ben down with some reassurance. Ben is throwing a total hissy fit right now, and needs Jacob’s approval, approval he never got from his father. And the coincidence that so many characters on this show have daddy issues leads me to believe it‘s not a coincidence, but a means for Xlocke to find one that will ascend to leader of the Others and eventually kill Jacob, the father figure. But instead Jacob wants to die, have Ben kill him, giving a seeming victory to Xlocke. But like many of these good vs. evil stories go, there is usually some deeper magic/rules/action in play, and this fits with Jacob’s master plan. Jacob is sacrificing himself for the greater good of the island/world. However, this means the Losties take on a bigger role for the island’s fate next season. Ben takes the knife and in an extremely effeminate way, stabs Jacob several times. I swear, it looked like an old lady trying to stop a mugger by swinging her purse. It looked like Clay Aiken throwing a punch at Mike Tyson. It looked like a squirrel trying to scrap with a pit bull. His arms were as fully extended as Kate trying to reach Juliet in the drill hole. Ben stabbed him in less than a manly fashion. What a pussie. Yet, the stabs hit their mark.
Jacob: They’re coming.
Just before he died, he announced that someone is coming. Since Xlocke seems to be in tune with what is going on on the island, logically this must mean to me that the Dharma Losties are going to return to their correct time. And have to deal with Zombie Xlocke. Oh, we’ve often wondering what Season 7 of Lost would look like, after the current story is done and over with. Zombies was always a tongue in cheek response. Well, we have zombies right now. What irony. Juliet is laying at the bottom of the drill hole, busted up pretty badly, but still alive. From one scene to another, she seems to be bleeding more or less, depending on the camera shot. Continuity error? Or a mindfock like when the bullet hole of Ben’s kept moving around his body like some type of fly moving around the top of some fresh dung or rotting fish or Kate. She sees the bomb, picks up the rock, and beats on it with some rage. White light. Does this signify the bomb detonated? Time travel? Both? We’ve seen the white light when the Swan blew up, and when the time jumping was happening. Unfortunately, Juliet’s injury would move with her if it was a time jump. She is very very likely dead. If the bomb went off, and it didn’t in the past when the incident first happened the first time around, did this have a ripple effect on future events. Does the Oceanic 815 land in Los Angeles, meaning the last 5 seasons of TV watching was…meaningless. Do the Losties jump 30 years into the future, and a fight over control of the island manifests itself? This might be the second best fight ever waged on TV, following close behind the saga of Vince McMahon and the idiot owner of the Denver Nuggets from this past week, The basketball guy took a beating in the media. Nothing made me happier. Looks like I’ll be watching wrestling Monday night for the theatrics.

I think next week, it‘s time to do a character by character thumbnail review and where they fit into the Lost universe going forward. I also want to take some time and possibly put together some long term theories that cover what exactly is going on with this show, beginning to end. This finale was much more confusing that past season finales, but I think we broke it down enough to get the idea of what happened. We just need to look at the big picture. One more article to go, should have it done in about a week.

Monday, May 18, 2009

5.16 The Incident, Part I

Where to begin, where to begin? Well, let’s start with some tangents. I popped in the DVD movie Taken last night to distract me from a long Sunday of LOST themed activity of dissecting video and typing until my fingers ache. Taken features Maggie Grace, who played Shannon on Lost during the first two seasons. She was playing a 17 year old girl in this flick, even though I sure she is over 30. Liam Neeson on the other hand is 90 years old, but dyed his hair in black shoe polish and is trying to pass himself off as a bad ass superhero even though he looks like Bruce Willis’ great, great grandfather. Horrible dialogue and awful acting ensued for about an hour and a half. It was like watching a Kate flashback episode. See, that didn’t take long, to get my first shot in. I highly recommend that you avoid this pile of pig sh!t. Now, on the other hand, the Kevin Smith directed comedy movie Dogma is highly underrated. The film follows two fallen angels, Loki and Bartleby (Matt Damon and Ben Affleck), who, through a loophole in Catholic Dogma find a way to get back into Heaven after being cast out by God—however, as God is infallible their success in doing so would prove Him/Her wrong and thus undo all creation. The last scion and two bumbling prophets are sent by the Voice of God to stop them. Dogma was a stark comparison point to this two part season finale. The ultimate cliché battle and the never ending search for “the” loophole.

The opening segment was most likely the explanation of the whole series. Jacob in a white shirt, an unnamed adversary in a black shirt. Good vs. Evil perhaps. God vs. Satan perhaps. A man we come to know as Jacob is making thread to create a tapestry. Later, as he is having a bit of lunch and watching the Black Rock arrive at the island, he is joined by another man. He accuses Jacob of bringing them to the island just so that he can prove X wrong. Yes, what else can I call him, and save myself some typing. X declares they came to fight, destroy, corrupt. Jacob says it only has to end once, and all other events prior to that are progress. So, it’s a time loop with the same characters over and over again, something I’ve been pushing for a long time. Rather, it seems that the events loop, but with different characters. The whole story line replays, as the Black Rock is sure to be looking forward to as they drop anchor in a coconut tree. We have two ancient foes, reconstructing a story line, looking for weak spots, a chance to get the best of the other. Like Randolph and Mortimer Duke from Trading Places betting a single dollar on a social experiment. Although, I think the stakes may be higher, when you have characters running around an island willy nilly with a hydrogen bomb strapped to their backs. JJ Abrams, Carlton Cuse, and Damon Lindenlof, the past and present brains behind Lost, are said to be getting ready to start working on making movies on Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series, which is 7 novel collection centered around a gunslinger, a man on a quest to reach the Dark Tower, and his adversary is The Man in Black, Randall Flagg. RF has appeared in several King books, and his goals typically center on bringing down civilizations, usually through spreading destruction and sowing conflict. Sound familiar to the profile of the X character as we come to see throughout these two episodes? X wants very badly want to kill Jacob and find a loophole. Well, as we’ve seen in history and movies, you can kill the character in white, but you don’t necessarily win. Jesus Christ is killed, yet is resurrected in 3 days. Aslan, the lion in The Chronicles of Narnia is killed by the White Witch, but doesn’t stay dead either. In both scenarios, the villains, whether Satan or a woman that looks like Andre the Giant got a false temporary victory. So it would hardly seem like the competition would be over even if Jacob was killed. But ultimately, these two scruffy gentlemen are looking for the loophole, which is not made clear as to what it is, but it sure looks like X found it by the end of the second episode, so more on that later. He get a better view of the statue, and I am absolutely convinced that we have confirmation, the ‘ole hippo head goddess.
5.8 LaFleur
So…..let’s take a look at the Egyptian goddess Taweret, protector of motherhood, fertility, and childbirth. Google it and read Wiki or something similar. Pregnant women wore amulets with her name or likeness to protect their pregnancies. Her image was often shown as a pregnant woman, but we did not see the belly of the statue in this episode. She has four toes. Also, her likeness would often be seen holding an ankh, the symbol of life, the symbol on the necklace around Paul’s neck which Amy kept as the dead Paul was taken away by the others, something our statue was indeed holding. It just fits all too nicely and neatly for this statue to be Taweret


Flashback time, and we see a young Kate Austin near the beginning her career criminal life by trying to steal a lunchbox from a Mom and Pop drugstore. She gets caught, and Jacob comes out of nowhere to pay for it. At first, I just assumed that Jacob was simply doing some course correction, much like the folks associated with Eloise Hawking do from time to time. However, there are much deeper implications here. I’m sure that everybody saw Jacob playfully touch Kate on the nose, something you don’t want to do nowadays without being questioned by police about kid touching. But when he made that contact with his nose, I saw some really weird yet subtle light in Jacob’s right eye when the camera panned back to him. And that got me suspicious. So, every time Jacob showed up in an Losties life, it was the exact same thing. Jacob physically touched everybody. Why? Two reasons. One, he is marking everybody with his touch, so that they will eventually arrive at the island, a homing device in a way. After all, Jacob brought the Black Rock to the island. What if he is doing this by going out into the world, and actually contacting people. Next, you know how the Smoke Monster can scan a person’s mind, and get all sorts of images out of their heads. Well, at this point, let’s just say I think Smokey is X, or at least uses X as a human form, or is using X’s corpse/image as a vehicle for appearance. Why couldn’t Jacob have a similar power, where if he touches somebody, he knows their life story too. After all, what kind of competition is Jacob and X having if they don’t have similar abilities/powers? Back at the sub, Kate is explaining how she came back to get some help and to ruin any happiness Sawyer may have without Frecklestein in his life. Oh, and Jack has a bomb. Sawyer tells her no, much like Jack deciding not to go to surgery to help Ben when he got shot. Sawyer wants a chance at a good life and screw the island. Following Daniel’s notes, Sayid removes the rich fluffy center out of the radiation leaking Twinkie. Richard confirms that Eloise is pregnant.
5.15 Follow The Leader
Widmore takes her aside to argue with her, and if you didn’t notice, he placed his hand over her stomach, as a man might do to a pregnant woman. Yep, seems like Eloise is pregnant right now, with Daniel or possibly Penny

Not since the movie Armageddon have two people cared so much about drilling as Radzinsky and Chang. And what are the odds I would have not one, but two Ben Affleck references in the same writeup. Besides, our Ben Linus is a pretty interesting actor, while I do believe Ben Affleck sucks ass. Or Eric Cartmans’ hand as it sings about tacos and burritos. Radzinsky is completely obsessed, calling himself Edison, complaining about 6 years worth of work on the Swan, and never having sex with another person. Again, I can’t stress enough the importance of cantaloupes in the life of a bachelor. Ben is painstakingly explaining to Sun that Jacob is in charge of the island, Locke is the leader and answers to Jacob. Apparently Jacob ignored all of Ben’s phone calls, never responded to the pajama gram gifts, and even put a restraining order out on all men on the island that have bulging eyes like somebody just hit his foot with an oversized mallet. Richard is giving Locke a hard time over his resurrection and his disbelief in it. Locke counters with the never aging phenomenon or Richard. Locke wants to thank Jacob personally, then announces that they will have to deal with the Ajira people next. I think it was around this point I started taking notes about the loophole, and since the leader of the Others is such a key job in relation to Jacob, communication must lead to having an audience with him, it stands to reason that if you become a leader of the Others, you have the ability to kill Jacob, or at the very least, order a follower to kill Jacob. Maybe that is what it boils down really. Getting one of your disciples, and Ben certainly was, to denounce you and kill you. X was certainly spending a lot of time egging on Ben the last few days, ttaking jabs at him, setting him up for future action, from the moment Ben woke up after being clobbered by Sun with the paddle. Illana and her crew arrive at Lost island with Frank. They discuss “candidates” which seems to me indicates folks that might be able to be possessed by a power on the island, like X, the smoke monster. He’s been Christian, Yemi, and Alex, for example, and all of them are dead and their corpses are out there on the island. Or is it a different type of candidate, someone special that is able to leave the island and come back. Then again, we know Ben was able to leave and come back quite a bit when he was an Other. Tom said he could do it. Nevermind. Corpse it is. They are lugging a huge Ajira container and you have to wonder if there might be an easier way to move whatever is inside through an overgrown jungle.

Sawyer flashback, and his parents are newly dead. He starts to write the famous Dear Mr Sawyer letter from Season 1, but his pen dies. So Jacob is on the scene to give him a writing instrument and touch his fingers on the exchange. Even if I wasn’t looking for it, it would have made me uncomfortable. So, it seems that Jacob’s list is most likely composed of people he touched in the outside world, handpicked to come to the island. And every person ended up time traveling, other than Sun and Illana, but both survived the plane crash, which was a bit of a miracle. As Sawyer is baffled by the Jack will reset everything by the bomb, the unspoken distress Sawyer may be feeling isn’t for Juliet or Kate, but he finally got his revenge on original Sawyer on the island, killing the man who ruined his life. Since that time, he was been a changed man. Now, he would be giving all that up to go back to being a bum tossed out of Australia and headed back to a life of con jobs. Juliet decides to free them, and the gang forces the captain to surface, shoot out the communications, and then have a couple of Scooby Snacks. Groovy. I’m still not all that clear why sedatives are needed for the passengers. If you are worried about revealing the location of the island, well, a submarine does not have windows. We’ve seen people travel in and out of the island bubble for a couple of seasons now. As Sayid pulls the hydrogen mussel from its shell, Richard tells Jack that he’s met Locke 3 times off the island, and he didn’t seem all that special to him. Jack says not to give up on him. Sound advice at the time, I’m sure. But Richard, for the love of God, do not EVER take Jack’s advice on anything including what to order from a menu, how to get back to the highway, or “is this a rash“? It’s just wrong. Locke continues to needle Ben, giving a load of grief about life, the universe, and everything. After confirming that Ben has to do whatever Simon Says, Locke tells Ben that he is the one that is going to kill Jacob.

Sayid flashback, and Jacob is asking for directions. We end up seeing Nadia’s death scene and the set up to Ben using Sayid to go on a killing spree. Actually, if you think about it, Sayid was Ben’s puppet, and was manipulated into shooting Ben on the island in 1977. But in actuality, Ben was manipulated by Jacob to manipulate Sayid, as we will discuss later on in Part 2. Jacob touches Sayid’s shoulder and goes away. In the tunnels, Richard breaks through solid concrete and cinder blocks with a hammer in a matter of seconds, which is bigger unexplained phenomenon than Richard not aging. I bet if the Dharma folks in that house were trying to put up a dartboard in their basement, they would have found the tunnels years ago. Richard decides to pistol whip Eloise and drag her away. He needs to protect their leader. Interesting, how Eloise has been acting like she was in charge at camp, and now is called THE leader by Richard. What about Widmore, and his claim that he was leader for 30 years. Is this total bullsh!t, and he was merely the First Lady? Co-leader. This has been bothering me for half the season now. Sayid and Jack hide in plain sight, until drunky Roger recognizes Sayid gets mad at Jack for stealing his gal Kate away, and also the thing about what’s his name my son. You can’t reason with a drunk who can shoot like Annie Oakley. I have a bomb…direct hit into the stomach. Jack goes Rambo and actually hits a few targets as Hurley and the other minor characters pull up in the superhero van and whisks Jack and Sayid to semi-safety.

Paddling back to the island, Juliet glances at the disappearing sub, knowing that her last chance of escape from the island is gone. As they land, Vincent, Rose, and Bernard appear from the jungle in order of intelligence. And only Vincent is excited. Instead of asking where everybody else is, or why the time jumps stopped, or how Kate got back to the island, they just look annoyed. As the van is getting closer to the Swan, Jack’s mouth is writing checks his ass may not be able to cash. Sure, Jin, we will reunite you with Sun. Of course, Hurley, Sayid will be OK. Sayid, we will get you a new, more improved stomach. Miles, well, Jack don’t like you Miles, so piss off. And then we will all go out for chocolate milkshakes. Rose and Bernard are supposed to be the comic relief I guess, and they point out they know all about what it going on on the island, Dharma and the searching and blah blah. They have retired. “It’s always something with you people.” I couldn’t help but think, what if Bernard said that to Mr Eko, Michael, and Walt. Or to Sun, Jin, Chang, and Miles. Or Jack, a rock, and a rock.
Bernard: We just want to be together. That’s all that matters in the end.
Sure. And the world is going to end in 5 minutes. But you want to throw some down home old fashioned spun advice at us. Did you not hear the world “bomb”? I got tired of Life According to Bernard the second time he opened his mouth. You can go ahead and call him likeable. Well, you can. I won’t. Juliet catches Sawyer looking at Kate while Bernard prattles on about love and stuff. Well, as they leave to continue with their intercept mission, the camera lingers on Juliet, and you just know the way they are setting this up, she is going to die in a couple of minutes. Illana’s group is tromping through the jungle. They explain to Frank, a convenient hostage who allows the writers to tell us exactly what they are up to, that they need to show somebody what it inside the case big enough for a family of 16 illegal aliens to live in comfortably. And by aliens, I mean from space. That somebody needs to know what they are up against. “We’re the good guys’. This marks the 675th time this phrase has been uttered on Lost, and we still don’t know who the good guys truly are. And by uttered, I mean the dingle dangles hanging off a cow. Well, we know later on that Illana is working for Jacob, supposedly. She is trying to warn Jacob Somebody of what possible form X/Smokie can take on, since there is a body inside the cargo holder, which happens to be Locke, as we find out later on. As they find Jacob’s cabin, they see the ash is disturbed around it. Now, in seasons past, I’ve talked how salt/ash is an artifact that can be used to keep spirits inside a circle or keep outside spirits from entering the circle.
5.15 Follow The Leader
OR if Jacob does exist, he was trapped for some time by that volcanic ash and/or salt ring around the cabin, but has been released. But I think the Jacob is a hoax is more fun, so I will go with that for now.

Sigh. Well, if I didn’t try to edit last week’s writeup and try to keep it shorter, I would have had this scenario covered. But I got lazy. Jacob escaped. Who trapped him? We get an Illana flash back where she is in an infirmary and her face is bandaged up. Oh, how I wish someone would run up to Kate and throw acid in her face. Jacob visits and asks for Illana’s help. Which then leads me to conclude that Ben is not the one who tipped off Illana on where to find Sayid. Jacob did. He knew what flight was going to land on Hydra Island. I suppose he is the one who told Richard to tell Ben to build the runway too. The cabin is deserted and looks a lot like what I imagine Roger Linus’ cabin at the Barracks looks like.
Illana: Someone else has been using it.
Well, that would be X, who has been impersonating Christian. Explains why he was smirking when Locke asked if he was Jacob. It also means he convinced Locke/Ben to turn the donkey wheel to move the island, he led Jack to the caves in Season 1, he told Sun that she needed to follow John Locke to find Jin…almost any character that was a manifestation, Christian, tall ghost Walt, Libby, Yemi, Dave, etc. was a way for X to play towards the end game. That’s why rewatching Season 1-5 will be so interesting before Season 6 kicks in. Well, the group heads towards the Taweret statue.

Jacob is sitting on a park bench, reading Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O’Connor. In the story, human weaknesses are exposed and important moral questions are explored through everyday situations. The title ''Everything That Rises Must Converge'' refers to an underlying religious message central to her work: aiming to expose the sinful nature of humanity that often goes unrecognized in the modern, secular world. The book seems to connect to the struggle between Jacob and X, the ancient battle that Eloise, Charles, and Ben have referred to in the past. Locke thumps on the ground, another vantage point to when his father pushed him out a hotel window. Jacob comes up, touches him on the shoulder, and says “I’m sorry this happened to you.” This may go beyond this immediate scene. This could be a reference to everything Locke will go through in the future as well, up to and including his death. Jacob was very purposeful in touching Locke for more than a casual second, possibly trying to get a sense of his mind for future confrontations with XLocke. The Others reach the old Losties camp and stop to rest. Locke gets more Ben confessions, how he pretended to be able to talk to Jacob when it was just an empty chair, until stuff started to fly round the room.

Locke explains to Ben that he got cancer, his daughter died, and for those loyal years of service to a man you never met, you were banished from the island. Why wouldn’t you want to kill Jacob? Um, I don’t think those reasons are good enough to get me personally to go egg Jacob’s house. Ben got cancer, but he got better. His daughter died, who he kidnapped from the real mother. I mean, exactly what is Ben so pissed about? What, that his innocence was taken away by a gun shot wound and being healed at the Temple. That saved his life. Hell, Ben was lured away from the Barracks as a child when he thought he saw his mother outside. It was SmokeX. Even way back then, he was starting to manipulate Ben for his final masterpiece, the loophole. Sun finds a ring with DS on it, a tribute to dead Charlie and his band Drive Shaft, a ring Charlie owned. Jacob appears at Sun and Jin’s wedding, and touches both of them on the shoulder. How much ecstasy can this guy consume. Touchy feely fellow, isn’t he?
Jacob: Never take your love for granted. It is very special.
Except of course when Sun cheats on Jin. Other than that, it’s very special. Well, Sun was trying to leave Jin and run away at the airport. Ok, other than that, it is very special. Can you blame the island for keeping Sun away from Jin. Jin had important stuff to do. Sayid modifies the bomb to explode on impact. Hurley stops the van because Sawyer, Juliet, and something that resembles Taweret but with freckles are blocking the road.

I don’t think I have the energy to start and finish Part 2 today. Since Fringe and Lost are over for this season, I have extra time on the weekdays, and I will try to have Part 2 done in the next few days. I started some theory, but didn’t finish all my thoughts, saving it for the next writeup. Should be more discussion on events from the past in a new light, and I don’t want to rush through it. But I think you know which directions I’m heading in, based on what you just read.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

5.15 Follow The Leader

Sorry for the sheer length this week, the longest writeup of the year to date for an individual episode, but I had a lot to say. Next week is the season finale two- parter. This week is the prime moment to theorize about many things, while the next week or two will probably be more reactive summary and speculation to next season. If you are brave enough, read on.

Well, the title of this week’s episode recalls the famous tug of war between Jack and Locke throughout the first 4 Seasons of Man of Science vs. Man of Faith. Both were constantly vying for the overall leadership role, many choosing to follow Jack, and eventually ended up with two factions. So, we have arrived at this point in Season 5, with Jack leading the Hostiles along with a couple of Oceanics in the bomb plan, and 30 years later Locke leading the Others by the necessity of his found purpose since being reborn. Some things never seem to change: Jack still is a fock up. Some things actually do: Locke is supremely confident and talks with a demeanor of someone that knows what the answers are to every single question he asks. Locke is getting a bit cocky. But can you really resent that at all, considering his life pre-plane crash and now he has been treated by Ben since? Nope, no resentment from me.

As I’m watching the “Previously on Lost” segment, I was reminded of the scene where Daniel explains that they can prevent the Swan from being built, the Oceanic 815 plane lands in Los Angeles, and none of this (the Lost TV show, basically) ever happens. Logically, why is this necessarily a good thing? Couldn’t detonating the bomb cause MORE damage to events on this planet. Maybe the Swan was meant to be built. I know I’ve conversed about Groundhog Day, and the concept of that movie where a certain amount of time is repeated over and over again in an infinite loop until the desired effect is attained. And it’s not just to get into Andie McDowell’s pants. Maybe starting from this very day, a day where the incident happened in 1977, that Faraday even says starts off a chain of events leading up to and beyond the Oceanic plane crash, maybe this day is the beginning of the loop. And it ends….well…we don’t really know. But something happens and we get cycled back to 30 years ago to correct it, much like the numbers cycling back to zero when the button was pushed every 108 minutes. Like the universe imploding from a time-space cataclysmic event on the island. Maybe, this time, the events have changed based on the variables in Dharma 30 years ago. Maybe, the Whatever Happened Happened mantra is the ultimate reference that events of this loop cannot change, yet Daniel was eventually conceding that they can. And here we are with a loop that I suspect is very different. A loop that has the course correcting Eloise Hawking nervous and babbling about instability and unpredictability and not knowing what happens next, despite reading Daniel‘s journal which I‘m sure is at least partially responsible for the Others being as aware of what is really going on and how they stay one step ahead of visitors to their island like the Oceanic folks for example. Ben is baffled by current events, or at least is trying to look baffled. Nobody seems sure of the future anymore. With one important exception. Locke. If the island is ready to correct the loop, get it right once and for all, this is the best opportunity it has ever had.

Geez, I’m this far in, and I haven’t even gotten to the beginning of the episode. This is probably going to be a long read, based on how many notes I took. Strap yourselves in; it’s going to get ugly.

As Daniel is facing down Richard with his gun, Jack and Kate have decided not to spring into action nor flee. Rather, they have put on a kettle to boil so they can have a spot of tea while they have a leisurely chat about this and that. The Undynamic Duo are arguing about destiny. Jack has latched onto the concept of blowing up the bomb being their destiny, like a pit bull latching onto a child’s leg. Jack, as we all suspect, has been tremendously incensed about Juliet’s outrageous behavior a few episodes ago when he stepped out of the shower and Juliet did not stare at his junk. How dare she not look, Jack brooded? Or maybe it was Juliet questioning why they came back, what was their purpose, and they better figure it out fast. Nah, it was the lack of staring at his crotch that did it. Finally, Jack has stumbled over something. Now, he is ultimate example of knowing how to respond to a good verbal beating hours and hours later. I should have said that and that. Hey, the jerk store called, and they are all out of you. Jack can now tell ‘ole Juliet, Hey we were meant to come here to blow you up to smithereens. How do you like them apples? While all this is going on, Daniel gets shot. Kate has her familiar running shoes on and is about to go anywhere else but here. She is just so identified with “there goes Kate running again” it’s scary. Jack is trying to keep Kate from fleeing and trying to desperately to have a thought at the same time, and you can see the veins bulging on his face from the effort of multitasking. That’s gotta hurt. And that was before Widmore comes by on horseback to smack him in the face like a polo player smacking one into the goal. Eloise is examining Daniel’s journal for the first time. Is it just me, or do the Others kick some ass in the past? They seem so aggressive, so angry, so vibrant. Now, go back and compare these ass kickers to the bunch of drugged up sheep that are looking at reborn Locke. Was is the brainwashing they endured at Hydra island like Karl was rescued from by Sawyer and Kate in Season 3 that sapped the life out of them? Is it that they know, consciously or subconsciously that they are chattel, meaningless bit players in a time loop, not afraid to die for the cause because they know they will be reborn. Think back to the confrontation at the Flame hatch in Season 3, the one John Locke blew up. As Mikhael held a gun, Mrs Clugh told him, in Russian, to shoot her. She obviously thought nothing of dying, willingly giving up her life for the greater good. But as we see the beating they give Jack early in this episode, as we recall them shooting all those flaming arrows at the time travelers early this year at the beach, as Widmore broke a comrades neck, hunting castaways in the jungle in order to kill them, getting rid of the military sent to the island, can we really believe their eventual clan years later is a bunch of haggard, sluggish fruit gatherers. How the mighty have fallen. Eloise is giving out orders concerning what to do with Jack and Kate, and you have to wonder, is she a co-leader of the Others. Charles certainly has said in the past that he was the leader of the Others, but was Eloise as powerful as him, or just carried herself that way because she was romantically involved with him? Seemed odd to me. Old Richard is building a ship in a bottle, namely the Black Rock, the ship aground the island that we saw back in Season 1. We have a very good comparison point in Season 4 in the Desmond mind time travel episode, when Charles Widmore was at an auction, and bought a journal of one of the crew member’s of the Black Rock. We saw a picture of the ship, and lo and behold, guess what is in the bottle? I know I’ve speculated in the past about Richard possibly being a member of that ship, maybe even captain. And one possible explanation put forth by another knowledgeable fan is that Richard does not age because he died, and the island brought him back to life, to serve a purpose, much like John Locke. Since you are/were dead, maybe you don’t age anymore. I can’t remember if I’ve talked about this in the past, but I thought I’d bring it up just in case since this writeup obviously isn’t going to be a long one and I needed more filler material. Yes, that was sarcasm. Locke strolls up to the Others beach condo community and basks in the glory of his return. Oh, and he has some errands to run with Richard since he “has a purpose now”. John is apparently totally in sync with the island and it’s needs. While Richard does not seem excited about Locke’s return, and he doesn’t seem to have any emotion other than blank stare, he seems concerned about Ben returning as well. Ben explains to Sun that Richard is an “adviser” and that he has been around a “very, very long time”, which seems to be common knowledge with the show’s fans, but I think they needed to bring up some excuse for Sun to confront Richard with the Dharma 1977 photo. Have I mentioned how much this reminds me of the Desmond/Penny photo scenario earlier in Lost history? When you think back on Naomi parachuting onto the island back in Season 3 with that photo, we can safely assume it was because Widmore was her employer and Desmond was the man her daughter was in love with. Or maybe it was because Desmond was the “constant” to his son Daniel according to the journal that the Others now possess. Will we ever know for sure? I doubt it. Nevermind that Richard looks around 40 years old right now, and Sun without knowing that Richard is ageless confronts him with a photo despite the logic of math placing Richard around 10 years old when the photo was taken. But let’s not quibble over details as I never have done that. Richard sets up a riveting scenario for the Season finale. “I remember clearly, I watched them all die.” Well, as much as I despise Jack and Kate and wish death upon them and would salt the earth over the top of their graves so no flowers could ever grow there, ever, how could the show continue with most of the main characters dead? But, this still does not debunk WHH theory. As Daniel said, they might have traveled to the past, this is still their present, so they can die, and it doesn’t change their specific lives in the future. And this is just the first commercial break, and I just can’t stop typing. Just so much stuff happening in this episode. Just like last season, when they have like 8 different storylines going and kept jumping from place to place, a breathless pace. Well, they are doing it again. And every storyline right now is fantastic.

Sun is grieving on the beach, showing us how upset she is that she hasn’t had a chance to cheat on Jin in a while and obviously not even remembering that she has a newborn child back in Korea with a babysitter clearly working overtime hours. How’s that alliance with Widmore working out for you? She goes from the lead female villain in the show at the start of the season to a quivering mass of jello sitting on a beach shedding tears about so many hours of not ruining Jin’s life going to waste. Locke approaches Grendel’s mother none the less, and tells her that he doesn’t think they went to all this trouble of returning for nothing. And I very much agree with that statement, so let’s move on. Locke invites pouty, surly, throwing a tantrum Ben along for the mission. While Ben is acting defenseless and changed from the judgment of the Smoke Monster and the island, let’s not forget how he has said in the past “I always have a plan”. Ben has not given up. Let’s face it, he is a d!ck. He is seemingly setting Locke up for some kind of shenanigans when Locke’s guard is down. Yet again. Locke promises to help Sun reunite with Jin, most likely because he doesn’t like Jin. If you are looking for a mushy “Isn’t love great?” comment from me, beat it. You’ve come to the wrong place. Jack gets a beating in the tent, from someone other than me. As we saw at the end of Season 3, and Season 4, those that dish out the punishment at the end of seasons end up dead by the end of the season. People seem to die in droves in the cliffhangers, and if the writers are trying to soften the blows, what better way than to vilify the soon to be dead with their reckless actions against the fan favorites. While I acknowledge that Jack is a key character and a fan favorite, his character has the mental capacity of a dead bole weevil. But let’s not be too harsh on Simple Jack here. Kate is about to say some horrible stuff right here. She is about to say some legendary stuff.
K “Put things back, Jack?”
J “Our plane lands. Everybody we lost, will be alive.”
K “But what about us?”
Holy Focking Hell. What. About. Us. What about us? Are you focking serious? I’m sure Evangeline Lilly is nice enough person in real life, and can’t be happy about the lines the writers are giving her. But you have to put up a fight over a line as ludicrous as if she said Joseph Stalin was a nice guy, she was happy 9/11 happened, and that Indiana Jones can survive a nuclear bomb by hiding in a refrigerator. Hundreds of people have died, Kate. Hundreds. And all you think about is What about us? This is so selfish, my mind is having a hard time wrapping itself around the concept. The Kate is a Wh0re Moment of the Week. If the island is Little Egypt, Kate is a Babylonian Wh0re. Kate is some kind of muppet. She just says infantile platitudes, shows no range of emotion, and everybody seems to think she is adorable. She would have made more sense by simply saying “Frrrrrrunkis” than What about us. I’m checking in and out of a Law & Order: SVU marathon yesterday, and Mariska Hargitay is just acting her ass off in a great role. Then, I rewatch Lost last night, and Kate is giving me “What about us?” Uma Thurman is kicking ass in Kill Bill 1 and2. What about us? Tell you what, Kate. How about you tell Libby as she is bleeding to death in the Swan hatch “Sorry, kiddo, but I don’t want to lose the memory of sleeping with an idiotic alcoholic doctor and traumatizing an infant for life by kidnapping him, so you have to die missy.”
J “All the misery will be wiped clean.”
K “Not all of it was miserable, Jack”
J “Enough of it was”
FACE. Not only is losing friends to death miserable, so is Kate. Piss off. Since Kate is now being snubbed by Jack, I guess it’s time for her to put on her boogie shoes and run to Sawyer, never mind that he is in a committed relationship. You know what, maybe I am a romantic at heart. Hey, Kate, I hear Roger Linus is available Saturday night. And you have so much in common with him. He has a son named Ben. You stole his son from an infirmary. Should be loads of giggles. Back to the tent. Eloise wants answers about Daniel’s return visit and her handwriting in the journal. Jack says she can change all that. Of course, Kate shows yet again how she does not “have Jack’s back” and tells Eloise she is not going to agree with him. Eloise explains that Dharma built a village over the bomb. This is interesting in the sense that we saw Miles visiting his mother, dying of some kind of illness, possibly cancer. If Jughead is leaking, and she lived for any extended amount of time near the leaking bomb, she could very well have gotten a disease later in life from it. Since the purge happened, we haven’t really seen any other Dharmites get sick from it. Unless you count Ben and his back tumor. Hmmm. Charlotte was the first to die from time traveling, and she was on the island for a few years too. Anyway, Eloise says Jughead is fairly easy to reach from the Barracks. Really? To reach a bomb buried? Tunnels!!! Yes, since Season 1, when the Smoke Monster was pulling Locke into the ground, we have suspected an underground network of tunnels. We’ve seen the Temple underground a couple of episodes ago. But I think there is a wide tunnel system that we may or may not see by the series conclusion. We’ve seen Ben and his ancient toilet hidden in a closet that is used to summon Smokey. Are there more hidden tunnels around that Dharma hasn’t discovered? Obviously, they knew the toilet was there, since they built the house and the entrance was directly from the house. Did they know of any other ones, like the Others apparently do and think are easy to get to? Sawyer is handcuffed and being beaten by Dharma, while Juliet is still in her red shirt for the third straight episode. OK, we get it. She is going to die soon. Radzinsky usurps Horace’s power, a bit like Sawyer did 3 years earlier when Richard came to dinner. Horace is a total zilch. But why such an all encompassing obsession with the Swan, Radzinsky? Why in such a rush?

Where is your girlfriend? It’s bad enough Sawyer is stilling receiving punches to his face. But the nerve of Radzinsky calling Kate Sawyer’s “girlfriend”. I mean waterboarding is one thing, and it’s something I’ve done to my self with pitchers of beer, plastic tubes, and a crowd full of hooligans cheering me on when I was younger, but the idea of Kate being somebody’s girlfriend just makes me want to tell an interrogator my life story just so they would stop tossing that term around willy nilly. So, where did your girlfriend take the boy? Um, fellas, he has been missing a few days. Nobody went to visit him. But when he shows up on a video tape, oh, well, mountain out of mole hill. Stop it with it being about the boy. Juliet starts with her crap. “We are not bad people” Then Phil comes on down the aisle and slugs Juliet in the face. Well, I was a bit surprised at that punch, sort of the reaction I had when Mongo in Blazing Saddles punched out a horse. Not from Juliet taking a punch, which was funny in an absurd kind of way. But you know windshield wiper eyebrows Phil will die in the season finale. Hell, Sawyer just said “I will kill you”. So, even though we won’t have Phil to kick around anymore, at least he brought a comedy element to his upcoming death. Oh, and they’ve made the Hurley connection. When it rains, it pours. After swiping food, Hurley reunites with Jin and Miles and collectively, our three stooges have no plans other than run. Sigh, the Kate strategy. Since Hurley has size, camouflage skills, and movement of a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade balloon, Dr Chang confronts the non threatening gang of mush. Is Faraday telling the truth? What year were you born? Who is the president? OK, dude, we are from the future. That was fast. It’s a good thing Dr Chang isn’t interrogating Sawyer. Realizing the truth of their relationship, Miles and Chang have their moment of awkward staring at each other. What, no hug? Widmore stares at dead Daniel. “He looks familiar”. Well, you might have seen him about 25 years ago during time travel, or you just recognize his features as he is your son. I don’t know if the familiar thing will amount to anything, but it sure was an odd line. Eloise declares untie them and we will go to the bomb. Widmore takes her aside to argue with her, and if you didn’t notice, he placed his hand over her stomach, as a man might do to a pregnant woman. Yep, seems like Eloise is pregnant right now, with Daniel or possibly Penny. We’ve never met Penny’s mother, but we do know who her father is. Richard tells us that love can be complicated, which is probably a catalyst for whatever reason Widmore is ultimately exiled for. Locke is making his way through the jungle. After the errand, Locke wants to go to Jacob. Ben informs us that’s not how it works and Richard is of the opinion why rush it. Well, they’ve arrived at the plane. Ben utters “What plane?” which I think is a lie. If you recall, Paulo was in the Pearl hatch when he saw Ben and Juliet come in to take a look at the screens and see the activity in the Swan. Now, my timeline might be incorrect here, but at some point soon after the Oceanic plane crash, Boone was mortally wounded when the drug plane fell from the trees. That plane was covering up the Pearl hatch opening, and Locke and Mr Eko had to physically move the plane to enter that hatch. So, the question is whether Paulo hid the diamonds in the Pearl toilet before or after the plane fell. If it was after, Ben had to know about a plane, because he had to move it or walk within a couple feet of it to enter the hatch. Speaking of hatches, does anybody else find it really odd how many hatches were built by Dharma outside of the pylons. The Swan, the Arrow, the Looking Glass, the Hydra, the medical hatch, the Pearl, the Flame, the Tempest, etc. You didn’t have to cross the pylons to get to any of them, as the Oceanics kept showing us. So were the pylons the line of truce with the Hostiles, or simply guarding a much smaller area for the sleeping quarters. It’s not like Dharma could sneak in a hatch when no one was looking. Those things took time to build. In reality, I see Dharma as the true Hostiles grabbing land that didn‘t belong to them. Locke gives Richard some instructions, and sends him on his way, as time traveling Locke hops out of the jungle right after he was shot by Ethan.

We see Richard redo his bullet removing scene with Locke, but from a much different perspective this time.
R: You told me about the bullet, John.
J: No I didn’t.
R: You will.
See how much more sense that makes this time around. My thoughts on this scene, from the first episode of this season centered around the concept that Richard was talking some weird sh!t, and I can’t even begin to speculate about it. What a journey it has been.
B: You’re timing was impeccable John. How did you know to be here?
J: The island told me.

B: No, John, the island did not tell me things. Why do you need Richard to take you to Jacob?
J: You’ve never seen Jacob, have you? (while smirking)
OK, some very, very key dialogue here, but let’s start out with a couple of quotes from me….
5.9 Namaste
How, how, how did the Others know? Jacob? Well, if my supposition is right that Ben can’t really talk to Jacob, then the answer is no. Ability to see the future? Maybe based on Walt’s gift, they were able to get some things out of the kid while he was a prisoner. Ben remembering things during time loops? My simple conclusion is that Ben is able to have knowledge of future events. That is how he stays in power. How, I’m not sure yet

5.12 Dead Is Dead
The very usual power structure is referenced yet again, as Richard reminds Charles how the island and Jacob make decisions regardless of who the leader of the Others happens to be. Which makes me wonder if the leader of the Others can hear Jacob at all, and Richard is the only one that can interpret. This could very well be the reason Charles is so frustrated with Richard. I know I’ve speculated about this in the past, Ben only pretending to hear Jacob, but I would like proof somebody outside of Richard (who could also be faking) and some of the Oceanic 815 being able to see Christian. Now, Locke may have arguably seen the real Jacob, but he was still in semi-faith mode, so it’s hard to tell if “help me” came from Christian or Jacob, but I think it was the latter.

Well, how interesting. Locke is asking all the right questions right now. Again, he is in sync with the island. Ben never was, but claimed to be in sync with Jacob. Well, first of all, the island and Jacob are not necessarily one and the same. We know the island exists, Jacob, not so much. We know Christian is running around the island, but he could very well be a manifestation of the island itself, nothing to do with Jacob. When Ben first met Christian, he asked if he was Jacob. Christian smirked and said no, but he can speak for him. Like the island was laughing at an inside joke. So, why would all of the sudden Locke question Jacob’s existence. Well, remember when Ben was judged by Smoke Monster. We have seen in seasons past with Mr Eko, Juliet, and more recently with Ben, the monster seems to scan a person’s brain, grabbing images, and acts like a judge. Now that Ben was very recently scanned, and since Locke is in sync with the island, I put forth the theory that Locke now has unlocked Ben’s head and knows the answers to a lot of lies. What better way to convince your followers to do your bidding than to build up an image of a all powerful man who will get really pissed off if you disobey the orders. Like the Cuban government yelling at Cubans to keep doing what they are doing, or Castro will get you, even if he is in a sick bed behind the scenes. Jacob is the Wizard of Oz, pull back that curtain, and Ben and possibly Richard use this to their ultimate goals, whatever they may be. How about that. OR if Jacob does exist, he was trapped for some time by that volcanic ash and/or salt ring around the cabin, but has been released. But I think the Jacob is a hoax is more fun, so I will go with that for now. Richard told Locke how powerful the message of Locke needing to die was, and Locke informs Richard that he did die. Richard almost blinked for a second. Yes, Richard, besides your non aging, other miracles are happening. I suppose Ben and Richard might have had some sort of master plan in place after Ben lost his mind when the freighter invaded. Promote Locke to the leader of the Others, let him fail, and then Ben reascends to his rightful place. But that is not happening and Richard and Ben are starting to scramble a bit. In any case, be wary of when Locke smirks. He is just oozing with non poker face. You can tell right away how sure he is of something with that creepy grandpa smile of his. Ben was funny with his where did you go, John? Either he was mocking John, or Ben just never saw first hand the time travel up until know. I’m still weary of the hot potato game with the compass. I bet Locke has 23 compasses in his pockets right now, Richard has 27 plus a bunny rabbit. Enough about the compass. Chang hustles into the security station at Dharma and declares that this is a good time to evacuate. Radzinsky tells Chang that Horace is no longer in charge and that he came to kick ass and chew bubble gum and that he was all out of bubble gun. Then Radzinksy ripped off his shirt and did some Hulk Hogan poses before strutting around the ring and making obscene gestures to the crowd. Sawyer offers a trade of information for a submarine ride with Juliet. Sure, Sawyer is asked to draw a map of where the hostiles are, but what will he actually draw? A place for them to go right smack dab into a trap? The sketch that becomes the painted hatch mural at the Swan station when the blast doors dropped and trapped Locke’s leg underneath? Which Radzinksy painted. And I guess the reason we saw the weird murals on all the walls of the Swan hatch was because Radzinsky was trapped inside pushing a button, bored, and likely out of his mind. Maybe he didn’t put the shot gun in his mouth like Kevin Inman (Desmond’s hatch partner, the American torture guy with Sayid in Iraq) told us, but Inman shot him because Radzinsky was crazy or annoying or both. Think: Cameron Diaz. I mean, who doesn’t want to shoot her? Well, Eloise tells us they need to go for a swim to reach the tunnels. Like we mentioned before, I am pleased that the show is going a bit more underground, more mystery, more ancient. Kate, wants to run away. Again. Well, she can’t just walk away with all that new knowledge dying of loneliness in her cavernous empty skull, so the guy that was beating Jack in the tent pulls out a gun. And a gun shot goes off and for a brief moment, hoping, I peed a little. Nope, Sayid returns just in time to shoot the Other. Well, I guess he didn’t have to wait until the next episode to die. Another Other is expendable. Like Mrs. Klugh. But let’s not overlook the fact that Kate supposed came back to the island to find Claire. Here, she has a chance to undo all the misery of the past few years with Faraday’s plan. Remember her tear stained promise to Claire’s mother. But she throws all that out the window because she is mad at Jack. The Kate is a Wh0re Moment of the Week, the sequel. Seriously, am I the only one that sees how ridiculously retarded and selfish Kate is? Am I taking crazy pills? Jack doesn’t love me anymore. Whaaaaaa whaaaa whaaaaa. If I was the last man on earth, and she was the last woman on earth, I would not hesitate for a second before I started to choke the life out of her. Who’s going to send me to jail?

Eloise is fully committed to Team Jack, not paying any attention to the Other laying dead on the ground. Great, Eloise has turned into oblivious Rose. Sayid is bragging about how he killed Ben. Uh, no, you didn‘t. Kate brags back that she helped save him.
S: Why did you do that?
K: Since when did killing children and blowing up hydrogen bombs become OK?
Wow, Kate come on down, for your next Kate is a Stupid blah blah blah. Look, I don’t blame Sayid for shooting at Ben. He thought he was doing the right thing is trying to save innocent lives or at the very least lives in the future by getting rid of the evil genius of Benjamin Linus. Kate, if she had a chance to go back in time, would shake Jim Jones’ hand, wave to his followers, and tell them to enjoy the Kool Aid. You are on a magical island. The Swan hatch exploded, and everybody lived through it. Why not detonate the bomb if Faraday says it’s OK? He is a physicist. You are someone that will soon enough be dancing on a stripper pole in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon in a Hoboken dive bar, hoping to make a few bucks to buy your next vial of crack. Even Simple Jack has bought into it. What kind of life are you trying to protect? Oh, yeah. You are a fugitive in handcuffs if the plane lands. And I don’t think your mother is going to sabotage the case this time because she wants to see her grandson who is really not her grandson. Almost forgot. Selfish, selfish, selfish. I’m getting tired of beating up Kate today. I’m just glad she doesn’t do anything else selfish the rest of the episode. Right?
J: We can change things
K: Everybody will die
K: Do you know who you sound like?
J: Maybe I was wrong
K: Maybe you were right
Well, a lot of people did die after the plane crash and purge, so why not roll the dice Kate? Oh, yeah. The selfish thing. Also, Kate is just so damn smug to think Locke is a doddering old fool while in reality he has turned into a superhero in the future and has been right about just about everything all along. Jack is admitting to his mistakes, and I continue to give him credit for that humbleness. Kate decides that she needs to find people to stop Jack, so her bright idea is to go recruit help from the people that were just shooting, trying to kill her a few hours earlier. Oh, how many moments of the week do you want me to give her? Even I’m getting tired of it. The only flaw in my argument is that what if the incident wasn’t caused by Dharma, but by Team Jack. They caused the irregularity that became the Swan hatch by detonating the bomb. Then, Kate will have been right, but I certainly will not take back anything I’ve ranted about. The comic relief trio are spying on the submarine, and we see Charlotte getting aboard, and Chang yelling at his wife to make her leave and make her hate him for the rest of her life. Miles has closure on his family story, and basically his overall story. The only reason I can think of to keep him around is the talk to recently dead Faraday, to find out exactly what the bomb plan is. Other than that, well, to be the wiseass on the show. Personally, I’d like to see him stick around, but you know how it is in finales. People die. Well, Sawyer always has a plan, and right now he is Biff Tannen with a sports almanac from Back to the Future II about to go nuts in getting rich. Symbolically, Sawyer turns to the island before getting in the sub and says good riddance. I think this could have been Sawyer talking to Kate as much as the island, if not more. I smiled at the thought. Jack and company dive underwater and emerge in an ancient hieroglyphic encrypted tunnel, probably connecting to the Temple part at some point that we saw before as Ben was being judged. “That was a longer swim than I expected” Odd line from Jack, as if they passed through some kind of time/space rift. But then again, I take note of odd comments like that all the time, and file them away for future reference.
R: No Jack, we are not taking the bomb out through the pool.
Do I really need to bash Jack yet again for being as cunning as a bowl of oatmeal. Moving on….Sayid confirms that he still has a death wish and really doesn’t care if he dies. A nice wildcard character if I’ve even seen one. Who will detonate the bomb? I vote for Sayid, and he gets his wish to die too. As Locke, Richard, and Ben return from one mission, Locke is already giddy to leave for the next one.
J: Is this everyone?
R: There is another group at the Temple.
As we’ve known for quite a long time, there were Other Others on the island. Their affiliation to the Others was not truly clear, as somebody snatched Tailies the first night, despite Ben’s orders not to do so, and I was convinced there were multiple groups on the island. Plus, the children have to be somewhere, along with Cindy the Oceanic stewardess. Which makes me wonder why there are two groups of the same cult? A failsafe group just incase something happens to the first group that can continue to do what is necessary to keep the world from going *Poof* like pull of smoke? Locke gives the speech of his lifetime.
J: You’ve been accepting orders from Jacob, whose existence seems to be a secret kept from you, I want to know who he is, um yeah Sun he can help us find Jin now please sit down, (smirking) and Richard will take us there. We are going to have a party and you are all invited to come.
R: I’m starting to think John Locke is going to be trouble
B : Why do you think I tried to kill him?
Richard and Ben the conspirators. Oh, you boys should be ashamed of yourselves. What secrets are you rascals hiding? Richard doesn’t quite seem so omnipotent anymore.

Sawyer and Juliet exchange got your backs and I love yas, just in time, as Kate beats the clock and comes on board the sub, much like Hurley in catching the Oceanic 815 flight and Ben catching the Ajira flight, all at the last second. Juliet just cannot catch a break. Meanwhile, Kate has completely abandoned her quest to find Claire, Claire? Claire who? is now stalking Sawyer. The sub starts to submerge. But, they can’t really leave, can they? I don’t want a Season 6 devoted to Sawyer as Jack Tripper, Juliet as Chrissy, Kate as Janet, Widmore as Mr Roper, Eloise as Mrs Roper, and all their shenanigans. Something goes screwy, maybe the island won’t allow them to leave, maybe Hurley, Jin and Miles do something, but they can’t leave. Right? But….young Charlotte and young Miles DO leave the island. Right? So, how can this be resolved. Scriptwriter Impossible, or the future has changed. Bingo. There is your answer. WHH, beat it. We aren’t listening to you anymore. So, Team Jack arrives at the bomb chamber.
E: Now what?
Jack looks at her with a completely blank expression on his face and I think I detected a little drool at the corner of his mouth. At such a critical time to save everybody, it so clear that Jack has not only not planned beyond this moment, he has absolutely nothing in his head right now. Crickets. The hamster is not running on the wheel. The light bulb is not lit. His head is full of warm banana pudding. Nada. Zip. That blank expression was infuriating and hilarious. Even saying “What’s on second“ would have better than such a empty stare. Good grief. Jack Sucks Moment of the Week Part Two. I mean, come on. I tired to giving out so many awards this week, but this was just ludicrous. If Kate and Jack had to sit down and fill out a survey to determine who was dumber, Kate would run away with the pencil and Jack would stick the pencil in his eye. Damn. I love this show. Really. I do. But these two. Infuriating and hilarious. The Others are marching along the beach.
B: Richard has concerns. Jacob is nervous about seeing a lot of people. Richard has reservations.
J: OK. Thanks.
B: But I’ll do whatever to help you. (classic weasel strategy of good cop, bad cop)
J: We are not going to reunite our people
J: I know what I told Sun
J: We are going to see Jacob so I can kill him.
Some powerful dialogue. Locke is not known for being dishonest, but he has lied. For example, when Boone fell in the plane, Locke did not tell Jack exactly how he got hurt. Sun has been less than truthful; well let’s face it, I’ve been calling her a cold hearted reptile for a couple of seasons now, and even more so after her Widmore aliance. So she can go screw. She will turn on Locke first chance she gets despite what Christian said about Locke being able to help with the Jin situation. More powerful is Locke’s final chilling words, going to kill Jacob. Or, rather, the myth of Jacob in it’s present form. Locke did hear somebody say “Help me” in the cabin in Season 3. Has Ben or Richard ever heard Jacob speak? I doubt it. Do they just use his reputation to lead the brainwashed Others? I can’t imagine a different scenario at this time.

This was long winded, repetitive in that I keep bashing the same characters. But they sooooo deserved it this week. Enjoy the next few days until the madness of the season finale unfolds. I’ll probably have to break out the writeups into 3 parts. First episode, second episode, and a wrapup/preview for Season 6 maybe a week later. So expect this War and Peace sized novel from me soon.

Monday, May 4, 2009

5.14 The Variable


Nothing Egyptian in this episode, which was a relief. Then again, no Ben nor Locke, so that was disappointing. Yet, given the thought provoking concepts explored this past week, it still gives us quite a bit to ponder and some welcome confirmations to things we’ve assumed for some time now; it’s nice to tie up potential loose ends.

Well, turns out despite the fact we didn’t see a bullet hit Desmond when Ben shot him, yes I rewound quite a bit a few weeks ago, he is being rushed along a hospital and into surgery. Hawking introduces herself to Penny and tells her that it was Daniel’s fault that Desmond got shot. Seems that Daniel communicating to Desmond early this season at the Swan got him to visit Oxford and eventually appear in Los Angeles. Of course, this was the first example of the crack in the dam of the Whatever Happened, Happened all encompassing time travel theory. Daniel climbs out of the submarine, and instantly I am full of questions, such as why and how he ever left the island to go to work at Dharma headquarters at Ann Arbor. Was it when the group was given an extension by Horace to stay on the island three years ago, when Sawyer, Juliet, Jin and Miles decided to stay, but possibly Daniel chose to leave to work on his time travel theories at a lab off island. Daniel has a copy of the most widely distributed photograph since Desmond and Penny cheek to cheek, which is the Dharma 1977 orientation photo. Daniel immediate rushes off the Jack’s house, which seems odd since Jack has been a non-factor on this show for so long. I guess Daniel didn’t get the message that Jack is not the Jack of old, namely, in charge. After finding out that Hawking sent the group of Jack, Hurley, and Kate into the past, Daniel is adamant that they don’t belong here, his mother was wrong, and this is not destiny. This was a brief example of Daniel no longer being sure of his past theories. He is showing yet more signs that things can be changed. Variables.

Eloise is no music lover, as she ends Daniel’s piano playing ambitions and encourages his math and science talents. His special gift needed to be nurtured; this is called responsible parenting, people. I mean, who makes a living playing a piano? Sure, Liberace did. But don’t you think Daniel can do better than a guy that never seemed to meet the right gal to settle down with and have a family? This of course opens the door to the “course correction”. It’s a term the show and I’ve been using for quite some time. Eloise is course correcting Daniel to stick with science. But, if what happened, happened, fundamentally it would not matter what Hawking does. If Daniel is meant to be on the island, he will end up there, right? But she course corrected Desmond from marrying Penny seasons ago. And I don’t buy the argument for Desmond not having any rules apply to him. He was course corrected a number of times to arrive at the island by Hawking, Widmore, the monk, Libby, etc. Why was it necessary at all, unless Happen-Happen doesn’t really apply at all. While Hawking knows what the future holds, and what needs to be happen, why does she have to actually do anything? This is a contradiction of massive proportions. Jack swings by Sawyer’s place, and is shown the kidnapped Phil. The more troubling sight is seeing Juliet in a red shirt for the second straight episode. JJ Abrams is directing this upcoming Star Trek movie, and as all Trekkers know, red shirts get killed all the time. Uh, oh. I predicted at the beginning of the season that Juliet would not survive much longer. I was wrong about how quickly it will happen. But it’s about to happen nevertheless, much to my disappointment. Daniel follows Chang into the Orchid, sees the construction and yet another dead guy on a stretcher. At the rate Dharma is going, they could fill a purge pit full of bodies by the end of next week and beat Ben to the punch. Daniel in the Orchid is a replay of the season opening scene which is interesting, as we saw a scene 14 episodes into the show’s future at that point. Makes you wonder if we have already scene the final moments of the show at some other point in the show’s past episodes. Very sneaky possibility. Daniel starts to break his rules, using the Dharma photo as the basis for his new theory that maybe you can change the present and therefore the future. He implores Change to evacuate the island due to an upcoming accident at the Swan, resulting in a catastrophic release of electro magnetism. “I’m from the future.” Well, so much for not interfering, or even trying to, with the past events. The roller coaster is pulling out of neutral.

Let’s revisit the orientation film created by Dr Chang from the end of Season 4, in the Orchid. He talks about “exotic matter”, basically negative matter on the island that makes time travel possible. Such materials would possess qualities like negative mass or being repelled rather than attracted by gravity. It is used in certain speculative theories, such as on the construction of wormholes. The closest known real representative of exotic matter is a region of pseudo-negative pressure density produced by the Casimir effect. The Casimir effect is the attractive force between two uncharged metal plates that are placed very near to each other in a vacuum. The attraction arises due to a reduction in the energy of the ground state of the electro magnetic field between the two plates. Because fluctuations in the field between the two plates can only have wavelengths equal to or smaller than the distance between the plates, the vacuum electromagnetic field has less energy between the plates than outside of them. Makes sense to you? Yeah, it’s a tough read. But I think we are starting to get a clearer picture of the Swan in general. First of all, if there is negative (exotic) matter present there, that would explain why Daniel will want to blow it up with a hydrogen bomb. Theoretically, the two forces would cancel each other out. Secondly, we can see that the Casimir effect likely had a part in the construction of containing the energy of the Swan, in trying to neutralize unstable force between two plates in a vacuum. I think. Well, we will need some more dumbing down of physics for us to get a better grasp of the concepts involved.

“Look at these equations.” “Miles is your son” Well, Daniel sure is trying. He tried to convince Chang with his journal, which Chang looked at politely and hoped that the crazy man wasn’t going to take off his pant and start to fling his own poo at people. Then, the soap opera strategy was taken, a plot twist including a family matter. Daniel might have tried to make a better argument than “He’s Chinese!!!” since we know there are about a billion Chinese on the planet around 1977 and the island is in the Pacific Ocean. I think it would be more strange to see two British people on the show, much less 100 of them. A couple of weeks ago, I speculated that Miles might make a confession to his father and put a series of events in motion to get his young self and his mother sent off the island. Turns out Daniel did it for him. Miles denies his relationship and blames drugs on Daniel’s behavior. Daniel has just graduated, and we see that his relationship with Theresa, the woman currently in a coma in a bed in England being paid for by Widmore. This was not merely a professional relationship between the two. Eloise takes Daniel to an Indian restaurant surprisingly enough not called Ajira. She keeps trying to keep him on course: Theresa is not your girlfriend, your work is very important, and “every woman in your life will get terribly hurt”. And this last line isn’t just a reference to Theresa, but a foreshadowing to Hawking herself and the end of the episode. I guess you could say Charlotte too, but it’s not like she was a woman in his life for real. Daniel is getting a bit of stake money with 5 million from Widmore.

5.03 Jughead
Could it be that Widmore was sponsoring Daniel’s work



As his mother changes gears and congratulates Daniel, and just before she gives him the gift of the all too familiar journal, if you look over at Hawking’s wine glass, you will see an image of a rabbit in that glass. No kidding. With all the time traveling, experiments on bunnies, and Alice in Wonderland Looking Glass stuff, we seem to be getting a bunny every episode. I’m going to have to pay attention and see if I can spot one each episode from here on out. The Oceanic Dharmites are having a Breakfast Club meeting, so it‘s social. Demented and sad. But social. It boils down to sub or jungle. Hurley was originally going to vote sub, until he realized it wasn’t a sandwich. Daniel interrupts to ask for a tiny favor. Abandon everything, go find the Hostiles, and help him talk to his mother. Jack is surprised by the mother Other news, as he and the Ajiras met her at the church in Los Angeles, and this never came up in conversation, but then Jack never asks the important questions. Daniel wants to gets everybody back to where they belong. Ahem. CHANGE.

We revisit a scene from near the beginning of Season 4, where Daniel is watching footage of Oceanic 815 at the bottom of the ocean and crying. He is visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past in Widmore. He picks up a magazine, which screen shots show us to be called “Wired”. That particular issue is The Super Power Issue, which includes “A User’s Guide to Time Travel”. Daniel has been a busy boy. He has memory loss along the lines of the lead character in the terrific movie Memento. He got kicked out of Oxford. He time traveled. So did Theresa, with terrible consequences. Being that Daniel is struggling to think on the same level as a scarecrow with a head full of oatmeal, Widmore for some reason decided to come clean a bit to him. The plane was fake, and our buddy Chucky Widmore set it all up. Well, we had enough obvious hints to this, from Ben and Naomi, but it’s nice to know for absolutely sure. Chucky wants him to go to a special island, with unique scientific properties. And it will heal you. If you remember during Season 4, there was a scene on the beach where Daniel and Charlotte were sitting with three cards turned face down. Daniel guessed two of them right. He still seemed discouraged, but Charlotte said that he was getting better. This is most likely what Widmore meant about the healing of scatter brained Daniel. It made Locke walk, so I guess it could, and did, make Daniel smart again. Charles continues to butter Daniel up. “You sound like my mother.” Um, close, but a little bit off, a gender off. Jack and Sawyer are now arguing over Daniel’s plan. Sadly, Sawyer’s leadership is now being challenged since he got himself into this mess, and Jack is now trying to manipulate his way into the leadership role again. Fock. So, ladies and gentlemen, let’s all welcome the return of Simple Jack Shepherd. Boooooooo!!!!! He reminds me of that kid that played Cameron Diaz’s brother in There’s Something About Mary. He was great. Franks and beans!!! Sawyer wants answers, Jack simply wants to follow Daniels plan. Just like the old days. The skeptic and doofus. And it seems both are fighting over Kate to take their side. Made me sick to my stomach. Then Sawyer did the unthinkable. He called Kate “Freckles” and Juliet stared daggers at him. Ah, to be Season 3 again, and watch Kate and Juliet fight it out in the mud in the jungle. Sigh. Those were the days. Pissed off Juliet gives up the fence code and proclaims “It’s over for us here anyway.” No sh!t. While Jack and Kate go to steal some guns in the wide open sunshine with no regard for a lookup, staying out of sight, or having any semblance of any plan whatsoever, a classic well thought out Jack production, Daniel approaches Charlotte on the swing. This scene was creepy like a horror movie. If Daniel had a van, he could have been a dopple ganger for Jame Gumb. If I was a young kid, sitting on a swing, eating a candy bar, then some wild haired creepy stranger came over to me, I would never start screaming for help. Daniel admits that he is trying to change things, but leave on the sub just in case. Oh, come on. Telling a kid with the attention span of a goldfish is going to get her off the island? While taking their time at the lockers, not a smidge of urgency or discretion on their minds, Jack, Kate, and Daniel are apparently trying to make their escape as slow as possible. Here comes Radzinsky, showing up at the worst possible moment for any of the Losties, as usual. During a shootout very reminiscent of the A Team television show, nobody dies, lots of bullets fly, big explosions happen, and the worst escape imaginable: in a jeep where protection ends at about seat level. I think the only thing worse would have been trying to escape on a skateboard. One thing to note is Radzinsky said Chang was currently with his wife and kid. Setting the stage for an escape for them on the sub, it would seem.

The second batter is up and Hawking visits Daniel to tell him to take the job with Widmore. Daniel is talked into it, as he is still craving the on the one thing he can never seem to do, and make his mother proud. He keeps trying, and feels like no matter what he does is never good enough. It’s too bad he is basically just like the other Eloise, the mouse running through the maze in his laboratory. He is being manipulated to move through the twists and turns of his life by his mother who is trying to do what is for the greater good, at the expense of the death of the test subject itself. Odd how that comparison is just so fitting. As Jack examines Daniel’s flesh wound, we get confirmation of what we knew, any of them can die and that this is their present, not their past. Daniel cites the example of not having a scar on his neck until right now, not when he first met Jack in the future. Sawyer makes a last ditch effort to repair his relationship with Juliet, complementing her on the intuition of knowing Jack and Kate coming back was going to screw things up. I guess calling Kate Freckles didn’t help either. But let’s face it, the purge was still very possible, so no matter how great it was living in Dharmaville, you didn’t have the exact day and time of the massive death, so you were living in a dangerous situation to begin with. It had to end sooner or later. The alarm sounds, Radzinsky finds Phil in Sawyer’s cabinet, and hands go up. Note, Hurley, Jin, and Miles are still outside, so if Ben can free Sayid, there is still a decent chance at seeing a rescue operation vs. Dharma. Daniel goes into his final, informative speech about why they don’t belong there. Dharma is about to release a great deal of electromagnetism, and I suspect the sky will turn purple for the first time, before they cement in the area. But the Swan hatch will have to have somebody push a button to release some energy over the next 30 years, pull the Oceanic plane on to the island, begin a chain of events, starting that afternoon. Daniel says we can’t change the past, what’s happened, happened, but they can change the present and future with variables, they are all variables. And as I’ve mentioned before

5.08 LaFleur
This reminded me of the “list” from Seasons 1+2. Why were certain people on the list? Maybe because they were seen time traveling by the Others. So far, this means Locke, Daniel. Charlotte, Miles, Sawyer. Jack, Kate, and Hurley are on the island right now too. Remember, Michael had to bring Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sawyer with him to the Others to free Walt...


These characters are part of the variables. The time travelers are the non-constants. It’s not just Desmond that can change the future. So can these folks. The Others wanted to keep an eye on them, going so far as to capture them, because they were dangerous to the future otherwise. I keep saying that Ben and Locke are in a different future right now because of what the Losties did in the past with Dharma. Speaking of Dharma, and I recently theorized that Dharma is the group with Ilana and Bram, going back to reclaim their island. Why are they all of the sudden back? Probably because the Flame blew up. Remember when Locke was playing chess with the computer, and there were options for food drops and protocol for when Hostiles invaded? When the station blew up, Dharma knew something was wrong. Mikhail could have kept up the subterfuge of Dharma not being purged but still in control of the island, even if no one could physically reach it anymore. But when the Flame went kaboom, the ruse was at a definitive end. Enter Dharma, again, to see what was wrong. They really kicked into action 3 years ago, threatening Miles, about the same time the Flame went poof. Daniel wants to change these events by detonating a hydrogen bomb, to counteract the effects of the exotic matter release. Might be crazy enough to work. At first I thought it was a stupid idea, but exotic matter is something unusual.

Hawking tells Penny that Desmond is a casualty in a long time conflict. Further, Hawking doesn’t know how he is and for the first time in a long time, she doesn’t know what will happen next. Very fascinating. I think the time travelers interacting with the Others over the years gave them some solid facts about the future, of which they tried to flesh out the details and continue to course correct until they reached a certain point of time where their knowledge ran out. Like right now. But they tried to take advantage of that knowledge as much as they could. Widmore, Hawking, Ben, they always seemed to have some type of inside knowledge. Hell, Widmore could have dumped that plane in the ocean just to convince Daniel to go back to the island as course correction. Ben built the runway, for fock’s sake. These people knew things. Now either their knowledge has run out, or everything has changed. It’s a circle. The Others work to get the Losties and Desmond in the right places over time. So they can get to the island, leave the island, and then go back to the island. Only to have the Losties become variables and change everything. It’s a contradiction, in theory. They have been puppets, only to become the puppeteers at the end, which is 30 years ago. And still, there is the Locke factor, which is still an unknown in resolving everything. Or correcting damage done by Jack and Kate and the other Losties. I think the writers have woven quite a few complicated time travel plot lines where things seem to loop back in one way or another. Ultimately, Daniel is trying to correct the Swan hatch, which would put the Oceanic 815 back on course to land in Los Angeles. And effectively end the series. The whole premise of the show is to make sure the plane never crashed on the island, and disrupting what they did. Once Daniel planted that seed in Jack’s head, he got the same bull headed attitude when the freighter swung by for a rescue. And if the Swan is such a catastrophe, and you have to keep pushing the button, why did the planet survive when Desmond turned the key? Did that failsafe trigger Jughead, and that counteracted the electro magnetism. Ah, we got a season and 3 more episodes to go, but we are starting to inch toward the big picture. Anyway, “I promised I’d nevah leave you again, Penne”. Yeah, I guess they have to throw in some emotion in with the hard core physics. I can deal with it, reluctantly. Hey, I’m not an ogre. But the fact that Ben didn’t kill Penny was disappointing. That’s all. I have no issue with Penny and Desmond, other than they total self absorbance with one another and no regard for anybody else at this point. Hawking and Widmore run into one another outside the hospital. They argue about sacrifice, and sending Daniel back to the island.

5.03 Jughead
Could this be the person that becomes Hawking? Could she be Daniel’s mother? Then, who is the father? Is it crazy to think Charles Widmore is Daniel’s father? Charles and Eloise would be about the same age off the island, both were young 50 years in the past. Maybe they left the island because Charles got Elle pregnant, and mothers were dying on the island. Widmore is funding Daniel. Hawking and Widmore are both interested in the island, but seemingly not working together, if Ben is working for Hawking. So Charles and Elle had a falling out. Let take it even further….We know that Penny is possibly Widmore’s kid. Daniel might be.


Yes, indeed, Charles Widmore is Daniel’s father, and yet another character on this show has daddy issues. Does this make Daniel and Penny half brother=-sister, or full brother and sister, depending on whether Eloise gave birth to Penny. But yet another family connection is made. Ben said Charles had a child with a woman off the island, an outsider. It’s easier to assume Penny is the offspring with another mother. Maybe Charles betrayed Eloise with an affair and was one reason he was exiled. Kate is not going to get her usual page long beating from me this week, mostly because she was not given much of a chance to do anything stupid and had very little dialogue. Other than suggest they get away in a jeep. But the writers must be trying to salvage her horrible character with a very poignant question. “Daniel is talking about erasing everything that has happened to us, that’s insane.” Now, I was suspicious. Why would Kate be so profound here. Oh, yeah. She was in handcuffs and about to go to jail. So, her concern is all about selfishness, isn’t that right, Kate? Everything is always about you. She stinks, and I don’t like her. That was our The Kate is a Wh0re Moment of the Week. You can put freckles on a cantaloupe, but it’s still going to be a cantaloupe. Unless it’s Saturday night. And you haven’t been out on a date in a really long time. And you have a few drinks. Ahem. Daniel, Jack, and Kate find the camp, and Daniel waltzes in with his gun and Michael J Fox arm. Jack grabs Kate to keep from helping their buddy Dan from facing certain death. Nice job, Jack. Jack Sucks Moment of the Week. Sure, you might be able to touch Kates boobs at some point again in the future, but Daniel has the answers you need, you big dummy. Protect him, you putz. Locke can handle himself with the Others, Sawyer is just fine. But you suck. He must have drank a few too many bottles of floor wax, thinking it was alcohol. It’s time for the Others to regain some swagger and kill Jack and Kate. There right there, in the bushes. Right THERE. I just pointed them out. There. Now, kill them. “I want to speak to Eloise“, and Richard lies, saying she is not there. Although he was correct in Daniel wasn’t going to shoot him. Eloise plugged him first, just as he was trying to explain in his clumsy way that he was the one who told them to bury the bomb. So, why didn’t Richard recognize him? This is troubling. Sure, you can’t expect to remember everybody you meet in life. But Richard is on an island with a limited number of people on it. This guy vanished. And none of the Others knew who Daniel was? Or maybe they did, and allowed it to happen. Daniel looked at his mother with a broken heart. “You always knew, but sent me here anyway.” “Who are you?”. “I’m your son.” Didn’t she look almost exactly the same again here as she did off the island, telling Daniel to stop playing the piano? She must have gotten pregnant very quickly after that.

I have to say, I typed out Danielle many times instead of Daniel today, and had to go back and keep correcting myself. Danielle now has competition for the most miserable life of a character on the show in Daniel. Pushed hard by his mother, joy taken away from him constantly, buried in this work, manipulated, women dying on him or slipping into comas, and eventually killed by his mother, who knew for 30+ years that she would pull the trigger. We are getting closer to the incident on the island, getting closer to the madness that the season finale will bring. And screw Dharma. I felt a bit bad at their fate with the purge. Not anymore. And, are we going to get a Richard flashback anytime soon? That would be nice. But, seriously, enough with Dharma already. If I see one more Dharma symbol, I’m going to scream.