Thursday, April 29, 2010

6.13 The Last Recruit

Random thoughts. Since we have a rerun episode this week, I didn’t exactly feel like I had a set deadline with this waste of my and your time of a stupid write-up. Unfortunately, I’m still recovering from illnesses and whatnot. You would thing that over the years one might build up a tolerance to mace much as my liver has to anything I imbibe, but alas, it is not so. Even at death’s door, I took part in the glorious 3 days of decadence, the triathalon of turpitude, shunning the Ten Commandment, breaking 12 of the seven deadly sins (since I may have broken some of them more than once). Yes, the NFL draft descended upon the world like a swarm of locusts, and it was a blur of grilling, boozing, updating spreadsheets, brawling, nose bleeds, buggery, getting into a staring contest with a fish, and cutting off the head of Gwyneth Paltrow, not that she’ll miss it or have it affect her career. Cleaning up Sunday morning, I noticed detailed notes on a business venture of a pizza pie place that delivers to anywhere a traveling vehicle may go. It was called Car-Pie Diem. I can’t remember if I stole the idea from somewhere, or if I’m simply a genius. You know that creepy kid we’ve been seeing this season. Yeah, I need to be more specific. The kid on the island that keeps appearing to MIB, among others. I don’t know why, but it sent my mind into my thought archives, and the kid reminds of other scenarios of other shows I’ve seen in the past. Such as on X-Files, after Mulder and Scully became part time participants, there was one episode where a kid was able to conjure up images out of his mind when he was upset, like putting live crab creatures into somebody’s stomach. There was another episode, where Michael Emerson, we know him as Ben, was able to conjure up a whole world of the Brady Bunch sitcom inside his house. And then there was an Amazing Story episode/movie, where a kid was able to imagine anything at all, and was able to trap tourists at his home with his mind manifestations. I wonder if that kid is somehow controlling the game in his mind, setting the rules. He is the puppetmaster, pulling the strings of Jacob and MIB. After all, don’t we seem to learn every season that there is yet another group or person controlling everything at the end of every season? Another layer to the show. Here is another brain buster. What if the show actually ended at the end of Season 5. God, I hope so. This season we are seeing TWO dual timelines, what would have happened if the show doesn’t end with Juliet detonating the bomb, and none of this Season 6 disappointment is actually happening. Please, please, please, let this be so. LOST was mediocre again, showing how hard it is to give a great ending to a great story. They are struggling. Not that the episode was total crap. It was transitional/filler, but lacked humor, anything all that surprising, and worst of all reunited Sun and Jin. But let’s review the episode and see what we can see.

At Camp MIB, MIB asks for an audience with Jack in the jungle. Jack actually checked with Hurley if it was OK. This was more of a transitional moment, where Jack is asking Hurley if it’s OK to take over as leader again. In the clearing, there are two rocks to sit on, but Jack chooses to stand and then squat. Hemorrhoids are a drag, especially when you have seen no evidence of Dharma toilet paper on the island, ever, and you have to wipe your ass with banana leaves. I bet Hugo has to tie some leaves to the end of a stick just to reach far enough. If I was on the island, I’d never leave the Barracks just for the toilets alone. Although, every time you flush, does it summon the Smoke Monster? Does it send a warm stream of water up your ass to cleanse like in some continental locations? J: I have no idea what the hell you are. Jack also doesn’t know to mash a potato, as he always forgets to cook it first. MIB is pissing all over the memory of John Locke. MIB: he was stupid enough to believe he was brought here for a reason, it got him killed. When you digest that sentence, it has a double meaning. Didn’t Jack declare in Season 5 and again this season that they were brought to the island for a reason, it was their destiny. So, the MIB is essentially telling Jack he is as wrong as Locke was. MIB explains that Locke had to be dead before MIB could look like him. Um, so we are ignoring MIB appearing as Walt, polar bear, spiders, boars, an ugly bird, black horse, and possibly Harper Ah, whatever. Jack wants to know if MIB was really Christian when Jack was chasing something back in Season One. I am still having some computer issues, and I’ve lost my patience and some of my archives on my machine, so I’m not going to search through all my past nonsense. On a nearly weekly basis, I have questioned the logic of MIB being capable of being in two places at once, and that he has traveled over water before. I know I’ve referenced that MIB appeared as Christian to Jack because the group needed water. MIB: you needed to find water. But, this does not make sense. Isn’t MIB’s goal to kill everybody, especially candidates on the island. Does anyone believe that he wants to load up a plane with people, somehow get in into the air with no extended runway, no ability to turn it into a hydro plane, no idea of fuel, no windshield, and God knows how many packets of peanuts are left. What, MIB is going to turn into smoke, twist himself into a catapult and fling the plane into the air, and somehow hold on as they shoot through atmosphere? MIB is going to kill them. Even if it’s indirectly, he could have let them die of dehydration and saved himself a lot of trouble. Instead, MIB chose to keep the candidates alive. Brutal lack of logic. MIB: I’ve been trying to help you leave, but because Jacob chose you, you were trapped before you ever arrived. This is an indictment of Jacob’s free will approach to existence, pointing out a major flaw. The candidates didn’t choose to come to the island, but were forced to come. I still can’t accept Jacob as anything but a douchecanoe. MIB explains that they all have to leave together. He’s not just a monster. This is the new and improved Socialist Smoke Monster. Jack laments that Locke was the only believer in this place. MIB: Locke was a sucker. A classic villain blunder, badmouthing a hero before the movie is over. Bring in the frickin’ sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached to their frickin’ heads. Locke is on a stretcher in an ambulance, Ben is along for the ride. The bad news is that John won’t walk again. The good news is that he was already paralyzed. John gives Helen as his contact person. If I was Helen, I’d be packing right now and heading for the hills. John isn’t exactly the luckiest man in the world. As John is being wheeled into the hospital, Sun on a stretcher comes along side with her own stretcher and emergency team. Again, a near death or other traumatic experience triggers a dual timeline memory, as Sun recognizes John but mistakes him for MIB. “It’s him. It’s him.” in Korean. How cool would it have been to see Locke roll his head to the side and give her a grin? As MIB is returning with Jack they find Claire has been following them. Must be hard to sneak up on a smoke monster. Claire and Jack have a half sister and half brother half assed reunion. At least they didn’t have sex like Shannon and Boone. Claire: did he tell you that he was pretending to be my father?
From 6.5 Lighthouse
While Claire is stitching up Jin, she rambled on about being shot, how the Others have Aaron. First her father told her, then a friend told her. The friend is clearly MIB, but aren’t Christian and MIB one and the same? MIB has been loose on the island since the plane crash of 815? Why does Claire separate out MIB as two beings, when we have specifically been told they are one and the same. It’s unlikely that Claire saw MIB as Locke until very recently, yet immediately identifies him as friend.

Claire is happy that Jack is going with them, but Jack states that he is undecided. Claire: you decided the moment you talked to him, you are with him now. There’s that line of logic again. But, at this point, the only people that have not spoke to MIB are…well, I guess just Miles. He hasn’t interacted with a manifestation of MIB in any way since arriving at the island. You could also make a case for John Locke, except that he has spoken to manifestations of Christian, among others. Even the Widmore crew. So, Miles is the one that will save us all? Miles is the chosen one. This feels me up with joy much like a baby fills us a diaper. Yuck.

Sawyer is gathering up his team as he whispers with Hurley and Kate does hand puppet signals with Sun. Sayid and Claire are not part of Sawyer’s plan as Sayid has changed and Claire is nuts. MIB and Jack have their meeting in the jungle during the middle of the night. MIB and Jack are back now in the middle of the day. Another odd day/night transition, as did they walk ten miles into the jungle? Why would they? At the police station, Sawyer is munching on an apple while Kate sits in handcuffs in a chair. With all the tempting that MIB and Jacob have been doing, it was inevitable that we would get a Garden of Eden reference point with the apple. And they flirt. Yuck, yuck, yuck. Since this is the third excruciating meeting between Sawyer and Kate in this timeline, I suppose Juliet must be Jack’s ex-wife by default. Sawyer: do you remember me? Sure, you’re one of the guys from the Sabotage video by the Beastie Boys. Sawyer talks about the weird coincidence of the plane, the elevator, the car accident. Kate ignores the greater purpose question of universe course correction and leaps right to the “you’re hitting on me” train of thought. Dumb, this one, she is. She does stumble on Sawyer not wanting anybody to know he was in Australia, but in the scheme of things, does this keep Sawyer from being a hero for capturing a very highly wanted fugitive that has been able to escape US Marshalls? And in an elevator in an airport, you could have arrived from anywhere. Miles interrupts the awkward reunion with news of the restaurant shootout, and they have a surveillance photo of Sayid leaving the scene. Jack and Kate stare at Sayid. He’s different. What do you expect? He’s a fricking zombie. The walking undead. Sure, there are flies doing circles around his head and he smells like a hoarder’s apartment. Zoe awkwardly trapezes into MIB’s camp. So, the whole Jin being kidnapped and then Hurley walking into camp didn’t put these people on alert to post security yet. Wow. What happened to the Others being crafty in hiding and tracking and from being found, and now they are Times Square on the island? Zoe: You took something from us, and we want it back. So Desmond is a “something” and “it”. Sure, it’s a plot device to keep the MIB camp from asking who is the “who”, but it also makes Widmore’s group out to be dehumanizing ruffians, which I have no problem with whatsoever. Zoe transmits a signal, and a mortal shell explodes in the background. Zoe demands the something by nightfall and leaves. MIB uses his whittling stick to break the transmitter.

Pregnant Claire has an appointment with an adoption agency and Desmond is following her. Desmond has been a busy bee, playing matchmaker with Hugo, playing demolition derby with Locke’s wheelchair, and catching up Claire, in a very short amount of time since his talks with Eloise and Daniel. Now, it’s funny how much information a plane manifest is going to yield since Desmond knows that Claire is going to be in certain places in certain times, because Desmond would have a hell of a time tracking down a person on a trip from Australia that ends up in a hospital and then goes to an office building. How does Desmond know where to find these people at specific points in time, crucial points in time. Like Jacob did when he touched people. Whatever Desmond is, he is similar to Neo from the Matrix. Yeah, yet another boring Matrix reference from me. Desmond offers services of a lawyer, because he doesn’t want Claire to find herself in a situation that was irreversible. Seems like Desmond is trying to prevent certain events from entering the point of no return, and Claire giving up Aaron is a mistake. If Desmond really wanted to correct mistakes, he’d be chasing Kate down an alley with an axe. Claire agrees to Desmond’s offer. We meet Ilana Verdansky, the lawyer. I sure hope she can handle a property lien better than a sack full of unstable explosives. I couldn’t find any significance to her last name. Of course, you bring back the dead Ilana, but never hit on anything about her background to her island character. Much like Libby last week, we see the return of a character that sheds zero light on many mysteries surrounding them. Ilana has been looking for Claire. At the camp, MIB is giving a speech that is full of convenient fabrications. “These people are provoking us into a confrontation” which is a nice way for MIB to say “I’m going to let you insignificant idiots duke it out, and then I’ll kill the survivors”. The plan remains to go to the other island and leave on the plane. MIB gives Sawyer a mission, to head for the sailboat that Desmond arrived on the island with, sail to Hydra, and take whoever you want. MIB tells Sawyer that it’s easier to travel without the entire group as a whole, to break it up. Which is bullsh!!t. MIB knows that Sawyer is going to try something, he’s a conman and a liar, so MIB wants an excuse to see who is really on his side, and he will deal with the ones that go with Sawyer. MIB’s plan doesn’t make any sense other wise. Of course, Sawyer takes Kate with him for the boat. While MIB walks off with Sayid, Sawyer shares his plan with Jack to meet up at a dock, gives him a map, and tells him to leave Claire and Sayid behind. When Sawyer says that Claire is nuts, we get a shot of her stuffing mangoes into a large woolen sock. I had to wonder if Claire was using this as a transport device, if she thought the mangoes were catching a cold, or making a sex toy. MIB tells Sayid to kill Desmond. He questions whether Sayid still wants what he was promised, Nadia, and Sayid says “yes.”

Sayid arrives at the water well that Desmond was thrown into. It’s a rather short well, with a couple of inches of water at the bottom. I wonder if Desmond has attempted to climb out, as there seem to be foot and hand holds on the walls. The stones may or may not be slippery, but I’ve seen Beary Gryls climb something more daunting on every one of his Man vs. Wild shows. You know, Bear could simply walk around the cliffs or canyons or glaciers or whatever. But nooooooooo. He has to show off his rock climbing skills all the figging time. We get it. You fancy yourself as Spiderman, you fancy gentleman. Now, cut it out. Does he realize that the viewers are now rooting for him to fall and break his head. As Sayid cocks his gun and points it at Desmond, D: what did he offer you? It’s interesting that Desmond has had no recent interaction with most of the characters on the island(s), save Widmore, Sayid, and MIB. Yet, he knows all about the temptations, the deals being offered. Must be part of the knowledge gained while being bombarded with electromagnetism. Sayid wants the woman that he loved, more than the other women that he loved. She’s dead, but he hopes for a reunion because he was dead and came back. Too bad Sayid can’t compare notes with Richard and how that deal just isn’t going to happen. Desmond: what will you tell her? They leave the scene, but I’d imagine the correct response is “hey, baby, when’s the last time you brushed your teeth?” or “I sure wish I hadn’t had you cremated because now I have to have sex with an urn full of ashes” or “don’t you remember me telling you to look both ways before crossing the street?”. I think it’s pretty safe to assume that Desmond did not get shot. Sayid did spare one of the Widmorites, so I can’t imagine he would murder Desmond for no reason. Plus can you imagine the anguish of fans if we find out 3 episodes from now, “oh, yeah, Desmond is dead” and we didn’t see it happen? Sayid flees to Nadia’s house in the dual timeline, and is hurriedly packing. Sayid: I took care of it, I’ve leaving, I’m never coming back. A bit more compelling than I forgot the milk and bread on the way home so I guess we won’t be having any bread pudding for dinner. A knock on the door, and Nadia is stalling Miles. Just like in the Richard episode, how do these cops find Sayid on security tapes, find the address of his brother’s house, and arrive seconds after Sayid does, who has probably done a bee line back right after the shootings. While Sayid was able to do plenty of kills for Ben over a long period of time and didn’t get caught until he quit and Ilana captured him, here he is caught for murdering right away. At least his brother is out of debt, so that’s nice. Sayid runs out the back way and trips over a garden hose. Hell, it’s like he walked into Rousseau’s island trap during Season One. Sawyer and Kate find the sailboat, which somehow has not crashed on the nearby rocks after years of being anchored there, despite tropical storms and shifting tides. Alright, I’ll forgive that error. That’s pretty nitpicky. Kate wants Claire to come too. Sawyer: She’s gone, she’s dangerous, do you want her around Aaron. What Sawyer should have said is that Claire’s loyalty is not towards the Losties anymore since they abandoned her, so she will turn towards MIB the first test she comes across. You just know that when she arrives at Hydra, she will kick over a couple of pylons and let MIB walk right in. Yeah, she might not be the best mother around Aaron, but just look at the kid. Who wouldn’t try to smother him? As the MIB troops move through the jungle, Jack: do you trust Locke? Claire: Yes, he was the only one who didn’t abandon me. It’s really starting to bother me. Claire was injured in the missle attack at the Barracks. She walked away in the middle of the night and disappeared, except for that one time in Jacob’s cabin. It could be a matter of who abandoned who. So, if she was the only one on the island other than the Others, that must mean Rose and Bernard are dead, along with Vincent, since she never found them. MIB if miffed that Sun is giving him the silent treatment, as she scribbles you did this to me as a response. Hey, MIB didn’t order Sun to run face first into a tree. The only thing funnier would have been face first into a grease fire, a meteor, and I will also accept the answer of fire hydrant. Um, I think the actually island probably punished her, as Sun was saying that she didn’t give darn rootin’ tootin’ about what the island wants. Excuse my focking language. So, the island took away her voice, much to the delight of millions of viewers. MIB goes to look for Sayid, giving Jack and the others a very, very, very convenient opportunity to escape. Claire watches as Jack, Hurley, Sun, and Frank abandon her again. Of all the wackiness going on, Claire at this moment has positioned herself into a very sympathetic role. Well, except for the whole axe in the chest thing. But how endearing was it when she tried to kill Kate? Good times, good times. MIB finds Sayid walking around, staring up at the sky, not realizing that it’s probably not a good idea to look directly at the sun. Sayid says he shot Desmond and that MIB can go check if he wants to. MIB trusts him, or miscalculates him, but it’s a mistake either way. There is a meeting at the dock. Sawyer: the only way Dharma people left this island for over 3 years was by sub. But, Sawyer, surely you remember that they could only leave or arrive at certain periods of time, every so often, as it wasn’t a super highway. Claire shows up with a gun at the dock. Then it suddenly clicks into place for me. Look at all the purple. Of course, the famous reference is “the sky turned purple”. But Sayid in the dual timeline was wearing a purple shirt, which is an odd color for him. But look at the boat. Sawyer, Sun, Hurley are all wearing purple. Well, Hurley is more red/purple. Claire has a checkered purple flannel. What the hell is this color coordination? Are these people about to die, a foreshadowing? That leaves Jack with a blue shirt and Frank with white, Kate with gray, Jin with white. There has to be massive bloodshed coming around the corner, and I’m trying to read the tea leaves to so who is going to die. Kate talks Claire into joining them, following up with strong arming Sawyer into letting her get on the boat. “She’s coming or I’m not.” Um, Sawyer, remember how pissed you were when Kate got on the sub with you and Juliet and ruined your escape and that Juliet died twice in the last couple of days? Now, Kate NOT coming is a deal breaker. Really? Juliet’s death becomes more meaningless with every passing show. I’d like to see a fish with a Dharma logo swim up and spit the engagement ring at Sawyer. Kate: I was wrong, I never should have raised him, come with us. Kate needs to make another couple of hundred apologies, but there are only a couple of episodes left. Claire: when he finds out, he will be mad. Well, nobody expects him to do the Pee-wee Herman Tequila dance of joy at a biker bar either.

Jack and his Mini-Me are strolling through a hallway. Young David is making it clear that he wants to hang out with his father, suffocating him with his neediness, clinging like an emotionally empty barnacle on an underwater statue’s ass. They are going to a will reading, a delightful father-son event. David: I’m sad for you, dad. Geez, get this EMO kid some black lipstick, gel, and some sheer pantyhose to wear. Grow a pair. Do you think John Wayne’s kid would have told his father, “Tell me about your feelings?” Wayne would have kicked his son in the balls. Every kid on this show is a creep. Well, except for Walt, who is starting for the Knicks this season. Ilana is leading the will reading. Jack is wearing a purple tie. PURPLE. This has to mean something. Ilana is wearing a purple blouse and purple jacket. Seriously, this is getting weird. Jack meets Claire. Claire: he was my father too. Claire is wearing gray in this timeline. In the other one, MIB and wearing gray. So, it’s purple and gray, predominantly. Backtracking, Desmod is wearing a gray jacket and gray shirt in the elevator with Claire. This has to significant. Jack is not handling the news well, and is trying to gather his thoughts when he gets a phone call about an emergency at the hospital. Nothing like an emergency to cheer a fella up. Jack needs to reschedule the will reading, which certainly is inconvenient for Claire, but never mind her. Sawyer outlines his master plan on the sailboat, which is moving at a rapid clip through the ocean, without use of the sails. Sawyer: be nice to Widmore, take the sub at gunpoint. Simple, yet stupid. How do you get the drop on Widmore, when he has done it to MIB 3 times now? And sent the freighter to kill everybody. Sawyer is desperate to leave the island, and not thinking things through, and nobody is challenging his decision making. This is the same role that Jack played Seasons 1 to 4. Jack: it just doesn’t feel right, leaving the island, I remember how I felt the last time when I left, part of me was missing, we were brought here for a reason, we were supposed to do something, if MIB wants us to leave, maybe we need to stay. This speech was very reminiscent of Locke at the end of Season 4 at the orchid, facing Jack on the island for the last time. Jack has indeed turned into a Stupid Man of Faith. I sincerely hope Jacob Stalin’s plan all along was to leave a trail of death and destruction in order to convert Jack into a believer, because that is sooooo worth the price. Sawyer is not at all pleased with Jack’s soul searching. Get off my dam boat, obviously confusing it with a sail boat. You’re with us, or in the water. Very much like Jack’s reaction to Locke’s speech at the orchid. A total rejection. Jack: the island isn’t done with us yet. A recall to a line uttered by many characters at many times, including Ben, Eloise, and Desmond. Sawyer dares Jack to take a leap of faith off the boat. Jack: sorry about Juliet. Jack jumps, much like Sawyer jumped off the helicopter in Season 4. While Sawyer was trying to save the small group in the chopper, and more specifically Kate, Jack is jumping for a more macro view of things, for better good of everybody. I know I’ve bashed Jack for many, many seasons, and rightfully so. I have to begrudgingly admit that…no, I’m not doing it. Are you crazy? What were you thinking? I’m not going to give him credit. He still sucks. You can shove that Jack is a changed man bull down my throat all you want. It’s not working. I want Jack to be smashed against a coconut tree by Smoke Monster. And for comedic effect, as Jack is laying there dying, I want some coconuts to fall out of the tree and *bonk* him in the face. Kate, of course panics at Jack jumping, because there is one less unfortunate soul to fawn over her. Sawyer: we’re not going back, much like Jack said when they didn’t go back for Jin on the freighter.

Sun wakes up in the hospital, and Jin assures her everything is fine and the baby is OK, and they will live happily ever after. I was so hoping for crane accident and a wrecking ball would come swinging into their room and demolishing them once and for all. Jack and David walk to surgery together. The kid could sit around all night in a waiting room, or could go out and do something productive with his life, but the marshmallow doesn’t even consider it. Jack is told of the pre-existing condition of paralysis and responds with “I can do this” a far cry from counting 5 seconds. Jack looks in a mirror, yes another mirror, and sees Locke’s face. Being that this scene is nearly a recreation of the operating scene of Ben on the Hydra island during Season 3 may have triggered Jack. “I think I know this guy.” Jack turns to the nurse and almost yells “Dammit, Nurse, run!!” Jack swims ashore, like Sawyer did after jumping from the chopper. Unfortunately, there is no Juliet with a bottle of rum waiting for him ashore. MIB and the Others have him at gun point. MIB is not surprised to learn that Sawyer took his boat. Meanwhile, with all this back and forth island travel, do we still have any idea who shot at the time travelers on the boat in Season 5? Sawyer’s crew arrive at the Hydra island, and Widmore’s group jumps out with their guns. Jin sees Sun, and they run towards each other. I wait with baited breath, as each is headed to the pylon at the same exact time. Oh, there will be some hugging and some frothing at the mouth and some anguish. I can’t wait. Yes, another step, Yes, another. Right now…NO!!!! Dagnabbit. The pylons didn’t kill them. Fock, Fock. Fock. Oh, for fock’s sake, she can now speak in English too. I guess I have to look at the bright side of the old stubborn tomato, if you will. They’ve been building up to this moment for about 2 seasons, Sun and Jin’s reunion, and it lasted a few seconds. Fine, it didn’t kill me. It gave me the same happy feeling as chicken pox. No, not recovering from it. I mean getting it. Zoe gets a message on her transmitter. Z: hands up and on your knees. Well, this is a fine pickle. S: we had a deal. Z: deal’s off. Howie Mandell, take notes. This would be a terrific game show. Z: you get a fix on Locke? We are taken to the main island, where we can hear a whistling sound. Nobody moves. It took frigging drooling Jack to say “Get Down” before anybody moved. Have these people not learned anything living on this island? Jack hits the sand and is stuck with loss of hearing, like the characters had at the beginning of the season after the hydrogen bomb exploded. MIB picks up Jack and carries him into the jungle. MIB: it’s OK, you’re with me now. Jack’s eyes said: What? Did you say something? I can’t hear…anything. Dammit, Others, run!!

It was inevitable, but I don’t feel a whit of emotion or attachment to any character anymore, other than the island itself. If anybody, and I do mean ANYBODY dies in this show upcoming, I will simply shrug my shoulders. I guess the island was done with them. Which is rather odd, after enjoying many of their journeys for five seasons. Well, hopefully the mediocrity is behind us and maybe the ending won’t be as unsatisfying as I fear. On the bright side, we might get up to 25% of the answers we deserve, and an ending that doesn’t leave the fate of the world in Jack’s hands. We can hope. At least the Seahawks had a great draft.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

6.12 Everybody Loves Hugo

Random thoughts. Watching this episode the first time bored me tears. It just wasn’t all that interesting to me. The rewatch was as pleasant as having a urinary tract infection, going to work, and then sharing a small office with a chronic Irritable Bowel Syndrome sufferer who, on average, every 10 seconds lets a little toot escape their fart box. While I thought it was a great idea to bring back Libby since there were so many questions about her character, I find it beyond maddening that the writers answered none of the questions. Not one. She gave Desmond a boat. She lied about being a psychiatrist. She sort of liked a guy that looked like the Grimace. We knew nothing about this mysterious woman before Michael put a slug in her belly. They brought her back just so a lady could shove their tongue down Hurley’s throat? Just friggin’ great. Maddening. So, you focus an episode around the guy that can talk to dead people, and you only have ONE dead person talk to him. ONE? You couldn’t scrounge up more than one? Thousands of people are dead on this island and Hydra island combined, and Michael is the only one that feels like talking? Purges upon purges, they’re running out of cemetery plots. How about the French guy with one arm. Or Horace. Or Caesar. Somebody, anybody. Alas, just Michael. And he didn’t even focking die on the island, but on the boat miles from the island. Isabella, Richard’s wife, died on Canary Islands, and see is bopping around the island. Am I taking crazy pills? It’s not about dying on the island. But you can get trapped on an island you never visited before. Crazy pills. How do you follow up a great Desmond episode with this happy horse sh!!t. Heavens to Murgatroyd. No Locke ghost? Seriously? Do we think that would have been a major plot device? Sure. Well, we’ve figured out the formula for Season 6 by now. Cliché, romance, cliché, crappy CGI explosion, cliché, cringe inducing dialogue, all the main characters standing around waiting for nothing to happen, cliché, some more romance, some more standing around, cliché. Repeat. Hey, it’s the show’s fault. They can put together some fantastic episodes when they try. Tick, tock, tick, tock. The show is almost over, and I am losing my mind with impatience. I watch every week, and there are times I want to literally rip my face off and eat it. I hope they are planning on a 17 hour series finale on May 23rd to wrap things up, because they got some ‘splaining to do.

We start with a ceremony honoring the world’s biggest philanthropist, literally. Hurley, or is it Hugo, or, wait a second. Sure this is restating the obvious, but the Losties have been calling him Hurley since day one. Now, the two names are interchangeable, and nobody bats an eye. A person with two names, and God knows the origination of Hurley, because that is reminiscent of vomiting, and we know Hugo is not bulimic. So Hurley is the genius behind the world wide phenomenon of Mr. Clucks. Microsoft? Overrated. Curing cancer? Never be done. Chopping the heads off chickens in slaughterhouses and deep frying them twice. Brilliant!!! He has paid for a paleontology wing for the Golden State Natural History Museum. Who cares? I want to know how the presenter, Dr Pierre Chang, isn’t aging, like Richard. Look at him. Hell, he looks younger 30 years later off island than he did on island during the Dharma time traveling stuff. How is this guy not aging? Bullsh!!t. Hurley gets a standing ovation because it takes a real hero to be rich and insist on wearing hippie sideburns. Hugo’s mom is bored to tears at his table, giving him an insincere slow clap. She has most likely been dragged to many of these functions as Hugo’s date. I’m sure the prom date ending up at Lookout Point must have been awkward. Hurley needs a woman in his life and has been set up on a blind date with Hurley’s uncle Tito’s neighbor Rosalita. Uncle Tito dropped dead when Hurley won the lottery; hell the guy worked 3 jobs, so it’s nice to see him alive. His death started the series of unfortunate events that made Hurley believe that he was cursed. Hugo lays a flower at Libby’s gravesite on the island. Is it my imagination, but doesn’t the cemetery look far different this season than seasons past. Production stuff, I guess. Hurley is lamenting that dead people talk to him, but not Libby specifically. Try going to the hospital for two weeks, and nobody outside your immediate family noticing. Then get back to me about lamenting. Not that I know what that’s like. Ilana informs Hugo that she is going to grab some dynamite, as the Jacobites have nothing but explosives on their minds. Hurley entertains Ilana with some small talk about Libby being murdered and other delightful anecdotes that would be all the rage at a cocktail party with the hoi polloi. Ilana leaves and Hugo notices a weird noise nearby. It’s Michael. “I’m here to stop you from getting everybody killed.” The big question isn’t about why Michael is here. It’s what is Michael’s motivation? Who’s best interests is he working for? His own, the islands, his friends he didn’t get a chance to kill when he had a chance as part of some psychotic mindset, Walt?

Hurley gives Michael the third degree. Why should I trust you, you murdered Libby and Ana-Lucia? A fair question, and arguably among the most shocking moments in LOST history, just in case we forgot, which we didn’t. So much time wasted on reminding us of the obvious this year. Yes, Michael killed them. We know. Michael shows off his ever consistent people skills with “that doesn’t matter right now.” Michael continues to butter up Hugo. “People are going to die, it will be your fault, people are listening to you now.” As far as I’m concerning, that’s criticism of the people on the island, as they are following the lead of a person that says “dude” every other word. I would have strangled dudemeister a long, long time ago. Hurley has been stood up for his date in the Spanish Johnnys restaurant. Interesting detail in that Rosalita is some kind of song by Bruce Springsteen, and Spanish Johnnys in named in some song lyric of another song on the same album as Rosalita, which was to be Hugo’s date. I not only dislike Bruce Springsteen and his music, I don’t respect him enough to bother looking up the proper spelling of his name. Here is a tip for all actors, celebrities, athletes, etc. I don’t give a dam about your political affiliations, your causes, your charities. Shut. The. Fock Up. Just keep doing whatever you do that makes you famous, and we will try to ignore how retarded you sound when you try to talk about the hot button issues of the day. Just because you are famous, doesn’t make you smart. Libby approaches his table. Hurley wasn’t expecting somebody so non-Latina. Libby saw Hugo from across the room and had to talk to him because she felt a connection, like they were soul mates. Have I mentioned the word “cliché” in this writeup yet? I’m sure I have. Unlike Libby, Hurley doesn’t remember her, but to be fair, it would be hard not to pick Hugo out of a police lineup. Hurley’s doctor from the mental ward shows up, Dr Brooks, and corrals Libby with a butterfly net, taking her away in a van. Felt like a kidnapping, sort of when Bram and his dead buddies grabbed Miles last year and threatened him. Ilana is back with the dynamite, in what seems like a very short amount of time. We established that the explosives on the Black Rock are a day or two journey from the Losties camp, way back in Season One. But I guess sloppy writing is normal nowadays. Hurley doesn’t like Ilana’s plan and worries that the dynamite is very unstable. Illana: I’ve been training my whole life for this, Jacob said to listen to Richard, Richard said to blow up the plane. As Ilana is jabbering on with her self important nonsense, she is plopping full bottles of water on top of the sweaty dynamite in the sack, and then plops the bag on the ground. And blows up. I’d say that I was surprised, but I’d be lying. LOST has become a bit predictable. That was an obvious plot twist. So let’s review the life and times of the worst bodyguard ever. She is hand picked, we know absolutely nothing about her past. She thinks of Jacob as a father figure. She was bandaged up in a hospital in Russia. She knows all about MIB and Jacob, about the ash, about MIB can’t change shape anymore, the meaning of candidates, details about the candidates like Miles ability to talk to the recently dead, knows the secret passages in the Temple, kicks Sayid’s ass and handcuffs him, knows about the Ajira flight, and on and on and on. And she dies with a million questions surrounding her. Nothing. Do you expect to find out anything else about her before the show ends? I don’t. Frustrating. Oh, but I bet there is a kiss of some sort coming up. Yah!!!! How about somebody course correcting Cuse and Lindeloff’s plane into an active volcano. Oh, the show isn’t about good stories or interesting events, it’s about relationships. Whoop de friggin’ do. Kill me. MIB is whittling. Just sitting there and whittling, in his camp. I suppose it beats having a thumb stuck up his ass, but it’s a pretty close second. Still, it’s an example of MIB picking up and living with the tendencies that John Locke had. A bleeding together of personalities. Sawyer is amped up and irritated over the lack of anything to do. MIB: There is a difference between waiting and doing nothing. Correct. The LOST viewers are waiting, and the LOST writers are doing nothing. The tag line for this season. We should be riding a roller coaster this close to a season finale, much less series finale. The story picking up pace, craziness all around, and yet….MIB is sitting and whittling. MIB: You came back together to the island (Oceanic 6), and we need to leave the same way. Sayid returns back to camp and leads MIB out into the jungle, where they meet up with Desmond tied to a tree.

Hurley is looking through Ilana’s stuff, as any grieving person would do, scavenging. Sawyer would approve. He picks up the pouch containing Jacob’s ashes. Hurley must be planning a gambit of some sort, but we don’t know if he knows the properties of the ash, as he wasn’t around for the Bram stuff inside the shoe, Dogen’s ashes around the Temple, and I’m not sure if he understands the ashes surrounding Jacob’s cabin. Richard has given the old plan some thought, since he just witnessed Ilana dying. Richard: let’s get some more dynamite. Meet the new plan, same as the old plan. Speaking of which, Jack: I promised Sun I would get her off this island. So who died and made Jack the ticket agent? Aside from Ilana. Hurley takes Richard’s side. Hurley is number #38 in line in one of his chicken franchises, which is odd for two reasons. One, it’s not one of the 4,8,15,16,23,42 numbers. Next, when was the last time you were in a fast food place with tickets? You wait in line like all the other animals being led to slaughter by ingesting horrible, past expiration date, non hygienically touched, nearly gelatinous, morsels of germ infestations on a sesame seed bun. Hurley needs to grab some grub. He orders the 108 piece meal, coming with 36 biscuits, 2 liters of gravy, a Farva of cola, four stents, and coupon for 5 dollars off in your next purchase of electric paddles. I could have said defibrillators, but everybody calls them the electric paddle thingies. Desmond enters the chicken place, stalking Hurley. If it’s not stalking, I don’t know what to call it. It’s not like you could get Hurley’s home address off the plane manifest. Not that I object to stalking. It’s hours of fun and leads to most of my dates. You know, back in the good old days, grandpappy would court grandmomma by asking her out every day for 6 months. She would admit that she didn’t like him at first, but he wore her down with his determination. What a neat love story. Nowadays, an NFL quarterback can’t even make out with a drunk chick without being sued. It’s a crazy, crazy world. Desmond invites himself over to Hurley’s table, much like Libby did earlier in the episode. Seemed repetitive. Desmond: That’s a lot of chicken. LOST writers have become grand masters of the obvious. Hurley eats when he is depressed. Wow. I never realized Oprah was so miserable. But it’s plain to see that Desmond is now in the course correcting business, much like Eloise. He is aware of multiple timelines, and is putting his spin on things. A wise man pointed out to me last week that Desmond was playing a bit of a Jesus role, what with the talk of sacrificing himself, being more aware of events than those around him, and some of the religious overtones the show has touched on over the years. It would be better if Desmond still had his crazy beard. Desmond is planting thoughts in Hugo’s head without telling him exactly what to do. Desmond: all women are crazy, did you believe her, go with your gut. So, Hurley is depressed about Libby being whisked away, and Desmond is here to play multi-universe Cupid. I’m really bored at this point. Come on, a love story every week? Richard and Isabella, Jin and Sun, Desmond and Penny, Daniel and oblivious Charlotte, blah, blah, blah. The show is not about romance, you focking writer hacks. Love stories have been done to death, had sequels, had remakes, been rebooted, and been done to death some more. You are ruining our show. Fock. Desmond’s order number is #42. Well, there’s a magic number. Desmond is tied to a tree on the island with a red shirt. It used to be a sign of a character about to die, but Hurley had one on for most of the season. The pattern is falling apart. MIB unties Desmond, as he has nowhere to run, brother. Brother. Do you think Desmond has been saying “brother” through multiple loops, because Jacob and MIB are brothers and it’s important….food for thought. MIB: Why did Widmore bring you back to the island? Desmond: I was kidnapped, ask him, they blasted me with electromagnetism? MIB questions how Desmond can be sure it was electromagnetism. Desmond: experience. Loops of the past, all timelines, or just the handful of times in this timeline? It’s never a straight answer, is it? As MIB extends his hand to Desmond because he needs to show him something, Desmond takes it. Is this the new way MIB scans people? He isn’t turning into smoke to scan anymore, so is it by touch now? Ben starts a meandering, listless short speech in Jack’s general direction. Ben sucks as a character more and more every single week. Ben: Ilana was handpicked by Jacob to protect you, tells you that you are candidates, blows up, the island was done with her, what will happen when it is done with us? It’s sad to see Ben a sad sack, the complete opposite of his demeanor the rest of this series. To be fair, most of the regular cast members have become something else since spending time on the island, but Ben is a real mess. While I noticed a while ago that Hugo was missing from screen, the characters are now starting to catch on. Hurley lumbers away from the Black Rock just before we get our unsolicited 2nd explosion of the week. Richard: Why? Hurley: I’m protecting us.

Richard is reacting to the explosion in calm and reflective tones. “We’re all dead. We’re all dead. Dead.” I wonder what Richard is trying to tell us. Hugo explains to Miles that Michael told him to do it, dead people yell at him, and that dead people are more reliable than alive people. Reliable? Maybe? Smarter? Probably not. Because they are dead. Hurley has a lot of trust issues, but not with ghosts. Hurley is also being put into positions where he is making life and death choices for people, which is out of his comfort zone. This is going to end badly. Hurley drops by Dr Brook’s office of the mental hospital and asks questions regarding Libby. She has issues with reality, and it’s not a good idea for Hurley to see her. Hugo offers a 100 thousand dollar bribe to change the doctor’s mind. Geez, for that kind of money, Hurley could have bought 100 mail order brides, and some of them might not have been angry, homicidal, and reeking of cigarettes. The recreation room is very similar to when Hurley was hanging out in the other timeline, with Connect Four games, people wandering aimlessly around, a drawing of the island on the chalkboard in the background, etc. I missed seeing Leonard repeating the 4,8,15,16,23,42, numbers over and over and over. Libby is led into the room as a prisoner without handcuffs. Libby wants to know why Hurley is there if he doesn’t remember. Libby: I was watching TV, memories washing over me, of another life, there was a plane crash, and island, we liked each other, when I got to this facility, it was like I was here before, you were in here too. First of all, this is reminiscent of Daniel watching TV, and starting to cry as the rover at the bottom of the ocean discovers the planted by Widmore plane wreckage of Oceanic 815. He has a feeling, some memories, but it was due to time and space travel, not in a sideways universe, I would think. Hurley can’t recall ever being in a mental facility before, but tries his best to keep Libby from concentrating on being crazy. Hugo laments his lack of social skills before awkwardly asking out the lunatic for a date. MIB and Desmond are strolling through the jungle on their own date. MIB: you were pushing the button for 3 years, yet you are back for more, this island has it out for you. Desmond: for all of us. Desmond knows something, but remains cryptic. They turn around to see the same kid with old fashioned attire standing in the jungle. Desmond: Do you know him? MIB: Just ignore him. Sure, MIB knows who it is. We don’t for sure. Young Jacob, Young MIB, an island manifestation, hell at this point it could just be a random ghost. I have zero curiosity about the snot nosed brat other than a deep down inside hope that Skull baby survived it’s early year trauma and grew up to be a healthy young man. Just like the kid they buried in Pet Semetary. Ilana’s plan was blow up the plane. Richard’s plan was to blow up the plane. Richard’s new plan is to blow up the plane. I detect a pattern, one that reeks of failure. The explosives are at the Barracks, but Hurley drives a wedge into the group and wants to go talk to Locke. It’s a pretty even matchup of whose plan is more stupid, but let’s see what happens. Hurley bluffs that it’s Jacob’s idea, but Richard calls him on it. R: ask him what the island is, which we have come to know as a bottle with a cork in it, from Ab Aeterno’s episode. Hurley: I don’t have to prove anything to you, Richard; come with me, or blow stuff up. Unusually harsh words coming from in-over-his-head Hugo. Richard: He’s lying, Jacob never tells us what to do, if that thing leaves this island, that’s the end of everything, who’s coming with me? Richard with a nice counterargument and hit on all the important points, other than the whole blow up the plane thing is Richard idea, not Jacob’s. These are people making huge decisions on their own, thinking they are acting on Jacob’s behalf. It’s as sad as watching a bunch of headless chickens trying to run a relay race. Much like the Locke and Jack camp split, after the freighter invasion started, two groups form and will go their separate ways. Ben and Miles go with Richard. They are headed to the Hydra, where they will have no idea that Widmore has set up shop. Ben will not be pleased to see Charles, and Miles will want his 1.6 million dollars for going on the freighter mission. However, we will most likely find out who did the Ajira purge, with Miles’ ability. They have no candidates are destined to die horrible deaths. The other group is the pilot Frank and the remaining potential candidates in Jack, Hurley, Sun.

Sun can’t talk, but writing is annoying me too. For the love of all things holy, somebody break her fingers or pen, preferably the fingers. Sun: Did we make a mistake? Frank: Probably. Frank with a one word appearance this week. Sure, you are trying to keep up the façade of flying off the island and you need a pilot. But is the show going to be any different if you start to kill off some of there characters. Let’s make a list of island folks that need to die. Zoe, Kate, Jack, Jacob, Sawyer, Sayid, Claire, Cindy, Zak, Emma, all the rest of the Others, all of Widmore’s men, Richard, Hurley, Desmond, Sun, Jin, Frank, Miles. Then we can have Ben, Charles, and MIB play Tiddlywinks over the fate of the universe. Hurley: how do you break the ice with the Smoke Monster? I suppose you could tell it that you have trouble talking to girls and would it like to go out for some coffee some time. Before you know it, you have a litter of puffs of smoke that will grow up to be those stupid air puppet figures that wave their arms in front of car dealerships. Hurley is worried that Smokie might kill us all. Maybe you should have thought of that before your plan of going to meet somebody that is capable of showing you your insides. What is it about this island? As soon as you gain power, you become a moron. MIB was wrong. Power does not corrupt. It kills brain cells. Hurley would lose a tic-tac-toe game to a medium sized boulder. Hugo: I didn’t see Jacob back there. Jack: I know, ever since I got Juliet killed, all I’ve wanted to do is fix it, and I can’t, it’s hard for me to step back and listen to people tell me what to do, maybe that’s the point. Hurley: unless you letting go gets us killed. Let’s take a breath here. Jack is feeling guilty about Juliet, as he should be. His plan to blow up the island to save their plane from crashing didn’t work, or didn’t work as expected. Jack is crying about how it hurts to not be leader anymore. Really? How about all the people that died under your stupid leadership? How do you think they feel? Maybe they can tell Hugo their feelings. Every single season of Lost, people died because of Jack’s mistakes. And, now we’re supposed to hug him and say it’s OK? No, it’s not. Jack has been responsible for arguably more deaths than Ben, for focks sake. So, this supposed new Jacob is going to walk about as the humble, stupid guy for the rest of the show. Greeeeat. Jack: I trust you. What is this? A Lamaze class? Hurley: it was my idea to talk to Locke and I have no idea what I’m doing or where I’m going. That’s OK. Neither has Jack in Six Seasons. Whispers in the jungle. Now, as in the Season 6 preview articles, I repeatedly pointed out that there was no discernable pattern to the whispers. They manifested typically just before the appearance of Smokie or a Smokie manifestation, like Jacob’s cabin chasing Hurley around the jungle, or to signify the appearance of the Others, like when Harper appeared to Juliet to warn that Daniel and Charlotte were on their way to the Tempest hatch. Hurley confirms with Michael that the whispers are the dead, those stuck on the island for what they did, ones that cannot move on. They also eat a lot of ghost pork and beans and have Irritable Bowel Syndrome and do a lot of hissing like steam coming out of a tea kettle. Michael gives Hurley directions to MIB’s camp. Michael wraps things up with “don’t get yourself killed” and “if you ever see Libby again, tell her I’m very sorry”. Sure, Michael shot her in the stomach in the Swan hatch, but she didn’t go quietly. She struggled with life for a while, even going so far as to say “Michael” but Jack and Kate were too dumb to consider that she was naming the murderer. Michael kept looking for a chance to smother her with a pillow, but she passed on her own. So, not only was Michael not sorry for trying to kill her initially, he was trying to make sure she stayed dead. Then, the allows 5 of his friends to be kidnapped. Then, he tries to kill himself multiple times. Yet, here we get a weak ass apology. There is no forgiveness for you, focko. How about you mention Walt, you know, your son that you murdered people for? Forgot about him already? Michael sucks. Picnic on a crowded, windy, non tourist friendly California beach. We now know why Hurley woke up yelling “Cheese Curds” in the Lighthouse episode. He likes cheese and even dreams about it. He brought along in his pic-a-nic basket a wide assortment of cheeses, because eating on a windy beach with sand getting stuck to cheese is one of the world’s greatest treats. Libby is feeling a bit off, a familiarity of a first date they never had, medication she forgot to take, the voices in her head. Hurley brings up all of his insecurities and wonders why Libby would want to be with a guy like him? Are you insane? What kind of question is that? You’re rich, dummy. She loves your money, and is probably working with another Oceanic 815 passenger on a long con. Libby: I like you. And? And? Finish the sentence. And your money. She kisses him with all the love that Claire would kiss skull baby, back when the skull still was covered with rotting flesh. The kiss was dreadful on many levels. It did jog some memories in Hurley’s head, and suddenly he is remembering stuff. Libby is happy she is not crazy. Desmond is watching from a distance. He drives off in his car, license plate number 4PCI264.

MIB leads Desmond to a well in the middle of the jungle, in the middle of the night. To test the depth, they drop a torch inside, and you can hear the sound of water at the bottom. MIB explains this is a very old well, dug by hand; they were not looking for water but answers, places like this make compass needles spin like crazy. Broken compasses do that too. They needed to know why, they dug, they didn’t find what they were looking for. Widmore is interested in power, not answers, this isn’t the only well. OK, let’s start with ancient inhabitants on the island were aware of the special properties of negatively charged matter. Eventually, Dharma came along to try to harness it. Widmore is nearly confirmed to be on neither Jacob’s or MIB’s side, but is working for his own interests. Sure, this isn’t the only well, as Locke was climbing down the one that the Orchid built over the top of, and Locke turned the frozen donkey wheel. So, does this well have a wheel too? Widmore has a map, and it’s likely that wells are dug right over the spots of weird energy. MIB: Why aren’t you afraid? A fair but unexpected question. Desmond isn’t afraid because he knows the future, is my best guess. Desmond: What is the point of being afraid? That answer made no sense whatsoever. MIB does a great series of facial expressions of poker face, to smile, to evil face, and shoves Desmond into the well. MIB goes back to camp and tells Sayid they don’t have to worry about their friend anymore. Sawyer turns to MIB like a neglected wife. Where have been? I’ve been worried sick. Dinner is ice cold, and the children had to go to bed. Why don’t you love me anymore? Mother was right about you. MIB takes a swig on a whiskey bottle and pushes Sawyer down a flight of stairs. The next week, Sawyer has to explain that he walked into a doorknob and gave himself a black eye. Hurley wanders into camp, because nobody considered putting any guards on duty. Lots of guns, no security. Hugo: I don’t want anybody hurt or killed. MIB: you have my word. Sun is looking around for Jin. Kate smiles at Jack and I think I’d rather pass a handful of kidney stones before hearing their future conversations. MIB smiles at Jack. So what? Is this supposed to be a significant moment? They look at each other with googly eyes. Locke was the good guy. He was right about nearly everything. And he’s dead. Just goes to show, there is no possible happy ending to this show. Desmond is sitting in a car in a school parking lot, watching. Ben notices and knocks on his window. Ben: Can I help you? Desmond: No, just browsing to see which one I want to take home and chain up in my basement. Security! Security!! Desmond: I just moved here, looking for a school for my son. Ben: What’s his name? Desmond, without hesitation: Charlie. That response was instinctive and without hesitation, seems to be another fact bleeding together from the two time lines, since Desmond has no son in this timeline, but only in the original timeline. Desmond is watching Locke wheel himself through the parking lot. He starts up the car, and peels off, with the license plate 2FAN321. Note, earlier I explained “He drives off in his car, license plate number 4PCI264.” Different plates. Same car. How does that work? Production error? Loops? All I can do it point out the details, over and over again. Desmond speeds up and plows into Locke. Somehow, even though nearly the entirety of Locke’s body is below the hood of he car, sitting in a wheelchair that should go forward in a straight line or tip over and be pushed, Locke for some unknown reason not in line with everyday physics, pops up like a bagel in a toaster, and goes cart wheeling up and over Desmond’s car, plopping on the ground like a gutted fish. Ben runs over, yelling for someone to call 911, as Desmond peels away. Is it revenge for MIB throwing him down a well? Too shortsighted. It’s probably more of bigger picture view, where he is working for the benefit of both timelines and trying to prevent disaster on the island. Maybe, it’s to trigger Locke’s mind to remember the island and to fight MIB when the timelines bleed together. After all, Charlie and Desmond both remembered the other timeline when they had near death experiences. Still, it’s weird to think the activities in the dual timelines are happening 3 years apart. Ben: Can you hear me? Because when I see a guy that’s dying, I want to know if his senses are working. Hey, buddy, can you smell me? Locke is on his way to a hospital, much like when he was fleeing from Ben who just shot Mr Abaddon, and Locke got into a car accident and had Jack yell at him when he regained consciousness. So, in the LAX timeline, we can expect Locke in Jack’s hospital. Sun just got shot 2 episodes ago, so she will show up. Claire is already in Jack’s hospital. Desmond and Charlie just left. Seems like the museum and hospital are both becoming big meeting places in LAX.

This was a tough one. I didn’t care for the episode and I’ve been sick. If I die before the finale, I’m going to show Hurley what yelling by dead people is really like.

Monday, April 12, 2010

6.11 Happily Ever After

Random thoughts. This is a week where we stumbled on so many interesting ideas coming from the episodes, it’s going to be hard to stay organized as thoughts bounce around in my head like a drawing for Powerball. Why do I have a weird compulsion to confuse Desmond and Daniel when discussing off island stuff. Sometimes I’ll say Desmond is the son of Charles and Eloise, when clearly Daniel is. Desmond is the son in law of Charles, not the same thing by a long shot. Anyway. Desmond centric episodes rule. Always have. They are game changing events, truly exploding hydrogen bombs or old stupid tomatoes covered in kitty litter, depending on which side you are on. It’s nice to be talking about an episode that scrambled a lot of theories about what the heck is happening. I’ll toss in some quotes of previous articles that I have written, or items of interest I’ve pointed out in previous weeks. Ah, a nice relaxing Sunday morning. Cracked open the first beer, wondering if the anger will well up at any second and scuttle my good mood like heartburn after consuming a fast food breakfast sammich. Maybe like a sewage line backing up during a flood. I was going to go to the anti-census protest yesterday but they required us to register on line ahead of time. Those cheeky basterds. I’m no rube. Sure, I may have the curse of farting myself awake from time to time, if by time to time you mean every night But I’m no rube. I’m an entrepreneur who literally sinking tens and tens of dollars into the manufacturing of the adorable Skull Babies for Christmas time. And unlike Cabbage patch kids, which were not made from real cabbage or Sunny Delight which is not made with real sun, I will guaran-dam-tee that each Skull Baby will be made 100% from real skulls. Of course they won’t be polar bear skulls, since I am not going to hunt anything that might actually hurt me. But I’ll tell you this, some seals are going to have quite a headache after I’m done with them. Especially when they have no heads. They don’t bite, do they? I’m stunned that we got an episode nearly entirely anchored in the LAX timeline, and it didn’t suck. But we didn’t have to suffer with Jack, Kate, Sun, and Jacob around, so of course it was our destiny to watch a good episode.
From 6.1 LA X Part One
The LOST co-executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have gone on record saying that there will be no alternate time lines in this series. So, this week must have been confusing for the literalists out there. Seems like these guys may have been honest after all. What we have here are dual timelines. I don’t think they would go to so much trouble to show us what would have happened if the plane never crashed and still continue the complicated story line of Jacob and MIB without a proper resolution, so I have to accept at this time dual realities. If you have narrow stream flowing, literally a stream in the woods, then drop a huge rock in the middle of it, a rock bigger than the stream itself, there is a possibility that the stream will split in two separate forks, and go in two entirely different directions around the boulder. Doesn’t mean that one stream is present reality and the other is the alternate time line. It just means that both forks exist, and both are as equally real. It also doesn’t mean that at some point both forks can’t merge to become one stream again, on the other side of the boulder. Does this end my multiple loop theory. Not at all. This was an explanation for Seasons 1-5. I was expecting Season 6 to be anything goes. As the LAX fork continues, we see many, many differences in details from Season One’s Oceanic 815. Changes have certainly happened, and this time they are blatantly obvious. But a reset has happened, as expected. The Losties land in Los Angeles. What we didn’t anticipate was that the bomb most likely triggered a split in the time stream, and we have that reset, but we also have the Losties in 2007, because Jacob still needs them, and they cannot leave. Nothing is that simple, is it?
Comment: While this gives a decent overview of what we are seeing during Season 6, I didn’t have any definite answers as to what the series ending will look like. I have a few ideas now bouncing around in my skull, which I’m sure will leak out.

Desmond wakes up after 3 days of drugs and being unconscious. Somewhere out there, Scott Weiland is jealous. He wakes up to the horror of the Zoe monster. Why can’t we get any halfway decent characters this year? Lennon stunk. Doggen was meh. Zoe sucks. Zoe’s off camera family has entered witness protection programs out of sheer embarrassment. It isn’t impossible to play a scientist and not suck. Seriously. Desmond is told he is no longer in a hospital, which he would not have realized by waking up in what looks more like an airplane hanger than an ICU. Desmond is infuriated and beats Charles Widmore with an IV stand. Widmore’s appearance reminded me a bit of when he showed up to Locke’s bedside in the desert after Locke spun the frozen donkey wheel. Of course, much like with Locke, Widmore will be interested in giving Desmond a job to do. But first, he must tell Desmond that he cannot see Penny nor his son, but both are safe. This does set up a curious angle. Where exactly are the other Humes? Ben shot Desmond (season 5), and Widmore brought Desmond back to the island from the hospital. Desmond had no choice in this decision, throwing away Jacob’s philosophy for now. At this point, I don’t think Widmore is on team Jacob or team MIB or team CoCo. Charles is on team Widmore, as this island seems to have attracted more teams than the NCAA March Madness. Widmore’s goons hold Desmond down. Widmore repeats the same line from Season 5 that was first spoken by Eloise in the Lamppost “The island isn’t done with you yet. Jin is confused by Desmond’s return. Jin would be confused by shadow puppets. The Widmorites are preparing engines and various apparatus for a test of some sort. Tim Tebow recently failed it and his draft stock plummeted. I know we never really saw the full shape and size of the Hydra station before, just bits and pieces, but this looks more like the huge Tempest station than a facility to conduct experiments on polar bears. The testing is proceeding days ahead of schedule. They have bunnies. One rabbit is called Angstrom. Angstrom is a unit of length that is often used to measure the wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation or other scales of wavelengths of light. The test fails. Simmons goes to check on the circuitry, which is another word for two huge bagels standing up in a toaster oven. Some geophysics dummy decides to flip a switch when no one asked him to, and creates the world’s largest microwave burrito. Extra crispy KFC. Simmons is not happy. Or breathing. But he sure would look tasty sitting on a grill with a beer can up his ass. Simmons died doing what he loved doing best, being a insect on a summer night flying into a bug zapper. Simmons Toast Crunch is dead. Desmond sees the dead body and is a wee bit less than thrilled.

Simmons is carried out in something that resembles an empty microwave popcorn baggy. Widmore takes a moment to look him over. I don’t think the island will be healing him any time soon. Desmond is carried inside the bungalow full of electro magnetic generators, a chair, duct tape, and a complimentary beating from some thugs. All the comforts of a 3 star hotel in Camden, NJ. CW: if everything I’ve been told about you is true, you will be fine; then I will ask you to make a sacrifice. Who’s been talking to Charles and specifically about Desmond’s abilities? Does Charles know that Desmond turned the failsafe key and survived? Then has been able to get glimpses of the future, or loops, or whatever? Does Charles know Desmond can leap in time and come back? Well, other than maybe through Daniel’s journal, I don’t know how Charles knows. How many Facebook friends does Charles have? Desmond: what the blood hell do you know about sacrifice? Wrong question, stupid. Desmond, the correct question is “WHAT sacrifice?” You might want to know what he has in store for you. Desmond does not know fully about Widmore’s past, including time Charles spent on the island. CW: my son died on the island (Daniel), my daughter hates me (Penny), and I never met my grandson (young Charlie, Desmond and Penny’s kid). They need Desmond’s help or Penny and his son will be gone forever. You know, I don’t think Smokie has ever scanned Desmond, and despite having Locke’s memories, may not realize what an anomaly Desmond is. The wild card. Jin is still concerned. Boy, he doesn’t have much to do this week, but at least he hasn’t said the S word. CW: that man is the only person in the world that I am aware of that has survived a catastrophic electromagnetic event. Technically, so did Locke and Eko, but technically, they are both dead. That might not be a coincidence. MIB killed Mr Eko, and manipulated the death of John Locke, whose essence he has assumed. CW: I need to know he can do it again. Young Charles Frankenstein pulls the lever, and the bagels get hot and toasty. A bright light, like we saw at the Swan hatch before Desmond turned the key, like we saw when Ben and Locke turned the frozen donkey wheel, but I’m not quite sure if it’s similar to the time travel jump. Is Widmore setting a trap for MIB, or trying to move the island without actually having to leave the island, the side effect suffered by Ben and Locke. Can the island be moved without MIB and Jacob in tow. So that Widmore can claim the island, and MIB claims the world, and neither exists in the same time and space? Thoughts, people. Just random thoughts. Desmond screams for a little while, very likely loses control of his bowels, and is in the LAX airport terminal, looking for his luggage. Hurley tells him to try carousel 4, recognizing that Desmiond was on the plane. Desmond helps Claire with her bag, even offers her a ride, but Claire turns it down, since she has a sixth sense for making the right choice and Kate is only moments away from kidnapping her along with a taxi. Desmond tells Claire that he thinks her baby will be a boy. That’s not all that impressive. You could flip a coin. How about I bet you have a kid with a giant head. Or how about Your baby will be made of polar bear skull and buttons. George Minkowski, the communications officer from the Widmore Freighter in Season 4 is the limo driver for Desmond. He is the guy that couldn’t find a constant and died in time travel just before Desmond almost succumbed to the same fate. George offers to get him anything he needs, including a lady of the evening. Thankfully, Kate the Tramp doesn’t show up. And since it is mentioned that Desmond is not wearing a wedding ring…
From 6.1 LA X Part One
Desmond is on the plane, which is very unexpected. The mention of the word “brother” triggers a recollection in Jack, who queries Desmond if they have met before. Another notable thing about this scene is that Desmond is flashing what appears to be a wedding ring. There is zero way of knowing who he might be married to. Maybe Penny, maybe the girl he was engaged to before running off and joining the monastery, or somebody else.

Comment: This is troubling. Desmond clearly was wearing a ring in the season opener. This episode, we find out he is single. What the fock? Loop or continuity error? Bleeding between timelines?
Desmond is shown into the office of his employer in his office, Charles Widmore, and they share a hug. That was enormously uncomfortable. I’d rather hug a cactus than Charles Widmore. So, Widmore has an LA office. I thought he would be stationed in London still, but it’s different in this time line.

Desmond stares at a model sailboat, the same kind that he used to sail around the world, or at least as far as the island, the boat that was given to him by Libby. Widmore is holding a conversation on the phone regarding getting somebody released from prison. The paintings in Widmore’s office way back in Season 3 kept changing from scene to scene, giving key evidence of looping. This time, they stayed the same, with some question as to whether the frames were changing color, or if they were completely different painting on different walls, but were painting of balanced scales, with a white rock and black rock on either side. On both walls to the left and right of his desk I believe. I really didn’t pay as much attention as there where more interesting things happening. CW: did you know my son is a musician? Well, this must mean Daniel, since as a youngster, he was a piano prodigy. In this reality, Daniel is still playing music. As is Jack’s son. Widmore’s son put together a concert of classical music and EMO rock, with Drive Shaft, Charlie Pace’s band. Drive Shaft needs to play or Charles Widmore’s wife (Eloise) will destroy him. Huh. Is Charles taking figuratively or literally? Desmond agrees to babysit Charlie. CW is really laying it on thick: I can trust you, you really have the life, no family, no commitments, free of attachments. Desmond: I’m a blessed man. CW: A drink to your indispensability. He pours out the 60 year old McCutcheon’s scotch. CW: Nothing is too good for you. You know, we get it. We remember that Desmond wasn’t good enough for a swallow of the Scotch before. Now, the writers just laid it on super heavy, the complete opposite of what happened in the other reality to an absurd level. I had to cringe at the lack of subtlety. This show is being written by 3 year olds. Desmond walks up the steps of the courthouse, and looks at the reflection of himself in the glass pane of the front doors. A mirror angle again, as in all the LAX episodes. Charlie has been released, and this kid has a death wish. He strolls out into traffic, an unlike Nadia, manages to avoid being road kill. Charlie doesn’t give a fock about dying right now. When Desmond jumped into his previous life in Season 3, and asked for Widmore’s blessing for marrying Penny, he was rejected and walked outside the building. Charlie was on the sidewalk, playing the Oasis song Wonderwall, with the lyrics “whose gonna be the one to save me”. As of today, I wouldn’t be surprised if the real Oasis is singing on street corners too. This triggered Desmond’s memory. “Hey, don’t I know you? You were on the island too.” Charlie doesn’t remember. However, he was the catalyst to Desmond’s memories of another life. Desmond and Charlie are drinking in a bar. Desmond defends his status of being a lackey by saying he makes a lot of money and meets charming people. Charlie: Are you happy? No, you’re not. Have you ever been in love? This is sounding more and more like a typical awful George Clooney movie.
From 6.10 The Package
Which characters on this show have been able to hold onto their relationship in both time lines? Maybe Rose and Bernard? We don’t know about Desmond and Penny. Anyone?

Comment: I thought there was something odd happening with the love angle overall, but it might be even more important that anticipated. It was this episode.
Charlie talks about the plane, the US Marshall making him for carrying drugs, hiding in the bathroom, hitting turbulence, choking on a big bag of heroin, things going dark, slipping away into an abyss, then seeing a woman, they are together, always have been, will be, feeling of love, and then seeing a sodding idiot asking me if I’m OK. Sure, it always makes me happy to see people call Jack an idiot. But Charlie went into a detailed speech about Claire. It’s as if Charlie has taken the red Matrix pill, and is seeing through this timelines bullsh!!t. As if the characters are living some kind of fake existence, while the real world is back on the island, or somewhere else entirely. This timeline is just all wrong. Charlie: I’ve seen the truth. Desmond gives Charlie a choice: stay here and drink and watch his music career be exterminated, or come with Desmond and have the powerful Widmore owe him a favor. Charlie: that’s not much of a choice. Desmond: there is always a choice. I wonder if the characters at the end of the show will have a choice, to stay on the island, or live in Matrix world. You all everybody is playing on the radio, and I want that car to drive off a bridge. I hate that song anymore. Well, just my luck, it doesn’t take long for the car to obey my mind control. But please notice, the marina/pier that Desmond and Charlie drive off of is the exact same one that is the background of the photo that Desmond and Penny photo has, the famous picture that Desmond carries with him all over the island, the one that Naomi had in her possession. Creepy, huh? Charlie: I offer you a choice: get out of the car, or I’ll show you what I’m talking about. You might have thought that Charlie hit the gas pedal, but it turns out the car was a Toyota. As both Desmond and Charlie are facing a near death experience, Desmond is struggling to open the door to free Charlie. Charlie opens his eyes, creepily turns his head to the window of the car, and hold up his palm to the glass. Desmond sees simultaneous image of the Charlie death scene from the Looking Glass and “Not Penny’s Boat” written on his hand and this very moment. Desmond finally gets the door open, surfaces with Charlie, and pulls him to shore. When Desmond was saving Charlie’s life over and over, was it within loops, or simply different timelines? He was able to see his deaths on different tracks in different timelines, not that they were reliving the same timeline over and over. Hmm. That would be a game changer for my theories.

Desmond is being examined by a doctor in the hospital. He is being treated for a concussion and needs an MRI. As he is being strapped in, he is given a panic button. “Try not to press it, or we start all over again.” What the hell does that mean? A sly eference to pushing the button in the hatch, and everything starts over again every 108 minutes? A reference to loops? Hell, a reference to the fail safe key? I don’t know. As the MRI starts to bombard Desmond with radiation and recognition, Desmond panics at the memories of Penny and needs to be removed from the machine. Desmond is trying to get Charlie’s room number from a grumpy nurse, but she is having none of it. Hey, there’s Jack, let’s ask him. Jack is as understanding and helpful as if you were talking to a Pepsi machine. Charlie runs by like a 80 year old woman at a retirement home that simply does not want to wear any clothing and doesn’t want to be caught by the nurse chasing her with a robe. Maybe they were checking Charlie’s prostate, and he is still muling some heroin which he does not want to give up to the authorities. Desmond chases Charlie down several flights of stairs and corners him in a corner. Desmond: why were you trying to kill me? Charlie: I was trying to show you something, you saw something in the water, you felt it, none of this matters, just that we felt it, you should start looking for Penny. The takeaways: Charlie is able to see that this timeline is not important and simply fake. Thank God we didn’t see Charlie’s ass from the hole in the back of the gown. Charlie should get back on the heroin. Still, Charlie is again the guy that brings Desmond forward into an important phase of the end game of the show.

Desmond calls Widmore and declares that Charlie won’t be able to make it. Widmore doesn’t seem to care at all that Desmond almost died, but that Mrs. Widmore was going to kill him. Wow. In one time line, Charles is fighting the supernatural MIB, planning assaults on an island with commandos, and ransacking graves. In this timeline, he doesn’t want to upset his wife. Desmond is tasked with giving his wife the bad news. When Desmond arrives at the event, we see Eloise Hawking giving the staff a hard time. She is not only Charles’ wife, but she apparently has the time in her schedule to course correct the placement of a butter knife in a place setting, and spin a wondrous bouquet of cotton candy and glue it to the top of her head. Has she been standing in a wind tunnel all day? Did a sheep climb on top of her skull and fall asleep? Has she been known to yell “Off with their head!!!” at rabbits. Has she recently stuck her tongue into an electric socket? Does she get hair fashion tips from the Jersey Shore? Did Los Angeles recently have a purge of all hair conditioner factory workers? Desmond tells the Baroness of Bouffant that Drive Shaft will not be attending. She replies “don’t worry about it” which is so improbable of Eloise in any timeline, that even Desmond can’t accept the answer initially. It’s a malfunction in Desmond’s head, like the Matrix was so perfectly constructed, that humans initially rejected it. In fact, Eloise goes so far as to say employing rock stars brings with it an unpredictability. Again, something Eloise would not say. She is a precise woman and almost always knows what is going on, save for that one moment in the hospital after Desmond got shot by Ben. She is acting like the exact opposite of her other timeline self. For now. She further throws in a “Whatever happened, happened”, beating us over the head with yet another repetition of a well known phrase. As Desmond is walking away from the event tent, he overhears a conversation regarding the guest list. He catches the name “Penny Milton” and immediately stops to question it. Eloise says he absolutely cannot see the guest list, it is confidential. Why would he need to if he just heard the name. Penny Milton. There it is. What, you can’t spell it? Who cares? Just go and hang out by parking lot and keep asking every woman that arrives if her name is Penny. Eloise hackles are raised. Are you questioning me? That gave me an image of Beavis pulling his T-shirt over his head and giving his standard Bungholio character “Are you threatening me?” speech in many cartoon misadventures. Although you would need a termite tent to pull something over that Hawking hair. EH: Come with me.
From 6.10 The Package
Keamy proceeds to tape up Jin and go on a long rambling speech, given to someone who doesn’t understand English. Keamy: Just in case you forgot what’s about to happen on the island, can’t have you freaking out.” Say what? I rewound, and rewound, and rewound. This was dialogue that looked spliced in at the “island” part, and consider that sentence. Here is Keamy talking about strapping Jin in because of what’s going to happen on the island. Freighter exploding, perhaps, that threw Jin into the water? It’s as if Keamy knows stuff, super secret stuff. Or the two timelines are bleeding together, and this was some kind of merging point. But this is definitely 2004, not the current 2007 that the Losties and various other groups are a part of. Very, very odd...

From 6.10 The Package
W: Everybody would simply cease to be. Interesting choice of words. Not “die” but “cease to be”. Almost like saying you can die in one time line, but cease to be in many timelines. Maybe. As we’ve speculated in the past, especially around the time Sayid shot Ben in the heart, and the wound in the next episode was two feet away in another part of his chest. The island is an intersection of timelines, a merging, a very powerful point the many worlds that exist. The actions here affect many lives and many versions of the same lives. Maybe I’m just having another Mr Drinky McDrinkalot moment. Loops still happen, I’m almost sure.
Comment: Eloise Hawking is becoming a key bit of evidence of loops or multiple timelines or other such shenanigans. Not only does Eloise have super special powers, I think all of this, not just off island stuff, not necessarily having anything to do with Jacob vs MIB, but has something to do with Eloise trying to manipulate events into a timeline where she doesn't shot and kill her own son, Daniel. She has gone to great lengths to course correct and manipulate events to some end, and at this point I seriously doubt it's to help either Jacob or MIB. She may very well have fooled Widmore into helping by dangling a carrot of ruling the island or some other side benefit coming from harnessing the negatively charged matter inhabiting the island. Maybe Widmore is acting with full knowledge because Daniel was his son too. Eloise is trying to keep Desmond away from Daniel, Penny's half sister, which becomes an issue of simple proximity when you are dating the half sibling of someone. Daniel and Desmond are forever linked as constants through multiple timelines and/or loops. And Eloise knows it, from reading Daniel's journal, which was brought to the island before the Incident.
Daniel is watching in the background as his mother is scolding Desmond. Eloise: stop talking Hume, I want you to stop, someone has clearly affected the way you see things (Matrix), this is a problem, in fact a violation, whatever it is you think you are doing, whatever it is you are looking for, you need to stop looking for it. Desmond is looking a bit stunned. Eloise is very aware of this timeline, other timelines, and is unhappy that Desmond is becoming aware too. A violation of the rules, and we still haven’t seen the bloody rule book. Eloise continues: I don’t know why you are looking for anything, you have the perfect life, you’ve managed to attain what you’ve wanted more than anything, the approval of Charles Widmore. Desmond: How do you know what I want? Eloise: Because I bloody do. This is a familiar theme to this show this season, as Jacob, MIB, and now Eloise are either making or talking about the one thing that a person wants most. Sayid and Nadia, Sawyer and leaving the island, Claire and Aaron, Richard and immortality, now Desmond and Widmore’s blessing. I’m not so sure that is what he most desires, as you would think Penny would supersede Charles Widmore. Then again, Desmond could have gone off with Penny many different times, but he chose to enter the boat race, for example, rather than go and marry Penny. He wanted his cake and to eat it too. Eloise and Charles have been pushing Desmond in the other timeline constantly into specific situations. Eloise in Season 3 prevented Desmond from proposing to Penny. She sat on a bench outside of a ring store with Desmond and a bag of chestnuts, predicting the death of a man with red shoes, and watching as part of a construction site rained down on him. She said she couldn’t have stopped it. But how did she know in the first place that this was about to happen. Knowledge of loops? Sure? But the thought that she could have constructed a time line itself simply never dawned on me until this episode. It’s a possibility, in a logic defying sort of way. Eloise is living her “what do you want more than anything” moment by trying to save Daniel in another timeline. Desmond: Why can’t I see that list? Eloise: You are not ready yet, Desmond. Ready for what? Some kind of showdown with MIB on the island. Something off island? We know what Charles is working ahead of schedule on Hydra, and the two timelines seemed to be more connected with each passing episode. Seems almost like a double meaning, referring to the manifest list that Desmond will request in a little while. Desmond does what anybody else would do, and choke out Eloise. Or maybe he goes and wants to get drunk in his fancy car. No such luck in either case, as Daniel Widmore interrupts. So, in this timeline, Daniel, Eloise, and Charles have the same last name. In the other timeline, Penny and Charles share the last name of Widmore, but you also get Daniel Faraday and Eloise Hawking. The genealogy tree is more shuffled.

Daniel: do you believe in love at first site? So, am I to assume that over the next few weeks, LOST will be rolling out the concepts of déjà vu, life flashing before your eyes before you die, and day light savings time. Daniel is pie in the sky. At the museum where half the cast of LOST now apparently works at or visits (Miles, Dr Chang, Charlotte, Daniel), Daniel saw Charlotte eating a chocolate bar and knew that she was the one. Good thing she wasn’t eating soup, or Daniel might have thought she was a demon and tried to exorcise her evil spirits by beating her skull in with a hammer. Which would also work on grandma if she won’t give up the remote and insists on watching Wheel of Fortune. Too many hammer references? I can’t help it if I’d like to pet a fluffy bunny with a mallet. Daniel: it was like I already loved her. Daniel hasn’t even kissed this girl in two timelines. He is officially a multiple timeline stalker. How about this one, Daniel?
From 6.8 Recon
Still, odd that Charlotte was in Sawyer’s episode. But I guaran-dam-tee that in some plane of existence, Daniel Faraday is howling with rage…Fast forward, and Sawyer is lying in bed, snuggling with something that was fished out of a lake about 2 months after being dumped. Or a naked Charlotte. Who can tell the difference? Somewhere, Daniel is screaming Noooooooooooooooo!!!!!

So, how’s them Love At First Site apples taste, Daniel? I have no idea why I find Daniel’s misfortune so focking funny. Daniel: That night, I woke up and wrote this, I’m a musician, a friend said it was quantum mechanics, incredibly complex, something catastrophic is about to happen, the only way to stop it is to release a great deal of energy, to set off a nuclear bomb. That’s a really long description for I touched myself thinking about Charlotte. But Daniel is having other blood flow issues, specifically bleeding between the timelines. Sure he had a gift as a musician in the other time line, which Eloise put an end to and told him to study physics and math. Again, this timeline is almost like a Make a Wish Foundation timeline, but without the messy dying thing for the most part. Keamy and Omar have died a lot recently. Daniel is feeling this crossover without a near death experience like Desmond and Charlie. Daniel is feeling it through infatuation. Daniel: What if this wasn’t supposed to be our life, we changed things, I don’t want to set off a bomb, but I think I already did, why did you ask about Penny, you felt it didn’t you, you felt love. Daniel is really piling on the love angle. Again, Desmond felt Penny while almost drowning and then having his head microwaved for the umpteenth time. I agree that Daniel was not supposed to set off the bomb, and it’s something that really needs to be corrected. Take that Jack and your stupid “this is our destiny” from Season 5. The actions have to be corrected through Desmond. What if this wasn’t supposed to be our life? That pretty much sums up the LAX timeline. This is what shouldn’t be. Very poignant stuff from Daniel. Following the truth bombs from Eloise. This episode is just so full of higher concepts, my head is hurting from thinking about them. Desmond thinks Penny is an idea, but Daniel corrects him that she is his half sister, something we have assumed since Season 5. Daniel even knows where Penny is right now, making me wonder if there are enough hours in the day for all the stalking that Daniel does. Back to the stadium from Season 2, where Jack was running up and down the steps, and is overtaken by an in-training Desmond. The words “see you in another life, brother” have never been more appropriate. However, this time, it’s Penny running the steps. Now, Desmond looks like Stalky McStalkalot. There are more stalks in this episode than a Bloody Mary bar. Are you Penny? I’m Desmond. Help, police. Back on the island, Desmond wakes up with a tan. He’s only been unconscious for a few seconds, but he’s traveled through the wonders of space and seen other life inhabiting planets which would have been provable until James Woods erases 18 hours of space travel footage. Widmore: I’m sorry, but your talent is vital to our mission. Desmond: It’s alright, I understand, you said I’m here to do something important, when do we start? As we can theorize, a person can travel back and forth in time, like a train on tracks. Back and forth. It sure seems like Desmond has traveled every possible stretch of the train tracks. And every possible train in every possible timeline. Desmond seems awfully zen-like, like an all knowing and understanding being. He sees what needs to be done, and is prepared to do it. Widmore talked of sacrifice earlier, but if Desmond knows his sacrifice now, such as possibly luring the MIB into an electromagnetic based trap on the main island in an effort to trap/destroy MIB, will lead to Penny and little Charlie to live on happily in some timeline, Desmond is prepared to do it. He has seen how his life in LAX is unhappy. Zoe, a couple of redshirts, and Desmond go for a stroll through the jungle. Zoe: what happened? I swear, Zoe is Meg Griffin from Family Guy. Before Zoe can give Desmond his instructions for his upcoming activities, Sayid jumps out, breaks a couple of necks, and tells Zoe to run. Dam it. Why didn’t you kill Meg? And how many thugs does Widmore have left, as they seem to be dying off rather quickly. Sayid: Come with me, these people are dangerous. The Desmond Dali Lama follows Sayid. At what point of all this boat travel from island to island will we see who shot at Locke, Juliet, Sawyer, Miles, Charlotte, Daniel from Season 5 and the time traveling? Not sure if Desmond’s decision to follow Sayid was purely self preservation, or a strategic move based on what he knows from the brain fry he just experienced. At the stadium, Desmond has collapsed in front of Penny. Desmond has a penchant for passing out more frequently than a hot chick in a bar full of men with bulging pockets full of Roofies. Penny: Have we met before? She seems to have the same recognition thing going as Daniel did. Desmond asks Penny out for coffee. This is precisely what Juliet was talking about in the Swan hatch rubble this season when she was dying in Sawyer’s arms. She mumbled something about getting coffee sometime. Repetition, repetition, repetition. Desmond and Penny set a date to meet in an hour. As Desmond settles into his limo, Minkowski asks if he found what he was looking for? Interesting phrasing. Desmond asks George to secure the manifest from flight Oceanic 815, just the names of the passengers, because he needs to show them something. How Desmond expects a limo driver to get this kind of information…let’s suspend disbelief for now. Why would you not want to know the flight crew? Anyway, this echoes Hurley’s census on the island from Season 1, in reviewing the manifest. In this case, Desmond feels that they all share a common bond, and wants to see if they all can capture that feeling that is spreading more rapidly than Captain Tripps. The bleeding of the timelines is becoming a burst artery.

Happy with the episode, not happy that we are getting good episodes about every other week. We can still salvage this Season but the folks running LOST are running out of time. I’m assuming we get a Hurley episode next week. So expect to see a bunch of people we haven’t seen yet this season, as the LOST reunion tour continues.

Friday, April 9, 2010

6.10 The Package

Random thoughts. I thoroughly enjoy doing these writeups/recaps/rants following an episode that is fun, interesting, entertaining, worth rewatching several times. I can’t begin to explain how disappointed I was in this episode; I could barely get through it twice. Of course, it was the follow up to the epic Richard episode, so I went in with the lowest of expectations, and this cesspool of a suckfest didn’t come close to meeting that limbo stick. Yet another lollygagging waste of our time. I am done with any and all preview announcement or next week on LOST clips on Tuesday morning. I need a completely blank slate. As far as I’m concerned, this show ended with Juliet smashing the bomb at the bottom of the Swan shaft. I have to try to ignore this Season 6 like I try to do with the last seasons of Alias and X Files, episodes tacked onto the back of a cannon of overall goodness which does nothing but besmirch all the positiveness of the overall work. Many, many people want to simply give lip service and proclaim all is well, the show is as magnificent as ever. At the same time, I pledge to continue to tilt at windmills, fighting the unwinnable arguments. Jack is the most despicable character in TV history. I get physically ill when he opens his Forrest Gump mouth. I found a tomater. Derrrr. Life is like a box of tomaters. You never know when your wife is gonna die of AIDS. If Jack is to be the protector of the island and the world, I strongly recommend that the world cease to exist. I cannot live with the thought that Jack is some kind of savior. I have such a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach about the ending of this show. And let’s not forget that we have a scant handful of episodes remaining, and not much to show for it. Remember the hectic pace of Seasons 4 and 5, as is kept ratcheting up and up until spectacular volcanic season finales. Well, that makes two of us, because the LOST people sure don’t. Fock. This isn’t exactly going to be insightful or fun this week, ladies and gentlemen. Hey, I could spend hours making light of Widmore’s package, a playful use of words to describe old man balls. What’s the point? Higher expectations lead to greater results. Or it used to be like that. On with my weekly horsesh!!t. On yeah, no more LOST on replay on our cable system. Instead, I get to rewatch it on ABC on the internets while the stream freezes a couple of dozen times as I continue to tilt at computer virus windmills. For I am the Man of La Mensa. And Jack is the Man of La MushForBrains. Our brand new poll of Top 5 Worst Characters on LOST. Or inverse rank of intelligence. Either way.
5. Jacob
4. Sun
3. Kate
2. Old Stubborn Tomato
1. Jack.

Someone is using night vision goggles to spy on MIB’s camp, instead of a woman’s locker room. Let me be more specific. A woman’s locker room that is not affiliated with the WNBA in any way whatsoever. Yucky. So, the Widmorites have invaded LOST island. But, hasn’t MIB been pretty perceptive in nearly immediately greeting visitors to the island. He showed up fairly quickly to greet the Losties day one, the French people day one, and the Black Rock day one. Are you telling me he didn’t know the Widmorites were hanging around, watching him? Weak. Kate and Sawyer are sharing some cocoa. At least they’ve relegated Kate to a non persona. Truly, a silver lining in a bank of thunderheads. Jin is re-bandaging his leg, although MIB seems to think the air will do it some good. Some medicine might help, but I’m not a doctor. Again, I keep going back to the same point, how exactly do people heal quicker on the island. It’s not MIB or Jacob doing it, for the most part. Sawyer shared the cave information with Jin. MIB reemphasizes to us the viewer for the 17th time that he has no idea if the uncrossed off candidate name Kwon means Jin or Sun. Frankly, we just don’t care anymore. So, MIB claims that his master plan is to gather all the remaining candidates and leave the island with them. I suppose it makes some sense, in that there can be no replacement for Jacob if MIB wants to carry out whatever plan he has that he HASN’T shared with us. Another week, another episode without learning MIB’s name. I’m losing interest in that too. Jin’s money at the airport didn’t clear customs.
From 6.6 Sundown
Also, take note that Keamy is wearing a flashy watch, a watch that some Korean gentleman we know was taking to Los Angeles to deliver to an associate of Mr Paik’s. Sayid discovers Jin in a walk in fridge. Why is Jin tied up? Well, to speculate, Jin had trouble getting cash through customs at the airport. If they kept the cash at the airport, maybe Keamy was expecting a watch and the cash, maybe to receive for Widmore. But Jin shows up with no cash. Knucklehead Keamy figures Jin stole it, Jin can’t explain in English what happened, and Jin is tied up.

Not a shocker. To get the money back and avoid a big hassle, all Jin has to do is fill out some paperwork. But much like me and the census, Jin has no time to such paperwork nonsense. It would be nice if Sun knew some English, but this version of Sun apparently does not. So, I suppose she never had that affair with Jae Lee, her English tutor in Korea. Jin missed his meeting at the restaurant and has no idea what the cash he was asked to deliver was for. He is still a loyal employee, doing whatever Sun’s father, Mr. Paik, tells him. While they check into a hotel, we learn that Jin and Sun ask for separate rooms because they are not married. Was this supposed to be a Gotcha moment, or at least interesting. Yawn. MIB has an errand to run, and asks Sayid to keep an eye on camp while he is gone. Sayid doesn’t seem to understand Yes, boss, or Right away, boss, but responds that he doesn’t feel anything. I know exactly how Sayid feels as this episode unfolds. He doesn’t feel anger, happiness, pain. OK, I take that not feeling part of me back. I sure do feel some of those. Specifically anger and pain. I don’t feel happiness until bullets start flying in the restaurant. MIB: Maybe it’s best, to get through what is coming. I muster some hope that many of the main characters are going to die soon. Alas, not soon enough. As Jin is packing up, Sawyer tries to talk him out of it, mentioning his deal with Widmore. Jin is more interested in finding his wife, since he hasn’t seen her since Season 4, and he has needs. Hell, it’s been 3 years in Dharma a few other random weeks, and Sawyer doesn’t have his magazines with him. Darts come flying out, as Widmorites attack, and we have a scene reminiscent of one of many, many purges on the show. Instead of killing some of these acolytes, which would be smart, Widmorites take only Jin.

Frank and Miles are playing the worst strip poker game in history on the beach. Is there any other reason for poker cards? I can’t think of another game you can play with poker cards. Ben: now what? So, the man who said that he always has a plan, doesn’t have any plan. What the fock did they do to Ben’s character? Ben is worthless and rather lobotomized. What, you turned a ruthless cavalier into comedy relief? Yuck. Ilana says that Richard is coming back. I have a feeling that men’s pink sweater vest turtlenecks are coming back before Richard. But what do I know? Ben is skeptical as Miles speaks about Hurley chasing bacon grease throughout the jungle. Truth be told, if Hurley can smell about 150 years into the past, he could pick up the scent of Richard covered in roasted boar grease and failure. Ilana says they need to wait; Sun throws down the gauntlet, otherwise better known as a mango and a knife, and walks away without speaking. Thank God for the not speaking part. It’s bad enough she is annoying when speaking English; it will be suicide inducing to hear her jabbering in Korean and subtitles how much she needs to find Jin. Sun makes her way back to her old garden from 3 years ago, and decides to harvest some weeds in a very angry way. Jack goes to talk to her. He mentions that didn’t it feel like 100 years ago something, something. Look, if you don’t want to discuss loops, then make the characters stop dropping hints about it. Jack starts a grandiose speech about candidates and visiting Jacob’s lighthouse and mirrors and names and Sun rightfully interrupts and explains that she just doesn’t give a fock. She doesn’t care about their purpose or their destiny, she just wants to be left alone. Jin knocks on Sun’s hotel room. Sun doesn’t understand American custom and assumes that no one will be at the restaurant at 11: 30 so Jin can deliver the watch and empty box where the money should have been. She has never heard of the late night drive thru window. Jin accuses Sun of being in America for a shopping trip. Hmm, that 25 grand would come in handy for something like that. Sun explains that no one could possibly be watching them, especially on the plane, and starts a strip tease. Do you want me to button it? If it’s your mouth, yes, yes, a hundred times yes. Sun carries a certain arrogance with her in this time line, as if she is proud to be daddy’s rich little girl. Hey, what could possibly go wrong? You work for my father, and he is an important man. As Sun continues to destroy her sorry excuse for a garden and manages to cut herself, MIB pops out. MIB: I found your husband, as I promised you. You have to hand it to masquerading Locke, he kept his word. MIB offers to take Sun to Jin. Bingo. Sun has gotten what she wanted. Or not. NOW, Sun decides that she doesn’t believe someone. Sun: you killed people at the Temple. Pshaw. Sun didn’t even know anybody at the Temple, so what’s the bloody difference? MIB, noticeably without a knife hole in his shirt, “Those people were confused, they were lied to, I didn’t want to hurt them, they could have chosen to come with me, I would never ask you to do something against your will. A pretty compelling argument actually. Sun decides that she’s had about enough of the truth, and runs away. MIB for whatever reason does not turn into the faster mode of transportation as Smoke Monster, and chases Sun on foot. Sun, wait.

MIB is in hot pursuit. He is craving a Diablo sandwich and a Dr Pepper. And you better make is fast, cause he is in a God-dammed hurry. Sun makes the classic blunder of running and turns to look over her shoulder at her pursuer. Unfortunately for her, Sun trips over the “V” logo and runs face first into a rather thick tree branch. Whoo Hoo. Nice. Also, ABC just decided that they were going to cover over part of the screen at all times to promote the stupid V show, which was particularly offensive when Sun is writing something down at the end of the episode, and you can’t freaking see it. A pox on those who made this decision. Jin and Sun wake up in bed together. Sun gets the notion of running away together since she has some money socked away. In the island time line, Sun originally was going to run away by herself. Jin is less than impressed with the plan, and says as much. Sun has something to tell Jin, when a knock on the door interrupts the conversation. Left unsaid was that Sun is pregnant, but I doubt there is much of a guarantee that it’s Jin’s baby. While Jin hides, Sun takes a really long look at a mirror and seems troubled by what she sees. Yeah, a friggin’ monster. We get it, all the characters look in a mirror in the LAX timeline. You don’t have to be quite so obvious. Martin Keamy is at the door, back from the dead, and as quirky as ever. He’s a friend of Sun’s father so he simply invites himself in. Again, we see no evidence that Sun understands any English. It’s bit of a room invasion, if you will. Back on the island, Ben finds the semi conscious Sun, and there is no evidence that she can speak English any more, a mirror of the other timelne. MIB returns to his camp, and is somewhat concerned that his followers were attacked. It was fairly pronounced that there was a significant amount of white smoke wafting just over the bodies. Sure, it could have simply been the result of smoldering camp fires. Or something more significant. The first person MIB goes to is Sayid. Sayid is no help, as he is just as aware of what happened as he is whether he just took a dump in his pants. He feels nothing, you know. It may be slowly dawning on MIB that he may need to poke Sayid a few times a day with a stick so he doesn’t get bed sores. Jin is being held prisoner in Room 23, the brain washing room on Hydra island that Kate and Sawyer and Alex rescued Karl from back in Season 3. Looking for a way out, Jin turns off the lights. This is not Jin’s finest hour in using his wits. Yeah, that’s going to work, turning off the lights. He gets a blast of brainwashing projection, in between images. Think about your life. We are the cause of our own suffering. Everything changes. The lights come back on and the milquetoast Zoe steps out into the room. Why is this annoying person on my TV screen. Zoe stinks and I don’t like her. She explains that Dharma was doing experiments on subliminal messages in here. Fine, but when Karl was strapped down in this room, A Clockwork Orange style, there were plenty of Jacob messages being broadcast. So the Others were doing their share of brainwashing too. Include this in mysteries I didn’t care about and answers that waste our time. We already knew enough about Room 23. Really, we did. Zoe accuses Jin of knowing all about Dharma before tasering him trying to leave. She shows him some old grid maps that included identifying marks of electro magnetic pockets of energy and Jin’s signature. Jin certainly does not deny any of this. Jin was using grid maps to search for other Losties for a while in 1974-1977, and he was a very mobile part of LaFleur’s security team. Why Jin was busy with identifying the negatively charged matter pockets, I’m not sure. Jin is granted an audience with Charles Widmore. MIB gives Sayid a mission to go to Hydra island, armed. Without skipping a beat, MIB addresses a forlorn Courtney Love. What’s wrong Claire? C: you told Jin that his name is on the cave wall and need to take him off the island. Is my name on the wall? MIB answers No. However, I have to wonder since #313 is Littleton, and could very well be Claire, though the name is crossed off. Claire is feeling neglected and insecure, a bit like Karen from Goodfellas. MIB reassures her that he needs her, there is plenty of room on the plane. Claire is concerned that her son Aaron, who has the shape of a lollipop, because his head is enormous, won’t know who she is. Well, considering he has been cared for by Claire, Kate, Grandma Littleton, and possibly Claire again, I can’t imagine why he would think he is living in a lesbian cult. Is Kate on the wall? Psst, yes, she is. #51. MIB stumbles over his response. No, er, not anymore. Well, she isn’t crossed out at the Lighthouse. We never saw her name at the cave at all. MIB needs her, she can help him recruit the 3 other candidates from Jacob’s followers, Jack Hurley and Sun. After that, whatever happens, happens. MIB is using the same Faraday phrase that was all the rage last season. Repetition. Sawyer questions why MIB can’t turn into smoke and float to the other island. MIB: Don’t you think if I could, I would? Hold on, this makes no sense. MIB has been established as a guy that can be in two places at once, and has traveled back and forth between islands by boat. But he can’t cross the ocean in smoke form? Really? So, then how does he appear to Jack as Christian in the hospital in the flashfowards? How does he appear as Christian to Michael on the freighter? This does not make sense. The actual ghosts of these people are appearing around the world? How did he get over to Hydra to purge Ajira without floating? Sawyer: yeah, that would be ridiculous. Much the same as the writing. OK, so we have just established that Smokie can’t travel over water…well, sometimes he can, but let’s ignore that. This is why I pull hair out of my head. MIB tries to pretend he is doing a noble thing and getting one of our people back. Dammit. MIB is now acting as whiny as Jacob.

Sun gives the watch to Keamy. It is now established that Jin is Sun’s bodyguard in this timeline. I don’t know if that is any better than working as Mr Paik’s special assistant. I don’t know if that is any better than weighing polar bear sh!!t on Hydra island. Keamy’s henchman Omar puts in another LOST appearance, and both chuckleheads spot 2 wine glasses near the bed. While it’s true that this is an obvious plot device in many TV shows and movies in revealing that more than one person is in the room, if Sun was let’s say a drunkard that wants multiple glasses around his place so that no matter where he wanders off to, say the toiler or fridge or back to the toilet, there is always a drink awaiting my return wherever I go. I have about 18 drinks in my house at any given time, not including drinks spilled on the floor, which require a straw instead. And I haven’t had a guest over in a decade. FACE. They quickly find Jin hiding in the bathroom. It would have been a much more civilized hiding spot if there was a drink waiting for Jin. “Where iz za money, Lebowski?” Keamy shows an appreciation for great cinema with an observation that this is a friggin’ Godzilla movie. And he means the Matthew Broderick sh!!tstorm. Keamy wants to bring in translator Mikhail, Danny’s friend. Don’t let the reference to Danny pass you by. Danny was the Other that was pounding the crap out of Sawyer at the polar bear cages. His wife Colleen was shot and killed by Sun on Desmond’s sailboat at the start of Season 3. Anyway, Mikhail speaks 9 languages, which is pretty impressive. He also has two peepers, which is off putting. He translates to Keamy about the money being held up at customs. The plan is for Sun to go to the bank with Mikhail, and Jin to go to the restaurant with everybody else. They could have decided to go to customs and fill out the paperwork, but that is too boring. Well, more boring that this episode at least. Jin shows a sudden impulsive side, in other words a stupid side. J: Don’t tell Mr Paik about us. Yeah, because that isn’t going to lead to blackmail, dummy. Keamy is now doing a borderline Christopher Walken impression. Don’t worry. You’re secret is safe with me. Given how Keamy is an uncaring thug, not willing to give Sayid’s brother a break, what are the odds that Keamy is going to be tightlipped for Jin? Pffft. Ricky Martin asked Keamy not the spill the beans on his sexual orientation, but we all knew he was a princess about 10 years ago, so that didn’t work out too well either. Ilana is giving Ben a hard time about finding Sun in the jungle. Ben protests his innocence. Miss Sassy Pants invited Ben to be part of the group. Now, she is casting aspersions on her buddy. Just for disrespecting Ben like that, I want her to be the next one that dies. What has become of our used-to-be favorite maniac Ben? He is now arguably the most useless character on either island, with the possible exception of Skull Baby, Zack, and Emma. Oh, I take that back. I would never insult Skull Baby like that. Skull Baby is the bee’s knees, the cat’s pajamas, and the snake’s hip. Jack reasons that she hit her head, forgot how to talk English, it’s not unusual but temporary, and Sun will be OK. This is as convincing as Harvey Keitel’s You’re gonna be OK speech from Reservoir Dogs, just before somebody lost an ear and got doused in gasoline. Miss Gloomy Gus breaks into some kind of face contortion that is part Jack O’Lantern grin, part grimace. And by grimace, I mean that stupid fat purple puppet for some God forsaken fast foot place. I originally meant fast food, but somehow foot seemed more of a realistic food critique. Richard is back. I have to give the blithering idiot some credit. He has done the nearly impossible on LOST island. Put together a couple of facts to think up a plan of action. I mean, we could watch the Losties eat mangos for the next 6 episodes and have the series end….ah…on second thought, I pray that nobody important read that, especially a LOST writer, and a light bulb just popped up over his/her head. MIB arrives by boat at the Hydra, where the pylons are up and running. It doesn’t seem realistic that they brought enough to surround the entire island, but there must have been enough awkward, crappy looking props to surround the plane (just past the trees at the edge of the beach), the brainwashing barrack, and other strategic locations. I don’t see how it would be possible to surround the submarine. I don’t know how a slight ocean breeze doesn’t knock over a row. Some shots are fired at MIB, and unlike the fate suffered by Bram and his goons at the statue foot at the start of this season, MIB does not turn into Smoke upon being provoked. MIB declares that he comes in peace. Widmore comes out to have a chat. Each character goes through a “Do you know who I am?” self indulgent pat on the back. CW: Everything I know is myth, ghost stories, and jungle noises in the night. MIB thinks Charles knows more than he lets on, using the pylons as an example. Widmore denies taking Jin. Is kidnapping a candidate against the rules? And isn’t Widmore taking an awfully large gamble that Jin is the right Kwon to begin with? If Sun is the right person, then MIB could very well be able to gather all the right candidates anyway. Shouldn’t Widmore’s group have taken Jin and maybe Kate or Sawyer? Just to be sure. If you are going to recruit, you might as well grab as many as you can. No, Widmore has more mysterious motives than he is letting on. He is much more concerned with the island and it’s energy than MIB’s escape, I think. He can claim differently, the proof will be in the pudding. MIB throws Widmore’s own words, spoken to John Locke, right at him. “A wise man once said that a war was coming to this island. Well, consider it broughtened.” They have trouble establishing a time for their cheerleading competition, but promise to post at each other’s Facebook page. Richard hatches his plan. Since MIB is headed to the Hydra island, and that is where the Ajira plane is, and MIB wants to leave the island, they need to destroy the plane. Sigh.
From 6.8 Recon
…and gives him hope of flying off the island. Sawyer never stops to think how much open land they would need to taxi a plane, get rolling, and actually take off. There is no way Frank is going to get the Ajira plane off the ground. No way. Plus, when they landed, a branch went through the windshield and shish kabobbed the co-pilot to death. I don’t think there is a Plane Windshield hatch on the island, so that plane is just a bigger waste of space than Zach.

Sun is less than pleased by the thought of destroying the only thing that can get them off the island. Unless you consider the sub, a raft, rebuilding the Black Rock, the outrigger canoe, and the various boats the Others have/had, including Desmond’s sailboat. Oh, and the frozen donkey wheel. But there is no way off the island other than that. Sun goes on a tirade that no one understands, a very smart use of everybody’s time. She starts out by calling Richard an idiot, which was either very perceptive, very ironic, or both. She then calls him insane. I came back here to save my husband and bring him home, not save the world. Well, now we know for sure, she is an idiot too. What an amazing micro view of the situation. Me. Me. Me. Never mind that neither you nor your husband will exist if nobody saves the world. It’s no wonder Sun can not speak English anymore. When Locke lost his faith, he lost the use of his legs (when he and Boone found Yemi’s plane) or lost his voice (when the Swan hatch blew up). While Locke was able to fight through his faith crisis, Sun has shown zero, absolutely none, zip, nada faith in the island or any high concepts that are happening all around her. She is an agnostic. All she knows is what she sees and only what is important to her. Sun: You need me, she said I’m important, I’m not going anywhere.” I don’t know why they kept her around for 6 seasons, but Sun has been useless since she saved Shannon’s life with eucalyptus paste in Season 1. During Sun’s meltdown, Richard looks at Jack. Jack looks back and shrugs. Ah, there’s our Jack. The same priceless DUNNO look on his face when they reach Jughead in Season 5 and Richard asks Jack What’s next. I dunno. Duh. You just know he wants to stick a finger up his nose. Miles: "Fifty bucks the Jack kid picks his nose". Hurley: “Fifty bucks more says he eats it...Man that kid'll eat anything." Well, they should have said it. At the bank, Sun has run into a problem and run out of money. Her super secret account was closed by her father and drained of all funds. Sun doesn’t understand why. Even Mikhail rolls his two eyes at that one. Omar is a bit rough is putting Jin in the walk in fridge in the restaurant. I believe the same head wound Jin had in the brainwashing room on Hydra island was the same wound he just got from selling hello to a door with his skull. Keamy reprimands him before sending him on an errand to pick up Sayid. Keamy proceeds to tape up Jin and go on a long rambling speech, given to someone who doesn’t understand English. Keamy: Just in case you forgot what’s about to happen on the island, can’t have you freaking out.” Say what? I rewound, and rewound, and rewound. This was dialogue that looked spliced in at the “island” part, and consider that sentence. Here is Keamy talking about strapping Jin in because of what’s going to happen on the island. Freighter exploding, perhaps, that threw Jin into the water? It’s as if Keamy knows stuff, super secret stuff. Or the two timelines are bleeding together, and this was some kind of merging point. But this is definitely 2004, not the current 2007 that the Losties and various other groups are a part of. Very, very odd. Keamy explains that he was the one that turned in Jin and Sun to Mr Paik about the affair and the 25 grand that is missing was a reward for Keamy. Jin broke the cardinal rule of “hands off the boss’s daughter. To be fair, Keamy is making the clichéd mistake of the bad guy explaining the plot to the audience just before getting killed. Keamy: Some people just aren’t meant to be together. Keamy is a rather intelligent moron. Which characters on this show have been able to hold onto their relationship in both time lines? Maybe Rose and Bernard? We don’t know about Desmond and Penny. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Widmore is cranky at Zoe about Jin’s abduction. That wasn’t supposed to happen for days. Zoe: maybe you should have put a mercenary in charge rather than a geophysicist. Shades of the freighter arrival, when Naomi was the mercenary in charge of a substance abuse pilot, a physicist, an archeologist, and a guy that can speak to the dead. Widmore breaks out the Sawyer line “What’s done is done” yet another repetition in dialogue this season. The package is to be taken to the infirmary, a pretty good clue that it’s a person since last I checked luggage doesn’t need Valtrex. Widmore gives Sun’s camera from her luggage to Jin so he can see some baby pictures of her daughter. Her daughter looks like a Tribble from Star Trek fame. What’s with this show and ugly children? Jin gets emotional at seeing his ugly daughter for the first time. Is ugly too harsh of a word? How about Jin gets emotional thinking about the plastic surgery bills he will have to pay in the future. That’s more subtle I think. Widmore knows that Jin wants to be reunited with his wife and child, but that would be short lived if that thing masquerading as John Locke were able to leave the island. This is exactly the speech that Jack or Richard needed to give to Sun on the other island to keep her in line. Terse and unflappably logical. I’m starting to really warm up to this Widmore guy. W: Everybody would simply cease to be. Interesting choice of words. Not “die” but “cease to be”. Almost like saying you can die in one time line, but cease to be in many timelines. Maybe. As we’ve speculated in the past, especially around the time Sayid shot Ben in the heart, and the wound in the next episode was two feet away in another part of his chest. The island is an intersection of timelines, a merging, a very powerful point the many worlds that exist. The actions here affect many lives and many versions of the same lives. Maybe I’m just having another Mr Drinky McDrinkalot moment. Loops still happen, I’m almost sure. Carrying on. Widmore has to make sure that this doesn’t happen and wants to show Jin his package. I hate to break the news to Widmore, but some people just aren’t meant to be together.

Jin is listening to the apparently fast forward scene of Sayid and Keamy’s eggciting restaurant confrontation. Jin’s kicking on the door brings Sayid to his apparent aide. Sayid gives a “Who are you?” as I’m trying to figure out if he is looking much more dazed and confused now that he did a couple of episodes ago when he found Jin at our first view of this scene, but I’m too lazy to find to go find it right now. Sayid looks like he dipped into whatever stash of hash Frank’s character has been bringing to the set. S: I don’t know why you are here, and I don’t care. This mimics the speech Sayid gave to MIB earlier in the episode of how he doesn’t feel anything anymore. Sayid manages to find some humanity, and gives Jin a box cutter to cut himself out with, and even wished him good luck. Mikhail and Sun are late to arrive at the restaurant purge. Keamy is still alive, and as Mikhail tends to him, Keamy calls him an idiot and says looks behind you. Yet another cardinal mistake made by a character, yet another scene of somebody being called idiot in this episode, other than by me. I think it’s been three times already by other people. Jin: put the gun down, or I’ll kill you. Jin simply is not capable of pulling the trigger in either time line. Sure, he is very capable of martial arts, but doesn’t have the package to kill. Mikhail correctly reasons that Jin could not have killed Keamy and his men or he would have shot Mikhail by now, so a struggle ensues and several bullets are sprayed around the kitchen. That poor cleaning crew. This fight didn’t last as long as the first Jin and Mikhail fight in the jungle during the Naomi rescue. Mikhail grabs a knife, which is a bad thing to bring to a gun fight, and Jin finally manages to pull the trigger. A nice touch in putting one in Mikhail’s eye. The question will be, is Mikhail really dead? Or will he heal and magically show up at Halloween and attack Jin. Maybe kill Charlie in the process. And a few naked co-ed girls. Then chase Jamie Lee Curtis who is having a hard time running with her perpetual diarrhea. Just before the gun fight, Jin ordered Sun to move out of the way. So, of course, Sun moved directly into the line of fire. Sun has been shot in the gut, and her hands are blood soaked. Sun: I’m pregnant. Worst home pregnancy test ever. Jin picks her up. We are left to speculate. In the regular timeline, Jin is incapable of getting Sun pregnant due to shooting blanks. This is resolved on the island, as Juliet tells us the island turns sperm into super sperm. So, in LAX, is Jin capable to knocking up Sun? I really don’t care, but thought I should point this out. Sun is sitting on a rather angry beach with angry surf and surly sand. Remember how calm and beautiful the beach was during Season 1? Jack comes by with a Sharpie and a notebook. Then, we get to hear quite possibly the worst speech given in the history of ever. Jack: Guess what I found in the garden? One. Stubborn. Tomato. I guess someone forgot to tell him he was supposed to die. Seriously, this is a cavalcade of stupidity. If I ever see a neighbor plant any tomatoes around here, I will burn them to the ground and salt the earth. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been so disgusted by a vegetable in my life. Yes, I’m talking about Jack. I drink half a glass of V8 juice every morning. I can’t do it anymore. I looked at the bottle, the bottle looked back at me, and I couldn’t face it anymore. I was just so embarrassed for the actor playing Jack having to say One Stubborn Tomato. He could have said “I feel like a fried egg!!” and it would have possibly less idiotic. I would rather be chased through a labyrinth by AIDS patients with weeping sores than listen to Jack say anything, including “Yep”, “Nope”, and “Gurgle” as he is being choked by the string that attaches one of his mittens to his other mitten. We have officially hit rock bottom of LOST. It can’t get any worse, can it? The dialogue is being written by 5 year olds. Jack: It’s not the first time somebody told me to leave them alone. Yeah, Yah think? Like your ex-wife, dead father, your untalented son in LAX, Kate, Hurley in the last episode when he told you to beat it. Do I need to continue the list? Sun explains in writing that Locke claimed to have Jin, but she didn’t trust him. You’ve been chasing Jin for years, but turn down a chance to reunite, you dumb tomato. Jack: Do you trust me? Sure we do Jack. Because your decision to move to the caves lasted a couple of episodes. The decision to willingly walk into Michael’s trap with the Others was brilliant. How many times did you turn over guns to the Others. How about exiting the underwater Hydra hatch and almost drowning? Calling the freighter despite Locke’s and Ben’s warnings? Brilliant!!! Leaving the island with the Oceanic 6? Winner!! Blowing up the hydrogen bomb? Who knows? Jack has done nothing right. EVER. Sun: Yes. Jack holds out his hand, which is noticeably covered in sand. Not only would I not put Jack in charge of the island and in charge of keeping MIB here, but I wouldn’t trust him to guard a litter box, which he has just shown he is incapable of doing. The emperor wears no clothes, mother fockers. Somebody has to listen to me. ARRRRRRRGHGGHGHGHGH@#^@^^Y^ U6tpisodpfg *&(**#^J…I just spent an uncomfortable moment typing with my face, but I seemed to have calmed down somewhat. Jack-ass: Come with me, I’ll help you find Jin. Jack gives Sun the MIB speech from Season 5, promising the same exact thing. J: I’ll get you both on the plane, get you as far away from this island as you can get, I promise. Notice that Jack didn’t say he was coming with them. You, You, You. Not we. Sun takes Jack’s poo hand, something that MIB failed as he tried to get Kate, Sawyer, and other folks to shake his hand at various times. Too much hand shaking, not enough Purell. At MIB’s camp, Sawyer makes embarrassingly bad small talk with Kate. Sawyer is concerned about how his plans are being undermined, but thinks it will all be over soon. Sure it will. A couple more episode about tomatoes and sunflowers and it will be all over. Sawyer seems to think Widmore will get the drop on MIB. Um, Sawyer does realize that he who looks like Locke is the Smoke Monster. Who the hell do you think will win in a battle? I got my money on Smokie. Well, here comes MIB, so guess who’s screwed? MIB explains they denied having Jin, doesn’t like secrets, and wanted to see what they were protecting. Sayid surfaces at the Hydra pier. I am left to wonder if Sayid needs to even breathe at this point. Zoe and some Widmore boob are dragging a tranquilized person along the boardwalk. Drugs are not uncommon for a submarine trip to the island. Or if you are a pilot. It’s Desmond.
From 6.8 Recon
Since Widmore was able to return to the island, and was most likely aware of the Ajira disappearance and the gathering of the candidates to return, he may very well have abducted somebody to help the submarine gain access to the island. The island always gets you. Perhaps Desmond?

The island is not done with Desmond, as Eloise Hawking predicted at the Lamp post hatch under the church in Los Angeles. Desmond is rather surprised to see Sayid. Then again, I bet Desmond right now would have been surprised to see a lily pad. When we last left him, he was in the hospital after being attacked by Ben on the pier by his boat. His mother and father, Eloise Hawking and Charles Widmore, were seen talking outside Desmond’s hospital. Sure does seem that Charles has kidnapped Desmond. As Daniel Faraday said, Desmond is extraordinary special and the rules don’t apply to him. He is a game changer who has been course corrected and manipulated all his life, and it looks like we will be finding out why fairly soon. Maybe. Stupid writers.