Sunday, May 16, 2010

6.15 Across The Sea

Random thoughts. “This” is what they were planning for six seasons? THIS? Doomed. Motherfocking doomed. It’s over. I want to apologize to the X-Files. For years, I swore up and down that it was the greatest TV show ever. Then LOST came along, and was terrific until Juliet bludgeoned a hydrogen bomb with a rock. Since that moment, LOST has been a tremendous disappointment to me and a growing number of restless and increasingly frustrated fans that I communicate with. So, once again, X-Files is the greatest show of all time, while LOST is probably good enough for Top 3. I suppose this is an example of the universe course correcting. Executive producers Lindelof and Cuse have been doing tons of press over the last few days. They must have been anticipating doing a victory lap for the show and upcoming finale. Instead, they are being put on the defensive by largely poor reviews of Across The Sea. They’ve gone so far as to criticize fans for being negative. Apparently, they just want to answer the questions relevant to the main characters of the show, the Losties, and all other mysteries will be ignored. A show largely built upon mysteries will not deal with answering many of those mysteries. Unbelievable. You can try to sell the show as being about the characters at this late hour, but honestly, does anybody give a sh!t about these characters that are left? For the most part, all of the characters were and remain morally reprehensible people and I can’t think of any that have changed for the better, if they are even still alive. This island is Lord of the Flies. The best characters on the show for me were Smoke Monster, Locke, Ben, Mr Eko, Juliet, Desmond, Keamy. Smoke doesn’t seem as cool anymore, even though Terry O’Quinn is doing some great acting. Ben’s character has been dreadful since he stabbed Jacob. Juliet is dead. Mr Eko is dead. Desmond has barely been a part of the show the last 2 seasons. Keamy dead. Jack? Kate? Hurley? Don’t care. Don’t care. Don’t care. Jacob? Jacob can cram it up his cram hole. Fock Jacob. I swear on all things holy, Jacob looks about as bright as a veal waiting for an axe to take of its corn fed head. There is deep undercurrent of stupidity between Jacob’s ears. Not only have I been a charter member of Team MIB from the beginning, I’ve been bashing Jacob almost every week. And I feel very vindicated. The only morally pure character on this show is probably MIB, who has been built up to be the villain. And don’t give me Hurley. Hurley is responsible for many deaths. The deck that collapsed. Tricia Tanaka hit by a meteor. And her cameraman. What a bizarre corner the writers have painted themselves into. MIB is actually the hero, a week after they claimed that MIB was pure evil for hiding a bomb in Jack’s backpack. Unfortunately, I am a man of attention to detail. I spend time analyzing and picking apart a show I care quite a bit about. This show has either gotten lazy and sloppy in writing, filming, presenting details, or indeed this show is a cut and paste of different scenes from various time loops, and I don’t think the writers are that smart. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. My expectations for the show this season were probably unrealistic. I wanted explanations to some of the great all encompassing mysteries of the show. That’s not asking for a lot, is it? Instead, we get episodes based on Hurley getting a kiss and MIB sitting on a log while whittling. So much wasted time. They can’t find time to answer who shot at Sawyer and the gang while time traveling in the boat because the scripts are just jam packed with scenes of Jack staring out at the ocean and giving speeches about the destiny of tomatoes. Paddle from one island to the other island and back. Repeat. Much to my surprise, I recently googled the title of the blog where these write-ups call home “Lost…his mind” and noted that some of the writeups pop up in the top 20 of 172 million entries for that sequence of words. I suppose that some folks must be reading this crap that I type week after grueling week. Maybe as many as a dozen. I wish I could say something classy, tasteful, and inspirational, but that just wouldn’t be my style. I’m narcissistic, delusional, angry, and have borderline sociopathic tendencies. At least that’s what my kindergarten teacher said. While these are great adjectives to describe myself in a craigslist ad, I must defend myself and add that I would never kill anybody until at least the third time I met them because I’m a gentleman. With the exception of Oprah, who needs to beaten to death with a sock full of scorpions as soon as I can find a sock without a hole. So let’s buckle up and try to review this stupid, illogical, steaming pile of crap. Not the writeup, I mean the episode. Well, maybe I mean both. Want to fight about it?

As best as we can tell, about 2000 years ago, a person is seen floating in the water off the shore of LOST island. It’s not Jin, not Rousseau, not Frank, and it’s not screaming for Walt. Rather, it’s some woman dressed in Roman style clothing, having just attended a frat party at Animal House was just left outside the front door of town mayor’s house. I wish they would have explained how the boat she was on was destroyed, but I bet it was for singing some folk song about cherries on a staircase and Brother Bluto was not amused. She washes up on the beach and wakes up with a mouth full of sand, which in the southern United States they call grits. She is pregnant, much like Claire was when she arrived on the island, but is not so lucky to have a heroin addict to cater to her every whim. The woman finds a creek and takes time to wash the icky out of her mouth. Someone suddenly appears over her reflection in the creek, much like Smokie was sneaking up on Mr Eko in Season 3 in the episode where Eko gets a sound thrashing. A woman speaking Latin offers assistance. Good thing she wasn’t speaking Latino or else she would be the focus of a partisan political tug of war. The shipwrecked woman’s name is Claudia. But her friends call her Claudia. Claudia asks the woman, from now on I’ll call her Mother, questions such as how did you get here. “I got here by accident” It is strange how people seem to be brought to the island…oh, who cares. We didn’t learn much of anything from this opening scene. It was just boring crap. Mother was guarded with her responses with crappity crap like “Every question I answer will lead to another question” which is pretty much a snarky comment to fans of the show to stop expecting to learn much in the final episodes. Because I need another 43 minutes wasted on Jack trying to convince Locke to have a surgery. Mother says that if there are other people on the island, she will find them, again exhibiting a property associated with Smoke Monster, as he seems to be pretty quick in finding new people on the island. Black Rock, the French team, the Losties. Mother seems to have Smokie properties all throughout the episode, purging, judging, manipulating. Claudia goes into labor and pops out two kids as if she was in a watermelon spitting contest. The first is named Jacob. The second one is a surprise, so Claudia doesn’t have another name ready. This may or may not be the reason Mother goes a little nuts, but she picks up a rock and caves in the skull of Claudia. There were many, many blows to the head as Mother gurgled with primal rage. Or what I call a great first date. Mother was polite enough to say “I’m sorry” before the whacking, so you have to be impressed with her sparking manners if not her charming howls of rage.

So, about 13 years later, MIB finds an Egyptian game called Senet buried in the sand of a beach. I’d like to see the entire Senate buried up to the their necks in the sand just as the tide starts to roll in. A young Jacob, the same kid that MIB has been seeing on the island in present time, agrees to play the game with MIB. MIB claims he just knows the rules somehow. Either that or he is making them up as he goes along. I don’t think Jacob wins at this game all that often. MIB is the carnie, Jacob is the rube. Jacob is instructed to not tell Mother about the game. Back at their cave home, Jacob arrives to see Mother weaving on her loom. Not satisfied with Jacob’s response to what have you been doing, Mother pulls out the “do you love me?” card, and Jacob confesses everything. There is no doubt that a Norman Bates personality is bubbling under the skin of Jacob. A momma’s boy, a sad sack, unable to face his mother, crumbling at the first sign of disapproval, an unhealthy emotional relationship, and a constant need for attention. Jacob is somebody in a horror movie that you root for to lose his head somewhere along the way. Mother goes to confront MIB at the beach. During the course of the conversation, Mother notes that Jacob does not know how to lie. I can’t fathom the inability to lie short of having a mental defect. Well, it is Jacob after all. Mother thinks MIB is special. Compared to Jacob, a soiled baby diaper. As this episode progresses, you can now see why Jack is the guy to take over for Jacob. You have to be an idiot to be the guardian. Mother starts to instill a curiosity in MIB. Mother: there is nothing across the sea, the island is all there is. Well I can see why she didn’t get the job with the travel agency. She can’t explain where her mother is, because she is dead. MIB: what’s dead? Evangeline Lilly’s career in about 3 episodes. Mother: something you will never have to worry about. I wonder how much of the future Mother can see and if she knows MIB will be transformed into Smokie in about 30 years. Young MIB and Jacob chase a boar through the jungle. They are just in time to see other people kill the same boar. They run to tell Mother. Mother: they do not belong here, we are here for a reason. Well, somebody lives in a gated community. Sniff. A conflicted Mother blindfolds Jacob and MIB and leads them into the jungle. In the past, with the absence of piƱatas on the island, Mother has strung up a boar for the boys to hit with sticks while blindfolded. The winner knocks the guts out of the rotting carcass. Mother was never actually all that much fun. Mother: all men are dangerous, they come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt, it always ends the same. Sure, in divorce court. Also, these are words that MIB said to Jacob during the Season 5 finale. Mother: I’ve made it so you can never hurt each other. Actually, the statement ended up being completely wrong on every level. Sure, you could argue that MIB can’t kill Jacob directly, and needed Ben to stab Jacob. But this rule certainly did not apply to this episode as we progress. They arrive at a cave of bright yellow light, as if someone was hiding a gleaming pot of gold inside. The Leprechaun Cave. Whatever was inside the suitcase in Pulp Fiction. A place where Hurley can microwave Hot Pockets. Mother: don’t go in there, but inside is the warmest, brightest light you’ve ever seen or felt. Well, if you don’t want anybody going inside, why give them incentive? Hey, son, you see this wall socket? Well, take this fork and do not, I really mean it, do not stick it in there. You come back in 5 minutes and your child’s hair is on fire. Great. Now let’s go tell your sister. And how would you know how the light feels if you didn’t go inside and feel it? It’s like saying sex is like warm apple pie, but you may not be so inclined to take somebody’s word for it. Which only leads to problems in the supermarket’s dessert aisle. Mother: a little bit of light is inside everybody. What the fock? First of all, this is the negatively charged exotic matter that Dr Chang talked about in the Orientation film that Locke watched in the Orchid hatch as Ben was preparing to move the island. That matter is what bends time and space, the mystery property on the island. Something that is theorized to be part of wormhole construction. It does not exist on this planet. It could be radioactive. But it’s the light that is inside everybody. Bullfockingshit. Inside all of us? I’ve taken lots of dumps in my lifetime, and believe me, none of it ever glowed and only some of them felt warm. Man is always wanting a little more of the light. I can think of 700 things off the top of my head that I would want more than a magical night light, and that includes a nicely cooked piece of fish. Well, I suppose this is the Widmore explanation. He has seen the light, craves more, and has a map of some of the electro magnetic locations around the island. So, I guess that completes the Widmore story arc and he is probably going to be killed soon. Of course, we won’t get more information on Widmore and solve any of his mysteries. He’ll just suddenly die. I wonder if Desmond is back in the will? If the light goes out here, it goes out everywhere. When did LOST become an Aesop fable? When will we see the Gingerbread House hatch and Gumdrop Falls? Mother: I’ve protected this place, but I can’t do it forever. So, even though you can be practically immortal on the island, at some point you get so friggin’ bored with your life that you have to find some unwilling dupe and make them take over for you. Again, Jack is a perfect patsy. I’m coming around on this whole Village Idiot Protector of the Island. Mother: it will have to be one of you. Well, I don’t see a whole lot of other options here.

MIB and Jacob are playing their Egyptian game. It stands to reason that Egyptians were on the island, built the Temple and statue and other stuff, but we are not going to get any information on that era I suppose. MIB: you have to follow the rules, one day you can make up your own game and everybody will have to follow yours. Pretty telling summation of what is happening on the island right now. Jacob made up a set of rules, like MIB can’t harm the candidates, MIB and Jacob cannot kill each other, MIB can’t leave the island, etc. and MIB needs to follow the rules while trying to win. The endgame was to find a way off the island, which includes killing Jacob and all of the candidates. MIB sees Claudia, but Jacob cannot. MIB follows. Claudia: I’m dead. MIB surprisingly didn’t say “I don’t know what that means.” I want to show you where you came from. Instead of lifting up her skirt, she leads him to a village on the island, built by the survivors of Claudia’s shipwreck. Claudia: there are many things across the sea. War, famine, the plague, stadiums full of spectators watching Russell Crowe fight lions, and did I mention the plague? Sounds dreamy. It seems like a number of things are playing up the idea of leaving the island to MIB. Is this really the spirit of MIB’s mother, or a manifestation of Smokie, buried in the microwave cave, trying to manipulate in order to find a means of escape. Smokie could be using the image of somebody that has died. Claudia: she is not your mother. It’s a man, baby. MIB returns home, packs, and looks to sneak out in the middle of the night. He brings Jacob along. MIB explains that they are going to the people, Mother lied, and that Jacob is probably too stupid to understand. Jacob loses his temper, attacks MIB, and beats him silly. I guess MIB is the brains, Jacob is the muscle. Mother pulls Jacob off the bloodied MIB. MIB: I’m going home, you killed my mother, we don’t belong here. All valid points. Jacob is crying. Insert yet another comparison to Jack here. Given a choice this time, Jacob decides to stay with the crazy woman that killed his mother. Mother: you will never be able to leave this island. MIB: I’m going to prove you wrong. MIB leaves. So the main motivation for MIB all these years later is to simply prove his mother wrong. So, for Jacob, it’s to beat his brother in a game caused by Mother, and for MIB, it’s to prove his mother wrong. Well, that’s been worth all the blood shed over the years. At the beach, Mother confesses to Jacob that she did indeed murder his mother and she wants to talk to a lawyer. Jacob demands that she return all those Mother’s Day gifts he’s given her. Mother: these people are bad, I needed you to stay good. Veal. Jacob is a calf being fed just before slaughter. Jacob: why do you love him more than me? Jacob has accepted that he is not the superstar that MIB is. But you need to notice the statement “I needed you to stay good.” Not for Jacob, not for the island, but because she needed a pure soul to take over for her as guardian of the light. Mother needed a Scooby Doo, and Jacob is just the right fit. It’s for selfish reasons. Mother: I love you in different ways. Well, that must sting a bit. She didn’t say I love you just as much. No, she decided to say “in different ways”. If Mother starred in Sophie’s Choice, they wouldn’t even finish the question before Jacob’s suitcase is packed. Mother is frustrated that she is stuck with Jacob, and Jacob decides he will stay with her. Two undigested peanuts in the same lump of sh!t.

Thankfully, we don’t have to deal with the child actors anymore, as they simply sucked. Geez, the acting this whole episode was just really bad. Grownup Jacob takes a break from weaving to go find MIB and play their game outside the village. It’s kind of sad to see Jacob standing in the wide open, observing the digging of the well, as this is the saddest attempt in the history of ever at being inconspicuous. He is standing behind a tree that can’t be more than 2 inches thick. Is he even trying to hide a bit. Jacob is about as sharp as a sack of wet mice. He has a vacant far away look to him, as if he is constantly thinking about what pudding tastes like. MIB confirms that Mother was right about these men. Jacob is only looking from above and he really doesn’t see them for who they are. They are greedy, manipulative, untrustworthy, selfish. I draw a parallel to Jacob’s candidates. I bet he thinks they seem OK at first glance through a telescope. Then he brings them to the island to test them. That’s when we get a good look at their true nature. Shannon was a candidate. I rest my case. But it’s a means to an end for MIB, as he just wants to leave the island. MIB throws a knife that changes direction in midair and gets pulled against the well wall. The knife was not made in Australia. The village is full of smart men, people who are interested in how things work, who have discovered places all over the island where metal behaves strangely, they dug. This is the speech MIB gave to Desmond before tossing him into the well. It is also a cyclical event, as Dharma was essentially doing the same thing on the island. Jacob still doesn’t want to leave with MIB. When Jacob returns to his home, Mother is shaving her legs. I’m not kidding. Look at that scene again. Considering Jacob is very likely a virgin, this is probably the most skin he has seen of a woman. Other than when Mother asks him to pop her back zits. Jacob yet again can’t keep his mouth shut, and blabs to Mother that MIB is going to leave the island. Mother goes to the well and climbs down. MIB is alone, stoking a fire, getting ready to put some ribs down on the grill. MIB hears a sound, pulls out the Roman knife that Dogen gave Sayid, and is ready to stab somebody. Sure, this is paranoid as fock. You are in a well. The only people who have ever been down here are members of your village. Why are you ready to kill one of them for sneaking up behind you? Isn’t that extremely odd? So, how are you? I see that your legs are looking fabulous. MIB spent the last 30 years walking every inch of the island without ever finding the planetarium laser light show cave featuring the music of Pink Floyd. I hate Pink Floyd. So, much like the Lighthouse, certain objects appear on the island only when they want or need to be found. MIB decided to look for the back door instead. The men of the village have some interesting ideas what to do with the light. This is of great concern to Mother, the guardian of the light. MIB pries a small rock away from the well wall to reveal the bright light. I have to wonder, how exactly did the cave end up icy and frozen when Ben entered to turn the frozen donkey wheel, but right now it’s dank and hot. MIB shows the wheel they mean to attach to a system they built that will channel the water and allow them to leave the island. Mother: how do you know it will work? MIB: I’m special. FACE. Mother gives MIB a goodbye hug, has the good manners to apologize, then bash his head into a rock wall as she screams. All MIB wanted was a hug from his faux mother, and she tries to kill him.

Mother wakes up Jacob. She explains that she had to say goodbye to his brother. She leads Jacob back to the Muse stage show cave. Jacob is now to protect the light. Mother: it is life, death, rebirth, it’s the heart of the island. Two things. Rebirth? So, when people die, they aren’t dead, but move along to another timeline? The word really bothers me. Still, there is a cyclical nature to this show, so it would be nice to see an explanation. And remember when Locke described his first encounter with the monster back in Season 1? “I looked into the eye of this island, and what I saw... was beautiful.” Did Locke see this light? Mother: just never go down there, it would be worse than dying. Here is a fork. She brings out a wine bottle, says some kind of prayer or chant or the lyrics to a Justin Bieber song, and offers Jacob a drink. Jacob is to accept the responsibility of protecting this place as long as he can, then find his replacement. Jacob doesn’t want to do it. Mother: somebody has to, my time is over. So, no one is apparently immortal after all. I wonder how long you have to serve your term when elected, 2000 years or so? Jacob sulks and points out the Mother wanted it to be MIB and that she is stuck with Jacob. Mother is getting desperate now. Mother: it was always supposed to be you, I see that now. Jacob is right, she really has no other option. Jacob is the only single girl left in the bar, and it’s closing time; if you squint enough, you can hardly notice the huge goiter on her neck and unibrow. Mother: you don’t have a choice. Strong, strong statement here. We’ve been lead to believe that there is an element of free will to this show. Look at that again. You don’t have a choice. Jacob is forced into a role he doesn’t want. Seemingly, he is like MIB in trying to prove mother wrong, but his quest is free will while MIB is leaving. Fine, but Jacob is not going to drink any focking Merlot. Jacob reluctantly drinks. Mother: now we are the same. Yeah, kool aid drinkers at Jonestown. MIB wakes up outside the well, which is completely filled in with dirt. The world’s largest flower pot. He follows the black smoke in the sky, reminiscent of the smoke from Season 1 by Rousseau, and finds the village completely purged, people smashed and dead. Did Mother turn into a Smoke monster? How else do you get about 50 people to stand still while to beat each one to death and then pick up a shovel and fill up a well? Even worse, MIB’s precious Senet game is found charred in the ruins. Hey, you can go ahead and kill all my friends, but don’t mess with Egyptian Monopoly. MIB is in anguish and quickly fills up with rage and hate. MIB has been screwed over.

Jacob is sent to gather firewood. Mother returns to her home, which has been ransacked. She picks up the charred Senet game from the ground, opens it, palms a white and a black game piece. It’s not so much white is good and black is bad, but the white and black simply signify a game. Much like chess, there are two sides, two players, neither is good and neither is evil. It’s a game of Who Did Mother Love More? MIB stabs her from behind. Well, LOST clearly doesn’t have enough crying, so MIB tears up. Why wouldn’t you let me leave? Mother: because I love you. Now if you just hand me that rock, it’s just out of my reach, I want to show you exactly how much I love you. Mother thanks MIB with her dying breath. I suppose he put her out of her misery. MIB told Kate that his mother was crazy. He failed to mention that he was not referring to his birth mother. Jacob walks in, sizes up the situation, and like some big dumb animal attacks MIB. After a beating and ignoring anything MIB has to say about the purge, Jacob leads/drags him to the magical mystery cave. Jacob states that he has to protect it now. Well, genius, if you are to protect it, why did you bring somebody here the first day on the job? Jacob knocks MIB unconscious and allows him to drift into the cave and the reverse waterfall which sucks him down into it’s depths. The light goes out and a roaring Smoke Monster emerges and steams off into the jungle. So, Jacob has just screwed up everything he was to protect, but hey it’s his first day, so what can you do? Jacob goes to wash his hands and finds the corpse of his brother along the riverside. Jacob cries yet again and hugs the body. So, MIB managed to live his whole life without a name as far as we know. Well, that’s just not good enough. This is a man, and he has a name: Robert Paulson. He's dead now because of the island. Do you understand that? His name is Robert Paulson. His name is Robert Paulson. His name is Robert Paulson. His name is Robert Paulson. His name is Robert Paulson. Remember when Mother said: I’ve made it so you can never hurt each other. Well, Jacob managed to beat up his brother several times and just murdered him. So how did that rule work out? Jacob lays the corpses of Mother and MIB inside the caves from Season 1. They replayed the scene of Jack and Kate and Locke finding the skeletal remains and finding the white and black rocks and calling them Adam and Eve. Unfortunately, they left out the part where Jack called the bodies 40 or 50 years old. So, Jack was off by about 2000 years. Jacob: goodbye, brother. Swell, but you didn’t say goodbye to Mother.

What did we learn? Free will is an illusion. We don’t know why Smokie has the powers that he does. MIB was right about the candidates being puppets of Jacob, being brought to the island by a lifetime of manipulation. The rules are whatever Jacob wants them to be; he decided to create the Others in mid game. Watching this episode made me grind my teeth down to the gums. Jacob was breast feeding until 43. Actually, what did that woman feed those kids the first few years on the island with no formula nor baby food around? Who finished building the donkey wheel? When MIB went off the island to appear to Jack in the hospital in Season 4, did this break the rules? When MIB went off the island to appear to Michael on the freighter, did this break the rules? But I thought he could not leave the island? When MIB appeared to Locke as Walt, did this break the rules? The Richard episode had a big build up and delivered. This episode had a big build up and fizzled. Going into the final hours of the show, we have zero momentum.

I need to do a really quick turnaround with the next edition, between Tuesday and Sunday. Well, until then, may the worst of your todays be the best of your tomorrows

Monday, May 10, 2010

6.14 The Candidate

Random thoughts. Does it say in Jack’s contract that he has to cry every single episode? I am finally coming to grips that one of my favorite LOST characters is most likely gone and we will never see them again. I shed a few tears. Why, oh cruel world, why must you take Skull Baby away from us? Sure, it looks like a bit like a McRib that has been left out in the sun too long. Kate looks like a cross between Rocky Dennis, an orangutan, and my foot. I don’t hear anybody complaining about her misshapen head disgracing my TV screen week after week. Will I ever be happy unless I take a soaking bath in Kate’s blood? Were Jin and Sun the most tragic set of lovers since Romeo and Juliet, that kid in the movie with the apple pie, or possibly Donnie and Marie? Or are Jin and Sun just tragically bad actors? 3 more episodes to go, and I am tired. I just don’t experience any anticipation for Tuesdays, and it’s diminishing by the week. Let’s try out another whacky theory, since figuring out how this show ends is what got us watching to begin with. What is MIB’s discovery of a loophole triggered Jacob’s loophole? What if the two timelines merge, Locke overpowers MIB for control of his persona, and becomes in charge of MIB. But Jacob and the island have selected Locke to be the next Jacob at the same time, since MIB was the one who crossed out Locke’s name, not Jacob. So then Locke becomes MIB and Jacob. Never being able to leave the island since the Jacob role prevents that. Jacob traps MIB in his own trap. After all, MIB has been p!ssing all over Locke’s reputation all season. You would think Locke lands punches back somehow. Or not.

So, about 5 weeks ago, I posted this nugget on a site that I frequent and often hash out LOST. It was a comment about the anticipation for the episode The Package. The fact that the sub blew up and Jin and Sun died during the same episode at the same time, I just have to pat myself on the back

QUOTE(Lackman @ Mar 30 2010, 08:38 AM)
Dear Man In Black:
Please kill Sun. Jin is OK, but I don't want to see him moping the last few episodes, so kill him too. Thanks in advance.
Sincerely yours,
Everybody that watches LOST.
******************************
I suppose I could do a drinking game tonight, a shot for every time Sun says "Jin" and every time Jin says "Sun". I might not wake up until Friday. Hey, we might get some more of The Keamy in a flash, so it might not be all bad. Just mostly bad.
The Package. To me, this is a reference to Jin's delivery of Mr Paik's gift to a client at the airport and ensuing trouble. But much like Recon, there needs to be a double meaning for the island story. Considering that MIB is confronting an enemy, but it's too early for a Jacob showdown, let's say MIB goes to confront Widmore. With a package. Blow up the sub again? It sure follows with the repetition angle that is occurring with more frequency. And focks up Sawyer's plans.
I am dreading watching this dreck. Jin? Have you seen Jin?


John Locke wakes up in a hospital bed and finds Jack hovering over him like the Angel of Death. I realize that it’s a hospital full of sick people, but I think it’s quaint that Jack has nothing better to do than watch patients sleep and fight the urge to pop pills. Jack explains to John that they were on the same plane a few days ago, and that while he was sleeping, they took the liberty of removing his genitals and donating them to a good cause. They are filming Uncle Buck 2, and America’s Sweetheart and dead ringer for John Candy, Chastity Bono needed a bulge in her pants to pull off the role. Jack also looked at John’s spine X-rays, shuffled through his mail, and answered all his phone messages because a doctor can never be too invasive. Jack wants John to try a new procedure that might make him walk again. He mutters the “I can fix you” line he used on his ex-wife in the operating room before he fixed her, Season 2. John says “No” and seemingly starts to look for his bed pan. Hey, you wake up from a nap at his age, and see if you don’t need to go wee wee. Helen arrives and is happy to see John alive. She gives a Jack a halfhearted hug, since she was kind of hoping to cash in on an insurance policy. Jack wakes up on an outrigger canoe, and starts to look for a bedpan. Sayid informs him that they are on Hydra Island. The characters are openly calling it Hydra Island, yet we still have no name for the main island. Dumb. Widmore’s followers are relocating the pylons. Sawyer and the rest of the sailboat crew are ordered to go inside the polar bear cages. Sawyer briefly disarms a rather doughy Widmore acolyte, but Charles pops out of nowhere with a gun pointed at Kate’s head. Widmore has a list of names, but Miss Austin is not on it. It does not matter to him if she lives of dies. Kate pleads to James not to listen to him. Well, believe me, it matters. Kate must die. She says “don’t listen”. Do you mean to ignore the part where he called you useless, or the part where he called your life meaningless? Sawyer surrenders. Dumb. Widmore implores his minions to hurry up in powering up the pylons, because “he’s coming”. I guess we now know that when you move the pylons, they don’t work for at least an hour, sort of like they just had dinner and aren’t allowed to go swimming. Odd.

Bernard is back. Which is great. I mean, you could bring back some interesting characters to the LAX timeline, like Ana-Lucia or Juliet or Walt or Mr Eko. But, nah. Let’s bring back a guy with the personality of a mushroom and the brain power to match. When Bernard gets an idea, a tiny little Christmas light appears over the top of his head. Bernard is busy sculpting a pair of choppers that nobody would be wearing unless your name was George Washington. Jack drops by for a visit and explains that he wants to see John Locke’s file. Between Miles snooping on Sawyer’s personal interests and Jack sticking his nose into Locke’s, I have to wonder when Homeland Security took over script approval. Locke had some kind of emergency oral surgery three years prior. I can’t imagine having Bernard working on my teeth. His procedures are most likely right out of the pages of the Flintstones, using hammers, chisels, and dental floss tied to a tooth and the other end wrapped around a door knob. Bernard: we were on the same flight, you were flirting with my wife. First of all, Bernard delivered these lines like a creep. I couldn’t tell if he was serious, ironic, sarcastic, or, or, or if he enjoys putting somebody’s mouth on a curb and kicking the back of their head. Secondly, um, Rose might have been something back in the day, which is roughly a week before somebody discovered electricity. But Jack hitting on Rose is mindreeling. Bernard: Of course I remember. Bernard remembers Anthony Cooper’s name, seems to know Jack intimately, as do most of Bernard’s patients after they get gassed, lose their memory for a while, and wake up with their underwear on backwards Bernard is a ghoul.

From LAX Part One
Tables are turned, as Rose is now spending time comforting Jack during the turbulence. Actually, Rose and Bernard spent the whole LAX flight being a bit too snarky, smirky, and generally too suspicious for my taste. They know something, their memories may be stronger than Doctor Doofus.


Sayid explains the mortar attack to Jack, slowly, as if he is speaking to a man with a 5 year old intelligence level. MIB saved Jack, and the Others that survived the attack scattered into the jungle. Well, so much for not leaving anyone behind. Maybe of these Others will take pity on Skull Baby and make sure it is given the proper care it deserves. MIB wants to rescue Jack’s friends because Widmore’s intentions are not good. Holy crap. How dense do you have to be to realize that MIB is giving no logical reasons for his actions. Jack: they are not my people, and I am not leaving the island. Well, way to talk behind your friend’s back, and if you didn’t notice, you aren’t standing on the island right now. You’re on the Hydra island, dummy. So, call me crazy, but you might want to consider simple logic before you speak. MIB needs Jack’s help to win over the Losties trust. Jack: why should I trust you. MIB: Because I can kill you right here and all of your friends and you can’t stop me. Well, honey, vinegar, flies. MIB, our hero in this show, must be feeling the frustration. He goes to all the trouble of manipulating hundreds of people on an island, disposes of the only problem person in Locke, since he is the only person that would not want to leave the island, and here is another troublemaker in Jack suddenly wanting to take Locke’s baton and run with it. And even though Smokie could stomp a mudhole into Jack and walk it dry, he can’t touch him because of the “rules”. MIB has my sympathy. When you are surrounded by idiots, what are you to do? Back at the cages, Sawyer remarks that it feels like they’ve been running around in circles. Gee, ya think? Well, technically, you folks have been standing around in the jungle for a couple of months of episodes, whittling and sipping cocoa. Then, you start a victory tour around the island, making sure to visit all the old haunts. Hydra island, the cages, the plane, the docks, and finally back to LOST island to rescue Desmond. Did anyone actually for a second think the ultimate finale was going to take place on Hydra island? Duh. Sawyer tells Kate that her name was crossed out on the cave wall. Kate is as useless as an air freshener lying in puddle of puke. Jin tells Sun that he has seen pictures of their daughter and that if he didn’t know any better, she looked a lot like an orphan. Jin is given his ring back. Unbeknownst to Jin, he is now tasked with the burden of returning the ring that will rule them all in Middle Earth to Mordor, and the disfigured and wretched Sunollum will be his guide through the bosom of peril. The pylons power down, and the familiar rattling and whooting is heard. Even after all this time, the appearance of the Smoke Monster still gives me a happy feeling in my pants. Smokie kicks the crap out of some Widmore goons, one landing close to the cages. Rather than allow someone with normal sized human arms to reach for the keys of the dead guy laying there, Kate with her stubby alligator arms reaches about 6 inches outside the bars. Much like not helping Juliet when she was about to plunge to her eventual death in the Swan shaft, Kate proves yet again just how useless she is. Remember how a nearly dead Naomi jumped out of a tree and clobbered Kate? Or how she got captured by the Others and was traded for guns. Or when she slept with Sawyer and for the next month Sawyer felt great pain every time he tried to piss? So, Kate is of no help. Frank mentally eats a can of spinach and tries to kick down the door of the cage. I wanted nothing more than to see the cage door fly open, rebound, and hit Frank full force right in his face. Jack shows up, unlocks the door, and gives the gang sign for “I’m with Smokie”.

Well, they leave the cages at night time, so of course walking half a mile to the plane puts them in daylight and plenty of sunshine. Um, the night and day switches are just ridiculous now. Jack tells Kate he is not meant to leave the island. Kate tells Jack that despite all appearances, she is not a background character wearing a rubber mask on a sequel to Planet of the Apes. Sayid joins the Stand By Me cool kids walking the tracks. It is revealed that Sayid turned off the generators, allowing MIB to attack. Jack continues to ignore all manner of decency and drops by a nursing home to find the mysterious Anthony Cooper. Helen drops by, is surprised to see Jack, is cordial, but firmly asks Jack to leave. Helen: you saved John’s life, isn’t that enough? Jack: It isn’t. Jack is a selfish pr!ck. This guy is obsessed with performing an operation that a patient doesn’t want. I want to pick up a phone and turn him in to the Health Care police. They walk into a dining area full of old people eating pudding. I guess you are what you eat, since most of these folks have heads full of pudding. Just look at ‘ole Tapioca Head, Anthony Cooper. Just sitting in a wheelchair, drooling, eyes a million miles away, probably having the same thoughts as your typical rutabaga. This guy swindled Sawyer’s parents since Sawyer still has the letter in this timeline. I guess James isn’t much of a detective if he can’t find this lump. I wonder what he will use to kill him as revenge. Beating him to death with bedroom slippers? Giving him 3 aspirins instead of 2? Unplugging the breathing machine? MIB attacks the guards at the plane; it’s remarkable how you stand there shooting bullet after bullet at MIB from a distance of 5 feet, and never hit him once until your neck ends up broken. But at least you remember to wear a wristwatch to an island where time and space doesn’t matter, because MIB is more than willing to take it off your limp wrist. MIB climbs up the intricate jungle ramp and quickly finds the crude bomb that is plugged into the airplane’s electrical system. The Losties arrive at the plane, and Frank is excited to see his baby again. MIB pops out to have a chat. Seems like Widmore moved the pylons to begin with so that the plane was available to be boarded. Widmore set the bomb. Which reminds me, if the pylons were powered down, why didn’t Smokie go try kill Widmore and Zoe once and for all? So, the plane was a trap. MIB: he wanted us at the same place at the same time, a confined space, no getting out of, then killing us. Of course, this is important foreshadowing as to what MIB is planning himself. MIB shows the 4 bricks of C4 he recovered from the bomb. MIB: the plane is not safe. Why? You just found the bomb. How many bombs do you think Widmore put on there? If anything, Hurley, Frank, Sun, and Jack should have been worried about Richard, Ben, and Miles blowing up the plane. Yet, those guys never showed up. I guess they are building a raft to get to this island. The next plan is the sub. Claire apologizes for going with Sawyer’s group, and MIB reassures her. Sawyer hatches another intricate plan with Jack, since the last one worked out so well. “Push him in the water.” That could be the tag line of the worst horror movie ever made. An escaped sociopath escapes the mental ward, visits municipal swimming pools, sneaks up behind children at the edge of the water, and then pushed them in. He then turns, gives a little “Tee-hee” and scampers away. Can’t be any worse than Furry Vengeance.

Locke is talking in his sleep as Jack continues to stalk, obsess, and hover around his bed. Locke is talking in his sleep. “Push the button”, a reference to the Swan hatch in Season 2. “I wish you have believed me”, a reference to the suicide note Locke wrote to Jack from Season 5. “Hey, Freddie Krueger, how’s it hanging?” Claire shows up at the hospital looking for Jack. It must really be important, because Claire is disrupting a person she barely knows at his work location. Jack is so moved by this gesture, that he buys an Apollo candy bar and proceeds not to eat it. Am I watching Twin Peaks or something? None of this makes sense. Ilana gave Claire a box. I sure hope there is something inside that box, or won’t Claire sure feel silly. Jack explains that his father drank himself to death outside a bar in Sydney. OK, so that remains the same in this timeline. However, the whole reason for the Sydney trip was for Christian to go visit his daughter Claire, who claims they never met. Jack makes another connection to the flight Oceanic 815 because Claire was aboard too. At this point, no matter how stupid this moron is, he has to start making the connections of people he has met from the plane. John, Desmond, Claire, Bernard. Claire is wearing a purple shirt, so I’m still hung up on that color. It has to mean something. Jack and Claire look into the mirror of the music box, there’s that mirror angle again, and the box plays “Catch A Falling Star” which is what Claire was singing at the Temple earlier this season, which is what Claire said her father sang to her when she was young, back during Season One. Jack invites Claire to stay at his house because she is family. Definitely not a chiseler looking to take a bite out of Jack’s hard earned inheritance. No way. Well, Sawyer is the new Jack, a big pile of crap. He takes charge on the dock near the submarine, because all of his plans over the last few episodes have failed, so why not try another. Like I said, the new Jack. Well, Sawyer, Sun, Frank, and Jin quickly swarm the sub and get the captain to start it up. MIB gives Jack a backpack and asks him to reconsider the whole staying on the island nonsense. But you can’t teach this old stubborn tomato new tricks. Jack: John Locke told me to stay. When Jack threw that in MIB’s face, I wanted our hero, MIB, to punch Jack in his ungrateful face. I know the whole “you can’t kill them part”, but how about some deep bruising and some light maiming? Jack needs a beating. And then Jack pushes MIB off the dock. Tee-hee. Just at that moment, Kate is shot. YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSS. Halleluiah. Shot in the shoulder. What? Does that even count as an injury? Can’t anybody put a bullet in her skull? Come on, you bunch of sissy scientists who are clearly four-eyed and crosseyed. Jack decides not to take cover, but stroll along the quasi boardwalk firing his handgun, and nobody is coming close to popping him with a bullet. I’ve never seen somebody so indestructible and yet cry all the time. Is somebody dissolving estrogen in his water bottles? MIB climbs back onto the dock, unscathed, a bit wet, and pissed. Well, that whole “push him in the water” thing worked perfectly. MIB is pretty good with a gun, killing people left and right. All aboard, as Sawyer shuts the sub lid shut, leaving Claire and MIB on the dock. Claire left behind for the 3rd time by this bunch of mooks. If I’m Claire, I go chopping with an axe next time I see any of them. MIB gives her a reverse hug, reassuring her that she doesn’t want to be on that sub. The creepy thing was how MIB was holding her, pulling her shirt nearly off, and coming close to cupping her boobs. In the last 3 years, you just know they’ve had sex. I mean, Skull Baby must have had a father, right? I just hate to think about the scars left behind when Claire delivered that bag of bones. On the sub, the group project is Kate’s wound, and they find the C4 in Jack’s backpack. Jack: we did exactly what he wanted. Yeah, and for all of your convictions, you’re leaving the island too, stupid. Why get on in the first place? How about another speech about how you are never leaving the island which you haven’t set foot on for 2 days? First Locke prevents Jack from leaving the island by sub. Now, MIB prevents Jack from staying on the island by sub. If I see another 5 dollar foot long commercial, I’m going to find the nearest autistic child and punch them in the stomach.

Well, the time is ticking on the bomb. Frank is told to get the sub to the surface faster than a juicy fart in a bathtub. Unfortunately, it will take 5 minutes, and the bomb has less than 4 minutes to go. Jack is perplexed by the complexity of the math problem. 5 goes into 4 and carry the decimal and something something green. Sawyer wants to defuse the bomb, never mind that whole freighter stuff that happened not too long ago. Defusing stuff is a learning curve. Maybe you get the first couple wrong, but eventually it has to get easy. Jack has a moment of clarity, and actually figured out some stuff. Like an blind acorn finding an acorn. Some people use blind squirrel in that metaphor, but I’d like to think a blind squirrel could outwit Jack. An acorn? Too close to call. Jack: nothing is going to happen, Locke can’t kill us, Locke can’t leave the island unless we are all dead, what if he is not allowed to kill us, but is trying to get us to kill each other. Jack is absolutely right. So go ahead and copy and paste that last sentence for posterity. It will never allow myself to type it again. Jack is absolutely ri…Jack is absolutely rrrrr….Jack is absolutely less likely to complete a crossword puzzle than Anthony Cooper. Sawyer doesn’t trust Jack and is embracing his role as Man of Action and Little Results. I suppose his hostility towards Jack is traceable to Juliet’s death and Jack’s track record about what a bomb can or can’t do. Sawyer takes out some wires, nothing, then the timer speeds up. Oh, I am just rubbing my hands in happy anticipation. This looks promising. Sayid realizes this is his chance to go out with a bang, so he hurriedly confesses some stuff. Desmond is in a well on the main island and they need his help since MIB wanted him dead. “It’s going to be you, Jack”. This sure seems like Sayid is saying Jack is going to be the one to replace Jacob, much to my utter horror and disappointment. Sayid grabs the bomb and runs off to the other side of the sub. Now, it’s interesting to speculate whether Jack was right. Would the bomb have simply fizzled like the dynamite at the Black Rock. Maybe Jack remains unhurt, and everybody else dies? Sawyer resetting the bomb probably put everybody in peril, since it was now Sawyer’s action that was the catalyst for the bomb. Maybe it doesn’t explode because Jack is standing there. Maybe Sayid taking the bomb away from the future Jacob’s vicinity triggered the explosion. Anyway you look at it, Hurley will be picking pieces of Sayid off his shirt for the next few weeks. Sayid is dead. He was an OK character, seemingly badass at time in killing people, but he sure wasn’t smart as the Others and Rousseau and Dharma kept capturing him on the island over and over again. I think I liked Sayid’s character mostly when he was Ben’s hired killer. That was some good stuff. Explosion, and water starts to fill the sub. Now, considering the pressurized sub leaking, and the water pressure surrounding the submarine, you would think the sub would be crushed like an empty soda can. But let’s just throw physics out the window and concentrate on the relationships of the characters. Yuck. Frank goes to see what the problem is, and gets smacked by a door, no doubt a relative of the door Frank was kicking earlier. Live by the door, die by the door. Actually, rewatching that scene, I find no evidence that Frank is dead. The collision wasn’t that bad. He was just knocked out. And probably drowned because nobody, absolutely nobody asked “Where’s Frank?” or “Have you seen Frank?” as all hell broke loose. Just goes to show how much you mean to other people when you are about to die, and nobody gives a sh!t. Frank was a….well, let’s face it. Frank was a creep. Sun is pinned by a cabinet, possibly Davy Jones’ Locker, and I start to smile. I see where this is headed. Hurley swims out with Kate, with one of two oxygen tanks and a trail of blood from a wound that sure would look inviting for sharks with Dharma symbols that swim around the island. Leave Kate, take the cannoli. Sawyer is knocked out by falling debris as the Unlucky Lottery continues. The guys did pull the cabinet away from Sun, but she is still held in place by some random metal stuff. Jack swims out with Sawyer and the last oxygen tank, Jin stays with Sun. Well, the selfish thing is to take your own life, drown along side with your wife, and leave your child an orphan. Sun agrees that this is the best course of action for Jin, since she has ruined his life, she wants to watch him die because there is no way she would want to see him happy in living away from her evil clutches. Jin is so preoccupied with not leaving Sun, that he never stops to think that maybe using his legs as leverage against the wall might work better than merely yanking with only his arms to free Sun. Even sadder, Jin is finally reunited with his wife after 3 lonely years in Dharma without the benefit of internet adult entertainment, and now gets to die without one last roll in the hay. They spend their dying moment speaking mostly English, an oddity considering that they are friggin’ Korean. What, you afraid that the sad moment will be ruined with subtitles? We get a shot of two floating dead hands, and I say it’s about time. Did you know that the body generally releases it’s bowels at the time of death. Good thing we didn’t see other floater’s in that final underwater casket. Jin was an OK character, a d!ck during the early parts of Season 1, but became a decent character over time. He is someone that got a lot of screen time, and you never quite noticed him. Wallpaper. Sun was a spoiled rich girl who destroyed Jin’s life before the island, tried to shoot Ben for a crime he didn’t commit, tried to strong arm Widmore, ruined her father’s company, spent 5 seasons digging a stupid garden which yielded one tomato and spent the last 2 seasons saying “Have you seen Jin?” Sun is easily one the worst characters on the show and we should all be breathing a sigh of relief that she is mercifully dead. The island was done with her, about 5 seasons after I was.

Locke gets wheeled through a hospital hallway, which reminded me of Abaddon wheeling Locke and then telling him to go on a walkabout, the episode where Locke was thrown out the window by his father. Jin passes him, carrying flowers. Jack approaches. This needs to be said. This is such a terrible flashsideways. What have we learned? Locke’s father is a vegetable and Jack is in love with Locke. Sheesh. Jack explains that he visited Cooper. Locke is mortified. Three years ago, there was a plane crash, Locke had a private plane license, his father was a passenger, he can’t remember what went wrong, he ruined his father’s life. Well, Jack ruined his father’s life by tattling on his drinking and surgering, but I don’t see Jack losing sleep over it. In fact, Locke had barely time to finish the story when Jack jumped in and turned the conversation towards himself, because it’s always about Jack. Jack swaggers through life like he is performing a one man play and the world is his stage. My daddy is dead too. Whatever happened, happened. Well, that’s about the 38th time somebody has said that phrase this season. Jack: letting go is not easy. Unless you are hanging in shaft at the Swan site. But what kind of new age psycho babble is this? Letting go is not easy. Hey, sometimes you have to hang on to your memories and self pity like grim death. If Locke doesn’t want to take happy pills or have surgery to fix his legs, so be it. Desmond is trying to kill him for a reason. Stop trying to fix him, you stupid fock. Locke tries to leave, but Jack still won’t let the issue die. Jack: I can help you, I wish you believed me. Great. Jack is repeating the Locke stuff from the suicide note. What a completely unnecessary horse sh!t scene between Locke and Jack. Useless. Nothing to gain from it, except 5 minutes that could have been spent clearing up island mysteries. Stop jerking us around. Fock. Great, you killed some characters. And it still felt like nothing happened. On the beach at night, because it took 12 hours to swim to shore apparently, and I’m not entirely sure which beach and which island they washed up on. Kate is so overwhelmed by Hugo’s heroism, she does not take a second to say thank you but hurries to go hug Jack. Sawyer is still breathing. Hurley, Kate, and Jack have a group cry, and I’m disgusted. Jack walks over to the water, looks up at sky, and grimaces. And cries. For no discernable reason. Why can’t a flock of seagulsl with and very, very upset stomachs fly by right now? Meanwhile, Claire is hanging out with MIB. Claire is playing the role of sounding board for MIB. We know what his plans are because he explains what he is thinking to Claire. Well, the sub sank, but not all of them are dead. MIB walks off, but seems to have abandoned Claire. Claire is starting to think that she needs to start breaking some feet to keep people from leaving her. “What's the matter? WHAT'S THE MATTER? I will tell you "what's the matter!" I go out of my way for you! I do everything to try and make you happy. I feed you, I clean you, I dress you, and what thanks do I get? "Oh, you bought the wrong paper, Claire, I can't write on this paper, Claire!" Well, I'll get your stupid paper but you just better start showing me a little appreciation around here, Mr. MAN! YOU! YOU DIRTY BIRD, HOW COULD YOU!”

Well, another episode in the books, and I continue plod along. The show is extremely watchable, still entertaining, but no longer legendary. It’s hard to come up with a brilliant final season for any TV show, and that is why it is never successfully pulled off. So, we have a couple of episodes to go, before LOST weekend. The journey has been mostly enjoyable, but it’s coming to an end. Not the way I wanted it to go out. Like how the last third of each season builds to a crescendo. This one has all the explosiveness as a bottle rocket soaking in a puddle of Jack’s tears.