The Variable

As promised.... Tonight's episode was beyond fantastic... finally, some answers...and I'll use the word answers loosely because in true LOST fashion, more questions came with some of those answers.. let's jump in, shall we?

Tonight's episode was a long awaited Faraday backstory...I for one, have found Jeremy Davies performance as Daniel Faraday to be truly inspired...He's had to play a variety of emotions and do it in less screen time than Matthew Fox.... and he's had to sell a premise that polarizes the audience...explaining time travel isn't easy when you have people willing to listen...to spring it on them mid series, in a character driven show, quite frankly confuses and distances your story from the masses.. But LOST took a chance here, introducing an element(time travel) that really allowed then to tell the story in a very interesting way...
I'm not sure who here has read any Ann Rice novels, specifically the Lestat volumes... But Rice had a way(much like other writers who created vast, detailed literary worlds) of starting a story from one of point of view but when it came time to dive into some history, she would successfully lead you to seeing it from another characters view.. but she had the luxury of dealing with Vampires, whose immortality allowed them to live for thousands of years...
LOST found a way to tell you the history of the DHARMA initiative through the eyes of people we've come to know and ,in a sense, trust... Seeing Sawyer as a key member of the DI in it's heyday is much better than a flashback which has characters we don't really care about it... By allowing them to time travel(as much of a risk that was) we become invested in the story more...The downside is the paradox that time travel creates and tonight Faraday decided to tell us that Whatever Happened, Happened.... BUT, his science and formulas had never allowed for a VARIABLE, which he said was HUMANS, more specifically the fact that we have something that science CAN NOT measure, which is FREE WILL... but let's come back to that in a second...

This scene was priceless... Faraday had Dr Chang convinced and then Miles had to go and blow it...when Miles pressed Faraday for why he would spill the beans, he told Miles that he just needs to make sure that Chang does what he's supposed to do...which is order the evacuation of women and children.. This will get Charlotte off the Island, which is ultimately what Faraday is trying to do, save Charlotte..

You see, it all comes down to LOVE... Love is all powerful....it's the ultimate leap of faith to put your heart into someone else's hands... we'll return to this theme in a second as well...moving ahead..

Teresa.. she seemed pretty nice..I mean, heck, she put up with Faraday during his crazy hair days... she also didn't seem to be put off by mean ol Ms. Hawking... too bad her brain turns to moosh later in her life.. I'd be willing to bet we have not seen the last of Teresa.. I feel like she needs to be saved... is she ultimately the reason Faraday does what he does? I don't really buy that he had enough time to fall in love with Charlotte but heck, I guess I could say the same for Jack and Kate...they were only on the Island 108 days when Jack told her he loved her... so what do I know?..
But forget all this love talk for a second...Tonight's ep had some explosions!! And a shoot out at the OK Corral, aka the MotorPool...

Jack looked like Jack last night...Jack Bauer, that is.... yep, we've got a time deadline of roughly 4 hours before some massive incident happens at the Swan, which changes it's true intent of just another Dharma station to one where the button is created to disperse the energy of an incredible power source every 108 minutes..
If Faraday can get the Jughead H Bomb from the Others, he's going to blow up the energy source, which basically would end the Island completely in my opinion...
But doesn't this go AGAINST the whatever happened, happened theory? Yes and this is where I have my biggest issue with this show... If they blow up the Hatch before it ever exists, then Oceanic Flight 815 doesn't get blasted out of the sky and they land and no freighter ever comes to the Island and the wheel never gets turned and our Losties never time travel back....
well if that never happens, how do they actually get to that point?
I guess and that is the key word: Guess, that it all hinges on what Faraday said to Jack: This is our present. So Jack can play a key part in saving his own life....
wow..that's even more confusing....
But I like to think that what's happening to Jack and gang in 1977 is simultaneously happening to Locke and his gang in 2007... which means there could be an incredible situation about to take place... but more on that in a second...lets finish up last nights revelations..

The Dynamic Duo is BACK!! Batman and Robin, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Starsky and Hutch, Cagney and Lacey....and now Jack and Kate... I always get excited to see these 2 together... if one of the mysteries of LOST is who Kate is going to choose, I will always keep Jack at the top of the list.... she flip flops back and forth and Sawyer is showing himself as a real keeper this year but come on!..It's Jack.. besides, I much more approve of the Juliet/Sawyer relationship because it seems so mutually respectable, more adult.. you kind of want that one to last...

Another Widmore sighting last night..turns out he's Faraday's dad.. So now the question is when did he father Daniel? Was it on the Island? Was Faraday born on the Island? Did Eloise exile herself to raise Daniel? Did Daniel create the Lampost station so that eventually his mom could find the island so she could send Jack back? Are her actions like Faraday's in that she's trying like heck to keep the Island from time traveling back so that she doesn't make the mistake of shooting her son in the chest?
See? More questions...but one thing is clear: Widmore is the only one who really hasn't lost anything of great importance to him.... Everyone else involved in this "conflict" has lost something: Ben and Alex, Hawking and Faraday(assuming he's dead).. Widmore just seems to be driven by greed and revenge for being exiled....

Tonight's episode gave us another look at Mr Eyeliner... Sawyer's nicknames seem to stick with me and last night he had one that killed: When he called Faraday "Twitchy"... too funny!
So let's return to those points I mentioned earlier:
FREE WILL and LOVE
Where have we seen these 2 elements better demonstrated than with this cat:

Desmond. Just as he was The Constant for Faraday, he is also the Variable. His love for Penny is stronger than fate. And it's my theory that Desmond is the key to this entire thing... he's the only one acting on something pure. Everyone else seems to have an agenda.....I think more is definitely left in this story..

The last thing I want to finish up is the Simultaneously existing theory. I'm sure that there is an actual scientific theory with a fancy name that better describes what I'm about to try to explain. Let me just jump in:

If Faraday can't blow up the Jughead bomb, then everything we've seen so far happens. Which means that the Jughead bomb is still on the island in 2007. In the previews for next week, it looks like Jack is going to try to finish Faraday's mission. It also appears that Locke is back on the beach and headed somewhere.

But IF time on the Island is existing simultaneously, then Locke may be headed to the same place where Jack is.

But IF time is really linear and you can't change the past, then Jack isn't successful because Locke is still on the Island.

SO, it's my assumption that time is occurring simultaneously on the Island. WHAT IF Jack and Locke both get to the Jughead at the same time and blow it up at the same time?

Boom... I just blew my mind...

That's my time...

L Prez OUT

Some Like It Hoth

This post is going to be down and dirty....It's all Quick Snippets....if you don't know what the concept of Quick Snippets is, it's very simple: I pulled pictures from the show and I've added my quick snippet. Mostly it provides me the chance to say snippet a lot. I am already sick of that word, so I can only imagine how you, the faithful, must feel...on to the QS!!

This is Miles, age 17? When I saw this on the show I IMMEDIATELY drew the following comparison:

This is Rufio, from the motion picture HOOK, starring Robin Williams as Peter Pan, all grown up. What do these 2 have in common?
Just one crazy arse theory, provided by yours truly....
Let me set it up by reminding everyone about the Flashes of Light. When the light flashed, Sawyer and crew shifted time dimensions. Sometimes it was 1988, 1977, 1950, sometime when the Statue was still in tact.... well if Sawyer and crew were doing this, so were Bernard and Rose, right? Even though we haven't seen them... based on how they arrived on the island and the fact that they were not indigenous, they would be flashing thru time as well....
Ok, so with that being said, there were children on Oceanic flight 815, right? We haven't seen them at all. We believe that they are with the Others and Richard. Well Richard knew about the time travelling.. WHAT IF: after settling in 1977, Richard worked out a deal to send the children BACK to the real world, finding them homes or giving them a place to stay(possibly that gifted camp where he was trying to recruit Locke as teenager)? Now these kids grow up and start a new faction, led by this guy:

What lies in the shadow of the Statue? The frozen wheel does... and these kids have grown up, along with Charlotte and Miles and any other kid who was born on the island and then taken off to live back in the real world, and have every intention of reclaiming the place that made them "special"... WHAT IF: Jack and Kate and Sawyer and Hurley were all also born on the Island, or to people who had been exposed to the Island? Whatever flows through the Island, flows through them....It's in their blood.... think about it....
The Rufio picture inspired me to think of the Lost Boys, Peter Pan's group of boys, lost by their nannies and therefore "adopted" into Neverland..

So perhaps Miles is a Lost boy.... just a theory... and really the crux of this post... I like it so much I don't want to expand on it further, in the event that is true,thereby becoming a spoiler for some....

Faraday sure seemed to be well rested..Ann Arbor in the late 70's must have been trippy... I can only imagine... The place was probably wild considering this interesting piece of VIDEO
....enjoy it, you dirty Wolverines!!!

Ahh.. the birth of the Swan station. Technically it should have been called the Ugly Duckling station at this point... zapping dudes fillings out of their teeth and whipping it through their brains... Death Magnetic, indeed....

Look closely at what Jack is about to erase from the board: Egyptian History 101! Maybe Ben could bring his new friend Richard Alpert(the Sun God RA) to class for a little show and tell....

And now we see why Miles wanted 3.2 million dollars..It was twice the amount Widmore was going to pay him... I love the fact that Widmore knew there were dead souls on the island that would surely give up Ben's location... I feel slighted by the writer's strike because I feel like there was more to this story that we don't get to see because they had to cut last season short... They introduced these guys but it never felt complete... Which is why not a lot of people shed any tears when Charlotte died... oh well..

Please forgive me for what I'm about to write:

"That douche is my dad"

I'm not sure if there has been a funnier line on this show than that right there. As Larry the CableGuy would say: I don't care who you are, that's funny. He would aslo then make a fart joke, followed by some inaudible Southern slang..which is odd because he's from Nebraska... go figure..

Uncle Rico drinking a beer? I wish he had said "See those mountains? I could throw a football over those mountains"... have I used that joke before? maybe... maybe I should just refer to him as Lazlo Hollyfeld.... I'll let you guys figure that one out...

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure has nothing on these 2... it's nice to see Hurley get a buddy, even though it's an unwilling, sort of a jerk of a buddy.... And I applaud Hurley's decision to re-write Empire Strikes Back but seriously, that was the best one.... Maybe he was going to have Luke accept the fact that Vader was his father and let that be the end of the series.... Who knows? Maybe we would have been spared Jar Jar Binks... sorry...I'm letting the geek flag fly right now...

That's it for this recap! Back to the real thing for the next episode, number 100!!!!

The Variable is a Faraday tale, with some big explosions... get out the popcorn and put the kids to bed, it's gonna be a barn burner!!

Later!

L Prez OUT

Dead is Dead

Post Note: I'm a little out of practice...It's been too long between posts and I think I may have lost my writing rhythm... I apologize ahead of time for the garbled mess that this post may be...

John Locke, New CEO of the Island....

The Island chooses who the Island chooses.... so says Richard Alpert... while he was telling the truth about that, he wasn't really saying that Ben was the Chosen One.. I think Ben was a holder leader..someone the Island needed until Locke came to power.... But Ben killed Locke..possibly in the hopes that he could return to power... But the Island had different plans and brought Locke back to life...Now we have what some have called Locke, version 2.0.... a new and improved John Locke...who may not be all that he seems...more on that in a second...

Cesar learned Island lesson #109... Don't trust Benjamin Linus. It also happens to be lesson #1. It's just repeated 108 times over... I'm not sure why this guy even signed on to do the show... You want to be on LOST? SURE! Ok, here's the deal: We fly you to Hawaii. You get to have 4 lines of dialogue and then we shoot you in the chest. Cool? Deal!
This was Ben's judgement episode... He told Locke he came to the Island to be judged... Judged for what?
Well crafty ol Ben would have you believe it was for Alex's death.... and the crafty ol writers of LOST would have you believe that as well...but think about it for a second: Of ALL the things that Ben has done, the one thing the Island wants to judge him on is Alex's untimely death? He KILLED his father... He WIPED out the DHARMA initiative... surely he's guilty of other crimes....
Now let's review what we know about the Smoke Monster. Let's go ahead and make the assumption that it is in fact a judge. We saw it judge Mr Eko and when he revealed himself as unrepentant, well that ol judge became the jury and sentenced him to death... then it became the executioner and beat him about the head and shoulder area. Repeatedly. I believe a tree was involved.
Well Ben has been on the Island long enough to know what the "monster" is. And he would know that based on what Richard has most likely shared with him. So imagine that the Smoke Monster only works on guilty feelings. It senses what you are feeling guilty about and if it doesn't see any remorse, it kills you.
We also know that the Smoke Monster can reappear in a human form, as it did with Eko's brother. As it may be doing with Christian Shepard. It may also be doing it with Locke.

As Ben said, Dead is Dead... but there Locke is..my theory is that he is being propped up by the Island... When Ben says what's about to come out of that jungle, I have no control of and Locke pops out, well...I don't need to spell it out anymore... Locke is leading Ben up to his trial, all the while judging him along the way as Smoky... Ben knows this so he remembers all the circumstances that lead up to his acquiring Alex and raising her, saving her from Charles Widmores orders of death... Ben is thinking about this because Smoky is about to read his thoughts and see if he's remorseful, which is a joke because Ben is actually remorseful for this act...
But in the end, Smoky is on to Ben...Smoky appears as Alex and tells Ben under no uncertain terms is he to continue his quest to kill Locke... it KNOWS he wants to, but instead Smoky demands that Ben serve Locke and help however he can..
So is Locke the leader that he's supposed to have been all along? I don't think so...I think Ben has been given about 8 of his 9 lives and he's being tested.. I think the Island is rebooting Ben, making him reconsider the leader he has been.. The Island giveth and the Island taketh away...

Here he is, Benjamin Linus..a new man? Time will tell....

And now on to a new feature I like to call "Quick snippets":

Look! It's Ethan! Little bloodthirsty, evil Ethan!... This kid was born with issues...I'm still not entirely convinced that Ethan is Horace's son... or maybe I'm not convinced that Horace isn't an Other... There's a lot I'm not convinced of.... this show is confusing...

Widmore was exiled from the Island, via the sub.. he was coming and going as he pleased, having relations with outsiders, siring a child... or 2? ooohhh..L Prez is getting cryptic.. :)

The coolest shot of the season so far.. stellar special effects and great acting...

More Egyptian subtext..Here we see the Egyptian god Anubis in a submissive pose, yielding to what appears to be the Smoke Monster... what? Yep, that Smoky has been on the Island for a LONG time....

Do you know what lies in the shadow of the Statue? Frank didn't and you know what happened? These 2 yahoos asked him another question: what did the gun butt say to the face? SMACK!

More on these 2 folks in the next blog...

Until then!

L Prez out!!