Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Random
I happened to look through the archives to the right of this blog posting... 2008 was apparently the most intriguing year of LOST for me...32 posts... I haven't come close since... haha.. so far I've posted 91 blogs...only 5 more episodes left until the Series Finale... that would put me at 98 posts in my career, if I limit myself to talking about episodes... but I'll probably throw in one more random and then the Final FINAL blog posting summarizing my reign as El Prez... that would get me to 100. Not a stellar blog record but that's not counting the over 200 emails I sent before I got wise to this Internet thing.... that first year was a posting every day... those were the days, Edith.. those were the days....
Happily Ever After
YES!!! Desmond time!! I'm typing this up as I'm watching for the second time.... Its hard to believe that it's been FOREVER that we've seen Desmond but in LOST time, it's only been 3 days since Ben shot him at the marina and then received an A+ beatdown from Des....just like Papa Widmore is getting as I type....
I'm not sure what Desmond's purpose is...the dude survived an electromagnetic explosion in which the Hatch IMPLODED on itself, sending his consciousness on a free ride through time and space... all it seems to have gotten him was a one way ticket back to the Island so that his freakish new power can be used for some "greater good"....
So the Widmore gang built this shack with a giant set of speakers...Widmore claims that he wants to see if Desmond can survive another electro blast... so that question, combined with last week's revelation that Zoe was looking at other electromagnetically strong spots on the Island makes me think that Desmond is going to have to blow up the Island again..SO that would make 3 times the Island has blown up.... how many more times does this place have in it to survive such events?
The Sideways world has Des travelling the world as Widmore's right hand man, although Des has never met the man's family... so no Penny....nope..this Des is without his Constant..
Sorry... just noticed the painting of the scales in Widmore's office....black rock and white rock hanging in the balance... all is right in this Sideways world....
I'm not going to hover a lot on the Charlie side of the story....long story short, when Charlie was dying from trying to choke down some heroin, he saw a "vision" of a woman... "A blonde...RAPTUROUSLY beautiful..."....now I'm not going to claim this idea as my own but my friend Doc Jensen at Entertainment Weekly had a great point: perhaps Charlie saw Claire...but Jensens proposed that what Charlie saw was the Statue of Mary..the same one that housed all of that heroin on the Island... my contribution to this theory is the use of the word "rapturously"...as in caught in the Rapture.... look it up...I think Kirk Cameron has something to do with it...
Anyway, Charlie's near death experience caused him to catch a glimpse of his Island experience...perhaps it was Claire.. and he fell in love after seeing her again... but then, didn't he see her on the plane? Wouldn't he recognize her? Maybe he will in a future episode and they will reconnect...who knows...
Desmond gives Charlie a choice at the bar...Charlie responds by saying that doesn't seem like he has a choice...Desmond replies"
"You always have a choice, brutha"
THIS is the key to the 2 worlds colliding...the unreal Sideways world and the On Island world... I think that all of our key LOSTIES are going to be faced with this choice and they can decide on how they want to live... they can take the red pill or the blue pill... yep, Matrix style!! Sort of... time will tell how the writers change up one of the seminal tales of Alt universe duel existence..
The cool part of this episode was the way Charlie kind of woke up in the car when it was underwater and put his hand to the window... this caused Des to flash to the other world... very cool reveal...it was like he was possessed or something... crazy....
So this all leads Des to Mrs. Widmore, AKA Eloise Hawking...when Des starts poking around about Penny, Eloise goes all postal and puts Desmond in his place..or in some place.... She tells him that what he's looking for is in "violation" and that he's "not ready yet"...WTF??
Not to worry, here's Daniel Widmore, the artist formerly known as Daniel Faraday, master physicist.... he describes to Desmond that he spotted a redhead with blue eyes who works at the museum(Charlotte) and that he knew immediately that he loved her... and that's when things got "weird"...LOL.... yeah.. THAT's when things got weird... hahaha...you know when things got "weird" for me? September 24, 2004...when this DAMN SHOW AIRED!!! It set me on a course of blogging and reading and expounding in hallways and bars and restaurants about space and time and duel universes and Bible studies and polar bears....turns out, it's all about LOVE...
Anyway, Daniel woke up and wrote out the equation for Space Time travel, specifically using the term Imaginary Time...here's where knowing El Prez and his maniacal machinations comes in handy: I paused the old DVR and pulled this phrase from Daniels notebook. I then went to the all knowing Wikipedia and extracted this gem:
The relationship of real and imaginary time can be visualised as perpendicular axes of direction.
Daniel then goes on to mention that in order to stop a catastrophic event, a person could set off a nuclear bomb... I am assuming that doing so wouldn't lead to the destruction of everyone involved, but merely set everyone on a new course or it's like hitting a reset button.... and Daniel did that by having Jack blow up the Hatch before it was created...which split the worlds, giving us this Sideways world...
Now this is all some heady shiyite... so let's keep it to the simplest principle: LOVE
Daniel "felt" it when he saw Charlotte
Charlie "felt" it when he caught a vision of it(we'll presume it's Claire and not the H)
Desmond "felt" it when he saw the vision of his past life and then it was re-enforced when he shook Penny's hand....
Now he's on a mission to make sure that everyone on Oceanic Flight 815 sees the same thing... the question is: Has everyone already seen it? Case in point: Jack seeing Kate on the plane and then her seeing him when she hijacked the cab....could that have been their souls recognizing each other?
Or more succinctly put by Rachel McAdams in Wedding Crashers: "True love is the soul's recognition of it counterpoint in another"...hahaha... I was going to go with motorboating but this is a family blog....lol
So I'll leave it at that... I think Widmore exposed Des to the magnetic jumbo thingys to get him to send his consciousness to the Sideways world, in order to convince the other candidates to "wake up"... that's why Desmond was so ready to help when he woke up on Island... in the Sideways world, he was "awake" and starting to work for Widmore...even while his On Island counterpoint was trekking through the night jungle with Sayid, Ninja Assassin..... I can't wait until Desmond and Fake Locke meet up!! Woo hoo....
That's my time(and space) folks...har har... Peace!
I'm not sure what Desmond's purpose is...the dude survived an electromagnetic explosion in which the Hatch IMPLODED on itself, sending his consciousness on a free ride through time and space... all it seems to have gotten him was a one way ticket back to the Island so that his freakish new power can be used for some "greater good"....
So the Widmore gang built this shack with a giant set of speakers...Widmore claims that he wants to see if Desmond can survive another electro blast... so that question, combined with last week's revelation that Zoe was looking at other electromagnetically strong spots on the Island makes me think that Desmond is going to have to blow up the Island again..SO that would make 3 times the Island has blown up.... how many more times does this place have in it to survive such events?
The Sideways world has Des travelling the world as Widmore's right hand man, although Des has never met the man's family... so no Penny....nope..this Des is without his Constant..
Sorry... just noticed the painting of the scales in Widmore's office....black rock and white rock hanging in the balance... all is right in this Sideways world....
I'm not going to hover a lot on the Charlie side of the story....long story short, when Charlie was dying from trying to choke down some heroin, he saw a "vision" of a woman... "A blonde...RAPTUROUSLY beautiful..."....now I'm not going to claim this idea as my own but my friend Doc Jensen at Entertainment Weekly had a great point: perhaps Charlie saw Claire...but Jensens proposed that what Charlie saw was the Statue of Mary..the same one that housed all of that heroin on the Island... my contribution to this theory is the use of the word "rapturously"...as in caught in the Rapture.... look it up...I think Kirk Cameron has something to do with it...
Anyway, Charlie's near death experience caused him to catch a glimpse of his Island experience...perhaps it was Claire.. and he fell in love after seeing her again... but then, didn't he see her on the plane? Wouldn't he recognize her? Maybe he will in a future episode and they will reconnect...who knows...
Desmond gives Charlie a choice at the bar...Charlie responds by saying that doesn't seem like he has a choice...Desmond replies"
"You always have a choice, brutha"
THIS is the key to the 2 worlds colliding...the unreal Sideways world and the On Island world... I think that all of our key LOSTIES are going to be faced with this choice and they can decide on how they want to live... they can take the red pill or the blue pill... yep, Matrix style!! Sort of... time will tell how the writers change up one of the seminal tales of Alt universe duel existence..
The cool part of this episode was the way Charlie kind of woke up in the car when it was underwater and put his hand to the window... this caused Des to flash to the other world... very cool reveal...it was like he was possessed or something... crazy....
So this all leads Des to Mrs. Widmore, AKA Eloise Hawking...when Des starts poking around about Penny, Eloise goes all postal and puts Desmond in his place..or in some place.... She tells him that what he's looking for is in "violation" and that he's "not ready yet"...WTF??
Not to worry, here's Daniel Widmore, the artist formerly known as Daniel Faraday, master physicist.... he describes to Desmond that he spotted a redhead with blue eyes who works at the museum(Charlotte) and that he knew immediately that he loved her... and that's when things got "weird"...LOL.... yeah.. THAT's when things got weird... hahaha...you know when things got "weird" for me? September 24, 2004...when this DAMN SHOW AIRED!!! It set me on a course of blogging and reading and expounding in hallways and bars and restaurants about space and time and duel universes and Bible studies and polar bears....turns out, it's all about LOVE...
Anyway, Daniel woke up and wrote out the equation for Space Time travel, specifically using the term Imaginary Time...here's where knowing El Prez and his maniacal machinations comes in handy: I paused the old DVR and pulled this phrase from Daniels notebook. I then went to the all knowing Wikipedia and extracted this gem:
Imaginary time is also used in cosmology. It is used to describe models of the universe in physical cosmology. Stephen Hawking popularized the concept of imaginary time in his book A Brief History of Time.
Imaginary time is difficult to visualize. If we imagine "regular time" as a horizontal line running between "past" in one direction and "future" in the other, then imaginary time would run perpendicular to this line as the imaginary numbers run perpendicular to the real numbers in the complex plane. However, imaginary time is not imaginary in the sense that it is unreal or made-up — it simply runs in a direction different from the type of time we experience. In essence, imaginary time is a way of looking at the time dimension as if it were a dimension of space: you can move forward and backward along imaginary time, just like you can move right and left in space.
The concept is useful in cosmology because it can help smooth out gravitational singularities in models of the universe (see Hartle-Hawking state). Singularities pose a problem for physicists because these are areas where known physical laws do not apply. The Big Bang, for example, appears as a singularity in "regular time." But when visualized with imaginary time, the singularity is removed and the Big Bang functions like any other point in spacetime.
HAHAHA...WHAT.THE.HELL..... this show is amazing... so the question remains as to whether this really is "imaginary" like unreal or made up...yes, the definition above doesn't mean it that way but the definition above is REAL....LOST is all about imaginary...imaginary people, imaginary stories... brilliant..just brilliant...Daniel then goes on to mention that in order to stop a catastrophic event, a person could set off a nuclear bomb... I am assuming that doing so wouldn't lead to the destruction of everyone involved, but merely set everyone on a new course or it's like hitting a reset button.... and Daniel did that by having Jack blow up the Hatch before it was created...which split the worlds, giving us this Sideways world...
Now this is all some heady shiyite... so let's keep it to the simplest principle: LOVE
Daniel "felt" it when he saw Charlotte
Charlie "felt" it when he caught a vision of it(we'll presume it's Claire and not the H)
Desmond "felt" it when he saw the vision of his past life and then it was re-enforced when he shook Penny's hand....
Now he's on a mission to make sure that everyone on Oceanic Flight 815 sees the same thing... the question is: Has everyone already seen it? Case in point: Jack seeing Kate on the plane and then her seeing him when she hijacked the cab....could that have been their souls recognizing each other?
Or more succinctly put by Rachel McAdams in Wedding Crashers: "True love is the soul's recognition of it counterpoint in another"...hahaha... I was going to go with motorboating but this is a family blog....lol
So I'll leave it at that... I think Widmore exposed Des to the magnetic jumbo thingys to get him to send his consciousness to the Sideways world, in order to convince the other candidates to "wake up"... that's why Desmond was so ready to help when he woke up on Island... in the Sideways world, he was "awake" and starting to work for Widmore...even while his On Island counterpoint was trekking through the night jungle with Sayid, Ninja Assassin..... I can't wait until Desmond and Fake Locke meet up!! Woo hoo....
That's my time(and space) folks...har har... Peace!
The Package
Holy cow...I just realized I never wrote about this episode! I have much respect for the love of Jin and Sun...I think I finally figured out why...I have a lot in common with them...My wife speaks 2 languages...of course she didn't learn one so that she could move to America and leave me behind..... My wife and I have a daughter...born roughly around the same time as Sun and Jin's daughter.... of course, I was actually in the room when she was born, not assumed dead when the freighter I was on blew to Kingdom Come... Sun and Jin's wedding had a guy named Jacob there... so did ours.. my buddy Jacob Tolley.... of course my buddy Jake just drank a lot of booze and ate 2 dinners...he didn't reach out and mark us for Candidate duty... Jin and Sun like to fish and garden, respectively...my wife likes to garden and, of course, I like fish sticks..
The other point is, when it comes to "true love" like we saw last week with Richard and Isabella, or with Desmond and Penny, sometimes I just don't get the same feeling with Jin and Sun...
But apparently the writers like them and they keep ramming the journey of 2 souls reconnecting down our throats... I'll take it but only for 6 more episodes...then I'm calling it quits!
We learned that Sun's pops wanted to off Jin for stealing his daughters heart... good to see that not much has changed with Papa Paik in the Sideways world... and who would do this dastardly deed? Well we finally got the answer as to why Jin was locked in the freezer of the restaurant Sayid happened upon.. Martin Keamy...
I love the homage to Pulp Fiction that is the Sideways World... random connections, told in differing time segments.. now if only Christopher Walken would show up to tell a story about this watch he carried with him for 4 years...
Like the Sawyer ep a couple of weeks back, this one served as another "bridge" episode to get the Sideways world moving along a certain path... more connections, more intrigue but really just a ruse for whatever seems to be happening in that world.... its all smoke and mirrors folks!! OMG I just figured it out... Smokey has figured out a way to trap our LOSTIES in this weird little Sideways world...All of the reflections that we've seen are the biggest clue for this: Smoke and Mirrors... wow, I think I just blew my own mind...
I'm going to leave it at that because honestly, I have the knowledge of the Desmond episode in my possession so it's time to tell that story.. but with the way the blog updates, you may have already read that entry... so without further ado: scroll up!
The other point is, when it comes to "true love" like we saw last week with Richard and Isabella, or with Desmond and Penny, sometimes I just don't get the same feeling with Jin and Sun...
But apparently the writers like them and they keep ramming the journey of 2 souls reconnecting down our throats... I'll take it but only for 6 more episodes...then I'm calling it quits!
We learned that Sun's pops wanted to off Jin for stealing his daughters heart... good to see that not much has changed with Papa Paik in the Sideways world... and who would do this dastardly deed? Well we finally got the answer as to why Jin was locked in the freezer of the restaurant Sayid happened upon.. Martin Keamy...
I love the homage to Pulp Fiction that is the Sideways World... random connections, told in differing time segments.. now if only Christopher Walken would show up to tell a story about this watch he carried with him for 4 years...
Like the Sawyer ep a couple of weeks back, this one served as another "bridge" episode to get the Sideways world moving along a certain path... more connections, more intrigue but really just a ruse for whatever seems to be happening in that world.... its all smoke and mirrors folks!! OMG I just figured it out... Smokey has figured out a way to trap our LOSTIES in this weird little Sideways world...All of the reflections that we've seen are the biggest clue for this: Smoke and Mirrors... wow, I think I just blew my own mind...
I'm going to leave it at that because honestly, I have the knowledge of the Desmond episode in my possession so it's time to tell that story.. but with the way the blog updates, you may have already read that entry... so without further ado: scroll up!
Monday, March 29, 2010
Ab Aeterno
Ahhhhhh.....FINALLY, the Richard Alpert Story.... Man, I have been waiting on this FOREVER!! And when it was over I had more questions than before! WTF?!?!?
So I thought the episode was pretty straightforward...Guy has girl, guy is losing girl to the whooping cough, guy seeks out doctor, guy kills doctor accidentally, guy loses girl to whooping cough, guy gets caught, guy gets sold to slavery, guy lands on Island, guy sees everyone killed by Black Smoke, guy gets befriended by Black Smoke, guy tries to kill Jacob, guy gets his arse handed to him in a beach fight, guy gets a new job, guy gets to live forever.....whew!
I'm kind of in this frame of mind right now where I just want to list out my favorite moments of the show...
1. Seeing the actor who played the Man in Black again... Titus Welliver... simply just to spell his name... This guy plays cool like nobody's business... I thought it was HIGHLY interesting to see how he tried to lure Richard into helping him...I mean, he basically directly approached him...told him who he was, that he had his body taken from him and just wanted to leave the Island... I found the honesty refreshing.. apparently Smokey learns his lesson years later, hiding out and waiting to trick his way into a body, ie Locke....
2. The love story between Richard and Isabella...LOST gets this right most of the time(Desmond/Penny) and wrong(Locke/Helen...I just don't believe that they have the same eternal love)...anyway.. The scene at the end, I really believed that Richard could hear Isabella talking to him....and it had been 130 some years since he saw her and he was still a raw nerve.... great scene and finish... and then the fade to Fake Locke looking across the valley was perfect... he was too late...
3. I guess it should be mentioned that apparently Hurley can channel ANY dead person....I found this a little convenient.. but I won't go questioning the show too much...
4. I loved the scene where the Black Rock absolutely destroyed the Statue.... great visual effects! but that must have been a tumultuous storm to throw the Black Rock half a mile inland and still keep it intact... they don't make em like that anymore..
5. The cramming down the throat to all of the people who think everyone on the Island is dead and they are all in hell... Jacob's beat down to Richard was a reminder to us all that there are real stakes, real lives being affected...A dead man wouldn't care if he drowned..
6. Jacob's highly effective battle skills...
7. The Island is a cork analogy...it turns out that LOST has been an anti drinking show all along.... as a guy who co-owns a wine shop, I have to say I didn't like this development.... corks are bad, mmkay? Let the wine be FREE!!!! It's only evil if abused..... which makes me think: If Jacob knows that there is Evil in the world already, then how evil must the Black Smoke be if he's trying to keep it there?
8. I think it will soon be revealed that the Man in Black and Jacob are brothers.. I mean, this really isn't a stretch but it only makes sense to me.... just as a side note, I think that the 2 bodies in the cave are actually Adam and Eve....from the Bible.... and Jacob and MIB are Cain and Able... I've often contended that the Island in the Garden of Eden...you can travel back through the old posts to find that theory...it was pretty good from what I recall...a mild spoiler!!!! Episode 15 is all about the MIB and Jacob....an origin story in the same vein as this Richard ep...stay tuned for that....
9. I was slightly disappointed that Jacob touching Richard was all it took to give him everlasting life....and I couldn't figure out why Jacob wouldn't use his influence on people... free will... doesn't he know people have to be told how to be free? Organized together? Every Sunday?
10. And lastly...I don't know how people could come to the Island and live and then fight each other and kill, when the Smoke Monster pretty much wiped out everybody on the Black Rock... I guess he was tired or something when Oceanic 815 landed... he only killed the pilot...
That's all I got right now... if anything else comes up I'll add it to this week's blog.. so I'll see you then, my friends!!!!
So I thought the episode was pretty straightforward...Guy has girl, guy is losing girl to the whooping cough, guy seeks out doctor, guy kills doctor accidentally, guy loses girl to whooping cough, guy gets caught, guy gets sold to slavery, guy lands on Island, guy sees everyone killed by Black Smoke, guy gets befriended by Black Smoke, guy tries to kill Jacob, guy gets his arse handed to him in a beach fight, guy gets a new job, guy gets to live forever.....whew!
I'm kind of in this frame of mind right now where I just want to list out my favorite moments of the show...
1. Seeing the actor who played the Man in Black again... Titus Welliver... simply just to spell his name... This guy plays cool like nobody's business... I thought it was HIGHLY interesting to see how he tried to lure Richard into helping him...I mean, he basically directly approached him...told him who he was, that he had his body taken from him and just wanted to leave the Island... I found the honesty refreshing.. apparently Smokey learns his lesson years later, hiding out and waiting to trick his way into a body, ie Locke....
2. The love story between Richard and Isabella...LOST gets this right most of the time(Desmond/Penny) and wrong(Locke/Helen...I just don't believe that they have the same eternal love)...anyway.. The scene at the end, I really believed that Richard could hear Isabella talking to him....and it had been 130 some years since he saw her and he was still a raw nerve.... great scene and finish... and then the fade to Fake Locke looking across the valley was perfect... he was too late...
3. I guess it should be mentioned that apparently Hurley can channel ANY dead person....I found this a little convenient.. but I won't go questioning the show too much...
4. I loved the scene where the Black Rock absolutely destroyed the Statue.... great visual effects! but that must have been a tumultuous storm to throw the Black Rock half a mile inland and still keep it intact... they don't make em like that anymore..
5. The cramming down the throat to all of the people who think everyone on the Island is dead and they are all in hell... Jacob's beat down to Richard was a reminder to us all that there are real stakes, real lives being affected...A dead man wouldn't care if he drowned..
6. Jacob's highly effective battle skills...
7. The Island is a cork analogy...it turns out that LOST has been an anti drinking show all along.... as a guy who co-owns a wine shop, I have to say I didn't like this development.... corks are bad, mmkay? Let the wine be FREE!!!! It's only evil if abused..... which makes me think: If Jacob knows that there is Evil in the world already, then how evil must the Black Smoke be if he's trying to keep it there?
8. I think it will soon be revealed that the Man in Black and Jacob are brothers.. I mean, this really isn't a stretch but it only makes sense to me.... just as a side note, I think that the 2 bodies in the cave are actually Adam and Eve....from the Bible.... and Jacob and MIB are Cain and Able... I've often contended that the Island in the Garden of Eden...you can travel back through the old posts to find that theory...it was pretty good from what I recall...a mild spoiler!!!! Episode 15 is all about the MIB and Jacob....an origin story in the same vein as this Richard ep...stay tuned for that....
9. I was slightly disappointed that Jacob touching Richard was all it took to give him everlasting life....and I couldn't figure out why Jacob wouldn't use his influence on people... free will... doesn't he know people have to be told how to be free? Organized together? Every Sunday?
10. And lastly...I don't know how people could come to the Island and live and then fight each other and kill, when the Smoke Monster pretty much wiped out everybody on the Black Rock... I guess he was tired or something when Oceanic 815 landed... he only killed the pilot...
That's all I got right now... if anything else comes up I'll add it to this week's blog.. so I'll see you then, my friends!!!!
Monday, March 22, 2010
ReCon
Yeah, yeah, yeah....we get it...A Sawyer episode with the word "con" in it... At some point I hope that the creators stop drawing all of these direct comparisons to past episodes..and enough with the reflections...this week we saw Sawyer smash his fist into his reflection... I don't mean to start the blog by bashing the episode...I think I'm just seeing the end in sight and I was in denial...now I'm angry that it's ending and I'm just lashing out....please forgive me, LOST... I'm sorry...
So let's talk about the cool things in this episode, starting with DETECTIVE James Ford...so that was interesting until we found out that he was still the same scared vengeful 7 year old inside... and hey look! Miles is his partner! And he knows Charlotte! Through his dad! At the museum! Why, its as if all the former DHARMA initiative members left the Island and went into higher education jobs...
Look, don't get me wrong...I'm not bashing the show, I just felt force fed a little with this episode with the Side Flash stuff... and then at the end, Sawyer catches Kate.... big shocker...
Obviously I'm a little too jaded to give a proper write up of this episode...so I'll just highlight quickly what I did like:
1. The girl playing Zoe(which means "life") was also in one of my all time favorite movies: Singles....Sheila Kelly...expect more from her character...is she good? Evil?
2. Fake Locke telling Kate about his mother... I'm still not sure whether or not he was telling his story or Locke's.... it was very weird...especially when he pointed at himself and said "before I became this".... it just seemed an odd way to reference yourself...I almost felt like it was Locke peeking through and telling Kate before I became the Smoke Monster.... it was odd so I hope I'm on to something....
3. I like seeing Charlotte all goosed up and looking good... But she's like Miles and has been to the Island...now they are friends and she works with Miles dad...So I have this feeling that the Dharma Initiative is still kicking it in some capacity... maybe now they call themselves Scientologists... please...no Scientologists take offense...It's not a knock... just a change in cult... I mean group... aw hell...
4. I liked seeing Sawyer reminisce about Season 3 "The Cages".... maybe he was thinking back to how drawn out that whole time frame was...or maybe he was thinking back to when he had to move rocks to make way for a runway... and now there's a big ol plane sitting there... interesting...
5. Charles Widmore has something locked in the sub...my first and only guess: Desmond.....some supernatural time shifting power being Desmondo...who he will use to fight the Smoke Monster... or move the Island again...
6. Did you notice the pylons Widmore's crew was constructing? I read a great theory that Widmore might be attempting to lure Smokey to Hydra Island and trap him there... Pretty sneaky if that's the case...
7. Also Fake Locke telling Ben to meet him on Hydra Island.. I thought that was a set up on Fake Lockes part to deliver Ben to Widmore...
That was pretty much it...I didn't hate the episode but I didn't love it... and for that I am sorry...
So let's talk about the cool things in this episode, starting with DETECTIVE James Ford...so that was interesting until we found out that he was still the same scared vengeful 7 year old inside... and hey look! Miles is his partner! And he knows Charlotte! Through his dad! At the museum! Why, its as if all the former DHARMA initiative members left the Island and went into higher education jobs...
Look, don't get me wrong...I'm not bashing the show, I just felt force fed a little with this episode with the Side Flash stuff... and then at the end, Sawyer catches Kate.... big shocker...
Obviously I'm a little too jaded to give a proper write up of this episode...so I'll just highlight quickly what I did like:
1. The girl playing Zoe(which means "life") was also in one of my all time favorite movies: Singles....Sheila Kelly...expect more from her character...is she good? Evil?
2. Fake Locke telling Kate about his mother... I'm still not sure whether or not he was telling his story or Locke's.... it was very weird...especially when he pointed at himself and said "before I became this".... it just seemed an odd way to reference yourself...I almost felt like it was Locke peeking through and telling Kate before I became the Smoke Monster.... it was odd so I hope I'm on to something....
3. I like seeing Charlotte all goosed up and looking good... But she's like Miles and has been to the Island...now they are friends and she works with Miles dad...So I have this feeling that the Dharma Initiative is still kicking it in some capacity... maybe now they call themselves Scientologists... please...no Scientologists take offense...It's not a knock... just a change in cult... I mean group... aw hell...
4. I liked seeing Sawyer reminisce about Season 3 "The Cages".... maybe he was thinking back to how drawn out that whole time frame was...or maybe he was thinking back to when he had to move rocks to make way for a runway... and now there's a big ol plane sitting there... interesting...
5. Charles Widmore has something locked in the sub...my first and only guess: Desmond.....some supernatural time shifting power being Desmondo...who he will use to fight the Smoke Monster... or move the Island again...
6. Did you notice the pylons Widmore's crew was constructing? I read a great theory that Widmore might be attempting to lure Smokey to Hydra Island and trap him there... Pretty sneaky if that's the case...
7. Also Fake Locke telling Ben to meet him on Hydra Island.. I thought that was a set up on Fake Lockes part to deliver Ben to Widmore...
That was pretty much it...I didn't hate the episode but I didn't love it... and for that I am sorry...
Monday, March 15, 2010
Dr.Linus
I'm trying to write this blog from memory... I watched the episode twice but currently I am on the couch with 20/20's expose of The Bachelor playing in the background....no I'm not watching that, although I am fascinated by the voyeuristic nature of our culture but that's another blog for another time... maybe next year, once LOST is off... I can spot a book that the Bachelor is reading and decipher the hidden meanings of the narrative of said book, thereby predicting who he'll pick... until then... 
This week's episode was all about the redemption of Benjamin Linus.. Off the Island in the Side Flash, Ben is a teacher in the public school system, schlepping along, covering detention and dealing with listening to Leslie Arzt bitchin about lab aprons...life is but a dream...
While there were a lot of cool, inside nods to his Island life( Gassing his dad, Uncle Rico, except this time with oxygen; keeping an eye for Alex and helping her get to the next phase of her life; trying to usurp power using some form of usurpering; when Arzt said he was a "real killer"..the look Ben gave after that almost seemed knowing) I thought the most interesting part was that he and his dad were still part of the DHARMA initiative.
This is the second reference to the Island that we've seen in this Side Flash world...remember the beginning of the year we saw the Island under the sea... and now the Linus boys used to live there... but they left at some point..
My theory on this: We never saw Ben after he was healed by Richard but I really think that he was returned to Dharmaville and he and his dad left the Island right before Jack and Co. blew the Island up....I have no proof of that but when has that ever stopped me?
Either way, the Island was sent to the bottom of the ocean sometime after Ben was there and before 2004, when Oceanic Flight 815 landed.. I think the fact that it was mentioned again indicates that we aren't done with the Island in this Side Flash world...
The other telling line in this is what on Island Ben says to pilot Frank Lapidus: "The Island got you in the end, didn't it?".... This line was SPECIFICALLY planted to let us know that what we are seeing in this Side Flash could eventually lead us back to the Island.. I think that the underwater Island we saw was temporarily "displaced" and will appear again.
I could have done without the whole Ilana and Ben come to Jacob meeting in the woods but I have to give props to Michael Emerson...his portrayal of Ben is what's been getting us coming back each week... yeah, yeah, I know Matthew Fox and Josh Holloway are the eye candy but Emerson and O'Quinn are the substantial meal...It's that acting that really keeps us riveted... it's ok if you've been fooled into thinking otherwise... 
The last thing I want to touch on was the whole Jack and Richard playing with dyno-MITE!... I LOVE the new crazy faith driven Jack... he played this so much cooler than he did last year...it was very reminiscent of the scene on the bridge when he tried to kill himself...he just put his arms out and closed his eyes...except then he was all drug addled...which if I'm not mistaken, in LOST TIME was about a week ago...yeah, with this story and time travelling and all that, it's hard to remember that only about a week or so has passed... Jack was bearded, then converted by Ben, 2 days later they are on the Ajira flight(where's that plane and the rest of the passengers, btw??) and then about a week in Dharma-ville, then Ka-Boom goes the nuke and now it's a day later... weird, huh?
Anyway, poor Richard was like a lost disciple... Jacob was gone and he's left a lot of unsheparded sheep... I can't help but think about what it must have been like for Jesus' actual disciples after he died... Those 3 days before he was resurrected and ascended to heaven(please forgive my Bible School misses) must have been a time of serious doubt and question of what exactly they had been doing with their time... I think this was what the creators of LOST were trying to emulate...and then here comes Jack, all full of purpose and faith... I mean, the way that scene played out gave me goosebumps... I mean, I knew how it was going to go...It was like the writers were giving us, the viewers, a message: "We know you've been watching all this time...we aren't going to blow Jack up in the damn Black Rock boat with some dyno-MITE!...stay faithful... the answers are coming.."
I'm in it to win it! I am patiently enjoying each of these episodes twice over... this has been a great year so far....by the way, not to play "spoiler" but don't think these off Island Side Flash stories are little wrap ups of redemption...they MEAN something to the overall story and we haven't seen the last of Side Kate, Side Jack et al.....and this week we get .....wait for it.... Side Sawyer!!! Aw shucks!!!
That's my time! Peace and namaste!!
This week's episode was all about the redemption of Benjamin Linus.. Off the Island in the Side Flash, Ben is a teacher in the public school system, schlepping along, covering detention and dealing with listening to Leslie Arzt bitchin about lab aprons...life is but a dream...
While there were a lot of cool, inside nods to his Island life( Gassing his dad, Uncle Rico, except this time with oxygen; keeping an eye for Alex and helping her get to the next phase of her life; trying to usurp power using some form of usurpering; when Arzt said he was a "real killer"..the look Ben gave after that almost seemed knowing) I thought the most interesting part was that he and his dad were still part of the DHARMA initiative.
This is the second reference to the Island that we've seen in this Side Flash world...remember the beginning of the year we saw the Island under the sea... and now the Linus boys used to live there... but they left at some point..
My theory on this: We never saw Ben after he was healed by Richard but I really think that he was returned to Dharmaville and he and his dad left the Island right before Jack and Co. blew the Island up....I have no proof of that but when has that ever stopped me?
Either way, the Island was sent to the bottom of the ocean sometime after Ben was there and before 2004, when Oceanic Flight 815 landed.. I think the fact that it was mentioned again indicates that we aren't done with the Island in this Side Flash world...
The other telling line in this is what on Island Ben says to pilot Frank Lapidus: "The Island got you in the end, didn't it?".... This line was SPECIFICALLY planted to let us know that what we are seeing in this Side Flash could eventually lead us back to the Island.. I think that the underwater Island we saw was temporarily "displaced" and will appear again.
I could have done without the whole Ilana and Ben come to Jacob meeting in the woods but I have to give props to Michael Emerson...his portrayal of Ben is what's been getting us coming back each week... yeah, yeah, I know Matthew Fox and Josh Holloway are the eye candy but Emerson and O'Quinn are the substantial meal...It's that acting that really keeps us riveted... it's ok if you've been fooled into thinking otherwise...
The last thing I want to touch on was the whole Jack and Richard playing with dyno-MITE!... I LOVE the new crazy faith driven Jack... he played this so much cooler than he did last year...it was very reminiscent of the scene on the bridge when he tried to kill himself...he just put his arms out and closed his eyes...except then he was all drug addled...which if I'm not mistaken, in LOST TIME was about a week ago...yeah, with this story and time travelling and all that, it's hard to remember that only about a week or so has passed... Jack was bearded, then converted by Ben, 2 days later they are on the Ajira flight(where's that plane and the rest of the passengers, btw??) and then about a week in Dharma-ville, then Ka-Boom goes the nuke and now it's a day later... weird, huh?
Anyway, poor Richard was like a lost disciple... Jacob was gone and he's left a lot of unsheparded sheep... I can't help but think about what it must have been like for Jesus' actual disciples after he died... Those 3 days before he was resurrected and ascended to heaven(please forgive my Bible School misses) must have been a time of serious doubt and question of what exactly they had been doing with their time... I think this was what the creators of LOST were trying to emulate...and then here comes Jack, all full of purpose and faith... I mean, the way that scene played out gave me goosebumps... I mean, I knew how it was going to go...It was like the writers were giving us, the viewers, a message: "We know you've been watching all this time...we aren't going to blow Jack up in the damn Black Rock boat with some dyno-MITE!...stay faithful... the answers are coming.."
I'm in it to win it! I am patiently enjoying each of these episodes twice over... this has been a great year so far....by the way, not to play "spoiler" but don't think these off Island Side Flash stories are little wrap ups of redemption...they MEAN something to the overall story and we haven't seen the last of Side Kate, Side Jack et al.....and this week we get .....wait for it.... Side Sawyer!!! Aw shucks!!!
That's my time! Peace and namaste!!
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Sundown
I'm jumping right in...nothing like the night before a new episode to write a recap of the previous week....what can I say? I likes to takes my time...
Sundown was a Sayid centric episode, taking us into the Side Flash life of Sayid Jarrah, jet setting oil man and uncle to his former love Nadia....wait, Uncle?!?
That is correct because as we see in the Side World, Sayid is still beating himself up for not being a good person early on life and therefore can't have anything substantial in his life, because he doesn't deserve it.... Sayid is one of the few 815ers that truly has not found peace in his journey... we thought he did earlier with Shannon but I think he is a lot like Locke, in that he is destined to be alone... and as a man with certain talents in torture, he's a natural born killer and those kind of folk rarely ever find peace....
So it really came as no surprise that Sayid would return to his old ways when his family was threatened by a Mister Martin Keamy....It was sooo cool to see Keamy again...and the way he played the scene was straight from the Christopher Walken School of Cool... cooking the egg, trying to be all nonchalant bad ass... it turns out that Sayid is just a pure weapon of destruction, dispatching the 2 goons in a matter of seconds and then turned stone cold when he shot Keamy... so we know that there really is no redemption for Sayid in the Side Flash... he's still a killer, no matter the situation. You could claim that his hand was forced but he really could have walked out of there, called the police and let them take care of business. Or at the least let Keamy live and bug out.... but he chose to pull the trigger, returning to his natural instincts.
So it should not have been a surprise to see him turn on Dogen in the end.... My theory is that Sayid was always tilted toward the "dark side" of man, off balanced in evil...I don't know how much the "infection" is really influencing him.... but obviously Fake Locke had some doing in bringing him back to life, so maybe it's the infection, maybe its just life for Sayid..
Let's talk about one of my pet peeves with LOST...they go through all of this trouble of introducing characters and get really good high quality actors to play the roles.... then they go and kill them off!!
Hiroyuki Sanada is the actor that plays Dogen, who was most likely named after Dogen Zenji, the founder of the Soto school of Zen in Japan.... we learned that Dogen was brought to the Island by Jacob, on the indentured servant program...I'll save your kid, the payment is your undying servitude...anyone else think that Dogen doesn't like to speak English because Jacob is a white dude that bought Dogen's soul and is holding it captive on the Island? yeah...me too... but Dogen didn't kill Sayid because Sayid is protected by Jacob... but that didn't stop Dogen from sending Sayid on a suicide mission to kill Fake Locke..
But my point is that they introduce Dogen and give him one of THE best fight scenes ever on LOST, get you all excited to see what else this cat has up his sleeve and then BOOM, they drown him in some old dirty dish water... it was a cool scene but I still wanted more from this actor and character..
And don't even get me started on John Hawkes.... They bring in this high quality actor, give him about 7 lines and then quicker than greased lightning, they slash his throat and like Kenny Power's "He's f***ing out!"....
Now El Prez, why would you reference Eastbound and Down, the HBO series starring the amazing Danny McBride? Cause John Hawkes plays Kenny's brother....
My point is why not bring in some low budget actors to fill these poo poo roles? Hell, I'll fly to Hawaii and film a few spots... I'll take a knife to the throat for a dang autograph from Evangeline Lily.... I'm just saying....
This episode was by far my favorite of the year so far, mostly because of the non stop action and the freight train killing machine of Fake Locke Smokey... from his arrival in the jungle to confront Sayid to the sweeping through the Temple, straight wrecking shop, it was an amazing display...
This scene was classic... once again, Terry O'Quinn delivers a solid performance...seriously, this guy has GOT to win an Emmy this year...
So between telling Sayid that he could essentially bring Nadia back from the dead and telling Claire he could get Aaron back for her, I think we have some major insight into how Fake Locke works...I read a VERY INTERESTING comment over the weekend on some LOST chat rooms..what if the Side Flash we are seeing is the world according to Fake Locke? Sayid is back with Nadia in some capacity and Claire is essentially with Aaron. Jack is a father and a good one starting with the episode we saw and Locke is happily marrying Helen...Hurley is a man of good fortune and seemingly happy.... so all the other stuff we've seen the last 5 seasons is the world according to Jacob...pain, loneliness, despair.... it made me stop and think...I like the idea that we've been watching someone we think is good(Jacob) but in reality he might actually be the bad guy... pretty interesting, no?
No? okay...then get your own damn theory.... hahahaha...just kidding...
Last but not least I wanted to give a shout out to the writers of LOST for referencing one of the seminal movies of our generation: Apocalypse Now... if anyone's seen that movie and also watched the last scene of Sundown, they know exactly what I'm referring to...
Colonel Kurtz and the Heart of Darkness... now this makes me think that Fake Locke is indeed the bad guy... or at least a product of his circumstances... that's what I love about this show...just when you think you've got it figured out, they throw something into the mix that makes you really question everything....brilliant.....
Well that's all for this week....enjoy the show tonight...it looks like the end for Ben...lord knows they are all but telling us he's about to be killed.... I hate promos like that...
Later!
EP
Sundown was a Sayid centric episode, taking us into the Side Flash life of Sayid Jarrah, jet setting oil man and uncle to his former love Nadia....wait, Uncle?!?
That is correct because as we see in the Side World, Sayid is still beating himself up for not being a good person early on life and therefore can't have anything substantial in his life, because he doesn't deserve it.... Sayid is one of the few 815ers that truly has not found peace in his journey... we thought he did earlier with Shannon but I think he is a lot like Locke, in that he is destined to be alone... and as a man with certain talents in torture, he's a natural born killer and those kind of folk rarely ever find peace....
So it really came as no surprise that Sayid would return to his old ways when his family was threatened by a Mister Martin Keamy....It was sooo cool to see Keamy again...and the way he played the scene was straight from the Christopher Walken School of Cool... cooking the egg, trying to be all nonchalant bad ass... it turns out that Sayid is just a pure weapon of destruction, dispatching the 2 goons in a matter of seconds and then turned stone cold when he shot Keamy... so we know that there really is no redemption for Sayid in the Side Flash... he's still a killer, no matter the situation. You could claim that his hand was forced but he really could have walked out of there, called the police and let them take care of business. Or at the least let Keamy live and bug out.... but he chose to pull the trigger, returning to his natural instincts.
So it should not have been a surprise to see him turn on Dogen in the end.... My theory is that Sayid was always tilted toward the "dark side" of man, off balanced in evil...I don't know how much the "infection" is really influencing him.... but obviously Fake Locke had some doing in bringing him back to life, so maybe it's the infection, maybe its just life for Sayid..
Hiroyuki Sanada is the actor that plays Dogen, who was most likely named after Dogen Zenji, the founder of the Soto school of Zen in Japan.... we learned that Dogen was brought to the Island by Jacob, on the indentured servant program...I'll save your kid, the payment is your undying servitude...anyone else think that Dogen doesn't like to speak English because Jacob is a white dude that bought Dogen's soul and is holding it captive on the Island? yeah...me too... but Dogen didn't kill Sayid because Sayid is protected by Jacob... but that didn't stop Dogen from sending Sayid on a suicide mission to kill Fake Locke..
But my point is that they introduce Dogen and give him one of THE best fight scenes ever on LOST, get you all excited to see what else this cat has up his sleeve and then BOOM, they drown him in some old dirty dish water... it was a cool scene but I still wanted more from this actor and character..
And don't even get me started on John Hawkes.... They bring in this high quality actor, give him about 7 lines and then quicker than greased lightning, they slash his throat and like Kenny Power's "He's f***ing out!"....
Now El Prez, why would you reference Eastbound and Down, the HBO series starring the amazing Danny McBride? Cause John Hawkes plays Kenny's brother....
My point is why not bring in some low budget actors to fill these poo poo roles? Hell, I'll fly to Hawaii and film a few spots... I'll take a knife to the throat for a dang autograph from Evangeline Lily.... I'm just saying....
This episode was by far my favorite of the year so far, mostly because of the non stop action and the freight train killing machine of Fake Locke Smokey... from his arrival in the jungle to confront Sayid to the sweeping through the Temple, straight wrecking shop, it was an amazing display...
This scene was classic... once again, Terry O'Quinn delivers a solid performance...seriously, this guy has GOT to win an Emmy this year...
No? okay...then get your own damn theory.... hahahaha...just kidding...
Last but not least I wanted to give a shout out to the writers of LOST for referencing one of the seminal movies of our generation: Apocalypse Now... if anyone's seen that movie and also watched the last scene of Sundown, they know exactly what I'm referring to...
Well that's all for this week....enjoy the show tonight...it looks like the end for Ben...lord knows they are all but telling us he's about to be killed.... I hate promos like that...
Later!
EP
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