Wednesday, April 21, 2010

The Last Recruit

Okay I am back in love again. How could I ever doubt Lost? Last week fell flat for me and tonight’s episode restored my faith. Mainly because the episode moved both the flash sideways and island story line further. I was so afraid that the sonic fence was going to hinder Jin and Sun somehow. I am glad that there are finally reunited. I thought it was a little quick but it was nice to see them together.


Summary


I thought tonight was a solid episode. The recaps showed most of the key players flash sideways so you knew it was going to be good. There were some good lines from the cast. Sawyer: “Thought we might want to avoid huddles.” And “…pilot that looks like he stepped off a Burt Reynolds movie” as he refers to Lapidus. He really does! I missed him calling him “Chesty.” But my personal favorite from Hurley, “I mean, Anakin?” as an example of someone who comes back from the dark side. (That’s Darth Vadar’s true name for you non-Star Wars fans…Dark Lord of the Sith for the geeks). This episode really had it all. Humor from Sawyer as always. Romance with Sun and Jin reuniting. Camaraderie until Jack jumped off the boat. Philosophy between Desmond and evil Sayid. I wanted a little more danger, I’m just not afraid of Widmore. I think Locke has a lot of power, enough for Sun to be afraid of him when she was near death in her flash sideways.


Connections


The numbers were around in small ways. Ilana the lawyer was on the 15th floor. The building address was 4434 and the sum is 15. The explosion on the beach causes Jack to react the same was he did when he first awoke after the plane crash. Locke’s injury is also the same operation that Jack did in the original timeline but he made a mistake, panicked, and counted to 5 before he finished. The sailboat is called the Elizabethan and was the same boat Libby sold to Desmond. Most of the other connections were obvious and the work of Desmond putting people together.


Questions


I don’t have many questions this week. I think it was pretty clear that Sayid didn’t kill Desmond. I hope he connects with the Miles, Ben and Richard group. I am not sure if Desmond needs to get all the Losties together in LA or for them to just meet each other. Desmond in LA is a man of action where Desmond on the island is allowing fate to play out.


I think Sun got her English back because her separation from Jin was resolved, both on the island and off. The reunion was short but I still enjoyed it. I think that it was also the knowledge that her baby survived the gunshot. That piece connects both timelines.


The episode’s title was called the Last Recruit. That recruit being Jack. Jacob’s team are the candidates, SM Locke’s team are the recruits. Jacob's position is presented more as an honor and SM Locke as forced. SM Locke has been able to speak to everyone else at their most vulnerable point. It's now Jack's turn.


My ultimate question is still how does this all get resolved? Sun and Jin are together and have a baby, Claire meets a her long, lost half-brother, Locke may be able to walk again now that Jack is doing the surgery. If someone told you that you belong to another plane in time, would you let go? Again, this brings to mind the show Journeyman. He had a son in the original timeline and a girl in another. He went back to the original timeline. But what if that's not what happens? What if the joining of everyone in 2007 allows yet another option that has not been presented? Maybe Desmond is actually improving their lives in 2007 with the knowledge of their connections in 2004. Maybe they don't have to go back in time but ensure that 2007 happens the way its supposed to. At this point, I would be happy with Walt's arch being truly resolved either with us seeing him and Michael together or them connecting why the children in general seemed integral. That and the resolution to the timelines and the last 5 years not being for nothing. That’s all I need.


Conclusion


4 new episodes remain. The schedule is as follows: Next week is a re-run. They are replaying Richard’s episode. Why they felt it important to rerun that one is odd to me. Then Lost comes back the following Tuesday for 3 weeks straight and then the finale that same week on Sunday, May 23rd. There will be a 1 hour clip show, 2 hour finale and then Jimmy Kimmel is doing a 1 hour closure show with the cast and Darlton. I guess they can wrap things up in the next 5 hours they have left. Of course with the long sweeping scenes, pauses and traipsing up and down the beach and through the jungle, who knows! I’m not sure if you have ever noticed, but it takes 9-10 minutes for them to show the opening credits. So the scenes from last week, opening, Lost whoosh, commercial break, its already 9-10 after the hour. Check it out for yourself. They know how to milk it. And that’s okay…staying true to form. As long as I get my answers.


Well that’s all for this week. Take care and until the week after next, c-ya!

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Everybody Loves Hugo

An early blog! About damn time. I think its because this episode was not hard to process. So let’s get to it.


Summary


Fail. I am just going to come out and say it. I am disappointed on how things are going based on this episode. Lazy, rushed, nonsensical, irritating…those are the words that came to mind. And it could have worked! I thought the scenes of Desmond in LA were great. But back on the island the story just dragged. Not too mention blowing up Ilana?!? What was the point of that? That seemed to be thrown in at the last minute. I think the entire crew of the second plane of “good guys” was pointless. I think the worse offense was the explanation of the Whispers. I had always thought it was people on a different plane of time. They were observing them and commenting on what was going on. I would have even liked as the characters were flashing back to the island that those comments were the ones they were hearing on another plane. But no. It was basically lost souls commenting on them. Would have been more bang for the buck if the camera slowly panned and we saw Boone. That would have been a better use of his guest appearance. And it was so mater-of-fact! A major piece of the Lost mystic and it was “Oh, the Whispers are you guys, huh?” Didn’t like it.


At this point not sure where the story is going. Jin is on the boat being held captive so no reunion with Sun. Miles is with the barracks group so no more quipy lines. Ben seems relegated to side comments. Sawyer was just plain annoying with his faux bad boy stance. Didn’t like it.


Connections


The previous episode was entitled Everybody Hates Hugo. I had no idea that there was really a restaurant chain called Spanish Johnny’s but there is. Dr. Marvin Candle/Pierre Chang introduced Hugo at this Man of the Year banquet. Desmond’s chicken order was #42. Ilana is blown up by the dynamite much like Dr. Arzt was. The red book Hurley finds is called Notes from Underground and was Russian book written in 1864. Some boards have mentioned that Locke’s eyes changed colors. I didn’t notice that so I can’t comment any further but it may come back in regards to the SM and Locke combination.


Questions


SM Locke – I thought he was pretty impotent this episode Like we couldn’t see him tossing Desmond down the well a mile away. He seemed confused when in previous episodes he appeared to be the one with all the answers. We figured out that he needed all the Losties to get back off the island so he is gathering them all together. Again, I am not so sure him getting off the island is a bad thing. I am curious to find out who the boy is who seems to be taunting him.


Desmond – He was great as he orchestrated visited with Hurley and attempted to get him to meet with Libby. Even the cold way he mowed down Locke. But on the island he just seems to be creepy and in a trance. Sure, he knows more that he is saying, but the time it is taking to get to the end game is painful. I do like the idea that Desmond somehow knew that Locke is bad and chose that way to give him his near death experience. I hope Darlton work with that. I think we can guess that we are about to connect Locke, Jack, Jin and Sun at the hospital. Perhaps Claire can be there too for good measure.


What next? – Okay I have given this episode a good drumming. I think because I am starting to really like the flash sideways and they will all too soon be over. I would have liked to have been more invested in them earlier on with clues that they were going to link sooner. I remember from my earlier posts I wrote that I just didn’t care. But now I like them way more than life on the island. I don’t really have any idea how they are going to make it all make sense in the end. I didn't have a chance to really talk this episode out so once I do and I have any updates, I will be sure to post.


Conclusion


6 more weeks and it is all over. Please have a good plan, please have a good plan. I am starting to get sad to think it’s almost over but more afraid that it will end on a low note. But I am going to try and stay positive and read what you all have to say. I’m curious to see if I am the only one disappointed with this episode. That’s all for now. Take care and until next week, c-ya!

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Hapily Ever After

I don’t have the words to express the way I feel about this episode. Desmond ALWAYS brings it. And LOST…it has been brought! I just keep sputtering. I am going to take a walk, have some juice, collect my thoughts and then try to engage in an intelligent conversation about this episode. Right now, words fail me.


Summary


Episodes like Happily Ever After is precisely why this show is, in my words, off the chain. Epic at times. Am I over stating it? Maybe. But let me tell you why. Desmond’s presence in this series was genius. He is the hero without always seeing the “costume”. Jack, good guy, it’s clear. It’s overt. But Desmond part in this has always been the dark horse. His previous episode, The Constant, was a turning point into the timeline and fate vs. destiny arch of the show. And here again, at the end, we see the pieces coming together. Chills when Charlie transforms to a different place and time and shows his hand with the message “Not Penny’s boat.” Chills when Desmond asks for the manifest of the Oceanic Flight 815 and crazy stare as he says that he has to show them “something”. There’s not enough episodes for him to collect them all?!? To get them where?!? What is the significance of the timeline in relation to the island?!? AHHHH!! Let’s take this piece-by-piece and perhaps we can make it all make sense.


Connections


So many but to be expected in a Desmond episode. Many times the characters, things said and experiences overlap. George Minikowski was Desmond’s driver. George was the Communications Officer on the freighter that Charles Widmore sent to get Benjamin Linus. He began suffering the effects of time travel and eventually died because he could not get his mind and body back to the same point in time. We see a white rabbit, named Angstrom after a novelist who wrote books with Rabbit in the title and centered around themes of life, death and redemption. In the flash sideways, Charles and Eloise are married. Charles has a relationship with his son Daniel, who is now a musician. Daniel knows about Penny and Penny has a relationship with Eloise, since she was invited to the party. The luggage carousel was 4 and the numbers were on the MRI machine as well as the board at the airport. Charlie and Desmond go to Jax’s Bar. Charles freely offers Desmond his MacCutcheon scotch and says he’s worth the 60-year-old scotch, which he specifically said he wasn’t in the other timeline. There is a model of Libby’s boat that Desmond used to sail around the world in Widmore’s office. The painting in the background of Widmore’s office was of the scales, evenly balanced, with black stones on the left and white stones on the right. Eloise says, “What ever happened, happened”, to Desmond as she did in the previous timeline. Daniel says, “We need to talk,” to Desmond as he did in the previous timeline. The other connections are that Daniel remembered setting off the bomb, he had a connection with Charlotte at the museum and Charlie had a connection with Claire on the plane.


Questions


Widmore – So is he bad? I thought he was there to exploit the EM power of the island. Seems like he just wants to reset the timeline and remove the flash sideways. So if island Widmore knows that, why would he try to get Desmond to try and change it? So he doesn’t have a grandson. He has a wife, a son, a daughter. I’m not sure what is motivating island Widmore. Widmore seems to have the life he wants in the flash sideways.


Desmond – What is the sacrifice he must make? Is it that Penny lives with their son and he can never be with them? Or could it be death? Not sure what his cryptic smile meant and perhaps he knows more than Widmore thinks.


WTF – What the frick is going on?!? Although I applaud the episode for the WTF moments as well as giving us more Desmond and what seems to be answers, I am still confused as ever with all the stray pieces. Stay with me now:


The Flash Sideways are what occurred once the bomb went off. It is not the result of either Jacob not touching people or the SM getting off the island. It is happening in real time on another dimension of time. Juliet saying it worked is her being dead and seeing the Flash Sideways, the same way when Desmond was near death, he saw the current 2007 timeline which includes the island. Desmond will try to contact all the people on Oceanic 815 and they will either have to choose to live in the new timeline or exist in the other one. I don’t know if they all have to decide of just some of them? But without knowing all the details, how can you really choose? Charlie can choose to return to the other timeline and experience life with Claire, but he is dead. Is loving and losing more important then not finding her at all? How does SM and Jacob fit into this? 5 more episodes. I am holding out hope that this all will make sense.


Eloise - Who is orchestrating all this? Eloise spoke about the rules and she obviously knows about the alternate timeline and has made a choice to stay in the current one. But do the others then affect your reality if they choose to make a switch? Of course because they are all interconnected. So do you shift your life even though it could mean bad things and death for someone else? I am reminded of Doggen. If the flash sideways was his life and then he meets Jacob after the accident and is sent to the island where he eventually dies. Making the flash sideways the before and the island the after. How many times can you choose again?


Ben - At some point it seemed as though him and Widmore were on the same level. But Ben is now in the dark and Widmore has more answers. It kind of makes Ben's presence in all this irrelevant the past seasons. And that worries me because I hate to think we will get an ending that is not closely linked to the very beginning. At least the major pieces like Ben and Walt. It even seems as though we drifted from Jacob and SM's importance in this episode. So I hope they bring it all back together. Somehow!


Conclusion


The only hint for next week’s episode is that we will probably get Hurley’s flash sideways and hopefully more information about Libby. She is the one most wish to learn more about, after Richard. I am going to sit back and enjoy my final days of Spring Break. Wherever you are I hope you are relaxing too. Until next week, take care. C-ya!

Thursday, April 01, 2010

The Package

Hello all! I am currently on Spring Break so forgive me for my delay in completing this in a timely manner. I was hard at work doing absolutely nothing and I am exhausted! Actually having a 10 & 12 yr old girls running around fighting over invisible looks that “bother me” and constant requests for to be fed kept me occupied. But their fighting is now at a low roar and no one has drawn blood (yet) so I am going to try and get this out before I have to make meaningless threats of physical violence and taking away their remote controls. Yeah…like I want to be around them with no tv! Oh how I love stay-cations! Anyway...on with the show.

Summary

It’s hard for me to say this was a good episode after Richard’s flashback. It was nice to see Jin and Sun together in the flash sideways, although not married and still under her father’s thumb. They still don’t know that her father was trying to kill Jin since it was said in English and there is no indication that either know English yet. Sun learned it in the original time line to get away from Jin, but that wasn’t the case in this alternate version. I think it’s easy to assume that they go to the nearest hospital and Dr. Shepherd is on call. Although according to what I have gleamed from Grey’s Anatomy, an OB surgeon would take the case not him. But we shall see how that pans out.

For those of you who guessed Desmond was the package (me included!), congratulations. Now keep your ideas about the ending to yourself! ☺ I thought it was pretty obvious that it was him because it had to be someone important to the story that got off the island. Michael is dead, could have been Walt but I wasn’t feeling that. I hope Walt is destined to be a bigger part of the ending on the “good” side. Could have been Aaron or Ji Yeon but then you would have to have a nanny and that’s too complicated. Had to be Desmond, he was the only one left alive. I don’t know why Widmore would jeopardize his relationship with his daughter by taking the man she loves, but we shall see.

Found two great quotes from tonight's episode:
Sawyer: "Why don't you just turn to smoke and float over there?"
SM Locke: "James, I can't do that."
Sawyer: "Oh right, that would be ridiculous."

Also:
Miles: "Are we supposed to believe that she's suddenly lost her ability to speak English?"
Frank Lupidus: "...says the man that communicates with the dead."

Sawyer and Kate seemed pretty useless in this episode as well as Ben and the Others on the beach. I hope Lost picks things up because it is getting harder for me to defend where they are going and the time its taking to get there. Nonetheless, I am still a big fan.

Connections

Mikhail who was on the island as an Other at the Flame station and now is in the Flash Sideways to translate for Keamy. Mikhail is shot in the eye by Jin and on the island he wore an eye patch over that same eye. Sun’s hotel room was on the 8th floor, room 842. The brainwash room is #23. Both SM Locke and the original Locke enter Sun’s garden and say, “Bad day?” to her.

Questions

Desmond – Why was Desmond brought back to the island? He met Jack back in LA and bought Libby’s boat. He was Daniel’s constant and existed for him as a focal point in different timelines. Daniel’s mother spoke to him about fate and how it would course correct if he interfered. He had visions of Charlie’s death and tried to stop it repeatedly to no avail. He married and had a son with Penny, Widmore’s daughter. He was told he could save the world by pushing the button in the hatch. He turned the key that brought down Flight 815. What is his significance to the island and why was he seemingly a package delivered to it?

Cease to Be – Interesting choice of words from Widmore. If the SM gets off the island, those that we love will cease to be. Does that mean those that they love will no longer be those that love or will they not exist? I am starting to think it’s that it will change their reality and thus the flash sideways that we are seeing now. Basically SM gets off the island and time is changed to the flash sideways. So those that they love will no longer be in their lives or be there in a dramatically different way. I think the fear has been that it means death or destruction or evil in the world. I think it just means different. Much like I don’t see good or evil, just fate and choice. And fate puts them in each others lives anyway based on their new set of choices.

The Candidates – So I was correct in a way that SM Locke is looking for candidates too. He needs the ones that are potential Jacob candidates to turn and join his side. The other people are just peripheral and some are to lure the key people to come. Having one Kwon means the other will come too. Having Claire means he gets Kate. Having Kate means he gets Jack and Sawyer. Ben is a master manipulator and having him on his side is an asset as well as Richard, although neither are required. He already has Sayid. I think he needs them for balance. I think ultimately Hurley will be key. We could guess he needed a body to make the transition off the island. It will be interesting to find out how it all works.

The War – Widmore predicted the war in the first place and now he is here seemingly the cause of the war. It’s clear by him bring scientist before and now to the island that he wants to get the electromagnetic and other special properties of the island. He also cannot let SM go while he does that, for reasons like the one I suggested above. Is it all just as simple as that? If it is, would that be disappointing? Since Jacob is dead, how does the Candidate fit into this war?

Conclusion

Only 6 episodes left. If you watched the promo for next week, you will notice quite of few things will be resolved. I won’t get into it, of course, but I am glad to know that they are going to kick it into high gear. I am ready to move this train to the finish line! We should also see more familiar faces from Season 2 as promised and I am excited to learn how they will be introduced. Again, stay away from those spoilers…only 7 hours of this show left. That’s less than a normal workday. Not my normal workday…but I’ve heard things. Anyway until next week…take care. C-ya!