Another grand slam this week. I was glued. You didn't have to wait long to find out who put the camera up to await John Locke's arrival, and we had some great dialogue between Widmore and Locke. Of course Locke didn't ask all of the questions we may have wanted him to ask, but we got a clearer sense of the stakes this week than we have in the past: "There's a war coming, and if you're not on the island when that happens, the wrong side will win." How true this is remains to be seen, and it sure is conditional for all of the fate and destiny we see on this show, but it sure is interesting.
Do you believe Widmore? I think most of what he said was true. He was a leader of the people on the island. But if his idea of "peaceful defense" is snapping the neck of the colleague who is about to reveal the location of the camp, then this is going to be some awesome war! So no, I don't completely trust Widmore, but I do trust him more than Ben, and I love the reveal that Ben tricked him off the island -- something we have suspected since last season's "The Shape of Things to Come."
Was anyone really surprised the Ben strangled Locke and framed it as a suicide? He finds out what people are invested in, and he exploits it. He just needed to keep Mr. Special alive long enough to get the name of the person who would put him back on the island, and goodbye Johnny, again. Last time Ben tried to kill Locke he later said "I should have known better." WHy? Because he knows Locke has a role to play in the future and that he is already around for it. But Ben is all about changing fate, so he's going to keep testing it. I'm sure he thought he was getting rid of John by killing him like this and hoping that he could just leave him buried in some cemetary in LA. It wasn't until later that he learns that even dead John must go back to the island in order for him to be able to return. Drats, blocked again. The cat and mouse between these guys is awesome.
Do you think Helen is really dead? We have already seen that a gravestone in a cemetary does not a dead Jin make, and wouldn't it make sense for Widmore to stage Helen's death if some stupid notion like "the pursuit of love" were to distract Locke from getting where he needs to go?
Did you notice the "love" theme here? Sayid's "best nine months of his life" with the love of his life. Kate's "you wanted to leave the island because you've never been in love." And Abbaddon's "maybe you could have been together, but that was not your path." Nothing definitive in those themes, of course, but I still think it is forshadowing Ben's motivation -- doing all this nefarious business for the sake of cheating fate and spending more quality time with his beloved Annie. I know he is a liar and all, but I actually believed that bit of remorse when he said farewell to hanging corpse John -- I really will miss you. Regretably he has to do these things, but in hs mind (and his heart) the ends justify the means.
There is still some more off-island backstory to tell (Sayid's capture, Hurley's release, Kate & Aaron, Desmond & Penny, bloody Ben, etc) but it looks like we've tied up most of main the loose ends and are ready to continue the rest of the story on the island.
But I still have a few Widmore-related questions:
Ben clearly didn't know that Hawking was the way back to the island. Does Widmore? If he knows where she is I think that he must. So why doesn't he use her to get back to the island himself?
Richard used to visit off-island. Has he ever looked up Widmore? Are they enemies? Allies?
Anyway, another excellent episode. Can't wait for next week.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
LOST REVIEW: Ep. 5.6 "316" (Additional Thoughts)
Something wasn’t sitting quite right with me last night. It wasn’t the albondigas soup – that was fantastic. It was more the dilemma I face daily as I try to make sense of this puzzle that is Lost. It started with the simple question, “where did Ben go and how did he get so bloodied?”
Well, I think the obvious answer is that Ben went to kill Penny. He had seen Desmond minutes earlier at the church, and his eyes lit up in “future recognition,” although he had never actually met Desmond or known about his connection to Penny or even known that Penny has accompanied Desmond to Los Angeles in the first place (not from his past experience – only from his future experience). But Ben left jack in the church saying that he had made a “promise to an old friend” (i.e. that he would kill that old friend’s daughter) and had that loose end to tie up before heading back to the island for good. Clearly something went wrong with his plan – no, I don’t think that he did kill Penny – he was thwarted and barely made it back to the plane in time to get back to the island, which – ultimately – was more important to him than revenge. So Ben made it on the plane following the plan that Hawking set up to get him back to the island.
But when you start pulling on that string, other strings begin to unravel. Like this:
Why can’t Widmore use Hawking to get back to the island?
When Ben promised Widmore that he would kill his daughter, and Widmore said “you’ll never find her” Ben gave a “right back at ya” remark in regards to the island. But – hang on a minute – because this is the same Widmore who pointed Desmond to Los Angeles in the first place, to go find the mother of the guy who’s research he had been funding for so many years. If Widmore knew Hawking was in LA, he must also have known about the lamppost Dharma station and the island-finding pendulum. Infact, if Widmore is really trying to find the island and he is really funding someone’s research, isn’t it reasonable to expect that those two things go together? In other words, Widmore should be able to go to LA and look at the swinging pendulum himself and know exactly where the island is going to be in time – where the “windows” will open and close.
So why doesn’t Widmore do it himself?
Probably the same reason you don’t use your king to make aggressive moves in Chess. You get your pawns and bishops and knights to clear the way.
Which explains, I think, who these other people on the plane are with the Oceanic 6. The woman escorting Sayid – the Arab man who spoke to Jack – these guys are part of Widmore’s “next group” to go to the island for him – the group after Naomi, Faraday, Charlotte, Miles, etc. Heck, even clean-shaven Frank Lapidus is flying the plane, and he was a part of that previous group as well.
This flight is yet another attempt of Widmore to get back and regain control of the island. Widmore may even be the reason Sayid (captured) and Hurley (released from jail) and Kate (Aaron taken away) changed their minds and got on board in such a short amount of time. We already know he has something going on with Sun.
But Ben keeps gumming up the works, doesn’t he? John Locke was supposed to turn the donkey wheel, but Ben did it instead. John Locke was supposed to round up the O6 and take them to Hawking for a ticket back to the island, but Ben did that instead. Now Ben is situating himself once again between Widmore and his objectives. It would not surprise me at all to see that Ben is somehow undermining this third or fourth or whatever number attempt Widmore is making to get back to the island.
It also wouldn’t surprise me to see that Faraday is the “clever man” who created the lamppost station for Dharma in the early 50’s as the culmination of a research grant from Widmore that started in the early 80’s and that Widmore’s reason for including Faraday as part of Naomi’s first group to the island was to get him back to the 50’s to create that lamppost station that finally finds the island for Widmore after years of searching. He has the tool to find it, but the only way to get back is to ride the coattails of someone that the island really needs – like Jack Sheppard or John Locke or the other O6 who’s roles and overall importance are slowly coming into greater focus. I like all the Narnia and Caspian references I have been seeing from Doc Jensen and elsewhere. It really is looking like the return of the noble family of Narnia or something. They don’t really know who they are yet.
Such a cool show.
Well, I think the obvious answer is that Ben went to kill Penny. He had seen Desmond minutes earlier at the church, and his eyes lit up in “future recognition,” although he had never actually met Desmond or known about his connection to Penny or even known that Penny has accompanied Desmond to Los Angeles in the first place (not from his past experience – only from his future experience). But Ben left jack in the church saying that he had made a “promise to an old friend” (i.e. that he would kill that old friend’s daughter) and had that loose end to tie up before heading back to the island for good. Clearly something went wrong with his plan – no, I don’t think that he did kill Penny – he was thwarted and barely made it back to the plane in time to get back to the island, which – ultimately – was more important to him than revenge. So Ben made it on the plane following the plan that Hawking set up to get him back to the island.
But when you start pulling on that string, other strings begin to unravel. Like this:
Why can’t Widmore use Hawking to get back to the island?
When Ben promised Widmore that he would kill his daughter, and Widmore said “you’ll never find her” Ben gave a “right back at ya” remark in regards to the island. But – hang on a minute – because this is the same Widmore who pointed Desmond to Los Angeles in the first place, to go find the mother of the guy who’s research he had been funding for so many years. If Widmore knew Hawking was in LA, he must also have known about the lamppost Dharma station and the island-finding pendulum. Infact, if Widmore is really trying to find the island and he is really funding someone’s research, isn’t it reasonable to expect that those two things go together? In other words, Widmore should be able to go to LA and look at the swinging pendulum himself and know exactly where the island is going to be in time – where the “windows” will open and close.
So why doesn’t Widmore do it himself?
Probably the same reason you don’t use your king to make aggressive moves in Chess. You get your pawns and bishops and knights to clear the way.
Which explains, I think, who these other people on the plane are with the Oceanic 6. The woman escorting Sayid – the Arab man who spoke to Jack – these guys are part of Widmore’s “next group” to go to the island for him – the group after Naomi, Faraday, Charlotte, Miles, etc. Heck, even clean-shaven Frank Lapidus is flying the plane, and he was a part of that previous group as well.
This flight is yet another attempt of Widmore to get back and regain control of the island. Widmore may even be the reason Sayid (captured) and Hurley (released from jail) and Kate (Aaron taken away) changed their minds and got on board in such a short amount of time. We already know he has something going on with Sun.
But Ben keeps gumming up the works, doesn’t he? John Locke was supposed to turn the donkey wheel, but Ben did it instead. John Locke was supposed to round up the O6 and take them to Hawking for a ticket back to the island, but Ben did that instead. Now Ben is situating himself once again between Widmore and his objectives. It would not surprise me at all to see that Ben is somehow undermining this third or fourth or whatever number attempt Widmore is making to get back to the island.
It also wouldn’t surprise me to see that Faraday is the “clever man” who created the lamppost station for Dharma in the early 50’s as the culmination of a research grant from Widmore that started in the early 80’s and that Widmore’s reason for including Faraday as part of Naomi’s first group to the island was to get him back to the 50’s to create that lamppost station that finally finds the island for Widmore after years of searching. He has the tool to find it, but the only way to get back is to ride the coattails of someone that the island really needs – like Jack Sheppard or John Locke or the other O6 who’s roles and overall importance are slowly coming into greater focus. I like all the Narnia and Caspian references I have been seeing from Doc Jensen and elsewhere. It really is looking like the return of the noble family of Narnia or something. They don’t really know who they are yet.
Such a cool show.
Friday, February 20, 2009
LOST REVIEW: Ep. 5.6 "316"
“Is he telling the truth?”
“Probably not”
I loved every minute of this episode. From the very beginning with the iconic “eye close-up” on Jack waking up again on the island – I was absolutely hooked. The pacing was so much better – slower – more character driven. The reveals were so much more significant. It ranks right up there in my top five favorite episodes. Awesome.
So, thank you Nate for pointing out the Desmond quote that “these people are playing a game and we are just the pieces.” But the most significant reveals in this episode to me were Ms. Hawking’s history lesson about how Dharma found the island – “this is how they found the island.” Who exactly are the “they” she is referring to? I have some wacky ideas.
“A very clever fellow” built the pendulum on the theoretical notion that they should stop looking for where the island was supposed to be, and start looking for where it was going to be. This man and his team figured out where the island would be at a certain point in time.
I can’t help thinking that Daniel Faraday is/was/will be that very clever fellow, and that Jack Shepherd and his friends from Oceanic 815 are his team. If I am right, this all happened in a past that these guys haven’t quite arrived at that point in their own history yet. But it has already happened, so Ms. Hawking can confidently tell Desmond that the island is not through with him, because she knows that he has already played this important role in the past, just as she knew that he would go to the island and push the button.
It also explains her answer about what would happen if they all didn’t get back to the island – it would be unpredictable – which means, of course, that since they all DID get back to the island (it already happened) and their actions put into motion events that have already occurred, if that were somehow changed, you couldn’t predict with any certainty what would happen next.
Which – I think – is exactly what Ben is trying to accomplish in his quest to maintain control of the island and harness the power it gives him.
If Faraday and Jack and Co. are the historical founders of Dharma, the builders of the lamppost station, and the finders of the island, then Ben would have learned this in his history lessons on the island. He would have had knowledge of what had already happened, even though the players themselves had not advanced that far yet in the game.
One theory that I have scoffed at for the past two seasons is the suggestion that Jacob is John Locke. I haven’t completely embraced this idea yet (especially since Richard didn’t recognize Locke at one point when he said that Jacob sent him), but now I am seeing how this could possibly be the case, and if it is, I wouldn’t really hate it.
Imagine that Locke goes through everything he is going through – that in a return to the island as “proxy” he is reincarnated somehow -- but at an earlier stage in the island’s history – it is possible that he could become the “Jacob” who is the protector of the island. It is also possible that he is somehow imprisoned – or whatever the current state of Jacob is – by a greedy power-hungry guy like Charles Widmore, who then loses the island to greedier power-hungrier Benjamin Linus, who recognizes the young Jacob in John Locke, and tries to insert himself into Locke’s historical path to greatness so that he (Ben) will become the historic “Jacob” instead of Locke (example: Ben “moves the island” instead of Locke doing it because he thinks that will put himself on the path that makes Locke become Jacob).
It’s late. I’m rambling. And it’s late.
At one point in this past episode I started thinking along these “usurping” lines and I told Tracey that when Jack opened up the coffin to put in the shoes, he would find Ben inside instead of Locke – Ben, of course, trying to take Locke’s place. But, um… I was wrong.
It doesn’t mean I won’t keep trying.
Remember in this season’s premier, we saw Faraday in Dharma attire doing something sneaky around the soon-to-be orchid station. Well, I’m expecting a twist in this season’s finale. Faraday and some of the Losties (Jack and Co.) will hatch some plan to harness the energy to get them back to where they need to be, but will once again get booted off the island. Somehow Ben will be behind this to get them out of the picture. They will be sent back to the outside world, but this time they will be in the past – the 1950s – and they once again will have to find a way back to the island. That’s when they will build the lamppost, and will start Dharma, and will put all these things in to motion, and do it with a clearer picture of what will happen in the future, because they have already seen it and experienced it, and they will create a game of mousetrap to outsmart Ben linus with their 20-20 hindsight.
Let me walk you through another crazy mousetrap scenario I can imagine:
In order for Locke to finally triumph over Ben, he has to posses some knowledge that Ben does not know that he has – the glow-in-the-dark map of all Dharma stations he saw on the blast door. This knowledge will ultimately save the day. Somehow. Just work with me.
In order for Locke to see the map, Ben has to do whatever Ben did in the swan hatch to reset the system and cause the blackout and the map to start glowing (without knowing, of course, what he has done).
In order for Ben to get into the Swan hatch in the first place, he has to be captured unexpectedly by Rousseau in her net and delivered to Sayid and the Losties.
In order for Rousseau to build her net traps, she and her team must be lead to the island.
In order for Rousseau’s team to find the island, someone (my money is on Hurley) must transmit the numbers 4 8 15 16 23 42 from the radio tower. (I really like the idea that Hurley is the ultimate source of his own numbers paranoia).
In order for Locke to be able to see the map and the information it contains after all of this has happened, some named Radzinski (Faraday? Locke himself?) must paint it invisibly onto the blast door.
This may be way off, but with the new time twists in Lost, we can see all of these potentially mind-blowing possibilities of the older Losties preparing the island for the arrival of their younger selves. Who knows – maybe they somehow arrange the food drops in advance because they know they will need them in the future? There are so many ways this can be used.
Of course this episode also has many other minor mysteries to be solved in the next few episodes:
What happened with Aaron?
How did Ben get all bloodied?
Who is the woman with Sayid, and the Middle Eastern man in the seas with them?
Where (when?) are the other people on the plane (did it crash, or did the island just reclaim the people that weren’t supposed to leave it?)
Why did Frank Lapidus shave his cool Kenny Rogers beard?
So many questions. So many possible answers. So glad that Lost got itself back on track after Locke fixed that annoying skipping donkey wheel.
Yes!!!! It’s back.
“Probably not”
I loved every minute of this episode. From the very beginning with the iconic “eye close-up” on Jack waking up again on the island – I was absolutely hooked. The pacing was so much better – slower – more character driven. The reveals were so much more significant. It ranks right up there in my top five favorite episodes. Awesome.
So, thank you Nate for pointing out the Desmond quote that “these people are playing a game and we are just the pieces.” But the most significant reveals in this episode to me were Ms. Hawking’s history lesson about how Dharma found the island – “this is how they found the island.” Who exactly are the “they” she is referring to? I have some wacky ideas.
“A very clever fellow” built the pendulum on the theoretical notion that they should stop looking for where the island was supposed to be, and start looking for where it was going to be. This man and his team figured out where the island would be at a certain point in time.
I can’t help thinking that Daniel Faraday is/was/will be that very clever fellow, and that Jack Shepherd and his friends from Oceanic 815 are his team. If I am right, this all happened in a past that these guys haven’t quite arrived at that point in their own history yet. But it has already happened, so Ms. Hawking can confidently tell Desmond that the island is not through with him, because she knows that he has already played this important role in the past, just as she knew that he would go to the island and push the button.
It also explains her answer about what would happen if they all didn’t get back to the island – it would be unpredictable – which means, of course, that since they all DID get back to the island (it already happened) and their actions put into motion events that have already occurred, if that were somehow changed, you couldn’t predict with any certainty what would happen next.
Which – I think – is exactly what Ben is trying to accomplish in his quest to maintain control of the island and harness the power it gives him.
If Faraday and Jack and Co. are the historical founders of Dharma, the builders of the lamppost station, and the finders of the island, then Ben would have learned this in his history lessons on the island. He would have had knowledge of what had already happened, even though the players themselves had not advanced that far yet in the game.
One theory that I have scoffed at for the past two seasons is the suggestion that Jacob is John Locke. I haven’t completely embraced this idea yet (especially since Richard didn’t recognize Locke at one point when he said that Jacob sent him), but now I am seeing how this could possibly be the case, and if it is, I wouldn’t really hate it.
Imagine that Locke goes through everything he is going through – that in a return to the island as “proxy” he is reincarnated somehow -- but at an earlier stage in the island’s history – it is possible that he could become the “Jacob” who is the protector of the island. It is also possible that he is somehow imprisoned – or whatever the current state of Jacob is – by a greedy power-hungry guy like Charles Widmore, who then loses the island to greedier power-hungrier Benjamin Linus, who recognizes the young Jacob in John Locke, and tries to insert himself into Locke’s historical path to greatness so that he (Ben) will become the historic “Jacob” instead of Locke (example: Ben “moves the island” instead of Locke doing it because he thinks that will put himself on the path that makes Locke become Jacob).
It’s late. I’m rambling. And it’s late.
At one point in this past episode I started thinking along these “usurping” lines and I told Tracey that when Jack opened up the coffin to put in the shoes, he would find Ben inside instead of Locke – Ben, of course, trying to take Locke’s place. But, um… I was wrong.
It doesn’t mean I won’t keep trying.
Remember in this season’s premier, we saw Faraday in Dharma attire doing something sneaky around the soon-to-be orchid station. Well, I’m expecting a twist in this season’s finale. Faraday and some of the Losties (Jack and Co.) will hatch some plan to harness the energy to get them back to where they need to be, but will once again get booted off the island. Somehow Ben will be behind this to get them out of the picture. They will be sent back to the outside world, but this time they will be in the past – the 1950s – and they once again will have to find a way back to the island. That’s when they will build the lamppost, and will start Dharma, and will put all these things in to motion, and do it with a clearer picture of what will happen in the future, because they have already seen it and experienced it, and they will create a game of mousetrap to outsmart Ben linus with their 20-20 hindsight.
Let me walk you through another crazy mousetrap scenario I can imagine:
In order for Locke to finally triumph over Ben, he has to posses some knowledge that Ben does not know that he has – the glow-in-the-dark map of all Dharma stations he saw on the blast door. This knowledge will ultimately save the day. Somehow. Just work with me.
In order for Locke to see the map, Ben has to do whatever Ben did in the swan hatch to reset the system and cause the blackout and the map to start glowing (without knowing, of course, what he has done).
In order for Ben to get into the Swan hatch in the first place, he has to be captured unexpectedly by Rousseau in her net and delivered to Sayid and the Losties.
In order for Rousseau to build her net traps, she and her team must be lead to the island.
In order for Rousseau’s team to find the island, someone (my money is on Hurley) must transmit the numbers 4 8 15 16 23 42 from the radio tower. (I really like the idea that Hurley is the ultimate source of his own numbers paranoia).
In order for Locke to be able to see the map and the information it contains after all of this has happened, some named Radzinski (Faraday? Locke himself?) must paint it invisibly onto the blast door.
This may be way off, but with the new time twists in Lost, we can see all of these potentially mind-blowing possibilities of the older Losties preparing the island for the arrival of their younger selves. Who knows – maybe they somehow arrange the food drops in advance because they know they will need them in the future? There are so many ways this can be used.
Of course this episode also has many other minor mysteries to be solved in the next few episodes:
What happened with Aaron?
How did Ben get all bloodied?
Who is the woman with Sayid, and the Middle Eastern man in the seas with them?
Where (when?) are the other people on the plane (did it crash, or did the island just reclaim the people that weren’t supposed to leave it?)
Why did Frank Lapidus shave his cool Kenny Rogers beard?
So many questions. So many possible answers. So glad that Lost got itself back on track after Locke fixed that annoying skipping donkey wheel.
Yes!!!! It’s back.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Ep. 5.5 This Place is Death
I’ve been a little disappointed in Lost the past few weeks -- too much so to really devote the time to a blog about it. It felt rushed (flash, bleed, flash, bleed). Anti-climatic (my name is Rousseau, Danielle Rousseau). Pointless (didn’t we see Claire give birth to Aaron a couple of seasons ago – do we really need to see it again?) Genuine character motivations were sacrificed for the sake of plot advancement (“Do not trust Benjamin Linus – well, okay, I’ll go with you, but I’m driving”). It got to a point where I thought maybe Nikki and Paulo were writing the scripts.
But this week was better.
The pacing felt better – less frenzied. And it was refreshing to see the main characters start acting more like themselves again. Sayid seemed more like Sayid (if I see either of you two again…). Kate seemed more like Kate (you are crazy, I am outa here). Locke was definitely Locke (climbing down that rope into the well that you knew with the next flash would probably not be there anymore). Overall it felt like the story started getting back on track.
I loved seeing Christian Shepherd help Locke to the donkey wheel. He confirmed my suspicions when he said “I told YOU to move the island.” What does that mean? It’s obvious, right? In the great game of chess between the Universe and Ben, the Universe has a killer move (Locke moves the island) so Ben sees that and blocks it (Ben moves the island instead). Exactly WHY that is such a killer move is yet to be revealed, and I haven’t thought through it well enough yet. It must have something to do with Ben losing control of the island somehow. Maybe if Locke would have turned the wheel in the first place, the island would have “moved” with he and his people intact and Ben and his people would have been skipping along the record of time. Whatever the real reason, Ben is still Ben, and that is refreshing as well.
Did anyone else think that the “wobbliness” of the donkey wheel had some correlation to the random flashes Locke had been experiencing?
I liked what I saw of Rousseau’s team this time, and I am glad that they will not be dragging out that storyline any longer. They were obligated to show a Danielle flashback – longtime fan expectations and all -- and thankfully the moments they chose to depict were meaningful. We knew already that Montague had lost an arm. Now we know how. And it was great to get back to that season one “smoke monster dragging people into the ground” thing. And it was cool to see the temple, with the hieroglyphs that we have seen in a few other places (the swan hatch numbers and Ben’s secret door). It was cool to hear Robert tell Danielle that smokey is a security system to protect the temple, and to get a sense for the unreliable nature of that information that we have had since season one. Just because Rousseau said it was a “security system” doesn’t mean that it is really a security system. It’s just what she heard from the mouth of her once-trusted husband who was lying through his teeth about many other things at that point so he could make her think that nothing really happened (what DID really happen?) and blow her brains out. And were they really “sick” or was this just Danielle’s interpretation of what happened after they went down on smokey? You understand Danielle’s “craziness” a little better this time.
I will miss Charlotte. I think Rebecca Mader had/has a lot untapped potential as an actress there. Maybe we will see her again and her storyline will continue to develop, but now we know why Faraday, when we first met him last season, was crying while watching the wreckage of 815 on TV. He was remembering the future loss he felt in Charlotte’s death. I do think that their relationship would have benefitted from more time together and more narrative development so that we as an audience would feel (and completely believe) the grief that Faraday felt. But that storyline is just window dressing at this point -- a nice little side-story not really worth the time or effort that could have made it much more meaningful. I did like the realization she experienced of her imminent death by the convenient (contrived?) recollection of the crazy man Faraday who warned her to never go back to the island or she would die, but there are much better ways to delivered that backstory than a deathbed exposition. That’s the downside of having a definite end date for the show – rushing through things like this that could have been done much better, and have been in past seasons when they had more of a luxury of time.
And Eloise (yes, that sound is me making armpit raspberries) Hawking. I resigned myself to the fact that she would be Faraday’s mother two episodes ago. But I still don’t really like it. Oh well. Looks from the previews like next week will be a really cool episode with her explaining more about the island and these “windows.” But I do feel a little cheated and manipulated at having the Ms. Hawking tease end two of the first four episodes of the season. That’s going to the well a little too often if you ask me. Maybe they were afraid it would disappear in the next flash.
So overall, I was happy with Lost this week. That doesn’t mean it was perfect. The Sun with a Gun storyline fizzled to its obvious conclusion (no, not Jack, she’s gonna shoot Ben – woo hoo). Jack still isn’t acting quite like Jack. Miles from Encino is pointless extra baggage without his awesome ghost whispering talents put to use. And Jin rearn so fast Engrish storyrine reary noying.
But Ben stopping the car and acting like a jilted drama queen was awesome (don’t make me stop this car again).
I’ll give this one a B-
Looking forward to next week.
But this week was better.
The pacing felt better – less frenzied. And it was refreshing to see the main characters start acting more like themselves again. Sayid seemed more like Sayid (if I see either of you two again…). Kate seemed more like Kate (you are crazy, I am outa here). Locke was definitely Locke (climbing down that rope into the well that you knew with the next flash would probably not be there anymore). Overall it felt like the story started getting back on track.
I loved seeing Christian Shepherd help Locke to the donkey wheel. He confirmed my suspicions when he said “I told YOU to move the island.” What does that mean? It’s obvious, right? In the great game of chess between the Universe and Ben, the Universe has a killer move (Locke moves the island) so Ben sees that and blocks it (Ben moves the island instead). Exactly WHY that is such a killer move is yet to be revealed, and I haven’t thought through it well enough yet. It must have something to do with Ben losing control of the island somehow. Maybe if Locke would have turned the wheel in the first place, the island would have “moved” with he and his people intact and Ben and his people would have been skipping along the record of time. Whatever the real reason, Ben is still Ben, and that is refreshing as well.
Did anyone else think that the “wobbliness” of the donkey wheel had some correlation to the random flashes Locke had been experiencing?
I liked what I saw of Rousseau’s team this time, and I am glad that they will not be dragging out that storyline any longer. They were obligated to show a Danielle flashback – longtime fan expectations and all -- and thankfully the moments they chose to depict were meaningful. We knew already that Montague had lost an arm. Now we know how. And it was great to get back to that season one “smoke monster dragging people into the ground” thing. And it was cool to see the temple, with the hieroglyphs that we have seen in a few other places (the swan hatch numbers and Ben’s secret door). It was cool to hear Robert tell Danielle that smokey is a security system to protect the temple, and to get a sense for the unreliable nature of that information that we have had since season one. Just because Rousseau said it was a “security system” doesn’t mean that it is really a security system. It’s just what she heard from the mouth of her once-trusted husband who was lying through his teeth about many other things at that point so he could make her think that nothing really happened (what DID really happen?) and blow her brains out. And were they really “sick” or was this just Danielle’s interpretation of what happened after they went down on smokey? You understand Danielle’s “craziness” a little better this time.
I will miss Charlotte. I think Rebecca Mader had/has a lot untapped potential as an actress there. Maybe we will see her again and her storyline will continue to develop, but now we know why Faraday, when we first met him last season, was crying while watching the wreckage of 815 on TV. He was remembering the future loss he felt in Charlotte’s death. I do think that their relationship would have benefitted from more time together and more narrative development so that we as an audience would feel (and completely believe) the grief that Faraday felt. But that storyline is just window dressing at this point -- a nice little side-story not really worth the time or effort that could have made it much more meaningful. I did like the realization she experienced of her imminent death by the convenient (contrived?) recollection of the crazy man Faraday who warned her to never go back to the island or she would die, but there are much better ways to delivered that backstory than a deathbed exposition. That’s the downside of having a definite end date for the show – rushing through things like this that could have been done much better, and have been in past seasons when they had more of a luxury of time.
And Eloise (yes, that sound is me making armpit raspberries) Hawking. I resigned myself to the fact that she would be Faraday’s mother two episodes ago. But I still don’t really like it. Oh well. Looks from the previews like next week will be a really cool episode with her explaining more about the island and these “windows.” But I do feel a little cheated and manipulated at having the Ms. Hawking tease end two of the first four episodes of the season. That’s going to the well a little too often if you ask me. Maybe they were afraid it would disappear in the next flash.
So overall, I was happy with Lost this week. That doesn’t mean it was perfect. The Sun with a Gun storyline fizzled to its obvious conclusion (no, not Jack, she’s gonna shoot Ben – woo hoo). Jack still isn’t acting quite like Jack. Miles from Encino is pointless extra baggage without his awesome ghost whispering talents put to use. And Jin rearn so fast Engrish storyrine reary noying.
But Ben stopping the car and acting like a jilted drama queen was awesome (don’t make me stop this car again).
I’ll give this one a B-
Looking forward to next week.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Ep. 5.1-2 Because You Left/The Lie
I miss the flashbacks. Even last season, when they were called flashforwards, they were great. Okay, maybe I just really like flashing, but mostly I really liked the way one episode would center around one specific character. You could say "this is a Jack episode" or "I can't wait for another Ben episode" but the new format looks like they are getting away from that, and I miss that. Hopefully I'm wrong.
But as for this theory of mine... I think it's still safely on track. Let's recap:
1. Ben is waging a cosmic game of chess against "the universe" (aka "fate")
2. The powers of the island give Ben his ability to play this game, and he will keep that power at all costs
3. The stakes: changing history (specifically, saving the life of his beloved Annie)
Those are the Bernard-colored spectacles through which I interpret this show, and I think I'm still doing pretty good. What additional information did we learn from the two-part season premier?
1. Ben has more chess pieces off the island than we previously suspected
Not a huge surprise. We saw how he used Sayid last season, and we saw the video where Widmore took out one of "Ben's men" -- if he could stitch up Sayid in a vet he can store Dead Bentham in a butcher shop.
Any doubt that Ben hired those attorneys to flush Kate and Aaron out into the open?
Any doubt that Ben’s man was the guy sitting in the car keeping an eye on Hurley so that Ben could come in and take him when the time was right?
Any doubt that the men shooting Sayid with a tranquilizer (instead of real bullets) were Ben’s men trying to get Sayid so they can go back to the island together?
Any doubt that Sun is playing double agent? I just haven’t decided if she is working with Ben against Widmore, or if she is truly working for herself against Ben, using Widmore. Not sure... It is easy for me to imagine, however, that Ben would have sought her out after her return the way he did Sayid – that he would have explained to Sun that the freighter and the explosives and the second protocol and Martin keamy and the plan to kill everyone on the island were all Widmore’s doing. I can even imagine Ben giving her a similar line to the one he gave Michael: “wouldn’t a father (or wife) do anything to save (or avenge) his son (or husband)?” – a question very similar to the one Sun asked Kate. And you're telling me that Sun just happened to fly to Los Angeles within this 70-hour window of time when ben has to get everyone back onto the island, and she just happened to call Kate's cell phone right after Kate was scared out by the big bad my so-called attorney? Smells to me like she is pulling the strings for someone, and I'm going out on a limb to say it is the ultimate con-artist, Ben (although it may very well be Widmore trying to gum up Ben's plans -- we'll see).
But Ben is, once again, moving the pieces, pulling the strings. And he’s really really good at it.
2. Ms. Hawking
I loved seeing her again so much that I broke out the DVD collection and showed The Others to my daughter. That is such a great movie. But is Ms. Hawking really working for Ben? I’m not sure. I don’t really see her as a piece on Ben’s chess board. But she certainly possesses information that he needs. I loved the druid hood and all the time watching and the 70-hour window. But what is her true role in all of this?
My previous guess was that she was a long-time inhabitant of the island, maybe along the lines of Richard Alpert. But at some point, the original inhabitants had to choose who they would follow – maybe at the same time that Ben usurped the island from Widmore – and while Alpert chose Ben, Hawking chose Widmore. Maybe. But if so, why is she helping Ben? Ben always finds out what people are emotionally invested in and he exploits it. It Hawking wants back to the island, maybe he is using that to his advantage – allying with a former adversary to achieve a common goal.
One thing I know for sure about Hawking – if she turns out to be Faraday’s mother, I’m going to start making raspberry sounds with my armpits (and that is not a good thing).
3. Ben’s foreknowledge
This is something that has interested me for a while. Ben, wherever he is, always seems to go to some hidden place and retrieve something that was previously left for him there. We saw it last year with the buried lunch box and the mirror (and the 15-year-old crackers) and in one of the deleted scene on the DVDs he gets a little care package out of a rock in the middle of the Arabian desert after turning the frozen donkey wheel.
Now, in the season opener, he pulls a package out of the air conditioning vent at the hotel. I think this is evidence of his foreknowledge – he knows that Bill and Ted are going to need the keys to the prison cell so he swipes them from Bill's dad and puts them right where they can find them ahead of time. It’s an example of how the time-manipulating properties of the island give Ben the power he needs to try and outmaneuver the universe. And it's only scratching the surface (please only be scratching the surface -- don't tell me that Lost is only as sophistacated as Bill and Ted).
4. You can’t change history – once something is done, it is done
So says Daniel, the academic. But I've been in academia, and I know a bit about how these theories work. It’s a nice theory. It is sound and testable. And it is one we’ve heard before, from Ms. Hawking for one (please don't be his mother!!!). But the problem is, through the magic of dramatic irony, we -- the audience -- have insights not available to Dr. Faraday. We have seen that his theory is not necessarily true. Or at least we have seen that there is some grey area here.
Desmond changed Charlie’s fate, and that change had some serious repercussions. If Charlie would have been struck by lightening, or killed by that pigeon (he was at one point pecked to death by a pigeon, right?), or shot with that booby-trap arrow (I just wanted to say booby), then he would never have pushed those good vibration buttons that allowed Widmore’s freighter folk to get a lock on the island, and that set a whole range of events into motion. Of course Ben was able to somehow turn that donkey wheel and block Widmore’s move, but Charlie’s single button-pushing event seriously influenced the lives of dozens – if not hundreds – of people. How course-correction fits into this I don’t really know, but it seems that history can in fact be changed -- at least kind of.
But this is going to be another one of these science vs. faith, free will vs. fate dichotomies that we have come to know and love on Lost. My money is on the ability to change history, and Ben is going to do it to save his woman. Can’t wait to see how close I am with this Annie thing.
5. Stuff I really liked
The skipping record metaphor
“Previously on Entourage”
Ms. Hawking (duh!)
Ben trying to get Hurley to trust him (or perhaps to “not” trust him, see Anna Lucia discussion below)
Sayid has discovered Ben’s duplicitousness (and I have discovered a fun new word). I am looking forward to seeing how Sayid finds out that it was really Ben who had Naudia killed – not Widmore.
Ah who am I kidding – I liked pretty much all of it.
Except…
6. Stuff I didn’t like
Not a big fan of the Back to the Future II “future self watching past self do things that defined past self's success but could not have been accomplished without future self’s intervention.” (Stop it - I'm dizzy). I hope Lost doesn’t go too far down that path, although I suspect that we will see a few things like that (and in some sense, Ben leaving packages for himself a'la Bill and ted is one form already).
Didn’t like Locke watching the Nigerian plane crash.
Didn’t like Ethan running out of the jungle to shoot John Locke. Wouldn’t Ethan have remembered an encounter like that?
Didn’t like Faraday talking to hatch-Desmond to send a message to sleeping-next-to-Penny-conveiently-at-the-right-moment-in-our-narrative Desmond. Wouldn’t Desmond have remembered an encounter like that in more than jsut a dream several years later? (or at the very least blown his brains out for not being “him”)
Not a big fan of the meaningless cameos. What was the point of Ghost Anna Lucia? Maybe there is more here than I am seeing – maybe she is on the side of the Universe (like Chrlie and Libby and Christian and all the other ghosts) and is trying to block Ben’s pieces in this cosmic game of chess. Except that she told Hurley to avoid cops and to NOT get arrested, and Ben didn’t seem to want Hurley to get arrested (or did he?), but Hurley chose to not go with Ben and get arrested anyway (okay – so maybe we will find out next week that the policemen Hurley surrendered to were really Ben’s men, and this was part of what Ben meant when he said “looks like our plans have changed” to Jack. Maybe Sayid killed the guy that was supposed to bring Hurley in, so Ben had to stage something bigger). Okay, so maybe the Anna Lucia thing might not be so bad after all.
But really, I’m not a big fan of all the new questions this premier raised about time travel and the people on the island. How are the Losties traveling through time on the island all together, even in different locations (i.e. Locke) and with all their stuff? What binds them to each other instead of to the island? Why is it that Locke disappeared into time but Alpert and the others didn’t? What binds them to the island? Why wouldn’t Juliette, who was an "other" for so long, also be bound to the island like Alpert and the other others? (Did the brand she received for killing Picket truly separate her from that group somehow?) It's not really the questions I don't like -- I guess I'm just nervous about the potential answers.
But mostly, I didn’t like Dr. Chang’s clunky acting. Stick to the orientation videos.
7. The Intro
It was, however, very cool seeing Dr. Chang and his baby. Whether or not it is Miles, why isn’t anyone asking what it means about the pregnancy issue? Looks to me like this was before whatever caused pregnant women to die on the island. So maybe we will see the event that makes things change.
8. The Event That Makes Things Change
Aka “The Incident”
Aka “The Volcano”
Aka “What Daniel Faraday is doing in the past by those holes drilled in the cave wall”
Remember the message in the Swan Station orientation video – there was “an incident” so now this button must be pushed every 108 minutes to release the energy that is building up.
Remember the volcano that is supposed to explode and have a major impact on the island?
Is it possible that Season five will end with a volcanic explosion – an explosion that is caused by a group of time-hopping Losties who are trying to get the record to stop skipping, so they blow a hole into the wall to get to the center where the donkey wheel will fix whatever went wrong – a hole that Dharma tries to cover up with the Orchid station (and later is blasted again and used as the corridor through which Benjamin Linus travels to turn the frozen donkey wheel to make the record start skipping inthe first place) – a hole that, becaise of Faraday and the time-hopping Losties, leaks energy now and makes Dharma build the Swan station as a release valve so that the volcano doesn’t explode again?
And somehow this is all being done so that Ben can maintain control of this island, so that he can skillfully engage the universe in a cosmic game of chess, and maybe – just maybe – find a way to save his Annie from her awful fickle bitchy fate (can someone say Adam and Eve).
By the way – my wife got a mysterious package under the Christmas tree this year addressed in unfamiliar handwriting from a J. Bentham. Man I’ve missed this show.
It’s been a long time. Good to be back.
But as for this theory of mine... I think it's still safely on track. Let's recap:
1. Ben is waging a cosmic game of chess against "the universe" (aka "fate")
2. The powers of the island give Ben his ability to play this game, and he will keep that power at all costs
3. The stakes: changing history (specifically, saving the life of his beloved Annie)
Those are the Bernard-colored spectacles through which I interpret this show, and I think I'm still doing pretty good. What additional information did we learn from the two-part season premier?
1. Ben has more chess pieces off the island than we previously suspected
Not a huge surprise. We saw how he used Sayid last season, and we saw the video where Widmore took out one of "Ben's men" -- if he could stitch up Sayid in a vet he can store Dead Bentham in a butcher shop.
Any doubt that Ben hired those attorneys to flush Kate and Aaron out into the open?
Any doubt that Ben’s man was the guy sitting in the car keeping an eye on Hurley so that Ben could come in and take him when the time was right?
Any doubt that the men shooting Sayid with a tranquilizer (instead of real bullets) were Ben’s men trying to get Sayid so they can go back to the island together?
Any doubt that Sun is playing double agent? I just haven’t decided if she is working with Ben against Widmore, or if she is truly working for herself against Ben, using Widmore. Not sure... It is easy for me to imagine, however, that Ben would have sought her out after her return the way he did Sayid – that he would have explained to Sun that the freighter and the explosives and the second protocol and Martin keamy and the plan to kill everyone on the island were all Widmore’s doing. I can even imagine Ben giving her a similar line to the one he gave Michael: “wouldn’t a father (or wife) do anything to save (or avenge) his son (or husband)?” – a question very similar to the one Sun asked Kate. And you're telling me that Sun just happened to fly to Los Angeles within this 70-hour window of time when ben has to get everyone back onto the island, and she just happened to call Kate's cell phone right after Kate was scared out by the big bad my so-called attorney? Smells to me like she is pulling the strings for someone, and I'm going out on a limb to say it is the ultimate con-artist, Ben (although it may very well be Widmore trying to gum up Ben's plans -- we'll see).
But Ben is, once again, moving the pieces, pulling the strings. And he’s really really good at it.
2. Ms. Hawking
I loved seeing her again so much that I broke out the DVD collection and showed The Others to my daughter. That is such a great movie. But is Ms. Hawking really working for Ben? I’m not sure. I don’t really see her as a piece on Ben’s chess board. But she certainly possesses information that he needs. I loved the druid hood and all the time watching and the 70-hour window. But what is her true role in all of this?
My previous guess was that she was a long-time inhabitant of the island, maybe along the lines of Richard Alpert. But at some point, the original inhabitants had to choose who they would follow – maybe at the same time that Ben usurped the island from Widmore – and while Alpert chose Ben, Hawking chose Widmore. Maybe. But if so, why is she helping Ben? Ben always finds out what people are emotionally invested in and he exploits it. It Hawking wants back to the island, maybe he is using that to his advantage – allying with a former adversary to achieve a common goal.
One thing I know for sure about Hawking – if she turns out to be Faraday’s mother, I’m going to start making raspberry sounds with my armpits (and that is not a good thing).
3. Ben’s foreknowledge
This is something that has interested me for a while. Ben, wherever he is, always seems to go to some hidden place and retrieve something that was previously left for him there. We saw it last year with the buried lunch box and the mirror (and the 15-year-old crackers) and in one of the deleted scene on the DVDs he gets a little care package out of a rock in the middle of the Arabian desert after turning the frozen donkey wheel.
Now, in the season opener, he pulls a package out of the air conditioning vent at the hotel. I think this is evidence of his foreknowledge – he knows that Bill and Ted are going to need the keys to the prison cell so he swipes them from Bill's dad and puts them right where they can find them ahead of time. It’s an example of how the time-manipulating properties of the island give Ben the power he needs to try and outmaneuver the universe. And it's only scratching the surface (please only be scratching the surface -- don't tell me that Lost is only as sophistacated as Bill and Ted).
4. You can’t change history – once something is done, it is done
So says Daniel, the academic. But I've been in academia, and I know a bit about how these theories work. It’s a nice theory. It is sound and testable. And it is one we’ve heard before, from Ms. Hawking for one (please don't be his mother!!!). But the problem is, through the magic of dramatic irony, we -- the audience -- have insights not available to Dr. Faraday. We have seen that his theory is not necessarily true. Or at least we have seen that there is some grey area here.
Desmond changed Charlie’s fate, and that change had some serious repercussions. If Charlie would have been struck by lightening, or killed by that pigeon (he was at one point pecked to death by a pigeon, right?), or shot with that booby-trap arrow (I just wanted to say booby), then he would never have pushed those good vibration buttons that allowed Widmore’s freighter folk to get a lock on the island, and that set a whole range of events into motion. Of course Ben was able to somehow turn that donkey wheel and block Widmore’s move, but Charlie’s single button-pushing event seriously influenced the lives of dozens – if not hundreds – of people. How course-correction fits into this I don’t really know, but it seems that history can in fact be changed -- at least kind of.
But this is going to be another one of these science vs. faith, free will vs. fate dichotomies that we have come to know and love on Lost. My money is on the ability to change history, and Ben is going to do it to save his woman. Can’t wait to see how close I am with this Annie thing.
5. Stuff I really liked
The skipping record metaphor
“Previously on Entourage”
Ms. Hawking (duh!)
Ben trying to get Hurley to trust him (or perhaps to “not” trust him, see Anna Lucia discussion below)
Sayid has discovered Ben’s duplicitousness (and I have discovered a fun new word). I am looking forward to seeing how Sayid finds out that it was really Ben who had Naudia killed – not Widmore.
Ah who am I kidding – I liked pretty much all of it.
Except…
6. Stuff I didn’t like
Not a big fan of the Back to the Future II “future self watching past self do things that defined past self's success but could not have been accomplished without future self’s intervention.” (Stop it - I'm dizzy). I hope Lost doesn’t go too far down that path, although I suspect that we will see a few things like that (and in some sense, Ben leaving packages for himself a'la Bill and ted is one form already).
Didn’t like Locke watching the Nigerian plane crash.
Didn’t like Ethan running out of the jungle to shoot John Locke. Wouldn’t Ethan have remembered an encounter like that?
Didn’t like Faraday talking to hatch-Desmond to send a message to sleeping-next-to-Penny-conveiently-at-the-right-moment-in-our-narrative Desmond. Wouldn’t Desmond have remembered an encounter like that in more than jsut a dream several years later? (or at the very least blown his brains out for not being “him”)
Not a big fan of the meaningless cameos. What was the point of Ghost Anna Lucia? Maybe there is more here than I am seeing – maybe she is on the side of the Universe (like Chrlie and Libby and Christian and all the other ghosts) and is trying to block Ben’s pieces in this cosmic game of chess. Except that she told Hurley to avoid cops and to NOT get arrested, and Ben didn’t seem to want Hurley to get arrested (or did he?), but Hurley chose to not go with Ben and get arrested anyway (okay – so maybe we will find out next week that the policemen Hurley surrendered to were really Ben’s men, and this was part of what Ben meant when he said “looks like our plans have changed” to Jack. Maybe Sayid killed the guy that was supposed to bring Hurley in, so Ben had to stage something bigger). Okay, so maybe the Anna Lucia thing might not be so bad after all.
But really, I’m not a big fan of all the new questions this premier raised about time travel and the people on the island. How are the Losties traveling through time on the island all together, even in different locations (i.e. Locke) and with all their stuff? What binds them to each other instead of to the island? Why is it that Locke disappeared into time but Alpert and the others didn’t? What binds them to the island? Why wouldn’t Juliette, who was an "other" for so long, also be bound to the island like Alpert and the other others? (Did the brand she received for killing Picket truly separate her from that group somehow?) It's not really the questions I don't like -- I guess I'm just nervous about the potential answers.
But mostly, I didn’t like Dr. Chang’s clunky acting. Stick to the orientation videos.
7. The Intro
It was, however, very cool seeing Dr. Chang and his baby. Whether or not it is Miles, why isn’t anyone asking what it means about the pregnancy issue? Looks to me like this was before whatever caused pregnant women to die on the island. So maybe we will see the event that makes things change.
8. The Event That Makes Things Change
Aka “The Incident”
Aka “The Volcano”
Aka “What Daniel Faraday is doing in the past by those holes drilled in the cave wall”
Remember the message in the Swan Station orientation video – there was “an incident” so now this button must be pushed every 108 minutes to release the energy that is building up.
Remember the volcano that is supposed to explode and have a major impact on the island?
Is it possible that Season five will end with a volcanic explosion – an explosion that is caused by a group of time-hopping Losties who are trying to get the record to stop skipping, so they blow a hole into the wall to get to the center where the donkey wheel will fix whatever went wrong – a hole that Dharma tries to cover up with the Orchid station (and later is blasted again and used as the corridor through which Benjamin Linus travels to turn the frozen donkey wheel to make the record start skipping inthe first place) – a hole that, becaise of Faraday and the time-hopping Losties, leaks energy now and makes Dharma build the Swan station as a release valve so that the volcano doesn’t explode again?
And somehow this is all being done so that Ben can maintain control of this island, so that he can skillfully engage the universe in a cosmic game of chess, and maybe – just maybe – find a way to save his Annie from her awful fickle bitchy fate (can someone say Adam and Eve).
By the way – my wife got a mysterious package under the Christmas tree this year addressed in unfamiliar handwriting from a J. Bentham. Man I’ve missed this show.
It’s been a long time. Good to be back.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Really Dead???
Early in season 4, Miles Strom went into a black woman's house to chat up a ghost. On the stairway wall was a picture of a young black boy -- many speculared it was the young Mr. Eko. But it wasn't. I asked him.
Yesterday my wife and I were at a grocery store in Mira Loma, California, and I saw this kid who looked so familiar. I knew I knew him from somewhere. Maybe a former student or something? But then -- WHAM! -- it hit me. This was the young Mr. Eko! Or at least he looked exactly like him.
Now I am overly sensitive when it comes to any kind of racist claim, so the last thing I wanted to do was approach him and ask "hey, you're young Eko, huh?" cuz of the whole you-must-think-all-black-people-look-alike thing. But my wife was smarter and generally less concerned about that sort of thing than I am, so she walked up to him and asked him, "excuse me, have you been on TV?
He smiled shyly and said yes.
"Were you on Lost?"
"Yes."
And we spoke to him for a few minutes. Nice kid. His name is Kola (officially Kolawole Obileye, Jr. ). He just bought a new house near the area. He is very busy with school -- only did Lost as a fun little thing to do -- doesn't really even follow the show much. When I told him that we hoped to see him again on the show, he smiled and said "I'm dead now." But with Lost, you never know.
Checkmate, young Mr. Eko.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Ep. 4.13 No place Like Home, pt.2
I guess it’s time I write this review. I’ve been sitting on it for two days now. Maybe I have put it off because I just don’t want the season to be officially over. Or maybe it’s because I was so disappointed by the finale.
Yes, it’s more about the disappointment. So let’s start there. Do you want to know what I hated the most about the ending of season four? Sloppy writing. Here’s what I mean:
Someone PLEASE explain to me why Keamy wired the freighter with all those explosives and his dead-man’s-trigger. Seriously. Why? Did he really think that Ben would give a rat’s tail about those “innocent” people on the freighter who have encroached on his hidden island for the sole purpose of capturing him and taking him to Widmore? I can see why Keamy would do it to maybe get Lapidus to fly him safely back to the island – or maybe if Keamy had wired the explosives to the orchid station or some other important part of the island. But he had already seen Ben let his own daughter die rather than surrender -- what kind of “life insurance” is boatload of strangers who aren’t anything to Ben anyway? Keamy is not that dumb. Stupid, sloppy writing. The ONLY reason Keamy wired those explosives was because the writers needed the freighter to explode. The writers needed that narrative beat. Contrivance. And that simply sucks.
You know what else I didn’t like? I didn’t like that Jack was the one who told the O6 that they needed to lie to protect the people on the island and they just went along with it. Why? How does that really protect the people on the island? And since when has Jack ever believed or followed what Locke has told him to do? I understand them covering their own collective butts – if the guy behind the hoax sees them contradicting his story, they will be in danger. But the people on the island? No, I don’t buy it. More weak writing. Cashing emotional checks early in the season without enough cash in the account, that’s what this was.
I also don’t like that Ben appears to be “off the island” like the rest of them. I am not convinced that he really is, by the way. Sure, he told Locke that the person who moves the island can’t come back, but Ben doesn’t always tell the whole truth, does he? And when did he visit Widmore anyway? After he moved the island, or before? It would make a big difference in the dialogue they shared if Ben really couldn’t get back to the island when he spoke with Widmore.
So I’ll spend some time over the long break ahead reconfiguring my whole black-pieces vs. white-pieces Ben vs. The Universe theory that I have posted elsewhere. I still am clinging to the idea that Ben is trying to outmaneuver the Universe – and perhaps this moving the island wasn’t as much about moving the island as it was the Universe’s way of getting Ben off of it. But I don’t know. I am a huge fan of Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, and I continue to believe that they have a master plan, but I must admit their armor took a few chinks with this finale for me. How much worse would it have been if they would have only had one hour to fit it all in, like they originally imagined. Yikers!
Of course there are things I liked about the finale as well, but I’ll save that post for another day. We’ve got a long long wait ahead.
Yes, it’s more about the disappointment. So let’s start there. Do you want to know what I hated the most about the ending of season four? Sloppy writing. Here’s what I mean:
Someone PLEASE explain to me why Keamy wired the freighter with all those explosives and his dead-man’s-trigger. Seriously. Why? Did he really think that Ben would give a rat’s tail about those “innocent” people on the freighter who have encroached on his hidden island for the sole purpose of capturing him and taking him to Widmore? I can see why Keamy would do it to maybe get Lapidus to fly him safely back to the island – or maybe if Keamy had wired the explosives to the orchid station or some other important part of the island. But he had already seen Ben let his own daughter die rather than surrender -- what kind of “life insurance” is boatload of strangers who aren’t anything to Ben anyway? Keamy is not that dumb. Stupid, sloppy writing. The ONLY reason Keamy wired those explosives was because the writers needed the freighter to explode. The writers needed that narrative beat. Contrivance. And that simply sucks.
You know what else I didn’t like? I didn’t like that Jack was the one who told the O6 that they needed to lie to protect the people on the island and they just went along with it. Why? How does that really protect the people on the island? And since when has Jack ever believed or followed what Locke has told him to do? I understand them covering their own collective butts – if the guy behind the hoax sees them contradicting his story, they will be in danger. But the people on the island? No, I don’t buy it. More weak writing. Cashing emotional checks early in the season without enough cash in the account, that’s what this was.
I also don’t like that Ben appears to be “off the island” like the rest of them. I am not convinced that he really is, by the way. Sure, he told Locke that the person who moves the island can’t come back, but Ben doesn’t always tell the whole truth, does he? And when did he visit Widmore anyway? After he moved the island, or before? It would make a big difference in the dialogue they shared if Ben really couldn’t get back to the island when he spoke with Widmore.
So I’ll spend some time over the long break ahead reconfiguring my whole black-pieces vs. white-pieces Ben vs. The Universe theory that I have posted elsewhere. I still am clinging to the idea that Ben is trying to outmaneuver the Universe – and perhaps this moving the island wasn’t as much about moving the island as it was the Universe’s way of getting Ben off of it. But I don’t know. I am a huge fan of Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, and I continue to believe that they have a master plan, but I must admit their armor took a few chinks with this finale for me. How much worse would it have been if they would have only had one hour to fit it all in, like they originally imagined. Yikers!
Of course there are things I liked about the finale as well, but I’ll save that post for another day. We’ve got a long long wait ahead.
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