Not a bad episode. A few surprises and one unexpected answer to a question I didn’t even know I had. Though, of course, in typical LOST fashion it leads to more questions.
A jumbo sized H-bomb seemed to be the centerpiece of this episode so I shall recap the notable events countdown style:
10…
Ten people were “featured” in this episode. Daniel, Charlotte, Miles, Sawyer, Juliet, Locke, Desmond, Penny, Richard, and Widmore. (Sorry Oceanic Six plus Ben)
9…
They say a cat has nine lives. If that’s the case, it’s time to paint some whiskers on Richard Alpert because he’s been alive for who knows how long. I believe it was last season when we saw him attend the birth of John Locke and later on visit him as a young lad. The season before I believe featured young Ben in the Dharma camp visited by a same-looking Richard as well. My first theory was he is eternally young (or at least a very slow ager) due to some mystical effect of the island. But then of course they introduce time travel as if it’s as common as catching a cold and my thoughts went there. But last night when Locke asked, “Just how old is Richard, anyway?” Juliet answered, “Very old,” so that kind of puts me back on the fountain-of-youth train again. Not exactly an important point, but now it’s at least confirmed. That man is ancient.
8…
Also, is it just me, or is he sporting a heavy dose of “guy-liner” with a dash of “man-scara” for the eyelashes? He’s probably 88-years-old and just has a wicked awesome makeup crew. Maybe that’s who the “others” really are, Richard Alpert’s cosmetic team/security detail.
7…
Seven is the size of the leadership hat that Daniel reluctantly dons. Seriously, did you know that hat size is determined by your head circumference in inches measured ½ inch above your ears then divided by pi? Come on, admit it… you know you’re going to measure your head after you finish reading this.
Anyway, that leadership hat fits ol’ Danny quite nicely. He bluffs his way into Richard’s good graces and even claims his love for frigid, bloody-nosed Charlotte just before rushing off to defuse a bomb. I wonder, does the “time sickness” only affect certain people? Why her?
On the opposite side of the dashing hero coin is one Ms. Theresa Spencer, whom Desmond finds laid up in bed locked in a permanent state of brain time travel. Not cool, D-man… not cool.
6…
Big flash of light at the end and we’re somewhen else. The six non-others: Daniel, Charlotte, Miles, Sawyer, Juliet, and Locke are left standing in an open field, the make-shift military camp gone. Does anyone else think it’s funny that these six are supposed to be representative of at least twenty-ish other survivors like Rose and Bernard who are hanging out who knows where? I mean, I know it would cost a lot of money—plus get way crowded—to pay over two dozen actors to be in every shot, but it seems the only use for extras these days is to get killed. Sorry Frogurt. Sorry those two dudes that walked over the land mine tripwire. Miles did try to warn you.
5…
Five stands for fifty. “Fifty years from now, this island is still here and we’re all fine.” Okay, so that was crazy for Daniel to think the “other” chick would buy his logic, but either way, I’m a little disappointed in his recommended solution. BURY IT? I mean, you know the island is still around in 50 years, but who’s to say it isn’t leaking crazy amounts of radiation? And who’s to say that it won’t blow up in 50 years and two days? You’re a physicist for God’s sake… can’t you come up with a better idea than that? Anyway, I’m assuming that after the LOSTies all blipped off in time, it convinced Richard and gang that they were telling the truth so I bet they made like a bunny and hopped to it on burying that thing.
I don’t know why it struck me as so funny, but the best line of the night was when Sawyer “saved” Daniel and the girl asked, “Is he from the future, too?” and Sawyer said, “Ah man, you TOLD her?”
4…
Miles “senses” a freshly dug grave of four U.S. soldiers as he, Daniel, and Charlotte are marched back to the others camp. According to Richard, the US Army set up shop, Richard and his crew swooped in, asked them politely to leave, then killed them afterwards when they refused. This is very similar to what they do about a decade or so later when Dharma sets up their barracks and experiments. Infiltrate the camp, get Ben on their side, and then gas them to death. Geez, someone’s awfully territorial.
3…
Desmond plus Penny plus baby make three. Looks like they got down to business soon after their reunion because little “Charlie” looked to be maybe 2-ish. I assume he was named after the ex-rock star we all know and loved rather than his grandpa Charles.
It was touching how Desmond was willing to give up on finding Daniel’s mother so he could be free of the island for good and be with his family. Even more touching was Penny realizing he wouldn’t just “forget about it” and wanting to support him regardless. Lots of touching going on.
I’d say the Los Angeles address Widmore gave is further confirmation that the lady in the chapel speaking with Ben was, in fact, Mama Faraday.
2…
Two “military” people are captured and thanks to Juliet’s mad Latin skills, she confirms they are in fact, others. It’s interesting to me how the others seem to just scavenge and adapt to whatever comes their way. Everyone last night was wearing uniforms, carrying guns, and living in the abandoned army camp. Later when they push out Dharma, they start wearing nicer clothes and live in the barracks. Who knows what their living situation was before the army came. Many carried a bow and arrow when they captured D/C/M so one would think they were a little more savage until technology landed in their lap.
It’s fairly apparent that the others are the “hostiles” or “original inhabitants” that Marvin Candle has repeatedly referenced. However, my crazy theory is that Richard is one of the few “true” others. Everyone else just kind of seems along for the ride, as if maybe he recruited them at some point. Even Ben is a transplant, having come from off the island originally. And we know that he “recruited” a lot of people, such as Juliet, to join them albeit under shady pretenses.
I’m interested to know exactly how the leadership hierarchy of the island works. You’ve got Jacob, a ghost for all intents and purposes, presumably on top. Then you have Richard who seems to have some kind of contact or connection to Jacob, kind of like a VP. But instead of being the living-breathing representative of the island, he acts as a pseudo-liaison between Jacob and the “leader” who is selected through some bizarre process and doesn’t even need to be from the island. It’s more like the island chooses the leader and Richard just does the leg work. Makes about as much sense as the Electoral College.
1…
This brings me to the one question that was answered that I didn’t know I had. Charles Widmore was an other! To me, that was the biggest what-the-fo of the episode. I had always assumed that Widmore was just some rich dude that liked to fund experiments such as those orchestrated by the Dharma initiative and was super-pissed that Ben allowed them to be killed by the others, thus causing their mutual hate. But now that relationship is more complicated in my mind. If Widmore was an other, then perhaps he still was after Dharma was set up and then after Ben allowed the others to gas them all, Ben took over as leader of the others and thus was Widmore’s boss, so to speak.
0
KABOOM!! Any bets on if we’ll see that H-bomb again? My bet is it will show up next season, in a bad way. In an oh-crap-why-did-we-agree-to-bury-a-nuclear-warhead-in-our-backyard way.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
S5E1 / S5E2 - Because You Left / The Lie
Let me begin by saying…
I… HATE… TIME TRAVEL…
My naïve hope was that it was all done with last season, but I knew better even as I wished it. Anyway, since apparently it will be sticking around for this season (and let’s just go ahead and accept for the rest of the series), I will make my peace now and not spend a quarter of every recap whining. However, you can expect lots of thinly-veiled sarcasm.
Now. On with the recap.
This being the inaugural episode of the season, I find the parallel between our 44th president’s inauguration too tempting to pass up.
I… HATE… TIME TRAVEL…
My naïve hope was that it was all done with last season, but I knew better even as I wished it. Anyway, since apparently it will be sticking around for this season (and let’s just go ahead and accept for the rest of the series), I will make my peace now and not spend a quarter of every recap whining. However, you can expect lots of thinly-veiled sarcasm.
Now. On with the recap.
This being the inaugural episode of the season, I find the parallel between our 44th president’s inauguration too tempting to pass up.
LOST
SEASON 5 (PREMIER)
INAUGURAL PROGRAM OF EVENTS:
OPENING CEREMONIES:
Willie Nelson performs “Shotgun Willie”
That is the name of the song playing on the record Dr. Marvin Candle put on as he went about his morning routine with the baby. Later, his training video is cut short by news of the problem at the Orchid Station. The big reveal here is that Daniel Faraday is hanging out in the past, apparently very interested in the “power source” they almost drilled into. My guess is that with the island now time-hopping all willy-nilly, Daniel has to harness that power source (the same that Ben used to move the island to begin with) in order to get it to stop. I expect we’ll be seeing how he gets to that point sometime this season.
That aside, one interesting thing I just remembered is that Dr. Candle was making a training video for the Arrow Station said to provide defensive strategies against “the Hostiles” which we’ve heard Dharma folks refer to in the past as the island’s “original inhabitants.” We see later that the survivors are bombarded with flaming arrows during one of their hops through time. Coincidence? Doubtful.
INVOCATION:
“Please don’t let time travel taint this season with its dark shadow of suckiness. Amen.”
OATH OF VICE-PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE:
“I, Benjamin Linus, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend The Island against all enemies, foreign and domestic—”
Which, in his new off-island capacity, is to gather the Oceanic Six plus one dead-ish Jeremy Bentham and get back to the island or else everyone left behind will die. By my calculations, between the siege on the old barracks when the freighter militia group was trying to flush out Ben, the freighter explosion, and the flaming arrow trap from last night… there might not be many people left to die by the time the O6 get back.
“—that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion—”
Yeah, right. Ben is King of evasiveness. Did anyone catch when Ben told Jack he needed to store Locke’s body “somewhere safe,” Jack asked was he really dead and Ben kind of didn’t answer. That begs the question, is Locke really dead? But that’s too much to contemplate at this point. I also don’t believe him when he claimed that the last time he saw Locke was at the Orchid Station and I believe he knows more about what happened to everyone after the Oceanic 6 left, but he’s not letting on.
“—and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me Jacob.”
I’m also curious about the apparent falling out between he and Sayid. At the end of last season when Sayid busted Hurley out of the asylum, my assumption was it was under the direction of Ben in order to get the gang all back together so to speak, but it was clear from last night’s episode that Sayid no longer trusted him. Not that I blame him.
INTERMISSION:
The lighter points of the night for me were all-things Hurley. Lots of good comic relief. I especially liked when he tried to explain to his mother what “really” happened on the island after they crashed. When season 1-4 are strung together in a run-on sentence like that, it really does sound crazy, and surely the writers are poking fun at themselves too. I can appreciate that. One of the best twists was when he decided to turn himself in to the police. It will essentially take a prison break to get him to the island now. NEAT.
Other minor points of interest include the mysterious lawyer visit to Kate’s house. I wonder if the maternity test is a plot by Ben to scare Kate into going on the run, and thus, becoming more willing to flee to the island.
Also, the interaction between Sun and Widmore. Just confirmation of who she meant by “common interest” and—yep—she wants Ben dead. Of course I’m not so convinced that Widmore actually wants Ben dead. I think it’s more complicated than that. This goes back to their strange interaction when Ben visited Widmore in his penthouse last season and said, “You changed the rules” in reference Alex’s death, then stated he was going after Penny. Anyway, I wasn’t so convinced by Sun’s “I forgive you” to Kate either.
And let’s not forget. Frogurt. Just about the best Sawyer nickname ever.
OATH OF PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE:
“I, John Locke, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of Leader of The Others, and—(blinding white light)—hey, where’d everybody go?”
That’s right kids, hold on to your hats because we’ve been “dislodged” from time. Bummer. That happened to me last Tuesday and I tell you what, no fun. Now I won’t get into the potential paradoxes of time travel because of our aforementioned uneasy truce, however, I will ask the question of why did the others not get “jumped” to whenever everybody else went? Now, my theory (since apparently any Joe Schmoe can make up “rules” about time travel) is that the others have all jumped through time in the past, therefore are not “in line” with everyone else. We know at least that Richard Alpart has likely been dipping his toe in the time travel pool, which could explain his apparent un-aging-ness. So, maybe time travel affects people of the same “point” in time. Since all of the survivors are at the same point in “real” time, they all got swept up together, whereas the others are at some other point in time. (Do you see? Do you see why this stuff is ridiculous?) Perhaps the others eat a high-fiber diet, which is the trick to remaining temporally stable in case you don’t have the benefit of a “constant” like Desmond is for Daniel.
“—and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend The Island because it healed my legs and let me seek vengeance on my dead beat dad.”
Apparently it will be a little while longer until Daniel figures out how to stabilize the island because Locke will be visiting Richard sometime in the past. Speaking of stabilizing the island, for those of you that need a memory jog, the woman at the very end of the episode that was doing the calculations and speaking to Ben in the church about how he had 70 hours, that was the same woman in the jewelry store in Desmond’s very first flashback when he decided to propose to Penny. She basically told him he couldn’t change the past so wasn’t going to really do it. At first, my thought was she was some crazy figment of his imagination or side-effect of his mental time travel or whatever, but apparently she’s a for-real lady that went back in time specifically to warn him not to change his own past, not that you can anyway according to Daniel, but I digress. $10 says she’s also Daniel’s mother who he told Desmond to find at Oxford.
21 GUN SALUTE:
Guns, indeed. Is it just me or did Hurley do just about everything short of setting up a Glamour Shots session posed up on the balcony with that gun? Geez, dude.
Other guns included Locke getting shot in the leg by Ethan. As to whether or not Ethan “remembered” Locke “after” that encounter when he “first” meets him “later” on “after” the Oceanic crash, who’s to say. That’s getting into what I promised I wouldn’t whine about, but I would like to point out that last sentence wouldn’t have needed so many dam(n) quotes if it weren’t for time travel. Of course Richard comes to the rescue on his next jump with a disconcerting briefing of, “Hey. You’re jumping through time. Give me this compass the next time you see me. Oh yeah, and FYI you’re gonna have to die soon-ish. See ya.”
Finally, there were the guns pulled on Locke and Juliet just before they threatened to cut off her arms, but Locke saved the day. I guess that means he’ll be hanging out with his old pals until he can once again be reunited with the others. What a sucky first day at the office. You officially meet your staff for the first time only to be swallowed by a worm hole to the past. I hate it when that happens.
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS:
We’ve inherited quite a mess. And I’m not talking about the economy. The hope that we cling to is that all questions will receive their answers, in due time. Of course now even the phrase “in due time” becomes dubious as we’re yo-yoed across the space-time continuum, but nevertheless we maintain a trust that our patience and loyalty will bear fruit. As I mentioned in my last e-mail, I’ve read of a few potential plot points from seasons past that they hope to fill us in on this season or next. How did Libby wind up in a mental institution? What really happened with Danielle Rousseau’s crew of scientists? And what about the “real” Henry Gale (the hot-air balloon guy that Ben posed as), remember him? To me, that is what these last two seasons will be about, getting the Oceanic Six back and bringing all the questions to a satisfying close. Two more years… two more years…
POETRY READING:
Roses are read.
Violets are blue.
Where the hell did Miles get that dead bore?
I don’t know, do you?
That was way too weird and random to just let go. My suspicion is that he went into the jungle to commune with some dead people, as that is his talent, and they directed him to where the nearest food supply was, if that’s how that works. Who knows, but surely that will be addressed. Crazy.
BENEDICTION:
“Oh, Lord, please help the writers make it through to the end with sufficient answers to all lingering questions, without making me want to do bodily harm to them. Amen.”
INAUGURAL BALLS:
Ha! Ha ha! Balls…
Willie Nelson performs “Shotgun Willie”
That is the name of the song playing on the record Dr. Marvin Candle put on as he went about his morning routine with the baby. Later, his training video is cut short by news of the problem at the Orchid Station. The big reveal here is that Daniel Faraday is hanging out in the past, apparently very interested in the “power source” they almost drilled into. My guess is that with the island now time-hopping all willy-nilly, Daniel has to harness that power source (the same that Ben used to move the island to begin with) in order to get it to stop. I expect we’ll be seeing how he gets to that point sometime this season.
That aside, one interesting thing I just remembered is that Dr. Candle was making a training video for the Arrow Station said to provide defensive strategies against “the Hostiles” which we’ve heard Dharma folks refer to in the past as the island’s “original inhabitants.” We see later that the survivors are bombarded with flaming arrows during one of their hops through time. Coincidence? Doubtful.
INVOCATION:
“Please don’t let time travel taint this season with its dark shadow of suckiness. Amen.”
OATH OF VICE-PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE:
“I, Benjamin Linus, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend The Island against all enemies, foreign and domestic—”
Which, in his new off-island capacity, is to gather the Oceanic Six plus one dead-ish Jeremy Bentham and get back to the island or else everyone left behind will die. By my calculations, between the siege on the old barracks when the freighter militia group was trying to flush out Ben, the freighter explosion, and the flaming arrow trap from last night… there might not be many people left to die by the time the O6 get back.
“—that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion—”
Yeah, right. Ben is King of evasiveness. Did anyone catch when Ben told Jack he needed to store Locke’s body “somewhere safe,” Jack asked was he really dead and Ben kind of didn’t answer. That begs the question, is Locke really dead? But that’s too much to contemplate at this point. I also don’t believe him when he claimed that the last time he saw Locke was at the Orchid Station and I believe he knows more about what happened to everyone after the Oceanic 6 left, but he’s not letting on.
“—and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me Jacob.”
I’m also curious about the apparent falling out between he and Sayid. At the end of last season when Sayid busted Hurley out of the asylum, my assumption was it was under the direction of Ben in order to get the gang all back together so to speak, but it was clear from last night’s episode that Sayid no longer trusted him. Not that I blame him.
INTERMISSION:
The lighter points of the night for me were all-things Hurley. Lots of good comic relief. I especially liked when he tried to explain to his mother what “really” happened on the island after they crashed. When season 1-4 are strung together in a run-on sentence like that, it really does sound crazy, and surely the writers are poking fun at themselves too. I can appreciate that. One of the best twists was when he decided to turn himself in to the police. It will essentially take a prison break to get him to the island now. NEAT.
Other minor points of interest include the mysterious lawyer visit to Kate’s house. I wonder if the maternity test is a plot by Ben to scare Kate into going on the run, and thus, becoming more willing to flee to the island.
Also, the interaction between Sun and Widmore. Just confirmation of who she meant by “common interest” and—yep—she wants Ben dead. Of course I’m not so convinced that Widmore actually wants Ben dead. I think it’s more complicated than that. This goes back to their strange interaction when Ben visited Widmore in his penthouse last season and said, “You changed the rules” in reference Alex’s death, then stated he was going after Penny. Anyway, I wasn’t so convinced by Sun’s “I forgive you” to Kate either.
And let’s not forget. Frogurt. Just about the best Sawyer nickname ever.
OATH OF PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE:
“I, John Locke, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of Leader of The Others, and—(blinding white light)—hey, where’d everybody go?”
That’s right kids, hold on to your hats because we’ve been “dislodged” from time. Bummer. That happened to me last Tuesday and I tell you what, no fun. Now I won’t get into the potential paradoxes of time travel because of our aforementioned uneasy truce, however, I will ask the question of why did the others not get “jumped” to whenever everybody else went? Now, my theory (since apparently any Joe Schmoe can make up “rules” about time travel) is that the others have all jumped through time in the past, therefore are not “in line” with everyone else. We know at least that Richard Alpart has likely been dipping his toe in the time travel pool, which could explain his apparent un-aging-ness. So, maybe time travel affects people of the same “point” in time. Since all of the survivors are at the same point in “real” time, they all got swept up together, whereas the others are at some other point in time. (Do you see? Do you see why this stuff is ridiculous?) Perhaps the others eat a high-fiber diet, which is the trick to remaining temporally stable in case you don’t have the benefit of a “constant” like Desmond is for Daniel.
“—and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend The Island because it healed my legs and let me seek vengeance on my dead beat dad.”
Apparently it will be a little while longer until Daniel figures out how to stabilize the island because Locke will be visiting Richard sometime in the past. Speaking of stabilizing the island, for those of you that need a memory jog, the woman at the very end of the episode that was doing the calculations and speaking to Ben in the church about how he had 70 hours, that was the same woman in the jewelry store in Desmond’s very first flashback when he decided to propose to Penny. She basically told him he couldn’t change the past so wasn’t going to really do it. At first, my thought was she was some crazy figment of his imagination or side-effect of his mental time travel or whatever, but apparently she’s a for-real lady that went back in time specifically to warn him not to change his own past, not that you can anyway according to Daniel, but I digress. $10 says she’s also Daniel’s mother who he told Desmond to find at Oxford.
21 GUN SALUTE:
Guns, indeed. Is it just me or did Hurley do just about everything short of setting up a Glamour Shots session posed up on the balcony with that gun? Geez, dude.
Other guns included Locke getting shot in the leg by Ethan. As to whether or not Ethan “remembered” Locke “after” that encounter when he “first” meets him “later” on “after” the Oceanic crash, who’s to say. That’s getting into what I promised I wouldn’t whine about, but I would like to point out that last sentence wouldn’t have needed so many dam(n) quotes if it weren’t for time travel. Of course Richard comes to the rescue on his next jump with a disconcerting briefing of, “Hey. You’re jumping through time. Give me this compass the next time you see me. Oh yeah, and FYI you’re gonna have to die soon-ish. See ya.”
Finally, there were the guns pulled on Locke and Juliet just before they threatened to cut off her arms, but Locke saved the day. I guess that means he’ll be hanging out with his old pals until he can once again be reunited with the others. What a sucky first day at the office. You officially meet your staff for the first time only to be swallowed by a worm hole to the past. I hate it when that happens.
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS:
We’ve inherited quite a mess. And I’m not talking about the economy. The hope that we cling to is that all questions will receive their answers, in due time. Of course now even the phrase “in due time” becomes dubious as we’re yo-yoed across the space-time continuum, but nevertheless we maintain a trust that our patience and loyalty will bear fruit. As I mentioned in my last e-mail, I’ve read of a few potential plot points from seasons past that they hope to fill us in on this season or next. How did Libby wind up in a mental institution? What really happened with Danielle Rousseau’s crew of scientists? And what about the “real” Henry Gale (the hot-air balloon guy that Ben posed as), remember him? To me, that is what these last two seasons will be about, getting the Oceanic Six back and bringing all the questions to a satisfying close. Two more years… two more years…
POETRY READING:
Roses are read.
Violets are blue.
Where the hell did Miles get that dead bore?
I don’t know, do you?
That was way too weird and random to just let go. My suspicion is that he went into the jungle to commune with some dead people, as that is his talent, and they directed him to where the nearest food supply was, if that’s how that works. Who knows, but surely that will be addressed. Crazy.
BENEDICTION:
“Oh, Lord, please help the writers make it through to the end with sufficient answers to all lingering questions, without making me want to do bodily harm to them. Amen.”
INAUGURAL BALLS:
Ha! Ha ha! Balls…
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