Heeeeeeeeere's Clairey!

I am going to agree with Hydra, Swan and Arrow that this was the best episode of the season.Last week's was pretty incredible, and the idea that each episode is getting better than the last is ridiculously exciting. Am I still nervous? Yeah, I will be until the bitter end. However, my faith gets stronger with each episode and that has to count for something. Going last in the rotation is tricky because everyone has said most of what can be said at this point, however I will contribute what I can for this week's 5 Star episode.

I feel like there is a plot inconsistency, or rather something that doesn't quite make sense--and not in a "Lost" kind of way. I don't understand how Dogan was in the LAX Timeline. I may have missed something or misunderstood something, so I apologize in advance if that is the case. However, from what I understood the Island was destroyed in 1977. I also got the impression that Dogan was on the island long before 1977. Therefore, shouldn't he be with the fishies and not raising a prodigy child in LA? Now that I think about it, this should also apply to Ben, since he and his dad arrived to the island before 1977 as well. Again, I may have just missed something and I am really sorry for those who have to explain this to me. It's never been confirmed if anyone died in the explosion, and perhaps most of the inhabitants managed to evacuate. Maybe being confused by these guest appearances in LAX is the proper reaction right now. Time travel and alternate universes and parallel universes and hydrogen bombs leave me in constant states of confusion, so it probably makes sense to everyone else but me. Let me know, thanks.

I would like to say right now that I like Jack. I never really stopped liking Jack, I just thought he was insane for a while there. Yeah, sometimes he gets that crazy look in his eyes and sometimes he does things that piss me off, but I still have a lot of faith in his character, even if he feels like he has nothing left to offer anyone. I feel really bad for him. Plus, he's hot. When he was walking up to pick David up from school, his hair all windblown and his shirt open a tad? Rawr.

Anyway, this LAX Timeline was definitely the most interesting that we've seen this season, for many reasons. For one, Jack is so far the only character who is noticing things and having moments of uncertainty concerning the present--the blood on his neck and the scar from having his appendix out. He is kind of our modern day Billy Pilgrim in this way. Not blatantly and not to the full degree, but he is definitely lapsing and questioning occurrences and who knows if there may be a point when his LAX self and Island self collide, or if he will have glimpses into Before. As for who David's mother is . . .

I don't have any theories. If we stick with the fate thing, it's probably Sarah. However, they will have had to have met in an entirely different way since David is in his early teens and nothing would suggest Sarah destroying her spine any earlier than Before. We never got a specific date for when Jack and Sarah met and married, just the knowledge that the wig they gave him to look younger was terrible. If we go with the idea that the Island somehow managed to change who Jack married, then it's a mystery. I kind of like Arrow's theory that it might be Juliet. Granted she then would probably never have married that tool she was married to Before, but everything and everyone seems to be free game so . . . Whatever. I'm sure it will be revealed. I'm just glad David and Jack can have a healthy relationship from now on. LAX=happy ending; Island=not happy ending. JJ Abrams said that the show will not have a happy ending . . . I guess we'll see how that goes.That statement was made a loooong time ago, when the show was only supposed to run for four seasons, so perhaps they've reconsidered a happily ever after. Who knows. Not to sound like an awful person, but as long as all of the questions get answered, I don't really care if it's happy or sad.

Arrow, your "The Shining" references aren't really unwarranted. In "The Shining", Jack gets corrupted by evil spirits during his isolation in the Overlook Hotel and puts an axe into the chest of the guy (Dick) who tried to save the family. Claire has been infected with darkness during her isolation and put an axe through the chest of the guy who kind of meant to save Jin. Also, "The Shining" has a thing for numbers as well. The writers of "Lost" love allusion, and it's all over the place. ALL OVER THE PLACE. And yeah, creepy Bone Baby . . . Crazy Claire is not sexy, and I don't have a problem expressing when girls are sexy. Crazy Claire reminds me of a feral kitten--remnants of still being adorable, but clearly needs to be put out of its misery. Claire is not going to get a happy ending, folks. I don't like it, but one doesn't come back from the dark place Claire is in now. She won't go down without a fight, though. I feel as though maybe Jin should have elaborated on the "Kate taking Aaron" thing. Crazy Claire might have been less homicidal towards Kate if she realized Aaron wasn't taken by Kate but rather that Kate assumed responsibility for him. Claire, even before being crazy, has never liked the words "taking/taken" and "Aaron" in the same sentence--which is a maternal reaction, of course. Now that she is crazy, though, things being taken from her end in death. And OMG she is friends with Smokey. Not a huge reveal, but it was a creepy way for the episode to end.

The Lighthouse was pretty badass. There is not much more to elaborate on that hasn't already been mentioned in the blog. For some reason, Kate and her number (51) were not crossed out on the dial, even though she was not mentioned in the cave as a Candidate. Like Swan, I wanted to yell at Jack for smashing the mirrors, but Jacob seemed cool with it so I guess I'll let it slide. That said, I don't trust Jacob. I won't go so far as to suggest he is evil, but I can't say he is 100% good either. He is manipulative and cryptic and those aren't good qualities. My prediction for the enigmatic Wallace is:


(or it's Smokey's real name)

Sorry for the Rambling,
Pearl


PS
Fun fact: Jack is number 23 and this Jack-centric episode aired on the 23rd.

This show is getting SCARy

I gladly accept my shot at the completion of our first rotation, and apparently I'm going to need the whole bottle to get through this season.

Call me a giant wuss, but Lost has had two moments that have just scared the hell out of me so far. There was the creepy bloody child apparition from "The Substitute" last week, and then Claire's "baby" from this week. I kind of alluded to in my entry about last week's episode, but the scariest movie in the world to me is The Shining. I've seen it about a dozen times, and it just rattles me. If that mysterious boy is the equivalent of the twin girls from The Shining, then Claire's "baby" is like the scene when Jack's wife discovers that all of her husband's work has been to maniacally type "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" on hundreds of pieces of paper. It's the moment when it's officially established that somebody's lost their damn mind. And of course, Lost has been no stranger to Stephen King references.

Truth be told, I LOVED this episode. Enough so that it warrants EXTREME CAPITALIZATION. I've seen on various websites where this episode scored very average, but I honestly thought it was the best non-finale since Season 4's "The Constant." This episode earned high marks in my book on all fronts: LAX Timeline, the lighthouse, and Claire.

And part of it is because I think we got one of our answers Tuesday. Swan, I LOLed when you wrote last week "Someone said to me 'I'm so glad we finally know what the numbers mean!' and I almost punched them in the face. No, we don't." I agreed with that statement whole-heartedly, but I think that this week we do know what the answer to that question is. If at the end of the series it's explained to us that the numbers are important because they correspond to Jacob's list of candidates to replace him, and that those six survivors are the most important people on the island then I'm cool with that. Maybe there's a fuller explanation upcoming, but I'm content with the explanation on the numbers that we've been given. As long as they complement it with why those six are so important and the fulfillment of their story.

I think it's important to remember that there's always going to be some amiguity with the answers this season. Think of it this way: at the end of Season 1 the big mystery was "What's in the hatch?" Well, if I were to answer that question I would say "It's a man working for the Dharma Initiative that has to press a button every 108 minutes to contain a pocket of electromagnetic energy from destroying the island, and perhaps the world." The answer to the original question then opens up a dozen new questions: "Who's the man? Where's he from? What's the Dharma Initiative? What happens if the button's not pressed?...." I think it's the biggest obstacle the show has to overcome this season. How do you answer these in-depth questions in a way that doesn't leave us with even more questions? And I think it's important for us, the viewers, to sort of meet them half-way on this. Otherwise the finale is going to be a man sitting in a chair just answering questions and explaining things, and that would infinitely suck.

Ok, I realize that I'm rambling and haven't really said much about the actual episode.

The lighthouse scene I loved. It confirmed the idea we've had all along that they've been sort of "led" to this island. Swan, I love your comment about free will on the island and how the survivors have free will...as long as they do what Jacob and the Others want. It's for this reason that I'm still going to maintain that Jacob is evil as well.

But the lighthouse scene served another purpose other than to kick ass. Remember when Jacob said that he needed to get Hurley and Jack away from the Temple because it's about to get real? Well let's just say for grins that the "Kwon" at 42 is Jin and do an analysis on where the six candidates are:

4 - Locke - Dead, body claimed by Monster
8 - Hurley - Alive, at the Lighthouse
15 - Sawyer - Drunk, last seen joining forces with the Monster
16 - Sayid - Infected, at the Temple
23 - Jack - Depressed, staring at the ocean
42 - Jin - FREAKED OUT, headed to the Temple with Claire and Monster

If you're keeping score at home (and I think they are on the island as well), the Monster is doing pretty well for itself if this is in fact a game of recruiting these six. Jacob had to lure Hurley and Jack away from the Temple in order to avoid being shut out. I'm really anxious to see how this chess game plays out, particularly with those six.

Aside from Claire being genuinely scary (and not sexy), I enjoyed that storyline as well. You have to feel bad for Jin, who I think is bringing very bad things to the people of the Temple.

And the LAX timeline. And most importantly, that scar. Jack remembered getting his appendix taken out (in this story, as a child), but seemed genuinely shocked that he had a scar. Almost as though that scar just appeared. My thought was that this crossed the line of tee-hee moment and got weird. We've seen things play out similar to how they have on the island, but this was almost like that moment happened even though it didn't. If that makes any sense (it doesn't). Almost like if Boone were to drop dead from internal injuries...even if nothing caused them (just because that's what happened).

As for Jack's baby mama, I agree that it was left a mystery for a reason. My first inclination was - don't laugh - Claire. It would be just another in the long line of Star Wars references for this show. But given the fact that their ages don't mesh up, Claire lives in Australia, and the fact that Jack's mom didn't seem to know who Claire was in the will that's probably far-fetched. Oh, and it's incest. My guess....Juliet. Just because that would be AWESOME!

Let the speculation begin on who Wallace is. My guess is David Wallace, the former CFO of Dunder-Mifflin.

- The Arrow

I just lied to a samurai.

*drinks shot of Dharma whiskey*

I can't believe we've made it a full rotation already! Man, that means we're already 4 episodes in, which makes us that much closer to Lost being over forever. That's a little sad. But it also means we have three more full rotations to go, so let's get blogging!

Hydra, you mentioned Jack not remembering getting his appendix removed - I was thinking that this means not only is the future different in the LAX timeline, but also that the explosion meant that parts of the past had to be rewritten to line up with fixed events that still need to happen regardless of whether or not they ever step foot on the island. So just as Ethan still helped with Claire's baby, Jack still needed to have a scar on his stomach, and the new reworking of his life must have put him receiving that scar pre-plane ride. I'm curious if we'll continue to see little tidbits like this - things that happened on the island now appearing in the survivors lives in new ways, even if it means that they had to have happened (somehow) in the past and they don't remember it.

I also was so excited to find out who Jack was married to in the LAX timeline, and they did a very good job of keeping that little tidbit of information from us. I'm curious if we'll ever find out, now.

Hydra, even *I* found jungle Clair incredibly sexy, and I am a straight woman. A straight woman who isn't a big fan of seeing someone being axed in the gut, but jungle Clair, you just go ahead and axe anyone you want. Except Jin. Please don't hurt Jin.

So, Clair's friends with Smokey. And she's also been hanging out with her Dad, whom I always assumed was Smokey as well. I was operating under the assumption that Smokey had been every single image of a dead person seen on the island (Kate's horse, Claire/Jack's Dad, etc.) but I don't know why Smokey would be visiting her as Christian Shephard and as himself via John Locke. That's confusing.

I was DYING to find out whose name was by 108 on the weirdo mirror compass thing. Logically that name would be who they were trying to help get to the island, which seemed strange since Jacob wasn't too bothered by the fact that Jack's outburst meant that the person wasn't going to be getting there via Mirror of Erised anymore. So it makes me wonder if he made the whole thing up just to make Jack see "how important he is", or if someone new really will be coming to the island soon.

EDIT: Arrow has just informed me that due to the magic of DVR, he found that 108 had a crossed out "Wallace" next to it. This tells us... nothing. Haha. But I was sure it was going to be a name we knew, so this is an interesting fact.

I hadn't thought about Smokey not having a name to make him scarier. That's a really good tactic, if that's what they're going for. In the spirit of the Harry Potter references that seem to be popping up in my blog this week, maybe we should start calling him "You Know Who" or "The Smoke Monster Who Must Not Be Named".

I think my favorite part of this new episode was the inevitability of the fact that "I'm a candidate" is now going to become an instant get out of jail free card, and I love it. I LOVED seeing the look on Dogan's face when Hurley played that card, and you could just see the "power" oozing from Hurley when he realized it was going to work.

I made a joke to myself in my notes at the start of the episode about Jack (I said, "man. even his own kid hates him.") but after this episode, I finally feel like he's not a complete waste of screentime. I wanted to punch him in the face when he smashed the mirror, but it was clearly what Jacob wanted, so I can't fault him too much.

One of my favorite quotes from this episode was, "Everything is an option. But I would have to stop you."

I thought that quote definitely spoke to the theme of free will within the show and with the Survivors. Like, yeah, you have free will, totally guys. That is, unless Jacob wants something different.

Until next week,

Swan

All Shall Tremble Before Glen!

I get to go first this week, which means we have made it through one full rotation on our blog already guys! Good job everyone, let's all take a shot of Sawyer's Dharma whiskey and get to blogging!

I think I'll follow my notes to get started...

-Jack single? (That definitely didn't look like a couple's apartment to me)
-Scar? (He didn't remember getting his appendix removed, like he didn't know where that cut on his neck came from.)
-Jack's a dad. (They were very coy about not telling us who his mother is the entire episode, is it Carol Vessey from Ed like before?)
-Hurley + Miles (The two comic relief characters combine to create a super likable uber-dude)
-My Pen Is Ready Jacob!!! (I can't tell what Jacob is up to. What is the purpose of everything he's been setting up for years? It seems that the central conflict of the entire climax of the show is Jacob vs Esau but, we still don't know for what. What are they fighting over/about/to control? And for some reason I find my self firmly on Jacob's side. I'm not sure why.)
-CLAIR! (They didn't forget about her! Is it just me or is CRAZY jungle Clair incredibly sexy? What does is say about me that I'm totally into a crazy girl who killed a guy with an axe?)
-3 years. (At first I thought it was a little bit of a stretch for our sweet old Clair to have turned into this amazon. But, then they reminded me that she's been alone surviving on the Island for three years. Add that to her "sickness" and this is what happens I guess.)
-Omega symbol. (The symbol Hurley was looking for on the wall.)
-I just lied to a Samurai. (The beginning of a Hurleyesque sequence of sentences that also included...)
-Indy and Obi Wan (Does George Lucas get a royalty pay out every time Hurley geeks out?)
-Creepy skull baby (Ummm, that was really creepy. ::shivers::)
-Ice Cream (At this point in the show, my chocolate ice cream showed up so I stopped taking notes for a little bit.)
-Left Sayid. (So, Jack and Hurley just left Sayid at the temple... which is full of people who want to kill him. Maybe they asked Miles to keep an eye out for him?)
-Tee hee Asian guy (The Asian guy has a son who plays piano. The only tee hee moment by my count this episode.)
-Numbers = Degrees (We are learning more and more about those numbers each week it seems.)
-Still no name (Add "my friend" to the list of not his actual name names. Maybe they don't want to tell us his name to make him scarier, fear of the unknown and all that. I definitely wouldn't be as scared of him if his name was Glen or George or Clarence or something.)

Okay, that's all I have written in my notes. So, here are a few things I'm thinking about this week after "The Lighthouse."

First off, this is the first LAX story that I really was into. It had a full arc, kept me interested, and only had one "tee hee" moment. I like that Jack still has his beat up old Jeep although he traded Nirvana for something less hardcore that I couldn't recognize. Why does he keep getting scars and cuts he doesn't recognize? I am actually really curious as to who the boy's mother is. Was the piano playing somehow tied to Faraday's similar childhood passion. I don't know why but I thought it was really good. I still don't think it added anything to the overall story but, as a story in itself, it held it's own.

I'm so glad we got to see some Clair. She was super crazy and super hard core and super scary. That skull baby made my skin crawl. Why does Jin want to take her to the Temple, I guess to save his own skin? She's with ESAU! That was my favorite end of episode reveal yet this season.

The Lighthouse I thought was really cool. We know a little bit more about the Numbers now. And, how Jacob found his candidates. However that still doesn't explain why the six specific numbers caused all the havoc they did in the real world. Why are they cursed and why those six numbers specifically when seemingly every number on the dial corresponded to a person. It should be noted that Austen was on the lighthouse wheel at number 51 even though she was not in the cave last week. Also, have y'all looked at the lostpedia breakdown of the the cave writings. Along with Jarrah, Kwan, Ford, Shephard, Reyes, and Locke some other names were already crossed out. Such as, 195-Pace, 20-Rousseau, 313-Littleton, and Faraday.

Loved this week's episode. Best yet.

-Hydra

P.S. "Jacob instructs Hurley to turn the lighthouse dial to 108 degrees. 4+8+15+16+23+42=108." -Lostpedia

They all die in the end

I guess it was my week this week to be caught up in the "real world" which has delayed me from posting on this blog. I'm busy learning the life lesson that real estate numbers are much more confusing than the Lost numbers, and that I have a better grasp on time travel than I do on interest rates. With any stroke of good luck, however, I will have a home to host a Lost finale party!

Anyways, about last week's episode...

It's tough when you watch three bloggers and dozens of followers (we love you!) mull over the episode for a week and then have to come up with something new, but I do have a theory that I haven't seen presented yet regarding which Kwon was number 42.

I think it's Jin.

Oh right, the why part of that....well every other name on that list was the name of a male. Which also could explain why the name "Austen" was mysteriously absent from that wall. And it's really for that reason alone that I'm putting money on Jin. So basically Jacob just touched Kate and Sun for the same reason any guy would, and maybe it doesn't have anything to do with choosing a successor.

I haven't read all the reaction from the internets, but it's probably a safe guess that I was the only one who took away from this episode that Jacob is a pervert.

Also just some general notes from the episode...the kid that visits the monster really freaked me out. Seriously. There's something about creepy looking children that just really bothers me. The scariest thing I've ever seen in person, on TV, or in the movies is the twins from The Shining.

But I do think that kid is important, and it kind of ties into my intentions with this post. I want to theorize a little. When I first started trying to collect my thoughts on some of these issues I sort of envisioned an idea of how Lost could end. The problem is that we don't really have a lot of the pieces to neatly tie it all together, but I would like to share my ideas on how a lot of this will fall into place. In some ways this is silly because it will probably all be shot down in about 10 hours, and a lot of the ideas are arbitrary, but it's fun...

So everyone's working under this assumption that this is setting up to be a battle of good vs. evil on the island, and the general school of thought is that Jacob is good and the monster is evil. I disagree. I think there's a good and an evil side to Lost, and I think that both Jacob and the Monster fall into the latter category.

Yes, Jacob is evil. And not just because he's a pervert.

If Jacob is the good guy, then there's a lot to be reconciled here. Like child kidnapping. Also, as we're led to believe by the end of last week's episode, all of our survivors had their free will removed from them by Jacob. I hate to get all religious up in here, but it does seem as though one of the dogmas of many faiths is the idea that free will exists for man out of love, and that manipulation and deceit are the handiwork of evil. Certainly you could argue with Jacob that the ends justify the means, but what's the end?

And the monster is certainly a bad guy. Unless murder and manipulation are now virtuous traits. So even though a rivalry exists between Jacob and the monster, that doesn't mean there's a good and a bad side. Sometimes in a dispute there's just two asses. Like Jon and Kate.

So I kind of think that both Jacob and the monster are in the same boat...banished to the island by a force of good. Jacob and the monster are both trying to get off this island, and manipulate and tempt the people that they lure to it into accomplishing that feat. For Jacob apparently he needs to find a successor so he can escape, and for the monster we're maybe about to find out what he needs to do to get off the island.

But there is a force of good in play here. Call it a hunch, but I wonder if it's not the kid that we saw scare the hell out of Locke Monster. We know nothing of the kid, except that he appears to be aware of what the monster and Jacob are doing and he was also dressed in rather old-timey clothing. Lost doesn't cryptically introduce a character like that unless it means something...

So if we're correct in assuming that the endgame of Lost involves a battle between good and evil, might it be a desperate ploy by Jacob and/or the Monster to use the survivors to get off the island and fight our good child? That's what my random theory says.

And that comes back to the title of this post, and how I'm going to try to reconcile the issue of the two timelines. I said after the premiere that we were in a weird phase where we don't know the outcome of the Jughead detonation because we haven't "opened the box" and that both timelines are actually the two possible results of Juliet's actions...we just don't know which one is the real result. It's like flipping a coin, knowing that it will either be heads or tails, but not knowing the result of an individual coin toss while it's still spinning in the air. That's where we are regarding the two timelines.

But one of the timelines will emerge as the one true timeline. And it will be the LAX one. Juliet already told us it worked. But we still need some resolution to the Island Timeline. Maybe as the season progresses we'll start to see more of the plans of evil and how it pertains to our survivors. I think we're starting to see this realization that "we're probably stuck here." And then it gets grim. Jack and Sawyer both are probably pretty close to suicidal. Kate goes as those two go. Sayid's dead and Claire is too. Jin and Sun might as well be Romeo and Juliet. And it's all Hurley's fault. I hate to sound morbid, but I'm sensing a collective "give up" by the survivors. And it will be, at that point, the LAX timeline that emerges as the winner. But instead of living happily ever after, they all go back to their miserable lives that they had before the crash. Totally oblivious to what they could have experienced. The end.

Like I said, I don't know how much, if any, of the previous nonsense will be true. But I thought it would be fun to throw out there. Feel free to discuss, or come back this evening and mock me for how horribly off the mark I was :)

- The Arrow

Sawyer's having a bad week.

Happy Friday everyone! I just finished a midterm exam and I am feelin' fiiine.

Now, let's talk Lost.

Pearl, I am right there with you in the nervousness. It occurred to me that every time we have a character-centric episode, that is (likely) the LAST episode we're ever going to see about them specifically. Now, obviously this doesn't mean we're not going to learn anything else new about them, but it significantly decreases our chances of finding out anything else from their past lives that affects the present, unless their lives were entangled in another character's life. That's scary.

So now we have Kate and Locke out of the way. Which is okay in my book, since John Locke has been dead for half a season and even a love-triangle (I don't even know what it was at one point, a love-dodecahedron?) enthusiast like myself can only handle so much from Kate Austen.

It is way, way too early for me to translate that nervousness over to fear or any other emotion beyond anticipation and excitement, however. I have faith in Lost.


So, let's talk about the bloody armed child scene. Reminiscent of the apparitions in Macbeth, anyone? In Macbeth, the bloody child apparition says,

"Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn
The power of man, for none of woman born
Shall harm Macbeth."

I have no idea if this is related at ALL, but it's the first thing I thought of and Lost likes to make outside references, so I figured it was at least worthwhile to note it down here.

That being said, Pearl, I wanted to touch on your question about the creepy kid possibly being Jacob. I was talking to my boyfriend about this, because he thought the creepy kid was possibly Aaron - but I shot that down because there would be no reason to use another actor for the same character at roughly the same age.

My FIRST thought (after "OMG MACBETH") was that the creepy kid was a young Jacob as well.

But when the creepy kid said the line about breaking the rules, I wondered if maybe he was some sort of intermediate referee between Jacob and the Smoke Monster? Maybe?

I'm not sold on the recruiting for an army idea. It seems like old Smokey just wants to go "home". Someone who wants to go home (in that sort of listless, defeated way he said the line) probably doesn't also want to wage a giant war, especially when the "war", thus far, seems mostly like trickery between only Jacob and the Smoke Monster, through manipulation of other people and each other. So I just don't know. Maybe he's recruiting for some kind of event. Or maybe he needs people to GET home. I'm just keeping my options open for what this recruitment is for.


I think Smokey is staying in Locke's body because it's convenient for him. Like in that first shot where he was zooming all around the island and then stops to talk to Sawyer - even though Sawyer caught on right away, it was easier for Smokey to approach him AS John Lock.

As for the numbers/candidates: I really don't have much to say on this yet, just that seeing the numbers in the cave was awesome and I love the theory that Sun and Jin only work as a couple and that neither of them are individually the number.

Someone said to me "I'm so glad we finally know what the numbers mean!" and I almost punched them in the face. No, we don't. We know the numbers are written by the names of the Oceanic 6 survivors in a cave that takes near suicide to access, but that doesn't tell us WHY each of them is assigned one of these numbers, or how they spread to Hurley and all the other places we've seen them, or what they mean. N00bs.

Biggest disappointment this week:
NOTHING about Claire. Right there with you, Hydra. Come on, Lost. Don't toy with my emotions like that.


The only things I wrote in my notes while watching the episode this week:

"Hurley is badass. So is Rose."
"Sawyer's having a bad week".

Also, I am on board with the "teehee" moments. Perfect.

Until next week,

-Swan

Crap, They Forgot About Claire Again

Did this episode look kind of off to anyone else just visually? Particularly the Smokey POV shots at the beginning, like really brightly (badly) lit? And, all of the straight on character talking to the camera shots? There were a few times that that really bothered me. Ah shit, I turned into a grumpy curmudgeon again.

ISLAND:

I really love this part of the show. Two complaints this episode though.
1. WHERE IS CLAIR? I am seriously worried they are just going to show her to us and forget about her for another year now.
2. The "DON'T TELL ME WHAT I CAN'T DO!" line made me cringe a little. I felt the same way about it as I do about almost all of the LAX stuff. Hey, that would be funny if fake John said that line that Real John said a bunch... PUT IT IN THE SCRIPT. They are really working with no filter right now. In the next episode they are going to show Walt shooting a three point shot in a basketball game to win at the last second and Michael is going to yell "THAT'S MY SON!"

But, the cave was awesome. ::Theory:: Sun and Jin aren't individual candidates. They are only eligible as a couple. Remember when Jacob touched them, he said something like "your love is a very special thing." And when I realized that the numbers were The Numbers I freaked out a little. ::Theory:: I think Sawyer still has a little con man working inside him and is playing Esau. He's just not that gullible. Sawyer is my favorite right now though, so, I may be biased. I'm wondering why they haven't given Esau a real name yet? You think it would have come up at this point, like, Richard just keeps calling him "you" breathlessly and Sawyer is calling him Locke.

LAX

I'll make this short since I've pretty much said my peace about this. But, the one stupid coincidence that sent me over the edge this week was Ben teaching History at the same school John is subbing at. Your note concerning it Pearl ends with "teehee." Which is perfect! I am going to start calling these "teehee" moments from now on. Moment's that are more cute than they are necessary or entertaining.
-Interesting side note. When I was substitute teaching that "it's sex ed day" thing actually happened to me! It was really awkward and then at the end of the day I found out that I wasn't actually legally allowed to teach it and I should have told somebody because I wasn't a certified teacher. Really weird experience.

But, on the Island... The storm clouds are gathering if you'll pardon the cliche and I couldn't be more into the show. So crazy and fun. JUST SHOW ME SOME MORE CLAIRE!

-Hydra

Very superstitious, writing's on the wall; Very superstitious, ladders bout' to fall

This show is getting harder and harder to theorize about. I want to say it’s because they are starting to answer questions, which I suppose is mostly true, but it is also due to the fact that NOTHING IS MAKING SENSE RIGHT NOW! A common problem with “Lost”, I suppose. After every episode this season I start to feel a little nervous. I’ve had my heart broken by so many TV shows and I don’t think I will survive if “Lost” does it to me as well. I’m really fragile right now.

I am going to just type out some of the scribble-scrabbles I wrote on my scratch paper as the events unfolded and try to extend on them:

1.Locke is engaged to Helen in the LAX timeline! At least he has her this time around and . . .

2. It seems his dad didn’t earn the “Worst Father Ever” award in the LAX timeline since Helen mentions inviting him to an intimate ceremony in Vegas. So. The island sinking makes his dad suck less? Does that mean he was never a con man? How did Locke get paralyzed in this reality then? Obviously it was simply his fate. Perhaps his subtle allusion to having experience in construction work holds the answer. Curious . . .

3. Candidate?

4. Creepy kid confuses Smokey? Is he Jacob?

5. Smokey is recruiting . . . Maybe for an army (Added after the show: or maybe for his “job”).

6. Hugo is Mr. Successful.

7. Kid not Jacob; Smokey pretends he didn’t see the kid who just told him what he “can’t do” when Sawyer asks him about it. That doesn’t bode well.

8. Richard is shaken more than I like to see Richard shaken so I am getting more worried.

9. Rose is awesome.

10. Why is Smokey stuck looking like Locke? Because he is the last form Smokey took before killing Jacob? Are Jacob's ashes going to serve as protection, or does she plan on resurrecting or summoning him somehow?

11. Locke is so depressing . . . I hope Ben is actually sorry for killing him, not that that helps anything at all. Locke is seriously the most depressing TV character in history.

12. Frank Lapidus: “This is the weirdest damn show I’ve ever been to.” Amen to that, brother.

13. Disappointed Locke didn’t wind up calling Jack. I think Jack might have actually been able to pull it off. I wonder if Jack ever married Sarah in LAX? I imagine so, but I wonder if it went down the same way since Jack is different than Before. You know, since he seems to have fewer issues.

14. Black wins.

15. Very superstitious, writing's on the wall . . . er, ceiling.

16. Ben is a dorky, OCD History teacher in LAX? Teehee.

17. THE NUMBERS!!!!
Recap: Locke-4; Hugo-8; Sawyer-15; Sayid-16; Jack-23; Kwon (Jin or Sun?)-42

18. Kate was touched, but she was not mentioned as being on the ceiling/wall and she doesn’t have one of the majestic numbers. Did they just run out of numbers and thought we wouldn’t notice? Is Kate out of the running for whatever reason? Is she out of the running because she is a woman? Is Jacob sexist? But then that leaves Sun as a contender still . . . Unless Jin beat her out. Or it's a two-for-one special.

19. Is the individual number assigned significant? Should I even bother asking that question?

20. Was Smokey ever a candidate? Did he get the second ranking to Jacob from whoever was “Jacob” before? Or is he who the island is supposed to be protected from? If so, why? Why is that damned island so freaking important?!?!?

21. How does one become a candidate? Is Smokey just making this stuff up as he goes along?

22. Smokey is obviously a filthy liar and Sawyer’s sorrow is blinding him. This will end badly.

A lot of rhetorical questions, basically. I kind of hoped I would get to shine as the best blogger in the world with this post, but it didn’t really work out . . . This is really the only way I can structure this post without it getting out of hand, however, and I suppose in its own way it leaves room for mulling things over. I’ve done all I can.

Hydra?

--The Pearl

Biggest WTF Moment: According to my notes (in which I wrote "WTF?" twice), it seems to be a toss up between seeing chalk writings in a cave and Ben being a teacher in a sweater vest. Interesting.

Delay In Our Regularly Scheduled Program

My classes have gone back to happening on Tuesday nights, so I will not be able to watch tonight's episode until after my class. I don't get out until 9pm and it's an hour drive back. Seeing as how I am next to blog first, I will have my post up as soon as possible. Sorry about that, guys. Only one more week and I am finished!

Also, just to clear the air concerning the LAX timeline...I don't HATE it. I don't even hate watching the different ways they all would have met off the island. I think it's cool and interesting, and sometimes funny and sweet. Also, keep in mind I have been sticking up for its importance in the grand scheme of things. I am just slightly bitter, because I am so curious about the island and all of its mysteries that I would rather more time be spent on the Island timeline than the LAX. Therefore, in comparison to the Island, LAX is significantly more boring. That's all I meant! So please don't get bummed out, readers and Swan! I don't hate it! It's just in second place.

That's all for now.

Pearl

EDIT:
Call me crazy but is this Cindy the Flight Attendant?

Sayid is not a Zombie.

Okay. This week, being last to post, I planned to mull over everyone's individual posts and theories and give myself plenty of time to soak it all in, ending the week with a sparkly, shiny firecracker of a post.

Then I got sick and proceeded to not even think about Lost for a good three days while I slept my weekend away, and now here I am on Monday night, scrambling to finish this week's post as if it were a research paper for school I waited until the last minute to complete. No, that I'll have to do after I finish writing this post. Ha.

So anyway, first, in reference to what the rest of you are saying:

Hydra - I agree with pretty much everything you said about Sawyer. In fact, I found myself really torn on whether I am glad he ran away from the Temple or if I want him to get back there as soon as possible because of what they're all saying about needing to have everyone there. And, I loved seeing Kate getting put in her place, even if I'm probably the only person left in this fandom who doesn't totally hate Kate.

On that note - I have to say. I'm sorry, Hydra, but I am on the opposing team here. I really liked the Kate and Claire exposition. Obviously everyone has already made all the timeline connections (Kate assisting - kind of - in the delivery of Claire's baby in both realities, Ethan being there, etc.) but beyond that, I just.. really enjoyed the LAX timeline in this episode. I liked the really heartbreaking scene where Kate left Claire on the curb without her luggage, the first time Kate sees she's pregnant, Kate going back to return the suitcases, Claire asking Kate to come in with her to meet the adopting parents - it was all just sweet.

So, I know there are definitely people (myself included, most of the time) who are fearful that the LAX timeline might end up being a complete waste of time, but I have to say that this week, I liked it. But that's probably just the sappy girl in me.

Speaking of Claire - okay, there's no need to even say this, but the ending was EPIC. And I am not the kind of person who uses the word epic. I cannot WAIT to see what Rousseau!Claire Jungle Princess has been up to.
That was an interesting connection about the sickness that Rousseau's people caught in an earlier season being the same one that Claire and now Sayid have. I'm a little confused how Claire would catch it and just disappear into the jungle, unless someone captured her first, but that's something I am hoping we find out in the next episode. I am really liking that "armies" theory you brought up, though. I hadn't considered that if Jacob recruits people just by touching them, then it's likely the smoke monster/Esau would collect people in a similar manner. If he IS the "bad guy", it's interesting that they become sick or "infected" when chosen; a much more negative experience than being bought a lunch box or handed a pen.

Also, Arrow, I liked what you said about the reincarnation. I remember Sawyer said something along the lines of not wanting to kill Jack because he deserves to "rot on this rock just like the rest of us" -- totally fits with what you said about Sayid being sent back to the island for being an ass in real life.

I dunno, maybe the LAX timeline will prove to show us that the Oceanic Six survivors are better off on the island. Or something. Maybe their lives somehow get even MORE messed up in the real world than they are now. Though, that would be pretty hard to accomplish, given the circumstances.

Okay, on to the notes I took while watching this a week ago.

Two things I wrote down that I think have been sufficiently theorized by everyone else already are:
"Sayid didn't pass 'the test'?"
"Infection?"

Also, I wrote down that Sawyer seemed particularly angry when talking about Sayid. His crack about how he's just a torturer who shoots children - Hydra, I agree, I hope Sawyer stays like this the whole season. It's a strange dynamic but he was far too accommodating for far too long. I will allow a season's worth of me outbursts.

Favorite line of the episode:
Jack: "Did I say something funny?"
Lennon: "Doubt it. He doesn't really have a sense of humor."

Until next week,

Swan

The Glass is Half Full

I finally have time to sit down and write my post! And I promise I won't be a cranky old man this week like I was last week, for the most part, because I really liked this week's episode... for the most part.

First, the good:

Jack did something awesome for the first time in years! When he put that pill in his mouth I was incredibly pumped up. I really couldn't believe it, especially after that really lame scene right before where he said "move aside" or "open sesame" or some crap and those two guys moved, for no apparent reason other than Jack is brooding and pouty. But him popping that pill made me seriously happy, I was in disbelief. I didn't know that guy still existed.

The dock scene with Sawyer and Kate. Josh Holloway can act for serious! I'm not sure if I said this in my premier post, but, if Sawyer isn't heartbroken for the rest of the season I am going to be very let down. Luckily that seems to be exactly their intention. After Jin asked Kate, "and then what?" and she replied, "we'll figure it out, together." I seriously wanted to vomit. I don't know why she insisted on seducing a man who's love just died in his arms, but, she got seriously put in her place and it was phenomenal.

AND CLAIR! That's right, I went all caps on you. I'm so glad she showed up and it was the best pre-black screen moment I've felt in a while. A big reveal that we know absolutely nothing about! I can't wait to see Rouslair/Clarieau next week and find out about her! So, I am assuming that some one being "claimed" as Sayid is in the process of becoming and Clair is, is the same thing that Rousseau called the "sickness" when referring to her shipmates when they got too close to the Temple. Chad Matlin over at Slate.com floated a pretty interesting theory that the "sickness" is Esau's way of recruiting followers and that Jacob's touch is his method. So, it would seem that they are both massing armies if that is the case!

Now, the bad.

I could not care less about the LA X timeline. It's super boring. The only enjoyment I really get out of it is the silly little fate coincidences that pop out. For instance, watching the other night and Ethan pops on screen. My initial reaction was, "THAT'S ETHAN!" but then three seconds later I realized... who cares. He's just this doctor who puts a needle in Clair. And, instead of being the cool duplicitous comment about fate that they intend it to be it just feels like pandering to me. Like they want to do cool thing for the sake of doing cool things which is a terrible way to write a television show because it adds nothing at all to the plot. Joss Whedon in an interview said something like, "the hardest part about writing Buffy was that people were coming up with cool shit all the time! And we couldn't do those episodes because they just didn't make sense within the context of the story we were trying to tell."

Now, there are some indications that they maybe will bring everything together. Mostly, I noticed them when rewatching the premier. Just weird little things that they don't explain like why Jack's neck was bleeding in the airplane and Desmond disappearing. So, if it all comes together in a really cool way, I'll eat my words. But, right now it's really boring and doesn't effect the characters on the show I care about (the ones in the Island timeline) at all. I'm really only interested in half of this show right now. This week however, I'm looking at it as half full.

That's it for me this time. On to you Swan!

Hyperlinks are the future's footnotes, Hydra.

Fear and Trembling and the Sickness Unto Death

First, I had forgotten that Mac from “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” was on “Lost” a few seasons ago, so I became a little giddy when I saw him again tonight. I went to tell my boyfriend (who is currently abstaining from “Lost” for reasons I will not disclose) because he loves that show and he asked, “Is he a good guy or a bad guy?” I paused momentarily before saying, “I’m not really sure right now,” and walked out of the room where he was watching The Mavs play. Then it hit me that, aside from Smokey clearly being the bad guy (I guess), I don’t know who exactly I am supposed to cheer for. Don’t yell at me! I know that we are on The Losties’ side, but can we really cheer against The Others if they are connected to Jacob, who is clearly the good guy (I guess)? Or is anyone really the good guy/bad guy? If Jacob and Esau are these two demi-gods that are in charge of keeping balance and order by way of judgment (or something) then can there really be a good side and a bad side? Granted Smokey is sick of keeping the peace at this point, so perhaps a line has officially been drawn.

I’ve been reading up on mythology, which is actually a favorite pastime of mine, in hopes of finding some answers about Jacob and Esau. I’d heard of and read briefly in the past about a God of Chaos, though I couldn’t remember where it stemmed from. I found it! Loki was a Norse god whose name means “air” in Norse and is a shape-shifter. Sound like someone we all know? Beyond that, he does not really resemble Esau. However, there is a goddess named Khaos who often took the form of a “dark mist” and who ruled the space between heaven and earth. No solid answers there, but it does give room for more theorizing, and that’s what we Lost fans love to do when it comes to this show. This is just some info I wanted to share and clearly has no direct connection to tonight’s episode, but may be helpful later.

I am now going to somewhat briefly address the LAX timeline. I am basing most of this on a link, posted by my friend and blog reader Lindsay, from the EW interview with Cuse and Denisof. I will summarize and theorize simultaneously. Egads! Cuse and Denisof are reluctant to call either reality an "alternate reality", because they don't want one to seem as though it is more important than the other. Instead, they refer to it as a "flash sideways". They supposedly based this concept off of the Island Universe Theory. Essentially, it is like a parallel universe, where there are two different existences of the same person happening simultaneously. Now, obviously the island was taken more literally for them--since it actually refers to galaxies/nebulae--but I think this is sort of the direction it may be going. So one reality is not more important than the other. One isn't more real than the other. I think a certain event, however, may decide which one will win out in the end. I am basing most of this on assumption. The "Island Universe Theory" was only briefly mentioned in the interview and it was developed predominately by Immanuel Kant, a philosopher. Now for the segue . . .

I think it is important to not look at the LAX timeline as potentially “inconsequential”, as Hydra put it last week. Although it is merely proving at this point that fate is fate and there is no way around it, there will be a “winning” universe in the end. That’s really all I have to say about that right now. And yes, Arrow, I concur that the LAX timeline is a bit of a Borefest since we are essentially just rewatching Season One in LAX format. But I will not discount anything as important, especially so early in the game. HUGE HOWEVER, I am a little pissed about having this parallel world taking up valuable time that could be used to explain the island. Yes, I know I just said that LAX is just as important as Island, but Island is clearly more fascinating and enigmatic. Just sayin’.

I guess now I will briefly address the little morsels we were given in last night’s episode:

Claire is alive! She might be possessed! She might be crazy! She might not remember anything or anyone, even little Aaron! But she is alive! Guess we’ll see how that goes next week.

I like Dogan. That might be a bad move on my part, since he has only further proven that The Others were born to lie, but I like him. Twenty bucks he dies, though. I'm lying about the twenty bucks part. I'm broke.

I also like Lennon. This may be due to the fact that the guy who plays him was on an episode of “The X-Files” (my former love) or that his name is oh-so fitting to his appearance, but I like him. He kind of has a creep factor to him like that of our good friend Benjamin Linus, however.

I’m worried about Sayid, man. I’m going to whole-heartedly agree with Arrow—whose “I remember...” observation was very cool—that Smokey may possess Sayid. Kind of. I don’t think it’s the same entity, per se, that has taken on the form of Locke, but I think it is something like it. As I said before, the murky water is the culprit for whatever is about to go down with Sayid. I wonder what Dogan plans to do about it now that Jack isn’t a fan of poisoning him? Just going to say now that I am still off the “Sayid is Jacob” bandwagon.

Oh, Sawyer. Breaking my heart, I’m telling ya. I got a little teary-eyed, I won’t lie, during the dock scene. A tiny part of me felt a little bad for Kate, but then I remembered that I don’t like her and mumbled, “Take that! How does it feel?” I’m horrible, I know. I hope we get to see Sawyer and Juliet meet in LAX, but if fate is fate, she will somehow die anyway so it still sucks.


That’s pretty much all we got tonight, so . . . Show us what you got, Hydra!

--The Pearl

Get down with the sickness!

Alright, time for me to take my first crack at the "first reaction" blog. For the first time in my LOST career, I actually sat down to take notes during the original airing of an episode. They weren't really detailed notes - I still want to enjoy the show for what it is - but I'll share them with you, along with some explanations in parentheses:

Reincarnation
Sayid=Not Monster
Sayid=Maybe Monster (I was just finishing the preceding sentence when those rascally Others admitted that they had lied about Sayid's test)
Weird Science Commercial
Flash-Sideways=Boring
No couple
"I remember..."
LAX Timeline=Island Timeline

So now I'll expand on some of those incoherent thoughts.

1. Reincarnation
This is what Sawyer was hinting at when he said that Sayid was basically sent back to the island for being an ass in real life. While I don't think Sayid's resurrection is what we traditionally think of "reincarnation," I do think that there's some strong hinting that that's what happened to ALL of the survivors throughout the course of the show. Remember one of the famous LOST anagram clues from Season 5, where Ben's van said "Canton-Rainier" on the side of it...

2. Sayid=Not Monster
I scribbled this down on the paper whenever it became apparent that they were testing him for something. I thought that the sprinkling of the ash on top of him met with whatever device was designed to determine whether or not we were seeing the Monster had taken over Sayid. Remember the water was dirty/tainted, which might have meant that the Monster had used that as a device to get inside Sayid. Of course Sayid couldn't be the monster because he passed their little test...

3. Sayid=Maybe Monster
...how stupid of me to forget that every sentence from the Others includes a noun, verb, and a lie.

4. Weird Science Commercial
Nothing LOST related, just sort of liked that Radio Shack commercial.

5. No couple
I'm going to hold onto this thought until I get a couple of points down...

6. "I remember..."
So once we established that something was terribly wrong with "Sayid" he had a statement that really struck me as a tell that it might just be the monster that is infecting him. I believe it was Miles that asked him if he saw the bright lights, old family, etc. When Sayid responds he begins with "I remember being shot..." One of the things we've seen from the Monster throughout its existence on LOST is that it seems to scan the memories of its victims and use those against them. And if you don't remember, just go back to the episode last season when Locke is "resurrected" on the island and one of his first lines is "I remember dying..."

7. LAX Timeline=Island Timeline
This was something that I started to pick up on last week when Edward Mars suffered the same head injury as he did in the crash of 815. Then Charlie was choking before being saved by Jack (remember Ethan hanging him up and leaving him for dead in Season 1?). And of course you had Christian Shephard's magical disappearing coffin. The idea is that even though the circumstances in the sense that the plane doesn't crash, fate is fate and things are going to play out in Los Angeles as they did on the island. Well is there any doubt to this after what happened to Claire? Let's see, she's not giving her baby up for adoption, she was administered drugs by Ethan, and Kate is apparently going to have some kind of role in raising this kid (probably).

So that's just some of what I got out of the episode. I'm sure that as soon as I post this I'll wish that I had included something else, or I'll think of something in the morning when I wake up. But here's some final thoughts by me:

I like the idea of the LAX Timeline mirroring the Island Timeline, but am I the only one that's already a little bored with it? It seems as though the endgame is taking place between the forces on the island, and while it's neat to see how LA is mirroring the island, it also means that we're not really seeing anything new...

I mentioned throughout this post that it is the monster that is "infecting" Sayid, but I'm still totally open to the idea of it being Jacob, or some other force that maybe we haven't seen yet.

I'm hoping that Sawyer's resignation from love is going to put an end to a lot of the love "however many people are involved in it now"-angle. Juliet's dead, and Sawyer seems suicidal, so just let Jack and Kate get it on and get to some of the legitimately interesting storylines of the show.

Arbor Mist wine has become my official drink of choice for the final season of LOST. I bought a bottle for my premiere party last week because it was "island fruit" flavored and so it seemed to fit into the idea of the party. This was an excellent choice. Tonight I went with their melon white zinfandel. Another excellent choice.

I'm anxious to read all of your takes on the infection/Sayid/Claire and what it all is. Again, just pulling something out of my backside minutes after the show, I'm going to guess Monster. But I'm about as committed to that theory as Kate is to anything she's done. Ever.

I think what we're seeing is one last desperate attempt by the forces that be on the island to try to sway our survivors in one way or another, knowing that an all-out battle is on the horizon. The survivors are obviously extremely important pieces on this chessboard, and we are now down to 15 hours until we hopefully have it all sorted out.

- The Arrow

Lost: ruining my confidence since 2004.

I have been out of the country and away from the Internet for nearly a week now, but after coming back to our blog and catching up on all of your posts, I felt it was necessary to reply one more time before Episode 2 airs tonight.


Lost has this knack for just completely undermining my confidence in theorizing AT ALL. In earlier seasons, just when I thought we'd figured out who the bad guy was (I once thought it was aliens, haha), we met a polar bear. And then we met the Smoke Monster. And then we met Ben. Then we met Widmore. Then we met freaking Jacob and Esau. It's like you can just never be too safe in your conclusions about this show, because unless we're given cold hard facts (like Locke as Esau in this episode) any theory is a wobbly, unstable platform.

And now I am feeling that same hesitance with my decision to jump on ANY bandwagon concerning the "Sayid is Jacob" theory. Initially, it didn't even occur to me. Then I rewatched the scene and thought "Oh…. wow, that could definitely be what happened." And then Arrow proposed it in his post. Upon reading that, I thought "Yeah that HAS to be it." And now I'm not so sure. Like Arrow said, you readers don't come to an analytical blog to listen yo people say "I just don't know," but my biggest point here is that Lost is probably single-handedly the best show I have ever encountered at keeping its viewers guessing. We can toss around facts and ideas, sure, but Lost will ALWAYS have another trick up its sleeve. Maybe Sayid is Shannon. Maybe that's where she went. I JUST DON'T KNOW, OKAY?


I really like what you said, Pearl, about the 815ers being caricatures of themselves. You're absolutely right. We recognized them as themselves, but - and I guess this is an obvious thing to say - but they were a version of themselves with a big chunk missing. It was exactly what Hydra was saying about the huge wealth of character development we've seen them undergo, and this episode reverting them back to a time before that all existed.

Like you said, Peal, Kate seemed crazier. Charlie, too, seemed different/even a little crazier. I think this makes sense though - they both crash landed on an island at a major tipping point in their lives, so maybe they really WERE that crazy all along, but we never got to see it play out because they were given a second chance on the Island.

Oh and - I forgot to mention this in my earlier post, but I can't tell you how nice it was to see Bernard return from the bathroom after the turbulence knowing that in at least one reality, he and Rose would never have to be separated.

I also found it a little odd that we didn't see any of the tailies on the flight either. I mean, sure they were at the back of the plane, but they were there. I understand that all three of the actors who play the tailies probably just couldn't do it - but it would have been nice to see them off the island for once, at the crux of it all.

Pearl, I know a little Japanese! Not enough to be useful really, but maybe I could give you a little lesson. xD

Hydra, you said something I have been grappling with all week as I sorted out my feelings and ideas on the premiere, and it was in this statement:

2. If Arrow's "cat in the box" theory is correct, which makes a lot of sense, that would mean that one of the story lines is completely inconsequential, which would be lame in my opinion. Why do care what happens to someone in a reality that doesn't exist?

That is a huge issue for me as well. We only have 16 episodes this season (15 now!) and if we're blowing half of those on a reality that doesn't actually exist or matter, that's a lot of wasted air time. My other theory is that the two timelines might converge in some way, but I do NOT have my head wrapped around that idea strongly enough to even begin to explain what that might look like. Probably another plane crash. That's all I've got.

Unless of course Hydra's theory is right, and we have in fact been shown the premiere and finale in the same episode without realizing it. Kind of like that episode when we thought we were watching flashbacks and then - nope! Turns out they were flashforwards.

Which is also weird. Lost is weird. WHY is Lost so weird?

On that note, I hope everyone enjoys Episode 2 tonight, and we'll be right here blogging with you as soon as we can! :)

- Swan

I'm Off The Bandwagon

I think I am going to risk it and jump off the "Sayid is Jacob" bandwagon. I don't have many reasons for this other than that I finally watched the Jimmy Kimmel with Denisof and Cuse and they seemed rather surprised by the idea and went on to say, "well, there is definitely something in Sayid..." They may be trying to throw me off, but I figure we need some opposing sides to keep things interesting, so I will be the opposing side for this blog.

Kimmel asked some good questions! So if you haven't watched it yet, you should. That's all I have to say. Oh, and if you haven't read my answer to my questions on Juliet, they are in the comments under my entry.

-Pearl

Sawyer Kicks Jack in the Face = Awesome

Swan, Arrow, and Pearl,

Okay, I've calmed down. I've taken a few days, read a handful of articles (including your posts), and eased my anxieties a bit. A bit.

First, I'll take a cue from Swan and talk about how this episode made me feel. This was my original opening sentence... "Mulltiverse? Why did Lost decide to become a crappy DC crisis event!" (I know, could I make nerdier reference?) I hate to be that guy, but my initial reaction to the premier was not a very good one. And it all started with that terrible CG underwater scene. Seriously, did they drag the designers of Jaws 3D out of retirement for that? Also, the idea of alternate realities seems a very risky line to walk particularly when you very closely walked a time travel line the season before. I have four main issues with alternate realities on this show. 1. Warren Ellis is the only writer that has ever pulled off alternate realities well in my opinion. 2. If Arrow's "cat in the box" theory is correct, which makes a lot of sense, that would mean that one of the story lines is completely inconsequential, which would be lame in my opinion. Why do care what happens to someone in a reality that doesn't exist? 3. My other working theory is that they showed us the premier and finale on Tuesday. That after all the business on the Island is settled they do what they thought they did at the end of last season and reset everything. In that case, they're trying to fit two seasons worth of story into this one. 4. And most of all. The one question that everyone had going into Tuesday's premier was "did it work?" And the answer they gave us was "Yes! And, no. But, yes!" I had a professor that told us "90% of writing is about making choices" and it kind of seems like they just refused to make a choice on Tuesday.

Second, it kind of pissed me off that they kept Juliet alive... for five minutes. They've essentially killed her three times now! The first, when she lets go of Sawyer's hand and falls to her death, which was the most heart wrenching scene maybe in the whole series. Then it turns out she survived the fall only to blow herself up, still pretty good 'cause there's a whole sacrificial element to the death. And then, she's still kicking in "island present" time long enough to ask Sawyer on a date... after they've been married for three years. I don't know, you can only pluck my heart strings so many times before I start going out of tune.

Now, since I've been thinking about those two things, I realized that they both happened pretty early in the episode and that probably biased me against the rest of the really cool things that happened. The more I think about it, the more I love the coming war between the Jacobians and Esau. In the NYT article from Wednesday, Mike Hale talks about my favorite line of the episode, "I want to go home." And assumes that if the Island is not Esau's home than perhaps he was imprisoned there and Jacob's purpose on the Island is primarily as Warden. (Here I must acknowledge that I was completely wrong in thinking that Esau and the Smoke Monster were two completely different entities. I am eating a slice of humble pie.) So the rest of this season for the Others and the Survivors and Jacob is finding a way to keep Esau on the Island. Also, when Arrow suggested that Sayid is Jacob now, that was something I hadn't even considered and got me really excited.

When Sawyer kicked Jack in the face... that was awesome. And, if Sawyer hooks up with Kate again I will hate him as much as I love him right now. He better be heartbroken for the rest of the series.

As far as the LAX story goes, I thought (after I got over the shock of hating the idea of it) it was pretty entertaining. It made me really respect the acting job that the cast is doing on this show. Because in this episode all of them are essentially play two almost entirely different characters, except Kate who never seems to grow or change at all. I don't know if I see the exaggerations of character that y'all did, I think it just highlighted how great the character development on this show has been when we were reminded who these people used to be.

Was it still the best thing on television on Tuesday night. Absolutely. But, for the first time ever I am feeling worried about them pulling this off.

-Hydra

P.S. I think that 90% of writing quote might actually be from the movie "Wonder Boys" now that I think about. Also, hyperlinks are super fun.

I Love Lost. I Hate Lost.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Man. I don’t even know where to start or how to start. Following Arrow is very intimidating, because he is so thorough. Kudos to Arrow for having an amazing post! And kudos to Swan for encompassing all of our feelings into one post for us, I couldn’t agree more.

I am going to break it up into parts, kind of like Arrow, and say whatever I am able to say about anything that happened. Arrow pretty much said it all, but I’ll see what I can do. By the way, totally called it on Smokey and Esau being the same guy. It’s a small victory, but I’ll take what I can get when it comes to this show.

LAX Timeline:

It almost seems as though our 815ers are somewhat caricatures of themselves, not to mention there were some subtle differences on board. For instance:

1. Walt and Michael didn’t appear to be on board—but neither did Claire at first. Part of me wonders if half the reason for that is that Walt is too old to be 2004 Walt. I’m sure there is something far more complicated, and maybe that means we will finally get some answers about why Walt is/was so creepy. Or maybe he’s not creepy at all now that the island is a condo for the fishies.

2. Shannon was also not on board, though it seems her life was continuing as before given her penchant for tumultuous relationships. I don’t see how the island not existing would have anything to do with her deciding to stay in Australia, though.

3. Kate seemed even crazier. I mean, maybe she would have tried to escape had they landed Before, but she seemed more resigned and defeated then, so I highly doubt it. She did always love to be on the run, however.

4. Charlie seemed more brooding. Sure, he had a drug problem Before, but he wasn’t so grumbly. And what is with his cryptic, “I was supposed to die”?
5. DESMOND!!! He seemed fine. He seemed how he would be if he had not crashed his boat onto the island. However, he was being all sneaky and disappearing on us. I liked that he and Jack got to meet again anyway, though it’s a shame they didn’t realize where from.

6. Hurley is lucky now, which makes sense. The island didn’t exist anymore, therefore the numbers as The Numbers didn’t exist. So was he ever in the mental institute? Did he get the numbers from Leonard? Did he even use the same numbers?

7. Jack seems like Hero Jack. I mean, like he WANTS to be a hero, you know? I don’t know if that makes sense. He seems less burdened, I guess is what I am trying to say. And maybe he is. If the island went away then Christian was never in cahoots with the island and so on and so forth. I feel like that wouldn’t have any affect on Jack’s Daddy Issues, but who knows. Who knows anything about this show, really? And he might be able to fix Locke! Then Locke won’t depress me anymore! However, why was Jack bleeding? Hmmm...

8. Sawyer clearly wants to con Hurley, which seems about right, so I guess there is no difference there. It’s just kind of sad, since they were/are pals on the island.

I’m pretty sure I just stated the obvious, but it’s interesting to think about. So much will have changed off the island, things we haven’t even begun to realize, because the island played such a HUGE part in our characters’ lives Before. The underwater grave of the island blew my mind, and I kept thinking about it after the episode ended, but today I am kind of in disbelief. How could the island be that easy to destroy? I mean, this is coming from a person who didn’t think the bomb would work—which I guess I was half right. But Jacob and Smokey were still around then. Their temple people were still around. I feel like it shouldn’t have been so easy to sink it like Atlantis. The island seems too invulnerable for it to be so easily destroyed. I mean, I know the electromagnetism played a huge role in the island being the island, and if it’s not there it’s a little harder for the island to be what it is/was, and it was a freaking hydrogen bomb. Despite ALL of that, I am still a bit skeptical. So we’ll see. Ha.

Island Timeline:

Well, geez. I’m going to jump on the “Sayid is Jacob” bandwagon for now, mostly because Dogan, the Japanese guy, and Lennon, his right hand man, said that according to the paper, Sayid had to live in order for everyone to live. And Jacob was pretty set on Sayid being saved. That’s all I have to go off of. We can also think back to when Ben was dunked and Richard saying that he would not be the same. Granted, Ben has always been Ben, even if a little crazier and devoted to The Others than he may have been prior to The Dunking. However, Dogan was never specific as to what risks there would be, and he seemed rather unfazed by the fact that Sayid drowned given the urgency only minutes before. I hate the idea of Sayid being dead in this timeline, but I know Jacob is The Good Guy and he knows what he’s doing. HOWEVER! In the promo for this season, Sayid is briefly shown being tortured! They wouldn’t torture Jacob, would they? Unless they don’t believe he is Jacob, which doesn’t seem possible if the aforementioned paper said that he would be. . . My brain just blew up. Whatever. I want to learn Japanese. It’s pretty.

By the way, still sad that Juliet actually wound up dying . . . I wish Kate would stop trying to seduce Sawyer. You can’t have everybody, Kate! Buh. I feel bad for Jack. Not because of Kate, just in general. I always wind up feeling bad for him, even though I know I shouldn’t. Especially since it is his fault Juliet is dead and I am sad about it. Sigh. At this point I don’t blame him for being a crazy person, I guess.

I do have a question or two. Well, I have a hundred, but this one will do for now. I know that Juliet saying “It worked,” means that the bomb worked, but it’s so confusing. For one, she was so sad when she woke up inside The Swan’s remains to see Sawyer there. If she somehow knew it worked, why would she react the way she did? Secondly, and this is the big WTF, how the heck does she know it worked?!? Interrobangs all over the place, y’all. (EDIT: I HAVE ANSWERED MY OWN QUESTION TO THIS IN MY COMMENTS BELOW)

I’m excited to have learned a little something more about Alpert—he was definitely a prisoner on the Black Rock. My eyes totally widened at the chains statement. Not a big fan of Esau/Smokey beating him up, though. Not a fan at all. I don’t like where this is going one bit.

I am going to agree right now with Arrow’s Box Theory and just see what happens next. I don’t have any predictions right now, other than what I have kind of, sort of mentioned already.

Favorite Line: "If this thing goes down, I'm sticking with you." -Boone to Locke on Flight 815. So tragically funny.

EDIT:

I almost forgot! Here is the cake I made. It looks awful. Store bought icing is hard to maneuver, and since I do not own an octagon shaped cake pan I had to cut it out myself. Ah well. It tasted delicious.

The box is still closed

I'd like to start of by commending the Swan for following through on what was a very difficult obligation of having to be the one to post the "first response" after last night's episode. The very first thing that crossed my mind at 10:00 CT was "Man, I'm glad I'm not first..."

I was also glad I didn't have to go first for the premiere because sometimes a good night's sleep does the LOST body good, and I feel as though I woke up this morning with a theory regarding the alternate timeline. As a matter of semantics, I'm going to refer to the timeline in which the plane does not crash as the "LAX timeline" as opposed to the "alternate timeline". I think it's important that one should not be fooled into thinking that just because that's the "alternate" doesn't mean that it's not as relevant as the island timeline. I envision that the LAX timeline hears itself called the alternate and says "No you're the alternate!" Anyways, I guess my point is that just because it's thought as the alternate timeline doesn't make it inferior to island timeline.

I was reminded this morning of a theory that I had heard before regarding multiple universes that I think is very relevant to what we're seeing on LOST. I went out and read the book that ABC's FlashForward is based off of, and it was a major theory in that as well. It's called the many-worlds interpretation, and it uses the example of Schrodinger's Cat to explain its concept. The idea is that you take a cat and put it in a box with an amount of poison, then close the box. There are two possible outcomes when you open the box later: either the cat has eaten the poison and died or it hasn't eaten the poison and is wondering why you put it in a box.

According to what you and I would think of as common sense, one outcome exists in the box and we don't discover what it is until we take the lid off. If the cat lives, then it's alive in that box while the lid is still shut, we're just unaware of the outcome. But according to the many-worlds interpretation, both outcomes exist in the box until you open the lid and discover one of the outcomes.

So translate that to LOST. When Juliet hit the bomb at the end of Season 5, there were two possible outcomes, and we began to discover what those outcomes look like last night. There's scenario #1: The energy of the bomb mixes with the electromagnetic energy of the under-construction Swan site, and the product is the white flash that catapults our friends forward in time back to 2007 and in sync with the rest of the island folk. Or scenario #2: The bomb works as Faraday said it would, and Oceanic Airlines still has a perfect safety record. My theory is that we're still in the state of limbo where the lid on the box is closed, and both outcomes are running concurrently. And that at some point before the series is over the lid will be removed to show what was the true result of Juliet's action. As to which outcome will be reality, I'd honestly put it at a coin flip. I'm pulling for the island timeline to be the outcome, but like I said, your guess is as good as mine. 50% of the time it works all the time.

So that's my theory of the many-worlds interpretation and how it applies to LOST. As for the episode, you basically had three storylines running at once, and here's my take on them:

1. LAX Timeline
This is the one we know least about, just because we've never been presented with the backstory of the plane actually landing. The first little subtlety that I think was important was Cindy giving Jack one bottle of alcohol instead of two like on the original flight. Given what we saw from Cindy back on the Island Timeline this just screamed at me that she knew all along that Oceanic 815 was going to crash and knew exactly what was going to happen. The extra bottle wasn't just a stroke of good fortune for Jack, it was deliberately given to him to clean out his wounds.

The next big reveal was a beautiful camera zoom down from the sky all the way to OH HOLY CRAP WHY IS THE ISLAND UNDERWATER? Honestly, and I hate saying this because you don't come to an analysis blog to hear this, but I don't know. I do think that the underwater scene, much like Desmond's appearance on the flight, was more of a clue from the producers that detonating the bomb and changing the past does much much more than just change the fact that the plane doesn't crash. To quote Damon Lindelof in EW: "God bless the survivors of Oceanic 815, because they’re so self-centered, they thought the only effect [of detonating the bomb] was going to be that their plane never crashes.” But they don’t stop to think, “If we do this in 1977, what else is going to affected by this?" To answer why the island is underwater, you would literally need to fill in the blanks of 27 years worth of implications and that's just information we don't' have right now.

And there was the little dust-up regarding the lost coffin and the lost knife luggage. My guess is that even though they managed to not crash their plane, some things did get to where they're supposed to go. Is it possible that there was a flash of light only visible to the things that were taken to the underwater island, much like how on Ajira 316 the 815ers were flashed to where they were supposed to be?

Other than that I thought the LAX timeline was a lot of fun for the obsessive LOST fans who loved all the easter eggs and subtle differences. I've got to give credit to my friend Chip at the watch party last night for catching this: but did you notice that while getting his ass kicked by Kate that Edward Mars suffered the EXACT SAME head injury that he did in the pilot episode? Might that be a clue that even though the plane landed safely this time that fate is fate and we'll see that theme play out in that timeline?

2. Island Timeline
So obviously the survivors have been launched to 2007, in sync with the Monster/Jacob/Alpert timeline and you can see the collision coming there. I don't know what to call the group of people inside the temple. The other others? Maybe some sort of inner council or something? I guess one of the things that struck me about this storyline is that I'm sort of at a loss for questions. This of course assumes that it was Jacob that has inherited the body of Sayid. I think that the temple is going to go a long way towards providing us some of the answers about the island and its inhabitants while we wait for the the ultimate collision between this storyline and the next...

3. Statue Storyline
I know it was the least shocking reveal of all-time, but it was nice to see confirmation that it's the monster that has assumed the body of Locke. My question now is "How screwed are the people that followed the monster to the statue at the end of Season 5?" They're defenseless against an angry monster right now. Will the monster make them join his army as he marches on the temple? And was I the only one a tad bit disappointed that we didn't get to actually see Locke shapeshift into the monster and back?

The line about Alpert not being in chains anymore might be a clue that he was on the Black Rock and that that's how he came to be on the island. Like the story at the temple, I actually don't have a TON of questions. I think that right now we're just waiting on the battle royale.

Overall, I give the episode a B+. I thought at times it was a bit incoherent but I guess that's to be expected when you're dealing with the issues of multiple timelines. But, I think we can tell that this truly is the beginning of the end.

As for my favorite line, I need to go back to the transcript to get it right, but it would have to be when the monster was explaining to Ben that Locke was the only one that realized just how pathetic his life was off the island.

- The Arrow

Blown up by a meteor??!

Dear Arrow, Pearl and Hydra,

There are a few rules in place about this blog that I think we failed to establish to you, our readers, in our excitement and anticipation in the week prior to the Lost Premiere. We'll call that time BP (Before Premiere). In the times of BP, we decided that once Season 6 began, we would post in order (Hydra, Swan, Arrow, Pearl) alternating who goes first each episode. The first person each week has to post within the first two hours of having watched the new episode in their timezone, to make one of the posts each week a gut reaction.

This week, that person is me.

I think that aside from probably the Finale (my heart goes out to whichever of us has to post first that week; just my luck it will probably be me), this is going to be the hardest week to take on that role. Not only am I reeling from a new episode, new information, seeing old and new characters -- I'm also feeling incredibly overwhelmed at the very prospect of receiving something we've been waiting for for so long. There's always a lot of strange emotions around that moment you get what has been built up and anticipated for so long - presents on Christmas morning, the last book in your favorite series, seeing a friend or loved one you haven't been around in a long time - and this episode of Lost, the start of the final series, felt like that for a lot of us.

It's like what Arrow was saying - in fact, I am just going to quote you, Arrow, because I liked what you said so much:

"So if Season 6 of LOST is a roller coaster, the appreciate the moment we're at now: enjoying the view before 4 months of twists and turns that will probably leave us trying to hold in our lunch."

There have been a lot of naysayers recently; those people who stopped watching Lost around Season 3, or those who never got into it at all. I even saw on my twitter feed today someone posted, "I can't wait for this Season of Lost. Because then everyone will finally stop talking about it." All I have to say to that is that I'm sorry they missed out on this incredible experience we've all shared watching this show together. At the end of the day it's just a TV show, but I've bonded with my family, my roomates, and with friends all over the world through this show. It's something we all love; something we all share.

And all of this emotional mush was my very roundabout way of saying that THIS Lostie's "gut reaction" was much more about the emotional experience of watching this episode tonight rather than real insightful commentary. So bear with me, readers. I'm sure our other 3 writers will bestow all sorts of knowledge upon you in the coming days, but tonight we're going to talk about how Lost made us FEEL.

Like Hydra, I watched with a pad of paper and a pen. Here are the notes I took:

- Watching the 1-hour recap made me feel really nostalgic for the lives of these people we all feel like we know so well.
- Mr. Cluck's destroyed by a meteor? LOL. I'd forgotten.
- Jack's face on the plane in the very first scene = only 30 seconds in and already a huge WTF moment.
- All day I have been telling people I thought they were just going to replay Season 1 since the bomb "reset" everything (har har). When the plane was going through turbulence and Jack was talking to Rose, I feared for a second I was right. Thank god I wasn't.
- Desmond on the plane???
- Island under water???
- TWO TIMELINES???
- ARNST!!!

Favorite line of the episode: "I'm sorry you had to see me like that" -Esau/ManInBlack/Locke

I am finding that aside from using a lot of questions marks and exclamation points, my initial processing of the show is a very stream of conscience series of OMG's and WTF's. I definitely need more time to process this episode than my allotted two hours. But! I think the gut reaction is fun and makes for an interesting perspective (capturing the feeling accompanying our first viewings of these episodes) so I like this rule.

I guess the most insight I can give you is this:
Biggest questions I have so far are --
1. If (since) fake John Locke is Esau, where is "home" for him? (re: the line at the end where he says he wants to go home)
2. Who saved Sayid/Why did he survive/why didn't it work/what happened there?
3. Why was Desmond on the plane?
4. Are there actually two timelines running right now, and if so, are there two of each of these characters on the planet now?

And with this, I will leave you. I am waking up early tomorrow to get on a flight, coincidentally, and you can bet I'll be looking at the faces of everyone with me on that plane and judging who would survive on an Island and who wouldn't. As if we all don't do that already each time we fly.

Until next week,

The Swan

All the pieces come together . . . TONIGHT!

To keep with this music theme Arrow kind of has going, I am going to share something with all of you. I really love to make mix tapes, as in actual mix tapes not just burning them on CDs. It hasn't happened in a while, mostly because Hydra commandeered my boom box about a year ago and I haven't seen its pretty face since. Ahem.

Well, almost two years ago I made a Lost themed mix tape--end of Season Three. It is compiled of songs that were somewhat pivotal, in my mind, in Lost and songs that could be about Lost. I tried to come up with a song for each character, and sort of managed to do it by way of the pivotal tunes, but I wasn't entirely successful. It's not my greatest mix tape, regrettably, so I think it is about time to make a new mix. That's where you come in. I will list you the songs already on my current mix, and the rest of you can add on to it through the comments! Now, I won't be making copies for everyone here--as much as I would love to--but I will compile the list whenever people stop listing and we can all make our own mixes. Maybe even submit artwork or something for us all to vote on and use for our own special mix that we all created together. I just thought of this so I haven't worked through the details yet. So. Start submitting now. Keep submitting until you can submit no longer, even if it carries over into other blog comments.

I will take this time to briefly say that tonight I will be watching the BADASS premiere at the Angelika theatre, probably by myself unless someone in the Dallas area wants to come with me. I will also be baking a Dharma cake!! Complete with bomb. Mmmmmm. Pictures later.

Track List:

*Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel

*Delicate by Damien Rice

*Plane Crash in C by Rilo Kiley

*You All, Everybody by Drive Shaft

*Happiest Man on This Plane by Throw Me The Statue

*Make Your Own Kind of Music by Mama Cass

*Island in the Sun by Weezer

*The Kids Don't Stand a Chance by Vampire Weekend

*La Mer (Somewhere Beyond the Sea) by Charles Trénet

*Crashing Down by Sugar Cult

*Island of Lost Souls by Blondie

*Walking After Midnight by Patsy Cline

*Downtown by Petula Clark

*Leaving on a Jet Plane by John Denver

*Scentless Apprentice by Nirvana


See? Room for improvement. So get improving! :)

-The Pearl

Welcome to LOST Tuesday

This morning I woke up with the U2 song "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" in my head and thought it was a pretty appropriate melody for this morning. Then on the drive to work "I Gotta Feeling" by the Black Eyed Peas came on the radio. So it seems like the stars have aligned for an excellent premiere, and so on behalf of my blogmates: Congratulations on surviving our final LOST hiatus. Hopefully this season will be worth the wait. As for me, I've got my living room set for a viewing party this evening:

I have climbed highest mountains

I have run through the fields

Only to be with you

Only to be with you

I have run

I have crawled

I have scaled these city walls

These city walls

Only to be with you

But I still haven't found what I'm looking for

But I still haven't found what I'm looking for