Lost: Some Like it Hoth

Before I begin my recap, here’s a very useful Lost timeline via ABC.com. It works both episodically and chronologically, but doesn’t shed too much light on the whole “when is it now” of the Ajira survivors, though I like what Will had to say about that last week.

On to the bullets:

  • Numbers!
  • 3:16 (Ajira Flight number) on the microwave in the opening scene that gets echoed in the timecode – 3:17 – of the beta recorder in the next scene.

    The original numbers – 4 8 15 16 23 42 – being built upon the strange magnetic source of The Swan.

    I also really dug the reference to the Flight 815 crash cover-up when Miles identifies what Felix knew at the time of his death. What a great “test” by Naomi and it’s awesome that the documents discussed end up on the boat with Miles et al.

  • Bram!
  • The burly gentleman who abducted Miles prior to his taking the boat journey was also present in last week’s episode, at Ilana’s side brandishing a weapon.

    The fact that he was anti-Widmore in the past makes me completely re-think my prior judgement of Ilana. Maybe she works for Ben (or the island? the others?) and is on the island to counteract the effects of the boat people/Ben’s island movement/Locke’s island movement.

    Maybe – just maybe – she works for Locke?

    In any event, things are more complicated than even I had initially thought.

  • Empire!
  • If Hurley hadn’t waxed poetic about Luke discovering the truth about Vader in Empire I was going to draw the comparison of Miles to Luke and Dr. Chang to Vader, but one of Hurley’s roles on the show is to act as the
    voice of the audience, so it probably wouldn’t have seemed so groundbreaking/earth-shattering.

    I will give Lost props for referencing the best movie of either trilogy and for trashing on Ewoks. Ewok trivia: the word “Ewok” is never spoken in Return, which means all of us who grew up with the films and especially the toys are victims of the marketing machine that is George Lucas. None of us should have that wasted brain cell storing the name of this furry little bastards!

    But I digress.

    I’m thinking there’s something to Naomi’s description to Miles that the island has many “deceased individuals residing on it”. Not sure what this has to do with Lost canon OR Empire, but it does bear repeating.

  • Ann Arbor!
  • Another Michigan reference and hopefully we’ll get to see the DeGroots soon, but we did get to see the return of Faraday.

    We knew he was coming back since one of his flashes sees him working directly on the construction of one of the stations (it could have been The Swan but I think it was The Orchid).

    Which makes me wonder about time travel and whether this is Faraday’s past (pre-boat) or present, but he did know Miles so maybe the events are happening for him AFTER Charlotte’s death/Locke’s island movement?

    I really don’t know. You tell me.

    Also: Dr. Chang was reading a book on polar bears to a young Miles. I love all the small nods to early season touchpoints.

  • Songs!
  • It Never Rains in Southern California by Albert Hammond
    Love Will Keep Us Together by The Captain and Tennille

Random links to end the post:

Hope you enjoyed this week. Leave a comment and I’ll see you next week.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention the summer camp-style “color war” from the preview of the coming weeks’ episodes, but isn’t it interesting that the scientists (like Radzinsky and Faraday) get black jumpsuits while everyone else has on khaki? Also, why the disdain from Chang for the polar bear experimentation and some of his Ann Arbor (DeGroot) colleagues?

Curious to hear what you have to say.

Lost: Dead Is Dead

If you’re a fan of Michael Emerson, tonight’s episode of Lost “Dead Is Dead” was for you. And me too since I love to hate/love to love Benjamin Linus.

Excelsior!

  • WHEN are the Ajira survivors?
  • I’m becoming a broken record, but I don’t see how Locke can be alive in the present/future given the rules of the island and the time travel rules as I understand them.

    I’m more than happy to be proven wrong, but it’s really odd that everything is deserted in the “present” storyline.

    I don’t know that they’re in the past but I’m willing to entertain any and all explanations.

  • What lies in the shadow of the statue?
  • A reference, certainly, to the four-toed statue but maybe also an allusion to the “lies” told by the statue of John Harvard [link one] [link two]

    Of greater interest to me than the mystery of the riddle is how/why Ilana got the guns, what she’ll do with them and who she works for.

    I’m guessing she works for Widmore. Who’s with me?

  • Children
  • I thought we were going to get some kind of flashback tonight that showed how Smokey had initially saved Ben, but I’ll take what we got.

    Interesting that the pity Kate showed Ben in saving him is echoed in Ben saving Alex (from Widmore).

    Also, seeing Ben stop short of shooting Penny when he notices Charlie was a nice touch.

    I like that Ben told Sun to tell Desmond he was sorry. It makes me wonder why Sun hasn’t expressed missing Je Yeon or why Kate didn’t seem sad to be apart from Aaron.

  • Ethan
  • If Ethan is the son of Amy and Horace, how did he end up with Ben and The Others?

    Shouldn’t he have been killed in the purge?

    Is this a case of Ben being kind to children before he rescues/steals Alex?

    Also, I just thought of this: shouldn’t his last name be Goodspeed and not Rom?

  • Leadership
  • How and when did Widmore become the leader of The Others?

    If Ben was so convinced that the island didn’t want people leaving, why were Ethan and Richard permitted to work for Mittelos Bioscience in the recruitment of Juliet “Not In Portland“? And wasn’t he regularly leaving the island himself?

    Why does it seem like none of the “leaders” knows the real story of the island, even Richard?

    What was up with Anubis in the glyphs in Smokey’s lair?

    What was Alex in Ben’s vision?

    Why did Ben mention whispers to Rousseau?

I’m sure I’ve missed a ton. Tell me where I went wrong.

Also, POTENTIAL SPOILER: the season finale will be entitled “The Fork in the Outlet?“.

Additionally, is anyone curious about what Desmond, Penny & Charlie are up to now that they’ve been attacked?

Are we all thinking that Widmore is more motivated than ever to find/get back to the island (via Ilana)?

Anyhow, thanks for reading! Leave a comment.

Lost: Whatever Happened, Happened

Before I begin here are a couple of links you might have missed recently:

So the title seems like a nod to some of the time travel nonsense, but here are the bullets:

  • Hurley and Miles explain time travel
  • I really wanted Miles to draw M.C. Escher’s Moebius strip to make the explanation complete, but I think that’s the best metaphor.

    If you’re anything like my co-workers (or me on this blog sometimes) hearing two characters hash out the whys and what-fors of the whole time travel issue was refreshing.

  • Meet the new Jack
  • (Un)like the old Jack. The journey to the (pick your) side where Jack is become John Locke, is almost complete.

    [Insert maniacal, emporial, Vaderian laughter here]

    For what it’s worth, I like the new Jack especially when he talks of saving Ben, ergo:

  • Ben on the operating table. Again.
  • The dialogue tonight was top notch.

    The Hurley/Miles conversation from earlier/above and the Jack/Kate conversation about saving Ben were spot on.

    I’m paraphrasing here, but these lines are why I love Lost:

    “I’ve already done this once.”

    AND

    “Maybe the island just wants to fix things itself. Maybe I was just getting in the way.”

    See what I mean about Jack becoming Locke?

    Which brings me to:

  • Why did the Lostaways return?
  • Sayid came back to shoot Ben (or so he thought. See last episode/post/recap).

    Jack doesn’t really know, just that he’s supposed to. Very Lockesque.

    Kate claims that it’s to find Claire, but is that the real reason?

  • Patsy Cline’s “She’s Got You”
  • A nice little touch in the very beginning of the episode that leads us to believe Aaron might end up with Cassidy, when he actually ends up with Claire’s mom (I’m supposing?).

    The key line: “I’ve got your picture, she’s got you”

    Another killer lick: the woman woman who found Aaron in the supermarket looked an awful lot like Claire, which may have influenced Kate’s decision to ultimately leave him.

    How creepy was it that Kate had the feeling that it was about time for Aaron to be taken from her?

    Of course it’s the loss of Aaron that Kate replaces with the saving of Ben, so there’s that.

  • When is Ben?
  • Given all the other talk about time travel and the emphasis on young Ben (and with a living, breathing Locke) the question becomes: is Ben in the past/present/future or somewhere/when else?

    I honestly don’t know but the episode certainly focused on a Godwin’s Law
    conundrum: if you could kill Ben (or HItler) would/could/should you?

    The whole storyline reminds of a great WikiHistory comedy piece. Brilliant stuff. Read it.

    Fascinating stuff on the Lost front as well and it looks like next week will give us some answers RE: Ben Linus.

    Can’t wait.

That’s all I’ve got for tonight. Let me know where I went wrong.

Good night!

Lost: He’s Our You

Ok, so tonight’s episode of Lost, He’s Our You, was really singular in its approach, which is odd for this season. As opposed to the multiple storylines/characters/narratives this episode was all about the duality of Sayid and Benjamin Linus.

Jumping right in tonight.

Did you notice?:

  • A Separate Reality
  • The book Ben shares with Sayid. Check the link; it’s worth it.

  • MacCutcheon
  • I really want to the official fake Scotch whisky of Lost now.

  • University of Michigan/Ann Arbor
  • The first reference to Michigan since the second season. Is an appearance by Gerald and/or Karen DeGroot imminent? Or maybe even Alvar Hanso?

  • Illusion
  • Name of one of the boats in the harbor in L.A. in Sayid’s flashback.

What do we think of the following?:

  • Prisoners
  • Sayid and Ben both enter other camps as prisoners. Not to mention all the similarities in their fathers and the persistence (Murder for Sayid; Manipulation/lying for Ben) of their natures.

  • Does anyone feel sorry for Sayid or Ben?
  • Sayid says that the next time he sees Ben there will be consequences and he makes good on his promise, despite the fact that it means – in his eyes – that he can’t change his ways.

    Was Farraday wrong? Can the past/future be changed? Is the book a signal that there may be alternate realities and not just time travel?

  • Oldham
  • Is he more than just the agent of this week’s title?
    Why is he living in that tent?

  • Ilana
  • Who was she really working for?
    Why Guam if that dude was killed in the Seychelles?
    What is her relation (if any) to Caesar?

So I don’t think Ben’s dead because I want to believe that the Rules laid out by Farraday are as close to Law as we’ve got. I’m not ready to give them up just yet.

That said, I also think we’ve got something more than time travel at work here. The “future” of the Ajira 316 crash seems different than the path our Lostaways were on, but then they all ended up in 1977 so who knows.

Bonus linkage:

Cool site: MetaLost

Cool video: Did Claire make an appearance in last week’s episode (Namaste) in the scene with Christian Shepherd?

Leave a comment.

Until next week!

Lost: Namaste

Tonight’s episode of Lost seemed tailor-made for my specific areas of expertise. I’ll go into that … now.

  • Hurley the Bulldog
  • I guess it’s actually more like a shout-out to Josh Holloway (Sawyer) who grew up in Georgia and attended UGA for a while, but it’s cool for this UGA grad to see Hurley in a Dawgs hooded sweatshirt.

    And check out the link in the bullet because Jorge Garcia (Hurley) actually responds in the comments.

  • The Muppet Show
  • I’d need to go back and check that the intro is the correct intro for 1977, but in the scene where Jin is watching the monitors in The Arrow station, the top left monitor is displaying the song & dance number at the beginning of The Muppet Show.

  • The many role reversals of James LaFleur
  • He’s now a thoughtful (non-brooding) reader to Jack’s (now) zen and former impulsiveness?

    I also dug that Sawyer had the opportunity to torture Sayid to get information from a “hostile” (as he was tortured by Sayid in Season 1) he didn’t.

Some questions:

  • When is the Ajira 316?
  • So, not 1977, and I’m pretty sure it’s the future but when?

  • Why is Sun NOT in 1977?
  • Is it because she wasn’t pregnant or traveling with Ji Yeon? I’m open to theories.

  • What does it mean that the 1977 Losties know what will become of Ben & Ethan?
  • Two of the creepiest moments tonight were when Amy told Juliet that she and Horace were probably going to name the baby Ethan and when Sayid learned that the boy who brought him his sandwich was Ben. (What a rotten sentence!)

    Anyhow what does that particular shift in the power structure mean?

    I’m still stuck in Austin in my mind so I don’t know if I’m thinking correctly about all the previously-agreed-upon narrative structures of all this time travel, but I’d really love to hear what others think about those little nuggets.

I’m missing tons of stuff and I’m doing this for the first (only?) time on a laptop.

Put me straight.

Until next week …

Namaste!