Sunday, May 31, 2009

Ben Linus Scares Children

Thanks to Sonshine for sending me this, which made me laugh out loud. I didn't think I could love Michael Emerson any more, but now I DO. This is SO great. Watch right to the end.



By the way, if this doesn't work (those NBC embedded videos are usually crap), you can click here for the link.

Fuhrer Frustrated with Lost

Oh Hitler. I just can't get enough of your funny anger. I previously posted the YouTube clip someone put together of Hitler blowing his stack over the film adaptation of Watchmen, and now there are dozens of these clips, with the subtitles having fanboy Hitler flipping over being banned from XBox live or his DVR breaking down and missing the finale of Lost or angry about J.J. Abrams' Star Trek remake. But of all the Lost ones, this one is by far the funniest. I do warn you, however; the subtitled language in this one is not exactly G-rated. Enjoy! :)

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Random Lostiness for a Saturday

Dear Diary: It is Day 9 of my captivity. Between my notes on the episodes and the book itself, I've written 90,000 words. I think I'm getting carpal tunnel. And I'm having dreams about smoke monsters. And one involving Ben. I was actually on the island, and he was telling me that my daughter was the key to it all. And then Damon stepped in and clarified that by that he meant they were going to cast my daughter in the role of the key to it all. Seriously, this dream happened. I think I may be going mad.

So... that's how my diary would read right now, if I actually kept one. Here's a very funny article imagining how the diaries of various Lost characters would read if they actually kept them, too. Some of these are laugh-out-loud hilarious. I'm not sure what's funnier: the title of Jack's entry or Ben's P.S. Thanks to batcabbage for the link! (Oh, just don't read the comments. They're mostly written by spammers, Lost haters, or troglodytes. In some cases, all three in one.)

Our very own Lisa has been crafty, with a site on Etsy, and she's just started up a blog where she's offering one of her Dharma items as a prize in a contest. Go here to check it out, and good luck, Lisa!

Some very crafty Lost fan posted a review for a dining kit on Target.com as Richard Alpert. It's freakin' hilarious, and another fan wrote a similar one for Everything That Rises Must Converge, the book that Jacob was reading in the finale, pretending to be Jacob on the Borders site. Go here and click on Customer Reviews under the book. Thanks to Eamonn for these links! It makes me happy that Lost fans are slowly taking over the interwebs.

And now, back to my captivity. Only one more day...

Friday, May 29, 2009

Lost Spinoff Series Announced!

Thanks to CK and Jerry for sending this to me; your emails came to me within minutes of each other.

It's been announced that one of the Lost characters has gotten its own spinoff show, but the news won't come as any surprise to any of us, since it's the character we probably all pegged as getting one. The format, however, isn't what we expected.

Yes, folks, Smokey got his own sitcom!

According to the article, Lea Thompson has signed on as the wife, "who must put up with her husband's screwball antics while raising the couple's two rambunctious children, Tanner and Smoky, Jr."

"The whole concept began with us asking, 'So what happens to the monster after it kills somebody and disappears down that ancient temple vent? What kind of life might it have?'" Lorre said. "And what we realized is that audiences really relate to this character and would like to see it in everyday situations, shooting the breeze with buddies at a local watering hole or murdering its son's soccer coach and depositing his lifeless body in a tree."

"And of course, you'll be hearing lots of its classic catchphrase, 'Brrrrr, chk-chk-chk-chk, muuuuuuuuuuuuaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrhhh,'" Lorre added.


Oh, Onion. How I love you. You can read the entire hilarious article here.

And before I forget: Pushing Daisies fans, I've been meaning to post this all week, but the first of the final three episodes will air this Saturday at 10pm on ABC. It's too bad the show was cancelled, because clearly ABC is putting such a huge push on it, giving it such a juicy time slot. (See, Dan? Sarcasm and I are getting along just fine!)

OMG... Juliet's in the FBI!!

OK, not really. ;) ABC has released this longish promo for their new series, V. Most of us already knew that Elizabeth Mitchell had been cast in the lead role, and if the series was picked up then it might spell the end of Juliet as we know her. The show DID get picked up, but that doesn't necessarily mean she's dead. (Unlike many bloggers and journos, I didn't see her die at the end of the episode any more than I saw anyone else die at the end of the episode -- I mean seriously, if you're going to say the hydrogen bomb blast killed her, wouldn't it have killed EVERYONE else?! However, we also know that Jacob didn't touch her, and if his touch offers protection, then maybe the gal won't make it after all. I think I heard that Mitchell will be appearing in some episodes, so I will sit back and wait to see what Lost brings.

In the meantime, check out the new promo. It's kind of awesome. And makes the loss of Juliet a little less painful. Then again, the Bionic Woman up-front was pretty awesome, too, and that show SUCKED. But I'm hopeful.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Lost Season 6 Trailer

OK, this isn't the official trailer, but it's freakin' AWESOME. This was put together by a fan who spent over 12 hours editing together footage from seasons 3, 4, and 5. Thanks for sending it to me, theblackbox, and well done, my friend, WELL DONE!! You can visit his YouTube channel here.

Man, the wait for season 6 just got SOOO much longer!!



Go here to watch the same video in HD.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Did Ajira Go Back in Time?

There's been some talk about the timing of the Ajira flight. (I'd planned on posting this tomorrow so I can stay on track with my writing but I can see you're already jumping into it on the Jacob thread, so I thought I'd post this one so you could move the discussion here.) Apparently in some podcast Darlton have said the flight lands on the beach in 2007 (and y'all know what I think of getting our canonical information from podcasts... ahem). Because most people agree they travelled in 2008, that means they must have gone back in time.

First, there's no evidence on the show that there was any sort of time jump. Yet. Secondly, I don't think we have an exact date of when they left LA. I always thought it was around December 2007 that they left. Jack's breakdown begins in late August 2007, and he's in full-on crazytown mode just a few months later. Locke begins visiting them in the fall, I think (that's what I suggested when I wrote out the flashforward timeline in my season 4 book), which would explain the jackets they're wearing when he sees Walt. So there's no reason they couldn't have boarded a plane in December and that would mean everything happens in 2007, is there? Other than the fact there are no Christmas decorations out. In which case, maybe November? Hm.

The only evidence that something is different on the island to me is New Otherton. When Sun goes there, she finds the Processing Center sign still hanging, and the doors are adorned with the DI symbols. The rec room has the annual DI recruiting photos on the walls, which we'd never seen before. I think this suggests that there was a break in the timeline, and things are now different than they were before. The Others never inhabited these barracks, or it would look like New Otherton, and not an abandoned Dharmaville. I think something's up with that scene.

This. Isn't. Happening.

One of my readers sent me this horrific news story today, saying she knew it would freak me out (thanks for the link, Ashlie!). Yes. Freaking out. So it would appear the Buffy movie is become a more serious possibility. Which should be cause for a big YAY, right?

Wrong. Turns out Joss Whedon AIN'T ATTACHED TO THE PROJECT.

Let's take a little trip down memory lane, shall we? It's 1992, and 20th Century Fox thought it would be an awesome idea to take a serious, dramatic film with comic overtones and turn it into a stupid teen sex comedy called Buffy the Vampire Slayer, starring Kristy Swanson. Throw in a little Rutger Hauer and Luke Perry, and wham, movie. The only funny thing in the entire film was Pee Wee Herman's death scene, which still makes me chuckle. But even IT wasn't in the spirit of what Joss intended.

Fast-forward to 1996, where Joss was given a second chance, something that NEVER happens in Hollywood. He took back his original script and fashioned a groundbreaking television series out of it, creating a pop culture icon along the way and virtually erasing from our memories any trace of that earlier movie.

Sigh. Have they learned NOTHING? As the writer says, "sometimes it's as if Hollywood sets out with 'failure' plugged right into the GPS."

This is an early news bulletin, so it could be the media screeching about something that's not even close to development. Let's all breathe together, and pray. I don't think this will happen. It can't. IT JUST CAN'T.

Jacob's Touch

OK, I know I'm long overdue for a post on here. And now that the original post on "The Incident" has reached over 400 comments (!!) I think it's time to break out some of the key points so we can discuss them a little easier. I proposed in a recent post that maybe I need to switch to a website format (even though the thought of it scares me) because of the linear (and often confusing) nature of the comments sections, but most of the people who responded said they're fine with that, so I'm very happy! One person said it feels more like a family, and I really do agree. On the other Lost sites I sometimes feel like it's a bunch of people talking, but here it feels more like friends. Let's not get rid of that feeling.

So, to that end, what I'll attempt to do are short posts (short? me? Succinct and I parted ways a LONG time ago) where I just raise a topic and let y'all talk about it. Feel free to repeat what you already said in the comments in The Incident... most people probably didn't see it anyway. :)

Jacob handed Jack an Astro Bar and touched him; he handed Kate a lunchbox and touched her; he touched both Sun and Jin on their wedding day; he handed Sawyer a pen and touched him; he touches Locke (and appears to bring him back to life). Then, after they'd already returned, he touched Hurley and Sayid before they got onto the Ajira flight. He touches Sayid 9 months after Sayid returned, and he touches Hurley the day before he's going to get on the flight, and gives him a guitar case to take with him.

Why is he touching people? Is it to get them on the plane? Is it to imbue them with some sort of willpower that will put them on the plane? Hurley and Sayid are the unwilling participants in the Ajira return, and he touches them then as if to give them that added push.

Or is it protection? I'm thinking the latter, that his touch is like the touch the Good Witch of the North gives to Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz book, a mark on her forehead that tells everyone she is protected as she travels through Oz. None of them have died yet, except for Locke, and maybe the touch allowed him to cheat death more than once (he's done it several times on the island). Maybe Locke's specialness makes him a different case. He touches Ben just before he falls over when Ben stabs him. Will this protect Ben, or curse him?

Your thoughts?

Friday, May 22, 2009

The Lost Rewatch Schedule

I've posted our Lost rewatch schedule on the other page. (And I made it all purty for you guys.) It's a doozy, but I know we can do it!!

You can check it out here.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

The Rewatch Blog!

So, it seems many of you are content with the way this blog works and looks, and a website wouldn't change things for you. Frankly, I enjoy the blog, I was simply responding to some comments from people saying they were finding 300+ comments a LOT to slog through (thankfully, 300+ comments is the vast exception, and certainly not the rule around here). Besides, a website could get costly and annoying and is more conducive to ads. I prefer our clean little place here. I mean, has anyone tried loading up Lostpedia recently? Cripes... the time it takes for that World of Warcraft ad to finish playing through has me jumping to another site in the meantime. SLOW.

So what I did instead for our rewatch is I just took out another blog name. lostrewatch was already taken (drat) so I took out Lost-rewatch. I chose a template that is identical to this one, and that way it'll simply look like another page off this site. It'll be an easier place for us to navigate if I limit it to our rewatch recaps only, and then we do our other discussions over here. I hope that works for everyone! :)

I'll always post here when something is posted over there, so you won't miss anything if you're mainly following this one.

By the way, this is me procrastinating when I should be writing. The shoes are already ordered by size and colour, my spice rack is in alphabetical order, I've cleaned two washrooms and both kids' bedrooms. I'm in pain here. Hey, CC, you don't want to write a second episode guide on top of that Gossip Girl one, do you?

OK, back to work. For reals.

Gone Fishin'...

OK, not really. But I just wanted to let you guys know that I'm not REALLY gone, but as of right now, I'm taking off the next 10 days to do nothing but write Lost. My husband's even taking the kids out of town to their grandparents' for two weekends in a row so I can work weekends straight through from 8am to midnight. Thank goodness I used to play piano and learned the discipline of coming home and practicing for hours while my friends watched Y&R. ;)

I will try to blog while I'm gone; I certainly can't leave the blog empty and lifeless for 10 days, especially so soon after the finale! I'm hoping to post a rewatch schedule soon for our official Seasons 1-5 rewatch (I'm thinking of starting the first week of July; I realize that puts us a month after the other rewatch parties -- yes, there now seem to be several, but we're the smartest bunch! -- but it also doesn't start us into season 5 until after the DVDs come out, whereas the other rewatches seem to be starting before). I'll post it soon.

Another thought: There are currently 371 comments on the original post on the finale (!!). A few people have said it's hard to follow the threads, since clearly my comments are a linear board only and not a threaded one. I've been thinking for some time of switching from a blog format to a website one. My problem: I haven't a clue how to build a website. Blogger brilliantly does everything for me. So I would have to hire someone to make me a website that is run by WordPress or something similar where I could upload things myself to a constructed website.

So my question to you is, what would you want in a website? For me, I'd want a forum where you could all have various threads (and don't worry, I'll still be jumping in on the conversations whether you want me there or not), but also a section where I can continue to post blog-type stuff and you could respond. I don't think I could get my act in gear to actually have this ready in the next month (I remember my work hiring a guy to do our site and I think it took him 8 months to do the website? Does it usually take that long?) but I would LOVE to have our rewatch all posted there all neat and tidy. But I don't think that would happen. What else would you want on there? Video/audio podcasts? Do you think a website is something I should do? Anyone know anyone who does a good job with a rather simple website and could show a neophyte like me how to actually work the thing?

Finally, humanebean commented on my post about the finale parties (I was walking to my car today and thought of the photo of the dead pilot and the sonic fence and started giggling to myself, and then this woman walked by me and I'm sure she thought I was... off...) and said maybe we SHOULD try to plan a finale party somewhere? Who's willing to jump on a plane and fly to a finale party with all of us? As I said in my response, come on, Batcabbage. I know you and Batkitty want to fly 24 hours to go to a Lost party. Who WOULDN'T? Our post-episode discussion could actually be LIVE. And our fingers wouldn't be tired. Who likes to rock the party? I like to rock the party! Let's say, Oahu beach? May 2010? (I'm sure no other Lost fans have thought of THAT yet!) ;)

Anyway, I will try to post here, but right now I have a book that desperately needs to be written. As my publicist said to me the other day, "Hey, check it out, your book is on Amazon! Isn't that weird that they're taking preorders for a book that you haven't written yet?" Thanks, Simon. No pressure there. I'll get you back for that one. ;)

So if I'm gone for a day or so and not commenting, I'm not ignoring you (and knowing me, I'm reading the comments more often than I should and should really TURN OFF MY EMAIL and get back to work, dammit!) I'm just writing.

Be seeing you!

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

While You Wait for...

...oh wait. Lost isn't on tonight. WAAAAAAHHHH....

Thanks to Roland for sending this my way! ABC has begun a new series of commercials called "ABC House" promoting their shows by putting two characters from different series together in one scene. Watch as Wisteria Lane clashes with... the island.



Oh, and here's today's JJ Abrams and Queen Victoria. Baahahahaha!

In Defense of Juliet...

A lot of people have come down hard on Juliet for the way she acted in the finale. I’m not talking about detonating a hydrogen bomb (somehow the people who don’t like her seem to have forgiven her for that… oh Lost. How you change us) but for the way she cuts loose from Sawyer and tells him he loves Kate, despite his protestations to the contrary. Some say she’s whiny and needs to stop bitching just because Sawyer might have looked at Kate. Others think she’s emasculated Sawyer because of the way she talks to him like he’s a child. Others, defending her, say she’s jealous because she’s a woman (and that’s not intended in a sexist way, but saying she’s perceptive and not stupid and can see when a man is showing affections to someone else), and maybe she has a right to be so.

I think also the writers have tried to establish a history with Juliet that justified her behavior in the finale. I think I'm the last viewer who actually sees her point. :) But then again, I’ve loved Juliet from the beginning, so maybe I’ve always been able to see things from her point of view.

First, her parents break up. She apparently didn't see it coming, and while I'll admit the idea that your parents divorced and therefore you're doomed (come ON) is a little bit simple, I do know a few people who seem very jaded after watching their parents' marriages dissolve.

Then she has an affair with and marries Edmund Burke. Grade-A asshole. He sleeps with another research assistant and tosses her aside. She knows what it feels like to be the other woman. She leaves and comes to the island, BECOMING the other woman, but as much as she loves Goodwin, she hates thinking that she's actually the other woman (witness her breakdown in front of Harper when Harper confronts her on it). Goodwin is impaled, and she soon finds out that Ben thinks she's his, that he controls her and owns her. She makes a deal with him to leave the island, but is scarred by the experience.

So she comes to the camp, where it seems to be inhabited by Men Who Love Kate. Man #1, Jack, will do anything for Kate, but joins forces with Juliet and they seem to have a thing. But when they go to the Tempest station and she breaks down and tells him about Ben, he kisses her. Later, when Jack is on the operating table, she realizes he loves Kate and was just using Juliet as a pawn. He kissed her, and TOLD HER that he had her back and nothing would come between then. And then, like that, Kate did.

Sawyer pined for Kate for months after she left the island. No doubt in my mind. He stared at the ocean, we SAW the scenes of him going on and on and on about how painful it was for him, and it was. No doubt in the past 3 years he's been able to tell Juliet all about his brief but meaningful relationship with Kate, that they slept together, that he left her in the helicopter and he probably believes she’s with Jack. Eventually he resigns himself to the fact she’s not returning, and takes Juliet, who is, well, there. If Kate had been there, would he have been with Juliet? Probably not. And she knows that.

After three years, they’ve now established themselves, and Kate might be a memory, but she’s the one that got away. He loves Juliet, I truly believe he does, and he’s happy with her. He’s a better man, even if she does tend to talk to him like he’s a child at times, and he’s not the cad he was when he was with Kate. No more sarcastic remarks, and they’ve settled down. Then the Oceanic 3 show up in a Dharma van and Jin calls him and… he lies to Juliet. Doesn’t tell her where he’s going, just says he has to go somewhere. That lie was the beginning of the end. When he returns he tells Juliet, and Juliet’s whole world collapses. It’s the Jack situation all over again, but it’s more devastating because she truly believed she had Sawyer, and that they’d always be together, and she’d been with him for 3 years as opposed to Kate’s 3 months. But now it’s no different than her parents’ marriage, than her marriage, than Goodwin, than Jack. She begins watching for signs.

People can criticize Juliet for being whiny despite Sawyer professing his love, but there’s a reason the cliché “Actions speak louder than words” is so popular: it’s true. You can tell someone you love them until you’re blue in the face. But if you’re making ga-ga eyes at someone else, calling them Freckles (which, face it, is a far more endearing nickname than “Blondie”), looking in her direction when Bernard and Rose talk about true love, and following her everywhere, we know where his heart lies. And Juliet is heartbroken. He can corner her in the jungle and say, I will ALWAYS be with you, I love you, blah blah blah… but she’s right when she says she knows, and that’s why she has to leave. He’s staying with Juliet because maybe even HE doesn’t realize he loves Kate. Juliet is not being whiny or annoying in this scene… she’s a broken woman who’s been let down so many times, and now it’s happening again. (And many fans hate Kate now because of it, but it’s not her fault, either.)

Sawyer might believe, truly believe that Juliet is wrong, but she knows deep down that Kate is the one he loves. I’m not shipping here, I’m simply watching the program in front of me, and I think Juliet has every right to be upset. If she’s pregnant, as some people have speculated, that makes her upset even more heartrending. She certainly hasn’t told Sawyer, if that’s the case, and she’d rather lose the baby inside of her than have to deal with her heart being ripped out the way it has been. So… she detonates the bomb.

IF by detonating the bomb she rewinds the clock and puts things back to where they were, and we zip back to 2004 or 2007 or wherever and we watch some of these characters meet again like they don’t know each other, imagine how heartbreaking that will be for us. Have you seen the Buffy episode, “The Wish”? It’s an alternate universe where Buffy never came to Sunnydale, Willow and Xander are vampires, Oz and Giles are vampire hunters, and when they begin staking and killing each other, not really caring what’s going on, our hearts break. We’ve seen what they were when they were closest friends, so this alternate reality where they aren’t even aware of each other’s existences actually hurts to watch. It could be one direction the show takes next season, and it’ll be tough.

Lost Finale Parties!

So, long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away (i.e. before I had children), my best friend Sue and I would put on these extremely lavish Oscar parties. We both kinda hate the Oscars, so we'd do them to make them watchable, because we're such movie whores we know we'll end up sitting through the whole boring shebang anyway. So the invitations were fancy and funny and enigmatic. Then we'd make up menus of the food we were going to serve, usually 8-10 things (all handmade; we'd spend two days making the food) and all named after the nominated films or people. (I'm drawing a blank on any of the names now... which is a shame. I used to have one of those menus around, but I haven't a clue where it would be now.)

We made a red carpet out front, went to L.A. and bought a plastic Oscar that sat on top of the TV, spent hours making poster collages where people had to find 15 nominated people in the picture, and the first to pick them all would win a prize (we needed something to entertain us through the lousy musical numbers!) and one year we even had someone in a tight-fitting glittery dress come and be our "presenter" for the evening. Everyone who came put $5 in the pot and was given a ballot, and the winner got the entire pot. One year it was $175!!

But NONE of these parties even begins to compare to those of Lost fan Matt Roeser. A reader of my blog, he emailed me the other day to send me photos and the whole shebang of each of his Lost finale parties, which he's been holding every year since the finale of the second season. Friends must come in costume (and then are given a prize) and the invitations are SO lavish, they often come as enigmatic videos he sends out to people that rival the Lost summer ARGs.

And his friends don't dress up as Ben or John Locke: they dress up as the Hatch, as Vincent, or as concepts on the show. My favourite photo (seriously, this makes me giggle every time I see it!) is from the season 4 party, where Matt dressed up as the dead pilot (and pulled a dead face in every single photo) and his friend Aaron dressed up as the sonic fence. Here it is:



LOLZ!!! Seriously, this photo KILLS me every time. Not only are both faces absolutely priceless, but check out where Aaron put the keypad. HAHAHA!! Check out Matt's blog, where he gives a rundown of each of the parties, complete with the invitations and photos. Matt, you are amazing. I LOVE these. Please invite me to next year's party. ;)

Did anyone else have interesting Lost parties? Or is anyone planning a Lost party next year? How much do I wish we all lived in the same area and could have a big bash??

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Lost and Queen Victoria

I'd never actually seen this comic strip before, but thanks to one of my readers who sent it to me (thanks, Teri!), I can share it with you. This is the New Adventures of Queen Victoria, where her story is reimagined as happening in the present, using images of her from the past. Last week's strip ended with this comic:



(Click on the image for a larger version)

And today's began the new story, completely reimagined, as per the new Star Trek film:



The cartoonist put a disclaimer with the strip last week warning that Lost fans will not find this funny, but I find it DAMN funny. :) Hey, we can all have a chuckle along with things like this. (The artist is NOT a fan of the new ST film, and this is his response to it.)

I hope you enjoy it, and you can follow the strip here.

These Are the Blogs of My Readers...

Teehee... I just HAD to use a cheesy soap opera tagline for this one...

I have many loyal readers who contribute as much to this blog as I do, at times. Many of them have been furiously typing away on their own blogs, and because my original post on Lost's "The Incident" has upwards of 360 comments on it or something completely baffling, I'm sure many of you have missed the linkage. So, I'll post them here and drive some readers over their way, deservedly so.

The first is from Blam, who outlined a bunch of Lost links in his blog post the day of the finale. You can check them out here.

Many of my readers told me of the horrifying incident the night of the Lost finale, where some storm whipped through the area and their signal was either cut into by the emergency broadcast system, or wiped out altogether (I can feel your pain!! earlier in the season, TWICE the last 5 minutes of the show was chopped off because I was watching the American ABC feed and the Canadian CTV network jumped in early to broadcast their show, and I lost the end. ARRRRGH). One of those readers, "I Screen, You Screen," vented her pain here, along with a great recap.

The lovely and talented Sonshine Music (who made me the Dharma symbol at the top that I now apply to all my blogging compatriots) wrote a lengthy and excellent post on the idea of a phoenix rising from the ashes and its possible connection to the ring of ash around Jacob's cabin. Definitely check this one out for an interesting take on whether Jacob might also rise. (Everything that rises must converge, right? Speaking of which, I'm having the WORST time finding that book... seems every other Lost fan beat me to the punch and shipping from Amazon takes two weeks, and the day after the finale there were so many holds at my local library it would have taken weeks for me to get a copy... so I'm hoping I can get my hands on one from Amazon before I have to hand in my manuscript!)

And finally, our assistant head researcher, Benny, has painstakingly outlined the Moebius loop and its effects on the plotline of Lost. Warning: Your head will hurt, but that's because it'll feel bigger after you've read this. Read carefully and you'll follow his argument.

Well done, guys!! So much to discuss, and... so much time!! :)

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Dollhouse Renewed!!!

Well, all those naysayers who've been saying this series didn't have a chance because even the Joss loyalists weren't being loyal enough... have been proven wrong. Dollhouse has been renewed for a second 13-episode season. Not 22, but not CANCELLED, either, so... yay!!

Bones and Scrubs have also been renewed, as well as Castle (I've only watched a couple of eps of Castle but Nathan Fillion is my hero). You can read the whole article here.

And no spoilers on Dollhouse, please; I'm SO far behind (the last one I watched was Spy in the House of Love) because of going away and writing this book, and I can't wait to watch the finale. Thank you to Batcabbage for sending the news to me. You made my day!

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Star Trek!!!

OK, so I'm getting away from Lost again... but once you see the new Star Trek film, you'll see it's not THAT far from our favourite ABC show.

This is a review without any major spoilers, so feel free to read ahead. I have to admit off the top, I wouldn't consider myself a Trekkie. I feel that Trekkies (and by the way, I do NOT see that as a derogatory nickname, being the insano Lostie that I am) know a billion things about the series, and where I'm just following Lost, they can tell you minutiae about TOS, TNG, Voyager, DSN, and Enterprise. And all of the movies. I've seen most of the movies, all of TOS and TNG, some of DSN, maybe an episode or two of Voyager, and the pilot ep of Enterprise. My husband, on the other hand, Mr. Snicker on the nights of Lost ("GEEZ how you do you remember all that useless information about this show?!") has seen pretty much every episode of every incarnation and every movie at least a half dozen times, at least once in the theatre. And despite most critics denigrating the last few movies, hubby thought they weren't as bad as some people thought.

So halfway through this movie, I was thinking, "Wow, he must be SO freakin' excited right now!!!" I know I was. In a word, it's stunning. The look of it is amazing, the sound is incredible, the acting is great, the storyline is at times hilarious, at times touching, and I was captivated the entire time.

Did it have its flaws? Of course. There's one relationship in there that some of you may have heard of that had me going, "Wait, what?? Why?" But I chose to just ignore it. I hope they drop it in sequels, because it did nothing for the storyline, as far as I'm concerned. The casting, though (for the most part) was inspired. The actor who does a younger Chekhov had his ridiculous accent down pat ("We will be arrivink at Wulcan werry quickly"), and was very entertaining. Simon Pegg (Hot Fuzz) plays Scotty, and is HILARIOUS. Every time he opened his mouth, people in the audience were giggling. Karl Urban (who will forever be Cupid from Xena to me, even though I adored him in LOTR as Eomer) is pretty amazing as Bones. At first I thought he was doing a bit of a caricature of him, but then I realized the character was always played very over the top in a wonderful way by Deforest Kelley, and the only way to pull that off is to be equally so. Chris Pine was really good as Kirk, even if they maybe went a little bit too far in the whole, "ooh, look what a rebel he is" thing. But frankly, he rejuvenated a character that has long been staid for me. Zoe Saldana and John Cho are good as Uhura and Sulu respectively, though this new Uhura is very different than the one we previously saw (in my opinion; maybe really diehard Trekkies would totally disagree with me on that one). The real tour de force, though, is Zachary Quinto. Oh, how you have been wasted on that piece of crap we call Heroes. This is what he was born to do. He is BRILLIANT.

Of course, there were some casting moments in there that made me go, "HUH?!" When Spock's mother meets him in a hallway and talks to him in a fake gravelly voice that's far too wretched for her years, I thought, "Man, this is as bad as that horrid old woman voice Winona Ryder did in Edward Scissorhands and ZOMG, wait, that IS Winona Ryder. Wait, what??" And then Kirk must stand before the Starfleet Academy to answer for something he's done, and I'm watching and thinking, "I know that guy from somewhere... the dude who's talking. Wait, is... um... is that guy... Tyler Perry?!" It was.

So those were a little odd, but they didn't really take away from the film. Lost fans will find much to rejoice over in this. Damon as executive producer; JJ as director; Orci and Kurtzman as writers; Burk as exec producer; Giacchino as music composer... not to mention that if, like me, you actually read A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking in season 3, you will be able to follow this SO much better. Be prepared for talk of space-time and black holes and time travel and EEEEE!!!!! SO. HAPPY.

And somehow in the first 15 minutes of the film my eyes were welling with tears over people I barely knew. How does a movie pull THAT off? Nice.

And as I think EVERYONE knows by now, Leonard Nimoy appears in the movie, and he's great. William Shatner apparently blithered on in the press about how upset and boo-hooey he was about not being in it, but there was absolutely no place for him. Nimoy was it. He was perfect.

We emerged from the theatre and I was shocked to discover that my husband had lots to gripe about. That relationship I mentioned bothered him way more than it did me, and the flaws I've mentioned really bothered him, too. I said, "But after the last 5 films have put me to sleep, and you said they weren't that bad, how could you say this didn't basically light a fire under a dying franchise?" He just shrugged and said there were several superfluous moments. Yes, there were a few, but hopefully JJ is taking them somewhere (oh yes, sequels are already in the works). He includes nods to the fans in there (how I loved that Captain Pike was so prominent in it!) but allows you to watch this with fresh eyes if you don't know Spock from a spork.

But without giving anything away, JJ includes a plotline in there that now allows him to go wherever he wants with this franchise. Hell, he can kill off Sulu in the next movie when Sulu is 23 and it wouldn't actually be inconsistent with the other films, believe it or not. I think that alone was worth the price of admission. Watching JJ Abrams take something as sacred as Star Trek and make it his own, taking it out of the hands of everyone who went before him while simultaneously paying homage to them?? That is the mark of an auteur.

I now give permission for people to spoil away on the comments boards if they've already seen the film. If you haven't seen it, please avoid the comments until you have! I want to know what you thought. Did you like it? Do you think JJ revived the thing or did he wreak havoc on something you think he shouldn't have touched?

UPDATE: To make this a little more Lostish, I meant to post Jorge Garcia's brief review of the film (worth checking out for his funny pics at the end!) :)

Quick Call for New Yorkers

Don't worry, I still have PLENTY to say about Lost, but I was wondering if there's anyone out there who lives in NYC or who will be in Manhattan in the next week or so? If so, could you email me? And now back to our regularly scheduled discussion of Lost. :)

UPDATE: Actually, maybe it's easier if I just SAY what I'm doing so people don't think I'm looking to bum a spot on their sofa or something, LOL! I'm currently editing an amazing episode guide to Gossip Girl, much like the format of the books that I do. The author had a trip planned to NYC to take some location shots used in the show, but something prevented her from getting there, so I'm looking for someone who might be able to take some photos of the locations we need for the book. I have the list (it's about 10, and honestly, if you could even do one or two that would be ACES) and can send it to anyone who emails me. Let me know if you'd be in the area and might be interested!! (Free signed copy of the GG book to anyone who can help me!) Thanks to the New Yorkers who have already emailed me!!

Friday, May 15, 2009

Lost "The Incident": The Comments

I've decided whenever I have no obvious photo to accompany something, I'm going to push my book. I'm shameless.

So... I booked off yesterday from work so I could keep on top of all the comments, and I had two appointments in the afternoon but an hour between them, so during that hour I sat in the car with my laptop checking in, and then last night I wrote up my DocArzt post. And it just occurred to me that I never actually POSTED it on the site, so I just did that (ugh) and reworded the beginning of it so it sounded like I totally meant to post it today. :)

There's a lot of stuff in there, mostly me giving kudos to all of you for being such awesome readers, so I hope DocArzt won't mind if I also post it over here. I wanted to get some more discussion going, and you can leave your comments here or over on the other post (or at Doc's site, if you prefer). Which, by the way, I haven't been able to check comments on since about dinnertime last night, so I have some catching up to do!!! Ugh. Sorry to everyone who is still posting and wondering where the heck I went to. AND when I was working on this post last night I found a whole section of comments (including two really long ones from Sonshine) that I'd never seen right in the middle of the first page of comments, so I'm really sorry I didn't respond to those! I'll get to them today, I hope. But I'm sure you guys are handling it just fine on your own. So without any further ado, here's my post, pasted here. If you've been following all the comments, half of it you'll already know, and the other half is my own new speculations and things I keep meaning to post but I get so caught up in the discussions I run out of time!




And with a fade to white, it was over. The screen was the same white as my knuckles, which were clenched in tight fists as I yelled, “NOOOOOOOOO” at my television screen. Remember that ending of The Sopranos? This one was more shocking to me. (And by the way, I’m in the love camp on that Sopranos ending.)

But back to Lost. Yesterday was crazy busy; monitoring the blog, posting updates constantly, doing radio interviews where I try to explain Lost to listeners who haven’t seen it (and can I just say that unlike back in season 2, I can no longer do that in the “25 words or less” that radio hosts love to throw around). And in the end, I didn’t get a chance to post something here. What was I going to write that was in any way coherent? Aside from my original blog post on the episode, I posted on Jacob and who I’m calling MaybEsau; the Jacob’s ladder imagery we’ve seen on the show and how it plays into things now; the foot statue; and a funny clip of Matthew Fox on Kimmel. Hey, you gotta have SOME light moments.

So rather than a long coherent post on one topic, I think I’m going to post a smattering of thoughts, mostly generated by my brilliant readers, who kept the comments boards buzzing on my site all day yesterday and long into the night. These are all the things I didn’t talk about in my original post. Here goes.

• Several fans posited that Juliet was actually pregnant when she fell down the shaft. Which, of course, makes that moment all the more devastating. She holds her tummy tenderly in a few cases, and when she’s with Rose and Bernard, they look at her with a little more tenderness than the others, not just because of the state they can see she’s in, but maybe they know. And while I’m talking about Juliet, the main article on the Yahoo page yesterday was, “Lost favorite dies in finale” or something like that. And as I clicked on the link, I thought, “Who? Who died?” Because, maybe I had a different feed than everyone else, but I never saw Juliet die. I mean, she’s probably bleeding internally something fierce right now, but if Jack is right, and by detonating the bomb none of this will have happened, then she’s as rosy and healthy as the rest of them. And there’s a chance she’s not even on the island; if it was the electromagnetic energy that forced the women to become infertile, then maybe she doesn’t have to come.
• This brings me to a question that’s only formed in my head since Wednesday night. How does Jack/Daniel’s theory work? (If it’s true... which I doubt it is.) Is it that they can erase everything that happens after that moment? And if so, did the release of the electromagnetic energy before Juliet detonated the bomb (if that’s what that white flash was, and not a time bloop) mean they were too late, and regardless of what they do, the Swan will be built to cover the energy and someone will be pushing that button anyway? Daniel was pretty determined to get there BEFORE the energy was released, so I presume that its release means they’re pretty much frakked anyway?
• I’ve always suggested that this show will come down to free will vs. destiny, not good over evil (since no one seems to be clearly all good or clearly all evil). One of my readers, SonshineMusic, suggested that maybe while so many fans are focused on whether Jacob is good or evil, we should instead be looking at whether he represents free will or destiny, and if the other one is the opposite. In the Bible, Jacob believed in free will, and changed his own future by deceiving his father and stealing his brother’s birthright. Esau, on the other hand, believed in destiny, that the birthright was destined to be his and Jacob no more earned it than he did by doing what he did. If the Man in Black is an Esau character, that could be the dichotomy.
• Is it possible that Jacob’s cabin was never actually Jacob’s cabin, but MaybEsau’s? If MaybEsau has been the one in there this whole time, that would be consistent with him methodically conning Locke and Ben over the past few years to lead them to the point where he could take over John’s body.
• Here’s one of my own thoughts: All season long, every time a person dies, Richard Alpert wants the body and is careful to bury people deep. Is that because he’s actually hiding them from MaybEsau, so that he can’t inhabit their body the way he did John Locke? That empty coffin we saw in season 1; is it possible Christian was taken by Richard, who was intending to bury the body so Esau couldn’t get his hands on it, and Esau somehow cut him off at the pass and got the body? (I could speculate better if I knew how the hell this whole body-snatching thing worked!)
• One of my readers pointed out the link between this episode and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, where the witch finds a loophole and stabs Aslan, but he comes back to life. If Jacob is a Christ figure like Aslan was in that book, that could be an indication that he will return.
• Another reader emailed me off the list to suggest Jacob was evil instead of good (an idea we’d been tossing around in the comments). He said if Jacob was evil, and by stabbing him evil was eradicated, that could be why the show faded to white rather than black. Great theory, although on Lost they tend to trick you, and the people in white tend to be bad.
• That brings me to Jacob meeting the Oceanic 5 and Locke. I mentioned this in my blog and have yet to read a satisfactory theory on it: Why does he touch Kate, Sawyer, Jack, and Locke before they get on Oceanic Flight 815, but he touches Sayid and Hurley after they’ve already been on the flight, returned, and are about to board Ajira Flight 316? If Kate, Sawyer, Jack, and Locke were all touched as a motivation to get them on the plane, what motivated Sayid and Hurley to do it, too? I’m wondering if the touch had nothing to do with actually getting them on the plane, and instead was some sort of protection for them once they’re on the island. Notice all of them are still standing (well, Sayid is just barely so...)
• And here is something I’ve been meaning to mention on my blog, and every time I rewatch the episode I notice it, make a point of mentioning it, and then don’t, so I’ll do it here. We’ve been discussing all season the idea of Smokey and when he first appeared. Some think he was an ancient force on the island, others point out that we never see him in 1977 or before, so maybe he was created post-Incident or post-Purge. When I saw the scene of Juliet being grabbed by the chain and dragged quickly backwards (not to mention hearing that same cranking sound we all know and dread) I couldn’t help but think of Smokey. This was exactly like when Locke was grabbed by Smokey – who loops himself around the victim’s legs or waist and drags them backwards quickly – or the scene where one of Keamy’s men is similarly dragged. And just like when Locke was grabbed in Exodus, Smokey tried yanking him into a hole, but he was saved before it could happen. Juliet is also dragged to a hole, but she’s not so lucky. Could Smokey have arisen out of the Incident? I don’t think it’s a coincidence these two moments look so similar.
• That statue. Earlier in the season I suggested it was Set. Male from the back, flat head. Then someone suggested maybe it was Tawaret, the Egyptian goddess of fertility. Great idea, and it would be perfect considering the fertility issues, but my only concern there is that Tawaret was in the form of a hippo to represent the rounded tummy of pregnant women, and did not have muscular arms like this statue. But she does have a flat head like this one, and is usually represented holding an ankh. After this episode, where we saw the large snout, one of my readers, Benny, suggested Sobek, the crocodile god, who brought fertility also. It’s a male statue with a flat head, and might be the most accurate one yet. But then a reader of mine emailed me this morning to say the ABC site is confirming that statue is indeed Tawaret. Did the production team never actually look at a picture of her? I’m not sure I buy that one. I wonder if it’s possible the statue could be an amalgam of different gods: Tawaret, Sobek, Set, and Anubis, all blended into one.
• One of my readers wondered if the fact Sayid is wearing Horace’s uniform should be a word of warning: After all, Locke will later find the corpse in the pit wearing that uniform. Could it be Sayid’s? Another reader said no, because those were the bodies from the Purge, and if they died in the 90s and Sayid died in 1977, then his body would have been on the bottom. But it did lead me to wonder if there’s some significance to Sayid wearing Horace’s uniform. They could have come up into any house and they came up into that one. Coincidence?

There is SO much more being said and going on over on my blog, but I need to post this and get back to other things (wait... there are things OTHER than Lost?!) I hope to post again in the coming week, but thought this would provide y’all with some fun discussion points. After all, we have EIGHT MONTHS to discuss it! Oh, and someone brought to my attention that someone on this site is organizing a rewatch party. We’ve been organizing the same thing on my blog for the past week or so. Mine will be starting a little later (beginning of July and going through January), but keep watching my site for updates, and we’ll have lots to discuss!




That's the end of the column, but I just wanted to add another squee moment at the bottom here. Yesterday in the afternoon, I checked the Amazon Top 10 TV books, and all of my Finding Lost books (including the season 5 one) were in the top 10! I was thrilled!! Of course, that Star Trek Encyclopedia was keeping me out of the top spot, but that's OK. :)

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Say Anything, Matthew Fox

How about something a little lighter after a day of thinking about Lost too much? (Wait, did I just say that out loud??) Thanks to asiancolossus for sending this to me. This is for everyone who thinks Jack is too serious. The man who plays him is NOT.

Jacob's Ladder

I've brought up Jacob's Ladder on this blog a few times before, because the imagery of it is so prominent on Lost. In Genesis, after Jacob deceives his brother Esau, he flees to the desert, where he wrestles with an angel. He then falls asleep, and has a dream of a ladder that extends from the Earth to Heaven, and angels are ascending and descending the ladder. Jacob lies at the bottom of the ladder, asleep, and God is at the top. Here is the passage from Genesis:

Jacob left Beersheba, and went toward Haran. He came to the place and stayed there that night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, "I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your descendants; and your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and by you and your descendants shall all the families of the earth bless themselves. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done that of which I have spoken to you." Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, "Surely the Lord is in this place; and I did not know it." And he was afraid, and said, "This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven."


I first talked about Jacob's Ladder after season 3's "Further Instructions," because when Locke goes into the tent and has his Boone-accompanied hallucination, there is a mise-en-scene of Locke in his wheelchair at the base of the escalators that looks a lot like Jacob's Ladder:



In this scene, Locke is at the bottom, like Jacob. We don't see any angels ascending or descending, but in the scenes before it, we'd seen people travelling up and down the escalator in the background. Locke falls out of his wheelchair and ascends the escalator with a lot of effort, and ends up at the top.

Later, in the season 4 episode, "Cabin Fever," we get the image again, after Abaddon has taken Locke from his physio appointment and is wheeling him back to his room. He leaves him at the top of the stairs for a moment, and we get the switched mise-en-scene:



Now Locke is at the top, in the position of God, and the only place to go is down, to the Earth. So it's interesting that years later, Locke's body is being used for Esau's long con, in an effort to kill Jacob. Locke found himself in the position of the biblical Jacob, then the biblical God, and now he's neither. Has he descended to Heaven (or to Hell) after death?

You can comment on the Jacob's Ladder material below, or go check out my fuller post on "The Incident" here.

Jacob and... Maybesau

There's an interesting theory going on in my comments section right now that Jacob's nemesis was Esau. This stems from the original biblical story of Jacob and Esau, and it's definitely a fun one (especially since Jacob's son was Benjamin in the Bible). A quick recap from memory (I know you'll correct me if I'm wrong) but Esau was the older brother, and Jacob was the younger. Jacob was cunning, and knew that their father, Isaac, was going to pass the birthright to the elder. Jacob had smooth skin, and Esau was hairy. So Jacob put an animal pelt over himself and went to the now-blind Isaac for his blessing, and Isaac, not knowing, gave it to Jacob. When Esau returned (from an errand Jacob had sent him on) he realized the birthright had been passed to the younger brother, and Isaac, distraught, knew he couldn't take it back. Jacob had taken everything from his brother.

At the beginning of last night's episode, Maybesau is sitting next to Jacob and says that he really wants to kill him. Jacob is a good man, but smug, and one can't help but think he's tricked him out of some birthright... that Jacob gets to live in the statue, and Maybesau is relegated to a cabin.

I'm now thinking that the guy in the cabin was never Jacob, but his nemesis instead. The line of ash that had been put around the cabin was put there by Jacob to keep his brother/enemy (brenemy?) inside. So how did it become disturbed? Is it possible, in the scene where Locke walks everyone to see Jacob at the beginning of season 3 and then cannot find the cabin, that when he bends down and picks up the ash, he disturbs it to the point where he actually opens a spot where Maybesau can now escape? Or is it something bigger?

I wondered last night if Smokey is actually this guy, along with all of the apparitions on the island. In this case, Christian is no more alive than Locke, nor is Yemi. (So where does that leave Claire? Hm.)

This is me just thinking aloud. Leave your comments and thoughts here.

And in the meantime, it's time for Beyond the Fringe. I'm really hoping some of my readers know who this is. This was a fantastic comedy troupe that was the precursor to Monty Python. It consisted of Jonathan Miller, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett, and Peter Cook. My dad was a huge fan, so I grew up listening to their comedy stylings, and I adore them. Alan Bennett did one infamous sketch where he played a priest giving a crazy sermon, based on Jacob and Esau. Here is the text (but trust me, it's WAY funnier listening to him do it).

Take a Pew
First verse of the fourteenth chapter of the Second Book of Kings: 'And he said, "But my brother Esau is an hairy man, but I am a smooth man."' Perhaps I might say the same thing in a different way by quoting you the words of that grand old English poet, W.E. Henley, who said:

"When that One Great Scorer comes
To mark against your name
It matters not who won or lost,
But how you played the game."

'But how you played the game.' Words very meaningful and significant for us here, together, tonight. Words which we might do very much worse than to consider. And I use this word 'consider' advisedly. Because I am using it, you see, in its original sense of 'con-sid—er', of putting one's self in the way of thinking about something.
I want us here, together, tonight to put ourselves in the way of thinking about ... to put ourselves in the way of thinking about, ummh ... what we ought to be putting ourselves in the way of thinking about.

As I was on my way here tonight, I arrived at the station and by an oversight I happened to go out by the way one is supposed to come in. As I was going out, an employee of the railway company hailed me, 'Hey Jack!' he shouted, 'Where do you think you're going?' That, at any rate, was the gist of what he said! But you know, I was grateful to him because, you see, he put me in mind of the kind of question I felt I ought to be asking you here tonight: 'Where do you think you're going?'

Very many years ago, when I was about as old as some of you are now, I went mountain climbing in Scotland with a friend of mine. And there was this mountain, you see, and we decided to climb it. All day we climbed—up and up and up —higher and higher and higher—until the valley lay very small below us, and the mists of the evening began to come down, and the sun to set. And when we reached the summit, we sat down to watch this magnificent sight of the sun going down behind the mountains. And as we watched, my friend, very suddenly, and violently, vomited.

Some of us think life's a bit like that, don't we? But it isn't. Life, you know, is rather like opening a tin of sardines. We all of us are looking for the key. And I wonder how many of you here tonight have wasted years of your lives looking behind the kitchen dressers of this life for that key. I know I have. Others think they've found the key, don't they? They roll back the lid of the sardine tin of life. They reveal the sardines—the riches of life—therein, and they get them out, and they enjoy them. But, you know, there's always a little bit in the corner you can't get out. I wonder is there a little bit in the corner of your life? I know there is in mine!

And so now I draw to a close. I want you, when you go out into the world, in times of trouble and sorrow and hopelessness and despair, amid the hurley-burley of modern life. If ever you're tempted to say: 'Stuff this for a lark!', I want you, at such times, to cast your minds back to the words of my first text to you tonight: 'But my brother Esau is an hairy man, but I am a smooth man.'

The Statue

I've decided to keep posting all day rather than just talk in the comments, since I know a lot of people never get through all of them. However, in order to keep the comments in one place, you can post a comment for any of my posts today on last night's episode under my original post for the incident. Go straight to the comments page here.

Someone asked if I could post a picture of the full statue, because apparently there were weather problems in the area and she missed part of it (ack, what a terrible night for weather problems!!) So here it is:



Click on the image to see it bigger.

Christemple pointed out in the comments that the foot has switched, and I was shocked: I totally hadn't noticed. Here is the foot we saw last night:



And here is the foot we saw in the season 2 finale, when Jin and Sun and Sayid saw it for the first time:



Major production error? Or did the foot change when Jack interfered with the incident?

Quick note: I'm going to be on Vancouver radio in about an hour, on CHUM 1410, at 7:45 a.m. PST, or 10:45 EST. You can tune in locally, or you can listen online here (click the Listen Live button).

Lost 5.16/17: "The Incident, Parts 1 & 2"

“You found your loophole.”
“Indeed I did. And you have no idea what I’ve gone through to get here.”


First of all, can I just give props to SonshineMusic for making me my awesome new Dharma logo? I’m so thrilled with it. I need to get it on a shirt. Or a work jumpsuit. :)

Anyway, tell me what the following things have in common:
• a guy who sleeps with a girl after wooing her for several months, only to never call her again after he’s gotten what he wants (no, this hasn’t happened to me)
• a driver in a car on a really rainy day who drives too close to a woman pushing a child in a stroller just as they’re walking by a ginormous puddle, and sends a tidal wave over the two of them and keeps on driving (yes, this has happened to me)
• two writers who build up an incident for an entire season and know that the next season won’t start for about 8 months, and they leave it the way this episode ended

If you guessed, “These are all about JERKS” then you guessed correctly! The difference with that final one: I’d follow them to the ends of the earth. Hell, if they asked ME to kill Jacob, I would have done it.

What a glorious episode. Freakin’ amazing awesomesauce gloriousness. Where to begin?!

And it turns out Jacob is....
Nope, not Jack. Not Christian, either. Not John Locke. Not Roger Workman. Not Horace. It’s... Rita’s dickish ex-husband from Dexter! I TOTALLY called it back in... oh whatever. I was actually THRILLED that Jacob was someone we hadn’t seen. It opened up the show in a million different ways. The episode opened with Jacob (bathed in white: white clothes, white sand, white fish, white tapestry) being visited by Silas Adams from Deadwood some angry dude, all dressed in black, telling him how much he hates him. They’ve clearly set up the Jacob/Man in Black dichotomy to match the Widmore/Ben one, the way in “The Shape of Things to Come” Widmore asked if Ben was there to kill him and he said, “We both know I can’t do that.” In this case, the other man tells Jacob he wants to kill him, but clearly needs to find a “loophole.” We discover Jacob actually goes out of his way to bring people to the island, as if having them “come, fight, destroy, corrupt,” is all a game to him. Man says, “It always ends the same.” Jacob says, “But it only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.” Strange words. Before that... not after that. As if it always ends up this way, that the progress happens BEFORE (i.e. in 1977) and not after (in 2007).

Jacob’s home visits
So we see Jacob visit several of the people and touches each of them, but there were two that were unlike the others: He visits Kate when she’s a child, touching her when he hands her the lunchbox (the same one she and her buddy Tommy will later bury under a tree as a time capsule, along with his toy plane, right before he’s shot and killed as she’s trying to visit her mom). He visits Sawyer at his parents’ funeral, touching him when he shakes his hand. Visits Jack when he performs the now-legendary 5-second-fear surgery. Jin and Sun get a visit at their wedding. He seems to bring Locke back to life after his father throws him out of the window and changes his life forever. But notice how different the Sayid and Hurley visits are: they happen after their return with the Oceanic 6. So... what do his visits mean? Were they to get those people on the plane? If so, how did Hurley and Sayid get on the plane, if he only visited them AFTER they returned from the island?

The Man in Black
So if I understand this correctly (and I probably won’t until the end of season 6) there was another person on the island, one who embodied the darkness of it. Jacob seems to remain on the island physically, while the other one has left and has to find a way back. He’s unable to kill Jacob, and must find a “loophole,” i.e. someone else who can do it for him. Has this other man been priming Ben for 35 years for this very moment? Has he been priming Locke for even longer for the same reason? I’ve made so many comparisons to Ben and Locke and how their lives are so similar, but now they’re even moreso: for it would appear that despite all their beliefs and willingness to comply, they were nothing more than pawns in the bigger game between Jacob and the other man. Does this dissipate the Ben/Widmore war? Because that one was immensely fascinating to me, but this one is obviously a much bigger one.

And the other thing this indicates is... Locke is really dead. He’s not coming back, he never will, and he really died at Ben’s hand. Locke didn’t get his resurrection; he never found confidence or peace. He died an angry man who believed he was a failure, who never did anything right in his life, who was always the gullible loser. This revelation is hidden beneath the much more shocking and dramatic not-death of Juliet, but in the end, Locke is dead. And I found that immensely sad.

Highlights:
• That opening. Awesome, awesome opening.
• Richard: “I’ve seen things on this island that I could barely describe but I’ve never seen someone come back to life.” Locke: “And I’ve never seen anyone who doesn’t age. Doesn’t mean it can’t happen.”
• Jack telling Richard not to give up on Locke. Interesting that just when Jack finally believes in Locke, it’s no longer Locke, apparently.
• Locke asking Ben why he hasn’t told Richard about the plan to kill Jacob, and Ben saying because he thought it was a secret, and Locke’s response: “When did THAT ever stop you?”
• Richard with the sledgehammer. I don’t think we’ve ever seen him being so violent!
• Vincent!! ROSE! GRIZZLY BERNARD!!
• Frank: “In my experience the people who go out of their way to tell you they’re the good guys are the bad guys.”
• Locke: “You mind if I ask you a question?” Ben: “I’m a Pisces.”
• Locke: “Well, it’s a wonderful foot, Richard, but what does it have to do with Jacob?”
• The smackdown between Jack and Sawyer. It’s been five years coming, and it was such an amazing cartharsis for both of them.
• Hurley: “Don’t worry, dude. Everything will be fine when Jack changes the future. Or the past. One of those.”
• The way Ben walks into the statue and is immediately drawn to the fire at the end of the hallway. Emerson shows such regret and longing in this episode. He’s amazing.
• The looks on everyone’s faces when Jack is about to drop the bomb. It was a beautiful moment... and interestingly, when he thinks he’s at the end, Sawyer looks at Juliet, not Kate.
• Sawyer: “This don’t look like LAX.”
• Phil’s death. Best death since Nikki and Paulo. WOOT!!
• Emerson (again) when he pleads with Jacob, “What about me?”

Did You Notice?:
• Matthew Fox pulls off haggard really well. I’ve never seen a character look more realistically like he’s been emotionally hit by a Mack truck than Jack this season.
• Well, we all assumed last week that Widmore touching Eloise’s stomach tenderly suggested she was pregnant, and we were correct. How much do I love that a mainstream television show features a fetus of a child coming along on an expedition that is being steered by... his own journal notes?
• One of my favourite moments in the episode was the discussion between Sun and Ben, where he tells her that he was once the leader of the island and the leader is the only person who can meet with Jacob and takes instruction from him, and then she asks what Jacob is like and he says, “I dunno. I’ve never met him.” Sun’s face = utter confusion.
• Bram refers to Lapidus as a yahoo, which is what Sawyer called him when he came to the helicopter at the end of season 4.
• I was convinced Widmore was in the box, with an oxygen tank or something being kept alive.
• Richard refers to Eloise as “our leader,” meaning Widmore is NOT the leader of the group, it’s her. Did he become the leader after she left the island?
• The CGI on the departing sub is just as bad as it was last week. Ugh.
• Sawyer says they’re looking at the north shore. Kate argues that the sun is setting on the wrong side for that to be the case. Sawyer asks her if she has a compass. Juliet looks longingly at the departing sub while listening to them flirt. The look on her face says, “Just kill me now.”
• When Vincent runs up to Sawyer on the beach, there’s a rainbow in the sky. Could have been there naturally, or it could be a reference to the Noah’s Ark story, where God sent a rainbow as a promise that he would never wreak havoc on the world like that again. Interesting that it appears right before they’re about to set off their own apocalypse.
• Bernard’s first words are “Son of a bitch,” in homage to Sawyer.
• I was a little annoyed that, despite wanting to be “retired” and on their own, Rose’s first words when seeing her old “friends” were, “Oh, HELL no.” Rose could always be crotchety, but way to have some old ties there. Sheesh. Luckily their next scene made up for this.
• Considering Rose and Bernard are wearing the same clothes they’d been wearing when they were being shot at with flaming arrows three years earlier, they’ve kept those clothes REALLY clean.
• Bernard: “We just care about being together.” Bernard looks at Rose, Rose looks at Bernard. Juliet looks at Sawyer. Sawyer looks at... Kate. Kate looks at a leaf.
• The dog painting is still in Jacob’s cabin, but the jars of liquid are gone, along with many other extras that had been there before.
• Jacob’s reading Flannery O’Connor’s “Everything That Rises Must Converge.” Me, by the way: “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...” Last time the writers threw a book in the finale at me was season 2. I HATE them for adding this to my already rushed writing schedule. ARGH. Anyway, enough of my bitching. This book is a collection of O’Connor’s short stories published after death at the very young age of 39 from lupus. The story titles, which are indicative of this season, are:
o "Everything That Rises Must Converge"
o "Greenleaf"
o "A View of the Woods"
o "The Enduring Chill"
o "The Comforts of Home"
o "The Lame Shall Enter First"
o "Revelation"
o "Parker's Back"
o "Judgment Day"

• Ben tells Locke he’s a Pisces in an effort to make him go away. But just like everything else, that’s a lie. We know that Ben’s birthday is December 19, but the Pisces sign is for those born from February 20 to March 20. Interesting, however, that the astrological sign for Pisces is VERY similar to the sign that Juliet was branded with in “Stranger in a Strange Land.”
• So, Sun walks up to Aaron’s old crib and I said to my husband, “You know, I’ve always been disappointed that no one ever found Charlie’s Drive Shaft ring.” And then she reached in and picked it up. I threw my arms above my head, “YES!” My husband couldn’t stop laughing, and said, “You truly are a geek.”
• Jin: “We will never be apart. Because being apart from you would be like the sky being apart from the Earth.” And... apparently that was SO long you couldn’t memorize it? Interesting, though, that both Jin and Sun fell from the sky to the Earth, and then he remained on the Earth while she took to the sky once more.
• Jin says that Jacob’s Korean is excellent... they noticed the same thing about Charlotte. Could there be a connection?
• I really enjoyed the hallway scene with Jack and his father. Jack is still a student, and Christian is his teacher, and he saves the patient and Jack’s cool by helping the situation. Then he tells him what a great job he did, and Jack berates him for giving him a “time out” and embarrassing him in front of his friends. Christian wonders aloud if he’s the one who doesn’t believe in Jack. Good question: it’s not necessarily everyone else who thinks Jack is getting special treatment, but Jack thinking he should get it.
• The girl playing young Rachel looks a lot like older Rachel.
• I love the idea of Hurley’s curse being a blessing in disguise.
• Not-Locke tells Richard that he thinks he’s just making up the rules as he goes along. Is he? Who was on the island first, Richard or the other guy?
• Miles once again speaks for the fans, suggesting something fans have speculated about for weeks, that maybe Jack causes the incident, rather than stops it.
• Juliet quotes Jack’s “Live together, die alone,” but it has a different meaning coming from her. She leaves out the extra parts, “if we don’t live together, we’ll die alone,” and instead insinuates, “We lived together, now we’ll [I’ll] die alone.”
• Man, there are a LOT of shootout scenes at the end of season 5!!
• Miles tells Chang to get as far away from here as he can, which is what Chang told his wife to get her off the island.
• I guess we now know why Marvin Candle has a prosthetic arm!
• Juliet’s fall was heartbreaking, and something I didn’t see coming at ALL. And I think that’s the first time we’ve seen Sawyer sob. It was a lot like when Buffy jumped from the tower at the end of season 5. I didn’t start crying until I saw Spike fall apart. Similarly, it really hit me when Sawyer started crying.
• Ilana asks Richard what lies in shadow of the statue. He answers, “Ille qui nos omnes servabit,” which means “He who will protect (or save) us all.” Does this mean Ben just killed their saviour?
• This is the second season that ended with a big revelation of Locke lying dead in a box. I love that only one season ago we went, “OMG, Locke is dead!” and now a year later we’re going, “OMG, Locke is dead!!” Only on Lost.
• The pit of fire that Locke throws Jacob into was glowing at the beginning of the episode, as if this one fire has been going from the beginning.
• On Jacob’s tapestry, you can see people worshipping the sun, and presumably the Sun God, who is Ra. RA = Richard Alpert?
• At the end of the episode, it’s like Ben is returned to being a little boy again. Jacob’s simple reply, “What about you” is shocking in the moment. Just as Ben says, he’s always done what Jacob asked of him, and Jacob showed him no regard at all. If Jacob really IS the good guy, then Ben has just been tempted by Satan to kill God, in a sense.

Hurley’s numbers:
On Dan’s notes on how to remove the plutonium core, there appears to be a 23B marking on the side of the diagram. (Or 23-8.)

So Many Questions...
• Damon, will you marry me?
• Jacob clearly called The Black Rock to the island. So how did it end up in the middle? Did he will it there? Does he have that kind of power?
• What happened to the rest of the statue if it was intact in the late 19th century?
• Who is Jacob’s nemesis?
• What did Bram mean when he asked if Frank was a candidate?
• Not-Locke seems very interested when Ben tells him about Alex telling him to do whatever John Locke says. Is it possible that Jacob represents only certain things on the island, while Smokey and other evil apparitions belong to Angry Man in Black?
• Who broke the line of ash that surrounded Jacob’s cabin?
• What happened to Ilana? Why was she in a hospital completely covered in bandages? Did Jacob heal her with his touch? Does Ilana know who he is when he arrives? How? This would suggest this group is a third rogue unit, as we suspected a few weeks ago, and they’re with Jacob, not with Widmore or Ben.
• Jacob appears to bring Locke back to life with his touch, and tells him, “I’m sorry this happened to you” in what sounds like a genuine sentiment. Is it possible he’s really the good guy?
• Do all of Juliet’s man troubles stem from the fact that her mother told her that even if you love someone you don’t necessarily belong together?
• Oh Radzinsky. How happy am I knowing that you will eventually end up with a bullet in your brain?
• One of Hurley’s personal belongings is a Fruit Roll-Up. He was eating a Fruit Roll-Up when Walt came to visit him in the institution.
• So... did Juliet just kill everyone? Restart the clock? I’m furious with the writers, and thrilled with them all at the same time. Oh you horrible, horrible people. How I love you.

Next week: Loneliness. Depression. A giant hole in my Wednesday night viewing schedule. Taking the week off to work on my season 5 book. I want to thank all of you for coming here week after week to read my musings and join in the discussion in the comments, offering such diverse and brilliant opinions. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. I’m not sure what upsets me more: no more Lost episodes, or no more Thursday discussions with all of you.

I threw this out there earlier, and I’ll devote a single post to it in a few weeks, but we’ve been discussing on the blog a viewing party, watching seasons 1-5, 2 or 3 episodes a week starting in the summer right through to the beginning of season 6, and I hope all of you will be willing to join in. I’ll post notices in as many places as I can to see how many people we can recruit to come and discuss the earlier seasons in light of what we now know, and I think it’ll be a lot of fun!

And in the meantime, I hope you’ve enjoyed the blog posts enough to order my season 4 book, available here at Amazon, and my upcoming season 5 book, now taking preorders (and available in late October). And if you have a copy already, get another one for a friend! Haha! (OK, there's a method to my shamelessness: At the end of every season, bookstores have a nasty habit of starting to return my books because they figure no one is interested in Lost anymore... I’m hoping if there’s a sudden demand for buying them, they’ll keep them in the stores a little longer, rather than return them, only to reorder them and make my publisher have to pay the freight both ways, which is sadly the case. Also, the more backorders on the season 5 book, the more are printed. Please help a gal out!)

And please keep coming back throughout the coming months. We’ll have a LOT of Lost talk on here, and I can’t wait to keep chatting about Lost with y’all!