Previously on failure to update

Five episodes go by without comment here, and it would have been more if not for the month-and-a-half break over the holidays. Woof. So let's recap it all and hopefully this will jumpstart the thing again.

s2e10: The 23rd Psalm
Eko gets even more bad-ass, as his backstory reveals that he used to be a big time gangster who took over for his priest brother - and evidently did the legwork to be a serious priest himself, renouncing his old ways - after the latter was killed while trying to stop Eko from flying a bunch of drugs out of the country. The drugs? Heroin in Virgin Mary statues. Charlie? So busted. Meanwhile, Locke teaches Michael how to shoot a gun, the prelude to the terminally obnoxious Michael leaving the show for a number of weeks. Way to be, Locke!

s2e11: The Hunting Party
Michael goes all nuts and takes off in search of Walt; this is the last time we've seen him up to the present. Jack charges after him with Locke and Sawyer in tow. They run into the Others, who prove both their numbers and their mystery by lighting a bunch of torches. We also confirm that the guys on the boat who took Walt were definitely the Others. Meanwhile, Jack's backstory establishes the breakup of his marriage - essentially, Jack thinks he can help everyone, so he ignores his own wife while trying a risky surgery on an old Italian guy. The guy dies but his daughter wants to get in Jack's pants anyway; he rejects her but then his wife dumps him anyway. I wonder if he ran right to the airport after that hoping the Italian chick still wanted to do it. In the present, Jack returns from his meeting with the Others asking Ana Lucia about building an army. The Others skunk you every time, Jack! Such a bad, bad idea.

s2e12: Fire + Water
Quite simply the worst episode in the show's brief history. I daresay it isn't even close. Charlie goes all nuts even though he isn't on drugs, having weird dreams and kidnapping Claire's baby on multiple occasions. Ultimately, Locke beats the crap out of Charlie, which is only useful in setting up the following episode's final twist. The flashbacks tell us pretty much nothing as well, or at least I got nothing out of them. In the goofy side plot that must adorn all dramatic but not exciting episodes, Hurley hits on Libby for a while, to no avail.

s2e13: The Long Con
Someone apparently tries to kidnap Sun. Jack flips out and tries to get all the guns. Sawyer tells Locke, who moves them. Then it turns out that Sawyer was playing both Jack and Locke and ends up getting all the guns for himself with the help of (dun dun dun!!!!) Charlie, who didn't even do it for the drugs but because he wanted Locke to look stupid. The spur-of-the-moment rainstorm that makes the Sun not-quite-kidnap easier looks kind of odd if the Others with all their mysterious magical ways had nothing to do with it, though. Maybe Vincent and not Walt is the magical one? That would just be weird. The flashbacks in this episode were also so ridiculous. "Teach me how to con, Sawyer!" After she just (thought she) saw right through one of them? Feh. Sawyer's long con was at least cleverly layered, but what a crap setup for it.

s2e14: One of Them
Rousseau captures someone who might be an Other, but he claims to be some dude from Minnesota who crashed on the island in a hot air balloon. Sayid tries to get answers from him, but doesn't obtain anything concrete (though he maintains that any man who actually buried his wife with his bare hands would know more details about the burial, which hardly seems like a slam dunk). The guy does give one of those looks like the bad guys give on CSI when their guilt is revealed, so maybe he is an Other. The Others have shown a notorious resistance to talking about themselves, though, so does it even matter? Sayid's backstory shows where he learned his torture tactics - ironically (or not), it came from the Americans during the first Gulf War (and a pretty bad-ass Clancy Brown). Commentary on America's apparent pro-torture policy in Gulf War II? In this week's "we have to cut the drama with a goofy side plot," Sawyer convinces Hurley to chase a frog with him. Then Sawyer smushes the frog in his hand, which was both nasty and predictable, because every time the writers make Sawyer seem funny and likable for a while, they have to backtrack by reminding us all that he's a total asshole. How about just deciding one way or the other, guys?

Late in the episode we find out what happens when the timer runs out... nothing! Well, actually some weird symbols start showing up. But evidently they don't lock out the reset button, so it's just another clue piling up. I'm still a fan of the show, but I'm hoping that as we hit the stretch run - 8 to 10 more episodes to go this season - we finally start getting some answers, and not just question after question after question. Next week it looks like we might learn more about the Dharma Initiative's presence on the island... but probably it'll just leave more questions without answering much. We'll see.

And we're all caught up! So maybe now I can get back in the regular groove of post-episode posts.