I really should know better by now than to let the ABC promotions department jerk me around every single time. Of course they're going to say that the next episode features can't-miss surprises! That said, "three of Lost's biggest mysteries will be answered" is just blatant false advertising. Unless the mysteries were as follows:
1. What happened to the people the Others took?
I'm not sure this would rank in my top three questions, but I guess it was something. We still don't really know what happened, per se, just that they're alive and evidently still kicking it on the island (or rather, the second island).
2. Do the Others live on the island?
I had thought this was already reasonably well implied, although the shots of St. Othersburg that led off this season suggested otherwise. Of course, if they don't live on the island as Isabel suggests, doesn't that make St. Othersburg a gaping plot hole? Or is that just where they live when they're on the island? Whatever. We still don't know where they do live, except that it can't be that far away since that's clearly not a seaworthy boat. I don't consider an answer that vague to be an answer.
3. How much more shitty backstory can we get?
This one was definitely answered: a lot! Seriously, though, I can't think of a third thing that was answered and the backstory was asinine. Was it supposed to be showing that Jack doesn't have the appropriate respect for other groups of people? Because I think we could have guessed that. Oh, and his tattoo, conveniently, contains a message that describes both his place in Thailand and his place with the Others! Oh, how droll. Come on, Lost - no one considers "what does Jack's tattoo mean" to be a mystery of the show at all, let alone one of the biggest ones.
In other plot "developments" (ha!), Sawyer and Kate snipe at each other and Sawyer encourages Carl to go back for Alex. Which he maybe does and maybe doesn't. Juliet is being investigated for killing Pickett and trying to kill Benry. Benry's stitches are infected, and Jack decides to play his buddy, apparently to make sure he (and Juliet) can get off the island as Benry suggested. And Backstory Jack rightfully gets the crap kicked out of him by a bunch of Thai guys.
I wouldn't go so far as to say this was the worst episode of the season, but it was certainly the worst of the "nonstop season" so far, though that's only out of three, of course. It just didn't tell us much of anything, after promising it would. That's been kind of the constant letdown with this show - even most of the answers are only kind of half-answers, and that's when they come at all.
Sigh. And now that February sweeps are over, I suppose we're looking at a lot of water-treading over the next 13 episodes. Cool.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
s3e08: Flashes Before Your Eyes
Because this show now has more characters than it knows what to do with, prepare to completely ignore Jack, Kate and Sawyer for an episode. Oh, but we get to see Locke and Sayid!... just kidding. They're immediately out of the picture as Desmond runs off to the ocean to rescue a drowning Claire, just after Charlie and Hurley (apparently camp bellwethers) are informed of Eko's death.
Charlie earns - sorry, reaffirms - my eternal hatred by flouncing about as Desmond performs CPR, and then having the sheer balls to say "Charlie's here!" as she comes to. Dude, I know she kissed you (for still no reason I can see) in the last season finale, but you are not Claire's husband. Or even boyfriend, really. Maybe she would like you more if you weren't such an overpossessive twit. Case in point: a couple minutes later when Claire sits down next to Desmond - the guy who just saved her life - for about three seconds, and then Charlie huffs over all, "Where have you been? Aaron's starving." I know, TV time and all that, but come on. She just sat down. Back the fuck up, guy.
Charlie and Hurley are suspicious of Desmond's talent for knowing that things will happen, so they get him drunk and then Charlie - ever with a Napoleon complex - bullies Desmond until the latter tackles him. "You don't want to know what happened to me!" Desmond yells, and then we see what happened.
And honestly, I'm not entirely sure what it was. My leading theory would be that Desmond got a very realistic life-flashing-before-eyes moment, but what was with the old lady who wanted to make sure that things happened the same way? If it was just a flashback and she was in fact a sort of conscience figure, why would it matter if he tried to do things differently, really? He already turned the key. If he was actually traveling through time (or leapt Sam Beckett-style into his own body, whatever), why does a hit from a cricket bat send him directly back to the island? More importantly, wasn't someone claiming recently that the show really wasn't very (or at all) supernatural? And yet here we have either time travel or seeing the future, and there's no real way around it. If Desmond knows the future because he's already lived through this timeline - although that makes no sense since turning the key sent him back before he got to this point - then it's time travel, and that's supernatural. If he knows the future because he keeps getting flashes of it, as he states, then that's obviously supernatural. Either way, I think we have our first confirmed plotline that science cannot possibly explain away, although I think most people would tell you that the show was firmly in the realm of the supernatural long before this point.
The point of all this runaround is that what Desmond keeps seeing is Charlie's future, and Charlie keeps dying, so Desmond's been saving him, but he knows he can't do it forever, and predicts that Charlie is going to die. Hooray! The universe hates Charlie as much as I do! Desmond, quit getting in the universe's way!
In miscellaneous plot news, man, Mr. Widmore is an asshole. That whiskey may be expensive but I doubt a single swallow is worth more than Desmond. Think about what you could get for his kidneys alone on the organ black market! Also, apparently the English pub crowd really loves them some Cass Elliott. And why is the angry guy with the cricket bat there immediately as the game ends? Did the bartender promise him the money would show up magically in his wallet if the team won?
Next week: Forget any of this ever happened, it's back to the Jack plot. Where he had the upper hand a week ago, apparently now he's just another prisoner, and the previously taken castaways are "here to watch," whatever that means. The tease promises answers to "three of Lost's biggest mysteries," which, yeah, I'll believe that when I see it.
Charlie earns - sorry, reaffirms - my eternal hatred by flouncing about as Desmond performs CPR, and then having the sheer balls to say "Charlie's here!" as she comes to. Dude, I know she kissed you (for still no reason I can see) in the last season finale, but you are not Claire's husband. Or even boyfriend, really. Maybe she would like you more if you weren't such an overpossessive twit. Case in point: a couple minutes later when Claire sits down next to Desmond - the guy who just saved her life - for about three seconds, and then Charlie huffs over all, "Where have you been? Aaron's starving." I know, TV time and all that, but come on. She just sat down. Back the fuck up, guy.
Charlie and Hurley are suspicious of Desmond's talent for knowing that things will happen, so they get him drunk and then Charlie - ever with a Napoleon complex - bullies Desmond until the latter tackles him. "You don't want to know what happened to me!" Desmond yells, and then we see what happened.
And honestly, I'm not entirely sure what it was. My leading theory would be that Desmond got a very realistic life-flashing-before-eyes moment, but what was with the old lady who wanted to make sure that things happened the same way? If it was just a flashback and she was in fact a sort of conscience figure, why would it matter if he tried to do things differently, really? He already turned the key. If he was actually traveling through time (or leapt Sam Beckett-style into his own body, whatever), why does a hit from a cricket bat send him directly back to the island? More importantly, wasn't someone claiming recently that the show really wasn't very (or at all) supernatural? And yet here we have either time travel or seeing the future, and there's no real way around it. If Desmond knows the future because he's already lived through this timeline - although that makes no sense since turning the key sent him back before he got to this point - then it's time travel, and that's supernatural. If he knows the future because he keeps getting flashes of it, as he states, then that's obviously supernatural. Either way, I think we have our first confirmed plotline that science cannot possibly explain away, although I think most people would tell you that the show was firmly in the realm of the supernatural long before this point.
The point of all this runaround is that what Desmond keeps seeing is Charlie's future, and Charlie keeps dying, so Desmond's been saving him, but he knows he can't do it forever, and predicts that Charlie is going to die. Hooray! The universe hates Charlie as much as I do! Desmond, quit getting in the universe's way!
In miscellaneous plot news, man, Mr. Widmore is an asshole. That whiskey may be expensive but I doubt a single swallow is worth more than Desmond. Think about what you could get for his kidneys alone on the organ black market! Also, apparently the English pub crowd really loves them some Cass Elliott. And why is the angry guy with the cricket bat there immediately as the game ends? Did the bartender promise him the money would show up magically in his wallet if the team won?
Next week: Forget any of this ever happened, it's back to the Jack plot. Where he had the upper hand a week ago, apparently now he's just another prisoner, and the previously taken castaways are "here to watch," whatever that means. The tease promises answers to "three of Lost's biggest mysteries," which, yeah, I'll believe that when I see it.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
s3e07: Not in Portland
After the lame episode that was "I Do," and the massive hiatus that followed, it's about time we got a pretty good episode that didn't rely on jerk-you-around twists to be interesting. I'm not even sure when the last one of those was, frankly; mid-first season?
The flashback centers on Juliet, who it turns out has not been on the island that long. She used to work as a medical researcher in Miami, and then Dharma (I would assume) got wind of what she was doing (Ethan apparently was in town checking her out) and invited her to Portland. And then they were all, "Well, not quite Portland. More like, Mysterious Island Somewhere in the Pacific." This episode's title is one of the most accurate ever, since nothing in it takes place within 3,000 miles of Portland.
Jack continues to huff and puff around the operating room. Juliet calls his bluff about letting Benry Gale die - Jack, these people have reams of research on you! You don't think they know how much you hate when your patients die? - then orders Pickett to chase down the escaped Kate and Sawyer. And then Benry talks to her and she does the opposite - just as we hit the inevitable Pickett/Sawyer showdown, Juliet shows up and blows Pickett away. Which was utterly predictable because you knew one of those two had to die and it wasn't going to be Sawyer. In other Others news, Alex is all rebellious again and Kate and Sawyer help her pull her gomer boyfriend out of some weird torture device out of A Clockwork Orange. Also, Tom reveals himself to be kind of a puss.
Questions:
1) Why is Benry suddenly cool with letting Kate and Sawyer go? Is he worried that Jack really would let him die if he didn't? For that matter, why is he suddenly cool with letting Juliet go? (Assuming that he's actually cool with it, of course.) And why does letting her go depend on her letting other people go? Has Benry had a change of heart and suddenly thinks everyone should fly the coop? Too many episodes left for that, methinks.
2) So Benry is Alex's dad. Do we think this is literal Dad? As in, getting it on with Rousseau? I'm unconvinced. If Benry has lived on the island his whole life, as he told Jack, then either (a) Rousseau has told a whole bunch of lies about her past or (b) Alex was brainwashed as a youth into thinking Benry was her father. If (b) is the case, why is she so rebellious now? I had thought that much of her behavior was predicated on knowing that she was kidnapped as a child, but now I'm not sure.
If he's her literal dad, this opens up many many cans of worms. For example, recall from s2e14 that Rousseau captured Benry and brought him to Jack and co. Well, if Rousseau and Benry know each other... sort of a problem, yes? And that doesn't really reconcile with Rousseau saving Claire from the Others. I don't think this is the way they'll go, but who ever knows with this show?
Jack stitching Benry up thanks to Kate's tearful recollection of his story from the pilot was probably the best moment of the season so far. There, I said it. Let's hope for more of those in the remaining 15 weeks.
The flashback centers on Juliet, who it turns out has not been on the island that long. She used to work as a medical researcher in Miami, and then Dharma (I would assume) got wind of what she was doing (Ethan apparently was in town checking her out) and invited her to Portland. And then they were all, "Well, not quite Portland. More like, Mysterious Island Somewhere in the Pacific." This episode's title is one of the most accurate ever, since nothing in it takes place within 3,000 miles of Portland.
Jack continues to huff and puff around the operating room. Juliet calls his bluff about letting Benry Gale die - Jack, these people have reams of research on you! You don't think they know how much you hate when your patients die? - then orders Pickett to chase down the escaped Kate and Sawyer. And then Benry talks to her and she does the opposite - just as we hit the inevitable Pickett/Sawyer showdown, Juliet shows up and blows Pickett away. Which was utterly predictable because you knew one of those two had to die and it wasn't going to be Sawyer. In other Others news, Alex is all rebellious again and Kate and Sawyer help her pull her gomer boyfriend out of some weird torture device out of A Clockwork Orange. Also, Tom reveals himself to be kind of a puss.
Questions:
1) Why is Benry suddenly cool with letting Kate and Sawyer go? Is he worried that Jack really would let him die if he didn't? For that matter, why is he suddenly cool with letting Juliet go? (Assuming that he's actually cool with it, of course.) And why does letting her go depend on her letting other people go? Has Benry had a change of heart and suddenly thinks everyone should fly the coop? Too many episodes left for that, methinks.
2) So Benry is Alex's dad. Do we think this is literal Dad? As in, getting it on with Rousseau? I'm unconvinced. If Benry has lived on the island his whole life, as he told Jack, then either (a) Rousseau has told a whole bunch of lies about her past or (b) Alex was brainwashed as a youth into thinking Benry was her father. If (b) is the case, why is she so rebellious now? I had thought that much of her behavior was predicated on knowing that she was kidnapped as a child, but now I'm not sure.
If he's her literal dad, this opens up many many cans of worms. For example, recall from s2e14 that Rousseau captured Benry and brought him to Jack and co. Well, if Rousseau and Benry know each other... sort of a problem, yes? And that doesn't really reconcile with Rousseau saving Claire from the Others. I don't think this is the way they'll go, but who ever knows with this show?
Jack stitching Benry up thanks to Kate's tearful recollection of his story from the pilot was probably the best moment of the season so far. There, I said it. Let's hope for more of those in the remaining 15 weeks.
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