Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Lost Episode Review

ENTER THE 2007 SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER CONTEST!

The Brig
aired May 2nd, 2007

SPOILER ALERT: IF YOU DON'T REALIZE BY NOW THAT THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THESE PIECES, THEN YOU OBVIOUSLY ARE NEW TO THE SITE, IN WHICH CASE, WELCOME MY NEW FRIEND

In case you didn’t know it, ABC and the producers of Lost officially announced an end date for the show earlier this week. After this season there will only be three more seasons, for a total of six, and including tonight’s episode, there are only 51 episodes left. It’s kind of an odd number to be starting a countdown at, but I figure we need to be aware of just how little there is remaining. Three years and 51 episodes may seem like a lot, but it probably won’t be nearly long enough to sustain our craving for quality TV. Especially because by the time Lost ends its run on TV there will probably be four more CSI shows, two more Grey’s Anatomy spin-offs (one is already in the works), and every decent sitcom will be long gone. TV’s future isn’t looking good and now that Lost is definitely not going to air forever, it’s looking even bleaker. But enough with the downer talk, let’s get excited about the final three episodes of season three.

Last week’s episode was enjoyable, if a bit stagnant, but I thought the most surprising thing about it was that it was one of the few times where I’ve ever been able to predict what was going to happen very accurately. Normally with this show I’ve been kept guessing a lot and that’s one of the big reasons I love the show. So many TV shows are highly predictable, so Lost’s unpredictability gave it something that made it stand out. So what was it that I was able to predict, you ask? Well before the show aired (but sadly after I wrote my piece on Lost that went up that day), I decided that the person with the bag over their head was Locke’s Dad. I knew it couldn’t be Ben because if it were, they would have shown his face in the promos. They went out of their way to not show the person with the bag over their head, so it just couldn’t have been Ben. And so I went to the most logical conclusion following that; I chose Locke’s Dad, the person Locke would definitely want dead the most.

Then before it was revealed that Locke’s Dad was the original Sawyer, the one that caused the events that led to the death’s of Sawyer’s parents, I realized that that was who Locke’s Dad was. I’m not saying this just to toot my own horn (but mostly that’s why I’m saying it), I’m mentioning it because it was a bit too easy to discover. I’m not worried that the show is slipping at all, because I still have no idea how things will play out for this week’s episode or the two after that or for the rest of the series.

But none of the above begins to explain why The Others like Locke so much. They seem oddly keen that he be one of them and one certainly has to wonder why. Let me put forth a theory here, developed by my lovely girlfriend, Julie. She believes that they are interested in Locke because he was able to harness the healing power of the island and The Others are going to try and extract that from him. She pointed out that Ben has been getting much better since Locke came around and that maybe Ben is able to somehow steal Locke’s ability and that by the end of the season if Locke doesn’t leave The Others, he’ll become paralyzed again. Personally, I like this theory a lot, and not just because if I said I didn’t I’d have an angry woman on my hands. This seems to make sense with what has happened between Locke and The Others so far and it also gives a very good explanation as to why they want him around. Since it seems that The Others aren’t at peace with the island anymore (which is why they get cancer now and why they can’t have kids), it only makes sense that they would want a person who is at complete peace with the island to be amongst them.

Locke however isn’t truly one of The Others, or at least we think so, because he has tipped off our heroes about an impending raid on the survivors camp where The Others plan to steal the survivors’ women. First off let me just say, that’s not cool. But then I have to wonder if this is legit. The last time a survivor went with The Others for a while and then came back and told the survivors they were in danger, it was when Michael came back and shot Libby and Ana-Lucia, freed Ben from his prison cell, and then led Kate, Jack, Sawyer, and Hurley into a trap. And even though when Michael did all of that we were aware that he was doing it (after a while at least), doesn’t mean that this time is different. Is this raid on the survivors the truth, or is it another distraction meant to allow The Others to execute a different, more sinister plan, kind of like how the White House would raise the terror alert every time there was a bad story out about the President or someone in his administration? (Question for debate: Who’s more evil: Ben or Karl Rove? Discuss)

Lastly I’d like to discuss the theory presented by Locke’s Dad that the island is Hell. I don’t believe this idea for a second and here’s why. First of all, Hell isn’t a beautiful tropical island; that’s just not the case. Second, the people in Hell are way too hot and I imagine that people are made to look ugly in Hell even if they were hot in real life thus amplifying the suckiness of Hell. Third, the Devil isn’t named Ben. That’s just too good of a name to be associated with the Prince of Darkness. And fourth, wounds don’t heal fast in Hell, they fester and get worse, but don’t kill you. Now I realize that one might believe that the irony of having a horrible time on an island that could seem like paradise might make it seem like Hell, because I imagine Hell is all about irony, but really only Locke’s Dad and some of The Others seem worthy of Hell based on what I know about the place. All the survivors screwed up in their lives and did some things that they shouldn’t have, but few of them were horrible people. I know that religion has been a big thing on this show, but I just don’t believe that they’ve taken it to this level.

Tonight on Lost: In tonight’s episode, Sawyer’s going to bring it to the attention of his fellow survivors that not only is their a raid planned to take their women, but also that Juliet’s in on it. Not a good thing for her or Jack who were both already on thin ice. I imagine she’ll have some explaining to do. On a different part of the island, Locke is asking Ben to tell him everything there is to know about the island, and it all starts behind a door. And once someone’s gone through that door there’s no going back. I don’t know what that’s all about, but it sounds awesome.

-BEN




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