Lost Episode Review

Through the Looking Glass aired May 23rd, 2007

SPOILER ALERT: IF YOU DIDN'T WATCH THE SEASON FINALE OF LOST THAN I IMPLORE YOU NOT TO READ THIS. YOU DON'T WANT THAT EPISODE SPOILED FOR YOU, I PROMISE!!

First let me start by saying that my lovely girlfriend, Julie, was 100% right about this episode right from the very beginning. When the episode started with bearded Jack on the plane, she asked me if this was the future, and I said something that amounted to, that’s ridiculous, there’s no way that’s in the future. She didn’t agree with me and continued to profess her belief that the “flashbacks” were actually “flash-forwards” and I didn’t agree with her until right before Jack and Kate met at the airport when I saw Jack looking at a map that looked like the island on the show and then I knew she was a genius. So everyone should listen to her from now on. Julie is apparently much wiser than myself.

But back to the episode, which I would say is one of the most amazing, startling TV episodes of all-time. To give proof of that, here’s what I wrote at the very end of my piece previewing the season finale:

“And lastly, I’m going to say that they will not get off the island tonight. Which I know, is really going out on a limb.”

The idea that the survivors would actually get off the island was so hard for me to fathom that I laughed it off. I was sure I knew enough about this show to know that since the island was such a major character in the program, there was no way our heroes would leave it until the very end of the show, if ever. I was so incredibly wrong here. I’m not sure I could have been more wrong actually. And that’s why they said that this episode was going to change everything. I thought that was just hyperbole, but it was completely right.

Last night’s episode though wasn’t just a great bit of television, it was proof that Lost is the best show on TV right now, and possibly ever. Yesterday, I watched three season finales: 24, Heroes, and Lost. In the first two, there was never any suspense at all for me because I knew that the horrible consequences of failure in those episodes would never be realized because those shows simply wouldn’t have the guts to do that. But I was on the edge of my seat the entire two hours I watched Lost last night because I didn’t know what they might do and who would survive. Lost had proven to me that they were willing to do a lot of things most shows would never do, and then last night they even trumped themselves.

TV has become so boring for me in recent years, because it seems as if having watched a fair amount of TV and movies in the past, I know what the writers and producers are thinking way before it happens; it’s almost impossible to shock me. And usually when a show does shock me, its because they did something so preposterous and so outlandish and so contrived that it simply couldn’t have happened and that’s why I didn’t expect it. But that’s where Lost is different. They’re playing with you, knowing that you know what TV writers think and then they turn it upside-down on you. All of the flash-forwards last night followed the same style as the flashbacks had. Everything about them suggested just another tragic part of Jack’s past as he battled demons caused by his failed marriage and his alcoholic, but immensely talented father. They knew what we were expecting out of that, and so they fooled us. The survivors leaving the island was the last thing we expected, so that’s what they did. It was brilliant.

It was actions like that that sucked me into watching 24 this year, when they started off (SPOILER ALERT FOR 24) the season by having a nuclear explosion in Los Angeles, something that I was sure they wouldn’t let happen. But as the rest of the season unfolded, I started to realize that they would never do something like that again, which left us with a season finale where I knew things would work out, and they did. Heroes didn’t have a moment like 24’s at any point during the year, so that’s why that season finale was even less enjoyable, because they were definitely not going to have anything different than what you expected happen.

So what does this twist do to Lost? Well first, it bring up a whole new series of questions, to pile onto the already large heap of questions we had before this. Second, it’s obviously going to change the structure of the show. I had read that there plan was to change the flashback structure for next season, so my guess is now that we’ll be moved up to the future and we’ll flashback to the survivors remaining time on the island to see how they actually leave and what happens with The Others.

Alright, the last thing I want to do is start guessing at answers to some of the questions that last night’s finale presented to us. The first thing is, who was the person who died that caused Jack to be so upset? This one is wide open, because we only know for sure that Jack and Kate made it off the island, which leaves a lot of people available to be the dead person. We do know this about the dead person though, no one liked him or her, Kate especially. We can also maybe guess that the person was African-American because the neighborhood in which the funeral parlor existed is certainly made to appear as if it is a black neighborhood. There were several black men on the street next to Jack’s car and the funeral director was black. So that leads me to guess that the dead man is Michael. Michael obviously wouldn’t be popular with Kate, since it was Michael who led Kate, Jack, and Sawyer to be captured by The Others and then abandoned them to take care of himself and his son. Also, if Michael returned home, he probably didn’t tell anyone about the island and his fellow survivors and that’s why everyone thought they were dead and that no one was looking for them.

The only problem with the Michael guess is I don’t see why that would have made Jack so upset. In this future were Jack wishes he was back on the island, the deaths that would probably make him the most upset would be the deaths of Ben and Locke, the two people who told Jack over and over again that they shouldn’t leave the island. So don’t rule those two out. Kate would obviously not like either one of them, for the same reason that Jack didn’t when they were on the island, and none of the other survivors would like those two either.

Then there’s the question of who is the person that will notice if Kate is missing? The obvious choice here would be Sawyer. We know that she has a thing for him and he for her, and we are pretty sure that he knocked her up. Also, with Jack’s proclamation of love for Kate in the season finale, it would have likely caused some tension between Sawyer and Jack after that. So she obviously wouldn’t want Sawyer to know that she’s meeting Jack.

But here’s the other possibility; the person that will notice is Kate’s son. It seems that some time has passed since they returned home from the island, since Jack has been flying a lot with his free pass on Oceanic, so Kate could have given birth by this point. And obviously, she wouldn’t want to leave her son home alone for too long. She also might not want to be gone for a while because then she’d need to explain to her son who she was meeting, which would lead to questions about how she knew Jack, which would lead to questions about the plane crash and the island and maybe Sawyer, if he’s no longer in the picture, which are questions that she never wants to answer for her son.

Also, quickly on the topic of Kate, how did she have her record wiped clean? She was a fugitive from the law and as far as I know, the statute of limitations on murder never runs out and they don’t pardon criminals for being on plane crashes. So think about that.

Next question that I’m wondering about is, why does Jack want to go back to the island and why did he grow that crazy playoff beard? (Playoff beard by the way refers to the fact that NHL players don’t shave during the playoffs and thus look like insane lumberjacks by the Stanley Cup finals). What has he learned that shows him that Ben and Locke were right? Is he just realizing that Ben was right and that Jack has nothing back in the real world now that his father is dead and that he’s divorced and all?

And is Jack’s father really dead? People didn’t seem nearly fazed enough by Jack’s drunken, drug induced rambling about how they should go get his Dad and that if Jack was drunker than his Dad, then the guy could fire him. Is it because Jack’s Dad really was upstairs? Just a thought. We know there was no body in the coffin when Jack found it on the island, so there’s a chance this isn’t as bizarre a question as you might think.

The last major question to answer is, what is the importance of the fact that it isn’t Penelope’s ship just off the island? Ben told Jack that the now deceased Naomi isn’t who she says she is, and before Charlie drowned, he passed along to Desmond that it wasn’t Penny’s boat, because he had just spoken to her. So who are these people that Naomi worked for? And are they the ones who actually rescue the survivors even?

Lost promised things would change completely and they came through for us. Sadly though, now we’ve got to wait until February, 2008 to find out completely how it’s going to change.

- BEN

Lost Episode Review

Greatest Hits aired May 16th, 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 typical Lost fashion, the last episode for the season finale was pretty much just a way to set the stage for what we already knew was coming. There was nothing in this episode that we didn’t know already from the previews for it, except that The Others had moved up their attack on the survivors camp on Ben’s orders. So I’m not really going to spend too much time with this episode, but rather, I want to spend most of my time looking ahead to tonight’s season finale.

As cheesy as most of this episode was, I still liked it. The greatest hits flashbacks of Charlie’s life was simultaneously lame and touching. As much as it was kind of silly to watch as Charlie wrote down his greatest moments in life, there was also something very nice about it as he said his goodbyes knowing that he was about to give his life for Claire and the rest of his fellow survivors.

There was one completely new thing in this episode though, and that was the revelation of the underwater station, known as the Looking Glass, which was according to Juliet through Ben, abandoned. However, as we found out as the episode closed, this was not the case at all, a fact that Charlie found out in kind of a bad way.

I guess that’s really all I need to say about this past episode. It was okay, but not great, hopefully though it will give us something wonderful tonight.

Tonight on Lost: Well this is the so-called game changing episode. The one where things get answered and where things get turned upside down. So what does that mean exactly? Well first I’d say it means death. Nothing changes things quite like the passing of some major characters. So who’s at risk of not returning for next season? Here’s my list (I’m only going to talk about major characters dying, none of those boring people who’s names we barely know):

Ben – I think it would be a damn shame for this show to eliminate Ben, but you’ve got to think there’s a strong possibility that Locke will come up out of that pit and get his revenge on the man who put him there. I’m hoping he lives, but I’m not really betting on it.

Charlie – Perhaps a bit to obvious of a choice, but still, they’ve been talking about his death for too long for him not to at least be at risk.

Desmond – He already tried to take Charlie’s place in last week’s episode, and from the preview for tonight’s season finale, we know that Desmond will go down into the underwater station, so I’d say that means he’s got a chance to die as well. I really don’t want this to happen though, because I like Desmond a lot.

Jack – If tonight’s episode is a game changer, then I would say nothing would change the game quite like the death of Jack. I’d say his chances of dying are slim, but they certainly aren’t impossible.
Locke – He was shot two weeks ago, so he’s probably not perfectly healthy. Plus, if he gets out of that pit in time to meet up with Ben, one of them will probably need to go because that island simply isn’t big enough for the two of them.

Sayid – Someone suggested this possibility to me, and as much as I don’t want him to die (of all the characters on the show, I’d say I want him to die the least), when they said it, I thought they could be very right. The preview for this episode shows Sayid having been captured by The Others, so he’s certainly vulnerable.

Juliet – There’s no better way to prove your loyalty to Jack and the survivors by throwing yourself under the bus and letting all of them live. Of course, she could also be killed because she reveals herself to be a true Other and Jack and Co. won’t like that very much.

So what other radical predictions am I willing to make here? Well, I’ve said it for weeks, so I’ll say it again, Walt and Michael will return. I’ve suddenly had a brilliant stroke of genius, and I’m going to say that we will find those two in the underwater hatch. Ben couldn’t really let them get back to the real world, but he also couldn’t let them come back to the island, so the underwater hatch, which was thought to be abandoned would be a good place for them to be stowed away.

My next prediction is that the helicopter pilot isn’t quite who she says she is. I don’t know why I think that. I just do. And lastly, I’m going to say that they will not get off the island tonight. Which I know, is really going out on a limb.

Alright, I hope you’re ready for this, because it’s only a few hours away. I’m pumped and I’m sure you are too for tonight’s season finale. I'm so pumped that I even requested off of work tonight just so I could watch it live.

- BEN

P.S. Check back Thursday or Friday for my recap of the finale and of the season as a whole

Lost Episode Review

The Man Behind The Curtain aired May 9th, 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

So I’m not quite sure what to say about last week’s episode, except that that was some fucked up shit. I know that’s not the most eloquent thing I’ve ever written, but I think it’s really the only accurate thing I can say. Last week’s episode was so weird and baffling; it felt like an episode from early in the run of this show where you got way more questions than answers. Well I guess we’ll start with the big thing first and work our way down to the more benign material.

In this episode we met the supposed “man behind the curtain;” the invisible and possibly fake, Jacob. I guess the first question we have to ask is, is Jacob real? I suppose my answer is yes. I wonder if it is a bit like the Wizard of Oz and there was just some Disney special effects guy who set all that up for the real Jacob so that he could scare people away from the hut. I think its possible that Jacob doesn’t actually live in that hut, but rather he lives off the island. I just don’t believe he’s invisible. That’s just too stupid to be real. At least I hope it is.

So the next question to ask is, is Locke dead or about to be? My answer is an emphatic no. First, there’s no way Locke would be killed off, not like that at least. If he’s going out, he’s going to go out kicking ass and saving lives. I just don’t believe they’d play him like that.

The other reason relates to the biblical story of Jacob. According to a website I read, and stop me if I’m wrong here and you know the Old Testament much better than I, Jacob was a man whom God loved and had direct contact with. Jacob had twelve sons who made up the twelve tribes of Israel. One of those sons, Joseph, was thought by the other sons to be special because he could interpret dreams and it was thought that he was more loved by Jacob, so they sold him into slavery, but Joseph was able to rise up from this and become an advisor to the Pharaoh in Egypt. One of the other sons of Jacob by the way was named, Benjamin.

So while this isn’t an exact replica of that story, in part because Benjamin wasn’t really involved in selling Joseph into slavery, and in part because the “favored son” on Lost is named John Locke, but there is definitely some similarities here which make you think that Locke will not die. It is pretty well known that the producers of Lost have incorporated a lot of biblical stories into their show, so it seems only natural that this is another one of those times.

The next thing I want to talk about is Ben’s flashback, not so much in that it was particularly interesting, but that I feel there is something more to it that we just don’t get yet. First, why did Ben lie about being born on the island? Was it because he didn’t want people to know he was part of Dharma beforehand? Second, what happened to his BFF Annie? Is she still alive? A friend told me that a friend of his said that the teacher called Anna, Rousseau in the school scene. I just watched it again, and that definitely didn’t happen, although Annie being Rousseau would explain why Rousseau’s daughter is also Ben’s daughter a fact that hasn’t made much sense to me at all. But then it would completely destroy everything that we thought we knew about Rousseau, so maybe that isn’t the case. Just a thought.

The third thing I want to know about is, is that guy young Ben met in the jungle who looked exactly like Richard, just scruffier, actually Richard (Richard by the way is the guy who recruited Juliet to the island and also the guy who played the photographer on Suddenly Susan (don’t ask me how I know that))? They never confirmed or denied it, but it does seem quite weird that this person would look exactly the same and yet not be Richard. Although, in Back to the Future Part II the children of Marty McFly and Jennifer Parker did look exactly the same as their parents and in Part III, Marty’s relative, Seamus McFly and Biff’s relative, Buford “Mad Dog” Tannen look just like their 1985 counterparts, so I guess it’s possible that Richard’s dad or grandfather would look exactly like Richard. But in the event that that was actually Richard, one has to wonder then, if Ben aged from his young self to the Ben we see today, why is Richard still the same age or at least why does he appear not to have aged?

Quickly, I want to mention that I’m very upset that we found out the Patches didn’t die and then come back it was just that the pylons were set to stun not to kill. Very lame.

The last thing I want to talk about is what to do about Jack. First of all, I don’t know what to think about him anymore. At the end of last season I thought he was a jerk. Then I liked him when he was kidnapped by The Others, and now that he’s back with the survivors, I think he’s a jerk again. I just don’t trust him really. When he told his fellow survivors that he already knew about the planned raid and yet just hadn’t told anyone yet, I was pissed. Since when does he get to make the decisions again? Sayid should go beat his ass and take over. Everyone knows Sayid is the smartest person in the group, so its only fair that he be in charge. I hope that Jack just steps down in time to let Sayid plan the perfect defense against The Others, because he’s the only one who will be able to.

Tonight on Lost: Desmond delivers some shocking news to Charlie: This time he can’t save his life. So apparently this time saving Charlie will interfere with something very important. Hopefully we’ll find out what that is. Also, tonight the raid by The Others begins, which only means one thing: these last two episodes are going to be JAWESOME!!

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

Lost Episode Review

ENTER THE 2007 SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER CONTEST TODAY!!!

D.O.C aired April 25th, 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

All this time I had believed that there were only three episodes left, including tonight’s episode, and then I paid a little more attention to the ad for tonight’s episode and noticed that they said that there are only three episodes left, until the season finale. Which means there are four episodes left. Really five when you consider that the season finale is two hours long. So now I feel really stupid. At least I was smart enough to look up when the finale would be before requesting the wrong day off from work. And yes, you did read that right. I requested to have the day of the season finale off of work. Does that make me a weirdo? Absolutely. But it also makes me a well-prepared weirdo.

I’m going to completely ignore the flashbacks in this episode, since they were once again a total waste of time, and instead I’m going right to the Sun-Juliet plot. In this episode it was revealed to us that Jin was in fact the baby-daddy (and it didn’t even require a special guest appearance from Maury Povich) and according to Juliet, women who conceive on the island are doomed, which explains why Claire survived her giving birth. However, I find this whole thing to be a bit hard to swallow. First of all, how can we trust Juliet at all based on the fact that we know she’s lying to Jack and the rest of the survivors? I can’t really take anything she says as fact anymore until I have proof. And since its taken nearly three years of the show to get through three months of life on the island, it seems that it could be a very long time before Sun actually might die and we’d know that Juilet was right (they said she probably has about two months to live, which could mean about two more years of the show, which oddly enough is about the number of years the producers have claimed they want the show to keep running for. What an interesting coincidence, don’t you think?).

Another problem with this claim is that I firmly believe that just because The Others are dying when they are pregnant doesn’t mean that the crash survivors will. As I’ve pointed out before, the survivors have thrived in terms of their health while on the island, except for those who died, but we’ll get to that later. I believe that the island has decided to hurt The Others now, but that it still has healing powers. How are we to believe that Sun should follow the same path as the other pregnant women based on the track record of her fellow survivors? Heck, she wouldn’t even be pregnant if it weren’t for the island making Jin fertile.

The other big problem with this whole storyline was that it was so obvious that Jin was the baby-daddy, and not just because it would have been pointless to have it be otherwise. I’m no expert on child birth or on the female reproductive system, but I did well enough in health class to know that a woman would have probably realized before three months had passed that she was pregnant. I believe that a woman no longer goes through menstruation after becoming pregnant and so I find it hard to believe that Sun could have thought that she was pregnant with the other guy’s baby. Don’t you think she might have noticed something like that a while ago? I know that probably wasn’t first and foremost on her mind after a traumatic event like the plane crash, but still. Come on now. Give us a little credit here.

One last thing to say about the pregnancy storyline that was pointed out by my lovely girlfriend, Julie. Juliet said into the tape recorder that she had gotten a sample from Sun and soon she’d have one from Kate as well. Does this mean that Kate’s pregers or is going to be soon thanks to her rendezvous with Sawyer? It didn’t strike me that way when I first heard it, but as soon as Julie pointed it out to me, I thought she was on to something. Just keep that in mind.

Now let me turn our attention over to the helicopter pilot. Well sadly, we still don’t know much about this person or why she’s even there. We know she can speak several different languages, but that’s about it. What’s interesting with her is how her life was saved by the thought to be dead Other, Mikhail aka Patches. So what’s up with that, huh? Did he really die when he was thrown through the fences or was that all just an act? And if he did die, how is it that he’s not still dead? And if he did die, why are all the people who died on the island still dead? Should we expect to see Shannon, Boone, Libby, Ana-Lucia, Nikki, Paulo, and Ethan all come back soon or are they definitely gone for good? And if they’re gone for good and Patches did die, but is now back, why can he come back from the dead and they can’t? My head is completely spinning as a result of this twist. There is just way too much that needs to be explained regarding the return of Patches and they better get to it soon because I need answers. And I need them now.

The helicopter pilot did provide us with one other incredible detail in this episode. She claims that Oceanic Flight 815 was found and that everyone on it died, which kind of goes against everything we thought we knew, since our heroes all apparently survived that crash. Some people might think that this is some kind of signal that the popular purgatory theory is true, but I think what this is all about is a cover-up. It is my belief that someone off the island has staged this other Flight 815 crash site so that no one will continue looking for the real Flight 815 thus keeping the island a secret. If people kept looking, which they would be apt to do, even if they didn’t expect to find survivors, they might happen upon the island and that would be a major problem for The Others and whomever is in charge off the island. They need to keep this place secret for some reason, so that’s why they told people they found the plane and everyone was dead.

Lastly, I wanted to throw out something that has nothing to do with this episode or anything I’ve seen happen this season. I think it’s interesting that we haven’t seen Michael and Walt this year at all. I fully expected they’d be back by now, even with their boat and the knowledge of how to leave the island. So that’s why I’m predicting that they’ll be back before season’s end. You heard it here first, just remember that.

Next time on Lost: Tonight is that next time and in this episode Locke is supposed to have kidnapped Ben and now he seems to want Sawyer to kill him. This all sounds well and good, but since The Others have things so meticulously planned, I really feel like this is all part of their evil-doings and not Locke surprising them and ruining things for them. Call me crazy, but I just don’t think The Others have been outsmarted this time. Also in this episode, Jack’s going to find out that no one trusts him anymore. I bet that will be a blow to his ego. Remember, only three episodes remain, AFTER tonight’s episode, so plan your lives accordingly.

-BEN

Lost Episode Review

Catch-22 aired April 18th, 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

I think deep down, each of us knew this was coming. We each knew that the episode following the one where it was revealed that Juliet was playing the survivors and pretending to be abandoned by The Others was going to be a bit of a disappointment. I mean, obviously last week’s episode couldn’t have matched what came before it unless they had revealed a major Lost secret. But they didn’t. And that left us with one of those Lost episodes where basically there isn’t a whole lot that’s different at the end of the hour when compared with the beginning of the hour. We do have a new visitor to the island, a helicopter pilot who we think might have been sent by Desmond’s girlfriend, Penny, but otherwise, nothing is new.

Now maybe I’m underselling this a bit, because there certainly is something interesting about the development of the helicopter pilot, because it brings up a couple of questions. First, how did Penny know where to find Desmond? Even if she was able to track the explosion at the end of season two, from what we know, finding the island is still rather difficult. This lends credibility to my theory that the boat race that caused Desmond to end up on the island was staged as a way of sending people to work on Penny’s father’s island project. She knew exactly how to get to the island because she had inside information. Once she knew where to look, she knew how to find Desmond.

The other big question that pops up with the arrival of the helicopter pilot is why did the helicopter crash in the first place? We know that Oceanic Flight 815 crashed because Desmond forgot to press the button in time, but that likely wasn’t what happened here, since the hatch has been destroyed. Maybe the helicopter crashed by pure coincidence, but that doesn’t seem like a reasonable answer considering that we know nothing happens on this island by chance; everything happens for a reason. All we know is, lots of people have crashed on this island, the survivors of the plane crash, Rousseau and her shipmates, the guy whom Hurley met in the mental hospital that gave him the cursed numbers, Mr. Eko’s drug smuggling friends and his brother, that slave ship, the Black Rock where they found the dynamite, and now this helicopter. So there is clearly something more than just the failure to press the button causing these things to happen.

I’m not really going to waste much time talking about the Kate-Sawyer-Jack-Juliet love square, only to say to that basically they should all do it together. That’s really the only solution.

Lastly I want to talk about Charlie. At this point it seems basically a given that Charlie is going to bite the big one by the end of the season. That’s definitely what they want you to think at least. But I’m not 100% sure of this anymore after they brought in the biblical story of Abraham being asked to sacrifice his son in last week’s episode. Like Desmond said, maybe God (or the island) is testing his faith by giving him visions of Charlie’s deadly future and that Charlie won’t actually die if Desmond doesn’t save him, but they can’t find out because Desmond can’t stop himself from trying to save Charlie. My guess is this, in the season finale Desmond will have a vision of Charlie’s death but he won’t be in a position where he’ll be able to save Charlie. For some reason he’ll be too far away or he’ll be indisposed for some reason and he won’t be able to get to Charlie in time to save him and then we’ll find out whether Desmond’s visions of Charlie’s death are really true or not. We know that Desmond isn’t willing to sacrifice Charlie, even for his own gain, so things will have to be preventing Desmond from saving Charlie to test this.

Next Week on Lost: And by next week, I mean tonight. Well tonight Juliet is going to have a nice heart-to-heart talk with Sun about pregnancy. I’m guessing it will be a lot like an after school special about teenage pregnancy, only they’ll add in the fact that giving birth on the island has been rather precarious in the past. It seems they’ll also be revealing the fate of Sun, but I’m not quite sure what that means. I do know this. (Cue that awesome, Requiem for a Tower song) Only four episodes remain and you can’t miss a single one.

- BEN

P.S. The Summer Blockbuster Contest will happen this year and likely will be up this week. So stay tuned for that.

Lost Episode Reviews

Expose, Left Behind, and One of Us aired March 28th, April 4th, and April 11th, 2007, respectively

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

That’s it. This is the last time I’m doing this. Not watching episodes for a few weeks and then cramming them all together at once, that is. Sure its way more enjoyable of a viewing experience, but there are too many potential pitfalls in doing this. I had key elements of each of the last three episodes spoiled for me before I ended up watching them and there really isn’t anything more frustrating than that. And its not like I put myself in danger of having spoilers revealed to me by reading blogs or going on to ABC.com or something. The death of Nikki and Paulo was spoiled for me while I read Chuck Klosterman’s NCAA Men’s Final Four blog on ESPN.com, which I would have thought would be a safe place to go. And the other event I had spoiled from an advertisement during one of the hundreds of ESPN shows I watch during my work week. So basically I suppose I should chalk all this up to the dreaded synergy that flows through our humongous corporate structures. But I won’t have that problem anymore. I’m going to watch Lost as soon as I possibly can after it airs (I work from 6pm-3am every Wednesday, and while I could watch it at work, I don’t want anyone to distract me while I watch it and work, sadly, isn’t a place free of distractions). Especially now that were heading into the final stretch for season three, which is shaping up to be incredible. So to take us up to that final five, let’s recap the last three. And by “let’s” I mean me.

The Nikki and Paulo episode was clearly a response to the outcry by the fans that those two sucked ass. And while I couldn’t have really cared less about them, I found their departure to be a very weak episode. It was clear that they didn’t really spend as much time writing this episode as they do for most episodes simply because they were just trying to cram in all of the things they wanted to do with those two in one show and get it done in time to kill them off before the end of the season. I did however enjoy all of the guest spots in the episode. First we got Billy Dee Williams, which made me do my Eddie Murphy impersonation from The Nutty Professor with a slight variation from Hercules to Billy Dee. It was funny to me and I think that my cats might have enjoyed it, although I have no confirmation of that and I doubt I ever will. Then we had the return of the dead with Shannon, Boone, Arzt, and Ethan, all of which were fun.

But what I really disliked about this episode was how they kept trying to stick Nikki and Paulo into scenes from earlier in the show to make it seem as if they had been there all the time. That was incredibly lame. That and having them discover every major discovery of the show before everyone else in these flashbacks (the plane, the middle hatch, etc.). Oh yeah and I also didn’t really understand why they would kill off that old guy (who was clearly the Australian Aaron Spelling) for $8 million in diamonds, as if he wasn’t worth a hell of a lot more than that. Just stupid all around. Every gold-digging woman (or man) in America scoffed at that episode, and so do I. But let’s put that behind us, just like the producers clearly would want us to do.

The April 4th episode had me worried from the opening moments because it was evident that we were about to embark on a Kate episode. And if you’ve been reading my Lost reviews for a while now, you should know that the Kate episodes have always been my least favorite, mostly because Kate is one of my least favorite characters on the show. I have to say though, this episode ended up being pretty good and in fact, I even kind of enjoyed the Kate flashbacks for a change. Sure they added up to a whole lot of nothing, as the flashbacks have tended to do this season, but I was okay with it. I do wish though we had spent some more time in this episode with Locke and figuring out why he was going with The Others. I suppose they’ll cover that soon, but really, I need to know now. Okay, fine, I’ll wait.

Now if I had written this review before last week’s episode I would have spent some time here talking about the fact that Juliet was left by her fellow Others and the fact that Juliet claimed she and The Others didn’t know what the hell the fog monster is, but all of that became moot thanks to the last two minutes of last week’s episode, which by the way, made last week’s episodes one of the all-time best.

I was totally under the opinion that Juliet wasn’t a true Other, and it didn’t take the flashbacks in last week’s episode to convince me of that. Sure I admit I was apprehensive about her because Sayid didn’t trust her, and basically I have found that whatever Sayid says and thinks tends to be right (which is why he should be in charge and not old think with his heart Jack), but I didn’t think she was going to have played them all so nasty like she did. When that scene with Juliet and Ben came on it seriously blew my mind. It got me so incredibly pumped for the last few episodes of this season. That moment right there was proof of why Lost is simply the best show on TV.

Before I wrap this up I want to throw out a theory that I developed after last week’s episode. In that particular episode we learn that Juliet was brought to the island because the women there were incapable of giving birth, which was basically destroying their civilization, kind of like in the movie Children of Men, except less depressing because no one likes The Others. So my theory is that the Dharma people and then later The Others came to this island because it has healing properties, something we learned when Locke was able to walk and when Rose had her cancer cured. And for a time, these properties worked for The Others because as Ben stated in last week’s episode, no one had cancer on that island until Ben himself got it right before the plane crash. And also we know that there was a time when The Others could give birth on the island because Ben claims to have spent his entire life there. So it seems to me that The Others have somehow become corrupt and now the island won’t help them anymore and that’s why they need the crash survivors. Those people are being healed and they can give birth and it’s all because the island respects them. So all of the things The Others have done to them and will do to them in the future after Juliet’s crafty plan finishes is a result of The Others trying to regain the island’s help. That’s why they need Locke and that’s why they have that list of the people who are worthy. But now I wonder if maybe there is someone on the island who controls the powers of the island and comes up with the lists of who is worthy and who isn’t. My guesses right now on who that person is are (in order of probability): 1. John Calvin, 2. Joseph Smith, 3. Jim Jones, 4. David Koresh, and. 5. Brandon Tartikoff, the now deceased former head of programming at NBC who tortures Mario Lopez in the online TV show, 28 Days Slater (which by the way is fucking amazing). (I’d just like to point out my amazing religious history knowledge on display in that last sentence, with the exception of Brandon Tartikoff of course.)

Next Week on Lost: I am so incredibly psyched for this week’s episode and the episodes coming up after it. And its not just because they included that awesome song in the ad for these episodes (by the way, if you’ve been obsessed with that song as I have since I first heard it in the trailer for the new Danny Boyle movie, Sunshine, I’m glad to inform you that the name of the song is Requiem For A Tower and it can be purchased on iTunes!!). These last few episodes look to be spectacular and look like they could make me love this show even more than I already do, if that’s even possible. The ad for this week doesn’t seem to reveal anything too specific, but I don’t care, I’m still ready to rock.

- BEN