Let me see if I can rephrase the 1-reality theory from my most recent post...
As far as we know, the Island has always been in a little pocket dimension separate but accessible from our day-to-day reality. Things within are unconnected to things without. Inside, the Losties travel back in time to 1977 and detonate Jughead over the Swan. The resulting event returns the time-tossed Losties to 2007, on the Island, inside the snowglobe.
At the same time, in 1977, the Incident destroys and/or releases the Swan's exotic energy, resulting in a chain of yet-to-be-revealed events that leads to the shattering of the snowglobe and the Island sinking beneath the ocean, sometime before the year 2004, when Oceanic 815 flies over it (relatively) unmolested.
In the years following the Incident, from 1977 to 2004, the rest of the world goes on about its business, with events differing from those of the reality we've come to know in LOST seasons 1 thru 5 in that the influence and interaction of Jacob, Esau, the Others, the DI, and by ripple effect, the likes of Hanso, Widmore, and Paik industries, is limited, changed, or even absent.
But the Island in the snowglobe that we've watched for 5 seasons still exists and persists in 2007. Reality has rewritten itself outside of it, around it. Why? How? Maybe because it's still home to its exotic energy, capable of maintaining the snowglobe as well as powering events like Island-moving. Maybe simply because it MUST exist as it is the cause and source of the resetting of reality in 1977.
As the site and agents of the Incident, the Island and its inhabitants are the cause of a massive effect on reality—the pre-reality chicken to the reality egg—and can't just blink away. MAYbe there's a BACK TO THE FUTURE fade-out in store as the new reality, and the new not-lost Losties, somehow assimilate the snowglobe's information on some level (like Juliet, Jack, and Kate apparently having flashes of recognition and confusion across realities). Yeah... Not gonna try and provide an explanation here for this bleed of info between alternate doppelgangers.
In the terminology I've adopted for my posts on this season so far...
Outside the snowglobe, LOST2's world history since 1977 has replaced LOST1's. Inside the snowglobe, Islanders remember the history of LOST1. So, there are NOT two realities, parallel to one another. There's only the one. Memories, history, and local experiences of LOST1 survive within the snowglobe.
In fact, it could be OUR actual, lame, low-energy reality, dropped like a Kansas farmhouse on the Wicked Witch of a high-energy reality that allowed for communication with the dead, shapeshifting monsters, teleporting Islands, and reckless time travel.
Note that (so far) since the time skippers returned to 2007, we've seen nothing of the off-Island world of LOST1, only activity on the Island. All off-Island storytelling has been in the world of LOST2. I'm really hoping that the visitor/s Jacob expects are LOST1-ers who have flown or floated into the snowglobe before the tachyonauts' return. Although, if they're LOST2-ers, we would finally get a chance for worlds to truly collide...
Anyhow, I hope that's a LITTLE clearer...? In a Marvel comic, the rewritten reality phenom would be explained in a couple panels of conversation between Mr. Fantastic or Dr. Strange and the other heroes who still remember the original reality, cuz they were in the presence of or mystically or superscientifically shielded from the reality-warping effects at the "heart" or "focus" or "nexus" or "origin" of the phenom that rewrote everything in the first place (i.e. Infinity Gauntlet, Cosmic Cube, Kulan Gath, or Scarlett Witch), y'know? In a DC book, it would probably be the Spectre, Rip Hunter, or Waverider explaining, and it would be about something like the Anti-Monitor, Parallax, or Monarch.
I'll hold off on trying to follow the threads of ramifications of this theory, including the rewriting of the lives of some favorite characters like Desmond and Penny, and the never-born-ness of children of our Losties. Did Rousseau wash up on the Island and give birth to Alex? The Aaron that Kate took off the Island shouldn't exist (altho, given his hinted-at enigmatic abilities, maybe he does). Would Sun and Jin have been able to have JiYeon without the help of the Island?
Yep. That's me, *holding off* =)
Please see other LOST posts for more episode-specific rambling and riffing.
Keep on geekin on~
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Friday, February 26, 2010
LOST: big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff
I had a theory, now it's kind of in flux and filling with holes, given what we've seen and heard this week, that we might not be looking at two complete (or completely different) realities this season. Rather, we're seeing LOST2, a reality in which 815 didn't crash on the Island, which is underwater, and the Island snowglobe from LOST1, the pocket dimension that contains the Island on which 815 DID crash. The reality outside of the snowglobe has popped out of existence. I LOVE this idea, but hafta say that this would mean one REALLY sad thing: Desmond, Penny, and baby Charlie of LOST1 no longer exist. So, while I *really* like this catastrophic idea, I DO NOT WANT TO LOSE DESMOND (the one fashioned in LOST1).
Also, a couple of events in this week's episode threaten to perforate this notion.
1. Jacob tells Hurley that someone (singular or plural?) is coming to the Island. Of course, I'm hoping it's Desmond, but who knows?
2. Jack's given mirror-views of off-Island locations.
These two occurrences speak to the world outside the snowglobe keepin on.
BUT... WHICH outside world...?
Another riff on the theory is that the Incident was not a divergence point between two realities, and in fact, it SUCCEEDED in changing the one-and-only single reality, resulting in the off-Island outside world rewriting itself from 1977 on, creating "LOST2." However, with the Island being the Island, and the source of the energy and setting of events responsible for this change, the self-correcting cosmos has flagged the Island itself as an anomaly, protected/immune from reality-changing ripples thanks to its part in causing the changes, its pocket dimensionality, and perhaps the fact that it had been moved in 2004. So, what I've been calling LOST2 is not a separate reality, but a reality written over the one we've watched for five seasons.
Also a fleeting "big picture" thought/theory that Widmore's "war" might be between realities. Altho his use of the word "war" in that case would've been more of a flourish. I don't see agents of one side fighting those of the other, but maybe an assertion of reality dominance/continuity, one over the other, one ultimately replacing the other. Altho, maybe there ARE agents from one side already in the other, orchestrating the events leading to the divergence in realities, because one of them is so f'd up and doomed that rewriting/replacing it is the best option. A better of all possible worlds. Last night's LOST2 Jack-and-David storyline, on the heels of Locke's last week, seems built to tell us that lives in this reality are not so (mundanely) doom and gloom after all. The little, everyday, things mean a lot, and the little things are mostly good, or at least open to be.
The idea that the outside world of LOST1 is gone was a possibility that occurred to me when the idea of changing history came up in season 4 or 5. When Jack talked about "going back" to Kate in the first flash forward the show gave us, I think that's what got me thinking about the Losties returning to the Island and changing history, to fix things. But a real change would have to be different from Desmond's time jumps, cuz "what happened, happened," right? So, I zanily theorized that they could return to the Island, fix things, but have to live the rest of their lives on the Island, in the snowglobe, unable to return to the outside world, but hopefully pleased w Island life and powers and content to watch from afar as their never-crashed selves would go on living their fantastically unfantastic and mundane lives.
I let the momentum of the show since then push the idea into the background, but it seems just a little more likely now, with this season, cuz all of the LOST1 storytelling (which began days after the Ajira crash in 2007) has happened exclusively on the Island. We haven't seen anything of the outside world after the time travellers are returned to 2007. But, like I said, that would mean that Desmond and Penny and anyone else who wasn't in the snowglobe at that time has been rendered non/never-existent.
Maybe this new visitor to the Island that Jacob expects made it into the snowglobe before then, but hasn't been able to reach/set foot on the actual itself for whatever reason, caught in some meteorological weirdness surrounding the return of the time-tossed Losties. Would love for it to be a Widmore private jet carrying Desmond's fam. Or, maybe the new visitor or visitors are from LOST2, and this is the concrete reveal to back up Juliet's "It worked."
Re-reading, this is pretty messy (copy/pasted/edited from emails w Z). I'll try to put these ideas in better order in another post soon.
Keep on keepin on~
Also, a couple of events in this week's episode threaten to perforate this notion.
1. Jacob tells Hurley that someone (singular or plural?) is coming to the Island. Of course, I'm hoping it's Desmond, but who knows?
2. Jack's given mirror-views of off-Island locations.
These two occurrences speak to the world outside the snowglobe keepin on.
BUT... WHICH outside world...?
Another riff on the theory is that the Incident was not a divergence point between two realities, and in fact, it SUCCEEDED in changing the one-and-only single reality, resulting in the off-Island outside world rewriting itself from 1977 on, creating "LOST2." However, with the Island being the Island, and the source of the energy and setting of events responsible for this change, the self-correcting cosmos has flagged the Island itself as an anomaly, protected/immune from reality-changing ripples thanks to its part in causing the changes, its pocket dimensionality, and perhaps the fact that it had been moved in 2004. So, what I've been calling LOST2 is not a separate reality, but a reality written over the one we've watched for five seasons.
Also a fleeting "big picture" thought/theory that Widmore's "war" might be between realities. Altho his use of the word "war" in that case would've been more of a flourish. I don't see agents of one side fighting those of the other, but maybe an assertion of reality dominance/continuity, one over the other, one ultimately replacing the other. Altho, maybe there ARE agents from one side already in the other, orchestrating the events leading to the divergence in realities, because one of them is so f'd up and doomed that rewriting/replacing it is the best option. A better of all possible worlds. Last night's LOST2 Jack-and-David storyline, on the heels of Locke's last week, seems built to tell us that lives in this reality are not so (mundanely) doom and gloom after all. The little, everyday, things mean a lot, and the little things are mostly good, or at least open to be.
The idea that the outside world of LOST1 is gone was a possibility that occurred to me when the idea of changing history came up in season 4 or 5. When Jack talked about "going back" to Kate in the first flash forward the show gave us, I think that's what got me thinking about the Losties returning to the Island and changing history, to fix things. But a real change would have to be different from Desmond's time jumps, cuz "what happened, happened," right? So, I zanily theorized that they could return to the Island, fix things, but have to live the rest of their lives on the Island, in the snowglobe, unable to return to the outside world, but hopefully pleased w Island life and powers and content to watch from afar as their never-crashed selves would go on living their fantastically unfantastic and mundane lives.
I let the momentum of the show since then push the idea into the background, but it seems just a little more likely now, with this season, cuz all of the LOST1 storytelling (which began days after the Ajira crash in 2007) has happened exclusively on the Island. We haven't seen anything of the outside world after the time travellers are returned to 2007. But, like I said, that would mean that Desmond and Penny and anyone else who wasn't in the snowglobe at that time has been rendered non/never-existent.
Maybe this new visitor to the Island that Jacob expects made it into the snowglobe before then, but hasn't been able to reach/set foot on the actual itself for whatever reason, caught in some meteorological weirdness surrounding the return of the time-tossed Losties. Would love for it to be a Widmore private jet carrying Desmond's fam. Or, maybe the new visitor or visitors are from LOST2, and this is the concrete reveal to back up Juliet's "It worked."
Re-reading, this is pretty messy (copy/pasted/edited from emails w Z). I'll try to put these ideas in better order in another post soon.
Keep on keepin on~
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
LOST: Jack broke your lighthouse, dude.
6.05: "Lighthouse"
Gonna hit a couple of the big reveals/topics in LOST1 from tonight's episode... Here's the LOST2 ramble.
CLAIRE AND HER FRIEND.
Claire's infected, and she's been plenty busy taking over for Rousseau, trapping and picking off the Others, whom she holds responsible for the abduction of her child. IS this also what happened to Rousseau? Infection?
And it happened, or at least started, three years ago, after she got killed by the mercenary attack on New Otherton. After Sawyer found her in the rubble, she joined the gang for the rest of the day, until she left her baby behind and wandered off into the jungle with her father that night, with Miles as the only witness. Remember when we catch her sitting in the corner of the cabin with Christian (one of Locke's visits?)? Yeah, she was already good and gone right then.
So, Claire takes beartrapped Jin back to her... umm... hovelpile? She also brings only-wounded Justin back for some interrogatin. Jin isn't exactly sure how all-there Claire is, so he keeps his mouth shut at first when she goes on about the Others abducting Aaron. Jin asks how she can be sure, and she tells him that they took her and tortured her...
Anyhow, when it comes to Justin literally getting the axe, Jin reveals...
Alas, Jin barely had time to say anything before...
His palling around with infected Claire, as Christian and Lockesau, also shows how, at least as long as Jacob was alive, Esau had to work thru agents when it came to wacking the spring-baptized Others. The rules, donchaknow.
Is Jin wearing black boxers with little red hearts?
If Lockesau's there, then Sawyer's likely there, too, right? Or closeby. I hope we get some Sawyer-Claire interaction soon. Is this the Monster's Temple assault team? Claire, Sawyer, hopping Jin? At the Lighthouse, Jacob tells Hurley that he had to get Hugo and Jack as far from the Temple as possible, because Someone Bad is going there...
JACK AND THE LIGHTHOUSE.
How awesome is the lighthouse? The stone walls, the mirrors, the gearworks, the degrees and candidate names! Like a good Vertigo comic meets Myst! So, the numbers do "mean" something, each one is a degree/heading relative to the Lighthouse. Does that REALLY mean anything...? Assuming one candidate per degree, that's 360 candidates for Jacob's job. Weirdly arbitrary, eh? I'll probably end up looking at some screencaps of the names on the circumference of the mirror dial in the next couple days.
In the mirror, before Jack had Hurley turn the mirrors to 23 degrees, did we see Sun's family's home in Korea? Or someone other candidate's home, maybe in Japan? I wonder if there's a gear to turn to adjust the time, so that Jacob could be observing his candidates at different moments in their lives... at any point in their lives.
Hrmm... Maybe the Lighthouse is "responsible" for the candidates, beaming some Island energy into the outside world at individuals (children?) who live along these 360 meridians. Or, the Lighthouse is divining rod for finding these candidates, and was built specifically at this nexus of ley-line like great circles, somewhat similar to how the Lamppost was built to predict the location of the Island.
It's a little annoying how predictable Jack is. Well, maybe that's not fair. That predictability, recognized by us, the viewer, as well as the other characters who inhabit LOST (Hurley and Jacob)...
But, y'know, we know that Jacob is right about approaching Jack...
Love Hurley getting his STAR WARS on... In reference to Jacob's appearances...
LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND?
I had this idea a couple years back that the Island might have been part of the outside world in ancient times? This was inspired by Richard's long-lived and ageless presence as well as the remains of the four-toed statue. Specifically, I believed that the Island was part of the Egyptian civilization, and influenced or controlled somehow by Alexander the Great. I was even rooting for Richard to actually BE Alexander, unwittingly wandering onto the Island, either as island or mistaken desert oasis. Maybe even when it first pops out of the world and into its snowglobe pocket dimension. Anyhow, I did some clicking about the interwebz and I found a possible, well, candidate! An actual Island, I think it was located at the mouth of the Nile, and on it were several religious buildings, statues, and a massive lighthouse. I ended up dismissing the notion because of the dissimilarities between the Island and this Egyptian island and its fame. With the discovery of the LOST Lighthouse, tho, it's come back to me. I think that there might have been a smaller island or sometime-isthmus or peninsula that was home to a smaller lighthouse... I'm gonna hafta go on another clickfest sometime soon to try and re-discover my folly.
* 2/25/2010. For details on my folly, you want to be looking up the Pharos Lighthouse, aka The Lighthouse Of Alexandria. I do still like it for a connection to the Island. =)
More on this episode later...
Keep on keepin on~
Gonna hit a couple of the big reveals/topics in LOST1 from tonight's episode... Here's the LOST2 ramble.
CLAIRE AND HER FRIEND.
Claire's infected, and she's been plenty busy taking over for Rousseau, trapping and picking off the Others, whom she holds responsible for the abduction of her child. IS this also what happened to Rousseau? Infection?
And it happened, or at least started, three years ago, after she got killed by the mercenary attack on New Otherton. After Sawyer found her in the rubble, she joined the gang for the rest of the day, until she left her baby behind and wandered off into the jungle with her father that night, with Miles as the only witness. Remember when we catch her sitting in the corner of the cabin with Christian (one of Locke's visits?)? Yeah, she was already good and gone right then.
So, Claire takes beartrapped Jin back to her... umm... hovelpile? She also brings only-wounded Justin back for some interrogatin. Jin isn't exactly sure how all-there Claire is, so he keeps his mouth shut at first when she goes on about the Others abducting Aaron. Jin asks how she can be sure, and she tells him that they took her and tortured her...
CLAIRE: They stuck me with needles, they branded me! And if I hadn't been able to escape the Temple, they would've killed me!Justin tries to correct her apparently mistaken take on her experience at the Temple. Altho, claimed or not, there's not a lot of good ways to take Dogen's "testing" and "medication" as we've seen it administered to Sayid, right?
JUSTIN: No, you're not remembering things...
Anyhow, when it comes to Justin literally getting the axe, Jin reveals...
JIN: Kate took him. Kate took Aaron.Alas, that information doesn't make quite the impression he might have hoped, and Justin gets axed anyhow. In light of her instability, Jin decides to "play along" until he can get to safety, and takes back what he said about Kate and Aaron. Later...
CLAIRE: If what you said was the truth... If Kate was raising Aaron.. I'd kill her.I *so* wanted Jin to take back taking it back right then. =)
Alas, Jin barely had time to say anything before...
LOCKESAU: Am I interrupting?No big surprise there. Interesting how we hear about her friend earlier, about how he told her that the Others had Aaron...
JIN: John?
CLAIRE: That's not John! THIS... is my friend!
CLAIRE: First, my father told me, and then my friend told me, so i'm pretty sure.So, that fits right nice with the notion that Esau walked and talked around as Christian before putting on his Locke suit. In Christian's skin he ultimately led Locke to his final fate, no doubt very carefully influencing him to become a very particularly groomed vessel for himself to Monsteriffically clone and inhabit.
His palling around with infected Claire, as Christian and Lockesau, also shows how, at least as long as Jacob was alive, Esau had to work thru agents when it came to wacking the spring-baptized Others. The rules, donchaknow.
CLAIRE: If there's one thing that'll kill you around here, it's infection.Does infection outwardly manifest itself in the hair style of the infected? Look at Claire, right? And I could swear Sayid's wearing his 'do differently, no?
Is Jin wearing black boxers with little red hearts?
If Lockesau's there, then Sawyer's likely there, too, right? Or closeby. I hope we get some Sawyer-Claire interaction soon. Is this the Monster's Temple assault team? Claire, Sawyer, hopping Jin? At the Lighthouse, Jacob tells Hurley that he had to get Hugo and Jack as far from the Temple as possible, because Someone Bad is going there...
JACK AND THE LIGHTHOUSE.
How awesome is the lighthouse? The stone walls, the mirrors, the gearworks, the degrees and candidate names! Like a good Vertigo comic meets Myst! So, the numbers do "mean" something, each one is a degree/heading relative to the Lighthouse. Does that REALLY mean anything...? Assuming one candidate per degree, that's 360 candidates for Jacob's job. Weirdly arbitrary, eh? I'll probably end up looking at some screencaps of the names on the circumference of the mirror dial in the next couple days.
In the mirror, before Jack had Hurley turn the mirrors to 23 degrees, did we see Sun's family's home in Korea? Or someone other candidate's home, maybe in Japan? I wonder if there's a gear to turn to adjust the time, so that Jacob could be observing his candidates at different moments in their lives... at any point in their lives.
Hrmm... Maybe the Lighthouse is "responsible" for the candidates, beaming some Island energy into the outside world at individuals (children?) who live along these 360 meridians. Or, the Lighthouse is divining rod for finding these candidates, and was built specifically at this nexus of ley-line like great circles, somewhat similar to how the Lamppost was built to predict the location of the Island.
It's a little annoying how predictable Jack is. Well, maybe that's not fair. That predictability, recognized by us, the viewer, as well as the other characters who inhabit LOST (Hurley and Jacob)...
HURLEY: You ever try to get Jack to do something? It's like impossible. I can just go myself....is testimony to how much of Jack there is to know, how real he's become as a character. What's REALLY annoying is how his predictable behavior is expressed. This time it's Jack's frustration at the revelation that his life has apparently been manipulated since childhood, unfairly and violently taken out on the mirrors of the Lighthouse, a frickin wondrous spyglass directed at the outside world. *sigh* It *is* LOST, so of course, we would be denied its coolness.
JACOB: You have to bring him with you, Hugo.
HURLEY: It's bad enough you already made me write way too much stuff and I just lied to a samurai. Look, if you have any idea how to get jack to go on your little adventure, I'm listening, dude.
But, y'know, we know that Jacob is right about approaching Jack...
HURLEY: Wait a minute. Did you want Jack to see what was in that mirror? Why?
JACOB: It was the only way for him to understand how important he is. Jack is here because he has to do something. He can't be told what that is. he's gotta find it himself. Sometimes you can just hop in the back of someone's cab and tell them what they're supposed to do. Other times, you hafta let them look out at the ocean for a while.
Love Hurley getting his STAR WARS on... In reference to Jacob's appearances...
HURLEY: He's dead. He turns up whenever he wants, like Obi Wan Kenobi.
LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND?
I had this idea a couple years back that the Island might have been part of the outside world in ancient times? This was inspired by Richard's long-lived and ageless presence as well as the remains of the four-toed statue. Specifically, I believed that the Island was part of the Egyptian civilization, and influenced or controlled somehow by Alexander the Great. I was even rooting for Richard to actually BE Alexander, unwittingly wandering onto the Island, either as island or mistaken desert oasis. Maybe even when it first pops out of the world and into its snowglobe pocket dimension. Anyhow, I did some clicking about the interwebz and I found a possible, well, candidate! An actual Island, I think it was located at the mouth of the Nile, and on it were several religious buildings, statues, and a massive lighthouse. I ended up dismissing the notion because of the dissimilarities between the Island and this Egyptian island and its fame. With the discovery of the LOST Lighthouse, tho, it's come back to me. I think that there might have been a smaller island or sometime-isthmus or peninsula that was home to a smaller lighthouse... I'm gonna hafta go on another clickfest sometime soon to try and re-discover my folly.
* 2/25/2010. For details on my folly, you want to be looking up the Pharos Lighthouse, aka The Lighthouse Of Alexandria. I do still like it for a connection to the Island. =)
More on this episode later...
Keep on keepin on~
Monday, February 22, 2010
RED RIDING trilogy
site | trailer
Thumbs up for a great cast delivering noir goodness with a British accent! I've only caught two-thirds of the trilogy so far, but urge you to see any and all of it that you can.
* 2/23/2010. Looks like the RR trilogy is gonna stick around a while at the Kendall. It's slated to be adapted by Ridley Scott in an American production (haven't heard if it will be multiple films), but I urge you to see this wonderfully dark UK rendition!
I made it to screenings of the first two films in the RED RIDING trilogy this weekend (1974 and 1980) and both were wonderfully modern noir-iffic. Like, ZODIAC sets up a meet between LA CONFIDENTIAL and CHINATOWN in Northern England... or something. Each of the two films stands well on its own but the interlocking/interweaving of characters and scenarios over the years definitely adds to the experience of the second film. And I had the sensation that each was very of its era, that you could feel the 1974-ness of the first chapter, and the 1980-ness of the second. It'll sound like a ridiculous criticism, I'm sure, but I hafta say that I thought the 1974 film is perhaps a little too sex-charged. I suppose that might be a sign of the times also, as well as a sign of its rating =). Be warned that the second film seems to have a loose end that (I'm hoping) will be tied up in the third.
In any case, I highly recommend checking out both films, in either order (the second one does give a tease of a spoiler about the first, but I think there's mystery enough remaining, and such great unfolding of it, in the first, that it's still a great film and story experience if you have to see 1980 before 1974), and hafta say I'm looking forward to seeing the third one on Wednesday night, probably the late, 9-something show. Let me know if you're up for teaming up for that one. If you think you'll hit any of these films, check the Kendall listings to strategize your screening order, and do be prepared to turn on your English-to-American translating part of your brain. =)
Keep on creepin on~
Thumbs up for a great cast delivering noir goodness with a British accent! I've only caught two-thirds of the trilogy so far, but urge you to see any and all of it that you can.
* 2/23/2010. Looks like the RR trilogy is gonna stick around a while at the Kendall. It's slated to be adapted by Ridley Scott in an American production (haven't heard if it will be multiple films), but I urge you to see this wonderfully dark UK rendition!
I made it to screenings of the first two films in the RED RIDING trilogy this weekend (1974 and 1980) and both were wonderfully modern noir-iffic. Like, ZODIAC sets up a meet between LA CONFIDENTIAL and CHINATOWN in Northern England... or something. Each of the two films stands well on its own but the interlocking/interweaving of characters and scenarios over the years definitely adds to the experience of the second film. And I had the sensation that each was very of its era, that you could feel the 1974-ness of the first chapter, and the 1980-ness of the second. It'll sound like a ridiculous criticism, I'm sure, but I hafta say that I thought the 1974 film is perhaps a little too sex-charged. I suppose that might be a sign of the times also, as well as a sign of its rating =). Be warned that the second film seems to have a loose end that (I'm hoping) will be tied up in the third.
In any case, I highly recommend checking out both films, in either order (the second one does give a tease of a spoiler about the first, but I think there's mystery enough remaining, and such great unfolding of it, in the first, that it's still a great film and story experience if you have to see 1980 before 1974), and hafta say I'm looking forward to seeing the third one on Wednesday night, probably the late, 9-something show. Let me know if you're up for teaming up for that one. If you think you'll hit any of these films, check the Kendall listings to strategize your screening order, and do be prepared to turn on your English-to-American translating part of your brain. =)
Keep on creepin on~
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
LOST: John Locke. Substitute.
6.04: "The Substitute"
A Locke episode! Well, a Locke / Lockesau episode, anyhow.
In LOST2, Locke is living with Helen (hooray!)! They're planning for their October wedding, just a month away. Impossibly, their guest list includes Locke's father. Can't be "Tom Sawyer"/The Man From Tallahassee, right? Cuz John IS in a wheelchair, after all. Locke still works at Hurley's box company. Jerkass chicken shack manager Randy Nations fires him for going walkabout on the company's dime.
Hey, Locke went on his walkabout, and his experience went down pretty much the same in this reality as in LOST1. To my mind, that means that Matthew Abaddon planted that seed in John's mind in here, too, just as he did in LOST1.
On his way out of BoxCo, Locke meets the big man himself, who sets him up with an appointment at his temp company. Gotta say, Hurley is really having a pretty good life here, and benevolent and generous with his fortune. Makes me wonder if he's got Something More going on. He could be a kind of secular Jacob all on his own, eh? Or an agent of one of the bigger players in the metagame, right? Lottery winner and wackily diverse investor/entrepreneur makes for access to lots of odd and interesting places and people...
Anyhow, when John shows up for his interview, he meets supervisor Rose, who talks him down out of his chip-on-the-shoulder choice of job opps.
This is the LOST2 equivalent of their knowing moment and secret sharing on the Island in LOST1. Thanks to a chance encounter before boarding LOST1's 815, Rose knows that John was in a wheelchair before the Island and Locke knows that she was taking meds for her cancer.
I wanted to get a better look at the painting on the wall. Anyone catch anything significant? And didn't that guy in the "Dream Job" motivational poster look just a little like Desmond? Has he got a successful LOST2 career as a stock photo model? Or maybe a spokesperson for Hugo's agency?
At home, Locke's lost luggage is returned, and John takes the opportunity to use the handy visual aid (case o' knives) to come clean with Helen about his being fired. Locke gives Helen an ultimatum of sorts, telling her that if she's waiting for him to get up out of his chair, if she's waiting for a miracle, there are no miracles, and she should leave.
And she rips up Jack's business card. I wonder if we'll see those torn-up pieces again...?
Until now, John's been the Locke that we met in LOST1, the angry, obsessed man who demands that people don't tell him what he can't do. In the wake of Rose's earnest take on living one's life and in the glow of his fiance's love and loyalty, it seems that he's actually ready to change, turning the corner. In the end, we discover the job that Rose set him up at: substitute teacher. Is THIS his LOST2 destiny? An equivalent to his rebirth (granted, there seemed to be multiple, but you know what I mean) on the Island?
Anyhow, seeing him in this school environment, I was really hoping to see Walt as one of his students. Alas, not to be. However, we're rewarded with a different toy surprise when John finds the teacher's lounge...
How does Ben end up here? He was shot by Sayid in 1977. Saved by the spring waters of the Temple. He survives the Incident. Does he leave the Island before taking over the Others after Widmore? Or after? Is he still a leader of the exiled Others, and this is a day job cover? Chosen and cultivated because it would eventually get him near John Locke?
In LOST1, Lockesau is on a recruitment drive, and it kicks off with an EVIL DEAD camera treatment of the Monster's POV! Totally goofy, but for me, very satisfying in a Sam Raimi-style way, heh. First, he tries to get Richard to come around to his way of thinking. The language and scenario plays a little like jilted Brokeback, no? Kinda funny. Richard doesn't go for it, so Lockesau moves on to Sawyer.
Sorry, even after dilly-dallying for days, I don't have enough to keep going on the Lockesau thread. I think I covered the big revelations and Qs in the previous "highlights" post, tho. I may think of dumping the play-by-plays for highlights in general. Altho, the way I ramble, who can really tell the diff, right? Namaste.
Keep on keepin on~
A Locke episode! Well, a Locke / Lockesau episode, anyhow.
In LOST2, Locke is living with Helen (hooray!)! They're planning for their October wedding, just a month away. Impossibly, their guest list includes Locke's father. Can't be "Tom Sawyer"/The Man From Tallahassee, right? Cuz John IS in a wheelchair, after all. Locke still works at Hurley's box company. Jerkass chicken shack manager Randy Nations fires him for going walkabout on the company's dime.
Hey, Locke went on his walkabout, and his experience went down pretty much the same in this reality as in LOST1. To my mind, that means that Matthew Abaddon planted that seed in John's mind in here, too, just as he did in LOST1.
On his way out of BoxCo, Locke meets the big man himself, who sets him up with an appointment at his temp company. Gotta say, Hurley is really having a pretty good life here, and benevolent and generous with his fortune. Makes me wonder if he's got Something More going on. He could be a kind of secular Jacob all on his own, eh? Or an agent of one of the bigger players in the metagame, right? Lottery winner and wackily diverse investor/entrepreneur makes for access to lots of odd and interesting places and people...
Anyhow, when John shows up for his interview, he meets supervisor Rose, who talks him down out of his chip-on-the-shoulder choice of job opps.
Loke: What do you know about realistic?
Rose: I have cancer, terminal cancer.
This is the LOST2 equivalent of their knowing moment and secret sharing on the Island in LOST1. Thanks to a chance encounter before boarding LOST1's 815, Rose knows that John was in a wheelchair before the Island and Locke knows that she was taking meds for her cancer.
I wanted to get a better look at the painting on the wall. Anyone catch anything significant? And didn't that guy in the "Dream Job" motivational poster look just a little like Desmond? Has he got a successful LOST2 career as a stock photo model? Or maybe a spokesperson for Hugo's agency?
At home, Locke's lost luggage is returned, and John takes the opportunity to use the handy visual aid (case o' knives) to come clean with Helen about his being fired. Locke gives Helen an ultimatum of sorts, telling her that if she's waiting for him to get up out of his chair, if she's waiting for a miracle, there are no miracles, and she should leave.
Helen: There are miracles, John, and the only thing I was ever waiting for was you.
And she rips up Jack's business card. I wonder if we'll see those torn-up pieces again...?
Until now, John's been the Locke that we met in LOST1, the angry, obsessed man who demands that people don't tell him what he can't do. In the wake of Rose's earnest take on living one's life and in the glow of his fiance's love and loyalty, it seems that he's actually ready to change, turning the corner. In the end, we discover the job that Rose set him up at: substitute teacher. Is THIS his LOST2 destiny? An equivalent to his rebirth (granted, there seemed to be multiple, but you know what I mean) on the Island?
Anyhow, seeing him in this school environment, I was really hoping to see Walt as one of his students. Alas, not to be. However, we're rewarded with a different toy surprise when John finds the teacher's lounge...
Ben: Benjamin Linus. European History.
Locke: John Locke. Substitute.
How does Ben end up here? He was shot by Sayid in 1977. Saved by the spring waters of the Temple. He survives the Incident. Does he leave the Island before taking over the Others after Widmore? Or after? Is he still a leader of the exiled Others, and this is a day job cover? Chosen and cultivated because it would eventually get him near John Locke?
In LOST1, Lockesau is on a recruitment drive, and it kicks off with an EVIL DEAD camera treatment of the Monster's POV! Totally goofy, but for me, very satisfying in a Sam Raimi-style way, heh. First, he tries to get Richard to come around to his way of thinking. The language and scenario plays a little like jilted Brokeback, no? Kinda funny. Richard doesn't go for it, so Lockesau moves on to Sawyer.
Sorry, even after dilly-dallying for days, I don't have enough to keep going on the Lockesau thread. I think I covered the big revelations and Qs in the previous "highlights" post, tho. I may think of dumping the play-by-plays for highlights in general. Altho, the way I ramble, who can really tell the diff, right? Namaste.
Keep on keepin on~
LOST: He's stuck this way.
6.04: "The Substitute"
A quickISH review of revelations from tonight's episode...
LOST2's LOCKE.
Paralyzed. Went on walkabout when he was supposed to be at a conference for his job at Hurley's box company. Still with Helen, planning their October wedding, and someone they refer to as his father is on the guest list.
Maybe Locke was adopted in this reality, instead of being bounced from foster home to foster home. I think the Man From Tallahassee stealing his kidney and pushing him out a high-rise window is still the reason he's in a wheelchair. In the aftermath of that fall, it would still require a jump start from Jacob to revive him, wouldn't it?
In LOST1, Locke was turned onto the idea of going walkabout by Matthew Abaddon. I want to believe that's how it happened in LOST2 as well.
Hurley plays Mr. Fix-it when Locke is fired from BoxCo and sends him to Rose at his temp agency. She talks him down from a chip-on-the-shoulder job in construction and into a gig as a substitute teacher, which Locke really seems to fit into nicely. I was hoping to see Walt among his students, but alas, not to be. However, it's in the teacher's lounge at this school that we meet...
LOST2's BEN.
Benjamin Linus, European History. How does he end up here? In 1977, little Ben is shot by Sayid and then saved by Richard and the spring waters of the Temple. When he recovers, he doesn't remember being shot, and Widmore explains that he's now one of them. Soon after, Juliet and Jughead trigger the Incident. Sometime after that, the Island sinks. Apparently Ben makes it off the Island in that time. Has he taken the mantle of Other leadership, after exiling Widmore? Maybe all the Others were forced into exile in the outside world, and Widmore's activities wouldn't be grounds for banishment. In either case, maybe Ben is still an Other, or an Other sleeper, placed here in anticipation of encountering John Locke.
Or was Ben still a child when he had to leave the Island, evacuated with Uncle Rico along with the survivors of the DI, and slipped back into the regular workaday world?
In any case, it looks as if Ben and Locke are destined to meet in both realities.
Overwhile, back on the Island...
LOST1's LOCKESAU.
Yeah, I'm gonna keep calling him Esau until we get a name that's better than "Man In Black." Let's see, what do we find out about him this episode...?
So, given item 1, until we see Esau somehow killed, if we see any reanimated dead, it's not the Monster. I'm not certain, but I'll bet that Christian stops appearing to people on the Island (he shows Sun and Lapidus the DI class of 77 photo) just before the Ajira survivors find Lockesau standing in his funeral suit in the ocean. Which would fit the theory that the Monster was also playing Christian.
This notion of him being stuck in a single form is a classic set-up for a vulnerability. At this point, tho, I'm not sure how it can be exploited, given that we've seen him change to and from the Monster at will now (in the beginning of this episode, spying on Sawyer and returning to Richard). Maybe he can be subdued or die as Locke if he's taken completely by surprise, or tricked into it, like, being served poison, or... bitten by one of those paralyzing spiders!
Esau was once a man. He makes it sound like he was turned into this Monster. Did Jacob do it to him? Is he a worst-case scenario of infection/being claimed?
Esau is surprised to see a boy, with a pretty crisp set of Other-like togs, appear in the jungle. The first time, he's with Richard, and Richard doesn't see the boy. The second time, he's with Sawyer, and he DOES see the boy. When Esau runs after him, he trips (ha!), and the boy comes back to tell him...
CANDIDATES.
The numbers! 4 8 15 16 23 42. Not really an explanation, but at least, a connection, a possible apparent source. We see Jacob's master list chalked onto the cave walls and ceilings. Names with numbers, and most of them crossed out. The ones I could make out...
* 2/17/2010. Broke down and went searching for cave wall screencaps and updated the list below... "Austen" is conspicuously absent. Anyone see a "Hume" or a "Gale?"
Esau explains that Jacob had a "thing" for numbers, as if they're not really important. I'm sure Hurley would beg to differ, but whatev, that's as much as we're getting for now. These are the names of candidates (both Esau and Jacob's Shadow bodyguards use this word), potential protectors of the Island, replacements fo Jacob. Esau tells Sawyer this is the answer to the question, "Why are you on this Island?" Because Jacob manipulated his and the other Losties' lives, came to them at crucial points in their lives and nudged them just so, ultimately resulting in their ending up on the Island. He goes on to explain to Sawyer that as a so-called candidate, he has three options.
Looks like Esau's got his first recruit, but I want to believe that Sawyer's playing along, and his gears are spinning hard now. That he's looking for angles to turn things around on Esau, con him. He knows right off he's not dealing with Locke, and that he's likely not dealing with a human being, but something in the form of a specific human being. And a good con man is gonna be a pretty brilliant student of human nature and motivation. We'll see how it plays out.
While visiting the cliffside cave (Jacob's summer home?), Esau crosses out Locke's name. Littleton's is crossed out, but Jarrah's is not. Can we assume that a crossout = death? In that case, Claire's dead. Sayid probably is, but Jacob's no longer around to update the list, right? Does Esau know or sense Sayid's current condition? I don't recognize numbers 222, 291, and 346, but Goodspeed could be Horace or Ethan, and Troup would be Gary Troup (anagram = purgatory), the writer of the novel BAD TWIN, the manuscript of which Sawyer was reading, but never finished, on the beach. Interesting that he was actually a candidate. Is it possible that Shephard could refer to Christian or Ray instead? I suspect we're seeing names from every group of visitors to the Island, including the Blackrock, the DI, Rousseau's ship, and 815. In any case, seems like Jacob's done a *lot* of reaching out and touching over the years, eh?
* 2/18/2010. Hey! Straume is crossed out on Jacob's cave wall, and Miles is still walking around. So, either a crossout does not necessarily equal deathness (but rather, disqualification for some reason), or... Jacob believed that Miles died, or... Miles IS actually dead... For now, given that Miles is still walking around in the Temple, and until/unless we see how Jacob would consider him dead, I'm gonna say that Jacob disqualified him.
Also! Forgot to mention how much fun it was to see Richard completely discombobulated as a totally freaked out Renfield type! =)
Will try to get a summary up before next week, too.
Keep on keepin on~
A quickISH review of revelations from tonight's episode...
LOST2's LOCKE.
Paralyzed. Went on walkabout when he was supposed to be at a conference for his job at Hurley's box company. Still with Helen, planning their October wedding, and someone they refer to as his father is on the guest list.
Maybe Locke was adopted in this reality, instead of being bounced from foster home to foster home. I think the Man From Tallahassee stealing his kidney and pushing him out a high-rise window is still the reason he's in a wheelchair. In the aftermath of that fall, it would still require a jump start from Jacob to revive him, wouldn't it?
In LOST1, Locke was turned onto the idea of going walkabout by Matthew Abaddon. I want to believe that's how it happened in LOST2 as well.
Hurley plays Mr. Fix-it when Locke is fired from BoxCo and sends him to Rose at his temp agency. She talks him down from a chip-on-the-shoulder job in construction and into a gig as a substitute teacher, which Locke really seems to fit into nicely. I was hoping to see Walt among his students, but alas, not to be. However, it's in the teacher's lounge at this school that we meet...
LOST2's BEN.
Benjamin Linus, European History. How does he end up here? In 1977, little Ben is shot by Sayid and then saved by Richard and the spring waters of the Temple. When he recovers, he doesn't remember being shot, and Widmore explains that he's now one of them. Soon after, Juliet and Jughead trigger the Incident. Sometime after that, the Island sinks. Apparently Ben makes it off the Island in that time. Has he taken the mantle of Other leadership, after exiling Widmore? Maybe all the Others were forced into exile in the outside world, and Widmore's activities wouldn't be grounds for banishment. In either case, maybe Ben is still an Other, or an Other sleeper, placed here in anticipation of encountering John Locke.
Or was Ben still a child when he had to leave the Island, evacuated with Uncle Rico along with the survivors of the DI, and slipped back into the regular workaday world?
In any case, it looks as if Ben and Locke are destined to meet in both realities.
Overwhile, back on the Island...
LOST1's LOCKESAU.
Yeah, I'm gonna keep calling him Esau until we get a name that's better than "Man In Black." Let's see, what do we find out about him this episode...?
- Alanna tells Ben that Esau's "stuck" in this human form. John Locke's that is.
- Esau tells Sawyer that he's trapped in his current existence (as Monster on this Island), and that he was once a man.
- When he's the Monster, Esau's POV is very similar to that of Sam Raimi's EVIL DEAD. Goofy, but satisfying. =)
- He and Sawyer can see a little boy that Richard cannot.
So, given item 1, until we see Esau somehow killed, if we see any reanimated dead, it's not the Monster. I'm not certain, but I'll bet that Christian stops appearing to people on the Island (he shows Sun and Lapidus the DI class of 77 photo) just before the Ajira survivors find Lockesau standing in his funeral suit in the ocean. Which would fit the theory that the Monster was also playing Christian.
This notion of him being stuck in a single form is a classic set-up for a vulnerability. At this point, tho, I'm not sure how it can be exploited, given that we've seen him change to and from the Monster at will now (in the beginning of this episode, spying on Sawyer and returning to Richard). Maybe he can be subdued or die as Locke if he's taken completely by surprise, or tricked into it, like, being served poison, or... bitten by one of those paralyzing spiders!
Esau was once a man. He makes it sound like he was turned into this Monster. Did Jacob do it to him? Is he a worst-case scenario of infection/being claimed?
Esau is surprised to see a boy, with a pretty crisp set of Other-like togs, appear in the jungle. The first time, he's with Richard, and Richard doesn't see the boy. The second time, he's with Sawyer, and he DOES see the boy. When Esau runs after him, he trips (ha!), and the boy comes back to tell him...
Boy: You know the rules. You can't kill him.I like that Esau uses Locke's own words in a situation that, at least on the surface, would be very familiar to Locke. The first time the boy appeared, I thought, "Aaron!" But when we get a good look at him, definitely not. The boy actually strikes me as a young Jacob. Not sure how that would work, tho. Also, who do we think the boy is talking about when he says "him?" Jacob's already passed. He's visited Hurley from the other side. Is he talking about Sawyer? Perhaps, Richard? I say that the reason Sawyer can see him but not Richard is cuz Sawyer's a candidate.
Lockesau: Don't tell me what I can't do.
CANDIDATES.
The numbers! 4 8 15 16 23 42. Not really an explanation, but at least, a connection, a possible apparent source. We see Jacob's master list chalked onto the cave walls and ceilings. Names with numbers, and most of them crossed out. The ones I could make out...
* 2/17/2010. Broke down and went searching for cave wall screencaps and updated the list below... "Austen" is conspicuously absent. Anyone see a "Hume" or a "Gale?"
- 4 - Locke
- 8 - Reyes
10 - Mattingley- 15 - Ford
- 16 - Jarrah
20 - Rousseau (?)- 23 - Shephard
- 42- Kwon
125(?) - Pace131(?) - Littleton171(?) - Straume222 - O'Toole291 - Dominguez (?)346 (?) - Grant?? - Troup?? - Goodspeed
Esau explains that Jacob had a "thing" for numbers, as if they're not really important. I'm sure Hurley would beg to differ, but whatev, that's as much as we're getting for now. These are the names of candidates (both Esau and Jacob's Shadow bodyguards use this word), potential protectors of the Island, replacements fo Jacob. Esau tells Sawyer this is the answer to the question, "Why are you on this Island?" Because Jacob manipulated his and the other Losties' lives, came to them at crucial points in their lives and nudged them just so, ultimately resulting in their ending up on the Island. He goes on to explain to Sawyer that as a so-called candidate, he has three options.
- Sit back and end up like the other crossed out candidates.
- Take the position of Island protector (even tho the job is ridiculous, "It's an island!")
Esau: Become the new Jacob. Protect the Island.
Sawyer: From what?
Esau: Nothing, James. There's nothing to protect it from. - We just go, get the hell off this island
Esau: What do you say, James? Are you ready to go home?
Sawyer: Hell, yes.
Looks like Esau's got his first recruit, but I want to believe that Sawyer's playing along, and his gears are spinning hard now. That he's looking for angles to turn things around on Esau, con him. He knows right off he's not dealing with Locke, and that he's likely not dealing with a human being, but something in the form of a specific human being. And a good con man is gonna be a pretty brilliant student of human nature and motivation. We'll see how it plays out.
While visiting the cliffside cave (Jacob's summer home?), Esau crosses out Locke's name. Littleton's is crossed out, but Jarrah's is not. Can we assume that a crossout = death? In that case, Claire's dead. Sayid probably is, but Jacob's no longer around to update the list, right? Does Esau know or sense Sayid's current condition? I don't recognize numbers 222, 291, and 346, but Goodspeed could be Horace or Ethan, and Troup would be Gary Troup (anagram = purgatory), the writer of the novel BAD TWIN, the manuscript of which Sawyer was reading, but never finished, on the beach. Interesting that he was actually a candidate. Is it possible that Shephard could refer to Christian or Ray instead? I suspect we're seeing names from every group of visitors to the Island, including the Blackrock, the DI, Rousseau's ship, and 815. In any case, seems like Jacob's done a *lot* of reaching out and touching over the years, eh?
* 2/18/2010. Hey! Straume is crossed out on Jacob's cave wall, and Miles is still walking around. So, either a crossout does not necessarily equal deathness (but rather, disqualification for some reason), or... Jacob believed that Miles died, or... Miles IS actually dead... For now, given that Miles is still walking around in the Temple, and until/unless we see how Jacob would consider him dead, I'm gonna say that Jacob disqualified him.
Also! Forgot to mention how much fun it was to see Richard completely discombobulated as a totally freaked out Renfield type! =)
Will try to get a summary up before next week, too.
Keep on keepin on~
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
LOST: the Temple spring
Had a thought. The spring is for "baptizing" Others. It's got healing powers (Dogen fully hoped that his cut would close when he tested the waters), but not resurrection capability. Richard and Ben both attest to the unheard-of-ness of Locke's apparent revival (and we know that that was bogus now). When Richard explains to Kate and Sawyer about how little Ben will be changed, different, once he's saved, I originally thought he was referring to Ben's going Bad somehow. That the process by which he would be saved would, like, blacken his soul, y'know? Back then, I imagined the Monster basically implanting a piece of itself in the boy. But he could have simply meant that once saved, little Ben will be one of them, and different from non-Others, and his earlier self.
Maybe there's an Other-catechism class phase for newbies, and when they're graduated and properly Other-indoctrinated, they take first Other-communion and are Othertized in the spring. Please forgive me if I've got my Catholic metaphors wrong, but you get my meaning, right? Which means that Ben and Sayid's dips in the spring are special cases.
Y'know, I still don't understand the behavior of those two Other thugs who killed Paul and were menacing Annie back in 1974 when Sawyer and company arrive. Were Paul and Annie in violation of the truce by picnicking where they did? And how do the "good guys" have license to terrorize anyone without some due process?
Also, does anyone else imagine Quake soldiers and baddies running around that Temple set?
Keep on keepin on~
Maybe there's an Other-catechism class phase for newbies, and when they're graduated and properly Other-indoctrinated, they take first Other-communion and are Othertized in the spring. Please forgive me if I've got my Catholic metaphors wrong, but you get my meaning, right? Which means that Ben and Sayid's dips in the spring are special cases.
Y'know, I still don't understand the behavior of those two Other thugs who killed Paul and were menacing Annie back in 1974 when Sawyer and company arrive. Were Paul and Annie in violation of the truce by picnicking where they did? And how do the "good guys" have license to terrorize anyone without some due process?
Also, does anyone else imagine Quake soldiers and baddies running around that Temple set?
Keep on keepin on~
LOST: claimed
Just a mess of thoughts on this notion of being claimed...
WHAT DOES "CLAIMED" MEAN?
I'm looking to existing models of supernatural infection for some possibilities. We've got Zombies, Vampires, MATRIX Agents, Aliens, and maybe Eclipsos. I think Zombies and Agents are out. I like Vampires for the classic (Bram Stoker?) three-bite program. Before the third bite, someone claimed by a vampire can retain his identity, but be susceptible to his master's call or used as an extension of the master's senses or will. I like part of the Alien model, too. When someone has been impregnated by a facehugger, that person still has his will and identity until the chestburster is fully incubated and during that time, is considered by other Aliens to be off-limits. This can turn the properly motivated Alien victim into the perfect temporary soldier to fight other Aliens. The incubating Alien also boosts its host's strength and health to better the odds of its maturation. I might've picked that up from an ALIEN comic book series and not the movies. Or maybe that's the Brood? Anyhow, I'd dig seeing that as an infection side effect, too. From Eclipso, I like the idea that the infected ultimately becomes a dark version of himself, not necessarily a servant of anyone else. Well, y'know, depending on who's writing.
The pacing of the show leads you to think that the claim is being made by the Monster/Esau. However, I'm liking the idea that the infection does not lead to subservience to him specifically, but to a more general force of chaos or evil, which, given Island politics, would naturally be aligned more often than not with Esau's goals.
HOW IS ONE CLAIMED?
I don't think we have enough info to guess how it happens, but of course, I have a couple of ideas...
Maybe a person contracts infection, or the spore or seed of infection, while he's alive, but the infection can only spread once he dies or approaches near death. The host dies, the seed begins to grow and the first thing it does is reboots its host's system, reviving him. It preserves its host as best as it can while it spreading thru its body, heart, and mind.
Maybe it seeks out any dead or near-dead body, and if it's in decent enough condition, it takes root, reboots, and grows.
I've got no clue how a person becomes a host. Maybe "spores" are everywhere, and everyone is exposed to them, but some indivduals are more susceptible. Maybe its spiritual weakness, maybe its physical/immunological, due to emotional trauma or an actual wound or injury.
Remember, the Others have a ritual for their dead—fire and water. We see it once, I think it's in the aftermath of the Others' assault on the Elizabeth (Sun shoots Trixie), and we know that in 1974, Richard demands to know where the bodies of his murdered people are. I believed this was about keeping "the Island" from turning them into its puppets. Now I get that it was more specifically the Monster/Esau that they were concerned about. However, it may have been as a measure to protect against infection/being claimed as well.
WHO'S BEEN CLAIMED?
Two definitely, Sayid and Claire. And to my thinking, at least one maybe, Ben. Let's run thru how they were injured, identify some karmic highs and lows in their lives, remember if any exotic measures were taken to save their lives, and difference in behavior before and after their death/near-death and revival.
Sayid. Shot in 1974 by Uncle Rico. Jack claims that it's his fault that Sayid was wounded. He died in the Temple, drowned by the Others in the unclear waters of the spring. In life, before infection, he was a torturer, assassin, and sometime protector. He shot young Ben in the chest. He loved his wife, the love of his life, Nadia, who was killed, apparently by an agent of Widmore.
Claire. Caught in the blast of a mercenary's RPG while in a bungalow in New Otherton in 2004. Sawyer finds her unconscious in the debris. That night (I think), she wanders away from her friends in the company of her father. The next time we see her is in 2007 and she's apparently taken up Island residence as the new noble savage, following in Rousseau's feral footsteps, setting traps in the jungle and taking shots at the Others. In life, before infection, she was ready to give her baby up for adoption, but changed her mind on the Island, and seemed to be ready to begin a relationship with Charlie, who died while trying to save them all. She felt responsible for putting her mother in a coma as a result of a car accident in which she was driving.
Ben? I'd like for Ben to have been infected, for big Ben to be a dark version of little Ben, y'know? But besides that interpretation/observation itself, I don't have the info to back that up, y'know?
Anyhow... shot in 1974 by Sayid. Earlier in his life, he was visited by the ghost of his mother on the Island. He'd always felt a terrible loss at the mother he never knew. She convinced him that his future lay with the Hostiles, and Richard believed it, too. When he's brought to Richard to be saved, he takes him to the Temple, where I assume he underwent the same process that Sayid did, only in clear spring waters. He was immersed and then healed. Healed, NOT resurrected, cuz, if we can take Richard at his word, he told Lockesau that he'd seen a lot of amazing things on the Island, but he'd never seen someone return from the dead. Liar Ben himself says something similar to Sun, "Dead is dead."
When Widmore confronts Richard about why he saved Ben, Richard claims that Jacob wished it and that the Island chooses who the Island chooses. Bullstuff? Or a legit interpretation of Ben's visions of his deceased mother. Visions engineered by Esau? Her body would have to be on the Island for that to have been the Monster, so, another Monster ability? Or an actual Island or Jacob intervention?
Was Ben infected? When and how? Is infection actually the key to resurrection on the Island? Perhaps Ben was infected, but the Others didn't recognize infection for what it was at that time? When Jack asks Dogen how he knows what will happen to Sayid, he only mentions that it happend to Claire. That makes sense because he's speaking to Jack so it's y'know, emotionally relevant, but, it could also be because she's the only other case that they've observed.
Keep on keepin on~
WHAT DOES "CLAIMED" MEAN?
I'm looking to existing models of supernatural infection for some possibilities. We've got Zombies, Vampires, MATRIX Agents, Aliens, and maybe Eclipsos. I think Zombies and Agents are out. I like Vampires for the classic (Bram Stoker?) three-bite program. Before the third bite, someone claimed by a vampire can retain his identity, but be susceptible to his master's call or used as an extension of the master's senses or will. I like part of the Alien model, too. When someone has been impregnated by a facehugger, that person still has his will and identity until the chestburster is fully incubated and during that time, is considered by other Aliens to be off-limits. This can turn the properly motivated Alien victim into the perfect temporary soldier to fight other Aliens. The incubating Alien also boosts its host's strength and health to better the odds of its maturation. I might've picked that up from an ALIEN comic book series and not the movies. Or maybe that's the Brood? Anyhow, I'd dig seeing that as an infection side effect, too. From Eclipso, I like the idea that the infected ultimately becomes a dark version of himself, not necessarily a servant of anyone else. Well, y'know, depending on who's writing.
The pacing of the show leads you to think that the claim is being made by the Monster/Esau. However, I'm liking the idea that the infection does not lead to subservience to him specifically, but to a more general force of chaos or evil, which, given Island politics, would naturally be aligned more often than not with Esau's goals.
HOW IS ONE CLAIMED?
I don't think we have enough info to guess how it happens, but of course, I have a couple of ideas...
Maybe a person contracts infection, or the spore or seed of infection, while he's alive, but the infection can only spread once he dies or approaches near death. The host dies, the seed begins to grow and the first thing it does is reboots its host's system, reviving him. It preserves its host as best as it can while it spreading thru its body, heart, and mind.
Maybe it seeks out any dead or near-dead body, and if it's in decent enough condition, it takes root, reboots, and grows.
I've got no clue how a person becomes a host. Maybe "spores" are everywhere, and everyone is exposed to them, but some indivduals are more susceptible. Maybe its spiritual weakness, maybe its physical/immunological, due to emotional trauma or an actual wound or injury.
Remember, the Others have a ritual for their dead—fire and water. We see it once, I think it's in the aftermath of the Others' assault on the Elizabeth (Sun shoots Trixie), and we know that in 1974, Richard demands to know where the bodies of his murdered people are. I believed this was about keeping "the Island" from turning them into its puppets. Now I get that it was more specifically the Monster/Esau that they were concerned about. However, it may have been as a measure to protect against infection/being claimed as well.
WHO'S BEEN CLAIMED?
Two definitely, Sayid and Claire. And to my thinking, at least one maybe, Ben. Let's run thru how they were injured, identify some karmic highs and lows in their lives, remember if any exotic measures were taken to save their lives, and difference in behavior before and after their death/near-death and revival.
Sayid. Shot in 1974 by Uncle Rico. Jack claims that it's his fault that Sayid was wounded. He died in the Temple, drowned by the Others in the unclear waters of the spring. In life, before infection, he was a torturer, assassin, and sometime protector. He shot young Ben in the chest. He loved his wife, the love of his life, Nadia, who was killed, apparently by an agent of Widmore.
Claire. Caught in the blast of a mercenary's RPG while in a bungalow in New Otherton in 2004. Sawyer finds her unconscious in the debris. That night (I think), she wanders away from her friends in the company of her father. The next time we see her is in 2007 and she's apparently taken up Island residence as the new noble savage, following in Rousseau's feral footsteps, setting traps in the jungle and taking shots at the Others. In life, before infection, she was ready to give her baby up for adoption, but changed her mind on the Island, and seemed to be ready to begin a relationship with Charlie, who died while trying to save them all. She felt responsible for putting her mother in a coma as a result of a car accident in which she was driving.
Ben? I'd like for Ben to have been infected, for big Ben to be a dark version of little Ben, y'know? But besides that interpretation/observation itself, I don't have the info to back that up, y'know?
Anyhow... shot in 1974 by Sayid. Earlier in his life, he was visited by the ghost of his mother on the Island. He'd always felt a terrible loss at the mother he never knew. She convinced him that his future lay with the Hostiles, and Richard believed it, too. When he's brought to Richard to be saved, he takes him to the Temple, where I assume he underwent the same process that Sayid did, only in clear spring waters. He was immersed and then healed. Healed, NOT resurrected, cuz, if we can take Richard at his word, he told Lockesau that he'd seen a lot of amazing things on the Island, but he'd never seen someone return from the dead. Liar Ben himself says something similar to Sun, "Dead is dead."
When Widmore confronts Richard about why he saved Ben, Richard claims that Jacob wished it and that the Island chooses who the Island chooses. Bullstuff? Or a legit interpretation of Ben's visions of his deceased mother. Visions engineered by Esau? Her body would have to be on the Island for that to have been the Monster, so, another Monster ability? Or an actual Island or Jacob intervention?
Was Ben infected? When and how? Is infection actually the key to resurrection on the Island? Perhaps Ben was infected, but the Others didn't recognize infection for what it was at that time? When Jack asks Dogen how he knows what will happen to Sayid, he only mentions that it happend to Claire. That makes sense because he's speaking to Jack so it's y'know, emotionally relevant, but, it could also be because she's the only other case that they've observed.
Keep on keepin on~
Sunday, February 14, 2010
black sunday: I less-than-three you
I decided to go the virtual environmentally conscientious (and uncreative and slackerly) route in my Chinese New Year's President Valentine's Day commemorating and am recycling the Lupercalian Cootie Catcher. There *are* new words and tunes, altho with the catcher being what it is, you may have to click a while before seeing any of the 2010 material.
A merry Black Sunday to all!~
Keep on keepin on~
A merry Black Sunday to all!~
Keep on keepin on~
Friday, February 12, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
LOST: No. I am not a zombie.
6.03: "What Kate Does"
In 2004 in LOST2 we see Kate's getaway from the airport. She jacks Claire's cab, forces the driver to run over Arzt's baggage, and when the driver makes a break for it, Kate takes over, kicks Claire out of the cab, and drives off. Claire IS pregnant, altho Kate doesn't realize it when she boots her.
In 2007 in LOST1 we see Sayid diagnosed with an infection, or, as the Others describe it, CLAIMED. Also, Sawyer busts out of the Temple for parts unknown, providing an excuse for Kate and Jin to go after him, each with their own agenda.
We get a pretty fun alternate universe convergence when following Kate and Claire from the airport. Here in LOST2, Kate ends up being with Claire when she experiences early contractions and ends up driving her to the hospital to be cared for by Dr. Ethan Goodspeed. In LOST1, Ethan Goodspeed is the Other agent charged with Claire's abduction and prenatal care, and Kate is the one who helps Claire deliver her baby on the Island. I'm not certain, but I suspect Kate is with Claire for the naming of the child in both realities as well, eh?
Anyhow, when Kate ends up realizing that she abandoned a pregnant woman (after getting that dark-magic-dealing warlock from BUFFY to bust her cuffs), she goes back to find her and offer a ride. Claire's desperation and need meet Kate's attitude and Kate ends up accompanying Claire on her visit to the couple who's adopting her child. When Mrs. Bascombe comes to the door, she breaks down at the sight of Claire, telling her that her husband left her and she can't go through with it. The news apparently shocks Claire into early labor pains and Kate rushes her to the hospital where they meet Doc Ethan.
So, what was supposed to happen with Claire's child here in LOST2? In LOST1, Australian fortune teller tells Claire he's arranged for an adoption by a good couple in LA, and explains that she MUST leave on Oceanic 815 to meet them right away, knowing that she'll never make it. Once on the Island, Claire understands his plan and realizes that there never was a couple waiting for her in LA. In LOST2, right up until Mrs. Bascombe answers the door, I got to thinking that it was the same scenario, only... there's no Island to pull the plane out of the sky? But, when Mrs. B shows up with her story (and assuming she's not an actress, hired by the fortune teller), we see that there really WAS a couple waiting for her baby. So, maybe the fortune teller saw the same danger in Claire's child, but came up with a slightly less supernaturally tinted solution. He sets her up with a couple that he knows will break up, sends her to LA to meet them just after they implode, basically leaving her stranded in the City of Angels with her soon-to-be-hatched child, a scenario in which she will decide to keep him.
When the cab is about to leave the airport, Kate catches a glimpse of Jack (in the mirror? out the window?). He's standing w his luggage by the curb, talking on his cell. For some reason, Kate does a double take at this. I can't decide why. LOST1 deja vu? Or was I so tired that I missed some visual cue?
This may be the closest that half brother and sister have been in LOST2, with Kate's contact their one degree of separation. Would Claire's mother show up at Christian's funeral in 2004? Would Claire herself know enough to show up? In LOST1, while she meets her biological father, she seems determined to never learn his actual name (Christian Shephard, not too on-the-nose w that, eh?).
Overwhile, in 2007 in LOST 1...
Poor Mac. Coldcocked twice by the same Krazy Kate. And this time there wasn't even a wookiee prisoner set-up! I think it's great that Jin's game for striking out on his own in search of Sun. I think it's LOSTly aggravating that the Others don't just tell Jin as much as they can, in spite of Justin's basic openness.
Whenever any group strikes out across the Island in LOST, do they always have to include a Laurel and Hardy/Abbot and Costello/Artoo and Threepio couple? We've seen it with Hurley and Locke (or anyone, almost), Miles and Faraday, and now, Mac (okay, Aldo) and Justin. It's not a bad thing, but that's the first time it felt kind of... I dunno... lazy.
I got really excited when Kate tracked Sawyer down at New Otherton and caught him prying open floorboards. I was thinking to myself, he's DOING IT! He's playing the LONG CON! He buried some important/useful $hit back in the 70s just in case he, or someone else, might need it in 2004 or 2007!
But no. It was only his D&D dice. O well.
Well, it was only his D&D dice this time. Who knows what else he might have stashed way back when.
I loved the Sawyer's Creek moments at the sub dock. For having the chance to insert "Dawson," "Joey," and "Pacey" into the dialogue in my head, but also for getting to see more of Sawyer's earnest range (has Holloway gotten any movie roles?) and hear his harsh-but-true take on almost tricking Juliet into staying with him cuz he didn't want to be alone. Sad, that. Krazy Kate, tho. Man. What part of "Don't come after me" don't you understand? Again? When they split up after Kate takes out Mac and Justin, Jin asks her, "Who do you care about, Kate?"
Actually, that could be parsed as question AND answer. Who do you care about? Kate. Still, the stories would have us believe that she cares about Aaron and Claire, so, I guess we'll allow for that.
Her crying at the end of the Sawyer's Creek bit was just so annoying and indulgent. Boo-frickin-hoo. LOVED Sawyer's walk across New Otherton to his cabin while Kate's refilling her canteen. He doesn't give her anything.
Maybe he's in there to pry more floorboards?
Back at the Temple, Dogen "tests" Sayid by electrocution and glowing poker. I think this proves that he's not an Esau double, but doesn't necessarily tell them anything else. I don't see how that session could tell the Others that he's been infected, unless the fact of his resurrection itself is enough. That, if the spring alone saved him, he should have revived much earlier, and a later revival is indication of Something Else.
Miles and Hurley quiz Sayid on his near-death experience, but get nothing exciting out of Sayid. Then Hurley asks the perfect BUFFY-Anya type question, and Sayid gives the even perfecter answer...
Interesting, tho, that as he's dying, Sayid laments his life as torturer and killer, fearing what's in store for him in his afterlife, and, within minutes of his apparent return, he is subjected to the Others' torture "test."
Dogen explains to Jack that he keeps an interpreter to create distance between himself and the people he leads...
An interesting business school lesson for Jack, perhaps.
Dogen gives Jack a pill of what he calls medicine. He tells Jack that Sayid must take it willingly in order to successfully fight the infection. Of course, he's gotta be cryptic about the whys and wherefores. Partly cuz it's LOST and partly cuz on some level it's about trust and faith on this wacko Island. He does play this as something Jack can do to redeem himself, to make up for lives damaged and lost because of his decisions. Kind of thin on logic, but a perfect tack to take w Jack.
When Jack explains the sitch to Sayid, Sayid says that he will take the pill if Jack tells him to. Almost as if he's in on this trust game with Dogen. Jack goes back to Dogen w the pill and does this really excellent thing—he swallows the pill himself. Dogen immediately Heimlich-fus him and gets Jack to expectorate the pill. Dogen tells him then that it's poison.
I get the feeling that Dogen and Saul are impressed by Jack's gambit. However, does it wreck whatever chances or options they have to save Sayid? Even tho their conversation assumes that Sayid would die if he'd taken the pill, is that actually what would have happened? Saul explained to the Losties that if Sayid died, they'd all be screwed, so it's in everyone's interests for him to survive. If Jack had done as Dogen requested, persuaded Sayid to take the pill, would he have been purged of the infection, maybe killed, but then revived again, unclaimed? Does Jack's now knowing that it's poison rob it of its power to cure Sayid, even if he takes it at Jack's request?
Ha! I knew she'd gone bad, or at least, dark. I say she died in New Otherton when the mercs attacked. Sawyer found a changed or tainted Claire, who stuck w them for a little while, until she wandered off into the night with her dad. But... There wasn't time for her to be taken to the Temple and then returned. She couldn't have drowned in the spring the way Sayid had. Unless Dogen is referring to something that happened to Claire after the Oceanic Six left...
Which would be OK, I guess, except that I'd be wrong then, bleah. So, I'm gonna stick w my story and suggest that Sayid and Claire were claimed by Esau, and it doesn't matter how or where they're revived, just that they're revived. Maybe the infection is what revives them anyway. Which would mean that the spring didn't really work at all (discolored and all).
I'd really like for Miles to speak up about how Sayid read as a corpse, or reads now as a walking corpse. Does he get a vibe from him that he got from Claire?
Claimed. What does that mean? I think it means that a person becomes tainted by Esau's influence, darker, perhaps insane. Little Ben must have gone thru almost the same process that Sayid did. Was he infected then, in 1977? Is Christian infected as well? Or is he just another one of Esau's skins? We don't ever see Lockesau and Christian in the same place at the same time, right? And it would make a kind of sense for infected Claire to be so comfortable hanging out with Esau-Christian.
Dammit. I really thought Christian might've belonged to the Island itself. Bleah. Rowan thinks that anytime we see a dead guy walking around, it's Esau. A great Occam's razor explanation, but I really thought that I'd seen too many different ways that people had been resurrected, but really... maybe not.
Meanwhile, back in the jungle, Mac and Justin overtake Jin, and Mac, still in a snit about being knocked out by the same Krazy Kate twice, wants to take it out on him with some jungle justice. Justin's not on board...
And then *Bang Bang Bang!* Mac and Justin are down! Beartrapped Jin has been saved... by a little blonde boy! It's Claire! Claire's the new Rousseau! This is what happens to women on the Island whose children are taken? Does this also mean that Rousseau was once claimed, too?
Crazy.
There's a funny little thing between Dogen and Jack, maybe a lesson for Jack, maybe for us...? When Jack walks into Dogen's study or whatever, he's spinning a baseball. Jack asks him what it is. Dogen tells him, "It's a baseball." When Dogen serves him tea after the Heimlich-fu, Jack asks him what it is. Dogen tells him, "Tea."
I forget if I mentioned this before, but hey, that magic ash keeps the Monster at bay, but you know what else does? A sonic fence, right? Just sayin.
Keep on keepin on~
In 2004 in LOST2 we see Kate's getaway from the airport. She jacks Claire's cab, forces the driver to run over Arzt's baggage, and when the driver makes a break for it, Kate takes over, kicks Claire out of the cab, and drives off. Claire IS pregnant, altho Kate doesn't realize it when she boots her.
In 2007 in LOST1 we see Sayid diagnosed with an infection, or, as the Others describe it, CLAIMED. Also, Sawyer busts out of the Temple for parts unknown, providing an excuse for Kate and Jin to go after him, each with their own agenda.
We get a pretty fun alternate universe convergence when following Kate and Claire from the airport. Here in LOST2, Kate ends up being with Claire when she experiences early contractions and ends up driving her to the hospital to be cared for by Dr. Ethan Goodspeed. In LOST1, Ethan Goodspeed is the Other agent charged with Claire's abduction and prenatal care, and Kate is the one who helps Claire deliver her baby on the Island. I'm not certain, but I suspect Kate is with Claire for the naming of the child in both realities as well, eh?
Anyhow, when Kate ends up realizing that she abandoned a pregnant woman (after getting that dark-magic-dealing warlock from BUFFY to bust her cuffs), she goes back to find her and offer a ride. Claire's desperation and need meet Kate's attitude and Kate ends up accompanying Claire on her visit to the couple who's adopting her child. When Mrs. Bascombe comes to the door, she breaks down at the sight of Claire, telling her that her husband left her and she can't go through with it. The news apparently shocks Claire into early labor pains and Kate rushes her to the hospital where they meet Doc Ethan.
So, what was supposed to happen with Claire's child here in LOST2? In LOST1, Australian fortune teller tells Claire he's arranged for an adoption by a good couple in LA, and explains that she MUST leave on Oceanic 815 to meet them right away, knowing that she'll never make it. Once on the Island, Claire understands his plan and realizes that there never was a couple waiting for her in LA. In LOST2, right up until Mrs. Bascombe answers the door, I got to thinking that it was the same scenario, only... there's no Island to pull the plane out of the sky? But, when Mrs. B shows up with her story (and assuming she's not an actress, hired by the fortune teller), we see that there really WAS a couple waiting for her baby. So, maybe the fortune teller saw the same danger in Claire's child, but came up with a slightly less supernaturally tinted solution. He sets her up with a couple that he knows will break up, sends her to LA to meet them just after they implode, basically leaving her stranded in the City of Angels with her soon-to-be-hatched child, a scenario in which she will decide to keep him.
When the cab is about to leave the airport, Kate catches a glimpse of Jack (in the mirror? out the window?). He's standing w his luggage by the curb, talking on his cell. For some reason, Kate does a double take at this. I can't decide why. LOST1 deja vu? Or was I so tired that I missed some visual cue?
This may be the closest that half brother and sister have been in LOST2, with Kate's contact their one degree of separation. Would Claire's mother show up at Christian's funeral in 2004? Would Claire herself know enough to show up? In LOST1, while she meets her biological father, she seems determined to never learn his actual name (Christian Shephard, not too on-the-nose w that, eh?).
Overwhile, in 2007 in LOST 1...
Poor Mac. Coldcocked twice by the same Krazy Kate. And this time there wasn't even a wookiee prisoner set-up! I think it's great that Jin's game for striking out on his own in search of Sun. I think it's LOSTly aggravating that the Others don't just tell Jin as much as they can, in spite of Justin's basic openness.
Whenever any group strikes out across the Island in LOST, do they always have to include a Laurel and Hardy/Abbot and Costello/Artoo and Threepio couple? We've seen it with Hurley and Locke (or anyone, almost), Miles and Faraday, and now, Mac (okay, Aldo) and Justin. It's not a bad thing, but that's the first time it felt kind of... I dunno... lazy.
I got really excited when Kate tracked Sawyer down at New Otherton and caught him prying open floorboards. I was thinking to myself, he's DOING IT! He's playing the LONG CON! He buried some important/useful $hit back in the 70s just in case he, or someone else, might need it in 2004 or 2007!
But no. It was only his D&D dice. O well.
Well, it was only his D&D dice this time. Who knows what else he might have stashed way back when.
I loved the Sawyer's Creek moments at the sub dock. For having the chance to insert "Dawson," "Joey," and "Pacey" into the dialogue in my head, but also for getting to see more of Sawyer's earnest range (has Holloway gotten any movie roles?) and hear his harsh-but-true take on almost tricking Juliet into staying with him cuz he didn't want to be alone. Sad, that. Krazy Kate, tho. Man. What part of "Don't come after me" don't you understand? Again? When they split up after Kate takes out Mac and Justin, Jin asks her, "Who do you care about, Kate?"
Actually, that could be parsed as question AND answer. Who do you care about? Kate. Still, the stories would have us believe that she cares about Aaron and Claire, so, I guess we'll allow for that.
Her crying at the end of the Sawyer's Creek bit was just so annoying and indulgent. Boo-frickin-hoo. LOVED Sawyer's walk across New Otherton to his cabin while Kate's refilling her canteen. He doesn't give her anything.
Maybe he's in there to pry more floorboards?
Back at the Temple, Dogen "tests" Sayid by electrocution and glowing poker. I think this proves that he's not an Esau double, but doesn't necessarily tell them anything else. I don't see how that session could tell the Others that he's been infected, unless the fact of his resurrection itself is enough. That, if the spring alone saved him, he should have revived much earlier, and a later revival is indication of Something Else.
Miles and Hurley quiz Sayid on his near-death experience, but get nothing exciting out of Sayid. Then Hurley asks the perfect BUFFY-Anya type question, and Sayid gives the even perfecter answer...
Hurley: You're not a zombie, right?
Sayid: No. I am not a zombie.
Interesting, tho, that as he's dying, Sayid laments his life as torturer and killer, fearing what's in store for him in his afterlife, and, within minutes of his apparent return, he is subjected to the Others' torture "test."
Dogen explains to Jack that he keeps an interpreter to create distance between himself and the people he leads...
Dogen: Because I have to remain separate from the people that I'm in charge of. It makes it easier when they don't like the decisions I make for
them.
An interesting business school lesson for Jack, perhaps.
Dogen gives Jack a pill of what he calls medicine. He tells Jack that Sayid must take it willingly in order to successfully fight the infection. Of course, he's gotta be cryptic about the whys and wherefores. Partly cuz it's LOST and partly cuz on some level it's about trust and faith on this wacko Island. He does play this as something Jack can do to redeem himself, to make up for lives damaged and lost because of his decisions. Kind of thin on logic, but a perfect tack to take w Jack.
When Jack explains the sitch to Sayid, Sayid says that he will take the pill if Jack tells him to. Almost as if he's in on this trust game with Dogen. Jack goes back to Dogen w the pill and does this really excellent thing—he swallows the pill himself. Dogen immediately Heimlich-fus him and gets Jack to expectorate the pill. Dogen tells him then that it's poison.
I get the feeling that Dogen and Saul are impressed by Jack's gambit. However, does it wreck whatever chances or options they have to save Sayid? Even tho their conversation assumes that Sayid would die if he'd taken the pill, is that actually what would have happened? Saul explained to the Losties that if Sayid died, they'd all be screwed, so it's in everyone's interests for him to survive. If Jack had done as Dogen requested, persuaded Sayid to take the pill, would he have been purged of the infection, maybe killed, but then revived again, unclaimed? Does Jack's now knowing that it's poison rob it of its power to cure Sayid, even if he takes it at Jack's request?
Jack: Why would you people want to kill Sayid?
Dogen: We believe he's...
Saul: The closest translation would be... claimed.
Dogen: There is a darkness gorwing in him. Once it reaches his heart, everything your friend once was will be gone.
Jack: How can you be sure of that?
Dogen: Because it happened to your sister.
Ha! I knew she'd gone bad, or at least, dark. I say she died in New Otherton when the mercs attacked. Sawyer found a changed or tainted Claire, who stuck w them for a little while, until she wandered off into the night with her dad. But... There wasn't time for her to be taken to the Temple and then returned. She couldn't have drowned in the spring the way Sayid had. Unless Dogen is referring to something that happened to Claire after the Oceanic Six left...
Which would be OK, I guess, except that I'd be wrong then, bleah. So, I'm gonna stick w my story and suggest that Sayid and Claire were claimed by Esau, and it doesn't matter how or where they're revived, just that they're revived. Maybe the infection is what revives them anyway. Which would mean that the spring didn't really work at all (discolored and all).
I'd really like for Miles to speak up about how Sayid read as a corpse, or reads now as a walking corpse. Does he get a vibe from him that he got from Claire?
Claimed. What does that mean? I think it means that a person becomes tainted by Esau's influence, darker, perhaps insane. Little Ben must have gone thru almost the same process that Sayid did. Was he infected then, in 1977? Is Christian infected as well? Or is he just another one of Esau's skins? We don't ever see Lockesau and Christian in the same place at the same time, right? And it would make a kind of sense for infected Claire to be so comfortable hanging out with Esau-Christian.
Dammit. I really thought Christian might've belonged to the Island itself. Bleah. Rowan thinks that anytime we see a dead guy walking around, it's Esau. A great Occam's razor explanation, but I really thought that I'd seen too many different ways that people had been resurrected, but really... maybe not.
Meanwhile, back in the jungle, Mac and Justin overtake Jin, and Mac, still in a snit about being knocked out by the same Krazy Kate twice, wants to take it out on him with some jungle justice. Justin's not on board...
Justin: Aldo, no, we can't. He's one of them.
Aldo: He MAY be one of them.
And then *Bang Bang Bang!* Mac and Justin are down! Beartrapped Jin has been saved... by a little blonde boy! It's Claire! Claire's the new Rousseau! This is what happens to women on the Island whose children are taken? Does this also mean that Rousseau was once claimed, too?
Crazy.
There's a funny little thing between Dogen and Jack, maybe a lesson for Jack, maybe for us...? When Jack walks into Dogen's study or whatever, he's spinning a baseball. Jack asks him what it is. Dogen tells him, "It's a baseball." When Dogen serves him tea after the Heimlich-fu, Jack asks him what it is. Dogen tells him, "Tea."
I forget if I mentioned this before, but hey, that magic ash keeps the Monster at bay, but you know what else does? A sonic fence, right? Just sayin.
Keep on keepin on~
Saturday, February 06, 2010
LOST: timelines, Desmond, and questions...
6.01 / 6.02: "LA X"
NOT UNCONNECTED.
It crossed my mind during the premiere that we may be getting LOST2 as a cautionary tale, a purely what-if story, provided to satisfy curiosity, and except for demonstrating that the lives of many of our Losties are destined to be intertwined in more than one reality, L2 and L1 have no connections between or influence over one another.
When Juliet said, "It worked," that notion was blown away. Assuming she wasn't simply delusional, she experienced something in her near-death state that convinced her that somewhere, somewhen, flight 815 didn't crash.
THREE YEARS BETWEEN LOST1 AND LOST2.
JG brought up the notion of the two timelines we're witnessing in the premiere as being... well... synchronous, might be the word? Simultaneous? So that LOST2 is actually three years younger than LOST1. I dismissed it at first cuz I thought that what happens in the three years from 2004 to 2007 would be important to the LOST2 characters, but then again, maybe not. What's could be just as important is the information and experience the LOST1 characters have in 2007. So, if one of them looks across, or can send a message across, or actually jump across (Desmond, I'm talking to you), from 2007 LOST1 to 2004 LOST2, they've got knowledge, of people's natures, Island/DI/Other resources, and big players in the Island's history, that can be exploited to great advantage.
And if you've watched any SLIDERS or read any FANTASTIC FOUR, you'll know that one of the great ways to get around time travel paradoxes in a multiverse is to jump across to a parallel reality in which events are all identical until the targeted jump point (if desired), but governed by a slightly different clock, locally (like, a different period of rotation for the Earth), or universally (a few seconds or years difference in the timing of the Big Bang).
DESMOND + ???
Stumbled into this intriguing yet FREAKIN' annoying idea while discussing w JG. Do you suppose that Desmond was flying with someone? Libby was on the plane in L1. Desmond is on the plane in L2. Perhaps he moves to the aisle seat beside Jack from his seat next to his lady love and round-the-world sailboat race patroness, Libby. Do we know why Libby was on 815 in L1? Why she was in Sydney? Where does Desmond meet Libby in L1 when she gives him the Elizabeth?
This post has more Qs and thoughts on Desmond and his matrimonial status.
In L1, Desmond appears in the Elizabeth on the day that Libby is buried by the Losties. Always love-hated that near-miss LOST interconnection.
UNUSED MISSING DESMOND TIME.
There's still some Desmond wiggle room in the past. An opportunity for a present-future Desmond to do some snooping around in the past. Well, actually, there's as much time as the writers wish to crowbar in, really, but I'm thinking of a specific window that's already been mentioned. It's when Desmond blacks out after leaving his first bride at the altar, then wakes up to find the monk offering him a hand. Yeah, he claims that he passes out in the aftermath of a cold feet bender, but given the other blackouts we've seen Desmond suffer, you've gotta wonder, right? I would love to see Desmond from L2 (the fellow who sits next to Jack on 815 in 2004) flash back to that time and do some mucking around in the past to set things up or learn things for later.
DESMOND = ESAU?
Rowan had a great idea—Desmond on the plane is actually Esau. He appears on flight 815 only while the plane is in the airspace above the Island (maybe in the snowglobe, maybe not, we seem to get the turbulence at the point of entry, but not exit). I have a feeling the timing for this doesn't quite work out, but who knows? Maybe the writers will make it work out.
In this scenario, Esau-Desmond's actually in the seat next to Jack, and can interact with and be seen by others, it just happens that we don't witness any such interaction.
I really like this idea. And it sparks a solid answer to the question: do Jacob and Esau survive the sinking of the Island? Yes. Jacob can apparently leave the Island whenever he wants. Esau is apparently constrained by the realm of the Island, but he can turn into the Monster, and any dead person whose unmolested body remains on the Island. I'll bet the Monster has no problem surviving, and, OK, it's a little Wonder Twinny, but who's to say he can't take the form of a shark if he wants, right?
The sad implication here, tho, is that Desmond of LOST2 is dead somewhere on the Island. Maybe the Island survived the Incident, the Swan gets built, Desmond is washed ashore, Kelvin shanghais him into button-pushing, some as-yet-unseen cataclysm befalls the Island, and he drowns in the Hatch. This would mean that Widmore probably survives, has Penny, and Desmond ends up training for his round the world race, in which case, Jack *would* recognize him.
Y'know, I don't think they've ever actually talked about that meeting, have they? And I'd still really like a look at Desmond's family tree. Have we seen or heard anything about his roots? Is he an orphan?
SOME QUESTIONS.
If someone were to dive down to the Island now in LOST2, swim down the Orchid shaft, bust into the Orchid chamber, and turn the wheel, would it work? Would it move the Island, and at the same time return it to sea level?
Faraday and the Losties, by following thru on Faraday's plan, basically play god, or Jacob, whichever. =) So, really, who has the right to rewrite history? In all the good big stories, it's the bad guy, isn't it? Or the good guy driven bad/mad? Even if the intention is for the better, for paradise, it's always hubris, isn't it? And in this case, it's Faraday, Shephard, and the sheep who say they can fix things. No doubt Jack and the Losties are only thinking of changing one thing—815 not crashing on the Island. They're thinking very narrowly, about how the Swan not being built means there's no button to not be pushed when their plane goes down in 2004. But there's a lot more than that going on. There's setting off a nuke on top of a pocket of exotic energy on an Island where Jacob and Esau live, along with the Others, and the DI non-evacuees. Who's to say it will be a better world without the hidden works of the Dharma Initiative and the shadowy activities of the Others and the children of the Island?
Speaking of DI evacuees, won't Charlotte still become an archaeologist and try to find her Island? Won't Miles still develop his ability to read the dead, and seek the body of his father to read him?
Is Claire pregnant? We only ever see her face in the cab. No obvious sign of whether she's pregnant or not.
Why doesn't anyone press Miles, frabnabbit?! Sawyer walks away after Miles reads Juliet. Hurley notices Miles reacting to... something, when he says farewell to Sayid...
Meaning... No reading off of Sayid, like, he's not really dead? Or... Is he reading something from Sayid like he read from Juliet?
Keep on keepin on~
NOT UNCONNECTED.
It crossed my mind during the premiere that we may be getting LOST2 as a cautionary tale, a purely what-if story, provided to satisfy curiosity, and except for demonstrating that the lives of many of our Losties are destined to be intertwined in more than one reality, L2 and L1 have no connections between or influence over one another.
When Juliet said, "It worked," that notion was blown away. Assuming she wasn't simply delusional, she experienced something in her near-death state that convinced her that somewhere, somewhen, flight 815 didn't crash.
THREE YEARS BETWEEN LOST1 AND LOST2.
JG brought up the notion of the two timelines we're witnessing in the premiere as being... well... synchronous, might be the word? Simultaneous? So that LOST2 is actually three years younger than LOST1. I dismissed it at first cuz I thought that what happens in the three years from 2004 to 2007 would be important to the LOST2 characters, but then again, maybe not. What's could be just as important is the information and experience the LOST1 characters have in 2007. So, if one of them looks across, or can send a message across, or actually jump across (Desmond, I'm talking to you), from 2007 LOST1 to 2004 LOST2, they've got knowledge, of people's natures, Island/DI/Other resources, and big players in the Island's history, that can be exploited to great advantage.
And if you've watched any SLIDERS or read any FANTASTIC FOUR, you'll know that one of the great ways to get around time travel paradoxes in a multiverse is to jump across to a parallel reality in which events are all identical until the targeted jump point (if desired), but governed by a slightly different clock, locally (like, a different period of rotation for the Earth), or universally (a few seconds or years difference in the timing of the Big Bang).
DESMOND + ???
Stumbled into this intriguing yet FREAKIN' annoying idea while discussing w JG. Do you suppose that Desmond was flying with someone? Libby was on the plane in L1. Desmond is on the plane in L2. Perhaps he moves to the aisle seat beside Jack from his seat next to his lady love and round-the-world sailboat race patroness, Libby. Do we know why Libby was on 815 in L1? Why she was in Sydney? Where does Desmond meet Libby in L1 when she gives him the Elizabeth?
This post has more Qs and thoughts on Desmond and his matrimonial status.
In L1, Desmond appears in the Elizabeth on the day that Libby is buried by the Losties. Always love-hated that near-miss LOST interconnection.
UNUSED MISSING DESMOND TIME.
There's still some Desmond wiggle room in the past. An opportunity for a present-future Desmond to do some snooping around in the past. Well, actually, there's as much time as the writers wish to crowbar in, really, but I'm thinking of a specific window that's already been mentioned. It's when Desmond blacks out after leaving his first bride at the altar, then wakes up to find the monk offering him a hand. Yeah, he claims that he passes out in the aftermath of a cold feet bender, but given the other blackouts we've seen Desmond suffer, you've gotta wonder, right? I would love to see Desmond from L2 (the fellow who sits next to Jack on 815 in 2004) flash back to that time and do some mucking around in the past to set things up or learn things for later.
DESMOND = ESAU?
Rowan had a great idea—Desmond on the plane is actually Esau. He appears on flight 815 only while the plane is in the airspace above the Island (maybe in the snowglobe, maybe not, we seem to get the turbulence at the point of entry, but not exit). I have a feeling the timing for this doesn't quite work out, but who knows? Maybe the writers will make it work out.
In this scenario, Esau-Desmond's actually in the seat next to Jack, and can interact with and be seen by others, it just happens that we don't witness any such interaction.
I really like this idea. And it sparks a solid answer to the question: do Jacob and Esau survive the sinking of the Island? Yes. Jacob can apparently leave the Island whenever he wants. Esau is apparently constrained by the realm of the Island, but he can turn into the Monster, and any dead person whose unmolested body remains on the Island. I'll bet the Monster has no problem surviving, and, OK, it's a little Wonder Twinny, but who's to say he can't take the form of a shark if he wants, right?
The sad implication here, tho, is that Desmond of LOST2 is dead somewhere on the Island. Maybe the Island survived the Incident, the Swan gets built, Desmond is washed ashore, Kelvin shanghais him into button-pushing, some as-yet-unseen cataclysm befalls the Island, and he drowns in the Hatch. This would mean that Widmore probably survives, has Penny, and Desmond ends up training for his round the world race, in which case, Jack *would* recognize him.
Y'know, I don't think they've ever actually talked about that meeting, have they? And I'd still really like a look at Desmond's family tree. Have we seen or heard anything about his roots? Is he an orphan?
SOME QUESTIONS.
If someone were to dive down to the Island now in LOST2, swim down the Orchid shaft, bust into the Orchid chamber, and turn the wheel, would it work? Would it move the Island, and at the same time return it to sea level?
Faraday and the Losties, by following thru on Faraday's plan, basically play god, or Jacob, whichever. =) So, really, who has the right to rewrite history? In all the good big stories, it's the bad guy, isn't it? Or the good guy driven bad/mad? Even if the intention is for the better, for paradise, it's always hubris, isn't it? And in this case, it's Faraday, Shephard, and the sheep who say they can fix things. No doubt Jack and the Losties are only thinking of changing one thing—815 not crashing on the Island. They're thinking very narrowly, about how the Swan not being built means there's no button to not be pushed when their plane goes down in 2004. But there's a lot more than that going on. There's setting off a nuke on top of a pocket of exotic energy on an Island where Jacob and Esau live, along with the Others, and the DI non-evacuees. Who's to say it will be a better world without the hidden works of the Dharma Initiative and the shadowy activities of the Others and the children of the Island?
Speaking of DI evacuees, won't Charlotte still become an archaeologist and try to find her Island? Won't Miles still develop his ability to read the dead, and seek the body of his father to read him?
Is Claire pregnant? We only ever see her face in the cab. No obvious sign of whether she's pregnant or not.
Why doesn't anyone press Miles, frabnabbit?! Sawyer walks away after Miles reads Juliet. Hurley notices Miles reacting to... something, when he says farewell to Sayid...
Hurley: Goodbye, dude. If you ever want to talk... I'm around.
Hurley: What?
Miles: Nothing.
Meaning... No reading off of Sayid, like, he's not really dead? Or... Is he reading something from Sayid like he read from Juliet?
Keep on keepin on~
Thursday, February 04, 2010
LOST: Thanks, brother.
6.01 / 6.02: "LA X"
LOST REALITIES.
I'm gonna change up my timeline terminology here. Instead of Reality1 and Reality2, I'm gonna go with LOST1 and LOST2, and L1 and L2. LOST1 is the reality that we've been watching for the past 5 seasons, where Oceanic 815 is knocked out of the sky by a spike in the Swan station's EM energy. LOST2 is the reality that we're watching unfold in season 6, in which Oceanic 815 lands safely at LAX and the Island sinks to the bottom of the sea by 2004.
Maybe in this season's storytelling, L2 will catch up to L1. That is, we'll get the L1 2007 story told day by day, but the L2 stories will skip to show us significant moments from 2004 to 2007 and ultimately reunite everyone in 2007.
DESMOND.
Zany question... Is Jack the only one on the plane in L2 who sees and talks to Desmond? Is Desmond a Hurley-like phantom friend? That would make a kind of sense to me. After all, of all the LOST players, Desmond is the one who's had some experience with his consciousness giving the finger to the spacetime continuum and its physical so-called laws, right?
2/5/10. Desmond does not have a ring on his right hand. Can't see his left. He's reading something by Salman Rushdie. Altho he tells Jack, "The stewardess said it was empty," when he explains about taking the aisle seat, we never see anyone interact with him. When the flight attendant responds to Jack's ping (they ask if there's a doctor on board), she does NOT acknowledge Desmond's presence next to him.
OK, let's say Desmond is not a phantom (which, I guess, is at least as likely as his being a phantom =). What's he been up to in a world without the Island? He calls Jack "Brother," something he picked up during his stay at the monastery. In LOST1, the chief of this monastery is/was associated with Eloise Hawking, and the monastery benefited from generous donations from Charles Widmore (in exchange for a supply of their liquor—McCutcheon's?). It's on the day that Desmond is ejected from the monastery that he first meets Widmore's daughter, Penny. They fall in love.
He seems to be in all-around good shape and spirits. I'd say he won Widmore's round-the-world race, took Widmore's money, and then married his Penny. Does anyone remember seeing a wedding ring?
2/14/10. I went back and looked for the shot of Desmond when he gets up to let Jack into the window seat. I didn't think of checking out his hands then and only thought of this chance later. Turns out, he IS sporting some bling on his ring finger. Sure, it might just be a Claddagh ring, but I don't think they'd prop him with a ring lightly, y'know? Now the question is, do we know if Desmond made an honest woman out of Penny in LOST1? Did we see a wedding ring on him in 2007—can anyone tell me? If he does have a ring in LOST1, then that's a possible bit of circumstantial evidence for Desmond zipping over to LOST2 from LOST1. If he does NOT have a ring in LOST1, then that's evidence against that idea, and supporting the idea that this is LOST2's Desmond and that he's married to someone in that reality (Penny? Libby?).
2/15/10. Just went zipping thru the beginning of "316," the episode in which Eloise introduces the Losties to the Lamppost, and Desmond's totally got the bling on his left ring finger. We see him spread his hands out on his thighs when he leans forward to take in the pendulum and map on the floor. Again, I'm gonna assume that he's sporting a wedding ring and nothing less, altho, it's almost not important. What's important is that he's got a ring in 2007 in LOST1 and in 2004 in LOST2, signifying... what? To my mind, that the two Desmonds are not definitely not the same man. =) Last we saw of Brother Desmond in LOST1, he was being rolled into surgery, right? Maybe he's unconscious in post-op while the Dogen plays Operation with Sayid in the Quake Temple, eh? =)
This scenario implies at least one very important thing... Eloise and Charles make it off the Island just before or sometime after the Incident. I'm assuming that the Incident is the immediate or eventual cause of the sinking of the Island. Remember, Richard knocks Eloise out to protect her very shortly before the Losties go to the Swan, and Charles has a quick heart-to-heart with little Ben in his recovery tent in the jungle soon after he's saved in the Temple.
Their survival implies the possibility of their children Daniel and Penelope being born and living lives similar to their counterparts in L1. Daniel's research and technology may have been developed in L2 without Desmond's time-travelling help.
Admittedly, that is a lot to imply based on one word, "Brother." But I believe it follows.
Thing is. In my vision of how an alternate universe story works, you've gotta have someone who knows or feels that things are off, wrong, or different. And ideally, that things in this off-brand reality are not as good, or fair, or right, as they could be. For most of our Lost friends, I think that's the case. Rose is still sick, and has lied to Bernard about it after visiting the Aussie healer. Sawyer is his usual self. Locke is paralyzed and frustrated. Jack likely still has unresolve daddy issues and an ex-wife. Charlie's been arrested. Kate is on the run. Claire is in LA to give her child up for adoption. The only ones whom we've seen who appear to be better off in L2 are Sayid, who's to be reunited with Nadia, Boone, who won't be killed by a falling plane, Hurley, self-proclaimed luckiest man in the world, and alas, Desmond.
Desmond's life could very well be brilliant in L2, making his story-driven fate in L2 all the more tragic. Cuz I'm certain it will be up to him to obliterate this reality in favor of one in which 815 crashes, due to his not pushing the button in time in the subterranean hatch he's lived in for three years.
So not fair.
But maybe in L2 he's discovered that he can't have a child, while in L1, after years on the Island, he and Penelope have Charlie.
Something to think about regarding whether Jack and Desmond have met before by 2004 in L2. Maybe Desmond was already more of a self-made man by the time he proposes to Penny, and he doesn't need to prove his worth by winning her father's money, and never raced around the world, and so, never trained for it. So, maybe he's right, and they never met doing stadiums in L.A. in L2. Maybe Jack's sense of deja vu is spillover from his life in LOST1. Maybe all deja vu in either world is like that. Deja views.
THE SUNKEN ISLAND.
Do we think that the Island, even underwater, is still possessed of all its weird energy? I'm not sure. I mean, if you were gonna send underwater robots into that location in the Pacific, would they find the Island, or is it still inside its own "snowglobe" dimension, with its magic 315 bearing entrance, just at the bottom of the ocean? My impression, since the camera just dropped out of the plane and into the water, is that the snowglobe was shattered, a LOST-logical result of detonating an H-bomb on top of the Swan, donchathink?
But... maybe not. Camera moves don't necessarily MEAN anything. Maybe it's still in its pocket dimension.
Still, remember the Lamppost? Developed by the DI to find the Island in the first place, and it succeeded, otherwise, there never would've been a truce and a Dharmaville for Sawyer and Jack to sneakily join and eventually cause the Incident. That Lamppost station is still out there, beneath that chapel in Los Angeles. So, if there ARE exotic energies that might be used for time travel or reality splitting, merging, or crossing over, it would be detectable there. So so, if there IS a Desmond walking around in L2 with flashes across realities to how things went down in the first reality, and even tho they seem pretty frickin crappy, the Losties' lives on the Island are actually better or more fulfilling than there hohum ones in L2, maybe he'll get the band back together, find the Island, or a place with similar energies, and "fix" things.
HAPPY ENDING?
So, we've got these two realities chugging along, three years apart thru our televisional windows. I'm hoping for one of two things storytelling-wise this season.
1. LOST2 will catch up with LOST1 over the course of this season, that we will see three years of the lives of our friends in LOST2 and just days or weeks of LOST1, and that eventually, they will match up in 2007 (or later). At this point both realities will team up, in concert or by chance, to create a new or somehow collapsed reality with a happily ever after.
2. We will see events transpire in LOST2 that will get us to a point before Jack radios Widmore's freighter, but sadly, after Charlie dies in the Looking Glass. At this point, LOST2 will reach across and mess with LOST1 to effect a happily ever after.
What I think really needs to happen is for Penny's people to find the Losties before Widmore's people. For the Others to repel the mercs, and for EVERYONE (who wants to be rescued) to be rescued in 2004 and not just the Oceanic Six.
Well, everyone, or no one, which would mean Jack would have to convince the Losties that staying on the Island is preferable to being rescued by the wrong people. That's what Locke wanted. Without the mercs on the Island, Locke could then ascend to leader of the Others and usher in a benevolent golden age on the Island. Right? Riiiiight.
Of course, who knows what Esau would be doing in that situation... Hrmm... Maybe demon baby Aaron could wish him away to the cornfield, his home.
I'm still clinging to the prophecy about Aaron and Desmond's final vision of Charlie's death. The Aaron prohpecy: that if Claire does not raise him, he will become, or there will be, a Big Bad. So, baby Aaron can't leave the Island as part of the Oceanic Six, and we need for Claire to be OK, and not running around, dead or alive, as a puppet of some Island force, whether it's Jacob, Esau, or the Island itself. So, she's gotta not be blown up by a merc RPG in a New Otherton bungalow. The Charlie vision: that if Charlie dies the way he ultimately does in the Looking Glass, Claire and Aaron will board a helicopter and safely leave the Island.
If someone knows that either the Aaron prophecy or the Charlie vision has been debunked somewhere, somehow, please please please tell me!
Keep on keepin on~
LOST REALITIES.
I'm gonna change up my timeline terminology here. Instead of Reality1 and Reality2, I'm gonna go with LOST1 and LOST2, and L1 and L2. LOST1 is the reality that we've been watching for the past 5 seasons, where Oceanic 815 is knocked out of the sky by a spike in the Swan station's EM energy. LOST2 is the reality that we're watching unfold in season 6, in which Oceanic 815 lands safely at LAX and the Island sinks to the bottom of the sea by 2004.
Maybe in this season's storytelling, L2 will catch up to L1. That is, we'll get the L1 2007 story told day by day, but the L2 stories will skip to show us significant moments from 2004 to 2007 and ultimately reunite everyone in 2007.
DESMOND.
Zany question... Is Jack the only one on the plane in L2 who sees and talks to Desmond? Is Desmond a Hurley-like phantom friend? That would make a kind of sense to me. After all, of all the LOST players, Desmond is the one who's had some experience with his consciousness giving the finger to the spacetime continuum and its physical so-called laws, right?
2/5/10. Desmond does not have a ring on his right hand. Can't see his left. He's reading something by Salman Rushdie. Altho he tells Jack, "The stewardess said it was empty," when he explains about taking the aisle seat, we never see anyone interact with him. When the flight attendant responds to Jack's ping (they ask if there's a doctor on board), she does NOT acknowledge Desmond's presence next to him.
OK, let's say Desmond is not a phantom (which, I guess, is at least as likely as his being a phantom =). What's he been up to in a world without the Island? He calls Jack "Brother," something he picked up during his stay at the monastery. In LOST1, the chief of this monastery is/was associated with Eloise Hawking, and the monastery benefited from generous donations from Charles Widmore (in exchange for a supply of their liquor—McCutcheon's?). It's on the day that Desmond is ejected from the monastery that he first meets Widmore's daughter, Penny. They fall in love.
He seems to be in all-around good shape and spirits. I'd say he won Widmore's round-the-world race, took Widmore's money, and then married his Penny. Does anyone remember seeing a wedding ring?
2/14/10. I went back and looked for the shot of Desmond when he gets up to let Jack into the window seat. I didn't think of checking out his hands then and only thought of this chance later. Turns out, he IS sporting some bling on his ring finger. Sure, it might just be a Claddagh ring, but I don't think they'd prop him with a ring lightly, y'know? Now the question is, do we know if Desmond made an honest woman out of Penny in LOST1? Did we see a wedding ring on him in 2007—can anyone tell me? If he does have a ring in LOST1, then that's a possible bit of circumstantial evidence for Desmond zipping over to LOST2 from LOST1. If he does NOT have a ring in LOST1, then that's evidence against that idea, and supporting the idea that this is LOST2's Desmond and that he's married to someone in that reality (Penny? Libby?).
2/15/10. Just went zipping thru the beginning of "316," the episode in which Eloise introduces the Losties to the Lamppost, and Desmond's totally got the bling on his left ring finger. We see him spread his hands out on his thighs when he leans forward to take in the pendulum and map on the floor. Again, I'm gonna assume that he's sporting a wedding ring and nothing less, altho, it's almost not important. What's important is that he's got a ring in 2007 in LOST1 and in 2004 in LOST2, signifying... what? To my mind, that the two Desmonds are not definitely not the same man. =) Last we saw of Brother Desmond in LOST1, he was being rolled into surgery, right? Maybe he's unconscious in post-op while the Dogen plays Operation with Sayid in the Quake Temple, eh? =)
This scenario implies at least one very important thing... Eloise and Charles make it off the Island just before or sometime after the Incident. I'm assuming that the Incident is the immediate or eventual cause of the sinking of the Island. Remember, Richard knocks Eloise out to protect her very shortly before the Losties go to the Swan, and Charles has a quick heart-to-heart with little Ben in his recovery tent in the jungle soon after he's saved in the Temple.
Their survival implies the possibility of their children Daniel and Penelope being born and living lives similar to their counterparts in L1. Daniel's research and technology may have been developed in L2 without Desmond's time-travelling help.
Admittedly, that is a lot to imply based on one word, "Brother." But I believe it follows.
Thing is. In my vision of how an alternate universe story works, you've gotta have someone who knows or feels that things are off, wrong, or different. And ideally, that things in this off-brand reality are not as good, or fair, or right, as they could be. For most of our Lost friends, I think that's the case. Rose is still sick, and has lied to Bernard about it after visiting the Aussie healer. Sawyer is his usual self. Locke is paralyzed and frustrated. Jack likely still has unresolve daddy issues and an ex-wife. Charlie's been arrested. Kate is on the run. Claire is in LA to give her child up for adoption. The only ones whom we've seen who appear to be better off in L2 are Sayid, who's to be reunited with Nadia, Boone, who won't be killed by a falling plane, Hurley, self-proclaimed luckiest man in the world, and alas, Desmond.
Desmond's life could very well be brilliant in L2, making his story-driven fate in L2 all the more tragic. Cuz I'm certain it will be up to him to obliterate this reality in favor of one in which 815 crashes, due to his not pushing the button in time in the subterranean hatch he's lived in for three years.
So not fair.
But maybe in L2 he's discovered that he can't have a child, while in L1, after years on the Island, he and Penelope have Charlie.
Something to think about regarding whether Jack and Desmond have met before by 2004 in L2. Maybe Desmond was already more of a self-made man by the time he proposes to Penny, and he doesn't need to prove his worth by winning her father's money, and never raced around the world, and so, never trained for it. So, maybe he's right, and they never met doing stadiums in L.A. in L2. Maybe Jack's sense of deja vu is spillover from his life in LOST1. Maybe all deja vu in either world is like that. Deja views.
THE SUNKEN ISLAND.
Do we think that the Island, even underwater, is still possessed of all its weird energy? I'm not sure. I mean, if you were gonna send underwater robots into that location in the Pacific, would they find the Island, or is it still inside its own "snowglobe" dimension, with its magic 315 bearing entrance, just at the bottom of the ocean? My impression, since the camera just dropped out of the plane and into the water, is that the snowglobe was shattered, a LOST-logical result of detonating an H-bomb on top of the Swan, donchathink?
But... maybe not. Camera moves don't necessarily MEAN anything. Maybe it's still in its pocket dimension.
Still, remember the Lamppost? Developed by the DI to find the Island in the first place, and it succeeded, otherwise, there never would've been a truce and a Dharmaville for Sawyer and Jack to sneakily join and eventually cause the Incident. That Lamppost station is still out there, beneath that chapel in Los Angeles. So, if there ARE exotic energies that might be used for time travel or reality splitting, merging, or crossing over, it would be detectable there. So so, if there IS a Desmond walking around in L2 with flashes across realities to how things went down in the first reality, and even tho they seem pretty frickin crappy, the Losties' lives on the Island are actually better or more fulfilling than there hohum ones in L2, maybe he'll get the band back together, find the Island, or a place with similar energies, and "fix" things.
HAPPY ENDING?
So, we've got these two realities chugging along, three years apart thru our televisional windows. I'm hoping for one of two things storytelling-wise this season.
1. LOST2 will catch up with LOST1 over the course of this season, that we will see three years of the lives of our friends in LOST2 and just days or weeks of LOST1, and that eventually, they will match up in 2007 (or later). At this point both realities will team up, in concert or by chance, to create a new or somehow collapsed reality with a happily ever after.
2. We will see events transpire in LOST2 that will get us to a point before Jack radios Widmore's freighter, but sadly, after Charlie dies in the Looking Glass. At this point, LOST2 will reach across and mess with LOST1 to effect a happily ever after.
What I think really needs to happen is for Penny's people to find the Losties before Widmore's people. For the Others to repel the mercs, and for EVERYONE (who wants to be rescued) to be rescued in 2004 and not just the Oceanic Six.
Well, everyone, or no one, which would mean Jack would have to convince the Losties that staying on the Island is preferable to being rescued by the wrong people. That's what Locke wanted. Without the mercs on the Island, Locke could then ascend to leader of the Others and usher in a benevolent golden age on the Island. Right? Riiiiight.
Of course, who knows what Esau would be doing in that situation... Hrmm... Maybe demon baby Aaron could wish him away to the cornfield, his home.
I'm still clinging to the prophecy about Aaron and Desmond's final vision of Charlie's death. The Aaron prohpecy: that if Claire does not raise him, he will become, or there will be, a Big Bad. So, baby Aaron can't leave the Island as part of the Oceanic Six, and we need for Claire to be OK, and not running around, dead or alive, as a puppet of some Island force, whether it's Jacob, Esau, or the Island itself. So, she's gotta not be blown up by a merc RPG in a New Otherton bungalow. The Charlie vision: that if Charlie dies the way he ultimately does in the Looking Glass, Claire and Aaron will board a helicopter and safely leave the Island.
If someone knows that either the Aaron prophecy or the Charlie vision has been debunked somewhere, somehow, please please please tell me!
Keep on keepin on~
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
LOST: It worked...
6.01 / 6.02 : "LA X"
WUZZON.
The writers are having their cake and eating it, too! Greedy, lucky bastards! Except for some surprising low-budge underwater effects, I'm loving it, too. =)
Okay! So! The rules they've followed for the past five seasons are still in play. You cannot rewrite history (unless you're Desmond =). What you CAN do is write a new history alongside the old one. Create an alternate reality that diverges at a specific moment. So, the Incident always happened the way it happened and it was always the nexus for two realities.
And the show is giving us both of them. No flashBACKs. No flashFORWARDs. We're looking at flash...OVERs. Well, okay, there *is* a consistent three-year flash-back-and-forth between the two realities. In Reality1 (R1), in which the Incident occurs in 1977 and leads to the construction of a Swan station to regulate the aggravated energy pocket, our "present" is 2007, three years after 815 fell out of the sky, and in Reality2 (R2), in which the Incident occurs in 1977 and leads to the sinking of the Island, our "present" is 2004. That's cuz the show is focusing on these "presents" for the sake of storytelling.
Think about this, tho. In comparing R2 to R1, there's 27 years from 1977 to 2004 for the effects of the destruction of the energy pocket to cascade through. 27 years of exotic-energy powered butterfly effect originating on the Island. Granted, the Island is practically quarantined from the rest of the world, but consider its shadowy influence over the decades revealed so far in the show...
It seems like the big picture in R1 is the boiling down of all the mysteries and connections into a basic battle between two sides, good and evil, order and chaos, with the Others and Losties on one side and the Esau-Locke-Monster (and indentured minion Ben?) on the other. Good times!
Backwhile and over in R2, we're getting an IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE look at the world without the 815 crash, and how much more awesome it really isn't.
I have a half-baked prediction for each reality...
In R1, I think that all of the Lostaways who were touched by Jacob will have to renunite and form Voltron to save Jacob and/or beat Esau. That's why Sayid has to live or they're all in trouble.
In R2, I think Desmond knows things, or has his flashes, and will try to round up the Losties and somehow try to fix things. Maybe there's a cosmic instability issue with this Incident-created doubling of reality and they need to be collapsed back into a single reality. Eloise kills her grown son before the Incident and relieves him of his journal from R1, remember?
SUMMARY AND SCATTIN'.
The premiere begins in the skies over the Pacific, in the cabin of Oceanic 815, en route from Sydney to Los Angeles. We see familiar faces. Jack, Rose, Bernard, the flight attendant, Locke, Frogurt, Boone, Kate, the marshall, Hurley (the luckiest man in the world), Arzt, Sawyer, Sun and Jin, Sayid, and Charlie. We hear the voice of the substitute pilot over the intercom, not Lapidus. We even see Desmond, for a short visit in the seat next to Jack. Later, we also see Claire in a cab at the airport. We do not see Shannon, who decided to stay with her scumbag boyfriend in Australia. We do not see Michael and Walt. We do not see Barbie and Ken. We don't see any of the Tailies. No Libby, Anna-Lucia, or Eko. Just because we don't see them does not mean they weren't on the plane. I'm just sayin'.
This is September 22, 2004 in R2. In 1977, Jughead detonates on top of the energy pocket, releasing or destroying the energy, we don't know, but ultimately causing the destruction of the Island, resulting in it basically sinking to the bottom of the ocean. With a somewhat limited special effects budget, apparently.
I mean, was the Island like a cartoon bathtub boat and Jughead effectively pulled the stopper out of the drain?
Allright, let the effects go. The actual fate of the Island in R2, post-Jughead-Incident, is still pretty cool in that it's pretty frickin final. What does it mean? I think that depends on the immediate aftermath of the Incident, and how long it took the Island to go down. If it was fast, with the Island's snowglobe vanishing like a bubble popping, giving in habitants no time to escape on boat, raft, or buoyant debris, then it means the end of the Dharma Initiative in 1977 and the death of all their members, including Horace, Pierre Chang, and Radzinsky. Also, the end of the Hostiles in 1977 and the death of all their members including little Ben, Charles Widmore, Eloise Hawking, all big players in R1, AND, sadly, their children, including Faraday and Penny
However, if the Island took it's time, perhaps sinking in quakes and shudders over hours, days, or weeks, survivors from all camps would be more likely, maybe even a return trip or three by the DI sub would be possible. If Widmore had already begun his sorties to the outside world, maybe he could call on rescue resources of his own.
Someone builds the Oceanic Airline corporation. I always thought it was Widmore. Maybe he just bought it, tho? Paik Industries seems to be intact, and I always thought that CEO Paik had cabalish ties to Island insiders, via Hanso and/or the DI. If Widmore didn't survive, there would be no Penny, and Desmond would be with someone else, or no one. However, he calls Jack "Brother," a habit he picks up at the monastery, where he first meets Penny. Perhaps Widmore's survived and Desmond's more the self-made man in this reality than in the other, one whom Widmore approves of as his daughter's suitor...
Surviving the DI are the likes of Charlotte, Miles, and Ethan, who were evacuated on the sub before the Incident. Possibly surviving the Hostiles is Richard, cuz, hey, he doesn't age, he's gotta be pretty resilient, eh?
What of Jacob and Esau themselves? At the time of the Incident in 1977, Jacob has already visited young Sawyer and probably young Kate, right? Is he able to make his other visits?
On the plane... Rose and Bernard are so very in love. Desmond introduces himself to Jack for the first time, or is it the second? Desmond calls him "Brother" and Jack swears he's met him before. Kate bumps into Jack and picks his pocket. Sawyer spots Kate in her cuffs. Locke meets Boone. Sawyer eyes Hurley as a potential mark. Sayid assists Jack in saving Charlie from asphixiating on a stash of heroin. Jack sees Locke de-plane in a wheelchair.
Jin and Sun are stopped at customs. A cache of cash is found in Jin's luggage. Was Jin planning on "escaping" with Sun after completing this final job for Sun's dad? Sun refuses to speak any English to help get them out of this jam. I suppose it's possible she never learned in R2, but given Jin's gruff treatment of her on the plane, I suspect she still had her own escape plan in the works and would have learned English as part of that.
Oceanic informs Jack that Christian's coffin has been lost, never loaded onto the plane in Sydney. Locke is apparently told that his case of knives for every occasion has also gone missing. They finally meet up in the Oceanic lost baggage office. Lost. Baggage. How much more appropriate of a place for their encounter could there be, right? Jack asks Locke about his condition...
Kate eventually commandeers a cab at gunpoint. The cab's already got a fare, tho—Claire. So, she was on the flight as well. A flight that the Aussie "seer" arranged in R1 because he saw that Aaron would need to be raised by Claire and only Claire, and that, barring any destiny-meddling-events, flight 815 crashing on the Island would force that scenario and apparently save the world from demon baby. I wonder how and why an LA adoption arrangement went down here in R2.
The premiere splits its time between 2004 and Oceanic 815 in R2 and 2007 on the Island in R1. In R1, we arrive soon after Jacob's death. The chronologically challenged Losties have once again been bumped in time, but not in space, reappearing in 2007 in their locations around the Swan site, and, in the case of Rose, Bernard, and Vincent, presumably, by their retirement home by the beach (unless they didn't jump and are now years dead and gone and resting in the caves by the fresh water pool~ =).
Kate, Miles, Sawyer, and Jack are right by the imploded Swan hatch. Jin, Hurley, and the still-bleeding out Sayid, are by the Dharmawagen. It takes a couple minutes to realize it, but Juliet is alive some ways down the hatch shaft. They manage to clear enough hatch rubble for Sawyer to get to her and find her remarkably unperforated.
Juliet owns up to setting off the bomb. Sawyer's disbelieving...
Meanwhile, back at the Foot. Bram and some of his Shadow buddies discover that Jacob is dead. Esau-Locke recognizes Bram and co as Jacob's bodyguards and proclaims them free, now that Jacob is dead. They open fire, aparently tagging him at least once. He disappears. Bram picks up a bent/deflected bullet as we hear a familiar clicking and howling. It's Esau in monster form, roiling into the Foot with a mad on for Shadow bodyguards. He quickly dispatches Bram's wingmen while Bram rings himself in a circle of ash, poured from a pouch. This circle of protection saves him from Esau's first assault, but when the Monster takes a wack at the infrastructure, he shakes Bram out of his circle and spikes him on a log or torch. Bye bye, Bram.
That's one Big Question answered. The Monster is one Esau's forms. Now, is Esau a monster who walks like a man, or a man who can turn into a monster?
Was great seeing Richard get a bit upset, relax his composure, just a bit, when he drags Ben to Locke's dead body on the beach.
Meanwhile, back at the imploded Swan...
Sayid is in bad shape and Jack says he can do nothing for him. Hurley explains that Sayid's only hope is at the Temple. Everyone but Sawyer and Miles load up into the van for the Temple. Those two stay behind to bury Juliet.
I've gotta say, the premiereness of the premiere really suckered me into dropping my guard at times. I totally didn't get that Jacob, when he appeared to Hurley, was a ghost until he said so. I also totally missed the obvious reason for Sawyer asking Miles to stay behind and help him bury Juliet.
Hurley gets Jin to lead them to the hole in the wall where the first member of the French team was taken by the Monster. This is the wall of the Temple, where Richard took little Ben to be saved from death by Sayid's bullet, where Locke led Ben to meet the Monster for his supposed judgement, and where Ben told his people to retreat to when the mercs stormed the Island in 2004. Within the chambers of the wall, Jack and co are abducted and escorted out into the Temple courtyard. This is the first time we've actually seen the Temple itself.
When Locke and Miles are done with Juliet's burial, Sawyer asks Miles to find out what Juliet wanted to tell him. Use his power to do that. Miles resists at first. Frankly, I don't know why. Maybe he actually finds it painful/unsettling to "read" people he knows? Sawyer presses him (into the dirt) and Miles agrees. He reads her final words for Sawyer: It worked.
So, what does "It worked" mean? On a lame, Juliet-Sawyer level, it could just be a last kind word about their relationship. Sadly, lame.
But, what it SHOULD mean is that Faraday's plan worked. That Jughead did just what it was supposed to, destroying the energy pocket and wiping out the events that lead to flight 815 falling out of the sky over the Island. But how does she know that? In her minutes in the Swan shaft, broken, did she have a near-death experience, fade out and back in and finally out again? In those seconds where she asks James (whose name does she say?) about going dutch for coffee together, did she go into, or peer into, the light and see her Sawyerless life in the new reality, R2? Then come back just long enough to be delirious with Sawyer, about to tell him what she learned, and then die? Is this a way for Lostaways to look over and across the realities? Near-death experiences? Only those who are still a-tingle with timey-wimey particles? When he was choking on his stash, did R2 Charlie see that he is meant to die? Will Sayid reveal that he's had a vision of a family he's built with his beloved Nadia?
At the Temple—hey, look! It's DEADWOOD's Saul!—the flight attendant, now one of the Others, steps forward to identify Hurley and company. She explains that they were with her, on the first plane. The LAST SAMURAI Temple leader is not impressed, and orders them killed. Only when Hurley mentions Jacob and then hands over the guitar case do they lower their weapons. When the leader opens the case, he discovers an ankh sculpture, which he cracks open, Maltese Falcon style. Inside is a piece of paper. He asks for the Losties' names and seems to check them against the paper. A list. It's Jacob's way, right? They're spared. Hurley demands to know what was on the paper...
Y'know, figuratively.
Temple leader cuts his hand and dips it in the unclear waters of the spring. I assume it's a test of the spring's healing abilities. Fail. But, they proceed anyway. The Interpreter explains that if they do this, there are risks. Jack tells them to do what they have to do (to save Sayid). The Others carry Sayid into the spring and flip over their egg timer to time how long he's held under water. Sayid regains consciousness and struggles, but the Others hold him under. When Jack attempts to force the leader to stop, LAST SAMURAI kung fus him soundly to the ground. Only when the sands run out do the Others remove him from the spring, lay him on the ground, and inform his friends that he is dead. O well.
Meanwhile, back at the Foot, Lockesau wants to tell Ben what the real John Locke's last thoughts were...
Back at the temple, LAST SAMURAI has a meeting with Hurley. After the leader reveals his distaste for speaking English, Hurley breaks the news of Jacob's death. The Others immediately mobilize and put the temple into anti-Esau lockdown, creating a barrier of ash around the structure and launching a flare into the sky.
Lapidus, Sun, Richard, the Others, and the Shadows all see the flare from the Temple. Esau-Locke comes strolling out of the Foot and all eyes turn. Richard orders everyone not to shoot, urgently, even. Esau-Locke walks up to Richard...
Richard's warning to not shoot Esau made me think that once mortally wounded, Esau might have no choice but to revert to his deadly and all-powerful Monster form, and that he might be easier to defeat or contain as a human.
Esau's remark about Richard in chains gave me the impression of a past conflict in which Richard went up against Esau and was punished or imprisoned for it. Maybe Richard cannot be killed, as part of Jacob's gift, but only imprisoned? Or perhaps he was Esau's man, or priest, once, and had to be punished for turning against him.
Esau's disappointment. Along the lines of TWILIGHT ZONE's "small talent for war?"
Back at the temple, the Interpreter requests an audience with Jack. Jack begins to resist when Hurley calls attention to the stirring Sayid, who raises himself and asks, "What happened?"
I'm guessing the idea of showing us R1 in 2004 is to reveal how much crappier everyone's lives would be if they'd never been to the Island. There was a flash of goodness when Locke tells Boone about his walkabout. I wanted to believe that in this reality his father never stole his kidney, that he never had to confront him, and so, was never paralyzed, maybe even that he'd married Helen. Alas, not to be.
When Esau-Locke tells Ben what Locke's dying thoughts were... that was just so frickin sad and miserable and unfair. Feckin Ben.
Keep on keepin on~
WUZZON.
The writers are having their cake and eating it, too! Greedy, lucky bastards! Except for some surprising low-budge underwater effects, I'm loving it, too. =)
Okay! So! The rules they've followed for the past five seasons are still in play. You cannot rewrite history (unless you're Desmond =). What you CAN do is write a new history alongside the old one. Create an alternate reality that diverges at a specific moment. So, the Incident always happened the way it happened and it was always the nexus for two realities.
And the show is giving us both of them. No flashBACKs. No flashFORWARDs. We're looking at flash...OVERs. Well, okay, there *is* a consistent three-year flash-back-and-forth between the two realities. In Reality1 (R1), in which the Incident occurs in 1977 and leads to the construction of a Swan station to regulate the aggravated energy pocket, our "present" is 2007, three years after 815 fell out of the sky, and in Reality2 (R2), in which the Incident occurs in 1977 and leads to the sinking of the Island, our "present" is 2004. That's cuz the show is focusing on these "presents" for the sake of storytelling.
Think about this, tho. In comparing R2 to R1, there's 27 years from 1977 to 2004 for the effects of the destruction of the energy pocket to cascade through. 27 years of exotic-energy powered butterfly effect originating on the Island. Granted, the Island is practically quarantined from the rest of the world, but consider its shadowy influence over the decades revealed so far in the show...
It seems like the big picture in R1 is the boiling down of all the mysteries and connections into a basic battle between two sides, good and evil, order and chaos, with the Others and Losties on one side and the Esau-Locke-Monster (and indentured minion Ben?) on the other. Good times!
Backwhile and over in R2, we're getting an IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE look at the world without the 815 crash, and how much more awesome it really isn't.
I have a half-baked prediction for each reality...
In R1, I think that all of the Lostaways who were touched by Jacob will have to renunite and form Voltron to save Jacob and/or beat Esau. That's why Sayid has to live or they're all in trouble.
In R2, I think Desmond knows things, or has his flashes, and will try to round up the Losties and somehow try to fix things. Maybe there's a cosmic instability issue with this Incident-created doubling of reality and they need to be collapsed back into a single reality. Eloise kills her grown son before the Incident and relieves him of his journal from R1, remember?
SUMMARY AND SCATTIN'.
The premiere begins in the skies over the Pacific, in the cabin of Oceanic 815, en route from Sydney to Los Angeles. We see familiar faces. Jack, Rose, Bernard, the flight attendant, Locke, Frogurt, Boone, Kate, the marshall, Hurley (the luckiest man in the world), Arzt, Sawyer, Sun and Jin, Sayid, and Charlie. We hear the voice of the substitute pilot over the intercom, not Lapidus. We even see Desmond, for a short visit in the seat next to Jack. Later, we also see Claire in a cab at the airport. We do not see Shannon, who decided to stay with her scumbag boyfriend in Australia. We do not see Michael and Walt. We do not see Barbie and Ken. We don't see any of the Tailies. No Libby, Anna-Lucia, or Eko. Just because we don't see them does not mean they weren't on the plane. I'm just sayin'.
This is September 22, 2004 in R2. In 1977, Jughead detonates on top of the energy pocket, releasing or destroying the energy, we don't know, but ultimately causing the destruction of the Island, resulting in it basically sinking to the bottom of the ocean. With a somewhat limited special effects budget, apparently.
I mean, was the Island like a cartoon bathtub boat and Jughead effectively pulled the stopper out of the drain?
Allright, let the effects go. The actual fate of the Island in R2, post-Jughead-Incident, is still pretty cool in that it's pretty frickin final. What does it mean? I think that depends on the immediate aftermath of the Incident, and how long it took the Island to go down. If it was fast, with the Island's snowglobe vanishing like a bubble popping, giving in habitants no time to escape on boat, raft, or buoyant debris, then it means the end of the Dharma Initiative in 1977 and the death of all their members, including Horace, Pierre Chang, and Radzinsky. Also, the end of the Hostiles in 1977 and the death of all their members including little Ben, Charles Widmore, Eloise Hawking, all big players in R1, AND, sadly, their children, including Faraday and Penny
However, if the Island took it's time, perhaps sinking in quakes and shudders over hours, days, or weeks, survivors from all camps would be more likely, maybe even a return trip or three by the DI sub would be possible. If Widmore had already begun his sorties to the outside world, maybe he could call on rescue resources of his own.
Someone builds the Oceanic Airline corporation. I always thought it was Widmore. Maybe he just bought it, tho? Paik Industries seems to be intact, and I always thought that CEO Paik had cabalish ties to Island insiders, via Hanso and/or the DI. If Widmore didn't survive, there would be no Penny, and Desmond would be with someone else, or no one. However, he calls Jack "Brother," a habit he picks up at the monastery, where he first meets Penny. Perhaps Widmore's survived and Desmond's more the self-made man in this reality than in the other, one whom Widmore approves of as his daughter's suitor...
Surviving the DI are the likes of Charlotte, Miles, and Ethan, who were evacuated on the sub before the Incident. Possibly surviving the Hostiles is Richard, cuz, hey, he doesn't age, he's gotta be pretty resilient, eh?
What of Jacob and Esau themselves? At the time of the Incident in 1977, Jacob has already visited young Sawyer and probably young Kate, right? Is he able to make his other visits?
On the plane... Rose and Bernard are so very in love. Desmond introduces himself to Jack for the first time, or is it the second? Desmond calls him "Brother" and Jack swears he's met him before. Kate bumps into Jack and picks his pocket. Sawyer spots Kate in her cuffs. Locke meets Boone. Sawyer eyes Hurley as a potential mark. Sayid assists Jack in saving Charlie from asphixiating on a stash of heroin. Jack sees Locke de-plane in a wheelchair.
Charlie: You should've let it happen, man. I was supposed to die.Once off the plane, Kate works on escaping the marshall, attempting to pick her cuff locks with the pen she lifted from Dr. Shephard. When the marshall forces her hand, she has to knock him out and leave him in the women's room and make a quick escape.
Jin and Sun are stopped at customs. A cache of cash is found in Jin's luggage. Was Jin planning on "escaping" with Sun after completing this final job for Sun's dad? Sun refuses to speak any English to help get them out of this jam. I suppose it's possible she never learned in R2, but given Jin's gruff treatment of her on the plane, I suspect she still had her own escape plan in the works and would have learned English as part of that.
Oceanic informs Jack that Christian's coffin has been lost, never loaded onto the plane in Sydney. Locke is apparently told that his case of knives for every occasion has also gone missing. They finally meet up in the Oceanic lost baggage office. Lost. Baggage. How much more appropriate of a place for their encounter could there be, right? Jack asks Locke about his condition...
Locke: Surgery isn't gonna do anything to help me. My condition is irreversible.Locke gives him a serious look and Jack seems to return it. Jack gives him his card, they formally introduce themselves, shake hands, and say goodbye. Does Jack feel the resonance of that statement across the bleed between realities?
Jack: Nothing is irreversible.
Kate eventually commandeers a cab at gunpoint. The cab's already got a fare, tho—Claire. So, she was on the flight as well. A flight that the Aussie "seer" arranged in R1 because he saw that Aaron would need to be raised by Claire and only Claire, and that, barring any destiny-meddling-events, flight 815 crashing on the Island would force that scenario and apparently save the world from demon baby. I wonder how and why an LA adoption arrangement went down here in R2.
The premiere splits its time between 2004 and Oceanic 815 in R2 and 2007 on the Island in R1. In R1, we arrive soon after Jacob's death. The chronologically challenged Losties have once again been bumped in time, but not in space, reappearing in 2007 in their locations around the Swan site, and, in the case of Rose, Bernard, and Vincent, presumably, by their retirement home by the beach (unless they didn't jump and are now years dead and gone and resting in the caves by the fresh water pool~ =).
Kate, Miles, Sawyer, and Jack are right by the imploded Swan hatch. Jin, Hurley, and the still-bleeding out Sayid, are by the Dharmawagen. It takes a couple minutes to realize it, but Juliet is alive some ways down the hatch shaft. They manage to clear enough hatch rubble for Sawyer to get to her and find her remarkably unperforated.
Juliet owns up to setting off the bomb. Sawyer's disbelieving...
Sawyer: You hit the bomb? Why?Hurley meets Jacob again...
Juliet: I wanted you to be able to go home. I wanted to make it so you never came to this damn island.
Jacob: Your friend Jin won't be able to see me... Because I died an hour ago.Jacob tells Hurley that the only way to save Sayid is to take him to the Temple. Sayid will be saved and it's somewhere safe for all of them.
Hurley: Sorry, dude. That sucks.
Jacob: Thanks.
Hurley: How'd you die?
Jacob: I was killed by an old friend who tired of my company.
Meanwhile, back at the Foot. Bram and some of his Shadow buddies discover that Jacob is dead. Esau-Locke recognizes Bram and co as Jacob's bodyguards and proclaims them free, now that Jacob is dead. They open fire, aparently tagging him at least once. He disappears. Bram picks up a bent/deflected bullet as we hear a familiar clicking and howling. It's Esau in monster form, roiling into the Foot with a mad on for Shadow bodyguards. He quickly dispatches Bram's wingmen while Bram rings himself in a circle of ash, poured from a pouch. This circle of protection saves him from Esau's first assault, but when the Monster takes a wack at the infrastructure, he shakes Bram out of his circle and spikes him on a log or torch. Bye bye, Bram.
That's one Big Question answered. The Monster is one Esau's forms. Now, is Esau a monster who walks like a man, or a man who can turn into a monster?
Was great seeing Richard get a bit upset, relax his composure, just a bit, when he drags Ben to Locke's dead body on the beach.
Meanwhile, back at the imploded Swan...
Juliet: I have to tell you something. It's really really important...Wow, so many great characters have gotten crappy deaths, but Juliet gets two pretty decent ones? Blerg. At least Sawyer was there for both.
Sawyer: You tell me... Juliet...? You tell me...
Sayid is in bad shape and Jack says he can do nothing for him. Hurley explains that Sayid's only hope is at the Temple. Everyone but Sawyer and Miles load up into the van for the Temple. Those two stay behind to bury Juliet.
I've gotta say, the premiereness of the premiere really suckered me into dropping my guard at times. I totally didn't get that Jacob, when he appeared to Hurley, was a ghost until he said so. I also totally missed the obvious reason for Sawyer asking Miles to stay behind and help him bury Juliet.
Hurley gets Jin to lead them to the hole in the wall where the first member of the French team was taken by the Monster. This is the wall of the Temple, where Richard took little Ben to be saved from death by Sayid's bullet, where Locke led Ben to meet the Monster for his supposed judgement, and where Ben told his people to retreat to when the mercs stormed the Island in 2004. Within the chambers of the wall, Jack and co are abducted and escorted out into the Temple courtyard. This is the first time we've actually seen the Temple itself.
When Locke and Miles are done with Juliet's burial, Sawyer asks Miles to find out what Juliet wanted to tell him. Use his power to do that. Miles resists at first. Frankly, I don't know why. Maybe he actually finds it painful/unsettling to "read" people he knows? Sawyer presses him (into the dirt) and Miles agrees. He reads her final words for Sawyer: It worked.
Miles: That's what she wanted to tell you: it worked.And Sawyer stomps off. That's a little LOSTly aggravating. Miles reveals those words, but look at his expression, his reaction, what did he actually READ? Does dead Juliet give up more than the pronoun "it" in the reading? Given Miles's stunned look, I'd like to think so. He's notoriously close-mouthed about significant events and info, tho. Remember how he let Claire walk off w the guy she called her father in the middle of the night? And in the spirit of LOST's traidtion of withholding, not surprising that Sawyer doesn't stick around to demand clarification. So not helpful.
Sawyer: What worked?
So, what does "It worked" mean? On a lame, Juliet-Sawyer level, it could just be a last kind word about their relationship. Sadly, lame.
But, what it SHOULD mean is that Faraday's plan worked. That Jughead did just what it was supposed to, destroying the energy pocket and wiping out the events that lead to flight 815 falling out of the sky over the Island. But how does she know that? In her minutes in the Swan shaft, broken, did she have a near-death experience, fade out and back in and finally out again? In those seconds where she asks James (whose name does she say?) about going dutch for coffee together, did she go into, or peer into, the light and see her Sawyerless life in the new reality, R2? Then come back just long enough to be delirious with Sawyer, about to tell him what she learned, and then die? Is this a way for Lostaways to look over and across the realities? Near-death experiences? Only those who are still a-tingle with timey-wimey particles? When he was choking on his stash, did R2 Charlie see that he is meant to die? Will Sayid reveal that he's had a vision of a family he's built with his beloved Nadia?
At the Temple—hey, look! It's DEADWOOD's Saul!—the flight attendant, now one of the Others, steps forward to identify Hurley and company. She explains that they were with her, on the first plane. The LAST SAMURAI Temple leader is not impressed, and orders them killed. Only when Hurley mentions Jacob and then hands over the guitar case do they lower their weapons. When the leader opens the case, he discovers an ankh sculpture, which he cracks open, Maltese Falcon style. Inside is a piece of paper. He asks for the Losties' names and seems to check them against the paper. A list. It's Jacob's way, right? They're spared. Hurley demands to know what was on the paper...
Saul: The paper said that if your friend there dies, we're all in a lot of trouble.I'm pretty convinced that on the paper is a list of names. Something familiar to the upper echelon of the Others. The interpreter is giving him the meaning of the list, that everyone on it needs to live, most likely to play a part in Jacob's plan. I'm thinking that all of the ones touched by Jacob have to unite and form Voltron.
Y'know, figuratively.
Temple leader cuts his hand and dips it in the unclear waters of the spring. I assume it's a test of the spring's healing abilities. Fail. But, they proceed anyway. The Interpreter explains that if they do this, there are risks. Jack tells them to do what they have to do (to save Sayid). The Others carry Sayid into the spring and flip over their egg timer to time how long he's held under water. Sayid regains consciousness and struggles, but the Others hold him under. When Jack attempts to force the leader to stop, LAST SAMURAI kung fus him soundly to the ground. Only when the sands run out do the Others remove him from the spring, lay him on the ground, and inform his friends that he is dead. O well.
Meanwhile, back at the Foot, Lockesau wants to tell Ben what the real John Locke's last thoughts were...
Lockesau: "I don't understand."Isn't that just the saddest thing you ever heard? But it's fitting in a way, because when John first came to the Island, he was a very sad man. A victim. Shouting at the world for being told what he couldn't do, even tho they were right. He was weak, and pathetic, and irreparably broken. but, despite all that, there was something admirable about him. he was the only one of them who didn't want to leave. The only one who realized how pitiful the life he left behind actually was.
Ben: What do you want?...to my planet? Where could home be? The Temple? That's kinda weak, cuz he was able to go there w Ben to "judge" him just the other day. To ancient Egypt, where he was properly feared and worshipped as a god? I like the idea of that. That he wants to go back to a home that no longer exists. That he's a creature out of time, who's lived past his time or usefulness. Like the mighty Apollo in STAR TREK the original series, y'know? And Jacob might be that Q-ling space Liberace they encounter, too.
Lockesau: Well, that's the great irony here, Ben. Because I want the one thing John Locke didn't. I want to go home.
Back at the temple, LAST SAMURAI has a meeting with Hurley. After the leader reveals his distaste for speaking English, Hurley breaks the news of Jacob's death. The Others immediately mobilize and put the temple into anti-Esau lockdown, creating a barrier of ash around the structure and launching a flare into the sky.
Lapidus, Sun, Richard, the Others, and the Shadows all see the flare from the Temple. Esau-Locke comes strolling out of the Foot and all eyes turn. Richard orders everyone not to shoot, urgently, even. Esau-Locke walks up to Richard...
Lockesau: Hello, Richard. It's good to see you out of those chains.And Esau-Locke knocks Richard out.
Richard: You?
Lockesau: Me.
Elocke: I'm very disappointed... In ALL of you.He picks up Richard's limp body and walks off, right past Locke's body.
Richard's warning to not shoot Esau made me think that once mortally wounded, Esau might have no choice but to revert to his deadly and all-powerful Monster form, and that he might be easier to defeat or contain as a human.
Esau's remark about Richard in chains gave me the impression of a past conflict in which Richard went up against Esau and was punished or imprisoned for it. Maybe Richard cannot be killed, as part of Jacob's gift, but only imprisoned? Or perhaps he was Esau's man, or priest, once, and had to be punished for turning against him.
Esau's disappointment. Along the lines of TWILIGHT ZONE's "small talent for war?"
Back at the temple, the Interpreter requests an audience with Jack. Jack begins to resist when Hurley calls attention to the stirring Sayid, who raises himself and asks, "What happened?"
I'm guessing the idea of showing us R1 in 2004 is to reveal how much crappier everyone's lives would be if they'd never been to the Island. There was a flash of goodness when Locke tells Boone about his walkabout. I wanted to believe that in this reality his father never stole his kidney, that he never had to confront him, and so, was never paralyzed, maybe even that he'd married Helen. Alas, not to be.
When Esau-Locke tells Ben what Locke's dying thoughts were... that was just so frickin sad and miserable and unfair. Feckin Ben.
Keep on keepin on~
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
LOST: the beginning of the end...
These came in just in time on the last pallet drop!
Didn't know we had polar bear pens across the street. Go figure.Thanks to In, Row, JB, JW, and VL for joining me in the Hatch for the latest transmission. =)
Keep on keepin on~
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)