LOST: he walks among us...

Weak episode. Annoying. Why can't every episode be a Desmond episode? Or a Hurley or even a sad Locke, at least? Bleah.

First off, a little palate cleansing with some LOST-COLBERT pop-cultural cross referencing... I caught a recent rerun of the Colbert Report this week. Stephen's all excited about how some organization of Christians concerned about entertainment and culture chooses 355 entertainers/cultural icons and assigns each one to a day of the year on which 10,000 of its members will pray for that person. Actually, Stephen's day was *yesterday* (Thursday, that is)!

* Later that day... Found a clip! Check it out =)

When he first mentioned it on his show, I was sure these prayerlings were choosing entertainers to somehow influence them. but now, after several mentions on the Report, I'm unclear if this organization is necessarily praying for their health and happiness, or to save their souls, y'know, cuz they're in need of saving? To persuade them to behave a certain way, perhaps to correct or change the error of their Hollywood liberal entertainment ways...? It's totally Colbert's M.O. to turn just that sort of thing on its head, but it's also the *ultimate* form of it when you just can't tell.

Anyhow, Stephen is itching to find out what it will FEEL like, to have 10,000 prayers aimed at you on one day. (I remember this coming up on WEST WING one season in regards to prayers for CJ, but I can't remember where the show went with the issue—anyone?) So, he looks up people who have already had their days of prayer, and first on the calendar this year was LOST creator J.J. Abrams (They pray for people in alphabetical order—and why not?). Ha! Colbert had a photo of J.J. Walker up as a visual while Abrams was on the phone. Hahaha =)

So, Stephen asks him if he felt anything special, or if something interesting, different, or unusual, even the tiniest bit miraculous, happened on the first of the year. Abrams explains that he hadn't realized it, but yeah, there was one minor thing, actually... He matter-of-factly confesses that he's been having trouble trying to figure out an ending to his LOST show, in fact he's just been winging it, thrashing around without a clue for a couple years now, and on that day, suddenly, out of the blue, he came up with the ending.

Smartass, no?

Later in the convo, Colbert gives an impromptu audition for the part of young Doc McCoy for the STAR TREK prequel Abrams is scripting, and I say—give him the part! =)

At the end of the call, Stephen asks him if he would say, "Dyn-o-mite!" He does. But he's not happy about it. =)

* Even later that day. A pop-y BSG-LOST-OFFICE crossover trifecta on THE OFFICE last night. Did anyone catch it? At the dinner party, Dwight corners a guest...

Dwight: Do you watch Battlestar Galactica?

Guest: No.

Dwight: Then you are an idiot.

Heh heh. Well, maybe not such an idiot lately...

Anyone catch the directing credits for this episode? None other than J.J. "Dyn-o-mite!" Abrams! I was hoping to spot, but didn't identify, any 815 passengers at the party. Kind of a harsh, but promising, ending, no? "I'm going to kill Jim Halpert." Not quite a "Charlie, you are going to die," but a momentous OFFICE moment for Abrams to close on. Might've played a little different or been a better fit for last week's Joss Whedon, tho, right? I mean, a boyfriend reverting to evil once you open up to him? Altho, Joss does have the right touch for shining the spotlight on Pam and Michael as outsiders.

Miffed, disappointed, a little peeved at Joss's disconnection from the WONDER WOMAN thang, but quite lookin forward to BUFFY "season 8!" =)

Anyone hear about a green light for a JUSTICE LEAGUE film?

So, we were supposed to get the answers to three big LOST questions... We get a translation and origin of the Chinese characters of Jack's tattoo. That's one. We see Cindy the flight attendant and two children passengers from 815, abducted by the Others some time ago, milling about outside the polar bear cages. Apparently they've been assimilated/indoctrinated into a level of Other life. That's two. What's three? The only legit question I can think of that was answered (and this would be the only one of the three that was squarely/satisfyingly answered) is—where do the Others live? Ever since it was revealed that Hydra station was on another island, I've been confused about just where the Others' village is located. I think EVERY freakin character mentioned it once this episode, so okay, I get it now. The village is on the main island. The Hydra is a facility that they use for their projects, and a place that most don't seem to like.

That encounter with the 815 abductees was really annoying. We learn Nothing except that they're alive, they have clean clothes, and apparently, they're not told anything about the survivors (Anna Lucia). I imagine they've all spent some time in cells 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42 and believe that God loves them as He loved Jacob.

Usually a weaker LOST episode will still be a pretty fun drama, following a flash/backstory of one of the characters. We didn't even really get that this time. We get an origin story for part of Jack's tattoo, but it's not nearly as powerful as I'd have made it. It's just so frickin vague, all parts of it, really. He's in Thailand, trying to find himself. I'm not sure when it is in his life, which is kind of annoying. Obviously, it's before he's gotten his tattoo, but I can't remember if I've seen him with it when he was performing miraculous spinal surgery on his future wife, when he was running stadiums with Desmond, or when he went looking for his father. Of course, he had it before going to Australia, but I honestly can't remember SEEing it then, or at any other flashback time, y'know? He does answer to "Doctor Jack..." That's a tiny clue to timing I guess. I'd wager this is the earliest/youngest we've seen Jack so far.

Sheriff: He walks among us, but he is not one of us...

Jack: That's what they say. It's not what they mean.

He's in Phuket on holiday, alone. He doesn't know how to fly a kite (his dad's fault). On the beach he meets a gargoyle in the form of a nymphomaniac Bai Ling (redundant, I know), and as long as he doesn't ask any personal questions, he can enjoy regular no-strings attached crazy girl sex in an apparent tropical paradise.

Of course, he asks questions. He finds out Atera(?) has a "gift,"—I was *hoping* it had to do with cooking special dumplings, but alas, not to be—but she's not allowed to share it. He forces the issue by following her to her unusual tattoo parlor. It turns out her gift is the ability to see who people are, their character or destiny, you might say, and then mark them. She tells him, "You are a leader, a great man, but this... this makes you lonely, and frightened, and angry..." She also tells him that marking him as such would break traditional laws of some kind, but of course, Jack insists, and gets "he walks amongst us, but he is not one of us" tattooed onto his shoulder.

There's a nice turn of a phrase when Atera describes her craft—"My work is not decoration, it is definition."

The next day, her brother and his a capella group converge on Jack at the beach and give him a hohum thrashing (no flashy muay thai bone cracking : P), leaving him curled up in a fetal position. From his vantage point in the sand, he sees Atera in the distance and she seems to be sad. Awww. She follows her brother and the rest of the Jets away and presumably out of Jack's life forever.

I was a little annoyed with the "exotic secrets of the east" angle that was played on several levels.

Atera: There are things that happen here that you could never understand...

Jack: Like your gift...

Atera: Like my gift.

I guess it's meant to serve a shorthand purpose, y'know? When presented in a foreign land and environment, the unusual, spiritual, and/or supernatural, meets less resistance from suspension of disbelief. If only the "gift" had been more overtly paranormal and powerful, I probably wouldn't have minded so much.

Jack's tatts are actually the actor, Matt's tatts, right? And the show is just working them into the story? Pretty frickin ridiculous, no? Still, if you're gonna do it, don't go halfway. It's gotta be significant somehow. So, they've been assimilated into the story as character development and motif for an episode. Not bad for a run-o-the-mill primetime drama. But for LOST? Pretty weak. I think we got it in the first couple episodes of the show that Jack is the "some people have greatness thrust upon them" guy. The reluctant leader.

She tells him, "There will be consequences, Jack." A beat-down on the beach hardly seems to match the ominous tone that warning should have carried. I like to think that the consequences are only now playing out on the LOST island. Maybe she's like the Oracle as well, marking people with what they need to see/hear, not necessarily what they are...

I have a small hope that the tattoo could be something more than just ink. That her "gift" is more than just description. She speaks of her ability as if it's mystical, so why not push that some more and attach more power to it? She *says* it's "definition," but the process is her SEEing and then her mark DESCRIBE-ing. What if it could PRESCRIBE? What if her mark MAKES the person what she inks? Perhaps you'd call it magic. Or maybe the ink is made of some crazy herbs or roots or eyes or babies and together with the F'd up powers that Dharma has unleashed on the island, just happens to imbue the tattooed with some enhanced power or sense or mental faculty...

It would be like Danny Torrance showing up at the haunted crazy hotel with his shining, y'know? An X-factor and fly in the ointment of the decidedly malicious machinations of some evil force.

Crazy talk. Like I said, a small hope.

*sigh*

Sheriff: Why are you lying for her, Jack?

Jack: I'd like to go back to my cage now...

I would've liked for Jack and Juliet to play their alliance in a more Machiavellian way, or even in a man-of-his-word way, instead of putting on a show of being nice and friendly people. Personally, I like Juliet, but Jack shouldn't be so whipped so soon by this woman, y'know? By "man-of-his-word," I mean that Jack could reasonably feel indebted to Juliet for going all out to help his friends escape the Hydra station island. She lived up to her end of the deal and broke her own code/laws to do it. Doesn't that make sense? The show had Jack acting like a freshman nerd who can get the senior cheerleader out of detention by giving her the alibi that he was tutoring her in trig when the fire alarm went off.

Umm... I have no idea why I'd come up with such a specific simile... No idea.

Sawyer was still pretty damn entertaining.

Karl: It's just where we work.

Sawyer: Work on what?

Karl: Projects.

Sawyer: Like, steal a kid off the raft project? That was a humdinger!

I liked seeing his "softer side," the romantic Sawyer... which starts with a punch in the shoulder and moves on to BRADY BUNCH nicknames. Kate was pretty frickin annoying, but I don't think that Sawyer *quite* pegged her guilt issue. He's taking the low high road and playing the jerkass, telling Kate that he knows that their night in the polar bear cage was just a death row booty call, not because that's the case, but because it lets both of them off the emotional hook. For Sawyer, Kate's one of those girls "you name dumb stars with." Kate, the marrying bandit, sees thru it, but understands that fighting him on it wil break its power. They belong together. Altho, I do hope to see a vicious Juliet vs. Kate catfight ina future episode.

"The blond woman."

Does Juliet's mark mean anything? It's not the Eye of Jupiter, is it? Does anyone else have this mark? Perhaps Rousseau? Or another one of the 815 survivors? Maybe Ben sent more than one spy to each crash site... *Or* perhaps a marked Other was actually on flight 815, after completing some Dharma work in the outside world, or maybe an escapee, who believed himself safe...

Karl's little reminiscence of he and Alex naming constellations brought up an interesting notion. What *does* the night sky look like on the LOST island? Was this already covered early on? If so, I've completely forgotten.

Geez, why do I try so hard to defend a criminally mediocre episode?

I know Karl's all wacked on lovesickness and cell 23-us interruptus, but how do you *not* ask him WTF w the CLOCKWORK ORANGE b-mod action? Where their backyards are? WhoTF is Ben? Bleah. I know, I know. It's how the show frickin works. You can't ask the obvious important questions until a very particular moment. Rules of the Island.

But still.

Frack. That montage at the end was just excruciating! Ticking away seconds and eating minutes that could have been better used to tell some real freakin story instead of cheezing up the mood. Other episodes have done that, but well, with the ending being an appropriate cap to the action, or check-in with all the characters, on the verge of something. This just wasn't the kind of episode for such a close.

Bad robot.

Keep on keepin on~