Lost - "Cabin Fever"

I've got a fever… and the only cure is... more cabin.

Episode Title: Cabin Fever

Brian's Deeper Meaning Guess: Well this one seems quite obvious, doesn't it?

After teasing us with the uber-exciting prospect of a return visit to Jacob's Cabin two weeks ago, last week left us considerably cabin-less - but it looks like we're getting the payoff this week… big time. Clearly the episode title is directly referring to Locke, Ben, and Hurley's journey to visit Jacob's Cabin, so that portion of the episode title is fairly straightforward. But what exactly is "cabin fever"? I'll defer to the good people at Wikipedia!

Cabin fever is a slang term for a claustrophobic reaction that takes place when a party is isolated and/or shut in, alone or together, for an extended period. Symptoms include restlessness, irritability, forgetfulness, and excessive sleeping.

The origin of the term is unknown, but may originate from the United States during the time when settlers would be snowed into their log cabins in winter and would had to wait for the spring thaw in order to travel to town. The phrase may also be associated with ocean-crossing sailing ships in which passengers had to endure weeks and months of slow travel while living in cabins below deck, or group of people on a deserted island or on a long space voyage.

If you think about it, based on this definition you could argue that literally every person on the show could be suffering from a type of "cabin fever".

First there are the Freightors, who have such a bad case of "cabin fever" that they're literally killing themselves. They seem to have been sitting just offshore of the Island for quite some time, isolated from the rest of the world thanks to Michael trashing their communications, potentially suffering some weird side effects from the Magnetic Bubble around the Island that could be accelerating the issue.

Then we've got our Survivors on the Beach. They too have been somewhat isolated from the rest of the world since they crashed on the Island, stuck on a wacky Island with mysterious Others, Smoke Monsters, and Island Visions. Although most seem to be handling it pretty well, we've seen a few of them "snap" from time to time, and the stress seems to be building on Jack, who is becoming obsessed with "saving everyone" no matter what the cost.

Even the Others themselves seem to be growing discontent and restless with their isolated state on the Island, losing faith in Ben as their leader and returning to their roots (perhaps) in their journey to the Temple.

But let's be honest - this episode title is clearly referring to the search for Jacob's Cabin. This search might get "heated" with arguments between Locke and Ben, or even approach a "fever pitch" of intensity and excitement as Locke and Co. draw closer to the Cabin. They're the characters with the biggest case of "Cabin Fever" this week.

On the other hand, I'd argue that we, as viewers have an even bigger case of Cabin Fever. If I were to make a list of the top questions I wanted answers to on the show, Jacob and his Cabin would be near the top of the list (right below "What is Smokey" and "Why aren't there more scenes of Kate in a men's button down shirt and underwear") - and I think most of you are the same way. Ever since we got our first glimpse of Jacob and the Cabin last season, it's been a huge mystery - full of possibilities ranging from the mundane (all a hoax put on by Ben) to the not-really-pseudo-science supernatural (Jacob is the manifestation of the Island Spirit, is all knowing, all powerful, and used to be a pirate). We're all dying to know more, and I for one am giddy with excitement about this week's episode. I'll probably overhype it to a level that no episode could possibly live up to - but I'll just chalk it up to me coming down with a nasty case of Cabin Fever.


Episode Description: Locke is enlightened as to the whereabouts of Jacob's cabin, and life aboard the freighter becomes perilous. Guest starring are Jeff Fahey as Frank Lapidus, Lance Reddick as Matthew Abaddon, Marc Vann as doctor, Kevin Durand as Keamy, Anthony Azizi as Omar, Grant Bowler as Captain Gault, John Terry as Christian Shephard, Holland Roden as Emily, Rebecca Tilney as Emily's mother, Amanda Carlin as ER nurse, Patrick Torres as ER doctor, Doug Hutchison as Horace Goodspeed, Nestor Carbonell as Richard Alpert, Matthew Pedersen as physical therapist, Mandy June Turpin as Florence, Sarah Duval as Melissa, Charles Henry Wyson as John Locke (age 5), Phil Abrams as Gellert and Caleb Steinmeyer as John Locke (age 16).


Episode Breakdown: There are so many gasp-worthy items in that description, I hardly know where to begin. Let's start with the guest stars…


Alpert. Thank you, Writer's Strike. We all complained about it at the time, but if it wasn’t for the writer's strike, Nestor Carbonell's short lived series "Cane" might not have gotten cancelled, and CBS (the worst network on TV) probably wouldn't have allowed Nestor to jump over to ABC for a guest spot on Lost. But thankfully, the writers striked (stroke?), I was able to get married without the distraction of Lost, and we get the ageless Richard Alpert back. So in a way, the strike was a blessing in disguise.

If you recall, Richard is really the only honest-to-goodness pre-Dharma Other we've met on the Island (since he's the only one we saw before the Purge, you could argue that Tom, Pickett, etc. were all recruits by Ben after he took over) – which explains why although we’ve gotten numerous Ben and Juliet flashbacks, we still have no idea who these Island Original “Others” are, what their purpose on the Island is, or if they really do not age. For many viewers (like me), Richard Alpert has been the key to getting answers to these questions, so I couldn’t be happier for his return.



When we last left Alpert, he was leading the Others to the Temple at Ben’s request. Although I tempted to hope that this week finally gives us a glimpse at this “temple”, with all the other non-Other guest stars listed in “Cabin Fever”, it seems unlikely that the story will progress that far this week… but I’m still holding out hope for a temple visit in the three part season finale. But we digress. A lot has happened since we last saw Alpert, which forces us to re-evaluate his character.

For one, the Season Three Lost DVDs came out, which confirmed that Alpert is a leader of the Others, responsible for selecting a leader. The commentary for “The Man from Tallahassee” compared him to the Panchen Lama (the guy who picks the Dali Lama – for more, study up on Tibetan Buddhism). This gives a whole new understanding to Alpert’s encounter with a childhood Ben outside the Dharma Barracks during “The Man Behind The Curtain”. Did Alpert know that Ben would become the future leader of the Others? Was the Purge a test for Ben to prove his worth before he could become leader? Was there some prophecy that foretold of a non-Island boy coming to lead the Others?

It’s unclear, but the important thing is that with this knowledge, you could argue that through his actions last season, he was “grooming” John Locke to become the next leader of the Others. Alpert was told Locke the truth about Ben trying to expose him as being weak for not being able to kill Anthony Cooper and even provided him with an “out” of the situation by revealing Cooper’s relationship with Sawyer. Likewise, Alpert openly questioned Ben’s methods of leadership (focusing on pregnancy) and showed concern when Locke “had an accident” after his trip with Ben to see Jacob the first time. His return this episode might mean we are one step closer to Locke becoming the leader of the Others (more on this later).

As for his non-aging for the past thirty years, we now have a few options to help explain it. For one, we’ve gotten a pretty good indication of funky time and space on the Island through Ben’s transport to Tunisia. It’s reasonable to think that Alpert could simply be hopping back and forth through time on the Island to be at critical junctures, but is aging quite normally. On the other hand, we’ve got this week’s episode preview featuring an apologetic Horace Goodspeed mentioning he’s been dead for 12 years. Unless TV shows and movies have lied to me in the past, dead people don’t age – they keep the appearance they had when they died. This could mean that Alpert died years ago, but has appeared to Ben, Locke, and the Others as a ghost / Island Spirit that doesn’t age.

However, I’m really pulling for this theory to be wrong. Although last week I hypothesized that Claire could already be dead (and be walking around and interacting with people like the also dead Christian Shephard), the more I think about it, the more “cheap” and “sci-fi” it seems. I would much prefer for Claire to be alive, Christian to be a manifestation of the Island Spirit, and Alpert to be living forever thanks to his communion with the Island and its “rules”. Yes, that’s right - somehow I can accept manifestations of Island Spirits and people living forever much better than I can accept ghosts that interact with people. I can’t explain it either.


Goodspeed. However, that wouldn’t explain Horace Goodspeed. For those who don’t remember, we’ve seen Horace before – he was the man who was driving by when Ben was born, recruited his father to come work on the Island, and died in the Purge of the Dharma Initiative (note: based on his comment in the episode preview, the Purge must have taken place in 1992 –which sorta conflicts with the timeline established by other events on the show – but we won’t get caught up with that).



So how do we explain Horace’s guest appearance this episode? The easy answer would be that he’s a manifestation of the Island. Locke seeing Horace (someone he doesn’t know) really isn’t any different than Hurley seeing Christian earlier this season – the manifestations don’t seem to be necessarily related to a figure from each character’s past. But what would be the purpose of his appearance? To warn Locke about Ben’s treachery in the past? To enlighten Locke of the higher goals of the Dharma Initiative? Neither seem like a good reason – but they’re the best I can come up with. Maybe he’s just there to torment Benjamin Linus for his past sins. I’m just really hoping it’s not that he’s a ghost leading Locke to the Ghost Town where all the former members of Dharma are happily living.


Jacob. Although there are a thousand questions about Jacob inside my head, the biggest one for right now is “why Hurley?” I can understand that the Cabin isn’t so much a physical place, and moves around the Island from time to time. I can understand that Jacob can appear as other people, seem to be talking to other dead people, and is an all-knowing and all-powerful being. But what I can’t understand is Hurley’s connection to all this. Why did Hurley see the Cabin in the first place? Why is he needed to find the Cabin again?

Did Hurley just accidentally stumble upon the Cabin earlier this season? Is the last person to visit the Cabin required to find it again? Is Hurley not really needed, but has “seen too much” and must be taken care of? Or did Hurley suddenly make Jacob’s list as a “chosen one”?

There are so many questions about Jacob, without even getting into his nature. Is he a ghost? Is he the manifestation of the Island? Was he an original Island inhabitant who has been dead for years? Is he really as wise and powerful as Ben claims? If so, why can’t he take care of the Freightors himself? If the Cabin really does move around, then why is there a map for it? And if there’s a map for it, why is Hurley needed?



Sorry guys – there’s so many questions and I don’t have a good answer for any of them. We really don’t seem any closer to knowing Jacob now than we did after his first appearance during “The Man Behind the Curtain”, so I’ll leave it up to you and this episode to figure out.


Freightors. But enough about potential ghost spirits – there are plenty of other non-Sixth Sense-y mysteries surrounding this episode. This episode preview seemed to show a scene between Michael and Keamy on the Freighter… but Keamy has been on the Island for the past two episodes. Does this episode start out with a flashback to “three days ago” to fill us in with what happened on the Freighter since we last left it? Is time really so funky that Keamy is arguing with Michael two days in Freighter time after he murdered Alex in Island time? Or did last week’s episode hint that Frank was taking Keamy and the remaining Freightors back to the ship, where their confrontation with Michael will occur in “real-time”?



You’ll also notice that the creeptastic Abaddon is scheduled to appear this week – how he fits in is even more of a mystery. It didn’t seem as though he was on the Freighter, and this week’s flashbacks clearly deal with the childhood of John Locke (more on this coming up!). So what’s the timeframe we’re looking at here?

Well, I don’t really see Keamy leaving the Island until he gets Benjamin Linus – he strikes me as a man on a mission, who doesn’t retreat due to the minor setback of a few casualties of his team, so I’m betting the episode starts with brief Freighter flashback to bring us up to speed on what we missed. This could feature a conversation between the Captain and Abaddon happening (discussing what to do with Michael now that he has been revealed to be a Survivor of Oceanic 815? Or just talking about their weekend plans). I also think that this might be a result of our current strike-shortened season, where we have writers cramming the story in as tight as possible even if it means a mini-flashback such as this. Given a few more episodes this season, I’m sure we would have had another episode before now that featured a Freightor flashback to help bridge the gap between the stories. It’s all leading up to the eventual collision of the Freighter Survivors (Sayid), Team Island (Hurley), Team Rescue (Kate, Sun, and Jack), and Team Walking Through the Jungle (Aaron) who must meet up to become “The Oceanic Six” and get rescued before the season ends.


Locke. As for this week’s flashbacks, it’s pretty obvious by the guest stars that we’re looking at a John Locke version of “It’s a Wonderful Life”. The “Emily” listed as a guest star would likely be Locke’s mother – but instead of being played by Swoosie Kurtz (as in previous episodes), it’s the younger, hotter Holland Roden.



The inclusion of an ER Nurse and Doctor hint that we might witness the birth of John Locke this week, which explains the difference in actresses. I mean, Swoosie is a great actress and I, but I don’t really think she could pull off playing a 15 year old. In addition, the guest stars indicate we’ll have scenes featuring John Locke at age 5 and 16 – but why?

What could we possibly learn about John Locke at such an early age that will add to our understanding with him or tie in with the current Island storyline? We’ve already seen what a truly crappy pre-Island life Locke had – people taking advantage of him at every turn, longing to belong, confined to a wheelchair. Will these vignettes of his youth feature him getting bullied around and picked on in school? His mom cursing him the moment he was born?

I don’t think so.

Rather, I think this is a very big week for John Locke. The week he finds the “greater purpose” he’s been hunting for since he arrived on this Island.

Let’s add up the pieces. Although his mom was certifiably crazy, she claimed that Locke was “immaculately conceived”. Both Ben and Alpert have hinted at Locke’s importance on the Island. From his first encounter with Smokey, Locke seems to have been on a spiritual journey with the Island. Although he’s had a few stumbles and crises of faith along the way, here he is, about to make a second journey to Jacob for the purpose of defending the Island from invaders.

I think now is the time for John Locke to come into his own, to become the leader of the Others, to start learning the secrets of the Island, and to step up to protect it.

As for the flashbacks this week? What if John Locke really was destined to end up on this Island? What if the flashbacks features scenes where he almost got hit by a car as a kid, or avoided a falling piano that make us question if it was just dumb luck or truly fate that got him this far. Or perhaps we’ll even see random acts of strangers help guide him along the way – strangers who we later see on the Island as non-aging Others at the Temple with Alpert? That would be pretty mind-blowing, right?

That’s my hope for this week. Evidence of Locke’s greater purpose, setting the wheels in motion to bring all parties together in the huge finale, some reveals about the nature of Jacob and the Others, and gratuitous scenes of Kate in a bikini. Is that so much to ask? The episode description (which we actually didn’t even discuss) states “Locke is enlightened as to the whereabouts of Jacob's cabin, and life aboard the freighter becomes perilous”.

Like I said, I’m totally over-hyping this episode… which means no matter how great it is, we’ll all be disappointed now – but that’s my bad. I can’t help but think this episode is going to be absolutely huge.

http://facethewoods.com/lost/index.php?topic=308.0

"Something Nice Back Home" Analysis!

Before we start this week, I might as well go ahead and get these out of the way. I title them “What Something Nice Back Home Looks Like”:





Ja bitte.

Okay – on to the more intellectual side of this episode…

Scars. One of the downsides of writing “Instant Reactions” is that they come after one viewing of the episode, in real-time, on my non-HD living room TV. To my naked eye, I didn’t notice any major appendectomy scars on Jack’s naked body at the start of the episode, which raised all sorts of timeline / alternate reality / dream sequence questions about the episode. But it turns out that I just wasn’t looking close enough. Check it out.





It’s a little scar (tricky makeup people!) – but it’s a scar – which confirms that “Something Nice Back Home” was indeed a flashforward that took place after Juliet’s Island appendectomy surgery on Jack. This also confirms that Hurley was talking crazy talk when he said that they were all dead, even though Jack was living what many men would consider to be a “dream life” – hooking up with uber-hot Kate (note: does this mean that I am also currently living a “dream life”?)

This still doesn’t answer the Freighter Doctor (Ray) scar question from last week (man, am I glad I wasn’t here to have to figure that out last week!), which seems to raise some seriously tough questions. Ray’s cut on his cheek was merely a scar when Sayid and Desmond arrived on the Freighter, but was freshly cut and stitched when he washed ashore on the Island a few days later… even though the Freighter said he was fine when Faraday asked about him.

It boggles the mind. If the Freightors are serious when they say Ray is fine, it could mean that the Island is “in the future” relative to the Freighter. But since the body washed ashore with the fresh cut, that means the body is “in the past” relative to when Sayid and Desmond arrived on the Freighter… even though they talked to Jack which seems to indicate they are both on the same timeline.

Like I said, boggling.


Timeline. Speaking of puzzling, the newspaper article at the start of the episode seemed to give us the timeframe for the flashforward… but there were some unfortunate inconsistencies that are outlined on Lostpedia:



By virtue of the Yankees/Red Sox and Indians/Mariners scores in the newspaper article, only one date is viable for the publication of the paper: August 31, 2007. Article states Yankees finish their sweep of the Red Sox with winning pitcher Chien-Ming Wang beating Curt Schilling 5-0. The only occurrence of this game is the date above.

However, the newspaper also lists "Angels 8 - Astros 4" but the Astros were playing the St. Louis Cardinals over these dates. As such, the newspaper most likely isn't able to indicate the correct date.

The Angels-Astros result is from June 20, 2007. The Angels are in the American league, and the Astros play in the National. This was an inter-league game, and the first time these two teams had played against each other since 2004. The box-score is accurate.

The other side of the fold of the newspaper has an article with the headline "Dodgers 8-4 win over Astros" which conflicts with the Angels-Astros box score on the opposite side of the fold.

Personally, I find it a little hard to believe that the Lost prop guys would go to the trouble of painstakingly reproducing an accurate account of the Red Sox and Yankees game from August 31, 2007 – but wouldn’t look and see what other games actually happened on that day… or would include the same team playing two different teams on the same day.

According to Lostpedia, Aaron was born on November 1, 2004. In the “Eggtown” flashforward, Aaron was listed in the credits as a “Three Year Old Boy” – which would put the timeline around November 2007. Since “Something Nice Back Home” takes place after “Eggtown”, it would have to be after that date – which seems to throw the newspaper’s accuracy into question.

Now, it’s always possible that we’re nitpicking here. Maybe Aaron was “almost three” in “Eggtown”, and “Something Nice Back Home” took place just a few weeks afterwards – in August 2007. Or, maybe the logical errors in the newspaper are actually clues that we shouldn’t be overly concerned about the specific date of the flashforwards – just the chronological order of them. I mean, does it really matter if it’s 2007 or 2008? As long as we know that the flashbacks in this episode took place after “Eggtown” and before “Through the Looking Glass”, from a storytelling perspective, we’re good to go.


Storytime. But speaking of storytelling, did you notice what story Jack was reading to Aaron at the start of the episode? None other than “Alice in Wonderland”, the second most referenced story on the show behind “The Wizard of Oz.” But this wasn’t just a fun easter egg – check out the specific passage that Jack was reading:

'Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle!'

It’s so deep on so many levels.

It also speaks to all our Survivors – and how time on the Island has changed their lives – but more specifically I see it referencing the Oceanic Six and their return to the real world, finding that although they started out feeling find and happy – things changed, and they have all started to feel a little different. Likewise, they all had a very specific goal and purpose during their time on the Island – escape – but now that they are back in the real world, they’re questioning their purpose, who they are, and what they should be doing… but all are changed. Sayid’s an assassin, Hurley’s totally crazy, Kate’s pretending she’s a mom, Sun’s a widow, and Jack’s an alcoholic junkie obsessed with finding the Island… and this episode showed us how he got there.




Hurley. Although Hurley was wrong about some things (the Oceanic Six aren’t all dead – Hurley thinking they are all dead, and are living in a heaven / dream world is actually pretty similar to the “Dave” episode a few seasons back), he did bring up a number of interesting points to Jack during their brief and uber-creepy conversation. He outlined the path that Jack’s life would take by comparing it to his own.

“I was happy too – for a while anyways. Then I saw Charlie.”



This week showed Jack during that “happy stage”, living with Kate, raising Aaron, being a respected doctor and probably an international celebrity. However, once Hurley started seeing Charlie, he started to lose it. Perhaps he started feeling guilt about what happened when the Oceanic Six left the Island, or who they left behind, or maybe it’s as simple as the fact that they really weren’t supposed to leave the Island in the first place. But these thoughts either come from, or coincide with, the appearance of the dead Charlie to Hurley… and as we saw this week, Jack is starting to feel the same things once he starts seeing his dead dad.

So for those keeping track at home, we have Hurley haunted by dead Charlie, Jack haunted by dead Christian, and Michael haunted by dead Libby. You could hypothesize that Sayid is haunted by dead Nadia. But when we saw Kate most recently (in “Through the Looking Glass”), she still seemed to have it together – so perhaps she hasn’t started seeing her ghost yet (or Jin, for that matter). But Hurley’s conversation with Jack seemed to serve as a warning that bad times are coming for each of the Oceanic Six.


Aaron. The other thing that Hurley mentioned to Jack seemed to shake him considerably: “You’re not supposed to raise him, Jack”, referring to Aaron. As I mentioned in the Instant Reactions, it would be pretty awesome (and quite intriguing) if the writers actually pulled the Aaron storyline back to the forefront. We’ve had a psychic warn Claire that she needed to be the one to raise Aaron (ironically, he initially told Claire to give Aaron away to a couple in Los Angeles… and weren’t Jack and Kate living in Los Angeles this episode?).

I always assumed that Kate ended up with Aaron due to Claire dying… but if Charlie (who you could argue is an Island Spirit) is passing along messages that Jack isn’t supposed to raise him, does that mean that Claire is still alive and well on the Island? Is the Island calling Aaron back because Claire is alive there? Or because she is dead, but that it’s still important for Aaron to be raised on the Island? Otherwise, if Aaron wasn’t really important to the Island, and if Claire was dead, Jack would seem to be the next best candidate to raise him. I mean, they are related after all.


Christian. Which brings us to the big “whoa” moment of the episode – the surprise reappearance on Christian Shephard… who wasn’t even listed as a guest star this episode! Pretty sneaky ABC (why don’t you do this more often for surprise guest appearances?) Although I expected to see him appear to Jack in the flashforward, his appearance to Claire came out of nowhere – but served three very important points:

1. It reminded the average viewer about the relationship between Jack and Claire. Even for the most faithful viewer, this is a storyline that’s been on the back burner for so long that most probably had forgotten about it. But by having Christian appear to Jack in the flashforward and to Claire on the Island (accompanied by her exclamation of “Dad?”) it reminded everyone about the connection. In the flashforward, we saw Jack yell at Kate “you’re not even related to him” in reference to Aaron, meaning that he finds out about the connection before leaving the Island.



2. It separated Claire from Aaron. This is actually a strong argument why dead Christian doesn’t represent the Island, or that the Island doesn’t really care about Aaron – because if it did, wouldn’t it have made certain to bring Aaron along wherever he was taking Claire? However, this puts 5/6 of the Oceanic Six on their way to, or already on the Beach – with Hurley sure to follow after leading Locke and Ben to Jacob’s Cabin. This might explain why Aaron leaves the Island without Claire – because Claire isn’t around when rescue comes.



3. It showed that dead Christian / Island Spirit can physically interact with things. Christian was holding Aaron. We’ve hypothesized that this was possible in the past, but this proves it’s possible. This means that anyone that we’ve seen on the show (including our Survivors or the Others) could theoretically be dead or just be an Island Spirit. Once this hit me, my first thought was “did Claire really survive that explosion at the Barracks?” followed by “could the non-aging Alpert already be dead?”

Something tells me that a lot of these answers are coming next week. For those that missed it, here’s the episode preview that aired immediately following this week’s episode that has people floored:



It’s tempting to start letting my mind wander about the possibilities of next week’s episode – but I think I’ll save that for my episode preview… otherwise I’ll have nothing to write for it.


Sawyer. One last thing for this week. You can read a lot into the brief conversation between Jack and Kate at the end of the episode where he starts to lose it. Sawyer chose to stay on the Island. This either means that it was a logical decision about who left and who stayed (as opposed to a hectic, mid-battle escape where those nearby became the Oceanic Six and all others were left behind). Jack is responsible (or thinks he is responsible) for saving the Oceanic Six. And most importantly, for all the ladies out there… Sawyer is still alive on the Island. The way that Kate and Jack were talking was in the present tense, that “Sawyer wouldn’t want Jack to know” rather than “Sawyer didn’t want Jack to know”. Note that the differences between this and the Sun / Hurley conversations about Jin a few weeks back.

So officially, I’m thinking that Jin dies (sad!), Sawyer is alive and well on the Island, and Claire has maybe been dead for over an episode - and is living with the other dead people on the Island with her daddy.



We’ll see. Like I said, next week should be huge.

Discuss.

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"Something Nice Back Home" Instant Reactions!

Brian's One Word Review: Shepherd-tastic

From Jack's "is it a dream (something nice back home?)" flashforwardy future to Christian Shepherd's multiple shocking appearances, this episode was chock full of Shepherdly goodness. Another week of incredibly strong storytelling with few easter eggs / hidden references for the hardcore fans, but plenty of mystery, twists, and turns. I think it's safe to say that no one has any clue where this storyline is going at this point, and I absolutely love it.

Here are some thoughts to ponder as you count the minutes until next week's episode...

1. Claire and Jack are going to find out they are related. Jack mentions to Kate that she "isn't even related to Aaron", meaning that he knows he is. Coupled with Christian's appearance to Claire in the jungle, it looks like we're due for a Claire-Jack-Christian meeting at some point in the future. Of course, the only problem with this is that Christian is dead... right? (although those who watched the preview for next week that immediately followed this week's Lost will argue maybe that's not such a big deal...)

2. Sawyer chose to stay on the Island, meaning that the other Survivors probably made a similar choice. This is a big deal, since it hints that our Oceanic Six didn't leave mid-battle, or by accident - but rather made the conscientious choice to leave or stay. Perhaps Claire is MIA, explaining how Aaron ends up getting rescued without her, but it's also likely that both Claire and Jin die before the rescue, explaining why they would let their loved ones go without them.

3. Who wants to bet that the thing Kate had to do for Sawyer involved his daughter Clementine, or possibly Cassidy - with Kate telling them that Sawyer was a hero, and helped rescue everyone else? Jack would be upset that this would blow the cover of the Oceanic 6 Story - but if Kate made a promise to Sawyer, she would most certainly keep it.

4. This episode seemed to serve as the turning point for Jack... going from perfect life with Kate to alcoholic miserable person obsessed with returning to the Island. It's interesting that he is once again paranoid about his lover cheating on him (just like he was with Sarah), and more than likely that Christian Shepherd's image will continue to haunt him, just like Charlie haunts Hurley. (PS - was the smoke detector going off before Christian's appearance really a terrible pun that he might be the Smoke Monster?)

5. It's official - CFL and Karl are dead. Sorry conspiracy theorists... although again, maybe this isn't such a big deal based on the episode preview for next week.

6. I loved the logical reasoning in this episode. From Kate, asking exactly what I was thinking "why can't we just take him to the medical station" to Rose, asking what many thought before the episode aired "why is Jack getting sick on the Island when everyone else gets better?", it's nice to see the writers proving that they have asked themselves these same questions, and they do have answers to all of them. Rose's point in particular is interesting - was this really the Island's weak attempt to prevent Jack from leaving the Island? Why not sick Smokey on him?

7. So if Jack really isn't supposed to be raising Aaron, as Charlie told Hurley told Jack, does that confirm the fraudulent psychic's message from Season One? Does this mean that Claire is actually alive and well on the Island, and the whole reason the Island is calling for the Oceanic Six to return is to bring Aaron back to her to complete some sort of prophecy? Didn't the creators hint that Aaron would be a "very important character to the mythology of the show" way back during Season One? Intrigue!

8. You better believe there will be some screen shots of Kate in a button down shirt and underwear from this episode in my full analysis. Wow.

9. This is now two consecutive weeks with scar mysteries. If you recall, last week the Freighter Doctor washed up on shore with a fresh cut - even though we had previously seen him with a scar where that cut used to be. Then this week's episode opened with Jack half naked, with a scar-less body, even though the episode showed he went through a pretty rough appendix surgery on the Island that would definitely leave a scar. What is going on? It's like time is all backwards.

My brain hurts.

Okay, that's all I've got for now. But let me just say right now that next week's episode has the potential to be the best episode of the whole season, the kind of "game changing" episode that blows our minds.

Next Thursday can't get here fast enough.

Discuss!

http://facethewoods.com/lost/index.php?topic=303.0

Lost - "Something Nice Back Home"

I’m back.

I guess I’m a grown-up now, since I now own a car, a house, and a wife – but rest assured, the Blog will continue to be a representative of young, immature, full-of-life Brian, chock-full of “that’s what she said” jokes and pictures of any female cast mates who appear scantily clad in episodes.

Of course, the one episode I wasn’t here to Blog about featured the return of Smokey, the death of Alex, confirmation of Funky Space (and perhaps Funky Time), hints at a long history between Widmore and Ben, and the introduction of Ben’s intentions to murder Penny (no!). Without having to Blog about it, I haven’t fully wrapped my head around everything – but I developed a few theories that will eventually spill into the Blog over the upcoming weeks.

The good news was that I was actually able to watch the episode live, as my honeymoon resort (Excellence Riviera Maya – I highly recommend it) carried ABC Miami. Here is the one picture of my honeymoon I’ll post on the Blog, featuring me watching Lost from my bedroom! How romantic!



But enough about last week, it’s time to focus on this week. Here’s hoping my fingers still remember how to type after my one-month hiatus…



Episode Title: “Something Nice Back Home”

Brian’s Deeper Meaning Guess: If this episode title is a reference to something else, I can’t find it on the Google thanks to the sheer number of Lost-related pages that contain these words, forcing anything else out of the top 2,580,000 search results. Looks like we’re on our own this week.

This week is a Jack-centric outing (can you believe it’s the FIRST Jack-centric episode this season? What a refreshing change of pace!), and smart money has to be on this being a flash-forward since we’ve pretty much exhausted every aspect of Jack’s past during his first eight flashbacks over the first three seasons of Lost (::shudder::Stranger in a Strange Land::shudder::).

So one has to assume that the “back home” being referenced is “back in the real world”, off the Island. However, since we’ve seen that off-Island life is less than sunshine and lollipops, I’m guessing this is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek episode title, where there isn’t really “something nice” waiting for Jack back home – but rather the same sort of hellish post-Island life that Sun, Hurley, Sayid, (and to some degree) Kate are experiencing. Who wants to bet that this is the episode that shows Jack being “haunted” by images of his father (similar to Hurley’s visions of Charlie), explaining some of his comments from last season’s finale?

This could be the episode to bridge the gap between “life is great, stick to our story” Jack (featured in “The Beginning of the End”) and the “life sucks, I wish I could kill myself” Jack (featured in “Through the Looking Glass”). Since the storyline seems to be building towards bringing us to the point of Jack and Kate’s airport meeting that closed last season – which will allow us to move forward with what happens AFTER that point, the attempts to get back to the Island, etc. – this is really one of the last opportunities to tell the story of Jack’s fall from grace where it will still have a strong emotional impact on the audience.

Aside from that, that’s as deep as we can go this week (that’s what she said!).


Episode Description: When Jack's health is seriously compromised, Kate and Juliet must learn to work together in order to save him; and something goes wrong as Sawyer, Claire, Aaron and Miles continue their trek away from Locke's camp and back to the beach. Guest starring are Ken Leung as Miles, Jeremy Davies as Daniel Faraday, Rebecca Mader as Charlotte, Jeff Fahey as Frank Lapidus, Sam Anderson as Bernard, L. Scott Caldwell as Rose and Kevin Durand as Keamy.


Episode Breakdown: For those who didn’t see the episode preview that immediately followed last week’s episode, this might be semi-spoilerish, but since I’ve always considered those to be fair game, I’ll include the information garnered from it…



The serious compromise of Jack’s health? After months of living on an Island full of dangerous cliffs, Smoke Monsters, Others, Freightors, and threat of nasty sunburn, what is it that finally brings down our fearless hero? Appendicitis.



I know it’s a potentially fatal condition, but you have to admit, it’s pretty damn funny given all the “mysterious illnesses” and “sicknesses” we’ve had on the Island thus far. Ironically, after all the potential risks to Jack’s life over the past three seasons, it’s something quite mundane and commonplace that brings him down.

However, since we all know that Jack makes it off the Island alive and well, one of a few things must occur:

1. Juliet (who has some degree of medical training) is able to perform surgery to save Jack. It actually sounds relatively simple, if she has the right tools:

During an appendectomy, an incision two to three inches in length is made through the skin and the layers of the abdominal wall over the area of the appendix. The surgeon enters the abdomen and looks for the appendix which usually is in the right lower abdomen. After examining the area around the appendix to be certain that no additional problem is present, the appendix is removed. This is done by freeing the appendix from its mesenteric attachment to the abdomen and colon, cutting the appendix from the colon, and sewing over the hole in the colon. If an abscess is present, the pus can be drained with drains that pass from the abscess and out through the skin. The abdominal incision then is closed.

This would add another layer to the Juliet-Kate-Jack love triangle, as Jack would now owe his life to Juliet, further strengthening their bond. It’s probably the most likely scenario.


2. Miles / Charlotte (who are both fairly science-y) could step in and save the day, helping out in the surgery and proving that although they are sketchy, they’re not trying to kill our Survivors. This would further muddy the waters in determining the true intentions of the Freightors, making it another intriguing scenario.


3. It is deemed that Jack needs more advanced medical attention than he can receive on the Island, and Frank (who appears in the preview!) decides to give him a flight back to the Freighter. Of course the problem here is that the Freighter’s doctor just washed up onshore dead last week, so the Freighter probably wouldn’t be able to provide any immediate medical attention to Jack anyways… unless Frank was willing to fly Jack all the way back to the real world, which seems unlikely with four episodes left in the season. However the Oceanic Six make it off the Island, it’s clear that they all make it off together – and with Hurley stuck with Locke and Ben for at least a little while longer in the hunt for Jacob’s Cabin, unless Jack is going to writhe in pain for a few days, the appendicitis isn’t going to be the reason that he’s a part of the Oceanic Six.




In other news (also hinted at within the episode preview), the defecting members of Team Island (Sawyer, Claire, Aaron, and Miles) run into some trouble on the way to the Beach… namely Kearny and his Freighter Commandos, who somehow seem to be alive and well after their Smokey encounter… which is fairly strange.



As we’ve seen before quite definitively, Smokey is a pretty badass cloud that isn’t above vicious killing of the innocent or the perceived “guilty”. With Keamy being responsible for putting a bullet in Alex, he seems like a likely candidate for some swift Smokey justice – which is what we thought we saw last week.

So what gives?

Perhaps this all ties into Ben’s claims that he is a “good guy” and that he doesn’t kill innocent people (see: his message to Michael on the Freighter). Although he seemingly “called” Smokey, maybe he only requested that Smokey simply lift the Freighter Commandos away to provide Ben and Co. with an opportunity to escape. It gives him an out, but allows him to keep his whacked out conscience clear.

…or maybe Smokey did actually kill all them, and what we see in the preview are simply Island images / manifestations of Smokey, and they really were all killed last week. Less likely, but always a possibility.


Other than that, there isn’t much to preview about this episode. The guest stars are exactly as expected (all four Freightors – Frank, Miles, Charlotte, and Faraday), Rose and Bernard (who have gotten a surprising amount of screen time this season, don’t you think? Put them on death watch), and the possibly dead Keamy. But that’s okay with me – at this point, with so many awesome storylines moving forward with breakneck speed, the fewer filler side-characters the better. We probably won’t even return to the Sayid / Desmond on the Freighter storyline this week, leaving us with simply Jack dying / the true intentions of the Freightors / the search for Jacob’s Cabin / Keamy’s gun-filled encounter with our Survivors in the jungle this week.



I’m exhausted just thinking about it. It’s good to be back!

Official Comments Here: http://facethewoods.com/lost/index.php?topic=301.0

Happy Losting!

"The Shape of Things To Come" - Analysis

"The Shape of Things To Come"





Well I am still floored at all of the info and action that was thrown at us, but I can honestly say that (after watching it a few times) I think it might just be one of the best episodes yet.
The writers skillfully brought everything to a head and wound up quite a few threads but left the door wide open for more.


Time Traveling Man:

I think the biggest question on everyones mind is how does Ben do what he does? From the very beginning Ben showed us what we have only imagined to be real. The Others, or the Island or Dharma or something can defintley send people to other places in the world via a wormhole or machine of some type. We even can see a new logo on his jacket that is remarkablly similar to what looks to be a vortex of some type. It actually reminded me of the old Superman movie for those who will remember when he was trapped in another dimension and his friend fell into a vortex there.

Anyway when Ben first hit the Sahara Desert there was a mist of some type that blew away from him. Now at first I thought it was his breath and that he had come from somewhere cold but when I rewatched him it seemed to actually be dust. I think that when he "Warped" to the sahara he might actually have been a few inches of the ground because when he appeared he hit the ground and the dust got kicked up into the air. This would go along with the fact that he was injured on his arm maybe meaning that he was cut and fell backward into the machine or wormhole and finished his fall on the other side.

Also it seems that he had to drink some sort of concotion to make the trip, because he threw up what looked like orange juice and if you all remember way back in Juliet's flashback they made her drink orange to knock her out before the trip. I speculated back then that maybe the sub was never real and that somehow they warped to the island but used the sub to make people believe otherwise. That theory seems to be more plausible than ever now.

The fact that Ben was wearing a parka leads me to believe that he maybe wasn't sure where he would end up or maybe the station he came from was located somewhere cold. If he wasn't sure where then maybe they don't have as much control over where they go as we think, but then again the Polar bear ended up in Tunisia near where Ben was. Hmm..

Sayid's Deal with the Devil? :

This is the first flashforward that I can remember where we have a specific date that we can gauge it against the rest of the story. Ben asked the girl for the date and it was Oct 24 2005 over a full year since the crash. Rescue has to be coming in the next couple episodes simply due to the fact that they have to have time for everyone of the Oceanic 6 to settle down in the real world again. Sayid gets married to Nadia like many have speculated happened only to have her killed a short time later.

Now Ben is certainly a ruthless man and is not about emotional blackmail but one thing I am sure of is that the man Ben said killed Nadia is probably the guy who did it. This man Ishamel was following Sayid for some reason we'll not know right now but the fact is that he was around Sayid's house in LA when Nadia was killed.

We can say that Ben doctor the photo all we want but he didn't do it in between his run from the roof where sayid spotted him to the alley below where he showed Sayid the story. The odds of anyone else having been in those two spots besides the murderer are slim at best.

What surprised me is that Ben wasn't aware of something for the first time in a while. He didn't seem to know Sayid was following him until Sayid killed Ishmael. Ben true to form changed his plans instantly. There is no doubt that he knew that by telling Sayid it was bigger than just this guy that Sayid wouldn't stop with just killing a peon he would want the leader of the enemy. Sayid made his deal and became Ben's personal hitman all on his own but that doesn't mean he wasn't manipulated.

The Barracks Assault:

When Alex was taken to the fence she entered the same code that Juliet did when she pulled her and Kate inside the fence to be safe from Smokey this time we found out that somehow it also triggered an early warning system. This automated system called a phone in Ben's house that could serve no other purpose since it didn't have buttons.

What followed was a very enjoyable little war. On a humorous note watching the extras get picked off one after another while Sawyer dodged machine gun bullets was great. It reminded me of a comment someone on the Blog once made about Star Trek red shirts being cannon fodder. Especially since one of the guys wore a red shirts.

What struck me as odd was Sawyer going out of his way to save claire. Now I know he has been growing into a real person lately and that it is most likely leading up to him being the del facto leader when Jack leaves the island but it still felt a little off at first. Upon watching it a second time though I saw that he went to get Claire and warned a few others before the bullets started firing. Also after he got to Claire's house the war stopped while he went back to the main house with Claire. The purpose as we know was to make Sawyer mad enough to give up Ben and it almost worked.

That is until Ben got mad. This Island has always seemed to require people to make sacrifices for what they would probably consider the greater good. Ben wasn't prepared to make the sacrifice of his daughter and was so confident that it wouldn't happen he tried to bluff his way out of trouble. He failed and Alex died.

Martin Keamy is going to be the one who ends up killing a few people on this Island. I have a feeling we can expect a blood bath in the next little while. He certainly doesn't like to lose and he just lost all of his men to Smokey's awesome destructive powers.

The Body on the Beach:

What a let down this was. The episode synopsis made it seem that it would be difficult to figure out who it was and that it would be important to the story. They made it so easy. I mean heck Doctor Ray's body washed up right next to Daniel and Charlotte who simply told everyone who he was.

The only question that is still out there is how did he die? My guess is he was on the "Mission" with Frank and the Mercenaries and he got out of hand. Keamy probably killed him and dumped him out of the helicopter as they flew. The only purpose he will serveis warning the Beach that trouble is on the Island again. Especially when Claire, Sawyer, Miles and Aaron come out of the woods. Assuming they all make it.

Overall Story :

We now see the shape that this show is going to take. Ben takes his private war to the enemy and enlists Sayid along the way all in the name of revenge. He has now threatened Widmore with the death of Penny. The fact that Widmore is racing to get to the Island, Desmond is racing to get to Penny, and Ben is racing to kill her is going to make this show only speed up the story line. To see who will win.

What intrgiued me the most was "The Rules" that both Ben and Widmore mentioned. What are the Rules? Who else is involved? and How long has this been going on?

Widmore stated "The Island is Mine, It always was, it will be again". Could he somehow be an Island Original in an epic battle through time trying to retake his home from Ben?

He also said "I know who you are boy, What you are.." This could elude to the fact that Ben also moves through time like Widmore used to do.

The last widmore fact I want to mention is that apparently one of the Rules is that Ben can't kill Widmore and the other way around. Also it seems rule #2 is that family be left alone. Or it was before Widmore broke it.

Tidbits :

- The Secret Room in Ben's house seems to be of an ancient culture. It has Heiroglyphics all over it.


- Pill Popping Jack seems to be getting ill. Not to tell any spoilers but on the preview ABC aired right after the show they say it's his apendix. Could this be not only the reason he has to go on the first chopper out but also what helps him get hooked on the meds?


- Claire was not in the house when it blew up. In this picture you can clearly see she is out back of the house on the grass covered in clothes and next to the clothes line. She wasn't magically healed or protected she was outside.


- And Lastly the game of RISK. In the game of risk you can't win unless you kill all of your opponents pieces, much like Ben and Sayid are doing to Widmore. Also Hurley made a comment that "Australia is the key to the whole game".

This show started in Australia when the plane took off from Sydney. Hurley heard the numbers from a guy from Australia. Bernard and Rose went to Australia to be "healed", Claire's mysterious Psychic who affected her and Mr. Eko is in Australia. The whole story and how everyone got to be here centers around Australia. What if it all ends there too?

I'd like to thank Brian for letting me fill in for him while he was off getting married, it's been a blast. Ok folks It's time to analysis my thoughts. So get to it.

"The Shape of Things To Come" - First Reactions

Jason's One Word Review - Mind-blowing

It's hard for me to think of anything that could have made this episode any better than it was. We had a shoot out, Smokey vengenace, and finally some truth.

Let's go over a few topics here...

1.) Who else got the feeling that Ben just physically warped to the Sahara? That would go a long way to explaining the Polar Bear and why Ben didn't care if he blew up the Submarine.

2.) Sayid was not Co-erced into joining Ben. Well at least not outright. We know Ben is a master manipulator.

3.) The Game of Risk? Was it a hint? "Australia is the key to the whole game"

4.) How many times have Ben and Charles done this little dance? Enough for each to know the rules

5.) And lastly how great was it to see Smokey come rushing out of nowhere to kill Ben's enemies on command.

Those are the points that really jumped out at me but there is so much left. The full analysis might be a long one. Haha. The comment section is yours.

-Jason

http://facethewoods.com/lost/index.php?topic=298.0

LOST - "The Shape Of Things To Come"

Episode Title: The Shape of Things To Come

Jason's Deeper Meaning Guess: Generally the term "The Shape of Things to Come" is used in literary references to foreshadow the general path that a story will take. However we stand at a point in the story where we know generally what is going to happen already. It's a precarious spot to be because we tend to get lulled into a sense of security when we think we know what will happen.

This week's episode is going to have to be used to explain a lot of things and how they wind up.

1.) We will most likely find out who attacked CFL, Alex, and Karl
2.) There has to be a conclusion to the barracks story and something that explains Hurley switching sides and getting into the Oceanic 6
3.) Lastly I believe that we will learn somethings about the nature of the Island from good old Ben.

Like our good friend Brian I started my research by googling the title. This is what I found.

The Shape of Things to Come is a work of science fiction by H. G. Wells, published in 1933, which speculates on future events from 1933 until the year 2106. It is not a novel, but rather a fictional history book or chronicle
.
Wells' book also shared an understanding of the change wrought in the nature of war by the development of air power; the writer included harrowing depictions of cities destroyed in aerial bombardments, which proved an all too accurate prediciton of what was to happen in the actual second World War.

Wells creates a framing device by claiming that the book is his edited version of notes written by an eminent diplomat, Dr Philip Raven, who had been having dream visions of a history textbook published in 2106, and wrote down what he could remember of it.

The book is dominated by Wells's belief in a world state as the solution to mankind's problems. Wells successfully predicted the Second World War, although he envisaged it dragging on into the 1960s, being finally ended only by a devastating plague that almost destroys civilisation. Wells then envisages a benevolent dictatorship - 'The Dictatorship of the Air' (a term obviously modeled on 'The Dictatorship of the proletariat') - arising from the controllers of the world's surviving transportation systems (the only people with global power). This dictatorship promotes science, enforces Basic English as a global lingua franca, and eradicates all religion, setting the world on the route to a peaceful utopia. When the dictatorship finds it necessary to kill political opponents, the condemned persons are given a chance to emulate the ancient philosophers Socrates and Seneca and take a poison tablet in a congenial environment of their choice.

Eventually, after a century of re-shaping humanity, the dictatorship is overthrown in a completely bloodless coup, the former rulers are sent into a very honourable retirement, and the world state "withers away" as was predicted by Marx. The last part of the book is a detailed description of the Utopian world which emerges

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Now I know that is a lot to take in but doesn't it sound alot like our little magical Island? Where Dictator Ben has been overthrown by Locke in a bloodless manner and thus ends his secret little utopia. Also we have seen multiple times where the followers of "The Island" have been willing to sacrifice themselves for "the Greater Good". The Island has even been described as a place where they are trying to save the world. The hatch was a huge example of that.

However the most interesting thing to me is that this book was not a history book of fiction but it was a book written from the memories of a man who jumped into the future and saw the end of the world, much like our friend Desmond. What if we find that Desmond was not the first person to become unstuck in time? That the Island was initially established because using it's special properties they might be able to stop the future.

Episode Description: Jack tries to discover the identity of a body that has washed ashore. Meanwhile, Locke's camp is attacked by Ben's adversaries.

Guest Stars:
Recurring Roles: Sam Anderson (Bernard Nadler), Kevin Durand (Keamy), Alan Dale (Charles Widmore), Jeff Fahey (Frank Lapidus), Tania Raymonde (Alex Rousseau)
Guest Star:
Faran Tahir (Ishmael Bakir), Kaveh Kardan (Merchant), Yetide Badaki (Desk Clerk), Marc Vann (Doctor), Sean Douglas Hoban (Doug)

We have a lot of guest stars this week, there are a lot of no names so The desk clerk, merchant, doctor, doug and Ishmael are probably the off island flashforward/back. Where Frank, Keamy, and Alex are probably in the story dealing with the barracks and Bernard is probably recruited to help Jack with the body since he has some medical experience.

Episode Breakdown:

Not a whole lot to go on from the synopsis, but we do have two points to discuss.

The Body: We can safely assume that the body must not be beyond some recognition or Jack wouldn't have any chance of finding out who it is so we can eliminate anyone who was on the plane most likely since 3-4 months in the salt water with fish eating them would have destroyed the indentity. Also we can remove anyone Jack does know from the list i.e. - Charlie and Patchy.
We can remove Regina since she is in chains on the bottom of the ocean.

I have a few thoughts but the best guess would that it is somebody from the freighter who is on the "Mission" with Frank. Maybe the person didn't survive the Time Bubble or whatever it is.

The Attack: The people attacking Locke's Camp are listed as Ben's Adversaries. This can only refer to the Freighters as we have all assumed. They must attack the Barracks to get Ben and maybe even Miles from Locke, and the only person who could have told them where to go was Frank because no one else on the boat knew that they were even at the Barracks except for Frank. Somehow I never pictured him leading a fullscale assault so I imagine he'll be a reluctant participant.

All in all not a lot of info to go on but I expect this episode to really be a driving force to the storyline, maybe even taking us all the way to them taking the Oceanic 6 off the Island.

What I find most promising about this episode is that it has been labeled as a Ben Flashforward too bad they don't give us anything to go on, haha.

Alright friends that's what I got for now. I hope you are as excited about this episode as I am. See you on Thursday. Enjoy.

-Jason

Rushed "Meet Kevin Johnson" Analysis!

Don’t worry – I’m alive and well… perhaps “well” isn’t the best word, since I’m totally swamped with life events and absolutely exhausted, but I don’t have anything physically wrong with me (I think).

At any rate, I foolishly assumed that since I wasn’t getting married until April 19th, I’d have plenty of time to write up a full analysis of “Meet Kevin Johnson”, which aired four weeks earlier – but apparently weddings require a lot of time-consuming preparation and new houses require a lot of work. Who knew?

At any rate, sadly it’s not looking likely to get a Brian-style analysis up for this guy – plus since it aired like a month ago, who would even want it?

Instead, I present to you my thoughts on “Meet Kevin Johnson” as quick as possible!

It’s a bit peculiar that Michael’s Mother is upset at Michael for “not explaining where he’s been for the past two months… even though she should have known about the whole plane crash deal since he would have been on the manifest – or is she referring to the fact that he hasn’t explained how he survived and THEN where he had been for two months? Weird.

It is important to note that Tom hands Michael the gun that eventually won’t go off when he attempts suicide. Perhaps the Island really won’t let you die until it is ready for you to die… or perhaps the Others make it seem like you can’t die by planting fake guns / explosions (on the ship) with the potential victim. Or, you could argue that it’s simply “fate”, and sheer coincidence that the gun didn’t go off – and that the car crash distracted Jack from killing himself last season.

There are hints that more than a few of the members of the crew on the Kahana (formerly “the ship”) have ulterior motives on the trip (Michael included) – but Frank still seems to be a pretty good dude… maybe the only ally our Survivors will have out of all of them.

I don’t think Sayid has any master plan in exposing Michael and turning him in to the Captain – he’s just fired up, angry, and wanting to do harm to Michael for what he did to Ana-Lucia and Libby… you could say he’s “following his heart” – could this be the tragic mistake that Ben referenced in Sayid’s flashforward earlier this season?

I think Karl and CFL are dead. I know that we were promised a CFL flashback at some point – but who’s to say that her story can’t be told through some other character (like an Other’s) flashback? In my mind, Karl is a character who had served his purpose – connecting the Others / Alex to our Survivors – but clearly the writers had nothing else to do with him besides holding hands with Alex.

Likewise, it seems that the writers never figured out where to go with CFL after her reunion with Alex (which you could argue was the big “storyline resolution” for her character). She’s been in the background, having few lines of dialogue and little to do in an otherwise action-packed season. Plus, the more I think about it, the more troublesome of a character she is to explain. Remember all her wacky claims during the first season about never actually seeing an Other, but only hearing whispers? Doesn’t that just get more outrageous by the day? Outside of the fact that she’s crazy (thus, the name), she also becomes a character who’s story and actions become harder to defend by the episode – so maybe killing her off was a way to make us forget about some of the logical issues that surround her.

Who killed them? Obviously it was the Freightors (setup this episode with their target practice, and last episode by Frank and the helicopter being gone). Did Ben know that the ambush was coming? Most definitely – and maybe he even sent along Karl and CFL knowing there was a good chance that they would die. But this sets up some pretty awesome storylines right out of the break – with Freightors about to attack our Survivors, and having Alex as a hostage!


Okay – that’s all I got. I’m still waiting for my wedding presents to start rolling in from you guys, but haven’t received any yet. What’s up with that? Don’t worry, I won’t be offended if you just want to send cash or money via PayPal.


I’m putting FOB Jason in charge of the Blog while I’m gone, so the next post you see will be his episode preview for “The Shape of Things to Come”, which airs on April 24th.

Here’s hoping we get American ABC in Mexico and I can trick my wife into watching Lost as a romantic honeymoon evening!

Happy Losting!

http://facethewoods.com/lost/index.php?topic=292.0

"Meet Kevin Johnson" Instant Reactions!

Brian's One Word Review: Filler.

When you think about it, this episode mostly served as filler - filling in the gaps in storyline that a lot of us had theorized, but had no confirmation for, over the course of this season and last. We learned that Tom is gay (in a totally unnecessary and weird scene), that Michael was indeed Ben's man on the boat (and how he communicated with Ben on the Island), and that Michael made it back to the real world before setting off on the Frieghter. Aside from the shocker ending, it was pretty much 95% flashback filler without any huge reveals.

So what is there to discuss?

• For starters, who killed Karl and CFL (maybe) at the end of the episode? Weren't we promised a CFL flashback by the writers seasons ago? Will that now be told through an "Island flashback" or something? Or is CFL not really dead? Smart money is on Frank taking a group of Freightors to the Island (remember how he was on a "mission" last episode?), which ties into the scene of the Freightors taking target practice during the flashback. Frank likely had no idea what the mission was, but this means there are Freightors on the Island, and they're looking to kill some Others.
• The Oceanic Six = Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sayid, Sun, and Aaron (at least per the episode preview at the end). I guess I'll allow this for now, mostly since I've been drinking all day.
• The Island doesn't let you die until it wants you to die... does that mean that Tom and the other Others who died at the end of last season had already completed their "missions"?
• The writers creatively sidestepped the whole "warp zone" subject matter by starting with Michael back in New York, but it clearly happened based on the timeline of this episode. That's the only way to allow Michael to return back to the "real world" two months after he disappeared (per his mom) since he left the Island roughly two months after the crash. Even still, the timeline is really tight - Michael was gone for two months... which means it was November 22 when he returned to NYC - then got on the boat and spent about a month there leading up to present Island time, which is about December 28. But it would still work enough that we just have to deal with Funky Space, not Funky Time.
• Walt is not on the Island. The aging of Walt will NOT be an issue, as he should only appear in flashforwards from here on out.
• Ben (and the Others) are really the good guys. My theory from the start stands! Widmore planted the Fake Crash Site, he's the one who will ruthlessly kill, and he's the one who wants to exploit the Island.

Okay - it might be a bit before my full analysis, but those are my initial thoughts. Back to basketball.

Discuss.

http://facethewoods.com/lost/index.php?topic=287.0

Lost - "Meet Kevin Johnson"

Episode Title: Meet Kevin Johnson

Brian's Deeper Meaning Guess: You know, if it wasn't for last week's reveal of Michael working on the Freighter under the alias of "Kevin Johnson", this episode title would have been a much tougher mystery to solve. We would have been debating about who this new character would be, if they were in a flashback or not, or if it was some code phrase between the Freighters a la "tell my sister I love her". But instead, it's thankfully a pretty easy one.

This week's episode offers the chance for the viewers, as well as Sayid and Desmond, to "meet" Kevin Johnson. We all knew Michael, but we have no idea what happened to him since he left the Island (way back in the Season Two finale!) or how he came to be known as "Kevin Johnson" and end up on the Freighter. Last week, I gave my quick theory about how this all could have happened, but I might as well expand upon it a bit here, since I think this will be the underlying story of the episode.

Since the Freightors, who seem to know an awful lot about Oceanic Flight 815, have no problem with "Kevin Johnson" working among them even as things on the ship get sabotaged, it seems impossible that they simply "ran into and picked up" Michael and Walt as they boated away from the Island at the conclusion of Season Two. However, since only about a month has passed since Michael and Walt left the Island until present day, it doesn't seem like enough time for Michael to return to the "real world", become persuaded to join the Freightors, and return to just offshore of the Island, especially when you consider that based on the Freightors' comments, they've been sitting in the same place for quite some time - long enough for people to start going crazy and killing themselves.

The only possible explanation for these two seemingly incongruous facts is that there is some sort of warp going on. Recall that Ben told Michael to sail towards bearing 325 exactly. I'm thinking that the Others have figured out that depending on where you "burst the bubble" around the Island, it can warp you to various places around the world. Sending Michael to bearing 325 warped him to somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, a lot closer to America than he was seconds earlier. It sounds outrageous, but it seems to tie a lot of things on the show together, and I can also totally picture it playing out in my mind. Michael and Walt enter some sort of storm… suddenly it clears up… and they're looking at the Statue of Liberty thinking "huh?"



It's a tad science fiction-y for my tastes, but we've had hints of this for quite some time. From the Others' ability to show up all over the world quite quickly to the Dharma Polar Bear showing up in Tunisia (an unfortunate accidental warp, or some intentional experiment?), Eko's drug plane ending up on the Island, and maybe even the Black Rock itself - there are things on the Island that indicate they came from far, far away and there are things from the Island that end up far, far away. Heck, we've even learned that the Others think that "only fools are enslaved by time and space" which seems to indicate to me they have figured out a way around time and space through these warps.

If you want to get really crazy, you could throw time into the mix - which provides an easy explanation for how Ben has so much knowledge about everyone and everything, and has the stacks of money to prove he's seen Back to the Future Part II… but I'm not to that point yet. Adding time travel into the mix of craziness that we already have on Lost would be too much - heads would start exploding around the concept, and it would give us a far too easy "cheat" to undo all the death and bad things that have happened thus far.

But - if we move forward with the possibility of a Warp Zone / Funky Space - then we've got a plausible explanation for Kevin Johnson's appearance on the Freighter.

Michael returns back to the real world, stricken with guilt over murdering two of his friends for the sake of saving Walt, when he is approached by Ben / Alpert / Tom with the chance for redemption - by joining the crew of the Freightors and sabotaging their mission, Michael can save the lives of all the rest of the Survivors (although, how would they know the plan of the Freightors unless there was some funky time going on? Damn - I really don't like Funky Time… let's just go with "Jacob is omniscient and told Ben so"). Michael finds the classified ad for a sweet gig as a Janitor on a Freighter, joins the crew under the name "Kevin Johnson" and the rest is history.

This scenario could keep the ever-aging Walt in the flashforwardy future where his older appearance would totally make sense (and out of the "present", where it doesn’t), and give Michael the chance for redemption that the writers have promised since he left. It has its issues (the timeline is still really tight, even with the Warp Zone), but I think it's still the most likely explanation for what Kevin Johnson has been up to since he retired from the NBA.




Episode Description: Sayid confronts Ben's spy on the freighter, and Ben urges daughter Alex to flee Locke's camp in order to survive an impending attack. Guest starring are Cynthia Watros as Libby, M.C. Gainey as Mr. Friendly/Tom, Mira Furlan as Danielle Rousseau, Tania Raymonde as Alex, Blake Bashoff as Karl, Marsha Thomason as Naomi Dorrit, Ken Leung as Miles Straume, Jeff Fahey as Frank Lapidus, Kevin Durand as Keamy, Anthony Azizi as Omar, Fisher Stevens as George Minkowski, Grant Bowler as Captain Gault, Jill Kuramoto as female anchor, Galyn Gorg as nurse, Starletta DuPois as mom, William P. Ogilivie as Gus, Francesco Simone as Arturo and James Locke as mechanic.


Guest Stars. Holy guest star madness. Libby and Tom are back! As I'm expecting the flashbacks to cover the time that Michael left the Island to present day, Tom's inclusion makes sense - since he was totally alive for the first few weeks after Michael left the Island. However, the inclusion of Libby (but not Ana-Lucia) is quite curious. You would think if we were flashing all the way back to Michael's murder of Ana-Lucia and Libby while rescuing Ben, both would be included. But if we're not, I can only come up with one explanation for how Libby shows up… as a freaky ghost Island Spirit - just like Charlie showed up to Hurley earlier this season. In fact, this might even provide a better explanation for why Michael would join the Freightors - sucks to redemption, maybe he's just doing it to stop being haunted by Libby!

I'm hoping the inclusion of Miles means that we'll get some progression on his storyline (and find out that he hasn't really been biting down on a grenade for two days), but since he's included in the same breath as Naomi, there's a chance he merely appears on the Freighter during a flashback, and we'll have to wait for his on-Island story until after the hiatus.

Lastly, the inclusion of the Newscaster who reported on the crash of Oceanic Flight 815 in "Confirmed Dead" (Jill Kuramoto) probably means we'll get to view that story from a different perspective - which I can only assume will be Michael's. Even though the timeline seems a bit off, if he's watching the news story at the same time as we saw Faraday, Frank, Miles, and Charlotte - it's entirely logical that he could end up on the Freighter with them, since there was clearly enough time to "recruit" each of them.


Episode Breakdown: Pretty straight-forward stuff, actually. Clearly Sayid is looking for answers (and maybe some revenge) against Michael for killing two people and selling out Kate, Jack, and Sawyer to the Others. It'll be interesting to see if Michael is open and honest, or if he talks cryptically leaving the audience wondering what really happened. Logically, there's no reason for Michael to hide the truth - but logically, there's no reason for Juliet to hide the truth either, yet she continues to do so. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

The second portion of the episode returns us to the Ben / CFL / Alex / Karl storyline which has been on the way back burner this season, but could actually be decent. Ben must not have faith in Michael, because he seems to think that danger is imminent, and he's looking out for his daughter's protection by sending her away (hopefully to the Temple to rejoin the other Others? Please?)

Not a lot to go on. Clearly, the chocolaty goodness of this episode is going to center around the Michael flashbacks (wow - that came across unintentionally racist), but I'm hopeful that we get some solid on-Island storyline progression as well.

Before we wrap up this week, I have to give some attention to the episode preview, which ominously promises us “SOMEONE. WILL. DIE. MWA HA HA HA HA!”




Death Watch. It's funny, but without that episode preview, I wouldn’t have even the slightest inkling of any real characters (non-background-Freightors) dying this episode. If you think about it, aside from Jin and Claire (whose deaths have been hinted at in flashforwards), there really aren’t a lot of major characters left to kill off – especially if you operate under the assumption that SOME of the non-Oceanic Six must survive to be in need of help (as Charlie pleaded to Hurley in his flashforward). I’m half tempted to chalk this up to an ABC Promo lie, just like last week’s promise of revealing “the last of the Oceanic Six” (which might have happened, but it certainly wasn’t clear). However, it’s worth putting out the current odds for death of the main characters on the show, even if the person who dies this week is someone like Keamy (PS – worst name ever).

The first thing we can do is rule out all the characters we’ve seen in flashforwards, which protects Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sayid, Sun, and Ben. That leaves us with the following top 5, ranked in order of likelihood of dying:

1. Jin - we know he dies (at least I think we do - others are in denial), so this might be the week we find out how… but I’m still leaning towards Jin sacrificing himself to help Sun get off the Island – and we still seem to be a ways off from anyone getting off the Island.



2. Claire – the other character who might die, based on Kate raising Aaron post-Island. The only real saving grace she has is her yet unrevealed connection to Jack, and the possible storylines associated with that – but otherwise she’s a waste, and I’d gladly have her kick the bucket without needing a whole episode centered around her to do so.

3. Michael – it’s a dark horse (again with the racist sounding comments!), but consider this – we heard of Minkowski… then he died the first episode we saw him. We heard of Regina… and then she died the first episode we saw her. Why not have this episode totally tie up the Michael storyline and feature his death? Not likely, but it would be hilarious given all the hype surrounding his return.

4. Sawyer – a member of Death Watch ever since he killed Anthony Cooper last season (providing closure to the biggest demon / mystery in his past), Sawyer’s best chance of survival is his integral role in the Jack / Kate love triangle… although you could argue that Juliet could easily replace him to keep the triangle alive.

5. Desmond – what would easily be the most heartbreaking death ever on a television series, I held my breath at the end of his episode earlier this season after he and Penny professed their love over the telephone… waiting for someone to walk in and kill Desmond on the spot. Thankfully, he was spared, and maybe those Lost writers have a soft spot after all and will give us the reunion of Penny and Desmond that we’ve all been praying for. The other good news is that Desmond provides a crucial link in explaining who the heck Charles Widmore is to the rest of the Survivors, now that they know he is behind the Freighter.



In the end, if it’s not Jin or Claire, I’m putting money on “the death” being a secondary character. But even then, Faraday, Frank, Charlotte, and Miles all seem to be safe since they all appear to have fascinatingly mysterious backstories that have yet to be fully explained. Yikes – Keamy, I was just kidding a few paragraphs ago – but it’s not looking good for you, buddy.

One last thing before I go – Thursday’s episode of Lost will be preceded by nine hours of drinking for Brian thanks to the NCAA tournament. Because of this, I’m not sure if there will actually be Instant Reactions right after the episode, if they’ll be there but be totally unintelligible gibberish, or if they’ll show up Friday morning. I shall do my best.

Happy Losting!

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"Ji Yeon" Analysis!

Sorry guys – life is a little crazy right now with everything going on with the big move into the new house and the rapidly approaching wedding. I’m barely finding enough time to eat and sleep, let alone Blog. I apologize in advance for the brevity of this post, as well as the forthcoming “Meet Kevin Johnson” posts, which will probably also suffer big time. The good news is that the break in the season couldn’t have come at a better time for me, and I should be back stronger than ever for the end of the season run starting in late April. But enough about me, on to the analysis:

Answers. Since my Instant Reactions basically posed a number of questions, I thought the best way to analyze the episode would simply to be to attempt to provide answers to the relevant questions (why didn’t I think of this before?).


How did Jin die? There has been a ton of debate over whether Jin is dead or simply still on the Island (not returning with the Oceanic Six) – but for me, this is pretty much a no-brainer: Jin is dead.

It’s easy to argue the other side of the point, since Sun never comes out and actually says that he is dead, and we’ve seen the Oceanic Six (well, at least Jack) lie through their teeth about the fate of the other Survivors, but everything about “Ji Yeon” seemed to point to the opposite for me.

For starters, people have complained that they felt “tricked” by the episode since the Jin flashbacks were simply a plot device to make the audience think he was in the flashforwardy future. It’s a valid complaint, since not a lot of information was gained from the flashbacks, and it was a somewhat gimmicky way to setup the ending – but think about how much more pointless it would be if Jin was actually alive. Talk about a gimmick – that would mean the writers set us up to think Jin was alive, only to trick us into thinking Jin is dead, only to eventually reveal he was alive and well. This would basically render Sun’s flashforward pretty pointless as well, especially the emotional last scene.



And it’s this scene that really seals the deal for me. Sun is emotional, saying things like “the doctors said I was calling out for you” as if she was not thinking clearly due to the pain of labor… like if she was thinking clearly, she would have never called out for her dead husband. There are also little details like the inclusion of her eventual death on the tombstone (the right hand side lists Jin’s date of birth and death – November 27, 1974 through September 22, 2004, the left hand side lists Sun’s date of birth – March 20, 1980, leaving room for her date of death). If there was any hope of Sun returning to an alive Jin (like, on the Island), I don’t think she would have gone the route of preparing to join him in the same plot of land for all of eternity.



Finally, there’s the Joss Whedon Factor (a phrase I’m coining that basically means when a character has an ultra-happy closure or overly lovey-dovey scene that they are probably going to die shortly thereafter). The last on-Island scene of the episode was all of this and a bag of chips (is this phrase still valid?). Jin forgives Sun for cheating on him. Jin promises to do “anything” to protect the Sun and the baby. Jin makes Sun dinner (note to self: if the wife ever cheats on me, let her do the cooking for the next few years – it’s the least she can do!). It’s just like at the end of Desmond’s episode this season, I half expected someone to bust in and shoot Desmond on the spot – it was an overly “good” scene on a show that has shown that life (at least off the Island) actually sucks.

I know the first comment is going to be something like “I think Brian is wrong and Jin is still alive”, which is fine – like I said, you can argue it. But for me, it’s pretty clear that our boy Jin is going to die sometime over the next forty episodes.


Who are the Oceanic Six? I refuse to believe that Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sayid, Sun, and Aaron are the Oceanic Six. Instead, I’m going with the “ABC Promo Lied to Us” excuse – since the only reason we’re making this assumption is that the preview for “Ji Yeon” promised the last of the Oceanic Six would be revealed. We’ve had them lie to us in the past, so it’s not that far fetched. I’m holding out hope for another reveal (featuring some member of the media actually saying the names of the Oceanic Six), even though at present, I’m struggling to think of who the last member could actually be. Keep in mind, we need to have some of our Survivors on the Island, or else there would be no motivation for the Oceanic Six to “go back”, as we’ve seen hinted at through Jack and Hurley’s flashforwards. I wish it was just the Oceanic Five, or Five and a Half – that would sit better with me than including Aaron in the mix.


Who is the last body? It turns out we’re not supposed to care about the two people who Jack / Kate claimed died after the crash. Thanks to steve for pointing out the following excerpt from a recent interview with show mastergod, Damon Lindelof:

UGO: So the story for the Oceanic 6 is that they came from a group of 8 survivors. Are we going to find out the identity of the other 2 supposedly not so lucky survivors?

DAMON: Well, that is part of the fiction as concocted by the Oceanic 6. Many, many things that Jack said on the stand at Kate's trial were untrue, although he was under oath, like the Marshall dying in the crash for example. We want to be very clear on the idea that there were only ever the Oceanic 6. The identity of those other two people are not as important as people are making them out to be, it just makes it feel like a more believable fiction.

So maybe those two bodies didn’t actually come back with the rest of the Oceanic Six, and there’s no need to debate who joins Jin in the “dead body” section of the rescue vessel. Moving on…


Why did Regina kill herself? The Freighter is getting freakier and freakier. It’s about one ghost Walt appearance away from being a haunted house. People blowing their brains out, becoming “unstuck” in time, tying chains around themselves and jumping off boats? Not exactly a booze cruise. No wonder Faraday and Charlotte aren’t in any hurry to return! I’m thinking it has something to do with prolonged exposure to the Bubble around the Island – which is why our Survivors have been spared, since they quickly passed through it, rather than floating around the perimeter for days / weeks / months. I’m also thinking this could be the same “sickness” that CFL mentioned afflicted her crew, since it’s plausible that they also spent a good deal of time floating around the Bubble before actually crashing on the Island… that, or Ben is sending voodoo powers out to the Freightor crew causing them to kill themselves.




Why did Michael sabotage the Freighter? An assumption on my part, but it only seems logical. If Michael is working for Ben (another assumption, but pretty likely), it makes sense to stall the Freighter in a spot where it cannot actually get to the Island, but will cause the crew to go insane and kill themselves, making the Freightors less of a threat.



Where is Walt? I’m thinking Walt was never on the Freighter. While cleaning carpets yesterday (ah, the glamorous life of a Blogger), an idea popped into my head that might tie a lot of storylines together. What if the coordinates that Ben provided Michael lead him to a “warp”, a la Super Mario Bros. level 1-2? So he heads for bearing 325, hits the Bubble and suddenly BAM – he’s right off the coast of New York City? This would give him time to drop off Walt, THEN be contacted by Ben in the real world convincing him to join and sabotage the Freighter crew, and get on the Freighter before it leaves, making him less suspicious when stuff starts breaking on the boat and the communication room gets trashed. The timeline for all of this is tight (about a month), but it would make the most sense.

If you want to get really crazy, you could say that the warp not only moved Michael and Walt in space, but also in time (only fools are enslaved by time and space, anyone?) – padding the timeline a bit.

This “warp” theory also would explain the Dharma Polar Bear that ended up in Tunisia, and maybe explain how the Others are able to exploit their knowledge of these warps to amass massive funds through gambling on sports events (a la Back to the Future II), make quick trips around the world when required to videotape kids playing in a park (creepy Richard Alpert!) or recruit newbies to the Island… and provide a pretty obvious reason why the Freightors would want Ben (and his knowledge), but are willing to kill everyone else in order to take control of such a power.


Do the Freightors really believe Michael's name is Kevin Johnson? Based on the theory above, yes. If Michael gave his real name, they would know he was on Oceanic Flight 815. It’s an alias, like Jennifer Gardner.


Should we believe anything the Captain says? It’s tricky, because we’ve now been told to not trust Ben, and also to not trust the Captain. Basically, both are pointing at the other for being responsible for the Fake Oceanic 815 crash (and the accompanying 324 dead bodies). In my mind, it makes more sense to have Ben stage the crash, even though Widmore seems like the one who would have the resources to more easily do so. If you think about it, Ben is the one that wants to keep the Island secret at any cost. Staging the fake crash keeps people from accidentally stumbling upon the Island. Widmore, on the other hand, seems to want to use the Island for monetary gain. While it’s always possible that he needs to keep it secret for this gain (especially if he’s going to attain this gain through illegal means, like jumping around in time to gamble), it seems like it would be easier for him to find the Island, rescue the people, and claim the land as his own – rather than going through all the trouble to keep it secret. If Widmore’s intentions are to turn the Island into a cancer-curing ultra-exclusive spa, it’s even more of a no brainer – make the Island known and rescue the people. It’s called free advertising, people!



The Captain seems like a pretty ruthless guy, and maybe we shouldn’t trust him about a lot of things – but this might have been a nugget of truth buried in a nugget pile of lies.


Okay – that’s all for now. If I missed anything, let me know in the Comments and I’ll do my best to address.

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