Episode 4.2 tonight.
Flashback is back. Twist is we get them from a bunch of different people who no one cares about and who seem to have no clue how to coordinate a rescue/invasion. No it wasn’t Operation Freedom and we didn’t get Cheney, Bush, and Rumsfeld flashbacks to when they first tortured kittens or gave the Devil head. It was the semi-mysterious freight team we first hear of on the Farscapian transmitter.
Miles and Farraday are our two main newbies. The former speaks to dead people with the aid of a contraption right out of Ghostbusters ectoplasm catcher thingie Bill Murray used to come, see, and kick supernatural ass. The other is a physicist bringing a more intellectual and slightly jittery sensibility to the proceedings. Throw in The Lawnmower Man and a hot English chick who was supposed to be played by Kristin Bell who opted to weigh down Heroes sinking ship instead, and you have the team formed by the same Matthew Abaddon who came to see Hurley in his future confinement last week. I guess Bill Murray and Dan Ackroyd are too old to revise their Ghostbuster roles but they would have fit in to a couple of these pretty smoothly.
If Lost was at the normal 22 episodes, or maybe even the promised straight 16 these first two eps would be fine. As it is, with such a dearth of newness for so long, only 6 more promised anytime for months, maybe even another year, the early season is a bit lacking. With such a premium on every new episode I want more than they’ve delivered. It hasn’t been bad. It’s just not worth these kinds of absences and the expectations they build. If the strike doesn’t end soon and they can’t muster up some more episodes quickly on the heels of these Lost is going to lose some people. And maybe some relevance as well.
There’s also this sense of getting answers but not necessarily the coolest possible ones. It seems like that while were introducing a guy who talks to dead people in the midst of a monster island that miraculously heals, along with assorted other unscientific whackiness, we can handle answers that depart from the mundane. But finding out the wreckage and the bodies Naomi thwumped us with last season was really just faked, is a bit disappointing.
But it’s pretty much confirmed after tonight.
Here’s my take on how that transpired.
A fake 815 was planted and the hint is that Ben is the one behind it. Fahey’s character spotted the fake Pilot. Then from the fact that this leads the “rescuers,” to the island and the awareness that there might be real 815 survivors there, (Naomi flashback), I have to surmise that the missing link there is the recognition that the wreckage was faked to divert people from said island.
The question then becomes how Abaddon and his team knew planting a fake was meant to keep people from searching too close to home. Clearly the link between fake 815 and the mission on the island is established. Somewhere in between, these people knew Ben and his people did the faking and were the only ones with motivation and perhaps resources to keep people away from the island.
My guess is that they are Dharma and seeking revenge for the Purge. And that since Naomi had the pic of Des and Penny it may have been her search that had its breakthrough when the hatch blew that provided assistance. That and some other kind of found evidence. Or maybe Abaddon just knew that Ben and the Hostiles were the only ones capable of such an undertaking and with any reason to do so anywhere near the south pacific.
Makes me wonder more if Ben is alligned with powers beyond Mittelos. Like Widmore. Or does Mittelos really have enough resources alone to come up with a jumbo jet, make it up to resemble another one, sink it, and plant 350 bodies?
None of that means they wouldn’t be perfectly fine with rescuing the 815ers. Seems Ben is the only one in danger and that’s the point I was making last week when they came up with this either/or plot device. Having people choose Jack or Locke based on the idea that they are going to be rescued or killed was a contrivance. Just as tonight Miles not telling Farraday (not his real name by the way) about Naomi’s code until they are on the island and then doing it expositorially was a contrivance. And kind of bad writing.
Not to imply there’s not good stuff. It’s Lost. They’ve earned my loyalty and some benefits of the doubt despite also earning real skepticism about just what they’re doing and where they are going.
Tonights plusses were the Polar Bear bones in Tunisa question. And the bears Dharma collar. Can’t guess what that’s about right now other than the possibility that Dharma did some of their wacky experiments in the desert before finding Fantasy Island. Or maybe, and this is just hitting me, but maybe it’s all about orientation. Last week I mentioned all the arctic and canada references including Hurley’s picture from 4.1. What if Polar Bears were being used because they have some kind of innate Northward orientation that at one time helped point towards the island or offset its anomalous signals? And on island were used to give some other kind of directionality because as we know from Sayid in season 1 his compass showed North being a bit off of where it should have been and tides are not normal on the island.
Ok, now this is making less sense as I go back and read this but I’m leaving it in. Need to give it more thought. But there’s obviously some magnetic anomaly there. That’s certainly something the polar ice caps could play into. And with the island being hard to find since it exists somehow differently in space-time (maybe), a Polar Bears internal compass might somehow be a tool used by Dharma in some way.
Back to 4.2
Where the frak was Desmond today?
He just suddenly up and form his own third group apart from Locke and Jack? Like the Ron Paul of the island rescue season?
Damnit he’s only going to take votes away from Jack!
Another indicator of the “rescuers,” intentions, efforts to find the island, and foreknowledge of the islands properties was Charlotte when she fell into the water. I think she clearly had a sense of awe that she was finally immersed in the island she’d heard so much about.
And she did this hotly.
Which is nice.
Ben really does his homework by the way.
What cabin? And why the look when Hurley questioned the direction? Did I miss something or is it more of the obsessive secretiveness most of the major characters horde like secret-junkies stocking up for a secret-less future?
Did Vincent really choose Locke’s camp? Or did he just get dragged along?
Because I trust Vincent’s discernment. Dogs can sense when shit is not right. He knows more about the island than anyone. I think him and Smokey chase field mice together.
And judge souls.
Plus dog spelled backwards is not Jacob and neither is smokey spelled backwards.
Coincidence?
Smoke monster can however be made into an anagram for “more mets k’s,” provided we leave an e and o out and imagine Johan Santana’s acquisition this week is somehow tied into the show. And perhaps the island’s strange magnetic properties somehow have a negating effect on extra vowels.
Genius?
Personally I think it could be a Dharma test to see how much disappointment Mets fans can take.
Speaking of smokey does it not feel awkward at this point when characters actually ask questions we would have asked ages ago? Like Locke asking Ben what the monster is. Seems to me this should have come up back around the 2nd minute Locke had a gun on Ben in his bedroom in Othersville. It is nice to hear some common sense. But it seems in reaction to our getting all pissy about it on the world wide web and not organic to the progression of the show or real human beings.
But these people are not real and we must not forget that. They are representations. Locke represents all the assholes who do whatever they want, not caring what the effects are on others as long as they themselves are happy and use their disability as an excuse to make others miserable.
And believe a lot of stuff.
Kate represents the female reproductive agenda and its tendency to present itself in any situation which sometimes causes women to shimmy seductively up tree trunks to stimulate the males arousal.
Sayid is coolness that is too cool to know he’s cool or care who else is considered cool around him. And it tortures him. His coolness that is. He’s so cool it hurts him. And so he tortured others to try and help them be as cool as him. Unfortunately outside Iraq the kindness of this is lost in translation.
Jack is almost as self-explanatory as Locke. Only Jack kicks Locke-ian ass because the only reason he is starting to lose it is because he is so good and rational. He is however in an entirely irrational situation. This causes a clash. One I dare say of Hamlet-esque proportions. And with all the same daddy issues as the great Prince. Only Jack is more decisive. If he were in a castle though he’d be wandering around dark corridors making speeches to himself. The island doesn’t allow for such contemplation. There’s no time for doubt. Perhaps there’s no time at all. It demands action and wont let him deal in mind-flesh or duty-desire duality complexes. Jack must act and does so based on real world empiricism. The empiricism that would serve him well in reality is both a strength and weakness in that it grounds him but also makes him solemn in the realization that all the world is suffering. So Jack is at war with the real world from which he also seeks escape. Alcohol is a means to that end. But so is the island. The island is the fiction of the fanboy or intellectual retreat of the learned and if Jack were in the real world he’d be fine escaping into it. But within the means of escape he cannot apply his rationality without disrupting his whole motivation for needing to escape it. It is in the island’s conceit of fiction in which his frailty lies. So Jack’s weakness is really not his own but the fake reality created for us and by us. Fiction is a lie and within it Jack is a tragic figure trapped in a place where he doesn’t belong but cannot do without. Consequently he has no chance to succeed with an audiences expectations and warring needs. Therefore his failures are really our failures and anybody who likes Locke more than Jack is with Al-Qaida and destroying America.
Oh yeah and Jack wants to be Roger Linus so he can be a Work Man and fix things.
That’s enough representations for now.
And Sawyer’s Colonel Kurtz line gets my award for best line of the night and best Sawyer-ism of the season so far. Surprised it took 4 seasons and a hundred or so days for him to come up with it. But he’s had a rough time of things and has been reading many of the classics so I’ll cut him slack.
Another thought on the cabin line by Hurley. This idea was sparked from someone else online. They suggested Locke’s reaction was because he didn’t know Hurley saw the cabin and Locke realized in that moment that Hurley might have a gift too.
I found that interesting and slapped myself for not thinking of it. I assumed Hurley mentioned it before telling him about Charlie. But maybe not. This would also mean Locke was not in the cabin. It wasn’t his eye. Maybe the eye was the same as last season. Meaning Jacob’s himself. Jacob appearing to Hurley would then be of some import since apparently he doesn’t appear to just anyone and one has to summoned to Jacob’s according to Ben.
This gives Hurley a certain power and mystique as well. One that could either impress Locke or make him as jealous as Ben is of Locke.
The show also violated a chief conceit in allowing a flashback for a dead character. Naomi. Either that or it was an Abaddon flashback which still violates a conceit in that they’ve never given someone not present on the island a flashback. This felt a little wrong. Not Nikki and Paolo wrong. But wrong.
Also important that Locke acknowledged that Walt was older when he appeared to him. Seemed kind of an inside joke as the monster question was , but it still is cannonized now that he has spoken it. I think this is another indication that we’re heading for an out of time scenario here. I wonder if Charlotte’s asking Claire about the baby being born on island is part of that. Maybe were headed for an episode 8 finale that confirms all this. Like Charlotte finding out the baby was actually not conceived on the island as well and then wondering how she has a 3 month old baby she conceived 2 or 3 years ago.
Just a guess, not a spoiler. But it feels right.
As for the fake bodies: Did it seem the Dharma pit Ben shot Locke near and the latter fell into didn’t have a lot of bodies in it? And why was it an open mass grave? Could the Others have dug it up recently to supply Mittelos or Widmore or whoever with bodies for the fake crash site?
Admittedly i don’t remember if the bodies in the grave had advanced to a more skeletal stage of decomposition. If so that would negate this theory. But considering the very real possibility that things age slower on island due to time anomalies maybe they decompose slower and could be made up to look as if they were on the bottom of the ocean for a couple of months, maybe a lot longer depending on what the time scale difference is off-island.
Anyway I think it’s apparent I’m thinking about this too much, possible dreaming as well since I woke up with the last few paragraphs on my mind after not having any of those ideas when I wrote the rest last night. Except for the cabin part. Can’t believe I didn’t see that. Hurley didn’t tell Locke he was the cabin. Interesting and maybe part of the reason hurley told Jack he shouldn’t have gone with Locke?
And by the way the NEW YORK FOOTBALL GIANTS ARE SUPER BOWL CHAMPIONS!
Never get tired of remembering that.
18 and done baby.
18 and done.
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