>: 44 TWO FOR THE ROAD

well, the two words that i have heard bandied about most often to sum
that last bit there up are 'holy' and 'shit'. it derailed a serious
portion of my evening, tell you what, i was stupid up until about
midnight. my God.

TWO FOR THE ROAD

after the second flashback, i was sure the title referred to some epic
last toast ana and christian would share at the end of their journey.
strike one for me. it's still so hard to believe what they did.

(since i'm not at work, and it's unfolding before me, we're on
impression-based realtime-presenttense)(mostly)
(also:between content and shockending, this will probably be very very
long; feel free to take a break and come back. it will still be 2004
when you get here)

dr jack's more concerned about nobody in the jungle than the state of
returned michael, eye still on the prize.

first shot of ana and the armory door-->her parking her squad car in
flashback. catherine spotted a 23 on the roof of the closest one and
looks like 16 15 and why not 08 behind it? a widescreen cap i saw
online has the 04 on the chopped-off left side of the screen. the
duration of the shot might even be eight seconds long. i dig the stuff
with ana and her mom, nice continuance of the dysfunctional/troubled
relationship angle everyone seems to have with the dominant parent.
'yeah ana, YOU did.' is good delivery.

then henry goes for it! thought she might off him right there! the
look on his face when she's walking up is priceless, as usual. and he
lurches up like a zombie killer, coming with the strangulation. for a
second ana looks cooked. then locke shows up to work in his usual
jovial zinger, 'guess he decided to start talking, huh?' solid
opening.

amazing to see christian shepherd, that most powerful of recurring
back-characters, in the bar dropping the serious alcoholic charm. 'how
does one get into wanding?' good stuff. was having a hard time keeping
it together at this point last night. shocking that he brought her to
sydney. course, i thought they were going to be bonnie&clyde-style
lovers, that would've been twisted. tom & sara. weird he chose the
name of his son's ex-wife for ana.

ana confessing to libby 'the guy in the hatch tried to kill me' hits a
bit differently second time around.

do we believe henry's latest? backing up goodwin's 'good ones' bit,
locke being one of them, henry's supposed real mission. great man,
brilliant man in charge, who's that, A Hanso? G DeGroot? ominous
tidings.

'getcha hands off my damn mangoes.
'i didn't figure you for the fruit pickin-type.'
sawyer and ana can always be counted on for a wonderful exchange and
they deliver once again.

'fate's calling, sara.'
tom and sara were listening to walkin after midnight, the patsy cline
i think kate had cued on the record player when she was tending sawyer
in the swan earlier this season (if not then, it was the patsy she was
listening to in the truck with ray, hehadahellofamortgage back in
episode 3) so. looks like christian had an australian lovechild, i'm
able to discern 'i pay the mortgage on this house and i want to see my
son!' which surely makes the chick the mistress/mom, probably maybe?
thank God there's no doubt who knocked claire up, right? crazy times,
jack's got a little brother who runs with dingoes.
'she is a very long story, sara.'

'they didn't have SAY ANYTHING in baghdad?' killer bit with hurley.
sayid really should check that one out sometime, cusack was boss.

sawyer and ana, next round. wow. you know she's going to fight, but
when she switches gears, look out. 'i ain't gonna gimme you nothing'
is an early favorite for best line followed right up with 'what you
gonna do now, muchacha?'

the first pre-airport tri-connection! sawyer stumbles into christian's
door in the middle of his second flashback when he(sawyer) is on his
way to go not kill that frank fella, episode 16, it might've been. so,
we know christian's got to bail on ana and start drinking the
afternoon away in the bar where he will await sawyer's return that
night, so he can pep talk him into going to kill the aforementioned
frank. but we still don't know what the cops grabbed him for, right?
from boone's flashback? head hurts.

dad puts 'guess that takes cuddling off the table!' down for best
line. i might take the don't you want my phone number line but enough
with the sawyer quotes, oi!

seems implausible sawyer would take so long post-coitus to think of
the gun. five minutes after she's gone, tops. the writers chopped
sheriff sawyer off at the knees as soon as they elected him.

and, wow, locke decides to cover for henry and sets the whole horrible
wheel turning. ana backs his play, dooms herself. michael wakes up to
tell what i thought was a misconception about new tribal other others
but must now surely be an outright fabrication. we should believe that
they're where he said, though, i think. because the plan does seem to
be to lead everybody there. one day's walk along the shoreline due
north from the arrow. michael said he counted 22 of them, you could
read that as him being the 23rd, subtle clue if you believe in the
numbers. the way he looks right at locke when he says they have a
hatch, yeah, pretty calculated.

jack apologizing to locke, what a big boy. locke just wants to be
included, this once-principal feud took a weird turn. ana sends sawyer
her best, class.

'there's jin' is pretty funny. the fisherman puts as much weight into
his seconds as possible, what a guy. hurley's reaction to the mention
of wine is awesome. why couldn't he have BROUGHT SOME DAMN BLANKETS TO
HIS PICNIC? sad.

sawyer's onto BAD TWIN, cool. i wish he would've made a guess whodunit
before the good doc commited his act of barbarism against the
manuscript. 'and you, brutus?' of course, sawyer's delayed reaction
to weapons-theft lends everything its maximum dramatic impact.
locke needs to tell jack something and in typical fashion we get a
prelim cliffhanger around 8:42, the rest of the episode we're waiting
for that principal quartet to storm in. not this week.

goodwin thought he could reform ana, huh? only the good ones can get
the vaccine, there isn't enough. figured henry would've put up more of
a last pre-execution verbal feint. the break before she pulls the
trigger feels like a gyp but of course it can't go any other way,
lends so much tension to the top of her and michael's conversation.

everybody catch the hanso foundation commercial? we get da vinci and
his vitruvian man followed by a rocket liftoff and double-helix
accompanied by a voice-over paraphrase of that old chestnut from '67:
'since the dawn of time, man has been curious, imagining all that is
possible. the hanso foundation, reaching out to a better tomorrow'.
the toll-free number's been locked up since last night (1-877-HANSORG,
a 42 and 4 in there, yah)

great back to the future II moment on the flashback with ana and jin
hearing jack's 'need it to be done' speech from the end of episode 5.
glad ana at least called her madre and ended things well. could she
know that jack was toting christian? cool how he spun his regret over
jack into impacting ana to reconcile with her mother. 'i'm on oceanic
flight 815' are some chilly words in this here language. 'i'll be
there when you land, miha,' makes me realize how many great off-island
moments, like ana's mom at the airport, we know about and won't get to
see. well, maybe, i keep thinking we've seen the last of christian
shepherd.

so, what a great episode. then the gutpunch.

michael is very convincing, 'finds out' about henry very convincingly.
sounds like ana-lucia's ready to hang up her gunbelt and start
focusing on fishing. so she gives her gun to michael. who calls them
animals for taking his son away from him. which took some small amount
of internal logic rerouting.

combination is 18 right 1 left 31 right. this is a nifty mirror of ana
telling michael there was one bullet left in her gun bcak in episode
30 right before she unexpectedly shot shannon at the end of the
episode (for the friday the 13th crime of copulation, right? shannon
hooked up with sayid on her -centric episode, got popped by ana, same
hooked up with sawyer on her -centric, rinse repeat..)

even seeing the way he looked at the gun, could never predict he was
going to just END her like that. thought she might get locked up,
but...jeez. we couldn't stand her for episodes. i warmed up to her
during THE OTHER 48 DAYS, thought she did a fine job on COLLISION and
this episode..and gone. but then when we're stunned, he caps libby!
twice! second shot on purpose, even. now, she might get a pass. i
mean, MAYbe if jack runs in before the title next week and lays his
healing hands on her, there's a chance, but she was definitely hit
twice, low center and left. but i think the episode title must refer
to the two ladies (unless you sub christian for libby).

then, michael opens the door, no one thinks he's shooting henry at
this point but it's sure a surprise he shot himself.

only way this makes any sense: the others flipped michael, told him he
could have walt back but basically has to be a mole and hand them the
entire group of survivors. his willingness to commit murder means he's
writing off any chance for peaceful co-existence with his group.
locke, sawyer, charlie.....looks like michael has passed them all in
the villain department, at least from the point of view of our
castaways. has he met with the Great Man who controls the island? is
the Great Man's plan to recapture henry or smite them out utterly or
what? michael is supposed to exterminate bad ones?

it's going to be a long week. here at 4:08 i've finally punched
through to the hanso foundation. says press 2 to talk to alvar. these
are exciting times, even though i doubt he'll pick up. what if he
does?

stay true, island faithful. i'm afraid the worst is yet to come.