>: ARGUMENT (pre-3rd season)

so this is a blog featuring the exclusive stream-of-consciousness babble ripped from my fingers by every new episode of LOST. what happened is, at the end of the second episode of the second season, i was so freaked out that they didn't advance a single FRAME from last week's cliffhanger, i just had to get my thoughts out and they sure spewed forth. e-mailed them around to various friends who were also fans, the list grew over the course of the season and i figured rather than flood your inboxes (you still add the -e there?) with hundreds of words every thursday, i'd just post them here and everybody can drop by at their leisure or run screaming or whatever you feel like doing. though these have mostly been posted just now, they were written as the episodes aired with no foreknowledge of what was to come (i even dodge the previews, don't want to know a thing!)

anyway, regular service will resume on 10/05 or the next day. i might post something between now and then, with the game heating up and season 2 out on DVD on 9/05. until then, enjoy. as for me, it is 23:08 in the great state of TX on 8/15 and i have a season finale to rewatch. cheers.

>: 26 ADRIFT

open w/ the raft, four seconds before the last shot from the finale, we get to hear michael yell 'walt!' twice and have his life saved by sawyer, a feat that will earn all kinds of gratitude. the question here is 'how synched up are the events?' i assumed the raft and the hatch got blown up at the same time b/c that's howthe finale ended but we've been jumping around so much it's easy to lose track. if that's the case, then we actually HAVE seen what happens after last wk, michael and sawyer wake up the next morning, after whatever's gone down in Desmond's Geodesic Funhouse. So we might not see them until the end of next wk. Or writers could just keep interspersing as they did this wk. we'll see.

so great that they went back to show everything leading up to last wk's cliffhanger. first ep was a straight line from jack to desmond, this wk we got to see all the things we raced by in the back half to get to the jack/desmond reveal: jack leaving camp, locke's first impressions/misunderstanding w/ desmond . . . you knew that john locke was going to say 'yes' when asked 'are you him?', that it was a different question than he thought, nothing to do with island messiahs. kate in the pantry was killer, answers the 'fresh fruit/eggs' dilemma, they're canned. the best fakeout of last night was not sawyer getting sharked to death but those breathless three or *gasp* four seconds where you realize that kate is up in the vent in the EXACT PLACE where desmond fired a warning shot last wk to show jack he's serious.

more tense plot advancement than mythology this wk, the main thing is desmond's '81 and '62 computers (if they're 23 and 42 yrs old, which they are, of course), you almost want to think that he's a loony who's been locked away too long with a calculator . . surely not. what we've seen is he woke up, entered the #s on his keyboard as part of his morning ritual, no big deal or sense of urgency, eat, throw on mama cass, work out, shower, shoot up some medicine w/ the #s on the vial then later while he's talking to locke an alarm goes off and he has locke enter the #s in again to stop a countdown that was aruond 2:36, reset it up to 108:00, which is of course the #s added up. something bad would've happened if the #s weren't entered. what? kate didn't get shot in the head, jack recognized desmond and we're right back to the end of last wk.

how great that the pontoon made it back to the island then you see jin running, know it's bad, tell them in english to run, dammit! but it's too late. nice image of the others stalking forward to end things.

have a theory about the others and michelle rodriguez being cast but don't want to spoil it for anybody else (not counting stewart who witnessed its birth). these cliffhangers are mad! anyone realize that if they bring all this to a head next wk (as i believe they will do) then we'll have 3 episode-lengths at the beginning of this season to mirror/resolve the 3 episode-length finale last may. THAT'S how you start and finish a season! power!

lot more to think about but i've said enough.

>: 27 ORIENTATION

great episode.

when they give it you, they pour it on, love how they addressed both cliffhangers before the title, that big dude just whupped the raft guys and desmond shot his computer (and we find out its a lockecentric episode, joy!)

here's the thing, though. not sure about the flashbacks this season. time might tell on some of them. but michael's really seemed like filler last wk, not worth it. and dammit, locke's felt like that this wk, appalling use of my favorite character. katey sagal was great and it was definitely fun to see locke and peg bundy dating but what was the point of showing us that? so that locke could tell jack it was a leap of faith? he could have done so w/o the flashback and i don't think it would have been any more resonant, the faith vs. science thing w/ jack is out in the open. look at the other two locke episodes, walkabout, obviously was huge, one of the best eps of serial tv ever, big wheelchair reveal at the end. then deus ex machina was great, that whole thing with his father cheating him and we were sure something was going to happen to his legs . . . this, what, he's still mad at his father (who seemed unrealistic in his dismissal, you took the dude's kidney!) and it's ruining his already crap life? last season's flashbacks felt vital, tense, as important as what was happening on the island. so far, not so. hope they correct it. don't show us hurley buying a lottery ticket, show something that reveals a heretofore unglimpsed fact about his motivation or character. that's what works. new territory.

so, ana lucia returned, no twin or anything. seems like those are just the people from the tail, not the 'others' that took walt. deliberately vague word, we don't know if the pirates who took walt are rousseau's others or not, now we have this second (or third) group. very crowded island, yes? hope we get a flashback on the big dude, couldn't place his accent. boy did he whup ass, looked crazy doing it, too.

loved the dharma initiative orientation so much, perfect medium to drop this information. copyright 1980 the hanso corporation. was that doctor's name candle? weird footage of the grad students that founded it, parapsychologists etc, what do they mean having two polar bears fighting as the example of zoology? and crazy establishing shot of alver (sp?) hanso through a window in his office. confirmed that electromagnetic waves are what's being studied. 'there was an incident'. the question is, is the countdown thing real? or is this just a study about the effect of magnetic waves on the sleep-deprived. of course we have riddles within questions within answers, who is kelvin? (kelvin, yes, not calvin?) how did desmond get to the island? how did kelvin die?

and why did desmond just take off w/o a gas mask or something, innoculations strong enough to survive direct contact with what's in the air? he's raving.

i liked the way locke played jack (who's really been more of a tool this season, so far) killer last line 'i'll take the first shift' and we're left to wonder about the new status quo and the fate of the prisoners. seems like sayid should be able to figure out what's going on down there, now that he's access, see just what we're counting down to. i mean, that Apple II's got to be connected to something, right? we'll see.

"dharma initiative" in quotes only has one hit on google. bet that'll last.

what did anyone else think?

>: 28 EVERYBODY HATES HUGO

excellent return to form. all issues resolved by self-contained format.

nice first shot of record, thought we were gonna get cass one more time, would have loved it. it's okay, there are other songs. loved hurley's dream, very six ft under. disquieting to have jin speaking english, ominous tidings. 'i know the numbers . . ' poor hurley.

little silly of jack to put hurley in charge of food w/ strict no eating rule, needlessly hard-assed. guess jack's had a tough wk. liked that they showed the front door entrance to the swan/hatch, that was a new one.

hurley's flashbacks were great. dj qualls was perfect foil. loved cluck you. hurley's crush starla is named after my very favorite smashing pumpkins b-side. hard for me to dislike.

enjoyed locke's pep talk w/ loaded gun for emphasis.

ana lucia beating on sawyer got old. what is the system, exactly, with them? don't like her beating on everybody. needs to get pistol-whupped.

sayid's little bit was interesting, wonder if more will come of his exploring. disappointed the noise was kate in the shower, thought we were in for something besides redux of jack/kate flirting.

23 people from the tail. most killed by desmond's bacteria or lord of the flies culling? ana lucia killed the last leader? are they in another station? seems that way. is that big black dude with them, or was he already on the island? seems more african. no bodies in the plane that killed boone, wasn't that from africa, nigeria i wanna say? we know so little about them. don't think they have walt though, there are pirate others and tail others, got to be.

nice to catch our breath this wk, less mythology more character beats, didn't even realize how little we've seen sun and shannon lately until they popped up. and the return of the endoftheday no dialogue killer music campfire montage. forgot how effective it is, every time. 'don't you love these characters? they've made it to the end of another day!' ahhhh. glad everybody doesn't really hate hugo, that would've been a drag.

>: 29 ...AND FOUND

enjoyed the episode, though the breathless immediacy from the first of the season is noticably absent. bit disappointed that we only got 5 before the first break, they really only had to write 2 eps and a long premiere, seems like you'd have more than 3 stories in the can before coming back. maybe they do and this'll be the only break until christmas. that'd be nice.

so, jin and sun. nice flashbacks, but we're still suffering from them still not really telling us anything we haven't known or been able to infer. yes, it was nice to see them meet but it would have been nice if they could have worked some mythology element in, spice it up for us. well-acted, but i expect to learn more.

sure didn't waste anytime with the tail remnants. off to the beach! ana lucia was bearable (but every time i see her, i'm still hearing 'let me OUT!' in that petulant voice), really liked her and sawyer's little exchange. 'you're suited for marriage' was never such a convincing potshot. mr echo (that's too comic bk, eko? ekau? was he in the tail or is he nigerian?), however you spell it, great presence. i love how he head-butted jin, just looked at him i can keep this up all afternoon. great that he came along. guess he's the tail-people's locke-type tracker. looking fwd to the two of those dudes walking through the jungle.

saw the others' dirty legs and feet! be interesting to see how they follow up the dread, going to have to do pretty bad things to get eko so fearful, no? that teddy bear was a nice touch, weird. belongs to 16-yr old girl named alex? what's going to happen?

and locke. loved his talk with sun, great lines. 'same way anything lost gets found. i stopped looking.' awesome, despite the nudgenudge of it all. talking about the title, you see. not as bad as kate and locke saying the words lost and lock w/in half a minute of each other 4 wks ago. overanalyzing much, you think?

overall, dug it, but after mainlining the first season, i'm just impatient for things to happen. faster! doesn't seem as though the tail-people are the others that responded to boone over the CB, the 'we're the survivors of oceanic #815' guy. hope we don't have to wait 20 episodes to hear more about that. probably be the people that show up in the season 3 finale. oi.

fun point of consideration: have we learned anything this season that lends insight as to the identities of adam & eve, the bodies in the cave discovered in ep #5?

talk about it, people!

>: 30 ABANDONED

what an episode.

sayid is a pimp and for a few minutes it looks like they're going to be all right. but walt shows back up and the end is set in motion. haven't been able to find a link to what he said, if anyone has one, please send it down the chain. flashback again didn't really tell us anything we didn't know or haven't extrapolated but it was of course good to see boone again (last time, i guess, unless locke feels guilty in a few months) even though i think if i'd indulged my winkwink tendencies and written his first line as 'death sucks, huh?' there's no way i would have followed it with shannon 'you came back!' pictured affleck and damon looking at the camera in jay and silent bob, get it? but that's nitpicking.

will be interesting to see how they follow up how horrible the others are. i mean, we saw goodwin but nothing about his body was so shocking, not like he was flayed by predator or anything. so 23 - 3 - 9 - goodwin (unique, i think) = 10. and there's what five of them now? eko ana bernard cindy libby, am i missing anyone? not counting cindy yukyuk. so looks like the people in the tail distracted the others away from the shepherded flock for the first 40 days, would have been all over them otherwise. quick pt on the whispering. i always assumed that was a function of the monster or security system when sayid or sawyer heard the whispering in the first season, folded it in with the Great Unknown of the Jungle, now i'm thinking it's others, those who know the jungle so well. so, they've been aware of our people for a while and messing with them occasionally, just eating people from the tail (or whatever they're doing). sure seemed like it was them doing the whispering when the hiking crew started running for the commercial break at ten till.

just having a thought, in last wk's procession we saw dirty bare legs then pants, alternating the whole time. was that not the full party (as i assumed at the time) but just, say, 4 of them walking with 4 prisoners? makes sense. who are the kids, were they part of the taken 11?

nice development with locke and charlie, 'how bout that?' been wary of that plot veering off into afterschoolspecial land, so far so good.

big fakeout on sawyer, really thought he was going, no they can't do that! would have been ballsy. anything can happen i guess. he's not out of the woods yet. quick, someone spay me.

and the big finish. i was shocked, even though i was expecting for sayid and shannon to come across the others or the hikers, out in the jungle and all, still floored to see ana lucia's smoking gun, what an intense plot development, full integration does not at this time seem likely, what an enemy she has made, maybe the worst possible, that look he was giving, serious. can't imagine how things will go next week, imagine they'll have to be a bit more forthcoming with regard to details than they have been. she's dead, though right? no chance of resuscitation? feel like sayid's expression was meant to convey that. figured she was the only exempt party, if only because of boone. never mind.

so, we've got the pirates who took walt, we've got the others stalking the hikers, and we've got desmond and the dharma initiative personnel. how those exterior forces are related, intertwined is something we don't know.

i don't think it's a good sign that walt is still dripping wet.

>: 31 THE OTHER 48 DAYS

and now, an all-new extended episode of LOST.

no words sweeter.

didn't know, so that was a wonderful way to begin. and then no flashbacks! it was all a flashback. loved the opening shot, just long enough to wonder what's going on before the pieces start zinging in, nice sound effects. aaaaand, it's an alternate pilot. that was so bizarre, really felt like they just pressed the reset button. thing is, i don't get how they survived at all (i know, the island saved them). were they IN that tail when it crashed into the ocean? seems like pretty massive suspension of disbelief required. ah well, that i got. it was obviously going to be the 'let's humanize ana lucia' episode which i'd say they did to pretty good effect. they went ahead and showed us the little boy's bear early on. when eko and bernard were sitting talking by the fire, i was on edge, knew the others were looming! well-played with eko, how they made it seem like he was the bad guy, we knew the story but it totally felt like watching an already-aired pilot, like they were trying to misdirect us, but acknowledging that we wouldn't be.

interesting how much this group felt like our group (it did suck seeing the cast's, even maggie's!, names go by knowing they wouldn't show) same debates about the beach, the fire, getting rescued. when ana was talking bernard off the seat, i could hear jack's voice saying her words, identical tone. same with goodwin debating on the beach, sounded like locke. nice job making me not trust nathan initially, he seemed sketchy from the get-go, all a ruse. hilarious that she dug the pit.

only real plot advancement came with goodwin's last chat. so, they want 'good' people? for their post-hippie co-op society? wonder if they killed the first 3 dudes and indoctrinated the next 9 or what. the strongest then the good ones. so the pants/bare legs alternation of 2 wks ago was def other/survivor/other/survivor with the boy bringing up the rear.

continuity glitch: last wk, the others started whispering, everyone got scared, ana said run! and commercial break, didn't see them again until the barrel was smoking. this wk, we got whispering, ana drew then shot shannon. no run! i'm just saying.

it was great seeing things lead up to what we know. those drums sold me on it. loved how they kept going over Day 46, Day 47, relentless. and again, we end an episode no further past last wk's cliffhanger, they even gave us the EXACT THREE SAME CLOSING SHOTS sayid holding shannon sayid pissed ana unapologetic, with those drums it got me pumped for next wk! i thought this wk was going to be them explaining themselves and flashing back on bits from the first 48, but i liked this method much better. a whole first season with these people with no flashbacks and small character development, just the broad strokes. small part of me is sad we didn't get a new minute past last wk but i'm not listening to him so much anymore, i loved the episode and enjoy how they're treating time as fluid, not bound by linearity, perfectly happy to set a big cliffhanger up then go back the next wk, layer it, and give you the same cliffhanger again, heavier with plot. that's gutsy.

cb stubblefield's words on barbq come to mind: (it's) like the mississippi, it's long and takes it's own sweet time.

>: 32 COLLISION (aka OLD HABITS)

i really intended to stumble over to the computer at some pt between gravy and wine and dressing last wk but you all know how that goes.

but now it works out that you can set your brains bubbling with this special recap edition of roundup just in time, i've learned, for the (hang your heads in sad) last new episode of 2005. it's all about sweeps apparently. jumping right in:

the ana-lucia episode. nice switch to follow up the humanize ana lucia episode with one showing us she's a triggerhappy traumatized and injured freakin nutbag. really liking this ep's and shannon's return to having the central theme of the flashback elucidate character while resonating heavily on current island events. we waited two wks and then sayid just jumps up and draws on her. junglefight between sayid and eko! that's prob the heavyweight event of the island and they bust that out in the opening! predictable crazy from ana. cue the start. eko tells ana no while his name is on the credits (i love how every ep almost they synch up one or two of the names to whoever's on screen, who will it be tonight?) demonstrating this episode's destabilization of the tailenders as they assimilate into the main group. ana and eko were a bit tighter than locke and jack and his one syllable is enough to communicate to the other two that it is over, this chick is crazy and we need to leave.

then the great throwback. i was intensely struck on first viewing of how crazily reminiscent of the first season that tiny b plot was, all of a sudden out of nowhere: hurley, charlie, kate and jack playing the golf making with the flirty flirt, like the hatch the virgin mary the raft aaron, none of it had even happened, boone's off with locke and we're still waiting for hurley's flashback, missing the 4's 15's and 16's constantly whizzing by. here's the thing: they did that deliberately, gave us one last taste of the old way because it is gone, with sawyer and ana in the picture i think that's the last advice jack's gonna give kate on her golf swing if you know what i mean and i think you do. serious acting from kate on the edge of the forest, transition on her face from 'this is fun with jack' to 'holyshit there's a giant black man walking out of the woods with dead sawyer on his back'.

locke's crossword puzzle. this disturbed me. i paused it to check the other words, you know how they leave little easter eggs lying about. and it was all gibberish. any other show, i'd say yeah they just put nonsense in there but these guys? dharma logo on the shark, alternate hatch from the first minutes of the season to the one with desmond in it, these guys are a bit too detail-minded for that. so, either locke is the worst crossword puzzler on the island (his written 'gilgamesh' completed quite a few words, like asids, irrisfz, and other nonsense) or that was some elaborate code. i draw the line at cryptography. for now.
loved eko in the hatch with locke. two hellos never had more gravitas. took them being in the same rm for me to realize i've been digging eko more this season. hope locke is strong tonight. i love eko's nuance.

nice intimate moment with sawyer and kate, also dug the look on her face when she remembered jack was there, sharing it with them.

surely ana didn't get away with capping that guy. mom/captain and the whole dept have to know the score on that one. 'i'm pregnant'. should be an interesting reaction to aaron tonight.

i lovelovelove it when they do the no-dialogue musical bits at the end and this one was no exception, giachinno (sic) came up with a gorgeous second permutation of his raft theme in c# worthy of the reunion of bernard and rose, sun and jin, and damn if that last shot didn't literally frame jack and ana to take us out.

but i've said too much.

enjoy the last one of the year. it might gladden your heart to know that 23 episodes were aired. (if you count the season finale as 2, or throw in the recap ep)

i'll see you all tomorrow.

>: 33 WHAT KATE DID

o much story they had no recap and still went long. gotta love that. following the trend . . .

really enjoyed having kate's story fleshed out, can't believe they waited this long. wonder if they've always known or made it up on the fly? def got a drunk daddy vibe off that dude when he got out of the truck, turned out to be right, after a while. hardcore explosion, did NOT see that one coming. now we know why kate's mom started freaking out when she realized her daughter had come to visit her in the hospital. at least the dude never touched kate, would've been pretty cliche, drunk stepfather rapist

another great funeral. thought jack was going to get up and give a big eulogy but less is more. still can't believe they took her out. poor old sayid, a star-crossed dude, apparently.

did anyone else think sawyer might've been talking about loving ana-lucia? i thought he was being purposefully vague when he said it but that isn't really borne out by the rest of the episode. crazy that he tried to strangle kate, what's the rational explanation for that, the non-possessed by the ghost of wayne version? anything besides hallucination?

and such drama with the alarm. knew we'd be heading back to focusing on the hatch pretty soon. the counter actually hit 0, but got reset in the nick of time. good to know, too, about the buttons not working before the 4-minute alarm. news to me.

awesome that locke got jin's handcuff off. everybody owes that guy a favor.

kate's horse rather disturbed me, as the most ambiguous unexplained image in twin peaks (quite a list, that) was a vision of a white horse in a living room. liked it, too, how much nuttier she acted with charlie and sayid. way she said 'because i went crazy' was chilling. miz lilly's really stepped it up here past couple of weeks, getting good material and running with it. by the middle of the ep, i was wondering if sawyer even really attacked her, was it all in her head? maybe that one scene was but it was nice to have sawyer see the horse too, remove some shred of ambiguity. like we're not already drowning in it.

locke and eko are the team to beat. was rubbing my hands together when locke brought up the movie, welcome back dr marvin candle and namaste right back atcha. found eko's silent reaction to be a gyp but quickly revised that opinion. what was up with that great, great story? (shoutout to stew, whose brother's named josiah!) like locke, eko seems to enjoy the heavy parables out of wild left field. this one didn't gutpunch me with how it tied in, though. josiah used the book not the gold to rebuild the temple. way he was talking, i thought they were going to actually have those papers, that old BC testament, the original. but was it just a regular king james edition? was the point of the story that ideas are more valuable a commodity than currency? that's the only meaning i can derive. brett nailed it with the taxicab confession 'that's a lot of shit to lay on somebody to hand him some film.'

and what about that kiss? came outta freakin nowhere after all this time. the will they/won't they scully/mulder bit w/ kate and jack was prob my least enjoyed part of 1st season but i dug the golfing and this was out of nowhere enough for me to enjoy. everyone seems back where i assumed they'd be by episode's end though, good for sawyer. loved his first line back too, funny.

about the film, i thought it was going to be an alternate orientation tape for eko's hatch and it was going to wildly contradict the first one and send us on a quest to track down the other hatches and tapes so we can get to the bottom of the degroots and their remote-viewing research facility. then i thought we weren't going to have time to watch it, like when kate and sawyer were talking at 8:58 and i was just like, roll it locke! cut to ana lucia in rose's old spot, gnashed my teeth no, they are going to make me suffer through christmas not knowing. wrong on both counts, glad they got it out of the way, turned out it was far less drastic, didn't say what the incident was, just emphasized no really don't use the computer or you'll have another incident. either he's lying and they just don't want to disrupt the skinner box experiment or telling the truth and the incident had something to do with stations talking to each other over late 70s IM tech, looks like. that cursor is slooooooow. no guarantee that it is walt on the other end, great finish. if it is walt, is he in the parapsychology station/hatch practicing mental projection and playing on the computer for leisure? oi, this show.

fire back if you loved it or hated it or think adam & eve are really aaron and his wife from the future. really an extended comic book, you see.

>: 34 THE 23RD PSALM

well, the 42-day drought is over and it is again gotime. yahweh on the cross that was good, best single episode of the season, must surely take its place with 'walkabout', 'numbers', and the three-hour finale as one of the top episodes. not only did the flashbacks matter, they provided crucial elucidation, giving us new insight to someone we thought we already understood.

nice opening, nigerian life is good, percussive, i had the big kid pegged as eko though was still surprised when he grabbed the gun. a born killer. couldn't believe it when it went to eko on the beach in the afternoon 'what happened last NIGHT?' i hollered. later for you, maybewalt (i'm not buying it, that kid is a ghost). seemed like just a mellow character development conversation with claire but the plot, it did thicken, awesome to smash the statue before the title. that eko is an intimidating walker. i'm calling emmy nom. i enjoyed he and charlie riffing off each other on the hike, the latter's been in the background this season, nice to see him step forward. loved every flashback, just the way the guy smiles and says 'hello, brother'. interesting how running drugs almost got manipulated into the morally correct thing, get em out of the country, $ for vaccines. of course yimi can afford to rock the black and white morality, dug eko calling him on it with the cross.

single best thing, though, has to be eko facing down the monster. incredible, beautifully shot and worth the wait. so, it's certainly foglets, subterranean nanotech, same thing that grabbed the pilot in the pilot (harhar, an all-time classic, that) and, more importantly, the most important thing of the episode, we finally got to see EXACTLY what happened to locke way back in october '04 on 'walkabout' (episode 4, too, for the #s-watchers) when he 'saw the face of the island'. as usual though, best answers lead to more questions. what, exactly, was the process there? was the security system/monster evaluating him, wondering why he didn't scatter like everyone else? or, crazier, was it reprogramming him? there were certainly images flashing in it, showing him something at the very least. he doesn't seem initially altered, though i'm going to pay even closer attention, if that's possible, to all of eko and locke's future exchanges. any subterfuge on their part now must certainly relate back to whatever picture those tiny little machines show willing eyes. or it could be nothing and locke's a crazed zealot casting about for fate and religion, certainly a possibility. cheers, ambiguity.

when i first saw eko walk up and cream the raft guys with his jesusstick (my favorite exchange last night, that bit with charlie), the klaxons went off in my head, o nigerian plane! for once, they adhered to the first impression, but not quite, he wasn't actually on the plane, 'this man saved my life.' nice. so, all we know is he assumed a cover as a priest to get away, why was he flying sydney -->LA? how did the plane wind up there? is the island freaking moving, did it just go after the raft, is that what happened? one more massively improbable coincidence to toss on the pile. what is the explanation??>? ultimate question of the show, of course.

y'all see the episode title, the 23rd psalm? of course, can't believe that 'lord is my shepherd' bit (get it? jack shepherd) falls into one of the #s, complete with a valley of death. killer move to have eko recite it over his brother's jedi funeral. chah-lie gets the boot, nice to shake up the status quo. and he's got a hoard!!! looks untouched, don't think he's been using again, but man only a matter of time. nice of the koreans to welcome crazy to their side of the island. i love this show.

>: 35 THE HUNTING PARTY

episode 35 in the can and it was a scorcher!

shocked to see christain shepherd to start things off, aNOTHER jack flashback? this one turned out to be worth it though, very pertinent as to jack's present-day mindset. he wasn't that stable around ep 5 when he started hallucinating his daddy (if that wasn't an islandghost), doesn't seem like he's in much better headspace 42 days later. how many episodes has he cried this season, feel like it's been at least half. so, michael makes a beeline for walt, the parapsychology hatch maybe? the only way i can see walt actually alive if that astral projection stuff isn't a ghost is to have the station focused on parapsychology, one of the degroots' six areas of study, up and running, electrodes on his head and what not.

how can you not love jack, locke and sawyer on the hike? of course, jack created his own strategic disadvantage by not letting kate come along. dug locke rebutting 'mr clean' by calling sawyer on his name.

nice character beats sandwiched in with the long-term plot advancement: the koreans' arc was elegantly played, charlie and hurley spinning records, the 'desert island scenario' was maybe the only thing that could have kept my mind off what was happening elsewhere, which leads us to_

old pirate claus. this guy was great, the way he launched into that whole 'put your foot on the table in another man's house' bit. looks like a worthy adversary. prelim data indicates we're right not to be as terrified of the others as the tailenders would have it. great how he called everybody by their names, of course they've got their lists. question is (excuse me, the 39th question is) did these others cause the crash? the fact that they know everybody's names and might possibly have access to all the pertinent lifelong images of the survivors stored by the nanotech/security system suggests that to be the case. 'you and me ain't done, zeke,' was prob my favorite line, though i really dug locke's delivery of everything. at first, i thought michael made it through to walt but zeke tells us that he 'won't find us', so he's presumably armed and crazy in the middle of the night, looking for boone and shannon's longlost cousin to perforate. on the rewatch, i caught the name of the person who brought bound&gagged kate out: alex. that's rousseau's 16-yr old. we've been looking for her since the pirates/others made their first appearance stealing walt, there's the confirmation. poor crazy danielle.

i want a poster of that shot of the four of them walking back at dawn.

and the a-word finally gets dropped, army, been waiting for that all this time, though i have to say i always thought it would wind up being an idelogical war between jack and locke based on faith/science and some horrible mishap in the swan station. can't wait to see where all this is headed. next week.

>: 36 FIRE + WATER

enjoyable. expected a bit more, ah, development on one of the twenty things still dangling but i was pleased with what i saw.

charlie's crazy dream was much more enjoyable than a straight flashback to kick things off, awesome to have grown-up liam playing with voltron. thinking on it now, was he wearing a diaper? baby symbolism abounds. little brother charlie has been charged with saving the family his whole life, at least that's how he remembers it. obvious at the top that we've got charlie v. locke.

sawyer/kate watching jack/ana walking was odd. what's kate thinking? 'you hittin' that?' had to be the line of the show, perfect delivery, jarring. and funny. prissy jack's not having it. so, they going out to the jungle building an obstacle course for training or what? quoting sun-tzu at each other? of course, not one mention of the army. or michael. or walt. or others strategy. arrgh. dangle, threads.

hurley and libby were funny/odd. she's got an agenda, don't know if she recognizes him from korean television (where all the californian lottery winners get coverage) or she's another spy or what. don't remember if i realized this before last wk's roundup, but old pirate claus's face seemed strategically blank when jack specifies 'ethan?', like he didn't know the name. ethan from another other camp? all we know is the pirate has walt, we don't know if that's the group jin and eko saw, who took the tailenders. is libby from the pirates, opposite goodwin from the junglewalkers? just gaming on hurley? still drunk from last night? time will tell. give her validation, hurley!

and another crazy dream from charlie, i dug it, six ft under level of weirdness. the great thing about that scene with kate manhandling charlie out of claire's space (ha, was so into the show, forgot they were dating) was that long pan around the left side of locke resolving on the inscrutable squint, EXACTLY the way episode 3 'tabula rasa' ended, ominous angelo badalmenti synth and all, the first time we were like 'okay, now what is up with THIS guy?' which led us into 'walkabout'. this leads us to...what? claiming his position as aaron's dominant father figure? he's handling claire deftly, a pro, guess he has been all along, ever since building that crib. thought at first he just wanted to mate, but catherine's right, it's that kid he's interested in, the one on which everything depends. according to the sydney psychic. man, i would love to see a flow chart for a whole season, a b and c plots, the character beats and histories, i bet it looks insane.

strung-out liam struggling to cash in on a diaper commercial was priceless, as was charile chasing down the director, wearing one.

thought we had a problem with the fire, late in the show and all, but they took care of it. charlie gets clocked by locke (HOW did he not hit him a fourth time?gah) and stitched by jack, nice double-team, that. figured eko was going to rock the ashes for the baptism, nicely shot scene in the water. episode was called fire+water, cheers.

the point of this episode, i feel, was to separate charlie from his mates. serious 'over to the dark side' moment at the end by the fire there, even had the hood and all, giacchino should've thrown a john williams quote in there. pretty sure charlie will start leaking info to SOME group of others at some point. why didn't locke destroy the statues? to hold sway over charile at some point, knowing he'll need to call on him? WHAT is that dude's agenda? they tried to deflate all the weird first season vibes about locke at the top of this season, but i think quoting that shot from ep 3 is a deliberate recapitulation of what an ominous character he is. my buddy todd wonders if locke and eko aren't warrior priests passing in the night, one moving from a life of sin/evil to one of piety, locke taking the opposite trajectory. as of now, that holds water.

off next week, back on the 8th. like they didn't do that on purpose.

and for those of you who weren't in the comic book store yesterday (vast majority of you, yes), writhe in horror at the cover of the latest catwoman. the numbers are slowly, insidiously seeping out of their initial construct into all planes of fiction. soon they will realign your synapses, as they have mine and john locke's.

>: 37 THE LONG CON

"May the circle be unbroken
By and by, Lord, by and by"
-traditional

"Never saw me comin', didja?"
-James Ford

that were a pretty artful spot of conning there. you really have to rewatch this one to appreciate how beautifully all the elements dovetail, see him arrange all the elements with consummate skill. first shot is of locke and jack opening the safe, spar for a second before locke gives up the combo. cut to sawyer giving charlie hell on the beach (!) so were they not together at this point? did jack cause this whole mess by confiscating sawyer's pills? jump to the first flashback we saw of sawyer, not sure at what point it cut off earlier. i thought they were heading for florida and a robert patrick-caused shooting of the girl but no dice. seemed like she was conning him the whole time, not so. and we went back to kate's mom's diner for the big reveal that he was actually working her! the explanation for this coinicidence net is pretty much going to have to be the best piece of writing i've ever encountered to live up to everything at this point. o, but i have faith.

of course it seemed suspicious that the others left sun, big target painted on ana's head for the commercial break. dug that shot of everybody walking away from the war council, leaving sawyer and kate standing there. my favorite shot of the night though was prob realization dawning on kate, that long head shot of her, we can see the gears turning, followed by ana looking away, guilty, of something else. follow that up with a perfectly placed flashback of sawyer and cassidy in the bathroom (deadwood fans, cassidy was played by joanie, the little hooker who could - first lodz shows up on 24, now this, whatta week) beautiful writing to have sawyer explain the long con even as cassidy has the idea to offer up the money RIGHT AFTER we see kate demand sawyer's help, both his plans coming to fruition even as he explains it right to our face.

i definitely thought the guns were going to come out and we were going to have an actual or near-accident by the end of the ep, sawyer did a great job explaining away his motivation by throwing the pills to jack in the swan, never DREAMED he was working everybody with a junkie up his sleeve. sheriff sawyer, huh? sleep with a rifle duct-taped to your hand, i guess. the ramifications of all this just have my head spinning, there are so many sides. when kate and sawyer found that hood with a different weave, i yelled 'it was the other others!', everything's gotten so complicated outside the closed system of 'islandtown' but what i loved about this tale, it was really just a locked room mystery, everybody there from the get-go, just a matter of revealing who and why. all the exterior unknowns not even a part of this complicated betrayal, waiting for the story to catch up to them.

ana's 'scott, steve, whatever' cracked me up. charlie talking about locke feeling like a fool was chilling. i can't imagine how these altered dynamics will reverberate through the back half of the season. sawyer carved out a chunk of real estate on the island for the basses with his 'high score on donkey kong' comment. it was especially effective not having subtitles for the koreans, made everything more urgent and didn't really sacrifice content. loved that shot of hurley and sayid under the night sky looking toward the ocean. and ellington makes the soundtrack! i was definitely wondering if the 40s big band meant they were dislodged in time, hurley always says what we're thinking.

what will be the final fate of the survivors of oceanic flight 815?

>: 38 ONE OF THEM

"My name is Sayid Jarrah. And I am a torturer."

man, i knew he was about to introduce himself as such and the delivery still freaked me out. is it getting....dark on the island or what? locke, sawyer, charlie, now sayid, people are wrestling with some demons. so, our favorite iraqi snaps out of his dead blonde funk and gets back to his specialty, torture in pursuit of the Truth! did any other carnivale fans join me in yelling at the TV for about a minute after clancy brown's name came up? i so badly wanted him to be on the island, where rousseau was leading sayid, not so. he delivered a solid performance as the american who first shows sayid his path. so, i read that the soldier who brought sayid in and talked with him at the end was kate's father, not kate's actual father (wayne got blowed up) but the upright one. he was looking at an old picture of kate as a girl at the end. so, how does this square with that blink and you miss it shot of sayid on the TV when she pays almost-dad a visit after going on the run initially? was that just old footage, the way we're just now seeing torture footage from a couple years ago? meaning, almost-dad brings sayid in, goes home the next yr, and then kate comes in and we see the old footage? i dunno, this is kind of like hurley showing up on korean television for winning the lottery, there's no reason i can see for why that image would be on the screen, other than to connect things arbitrarily. was dad just sitting in the recruitment station watching his greatest hits? 'we brought that boy in last year and made him pull out his commanding officer's fingernails.'

sawyer and hurley for a b-plot was fun enough, second time sawyer's talked an accomplice into a junglequest to track some beast that's ailing him. knew he was gonna squash that little critter.

and henry gale. do we believe him? sayid sure didn't. i dug that last talk between sayid and charlie. guys never sit on the beach and say things to each other like 'there is a man down in the hatch, locked in the armory. i beat him. badly.' we need a little more of that. there was a watchmen reference, when gale was talking about his balloon, how it looks like a smiley-face from above. love it.

of course, the big news, we got to see the countdown expire. here's the thing, did locke actually hit execute later, but the camera was on the timer? did he stop whatever it was from happening? didn't think so at first, now that seems to be the case. i thought some blast doors were about to come down. man, if they wait until the last minute of the season to go through with all that again, it is going to be one longass summer. the hieroglyphics that came down in place of the numbers are attached, seem to translate to caus.die. not TOO ominous.

jack is a freakin idiot not to enlist locke and sayid, if he's in any way serious about an army. strategy beats crazy every time.

you know, there were no crowd scenes, most of the show was one on one dialogue, only four people at the end w/ locke v. jack and sayid v. gale/other, only people we even saw (in the present) were those four, the sawyer/babar b-team, and brief flashes of ana, charlie, and danielle. oh and jin

wonder what eko kate claire aaron sun libby rose bernard michael walt desmond the pirate others the nanobeast the other others (if they exist) were up to? next week, island faithful, for answers and more questions.

>: 39 MATERNITY LEAVE

enjoyed it very much, quite a bit to process.

that was certainly the opposite of a dead-weight flashback. guess it was always the plan to do it like that, very effective. i couldn't believe at the time that they just let the mystery of claire's missing two weeks dangle, but all good things...cool how the first flashback was ambiguous enough, we weren't sure if she was still in sydney or we were having our first island flashback or what. it would have been chilling to have ethan stalking her pre-815, but works either way. he's such a weirdo. tom cruise's cousin, you know. explains everything. ethan rom, other man, fun with anagrams. great how gentle and almost loving he was with claire, in between his bouts of ridiculous violence toward the castaways. remember, he hung charlie beforehand and killed scott/steve when she got away. what a good, loving family he belongs to. what was up with that sour stuff in his canteen? forgetful lemonade? that shot of the doctors getting ready to cut aaron out was ominous. and the mobile with the oceanic planes wasn't just a dream! those others are odd ducks, yes. i guess that's the first definitive link we've seen between the dharma initiative and oceanic airlines.

finally finally finally saw alex's face. we've only been hearing about her since episode 9! did anyone notice that she seemed to be wearing freddy kreuger's clothes? no blades of course, but i swear the shirt and pants were the same. it's this horror novel i'm editing making me say that, but it's true dammit! very cool how seeing that log triggered the conversation with ethan then we actually saw present-day claire in her own flashback, viewing it, the first one we've seen on the island. i'd imagine in a few seasons, they'll have more stuff like this, some pertinent new scene in the foreground, while jack tries to save boone in the background. let him go, man, he releases you from your promise!

(i think it was stew who pointed out that jack is always making so many promises, in a season and a half, we've already had rose, boone and his wife sarah let him off the hook)

so, the vaccine. hope everyone caught the numbers this time around. were they shooting her up with anything else? you wouldn't think, her being pregnant and all, but it made her pretty bombed, pliable and what not. one more reason why desmond was acting so crazy at the top of the season. i think there can be no doubt that there is some sort of airborne virus on the island. i would expect it to hit at the 108-day mark. we're barely halfway there, i'm sure plenty of people will get shot and blown up before that happens.

anybody recognize that dude in the hall that was bitching out ethan? sure sounded like zeke/old pirate claus, we were shocked when we saw his clean-shaven face. but then they went ahead and confirmed it with the theatrical spirit gum and beard claire found at the end. so, he's in disguise. and that was crazy, we found another station! so, we've seen half of them now, the swan, the arrow (where eko et al were chilling) and this one, the one with a caduceus in the logo. bummed they didn't find a film clip then they were looking around but i guess they didn't open any books. rousseau was especially haunted and disturbed. great how she saved claire with the butt end of a rifle to her temple.

eko's search for absolution was great. i love how he didn't even begin to buy into gale's bullshit, just laid it out there for an acknowledged other. as opposed to locke. we keep getting conflicting views of mr clean and last night he definitely came down in the chump column as opposed to the evil machiavelli. henry gale = bad, bad news but everyone's forgotten except sayid and charlie, and they're not spreading the word.

i'll give line of the night to sawyer's 'watch.......why?'

looks like zeke is not the patriarch of the island as we've had every reason to assume, he was all worried about what he was 'going to tell him.' degroot? hanso? this ep DID establish that zeke in fact knew ethan, something we had doubted. i'm sure there's more but that's all i got out of the single viewing. that was ep 15 of this season. tune in next week, island faithful, for 16.

>: 40 THE WHOLE TRUTH

great title, thinking about sun, her doctor, doctor henry gale. so, jin came out acting like his old self, but it was only because he was worried. still, trashed the garden! very undude. i tossed all hope of locke playing gale out the window, he's just getting bitched, henry rocked a long con of his own last night. good thing ana lucia's never wrong twice, i flinched when she said that. ana! funny how she said "let me out" again, not quite as petulant as when eko brought her up out of the hole. enjoyed sawyer and sun's conversation. it's true, judy blume is very predictable and there's not nearly enough sex. that was hilarious, those are totally the standards by which sawyer would judge a book. looking back, i've enjoyed sun and kate's friendship develop over the course of the series, real organic and unforced. kate's there whenever she needs anything, when jin was so pissed she spoke english, when she lost her ring.

good to see rose and bernard in action. i loved that she knew it was saturday and he had no idea. that means it's november 13th or 20th, 2004, incidentally, the latter i think. day 59. it might only be 52 but they usually space some days in between unrelated eps like we've had lately.

hurley and sun catching each other in the jungle was funny.

ana opened up by the fireplace, surprisingly, too bad sayid hasn't forgiven at all, just transferred his anger. it's blinded him. what a great shot of the three of them creeping off into the field to search, the real cliffhanger. can't believe it's ana's desire to do the right thing, make sure before they execute henry, that set them all up to get snagged.

so we've got another bundle of joy on the way, though i guess we won't actually see it unless we do a massive time-jump, the seasons have thus far been only a little longer than a month (we're on-pace for that again, at any rate). her getting pregnant is an argument that they'll make that jump at some point, we've got to have all the others/baby drama surrounding the birth of a new one. and of course it is another island miracle, jin's blanks consecrated into live rounds. nice twist there at the end about jin being responsible. good flashbacks this time, that first scene with sun and the hotel dude made you think she was cheating, then they turn that on its head, only english lessons. liked how we didn't find out the whole truth until jin did, that's how you use that device. then the big garden scene to show the lesson jin's learned. i wish she didn't have to lead him through the hoop but i guess she did. she did an amazing thing with her eyes and face when she hugged him, you could really see the emotions running through her mind, nice bit of technical craft there, i thought.

that bit with jin not understanding sawyer and bernard was great, out of nowhere. yeah, that sucks, man. time to learn some more words, methinks.

then we let henry out for dharma jacks and he lays it all out for them. man, we knew he was bad and crafty, but he played everyone so well. really looking forward to the beginning of next week, surely others are about to swoop down. of course, that's what they want us to think, so maybe not. is there any doubt that henry's an other, though? i mean, the balloon's not there is it, they're going to get snagged. again, expecting them too. we will see.

locke was checking out that geronimo jackson record hurley had that charlie had never heard of 'as an expert in all things musical' back during The Hunting Party. here's their site: http://www.geronimo-jackson.com/. that could almost be the degroots in the picture, this appears to be a fictitious band. formed at U of M, where henry gale allegedly met his wife and the dharma initiative was first formed. even more fun, in the source code for the website, the following key words appear: locke and key records, macna carta, magna carta, not just a number, other man, on my own feet again, down in a hole, smoke and mirrors, other side of the tracks, born again. i bet at least one member of that trio is on the island even as i type this.
meant to google that pregnancy test, was it widemar labs? that yields nothing. if someone remembers the name, shoot it at me.

it's good to get back on the island, though i guess i never really leave. that was episode 16 of the season. eight episodes left. and #42 is the one after next week....

>:41 LOCKDOWN

what an episode. we got a massive amount of information and it went quite a ways toward validating the last locke flashback for me. taken by itself, that last one, not enough happened in the flashback, we learned almost nothing new relative to the other two locke flashbacks. seemed pointless at the time. that's because it was almost all setup, we needed all that to launch right into this one. old anthony cooper is the worst! poor locke's got everything on track and this bastard shows back up with his bizarre machinations. what's so cool about the show is the malleability of the flashbacks, we never know week to week if we're going to get hero of the ER drama with jack, police drama with ana, african or korean gangstering with eko or jin, grifting with sawyer...i've always thought locke kind of gets the soap-opera, i mean after that kidney episode, what else can you say? but it is one jacked-up crazy soap opera, i'll give it that.

and cut to one second after henry asks for milk. immediately retreats from all but confirming he was an other. and does so incredibly convincingly over the course of the episode, michael emerson does such a great ambiguous job, i keep flip-flopping on him, even if that WAS him in ethan's medical hatch getting ready to cut into claire. jack barks out orders like an ass, right in character.

and charlie finds the balloon, nice shot. this episode did a great job with structure, not revealing what happened until the most opportune time. these people find the grave and we don't see them again until the end. same with programmer gale. but we also had...

mango poker! hell of a b-plot, those two squaring off, keeping jack from going back out to the swan. nice character moments. love lindelof's episodes.

and then the swan came alive! i wonder what that voice was saying. reminded me of a similar bit of speaker creepiness from stephen king's THE DARK TOWER. that was very well-done, all the stuff leading up to the door crushing the toolbox and trapping locke. this is where all that 'everything changes' hype kicked in, to positive effect, i thought. because of the hype, we expect momentous events to happen. i'd say, by episode's end, we don't really have much of a change of the status quo. i mean, confirmation that 'henry' is lying but that's just another skip in the pond. but we're charged to believe that the worst CAN happen and locke is going to lose his legs twice over, in the past and the present. nice bit of sleight of hand.

another thing, if they could've just gone to the computer up through the pantry, you'd think locke would've done that before prying open that great godamighty door. the button's the priority! but that wouldn't've made such a good episode, i guess.

so locke got himself an appraising business, welcome home. man of many jobs. we now know nadia made it as far as LA and was alive 4+ years ago. we certainly haven't seen the last of her, i'm thinking. sayid and his broken heart.

is there a doubt in anybody's mind that the plane that flew over locke at the flightline motel was Oceanic? at this point, i should hope not.

i love how we stayed with locke for the climax, no idea what's going on. actually, when it went to commercial with gale unconscious and the four-minute counter ticking, i thought they might just blow up the hatch and kill locke and gale, which would've been insane. instead, we got a blacklight map, the best we've seen yet. no great surprise to see the stations aligned in a bagua, same eight-sided symbol as the dharma logo. so we have the staff and the flame as the two stations on the west side of the island? the two stations on the east, between the swan and the arrow, aren't named. and there's even a small question mark on one. then, of course, that big question mark in the middle. that might be important (sarcasm). question marks on maps drive me crazy, want to go chart them out! nice device. lots of latin and numbers sprinkled liberally throughout. a few english phrases: "alleged location of aborted (unreadable)", "alleged location of the flame", "activity unsuitable for", "possible CV II, inactive since accident". there are lots of CVs written down, CV I - CV IV. a "possible cv II, inactive since the accident"

the latin was very interesting, i thought:

"ut sit magna, tamen certe lenta ira deorum est" = "when he is great, nothwithstanding certainly slowly anger is downwards"
"malum consilium quod mutari non potest" = "bad advice is not able to change anyone"
"hic sunt dracones" = "here be dragons" (this at the southeastern tip of the eastmost line of the bagua, an old sailor's map expression, seems like)
"credo nos in fluctu eodem esse" = "trust us in the very same flow that consumes" (what's great about this one, esse can mean 'eat or consume' OR 'to be or exist' so it's up to the translator; this translator votes consume!)
"sursum corda" is repeated three times above the staff (which i'm thinking is ethan's station) = "born on high"
and the real gem "cogito ergo doleo" = "i think, therefore i feel pain"

whew.

so, yeah, that fried me out. homestretch. cool we weren't with henry, don't know what he really did, it sure felt like a lie when he told locke he "did what you told me to". did the countdown hit the end? and that's what happened? or did henry key in a new sequence, show that map to locke, for whatever reason? the latter, i think, still believe they ARE averting doomsday every 108 minutes and something really bad will happen when the sequence is inevitably not entered on time. that shot of the map on locke's eye, so beautiful. d aronofsky was supposed to direct this one, would've been a great riff on requiem for a dream. o well.

and what was up with that parachute? i kept thinking dharma commandos were about to pop out of the jungle, everything was about to change! was it just a food drop? i wonder how dharma mac & cheese stands up to kraft.

and cue sayid with the driver's license, mr. henry gale lives at 815 walnut ridge rd in wayaza, mn just east of minneapolis. the zip, 55391, adds up to 23, of course. a very affable-looking black man. the way 'henry' cocked his head back away from sayid, looked back over at jack...excellent. locke's in a pickle, henry is going to have to come up with a whopper now. and episode 42 looms before us. a hurley flashback would be logical but i'd say all bets are off. an on-island 'henry' flashback would be killer.

keep believing, island faithful.

(NOTE: the translations were all on a few minutes of research. the definitive translations can be found at lostpedia.com/BlastDoor)

>: 42! Dave

so. hurley is much crazier than we've ever given him credit for being. two people died when he stepped onto a raft built for 8 holding 23 people. and he has an imaginary friend who compels him to eat. the rations drop was nicely timed with his renouncement of his stash. couldn't believe it when he hulked out on sawyer, that was really funny. jin's face said it all, so bemused. hurley is having serious issues.

and eko is building something. and has been for a while, now that you mention it. funny the way he said to charlie, 'not right now'. surely an altar, right? or a great big crucifix. it's FOR the island, not a means for escaping it, i think.

man, we almost had henry talking but sayid couldn't quite reel the fish in. we did confirm that zeke is far from the island patriarch, as we've suspected since hearing him and ethan talking in the Staff a few weeks ago. man, we are due for some more answers. further analysis of last week's map indicates that there seemed to be a fallout between the hanso group DI people and the degroot-led scientists in the early 80s, dharma abandoned the Staff in '81 and there was that AH/MDG incident in '85.

henry, on the other hand, still has his fish well hooked on the line. set aside the possibility that he's innocent. what is his motivation for telling locke it's all bunk? if he's telling the truth about that, is it to shake him, get him so out of alignment with the hatch and his fellow castaways that he'll pull a jailbreak? i can't see any other reason. but, what if he's lying? (which is what we're charged to expect, by now) what are his motivations in popping back there, entering the secret code, showing locke the map, and then denying taking any action? wouldn't it be in his best interest to keep locke pushing that button, no matter what? it's a huge blow to the button being anything but a skinner trigger, but i'm not buying it! it's too easy. bad things WILL happen.

and dave almost convinced hurley to take the abre los ojos plunge, tried to pull the same broken reality trick, even. that would've been a hell of a way to end the episode, him jumping, glad we weren't left with hurley falling off a cliff all week. dave certainly did raise some interesting points about how everything seems to be geared toward hurley. that's the trick of this show, seeing how they'll explain all the synchronicities they've set up. and the contract, to me, seems to be that they won't cheat us. yeah, if it's all hurley's dream, or they're part of some government-based shared virtual reality, or oblivious ghosts (a la that season of DALLAS, THE MATRIX/ABRE LOS OJOS, and THE SIXTH SENSE), that's cheap, we've already seen that. it's got to be something new. i was concerned when dave started talking that way, don't DON'T want to end with hurley waking up in the asylum, dave grinning at him. just glad not to get that, really. also, fun how it ran so long, TO 9:04 without any recap, really feel like we're getting the most bang possible.

ending on libby in the asylum wasn't crazy enough for me, we've thought she was either an inmate or an other for a while now. i enjoyed this episode but it being number 42, and coming off that map last week, i kind of needed my living room to melt around me.

did find another character off that map, though. enzo valenzetti. a numerologist who might've dabbled in life extension. watch his googlehits grow, he was just at 1 last week.

keep believing, island faithful.

>: 43 S.O.S

alright, last day on the job, movers are coming after work and delirious after packing all night. this will be truncated and of diminished brilliance. sorry.

we finally get the story of rose & bernard and it doesn't look like it's going to take four or five shots worth of flashbacks to hammer out, unlike our favorite koreans. quite a smooth proposal. couldn't believe it when they said they were honeymooning in the outback. so, that was literally their entire courtship. wonder if what the healer saw on rose is akin to what the psychic read off claire. you clairvoyant aussies! we knew another island miracle had to be in the offing as soon as she said she was sick.

enjoyed the explosion of extras for bernard's big speech. the frogurt guy, funny stuff. jack sure got a big idea. hilarious about how he picked kate, then she got them caught in a net, set by rousseau or others or ewoks, i bet the former. strike two, man. glad she finally mentioned the freakin Staff to jack, these people need to communicate.

nice to see locke working on the map. and giving up the button, that's been quite a shift. fake henry's smile was priceless, that guy's incredible. figured ana would press it at the end but wonder how long that'll last? especially if locke figures not pressing it will bring back the map. if that does prove to be the case, though, desmond can't have done the map, he sure didn't seem to think not pressing was an option. rose and locke's talk felt very heavy, nice the resonance their intersection in the airport gave it. they know about the force on the island. it would be nice to learn more about it, something in the neighborhood of definitive. gah.

eko and charlie building a church, no surprise there, fun times.

and blubbering wounded michael runs out of the jungle, wonder what story he'll tell next week, and if we'll get our second on-island flashback. to dig up ancient bosworth, anything else would be uncivilized.

final transmission from the hub of the plains, service to resume uninterrupted next week from the Capitol of the greatest state in the world.

"Everybody gets a new life on this island." -JL