>: 99 LA X
It’s such a disquieting opening scene, the tension keeps building. After so many flashbacks and –forwards and then those two terms jumbled and garbled into the time-flashing madness of last season, not even counting the way the technique was employed to confound the old regular linear timeline (thinking specifically here of how Desmond holding a gun to Locke’s head for two weeks blasted this gusher of words out loose in the first place), after rewatching the entire series to get ready like you should and then catching it again at the tail end of the clip show and then again during our faithful [Previously, on L O S T], then it was really amazing to watch that whole Chains-pull-Juliet down thing a, yes, fourth time WITHIN THE ACTUAL RUNNING TIME OF THE NEW EPISODE, but you know, I am getting ahead of myself, let’s just
Aheh.
The emotional landscape, not counting that fourth and final revisit of one of the last scenes of the fifth season, was mainly one of surreal disbelief at FINALLY making it to the latest installment of the answer to the $108,000 Question: What Happens Next? Shocking, then, even expecting a successful 815 LAX landing as most probably were (probably to climax the opening pre-title scene), to open with not a third iteration of Jack’s eye opening in the jungle, but instead that original post-title scene, and so complete was the deception, so perfect the timing, that I really believed that it WAS those initial shots from 2004, wasn’t until Cindy only handed him the one bottle of vodka that I realized it was just a perfect reshoot, but then again, no, Jack was a little bit off from that first shot, looking away from the window, even the more obtuse fan gets it after that first shot of turbulence when Rose is the one who reassures Jack, even though he still offers to keep her company until Bernard gets back (but does he promise? DID he, here, back in the pilot? Or did he make the promise later to her after the crash, on the beach?)SO many trapdoors, at any rate, Bernard shows up, their chemistry decimates the memory of their previous appearance, then Jack’s got some mysterious cut on the left side of his neck, then Desmond’s just appeared out of nowhere, claiming that Hurley’s snoring (you’d suspect) is distracting him. Was certainly looking for him to be reading that last Dickens novel, but couldn’t quite tell. The rewatch pause shows that it’s Rushdie’s follow-up to that little-known gem, THE SATANIC VERSES. The Wikipedia lede for Des’s choice of leisure is: "Haroun and the Sea of Stories is a 1990 children's book by Salman Rushdie. It was Rushdie's first novel after The Satanic Verses. It is a phantasmagorical story set in a city so old and ruinous that it has forgotten its name." Which resonates somewhat. They hit it off well enough, until our Mister Hume drops his trademark catchphrase, increasing Jack’s sense of déjà vu, or really devrait avoir vu, if you want to get right down and really technical about it, and just when we finally settle in for the flight, Bender and Giacchino drop the hammer on you with that first bellyflopping dive out the window down toward the Pacific, Giacchino's latest kicking in as soon as the sound of 815’s engines blast by, and they are going for it all the way, we get all the main attractions just as fast as we can make them out, after rushing down through the surface and a school of fish, we blow by the pylons, then Dharmaville, Ben’s swing set, a little slice of Dagobah, then that beach leading up to the base of the four-toed statue. Jacob’s house, where there's still just a little bit left to go down.
So, everything’s been reset and somehow the Island is at the bottom of the ocean. Madness.
Except not. Because here’s Kate waking up in the tree. After the flash, still on the Island. And how much did that hearing damage mess with you, to say nothing of all the names returned or added to the cast of regulars? Kate’s first Hello? sounds like she’s deaf. The marshal’s decided to de-Americanize his name (Lane → Lehne, the actor I’m talking about). Ha, Chahlie. You try to look away. Ooooh! Jacob.
Miles with her, all right. But then Jack. Quite a realignment, with his appearance. !!!! So we’re dealing with a parallel universe. Or the creation of one, a tangent. I don’t know why I didn’t expect Donald Darko to get folded into this massive tapestry before now, seems obvious, but a shocking maneuver and set-up for this season. The flash-sideways. Because it’s the only direction left. Of course. Ha, now “We’re back” = “We’re forward.”
Sawyer’s whole ballistic assault on Jack is mishandled in writing or execution, I can’t decide which. Maybe both. Just too much, veering too far into melodrama. Because just a bit’s fine.
Sayid’s postmortem speculation to Hurley is quite a bit more horrifying, knowing his fate by episode’s end.
Hurley’s threat of using a gun has got to be one of the most unconvincing presentations of all time. Though Jorge sells it.
And wow, in some feature for Season Five, Yunjin Kim was going on about how she would really think it a shame if she had to go back to that buttoned-up sweater. So of course they wrote it into her very first scene.
And Boone, man, comes right back and kills it. Not toting Shannon, the fourth crazy shift after the Jack/Rose nervous flip, Desmond’s appearance (which might not be of the same ilk as these other three), and Hurley this time being the luckiest guy in the world.
Man, the horror on Ben’s face when he sees Locke’s body on the beach. Trumps all but a select few all-time moments of the genre, horror, I mean.
Does Chahlie OD’ing in the rear lavatory count as a switch? Wasn’t he being pursued by Cindy and the crew into the front lavatory in the middle of Rose and Jack’s first conversation? Can you believe there’s really a reason to rewatch the first half hour of this series? For actual purposes of research?
Ha! A pin! Jack should have paged young passenger Carlyle.
Charlie’s “Terrific.”
Desmond’s exercycle.
Pulling out all the stops.
Now the thing with Juliet, she opens with “It didn’t work,” then her final broken-off thought to Sawyer communicated postmortem via Miles is that it DID. Meaning that they are in fact off the Island? This hints at an explanation for the space in the title, LA and X, not being a typo in the abbreviation of an airport but the gap between two different timelines, Los Angeles and Unknown.
Great kind of Raiders of the Lost Statue scene with the C-team bum-rushing Locke/Esau/the Monster. We already were all but sure that Locke did in fact = the Monster, but to get that so conclusively right here is good. The thing is, that later scene, in which we get Locke’s final thought, incredibly expressed by the actor or character inhabiting the same shell we had so initially come to love, such a shame for (unless there’s some crazy reversal, of course, but even though I’d appreciate it, I hope not) the guy who so fascinated us in the first season to have wound up like that. Such a shame.
And Juliet dies. Again. It is too bad, and she’s real sweet, and Miz Mitchell did a fine job, lo these 3+ seasons, but seems like with all those chain repetitions, hard to care anymore, until she asks Sawyer to kiss her and he comes back with “You got it, Buddy.” Crushing. Could have really done without his “You did this,” to Jack, though.
Anyone else read a Bone Me in Cindy’s “Some people don’t know how to say ‘Thanks’,” to same?
And now Desmond’s gone. A much stranger occurrence on this flight then any other.
And Grunberg’s back in the cockpit. How about that tail-section?!?!?!? Git on back there!!!! My man Eko's in a suit.
SO. Strange. Even expecting the landing, over Giacchino’s somewhat generic iteration of some of his previous themes, flattening to suddenly be confronted with all these folks who we know so well right before the incident that threw them all into crisis and, the important part here, now be privy to what would have happened to them if they hadn’t been jarred out of the rutted trajectories into which they had all found themselves (leaving aside, for now, the changes, because how can we really even begin to know what to make of them?).
So ends the first part. I don’t really see the reason to distinguish between two parts of a single double-episode, but there you are.
Why is Miles so needy for Sawyer’s affection? He’s been up until now this pumped to get someone else’s attention for maybe fifteen seconds in his entire on-screen time, and that’s at the end of his brilliantly titled –centric when his dad says, “I need you.” Him asking Sawyer if he wants a beer is just painful, the naked yearning.
Was anyone else expecting Jack’s encounter with the poor Oceanic guy who’s telling him Christian’s body’s disappeared to go exactly like the climactic speech in WHITE RABBIT, with the same result? “I . . . NEED you to find that body, because I . . . I just need it to be DONE. Can you understand that? Can you do that for me?” And ever so softly press his palm down on the table and then the guy just goes to his computer and aHA! magics it right up. And it is okay and it is over and it is done.
But of course not.
Am I the only person who thought that the Temple that Richard took all the Others to at the end of Season Three was the same temple where Moutan (sic?) lost his arm and Ben got bitch-slapped by his dead daughter/Dead Locke/Jacob’s Brother/the Smoky Beast What Killed My Eko? Nope. Just two temples. Simple enough.
The scene in the bathroom with Kate and the marshal is another surprising classic from a well that should have been long since dry. I could almost watch an entire show based on nothing but parallel universes in which she gets away from him by just fucking him up every single time. I’ve never realized how much of a Tom & Jerry thing those two have going.
Sawyer again beats Shephard, this time in the event of Worthwhile Alternate/Tangent Universe Encounters with Freckles. 2 – 0.
That scoreboard could be the B-plot of the show. KATE VS. THE MARSHAL. Every week she’d bump into Jack and Sawyer, then beat hell out of what’s-his-name, whether it’s –a- or –eh-
Love the way that guy from THE LAST SAMURAI just struts out of the Temple, so over the top, immediately establishing the character.
And Seth Bullock’s sidekick! Fifth DEADWOOD poach, though Trixie's long gone, sad to say. Seems like I once joked that Jacob should turn out to be Swearingen.
And we finally get to see what’s inside the guitar case. Via the Locke Coffin reveal shot.
Was expecting neither an ankh, nor a note.
More of a list, probably.
If Sayid dies, we’re all in a lot of trouble? Well, didn’t he? Or is whatever’s happened to him a loophole? And of course, that’s the same deal with Ben. It’s all Will O’ the Island, yes? Oh, at this point, you wonder if the Big Answer won’t just a be a character, a symbol that gets faded in at the end of the series, one that stands for the letters L O S and T and so much more besides, not the least of which closes up whichever trapdoor just lately got us back down here again. It's late. Moving on.
Then Jin gets detained with all his Getaway $. Sun can speak English here, too, right? We assume. But anything’s possible. Except running into the Dawsons, you’d expect.
The water isn’t clear. Meaning it’s lost its healing properties?
This Asian fellow is selling it. In kind of a hilarious way.
There are risks? They just fucking DROWNED Sayid. That was pretty unambiguous. It’s who’s in there now that’s the question.
How messed up is it, though, to rock that blatant Crucifixion imagery when they bring his body-that-will-soon-be-reborn out of the pool with his arms straight out, saying this because he’s the only Muslim in the cast, it’s kind of a quite funny thing, really, when you parse it.
We’re certainly set up back in the 2004 X timeline. Jin’s detained, Sawyer’s got Hugo in his sights, and Kate freaking highjacks Claih’s taxi. No telling if we’re going to like get an entire episode about where they go from LAX or if the aftermath just gets mentioned in passing in a month or two.
And Cindy’s still serving drinks. Zach and Emma look like they’ve done fine, are healthy little Others.
Ha, Miyagi clipping the bonsai is even more than too much. Found it silly/off-putting at first and am now way on board with it, laughing all the way.
Is Miles reflecting on Juliet’s final thoughts? Or is it his present setting that’s messing him up?
Kate’s laying it on pretty thick with old Sawyer.
And Jack gives Locke his card. Is it possible that they will now rock a mainland savior arc? Too much. Certainly significant that Locke’s knives vanished, as well. And of course we’re back to Zen-parable Locke. Nice to see that grin, fella. Sorry that you were like the one person who didn’t get a flip and actually’ve got to go on that walkabout.
NOTHING IS IRREVERSIBLE was my pick for episode title.
The Alpert chains comment all but confirms him rolling in as a slave on a boat in the year 1845.
Fine way to go out, the transition from Locke with Jack in 2004 to the Monster in the form of Locke knocking out Alpert and walking past the corpse of Locke in 2008 to the corpse of Sayid waking up into Whatever He Is Now, summing up all of our feelings about what we have just experienced in as few words as possible:
“What happened?”
Aheh.
The emotional landscape, not counting that fourth and final revisit of one of the last scenes of the fifth season, was mainly one of surreal disbelief at FINALLY making it to the latest installment of the answer to the $108,000 Question: What Happens Next? Shocking, then, even expecting a successful 815 LAX landing as most probably were (probably to climax the opening pre-title scene), to open with not a third iteration of Jack’s eye opening in the jungle, but instead that original post-title scene, and so complete was the deception, so perfect the timing, that I really believed that it WAS those initial shots from 2004, wasn’t until Cindy only handed him the one bottle of vodka that I realized it was just a perfect reshoot, but then again, no, Jack was a little bit off from that first shot, looking away from the window, even the more obtuse fan gets it after that first shot of turbulence when Rose is the one who reassures Jack, even though he still offers to keep her company until Bernard gets back (but does he promise? DID he, here, back in the pilot? Or did he make the promise later to her after the crash, on the beach?)SO many trapdoors, at any rate, Bernard shows up, their chemistry decimates the memory of their previous appearance, then Jack’s got some mysterious cut on the left side of his neck, then Desmond’s just appeared out of nowhere, claiming that Hurley’s snoring (you’d suspect) is distracting him. Was certainly looking for him to be reading that last Dickens novel, but couldn’t quite tell. The rewatch pause shows that it’s Rushdie’s follow-up to that little-known gem, THE SATANIC VERSES. The Wikipedia lede for Des’s choice of leisure is: "Haroun and the Sea of Stories is a 1990 children's book by Salman Rushdie. It was Rushdie's first novel after The Satanic Verses. It is a phantasmagorical story set in a city so old and ruinous that it has forgotten its name." Which resonates somewhat. They hit it off well enough, until our Mister Hume drops his trademark catchphrase, increasing Jack’s sense of déjà vu, or really devrait avoir vu, if you want to get right down and really technical about it, and just when we finally settle in for the flight, Bender and Giacchino drop the hammer on you with that first bellyflopping dive out the window down toward the Pacific, Giacchino's latest kicking in as soon as the sound of 815’s engines blast by, and they are going for it all the way, we get all the main attractions just as fast as we can make them out, after rushing down through the surface and a school of fish, we blow by the pylons, then Dharmaville, Ben’s swing set, a little slice of Dagobah, then that beach leading up to the base of the four-toed statue. Jacob’s house, where there's still just a little bit left to go down.
So, everything’s been reset and somehow the Island is at the bottom of the ocean. Madness.
Except not. Because here’s Kate waking up in the tree. After the flash, still on the Island. And how much did that hearing damage mess with you, to say nothing of all the names returned or added to the cast of regulars? Kate’s first Hello? sounds like she’s deaf. The marshal’s decided to de-Americanize his name (Lane → Lehne, the actor I’m talking about). Ha, Chahlie. You try to look away. Ooooh! Jacob.
Miles with her, all right. But then Jack. Quite a realignment, with his appearance. !!!! So we’re dealing with a parallel universe. Or the creation of one, a tangent. I don’t know why I didn’t expect Donald Darko to get folded into this massive tapestry before now, seems obvious, but a shocking maneuver and set-up for this season. The flash-sideways. Because it’s the only direction left. Of course. Ha, now “We’re back” = “We’re forward.”
Sawyer’s whole ballistic assault on Jack is mishandled in writing or execution, I can’t decide which. Maybe both. Just too much, veering too far into melodrama. Because just a bit’s fine.
Sayid’s postmortem speculation to Hurley is quite a bit more horrifying, knowing his fate by episode’s end.
Hurley’s threat of using a gun has got to be one of the most unconvincing presentations of all time. Though Jorge sells it.
And wow, in some feature for Season Five, Yunjin Kim was going on about how she would really think it a shame if she had to go back to that buttoned-up sweater. So of course they wrote it into her very first scene.
And Boone, man, comes right back and kills it. Not toting Shannon, the fourth crazy shift after the Jack/Rose nervous flip, Desmond’s appearance (which might not be of the same ilk as these other three), and Hurley this time being the luckiest guy in the world.
Man, the horror on Ben’s face when he sees Locke’s body on the beach. Trumps all but a select few all-time moments of the genre, horror, I mean.
Does Chahlie OD’ing in the rear lavatory count as a switch? Wasn’t he being pursued by Cindy and the crew into the front lavatory in the middle of Rose and Jack’s first conversation? Can you believe there’s really a reason to rewatch the first half hour of this series? For actual purposes of research?
Ha! A pin! Jack should have paged young passenger Carlyle.
Charlie’s “Terrific.”
Desmond’s exercycle.
Pulling out all the stops.
Now the thing with Juliet, she opens with “It didn’t work,” then her final broken-off thought to Sawyer communicated postmortem via Miles is that it DID. Meaning that they are in fact off the Island? This hints at an explanation for the space in the title, LA and X, not being a typo in the abbreviation of an airport but the gap between two different timelines, Los Angeles and Unknown.
Great kind of Raiders of the Lost Statue scene with the C-team bum-rushing Locke/Esau/the Monster. We already were all but sure that Locke did in fact = the Monster, but to get that so conclusively right here is good. The thing is, that later scene, in which we get Locke’s final thought, incredibly expressed by the actor or character inhabiting the same shell we had so initially come to love, such a shame for (unless there’s some crazy reversal, of course, but even though I’d appreciate it, I hope not) the guy who so fascinated us in the first season to have wound up like that. Such a shame.
And Juliet dies. Again. It is too bad, and she’s real sweet, and Miz Mitchell did a fine job, lo these 3+ seasons, but seems like with all those chain repetitions, hard to care anymore, until she asks Sawyer to kiss her and he comes back with “You got it, Buddy.” Crushing. Could have really done without his “You did this,” to Jack, though.
Anyone else read a Bone Me in Cindy’s “Some people don’t know how to say ‘Thanks’,” to same?
And now Desmond’s gone. A much stranger occurrence on this flight then any other.
And Grunberg’s back in the cockpit. How about that tail-section?!?!?!? Git on back there!!!! My man Eko's in a suit.
SO. Strange. Even expecting the landing, over Giacchino’s somewhat generic iteration of some of his previous themes, flattening to suddenly be confronted with all these folks who we know so well right before the incident that threw them all into crisis and, the important part here, now be privy to what would have happened to them if they hadn’t been jarred out of the rutted trajectories into which they had all found themselves (leaving aside, for now, the changes, because how can we really even begin to know what to make of them?).
So ends the first part. I don’t really see the reason to distinguish between two parts of a single double-episode, but there you are.
Why is Miles so needy for Sawyer’s affection? He’s been up until now this pumped to get someone else’s attention for maybe fifteen seconds in his entire on-screen time, and that’s at the end of his brilliantly titled –centric when his dad says, “I need you.” Him asking Sawyer if he wants a beer is just painful, the naked yearning.
Was anyone else expecting Jack’s encounter with the poor Oceanic guy who’s telling him Christian’s body’s disappeared to go exactly like the climactic speech in WHITE RABBIT, with the same result? “I . . . NEED you to find that body, because I . . . I just need it to be DONE. Can you understand that? Can you do that for me?” And ever so softly press his palm down on the table and then the guy just goes to his computer and aHA! magics it right up. And it is okay and it is over and it is done.
But of course not.
Am I the only person who thought that the Temple that Richard took all the Others to at the end of Season Three was the same temple where Moutan (sic?) lost his arm and Ben got bitch-slapped by his dead daughter/Dead Locke/Jacob’s Brother/the Smoky Beast What Killed My Eko? Nope. Just two temples. Simple enough.
The scene in the bathroom with Kate and the marshal is another surprising classic from a well that should have been long since dry. I could almost watch an entire show based on nothing but parallel universes in which she gets away from him by just fucking him up every single time. I’ve never realized how much of a Tom & Jerry thing those two have going.
Sawyer again beats Shephard, this time in the event of Worthwhile Alternate/Tangent Universe Encounters with Freckles. 2 – 0.
That scoreboard could be the B-plot of the show. KATE VS. THE MARSHAL. Every week she’d bump into Jack and Sawyer, then beat hell out of what’s-his-name, whether it’s –a- or –eh-
Love the way that guy from THE LAST SAMURAI just struts out of the Temple, so over the top, immediately establishing the character.
And Seth Bullock’s sidekick! Fifth DEADWOOD poach, though Trixie's long gone, sad to say. Seems like I once joked that Jacob should turn out to be Swearingen.
And we finally get to see what’s inside the guitar case. Via the Locke Coffin reveal shot.
Was expecting neither an ankh, nor a note.
More of a list, probably.
If Sayid dies, we’re all in a lot of trouble? Well, didn’t he? Or is whatever’s happened to him a loophole? And of course, that’s the same deal with Ben. It’s all Will O’ the Island, yes? Oh, at this point, you wonder if the Big Answer won’t just a be a character, a symbol that gets faded in at the end of the series, one that stands for the letters L O S and T and so much more besides, not the least of which closes up whichever trapdoor just lately got us back down here again. It's late. Moving on.
Then Jin gets detained with all his Getaway $. Sun can speak English here, too, right? We assume. But anything’s possible. Except running into the Dawsons, you’d expect.
The water isn’t clear. Meaning it’s lost its healing properties?
This Asian fellow is selling it. In kind of a hilarious way.
There are risks? They just fucking DROWNED Sayid. That was pretty unambiguous. It’s who’s in there now that’s the question.
How messed up is it, though, to rock that blatant Crucifixion imagery when they bring his body-that-will-soon-be-reborn out of the pool with his arms straight out, saying this because he’s the only Muslim in the cast, it’s kind of a quite funny thing, really, when you parse it.
We’re certainly set up back in the 2004 X timeline. Jin’s detained, Sawyer’s got Hugo in his sights, and Kate freaking highjacks Claih’s taxi. No telling if we’re going to like get an entire episode about where they go from LAX or if the aftermath just gets mentioned in passing in a month or two.
And Cindy’s still serving drinks. Zach and Emma look like they’ve done fine, are healthy little Others.
Ha, Miyagi clipping the bonsai is even more than too much. Found it silly/off-putting at first and am now way on board with it, laughing all the way.
Is Miles reflecting on Juliet’s final thoughts? Or is it his present setting that’s messing him up?
Kate’s laying it on pretty thick with old Sawyer.
And Jack gives Locke his card. Is it possible that they will now rock a mainland savior arc? Too much. Certainly significant that Locke’s knives vanished, as well. And of course we’re back to Zen-parable Locke. Nice to see that grin, fella. Sorry that you were like the one person who didn’t get a flip and actually’ve got to go on that walkabout.
NOTHING IS IRREVERSIBLE was my pick for episode title.
The Alpert chains comment all but confirms him rolling in as a slave on a boat in the year 1845.
Fine way to go out, the transition from Locke with Jack in 2004 to the Monster in the form of Locke knocking out Alpert and walking past the corpse of Locke in 2008 to the corpse of Sayid waking up into Whatever He Is Now, summing up all of our feelings about what we have just experienced in as few words as possible:
“What happened?”
posted by rb at 2:34 AM
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