>: 106 AB AETERNO

You don’t know what to think after the one-two of gasping to the Previously on L O S T . . . starring Alpert followed by a reprise + a few lines of the sole Ilana flashback from the fifth season finale. The Ilana-centric is fine, but don’t play with us up top.

But no, it’s time, what a fireside reaction from Ricardus, opening with that insane half-cackle before launching what we’ve always hoped for, the guy who’s been here the longest’s summation of What The Fuck? And, predictably in hindsight but such a fine thrill the very first time, dude finally starts walking around and telling us the score. Everybody’s dead. And in Hell. With both hockey sticks. I love how the shot where Richard drops the “in hell” line is all Hitchcock askew, my man in the lower left corner.

Wild way to set the tone for the episode, make it seem like it’s probably the long-awaited Alpert-centric, but still fucking with us because of the fact that we opened with a continuation of the only Ilana-flashback, all of us just really trembling at the wild notion that any kind of a –sideways situation might also, as ever, come blasting out of nowhere to redlight us, because, really, there are thresholds and overloads, and let’s just leave it at: I was really sweating the amount of potential narrative formats in my immediate future while fast-forwarding over the first commercial break. Just the full spectrum of what they could still do.

And in terms of time, it’s three minutes total pre-titles, three minutes with Jack/Ilana post-titles and then, yeah, thirty-nine glorious minutes of secret origin. Lapidus just asks How? And we’re trapdoored into the glory of Ricardus astride his steed, galloping through the woods. Quite a gauntlet to throw down, and I confess that I was shocked not to get the Lindelof/Cuse/Bender double A-Team credit for this episode.

Man, that doctor really conjured old WalterBishop from Return of the King. Was totally ready for him to just bite the hell out of a small tomato or series of grapes and the juices to run down his chin in slow-motion. My problem with this scene is it extends one of my biggest gripes with the series, the way Desmond just fatalities ex-CIA Brother Justin out of nowhere out on the rocks to finale Season Two. Same thing here, scans as, Derp! Time’s up, he’s got to die . . . and fatal head injury, caged shot in three . . two . . aaaand

That priest was the real deal, though. Straight out of a Rodriguez flick. To the point that he was conjuring Tarantino for me. Always welcome.

But then, oh, such an almost unbearable tease to drop Magnus Hanso but keep him off-screen, apologizing in the most dramatic fashion imaginable by solving the Black Rock and statue mysteries in the same scene (barely a third of the way into the episode, mind), then, yes, motherfucking taking him out like three minutes later, again off-screen via Bendis exposition, so cruel and way way too much to take, I’ll never recover, no comment at this time, or at least until the holidays, but man. Really feel just totally molested. Maybe teased is closer. They abused my imagination.

Too bad for all of the other guys in chains that the dude who bought Alpert was such a damn efficiency expert that he went right down to take care of that dead slave weight like immediately, because the old Silas Adams Locke monster was definitely right there Johnny on the scene, only took a couple minutes, which, again, props to the efficiency expert for commanding the long game even though it must be said that it left him a little bit blindsided as far as the short game goes.

Ha ha, that is why we have horror, though, so that some terrible creature from out of nowhere can turn up or roar down in, tear it up, and balance the scales in terms of things like our man, the efficiency expert.

And it’s hard, sometimes, when that iconic madness strolls down the pike, CRIMINAL’s springing to mind right here, something obviously and immediately identifiable as classic that you’re experiencing the moment it's released, but that monster scene on the Black Rock with Alpert, even to type that phrase man, juxtaposing all that on-screen black smoke that conjures flashes of Eko with that same perpetually off-screen trick in Season One that, at the time, was a little eye-rolling to the point that you were like, Yah, it’s maybe almost working now in an again Hitchcock way, but What is the Monster, Really? Such a satisfying bookend.

If you didn’t automatically, rewatch the Monster Considers Alpert scene through the lenses of 2.10 and every time that sound effect turned up in the first season.

Wow, and then that bit with not being able to reach the rain coming down. Leave no trope behind, y’all.

Then when the boar shows up, combined with all the on-screen Monstah, suddenly and of course, we get the sense that this week is just like but soooo much more wide-ranging and sweeping than 2.07, when all of a sudden they dropped the entire damn Eko/Ana first season on us in a single episode, except, yeah, as always hoped and prayed for, this one digs so much deeper, not the first season from a different perspective, but think of it as Seasons -42 to -23 leading up to the 815 Crash at 0, if you can but dig it. Trying 4 to say 16 that the novel idea of using the boar AFTER the monster in a completely anticlimactic sense in terms of threat escalation fills in another dominant Season One motif and does a fine job making it look like the experience of crashing on Our Island is universal, no matter what year it is.

(and, God, still just hoping and hoping, I mean, they can do anything with this show, but wouldn’t it be magnificent if somewhere near the end, it just all of a sudden jumps back to the 8th or 4th century, or way further back, I mean, still, now, the possibilities, I’m cherishing them while they’re still x-quantities)

(and but, talking years, didn't the auctioneer that Desmond stormed in on in 3.08, the one selling Widmore the first mate's journal from the Black Rock [the one he mailed to the New Frontiersman right before they set sail, remember], didn't that guy say that it set sail in 1845? I swear he did)

(too, clearly, and for the parenthetical hat-trick, that was obviously not the Black Rock coming in that first scene of the last season finale)

But see, though, what the hell’s going on? (again) Is the Isabella on the Black Rock the Monster? Or was she Jacob? Or separate? Really the ghost? I mean, the Monster sure seemed to kill her, but it’s not like it was her in the first place. And he could have been just staging it, obv. I’m positive that this is all going to not only make perfect sense but slice us on the keen blade of its brilliance when all’s said and done, but there are still so so many questions.

Crazy how Silas Monster gives Alpert the same task as Dogen eventually does to Sayid with regard to him. Really almost too much to take.

Quite a one-two-three there, the Monster finally reverse-echoes Locke’s line from the premiere about it being good to see Alpert out of the chains, but that’s just the opening act, reverse-quotes Don King from When We Were Kings, “I need y’strength!” before how kind of Gone With The Wind homoerotic it trapdoored into there before the break, You and me, Big Boy, we’re gonna take em all on!” Maybe it was just the torchlight.

The Devil/Jacob took his body and humanity. That’s clearly some kind of big deal/news. Gah.

It’s not until the Monster→Jacob stroll that I realize how hard Nestor Carbonell is killing it. Buried in the character, knocking it out.

And coo-ee, Jacob’s almost as perfect and scary of a fighter as Ethan. An efficiency expert of a different flavor.

“Why should I stop?!?”

This episode is just a landmine, of course what we maybe should have expected for the eighth week out, but, you know, I was not prepared. The principal supporting characters are Jacob and Titus Welliver, the latter of whom I knew I was going to aneurysm over seeing if it happened before the ultimate finale. To say nothing of the unscheduled Secret Origin of Richard Alpert.

Uh-huh. And I think Jacob’s “No one comes in unless I invite them in,” is pretty much the major and maybe only answer we’ll get about that loophole business.

Malevolence.

Or Malevolence, Evil, Darkness.

That was my call for episode title. Which I think was quite reasonable. Hahah.

And you have GOT to dig Jacob making the pitch to Richard. I love how squirrelly he is. Just turns it on like the best old time preacher.

Worth noting here, he straight up proves that Original Locke’s his biggest disciple, drops the 1876 pitch with no variation from Locke giving it to Shannon or Boone or whomever 128 years later. Everybody gets a new life on this island.

With all this laissez-faire attitude Jacob’s dropping on poor wtf?Richard, it's hard not to draw the direct God comparison. To the point that that’s surely not the answer if they’re giving it to us even now, but they are sure messing with us, yas.

Or “Live Forever” as title. Really thought that had to be it, with the Oasis/Phonogram connection. Thing is, both guys have now touched Alpert. Does that mean everything?

And the white rock shows up, we’re all together for the first time. The monster disappears exactly like he did in the Black Rock, but the shot angle is reversed.

I love how much elusive closure the last scene seems to give us, Hurley dropping the Oda Mae Brown and all, and just how gorgeous they photographed it, but really, What’s The Deal? At this point, it’s a fair question. Who or which what was Isabella? Jacob, Nemesis, or more like an actual electromagnetic resonance ghost? She seemed legit to me, option 3, I mean.

And it’s great how, right at the emotional point, Alpert can suddenly hear her and Hurley drops out as medium, they’re just talking to each other. Makes no sense, but the moment carries you.

Then I was sure Hurley’s translation of We all go to hell was the title.

We think we’re done, but no, there's still the frankly insane chemistry of Jacob and his nemesis/thrall/whatever’s going on there with Titus Silas. Just watch it again, I’m done.

Actual title = "from the everlasting/eternity." Literally no one in the world guessed it, I’m certain.

Namaste forever, how about. There is a tide of infinite sadness surging up over the horizon, and none of us are ready, no matter how much we've prepared, how hard we've tried.

Cut to Mad Claire in the hole, three weeks back: "He's coming, and there's nothing you can do to stop him."

>: 105 RECON

Nice to get a “Son of a bitch,” as the opening line of dialogue to set the tone for a Sawyer-centric. This one had the bar set pretty high after LAFLEUR, which I think I enjoyed pound-for-pound more than any other installment last season (finales don’t count). Great to have Sawyer (or, I guess, here: Jim) reference it with that codeword. And hilarious for Miles to be his partner. Can’t believe we never got an “I’m driving!” That was all this one needed (and, man, really thought it was coming in that last scene with them, when he drives up and tells Miles to get in, squandered opportunity).

Two contenders from that opening LA scene would have made better episode titles, I thought: “Unbelievable” and “A Lousy Con Man.”

Oh, that is one creepy damn thing Claire’s keeping in Aaron’s crib.

That guy sitting with his back to the camera behind Sawyer when he’s calling the Anthony Coopers, that guy is totally rocking Olmos’s Castillo mustache from MIAMI VICE. I thought the pastels were about to come roaring back. But, speaking of calling the Coopers and Sawyers, the guy he wants is in LA, right? On good terms with his son?

In the conversation that gives us the title, Locke Monster and Sawyer just sail right by “The Best Liar (I Ever Met)” and “Do Me Harm,” which would have been a nice little callback to 1.20. Oh, well.

Great scene with Charlotte. They sold the chemistry. Though it was a little bit forced, him heading off to get the water, setting the conflict up. Meant to say, at the station when Miles is first setting them up, he mentions that she works at the museum with his dad. Totally missed that the first time through, crazy thing to just throw out there. The DHARMA Legacy. And, of course, Sawyer has now bagged two redheads in the first third of the episode. To think Shephard ever stood a chance.

Pretty sure that Sawyer could have found those bodies by smell alone even before following the trail their dragging created. That has to be one ripe beach.

Liam! That is one face I never expected to see again.

“She opened the wrong drawer.” Isn’t that always the way? Classic.

And should have known that Sawyer would get that opening scene flipped on him, Zoe whistling up Schillinger from OZ’s kid. Weird, doesn’t look like that guy’s aged a day in ten years, but Walt and Zack and Emma, you just can’t keep them contained.

“Had Things Been Different,” would have made probably the best title. That’s maybe the most development overall this week, the Locke Monster telling Kate about his crazy mother. What does it all mean?!? Forget if I said so last week or just meant to, but that scene with Locke talking to Ben while he’s digging his grave, all of a sudden it hit me, that O’Quinn is just straight-up in Season One mode, Parable Locke walks among us again, and it would be an interesting retcon (I mean, they COULDN’T have had this down in Fall 2004) to have Locke always been the button-pushing loser from Season Two but all those episodes in the first season when he first won us over in five-minute increments, when he’d just walk out of the jungle and drop the sickness about Michelangelo’s David or the dog his sister was not reincarnated as, THAT was really the Monster, just nudging everybody along. Though, thinking about it now, that story about his dead sister and his mom being despondent and all, no way that locks up with the later Locke backstory involving Swoosie Kurtz as an also-crazy mama. Possible that this was in fact Monster backstory, set up many many years in advance? Investigate further, with true face.

Sawyer watching Little House and eating a TV dinner is the most crushing scene of the week, no question. Every line in there is too much. “Laughing and loving each other.” “It’s hard not being afraid, Pa.” I’m sure most of Little House, when viewed through a L O S T lens, takes on quite a bit more weight and depth. And man, Landon still beats them all, Cosby, Steven Keaton, everybody.

This is the second time we end an LA flash-sideways with a cliffhanger, the same trick of the –centric character randomly bumping into another non-castaway. A couple of weeks ago, it was Sayid and Jin, this time Kate comes running back into Sawyer’s life. Interesting, because we’ve already seen this particular model of Sawyer let/help her get away back at LAX last week. Wondering how they’re going to follow up on these. It would be insane if they’re trapdooring a bunch of cliffhangers that will all get resolved in the series finale. Soon, too soon, we’ll know.

This was a quieter episode, solid character work with Sawyer. Of course, surprising no one, when it all comes down to it, the only side he’s on is his own, but Freckles is always invited to ride shotgun.

>: 104 DR LINUS

Never worth noting before, but the Cable episode description this time out is wonderful, actually points out a facet that I missed.

The tempo of that first scene is just nuts. It’s funny to think about them filming that.

Guessed what island Dr. Linus was going to write just as he was first taking chalk to board. Had to be Elba. Ben and Napoleon, never saw it before tonight, man.

And Artz has formaldehyde on his shirt, hilarious counterpoint to Hurley having Artz on his shirt. I wanted more from the grouping of Ben and Locke and America’s Favorite Biology Teacher herded into the same I.S.D. by whatever long-distance force is actually being exerted, is somebody please for God's sake going to address the issue of fate vs coincidence and probability manipulation? we’re running out of time.

Can’t believe we get the entire bit with Miles doing psychic Island Messiah forensic work before the titles. And I usually can’t stand that mirrored dialogue thing, that old saw about standing over the body with a bloody dagger, and you’d never in a million years think that it would play so well when Miles gives the line right back to Ben maybe five minutes after the first time Ben says it, but somehow, here, it works.

Wild to see Ben taking care of old Roger, the sweetheart. Could have done without them explicitly bringing up the Island and what might have been, I mean, really, that’s the topic of their one conversation that we get to see? We can do better than that, especially with how well these guys play off each other under this new dynamic. Hell, not wanting to choke Roger is just a funny feeling.

Da Fug? Mario Van Peebles is directing this? I have never needed C. Rock reprising the Weeping Pookie Sucking On A Crackpipe scene more than ever, and if I got it in this episode, it might ruin the series. But it might be worth it, so good. Scotty!

OOooohhhh. Whoooooaaaaa. Ilana is finally actually telling one of the 6 that they’re Candidates. About damn time. Wonder what Kate did to bump herself up to 51 and apparently remove herself from contention.

In the instant that Hurley didn’t say anything in response to Jack’s “Well, at least he’s not just stalling,” I was begging, just gnashing my teeth, I mean, for Hurley to lean forward and bite back, “Well, at least he’s NOT JUST MUSSOLINI, EITHER, JACK!” but of course that didn’t happen.

Fantastic scene on the beach, Ben going through Sawyer’s stash, finding that book THE CHOSEN by Chaim Potok (my favorite line on the Amazon summary being: “This is not a conventional children's book, although it will move any wise child age 12 or older, and often appears on summer reading lists for high school students.” A DHARMA Summer Vacation Island Read, in other words), then Lapidus mentioning nostalgia - which always for me is best described to others as a yearning for the childhood that was and wasn’t, along with the bittersweet longing to consume everything that Alan Moore has and hasn’t written in one sitting - followed by Ben’s stone cold delivery of “Come on,” batting cleanup, just ridiculous.

Ha, and Ben and Alex are on Chapter 19, hitting the King Number, as opposed to any of Hurley’s. Sounded like they were cruising around in pre-Black Rock history about three decades back. It’s funny that Alex calls the principal a pervert. That’s such a loaded term, it conjures images much more lurid than the principal banging one of the nurses. I mean, it could have gone a lot worse than that, from where you hope it doesn’t go when she first slips up and alludes to it.

I was kind of hoping that the episode would end with Ben X getting shot into his own grave along with dominating the principal back in LA, and hopefully not banging his favorite student, but wouldn’t the door closing on that particular abomination-about-to-happen be quite a demented way for this one to drum-cut to the four letters?

Also insane: Richard Alpert being like, That Jacob you’re talking to is the bad guy too, the guy who’s been ALL these dead people, and we’re all like ‘Wait, Wha?’ while he just walks off on the single line, “Die.” My man the season six regular came to work and clocked in.

I have now watched Richard Alpert say, “I am not a cyborg,” eight times. It seemed better to stop there. If there is truly any balance in the world, then this would be the episode title. So now we know.

And Artz gets “With whom?” right after Ben shirks proper grammar for the way people actually talk one timestream over when he quite unnecessarily asks Ilana for whom he’ll be digging that there grave on the beach. I wouldn’t have pointed out one without the other.

Linus, you’re a real killer. Strong episode title contender. Any fool just showing up who doesn’t know about the way it went down with Martin Kimi and Alex is missing a pretty substantial layer this week out.

Oh, man, you see how bad it is, when Richard’s there in the Black Rock working on the dynamite saying he wants them to help him out and make him dead, there’s a little bit of slave chain dangling down into the frame just to the right of his head, and stab my eyes if it don’t look just exactly like an 8, someone make it stop, I need some anti-numbers.

And then, wait, Richard seems here to just be linking his whole immortality ageless thing with being touched by Jacob. More of a curse, you say? Alarums!!!! Wait. Wait. Are all of our people on the wheel, these Candidates as featured in the Season Five finale, now Alpert-level immortals? This, just tossed off before all the dynamite-upgrade Russian roulette fun really gets crackling. Love the escalation of that last minute before commercial, Jack lighting the fuse and sitting down. What’s wonderful about it is that it’s so ludicrous, and yet we all know ahead of time that that’s THE ONLY IMAGINABLE COURSE OF ACTION our boy Jack can possibly take at this point, it’s getting to be a hilarious thing, what is the most balls-out crazytime that Jack could do for us right now? and then he nods to himself, realizes what his only move is just a second or two after we do, and then goes for it. Jack Shephard!

(and man, a few years ago, I would have slapped you in the face if you shot this back in time and tried to convince me that that name was going to work as an exclamation on a comparable level to that of tried and true “Jack Bauer!” Consider, the inherent and seemingly insurmountable difficulty of persuading anybody watching weekly installments of Season Two of L O S T opposite All-Time Best Season Five of 24 dropping in right before 2.10 and taking out two regulars in the first fifteen minutes of that particular day.)

I Have No Idea Why should be the title of every episode. I Have No Idea Why, Part 104. The adventure continues. Jack destroys this scene, fantastic escalation from the bit with Locke down in the Swan, on Ben’s maiden 2.14 voyage, when he was not quite Henry.

After the fuse goes out, Jack just up and says it, “We have to go back to where we started.” Ka is a circle. It’s certainly going to be an insane ride back to whatever wildness is reflecting out of Jack’s pupil, if they’re really going to sew it up to perfection. (of course, if it was perfection perfection, this here humdinger would have been broken down into 108 episodes, but, you know)(not really one to complain about five extra episodes)(but, on the other hand, what a perfect symphony of content and delivery it would have been, alas!)

I really really wanted LA Ben’s power play to work. Couldn’t believe Principal Reynolds had Ben’s e-mail ready to go. And, too, haven’t said, we’re supposed to believe that Danielle Rousseau, or whatever her last name is since she’s maybe married to Robert, they’re just off-screen, at home in LA, or wherever the school is? The LA timeline in this season is just yawning out into forever isn’t it? In terms of implied question to definitive answer ratio.

Also, using that scene in the principal’s office to split up Ben running for the gun and what happened next, at a point when I personally believed either he or Ilana could be toast, is one of the best occasions upon which that trick has been thrown, all-time.

Gor, Ilana dropping that “I’ll have you,” business at the end of such an emotional scene really lays you down every time.

They sure drop the expectation reversal on you with that first scene after the last commercial. Ben comes into the office, fiddles with the nameplate and you think it’s definitely his and he sold Alex down the river, then she rolls in and you think or hope maybe somehow he found a way to do both things and then Reynolds, Reynolds!, comes in and pops the balloon. LA Ben did the right thing, of course. Here, he appears to be, no question, a good person. Of course, wait, this is trapdooring into the whole we’re all only products or victims of our own individual circumstances debate, and the only thing separating a fellow from being a megalomaniacal-fast-talking-master-of-the-short-con-who-might-be-persuaded-to-not-only-stab-the-Fucking-Guy-With-All-The-Answers-by-firelight-but-I-guess-what’s-really-germane-here-is-let-Kimi-shoot-his-daughter-rather-than-get-taken-prisoner kind of guy from the sort who throws his hopes for career advancement under the bus for the girl who was his daughter in another life, and is actually pretty sweet, seems like. Let us sidestep the question, island faithful.

Most flattening and unbelievable, the old school first season music montage. Could not handle it. Perfect orchestration, how Giacchino first builds out of the chords from Ben’s theme, just the first couple bars, then right into something from the first season (or just a I-IV reminiscent of same). Those endings are really one of my favorite things about the first season, and it’s incredible to get one this time out, right when they’re hammering home, for the second time explicitly, Hey, this is mm maybe a bit like the first season, yes? An embedded message should have jumped out at me before now, maybe the overriding theme of this entire outing, that the only point of ANY of this, the reason that all of this is happening is for these connections, this random springing flourishing latticework of human interaction, bonding, the folks you’d be happiest seeing walk out of the jungle if you found yourself out on a beach setting up camp.

Don’t you wish you had a button for that? The slow motion beautiful orchestra moments of your life? When you get home for Christmas and see your entire family for the first time all year? Or somehow find yourself sitting there a couple of decades older alongside the old gang, everyone back together, despite it all. Or happen to gaze upon your true love and the light hits him or her in some new way, and you realize all over again, how you've been feeling all this time.

For those momentous occasions that we want to savor, there’s the Giacchino Button. Available in quarter- and eighth-time settings, some themes might not be unique, but all will be crushing.

And I would have been fine with just ending there. But we also get the return of Widmore, which does confirm that it’s 2008, or thereabouts, everyone hasn’t wound up in some far-flung era. Which, hey, nothing seems off the table at this point.

I suddenly realize that the word Namaste will always make me nostalgic for these years.
And that I'll see a grainy Marvin Candle every time. And still think that's his name, believe it.

>: 103 SUNDOWN

I’ve already said that I’m counting double-sized finales (and premieres, this time out) as a single episode, but, based on the week that they were going around announcing that the show had hit 100 episodes, I believe that this right here, was the 108th hour of L O S T. (though, I’ve still got to count whatever it is we get in five weeks)

But the episode itself! Open with a break from the Season One structure, this one’s about Sayid, not the Koreans. Which, you know, clearly this was the point in the on-Island X timeline when he needed to be featured, so that makes sense, but it is too bad that they couldn’t keep the old Season One structure going, just from an elegance of form standpoint.

We all knew that he was taking those flowers to Nadia, but it was certainly a surprise to have those kids roll up yelling to Uncle Sayid. Weird shuffling here, based on their interaction, it seems that Sayid was still a torturer, but maybe he didn’t mess with Nadia? Maybe he did. His brother has never been in the present-day picture before now, though, right? The only time we saw him was that flashback when they were boys and Sayid snapped that chicken’s neck. Wonder how the Island sinking got Nadia together with Omar, instead of our tortured torturer heartthrob. Hilarious, the kids busting him with that old picture of her. “Mommy, why does Uncle Sayid have this crumpled up old photo of you with tearstains all over it?”

Can anyone on this show say something like, “I want some answers,” without it getting too meta? Probably not. “Don’t say that, Sayid! The answers only lead to more questions!” America screams back at him.

“I think it would be best if you were dead,” are about the most unadorned fightin’ words there are. I love how Sayid realizes he’s outclassed and just starts fighting Dogen with the entire room, pots, the rack, whatever comes to hand. “Take THIS and THIS and THIS . .” Looney Tunes kung-fu should be a pre-titles requirement from now on, I’d say.

That baseball seemed really wedged in there when it first showed up a few weeks ago, but I like how they built it, turned out to be pretty resonant imagery.

Any chance that the Monster’s really the good guy?

Can’t believe Sayid’s brother plays the you-love-my-wife-so-help-me card.

I really love that sound effect transitioning the flash-sideways.

What is the deal with Sayid having died? Is this still our boy? And how does that tie into Claire? Could she have died off-screen back in 4.10?

Possible episode titles: A Good Man; Evil Incarnate

Can’t imagine how they’re going to explain to us what rules there are that trapped the Monster on the Island only while Jacob was alive, but that still keep him from crossing circles made of ash. Never occurred to me before to wonder just what the ash used to be, could be important.

Jack! Nice seeing you for two seconds, my man. Don’t you know we’ve got a couple of things here what could use some fixing? This does bring up the absent folks this episode. Jack and Hurley are presumably still at or on their way back from the lighthouse. Sawyer and Jin are, I guess, holed up somewhere being held in reserve by the Monster. Where the hell is Richard? Still running? Hope he’s not MIA for the next two months, though something like that is always on the table.

Nice bit with the monster surrounding Sayid, very end of 1.09. Was the stab through the heart not a kill because the beast managed to utter a greeting before it happened? “Take it, I won’t bite,” is probably going to be a lot funnier in a little while, tying back into that “I just ate,” or whatever it was back on the 1845 beach at the top of 5.16. Shame on you, Sayid! His answer to having anything he ever wanted is certainly an argument for still being our boy.

Oh, unfortunate incidents involving boomerangs.

A Man in the Jungle, also a contender for episode title before the actual gets dropped (though I sure didn’t get it).

Ah, Mad Claire still remembers the words to Perry Como. Man, her delivery of, “He’s coming and they can’t stop him,” is almost my favorite thing this week out, the look on her face, just creepy as hell.

Then KVUE breaks in during the telecast to give us primary results with 6% of the polls reporting. Crucial! That certainly couldn’t have waited 15 more minutes.

Ha ha, always a pleasure to see old Anthony Azizi. Certainly not much question who he’s taking Sayid to see. What’s Kimi got cut up on that island there across from the stove? That camera pan seems to indicate that we should care, but maybe they’re just messing with us. Then his whole “I make good eggs,” thing kind of recalls Willy Wonka and takes us back to the Good Man question. And Azizi’s out again! Kimi dies a little bit easier this time out. But what’s Subtited Enforcer Jin doing in that freezer? We haven’t seen him in this timeline since he got arrested after 815 landed in the premiere.

Dogen’s secret origin isn’t really answering Sayid’s question about why Dogen didn’t try to kill him himself. Also, quoting the Clash took me out of it just a bit. Those might turn out to have been his last words. The question is (ha, ONE of the questions) will Dogen come back? Sayid just inverted what happened in the premiere. Same thing goes for old Lennon. I mean, his throat did get cut, but the pool healed Sayid up just fine. We’ll see. Though my guess is they’re out.

Then we hit the accelerator! Great chase sequence, Miles and Kate running from the monster. I was positive one of them would be toast when they split up. Didn’t think it was the monster behind the door Miles was up against, though was certainly surprised to see those folks burst in. Looking for Jack and Hurley and Sawyer because they’re candidates? Ben’s eyes and backwards retreat when confronted with that look on Sayid’s face (not to mention the knife and pair of bodies floating in the pool) was perfect. But then, yeah, Kate in there with Claire, it wasn’t looking too good for Freckles. She made it this time out, but isn’t in too good of a place, a member of the wrong army by defacto, and Claire probably ready to take her out the first chance that she gets.

So, the Monster’s got his army walking through the night in slow motion. My guess is next week’s going to focus on the other side, maybe showing us how Ilana and company got to the Temple, or just going forward from there. Or, we might focus on the Koreans, if only to immediately follow up on that set-up at the end of Sayid’s LA flashback. Maybe Richard Donner’s going to show up out of nowhere and cast Sayid and Jin in Lethal Weapon 5. I'd show up on opening night.

“I am driving.”
“나는 차를 몰고!”

>: 102 LIGHTHOUSE

Totally looking for the White Rabbit sequel, opened up a bottle of Jacob’s Creek because it was the last fourth episode, and lo and behold, we get the double-shot of Jack’s shift being that he has a son in the flash-sideways 2004 timeline, followed by Jacob in fact showing up and enlisting Hugo’s assistance. Crazy thing about Jack’s appendix. How could Juliet’s detonation really have rippled out to whether or not a kid had an appendix taken out when he was of course 8?

And Jack’s clearly going to be wading in daddy issues in any permutation, even from the other side of the table. His kid comes off like a punk in his first couple of scenes.

It’s pretty wonderful how they stage that shot of Hugo in the hallway, all of a sudden recreating the frame of him coming into the Swan refrigerator in the middle of 2.03 while dropping the A-Team credits, we are already in the middle of a Cuse/Lindelof/Bender production.

Huge scene between Jack and Hurley. Feels so first season right from the top, something we see laced throughout the entire episode, a sense that everything’s cycled back around, we’ve come through all the flashing every which direction and it’s just going to be two guys stalking or surely at some point running through the jungle in search of, damn it, answers. Fantastic exchange between the two of them when Hurley drops the “You have what it takes” line.

And aw man, the little dressed-up skull in the crib in Claire’s tent. Jin always gets saddled with the creepy shit, from the teddy bear to witnessing pregnant Danielle dispense justice upon her infected countrymen.

I’m not too concerned about the dilemma that the captured fella drops on old Jin, though, pretty sure from the get-go that she’s not going to kill “us” but is pretty likely to straight-up murder “you” by episode’s end.

Another great retro-classic scene is that bit with Kate drawing on Jack, then their first lines to each other. Ridiculous. If you’re dropping the series highlight reel, you can pretty much cut out the rest of their other bits and throw in that four-second exchange to mostly convey the dynamic between the two of them.

After the scene of Claire stitching up Jin, MY FRIEND leaps ahead of the pack as potential episode title. Punctuated by her grabbing the ax and looking at poor ol wasn’t his name Justin?

Then there’s A TERRIBLE DAD.

And we find Shannon’s inhaler and Adam and Eve. Before Hurley just straight up drops the Adam & Eve theory that’s been haunting us ever since the flashes began! It is all coming round.

David’s mom, Julie Bowen or not, lives at #23, of course. And there’s the old key-under-the-white-rabbit trick again. Followed by sheet music for the Chopin piece that dominated Faraday.

And so weird, that bit with Jack listening to the message he left for his son, calling from Sydney, only of course that didn’t happen prior to Episode One the first time through, it’s a new development caused by whatever happened at the end of THE INCIDENT, which, logic now tells us was not how it went down after all, but a change that somehow sank the whole damn island and caused all these shifts like Jack suddenly having a surly covert ivory tinkler on his hands.

And Hurley goes ahead and just references how in fact old school all this jungle-traipsing is. Good times!

“I came here because I was broken, and I was stupid enough to think this place could fix me.” is an incredible turn of phrase that is still vile enough to completely disavow Bearded Jack. Unforgivable! But, yeah, everything coming round. All Jack’s character growth has brought him right back around to do (as in, a female deer).

Claire, however, is an ax murderer! Now that is some character development that I can get behind. Wonderful staging, there.

Ha, and Jack drops the Sayid kickdown the door routine with Hugo, capped off by the requisite, “After you.”

Then, crazy bit Giacchino does, swelling up over the Chopin piece, great how even when we can’t hear those choppy chords David is playing at the climax, Bender throws in a shot of them getting played anyways. And of course wild to bump into Dogo over on this side, too.

And then that damn wheel at the top house with a candidate at every degree. That is some insane shit to just drop out of nowhere. The first legible pan gives us a peak at Candidates 95 – 128.

95: Greeson (?)
Potter
Rattison (?)
Horton
Boo . .(?)
100: Bonaparte (?)
Faraday
B(?)rnad
Y(?)
Lewis
Raa (?)
Radzynski
Hanson
108: Wallace
Friendly (Tom, right? Weird, that being the name)
?
Klein
Horton
Wurden(?)
Tanada (Dogo?)
Barquis (?)
Lambert
Linus
Chaver
Almeida
120:Rodriguez
Nelson
Freed
(?)ay
Dawson
Owens
Rer(?)
M O R A
Padd . . .

Then there’s a second pan down the 70s into the 30s. I’m not going to squint at and transcribe every one of those damn names too at the moment, you only get one for free per evening, but it’s worth noting that Kate does show up at 51 in the same shot where we see one or both Kwons occupying degree #42. Guess we didn’t see Ilana’s name on the wheel, since I didn’t spot anything that might have been her last name that wasn’t crossed off. Still trying to figure out where those two fit in with the other 6/7 bits that comprised last week’s Contact with Jacob montage. Do I see Ozymandias at 36, though? Even tossing out Veidt, that’s a pretty insane concept. I mean, was Alexander the Great a Candidate?

12: Foster
Beckett
Pryce (this is Ryan, no relation to The Best Damn Preacher Money Can’t Buy, the former of whom got run over by Hurley at the climax of 3.22)
15:Ford
16:Jarrah
Barnes
Kueffner (?)
Ngyuen
Our own Danielle Rousseau hanging out at #20
McHenry
Moorhead
23:SHEPHARD (REALLY carved in there, like a crazy person has maybe been spending too many afternoons with a knife at that particular segment of the wheel)
Kluxen
Asher
Bozarth
Dappie (?)
Holland

And what an insane thing, the degree wheel opens a window into the home base of the assigned candidate? Could Jacob also jump through and just drop in on folks at the opportune instant? That was my knee-jerk. Pretty insane mode of transportation, but much more conducive to showing up at so many key moments.

Thing is, all those supporting characters showing up on the wheel, Linus & Radzinsky the names springing to mind at the moment, what about main folks in the cast who didn’t make last week's main list of candidates? (6 for the numbers, unless you want to count both Kwons, and why not throw Kate in as well at 51 if you want to make it an even 8?) Key names such as Reyes, Chang, Hume.

And, again, we’re all positive of whatever crazy thing Jack’s going to do as soon as it occurs to him, it’s all in the eyes! Fox is killing it. Particularly foolish decision to wreck the mirror if it was in fact some kind of crazy portal off-Island.

Oh, and then Hurley and Jacob start dropping a whole new batch of title candidates! Seven Years of Bad Luck. Ink On Your Forehead. Mission Unaccomplished.

But then Claire comes back around and really sells My Friend. Man, I just wrote her off, so certain that she was dead and a spirit, and I guess she still could be, but I need a satisfactory reason that she left her baby that isn’t she was told, “You're dead, dear.” Was certain that the Locke Monster was her friend, since he was almost certainly all the incarnations of Christian we’ve seen throughout and Claire was last seen with same, just really the only option.

Great episode, gave us that wheel and then of course wrecked the main apparatus, told us for the 23rd time how important Jack is, and moved us along a couple of steps closer to endgame. Was so certain John Terry would show up in at least one of the timelines, but when we’re expecting him at a crucial juncture one place or the other, the focus remains on the new father-son dynamic. Christian Shephard, benched on a Jack-centric episode, unheard of (not counting that first flashforward trick in 3.22).

Who the hell is Wallace? Jacob Wallace? I was sure looking for 108 degrees to be him. Or maybe Richard's real name? Back when he was just a slave on the Black Rock?

It will be over before we want it to be, Island Faithful. Namaste and I bow to you!