Tag: Ben Linus (Page 2 of 2)

Lost 5.6 – 316

February 18, 2009 /

If there was ever any question whether “Lost” was the best show on television right now, tonight’s episode surely quieted its detractors. Arguably a weaker episode compared to the others this season, it was still a solid hour that not only answered more of our questions about the island, but also introduced a few new ones that, thankfully, we should know the answer to in a matter of weeks, and not years. While the Islanders have been enjoying their month in the limelight, however, it was only a matter of time before the A-Team became the stars of the show once again. And as we all knew was bound to happen, they’ve finally made it back to the island. Well, Jack, Kate and Hurley, at least, though much like the episode, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.

46 hours earlier, Jack seemed like the only safe bet to return. His meeting with Mama Faraday probably wasn’t the most encouraging to anyone still on the fence (especially after Desmond’s fervent warning), but I feel like that whole scene was more for the audience’s benefit than the characters. After all, it’s the viewer who cares the most about how this whole world operates (Jack was going to return to the island no matter what), and Eloise quickly proved that she is her son’s mother with a mouthful of scientific gibberish sure to confuse anyone that wasn’t listening carefully.

Lost 5.6

From what I gathered, the strange underground station they were standing in was called The Lamp Post. (Apparently, Dharma had a thing for silly nicknames even before they arrived on the island.) The station is how the scientists originally found the island, what with it being built over a pocket of magnetic energy, much like the island itself. It wasn’t until they stopped trying to find where the island should be and looked where it would be that they actually located it. You see, the island is constantly moving (though I don’t believe she meant through time, like it’s doing now), and in order to get back, the Oceanic Six have to enter through a dimensional window that can only be accessed at a certain place during a certain time. In this case, it’s via a flight from Los Angeles to Guam.

Before Jack heads to the airport, though, he picks up Locke’s body from the butcher’s. Ben was originally supposed to take care of that, but he calls Jack last minute asking him to do it instead. Curiously, when Ben finally did board the plane, all bloodied and bruised, not a single person asked him what the hell happened. Was it Sayid who did the beating, and if not, why was he being escorted by a federal marshal? It all seemed a little suspect to me, but the scenes at the airport were still the highlight of the show. It was really cool to see everyone reunited under some very awkward circumstances, from Kate randomly ditching Aaron to Hurley doing a little damage control by buying up as many seats as he could. (On a side note, I loved that he was reading a Spanish edition of “Y: The Last Man.”)

Hurley was clearly thinking about saving lives when that was the last thing on Ben’s mind. Of course, they probably all thought that the plane was going crash, so when Jack asks him “And the other people on this plane, what’s going to happen to them?,” Ben casually replies, “Who cares?” Some people probably took this as yet another sign of Ben just being Ben, but after Jack, Kate and Hurley suddenly awoke to find themselves on the island without actually crashing, it seemed to me like maybe they were just transported the moment they passed through the “window.” Again, this is something that probably won’t be fully explained until we find out what happened to everyone else. And that includes (a clean shaven) Frank Lapidus, who just happened to be the pilot of Flight 316. You’ve gotta love the “Oh shit” face he gave Jack when he suddenly realized what was about to happen: “Wait a second, we’re not going to Guam, are we?”

What I’m curious to find out is why they must take a plane to get there again. Is that the only way to reach the island, or is that just part of the rules? Eloise explains that they must do everything in their power to make the flight as close to the original one as possible, but if it truly is all about science and not fate, then why do Jack and the others have to trick the island into letting them come back? Additionally, does anyone who’s ever been to the island automatically return (like Ben and Lapidus), or does it only work for those from the Oceanic crash? I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough, but judging from the two new faces sitting with them in first class (one of which happened to be the underrated Saïd Taghmaoui), I’d bet on the former.

External TV, Lost, TV, TV Dramas

Lost 5.5 – This Island Is Death

February 12, 2009 /

In the mid-’90s, my then-girlfriend watched “Melrose Place” religiously. I wasn’t opposed to the show itself – any show with Heather Locklear is worth at least a look with the sound off, right? – but every time Marcia Cross came onscreen, I would repeat my mantra: “Would someone please KILL HER?” They would even tease us with promos saying, “One of these characters will die,” then show shots of all the leads and one blatant Red Shirt character. It made me crazy that these people would knock on Death’s door and ask him to punch them in the face, but they survived everything, like a bunch of bed-hopping cockroaches. For years, I would think that TV shows didn’t have the balls to kill their characters. It would be too risky, too polarizing.

Man, karma’s a bitch. This week alone, Daphne bites it on “Heroes,” and now Charlotte succumbs to Time Jumping Syndrome. TV finally gave me everything I ever wanted. It wasn’t what I wanted. Come on, they couldn’t have killed the cheerleader and Juliet instead?

Ben Linus might be the most conniving bag of douche on God’s green earth, but you have to admire how unflappable he is. He never loses his cool or panics even when someone has a gun to his head, and that happens a lot. This time it was Sun that was looking for a little payback, though one thing about her arc bugs me: she gets the gun through covert means, and is flipping through a file with shots of Jack and Ben before meeting them at the pier. At first, it looked as though she was on assignment, and Ben was the target. Is she a contract killer, or did she merely pull a few of Daddy’s strings to acquire some heat and settle a score?

“You go ahead, Sawyer. I’m going to watch the love of my life regress to her childhood self and die, but not before scaring the living shit out of me.”

The bits between Rousseau and Jin were interesting, though much like everything else about “Lost,” they ask more questions than they answer. Her entire group goes to save their leader after the smoke monster drags him below (though not before he loses an arm, yikes). Then Jin jumps forward a little bit, and the rest of her group is now “infected,” though with what we’re not sure. She even thinks Jin is infected too, and since the father of Rousseau’s baby just tried to shoot her, I can’t say I blame her for being a little paranoid. Still, I hope they shed more light on what happened to them in the “temple.” I’d also love to know how Ben came to be Alexandra’s “father.”

And while we’re talking about graphic violence, did anyone else wince at the sight of Locke’s leg after he fell down the well? Compound fractures are right up there with severed Achilles tendons on the list of things that make me go “Aieeeeeeeee!” I thought it was amusing that Jack’s father is now Jacob’s official spokesperson. I’m sure there’s some cosmic significance to that – though my first thought when I saw him was “Help Locke, dude, you’re a doctor!” – but we’re probably a year away from any explanation.

And let us not forget the episode’s Big Reveal, when Charlotte told Daniel that she used to live on the island as a little girl, and that a scary old man once told her that she would die here…and that the old man was Daniel, dunt dunt duuuuuuunh. Daniel didn’t know this, which means it hasn’t happened to him yet. Does it happen soon, or years from now? How much time do Sawyer, Juliet and Miles have before they die, too? And how heartbreaking was it to watch Charlotte’s mind come undone? Also, is it just me, or does Jeremy Davies have the most expressive eyebrows of any actor working today?

Jason will be back to blog next week, so thanks for allowing me to sub in for him this week, and I hope I didn’t completely screw the pooch.

Lost, TV, TV Dramas

Lost 5.1 / 5.2 – Because You Left / The Lie

January 22, 2009 /

It’s funny to think that a show that was initially about a group of people trying to get off a mysterious island has suddenly become about those very same people trying to get back, but credit Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof (the brilliant masterminds behind the series) for one thing: they sure know how to keep it interesting. “The Constant,” one of last season’s best episodes (and arguably one of the best the series has ever produced), changed the show forever when it brought the concept of time travel into the fold. So when it was announced that the series would be using this complicated storytelling device even more in the final two seasons, it was pretty much a given that the writers couldn’t wait to blow the collective minds of its audience. And as it just so happens, my mind has been officially blown.

As far as this whole island-moving, time travel thing is concerned, let me express my absolute gratitude over the decision to set some ground rules from the get-go. You see, it’s very easy to introduce something like time travel into a sci-fi story, but it’s even easier for it to get out of hand and come back to bite you in the ass later on. This has been a recurring problem on “Heroes” lately, and unfortunately, the more that they mess with the space-time continuum, the more the series digs itself into a hole it’s never going to be able to climb back out of. I mean, seriously, how many different futures are they on now?

Lost 5.1

Thankfully, “Lost” has a character like Daniel Faraday among its ranks, who is quick to point out to anyone who challenges him (ahem, Sawyer) not to try and change the future. Because no matter how hard you may try, you can’t undo anything that has already happened, even if, y’know, it hasn’t actually happened yet in relation to when you are. How funny, then, that the minute Sawyer gives up on trying to contact Desmond through the hatch door, Faraday does exactly that. It just so happens that Desmond’s time travel powers allows him to converse with Faraday without him actually knowing it (Penelope suggests it’s a dream, but Desmond says it’s a memory), and I wouldn’t be surprised if this ended up playing a major role in the Oceanic 6’s eventual return to the island.

Of course, the Others (as they’ll now be known) are hardly given a second to adapt to their new surroundings when they’re thrust once again into a different time. Faraday likens the whole phenomenon to a record skipping, and though they’re transported back and forth several times in a matter of hours, their final destination (or what seems like their final destination anyway) is most certainly pre-crash. I’m not sure exactly what time period that is, but online reports seem to indicate that it’s sometime in the 1970s, which sounds about right, except for the fact that Dharma workers are running around the woods shooting fire arrows at unsuspecting trespassers like they’re living in the Middle Ages. And on that note, a brief moment of silence for poor Frogurt (er, Neil), who was turned into a human shish kabob before he could even speak his peace.

All this talk about the past and there’s so much happening in the present. Okay, maybe not, but one thing that did pop into my head while watching tonight’s episode was a) how would the Oceanic 6 return to the island if it’s constantly moving through time, and b) what happens if they return during present time, but the Others are still “trapped” sometime else? Maybe the island hasn’t even begun to stop moving and Jack and Co. have to figure out how to fix that before they even try to return, but if that’s the case, Charlotte is in serious trouble, because it doesn’t look like her nosebleeds will be getting better any time soon.

Plus, before they even attempt to stop the island from moving, Jack and Ben have to convince the other four (Kate, Sun, Hurley and Sayid) to go back with them. That’s going to be pretty difficult considering that Sun wants Ben dead, Kate is on the run from the law (again), Sayid doesn’t trust anyone, and Hurley has just turned himself over to the police for killing three men that Sayid is responsible for. Oh yeah, and not only is Hurley still seeing dead people (cue Michelle Rodriguez cameo), but they’re giving him instructions on how to avoid the authorities. “Lost” is back folks, and it’s even trippier than usual.

Actors, Lost, TV, TV Dramas

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