Tag: Dharma

Lost 5.8 – LaFleur

March 4, 2009 /

After last week’s good but not great Locke-centric show, it probably wasn’t the best idea to air another character-heavy episode so soon. That hasn’t stopped the powers that be from doing just that, however, and though it probably won’t go down as one of the season’s stronger stories, it was still a solid, more traditional hour of “Lost” that finally gave Sawyer his day in the sun. Fortunately, he’s also currently one of the best characters on the show thanks to his recent pairing with fellow island dumpee, Juliet.

The two of them have quickly assumed leadership of the B-Team since, well, Jin still can’t talk very much English, Miles is a total slacker, and Faraday is mourning the death of Charlotte. With Locke gone and no sign of the well even having been built yet (though did anyone notice the four-toed statue being erected in the background?), the island is moved one final time before, as expected, it stops for good. From here, the episode shuffled back and forth in time from their newest location to three years into the future, where they currently exist when the Oceanic 6 return to the island.

Lost 5.8

Over those three years, the B-Team somehow managed to warm their way into the hearts of the Dharma Initiative and become full-fledged members. Granted, we never actually find out how that happened (which was probably why I felt so lukewarm about the episode when it ended), but we do know that they’re stuck sometime in the 1970s and that Sawyer in particular (now going by the name Jim LaFleur) has become somewhat of a leader in the camp. He’s not the leader, mind you, but after saving the life of a woman named Amy (played by Reiko Aylesworth, who will now be referred to as Michelle Dessler) and smoothing out a broken truce between Dharma and the Others, Sawyer wins his place among them.

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External TV, Lost, TV, TV Dramas

Lost 5.7 – The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham

February 25, 2009 /

Forget what I said at the end of my last post, because despite what Jack, Kate and Hurley may think, the plane has indeed crashed on the island, and it’s taken almost no time for Caesar (Jack’s friend from the airport) and Ilana (the U.S. Marshall escorting Sayid) to assume leadership. Caesar has already begun scouring through a nearby cabin for any information he can find, but to no avail. Luckily, they just so happen to have a surprise visitor among their ranks: John Locke, back from the dead. Though he remembers dying, Locke doesn’t exactly know what he’s doing on the island, or more importantly, how he got there.

Interestingly, while Jack, Kate and Hurley disappeared when the plane passed through the bright light (AKA The Island Time Warp), Locke and Ben remained on the plane. We still don’t know what happened to Sayid and Sun, but I think it’s safe to say that they made the jump as well. This means that because Locke and Ben left the island by an alternate means, they’re being treated as newcomers, and have to re-enter the island as such. Now, the Oceanic Six are stuck in the past with the rest of the original survivors, while Locke and Ben are in the present. Of course, this is great news for the Newbies, because while they’re probably not too happy about crashing on an island where they’ll likely be stuck for the rest of their lives, at least they’ve got Locke there to explain what the hell is going. Whether or not they believe him is another thing.

Unfortunately, that’s all we got to see of Locke’s grand return in tonight’s episode, as most of the show was spent telling his post-island story. It’s really too bad, because after the discussion between him and Ilana on the beach, I was foaming at the mouth for more. Don’t get me wrong, it was cool to finally learn what really happened to Locke between the time he left the island and the time he was brought back, but it just felt like a whole lot of exposition with very little payoff. I mean, we already knew that he was going to visit everyone to try and persuade them to come back, and we already knew that they were all going to say no. Plus, his visit with Walt was really awkward – like the writers wanted to include the meeting between the two but didn’t have anything important for either one to say. It was a nice proper send off for Malcolm David Kelley, but that’s it.

There was one interesting thing about the episode, though, and that’s Charles Widmore coming to Locke’s aid in Tunisia. Up until now, no one’s really known whether Ben Linus is a good guy or a bad guy, but Widmore has always been pegged as a villain. (After all, he did send a freighter full of mercenaries to blow up the island.) Tonight’s show placed him in a completely different light, however, and after he explained to Locke his history with the island as a leader who was exiled by Ben, it’s hard to determine what’s really going on. Could Widmore be the good guy and Ben the villain? It’s certainly possible, though I wouldn’t rule out that they’re both just evil, evil men.

As for the latter, he’s certainly not helping his chances of redemption after shooting Abaddon and strangling Locke. The latter was probably the biggest surprise of the night, and not because I thought Locke would hang himself instead. I can’t imagine anyone killing themselves if they didn’t want to (especially someone like Locke), but why did Ben have such a sudden change of heart. One minute, he’s helping untie the noose around Locke’s neck, and the next, he’s turning an attempted suicide into a homicide dressed as a suicide. It clearly had something to do with Locke’s mention of Jin and Eloise (as it wasn’t until then that Ben started acting a little strange), but why? I’m not sure it really matters. Locke’s alive and he’s staring down at his killer like he’s about to open up a can of karmic whoopass, and quite frankly, that’s good enough for me.

External TV, Lost, TV, TV Dramas

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 5.1 / 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.

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