Tag: Oceanic Six (Page 1 of 2)

Lost 5.11 – Whatever Happened, Happened

April 1, 2009 /

Ugh. Is it really time again for another Kate-centric story? Unfortunately, but while tonight’s episode wasn’t one of the year’s best, at least it wrapped up another plotline from earlier in the season. Though Aaron’s whereabouts probably weren’t at the top of most people’s lists, it did add some much needed closer to Kate’s past. Up until the final moments of the night, I was actually starting to think that she had either lost him to a stranger at the supermarket (though, admittedly, that would have been pretty lame), or given him to Cassidy to take care of. After all, she’s clearly proven to be a fit mother from raising Saywer’s daughter, Clementine, and as we learned throughout the course of the episode, she and Kate actually became pretty good friends.

Speaking of Clementine, it was also confirmed that the big secret Sawyer whispered into Kate’s ear before jumping off the helicopter was a simple request to take care of his daughter. Not exactly a surprise when you consider there wasn’t much else he could have asked, but it’s still nice to get that out of the way. In fact, while the reveal wasn’t much of a shock, Kate’s immediate honesty with Cassidy was. Didn’t she even think of the consequences that might have come with Cassidy blabbing her mouth about how the Oceanic Six’s story was all a lie? Apparently not, and it’s a good thing she didn’t, because if the two of them never became friends, Kate wouldn’t have made the unselfish decision to head back to the island and leave Aaron in the care of Claire’s mother.

It was a necessary story to tell, but it was pretty dull compared to the island portion of tonight’s episode. After Jin awakens to discover Young Ben has been shot by Sayid, he rushes him back to camp to get help. Horace thinks the Others are planning an attack, and while everyone begins preparing defenses, Juliet desperately tries to save Ben’s life. As expected, she goes to Jack for help, but he’s too busy acting like an asshole to care. Sure, the kid’s going to grow up to become a monster, but does that give him the right to decide whether or not he should die? If a criminal was brought into his ER, wouldn’t he be professionally (and morally) obligated to save his life?

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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 5.5 – 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 5.4 – The Little Prince

February 5, 2009 /

I was only minutes away from condemning tonight’s show as the first bad episode of the new season when something incredible happened: the writers brought Jin back from the grave. Well, not exactly, but while he’s been assumed dead since last year’s finale, this is the first time that many even considered the possibility that he made it off the freighter before it was destroyed. Personally, I had a sinking feeling that Jin was somehow still alive, but I had no idea how they were going to explain it. After all, he could clearly be seen still standing on the boat when it exploded, and though one could argue that he evaded serious injury when the blast sent him into the water (it happens in movies all the time), it doesn’t explain how he was able to move along with the island. Sure, Faraday was stuck in the middle of the ocean too, and he made it just fine, but he also wasn’t as far out as the freighter. Plus, if Jin moved with the island, why didn’t anything else from the explosion cross over as well?

Whatever the answer, it’s certainly an interesting development in the story – not only because Sun is mere seconds from exacting revenge on Ben, but because Jin is now in the company of the Black Rock expedition crew, the wreckage of which the Islanders discovered following their latest time jump. Confused yet? That’s to be expected, but can you imagine what’s going through Jin’s head at the moment? He’s just escaped certain death, been rescued from drowning, and has now learned that the woman who saved his life is the same person who, when he last saw her, was about 20 years older. I’m talking, of course, about Danielle Rousseau, and though the writers took their grand old time dangling that in our faces, I can’t imagine they tricked anyone in the process.

Lost 5.4

With the island jumping back and forth as often as it is, however, there’s a good chance Rousseau and Co. will be long gone before Jin can figure out what’s going on. If not, Jin is going to have to explain how he really got there, and if Rousseau and Co. actually believe him, what’s to say that their meeting isn’t the very thing that led to their destruction? And with the time jumps happening more frequently, Charlotte is no longer the only Islander experiencing nose bleeds. She’s certainly farther along in what Faraday can only describe as “really bad jet lag,” but now Miles and Juliet are suffering the effects as well. Faraday suggests that it has something to do with the amount of time that each person has spent on the island, but while that would certainly make sense for Juliet and Charlotte (don’t forget, her excavation of the polar bear fossil means she’s probably been there before), this is the first time that Miles has ever been to the island. At least, as far as he knows. Is it possible that Miles is Marvin Candle’s son?

Once again, island life has proven far more interesting than the adventures of the Oceanic Six back on the mainland. Though I was initially worried that tonight’s episode would be completely dominated by Kate and the pending lawsuit involving Aaron’s custody, it didn’t take long to figure out that Ben was behind it all along. He’s working within a very limited window of time, and though he was made out to look like the villain in the final minutes, it was clearly just a ruse to get Kate, Aaron and Sun to the pier. With the exception of the random assassin fight in the middle of the hospital (sans Jason Bourne, of course), the rest of the Oceanic Six storyline was tame as usual. When are they going back to the island already, because quite frankly, all this moping around is beginning to get really boring. The one wild card in all of this is Sun, who’s been acting mighty crafty these days. I wouldn’t put it past her to be working in league with Charles Widmore, but the minute she finds out Jin is still alive, that will likely change. And if that’s the case, why bother making her turn against them in the first place?

Lost, TV, TV Dramas

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