SPOILERS ON THE MARCH
* The one-two punch of 9/11 and The DaVinci Code really did a number on my longstanding love of arcane conspiracy-theory stuff, but apparently that was nothing a crazy old British lady using a Foucault’s Pendulum to find a hidden magic island in a secret chamber beneath a church decorated with a painting of Doubting Thomas couldn’t fix.
* Speaking of: must be the season of the infodump.
* Recreating the opening of the pilot episode reminded me how brilliant the opening of the pilot episode was. I remember going to a screening of that thing at the San Diego Comic Con simply because Dominic Monaghan was going to be there and The Missus had a crush on him–we had no idea what to expect, and frankly we weren’t expecting much. (“From the creator of Alias“–whoopedy-dee). Then bam, a handsome man in a suit wakes up in the jungle, with no clue where he was or how he got there (at least at first). That, of course, is exactly how the audience felt. Sucked in from the get-go.
* Why do they keep having characters ask Ben questions? Nine times out of ten, he’s lying, as the show itself pointed out tonight. It’s not just a problem for his fellow characters, it’s a problem for the viewers, since every thirty-second q&a with Ben is a total waste of time beyond the “it’s fun to watch Michael Emerson act” factor (which I admit is pretty high).
* There’s something about this episode I can’t quite put my finger on, something about the pacing. I want to say…the pacing felt like a series premiere, but the the material felt like a season finale? Like, it was slightly laconic, easing you into what was going on the way an introductory episode was, but everything that was happening had been built up to for a couple years now the way a finale would be? It was an odd viewing experience. I liked it.
* Interesting color scheme at times, too–unusual for Lost. I really liked that blue light on Jack’s face in the airport bar, for example.
* There was something profoundly fucked up about all of these people, except Desmond, risking the lives of everyone else on that plane in order to save them and their friends, or give their lives a sense of purpose, or whatever. (Hurley at least tried, but dude, the stewardesses are fucked regardless. And Jack, seems like you asked about the other people on the plane a wee bit too late, considering you were already in the air, dickhead.) There’s two ways of looking at this, I suppose: One is that the writers ignored this and want you to ignore it too, except in the very broad “Hurley is good because he cares, Ben is bad because he doesn’t, Jack is basically good but kind of a dick because he only sort of cares” strokes they painted it with. The other is that the writers know it and want you to know it too, that they want to convey that all these people are profoundly damaged and selfish.
* Well, how about this, the show coughs up some mysteries we’ll have to learn about in flashbacks, Season One style! How did Hurley find out about the flight, why was Sayid under arrest, what happened to Ben down by the docks (okay, that one’s not so big a mystery, but they’ll still need to fill in the gap), what happened to Aaron, etc. I dig it.
* I also dig Evangeline Lily’s tore-up-from-the-floor-up performance in this episode. I definitely believed that whatever happened to her and Aaron was rough. That big open-mouthed kiss was sexy, too, though I kind of think the unexplained disappearance of a child would be a mood-killer for me.
* It’s a little wonky to cook up all this pseudoscience with electromagnetism and equations on the one hand, then insist upon something as manifestly unscientific as “recreating the conditions of the original trip to the Island” just by assembling five of the flight’s original 128 passengers, plus a dead guy in another dead guy’s shoes.
* Seems like the “next week on Lost” blew a little too much information, no? Too much for my tastes anyway.
* Also seems like we’re getting some new cast members in the form of Sayid’s handler and “my condolences” guy.
* I don’t care how easy it was to see Frank Lapidus’s return coming, it still put a mile-wide grin on my face.
* Indeed, I found myself chuckling throughout the episode, in honor of a job well done.
I went to that Lost panel because of Matthew Fox. He’s hot. (And I did enjoy the first two seasons of Alias.)
That desperately fucked up Kate and Jack love scene reminded me of a similar bit from a comic I picked up at NYCC that I won’t name in case people want to buy it, but you know the one. And I make that comparison in a complimentary sense to both works.
This was probably the first mainland-centric episode that I’ve really enjoyed in a long time (not counting that one where Desmond was trying to find Farraday’s mom). However, I’m getting really tired of Jack and Kate refusing to tell each other stuff, or even on the plane, when Jack could’ve just walked over and asked Hurley and Sayid how they got there, but I guess that would be too easy.
I was also totally expecting Locke’s suicide note to say “Don’t go back Jack, it was a mistake” or something to that effect. So when he read it, I felt all sad inside, and it doesn’t help that my dad is starting to look more and more like Locke as gets older, and I can’t help but equating everything Locke does to my dad.
And it was very exciting to see, both at the beginning and the end, Jack and the others wake up on the Island again (I just enjoyed it, not sure why yet). Then it was really awesome to see Jin show up all 1970’s Dharma style. I can’t wait for that episode; it’ll be like the ‘Other 48 Days’, only 3 years long set in the 70’s. Or at least I hope so.
Ut’s not that I’m tired of everybody not asking questions so much as I’m tired of everybody not asking followups.
Jack asked who Eloise was and got nothing and then didn’t follow-up with ben or even Eloise.
Jack saw everybody he’d seen 24 hours ago on the plane and asked Ben why they were all there. 24 hours ago, they were all angry and in different situations. When Ben didn’t answer, all Jack had to do was get off his ass and walk over to them and ask them directly.
And, yeah, when Jack asked Kate where his fucking nephew was and she said don’t ask, he should have ASKED! Instead, he’s like, “ok, let’s do this sex,”
Just ask!
I was looking forward to reading Sam’s Strip, too, Phegley. Thanks for nothing.
“That big open-mouthed kiss was sexy, too, though I kind of think the unexplained disappearance of a child would be a mood-killer for me.”
The sadness and desperation of that scene struck me as a pretty realistic reaction to the loss of a child, actually. The kind of thing people might do to remind themselves they’re alive, or on a more basic, reptilian/evolutionary scale, to replace what was lost.
My God, thank you for bringing that up, Alan! Because I totally, totally meant to say that their conversation the next morning, when Jack was briefly all smiles and they were talking about returning to the Island like it was going to the grocery store for cereal and kitty litter, reminded me A LOT of conversations I’ve had after tragedies, where there’s nothing else you can do but plow through in a way that looks like denial but isn’t.
Carnival of souls
* STC news: I have a piece teasing developments in The Stand: American Nightmares, the second arc of Marvel’s big Stephen King adaptation, at Marvel.com. * I think my favorite reaction to Bowie Loves Beyoncé thus far is Kiel Phegley’s:…