Thoughts on LOST - This Place is DEATH

Wow...that was a fantastic hour of television. There was so much going on the ENTIRE time that it almost felt like a two hour episode.

Let's get to it...this might be a long one.

- Well, right off the bat they discounted pretty much every theory I've had about Sun: JiYeon is not only perfectly fine, but also perfectly adorable. The anger that has seemed to consume Sun is in fact directed at Ben, not Jack.

And, in retrospect, that's probably what it was that made Sun seem so "suspicious" in the earlier episodes...she is in fact CONSUMED by anger. She came to the States specifically to murder Ben, and seemed almost nonchalant about it as she told her mother she was "just finishing up what she came to do." Like she just came over to look at some real estate or something.

OK, let's do the Island stuff first, and then come back to the O6:

- Like I said in my earlier post about Little Prince, Jin has to be flipping out. Last time he saw Danielle, she was 16 years older and a freaking WARRIOR, not this sweet naive young mother he sees now. But after taking a minute to try and get his bearings as to what is going on ("No, what YEAR?"), he was like, "Know what? Screw it...where's Sun?"

- "First a boat, now a helicopter. Next thing you know he'll be talking about a submarine." Well, now that you mention it...we DID have one of those, till Locke blew it up.

- Jeez, Montand is a TOOL. Hopefully, something bad will happen to him soon that will shut him up...

- In an episode full of sad moments, one of the saddest to me was seeing how happy Danielle and Robert were together, and how excited they were about their coming child. Think about what was to come for this little family...soon, Danielle would be putting a bullet in Robert's head. Their baby would be kidnapped within the first couple of weeks of her life and raised by a psychopath, not to be reunited with her mother until 16 years later....at which point Keamy will put a bullet in her brain just as she is hearing the only father she has ever known basically disown her and claim to have no interest whether she lives or dies. Knowing the end of the story made the image of the happy couple with the baby on the way bitterly ironic.

- SMOKEY!!!! It was great to have the monster back, and it was cool to see it from the perspective of the Frenchies. The whole scene was very reminiscent of the early days on the Island, up to and including the dead body dropping out of the sky (like the pilot in the..ummm...Pilot) and Smokey trying to pull somebody down the hole like it did with Locke. It was nice to be reminded of those early days when we were just being introduced to the craziness of this Island, and we saw that in the reaction of Danielle's crew.

- Way back in season 1, Danielle mentioned that "Montand lost his arm," and ever since it had almost become an inside joke among many in the online community...when were we going to find out how Montand lost his arm? Well, now we know. Holy crap. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy, but that was still pretty brutal.

- And, obviously, that was Smokey doing a Montand impersonation, just like he impersonated Yemi and (possibly) others. No way Montand recovered from having his arm ripped off quickly enough to be fairly calmly asking that they come down in the hole with him.

Unfortunately, I sort of ruined the suspense of that scene for myself, because all I could think of was the first "Austin Powers" when Dr. Evil sent Will Ferrell's character down the trap door:"Hello? I'm still alive, but I'm very badly burned!" Maybe that was just me...

- So, Jin saves Danielle from the "sickness" by stopping her from going down the Smokey hole. I know it was probably just part of his broken English, but I thought it was interesting that he told her, "You DON'T go" rather than "You CAN'T go." Sort of like Ms. Hawking told Desmond, "You DON'T buy this ring." It was obviously very important to the future timeline that Danielle not succumb to the sickness, give birth to Alex, survive for the next 16 years, and help the Losties. So, if Jin wasn't there, would something else have happened to "course correct" Danielle? I have no freaking clue at this point, but it's interesting to think about...

- So was this temple the same one that Richard and the Others hung out at last season while Ben was running around the Island with Locke? I would say yes...he did say it was the only safe place on the Island, and you certainly can't have a better security system than the Temple does.

Darlton has said that from now on every time we see Smokey, we will learn something more about him. I think what we learned this time was that Smokey is NOT an invention of the Dharma Initiative that somehow went rogue, or anything else that recent. That temple has been there a while (note the hieroglyphics), and Smokey was designed to protect it. I would say Smokey dates back to at least the 4 toed statue days.

- The pillar of smoke that marked Danielle's camp was also reminiscent of so many scenes from earlier seasons...I think that at this point the writers are intentionally dropping these images into the story. It's happening too often to be a coincidence. Another one we got tonight was that one of the French castaways was a musician, just like one of the Losties, which I wouldn't think was necessarily important if they hadn't made it so obvious that we were supposed to notice it. I think there is going to be some kind of "time loop" element to what the overall story turns out to be (for you BSG fans, kind of a "All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again" thing).

- One of the things I'm enjoying about this season is that we are seeing so many things that make up the backstory that we have heard about earlier. All of the stuff with Danielle's crew (the numbers being broadcast over the radio, the "sickness" and Danielle's killing spree, Montand's arm) have been part of the mythology for so long that it was really cool and rewarding to actually watch it happening.

- It was nice to see Sawyer's reaction to seeing his old friend alive and well. Genuine happiness is not something we get to see a lot on this show, and that was a good example of it.

- "Where's Sun?"
(awkward silence)....
And when we DO see genuine happiness, it usually doesn't last long...

- "You heard the man, translate!"
"He's Korean. I'm from Encino."

HEE. I heart Miles. Sawyer has finally met his match.

- Yeah, Charlotte looked CREEPY as she delivered the episode title after falling out again. Those eyes freak me out.



- Locke continues to morph into another version of Ben (again, all of this has happened before...). He looked right into Jin's eyes and flat-out lied to him. He had no intention of trying to prevent Sun from coming back.

Absolutely heartbreaking to watch Jin basically make the decision that he will never see Sun again (not to mention his at this point unborn child) in order to keep them safe. When he took that ring off he was in essence ending their marriage, a huge sacrifice in an episode that was full of them.

- Locke is still my favorite character on TV: "What would be the fun in that, James?" Followed by an almost boyish grin that he seemed to try and hide, considering the seriousness of the moment.

- And, in another rare nice moment, someone finally thanks John for doing what he can to protect his friends and the Island.

- OK, so this last flash took them to a time where neither the Orchid nor the well existed...how long ago must that be? Think we might see a little 4-toed statue action?

- Let's look at the last conversation Charlotte has with Daniel. First of all, FANTASTIC scene. So sad to realize that this Island has been her Moby Dick, and now that she finds it, it kills her. Somebody call Alanis...THAT is irony.

We received quite a chunk of backstory on Charlotte (backstory that I think we may have received in a more drawn out flashback if the writers had time last season, cut short by the WGA strike). She did in fact grow up on the Island. Her parents were part of the Dharma Initiative, but at some point she and her mother left, leaving her father behind. She was obviously pretty young when they left, otherwise her mother couldn't have gotten away with telling her she made up the Island.

By the way....Charlotte is of course Charlotte Staples Lewis, an obvious reference to Clive Staples Lewis, the author of Chronicles of Narnia, a series of books where children somehow travel to a magical place where time seems to move at a different pace, only to be told by the adults when they return that no such place exists and they must be imagining it. Just thought I'd point that out.

OK, so Daniel shows up in Charlotte's memories telling her that she can't come back to the Island or she will die. This is part of an ongoing conversation I am having with Shan, both at his blog and mine regarding linear memories, and what happens when one of the characters has a conversation in the "past" that they don't remember until it actually happens in the "present," as another character is skipping around in time and encounters them. It's enough to make your head explode (or at least give you a nosebleed, right, Shan?), and this is already long enough, so I'll just say this. Charlotte tells Daniel she "just" remembered the confrontation with the scary crazy man. My theory is because that encounter had not occurred until that point in time, and a future version of Daniel has gone back and tried to warn Charlotte away, despite his own insistence (and obvious truth, since she's dead) that future events can't be changed. Maybe it's even during the time that we have already seen him hanging around the Dharma Initiative, back in the season premiere.

And although I think Charlotte really is dead (they did, after all, play the "Charlie's Dead" music as they panned away from the scene), I don't think we have seen/heard the last of her. We still have to learn who her parents are, and I am particularly interested in her father that she and her mother left behind on the Island. Also, we have to find out the significance of her fluency in Korean, since it seems to be important somehow.

- On to Locke, once again losing the use of his legs. Again, all of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again...

I can't even begin to hypothesize on what all his conversation with Christian means:

• Is Christian truly working for Jacob? If so, why the disdain for Ben...I thought they used to be friends?
• Does this mean that Locke was actually NOT destined to be a leader of the Others? If Locke had been the one to turn the Wheel, Ben would still be leading the Others, and Locke would be the one off the Island.
• Christian never mentioned the fact that whomever turned the wheel could never come back...was Ben telling the truth when he told Locke that? I'm starting to think he was not, since Ben is obviously trying to get back now...
• I had actually forgotten that Locke doesn't know Christian as Jack's dad...he only knows him as the old dude who was hanging out with Claire in Jacob's cabin and acting as Jacob's mouthpiece.
• Which reminds me...where the heck is Claire?
• Isn't Locke still not following the instructions properly? HE is supposed to bring back all the people who LEFT. Instead, BEN is bringing back (some) of the people who left, along with himself.

Woah...that was a TON of material, and we haven't even gotten to the O6 yet...

- OK, Kate is convinced that Jack has lost it...she's taking Aaron and skedaddling. Sayid is DONE with this crap. Hurley is still in prison (although that should be remedied tomorrow morning). Seems like the whole scheme to keep all of the O6 together is falling apart rapidly, no?

- Loved the scene with Ben yelling at Jack and Sun. As several people have mentioned, this reminded me of many many road trips with me and my brother in the back seat of the car squabbling... "Knock it off! I WILL stop this car!"

As for the content of his lecture...I'm still not sure of where Ben/Christian/Widmore/Jacob/Hawking fall on the whole good guy-bad guy spectrum, so I don't know what to make of his complaints. Either he really is trying to protect these people, as well as trying to maneuver them all into correct positions while not being able to fully communicate to them what his motivations are...or he is the psychopath that we have all come to know and love, and this is just more of Ben being manipulative by trying to make himself seem sympathetic to those who he is manipulating.

- Speaking of Ben, I think he did NOT know that Hawking is Faraday's mother. You could tell by the look on his face when Des showed up looking for Daniel's mum. That's interesting.

- Think Desmond was surprised to see his old friend Ms. Hawking? That would have been enough to send me screaming into the night, running all the way back Penny, considering the last run-in he had with her.

- OK, I'm confused...roughly two days ago Hawking told Ben that they ALL had to come back or, QUOTE, "God help us all." Now he shows up with exactly TWO of the O6, plus Desmond (who I'm not even sure counts), and she's like, "Cool, let's get started."

Ma-HUH????

Well, only 5 more days, and maybe we'll find out!

I'm off to enjoy a geektastic night of TV...Terminator, Dollhouse, and BSG. Check out Dollhouse if you get a chance...the next brainchild of Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy, Angel, Firefly, and of course Dr. Horrible himself).