Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Thoughts on Lost - Whatever Happened, Happened

Sorry about the delay on this...combination of a couple of issues, including the fact that Lostpedia has been slow to put up transcripts. I usually rely heavily on the transcripts when putting my recap together, so without those I have had to rewatch a couple more times to make sure I get all of my notes.

Anyway, enough of my whining...Dr. Shephard does more than enough whining for both of us this week!

- First off, the big controversy of the week...in last week's episode, and in the previouslies this week, it's pretty obvious that Ben is shot on the left side of his chest. This week, the wound has magically moved to the right side.

So...what to make of this? Production error? Maybe, but I really hope not...that seems like a pretty big error to make, and would have been easy enough to fix in the previouslies.

Intentional misleading by the producers? They could have had the wound on the left side to build a better cliffhanger, because it increases the chances that Ben is going to die. However, does it really matter what side the wound is on, as far as whether he is going to live or not? The question of Ben's survival lies more with the very title of this episode, right? Either you believe that it's possible for Little Ben to die without honking everything up or you don't. If you don't believe that he can die, than it really doesn't matter whether he was shot in the heart or his pinky finger...whatever happened, happened....right?

Other possibility is that the bullet DID go through his heart...but the Island isn't ready for him to die yet (duh), so it "moved" the wound.

Unfortunately, my gut says it's one of the first two...either a pretty egregious production error, or some pointless misleading by the writers/producers. Because if the Island didn't want him to die, why did the wound have to move in order to accomplish that?

Anyway...enough analysis on the first 5 seconds of the show. Moving on.

- Jack just can't keep his mouth shut. Always has to be the smartest guy in the room..."How could he have set the fire if he was locked up?" "Well, I'll tell you, Mr. I'm-New-Here-Which-Automatically-Makes-Me-Pretty-Much-The-Number-One-Suspect, he had help on the inside. Probably you. Any more questions, Smart Guy?"

OK, so I jazzed up Horace's response a little, but jeez...between Jack popping off at the worst possible time and Kate showing up later in the security station, you really have to feel sorry for Sawyer. He really did have things pretty much under control until all of these wild cards showed up, thinking they were still running this place.

- "Nice to meet you, Roger Linus. Pardon my look of surprise. With Ben being your son, I thought you would look more like....Satan."

- The Roger/Kate vibe in this whole episode was just...EEW. He really seemed to take a liking to Kate, which....duh. But didn't she seem kind of like she was enjoying it? Even encouraging it a little? RUN, Roger....run while you still can!!

- Kate does love her some Patsy Cline, though...that's twice we've heard her playing this song (she was playing it in the barracks when she was living with Claire, too), and there have been other instances of Patsy Cline songs in Kate's episodes before. So I guess she's not ALL bad.

- Speaking of music..."Catch a Falling Star" is also what Christian used to sing to Claire, and it's also the song being played by the mobile over his crib in the Staff station.

- I keep forgetting that not everybody is as obsessed as some of us are...it's been the assumption for months now that what Sawyer was whispering to Kate in the helicopter was related to her taking care of Cassidy and Clementine. So while that was a pretty weak "reveal" to folks like us, I guess it had to be there for the more "casual" fans.

- Cassidy makes me sad. So cynical, so pragmatic...she's TOO good at this now, you know? Sawyer has taught her to always assume the worst about people, and the sad part is that this kind of thinking becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy most of the time. If you EXPECT people to disappoint you, then you start LOOKING for ways to be disappointed. And those, unfortunately, can always be found if you look hard enough.

- Remind me never to play poker with her: "This money is not even his"...."That's not your baby."

- On to what was definitely the highlight of the show....the interaction between Miles and his "prisoners," especially Hurley.

- "You're all free to leave whenever you want...but I'll shoot you in the leg." Would have been the line of the night, if not for...

- "I'm waiting for my hand to disappear."

Hee.

- And Jack slips into his Drago impersonation: "If he dies...he dies." Needs to work on the accent a little, but he certainly got the sentiment right.

I've come around a LITTLE bit on Jack's attitude since I wrote my initial thoughts. Maybe, based on his speech to Kate, as well as his later one to Juliet, he is simply embracing his new role as Man of Faith. But I still think he's being a jerk. Like Sawyer, Kate, and Juliet all realize (and oh, the irony of how it turns out)...he's not Ben yet. He's just a kid who is dying, and Jack has the ability to possibly do something about it and chooses not to. However you want to paint it, that's just selfish.

- Nice job securing your prisoners, Miles. Kate walks right past him, out of the house and Miles' only response is: "Hey...where you going?" Didn't he learn anything about prisoner security from his time under Locke's watchful eye?



- Nice to see Roger gaining at least SOME self awareness...he seems to at least somewhat acknowledge his utter failure as a father. Although, "I guess a boy just needs his mother" isn't quite as accurate as "I guess a boy just doesn't need to be serially abused, and/or accused of murdering his mother every time his birthday rolls around."

Or, I would also have accepted, "I guess a boy needs a role model, not a bitter old drunk who does nothing but drink, complain about his lot in life, and take out his own bitterness and insecurities on his only son."

But, hey...your mileage may vary.

- Interesting exchange between Roger and Kate:

You have any kids?
NO.


Hmmm....

- And on to the next conversation between Miles and Hurley, which is too awesome for me to do justice here.

Couple of points, though...
- How does Miles know that Ben turned a wheel? Is that something Daniel knew and could have told him?

- Miles is 100% right in his theories...it's too complicated to go into here, but if you want to ask me why, feel free to do so in the comments and I will attempt to explain. But I warn you...there are visual aids involved.

- Something interesting I thought of after multiple viewings...Ben has Kate's blood running through him, since she donated (quite a bit, apparently...he had certainly lost a lot). Probably doesn't have any real significance, I just found it interesting.

- EXCELLENT piece of acting by Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet) in her conversation with Kate. You could see the realization creep into her face of what they had to do, all of the inevitability and enormity of it. She went from distraught, to a little bit sickened, to resolute, all within about 10 seconds and all without saying a word. Kudos.

- The more we see of this little conversation on the dock, the more we realize that this was the moment when the O6 fell completely apart.

- I'll admit...they got me with the scene in the grocery store. First, I thought something had happened in the timeline somewhere that caused Aaron to disappear. Then, I thought for sure that the blond haired lady was Claire. Either that was a really nice job, or I'm extremely gullible.

- Cassidy, FTW: "Well, Jack sounds like a piece of work."
I heart Cassidy.

- Although, I don't totally agree with her assessment of the whole Kate/Claire/Aaron thing. "You took him." Well...kind of? I mean, Claire did disappear and leave him in the woods. They did look for her and couldn't find her. It's not like she conked Claire over the head and took Aaron from her arms (at least, as far as we know). I get that she DID lie about being the mother, and that was probably more out of Kate's need for some sort of familial connection than for the good of Aaron.

- Oh, and more kudos to hand out...Evangeline Lilly knocked it out of the PARK this entire episode. Although I'm not a big fan of Kate, it's certainly not the fault of the actress.

- "Where's Jack?"
" Is he in trouble?"
Hee.

- "I came back to save you." " We didn't NEED SAVING!"

She makes a good point. What WAS all this talk about "You all have to go back...you have to save them...God help us all...etc...etc..." Everybody seemed to be fine and dandy before these guys came back, and in fact everything seems to have gone downhill fairly rapidly ever since they got there. Maybe it's because they DIDN'T bring everybody back? Or maybe Ben wasn't supposed to come with them?

Or maybe...all of these things that seem to be bad are actually necessary for some greater good?

- I love the new Sawyer. That conversation he had with Kate about Cassidy, Clementine, Juliet, and their (Sawyer/Kate) relationship was one of my very favorites of the season. He is absolutely right...he's done a LOT of growing up over the last three years.

- Also glad to see the apparent end of the "Love Quadrangle."

To review:
- Sawyer is happy with Juliet, and has made peace with the fact that he and Kate would have never worked.

- Kate didn't come back to the Island for Jack OR Sawyer...she came back for Aaron, to bring his mother back to him.
- Kate hates Jack.
- Juliet hates Jack, and loves Sawyer (or James, as she always calls him...it's like her pet name for him is his ACTUAL name, since she's the only one who calls him that. At least until Ben and Locke come back.)
- Jack hates everybody, particularly Ben, and up to and including....Jack.

- Am I the only one who still think something weird is going on with Claire's mum? Did she really come all the way to LA just to meet with her lawyer (who also happens to be BEN'S lawyer) about the lawsuit? Maybe, but it just seems sort of contrived.

- And, wait a minute...Claire is ALIVE? Says who? Why is Kate so convinced of that? She disappeared into the Smokey-infested woods three years ago, leaving her bay-bee behind, and nobody has heard from her since as far as Kate knows, except for Kate in her nightmares. I mean, WE saw her hanging out with Christian in Jacob's cabin, but Kate doesn't know that.

- Just to heap more praise on Evangeline Lilly...Kate always looks so HARD, tough, closed off. She has never looked younger or more vulnerable than she did during the conversations with Ms. Littleton, and then in the heart-wrenching scene where she says goodbye to Aaron.

GAH. Got a little dusty in the living room when that scene was going on. Even on my THIRD viewing, when she turns around and says, "Bye-bye, Baby"...SNIFF.

- OK, and on to the real pivotal point of this episode...Sawyer and Kate deliver Ben to Richard. Richard tells them: "He's not ever going to be the same. He'll forget that any of this ever happened. His innocence will be gone. He will ALWAYS be one of us."

Is Richard a member of NAMBLA? Cause that sounded pretty creepy. "His innocence will be gone"? GROSS.

Anyway...this is obviously the turning point in Ben's life. It explains so much about his relationship to the Island, to the Others, to Dharma, and also why he doesn't remember Sayid shooting him or his interactions with the other Losties.

And here is the irony I referred to earlier...this boy was NOT the "Ben" that they all knew and despised. He was just a sad, lonely little kid. Until Sayid showed up and shot him, and then Jack refused to help him, both because they didn't want him to grow up into the monster that they knew. Which he WOULDN'T have, were it not for their own self-serving actions. And THAT, Alannis....is IRONY.

I think it was Erika at LongLiveLocke that brought up something interesting...remember, Ben wasn't originally going to be such a major character. But Michael Emerson was so awesome that they expanded the part just for him. So while some find this "memory wipe" story cheap and a way for the writers to gloss over any paradoxes like Miles and Hurley were discussing, I think maybe it was necessary to tie up any loose ends that may have been caused in the over-arching "big story" by inserting Ben into it. Thoughts?

- OH, and how could I forget Richard's reaction to the names "Ellie" and "Charles?" So, obviously, Hawking and Widmore are still on the Island, and presumably in charge. But like I have mentioned earlier...I think Richard is always the one "in charge" even if he doesn't bear the actual title. Right now, he's allowing Charles and Ellie to run things, but like he says...he doesn't answer to them. Can't WAIT to get resolution on this.

- And we finally see Locke again, after what seems like months.

I don't watch previews, because they give too much away, but I can only assume that next week we will be dealing with Locke/Ben and maybe Sun/Frank as they begin the "long journey" that Christian said was ahead for them.

Still unanswered...what exactly is Daniel up to? What is the "war" that Widmore referred to? When do we get to see Hurley perform Johnny B. Good at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance?
WHERE THE $%&!%@ is VINCENT???

I feel like we are part of a big stone rolling downhill, picking up speed towards an inevitable collision. These last few episodes have been slower, with just enough reveals and awesomeness to keep the appetite whetted. I think that when it DOES all break loose, our minds are going to be blown.

Namaste.

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