Great vacation, the gulf was perfect. It will take me a couple of days to get back into the swing of things, but I promise to have my LOST recap up by the end of the week, as well as getting back to some Bulldawg blogging!
Can't believe there are only NINETY EIGHT days until kickoff!
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Wait, one more thing...
Here is Adam's post-show press conference from last night...everybody who keeps labeling him as "arrogant" really needs to watch this. This guy is a real class act, and I can not wait to see what he does when he gets a chance to really start creating new music.
To tide you over until my LOST recap..
Check out the one on TWoP here...Cindy McLennan has quickly become one of my favorite LOST recappers, and this recap is one of the best I've read of the finale.
Off to the beach, suckers!
Off to the beach, suckers!
Kris Allen's Greatest Hits
Congrats to Kris Allen...I'm extremely happy for him, and for Adam as well, because they are both going to be big stars and I'm very excited to see what kind of albums they put out.
I'll say this, though...the difference between where Kris and Adam are right now with regard to stage presence and "rock star"-ness was pretty apparent last night. When Kris was performing with Keith Urban, I remarked to my wife that you could tell which one of them was the "Star" and which one wasn't...Keith was performing like a star, while Kris was just standing there playing and singing, and generally acted like the backup singer the whole time. Then Adam came out and performed with the one of the most over-the-top, bigger than life Rock Icons of all time (KISS), and the whole time he was up there, he looked like the biggest star on that stage, and carried himself like it. Simon was right (as usual)...if the point of the competition is to find a world-wide superstar, then that was accomplished, no matter who actually won the show.
Thought it might be interesting to go back and see what I said about each of Kris's performances...the first one is the most ironic now, and just goes to show how little I really know.
Top 36:
6) Kris Allen - "Man in the Mirror": Never seen this person before in my life. Much like....umm...(Ricky? I think?)...last week, he has now passed through my subconcious, never to be remembered fully again.
I will say this, just as an aside...Michael Jackson is a better vocalist than he gets credit for, in my opinion. His songs are much more difficult to sing than you might think, to the point where I would almost put him in that "untouchable" category where you only sing one of his songs if you know you can NAIL it.
Kris sang it OK, and seems like a nice guy and all, but I don't see him gaining enough of an audience with that performance.
Top 13:
6) Kris Allen: "Remember the Time" - Let me say this first...those two are going to produce some gorgeous children.I'm not sure why he played his guitar on this one...we couldn't even hear it, and I don't think a guitar really fits on this song. It's like he really wanted to do this song, and he REALLY wanted to play his guitar, so he just stuck them together.
Couple of pitch problems on the bridge part, but overall a nice performance... one of those where he's probably not going to lose any of the people who voted for him before, but he probably didn't really make any new fans, either. I think he's going to stick around for a couple of weeks, but he has a definite "ceiling"...probably around top 10 or so.
Oh, and I think the RandyBot malfunctioned, based on his critique to Kris: "Very well job done, Baby." May need some re-wiring...I think a couple of the words got crossed up.
Top 11:
3) Kris Allen - "To Make You Feel My Love": My first thought was that it made no sense to me that he used the guitar LAST week, and then chose not to use it on this one...but I ended up loving the arrangement, so what do I know?
This was really a lovely vocal performance. The only problem I had with it had nothing to do with Kris...why do the sound people insist on putting the annoying re-verb on all of the ballads? The echo effect was distracting, and it sounds bush-league. But that's not his fault, and he did a great job. This was a perfect song choice for him, and he sang it well.
Top 10:
2) Kris Allen - "How Sweet it Is": Kris shows up ready to FIGHT! in his vintage army shirt and Daniel Faraday tie.
One thing that confuses me about Kris is his choices as to when to use his guitar. I would not have used the guitar on "Remember the Time," but he did. I thought last week (To Make You Feel My Love) was a great opportunity to use the guitar, but he didn't. This week, he used the guitar again, and once again it is completely overpowered by the rest of the band, so why bother?
As for his performance, it was another very good outing in a very consistent string for him. With this song, it is very easy to fall into an imitation of either Marvin Gaye or (more likely) James Taylor, but Kara was right (finally)...this rendition was very much Kris, and that is a good thing.
Top 9:
9) Kris Allen - "Ain't No Sunshine": OK, here is the problem with Kris, and I'm not exaggerating just to make a point (which I have been known to do, believe it or not): After Adam sang, I was looking at my notes, realized that there had only been 8 performers...and I could not for the life of me remember who was left. It's not his fault...he comes out every week, does a great job, makes good decisions with his song choices and arrangements, and I really enjoy his performance...and then 5 minutes later I completely forget that he exists.
Maybe this week will change that, because THIS was my favorite performance of the night. This is one of my all time favorite songs, so he already had that going for him...but then he sang it beautifully, I was pleasantly surprised at seeing and hearing him on the keyboard, and he did just enough with the arrangement that it didn't come off as an impression of the original. Great, great performance...hopefully I will remember it when it comes time for him to sing again next week.
Top 8:
2) Kris Allen: "All She Wants to Do is Dance" - Again with the guitar you can't hear? I don't get it.
I did not like this song choice, or the arrangement. I guess he felt he needed to go up-tempo? He sang it OK, except that there were several of the high notes in the chorus that he did not quite reach and stayed a little under the pitch.
Randy actually got one right here...the band was distracting. Bad song choice, arranged badly, performed OK. Kris may be in trouble.
Top 7:
6) Kris Allen: "Falling Slowly" - YES. I LOVE this song. I've been known to listen to it 4-5 times in a row. I know, very manly, right? Shut up, this song is beautiful, and I'm only crying cause I stubbed my toe on my weight bench on my way to drop an engine into my pickup truck so I can go shoot some animals and do a bunch of other manly stuff. Ahem.
I thought Kris sang this very well, though he continues to confound me with his choices as to when to play his guitar. Maybe he thought it was too much like the original if he played and sang?
Regardless, it was a nice performance, and the backup singer(s) had one of their few bright spots of the season. I totally disagreed with both Randy and Kara...Randy thought it was pitchy from the start, and Kara thought it was his best moment so far. My thoughts were somewhere in the middle, but I am predisposed to love the song so I may be biased. I will now listen to that song on a loop as I finish this recap.
Top 7 (part 2):
I called in sick this week, but this was the week he did the accoustic version of "She Works Hard For the Money," and I put him in the "Great" category (along with Adam) in my "mini-recap." I think this was the week that I really became EXCITED to see what he was going to do every week.
Top 5:
1) Kris Allen - "The Way You Look Tonight": First, let me say this...Kris was looking very sharp tonight. I'm secure enough in my heterosexuality to point that out (obviously...I blog about AMERICAN IDOL, for Pete's sake).
I love this song, and I thought Kris did a very good job with it...I loved the first part, when he was sending out the crooner vibe. The middle was just OK for me, dawg...I don't like his falsetto voice, and this little R&B part just seemed unnecessary to me. I get what he was doing by trying to change up the original a little, I just didn't really like it all that much. I also think he should not have ended with the falsetto...his falsetto voice is just not strong enough to pull that off.
Despite what this is starting to sound like, I actually did enjoy this...probably in a 2-way tie for my second favorite of the night. I just would have enjoyed it more if he had sang it straight, but that's probably going to be the way I feel about everybody since I love this style of music and think these songs are some of the most beautiful ever written.
Top 4:
3) Kris Allen/Danny Gokey - "Renegade": And here we go with the pointless duets. Seriously, what is the point in this? I can see doing this on the finale, but we're not supposed to be voting on who can handle a duet best, are we?
Anyway...in the spirit of fairness, I actually watched Adam and Allison's duet first. So this one had a lot to live up to. And...they didn't. Their harmonies start out OK, and they end OK, but the middle was a hot mess. Kris was cracking all over the place, and they are both trying to do too much riffing, which causes the harmonies to get screwed up. Also, they look VERY uncomfortable...again, in fairness, you can maybe chalk that up to them not having a dress rehearsal due to the stage malfunction, but that didn't seem to affect Adam and Allison.
After the performance and the judges' commentary, Kris looked TICKED, didn't he? He was kind of having a bad night...first, he has to perform with Gokey, then he doesn't get to rehearse, then they schedule him to sing his solo RIGHT after this (which is really unfair), then Simon throws him under the Danny Bus.
And what exactly was Danny complaining about after the performance? Dude, shut up. EVERYBODY is dealing with the same crap tonight. Stop making everything about you, as usual. This is when the anti-Danny anger really started boiling over, in case you're wondering.
4) Kris Allen - "Come Together": You know, if we had not already heard Adam and Allison, I probably would have liked this more. I REALLY liked the arrangement, which considering that I am a Beatles fanatic is saying something. I actually think it would have sounded better as an acoustic version, but he probably couldn't get away with going unplugged on Rock Week. Again, I think he took a good song and tweaked it just enough that it was a "Kris Allen" performance rather than a copy. I liked it. He still looks like a chimp, though.
Top 3:
2) Kris Allen - "Apologize": First of all, I did not like this song choice for him at all. His falsetto is the weakest part of his voice, in my opinion, and the chorus of this song is almost all falsetto. He sounds pretty good, anyway, especially when he does the last chorus and comes out of his falsetto a little. More than anything, Kris always sounds current, and this was really no exception. He also seems genuine, which is more than I can say for OTHER contestants. Well, actually ONE other contestant.
I really had high hopes for Kara after the early part of the season, but she is dead to me at this point. I can see her point to Simon, that they expected him to change the song up a little, but then why pick the song and then blast him for just singing it? Why not pick a song that ALREADY sounds like what you want him to do? That's like asking him to cook you a steak, but instead of handing him a NY strip, you bring him a cow. Yeah, he could turn that into a steak, but why make him do all the work? I thought the point of the judges choice was to pick a song that the judges think fits the contestant as an artist. So if you don't WANT him to sound like One Republic, why hand him a One Republic song? Ugh.
5) Kris Allen - "Heartless": FINALLY, a performance that I really enjoyed. Totally re-imagined the song, but in a simple and scaled back way...very Kris Allen of him. Although I think Adam may be the greatest overall performer this show has ever seen, it's going to be Kris's album that I am most likely to buy, just because he sings my kind of music. This was by far the best of the night, in my opinion. I would buy this TODAY.
One more thing about Kara, then I'll shut up about her....she actually asked him why he didn't do that with "Apologize." Well, moron, it's because he was already planning on doing this arrangement and didn't want to do the same thing twice in one show, and plus he was under the mistaken impression that you asked him to sing "Apologize" because you thought he would sound good singing it. Idiot.
Top 2:
2) Kris Allen - "Ain't No Sunshine": Another great choice, as this was also my favorite of his from this past season. This is what I'm talking about when I say that although Adam is maybe the most talented contestant this show has ever seen, and he probably deserves to win, the first album I will probably buy from this season's cast is Kris's. Love the arrangement, love his treatment of the song. This is one of my top 2-3 favorite performances of the whole season.
4) Kris Allen - "What's Goin' On": I didn't think this was a great song choice for him by Simon Fuller, but I liked what he did with it. He pulled out the congo and accoustic arrangement that he used previously on "She Works Hard For The Money," and I thought it worked here, as well. Vocally, he's not in Adam's ballpark, but I really enjoy how he arranges songs and manages to twist something that we have heard a gazillion times, like this one, and turn it into something "relevant," as Simon would say.
6) Kris Allen - "No Boundaries": Yeah, this wasn't very good, but I'm not putting the blame for that at his feet. This song does not fit his style AT ALL, and it's too high for him, as well. I think it was probably written with their Golden Two (Lambert and Gokey) in mind. The less said about this, the better.
And of course, I'm going to redeem myself a LITTLE bit...this from the recap of the last performance show:
I would honestly be happy with either of these two as the winner. Like I said, Adam probably deserves based on the fact that he has turned in consistent jaw-dropping performances, and has done things on this show that we've never seen before. But part of me actually wants Kris to win, just because I think he needs it more...Adam is going to be fine at this point, from a career perspective, no matter what, but Kris may need that extra push that being the American Idol WINNER brings.
Tonight should be fun, and VERY interesting. I think most of Danny's votes probably went to Kris, for reasons that I have NO interest in discussing. With that in mind, for the last time this season...
Who SHOULD win: Adam
Who WILL win: Kris
And that's OK with me.
I'll say this, though...the difference between where Kris and Adam are right now with regard to stage presence and "rock star"-ness was pretty apparent last night. When Kris was performing with Keith Urban, I remarked to my wife that you could tell which one of them was the "Star" and which one wasn't...Keith was performing like a star, while Kris was just standing there playing and singing, and generally acted like the backup singer the whole time. Then Adam came out and performed with the one of the most over-the-top, bigger than life Rock Icons of all time (KISS), and the whole time he was up there, he looked like the biggest star on that stage, and carried himself like it. Simon was right (as usual)...if the point of the competition is to find a world-wide superstar, then that was accomplished, no matter who actually won the show.
Thought it might be interesting to go back and see what I said about each of Kris's performances...the first one is the most ironic now, and just goes to show how little I really know.
Top 36:
6) Kris Allen - "Man in the Mirror": Never seen this person before in my life. Much like....umm...(Ricky? I think?)...last week, he has now passed through my subconcious, never to be remembered fully again.
I will say this, just as an aside...Michael Jackson is a better vocalist than he gets credit for, in my opinion. His songs are much more difficult to sing than you might think, to the point where I would almost put him in that "untouchable" category where you only sing one of his songs if you know you can NAIL it.
Kris sang it OK, and seems like a nice guy and all, but I don't see him gaining enough of an audience with that performance.
Top 13:
6) Kris Allen: "Remember the Time" - Let me say this first...those two are going to produce some gorgeous children.I'm not sure why he played his guitar on this one...we couldn't even hear it, and I don't think a guitar really fits on this song. It's like he really wanted to do this song, and he REALLY wanted to play his guitar, so he just stuck them together.
Couple of pitch problems on the bridge part, but overall a nice performance... one of those where he's probably not going to lose any of the people who voted for him before, but he probably didn't really make any new fans, either. I think he's going to stick around for a couple of weeks, but he has a definite "ceiling"...probably around top 10 or so.
Oh, and I think the RandyBot malfunctioned, based on his critique to Kris: "Very well job done, Baby." May need some re-wiring...I think a couple of the words got crossed up.
Top 11:
3) Kris Allen - "To Make You Feel My Love": My first thought was that it made no sense to me that he used the guitar LAST week, and then chose not to use it on this one...but I ended up loving the arrangement, so what do I know?
This was really a lovely vocal performance. The only problem I had with it had nothing to do with Kris...why do the sound people insist on putting the annoying re-verb on all of the ballads? The echo effect was distracting, and it sounds bush-league. But that's not his fault, and he did a great job. This was a perfect song choice for him, and he sang it well.
Top 10:
2) Kris Allen - "How Sweet it Is": Kris shows up ready to FIGHT! in his vintage army shirt and Daniel Faraday tie.
One thing that confuses me about Kris is his choices as to when to use his guitar. I would not have used the guitar on "Remember the Time," but he did. I thought last week (To Make You Feel My Love) was a great opportunity to use the guitar, but he didn't. This week, he used the guitar again, and once again it is completely overpowered by the rest of the band, so why bother?
As for his performance, it was another very good outing in a very consistent string for him. With this song, it is very easy to fall into an imitation of either Marvin Gaye or (more likely) James Taylor, but Kara was right (finally)...this rendition was very much Kris, and that is a good thing.
Top 9:
9) Kris Allen - "Ain't No Sunshine": OK, here is the problem with Kris, and I'm not exaggerating just to make a point (which I have been known to do, believe it or not): After Adam sang, I was looking at my notes, realized that there had only been 8 performers...and I could not for the life of me remember who was left. It's not his fault...he comes out every week, does a great job, makes good decisions with his song choices and arrangements, and I really enjoy his performance...and then 5 minutes later I completely forget that he exists.
Maybe this week will change that, because THIS was my favorite performance of the night. This is one of my all time favorite songs, so he already had that going for him...but then he sang it beautifully, I was pleasantly surprised at seeing and hearing him on the keyboard, and he did just enough with the arrangement that it didn't come off as an impression of the original. Great, great performance...hopefully I will remember it when it comes time for him to sing again next week.
Top 8:
2) Kris Allen: "All She Wants to Do is Dance" - Again with the guitar you can't hear? I don't get it.
I did not like this song choice, or the arrangement. I guess he felt he needed to go up-tempo? He sang it OK, except that there were several of the high notes in the chorus that he did not quite reach and stayed a little under the pitch.
Randy actually got one right here...the band was distracting. Bad song choice, arranged badly, performed OK. Kris may be in trouble.
Top 7:
6) Kris Allen: "Falling Slowly" - YES. I LOVE this song. I've been known to listen to it 4-5 times in a row. I know, very manly, right? Shut up, this song is beautiful, and I'm only crying cause I stubbed my toe on my weight bench on my way to drop an engine into my pickup truck so I can go shoot some animals and do a bunch of other manly stuff. Ahem.
I thought Kris sang this very well, though he continues to confound me with his choices as to when to play his guitar. Maybe he thought it was too much like the original if he played and sang?
Regardless, it was a nice performance, and the backup singer(s) had one of their few bright spots of the season. I totally disagreed with both Randy and Kara...Randy thought it was pitchy from the start, and Kara thought it was his best moment so far. My thoughts were somewhere in the middle, but I am predisposed to love the song so I may be biased. I will now listen to that song on a loop as I finish this recap.
Top 7 (part 2):
I called in sick this week, but this was the week he did the accoustic version of "She Works Hard For the Money," and I put him in the "Great" category (along with Adam) in my "mini-recap." I think this was the week that I really became EXCITED to see what he was going to do every week.
Top 5:
1) Kris Allen - "The Way You Look Tonight": First, let me say this...Kris was looking very sharp tonight. I'm secure enough in my heterosexuality to point that out (obviously...I blog about AMERICAN IDOL, for Pete's sake).
I love this song, and I thought Kris did a very good job with it...I loved the first part, when he was sending out the crooner vibe. The middle was just OK for me, dawg...I don't like his falsetto voice, and this little R&B part just seemed unnecessary to me. I get what he was doing by trying to change up the original a little, I just didn't really like it all that much. I also think he should not have ended with the falsetto...his falsetto voice is just not strong enough to pull that off.
Despite what this is starting to sound like, I actually did enjoy this...probably in a 2-way tie for my second favorite of the night. I just would have enjoyed it more if he had sang it straight, but that's probably going to be the way I feel about everybody since I love this style of music and think these songs are some of the most beautiful ever written.
Top 4:
3) Kris Allen/Danny Gokey - "Renegade": And here we go with the pointless duets. Seriously, what is the point in this? I can see doing this on the finale, but we're not supposed to be voting on who can handle a duet best, are we?
Anyway...in the spirit of fairness, I actually watched Adam and Allison's duet first. So this one had a lot to live up to. And...they didn't. Their harmonies start out OK, and they end OK, but the middle was a hot mess. Kris was cracking all over the place, and they are both trying to do too much riffing, which causes the harmonies to get screwed up. Also, they look VERY uncomfortable...again, in fairness, you can maybe chalk that up to them not having a dress rehearsal due to the stage malfunction, but that didn't seem to affect Adam and Allison.
After the performance and the judges' commentary, Kris looked TICKED, didn't he? He was kind of having a bad night...first, he has to perform with Gokey, then he doesn't get to rehearse, then they schedule him to sing his solo RIGHT after this (which is really unfair), then Simon throws him under the Danny Bus.
And what exactly was Danny complaining about after the performance? Dude, shut up. EVERYBODY is dealing with the same crap tonight. Stop making everything about you, as usual. This is when the anti-Danny anger really started boiling over, in case you're wondering.
4) Kris Allen - "Come Together": You know, if we had not already heard Adam and Allison, I probably would have liked this more. I REALLY liked the arrangement, which considering that I am a Beatles fanatic is saying something. I actually think it would have sounded better as an acoustic version, but he probably couldn't get away with going unplugged on Rock Week. Again, I think he took a good song and tweaked it just enough that it was a "Kris Allen" performance rather than a copy. I liked it. He still looks like a chimp, though.
Top 3:
2) Kris Allen - "Apologize": First of all, I did not like this song choice for him at all. His falsetto is the weakest part of his voice, in my opinion, and the chorus of this song is almost all falsetto. He sounds pretty good, anyway, especially when he does the last chorus and comes out of his falsetto a little. More than anything, Kris always sounds current, and this was really no exception. He also seems genuine, which is more than I can say for OTHER contestants. Well, actually ONE other contestant.
I really had high hopes for Kara after the early part of the season, but she is dead to me at this point. I can see her point to Simon, that they expected him to change the song up a little, but then why pick the song and then blast him for just singing it? Why not pick a song that ALREADY sounds like what you want him to do? That's like asking him to cook you a steak, but instead of handing him a NY strip, you bring him a cow. Yeah, he could turn that into a steak, but why make him do all the work? I thought the point of the judges choice was to pick a song that the judges think fits the contestant as an artist. So if you don't WANT him to sound like One Republic, why hand him a One Republic song? Ugh.
5) Kris Allen - "Heartless": FINALLY, a performance that I really enjoyed. Totally re-imagined the song, but in a simple and scaled back way...very Kris Allen of him. Although I think Adam may be the greatest overall performer this show has ever seen, it's going to be Kris's album that I am most likely to buy, just because he sings my kind of music. This was by far the best of the night, in my opinion. I would buy this TODAY.
One more thing about Kara, then I'll shut up about her....she actually asked him why he didn't do that with "Apologize." Well, moron, it's because he was already planning on doing this arrangement and didn't want to do the same thing twice in one show, and plus he was under the mistaken impression that you asked him to sing "Apologize" because you thought he would sound good singing it. Idiot.
Top 2:
2) Kris Allen - "Ain't No Sunshine": Another great choice, as this was also my favorite of his from this past season. This is what I'm talking about when I say that although Adam is maybe the most talented contestant this show has ever seen, and he probably deserves to win, the first album I will probably buy from this season's cast is Kris's. Love the arrangement, love his treatment of the song. This is one of my top 2-3 favorite performances of the whole season.
4) Kris Allen - "What's Goin' On": I didn't think this was a great song choice for him by Simon Fuller, but I liked what he did with it. He pulled out the congo and accoustic arrangement that he used previously on "She Works Hard For The Money," and I thought it worked here, as well. Vocally, he's not in Adam's ballpark, but I really enjoy how he arranges songs and manages to twist something that we have heard a gazillion times, like this one, and turn it into something "relevant," as Simon would say.
6) Kris Allen - "No Boundaries": Yeah, this wasn't very good, but I'm not putting the blame for that at his feet. This song does not fit his style AT ALL, and it's too high for him, as well. I think it was probably written with their Golden Two (Lambert and Gokey) in mind. The less said about this, the better.
And of course, I'm going to redeem myself a LITTLE bit...this from the recap of the last performance show:
I would honestly be happy with either of these two as the winner. Like I said, Adam probably deserves based on the fact that he has turned in consistent jaw-dropping performances, and has done things on this show that we've never seen before. But part of me actually wants Kris to win, just because I think he needs it more...Adam is going to be fine at this point, from a career perspective, no matter what, but Kris may need that extra push that being the American Idol WINNER brings.
Tonight should be fun, and VERY interesting. I think most of Danny's votes probably went to Kris, for reasons that I have NO interest in discussing. With that in mind, for the last time this season...
Who SHOULD win: Adam
Who WILL win: Kris
And that's OK with me.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Idol thoughts - top 2
As I believe I've mentioned, my schedule is pretty tight this week, so this will probably be pretty short and sweet. After all, I don't have Gokey to kick around anymore, so there should be fewer tangents/rants.
On with the show!
1) Adam Lambert - "Mad World": Great choice, as this was an absolutely breathtaking performance the first time around (and I think this was the one that Simon awarded with a standing ovation). I also like the choice because there is not nearly as much of the so-called "screaming" that his detractors talk about (although that's not screaming...that is a very powerful, very controlled falsetto voice). He looks fantastic, the set looks great, and I think the vocal was actually BETTER this time than last time. He also hit the lower note on the end, which you may recall me saying that I wish he had done the first time around. Just a gorgeous, flawless performance.
2) Kris Allen - "Ain't No Sunshine": Another great choice, as this was also my favorite of his from this past season. This is what I'm talking about when I say that although Adam is maybe the most talented contestant this show has ever seen, and he probably deserves to win, the first album I will probably buy from this season's cast is Kris's. Love the arrangement, love his treatment of the song. This is one of my top 2-3 favorite performances of the whole season.
3) Adam Lambert - "Change is Gonna Come": You know, I don't know how much more we can say at this point...this was another great vocal, as well as another great PERFORMANCE. He connects with his songs so well, probably due to his musical theater background, and I thought he did a great job with the emotional aspects of this song, which I'm sure has a good deal of meaning for him considering his background. And the suit rocked.
4) Kris Allen - "What's Goin' On": I didn't think this was a great song choice for him by Simon Fuller, but I liked what he did with it. He pulled out the congo and accoustic arrangement that he used previously on "She Works Hard For The Money," and I thought it worked here, as well. Vocally, he's not in Adam's ballpark, but I really enjoy how he arranges songs and manages to twist something that we have heard a gazillion times, like this one, and turn it into something "relevant," as Simon would say.
I know I'm breezing through these, but sorry....when the performances are this good, it doesn't give me anything to be snarky about. So far, this has been a concert I would pay good money to see.
5) Adam Lambert - "No Boundaries": Kara manages to follow the great Idol tradition of crappy coronation songs. Man, have any of these been good since Fantasia's? This isn't as bad as "This is My Now," but it's still pretty bad.
As for the performance, it was fine...the usual Adam vocal gymnastics, and it sounds good, but I have no interest in hearing this song again, which is not good considering we'll probably hear it about 70 billion times over the next 6 months.
6) Kris Allen - "No Boundaries": Yeah, this wasn't very good, but I'm not putting the blame for that at his feet. This song does not fit his style AT ALL, and it's too high for him, as well. I think it was probably written with their Golden Two (Lambert and Gokey) in mind. The less said about this, the better.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
- Well, at least the production staff is consistent...still can't bring a show in on time, even in the finale. I don't want to hear about the four-judge thing, because a professional production staff should have found SOME way to adjust for that by now. I mean, didn't ALL of us know that there would be four judges, like, three months before the season started? How did the production staff not get the memo?
- This was a very enjoyable show...two great performers, and both of them sounded great, with none of the "voice issues" that have plagued finales in years past.
I would honestly be happy with either of these two as the winner. Like I said, Adam probably deserves based on the fact that he has turned in consistent jaw-dropping performances, and has done things on this show that we've never seen before. But part of me actually wants Kris to win, just because I think he needs it more...Adam is going to be fine at this point, from a career perspective, no matter what, but Kris may need that extra push that being the American Idol WINNER brings.
- Loved seeing my girl Carrie again...and seeing that montage made it even more amazing that we ended up with such a quality top 2. Remember Normund? Freaking TATIANA? BIKINI GIRL?!?!?!?!
Tonight should be fun, and VERY interesting. I think most of Danny's votes probably went to Kris, for reasons that I have NO interest in discussing. With that in mind, for the last time this season...
Who SHOULD win: Adam
Who WILL win: Kris
And that's OK with me.
This may be the last you hear from me until after vacation...tune in then for all of my LOST thoughts, a review of GLEE (Short review...loved it, and it took me down memory lane in a big way), plus the countdown to kickoff begins...by the time I get back, we will be down to under 100 days!
On with the show!
1) Adam Lambert - "Mad World": Great choice, as this was an absolutely breathtaking performance the first time around (and I think this was the one that Simon awarded with a standing ovation). I also like the choice because there is not nearly as much of the so-called "screaming" that his detractors talk about (although that's not screaming...that is a very powerful, very controlled falsetto voice). He looks fantastic, the set looks great, and I think the vocal was actually BETTER this time than last time. He also hit the lower note on the end, which you may recall me saying that I wish he had done the first time around. Just a gorgeous, flawless performance.
2) Kris Allen - "Ain't No Sunshine": Another great choice, as this was also my favorite of his from this past season. This is what I'm talking about when I say that although Adam is maybe the most talented contestant this show has ever seen, and he probably deserves to win, the first album I will probably buy from this season's cast is Kris's. Love the arrangement, love his treatment of the song. This is one of my top 2-3 favorite performances of the whole season.
3) Adam Lambert - "Change is Gonna Come": You know, I don't know how much more we can say at this point...this was another great vocal, as well as another great PERFORMANCE. He connects with his songs so well, probably due to his musical theater background, and I thought he did a great job with the emotional aspects of this song, which I'm sure has a good deal of meaning for him considering his background. And the suit rocked.
4) Kris Allen - "What's Goin' On": I didn't think this was a great song choice for him by Simon Fuller, but I liked what he did with it. He pulled out the congo and accoustic arrangement that he used previously on "She Works Hard For The Money," and I thought it worked here, as well. Vocally, he's not in Adam's ballpark, but I really enjoy how he arranges songs and manages to twist something that we have heard a gazillion times, like this one, and turn it into something "relevant," as Simon would say.
I know I'm breezing through these, but sorry....when the performances are this good, it doesn't give me anything to be snarky about. So far, this has been a concert I would pay good money to see.
5) Adam Lambert - "No Boundaries": Kara manages to follow the great Idol tradition of crappy coronation songs. Man, have any of these been good since Fantasia's? This isn't as bad as "This is My Now," but it's still pretty bad.
As for the performance, it was fine...the usual Adam vocal gymnastics, and it sounds good, but I have no interest in hearing this song again, which is not good considering we'll probably hear it about 70 billion times over the next 6 months.
6) Kris Allen - "No Boundaries": Yeah, this wasn't very good, but I'm not putting the blame for that at his feet. This song does not fit his style AT ALL, and it's too high for him, as well. I think it was probably written with their Golden Two (Lambert and Gokey) in mind. The less said about this, the better.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
- Well, at least the production staff is consistent...still can't bring a show in on time, even in the finale. I don't want to hear about the four-judge thing, because a professional production staff should have found SOME way to adjust for that by now. I mean, didn't ALL of us know that there would be four judges, like, three months before the season started? How did the production staff not get the memo?
- This was a very enjoyable show...two great performers, and both of them sounded great, with none of the "voice issues" that have plagued finales in years past.
I would honestly be happy with either of these two as the winner. Like I said, Adam probably deserves based on the fact that he has turned in consistent jaw-dropping performances, and has done things on this show that we've never seen before. But part of me actually wants Kris to win, just because I think he needs it more...Adam is going to be fine at this point, from a career perspective, no matter what, but Kris may need that extra push that being the American Idol WINNER brings.
- Loved seeing my girl Carrie again...and seeing that montage made it even more amazing that we ended up with such a quality top 2. Remember Normund? Freaking TATIANA? BIKINI GIRL?!?!?!?!
Tonight should be fun, and VERY interesting. I think most of Danny's votes probably went to Kris, for reasons that I have NO interest in discussing. With that in mind, for the last time this season...
Who SHOULD win: Adam
Who WILL win: Kris
And that's OK with me.
This may be the last you hear from me until after vacation...tune in then for all of my LOST thoughts, a review of GLEE (Short review...loved it, and it took me down memory lane in a big way), plus the countdown to kickoff begins...by the time I get back, we will be down to under 100 days!
Monday, May 18, 2009
LOST recap coming...sometime this summer!
Just kidding (kind of)...we are leaving for the beach on Friday, which means much of this week will be spent preparing for the trip (both at home and at work). I fully expect this recap to take several hours to put together (my brain is still broken), so if I don't get to it this week, it will have to wait until after we get back, unless we are forced inside by weather all week.
Sorry about that...I'll do my best to make sure the recap is worth the wait!
Sorry about that...I'll do my best to make sure the recap is worth the wait!
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Super-quick Idol and LOST thoughts
First, Idol...I am, of course, very happy about the results, and I think the finale could be VERY interesting. According to all reports, the voting last night was extremely close between all threee contestants. Who do you think is going to get the majority of Danny's votes? Yeah, this could really be a SHOCKING finale. I don't know that it will be a "Big Ding-Dong," but it may be shocking anyway.
As for LOST, my initial reaction is mixed. There was LOTS of really, really awesome stuff, but there was also some disappointments (namely both Jack and Juliet's motivation being KATE) and a lot more unanswered questions. That's one of the reasons I am a little disappointed...I feel like I have more questions now than I did this time yesterday, and that is definitely not what I was expecting.
Of course, the most important question was answered...Vincent is fine. That was maybe my favorite part of the whole episode, the revelation that Bernard, Rose, and Vincent are "retired."
I don't know when I'll have my full recap up, honestly...this one is going to take a while, because right now I feel like my brain is cole slaw.
Namaste.
As for LOST, my initial reaction is mixed. There was LOTS of really, really awesome stuff, but there was also some disappointments (namely both Jack and Juliet's motivation being KATE) and a lot more unanswered questions. That's one of the reasons I am a little disappointed...I feel like I have more questions now than I did this time yesterday, and that is definitely not what I was expecting.
Of course, the most important question was answered...Vincent is fine. That was maybe my favorite part of the whole episode, the revelation that Bernard, Rose, and Vincent are "retired."
I don't know when I'll have my full recap up, honestly...this one is going to take a while, because right now I feel like my brain is cole slaw.
Namaste.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Urban Meyer IS WHO WE THOUGHT HE WAS!!
Further proof that we are 100% correct in despising Urban Meyer.
No one is allowed to question him, even under the pretense of doing THEIR JOB, apparently.
"Either you're a Gator or you're not," he says. I wonder if he feels that way about the Utes. Or whatever Bowling Green's mascot is.
Shane Matthews is more of a Gator than Urban Crier will EVER be. He sweat and bled for that team, as the former Miami player said in the article. Urban has been there for, what, four years? And that makes him some sort of authority on who's a "Gator" and who's not?
No one is allowed to question him, even under the pretense of doing THEIR JOB, apparently.
"Either you're a Gator or you're not," he says. I wonder if he feels that way about the Utes. Or whatever Bowling Green's mascot is.
Shane Matthews is more of a Gator than Urban Crier will EVER be. He sweat and bled for that team, as the former Miami player said in the article. Urban has been there for, what, four years? And that makes him some sort of authority on who's a "Gator" and who's not?
Quality parenting
As we prepare for the (::muffled sobs::) season finale of LOST tonight, I wanted to pass along one of my proudest moments as a parent....
I was watching LOST with my youngest daughter, Kaitlin, this past week and when Jack, Eloise, Richard and Sayid arrived at the Tunnel, Eloise said, "All right...let's get started."
Kaitlin immediately said, "That's the same thing she said to them when they were at that church....you know, The Lamp Post."
Sniff. I'm so proud.
I was watching LOST with my youngest daughter, Kaitlin, this past week and when Jack, Eloise, Richard and Sayid arrived at the Tunnel, Eloise said, "All right...let's get started."
Kaitlin immediately said, "That's the same thing she said to them when they were at that church....you know, The Lamp Post."
Sniff. I'm so proud.
Idol thoughts - top 3
OK, I was in a FOUL mood from the start this week...I miss Allison, and my extreme dislike for everything about Danny Gokey is really getting out of control. Plus, I'm irritated because in years past the top 3 have all performed three songs, but this year we only get two (just like in previous weeks when everybody sang one instead of two like in years past), because everybody involved with this show is stupid and can't do their job, so although it seems like this season has been going on for like 16 years we will have actually heard much less actual singing from these performers than we ever have in the past. Yeah, Randy, tell me again about how this is a SINGING COMPETITION.
Oh, and even though we are cutting 3 songs from the normal Top 3 Night, I guarantee you they still won't end on time. Imbeciles.
Whatever...on with it.
1) Danny Gokey - "Dance Little Sister": Yeah, this ought to help my mood. Freaking Danny Gokey dancing around like a tool, doing the white man overbite, forgetting the words at least twice (I think...I'm not familiar with the song, but it sounded like he was singing something different from the background singers), doing some stupid and annoying skatting with the saxophone player, and sounding better than he has any right to.
So he sang the song well, whatever...as soon as he starts talking, I'm reminded immediately of everything I don't like about him. Smug. Smarmy. That stupid fake laugh. Ugh.
And Paula, stop reminding people that you used to be a choreographer...we're watching you "dance" at your chair every week, and you appear to have gone through a rhythm-ectomy. It's just sad to be reminded that you used to be the "It" choreographer back in the 80's.
2) Kris Allen - "Apologize": First of all, I did not like this song choice for him at all. His falsetto is the weakest part of his voice, in my opinion, and the chorus of this song is almost all falsetto. He sounds pretty good, anyway, especially when he does the last chorus and comes out of his falsetto a little. More than anything, Kris always sounds current, and this was really no exception. He also seems genuine, which is more than I can say for OTHER contestants. Well, actually ONE other contestant.
I really had high hopes for Kara after the early part of the season, but she is dead to me at this point. I can see her point to Simon, that they expected him to change the song up a little, but then why pick the song and then blast him for just singing it? Why not pick a song that ALREADY sounds like what you want him to do? That's like asking him to cook you a steak, but instead of handing him a NY strip, you bring him a cow. Yeah, he could turn that into a steak, but why make him do all the work? I thought the point of the judges choice was to pick a song that the judges think fits the contestant as an artist. So if you don't WANT him to sound like One Republic, why hand him a One Republic song? Ugh.
3) Adam Lambert - "One": Now this SHOULD be exactly what I need to break me out of this funk. One of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands, sung by a guy who has consistently had amazing performances. But....this was awful. This was like everything that is NOT awesome about Adam, all balled up into a two-minute ball of suckiness. Too overdramatic, and way way WAY too many liberties taken with what is actually a gorgeous melody.
This was like the Kris Allen thing turned inside out...Simon actually handed Adam a NY strip, but then Adam cut it up into meatloaf.
This recap is making me hungry.
4) Danny Gokey - "You Are So Beautiful": As much as I can't stand this guy, I'm not going to the "Dead Wife" place with this one. A lot of the Internet community blasts this guy every time he sings a ballad, saying that he is just using the memory of his dead wife to get votes...I think it's silly and unfair to think he can NEVER sing another love song again.
What I CAN blast him on is his pretentiousness. That whole conversation with Ryan before he sang was just nauseating. "I sat together with my mentors and we laid out all the songs and blah, blah, blah, I'm so awesome, blahzzy, blahzzy." You have mentors, PLURAL? I get the concept, but who TALKS like that? Plus, he always acts like he is giving us some sort of genius insight, a glimpse into the mind of the fantastical Danny, and he won't SHUT UP. I think Ryan may actually punch him before I have a chance to.
The singing was good, although not the "Master Class" that Simon said it was, and I actually thought the arrangement was somehow boring and over the top at the same time.
5) Kris Allen - "Heartless": FINALLY, a performance that I really enjoyed. Totally re-imagined the song, but in a simple and scaled back way...very Kris Allen of him. Although I think Adam may be the greatest overall performer this show has ever seen, it's going to be Kris's album that I am most likely to buy, just because he sings my kind of music. This was by far the best of the night, in my opinion. I would buy this TODAY.
One more thing about Kara, then I'll shut up about her....she actually asked him why he didn't do that with "Apologize." Well, moron, it's because he was already planning on doing this arrangement and didn't want to do the same thing twice in one show, and plus he was under the mistaken impression that you asked him to sing "Apologize" because you thought he would sound good singing it. Idiot.
6) Adam Lambert - "Cryin": And Adam FINALLY does some Aerosmith, which we've been waiting for all season. Some EARLY Aerosmith, right, KARA? (sorry...NOW I'm shutting up about her). And while this is good, it really wasn't as good as I was expecting and hoping for. In fact, I thought it actually paled in comparison to Steven Tyler's original vocal, and I NEVER thought I would say that about an Adam Lambert performance. He ALWAYS takes liberties with the melodies, and normally I love it, but I guess tonight I just wasn't a big fan of the choices he made vocally.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
- They still went over by several minutes, even cutting three songs and scheduling the show to run until four past the hour. Unbelievable.
- There is no WAY they bring back four judges next year. This has been a disaster. I know most of my anger tonight was at Kara, but in all honesty I don't care which one of them goes as long as it's not Simon. It was pretty funny tonight that they had Randy and Kara pick Kris's song together, since there's really no difference between them anymore, other than the fact that Kara will still stand up to Simon (which is the only reason I would want her to stick around).
- The backup singers were WAY too loud tonight, especially on Adam's "Cryin'." Apparently the sound guys are just as incompetent as the Director.
- Has Simon ever openly begged us to vote for somebody before? I can't remember ever seeing that.
How I ranked the performances:
Kris, "Heartless"
Kris, "Apologize"
Danny, "You Are So Beautiful"
Adam, "Cryin"
Danny, "Dance Little Sister"
Adam, "One"
Who SHOULD go home: Danny (again, this is based on the whole season, not just this one night)
Who WILL go home: Danny
I know, I'm probably wrong, considering that Adam vs. Danny has been a foregone conclusion for a while now. I just think America might pleasantly surprise me this week. I checked DialIdol this morning, and the three are unbelievably close, with Danny on the bottom. Since DialIdol doesn't factor in text votes, I think that doesn't bode well for Danny since I think his demographic is less likely to power-text. We'll see.
Oh, and even though we are cutting 3 songs from the normal Top 3 Night, I guarantee you they still won't end on time. Imbeciles.
Whatever...on with it.
1) Danny Gokey - "Dance Little Sister": Yeah, this ought to help my mood. Freaking Danny Gokey dancing around like a tool, doing the white man overbite, forgetting the words at least twice (I think...I'm not familiar with the song, but it sounded like he was singing something different from the background singers), doing some stupid and annoying skatting with the saxophone player, and sounding better than he has any right to.
So he sang the song well, whatever...as soon as he starts talking, I'm reminded immediately of everything I don't like about him. Smug. Smarmy. That stupid fake laugh. Ugh.
And Paula, stop reminding people that you used to be a choreographer...we're watching you "dance" at your chair every week, and you appear to have gone through a rhythm-ectomy. It's just sad to be reminded that you used to be the "It" choreographer back in the 80's.
2) Kris Allen - "Apologize": First of all, I did not like this song choice for him at all. His falsetto is the weakest part of his voice, in my opinion, and the chorus of this song is almost all falsetto. He sounds pretty good, anyway, especially when he does the last chorus and comes out of his falsetto a little. More than anything, Kris always sounds current, and this was really no exception. He also seems genuine, which is more than I can say for OTHER contestants. Well, actually ONE other contestant.
I really had high hopes for Kara after the early part of the season, but she is dead to me at this point. I can see her point to Simon, that they expected him to change the song up a little, but then why pick the song and then blast him for just singing it? Why not pick a song that ALREADY sounds like what you want him to do? That's like asking him to cook you a steak, but instead of handing him a NY strip, you bring him a cow. Yeah, he could turn that into a steak, but why make him do all the work? I thought the point of the judges choice was to pick a song that the judges think fits the contestant as an artist. So if you don't WANT him to sound like One Republic, why hand him a One Republic song? Ugh.
3) Adam Lambert - "One": Now this SHOULD be exactly what I need to break me out of this funk. One of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands, sung by a guy who has consistently had amazing performances. But....this was awful. This was like everything that is NOT awesome about Adam, all balled up into a two-minute ball of suckiness. Too overdramatic, and way way WAY too many liberties taken with what is actually a gorgeous melody.
This was like the Kris Allen thing turned inside out...Simon actually handed Adam a NY strip, but then Adam cut it up into meatloaf.
This recap is making me hungry.
4) Danny Gokey - "You Are So Beautiful": As much as I can't stand this guy, I'm not going to the "Dead Wife" place with this one. A lot of the Internet community blasts this guy every time he sings a ballad, saying that he is just using the memory of his dead wife to get votes...I think it's silly and unfair to think he can NEVER sing another love song again.
What I CAN blast him on is his pretentiousness. That whole conversation with Ryan before he sang was just nauseating. "I sat together with my mentors and we laid out all the songs and blah, blah, blah, I'm so awesome, blahzzy, blahzzy." You have mentors, PLURAL? I get the concept, but who TALKS like that? Plus, he always acts like he is giving us some sort of genius insight, a glimpse into the mind of the fantastical Danny, and he won't SHUT UP. I think Ryan may actually punch him before I have a chance to.
The singing was good, although not the "Master Class" that Simon said it was, and I actually thought the arrangement was somehow boring and over the top at the same time.
5) Kris Allen - "Heartless": FINALLY, a performance that I really enjoyed. Totally re-imagined the song, but in a simple and scaled back way...very Kris Allen of him. Although I think Adam may be the greatest overall performer this show has ever seen, it's going to be Kris's album that I am most likely to buy, just because he sings my kind of music. This was by far the best of the night, in my opinion. I would buy this TODAY.
One more thing about Kara, then I'll shut up about her....she actually asked him why he didn't do that with "Apologize." Well, moron, it's because he was already planning on doing this arrangement and didn't want to do the same thing twice in one show, and plus he was under the mistaken impression that you asked him to sing "Apologize" because you thought he would sound good singing it. Idiot.
6) Adam Lambert - "Cryin": And Adam FINALLY does some Aerosmith, which we've been waiting for all season. Some EARLY Aerosmith, right, KARA? (sorry...NOW I'm shutting up about her). And while this is good, it really wasn't as good as I was expecting and hoping for. In fact, I thought it actually paled in comparison to Steven Tyler's original vocal, and I NEVER thought I would say that about an Adam Lambert performance. He ALWAYS takes liberties with the melodies, and normally I love it, but I guess tonight I just wasn't a big fan of the choices he made vocally.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
- They still went over by several minutes, even cutting three songs and scheduling the show to run until four past the hour. Unbelievable.
- There is no WAY they bring back four judges next year. This has been a disaster. I know most of my anger tonight was at Kara, but in all honesty I don't care which one of them goes as long as it's not Simon. It was pretty funny tonight that they had Randy and Kara pick Kris's song together, since there's really no difference between them anymore, other than the fact that Kara will still stand up to Simon (which is the only reason I would want her to stick around).
- The backup singers were WAY too loud tonight, especially on Adam's "Cryin'." Apparently the sound guys are just as incompetent as the Director.
- Has Simon ever openly begged us to vote for somebody before? I can't remember ever seeing that.
How I ranked the performances:
Kris, "Heartless"
Kris, "Apologize"
Danny, "You Are So Beautiful"
Adam, "Cryin"
Danny, "Dance Little Sister"
Adam, "One"
Who SHOULD go home: Danny (again, this is based on the whole season, not just this one night)
Who WILL go home: Danny
I know, I'm probably wrong, considering that Adam vs. Danny has been a foregone conclusion for a while now. I just think America might pleasantly surprise me this week. I checked DialIdol this morning, and the three are unbelievably close, with Danny on the bottom. Since DialIdol doesn't factor in text votes, I think that doesn't bode well for Danny since I think his demographic is less likely to power-text. We'll see.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Thoughts on Lost - Follow the Leader
I'll warn you ahead of time - this could end up being either ridiculously long or ridiculously short. I don't remember a time that I have been at this much of a loss with regards to the motivations of so many of the characters on this show. And I'm not complaining...that is actually a good thing.
On with the show!
- We open with the same scene that we ended with last week, and despite my Phoebe Buffay-like screams of "The END, The END!!!" at the screen, Daniel still gets shot and he still gets dead. That sucks.
- This made me laugh, from the Lostpedia transcript: "Galloping--horses approach. Jack puts his arms out in surrender. A man on a brown horse rides up to Jack and hits Jack broadly in the face with the stock of his rifle, polo mallet-style."
Yep, that's certainly a better description than I had come up with.
- Nice touch:
CHARLES: Then where the ___ are they from?
TITLE CARD: Thirty Years Later
- Interesting that Richard was working on the ship in the bottle. Several people online have pointed out that the ship looks like the Black Rock. I think that ANY ship from that era would look like the Black Rock, but I do think it has some significance. I certainly hope it's not simply to demonstrate that Richard has a lot of extra time on his hands. Seriously, I can't think of a more tedious and time-consuming hobby, not even blogging about the complexities and intricacies of every LOST episode.
Plus, it was funny to me, because it looked like all anybody has been doing for the last three years, ever since Locke disappeared after coming out of the Orchid, is just waiting on Locke to come back. He IS the Leader, after all, so maybe that is what they have been doing...awaiting "Further Instructions." If we ever see the inside of Richard's tent there will probably be dozens of these little ships-in-a-bottle and a stack of sudoku books.
- Ah, yes, the return of Locke the hunter. That just seemed random to me, that he would show up with a boar carcass thrown across his shoulders, although it is certainly in character. Wonder if there is more to that story that we will see later? Ben and Sun still looked kind of shell shocked, so maybe something happened on the way to Richard's camp that we didn't see?
- Richard seems legitimately at a loss as to where Locke has been for the last three years and how it was that he just disappeared. This was the start of a pattern....this was the least "knowledgeable" I can ever remember Richard Alpert acting. If he were Ben, I would be suspicious that he knew more than what he let on, but Richard has no reason to feign ignorance.
- Richard does notice something "different" about Locke, though. Locke says it's that he has a "purpose," but I wondered at first if maybe he could somehow tell that Locke used to be dead (kind of a Pet Semetary thing, if you've ever had the pleasure of reading that). Later conversations would lead me to believe otherwise...I think. Expect more ambiguity as the recap progresses.
- Richard also asks of Ben: "What's HE doing here?" I still say that Ben was NOT supposed to come back with the O6, and the fact that he weaseled his way here is going to cause problems.
- So, Richard is an...advisor. To me, the pause as Ben is answering Sun's question says as much as his answer does. He is not EXACTLY an advisor, Ben, is he?
I think that Richard is tied to the Island moreso than anybody else...in fact, I think he is the voice of the Island, a sort of manifestation of the will of the Island.
I keep saying it, and I'll probably still be saying it years after this show goes off the air: Richard Alpert is the key. If we figure out what HE is, then we can figure out what the Island is.
- So, Richard watched them all die. I wish I knew what that meant...
Either he DID in fact watch them all die, and this is the destiny for them that nothing can change because Whatever Happened, Happened. Or he DID watch them all die, but now certain events are going to happen to change that destiny because "WH, H" is a crock. Or he only THOUGHT he watched them all die, but they in fact survived whatever it is he saw happen. Or he's lying, but I don't know why he would be doing that, unless it's to get Sun to stop looking for them because she's going to screw something up.
See? I warned you. I have no freaking clue what's going on anymore. (not that I ever really did)
- BEN: What, John, don't you trust me here with my former people? Afraid I'll stage a coup?
LOCKE: I'm not afraid of anything you can do anymore, Ben.
Boy....New and Improved Locke (Now with CONFIDENCE) really makes me nervous, ya know? Every time Locke thinks that THIS is the time he has everything figured out, something blows up in his face (oftentimes LITERALLY). I get the sneaking suspicion that this is not going to end well.
- Speaking of things that aren't going to end well, we cut back to a pivotal scene between Jack and Kate (or, as I like to call them, The Misery Twins).
- I think Jack is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. Even if this cockamamie plan of Daniel's DOES work, I'm not sure what the Happy Ending is that Jack is looking for. Jack would still be a drunk, on his way to bury his father, the father whose death Jack is at least partially responsible for. Kate is, of course, going to prison. The list goes on...I mean, wasn't that the point of the flashbacks? That each of these characters were given a gift by crashing on this Island? A free pass...a "Tabula Rasa"?
Jack is falling into that trap that so many fall into: "If only THIS hadn't have happened, I'd be happy", "I could be happy if only I had THIS", etc. Until Jack learns to get past that kind of thinking and accepts the good things in his life ALONG with the bad, he will always be miserable. That's the point that Kate is trying to make....by erasing the bad, you will also be erasing the good. But that's not how Jack thinks...in Jack's world, the Bad will ALWAYS outweigh the Good, because as long as there is any bad in a situation he feels like he has to fix it.
- There is so much great stuff in the conversation with Jack and Eloise that I won't be able to do justice to the whole thing. Very well written, and very well acted (which reminds me...my problems with Jack have NOTHING to do with Matthew Fox, or the way his character is written. In fact, it's a tribute to both that they have created a character that is complete enough to actually have a real opinion about).
- Alice Evans (Eloise) gives a great read of the lines explaining to Jack exactly what has happened with Daniel.
- Actually, this exchange describes Jack better than my ramblings ever could:
ELOISE: Does he know what he is talking about?
KATE: He thinks he does.
And, yes...it also describes Locke perfectly, too. We are winding this season down just as we have all four of the previous ones...Jack vs. Locke. But now which one is which? Man of Science or Man of Faith?
- I wonder if we'll ever actually get to see the scene where Radzinsky's brains splatter all over the Swan ceiling. The more we get to know him, the more I wonder if his death was really self-inflicted. I know I keep waiting for SOMEBODY to put another bullet in him.
- Oh, and Phil? Yeah, he's gonna die. And it's going to be GLORIOUS.
- And Elizabeth Mitchell knocked ANOTHER scene out of the park. It was almost as painful watching her reaction to Sawyer getting beat down as it was actually watching Sawyer.
- Poor Jorge Garcia:
RADZINSKY: Who the hell is Hugo Reyes?
PHIL: He's the fat guy.
Followed, of course, by a shot of Hurley stuffing as many Dha'Nilla Wafers into his backpack as physically possible.
- And here is where I started to think Sawyer was going to jet on out of here:
HURLEY: We gotta do something. I mean, Sawyer would never leave us behind.
Ummm...foreshadowing, I think.
- Comedy Gold:
MILES: Dr. Chang? What are you doing here?
DR. CHANG: I could ask you the same question.
HURLEY: But we asked you first.
DR. CHANG: Your friend Faraday said that you were from the future. I need to know if he was telling the truth.
HURLEY: Dude, that's ridiculous.
DR. CHANG: What year were you born? What year?
HURLEY: Uh... 1931?
DR. CHANG: You're 46?
HURLEY: Yeah. Yes, I am.
DR. CHANG: So you fought in the Korean War?
HURLEY: [Pauses] There's... no such thing.
DR. CHANG: Who's the President of the United States?
HURLEY: All right, dude, we're from the future. Sorry.
What made it even funnier is that is the EXACT question that Hurley knew was going to be trouble. Hilarious.
- Another nice edit...Chang telling Miles, "Let's hope he (Faraday) knows what he's doing," followed by a close up of Dan's dead body.
Oops.
- Man, I hope we hear the rest of that conversation between Eloise and Charles. Something tells me we will.
- What did Richard mean "Love can be complicated?" Why not just say they are a couple?
- The scene where Locke is demanding of Alpert and Ben that they take him to see Jacob...that really struck me as uncomfortable. Again, there are multiple possibilities here: Maybe Alpert and Ben are telling the truth and Locke is breaking some sort of unwritten rule unknowingly, due to his bull-in-a-china-shop act he's got going on ever since that whole "dying and being brought back to life" thing. Or maybe Alpert and Ben are telling the truth and Locke is KNOWINGLY breaking the rules, for reasons that may not be clear until later. Or maybe Alpert and Ben know that Jacob doesn't really exist, and Locke has just done the equivalent of asking his parents if he can stay up and wait for Santa to come.
Or maybe it's just Ben that's lying. As always, that is my fallback position.
- Awesome, AWESOME scene when The 3 Amigos show up at the Nigerian drug plane. That was maybe my favorite scene from the season premiere and it was cool to see how it was actually set up. Also....
On with the show!
- We open with the same scene that we ended with last week, and despite my Phoebe Buffay-like screams of "The END, The END!!!" at the screen, Daniel still gets shot and he still gets dead. That sucks.
- This made me laugh, from the Lostpedia transcript: "Galloping--horses approach. Jack puts his arms out in surrender. A man on a brown horse rides up to Jack and hits Jack broadly in the face with the stock of his rifle, polo mallet-style."
Yep, that's certainly a better description than I had come up with.
- Nice touch:
CHARLES: Then where the ___ are they from?
TITLE CARD: Thirty Years Later
- Interesting that Richard was working on the ship in the bottle. Several people online have pointed out that the ship looks like the Black Rock. I think that ANY ship from that era would look like the Black Rock, but I do think it has some significance. I certainly hope it's not simply to demonstrate that Richard has a lot of extra time on his hands. Seriously, I can't think of a more tedious and time-consuming hobby, not even blogging about the complexities and intricacies of every LOST episode.
Plus, it was funny to me, because it looked like all anybody has been doing for the last three years, ever since Locke disappeared after coming out of the Orchid, is just waiting on Locke to come back. He IS the Leader, after all, so maybe that is what they have been doing...awaiting "Further Instructions." If we ever see the inside of Richard's tent there will probably be dozens of these little ships-in-a-bottle and a stack of sudoku books.
- Ah, yes, the return of Locke the hunter. That just seemed random to me, that he would show up with a boar carcass thrown across his shoulders, although it is certainly in character. Wonder if there is more to that story that we will see later? Ben and Sun still looked kind of shell shocked, so maybe something happened on the way to Richard's camp that we didn't see?
- Richard seems legitimately at a loss as to where Locke has been for the last three years and how it was that he just disappeared. This was the start of a pattern....this was the least "knowledgeable" I can ever remember Richard Alpert acting. If he were Ben, I would be suspicious that he knew more than what he let on, but Richard has no reason to feign ignorance.
- Richard does notice something "different" about Locke, though. Locke says it's that he has a "purpose," but I wondered at first if maybe he could somehow tell that Locke used to be dead (kind of a Pet Semetary thing, if you've ever had the pleasure of reading that). Later conversations would lead me to believe otherwise...I think. Expect more ambiguity as the recap progresses.
- Richard also asks of Ben: "What's HE doing here?" I still say that Ben was NOT supposed to come back with the O6, and the fact that he weaseled his way here is going to cause problems.
- So, Richard is an...advisor. To me, the pause as Ben is answering Sun's question says as much as his answer does. He is not EXACTLY an advisor, Ben, is he?
I think that Richard is tied to the Island moreso than anybody else...in fact, I think he is the voice of the Island, a sort of manifestation of the will of the Island.
I keep saying it, and I'll probably still be saying it years after this show goes off the air: Richard Alpert is the key. If we figure out what HE is, then we can figure out what the Island is.
- So, Richard watched them all die. I wish I knew what that meant...
Either he DID in fact watch them all die, and this is the destiny for them that nothing can change because Whatever Happened, Happened. Or he DID watch them all die, but now certain events are going to happen to change that destiny because "WH, H" is a crock. Or he only THOUGHT he watched them all die, but they in fact survived whatever it is he saw happen. Or he's lying, but I don't know why he would be doing that, unless it's to get Sun to stop looking for them because she's going to screw something up.
See? I warned you. I have no freaking clue what's going on anymore. (not that I ever really did)
- BEN: What, John, don't you trust me here with my former people? Afraid I'll stage a coup?
LOCKE: I'm not afraid of anything you can do anymore, Ben.
Boy....New and Improved Locke (Now with CONFIDENCE) really makes me nervous, ya know? Every time Locke thinks that THIS is the time he has everything figured out, something blows up in his face (oftentimes LITERALLY). I get the sneaking suspicion that this is not going to end well.
- Speaking of things that aren't going to end well, we cut back to a pivotal scene between Jack and Kate (or, as I like to call them, The Misery Twins).
- I think Jack is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. Even if this cockamamie plan of Daniel's DOES work, I'm not sure what the Happy Ending is that Jack is looking for. Jack would still be a drunk, on his way to bury his father, the father whose death Jack is at least partially responsible for. Kate is, of course, going to prison. The list goes on...I mean, wasn't that the point of the flashbacks? That each of these characters were given a gift by crashing on this Island? A free pass...a "Tabula Rasa"?
Jack is falling into that trap that so many fall into: "If only THIS hadn't have happened, I'd be happy", "I could be happy if only I had THIS", etc. Until Jack learns to get past that kind of thinking and accepts the good things in his life ALONG with the bad, he will always be miserable. That's the point that Kate is trying to make....by erasing the bad, you will also be erasing the good. But that's not how Jack thinks...in Jack's world, the Bad will ALWAYS outweigh the Good, because as long as there is any bad in a situation he feels like he has to fix it.
- There is so much great stuff in the conversation with Jack and Eloise that I won't be able to do justice to the whole thing. Very well written, and very well acted (which reminds me...my problems with Jack have NOTHING to do with Matthew Fox, or the way his character is written. In fact, it's a tribute to both that they have created a character that is complete enough to actually have a real opinion about).
- Alice Evans (Eloise) gives a great read of the lines explaining to Jack exactly what has happened with Daniel.
- Actually, this exchange describes Jack better than my ramblings ever could:
ELOISE: Does he know what he is talking about?
KATE: He thinks he does.
And, yes...it also describes Locke perfectly, too. We are winding this season down just as we have all four of the previous ones...Jack vs. Locke. But now which one is which? Man of Science or Man of Faith?
- I wonder if we'll ever actually get to see the scene where Radzinsky's brains splatter all over the Swan ceiling. The more we get to know him, the more I wonder if his death was really self-inflicted. I know I keep waiting for SOMEBODY to put another bullet in him.
- Oh, and Phil? Yeah, he's gonna die. And it's going to be GLORIOUS.
- And Elizabeth Mitchell knocked ANOTHER scene out of the park. It was almost as painful watching her reaction to Sawyer getting beat down as it was actually watching Sawyer.
- Poor Jorge Garcia:
RADZINSKY: Who the hell is Hugo Reyes?
PHIL: He's the fat guy.
Followed, of course, by a shot of Hurley stuffing as many Dha'Nilla Wafers into his backpack as physically possible.
- And here is where I started to think Sawyer was going to jet on out of here:
HURLEY: We gotta do something. I mean, Sawyer would never leave us behind.
Ummm...foreshadowing, I think.
- Comedy Gold:
MILES: Dr. Chang? What are you doing here?
DR. CHANG: I could ask you the same question.
HURLEY: But we asked you first.
DR. CHANG: Your friend Faraday said that you were from the future. I need to know if he was telling the truth.
HURLEY: Dude, that's ridiculous.
DR. CHANG: What year were you born? What year?
HURLEY: Uh... 1931?
DR. CHANG: You're 46?
HURLEY: Yeah. Yes, I am.
DR. CHANG: So you fought in the Korean War?
HURLEY: [Pauses] There's... no such thing.
DR. CHANG: Who's the President of the United States?
HURLEY: All right, dude, we're from the future. Sorry.
What made it even funnier is that is the EXACT question that Hurley knew was going to be trouble. Hilarious.
- Another nice edit...Chang telling Miles, "Let's hope he (Faraday) knows what he's doing," followed by a close up of Dan's dead body.
Oops.
- Man, I hope we hear the rest of that conversation between Eloise and Charles. Something tells me we will.
- What did Richard mean "Love can be complicated?" Why not just say they are a couple?
- The scene where Locke is demanding of Alpert and Ben that they take him to see Jacob...that really struck me as uncomfortable. Again, there are multiple possibilities here: Maybe Alpert and Ben are telling the truth and Locke is breaking some sort of unwritten rule unknowingly, due to his bull-in-a-china-shop act he's got going on ever since that whole "dying and being brought back to life" thing. Or maybe Alpert and Ben are telling the truth and Locke is KNOWINGLY breaking the rules, for reasons that may not be clear until later. Or maybe Alpert and Ben know that Jacob doesn't really exist, and Locke has just done the equivalent of asking his parents if he can stay up and wait for Santa to come.
Or maybe it's just Ben that's lying. As always, that is my fallback position.
- Awesome, AWESOME scene when The 3 Amigos show up at the Nigerian drug plane. That was maybe my favorite scene from the season premiere and it was cool to see how it was actually set up. Also....
- How did Locke know exactly when to show up? He says The Island told him (nice little dig there at Ben, too) and, barring further evidence, I guess we have to believe him. So how did THAT work?
- Are Ben and Richard really as clueless as to what's going on as they appear? If so, that's VERY interesting...is Locke really the one "in the know" for the first time?
- Why would Locke tell Richard to be sure and tell FutureLocke that they ALL have to come back, since he knows that it didn't actually happen that way? I guess because he needs all of the things to happen that happened as he was globe-hopping around trying to convince them?
- Locke flat out accused Ben of never seeing Jacob. Not sure whether Ben's reaction means that Locke is wrong or that Ben can't believe that Locke knows the truth.
- Loved Ben's "Hand in the Cookie Jar" expression when Locke told Alpert that he did in fact die. Michael Emerson is the Man.
- Back at Dharma Gitmo, Sawyer convinces Stu to let him and Juliet go in exchange for information on the Hostiles. Sort of how he got out of prison. I'm afraid Sawyer is regressing.
- Also interesting...Stu is hell-bent on continuing to drill. I'll bet they run into some problems, probably in the next episode. Just a guess.
- Kate tells Jack, "I can't go any further with you." He's finally exceeded even KATE'S patience.
- Great editing and direction...Kate's reaction to Sayid's gunshot DEFINITELY caused me to think that we were witnessing a repeat of Dan's death. That's one of the cool parts about being as close to the end with this show as we are now. Especially as we get into next season, everybody is fair game.
- Can't you just see Sayid mentally counting to 10 after Kate tells him that she and Sawyer saved Ben?
"......Why did you do that?"
- KATE: And if you're wrong, then everyone on the Island dies. Do you understand that?
JACK: I'm not wrong, Kate. This is it. This is why we're here. [Sighs] This is our destiny.
KATE: Do you know who you sound like? Because he was crazy, too, Jack. You said so yourself.
JACK: Well, maybe I was wrong.
Isn't it funny how when Jack FINALLY admits that he was wrong about Locke, it's because he has become crazier than Locke could ever even imagine being?
- For a brief minute, I think we ALL thought that Sawyer was going to somehow ditch the sub after making sure that Juliet was safely aboard and come back to save his friends. Instead...."Good riddance." Yeah, I think Sawyer is DONE.
- JACK: You wanna tell me how we're gonna get a bomb out of here?
RICHARD: The same way we brought it in.
JACK: I assume you don't mean through the pool.
RICHARD: It's a 12-foot long, 40,000-pound hydrogen bomb. No, not through the pool.
Hee.
- Can I just stop here and point out that young Eloise is really, really good looking? And that scenes that involve her and water should happen more frequently? Thanks. Moving on.
- Richard tells John there is another "group" at the Temple. Can someone please confirm that this group includes Rose, Bernard, and (most importantly) VINCENT?!?!?!?
- Seriously, I have no idea what Locke is up to. Does he know Jacob isn't real? Does he believe that he IS real, and that Richard and Ben have been monopolizing him and shrouding him in secrecy unjustly? Is he just stirring crap just for the sake of stirring crap?
- RICHARD: I'm starting to think John Locke is gonna be trouble.
BEN: Why do you think I tried to kill him?
See, I think Locke has become the ultimate wild card. And it's going to be AWESOME.
- Sawyer actually has a pretty good plan...once they get to the mainland, Dharma security has no more jurisdiction. So you just ditch the scientists, invest in Microsoft, and live the high life with the beautiful and talented woman who loves him. Man, everything is working out perfect for them.
(Cue JAWS music)
(Door to the sub opens)
(JAWS music gets louder)
KATE: Hey.
SAWYER: Hey.
Rest of the World: CRAP!!!!!
Juliet's Face: That's it. I'm gonna have to cut her.
- Um, not to pick nits, but that Submarine launch? Worst. CGI. EVAH.
- I got a chill when they made it to Jughead. This is NOT going to end well.
- Laughed at Ben trying to get in good with Locke by ratting out Richard. That Playa ALWAYS has an angle that he is working, don't he?
- And...Locke is going to kill Jacob. Ma-HUH???!?!?!?
Again, a few possibilities here:
- Maybe Locke knows that Jacob isn't real, so he is actually going to kill the IDEA of Jacob. Pull back the curtain, as it were. We know how Darlton loves them some Wizard of Oz references, don't we Henry Gale?
- Maybe he thinks that killing Jacob is what is going to save him, similar to what he thinks it has done for him. Jacob did ask Locke to save him, after all. Maybe he is "stuck" between two worlds and Locke is going to give him a push?
- Maybe he is just going to kill him. I'm out of ideas as to any other reasons.
This episode rocked my socks. A great mix of plot, humor, mythology, great acting and direction. And it sets up a finale that should just be mindblowing. What's Locke up to? Are Sawyer, Juliet, and Kate really leaving in the Submarine Made of Awkward? Just how stupid does Jack plan on getting?
Plus, I look for appearances by Desmond/Penny/Charlie, and possibly Christian/Claire and .....Aaron. Just a hunch.
Namaste.
The NBA - It's FAANNNNNNtastic!
For those of you who missed it, check out the 0:59 mark of this clip of Glenn "Big Baby" Davis hitting the game winner for the Celtics over the Magic yesterday...he clearly pushes a random child for no apparent reason:
And so, of course, some creative genius threw THIS together:
Hilarious.
And so, of course, some creative genius threw THIS together:
Hilarious.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Delays continue
Sorry...real life is HARD.
LOST recap delayed for another day or so. It will be up before the finale next week...promise.
LOST recap delayed for another day or so. It will be up before the finale next week...promise.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Super-quick Idol and LOST thoughts
OK, first a scheduling announcement...I've got a couple of really busy days ahead of me, so the LOST recap probably won't be up tomorrow as it usually is. Tune in Saturday when we discuss such topics as:
- WHAT?!?!
- HUH?!?
- HOW??
- WHO?!?
- NO WAY!!!
And of course....
- Are Jack and Kate actually human, or are they beings sent by cruel and ruthless intergalactic rulers programmed to kill and destroy everything and everyone in their path?
This was a FANTASTIC episode, and the finale is shaping up to be utterly mind-blowing.
As for Idol...ugh. Freaking Gokey. If you thought I was hard on him this week, just wait. He is now dead to me.
- WHAT?!?!
- HUH?!?
- HOW??
- WHO?!?
- NO WAY!!!
And of course....
- Are Jack and Kate actually human, or are they beings sent by cruel and ruthless intergalactic rulers programmed to kill and destroy everything and everyone in their path?
This was a FANTASTIC episode, and the finale is shaping up to be utterly mind-blowing.
As for Idol...ugh. Freaking Gokey. If you thought I was hard on him this week, just wait. He is now dead to me.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Cool little piece to tide you over until LOST tonight
TWoP has a nice gallery of the greatest episodes of LOST ever. Can't really argue with any of them...
Idol thoughts - top 4
YES!! SLASH is in the house!! Of course, I can't tell that he really did all that much "mentoring," but it still would have been freaking awesome to get to rehearse while he played.
So, on with Rock Night....also known as The Night That Danny Gokey Became Dead to Me (SPOILER!!!!)
Oh, and we're doing duets tonight....why? Oh, that's right. Because the people directing this show are imbeciles and have forgotten how to get a show in on time, so we apparently can't do two solos each. Oh, and because they decided to add a fourth judge, and the imbeciles directing this show still haven't managed to adjust this far into the season. One of these judges has to go next season. I don't care which one, as long as it's not Cowell.
1) Adam Lambert - "Whole Lotta Love": Hey, Slash gave him the same advice I gave him last week...we know what you can do in the upper register. Try doing some more in your lower register, because that is awesome as well.
He comes out certainly looking the rocker part...leather, chains, spiky hair, tons of eyeliner. Then he opens his mouth...and gives maybe the most incredible performance I've ever seen on this show. Seriously. I know I say that almost every week with him, but I really mean it this time. Just incredible....vocally, of course, but also his performance. Dude is a Bloody Rock God.
I'm so sick of people saying, "If he wins, he won't sell any albums 'cuz he's just gonna do Broadway." Um, no...he's going to do THIS. And I will be at Walmart the day it comes out.
The guy is obviously not an idiot...he makes great song choices every week, and he seems to have an excellent grasp as to how much he can get away with when it comes to his "flamboyance." You think he's going to put out an album of him just singing the soundtrack to Wicked? No, because he's smarter than that.
By the way, I would totally buy an album of him singing the soundtrack to Wicked. Shut up.
2) Allison Iraheta - "Cry Baby": My favorite Janis Joplin song, by the way. Janis is kind of underrated as a singer, I think...she had a massive range, and Allison has to start this pretty low on the verses. I think she kind of swallowed a couple of the lower notes. But when she got to the chorus, it was fantastic. This song is perfect for her voice, and I think she DID take just enough liberty with the melody, despite Simon's claim that it was "copycat." I loved this, although I am kind of nervous for her on the tour...I'm not sure if her voice is going to hold out.
Kara really got on my nerves, starting here..."Another Piece of My Heart?" Really? Cause we can NEVER hear enough of that song, right?
I liked that she kind of stood up for herself to the judges...I've never agreed with what Simon has said about her having a lack of personality. And what she said to them was good, I thought...not disrespectful or rude, just explaining why she made the choice she did.
PLEASE let her out-last Gokey. PLEASE.
3) Kris Allen/Danny Gokey - "Renegade": And here we go with the pointless duets. Seriously, what is the point in this? I can see doing this on the finale, but we're not supposed to be voting on who can handle a duet best, are we?
Anyway...in the spirit of fairness, I actually watched Adam and Allison's duet first. So this one had a lot to live up to. And...they didn't. Their harmonies start out OK, and they end OK, but the middle was a hot mess. Kris was cracking all over the place, and they are both trying to do too much riffing, which causes the harmonies to get screwed up. Also, they look VERY uncomfortable...again, in fairness, you can maybe chalk that up to them not having a dress rehearsal due to the stage malfunction, but that didn't seem to affect Adam and Allison.
After the performance and the judges' commentary, Kris looked TICKED, didn't he? He was kind of having a bad night...first, he has to perform with Gokey, then he doesn't get to rehearse, then they schedule him to sing his solo RIGHT after this (which is really unfair), then Simon throws him under the Danny Bus.
And what exactly was Danny complaining about after the performance? Dude, shut up. EVERYBODY is dealing with the same crap tonight. Stop making everything about you, as usual. This is when the anti-Danny anger really started boiling over, in case you're wondering.
4) Kris Allen - "Come Together": You know, if we had not already heard Adam and Allison, I probably would have liked this more. I REALLY liked the arrangement, which considering that I am a Beatles fanatic is saying something. I actually think it would have sounded better as an acoustic version, but he probably couldn't get away with going unplugged on Rock Week. Again, I think he took a good song and tweaked it just enough that it was a "Kris Allen" performance rather than a copy. I liked it. He still looks like a chimp, though.
5) Danny Gokey - "Dream On": UGH. Nice things first...for the first two lines he sounds really nice. Then he started running into some breath and pitch problems. Then he went into the chorus, and it just got awful. Pitch problems EVERYWHERE. Anytime he had to hold a note more than a few beats, he lost the pitch. And he says "Truuueewwww." And the screaming, my God, the screaming. Just an utterly painful performance.
And THEN, of freaking COURSE, he gets all jerky and condescending with the judges. "I'll have to watch it back"...."It wasn't THAT bad"....you know, the downside of a written medium like this one is that there is no way I can emphasize how smarmy and douchey he sounded with just words. If you saw it, you know what I'm talking about.
I predicted way back in my critique of his Top 36 performance that I would end up with an irrational level of hatred for him if he stuck around. The weird part is that what finally pushed me over the edge were NONE of the things that I thought would end up causing me to want to kick him in the teeth. He hasn't mentioned his Dead Wife in weeks, he's only been about 50% Archuletta in his song choice. I had no idea at the time that he was going to turn out to be such a smarmy, arrogant little twerp. Huh...sometimes life still finds a way to surprise you, I guess.
****UPDATE****
You know what, I forgot to mention something else that turned my boiling anger into molten lava of hate regarding Danny...that stupid part in the song where he was kind of singing along with the guitar. Ugh. Just...
I believe Michael Scott put it best: I hate so much about the things that you choose to be.
(By the way...that link to the Michael Scott quote just became one of my new favorite websites).
Oh, and then to add to my annoyance, Kara tells him he should have done some EARLY Aerosmith, like "Cryin'" or "Crazy."
Yeah....I'm just going to move on.
6) Allison Iraheta/Adam Lambert - "Slow Ride": Ahhh....this was EXACTLY what I needed to cleanse the palate. A little Fog Hat, performed by my top 2 by a MILE. Not much to say about this, other than it was just fun. They sound awesome together, you can tell they are having a great time...everything that was not good about the Danny/Kris duet, just done perfectly. I would definitely pay to see this, and I will be listening to it on YouTube on a loop until Fox takes it down.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
This is definitely the most talented top 4 they have ever had...I guess the wild card/judges save/only 3 out of 12 advance stuff actually did its job.
And, of course...they STILL manage to somehow NOT end on time, causing me to miss the end of Fringe. Good LORD...how can the biggest show in the history of television have such dunces running the show? You only have FOUR PERFORMERS. How do you not manage to come in on time?
Here's how I would rank the performances tonight:
Adam solo
Adam/Allison
Allison solo
Kris solo
Kris/Danny
(....)
(....)
(....)
(....)
Danny solo.
Who SHOULD be in the bottom two:
Kris and Danny
Who WILL be in the bottom two:
Kris and Allison. Because America is stoopid.
Who SHOULD go home:
Danny. Please....for the love of all that is good and right.
Who WILL go home:
Kris.
Danny is going to be in the final 2, people. I plan on buying 6 more cell phones between now and then so that I can power dial for Adam on all 6.
So, on with Rock Night....also known as The Night That Danny Gokey Became Dead to Me (SPOILER!!!!)
Oh, and we're doing duets tonight....why? Oh, that's right. Because the people directing this show are imbeciles and have forgotten how to get a show in on time, so we apparently can't do two solos each. Oh, and because they decided to add a fourth judge, and the imbeciles directing this show still haven't managed to adjust this far into the season. One of these judges has to go next season. I don't care which one, as long as it's not Cowell.
1) Adam Lambert - "Whole Lotta Love": Hey, Slash gave him the same advice I gave him last week...we know what you can do in the upper register. Try doing some more in your lower register, because that is awesome as well.
He comes out certainly looking the rocker part...leather, chains, spiky hair, tons of eyeliner. Then he opens his mouth...and gives maybe the most incredible performance I've ever seen on this show. Seriously. I know I say that almost every week with him, but I really mean it this time. Just incredible....vocally, of course, but also his performance. Dude is a Bloody Rock God.
I'm so sick of people saying, "If he wins, he won't sell any albums 'cuz he's just gonna do Broadway." Um, no...he's going to do THIS. And I will be at Walmart the day it comes out.
The guy is obviously not an idiot...he makes great song choices every week, and he seems to have an excellent grasp as to how much he can get away with when it comes to his "flamboyance." You think he's going to put out an album of him just singing the soundtrack to Wicked? No, because he's smarter than that.
By the way, I would totally buy an album of him singing the soundtrack to Wicked. Shut up.
2) Allison Iraheta - "Cry Baby": My favorite Janis Joplin song, by the way. Janis is kind of underrated as a singer, I think...she had a massive range, and Allison has to start this pretty low on the verses. I think she kind of swallowed a couple of the lower notes. But when she got to the chorus, it was fantastic. This song is perfect for her voice, and I think she DID take just enough liberty with the melody, despite Simon's claim that it was "copycat." I loved this, although I am kind of nervous for her on the tour...I'm not sure if her voice is going to hold out.
Kara really got on my nerves, starting here..."Another Piece of My Heart?" Really? Cause we can NEVER hear enough of that song, right?
I liked that she kind of stood up for herself to the judges...I've never agreed with what Simon has said about her having a lack of personality. And what she said to them was good, I thought...not disrespectful or rude, just explaining why she made the choice she did.
PLEASE let her out-last Gokey. PLEASE.
3) Kris Allen/Danny Gokey - "Renegade": And here we go with the pointless duets. Seriously, what is the point in this? I can see doing this on the finale, but we're not supposed to be voting on who can handle a duet best, are we?
Anyway...in the spirit of fairness, I actually watched Adam and Allison's duet first. So this one had a lot to live up to. And...they didn't. Their harmonies start out OK, and they end OK, but the middle was a hot mess. Kris was cracking all over the place, and they are both trying to do too much riffing, which causes the harmonies to get screwed up. Also, they look VERY uncomfortable...again, in fairness, you can maybe chalk that up to them not having a dress rehearsal due to the stage malfunction, but that didn't seem to affect Adam and Allison.
After the performance and the judges' commentary, Kris looked TICKED, didn't he? He was kind of having a bad night...first, he has to perform with Gokey, then he doesn't get to rehearse, then they schedule him to sing his solo RIGHT after this (which is really unfair), then Simon throws him under the Danny Bus.
And what exactly was Danny complaining about after the performance? Dude, shut up. EVERYBODY is dealing with the same crap tonight. Stop making everything about you, as usual. This is when the anti-Danny anger really started boiling over, in case you're wondering.
4) Kris Allen - "Come Together": You know, if we had not already heard Adam and Allison, I probably would have liked this more. I REALLY liked the arrangement, which considering that I am a Beatles fanatic is saying something. I actually think it would have sounded better as an acoustic version, but he probably couldn't get away with going unplugged on Rock Week. Again, I think he took a good song and tweaked it just enough that it was a "Kris Allen" performance rather than a copy. I liked it. He still looks like a chimp, though.
5) Danny Gokey - "Dream On": UGH. Nice things first...for the first two lines he sounds really nice. Then he started running into some breath and pitch problems. Then he went into the chorus, and it just got awful. Pitch problems EVERYWHERE. Anytime he had to hold a note more than a few beats, he lost the pitch. And he says "Truuueewwww." And the screaming, my God, the screaming. Just an utterly painful performance.
And THEN, of freaking COURSE, he gets all jerky and condescending with the judges. "I'll have to watch it back"...."It wasn't THAT bad"....you know, the downside of a written medium like this one is that there is no way I can emphasize how smarmy and douchey he sounded with just words. If you saw it, you know what I'm talking about.
I predicted way back in my critique of his Top 36 performance that I would end up with an irrational level of hatred for him if he stuck around. The weird part is that what finally pushed me over the edge were NONE of the things that I thought would end up causing me to want to kick him in the teeth. He hasn't mentioned his Dead Wife in weeks, he's only been about 50% Archuletta in his song choice. I had no idea at the time that he was going to turn out to be such a smarmy, arrogant little twerp. Huh...sometimes life still finds a way to surprise you, I guess.
****UPDATE****
You know what, I forgot to mention something else that turned my boiling anger into molten lava of hate regarding Danny...that stupid part in the song where he was kind of singing along with the guitar. Ugh. Just...
I believe Michael Scott put it best: I hate so much about the things that you choose to be.
(By the way...that link to the Michael Scott quote just became one of my new favorite websites).
Oh, and then to add to my annoyance, Kara tells him he should have done some EARLY Aerosmith, like "Cryin'" or "Crazy."
Yeah....I'm just going to move on.
6) Allison Iraheta/Adam Lambert - "Slow Ride": Ahhh....this was EXACTLY what I needed to cleanse the palate. A little Fog Hat, performed by my top 2 by a MILE. Not much to say about this, other than it was just fun. They sound awesome together, you can tell they are having a great time...everything that was not good about the Danny/Kris duet, just done perfectly. I would definitely pay to see this, and I will be listening to it on YouTube on a loop until Fox takes it down.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
This is definitely the most talented top 4 they have ever had...I guess the wild card/judges save/only 3 out of 12 advance stuff actually did its job.
And, of course...they STILL manage to somehow NOT end on time, causing me to miss the end of Fringe. Good LORD...how can the biggest show in the history of television have such dunces running the show? You only have FOUR PERFORMERS. How do you not manage to come in on time?
Here's how I would rank the performances tonight:
Adam solo
Adam/Allison
Allison solo
Kris solo
Kris/Danny
(....)
(....)
(....)
(....)
Danny solo.
Who SHOULD be in the bottom two:
Kris and Danny
Who WILL be in the bottom two:
Kris and Allison. Because America is stoopid.
Who SHOULD go home:
Danny. Please....for the love of all that is good and right.
Who WILL go home:
Kris.
Danny is going to be in the final 2, people. I plan on buying 6 more cell phones between now and then so that I can power dial for Adam on all 6.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Had to pull this out of the comments section from yesterday...
Now THIS is hope and change we can ALL get behind!
Meant to include this in yesterday's weekend thoughts...
...then I saw it on Mackie's page today and it reminded me.
This is from Saturday's Kentucky Derby, and it is incredible. Check out the stones of the jockey, plus an absolutely amazing performance by 50-1 shot Mine That Bird to win:
Now THAT is closing speed!
This is from Saturday's Kentucky Derby, and it is incredible. Check out the stones of the jockey, plus an absolutely amazing performance by 50-1 shot Mine That Bird to win:
Now THAT is closing speed!
Monday, May 4, 2009
Weekend thoughts
- First of all, I was slightly wrong about the Hawks, in that I said they were done after game 3, and they in fact ended up winning the worst 7 game series in NBA history. That's not an exaggeration...look it up. You won't find another series where all 7 games were such blowouts. It doesn't even seem possible that a seven game series could be as un-compelling as this one was. If two teams are so close to each other that the series would go the distance, you would think that at SOME point there would be a tightly contested game. You would be wrong.
Some encouraging signs:
And, yes, these were encouraging signs, but ultimately I don't think it matters. Lebron is not just hungry this year, he is STARVING, and I expect that he will do what superstars do and lead his team to a pretty easy series win. Cavs in 5.
That being said, Woodson probably deserves to keep his job, I guess. I'm still not happy with the way this team plays a lot of the time, especially on offense, but you can't argue the fact that the team has gotten progressively better every year under his tutelage, nor do I see any other candidates out there who I think would be a huge improvement.
- Dollhouse season finale is this Friday night...this show got progressively better, in my opinion, and I would love to see Joss get the chance to finish telling the story. Last week's episode was pretty mind blowing, with the reveal of Alpha (which I was not spoiled for, thankfully) and a whole new batch of possibilities. I think the show could get even better. The ensemble cast has proven to be very talented and enjoyable to watch, and they could probably expand some of those roles and not ask Eliza to carry the show. Because, sorry to say it, but she is the weak link on this show. She is great to look at, but I only really buy her performances about half the time.
Here is how I know this is a well-written and conceived show: during the last episode, there is a fight scene between Ballard (the FBI agent) and Boyd (the head of security for a company that basically specializes in human trafficking)....and I wasn't sure who to root for.
- Also, since I have lost a few shows here recently, I picked up a couple of others...How I Met Your Mother and Big Bang Theory. I am THOROUGHLY enjoying both of them, especially Big Bang Theory. Really, really funny stuff.
- Braves ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE! Decent pitching, absolutely ZERO offense, especially with B-Mac out of the lineup. Chipper went 0-0 with FOUR WALKS the other night, because there is nobody else to be afraid of in this lineup. Francouer is definitely better with his new stance, but he seems to be sacrificing power for contact...which is fine, and probably better for him, but this team needs some power somewhere.
And good grief, Jordan Schafer...kid's got loads of talent, but he is currently on pace to strike out 205 times. He has 30 strikeouts in 77 at bats. Yikes. Wouldn't be surprised to see him take a trip to Gwinnett, although Bobby still seems to have a lot of faith in him...he batted him leadoff the other night. Which is probably not a bad idea, as he should certainly see more pitches to hit batting in front of Yunel Escobar than he does in the 8th spot.
- Sympathies and prayers go out to the family of David Cook, who lost his brother Adam last week after a long battle with cancer. David still made his scheduled appearance at a 5K fundraiser for cancer research.
- Nothing much going on in Dawg news, except that the Diamond Dawgs are in the middle of a horrible free fall after spending much of the year ranked #1 in the country. I'm starting to think it's just not good for any Dawgs team to be ranked #1. We don't seem to handle success very well.
- Only 124 days until kickoff!
Some encouraging signs:
- Josh Smith posting up, trying to get to the rim, and taking fewer stupid shots. There were only 2 or 3 times in game 7 where he decided to take a long jumper. In all of those situations, he was wide open, so I can see why he thought they were good shots...but if he has that much room to work, he needs to be using it to drive to the basket. Dude just can NOT hit a jump shot consistently.
- Joe Johnson's play in Game 5, when he was being aggressive and attacking BEFORE the double team arrives. He drives me crazy receiving the pass and then patiently waiting for the double team before making a move. In game 5, he was better, and was much more effective. Unfortunately, that's the only game in which he did that. Sure, he was very impressive in Game 7, but you shouldn't have to count him on heating up from 3-point land the way he did in order to get a big game out of him. He has the ability to get to the front of the rim, he just doesn't seem aggressive enough to want to use it.
And, yes, these were encouraging signs, but ultimately I don't think it matters. Lebron is not just hungry this year, he is STARVING, and I expect that he will do what superstars do and lead his team to a pretty easy series win. Cavs in 5.
That being said, Woodson probably deserves to keep his job, I guess. I'm still not happy with the way this team plays a lot of the time, especially on offense, but you can't argue the fact that the team has gotten progressively better every year under his tutelage, nor do I see any other candidates out there who I think would be a huge improvement.
- Dollhouse season finale is this Friday night...this show got progressively better, in my opinion, and I would love to see Joss get the chance to finish telling the story. Last week's episode was pretty mind blowing, with the reveal of Alpha (which I was not spoiled for, thankfully) and a whole new batch of possibilities. I think the show could get even better. The ensemble cast has proven to be very talented and enjoyable to watch, and they could probably expand some of those roles and not ask Eliza to carry the show. Because, sorry to say it, but she is the weak link on this show. She is great to look at, but I only really buy her performances about half the time.
Here is how I know this is a well-written and conceived show: during the last episode, there is a fight scene between Ballard (the FBI agent) and Boyd (the head of security for a company that basically specializes in human trafficking)....and I wasn't sure who to root for.
- Also, since I have lost a few shows here recently, I picked up a couple of others...How I Met Your Mother and Big Bang Theory. I am THOROUGHLY enjoying both of them, especially Big Bang Theory. Really, really funny stuff.
- Braves ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE! Decent pitching, absolutely ZERO offense, especially with B-Mac out of the lineup. Chipper went 0-0 with FOUR WALKS the other night, because there is nobody else to be afraid of in this lineup. Francouer is definitely better with his new stance, but he seems to be sacrificing power for contact...which is fine, and probably better for him, but this team needs some power somewhere.
And good grief, Jordan Schafer...kid's got loads of talent, but he is currently on pace to strike out 205 times. He has 30 strikeouts in 77 at bats. Yikes. Wouldn't be surprised to see him take a trip to Gwinnett, although Bobby still seems to have a lot of faith in him...he batted him leadoff the other night. Which is probably not a bad idea, as he should certainly see more pitches to hit batting in front of Yunel Escobar than he does in the 8th spot.
- Sympathies and prayers go out to the family of David Cook, who lost his brother Adam last week after a long battle with cancer. David still made his scheduled appearance at a 5K fundraiser for cancer research.
- Nothing much going on in Dawg news, except that the Diamond Dawgs are in the middle of a horrible free fall after spending much of the year ranked #1 in the country. I'm starting to think it's just not good for any Dawgs team to be ranked #1. We don't seem to handle success very well.
- Only 124 days until kickoff!
Friday, May 1, 2009
Thoughts on Lost - The Variable
This was a much-anticipated episode of LOST...it was the 100th episode, and it was considered by many to be a "bookend" of sorts to The Constant, which in my opinion is one of the greatest episodes of television in history.
I would say in almost every way, The Variable lived up to the hype.
- That must have been some serious adrenaline that Des was running on at the Marina, huh? He beat the stuffing out of Ben and threw him in the water, all while suffering from a potentially deadly gunshot wound. Maybe Ben's just a wimp.
- Loved Eloise's response to Penny asking if Ben is her son: "Good Lord, no!" Although, knowing what we know about her now, it seems more appropriate that she be Ben's mother rather than Daniel's. She certainly carries the "manipulative and evil" gene, doesn't she?
- Hey, Miles is on to something...why DIDN'T Daniel do something like invent the DVD? Dude could have been a GAZILLIONAIRE. Plus, I wouldn't have all of these VHS movies in my storage room that I'm holding on to on the slim chance that I may one day convert them all over to DVD. Next time the wife complains to me about our cluttered storage room, I'm blaming Daniel Faraday.
- What are we to make of this statement?
DANIEL: I got some bad news for you, Jack. You don't belong here at all. She was wrong.
They showed us AGAIN in the previouslies the scene where Eloise told Ben that if they don't ALL come back, then "God help us all." So she is obviously trying to either make sure something DOES happen that is supposed to, or to PREVENT something from happening. I honestly don't believe anymore that they were sent back to "save" their friends...they were sent back as tools (pawns?) in this much larger game.
Can I stop here for an aside? I really haven't discussed it much, but why did Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Sayid go back to 1977, while Sun, Ben, Frank, DeadLocke, and the other Ajira passengers remain in 2007? I think they all have jobs to do...we've already seen that Jack, Sayid, and Kate have managed to turn Ben from a young, insecure, lonely boy into an evil, manipulative, genius, lying liar who lies. What other parts will they end up playing in this global conflict? What are the folks still in 2007 destined to do? I think their role has to do with the "Shadow of the Statue" group, either to oppose or to assist.
Back to this scene...I don't think it's Eloise who was wrong, I think it was Daniel...more on that in a few scenes.
- 864 beats on the metronome. 864=108 X 8. Eight is one of The Numbers, and 108 is the sum of The Numbers. I freaking love this show.
- Viewing these flashback scenes between Eloise and Daniel in light of what we know by the end of this episode really make them heartbreaking. Eloise says to Daniel, "It's my...job to keep you on your path." Even though she knows where that path ends, she has to keep him on it. At least in her mind, she does. I'll get to my thoughts on her motivations when we get to the end.
- I'd be pretty ticked if I was Jack...Daniel comes and wakes me up at the crack of dawn, won't tell me anything other than I apparently screwed up and listened to the wrong people (again), possibly endangering myself, my friends, and God knows what else, and then takes off in the Jeep while I straggle along half-dressed behind him, yelling questions that go unanswered.
Hey, Dan, nice to see you again, too.
- Or, as he puts it to Sawyer: "He came in on the sub, and he woke me up. He--he started talking nonsense, and then he took off for the Orchid."
- Juliet, to me, is still the smartest of all of the Losties (I guess we'll include her in that group now). She recognizes that Jack and Sawyer actually will work better together, and that this situation is mushrooming too rapidly for them to keep their arms around it without help. Sawyer is ready to dismiss Jack, and Juliet simply says: "James, tell him."
And he does. The band is getting back together. For now.
- "Phil, Jack. Jack...Phil."
Hee.
- Not sure how I missed this earlier in the season, but Chang is mirroring Eloise's warning...if you drill even once centimeter further, then God help us all. So are they both talking about the same thing? Are they both trying to prevent the same thing?
Chang is trying to prevent a catastrophic release of electromagnetic energy...Daniel says one of these is destined to happen, anyway, unless they stop it. Eloise says "Whatever happened, happened," and we know that there is an Incident referred to on the Swan tape. So is she trying to put the pieces in place to STOP that from happening? I don't think so, because her own belief is that it would happen anyway...I think she is trying to make sure that things DO happen the way they were "supposed" to, and if that includes The Incident...then so be it.
- Yes, I always listen to the advice of people who say they know better than me because they are from The Future.
- Why can't Dan answer a straight question? Miles asks him point blank what it is that Chang is "supposed" to do, and all Dan will say is, "You'll see." Isn't it just that Dan wants Chang to evacuate the Island?
- And then we meet poor, doomed Theresa. Mother doesn't seem to approve, and she says something interesting to Dan at dinner: "The women in your life will only be terribly hurt." Does she know what will end up happening to Theresa? Or is she just referencing the fact that she knows Daniel is going to die young?
I don't think she knows what's going to happen to Theresa, because she seemed surprised by the fact that Widmore is funding Dan's research. This is also why I don't believe that Eloise is necessarily "special"...I don't think she can "see the future." She has been visited in the past by people from the future (Dan, specifically, but also probably Jack, Kate, etc. that will happen in the next couple of eps). They have told her what has happened up to this point. She's only repeating/acting on what she has been told, not what she has seen herself in some sort of vision.
On first viewing, I just thought Eloise was a manipulative, hard-driving, fun-sucking old hag. But in retrospect, there is a certain sadness to all of this...to me, it's almost like she can't bear to see him pursue things (music, love, whatever) that she knows will all be cut short by his death on the Island.
The inscription on the journal is especially bittersweet: "No matter what, remember I will always love you."
- Love this Sawyer/Miles exchange:
SAWYER: Welcome to the meeting, Twitchy. Good to see you again. Pound cake's in the kitchen. Help yourself to the punch. [To Miles, in a lowered voice] Is he still crazy?
MILES: It's on a whole new level, man.
SAWYER: [Sighs] Great.
- And Daniel doesn't help his cause, if he wants people to think he's sane: "Hey, anybody know where I can find some Hostiles? Yeah, my mom's there. You know, the one that told you to get on a plane and come here?"
- Good grief, Daniel broke my heart in the scene with Widmore. He no longer has use of his great gift, his amazing mind. He accidentally turned his girlfriend into a vegetable. Guilt, heartbreak, frustration, embarrassment...he's just a broken man at this point. And Jeremy Davies freaking NAILED IT.
And now we get an answer to why Daniel and Charlotte were playing the card games, testing his memory...it was to see how quickly he was being healed by the Island.
So why IS Daniel crying about Oceanic 815? How about this...sometime during his experimentation, when he was experimenting on himself first, his consciousness traveled to the time when he was with the Losties, and now he has a fragmented memory of them?
- "You guys were in 1954? Like...Fonzie times?"
- JACK: We don't belong here.
SAWYER: Well, I belonged here just fine till you came back, Doc.
Yep.
- Jack is right, though...what Kate came back for is not in 1977. She came back for Claire. You know they are going to follow up on that storyline, so now the question is how are these guys going to get back to 2007? Maybe due to the fallout from an elecromagnetic "Incident"?
- My VERY favorite part of the episode, and I can't really even express how good it is with words...you just have to see it. Juliet's reaction to the word, "Freckles." Anger, hurt, and then resolution, all in about 5 seconds. Elizabeth Mitchell rocks it.
You ain't gotta go home, Kate, but you gotta get the ___ up outta here.
- Sawyer: We'll all be back at the beach, right where we started.
There's a lot more to that than what appears on the surface. This is an extremely depressing concept for Sawyer, to have come as far as he has in the last three years, to be truly HAPPY for probably the first time in his life...only to come to the realization that it was all just a charade, and now we're going back to the way things used to be. Right back where we started.
Man, I hope not...it's been so rewarding as a viewer to watch the growth of Sawyer. I truly hope it sticks.
- Again, Daniel breaks my heart, this time in the conversation with Charlotte. However, I think there was more to that conversation then what we saw...the camera cuts away right after he says, "Maybe I can change things," and we don't hear the last part of the conversation.
Recognize the "I'm not allowed to have chocolate before dinner" line? Some of Charlotte's last words. And now Daniel has to hear them again. Oof. Heartbreaking.
- Shootout. Explosions. Cool.
Although, Jack obviously doesn't watch Mythbusters. You can't really blow up a gas tank by shooting it. I'm just sayin'.
- I know I'm sounding like a broken record, but Jeremy Davies really brought it this episode. That last scene with Eloise as he's at the piano is another tear-jerker:
FARADAY: I can't. He needs someone who can do really, really complex space-time calibrations and calculate bearings, and I just... I don't know how to do that anymore.
And.....
FARADAY: Will... [voice breaks] will it make you proud of me?
MS. HAWKING: [Whispers] Yes, Daniel. It will.
FARADAY: [Sighs] Then I'll do it.
Especially knowing what we do now....Eloise knew that she was sending Daniel to the Island to get shot. And I do believe her when she says that she will be proud of him. SOMETHING is accomplished by him being shot, I just don't know what it is yet.
- Faraday gives another explanation, similar to what Miles told Hurley, about how the timeline thing is working. Their timeline has continued to move forward, it's just that their present is now occurring in 1977 rather than 2007. So anything that happens to them now does NOT affect anything that has happened to them before. Got it?
- Sawyer knows he screwed up with the "Freckles" thing, but I think he truly loves Juliet. And she's obviously feeling a little insecure right now. I just hope that when Sawyer ends up "right back where he started" that Juliet is still with him. I'm become a big...Sulieter? Julawyer? I don't know what they're calling us Sawyer/Juliet shippers...that second one seems a little prejudiced if I say it out loud.
- My favorite line of the night: Sawyer's "It sounded like it was from outside," as the pounding noise obviously comes from the hall closet. That just struck me as really funny, and I wonder if it was a Josh Holloway ad-lib.
- Wow, that was a LOT of info that Daniel gives to Jack. Bottom line is that he thinks that if he can stop the Incident, then all of this that has happened will no longer happen, and Flight 815 will land safe and sound in Los Angeles. I think he is WRONG about that, and the later events of this episode bear that out, I think.
If what he is saying is true, then Darlton has been lying to us ever since the Season 3 episode "Flashes Before Your Eyes." That was the episode where Eloise told Desmond about course correction, and that you can't change the future by manipulating the past. They have said numerous times since then on podcasts and in interviews that this is how time travel works in the LOST universe, so to change that now would be pretty crappy of them. I trust them more than that.
- Of course, he's talking about Jughead...classic storytelling rule. If you introduce an H-bomb in Act 1, expect for it to make another appearance in Act 3.
- Eloise tells Penny that for the first time in a long time, she doesn't know what happens next. I mentioned this earlier, but what she is telling us is that everything she knew about the future at this point came from interactions in her past. She knew that Daniel went back to the Island, she knew that she was supposed to send the O6 back as well, but that was the last thing she "knew."
To me, this tells us two things: unfortunately, one of them is that I do believe Daniel is dead. Secondly, I don't think the O6 are going to be on the Island in 1977 much longer. I think that by the end of this season, they will be back in 2007 with Ben, Sun, DeadLocke, etc...
- Nice little scene with Des and Penny, and a callback to The Constant, as well.
- Think Desmond may have survived because the Island is not through with him yet? Just like it kept Jack, Michael, etc. from dying before their work was done? Unfortunately for Desmond and Penny, I think this is not their happy ending.
- I was a little surprised that Widmore is Daniel's dad...in my head, I had Charles and Eloise as brother and sister, not lovers.
I think Penny is Charles' daughter from the Outsider that Ben had him banished for. So Daniel and Penny are half-siblings.
I'm just trying to figure out why Eloise slapped him. Maybe because she had to raise him alone? If Daniel is older than Penny, then Eloise had already had him by the time Charles fathered Penny. Then Charles was banished from the Island, ended up raising Penny with her mother, leaving Eloise and Daniel behind?
- So, knowing now that Charles and Eloise are lovers, and that their offspring is Daniel, do we have another set of possibilities for the Adam and Eve skeletons from back in season 1? The ones that Darlton have said we will be able to look back on when this is all over and see that they actually DID know where this was headed way back in season 1?
- I've seen some people remarking on the fact that Richard doesn't seem to completely remember Daniel. Remember, though, they only met briefly and it was 23 years earlier. I think Richard does sort of recognize him, but it doesn't click until Daniel starts asking about Jughead.
- I was SHOCKED when Daniel was shot, and even more so when it was revealed to be Eloise that shot him. Kudos to the show that they can still deliver that kind of impact, even to people who have been obsessing over the show for years.
- I've said already that Eloise knew in 2007 that she would shoot Daniel in 1977. So why did she send him back anyway? I wish I knew. I have turned it over and over in my head for the last two days, and the best I can come up with is that his being shot accomplishes SOMETHING. For one thing, we know that it keeps the wheels in motion for all of the things that Daniel mentioned to Jack. The Incident happens, the Swan is built, Desmond forgets to push the button, the plane crashes, etc, etc...
So, is that what Eloise is trying to accomplish? To make sure that all of this does happen, so that everybody (the Losties, Ben, EVERYBODY) will be on the Island in 2007 when the "War" happens?
I'm still holding out a very small hope that Daniel doesn't actually die. Maybe he's only MOSTLY DEAD.
Maybe Charles takes him to The Temple. Maybe he will wake up next week and the bullet wound will be on the other side. Maybe...maybe...
I think Daniel's dead, y'all.
Namaste.
I would say in almost every way, The Variable lived up to the hype.
- That must have been some serious adrenaline that Des was running on at the Marina, huh? He beat the stuffing out of Ben and threw him in the water, all while suffering from a potentially deadly gunshot wound. Maybe Ben's just a wimp.
- Loved Eloise's response to Penny asking if Ben is her son: "Good Lord, no!" Although, knowing what we know about her now, it seems more appropriate that she be Ben's mother rather than Daniel's. She certainly carries the "manipulative and evil" gene, doesn't she?
- Hey, Miles is on to something...why DIDN'T Daniel do something like invent the DVD? Dude could have been a GAZILLIONAIRE. Plus, I wouldn't have all of these VHS movies in my storage room that I'm holding on to on the slim chance that I may one day convert them all over to DVD. Next time the wife complains to me about our cluttered storage room, I'm blaming Daniel Faraday.
- What are we to make of this statement?
DANIEL: I got some bad news for you, Jack. You don't belong here at all. She was wrong.
They showed us AGAIN in the previouslies the scene where Eloise told Ben that if they don't ALL come back, then "God help us all." So she is obviously trying to either make sure something DOES happen that is supposed to, or to PREVENT something from happening. I honestly don't believe anymore that they were sent back to "save" their friends...they were sent back as tools (pawns?) in this much larger game.
Can I stop here for an aside? I really haven't discussed it much, but why did Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Sayid go back to 1977, while Sun, Ben, Frank, DeadLocke, and the other Ajira passengers remain in 2007? I think they all have jobs to do...we've already seen that Jack, Sayid, and Kate have managed to turn Ben from a young, insecure, lonely boy into an evil, manipulative, genius, lying liar who lies. What other parts will they end up playing in this global conflict? What are the folks still in 2007 destined to do? I think their role has to do with the "Shadow of the Statue" group, either to oppose or to assist.
Back to this scene...I don't think it's Eloise who was wrong, I think it was Daniel...more on that in a few scenes.
- 864 beats on the metronome. 864=108 X 8. Eight is one of The Numbers, and 108 is the sum of The Numbers. I freaking love this show.
- Viewing these flashback scenes between Eloise and Daniel in light of what we know by the end of this episode really make them heartbreaking. Eloise says to Daniel, "It's my...job to keep you on your path." Even though she knows where that path ends, she has to keep him on it. At least in her mind, she does. I'll get to my thoughts on her motivations when we get to the end.
- I'd be pretty ticked if I was Jack...Daniel comes and wakes me up at the crack of dawn, won't tell me anything other than I apparently screwed up and listened to the wrong people (again), possibly endangering myself, my friends, and God knows what else, and then takes off in the Jeep while I straggle along half-dressed behind him, yelling questions that go unanswered.
Hey, Dan, nice to see you again, too.
- Or, as he puts it to Sawyer: "He came in on the sub, and he woke me up. He--he started talking nonsense, and then he took off for the Orchid."
- Juliet, to me, is still the smartest of all of the Losties (I guess we'll include her in that group now). She recognizes that Jack and Sawyer actually will work better together, and that this situation is mushrooming too rapidly for them to keep their arms around it without help. Sawyer is ready to dismiss Jack, and Juliet simply says: "James, tell him."
And he does. The band is getting back together. For now.
- "Phil, Jack. Jack...Phil."
Hee.
- Not sure how I missed this earlier in the season, but Chang is mirroring Eloise's warning...if you drill even once centimeter further, then God help us all. So are they both talking about the same thing? Are they both trying to prevent the same thing?
Chang is trying to prevent a catastrophic release of electromagnetic energy...Daniel says one of these is destined to happen, anyway, unless they stop it. Eloise says "Whatever happened, happened," and we know that there is an Incident referred to on the Swan tape. So is she trying to put the pieces in place to STOP that from happening? I don't think so, because her own belief is that it would happen anyway...I think she is trying to make sure that things DO happen the way they were "supposed" to, and if that includes The Incident...then so be it.
- Yes, I always listen to the advice of people who say they know better than me because they are from The Future.
- Why can't Dan answer a straight question? Miles asks him point blank what it is that Chang is "supposed" to do, and all Dan will say is, "You'll see." Isn't it just that Dan wants Chang to evacuate the Island?
- And then we meet poor, doomed Theresa. Mother doesn't seem to approve, and she says something interesting to Dan at dinner: "The women in your life will only be terribly hurt." Does she know what will end up happening to Theresa? Or is she just referencing the fact that she knows Daniel is going to die young?
I don't think she knows what's going to happen to Theresa, because she seemed surprised by the fact that Widmore is funding Dan's research. This is also why I don't believe that Eloise is necessarily "special"...I don't think she can "see the future." She has been visited in the past by people from the future (Dan, specifically, but also probably Jack, Kate, etc. that will happen in the next couple of eps). They have told her what has happened up to this point. She's only repeating/acting on what she has been told, not what she has seen herself in some sort of vision.
On first viewing, I just thought Eloise was a manipulative, hard-driving, fun-sucking old hag. But in retrospect, there is a certain sadness to all of this...to me, it's almost like she can't bear to see him pursue things (music, love, whatever) that she knows will all be cut short by his death on the Island.
The inscription on the journal is especially bittersweet: "No matter what, remember I will always love you."
- Love this Sawyer/Miles exchange:
SAWYER: Welcome to the meeting, Twitchy. Good to see you again. Pound cake's in the kitchen. Help yourself to the punch. [To Miles, in a lowered voice] Is he still crazy?
MILES: It's on a whole new level, man.
SAWYER: [Sighs] Great.
- And Daniel doesn't help his cause, if he wants people to think he's sane: "Hey, anybody know where I can find some Hostiles? Yeah, my mom's there. You know, the one that told you to get on a plane and come here?"
- Good grief, Daniel broke my heart in the scene with Widmore. He no longer has use of his great gift, his amazing mind. He accidentally turned his girlfriend into a vegetable. Guilt, heartbreak, frustration, embarrassment...he's just a broken man at this point. And Jeremy Davies freaking NAILED IT.
And now we get an answer to why Daniel and Charlotte were playing the card games, testing his memory...it was to see how quickly he was being healed by the Island.
So why IS Daniel crying about Oceanic 815? How about this...sometime during his experimentation, when he was experimenting on himself first, his consciousness traveled to the time when he was with the Losties, and now he has a fragmented memory of them?
- "You guys were in 1954? Like...Fonzie times?"
- JACK: We don't belong here.
SAWYER: Well, I belonged here just fine till you came back, Doc.
Yep.
- Jack is right, though...what Kate came back for is not in 1977. She came back for Claire. You know they are going to follow up on that storyline, so now the question is how are these guys going to get back to 2007? Maybe due to the fallout from an elecromagnetic "Incident"?
- My VERY favorite part of the episode, and I can't really even express how good it is with words...you just have to see it. Juliet's reaction to the word, "Freckles." Anger, hurt, and then resolution, all in about 5 seconds. Elizabeth Mitchell rocks it.
You ain't gotta go home, Kate, but you gotta get the ___ up outta here.
- Sawyer: We'll all be back at the beach, right where we started.
There's a lot more to that than what appears on the surface. This is an extremely depressing concept for Sawyer, to have come as far as he has in the last three years, to be truly HAPPY for probably the first time in his life...only to come to the realization that it was all just a charade, and now we're going back to the way things used to be. Right back where we started.
Man, I hope not...it's been so rewarding as a viewer to watch the growth of Sawyer. I truly hope it sticks.
- Again, Daniel breaks my heart, this time in the conversation with Charlotte. However, I think there was more to that conversation then what we saw...the camera cuts away right after he says, "Maybe I can change things," and we don't hear the last part of the conversation.
Recognize the "I'm not allowed to have chocolate before dinner" line? Some of Charlotte's last words. And now Daniel has to hear them again. Oof. Heartbreaking.
- Shootout. Explosions. Cool.
Although, Jack obviously doesn't watch Mythbusters. You can't really blow up a gas tank by shooting it. I'm just sayin'.
- I know I'm sounding like a broken record, but Jeremy Davies really brought it this episode. That last scene with Eloise as he's at the piano is another tear-jerker:
FARADAY: I can't. He needs someone who can do really, really complex space-time calibrations and calculate bearings, and I just... I don't know how to do that anymore.
And.....
FARADAY: Will... [voice breaks] will it make you proud of me?
MS. HAWKING: [Whispers] Yes, Daniel. It will.
FARADAY: [Sighs] Then I'll do it.
Especially knowing what we do now....Eloise knew that she was sending Daniel to the Island to get shot. And I do believe her when she says that she will be proud of him. SOMETHING is accomplished by him being shot, I just don't know what it is yet.
- Faraday gives another explanation, similar to what Miles told Hurley, about how the timeline thing is working. Their timeline has continued to move forward, it's just that their present is now occurring in 1977 rather than 2007. So anything that happens to them now does NOT affect anything that has happened to them before. Got it?
- Sawyer knows he screwed up with the "Freckles" thing, but I think he truly loves Juliet. And she's obviously feeling a little insecure right now. I just hope that when Sawyer ends up "right back where he started" that Juliet is still with him. I'm become a big...Sulieter? Julawyer? I don't know what they're calling us Sawyer/Juliet shippers...that second one seems a little prejudiced if I say it out loud.
- My favorite line of the night: Sawyer's "It sounded like it was from outside," as the pounding noise obviously comes from the hall closet. That just struck me as really funny, and I wonder if it was a Josh Holloway ad-lib.
- Wow, that was a LOT of info that Daniel gives to Jack. Bottom line is that he thinks that if he can stop the Incident, then all of this that has happened will no longer happen, and Flight 815 will land safe and sound in Los Angeles. I think he is WRONG about that, and the later events of this episode bear that out, I think.
If what he is saying is true, then Darlton has been lying to us ever since the Season 3 episode "Flashes Before Your Eyes." That was the episode where Eloise told Desmond about course correction, and that you can't change the future by manipulating the past. They have said numerous times since then on podcasts and in interviews that this is how time travel works in the LOST universe, so to change that now would be pretty crappy of them. I trust them more than that.
- Of course, he's talking about Jughead...classic storytelling rule. If you introduce an H-bomb in Act 1, expect for it to make another appearance in Act 3.
- Eloise tells Penny that for the first time in a long time, she doesn't know what happens next. I mentioned this earlier, but what she is telling us is that everything she knew about the future at this point came from interactions in her past. She knew that Daniel went back to the Island, she knew that she was supposed to send the O6 back as well, but that was the last thing she "knew."
To me, this tells us two things: unfortunately, one of them is that I do believe Daniel is dead. Secondly, I don't think the O6 are going to be on the Island in 1977 much longer. I think that by the end of this season, they will be back in 2007 with Ben, Sun, DeadLocke, etc...
- Nice little scene with Des and Penny, and a callback to The Constant, as well.
- Think Desmond may have survived because the Island is not through with him yet? Just like it kept Jack, Michael, etc. from dying before their work was done? Unfortunately for Desmond and Penny, I think this is not their happy ending.
- I was a little surprised that Widmore is Daniel's dad...in my head, I had Charles and Eloise as brother and sister, not lovers.
I think Penny is Charles' daughter from the Outsider that Ben had him banished for. So Daniel and Penny are half-siblings.
I'm just trying to figure out why Eloise slapped him. Maybe because she had to raise him alone? If Daniel is older than Penny, then Eloise had already had him by the time Charles fathered Penny. Then Charles was banished from the Island, ended up raising Penny with her mother, leaving Eloise and Daniel behind?
- So, knowing now that Charles and Eloise are lovers, and that their offspring is Daniel, do we have another set of possibilities for the Adam and Eve skeletons from back in season 1? The ones that Darlton have said we will be able to look back on when this is all over and see that they actually DID know where this was headed way back in season 1?
- I've seen some people remarking on the fact that Richard doesn't seem to completely remember Daniel. Remember, though, they only met briefly and it was 23 years earlier. I think Richard does sort of recognize him, but it doesn't click until Daniel starts asking about Jughead.
- I was SHOCKED when Daniel was shot, and even more so when it was revealed to be Eloise that shot him. Kudos to the show that they can still deliver that kind of impact, even to people who have been obsessing over the show for years.
- I've said already that Eloise knew in 2007 that she would shoot Daniel in 1977. So why did she send him back anyway? I wish I knew. I have turned it over and over in my head for the last two days, and the best I can come up with is that his being shot accomplishes SOMETHING. For one thing, we know that it keeps the wheels in motion for all of the things that Daniel mentioned to Jack. The Incident happens, the Swan is built, Desmond forgets to push the button, the plane crashes, etc, etc...
So, is that what Eloise is trying to accomplish? To make sure that all of this does happen, so that everybody (the Losties, Ben, EVERYBODY) will be on the Island in 2007 when the "War" happens?
I'm still holding out a very small hope that Daniel doesn't actually die. Maybe he's only MOSTLY DEAD.
Maybe Charles takes him to The Temple. Maybe he will wake up next week and the bullet wound will be on the other side. Maybe...maybe...
I think Daniel's dead, y'all.
Namaste.
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