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Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse on the End of LOST

SL-LOST — Tue, 11 May 2010 13:32:49 +0000

Vulture: In last week’s episode, why didn’t Sun tell Jin to leave her so he could raise their daughter?
Lindelof: That’s a great question. And our only answer for it is that Sun only had about 30 seconds to process the fact that she was going to die. Sun and Jin never had a relationship together with that daughter. Sun had a relationship with her, but Jin did not — she was just a picture on a phone to him. In that moment, she did not tell Jin to leave her side. Partially, in that moment, maybe there was a part of her that wanted him to stay with her. Who knows? We’re not really willing to say why characters don’t say certain things in certain moments. All we can say is: She did not say that. We did not want that scene to be about their daughter, we wanted it to be about them reuniting.

It was announced that the finale is going to be extended an extra half-hour, for a total of two and a half hours. Did that come from you or the network?
Cuse: Damon and I wrote the script and we were gently told by the network that they thought it was big. And we were like, “No, no, we’ll be able to get this all in there.” But we really wrote the script the way we wanted the script to be. Normally in television, you’re trying to execute a clear decision within a very specific guideline — which is the running time of a one-hour episode. We really just sort of decided, “Let’s not worry too much about that, let’s just write the best version of the finale and we will figure out in post the time issue.” And when we finally saw a cut of the whole thing together, we were like, “This thing will not be as good in a two-hour running time.” We went to the network and said, “You know what? You guys are right, this thing is a little bit long and we think we can deliver you a much better version of it that’s two-and-a-half-hours long.” And they were totally supportive. They rearranged the schedule in order to give us a two-and-a-half-hour airing slot. We feel really excited about it; we think the finale is going to be so much better for that. It will really feel like a feature film.

Click here to read the full interview (contains minor spoilers about tonight’s episode).

The Day the Music Died: LOST 6.14 “The Candidate” Recap and Analysis by Chris Kirkman

SL-LOST — Thu, 06 May 2010 19:27:09 +0000

Previously, on Lost: I have no idea, because Christian Shephard didn’t say those magical words and fill me in. It’s okay, though, I’ve been paying attention. Mostly.

This week, on Lost: Everybody dies. Well, not everybody. I’m sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. Oh, and did I give something away? Well, if you haven’t seen the episode yet, why are you reading? You can’t blame me for that.

Anyway, before we can get on with the death and dismemberment, we have to start with an eye – Locke’s to be exact. AlternaLocke, to be even more exact. We’re in LA X, and AlternaJack is there, waking Locke up and making sure he’s okay. Jack tells Locke that he got mangled by a rented sedan and that his dural sac was all shot to shit, but Jack rooted around in there and now Locke is all better. Jack says that while he was taking a peek under the hood, he saw the damage that had been done to Locke before and wants to know how it all happened. Locke asks why, and Jack explains that Locke is a candidate – a candidate for a new experimental surgery that could restore feeling to Locke’s lower extremities. Hell, Locke might even be able to walk again, all without the aid of the Island.

Locke says thanks, but no thanks, and ends the subject as Helen comes in and gives Jack a kiss of thanks. Despite the kiss from Peg Bundy, when someone tells Jack no, he’s not liable to take that as an answer, and so he begins his episode-long descent into Mr. Fixit mode – all while Jack on Island Prime decides to take the alternate route and actually become patient, confident and likable. We’ll get to all that. First, let’s finish what we started talking about in LA X.

Meanwhile, in LA X … I’ll bet you didn’t see this shot in the episode. That’s because it’s from this week’s Modern Family, which even has a Lost reference. Not watching this show? Shame on you, because it is to comedy what Lost is to time-traveling, mythic melodrama.

AlternaJack is seeking answers and, like any classic detective, his first stop is … the dentist? Well, Jackie boy has found some medical records that state that Locke had some emergency dental work done after his crippling accident. So, he tracks down the dentist. Turns out, it’s Bernard. After some brief chit-chat, Jack finds out that Bernard was on Oceanic 815, and Jack was seated right next to him. Bernard even says that Jack was flirting with his wife, Rose. Jack is flabbergasted. Bernard, however, does not seem surprised at the connection.

This is Bernard not being surprised at the connection.

Jack presses Bernard for the 411 on Locke’s malady, but Bernard can only reveal so much. Dentist-client confidentiality, don’t you know. Bernard does tell Jack that another man was treated with Locke after the accident, and he gives Jack a name – Anthony Cooper. “You remember all that?” asks Jack. “Of course I do,” says Bernard, impishly.

Jack follows the name Anthony Cooper to a nursing home, where he’s stymied by an admitting orderly who asks if Jack is family. No, he’s not, but luckily Helen – who just happens to walk in with a lovely potted plant (anthuriums, maybe?) – is, by proxy. It doesn’t take long for sharp-witted Helen to realize what Jack is up to, and she is reticent to allow him to see Anthony Cooper. Helen tells Jack that he saved John’s life, and wonders why that can’t be enough. Our ever-stubborn Jack tells Helen that it simply isn’t enough. Save your breath, Helen, the guy is like a dog with a bone.

Helen reluctantly agrees to let Jack see Anthony, who is now wizened, gray-haired, catatonic and confined to a wheelchair. Helen wipes Anthony’s mouth and introduces Jack to him, explaining that old man Cooper is Locke’s daddy.

Turns out some old bastards get a fickle fate no matter what timeline they inhabit.

Back at the hospital, Jack is visiting Locke, still confined to bed. Jack asks if John is awake, but Locke simply mutters in his sleep, apparently dreaming. “Push the button. I wish you had believed me.” I believe we all know what he’s dreaming about. Jack gets a very puzzled look on his face, just as he notices Claire out in the hallway, looking for the good doctor. Claire has a box tucked under her arm and asks if they can talk.

Jack buys an Apollo bar from the vending machine – the same one from which Jack gets the Apollo bar when Jacob first enters his life over in the Island Prime timeline – and the two settle in to talk. Claire opens her special package and pulls out an ornate box, asking Jack if he knows why their father wanted her to have it. Jack is clueless, admitting that he didn’t even know about Claire.

You can get those at the mall. They’re from Italy. I wonder if Claire has looked on the bottom for an inscription.

Claire asks Jack to share how their father died, and Jack tells her that he drank himself to death and was found in a gutter outside a bar in Sydney. Jack brought Christian’s body back, but the airline lost it. Lo and behold, Claire had just flown in from Sydney recently, too. Oceanic 815? asks Jack. Claire affirms and they both have a little Matrix-y, deja vu moment.

Jack sidles in next to Claire and the two take a look at the box together, flipping open the lid and staring at each others’ reversed images, through the looking glass.

It’s a music box. The tune inside? “Catch a Falling Star,” of course. Definitely creepy cool.

Jack makes an offer for Claire to stay with him at his house. Claire declines, saying that they’re strangers. No, says Jack, they’re not strangers. They’re family. They have a little brother-sis moment. Awww.

Later, Locke is being released from the hospital. The orderly wheels him down the hall, past Jin, who has a hand full of yellow flowers, apparently on his way to see his beloved Sun, recuperating from her gunshot wound. Locke takes over the wheeling duties and runs into Jack on his way out. Jack wanted to say goodbye, and Locke thanks the doc for fixing him up. Jack quickly admits that he went to see Locke’s poppa, and Locke isn’t too pleased with that. Jack just wanted to understand … and Locke sets the record straight real quick.

You see, Locke was in a plane crash. Not a big ol’ jetliner, but a small plane, that John was piloting. He begged his dad to be his wingman for the day – that, despite his father’s fears, he could trust John – but the two barely got off the ground before ditching into the tarmac. John doesn’t remember what went wrong, and the consequences where his crushed spine and his father’s catatonic state. It was all Locke’s fault.

Jack recounts his moments at the airport baggage claim when he had lost his father, and John had told him that Jack’s father was gone. That hurt Jack, but he needed to hear it. “Your father’s gone, too, Mr. Locke,” says Jack. Locke refuses to admit the truth, but Jack explains that Anthony Cooper is gone and that Locke can continue to punish himself for as long as he wants, but it won’t bring his father back. “What happened, happened,” says Jack. “And you can let it go.”

Locke wants to know what makes Jack think that letting go is so easy. Jack responds that it’s not, and that he was hoping that maybe Locke could go first. The thought makes Locke laugh a bit, and then he bids Jack farewell, rolling himself down the hospital hallway.

As John wheels away, Jack calls out after him. “I can help you, John. I wish you believed me.” Locke pauses, a strange look crossing his face, as if he suddenly remembered this phrase from before. After a long moment of contemplation, Locke grabs the wheels of his chair once more and rolls off in silence.

Back on Island Prime, Jack wakes up in an outrigger. Sayid is there, and welcomes him to Hydra Island.

A little ways away, at the Hydra station, Sawyer, Hurley, Sun, Jin, Kate, Claire and Lapidus are led to the old polar bear cages by gun-wielding members of Widmore’s Geek Squad. The sonic fence pylons have been moved and are now scattered about the compound. Sawyer balks at the thought of spending another moment inside the bear cages and strips Seamus of his rifle, threatening the Geek he christens “doughboy.” A shot soon rings out, and Widmore is there, telling Sawyer to drop the gun. His leverage? You’ll never guess.

This would be hostage/kidnapping situation #28 for Freckles. Seriously, just rename her the freaking Human Shield.

Sawyer thinks that Chuck is bluffing, but Widmore tells James that he has a list of names, and Kate is not on that list, making her expendable. Sawyer can’t argue with that logic, and gives up his gun. The group is soon ushered into the bear cages. Chuck tells Sawyer that he may not believe it, but he’s doing this for their own good. Sawyer tells Chuck that he’s right – he doesn’t believe it.

Widmore asks if the fence is live, but he doesn’t get good news – it won’t be live for another hour. Chuck makes it clear that is unacceptable because “he’s coming.” This could get ugly.

Back on the beach, Jack is rubbing his aching head and Sayid informs him that Locke saved his ass. He also explains that everyone else following Locke has hightailed it into the Jungle of Mystery and it’s just them three. Jack is confused and wants to know why he was brought to Hydra Island, and, as if on cue, Locke/MIB comes out of the brush to inform Jack of his comrades’ recent capture. Ol’ Smokey is going to help Jack get them out. Jack says okie doke, but he wants to get one thing straight: those people are not his people, and he’s not leaving the Island. MIB is kinda hoping Jack might have a change of heart about that.

At the bear cages, Sawyer is pacing, commenting to Kate that it seems like they’re going in circles. Nice reference, grifter. Kate thinks that Widmore was bluffing about the whole killing thing, but Sawyer sets the record straight. He says that back at the cave that Ol’ Smokey took him to, there was a slew of names up on the walls. Her name was there, but it was scratched out, signifying that Freckles could be toast whenever it’s convenient and the Island won’t have her back. This also confirms two things: one, that Kate’s name really was on the cave wall even though we didn’t see it, and two, the producers probably got tired of everyone speculating why her name was only in the Lighthouse. The answer, of course, was bad editing. Mystery solved.

Over in a secluded corner of the caves, Sun and Jin are catching up on three years of being apart. Jin says he’s seen the pictures of their beautiful little girl, and Sun reveals that she still has Jin’s ring after all this time. She places it on his hand, and they smile, full of love.

It’s a beautiful moment, really. Maybe too beautiful, since the Island has a cruel fate in store.

Speaking of cruel, all the power suddenly goes out. “Uh oh,” says Lapidus. And how, says I. The Geek Squad start freaking out, and the battle horn of Ol’ Smokey echoes through the jungle. “And, we’re dead,” mutters Hurley. Oh, it’s about to get interesting.

The crackling crickets of doom and that delightfully horrific rattling sound starts up, and soon Ol’ Smokey is headed out in full force. Seamus pops a few rounds into it, as if that’ll do any good, but he’s soon scooped up in a smokey tentacle and bashed against the side of the bear cages. Cerberus goes off to wreak havoc elsewhere in the compound, and Kate looks down to see Seamus’s keys. She reaches for them. Lapidus isn’t waiting around, and starts trying to kick the iron gate down. It won’t budge, but that’s okay because Jack is soon there, grabs the keys and sets them free. Kate wonders what he’s doing there, and Jack motions over into the chaotic bush, telling her that he’s with him. They get the heck out of Dodge.

Dawn has broken on the Island and the remaining survivors are marching their way toward the Ajira plane. Kate thinks that Jack has had a change of heart about coming with them, but he sets her straight, saying that he’s not meant to leave the Island. Someone rustles in the brush, and they all draw guns on Sayid. Jack tells them that it’s okay, the Iraqi is cool. They head out, once again.

Meanwhile, over at the Ajira plane, MIB has gotten a headstart on the group. There are a couple of men with rifles guarding the tiny landing strip, but MIB quickly dispatches both of them, snapping a neck and blowing the other away with a rifle. MIB pauses over one of the newly-dead bodies and spies a particularly fetching digital watch on a wrist. He likes what he sees, and pries it loose, then heads up the amazingly well-built bamboo boarding ramp and into the plane.

Does this strike anyone as being an overly-elaborate bamboo construct, or is it just me?

Once inside, MIB spies a particularly suspicious patch of cable coming out from one of the overhead compartments. He pops the top and pulls out something no doubt nefarious, wrapped in a black cloth.

Lapidus leads the gang out into the clearing where the Ajira plane rests, and heads toward it, wondering what it’ll take to get that baby to fly. Upon closer inspection, Sawyer spies an ex-Geek laying dead on the ground. He declares this an official “son of a bitch”-level situation. Sayid inspects another body, confirming that his neck’s been broken. MIB emerges from the fuselage and confirms that he was the neck-snapper, but if it makes everybody feel better, it was only a foregone conclusion that those dudes would die. MIB explains that Widmore only posted two guys by the plane for show, because he wanted them all to get on the plane, so they’d all be together so that Chuck could kill them.

“With what?” demands Sawyer. MIB takes off his pack and produces a big ol’ block of C4. He proceeds to explain how he found it, wired to the electrical system of the plane. Had they turned on the big bird, then, well, boom. The suckers, I mean survivors, just eat it up without a shred of evidence, which leaves me scratching my head.

Jin wants to know the new plan, and MIB says that they can’t be sure the plane’s not still loaded for bear. So … if they want to leave the Island, they’re gonna have to do it on the sub. Sawyer’s down with this plan, stating that’s been his main plan all along. Hurley objects, saying that MIB isn’t supposed to leave the Island because Richard said so. Sawyer says to forget Alpert, and tells MIB that he was wrong about the old smoke monster because he had saved their asses twice. Somewhere underneath that little fib lies a plan, methinks.

They saddle up and move out. Claire sheepishly trots up to MIB and says that she’s sorry. He smiles and pats her crazy, matted blonde head, telling her it’s okay, he understands.

“So you went a little crazy, so what? It happens to the best of us.”

Back at the end of the line, Sawyer once again calls on Jack to help him carry out a sneaky plan. When they get to the sub dock, he needs Jack to keep MIB from getting on the sub, and since Jack is staying behind, he might as well pitch in. Jack wants to know how in the hell he’s supposed to keep a murderous smoke monster at bay, and Sawyer tells him that he just needs to get it in the water, and that James will take care of the rest. Oh, cool, knock it in the water. Solid. Wait, what???

At the sub dock, the group crouch behind some low-lying shrubbery. Sawyer starts barking marching orders, like he’s ordering up a tactical strike in Halo. It’s kind of a new thing for James, and it seems as if he’s suddenly had some sort of combat or urban assault training; as if, somehow, he may have had police training. I mean, other than that three-year stint as LaFleur, guarding hippies. Anyway, he organizes his makeshift squad into teams, leaving Jack and MIB to take up the rear, and then heads out of the brush to storm the docks hard with the A-Team.

Do you see what I see? Yep, Jack’s got plumber butt.

Sawyer leads the first charge to the sub, with Sun, Jin, Lapidus and Hurley. That’s one hell of an A-Team. They make it past the empty docks no problem, and pop the hatch, disappearing inside, one by one. Sawyer and Lapidus storm the bridge and make short work of the navigator and captain. Lapidus takes over guarding the captain, and Sawyer heads back to see how the B-Team are doing.

In the brush, Kate gives the others the signal to head toward the sub. Oh, lord, I would not want to be on that team, let me tell you. MIB grabs his and Jack’s pack, and hands it to the good doctor. Jack, watching Kate and the surroundings, slings his pack and then sets out, taking up the rear. Kate, Sayid and Claire have a clear line to the sub and take it, while Jack and MIB hang back and have a little talk as they stroll leisurely along the docks. MIB tells Jack that he really, really needs to reconsider going with them and that whomever told Jack that he needed to stay was sorely mistaken.

Jack pauses and tells MIB that John Locke told him he needed to stay. And then, he proceeds to enact Sawyer’s master plan and pushes MIB into the water. Claire is flabbergasted. So am I.

I half expected him to come up, screaming “I’m melting! I’m melting!”

So is Kate, who soon asks Jack what happened. She’s rudely interrupted by a pesky bullet to the chest. Down goes Freckles.

I hate it for you, darlin’, but if you find yourself at the business end of a gun 28 times, sooner or later your luck is going to run out.

This is about the time when all hell breaks loose. There are guys all over the treeline, and Jack, Sayid and Claire open fire. Jack empties a gun and a pistol, never once taking cover like he’s in some damn western – or as if he somehow knew he wouldn’t be shot – and then scoops up Kate, heading toward the sub. Sayid heads that way himself, urging Claire to follow suit. They lower Kate down the hatch.

Meanwhile, MIB has slowly extricated himself from the devilish water trap and is royally pissed. He takes out his pistol and marches up the dock, taking out Widmore’s men methodically, and with gusto. Down below, Jack carries Kate further into the sub and orders Hurley to find a first aid kit. Sayid tells Sawyer that Claire is still above, so he heads up and out the hatch to see what’s going on. Claire is busy returning fire, and Sawyer calls to her. MIB hears the commotion and turns around, shouting for James and turning around to run back down the dock for the sub. Sawyer takes advantage of the opportunity and slams the hatch shut, climbing down below and ordering Lapidus to get the captain to dive, dive dive!

Out on the dock, Claire sees the sub leaving and runs after it. MIB catches her and holds her back, comforting her. Claire is very, very upset that they’re leaving them behind, but MIB tells her to trust him – she does not want to be on that sub. And, with a very mischievous grin, we all get just a wee bit scared for our new submariners.

On the sub, Kate’s in bad shape, and Hurley can’t find a first aid kit. Kate yells for Claire, but sorry Freckles – Aaron’s momma has been left behind. Jack asks for his pack to get a shirt to apply pressure, and Jin hands it over. The doc reaches in and pulls out an ominous, beeping package. It’s not a first aid kit.

Can someone please explain to me how an ancient smoke monster suddenly knows how to wire up a block of C4 to a ten dollar Casio from Walgreen’s?

Jack suggests that they, you know, get to the surface real quick-like and Jin sends the order to the comm. Everybody is a bit confused as to how a bomb got on board – everyone except Jack, who informs them all that Locke had no intention of ever getting on board the sub and that he pretty much just wanted to get everyone into some sort of tin can so he could blow them all to smithereens. Jack wants to know if anyone can tell how that thing works. Three guesses who chimes in. If you said the Iraqi Professor, you win. Sayid deducts that there are two wires that, if pulled out simultaneously, would theoretically render the bomb inert. Sawyer tells him to step aside and gets ready to channel MacGruber.

Jack stops him, though, and tells them all that it’s going to be okay, that Locke can’t kill them. Hurley is understandably confused. Just hold on, big fella, maybe Jack is onto something. Jack speculates that this is what Locke has been trying to do all along – get them all together to die, because Locke can’t leave the Island unless they’re all dead. However, he told Jack that he could kill any of them whenever he wanted but – dig this – maybe he hasn’t because he isn’t allowed to. Whoa, Jack, slow down there. You might actually be thinking for a change. What if, Jack posits, Locke is trying to get them all to kill each other.

Sawyer’s not hearing any of this, and gets ready to pull the wires. He and Jack go back and forth, a near repeat of the classic battle of wills down in the Hatch when Locke wanted to push the button, but Jack thought it was a worthless endeavor. Jack grabs Sawyer’s collar and tells him that they are all going to be okay, but that he’s just going to have to trust Jack. Sawyer thinks for a split second, apologizes, and pulls the wires.

The clock stops. Everyone holds their breath. The sub creaks.

And then, the timer starts again – only this time, it’s very, very fast.

Sayid breaks the silence, telling Jack to listen carefully, and explaining that Desmond is in a well back on the main Island and that MIB wants the Scot dead, which means that he must be extremely important. Jack wonders why Sayid is telling him all this. “Because it’s going to be you, Jack,” says Sayid hurriedly, as he grabs the bomb and runs to the front of the sub, diving through a bulkhead just before going kaboom.

The sub is rocked by the shockwave of the blast, and there’s stuff flying everywhere. Up on the bridge, Lapidus has been knocked to floor, and he slowly gets up, making his way down to the main decks. As he climbs off the ladder, he pauses at a sound to his right, just behind a partially opened hatch. “Oh, hell,” cracks Chesty, just before a pressure explosion sends a bulkhead door upside his head.

Sayonara, Frank. It was swell knowing you.

Back in the aft compartments, water is flooding in by the bucketfuls. Jack gets to his feet and finds Freckles floating face down. He pulls her into his arms and checks on the others. Hurley and Sawyer are okay, and Hurley asks about Sayid. He’s cut off by a scream from the corner. It’s Sun. She’s trapped behind what looks like a very heavy metal chest. Oh crap. I’ve seen enough underwater thrillers to know that this is not good.

This does not make me happy. This is almost as painful as watching Juliet wake up, bloodied, next to Jughead.

Jack puts Kate into Hurley’s arms, hands him an emergency oxygen tank, and tells him he has to get Kate out of there. Hurley says he has to go after Sayid. “There is no Sayid!” screams Jack, in what may be one of the best lines of the season. Jack tells Hurley that he can do this, and Hugo takes Kate and heads toward the blast hole.

Sawyer calls for Jack’s help and he, Jack and Jin manage to pry the heavy chest away from Sun. Oh, thank God. Short-lived elation, however, as we now see that Sun is pinned by even more metal debris. CRAP. A mini-pressure explosion rocks the sub, knocking an overhead fixture loose, which subsequently falls on Sawyer’s hard head. CRAP. Can it get worse?

The answer, of course, is yes. The sub is quickly filling with water, and Sawyer is unconscious. Jin can’t budge the metal pinning Sun, so she urges him to leave her behind and save himself. He refuses. Jack wants to help, but Jin says that he will stay behind to help Sun, and to save Sawyer. Jack reluctantly agrees, but heads over to a wall mount, grabbing the last emergency oxygen tank, offering it to Jin, telling him that he can rescue Sawyer without it. Jin knows that’s not true, and refuses the tank. Jack is torn, knowing that he is leaving them both to certain death if he leaves. Jin finally tells Jack to go, and the good doctor has no other choice. He turns and swims out, through the blast hole, leaving the lovers behind.

The water is up to Sun’s chin now, but still Jin is convinced he can save his wife. Sun begs Jin to save himself, but he refuses, telling her that he won’t leave her. He dives down again, desperately tugging at the metal beams trapping Sun. It’s no use. They won’t budge. Once again Sun begs him to leave, and he pauses, looking around, desperately. He speaks to her in Korean, telling her that he won’t leave … that he will never leave her again.

“I love you, Sun.”

“I love you,” answers Sun, crying and kissing her beloved husband over and over as the water quickly rises to overtake them both.

The sub slowly descends into the darkening depths, the last of the air bubbles trickling from its shattered hull. Inside, the heavy water has filled every recess, and all is still. In the aft compartment we see the two hands of the submerged lovers clasped tightly, holding onto forever as the end nears.

And then … release, hands drifting apart; the Kwons are gone, claimed by the inky blackness of the sea.

We cry.

The beach. Jack climbs from the surf, carrying Sawyer’s limp body. He collapses to the sand, and Sawyer sputters and takes in labored breaths. Hurley trudges over, helping Kate; she keeps telling Jack that she couldn’t find him, and they embrace. Hugo asks about Sawyer and Jack says that he got hit in the head pretty hard, but at least he’s breathing.

“What about Jin and Sun?” asks a concerned Kate. Jack shakes his head. Kate breaks down. Hurley reels from shock, a tear streaming down his face. He’s soon overtaken with sobs.

Jack gets to his feet and walks into the surf, looking up, as if pleading with an unseen force. Soon, Jack lets go and anguish fills his features. He’s soon in tears, as well, and suddenly we’re hit full force with the sadness he must feel, watching all these people he’s known and cared about for so long – these people who have always been considered “his” people – die, one by one, following a path that they have never fully understood.

It’s right about now that I get the sense of something else beneath that surface of anguish – a quiet rage building in Jack. Not the petulant anger that we saw in the Hatch, or in the smashing of the Lighthouse mirrors, but a righteous smoldering, determined and building in intensity. It’s in this moment that I almost feel sorry for the Man in Black, because now that Jack has finally found his way – his destiny with this Island – there will be no more selfish fits where Jack Smash. No, it’s quite clear that right now, when it comes to Jack taking on Locke – it’s clobbering time.

Speaking of the Man in Black, he still stands at the edge of the sub dock, staring into the dark ocean. Claire is still there with him. It sunk, he remarks. Claire is upset; everyone was on that submarine. She wants to know if they’re all dead. Not all of them, says Locke, turning and grabbing his pack and gun. Claire turns to follow, wanting to know where he’s heading.

“To finish what I started,” says the Man in Black, trudging off determinedly into the night, with frustration and a bit of trepidation showing in his furrowed brow.

Bring it on, big man. Bring it on.

Cue the THONK!

Ugh, what a heart-wrenching episode. I knew that there was going to be a lot more death coming as the finale approached, but I didn’t expect it to hit me as hard as in this episode. We lose four this week, and none more heart-breaking than Sun and Jin. I think one of the toughest pills to swallow was the fact that Sun had fought so hard to get back to the Island, and had gone through so much crap once she got there just to get back to the man she loves – including losing her ability to speak properly – and then as soon as she’s reunited, they barely have time to hug and catch up before they end up drowning on a sinking submarine. And, as my girlfriend – who happens to be Asian – so hilariously put it: “Why they gotta be hating on the Asians?”

I really hate to make this comparison, but how many of you out there have seen Serenity? Anyone who knows me knows my utter disdain for what I consider one of the biggest disrespecting of fans that Joss Whedon has ever perpetrated. Of course, I mean when Wash dies. It’s quick, it’s senseless. It hurts. Granted, I did not think that the Kwon’s deaths were that unexpected or nearly that heart-numbingly visceral as Wash’s impaling and the treachery of the Whedon, but I was suddenly taken back and thought I’d mention the comparison.

I will also say this – I loathed watching Juliet die, but I knew it was coming for weeks. I just knew. And, thus, I had the chance to steel myself against the loss. As a fan, it hurt, but I had already resolved the loss. This week, however, even though I had a good idea that the Kwons – at least one of them – might die before the finale, I hadn’t made the same resolution against it as I had for Juliet, and so it struck home much stronger. The emotion of the episode truly affected me. Yes, I’m man enough to admit that I shed a tear – once when Sun and Jin finally let go in that watery tomb, and again when Jack lost it on the beach. It was a testament to the quality of the acting and production of the episode that, despite the sheer insanity and all the chaos going on, it took the time to give pause and provide poignancy and respect to the characters we lost along the crooked path.

Well, almost all the characters.

We also lost Frank Lapidus. Of course, you wouldn’t know that by the actions and reactions of the remaining four who washed up on shore. Not once did any of them think to ask where Lapidus was while they were counting heads on the sub, nor did they think to ask when they had washed up on shore. Hell, Hurley asked if Sayid was okay before he left the sub, and Sayid was in about a billion pieces. Granted, in defense of the production team, the structure of the episode didn’t warrant a whole lot of hand-wringing over Lapidus. We were all supposed to feel the sudden, abrupt loss of Sayid, and mourn the loss of the loving Kwons. Lapidus was, at best, a third-stringer. But the guy has been a fifth wheel for three seasons, now, and has saved the asses of more than a few of the castaways. You’d think they would care what happened to the guy.

Ah, Chesty. As my twitter pal @powlsy commented – it’s like he just wasn’t the same since he lost his beard and mustache from season 4. I agree – it’s almost as if that soup catcher were his source of power. Like Sampson.

But you know what? None of it really matters, in the end. They’re all still alive over in LA X. No matter what happens in the finale, they will all live on in some way or another. Whether the timelines merge and the memories and consciousness of the disparate lives come together, or whether the timeline of Island Prime ceases to exist all-together, the fact that their hearts and souls still exist out there means that all the loss, as painful as it has been, has not been in vain.

So this week’s episode was pretty straightforward – the production team got to blow some crap up again (I swear they must have just had a ton of explosives sitting around and had to write it all into the remaining episodes), and there was lots of shootings and Kate hostage situations and Ol’ Smokey action. As a result, there’s not really a whole of analysis to throw at all of you. I’m no closer to resolving, in my mind, how the two realities will eventually collide or skew further off in the finale. Still, there are a few talking points to bring up. It wouldn’t be an episode of Lost if there wasn’t!

FREAKY FRIDAY
Has anybody noticed how our favorite characters over in LA X are seeming to slowly turn into their counterparts on Island Prime? Jack seems to be the prime example of this. For instance, AlternaJack, who used to be patient and humble, has now started taking on the stubborn Mr. Fixit attitude of Jack from Island Prime. He has become obsessed with helping to heal John Locke, both emotionally and physically. AlternaLocke has become the proxy in LA X for Jack’s wife Sarah back on Island Prime – a person that Jack cares about and is drawn to that he feels the compulsive need to tinker with. Sarah, by the way, was played by Julie Bowen, who is now the hilariously neurotic Claire Dunphy on Modern Family. Did I mention how great that show is?

Anyway, over on Island Prime, Jack has now taken his self-reflective time out and has come out the other side with patience and humility, and has started to see past his own rage and self-destructive tendencies. These are all traits which we saw, albeit in limited form, in AlternaJack when we were first introduced to him. Yes, he is estranged from his wife and child in the beginning, but he takes the time to turn things around with young David, and he’s even come to terms, somewhat, with his daddy issues. All of these traits have now been seemingly passed along to Jack on the Island.

Speaking of AlternaJack’s obsession with Locke – and jumping a little off-topic for a bit – it almost seems to me like Jack can sense that Locke is missing something. Yes, there is hurt there deep within for what he was done to his father in this timeline, but despite Locke’s other great fortunes here – his deep love from Helen and the chance to reconnect and actually have a father – there is, and always will be a part of Locke that just isn’t there. His destiny remains unfulfilled. This Locke still went to Australia for walkabout, still searching for that final piece of the puzzle. Jack can sense that, and wants to help. He thinks that healing John’s spine and returning feeling to his lower extremities will help. But it’s almost as if it will take more than that – much more. It’s almost as if the only thing that will truly heal Locke, both inside and out … is getting him back to the Island.

THE RANDOM BITS
Yeah, yeah, I know it’s early, but at least there’s a lot of them.

You may have noticed by my tone that I’m actually pulling for Jack. No, I’m not feverish. He has completely redeemed himself in my eyes in the past few episodes, which means that the Island has really taken hold of him and slapped him upside the head. I’m not going to delve into all the character development that has taken place over this season, but if you want to know pretty much how I feel, you can’t get much closer than Joel Murphy’s column from yesterday. And, yes, Kate still sucks rocks.

So … what’s with the music box? Do any of you believe we’ll actually find out? It’s such a small little detail to introduce at such a late date. Perhaps its significance is simply a reminder of the entanglement between the two timelines. The music box plays “Catch a Falling Star,” which is pretty much Claire’s theme song. Claire has taken over the Rousseau role on Island prime, and Rousseau’s broken music box was a pretty significant Island artifact back in the day. It could also be simply a MacGuffin for getting Jack and Claire together once more, to reconnect the survivors and family. Regardless, it’s likely just a literary device to tie some things together in a very subtle, but intimate way.

The philosophical question of the week: Would the C4 have exploded if they hadn’t pulled the wires? Possibly not, because, as Sayid said, Jack is the one, which means the Island isn’t done with him yet and thus, he can’t die. However, Sawyer and the Kwons were still possibilities for candidates, so the loophole may exist that if a candidate hasn’t been officially selected, then they all could die, and the process would have to begin anew – or it would end with the balance being shifted toward the side of evil. There is also the possibility that, even if Jack were the official candidate, that they were outside the radius of the Island and possibly outside its sphere of protection. The only evidence against that is Michael – he was off the Island and tried to kill himself several times, but it didn’t work. The Island wasn’t done with him yet. The Island probably wasn’t done with Jack and Co. yet, either, and thus the bomb would have failed. Just my opinion, though. Too bad they didn’t have Richard on board.

Speaking of Richard, where the hell is he? And Ben? And Miles? Weren’t they going to get explosives over at the Dharma barracks a few episodes back? How long does that take, really?

Hurley is so freaking priceless. He’s even awesome when he’s out of focus.

Perhaps someone more astute in diving knowledge can fill me in on something that’s bothering me. The sub was deep enough that it would take five minutes to reach the surface at the time they discovered the bomb, and three minutes counted down on the timer until the hull was breached by the explosion. Now, let’s say the time between that of the explosion and the time that Jack and Sawyer finally escaped out of the hull was about a minute and a half, two minutes, tops. That would put the sub back down almost to where it was when they were diving before. You all with me so far? So, my question is thus: If Jack carried an unconscious Sawyer out of the sub and swam up to the surface using an emergency air tank, why don’t they have the bends? I’m just curious. And, yes, for all you crazy Island nuts out there, it could be the healing properties of the Island.

Just a random thought about MIB/Locke that may have occurred to others: It struck me odd how MIB always seems to want Claire around and is so forgiving of her, but then I got to thinking about his behavior. It seems as though he begins to take on some of the personality traits of the people whose bodies he inhabits for a long period of time. The more he’s been in Locke’s body, the more he becomes like Locke. He seems to have all of Locke’s memories, and I believe that affects his personality and, possibly, his motives and thinking. To this end, I believe that he continues to have such an affinity for Claire – and, by turn, both a paternal and conflicted relationship with Jack – because MIB still exhibits traits from his time spent as Christian Shephard. Now, as Locke, he is possibly even more conflicted about his relationship with Jack. This could also have something to do with why Jack is ultimately the candidate – he is the perfect foil for MIB, especially now that he has taken on Locke’s persona.

Variations of the phrase “I wish you had believed me” in this episode was in reference to the suicide note left by Locke, as Jeremy Bentham. The full extent of the note was revealed in “316.” It’s in relation to Locke’s urgings that they all remain on the Island – an idea that Jack, of course, opposed. Until now, that is.

The fact that Kate is still standing astounds me. I wish I had that many lives. Do you think the writers have a sort of in-joke about her kidnappings/hostage situations? Seriously, Widmore just walked up and immediately pointed a gun at her. They even wrote her expendability into the mythos of the Island. I also loved how she was in such bad shape on the sub, but after a jaunty swim in the ocean, she was feeling much better. Yeah, yeah, healing powers of the Island, whatever. At any rate, will Kate be one of the last one’s standing? Perhaps she and Jack will be the last ones. They ultimately end up together on the Island – Maybe they’re Adam and Eve, as some have speculated for so long? Maybe the remaining four will all return to the cave and see that one of the skeletons has a mark on their collarbone – from a gunshot! And then they all ride out to the beach and find the remains of the Statue of Liberty, buried in the sand. SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!! Ahem. Sorry.

Another question: Why, if the sonic fences were down, did Ol’ Smokey just show up and take out some of the Geek Squad? Why not take the opportunity to do away with Widmore and just tear the holy hell out of the Hydra station while he’s unimpeded? Is he not allowed to kill Widmore, either? It seems to me like Smokey has a time or energy limit. Otherwise, he could just fly through the Island and kill whomever the hell he wants, whenever he wants. Of course, that doesn’t make for a very good story. This is the writer’s dilemma – what do you do with the downtime between visits of a very powerful, ancient creature? Ultimately, it’s the Superman problem. I have nightmares sometimes thinking about how I would go about writing a run on a Superman comic. The guy is all-powerful. Okay, so he’s not as powerful as he used to be, but he’s still moving mountains and beating freight trains. Other than some krypto-freak, or Lex Luthor or Batman coming around with a scrap of meteorite every other issue, how do you make somebody with powers like that interesting? Where’s the conflict? Whoo, look at me – nerd ramble.

Speaking of something nerdy, the lastest episode of Doctor Who had an excellent and intriguing storyline about the mutability of time, and a quote at the end of the show reminded me of something that seems to be happening in our two alternate timelines on Lost:

The Doctor: I kept saying, the angels all fell into the time field – the angel in your memory, never existed. It can’t harm you now.

Amy (his current companion): Then why do I remember at all? Those guys on the ship didn’t remember each other.

The Doctor: You’re a time traveler now, Amy. It changes the way you see the Universe … forever. Good, isn’t it?

Oh, and if you’re not currently watching Doctor Who, you’ll probably want to check it out. It’s only the best television show out there right now. I’m serious. I wouldn’t joke about such things. Oh, and check out Modern Family while you’re at it. It’s the second best television show out there right now.

That’s Amy. That’s the Doctor’s new companion. Ah, you wanna watch the show now, don’t you? I thought so.

Okay, that’s it for this week. We’re in the home stretch – there are only three more episodes left until it’s all over. My heart just sank when I wrote that. These characters and this show have been such a huge part of our lives for so long, it’s hard to imagine what life will be like after it’s all over. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m going to DisneyWorld. All of you keep thinking those good thoughts, and if you have an epiphany, tell me something good. Until next time, I remain faithful that the finale will kick ass. And that Jack will wake up in the middle of the jungle, in silence, until that ugly flashback crashy sounds starts up and he wanders onto the beach and the plane is there, all mangled and people are running back and forth …

Namaste.

[HoboTrashcan.com]

Daniel Dae Kim Talks About Last Night’s Episode

SL-LOST — Wed, 05 May 2010 19:15:03 +0000

WARNING: stop reading this if you haven’t watched last night’s episosde.

Kristin Dos Santos: Thank you. And damn you. That was the most heartbreaking death scene we’ve ever had on Lost.
DDK: [Laughs.] I’ll take that as a huge compliment. I thought it was done in a way that was really poetic. The thing I loved most about it for Jin is that he actually chose to die, for the love of his life, and that to me shows how far he’s come as a character from the pilot.

And yet I have to ask about Jin’s motivations. Obviously he really loved Sun, but how do you justify in your own mind that Jin would stay with Sun, knowing that he was orphaning his daughter Ji Yeon?
That’s an excellent point. I can tell you that we received [new script] pages as we were shooting the episode that added a scene in the bear cages where Jin asks what happened to Ji Yeon. And you hear Jin asking Sun who’s taking care of the girl. And so that was deliberately put in there so that he would know that she wasn’t completely an orphan. Also, in the sub, there’s a moment that’s not scripted where I looked away from Sun toward the door and I wondered, “Should I go?” That was my moment for Ji Yeon. I thought to myself, “Can I do this?” But the decision I made at that point was that even if I tried to leave I wouldn’t have made it, because I had no oxygen and the submarine was so far under water. All I can say is that I’m sure Damon and Carlton took the concern of Ji Yeon to heart when they wrote the episode.

Can you confirm that that was you (Jin) walking behind Jack and Locke in the hospital? And that we’ll see Jin and Sun again on the show somehow?
Yes and yes.

How did you feel when you found out Jin would die? Obviously given that Sun and Jin just reunited, this really put the fans through the ringer.
It was a two-step process for us. I was told that my character was dying a week before the script came out. So I didn’t know any of the details of how he was going to die. When I read the script, I was relieved that it was given its proper weight, and I really appreciated that other characters took the time to mourn their deaths. That to me was very important. I didn’t want their deaths to exist in a vacuum. And to show Kate, Hurley and Jack breaking down, that was a big factor in making sure our deaths meant something. And for people who were unsatisfied with how Jin and Sun were reunited, they now know why it wasn’t as momentous as they’d hoped, because the writers wanted to give more weight to this scene.

Click here to read the full interview.

LOST Actors & Creators Discuss Last Night’s Shocking Episode

SL-LOST — Wed, 05 May 2010 14:56:32 +0000

WARNING: Do NOT read this article if you haven’t watched last night’s episode.

To be clear, the producers are not heartless bastards. They’re only semi-heartless bastards. They knew fans would be devastated (and angry) about the deaths and were pretty broken up themselves about offing three beloved creations. “When we watched the death scenes ourselves, it was brutal,” says Cuse. “[But] the story always comes first.” Lindelof elaborates: “In many ways, the season was structured as a long con on behalf of the Man In Black. Once we revealed that Locke was the Monster, we knew the audience would immediately mistrust him, and we would have to spend at least a dozen episodes of Locke trying to convince the audience that he did not have malevolent intention, that all he wanted to do was get off The Island. But everything he was doing was leading up to one moment, which was [trying to] get the candidates in one fell swoop. He knew if he killed just one of them, everyone would know what he was up to.’”

Says Cuse: “There will be very little debate at the end of this episode that [Fake Locke] is evil and bad and has to be stopped. The main narrative reason for him killing our main characters is to establish how much of a bad guy he is and to clearly identify him as the antagonist rolling into the end of the series.”

Lindelof recognizes that there’s something “brutal” about killing Jin and Sun just one episode after their long-awaited reunion — which, he says, is exactly what made the lovers such an apt choice for making a statement about Fake Locke’s malevolence. “At least they got to die in each other’s arms, so they’d have some sense of victory,” he says. And Sayid? Lindelof explains: “Sayid’s entire season-long arc has basically been, if you tell him that he is evil, you can convince him he is evil. But if you tell him he is good, maybe you can convince him he is good. We basically decided that in a moment of pure instinct, if he did something, if he sacrificed his own life in favor of saving the other people’s lives, that would convey to the audience, ‘This guy was actually a good guy.’”

The good news for fans of Lost and fans of Jin, Sun, and Sayid in particular is that they are technically still alive — in the Sideways world. “Still, it’s bittersweet,” Yunjin Kim told me in a recent interview. “They were kept separate for so long, and then they came together to die together.” She found it “beautiful” that Sun and Jin were given an end that served as an affirmation of their love and the heroic sacrifices they made for each other. “We’ve come full circle,” she says. “Sun came back to The Island [and] risked her life to save her friends and Jin, and then Jin does the same thing back.” When I asked her how she prepared for Sun’s final Island moments, Kim told this story: “Right before we started shooting, [director] Jack Bender took me aside and told me about story that he read a long time ago, about this woman who was missing her dead husband, and how she had this beach ball that he blew up before he died. Every day she took a little breath from the beach ball. And that really got me right into the emotional core of where I needed to be to play that scene. Can you imagine that woman, taking that breath little by little every day, just to feel her husband’s presence?”

Daniel Dae Kim’s thoughts on the end of Jin and Sun? “They were the Romeo and Juliet of the show, and the fact they didn’t have a happy ending does make me sad,” says the actor, who then expanded on the greater significance of the deaths to the show — but I’m afraid sharing his insights (including his take on the fate of Ji Yeon) at this point would be a bit too spoilerish. What was it like shooting his watery demise? “It was pretty difficult that day,” says Kim. “Shooting in water is never easy. But the crew was considerate and made the water warm for us, in more ways than one. Let’s just say certain members of the crew who were in that water for a very, very, very long time without ever leaving. I’ll just leave it at that.”

[Via EW.com]

Daniel Dae Kim: “Sayid is the muscle, Jack is the head, Jin and Sun represent the heart.”

SL-LOST — Sat, 01 May 2010 12:55:31 +0000

TV.com has a new interview with Daniel Dae Kim:

TV.com: Are you satisfied with the way your character ends his run?

DDK: Yes. The things Jin got to do as a character, and the amount of growth and evolution he underwent, was really satisfying. No matter how the series ends, it will be a great ride for him.

How has your working relationship with Yunjin Kim developed over the six-season run?

Yunjin is one of the most professional actors I’ve ever worked with. She’s always on time and ready… no overly dramatic behavior. In the same way our characters have grown, we’ve grown. Any time you work with someone for as long as we have, a certain shorthand develops. We know what to expect when we step on the set with each other.

The show has had multiple opportunities to kill off your character…

[Laughs] O…kay?

No no, that’s definitely not a bad thing. It can happen to anyone on Lost. Why do you think Jin has stuck around? What does he bring to the show in this final season?

The best way I can put it is that the core characters represent parts of the body. Sayid is the muscle, Jack is the head, Jin and Sun represent the heart.

What parts of the body do Nikki and Paolo represent?

[Laughs] That’s a tough one. I really felt bad for the actors. No one is sure what to expect on the show. Sometimes you get happy endings like Michael Emerson, and other times you have a Nikki and Paolo situation.

Click here to read the full interview.

Daniel Dae Kim Talks About Sun & Jin’s Reunion

SL-LOST — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:19:53 +0000

“Not only was the audience waiting for the reunion, but the actors were as well, and when it happened, it was significant for us,” Daniel says. “The one dynamic of that scene that we felt was interesting was that it happened amidst so many other people. (Indeed, besides Charles Widmore’s crew of baddies, Sawyer, Kate, Hurley and Claire were looking on.)

“It didn’t happen where Sun and Jin were alone somewhere; it was in the middle of a lot of chaos, and I thought to myself, ‘That would not be as I would have envisioned it’,” admits Daniel. “I would have thought they would have been able to reunite in private.”

But once on set to shoot the scene, Kim reconsidered his initial critique when he saw the emotional scene play out amongst his co-stars. “On the day, I realized it was important to see other characters’ reactions to these two lovers re-finding one another,” Daniel tells me. “It added an interesting dynamic because so much of what happens between Sun and Jin also effects the other characters on the show, andI hope that added to the significance and impact of the scene.”

“One of the best things with this show is that just when you feel like you can rest, the writers find another clever plot twist to throw in,” notes Daniel. “The drama of their story is not necessarily over.”

[Via TV Guide Magazine]

LOST Episode 6.13 – Sneak Peek #2

SL-LOST — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 02:01:09 +0000

Here’s a second clip from next week’s episode.

Mirror, Mirror

SL-LOST — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 19:53:25 +0000

All the mirror scenes from Season 6 so far.

[Via Bamtan]

Lost in Translation: “The Package” Recap and Analysis by Chris Kirkman

SL-LOST — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 17:44:16 +0000

Previously, on Lost: AlternaJin forgot to mention his briefcase full of money on the customs form and was detained at LA X, Richard got a message from his dead wife that the Man in Black must be stopped and Flocke sent Sawyer on a little recon mission to Hydra Island, where James brokered a double deal with ol’ Chuck Widmore.

This week, on Lost: At Camp Black Hat, somebody is spying on MIB’s team with night vision goggles. Sawyer offers Kate some fake cocoa, and crazy Claire sits around doing whatever it is that crazy Claire does. MIB sits down and offers Jin some advice on his hurt leg, and slides in a little bit about the caves that he showed Sawyer. MIB doesn’t know if the cave names mean Jin or Sun, but regardless he wants to leave with both of them, and he’s working on getting Sun back together with her hubby.

Back in LA X, AlternaJin and AlternaSun are still in trouble with customs. Jin is finally released, but the customs officer is sorry to inform him that they’re gonna have to hold onto the 25 grand that the Korean brought with him. Jin doesn’t notice the Disney Cruises pamphlet sticking out of the customs officer’s pants pocket, and so he grabs Sun and hightails it out of there.

At their hotel, the desk clerk mistakenly assumes that Jin and Sun will be staying in the same room, but we soon learn that the alternapair are not married in LA X, and can’t share a room because it’s not proper.

Upstairs, Jin wants to deliver Mr. Paik’s wristwatch to the restaurant like he was asked, but Sun is feeling sassy and seduces him with some playful unbuttoning banter.

“Should I button this one?” “No, definitely not that one …” Attaboy, Jin! Forget about the wristwatch, you’ve got a different package to deliver tonight.

And the next morning …

By the look on Sun’s face, I’d say she was satisfied with the delivery. Also, by the look of their bed, the set designers shop at Target. Seriously, that duvet is called “Perch” and it’s $79.99 for a king.

Sun rolls over, all Smiley McSmilerson, and tells Jin that they should just run away together – she has some money, and her dad doesn’t need to know. This AlternaSun is spunky! Jin jumps out of bed and says, “This was your plan all along?” Sun just says, “Aw, come back to bed – that’s just what we call pillow talk, baby.”

There’s a knock on the door, and Jin does the old “hide in the bathroom” trick that many a guy has used at least once in his life. Sun opens the door and smarmy Keamy is there, wanting to know where his promised goodies are at. He invites himself in.

Sun hopes that Keamy is just looking for the watch, so she hands it over. Keamy just smiles, and wants to know where his 25 grand is hiding. Keamy’s little lackey, Omar, comes in and Keamy notices two champagn flutes next to the bed. He tells Omar to check the bathroom and find Kwon. Looks like Keamy’s done the old hide-in-the-bathroom trick a time or two, as well. Sun pleads with Keamy in Korean, so Keamy sends Omar out to fetch Mikhail, who happens to be well-versed in over six million languages – Korean, one of them. In the meantime, Keamy urges the two love-birds to get dressed.

After Mikhail gets there and fulfills his protocol function, Keamy finds out that the money’s been seized by customs. He tells Sun and Jin that that’s not his problem, and he wants the money. Sun brokers a deal, telling Keamy that she has an account and that she can get him his money if she can get to the bank. Keamy sends her off with Mikhail and decides to take Jin to the restaurant for collateral.

At the bank, Sun finds that her account has been closed – by her father. She wants to know why her father would close the account, and Mikhail just stares at her like a dumb broad and says “Why do you think?” Wow, Mr. Paik sure is a slimy bastard, setting Jin up for certain doom just for shagging his daughter.

Back at the restaurant, Omar puts a booboo on Jin’s nogging, which Keamy cleans up before duct-taping Jin’s mouth shut. Since Jin can’t speak English, Keamy channels his inner Blofeld and proceeds to spill the beans about his whole nefarious plan to pop Jin because, as any good lackey knows, you keep the hands off the bossman’s daughter. Farmers, too.

You are one creepy bastard, Gabriel … but you make good eggs!

Jin thanks Keamy because he thinks the psychopathic asshole is being nice, and Keamy locks the Korean up in the meat locker. Pretty soon, we hear Sayid’s voice outside, yadda yadda yadda boom boom yadda boom, and the bad guy’s are ex-parrots. Jin bangs on the door until Sayid bursts in with his gat, and takes the tape off the Asian’s mouth. Sayid can’t understand what the hell he’s saying since he doesn’t speak Korean, so he starts to leave. Then Jin uses the one word he apparently picked up during multi-ethnic prisoner week at the office – “escape” – as he motions toward a box cutter sitting on the shelf. Sayid puts it in Jin’s hands and walks away, wishing Kwon good luck. Jin gets to work cutting his thumbs off.

Mikhail shows up at the restaurant with Sun and his spidey sense starts tingling, so he draws his nine. Turning the corner into the kitchen, the droid notices all the bodies on the floor, especially Keamy, who seems to still be breathing. He asks who did this to him, and Keamy tells him that whoever did it is right behind Mikhail, and throws in an idiot, just for good measure, as a gun is pointed at the back of the Russian’s head. Mikhail wants to know who killed everyone and Jin pretty much tells him to shut his filthy mouth and drop the weapon. Jin instructs Sun to back up, and warns Mikhail that he’ll kill him. Mikhail doesn’t believe him, of course, and so they wrestle and Jin wrecks Mikhails face and grabs a gun and proceeds to shoot Mikhail’s eyeball out.

Oh, the quantum entanglement is strong with this one.

Jin is relieved until he notices that Sun is not happy since she has blood pouring out of her from a ricochet. He scoops her up in his arms and carries her off for help. Sun slumps in his arms, and tells him she’s pregnant. End flash-sideways. Wait, what?? Bastards.

Back at Camp Black Hat, MIB informs Sayid that he’s going out into the Jungle of Mystery to get Sun. Sayid remarks that he can no longer feel anything – no anger, no happiness, no pain. MIB tells him that may be for the best, and then tromps off in a suitably Lockian fashion.

Jin sees MIB’s departure as a sign that he needs to get the hell out of dodge, himself, and packs up. Sawyer sees Jin and reminds Kwon that the grifter has a plan, and a deal with Widmore. None of that matters to Jin because he’s just going to find his wife. Seriously, Jin and Sun need to just start screaming each other’s names and they’ll be the next annoying Michaels trying to find their Walts.

Anywho, Jin and Sawyer squabble for a few seconds until Jin gets cut off mid-sentence by a dart in the chest, which takes him down in about .2 seconds. That is some hellacious tranquilizer. Pretty soon, all of Camp Black Hat are dropping like flies, and it’s not long before Widmore’s Geek Squad comes out of the brush and grab Jin.

A boob and a boob, sizing up the Asian situation.

Back at the Beach, Team Jacob are discussing their next move, while Miles and Lapidus play cards. Ilana says Richard is the man with the plan, but Ben says that he’d bet good money they’ll never see him again. Ilana is sure that Hurley will track him down. Miles remarks that unless Alpert is covered in bacon grease, he doubts Hurley can track anything. Ilana says that Jacob wouldn’t lie, and that, for now, they wait. Sun isn’t too pleased with that response and she angrily drives her hunting knife into the homemade bamboo table. Easy there, tiger lily.

Jack follows Sun after she stomps off, and finds her in her vegetable garden that she planted way back in season one. They reminisce about when she first planted the garden – seems like 100 years ago – and Jack starts in about his precious Lighthouse and all the names around the wheel. You know, Jack, if you knew you were going to obsess about the damn Lighthouse, maybe you shouldn’t have Hulked out and smashed it to pieces. Moron. Anyway, Sun doesn’t care about all that crap, she just wants Jack to remove his obstinate ass form her presence. He does.

After Jack leaves, Sun is visited by a second – MIB, in the form of Locke. He tells Sun that Jin is at his camp and that he’ll take her to him if she’ll only trust in him. Sun doesn’t believe him, of course. MIB assures Sun that he would never force her to do something against her will, and extends his hand to her, reminding her that Jin is waiting. She hesitates, seemingly thinking about the decision, before turning and tearing ass through the underbrush with MIB now hot on her trail.

She runs for a good little while until a tree jumps out at her and knocks her on her butt.

Those wily Island trees, you gotta watch out for them jumping out of nowhere all the time

Despite the fact that she was being chased when she was knocked out, Ben is the one to find her, not MIB. He wants to know what happened, but Sun keeps spouting out things in Korean, so he doesn’t understand … until she says Locke.

Cut to MIB, back at Camp Black Hat. There are unconscious bodies strewn everywhere, and he comes across Sayid and pulls the tranq dart from his chest. He shakes the Iraqi awake, wanting to know what happened. They were attacked, says Sayid. Brilliant response, dude. MIB is not happy, especially because he notices that Jin is missing.

Jin wakes up in a strange dentist’s chair, in a strange room. There are speakers all over the place, rivets on the walls. Jin bangs on the door, but no answer. He walks over to a power box and flips a switch, and is buffeted by blackness, then loud sounds and a projector, displaying familiar – to us, anyway – images of words and fish and mannequins and protractors and keyboards. Jin decides he’s had enough, and heads over to the wall to shut down the Pink Floyd show.

Everything changes. Yup, just like slide projectors and the proposed plot lines for Lost

Soon, Jin is not alone. The Tina Fey-lookalike Zoe has entered the room, and she has some papers. She remarks how super weird that was, and explains that this is Room 23, a place where the Dharma Initiative did experiments in subliminal messages. She figures Jin knows all about the Dharma Initiative. We soon find out why, after she tasers his ass.

You see, Zoe has some copies of Dharma maps that were used to identify pockets of electromagnetism, and she says that they were drawn up and signed by a man named Jin Su Kwon. Jin realizes that he now has Hand, so he insists that Zoe take him to their leader – Charles Widmore. She remarks that it’s good timing, because he wants to talk to Jin, as well.

Back at Camp Black Hat, MIB informs Sayid that they’re headed out on a mission. When Sayid leaves, MIB asks crazy Claire if she’s okay. She saunters over and asks MIB about the names on the cave wall – is her name up there? Nope, says MIB. Claire mentions that since her name isn’t up there that MIB won’t really need her. But he does, he does, and he takes her hand and soothes her mad Aussie heart by telling her that there’s plenty of room on the plane for all of them.

Crazy Claire laments that if she gets back home that Aaron will no longer know her because Kate has been raising him. Claire asks if Kate’s name is on the wall, and MIB tells her that it isn’t, not anymore. But he needs Kate, because her freckled butt can help him get the other three over on Team Jacob onto the plane. After that, he says, whatever happens … happens. Booyah, best line of subtly-brilliant dialogue in the whole episode.

“So … are you saying that whatever happens, happens because you believe that we may somehow quantumly influence an alternate timeline, or did you mean to infer that the future is unwritten for us and we control our own destiny through the confluence of our past actions and our present? I think I’ll go make another squirrel baby, now.”

MIB is about to head out on his mission, when Sawyer stops him for some chit chat. He wants to know what’s happening, and MIB says he and Sayid are heading out to Hydra Island. Sawyer wants to know why MIB doesn’t just change into a puff of smoke and fly out over the water, to which MIB retorts that if he could do that, then does Sawyer really think that he’d still be on this Island? “Of course not, that’d be ridiculous,” Sawyer quips, echoing the sentiments of thousands of Lost fans.

Anywho, MIB informs Sawyer that Widmore took one of his people, so he’s going to get him back, and he and Sayid stoically stomp off into the Jungle of Mystery, with Sawyer left to brood on his own.

Back on the beach, Jack is treating Sun’s head injury and Ben is still trying to convince everyone that he didn’t bonk her pretty Asian head. Jack surmises that after Sun’s tussle with a tree, she can no longer speak English even though she can understand it when it’s spoken to her.

“She hits her head and forgets English? And we’re supposed to buy that?” asks Miles.

“… asks the man who communes with the dead,” quips Lapidus. Nice one, buddy.

Jack, doing his doctor thing, figures that Sun is suffering aphasia – a condition caused by trauma that affects the language center of her brain. Uh huh. Why is it that in a show filled with a time-traveling Island and a psychopathic, sentient puff of smoke I have such a hard time suspending disbelief long enough to think that Sun could just bonk her head and suffer from aphasia? More on that later.

For now, Ilana is happy – because Richard is back. He wastes no time in telling all of them that it’s time to pack their bags, they’re leaving.

On Hydra Island, Locke has landed his outrigger, and he walks up the beach toward the sonic beacons that the Geek Squad set out. It’s not long before someone’s shooting at his Nikes, and the aforementioned Geek Squad tumbles out of the brush with guns brandished. MIB puts up his hands and says he comes in peace. The Geek Squad march him down the beach, on the other side of the sonic beacons, until he is face to face with ol’ Chuck Widmore.

MIB and Chuck have a heart to heart. Chuck wants to know if MIB knows who he is. MIB affirms that he does. MIB wants to know the same of Widmore. Widmore says that he’s obviously not John Locke and everything else he knows is a combination of myth, ghost stories and strange noises in the jungle. MIB knows that Chuck is privy to more, judging by the pylons up and down the beach. Chuck wants to know why MIB has come, and MIB informs Chuck that he has one of his people in custody. Chuck plays dumb.

“Hmmm, nice pylons. You have to worry about Sleestak with these much?”

MIB stares down Chuck for a good while and then says: “A wise man once said that war was coming to this Island. I think it just got here.” Oooooooooooooooooh snap.

Back on the beach, Jack wants to know where they’re headed. Richard asks Ben where Locke was headed and he tells Alpert that he was headed to Hydra Island. Richard reminds everyone that Hydra Island is where Lapidus landed the Ajira plane. If that plane is how MIB plans to get off the Island, says Richard, then they’re all gonna go over there and blow it to hell. This does not sit well with Sun.

Trust me on this one, people – don’t piss off an Asian woman.

On Hydra Island, Widmore confronts Zoe and wants to know what she was thinking, taking Jin so soon. She explains that he was leaving camp and they needed to stop him. Widmore says she should have waited, and Zoe tells him that he should have put a mercenary in charge instead of a geophysicist. Ummm, bad idea, lady. Last time a merc was in charge, he shot an innocent girl and got his team eaten by a cloud of angry smoke.

Jin walks in, and Widmore instructs Zoe to go to the sub, get the package and take it to the infirmary. She does. Widmore apologizes to Jin for abducting him and hands him a camera that he procured from the Ajira plane. It’s Sun’s, and there are pictures of Ji Yeon clowning around with a Sharpei. Jin gets weepy. Widmore explains that he, too, has a daughter, and he knows what it’s like to be kept a part. Then Chuck tells Jin that if that thing – MIB – got off the Island, it’d be lights out for Ji Yeon and Penny and all the daughters of the world. He needs to stop MIB at all costs. Jin wants to know how.

Widmore tells Jin that it’s time he saw The Package. Easy there, big fella, we just met.

It’s night back on the Beach, and Sun has made a fire. Jack comes up and starts up with one of his hospital stories. He tells her of a guy who banged his head and got aphasia and was all frustrated until one of the nurses mentioned that just because he couldn’t speak didn’t mean he couldn’t write. With his unnecessary allegory complete, Jack hands Sun a pad and pen, and asks her if she can give it a try. She writes “yes,” in English.

Jack tells her he went back out to her garden to see if MIB was there, and he wasn’t, but he did find something else – a single tomato, who was too stubborn to die. I guess Sun is supposed to be a tomato in this scenario. Or something.

Jack probes a bit and wants to know what Locke wanted with Sun. She writes that he wanted her to come with him because he has Jin. Jack asks why she didn’t follow Locke, and Sun tells him that he didn’t trust him. “Do you trust me?” asks Jack.

Jack tells Sun that if she goes with them to the Ajira plane, he promises to find Jin and reunite them. Then he holds his hand out like Locke did in the garden, all symbolic-like. She takes it. Awwww.

Back at Camp Black Hat, Sawyer sits down with Freckles and jaws about the whole situation being almost over because surely Chuck Widmore blew Locke and Sayid right out of the water. It’s about that time when MIB comes strolling out of the Jungle of Mystery and leaves Sawyer’s mouth hanging.

Sawyer confronts MIB and asks him if he somehow lost Jin and Sayid on the trip back. MIB tells James that Sawyer mentioned something being protected in a locked room on the sub. Well, MIB says, he doesn’t like secrets.

On Hydra Island, at the sub dock, Sayid rises slowly out of the water like a Navy SEAL, or the Iraqi equivalent. Up on the sub, Zoe and the tubby one – otherwise known as the only ones from Widmore’s Geek Squad that are paid to say lines – are dragging someone from the hatch. Sayid glides over to the edge of the dock and waits for them to bring the figure down. They’re struggling, and it looks as though whomever they’re wrangling has been drugged or is in bad shape, especially judging from the bandages on his arms. They pull him from the sub and manage to drop him on the deck, dangling his head over the edge. That’s about the time that Sayid comes face to face with The Package.

Son of a bitch – it’s Desmond! Hot damn.

The geeks ramble on about giving him too much sedative, and pull him off the deck, saying: “Let’s go, Mr. Hume.” Desmond struggles to his feet, and Sayid, safe and at home again in the cool, dark waters, watches the Scotsman be marched down the wooden planks toward who knows what destiny.

Cue the THONK!

And so Desmond returned to the Island, drugged and disoriented, an unwitting pawn in the great battle between white, black and grey. In other words, an awesome ending to a mid-season segue into the great war that the Man in Black has declared on Widmore and his gang of Geeks. Quite a few of the fans have declared this episode a bit weak, a filler of sorts, but I just believe that the writers have covered a lot of secreted ground in the past nine episodes, and are readying us for a gangbuster finish.

The recap to this episode covers much of the analysis to “The Package,” but we still have a few things to discuss in further detail. So, without further ado, let’s get down to brass tacks.

ROOM 23
The room where the Geek Squad were holding Jin is revealed as Room 23. Room 23 was first and last seen in the episode “Not in Portland,” which also first introduced us to lovely Juliet’s past and how she was lured to the Island by Richard and Mittelos Bioscience. They brought her over to work on that whole baby-making thing, something that has been sorta shelved since the whole time-traveling Island and MIB/Jacob shenanigans.

It seems to me like we may have been reminded of Room 23 for a reason – there’s been no mention of it, nor the subliminal brainwashing that was behind it, since season three. There were quite a few subliminal messages of note while Karl was tied up. Let’s take a pictorial stroll through those instances and see what we see.

As you may or may not recall, Kate and Sawyer were being held captive on Hydra Island, and Alex sought their help in freeing her boyfriend Karl. Alex noted that Karl was being held against his will inside a Dharma bunker and that Kate and Sawyer could get off the island with her in her boat if they could rescue Karl.

Room 23 was being guarded by Mac from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Take a gander what he was reading, foreshadowing what was to come, even back in season three.

Sawyer, Kate and Alex – after subduing Mac – enter the bunker and Room 23, and are inundated with loud music and a projector, displaying subliminal messages, like this one.

They find Karl strapped to a strange dentist’s chair, getting the full Clockwork Orange treatment.

Karl has an intravenous feed, obviously being drugged with all sorts of sedatives and, possibly, hallucinogens. I’m sure whatever cocktail it was, it wasn’t approved by the FDA.

On the screen were some very interesting subliminal – and not-so-subliminal – messages.

The question, of course, is what does it all mean?

The first thing I’d like to point out is that Karl is tied to the chair and fed a nice, seductive cocktail intravenously. So what? I can here you say. Well, if you’ll recall at the end of “The Package,” the Geek Squad drag Desmond off the sub and he’s very, very groggy. Tubby asks Zoe how much she gave him, and she responds that it was obviously too much but that she needed him to sleep through the trip. At any rate, Desmond looks as though he’s had an intravenous feed, very much like Karl’s when he was subjected to some brainwashing techniques. Here, take a look.

It’s on his right arm. Yes, Karl was fed drugs through his left. Whatever.

Do I believe that part of Desmond’s arrival Orientation may have taken place in Room 23? I’m not sure, I just point these things out so you can roll them around in your brains. Just bear in mind that Karl was kept there against his will because the current leader of the Others didn’t want him messing with his daughter, Alex. Ol’ Chuck Widmore has never really cared for Desmond messing around with his daughter Penny. Put that in your pipe and smoke it a bit.

At any rate, even without the connections among Room 23, Desmond and Karl, I find that subliminal messages interesting, considering Zoe told Jin that Room 23 was an experiment in subliminal messages by the Dharma Initiative. Did the Others subjugate Dharma’s work after they killed them off? Did they add their own messages for the purpose of making sure that loyal little soldiers were created to serve Jacob? If we weren’t shown a slide with Jacob’s name, I would just dismiss the whole thing as a method to break down dissidents, but with Jacob’s good name involved things get a bit more sticky. This one slide opens up a whole can of worms.

First, the presentation could have been altered by the Others as a way to use Dharma research and technology to their advantage, capturing anyone who may come to the Island and brainwashing those people into submission. That would be the easiest and cleanest course of events as related to the timeline of the Island.

A much messier and far more interesting theory could be that Jacob was either known about by the Dharma Initiative from the very beginning, or that Jacob could be a construct of the Dharma Initiative – part of their observational experiments. The participants on the Island were subjected to Room 23 and convinced that they were a part of an alternate reality where time travel, smoke monsters and the all-mighty Jacob existed. Many of the participants believe that they are part of the same reality, and are acting this out as part of the grand experiment. Granted, that’s a really far-fetched theory and probably very far from the truth, but again, I’m just here to talk about cool shit and plant seeds in your brain. And remember – plant a good seed and you will joyfully gather fruit! Go forth and bring me peaches.

THE RANDOM BITS
Yes, I know it’s a bit early to get to the random bits, but I told you there’s not a whole lot to analyze this week. Maybe I missed something. If that’s the case, leave a comment and let’s chat. In the meantime, the random bits are still pretty good.

Why does Widmore and his Geek Squad so desperately need Desmond there? Because if you’re dealing with a man/entity that has to deal in certainties – constants, to use a more accurate term – the best thing you could possibly do is introduce a Variable.

The fact that Team Black Hat was captured by the Geek Squad using tranq darts is very telling. It’s likely that they’re good guys. Otherwise, just shoot up everybody, like Keamy and his thugs. I still believe that Keamy – although sent there to get Ben at great cost – sorta went rogue and blew off the mission protocol because he’s a psychopathic bastard. Of course, the Geek Squad could have used tranq darts because they’re all geeks, and therefore not accustomed to gunning down innocents. This team is very similar to Faraday and his group that wanted to help the survivors, and so chose to stop the poison gas and help at any cost with no loss of life. Keamy, on the other hand, was sent to take out the Others and capture Ben, who Widmore likely knew was in the service of MIB at that point. Hence, the extreme prejudice.

I am particularly tickled that every time someone talks to MIB now, it’s as if they’re just chatting with cooky old John Locke instead of an ages-old, murderous puff of smoke. Particularly Sawyer. Until MIB changes from Locke into Ol’ Smokey right in front of his eyes, he’s content with believing that the man in front of him used to sell boxes for a living. The only one who has enough sense to run their crazy legs off at the site of the man is Sun.

I mentioned earlier that I find a hard time suspending disbelief about Sun forgetting English. However, it sparked a theory. Sun forgetting English may have been a ploy by MIB. Perhaps MIB knows that Jin is the real candidate, and wants Sun to be able to talk to him without anyone else understanding. In regards to her understanding English, she is the perfect “spy” to listen in on things and tell Jin what’s going on without anyone else listening in. There has to be a plan in this, somewhere, unless this is just a soap opera technique to add some drama to the proceedings. It’s just odd that she was so closely chased by MIB and then left alone beneath the tree for Ben to find. I don’t know if MIB could have done something to Sun to keep her from communicating freely, but it’s a thought.

So Kate’s name isn’t on the wall, after all. Then, why the hell is her name not scratched out on the Lighthouse wheel? Someone mentioned a theory awhile back about the cave wall being MIB’s scratching post, and the Lighthouse being Jacob’s, and the two lists may have converged, but not fully matched. I’m sorry that I’ve forgotten who said that, but if you’re reading, fess up. It was a good one. It would certainly explain the discrepancy other than a post-production error, and the fact that MIB mentions it in this episode would lead me to believe that it is meant to reward very observant fans. I sure hope that’s the case and not just the Lost team covering their butts.

There were a lot of boobs in this episode.

That about wraps it up for this week. I may have missed some minor details, or failed to delve deep into a favorite topic. If that’s the case, let me know. In the meantime, keep thinking those thoughts, and if you have an epiphany, tell me something good.

Namaste.

[HoboTrashcan.com]

LOST 6.10 “The Package” Live Reaction/Recap Video

ajruck — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 15:37:02 +0000

This is the video recap of LOST season 6 episode 10, “The Package,” which aired March 30, 2010 on ABC.
My friend Allison joined me to summarize the night’s events and share our personal reactions to the show as it aired.

This episode centered around Sun & Jin both on the island and in the flash sideways off the island. Also, on the island, Widmore delivers “the package,” which he says will prevent Locke from escaping the island. The package, it turns out, is none other than Mr. Desmond Hume. Brother!

There were many exciting happenings in the episode, along with my own personal mystery.
Check out the video for more!

Share your thoughts and theories in the comments and at Twitter.com/AdamRucker

Yunjin Kim Marries Today in Hawaii!

SL-LOST — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 12:44:03 +0000

Great news via Dramabeans.com:

What a sudden announcement: Kim Yun-jin, the 36-year-old actress of U.S. television series Lost and Korean films Harmony and Shiri, will marry on March 28 in Hawaii. The actress released the news with little advance notice, via press release on the afternoon of the 28th (Korean time).

The groom, Mr. Park, is identified as a film producer who is the same age as Kim. She has been in a relationship with Park since 2007 after first meeting in 2002, when he was her manager. They began dating while she wrote her book, The World is Your Drama. Kim described her groom as “a very humorous and considerate person.”

The ceremony will be held on a private beach and attended by a small group of family and friends. Kim is currently filming the sixth season of Lost in Hawaii, so the couple will wait for shooting to end to embark on their honeymoon.

VIDEO: Yunjin Kim Chats with the Los Angeles Times

SL-LOST — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:25:49 +0000

Yunjin Kim: “Expect a Different Sun in Season 6″

SL-LOST — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:36:06 +0000

Yunjin Kim:

You are going to see a different side to Sun, and how she relates to… how do I say it? She’s… hmmm… she still has the same intentions, she’s there to find Jin on the island. But then there’s a different storyline. We had flash-forwards and flashbacks, now we have flash-something else, and in this storyline, I have a very different relationship with Jin.

Head over to TV.com to read the full interview.

New Sky1 Interview with Yunjin Kim

SL-LOST — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:04:36 +0000

[Via Sky1]

New LOST Season 6 Promotional Photos: Sun

SL-LOST — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:23:34 +0000

Thanks to LylyFord for sharing these photos released by ABC yesterday.

(Click to enlarge)

Daniel Dae Kim Teases Season Six

SL-LOST — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 15:31:12 +0000

Via Movieline:

I know you can’t say too much about plot particulars, but emotionally, what’s in store for Jin in season six?
I think you might have heard this before, but it reminds me a little bit of season one in a certain way because we relearn the characters. It’s like what you mentioned earlier — you’re going to see the end of the journey that people started back in season one. To answer your question, it’s going to be fantastic as always, but there will be some emotions on a pretty grand scale.

It’s interesting how often Jin and Sun have been parted, then epically reunited, during the lifespan of Lost. They were apart for the entire fifth season, even! How long will fans have to wait to see them together again?
That’s a really good question. Maybe Jin and Sun won’t get back together again. That’s a legitimate possibility, I think.

Will you be watching this last run of episodes with your castmates? I know you all used to get together and watch them at each others’ houses in season one.
We did. We were a very close-knit group in season one — we all had moved to the island together and given up our respective homes in LA. We had each other for companionship on and off-set, but now in season six, we’ve all become part of the community to varying degrees. We’ve got other friends as well as the cast members. We’ll see how it goes in season six. We’ll see.

Click here to read the full interview.

The LOST Initiative – “Namaste” (Midweek Edition)

SL-LOST — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 13:39:54 +0000

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Source: Sky.com/Lost

Al Trautwig’s Thoughts on “Namaste”

SL-LOST — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 12:10:27 +0000

Source: The Monitor

“Namaste” Recap & Analysis by Chris Kirkman

SL-LOST — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 18:50:24 +0000

Previously, on Lost: The bitch came back.

This week, on possibly one of the greatest episodes of Lost ever: It’s 2007. Ajira Airways flight 316 experiences turbulence somewhere over the Pacific. Veteran pilot Frank Lapidus is forced to take extreme measures, just as a brilliant white light engulfs the plane, flipping it upside down and transporting it from dead of night to mid-day sun. When they come out of the clouds, an island looms before the plane and Frank and the co-pilot manage to coax the limping plane toward a clearing that looks like an old dirt runway. They drop a couple hundred feet in the matter of seconds before making a dashing landing and plowing into some trees. “I’m a leaf in the wind,” the co-pilot screams, just before he is Washed on a big ol’ tree limb.

We interrupt this recap so I can bring you an important announcement: Suck it, Whedon.

Now, having landed the plane somewhat safely, it’s ascertained that of the Oceanic Six only Sun is left – and Locke, of course, but nobody knows that just yet. Ben and Lapidus are there, too, and Caesar and the marshal, Ilana, and Auntie Em, and … nevermind. The rest of the journey of those left in 2007 are interspersed throughout the episode, but I will recap that all right here because it’s way way more convenient.

Caesar has found some old abandoned buildings and wants to go exploring. Ben, knowing what the buildings are, takes off into the jungle, and Sun follows him. Ben tells her that if she’s looking for Jin, she’ll likely have more luck on the main island, and oh, by the way, there are some handy outriggers just over here that I figure might still be there even though I have no idea what time this really is. Okie doke, says Sun, and then Lapidus shows up and there’s the usual couple of lines of “oh, are you sure about this?” and “Yes, I have to trust him” and then Ben is, not surprisingly, knocked upside the head. Again. That guy must have a steel plate up there, because there’s no way he doesn’t have brain damage by now.

Anywho, by the light of the moon, Sun and Lapidus take one of the outriggers over to the main island, and land at the old submarine dock. They make their way across the battered dock and hear Ol’ Smokey playing around in the bushes. Once Cerberus gets tired, they take a path that leads them over to New Otherton, which is in shambles after the mercs got all blast happy last season and then Ol’ Smokey had to come and eat ‘em up. The wind blows through the ghost town and then a light comes on in one of the bungalows. Lo and behold, it’s a ghost! Well, close enough – Christian Shephard. He takes them into a house and shows them a photo of the 1977 Dharma recruits, which are, of course, Jack, Kate and Hurley. Then Christian tells the two that they have a bit of a journey ahead. Cue the …

Wait! Let’s jump back to 1977.

A whole bunch happens back in ‘77, but let’s hit the highlights, shall we?

Sawyer meets Jack, Hurley and her at the bluff, and is dumbfounded. There’s a short-lived reunion before Sawyer has to hightail it back to the Dharma barracks for some clothes for the three. Juliet is there and wants to know what’s going on. Sawyer tells her who has come back to town and Juliet’s face drops. Yeah, we know you feel, babe. Juliet tells Sawyer that there’s a sub coming in that day and sets of to doctor the manifest.

Sure, honey, you go pick them up at the bluff … I’m going to go look for my gun, I MEAN, the sub manifest.

Meanwhile, Jin thinks that maybe the plane landed back in ‘77, so he heads over to the Flame to check with Radzinsky. Yes, that Radzinsky. You know, the one that was partnered up with Kelvin down in the Swan for so many years until he blew his brains out? The guy that helped draw the blast door map? You know, that guy. Anyways, he’s there building – surprise, surprise – an architectural model of the geodesic dome that is built for the Swan computer room. Jin bursts in and wants to check radar logs, but Radzinsky isn’t happy. Jin doesn’t care, though, and gets all Korean mob hit man on the guy and throws him up against the wall.

Hey, crazy guy … whatcha building there? I like models.
Yes, kids, now you too can build your very own electromagnetic research and containment facility, with only simple household items.

Juliet goes to see Amy, who has just had her baby. She obviously can’t work, so it makes it a lot easier for Juliet to steal the sub manifests. Oh, and we find out that Amy and Horace’s baby is just Ethan. Yawn. She asks when Juliet and Mr. LaFleur are going to have a baby and Juliet says she doesn’t know, but the timing has gotta be right. Hah. Hahahahah. You see what she did there? Time travel humor cracks me up.

Over at the Flame, Jin and Radzinsky get a call on the batphone that someone has broken the Dharma perimeter. Jin tears ass through the brush and pulls his rifle on someone loping through the brush. It’s Sayid. He’s still handcuffed. Radzinsky is hot on Jin’s trail, though, so the two Oceanic survivors don’t have time to hug and catch up. Jin has no recourse but to take him prisoner as one of the Hostiles.

Sawyer gets Jack, Kate and Hurley up to speed on everything that’s going down, gives them some hip late-’70s fashions to put on, and drives them to the Dharma processing center. And here’s where the fun starts. First, Jack is processed by none other than Pierre Chang, who takes a look at his aptitude test results and summarily hands him a jumpsuit with “Workman” stitched on the breast. A heh. Hehehe. Hahahahhahahahah.

“I’m sorry … what does ‘Workman’ mean, exactly?”

Meanwhile, Kate’s getting the third degree from Phil, one of the watchmen we were introduced to in last episode. She’s starting to sweat bullets until Juliet shows up and hands over a revised manifest. Phil looks it over, gives Kate the hesitant stink-eye and leaves things alone. Juliet gives a nice, little diplomatic ‘fuck you’ grin to Kate and lets her know exactly who’s in charge around these parts.

“I’m sorry … did you have something to say to me? Because I’m all ears, missy.”

Sawyer heads back to the Flame, where he collects Sayid and transfers him to the Barracks. For the time being, Sayid is just going to have to remain a fake prisoner, until Sawyer can figure something out.

Later that night, Jack pays Sawyer a little visit in his bungalow. He’s greeted at the door by Juliet, and for a split second I see Jack grin like a school boy and I hate myself for liking him and then he comes on in and lights into Sawyer and he’s back to being good old Jackass, again. Whew, thank God. So, yeah, Jack does the usual Jack thing and demands to know what Sawyer has planned. Sawyer very calmly tells him to stick it where the sun don’t shine, saying that Jack always just reacted as a leader, and many people died because of it. If Jack had just stopped to think from time to time, things might have turned out differently. Then Sawyer shows him the door. Hell freaking yes. Like I said, one of the best episodes ever.

Sawyer lingers on the porch for a second, and there’s miss thang, standing by the porch light one bungalow down, working her homewrecker mojo. They give a little wave to each other and I just mutter “good grief.”

Back at the holding cell in the bottom of the barracks, Sayid is sitting patiently. A boy approaches with a bag and hands it to Sayid. He asks if Sayid is a hostile. Sayid simply asks the boy if he thinks Sayid is. Sayid introduces himself, and the boy does, as well. With no fanfare and not much surprise, his name is Ben.

Now cue the thonk!

For as much action and revelation as went on in this episode, there is surprisingly little to cover – or at least what there is to review isn’t terribly complicated. Shockingly, I don’t have any temporal diagrams or ley line maps, and I won’t be going into deep quantum theory. What we will talk a bit about, though, are some of the predestined time events going on, and the slippery slope our survivors are traversing in the past. Let’s get to it!

THE GANG’S ALL HERE
First and foremost, this episode managed to get most of the gang back together, albeit in another time. It finally felt like the old Lost, with Jack and Sawyer going at it again, Kate up to her old whoring shenanigans and Juliet being a sexy badass. The tables got turned on Sayid and he became the prisoner, with young Ben eagerly waiting to be the torturer’s apprentice. Only Sun – and Locke – were left out of the equation. The question is, why?

The easiest answer is that it makes the most sense for literary reasons. It creates a conflict wherein Jin and Sun are still looking for each other and that drives the story forward. However, within those same literary constructs we can also find some meaning, and what it means for the Island could be kind of shocking.

In my opinion, the reason that Sun and Locke are left behind is because they need to be in order for the Island to survive. By having the Oceanic survivors jump into the past, there seems to remain a risk that they might muck something up back there, and jeopardize their’s and the Island’s future. To fix what has gone wrong, someone has to remain in the present (2007) and they need to have a reason to want to get the others back. Out of all the Oceanic Six, Sun is that one person. She wants her family back together again, which is why she agreed to come back to the Island in the first place. She will stop at nothing to find Jin and a way back for him.

Locke was left behind, and subsequently resurrected, because he is the right hand of the Island. Locke is someone that will stop at nothing to fulfill his destiny and serve the Island by doing what’s needed. What will be needed is to get the others back from the past. Sun will need guidance, and Locke will be the guide. Ben was left behind, as well, which also makes sense. In one aspect, the Island has passed his mantle off to Locke, but the Island still needs him. Throughout their trials, Locke has been pushed to do what he needs to do mostly by Ben. Without Ben, Locke lacks a rudder, of sorts.

And, so, we have the three components the Island needs to set itself straight – the heart, the muscle and the catalyst. How it’s all going to go down, I can’t quite speculate just yet.

Another aspect of Locke and Sun being left behind could also have to do with “the list” from season two. You do remember the list, right? It was the one that Bea gave Michael so that he could bring back Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley to the Others in order to get Walt back.

Yeah, you all remember this.

At any rate, I always found it interesting that those four were the only ones on the list. In season three, it was revealed that Jack was brought there to perform surgery on Ben and Kate and Sawyer were brought in order to influence Jack. Well, I find it all a bit too convenient now that those four are the main survivors to be back in 1977, especially since there was a picture of three of them on one of the walls of the Dharma barracks that Ben and the Others had access to. The first “list” is the only one not to be attributed directly to anyone. It’s implied that Ben put it together, but subsequent lists were mentioned to have been put together by “him,” which is meant to imply Jacob. No matter who put the list together, it’s quite obvious that the Others would have some interesting inside information on at least Jack, Kate and Hurley. Of course, that is based on the assumption that the time travel that’s happening on the Island is pre-destined and not part of a self-correcting causality loop. Those particular theories are best saved for another day, however, as I need a little more evidence to make up my mind as to exactly which is occurring. Don’t worry, we’ll talk later; like any of you can make me shut up about temporal theory.

IT’S ALL IN THE TIMING
The previews for next week look like all hell breaks loose in the Dharma Initiative, and I can’t quite pin down any sort of precedent for the actions from clues in previous episodes. The blast door map is years from being made, as the Swan clearly hasn’t been built and Radzinsky isn’t keeping track of the downfall of the Initiative just yet. The “incident” – the fall of the entire Dharma Initiative – doesn’t occur for another few years, as we see Ben at the end of the episode and he’s still in his tweens. When Ben does obtain the nerve gas and eliminate Dharma, he appears to be in his early 20s, so there’s probably about ten years before the “incident.”

We do get a few clues to the history of Dharma, though. For one, we learn that Radzinsky developed the Swan and that he was worried that the Hostiles would not be happy with where they planned to build it. He was also worried that Sayid was a spy, so the “truce” may be in jeopardy. Richard also knows of the existence of Sawyer now, and his true identity and purpose. As for how that will shake out in the future remains to be seen.

The bottom line of all this, though, is that our crew have a few years before they have to worry about dying at the hands of young Ben.

THE GHOST AND MRS. KWON
So I rarely go out in the wild Internet in search of easter eggs and theories and whatnot, but I just couldn’t resist this week. I was sitting there watching the episode, and Sun and Lapidus were being shown around by the ghost of Christian Shephard, and the camera pans around to Sun and, there, back in the darkness, was a person! I swear I saw someone. I had to back up the DVR about 20 times before I got a clear look, but I know I saw what I saw. This wasn’t the “cardboard cut-out ghost” from Three Men and a Baby, either, this was an actual person.

Anyway, I couldn’t get a clear enough shot on my own, so I went looking around the Internet. Lo and behold, others had seen it, too. Here’s an enhanced shot with what I’m talking about.

Okay, so it looks a bit like a Klingon in a band t-shirt, but whatever.

It may be an illusion, or someone on the set, or it could be a manifestation of Ol’ Smokey. Or it could be Claire. Or … it could be a Klingon in a band t-shirt. I don’t know. All I know is that I saw something and I’m not crazy. Did anyone else catch it, too?

That about wraps it up for this week. There’s more we could discuss, but we’ll have more time next week after things get blowed up a little bit around the Dharma camp. In the meantime, if you come across anything or have an epiphany, don’t be shy. Tell me something good.

Namaste.

- Chris Kirkman

Visit hobotrashcan.com to see Chris’ weekly LOST drink recipe!

Iain Lee’s Uncut Interviews With M. Emerson, Josh, Henry Ian, Yunjin & Naveen

SL-LOST — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 22:19:08 +0000

Sky1 has released more “LOST – On Location Uncut” videos. Enjoy!

LOST On Location Uncut – Michael Emerson

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video="http://static1.sky.com/feeds/obu_skyone/Lost/lost on location michael emerson-Lost on location.flv"
width="640"
height="355"
player="3"
autoplay="false"
loop="false"
autorewind="true"
splashimage="http://www.sl-lost.com/vplayerHD.jpg"
/]

LOST On Location Uncut – Josh Holloway

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video="http://static1.sky.com/feeds/obu_skyone/Lost/lost on location josh holloway-Lost on location.flv"
width="640"
height="355"
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autoplay="false"
loop="false"
autorewind="true"
splashimage="http://www.sl-lost.com/vplayerHD.jpg"
/]

[Watch the rest of interviews after the jump.]

LOST On Location Uncut – Henry Ian Cusick

[hana-flv-player
video="http://static1.sky.com/feeds/obu_skyone/Lost/lost on location henry ian cusick-Lost on location.flv"
width="640"
height="355"
player="3"
autoplay="false"
loop="false"
autorewind="true"
splashimage="http://www.sl-lost.com/vplayerHD.jpg"
/]

LOST On Location Uncut – Yunjin Kim (Minor Spoiler for Episode “Namaste”)

[hana-flv-player
video="http://static1.sky.com/feeds/obu_skyone/Lost/lost on location Yun Jin Kim-Lost on location.flv"
width="640"
height="355"
player="3"
autoplay="false"
loop="false"
autorewind="true"
splashimage="http://www.sl-lost.com/vplayerHD.jpg"
/]

LOST On Location Uncut – Naveen Andrews (Spoilers for Episode 5.10)

[hana-flv-player
video="http://static1.sky.com/feeds/obu_skyone/Lost/lost on location naveen andrews-Lost on location.flv"
width="640"
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loop="false"
autorewind="true"
splashimage="http://www.sl-lost.com/vplayerHD.jpg"
/]

Source: Sky.com/Lost

sl-LOST.com » Sun

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