Month: May 2008

The Episode…

Jack loves Kate. Juliet loves Jack. Sawyer loves Kate. Kate loves Aaron. Christian Shephard loves Aaron, too. Jin loves Sun. Jin loves his unborn baby. Dan likes Charlotte. Some of these are cute romances, some of these are puppy love, one of them is way too creepy to think about – but the most import quadrangle of all – featuring Jack, Juliet, Kate and Sawyer – just doesn’t seem to work for me. For a show with a nice postmodern ring to it, what with the broken timeline storytelling and the imperfect endings, these romances are just really, really odd to me.
Let’s review those who work: Claire loves Aaron just like Kate loves Aaron. Jin loves Sun. Both Kate and Claire would do anything to protect their baby. That’s how it is. Unconditional. Next up: Jin loves Sun. Jin would be willing to choose his wife and child’s well-being over his own. Even though she cheated on him and he was a compete, utter dickhead. That works – we’ve seen those two characters grow, and we know that Jin will have to make such a decision in the end.

Jack and Kate in the flashforward, on the other hand, don’t work. It’s not just that they don’t fit together – they both just show that they haven’t evolved the slightest bit since season 1 aired. Jack’s still an asshole who doesn’t trust anyone, and Kate’s still a brat that can’t be trusted. For the love of Smokey! Me and Cake Sensei actually groaned when she emerged from the shower. And we kept on groaning throughout their story. Why is the most popular love story in this series… puppy love? I still hope that Jack and Kate will someday grow up and settle for a different partner. I kind of feel as if the show is mocking me, at times: the love affair to get the most attention, is the most pubescal one. It’s like the show is calling me too old to watch it. But then I watch Jin and Sun or Desmond and Penny and my heart just melts all over again. Thank God for Penny and Desmond.
I always love it when Hurley shows up in a  flashforward. That little scene just gave me the creeps, and made me feel so sad for poor Hugo. Jorge Garcia was only storyline fluff at the beginning of LOST, but has evolved to one of the best characters on this show. Hurley has truly become a hero! …You can learn something from that, Jack.

The Questions…

Question 7! The love triangle! Can we stop talking about it now?

In all…

There are mythology eps in LOST (like last week’s episode and I’m certain next week’s episode will be one of them as well) and there are character eps in LOST. This one is obviously a character episode: we get to find out about love, love, love and love. And, well, if you’re a fan of LOST mythology, you just have to put up with those kind of episodes and know that next week’s episode is going to be bloody awesome. Stay tuned for Cabin Fever, where we explore the wonderful past of John Locke!

Favourite Quote: Miles: “Good morning.”
Sawyer: “It’s way too early for Chinese.”

The Episode…

Whoa. In between of all the stress with my thesis, at least I can say that when I watched a TV show to relax, I watched a good one. Because, even by LOST’s insane standards and even for a Locke episode, Cabin Fever was still unbelievably awesome. Which you can probably tell by the obscure amounts of italic text I have thrown in over the last paragraph. Read on a for a little pre-finale episode rundown!

It all starts with the song Everyday by Buddy Holly played on an old record player. That’s a great pro – I love that song. It’s great to get a little insight on the little things that made John Locke into John Locke: cast away at birth, being unwanted, never being able to do what he wants to do… But the flashbacks weren’t really about what made John Locke into John Locke, but more like who… because our favourite island knife thrower seems to have met quite the interesting people back in his younger days.

I talk, of course, about Richard Alpert (aka the mysterious ageless island man) and Matthew Abaddon (Mr. “Are they still alive?”). Is that fate? Or just coincidence? It was a nice thing to see both of them again right before the season finale: I have a feeling they might turn out to be quite important to the next episode’s progress.

Meanwhile, on the island, we get a lot of preparation and set-up for the finale. On the freighter, Keamy goes mental, tapes a metronome to his arm and (finally) kills the doctor and the freighter’s captain. Sayid is going back to the island, and I worry more everyday about Desmond’s fate: he stayed behind on the freighter but we haven’t heard whether he made it off the island. This just can’t go well, right? On the island, we have Jack being the usual cute asshole to Juliet, the chopper flying over and it dropping a pack with a sat phone. How Jack made the brilliant “let’s follow them” deduction, I do not know. Maybe the whole reasoning behind team beach will be clearer when I watch all the episodes on DVD, because right now, it really feels as if they want to die.

Speaking of death: it’s finally official! Christian Shephard, the first dead guy on LOST, has reappeared! I think it was quite clear by now – and apparently the writers anticipated that we might’ve already found out he had something to do with Jacob (from the season premiere). So we got an added little mystery: when John turned his torch to the other corner of the room, he saw Claire – who looked unbelievably creepy for someone who isn’t trying to look creepy at all. So, yes, Claire is dead. My guess is she died when the house went boom in The Shape of Things to Come. As for the how and the why… I don’t think we’ll find out in season 4.

The Questions…

We were wrong. Christian Shephard is not Jacob. He is, however, one who can speak for him. Does that mean Jacob communicates with the dead? Other than that, no questions have been hinted at. I do expect, however, that the season finale will answer up quite a bit of questions we had regarding the first flash forward back in Through the Looking Glass.

In all…

I absolutely adored this episode. There was a lot of mystery, a bit of action, some nice character moments (the moment in which Abaddon moves the wheel chair bound Locke in front of a staircase was so nice, and Richard Alpert has never looked this much like the G-man ever before) and a healthy dose of mindfucks.

Speaking of which: move the island. Time or place?

Favourite Quote: Ben: “Because destiny, John, is a fickle bitch.