(previous: “Happily Ever After”)
There’s no way to “review” or “analyze” or even “discuss” this show on an episode-by-episode basis — it’s more like you just have to react and try to guess what the hell is going on. So I’m not even gonna try to impose any sense or reason upon it: I’m just going to react. Maybe when it’s all said and done there will be something cohesive to say. Till then…
Perhaps needless to say, Lost doesn’t make much sense while you’re watching it. My ramblings will surely make even less sense if you haven’t seen the episode… and something may get spoiled for you that you don’t want spoiled. You have been warned.
So, here are the thoughts I jotted down, pretty much in order as they occurred to me as I watched:
It’s true: everybody does love Hugo. Except that lady sitting next to Hugo. She didn’t look too happy. Oh, yeah: that was his mom.
Aww, that’s right: Libby loved Hugo.
Hey, that’s right, too: Michael’s back. Oh no, he isn’t. What? Look, I don’t mind a show that’s complicated — I love that. But Lost isn’t organically complicated. Maybe it was once, but it isn’t anymore. There’s no flow to the story, which makes it difficult to remember what has happened to all the characters without a cheat sheet. I can’t remember what was going on with Michael the last time we saw him, and I don’t want to have to go look it up in order to make the connection with why it appears he’s a ghost talking to Hurley. I had no trouble keeping up with all the different skinjobs on Battlestar Galactica, even when they all looked the same… and even when the show took long hiatuses. So how come so little about what has happened to the people in this story sticks in my head? It’s because they long ago stopped behaving like real people: they don’t have to motives or reasons for doing things now. They just need to have a writer say, “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if So-and-So suddenly turned out to be this entirely other thing than could ever have been the case, given everything we know about them up to this point?”
Argh.
And hey, let’s just blow up the plane, because Jacob-or-whatever is evil and shouldn’t leave the island. Or let’s get on the plane and leave for some other reason. I wish I could care more. I don’t even care that the chick with the dynamite blew up: I have no idea who she even is. I mean, yeah, she’s a person who has been running around on the island for a while now, but who is she? No idea.
Of course Desmond’s Mr. Cluck order was No. 42.
Richard knows what the island “really is”? Oh, do tell…
Maybe the island is a big mental asylum that Libby and Hugo are in.
So, not-Locke killed Desmond by pushing him down a well. But I’ve lost track of which Desmond that was, and I don’t even care.
Okay, now I know they Lost writers are pulling our collective leg: Willy Wonka is on the voiceover for the coming attractions. So it’s all one big joke, and they’ve stopped pretending.
(next: “The Last Recruit”)
This episode resolved exactly nothing and did not advance the story at all. I have to concede that it was nothing but filler.
I can make nothing of Michael’s reappearance except as a contrivance to get Hugo to do something he would never have decided to do otherwise.
Richard knows what the island “really is”? Oh, do tell…
We found out in the Richard-centric episode. Though I guess that is too far back to remember.
I can make nothing of Michael’s reappearance except as a contrivance to get Hugo to do something he would never have decided to do otherwise.
What better way to make Hurley MAN UP than for him to confront/work with the killer of his soul mate? Also it provided us with an answer to one of Lost’s longtime mysteries i.e. the voices in the jungle.
The Willy Wonka promo was trippy though. And I love seeing alt-Desmond visit the castaways pushing them towards remembering their “real” lives.
We did find out what the island “really is”? I watched the Richard episode, and don’t remember that great reveal, just a few vague clues that were 75% stuff we already new. So what is the island, if that was revealed?
I could already guess the voices in the jungle were various dead people, not that it matters to anything. The voices are a red herring, except when one is needed as a deux ex machina to steer a character in a direction their arc wouldn’t otherwise take them. How has Hugo “manned up,” anyway? I saw him go crawling to not-Locke and beg for mercy.
If the alt-lives will somehow be tied into the island at the end, then there’s a point to the ad-nauseum “flashes sideways” that will ultimately make it worthwhile for us to have to sit through them instead of watching what’s going on on the Island. We shall see.
Sorry, but this episode really irritated me. First one this season that I really felt wasted my time.
[That should be “knew,” of course.]
Everyone who watched the show, and we’re talking all episodes, knows Michael died on the freighter and that Hurley talks to ghosts. Heck, it’s established fully this season and reminded several times in recent episodes that Hurley talks to ghosts.
One thing that did bother me was why, as one of the Oceanic 6, didn’t Hurley try to covertly discover exactly WHO Libby was; her backstory. Of course, I think he was committed for most of the O6 off-island storytime, so that might be the reason why.
For those of you who saw nothing happen this episode, here are some notable things that happened this episode.
ON-ISLAND
1 – Team Jack lost their leader (Ilana).
2 – Team Jack gained a new leader (Hurley).
3 – Hurley gained a modicum of closure on the Michael murdered Libby thing.
4 – The concept of the whispers was explained “enough”.
5 – Fake Locke removed Desmond from the playing field by throwing him down the well.
6 – We learn that Desmond doesn’t know that that guy isn’t Locke, and probably still doesn’t.
7 – We learn there are many pockets of electromagnetism on the island and the probable origin of the well (which is likely linked to the rope that traveled back in time and got stuck in the earth).
8 – The Black Rock and a large cache of dynamite is removed from play.
9 – Team Jack is split into Team Jack (Jack, Hurley, Sun, Lapidus) and Team Richard (Richard, Ben, Miles).
10 – Team Jack meets Team Locke.
OFF-ISLAND
1 – We find out what happened to Miles’ father, which then makes the connected sense as to how Miles knew Charlotte (to set her up on a date with Sawyer), beyond the very probable “growing up for a couple early years on LOST ISLAND before it sank”, as inferred by Ben’s father a few episodes back.
2 – We witness Desmond making good on his claim to follow-up on the passengers, as he “visits” both Hurley and Locke.
3 – Libby is awakened to the other reality.
4 – Hurley is awakened to the other reality.
5 – Libby and Hurley are now connected.
6 – Desmond either takes vengeance on Locke (assuming he still doesn’t know Fake Locke is one who threw him down the well), and/or sets into motion Locke re-encountering Jack.
For those not paying attention to recent episodes, the answer Richard was looking for from Jacob (through Hurley) was “a cork”, which was what Jacob referred to the island when explaining it to Richard way back when.
ON-ISLAND
1. (Monty Python old lady voice) “Oh,dear! She exploded!”
2. Well, not really. Jack abdicated and the team split.
3. So what?
4. The whispers themselves are just a cool effect, a red herring. That’s like telling us the species of the trees in the background.
5. Except, in the preview of next episode, it looks like Desmond isn’t dead. He is wet, though.
6. Well, duh. He’s been off the island. It would be very suprising and weird if he did know that Locke wasn’t Locke.
7. We already knew that.
8. But there’s another store of explosives on the island, so what difference does it make?
9. That qualifies as a “happening”?
10. Yes, much did happen, through a contrivance.
OFF-ISLAND
N/A.
(Unless and until it’s made the least bit relevant to what’s happening on-island.)
Ah, the island is a “cork”. Well, that explains everything. That’s just a clue. It’s nowhere close to an answer. I know, I know. The full answer is a mystery.
The whispers were a “BIG ANSWER” in that their meaning changes the game a bit. You’ll notice (or not) that Ben was back at it again this week screwing with people’s minds, muttering about how when the island was done with Ilana she died so what hope did any of them have. Lots of other people have died in similar ways when the island was “done with them”. Meanwhile, Desmond was dragged back to the island because it wasn’t done with him. What Michael said means that contrary to popular belief (or at least Ben’s) not even death is a sign that the island is done with you yet- you still can’t leave and it will still use you. The fact that something or someone would want something so horrible says a lot about the wills at work on the island and how those wills are going to play into the endgame.
The cork metaphor is more – and more interesting- than merely another regular clue, I think. (Damon has said that it is the metaphor the writers have been using for the island for years now, so it isn’t a red herring, anyway. It’s an actual answer, we just need some of the details filled in.) A lot of people have been saying how the cork metaphor means the island is a “hellmouth” like on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s a random connection unless you remember that some of the original writers on the show were poached from Buffy and Angel when Angel ended. I’m not a Buffy fan myself, but I think that maybe this was one I should have seen coming a while ago if I was a fan… Again, another big piece of the endgame.
Yeah, this was one of the lesser episodes so far. To continue the chess metaphor, we’re at the point in the endgame where the kings are moving around capturing the irrelevant pawns that are left to get them out of the way while the last of the big pieces get into position. I do think that the other reality is collecting itself up getting ready to blast back into the main plot right before the end. The random little answers that some fans had been waiting for are the pawns. The other reality is a much bigger player (a queened pawn?) that has been moving across the board for something.
Sorry for the length…I don’t usually comment on the Lost blogs because everything is really starting to make sense to me now so it hurts my head more than the show does when people are so far off from what I see happening. But it just occurred to me that you know what? A lot of people don’t like chess even when they do understand it, and many don’t understand it. And that’s fine. (I don’t either when I’m the one playing.) It doesn’t make a grandmaster’s match any less spectacular when only other grandmasters can understand it.
But the plots are flowing, just according the the stages of chess rather than conventional plots. The fact that they’re real emotional people with lives and stories being thrown around like cold hard chess pieces is the point as I see it. When they’re the playthings of the fates or the gods, like in a Greek tragedy or the book of Job, who’s responsible? What does it mean? Should they “curse god and die” (not that even that works, apparently) or is there something more at work? “Who’s side are you on?” Will anyone pass the big test of the island? That’s where all the philosophies being thrown around come in, people turn to philosophies when they feel like the pawns in a big nasty game of life where horrid things are happening.
My one big question is are the writers going to settle on one philosophy in the end, or is it going to be more like the last episode of “The Prisoner” where all of the various philosophies and “sides” are ruled out one by one and we’re presented with a guy in a monkey mask up in the control room as our final answer?
Are you kidding me? This happened three episodes ago, MaryAnn. You wrote about it in your blog for crying out loud. Remember when Jacob was talking to Richard, with the wine bottle? How do you miss these things?
The answer is obvious: you don’t like the show. And you’re not paying attention to it at all anymore. So, you know, stop watching it!
Your pal,
Newbs
Will they reveal why and how helicopters were coming to the island on a regular basis to drop off pallets of Dharma-branded food?
Will they reveal why during the original standoff with the Others (when Mr. Friendly stated “this is OUR island!”), the Others were wearing disguises (later found in a station locker)? Etc.
The whispers couldn’t just be the ghosts of the dead unable to leave the island. How did Richard’s dead wife (who talked to Hurley) end up there since she died off the island? And living Michael talked to dead Libby a couple of seasons ago, so why couldn’t Hurley?