Lost: "The Lighthouse" Recap

This week's episode of Lost, for all purposes, should be viewed like the mysterious lighthouse for which it was named, as a mirror and parallel to last weeks episode:

In last week's episode, Darth Locke apprenticed Sawyer in tracking down "Jacob's" big cave of baby names so that he could drop the bombshell that Sawyer had been guided and watched by that nefarious Jacob all his life in what amounts to a futile effort to protect the island. 

In this week episode, Jacob - or should I say his surrogate and new BFF Hurley, guided Jack to Jacob's big lighthouse of baby names so that Jacob could prove to Jack that he really is special, and that he had been watching and guiding Jack all his life. 

Without all the new alternate Jack off-island stuff, this episode was thematically exactly the same as the one previous, yet directly opposite. Like two black and white pieces on a game board, Sawyer and Jack have been led by our two players to the depths and heights of each other's kingdom. Sawyer, descended to the bowels of  a Hell-cave to see what what Smokey had wrought. Jack ascended to the heavenly heights of the island and the lighthouse - where once again we see the names written in a wheel, most of which are crossed out. If we are led to believe that there are 1 name for each degree in a wheel, that means there could only be 360 deceased/potential candidates. What happens when those names run out? Also, wtf is with all the wheel imagery? Donkey-wheels, lighthouse wheels, the wheels on Locke's rusted out wheel chair? Time keeps rolling on I guess.


But back to the dueling deities; to me, this episode proves that wherever Locke took Sawyer, it was NOT Jacob's cave. More than likely, it was Smokey's himself (would literally fit him nicely), where either the names were a set-up for Sawyer to see, or in fact meticulous counter-espionage. Consider this, what if, like Jacob, Smokey is looking for a someone to take the mantle off his shoulders as island badass-security system (who better to groom than the former head of Dharma security than Sawyer?). Smokey seems to have taking a shining to a few (if not all) of the "candidates;" it could be that those who are being corrupted (even against their will) like Sayid or Claire, or shoe-ins because of their evolving conditions.

The Lighthouse (Off-Island)

•  The big shocker in alternate Jack's life is that he not only has a son, but an angsty teenage one at that. Jack's son seems to be carrying on the Shepard mantle of trying to live up to his father's expectations while living in his considerably large (absent) shadow. 
• Ironically (as even Hurley believes that Jack would make a great dad - much to island-Jack's chagrin) Jack really does make a great dad, at least in his intent. He seems to make the effort when he has the time, it's just that the time just hadn't been there. 
• Speaking of time, why can't Jack seem to remember much of his past? It's as if on-island Jack, in body and redeemed soul, has been placed in this new reality with a clean slate and a memory wipe. Perhaps this alternate reality are the candidate's reward for fulfilling whatever task Jacob has for them. However, you get to keep your scars. Yay plastic surgery!
• We have the Samurai Dogen (love that line, as he was also awesome in The Last Sumarai) even making a cameo, subtly pulling at Jack's heart strings by questioning how long Jack had known his son was a budding musical prodigy. Turns out mommy (mysteriously absent) intentionally kept Jack in the dark because he was maybe too stage-parenty before (just like his dad in the ER in a way).
• In the end, this alternate story (like the others) came to a warm and fuzzy ending; Jack told his kid that he was good enough, and just wanted to be apart of his life (which was the opposite mantra of his father).
• Catch the line when Jack's (alcaholic?) mother offered him a drink? To his "no thanks," she responded with "good for you." Was that in spite of his father, or because he had an addiction problem in this life, and thus lost the relationship with his son?

The Lighthouse (On-Island)

•  Hurley once again played surrogate ghost-partner to Jacob. They are slowly becoming my favorite all-time Lost dynamic-duo, as Hurley's no bullshit banter with Jacob is pretty priceless. One gets the feeling that Jacob is not only using Hurley as a means to further his goals for Jack and the others, but also showing Hurley the "tricks of the trade" as it were by sharing only with him why he does what he does and how he does it. If I was a betting man (which I am), I would put 2:1 odds that Hurley is already being groomed as Jacob's replacement. 
• The Lighthouse - what is it? Lighthouses literally "sheparded" Lost ships who were too far out, or served as a marker for the way home. This lighthouse might have been that way for Jacob to constantly keep tabs on his candidates -  to shepard these lost souls to the island. That is, until Jack hulk-smashed and got him and Hurley "7 years bad luck." He's such a wet blanket sometimes. 
• Claire is creepy. She has that Danielle Rousseau act down pat, and likes to play with sharp things. Other than sharp things ,she hangs out with her father, and a person who she knows is not really Locke, but her "friend" anyway. Oh and guess what, if she finds out that Kate really had raised her baby in the wake of her...death/disappearance, well she'll kill her. Issues probably don't even begin to describe her. We did get some good tidbits of info from her ramblings:

1. Her "father" told her that the others stole her baby
2. She was captured at some point after hanging out with her father and "tortured" like Sayid. I'll go out on a limb and say she failed the test too.
3. She befriended a guy.
4. The guy is John Locke. 
5. She knows he's not John Locke. 

• OK, I could have probably lumped 3 and 4 together, but I think it was important to make clear that she knows that her "friend" can appear as people he/it is not. With the blatant lie by "her father" about the others having her baby, we may be able to assume that Smokey has taken the appearance of Christian before, and slowly planted the seeds that have driven Claire mad with grief and rage over her lost baby. My guess, to use her as a weapon against Jack/Kate in coming fight. 
• For some reason, Smokey as Christian brought me back to his appearance before Michael on the ship right before it exploded. Who else was on that boat? Oh right, a possible candidate in Jin. Could Smokey have been trying to pick-off candidates in this indirect manner before?
• It also needs to be pointed out that Jacob needed to get Hurley and Jack away from the temple, and whatever was to happen there. Once again, why not at the very least Hurley, Jack, and KATE? Her omission seemed strange last week, but now it feels as if Jacob perhaps really has no use for Kate even though she had been touched. Was her sin too great? 
• Poor Jin. Bastard always catches the wrong breaks. Good thing he might get a reunion with Sun soon, even though it probably be as a hostage. 

Until next week. What's the over under on seconds Jack will be crying this season?

                                                            Poor Hobo Fail Jack

Lost: "The Substitute" recap

Lost repeated what amounts to a "filler" episode with one that is just purely fan service. "The Substitute" mirrors season 1's Locke-centric episode; not only does the Locke-centric episode fall chronologically in the same order, but also follows the same inherent struggle and dichotomy of what Locke can do on the island, and what he couldn't do off the island. Hell, we even got to fly around in smokey.

And you never tell Locke what he can't do, even if he actually a 10ft tall pillar of smoke...

The Substitute (off island)

• The parallel world is still following the trend of giving the audience a clever reworking of our main, um, "candidates," past and present. In the case of this Locke, he is still dealing with the post-accident denial of what he is "able" to do.
• Weirdly though, he seems to have managed to maintain his relationship with Helen to the point that they are engaged in this reality. Even crazier, Helen mentions that they should just have a small gathering for a wedding with Locke's father. I don't think you would want the father that pushed you out a window and crippled you at your wedding, so the audience can safely assume that he isn't the cause of Locke's paralysis. 
• Another continuation we saw in this timeline is the highly coincidental fortuitous meetings with other candidate Losties. In this case, it's our festively plump (and no longer cursed) major mogul, Hurly. The way this guy wheel's and deals, you would think that he actually earned the money this time around and not won it thanks to the numbers. 
• Hurly gives Locke a boost after Locke gets fired by that lovable office manager, Randy, by hooking him up with the temp agency that he owns, and more specifically Rose. Rose comiserates with Locke and pushes him to live in the moment, because hey, she has cancer and she has to. It'll be interesting to see whether or not peripheral characters, or "none-candidates," still wind up in similar fates. 
• The temp agency hooks Locke up with probably the best fit he could ever have, teaching and mentoring children. Ironically, who does he run into but his on-island nemesis, Ben. Is it just me, or is it that all European history teachers bug-eyed creepy? Wonder if Locke and Ben will now fight it out for the chance at being tenured and for the favor of their principle, Mr. Jacob. 

The Substitute (on island)

• On island life occurred sans team Jack,  but we got a heaping helping of team Darth Locke. There were several revelations, and almost an equal amount of questions raised in the process. The primary revelation is that the plane crashed because Jacob had once again chosen a select few to maybe become the caretaker of the island:

1. 4 - Locke
2. 8 - Hurly
3. 15 - Sawyer 
4. 16 - Sayid 
5. 23  - Jordan...er Jack
6. 42 - Sun or Jin

• Granted, this could be a pile of rubbish that smokey tells Sawyer, but for the sake of half-truths, it's probably right. Very curiously (and noticeably absent) from the numbers is Kate, who also like Sawyer, had been touched by Jacob as a child (I'll never get over the way that sounds), and thus was implied to have been a "candidate." Unless there is a phantom number, there is definitely something amiss. It could be that double numbers  could actually be read as two people, yet that is debunked as there multiple repeating numbers (like 2 and 1). Jack is sporting air-Jordan's number, while Locke occurs in the lowest number value. Could it be that the closer to 1 Jacob identifies you, the more likely you are to be his successor (as Locke was clearly the most spiritually adept, followed by Hurly). Now that Locke is dead, Hurly could be the next in line (he has already been visited in spirit by Jacob), and has already proven his capability at being a caretaker of multiple companies (at least in his alternate life).
• The downer-idea that smokey conveyed was that Jacob as an entity was willing to crash multiple ships and eventually planes, killing hundreds if not thousands of people over time, just for the sake of trying to get one person to take his place so that perhaps like smokey, he too could finally leave the island. Of course, this idea that Jacob is a collateral damage ignoring psycho is probably what smokey wants James and the audience to think, as it will probably turn out that most of the deaths and tragedies have been the work of smokey trying to counter everything that Jacob did. 
• We also gathered, thanks to Illana, that smokey is now corporeally unable to take on a new avatar now. He is stuck looking, and sometimes acting like Locke. One wonders whether or not Darth Locke's outburst of real-Locke's signature line, "Don't tell me what I can't do" also implies that by taking on Locke's representation, smokey also takes one his memories and personality traits. Smokey being stuck also is a boon for the audience as now we do not have to question whether ghostly meetings or occurences are just projections and tricks by smokey, but the real deal. Which leads to...
• Freaky (blood-covered?) child-Jacob ghost thing. It appears that not even smokey is immune to visions on the island. The kid tells him, "You know the rules, you can't kill him." So whether or not you thought smokey and Jacob were primary dueling entities, it appears that there is now something even greater than both of them at play here. Perhaps the child was the avatar of the all-powerful island itself, but clearly, Jacob and smokey answer to someone or something.  Interestingly, Sawyer sees the child too. I love Sawyer and Darth Locke's chemistry, and the no bullshit interplay between them. It's refreshing to have a character on the show that can see through the lies and the games (up to a point), and Sawyer calling out smokey (as well as smokey's reaction) was pretty badass. To think, that smokey has had thousands of years of training manipulating people, and one drunk dude can see through him instantly.

Wild stuff this week, definitely an upgrade from the week before. It will be interesting to find out what the numbers actually mean in reference to their "candidate" counterparts, and whether or not their equation is bogus now that 4 is dead; Locke  is the first of the "candidates" to actually die, and probably not the last.

Until next time...

The Holy Grail

It is the Holy Grail for men. It teases the dreams of adolescent boys and haunts their grandfathers with pangs of immeasurable regret.

“The Threesome,”: one guy versus two women…

Like some of the greatest existential questions, be it the blackholes in space or your older sisters’ pants, the quest to achieve a threesome is almost as taxing as the undertaking. With serendipitous timing, charm, and the right blood alcohol level, it may occur – yet even if it does it is instantly questioned and disregarded as hearsay. It is treated like an encounter with a mythical creature, yet instead of fighting off some murderous gorgon or cyclops, your fending off two sets of mammories and countless man-eating-orifices with your Spear of Destiny.

For everything pure, though, there are those bastardizations that make normal men cringe to their core. With one shift in sex-ratio, that which was perfect morphs into some fel-ritual. Yes, there is the “Wrong Threesome.” One can only imagine a normal man’s reaction if the girl you and your buddy have been working on all night gives you the ultimatum that yes, you can have a slice of that pie, but it has to be both of you…at the same time. For some reason, it instantly brings me back to a childhood favorite, Ghostbusters; when seemingly all hope is gone versus the uber-skank demi-god, Gozer, Egon presents one last desperate plan to take her down, something that the Ghostbusters (men) had been trained never to do for fear of a catastrophic meltdown:

“Cross the streams...” Ray’s face says it all – this is not going to be pretty.

(are they having a good time?)

I myself have had the fortune of having a wrong threesome story recounted to me in exquisite detail, mostly because this misguided soul was proud of it. It’s one of those stories that once heard, it is impossible to question because, hey, why would you offer the info up in the first place? You be the judge:

One night, in the waning hours after a period of intense binge drinking, my friends and I got to talking about the eternal quest for the threesome. Immediately in the corner of the room, an acquaintance, we’ll call him “Peter,” suddenly perks up; his eyes danced with mad glee as he announced to the room, “I have had a threesome.” Any and all conversation ceased as he finished the last syllable, for we knew what was figuratively "coming."

One cannot just cry wolf without proof in today’s society; to be crowned a king, an alpha male, requires a tale of equal measure. Seeing our reactions at his threesome announcement only bolstered his ego, and with a cocky grin he continued,

“Yeah, I had one alright. Mike and I tag-teamed that chick from Tulane, you know, the one that was displaced by Hurricane Katrina.”

And then there was a split-second of silence. I learned something about the human brain, or perhaps just the male’s brain, in that very instant; it was a moment where you hear something so unexpectedly wrong - something so counterintuitive to what you were hoping for, that I could actually feel all my faculties and neurological networks working to process that last sentence.

Then it hit me. Whatever biological computer that runs my brain gave up and hit the blue screen of death: this was the funniest thing I had ever heard. It was not just me either, after that dumbstruck second the rest of the room, about ten guys, convulsed into a torrent of laughter-induced tears.

Poor bastard, he thought we were laughing with him. Indiana Jones would have been right there shaking his head, for this kid had not chosen the carpenter’s cup, but one of those cheap imitations that makes the head explode. Nevertheless, Peter’s story spilled forth in like a wave of filth – verbal sewage that not only overpowered the mind but fueled the laughter. Apparently, this was the perfect storm of debauchery: Sober girl, a transfer student from Katrina-ravaged Tulane, with short-ish hair and the female version of the “Prince Albert” (red flags), the ambiance of porn blasting in the background on the computer and the stench of sweat and “Old English,” the two naked males work out a system of primitive ape-like hand signs and hi-fives to change positions – the culmination of which combined both bodily fluids and the word “adjacent.” The aftermath: girl leaves contently sticky while both boys – nay men – remain nude yet celebrating their “feat” with a chorus of cheers and dude hugs (still naked).

Once the laughter stopped – and yes, it always stops – the sheer depth of human awkwardness the story conveyed left us stunned. With a murmur people began leaving the room, each guy seeking the comfort of a shower, a meal, or some other cleansing ritual. It was “Fool’s Gold” - you know, that substance you received as a child at one of those lame-ass Safari parties as a party favor from the outdoorsy kid that always smelled like baked beans; that hunk of gold-looking rock that tricked the young mind into thinking that anything is possible and everything is affordable – that is, until you would find out it’s all an illusion and your dream of swimming in Scrooge McDuck’s pool of gold coins is shattered.

Abandon all hope ye who seek the perfect threesome – it is a fool’s dream. After that night, we couldn’t look at Peter the same way again, knowing his sexual deviances from all that should be awesome. Ghostbusters is always right: never cross the streams.

Lost: "What Kate Does"

Episode generally continues the mold of follow-up episodes that are Kate-centric and that I find generally sort of a let down in comparison to the badassary of the openings.

No Evil Locke/Ben/Alpert = bummer.

However, there was enough going on perhipherally to Kate's little double-world rescue mission that kept most of it interesting. Let's start in the Other-World.

• Ethan Goodspeed is a mild manner Dr. who still tries to deliver Claire's baby (rather than poking her with a needle, which is joked about, he just offers her a choice).
• Kate is also an integral part in getting Claire to the hospital for delivery, though she probably won't do the actual job herself (yay, we are all spared angry-Claire howling and screaming, as well as collateral placenta damage).
• BTW, what makes Kate turn around the cab? Was it realizing her scared patron was pregnant, or that, like Jack and Desmond, there was something vaguely familiar about the encounter?
• Notice how we haven't heard anything about what Kate actually did in this reality? Perhaps she truly IS innocent this time around. Remember, Jacob bound Kate to the island with his touch when she was only a child, perhaps influencing her in life. In this reality sans-Jacob, who knows what will happen if Kate is never touched as a child (that sounds so wrong). Did Jacob save her, or condemn her? Perhaps in this reality, we will find out the consequences of a none-Jacob intervention.

Real-World

• Sayid, probably because the balance of power on the island has shifted and the mystical healing waters have turned the color of smokey, has been "claimed." Unlike Star Wars and the force, it seems that this light and dark side actively seek out their "chosen" rather than have the individual make the choice. Wait, isn't this show all about free will and the ability to choose a better life? The Temple-dwelling others seem to believe that Sayid, much like Frodo being stabbed the the Witch-King in the Fellowship of the Ring, will slowly turn to the darkside whether he wants to or not. 

So logic time:
   Sayid is touced by Jacob ---->
   Sayid is shot ----->
   Sayid is placed in the infected healing waters ---->
   Sayid is infected ---->
   Sayid turns ....?

•  Why did I do that? To indicate that there is still a possibility that Sayid is cloaked by Jacob's original protection - that he is still "claimed" by Jacob. More simply though, it more likely that Sayid, like a game-piece on Jacob/MIB's eternal game-board,  is slowly switching sides.
• Jack is saying all the right things on his way to redemption, even attempting to take illicit-medicine for his friends and letting Kate gallivant off to spend some time on the other side of the love-triangle. Or it could be that Jack is still a pill-popper. lols.
• Kate's reaction to Sawyer's intense heart-break was interesting (did Sawyer steal that engagement ring, or was there a Dharma jewler?). Either she is heartbroken herself in that the man she still loves lost his chance at eternal happiness and is not into her, or that it reminded her of her own failed engagement with Jack. 
• Speaking of which, I have always had a theory since Season 1 that it would end up Locke vs. Jack, and that because of the love triangle, Sawyer would choose Locke and ultimately die in series final episodes after finding redemption (presumably helping Jack/Kate). Sawyer seems to be in the right place mentally to say "Screw it," and join Locke, especially if smokey invites him by hinting that he could return Juliette to him. His character also seems ripe for dying, in that he truly has lost his best chance at happiness. Sorry all you Kate/Sawyer shippers, I think this was the episode that clearly indicate that Sawyer/Kate can never be. I'd love to hear your counter-theories though.
• Wait, Jack becomes Jacob and thus saves Sawyer from Locke and he can live happily with Kate. There, you happy?

I don't know about you guys, but I am starting to dread the parallel shift (it could be that I just hate Kate's stories). Clearly, the on-island timeline is where its at adventure wise. Hopefully the alternate-reality can carry more intrigue than seeing on-island encounters playing out similarly/differently in the real world. 

- Claymhor

 

(I'm waiting for this flashback)

Lost: "LA X" Recap

 

After 8 long months, LOST returned last night with a slow-burner, "LA X" that did exactly what a good first episode of the season traditionally does for the show: give you some big answers, but ultimately make you say, "Cheezits, I have no idea what's going on right now."

In fact, after Juliet slammed the rock on the nuke that resulted in what can only be explained as a white "kerfucken," the white turns to clouds, and the camera pulls back to mirror season 1's pilot episode:

Back to the Past: Remix

 Just when we think we are seeing an echo, the plane doesn't crash. Welcome to the radical new world, or perhaps, "Parallel world." Lost has thus shifted back, then forward, and now to the side. I wasn't as confused as first because I thought that the show would shift to a reboot of some sort, but I thought it was a cop-out that Jack seemed to have no recollection (there goes 5 years of character development). Yet, I was surprised (and thankful) to find out via a new "swoosh" that Lost then shifted back to our current storyline progression, and more importantly, back to the current (2007) time. It does beg the question though, "What is the point of showing this parallel world?" It could be to:

• Show a world where the Losties never crashed, yet are left spiritually (and physically in the case of Lock) unhealed and stunted of their redemptions because they do not go to the island.
• Lock's legs
• Charlie almost killing himself on the plane.
• Kate still a fugitive, though still manages to escape.
• Sun and Jin are still on the rocks, and Jin even gets detained. He should be after telling her to button up.
• Show a world where the Losties never crashed, and live better lives without the Island's influences (because it is sunk, more in a moment).
• Desmond seems pretty happy. Is it because in his time, the bomb went off and killed Widmore early? Even though he never knows Penny and has an epic love with Penny, he never knows the heartbreak of being almost completely separated for so long.
• Sawyer too seems pretty upbeat, not at all like he just mistakenly killed someone in Australia.
• Hurly is lucky rather than cursed.
• Locke might get his legs fixed by Jack.
• Show a new world that contains an infinite amount of changes both big and small, thanks to the ripple affects of the island not having influence over the world.
• The island being sunk (circa-after new-Otherton is built). Did the nuke going off preempt the sinking? Or was it something entirely different in this timeline?
• Desmond is on the plane, whereas Shannon is completely absent.
• Jack still loses his father, though in a mysterious way.

Perhaps the point of this new timeline is to show that even if the island is sunken, all these characters are tied to one another by some destiny that they will still have to meet. It could be that we will be treated to an alternate reality that mirrors the known reality in that the characters still must be led to redemption. That, or because the Losties tried to subvert time, they ultimately created an alternate reality where they are doomed because there is no island.

Or, could it be that what we are watching is not an alternate reality, but an alternate past that has replaced the old past, but ultimately ties up and meets with the present to course-correct the timeline so that there is not a paradox. The big knock on this theory is that in the new timeline, the island is  at the bottom of the ocean, so the castaways have no means to go to the island and initiate their jump back to 1977 and blow up the bomb in the first place. We have seen hoaxes before (the fake plane crash), so this is still up in the air.

So the noddle cooker is whether or not there are officially two different timelines running concurrently from the moment the bomb goes off.

Back to the Future: Remix? 
In our present timeline, there was some pretty hefty revelations. Most notably:

• Hurly (and maybe Miles) might be the only ones now able to commune with Jacob. This is probably a coup in the coming battle against Darth Locke, because the only 2 people who can talk to ghosts are on the castaways side. 
• "I'm sorry you had to see me like that." Darth Locke admits to being Smokey, as well as the man in black (MIB). The MIB thing was pretty obvious, but the fact that the MIB was smokey all along has some serious implications for those who want to comb the series for smokey-scenes and try and guess what exactly the MIB was trying to gain by his actions. We also learn that the ash creates a barrier that the MIB cannot cross, which makes you wonder whether or not the cabin in the jungle was really where Jacob lived and kept the MIB out, or whether the cabin was the MIB's spiritual prison. Perhaps when Locke and Ben travel there in season 4, they mistakenly break the seal and sow the seeds for the MIB to take corporeal form in Jacob's potential champion, Locke. The monster has had alot of contact with Locke throughout the series before Locke's death, so it makes you wonder whether or not the MIB had chosen Locke from the beginning as his future avatar because he represented his biggest threat.
• The healing waters at the temple turn the color of defecation after the death of Jacob. Even still, Sayid is resurrected, with missing memories and perhaps more (if you believe the Other's claims that there are some side effects). Could it be that Sayid is now permanently attached to the island? 
• Richard and the MIB are old friends (not).
• Whatever the entity the MIB is, its only wish is to go home. Where that "home" actually is may hold the key to unlocking the true nature of Jacob/MIB and the island itself. It is clear by the Other's reaction to Jacob's demise, that shit is about to go down. Now that the natives' God has been slain, could we be headed toward some island-apocalyptic moment (that leads to it sinking? TRIPPY). Other than the means the MIB must take to achieve his goal, this timeline seems pretty cut and dry in that the castaways, and more specifically Jack, will have to defend against his onslaught. 

Until next week...