LOST Fan

A couple of things in here made me laugh out loud — the elephant in the room, and the smoke monster coughing.

And there was one thing that was pointed out that I had missed — that the “Beachies” (good name), Ilana and company, had some of kind of mysterious crate and we still don’t know what’s in it.

Hello, and welcome to the Special Passover Edition of “Almost-Live” blogging, full of puns and analogies stretched past the breaking point.

9:04 Alpert, with a fresh application of mascara, mentions Jacob. But where IS Jacob? Everyone always talks about him, but no one ever actually sees him…. um, just like Elijah?

The Island saved Little Ben, which explains how he survived a gunshot wound to the chest. It’s a miracle … like the parting of the Red Sea!

Charles is back!

Ben explains why he killed John. He says he came back to be judged by the “Monster.”

9:17 Ben, with teenage Ethan, grabs Danielle’s baby. Wow. There’s one long-standing question answered — how Alex ended up with Ben. But it still leaves the question of why.

Ben, to Locke: “Well I just didn’t have time to talk you back into hanging yourself.”
Locke: “I was just hoping for an apology.”

Ben shoots Cesar! Wow, that is COLD. Ben, to Locke: “There’s your apology.”

Ben is evil … like the Pharoah!

9:27 Flashback. Ben with Alex. Now we know why he took Alex. The answers are coming fast tonight. I count, ahem, Four Questions that have been answered so far in this episode.

Neither Charles nor Ben will kill baby Alex, so there are limits to their evil. Ben, with the baby, is actually quite the softie. So sweet …. like charoses!

Back to the present. Someone is in Alex’s room! Horror-film music. It’s Sun!

Um, there was a lot of sun in the desert that the Israelites wandered through for 40 years.

Undead John waves sweetly. More charoses!

9:38 Ben goes down secret passageway, sticks hand in yucky dirty water. You better, uh, wash your hands, Ben!

Flashback. Charles banished from the Island. Ben says, accusingly, that Charles had a daughter with an outsider. Penny!

Ben: “Dead is dead.” He’s tells Sun that John being undead scares him. Is he telling the truth?

John says he knows where Smokie is.

He will lead Ben to Smokie … like Moses led his people out of bondage!

9:49 Ben on the pier. So it WAS Penny he wanted to kill! That’s another question answered. That makes — uh oh — five questions.

In the present: Locke: “I just know.” Ben: “How does that work, exactly?” Hah.

They see the Temple wall. Uh, next year in Jerusalem!

Back at the pier. Ben is as bitter as a bitter herb. He shot Desmond!!! There’s Penny! Oh, Ben has a soft spot for children, which makes him (ahem) pass over Penny. Yay, Desmond’s not dead! That explains how Ben got beat up. Question number 6 now answered. Ewwww — blood in the water.

10:02 Ilana: “What lies in the shadow of the statue?” She knocks Lapidus down. This is seriously weird.

Ben and Locke wander through a structure underneath the temple. Ben falls through the floor. There’s an altar with Egyptian hieroglyphics. (Egypt! Hello, Passover tie-ins!) There’s a picture of a snake-like creature (Smokie?) facing what I think may be the animal-like head of the Statue.

And theeeeeere’s Smokie! Full of faces from the past, as it had been with Eko. Oh! Alex!! Undead!! Hah — she’s still mad at him. So much for Ben’s getting forgiveness for his sins. But that would be the wrong holiday, anyway.
———-

There was a lot of information in this episode, many questions answered. But I found it a bit inert. I didn’t find it really exciting until the scene on the pier, which was an adrenalin pumper. And I was intrigued by the bizarre scene with Ilana and Lapidus. And I loved the scene after that, where Ben and Locke were wandering around in the strange underground temple, a scene which felt like something straight out of a dream.

Photo of (ahem) Big Ben is by David Iliff, GNU FDL, via Wikipedia

The new episode will be at 9:00. It’s called Dead is Dead. Are you seeing a trend here with repeated-word titles? First, there was What Happened, Happened. Now, there’s Dead is Dead.

Of course we know that on LOST dead isn’t always dead. Dead is sometimes undead. Dead is also sometimes a few days in a coffin before rising again, good as new, albeit too formally dressed for a tropical island. If you’re an actor on LOST, then dead means never having to say that your contract is over, because you can always come back in a flashback.

This will be a Ben-centric episode. In honor of that, here’s a video of Michael Emerson answering viewer questions, in “Ask Lost,” which I think is the start of a new internet-extra series from ABC.

Schedule for April 7, 2009

9:00 pm to 10:02 pm — New episode, Dead is Dead

(An hour earlier in Central Time)

Next week there will be another new episode, but on April 22 there will be a clip show, called Lost: The Story of the Oceanic 6, instead of a new episode.

Blogging during commercials …

9:05 Father tells boy to kill chicken, but he can’t. He’s too kind-hearted. His younger brother enters the pen, snaps the chicken’s neck. Which child is little Sayid? I’m thinking it’s the kind-hearted one. Oops! I was wrong about that!

Dharma guy: “Whatever.” Hey, writers, that seems anachronistic! People didn’t say “whatever” like that back then.

But they did read “A Separate Reality” by Carlos Castenada. Oooh! Nostalgia attack.

Little Ben was creepy and Ben-like, even back then. “I think I can help you.” Oh, I bet you can, Creepy Little Ben.

9:16 Long-haired Sayid. Russia. Bang bang! Now what does he do with himself?

Horace, opening and shutting pliers. Menacing. “Put out your hands.” What is this, “24″? No — ha — fake out!

“I’ll have to take this to the next level.” Hmm, maybe they are imitating “24″ after all. But why are the hippies into torture anyway?

Sawyer! And Juliet! In the cute house! Awww.

Sawyer and Sayid! Sayid: “Then I guess I’m on my own.”

9:28 Hurley, Kate, and Jack in the cafeteria. Kate didn’t know about Suliet? Really?

Wow, Ben’s father is a nasty piece of work. This is one for the bad fathers file.

Ben and Sayid in Santo Domingo. Great scene. Ben: “You’re a killer, Sayid. It’s in your nature.”

Sawyer tasers Sayid. Oh, Sawyer, shame on you!

“He’s our you.” There’s the title!

Creepy guy puts Sayid in restraints — his arms out, as if crucified.

9:42 Sayid in bar. Is that the woman from the plane? Not sure.

Sayid talks. The drug wasn’t painful after all! Whew! One “24″ is more than enough.

“I’m from the future.” “Maybe I should have used half a dose.” Ha ha ha!

Kate has engine duty with Juliet! I like the idea of them becoming friends but, hey writers, giving them both mechanics jobs seems like another anachronism. Few women worked on cars in the 70s. Could this be a Dharma experiment in redefining gender roles? I doubt it — they don’t seem that progressive in general.

But thank you, writers, for not staging a cat fight between Kate and Juliet. I was half expecting it, and I’m glad you took the high road here, and steered clear of the looming cliche.

Voting to kill Sayid. Sawyer raises his hand. Shame on you, Sawyer!

9:52 The woman kicks Sayid! “I am a professional.”

Sawyer didn’t betray Sayid after all! Whew! I really didn’t want to have to hate Sawyer!

Van rolling through Dharmaville, like it did in last week’s “Lost Untangled”! Except this time, it’s on fire.

Cloaked figure. It’s not Ms. Hawking again, is it? Ha. Nope, it’s Little Ben.

Little Ben: Will you take me to your people? Sayid: That’s why I’m here.

10:02 Sayid, at gate of Flight 315: “Can we get the next plane?” Ha ha. Sorry, Sayid. This is your destiny!

Sayid shoots Little Ben! OMG! It’s a time travel paradox!!! I was sure they weren’t going to have any of those!! Very, very interesting. Could it be that Little Ben is not really dead? And if he is dead … then what? What does that mean, if the Losties are able to alter the past?

Wow. Cue the Twilight Zone music.

I liked the episode. Lots of action, good set-up of the tension between Sayid and Ben, and a kicker of an ending.

Graphic by Ms Terri, using a smoldering hot picture of Naveen Andrews from the abc.com website (c) ABC

The real Jeremy Bentham, 1748-1832

Blogging during commercials:

9:02 The man and woman from the plane! I knew they weren’t just redshirts — I knew they would have a bigger role. But where are they? Oh, they’re on the Island. This isn’t a flashback after all.

Locke’s alive! The only way we could have been unspoiled for that revelation is if we had been on remote tropical islands ourselves, ones without television or internet.

9:16 Very quick shot of the pick-up truck’s license plate — couldn’t see the numbers — were they “the” numbers?

Ow! No anesthesia in the desert! That looked very painful.

Did I just see Abaddon peeking out of the corner?

Widmore! This is one crazy desert hospital!

Widmore wants the Lost-ies to go back, presumably to help him in his war against Ben. But Ben wants the Lost-ies to go back too. Why?

9:28 Locke to Widmore, referring to Widmore’s killer-and-dynamite-laden freighter: “That doesn’t exactly scream trust.”

Now there’s Abaddon, for real!

Walt! Or should I say Waaaaaaaaalt! He looks like he’s about 17 years old and six feet tall. Even considering that it’s now three years in the future, that still calls for a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief.

Locke to Abaddon: “I thought you were my driver.” Oh, how mistaken you were!

9:39 I loved Hurley’s reaction to Locke, how he was so blase, at first — just another dead guy that he was going to ignore — and how he then freaked out when he realized Locke really was there.

Kate looks so pretty. I’m loving the pace of this episode, how it’s jumping quickly from one place to another, fast enough to be exciting, but not too fast to follow.

Locke: “I loved somebody once.” So sad.

Abaddon dead! I didn’t see that coming. The car chase sequence was very exciting.

9:55 Wow. Double-fake out. First Locke didn’t die when I was sure he would, and then he did die when I was sure he wouldn’t.

Backtracking: Locke wakes up and sees Jack! “What are you doing here?” They have their usual destiny versus free will argument, but I don’t think that Jack’s heart is really in it this time, and when he calls Locke delusional, I don’t think he really believes it.

Locke’s suicide, foreshadowed (or would that be backshadowed?) by the suicide note last week.

But wait, there’s Ben! Emerson is in top form — very good at conveying two meanings with a single line.

Locke knows of Eloise Hawking. How? Ben freaks out, kills Locke! Wow. Did NOT see that coming!

Ben is truly evil.

10:06 Locke’s shadow looming on the wall, like something out of a Hitchcock movie.

Ben: “I’ll miss you John.”

Back on the Island. Locke to Caesar: “The timing would just confuse you.” Ha ha ha, that’s the understatement of the century!

Locke: “I think I might know how I came to be here.” Well, that makes one of us!

Ben on the bed. Locke: “He’s the man who killed me.” Great line to end the episode.

That was amazing. Loved it. Best episode of the season.

****

I have an announcement: I’ve started a second LOST blog, to supplement this one. I’m just setting it up now — the paint’s still wet and the furniture is all outside in the van — but I’d love for you to take a sneak peek: For a Reason blog

Picture of the real Jeremy Bentham from detail of an oil painting by H.W. Pickersgill, 1829, via Wikipedia, in the public domain

On this video podcast from TV Guide, Michael Emerson said Ben has not forgotten what Widmore did to him. He said Ben was going to try (and he seemed to emphasize the word “try”) to take care of that at the same time that he took care of his “larger mission.”

This video was made before “316″ aired, and I wonder if that makes a difference. If (knock on wood) Ben did kill, or try to kill Penny, before he got on Flight 316, could that be the revenge Emerson was referring to? Or is Ben’s planned revenge still off in the future?

Also on this video, the ubiquitous “Darlton” appear to tell us that this season has something for everyone.

And then — this is exciting! — next up is Harold Perrineau, who plays Michael. Remember Michael? It’s been a while since we’ve seen him. The interviewer asked him if Michael was dead or alive and … well, I’ll let you watch it yourself.

I enjoyed the video, which packed a lot of good stuff into a mere 3:14 minutes:

Blogging during commercials …

9:06 They’re back on the Island. I hope Jack is happy now! That looked a lot like a dream sequence, but apparently it wasn’t.

I like the Lamppost Dharma station in the church basement. I wonder if it doubles as an AA meeting place.

9:14 Now THAT was exciting! Now we’re getting somewhere! Explanations of what the Island does! Specific plans to go back! Flight 316 — so that’s what the title means!

I loved Fionnula Flanagan in this scene. She has such great presence. She got the best lines too. In response to Jack’s asking if Ben was telling the truth: “Probably not.” And then to Jack, “Let’s pay attention, yes?” And to Desmond, “But I am helping, dear.” All delivered in that wonderful accent.

9:29 A lot happened! Again, it had the quality of a dream sequence, but I think it was all meant to be real.

Locke’s suicide note. Locke as proxy for Jack’s dad-in-a-box on the original flight. Eloise Hawking: “That’s why it’s called a leap of faith, Jack.” But leaps of faith are exactly what Jack most resists. Ben’s relating the story of the Apostle.

Jack drinking in an (airport?) bar — deja vu. A rabbit! Jack’s grandfather! (He looks too young, though.) “The pretty one with the freckles.”

What’s the significance of the shoes? Must relate to the internet chatter about why Jack’s father wears white sneakers on the Island.

Kate without Aaron — what happened to him? Kiss!

9:38 The shoes explained. Ben’s bloody face. Jack in the butcher shop, in the room with the carcasses — creepy. The coffin! Creepier still. Jack opens it. Anyone else think that Locke was going to jump up and grab Jack? Ewww, he put the shoes on Locke. Jack: “This is even crazier than you are.”

9:51 Ajira Airways! Hurley! With a guitar case — that explains why he had one in the first scene. But what is he doing there? Wasn’t he in jail? Didn’t he want to have nothing to do with going back? Nice of him, though, to buy out a whole block of seats to save the lives of all those potential passengers.

And Sayid! I thought he didn’t want to come either. Who is that with him?

Ben, with his face all messed up, and no one even seems to notice.

Why didn’t Kate and Jack go to the airport together?

Frank: “We’re not going to Guam, are we?”

10:01 “How can you read?” “My mother taught me.”

The note … “I wish you had believed me.” Even after death, Locke is still nagging Jack for not being a believer. Hurley blindfolded! Good idea.

The flash took them down! Well, I’m glad for that. Didn’t relish having to watch another plane crash.

Now we’ve come full circle. The lagoon (wow, it’s so beautiful in Hawaii!). Hurley. Kate.

The Dharma van! All nice and shiny! That means they’re back in the past … Dharma guy with a gun …it’s Jin!

Wow, that was exciting. Great episode. My favorite so far this season by a mile. Well, except maybe for “The Lie,” just because the acting in that one was so good. But this was definitely the best as far as the story goes.

The LOST I knew and loved is back.

In an interview published today in The Daily Beast, Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet) said that it would be “wonderful … the creepiest, but the best thing” if her character ended up with Ben.

She may have been joking (or maybe not), but what she said reminded me of something from Season Four. Do you remember the creepy scene where Ben takes Juliet to see Goodwin’s body?

Michael Emerson is so good here. I think it’s one of his best performances on the show, and that’s saying a lot. The pause before his last line, and then the way he says it — just amazing.

I wouldn’t want to see Ben pair off with anyone on the show. To me, he’s like a creature from another planet, and it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to mate with the Earthlings. Better that he remain asexual.

As for Juliet, I like the rapport that’s developing between her and Sawyer. Yes, I know, Sawyer and Kate have a chemistry that burns with the intensity of a thousand suns. But Kate can be annoying. And Juliet and Sawyer are so cute when they are sarcastic together.

Who would you like to see pair off? Cast your vote(s) below.

Who would you like to see be together as a couple by the end of the show?
( polls)

Screenshot and video from Lost 4×06 The Other Woman (c) ABC

There are many parallels between Widmore and Ben as fathers.

Widmore loves his daughter Penny, and Ben loved his daughter Alex. But both became bad fathers when they tried to get in the way of true love, even though they thought they were doing so in the best interests of their daughters.

Widmore tried to drive Desmond away, because he thought Desmond wasn’t good enough for Penny. Ben tried to drive Alex’s boyfriend Karl away, because he was afraid that Alex would become pregnant, and pregnancy is fatal on the Island.

In an enigmatic flashforward in Season 4, episode 9 (”The Shape of Things to Come”), Ben confronts Widmore. The issue? Their daughters.

Ben accuses Widmore of killing his daughter. Widmore says, no, it was Ben who killed her. Ben says, ’tis not. Widmore says ’tis so. Then Ben says he’s going to kill Widmore’s daughter.

Even their threats are symmetrical.

Penny and Alex, of course, weren’t 815-ers, and my main theory of the bad fathers has to do with the Island giving the 815-ers what their bad fathers had taken away.

But I have a strong hunch that something is going on here with Ben and Widmore that will fit into the theory in the end. I think something about what they did as fathers will tie into the actions of the fathers of the 815-ers.

I wonder if it will turn out to be significant that Ben was Alex’s adoptive, not biological, father.

Yay, here’s another sneak peek from ABC! This one is even shorter than the first one — only 1 minute, 42 seconds. But, again, there’s a lot packed into it.

Jack and Ben are in a hotel room:

My random thoughts, most of which are questions:

It’s odd to see Jack and Ben, the former enemies, so friendly and casual around each other.

Where are they? Why are they in a hotel?

Why does Jack think they won’t get Kate to join them? Does he know that she’s on the run?

Is Locke really dead? I mean really, really, really dead?

Jack apparently doesn’t know that the boat exploded.

So what DID happen to everyone after the Island moved? Ben knows, doesn’t he?

I’ve been thinking about this, and I remembered some more bad fathers:

Ben’s father accused Ben of killing his mother merely by being born. While Ben presumably was not “brought” to the Island for the same reason that the Flight 815 passengers were, it’s still striking that his father was so awful in a way that seems to fit the show’s larger pattern. Of course, Ben is no prize himself, and his revenge against his father was literally overkill.

Walt’s father Michael was not an evil father, but he was an uninvolved one (although that was not entirely his own fault). Much of Michael’s story on the Island has been about his trying to make amends to his son to relieve his own burden of guilt.

At the end of Season 4, Michael does seem to reach an Island-enabled resolution — aided by the appearance of another of the quasi-bad fathers, Christian Shephard! — when he sacrifices his life for Jin.

I wonder if Walt’s side of the story might have been developed more, especially considering the early hints about how Walt was “special,” if the actor playing Walt hadn’t grown so tall after the first season. Maybe now that we’re seeing scenes set in the future, time will have caught up with Walt’s size, and we’ll be able to see more Walt-centered scenes or episodes.

Although Michael’s death at the end of Season 4 would seem to put a damper on further development of his side of the story, as we all know, on LOST the dead don’t necessarily stay dead for long.

I’ll have more bad fathers soon.

In an interview at the Emmys in September, Michael Emerson (Ben) and Daniel Dae Kim (Jin) chatted a bit about the show. When asked if they knew the plots in advance, Emerson said “The actors are the last ones to know.” He said they usually get the scripts two days before they film.

Kim said, jokingly, that when you have to learn another language, a little advance notice would be nice. (Kim was born in Korea, but came to the U.S. when he was only two-years old. He did speak Korean at home with his parents, but then started speaking English when he entered elementary school. He has said that his “comprehension skills are still there but the actual formation of the sounds got rusty.”)

It’s a shame that Emerson did not win the Emmy. I guess it’s some compensation that he had already won an Emmy in 2001 for a guest role on The Practice.

(I don’t watch The Practice, and hadn’t seen him in this role, but just now I dug up the video and — whoa! — his performance gave me goosebumps) –>

Yesterday, LOST producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse answered questions at a Screenwriting Expo in Los Angeles.

They were asked if they knew the answers to questions raised by the plot in advance, or if they figured things out as they went along. IGN.com reports that the producers said:

… it was a combination of the two. Lindelof recalled how the entire pilot was put together – including writing, casting and production – in 12 weeks, which didn’t allow much time to come up with any long-term mythology. However, once the series was given a full season order, beyond the initial 12 episode order it received, Cuse said he and Lindelof sat down and discussed, “What the overall mythological underpinnings of the show would be. We quickly landed on the ending, and then constructed this broader road map of other mythological points we’d hit on this story.”

They say that now, they are planning it out: “Certainly since we got an end date, that sort of fly by the seat of your pants story is gone now. Showing scenes [set] three years from now, you can’t change it.”

They discussed some of the major changes that had been made earlier to the storyline:

The Ben Linus character was originally going to appear in only three episodes, but actor Michael Emerson was so good, the producers decided to make the character a regular, which in turn affected the storylines of some of the other characters.

While Ben Linus’ storyline got extended, Mr. Eko’s got cut short. He had been one of my favorite characters, and I was shocked and disappointed when the show killed him off so abruptly, just as his story was getting to its most interesting point. Well, it turns out, as this interview reveals, that it wasn’t the writers who wanted to kill Mr. Eko — it was the actor, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje:

… Akinnuoye-Agbaje did not like living in Hawaii. Lindelof said, ” Our Mr. Eko plans very quickly derailed. Adawele’s unhappiness was almost instantaneous. On his second episode, he was expressing extreme dissatisfaction.” This led to them quickly changing Mr. Eko’s storyline to one that would only last one season. Asked what might have happened with Eko had he been the long term character he was going to be, Lindelof answered, “Originally he was going to be someone who challenged Locke for the spiritual leadership of the castaways.”

What a missed opportunity for the show!

A story in USA Today, though, from two years ago, gives a more charitable view of why the actor wanted to leave:

Akinnuoye-Agbaje asked to be written off the series. After losing both parents last year, he wanted to return to his London home and work on a film he’ll direct.