LOST Fan

9:05 Jin’s ok. Little Ben is alive. I figured he would be (for the sake of not entangling the show in time-travel paradoxes), but how does someone survive being shot in the chest?

Flashback. Cassidy: “What are you doing here?” Kate: “Sawyer sent me.”

9:17 Cassidy, about Sawyer: “What a coward.”

Hurley checks to see if he’s disappearing! Which he would be if the show had become entangled in a time-travel paradox. I love this. Miles says, no. He’s a believer in the Faraday line of thinking that you can’t change the future.

And then, in the middle of the time-travel discussion, Hurley, standing in for us, the viewers, as he so often does, says “This is really confusing!” Ha ha ha!

Jack refuses to help Ben. Kate says Ben will die. Jacks says, “Then he dies.”

9:29 Jack is tired of being the guy who always fixes things. “Maybe the Island just wants to fix things itself.”

Kate: “I don’t like the new you. I liked the old you.”

Jack: “You didn’t like the old me, Kate.”

Interesting.

Roger is remorseful. Who would’ve thunk it?

Hurley and Miles continue their discussion of time travel. This is cracking me up. They’re pursuing threads that are becoming more and more convoluted and incomprehensible, just like two LOST fans arguing about their favorite theories.

Hurley, again standing in for us: “Say that again?”

Juliet says they have to go to the Others for Ben. I don’t really understand this. Do the others have more advanced medical skills than the Dharma folk?

9:37 Flashback to scene on pier. Kate loses Aaron in supermarket. Finds him with a woman who looks like Claire, from the back, but it isn’t Claire.

Meeting of Kate and Sawyer (and the cute blue VW vans) in the meadow.

9:49 Kate and Cassidy have become friends. Kate: “Aaron needed me.” Cassidy to Kate: “You needed Aaron.”

Sawyer: “I’m dong it for Juliet.”

Juliet to Jack (echoing Cassidy to Kate): “You came back here for you.”

New Jack (channeling Locke): “I came back because I was supposed to.”

Kate and Sawyer have The Talk, then are interrupted by armed Others.

10:02 Kate, confirming Cassidy’s point, tells Claire’s mother that she lied because she needed Aaron.

Back on the Island, Kate and Sawyer give Little Ben to Alpert, who says “If I take him, he’ll never be the same again.”

Hey, maybe Alpert really IS a vampire! Hah.

Alpert carries Little Ben through the jungle, towards a cabin. It’s Jacob’s cabin, I think. Is Christian Shephard inside? I bet that’s it. How many other surgeons are there hanging out in the jungle?

Big Ben wakes up and sees Locke. Big Ben looks shocked, and I don’t think he’s faking. Locke just smiles and says, “Welcome back to the land of the living.”

I’d say this was a good, though not a great episode. What kept it from being great, for me, was that Kate didn’t really engage me emotionally. When she was crying about giving Aaron up, I wasn’t feeling it. Same thing when she reunited with Sawyer. I’m not sure if it’s the character or the actress, but Kate usually seems remote to me.

On the plus side, we got answers to several questions: what Sawyer had whispered to Kate in the helicopter, what happened to Aaron, and how Ben ended up with the Others. The dialogue between New Jack and Kate was interesting. And I loved the scenes with Hurley and Miles, acting as stand-ins for all of us theory-spouting LOST fans.

Evangeline Lilly promo photo (c) ABC

Once again, there will be only one hour of LOST on Wednesday.

The new episode is called Whatever Happened, Happened. According to Darlton on the March 26 official audio podcast, this will be a Kate-centric episode, complete with flashbacks! I know that some of you are cheering now at the thought of a Kate-centric episode, while others (you know who you are!) are groaning, throwing things, and tearing out your hair.

The episode title appears to refer to the question of time travel paradoxes. Was Faraday correct when he said that what happened in the past couldn’t alter the future — or was Sayid successful in his attempt to change the future by killing little Ben?

At first glance, the title — whatever happened, happened — seems to suggest that Faraday was correct. But perhaps the title was meant to be ironic! So I guess we’ll just have to watch to find out.

Schedule April 1, 2009

9:00 new episode Whatever Happened, Happened

(an hour earlier in Central time)

At the time I wrote this, last week’s episode, He’s Our You, was available on abc.com, but just in the regular version, not the pop-up hint enhanced one. Maybe they’ll post that one later??

Evangeline Lilly was on Jimmy Kimmel’s show last night. He asked her if Kate was pregnant, and Lilly didn’t know — or if she did know, she wasn’t saying.

It makes sense that Kate would be pregnant. First she pops up, out of the blue, in Jack’s bed. Then there is that whole weird thing where people on Flight 316 were supposed to be surrogates for the people on 815. If Locke, in his coffin and borrowed shoes, was supposed to be a stand-in for Jack’s father, and Hurley, with his guitar, was supposed to be a stand-in for Charlie, then it would make sense to have a pregnant woman on board to be a stand-in for Claire.

That would also open up some interesting possibilities in terms of time travel. The last time we saw Kate and her group on the Island, they seemed to be in the 1970s. If Kate should happen to stay in that time period until she gave birth, then her child would be around 30 years old by the time that Flight 815 took off from Australia.

Maybe Kate will give birth to herself? I’m just joking. I think.

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.

My favorite part of this video interview is when Evangeline Lilly tells those of us who love the character stories that we just have to be patient. She promises that the show will get there. They have to do a lot of set-up during the first half of Season 5, she says, but then they’ll get back into the stories of the people.

And for those of you who do love the time travel element, Matthew Fox is on your side, and he hastens to assure you that the science-fiction aspects will continue to be a very necessary part of the whole world that is LOST.

I like trying to figure out the puzzles that the show presents, and I like the time-travel stuff, but only up to a point. Most of the season so far, except for the wonderfully Hurley-centric episode The Lie, has been too much, for my taste, about the vertigo-inducing time jumps, and not enough about the characters, and their connections, interactions, and struggles to redeem themselves from whatever haunts them from the past.

I had been worried that the show might be permanently spinning off in a direction that was less interesting to me than what they had done in previous seasons. So I was relieved to hear Lilly say that the stuff I like the most will be coming back!

What’s your favorite part of the show? The character development? The science-fiction aspects? Or do you like them both equally?

Screenshot and video (c) Entertainment Weekly

One theme that keeps recurring in LOST is that of the crash survivors’ terrible fathers. There are so many of them!

I see two possibilities. Either this unusual abundance of bad fathers is just a coincidence, something that seeped out of the subconscious of the writers, who perhaps themselves struggled with father issues, without any larger significance — or else it is a key element of the overall plot.

I believe it is a key element of the plot. I think that the shortcomings of the fathers must have something to do with the reason that these particular sons and daughters were all brought to the Island, whatever that reason may turn out to be.

Locke’s father Anthony Cooper, aka the “real” Sawyer:

Probably the most evil of all the bad fathers is Locke’s father, the “real” Tom Sawyer, who conned his son out of a kidney and then tried to kill him by pushing him out of a high-rise window. Here’s a clip of that scene (it’s from The Man From Tallahassee, Season 3, episode 13), in case you want to take a little trip down LOST memory lane:

Locke, of course, miraculously survived the fall, but became paralyzed.

So Locke’s father took away Locke’s ability to walk — and then the Island gave Locke that ability back. Could that be a clue as to what the Island is all about? Does it restore what the bad fathers have taken away?

If so, why? Why would the Island give back what the fathers have taken away? And how?

Let’s look at some of the other bad fathers for clues. There’s Sun’s gangster father, Mr. Paik. Sun seems to have found the courage, on the Island, to stand up to her father in her post-Island life.

There’s Sawyer’s father, who killed his mother and himself. When Sawyer killed Locke’s father on the Island, he seemed to reach some peace with his memory of his own father.

So in this two cases, the pattern does seem to hold — the Island gave back something that the fathers had taken away.

The stories of Jack and Claire’s erratic alcoholic father, Christian Shephard, and of Kate’s father, who abused her mother, are still unfinished, but I expect will be signficant — especially the story of Shephard.

Another interesting aspect of the existence of the bad fathers is the way they provide connections between many of the main characters who would otherwise be unconnected. This is something I will write about in a future post.

ABC is teasing us now! They posted a two-minute sneak peek of Season 5. It’s a single scene where Kate is in her post-island suburban home with Aaron, and there’s a knock on the door…. I’ll wait while you watch it …

Random thoughts:

It’s interesting to see Kate on the run again. And she’s even packed a gun! I wonder if her previous experience as a fugitive will be helpful.

Pause the video at 1:39 to see the photo of Jack pushing Aaron on a swing.

Who is the mysterious client? Is the sheriff in on this too, or were the lawyers (if that’s what they really are) bluffing?

Well, that was an exciting two minutes! I want to see the whole episode NOW! (I’m just putty in ABC’s hands.)

(I used the YouTube version of the video because it’s easier to post on this blog. In case it gets pulled, you should be able to find the video on the front page of abc.go.com.)

Season 5 promos previously posted here:

15-second mini-promo

Official trailer # 1

P.S. A bit of trivia I found while trying to see if I could find out the name of the child playing Aaron: In Season 2, they used 27 different babies to play the role, and in Season 3 they used 30!

Earlier, I posted videos of Josh Holloway (Sawyer) and Lance Reddick (Season Four’s creepy Matthew Abaddon) without their shirts. (To get a shirtless Reddick video, I had to use a clip from The Wire, another show he was on, because in his Abaddon role he always appears in a suit and tie.)

Now, for some gender balance, here’s a clip, from Season One, of Kate taking off her shirt to take a dip in the ocean.

And, because you can never have too much Skate (Sawyer & Kate), here is a clip from Season Three of Sawyer watching Kate take off her shirt (some music was added by the person who put this up on YouTube):

Back on the mainland, here is Lilly after she has put on some clothes. It’s from the red carpet at the 2008 Emmy’s:

That will buy a lot of bottles of Dharma Cola!

According to the Hollywood Reporter (via The Guardian), contract negotiations took place this summer, and gave him a 50% raise over his previous salary of $150,000 per episode.

Evangeline Lily (Kate), who was also making around $150,000 per episode, was negotiating her salary as well. The outcome wasn’t reported, though.

And speaking of Jack and Kate, here’s some footage of their first kiss, to balance out the footage I posted earlier of Sawyer and Kate, the other leg of the triangle. I think Jack and Kate (”Jate”) have nowhere near the screen chemistry of Sawyer and Kate (”Skate”), but some people must disagree, as this clip got a five-star rating on YouTube:

As promised earlier, here are some clips of Sawyer (Josh Holloway) — three minutes worth, set to the tune “I Just Want to Make Love to You.” Enjoy!

But wait, there’s more!

Here’s a clip of Sawyer and Kate’s first kiss in Season 1:

Here they are kissing again, in the cage in Season 3:

Back in the present (our present, not Island-time present!), Holloway is acting in a movie, Stay Cool, a comedy which started filming in July. The Hollywood Reporter, via TV Guide, says he will play a former jock who is the ex-boyfiend of a character played by Winona Ryder. Chevy Chase and Hilary Duff are also in the cast.