"What They Died For"

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

FOCUS: JACK, LOCKE, DESMOND, BEN
EPISODE: 6.16
AIRED: MAY 18, 2010

There’s a “law” of sorts, particularly for television, that states that unless we see the body, a character isn’t dead. So when Smokey “kills” Richard in “What They Died For”, I knew it was BS, just like I was pretty sure Lapidus wasn’t dead (though things were a bit grimmer for him since we at least saw his body hit the floor). You can fool me with the timeline and other nonsense, but you can’t fool me into thinking someone is dead when they’re not, Lost!

Actually a lot of the island stuff is kind of dumb in this one. I really hate how Widmore goes out, simply being shot moments after arriving on the main island. Especially at the hands of Ben; while I understand the “poetry” of it (for lack of a better word), Ben’s random return to villainy didn’t sit well with me, and since I always enjoy the idea of enemies teaming up against bigger enemies, I was hoping for more of their uneasy alliance leading into the finale. Widmore was sort of a 2nd main villain on the show after Smokey – he should have been part of the finale. Points for Zoe's death though, not only is it a good shock moment, it's also hilarious that Locke points out how pointless she was. Good call, Smokey!

It also makes “Across The Sea” even more annoying, since Jacob explains all the key points anyway. Again, had thAT episode taken place at the beginning of the season, the refresher would be appreciated, but this aired a week later – we haven’t forgotten the basics. I like that Jack takes over, however, and Sawyer’s “God complex” line is hilarious – it’s the rare time I disagree with Kate (I would have laughed and shook his hand for that one, not told him to shut up). At the time, I was sort of like “Wait, this is already settled? What the hell is going to happen in the finale?”, so on a re-watch it’s actually a lot of fun – Jack’s NOT the guy after all.

The sideways stuff is a hoot though. Giacchino’s score is wonderfully frantic, particularly in the later scenes where Desmond is playing puppet master. Ana Lucia’s appearance was a nice surprise (why she wasn’t “ready”, I’m still unsure), as was Hurley’s ugly orange Camaro. I would have liked a little more with Desmond and Hurley planning things out, but I guess that would have been hard to do without giving away the big secret. One thing that’s sort of odd about the revelation is that no one seems to mind that (spoiler!) they’re dead – with the exception of Jack, they sort of take the news pretty easily.

And I love the Ben/Desmond scene. Even a second time around I thought he was going to run Locke over again, which is just hilarious. But I also like how he “wakes” Ben up, by beating the bejesus out of him one more time. I bet the makeup folks on Lost were glad it was over, knowing they’d never have to make Michael Emerson look beat up ever again. The stuff with Alex is also very sweet, and again ties into the idea of the flash sideways being a way for them to put their biggest personal demon at rest (which again is why the Sawyer and Sayid sideways stuff was largely horrible). Jack and Locke’s scene is a bit on the nose (nearly every line is a repeat of a line they have said before – Christ, why didn’t THAT wake them up?), but again, it’s always nice to see them talking as friends again. When you watch the first season, even when they disagree, there was always a mutual respect for one another, and I really missed that as the show progressed. One of the show’s biggest failings, I think, was killing Locke off without ever having one last real scene with Jack (though “The End” at least has a good line of dialogue to make up for it).

Well, that’s it! Tomorrow’s the big finale! I’m about to get 90 minutes of my day back!

Where are we?

PLEASE, GO ON...

"Happily Ever After"

JANUARY 29, 2011

FOCUS: DESMOND
EPISODE: 6.11
AIRED: APRIL 6, 2010

After making a brief, almost unrecognizable appearance (due to the low light and being roughed up), Desmond finally makes a true return in "Happily Ever After", after being M.I.A. since the season premiere. According to his IMDb, Henry Ian Cusick has not made any feature films since Hitman, which was made 3-4 years prior, so I am baffled by his lengthy absence. But nothing I can do about it, and at least he returns in a good episode.

As usual with Desmond, the flashes are presented atypically; instead of cutting back and forth between the sideways world and the island throughout the episode, the flashes are presented all in one group. And it's one of the better sideways adventures, because it gets the "ohhhh, neat!" moment out of the way early (Desmond happily working for Charles Widmore and being told he's worthy of his MacCutcheon, a total reversal of the real world), and then gets to the meat of the tale: starting to explain the sideways world! The Eloise scene makes a lot more sense now, and is even somewhat touching - she doesn't want her family members to "move on", so she's perfectly fine with Desmond losing Charlie (I'd argue that if she wanted to prevent our heroes from meeting up she wouldn't have arranged for DriveShaft to come in the first place, but whatever).

And you can never go wrong with a Desmond and Penny scene. Why she has to be running a tour de stade, I'm not entirely sure, but it's a nice scene all the same. Plus, once again Desmond gets to "conscious travel", seemingly waking back up on the island with memories of the sideways world, and is thus now willing to help Widmore (and then Sayid) without any resistance, because he knows in the afterlife he'll be with Penny, which is all he cares about. Again, this only makes sense NOW, but that was one of the main reasons I wanted to do this - re-evaluate Season 6 in quick succession with the other seasons, but also with the answers at my disposal (at least, the ones I still remember), so I'm not watching it in confusion the entire time.

Then again it does raise other questions. Since Daniel is apparently the first one to sort of understand what is happening to him, how come he doesn't get to go to Lost Heaven with the others and be happy forever with Charlotte? Both actors were in the final episode, so it's not like Eko, who didn't get to come because his actor was demanding too much money. I toyed with it being only 815ers who got to go (Miles and Frank don't get to come either, I guess), but Juliet and Penny ARE there, and they weren't on the plane (hell Penny never even went on the island). I really don't get the mentality of whoever made the guest list for this place.

Bad Los Angeles geography also makes a comeback in this one, at least based on my assumption. I assumed that the stadium was near Jack's hospital since he came still wearing his scrubs, and Jack's hospital is in West Los Angeles. But Penny and Desmond arrange to meet nearby at the coffee shop at Sweetzer and Melrose. First of all there is no coffee shop there, but it's also a good 15 minute drive away - there has to be closer locations. I wouldn't care, but the show's production offices were in LA (Burbank, actually), so it always tickled me how bad they were with the geography. However, once they get there and realize there's no coffee shop, maybe they'll decide to go to a movie, and thus end up at the New Bev, which is only a mile or so from there. If George the limo driver "knows all the hot spots" he should know about it.

Well, only 6 to go! 5 if you discount that one thing. I'm so excited about getting 90 minutes or so of my day back!

Where are we?

PLEASE, GO ON...

"Jughead"

JANUARY 5, 2011

FOCUS: DESMOND
EPISODE: 5.3
AIRED: JANUARY 28, 2009

Leave it to Season 5 to make a Desmond episode that I don’t like. Luckily, my boy isn’t the problem with “Jughead” – it’s the eponymous bomb that Daniel is hellbent on deactivating, a worthless storyline for this episode because a hydrogen bomb exploding is something that is best saved for a season finale. So like last season’s "The Other Woman", the episode is based on preventing something that we know isn’t going to happen; it’s like basing an episode of 24 around the possibility that Jack Bauer would die (oh wait, they did that like a dozen times).

The funny thing about this episode is that if you haven’t been keeping up with the show since Season 2, you not only won’t know what’s going on, you won’t even know who the hell you’re looking at. Not only do Kate and Jack not appear, but neither does pretty much anyone else from Oceanic 815. Sawyer and Locke are the only “classic” characters, the rest of the episode focuses on the Freighter Folk, the Others, and Desmond. Luckily for Lost, they had pretty few casual viewers who would do such a thing; even the big finale didn’t attract a lot of curiosity beyond the folks like me who watched every episode, unlike say Seinfeld or whatever.

Actually it’s not too bad; the Desmond stuff is quite good in fact. I love that they named their kid Charlie – not only is it sweet (and the only time anyone on the show displayed any signs of remembering the poor bastard), but it also made me realize for the first time that the show had two “Charlies” – the other being Widmore, who went by Charles. I would have liked to have seen the awkward moment where one proposed the name to the other. “After Widmore? Are you mad?” “No, Charlie the guy who saved– oh, wow, never thought of that.” And I like that Desmond and Widmore finally saw eye to eye on something; it’s the most respect we’ve ever seen the guy show his son-in-law. His description of “an island” is also pretty sweet – in fact he should have mentioned the monsters before he revealed he was actually talking about England, would have been even funnier.

And while I don’t care much for Charlotte, I loved Daniel’s “reveal” that he was in love with her. The freighter folk had largely been used for exposition and comic relief (in Myles’ case) so it was good to see them have a genuine human moment for once. It makes up for a rather inane character blunder on the part of Richard – this guy doesn’t age, and yet he’s incredulous that someone could be from the future? If I was immortal, I’d give the benefit of the doubt to folks claiming equally fantastical things.

Speaking of inconsistencies – how is it that we are just learning now that Widmore was actually on the island (how/why they were there in the first place is an even bigger mystery)? You’d think Ben would have mentioned this to Locke at least. It’s a fairly stupid plot point to boot – I liked the idea that he was just a greedy man who somehow heard about this place and had to have it. That he was there before Ben makes Ben’s actions and attitude toward him more villainous, if you ask me. They’re going out of their way to make Ben sympathetic and now we reveal Widmore has more of a right to be there than him, if you’re going by seniority?

Oh and I should correct myself from yesterday’s writeup – they hadn’t killed off all of the “socks” yet, I forgot about the two background survivors that got blown up in this one. I swear this show has a higher body count than Murder, She Wrote.

Tomorrow – the most frustrating moment in the show’s history! And yes, I'm including the many TV-PG Evangeline Lilly shower scenes!

Where are we?

PLEASE, GO ON...

"The Constant"

DECEMBER 20, 2010

FOCUS: DESMOND
EPISODE: 4.5
AIRED: FEBRUARY 28, 2008

As if the parts of “The Constant” that everyone remembers/loves weren’t good enough, I totally forgot that this is the episode that introduces Keamy, one of my all time favorite Lost villains (possibly because he’s one of the few that never turned out to be not so bad after all), played by the underrated Kevin Durand, who is often the best thing about bad movies (Legion, Wolverine). A shame he didn’t last longer, but he definitely helped add some much needed danger to this season, which was often too busy with everyone being vague and looking worried to include any actual menace.

But anyway, “The Constant”! Such a great episode. Not only does it finally make some goddamn sense out of “Flashes Before Your Eyes”, but it also provides one of the most emotionally charged moments of the entire series, when Desmond makes his phone call to Penny at the end. I’ve probably seen the episode 5 times now and I still tear up when, well, when they do. I like these two folks. And it’s underplayed, but I like that Sayid, for once, drops his “I need answers!” attitude long enough to let Desmond do something a little more personal. Dude knows from lost love.

I also like how they sort of help us share Desmond’s disorientation by surrounding him mostly with folks we don’t recognize either. With the obvious exceptions, we’re seeing all of the characters Desmond talks to in this episode (Dr. Ray, Mankowski, Keamy, his fellow soldiers) for the first time – he doesn’t know them, and neither do we. It’s a tough concept to get your head around, so little things like this help (sort of like how telling the story backwards was the only way to really make an audience understand the affliction Guy Pearce had in Memento).

It’s also a wonderfully edited episode, as each of Desmond’s flashes are perfectly jarring; you never get ‘used’ to it, and you feel his disorientation every time. After 4 years of hearing the “vrrrrrrrrrrrooooooooooom” sound every time a flashback was about to start or end, it was sort of fun to have a little mystery for once. Of course, some of the flashes go a bit long to serve the plot (he takes a train to Oxford?), but I can forgive that.

Speaking of which, they never really capitalized on the whole “time doesn’t work the same way” element. Other than a back-door explanation for how folks’ hair always grew so long (what’s with Juliet’s 80s style this season, by the way?), they basically mention it and never really go back to it. Probably because they didn’t want to figure out the math involved (I’m still unsure how it works – so one day on the island is like two elsewhere? Or vice versa?).

Of course, as great as this episode is, it really blows the whole time travel element wide open, and that was, in my opinion, what hurt the show’s overall merit. Once everyone started traveling through time, the show became about a bunch of rules (and exceptions to those rules to smooth plot holes) instead of the characters, almost all of whom took to traveling through time fairly easily. Oh well. Doesn’t make the episode as a whole any less worthwhile – it’s still one of my top 5 episodes and easily the highlight of this season. Just goes to show you how much I can forgive when they put the characters first. Make me cry, I’ll forget all of the problems!

Where are we?

PLEASE, GO ON...

"Catch-22"

DECEMBER 4, 2010

FOCUS: DESMOND
EPISODE: 3.17
AIRED: APRIL 18, 2007

I stand corrected. Yesterday I made reference to "Catch-22" being a lesser Desmond episode, but I forgot that it was the one with the "camping trip", which is a hilarious and sweet little subplot featuring some top-notch male bonding. Jin telling the scary story is one of his all-time best moments, and I also love Charlie and Hurley debating Flash vs. Superman. So it's still a pretty great episode.

I think it just pales (slightly) to his others because it's more traditional - no time travel, no Island stuff... it's a very Lost-like "here's something that happened in their past" tale. But it does yield two surprises. One is that his frequent use of calling people "brother" is actually not a random affection for the word - the dude was a monk! It's the rare case of Lost explaining something we didn't really need an explanation for without annoying us, if anything it's kind of endearing.

The other surprise is that it seems like a possible sequel to the previous episode, where he broke up with Penny. It would make sense that he was so distraught he joined a monastery, being aimless and seeking a purpose and all that. But as we learn about halfway through, it's actually another girl he was running from, and that this is actually the oldest of his flashbacks. It allows for a wonderful coda, where he actually meets Penny for the first time (something that would have been an even nicer surprise if they hadn't spoiled Sonya Walger's appearance in the opening credits - grrr).

I'm also impressed with the hair/makeup folks on this show. While Locke's never really had a convincing wig in his flashbacks, I never can figure out how they do beardless Desmond in the past with bearded Desmond on the island. Either the beard is fake (lot better than Tom Friendly's!) or Henry Ian Cusick has Joe Lynch-ian abilities to just sprout a beard more or less on command. Some characters they don't really bother changing the appearance at all (Jack being the main offender) but Desmond, Sayid, and Hurley in particular really DO look a lot younger in their respective flashbacks.

And it's been a while, but this episode has a maddening unanswered question! For no reason whatsoever, there's a closeup of a photo on the main monk's desk with him and Ms. Hawking. Is he also her son and thus Daniel's brother? It's also a really shitty Photoshop job, which somehow makes it even more annoying - they tasked some graphics guy with the show to make this photo and never bothered doing anything with it.

Which got me thinking, since they were such "Dark Tower" fans, I wonder if they would ever consider "revising" the show for a future DVD release, where they can remove pointless things like this, fix minor inconsistencies (Charlie saying he was on the swim team in one episode, saying he can't swim in another), etc. That's what King did with the first "Dark Tower" book once he was done (or close to done) with the rest of the series, he went back and fixed some stuff that was ultimately "wrong". I'd buy it, anyway.

Final note - Hurley's "Thanks for the heads up about bringing an umbrella, dude." is possibly one of his best lines of all time.

Where are we?

PLEASE, GO ON...

"Flashes Before Your Eyes"

NOVEMBER 24, 2010

FOCUS: DESMOND
EPISODE: 3.8
AIRED: FEBRUARY 14, 2007

It's sort of fitting that we got our first real introduction to Penny and Desmond's relationship on Valentine's Day, when "Flashes Before Your Eyes" originally aired, because their episode "The Constant" would be pretty much the most moving and romantic episode of the series. Also, this episode is, like love, completely friggin baffling the first time around.

The first time, I thought it was all just a dream/hallucination; that he was subconsciously reflecting on these past events (moving in/breaking up with Penny, asking for her hand in marriage, etc) and inserting his present day memories into them. It's only now, knowing (more or less) how the time travel element on this show worked that this episode really makes total sense to me. If I'm understanding correctly, it's not Desmond's body but more his conscious/brain that does (due to his radiation exposure or whatever)? So he goes back and forth through time, but not in a physical sense - he looks the age he should in that time period, but has the memories from the other. But he's also an alcoholic, so he gets a bit hazy on details. Right?

Well either way, it's an intriguing episode, and any time they give an episode over entirely to Desmond (it's even the rare episode without Jack and/or Kate), I'm happy. And I love the framing device, with Charlie and Hurley getting him drunk and then telling his tale. It takes longer than usual to get to the first flashback, but once it starts, we don't return to the island until the end of the episode, which is also pretty rare. It's one of those things that you might not even realize at first - "Hey, when are they going to cut back to the Island?" - because Desmond's story is more intriguing than most of our characters anyway, but he's also got a lot of catching up to do since he wasn't around for the first two seasons.

One minor thing bugs me about the setup though - Locke calls Charlie and Hurley back into the jungle to tell them that Eko is dead and that the rest of the folks will be looking to "them" to keep morale high and all that. Hurley I get, but who the hell (besides Claire) looks to Charlie for anything like that? Two weeks ago the guy was trying to drown babies! These people have no recollective memory whatsoever. It's just a contrivance to get him away from the beach so that Desmond could do his thing, but I think it would have worked even if he was still on the beach - he could have been distracted with Sawyer's stash or something and thus not have gone after Claire right away, thus giving time for Desmond to run back and dive in and add Henry Ian Cusick to the collection of Lost actors who take the time to take off their shirt when they dive into the water.

Anyway, back to Desmond, was anyone else kind of sad to discover that the photo of him and Penny was a mock background? Especially since they break up right after - you always think that it was taken on some sort of wonderful trip, but it was actually in front of some cheap grade school backdrop, moments before they broke up. The scene with Widmore is also heartbreaking - Desmond's all happy and enjoying the story about the whiskey, only to discover that the jerk is using it to contrast how little he thinks of him. Dick. It's also interesting how similar it is to the scene where Jin applied for a job, with the guy asking him about some vague things on the resume and our hero being forced to admit his shortcomings.

Of course, at the time we did not yet know that time travel would become such a big element on the show, and/or that it would spread beyond Desmond. I can't say for sure if it was the best idea; sure there were some great little moments that came out of it (Hurley's idea to "write" Empire Strikes Back is possibly the funniest "plot thread" in the show's history), but it just seemed primarily designed to fix a bunch of plot holes (not to mention cause a massive "I give up" movement amongst fans). Plus it continued keeping our characters separate, which was a big blunder no matter how you slice it. The fact that Hurley and Sawyer, whose friendship during S3 and S4 made for one of the most enjoyable pairings ("If you hurt one hair on his curly head..."), only had like two or three scenes together over the course of the final two seasons is just insane. And don't get me started on keeping Jin and Sun apart for so long. So while this may be a pretty good episode, it's also the beginning of the end, sort of - I liked the rest of 3 and most of 4, but 5 and 6... they just, er, lost me for the most part. Nice work, Desmond.

Where are we?

PLEASE, GO ON...

"Live Together, Die Alone"

NOVEMBER 16, 2010

FOCUS: DESMOND (!)
EPISODE: 2.23
AIRED: MAY 24, 2006

Desmond!!! I love this guy so much, so giving him a flashback (in a double episode) for "Live Together, Die Alone", in retrospect, is a complete delight. I don’t mind saying that part of why I disliked the last 2 seasons (relative to the others anyway; they were still pretty good compared to something like the last 4-5 seasons of The X-Files) is that Desmond had so little screen time. And that baffles me – they DO know that “The Constant” is most folks’ favorite episode (or at least, one of their top 5), right? Why shuffle that guy to the side?

Anyway, this is a really good season finale, perfectly wrapping up certain plot threads and introducing others. But more importantly, with the (usual) exception of Claire, everyone has something important to do. Jack, Michael, Sawyer, Hurley, and Kate are off to “rescue Walt”, Sayid, Jin, and Sun are following them in a boat, and then Charlie and Eko are battling Desmond and Locke for control of the button. Lots of adventure, lots of scenery changing, lots of action (even a shootout!), and probably the last time a single episode got so much use out of the majority of the cast. Christ, for the first few episodes of the next season, we wouldn’t even SEE anyone besides whoever the episode was focusing on.

In fact, my only real issue with this episode was the totally odd ending to the Hatch storyline, with Charlie just sort of wandering back to the beach like he was high (not the best move when Claire’s finally back in your good graces, ya schmuck) and no clear indication of what happened to Locke and the others. Nor would the season premiere explain this, which just infuriated me even further.

But I recall being pretty amazed that they had revealed the cause of the plane crash so soon in the show. With so many “things happen for a reason” explanations going around, the idea that they were “brought” to the island somehow was a popular theory, so to provide a very rational and logical explanation for the crash was kind of ballsy, if you ask me. I also like that they decided that the day of the plane crash was also the date of the premiere, officially setting the show in the fall of 2004, something that would pay off very awesomely for Red Sox fans.

I’m still baffled why they had Hurley come across the island just to tell him to go back. I mean, not for nothing, but the guy’s not exactly in the best shape. Were they just trying to get him to drop another belt size? I get that they needed someone to report back, but maybe pick one of the random castaways (which would also add suspense to the proceedings) or even Charlie next time they make a dude walk across the island and back just to be like “Yo, they got our friends. Don’t try to help.”

Odd thing I noticed – Sawyer and Sayid take their shirts off to swim after Desmond’s boat, but not Jack. Way to just give up the fight for Kate, dude. He also sort of screws up with his “caught in a net” silliness, but they get distracted out of it thanks to the bird yelling Hurley’s name (WTF is that about, anyway?). And no worries, he totally boinks her in a few episodes anyway.

Hey - anyone else think the dude in the ice station looked like Matthew Fox?

So Season 2 comes to a close. It definitely improves on back to back viewings, and in fact if you haven’t watched it yet I would just skip “Fire + Water” and “The Long Con” and make good use of the “Previously, On Lost” things that they so graciously provide on the DVD to fill in any blanks. And it’s also the last time our core cast was together – next season would find them split up for a while, and then starting with S4 they’re not even on the same island (and later, time period) as one another. It’s a shame that the show’s plot kept everyone apart for so long, because there’s a lot of good chemistry among the actors that they never fully maximized the potential of, but oh well. At least now we have Desmond as a regular. Oh and Juliet. I like her, too.

Where are we?

P.S. I'm going to break protocol with the Youtube clip for this one, because there's nothing not Lost-related with this particular phrase. Also this guy's got some pipes.

PLEASE, GO ON...