"Ab Aeterno"

JANUARY 27, 2011

FOCUS: RICHARD
EPISODE: 6.9
MARCH 23, 2010

Of the two "alt" episodes a lot of fans hate from S6, "Ab Aeterno" is definitely the better. In fact I don't really mind it at all - it tells a good story, fills in the details of one of the more mysterious characters on the show, provides a lot of answers, and (retrospectively) features Hurley taking on an important role in the Island's "story" outside of talking to Jacob, which will of course pay off in the finale.

And it occurs halfway through the season, not during the crucial final hours the way "Across The Sea" did. Not much exciting is going on, and the episode still has a few minutes with our heroes to keep the ongoing storylines from being abandoned for a week (unlike "Sea", in which we spent the entire episode with Jacob and the Man in Black, 2000 years ago). Ben finally address the plot hole about not remembering Sayid (seems he doesn't remember being shot at all), Sun gets to explain something to Jack for once, and I particularly love Ben's reaction to Jack finding out that Locke isn't actually Locke. It's obviously not the meat of the episode, but it's a good segment all the same.

Plus, I genuinely enjoyed the Richard story. I liked the character, but I never found him particularly sympathetic (nor did they give us a reason to) - something that they change and then some in the first few minutes. It's bad enough his wife dies, but he also accidentally kills a guy, gets last rites from the shittiest priest in the world, is bought as a slave, and ends up being chained to the wall of a wrecked ship for a couple days (weeks?) only to be freed by the bad guy. Christ, this dude is just not having a good week.

(And this part explains why the statue is broken AND how the Black Rock ended up in the middle of the jungle in one shot! Impressive.)

Then we get MiB and Jacob sort of laying out their case to Richard as they each try to get him on their team. Obviously we know how it ends up (since this isn't 24, Richard doesn't suddenly reveal in this episode that he's been on the bad guy's side for the entire time, which would be stupid), but it's an interesting tug-of-war all the same. Also, I don't think anyone was expecting this episode to reveal the nature of the Island, which turned out to be fairly interesting. Whether it actually ties in with what we've learned about it thus far would take too much mental work (I am sort of baffled that an island that houses all of the "bad" in the world would have magical healing powers though - does that mean Rose is evil too?), but it's certainly better than most fan theories I read ("It's the set of a reality show!").

And what's wrong with giving Nestor Carbonell his own episode? Dude's been on the show for 3-4 years now, and never given much to do beyond say a few cryptic things and make the audience wonder why he didn't seem to age - I think he's earned his own 45 minutes, don't you? And they make up for it - he gets to ride a horse, kill a dude, run around, cry, speak another language... they don't waste his abilities, that's for sure.

Only two things kind of bug me. One is the Ilana flashback, because she's all burned and already close with Jacob, two things that are never explained. Without this scene, we would have only had one unexplained mystery, now there's two. The other was the explanation for Richard's immortality. I guess the idea is he was so afraid of going to hell that he'd simply rather never die, but it comes off more like he just can't think of anything else to ask for. Given the tragedy of his request, I wish they had let him think for a moment and really milk the moment. It wasn't even until this second time around that it dawned on me why he would ask for it.

Otherwise, I don't really get why folks hate on this one. I get that people want to spend time with our heroes, but at this point, Richard IS one of our heroes, and while they maybe should have done this sooner, it's better than doing it in the penultimate regular episode like "Across The Sea". In fact, it might even be one of the better episodes of the season.

Tomorrow - the writers introduce a character named Desmond, who was apparently a major character in previous seasons? I don't recall him! (/end sarcasm)

Where are we?

PLEASE, GO ON...

"Follow The Leader"

JANUARY 17, 2011

FOCUS: RICHARD (!)
EPISODE: 5.15
AIRED: MAY 6, 2009

It’s about time, a Richard episode! While “Follow The Leader” doesn’t really explain anything about his past, and involves folks doing stuff that doesn’t really concern him directly, he’s the linchpin of the episode, and gets some of the best lines (his response to Jack asking him about carrying the bomb is priceless). So it’s his episode, dammit. And unlike his REAL flashback tale, it doesn’t annoy fans at a crucial period in the storyline by leaving all the main characters on the sideline for a week.

On the contrary, this one has a lot of good moments for our heroes. I particularly enjoy Kate having to point out to Jack that he is starting to sound like Locke, and their conversation re: “misery” is truly heartbreaking – he totally wants to Eternal Sunshine her! That’s some cold shit, especially since now that Sawyer has Juliet, he has her all to himself again. And speaking of those two, I liked their scene in the sub – like Desmond and Penny in the previous episode, it could almost be a good finale for the characters (by this time it was already known that Elizabeth Mitchell would be leaving the show). If not for Kate’s surprise appearance, the sub could have gone off into the sunset and it would be more or less an acceptable conclusion for their characters.

And Hurley’s “faceoff” with Chang! Oh man. Again, they actually pay off a funny throwaway line, where Hurley worries someone will ask him who the president is in 1977, in order to advance the character arcs a bit (as it leads to Chang believing that Miles is indeed his son). But it looks like the actor playing Chang is having fun too, which just makes the scene all the more hilarious. “You’re 46?” And the cutaway to Jin when Hurley says that there was no Korean War is just brilliant. God I miss that dumb, lovable bastard.

Sayid also got to show a bit of his old self again, which was much appreciated. As the character most ruined by the final season, and largely under used this one, it was nice to see him have another strategy discussion with Jack (when this had originally aired, I had long since forgotten that he used to be sort of like Jack’s right hand man – a fact that was easier to recall when watching back to back). I also like how Jack didn’t bother to give Eloise a hand when she surfaced from the pool, but ran over to help Sayid when he popped up a few minutes later. Bros before son-killing hos.

As for the Locke part of the storyline, again it makes a lot more sense now that you know he’s the smoke monster. Richard even mentions that there’s something different about him, which I had originally pegged as sloppy inconsistent writing on the writers’ part. Not sure why he’d still go off and kill boar and such, but for the most part it’s one of those things where I almost feel kind of stupid for not even considering that he might be Smokey.

Richard’s line about watching all of the Dharma folk all die doesn’t make any sense though. By now he should be sort of familiar with Jack and Kate, who never died in any iteration of the story (at least, not yet in Jack’s case), so why does he say that? He couldn’t be referring to the bomb going off, or he would have died too (as far as we know, he’s ageless but not invincible). If there was some scenario where they’d be gunned down by Radzinsky or something, we should have seen it, somehow. My guess is that they had nothing better to go to commercial on so they just threw that in there.

Also I’m getting sick of Sun and Jin repeating that “if there’s a chance my husband (wife) are on this island...” Yeah, we get it. Y’all want to get back together. Take it up with the writers who insanely decided to keep you apart for two seasons and stop torturing us and making me stop liking you.

Tomorrow – the S5 finale! All will be HUH?

Where are we?

PLEASE, GO ON...