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Friday, February 8, 2008

L-O-S-T Season 4, Episode 2

Here's Doc Jenson's Article.

Let the Games Begin!

Speaking of games... get your Sawyer Nickname!

Also, a friend let told me about this site:

A new band called Previously On Lost is posting a new song on their MySpace page each week that summarizes the previous show and offers commentary.

28 comments:

Reading In Trees said...

JJ:
lots to talk about from last nights extremely interesting episode, but little time to do it...

NUMBERS ( 4 8 15 16 23 42 )

4 rescuers in the group of new people

324 people aboard Oceanic 815 according to the news in last nights ep ( 4 and 23 backwards. the total number of passengers is divisible by 108 - the sum of the numbers!)
this is the first time i can recall the total number of people aboard flight 815 has been mentioned... am i wrong? does this count include the crew?

nice photo of the pilot with his cheese mustache!

here's a question to get us wondering what in the world is going on: are the flashes for the new arrivals flash-forwards or flashbacks?!??!
here's another question: if Naomi is dead and her whole mission was to keep the new arrivals safe and be the leader of the mission, do any of them really know what their mission is? also, if Naomi is dead, is she alive and interacting with the creepy black dude off the island?

nice placement on Benry's gunshot into Locke's gut. through his vacant kidney space - so did Jacob heal him, then or intervene in the gunshot or neither and Benry shot him there on purpose to further manipulate things? hmmmm.

loved the Polar Bear skeleton in the desert with the Dharma collar. that is crazy and awesome. so the island is some kind of timewarp trip and could possibly even move wherever it wants on the earth? who freaking knows. it could be anything now... loved the Tunisia bit, too - that's not only where they shot Star Wars Tatooine stuff, but also reminded me of the opening to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, when they find all the planes from the Black Sheep Squadron or whatever in the middle of the desert and they still work. totally cool.

So Lawnmower Man was supposed to be the pilot of 815... interesting. i am very interesting in the backgrounds of each of the new arrivals: a physicist, a ghostbuster, a anthropologist, and an alcoholic pilot. aside from the pilot, these roles are all related to everything we have seen so far in the way of mysteries on the island: seeing the dead, the historical ruins with the four-toed statue and the Black Rock and Dharma, and the odd way things seem to work on the island. each of these knew characters could start to explain things to us (yeah, right!) if the writers will let them! really liked Daniels line about the sunlight "not scattering quite right." very cool.

my money is on Sayid as the next of the O'6 after seeing his face when he, Kate and Jack all get close ups when they see the helicopter intact. can't wait for more...

Reading In Trees said...

Frank:
First thing my wife said when the episode started was wondering if it was a flash forward or a flashback. I wasn't quite sure as I watched but by the end I'm certain it was a flashback. The part where Naomi was talking with the guy-who-visited-Hurley about building a 'capable team' can only be interpreted that they were all going to the island.

The polar bear in the sand lead me to think less about any time shifting possibilities and more about the fact that the DHARMA stuff happened in places other than the island. And that ol'whats'her'name is searching the earth for DHARMA stuff, and makes the trip to the island for that very reason.

Interesting thoughts on the numbers, but there were 5 people on the plane, not 4. And be careful throwing around the word 'rescuers' when describing these people - rescuing isnt their main goal.

The jimmy buffet pilot was definetly the odd-man out in the group - was he called upon because he's a 'pretty good pilot'? Realistically, he has no reason to be there - maybe he's lumped into the group to be 'taken care of'/'sleep with da fishes' because he knows of the conspiracy?

The overall LOST story, at least in my mind, is leaning towards something simple like 'the island has weird powers, for whatever reason people want to study/steal these powers, so they send a rogue group to the island to steal/study/capture Ben who is/knows of these powers. People who are on the island, for whatever reasons, have stuff happen to them that effect their lives.' I'm not buying into any weird time warp / ghost / purgatory explanation. The island has strange powers, I'm not overlooking that, but I think they're more science in nature. I guess this makes me the Jack to JJ's Locke?

Sayid is THE man, plain and simple.

Lost suffered from the 'slow down and ask follow-up questions' problem it tends to have lately. When the Ghostbuster started saying what the real reason they were there for then stopped, Jack should have sat everyone down in a nice circle, gotten comfortable, and asked him to kindly elaborate. Instead, lets run and find the helicopter!!

Did you catch it when Indiana Jones girl calmly asked Claire if she had the baby on the island?

I also liked when Locke said they were going to the cabin and Hurley said 'no, it's back that way'. The silence was deafening. Then Hurley says 'uh - the airplane cabin'. Good stuff.

So they're all there for Ben? Can't say I saw that coming. For the island, maybe. I would have even bought it if they were there 'for Jacob'. But for Ben? Wasn't he just a cog in the whole DHARMA Ver. 2 stuff?

long email. good episode.

Reading In Trees said...

PK:
That was my biggest problem Рthe fact that this Naomi person was supposed to be the military attach̩ for the four horsemen. Casting did another bang up job, a la Ana Lucia. They do such a detailed job on some things, such as the number theory proffered below, and then cast a bunch of knuckleheads in prominent roles.

Reading In Trees said...

Frank:
I think I have to disagree with you here. I liked the casting choices.

Reading In Trees said...

Julie:
Overall I thought it was a good episode...set up a lot of great storylines for coming episodes.

Make sure if you can to check out Doc Jensen's recap on ew.com, which is chock full of goodies. And also read his preview that he posted yesterday...also lots of good stuff there.

One theory he brought up which I really like and agree with is that Charlotte has been to the island before. Her joy in the flashback at finding the polar bear and Dharma collar, her joy at being back on the island (when she is in the water), etc. makes me think she was a Dharma-ite who somehow escaped Ben's purge. Maybe she left prior to the purge? Another theory is that she is the daughter of Ben's old Dharma friend Annie and so was trying to get to the island to follow up on her mom's work.

I loved the twist that they are all there for Ben.

Reading In Trees said...

JJ:
two quibbles with you Buzz:

Naomi is the fifth member of the team, but (1)she is dead now and (2) she came in on a different helicopter before the rest. so there are only 4. so there.

note number two - i called them rescuers once, and then referred to them as arrivals the rest of the way. gotta problem with that, too? freaking Daniel himself said they were there to rescue them - even though he is unaware of creepy black dude's plans, he is acting like they are there to rescue them, just not right away. and finally - they DO get rescued: see the flashforwards, dude. peace, brotha, peace.

you are the Jack to my Locke. and you are wrong...

If the new girl Charlotte was so giddy to see Dharma residue in the sand and Miles shows us they are there for Benry - could they be from Dharma and their mission is to get the man who is responsible for the extinction of Dharma on the island and the end of the hatch? are they sent to clean things up? if that's the case, i would think they would send a bigger team in. and maybe they do not knwo about Jacob at all - or maybe they do know about Jacob, but know that only Ben can talk to him. at least that's what they think... hmmmm.

Reading In Trees said...

John:
I am definitely buying the 'ghost' angle now. I watched the season 3 finale again this week so my fiancee could catch up, and right before Jack beats the holy hell out of Ben, Ben states that the people on the freighter will "kill every living person on the island". Isn't "living person" a little redundant? I don't think you can kill dead people, but I'm not a doctor. Lost has great writers, and I think every line is written for a reason - so I think there may be a few dead people residing on the island.

Reading In Trees said...

PK:
Stop drinking the koolaid Frank. Eko would have been better. I'm still peeved they killed him off and allowed Charlie to live so long.

Reading In Trees said...

Me:

What if the mission organizer guy works for Dharma...you bet they would want Ben if they found out he was still alive, then they might be able to figure out that he orchestrated The Purge. Or at least they would want to ask how he was still alive since all they're scientists appear to be dead. Classic bait and switch? Dharma is actually the good guys? After all they were all going in with guns and flak jackets...I think that might explain it.

Also...how does an emotionally retarded guy who everyone distrusts and dislikes upon meeting him...get a guy on the boat? Unless it was someone he knew already...and it seems like the only people he could know growing up on the island were Dharma people.

Reading In Trees said...

Frank:
You're assuming these guys rescue the losties. Think about this: mysterious black guy (Abaddon) sends 5 people to island. They don't return from island. Losties get off the island (other resucers? fix the sub?) - Abaddon comes to Hurley (who has never seen him) and asks 'are they still alive?' Maybe he's asking about his crew? Also to note is that even though Hurley is going slightly nuts (or act least is acting weird), he is 'ok' with meeting a Oceanic lawyer? Even tho by this time he knows there was a coverup of the crash? Not sure where I'm going with this last part, just something to remember...

Reading In Trees said...

Julie:
GREAT point Frank. Maybe this whole "we aren't going to tell" coverup by the 6 has to do with this crew of freighter folks?

Reading In Trees said...

Frank:
Careful not to jump the gun too much, but I think it's safe to say this might be legit:

On "Fast Money" Michael Eisner announced that the strike is over. "They've made a deal, they shook hands on a deal. The deal is going on Saturday to the constituents (for a vote)...I think it's impossible that they turn it down. A deal has been made and (the writers) will be back to work reasonably soon!" At this point we do not know how this will effect the current season of Lost. Keep your fingers crossed for a full 16 episode season.

Reading In Trees said...

JJ:

ahh, but Hurley was NOT ok with meeting with an Oceanic lawyer.... he was suspicious and asked for a biz card.

and i am not assuming anything! i thought of the same thing as to why creepy black dude asks Hurley is they are still alive, meaning his team. but i think his agenda is so sinister, he does not care about his team being alive as he was very determined to make sure none of the Oceanic peeps are alive. i think he want to know if any of the others are still alive... or if the dead people are "alive" - things are getting very very interesting.

Reading In Trees said...

JJ:
you are all suckers if you think creepy black dude really works for Oceanic. His coldness shows me he is not interested in anyone's well-being. he needs to know if whoever he is asking about is alive to serve his evil purposes! nothing more.

Reading In Trees said...

JULIE:
A favorite theory about the creepy guy is that he may be related to the black smoke monster. After he visits Hurley in the loony bin, as he leaves there is definitely a black shadow that kind of follows him out the door. I watched it again last night when they replayed the first ep. BTW…I like that they repeat the prior episode before the new one…it’s a good chance to review.

Reading In Trees said...

John:
Cool insight here from www.imguessimfloating.blogspot.com:

Now, let us return to last week’s episode. Hurley, if you remember, meets a Mr. Abaddon, whose name (according to lostpedia.com) is the Hebrew name for “Destroyer” (you know, like Dan Bejar). Hurley and Abaddon play a game of chess in front of a chalkboard portraying a scribble of an island being destroyed by an enormous fish. Now, assuming that Matthew Abaddon is some kind of demonic figure as his name suggests, the symbolism of his playing chess with Hurley hearkens back to The Seventh Seal, in which a knight must defeat the Devil in Chess or forfeit his life.


Hurley has already been told in the episode (by Charlie’s phantom in Hurley’s hallucination) that he has to return to the island and save the survivors. Abaddon also urges Hurley to discuss those still left on the island, implying that something horrible has happened there.

Now is where Lostpedia helped me out: Hurley’s quest is similar to that of Jonah in the Bible. Jonah is told by God to prophecy the destruction of Ninevah to its’ inhabitants. Instead of taking on the task, Jonah flees. While fleeing, he’s eaten by a huge whale as a punishment by God. Or maybe just a big shark like the one in the picture behind Hurley? Or like the fish that Hurley draws in his picture of the Eskimo? Or maybe even a fish like the one in the corner of the screenshot above?


Interesting....

Reading In Trees said...

JJ:
Ben has said that he has recruited people in past eps and we know Richard and Ethan were able to off Juliet's ex-husband with ease. i think Ben would have no trouble getting one of his others onto the freighter...

Reading In Trees said...

Me:
Good point. I just don't like the Ben as Leader role. It makes no sense even if he can hear Jakob

Reading In Trees said...

Frank:
I don't think he works for Oceanic, its just weird that he's asking if 'they're still alive', when right now it the simple story progression is leading us to believe they get 'rescued' by these guys. Is he asking about his crew (Naomi, etc?) or the Others he fails to find.

And to follow up on the "I'm Jack to JJ's Locke" comments from earlier, I'm not completly against that it might be ghosts/paranormal activity, I just think that the show is walking a fine line between science/faith, and I don't see the ending of the show tilt to one side or the other. At least I hope not.. but who knows! What a show.

Another thing to throw out there is that since we know that Hurley and Jack both get off the island, there's still some group shuffling that needs to go on.

As JJ said, things are getting interesting.

Reading In Trees said...

JULIANNE:

Maybe:

Dharma owns Oceanic

The island can move around like Jacob's cabin. The only reason I'm thinking this is because I keep wondering "Why now?" Why is this team of people coming to look for Ben now? Maybe they'd been wanting to find him for a long time, but couldn't locate the island again until
1) John won that computer chess game and alerted a mainland Dharma base of a hostile incursion
2) Desmond supernova-ed the hatch (like how Penny's Portuguese speaking friends in the arctic found a signal).

They're coming after Ben for killing all the Dharma people.

Miles, Dan and Charlotte are children of people who worked on the island for Dharma initially. The orientation filmstrip said it was created in the 70s. So those three would be about the right age to be children of Dharma island workers.
So their parents worked on the island, the island warped their genes, and then years later, when they had kids, their kids came out with mad ghost whisperer bizarro powers.

In a previous e-mail here, someone mentioned that finding the polar bear might have just meant that Dharma did studies outside of the island.
While I think that Dharma might be doing that (For instance that place that Bernard made Rose go to before the island to try and cure her cancer - that place had a weird magnetic pull as well)
this particular polar bear bore the Hydra symbol. If it had been a separate Dharma location for running tests, that location probably would have had an unique name.


P.S. So is the place where Sawyer and Kate were being held in the polar bear cages also part of the Hydra? I'd just been thinking that the Hydra was the underwater aquarium where Jack was held, but maybe it was that entire area where all the zoological stuff was being studied (polar bears, sharks, ghostly buzzards that say "Hurleeey" when they fly overhead)

Reading In Trees said...

Me:

Dharma owns Oceanic… now THAT is a good theory.

1) Every Miles I ever think of is that “angry little elf” from Elf.
2) Daniel: “judged by God” and Jesus is quoted as referring to him as "Daniel the prophet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel

Just something to mull over.

Reading In Trees said...

JJ:

i like this theory about Dharma owning Oceanic, too...

what if Dharma, after losing control of the island and hence losing knowledge of its location, created Oceanic Airlines for the sole purpose of locating the island... that all their flights are only trans-Pacific, and with so many flights traversing the ocean over the general area where the island might be, they have been hoping for one of their planes to crash there - giving them an area to search. the Airline would be a front for them to search for, locate, and reaquire the island... maybe they needed to use an airline and sell actual tickets to real passengers, because Dharma knows the island brings people to itself for a purpose (as Locke says)... so inevitably they would lose a plane if the RIGHT people were on board.... then Dharma could go all out to try and locate the plane / island and regain control over it. this has a lot of potential.

good job Julianne.

Reading In Trees said...

JULIA:
I think this is a fantastic theory!! It just makes a lot of things fall into place.

Reading In Trees said...

JULIANNE:

Thanks :) I feel so smart.

In that light it kind of makes sense as to why Oceanic would fake a cover-up. They didn't want anyone else looking for the plane, and accidentally finding the island.

Hmm, I wonder if that's why Charlotte knew the plane hadn't really crashed. Maybe she knew what Oceanic was up to, since she obviously already knows what Dharma is (she specifically looked for the dharma symbol on that bear.)

Reading In Trees said...

FRANK:
'fall into place'?

Was that a pun (Oceanic Air, plane falls, into a specific place)?

If it was a planned pun, then good job.

If not, then look, its a pun, I found it!

Anonymous said...

One more thought: I think that Miles will get a chance to "see" Jacob while on this island.

Anonymous said...

Nice one Julianne. You're chock full of good theories. That also makes me want to know what will happen if Miles and Walt ever run into each other.

Anonymous said...

CYNDI:



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23116598/



Damon Lindelof is eager for some answers. An executive producer of ABC’s mystery serial “Lost,” he should learn this week what his show’s future holds as it closes out its fourth season.

“Lost” has been back on the air just two weeks. But the strike meant a planned 16-episode shooting schedule was halted after just eight episodes were shot. Fans braced themselves for no more this season.

“But we very much want to come back and do as many episodes as possible,” said Lindelof, who then listed a few issues that first need to be settled.

“How many episodes can best serve our story? And what are the production realities?” He noted that the shooting facility in Hawaii, 2,500 miles from his Los Angeles office, had been shuttered since Thanksgiving. The crew has dispersed, the huge cast has scattered.

The first new post-strike episode of “Lost” could possibly be ready for broadcast the week after episode eight appears, he said. There likely would be three or four more after that.

Could there be even more?

“I’d be surprised if the network wanted to air episodes deep into the summer,” he said. But if all the pieces fell into place, “Lost” fans would be blessed: “I don’t see why we couldn’t deliver all eight remaining episodes.”

That kind of zeal should warm viewers’ hearts. Lindelof and the rest of TV’s creative community seem delighted to be back.

Almost as delighted as we are.