Here we go again

Alvar Hanso seems to be at it again. Click
here to see what he's been up to. Potential spoiler: Click on the word "humanity" in the third graf for a secret message.

Sorry if this is old news.


Razzle dazzle!

The March 28 ep barely moved the plot forward, and addressed none of the island's mysteries. Yet it was a knee-slapping hoot. Personally, I loved it. Pure entertainment, which is exactly what I want from a television show. Let's examine things, shall we?
- Billy Dee Williams is the Cobra?! I never saw that coming.
- Great flashback appearances by Boone, Shannon, Ethan and that school teacher who blew up. Was Boone bisexual? We know he was doin' his sister (momentary shudder, for while Shannon is a cutie pie, she's still a relative. Ick), but that comment Shannon made in the airport seemed to indicate he swung from both sides of the plate. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
- Was great to see life on the island through the eyes of secondary characters, such as Jack's live together or die alone speech. I wonder how much of the crash sequence was recut footage and how much was filmed new. I'd forgotten how absolutely great that very first ep of Lost was, with the chaos and fire and screams.
- And it was fascinating to see how long-ago events were tied into last night's ep. When Paulo came out of the TV hatch bathroom, suddenly there was meaning behind it instead of a random event. And the mystery of the recently smoked cigarette butts in that hatch? Solved.
- So Vincent apparently could tell Paulo and Nikki were not dead, pulling the blanket off them. I hope to see a Vincent flashback episode at some point. You know that dog has seen and sniffed every mystery on this island and probably knows more than anyone else. Though he's a dog.
- Speaking of island secrets, I giggled insanely at how at moment after moment, these two asshats found so many island secrets well before everyone else - the plane in the tree, the TV monitoring hatch, the Others are not really rags-wearing primitives.
- Two word: "forensics hatch." Bwah!
- Are Nikki and Paulo dead? I'm going to presume so. They'd have to dig themselves out - or be rescued by Vincent - pretty quickly to avoid suffocation. And I assume we'd see that. But there seemed to be some finality to that episode. Then again, as Locke said, things on the island don't stay buried, so who knows. Their deaths would make sense in a sort of cosmic justice kind of way - the murderers get killed in a very Alfred Hitchcock Presents kind of way.
- Meanwhile, so Sun knows it was Charlie and Sawyer, not the Others, who kidnapped and clocked her. Will be curious to see how this evolves, what happens if she lets it slip to Jin.
- This ep was light on the content we usually analyze to death. But I still rank it as a very satisfying hour of TV watching. And next week, Kate and Juliet cat fight. In the rain. Thank you, God.
Your thoughts?

Poppa, can you hear me?

Don't know about you, but I'm getting a little tired of how predictable Lost is becoming. I mean, since season 1 and the speculation about how Locke ended up in a wheelchair, the most obvious answer has been 'he got pushed out an eight-story window by his con artist father who previously stole a kidney.' Well, duh.
Yet another episode loaded with 'holy cow' moments. Let's discuss them, shall we?

- So now the island is completely isolated. No communication, no way off, at least as far as we know. And Ben's fine with that, interestingly. Yet my assumtion is that at some future point, Dharma would have to check on the island when they dont hear anything for weeks, dont get any food drop requests. But who knows how that will work out, since Dharma seems to still be under the assumption it's running the island, when the Others have been running the show at least the last few years. (Side speculation - did Locke actually blow up the sub? He was dripping wet when he got captured. No need to go into the water, however, if he just got on the sub, planted C4, and got off. Maybe he blew up something else, moved the sub?)

- So there's a box that gives you whatever you want? This is either a fascinating turn of events or one of the stupidest deus ex machinas I've ever heard of. Though I loved the sight of bug-eyed evil con man bound and trussed up. Wondering now if other off-island characters could make appearances in the future. Wondering now if it in fact is Locke's dad or a manifestation of the smoke monster the same way Kate saw that black horse, etc. Either way, I want to see him get his ass kicked and then have Sayid go all Torture Man on him. Locke dad is pure eeeeevil.
Now consider this - there is no box at all, that's just a manipulative story by Ben, and when Locke's dad disappeared to Mexico, he really disappeared to this island. Why? Dunno.
But consider this - there've been so many instances of discovery that defy logic, like Eko finding his brother's plane. Maybe there is some kind of wish fulfillment power going on here, that this 'box' idea is true. Am beginning to think that this notion of the island having healing ability might be true, but in the sense that it gives people what they want (Locke his legs, Rose becomes cancer free).
The island also seems to have some kind of consciousness, based on that Ben/Locke exchange, with the idea Locke has a better link to/idea about the island. That adds to the idea the Black Smoke is some kind of manifestation of the island's consciousness.
And consider this bit of dialogue from last night: Ben: "What if I told you there was a box and when you opened it, whatever you wanted was inside?" Locke: "First, I'd cut a hole in the box. Then I'd put my junk in the box." Significant? I think so.

- So Locke has gone through a fascinating evolution in this show - he crashed, he was this uber-he-man hunter, then he emerged as this too trusting doofus, and now it turns out he's both incredibly scheming and selfish and so damaged and sympathetic. That scene when he was put in the wheelchair and started crying? Doesn't excuse what he's done - kill Patchy, blow up the sub - but I at least understand why.

- So daddy issues continue to be an ongoing substory. Jack, Kate, Locke, Hurley, so many people have estrangement or abandonment in their background. The significance? I don't know. But Deadpassenger and I both think it seems likely that Locke's dad is also the "Sawyer" Sawyer has sworn to kill.

- So Ben is continually fascinating. He's seemingly far more concerned with maintaining his control over the Others than anything else. Merely power mad? Or is there something else? His insistence that no one be allowed to leave - to the point he considered killing Jack - is really interesting. Meanwhile, the guy was even born on the island and he seemingly lacks some kind of connection to it that Locke has. Really curious.

- Speaking of Jack, if Locke and Piano Man didn't hate each other before, they sure ain't gonna be sharing warm Dharma beer now.

- New character alert! The Man from Talahassee (which sounds like a Merle Haggard song). I assume that's the guy who was with Ben when they uncuffed Locke, some kind of assistant/heavy of Ben's who seems to have a different level of knowledge than the other Others. Or maybe it was Locke's dad. Could Locke's dad have been on Oceania 815 without anyone noticing?

So so many questions. What do you think?

Locke talks...

TV Guide online has an interview with Terry O'Quinn, the guy that plays Locke. It's kind of interesting.

Never saw that coming

Jack likes football?!?! Totally saw him as a hoops fan. That blew my mind.
Also blowing my mind -- almost every single moment of last night's ep.:
Claire was also the lead singer to Evanesence!
Locke, who we have long thought may be a moron, might actually be something more sinister! (consider - the C4 in his backpack, throwing Patchy through the death wall, his evasiveness when asked about these things). Is it conceivable Locke is now an Other, or at least doing their bidding? At some point did he read/see something in one of the hatches telling him what to do?
Claire and Jack better not make out because that'd be extra gross since they're half siblings!
More fascinating insight from Patchy - Kate could never understand what's going on with the Others since she's not on the List - the List seemingly of people of a certain enlightened mental mindstate. Presumably this List is part of the Lists that Ethan and Goodwin were supposed to make after infiltrating the newly-crashed Losties. And there was reference a few eps back to Jack NOT being on Jacob's List - whoever Jacob is. Who is on the List? What's the significance of the List - are these people to be recruited?
We had another scene of seeming self sacrifice by the Others, perhaps aimed at keeping information from the Losties, when Patchy thanked Locke for throwing him through the security perimeter. That, the Claire/Jack connection and the List idea go toward my new grand unifying theory of the island: the Others, who predate the Dharma Initiative by many many years on the island, were/are some kind of super secret society that protects/serves the island (the black smoke monster being some kind of manifestation of the island's consciousness?). They are trying to create higher level people with the island's help - sort of a variation on the story of Prometheus. Through the island's time-bending abilities, it deliberately manipulated to get certain people on the plane as it knew the jet was going to crash. The connections between the Losties, such as the Claire/Jack thing, tell me that while the plane was not deliberately brought down, some of the people were fated to be on the flight.
Finally, that look of betrayal on Kate's face when she saw Jack and Tom throwing the pigskin around all Kennedy like was perfect. There's gonna be some asskicking.
Your insights and observations?

Sawyer to Hawaii Police: Drop Dead

Josh Hollaway is apparently developing a bit of a persecution complex, according to this report.
The man believes the Hawaii constabulary is out to get him and his co-stars.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/dailynews/3991335a1860.html

Note to self: stick with Tetris

Hello and welcome back to another installment of LostTalk, brought to you by Manny's Land of Carpet. Welcome to our new affiliate in Cincinnati, KNIC.
First, some general reactions to last night's ep. -- awwww heck yeah! Some action, some humor, some delving into the mystery, some character development and elaboration on back story, a pwetty kitty cat. The show stumbled a bit the last couple eps., when compared to the Juliet episode and the Desmond episode, but it shook it off and came back swinging, I think. The ending was a bit predictable - once you saw the C4, you knew Flame was going up in flames (ha!) at some point.

So what we know now - according to what Patchy was saying, prior to the plane crash there were two groups on the island: the Dharma folks and the Hostiles/Others, and for some reason one wiped out (completely?) the other.
But he's obviously a liar. The question is to what degree he lied.
Let's examine the likelihood that the Others and Dharma scientists are separate people altogether - to my thinking, that's hard to swallow. How would the Others know how to use the technology, speak Russian, read Chinese tatts on Jack? More likely, I think, is that the Others - or at least some of them - are former Dharma. Patchy Mikhail, who's now part of the Others, keeps the communications going with the outside world, so the supplies keep coming. Or perhaps the Others were former test subjects?
Meanwhile, maybe the Others are crazy - case in point, the woman seemingly telling Patchy to shoot her rather than be captured. Then Patchy told Sayid to kill him. What the frell?
According to Lostpedia, the exchange between the woman and Patchy was along the lines of "You know what to do, we cannot risk it," "No, there must be another way," "Just do it," "I'm sorry," bang.

Regarding Rousseau - oh c'mon. You're on this island 16 years and you've not explored every nook and cranny? Am I supposed to believe she's not playing on both sides of the fence here? On a side note, Patchy's name is Mikhail. And Rousseau said at one point that her husband's name was Michael. Connection? I wonder how he lost that eye. Maybe Rousseau didn't kill him after all.

Regarding Locke - dude, don't touch anything. This guy seems somewhat dumb. I don't think he expected to blow up the Flame hatch by entering 77, but when you're in some crazy situation like that you be careful what you touch. I wonder if that's the sole communications method to the outside world, that satellite dish.

Regarding Sayid - fascinating back story, though it didn't really tie horribly much to the island half of the episode. All it seemed to illustrate is why Sayid didn't kill Patchy. But was that that dramatic a question?

Regarding the cat - was that cat which resembled the cat Nadia really there, I wonder. Or was it a manifestation of the smoke monster.

Lessons: Locke is a video game addict, getting distracted by chess enough to let Patchy escape and get the drop on him.

Nice touches: Dharma-brand vodka, Sawyer calling Jin and Sun "Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon."

Sill bitter

OK, I dunno about all of you, but Lost SUCKED on Wednesday and I am too bitter about said suckage. We learned nothing, nada, of real interest. Not happy, kids, not happy.