You are the new number two

So when the big Lost six-season complete DVD set comes out, and there surely will be one, one added bonus will be a few minutes of extra footage showing some of Hurley and Ben's interactions as the new Jacob/Richard dynamic duo.
That according to an interview with Michael (Ben) Emmerson.
Whoever picks up that set, you have to throw a viewing party.

It's Bob $*&@^ing Newhart

I gotta admit, I chuckled aloud at these. Especially the thought of Jin completely unable to parallel park. I mean, that space is huge.

More analysis of Earth 2

The Definitive Guide to WTF Just Happened on ‘Lost’ - Film School Rejects

Who's Who

This is a great, fun resource of who's who on and off the island. And the caricatures are nice too.

But is it art?

The serial TV drama as serious art, more than just entertainment? And LOST as part of that pantheon? Discuss.

Personally, I think there's something valid in the argument. Art comes when we look at some of the fundamental questions of human existence. FRIENDS was often a hoot, but I don't know that I'd call it art. It was entertainment, a distraction. LOST on the other hand made one contemplate issues of fate vs. free will and the nature of good and evil.

So what do I do with my time now?

I knew that on some level it'd be disappointing.
You can't build up and build up layer upon layer of mystery and character development with all these quirky twists ("waitaminute, waitaminute ... after flash forwards and flash backs, we're flashing sideways?") without at some point hitting a wall.
And it's not as if last night's series finale of 'Lost' - and man, I wear my nerd badge proudly to say those six words make me a bit sad - was without merit. I appreciated the Jack/Flocke knife fight climax. While I call bull**** on his survival, it was cool to see fan fave Lapidus bobbing there in the ocean. And I'm always going to be a sucker for jerky camerawork and styrofoam boulders falling.
But c'mon. It literally came down to pulling a big rock out of a hole and then putting it back into a hole while bright light was shining everywhere and when the act of doing so was sure to kill you? Did the writers have a slumber party and watch 'Wrath of Khan' at some point?
And I'm still digesting how I feel about the realization that Earth 2 was Purgatory. And thus everything we've been watching there in terms of plot really had nothing to do with anything. And thus half of season 6 really hasn't had a point or a purpose, as it was completely disconnected from the plot of the show. And Jack's kid was imaginary. And the atomic bomb set off on the island years ago apparently had no effect except maybe bouncing the Losties back through time to now. And the whole Earth 2 thing was apparently cribbed from the movie Jacob's Ladder.
Jimmy Kimmel apparently had a good observation, that in the first ep. of this season, during the plane turbulence, Rose told Jack "You can let go," which wasn't about his death grip on his armrest at all.
And ultimately I'm a little disappointed to find out the series was all about Jack's journey. He's been a good character, mind you, but not any more compelling than Locke or Ben. (In a side Jack note, the overt Christian imagery around him came by the bucketload last night, didn't it? From the church ending to the wound in his side?)
There were some fine moments - Ben and Hurley briefly reminiscing about the time spent together as the Jacob and Richard. And Vincent got some screen time, to satisfy the animal lovers among us.
I don't think the finale was a failure by any means. I think not every mystery needed to be wrapped up nice and neat. So we don't know what the deal was with Walt or the Dharma Initiative or why it is Juliet and Desmond on Earth 1 could seemingly briefly see into Purgatory or what the deal is with Hurley being able to commune with the dead the way islanders Miles and Man in Black could. OK, I can live with that. But at the same time, the way the producers have almost been proudly talking about the way they're not going to reveal everything, that that is part and parcel for the show, seems like a convenient cop-out too.
In the end, I was a little more emotionally touched than I thought I'd be with that scene of dying Jack on the jungle floor, watching the jet take off overhead and his eye slowly closing in a nice little bookend to what we saw six years and countless debates ago.

Because every cop is a criminal and all the sinners saints

Among the cameos as we head toward home plate, I never expected to see Rousseau or Ana Lucia. So their brief appearances in "What They Died For," the penultimate ep. of the rapidly winding down Lost was a hoot.
So too was the ep. as a whole. We got a boatload of answers. We got some more major character deaths (Widmore and Zoe and presumably that's the last we see of Jacob). We got the storyline winnowed down to its climactic fundamentals, at least on Earth 1 (Jack and crew vs. Smokey over the light at the heart of the tunnel). And we got the pleasure of seeing more threads tied together on Earth 2 with characters bumping into each other all over the place and the fun of trying to figure out what Earth 2 Desmond actually is up to. (Presumably it has something to do with getting our characters back on an Oceanic flight, seeing as how he punk'd Jack with a phone call seemingly to get him back to the airport).
After seasons worth of speculation, it was good to finally see a clear cut, voice of God explainer of some of the major questions we've had. Yes, the chosen Losties all are there because they were flawed people ripe for some sort of redemption (sucks to be you, Rose, Bernard, Frogurt and everyone else who just happened to be on the flight). And the reasons why Kate is now off the list - actually having something to live for off the island - fits into that well.
And we got far too little Miles and Richard, though it was nice to see a return to form for Ben on Earth 1 (and indications of an interestingly creepy potential future for Rousseau and Earth 2 Ben).
We also got some annoyances. Ben is just able to gun down Widmore when previously there were some kind of never-explained rules that kept them from killing each other? Widmore turned from baddie to redeemed guy because Jacob enlightened him to the error of his ways? The character Zoe ended up being killed off without ever fulfilling any kind of role? Is Richard dead? That's what passes for instructions on how to safeguard this island - a few mumbled words, a swig of water and a "son, you're on your own" sendoff? Even the Greatest American Hero got an instruction manual.
And how is it that Jacob was able to go off island to the Losties to begin with? As we saw last week, the whole issue boils down to he and bro being unable to leave.
I imagine that a lot of these questions never are really going to get answered in a sort of 'leave that to the imagination' kind of way. And frankly, entertainment is rife with creations that had great buildups that didn't hold together under the light of day (I'm lookin' at you X-Files, Battlestar Galactica, numerous Stephen King and Dean Koontz novels), so having not everything spelled out from a storytelling standpoint is perhaps better, despite the inevitable howls of viewers who've been watching this as a puzzle to be solved.

Don't get into a bidding war with me for that Apollo Bar wrapper

Eagle-eyed blog reader Frank E. sent in this nugget. ABC is auctioning off some props from the show.

Monkey chicken duck

Nothing at all to do with Lost. I just like it.

Go start your own blog, Lost purist. See if I care.

Adam raised a Cain

"You're born into this life paying for the sins of somebody else's past." - Bruce Springsteen.
So mad props to actor Titus Welliver, he playing the Man in Black in our most recent installment of Lost. His frustration, his rage and ultimately his hurt at the dang unfairness of it all, it really swung for the fences.
"Across the Sea" is going to be a polarizing episode. It didn't actually give us a lot of meat to chew on and instead went all mystical/magical/ill defined. And CJ from 'West Wing' left us with just as many new questions - these unfortunately will never be answered - as answers about what the heck at the end of the day is going on. And even a Lost apologist like me who even like the Nikki and Paolo episode, I'm mixed on what we were given.
It would've been nice to get a better sense of what exactly the Jacob vs Smoke Monster conflict actually boils down to. Presumably Smokey is some kind of primal evil. But is protecting the island the same as keeping Smokey on island?
So Smoke Locke wants off the island because that's what was motivating Man in Black when the smoke monster imprinted on him. Also hardwired into Smoke Monster from Man in Black is apparently the dislike of humanity, seeing them as venal and corrupted.
And apparently Jacob is immortal because he drank from the same hooch that Allison Janey's character did at some point seemingly looong ago. But how did she kill off those people on the other side of the island, Man in Black's cohorts?
And why isn't Smoke Monster now wanting to stay on the island, since that also was Locke's desire?
And finally I was a little annoyed at the season 1 flashback spoon feeding me the reminder about the Adam and Eve skeletons. THat's been one of the pleasures of the show, someone not giving exposition explaining everything to me. And yes I realize that seems to contradict what I was just carping about in terms of not having the Jacobian conflict better spelled out. Bite me.
Your thoughts?

My heart will go on

Go ahead, hate me for the lateness of this week's post. Lack of Internet access will do that.
Anyway, to the heart of the matter ...
Wow. Just wow. Obviously we're picking up momentum as we hit the final stretch of the series, so the writers feel liberated enough to take a few chances. Like kill 3.5 major characters, just wipe them off the face of the map. (Lapidus, with his awesome Beastmaster hair, I count as half a character, though he was one of my favorite tier two folks).
"The Candidate" was far more on action than answers - though a big one was solved with the realization Locke doesn't need all the candidates, he needs them dead. And even though there are only three eps. left, I still see it pretty shocking to kill off Sayid, Sun and Jin like that. And for even Hurley to break down like that was nice evidence that this show still has some great ability to tug at viewer heartstrings.
An interesting twist to show how very different Locke's life on Earth 2 was sans island - still in the chair, still a heaping dose of self loathing, but this time for turning his beloved poppy into a vegetable instead of being the perennial sucker who gets hosved out of a highrise window by dada.
I also like how even with Desmond's interference, Jack is getting this weird sense that something is amiss in Earth 2 just because every third person he meets was on the same flight as him (and speaking of Desmond, I'm now of the 'Desmond is to become the new Jacob' camp because what has Earth 2 Des been doing? Going around influence Losties lives just the same way Jacob did to get them on the island. Nice parallel there).
So why did Locke take the explosive off the plane only to plant it on the sub? Why not jst let everyone on the jet? Was he counting on a gunfight with Widmore's people to force Jack on the sub? I'll chalk that up to TV drama. Meanwhile, where was Widmore during all this gunplay? And was it Widmore who wired the plane or Ben/Richard/Miles, who set off to do just that? And who here like me is feeling increasingly bad for Claire, who is getting ditched left and right like the unwanted younger sister when you and your friends just want to go to the mall (the mall in this case being a submarine)?

A Primer/Recap of Season 1-5 if you need it.

This made me laugh.

Reunited and it feels so good

Finally.
After so much teasing and so much leading up to it, we've finally got some major intersections that really indicate what we all know - the sprint is on for home plate.
First, we've got the paths of the Earth 2 Losties increasingly coming together and overlapping. You know that in an episode or two we're going to have the scene of everyone - or at least the candidates - standing around sort of looking at each other, wondering what the heck they do next as they remember their lives on island. I imagine it being in a warehouse.
Second, we briefly had a shot at having all the Oceanic survivors finally back together until Jack jumped ship.
And thirdly, we had the loooong Sun/Jin separation storyline finally come to a bit of an awkward end - I expected a little more emotional resonance with the thing. Though maybe that's how real life would be anyhow - a bunch of people standing around awkwardly while two people embrace near a sonic pylon.
We got some good solid answers on the Smoke Monster Impersonation deal, that he can only take on the form of dead folks. So that was him as Christian Sheppard. And that was him as Yemi, talking to Eko. Interestingly, that was NOT Smokey as Walt in those times we saw the Walt sightings around the island.
And I can't take credit for this insight, I read it online, but now we see why it was important, according to the psychic, for Claire to raise Aaron - here we had been going along thinking it was for Aaron's sake. But really it was for Claire's, as she's gone relatively batpoo insane. Though there also might be some hope for her redemption, it seems, as she's going along with the Losties instead of Locke. (And credit for best line of the night, as usual, goes to Sawyer: "Who the hell is Anakin?" Game, set, match, Lost writers).
So Smoke Lock promised he'd return dead Nadia to Sayid? We know Jacob said he cannot raise the dead - he told that to Richard back in the 1800s. So either A) Smoke Locke and Jacob have very different abilities (which seems somewhat likely since we have no reason to believe Jacob could also become a deadly cloud of smoke) or B) Smoke Locke is lying to Sayid with the thinking that 'hey, once I get off the island, none of what I promise these doofwads matters.' Which seems likelier.
Meanwhile, I'm increasingly convinced that Jack must be the likeliest Jacob replacement. If all the Losties are needed to get off the island, why has Smoke Locke taken a particular interest in Jack, going off into the jungle to talk to him specifically (in a nice parallel to the constant confrontations that were going on early in the series between Jack the Self Appointed Leader Who Was Having None of This Faith and Numbers Entering Crap and Locke.
And did the Widmore folks pull guns on the Oceanic crew because Jack was not there? Or was the whole "Deal's off" thing just how it always was going to play out? (On a side note - I'm really looking forward to the point when Widmore's henchwoman Dirty Tina Fey gets shot or kicked in shin or something. She's a jerk).
Your thoughts?

Lost-tacular

I love Lost, don't get me wrong. But the series finale being a five-hour TV extravaganza? With a two-hour retrospective, the two-hour finale, and a special, Lost-centric edition of Jimmy Kimmel Live? That's a lotta Lost.

Mom always said never play with dynamite in the house

To revert to my Ohio roots, yee-haw, son, that was a heckuva ride. The "Everybody Love Hugo" episode (only five left!) was a heaping mess of TV fun. You had Illana go kablooey. You had the return of Michael and Libby. You had Fake Locke cold bloodedly take out Desmond (ahades of when Ben shot Real Locke and left him for dead in that pit of dead Dharma folks back oh so long ago).
And interestingly, you had the scenes from next week's Lost, "The Last Recruit," accompanied by a snippet of dialogue from the uber creepy, out of control boat ride in the 1971 classic "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory." Which is a nice parallel in some ways to the direction the show is taking this season - Willy Wonka being all about finding a replacement and testing recruits as they go through this psychedelic, increasingly elaborate freakshow of a place. And like that boat ride, where the boat seemingly is speeding out of control heading to doom while increasingly disturbing images flash in the background, the climax of Lost seems to be heading in the same direction, with things spiraling out of control and heading to disaster before, soon, they pull to a stop and all is revealed.
And speaking of reveals, so now we know those whispers are the spirits of dead folk caught in an island limbo (thus making those protestations from the show creators a couple seasons back that the Lost folks are not dead and in the afterlife technically true but a bit misleading).
We see the evolution of our Earth 1 Losties, as Jack is embracing his new role as Not the Guy In Charge Fixing Everything, a mantle Hurley is picking up.
I think Ben hit the nail on the head when he said that the island seemingly was done with Illana, and thus she got a big sendoff. Interesting sidebar question - is the Island some kind of entity like Smoke Locke or Jacob? Is it a consciousness as well? Whose side is it on?
Another side question - we see Chang at the opening of Hurley's wing at the natural history museum in Earth 2. Wasn't he killed by the nuke going off back in 1977? How exactly can he be here?
Favorite scene, though, must be Earth 2 Hurley drowning his sorrows not at a bar but over a bucket of fried chicken. Can't be any worse for you than a bottle of bourbon, one supposes.
A close second was Desmond's relative calm serenity whether he's deep in the jungle in what should be an "oh fudge" kind of moment when someone gives the equivalent speech of the "we're miles from where anyone could hear you scream" chestnut or whether he's running down a handicapped guy in a wheelchair with his car. And was that move supposed to kill Earth 2 Locke (and if so why) or to trip his memory of Earth 1 (and if so, surely there's an easier way to do it. I mean, near death worked for him and Charlie in bringing back their memories, but criminy, it only took some kissing or a TV commercial for Hugo and Libby. Seems a wee bit unfair in a grand scheme of things kind of way, no?)
So once these Earth 2 Losties all realize what's up, what then? Hop another Oceanic 815 flight perhaps simultaneously as some big electromagnetic pulse is being unleashed on Earth 1 by Widmore and crew?
What'd I miss? Your thoughts?

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Much apologies for the delay in this week's edition. We here at Lost Talk Central have been so transfixed by the bizarre train wreck that is the new Tiger Woods Nike ad and by noisy neighbors (his name is Tray) that a lot of things have fallen by the wayside.
So this week is housekeeping week, catching up on reader mail.
Doug from Fairborn, Ohio, writes: So what, now Desmond is going to try to convince the Earth 2 Losties to revert to their original destinies?
I think you've hit the nail on the head, Doug. We see now that Earth 2 - which we knew to be the world where things were slightly different from ours - is actually a sort of time-warped mistake, as if Biff had gotten his hands on a sports almanac from the future and became super rich and Marty had to go back in BttF II and get that almanac. The interesting corner the writers have put themselves in (and let's face it, that's what we always enjoy the most in our entertainment, that "how is Indiana Jones/Elinor Dashwood/Navin Johnson going to get out of THIS one?" moment) is to see how exactly that's going to happen. I mean, in 1977 an atomic bomb went off on the island, meaning no Oceanic 815 crash and seeming no island, even. That's a pretty tight corner to write your way out of, knowwhutimsayin'?
Marv from Boca Raton, Fla., writes: How'd you like them parallels?
Marv, you know us here so well. If nothing else, we're suckers for references and allusions, from Charlie's open hand in the car which resulted in Flashsideways Desmond's flashback to Charles Widmore offering Desmond the aged Scotch that in another life he denied him. We also dug seeing Daniel Farraday as a weird twitchy musical impresario instead of a weird twitchy physics genius.
And wasn't it awesome that the slight hints we've had that the two universes are not completely separate now are a full-throated scream as evidenced not just by Charlie, Daniel and Desmond but also by Eloise still playing her role as time cop (at one poitn chiding Desmond for some unnamed 'violation'), writes Beverly of Boulder?
Damn straight, Bevs. Even the ultimate aggravation of this show - to be chock full of questions and mysteries and then in the final season add a whole new layer of questions atop that - is still a constant hoot and frankly I don't care about the illogicality of it half the time, the characters and Easter eggs and little moments (like seeing Charles Widmore finally get smacked around a bit like he was trespassing on Clint Eastwood's lawn) make it all the worthwhile.
Dennis of Chicago writes, so if Smokey gets off the island, everything ends. But couldn't he have gotten off the island in Earth 2, after the bombing, so why is everyone there still alive?
Excellent question we here have been pondering awhile, Dennis. Hopefully someone answers this at some point.
The show has got a lot of balls up in the air right now - Smokey and his posse trying to get off island, Widmore having some plan to use the pockets of island electromagnetism to keep him there, Desmond having some tragic destiny to play in that Widmore plan, the bleeding over from Earth 2 to Earth 1, Earth 2 Desmond trying to round up the Losties to tell them something ... And we've only got a few episodes left. Tick tick tick.

Covered in bacon grease

Jin/Sun episodes have not been all that interesting to me for awhile, not since Sun thought Jin to be dead and was going to be all payback time on Ben for his death (remember that short-lived plot?)
But "The Package" was a relatively decent episode, at least in terms of Earth 2 characterization. Even though we knew Jin was ending up tied up in the restaurant and rescued by Sayid, getting there was somewhat interesting. I guess the point being that the two are eventually to be together and with child, no matter what reality we happen to be in.
Meanwhile, we got some Island Mystery advancement.
To wit:
- We know getting off the island will require another lineup of Losties, just like getting on did. The question being who now is part of that required group and why is Kate now not part of it. (Anyone got any guesses on this? My bet is that it has to do with the fact on Earth 2 she's still a fugitive on the run, not showing any ability to transcend her mistakes of the past, and thus ruling herself out as a Jacob candidate).
- We got a clearer sense of the sides shaping up. So there's Smoke Locke and his crew looking to get off island (seemingly a big no-no since everyone will 'cease to exist.') There's Richard and our ragtag folks trying to stop him. And now there's Widmore and his knockout dart shooting army of geophysicists (armed with a heavily drugged Desmond) also there to stop Locke. Though one has to imagine Widmore's motivations are more than just pure altruism (I mean, the guy also sent soldiers previously with the sole intent of whacking off Ben, so he's not exactly a Jain).
- So how the heck is Desmond supposed to be a secret weapon?
- Sun knocked the English right out of herself? Laaaaame.
- Sayid is now an emotionless automaton doing the bidding of Smoke Locke. Awesome. Ditto too Locke basically throwing meat Kate to crazed dog Claire. And ditto that actor who plays Martin Keamy. That guy should be a heavy in every movie - I get the feeling he can't even go to the dry cleaner without scaring the crap out of people.
After last week's reveals, of course this episode was going to feel a little light, as it was more about getting pieces in place than really revealing much. Like Sun taking Jack's hand on the beach, I'm still giving this show some trust that we're heading to some fun stuff.

Covered in bacon grease

New kid in town

TV Guide also has an interesting interview with the actress who plays Zoe (the chick who tried to convince Sawyer she was a survivor of the second plane, but really is a Widmore homie).

TVGuide.com: Well, what is she there to do?
Kelley: She is there on the island looking for somebody and she's looking for something. She will know who it is when she finds that person. She also believes she has the answer.

TVGuide.com: How did she come to work with Charles Widmore?
Kelley: She is a geophysicist. I think that she's very brilliant and loves what she does. She is a maverick in her field and believes there are more answers than the status quo is willing to buy into. So she wants to bring the concrete world of physics and geology into much more esoteric happenings, like time travel and the energy of the island. She's bridging the gap between science and belief. It's a strong theme throughout the whole show.

http://www.tvguide.com/News/Lost-Sheila-Kelley-1016540.aspx

My only friend, The End

So what's the name of the episode of the series finale? "The End," according to the fine folks at TV Guide.
http://www.tvguide.com/News/End-Near-Lost-1016637.aspx