The Lost Elders

Just a quick post. I've updated and added some thoughts to one of my oldest posts over at the great, new Lost Elders blog that I'll also be posting at: Who are Adam and Eve? Enjoy!

w00t!

I'm back! Now a newly minted doctor too! :)

Em and I spent the weekend in a little B&B since we really hadn't seen much of each other over the past several days.

Anyhoo I hope to post something or other in the next day or so. In the meantime, if you haven't seen the incredibly awesome LOST Mobisode #13 yet, what the heck are you waiting for!

Sweet, eh?

Top Ten Episodes #1: 3.08 "Flashes Before Your Eyes"

Quote:
I know your name as well as I know that you don't ask Penny to marry you. In fact, you break her heart. Well, breaking her heart, of course, is what drives you in a few short years from now to enter that sailing race to prove her father wrong. Which brings you to the island where you spend the next 3 years of your life entering numbers into the computer...until you are forced to turn that failsafe key. And if you don't do those things, Desmond David Hume, every single one of US is dead. So give me that sodding ring!

TV.com Rating: 9.2 (#28 overall)

Brief Recap: Desmond and Locke return and tell Hurley and Charlie that Eko is dead. :(

Desmond starts acting bonkers and going running off for the beach. Turns out, Claire is in the water and she's drowning. Charlie naturally freaks out, Desmond runs into the water "Baywatch" style and saves her. Charlie gives him the evil Hobbit eye, asked him how he knew she was drowning. Quoth the Hurley:

"I'll tell you how he knew. That guy...sees the future, dude.

Later on, Hurley and Charlie raid Sawyer's stash for a bottle of MacCutcheon Scotch in an attempt to get Desmond drunk and press him about his new ability. It works, they get sloshed, Charlie calls Desmond a coward. Des freaks, jumps all over Charlie:

"You don't want to know what happened to me when I turned that key! You don't want to know!"

And then the fun begins. We go back to the moment when Desmond turned the key and watch him as he travels back in time. He wakes up in his flat. Penny's there, having just moved in. Des is befuddled, but happy.

Desmond goes to see Penny's father, Charles Widmore, under the pretense of asking him for a job. However, he really just wanted to ask him for Penny's hand in marriage. Charles deftly swipes the Most Evil Father In The Lost Universe mantle away from Sun's dad by telling Desmond in no uncertain terms that he's a piece of garbage, unworthy of his daughter. Desmond's heart makes the sound of ultimate suffering. He exits, meets Charlie Hieronymus Pace on the street, recognizes him and realizes he's lived all this before. He predicts it will start to rain and it does.

Desmond goes to see a physicist friend of his to ask him about time travel. His friend thinks he's crazy. Desmond predicts something will happen in the soccer game, it doesn't. That night, Desmond realizes he has a chance to do everything over and decides to ask Penny to marry him anyway.

The next day, Desmond heads to an antique store to buy a ring. He asks the shopwoman, Ms. Hawking, to look at a ring and agrees to buy it. Ms. Hawking laughs and asks for it back. Desmond looks perplexed. Ms. Hawking then blows Desmond's mind with the speech above. Trippy cool.

Ms. Hawking then explains to Desmond, using a poor schmuck with bad taste in footwear as an example, that pushing the button is his fate and the universe has a way of "course correcting" should things go awry. Desmond refuses to believe her.

The next day, Des and Penny are walking along the street. A photographer stops them and takes their picture against a marina backdrop - the photo Desmond's been carrying around the world with him. Penny pays, Desmond freaks out, tells her he can't marry her. Desmond throws the ring into the river in a very, overly dramatic, "Lord of the Rings" way. (As an aside here, how much you want to bet we're going to see that ring again)

Later that day, Desmond's back in the pub. A soccer game is on and the team scores just like he predicted it would before. Desmond realizes he had wrong day and that he really is in the past. Much like Scrooge, he realizes that maybe he can change things... and then he gets whacked and ends up back on the island.

Back on the beach, Desmond's still strangling Charlie. He unfortunately stops, but then utters one of the greatest closing lines of any episode that ever aired on television:

"I'm sorry because...no matter what I try to do. You're going to die, Charlie."

L O S T

Why it's the best episode of LOST:

1. The "wrinkle"

Do you remember how you felt when it slowly dawned on you that Desmond's "flashback" might be real? I remember the episode was aired again the following week (right before "Stranger in a Strange Land" - how much of a downer was that) and I sat there watching every second, utterly fascinated as if I was seeing it for the first time.

Desmond's newfound abilities opened up so many cool theories on what's going on in the show. First off, to me, it opened up a potential explanation as to how all of these coincidences and connections happened on the show and how all these people with intertwined histories end up on the same island together: someone went back in time and arranged the whole thing. Time travel is the deus ex machina to end all deus ex machinas need an explanation as to how Jack and his half-sister both end up on the same flight back to L.A. together? Simple. Someone goes back in time and hires a fake psychic to put her on the plane. Need to correct something horrible that's going to happen in the future? Simple. Go back in time and make sure it never happens.

Maybe that's a bit of a cop out to some, but if used properly it can set up all sorts of wonderful plot lines, like what they did with Charlie last season. Not to mention, after several clunker flashbacks from the mini-series at the beginning of the season, Desmond's trip through time was a wonderful twist on the formula. Best to come along until the finale, anyway. :)

2. The best scene with the best evil father on the show

Desmond	Uh, with all due respect sir. I haven't come here to interview for a position in your company.
Charles Widmore	You haven't?
Desmond	No sir. I came here to ask for your daughter's hand in marriage. We've been together...2 years now and...Pen's moving in. And...I love her. Your permission would mean everything to me.
Charles Widmore	I'm impressed Hume. What a noble gesture.
	[Widmore gets up and crosses over to a wet bar by the wall]
Charles Widmore	You know anything about whiskey?
Desmond	Uh, no I'm afraid not sir.
Charles Widmore	This is a 60 year MacCutcheon. Named after Anderson MacCutcheon, esteemed Admiral from the Royal Navy. He retired with more medals than any man before or since.
	[Widmore gets 2 glasses and the bottle of whiskey and goes back to his desk]
Charles Widmore	Moved to the highlands to see out his remaining years. Admiral MacCutcheon was a great man, Hume.
	[Widmore places the 2 glasses side by side on his desk and opens the bottle of whiskey]
Charles Widmore	This was his crowning achievement.
	[Widmore pours a finger of whiskey into only one glass]
Charles Widmore	This swallow is worth more than you could make in a month.
	[Widmore drinks the whiskey]
Charles Widmore	And to share it with you would be a waste. And a disgrace to the great man who made it. Because you, Hume, will never be a great man.
Desmond	Mr. Widmore. I know I'm not...
Charles Widmore	What you're not...is worthy of drinking my whiskey. How could you ever be worthy of my daughter?

This scene is one of my favorites of the entire show.

Charles Widmore has currently usurped both Christian Shepherd and Mr. Paik in my book as the "father most likely to bring about the destruction of life as we know it." All three men are rich and powerful, with considerable influence. In one of my earliest theories, I thought Christian was still alive and orchestrating everything behind the scenes. We now know that isn't true (well, sorta) and that his body has likely been absorbed by the Monster (like it probably did to some others).

And while there are parallels between Charles Widmore's treatment of Desmond and Mr. Paik's treatment of Jin (both men look down on their daughter's choice of a lower class man), Paik's his motivations appear to stem more from business rather than spite. And Mr. Paik at least gave Jin his blessing to marry his daughter and gave him a position of responsibility within his organization. Charles Widmore has simply done everything humanly possible to destroy Desmond's life. You have to wonder if he was responsible for Desmond getting thrown into military prison too.

Now if you clicked on that third theory link I posted above, you know that there is thought going around that Charles Widmore is a course corrector. In other words, the only reason he's being so harsh with Desmond is to make damn sure he ends up on the island. Especially since he could have easily sent Penny to pick up the wine from the monastery so she'd meet Desmond for the first time.

While part of me could kind of see this, I'm more inclined to think he really is a bastard, and that innate quality is what the real course correctors were counting on. Regardless, in the two short scenes we've seen him, Charles Widmore has simply owned the screen. He's not quite Cigarette Smoking Man, but the potential is certainly there.

3. Ms. Hawking

Desmond	You're here to...to talk me out of marrying Penny. Well, it won't bloody work!
Ms. Hawking	Oh yes it will.
Desmond	No! There is no island. There is no...button. It's madness! I love her, she loves me. I'm going to spend the rest of my life with her!
Ms. Hawking	No, Desmond. You're not.
	[The scaffolding from the construction site suddenly collapses, burying the man with the red sneakers and killing him instantly]
Desmond	Oh my God!
	[Desmond turns and looks at Ms. Hawking]
Desmond	You knew that was going to happen, didn't you!
	[Ms. Hawking silently nods her head yes]
Desmond	Then why didn't you stop it! Why didn't you do anything!
Ms. Hawking	Because it wouldn't matter. Had I warned him about the scaffolding, tomorrow he'd be hit by a taxi. If I warned him about the taxi, he'd fall in the shower and break his neck. The universe, unfortunately, has a way of...course correcting. That man was supposed to die. That was his path. Just as it's your path to go to the island. You don't do it because you choose to, Desmond. You do it because you are supposed to.
Desmond	I'm going to meet Penny in an hour. I've got a ring. She'll say yes. I can choose whatever I want.
Ms. Hawking	You may not like your path, Desmond. But, pushing that button is the only truly great thing that you will ever do.
Desmond	How much for the ring?

Another of my favorite overall scenes. That's two in one episode.

The real question regarding this scene to me, and I've pondered this before, is if Desmond really has a choice or not? On one hand, as Mr. Red Shoes and Charlie seem to indicate, you can't escape your fate, especially if your fate is to die (of course, in that regard we ALL can't escape our fate). However, judging from Ms. Hawking's reaction in the shop it seemed like to me that Desmond certainly did have a choice, otherwise Ms. Hawking wouldn't have had to try and talk him out of it.

Desmond, of course, is a special situation. I imagine most course correctors simply have to nudge the proper people into place at the proper time, like when Desmond met Penny outside the monastery. But what happens when someone you worked so hard to get to the proper place suddenly gets a chance to do it all over again? Do the same fate rules still apply? Ms. Hawking certainly seemed to go out of her way to convince Desmond to leave Penny as he did before. After all, if he was truly fated to end up on the island, Ms. Hawking shouldn't have had to do anything - fate would have taken care of it for her, right?

I think Desmond had a choice. He could have destroyed the world if he wanted to, but instead...

4. Desmond's choice... and heartbreak

Please...let me go back! Let me go back one more time. I'll do it right! I'll do it right this time! I'm sorry Penny! [beginning to cry] I'll change it! I'll change it...

...he had his heart broken all over again. This scene was the second most emotional of the season for me, right behind Locke's first encounter with his wheelchair.

One of the things though that still puzzles me about this scene is how the time travel actually worked. It seems like Desmond's consciousness is what traveled into the past, triggered each time by a traumatic event (Hatch exploding - getting whacked with a bat). Of course, this is very similar to Days of Future Past, which I've talked about before in regards to the finale.

Regardless though, by heart broke along with Desmond watching this scene.

5. The best ending

"When I saw the lightning hit the roof...you were electrocuted. And when you heard Claire was in the water...you, you drowned trying to save her. I dove in myself so you never went in. I...I've tried brother! I've tried twice to save you but...the universe has a way of course correcting and...and I can't stop it forever. I'm sorry. I'm sorry because...no matter what I try to do. You're going to die, Charlie."

Daniel over at The Lost Diary often likes to say that Lost episodes should end "right." That is, when the big black screen with L O S T comes up at the end and the drum sounds, we should be shellshocked, jaws open, blown away and left begging for more. The entire first season did this pretty well, but season two, while there were some good episodes - "Lockdown" and "Man of Science" in particular - largely failed in this regard. Same thing with the season 3 mini-series; the "I Do" cliffhanger was simply awful.

But "Flashes" had the best ending of any episode on the show. Kudos to Dominic and Henry who simply knocked themselves out on the scene. And I simply can't deny that the fact Charlie was the one who was going to die held an incredible amount of evil pleasure for me.

But at that point, being promised Charlie's death was simply icing on the tastiest LOST cake of them all. Mmmm... DHARMA cake... *drool*

Summary: When I initially scratched out my list, this episode was #2 behind "The 23rd Psalm." But as I thought about it more and more, Eko's death in "The Cost of Living" bothered me. It made Eko's utterly incredible past basically seem shallow and meaningless. It made his seemingly genuine attempts at redemption feel false. And ultimately it dropped "23" down to #2.

And that's because everything I felt in "The 23rd Psalm" the first time I saw it, I felt tenfold in "Flashes." Desmond is a tragic character. He's flawed, but he has good intentions. And he's desperately in love with a woman that he ended up running away from rather than fighting for.

So what happens? He's given a second chance to do it all over again, a second chance to right the greatest mistake he ever made in his life. And he seizes it, he's going to do it. Going to do it right this time.

And then he's told that if he takes that chance, if he marries the love of his life, the world as we know it would end. And that he has no choice but to make the same mistake he made all those years ago over again.

So he sacrifices the only thing he loves, the only thing in his life that's ever bought him happiness, to save us all. L O S T

Best. Episode. Evar.

Whatcha think?

(As always, thanks to The Lost Hatch for their excellent episode transcripts)

Previous Reviews:
#10: White Rabbit
#9: The Man From Tallahassee
#8: Exodus
#7: Numbers
#6: Lockdown
#5: Man of Science, Man of Faith
#4: The Pilot
#3: Walkabout
#2: The 23rd Psalm

The Magic Box

Apparently it's sitting in J.J. Abrams' office, unopened. Check out this funny, inspirational little lecture by J.J. - makes you want to go out and write something... and really, really want to watch SOME NEW LOST! :)

Can You Find 815?

Aw, man. There's a new Lost webgame and I don't have time to play. Stupid thesis. :(

Looks like it's going to fill in some of the blanks on the search for Flight 815 - maybe we'll actually come to learn how the flight was "found" in a trench with all persons aboard. It also introduces us to another person on the flight: Sonya, one of the flight attendants.

I'm curious to see in what year this game takes place. Remember that the actions of Rachel Blake in The Lost Experience took place in 2006. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe TLE ever explicitly stated whether Flight 815 had been found as Naomi states on the show (and which Penny confirmed to Charlie in the finale). In other words, if the game is canon, it presumably this webgame takes place long before Naomi's crash on the island.

Have any of you guys started playing? It is fun? Interesting?

I've also put up a new poll. Honestly I was kind of shocked that so many people were sad to see Charlie die. But then I thought I may have worded the question poorly because Charlie's death was sad, even to me, but I wasn't really sad to see him off the show. I think the new poll is closer to what I was curious about. My vote goes to Eko, although Mikhail is a close second.

Back to writing now. *sigh* :(

Happy New Year!

I really shouldn't be doing anything Lost related right now since my thesis is due next week, bu tI just had to share this: Lost-Media has the Season 4 cast promo photos up.

*insert Flanders-like squeal of joy here*

Scroll back and forth to see them all. I think Elizabeth Mitchell has officially become my favorite eye candy of the show. Smart, tough and beautiful with a sinister side. Me likey. Plus, she's not married to a hobbit.

Eeeeeeeeeee.... check 'em out. And have a great new year everyone! :)

Lost: Access Granted Tidbits

I'm loving my Lost Season 3 DVD, but I was bummed when I found out the Blu-Ray edition included an additional special feature not included on my DVD: Access Granted.

Basically it's Darlton sitting down and answering some long standing questions, several of which we've all speculated on. As it turns out though, DarkUFO has a nice, concise summary of all the info. None of these are really spoilers, just clarifications of things we speculated on or already knew. The best tidbits to me are:

1) Kelvin Inman, Mikhail, Christian Shepherd are officially dead, however "just because you're dead doesn't mean you can't reappear."

Boo! Hiss! Not surprising though. This, to me, says that the Monster probably absorbed their bodies and will assume their shapes at some point.

2) The others do not just get in the submarine and travel off the island. The submarine is only a part of the mechanism that allows the others to travel off the island.

This is interesting, especially given that you seem to need to be unconscious in order to travel back and forth. This has a very Lanogliers feel to it for me: a Stephen King story that deals with time travel (sorta) where only people that were unconscious survived the warp.

3) We haven't seen the last supply drop. How it's being dropped on the island is a mystery. Keep in mind that just because the package had a parachute attached does not mean it was actually "dropped."

Teleportation? Magic boxing?

4) There's only one Richard Alpert. He just has good skin. "Age is all relative on the island."

So much for the immortal Richard Alpert. But is age relative once you leave the island?

5) The Others are responsible for bringing Anthony Cooper to the island. Drugs + Accident = arriving on the island. "There are other nefarious things that The Others are doing in the real world, but we can't tell you about that yet."

Again with the unconsciousness. So I guess Ben was sort of lying when he said they pulled him out of the magic box? And I wonder if it was really all Ben's doing in order to push Locke's buttons, i.e. Jacob didn't order this?

6) The Blast Door map was incredibly accurate. However, there were two spectrums to the map, and we only saw one. The question mark is the Pearl Station, and the various references to the monster and its travel patterns were "pretty definitive."

The question mark is officially the Pearl? I'm a bit disappointed. But there being another layer to the map is very interesting to me, especially since in order to see it, we're really going to have to get a Radzinsky or Kelvin flashback, probably via the monster or some other DHARMA employee (Marvin Candlemudfax).

Some very neat stuff. There's lots more that I didn't talk about too about Walt, the Swan, Room 23 and Henry Gale. Check it out!

Lost Theory Question #8: Kelvin Joe Inman

I love Clancy Brown. He's got one of the best voices in the business and a calm, menacing presence on the screen. His Kelvin is one of the most enigmatic characters of the entire show - all we really know about him post-Iraq is what he told Desmond while they were in the Hatch together. However, since we also know he was just stringing him along so he could steal the Elizabeth and escape, how much of what he said to him is really true? Let's first take a look at what he told Des in the Hatch:

Kelvin	Are you him?
Desmond	What?
Kelvin	What did one snowman say to the other?
Desmond	What are you talking about? Who are you?
Kelvin	I'm Inman. Kelvin Inman.
Desmond	What... what happened to my boat?
Kelvin	I found you washed up on the beach. There was no boat.
	[The alarm sounds and Kelvin enters the numbers]
Desmond	What was all that about, then?
Kelvin	Just saving the world.
	[Shot of Desmond watching the Orientation Film]
Marvin	Not long after the experiments began, however, there was an incident. And since that time the following protocol has been observed. Every 108 minutes the button must be pushed. From the moment the alarm sounds you will have 4 minutes to enter the code into the microcomputer processor.
Kelvin	How many times are you going to watch that thing?
Desmond	Why are there missing parts?
Kelvin	Radzinsky made some edits.
Desmond	Who's Radzinsky?
Kelvin	He was my partner?
Desmond	And what happened to him?
Kelvin	Just make sure you put that back behind Turn of the Screw when you're done with it.
Desmond	Why do you wear that suit?
Kelvin	So I don't get infected out there. Give yourself a shot of this every 9 days. You were out there a while before I found you. Hope it's not too late.

Later we see Kelvin working on the Blast Door Map:

Desmond	How do you even remember where you left off from?
Kelvin	Slowly, Des. Very, very slowly. You should have seen Radzinsky do this. He had a photographic memory. I mean, this whole baby was his idea.
Desmond	Yeah, right, Radzinsky. Radzinsky figured out how to fake a lockdown. Radzinsky created this great invisible map. More and more tales about your former partner. Yet for some reason, you never want to tell me what bloody well happened to him.
	[Kelvin walks over to Desmond and points to a spot on the ceiling]
Kelvin	See that brown stain, there? That's Radzinsky. He put a shotgun in his mouth when I was asleep. The bitch of it was I only had a 108 minutes to bury the poor bastard.
Desmond	Well, if you don't want me to go crazy, next time let me go out.
Kelvin	Well, you want to go out there with the quarantine and the hostiles?
Desmond	I haven't been outside for 2 bloody years! Yes, I want to go. I was in the army for God's sake!
Kelvin	Oh, right, Her Majesty's Army, correct? Tell me, Desmond, why'd you leave that nice old lady's army? Oh, I remember now. You got kicked out because you couldn't follow orders.
Desmond	And why did you leave your army, Kelvin, huh?
Kelvin	Because men followed my orders. Ah, but then thank God I joined the Dharma Initiative. Namaste, thank you and good luck.
Desmond	Please, Kelvin. Let me go out. Huh? Just once?
Kelvin	Sorry, Des. You stay here. You push the button. That's an order.

So what can we glean from this?

1) Radzinsky - I think Kelvin's probably telling the truth when he says Radzinsky edited the Orientation Film and made the map with a photographic memory, but I bet he's lying about how Radzinsky died. On one hand, you would think he wouldn't want to kill him and be trapped in the Swan. On the other, maybe Radzinsky was planning on abandoning his partner, much like Kelvin was planning to do with Desmond, and Kelvin shot him before he could go through with it.

It seems to me that at some point we're going to have to hear Radzinsky's story. He obviously pre-dates Kelvin, but the fact he was making a map of stuff he knows about DHARMA suggests he was really kept in the dark about everything. Furthermore his notations on the map also suggest he was in the Swan 1) Post-incident and 2) Post-Purge. Thus he may have been someone DHARMA recruited after the purge to keep the button pushed. While Kelvin says he joined DHARMA voluntarily after the CIA, maybe both he and Radzinsky were abandoned by DHARMA in the Swan. The Snowman Joke certainly suggests Kelvin was waiting for his replacement. Either way, it does seem that for some reason, DHARMA failed to send anyone else, even though the food drops continued. Maybe the Food Drop Station (Symbol: Apollo Candy Bar) failed to get the memo. :)

Memphish recently asked who the heck "Him" was and why were they making the map in the first place? It seems to me that Kelvin and Radzinsky were recruited post-purge and abandoned by DHARMA. They were kept in the dark about a lot of things except for the Swan station, where they were essentially kept prisoner by the button. Remember that, according to Darlton, Ben had no knowledge of the Swan until Locke uncovered it - DHARMA wanted to keep the station secret. It stands to reason that DHARMA really wouldn't tell any of their recruits any more than they absolutely needed to know. I imagine once their replacements failed to show up, they started venturing out to see if they could find out why and, hopefully, someone they could get to replace them.

From the Blast Door Map, we know they knew about the other stations (although they didn't seem to know their location) and they seemed to know the computer could be used to talk to other stations. Eventually they must have decided to head out and explore as much as they could, in the process discovering the sickness was a fake. They made the map in black light just in case there was a hidden camera watching them. I have no idea if this works - you have to imagine the writers tested it, right?

The big question for me here is why did Radzinsky edit the Orientation tape with regard to using the computer to communicate? Was this part of his plot to abandon Kelvin?

2) Kelvin's men - This sounded genuine to me too, genuine guilt. We know he forced Sayid to torture people so he's certainly capable of making underlings do horrible things. But is there more to it than that? Kelvin sounds an awful lot like all of our Losties here - a sordid, possibly murderous past from which he's running away.

Now we get to the fail-safe. There are two separate flashbacks that address this:

Desmond	What is this?
Kelvin	This is the only other way out, partner.
Desmond	What are you talking about?
Kelvin	Failsafe. Turn this key and this all goes away.
Desmond	What's behind that wall, Kelvin? Huh? What was the incident?
Kelvin	Electromagnetism, geologically unique. The incident... there was a leak. So now the charge builds up and every time we push the button it discharges it before it gets too big.
Desmond	Why make us do it... push the button? If we... if we can just...
Kelvin	[Laughing] Here's the real question, Desmundo... do you have the courage to take your finger out of the damn and blow the whole thing up, instead?

Then we flash-forward to Desmond confronting Kelvin outside the Hatch.

Kelvin	Well, gosh, I didn't think you had the stones to come after me. I was a spook for 10 years, Des. I know when I'm being followed.
Desmond	What are you doing with my boat?
Kelvin	I'm fixing it.
Desmond	You were leaving?
Kelvin	Well, I mean, not yet. It's still about a week away. You wrecked it pretty good, Des. What do you think? Want to come with me?
Desmond	Come where? What about the button?
Kelvin	Screw the button, man. Who knows if it's even real?
Desmond	That's not what you said when you were going on and on about dams and electromagnetics and failsafes!
Kelvin	Well, I was drunk.
Desmond	Why did you lie to me?
Kelvin	I lied to you because I needed a sucker to save the world after I left.
Desmond	You crazy old bastard! You stole my life!
Kelvin	Oh, come on.
Desmond	What else did you lie to me about huh?! What else? Tell me?!

First off, what do we learn here?

1) The Sickness is a red herring - Kelvin confirms this here. And you have to wonder if Kelvin and Radzinsky discovered it the same way Desmond did - "Oh look, an errant hole in the biohazard suit. Hmmm.., I haven't gotten sick. Let's go out without one and see what happens."

2) The Incident - The incident is real and the magnetism is real. Kelvin obviously believes in it or he wouldn't still be there pushing the button. However, after Desmond catches him, he dismisses the button as a possible hoax!

This, to me, is incredibly perplexing at face value. From the first flashback, Kelvin sounds like he's genuinely scared of the button. In the second, he not only disses it, he even suggests that Desmond abandon it after spending three years scaring him into staying! The only thing I can think of here is that he was just trying to calm Desmond down and get him to lower his guard.

But what exactly was DHARMA doing with the electromagnetism? Why didn't Kelvin blow the fail-safe earlier? Did he know the Swan would implode? Was he told that the world would be destroyed if he turned the key? We still don't really know what the ultimate consequences of the Discharge are going to be, however I can imagine they're not going to be good for anyone on the island.

Now I'm going to ask the big question: Is Kelvin dead? Let's take the two possibilities:

1) He's dead - In this case, I imagine the Monster scavenged his body like it did with Christian Shepherd's and Yemi's.

2) He's alive - If he's alive (which is what I hope), then where is he and why didn't he take the Elizabeth? If the Others found him in the harbor, they would have found the Elizabeth too. It's possible he might have been captured on the way back to the Swan, bloodied and disoriented from his fall. But even saying that, where have the Others been keeping him? The Temple? He wasn't kept in either the Barracks or the Hydra, that's for sure.

Occam's Razor says he's dead, but the reasons I think he might be alive are because 1) It just seems like a stumble on some rocks is an awfully cheesy way for a major CIA spook to die and 2) His flashbacks seem to be greatly important.

We have a dearth of information from the Purge up until Kelvin arrived on the island. Ben is certainly going to get another flashback and fill a bit of that in, but I doubt he could fill in all the blanks since he didn't know about the Swan. I, for one, would welcome Kelvin Inman running around the island again. Just wait until he sees what's left of the Swan. :)

He's Special, Dude

I've been so busy, I know been out of the loop for a while. Couple quick hits before I plunge back to work:

Jorge's Blog

Did you guys know Jorge Garcia started up a little personal blog on Blogger? It's pretty funny. Don't miss his Halloween costume.

Room 23



In other news, have you seen the newest Mobisode, Room 23? The ODI has the video and transcript. It's pretty neat, actually giving us new information on the Others and Walt. It's cleverly done too because they managed to make Walt the premise of the mobisode without actually having him on screen. This basically confirms/lends credence to several things:

1) Room 23 was the "room" Bea Klugh threatened Walt with back in "Three Minutes"

2) As I speculated before, Walt's powers seem to involve summoning animals to some degree, especially subconsciously under duress. And I can easily see him being under duress in Room 23. Question now is, was he subjected to the same treatment as Karl in there or did he have his own "special" test? Looks like Ben was telling the truth when he told Michael Walt was "more than they bargained for."

3) Jacob was the one who wanted Walt. So what did he want Walt for? To open the Magic Box? To help him somehow, like he asked Locke to help him?

Now I really want to see a full flashback on Walt's time with the Others. What a great episode to chew on. :)

Top Ten Episodes #2: 2.10 "The 23rd Psalm"

Quote:
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: For thou art with me;
Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

TV.com Rating: 9.3 (#24 overall)

Short Recap: We get to see Mr. Eko's sordid past, as a group of Nigerian drug lords force him to kill an innocent man in order to save his brother's life. Eko goes on to become a feared drug lord himself while his brother goes on to become a priest and respected community leader.

Eko "purchases" a large amount of heroin from some fellow thugs, but he needs to smuggle it out of the country in order to sell it. Since the only private planes currently allowed in the air are for U.N. aid or Catholic missionaries, Eko turns to his brother for help. He asks Yemi to make him and his associates priests so they can smuggle the heroin out of the country in Virgin Mary statues further telling him that if he refuses, his associates will burn his church to the ground. Yemi reluctantly signs.

As the plane is about to take off, Yemi pleads with Eko to stay. The military then appears, guns a blazin'. Yemi admits to Eko that he tipped them off and ends up getting shot in the crossfire. The plane takes off with Yemi's body aboard and the military thinks Eko, disguised in priest's garb, is actually Yemi. Eko returns to the village in Yemi's place.

On the island, Eko notices Charlie's Virgin Mary statue while talking with Claire. He smashes it open to reveal the heroin inside. He finds Charlie and demands he take him to the Beechcraft. Charlie reluctantly agrees.

On the way to the crash site, Eko is confronted by the Monster who scans his brain for his memories. After a short standoff, it glides silently back into the jungle. Eko and Charlie find the plane and Eko finds the body of his brother. He takes the cross from around his brother's neck, gives Charlie a statue to replace the one he broke and together they burn the plane with Yemi's body inside.

Claire, noticeably upset with Charlie for lying to her, kicks him out of her tent. The episode ends with Charlie adding the Virgin Mary statue to a hidden cache of others he had secretly scavenged from the wreck.

Why it's a classic: The very best episodes of Lost generally give us the golden trifecta of plot advancement, character development and island mythology, served up with some savory acting and dialogue.

The 23rd Psalm does this better than just about any other.

I have to admit I loved Mr. Eko from the start. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje has one of the most tremendous screen presences I've ever seen; he completely dominates every scene and his vow of silence early on merely added to his mystique. So when this episode came along I think fans in general were pretty primed for his backstory.

Oh, and what a backstory it was.

By this point in the second season, generally considered the worst of the three my most Lost fans (although I have to admit I really loved it), the flashbacks of the main characters were already becoming repetitive and tepid. So the episode had an initial bonus going in of being something new. But I certainly wasn't prepared for just how powerful Eko's backstory would be.

Every segment was intense: Eko saving his brother by killing an innocent man, Eko brutally killing two fellow thieves with one swipe of his knife ("Go. Go and tell them that Mr. Eko let you live"), Yemi's death and Eko's guilt. We were left with a portrait of an extremely complex character, one capable of incredible brutality and evil despite the fact we recognize (and even sympathize with) his motivations. Interestingly though, Yemi does not share our sympathy. At all.

Mr. Eko	So I come to visit you for the first time in 3 years and you won't hear my confession? You know, Monsignor would have said he failed to raise a proper Catholic boy.
Yemi	Well, why waste your time confessing. It won't help you.
Mr. Eko	It won't?
Yemi	No, for confession to mean something you must have a penitent heart.
Mr. Eko	You and your guilt, Yemi. I've only done what I needed to do to survive. How is that a sin?
Yemi	You may live far from here, but that doesn't mean I haven't heard of who you are and what you have done.
	[Mr. Eko pulls the cross he wore as a boy out from under Yemis shirt]
Mr. Eko	Have you forgotten how you got that cross, brother... the day they took me? Is what I did that day a sin? Or is it forgiven because it was you that was saved?

When Eko says here that he only did what he needed to do to survive, we believe him. But is that really his only motivation? Do you think Eko enjoys his power and his ability to instill people with fear. Yemi does and tells Eko so. Later on he further tells him he will never be a priest.

Mr. Eko	I'm going to make this easy for you. You will make us priests and we will fly the drugs out ourselves.
Yemi	Make you priests?
Mr. Eko	Just sign these ordination documents and I will give you the money for the vaccines.
Yemi	Leave this church now, Eko. Go. Now.
Mr. Eko	Yemi, I understand that you live in a world where righteousness and evil seem very far apart, but that is not the real world. I am your brother and I would never do anything to hurt you, but my friends... if you do not do what I ask... they will burn this church to the ground. Is that worth less than the price of your name on a piece of paper? Think of the lives you will save.
	[After a mental struggle, Yemi grabs the papers and signs them]
Yemi	My signature does not make you a priest, Eko. You could never be a priest.

Obviously this conversation had a wee bit of impact on Eko. :)

At the time, this episode showed us a despicable man who was trying to turn his life around, trying to make up for the horrible things of the past (hullo thar redemption theme). And I don't know about you, but I believed Eko HAD redeemed himself at the end when he took his brother's cross.

The rest of season also followed in the same manner: Eko became the priest of the Lost community, baptizing Aaron (hmmm... in retrospect, did that baptism count), building a church on the beach and even telling Michael a handy parable as they sopped up Libby's blood (one of my favorite scenes of the show). The fact that it was later revealed Eko did even more horrible things, not feeling sorry for them in the least, is the only reason I did not make this episode #1, since it takes away a lot of the power Eko's backstory held (I discuss this more in the summary below).

But, of course, Eko's story isn't the only reason this one's a classic. There's also 1) Charlie's banter with Eko and 2) the first real good look we get of Smokey.

This episode actually marked the beginning of Charlie's decline, despite it giving him his most memorable dialogue of the series. Episode 2.12, "Fire + Water," is easily the worst episode of the season, if not the entire series. But here we see Charlie at his best, holding his own against Eko's intensity and uttering one of the funniest lines of the entire series:

Mr. Eko	Climb that tree.
Charlie	What?
Mr. Eko	Climb that tree and perhaps you will be able to get your bearings or see the plane.
Charlie	You climb it. What if I don't? You going to beat me with your Jesus stick? I find it a little odd that your scripture stick has dried blood on it.
Mr. Eko	Are you going to climb that tree or not?
Charlie	What kind of priest are you, anyway?

Simply awesome. Josh, my roommate at the time, and I were rolling. It was also touching to hear Charlie recite the 23rd Psalm along with Eko when they burned the plane, reminding us of Charlie's strong religious streak.

But the big reveal this episode was ol' Smokey. Whoever was responsible for convincing the brainless execs at ABC to keep Smokey a secret deserves a basket of fish biscuits because it was one hell of a surprise. So what did that one encounter tell us?

1) It really is a cloud of black smoke - Even though we saw Smokey in "Exodus," I still wasn't totally convinced Smokey was just a black smoke cloud; I thought it might be a shapeshifter (which it sorta is). But it seems the the smoke is, at least, its default form.

2) Smokey can read minds - One of the best TiVo moments of the series. We now know too that it doesn't just seem to read minds but it seems to be able to communicate telepathically too, at very least through dreams.

3) It comes from underground - You can dispute this if you want, but it looked pretty clear to me. When Smokey appears, trees and soil fly into the air and if you watch it as it leaves Eko, it clearly looks to me like it goes down into the ground, just like it did when it tried to drag Locke with it in "Exodus." Is there a Cerberus Vent near the Beechcraft? Seems so.

Looking back on the scene, I still don't quite understand what the Monster's motivation is. There's something it saw in Eko that made it spare him. His devotion to his brother, perhaps? Later, it asked Eko for his help in making Locke push the button. The fact that Eko failed in this regard might be partially why the Monster killed him (is the Monster capable of anger and retribution), but it seems more to do with the fact that Eko wasn't sorry for any of his sins. But if that's the case, why did it not kill Eko the first time it met him?

The only thing I can think of here is that Eko did indeed try to redeem himself at first. But the destruction of the Swan shook his faith and made him defiant again. Also maybe the Monster communicating to him as Yemi made him stubborn. Maybe the fact that Yemi felt so strongly about everything he had done made Eko react to the Monster the way he did. Since the writers have long said understanding the Monster is the key to understanding the island, we're probably going to have to wait awhile for a definitive answer.

Summary: I so wanted to make this episode #1. In fact, for a very long time it was my #1 episode. But as much as I tried to separate "The 23rd Psalm" from what the writers did to Eko's character down the road, I simply couldn't. Much of the power of this episode stems from the fact Eko was an unabashedly evil character who did some horrible things who finds redemption and closure on the island. But despite his evil deeds, you also sympathize with his actions because they all stem from his (good) motivation to save his brother's life. It certainly made me think Eko was a good man who merely did what he needed to survive (as he repeatedly professes).

But "The Cost of Living" essentially retconned this. They showed another horrible episode from his past, one where he did have a choice; He could have chosen to stay in Yemi's church and dealt with the warlords in a different way. He could have become, like Yemi, a true priest and a peaceful leader of the community. Instead he sold the vaccine (that would have been stolen anyway) to another warlord and used the proceeds to run away from his guilt and shame. And in the process he defiles Yemi's church, killing men inside and even washing his hands in the holy water basin. Then, much like he told Yemi so long ago, Eko told the Monster (in Yemi form) that he did not regret anything he had done:

"I did not ask for the life that I was given. But...it was given, nonetheless. And with it...I did my best."

While he certainly didn't regret saving his brother's life, he certainly regretted much of what he had done since then. While this discrepancy may seem trivial, it stained Eko's character and, to me, took away from "The 23rd Psalm" quite a bit. You mean all the time he had spent repenting during the second season was fake? I just can totally buy that. And while the episode today still retains much of it's power thanks to Eko's incredible origin, the Monster scene and his banter with Charlie, it gets demoted to #2.

As just a final word on Eko, there is one loose end in his story: We still don't really know how he got assigned to Australia. He was supposed to be heading to London after the events of "The Cost of Living"; we still don't know whether he even made it there. And furthermore, we really don't know why he was heading to L.A. either. I wonder if we ever will?

Despite all this, not only was "The 23rd Psalm" the best episode of Season 2 (for which it was nominated for a "Best Writing" Emmy) but to me it still stands alone as one of the best episodes of Lost. And for someone watching the show through for the very first time, I don't know how you can not vault Eko's character up your favorite character list after viewing it.

What say you? Was Eko one of your favorites? My #1 favorite episode review will be up sometime before Christmas. Yay!

(As always, thanks to The Lost Hatch for their excellent episode transcripts)

Previous Reviews:
#10: White Rabbit
#9: The Man From Tallahassee
#8: Exodus
#7: Numbers
#6: Lockdown
#5: Man of Science, Man of Faith
#4: The Pilot
#3: Walkabout