UConn James

Yeah. I didn't get like it during the ep at all. And then about 20 minutes after, I started crying, the runny nose, etc.... Felt it for a few minutes. I think most of what got me was Jack dying with Vincent by his side. I lost my dog two years ago next month and I've had a very hard time of it. We recently got another pup, but the memories of our past friends don't go away. And so, I thought, 'That's not such a bad way to go....' Jack didn't die alone. Well, before we get into all that.... Now, recapping one hour is hard enough, and now we've got two and a half, and try to make summary statements of what it all means. It seems too big a task. We all saw what happened with who went where, who did what. So, after being told from the start that this show is not about characters in purgatory. True enough. the original timeline wasn't, but we learned that the Sideways world was like purgatory and Desmond served as a ferryman of sorts. For all those who griped about the Light a couple of weeks ago, how 'bout them apples?! The reason why it worked tonight was because it was established there. And it also made it pretty clear that this was not about all the Island Protector stories that came before or after. Hurley & Ben's little exchange suggests they were on the island for a long time and had their own war stories. As Jimmy Kimmel said tonight, this was Jack's story, his fixing Jacob's mistake (and we needed to see Jacob's mistake to get a line on what Jack needed to fix). Fixing is what Jack does. Some people left the Island, some stayed. What becomes of those who left? They lived their lives. Maybe Kate and Sawyer did eventually get together in the real world. We don't know. But that's not what's important, and we can fill some of it in for ourselves. What mattered was the time these people spent together, what they did that made them heroes. What happened to Richard, do you suppose? Seems like he now ages and lives out his life, but he is not in the church. Harold Perrineau, on Kimmel, said that some of the castaways were not in the church at the end. They weren't souls that moved on to whatever the church represented. Michael, Ana Lucia who was "not ready" according to Desmond, Rousseau and Alex, among others. HP said he thinks that people who don't deserve it remain on the island as the voices that whisper. I also think it's kind of fitting that Ben didn't go in the church, tho I don't think he would have gotten too harsh a treatment --- what happened, had to happen. It was nice to see him get some manner of redemption for all the stuff he did by being a "really good Number Two" to Hurley, for however long their tenure lasted. Really need to go back and see who was in the church... and who wasn't. I would like to write here that I think Christian Shepard may have gotten "Island Enlightenment" early in Jack's life, which turned him to drink, turned him into a bit of a cynic and someone who just didn't try b/c fate will just do what it does. Interesting, tho, that Christian does not stay in the church. He's not part of this group, really. Wonder what the previous groups' afterlife is like --- are Mother, Claudia, Jacob and MIB together? How long does the church stay last? And I guess that's something that's up to each of us according to our beliefs. Several religious symbols were in the stained glass behind Jack in that scene, but I don't think it necessarily has to be a religious reading. OK. Time to sleep on this a little. Read what Doc Jensen has for us tomorrow. A great bit of story. It's going to be very hard to watch drama again w/o comparing their quality to this. If LOST doesn't win Emmy awards this season, something is very wrong.

Yellow-fonted for a very vague spoiler about a love interest and a my theory on it: It's been revealed by some people in the know that we're going to be slightly surprised by Kate's final love interest in the Sideways World, but that it will be 'fitting for her character.' My guess is that it's going to be her childhood friend Tom from Iowa... or the policeman she married in the original timeline. Not going to be very satisfying for the Jack-Kate crowd or those hoping she somehow gets back with Sawyer/James Ford. But, really, I don't see how she was ever right for either of them. Always bounced b/w the two of them b/c they were there and each of them weren't quite what she needed.

Having re-watched the pilot ep tonight, pondering the significance was of Jack waking up so far from the wreckage... and as Jacob said, near the "Heart of the Island." Jack said he blacked out when the plane hit turbulence. Wondering now whether it was something more akin to a timeflash (e.g. the candidates arriving in 2007 post-Incident, in 1977 post-Ajira, etc.) or some other anomaly. Tomorrow at this time, we'll have seen it all.

Something I just thought of.... There've been a few comparisons of Ben to Napoleon this season. Perhaps his most famous line was, "Apres moi, la deluge" --- literally translated "After me, [comes] the flood." Note that Ben's command of the Others came to an end, and the Island, in the Sideways world, was completely flooded. Also have to go back and point out the comedic value after Richard was thrown into the jungle by Smokey. Some of Michael Emerson's best acting on this show has been silent (see: guilting Hurley into giving him half an Apollo bar). Here, Ben sees the ageless wonder flung into center field, he turns around calmly, and sits on a Dharmaville porch chair. No dying on his feet, huh? Terrified look on his face, just waiting. And then it doesn't happen. Also, Jacob's quote to Hurley was interesting. 'After this fire burns out, you won't see me anymore.' Is this alluding that the other candidates' candidacies / their 'special powers' end once the new protector is anointed? Finally, Locke saying in Jack's office. "I'm ready to get out of this chair." Upon this second viewing, I flashed on the figure sitting in the chair in Jacob's cabin.... Exactly what it means, right now I don't know. But I think that was a pretty plain linkage.

How very Jacob-like of you, duey.... "Now that, I can do!" I'll be watching straight through, broadcast feed. Old-school (and, w/o a DVR, our only school). Will be watching with my best friend who's in town for the weekend. Hooked him onto LOST back near the start. From-scratch pizza, rhubarb crisp, Vanilla Coke and TV history. Awesomeness. I can't wait.

That was generally agreed upon here to be introduced in Latin, then in a kind of "The Hunt for Red October" fashion, they used a chime to indicate a switchover to English so we wouldn't have a show full of captions (and it makes it a little easier on the actors, don't you know). You must go with the premise that all the while, these people were speaking Latin.... just it's been translated / spoken into English for us. Just like HFRO went under the auspice that Russian was spoken on the Soviet sub.

Points from the Doc, re-enforcing the Compatibilist nature of the candidates being drawn to the Island. Was it pure Free Will? No. Nor was it pure Determinist: Further to duey's thoughts of the Light, Doc both elaborated and offered a competing theory of what will happen. I can dig it. But I'm not sure that it will be distributed to all of humanity. It might be enough to remain among our Lostaways. And, it seems that might be the case in the Sideways world, as these people seem to have much better lives:

Doc Jensen's LOST recap (how many of you are sick of the word "penultimate" by now?): The Will And the Way... To the End On his Friday posting, Doc amended the date of the "Across the Sea" goings-on to ~500 B.C. This was in response to a quote from Carlton Cuse.

I dunno. It's kind of weird to write on paper, but it's really changed my perspective/philosophy on life vis-a-vis we're only here b/c there is some purpose or other that we have to fulfill, after which time, we go. Stop being worried all the time about this or that trivial matter... trivial crap will tend to fall into place and work out in the end. Now, I don't advocate playing Russian Roulette to see whether your time/purpose is up, but there is a refreshing take-charge/do-what-you-need-to-do attitude there.

To a certain degree, absolutely. I have made from-scratch pizza on LOST nights for the past six years. It's a routine. And it's ending. But, as I've written since S1, this show is like a Dickens novel come to screen. And with any novel, the end comes, and before you know it, there's another novel you want to read. Now, I don't think there are going to be any shows that can even touch LOST as far as getting my interest. I could be wrong, but probably not. Most of the rest of what we watch is PBS. You scavenge what you can and fall into/adapt to other routines. I'm probably going to start doing pizza on one of the weekend nights... Sundays for football season. Saturday pizza & movie night for the rest of the year. We may start a Netflix subscription and catch up on some classics and such. And we'll always have the DVDs/BD of LOST to revisit. Nothing wrong with re-reading and re-re-reading your favorite title every so often. This is also why, as I've written, I see it as a nice touch that not everything will be answered in this show. I will still be able to reflect from time to time. In a similar way to the death of a loved one, it's not gone if you're still thinking/wondering about it and remembering the good bits of your experiences. Along with the S6 set, that is slated for a late-August release... IIRC, the 24th. We've gotten all the DVD sets along the way, but now that we have Blu-ray, it's tempting to upgrade, but we'll see.

Well... what made Michael special (when he tried to kill himself off-island)? He still had something to do such that the universe/Island wouldn't let him die. Same goes for Desmond.

Agreed. We don't know what exactly the light means or what Mother meant in saying that there is a small bit of the light in every person. But we can reckon that it is something positive, like Hope, Free Will (or, rather, moments of Free Will) or the like. Something big, that if extinguished, the world goes to hell whether the Smoke Monster is free or not.

I'm wondering if, somehow, MIB will be transferred to the Sideways world --- get his wish to be across the sea --- only to be trapped in the body of... Anthony Cooper. That's a whole "Welcome to the real world where you're not immortal, you murdering bastard" theme that has a hint of poetic justice. Remember that AC was still a con man that brought about Sawyer James Ford's parents' deaths. As much as his relationship with Locke was improved in the Sideways, yeh rah rah, he still has to answer for that.

Desmond isn't immortal. He was shot by Ben and iirc, by Penny's reaction in the hospital, it was touch-and-go... so to speak. I think it's just another case of "The island isn't done with you yet." You're correct about MIB not being able to kill him, but it's clear that other of the candidates can, which is why FLocke tried to order Sayid to do the deed. It will be something to see what the Light does to him, if that is what Des is meant to do. As I said last week, the last two electromagnetic events... he's not "immune" to EM energy. He survives it. But there are consequences to such exposure. Consequences of the space-time-travel sort. What was the sacrifice that Widmore was talking about? Can the Light actually do some harm to Desmond, and yet, it won't matter b/c of the consciousness transfer to the Sideways world?

Re: the Light Canal, it's almost like only the island's Protector can bring other people, including candidates, there. As MIB said, he'd been searching for it for 30 years --- and in his Smoke form, he can probably cross the entire island in a few minutes. Jacob tells Jack that the light isn't very far from the banyan trees he woke up in post-crash. So, it's right near the crash site. Jack says there's nothing out there. Perhaps this place is more a state of mind than an actual location... maybe a kind of blindness to the spot is included in the "gift" given to the candidates, or maybe, it's just really, really, really well-hidden. Thinking about the Sideways world.... So, the island is deep underwater (and yes, I was wrong upthread in the LA X discussion, it is deeply covered). We've been shown the outcome of the war already and the result seems positive for our castaways (Maybe. Can the "light" exist sunken in the ocean? It seems to exist sunken in the canal...). The Sideways flashes just seem to be Desmond's attempts to reconcile the consciousnesses of the 'special' 815 passengers, so their memories of what happened on-island won't be lost. But I propose an ethical question that Eloise Hawking was on the other side of --- namely, should Desmond be doing this? Should he just let the flashes be revealed naturally and not screw up whatever progress/happiness these people have experienced in the sideways world? Should we even be calling it the "sideways world" anymore? Because it looks like it's going to take over as the main timeline. The on-island, '74-'77 and the timeflash experiences will be spliced and removed, kind of like how segments of the Swan hatch film were. Speaking of the timeflash experiences, we saw the outrigger that Widmore and Zoe arrived to the main island in. Case closed with that telltale big silver box in the middle, that was the source of the gunshots at time-flashing Locke, Sawyer, Juliet, Miles, Dan and Charlotte. Evidently, the Widmore group was trying to get a shot off on Locke pre-MIB-incarnate... but, actually, it would seem they didn't know it was a timeflash, b/c Widmore knows full well that you can't change what happened already, because it always happened that way. Lindelof and Cuse said that there wasn't going to be an exposition of the outrigger shootout b/c the logistics of it would be difficult to do and we've seen the most important part of what happens anyway. But, now we know that it was Widmore. Chalk one up in the Answered column. Re: FLocke's plan to "destroy the island" by self-sacrifice.... No way. Now that he knows Des is still alive (and from Widmore seeking to save Penny in that whole Hannibal Lecter-like deal to the trussed-up Italian detective ("I'm seriously considering having your wife for dinner...."), that Des is immune to electromagnetic energy situations, FLocke is going to find Des and send him down the Light Canal to... something. Turn off the light somehow? Destroy it? And that effectively destroys the island's mystical powers, but probably not the physical island itself. MIB has no intention of dying / suicide. He wants to get across the sea.

OK, I don't quite know how we got to some dude Roubini talking about the European economy in a thread about Dick Blumenthal, but whatever. That's the course of things on PPP. Distraction from the original story, and pretty soon the focus is off of the original story as people spin away just like the spinners want them too. Back on topic, in the Hartford Courant political section: Link It'll be interesting to see the next Quinnipiac poll....

Someone probably already did. There's no Lieberman road for Arlen, tho. He is persona non grata to Republicans, Dems just replaced his ass (predictable), and I'd say that many Indies aren't in the 'Vote In the Incumbent' mood generally, and this year specifically. File Arlen Spector under 'Self-centered Stooge' in the history section.

OK, to backtrack a second (but, it's still relevant to this ep): From Doc's Totally Lost video, he chats with Marc Pelligrino and Titus Welliver (I'm transcribing it here):

The man who switched parties b/c it was his best chance to keep "his" seat is ousted by a Dem upstart after Obama et al. all but promised carte blanche and a free ride to the general. This is what happens to team-swapping whores who make Faustian deals. Link Thingie

There are just so many turns in this show. So, Ben finally got his revenge on Charles Widmore, who claimed to be on a mission from Jacob shortly after the freighter blast (when Ben was busy teleporting to 2005). He was to use Des as a "fail-safe" to presumably shut off or move the "light" so that MIB wouldn't have access to it. We learned that Kate's name was crossed off the cave wall b/c she was a mother. I don't quite get why that would disqualify someone, but Jacob appears to have gotten the EOE notice and offered Kate the chance to be the Island's protector. (Does that mean that Claire would still be considered a candidate, as 'Littleton' was crossed off?) But, since no one else was in a volunteering mood, Jack stood up, as ever, and chose to be the leader. Was there ever any doubt? Seemed like he was Jacob's man all along, and there was a certain twinge of happiness that Jack did chose in a moment of his own free will (tho, I'd say more accurately there was a decided Compatibilist flavor to the choice). And yet, Jack doesn't know quite what he's got himself into: "How long am I going to have to do this job?" And so the game is on --- Flocke has kill the candidates and probably everyone else, and Jack et al. are going to try to find a way to kill Flocke. I just wonder... if something happens to Jack, are the others still candidates? As we saw last week, Jacob said that his actions created the Smoke Monster. He bashed his brother's head against the light canal's rock which killed MIB's human body / separated MIB from his corporeal form. Seeing as Mother made it so they could "never hurt/kill each other" the universe found a way around this and made him into the ancient black column (stemming from the Egyptian hieroglyphics from earlier than the 23 A.D. date we learned of last week, the smoke monster had been around for a while, tho not as MIB, but that gets into a touchy subject of last week where people wanted to see every layer of turtles there is, to borrow the metaphor from an above post....). Jacob chose them "because you were flawed" and their off-island lives were a mess, they were lost.... And so, Jacob found these characters, and gave them purpose. A continuation of everything Ben would like to be on-island played out in the sideways world. More Napoleon comparisons, concern for the kids and the school environment, and... an unlikely budding romance b/w Ben and Danielle? Ben gets weepy when he learns that Alex thinks of him as a father figure. Rousseau: "I'll use less onion next time." Ben: (Next time? Wait.... I'm a PhD. I should know what this means....). Nice to see Ben set up for a happy end in the sideways, where he hasn't been corrupted by the Temple pool. Ben is probably my favorite character b/c Michael Emerson plays him so well, and you just never know what to expect from him. Everything seems to be depending on the sideways world, where Desmond is the Danny Ocean to Hurley's... Brad Pitt (Wait, what?). All building toward a serious crashing of Daniel Faraday's concert. You know, I'm just getting giddy at how things are shaping up here. I think they can do this and it can all end happily ever after. Or the last 2.5 hours could run the gamut and screw everything up. Edit / Add-on: Richard is railroaded and thrown through the jungle after he tries to be a diplomat of sorts, and thinks he's important to the FLocke's plan. Is he dead? Probably not. Jacob gave him the gift of eternal life and that seems to be lasting even after Jacob's death. Gets you to wondering.... What is Richard's place in the sideways world? If he's still on the island, he's dead unless he's a very good swimmer or he died naturally (or unnaturally, if he still killed the doctor) in the 1800s. But I suppose that is what needs to happen for Richard, to find forgiveness for his sin and be with Isabella in the hereafter. I expect this will be one of the sad touches of the finale. Speaking of diplomacy, there's Jack trying to provide some consolation for Sawyer, who is just numb as he figures that his actions killed Sun and Jin. After so many of their pissing matches of who was right or wrong after this or that course of action/leadership 'n' stuff, Jack was the bigger man this time. If Jack, et al. got detoured at Jacob's campfire, Locke found the well empty, and Widmore seemed a little dumbfounded before he got plugged, Desmond escaped from the well... how?

I'm hearing that this is a great episode for Ben.

Well, does it really matter? That whole post is a red herring designed to divert attention and turn this into a 'They do it too!' saga. This thread is about Dick Blumenthal, and his trying to build a political reputation by standing on top of honorable soldiers' gravestones. There is a presser called for 2 p.m., at which Mr. Blumenthal will try to defend his actions. I've always wondered at people who try to defend the indefensible. He should do the graceful thing and bow out. Any general campaign will now be about his lying. And if his opponent is Mr. Simmons, you can just imagine his staff salivating over this; but he seems to be taking the high road (note that the high road doesn't include not being angered or upset), which as a citizen of his former district, I would expect from him.

A little more from that last 'Cultural Learnings' link:

Another bit from an article Doc mentioned.... Link. Agreed on both points, even tho they seem to contradict. We won't have another mythology ep, and may not even get another flashback scene. It would be interesting to learn how Mother became the Island's protector, but that may very well just lead to another island protector whose story we'd be curious about, and from that, another. This whole "game" as Richard's backstory title would suggest, has been playing out 'since the beginning of time.' How many iterations of the Candidate process must be shown before we're appeased? I think it's enough to take what we've been shown.