Lost, Season 3, Episode 18, “D.O.C.” (4/25/07)

D.O.C. = Date of Conception

Sun: You want to like Sun, but this woman is so much like her father that it’s a bit scary. Through the flashback we learn that Sun is confronted by Jin’s mom (whom he thinks is dead) claiming that Jin is the son of a prostitute, and to prevent shame being brought to Sun’s powerful family she wants Sun to give her $100,000 to keep quiet. Sun tracks down Jin’s Dad, Mr Kwon, and he tells her that Jin’s Mom liked many men, and he took Jin after he was born because he knew she could not have taken care of him. Mr Kwon is not even sure that Jin is his biological son, but you can tell that Mr Kwon reveres Jin, and is his Dad if not his ‘father’. Sun opts to protect Jin from having his Mom reveal to Sun’s father that Jin is from such a much lower class. Instead, Sun gets the money from her father, and in return he vows that Jin will no longer work as a floor manager for Mr Paik, but will instead become one of his henchmen. So, it is because of Sun that Jin becomes the brute he became while working for Sun’s dad. Sun also cheated on him and lied to him. Boy, what a great wife. Her threat to Jin’s Mom that she will make sure she is “dead” if she ever bothers them again was tough. On the island, Sun becomes concerned with her pregnancy when she learns that women who have become pregnant on the island die before giving birth. Sun’s predicament is that she may be pregnant by Jae (off island) or maybe by Jin (on island). If it’s a Jae pregnancy, Sun would (presumably) live through the birth as Claire did. But, if it’s Jin’s baby (Jin of the low-sperm count) then there could be problems. Juliet takes Sun to the DHARMA Hatch (where Claire was taken by Ethan) and does an ultrasound on her. Sun learns that the fetus is about 8 weeks old, marking conception on the island, so Jin’s baby. She’s happy to know the baby is Jin’s. Sun’s pregnancy is going to be a big to-do in this LOST story, I think.

Jin: He has opted to live his life with Sun under the guise of his parent’s being dead so as not to bring shame to Sun’s family based on his less-than-wealthy family history. The problem arises when his mother, the tramp, blackmails Sun by telling her to bring money, or she’ll rat out Jin’s past. Jin is unaware of this. Poor guy, he still believes that his Mom is dead as told to him by his father. He’s shown the most patience on the island, and especially with Sun. Nice takedown of Mikhail, by the way, with that round-about kick! (In Jin’s Dad’s house, there were a couple of trophies that looked like they were from martial arts tournaments, so it’s possible Jin’s an accomplished high-karate guy).

Mr Kwon: Jin’s dad definitely has a deep love for Jin, even if he’s not his biological son, which we may never know. He understands, and apparently stands by, Jin’s decision to tell people in Sun’s family that his parent’s are dead. Mr Kwon asks Sun to keep up the façade so as not to bring shame upon Jin’s already difficult upbrining/life.

Juliet: Juliet is looking for something good to do, but she’s always going to be held back in being honest about her good deeds because of her strong desire to get off the island. And the only way she knows how to do that is to continue feeding information to Ben. However, her desire to help Sun seemed genuine, even if the motives are not. And surprise surprise…Juliet hates Ben. But, assuming that he does have the ability to get her off the island, she’ll continue to play both sides of the island’s inhabitants to reach her wish to leave and return to Seattle.

Mikhail (aka Spooky Eye Patch Guy): Heeeeee’s baaaaaack! Well, apparently the sonic fence can kill, but not kill enough to kill you. Huh? The island’s healing abilities seemed to have saved Mikhail when he was sonic-fenced after Locke pushed him into it. (There was a period of time that Locke and Mikhail were alone in the episode where they met at the Flame Hatch…you think Mikhail and Locke have something going behind everyone’s backs?) In this episode when Mikhail comes out of the jungle to the parachutist location, responding the flare that Hurley had shot off, I assume. Finding the Losties-Four was not what he expected.

Desmond: If the parachick was indeed sent by Penny (as would be assumed since she had the piture of Des and Penny), then Des is anxious to figure out how they’re going to be saved and when.

Charlie: Is beginning to trust Des less and less.

Parachute Chick: She was not sent there to rescue the Losties because as far as she knows, based on the information she would’ve gotten back on the mainland, Oceanic Flight 815 crashed and there were no survivors. So, it would assume she’s been sent there as part of Penny’s search for Desmond. It’s just coincidence that the survivors of Oceanic 815 are also on the same island.

Jack: When Jack starts asking questions about how Sun is doing with her pregnancy, it leads her to wonder if Jack is working with the Others, and wondering if he’s somehow going to get the Others to capture Sun and possibly her baby when it’s born.

Kate: With Juliet’s declaration that males on the island produce “five times more sperm “, it seems likely that with all of their recent unprotected boot-knocking, Kate and Sawyer could be finding out that they’re also pregnant….?

Misc:
1. I don’t speak Italian, Spanish, Korean, Brazilian or Portugese, so I had to get help on this: when the parachute chick (Parachick….according to tv.com the character’s name is Naomi) is speaking to Mikhail, she did not say “thank you” as he said, but actually said something along the lines of “I’m not alone”. Does this imply that there was someone else on the helicopter (if it was a helicopter?). And if so, did they also parachute down, or are they still on the chopper at the bottom of the ocean?
2. This bit goes back to last week’s “Catch-22” episode: I found what may be the translation of Jin’s campfire tale from someone named DDK on MySpace. Here goes: “…and the girl turned to the man who saved her and said, ‘Thank God. I was afraid you were the Hook Man”. And the man looked at the girl with a smile and said, “Don’t worry, little girl. My hook is…..STILL IN YOUR FATHER’S HEAD!!!”
3. So Jin’s Mom liked to spend time with lots of guys. The result was Jin’s birth, but Mr Kwon not knowing if he was even the father. Interesting to note that Kate’s real father (not the step-father she blew up in the house) was stationed in Korea, and came back to the States four months before she was born (from Season 2 episode “What Kate Did”). I wonder, since everything seems to be tied to together, if Kate’s dad did the horizontal-bop with Jin’s mom, and if Jin was the result? In other words, any chance Jin and Kate are related??
4. Do you think the Others could’ve somehow been using Kate and Sawyer to test out their “can’t survive pregnancy” on the island theory? When they had Kate and Sawyer locked up, they did nothing to stop them from hooking up. What better way to test out your theories than on people who aren’t part of your collective? By using Kate and Sawyer to study, they would not have been putting any more of their people in danger.
5. Locke: He’s still off with the Others to wherever it is they are going. Most likely, his dad, Anthony Cooper (who appeared in the “magic box” on the island) is with them, and there is going to be a showdown of some sort coming up. Is Anthony Cooper part of this whole Dharma Project?
6. Mr Paik: Sun’s dad was described by Jin’s Mom as “wealthy and powerful”. Well, Alvar Hanso apparently was wealthy and powerful, as is Penny’s father, Charles Widmore. Is it possible that somehow Mr Paik is also a part of this experiment going on?
7. So the island’s healing ability depends on the severity of the wound(s), according to Mikhail. I guess Boone and Shannon’s wounds were too extensive (although you have to wonder, if Jack HAD amputated Boone’s leg when he was trying to save him, would the loss of the leg saved Boone if the island could’ve healed him). But Nikki and Paolo were only paralyzed by the spider poison, so could they have survived being buried alive? (Probably not if they suffocated and remained buried, but….)
8. I think there will be a big showdown between the two island’s groups before the end of the season, and I’m also guessing that the number of island inhabitants will be whittled down a bit. I’m guessing at least 4-5 people dying before the end of the season. Charlie is one of them, maybe Ben, most likely Anthony Cooper…..not sure who else.

Comments? Ideas? I’m waiting to hear from you…….

Until next week,

Namasté…


Check these sites for for other LOST chatter and info:
http://lost.cubit.net/forum/index.php
http://darkufo.blogspot.com/

April 20, 2007

It’s official…..I have now completed 41 revolutions around the sun in my lifetime, and today begin revolution number 42. Yes, it’s my birthday today. And I turn 42. But I don’t think I look it, do you?

So, I turn 4-2 on 4-2-0.

I am a 4/20 baby, so I just have to say:

SMOKE ‘EM IF YOU GOT ‘EM!

Happy 4/20 everyone!!!!

Lost, Season 3, Episode 17, “Catch-22” (4/18/07)

Desmond: Meet Brother Brotha. Desmond’s past included a wedding to a woman named Ruth that he skipped out on in order to follow an urge the he was supposed to be doing something else. This feeling came about when Desmond, in a drunken incident, is helped up in the street by a monk when the monk extended his hand and said, “Can I help you brother?” Desmond retreats to the monastery where he becomes a monk (after a time-unspecified vow of silence). He soon has to confront the marriage he bailed out on, and while talking to Ruth realizes he shouldn’t be a monk either. He gets pissed (drunk), and the monk (Brother Campbell) at the monastery tells Desmond that God has bigger plans for him, and the monastery is not where he needs to be. Funny scene: when Brother Campbell is upset that Desmond broke into the monastery’s wine stash (Moriah Vineyard….named after Mount Moriah, the mountain that Abraham took his son Isaac to sacrifice as per God’s wishes) to get loaded, he says “We’ve taken a vow of charity” (implying that the wine is not for the monks but for sale), so Desmond, in an act of charity, slides the bottle across the table to him! Ha ha! When Desmond returns the robe, the monk asks him to help load a truck with wine so that it can be taken by a buyer, who just happens to be Penny Widmore, so it’s here that Desmond first meets her. Penny is taking the wine to Carlysle (sp?), presumably for her Dad (OR maybe it’ll show up later on the island…?), and the monk says to her “tell your father thanks for the donation”, so Charles Widmore has a connection to the monastery, and by complete coincidence it’s here that Desmond becomes involved with Penny. Or is it coincidence? On the island, Desmond has a vision that he, Jin, Hurley and Charlie are in the jungle looking for a parachutist, and Charlie takes an arrow from one of Rousseau’s traps to the throat, killing him. When Des recruits the guys to go with him on this search, he’s vague about why he needs them to go, but they agree, and right before discovering the parachutist, as Charlie trips the hidden wire that sets off the trap, Des pushes him out of the way and saves him. When they cut down the parachutist, it is not Penny, as Des had hoped, but some other woman (Naomi), who knows Desmond’s name. Sent by Penny, perhaps? Desmond is convinced that he’s being tested by God, the same way that Abraham was tested by God in the Bible’s mythology when he was to sacrifice his son Isaac. Desmond’s ‘catch-22’: he saves Charlie because Des is good and decent, but it would mean that Des loses Penny to the “course correction”. (See Misc below, #3) Of course, the parachutist may have always been the woman we see (Naomi), but in Des’ mind, he was expecting Penny.

Charlie: **tick tock tick tock** Those sounds you hear are the seconds ticking off of ole Charlie Pace’s life. Desmond once again had a vision of Charlie dying, only this time Des led Charlie toward that fateful meeting. Des again saves Charlie’s life, but not before Charlie realized that Des had seen him die in his latest vision. Charlie’s guitar accompaniment while Jin told the spooky campfire story was great. And his argument with Hurley as to which superhero, the Flash or Superman, would win in a footrace was a scream!!

Hurley: Continues to show himself as much smarter and more confident than he was when Oceanic 815 crashed. His sense that Desmond was recruiting him, Jin and Charlie for a jungle mission forced him to challenge Des on why they had to go. Des tells Hurley about the vision, but holds back on telling him about Charlie’s role in the vision. Hurley’s funniest line was when Des first approached him to find out where the cable was, and Hurley, acting as though he doesn’t know anything about the cable, says to Des “Did you eat those mushrooms Jack warned us about?” ha ha!

Jin: This man loves camping and roasting marshmallows. Jin was hilarious around the campfire when he was holding the flashlight under his chin and telling the scary story…in Korean!! Ha ha!

Sawyer: Gets jumped by Kate after she sees Jack and Juliet eating together. But, no complaints from Sawyer! Funny when he called her Freckles, and she asks him about the “no nickname” lockdown he was under. He tells her since she wasn’t around for that bet, she’s exempt. Ha ha! And, when Sawyer gives her the “mix tape” that turns out to be Phil Collins Greatest Hits, he tells her “If Bernard asks, I don’t know anything about it.” Ha ha! He obviously took the tape from Bernard, but at least this confirms that Bernard is still on the island despite the fact that we haven’t seen him or Rose in quite some time. Sawyer also finds something he’s better at than Jack: ping pong.

Jack: Jack and Juliet continue their friendship back in camp, with them spending meals and free time together. When Jack is approached by Des to get the first aid kit for the trip to the jungle that Jack doesn’t know about, Des says he needs it because he sprained his ankle. Jack asks if he should take a look at it, but Des says no thanks as he has experience with twisted ankles. Jack smiles and says “oh, right”, remembering that it was Des who helped Jack back in the States when Jack twisted his ankle running in the stadium, and Desmond, then a stranger to Jack and also running in the stadium, helps Jack with his turned ankle.

Kate: Still feeling abandoned by Jack now that he is sticking close to Juliet. Kind of a bummer to see such a strong woman becoming such a mess in the man department.

Ruth: Have to mention one funny thing she said when Desmond revealed that a monk held out his hand to the drunken him, and he just knew he had to go with him. Ruth’s reply was something like “good thing a shepherd didn’t find you or you’d have left me for sheep”. Ha ha! (Interesting note: a Sheppard did find Desmond…Jack Sheppard)

Misc:
1. Catch-22: novel by Joseph Heller from 1961. The term “catch-22” is used to describe a no-win situation, and was coined from this novel. This book is awesome, though I’m sure most of you have read it since it is considered to be one of the greatest novels of the 20th Century. It’s told from the viewpoint of several different people, and employs the use of flashbacks for many of its scenes. And where have we seen that plot device used before??? Hmmmmm? I’m asking you….
2. The items found in the backpack of the parachutist included a book called Ardil-22. Ardil is Portuguese for “catch”, so it’s the Portuguese language version of Catch-22. You’ll remember that at the end of Season 2, when Penny Widmore and those other guys, all of whom are at some other location, find the island on radar because of Des imploding the hatch and the guys were speaking Portuguese. Just remember: in island time, it’s only been a couple of weeks since that incident.
3. On the desk in the monk’s office, when Desmond was returning the robe, was a picture of Brother Campbell and a gray haired lady. That lady is the same lady/psychic that sold Desmond the wedding ring in the last Desmond flashback episode (“Flashes Before Your Eyes”), and told him that there was a plan for him, but would not elaborate. She also told him that if he tried to change anything in his visions, it wouldn’t matter because the universe is “self correcting”, so the vision would eventually come true. With that in mind, see number 4 below….
4. Desmond assumed that the woman-parachutist would be Penny, and maybe it was…up until Desmond prevented Charlie from dying (for the 4th time) when he saved him from Rousseau’s trap. However, I’m wondering if when Desmond saved Charlie, it caused the universe to “self correct” as the psychic implied (in the Desmond-centric ep “Flashes Before Your Eyes”), and the woman parachutist was no longer Penny but this other woman, Naomi. (Portuguese origin perhaps since she had the Portuguese version of Catch-22?) Now, we never know if Desmond actually saw Penny in the vision, or if he just assumed the parachutist would be her. In any event, the psychic lady said that if something were supposed to happen, it would, and even if the present was changed to alter the vision’s outcome, the “something” would eventually happen. For example, even though Des keeps saving Charlie, he tells him, essentially, that it (death) will find Charlie at the point that Des doesn’t step in to prevent it.
5. Names: Ruth (Des’ ex-fiancé) carries a Biblical name. Another name from the Bible is Naomi (the parachutist).
6. Numbers: The bottles of Moriah Vineyards wine that the monks bottle sells for 108 quid, and they bottled 108 cases. 108 also shows up in a Sawyer joke, when he challenges Jack to ping-pong and says they have to play every 108 minutes or the island will blow up. Ha ha!
7. Funny! Des, Hurley, Jin and Charlie whistling the “Colonel Bogey March” as they were walking on the beach on the way to the jungle.
8. Writers nod to the Lost fans? I think the fans of Lost had a little shout-out from the writers/producers when Desmond said: “I saw a sequence of events, things that are going to happen … it’s like I saw a, uh, jigsaw puzzle, only I didn’t have the picture on the box, so I don’t know how the pieces fit exactly.” Lost is also like a jigsaw puzzle, and we don’t have the picture on the box either.
9. The helicopter: It couldn’t have flown from a mainland, right? That would’ve been too far I think. Was it a helicopter at all? If so, could it have taken off from a ship? And what prevented it from landing on the island? With the compasses working now, I’m of the mindset that the magnetic anomaly was disabled or destroyed. But maybe not….mabye it was attacked by a heli-SMonster...
10. Pictures of Penny and Des: Now there are two copies of this picture on the island. The parachutist (Naomi) must’ve been sent by Penny. So, where is Penny? In the cockpit of the helicopter at the bottom of Lost Island Bay?

Just Thinkin’ Out Loud:
1. Mikhail’s demise at the pylon fence still has me wondering if maybe the pylon fence did not kill him, and he instead was able to con Locke and the gang about his death. Maybe he was able to inject some of that Medusa spider venom into his body without them knowing so it would appear that he was dead? Or maybe the island brings him back. I just don’t think we’ve seen the last of him.
2. Christian Sheppard: could he also be on the island somewhere? Yes, Jack ID’d his body before the plane flight, but the body was not in the coffin when Jack found it in the jungle.


Comments? Ideas? I’m waiting to hear from you…….

Until next week,

Namasté…


Check these sites for other LOST chatter and info:
http://lost.cubit.net/forum/index.php
http://darkufo.blogspot.com/

Senseless, But There’s A Solution…

Another mass murderer has struck again in the United States. This time is was some whacked out 23 year old South Korean who slaughtered 32 people on the campus of Virginia Tech and left dozens others wounded.

And for some strange reason, the country reacts with surprise and horror despite the fact that gun violence is a daily news story all across this country. Yet, what a lot of people don’t realize is that this freak-show asshole who caused this mess at Virginia Tech bought a Glock 19 handgun and box of ammunition at a Virginia gun shop back in March for $571 dollars…bought it and walked out of the store on the same day in March. No questions asked.

Yet there are some politicians who continue to say that there are no problems with our country’s gun laws. Anybody with proper ID can get a gun as this case shows.

This week of April is turning out to be a nasty week of incidents in our country's history: we have the Branch Dividians (Waco, TX) incident from April 17 of 1993; we have the Oklahoma City Bombing which occurred on April 19, 1995; the Columbine High School (Columbine, CO) massacre from April 20, 1999; and now the senseless tragedy at Virginia Tech that happened on Monday (April 16). All using some sort of weapon, and with the exception of the Oklahoma City Bombing, the individuals had weapons that they were easily able to get their hands on.

This ability to get guns so easily affects everybody. There have been 108 days in 2007 as of this writing, and here in Philadelphia we have seen the murder of over 114 people, many of these have been killed by handguns (including a teenage boy 3 weeks ago about a block and a half from my house in South Philly).

It’s out of control, and yet so many politicians (most of them Republicans, of course, including John McCain, once a national hero for his service during Vietnam, but now an imbecile) continue to say that there’s nothing wrong with our gun laws. And, with the support of the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) lobbyists, the politicians will continue to turn a blind eye to this epidemic of gun violence, as if it will just “go away” or resolve itself. The politicians are cowards these days, exchanging lobbyist money for the safety of the population. It’s disgusting. And how the NRA thinks that the gun laws are fine is lost on me. Are the NRA leaders and members really this fucking retarded and stupid? They have to be. All they quote is “it’s our Constitutional right” to have weapons. I don’t think a majority of NRA leaders or members can even spell Constitution without using a “K”. And let’s face it, next time an NRA member pulls up the clichéd “it’s my Constitutional right” argument, ask them to give you two other items in the Constitution and I bet they can’t do it. Why? Because they don’t pay attention to anything else about the Constitution except the “right to bear arms” clause.

The solution to the gun problem? Well, if all the gun owners want to claim Constitutional Rights to have a gun, we should remind them that the Constitution was written when only flintlock muskets and flintlock pistols were available. So, if you want a gun based on Constitutional rights, then you get a flint-lock weapon. Simple as that. All other guns would be made illegal immediately. Gun owners would have 1 month to turn in their unneccesary handguns, machine guns, rocket launchers, and other stupid weapons that have no place in someone’s home.

Flintlock Pistol & Flintlock Musket

This way, the gun owners have their "right to bear arms", they can protect themselves, and hunters will also have weapons for putting venison and quail on their table. It will also prevent the kind of mass murders by way of guns that are becoming far to common in a country that is supposedly "civilized".

Of course it’ll never happen because the politicians who can make this happen have no balls. And they apparently enjoy seeing news headlines like that seen on Monday April 16, 2007 from the campus of Virginia Tech.

These musket balls are bigger than the balls of US Politicians

I'm keeping a good thought for the innocent victims of the horror and their families and friends. I can't imagine going through something like this.

Dancing with the “Stars”

On that goofy “Dancing with the Stars” show, you’ve all heard that Heather Mills, soon to be the ex-wife of Paul McCartney, is a contestant and has an artificial leg.

My question is: if her leg goes flying off during a dance and hits an audience member, would it be the first time on that show that someone in the audience “gets the boot”?

Just wondering.....

Lost, Season 3, Episode 16, “One of Us” (4/11/07)

This episode does a fantastic job of bringing the Others’ and Losties’ stories together, making the episodes at the beginning of Season 3, episodes many people found to be boring and slow, important chapters in this captivating TV novel known as LOST. With only 5 episodes left (though the final episode is a two-hour one I believe), we can see many questions being answered, and many of the story lines starting to tie-in together.

Juliet: Juliet is definitely another of Ben’s victims, as we learn in this pivotal episode. Her work treating and curing her sister’s inability to bear a child is what caught the eye of Mittelos BioScience, and eventually landed her on The Island. We learn that she is brought to Otherville because women on the island are dying from their pregnancies as their bodies view the babies as parasites, and destroy the fetus.. With no chance for population growth, Juliet’s skills as a fertility doctor become necessary for the island, and so she is taken there by Ethan Rom and Richard Alpert. They give her a sedative in Seattle so that she is unconscious when the trip is made, and she takes the juice/sedative right away. Upon waking, she climbs out of the Galaga (submarine) and sees the island. She quickly tries to solve the issue of why the females and babies are dying after the birth, but after 6 months only figures out that something happens at conception, but can’t figure out what, so she tells Ben she wants to go home. Ben, of course, isn’t going to let that happen and tells her that her sister’s (Rachel’s) cancer came back, but if Juliet stays on the island, Jacob will cure her. Two and half years later, still no progress, but Ben shows Juliet live footage from Seattle of Rachel and the now two-year-old nephew, Julian, whom Juliet has never met because she’s been on the island. The crash of Oceanic Flight 815 is shown again, and Ben’s prophetic “Maybe there’s one (a pregnant woman) on that plane” proves true as Claire is the one the Others study. To the Other’s joy, I’m sure, there were also children on the flight. Back in real time, Juliet is not welcome back on Losties Beach, but Jack continues to defend her, and when Claire is suddenly ill, Juliet is able to “save” her with a dose of the serum that The Others had been giving Claire during her brief capture by Ethan at the Pearl . When Claire recovers after the serum treatment, the Losties begin to accept her, and give her the materials to make her own shelter. But, as the closing flashback shows, she’s there to infiltrate the Losties, and expects to meet back up with Ben: “See you in a week”. I so want to hate this lady, but is she so desperate to get home that she’s do anything, including betraying other human beings? See, to get out of the trap, she has to become that which she hates: the manipulator.

Jack: The body language between Jack and Sayid is subtle, but it’s telling me that they are both in on the con being pulled by Juliet and Ben. Jack is the good cop (“she’s under my protection”) to Sayid’s bad cop. I think Jack is well aware that Juliet is not to be trusted. He’s just waiting for the moment to pop whatever plan it is he’s working on his head. And with Jack back at camp, it was easy to see how much the Losties see him as their leader: when addressing their concerns about Juliet, he says “the fact that I trust her should be enough”. And nobody says a thing, they just go along with Jack. But he’s a smart fella, that Mr Sheppard. He knows something’s up….

Ben: Ben’s control over people is amazing, and his control over Juliet especially. By hanging the health of her sister over her, he has taken this once decent woman and turned her into a demon like him. But, it shows the strength of his ability to, as Alex said a couple of episodes ago, con people. One thing to note: a few eps back Ben talked about having been on the island his whole life. He wasn’t specific about saying that he was born on the island, only that he had lived there his whole life. Was he a child when he arrived at the island, or was he born there? And if he was born there, did his mother also die after the childbirth? We also learn that Juliet’s coldness towards Ben was because he will not grant her wish of wanting to leave the island. And, we also learn that Ben thinks Stephen King’s book “Carrie” is “depressing”.

Claire: Claire’s sudden sickness, we learn, was brought on by the activation of a chip that the Others had implanted into her when they had her captured. The activation was time to coincide with the arrival of Juliet to the Losties’ camp, and this would allow Juliet to get the serum at Ethan’s secret drop point (brought to this drop site by Richard for this instance), and then ‘save’ Claire. Claire’s recovery is immediate once the serum is administered, but more importantly, Juliet gets accepted (somewhat) in the Losites community, all at the expense of Claire the pawn.

Charlie: Looks like Claire has indeed re-evaluated Charlie’s intentions, and has confidence in him. He is with Aaron for the episode, and very concerned for Claire. When she recovers and finds Charlie with Aaron, she has a look of comfort on her face seeing Charlie there. This, of course, can’t be good for Charlie in the long run, I’m thinking, because Ben obviously has ideas for the Losties that I’m sure involve getting Aaron. This sets up an opportunity for Charlie to be a hero at some point and save Aaron, probably meaning the demise of his character. Just a thought.

Sawyer: Though still under “nickname arrest”, Sawyer still manages to get his digs in: While walking by Hurley and Charlie, who are holding Aaron, he says “Oh look, three men and a baby…I counted Hugo twice.” Ha ha! C’mon…you laughed…you know you did. While Sawyer and Kate were being held by the Others, they told him that they had given him an implant. Remember? They said the implant would explode if his heartrate went above 125bpms, but later told him they were lying about the implant. Now, however, with the knowledge that the Others had an implant in Claire, you have to wonder if they’ll be activating a chip in Sawyer that will make him sick at some point. For now, he seems to be mellowing a bit in Losties Camp, and is probably glad that his daughter, Clementine, who was conceived with Cassidy Phillips, the girl he conned (who we saw last week met Kate post pregnancy/pre-birth of Clemetine), was not on the Oceanic Flight with him, or else she’d probably be in the hands of The Others now. On another Saywer note, it was actually cool to see he and Sayid starting to come together after so many days of mistrust and contempt toward each other.

Hurley: Has a brief sit down with Juliet shortly after her arrival. He says “I don’t remember you from the dock”. She says: “I had the day off.” Ha ha! Hurley then tells her about Ethan’s spying on them, and his abduction of Claire, and how upset this made Charlie. Hurley then points and says, in reference to Ethan: “We buried him over there.” He was definitely letting her know that they’ll take care of themselves no matter what the cost. Though I don’t remember them burying Ethan, maybe they did. My guess is Hurley just pointed in any ole direction when he said it, more to make the point that the Losties will protect themselves than to identify where Ethan is buried.

Sun: If pregnant women on the island do not survive after delivery, what does this mean for Sun? While Claire was treated with Juliet’s serum and this prevented her death, Sun has not been treated. And at this point we don’t know yet if the Others even know about her pregnancy.

Misc:
1. Always nice to see Ethan Rom back in the show, eh? That evil man….just look at him. Eeeek Also had visits in the flashbacks from Richard Alpert, Rachel, Mikhail and The Book Club of Otherville! And Goodwin, later killed by AnaLucia, was Juliet’s lover/boyfriend.
2. Rousseau – if she gave birth to Alex on the island, what has kept her alive? Juliet was not yet on the island when Alex would’ve been born, so how did Danielle Rousseau not die after childbirth?
3. Penelope Widmore and the guys she was with who found the island’s location because of the EMP (electromagnetic pulse) that went off at the end of last season when Desmond imploded the Swan Hatch: are we going to be seeing them again soon?
4. When Rachel dropped Juliet off to be taken away by Richard Alpert and Ethan Rom, she said to Richard, “Promise you’ll bring her back in one piece”, to which Richard said “Well, we’ll do our best”. Bring her back in one piece? We’ll do our best? Makes me think that Juliet’s departure from the island will be in more than one piece…maybe pieces. And not necessarily alive. Just a thought….
5. We get another mention of Jacob in this episode, but still no idea who he is. If Jacob can cure cancer, my thinking is he must be some sort of scientist or doctor. Maybe associated with a medical facility or pharmacy….and what a coincidence that we’ve seen Widmore Pharmaceuticals mentioned before. Is Jacob a member of Widmore, and not Dharma?
6. We heard “Downtown”, by Petula Clark again. This song has been in a couple of different episodes.
7. The mark that the Others put on Juliet’s back is also the same mark Juliet saw on the tree near the spot where she picked up the serum to treat Claire.
8. Galaga Sub – there’s no way that sub could make the journey from Seattle, WA to this island in the Pacific, do you think? It would be a long way to be in a sub, a small sub at that, from Seattle to somewhere closer to Australia. So, the sub must be: a) just a prop (Juliet was unconscious when she awoke ABOARD the sub, but it doesn’t mean she traveled by sub…the Others could’ve put her on it as part of the ruse while she was out); OR, b) used only for short distances, and the Others have an airfield or something like that nearby.
9. Herarart Aviation – Herarat also spells Earhart, as in Emilia Earhart, who disappeared on her flight around the world somewhere over the Pacific. Could it be that she landed on The Island, and it was the bodies of her and her male-copilot that Jack found in the caves in Season 1?
10. Interesting note: Juliet has been on the island for three years, and so has Desmond…
11. The crash of Oceanic Flight 815…must’ve been pre-ordained by someone (Jacob? Hanso? Ben?), and the fact it was so far off course is intriguing…could Mikhail in the communication center (The Flame Hatch) have something that would be able to mislead a plane to follow a wrong path? Could the magnetic anomaly that exists/existed(?) have been focused somehow to screw-up a plane’s compass? And was it really Desmond’s not pressing the button that day that caused the plane to crash? And was it Kelvin’s job to actually distract Desmond so that he wouldn’t push the button in order to bring down the flight?

Well there you have it. You must have theories rolling around your heads….lemme have ‘em!!

Comments? Ideas? I’m waiting to hear from you…….

Until next week,

Namasté…

What’re Words For, Part 20

Wow! It’s been far too long since I’ve done a grammah (grammer) lesson for all of your TFKoP readers. I’ve just been so gawsh-darned busy that I’ve neglected the teaching you’ve all come to expect.

So, without further ado, on with this lesson.

Phrase: Driving at (V.)
Definition: attempting, engaged in
“What are you driving at now, Pete?”
“I’m working two jobs. Have to. I’ve got a wife, a car payment and a girlfriend; and they’re all three thirty days past overdue.”

(Definition from: "How To Talk Yankee", by Gerald Lewis & Tim Sample, copyright 1979, 1986 by The Thorndike Press; copyright 1989 by the First North Country Press)

Looks like Pete is one busy guy!

Hope all is well in your corner of the woods, chummies.

Lost, Season 3, Episode 15, “Left Behind” (4/4/07)

I love SMonster episodes!!!

Kate: A Kate-flashback reveals that Kate has a hard time moving on from people. We see her on the mission to go back and find out why her mother had turned her in to the Feds after Kate killed her drunken and abusive step-father as a way to free her Mom from his clutches. Kate, going by the name Lucy, gets help from another con woman, this time in the form of Cassidy, the woman Sawyer had set-up a con with, and then conned her himself. Cassidy helps Kate see her Mom (by distracting the Feds, including the guy who accompanied Kate on the Oceanic flight) who are set up all around Kate’s Mom in the hope of catching Kate should she come back). Kate, of course, has no idea that the man who conned Cassidy was Sawyer. Meeting with her Mom, she learns that her Mom turned Kate in because of Kate killing the stepfather. When Kate tells her she did it for her mom, to free her from his evil, Mom said “you can’t change who you love, Kate.” (Right Kate? Can’t help loving Sawyer…or Jack…) Back on the island, before Locke left with the Others, Kate found out that he stuck up for her, but then Locke said “they told me who you are and what you’d done. Forgiveness is not one of their strong points. Good luck.” Interesting. Later, waking up in the forest handcuffed to Juliet, Kate and Juliet begin heading back to Losties Beach when Juliet tells Kate how much she knows about Jack, and that Jack didn’t want Kate going back for him because she broke his heart when he saw her and Sawyer in the cages bumping uglies. Interesting parallel: Kate killed her step-dad to save her Mom, but her Mom didn’t want to be saved. Kate also went back to save Jack, but Jack didn’t want to be saved.

Cassidy: The woman Sawyer took part in a con with, and was later conned by Sawyer. She helps Kate see her Mom in the flashback, and later tells Kate that the man who conned her also got her pregnant. She never tells Kate the name of the guy (Sawyer), so Kate has no way to make the connection on the island.

Juliet: Hmmm….she is such the wild card. I kind of want to believe that she was left behind (after all, they marked her after she killed Pickett), but I’m not sure I do. I think Juliet is still part of the Others, and was not gassed, but intentionally left in the woods handcuffed to Kate. This allowed Juliet to gauge more of what Kate’s about. The whole SMonster encounter was cool, and at first it seemed that Juliet was honest about not knowing what it was, but later we learn that the pylon/perimeter fence keeps the SMonster out (or is it “in”?) when Juliet is able to disable the pylons by entering a code into the keypad control, and once her and Kate crossed the boundary, turned the fence back on, and it stopped the SMonster from getting through. “We don’t know what it is, but we know it doesn’t like our fences.” So, the fence either: a) keeps the SMonster IN, or b) it keeps the SMonster out. What was interesting, however, was the scene where Kate and Juliet were hiding in the thickets, and the SMonster started flashing light at them, as though it was taking a mental image or something. (Maybe it was taking Polaroids to show the other SMonster?? Ha ha!) After going back to Otherville, now abandoned, to rescue Jack, they begin the journey back to the Losties’ beach, but not after Sayid airs his disagreements about bringing Juliet back with them. Watch this woman, especially since she had the key to the handcuffs all along.

Sawyer: Fearing an outster from the Losties camp, Sawyer starts playing nice at the urging of Hurley. Well, actually, Sawyer got conned by Hurley into acting nice (Sawyer to Hurley: “You tricked me into being nice? That’s one of the lamest cons in the history of cons!” haha!). Funniest was when Sawyer went to Claire and started small-talking about Aaron. “He’s less wrinkley than he was two weeks ago”. Ha ha! Then giving Claire the blanket. But, this is the kind of training Sawyer needs in case he ever meets the kid that he’s having, unbeknownst to him, with Cassidy. Sawyer? A daddy?? While fearing that he would be voted out of the camp, Sawyer was fishing and saw Sun and Jin down the beach and muttered to himself, “I ain’t gonna get the Korean vote”! ha ha! Also, this episode’s time-line revealed that Sawyer only has 3 hours and 10 minutes left in his “no nicknames for a week” bet. Hurley tells Sawyer that he needs to be their leader. Sawyer says “What if I don’t want to be the leader”. Hurley: “Jack didn’t either. Sucks for you, dude.” Ha ha!

Hurley: Hurley continues to show his ongoing growth as a burley man. Conning Sawyer into thinking that the Losties were going to hold a vote to boot him from their community was very clever, and it made Sawyer start playing nicer. Actually got Sawyer to apologize for calling him “rotund”. “I’m really sorry I called you rotund.” Hurley: “Really?” Sawyer: “You’re worse than a girl”. Ha ha! Hurley is becoming quite the leader. He always seems to know what is the right course of action, but he doesn’t have the confidence to put the action into motion. He seems to be getting a stronger will, so maybe that will change soon.

Locke: Left with the Others. But, where did they go? Why did they take Locke and leave Jack? (I guess technically, Ben told Jack he’d let him leave the island, but the “island” at the time was the other one. Now that Jack has left that island, I guess Ben considers his word to be honored, even though Jack is back on his original island.) Ben has something in mind for John...either to learn about him, or maybe to use John to get something from the island that seems to have turned its back on Ben and now embraces John...and brings him with them Now that Ben has used Jack to do the surgery on his tumor, Jack has no immediate use to him. Locke, on the other hand, may be able to be conned into helping Ben and the others.

SMonster: The SMonster makes a nice comeback in this episode. It chases Juliet and Kate through the jungle, eventually finding them hiding in some thickets. Instead of attacking them, it “flashed” them, pulsing them (mostly Juliet it looked like) with flashes of bright light. After 5 or 6 flashes, it retreated and left them alone for that moment. Did you notice that when the SMonster came out of the woods and started heading towards Kate and Juliet, now on the other side of the pylons, it was in three pieces, and the rejoined before hitting the fence. When it realized it couldn’t get through the fence (this may have come as a surprise to it….?), it again split into 3 parts as it flowed back into the woods. For a brief moment it looked to have 3 heads, like Cerberus, the 3-headed dog from Greek mytholody that guarded the entrance to Hades. Okay, now for the BIG SMONSTER THEORY: there are not ONE, but TWO SMonsters. One good one, one bad one (like Backgammon….see below). The GOOD SMONSTER is the one that could’ve helped the crash survivors (maybe it healed Locke and Rose?), and appeared to Jack as his dad (and led Jack to the caves and water); appeared to Kate as the black horse (helped her cope with her past); appeared as the cat Nadia a couple of eps ago (helped him cope with his past); appeared to everyone as Vincent (helped Walt cope; helped Shannon cope; gave Hurley the keys to the van which helped Hurley AND Charlie cope with their situations); and we know that a SMonster appeared in front of Locke and “it was beautiful”. The BAD SMONSTER is the one that: killed the pilot of Oceanic 815; killed Eko and probably was the vision of Yemi (Eko’s brother); manifested as the spiders that bit Nikki in last week’s episode; grabbed Locke and dragged him in an episode last year (or season 1…?), and could’ve appeared to Shannon as Walt (which later ended up getting Shannon killed). Most likely, the BAD SMonster, if this theory is true, was the one chasing Kate and Juliet.

Misc:
1. Sawyer was reading “Watership Down”, which may imply that he’s run out of books because this was the first book we ever saw Sawyer with back in Season 1. Too bad John keeps blowing up all the hatches with the other books.
2. “Walking After Midnight” by Patsy Cline was playing in Kate’s flashback. And wouldn’t you know it, Kate and Juliette were probably walking around that time through the jungle before SMonster came along.
3. When Dr Marvin Candle/Wickman talked about ‘the incident’ in the Dharma Iniative training films, my theory is this: there has been a culture/civilization on the island for hundreds of years (remember the big 4-toed statue that Jin, Sun and Sayid saw?). The Dharma Initiative came to the island for some reason probably associated with the island’s strange magnetic issues, and tried to co-exist with the native culture. However, the Dharmas would’ve all resistant to disease due to having been inoculated their whole lives, whereas the island folks would not have been getting injections against disease and viruses. So, like the Native Americans who took ill to the smallpox virus that the Pilgrims brought to America, the islanders, or Others, began falling to the virus. This would’ve led to mistrust and soon the Others began resisting Dharma, leading to “The Incident”. Since that time, there has been the hostilities. There’s still lots to fill in on this theory, but it’s my start…..
4. Games:
a. Mousetrap: we see a Mousetrap game in a room of Otherville. We also saw Mousetrap in a first season Locke-flashback where he was explaining how the game was played to a small kid in the toy store Locke was working in at the time.
b. Backgammon: backgammon has been seen in Lost before, most notably Locke playing with Walt. Backgammon is a fun and interesting game, and easy to see why it would be used so often in Lost: Two sides. Two players. One light (good). One dark. (bad) Hmmmm…no metaphor there.
5. There’s nothing like roasted boar with A1 and paprika!
6. Kate wearing a “Cowboy Up” hat. Sawyer used the term “Cowboy Up” when he was dealing with Carl and trying to get Carl to toughen up (something like “you need to cowboy up. I thought you Others were tough?”)

Comments? Ideas? I’m waiting to hear from you…….

Until next week,

Razzle Dazzle!

*joe

Check these sites other LOST chatter and info:
http://lost.cubit.net/forum/index.php
http://darkufo.blogspot.com/

Opening Day 2007!!!

The baseball season is once again upon us, chummies. I’m psyched!

Fenway Park, Boston, MA

GO RED SOX!!!!!

Lost, Season 3, Episode 14, “Exposé” (3/28/07)

I was ready in advance to dislike this episode. These two “out of nowhere” characters just didn’t fit in with the show, and I couldn’t figure out how the writers were going to make their story interesting.

And as far as I’m concerned, they did a good job with it. I actually ended up liking this episode, and was okay with an ep that didn’t necessarily have to deal with the island mysteries/mythology. I loved how the flashbacks were reminiscent of the episode “The Other 48 Days” (the story of the Tailies) in that the flashbacks included flashing back to the plane crash (where the producers/editors did a great job of inserting Nikki and Paolo into the crash footage!) and during the time on the island. Great stuff.

Well, you’ve been asking all year, “Who the hell are Paolo and Nikki?” Now you’ve got your answer.

Nikki and Paolo: Nikki, a successful actress and guest star of Exposé, and Paolo, her lackey, are a pair of cons who set out to steal diamonds from the producer of Exposé and after getting away with it, they run off with the diamonds. The flashback scene of them at the airport, and having to hear Boone and Shannon arguing (ahhh, the good old days!), was interesting in that it set up the obvious comparison to Boone and Shannon…..they always argued, and so do Nikki and Paolo, and Nikki saying “Promise me we’ll never end up like them” to Paolo. He promises. Doesn’t he know that you can’t make promised on this show?? Funny stuff. It was also funny on the set of Exposé when Nikki’s character, Corvette, gets killed and she says “I was the guest star, I’m supposed to be killed”, and the producer talks about ways of possibly bringing her character back (“She was wearing a bullet proof vest”). While on the island, they search for the bag that held the diamonds (and Paolo’s nicotine gum) because it had been lost in the crash. In the process of looking for the bag, they discover the drug plane (that had Eko’s brother, Yemi on it), and they find the Pearl Station. Paolo later descends into the Pearl Station alone because he had, unbeknownst to Nikki, found the diamonds, and wanted to hid them in a place where he didn’t think they’d be found. While in the Pearl, he had to hide when Ben and Juliette came in and were watching Jack (then in the Swan Hatch) on the videos. Ben & Juliette discuss a way to capture Jack not knowing that Paolo was listening. It doesn’t matter because Paolo doesn’t really interact with Jack, so never gives him the heads up of this meeting. In the meantime, Nikki has asked Dr Arzt (he of the exploding dynamite fame) for help in locating the bag and sees him collecting insects and bugs from the island. One of them is a Medusa spider whose venom can paralyze a person for 8 (one of the numbers) hours, and that the scent of the venom will bring the male Medusa spiders from all around.. Discovering later that Paolo has the diamonds, Nikki throws the Medusa spider on him and takes the diamonds. Paolo tells her he hid he diamonds because he was afraid she’d leave him if she had them. Looking touched and maybe a bit embarrassed about what she’s done, Nikki notices that she is now surrounded by hundreds of the Medusa spiders who have come because of the female spider that stung Paolo. She herself gets stung, but before becoming paralyzed buries the diamonds, and then runs to the beach, where she falls down near Hurley, Jin and Sawyer. As she goes down, she whispers to Hurley to Sawyer. Sawyer thinks she says “Power lines”. Hurley thinks she says “Paolo lies”. I think she said “paralyzed” as a way to let them know she’s been paralyzed and that she is not dead. Didn’t work. Then to have the Losties bury them alive, well that was freakin’ awesome, eh?

Billy Dee Williams: !!!!!!!!!! Awesome.

Shannon and Boone: I like when we get a Shannon and Boone visit. Of course this one was from the “Shannon is still a bitch” time frame, but it was nice to see them again.

Sawyer: Still getting beat by Hurley at ping pong. I love it. Hurley: "Nikki's dead!" Sawyer: "Who the hell's Nikki?" ha ha! Still didn’t know who Nikki and Paolo were, even though Nikki had been asking Sawyer for a gun (in the flashback) right after he had returned from Otherville. Sawyer reminds her that the “A Team” had taken them all! Ha ha! Also funny that Sawyer is back to his nicknaming ways by calling them Nina and Pablo. (Hurley: "Have some respect, you know their names, dude." Sawyer, "Pardon me, HUGO." ha ha!) After finding Nikki and then finding Paolo a bit later, both of them paralyzed but the Losties assume they’re dead, he finds the spot where Nikki buried the diamonds and digs them up.

Hurley: Starting to become a take-charge kind of guy as he was standing up to Sawyer a couple of times, most notably when Sawyer called Nikki and Paolo Nina and Pablo. When he finds the Exposé script in Nikki’s tent, he calls it “only the most awesome hour of television”. Reaches out to Desmond to see if his ability foresaw the Nikki and Paolo incident, and Desmond said no, his visions aren’t regular, they just happen. Hurley replies, “As far as superpowers go, yours is kind of lame”. Ha ha ha!!!!

Locke: “Things never stay buried on this island” he tells Paolo. John was watching “Exposé” on TV in his flashback episode from last week. If you remember, the show he was watching in his apartment had dialogue referring to “the Cobra”, who happens to be the bad guy in Exposé.

Charlie: Admits to Sun that it was he who had kidnapped her. He said the Sawyer had him do it in order to scare the Losties into taking action against the Others. He apologizes to her, saying he never meant to hurt her.

Sun: After Charlie tells her about the kidnapping, she approaches Sawyer, and confronts him about it. He asks if she’s going to tell Jin, and she says “No, or we’ll be digging another grave”. But she does slap Sawyer right across that unshaven face pretty good. Yeah Sun! (I’m guessing that her pregnancy should start showing soon, eh?)

Jin: Was with Sawyer and Hurley when Nikki came out of the woods and collapsed, and also was with them when they found Paolo in the same condition. Jin also believes “monster” did this to them.

SMonster: Paolo repeatedly mentions “the monster”, to which Nikki keeps telling him that there’s no monster. However, after Nikki throws the spider on Paolo, right before the hundreds of other spiders start showing up, you can briefly hear that noise the SMonster makes..that clanking sound. Could the spiders have been the SMonster? I’m starting to wonder if the SMonster is just part of the island…not created by Dharma or Widmore, and is the island’s own built in safety feature. It doesn’t kill everyone (Locke is still alive after seeing it up-close), so maybe it’s the islands brain, or thought center, or screener of good people. Maybe the SMonster is totally in charge of the island and the Others, the Dharmas and the Losties are all part of it’s own experiment. Maybe the SMonster is conning them all……

Misc:
1. Locke told Paolo, who was trying to bury the diamonds on the beach, that “things don’t stay buried on this island”, and at the end of the ep it made me wonder if it meant that maybe Nikki and Paolo would somehow be saved by the island and will return.
2. Mr LaShade: this was the character mentioned in the Exposé who was the good guy, but turns out to be The Cobra, the bad guy. Wonder if this is a nod to the fact that maybe on Lost someone who currently appears to be the “good guy” will turn out to be the “bad guy”.
3. Sawyer reading “Evil Under the Sun”,
4. I wonder where Rose and Bernard have been?
5. Michael and Walt….where are you?

Until next week,

Razzle Dazzle!

*joe

Screen shots can be found here: http://lost.cubit.net/forum/index.php/topic,2640.0.html

And here (under the ‘screencaps’ tab): http://losteastereggs.blogspot.com/