Notes on Pop Culture: Jack Bauer's Last Hour, More on 'Lost's' 'The End' and Parenting Teens in Primetime

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the series finales of 24 and Lost.*

'Lost' Goes Spiritual in 'The End'

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the last ever fresh episode of Lost.*

Live together, die alone.

Matthew Fox and Jimmy Fallon Talk 'Lost's' Big Questions, Like Kate or Juliet?

Matthew Fox, who plays the heroic Island saving Jack Shephard on Lost, appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and “dished” about the show. He agreed to field some of Fallon's odd ball questions including who he’d pick if he had a choice: Kate or Juliet. His answer may surprise you. Or, maybe not.

'Lost's' 'What They Died For' Sparked Nostalgia and Sadness About the Coming End to the Saga

I could feel it coming on as I watched the second-to-last episode of Lost, “What They Died For.”

When the episode began with a close up of Jack’s eye -- as episodes have done twice before, including in the pilot -- it immediately kicked in: The nostalgia, the feeling that I didn’t want this to end, no matter how maddening, confusing and sometimes frustrating Lost can be.

I realized that I actually DIDN’T want ghost Jacob to sit down at a camp fire -- looking like something taken from the show Survivor -- with the three remaining candidates plus Kate, and give us answers, like why Kate’s name was crossed off (because she became a mother).

I actually didn’t want to hear Jacob tell Sawyer, Hurley and Jack that they’re flawed, alone, had huge holes in their lives and because of those things made for good candidates to protect the light inside the magic golden drain pipe, the light in the center of The Island that’s the key to all life. ("I didn't pluck any of you out of a happy existence . . . I chose you because you were like me. You were all alone. You were all looking for something that you couldn't find out there. I chose you because you needed this place as much as it needed you.")

I didn’t want to see Jack step forward and accept that responsibility, to become the new Jacob, the chosen one, as I always assumed he would. (A key moment: Jacob said he wanted to give the candidates a choice -- calling upon their free will -- to accept the responsibility of being The Island’s protector, as opposed to having it imposed upon them as it had been on Jacob by Allison Janney. Though one could argue that Jacob certainly manipulated the situation into occurring, not giving them much choice.) This scene led to the best line of the episode which was uttered by Sawyer, "And I thought that guy had a God complex before."

The realizations that I didn't want to know these things surprised me, because in order for me to get these answers means that Lost is really ending.

By contrast, I found myself being more intrigued by the sideways-flashing Desmond who was using an odd series of maneuvers to bring the Oceanic 815 passengers back together in a bid to get them to remember their exploits on The Island, pre-Jughead. (Sideways-flashing Desmond reminded me of Jacob.)

The brutal beating of Ben Linus -- whom I was happy to see got more than a one-minute scene -- at the hand of Desmond triggered Ben’s amber-tinted recollections of Island life, much to my glee. Seeing Hurley bribe cop Ana Lucia to let the prisoners -- Desmond, Sayid and Kate -- go free was similarly awesome, as was seeing Ben have dinner with a beautifully cleaned up Rousseau who told Ben that he was like a father to her daughter Alex, causing Ben to choke up with emotion.

Back on The Island, Ben proved himself to be a delightful villain once again by betraying Charles Widmore and telling Smoky Locke that Widmore was hiding in Ben’s secret room behind the bookcase. Why did Ben cooperate? Because Smoky Locke offered Ben The Island -- once Smoky Locke leaves it -- in exchange for Ben killing some people on Smoky Locke's behalf.

Just before Ben plugged Widmore with some lead -- payback for having Ben’s daughter Alex killed (“He doesn’t get to save his daughter.”) -- Widmore shared with Smoky Locke the fact that Desmond is some kind of a “fail safe” who, if all of Jacob's candidates were killed, could be used to destroy The Island, the one Jack had just vowed to protect with his life, by way of protecting all human life from the snuffing out of The Island’s inner light.

Sure, “What They Died For” had flaws and left us with more questions. (Why couldn’t Jacob have just remained a ghost-like presence to help Jack instead of dying when the camp fire went out? Why have Jack be a father in the sideways-flash? Why did Jacob appear as a kid to Hurley and then as an adult? If Jacob crossed Kate off because she became a mother why did she have to get on that plane the second time?) But in my present mood, feeling nostalgic and all, I embraced all the chaos of "What They Died For" as I look forward to the big finale which’ll take up a bazillion hours of ABC programming on Sunday. My hopes are very high for the finale. I've got my fingers crossed that I'm not disappointed.

What did you think of “What They Died For?” Did it meet your expectations? Oh, and what the hell did Smoky Locke do with Richard, he who shall have eternal life?

Image credit: Mario Perez/ABC.

Talkin' 'Lost': Jack Shephard vs Jack Bauer, Top 10 'Lost' Love Scenes

Bauer vs Shephard

A writer at the Philadelpia Daily News has made an analogy which some 24 fans – and Jack Shephard haters – might find objectionable: She compares 24’s anti-hero Jack Bauer and Lost’s hero Jack Shephard.

Writer Ellen Gray concluded: “. . . [W]hile at first glance the angst-ridden surgeon and the stoic action figure seem to have little more in common than a nickname, a closer examination reveals two guys who, if anything, might be too much alike.”

While Bauer’s do-anything-it-takes-to-stop-the-bad-guys may seem at odds with Shephard’s let’s-do-what’s-morally-right point of view, Gray listedn some striking similarities between the characters including:

-- They’re “obsessed with saving people.”

-- They had “bad dads.”

-- They’ve both been behind bars. (She equates Bauer’s time in a Chinese prison, where he was tortured, to Shephard’s time being held hostage by Ben in order to convince him to remove his spinal tumor.)

-- They had unhappy marriages and haven’t done fared well in the dating department.

-- Their biggest similarity: Gray said they both “survived things – plane crashes, nuclear bombs – that most people wouldn’t.”

Hmm, she’s got some good points there,  but I'm not entirely convinced. I think Bauer's closer to Sawyer than to Shephard. What do you think?

Top 10 Lost Love Scenes

The web site Jezebel had an entertaining post highlighting what the folks at BuzzSugar consider the top 10 “Lost love” moments.

As you might expect, Sawyer turns up a few times – for his cage sex with Kate and his 70s flower-giving/kissing scene with Juliet. Sun and Jin had two entries on the list. . . *sniffle* But the top love scene went to . . . Penny and Desmond’s reunion. That wouldn’t have been my choice.



P.S. -- Just read New York Magazine's interview with Lost co-creators Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. It's worth the read, particularly for their explanation for how certain storylines -- like Jacob and the Man in Black -- weren't scripted from the beginning but came up during the creative process.

Cuse said of the 2.5-hour finale: "It will really feel like a feature film."
Image credits: Mario Perez/ABC and Fox.

EW Gives 'Lost' One Last Cover

Entertainment Weekly has given the conclusion of the Lost saga one last cover treatment. Apparently there are 11 different versions of the EW "The End of Lost" cover, each featuring a single character, except for one which features several characters in a Brady Bunch-like series of boxes. (I hope the one that arrives in my mailbox is a Jack one. There. I’ve outed myself as a Jack fan.) The EW cover package also offers something the writers are calling, “Lost: The Complete Viewer’s Guide.”

In other Lost news, there’s a viral video going around featuring Lost’s co-creators, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof and some "Muppets" who burst into the Lost writers' room. Enjoy.



Image credit: Entertainment Weekly.

'Lost's' 'The Candidate' Made Me Cry, Dammit

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Lost.*

Seriously, do not proceed if you haven't yet watched "The Candidate" . . .

Which 'Lost' Character Has the Worst Mommy/Daddy Issues?

After nearly six seasons of watching Lost, there’s one common thread I've picked up on for most of the main characters: They’ve got some serious mommy and daddy issues. Big time.

The messages I’ve drawn from the backstories of the various Losties: When you treat your kids crappy and set them up to fail in life, wreck their self-confidence or even, say, toss 'em out of an eight story window, bad things happen. They could wind up turning into a smoke monster, a murderous Ben Linus, a con man or a fugitive from the law.

My snarky take on the parenting lessons I’ve gleaned from Lost – like this one: “If you don’t treat your kids right, they’ll wind up poisoning you.” (referencing, of course, Ben Linus' gas poisoning of his Dharma dad) -- has just been published in column form.

In the meantime, here’s ABC’s “sneak peek” at next week’s new episode, “The Candidate,” where Jack declares to the Man in Black/Smoky Locke that he’s not leaving the island.



Which Lost character do you think has the biggest mommy or daddy issues? Jack? Locke? Ben? Sawyer?

Image credit: Mario Perez/ABC.

'Lost' Has a Repeat Tonight, but May 4's 'The Candidate' Focuses on Jack & Locke

While tonight’s episode of Lost is a repeat of the Richard episode -- "Ab Aeterno" -- the fresh episode next week on May 4, is called, “The Candidate” and, according to TV.com, it’s about, “Jack's suspicions about Locke make his decision more difficult after he is asked to complete a difficult task.”

The TV Fanatic added that, “Jack's questions about Locke grow this week, as he's asked to complete a difficult task.” (Among the interesting photos TV Fanatic has posted for "The Candidate" is the one on the left where Kate’s reaching through the bars.)

What to make of this episode description? Will the “difficult task” be killing someone? Jailing Kate in those cages again?

Could it really be that Jack -- the one whose last name is Shephard -- is THE candidate to replace Jacob, finally achieve redemption and prove that he has what it takes, or, because he seems like such an obvious choice, is he just a red herring? (When discussing who could possibly be Jacob's final replacement with my spouse, I floated Desmond's name but he said, "Desmond is kind of like Switzerland. Desmond's just neutral.")

In the meantime, ABC’s latest promo is supposed to suggest what, that the Man in Black/Smoky Locke’s soul is what, on fire, all messed up? Now there’s a news flash for ya. . .



Image credit: ABC via TV Fanatic.

'Lost:' 'The Last Recruit'

*Warning: Spoilers from the latest episode of Lost ahead.*

Well, not every episode can be a homerun. "The Last Recruit" felt really rushed and superficial, as the “answer” to at least one outstanding question came too easily and didn’t jive with other things we’ve previously seen.

The Man in Black/Smoky Locke told Jack Shephard, in a matter of fact fashion, that he had used the body of Jack’s father Christian to run around the island after Oceanic 815 crashed. So Man in Black's a puppeteer who uses dead bodies at will to run around? What if there were no more bodies for him to inhabit?

Last week, Michael told Hurley that there were dead people who were “stuck” on the island, not counting the people whose bodies the Man in Black was using for fun. Where does that leave someone like Walt who was alive when he appeared to more than one person?

Why have people who did not die on the island appeared before our Losties? Like Ben's mother, who died while giving birth to him in the United States? Or Richard's wife who appeared to Hurley a few episodes ago but never set foot on the island when she was alive?

Aside from the questions about the appearances of the deceased, this warfare stuff, Widmore’s people sending bombs raining down on Man in Black and the people who are “with” him because they won’t give back “The Package” (Desmond who’s likely still alive because I don’t believe Sayid killed him), I'm not fond of this storyline. We've had plenty of wars with The Others and the Losties, with the freighter people and our Losties. It feels old.
The Jack-Sawyer face-off – where Jack got all wishy-washy about whether they should stay and Sawyer acted all keep-that-crazy-talk-to-yourself-or-get-the-hell-off-my-damn-boat – eh, it really did not move me either. Didn’t like this twist, even though it reminded me of the helicopter trip to the freighter where Sawyer jumped into the ocean as the copter was losing fuel, however Sawyer jumped to save the copter from crashing. Did Jack’s jumping from the boat also save our Losties in some way? Also, should we give any weight to Sawyer’s quip, “We’re done going back Kate?” (The Lost Untangled video below had a funny take on this.)

Things I did like from "The Last Recruit:"

Liked that there seems to be a reunion of sorts going on at the LA hospital in the sideways-flashing existence, with Jack being called away from the reading of his father’s will (where he learned Claire was his half-sister after Desmond manipulated her into going to his attorney Ilana's office which happened to be in the same building as the adoption agency) to operate on Locke’s back, while Sun was recovering from a gunshot wound (and her baby’s okay).

Was intrigued by the fact that Man in Black/Smoky Locke called the original John Locke “stupid” because he believed “he’d been brought here for a reason” and “pursued that belief until it got him killed.” “John Locke was not a believer Jack,” Smoky Locke said, “he was a sucker.”

But isn’t the reason why Jack abandoned the boat and returned to the island because Jack believed he’d been called back to the island for something, to finish something? Does that make Jack a sucker too?

The Sun-Jin reunion was sweet, brought tears to my eyes, but it was spoiled when the Widmore zombies raised their weapons a second time. (The whole bit with Sun losing her ability to speak English but suddenly regaining it when she saw Jin was unnecessary, messy madness. Again, I'm right on with what Dr. Chang says in Lost Untangled.)



Overall, I was seeking a little more depth to this episode coming on the heels of two really strong episodes. I wanted emotional resonance instead of the taking sides/“war”/”You’re with me now” thread which just seems like an excuse to have big explosions and gunfire.

The reason I was so drawn to the previous two episodes with Desmond and Hurley was because they seemed meaningful, touched on weighty issues like fate, destiny, free will and bonds between people. They'd started to draw larger issues and questions together as though they might've been slowly closing a larger loop. But then they dropped the string and went astray with the shallow “war” storyline between Widmore and Man in Black/Smoky Locke. If this is how we’re going to spend the last few hours of one of the most intriguing, maddening and clever television shows in history, I’m going to be peeved, I tell you that much.

What did you think of “The Last Recruit?”

Image credit: Mario Perez/ABC.

'Lost's' 'Happily Ever After' is Just What I've Been Waiting For

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Lost.*

This

is why

I love Lost.

We went back to the stadium where Jack and Desmond initially met eons ago, in the “Man of Science, Man of Faith” episode.

We saw Daniel Faraday Widmore, wearing the same kind of skinny black tie, that stringy hair and carrying a notebook.

There was Penny with her radiant smile.

Oh, and Eloise was there too and she was married to Charles Widmore.

There was a flash of Charlie’s hand, as he was drowning in the Looking Glass station, with, “Not Pennys Boat” written in pen. His band Drive Shaft's hit song.

Charles Widmore shared that super-expensive 60-year-old scotch with Desmond, the one he wouldn’t pour for Desmond back in the “Flashes Before Your Eyes” episode when Desmond asked Widmore for permission to marry his daughter Penny and Widmore told Desmond he wasn't worth it. But, in the life of a sideways-flashing Desmond, Widmore said, as he gave Desmond the liquor, “Nothing’s too good for you.”

And there was a white rabbit.

This is what I’ve been hoping this final season would be like. Just like this. Things tying back around to earlier Lost threads. Gave me the warm and fuzzies.

Loved hearing sideways-flashing Charlie talking about life's choices and truth and what's real, and Desmond responding, “There’s always a choice, brutha.”

Eloise, seemingly clued-in to all this alternate universe/sideways-flashing stuff, telling sideways-flashing Desmond, who was drawn to Penny and didn't fully understand why, to stop looking for her. “It is, in fact, a violation," she said. ". . . You have the perfect life. On top of it, you’ve managed to attain the thing you wanted more than anything, my husband’s approval.”

Her musician son Daniel, who was suffering from the same sense of déjà vu as Desmond, didn’t understand why he’d written a complex equation into a black notebook, given that he’s "just" a musician. “What if this wasn’t supposed to be our life?” he asked Desmond, a twinkle in his eyes. “What if we had some other life and for some reason, we changed things? . . . I don’t want to set off a nuclear bomb, Mr. Hume, but I think I already did.”

I was loving all of this was so much that I was really disappointed to have Desmond wake up from the electromagnetic sideways-flashing experience and be back on the island with crooked-glassed Zoe, with more gun-toting people and watching “claimed” Sayid ask Desmond to come with him.

I felt thoroughly satisfied after watching “Happily Ever After,” particularly in the notion it advanced: No matter what, people who are meant to be together are going to find one another one way or another.

What did you think of "Happily Ever After?"

Image credit: Mario Perez/ABC.

'Lost:' 'The Package' . . . Unwraps Yet More Questions

*Warning, spoilers from the recent episode of Lost ahead.*

Waaaaiiittt a minute! Hold on just one second . . .

Sun is pregnant in her sideways-flash? With Jin’s baby or Jae Lee’s, the guy who taught her English? (Or did she not know English in her sideways-flash and had never met Jae Lee in the sideways universe? Wasn't clear on her linguistic abilities in the sideways-flash.) Why weren’t Sun and Jin married and what does their being married have to do with Oceanic not crashing? Why was Martin Keamy working for Sun’s father and not Widmore in the sideways-flash? What’s up with Mikhail (previously known as Patchy, a Dharma-ite) escorting Sun to the bank, only to be, ironically, blinded in one eye by Jin, after Mikhail shot Sun in the stomach?

Questions, questions . . . questions to which I fear we’ll never get satisfactory answers in the handful of episodes remaining, especially when new characters (Zoe with the crooked specs) are introduced at this late date.

I’m getting a bit weary from these massive shifts in momentum. First few seasons, here’s how it went: Get off the island. Get off the island! Get OFF the island!! (And stay away from the smoke, and that mean Ben guy.)

Then, it changed: Hey we’ve got to go BACK to the island to save our friends. We’ve got to go back Kate! We’ve got to go BACK! We’ve got to get a specific group of people (the candidates? the people whom Ben & Locke were collecting) to go back to the island TOGETHER. Remember the oldie but goodie: "Live together, die alone?"

Now that they’re all on the island(s), the mantra has become: We’ve got to get off the island! Oh, and we’ve got to get a certain group of people together in order to do this, however, if we do that, hell will be unleashed upon the earth, so, maybe we shouldn't . . . This time, the Man in Black is the people collector, trying to persuade the remaining candidates to replace Jacob to accompany him off the island.

On this subject, I found intriguing the Man in Black/Locke's comment to Claire about needing Kate to persuade the others to leave the island, even though Kate's no longer a candidate(?): “Once she does, whatever happens, happens.” (Another oldie but a goodie.)

Near the end of "The Package," it struck me that Jack -- after all he’s been through and all his mistakes -- had the chutzpah to act as though he’s the one to be trusted, to lead the group. He once led them some of them off the island. Then he led them back on. Now he seems to be leaning toward going to the Hydra island, where the plane is, and, perhaps, stopping the Man in Black/Locke. (Doesn't Jack look like he's blessing Sun in the above ABC photo? Hmm.)

Of all the scenes in "The Package," the one with Jin looking longingly at the digital photos of his daughter, whom he’d never seen, made me tear up. So while I was feeling great sympathy for Jin, Widmore dropped this nugget into the mix: “If that, thing, masquerading as John Locke ever got off this island, your wife, your daughter, my daughter, everyone we know and love would simply cease to be. I came here to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“How?” Jin asked.

“Come with me,” Widmore said. “I think it’s time for you to see The Package.”

“What 'package'?”

“It’s not a what, it’s a who.”

Could he be speaking about Desmond? Ack! I allowed myself fall into the trap of trying to figure out what’s happening and trying to make it make sense, even though I vowed I wouldn’t do this. Damn, my head hurts now.

Image credit: Mario Perez/ABC.

'Lost's' 'Ab Aeterno,' Otherwise Known as 'What Fresh Hell is This?'

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Lost.*

Dorothy Parker’s famous line, “What fresh hell is this?” came to my mind immediately upon the conclusion of the most recent episode of Lost, “Ab Aeterno.”

The island’s hell. No it’s not. Richard’s dead. No he’s not. Isabella’s dead. Kind of. Well, she’s a ghost. Maybe. But she can only be seen by Hurley who has suddenly assumed powers held by Whoopi Goldberg in the movie Ghost and can talk to communicate with the dead. Oh, and Hurley can see the dead. Or at least Isabella. (Is Hurley a Miles 2.0?)

Don’t get me wrong, I like the Richard Alpert character. I’ve been patiently waiting for the writers to delve into his backstory and explain why he never ages (Jacob’s gift of eternal life), when he came to the island (1867) and why (crashed on island while on board the Black Rock where he was chained as a slave after being spared hanging for the accidental death of a man with whom he’d been scuffling). And ever since undead/Man in Black/Smoky Locke remarked that it was nice to see Richard out of his chains, I’ve been wondering why Richard was ever in chains to begin with because he always seemed like a decent enough guy.

I was pleased to obtain that information, to see that Richard also had an epic love which ended in a personal tragedy, like many of the other Losties . . . or, like many of the other Losties in the post-Jughead/post-crash world. As for the sideways-flashing Losties, I’ve got no real clue about the status of their love lives. Post-crash/post-Jughead Locke, for example, had lost Helen, the love of his life, but the uncrashed/sideways-flashing version of Locke was, last we saw, getting ready to marry Helen.

I saw a number of parallels between the way Richard now feels about Jacob (betrayed, let down) and my feelings about this final season. I’m trying really hard not to delve too deeply into all of these new developments (I so do not care about Zoe), not to look for loopholes and inconsistencies because, as I’ve said before, I’m (mostly) done with all of that . . . But I can't help myself . . . haven’t the Lost writers said that the island is not an afterlife or some form of limbo? Haven’t they said that or am I mistaken? The island can’t be hell or a place of reckoning where people go to redeem themselves, can it?

In “Ab Aeterno,” (which is Latin for “from the beginning of time”) Jacob told Richard that Jacob’s job was to make sure that the Man in Black remains on the island in order to keep him from unleashing hell on earth.  We also know that there are six remaining “candidates” to potentially replace Jacob as the guardian to keep the Man in Black on the island to spare the world from his wrath.

But wait . . . in Richard’s flashback, didn’t the Man in Black hand Richard the same dagger that Dogen handed Sayid, and issue identical instructions: kill without allowing the man to talk? What in the heck does that mean? How does this all jive with ABC's "The Last Supper" photo where they posed Locke in the center in the Jesus-about-to-be-sacrificed-by-God-and-crucified position?

You know what else I keep getting stuck on? The fact that last season, Jack Shephard was hell-bent (pun intended) on corralling all his plane crash buddies together to go back to the island in order to “save” their friends because Widmore wanted to kill everyone on the island and take it over. The Ajira flight that Jack & Co. took to return to the island brought Ben, who killed Jacob, and it carried Locke’s body which was claimed by the Man in Black. So the whole, “We’ve got to go back,” wasn’t really about saving the Losties left behind but about trying to save humanity? And why is Widmore hanging out in a sub off shore and whose side is he on? Is he God and Jacob and the Man in Black are his Biblically warring sons?

No, no, no . . . not going to try to figure this all out. I'm just going to attempt to ride the final handful of episodes out without trying to work this out in my head because then I’ll end up making myself frustrated that the Lost lore doesn’t all add up, at least not to my satisfaction. However the Lost Untangled recap of “Ab Aeterno” below was hilarious. I like the way the people who write these videos think.



What did you think of “Ab Aeterno?” Of Richard’s backstory? Of the evolving final episode(s) arc about the Losties having to keep the Man in Black on the island in order to save the world from becoming a living hell?

Image credit: Mario Perez/ABC.

'Lost's' 'Lighthouse' Episode and Why I've Decided to Just Go Along for the Ride

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Lost*

I’ve made a decision which is going to make my life much easier: While watching the recent episode of Lost, called “Lighthouse,” I decided to stop trying so hard to figure it all out and just go with it, Zen-Namaste-Dharma style. Some may call this a cop-out, but (*deep centering breath*) I don’t care.

The turning point in my approach to watching this program occurred in the wee hours of the morning last week after I’d stayed up way too late in the wake of the Locke-centric “The Substitute” episode. I poured through several discs from my Lost DVD collection searching for clues to confirm what I thought I knew about Locke’s history before his fateful plane ride on Oceanic 815. When I toyed with caffeinating up at 1 a.m., I knew that things had gone too far.

I’m no longer going to parse every single statement, search for every single Easter egg, pause the TV and stare wide-eyed at the frozen image hoping to glean some insight. Nope. I’m not. I’m just going to enjoy Lost and not fret over the fact that I don’t have any freakin’ clue, for example, why the uncrashed Jack Shephard has a son, lives in a nice apartment and only sees his kid once a month, when the boy’s not living with his mom, who was not identified. I smiled when Jack told his kid David that he’d hooked up the cable on the TV in his bedroom so that he could watch the Red Sox. (Love that Jack’s a Sox fan.) Since I wasn’t so busy playing Lost detective, I was able to notice similarities between Matthew Fox’s days when he played Charlie Salinger on Party of Five and had a kid sister who was a music prodigy, like Jack Shephard’s son David. Sweet coincidence.

When Jacob decided to give Hurley marching orders because of all this “candidate” business, asked Hurley to write cryptic stuff on his arm and to speak authoritatively to the head of the Other Others, I didn’t let the confusion irritate me, just let it wash over me. (*feeling the Zen*)

I smirked when Hurley responded to ghost Jacob’s request that he try to convince Jack to accompany him on another quest by saying, “Did you ever try to get Jack to do something, it’s, like, impossible.” I derived pleasure from the first moments of levity since the season began when wry music was played as Hurley tried to be all 007-suave and convince Jack to come with him with his quip, “Be cool man, act natural.”

The armed, murderous, booby trap-setting, Rousseau-like, dark-hearted-Man-in-Black buddy Claire -- complete with the wild hair and the “I want my baby back” mission – was entertaining as well, as long as I tried not to think too hard about it. Didn’t even rise to the bait of the lighthouse imagery, a newfangled “wheel” (not the time travel-inducing donkey wheel) and freaky surveillance mirrors (pre-Jack-smash). Not gonna think too hard about it. Not. Gonna.

So I’m, essentially, going along with the ride. As Hurley, often referred to as the voice of the audience, said while he and post-crash/post-Jughead/“broken” Jack walked through the jungle together, “This is cool, dude, very old school . . . on a way to do something that we don’t quite understand. Good times.” Just like my newfound mindset toward watching Lost, the final season: Very cool, although I don’t quite understand. But that’s okay. Which made the latest Lost Untangled video all the more fun to watch. (Loved the line about Jacob being so mysterious.)



What do you think of Jack the Daddy? Of the lighthouse? Of the axe-wielding Claire?

'Lost:' Comparing Jack's Plane Rides, Plus New 'Lost Untangled' Video

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Lost.*

I wasn't on the internet late Tuesday through yesterday -- pressing family matter -- therefore I haven't yet been able to weigh in on the first episode of the final season of Lost. I'm going to echo what Grey's Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes wrote on Twitter today, "Saw LOST twice. Am very confused. Am happy about the chance to be confused over LOST again."

Well, I've only seen the premiere but a single time, however I'm planning on watching it a second time with The Spouse when he's available. And I too, like Rhimes, am very happy to be once again scratching my head trying to figure out what the heck's going on on Lost.

Some reactions:

Will You be 'Lost' Tonight?

I will be, although I can't decide whether to be excited about the season premiere which kicks off the final season of Lost, or if I should keep my expectations low.

Fans of the show seem to be largely of two minds:

1. The final season can't possibly meet expectations and provide "reasonable" answers to the main questions that will make all these hours of head-scratching TV viewing worth it. (This is my husband's position.)

OR

2. Since the writers had a series end date in mind, they must've thoroughly thought this all through and will deliver a conclusion to Lost that will leave us fans feeling satisfied. (This is my hopeful position.)

Among the naysayers is Boston Globe writer, Mark Feeney, who wrote that in order to continue to embrace the show through its various ups and downs, you'd need to be a fan of what he called, "implausibility porn" and be okay with that. "We all like a dollop, or more, of implausibility," he said. "Otherwise why bother with superheroes and infallible private eyes and Jedi knights. But even in a galaxy far, far away, the basic rules of cause and effect are expected to apply."

For Feeney, those rules of "cause and effect" were violated on Lost when he felt as though he could no longer suspend his disbelief while observing all these coincidences, specifically last season's scene when Desmond Hume happened to arrive "in Los Angeles to see [Daniel] Faraday’s mother at the exact same instant Ben, Jack, and Sun show up." That was it for Feeney, he wrote, adding, ". . . [I]t was the serendipity that broke the camel’s back. This wasn’t wallowing. This was drowning."

So, where do we go from here? I'm optimistic that there won't be horrific shark jumping in the final season. (*fingers crossed and knocking on wood*) We left off in the 1970s with a grieviously wounded Juliet flailing away at the H-bomb with a rock hoping the bomb would detonate and, essentially, re-set the clock and alter future events. Was Jack right about his prediction that setting off this bomb would be a good thing?

ABC has released a teaser video which they named, "Message in a Bottle." However if you are averse to spoilers, do not, I repeat, do not watch the video. You've been warned.

Seeing the Whole Picture: 'Lost's' First Plane Crash Video

An enterprising Lost fan, exercising great precision, synchronized the events just prior, during and after the crash of the original Oceanic 815 flight carrying the original Lost characters. From showing what was happening with "The Others" (Juliet Burke and the book club which explicitly didn't include Ben Linus) and with Desmond and the Hatch and the angry button, to the crash as experienced by Jack & Co. and the Tailies, it provided a larger perspective.

Made me anxious to start counting down until Feb. 2, the beginning of the end.

'Lost' Supper? What Does These Promo Photos Mean?

Stumbled across a new Lost promotional image on Pop Candy this morning with the cast of Lost posed to resemble Jesus and his disciples in Da Vinci's famous painting, The Last Supper.

While I was trying to absorb the imagery (ruins of a Dharma building, gun under the table, a skull . . . maybe? Is that supposed to be a cross over Jack Shephard's left shoulder?), I saw the twin promo photo, where the castmates are all looking at the dead-not-dead "Locke," with a few of the people sitting in different places (Claire, Sun, Jin and Miles).

The New York Times' TV blogger Dave Itzkoff points out that in both images Sayid is standing where Judas stood (I would've thought Ben Linus would've been put in this position) and that Locke is smiling in the image when everyone's looking at him but not in the one where everyone's looking straight ahead.

What does this Locke-as-Jesus photo mean with the Losties sitting behind a table fashioned out of an airplane wing?

Image credit: ABC via Pop Candy and via the New York Times.

'Lost's' Matthew Fox and Jimmy Kimmel Share a Weird 'Gorgeous Man' Moment

Matthew Fox appeared on Jimmy Kimmel's show to promote Lost, but he wound up promoting his comedy chops. The two did a video -- which reminded me of Kimmel's video with Ben Affleck, minus the bleeped out expletives and sexual references -- which was weirdly amusing.

Very un-Jack Shepherd-like. (Link to video here.)

My favorite moment: The "In Your Eyes" lip syncing on the roof.

'Lost' Season Finale: The Incident

*Warning: Spoilers from the Lost season finale ahead*

I've just gotta get this out of the way . . . I will never think of the phrase"lock box" quite the same again. (Bad, I know. . .)

I spent a good hour-and-a-half last night vigorously debating with The Spouse about Lost's season finale, specifically about Jacob and his nemesis, and how time travel fits into what now appears to be a TV show about the innate good/evil tendencies in humans, free will versus determinism. Immediately after the screen went white (NOT black, per usual), the debate commenced. Jacob, dressed in white, represents God, The Spouse argued. Jacob's trying to prove that humans can do better than to succumb to their most base, evil temptations. The other guy, dressed in black, The Spouse continued, is the devil who's trying to prove to Jacob/God that people are inherently evil and selfish.

The other guy, let's call him Hal just so I don't have to keep calling him "the other guy," looked out from the island's beach, sitting next to a huge Egyptian statue, and looked at what I can only assume is the 1800s era ship, the Black Rock, that eventually shipwrecked there. Hal said, "How did they find the island? . . . You [Jacob] brought them here. You're trying to prove me wrong aren't you?"

"You are wrong," Jacob said.

"Am I? They come, fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same."

"It only ends once. (?!) Anything that happens before that is just progress," Jacob replied.

Here, watch the opening scene for yourself (link to the main Lost site with the "loophole" video here):



I listened to and pondered The Spouse's arguments and then asked, "Does this mean that the island is like a Garden of Eden, a test site for a meta human nature experiment so that Jacob/God can improve upon his creation and prove to Satan that humans can be forces for good in the world?"

"Let's say I buy that whole good versus evil theme, buy into it as the framework for the remainder of this television series," I continued, "how the hell does time travel fit into it? Isn't time travel a scientific notion? Daniel Faraday, who told Jack Shepherd how to supposedly prevent the crashing of Oceanic 815 in 2004, was a scientist who spent decades studying time travel. He had knowledge of the electromagnetic properties of the island. How does that fit into a purely good versus evil story?"

The Spouse didn't really have an answer and was starting to grow a wee bit cranky as the clock ticked past midnight. (I think I'd had way too much caffeine prior to watching the finale.)

It was true that Jack had to decide whether he had faith in Faraday's scientific certainty, or whether Jack should instead just forge ahead with his own life and not blow up The Swan. He could've wooed Kate back and lived in the Dharma village. But Jack ultimately made the choice that he thought was for the greater good, not just for Jack Shepherd. He was proving a Jacob/God point that humans can be selfless. So there was some degree of faith there, a moral test, I conceded to The Spouse. But that scientific time travel element -- which has so dominated this season -- mucks up a good versus evil theme, muddies the waters, I insisted.

As much as I want to cross my fingers and hope that the writers are actually going to make this all make sense -- and I mean ALL , such as why these particular people, why they ALL had to come back to the island, why certain people are in 1977 and others are in 2007, why Jacob can appear on the island/off the island, what Christian Shepherd's ghost has to do with guiding Sun, how Locke's father wound up in "The Box" last season, why doesn't Richard age, what about Walt and how do the ubiquitous numbers come into play? -- I'm growing fearful that it won't all be tied together into a neat package as I so much want it to be. I want to believe that my own faith in the Lost writers will pay off in the end.

Anyway, onto more episode analysis . . . The issues of "free will" and choices for either the greater good or for selfish reasons, have been explored before, however in the finale they were repeatedly invoked. Sawyer/LaFleur wanted to take the Dharma sub and go away with Juliet to live happily ever after. Kate wanted to go back to help "save" their friends on the island. And while Sawyer, Juliet and Kate were initially going to try to stop Jack from detonating the H-bomb at The Swan because they were afraid they'd all be killed, not saved, they eventually allowed Jack to go forth and drop the bomb, hoping they'd be saving everyone who'd been killed since their plane first crashed in 2004. (Another nod to Jacob/God's selfless choices.)

H-bomb aside, the scene in Jacob's lair -- where Ben was told by the Locke impostor (Locke being supposedly possessed by Satan now) to kill Jacob -- played out more starkly as good versus evil. Jacob looked directly at Ben, who'd once been the "leader" of the island, to whom Jacob had never spoken, whom Jacob had refused to see. The more Ben thought about how he'd been blown off by Jacob, the angrier Ben (who'd been saved as a child by the smoke monster . . . or could it have been disciples of Satan/Hal who saved Ben from death, took his soul and made him evil?) got. "Why him?" Ben asked referring to Jacob allowing Locke to visit as soon as he'd been crowned the island's leader. "What was it that was so wrong about me? What about me?" then, of course, an angry Ben killed Jacob/God, scoring a victory for Hal/Satan. (See the violent scene below.)



When we learned that Locke's body was inside the big metal box being toted around by the latest airline crash survivors, I was totally confused. After all that Jesus/resurrection talk, the Judas and the cross imagery, Locke is actually dead and Hal/Satan has been impersonating him? I'll be frank on this matter; I don't understand this turn of events, despite the "loophole" stuff that Hal and Jacob discussed on the beach in the 1800s. I don't get how there could be two Locke bodies at once, unless of course one Locke body is time traveling, but I didn't get the impression that the Locke who told Ben to kill Jacob was OUR Locke. We're supposed to believe that it was Hal/Satan who'd somehow found a loophole to kill Jacob. How does this so-called loophole work? Could the key be somehow related to time travel?

I have no idea. Seriously. By the time I finished trying to reorient myself to the new Lost reality (Locke's not alive. Locke's not really supposed to be a resurrected Jesus figure even though he did hear Jacob say, "Help me," two seasons ago. Jacob/God visited and touched most of our Oceanic folks -- Jack, Hurley, Sayid, Sawyer, Kate, Sun & Jin, appeared to resurrect a dead Locke after his father pushed him out of the high rise window. Hal/Satan is trying to prove that people are inherently selfish and evil and prone to violence.), it was 12:30 a.m. and The Spouse was telling me to shut up because he had to go to sleep. And now, 15 hours later, I'm still stumped.

I'd love to hear your theories, your reactions to the season finale, particularly how time travel fits into the overall theme of what now appears to be good versus evil. And what's up with Locke?