Thursday, May 11, 2006

Questions? and Answers?

Spoiler space back in effect for "Lost." More after the jump.


What the heck was that? An entire hour where the plot moved forward, where the flashback revealed something we didn't know about a character, where I actually felt compelled to put down the laptop and just, you know, watch the show with no distractions like it was 1994 or something. Nice.

And I didn't dig it just because of my Mr. Eko fixation, though the moment where he and Locke began their version of Marvel Team-Up (or Marvel Two-In-One, if you're feeling especially geeky) was seventeen blends of awesome. I still don't believe Lindelof, Cuse and company know where any of this is going, but when they bother to dole out significant information like the true nature of the button-pushing Skinner's Box experiment, I don't mind as much. On the other hand, clever bastards that they are, each episode with big revelations always follows them with even bigger questions. Between Eko and Locke's shared visions, another appearance by Claire's psychic friend and his daughter's message from the Great Beyond for Eko, I'm thinking the producers have long ago abandoned their contention that every single thing on this show could be explained by science fact, not fiction. Not that I care.

Back when "Dave" aired, Matt contended that Jorge Garcia had "revealed himself as (Lost's) de facto star and its deepest actor." I don't know about the former, but Hurley's reaction to Libby's shooting and death got to me in a way that even Naveen Andrews and Terry O'Quinn haven't in the last two seasons. For someone who was hired to play the Wacky Fat Guy, he's almost shockingly good.

Now, I could reconcile the pointlessness of Cynthia Watros' presence this season (especially the insertion of Libby in the "Dave" flashback) if I could believe that the cushion of the blankets and the island's mysterious healing powers would save Libby and keep her around for next season. Instead, they shoved her out the door with Drunky McGee #1, and they didn't even have the courtesy to give her her token flashback in her death episode like Shannon and Ana-Lucia got. Sorry, Cynthia. I'll still always love you for "Titus."

What did everyone else think?

8 comments:

  1. Michael has to die, not so much for the murders but for making Hurley blame himself.

    I didn't feel like they gave us anything we didn't already suspect about the bunkers and such (why don't they just cut the crap and call it the Rimbaldi Initiative already?), but it was nice that they pinned down a date: 1980. And the page of code Eko found, I'm sure there are 5 speculation sites about it already.

    The fake psychic is also the Russian premier on 24. He's good with the accents!

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  2. "Titus" ruled.

    Annoying issue of the week: The show ran long. The DVR I was watching it on (after AMERICAN IDOL) recorded for an hour and one minute. Hurley was just walking in to see Libby when the recording ended. ARGH!

    Thankfully, I have access to the episode from another TiVo that I'll get to tonight, so I won't miss anything. I hate networks.

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  3. I'm a Comcast subscriber and "Lost" is on my DVR schedule. I have programmed it to begin recording at one minute prior to the broadcast time and end two minutes after it's supposed to end. Fortunately, I was also watching last night so I was able to hit the record button on my remote to overlap the scheduled recording as it was obvious this episode was going to run longer than scheduled. I have reprogrammed my DVR to record the remaining "Lost" episodes for an extra half-hour. I'm not taking any chances. (I assume TiVO has the same feature.)

    There was another Hanso commercial in the final commercial block. And this past week "Hanso" placed ads in newspapers across the country warning against the novel "Bad Twin" and it's "disinformation" regarding "Hanso." I saw the ad in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

    So it looks like "Lost" is turning into a mixture of "Lord of the Flies" and "Heart of Darkness" with some Scientology thrown in.

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  4. I liked it, too, but I'm always a little bothered when characters have dreams in which they're visited by someone who tells them exactly what to do next. It feels like a cheat.

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  5. Dude - what show were you watching? Nothing happened. Nothing was revealed. The button does nothing - no kidding. Henry Gale already told us that. Libby died - we knew that was coming. Locke and Eko share the same dream? That would be cool if it were ever going to be paid off! How long do we allow ourselves to get jerked around?

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  6. I'm beginning to hate this show for consistently killing off characters I start to like.

    It's like making new friends in school each year only to have each one die in a car accident.

    I predict viewer backlash.

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  7. Mr. Eko is my favorite character, so I was ecstatic to see him get another flashback last night, especially since I got to watch it on my sister's new 42" plasma TV! :-)

    Locke/Eko interactions are my favorites scenes as well. Triple A and Terry O'Quinn have better chemistry than Terry & Matthew Fox; sometimes Jack & Locke's adversarial tensions get tiresome. I also like that Eko wouldn't put up with Locke's evasiveness, though perhaps it would have been cooler if he'd slapped him upside the head with his Jesus stick instead of giving him the headbutt.

    I also agree with Alan that Jorge Garcia is turning in some great performances. I was teary-eyed watching him watching Libby die (I liked Libby, too, so I was sad to see her go).

    Next week: The Gorton's Fisherman returns. Yikes!

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  8. "I'm beginning to hate this show for consistently killing off characters I start to like."

    But enough about American Idol! Gimme those ribs, you.

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