Thursday, October 26, 2006

Lost: A tale of two islands

"Lost" spoilers coming up just as soon as I drop one of my two or three favorite "Used Cars" quotes: "If I can build and install a pacemaker in this man's chest, well I can damn well bounce a microwave off a satellite!"

So, the big mind-blowing revelation that the ads were promising is... what? That The Others Goodtime Family Aquarium Solution is on an entirely different island? That Sawyer is only slightly less guillible than Locke? (Not that we didn't already know this.) That New Guy Paulo is such a dick that, not only does he not want to help anybody ever, but he likes to pass the time hitting the castaways' limited supply of golf balls into the ocean? Help me out here, folks, because my mind remains thoroughly unblown.

These extended visits with The Others are starting to bother me, and not just because it means we've spent about 70% of the season so far away from Hurley, Locke, Eko and Desmond. It's just getting too repetitive, and we're only a month in. The Others have the ultimate home court advantage, can do anything to their three prisoners, can play random mindgames, etc., without giving so much as a hint of what they're about. As I've said a million times before, I don't care about getting answers, but in this particular case, the answers are quickly becoming the only potentially intersting thing about The Others. (Save Ben, since I could probably spend an hour a week watching Michael Emerson get mad and beat up Sawyer, torture bunnies, etc., etc.)

A decent enough flashback, especially since I'm always in favor of seeing Kim Dickens get a paycheck, but did anyone not see that Sawyer was playing Mr. Nia Vardalos?

Anyway, after enjoying most of the first two episodes, I've been checking my watch a lot the last two weeks. Not a good trend, especially since there are only two more episodes before the show goes away until February.

What did everybody else think?

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

So annoyed with the writers this week. How could they make us watch Paolo play golf? Couldn't they think of a better way to introduce him? What a slap to season one when the Losties create a golf course so they can have a little fun? Where was golfing Paolo then? Sloppy intro. I don't want to know these new characters, especially if the writers aren't even going to make an effort to introduce them creatively.

K J Gillenwater said...

For female "Lost" fans, this was a very good week. Something about watching a hot guy in pain and wanting to hide it from the girl he loves...

Okay, maybe it's hokey, but that's what some of us women love to watch. Sorry.

I was annoyed with the pacemaker thing, too. I mean, when he took off the bandage, there was NOTHING there. Did he really believe they embedded a pacemaker through a needle hole? I wish they at least cut him and put a few rudimentary stitches in. Maybe that was just the fault of the makeup department on set, though.

The flashback to the jail con was disappointing. The con was not nearly as well thought out as previous flashbacks. Why would some guy with $10 million confide in another prisoner he barely knows who has SIX years left on his sentence? Like the wife wouldn't find the money long before Sawyer got out of jail. I was kind of hoping Sawyer was a plant in prison in exchange for not going to jail on a more permanent basis. That would have made more sense. He could have told the thief that he was just a few days or weeks away from getting out.

Liked the Desmond bit.

Interesting that the Others may have crashed the plane so that they ended up with a spinal surgeon. Is that how some of the rest of them ended up there?

Anonymous said...

"I mean, when he took off the bandage, there was NOTHING there."

There was an incision scar.

"Interesting that the Others may have crashed the plane so that they ended up with a spinal surgeon."

Did the Others crash the plane, or did Desmond? They looked pretty surprised about it as they were watching it fall apart. Of course, once they realized one of the passengers was a surgeon...

So Desmond knew exactly when and where the lightning was going to strike, and last week he knew what Locke was going to say before he said it. They should be able to drag out this crap for another 5 episodes, at least. I'm really, really starting to root for Criminal Minds.

Anonymous said...

I normally don't get upset about the lack of answers on this show, but I completely agree that the answers may be the only interesting thing about the Others.

At this point it's not only frustrating to not have answers, but it's making the story incredibly illogical. If the Others don't want to share the island, why don't they contact the outside world and have the castaways rescued? And if they were so worried about their privacy why did they infiltrate and kidnap the castaways? It just makes absolutely no sense at this point.

Originally I was upset that the show would be disappearing for 13 weeks, but right now I'm hoping that the writers will use the big fall finale to answer a lot of questions and whet our appetites for the show's February return. If they don't, I don't think I'll really miss the show as much as I thought I would

Taleena said...

meh. If you believe Michael Emerson was telling the truth about being on a seperate island, you need your head adjusted. Other's ran down to both beaches where Jack and co. and the tailies crashed.

Ben is messing with Sawyer's mind. and Lindelof is messing with yours.

Paolo is a jerk and I hope they Artz him.

K J Gillenwater said...

Jim,

I didn't see any scar. Shouldn't it have been a little bloody with some of those wire-like black stitches? I just saw normal skin under the bandage.

Or maybe I was just distracted by the rest of Sawyer's bare chest...? A definite possibility.

BF said...

The "second island" HAS to be a con in order to keep Sawyer in line, right? Granted, a visually impressive David Copperfield-style con to be sure, but a fake nonetheless.

* Sayid has treked around the island (while looking for French chick) and never saw it.

* Sayid, Jin, and Sun have been sailing around the island and never saw it (ditto Desmond).

* Michael, Jin, Sawyer, & Walt were rafting at the end of last year and never saw it.

* Rouseau's been on the island for 17+ years and never saw it (or at least mentioned it.)

* When Ben hears about Sayid & the gang, he says "I want that boat!" Well then Mr. Smarty Pants, how are you getting back and forth from the island? You gave Michael his boat BEFORE you took Jack, Kate, & Sawyer to Otherville. I think the trio of prisoners would have noticed that they were swimming on the way to prison, even if they were wearing hoods.

* Last (and possibly least), when Jack and his band of raiders go into the woods to find Michael and are confronted by M.C. Gainey's character, Gainey tells them "This is OUR island." Not "one of ours".

Anonymous said...

"* When Ben hears about Sayid & the gang, he says "I want that boat!" Well then Mr. Smarty Pants, how are you getting back and forth from the island? You gave Michael his boat BEFORE you took Jack, Kate, & Sawyer to Otherville. I think the trio of prisoners would have noticed that they were swimming on the way to prison, even if they were wearing hoods."

Didn't someone say "the sub's back" at one point last night?

Anonymous said...

Jack's first day in captivity, Juliet confirms his suspicion that they're underwater in the aquarium. Maybe there is a tunnel that goes all the way from one to the other.

Rain said...

I took Ben's comment about wanting that boat more to mean he wanted to get the boat AWAY from the Losties, and less that they NEEDED the boat in any way.

And I'll buy the underwater tunnels thing, but I'd prefer to think the Others are working some kind of optical illusion angle, because I find it pretty hard to believe the Losties have managed to completely avoid the one side of the island that gives a perfect view of "Alcatraz" out there a few miles away.

Alan Sepinwall said...

Ben definitely mentioned a submarine in an early scene. So, in theory, The Others could ordinarily live on the Losties island but do work over on Alcatraz. But the question of why no one (Sayid, Rousseau, the guys on the raft, the Tailies) ever saw the second island is a good one.

Anonymous said...

Maybe I was in a good mood, but I really didn't mind this one. If nothing else, it was fun watching Kim monkey out of/back into the cage.

Don't know what purpose Paolo ultimately serves, but at least portraying the suriving extras as self-absorbed timewasters explains why we haven't been wasting time with them.

The show's at its best when it's careening forward, and it's been able to do that remarkably well for soemthing set on an island. But half the cast is trapped in cages, right now; the other half is sitting around. Locke's the only one on the move, and he wasn't in this episode.

I fear the midseason reboot. Unless they somehow introduce SD6.

Rain said...

Also, those weren't golf balls he dude was hitting into the water. If you look at the scene again, you'll see that they were some kind of green, round fruit. Kind of like very young coconuts.

Anonymous said...

I definitely saw the scar on Sawyer's chest, too.

As for Paolo...they were hyping him on the local news (or maybe it was for GMA this morning--I was pretty tired when I saw it) as "the newest Lost hunk!" so his role seems pretty...well, pretty! But at this point, pretty useless. Feh.

I'm also sick of the Others and want some answers stat. They have all that technology (the ability to get Red Sox games on tape, etc.), but they don't have a crash cart that works? Bah.

I did hear this morning that "someone's supposed to die" on the next ep. Sure hope it's Paolo (assuming the person who said it wasn't talking out his Artz)!

Anonymous said...

Actually, Sayid didn't make it all the way around the island. He found Rousseau's cable and followed it inland. You could probably justify everything if you wanted, although if the polar bears were in the cages, how'd they get over to the other island? (Hell, even Sawyer could work that one out. Sloppy, Ben.) And they didn't give us a visual that would prove it.

The flashbacks were really pretty perfunctory on this one. (Which is fine with me, because I rarely like them much.) Overall it wasn't anything special. And while the Others didn't bring the plane down, Jack doesn't know that, and I wouldn't be shocked if Ben made him think so.

Anonymous said...

"I didn't see any scar."

Nonetheless.

"If you believe Michael Emerson was telling the truth about being on a seperate island, you need your head adjusted. Other's ran down to both beaches where Jack and co. and the tailies crashed."

That's assuming they're still in the same place, but I haven't seen any of those bungalows around. Why couldn't they have more than one camp?

CM said...

Paolo is an Other infiltrating the camp! Where else would he be getting all that hair gel?

Anonymous said...

"The sub is back."
Could have been: "The sub(tle) is back."
Best quote of the season – so many earlier questions answered in an eyeblink.

A.H. said...

"* Rouseau's been on the island for 17+ years and never saw it (or at least mentioned it.)"

but no! intrepid Lost fans have found the little island on Rousseau's map from season 1, with the word 'ALEX' (her daughter, that goofy girl who pops up occasionally) written beside it.

and clearly there have to be tunnels beneath the ocean between the two islands