Episode Blog - Left Behind

After taking four or so weeks off, I'm taking this blog of episode 15: "Left Behind." I thought it to be a bit well, lackluster. It wasn't the greatest episode, but could hold a candle to such episodes as "I Do" or "Every Man for Himself", for example. I'm running on massive amounts of Starbucks coffee to keep up, so forgive me if there are any random babblings in the text. Anyways, on with the review!

First off, the flashback sequences. Kate's in Iowa. But for what? Well, we find out later. She has a bad fan belt in her car. She says her name is "Lucy". Let's see... "Lucy", "Monica", "Joan Hart", what other names are there? But she sees Sawyer's old flame Cassidy running the old jewelry con. Apparently, she's not too good. But Kate helps her out. Why? Because of the graciousness of her heart? No. To avoid the cops. Why else? Everybody is greedy, but Kate shows it at nearly every turn. Trying to get on the raft in S1, now this, and many other examples. Can't she be a "good person"?

But then they get a drink at the local bar. They talk about stuff, mainly Sawyer, when Cassidy mentions that he was "the wrong guy" and as a "bad guy". (Chalk one up for the Good and bad people page! ;)) But ultimately, Cassidy agrees to help Kate out to talk to her mother. Apparently she feels bad for her. But why? Why would you feel bad for a person who you know is a "bad person"? Why would you? I know I wouldn't.

Now, Cassidy does help Kate. She goes up to Diane's house. The agents mistake her and attack her. Six people! Does it take six people to capture one woman? Apparently it does. Now as soon as I heard that Cassidy said that she was just "selling Bibles", it immediately brought up the memories of that old film "Paper Moon." I have watched all of the O'Neill clan's movies, and that was very reminiscent of the scene in the movie.

Then came the diner scene. I had continuous thoughts throughout the scene that "Wouldn't Diane recognize Cassidy???" Maybe she did, and associated it with the Bible saleswoman, but still you would recognize her as a person who might just be up to something. Yet she doesn't recognize the connection. On a side note, what kind of soup was it? We need it to thoroughly analyze before we add it to Lostpedia! I need to know the type of soup!

As Diane heads off for the bathroom, Kate finally comes in to confront her mums. As Monty Python once said, "NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!" Yet when they did that sketch, we all expected it. And we all expected the meeting between mother and daughter. It was a really heartfelt scene, and I believe that both Beth Broderick and Evangeline did an excellent acting job.

As Kate gets ready to leave, Cassidy reveals to Kate that she is pregnant with the con man's baby, Clementine. I guess that that hereby ends the speculation that Clementine is in fact Sawyer's daughter and not just a counter-con by Cassidy to gold-dig a bit more.

On to the realtime events. We'll start off with the Barracks, the main focus of the episode. Kate is still being held in Tom's game room, complete with pinball tables, pool, and foosball. Why would you spend all of your time sleeping. Me, I'm a pinball nerd, and would be playing on the Cyclone table. Kate grabs a cue stick and is ready to attack. Juliet comes in and Kate totally got pwned. I was wondering if Kate did indeed land on the broken shards of the plate, and was writhing in pain even more than if she just landed straight on concrete. I have hit concrete multiple times (long stories, trust me), and it really doesn't hurt as much as some people make it out to be.

I thought that the Locke-Kate scene was great. Just one thing passed through my mind: "What happended to Locke's arm?" He didn't appear to have a hurt hand in "The Man from Tallahassee", so what happened between then and now? But he "made a case" for her, but apparently it didn't work when they "told him" about ther past. But shouldn't he have known this by now? "Born to Run" was the episode when Kate's true identity was revealed (by Sawyer). Wouldn't it have made sense that he knew this? Apparently, he should.

Then, they just threw a smoke grenade in to Kate's room. To me at the time, it appeared as just random, but as I watched the rest of the episode, it all made sense.

Then Kate woke up in the Jungle. Then came my OMG moment: she was handcuffed to Juliet. But why? Why would they just leave her behind? It didn't make too much sense to me. Then Kate took the knife out of Juliet's pocket. At first, I though that maybe she would try to accost her with the knife. But apparently, she just wanted to get away. Just like usual.

I like how Juliet called how it was going to rain. It brought back old memories of S1 when Locke stated "It's going ot rain in one minute," and then it did. Good job, writers. Then came probably the best moment of the entire episode: CATFIGHT! What male does not love a catfight between two attractive females? Good times. It was too short, though, but Juliet seemed like she got messed up with the shoulder and all. It was really good SFX though, with the shoulder popping noise.

Then, the Monster appeared. I am a huge fan of the Monster. I love the Monster. And it was good that he (she?) was back. I have one question about Smokey though: Why do those bamboo thickets prevent him from attacking people? It stopped them from attacking Michael and co., and now Juliet and Kate. Why? I'm sure that it could easily squeeze through. The creepy white flashes were brilliant though. That is probably how it got Eko's memories and now I believe that it will be used for Juliet's memories. It then leaves.

And then came the monster the next day. They run through the jungle, and then came another great scene for all of the males out there: Kate and Juliet covered in mud. As my pal Borat would say: "Niiiiice. High-five!" They get to the sonic barrier, turned off. Then the monster came after them. The most interesting part was that it came together from three parts. Can someone say Cerberus, the mythical dog of yore? I sure can. Juliet punches in the code, stopping Smokey in its tracks.

Later, Kate and Juliet arrived back at the Barracks, which are now deserted by all of the Others. Everything and everybody is gone. The Others had a nice pad, but they had to move. I think that the merry group of adveturers will lead everyone back to the Barracks to live there, for a period of time.

Then, we are reunited back with Sayid, as they plan to head back to the beach. At least one positive came of all of this: Juliet is going to the beach! Yay!

Then, we go to the beach. Apparently, Sawyer faces a vote of banishment. I wouldn't mind if he got banished. Although, it might make for an unimportant storyline, such as the cougar in 24. Hurley comes and tells him that he will be banished if he doesn't change his selfish ways. He suggests that he makes amends, but Sawyer staunchly refuses. (You like my sophisticated words?)

Later, Hurley tells him to talk to Claire. I love Claire's reaction when Sawyer comes up to her. (Uh... dude? What do you want?) He gives her a blanket, prompting the best line of the episode: "I don't like...blankets." (Yeah. Okay, get outta here.)

Then Desmond and Sawyer went hunting. Sawyer replies that he's got "hearts and minds" to change, a sneaky nod to the old S1 episode. I like how Des has a huge rifle and Sawyer, only a pistol. (See the Bald, Limp Guy (theory) page...) They killed a boar. Whoopee.

And then came the festive pork feast. Everybody got a slice of that boar. But shouldn't there be something like this every time a boar is killed. Des goes out hunting pretty near every day, But it was full of fun times and warm beer, and most importantly, friendship. The basis of life on earth. But do you believe that? ;) I didn't like how Sun kept glaring at Sawyer all evilly and stuff. Even Jin looked mad, and she hasn't told him. As Sun moves farther in to the pregnancy, he attitude goes down the drain.

So who was the one "left behind"? Kate, Juliet, Jack, or some one else? Please contribute your theories and thoughts to Lostpedia. Until "One of Us" airs, Marik out!

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Episode Blog - I Do

Greetings Lostpedians - insightful Lostpedians, diligent Lostpedians, sometimes scaryingly knowledgeable Lostpedians - hope you all enjoyed the mini-cliffhanger ep. I think you'll all agree that it served its purpose i.e. making sure we'll still be watching in February after all the events.

Anywayz lets get the ball rolling with an opening to a Kate flashback (yes we had this "unverified" for weeks even though we all knew it would be her's). As usual we start out seeing the back of Kate's head with a different hair style - seems to happen in all her flashback eps - and then we hear a cop outside her room. And low and behold, its Nathan Fillion! I'm sure you all, as drama buffs, know who he is so I won't go into over-depth about him, but as a Firefly fan I will just say that man is awesome, and leave it at that. I guess it would have been better if I didn't know from Lostpedia that he'd be on the show but still always nice to know the guest actors and go "oh look its him!".

Moving away from the flashback, we're back to the cages, and I had to laugh at Sawyer's "I know how to get a damned fish biscuit!". Then to Jack, who seems to be more evil each time I see him (its that damned stubble beard!), saying he'll let Ben die. Liked the couple of eye contact shots between Jack and Juliet - but my suspicions that maybe she is the bad one of the two Others after all certainly have grown by the end of this ep, more on that story later as the news people say.

Then to the burial of Mr. Eko, his "Hello John"s shall certainly be missed. As always, Nikki and Paulo's presence in this scene are about as integral to the plot as Sayid's bicep (Lostpedia insider joke there).

Back to Kate and Sawyer hauling their rocks, and the appearance of Alex with her trusty slingshot?! The interesting thing I picked up on here is she wants to see Ben, but he's later told she didn't ask after him. Does Danny and co not want them seeing each other? Does she bring out Ben's good side? Did Ben raise Alex after she was taken, so he is like a father to her? So many questions on this one that I'd really like to see resolved (Alex was always one of the most intriguing Others mysteries to me).

Then Juliet taking Kate away, why did she not slap her lol, I saw that she wanted to (or maybe thats just the actresses.... nah I just wanted to throw that out to see if it then became a press rumour). Anyway transition to Jack and Kate reunited - what a.... er arkward moment. And why does Jack have to be such a jerk about it all shouting at Kate, though I guess its part of his plan.

Back to Kate, who's phoning Edward! Always nice, those characters work so well together. Obviously this connects to Mars' words in I think the Season 1 finale that Kate used to phone him at work and at his house. Nice bit of continuity. Moving on, we're back with John and Sayid. I didn't see much of a point of these scenes. I guess they needed them after Eko's death, but not much really happened other than they're presumably "looking North". Though I must admit I think they're heading for the Flame station instead - Locke did remember where it was around abouts from the Blast Door Map didn't he? On his doodle. Hopefully we'll thus see Patchy!

Ah Skate shippers rejoice, your weird fantasies have come to fruition, as Sawyer and Kate finally get together. Hey, maybe this time Kate will be pregnant (now won't that be a storyline...). But seriously, was I the only one who thought "they're doing this in front of the camera". As I watched with my sis, she added "you reckon Ben is sat watching this?". Gross thought of the day for y'all.

Now to Jack in his cell, with some mysterious help from Alex. Did she do it psychically? I'd prefer not but, as someone who hates the supernatural side to Lost, I don't mind psychic power as much cause I guess it is a little bit more pseudo-sciencey plausible. Anyway I digress. I think Ben must have possibly seen Alex though, cause he doesn't seem a bit surprised that he's suddenly out of his cell.

Back to the flashbacks, and Kate and some very interesting themes. First the Oceanic tickets, quite a nice touch, though I thought it was an Australian company, and don't get why an Aussie airline would go Miami to Costa Rica? However, I'm probably wrong and Oceanic could be a worldwide company, I just always thought by "Oceanic" it meant it was based in Oceana. Anywho, then there's the pregnancy test, answering the question of when Kate did this (she admitted to Sun in Season 2 I believe that she'd once taken one). And then to the next big reference I thought was very cool. Props to all you Lostpedians who noticed what I also picked up on - Kevin saying "Fugitive reports from Tampa". Remember the Sawyer flashback, Hibbs tells him where "the real Sawyer" (well its a lie but) is as pay back for what happened "during the Tampa Job". Sawyer says "what could possibly make us even for the Tampa Job". Maybe Kate's Kevin was involved in this. Actually, not maybe, pretty likely I'd say. But hey, just means Fillion might be back later this Season!

The last thing I'm gonna mention has to be Danny's words "Shephard wasn't even on Jacob's list". I thought "does that mean there's another spy?", but that can't be right as we never saw him in the Others' flashback. Unless they sent him after Ethan's death?! This just confuses you even more! Must say though, it was the first page I checked on the 'pedia after the episode, and I did enjoy one of the theories, dunno who posted it, about maybe Ethan and Goodwin made actual lists of just everyone's full names, then "Jacob" googled them or whatever in the real world to assess if they're "good or not". Both funny and plausible!!! Makes sense though to me, I mean we heard they did "lists" but only assumed they were the same kind of "lists" that Ana and Michael obtained.

Alright, major rant over with. Thanks for reading, and I'd love to see y'all on Lostpedia Chat to discuss some of the goings on this Season so far. Lost is back in Feb so until then we're gonna have to amuse ourselves with potentially overhauling the Lostpedia site. By next year, believe me, the site will certainly be a little different....

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Episode Blog - The Cost of Living

Hey everyone, hope you all enjoyed the episode. I did an analysis for my own userpage blog not knowing that it'd end up on here, but I hope y'all like my extensive level of analysis:

I saw the episode last night and let me tell you, what a nice way to end an otherwise horrible day. Not that the day was bad, merely cause I did college, work and sport and had no proper food all day and so by the time I got home at like 11pm I felt like throwing up (nice imagery there). So anyway, I got myself some hot chocolate and had some grapes (not a good combo I might add) and sat down to watch the show. And what an episode it was! Fantastic minus more weird supernatural dream scenes - though even them now are making a little more sense which made me feel a lot better about my anxieties that the thin supernatural ice Lost is shaking was starting to crack. Anyway after such a good ep I skimmed through it again doing my blog notes, before retiring from exhaustion. So here I am on this Friday afternoon ready for an epic rant...I mean review.

As so much happened this week I'm just gonna skip Eko's flashbacks, which again I feel is secondary narrative this Season and is hardly that necessary to the character arcs anymore - but hey not to put a downer on an episode which featured great Monster time. Anyway, first point of call is Colleen's funeral where Jack and the Others are wearing their new agey robes. This got me thinking, new agey, DHARMA is new agey! You know it makes sense peeps... Anyway I found the scene very enjoyable as we actually see Ben crack for once, I know he's a clever guy who deceived everyone when he was captured, but I defy you to suggest his fear at Jack's words was him acting again. That man was genuinely scared without a doubt. It definitely showed though why they took Jack, but again just made me think "huh, this still doesn't explain why they didn't take him, Kate and Sawyer when they went after Michael and got cornered". I brushed this off with "maybe Ben didn't know til later", but as I'll mention in a few, this rationale would also be shattered.

Now to Eko wandering off, when I heard that New York cab printer noise I jumped for joy - the Monster!!! Always cool to see it, one of my more favourite mysteries along with the Rousseau saga and DHARMA stations. I'll discuss this further in a few. So back at the camp, Nikki and Paulo are conveniently invited along on John's mission. I found the staging of this quite funny as John proclaims "no, anyone is welcome" but the only new people he actually says this to is those two, uncanny. Also in this scene it became pretty obvious that Nikki and Paulo are "mixin' it" (as someone at college called it today). Side note, how convenient Desmond suddenly says "oh the computer can also communicate with other ones, even though the guy in the Orientation film said do nothing other than number pressing". I think this whole scene was just a poor string tier...

Now back to Eko again, and I'm trying to understand by note here where I wrote simply "Harry Potter moment". What do I mean? Ah yes, the monster's reflection in the water, very Basilisk (god I'm sad). Anyway next is Juliet and the cheeseburger, always handy to find a girl who can make you it from scratch by killing a cow (I thought that line was a nice touch...). God I'm craving a cheeseburger now. Anyway, to the bit I mentioned before! I figured they didn't take Jack earlier when they had the chance cause they didn't know Ben was dying, but then he said he found out two days before Flight 815 crashed, so that flew out my theory. Why didn't they take him before then, eh? Well the only thing I have left now might be that they didn't get Jack's "This is Your Life" file until much later, so Ben and the Others didn't actually know he was a surgeon until like just after they took Michael - which is the only solution right now I can muster that makes sense let me tell you! Still doesn't explain Kate or Sawyer though apart from possible leverage.

Again to Eko, who now meets up with Yemi, or is it... *twilight zone music*. But, I liked that its not Yemi, meaning Lost might explain the island visions! Meaning they might come up with a plausible explanation!!!! Hoorah! Just realised now though, minus the horse, those visions seem to want to kill people. I mean didn't Jack almost fall off a cliff chasing Christian, or am I conflicting episodes? And didn't Dave try to get Hurley to kill himself? And didn't Yemi look a bit peeved that Eko wouldn't like offer his life before him, not to mention possibly set the tent at the beginning of the episode on fire? Evil spirits... But, is he the Monster? His eyes to me looked black, much darker than Eko's but of course doesn't mean they aren't just very dark brown - but they did seem a really off colour. Maybe thats just me... Anyway, we then see Eko get wasted by the Monster (props to the Lostpedia editor who added it throws him about in a Cross direction - I didn't notice that one). At any rate, I'm assuming thats how the Pilot dided huh.

Now have to mention the Pearl action. Loved that they went back there!!! DHARMA stations are always so much fun to the storyline. And I have to say I felt like Locke when Nikki points out that he says "stationS" as in plural - as I remember arguing with someone that they monitored only the Swan and they said "no it'll look at other ones too". So yeah, me ashamed... But how cool was that feed. I'm gonna take the educated guess and say its the Flame station, as I know we might see it this Season from what I've been hearing. It looked a lot like the Swan though didn't it. And who is that guy? Radzinsky? At any rate he didn't look too happy. A few points I must raise here though. One is that I enjoyed reading a Lostpedia argument about how did Nikki know there are six DHARMA stations. Whilst its interesting to think Nikki might be DHARMA, lets note that at the start of the Pearl video it says "5 of 6" lol. Second, people are saying how did patch man know about the camera being on. Err maybe because it panned? Or maybe a red light came on? Third, he was wearing a DHARMA suit and probably owns the glass eye Libby found in the Arrow. This guy probably knows all the stations, and so I'm sure will reveal some huge revelations toward the end of the Season. Fourth, when Kate read notes from the capsule dump, maybe it wasn't from observations of the Swan, if so then the Flame has a ping pong table :-)

OK last bit now (thank god, I had hoped for this blog to be brief), Juliet and her video! Now I'm one to at times take things on Lost at face value contray to everyone else and just say "hey just stop questioning if someone is lying or not for once" (you know who you are LHorse and your P is not RB hehe), and this instance is one of these times. Juliet is good in my opinion, cause I really can't trust Ben and his evil schemes. Juliet wants Ben gone so she can turn the Others away from whatever path Ben has put them on (the facade and kidnapping I'd assume). While it could be another lie, I think on weighing it up Juliet is better than Ben, though crazier too in fairness. Now, lastly, to mention Eko again. He died! Damn and here I was hoping we'd never have to deal with another tedious Charlie flashback ever again! Oh well, I'm gonna miss his cool "Hello John" voice. I leave you with the final thought: As one plucky Lostpedian noted, when John recites "we're next", does he mean the proverbial we, or did Eko mean "YOU'RE next". Consider this until next time...

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