P.S. -- How hot is "Savage Clair"? Smokin' hot.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
LOST recap for 2/23 episode
I am busy preparing for our annual radiothon for the Johns Hopkins Childrens Center, so I'll turn the analysis over to the ever thinking Tracie at jezebel.com, who will go deeper than you ever thought possible, and throws in a clip from the movie "Ghost World" for good measure. Enjoy.
P.S. -- How hot is "Savage Clair"? Smokin' hot.
P.S. -- How hot is "Savage Clair"? Smokin' hot.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
LOST through the eyes of someone who never watched it until this season
This is entertaining if only for the fact that I've watched the show since day one and I feel the same way they do about a lot of things. Read it here.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Entertainment Weekly article on LOST's final season
There are a few minor spoilers in there, but nothing hard core fans wouldn't already be on to. Go to the article here.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
LOST, final season, episode 3
The Pop Culture blog "Throwing Things" has said that the awesomeness of an episode of LOST is directly proportional to how much Terry O'Quinn or Josh Holloway is in an episode. While I don't completely subscribe to that theory, I will say that when those two go head to head, a lot gets accomplished, at least in terms of the writers digging themselves out of the hole they've dug.
Mythology and philosophy have long been the cornerstones of LOST, and last night, we got some great references to both, and no matter what the writers say, I'm back on the island as purgatory theory. The obvious reference to "Jacob's ladder", the biblical link between heaven and earth leads me back down that path. (Yes, but the producers have said it’s not purgatory! You yell. Right. They also said it didn’t involve time travel, and clearly that didn’t pan out.)
Who was the boy that Mocke (fake Locke) and Sawyer could see, but Mascara Man couldn’t? Aaron? Jacob as a youth? What is it with us LOST geeks that we can’t just have a character be introduced without trying to figure out who he is? If Modern Family introduces a character, do we overanalyze who they are in relation to the rest of the cast? No, we let it play out. Let it play out. I’ll bet it’s none of the above.
In the cave, the numbers of the cast that Jacob has numbered are as follows:
4 Locke
8 Reyes (Hurley
15 Ford (Sawyer)
16 Jarrah (Sayid)
23 Shephard
42 Kwon (Jin or Sun?)
There were a ton of other names—crossed out—in the cave, some of which were familiar:
Goodspeed (Ethan or Horace?)
Straume (Miles)
Lewis (Charlotte or her dad?)
Mattingly
Cunningham
I have a theory about why Kate's name wasn't seen on the wall (other than that Jacob, like me, finds her annoying), and this theory also corresponds to why I think that Kwon refers to Jin, Littleton refers to Aaron, and Lewis refers to Charlotte's dad: Patriarchy—and I'm not just saying that because I'm a feminist! It actually has to do with Jacob's Ladder.
Lost fans know by now how prevalent religious symbolism, scripture, and mythology are to whatever the hell is going on with the Island. In the Book of Genesis, Jacob (Esau's twin) had a dream about this ladder that leads to heaven, with angels climbing up and down it. Some philosophers have interpreted the angels as representative of souls ascending from and descending to bodies (reincarnation!), while the Torah has this commentary:
Only the fourth angel, which represented the final exile of Rome/Edom (whose guardian angel was Esau himself), kept climbing higher and higher into the clouds. Jacob feared that his children would never be free of Esau's domination, but God assured him that at the End of Days, Edom too would come falling down.
So MIB/Smokey is totally Esau, right? Also, who is the fourth angel? Could it be Locke, who was assigned the #4? Additionally, in Christianity, Jacob's Ladder has apocalyptic ties as the narrative was used shortly after the Destruction of the Temple, and interprets the experience of…Patriarchs! Essentially, Jacob's Ladder is a bridge between heaven and earth, aka purgatory. I know that the producers said early on that the Island was not purgatory, but they also said that time travel wasn't involved either. Hang in there, Sawyer.
Added to that, Jacob (from the Island, not the bible) is connected in some way, to the notion of fertility (what with all his ankhs and shit) and could possibly have some sort of idea about how women have their own power with their ability to give life, so let's leave them out of the candidacy. And that's soooo sexist. But he's from another time, I guess. So, yeah, no girls allowed. Anyway, did you notice how Locke, in the alternate reality, was teaching biology (man of science now?), and particularly, the human reproductive system, which, honestly, should not be material left for a temp to cover. Notice on the board behind him it says "The Beginning of the Life Cycle."
At this point, Tracie from the website jezebel.com takes it up a notch:
Obviously, black (MIB) and white (Jacob) are supposed to be evening things out, leaving us with a whole lot of gray area. But the scale, which is in Jacob's cave, might be a reference to some Buddhist mythology, specifically Yama, the dharmapala, judge of the dead. Dharmapala is a type of "wrathful deity," which translates in Sanskrit to "Dharma-defender" and protector of laws. (Book of Laws, anyone?) So anyway, this particular myth involves the afterlife, karma, and most importantly, Bardo, or "transitional state." There are six Tibetan Bardos, the last three of which could actually be described as "death cycles," in which a person dies, experiences a paradise realm (and if they are not "enlightened," they won't even understand or recognize what they're experiencing), and finally gets reborn.
According to the myth, during the second Bardo—the paradise one— the deceased will experience judgment and punishment. The death judge deity will hold a scale on which black pebbles (evil deeds) and white pebbles (good deeds) are placed and weighed. Also, a Karma Mirror is held up for the deceased life to be reflected. The fate of the deceased (if they will remain in purgatory or go on to paradise in some form, possibly a human body) is decided from there. The thing is, that none of it—the scale, the mirror, the deity—are real. They're just thought forms while in this Bardo. That could be what Mocke was referring to when he told Sawyer that there is no reason for anyone to stay on the Island, as it's not even real. Although, he totally left out the part that they'll probably have to commit suicide in order to be reborn.
HOLY HELL!!!! My brain is starting to hurt (again)!!!
Thank God for the levity of the scenes from bizarre Los Angeles circa 2004. O’Quinn uncorks some beautiful scenes showing the frustration of daily life in a wheelchair. The lawn scene and his little smile as the sprinklers came on was priceless. In bizarro LA, Helen is still with him, Hurley owns everything and Ben is a hot tempered history teacher. (Oh, and I think Ben would be a horrible history teacher! He'd be one of those sneering, bitter ones who somehow missed out on a tenure-track college position and thinks he's too good to teach school kids.)
Strangely, Locke’s boss is still a douche and fires him for his fake walkabout. Thank God Hurley owns the school system and has bizarro Rose get him a job as a teacher, which you may have noticed is a step down from being a construction foreman.
Throwing Things has also tossed this idea out:
The end-of-series clarity we've started to get on the mythology has demythologized the mythology. (When Dorothy finds out that the Wizard is just a guy behind a curtain -- well, that kind of takes some of the wind out of the Wizard's sails, no?) Nothing to be done about it, and I'm not complaining, but it does make the cave drawings somewhat less of an OMG reveal than an oh, this is how they're finessing this issue.
I’m exhausted now, what say you about this week’s ep?
Mythology and philosophy have long been the cornerstones of LOST, and last night, we got some great references to both, and no matter what the writers say, I'm back on the island as purgatory theory. The obvious reference to "Jacob's ladder", the biblical link between heaven and earth leads me back down that path. (Yes, but the producers have said it’s not purgatory! You yell. Right. They also said it didn’t involve time travel, and clearly that didn’t pan out.)
Who was the boy that Mocke (fake Locke) and Sawyer could see, but Mascara Man couldn’t? Aaron? Jacob as a youth? What is it with us LOST geeks that we can’t just have a character be introduced without trying to figure out who he is? If Modern Family introduces a character, do we overanalyze who they are in relation to the rest of the cast? No, we let it play out. Let it play out. I’ll bet it’s none of the above.
In the cave, the numbers of the cast that Jacob has numbered are as follows:
4 Locke
8 Reyes (Hurley
15 Ford (Sawyer)
16 Jarrah (Sayid)
23 Shephard
42 Kwon (Jin or Sun?)
There were a ton of other names—crossed out—in the cave, some of which were familiar:
Goodspeed (Ethan or Horace?)
Straume (Miles)
Lewis (Charlotte or her dad?)
Mattingly
Cunningham
I have a theory about why Kate's name wasn't seen on the wall (other than that Jacob, like me, finds her annoying), and this theory also corresponds to why I think that Kwon refers to Jin, Littleton refers to Aaron, and Lewis refers to Charlotte's dad: Patriarchy—and I'm not just saying that because I'm a feminist! It actually has to do with Jacob's Ladder.
Lost fans know by now how prevalent religious symbolism, scripture, and mythology are to whatever the hell is going on with the Island. In the Book of Genesis, Jacob (Esau's twin) had a dream about this ladder that leads to heaven, with angels climbing up and down it. Some philosophers have interpreted the angels as representative of souls ascending from and descending to bodies (reincarnation!), while the Torah has this commentary:
Only the fourth angel, which represented the final exile of Rome/Edom (whose guardian angel was Esau himself), kept climbing higher and higher into the clouds. Jacob feared that his children would never be free of Esau's domination, but God assured him that at the End of Days, Edom too would come falling down.
So MIB/Smokey is totally Esau, right? Also, who is the fourth angel? Could it be Locke, who was assigned the #4? Additionally, in Christianity, Jacob's Ladder has apocalyptic ties as the narrative was used shortly after the Destruction of the Temple, and interprets the experience of…Patriarchs! Essentially, Jacob's Ladder is a bridge between heaven and earth, aka purgatory. I know that the producers said early on that the Island was not purgatory, but they also said that time travel wasn't involved either. Hang in there, Sawyer.
Added to that, Jacob (from the Island, not the bible) is connected in some way, to the notion of fertility (what with all his ankhs and shit) and could possibly have some sort of idea about how women have their own power with their ability to give life, so let's leave them out of the candidacy. And that's soooo sexist. But he's from another time, I guess. So, yeah, no girls allowed. Anyway, did you notice how Locke, in the alternate reality, was teaching biology (man of science now?), and particularly, the human reproductive system, which, honestly, should not be material left for a temp to cover. Notice on the board behind him it says "The Beginning of the Life Cycle."
At this point, Tracie from the website jezebel.com takes it up a notch:
Obviously, black (MIB) and white (Jacob) are supposed to be evening things out, leaving us with a whole lot of gray area. But the scale, which is in Jacob's cave, might be a reference to some Buddhist mythology, specifically Yama, the dharmapala, judge of the dead. Dharmapala is a type of "wrathful deity," which translates in Sanskrit to "Dharma-defender" and protector of laws. (Book of Laws, anyone?) So anyway, this particular myth involves the afterlife, karma, and most importantly, Bardo, or "transitional state." There are six Tibetan Bardos, the last three of which could actually be described as "death cycles," in which a person dies, experiences a paradise realm (and if they are not "enlightened," they won't even understand or recognize what they're experiencing), and finally gets reborn.
According to the myth, during the second Bardo—the paradise one— the deceased will experience judgment and punishment. The death judge deity will hold a scale on which black pebbles (evil deeds) and white pebbles (good deeds) are placed and weighed. Also, a Karma Mirror is held up for the deceased life to be reflected. The fate of the deceased (if they will remain in purgatory or go on to paradise in some form, possibly a human body) is decided from there. The thing is, that none of it—the scale, the mirror, the deity—are real. They're just thought forms while in this Bardo. That could be what Mocke was referring to when he told Sawyer that there is no reason for anyone to stay on the Island, as it's not even real. Although, he totally left out the part that they'll probably have to commit suicide in order to be reborn.
HOLY HELL!!!! My brain is starting to hurt (again)!!!
Thank God for the levity of the scenes from bizarre Los Angeles circa 2004. O’Quinn uncorks some beautiful scenes showing the frustration of daily life in a wheelchair. The lawn scene and his little smile as the sprinklers came on was priceless. In bizarro LA, Helen is still with him, Hurley owns everything and Ben is a hot tempered history teacher. (Oh, and I think Ben would be a horrible history teacher! He'd be one of those sneering, bitter ones who somehow missed out on a tenure-track college position and thinks he's too good to teach school kids.)
Strangely, Locke’s boss is still a douche and fires him for his fake walkabout. Thank God Hurley owns the school system and has bizarro Rose get him a job as a teacher, which you may have noticed is a step down from being a construction foreman.
Throwing Things has also tossed this idea out:
The end-of-series clarity we've started to get on the mythology has demythologized the mythology. (When Dorothy finds out that the Wizard is just a guy behind a curtain -- well, that kind of takes some of the wind out of the Wizard's sails, no?) Nothing to be done about it, and I'm not complaining, but it does make the cave drawings somewhat less of an OMG reveal than an oh, this is how they're finessing this issue.
I’m exhausted now, what say you about this week’s ep?
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Video comparasion of pilot v. season 6 premiere
Season 6 started with a bizarro world recreation of the Oceanic flight following the bomb explosion...Here is the scene compared with the first episode from 2004:
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
LOST: They're back!!!
As we move into the final season of LOST, I'm glad that I decided to stop analyzing and just start enjoying it.
Aw f&$# that! Let's jump into last night's season debut and pick that mother apart, shall we?
Two simultaneous universes? Two seperate realities? Not at all. The bomb worked, as Juliet indicated, so last night's LA scenes were playing out in 2004, while the island scenes were playing out in 2007. Regardless of how they wound up going to back to the island, they did indeed go back there in 2007, although some of them wound up in 1977, where they blew up the island to get back to 2004, right?What is obvious to us now is how miserable everyone was on that original flight, Jack drinking heavily in guilt, Kate looking at life in prison, Charlie riding the white horse, Jin and Sun drinking each other's haterade, Rose looking to die of cancer. Jack wanted to get back to that? What a douchebag!
But the horse had already left the barn and where they were impacted that reality. The tailies were no longer on the flight and apparently neither was Shannon, Ana Lucia, Walt or Michael. Why? Who the hell knows? This show is a ginat f-ed up mess and that's exactly why I watch.
Part of the beauty of it is knowing that the writers are scrambling to make this make sense, and this may be impossible in 16 episodes.
I'm sorry, I really wanted, no needed, Eko and his Jesus whupping stick on the plane. DAMN! And again, let's not read anything into that other than the acotr wasn't available and how weird it would be to have a new Eko or a new Michael. (I never got over Darrin changing to Dick Sargent on Bewitched)
They certainly want you to believe that Jacob is now in Sayid's body, but I'm not buying that. I think the spring contains some life giving magic and Sayid is now in Richard land, where he will never age, and will begin using dark eye shadow and dress like a metrosexual.
I happen to love the occasional use of 60's and 70's stereotypes like the EST-y Dharma people, and now the appearance of a magical hippie, not unlike Dennis Hopper's giddy journalist from "Apocolypse Now". Hippies are a group that no longer really exist so it's easy to make fun of and stereotype them. They're easily held to blame for a lot of our current societal ills because, well, they're really no longer around to defend themselves. (And to make him kind of look like John Lennon: BONUS! And to make him a skittish suck up to a guy who refuses to speak English because it's beneath him: DOUBLE BONUS! And that maybe it's a metaphor for how much we are indebted to China and how they look at us in contempt: TRIPLE BONUS!!!)
Speaking of "Apocolypse Now", how can we not notice how much Locke looks like Kurtz and how they shot the "Locke didn't like himself" scene with his face coming in and out of the shadow like the famous "THE HORROR!" monologue of Marlon Brando.Desmond is a constant for Jack, isn't he? Let's just say yes and move on, because otherwise, I have no idea why he was on the plane.
And on to Hurley -- how many times have we yelled a the TV for him to grow a set. Well, it happened and I love it. New assertive Hurley rocked last night, and he's going to kick some ass in the next few weeks. It's about time.Sawyer seemed lost (obvious pun) on last night's show. He's become a little too sensitive, so that's why his '04 self seemed so refreshing. In '07, he's threatening to kill Jack? Really? He's been threatening to do that for six f-ing seasons. Do it and shut up. Or just keep insulting Hurley. But a sullen Sawyer is not entertaining.
Harold weighs in with this view: "My current (tired and uneducated) thought is that the conversation between Jacob and the Man in Black in the beginning of The Incident ("they come, the fight. . . it always ends the same", "it only ends once, everything else is progress") is referring to many alternate timelines of the same people doing the same thing, rather than a discussion of what has happened throughout history in one timeline, and the goal of Jacob is to get the Losties to choose to stay on the Island eventually." ==> I'm willing to buy that, but who's the other guy in that dialogue? The man in black. Esau? He's never been called that, but it's clear he's the new Locke and the smoke monster.
(Speaking of Smoky, I still want to pitch a sit-com with the Smoke Monster living with his family in the burbs. He comes home from a long day torturing souls at the Temple and he has to deal with his shrill wife, and snotty kids. Maybe they could be a fourth family on "Modern Family". Phil's cousins, maybe?)
Anyway, that's all for now and I haven't even touched on Miles or Juliet's death.
Namaste, erebody!!!
Aw f&$# that! Let's jump into last night's season debut and pick that mother apart, shall we?
Two simultaneous universes? Two seperate realities? Not at all. The bomb worked, as Juliet indicated, so last night's LA scenes were playing out in 2004, while the island scenes were playing out in 2007. Regardless of how they wound up going to back to the island, they did indeed go back there in 2007, although some of them wound up in 1977, where they blew up the island to get back to 2004, right?What is obvious to us now is how miserable everyone was on that original flight, Jack drinking heavily in guilt, Kate looking at life in prison, Charlie riding the white horse, Jin and Sun drinking each other's haterade, Rose looking to die of cancer. Jack wanted to get back to that? What a douchebag!
But the horse had already left the barn and where they were impacted that reality. The tailies were no longer on the flight and apparently neither was Shannon, Ana Lucia, Walt or Michael. Why? Who the hell knows? This show is a ginat f-ed up mess and that's exactly why I watch.
Part of the beauty of it is knowing that the writers are scrambling to make this make sense, and this may be impossible in 16 episodes.
I'm sorry, I really wanted, no needed, Eko and his Jesus whupping stick on the plane. DAMN! And again, let's not read anything into that other than the acotr wasn't available and how weird it would be to have a new Eko or a new Michael. (I never got over Darrin changing to Dick Sargent on Bewitched)
They certainly want you to believe that Jacob is now in Sayid's body, but I'm not buying that. I think the spring contains some life giving magic and Sayid is now in Richard land, where he will never age, and will begin using dark eye shadow and dress like a metrosexual.
I happen to love the occasional use of 60's and 70's stereotypes like the EST-y Dharma people, and now the appearance of a magical hippie, not unlike Dennis Hopper's giddy journalist from "Apocolypse Now". Hippies are a group that no longer really exist so it's easy to make fun of and stereotype them. They're easily held to blame for a lot of our current societal ills because, well, they're really no longer around to defend themselves. (And to make him kind of look like John Lennon: BONUS! And to make him a skittish suck up to a guy who refuses to speak English because it's beneath him: DOUBLE BONUS! And that maybe it's a metaphor for how much we are indebted to China and how they look at us in contempt: TRIPLE BONUS!!!)
Speaking of "Apocolypse Now", how can we not notice how much Locke looks like Kurtz and how they shot the "Locke didn't like himself" scene with his face coming in and out of the shadow like the famous "THE HORROR!" monologue of Marlon Brando.Desmond is a constant for Jack, isn't he? Let's just say yes and move on, because otherwise, I have no idea why he was on the plane.
And on to Hurley -- how many times have we yelled a the TV for him to grow a set. Well, it happened and I love it. New assertive Hurley rocked last night, and he's going to kick some ass in the next few weeks. It's about time.Sawyer seemed lost (obvious pun) on last night's show. He's become a little too sensitive, so that's why his '04 self seemed so refreshing. In '07, he's threatening to kill Jack? Really? He's been threatening to do that for six f-ing seasons. Do it and shut up. Or just keep insulting Hurley. But a sullen Sawyer is not entertaining.
Harold weighs in with this view: "My current (tired and uneducated) thought is that the conversation between Jacob and the Man in Black in the beginning of The Incident ("they come, the fight. . . it always ends the same", "it only ends once, everything else is progress") is referring to many alternate timelines of the same people doing the same thing, rather than a discussion of what has happened throughout history in one timeline, and the goal of Jacob is to get the Losties to choose to stay on the Island eventually." ==> I'm willing to buy that, but who's the other guy in that dialogue? The man in black. Esau? He's never been called that, but it's clear he's the new Locke and the smoke monster.
(Speaking of Smoky, I still want to pitch a sit-com with the Smoke Monster living with his family in the burbs. He comes home from a long day torturing souls at the Temple and he has to deal with his shrill wife, and snotty kids. Maybe they could be a fourth family on "Modern Family". Phil's cousins, maybe?)
Anyway, that's all for now and I haven't even touched on Miles or Juliet's death.
Namaste, erebody!!!
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