Daily Archives: January 31, 2010

The 100 Greatest Moments Of Lost, part 3: Only fools are enslaved by time and space!

Posted by Marco Sparks on

We’re creeping closer and closer to the return of Lost on Tuesday, and the hits just keep on coming!

And let’s return to our countdown looking back at how we got here with…

The 100 Greatest Moments of Lost!

PART THREE

50. Locke, bouncing around through different time periods on the Island like a skipping record in “Because You Left,” asks Richard Alpert possibly the most important question one can ask in that situation: “When am I?”

49. Ben produces a shotgun from the piano bench in “The Shape Of Things To Come.” A classic example of the other reason we love Ben: He’s seemingly prepared for anything (which makes those times when he encounters a situation he’s not prepared for all that more delicious). He’s got a hidden room of suits and passports in his home, so of course he’d have a sawed off shotgun hidden in his piano bench in case Charles Widmore send killer mercenaries to the Island to get him, right?

48. Sayid makes a wager on the golf course in the Seychelles with Mr. Avellino at the beginning of “The Economist.” It ends with Avellino, a target on the list of people that Sayid is murdering in these flashforwards for Ben, ending up dead and Sayid being his own caddy.

47. Arzt explodes in “Exodus, part one.” Such a simple, cheap gag, but an entertaining one, and a brilliant one, especially since we were told in the media that Daniel Roebuck (previously famous for playing Jay Leno in The Late Shift) was joining the cast in season 2. Those few Arzt lovers out there instead had to wait for his awesome return in season 3′s “Exposé.”

46. Boone’s surgery and aborted amputation in “Do No Harm.” How, this was a forever ago. Boone was the sacrifice the Island demanded, and rightly so, because he kind of sucked. And because his death was needed so that Aaron could be born? Jack went all out trying to save him, even giving him a transfusion of his own blood and was prepared to amputate his leg to save his life before a delirious Boone finally said, “Jack, just let me go…”

45. Faraday’s rocket test in “The Economist.” Our first real glimpse at the time distortions around the Island.

44. Locke reveals in ” ” that he’s the one who knocked out Sayid to prevent the radio test.

43. Charlie’s dive into the ocean to go down to the Looking Glass station at the bottom of the ocean in “Greatest Hits.” As much as we hate Charlie here at Counterforce, “Greatest Hits” was a pretty great episode, and this was an epic swim, the first part of the hero quest that would lead to Charlie’s death.

42. Jin runs out of the jungle at the end of “Adrift,” screaming to the newly washed ashore Michael and Sawyer: “Others! Others!”

41. Sawyer’s running for cover in “The Shape Of Things To Come.” If you haven’t watched this episode again recently, you need to. It’s fucking amazing, but nestled right there in the middle of it is a bizarre action sequence in which Sawyer is running away from bullets in Otherton/the Barracks as Keamy and the mercenaries are clearly just toying with him. Either that or the picnic table, the picket fence, and the barbecue that Sawyer uses for cover are just that good and perhaps James Ford belongs in an 80s action movie?

40. Mr. Eko’s speech to Locke about Josiah and the discovery of the old testament before revealing the missing portion of the Swan’s orientation film, the one that warns of what could lead to another “incident.” Eko also gives Locke a brilliant piece of advice here that Locke will only seldom take: “Do not mistake coincidence with fate.”

And #40 is another TIE with a favorite moment of mine: Locke’s speech to Boone about Michelangelo in “Hearts And Minds” as he’s mixing up the psychedelic paste to give Boone a hallucination of what he needs to see, in this case to let go of his obsession with his step sister Shannon.

39. While Sayid, Ana Lucia, and Charlie are off to find the balloon of “Henry Gale,” to check the validity of his story, Jack and Locke feed Henry/Ben some breakfast in the Swan station, where he casually tells them a “what if” tale of how, if he was actually an Other, he’d be sending their friends off into a trap… And for the first time we see the menace and ease of which Ben can and loves to manipulate people that goes so perfectly with his bug eyes and Vincent Price-like voice.

38. Sawyer kills the original Tom Sawyer/Locke’s dad in, quite literally, “The Brig” on the Black Rock. It’s not so much the kill here that’s interesting, but the confrontation itself, which we had been waiting for since the first season. Locke’s dad, Anthony Cooper, the old time con man starts recounting off the various aliases he’s used in the past, Sawyer stops him after the mention of Mark Twain’s literary hero. “Sawyer’s my name too,” he says through gritted teeth.

37. Vincent uncovers the bodies of Nikki and Paulo in “Exposé,” and really, just all of “Exposé” in general. Not only do Nikki and Takes A Shit Guy get one of the most cold blooded offings in all of television, but you get some awesome glimpses from a different perspective of events that have occurred on the Island with the 815ers.

Bonus: Mr. LaShade is The Cobra!

Extra bonus: The original intention of these two characters was for them to actually have two episodes in the third season. In the first one, we’d learn that Nikki was an Alias-like spy prior to coming to the Island, and in the second, much like this one, we’d learn that she was actually just an actress on an Alias-like show. Personally, I kind of love that. Razzle dazzle!

36. Richard carries young Ben, whose been possibly fatally shot in 1977, into the temple of the Others to be saved in “Whatever Happened, Happened.” And we still don’t know what it means! All we were told is that if the Others save Ben’s life, he’ll lose his innocence and forever be one of the Others.

35. Ben is judged by the smoke monster/Alex in “Dead Is Dead.” And thus begins the endgame of season 5 as Ben is told that he’d better do everything that (fake) John Locke asks or Alex/the smoke monster will kill him.

34. Ben and Widmore have a nasty late night conversation in Widmore’s penthouse in “The Shape Of Things To Come,” the episode that seems to get the most hits in this round, right? The venom between these two gents is palpable and I feel like we still haven’t begun to see all of what they were referring to as threatens to kill Penny in retaliation for the loss of his daughter, and Widmore, made of grit and steel, reminds him: “I know who you are, boy. What you are.”

33. From “Not In Portland,” Sawyer and Kate are trying to make their way off of Hydra island, and Alex will help them on one condition: They have to rescue her boyfriend, Karl. And where is he? Room 23! The trippy brainwashing room that looks like something fresh from A Clockwork Orange, where Karl is drugged up, forced to watch bizarre videos with subliminal messages and listen to blaring jungle music with backwards voices playing through them…

Just remember, kids: “God loves you as He loved Jacob,” and “Only fools are enslaved by time and space.”

32. Ethan Rom is not on flight 815′s manifest!

31. The Swan station’s orientation film from “Orientation,” giving us our first glimpses of Pierre Chang, and first whispers of just what the hell the DHARMA Initiative is.

Just as Locke says after the first time he saw, “I think we’re going to need to watch that again.”

30. Michael’s death in “There’s No Place Like Home, part 3,” as the bomb explodes on the boat, but not before the ghostly Christian shows up and says one of the most chilling things ever: “You can go now, Michael.”

And then:

29. The opening to season 2 in “Man Of Science, Man Of Faith,” as we meet Desmond for the first time down in the hatch and hear Mama Cass’ lovely, “Make Your Own Kind Of Music.” There’s a lot of people who saw that scene for the first time and said it wasn’t that impressive to them or that their minds weren’t blown by it, and we have a simple name for those kind of people here at Counterforce: Liars.

28. Michael shoots Ana Lucia and Libby, making them “Two For The Road,” ha ha!

But, no, seriously, kids, don’t drive and drive, okay?

27. Mysterious Walt visitations all over the place! One of my many unanswered questions that I’d like to see the show take a stab at in it’s last season is WTF was going on with Walt, and why exactly did the Others need him so badly? Presumably they had him in Room 23 for a while, but how was he practicing the art of bilocation, the first few times to Shannon…

and then…

…to John as we get to our last moment for today…

26. Locke and Ben go to visit Jacob’s cabin in “The Man Behind The Curtain,” and have what you might call… a strange encounter.

A strange encounter and a half, really.

And Locke clearly hears the words of somebody other than Ben or himself say, “Help me.”

Which upsets Ben a good deal:

…who then leaves Locke to rest with the remains of the DHARMA Initiative, and that’s where we’ll also leave you for today…

See you tomorrow with Part 4!

The 100 Greatest Moments of Lost, part 2: “You knew… and you sent me anyway.”

Posted by Benjamin Light on

Awwwwwww yeeeaahhhh. We are just getting started.

The best part of making this list has been that, after me and Marco locked down the top 100, I’d go back and watch an episode and it was like, “fuck, I totally forgot about this moment! It’s not top 100, but it’s still fucking awesome.”

For example, In an early Season 2 episode, Sun loses her wedding ring. Jack tries to make her feel better by telling her a story about how he lost his ring once and had to fake a replacement. Then Yunjin Kim delivers the slightest of glances down at Jack’s left hand. Pregnant Pause. Jack looks down at his empty ring finger too and shrinks a little.

It’s a perfect snapshot of a character who’s both the calm, reassuring hero and also a manic, damaged failure. And it didn’t even make the list.

Continuing on with Counterforce’s list of Epic Lost Moments, we find ourselves at the electric encounter between the mysterious one-eyed man and Motherfucking Sayid.

The 100 Greatest Moments of Lost!

PART TWO

75. Cut to “Enter 77,” with Mikhail and Sayid taking turns tightening the screws on each other. Sayid sez: “At least we were able TO KILL one of them.” and then Mikhail tosses off this immortal, badass line: “Why are we continuing to play this little game… when it all know it has moved to THE NEXT STAGE!” Fight!

74. Charlie gives Kate her shirt back after they ran from the broken hive and delivers what might be his best and nearly only good line of the series. Kate: “It was full of bees.” Charlie: “I’d have thought C’s, actually.” Even Jack laughs, so you know it was a good joke.

73. Faraday meets the young Ellie, stares at her enough to lay the creep on her (must be weird to meet your mom back when she was a young hottie), and then gets a look at jughead, the massive Chekov’s Gun of Season 5.

72. Jack’s first fistfight with Ethan, where he gets his ass handed to him, then discovers Charlie left hanging in “All The Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues.” Unfortunately, Jack is able to revive Charlie.

71. Pierre Chang questions a helpless Hurley on 1977 to out him as a time traveler. “So you fought in the Korean War?” snarks Chang, “There’s no such thing?” Hurley flails. Also during this moment we finally see Miles and Pierre acknowledging their connection.

70. Sayid kills a guy with a dishwasher in the safehouse/hotel room in “Because You Left.” Not only was this move awesome, but it resulted in an entire episode where and unconscious Sayid gets toted around “Weekend at Bernies”-style.

69. Team Jack finds the dump of forgotten tube canisters sent from the Pearl Station in “Live Together, Die Alone.” A kind of haunting image of futility, and a seeming answer to the question of whether or not the hatch was just a psychological experiment.

68. Richard Alpert walks into Dharmaville in ’74, slams the torch into the grass. This is where Richard was officially elevated to “This guy could walk into any scene in any timeline and I won’t bat an eyelash” status. It’s not often we get to see him display the kind of authority he levels at Horace here. “That fence may keep other things out, but… not us.” Nobody sticks torches into dirt like Nestor Carbonell.

67. Sayid meets Rousseau, and we finally get a face to the mysterious French Woman on the radio distress loop.

66. Locke blows the Hatch door. I love the way John just ignore’s Hurley’s plea to stop. What a way to end the season: a long shaft into the darkness.

65. The monster kills the pilot in the “Pilot.” Our first taste of the mysterious Island security system.

64. Sawyer and Jack meet Mr. Friendly in the jungle, “Light ‘em up!” from “The Hunting Party.” Just when Jack is feeling cocky enough to call bullshit on Tom Friendly, the Others call bullshit on Jack and we finally get to hear a little about their point of view. “This is not your island.”

63. Montand loses the arm in “This Place is Death.” It was teased so long ago, and finally seeing how Montand lost his arm in the Dark Territory, as Rousseau mentions in “Exodus” was extremely fulfilling and satisfying.

62. Sawyer puts down the US Marshall in “Tabula Rasa.” Or, tries to. Wonderful that Sawyer does what no one else has the guts to. And fucks it up. So Jack goes in and finishes it, bare-handed.

61. Teams Jack and Locke form and split at the cockpit in “The Beginning of the End.” Marco and I love quoting the Jackface standard, “Are you INSANE!?!?” at each other. Later in the series, Locke would softly comment, “You put a gun to my head, and you pulled the trigger.”

60. Ben confronts Jacob, and stabs him. I didn’t make the connection for months, but the “What about me?” “What about you?” exchange is basically an allegory for Man confronting his God. Ben wants validation, but to Jacob, he’s just not important in the grand scheme. Even Ben killing him means nothing to Jacob. It’s as though you were given a chance to ask the Supreme Being about your purpose in life, and God responded, “I really don’t care, fuck off.”

59. Ellie shoots Faraday in “The Variable.” I love the stunned realization on Daniel’s face. “You knew. You always knew… And you sent me anyway.” Only at the end, does the last puzzle piece for Faraday fall into place. He neglected to consider the one threat that would kill him: his own mother.

58. “What lies in the shadow of the statue?” The one who will save us all.

57. If anything goes wrong, Desmond Hume will be MY constant. And we begin to grasp just how deep into the rabbit hole of time Lost is about to take us.

56. Locke says “I was wrong” to Mr. Eko right before the Swan implodes in “Live Together, Die Alone.” Terry O’Quinn does such an excellent job revealing the shame and fear of Locke’s failure. Despite the wonderful, fantastical elements of the show, it’s these kinds of raw, honest character moments that make Lost the amazing drama that it is.

55. The return to the Island in the opening of “316.” We all thought it would take a whole season to get back to the Island, and then BAM, six episodes in and they’re back.

54. Meeting the tail section of Oceanic 815 in “The Other 48 Days” Really the whole episode was excellent, but getting to relive the crash, from the spinning tail fuselage falling out of the sky, to the desperate panic to rescue survivors on the beach, was the perfect less-hopeful mirror to the same scenes from the Pilot. You just kinda knew from the start that these tailies were fucked.

53. The Others purge the Dharma Initiative in “The Man Behind the Curtain.” With bonus points for Ben killing his own father with gas. Horace sitting dead on the bench, the sad realization on his face that he would never understand the Island. Or perhaps he’s grasping that Alpert really meant it about the 15-year limit on their truce.

52. Desmond talks to the older Eloise in “Flashes Before Your Eyes,” sees the man with red shoes, and learns about “course corrections.” Just another brick in the “fate” wall that Team Eloise is building against Free Will. I love that a popular television show has been dramatizing the philosophical debate between fate and free will for 6 years.

51. Jack says “Forgive me” and almost jumps off a bridge. Another thing I love about this show is its willingness to give us characters at their absolute lowest. Jack is the hero, the lead, the protagonist, and here he is about to kill himself. But even in his darkest hour, he’s still inexorably pulled towards an emergency he can fix. Excellent direction in this scene: the off-screen car crash, the cry for help and the fire brightening Jack’s face. Some of Michael Giacchino’s best musical work as well.

See you tomorrow with PART 3!