Tag Archives: Four toed statue

“It’s good to see you out of those chains.”

Posted by Marco Sparks on

I’m going to be as eloquent as possible here, okay?

HOLY FUCK, LOST IS BACK!

Last night’s premiere episode, “LA X, parts 1 and 2,” which was #10 on our Top 100 Moments Of Lost, if you didn’t notice, was easily the most anticipated two hours of television this year (so far, at least), right? And, to me, it was extremely satisfying, and in typical Lost fashion, frustrating with the new questions it sets up, and anticipation it builds.

Did Jughead explode and reset the timeline?

The answer is yes! We see our favorite characters right back there on Oceanic flight 815, flying from Sydney to Los Angeles, encountering a bit of turbulence as it soars over the submerged Island we’ve been getting to know so well over the last 5 years.

We see a few familiar faces, and notice some absent ones, and learn that this timeline wasn’t born out of Oceanic 815 not crashing on the Island, it’s was created specifically by the explosion on the Island in 1977.

That’s 30 years of a whole new world to explore, and one that we’ll get to do flash… sideways… backs (technically we’re flashing back to an alternate universe 2004 from 2008, right?) all the while…

We’re in our regular “timeline” on the show, on the Island, with our favorite castaways, and those wacky, crazy Others. Jacob’s dead. Sayid is dead, then not. And the Jacob’s nemesis? Turns out HE IS ACTUALLY THE FUCKING SMOKE MONSTER. And also kind of badass, right?

And more than a little scary, which is, not surprisingly, a nice fit.

High praise should be more than paid to Terry O’Quinn, who has played the broken and weary but always hopeful John Locke so perfectly the past 5 years only to turn it all on it’s head, to be a new character, seemingly evil incarnate with a masterful ability to fool and manipulate. That mad gleam that Locke always had in his eye? Now it’s fully shiny.

And we’ve spoken volumes before about Matthew Fox’s performance as Jack, who’s always been a little broken, a little deranged, and he’s the same here, always feeling hunched over with grief and the vapors of failure that hang over like black Smoke Monster clouds. He just feels like an outsider, in the “real” timeline and in that “sideways” timeline, as he watches Rose and Bernard canoodling across the aisle from him. The only real shine that enters his eyes is his momentary passing Kate on the plane and later when he meets wheelchair-confined alterna-John Locke, a man who did go on his walkabout and maybe feels that bit of hope again when the spinal surgeon tells him nothing’s irreversible.

That looks suspiciously like connective tissue to a looming mystery, friends and readers. That, or Jack really missed a spot when he was shaving his chest.

Also, I would love it if our only glimpses of sideways Charlie are just those as he’s being lead away to jail for trying to kill himself in the airplane bathroom.

RIP Juliet. Oh, and Sawyer and Juliet’s love.

Also, the Others! Well, no just the Others, but the temple dwelling Others. With their leader, Dogen, who only speaks Japanese because English leaves a nasty taste on his tongue, his aide and translator, Lennon (named for the fact that he wears the same glasses as the famous Beatle?), and the return of Cindy and those fucking kids, with their waters of life that are seemingly polluted by their messianic figure’s demise. And with the news of Jacob’s passing, they’re afraid of the rise of the Smoke monster? Isn’t he the security system for the temple? And if he’s a smoke monster, is it possible that Jacob was also a smoke monster in some natural form?

It wouldn’t be a Lost season premiere without new mysterious characters, new mysterious locations, and well… new mystery, right? And also this:

And we’re all here, on the edge of our seats, ready to discover it together. Now, I’ve said too much, way more than I had intended to, but the excitement and the curiosity, it just springs forth. More importantly, what did you think?

The 100 Greatest Moments of Lost, part 5: “I’m sick of lying!!”

Posted by counterforce! on

We know your LOST BONERS must be huge by this point. Only a little while until the premier. Why don’t we knock out the Top 10 in the meantime, eh?

The 100 Greatest Moments of Lost!

PART FIVE

10. Marco: The “LA X” Premier. Can you feel it? I mean, can you fucking feel it as it gets closer? That beating you hear, those loud insane drums, that’s your heartbeat. That’s the sound of your blood rushing through your body, to your brain, to your genitals, getting you ready as the circles closes tighter and we get near tonight’s premiere episode. I could make it even more surreal for you there, but let’s just say that we’re taking a chance here and saying that THE SHEER EXCITEMENT alone for tonight’s episode, “LA X,” especially after watching that new promo, is in the top ten greatest moments of this show.

9.  Benjamin: The pan over to the plane crash in the Pilot episode.

I don’t want sound like a broken record here, but Lost’s first episode is the best television pilot ever made, and it’s not even close. Who wasn’t floored when the camera panned around some bushes on the beach to show us the carnage of a motherfucking plane crash?

The shot, on just a technical level is superb. Then you throw in the excellent sound editing, the way the noises slowly resolve into screams, and the creepy music.

And the clever camera trickery that at one moment gives us an idyllic beach and the next chaos just around the corner. I don’t think anybody who watched this first 10 minutes of this show changed the channel.

8. Marco: The giant FOUR-TOED FOOT STATUE.

Let me just quote Sayid for a moment here: “I don’t know what’s more disquieting, the fact that the rest of the statue is missing, or that it has four toes…” Exactly. I’m glad that they gave us a lot of glimpses of rest of the statue in season 5, especially in the finale (for the longest time we were like, “OMG, is it Tawaret or Sobek?” Ancient Egyptian God intrigue!)(Team Tawaret won. Go fertility!), and wonderfully, it only confuses us more. But ever since the introduction of this massive mysterious beauty in the season 2 finale, “Live Together, Die Alone,” from the biggest minds to the most infinitesimal, there’s no way you couldn’t have been just a little captivated by this tease.

7. Marco: Eko meets the Monster. From one thing that’s kept audience enthralled for years now to the mother of all mysterious goings on on the Island of Lost: The motherfucking Smoke Monster. In particular, the scene in which it was revealed to us in all it’s bizarre, gorgeous glory there in “The 23rd Psalm,” when it comes screaming out of the jungle to confront Mr. Eko, who merely turns and faces it down, and he doesn’t have the sonic fence that Juliet had in “Left Behind.”

There, as Charlie watches from a tree, Mr. Eko stares into the eye of the black foggy beast, and it seems to stare right back into him, with flashes from his life off the Island appearing in little electrical surges through it’s wisps. And if I just take it there for a moment, this moment alone, with all it’s possible implications that one couldn’t even begin to fully grasp at, gave me a boner.

…and further ignited my hatred of Charlie. I can understand his climbing up into a tree to hide, that makes sense. He’s no Mr. Eko, that’s for damn sure (even though Charlie did have a weird crush on Eko throughout season 2), but what kills me is after the Monster apparently judged Eko okay and left him there in peace (for the time being), how does someone like Charlie not go running back to camp and scream, “OMG, guys, guess what I just saw out there in the jungle? THE MOTHERFUCKER MONSTER is what, and you know what? IT’S MADE OF A NANOTECH-like SWARM OF INTELLIGENT BLACK SMOKE!!!”

Benjamin: Not to defend Charlie, but let’s be honest, if he dude had run back to camp, the rest of the castaways would have been all “yeah, sure, black smoke. Fucking tweaker. Go play some more shitty guitar and stroke it to the pregnant chick, limey.”

Marco: Side query: Do you think that the man in black/the dark man/Jacob’s nemesis/Esau (too many Stephen King references there, sorry) is actually the smoke monster when he’s not taking on the guise of deceased human forms like Locke, Christian, Eko’s brother, Yemi, or Alex? If so, go back and watch the scene between Jacob and his nemesis at the beginning of “The Incident,” and when Jacob asks him if he’s hungry, the man in black merely says, “No thanks, I just ate.”

6: Benjamin: Desmond asks for Penny’s phone number. “I won’t call you, for eight years!” Maybe it’s my own fantasies of disappearing from the world for while, but the wrap up to “The Constant” gets me every single time.

How would you react if an ex demanded your phone number, promising not to call for 8 years and giving you an exact time to expect the phone to ring?

And then, 8 years later after being missing for years, he calls? I love this whole sequence. “Eight years from now, I need to call you. And… I can’t call you if I don’t have your number.”

Des and Penny, who are kind of the heart of the show, finally get their reunion. “I’ll find you!” Penny gasps, crying. If you didn’t get a little misty during this scene then you’re a fucking robot.

5. Benjamin: Jack and Locke’s argument in “Orientation.” “Why do you find it so hard to believe?” “Why do you find it so easy?” “It’s never BEEN EASY!” Three lines of dialog that distill Jack and Locke to their base ideologies.

Our two tortured heroes were perhaps never so honest with each other. If Lost were  movie, this would be its Oscar reel. And I think it gives necessary weight to Locke’s conviction: he’s not just a blind follower, he’s gone through quite a lot to arrive at this moment, but he needs someone else to share it with him.

4. Marco: Locke screams and bangs on the hatch in “Deus Ex Machina” after Boonie dies, and then… the light comes on. The thing about characters like Jack and Locke, the men of science and faith, respectively, isn’t just so much their belief systems, but their failings. Jack represents our very base, very human failings and insecurities. His suffering is so tragic and real, and not unlike the things we can all go through. And Locke, well, Locke is no stranger to similar failings, but he’s also a man looking for answers, for a place in the larger context of the world and what it all means.

And when you begin to scream out big questions to the universe of that nature, you’re bound to be let down, in a much bigger way. You’re going to fall from such a larger height, only in this case, it wasn’t just John’s hopes that took a tumble, it was also Boone, “the sacrifice the Island demanded,” Locke later reasoned. And there, when Locke was at another in a long series of moments of crushing defeat, screaming and banging on the door to the impregnable hatch, essentially asking the universe why he was nothing in it’s eyes, a light from inside comes on. And John Locke, at his very lowest there, is bathed in this new light…

3. Benjamin: Jack’s “Live Together, Die Alone” speech in “White Rabbit.” He wasn’t always the greatest leader. Ok, he usually wasn’t one, but for this shining moment, Jack really was the leader and hero of the castaways. Bonus points for a speech that doesn’t just have to apply to plane crash survivors on an island. If there’s a message in Lost, it’s in this scene.

2. Marco: “Not Penny’s Boat,” from near the end of “Through The Looking Glass.”

So vague, and yet, so heavy with potential meaning are these three words written on Charlie’s hand that he shows to Desmond as the room he’s in fills up with water and he drowns.

Just like Locke can find the light to continue on when he’s literally at his lowest, covered in another man’s blood, these two guys in a thirty year old DHARMA station underwater can find victory snatched away from them at the last possible moment, when they were at their highest. And Desmond can’t really fully know what Charlie meant by that or what he saw/heard to make him convey this message, but he knows what that moment isn’t: the happy ending they were hoping for. Perhaps you can’t cheat fate. Whatever happens, happens. The universe will always course correct, right?

Benjamin: This is my favorite scene in the series. Who would have guessed that a sodding tool like Charlie would go out with the most epic and moving death scene of all. Love the message on his hand, love the understanding that comes between Desmond and Charlie. Crossing himself while he drowns is a beautiful grace note to end the scene.

and here we go. The greatest moment in the history of Lost…

1: Benjamin: Jack’s flashforward revealed in his meeting with Kate at the airport.

This was the moment that forever changed the show. It was an excellent show before this scene, and a legendary one after it. “I’m sick of lying. We made a mistake… We were not supposed to leave,” Jack pleads to Kate.

The twist isn’t just neat on a plot level, it’s devastating on an emotional one. We learn that they did make it off the Island, but rather than triumph, somehow it’s all gone terribly wrong. It didn’t just feel like a glimpse into our characters’ futures, it felt like a warning about our own. What awaits our heroes isn’t rescue but tragedy. Narratively, it’s genius, and the kind of story-telling structure they’ll be teaching in writing classes in 20 years.

After this flashforward, we not only had the excitement of the events on the Island, we got a peeks into the future at lives torn asunder, and on top of every other mystery in the show, the question of how did it all go so wrong to end up like it did at the airport, a drugged up Jack, completely bottomed-out, screaming “We have to go back, Kate! WE HAVE TO GO BACK!!!”

Standing on the shoulders of giant metal robots.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

from here.

Screwing around today on the internet, I happened to peek at this link over at This Recording for something called “Statue to end all statues,” or something like that. And still having four toed statues of mysterious Egyptian gods on the brain, I, of course, clicked on it.

What it ended up being is this:

What will be a giant statue of about 18 meters in height and weighing around 35 tons when it’s assembled in honor of 30 years of Mobile Suit Gundam, one of Japan’s most popular and longest lasting anime series. It’s going up in Odaiba, Tokyo and when it’s completed, it’ll be able to move it’s head around and shoot beams of light out of 50 different points on it’s body. Much like myself on a good day.

Now, I’m into some nerdy shit, but anime and giant mecha is one of the things I’ve managed not to get hooked on. I feel like that’s a pretty good thing still since I wouldn’t know what to do with that much tentacle rape. I mean, I’ve seen some anime that I’ve really enjoyed (that was sans tentacle rape). Cowboy Bebop, of course, and Witch Hunter Robin also, and shit like Paranoia Agent…

…which is just a fun, brilliant show about identity and, of course, paranoia. And from Satoshi Kon, the creator of Perfect Blue and Paprika. And also Serial Experiments Lain, which I’ve watched an episode or two of and, well, I get where they’re going and I’m sure it’ll be great if I continue the journey, but I’ll hold off on a bit, you know? And then there’s always Neon Genesis Evangelion…

…which makes for great wikipedia reading with everything they’re going for and the multi-textured look at things, especially the various meanings of it’s ending (“You disgust me” or “You make me sick” or whatever), but after watching the first two episodes, I was left wondering when all the higher level of interesting discourse and cool shit start? Maybe I’m being too critical though. If anyone can harness the power of giant robots to fight metaphysical monsters from heaven then it’s certainly Japanese school kids with problems and obsessions with giant breasts. At least they worked in great big monsters and giant robots, right?

from here.

But the idea of a giant statue honoring a robot creature seems scary to my American sensibilities. Or maybe it’s my underlying fear of the impending robotcalypse? Perhaps. I guess I would foolishly compare it to the Christian nutbags here who would be terrified if we started making giant statues of things out the Book of Revelation or had public officials whose political handle was “The Beast.” Shouldn’t you Japanese people be terrified of giant robots? Probably not since they would be the front line defense against the constantly attacking radioactive lizard monsters, right?

Unless those two combine forces. Then we’re just fucked. Game over, man.

Islands of the dead.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

I’m just going to be as cut to the chase and classy as I can with this: last night’s episode of Lost gave me an erection of awesomeness.

I mean, right?

Predictably, since it was a Ben episode, we got a little more details, some holes filled in the various back stories, and plenty of fodder for future speculation.

Some quick thoughts:

Locke. Granted, it’s a Ben episode, but I really dig the “new John Locke” that we’ve been seeing post-resurrection. He’s more serene, operating with more of a purpose, and appears to have a Nic Cage-sized sense of knowing things. Goodbye sometimes confused and lost old man, and hello to embracing the fully confident new leader of the Others. And it sounds like he’s not crazy about housing his people in the barracks when they could be out in the wild. Roughing it!

Ben. He’s always been a little more than just the villain of the piece, but now, I have to say that it’s riveting watching him constantly working his games on people and setting up his machinations. And Michael Emerson’s portrayal of this character is fascinating in that no matter how confused or thrown for a loop the character ever could be, you can tell that the wheels are always still spinning in his brain.

Sure, the guy’s always lying, but I think that his most honest moment was probably last year when he was traipsing through the jungle with Hurley and Locke and had to pause to say: “How many times do I have to tell you, John? I always have a plan.” Good times.

Caesar. Ha ha.

Rousseau. Her encounter with Ben not only made me think that we may actually be done with her character now, but also makes me want to go back to season 2 and watch his first episode again. Lindelof wasn’t kidding when he teased that the two of them “had words” at some point in the past. Also, I think that the whispers have moved up a slots higher on the list of things I’m curious about.

Alex. Interesting how she became both Ben’s one decent quality (and you just have to be amazed that she was raised as well as she was, considering who her “dad” was) and seemingly that noose hanging over his head.

Richard Alpert, Benjamin Light’s #1 man crush. For starters, Ben was totally his Alex, right? Seemingly he was always cheering him on just a little (until Locke came alone), yeah? Secondly, he totally lies to Widmore about what Jacob wants, but Widmore just kind of goes with it, which I find fascinating, even though he really din’t have a choice. Speaking of which…

Jacob! Seemingly, he and the Island are one in the same, especially if you wanted to use them in a sentence. So, If I were to say to you, “Jacob wanted me to kick you in the balls,” then you could easily just as well say, “The Island wanted me to kick you in the balls.” Also, Jacob seems to be the magic word to use in just about every situation. You’re pissed and want to know why I just kicked you square in your balls? It’s simple. Jacob wanted me to. Sorry. You can’t argue with that.

Charles Widmore. Well, Chuck here didn’t leave the way I was thinking he would (I was hoping for a turn of the frozen donkey wheel, after being tricked into doing it by Ben), but this was just as interesting. Of course, after the fiasco with the baby Alex situation, it didn’t seem like it would’ve been too hard for Ben to make quick business of him. Also, try to ignore that he’s seriously rounding up on how long he’s been trying to get back to the Island.

Also, it’s interesting to see the new guy playing the middle aged Widmore, who looks a lot like Alan Dale, especially with that wig they gave him. Of course, the guy who played teenage Widmore back in the 50s looked a lot like Alan Dale too. Oddly, teenage Widmore guy and middle aged Widmore guy look nothing alike. Let’s hope they do just as good with the actress coming in to play middle aged Eloise.

Annddd, I’m fascinated by the symbol on the vests of the Others guys who were escorting Widmore (don’t ask my why, but I got a total Nixon vibe in that scene) to the submarine, which also had the symbol on it. It seems to be based on the Taoist ba gua, much like the DHARMA logo. A hold over from the Purge?

Desmond! A collective “Whew!” comes over the audience to find that his family and he weren’t violently murdered by Ben, even though I think Ben effectively got the revenge he sought against Widmore in the transaction. But also perhaps found a glimmer of a soul in himself too. And we got to see Desmond deserve a nice little beat down as well. I really want to go watch that sad little phone call Ben makes to Jack in “316.”

The Monster! Ah, the monster. They tell us over and over again, that it’s not a nanotech swarm (which I really want it to be even more now after having finished Michael Crichton’s Prey today), and yet… wouldn’t that make perfect sense? The way the “creature” transitions from it’s Monster state to it’s human replica capable of real conversational interactions (and throwing people against walls) is intriguing as hell.

Also, like Locke, I think all the monster wanted was an apology and some remorse. And some undying fear of God loyalty for the new leader of the Others. And you know what? I think it’s going to happen.

Oh, and The Question: What lies in the shadow of the statue?

Ooooh. I think something very interesting it happening with the red shirts of Ajira flight 316. Perhaps their tiny brains are being taken over? Or perhaps, just perhaps, they aren’t there on accident and have something to do with the upcoming war that Widmore has warned us about. Plus, I love that Frank Lapidus enters every scene he’s in like he just stumbled out of a bender. If they only gave him a drinking scene with Desmond he’d be my favorite character.

Next week: Miles talks to dead people! (Spoiler: Naomi appears). Dr. Pierre Chang! Hurley (who also talks to dead people) and… what appears to just be some awesome good times with the DHARMA gang back in the 70s. That, or we’re going to outer space, brotha!

But tonight is the premiere of Harper’s Island, the 13 week close ended episodic television version And Then There Was None meets your average cheap slasher flick, where a group of well to do strangers go to a wedding on an island, and then slowly get picked off one by one by a mysterious killer who has a beef with them from the past.

At Wonder-Con, Lollipop and August and I attended a panel promoting the show, but held by the makers of the Lonelygirl15 franchise, who were executing an online web series meant to tie in to the main show. The whole presentation was laughably bad, and the show appeared to be ridiculously shot “video blogs” of a cute girl who couldn’t stop herself from accidentally filming her boobs all the time.

I love mysteries and horror movies, but I’ve always preferred the “slasher” films because, typically, you get that little bit of whodunnit involved. The mysteries are usually either retarded or too easy to figure out, but maybe that’s half the fun too. More so if they’re trashy. And this show just sounds like one of interesting ideas that can only be executed horribly. I’m watching the first few minutes of this as I type and aside from Final Girl to be Elaine Cassidy (who was wonderful in Atom Egoyan’s Felicia’s Journey), Richard Burgi being his usual level of sleaze, and Harry Hamlin making eyes at some twink in the wedding party, this is just a bunch of nobodies that you can’t wait to see get offed (though I’d suggest that you just go watch the original April Fools’ Day instead). Secluded island murder porn, here we come.

Top 5 of Lost: #1: Make your own kind of music.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

Previously on Lost: Locke and Desmond go to the Pearl station and find answers to their ?s, one leaving with a purpose and one leaving with shattered dreams. Michael is back with a plan from the Others and sends two of the 815ers down the road. Sayid sees through some bullshit (naturally) and forms a plan of his own. And then a sailboat shows up…

And what a long, strange journey it’s been as we get to the #1 episode on our list, “Live Together, Die Alone.”

Watching this episode the other day in preparation for this list, I was just floored by how amazing it is. Like Commander Light said yesterday, “Through A Looking Glass” is an amazing episode, practically on par with this one, both perfect, strong studies of sometimes imperfect characters, but this one spreads around so much good, so many great moments, and in the end, while “Through A Looking Glass” is about a man literally falling apart, “Live Together, Die Alone” is about the opposite, about a man trying to “lift it up, brotha,” to quote Desmond and one of the series’ recurring phrases. Oh, and did I forget to mention that the focal point of this episode is one of my favorite characters?

This episode right here, a shocker at the time, not just for the fact that Desmond returned but that he became the central flashback character of a finale, is where I would strongly make claim to the Desmond/Penny love story becoming one of the strongest core parts of this show.

This is a powerful story of a man who’s good at failing, who feels that he’s lost something, including the woman he loves. He wants her back. She wants him back but he wants to come back to her whole. He wants to be the man who’s good enough for her and he’s willing to travel half way around the world to win his honor back. For her. To be hers. But he gets lost on the way and finds something else entirely.

Editor’s note: At this point, I (Benjamin Light) would like to pipe in with my worst Scottish accent and say “I have to get mah honnuh back!” Thank you, that is all.

Desmond: “What’s all that about then?”

Inman: “Just saving the world.”

What amazes me is that so many people complain about season 2, saying that’s where the show fell apart for them. They’re right in that the show did falter very, very briefly (but it was at the start of season 3, not 2), but this finale was perfect in unifying the second season as a whole. And even working in nicely with season 1.

A full recap would be mind blowing, but too long. Go watch the episode. It will not let you down, not in the slightest. Some highlights:

  • After the castaways find Desmond in his sailboat at the beginning, he asks, “Are you still pushing it?” Jack smiles and says, “Yeah, we’re still pushing it.” So true, Jack.
  • The sailboat! Sayid’s got a plan. “This time they will know that we are coming,” he says.
  • Desmond was apparently in military prison. And waiting for him when he gets out is a copy of Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend. Why? “I’ve read everything Mr. Charles Dickens has written. Every wonderful word. Every book except this one. I’m saving it so it will be the last thing I ever read before I die.”
  • The first ever appearance of Charles Widmore, father of Desmond’s lost love, Penny. Even here, he’s kind of a dick.
  • The “Hurley” bird! (ed. note: the Hurley Bird is also in the Season 1 finale and remains one of the more underrated mysteries of Lost)

  • Desmond met Libby in the past! And she gave him the very sailboat we saw in this episode, The Elizabeth, named for her by her husband, David. Funny, wasn’t that the name of both Hurley’s dad and Hurley’s imaginary buddy?
  • Enacting his plan, Sayid sets sail with Jin and Sun as his crew on a secret badass mission to scout out the Others’ seaside camp for a little badass reconnaissance. I want to say badass once more here. There. I’d be okay if these three had gotten their own show together as well, and you see a little more of their winning dynamic together in “The Glass Ballerina.”
  • Speaking of characters who have excellent chemistry together: Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and Hurley on their trek through the jungle, that’s who. Well, also Michael, but he’s a sniveling wreck for part of this journey.

  • Locke and Desmond teaming up to stop Mr. Eko from punching the button!
  • Mr. Eko deciding he doesn’t like that. So much so that he’ll not only enlist Charlie to help him get back to the button, but he’ll do it with motherfucking dynamite.
  • An amazing scene between Penny and Desmond, with her great line of “With enough money and determination, you can find anyone.” And she found him (and will continue to do so). And he tells her that he’s going to get his honor back and then he’ll be back. Oh, and Jack in the background getting ready to run his tour de stade (tying in wonderfully with Jack’s flashback in “Man Of Science, Man Of Faith“).
  • Kelvin! The man who taught Sayid the art of getting information is Kelvin, Desmond’s partner in button pushing until he meets a bad end. And he was a little nuts.

I can’t stress this point nearly enough:

THAT IS A FOUR TOED FUCKING STATUE RIGHT THERE!

  • “I don’t know what is more disquieting,” Sayid says, “the fact that the rest of the statue is missing, or that is has four toes.” Took the words right out of our mouthes there, Sayid. Easily high up there with the Monster on the top 5 Lost mysteries we’re horny for an answer to.
  • SYSTEM FAILURE. “I think I crashed your plane, brotha,” Desmond says upon inspecting the printouts and it looks like he did (but in all fairness, it’s because of him that they were rescued).
  • In flashbacks, we see Desmond at his very lowest. Kelvin has lied and betrayed him and it looks like our Scottish friend is thinking about ending his life. And then he finds Penelope’s letter, tucked away in his book, the last thing he was going to read before he died. In the letter is her declaration of unending love for him and it crushes him because he knows he’ll never see her again…

  • …and then he and Locke become each other’s Deus Ex Machina, letting each other know that there is someone out there, there is hope, there is still a reason to go on.
  • But the numbers run down just like Locke wanted, the hieroglyphs show up, and the electromagnetism starts going wild…
  • Thanks to Michael, our heroes on the other side of the island and we not only see the return of Walt, but meet the Other’s mysterious leader: the man we knew as Henry Gale (and now know more properly as Ben).
  • And as things get worse down in the hatch/Swan, Locke comes to a painful realization, but a powerful one: (ed. note: I love the fear in Terry O’ Quinn’s “I was wrong.”)

  • Being the only one who can, Desmond takes the failsafe key and goes down into the lowest levels of the hatch (which was a brilliant example of Chekhov’s Gun the whole season) to release the build up of energy in the catch, to “make it all go away.”
  • AND THEN THE FUCKING SKY TURNS PURPLE!
  • And Michael and Walt leave the Island, with the blessing of Ben and the rest of the Others, who plan to take Jack, Kate, and Sawyer (but not poor Hurley) home with them. It’s a mega strong mindfuck/cliffhanger (though the following year’s is definitely more powerful just on the level of which it leaves you hanging).

You hear a lot of talk these days about TV shows done right and feeling like multi-part novels playing out in serialized live action (primarily with shows like The Wire and Mad Men), but I would argue that that analogy works just as strong for Lost, especially as book 2 of the series came to close, almost working perfectly as a sole story of it’s own, but it definitely let you know that certain things were over in this show and that there was going to be a whole new focus and a strong one: The Others.

Season 3 was back before they adopted a 24 like schedule and you didn’t have to wait a fucking eternity for answers, but it certainly felt like it. The same for the distance between season 4′s conclusion and tomorrow’s premiere.

(ed. note: I’d also like to give a shout-out to the weird russian dudes at the very end of the episode who caused an avalanche of speculation on the internets about whether or not that was actually Matthew Fox playing Jack’s doppelganger. Remember, Everything Happens For A Reason.)

Matt? Is that you?

Matt? Is that you?

See you tomorrow! Thank you, and namasté.

Pierre ChangLost