Tag Archives: John Locke

Progress.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

And so here we are.

Take a deep breath. There’s this heavy fin de siècle vibe hanging over the air. A circle closing, all it so deep and meaningful and exciting and… Lost ends tonight. With a two hour clip show, then a two and a half hour finale, and then after the news, some kind of retrospective/after party with the cast and crew on Jimmy Kimmel.

Last night I was having a deep text message conversation with my friend, Lia, who thinks she never gets mentioned here, and we were talking about how meaningful it is for this show to end because, unlike real life, the ending of your favorite show gives you an experience, a journey, and then closure and resolution at the end of it.

Fictional characters are so much kinder to us in that regard. They give us what we need because, if nothing else, they simply reflect back whatever level of meaning we bring to the experience.

Earlier in the evening yesterday, another friend called me, apparently having just seen their calendar, and then deciding to wake me up (what was I sleeping at this point, who can say). “OMG!” she squealed so loud that my ears are still vibrating, “I just realized what the date is! Tonight’s the last episode, right?” Yes, it is, I told her and I walked outside as we started talking. Looking up, I noticed that it was dark, probably because of the weather here yesterday, but I couldn’t see the stars. I mentioned that and we started talking about how the stars you see out there in the sky are all dead, and their long burnt out light is still transmitting towards us. As we pondered whether or not that was a romantic notion, I started thinking about tonight’s finale, which the writers have surely been thinking about for many, many years now, and the episode was written probably months ago, probably finished filming a month and some change ago, and has been edited and done for a few weeks. And it’s only now transmitting to us. Just like the stars sending us their light, and we’re philosophizing about what it all means long after it was sent.

Mektoub. It is written. That’s basically what I said to her then.

I have just about an hour before the clip show starts. I need to go and get ready and do whatever I need to do before that. It could be an emotional rollercoaster, this night. But that’s okay. It’s okay to get hung up over a TV show sometimes. Especially when you know that you’ll probably never get something like this again. And if it’s an experience you’ll never have again, find your own level of enjoyment in it. Get ready for your own drinking game that goes with it, if you want. The important thing is to have fun and to enjoy yourself. This kind of thing only ends once, and all of this progress has lead us to the here and now.

from here.

Anyway, here at Counterforce, we only really got into writing about individual episodes somewhere last season. It was something I really grew to enjoy and something that always surprised me with how much it informed on other things that I’d like to be talking about or, at least, writing about. I’ll let you discover last season’s write ups on your own, if you want, plus all those links yesterday, but today I’ll leave you with links to this past season, the sixth and final one of Lost…

01. “LA X.”

02. “What Kate Does.”

03. “The Substitute.”

04. “The Lighthouse.”

05. “Sundown.”

06. “Dr. Linus.”

07. “Recon.”

08. “Ab Aeterno.”

09. “The Package.”

10. “Happily Ever After.”

11. “Everybody Loves Hugo.”

12. “The Last Recruit“

13. “The Candidate.”

14. “Across The Sea.”

15. “What They Died For.”

And tomorrow we’ll be writing about the very last episode, “The End.” Who knows what we’ll have to say, but I feel like it’ll be the very last time we really write about Lost here on Counterforce. At least, the real last time for me, I think. Maybe I’ll blag (blag = my typo combination of “blog” and “blab”) on about the 23 enigma or the law of fives, but it’s like the show itself, you choose your own level of involvement, and you get back what you give to it (and more).

It’s kind of funny to think that, regardless of where we go tonight and wherever we end up on the other side of this show, I already know what the last sentence of my last write up about the show will be. Mektoub. “It is written.” See you then.

Walking after midnight.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

Everyone who loves Lost loves the little bits of trivia from behind the scenes of the show, especially it’s inception. And one of the most talked about is the original notion that the Jack character should die in the pilot, that he should be played by a more famous actor (think Michael Keaton rather than the guy from Party Of Five), and that he should die, letting everyone know that this was a show in which anything could happen.

Had that been the case, the producers’ plan was for another castaway to step up and become the de facto leader of the castaways from Oceanic 815, to lead them through their trials and tribulations on this mysterious Island. That particular passenger? One Kate Austen, of course.

Continue reading →

Déjà Entendu.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

So, last night I was going from one place to the next and stopped at the supermarket on the way. It was late and I was hungry, looking for some kind of quick snack, hopefully a sandwich from the deli, or… something. No luck because it was late and the deli was closed. So I just started wandering amidst the bright lights, the muzak renditions of pop trash, and the glitzy brand names…

And as I prowled the aisles, this strange feeling crept over me, one that I’ve sadly only experienced on a handful of occasions, if ever, and one that’s hard to romantically recall. The feeling was as close as I could literally think of déjà vu being. Or perhaps jamais vu. I mean, obviously I’ve done that same thing, staring at the contents of the supermarket hundreds of times in my life, no, thousands of times. But why did it feel particularly heavy this time? What was different. I looked at the brands, the names, the new code words used to entice me: “low fat,” “low sodium,” “lite,” “toasted, “flamefresh,” etc. and I looked at the tabloids, immersed for a time, as Don Delillio put it, in the world of “the living and the dead.”

Eventually I decided, “Fuck it.” I took it all in and kept walking. It was only a thing if I made it a thing.

While wandering up and down the aisles still, I passed some guy, someone I barely know, just a familiar face. It took me half a second to place him: Some guy who comes into my place of work every now and then. We did the “S’up” head nod thing that men do and we went about our business.

Moments later I passed a couple I only kind of know. Had dinner at their place once, invited by friends of a friend. It was an awkward dinner and an even more awkward night. Long story short: Someone performed a sex act in their house that night and the hosts did not approve. A silent deal was made that should anyone who there in that time and place ever encounter each other again, they’d do a cold stare and then keep walking. That’s what we did.

Then I passed another guy I’ve seen come into my job before. This dude doesn’t recognized me, which is fine with me. I keep looking for something to eat.

More wandering and I see a girl walking around, laughing as she talks on her cell phone. I sort of know this girl through Conrad Noir. He’s had a thing for her for years but hasn’t been able to make that romantic connection with her, mostly, I think, because she’s not interested. But also, she’s kind of dumb. Those two facts are unrelated, but most equally important. But seeing her made me stop in my tracks and look around…

There was her, the two guys I see come in to my job now and then, that couple, and myself. Two women and three men. Five people in a grocery store. Not all of them know each other, but there’s a tenuous connection of recognition between them, and they’re all in the same place late into a Monday night. Why did this feel important to me? Maybe, and I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but just go with me here, but maybe I was just in a wacky place, or perhaps in a whole other universe, the five of us were on a plane that crashed in the middle of the ocean, landing on a mysterious island with magical properties and weird indigenous people and science fiction monsters and… you know, shit like that? This whole other universe could be sideways to the one we’re currently in, and could feel more real, more accurate. Perhaps this universe, the one we reside in now, is just a tangent, or perhaps just a shard of the whole prism? Perhaps when people who have this connection to another time and place occupy such closer quarters at the same time, there’s this weird effect on reality, something that causes it to resonate? It’s possible, right?

Ehhhh, probably not. Maybe the world is just too damn small. I was only in the supermarket for like five minutes, if that. Had a weird experience, noticed that the price of bananas had gone up, and eventually walked out with a candy bar and a bag of sun chips. Oh, and hey, tonight’s a new episode of Lost. Enjoy it, everyone. In 13 days it’ll be gone forever.

Drops in the ocean.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

Let’s start where it ends: A bunch of people on a beach at night. They’re beaten, weary, bruised, battered, and broken down. They’re all exhausted, physically and emotionally, and one of them has a bullet in their shoulder. They’re the survivors and one by one they all surrender to an uncontrollable weeping…

Elsewhere, on a deck there stands a bald man and a hot, if rather filthy looking, confused young woman. They’re staring at the water intently, trying to decipher the drama that lays deep underneath the ripples of their own reflections. The man is grim, determined fury. It’s not over and he begins to depart. The woman, who’s been left behind again, the latest of many such times, asks him where he’s going. “To finish what I started,” he says and then he disappears past us into the dark.

Continue reading →

…In Translation.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

Japan unveils humanoid robot that laughs and smiles.

Weekend At Bernies 3!

Holy fucking shit, there’s going to be a 2010 Lollapalooza.

Virtual hugs. Seriously.

Pictures of 16 year old Elian Gonzalez in a military uniform drive the Internet crazy.

Today’s mad linkage comes with a pictorial refresher for last week’s episode of Lost, with pictures courtesy of Videogum, which we discovered via Lola.

Erykah Badu charged with disorderly conduct for naked video.

The parents of bullies.

The right time and place for a conservative victory.

Ryan Gosling gives advice on how to get booty.

George Lucas to  team up with writers from Daily Show and Robot Chicken for a Star Wars sitcom.

Air Force to launch robotic winged space plane.

There are 4 women in orbit right this minute.

Female African-American Robot Designers.

What exactly is a Kraken? And why should he be released?

Hairless “Oriental Yeti” stumps experts.

10 crazy medical inventions that (thankfully) never caught on.

20 strange and mysterious medical syndromes.

“Holy Ghost” relocates his flock to Montana.

A preview for the next episode of Doctor Who, “The Beast Below.”

The Pentagon springs a WikiLeak.

Apparently there’s a certain four-letter word in tonight’s Lost that’s super important.

What happened to the water on Mars?

When the telepaths attack!

Early nearly cut off in machete attack!

Court rules against net neutrality!

Miniature Eiffel Tower attacked!

“Son of a bitch!”

Posted by Marco Sparks on

I swear, when I start running a major TV show, I’m going to use a lot of the same gimmicks that Lost uses. People talk a lot of shit about the flashbacks, but honestly, they’re genius. And lazy. But genius. You’re not just telling one story, you’re telling multiple stories, on multiple frames, lost (literally) and found (potentially) in different modes of juxtapositions and dichotomies.

And then, in the third season of such a show, I’m literally going to have a “WE HAVE TO GO BACK, KATE!” moment and before you’ve changed your underwear from watching your main character do all that hillbilly heroin, we’ll be FLASH FORWARDING!

Where I’d change it up from Lost, though, is I’d do the Sideways flashes, the glimpses into the “wouldn’t it be nice” universe earlier. The “happily ever after” alternate existence would come much earlier, and you want to know why?

Because in the last season of my show, instead of flashbacks, flashforwards, or flashsideways, every episode would would flash to a potential spin off featuring my main characters. My Jack spinoff would be just like House, only more misogynistic and feature more pills. Jack would be less British, of course, but the SHOUTING would remain. Awww, cute baby with cancer and shingles on his face. SHOUT AT HIM, JACK! And my Kate episode would be like Run Ronnie Run, only it’d star Kate, which I think works in a lot of ways. And my Locke and Ben Linus episode would be like a sitcom version of Stand And Deliver, just less Edward James Olmos, I guess.

And my Sawyer and Miles episode would be a lot like last night’s episode of Lost, titled “Recon.” Sawyer and Miles as vice cops, going undercover together, and Sawyer would be the weird southern lead whose partner talks to dead people. Their dynamic would be entirely like Kurt Russell and his AZN sidekick in Big Trouble In Little China. And they’d say shit to each other like…

Miles: “Cutting it a little close, aren’t we?”

Sawyer: “Only way to cut it.”

And then David Caruso puts on his shades. YEEEAAAHHHHH!

As for last night’s episode itself, you know, Locke/Flocke/The Man In Black/The Locke-ness monster is evil and all, sure, but deep down, he’s not so bad. If you catch him in a lie, he’ll say he’s sorry and explain himself. He slaps women around when they’re hysterical, which is just so adorably old fashioned. It’s cutesy quaint like how crazy Claire is this season. There’s a certain bit of sex in his violence, unlike Sawyer, whom I feel like has no violence or anything else in his sex.

It’s sad that a character like Sawyer, who only has too emotions, full on redneck angry and goofy, is really just going through the motions this season post-Juliet, it seems. He doesn’t want to search and destroy, he wants to sit around in his underwear and listen to “Search and Destroy.”

He’s doing a so so job of recon on Hydra Island, discovering that Widmore’s got a stealthy interesting operation set up there and an HQ on a submarine (like a Bond villain!), and then trying to play Big Chuck against The Man In Black.

The even sadder thing is I think that Widmore and the Locke-ness Monster have to see through Sawyer’s attempts to get them to go to war with each other. If anyone who’s spent more than five minutes on this mystical, magical Island has learned anything, it’s this: everyone has a past, not everyone has a future, and you may or may not have a sideways. Also, lies are currency and the economy is broken and bleeding.

I applaud Sawyer for not planning on taking the plane. Of course not. Why would you? It’s not like he knows how to fly that thing. But he does know how to pilot a submarine? Really? I somehow feel that there’s more to it than just pressing a glowing button that says SUBMERGE on it.

If I could use another partial financial metaphor here about Sawyer: The man is just not invested. He’s completely checked out and he’s leaving me checked out too. He’s the exact opposite of Jack in major ways now. Jack is nuts, and entirely invested. There’s not a situation that Jack can’t attempt to kill himself out of us, meanwhile Sawyer’s just going to to sit around and brood and maybe tell Kate things through gritted teeth after she’s had a good sit and cry. Or after she’s seen Claire’s fake baby thing:

Taking a momentary pause here because… Here’s a promotional still from new weeks’ Richard (finally!) Alpert-centric episode:

Also, a question about the Sideways universe that made my ears perk up a bit: Miles’ dad is off the Island in the Sideways universe? Last week people bitched about Roger and Ben Linus being off the Island in the Sideways world, but they could’ve easily gotten onto that submarine on time. But wasn’t Pierre Chang right there front and center when that nuclear weapon went off at the Swan site? Unless this is a stepfather? A stepfather who works at a museum with Charlotte, whom Miles is pimping out to Sawyer.

Also, let’s face it: Charlotte is easy.

But in a great way. In a way everyone should be. Ladies is pimps too. She’s an independent woman who can fuck a guy like a Sawyer if she wants. In another time and place, a guy like Sawyer might threaten to slap her one right after slapping her fragile colleague in science and holder of an unrequited crush on her, but in a Sideways kind of world, she might let a guy like Sawyer try three, maybe four positions with her. And maybe if Sawyer had been cooler, and not left his most important documents in the world in his top drawer, he would’ve seen her whip on the second date. And not being chilling at home watching reruns of Little House On The Prairie. And not being try to win her back in the cheesiest way ever with a huge novelty flower.

But, of course Miles will take him back.

And, thankfully, Charlie is still in jail.

Oh well. Here’s a SPOILER about the rest of the season: In the finale, Sawyer reveals that he’s been at least half gay since the freighter blew up.

Search and destroy.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

The final season of Lost continues with last night’s intriguing episode, “The Substitute,” in which the dial is turned up just a tad on the mythology reveals.

And it was a Locke episode, which… well, by now you know of our love of the abilities of Terry O’Quinn, but it’s always good when what appears to be your show’s primary villain can get an episode all of his own.

And what a peak into the world of the Man In Black/Smoke Monster/”The Locke-Ness Monster” it was, this new semi-corporeal existence. Supposedly the only form he can take, other than smoke, is that of John Locke. In that case, who was that appearing as Alex to Ben last season in “Dead Is Dead?”

Regardless of that, the glimpses of the character were fascinating. Supposedly he was once human, knowing joy and fear and what it’s like to be betrayed. He’s been trapped so long that he doesn’t know what it’s like to be free anymore. And while he’s clearly manipulating anyone he can, tell what would appear to be at least partial truths, he wants to “go home,” to leave the Island. But where is home? And what does leaving the Island, and the needing of someone else to help him do it, entail exactly? Is it a genie in the lamp/djinn thing, in that he needs someone else to take his place?

And he clearly didn’t take just the appearance and memories and shroud of John Locke on, because he seems quite a bit like him. Maybe he’s not afraid, as Sawyer claims Locke always was (really, James Ford, was he always afraid?), but he certainly seems to be enjoying continuing playing the role of Locke, taking on his mannerisms and seemingly a little bit of his personality. And failings.

Meanwhile in the Sideways universe: How weird is it that a millionaire like Hurley can be on a flight from Sydney to Los Angeles with not just one, but two of his employees? Is it me or is this show all about WEIRD COINCIDENCES?

The Sideways universe still fascinates me because there we are, just looking for it’s reason for being, other than being neat, and while it’s not exactly revealing any big stories, it’s giving us the exact opposite. The small little human stories. John Locke, the man in the wheelchair with the douchebag boss. He’s about to woman to marry the woman he loves and seemingly still has a father in his life. He’s encountering all the echoes of another version of himself in another time and place, and he’s tired of being told what he can’t do. It’s time to start seeing what he can do.

I guess there’s another option besides farmer and hunter, huh? What’s the old joke… Those who can’t do, teach…

…like Ben Linus, European History teacher. Watching Ben’s progression in the Sideways universe will be fascinating and should answer a lot of nature vs. nurture questions we’ve been gathering up.

Meanwhile there’s Island Ben. Not quite ready to admit to the manipulated murder of Jacob (which is reasonable at this point, I think, because there’s a good chance that Ilana might just shoot him on the spot), but he can admit to not just the murder of the real John Locke, but the (possible) remorse he feels because of it.

And then there’s Sawyer and the Man In Black. The fallen man and the man who fulfills our need for “the Devil” in any story.

It’s interesting to me the mythic value of Christianity, which to me is really just a collection of interesting stories rather than the basis for being crazy, voting Republican, or blowing up abortion clinics. To the people who deemed the Left Behind series as good, I would instead submit to you a little television show called Lost. I don’t know if it represents your so called “values” any better, but it certainly presents them mixed with something even more important: How people really are.

from here.

Jacob and the Man In Black represent, to me, the very nature of what should be taken out of a story like Christianity, stories that had been around long before Christianity. Fate vs. Free Will. Or the new update, Faith vs. Science. Jacob represents so much of what we can rely on from “God,” doesn’t he? He’s good and all, righteous and true, but there isn’t a whole lot of room for innovation. And there isn’t a lot of sharing of knowledge. You’re set up to either fail or succeed, but you don’t know why, and seemingly the only thing that can save you? Blind obedience and total submission.

Meanwhile, if the Devil was a real being, then Lost tackles that character exactly how I, a mere mortal on this spinning rock, would envision him/her in the Man In Black: He’s just somebody who’ll show up when you’re at your lowest and offer you a little bit of knowledge and some choices. And that’s the kind of thing that scares a lot of people.

But not Sawyer, apparently. Seemingly he’s so hollowed out by his past experiences on the Island that he’s past the point of caring or being scared. Sitting around in your boxers talking to what is either a dead man or something that has appropriated the face of a dead acquaintance of yours? That’s no big whoop to Sawyer. Strange, almost hallucinatory little boys (young Jacob, right?) appearing to the Locke-ness Monster? Doesn’t phase him in the slightest. Neither does almost plummeting to your death from a cliff face. He just wants to sit around, drinking whiskey, and listening to Iggy and the Stooges. And I can’t blame him. That’s exactly what I do when all of my girlfriends die setting off a timeline-altering nuclear bomb.

But then there’s that cave. With THE NUMBERS. And the names attached. It seems that Sawyer and the other major players from Flight 815 are all candidates for taking over Jacob’s job. But not Kate, seemingly. And obviously Jacob’s been at this for a while, since you can see the names from the 50s military expedition crossed out there as well. I’d like to think that Richard Alpert knows a little more of what’s going on then what we were lead to believe in this episode (he at least knows when it’s time to be scared shitless enough to take off towards the temple, like everyone else), but seemingly even he didn’t know about this cave by the sea, Jacob’s version of Plato’s Cave, with it’s little inside jokes (are these Jacob and The Man In Black’s inside jokes, or Damond Lindelof and Carlton Cuse’s?).

But there they are in that cave, Sawyer looking at the list of names, seeing himself as a prisoner of fate possibly, and the Man In Black offers him choices. Not just one, not just two, but three choices. Obviously Sawyer’s being manipulated, without a doubt. But seemingly, when you’re the plaything of the Gods, all you can do is be manipulated in one direction or another, right? And if he plays along, well, then perhaps he can save his own soul.

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!!!”

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 1: WWAAAALLLTTTTT!!!

Posted by Marco Sparks on

There was a year, probably the year that Return Of The King and the third Matrix movie came out, where I kept hearing the same tagline: “Everything that has a beginning has an ending.” Talk about pompous and wanting to be epic (and falling short, especially that year). And yet, sadly, this phrase works for Lost, but maybe with some modifications: Everything that has a beginning, a middle, and an ending will end, but not necessarily in that order.

Fuck me, this has been a long time coming. It feels like those last few moments of “The Incident” ended a forever ago and we’re so close, and I’m freakishly excited. You know how you finally go on that date with that hot person and you’re nervous and you’re worried about having shit in your teeth or how your hair looks and are you funny enough? And you’re freaking out this date is just tanking (this is obviously a very cliched date, I know), but then that hot, amazing guy/girl says, “Hey, why don’t you come back to my place for a drinky drink?” I’m like that excited. That kind of excited with a mixture of a 100 Hiroshimas. So, you know, the return of this show on Tuesday night is serious business.

And let’s start looking back at how we got here, and how I could possibly be this excited as we begin looking at…

The 100 Greatest Moments of Lost!

PART ONE

100. Workman: “So are going to go back and kill Hitler or some crazy shit like that?” Marvin Candle/Edgar Halliwax/Mark Wickmund/Pierre Chang: “Don’t be absurd! There are rules!” From the season 5 opener, “Because You Left,” this is quite the meta statement. And I think it’s safe to say that Miles’ dad is one of Counterforce’s favorite characters.

99. Ben ditches the sling after the Ajira 316 crash in “Namaste.” This is a personal favorite of Benjamin Light and Occam Razor, and makes you wonder if Ben’s broken arm could be fixed after such a short time back on the Island or were his injuries just another ruse?

98. Jack shoots the oil cans in “The Variable,” while loading up on guns with Faraday and Kate before heading out to see the Others. Jack in 1977, when not making sandwiches and doing janitorial duties, is pretty nuts, man.

97. Regina (stunt woman Zoe Bell) kills herself on the Galaga. (Sea madness!)(Or, is it… time madness?)

96. Locke breaks his leg on his fall towards the frozen donkey wheel/meets with Christian/Smokey down there in “This Place Is Death.” The sound is so visceral and you feel Locke’s pain as he struggles to get up and move to that wheel, to pull it, and then… “Say hello to my son!”

95. “WAAALLLTTTTT!!!” from “Adrift.” I remember this annoying the shit out of me all 700 times that Michael screamed it out, but it clung to the inner walls of my memory like a tattoo.


94. Locke meets young Charles Widmore in “Jughead.” This moment, to me, is classic Locke, the man who deals with obstacles, but considers no one his enemy. Has any of the other characters met this 17 year old piece of snot who would cause them so many troubles in the future, they’d probably kill him. But not Locke. Once he learns the young man’s identity, he unleashes that trademark smirk. When asked what the name means to him, Locke merely replies, “Nothing. Nice to meet you.”

93. Jack and Sawyer’s poker game in “Lockdown.” It doesn’t take long before Kate, who’s watching the whole game, appropriately adds, “Should I get a ruler?”

92. “I screwed her, man.” From seeing who has a bigger dick to this, this touching confession that Sawyer makes to Jack about Ana Lucia in “Three Minutes” is some damn near heartwarming potential bromancery, right?

91. Rose and Bernard re-united in season 2′s “Collision” after 50 days apart.


90. Kate and Jack’s hate sex encounter the night before Ajira 316.

89. Jack’s “I married her!” line to Desmond in “Orientation.”


88. Jack and Kate get caught in a net. Why is this one of our favorite moments? Because of the SEXUAL TENSION! Duh. And it’s kinky.

Also, I’m gonna cheat here a bit and declare lucky #88 a TIE with another of my favorite moments: the scenes between Jack and the then (and still, as a lady sometimes should be) Juliet in the aquarium in “A Tale Of Two Cities.” Jack is held captive, at his wit’s end, his entire being frayed and stressed to the limits, and there’s Juliet, with the face of an angel, pushing him just a little further. It’s an amazing mash up of smoldering and vulnerability and one of several examples I would provide to anyone foolish enough to tell me this show isn’t sexy. (Another example would be #90, obviously.)


87. Sayid, in the rain, with a gun, from season 1′s “Homecoming.” Ethan is back and he’s threatened to kill someone every day until Claire is returned to him, so our 815ers form a posse to take him down. And of course Sayid is the badass Angel of Death.


86. Phil gets killed during “The Incident.” This guy was a serious itch in second half of season 5 and then they scratched it.

85. Karl and Rousseau are killed by Keamy and the mercenaries at the end of “Meet Kevin Johnson.”

84. Ana Lucia and Goodwin face off in “The Other 48 Days.”

83. Jin and Mr. Eko hiding from the Others, in season 2′s “…And Found,” and those bizarre glimpses of dirty bare feet, and teddy bears being dragged along, further tantalizing the mysterious of who the fuck are these people?


82. Hurley is writing The Empire Strikes Back in in “Some Like It Hoth.”

from here.

81. “He walks among us, but he is not one of us.” It’s what it says, but it’s not what it means,” Jack, from “Stranger In A Strange Land.”

80. Sayid hears the mysterious whispers while escaping Rousseau in “Solitary.”

79. Jack and Kate’s conversation in the Others’ rec room in “The Man From Tallahassee.” Just another link in the long chain that has been the Jack/Kate/Sawyer/Juliet/Ana Lucia love “triangle.”

78. Faraday sends the message to the future via Desmond’s head and his being an exception to “the rules” referred to at#100 at the end of “Because You Left.”

77. Jack gets to see the Red Sox win the world series in “The Glass Ballerina.” This is a simple but powerful moment that shows why Lost is more than just some gimmicky show, taking a simple line of dialogue from season 1 about Jack’s dad’s baseball team, the Red Sox, always  the team of losers, and showing that sometimes losers can win. Emotional resonance!


76. Nadia the cat silently judges Sayid at the end of “Enter 77.”

See you tomorrow with PART 2!