"Through the Looking Glass"

We were promised that everything will change with this season finale of LOST. We were expecting to be thrown a major curve ball. We expected lots of characters to die. Did this episode live up to the hype?

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I don't know who was involved in making the mediocre first six episodes of the season, but they weren't the same people who were responsible for this fantastic arc of the third season. I have loved just about all of the episodes of the past two months and this finale ranks up there with the best of them. There was action, surprises, answers and of course more questions to mull over for the next eight (!) months.

Everything certainly changed with this episode. I was faked out throughout most of the episode about Jack's "flashback" trying to figure out where in his past this story fell. Was it after his trip to Thailand? However, in the final flash with the maps strewn about his hotel room floor, I realized that this was actually a flash forward and that this is the Jack that got off the island! This could result in a major change is how the story of LOST is told for the rest of the show. Up until now, the story has been unfolding in 2004 with flashbacks to the character's pasts. Going forward, we can continue as such, or we could begin to see story told from the present day with flashbacks to the island. I'm not sure which I would prefer or if a mixture of the two would be better, but I can say that whatever method is chosen, I am on board!

The big question in Jack's flash forward is who's funeral did he go to. One can assume that is someone from the island because of his conversation with Kate. I believe a few hints were dropped about the identity of the deceased. When asked by the mortician if he was family or a friend, Jack replied that he was neither. No one else came to the funeral. When he told Kate that he thought she might have gone, she replied with,"Why would I?" This all leads me to believe that this was Ben's funeral. He has no living family on and presumably off the island and he definitely doesn't have any friends. Assuming that nothing changes in his relationship with the Losties in the next three seasons and is forcibly "rescued" from the island, there would be no one who cared to attend his funeral. That is except Jack who seems to be obsessed with the island the way Ben was. By the way, is it just me or does the drug-addicted and bearded Jack remind anyone else of Jim Morrison?

Best line of the show? Rose tells Jack, "If you say live together, die alone one more time, I'm going to punch you in the face." Classic!

As far as a lot of characters dying, I was a little surprised by the lack of major characters being killed off. By my count we lost Charlie, Tom and about nine Others. I was really worried about Bernard going into this episodes and then even more so about Sawyer and Hurley when they headed back to the beach to help out. But they kicked some major ass and saved the day. I loved how Hurley came to the rescue in the DHARMA bus! It was perfect! I was not too happy to see Tom killed though; not because of the way that Sawyer did it, but because we never got to see his backstory. I was really interested in him and curious about how he became involved with the Others. But the saddest of them all was Charlie. Desmond's vision proved to be accurate but not before Charlie was able to complete his mission and make contact with Penny Widmore! The big reveal of course was that Penny is not on the freighter and that Naomi was lying.

One person I did not expect to see in the finale was Locke, but we saw him struggle to move in the ditch while trying to get a revolver off of one of the dead DHARMA members. He was just about to kill himself when Walt stopped him! I was a little spoiled by his presence since I had seen Malcom David Kelly's name in the credits, but it was still the last person I expected to help Locke. Of course I don't think that it was Walt, but rather the Smoke Monster/Island telling Locke what to do. If this is the case and the Smoke Monster is a security system, than getting Locke to kill Naomi might be a legitimate defense against outside intruders.

I thought that this episode was top notch and am excited about where LOST will go next. I am not terribly excited about how lone we'll have to wait, but more LOST is better than no LOST. Now we must convene on the message boards and try to make sense of it all. Thanks for a great season and I'm looking forward to the fourth!

"Greatest Hits"

Was the penultimate episode of season 3 of LOST as good as the last few? I liked it but it was certainly a catch-your-breath-before-the-end kind of episode. What it lacked in action, it made up for in emotional resonance.

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Knowing that this would be a Charlie-centric episode, the big question going into it was weather or not this would be the end of the bassist for Drive Shaft. For much of season 3 his character has been little more than comic relief mixed in with his impending death that Desmond keeps "seeing." The talk of the blogosphere is that it seemed like it would be too obvious for Charlie to die because it follows the pattern set up by the show too closely. On the other hand, it would really throw the audience off to change the pattern with a character that so many people love. In the end, Charlie of course didn't die, but he's definitely not out of the woods yet.

In a way this episode was filler with a few points thrown in to set up the events of the season finale. The flashbacks were pretty pointless, but I really liked how they showed us the "greatest hits" of Charlie's life and how they made this a much more emotional episode than usual. I'm not sure how well it would have worked if we all weren't thinking that Charlie would be dead by the end of the episode, but because of that tension, I liked it.

We learned about the Looking Glass Station, the underwater station that is located at the end of the cable on the beach. Finally! Now I'm just worried that we won't find out what's really going on there until next season (not until February 2008!!!!). I wonder if Desmond's premonition told him more or if he was not telling Charlie everything. Only time will tell.

Ben has gone off the deep end. You could tell he was always a little crazy in the head, but after Locke saw and heard Jacob last week, Ben must have just snapped. He is being irrational by raiding the Losties' camp early and it will probably end up biting him in the end. On the other hand, he always seems to find a way to come out on top.

Most important of all, Rose and Bernard are finally back!!! It has been too damned long since they've been seen on the beach. It looks like Bernard will play a big role in the season finale. Here's to hoping that nothing bad happens to either half of that spunky couple!

Well that about wraps things up. Now, we just have to wait and see what the producers have in store for the big finale. If what they have been saying is true, our world is about to be rocked!

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"The Man Behind The Curtain"

WTF? I don't know what else to say that wouldn't get into this week's episode of LOST so....

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So we finally got to learn about Ben. I had a feeling he wasn't born on the island, but who knew that he had come as part of the Dharma Initiative? I could tell that his dad was going to be Roger Workman though as soon as I heard them talking about assigning jobs. Pretty funny stuff until we learned that Ben killed his own father, although he did have his reasons. This wouldn't be LOST if there was someone without "daddy issues."

I still don't know how old Ben is, but if we assume that the Dharma Initiative started in the late '70s and he seemed to be about 10-years-old at the time, that would make him about forty-five. That seems reasonable enough, but what I really want to know is how old he was when he killed his father as part of the Hostile's purge of the barracks. How long has he been their "leader." Why has he aged but Richard Alpert hasn't changed in the slightest other than his haircut. I found it very interesting that the presumably native Others have been following him for some time now without ever seeing Jacob. What did he do to gain their allegiance? I have a feeling that it was more than simply turning off the fence to allow the Others entrance into the barracks.

I loved how freaked out Ben was by Locke's insistence on meeting Jacob and how the rest of the Others seemed to be pretty much on Locke's side. That is except for Mikhail. He seemed pretty gung-ho about invading the Losties camp to get their satellite phone ASAP. Ben was equally shocked that a parachutist had gotten onto the island and that a ship was so close. Nevertheless, Ben took Locke to meet Jacob and boy was that creepy. Roxi and I were watching on a delay with Tivo and after that scene we re-watched in slow motion because I could have sworn that I saw a third person in that room at two different times. Upon review, the first instance turned out to be a weird angle of Locke's face, but the second proved to be a quick but very disturbing figure in the rocking chair. He (?) appeared to have long, stringy hair and was wearing very drabby clothes. And what did he tell Locke? "Help me..." What does it all mean?

Of course nothing could prepare me for how Locke's part of the episode ended. Initially I was very surprised by Ben shooting Locke at the mass grave of the Dharma people, but upon reflection, it makes sense. Ben is so threatened by Locke that he would resort to killing him despite his claims that he wouldn't kill anyone (although I always knew he was lying about that). So we are left wondering Locke's fate and to be honest, I don't think we will be seeing Locke again this season. I suspect that he will survive, but that we won't find out how or why until next season. But wasn't it pretty cool to see how freaked out that Ben was to learn what Jacob told Locke?

Meanwhile in the Losties camp, Sawyer and Sayid confronted Juliet about the tape. Of course she then had the Losties listen to Ben's return message and sort of cleared herself a little with Jack's help. I don't like how smug she and Jack were about it though. Why shouldn't the rest of the Losties distrust the two of them if they are going to keep this kind of stuff secret. So we will be gearing up for a war in the season finale, but not before we have one more story about Charlie and seeing how things have been going for our oldest characters lately, I have to really wonder if he will live to see Season 4. But alas we will have to wait a week for that.

Before I close out this post though, this episode has raised a couple of big questions in my mind that go all the way back to the Season 2 finale. When Desmond first arrived on the island, he was brought to the Swan Station by Kelvin Inman. In one of Desmond's flashbacks, Kelvin claimed to be a Dharma employee and was recruited after the Gulf War. He also referred to the natives as Hostiles. As mentioned earlier, we don't exactly know when the Others killed the Dharma people, but it would seem to have been longer ago than the earlier '90s. So who really recruited Kelvin? Was it Dharma or was it Mittelos Bioscience under the guise of Dharma? If it was actually Dharma, there is an outside chance that Kelvin was unaware of the purge, but more than likely, he was recruited by Mittelos. If that is the case, he would almost surely have met Ben and know a thing or two about him. Even if he were working with the Others, he might have hidden his discovery of Desmond from them.

We know from last season and this season that not only was the Swan Station being monitored in the Pearl Station, we also had a scene in which Ben and Juliet specifically went to the Pearl to watch Jack. Going back to Kelvin and Desmond, I don't know how long Kelvin could have kept his secret if for no other reason than the camera in the Swan. Certainly after Kelvin was killed (?), Ben and the Others would have seen Desmond punching in the numbers. So this leads me to my point: Presuming the Others know about Desmond, how much do they know and has he ever had any direct contact with them? I have always found Desmond to be very trustworthy, but I have to wonder if he might be involved in some way. I definitely think he wants off the island or else why wouldn't have kept his sailboat repairs secret (as Kelvin had before him). I almost feel like he is similar to Juliet in that he will do almost anything to get off the island (including letting Charlie die!?!), not to mention that he and Juliet arrived on the island at approximately the same time albeit by very different means.

So what's the point of all this? I'm not sure really but it does seem sort of suspicious given what we have learned about the Dharma Initiative tonight. I can't wait to find out more, but the clock is really ticking on this season and I fear that many of these new and/or lingering questions will continue to hang around for a long time.

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2010

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, rumors have been swirling about the future of LOST. We already knew that it would be back next season, but now we know when and for how many seasons to follow. ABC announced that the show will continue for three more seasons ending in 2010. What's more, each season will be comprised of only sixteen episodes and will be aired without breaks or repeats during the season from February to May. I find the idea of sixteen-episode seasons a little odd, but it might help cut down on some of the padding that has gone into the first three seasons to stretch the stories out across twenty-two episodes. The current team of producers will remain with the show through it's conclusion. I am happy about the news but I am not looking forward to the eight-month drought that will begin when season three concludes in three weeks. But at least we will have three focused seasons and resolutions to long standing mysteries to look forward to!

The End of LOST?

The Internet is full of articles today claiming that ABC will very soon be announcing the endpoint for LOST. The rumor is that the show will be over after five seasons, but there is some question as to weather they will be traditional 22 or 23 episode seasons. Several months ago, the producers implied that they wanted to do about 100 episodes in total which would make season five only about 9 or 10 episodes. They have also hinted at a movie that would wrap up the show but this newest rumor doesn't mention that. In short, it would seem that the show will be ending on the producers terms and not milked into irrelevance by the network. If this proves to be true, it should make the episodes that we have left as good if not better than what we've been seeing for the past few weeks. Very exciting if you ask me!

"The Brig"

Wow! That was a fantastic episode of LOST! May sweeps has definitely begun! After tonight's episode, I can't wait for the rest of month!

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Where to begin with this episode? We finally got to see what Locke has been up to since he saw his father bound and gagged on the island five episodes ago. Granted, it was only eight days in island time, but I have been looking forward to this episode since Locke uttered, "Dad?" For the sake of storytelling, we didn't get all of the answers right from the beginning of the episode, but I loved the pacing and reveals throughout the episode. Of course, some of the things that people said may not be the whole truth, but I still feel like I learned a few things.

The biggest reveal of the episode is what many people have been speculating, myself included, for quite some time: Locke's father Anthony Cooper is the same man that conned Sawyer's mother leading to the murder/suicide of Sawyer's parents. The way that Locke got Sawyer to follow him into the jungle and allow Sawyer to learn the truth was fantastic! Once Locke locked Sawyer in the brig of the Black Rock with Anthony Cooper, I knew things were going to get intense. The conversation between Sawyer and Cooper was very powerful. Where Locke could not kill his father despite all that Cooper had done to him, Sawyer was capable of taking care of "Tom Sawyer." Throughout the whole episode, Cooper was insistent that they were in Hell but I don't think that to be the case. But I'll get to that in a minute.

Meanwhile, back at the beach, Desmond, Charlie, Hurley and Jin tried to figure out what to do with the parachutist, Naomi. After last week, I was pretty sure that she was an Other and was telling lies. However, when the gang confided their secret in Sayid, Naomi told more about herself, her mission and Flight 815. She claimed to work for a company hired by Penelope Widmore to search at a specific set of coordinates in the Pacific Ocean for Desmond. She left from the deck of a ship 80 miles from the island and that when she saw the island, the instruments on her helicopter went haywire. She also said that the wreckage of Flight 815 was found in a 4 mile deep ocean trench off the coast of Bali. A robot submarine was sent down and sent back images of all the passengers dead. I think that it's totally plausible that the found crashsite was faked by Dharma, the Hanso Foundation and/or the Others. If what Naomi says is true, this is not Hell but an actual real world island that is hidden from the world for some reason.

Sayid of course attempted to fix Naomi's satellite phone and got power back but could not find an available channel. That's about the time Kate found out about what was going on and decided to share the info with Jack, whom nobody wanted to let in on the secret. In the conversation with Jack, Juliet said that they should tell Kate something, but Jack said that she was not ready yet. This is so suspicious, I really think that Jack did get some kind of brainwashing while he was with the Others. Thankfully, before Locke and Sawyer parted ways at the Black Rock, Locke gave Sawyer the microcassette recorder that Juliet used in D.O.C. to leave her message for Ben. This should come into play very soon and Juliet deserves all the repercussions that are sure to come of it.

Finally, the last scene of note was the one in which Richard Alpert gave Locke the Sawyer file. Before giving him the file, Alpert talked of some of the Others feeling that Ben was not the leader they wanted. I have to wonder if this is truly a sign of the rival Others that the producers have mentioned in the Official Podcast or if this is just more head games and manipulation. Like everything else on LOST, only time will tell. But I can't wait! Next week should be very exciting and very revealing. I love where this season is going, I only wish it didn't have to end so soon!

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