"I Do"

This is it. The last episode of LOST for THREE MONTHS! It probably was the best beginning to end episode of the season, but still a far cry from the show that I fell in love with. So without further ado, here are my thoughts.

STOP READING NOW TO AVOID SPOILERS!

This episode was about Kate, but it really wasn't. Like most of the other episodes this season, the flashback was incidentally connected to the story on the island, but it seemed to be much less relevant or parallel to the island storyline. In any event, we finally got to see who Kate was married to and who almost got her pregnant: Captain Mal Reynolds. Okay in LOST his name is Kevin and apparently, Kate told him that her name is Monica. So what else did we learn about Kate? Nothing we didn't already know. She can't stay put and she likes to taunt US Marshal Edward Mars. BFD. I don't like Kate anymore. She has too much baggage, she's a liar and you know she's just going to leave Sawyer just as soon as they get settled down in their hovel on the beach.

While Kate's stock is falling, Jack's is rising in my opinion. I really didn't like him much last season and that carried over in a big way this season, but starting last week, I started to like him again. I think the real reason is that he has the upper hand on Ben now. But pretty much anyone who can screw with Ben's head is okay in my book.

Ben is a real a-hole. The same goes for Juliet, Pickett and all of the Others. They are all terrible liars who are hypocrites and ego maniacs. If you think I'm being too hard on them, it's not my fault. The producers have given me ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to like them. At least they didn't bother saying the played out "we're not killers" line this week the numerous times they said they would kill Sawyer. They are full of BS.

So Sawyer and Kate finally did it. Is anyone surprised?

Locke decided that Mr. Eko would be buried where he died and not at the beach so as not to upset the other Losties. How very Jack of you Locke. Keep hiding stuff from your friends. At Eko's funeral, Locke said he thinks that there was a reason for his death, he just figure out what it is. Hey I have an idea...ask the damn island! It seems to work every time Locke has a question! Hasn't he figured that out yet? Man they are dragging this show out.

So Jack is conned into performing surgery on Ben to remove the giant tumor. Ben sets it up so that he can see that Kate and Sawyer "got caught in a net." Right before going under anesthesia, Ben asks if Alex asked about him. She did but of course Juliet lies because that's what the Others do. I wonder what the bond is between Alex and Ben. Is she Alex's real father? Too bad we won't find out until Season 5. So Jack starts the surgery and Pickett takes the opportunity to kill Sawyer. Thankfully for Sawyer, Jack cuts Ben's kidney sack which will kill him in an hour if it is not fixed. Jack gets all Sidney Carton on the situation and volunteers to stay behind and save Ben if Pickett lets Kate escape with her Charles Darnay who we know as Sawyer (This episode should have been called "A Tale of Two Cities"). We are left with Ben sedated on the operating table (I called it!), Sawyer with a gun to his head and Jack telling Kate to run and let him know that she is okay within the hour.

So that's it for more than three months. I guess I'll be itching for a new episode eventually, but I don't think it will be until after Christmas. I'm sad that this season is not moving along quickly enough but it's because there are so many loose ends from the first two seasons not to mention these first six episodes of the third season. Who are Adam and Eve? What is the Smoke Monster? Who are the Others and why are they such a-holes? What is the Dharma Initiative? What's with the giant foot statue? What happened to Michael and Walt? Where are Yemi and Christian Shepard's bodies? Why was Ana Lucia such a bitch? What's going on with Penny Widmore and the Portuguese guys at the listening station in Antarctica? Was Libby really crazy or was she part of Dharma or both or neither? Why did the Others wear fake beards during the first two seasons? Where are the kids from the tail section of the plane? What happened to Cindy from the tail section? Who is Karl and why was he in the cage? Why hasn't Danielle found Alex yet? Who is Jacob and who was on his list? Who's the guy with the eyepatch and what station is he in? What do the Numbers mean? What's up with Desmond? WTF is going on????

NEXT YEAR(!) on LOST:

Borat Sagdiev

Roxi and I saw the Borat movie last night and although I enjoyed it, I kind of feel like it fell victim to the same fate as most SNL movies. Granted it is better than most of those, but I still feel like the shorter sketches on Da Ali G Show just work better than the plotline designed to fill in the spaces between the sketches in the movie. The show sketches leave me wanting more while I felt like the movie was losing a little steam by the end. Still very funny and worth seeing, but it got off to a slower start than I expected. I must say though that Sacha Baron Cohen is a very good actor not only being able to pull off the ruse on unsuspecting people, but many of the other scenes had a believable emotional element considering the absurd premise.

www.GiantOmelette.org

This afternoon, Roxi and I went to Abbeville, LA a short drive from our house to attend the climax of the Giant Omelette Celebration. I remember my mom taking me and my brothers as a young child, but I didn't realize that it is an annual event. We just happened to see a flyer for it on Friday and thought, "We must be there."

Roxi's parents joined us for the trip to the square in historic downtown Abbeville. We walked around through the arts and crafts tents before making our way to the courthouse where the giant omelette preparation was about to begin. We got there just in time for the ceremonial cracking of the 5000 eggs. As you can imagine, it takes a while to crack and beat 5000 eggs, so we took the opportunity to enjoy some Abita beer and some of the Cajun foods on hand.

The only thing that takes longer than cracking 5000 eggs is cooking 5000 eggs. We didn't really want to stick around for the long wait, but before leaving we made sure to get pictures of the army of chefs cooking the omelette. It was a great day to be outside at another of the many festivals in and around southern Louisiana.

College Football Week 10

It's a big day in College Station, TX for the Texas A&M Aggies and the students and fans of the team. ESPN College Gameday is on campus today for their weekly show and the Aggie crowd looks great! Tonight, A&M faces Oklahoma, who admittedly is a little down this year, but they are still very dangerous. They are a great team and they are in the position to play spoiler to A&M's hopes of winning the last three games and going to the Big XII Championship game in December. Right now the Aggies have an unbelievable 8-1 record (4-1 in conference) and actually control their own destiny in the Big XII South, but these things really have to be taken one game at a time. I've had trouble with some of the decisions of the coaching staff at times this season, but the players really do seem to have a lot of guts to stay in all their close games and manage to pull off wins in all but one of them. This week will be hard if we can't keep up with OU, but having home field will be a big help and the crowd will definitely be a factor like it was in all of the recent OU games at Kyle Field. I am looking forward to this one and I really hope that the team is as fired up as they should be. It's a good day to be an Aggie and a win would make it a great day! Gig 'Em and BTHO OU!!!!

UPDATE: Ags lose by one point. Risky coaching and the stupidest of mistakes (12 men on the field!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) when they had more than enough time to get their play figured out. STUPID! How could a coach let that happen? UNFORGIVABLE! Fran is dead to me.

UPDATE: After having a night to sleep on it, I may have been a bit hasty in my post-game sentiments. The players fought hard all game and the Aggie defense did a lot to keep the team in the game by not allowing Oklahoma to score touchdowns after two in the first quarter. The offense worked hard to get the team back in the game but they could not capitalize by scoring points off of two Oklahoma fumbles. The offense managed to pull within one point of the Sooners off of two field goals, but was unable to get the ball back to attempt the game winning field goal. Of course that brings us to the horrible mistake of having twelve men on the field on the crucial fourth-down stand. But Bob Stoops is certifiable and only he would have the balls to go for it on fourth from his own 29-yard line. But the gamble paid off and Oklahoma won the game.

The Aggies played a good one and the score was much closer than it probably could have been considering how close games against worse teams have been this year. We just came up short last night and that's the breaks. It was really only a matter of time. I would like to think that the Aggie team can use this as motivation going into next week's game against Nebraska, but they are starting to click and will be coming into Kyle Field as the leaders in the Big XII North. We are still playing for a good bowl game so two more wins would not only put us into a better position but it would be the first ten-win season since 1998. Plus ten wins would mean we would beat Texas and I think that would make any Aggie forget about the loss to Texas Tech and Oklahoma.

"The Cost of Living"

So we have come to the penultimate episode of LOST for 2006 and again I am conflicted. There isn't really much more I can say without specific episode details. So...

STOP READING NOW TO AVOID SPOILERS!

ABC has been hyping that one of the survivors would die in this episode but I think most people knew who it would be. This episode followed the formula for killing off characters: the flashback was about the character, the character came to an important realization about themselves, and the character was arrested for some driving related issues during the hiatus. I'm conflicted because there were really only four characters that I still really cared about on the show and now that Mr. Eko is dead, there are only three: Sawyer, Locke and Desmond. And according to Locke, Mr. Eko's last words were that they were next. So I am bummed about losing Mr. Eko, but I guess the producers had to kill someone pretty important otherwise they would be accused of coping out. But why did the black smoke kill Eko? It didn't kill him when he faced off with it before. I guess I'm supposed to be excited that we got to see the smoke monster, but it didn't really explain anything.

I was glad to see that Locke brought some of the other survivors to the Pearl Station but are we really supposed to believe that Locke never thought that the other monitors might be linked to the other stations? I know he was pissed off the first time he was in the Pearl Station, but that doesn't explain a complete lack of common sense. Anyway, we get to see one of the other stations and clearly see a person with an eye patch. No big surprise here since it was in the preview, but I have heard an interesting theory on a couple of podcasts. The theory goes back to some clues we got in Season 2.

When the Tailies found the abandoned Arrow Station, they found a trunk with a radio, a Bible and a glass eye. The glass eye probably belongs to this mystery person, but who is he? For that we go to the Bible. The secret of this Bible is that it contained a short reel of film that had been edited out of the Orientation Film for the Swan Station. In the Season 2 finale, when Kelvin was telling Desmond about the hatch, he said that Radzinsky was his previous partner in the station until he killed himself. He also said that Radzinsky was responsible for the edits in the Orientation Film. So did Radzinsky really commit suicide or is he this mystery eye patch wearing man? For my money, that's a pretty compelling theory. Too bad we won't find out for a very long time.

Meanwhile on the other island, Jack is invited by Ben to attend Colleen's funeral. The strange thing about the funeral was the music playing over the loudspeakers. It sounded like a Patsy Cline. I'm not sure if it was, but it would be interesting because her music has appeared at least three times in Kate's flashbacks. Connection or red herring?

Before the funeral, Jack confronts Ben about his tumor and Ben nervously denies it but then confirms it for our benefit in a conversation with Juliet. So then Ben sort of tells Jack his original plan for "breaking" him and making him want to perform the surgery. I'm not sure if the producers are intentionally setting us up by making me doubt the sincerity of everything that Ben says, but I did like his comment about God and the plane crashing on the island.

Finally, Juliet secretly conveyed a message to Jack about a coup against Ben. She appears to be telling Jack to agree to perform the surgery but have an unforeseen accident. She implies that the Others want a change in leadership and that she will protect Jack. I sort of want to believe her, but all of the Others are liars. It seems like a very conveniently placed setup for next week's cliff hanger. My guess is that Jack will perform the surgery and the episode will end with the "complication." So we won't know if Ben lives or dies until February.

So this episode was very bittersweet for me. I'm really going to miss Mr. Eko. So long Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje.

UPDATE: I just wanted to respond to the comments this post received so far. First off, thanks to Kat for informing me that the song during Colleen's funeral was by Brenda Lee and not Patsy Cline. According to the Jay and Jack Podcast, the song is titled "I Wonder."

Secondly, I thought I'd clarify a few of my comments based on Roxi's questions. I grew weary of Kate during Season 2 because she always seemed to get the group in trouble most notably in "The Hunting Party" where she follows Jack, Sawyer and Locke when they go looking for Michael. She got caught and was used as a pawn for the Others to take Jack, Sawyer and Locke's guns.

I guess I liked Ben's God comment because it might have given some indication of his motivation. If he is telling the truth about when he found out about his tumor, I thought it showed that he is just as scared and as human as the Flight 815 survivors.

Despite everything the producers have said about plotting out the entire story for five seasons, they are definitely making up BS padding along the way. At this point, all of the Tailies are dead except for Bernard (who we haven't seen yet this season), Cindy (captured by the Others just before Ana Lucia shot Shannon) and the kids (also captured by the Others just after the crash). What was the point of developing their stories last season if they were all going to be gone by the beginning of season 2? Couldn't the same plot have been executed sooner by characters we already knew?

LOST has definitely lost it's edge. Although there have been some developments in this first part of Season 3, they have lacked any emotional impact. I am sad to see Eko go, but I wasn't as shocked or surprised like I was when Ana Lucia and Libby were killed. Nothing this season has been as cool as the light coming out of the hatch door after Boone died or when we found out that Locke was in a wheelchair before the crash. Nothing has been as creepy and disorienting as "Make Your Own Kind Of Music" playing in the Swan Station at the beginning of Season 2. Don't get me wrong; I've enjoyed parts of Season 3, but the stories haven't really been all that compelling to me. I might have pretty high expectations, but that is only because LOST was so very good in Season 1 and at times during Season 2. The producers really need to stop doing the marketing for the show and get back to making a great show. The marketing will take care of itself. Word of mouth made the show what it is, not some gimmicks like "Bad Twin," real-life Apollo candy bars or The Lost Experience. At this point, there probably won't be that many new fans to the show, so the producers should really concentrate on not losing the the fans they already have!

NEXT WEEK on LOST:


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