Meet Kevin Johnson

I'm a rebel. An honest-to-Jack, 100%, goes-against-the-grain-and-the-popular-opinion rebel. And why, you ask? ...

OMG, I HATED last night's episode.

I am an avid LOST fanatic. But, most of you already know that, since you're here, reading this blog. But last night's return-of-Michael episode was so boring that I alternated between watching the TV and the inside of my eyelids. And here's why:

• The oft-used LOST convention of guilt-ridden characters who have dead people appear to them as apparitions is just getting old. On a scale of 1 to 10, how surprised was I to see omg! It's Libby!? Answer: -5.
• I'm very angry with the Island currently, seeing as how it won't "let" Michael kill himself. Let him do it! It will make the season more interesting! We've done pretty well without him for the past 1.5 seasons! We don't need him! It will make me stop using italics!
• I was all psyched up, rearin' and ready to go for "Meet Kevin Johnson," the last script completed before the writers' strike went all official-like. Thankfully, I only have to wait 5 weeks (but at 10:00?! That's, like, 2 hours past my bedtime!!) instead of 5 months for a new episode, but were that not the case, I can't be sure I would have missed the show during it's hiatus. It wasn't exacly as cliff-hanger-y as is typical with LOST.
• Speaking of the aforementioned "cliffhanger," THAT was totally predictable too!! Last week's teaser eerily foretold of a character's death, and they tried to throw you off the scent early in the episode when "Kevin" told Sayid and Desmond (sidenote: This week's quote of the week goes not to any one of our beloved characters, but to Doc Jensen's stand-in who accurately notes "All [Desmond] seems to do is follow Sayid around and look perplexed.") that his sole purpose on the freaky freighter is to die. Boo. Whatver. Boring. THEN, in a completely inappropriate turn of events, the Powers That Be offed one of the most interesting characters on the show (and you know, her daughter's boyfriend, too)! Though Rousseau wasn't the most regular character on the series, I was still looking forward to her backstory. We still have minimal knowledge on how the Black Rock came to the island, nor do we know anything about the "sickness" she claimed took the lives of her fellow crewmates, among them her husband. And, one would think that after 16 effing years on the island, she would have figured out how NOT to go flailing around in the jungle and get shot. Also, how out of character was it for her to actually listen to Ben and go out in a blind search-for-a-safe-haven-called-The-Temple? Puh-leeze. Shame on you, Darlton. Go sit in the corner and think about what you've done for the next five weeks.

So yeah. Totally disappointed with last night's episode. But, obviously, that doesn't mean I won't go back and re-watch it and throw things at the TV again. I mean, I do have the next five weeks to wallow in my misery.

Ji-Yeon

Nice form, LOST, nice form.

Last night's Sun-and-Jin-centric "Ji-Yeon" brought you back to that furrowed-brow manner of watching LOST. In the final minutes of the show, we find out that what we thought was a Sun and Jin flash-forward was actually separate-- a Sun flash-forward, and a Jin flash-back. I have to say that I originally had mixed reactions when faced with that conclusion. Heretofore, LOST had been able to separate the flash-forwards from the flash-backs from the on-island, on-freighter, in-helicopter, in-the-year-1996, and generally keep them all together without going in a million different directions at once. And we had gotten used to it. We liked it. But oh, LOST, you just had to go there, didn't you?

At the conclusion of Season 3, there were many concerns on how LOST would now handle the flash-back device. Would LOST continue in the future, with anything happening on the island being now classified as a "flash-back?" Or are we to think of the future as being the "flash-forward?" Then, along came "The Constant," where past, present, and future are now at the mercy of .... the clouds, and the compass bearing you take off the island. Well, to be honest, my head hurt then having to think about it, and it only hurts more when I try to think all scientific-like. Hence the reason I was an English major, and left the science to roomie Ev. So, I've basically come to the conclusion that I won't try to figure it out, and I'll just go with the flow. How very hippie of me. Hand me a doobie. (Actually, don't, I wouldn't know what to do with it, anyway.)

With that said, I would like to know how quickly you came to the realization that we were watching both flash-back and forward. Were Jin's death threats hurled at The Guy Who Stole His Cab so out of new-Jin's character that it became apparent then? (That's when it hit me!) Or, did you only clue in at the very end when Jin casually dropped the clincher, mentioning that he'd only been married for two months? I have been debating with J.C. in Events this morning on this, as well. I would like to know that if I spoke and/or read either Korean or Chinese, would I have known very early on in the episode? I (being the uneducated dolt who can neither speak nor read Chinese OR Korean) would assume that since Sun is in Seoul, and Jin was running around being Creepy Mobster Father-in-law's b!tch in China, that advertising writing, dialects, etc. would have been different in each place. J.C. claims that, no, Jin was in Korea, speaking Korean to the toy shop owner and the guard at the hospital, to which I responded "... oh yeah? Well... how do you know?!" Which was, I admit, a bit juvenile, but still bears scruitiny. Jin could've been speaking in Finnish for all I know, but as long as the subtitles were in English, there's really no way of telling where in the world he was.

OK, but anyway, I digress. So Sun was in Korea, birthing that kid and calling out for Jin in her duress. (Me, I was calling out for more drugs while I was in labor, but hey, to each her own). Oh, but wait, we find out later that Jin is dead. Or so we are led to believe.

Here's the thing, people. The date on that tombstone was September 22, 2004.

Poor Jin was 30 years old, born on November 27, 1974, and died when Oceanic 815 crashed into the ocean on September 22, 2004. (I'm guessing the March 20, 1980 date off to the left is Sun's DOB. And if that's the case, she is the youngest looking almost-27-year-old I've ever seen). Or, at least, that's what the Oceanic Six are claiming.

And yeah, about those Oceanic Six. You still haven't convinced me that the cast of characters there are Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sayid, Aaron, and Sun. As we all know, those six people are quite entrenched in each other's lives. You know, Jack all shootin' some hoops with Hurley in the mental institution and testifying as a character witness for Kate, and Hurley travelling (no doubt on his Oceanic golden ticket) to Seoul to meet Baby Ji-Yeon. (Just doesn't have the same ring as "Baby Aaron," does it?) I'm still operating under the theroy that Sayid isn't one of the six, that his business of being all in-cahoots with Benny-boy is doing so under the radar of the other survivors. Mark my words, there's gonna be another one coming! (Or has it already come, in the form of Ji-Yeon? Did Sun and her bulging belly count as two people in the eyes of the media who coined the term, 'Oceanic Six?')

And speaking of other survivors... Micha--er, Kevin. Yeah, like we didn't see that one coming. I was holding out a sliver of hope that it wouldn't be him, since I do always like the surprises, but yeah, we all knew that one.

Other points of order: (in no particular order)

• Juliet has balls the size of boulders! Wow, that was so none of your business, nor was it your place to go all "Your wife cheated on you" on Jin. She totally deserved the b!tch slap she got from Sun, and lost any cool points she might have gained with me last week.
• Regina (a.k.a. Suicidal Freigher Chick) was (apparently) "reading" (upside down) a book about a bunch of crew members driven mad by their own despair. Theories abound that Regina was the "R.G." engraved on Naomi's bracelet, and that she jumped off the ship with an anchor necklace because she was inconsolable over the loss of her gf and bff.
• Captain Gault, You. Are. Creepy. Especially with your ghost stories about black boxes, and Ben finding 318 bodies to be staged in Oceanic plane wreckage at the bottom of the ocean. No wonder our freighter friend, ahem KEVIN, said not to trust you.
• More theories than I've been able to shake a stick at (I've truthfully never understood that saying, if someone can please explain, you'll get a prize from me) have come out in support that Michael is actually a grown up Walt. Before you roll your eyes in disgust, and swear me and my blog off forever, at least entertain the idea. Now, when Daniel Faraday gave the helicopter guy a specific compass bearing (North 305', which, by the by, is most likely a nod to the scripture engraved on Eko's Jesus Stick: "Lift up your eyes and look north" ~ John 3:05. Just sayin.') to which he was supposed to adhere. Helicopter Guy (Frank?) claims that he kept to that bearing, but that specific bearing (OMG, how many times can I say 'bearing' in the same sentence?!) caused Desmond to toggle (hehe, I like that word) between 1996 and 2004ish. What if the bearing (d'oh!) Ben gave to Michael as he and Waaaaaaalt were leaving the island on the boat sent the two of them to like 2015 or something? Clearly, the island is in some sort of time-space continuum, and maybe every bearing will bring you to a different point in time, whether it be past, present (sort of, since the island is off by 31 minutes?), or future. I don't know. The possibilities are endless, and my brain is full.

SO, next week we get to "Meet Kevin Johnson" and learn what our buddies Michael and Waaaaaaaaalt have been up to since they left the Island from Hell. You know, other than getting wet, talking backwards, appearing to people in the jungle and generally being creepy. Fun times! See you next week!!

The Other Woman

There has been grumbling all across the boards this morning and this afternoon, as people were generally disappointed with last night's Juliet-centric "The Other Woman." The consensus is that the episode was forced, trying too hard to advance the plot line while not providing closure or reasoning on the part of the characters.

I disagree. I loved it.

I'm just going to come out and say it. I have been a dedicated Jate fan since the pilot episode, and have continued to be so through all the Ana-Lucias, the romps with Sawyer in the jungle. And I am over it. I am now a Jacket Fan. (Juliack fan? Neh. I like the former.) I don't know, Kate's been riding two horses with one ass now for so long, I'm just done with it. And I guess I just have a thing for guys who always feel the need to step up and protect the cute little woman. Could have done without the kiss though. I agree with everyone else who feels it was a bit too contrived.

Anyway, on to the meaty stuff. In "The Other Woman," we find out that Charles Widmore is the SuperBad Freigher Guy, desperate to find our island (in the sky?). Per Ben's commentary, Chucky is looking to exploit the island for all its' wondorous healing powers and whatnot. We also find out that Daniel Faraday and Charlotte Lewis were not looking to Release The Gas! but rather to Render The Gas Inert! and ultimately save everyone. (With only seconds to spare, Daniel finally was able to type stuff into a computer correctly.)

"The Other Woman" also marked, for the first time this season, a return to the flashback. (Well, sort of, unless you're counting the 1 minute or so flashback showing Naomi and Matthew Abbaddon scheming in some warehouse-y type thing.) And with this flashback, we found out that the previously disclosed relationship between Goodwin and Juliet was, in actuality, an adulterous relationship. Goodwin was married to the Others' pyschologist, employed as such because, as Juliet noted, (in quote of the week) "It's stressful being an Other." But, this isn't just any psychologist. Indeed not, Harper (as she's so named) can appear and disappear in the jungle! This had me wondering, since when she first appeared, I chalked her presence up to a Walt-Yemi-ChristianShepherd-type hallucination on Juliet's part, but when Jack was able to see her, too, my brow furrowed. Many people have noted that Harper appeared right before and after the whispers reached a climax, leading people to also ponder the whearabouts of the other Others.

Props to Michael Emerson, as well, for yet another stellar performance. His chilling, pseudo-stalker creepiness was at an all time high, and I CAN'T WAIT for the showdown between him and Jack.

I'm sorry, but that's really all I have time for today. Fatigue from the week and excitedness to see East Coasters here on the left coast this weekend have drained energy. If I come to any startling conclusions, I'll make sure to post again. Have a good weekend!

The Constant Hottie

1996 wasn't a bad year for our old pal, Desmond. Lookin' good, Paddy-in-the-Hatch!!

So yeah. Um. Time travel? Wormholes? While this episode certainly kept you on your feet throughout, I truly don't understand a lick of it. I'm not a big enough geek to be able to tell you all about the ins and outs of time travel, and I'm certainly not scientific-minded enough to even come close to understanding all Daniel Faraday's blathering. So, after watching Thursday's "The Constant," here's what I do know:

• There were a lot of number references. A LOT. For example, Desmond was told to tell Daniel to set his machine thingy-doo to 2.342. Penny's street address at her new place was 423. Those numbers were all over the place! On the tail of the helicopter, in the number of the auction piece Charles Widmore was bidding on, etc. 
• It's December 24, 2004. Get to high ground, kids, there's a tsunami comin'.
• The Black Rock was owned by Torvas (sp?) Hanso? And Charles Widmore was bidding on his journal? Maybe Charles Widmore is the one who staged the remains of 815 complete with dead bodies? Remember, Penny herself said something to the effect of "If you have enough money, you can do anything."
• Haircuts didn't exist in 1996. Or so Daniel Faraday's bob would indicate.
• There is someone on the freighter that is helping Sayid and Desmond. I think we're all wagering on it being Michael. For a brief moment, when Omar and the other hot freighter guy brought Desmond to the sick bay, I gasped out loud and thought we were about to see Ethan again. I mean, it made sense, no? Ben has a man on their ship and Ethan was a doctor. But then I remembered that Ethan took two (or three?) shots to the chest, and there probably wasn't any fixing that. Oh well. 
• Next week's Juliet-centric "The Other Woman" features the return of Tom, Ethan, and Goodwin. Seems Goodwin was married. That could make things awkward, since we saw Juliet and Goodwin in bed together. I'm guessing Juliet is Other Woman. That's my deductive reasoning hard at work, kids. I also hear that Juliet plants (another) one on Jack. He just doesn't seem to get it. Or, He's Just Not That Into You, Juliet. 
  

Now, if anyone cares to enlighten me on the whole time travel thing, please feel free to do so. But as Juliet said (quote of the night award winner, right here!), "Talk real slow and maybe we'll understand you." (I won't even get into the grammatical structure of tat sentence... in fact, just typing it out made me cringe.)

See you next week!