Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Lost, Ep. 12: Par Avion
I hope that someone gets my… I hope that someone gets my… Message on a Seagull.

This week’s episode was a Claire flashback, where the question of her paternity was finally answered (guessed by most fans from last season’s episode, “Two for the Road”). Her mother is in a coma, Christian Shephard comes wandering into her life, and the last thing Claire said to her mother was that she hated her and wanted her dead. But the biggest revelation? That Claire was a total Goth chick who worked in a tattoo parlour!

On the island, Claire comes up with an idea involving birds. (When she first saw them fly over and said she figured out how to get them off the island, I was thinking, what, you’re going to trap 1600 of them and get airlifted out or something?? Yeah… I wouldn’t be the “idea person” on an island.) It was a pretty good episode, with a surprising ending, but I had a lot of questions and nitpicks about it. Perhaps someone out there can explain away some of them.

Did You Notice?:
-Sawyer’s reading The Fountainhead. Great. Always wanted to read that capitalist manifesto. Not. Sigh… (I'm sure seeing that on the screen gave you a big laugh, Jer...)
-Mikhail begins saying that Locke is someone he has a fleeting memory of, but the John Locke he knew would have… and then is cut off. It seems to be a reference to the fact that John has changed drastically – and not for the better – as the show has gone on. He used to be my favourite character, and now I just don’t get anything he does.
-the woman we saw in Two for the Road must have been Aunt Lindsay, not Claire’s mother. Christian went to Australia to find Claire, and he went along with Ana Lucia. He drunkenly screamed at a woman (fans presumed it was Claire's mom, but it must have been her aunt). He separated from Ana Lucia, Sawyer met CS in a bar, they drank themselves silly, Christian died, Jack went down to retrieve him, Ana Lucia clearly stayed on for a few more days, and somehow all of them ended up on a plane headed for LA. But as we saw, Claire’s mother was in a coma, so CS couldn’t have been banging on her door insisting that he was going to see his daughter.

Any Questions?:
-is Sun feeding Aaron some melon? Or is she spooning something out of a bowl to him, maybe milk? Either way, an 8-week-old child wouldn't be on solid foods or eating with a spoon yet; they just don't have the digestive system or motor skills.
-I don’t buy Rousseau’s answer to Kate’s question about why she hasn’t asked about Alex. She’s bracing herself for upset, but what about asking if she looked healthy? Was she being treated OK? Was she happy? She’s right; Alex won’t remember her, and might not want to, but as a mom, aren’t these things just basic things that a mother would need to know?
-the list that Mikhail mentions is Jacob’s, a “magnificent man.” But who is he? Will we ever see him? He says Kate's not on the list because she is flawed, nor is Sayid or Locke. Was Jack on the list? Was Claire?
-why did Desmond fire the shots to scare away Claire’s birds? If she had caught one, then presumably Charlie would never have been on the rocks catching a second one. But by scaring them off, then Charlie would have to help Claire catch another one. Something seemed to be missing there.
-why would Mikhail thank Locke for throwing him into the security system? Maybe the guy has a death wish, but would ANYONE, regardless of how suicidal, want to go out that way? More importantly, why does John smile at him when Mikhail says that, like they’re in cahoots together?
-a repeat of one of last week’s questions: WHAT THE FRAK IS UP WITH JOHN LOCKE???? First he kills Mikhail, then smiles, then becomes belligerent with the others but stays creepy calm, then says he didn’t know the house had been rigged with C-4, but happens to have some in his pack… I’m getting the feeling he’s not on side with the Losties anymore, that he’s acting on his own, or acting with the Others, or SOMETHING, but I’m very confused. I started to think that Locke, going over the fence, would somehow break the log so no one else could follow or something.
-what made Claire dye her hair blonde again? She was pretty rockin’ as a brunette.
-why wasn’t Claire more broken up in the beginning when the plane first landed on the island? You’d think if her mother had been in a coma, she’d be extremely upset to be stuck on an island where she can no longer check up on her and take care of her.
-Jack’s playing football??

Nitpicks:
-bitchy Aunt Lindsay freaks out on Claire, clearly blaming her for the accident, but the mother was on the pavement and had gone through the windshield. Um… maybe the fact that Mommy didn’t bother to put on a bloody seatbelt could be the real culprit here??
-I’m tired of Claire switching sides on Charlie whenever the situation suits her. In season 2 she was all lovey-dovey with him, then he did something she didn’t like and she’s all, “Get out of my tent now, ya wanker, and go somewhere else.” Then when he makes it through the blast she kisses him and is all, “Oh hey, there’s an extra spot in my tent,” and then Desmond shoots his gun to scare away birds, and Charlie is actually taking care of her child, and she goes running back and is all, “I don’t know what you have to do with Desmond but you have something to do with him and he shot his gun in the air and I don’t know how this is connected with you AT ALL and I know you’ve been babysitting my baby whenever I’m not around but I need you out of my tent RIGHT NOW. Ya wanker.” And then she finds out that Charlie wasn’t trying to hurt her, and she grabs a seagull – a.k.a. the cleanest birds in the world – and carries it back to the tent and is all, “Hey, sorry about all that, and I know I told you to bugger off and get out of my tent but, um, here you are, and I don’t know what that’s all about because you were supposed to be gone, but anyway I brought this dirty seagull back to show it to Aaron, and I’m hoping he kisses the bird for good luck, but anyway, I’m sorry, and let’s be friends again.” Talk about head games.
-how do they think the piece of paper they attached to the seagull’s leg is going to survive? The moment that bird decides to take a break and lands in the water to float for a while, the piece of paper will wither and fall off. DUH.

Oops: Back in “Raised by Another,” Claire takes a pregnancy test, and tells Thomas she’s pregnant, and Thomas asks if she’s going to keep it and Claire says, “My mom would disown me,” and he says, “She pretty much has already.” The writers could try explaining this one away by saying he’s referring to the argument they had before her mother went into the coma, but I think back then the writers didn’t know she was in one, and knowing now how broken up Claire was over her mom’s condition, she would have slapped him for making a joke about her mother like that. So I take it as an inconsistency.

Next week: “The Man from Tallahassee,” a Locke episode. I’m seriously excited for it – first of all, Locke flashback (with the exception of the most recent one, they’ve all been amazing, and maybe the writers will finally… please?? PLEASE???... tell us why he was in that wheelchair), secondly, we’re seeing the Others again, and unlike a lot of fans, I loved seeing those people and how they work. EDIT: Just before posting this I checked the preview at the end of the ABC feed (I watch the 8pm CTV feed earlier to write this post) and it looks like we WILL find out why he was in the wheelchair!! Maybe we'll finally figure out why he's been acting so weird, too.

Advance warning for Lost fans: The episode in two weeks will be a Nikki and Paulo flashback. Either make plans to do something else that night, or get your barf buckets ready. And damn those writers if they make me like them… nope. No, it just WON’T happen. I’ll start writing fan fiction of Paulo dying in spectacular ways in protest.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Highlight:

Russo: "We should shoot him like a dog."
Locke: "No. I like dogs."

The Chapati Kid said...

*POTENTIAL BUT MAYBE NOT SPOILER ALERT SO JUST WARNING YOU ANYWAY, BUT IF YOU SAW THE ABC TRAILER THEN YOU SAW IT TOO* I think I saw in the ABC trailer that Locke somehow meets with Ben while Ben is lying in bed in hospital clothes.

I think Claire puts an end to her mother's life -- that's when she asks for forgiveness and hunches over the bed. Which is why she says my mother "was" when she talks to Sun. I thought maybe she washed out/got rid of her dark hair while pregnant because it's not good for pregnant mums, right? So let's say she's 8 months along, we don't know how many months before she had the last scene with CS -- so it fits in the timeline.

Maybe Des really was hunting a boar. Or maybe he knew she wouldn't catch the gull, and it was still going to end up with Charlie's next on the block (pardon the pun) anyway, so he just went ahead and did what he had to do.

I thought the message on a seagull (great one Nik! I laughed and laughed.) was lame-o. I mean, who writes about giving up old lives and having new ones and all that bull? I'd just be like, "location: here, we are survivors of so and so plane crash, we are still alive, HELP US!" Not -- "do not give up hope" or whatever namby-pamby whatnot she wrote.

I loved the end with Jack playing football. I totally want to know what's going on.

I think Locke is being strange -- I think the purple sky thingie did him in. Maybe he's decided to go all commando since then. I'm glad though that they put the C4 explosive plotline in this. It makes him seem less head-smacking stupid (which is what we all thought he was in the last episode), and more calculating. There was always a dark side to Locke (remember the Boone storylines?) but now it's full on. That's enough for me to feel that he's got back the authority that the writers took away from him in the last episode. What I DON'T get is why Saiyid hasn't given him the smackdown and trussed him up like a turkey.

Anonymous said...

This episode introduces the bigest Lost mystery yet...What is Claire's natural hair color?

Actually, I would think if it wasn't blonde, it would show by now. Or maybe DHARMA is air dropping hair dye with their supplies.

Only Desmond knows for sure.

Anonymous said...

Despite the inconsistencies, I thought it was the best episode of the season. I loved the part with the security system! Lots of excitement!

As to some of the issues you raised:
- I think Mikhail was starting to say John Locke he knew was PARAPLEGIC, so I assume that somehow they knew each other before they were on the island. But stupid Rousseau cut him off, and after, Locke gave Patchy the weirdest look. How convenient that Patchy gets pushed to his death. Methinks Locke has a secret that Patchy was aware of!
- the Claire Jack relationship was projected too well by the producers...I really hate it when they ruin surprises like that...I've never liked the way they give things away in the promos, but I still got chills when I saw Jack's dad in the hospital!! WHOA moment!
- the timeline for Jack's dad going to Claire's home, Claire's taking the pregnancy test and the car accident is also unclear to me, although Claire did have blond hair when she took the pregnancy test, and yes they left her mom's condition up in the air
- agreed on the Desmond thwarting the bird plan...what was the point to that???
- Locke is really starting to look unhinged, and I don't know if this is intentional...I thought for a second he was from the Dharma Initiative, but that doesn't seem to make sense to me, Sayid is being way too easy on him lying about everything...
- Jack playing football with Tom...it seemed like the footage was old and they had to insert it into the scene somehow, didn't it seem out of place? Perhaps because Matthew Fox pretaped it to work on his movie? Maybe Tom IS gay and he and Jack are "bonding" LOL
- I am looking forward to Locke's episode...I wonder why he wants the submarine so bad???
- Nikki and Paulo...this thing seems to be building so much that I don't think ANY storyline will satisfy fans...both actors seem to be leaving the show, so likely they will be killed off during their backstory, I hear they are going back to the plane crash, it'll be interesting to see them insert these characters that they are going to force us into believing were there in the first place! I think they are figments of our imagination...like the black smoke monster :)

The Chapati Kid said...

I know Paolo's there for a good twelve episodes, so maybe the next one is not the last we see of him...

Anonymous said...

The trouble with John Locke is, every time Terry O'Quinn seems to be a good guy, he ends up sitting by the pop machine and letting the C4 explode.

I'm assuming there was more to the seagull thing that Desmond didn't say. Though why is he working so hard to keep Charlie alive? Are they related? Maybe calling him 'brother' isn't just an expression.

Regarding Claire's hair - it looked so much like a wig, maybe it was supposed to be one.

I guess the question is going to be, how will Claire and Jack find out they're siblings? Will they?

I suspect we'll find out that Paulo and Nikki are the Paul and Karla of the island.

Nikki Stafford said...

Whew! I log on first thing in the morning and there are so many comments! I love you guys. :)

Brian: Actually, Kate knows Claire's real hair colour; she delivered her baby. ;)

Chapatikid: Interesting theory on Claire pulling the plug; that very well might have been the case. I'll have to watch that scene again. As for dying her hair, way back in "Raised By Another" we see Claire take the pregnancy test and she's already returned to being blonde by then, so she dyed it back before knowing she was pregnant.

OH! And I'd COMPLETELY forgotten to mention how ridiculous that damn message on a seagull was. Like COME ON, you're not going to talk about hope and freedom and blah blah, you're going to say, "Survivors of Oceanic 815 crashed September 22, 2004; we were this far off course and heading back to Fiji; we are alive and on an island, please send help" or somesuch.

Roland: Ooh, AWESOME theory on Mikhail really knowing John Locke (I thought he meant knowing him in the sense that the Others seem to know the histories of all of these people) and it would make sense that if next week's ep is a Locke ep, then it would be perfect timing to see Mikhail in it. I'm SO intrigued by this theory!!
Re: Tom "bonding" with Jack, you just might have something there! LOL! Hey, why is it that in 48 survivors we haven't seen any gay characters? It seems like a major oversight (and if they suggest that Paulo is in fact gay, I hope the gay audience begins an angry letter-writing campaign...) But I must admit: in 80 days I haven't seen Jack that happy!! Maybe the reason he always looks all pissy whenever Kate and Sawyer are together is, he's jealous of KATE!

Colleen: Wow, the suggestion that Paulo and Nikki could be the Paul and Karla of the island... you just came up with the ONLY storyline that could possibly intrigue me on those two. And here I thought it was impossible. Ever thought of writing for the show??

Anonymous said...

Um, who are Paul and Karla?

Anonymous said...

brian, I'm assuming Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka the serial killers??? I don't think they are quite that bad LOL

Anonymous said...

Ack! I missed last night's episode! Any ideas on where I can catch it ... replay this weekend? Sheesh! I'm so mad at myself. Any help in this department would be appreciated. Hope you had a lovely March Break.
Love,
N xo

Anonymous said...

I believe you can watch it on ABC.com

Nikki Stafford said...

Brian: Roland's correct: Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka were a notorious married couple in Canada who trapped their victims, raped and sexually assaulted them, and then killed them. One of their victims was Karla's little sister. Karla made a deal with the police to turn on her husband, and she got out of prison last year after 12 years. She's since married and has a child.

N: If you're still around let me know and I can get the episode to ya! :) Unfortunately, I believe ABC.com is for American viewers only. I know NBC.com turns away anyone from an IP address outside the U.S. Stupid networks.

poppedculture said...

Oh I did laugh when I saw Sawyer's reading material, Nikki. I wonder what he'll find in someone's luggage next. You know you don't need to read everything - I assume you aren't reading Guns & Ammo and porn, are you?

Nikki Stafford said...

Jeremy: Unfortunately, to do the new book, I do have to read everything. In my last book, I included chapters that were 5-6 pages long on each book Sawyer was caught reading, analyzing them and explaining what they have to do with the show. And I plan on doing the same thing this time. I can't do a 5-page analysis on a book I haven't read. But no, I don't plan on including a chapter on porn or Guns N Ammo. ;)

Anonymous said...

Hi there, This seems like the best place to ask some questions...like if the island has healing powers, then why does Sawyer need glasses? Why is Sawyer wearing the glasses if they are not needed? Is this a refrence to piggy in the novel Lord of the Flies? Why does Locke hate Mikhail so much? Locke couldn't wait for a chance to kill him...not a matter of "if" but when. Is it because he shot and killed one of there own...what did she say to Mikhail to get him to shoot her anyway...he obviously was having a hard time doing it. Why is Sayid trying so hard to keep an "Other" alive and return him to his people when they have already displayed many times their method of negotiation. I think Sayid is tring to join with the others. He is very eager to show support and protection from the losties whenever an "Other" has been captured. Why will Kate go to such an extreame for Jack when nobody else will? Not even Jack would return for her if things were reversed. Why does she drive everyone to this end? She really wants to help get Jack back...really, really bad. I didn't realize they had such a strong bond. The only time I have witnessed such a bond is when Jin swims after the boat that Sun is on. He did not give up no matter what. By the way...Locke appears to be like Desmond...he seems to have prior knoledge of events to come....I trust that Locke has a plan...there is method to his maddness. Thanks for letting me ask these questions! This is lots of fun!!

Anonymous said...

I didnt have much time to spare, so i couldnt read the other people's posts. Thay have probably already mentioned this!

Claire never had bange untill she got on the island, so why in her flashback does she have bangs, when she is telling her mom she is pregnant?

(maybe im wrong, i probably ate too much chocolate that night and were seeing things differently, lol)