Lost University Sneak Peek

Sorry to take so long to post this; it was emailed to me yesterday but I was away in NY for a day. (And I've told this to just about everyone in my family and it's always met with a blank stare, but maybe I'll get some understanding here: I stood next to Stephen Fry in the customs lineup!! Exciting! The guy is like 7 feet tall.)

Anyway, here's a sample of Lost University, Physics 101. And interestingly, he explains the wormhole concept the way I imagine the "wrinkle in time" from that old season 1 book. In that book there's an explanation that an ant could spend a long time walking across your skirt. Or you could wrinkle the skirt and now the ant could get from Point A to Point B in no time, and that would be the same as making a wrinkle in time... or, in this case, a wormhole.

Lost S5 DVD Sneak Peek!

Hey everyone! Here's another sneak peek of one of the extras on the upcoming S5 DVD box set (available on DVD and blu-ray on December 8) sent to us courtesy of Buena Vista Home Entertainment. ©ABC Studios. This is a really good one, showing us the writer's room and the final production meeting as they finish working on the script for the 100th hour of Lost, "The Variable." Enjoy!

Lost S5 DVD Contest: QUESTION FIVE

The contest is now closed. Thank you to everyone who entered!

And it all comes down to this. After a week of answering my trivia questions, we're down to the fifth and final one, giving all of you a total of five chances to enter the contest to win one of two copies of the Lost Season 5 Limited Edition Orientation Kit DVD Box Set (if you live in the U.S. or Canada) or a copy of my Finding Lost — Season 5 book (if you live outside of those countries).

Since Monday, I've been posing a question a day, and you can answer once for each question (when you get a correct answer, I'm writing your name down onto a slip of paper and throwing it into the pot). To review, here are the first four questions (if you haven't yet entered, you can still do so):

Question #1: When Locke turned the Frozen Donkey Wheel, what country did he end up in?

Question #2: In one of the island’s many time jumps, the survivors find a canister on the beach that belonged to Rousseau’s crew. What was written on the side of it?

Question #3: What is the name of the law firm Ben hires to attempt to extract blood samples from Kate and Aaron? (I'm not looking for the name of the lawyer, but the firm.)

Question #4: As season 5 opens, we see a man who turns out to be Pierre Chang get out of bed and put on a record. What's the name of the song that plays?

If you haven't yet entered your answers for these, simply send me an email with the name of the question in the subject line (i.e. "Question 2") and your answer, and full name and country you live in. Please send a separate email for each entry.

And now, without any further ado, the fifth, final, and toughest question of the bunch. Drumroll...

In the season 5 finale, "The Incident," Ilana and the Shadow Seekers emerge from the jungle with a crate carrying their "cargo." Ilana approaches Richard Alpert and asks him, "What lies in the shadow of the statue?" What is the exact phrase — in Latin — that he gives as his response?

If you know the answer (hint: if you have my book, it's in there), send an email to me with "Question 5" in the subject line, and your full name and country you live in. Please send me your FULL name. I'm getting the occasional "John S." type of response, and if there's more than one "John S.", then it will create confusion. So please send real names, and not pseudonyms.

The contest closes tonight (Friday) at 10pm EST. Please get all entries in before then, and then I'll be drawing the names and announcing them here on the blog on Saturday. Good luck to everyone, and thank you so much for playing along all week. Man, I wish we could do this all the time! We need to come up with trivia games more often on here.

And after you've entered the contest, check out this awesome new sneak peek of a season 5 DVD extra, featuring the making of the Shoot-out at the Dharmaville Corral scene from "The Variable." This clip comes courtesy of Buena Vista Home Entertainment. ©ABC Studios.

Lost S5 DVD Contest: QUESTION FOUR

The contest is now closed. Thank you to everyone who entered!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American readers!

Welcome to Day Four of our contest to win a copy of the Lost Season 5 Limited Edition Orientation Kit DVD. I've been asking questions all week long, and with each question readers have had a chance to enter the contest. If this is the first time you're checking in, you can still go back and answer the first three questions:

Question One
Question Two
Question Three

For each question, please put the number of the question in your subject line (i.e. "Question 2") and then your answer, your full name, and what country you live in. If you live in North America, you'll qualify to win one of two copies of the DVD set. If you live outside the U.S. and Canada, you will qualify to win a FABULOUS copy of my Finding Lost — Season 5 book... an awesome prize if ever there was one. Like you really want a DVD set. Pfft.

But I think I've been letting you guys off a little easy. Let's go for a slightly harder one, and we'll return to the very beginning of the season for it. Here we go!

As season 5 opens, we see a man who turns out to be Pierre Chang get out of bed and put on a record. What's the name of the song that plays?

Think you know the answer? Send me an email with "Question 4" in the subject line, and include your full name and country. Please enter only once per question; you have a chance to get five entries into the pot (which is literally a pot of little slips of paper with your names on them).

I will be posting Question 5 early on Friday, which will give you more time to enter. The contest will close at 10pm EST on Friday night, and any entries after that will be discarded. I will choose the winners and post them on Saturday... and I'm thinking of actually doing this in a unique way I haven't tried yet on Nik at Nite, so be sure to tune in on Saturday to see what I've got in store for you! Good luck!

Darlton and Jorge Talk About Season 5

Here's another new clip from the Season 5 DVD box set of Lost, Courtesy of Buena Vista Home Entertainment. ©ABC Studios.

Lost S5 DVD Contest: QUESTION THREE

The contest is now closed. Thank you to everyone who entered!

Day three already? Where is this week going? For anyone just coming onto the site now, I've been running a contest all week to win one of two copies of the new Season 5 Lost DVD Limited Edition Orientation Kit version, courtesy of Buena Vista Television. Every day I've been asking one trivia question, and you can enter the contest once with EACH question (so if you answer all five of them, you'll get five entries into the contest). I'm literally writing your names on slips of paper and dropping them into a hat, and there are already many people with two entries in there! Let's go for three.

If you live outside of the U.S. or Canada, you have a chance to instead win a copy of my Finding Lost Season 5 guide. And I mean, given the choice between this fantastic book and some lousy DVD box set, which one would you honestly rather have? (Don't answer that.)

If you haven't answered the first two questions yet, go here to find them:
Question One
Question Two

If you know the answers to the questions, send me an email with the question number in the subject line (i.e. "Question 1") and your answer, and your full name and the country you live in.

So without any further ado, it's time for Question #3!!

What is the name of the law firm Ben hires to attempt to extract blood samples from Kate and Aaron? (I'm not looking for the name of the lawyer, but the firm.)

Think you know it? Put "Question 3" in your subject line and email me along with your full name and country. And then tune in again tomorrow for chance #4!! (Friday will be the last day for entries; contest closes at 10pm Friday night, and the winner will be chosen after.) Good luck!

Lost S5 DVD Contest: QUESTION TWO

The contest is now closed. Thank you to everyone who entered!

Welcome to Day Two of the contest to win a copy of the Lost Season 5 DVD box set from Buena Vista television (the deluxe, limited edition Orientation Kit version) which will be available on December 8. Yesterday I asked the first of five questions (you can still go back and email me with the answer to that question if you haven't entered on that one yet) and today I'm going to ask the second. As before, please email me your response and include your full name and what country you live in. If you live in North America you will be eligible to win one of two of the box sets; if you live outside of Canada or the U.S. you will be eligible to win a copy of my Finding Lost Season 5 book. You can enter once per question, which means you'll have a chance to get five entries into the hat by the end of the week, giving you more chances to win.

So without any further ado, here is the question:

In one of the island’s many time jumps, the survivors
find a canister on the beach that belonged to Rousseau’s crew.
What was written on the side of it?

If you know the answer, email it to me along with your name and country, with "QUESTION 2" in the subject line . Tune in tomorrow for Question 3! The winners will be announced on the weekend.

Lost S5 Deleted Scene!

Here's a deleted scene that will be appearing on the Lost S5 DVD (this comes courtesy of Buena Vista Home Entertainment. ©ABC Studios). It's taken from "Namaste," when Christian takes Sun into the rec room to show her the Dharma photo. Watch when the axe first hits the wood... could that be smoke coming out of the room? ;)



Go here to win a copy of the S5 DVD!

Lost S5 DVD Trivia Contest: QUESTION ONE

The contest is now closed. Thank you to everyone who entered!

UPDATE: I changed my mind: I'll allow entries to begin immediately, and you can answer each question once, which means each person gets a maximum of five entries.

As I mentioned on my blog the other day, I have two copies of the limited edition Lost S5 deluxe edition DVDs with the Orientation kit, and one copy of my new Finding Lost book, to give away. To win one of them, you have to answer a S5 Lost trivia question, and I'll be unveiling them once a day until Friday. I was hoping to do this every morning, but unfortunately this is the first chance I've had to be on here today. Here's hoping I'll be able to get them out earlier in the days to come.

As I said before, once I've asked each question (the answers to which, by the way, can all be found in my new Finding Lost Season Five book), you can email me off the blog here, and I'll collect the answers and choose a winner on the weekend (if that link doesn't work for you for some reason, my email address is listed to the left of this under my contact info). So, here goes. Drumroll, please (I'll start you off with an easy one):

When Locke turned the Frozen Donkey Wheel,
what country did he end up in?

Think you know the answer? Email me here with "QUESTION 1" in the subject line, and let the games begin!!

UPDATE: I completely forgot to ask this last night, but when sending in your entry, could you include your full name and what country you're in? (Please don't resend entries... if you enter again later in the week I'll note it for earlier entries.)

It's the Nik at Nite Lost S5 Contest!!

As we've already discussed on here, Lost Season 5 will be released this December on Blu-ray and DVD, and Buena Vista is offering a limited edition Dharma Initiative Orientation box set. Season 5, in my mind, was the best of the series so far (here's hoping Season 6 tops it!) and I can't wait for the box set, just as many of you can't wait for it either.

Well, I have some good news for two of you. Starting on Monday I'll be posting special preview material from the extras that will be available on the season 5 box set, and I'll be putting up a new clip every three days or so, depending on how often I'll be getting them from Buena Vista. Next week, however, along with Monday's clip I'm going to post a question. Another one will be posted on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. When all of the questions are there, you have to email me your answers to all five questions by midnight EST on Friday. I'll go through all of the entries and choose two winners on Saturday who will be the proud recipients of a copy of the limited edition Season 5 Orientation Kit DVD set!! I need to get the names and addresses of the winners to Buena Vista by December 1 (so keep an eye on your email on the weekend) and they will ship the winners' copies out December 7 to arrive at your house the next day, with any luck.

The only catch, sadly, is that these are region 1 DVDs, and therefore the DVD portion of the contest is open only to entrants from Canada and the U.S. I apologize to my other readers, but what we'll do to level that playing field is, if you'd like to enter from outside the U.S., I'll open the contest to you and your prize will be a signed edition of my book. Not exactly the glamour of a DVD box set, but at least this way we all get to play!!

So come back tomorrow and every day after that until the DVD's release, for a chance to win one of two copies of the season 5 DVDs and preview clips from the extras on the DVDs, which I'll post until the DVD's release on December 8! (And just in time for our S5 rewatch, which begins the following week!) Good luck to all of you! Spread the word and send people over here throughout the following week.

And the Statue Is...

Tawaret! Yeah, yeah, y'all have already seen this on EW and everywhere else.

Hello my lovelies. My captivity is at an end, and I have emerged bleary-eyed and exhausted. I wrote 65,000 words of the book, which I will now spend the next month editing while writing the last 1/3 of the book (which consists of all the books... sigh... why did I leave reading all those things to the END?!)

Anyway, back to the statue. The day after the finale, ABC posted a recap in which the author said the statue was Tawaret. The recap came to EW's notice a week later, and when they posted last week that the statue was absolutely Tawaret, people flipped and have been arguing about it ever since. But if anyone had read through the 410 comments on my original post on the episode (what?!) one of my readers, Tom, noticed the recap on May 15 and we were already discussing and arguing it there.

Wait, you DIDN'T read through all 410 comments?! Ok, even I had trouble keeping up. ;) And that's why I posted it here. I didn't really accept it then, but I think it's gotten to the point where we no longer have a choice.

But the issue is this. When we first saw the statue in "LaFleur," we thought it might be Set. I made an argument for it then, and suggested *maybe* also Anubis, but there were no jackal ears, so that wasn't likely. Then one of my readers suggested Tawaret (yes, we were on the ball back then!!) which is a hippo-like goddess with a round belly that represents fertility. I said this was an excellent suggestion, and maybe there's a suggestion that once the statue was destroyed, women on the island couldn't have children. But the statue was most likely destroyed before Dharmaville, and yet Amy still had Ethan. (It could have been destroyed in the bomb blast, but when the gang is standing by the well in "LaFleur," they see it, then another flash happens and they stand up, and it's gone. That's 1977, so technically it should have already fallen by then.)

My concern with it being Tawaret is simply the look of it. The statue on the island looks masculine, and doesn't have a belly on it. When we saw it from the side in the finale, Benny suggested Sobek, the crocodile god, also associated with fertility, and I thought we'd found our god. And then the ABC recap (they used to be written by script supervisor Gregg Nations but I don't know if he's still doing them?) came out and said without question that it's Tawaret.

So what do you think? Typically on this blog I only look at what's IN the episode as canon, not what's outside it. Podcasts, recaps, and interviews can definitely enrich our experience of watching the show, but it shouldn't dictate how we watch it. If the statue is Tawaret, I'll wait until I see it from the front to know that. If Kate really loves Sawyer over Jack, I'll wait until she says that and not rely on a clip show to tell me that.

But now that EW has gotten hold of the story and it's spread all over the Lostverse, I'm assuming the answer is more definitive. All the fans will accept it's Tawaret, and that tidbit will be worked into next season somehow to make it definitive. And don't get me wrong: I love that the writers chose a more obscure Egyptian god, AND that one of my readers guessed it early on!!

Did Ajira Go Back in Time?

There's been some talk about the timing of the Ajira flight. (I'd planned on posting this tomorrow so I can stay on track with my writing but I can see you're already jumping into it on the Jacob thread, so I thought I'd post this one so you could move the discussion here.) Apparently in some podcast Darlton have said the flight lands on the beach in 2007 (and y'all know what I think of getting our canonical information from podcasts... ahem). Because most people agree they travelled in 2008, that means they must have gone back in time.

First, there's no evidence on the show that there was any sort of time jump. Yet. Secondly, I don't think we have an exact date of when they left LA. I always thought it was around December 2007 that they left. Jack's breakdown begins in late August 2007, and he's in full-on crazytown mode just a few months later. Locke begins visiting them in the fall, I think (that's what I suggested when I wrote out the flashforward timeline in my season 4 book), which would explain the jackets they're wearing when he sees Walt. So there's no reason they couldn't have boarded a plane in December and that would mean everything happens in 2007, is there? Other than the fact there are no Christmas decorations out. In which case, maybe November? Hm.

The only evidence that something is different on the island to me is New Otherton. When Sun goes there, she finds the Processing Center sign still hanging, and the doors are adorned with the DI symbols. The rec room has the annual DI recruiting photos on the walls, which we'd never seen before. I think this suggests that there was a break in the timeline, and things are now different than they were before. The Others never inhabited these barracks, or it would look like New Otherton, and not an abandoned Dharmaville. I think something's up with that scene.

Jacob's Touch

OK, I know I'm long overdue for a post on here. And now that the original post on "The Incident" has reached over 400 comments (!!) I think it's time to break out some of the key points so we can discuss them a little easier. I proposed in a recent post that maybe I need to switch to a website format (even though the thought of it scares me) because of the linear (and often confusing) nature of the comments sections, but most of the people who responded said they're fine with that, so I'm very happy! One person said it feels more like a family, and I really do agree. On the other Lost sites I sometimes feel like it's a bunch of people talking, but here it feels more like friends. Let's not get rid of that feeling.

So, to that end, what I'll attempt to do are short posts (short? me? Succinct and I parted ways a LONG time ago) where I just raise a topic and let y'all talk about it. Feel free to repeat what you already said in the comments in The Incident... most people probably didn't see it anyway. :)

Jacob handed Jack an Astro Bar and touched him; he handed Kate a lunchbox and touched her; he touched both Sun and Jin on their wedding day; he handed Sawyer a pen and touched him; he touches Locke (and appears to bring him back to life). Then, after they'd already returned, he touched Hurley and Sayid before they got onto the Ajira flight. He touches Sayid 9 months after Sayid returned, and he touches Hurley the day before he's going to get on the flight, and gives him a guitar case to take with him.

Why is he touching people? Is it to get them on the plane? Is it to imbue them with some sort of willpower that will put them on the plane? Hurley and Sayid are the unwilling participants in the Ajira return, and he touches them then as if to give them that added push.

Or is it protection? I'm thinking the latter, that his touch is like the touch the Good Witch of the North gives to Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz book, a mark on her forehead that tells everyone she is protected as she travels through Oz. None of them have died yet, except for Locke, and maybe the touch allowed him to cheat death more than once (he's done it several times on the island). Maybe Locke's specialness makes him a different case. He touches Ben just before he falls over when Ben stabs him. Will this protect Ben, or curse him?

Your thoughts?

In Defense of Juliet...

A lot of people have come down hard on Juliet for the way she acted in the finale. I’m not talking about detonating a hydrogen bomb (somehow the people who don’t like her seem to have forgiven her for that… oh Lost. How you change us) but for the way she cuts loose from Sawyer and tells him he loves Kate, despite his protestations to the contrary. Some say she’s whiny and needs to stop bitching just because Sawyer might have looked at Kate. Others think she’s emasculated Sawyer because of the way she talks to him like he’s a child. Others, defending her, say she’s jealous because she’s a woman (and that’s not intended in a sexist way, but saying she’s perceptive and not stupid and can see when a man is showing affections to someone else), and maybe she has a right to be so.

I think also the writers have tried to establish a history with Juliet that justified her behavior in the finale. I think I'm the last viewer who actually sees her point. :) But then again, I’ve loved Juliet from the beginning, so maybe I’ve always been able to see things from her point of view.

First, her parents break up. She apparently didn't see it coming, and while I'll admit the idea that your parents divorced and therefore you're doomed (come ON) is a little bit simple, I do know a few people who seem very jaded after watching their parents' marriages dissolve.

Then she has an affair with and marries Edmund Burke. Grade-A asshole. He sleeps with another research assistant and tosses her aside. She knows what it feels like to be the other woman. She leaves and comes to the island, BECOMING the other woman, but as much as she loves Goodwin, she hates thinking that she's actually the other woman (witness her breakdown in front of Harper when Harper confronts her on it). Goodwin is impaled, and she soon finds out that Ben thinks she's his, that he controls her and owns her. She makes a deal with him to leave the island, but is scarred by the experience.

So she comes to the camp, where it seems to be inhabited by Men Who Love Kate. Man #1, Jack, will do anything for Kate, but joins forces with Juliet and they seem to have a thing. But when they go to the Tempest station and she breaks down and tells him about Ben, he kisses her. Later, when Jack is on the operating table, she realizes he loves Kate and was just using Juliet as a pawn. He kissed her, and TOLD HER that he had her back and nothing would come between then. And then, like that, Kate did.

Sawyer pined for Kate for months after she left the island. No doubt in my mind. He stared at the ocean, we SAW the scenes of him going on and on and on about how painful it was for him, and it was. No doubt in the past 3 years he's been able to tell Juliet all about his brief but meaningful relationship with Kate, that they slept together, that he left her in the helicopter and he probably believes she’s with Jack. Eventually he resigns himself to the fact she’s not returning, and takes Juliet, who is, well, there. If Kate had been there, would he have been with Juliet? Probably not. And she knows that.

After three years, they’ve now established themselves, and Kate might be a memory, but she’s the one that got away. He loves Juliet, I truly believe he does, and he’s happy with her. He’s a better man, even if she does tend to talk to him like he’s a child at times, and he’s not the cad he was when he was with Kate. No more sarcastic remarks, and they’ve settled down. Then the Oceanic 3 show up in a Dharma van and Jin calls him and… he lies to Juliet. Doesn’t tell her where he’s going, just says he has to go somewhere. That lie was the beginning of the end. When he returns he tells Juliet, and Juliet’s whole world collapses. It’s the Jack situation all over again, but it’s more devastating because she truly believed she had Sawyer, and that they’d always be together, and she’d been with him for 3 years as opposed to Kate’s 3 months. But now it’s no different than her parents’ marriage, than her marriage, than Goodwin, than Jack. She begins watching for signs.

People can criticize Juliet for being whiny despite Sawyer professing his love, but there’s a reason the cliché “Actions speak louder than words” is so popular: it’s true. You can tell someone you love them until you’re blue in the face. But if you’re making ga-ga eyes at someone else, calling them Freckles (which, face it, is a far more endearing nickname than “Blondie”), looking in her direction when Bernard and Rose talk about true love, and following her everywhere, we know where his heart lies. And Juliet is heartbroken. He can corner her in the jungle and say, I will ALWAYS be with you, I love you, blah blah blah… but she’s right when she says she knows, and that’s why she has to leave. He’s staying with Juliet because maybe even HE doesn’t realize he loves Kate. Juliet is not being whiny or annoying in this scene… she’s a broken woman who’s been let down so many times, and now it’s happening again. (And many fans hate Kate now because of it, but it’s not her fault, either.)

Sawyer might believe, truly believe that Juliet is wrong, but she knows deep down that Kate is the one he loves. I’m not shipping here, I’m simply watching the program in front of me, and I think Juliet has every right to be upset. If she’s pregnant, as some people have speculated, that makes her upset even more heartrending. She certainly hasn’t told Sawyer, if that’s the case, and she’d rather lose the baby inside of her than have to deal with her heart being ripped out the way it has been. So… she detonates the bomb.

IF by detonating the bomb she rewinds the clock and puts things back to where they were, and we zip back to 2004 or 2007 or wherever and we watch some of these characters meet again like they don’t know each other, imagine how heartbreaking that will be for us. Have you seen the Buffy episode, “The Wish”? It’s an alternate universe where Buffy never came to Sunnydale, Willow and Xander are vampires, Oz and Giles are vampire hunters, and when they begin staking and killing each other, not really caring what’s going on, our hearts break. We’ve seen what they were when they were closest friends, so this alternate reality where they aren’t even aware of each other’s existences actually hurts to watch. It could be one direction the show takes next season, and it’ll be tough.

Lost "The Incident": The Comments

I've decided whenever I have no obvious photo to accompany something, I'm going to push my book. I'm shameless.

So... I booked off yesterday from work so I could keep on top of all the comments, and I had two appointments in the afternoon but an hour between them, so during that hour I sat in the car with my laptop checking in, and then last night I wrote up my DocArzt post. And it just occurred to me that I never actually POSTED it on the site, so I just did that (ugh) and reworded the beginning of it so it sounded like I totally meant to post it today. :)

There's a lot of stuff in there, mostly me giving kudos to all of you for being such awesome readers, so I hope DocArzt won't mind if I also post it over here. I wanted to get some more discussion going, and you can leave your comments here or over on the other post (or at Doc's site, if you prefer). Which, by the way, I haven't been able to check comments on since about dinnertime last night, so I have some catching up to do!!! Ugh. Sorry to everyone who is still posting and wondering where the heck I went to. AND when I was working on this post last night I found a whole section of comments (including two really long ones from Sonshine) that I'd never seen right in the middle of the first page of comments, so I'm really sorry I didn't respond to those! I'll get to them today, I hope. But I'm sure you guys are handling it just fine on your own. So without any further ado, here's my post, pasted here. If you've been following all the comments, half of it you'll already know, and the other half is my own new speculations and things I keep meaning to post but I get so caught up in the discussions I run out of time!




And with a fade to white, it was over. The screen was the same white as my knuckles, which were clenched in tight fists as I yelled, “NOOOOOOOOO” at my television screen. Remember that ending of The Sopranos? This one was more shocking to me. (And by the way, I’m in the love camp on that Sopranos ending.)

But back to Lost. Yesterday was crazy busy; monitoring the blog, posting updates constantly, doing radio interviews where I try to explain Lost to listeners who haven’t seen it (and can I just say that unlike back in season 2, I can no longer do that in the “25 words or less” that radio hosts love to throw around). And in the end, I didn’t get a chance to post something here. What was I going to write that was in any way coherent? Aside from my original blog post on the episode, I posted on Jacob and who I’m calling MaybEsau; the Jacob’s ladder imagery we’ve seen on the show and how it plays into things now; the foot statue; and a funny clip of Matthew Fox on Kimmel. Hey, you gotta have SOME light moments.

So rather than a long coherent post on one topic, I think I’m going to post a smattering of thoughts, mostly generated by my brilliant readers, who kept the comments boards buzzing on my site all day yesterday and long into the night. These are all the things I didn’t talk about in my original post. Here goes.

• Several fans posited that Juliet was actually pregnant when she fell down the shaft. Which, of course, makes that moment all the more devastating. She holds her tummy tenderly in a few cases, and when she’s with Rose and Bernard, they look at her with a little more tenderness than the others, not just because of the state they can see she’s in, but maybe they know. And while I’m talking about Juliet, the main article on the Yahoo page yesterday was, “Lost favorite dies in finale” or something like that. And as I clicked on the link, I thought, “Who? Who died?” Because, maybe I had a different feed than everyone else, but I never saw Juliet die. I mean, she’s probably bleeding internally something fierce right now, but if Jack is right, and by detonating the bomb none of this will have happened, then she’s as rosy and healthy as the rest of them. And there’s a chance she’s not even on the island; if it was the electromagnetic energy that forced the women to become infertile, then maybe she doesn’t have to come.
• This brings me to a question that’s only formed in my head since Wednesday night. How does Jack/Daniel’s theory work? (If it’s true... which I doubt it is.) Is it that they can erase everything that happens after that moment? And if so, did the release of the electromagnetic energy before Juliet detonated the bomb (if that’s what that white flash was, and not a time bloop) mean they were too late, and regardless of what they do, the Swan will be built to cover the energy and someone will be pushing that button anyway? Daniel was pretty determined to get there BEFORE the energy was released, so I presume that its release means they’re pretty much frakked anyway?
• I’ve always suggested that this show will come down to free will vs. destiny, not good over evil (since no one seems to be clearly all good or clearly all evil). One of my readers, SonshineMusic, suggested that maybe while so many fans are focused on whether Jacob is good or evil, we should instead be looking at whether he represents free will or destiny, and if the other one is the opposite. In the Bible, Jacob believed in free will, and changed his own future by deceiving his father and stealing his brother’s birthright. Esau, on the other hand, believed in destiny, that the birthright was destined to be his and Jacob no more earned it than he did by doing what he did. If the Man in Black is an Esau character, that could be the dichotomy.
• Is it possible that Jacob’s cabin was never actually Jacob’s cabin, but MaybEsau’s? If MaybEsau has been the one in there this whole time, that would be consistent with him methodically conning Locke and Ben over the past few years to lead them to the point where he could take over John’s body.
• Here’s one of my own thoughts: All season long, every time a person dies, Richard Alpert wants the body and is careful to bury people deep. Is that because he’s actually hiding them from MaybEsau, so that he can’t inhabit their body the way he did John Locke? That empty coffin we saw in season 1; is it possible Christian was taken by Richard, who was intending to bury the body so Esau couldn’t get his hands on it, and Esau somehow cut him off at the pass and got the body? (I could speculate better if I knew how the hell this whole body-snatching thing worked!)
• One of my readers pointed out the link between this episode and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, where the witch finds a loophole and stabs Aslan, but he comes back to life. If Jacob is a Christ figure like Aslan was in that book, that could be an indication that he will return.
• Another reader emailed me off the list to suggest Jacob was evil instead of good (an idea we’d been tossing around in the comments). He said if Jacob was evil, and by stabbing him evil was eradicated, that could be why the show faded to white rather than black. Great theory, although on Lost they tend to trick you, and the people in white tend to be bad.
• That brings me to Jacob meeting the Oceanic 5 and Locke. I mentioned this in my blog and have yet to read a satisfactory theory on it: Why does he touch Kate, Sawyer, Jack, and Locke before they get on Oceanic Flight 815, but he touches Sayid and Hurley after they’ve already been on the flight, returned, and are about to board Ajira Flight 316? If Kate, Sawyer, Jack, and Locke were all touched as a motivation to get them on the plane, what motivated Sayid and Hurley to do it, too? I’m wondering if the touch had nothing to do with actually getting them on the plane, and instead was some sort of protection for them once they’re on the island. Notice all of them are still standing (well, Sayid is just barely so...)
• And here is something I’ve been meaning to mention on my blog, and every time I rewatch the episode I notice it, make a point of mentioning it, and then don’t, so I’ll do it here. We’ve been discussing all season the idea of Smokey and when he first appeared. Some think he was an ancient force on the island, others point out that we never see him in 1977 or before, so maybe he was created post-Incident or post-Purge. When I saw the scene of Juliet being grabbed by the chain and dragged quickly backwards (not to mention hearing that same cranking sound we all know and dread) I couldn’t help but think of Smokey. This was exactly like when Locke was grabbed by Smokey – who loops himself around the victim’s legs or waist and drags them backwards quickly – or the scene where one of Keamy’s men is similarly dragged. And just like when Locke was grabbed in Exodus, Smokey tried yanking him into a hole, but he was saved before it could happen. Juliet is also dragged to a hole, but she’s not so lucky. Could Smokey have arisen out of the Incident? I don’t think it’s a coincidence these two moments look so similar.
• That statue. Earlier in the season I suggested it was Set. Male from the back, flat head. Then someone suggested maybe it was Tawaret, the Egyptian goddess of fertility. Great idea, and it would be perfect considering the fertility issues, but my only concern there is that Tawaret was in the form of a hippo to represent the rounded tummy of pregnant women, and did not have muscular arms like this statue. But she does have a flat head like this one, and is usually represented holding an ankh. After this episode, where we saw the large snout, one of my readers, Benny, suggested Sobek, the crocodile god, who brought fertility also. It’s a male statue with a flat head, and might be the most accurate one yet. But then a reader of mine emailed me this morning to say the ABC site is confirming that statue is indeed Tawaret. Did the production team never actually look at a picture of her? I’m not sure I buy that one. I wonder if it’s possible the statue could be an amalgam of different gods: Tawaret, Sobek, Set, and Anubis, all blended into one.
• One of my readers wondered if the fact Sayid is wearing Horace’s uniform should be a word of warning: After all, Locke will later find the corpse in the pit wearing that uniform. Could it be Sayid’s? Another reader said no, because those were the bodies from the Purge, and if they died in the 90s and Sayid died in 1977, then his body would have been on the bottom. But it did lead me to wonder if there’s some significance to Sayid wearing Horace’s uniform. They could have come up into any house and they came up into that one. Coincidence?

There is SO much more being said and going on over on my blog, but I need to post this and get back to other things (wait... there are things OTHER than Lost?!) I hope to post again in the coming week, but thought this would provide y’all with some fun discussion points. After all, we have EIGHT MONTHS to discuss it! Oh, and someone brought to my attention that someone on this site is organizing a rewatch party. We’ve been organizing the same thing on my blog for the past week or so. Mine will be starting a little later (beginning of July and going through January), but keep watching my site for updates, and we’ll have lots to discuss!




That's the end of the column, but I just wanted to add another squee moment at the bottom here. Yesterday in the afternoon, I checked the Amazon Top 10 TV books, and all of my Finding Lost books (including the season 5 one) were in the top 10! I was thrilled!! Of course, that Star Trek Encyclopedia was keeping me out of the top spot, but that's OK. :)

Jacob's Ladder

I've brought up Jacob's Ladder on this blog a few times before, because the imagery of it is so prominent on Lost. In Genesis, after Jacob deceives his brother Esau, he flees to the desert, where he wrestles with an angel. He then falls asleep, and has a dream of a ladder that extends from the Earth to Heaven, and angels are ascending and descending the ladder. Jacob lies at the bottom of the ladder, asleep, and God is at the top. Here is the passage from Genesis:

Jacob left Beersheba, and went toward Haran. He came to the place and stayed there that night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, "I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your descendants; and your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and by you and your descendants shall all the families of the earth bless themselves. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done that of which I have spoken to you." Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, "Surely the Lord is in this place; and I did not know it." And he was afraid, and said, "This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven."

I first talked about Jacob's Ladder after season 3's "Further Instructions," because when Locke goes into the tent and has his Boone-accompanied hallucination, there is a mise-en-scene of Locke in his wheelchair at the base of the escalators that looks a lot like Jacob's Ladder:



In this scene, Locke is at the bottom, like Jacob. We don't see any angels ascending or descending, but in the scenes before it, we'd seen people travelling up and down the escalator in the background. Locke falls out of his wheelchair and ascends the escalator with a lot of effort, and ends up at the top.

Later, in the season 4 episode, "Cabin Fever," we get the image again, after Abaddon has taken Locke from his physio appointment and is wheeling him back to his room. He leaves him at the top of the stairs for a moment, and we get the switched mise-en-scene:



Now Locke is at the top, in the position of God, and the only place to go is down, to the Earth. So it's interesting that years later, Locke's body is being used for Esau's long con, in an effort to kill Jacob. Locke found himself in the position of the biblical Jacob, then the biblical God, and now he's neither. Has he descended to Heaven (or to Hell) after death?

You can comment on the Jacob's Ladder material below, or go check out my fuller post on "The Incident" here.

The Statue

I've decided to keep posting all day rather than just talk in the comments, since I know a lot of people never get through all of them. However, in order to keep the comments in one place, you can post a comment for any of my posts today on last night's episode under my original post for the incident. Go straight to the comments page here.

Someone asked if I could post a picture of the full statue, because apparently there were weather problems in the area and she missed part of it (ack, what a terrible night for weather problems!!) So here it is:



Click on the image to see it bigger.

Christemple pointed out in the comments that the foot has switched, and I was shocked: I totally hadn't noticed. Here is the foot we saw last night:



And here is the foot we saw in the season 2 finale, when Jin and Sun and Sayid saw it for the first time:



Major production error? Or did the foot change when Jack interfered with the incident?

Quick note: I'm going to be on Vancouver radio in about an hour, on CHUM 1410, at 7:45 a.m. PST, or 10:45 EST. You can tune in locally, or you can listen online here (click the Listen Live button).

Lost 5.16/17: "The Incident, Parts 1 & 2"

“You found your loophole.”
“Indeed I did. And you have no idea what I’ve gone through to get here.”

First of all, can I just give props to SonshineMusic for making me my awesome new Dharma logo? I’m so thrilled with it. I need to get it on a shirt. Or a work jumpsuit. :)

Anyway, tell me what the following things have in common:
• a guy who sleeps with a girl after wooing her for several months, only to never call her again after he’s gotten what he wants (no, this hasn’t happened to me)
• a driver in a car on a really rainy day who drives too close to a woman pushing a child in a stroller just as they’re walking by a ginormous puddle, and sends a tidal wave over the two of them and keeps on driving (yes, this has happened to me)
• two writers who build up an incident for an entire season and know that the next season won’t start for about 8 months, and they leave it the way this episode ended

If you guessed, “These are all about JERKS” then you guessed correctly! The difference with that final one: I’d follow them to the ends of the earth. Hell, if they asked ME to kill Jacob, I would have done it.

What a glorious episode. Freakin’ amazing awesomesauce gloriousness. Where to begin?!

And it turns out Jacob is....
Nope, not Jack. Not Christian, either. Not John Locke. Not Roger Workman. Not Horace. It’s... Rita’s dickish ex-husband from Dexter! I TOTALLY called it back in... oh whatever. I was actually THRILLED that Jacob was someone we hadn’t seen. It opened up the show in a million different ways. The episode opened with Jacob (bathed in white: white clothes, white sand, white fish, white tapestry) being visited by Silas Adams from Deadwood some angry dude, all dressed in black, telling him how much he hates him. They’ve clearly set up the Jacob/Man in Black dichotomy to match the Widmore/Ben one, the way in “The Shape of Things to Come” Widmore asked if Ben was there to kill him and he said, “We both know I can’t do that.” In this case, the other man tells Jacob he wants to kill him, but clearly needs to find a “loophole.” We discover Jacob actually goes out of his way to bring people to the island, as if having them “come, fight, destroy, corrupt,” is all a game to him. Man says, “It always ends the same.” Jacob says, “But it only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.” Strange words. Before that... not after that. As if it always ends up this way, that the progress happens BEFORE (i.e. in 1977) and not after (in 2007).

Jacob’s home visits
So we see Jacob visit several of the people and touches each of them, but there were two that were unlike the others: He visits Kate when she’s a child, touching her when he hands her the lunchbox (the same one she and her buddy Tommy will later bury under a tree as a time capsule, along with his toy plane, right before he’s shot and killed as she’s trying to visit her mom). He visits Sawyer at his parents’ funeral, touching him when he shakes his hand. Visits Jack when he performs the now-legendary 5-second-fear surgery. Jin and Sun get a visit at their wedding. He seems to bring Locke back to life after his father throws him out of the window and changes his life forever. But notice how different the Sayid and Hurley visits are: they happen after their return with the Oceanic 6. So... what do his visits mean? Were they to get those people on the plane? If so, how did Hurley and Sayid get on the plane, if he only visited them AFTER they returned from the island?

The Man in Black
So if I understand this correctly (and I probably won’t until the end of season 6) there was another person on the island, one who embodied the darkness of it. Jacob seems to remain on the island physically, while the other one has left and has to find a way back. He’s unable to kill Jacob, and must find a “loophole,” i.e. someone else who can do it for him. Has this other man been priming Ben for 35 years for this very moment? Has he been priming Locke for even longer for the same reason? I’ve made so many comparisons to Ben and Locke and how their lives are so similar, but now they’re even moreso: for it would appear that despite all their beliefs and willingness to comply, they were nothing more than pawns in the bigger game between Jacob and the other man. Does this dissipate the Ben/Widmore war? Because that one was immensely fascinating to me, but this one is obviously a much bigger one.

And the other thing this indicates is... Locke is really dead. He’s not coming back, he never will, and he really died at Ben’s hand. Locke didn’t get his resurrection; he never found confidence or peace. He died an angry man who believed he was a failure, who never did anything right in his life, who was always the gullible loser. This revelation is hidden beneath the much more shocking and dramatic not-death of Juliet, but in the end, Locke is dead. And I found that immensely sad.

Highlights:
• That opening. Awesome, awesome opening.
• Richard: “I’ve seen things on this island that I could barely describe but I’ve never seen someone come back to life.” Locke: “And I’ve never seen anyone who doesn’t age. Doesn’t mean it can’t happen.”
• Jack telling Richard not to give up on Locke. Interesting that just when Jack finally believes in Locke, it’s no longer Locke, apparently.
• Locke asking Ben why he hasn’t told Richard about the plan to kill Jacob, and Ben saying because he thought it was a secret, and Locke’s response: “When did THAT ever stop you?”
• Richard with the sledgehammer. I don’t think we’ve ever seen him being so violent!
• Vincent!! ROSE! GRIZZLY BERNARD!!
• Frank: “In my experience the people who go out of their way to tell you they’re the good guys are the bad guys.”
• Locke: “You mind if I ask you a question?” Ben: “I’m a Pisces.”
• Locke: “Well, it’s a wonderful foot, Richard, but what does it have to do with Jacob?”
• The smackdown between Jack and Sawyer. It’s been five years coming, and it was such an amazing cartharsis for both of them.
• Hurley: “Don’t worry, dude. Everything will be fine when Jack changes the future. Or the past. One of those.”
• The way Ben walks into the statue and is immediately drawn to the fire at the end of the hallway. Emerson shows such regret and longing in this episode. He’s amazing.
• The looks on everyone’s faces when Jack is about to drop the bomb. It was a beautiful moment... and interestingly, when he thinks he’s at the end, Sawyer looks at Juliet, not Kate.
• Sawyer: “This don’t look like LAX.”
• Phil’s death. Best death since Nikki and Paulo. WOOT!!
• Emerson (again) when he pleads with Jacob, “What about me?”

Did You Notice?:
• Matthew Fox pulls off haggard really well. I’ve never seen a character look more realistically like he’s been emotionally hit by a Mack truck than Jack this season.
• Well, we all assumed last week that Widmore touching Eloise’s stomach tenderly suggested she was pregnant, and we were correct. How much do I love that a mainstream television show features a fetus of a child coming along on an expedition that is being steered by... his own journal notes?
• One of my favourite moments in the episode was the discussion between Sun and Ben, where he tells her that he was once the leader of the island and the leader is the only person who can meet with Jacob and takes instruction from him, and then she asks what Jacob is like and he says, “I dunno. I’ve never met him.” Sun’s face = utter confusion.
• Bram refers to Lapidus as a yahoo, which is what Sawyer called him when he came to the helicopter at the end of season 4.
• I was convinced Widmore was in the box, with an oxygen tank or something being kept alive.
• Richard refers to Eloise as “our leader,” meaning Widmore is NOT the leader of the group, it’s her. Did he become the leader after she left the island?
• The CGI on the departing sub is just as bad as it was last week. Ugh.
• Sawyer says they’re looking at the north shore. Kate argues that the sun is setting on the wrong side for that to be the case. Sawyer asks her if she has a compass. Juliet looks longingly at the departing sub while listening to them flirt. The look on her face says, “Just kill me now.”
• When Vincent runs up to Sawyer on the beach, there’s a rainbow in the sky. Could have been there naturally, or it could be a reference to the Noah’s Ark story, where God sent a rainbow as a promise that he would never wreak havoc on the world like that again. Interesting that it appears right before they’re about to set off their own apocalypse.
• Bernard’s first words are “Son of a bitch,” in homage to Sawyer.
• I was a little annoyed that, despite wanting to be “retired” and on their own, Rose’s first words when seeing her old “friends” were, “Oh, HELL no.” Rose could always be crotchety, but way to have some old ties there. Sheesh. Luckily their next scene made up for this.
• Considering Rose and Bernard are wearing the same clothes they’d been wearing when they were being shot at with flaming arrows three years earlier, they’ve kept those clothes REALLY clean.
• Bernard: “We just care about being together.” Bernard looks at Rose, Rose looks at Bernard. Juliet looks at Sawyer. Sawyer looks at... Kate. Kate looks at a leaf.
• The dog painting is still in Jacob’s cabin, but the jars of liquid are gone, along with many other extras that had been there before.
• Jacob’s reading Flannery O’Connor’s “Everything That Rises Must Converge.” Me, by the way: “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...” Last time the writers threw a book in the finale at me was season 2. I HATE them for adding this to my already rushed writing schedule. ARGH. Anyway, enough of my bitching. This book is a collection of O’Connor’s short stories published after death at the very young age of 39 from lupus. The story titles, which are indicative of this season, are:
o "Everything That Rises Must Converge"
o "Greenleaf"
o "A View of the Woods"
o "The Enduring Chill"
o "The Comforts of Home"
o "The Lame Shall Enter First"
o "Revelation"
o "Parker's Back"
o "Judgment Day"

• Ben tells Locke he’s a Pisces in an effort to make him go away. But just like everything else, that’s a lie. We know that Ben’s birthday is December 19, but the Pisces sign is for those born from February 20 to March 20. Interesting, however, that the astrological sign for Pisces is VERY similar to the sign that Juliet was branded with in “Stranger in a Strange Land.”
• So, Sun walks up to Aaron’s old crib and I said to my husband, “You know, I’ve always been disappointed that no one ever found Charlie’s Drive Shaft ring.” And then she reached in and picked it up. I threw my arms above my head, “YES!” My husband couldn’t stop laughing, and said, “You truly are a geek.”
• Jin: “We will never be apart. Because being apart from you would be like the sky being apart from the Earth.” And... apparently that was SO long you couldn’t memorize it? Interesting, though, that both Jin and Sun fell from the sky to the Earth, and then he remained on the Earth while she took to the sky once more.
• Jin says that Jacob’s Korean is excellent... they noticed the same thing about Charlotte. Could there be a connection?
• I really enjoyed the hallway scene with Jack and his father. Jack is still a student, and Christian is his teacher, and he saves the patient and Jack’s cool by helping the situation. Then he tells him what a great job he did, and Jack berates him for giving him a “time out” and embarrassing him in front of his friends. Christian wonders aloud if he’s the one who doesn’t believe in Jack. Good question: it’s not necessarily everyone else who thinks Jack is getting special treatment, but Jack thinking he should get it.
• The girl playing young Rachel looks a lot like older Rachel.
• I love the idea of Hurley’s curse being a blessing in disguise.
• Not-Locke tells Richard that he thinks he’s just making up the rules as he goes along. Is he? Who was on the island first, Richard or the other guy?
• Miles once again speaks for the fans, suggesting something fans have speculated about for weeks, that maybe Jack causes the incident, rather than stops it.
• Juliet quotes Jack’s “Live together, die alone,” but it has a different meaning coming from her. She leaves out the extra parts, “if we don’t live together, we’ll die alone,” and instead insinuates, “We lived together, now we’ll [I’ll] die alone.”
• Man, there are a LOT of shootout scenes at the end of season 5!!
• Miles tells Chang to get as far away from here as he can, which is what Chang told his wife to get her off the island.
• I guess we now know why Marvin Candle has a prosthetic arm!
• Juliet’s fall was heartbreaking, and something I didn’t see coming at ALL. And I think that’s the first time we’ve seen Sawyer sob. It was a lot like when Buffy jumped from the tower at the end of season 5. I didn’t start crying until I saw Spike fall apart. Similarly, it really hit me when Sawyer started crying.
• Ilana asks Richard what lies in shadow of the statue. He answers, “Ille qui nos omnes servabit,” which means “He who will protect (or save) us all.” Does this mean Ben just killed their saviour?
• This is the second season that ended with a big revelation of Locke lying dead in a box. I love that only one season ago we went, “OMG, Locke is dead!” and now a year later we’re going, “OMG, Locke is dead!!” Only on Lost.
• The pit of fire that Locke throws Jacob into was glowing at the beginning of the episode, as if this one fire has been going from the beginning.
• On Jacob’s tapestry, you can see people worshipping the sun, and presumably the Sun God, who is Ra. RA = Richard Alpert?
• At the end of the episode, it’s like Ben is returned to being a little boy again. Jacob’s simple reply, “What about you” is shocking in the moment. Just as Ben says, he’s always done what Jacob asked of him, and Jacob showed him no regard at all. If Jacob really IS the good guy, then Ben has just been tempted by Satan to kill God, in a sense.

Hurley’s numbers:
On Dan’s notes on how to remove the plutonium core, there appears to be a 23B marking on the side of the diagram. (Or 23-8.)

So Many Questions...
• Damon, will you marry me?
• Jacob clearly called The Black Rock to the island. So how did it end up in the middle? Did he will it there? Does he have that kind of power?
• What happened to the rest of the statue if it was intact in the late 19th century?
• Who is Jacob’s nemesis?
• What did Bram mean when he asked if Frank was a candidate?
• Not-Locke seems very interested when Ben tells him about Alex telling him to do whatever John Locke says. Is it possible that Jacob represents only certain things on the island, while Smokey and other evil apparitions belong to Angry Man in Black?
• Who broke the line of ash that surrounded Jacob’s cabin?
• What happened to Ilana? Why was she in a hospital completely covered in bandages? Did Jacob heal her with his touch? Does Ilana know who he is when he arrives? How? This would suggest this group is a third rogue unit, as we suspected a few weeks ago, and they’re with Jacob, not with Widmore or Ben.
• Jacob appears to bring Locke back to life with his touch, and tells him, “I’m sorry this happened to you” in what sounds like a genuine sentiment. Is it possible he’s really the good guy?
• Do all of Juliet’s man troubles stem from the fact that her mother told her that even if you love someone you don’t necessarily belong together?
• Oh Radzinsky. How happy am I knowing that you will eventually end up with a bullet in your brain?
• One of Hurley’s personal belongings is a Fruit Roll-Up. He was eating a Fruit Roll-Up when Walt came to visit him in the institution.
• So... did Juliet just kill everyone? Restart the clock? I’m furious with the writers, and thrilled with them all at the same time. Oh you horrible, horrible people. How I love you.

Next week: Loneliness. Depression. A giant hole in my Wednesday night viewing schedule. Taking the week off to work on my season 5 book. I want to thank all of you for coming here week after week to read my musings and join in the discussion in the comments, offering such diverse and brilliant opinions. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. I’m not sure what upsets me more: no more Lost episodes, or no more Thursday discussions with all of you.

I threw this out there earlier, and I’ll devote a single post to it in a few weeks, but we’ve been discussing on the blog a viewing party, watching seasons 1-5, 2 or 3 episodes a week starting in the summer right through to the beginning of season 6, and I hope all of you will be willing to join in. I’ll post notices in as many places as I can to see how many people we can recruit to come and discuss the earlier seasons in light of what we now know, and I think it’ll be a lot of fun!

And in the meantime, I hope you’ve enjoyed the blog posts enough to order my season 4 book, available here at Amazon, and my upcoming season 5 book, now taking preorders (and available in late October). And if you have a copy already, get another one for a friend! Haha! (OK, there's a method to my shamelessness: At the end of every season, bookstores have a nasty habit of starting to return my books because they figure no one is interested in Lost anymore... I’m hoping if there’s a sudden demand for buying them, they’ll keep them in the stores a little longer, rather than return them, only to reorder them and make my publisher have to pay the freight both ways, which is sadly the case. Also, the more backorders on the season 5 book, the more are printed. Please help a gal out!)

And please keep coming back throughout the coming months. We’ll have a LOT of Lost talk on here, and I can’t wait to keep chatting about Lost with y’all!

While You Wait for Lost...

:::sniffle::: That'll be the last time I type that this year. Sigh... This is it, folks, the season 5 finale. Only one season remains.

Well, have I depressed you enough?! Now onto the funny.

Here is a Lost season finale of a different kind. This is the Fine Bros. finale of the weird season they've been having over on YouTube, where various other action figures appear. I love the riff on "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham," and it pointed out some of the same plot holes we noticed in the episode. Enjoy!



And brace yourselves, hold your sides, whatever you need to do, but here is Rachel Ack's awesomely hilarious recap of Follow the Leader to get you ready for this week's episode:

Widmore shows up and captures Jack and Kate and brings them back to Tentsylvania, where Eloise is trying to figure out what the hell just happened and everyone’s got a lot on their mind…

Daniel: WTF, am I…dead?
Eloise: WTF, did I just…kill my son?
Richard: WTF, how come no one commented on how fierce these pants are??



Eloise: Did you show up with this dead guy?
Jack: Damn straight!
Kate: Way to keep the mystery going, Jackass.
Eloise: Very well…put them in my tent. I want to have one of those “key parties” everyone keeps talking about.



Read the entire entry here.

Tonight's episode will feature a recap from 8-9pm EST, followed by the 2-hour finale from 9-11. I'll try my hardest to get the post up quickly, but if I'm only just finishing the first viewing at 11, I can't guarantee it'll be up before 12. But I'll try. :) See y'all soon, and tune in muchly tomorrow for a LOT of discussion!

Check us out!

Well, dear readers, we've been linked to! I got this note in my email today saying my numbers had suddenly skyrocketed way beyond the level they normally are in Lost season (again, I beg, don't leave me next week!) and it turns out, TV.com linked to this blog for Lost stuff! Of course, anyone following that link yesterday would have seen us talking about maybe-older Juliet and her sagging breasts and Sayid's man-parts.

Sigh.

Ah well. I guess that probably lets people know what we're all about here, eh?

I promise to have a much richer discussion after the finale tomorrow, which is... TOMORROW. I hope I'm not the only one who is not only excited, but incredibly sad. BUT... stick around and we'll discuss first the finale, and then the season as a whole over the next few days (I've taken Thursday off to just focus on the finale). Next week I'm hunkering down to attack my season 5 episode guide for the book, so I'll be pumped to talk about the season in its entirety anyway.

And then, once I'm done the book, what do you say we start up a viewing club where we go back to season 1 and watch seasons 1-5 leading up to the final season (final season! WAAAAHH) and discuss them ep by ep. I'll let you know ahead of time what episode to watch and when to get together here to chat about it. It'll be fun! And something tells me we'll need the reminders.

Who's in?