This week's Lostaholics Anonymous featured a long discussion about Jack, and I realized I'd forgotten to post the above image to go with it, which was sent to me late last week by artist Richard Rische, designed by his friend Mike Steffler. Love it.
I mentioned that as much as I adored that character, he was always fun to poke fun at because he was just so damn serious. A friend of mine forwarded me this video last week asking if I'd seen it, and I said not only had I seen it, but I used to post it on a regular basis here because it killed me every time. And in light of our discussion, I thought hey, let's post it AGAIN!! This might be my all-time fave Lost fan video.
Pink Is the New Blog has posted some new pics of Josh Holloway on the set of Mission Impossible 4, where he will be co-starring with Tom Cruise. I love it when creators develop relationships with actors and writers through other projects. (It's like Terry O'Quinn being on Alias before Lost.)
OK, now go look at the pictures here and forget everything else you were supposed to do today. ;)
Last Thursday I had the good fortune to head down to the CTV building in downtown Toronto and see Sheldon, Howard, and Raj live on stage... or their real-life personas, Jim Parsons, Simon Helberg, and Kunal Nayyar, the stars of The Big Bang Theory. (I'm sure everyone else has blogged on this already, and I actually started this blog last Thursday, and it's taken me THIS LONG to get around to finishing it!!) BBT is one of my favourite shows on television (the other day I was bemoaning the state of TV to someone, and said the only two network shows I adore are Fringe and The Big Bang Theory... although I'd probably add Modern Family to that). The three guys were at the CTV building talking to Canadian fans, and marveling at the massive audience that had turned up to the event, screaming and begging them to say (or sing) certain things. People had come from all over Ontario, some had lined up as early as 6 a.m. to get a prime spot.
The show began with Teddy and Ajay of Space, the cohosts of Innerspace (I appeared on the show with them to discuss the finale of Lost) who warmed up the audience for a couple of hours before. The guys had done an interview with Space that morning on a closed set, and Teddy and Ajay, in adorably matching sweaters, chatted up the audience and kept everyone pumped for the main event.
Then the Barenaked Ladies came out to sing the show's theme song, and it was so cool to see it done live. When they ended on, "And it all started with the big bang -- BANG!" the whole audience shouted the last word. (BNL stood on the stage like the in-house studio band for the entire show, with the drummer occasionally playing rimshots when the guys would make a joke, or Ed Robertson interjecting with his own joke every once in a while.)They continued playing background music while eTalk host Ben Mulroney introduced the three stars of the show, and the audience went nuts. (And then, as you can see, Jim Parsons looked right at me.... OK, probably not, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it!)
So here were my favourite moments of the show: • When host Ben Mulroney came out ahead of the actors, he was asked by his co-host if he could prove his geek cred (this guy was born into privilege, with a wealthy father who eventually became the Prime Minister of Canada...) and he somehow managed to do it. He said he believed there was a geek in all of us, which is why the Big Bang Theory is so popular, and he said that his wife had bought him a flux capacitor for his birthday once. When the co-host looked baffled and asked if that had something to do with time travel, he groaned, "UGH, it's only what made time travel POSSIBLE!! You know? Back to the Fu... you know what, you don't know ANYthing." HA!! • The boys came out and Ben asked Simon (Howard) about the fact that he's a musician, and asked him if he'd ever consider giving up acting for music. To which Jim Parsons (Sheldon) answered, "He SHOULD!" (I wasn't sure if that was a diss on his acting or praise for his music, but it was funny either way!) • When Ben asked a question that had been tweeted to the show -- How does Sheldon speak without taking a breath? -- Parsons couldn't answer right away, so Kunal (Raj) answered, "He has amazing abs." • When asked where he keeps his Emmy in his home, Parsons responded, "When I'm not carrying it around at work making sure every single person has seen it, I keep it at home on a used piano." • Simon had tweeted that he felt like he needed a Canadian interpreter to understand what the hell we were talking about, and when Ben asked if that was true, he said, "I actually haven't understood a single word you've said to me yet." HAHAHA!! Ah, getouttahere, ya hoser, eh? • On the first commercial break, the pregnant woman behind me stood up and yelled, "Sheldon, will you sign my belly??!!" • Ed Robertson, lead singer of the Barenaked Ladies, asked the audience on the same break to put their hands up if they thought the second half of the interview should be pants-off. • And then someone behind me did a pitch-perfect, "HOOOWWWWAAAAAAD!" just like Howard's mom. I could NOT stop laughing. It was GENIUS. I'm not sure if he heard it, though. • When Ben referred to Howard's clothes as little boys' clothes, Simon got huffy and said, "I will have you know I wear an extra-large... in boys' clothes." Then he explained that the purpose of Howard's clothing was to draw the eye downwards. HAHAHA!!! (He added that there are 3 women on set whose sole purpose was to dress Howard and get him into and out of those clothes. Much screaming from the females in the crowd.) • Ben revealed that he owned a Toaster toaster (the Cylon toaster they have on the show) because he'd seen it on the show and immediately jumped on eBay to get one. Jim Parsons admitted he didn't know what the heck a Cylon was before they filmed that episode. (I'll admit my heart sank in disappointment to hear that.) • "Bazinga" was a word that Jim Parsons came up with, along with one of the writers, when they were saying they had to come up with a word that Sheldon would use a lot. • And then the best part of the show happened for me. On the next commercial break, a few people behind me began yelling, "SHELDON!! SING SOFT KITTY!" He couldn't hear them because Ben was talking to him. Kunal, on the other hand, was listening, and he nudged Jim when they yelled it a third time and told him what they were saying. Jim looked out and smiled at the audience. So they yelled it again. Nothing. So then there was some commotion and "pass it along" happening behind me until someone shouted, "One! Two! Three!" and the whole row sang, "Soft kitty, warm kitty" and then the entire audience went "Little ball of fur..." to which Jim Parsons turned, lifted the mike, and sang the rest of it with us, "Happy kitty, sleepy kitty, purr purr purr..." It was AWESOME. • When everyone was talking about what an amazing ping-pong player Kunal is (Jim said he made dives for the ball that were just silly, that no one else would make... apparently Kaley is also an excellent player), Kunal said, "I'm Indian so I play all racquet sports." Jim replied, "Really? I didn't realize that was a trait of your people." It was like listening to Raj and Sheldon on the couch. • The staircase, as most of us probably already assumed (I know I did because I noticed one brick was exactly the same every time) is actually one stair case just dressed up differently for each floor as they walk past it. Behind the elevator there's almost no room and it becomes this cramped space. So they said they nonchalantly walk around behind it and all run into each other and have their faces pressed against the wall. They said the wall is full of gum that people have been sticking there for 3 years, so not only are they crammed in with the other actors, but their cheeks are usually pressed into a piece of old chewed gum.
After the next commercial break, it seemed to be over, but they took a few group shots with the hosts (and as charming and lovely as the female host is, I was annoyed she stood front and centre in the pic... people weren't lined up at 6am to get a great shot of her... yeah, let's let Jim Parsons stand in the BACK):
Then they called them together so they could present them with a special gift from the show... Team Canada jerseys! Jim Parsons was particularly excited, and they're all big hockey fans (they were planning on heading to a Leafs game that night). At one point earlier in the show Kunal said, "Go Leafs Go?" and got big screams and Jim said, "Oh my GAWD, you'll do ANYTHING for applause!"
And then a man from the Foundation of Science and Research (or something... I should have probably written that one down) came up and awarded Chuck Lorre and the show's other writer honourary lifetime memberships to the foundation for their furthering of science in popular culture by making it cool through the show. Simon accepted the awards and responded, "We will travel anywhere in the world to accept other people's awards." Which got the following big laugh from the rest of the guys:
And that was that! The Barenaked Ladies performed the song again in its entirety this time (who knew there was a second verse?) and then they stuck around to continue playing while the guys left.
It was an awesome time, and simply made me love that show even more!
Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s instalment of Lostaholics Anonymous, the place where we Lost fans gather and continue to discuss our favourite aspects of our favourite show.
Before we begin with this week’s meeting I just wanted to mention that I’m continuing to take orders for Finding Lost: Season 6, and am now actually sending out the copies to people (Batcabbage will be the first person to hold a copy outside of North America, and the race is on to see who within North America will be the first to receive theirs!) If you’re interested, the cost is $28.95 CDN if you live in Canada, $28.95 US if you live in the U.S., and $29.95 U.S. for overseas (that’s surface mail, which will probably take 4-6 weeks to get there... if you want it via airmail, it’s $48.95, but I’d go with the surface option if I were you!) You can paypal me at my email account, or just drop me an email if you have any further questions. I’m sticking in 5 bookmarks with each order (one for each of your Finding Lost books) and signing and personalizing each copy.
Otherwise, you can go to Amazon and grab a copy here... and save some money!
OK! So back to the meeting... As mentioned last week, I’m going to start focusing on the characters, and this week we’re going to begin with Jack.
The entire series opened with Jack’s eye, and the moment he became aware of his surroundings, Jack was a hero, leaping up to run to the beach and save everyone he could. He resuscitated Rose, he calmed Claire, he yelled for Hurley and Claire to get out of the way, he called to John Locke and forced him to stand for the first time, he helped Boone busy himself as Boone recovered from the shock of the crash. And then, and only then, did he crawl into the woods to try to deal with his own huge wound on the side of his ribs.
By inadvertently establishing himself as the alpha male, Jack became the one that everyone looked up to, and he didn’t want to be leader, but once he realized that the survival of the people depended on it, he stepped up and accepted the responsibility. The first flashback we get is Jack’s (the first full-length one is Kate’s, but the first person we see on Oceanic Flight 815 is Jack), and the first person we see as a child is Jack. In the first season he had three full flashbacks (White Rabbit, All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues, and Do No Harm) and his flashbacks were featured in the pilot and finale episodes that season. Most of his background focused on the father who dogged him for not having what it took.
In season 1 Jack was mostly a hero, although he had his moments of annoyingness, which early on garnered him some loud detractors. While Jack was no doubt the reason most of the people were alive, he had this holier-than-thou attitude about him that could grate on viewers. (Much of it, unfortunately, can be chalked up to an inconsistency in the writing in the first season.) One week he was pleasant to Kate, and seemed charming and adorable; the next he was in her face, demanding to know her past and dangling the key in front of her and reminding her that it was around HIS neck and SHE couldn’t have it.
In season 2, Jack was defined as the nemesis of John Locke. Locke believed in the island, and had faith that there was a greater force at work. Jack believed no such thing. He argued with John until he was blue in the face, screaming that science was the only thing he believed in, and he wasn’t going to put any stock in faith in a higher power he couldn’t see. Much of his lack of faith stemmed back to his past, and in season 2 those flashbacks focused on those. We saw he’d miraculously saved a woman from being paralyzed, then married her, only to break up with her again when she couldn’t deal with his intensity. Jack was obsessive-compulsive, needing to fix things and doing whatever it took to achieve what he needed to... but in many ways, just as his father said, he simply didn’t have what it took, and was always frustrated.
In season 3, Jack was taken by the Others, and when he saw Kate with Sawyer, he told them to go, and he stayed behind. He seemed to become chummy with them, cozied up to Juliet, and bargained a way off the island... until Locke blew up the sub. Cue Jack vs. Locke, Round 2.
In season 4, Jack broke ties with half the group, taking the other half to the freighter folk, believing they were there to rescue him. He was wrong, but somehow he managed to get off the island with the people he was with, and through flashforwards we saw him make a happy life with Kate... until the guilt of leaving everyone behind finally caught up to him. Jack might have been an alcoholic obsessive person who could never stay in a healthy relationship, but he was a good person. He knew he’d left them behind, he knew that he might have been wrong, and rather than dismissing every single word John Locke had ever said to him... he focused on all of them. He remembered everything Locke told him, and those words began to eat away at him. He began to wonder if maybe the island really WAS a higher power, and that he should have listened to it.
And so... in season 5... he came back.
Zapped back into 1977, Jack at first was very Zen-like, allowing Sawyer to lead, and he to follow. I, like many of the viewers, went back and forth on Jack, but at the core I always wanted him to be happy. I was sad when he was, and with our sympathies and perspectives having been aligned with Jack from the very beginning, it was hard not to want the best for him, regardless of his attitude. (That said... when Pierre Chang said that Jack’s psych profile said he was suited for janitorial work, I thought I would pee myself laughing.) Oh Jack... we love you, but you are SO much fun to make fun of.
Returning to the island took faith, and great courage. Jack had finally believed John Locke was right, and when Daniel showed up and offered the idea of a bomb to reverse everything, Jack went with it. He finally had faith in something that was bigger than him, that didn’t make logical sense but which he believe in with all his heart anyway.
His bomb zapped them back to 2007, where they continued on, and throughout season 6 we see the culmination of Jack’s long journey from denial to faith. He sits with Richard Alpert in the hull of a ship and waits for a stick of dynamite to burn out, because he knows he’s too important to blow up. He helps Desmond because he knows Desmond is important. He drinks the water because he believes his purpose in life is to be the guardian of the Source of the island and all life. He gives up the guardianship because he will instead risk his life to save the island right away, and will die after killing the Man in Black. He’s become the very person John Locke always was, and he didn’t have a miracle to prompt his belief the way John Locke had.
The journey of Jack was an epic one, and one that lay at the core of Lost for all 6 seasons. The show opened with Jack’s eye opening, and closed with his eye closing. I’ve been brief in my rundown of Jack (if you want the REAL recap, check out Finding Lost: Season 6 for a very, very long analysis and summary of the character of Jack, his journey, and the history of his relationship with John Locke).
So now I turn it over to all of you... what did you like about Jack? What did you not like about Jack? What are some of your favourite Jack moments? They could be funny, or poignant, or sad.
Because my prayers have been answered. From EW.com:
In what is sure to be one of the hottest properties of the rapidly approaching pilot season, former Lost executive producers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz are developing a fairy-tale-themed drama series. Oh, and they’re getting a little help from—stop me if you’ve heard of this guy—Damon Freakin’ Lindelof!
Oh, YES!!!!!!! Thank you thank you thank you thank you... You can read the full article here.
I LOVED this episode. The mystery – how someone could possibly predict the outcome of a scenario that has so many variables in it – was fascinating, and unlike anything I’ve seen in a show before. From the moment he first put that pen on the post office box, I immediately knew this guy was putting in motion a Rube Goldberg machine of human events. Watching it happen again and again never got old. (And the actor playing Miles was quite brilliant, I thought.)
The actual plot reminded me a bit of Flowers for Algernon, a story of a man who has a low IQ and is put through various experiments that exponentially raise his IQ, making him aware of the hostility and cruelty of the world around him, and he longs to regress back to the moron he once was. (I use that word in the clinical sense.) It’s a heartbreaking story (and a book that was on Ben Linus’s shelf; it was one I meant to add to one of my Finding Lost books, and I have the sticky notes throughout my copy to prove it, but then realized there wasn’t a place for it in S4 and it didn’t fit in the other seasons, so that was that).
I won’t go into too much detail on it because I’m a little late in posting this, but the thing that stood out to me the most in this episode was right near the end, when Olivia explained to Madeleine that Miles was now working with a computer to detect patterns that were beyond human comprehension, followed by Walternate talking to Brandon about the fact that he’s still a scientist. In season 1, Broyles was explaining “The Pattern” to Olivia (The Pattern, to refresh memories, is the idea that each of the seemingly unrelated events that we’ve seen in each episode ARE, in fact, related in some way, and that when you put them together properly they will form a pattern of some kind, meaning we need to keep track of each fringe event and where it occurred to see if there’s a connection), and he said it was like a mad scientist was using the world as his lab to conduct experiments. When Walternate assures Brandon that he’s still a scientist, he adds, “I’ve just got a much bigger lab,” which made me wonder, could HE be the mad scientist Broyles is looking for in our world?
Of course, the key to the episode is that just as Miles hit a plateau in his medication and the experiment, the experiment on Olivia is beginning to backfire, and she’s beginning to see through it. How much longer before she regresses completely and remembers who she was?
Highlights: • The way they played with things that are rare in the other world (I want to call it the sideways world!) Someone sees the pen the first time and says, “When’s the last time you saw one of these?” and I was expecting Olivia to say, “Uh… wow… a MINUTE ago??” It was interesting to realize they don’t have them anymore. I really like this weird steampunk feel of the other world – on the one hand they’re so advanced, but on the other they’re behind us (like when it comes to bicycles or the fact they still use airships).
Where’s Baldo?: OK, I THINK I saw the guy this time, but I could be wrong. When Olivia is at that third accident and she realizes it’s still going on, she turns around and looks up to the bridge, and the camera makes a quick cut to the bridge and pans along the people. The first person is a man in a fedora and suit, and I’m positive that it was the Observer. A moment later, when they show the people again, he’s gone, so it would make sense.
Glyph (before each commercial break, there's a glyph that appears, and it corresponds with a letter of the alphabet, spelling out a five-letter word): This week's glyphs spelled out BREACH, a rare occurrence of a six-letter word.
Did You Notice?: • When they referred to the baddie as “Milo Stanfield” both my husband and I said, “Wait! Where have I heard that name?” and realized we were thinking Marlo Stanfield. Could there be a Wire fan on staff? Considering Bubs was on there a couple of weeks ago, and now a character has a name almost exactly like another character, it could be likely. • Walternate suggests putting someone in a sensory deprivation tank, which is what they did to Olivia in the first episode of the series.
Questions: • Will the rest of the season be back and forth between the two worlds, or will it begin to merge so we’ll see half in one world, half in the other?
This tongue-in-cheek pic was sent to me yesterday, and I just had to post it as the final pic of the series... sent by reader David McCloughan, Jr., he showed me what SHOULD have come as a bonus in the complete Lost DVD set. I couldn't agree more!!
LOL!! Thanks, David!!
And now, without any further ado, the announcement of the winner of this contest: Man, you guys have made it SO tough! You've all made me giggle or laugh out loud or be astounded by the ingenuity you came up with... but it came down to two, and from there I had to choose one, and my choice is... Erin Pugh! For balancing books on her head while setting a timer, and making me laugh with those great looks on her face. Congrats, Erin! I do want to throw an honourable mention to LittleMo, though, who not only made me love her for that bath pic, but pulled some great yoga poses in her other ones. Thank you for brightening my day and this blog.
You guys are awesome. And I do welcome pics of you holding the season 6 book, because I know every single one of you will get a copy, right? RIGHT?? ;)
As we enter week 3 of Lostaholics Anonymous, I have to say what a joy it is to reconnect with so many of you, and hear your familiar voices chattering again (okay, they’re cybervoices, but that’s all I’ve ever known, and in my head I’ve created voices for all of you… yourblindspot, for example, sounds like Daffy Duck). j/k
Last week we discussed the happy moments, and I found myself smiling as many of you recalled those moments and the happiness they brought you the first time around, or subsequent rewatches. We talked about “Tricia Tanaka Is Dead,” and how it seemed like an inconsequential episode at the time, but by the end of the series had taken on an entirely different resonance (and I thought that might make an interesting topic coming up; what episodes do you watch really differently now? But that’s a discussion for a later meeting). I loved so many of the moments you all came up with, and enjoyed the discussion that often there are sad moments and funny moments, but then favourite moments that fall in between – moments like that bittersweet, wonderful phone call between Desmond and Penny – one of my ALL-TIME fave moments of the entire series, but one which I couldn’t categorize as a funny one. A happy one, yes.
We laughed, we laughed some more… and now, I’m about to bring tears upon all of you. For this week we’ll discuss those sad moments. Now, as we all know (and as any fan of Joss Whedon’s work knows all too well) there can be joy and catharsis in our tears. While watching Charlie slowly drown is something that makes me cry every time, there is a beauty to the way that scene was put together. These scenes make us cry, and sometimes, depending on what else is going on in our lives at the time, we cry harder than we might have at another time, because these scenes simply provide the outlet for our pain.
So, I’ll introduce the topic. As someone mentioned in the comments last week, it’s tough to come up with really sad moments that don’t involve a death of some kind. So let’s start with the obvious one, the one that made all of us cry. I’ll show a longer version of the scene because it’s important to see how happy Charlie was the moment right before it all happened… and how that hope was drained seconds before his death by the sudden dire knowledge that the boat wasn’t Penny’s and that he had NOT bested fate:
Listen to the music in that scene; it’s the music that I think makes it SO glorious… you have the manic action music right before the grenade goes off, but as Charlie realizes his destiny, the music suddenly stops . . . in fact, all of the sound within the scene stops, and instead we get the piano music and the mournful violin. It’s that music that gets me every time. Charlie fulfills his one final role – warning Desmond that the boat isn’t Penny’s – and then he slowly, silently, dies. This is a scene that is so painful, and yet we watch it over and over again for the sheer beauty of it. It’s scenes like this that make you realize how important the music is, and, in this case, what a genius Michael Giacchino is (and what a shame it is that he’ll no longer do television… wah).
OK, and what would one drowning be without the other? Here we go:
Notice the recurrence of that same piano theme that Charlie died to. It’s not by accident – the creative team knew how deeply we associate that music to the drowning death of Charlie, and they evoke those same memories with it here. What I find interesting is that they removed the mournful violin, when in earlier seasons, that violin was the motif they used to indicate a Sun storyline (it has a distinctly Asian flare to it). But maybe they removed it so they could separate it from Charlie slightly.
I’ll never forget the way I sobbed when the camera cut to the sub slipping deeper and deeper into the waters. Or the pain when the last shot we get of them is their hands slipping away from each other. I remember my initial thought being, “You BASTARDS! You can’t even let them die together? Howl… howl… howl!!” (To quote a famous king.) But while their hands slip away from one another, we realize their souls are entwined. Their bodies are just the shells that once housed their spirits, and we know that where they ended up (i.e. the sideways world and beyond) they are together.
OK, another moment that made me cry. This is possibly my favourite scene of the entire series.
Oh Richard. My love for you is endless. Desmond who?? Many people (including me) railed about the fact that Nestor wasn’t nominated for an Emmy for this scene, but he was made a cast member, and couldn’t really be nominated for one episode out of all of them. But let’s look at the scene on its own. The addition of Hurley in the scene was risky at the beginning… it could have gone in an entirely comic direction, but it doesn’t. It’s just GORGEOUS and heartbreaking and beautiful and perfect. Love that transcends time and even spiritual boundaries. God, I LOVE this scene. Once again, the music makes it – Giacchino created a new musical motif for the Richard/Isabella love scenes, and what we hear in this scene is a variation on the one we saw at the beginning of the episode, when she first died. Everything from Richard closing his eyes, to the sudden realization on his face that she really IS there, to the peaceful and assured manner in which she talks to him, just breaks my heart. I can’t talk enough about how much I love this scene.
OK, so now the scenes that don’t involve a death of a loved one of some kind. This one breaks my heart every time I see it, and in fact, the last time I watched the episode I actually jumped ahead of it. This is a sad scene that is so incredibly painful for me that it doesn’t make me happy, nor is it cathartic. But is it perfectly acted and written? Yes.
(OK, for me the real difficulty begins at 3:20… sorry for the long preamble but this is the only cut of this scene I could find that didn’t have Kelly Clarkson singing over it.) I’ve probably said this before, but Aaron looks a LOT like my son (only my son is even cuter… says the completely unbiased mother). He has platinum blonde hair that’s the same length, he sleeps on his back the same way, and he’s 3 years old. (When the episode first aired he was obviously younger, but now he’s the same age.) As a mom, I think my biggest nightmare is losing my children in any way, and watching her say goodbye to him slays me. I have friends who have adopted children, and friends who ARE adopted children, and it doesn’t matter if you are a biological parent – if you raised a child as if you were his or her mother, you are his mother. In this scene Kate walks away from the little boy who changed her life entirely.
This is actually a great example of an episode that changes in retrospect, because we now can watch the scene of Kate talking to Claire’s mom and saying she’s going to find Claire and bring her back, and know that she did exactly that. So this is a little easier for me to watch now than it was before.
Now, I have plenty of other moments I could mention here, but I want to leave a bunch for you guys to talk about and not hog the mike here. ;) So I’ll leave you with my last one. In “LA X,” after Ben realizes that Locke is in fact the smoke monster on top of being the Man in Black, Smokey sits down and tells Ben what Locke’s final thought was – “I don’t understand.” He adds, “Isn’t that just about the saddest thing you ever heard?” And, as I say in my Finding Lost Season 6 book, YES. Yes it is. Every time I watch this scene I feel my throat catch when he says that, and I picture Locke with the cord around his neck, the life being choked out of him, and I think of how confused he was and what a horrible last thought that must have been.
Now, I’m cheating a bit because I found a video that actually splices together the scene of Locke dying with the scene of Smokey recounting it, and trust me, it makes it much, much sadder (whoever edited this is brilliant, despite the pixelated quality of the video he was working with). But check this out:
I’ve talked about this at length on here, but Locke deserved better than that. I’m always devastated to think that all of his searching and understanding that he discovered in his life came down to one confused moment, and then… death.
Now, as I look back through all of these moments, I actually see a pattern, one that brings me to my first real mention of the finale in our L.A. meetings. All of these sad moments were sparked by love. Kate leaves Aaron because she loves him so much she knows that he deserves his biological mother. Richard’s heartbreak stems from the fact that he loves Isabella with all his heart, and has lived the past 140 years with the sadness of having lost her. Jin dies holding Sun’s hands because of how much he loves her and can’t bear to be apart from her ever again. Charlie closes the door and dies so that Desmond might live, and so the prophecy that Claire and Aaron would safely leave the island could be borne out. His last desperate message is the one that ends up saving a lot of lives by warning them.
Locke stands alone. Smokey’s story isn’t told out of love, and when Locke died, he was on the verge of suicide because of the way he felt so defeated. But I think that despite his lone wolf persona, Locke had a great love of mankind, which is why he worked so hard to try to help out the greater good. He always believed he was helping everyone, and he left the island so the others could be saved, and when he was told that one condition of saving everyone was that he would have to die, he accepted it without hesitation.
Which brings us to the finale, which all came down to love and togetherness. All of these moments lose their bitterness in that final scene of the series, when we realize that Aaron and Kate and Claire would all be happy, that Charlie is alive again and has found his Claire, that Locke now “understands” and has found inner peace, and that Jin and Sun will always be together. So despite the fact that during the finale, I cried more than I did for all of the above scenes combined, it really was a happy ending, and one that satisfied me.
So, now I turn it over to you… bring on the sadness!!
For our next meeting, I was thinking about starting to break down the show by character, and then after that, by theme. How does that sound? So let’s start with a doozy next week, and begin with… Jack. ;)
And as if Morag's bath pic wasn't awesome enough, here are some pics she took when she got home from yoga class and was inspired by Erin's pictures. I'll pass along the captions she provided for me (and might I add, that is some FINE form, lady!). Oh, and don't forget: Lostaholics Anonymous meeting tonight!! Find me here at 9pm:
The answers are all in here!:
I need to take my time over this...
Perhaps they're up there?
Or a new perspective on season 3:
How about this way up:
It's no good... I'll have to go back to the beginning:
Aaaargh!!:
I'll just have to wait for Nikki's last book - please hurry up !!!
I've gotten cabbage heads, four toes, people balancing books on their heads, and strongmen, but this is the one you've all been waiting for... HARDCORE NUDITY!!!
Well, OK, not quite. But reader Morag (aka LittleMo) proves that even in the bath, she can't tear herself away from my Lost books!!! This demonstrates some careful suds arranging...
Since my books have gone AWOL, I'll announce the winner of the contest tomorrow, since I have about three more of these to post! (And if you have a pic you'd like to send me, send it on!)
From Andy, one of my readers here and on Facebook, comes a nifty collage (one that makes me all nostalgic and stuff...) This is from his email:
"Pres Pastor finds himself LOST not having good ole theological, philosophical and ethical discussions about the mysteries like the Numbers, the sideways verse, Christian Shepherd, the Smoke Monster, Desmond’s time traveling, the ageless Richard Alpert, Locke’s special gift, polar bears and whether Mr. Cluck’s Chicken Shack had a finger licking original recipe."
And today we have Erin!! I couldn't choose just one because they were SO funny... and she said she was doing it on a timer!! Erin, you are a goddess with the camera timer. I can't press the button and manage to get into the photo, much less balance all of that stuff on me! Bravo! In this series of pictures, Erin seems to have lost her Finding Lost books, and doesn't know where to find them (she's like Little Dharma Peep!) She tries to jog her memory through meditation (Namaste) and then a little Dharma beer, and suddenly, she remembers.
SFX Magazine has a Joss Whedon special this month, and to celebrate, on their website they've presented 9 potential incarnations of the only monster that appeared in every episode of Buffy -- the Mutant Enemy guy. For example, at the end of Villains (which, in the article, they incorrectly identify as the episode Seeing Red), he could have looked like this:
LOL!! (Only Buffy fans will get that joke, and I won't spoil it for the rest of you who aren't up to season 6 yet.) Check out the full gallery of little "grr, argh" men here.
I've fallen behind on these, but here's a great pic I got from Jean Schubert, one of our devoted readers and commenters! I love the inclusion of the beach (we have to go baaaack!!) And I'm really jealous of that gorgeous pedicure. ;)
If you have a picture you'd like to send, please send it by the end of the day today, and I'll be announcing the winner of the contest to win a free copy of the book tomorrow! (P.S. I'm hoping to have my box o' books today!)
OK, so it's only my thumb, but here is a picture of me holding... the very first copy of Finding Lost: Season 6!!
The printer FedEx'd two copies to my publisher's office and I happened to be there today, and I was still squeeing over it (so big! so beautiful! such a perfect cover!) when the marketing person saw it and said they'll need those two copies this weekend at a rights fair. Instant sadness. Ah well, I got to hold it. And... it was heavy. REALLY heavy. So the shipping costs will be higher. But then again, I guess The End needs some heft, right? ;)
I read with horror and some tears yesterday a story about a freshman at Rutgers University who jumped off the George Washington bridge because of a hate crime that had been perpetuated against him. Two people (one of them the victim's roommate) secretly filmed the guy having sex with another man, and posted it online. Apparently they had filmed a second encounter and were ready to post that one, too, but their victim -- talented violinist Tyler Clementi -- was so distraught by what they'd done to him that he posted a simple message to his Facebook page -- "going to jump off the gw bridge sorry" -- and then committed suicide by following through.
The two pieces of shit who had posted the video have been arrested. I'm assuming (hoping) that they didn't intend for things to go as far as they did, and are probably as horrified as the rest of us to know the cause of their actions, but that doesn't bring back Clementi, nor dull the emotional pain they inflicted on him. I think it takes a special kind of callous to have done what they did. Clementi is not the first homosexual to commit suicide for being mocked by people who clearly lack any sort of self esteem and make their fun by hurting others, but in one of the articles I read yesterday, it mentioned an absolutely BRILLIANT project by Dan Savage. He's asked gay men and women to post videos on YouTube talking to younger gay men and women about times when they had been harassed for being gay, and to let them know three simple words: It gets better. I can't think of a better way to tackle such a devastating thing, and I applaud Dan Savage for coming up with this. Please help promote this site wherever you can. You can go here to the YouTube channel and watch some of the bravest and most inspirational testimonies you'll ever see.
Another JJ Abrams episode called The Box. Alias fans will remember the two-part episode, “The Box,” where Quentin Tarantino was this crazed torturer who would taunt his victims by telling them not to push him to the point where he’d have to open The Box. Like Thomas says in this episode, it got to the point where the imagination conjured up much worse things than were actually in it.
In this episode, Bolivia continues to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes, even though as fans we can see Anna Torv is playing the character very differently. She’s a lot more light-hearted than Olivia, smiles more, seems to have a lot more fun, and you’d think they’d see through her a little more easily, but she simply uses the excuse that she sees the world differently now that she’s been on the other side, which is a good one. But when she realizes that the guy who retrieved the box is deaf, and he’s seen too much, she coldly shoots him in the back of the head the way George does Lenny in Of Mice and Men… actually, even differently than that, because George had a conscience about it.
The scene in the subway tunnel was filled with suspense, and the idea of rendering Peter momentarily deaf by shooting off a gun near his ears was brilliant, if rather risky – he could have permanently damaged his hearing that way. But knowing that putting the machine in Peter’s hands was Bolivia’s plan all along was eerie… it’s going to be an interesting season! Will this be like Sydney Bristow collecting the Rambaldi artifacts all over again?
The end of the episode, where we see that Walter has made a new acquisition, promises a new direction for the show. Here’s hoping Walter keeps that lab at Harvard.
Highlights: • “Who’s Bow-no?” LOL!!! And yes, Bolivia, he IS easy on the eyes. And he’s mine. • Walter trying to get the cow to make chocolate milk. HAHA!! • Walter suggesting the buried treasure had legs of its own. “Wouldn’t that be delightful?” • “Lookit my brain waves on the monitor-o!” I don’t know what was funnier: Walter singing different words to Mozart, or switching it to the Miami Vice theme! • “Silent but deadly… speaking of which, you might want to take a step away.” • The little man’s head exploding made both my husband and I jump at the same time, and it’s got to be one of the most disgusting and shocking things they’ve done on the show. • Peter: “At this point would anything surprise you?” Walter: “Bacon-flavored pudding. Now THAT would surprise me.” • Walter outside the subway station: “I frequented a massage parlor just around the corner. I used to get off right here!” Peter: “Sure hope you’re talking about the station, Walter.” • My husband totally called what Bell left Walter… I just had to say that. The moment he opened his envelope my husband said, “He left him Massive Dynamic, didn’t he?”
Where’s Baldo?: I missed the Observer AGAIN. That’s it: next week I’m recording this in high def. Last week it turns out he was just on the edge of the screen when Olivia was in the park. Update: Just saw a screencap on another site that had the Observer walking down to the stairs into the station just as Thomas was leaving it. He's way off to the one side, which makes me think my non-high def recording of it cut him off.
Glyph (before each commercial break, there's a glyph that appears, and it corresponds with a letter of the alphabet, spelling out a five-letter word): This week's glyphs spelled out ALERT.
Did You Notice?: • When Patsy Cline started playing in the bar, was anyone else wondering if Kate would suddenly appear? • At the reading of the will, the executor reads the quote, “Life is joy, death is peace. It’s the transition that is difficult.” This is a paraphrasing of the famous quote by Isaac Asimov. Bell refers to “Isaac” as his “great friend,” and in an episode last season Walter referred to Asimov as a friend of his as well. • Interesting that Bell says that Nina was his right hand and she was his, when it’s actually her left hand that’s missing. • When Bolivia went into the alleyway, there was graffiti on the wall that said, “The Pen Is Mightier.” • When Thomas Jerome Newton (I still LOVE that he’s named after David Bowie’s character in The Man Who Fell to Earth) asks the guy if he can watch his box for him, the guy says, “Will there be renumeration?” instead of “remuneration.”
Questions: • So what did Bell leave to Nina? She opens the envelope and looks in, and looks surprised. Did he tell her that he was leaving Massive Dynamic to Walter? Were there instructions on how she was supposed to continue to oversee his activities? Was it an invitation for her to come to the other side to meet him?
I didn't post on this right away, simply because I was too broken up about it. If you're behind on Season 4 of Mad Men, then I suggest you turn away now and don't look below to avoid a major spoiler of the season. But without saying too much more, I think season 4 has been the best season to date. It's taken all of the threads of the previous seasons and weaved them together beautifully. (Seeing Don have a full-on panic attack this week was frightening and amazing.)
But all that aside, what happened last week was shocking, just as I was starting to realize who my favourite character on TV of the moment was. I was literally sitting on the couch with a pad of paper on my desk, thinking, "I'm gonna write a haiku as a tribute to her." And then... she was gone.
RIP, Miss Blankenship.
Your time on the show was too short, and your loud voice rattling into Don's office delighted me every time. You died as you lived... surrounded by the people you answered phones for.
Mostly, I write about television, and with this being the home of the Great Buffy Rewatch of 2011, a lot of that television is Joss Whedon-related (when it's not about Lost). Stick around if you love Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Sherlock, Lost, BtVS, Doctor Who, or anything on HBO.
I've published companion guides to Xena, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Alias, and Lost through ECW Press, and my latest book is "Finding Lost — Season Six: The Unofficial Guide." Currently, I love Revenge, Community, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead... actually, pretty much everything on HBO or AMC.
Welcome to the home of the Great Buffy Rewatch of 2011, where every Tuesday night we convened to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer from season 1 to the end. I was joined by over 25 guest commentators and Buffy scholars who helped me lead you through the watch, offering non-spoilery discussion for the new watchers as well as spoiler-filled discussions for the rewatchers. The entire Rewatch can be found in the archives here, listed by week and contributor. Go here for the full 2011 schedule, and here to see the list of amazing contributors. And be sure to pick up my book, Bite Me, a complete episode by episode guide to the series!
