LOST: Final Season Premiere

It's official, the premiere of the final season of LOST has been announced as Feb. 2, 2010 at 8/7c. Looking forward to the discussion that will follow!!

15 Must-Answer Mysteries

EW's "Lost: 15 Must-Answer Mysteries" is a fun little photo article to look at. Harks back to some storylines I forgot about (like Adam and Eve) and reaffirms that other fans are wondering the same thing as me (seriously, eyeliner or what?).

So do you agree on what the other fans voted on? The only one I really don't agree on is #14. I cared when it happened, but I'll live if we never find out what was behind that...

5.16&17: The Incident pts. 1&2

Robetron had it right in the last post's comments, wow wow and WOW that was one hell of a finale!! I don't have time to write up a proper recap but wanted to get the post up here so people could start chatting about it.

Soooo many new questions...now we know Jacob is (was) a real "person" and Locke really did intend to kill him...but who is Locke?!? With his body still in its coffin, how is Locke walking around alive and well? And was he in the first place back on the beach w/ Jacob hundreds of years ago?

We now know the "incident" was not caused by the bomb, the incredible magnetic energy was unleashed before it went off (though Miles made me question whether that would happen). Now that Juliette successfully detonated the bomb, what's going to happen?!?

5.15: Follow the Leader

Sorry for the delay folks, let's get to it!

Right off the bat I'll put my foot out there and say that the 70s Losties are not going to change the future. My theory is based on a couple reasons, but mostly because of what we've seen happen since Dan started trying to alter events. The biggest is him telling Dr. Chang that he's from the future and Miles is his son, thus getting Chang to trust Miles' recommendation to evacuate the Island. We see the only way he can get his wife and baby Miles to leave is to order them (quite harshly) to leave, thus resulting in his mother's hatred of his father and Chang's abandoment of them. This wouldn't have happened in Miles' past if Dan hadn't told Change to evacuate everyone, so I don't see Dan's actions affecting the future. Any Devil's advocates out there?? :)

As for Richard's comment about watching the Losties die, yeah I'm pretty intrigued by that...John saving himself was pretty cool, definitely didn't see that coming. It's interesting how he likes to twist the knife into Ben everytime he experiences something from the Island "what, the Island never told you things Ben?" I'm also very interested to hear why John wants to kill Jacob.

The situation w/ Jack and Kate is hard, Jack's not even thinking about the life he'd be sending Kate back to if 815 lands as planned; convicted and jailed by her own mother. Not to mention the non existance of their relationship, which you can tell really hurt Kate. Juliette's instant wave of jealousy everytime she sees Kate is getting a little old, like on the sub, where's the confident unshakable Juliette we've known the last couple years?

So the finale is two hours which I guess techinically gives us 17 episodes? One word, stingy, but this season is arguably the best one yet IMO, so I guess I can't be too whiny. :)

p.s. hope you like the new layout, the reversed out text was a bit hard to read...

5.14: The Variable

What an awesome episode!! There were many questions answered, but of course, even more were raised. Let's start with what we now know:

Eloise is in fact Dan's mom, I know I was one of the doubters of that being true. She also is the young Ellie we met on the Island in 1954. What I never saw coming is that Widmore is his dad! That was a major surprise, but it makes me wonder where he got the name "Faraday" from...

Dan did some kind of experimentation on himself for his research before he tried anything on Theresa, which evidently caused him to have a memory disorder (think Momento but not as extreme). As Widmore promised, the Island seems to have cured him.

Widmore was the one who planted the fake Oceanic 815 plane at the bottom of the ocean. Do you think his reason for doing that was just so he could make sure Dan got to go to the Island?

Desmond is going to be ok, whew! :)

Dan's further research has led him to believe that you can, in fact, change the past, which could result in changing the present/future. Evidently "humans" are the variable he hadn't considered before, so he thinks that if he can detonate the buried hydrogen bomb (to destroy the immense magnetic energy of the Island), this will negate anything that happened from that point on, including the 815 crash. We haven't seen anything to prove he's right, though, and we know that Eloise knew she was going to shoot her son back in time from what she said to Widmore about sacrifice. She could have easily told Dan not to go to the Others w/ a gun, therefore her past self would have had no reason to shoot him, so why didn't she? And why did he insist on talking to Eloise in the first place?

So now what? Are Jack and Kate going to try and do what Dan wanted and blow up the bomb? Neither one of them looked that excited about the idea of erasing the past. What would happen to them and the other Losties if it worked?

Other random questions, how is it no one ever mentions anything about Richard never aging? You'd think the Others would have realized it, there must be something about him connected to the Island. Why does Dan think his mom was wrong about Jack and Kate and the rest going back to the Island?

5.13: Some Like It Hoth

Blogger Robetron noted that this was a slow episode, which I agree with, but still fairly interesting. I like Miles, I think he's a good character (and well casted) and I liked learning more about him. More kudos are doled out to those of you that guessed Miles is Dr. Chang's son. I like that he knew all this time and didn't tell anyone until Hurley. I figured there would be this big "to do" if that theory of him being the doc's kid was true and he'd find out in some dramatic moment. It was a amusingly unexpected when he revealed the truth w/ the same drama as telling Hurley the weather forecast.

It's obvious from the few scenes we've witnessed that Dr. Chang loves his son and wife very much, so I'm very curious to find out what separates them and causes Miles' mom to hate the very memory of his father.

So who do you think grabbed Miles in the van? If they are against Widmore does that mean they work for Ben? The way that guy talked to Miles sounded like he was trying to sell him on some new spiritual faith or something. Then the phrase from last week comes up: What lies in the shadow of the statue. How would Sayid's bounty hunter lady know that phrase?

And we finally see the return of Dan. I didn't catch what Dr. Chang said about him other than there was a scientist returning. From the way Sawyer referred to him it sounded like Dan betrayed them in some way. Well we have 2 weeks to ponder that...

5.12: Dead Is Dead

Well, I think this is one of the, if not the most, strangest episodes of Lost in my memory. We learned more about Ben's true nature than we've ever seen before IMO. We saw more evidence of him being a pathological liar. It amazed me to hear all of the lies he spewed to so many people, whether it was about knowing John to Ceasar, or telling Sun he had no idea Locke would come back to life. I find it rather interesting that he has a soft spot for children, which is what ended up saving Penny's life. I don't get, though, why he stole Alex when his "mission" was to kill Danielle. I always figured the Others wanted her baby because it was successfully born on the Island, come to find out their leader at the time (Widmore) wanted to kill "it." I can't see how Widmore could ever really be a "good guy" now, he wanted to let young Ben die and wanted to kill an innocent baby, seems pretty cold and heartless to me. 

I don't understand at all why the Smoke Monster would let Ben live. He's the most selfish and conniving character we've seen on the show, and I don't believe his true motive for what he does is for the "good of the Island." The flashes of his life in the smoke were a little cheesy, but he was definitely tortured by the memory of Alex and how his selfishness led to her death. Whether it was her ghost or the spirit of the Island acting through her, I liked her confrontation of Ben's intentions, plus it was nice to see her character again (probably the only other human Ben's ever really loved). Her message proves Locke's importance to the Island, which I found fulfilling in a way since John has been let down by everyone and everything he ever cared about in his past life. It's good to know his belief that he belongs there isn't unfounded.

5.11: Whatever Happened, Happened

So, yeah, y'all were right that little Ben's still alive. Arg.

I like that we're finding out what led to the Foundies being on that Guam-bound plane. In all my guesses about what happened to Kate, though, I never thought about her willingly giving up Aaron. I liked the return of Cassie's character, her ability to read right through and become friends w/ Kate. That scene with her saying goodbye to Aaron was definitely a tearjerker.

Back on the Island, I never would have expected Jack to outright refuse to save little Ben's life. That seems sort of contrary to his character, though I can understand his reasons. Taking Ben to the Others seemed like an odd out-of-the-blue solution to me. What do you think Richard's going to do to him to make him "lose his innocence" and "become one of them"?

I don't really have much more to say about this episode...it was interesting but didn't pack the punch the last few have. The preview for next week looked quite intriguing though...

5.10: He's Our You

WOW, WOW, WOW, my jaw about hit the floor at the end of last night's episode, I can't believe that actually happened!! This is the first episode this season that hearkens back to showing flashbacks of a character's past. It was interesting seeing Sayid as a kid, his nature seems much as it is today: he's a killer, but with the best intentions.

I really couldn't tell where this episode was heading until the end. When Sayid told James he had "found his purpose" in coming back to the island, I thought he meant getting killed in a shooting line would be a relief for him. But we saw throughout the episode the different ways Ben manipulated Sayid and others to his will and realizing the murders Ben had Sayid commit were only for the purpose of later forcing him to go back to the Island. It was funny that he asked the bounty hunter if they could catch the next plane after realizing all the Foundies were there.

I love that I didn't figure out who sent the burning bus until seeing young Ben creep out from the shadows. It just shows that even at the age of 12 he didn't care how many people he hurt or killed as long as he got his way. I had no idea what Sayid was up to when he knocked out Jin, only when he picked up the gun and admitted Ben was right about him being a killer did I start thinking "OMG he's gonna shoot the kid!" And he did, though you could tell it broke his heart to do it.

So what you think?? Does this change EVERYTHING that we know happens in the future? What will happen to current-Ben? Will the Dharmaites live or be wiped out by another traitor/Hostile?

5.09: Namaste

Wow, so many questions from this episode… Why wasn’t Sun sent back in time w/ the other Losties from the plane? Is she too jaded/semi-bad now for the Island to “want” her? Not that Ben didn’t deserve the conk over the head she gave him… How is it possible for her and Frank, Ben and the others to be on the same island in a different time period? How can the Island exist in two time periods at once??

I don’t know about y’all but it’s so odd seeing Sawyer/James/Jim/LaFleur as the leader, the go-to guy who figures things out. I liked that he called Jack out on the book thing toward the end, but that definitely shows that he still has quite a bit of hostility built up toward Jack. The awkwardness now between Sawyer and Juliet is hard to watch, sad considering how happy they seemed in the last episode.

How great was the end with Ben bringing Sayid his sandwich?! It took a second for me to realize it was young-Ben after hearing his pre-pubescent voice saying he was dropping off the sandwich. Poor Sayid, he has no freakin’ clue what’s going on, but he must have figured out he was back in time w/ the Dharma Initiative, and put two-and-two together when the kid said his name.

So now we have some perspective on the amount of time the Dharma folks have left. Ben was an adult when he gassed them all to death, so they prob still have a good 5-8 years left. I was wondering about the Dharma facilities Sun and Frank found and why they were so trashed since we saw the Others living in them comfortably. My friend suggested maybe the folks in Dharma-time change something in the future, or, she also reminded me about the freighter soldiers who were blowing houses up, maybe that’s how they left it…does anyone remember?

5.08: LaFleur

I thought this was a great episode and VERY interesting for many reasons. One of the biggest tidbits we learned blew my assumption I've been going on since last season that the people back on the Island did not experience the same three year absence that the Losties back in civilization did. It seems now that the only person who skipped the three-year difference is Locke.

Not only did the Islanders live those 3 years, they lived them around 1974 as members of the Dharma Initiative. In the previous post's comments, Robetron made some excellent observations of timing and events we've already seen (I'll copy his post into this comment section). First off THANK YOU for remembering that Horace was the dead guy in the woods Locke met. I KNEW I recognized him but couldn't place from where. Robetron also notes Robert's scraggly appearance when he meets Ben as a child as compared to looking like he stepped out of a J. Crew catalog when he confronts Horace, meaning that Ben is probably already on the Island and somehow working w/ the Others. I too remember noticing how clean cut Robert looked in this episode and wondered where the Others were living since they weren't yet in the Dharma facilities. Also interesting to see Amy successfully give birth (w/ Juliette's help) to a son...something the Others never were able to do. What happened between then and now that makes all the babies and moms die?

I think we all had guessed Sawyer and Juliette would hook up, but it was interesting to see the changes in his character. He really seems to care about these people, Amy, Horace, and his love for Juliette has brought out a sweet side of him we've never seen before. They truely seem happy together, I'm honestly a little sad to know that will be screwed with by the "Foundies" return (hehe I like that name). It will be strange for Juliette too given her past feelings for Jack.

As for past references to LaFleur, googling "Lost Lafleur" obviously gets us nowhere since that was the title of this episode, so that's all that comes up. Does anyone remember a past reference?

Just one final note, I was irritated we never learned why the Others shot Paul and were going to shoot Amy. Supposedly Sawyer and Juliette killing the shooters broke the "truce" between Dharma and the Others, but doesn't shooting an innocent couple who looked to be out for a pinic also break that truce? Why did no one bring that up??

5.07: The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham

Well this is an interesting twist...so is Widmore actually a "good" guy??

It took me a bit to remember who the woman was questioning Locke on the beach, she was the cop who had Sayid in custody on the plane. So now we know that the 316 plane did in fact crash (because there are wounded survivors) and the Losties actually disappeared off of the jet when the white light occurred. Interesting that Ben is among the injured survivors and did not disappear with them...I guess that the Island only took peacefully the ones it really wanted. Like many of you guessed it would, the Island brought John back to life. It seems he is definitely meant to be there.

In the flashbacks we see Locke rescued by Widmore, who's now being portrayed much more friendly and pleasant than in the past. When Locke can't decide if he should trust him, Charles puts it plainly that he's never tried to kill John, something he can't say about Ben. Locke's interaction w/ Walt was the most interesting to me. Walt forsees in his dreams Locke on a beach in a suit surrounded by people who want to hurt him. I wonder what people those are? I wouldn't think the other crash survivors have anything against him. I'm assuming when he confronts Ben he'll just be like "oh I knew the Island would bring you back to life" or some crap like that.

Anyway, the driver getting shot was definitely a surprise, I figured it was Ben who pulled the trigger. As the scene in the motel room developed I guessed Ben would end up killing Locke, but it doesn't make sense to me why he tried to save him in the first place. And why did John fall for it?? Did he forget how Ben shot and left him for dead in the pit of Dharma corpses? It was an interesting twist though since last week it seemed he went through with the suicide with the note for Jack and everything.

What I'm still trying to figure out, though, is if Ben and Widmore are at war with each other, why did they both have the agenda of getting the Losties back to the island? Why did Ben pick up where Locke gave up and left off?

5.06: 316

Ya know what's funny, I didn't get to see Lost yesterday (recorded it) and was just saying to my coworker today how I enjoy TV episodes and movies that start out in the present/future with a scene and you have no idea what's going on (a la Alias - Truth Be Told), then they take you back and build up to that scene for the rest of the episode. We were chatting about Pulp Fiction which is what prompted that thought...and here again we have another example of this, beginning with the Lost trademark eye-opening closeup shot of Jack. The camera zooms out and we see that yes he is, again, on The Island. I went through that whole scene thinking it was Jack dreaming up until Kate asked "did it work? are we back?" or something like that.

One of the many things that interests me about the scene at the Dharma's Lightpost was that the gray-haired lady never actually admitted to being Dan's mom. She reacted when Des mentioned Daniel Faraday but she never referred to him as her son, she only said that she is "helping" as Dan asked. Might be nothing, just something that struck me...

Funny how both times Jack was tempted by the drink he had some sort of distraction to take him away from it. First was a never-before-mentioned granddad (nice for us Alias fans to see Lauren Reed's dad again ;-)), second was a distraught (but evidently horny) Kate on his bed. So here are the major questions raised from this eppy:

1. What happened to Aaron to make Kate want to go back to the island?
2. What chewed up Ben and broke his arm (did it have to do w/ Kate)?
3. What brought Sayid (who looked to be in custody) and Hurley to the airport and how did they know about flight 316 to Guam (and did it have to do w/ Ben...I'm sure it did...)
4. What happened to the plane and the rest of the non-Lostie passengers?
5. Last but certainly not least, what the hell was Jin doing in the new Dharma van in Dharma clothes?? I'm guessing this means they're back in the Dharma time of The Island...

5.05: This Place is Death

At long last, we see the return of the Smoke Monster! Well sort of...technically it happened in the past...but you know what I mean. I don't remember the last time we saw the SM, do you? Poor Danielle, man did she draw the short end of the stick. Friends being killed and dismembered by SM, then the ones left alive become brainwashed or "sick" as she called them. We definitely know for sure now that she wasn't making that up, since we witnessed w/ Jin her partner declaring his love for her, then trying to put a bullet between her eyes.

The reunion of Jin and Sawyer was cute, that was quite the genuine joy man-hug. :) So we finally got some answers about Charlotte's past, which should have been the tip-off that she was going to die. We never seem to learn any juicy details about anyone until the episode the character dies (remember Shannon?) Anyway, so Charlotte was raised as a child on the island, then ordered to leave and made to think she was crazy and had made up the island by her mom...nice mom. She said there was a "scary man" who told her to never come back or she'd die, and that man evidently was Dan. We know he goes back to Dharma time, we saw that briefly in the season opener. I'm guessing the next time flash will take them back to the Dharma period, and he'll see her as a child and scare the crap out of her then.

The interaction between Locke and Christian was...weird...not sure what else to say about that. Locke obviously doesn't keep his word to Jin by telling Ben that he's still alive and giving him Jin's ring. That was an interesting outburst from Ben in the van, he always remains so calm. I wonder if we'll ever find out "what he's done" to keep our Losties safe...from whom, Widmore? Thoughts?

5.04: The Little Prince

Huh...I totally don't get why this episode was called that, do you? Anyway, I'm in a time crunch and wish I had more time to blog because this was an awesome episode!! Quick comments/questions:
- What do you think is causing the nosebleeds among only some of the Island Losties? We know length of time on the island doesn't cause it cuz the newbies are affected and so is Juliette...
- who is sending people to kill Sayid from Kate's address?
- how awesome was Sawyer, it totally tore at my heartstrings to see the way he looked at past-Kate...
- Was it Robby who knew it was Ben trying to get Aaron from Kate? Awesome foresight there!!
- I/WE TOTALLY CALLED IT THAT JIN'S ALIVE!!! THAT WAS FREAKIN AWESOME!!
- I knew it was Danielle's boat when we saw the writing in French (yeah, dead giveaway)

Ok folks I'm out of town this weekend, have at it!!

5.03: Jughead

This was a great episode...granted I'm a little biased as a fan of Des, but there were many *gasp!* moments and little nuggets of info spread throughout. It was fun to find out Des and Pen have a son together (in prob the quickest birth ever documented), and there's the "aww" factor at him being named Charlie. :) It's odd Dan told him to find his mom at Oxford, I know Robetron suggested the theory that the woman from the jewelry store/church is Dan's mom and I think that's looking more probable now that we know she's in L.A. What do you suppose happened to the woman Des visited? Interesting to find out Widmore was funding Dan's research, and we knew he was testing it on mice/rats, but do you think he tried to send that woman through time and it screwed up her brain? Kudos to Des for having the balls to walk in on Widmore and confront him about it, though it seems out of character for Wid to just hand over that woman's address...there must be a catch...

Cute that Dan professed his love for Charlotte...not so cute that she ended the show w/ her brain hemorrhaging. I wonder why she's been affected by the time travel and none of the others have? With Locke we now have the chicken-and-the-egg scenario with Richard visiting him as a child, and seeing John tell him to do that two years before he was born. I don't really remember what happened when he visited other than showing him some objects and then abruptly leaving, anyone else remember something significant? I love that the edgy little brit-Other turned out to be Widmore, that dude is everywhere! But now we know he WAS on the island at some point...

One sidenote to end on, I didn't even notice that we didn't see Jack or Kate during this episode until I saw the preview for next week. It's definitely a credit to the writers to have created so much interest in SO many characters that you don't even notice when you don't see some of the main ones.