snowystingray | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Would you look at that? I'm finally posting about Lost! (The post brought to you by the fact that I should be sewing buttonholes at the moment, but -- have you ever tried sewing buttonholes by hand? Fact: IT IS A PAAAAIN IN THE ASS; in this case, a pain in the ass x8.) Also, I just listened to/watched the new podcasts (NEW PODCASTS NEW PODCASTS NEW PODCASTS!!!) and I feel they are urging me forward.

So! Things about "LA X"! Mostly:

WHAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT OMG OMG OMG OMG.

Man, I know I do this every year, but it's just so hard for my brain to adjust to FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY WATCHING A NEW EPIOSDE, OMG FINALLY -- and then by the time that sinks in, I have to go back and grapple with the actual events themselves and then just sink into a puddle of confusion and anguish and love and drama. So, apologies -- even though I've had several days to think about this episode, rewatch it, discuss it with others... this post probably still lacks a good deal of coherency. Thoughts Wot I Had:

-I know I just finished rewatching the entire series from start to finish, but... I kind of want to do it again. All of this "back to the beginning" stuff is giving me S1 hankerings; and I am dying to rewatch all of the big monster showdowns in light of the Smokey/MIB reveal (HOW DOES ANYTHING MAKE SENSE ANY MORE? AUUUGHHH).

-Kate/Miles new crackship Y/Y?

-Okay, I'm just as crushed about Juliet's death (and death again and death again and...), but Sawyer's whole, "I WILL KILL YOU JACK!!!1!!!1!!! EMO PAIN!!!!!" was so tiresome. Really? You're going to kill Jack? Because that will solve... what, exactly? I know you need a scapegoat for your pain, but whatever. Or maybe I'm just bitter from my jilted Jawyer feelings and REALLY GUYS REALLY DO WE NEED TO FEUD OVER THIS, TOO? It was Juliet's choice to go to the Swan site, if I recall correctly, so yes it sucks but lets lay off on the you-did-it-no-you-did-it nonsense.

-Oh, Kate/Marshal, how I have missed you.

-ARZT! FROGURT! I hope they stick around. (Also mild spoiler but on the podcast Damon mentioned that Frogurt would be in more episodes? PLEASE BE TRUE AND NOT JUST A JOKEY TEASE.) Kate/Frogurt NEW new crackship Y/Y? Why am I suddenly shipping Kate/Everybody?

-Hurley/Sawyer on the plane! YES MY OTP LIVES ON!!! -- unless Sawyer ends up conning Hurley, in which case I WILL MURDER SAWYER THROUGH THE TV SCREEN because clearly they are meant to be BFF in all realities.

-Other plane OTPs: Boone/Locke, AKA Bocke: Original Flavor. Remember those days? Those were good days.

-Still don't care about Charlie. Whoops. Whatever.

-So this whole Sun/"Ms. Paik" business -- are she and Jin not married yet? Divorced? Never romantically affiliated in the first place? Is he an escort on behalf of her father? Does she really not speak English? ????????

-Okay, I guess I'm just getting all of my new-2004-universe stuff out of the way at this point... So a quick who's dead/who's alive list from those affected by the bomb/anomaly/whatever in '77:
DEAD
-Basically all of the Others, so this would include Ms. Hawking and Widmore, which by extension would include Faraday (I'm still on the fence about Penny, though)
-In addition to the Dharmafolks we already saw die (poor Phil...) -- Radzinsky and his nameless goons, Chang, probably Horace (?? I can't remember if he was on/off island? Probably on...)
ALIVE
-Dharma women/children (?? Was the sub the only way they were getting people off the island? So however many were on there...)
-EZRA JAMES SHARKINGTON, FUCK YEAH
-Like EVERYONE who died from 815, geez -- Frogurt, Arzt, Charlie, Shannon, Boone, Nikki, Paulo, Scott, Steve, Locke, Eko, Libby, Ana Lucia, Greg Grunberg, Eddie Mars, the list goes on...
IDK
-Richard? Is he immortal, or just ageless?
-Penny? Is she older/younger than Faraday?
-Ben? I... I actually have no argument for why he might still be alive, other than the fact that I NEED HIM TO BE so there.
-Danielle & co.?
-Yemi's plane? Could they have survived if they crashed in the water instead of on the island?

-Okay, back to 2007... Poor Ben, gosh. :( I was really curious to see the fall-out for him from the whole "What about you?" CRUSHING REALIZATION, and and and ohhhh is he not the most sad pathetic lost little thing in the world? The small "but he kind of deserves it" part of my brain LOVED the whole scene with Not!Locke's rant on how pitiful, manipulated, and pointless Locke's whole life was, though, because on the one hand -- SERIOUSLY, SHUT YOUR MOUTH, I DO NOT NEED TO HEAR YOUR SMACK TALK -- but on the other, watching Ben listen to that, and realize that he has been played just as thoroughly, makes me long for some juicy character vindication to come out of this. Ben was just so child-like and out of it, though -- hiding in the corner, shrinking from his "elders," getting dragged around by the elbow by Richard... I do wonder where this is all leading to for him.

-So. Yeah. Not!Locke. I REALLY FUCKING HATED HIM in "The Incident" for, well, obvious reasons -- like STEALING LOCKE'S LIFE/BODY and making sure that he knew he "had" to die and cheating us out of proper Locke leadership -- but I have to admit that I am kind of digging him at the moment. First: TERRY IS SO AWESOME, UGH, SHIVERS DOWN MY SPINE. He got all the best lines, too: "I'm sorry you had to see me like that." "Let's not resort to name-calling." Smokey laying waste to Jacob's men (??if that's what they are??) was really cool, too (ha, sorry Bram -- I HATE YOU SO MUCH -- I might possibly have given an evil chuckle when Smokey knocked him out of his ring of ash). I don't really like the idea of an Ultimate Good vs. Ultimate Evil showdown this season, and I hope it's more nuanced than that... but? I think I might be team MIB? I DON'T KNOW, I DON'T KNOW. Jacob just gives me the creeps. I feel like I need to reevaluate EVERY SINGLE APPEARANCE OF THE SMOKE MONSTER up to this point, though, because... whaaaat... this just completely throws me for a loop. Like--
-so Smokey/MIB = one and the same, yes?
-and we've long assumed that dead folks on the island = Smokey, yes?
-but what about the dead folks that Hurley sees? Are they different? Associated with Jacob, perhaps?
-but when Hurley is seeing the dead folks at Santa Rosa, one them gives him a message for Jack that he will soon be visited, which is when Jack then sees Christian at work (and the smoke detector goes off) -- so are they the same, then? They're all trying to get them back on the island, so I guess they're the same after all...
-but I've always assumed that Christian is different from the other apparitions: he's appeared to many characters, on- and off-island, and we still don't know what happened to the body in the coffin (whereas with John we have John's body AND Smokey-as-John in the same place). And what about that whole, "I can speak on his [Jacob's] behalf"? Was that just a put-on? Was "hellllp meee" the real Jacob? But then how was Christian in the cabin if he was Smokey? Or was the ash ring already disrupted long before "The Incident"? And if MIB was upset with Jacob for continually bringing people to the island, then why did MIB apparently spend all of S5 attempting to bring the O6 back to the island? Is it just part of some "final reckoning" or something? If the Others answer to Jacob, then why do they go to the smoke monster to be judged? (I guess I can see the Others' being able to summon Smokey as maybe part of his servitude or something...? Which could explain part of why he hates Jacob -- like he's bonded to the island/weird Other-y things against his will? I still don't get the judging, though! !!!!)
-CONFUSION!

-This is completely unrelated to anything in the episode, but what the heck is up with Olivia? (This question will never be answered on the show, I know.)

-Temple stuff:
-Others!Cindy looks badass. I hope we see more of her. (Advantage to bringing people back from previous seasons? The less-prominent actors were probably the easiest to get, and the minor characters are always my favorite so YAYAYAYAYAY.)
-Kate/Sawyer love theme: DNW.
-Dogen is my new Lost boyfriend.

Oh yyyyeah. PLEASE STICK AROUND ♥FOREVER♥
-I don't like the theory that Sayid is Jacob. Please be false. I don't like other people to be walking around in my characters' bodies, okay?

-THAT JACK/LOCKE SCENE JUST MADE MY WHOLE LIFE. If Lost can be this heartwarming when it wants to be, why does it choose instead to break my heart on a regular basis?

-Also, why am I still shipping this?

Please tell me it's not just me, so I can stop feeling guilty.

-And just to get it out of the way -- I really love Jack. :( Okay the less said about that the better.

:( :( :(

-Oh, ABC, you and your weird promo pictures...

...I really have nothing intelligent to say about this show, do I? Apologies. :/

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I WILL KILL YOU JACK!!!1!!!1!!! EMO PAIN!!!!!" was so tiresome.

Yes, it really was.

I was kind of absurdly gleeful about Boone and Locke.

The 'well, serves you right' bit of my brain balanced out the bit that felt sorry for the entire meaning of Ben's life being bullshit so I'm afraid I was mostly amused by his continual 'wtf' expression. Mainly because EVERYONE IN THE AUDIENCE WAS FEELING LIKE THAT. It's silly that I don't hate Ben and yet want to punch Flocke every time he's on screen, because *Ben* was the murderer, but being the manipulator seems so much crueller.

Christian has always made massive massive alarm bells go off in my head, just like Flocke does now...I always assumed he was a baddie somehow stopping Jacob communicating. But yeah, how was he in the cabin if the baddie is the Something Nasty.

I really love Jack too. It's ok. :-P

It's silly that I don't hate Ben and yet want to punch Flocke every time he's on screen, because *Ben* was the murderer, but being the manipulator seems so much crueller.

Yes, exactly -- and then thinking in retrospect how far back that manipulation goes for Locke on the island, too; every time he had a vision or a revelation or an experience that made him feel "special" or "chosen"? Was that all orchestrated? (I went back and forth a lot on how I felt about this with episodes like "Cabin Fever," where it seems like everything in his life is decided for him -- but then I loved a lot of the stuff in S5 with John seemingly initiating action himself when he first encounters Richard in 1956. But then that compass--! If Not!Locke was the one who gave it to Richard in 2007 who then gave it to TimeTravelingLocke along with the "you have to die" message which then prompted pretty much the rest of his leadership journey... how much agency did Locke ever have? NONE? AUUUGHHHH BASTARDS. I think in a weird way, though, this is why I kind of have to be Team MIB at the moment to cope with my mental state, because maybe he did have some larger investment in Locke, if it really goes back that far...? And yet it doesn't seem likely, given all of the derisive things he's said about John. Bleargh. I don't know. MIB/Jacob has to be something more than the battle of the puppetmasters, but at this point... yeah. Ben is looking like a pretty good audience proxy, funnily enough. Actually I was just watching "The Man Behind the Curtain" commentary today with Damon/Carlton/Emerson, and UGH THE HORRIBLE TRAGIC IRONY all over that episode as Ben and Locke duke it out for who is "more special" to the island... :( :( Seriously, Jacob and Nemesis -- FORGET BOTH OF Y'ALL. JERKS.)

Like I said, for whatever reason Jacob actually creeps me out more than Christian/MIB... but what you say about Christian(/Smokey?) stopping Jacob from communicating seems to make sense. It does beg the question of how he had that control over Jacob, then, and what exactly the power dynamics of that relationship are (and, again, more interesting things from TMBtC commentary -- during the cabin scenes, Carlton makes a comment about how this shows the duality of where Jacob has control over Ben and where Ben has control over Jacob, like maybe Ben/the Others have something to do with why Jacob is seemingly confined to the cabin? I don't know if that was a throwaway idea that has been abandoned/diverged from in the intervening seasons, though. But you do have to wonder... so, in "The Incident," Ben admits to Locke that he was just pretending to see Jacob in the cabin -- so I can see Ben taking Locke there to put on a show, but... why would he go there to "see" Jacob any other time, then (presumably on his own)? Did he know (maybe from Richard or somebody) that something was supposed to be happening there? And if the cabin wasn't built until Horace's time, so presumably not abandoned until the Purge, it had only fairly recently (i.e. the time of Ben's involvement/leadership with the Others) been converted to a "conduit of communication" for Jacob, so whose decision was that? I guess Richard's...? How many question marks can I use in one comment???? I just find it ironic that -- you know, before 6.01 I wasn't even that invested in the smoke monster, and would kind of roll my eyes at everybody who was like, "THEY'D BETTER EXPLAIN THE SMOKE MONSTER!!" because I always felt it was the kind of thing you shouldn't just "explain" because it would kind of kill it... except as soon as they give us a giant hunk of information clearing up the nature/motivations of the smoke monster, I am suddenly BURSTING AT THE SEAMS with questions. Uggggghhhhhhh this show.)

Sawyer's whole, "I WILL KILL YOU JACK!!!1!!!1!!! EMO PAIN!!!!!" was so tiresome.

x2. Or 3, because the person above agrees, too. It just didn't fit in, somehow, and seemed very forced and yawnorific. (that is, in fact, a word-- look it up. I dare you.)

-Other plane OTPs: Boone/Locke, AKA Bocke: Original Flavor. Remember those days? Those were good days.

x3 again! The two of them have such randomly good chemistry.

-Like EVERYONE who died from 815, geez -- Frogurt, Arzt, Charlie, Shannon, Boone, Nikki, Paulo, Scott, Steve, Locke, Eko, Libby, Ana Lucia, Greg Grunberg, Eddie Mars, the list goes on...

OMG if all those people are alive I will NOT be able to pull myself away from the computer screen. Shannon??? Boone??? Libby??? Ana Lucia???!!! (surely they won't bother to bring back Nikki and Paulo, though, right?)

OTOH, if Penny isn't alive, then... frak it. I will boycott the show forever.

Still don't care about Charlie. Whoops. Whatever.

OMG I'M NOT ALONE. THANK GOD.

It just didn't fit in, somehow, and seemed very forced and yawnorific.
It seemed even more out of place because we should have been sympathizing with him -- his grand lady love has just died in a horrific manner, and I'm sure there are more than a few Juliet fans in the audience (RIGHT HERE) and instead I was like... dude. Chill.

Gosh, so many of my favorite S1 moments were Boone/Locke ones. I think part of it is just because I miss that Locke -- cooky and confident and capable -- and all of the randomly, weirdly awesome stuff he would say (the whole "sto lavorando" anecdote, calling Kirk a "piss-poor captain," etc. etc.). And "Hearts and Minds"? BRILLIANCE. (Okay okay, so that's a Boone/Shannon ep, but there's plenty of Boone/Locke, too. "I felt... relieved," still gives me goose-bumps every time I watch it.)

Ahahahaha, I would LOL FROM HERE TO ETERNITY if they brought Nikki and Paulo back. Maybe somebody'll have Expose on TV in the background or something.

I am so so so worried about Penny not being alive in the new timeline. It seems like she HAS to be older than 27 in 2004, but then is she really supposed to be older than Jeremy Davies? Augh, character/actor age is killing me.

Addendum: it just occurred to me why Sawyer's rage grated -- when I first watched S5, I totally got into Sawyer/Juliet's happy Dharma life and sympathized with their desire to hold onto it (because, really, they lived with the Dharmaites like ten times longer than they did with the 815ers, so I can understand their attachment) -- but at the same time it's also a really selfish perspective for everybody else who didn't find miraculous time traveling true love, and that really stuck out to me a lot more upon rewatch. Sawyer's whole, "We were fine! We didn't need rescuing!" -- uhhh, Jin, anyone? WHO HAS A WIFE 30 YEARS IN THE FUTURE? A daughter he's never even seen before because he's trapped in time? I'm pretty damn sure he'd like an opportunity to go home. And while we still don't know what happened with Claire, Kate certainly had good intentions in coming back to find her and reunite her with Aaron. So I think it's unfair for people to say that Jack had all the selfishness on his side in the debate ("I had her and I lost her" comment aside, GRRRAWRRRARGH I'M STILL PRETENDING THAT LINE NEVER HAPPENED) -- there was so much at stake, and yet it seemed like Sawyer and Juliet kept reducing it to the fact that they wouldn't be able to play house on the island any more.

So this whole Sun/"Ms. Paik" business -- are she and Jin not married yet? Divorced? Never romantically affiliated in the first place? Is he an escort on behalf of her father? Does she really not speak English? ????????

- Is the timeline supposed to have changed that much? I mean, Shannon wasn't on the plane, right? And Desmond was on the plane? (Wtf, why would Desmond be on the plane?) Was she referred to as Ms Paik instead of Mrs Kwon? I didn't even catch that... I thought she didn't respond in English for fear of the sort of fight we saw way back when on the island... And and and in what way would the island's destruction cause these changes (what impact did it originally have on their marriage, and Shannon's bad relationship, etc.)? I can't remember!

- I thought Juliet's (apparently not-)death in the finale was really effective. They diminished it in the season's beginning a bit, ya know, starting off by killing her again... Took all of the excitement and OH MY GOD NO! away.

- Also, I feel so confused reading this, because I've only seen most of the episodes just once. ;~;

...and then of course we get into paradox complications of if they'd never crashed on the island in the first place then they'd never be able to go back in time to stop the crash from happening so the crash would still happen anyway etc. etc... But then, yeah, if nothing can be changed, what was the point of them coming back in the first place? Just to set into motion events that we already know have to happen? To be honest I kind of feel that's the direction the show is going to take -- that is, there really isn't a separate anomaly at the Swan but in fact setting off Jughead to prevent the Incident actually ends up being the Incident. (May 2009, hurrrr)

- Have we made any headway on this? What I've gathered from the first episode is that they're playing this like the new Star Trek film. Like, in order to never get to the island, they have to remain there, or else it becomes that cycle of--if they didn't make it there in the first place, they can't prevent themselves from crashing, so they still crash every time!

Or something.

Is the timeline supposed to have changed that much?

I'm one of those "CHANGE ONE THING, CHANGE EVERYYYYYTHING!!" people, but then again you have to assume that a lot of things are still the same in order for these same people to be born/still alive/on the plane/etc., so I don't really know how much we can expect to be different in these characters' stories vs. how we saw them in the pilot. I feel like it might be more complex than it appears now -- sort of, oh, you think you know who these characters are and what you're watching, but then more changes become apparent later in the season. (So with Sun/Jin -- it could be intended to make us think that they're kind of cold/distant just because that's how their marriage stood in the pilot, but maybe here it's a totally different situation? And then apparently Hurley and Kate have different backstories based on the Comic-Con videos -- so even if their character archetypes of lotto winner, fugitive, whatever are still the same, there are different circumstances guiding them to that point.) I dunno, it's kind of like Star Trek Mirrorverse -- everything is SO BACKWARD CRAZY DIFFERENT and yet all of the characters still exist there and know each other, lol, so how different can it really be?

So, yeah, Star Trek connections -- DAMN TIME TRAVEL/PARADOX! Sad fact: it really does not make any more sense to me now than it did when we were discussing it with the new movie. Sigh. I think the whole point of creating a new timeline is to avoid paradox -- that is, it's non-paradox in the sense that you can't change a pre-existing timeline, whatever happened happened, etc. -- but if you do something drastic enough then a new timeline will be formed. It just gets complicated with the looping that then apparently has to take place for the new timeline to exist -- if this new 2004 timeline was created by the Incident, then do we take it that the timelines are identical up until 1977? So do Jack/Kate/Sawyer/et al exist on the island at that time, even though the plane never crashed? Could it be like a Trek situation where they might meet up with an older version of themselves from a different universe? And, hey, thought -- if we're not time traveling any more, than who the heck are Adam and Eve? (Did Rose & Bernard get stuck in '77, maybe?)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only