Thursday, April 13, 2006

"Lost" - S.O.S.

“S.O.S” – Rose and Bernard Story

How do I convey into words the feeling I get watching a Rose and Bernard story? How bout… Ugggggggggggh!

This episode sucked anyway you slice it. Maybe I’m heartless, but this episode was the equivalent of a Lost “chick flick”. First of all, I thought the Hurley episode was an annoying departure from furthering the main plot, but this one was outrageous.

So we find out that Rose and Bernard are actually newlyweds. Apparently they met in beautiful downtown Buffalo in the dead of winter and it was love at first sight. Then Bernard proposed against the backdrop of Niagara Falls, which happened to be the same time he found out that Rose had terminal cancer. But the heart wants it wants, and Bernard was determined to spend his life with Rose for as long as that may be.

So Bernard decides to take Rose to the arid deserts of Australia for their honeymoon. Wouldn’t be my first choice for a romantic getaway, but we find out that he has an ulterior motive – he’s taking Rose to a renowned faith healer, Isaac of Uluru, where 10 grand can buy a miracle. But after 10 seconds, Isaac knows that he can’t help Rose, but he tells her she needs to go to another place where different magnetic energies can possibly help her.

Back on the island story, Bernard wants to build an SOS on the beach where planes or satellites, not unlike ones that may be dropping Dharma supplies to the survivors, can see the distress signal and send help. Rose is vehemently against this idea, and says that Bernard’s giving them false hope. Of course later we find out Rose’s motive for doing this – the island has cured her cancer and she has no intention of leaving this little slice of island paradise. Bernard agrees to stop trying to get rescued and he’ll stay on the island as long as Rose does. Cue the montage of the survivors complete content and complacent on the beach.

I remember a time when the island was full of danger. People wanted to get the hell off that island for fear of being eaten by a monster, attacked by a rogue polar bear, or kidnapped and/or murdered by the Others. Now let’s list what the island and its freaky magnetism has done for our survivors:

- Cured paralysis

- Cured cancer.

- Cured sterility

- Got Charlie off heroin

- Got Hurley a girl friend and a nice workout regimen.

- Provided plenty of food from some mysterious supply drop, which is now kept in a beautiful pantry.

- Provided a hatch where people can shower, do laundry, listen to music, and read books and play ping pong.

- Provided Sawyer with an outlet for his arsenal of nicknames and general douche-bag antics.

Things the island can’t help:

- Sawyer’s bad eye sight.

- Ana Lucia’s bad acting.

- Any sort of open communication or dialogue between people.

Now it seems as if no one wants to leave. Kate is safe from the long arm of the law, Locke’s able to walk and act like Crocodile Dundee, Jack doesn’t seem to have any family to go back to, Hurley’s bad luck is seemingly absent from the island. There’s no more danger or jeopardy, which, I guess, is directly proportional to my interest in the stories.

Plus, living on a deserted island can’t be that fun. Claire’s baby, last time I checked, still didn’t have diapers. And speaking of which, unless everyone goes to the Hatch whenever nature calls, I bet there’s a least a few “holes” around camp that certainly aren’t pleasant, especially after Hurley’s done using them. Not to mention everyone’s sleeping on a damn beach in some shanty tent. I watch Survivor, and those people are constantly miserable. They miss their families, they’re malnourished and cold and wet because it downpours. But everything’s peaches and cream in Lost-ville.

The silver-lining to all this lies in the assumption that this is the calm before the storm. That the writers want us to feel like everyone is comfortable and safe because in a little bit, all hell’s going to break loose. Even if this is the case, it doesn’t make getting there any less painful to watch. But one reason I am confident that this is where the show’s headed is this:

Image #1

Image #2

Those are shots taken from the set of graves by Mr. Eko’s church. Considering the degree of lameness I had to endure watching the Rose and Bernard love story, I’m expecting a future body count the rivals Kill Bill to make up for it. I guess we’ll find out in May when we see our next new episode.

Some other things worth mentioning about this episode:

The Jack/Kate adventure. So Jack’s gonna call out the Others and try to trade Henry Gale for Walt. Now, Mr. (not) Gale said that our (not) bearded friend M.C. Gainey was nothing compared to “Him”, and they’ll never give up Walt. Interesting. Hopefully next episode when we see Michael, he’ll be able to shine some light on what he’s talking about. But I wouldn’t hold my breath. Here’s a preview of the next episode which, I hope, will deliver a welcome change from this stagnant pace. Either that, or it’ll be a back story on the guy who sells frogurt


Score (out of a possible 20)
Back Story: 3

Island Story: 4

Overall: 7

Phew. I’m spent. Until May 3rd

Thursday, April 06, 2006

"Lost" - Dave



“Dave” – Hurley Story

You gotta hand it to the Lost writers, they DO make Hurley stories interesting. Regardless of the fact that it was a complete departure from anything that might move the overall plot forward, it was entertaining. But how lame and after-school-specialy was it when Hurley destroyed his stash of food? I mean, they still ARE on a deserted island – share the wealth, I’m sure other people like ranch dressing.

So let’s get into it. We find out the Hurley’s past included an incident where he stepped on a deck and broke it, causing two people to die (Oh, and there were 23 people on the deck – we get it, the numbers are everywhere). After this event, Hurley goes into some sort of catatonic vegetative state, then binge eats, then gets institutionalized where he hallucinates Dave, the manifestation of a former divorce lawyer on Sex and the City. Dave is always getting Hurley to eat, and finally disappears once Hurley is shown the photo the doctor took of Hurley putting his arm around nobody (anybody else immediately get that Dave was imaginary at the moment that picture was taken?)

Once Hurley starts seeing Dave on the island, he starts to flip out. Even though hallucinations are probably as common as sunburns on the island, Hurley has some real interaction with “Dave”. The big twist: Dave convinces Hurley that the entire crash and everything after (as well as years before) is all in Hurley’s mind being played out as the real Hurley lies at the Santa Rose Mental Hospital in yet another catatonic state.

Let’s pause here for a second. It’s moments like these where I really do like “Lost” – after this moment, I questioned everything I had seen over the past two seasons. Not only that, but I was also full of intense rage if this actually WAS what was happening and would put Lost in the annuls of television infamy right next to the Dallas “it was all a dream” reveal. All these thoughts whizzed around my head for a few minutes until Libby came in to burst that bubble. She’s able to convince Hurley that Dave is full of shit, and that it couldn’t all be in his mind because he wasn’t aware of details pertaining to her experiences on the other side of the island. Then we find out that Libby was also a guest of Santa Rosa at the same time that Hurley was there.

So what does this mean? I don’t know, but if this doesn’t beg for a Libby back story, I don’t know what does. Why was she in the hospital, or more importantly, why was she in Australia and aboard Oceanic 815? There’s a lot of speculation that Libby is an Other, a Dharma (which some people have put into a separate category from the Others – Dharma’s are the people on the island as part of the Dharma Initiative experiment, whereas Others are people who ended up on the island and began a savage society while inhabiting the abandoned hatches – just a theory). A lot of people think Libby a spy, and she was in Australia following Hurley who was on his way to possibly figuring out what the numbers mean. Or maybe Libby was on a similar journey like Hurley, after all, she knew crazy Leonard, too. Or maybe the whole thing is in Libby’s head since it was her point of view in the last scene – which is something that hasn’t been done in episode. Either way, something tells me that something interesting is going to befall Libby before the season ends.

Oh, and Hurley kicking Sawyer’s ass was pretty fun to watch.

In other island news, our buddy (not) Henry Gale tells Locke that he didn’t actually enter the numbers in the hatch, but rather described seeing the hieroglyphics, then hearing the roaring electromagnet do something, then the numbers reset themselves. I remember when Locke was the man with the answers, but this season he’s like a marionette, with Gale pulling the strings. We all know Gale’s a liar, possibly an Other, definitely a rabble-rouser, so why can’t Locke just kick his ass? We saw him lay the smack down on Charlie, and Gale’s tied up! But seriously, I do miss the Locke of season one, and I’m not too thrilled about the new hot-head impulsive Locke of season 2.

Score (out of a possible 20)
Back Story: 8
Island Story: 6 (cool, but no advancement of the overall story)
Overall: 14

Other tidbits:
- Hurley was involved in a collapsing deck accident that resulted in 2 deaths. The platform was only supposed to hold 8 people, but had 23 people on it (15 people over the maximum). At the time that Hurley went onto the platform, there were 16 people over the maximum and the deck collapsed (from “Lostpedia”)
- Columnist Jeff Jensen does a fairly frequent Lost article where he offers his own theories and invites comments from readers. It has some cool stuff worth checking out. But I’m wary, he could very well be in contact with the writers of Lost and could steer us in directions they want us viewers to go. If you’d like to discuss more outrageous conspiracy theories, I’ll be staying at Santa Rosa drooling on myself while connected to a steady Throazine drip.