LOST Rewatch: . . . And Found

Credit: tle1lost.wordpress.com

I took a few days off this week, due to snow and kids out of school, due to work pressures, due to tiredness, due to whatever. But the girls and I have watched two episodes since "Everybody Hates Hugo" and I need to catch up a bit.

This episode continues the arc of Season 2 that focuses on what is happening on the opposite side of the Island with Ana Lucia, Mr. Eko, and the rest of the Tailies (plus Jin, Michael, and Sawyer). If you haven't seen the show before--or like me you haven't seen the shows in several years and have forgotten--you might have thought that the bulk of Season 2 would be about what is happening in the Hatch and pushing the button every 108 minutes. And, yes, I thought that was what so much of this season WAS about. But I forgot and am being reminded now that there were several episodes here where they are introducing the Tailies into the mix.

And rightly, this is so, because we spent all of last season thinking that 1.) they were all dead and 2.) bringing in a new batch of characters can be a dangerous thing (see Nikki & Paolo . . . who are still to come). But LOST did make a habit of bringing in a new batch of people on a fairly regular basis, enfolding them into the existing bunch. I think we tend to forget that because each season was wrapped around a different piece of Island mythology or the narrative storytelling device was always something different. But in this season, we still rely on Flashbacks and we now bring the surviving Tailies to the familiar part of the Island.

Sun and Jin are the focal points of ". . .  And Found,"filling in the gaps of how they met and who they were before their engagement and marriage. We already know that Jin was the embarrassed son of a fisherman, striving to leave his village past behind. We see that he is always reminded of his humble origins by the people he is asking employment of--such as the Seoul hotel for which he becomes a doorman.

The bulk of the flashback, however, tells Sun's story. How she was set up by a matchmaker (via her rich mother) to find a husband. How she met with the son of a hotel magnate--yes, the same one that Jin is working at--and how the magnate and Sun hit it off. How Sun was becoming okay with the matchmaker's choice, only to learn that the dude was planning to leave Korea in a few months to marry someone else in America. How he was just enjoying this matchmaking time with Sun to lessen the pressure put on him by his own mother and didn't Sun already understand that? (Oops . . . not really.)

Back on the Island, Jin, Sawyer, and Michael are still at odds with the acerbic Ana Lucia and the ominous Mr. Eko. They are all huddled in the remains of the Dharma station and our Lostaway friends are wondering what happened to the Tailies to make them so skittish and afraid. Though they don't say it, their eyes indicate that "Back on our side of the Island we had beach luaus with roasted boar, copious flows of fresh water, all the mango you could eat, and plenty of fun, fun, fun! What is so bad over here?"

The Tailies eyes are full of regret, fear, and haunting events that should NEVER be spoken of! So, the idea is presented. Let's all relocate to where YOU guys have been partying it up for the last 40 days. We're tired of being picked off one by one. So, they gather up their meager supplies and get Michael, Jin, and a weakening Sawyer to lead the way.

Michael takes this opportunity to run for it. He doesn't want to go back to the Beach/Caves. He's got to find Waaaaaalt! (Remember, they TOOK HIS SON!) Jin is determined to go after him, reluctant to let his raft buddy trek through the jungle alone. Ana Lucia wants nothing to do with any of this and just want to find a safer place to live. But Mr. Eko shows his conscience and decides to help Jin locate Michael. The rest begin their journey along the (safe?) coast to find our Lostaway pals.

Eventually, Jin and Eko find Michael, who is wandering around shouting at waterfalls and begging the Others to appear and capture him. They eventually meet back up with the rest of the Tailies and continue their journey, avoiding the dangerous Jungle. On this journey? Michael, Jin, a stumbling Sawyer, Cindy (the 815 stewardess), Libby, Ana Lucia, Bernard, and Eko.

Back on the Beach? Well, Claire is complaining that Charlie is getting a bit too familiar. And what is with the Virgin Mary statue he's always carrying around in his backpack? Is Charlie some sort of religious nutter, she asks Locke? Locke, who knows that the statue contains heroin says nothing and doesn't confront Charlie about it. Also, Sun is freaking out that she has lost her wedding ring and she is carrying the burden of knowing that the message bottle signals dangerous times for the raft. (The ladies who discovered the bottle has still not told any of the other Lostaways about their fears.)

Sun talks to Hurley and Jack and Kate about her lost ring and eventually, she finds it when she digs up the bottle again. The ring was in the sand alongside the bottle itself. Buoyed by a hope that Jin (and the other raft goers) might be alive, Sun ventures a slight smile.

LOST Rewatch: Everybody Hates Hugo

Credit:  tle1lost.wordpress.com

As you might expect, the title of this episode caused some consternation in my house. We are big Hurley fans, so the girls (who have not seen any of these episodes before) have a hard time imagining a scenario where anyone, much less EVERYONE could possibly hate Hugo. But, there it was in black-and-white (pixels) so they had to try and sort it out.

The story of everyone hating Hugo is the center of the Flashback as well, as we see Hurley keeping quiet in the immediate day after he won the Mega Lotto Jackpot (playing the computer Numbers that Desmond had trained Locke to input). He goes to work his dead end job at Mr. Cluck's Chicken Shack and has to put up with his jerk of a manager. You might have heard of him. His name is Randy. (To be a bit fair to the jerk manager, he was eating chicken after hours and cutting into the profits a bit.) But Hurley's coworker buddy, Johnny, commiserates with him and tries to make life bearable.

But Hurley comes to realize that he doesn't need to put up with his boss now that he's got a winning lottery ticket in his pocket. So, he quits his job and tells Johnny. In a fit of solidarity, Johnny also quits and they spend the rest of the day hanging at the record store--where Hurley has a crush on Starla, the girl behind the cash register. Emboldened again by his impending wealth, Hurley asks Starla out and she says yes.

Everybody LOVES Hurley, right? Well, no . . . because he is afraid to fess up to the lottery ticket, not wanting everyone to start treating him differently or hit him up for favors.

And Hurley's fear turns out to be true late in this evening of freedom when Johnny turns the car into the gas station where Hurley bought the winning ticket. The press is there interviewing the station clerk, who immediately fingers Hurley as the big jackpot winner. Suddenly Johnny is angry that Hurley has kept this from him. Now, at least one person hates Hugo.

On the Island, Hurley is also worried about people disliking him. Why? Well, he has been put in charge of the Hatch's food pantry inventory by Jack. And he is worried that when word gets out about the shampoo and peanut butter and Apollo bars and potato chips and everything else . . . the Lostaways are going to try and take advantage of him. And when he says no . . . hatred.

Again, he's not entirely wrong. Kate just takes some shampoo without so much as a neveryoumind and utilizes the Swan station shower. Charlie starts pressuring his pal for the peanut butter that he promised to Claire back in Season 1. And Hurley knows it'll just go on and on. He is so worried about it that he has some pretty bizarre dreams:

Speaking of Jin, remember that at the end of the last episode, Ana Lucia bamboozled our pit friends for information, found out they (also?) were on Flight 815, punched Sawyer and stole his gun, and was lifted out of the pit.

If this information is to be believed, then the people holding Jin, Michael, and Sawyer captive are NOT the Others that have long been spoken of, but never seen. Rather they are Flight 815 passengers who were in the tail section of the plane (the part that broke off right behind Kate's seat during the crash). They were all assumed to be dead--except that Rose remained convinced that her husband Bernard was still alive.

So, eventually, Jin, Michael, and Sawyer are released from the pit and taken through the jungle. It is clear that Ana Lucia is the brash leader of this band of Lostaways. And she's not a consensus type of leader like Jack or even Locke or Sayid. She is of the punch-first/command-allegiance school of leadership. And she punches Sawyer a few times to prove her moxie. (I'm not sure if this wins Michael and Jin over to her way of thinking or not. But it does signal a return of snarly, angry Sawyer that we had not seen much of in the last third of Season 1.)

The episode ends thusly. the raft survivors are led by Ana Lucia and a few of the Tailies (referring to those Flight 815 survivors seated in the plane's tail section) to another Dharma station in the jungle. We don't get a very good look at it, but it is not nearly as elaborate, nice, and lived in as Desmond's Swan station. (Plus it is not buried deep underground either.) There are a few other Tailie survivors huddled within, but they hear tales of sickness and dying. These guys have had a hard time of it. There is a bit of cheer though, when Bernard appears, confirming Rose's belief in his survival.

Back on the other side of the Island, Hurley has made a decision. After completing his inventory, he realizes that the amount of food Desmond has stored would not feed the 40 Lostaways for any significant amount of time. Let's just eat it all up in a big celebratory party and eliminate any chance of future problems. Jack agrees to follow Hurley's lead and the party commences.

Hurley is--in fact--loved for his generosity and everyone feasts and has a good time by the nighttime campfire.

LOST Rewatch: Orientation

Credit: tle1lost.wordpress.com

In this episode, we continue to follow two stories that have defined this season so far: first, what is happening with Michael, Sawyer, and Jin now that the raft escape failed and they are back on the Island--apparently being threatened by the Others.
Second, what exactly is going on down in the Hatch?

Let's start with our raft friends. If you remember, Michael and Sawyer had just dragged themselves up on the shores of the Island, after floating around on bits of raft wreckage in the previous episode. Sawyer is still injured from the bullet in his shoulder. Michael is still worried about what has become of his son--his name is Walt, as you might remember. Jin was escaping from the Others, but the three of them fall back under the sinister clutches of these mystery dudes . . . and Our Raft Friends are thrown into a pit, covered with a bamboo cage. It's not looking very good for those guys.

In the other story, Desmond has a gun on Locke; Jack has a gun on Desmond; Kate is climbing around in the air ducts. Eventually shots are fired and the old computer is damaged--the computer that Desmond uses to punch in the Numbers code. He begins to really freak out because he believes that the only way to prevent the end of the world is to punch in those Numbers every hour and 40 minutes--forever! (It does sound weird, but Locke is desperate to believe that all of this Island . . . stuff means something! So he is willing to go along with the nonsense that Desmond is going on about. Jack, of course, is absolutely skeptical and thinks that it is as crazy as it sounds.)

Still, Kate comes down from her airduct journey and is quickly dispatched to the Beach to get Sayid for help repairing the computer. Meanwhile, Desmond gathers up some supplies and prepares to run for it. It turns out he's been stuck on the Island for a long time and he wants out/off. He's gonna leave the job to Locke and anyone else willing to repair the computer and get on with punching in the Numbers. Jack tries to talk some sense into Desmond, but Desmond really wants to get away. See you later Desmond. Sorry that we didn't get a chance to know you better!

Back in the Hatch, Sayid is working on fixing the computer and the timer is counting down from 108:00 to 0:00. And if it gets down to 0:00 . . . then what exactly might happen? Well, Desmond warned them that it was something bad. But Jack really didn't believe that. So, is there another opinion that we might get? Well, before Desmond fled into the jungle, we told Jack and Locke to watch the Orientation film. What's that, you ask? Well . . .

Does that clear it up for you? No . . . I didn't think so. But that's okay. I think you'll learn more about the stations (of which this one is only 3 of 6 you may note) later in this season.

But back to Michael, Jin, and Sawyer. Remember that they were down in a pit, being threatened by the Others? As they are formulating a plan to try to trick the guards, the top of the pit opens and an unknown female is thrown down with them. They talk to each other about how they got in the pit and it turns out that they were all passengers on Flight 815. And sure enough, the female down there with our heroes is the very same lady that spoke to Jack in the airport bar flashback in the Season 1 finale. (Ana Lucia, remember?)

So, there are other survivors of the flight on the Island. As they start to feel a bit better, Ana Lucia hauls back and punches Sawyer really hard and takes the gun that he has been holding onto from the raft. And then Ana gets lifted out of the pit. Turns out she was with our friend's captors and was just posing as a prisoner to gather information on the prisoners. Was what she said about being on the same flight true? (Well . . . we know that she was, but THEY don't know that. And we aren't sure about the rest of them.)

So, as this episode ends the raft-goers are still stuck in a pit and the leaders of the Lostaways are getting stuck down in the Hatch slowly becoming enslaved to a pitiless timer and computer. What'll come next?

LOST Rewatch: Adrift

Credit: tle1lost.wordpress.com

When last we left LOST, Jack and Locke were in a stand-off with our new pal Desmond down in the Hatch station thing. The other Lostaways were hanging out in the Caves and trying to figure out why all of their so-called "leaders" were running around in the jungle late at night when the Others were supposedly endangering everyone. And they did not yet know of the fate of Michael, Jin, Sawyer, and Walt on the raft of doom.

But this episode--as the title suggests--spends lots of time with the remaining rafters. Well, at least it spends a great deal of time with Michael and Sawyer. Jin (who, as you may remember from the end of season 1, dove into the water to save Sawyer after he was shot by the boat-goers) was not found anywhere in the vicinity of the raft.

Not that Michael and Sawyer were looking for him that hard in the night. Michael, of course, was shouting for Walt at every opportunity. And Sawyer was getting a headache from Michael's shouting while also bleeding quite a bit from a shoulder bullet wound. And also . . . the raft is in pieces and Michael and Sawyer are uncomfortably occupying a piece of it not much bigger than they are.

These two fight like the Bickersons . .  about everything:

1. whether Sawyer can dig the bullet out with his fingers (turns out he can), 
2. whether Michael should keep shouting (he's doing it to try and signal to Walt that he's still alive--but Walt can't hear), 
3. whether or not there are sharks in the water (they think there is at least one), 
4. whether or not the gun will work once dunked in the ocean (not really?), 
5. whether or not they can exist on the same bit of broken raft (most of the time they cannot and at one point they simply float next to each other on separate pieces with sullen expressions), 
6. who is to blame for bringing the boat in that kidnapped Walt (Michael blames Sawyer for demanding to use the signal flare and Sawyer thinks they had no idea that these people were not on the up-and-up). 

Generally, things are bad is what I'm saying.

Back on the Island, we get another view of what is going on in the Hatch--at first from Locke's point of view as he enters the hallway at the bottom of the open shaft, takes off his shoes for more stealthy movement (which Jack later sees), tries to puzzle out the banks of outdated computers, and eventually encounters an angry, crazed Desmond who has Kate at gunpoint. Desmond ties her up and locks her in a closet room. But she escapes, finds the pantry stocked to the gills with food of all sorts, luxuriates over the taste of a chocolate Apollo candy bar, then begins to escape through the ceiling duct works.

From that vantage point, Kate sees Jack enter the Hatch station and listens as Jack and Locke bicker over destiny and as they try to sort out what Desmond is actually up to. But we are going to leave her up there for a while and move on to some other things.

Credit: www.forum.rebelscum.com

Such as, what is happening back on the ocean? Well, Michael and Sawyer have caught the current that delivered them back to the Island. And they are happy to at least be alive. But as they are clambering back through the surf onto the shore, who should run up but Jin? With his arms tied behind his back. And he seems scared. He's shouting about something, but since it is in Korean, it is hard to make out. Finally, he gets one English word out . . . Others. Others!

Sawyer and Michael look up and see people silhouetted as they emerge from the tree line. They look sinister . . .

SMASHCUT!

LOST.

LOST Rewatch: Man of Science, Man of Faith

Credit:  tle1lost.wordpress.com

Previously . . . on LOST.

We begin Season 2 where we ended Season 1--obviously. (Well, maybe that is not obvious? Maybe it could have started somewhere completely different with different characters or something. But that might confuse people and it most certainly would have stressed out the fans of LOST that spent all of that time between Season 1 and Season 2 (May to September 2005, if I recall) trying to figure out what was down the Hatch and whether the Others were really a thing or whether it was just a fever dream Rousseau had. And what was Smokey and lots, lots more.

So, here we are at the start of season 2 and everything is grand and the episode begins with . . . this?

It was a very unexpected way to begin anew. And now that I think about it, maybe it was starting the show in a new place with new people in an unpredictable way. But after that, we join up with our Lostaway pals at the top of the Hatch shaft as Locke, Kate, John, and Hurley discuss how to get down into that hole. Well, Hurley and Jack don't want to get down there. Hurley has no interest and Jack says that the shaft is too narrow, too deep, and too without-a-functional ladder to serve as a quick way to hide the rest of the Cave dwellers from the supposed attack of the Others. (Remember from the end of season 1, that is why they were blowing it up in the first place--or at least that is why Jack was going to do so--as a way to protect everyone from the Others.)

So Jack and Hurley convince Locke and Kate to return to the Caves. I mean, the Hatch isn't going anywhere Jack says and let's just worry about going down into it in the morning. Locke reluctantly agrees. They head back to the Caves and Jack makes another inspirational speech about how everyone is going to be safe and they'll all live to see the sunrise and it'll all be okay, all right?

Except . . . well, Locke decides that he just doesn't feel like waiting. So he gathers up some vine rope and heads back into the jungle, at night, with the possibility of the Other attack around every tree trunk. And if Locke is gonna go, then Kate also decides to go--to, you know, keep him safe. But also just to keep moving because maybe the Hatch if full of tiny toy airplanes, right? Have you ever considered that? Jack reacts to this news as you expect him to. With clenched jaw disbelief and a sad shake of the head.

 Locke and Kate team up to rappel (or belay . . . something?) down into the Hatch's shaft. But the rope slips and Kate falls and Locke loses purchase and she basically disappears. There's a big dramatic shift of floodlights into the jungle sky and Locke is left alone with maybe Kate being dead. Oops!  So, Locke ties himself off on the rope and starts to head down there himself to save her.

Credit: eurobricks.com

Oh . . . the Flashback for this episode is the immediate aftermath of Jack's future wife, Sarah's car accident that brought her to the hospital and how badly she was injured and how Jack was performing a desperate surgery on her that had pretty slim odds. (The odds of which he callously tells her ahead of time.) We meet Sarah's original fiance who bails when he comes to believe that his future wife won't be all hot and nimble and bendy and stuff anymore . . . so, no thanks.

But Jack is a bit too decent to tell crippled, pre-surgery Sarah that she was planning to marry a douche bag. So he keeps quiet about that. He does, however, perform the surgery and is convinced that it'll never work.

To get over his frustration, he goes to a nearby football stadium and runs the stairs to work out his tension. He meets another runner named Desmond, who is training for an around-the-world sailing race. (Desmond appears to believe that modern sailboats are pedal powered . . . because why else would he be improving his cardiovascular health? I'm no doctor, but that seems an odd choice.) Desmond and Jack chat during a water break and . . .  whatever, right?

Back at the hospital, Sarah incredulously informs the sweaty Jack that she is able to wiggle her toes. Stunned, Jack rejoices with her. And their romance begins.

The scene then shifts to Jack back at the Caves, who had decided he doesn't want to wait until sunrise either. Hurley is peeved, but Jack ignores him. Jack just wants to be where Kate is!

When he gets to the Hatch again, there is no one there. Jack manages to make it down the shaft by utilizing Locke's secured, but abandoned rope. At bottom, he begins exploring and finds:

• painted murals on the wall
• a strange magnetic force in one hallway
• a pair of shoes
• an odd, dome-like chamber with Apollo-astronaut-era computers and magnetic tape machines
• an Apple-II computer with a blinking, expectant monitor
• John Locke being held captive by a mad gunman

Wait! What was that last one?! Locke being held at gunpoint?! Even though he is concerned, Jack doesn't miss an opportunity to deride Locke's expectation of Found Destiny at the bottom of the Hatch. Also, where might Kate be?

But most importantly . . . hey dude with the gun. Who are you?

Suddenly Jack sees past Locke's face and really notices the guy in the khaki jumpsuit with the Crazy Eyes. It's Desmond! His stadium stair running buddy from several years ago!

Why?!!! What? What'll happen next?