Lost: Jesus Christ Is Not A Weapon

It struck me–the idea, not the gold statue of Jesus–halfway through this episode that “Claire” and “Aaron” are both names that symbolise guidance and leadership. “Claire” means light, and often the “guiding” type. Aaron was the father of the priestly caste in Israel. So Christian Sheppard’s daughter and grandson are both guides.

I think that Claire died in the house explosion and the Claire person Sawyer pulled out of the wreckage is the Island’s version of Claire. What THAT means I don’t know.

Jack Sheppard thinks he’s a leader–nice Christlike positioning of the bleeding wound in his side, don’t you think?–but I think he’s as flawed as leaders get.

I continue to find the mythology of the Island fascinating, while being bored by the cockadoody car action parts. The C4 in the ship was a big ol’ eyeroll for me. I generally hate the sight of C4 in any story outside of James Bond. It’s a visual shorthand for “big action sequence coming” and I am not a lover of big action sequences when they are misplaced. Call me crazy but in combing the world of Lost–the Lostpedia, the various fan sites, the magazine articles–we’re none of us into this show for Action! We’re all about pondering theories, surfing for mad klewz and philosophising. Even those folks who just enjoy the show on a surface level are into the (God help us) love triangle aspect.

None of us tune in for explosions. Okay, maybe a small percentage of us. But not me. So when I saw C4 I was all “oh please.”

Speaking of the (God help us) love triangle, I found it interesting that Anthuriums mark the entrance to the “real” Orchid station underground. Anthurium are the flowers that look like erections. They symbolise–and here’s a stretch–ardent passion. If you’re sending flowers to someone, don’t send anthuriums if you just wanna be friends. So the key to moving the island is somehow involved in passion. Hmm. Never would have guessed. (Jack and Kate. Sawyer and Kate. Penny and Desmond. Jack and Jack.)

Someone said that the even episodes were good and the odd episodes were bad. Or vice versa. Can’t remember which. Either way, this one was a little of both.

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Lost: Eat Me

Ah, Lewis Carroll! What would we do without you, oh you gallant mathematician with the addled mind?! We certainly wouldn’t have far-out passages of literature for our characters to read to sleeping babies. Granted, it’s nicer for them to read part of a story than to actually come into our living rooms and hit us over the head with cricket bats while shouting “DON’T YOU GET HOW DEEP AND LAYERED THIS STORY IS?!?!”
But still…

I regret that I missed writing about last week’s episode because that was a corker! Time-travel, dimension travel and (best of all) a code of conduct! True geeks love Codes of Conduct. I blame Asimov for this, but of course some culpability lies with The Federation as well. So, yeah, last week I was all entranced. Not to mention that those 58 minutes made truncheons cool again! Gotta love the truncheon.

Tonight’s episode had no truncheons. But it did bang us over the head with its own cutseypoo twistiness. Did Jack wake up as himself today? Or is this an alternate universe? Why did he not have an appendectomy scar in the future, huh?

There are these people who

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Total Dick Move

I am a die-hard, self-confessed Philip K. Dick fan. Even so, there are two things I freely admit.

1. I can never remember if his first name is spelled with one or two ‘l’s.

2. I think that VALIS is an incomprehensible mess.

As much as I loved ‘The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, I just can’t muster up the same fellow-feeling for VALIS.

When we were watching “Lost” last night, I couldn’t even recall the book’s name. Part of me just knew it was going to be one of the latter works so steeped in wha? that I just couldn’t stomach it.

Now I imagine thousands of “Lost” fans trying to figure out what Clues To The Island’s Mystery lay between Dick’s covers. Frankly, though, seeing that book as a touchstone makes more sense to me than anything else. The Lost writers are aiming for a type of pretentious inscrutability that causes college sophomores in English Lit and Philosophy programs across the country to hail you for brilliance. Good job, guys!

ooooooooo

Sorry…my computer went wonky.

The other thoughts about last night’s episode?

-Slut much, Juliet?  I realise that in TV time it’s been two years since Goodwin bought it and a year and half since you first met Jack.   But on the Island, in Island time it’s been less time than it takes me to get my tax refund.

-So I know they expect us to be surprised when–after dragging out the ‘mystery’ for at least three episodes–they finally reveal that Ben’s guy on the boat is Michael.  But seriously, putting Harold Perrineau’s name in the credits every week is kind of a dead giveaway.

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Lost: Better If You’re On Drugs

Biographical Interlude

Yesterday at 1:30 I called my husband and said “I think it’s time to go to the hospital.” Now, in the movies that means we’d be having a baby. On television it means we would get stuck in an elevator and have a baby there. In real life it means that I’d finally given up on homebirthing my most recent kidney stone. The ER trip was it’s own little drama. But let me just say this…when the triage nurse knows your name on sight and the rad tech who performs the CT scan gets you caught up on her personal life since the last time you rode her donut (diiirty!!) then perhaps you pass too many kidney stones. Oh, and I LOOOVE it when the nurse who thinks you’re drug-seeking gets the scan report and blood work back. I have a kidney stone AND a severe kidney infection! Suck on that, Ratchett!!!

All of that means that tonight’s episode was viewed thru a haze of pain, vicodin, levaquin and phenergan.

On to the show….

To me the two flavours of Lost I like best are Hurley and Hume. Hurley episodes are the heart of the show and bring more warmth and emotion than hard whiskey at a grandparent’s funeral. Hume episodes are the reason of the show. Other characters represent “mind” and “faith” and “will” but Desmond Hume is always the one who acts with the greatest sense of reason. Even when his mind is unhinged through the layers of time, he always seeks out the cause behind his circumstances. In a narrative with more empty teases than an 8th grade cheerleader, it helps to have one character who contributes a quest for conclusion.

Random bits of thought I’m too out-of-it to pursue in more depth right now

• I happen to think that it was piss-poor timing on the network’s behalf to air this episode NOT on Valentine’s Day. Do you know how many couples would have turned to their viewing partner and said “you’re MY constant, baby”?
• I see that Penny lives on Cheyne Walk. The only thing in common this has with Lost that I can think of right now is that Henry James lived there. He is the author of many long and confusing books.
• Tovar Hanso feels like an anagram to me, but I just don’t have the stones to even google the anagram generators right now. Although at 10:06pm CST I’m sure that 2.312 million other Lost fans have already done so.
• I really envy the people who were just getting caught up by watching the first 3 seasons on DVD and are coming to this new action relatively fresh. With it being more than a year since the last time we’ve visited many of these storylines I just can’t keep all of the details in mind and am losing the impact of seeing Desmond have a friendly conversation with Daniel’s Penny’s dad.
• The rat’s name is Eloise. My first thought was automatically of the schoolbooks with the little girl who lives in some snooty hotel. But growing up in Indiana I was also aware of Eloise, which was a pretty famous mental institution in Michigan. I don’t know if anyone connected to the show is even aware of Eloise, though.
• I swear I had two more bullet points, but WordPress ate the original entry. Boo hiss.

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Lost Marriage

I have a great marriage.   My husband and I rarely keep secrets from each other, and if we do they’re of the non-threatening variety.  (Don’t tell him I ate ice cream at midnite a couple of days ago.)    We’re open and honest and after 19 years together we have pretty good communication overall.

I thing that’s why I watch “Lost”.   Clearly I need some aspect of my life where I’m continually jerked around, disrespected, not dealt with openly and often unfulfilled.  I need a place where after spending 45 minutes together, I come away unsatisfied while the other party is smugly proud of themselves.

I feel like “Lost” is my bad boyfriend for my 30s.

I hated last night’s episode with a passion.   From the minute Kate asks Miles to tell her “what he knows” about HER only to have Miles say “answer these riddles three” or what the hell ever….

Yeah, I  was pretty ticked off with the whole thing.

Maybe the show just ought to not feature much of Jack and Kate, because I find any of those episodes just as annoying as little children singing off key.

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Lost: It’s About Time

I suppose I could spend a long time coming up with “ohhh COOL” observations and definitions for “31” to explain the symbolism of the Time Difference both on and off the island. I won’t, though, because I’m too busy thinking about the deeper implications. This new wrinkle (in time! ha!), coupled with the Faraday character and the deal with Desmond and the older version of himself last year reinforces for me that the crux of Lost is going to be Time and Relevant Dimensions in Space. (Sorry, BOM!) I think the island is all about using electromagnetism to alter the movement of time on earth.

The philosophy of electromagnetism altering time is an old physics/philosophy dorm room geek wank, and I think the Lost writers are bringing it to television in a quasi-entertaining format.

I’ll let someone else explain the basics for me:

time moves at 186,000 miles per second in every direction. Because photons are perfect ellipses, they can attach to time, kind of like a rider on a bus. This is why time seems to slow down as you approach this speed… Time doesn’t slow down, it just does not pass as fast. In fact, to a photon, time does not pass at all.

The Lostpedia has a great breakdown on this and it’s one I’m subscribing to even more strongly after tonight’s episode.

Really, though, as much fun as my theoretical physics hobbyism is, I’m just glad they turned in an episode with a decent amount of entertainment. They had gripping story elements most of the way through, with only one exception.

I cannot believe that someone as savvy in the realms of cruelty as Sayid Jarrah would NOT realise the blond he fell for was a baddie. Maybe instead of taking all those torture classes he should have watched more TV. Then he would see the obvious along with the rest of us. He would also know that saying something like “the minute I give over my life to [Ben] is when I sell my soul.” Because that means we ALL knew from that moment on his flash-forward employer was Ben.

Can I just say how much of a valentine’s present it was to me that they didn’t let Jack participate in Sayid’s Charlotte web?! I’m so happy that people are pulling away from worshipping at the altar of Jack.

Although I do feel that the show’s writers are often like Locke in search of the cabin. They’re waiting for someone to tell them what comes next.

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Lost Braindrain

Tonight I care–and yet I don’t. It may be that my salad didn’t have enough dressing, my fancy new drugs kept making me doze off or the writers are still yanking my chain. I’m not sure.

By all reckoning this was a well-written episode which strayed only briefly into the Kate/Jack/Sawyer Love Yawnangle. (Seriously, three of the most selfish characters in modern literature cannot sustain an interesting love triangle for very long.) Bits of good mystery were dangled before us. A polar bear! In the desert! In the same place in the Desert where they filmed Star Wars! Geek overload!!!!

However, by the end of the episode I just felt frustrated. More questions–why do the boat people care about Ben? Don’t they know how annoying Ben truly is? Does no one really know what the Smoke Monster is? Remember when Jeff Fahey was in Silverado?

The religious allegory was spread fairly thin. The new characters continue to have obliquely mystical surnames. (“Lapidus” means ‘candle’; “Straume” means ‘dream’; “Lewis” is an obvious homage to Carroll and C.S.) Perhaps the most intriguing surname is “Faraday”. I can only assume Twitchy Dan is named after the natural philosopher Michael Faraday. He’s best known for his work in the fields of electricity as it interacts with time.

Aha! The kernel of the nut of the Lost Mystery Island and the Lost Mystery Box!

Big fans of the Island’s Mystery Box (remember last week’s connection to Abaddon?) will be interested in the concept of the Faraday Cage. An oversimplification of the Faraday Cage concept is that it is a box built to shelter something from the electronic energy existing outside the box. Is it possible that the entire island is a type of Faraday cage?

Aha! And work with me here, but do you remember last season’s focus on the Matroyshka (nested Russian) dolls? Perhaps the island is actually a series of nested Faraday Cages, thus allowing things on the island to be protected from the forces of electromagnetism outside the island. (In Faraday’s philosophy, electromagnetism also had an effect on the time-space continuum.)

I continue to have fun hypothesising on the esoterica of Lost Philosophy simply because I get better answers by going far afield from the show, I think. At least I get more satisfying answers. Granted, tonight’s episode wasn’t as excruciating as the weeks of Jack In The Aquarium, but I still wanted at least one answer beyond “we came for Ben.”

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LOST Thoughts

• I hate when they do this. I thought it was going to be a two-hour new episode. Nawp. It’s a one-hour “since we’ve been off the air for 9 months” recap episode followed by a one-hour new episode. Frabjous.
• I ended up eating my pizza during a TiVo’d episode of People’s Court.

The attorney for Oceanic is named after Satan. More specifically, he’s named after the Destroyer and guardian of the underworld.

What I found really interesting was that in many Mystical traditions, “Abaddon” has become the place-name for “The Valley Of Darkness” that a mystic travels through in order to have the greater secrets of the mystery revealed. As a Christian mystic, I believe that Christ has borne for us the greater portion of Abaddon–that which is death of the soul and seperation from God, the torments of hell–, but that our life on earth is a sort of lesser Abaddon through which we travel in order to have a greater understanding of the Mystery of God upon our death. Our trials here on earth represent tasks through which we come to the fullness of understanding of the Divine Mystery.

So what about Lost? Well, I think that that’s a lot of what the Lost writers are trying to explore. They’re looking at the revelations of Mystery. Hence naming the Oceanic attorney “Abaddon”–the Lostaways take Oceanic to the Island, and the Island is the place where Mysteries are revealed.

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Fight Your Own Battles

Oh please, Damon Lindelhof. Get real. You sound like a buggy whip maker outside the first Ford plant.

If television truly dies, you all are euthanising it with this strike.

But that’s not the point I want to make. The point that the libertarian in me is dying to make right now is that this is one of the stupidest statements I’ve read in a long time:

Most of all, I’m angry that I’m not working. Not working means not getting paid. My weekly salary is considerably more than the small percentage of Internet gains we are hoping to make in this negotiation and if I’m on the picket line for just three months, I will never recoup those losses, no matter what deal gets made.

But I am willing to hold firm for considerably longer than three months because this is a fight for the livelihoods of a future generation of writers, whose work will never “air,” but instead be streamed, beamed or zapped onto a tiny chip.

Honestly, this glory-hallelujah talk about future generations of writers is, frankly, absurd. It’s an arty extension of “do it for the CHIIIILDREN!” and it’s a naked quest to impart one’s life with meaning beyond his own temporal existence.

I find myself agreeing with the writers in the abstract. They do deserve fair remuneration for their work. I like to see merit-based pay scales, and that’s what residuals translate to–the better the show or film the more viewers it has and the greater the residual payout.

But all of this high-flown gab sounds increasingly like a large passel of drama queens who, very deep down, wish their life was more interesting than it is. It’s the same sort of reaction that drove me nuts about the whole Jena 6 thing. Many people currently have pretty comfortable lives. They aren’t faced with any direct hardship; we don’t even have a problem with strawberries being out of season anymore.

I suppose it’s natural to crave a bit of excitement and to want to feel as though you are part of a larger force for change. It’s why people go to church, volunteer for charities and wear ribbons and (red). I shouldn’t also be surprised that a bunch of television and movie writers have a tendency to speak in narcissistic hyperbole.

But, really, this is an argument over how many pennies the writer gets for a download of “Joanie Loves Chachi.” It’s hardly manning the barricades.

And therein the problem with modern entertainment. Someone–I think it was Joss Whedon–actually said that storytelling was a greater necessity for humanity than clothing or shelter. While that may be true on one level, I highly doubt that there are people out there struggling to put a story over their heads. No one ever says “come on! Baby needs a new pair of stories!” At its most basic level, storytelling is a part of all our legacies, and for many thousands of years it was–hold on to your hats–free. Mothers told stories to children, husbands told stories to wives. In the whole of human history, wealthy writers are a recently new development. Writers became wealthy because consumers were willing to pay for stories. This strike punishes the paying consumer, and killing that bird in the hand for some mythical future writers in the bush is a classically stupid move.

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Lost: Get You Some Satisfaction

For all of you Lost fans out there of the same general Jackocidal persuasion as I…

I would advise you to check out Smokin’ Aces.

It’s strangely satisfying.

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