617 – The End – Miles

Miles

612 – Everybody Loves Hugo

Review:

I’m still reeling from everything that happened in this episode.  I had to wait a day to write this post in the hopes that I would calm down a little (it didn’t work).

So Ilana’s dead.  I didn’t see that coming.  In fact seconds before she died I assured my friends that she wouldn’t die.  It felt odd having the rug pulled out from under me like that.  For the rest of the episode I was paranoid.  I think the floodgates are opening, people are going to start dying, and quickly.  It’s a scary thought.  As I said a few times during the episode, every thing’s changed.

Back to the story.  On the Island Hurley was struggling through leadership problems.  He has no actual authority or even much of a plan, but he has unwarranted conviction.  So far that’s worked for him.  Who knows where it’s going to get him.

Desmond had a little fun with Locke on the Island.  He was thrown down a well at the end of the episode, but I don’t think many of us believe that he’s actually dead.  Vincent will find him and go get help.

Then there’s that final scene.  I don’t even know what to say about that.  It’ll be up there as one of the most shocking moments in Lost history.  It’s one of those endings that causes a room to stay silent for minutes after the shows has ended.

I can see no reason why this episode shouldn’t get a ten.  We got a heartfelt apology from Michael, an answer to the Whispers mystery, Hurley and Libby got together, Hurley crossed over between timelines, Ilana died, “Locke” tried to kill Desmond and Desmond tried to kill Locke.  I have a feeling that these episodes are just going to get more and more intense.  If you were worried that the episodes weren’t feeling “final” enough, well I think that’s changed now.  10.0/10.0

516 (& 517) – The Incident

Review:

So that was fun(ish).

I’ll try to start on a positive note.  Jacob was awesome!  Who knew he would be so likable.  I kinda expected him to be quite distant and cold.  But he was great.  And that storyline that they started with Jacob and his nemesis was pretty epic.  It’ll make for some great conflict next year (provided history isn’t erased, hahaha).  New “Locke” is going to make for a very interesting villain.

That was a pretty epic reveal.  It was all for shock value, it didn’t serve any real purpose except to confirm our suspicions about this new “Locke”. But really, it surprised me, and really raised the bar.

Uh oh I’m running out of nice things to say.  Damnit, why did Juliet have to die?  I’m back to having no one left to like anymore.  This is going to be season 1 all over again.  The only people I like are guest stars.

The flashbacks in this episode were slightly interesting, but they didn’t really hold my attention.  The two good ones were Hurley’s and Ilana’s.  The other ones were just filler.  (Especially Juliet’s, what the hell was that?)

The one thing about this episode that I liked was the discovery of this new part of the story with Jacob, his nemesis and that new world.  That will give me a lot of fodder for theorizing over the break.  I could live without the rest of the episode.  So where does that leave us?  How much should I give the finale that I was almost completely unimpressed with?  It can’t be less that 5, that’s not giving Jacob enough credit.  but it’s definitely not more that 8.0.  I’d say 7.0/10.0  A disappointing end to an epic season.  (Jump to the bottom for more discussion on the score, I know many of you will be surprised/pissed about the score.)

515 – Follow the Leader

Review:

Lost is making me feel uncomfortable.  That’s not normal, mostly I just get a thrill out of the twists, now it’s just hurting me.

Here’s the thing, I’ve had strong, permanent views about many characters in this show:

• Daniel was my favorite and I trust and believe him
• I like Locke even when he’s misguided
• Sawyer is usually a level head
• Jack is a fool
• Richard is all knowing and steady
• Kate isn’t to be trusted
• and Jacob is good

This episode made me rethink all of those things, and it wasn’t fun.  I get that the shows winding down, but shouldn’t that mean that our group should be regrouping, banding together.  Suddenly I have to choose a side, Jack or Kate, Locke or Jacob, Sawyer or The Island.  These conflicts are hurting me.

And Daniel is still dead.

The conclusion I’ve reached is this, I didn’t like this episode, but this was a setup episode for the finale.  I usually dislike these episodes until after I see the finale, at which point the setup seemed genius.  But right now I’m left thinking back on an episode that had Sayid return, Daniel dead and Richard acting confused.  These aren’t good things.

6.0/10.0  (It’s only above five in anticipation of the next episode.

By the way: If that was a Richard-centric episode then I am left wanting more.

514 – The Variable

Review:

I started getting very worried at about the halfway mark of this episode.  By that point it was clear that the flashbacks were going to cover Daniel’s whole life and solve every mystery about him.  The writers only do that when they are about to kill the character, examples: Shannon, Charlie, and Locke.

The writers had a rough time with this one.  They knew that we liked the character, and they knew that it would look like they were going to kill him.  First they gave him that superficial neck wound.   That lulled us into a false sense of security, we though ‘hey, Daniel’s OK, he’s not going to get killed in an ironic and tragic way!’  Unfortunately we were wrong.

The writers also attempted to offset the death by pretending that Desmond was going to die.  That was just a cheap shot.  Desmond was my first favorite character on the show.  After season 4 I downgraded him since he got his happy ending.  Daniel became my favorite.  In this episode they made us think that Desmond was going to die.  They tried to balance our grief over Daniel’s death by giving us relief because of Desmond’s recovery.  It wasn’t enough.

I don’t usually complain about Lost, it’s a great show, the best show on the air, but I’m going to do it tonight.  Don’t take it too seriously.  I’ll get over Daniel’s death, but at the moment I’m pissed.  If there’s one thing we learned from Heroes it’s that the original stars aren’t necessarily the best characters.  The Lost writers keep on killing the new characters they introduce.  First Libby and Ana Lucia, that was uncalled for and still angrifying.  Then Eko, I didn’t really care about this one, but it still serves to illustrate my point.  And then Nikki and Paulo, I’ll give them that one, they were badly introduced and generally hated.  Then Alex and Karl, these ones were at least guest stars, they were in a dangerous position.  Then Charlotte, then Caesar, then Abbadon (again a guest-star), and now Daniel.  If they have no intention of fully using these character then don’t introduce them, don’t write good characters.  Or… better yet, don’t kill them.  The only safe addition to the cast is Ben.  Juliet and Miles beware.  The original stars aren’t that good, I’d take Daniel, Charlotte, Miles, Libby, Ana Lucia even Nikki and Paulo over any of the original stars, especially ones like Jin, Sun, Sayid, Claire, Kate and Jack.

Despite all my bitterness I still have to admit that this episode was very well written and amazingly answer-filled.  9.5/10.0

513 – Some Like it Hoth

Review:

I thought this episode was going to be a fun little jaunt around the island with Miles and Hurley.  At times it was pretty light, but it was also pretty serious at times.

We got confirmation that Pierre and Lara are Miles’ parents, and Miles knew that too.  This episode established some father issues for Miles (I believe that Daniel and Juliet are the only people without daddy issues on this show).

There was some slight focus on Miles’ powers but we are still left to guess at how he got the powers.  It was very interesting to hear Miles and Hurley compare their powers though.

In the “Main” storyline, the pressure on our group is growing.  Phil tried to confront Sawyer and had to be stopped, and now Roger is on the case too.

This episode showed a lot more about the Dharma Stations, we’ve been stuck at The Barracks, so it was good to have a tour to see what’s built and what isn’t.

And last but not least we saw Bram, the large scary man with Ilana.  He attempted to prevent Miles from going to the Island with Naomi.  The clues regarding this new group are very intriguing, I can’t wait to find out more.

The episode wasn’t a comic relief episode, but it also wasn’t crucial.  Ont he bright side we finally got a Miles flashback, and it answered almost all of our questions about him.  This episode certainly wasn’t bad and the Star Wars references really helped it’s score 7.0/10.0

(I’m back to my old format!  It wasn’t worth posting twice in a night, or maybe it was, I don’t know.  I’m just trying this way again.)

Where’s Daniel?

This is probably the most immediate mystery in the show, especially for people like me.  Daniel is currently my favorite character.

Let’s examine our evidence. 

1. What Sawyer says

Jack asks, “Did you say Faraday?  Is he here?”  Sawyer responds, “Not anymore.”  This is very open-ended, it could mean almost anything.  It is very important though, it’s the entire reason why we’re looking for him.

2. The opening scene in season 5

This scene is easy to forget because at the time that we originally watched it it made no sense.  But we’re all a little older, maybe a little wiser (I’ve always wanted to say that), maybe now we’ll understand it.  Nope, I just watched it, it’s still pretty cryptic.  It seems as though Daniel is still in the 70s at this point.  He’s working for Dharma under the Orchid station.  Other than that it’s hard to tell if this is in 1974 or 1977 or anything else.

3. What Charlotte Says

Charlotte tells Daniel that when she was a child Daniel came to her and was crazy and scary.  Now admittedly Daniel can look a little rough around the edges at times, but last time we saw him he wasn’t scary, and he was only slightly crazy.

4. The 2008 Comic-Con Video

 Remember this video, oh what fun we had overanalyzing this little video clip.  But perhaps it will come in handy again.  This scene has not happened yet, it wouldn’t surprise me if it never happened, but still I’m keeping an eye out for Pierre.

5. The 2007 Comic-Con Video

Bear with me, this one is much more indirectly related to Daniel.   This video shows Pierre freaking out when a rabbit from the future (or the past) comes to close to a copy of itself.  Now keep that in mind.

Remember the other comic-con video, the one from 2007, it was an outtake of the Orchid video.  In that video Pierre gets very, very frightened when a time travelling rabbit get’s near another copy of itself.  We don’t get to see what would happen if they touched or came too close to each other, but it’s safe to assume that it wouldn’t be good.

6. Eloise in 1977

You may not have put much thought into this, but in the last episode we found out that Eloise Hawking is still on the island in 1977.  This may or may not be a shock to you, that doesn’t really matter.  What does matter is that Daniel Faraday is most likely older than 30.  So that means that he was probably born on the island and he’s probably still there, as a child. 

Conclusions

If Daniel is there as a child and there as an adult he might be concerned about contacting himself.  Pierre seemed pretty worried about those two rabbits getting near each other.  It’s possible that could mean that if the rabbits touch it could kill them, but I find it unlikely that Pierre was worried about a rabbit’s life.  It seems more likely that something crazy, and explosive might happen if they touched.  It’s highly likely that Daniel knew that too (he’s smart), so perhaps he wants to avoid that kind of situation.  In that case he would want to leave the Island.  How can someone leave the island?  Two ways, the Submarine, and the Frozen Donkey Wheel.  We’ve seen Daniel checking out the Frozen Donkey Wheel in the 70s, so I’m leaning towards that.  If he managed to turn it, that would mean that he went to Tunisia in the 70s, that’s unfortunate.  Hopefully he managed to go forward in time more than that, I’m thinking sometime around 2007.

But before Daniel turns the wheel he needs to do two things, scare Charlotte and tape that video with Pierre.  I think it’s highly likely that Daniel will show up off the island in 2007, meet with Desmond and Penny, and convince them to go back to the island with him. 

Unrelated stuff

Daniel was probably born on the island (see Eloise in 1977) , that would mean that Charlotte and Daniel were born on the island and grew up on opositesides of the fence.  It’s kinda poetic in a Romeo and Juliet kind of way… uh oh, that means Daniel’s probably going to die soon (just kidding).

I’m going to put a Foreign Theory up pretty soon about Daniel and Penny, but it should be clear to everyone that they are likely related.  There lives are too intertwined for them not to be connected.  Stay tuned.

– izi

509 – Namaste

Review:

We’re back, with a bang.  The episode started off from Frank’s perspective, we got to see the plane crash land on The Others’ handy little landing strip.  It wasn’t nearly as catastrophic as the 815 crash, fortunately.  That “modern” storyline focused on Sun.  She conned Ben (for no reason) and made it to NewOtherton with Frank.  She met Christian there and he told her that Jin was stuck in 1977 with Jack, Hurley and Kate.  This explains what happened to Frank after the plane crashed but it raises a huge question: Why didn’t Sun get flashed into the 70s?

Meanwhile in 1977 Sawyer scrambles and saves the day.  He successfully sneaks Kate, Jack and Hurley into “Dharmaville” with the new recruits.  Unfortunately Sayid acts too much like a Hostile and is now a prisoner. Sawyer establishes himself as a very good leader and does a great job at showing Jack that.  There’s also a slight focus on Jin searching the island for the plane hoping to find Sun.

Some of the more interesting tidbits in this episode:

• Daniel, apparently, left
• Pierre is around the Barracks and is acting normally
• We met Radzinsky
• Ben is still a little boy and is currently obsessed with the Hostiles
• Smokey showed up (maybe)
• We heard the Whispers
• Horace’s baby is Ethan.

That’s a mighty good list of interesting things.  This episode mostly focused on the reunion of the two groups.  It had a little bit of Christian and a few teases for some other episodes, Daniel, Ethan, Ben;  all in all it was satisfying.  I prefer episodes with more mythological development (as if you don’t know that) but I can’t discount the episode completely.  7.5/10.0 

Foreign Theories: Top 11 Time Travel Pitstops

It might be a stretch to call this a theory.  Doc Arzt has created a little list of some of the fun historical moments of the islan that he looks forward to seeing this season.  It’s something that I was thinking about recently but I didn’t want to blog about.  He gets all the important points and I encourage you to check it out here.  Although if it was my list I’d put Rousseau first, and I wouldn’t list the Real Henry Gale, I couldn’t care less about him.

– izi

501 – Because You Left

Review:

(I’m going to try not to start every revlysis with the word wow, or whoa.  It’s tempting but it’s going to get repetitive.)
Yowza!  That was intense.  So we spent about eight months debating whether the island went forward in time, back in time, or moved in space, it turns out we were aiming way too low.  It seems as if the people on the island are just taking a tour of the islands history.  They are moving in time (and sometimes space) and experiencing different eras on the island.  (Just for you’re reference, I’m going to call that skipping.)

This episode stated with a Desmond-like flashback, this time with Pierre.  We see Pierre’s baby, and we see what a typical day in the life of the Dharma boss is like.  We get a great reference to the Frozen Donkey Wheel, showing how Dharma found it.  And Daniel shows up, seemingly in the past.

That leads into what happened immediately after Ben turned the wheel.  Simply put, the people on the island moved in time.  First they were sent to the time when Yemi’s plane crashed.  Ethan shot and threatened Locke, and that was that.  Then it skipped forward to an unknown time, after the Hatch was blown up.  It could have been after 2004, or it could have been during seasons 3, or 4.  Richard visits Locke and tells him that he has to bring everyone back to the island.  They skipped again to a pre-crash time period.  Daniel visits Desmond and tells him that Desmond has to go visit Dan’s mother in Oxford.  And that’s the end of that.

Back to the Oceanic 6 storyline.  Ben and Jack continue preparations to go back to the island.  Kate get’s served with papers which demand a maternity test (is that right?).  And Sayid and Hurley have an adventure.  Sayid has apparently gone rogue, doing the opposite of what Ben wants, he tells Hurley to do the same.  Sayid kills two more people and Hurley is seen with a gun, implying that he’s the killer.  Sun gets another conversation with Mr. Whidmore.  We learn that their common interest is Ben (luckily) and he demands some respect.

The skipping story element is glorious.  It has the potential to solve all of the mysteries of the island.  Now they can go back to any time period and learn everything about the people there.  We can see what happened with Rousseau, The Hostiles, Dharma, The Others and even the original people, the ones who built the four toed foot and Ben’s door.  This is very exciting.  Ironically the Oceanic 6 storyline, the exciting part of the last season, has now become the least exciting part this season.  Oh well, it’s still fun, just less so.

9.5/10.0  (Just because my brain hurts.)  It’s going to be a lot of fun watching the people on the island fail, trying to change the future.  They’re going to have a fun season.