- Rick Warren
Live-blogging of tonight's episode will commence soon. Last week's episode was fabulous - here's hoping the Mo keeps rolling.
Plus, from what I've read, this is a Sun and Jin episode!
***** Major Spoilers Below the Fold *****
Previously: Jin's in trouble at the airport, Hurley tells Richard he has to stop MIB, and Sawyer cons the crud out of everyone.
Now the show. Someone's looking through a night vision scope. They are looking at Kate. Sawyer hands her some cocoa. Locke walks through the jungle swinging a stick, and Jin tends his bear-trapped leg. He should be screaming in infected-leg agony by now. by the way. But he isn't.
Locke sits around the campfire with Jin and talks to him about his name on the cave ceiling. Locke introduces a new rule/plot-point to our already confusing milieu: all the candidates have to leave the island together. Geesh.
Flash-sideways: the cops at the airport are keeping Jin's 25 large. Jin is not happy, because he's not going to be able to do Mr. Paik's bidding now.
Sun and Jin check into a hotel. They need two rooms, because they are not married, by the way. Her name is Sun Paik, not Sun Kwon. I don't know what to think of this.
Back to the island, Sayid tells Locke that he doesn't feel anything. No emotions: anger, happiness, pain. He feels nothing. "Maybe that's best, Sayid. It will help you get through what's coming". Yeah, Smocke's evil.
Jin decides to head for the hills. He's had it with Locke and is going to find his wife. He and Sawyer argue, but unfortunately, they, and everyone else at the campsight, are poison-darted just then. It's the Widmore creeps, and they take Jin.
**** Eerie Lost music, Floating Logo, AT&T commercial, etc. etc. *****
At the Ilana campsite, Miles and Lepidus play poker, and everyone is waiting for Richard to come back. Ben protests, because he doesn't think Richard's coming back.
I'm going to ignore Mile's gratuitous fat-joke about Hurley. Sun is sick of waiting, and goes to gardening.
Jack tries to encourage her. He tells her about Jacob's lighthouse, the mirror, the names. Sun doesn't care about any of this. Nor about Alpert, being a candidate, or about this being anyone's destiny. How's it feel to be shushed, Jack? The Man of Science/Man of Faith worm has certainly turned.
Flash-sideways: Jin knocks on Sun's hotel room door. They have a tense, subtitled conversation about the watch, and so she invites him in because she doesn't want to talk in the hall. Plus, no one will be at the restaurant where the watch is to be delivered.
They flirt. A bit more than flirting, actually She's unbuttoning her sweater. So they aren't married, but they are an item. She's now down to her bra and we switch back to the beach.
Locke walks up to Sun and tells her that he has found Jin. She doesn't trust him because he killed the temple people. He reiterates that they were "confused" and had been lied to.
"Please, come with me. Jin is waiting."
Sun runs off, which is just as well, because Jin is no longer at Locke's campsite. Locke runs after her.
I still think he's evil, but he seems awfully accomodating to certain people, like 1867 Richard last week when Locke/MIB only expressed mild disappointment after Richard failed to kill Jacob. Though he's chasing Sun, he doesn't seem very threatening. I'm confused.
***** Commercials, which gives me a few minutes to mull *****
Sun's still running, Locke's still following her. She looks back, and accidentally smacks her head against a tree.
We flash-sideways to Jin and Sun's bed of illicit passion. Sun wants to run away. It's cute how they talk in Korean but Jin calls her "Honey". There's a knock on the door. I think she was about to tell Jin that she's pregnant, by the way. We'll see.
The guy at the door is Martin Keamy. He is as creepy as ever, and lets himself in. They really camp up the eerie Keamy music here too.
Back at the beach, Ben wakes Sun up. She can only speak in Korean for some reason. Ben asks, "tell me who did this to you?"
"Locke."
Locke is now back at the Lockesite, and comes upon all the poison-darted Others/Losties. Locke seems a bit freaked out, because he can't find Jin.
Cut to what looks like a particularly sinister Dharma hatch. Jin wakes up in a torture chair of some sort. He flips a switch on the wall and now I recognize this place. It's the place where Ben's people messed with Carl's mind, because the movie screen fills with all that Clockwork Orange stuff.
Widmore's female goon walks in and tells Jin this is "room 23", the Dharma initiative's subliminal experimentation room. Jin tries to walk off, so she tazes him.
When he comes to, she whips out a Dharma map which is signed by Jin Kwon. I'm assuming that he did some map work back in the seventies. Jin demands to see Charle's Widmore. She agrees.
Back at Locke's camp, he hands Sayid a gun and asks him if he's a good swimmer. Claire is moping around, so Locke asks if she's OK. She asks if her name was on the wall. She seems kind of hurt because her name wasn't. She doesn't think she's needed, and Aaron won't know her. She asks if Kate's name's on the wall.
"No Claire, it isn't. Not anymore." But he needs Kate to help get the other candidates off the island. But once she does, "Whatever happens, happens." I'm liking MIB more and more every second.
Sawyer asks what's up and Locke says they need to go to the other island. Sawyer snarks to Locke, "what do you need a boat for, can't you turn into smoke and fly your behonkus over to the other island?" Locke can't for some very lamely explained reason.
***** Commercial *****
Back to Sun's hotel room. Creepy, creepy music is playing. Sun hands the watch to Keamy, as she kicks Jin's shoes under the bed.
He asks where his money is, and where Mr. Kwon is. Keamy is getting more threatening with every second. His Iraqi goon knocks on the door, as Keamy begins to notice signs of Jin's presence. Jin is in the bathroom, they discover, and he seems pretty peeved. Keamy does the ugly-American thing where he talks LOUDLY to Jin and Sun to help them understand English.
Having no luck, Keamy brings in Patchy, I mean Mikhail, who speaks a bunch of languages. With Mikhail translating, they decide to take Sun to the bank, and will take Jin to the restaurant. Jin asks Keamy to promise not to tell Mr. Paik about he and Sun, and Keamy charmingly agrees, because he really doesn't care about their personal lives. Just his 25 grand.
Back to the beach, everyone's looking suspiciously at Ben vis a vis the bad bump on Sun's head. Ben denies having anything to do with it
Ben: "Why won't you believe me?"
Ilana: "Because you're speaking." Ha ha.
Sun can understand everything they say, but can only speak Korean. This doesn't make sense to Miles, but as Lepidus points out, "ask the man who speaks to the dead." Touche.
Just then Richard walks up with Hurley.
"Pack your bags. We're leaving."
Switch to Locke, who lands on Hydra island and is immediately ambushed by Widmore's goons. There are those Dharma style sonic boomers setup too.
"Easy friend, I come in peace."
Widmore walks up. Locke knows him, and Widmore knows about Locke too, somewhat. It's all a mixture of myths, stories, etc.
Widmore denies knowing where Jin is.
"A wise man once said that war was coming to this island," observes Locke. "I think it just got here."
Well, I may think MIB is evil, but he's not as evil as Widmore. So I'm basically on MIB's side on this one.
***** Commercial *****
Back, Richard and the Losties/Candidates are packing up. Richard asks where Locke is, and he realizes Locke is planning on leaving on the plane.
Richard wants to destroy the plane, and Sun loudly protests in Korean. She's in no mood to discuss this, as she's pretty ticked off right now. Sun rocks. She wants to save Jin, not save the darn world! She knows that as a candidate Richard needs her, so she's got leverage and she's not going to destroy any plane.
Switch to the bank, as Sun and Mikhail wait for her account to deliver the money. Turns out Mr. Paik has closed the account. Oh crud.
Mikhail looks a lot less beat up in this reality, by the way. No patch.
Meanwhile, Jin is being packed away at the restaurant. Keamy actually is chagrined that they bumped Jin's head on the door, which seems strange, because it turns out that Mr. Paik knows about Jin and Sun, and the 25 Grand was actually Keamy's fee for "popping" Jin. So I'm kind of confused as to why Keamy isn't just popping him, rather than tending his bleeding head wound.
Back to the Dharma station, Widmore is mad at the nerd-goon lady (she's a geophysicist) because she grabbed Jin early. He apologizes to Jin.
"Why did you bring me here?"
Widmore hands him a camera, with pictures of his little girl, Jeun. Jin is touched at the sight of her, and the sight of Sun. He starts to cry.
Widmore has a daughter too, and knows what it's like to be kept apart. He knows Jin wants to be reunited with his wife and daughter, but the reunion will be short lived if Smocke ever gets off the island, because everyone on earth, evidently, will die if that happens.
OK, so Widmore's good? I guess he was, traditionally, a Jacob guy, so possibly. He decides to show Jin "the Package". What is that? Well, first off, it's not a "what", it's a "who."
***** Commercial, and the new Amazon Kindle commercials sure are cute *****
Back to the restaurant, Jin sits in the storage room and hears gunshots. He begins to kick on the door, and Sayid barges in. Jin demands to be let go.
Sayid doesn't know why Jin's here and he doesn't really care. Jin begs him to free him, in broken English. Sayid hands him a razorblade and wishes him luck.
Mikhail and Sun arrive at the restaurant, and Mikhail pulls out his glock. Sun reacts with horror at the dead bodies, except it turns out that Keamy is still alive. Jin comes up behind him and puts a gun to Mikhail's head.
They struggle, because Mikhail was a bit too Sherlock Holmes for his own good, and Jin literally shoots Mikhail's eye out.
In the struggle, Sun got shot in the abdomen. "I'm pregnant," she moans.
Back to the beach, Jack tells Sun a story of a friend of his who couldn't talk before. He asks her if she can write in English, because he figures she can.
Turns out she can. Jack mentions that he went back out to the garden to see if Locke was there. He wasn't, but Jack did find a nice, fresh, ripe tomato. "That's one stubborn tomato. I guess no one told it it was supposed to die."
Sun smiles at Jack. It's nice to see her smile again. She writes that Locke told her that he had Jin. I can't read the entire note, though because the stupid V logo is on the lower right part of the screen, right where her note is.
Jack promises if she comes with him he'll help her find Jin and get them off the island. He promises, and she takes his proffered hand, taking him up on his offer. Sweet scene.
Back at the Locke camp, Sawyer and Kate chat. "Why aren't you worried James?"
"Oh, I am worried, I'm just good at pretending that I ain't"
Sawyer was just explaining that if Widmore didn't kill Locke, they're screwed "six ways till Sunday" when Locke walks up. Locke doesn't like secrets, by the way.
Back at the sub, Sayid rises out fo the water and sees a drugged Desmond being dragged out of the sub by Geophysicist goon and regular goon.
Desmond must be "the package".
Previews next Tuesday, to a bagpiped version of Amazing Grace. Sun and Jin embrace on the beach. Other stuff was in the previews, but, frankly, that's all that matters.
Bad Wobot!
Trackback URL: http://thinklings.org/bloo.trackback.php/5915.
Bill
I'm pretty sure that the reason the MIB has to have all six to get off the island is because he knows they're the candidates slated to take Jacob's place and therefore continue to protect the world from him and keep him in bondage on the island. So I figure, he figures, if he has all of them with him, none of them can become the new Jacob and keep him from leaving.
Also, it does seem pretty sure the Locke monster is just that - the monster. The way he implied to Claire that he was perfectly willing to ditch Kate seemed a little "bad guy" to me.
I know, I know. You all want bad things to happen to Kate. But that seemed pretty evil to me - whether I like Kate or not.
Also, wasn't he lying? Isn't Kate's name on the list???
Yes, Locke is a monster and is evil. I think the misdirection many of us fell under was the idea that this was a clear-cut "good/white", "bad/black" rivalry. From what I can see, MIB is evil, and will indeed destroy the world if he's let out. Jacob, however, is not "good" in the way we think of it. He has run through quite a few human beings for his own ends. But on the subject that matters (protecting the world from MIB) he is good.
In other words, he'll sacrifice boodles of humans to find the right person or persons to further his mission of bottling up MIB, so he's not particularly beneficent, but thank goodness he's got MIB bottled up.
So he's "good", kinda. But he's not "God".
Myth? Hmmmm. So maybe MIB is Grendel? He had a crazy mother. And maybe Jacob is Beowulf?
That V logo thing was just wrong. Waaay too distracting.
Jacob is DEFINITELY not God - and it would be hard to make the argument that he's even "good" in a good vs evil set up. No doubt on that one. I seriously don't think they'll go in that direction.
I hope.
If they do it will be surprising. And disappointing.
They won't. I think it's been too incredibly, satisfyingly clever up to this point to just be a simple good vs evil, satan vs God scenario.
And is anyone else going all, what did you say, Hulk on the fact that my sweet Sayid is apparently an unfeeling drone????
Hello????
Not. Okay.
OK here is my guess at the various groups true motivations:
Jacob - to keep evil (aka Flocke) bottled up on the island to therefore keep allowing people time and the opportunity to find redemption.
Flocke - to escape an endless existence/imprisonment of judging just the people brought to the island by Jacob, and instead bring final death/judgment to the entire human race. I also think Jacob was actually taunting him by offering him fish and wine, because I don't think he can eat or drink.
Charles Widmore - wants to save the island, but not solely keep Flocke bottled up. Wants it for selfish purposes - its healing properties, and more importantly, the ability to stop time and give him eternal life like Richard. So while some of his goals coincide with Jacob's, his selfish motives will cause carnage and doom his efforts.
Losties - variously torn between the three alternatives and what it would mean for them and those they love. Probably will be forced to make sacrifices, including giving up their lives (or alternative lives they might prefer), to truly find redemption.
LOST Producer and fans are ticked off by the V clock.
An on-screen countdown clock promoting the return of ABC’s ‘V’ had ‘Lost‘ viewers madder than the Man in Black getting kicked out of a “No Smoking” section Tuesday night. ‘Lost’ boss Damon Lindelof didn’t have kind words for the constant blemish either.
The worst part of it all: The relentless reminder largely failed in its bid to recruit ‘Lost’ viewers. ‘V’ saw 30 percent of its lead-in audience decide it was “time” to go to bed or change the channel.
Coupled with the ABC logo “bug,” the ‘V’ clock claimed a conspicuous amount of screen space and even obscured key moments, such as when Jin viewed photos of his daughter for the very first time, or this pivotal scene in which Sun communicated with Jack by notepad:
Say what? “I don’t trust him“? Or “I don’t trust Vs”?
The latter is an understandable sentiment… save for the fact that ABC’s remake won’t premiere for another two years in ‘Lost’ time.
As Lindelof caught the West Coast feed, he grumbled on Twitter, “Yes, people, I saw it too. 34 minutes until I cry myself to sleep.”
Twitter user @bottomrighthand offered this positive spin on the badly received bug: “I’m just glad Lost finally answered some of our questions. You know, like “When does V start?” or “How long til V, again?”
But the Nielsen ratings suggest that a large chunk of ‘Lost’ fans weren’t asking those questions or caring about the answer. Or maybe they were so peeved by the clock they chose to boycott the aliens-among-us series?
You can go watch the episode again without the annoying V clock at the link above.
That thing really ticked me off. What about you guys?
It was too prominent and too distracting. If they had just put it up after commercial breaks for a few seconds that would be one thing, but to leave it there....aaaargh. I'm glad people are complaining. Maybe that will get ABC's attention so we don't have to deal with that in the future. I was determined NOT to watch V after that out of spite.
Interesting, Evan.
GinH--I agree. I'm not a Kate-fan, but the remark showed Locke's deceptive character.
Did you all notice that Jin can have kids in the side-flash?
I've never felt either way about Sun, but she's sort of bugging me this season; She's way over-passionate about her husband, leaving her daughter in the hands of her screwed-up parents. (I mean, I love my husband, but I must protect my kids first.) Plus, she keeps trying to make it all about her and Jin finding each other, and isn't a team-player. It's also boring that she can't speak English. I think they're trying to set it up so she and Jin have "switched" places, and he'll need to translate for her as she did him at the first. Sweet, but stupid.
I tell ya, they killed off the two most interesting and realistic female characters in Libby and Anna Lucia. Penny and Juliet are cool, but don't hold a candle to the depth of most of the men. Even the most peripheral (say, Lapidis, Horace or Christian Shepherd) are extremely fascinating. Gosh, wasn't Keemy deliciously creepy? That guy can flat act. I think if I saw him on the street I'd run.
In all, an OK ep. fairly average.
I was irritated when I couldn't read the note from Sun, but hadn't noticed the V logo up until then. Of course, after that, I couldn't keep my eyes off of it. It was annoying. I doubt ABC cares.
Evan - I love the idea of the Losties all having to choose between timelines. I feel pretty sure the writers could make that happen. Great idea. However, what if they all wanted different ones? All I know, is I better get the real Sayid back in some way. It's depressing that they turned such a great character into a zombie.
And I can't figure out the Widmore angle at all. Wasn't the last time we saw Desmond him riding off on a boat into the sunset with Penny? Widmore really is awful if he separated Penny/Desmond after all they've gone through - time traveling no less - to be together. I have a hard time feeling the whole "I love my daughter" bit with Jin when he probably ruined his daughter's life to bring Desmond to the island again.
I knew Desmond was the package. I was pretty proud of myself for stating the fact ahead of time. Pretty much one good guess for me in about a million wrong guesses.
Evan,
As always, thanks for the great take on the show.
I was just thinking today again on my "Locke as Angel of Death" idea. MIB/Locke is the pessimist, and would just as soon kill everyone on earth, because no one is good, no not one. Jacob is the optimist, and wants to prove to MIB that there is one good man in Sodom/Gemorrah so that MIB won't destroy it. This is a risky play on Jacob's part, because if he just never brought anyone to the island, MIB is bottled up forever. But he is an optimist. That's why he let Ben kill him - up to the very end he hoped better for Ben.
Sun and Jin in the alternate reality were intriguing. Sun had not learned English in the AR, Jin was less tense, even with his stressful job, but he also had never worked up the guts to ask Paik for Sun's hand in marriage. They still found each other anyway, but were having an out of wedlock affair. Both seemed happier (but also shallower) than in the original reality.
It was a great bit of redirection on the writer's part to show Jin making Sun button up her sweater on the plane, and show Jin in various stressful/yelling moments in earlier eps. Plus it looked like Sun was just pretending not to understand English when the customs cop was asking her for information that would have helped Jin. It made the couple look unchanged in the alternate reality, when in fact they are quite a bit different, and Sun really didn't know any English.
This show . . . wow.
Michelle,
The answer's simple: a team can only have ONE starting quarterback. ;-)
David,
That's the coolest thing I've ever seen.
Although I bet having to type in 4 8 15 16 23 42 every morning to get your alarm clock to stock would get very old! :-)

Yeah, I'm feeling quite protective of Hurley these days as well. And Miles is still an understudy to Sawyer in the snark department.
Speaking of snark, you have to enjoy the black humor of Mikhail getting shot in the eye. Which reminded me of my all time favorite when Charlie called Mikhail 'Cyclops'.