What's The Monster?

Interesting theory up at Numbers Forum. Claims THE MONSTER is...a Djinn. Don't laugh. The theory actually makes a lot of sense:

1) It eats bones. Thus that's why the bodies of Yemi and the drug lords were gone.

2) It can take shapes including people.

3) It can take the form of "smoke without fire"

4) It whispers.

5) The actor who played the Djinn in The Wishmaster films has been cast as Patchy. If he's in the Flame Station he may be controlling The Monster.

It's a hell of a lot more interesting than the most popular theory: NANOBOTS! (Even with Damon shooting that down again and again people still believe it.)

The Origins of Conspiracy

Someone posted at the 'Lage that they're taking a college class on conspiracy theories (yeah, I dunno) and asked what we thought about the convergence of LOST and "conspiracy theory culture." I posted this in response:

I've been thinking about how conspiracy theorists are drawn to the show. I don't think that's an accident... that's really by design. Damon and JJ are well aware of the power of a good conspiracy story to hold an audience's imagination. Moreso, they know what kind of storytelling conventions generate conspiracy theories. The Hanso Foundation, the NUMBERS (which were inspired by the Illuminati's fasicantion with 23), the Lost Connections in the flashbacks... all these create the uneasy sense that there's an underlying nervous system to the world that we are not aware of... usually these are dismissed as products of conspiracy, but here they appear to be products of fate. I think it's one invaluable part of the show that they've made conspiracy theories and faith in fate two sides of the same coin. You see this reflected in the theories that spring up around the Kennedy Assassination and 9/11... that's because these are totally nonsensical tragedies that every fiber of our being tells us shouldn't happen. But our need to make sense of the nonsensical leads a few to think that these events not only shouldn't happen but that they really couldn't... not without outside help, usually in the form of a conspiracy. That to me is the origin of virtually all conspiracy theories: the need to bring order to chaos (often tragic chaos). Otherwise we feel vulnerable and powerless. Conspiracies restore that power ironically by saying that the fate of the world doesn't rest in our hands but at least it does rest in someone's instead of God, fate or no one and nothing at all.

3x06, "I Do"

Sometime in Season 1, LOST fans who cared about the Jack/Kate/Sawyer love triangle split themselves up into two camps:

THE JATERS who wanted Jack and Kate to be together and THE SKATERS who wanted Sawyer and Kate to be together. Well, Kate made her choice last night and while I had believed myself to be too invested in other parts of the show to care, I couldn't help but react way more strongly to that choice than I expected.

I guess I'm a JATER.

I got PISSED that Kate chose Sawyer... not even because of the choice itself but how she revealed it. She basically told Jack when she told him that saving Sawyer was more important than Jack being his own man. It reminds me of that classic moment in The Simpsons when Lisa and Ralph go to the Krusty Special together and Lisa screams at the camera that she is most definitely NOT Ralph's girlfriend. Bart replays a tape of it to Lisa and points out that you can see the exact second Ralph's heart breaks. "Rrrright.... THERE!"

Same thing with last night. You could see Jack's heart breaking RRRIGHT... THERE!

I felt for the guy way more than I thought I would. Why? Because once again the nice guy loses to the outlaw. OUCH.

More later....

3x05, The Cost of Living

On vacation me and B. have been ripping through Lost Season 1 again. It's very weird watching the show and seeing things seeded then blooming NOW in Season 3.

Anyways...

This was a very moving episode for me. I'd spent twelve years in catholic school. At some point during that time I essentially lost my faith in the traditional Judeo-Christian god for reasons related to what was taught to me, complicated further by what my mother expected me to believe. It's taken a long time to redevelop the sort of Zen Agnostic spirituality I now subscribe to. In between was a wilderness that often left me depressed and angry at myself for never being as "good" as I knew I should be. I didn't find peace until I realized I shouldn't ask myself how "good" I should be -- but how "good" I COULD ACTUALLY be.

And that's where Mr. Eko's fateful decision last Wednesday really hit home. As he so eloquently put it:

"I did not ask for the life I was given but it was given to me nonetheless - and with it I did my best."

Confronting the Monster, he was asked to repent. And he refused. And he paid with his life.

Was this a character who turned to the dark side? Or did he instead accept his limitations, that he could never be as good as his brother Yemi -- that he would always be, as he was on the steps of the church, a priest with blood on his hands? It was this contradiction that wracked Eko with guilt all his life. He sought forgiveness for something that could never be forgiven, not as long as he was trying to be his brother, one who believed in absolute morality. Instead he could only be himself -- not a contradiction, but something else... a happy medium where he could accept murdering a man to spare his brother from doing so himself.

It's a shades of grey morality, yes, but not a relativistic one. It's one that brought peace, one I tried my "best" to develop and ended up being even harder to accept. But that's what Eko's death was about in my mind: acceptance of who you were, the smoke and the light.

*Was Yemi the Monster? I'm pretty sure he was. As I may have pointed out earlier, the Monster downloaded scenes from Eko's life in last season's "The 23rd Psalm". So it could have manifested itself to him as scenes from his past, including his brother. I'm pretty sure this explains Jack seeing Christian alive in "White Rabbit" from Season 1 and Hurley seeing his imaginary friend Dave in "Dave" from Season 2.

*Why did the Monster kill Eko? I guess it comes down to something this season is revealing itself to be about: free will. What's the use of Eko repenting for the sake of repenting when he knows in his heart it does no good. But to the monster, who may indeed have an absolute moral code, this was unacceptable: Eko killed -- he must feel sorry or he must be punished.

BTW, apparently AAA wanted off the show and the producers, tired of him being a nuisance on set, let him go.

*What's the connection to Ben? Ben reveals his plan: to make Jack want to operate on him instead of forcing him to. In Ben's mind he'd rather not have the operation at all than have Jack do it against his free will, or at least Ben's conception of it. Juliet has been making sarcastic comments about free will still existing on the Island. Perhaps Ben has transformed the remnants of the DHARMA Initiative into a Cult of Others (explains the white robes). So what's better: the illusion of free will or seeking a genuine freedom of will that may be impossible to find? Which side is Ben and which is Juliet?

****
Additional Notes on "Every Man for Himself"

*The Bunny Rabbit with the 8 painted on it was a Stephen King reference. Here's the quote from On Writing:

From the chapter entitled:

WHAT WRITING IS

"Telepathy, of course... Look - here's a table covered with red cloth. On it is a cage the size of a small fish aquarium. In the cage is a white rabbit with a pink nose and pink-rimmed eyes. In its front paws is a carrot stub upon which it is contentedly munching. On its back, clearly marked in blue ink, is the numeral 8.... Do we see the same thing? ...I think we do... The most interesting thing here isn't even the carrot-munching rabbit in the cage, but the number on its back. Not a six, not a four, not a nineteen-point-five. It's an eight. This is what we're looking at, and we all see it. I didn't tell you. You didn't ask me. I never opened my mouth and you never opened yours. We're not even in the same year together, let alone the same room... except we are together. We're close.

We're having a meeting of the minds.

I sent you... a cage, a rabbit, and the number eight in blue ink. You got them all, especially that blue eight. We've engaged in an act of telepathy. No mythy-mountain *beep* real telepathy... there is a point to be made."

So the writers just linked writing with conning and telepathy BRILLIANT!!!

3x04, Every Man for Himself

I didn't like the episode. It was built on Sawyer being conned, a tough challenge. Except he wasn't conned... he was told a lie (he had a pacemaker installed) and took it at face value without questioning it. I think we're supposed to accept the thing with the bunny and being drugged up would lead him to be persuaded, but this is SAWYER we're talking about. His two cons from "The Long Con" were both painstakingly planned out and well executed. Ben did nothing like that here, unless I'm missing a subtext. I seriously doubt a majority of viewers believed for one second Ben was telling the truth.

First off, it was BEN for chrissakes -- he's never told the truth.

Second, it just looked like Sawyer hadn't even been moved let alone had an operation to install a pacemaker. He had a cut and a bandage over it. If anything the whole setting screamed, "LIE."

Third, he should've known after Pickett beat the hell out of him.

Sure, it led to some cute scenes where his heart was racing seeing Kate half-naked. But all in all, I could never buy the con and so could never buy any of the emotional beats they were trying to hit during the show.

And TWO ISLANDS?! Oh, Christ Jesus -- that's been the heart of so many lame theories. Now I'm going to have continue putting up with the stuff about how the plane was supposed to land on Island Two and The Hanso Foundation orchestrated everyone onto the plane and Desmond ruinned the plan by not pressing the Button. I'd say that would be riduculous even for this show -- but then again I am supposed to believe that Sawyer believed Ben.

Ugghh.

*I can't remember enough of Of Mice and Men and I've, umm, never read Animal Farm so I'm missing subtext there.

*Was that really Sawyer's kid? Again, why am I supposed to believe that? Why should Sawyer?

*Juliet's a Fertility Doctor?! GOD! Even more ridiculous theories get some added fuel.

*OK... I get they took Jack now to work on Ben's spinal tumor. But I am starting to suspect Kate's there just as eye candy. There is a reason for Sawyer to be there, but we haven't gotten that yet.

*In the preview, we see a man with an eye patch. That's probably the guy who owns the glass eye found in The Arrow station. And the Losties are probably seeing him in The Flame Station only referred to so far on the Blast Door Map.

Random Thought

I've been meaning to write two short prose pieces, one about Carlos Beltran striking out looking and another about repetitive beggars on the F train. That was all inspired by reading Chuck Klosterman III: Killing Yourself to Live. (Some people have Sedaris. I have CHUCK.)

Instead though, as usual, I've been writing at the Fuselage. I am actually trying to wean myself off of it because I KNOW something's going to happen later this season that will fry a lot of people's brains and turn many, many people against the show. I don't even know what it is yet, but if Damon Lindelof himself says it'll cause people to cry "Jumped the Shark" then something wicked this way comes. I don't want to be in its way. I'm already wasting too much time defending the damn thing to people who are supposed to be fans. (Sounds like the comic industry, huh?)

Anywho I just had to respond to this comment:

Here is the sad fact though guys. I do not believe there is any grand theory. This show is becoming "The Lost World". All of the things that happened on this Island have happened in other such movies and shows. Time events, monsters, others, ancient civilizations, weird animals, phenonenon that escape science as we know it. If anyone has seen the TV "Lost World" series you know how this cheesy stuff is just being presented in million dollar form with a few new idea's mixed with some Pop culture drama

And I responded with this:

I do not believe there is a grand theory, but I do believe there is a grand message or theme that Damon and Carlton and JJ are trying (albeit in their own way) to impart. Incorporating all the world's "Time events, monsters, others, ancient civilizations, weird animals, phenonenon" has long been a storytelling device in genre fiction as you point out. But I believe here it's more than a gimmick... here they're trying to say that the Island is a locus of the world's imaginary phenomenon. (Much as, say, the Dreaming was in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman.) On the surface that just drives the Losties crazy or scares the pants off of them. Below the surface though, the Losties are being forced to face concrete manifestations of universal human fears. Just as they were running away from these things in the "real world" they now have to confront them on the Island in the form of polar bears, smoke monsters and The Others. What happens when the real and the imaginary collide? What do the Losties become then? How do they adapt? How do they change? How do they evolve from traumatized people to people who come face-to-face with their traumas?

3x03, Further Instructions

LISTEN:
Desmond David Hume has come UNSTUCK in time."

The Polar Bear! Nix that: THE EINSTEIN OF BEARS.

Overall, great episode. One could argue the flashback walked over well-worn ground. But I'll put forward that this was the first time we saw that the Losties are the "family" Locke was always destined to be part of, perhaps now head of. He also declared himself "The Hunter" -- another type to add to the Watchmen thread.

*Did anyone find it odd that Locke waking up in the jungle is shot in virtually identical manner as how Jack woke up in the Pilot. Hmm... you don't think what saved the Losties during the plane crash was the same thing that saved Locke, Eko and Desmond from being imploded along with the hatch, eh? Nah....

*So what was up with the "Deja Vu"? Does Desmond now have superpowers? Can he predict the future? Did he time travel? Well... as the Terminator taught us, you time travel in your birthday suit or you don't time travel at all. My guess: he very briefly came "unstuck" in time ala Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse Five or perceived past and future as one moment like Dr. Manhattan in the Watchmen. (And yes, I had to explain Slaughterhouse Five to the newbies at The Fuselage.)

*Why was Desmond the pilot in Locke's vision quest? Maybe because he brought the plane to the island by not pressing the button.

*Note too, Kate and Sawyer looked chummy while Jack hung back behind them forlorn. Foreshadowing of Kate and Sawyer getting together with Jack on the outs?

*Locke picked up something in the cave that has the Pearl Station logo on it. Were the last Pearlies eaten by Einstein Bear? Was that why it was abandoned?

*I thought it was interesting that after the first two episodes of the season where you saw Jack and Sun show much darker sides to their characters than previously revealed, we were give a scene where Locke could've actually killed someone... but didn't. I know with the way the flashbacks have been going I seriously thought Locke would pull the trigger.

*What were the "Further Instructions"? Were they from The Island itself? What does the Island really want Locke to do?

*Next week: Sawyer goes to Gitmo in "Every Man for Himself".

Oh, that Charlie...

"Einstein of Bears" has to be one of the best lines of the show's history.

Some folks at the Lage are already complaining that Desmond can see the future and thus has "powers". There's been a strong "everything can be explained through science" feeling among LOST fans for a while -- all of it not entirely justified. My quickie theory on it is Desmond, Locke and Echo were thrown out of time briefly and Desmond could see the past, present and future as one moment.

And we got our first looks at the new full-timers: Kiele Sanchez and Rodrigo Lopez (aka "the Tom Cruise of Brazil" -- the Cruise before he went crazee).

And I pray Desmond doesn't wear that shirt much longer. MY EYES!

Guess they DO know what they're doing...

The creators of LOST planted the seeds of the final scene of last week's episode 1 1/2 years ago!

So, NO, they are not making it up as they go along...

Most of the time. :-)

3x02, The Glass Ballerina

Whoa... I'd been wondering since the very beginning what Sun's archetypical character was since everyone else seemed to have one. Turns out she's a version of the Trickster. But while Sawyer is certainly a Trickster, too, he seems to be sorry that he can't help it, while Sun is an unapoligetic and habitual LIAR. And as this episode shows every lie of hers has a direct negative effect on the people around her... and she doesn't seem to care as long as it preserves her desired way of life. The one big lie she keeps perpetrating, that she never slept with Jae Lee and that her baby is most definitely Jin's, is sure to have HUGE implications down the road. I think it was all hinted at when Pickett kissed Colleen, the woman Sun later shot in the stomach Darth Michael style. Pickett's going to be PISSED and seeking revenge and Sun's lies may finally come back around on her own head.

*Michael Emmerson... Geebus what a great actor. He keeps nailing this Mr. Rogers meets Hannibal Lecter thing with each epi. Someone at The Fuselage referred me to this Variety article on Emmerson where he describes his acting technique:

Michael Emerson calls it stillness, a trait he's developed as an actor that audiences are instinctively drawn to.
Whether on Broadway or broadcast television -- where Emerson can be seen on ABC's "Lost" as the creepiest of the Others -- he has the ability to create tension with only the slightest head movement or, sometimes, just by blinking.

"Audiences react to something. Maybe it's those intense eyeball-to-eyeball scenes, which have a lot of nuance," Emerson says from Hawaii, just a few days after shooting the final episode of the cult-followed series before heading back to his Gotham home. "I continue to play the role instinctively, and that (creepiness) is what people think of me."

*The Glass Ballerina: The meaning of the title has been getting a lot of debate at the 'Lage:
-Is this a comment on the fragility of the Losties amidst their bewildering circumstances... and more specifically the fragiity of Jin and Sun's relationship?
-A reference to "The Glass Managerie"?
-Putting The Others manipulation of Jack, Kate and Sawyer (J/K/S) into the context of making them go through an elaborate dance for still unknown reasons?
-Or, the one I agree with, that the Ballerina was a symbol for the effects of Sun's lying and foreshadowed Jae Lee's own fall?

*So is the baby still Jin's? For all intents and purposes Sun will treat it as such because the Island gives everyone the chance at a new life. But what the Island giveth, the Island can take away. A price will be paid for her actions.

*The Others didn't know about Desmond's boat?! Do they even know Desmond was/is on the Island at all? It's funny, there's some complaint about this since the Others seem to know everything else. Of course, as the US government has proven again and again, even with eyes and ears everywhere, even the biggest dangers can still be overlooked and missed.

*Did Jae leap or was he thrown off the balcony by the dude who always shadowed Jin? Hmmm... I'm gong to say he jumped. He was still clutching the pearl necklace, a symbol of his love for Sun. What's ironic is by sparing his life and telling him to leave Korea and never return, Jin was telling Jae to follow Sun's own advice to him. Except the effect on Jae was devastating not liberating -- he would be condemed to a life without Sun, weighed down by the shame that Jin knew what he and Sun had done. What's even more ironic is Jin DIDN'T know and was just doing this to please Sun's father, which he thnks would strngthen his marriage to Sun. Amazing, multi-layered writing going on there.

*RED SOX WIN! RED SOX WIN! One of the greatest scenes in the history of LOST and not just because I hate the Yankees and LUB the Sox. Remember, Jack is a Sox fan, as his father apparently was. Christian even said to his son at one point something to the effect of "Life is suffering... that's why the Sox will never win the Series." Showing that scene killed Jack. Even setting aside the stuff it brings up between Jack and his father, it was the ultimate reminder of the kind of wonderful, miraculous moments Jack is missing in the "real world"... as opposed to the kind of moments he has to deal with on the Island: deadly polar bears, monsters and Others. It was basically showing him a glimpse of Heaven, while trapped in Hell.

3x01, "Tale of Two Cities"

Overall: not as good as last season's stunning opener, but very good nonetheless. As Doc Jensen at EW points out, this Jack flashback recontextualizes his trip to Sydney. It was him trying to REDEEM himself and not just a desperate try to save his father. Asking about whether his ex-wife was happy and not about the real identity of the man who stole her away from him shows how much he's moved on and grown since crashing on the island.

You probably couldn't have started off Season 3 any better than those first five minutes. They were so good in fact that The Fuselage crashed and has not come back online since.

Stuff backed up by the scene:

*The Others did not expect nor did they cause the crash (though Henry Gale's immediate response that there may be survivors indicates he knows a thing or two about the Island and it's mysterious ability to save crash survivors).

*Henry Gale is most definitely the leader of The Others.

*The Others live on the Island and not elsewhere on a nearby island, underground or underwater.

Other stuff backed up by the rest of the episode:

*The long rumored underwater hatch indeed exists. This was first theorized by people wondering where the cable that led to Danielle's old home connected to if you followed it back into the water.

*There's indeed a zoological station where the polar bears came from.... and it had dolphins, too! (And apparently the polar bears are smarter than Sawyer!)

*The Others are the remnant of the DHAMRA Initiative.

*Elizabeth Mitchell, lover of Angleina Jolie in the legendary Gia, lover of Kerry on ER, is now a full-time cast member on LOST... and hotter than ever! Whoo-hoo!

*Kate doesn't look that bad herself.

*The sixth DHARMA Station is The Hydra. The other five then are The Swan, the Pearl, The Flame, The Arrow and the Staff. The Door was a ruse.

*If I heard correctly Henry Gale's real name is Ben.

*Biggie Easter egg: The song playing on the radio as Jack stalks his soon-to-be ex-wife is the same song Sayid and Hurley hear when they fix their radio on the beach in Season 2. This is interesting because that cute but seemingly pointless scene was included in the latest LOST recap special. Why include such a scene when you're trying to compress nearly fifty hours of show down to 45 minutes? Well, at the end of that scene Hurley wonders where that music is coming from -- it sounds old. Sayid says radio waves at the frequency they picked up bounce off the ionisphere and could be coming from any place. Hurley then chimes in, "Or another time.... just kidding, dude."

Just kidding? Now we know it was a song from a flashback... Hmm....