TV Watch: Persons Unknown

We stumbled onto Persons Unknown in a way similar to how we found Harper's Island in that it's a recent TV offering we got through Netflix Instant. Having just completed a run last August, it's already on Instant in what might be a bid to get some support for a second season.

Having just watched the last episode recently - I wouldn't hold my breath.

Persons Unknown is a clearly a post-Lost vehicle, shoving random people into a bizarre situation against a somewhat ambiguous and nameless enemy. Instead of an island getaway, our heroes get stuck in a town in the middle of nowhere where they are essentially the only residents and leaving seems impossible.

If you don't want any spoilers, then let me just summarize with this: if Lost's great trick was to convince viewers that the writers were going to explain themselves for six seasons - that's clearly one more trick than Persons Unknown is capable of performing, as you'll find yourself questioning the plausibility of mere scenes, much less the entire season. While the acting is generally pretty good, nearly everything else about this show falls apart after the first few episodes.

For example: in a scene later in the season a character rallies the rest to try and leave the town. He does this by whistling, after which every other character in the town opens the door from a different building and starts to follow him in a group. Why were they all waiting in different buildings for a whistle? We do not know.

Which is just one example of lazy writing which culminates in the season finale, which is quite possibly one of the worst ever written.

Really bad spoiler alerts. Seriously, if you don't want to know what happens in the finale stop reading now.



Ready? Ok.

Having escaped the town (warned you), the previously imprisoned hijack a van and then subsequently crash. That's actually the event which leads to the finale, but what occurs in between the van crash and the finale is potentially the worst plot hole in TV history. Drive a truck through it? You could fly Darth Vader's personal Star Destroyer through this. One character ends up back in San Francisco. She at least has the excuse that she can't remember what happened. Two others appear to have stolen a car and are driving somewhere around San Francisco. Where they got the car or how is left up to your imagination. Heck, even why the car eventually breaks down is - though I guess you assume they just ran out of gas. A fourth ends up back in the hands of the enemy.

But these are just the opening wounds to the big one: two characters end up in Morocco. Yes, two of them made a transatlantic flight and are hiding out in Morocco even though another pair can't even keep a gallon of gas in a car. There is no explanation to this, nor is their any explanation as to how they are eventually re-captured (again, warned you).

The entire scene stinks of needing to shove the two characters in somewhere and thinking this would look really cool and never giving it any more thought. In other words, it is completely brain dead.

At best, Persons Unknown offers a few decent twists and decent, if completely wasted by the end, premise. At worst, it reminds how good Lost fans really had it.

Obviously - not recommended.

TV You Might Have Missed (or are missing, or are about to miss...)

Lost is gone. I've accepted the end, and I've dealt with the grief. I've moved on. Amazingly, the TV still works fine. Here's some shows that either just ended, or is ending:

Spartacus: Blood and Sand
When the first season of this show ended, I had the sudden realization of just how densely packed the narrative had turned out. This is Shakespeare meets soap opera - plenty of well written drama even in the middle of the blood and boobs. The acting is solid, the production is generally good when it doesn't imitate 300 too much. If you've dismissed this show because of the gratuitous use of nudity, you're missing out.

Though yes, there is plenty of nudity.

Justified
I've raved about this show before, but with the recent season finale - I can't help but recommend it again. It just feels like a good, gritty novel playing out on your TV and I'll say it again - Timothy Olyphant was genetically engineered by a secret government agency to play a cowboy. This was one of the most tightly produced first seasons I may have ever seen, the show just hits on all cylinders from the first scene of the first episode and rarely misses a beat until the conclusion.

Happy Town
Having nearly given up on high concept shows in general, I gave Happy Town a bit of suspicion ... though comparisons to the somewhat campy yet utterly fun Harper's Island helped make the case.

The show is good - it takes itself more seriously than Harper's ever did, but the core mystery is unique and engaging. The characters are strong and the writing doesn't try to follow the ensemble formula, but only focusing on characters as they are important to the current plot. Also, they aren't quite as paranoid as certain other shows about giving reveals to the viewer, and the story is an interesting combination of things you know and don't know, and what various characters know and don't know.

Sadly, Happy Town has already been cancelled. I'm hoping we get at least a full first season and something other than a complete cliffhanger - the show deserves it.

Party Down
Available via Starz and Netflix Instant at the moment - this comedy from some of the people originally responsible for Veronica Mars is just over the top excellent. The second season is about to wrap and while we weren't sure where the misfit bunch of wanna-be writers and actors slumming it as caterers would go ... it has only gotten better since the first episode. The show has a low-budget, indie kind of feel - but the writing and acting are top notch. The only downsides of this show is the short length of the season.


What's the rest of the blogosphere watching?

Kate's Horse

At the end of Lost ...


..and it should be noted that when I say "end of Lost", I mean the final episode of the final season of the TV show and hence, everything in this post is nothing but a series of serious spoilers for anyone still planning on watching the show. So if you haven't seen the show to the end, I would go find a video about a cat playing piano or something.

Ahem.

At the end of Lost we discover that the Smoke Monster was a cigar ...

Ah. See? Big spoilers. Now go away.

Now let's see if I can do this in one grammatically correct sentence:

At the end of Lost, we discover that the Smoke Monster was in fact an entity transformed when his brother Jacob, protector of the island, tossed him into a well of mysterious light and that his (if in fact genderless amorphic beings can be called such) prime motivation was to kill Jacob and any candidates for Jacob's position as protector so that he (the Smoke Monster) could leave the island.

OK: here is my first piece of evidence that Lost failed as a show. I'm betting that if anyone just starting the show ignored all those warnings and just read that bit, they wouldn't make it past season three.

Why? Because of Kate's Horse. See, the sad thing is that even if it is nearly an accident of convenient writing, the fact that Smoke Monster can't directly kill the candidates but rather must trick them into killing each other or offing themselves is a neat premise. Kind of like Saw but with brains, which is something I wouldn't mind watching.

And this is the main conflict of season six - that the candidates must save the island before Smoke Monster figures out a clever way to end them.

So why is Kate's Horse a problem? Because it shows that this wasn't the main conflict of the show ... just season six. In fact, I don't think Lost ever really had central source of conflict - it was always just Man versus Crazy Shit The Writers Made Up. If we were to believe season six as the "reveal" of the show, then we would be able to look back at past seasons and see how it was all playing out.

But let's look at the Smoke Monster's victims have died: crushed in tree, chewed off arm, crushed in tree, crushed against tree, slammed into tree, buried alive, stabbed by Ben, slammed against floor, slammed against person, slammed against person, crushed by ceiling, slammed into cage, blown up, drowned, broken neck, shot, slit throat.

You'll notice a theme. A lot of slamming, and a few creative incidents like getting Nikki buried alive after biting her in the shape of the spider. Oh, that Medusa Spider was the Smoke Monster, confirmed by producers. You can hear the mechanical sound when they approach and (thankfully) setup Nikki and Pool Boy for their final scene.

So in other words - occasionally Smoke Monster stuck to the premise, but usually it just slammed things around. When it wasn't slamming things around, it would occasionally appear as Christian Shepherd.

Or Kate's Horse. Why would the form of Kate's Horse be useful to the goals of the Smoke Monster? Well, it wouldn't. But gee golly it was neat, wasn't it? Where did that horse come from?

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how Lost was written. Just a series of distractions lumped in a row. So without any further adieu, my final final thoughts on the show:

It was a character driven show that ran out of character development
The first defense people give for Lost's feel good reunion of a finale is that Lost was, in fact, "all about the characters" and not really about the origins of smoke monsters or how the island does stuff or DHARMA or anything. Prior to the finale, the producers stated they would only answers questions about the show "the characters cared about". Which considering how bad these characters were at figuring out what was happening around them meant: not much.

The first three seasons of Lost had a consistent formula: character backstories interwoven with island mystery. It was getting pretty obvious by Season Three, though, that most of the relevant history of all the main characters - even the Tailies that had been added in Season Two, had been well illustrated. In Season Three, Lost fans suffered through two completely unnecessary characters: Nikki and Paulo, for more backstory fodder.

In Season Four - we start to get flashforwards and other twists on the backstories ... but they serve little in the way of adding to these characters. Actually, at this point most of the "off island" content actually serves the mystery plot. Who is the person in the coffin? Why does Jack want to return to the island and how will they get that done?

Truthfully, the characters of Lost work well as sketches and often in ways to offer up some brilliant dialogue ... but the note that the show ends on ... that love is what will get you to heaven ... is easily the weakest part. The motivations the characters have to fall for each other, with obvious exceptions like the Kwans, is often somewhat forced and probably best attributed to jungle fever as opposed to "the most important thing in their life".

Here's my proof on this: can anyone tell me why Kate loves Jack? What is it about him? They've already endured one failed relationship. She often acts closer to Sawyer than anyone else (particularly physically - the only steamy scenes we get with Kate are with Sawyer, not Jack). And Jack - oh, Jack. People - Jack is a complete loser. Every one of Jack's plans fails miserably throughout all six seasons and all the way up to the last episode. In fact, the only version of Jack which is isn't a loser is the one that wasn't even real. No, more likely Kate "loves" Jack because at the last minute the writers decide that love conquers all and Sawyer made a little more sense with Juliet.

The writers became pathological about not revealing anything
If the crown jewels of the show was the characters, as the producers like to say, then why was it that the writers went so far out of their way to only offer explanations about the island in short discrete bursts, usually during season opener and closers? By the end of the show, the cast includes two characters - Ben and Juliet - who once were part of The Others, the mysterious antagonistic group for most of the first half of the show. Ben was the leader of The Others, and nobody ever bothers to ask to get even basic answers from them like who they are and what they want, except to get inanely vague answers like "We're the good guys."

Bizarre examples from the show: Sawyer at one point has Karl, a refugee from The Others with certainly no love for Ben at gunpoint. Instead of bringing him back to camp, he tells him to run off. When Sayid, our stalwart interrogator/torturer asks why - Sawyer doesn't really have an answer. Locke at one point inexplicably destroys an entire DHARMA building, despite the building having tons of documentation and apparently access to the outside world.

Or my favorite: Man In Black had a name, people. It was Samuel all along. The point of making it such a secret? They just wanted to give the audience one more thing to guess about. Anyone looking for deeper meaning in the absence of his name will come up empty handed.

Much like everything else about the show.

The finale capped off six seasons' of inconsistent, convenient writing
Even a defender of the show recently admitted the Smoke Monster started off as a mindless beast, to some kind of calculating security system, to an actual man - and it is not an easy or smooth transition if you go back through episodes. It has the appearance until about Season Five that they are simply revealing new aspects of the creature, but the revelation that it is Jacob's brother and the rules that go along with it breaks that trend and any sense of cohesion that was being setup in the first half of the show. The Smoke Monster can't hurt the Losties? He is stuck in Locke's form? If you were to re-watch the show from the beginning now, what used to be a great and original threat is now shrouded with questions like, "doesn't Jacob control this thing with his rules anyway?".

And in the finale the show can't even follow the same concepts it had outlined episodes ago ... even within the same season, Jack's interaction with the Magic Light Cave is completely different from Jacob's in Across The Sea. For some time the show makes a big deal about details, lists and rules - but by the end credits of the finale it is hard to find any that the show itself decided were worth paying any attention.

There was an underscored theme of Season Six: why ask questions?

The big questions that fell off the table after Season Three are numerous. The sickness, a massive portion of the island events early in the show, is never really explained despite having Doctor Juliet join the cast. One might be lead to think that pregnancy and children are very important to some deeper mythology of the show, but one would be wrong. One would be simply thinking too much.

It would work better as a dream
Why is Kate's Horse in the jungle? There is no reason plausible based on the events of the show. What happened, happened - and it apparently always about faith and not reason.

The only way to reconcile six season's worth of dropped plot concepts is to accept that normal logic just does not apply. This is why I think so many people mistook Jack's final scene as an indication that they were dead all along - it makes the cognitive dissonance required to watch the show beginning to end so much easier. As Neil Gaiman might say, sometimes dream logic is the only way to tell the story.

And here is why I am so disappointed in Lost: they couldn't even give us that much. They couldn't even give us a cliche excuse of an explanation but instead pulled a mass cop out and went for the heartstrings. And then acted as if the show was never really about the mysteries of the island in the first place.

Meh. Lost, we had some good times - but I wish I had broken up with you seasons ago. Now I get to listen to The Girl brag about how right she was about the show until the end of time.

So, you know, thanks for that.

Even A Lost Writer Can't Really Explain Lost

I swear, almost *this* close to never talking about the damn show again - but this was too much to pass up. Apparently someone stating that they worked on the show as a writer posted to a forum and sure enough, it has been making the rounds.

And for people like me still trying to figure out just how far Lost got from actually explaining anything, it is wildly unsatisfying as an explanation.

Here's a big chunk:

Thus began Jacob's plan to bring candidates to the Island to do the one thing he couldn't do. Kill the MIB. He had a huge list of candidates that spanned generations. Yet everytime he brought people there, the MIB corrupted them and caused them to kill one another. That was until Richard came along and helped Jacob understand that if he didn't take a more active role, then his plan would never work.

Enter Dharma -- which I'm not sure why John is having such a hard time grasping. Dharma, like the countless scores of people that were brought to the island before, were brought there by Jacob as part of his plan to kill the MIB. However, the MIB was aware of this plan and interferred by "corrupting" Ben. Making Ben believe he was doing the work of Jacob when in reality he was doing the work of the MIB. This carried over into all of Ben's "off-island" activities. He was the leader. He spoke for Jacob as far as they were concerned. So the "Others" killed Dharma and later were actively trying to kill Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley and all the candidates because that's what the MIB wanted. And what he couldn't do for himself.

Dharma was originally brought in to be good. But was turned bad by MIB's corruption and eventually destroyed by his pawn Ben. Now, was Dharma only brought there to help Jack and the other Canditates on their overall quest to kill Smokey? Or did Jacob have another list of Canidates from the Dharma group that we were never aware of? That's a question that is purposley not answered because whatever answer the writers came up with would be worse than the one you come up with for yourself. Still ... Dharma's purpose is not "pointless" or even vague. Hell, it's pretty blantent.

Someone From Bad Robot's Take

I almost believe this is someone from Bad Robot because that's the kind of "of course it makes sense!" bullshit I expect it would take to sleep at night after writing for Lost. Let's quickly tick off some of the things wrong with all of that:

If Jacob has really been trying for centuries to kill MIB and this is how things turn out ... then Jacob is officially the only character on the show who is a bigger loser than Jack. The worst part of Richard's flashback was the revelation that these two have probably thought of nothing better than having others run at them with knives for decades.

So for the explanation of why DHARMA is even on the island to be "Jacob brought them there to kill MIB" ... well, that's the most over engineered failure in the history of attempted murders. Time Travel! Polar Bears! But, in the end all DHARMA and The Others figure out about their target is that it doesn't like sound waves.

So Ben was tricked by MIB and Richard was ... wait, no - Richard had a direct line to Jacob. That's clearly laid out in Richard's flashback. And we have no reason to think that MIB could pose as Jacob, or any explanation as to why Jacob couldn't pose as himself. AND The Others were clearly not actively trying to kill the Lostaways as they could have offed the whole bunch of them several times during the first couple of season. Tom Friendly could have easily killed Jack, Sawyer and Locke personally in one scene during Season Two.

Gah. And even more annoying is how much this dovetails back into the first two seasons when Lost was like, you know, good. Now, this might be just another rabid Lost fan, or maybe the guy who got coffee or something. I'd rather believe that, because if this was someone actually involved in writing the show then I've been closely following the events of a show from writers who can't really grasp cause and effect.

However, if anyone thought that the producers were to leave the finale as final middle finger to Lost fans, be warned: they apparently saved over ten minutes of material showing Ben and Hurly as protectors of the island.

Course, in order to see it - you have to buy the DVD.

Somehow, I don't see that happening. Anyway, I have a rough of a post on final thoughts on the show. I may or may not post it. Starting to feel like the guy still at the scene of a crime when even the cops have gone home.

How Lost Should Have Ended

Failed animated GIF load - so here's the link to the Daily What ... via @kiyote23.

Lost: A Few Points Of Clarification

Spoilers, obviously.

I promise, only a couple more posts on Lost and then I'll never speak of the show again. This one, one more - then I'm done.

However, in the muddled writing which was the finale there has been a whole new brand of confusion. Since I've been faithfully tracking the show since the first episode (and blogging about since around the third season) - let's nail down some of the few things the writers/producers actually did tell us.

First, and very important:

No, they were not all dead from the beginning
Two things are causing this confusion: the first is the timing of Christian's speech to Jack within the last ten minutes of the entire series (hence giving the audience not a lot of time to process) and the images ABC added (apparently not the producers) to the end credits of the plane wreckage.

Proof: Christian actually says so during his speech and even indicates that what happened on the island was "the most important thing" in their lives. The producers have confirmed this (and that the end images weren't their idea).

But yes, the "flash sideways" wasn't "real"...
A lot of people simply call it "purgatory" but, that doesn't seem accurate to me. There's some Buddhist notions here about transcending but not having reach full enlightment which is closer, I think. I don't see these sould being tested or cleansed ... LA X wasn't about being tried or anything - just making your connecting flight to "heaven" once you find your soulmate (groan).

What I find really odd about this one is that some people seemed to enjoy the finale because they thought this was true. Which I can get - there would be a certain comfort in thinking that all six seasons were just, say, the imagination of a dying man in a bamboo forest ... because it would allow for essentially any contradiction on the planet thanks to dream / death logic. But no, that's not what happened here.

Ajira Did Not Crash After Frank's Takeoff
This is just more confusion over ABC's end credit scenes. Those images were just filler, not part of the real narrative. Frank, Sawyer, Kate and Miles get to do non island things for a while.

The Smoke Monster Can Become More Than Dead People
I don't know why this has kept coming up recently - I think because the whole Church/Purgatory thing and when I post my final complaint about the show I'll bring this up more - but the writers and producers have used Old Smokey to make all kinds of appearances. I guess "Kate's Horse" was technically dead at the time she met it - and I'm 99% sure the horse was Smokey. Smokey certainly took the form of the spiders that (thankfully) bit Nikki. So what form Smokey can and can't take is really, really not well defined. But don't assume because, say, Walt showed up as an apparition somewhere that it wasn't Smokey (course, I wouldn't assume it was either).

Another likely candidate (sorry) is Dave, Hurley's imaginary friend. Interestingly, if Dave is Smokey then it is also a really early example of Smokey trying to off a candidate while still obeying the rules (something Smokey proved really bad at - but more on that later). Course, Dave is also confusing once we learn Hurley can see dead people - so maybe Dave was dead all along (sigh).

Short version: the only consistent "rule" is that the Smoke Monster can take the form of things it reads from other people minds (and/or dead people). Or short, short version - it can become things integral to The Island, but apparently not the living.

Walt, Michael, Eko, etc., aren't in the church because...
Because they're not dead? Except that Christian states there is no "now". Hurley and Ben are at LA X at the same time as the Kwans, despite apparently having gone off and had merry offscreen adventures together (groan).

Look, I have a lot of problems with the church and I did actually think the lack of black people seemed like pretty stupid oversight ... but Ben and Ana Lucia do give the writers a decent out here. Just because people have arrived at LA X, having died whenever, doesn't mean they're ready to "let go" and move on.

Actually, I think Ben, Eko, Michael and Walt were left out also in part because they didn't fit well into the "find love" mechanic they had set up to be "awakened" (groan). The producers say the actor who played Walt has grown so much that he woudn't have been recognized, which I don't entirely buy into. However, getting actors on contract for a highly touted finale might be a different story in general.

Regardless, we can probably assume that these characters are bouncing around LA X somewhere offscreen though. Don't get me wrong - I think the fact that Walt dropped so completely off the narrative radar is bullhockey. But that's for another post.

Lost has always been mostly about the characters
So prior to the finale, Damon and Carlton said that they were going to be answering the questions "important to the characters" - and that is when we should have known we were in trouble. These characters have been almost pathological in their inability to communicate reasonably. Let's not forget that Juliet was one of The Others and we still have little idea why The Others actually did anything. Sawyer at one point had Karl, also an Other, at gunpoint ... and simply let him go.

It's true - the characters were always an important aspect of the show. The flashbacks, their lives before the island, their interactions on the island - all very, very important.

Lost, however, did not get a third season because of character development. Lost got past two seasons because thousands of rabid fans were recording the show, going over every detail and then swarming forums en masse to detail how it proved or disproved theories about the show. When people like Javi did live chats with fans, they rarely discussed if Kate liked Sawyer more than Jack - they wanted to know about the mechanics at work when came to the mysteries of The Island.

Or maybe more to the point, if Lost has always been about the characters - we can't forget that The Island was one of the more important characters of the show. It's the character everyone fell for and wanted to know more about. Jack was, quite honestly, a pretty lousy lead in a lot of different ways - but The Island was always a star.

OK, so like I said ... one more to go. I'm just so annoyed with people asking inane questions like "what was inconsistent" or "what kind of answers did you really want" ... I mean, really - I'm beginning to think that the majority of the people left for the finale were people who stopped really tracking the show years ago.

Unanswered Lost Questions

Spoilers, obviously.


This is meant for funny, course - though I had naturally forgotten most of them. I'd find it funnier if it didn't remind me about a lot of the big balls they dropped. That they couldn't even keep their own rules about who or what can appear when or where straight now just feels incredibly sloppy (from the first season on).

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Via Kottke.

TV Watch: Lost, The End

Yeah.

Uh.

WTF was that?

The Lost season finale was a boon to one subset of fans: those really, really curious about whether Kate was in love with Jack. For everyone else, it was at best a nod and wave goodbye from the characters people have watched for six years.

For anyone hoping for a decent conclusion to the storyline, though: you were out of luck.

I'm going to save the LA X stuff until the end - because it really was somewhat meaningless based on Christian's final speech. Emotional? Yes. But meaningless.

Obviously massive spoilers follow. Pretty much a blow by blow.

If you remove the LA X portions, you aren't left with much and most of it doesn't make any real sense. And I don't mean "doesn't make any real sense" as in "they didn't fully explain X was Y" I mean "doesn't make any real sense" like the way old bad television serials are put together.

We start with Sawyer inexplicably, but conveniently, figuring out that SmokeLocke needs Desmond - even though Widmore really described Desmond as a "failsafe". In one of those mystical Lost moments, Sawyer manages to run to point A on the island, have a conversation with someone, and get back to point B while another group was making their way to point C.

Remember back in like Season Two when everyone was trying to figure out how The Others got around the island so fast and easy? Simple: it's called convenient writing. For those scoring at home, convenient writing is not good writing.

Jack, having been at this protector thing for all of about ten minutes, decides the best thing to do is ... whatever SmokeLocke wants to do. So they lower Desmond into the light, where he sees some kind of underground temple with the skeletons of other people who went to the light, but did not become Smoke Monsters but perhaps died in some slave labor effort to build this undergrou...

Wait. What? What the... underground temple? OK, so Desmond has a "immunity to the unique electro..." whatever, we know he won't die. Who the hell is down in the crazy light building temples? Find out next time on Lost? Uh, no. Ignore the fact that Mother Dearest suggested anyone going near the light would suffer a fate worse than death - which would seem to make construction pretty hard, why exactly would "life, death and rebirth" need a sun pool? The entire underground temple was nothing but a place for Desmond and Jack to futz around - making no sense whatever with anything we've shown before.

So after Desmond pulls the plug, the island starts to self-destruct. In frustration with his poor job performance, Jack starts to beat Locke to death. And he can, because SmokeLocke is now corporeal. Why? Don't ask! Seriously! Why are you asking questions? What show do you think this is after all?

SmokeLocke beats Jack unconscious with a rock and runs away to his secret boat. While Jack naps, a tree falls on Ben who then explains his escape plan while he has nothing better to do. Jack wakes back up to nothing but mud and rain ... and still manages to hunt down SmokeLocke before he can get away. How? Don't ask! What the hell is with all these questions? The island did it, ok?

SmokeLocke beats Jack with a knife, but then Kate shoots him! How did she know where they were? Or manage to get there in time while she was helping save Ben? Who knows! Why would you still care? She got a funny line! Go Kate!

As soon as SmokeLocke is fatally wounded by a commercial break, the rain stops (Why? Seriously stop with the questions). Also, Ben is saved. Yay! Jack, Hurley and Ben run off to fix that thing that we don't even know what is while everyone else escapes.

Jack saves Desmond, plugs island, dies. Hurley and Ben don't. Everyone else gets off the island.

Then there was a puppy. Yay! Puppy!

And that was a wrap, people. Did you expect some great reveal when Desmond went to the light? Yeah, sorry. Or some great climatic battle between SmokeLocke and everyone else? Uh, no. Not really. Or maybe some really great ending to this whole candidate thing? Happens off screen between Hurley and Ben. Maybe they would have showed it - but they really, really had a lot of ads to get through.

Look, I had lowered my bar considerably for the finale. I didn't expect any complicated solution which explain everything ... or even most things. I expected one more layer of the onion pulled back which just brought everything together: the rules, the candidates, the island, etc. Leave some of it to faith, fine, but at least put a bow on it. At least try to tie things into a knot. The on-island events of the finale were a complete mess and simply not good writing. As someone who thought that bouncing theories around and paying attention to detail was part of what made this show great - it became quite clear that the producers did not have any great story arc. The island was the distraction, the show was really just playing around with the backstories.

Here is the great failure of the finale: you would enjoy the show more the less attention you paid. The message was: don't ask questions - just watch love conquer all and be happy about it.

So yeah, on LA X: so instead of an alternate reality, LA X was just a waiting room for some of the people on the island after they died. They might not be dead yet during the main story, but that doesn't matter. Which is why the LA X events are completely meaningless - they aren't actually related to the story. LA X was all epilogue, from the very beginning, and very strange structure wise since you haven't actually finished telling the story. At best you could say "Jacob did everything he did so that the gang could go to heaven" - which, fine, whatever. Except that it doesn't fit anything else from the rest of the show.

When I said that I thought LA X would survive so that the writers could have an out for a happy ending - I had no idea how far they would take it. This ending was pure fan service, watching characters fall back in love and leave in a warm white light. It demonstrates none of the aspects that made the first season great - including reasonable character development. Many fans probably enjoyed watching what amounted to a clip show followed by a curtain call ... but that doesn't make it good storytelling. The story deserved more.

OK, this has been too long as it is. Honestly, this episode and the show doesn't get any better if you try to analyze it. It only gets worse.

I still enjoyed the show in general, but I mark this finale my least favorite of any show I've watched.

TV Watch: Lost, What They Died For

Well, let's just get right to it then.

The Good
This episode probably had me more excited about the LA X world than most, and I'm hoping that whatever Desmond pulls off will be truly explosive for the finale (honestly, I'm half expecting a bomb to go off). The scene where Desmond beats the hell out of Ben to remind him who is was relatively awesome.

I'm rather liking Ben in general, actually. On the island, it is very tough to tell if he is just being his old manipulative self or if he has some long con for redemption. In LA X, his potential hookup with Danielle is both touching and mildly creepy. Ben's a complicated guy.

The Kinda Good
There were some sideways explanations here - which is I suppose better than no explanation at all, even though we are almost at the finish line. Is the pregnancy issue tied to the importance Jacob puts on someone being a mother? Are the powers of Jacob and Not Jacob actually tied to conversation, and that's why Not Jacob went ahead and just offed Zoe? It will be annoying if some of this isn't more fleshed out in the finale, especially the pregnancy thing which has been so core to the show - but I'm pretty much braced that we're not going to get a real good definition of the "sickness" at this point.

The Not So Good
The whole "why they died" speech and Jack getting promoted to protector gets lumped into what is a series of anticlimactic explanations which have been put out this season. Considering what has happened to these characters over the last few years, one might think they would have a more heated Q & A with the entity most directly responsible for it. That the island and the candidates "needed each other" fits well into what we know, but why Jacob had to do it by crashing a plane (killing a bunch of people), the actions of The Others, why it took so long to reveal the idea of "candidacy", etc. - nobody asks? I guess Kate kinda did, but who is listening to her anymore...

And Jack actually getting the promotion was about as exciting as, well, watching a normal person get a promotion. He was the obvious choice and the entirely scene seemed most ceremonial, even plot-wise. Maybe this all gets more detailed in the finale, but it seems like a small prize tied to a very long string at the moment.

I did like the "just a name in chalk" bit. Sometimes a cigar smoking chimp is just a cigar smoking chimp, people.

The Outright Bad
Ben and Widmore really deserved more air time. Well, more specifically - we deserved more air time to explain what has been going on with these two characters. Why do the rules apply to them? OK, I still don't know why the rules apply to anyone or anything, but the power dynamic between Widmore and Ben is the untold story of the island from the military, to DHARMA to The Others. And to have it seem that Widmore is suddenly good because he and Jacob had an offscreen chat is just downright annoying.

And if Richard is dead and does not make an appearance during the finale I will throw a chair in the general direction of Carlton Cuse. Not anything against him over Damon or anything, but I do believe he is taller and therefore easier to hit when throwing a chair several thousand miles.

Bottom Line
We are in the eleventh hour and I think we're about where most fans expected: the story is coherent (good), they don't have time to really reveal everything (bad), but all in all we should have one thing to comfort us:

I don't think there has been a bad Lost finale yet, and I honestly suspect this one will be the best of the lot.

If you can watch it out without a mental checklist of things left unexplained - it will probably be awesome. If the last episode was bringing the story to a simmer - we're certainly at a full boil by now. I think we're done moving the pieces on the chess board ... it is time to throw down.

My long shot guesses? SmokeLocke is throwing Desmond down Ye Old Tunnel Of Light. Or trying to do so. Also, my money is on the LA X world surviving, especially with the current kill rate on the island ... or by bringing LA X down there will be a chance of some kind of reunion.

Also for the last scene? Jack and something that appears to be Locke on the beach.

TV Watch: Lost, Across The Sea

I was actually so distracted by the fact that Allison Janney was in this episode that it took me about a half hour or so to realize we were finally getting The Island Flashback Lost fans have been talking about for some time.

Early in the show, "Mother" tells the soon to be departed mother of Jacob and Not Jacob that asking her questions just leads to more questions. And just as much as this episode gave us a glimpse to the show's backdrop, but it was also indicative of the show itself - the questions you ask ... the more questions you get back.

Fan reactions to this episode seem mixed, and granted some of the hockey "the light is life" type stuff was a little thin - this episode was in many ways a final rounding out of story's core mystery: the relationship between the island, the "others" and the protector. I was more or less enthralled from the first minute on.

But praise is boring. Let's talk about the relatively bizarre contradictions in this episode.

Mother tells us (and the kids) quite implicitly that she has set things up so that they cannot hurt each other. Yet, Jacob pummels his brother not once, but twice AND kills him in the end (well, maybe kind of ... more of that in a bit). So Mother would seem to have been just sort of making that up. Also, Mother has more than a bit of a freakout when she realizes Not Jacob has figured out a way to tap into The Light with the Donkey Wheel. Yet, since we know said wheel as the Frozen Donkey Wheel Locke uses to move the island - Jacob apparently continued on with Not Jacob's work - apparently both with tapping The Light and cultivating people who arrive or are brought to the island.

Let's jump specifically to what may be the core question of the episode: Is The Smoke Monster Jacob's brother? Or is he dead and buried with Mother? Mother said that touching The Light wouldn't kill someone - it would be worse. So it would seem the answer is both. The apparitions on the island seem to be either representations of The Smoke Monster, who look like one person but are really Old Smokey (SmokeLocke) or are real ghosts (Alpert's wife). And since Alpert's wife is trying to get SmokeLocke killed, I think we can assume they're on different teams.

As we saw Not Jacob on the beach with Jacob, talking about doing all this stuff Old Smokey is now doing, I'm guessing The Smoke Monster is whatever Not Jacob transformed into - leaving his body behind. I'm also guessing that the writers made a big deal about Adam and Eve because Not Jacob's body will become a factor in the finale.

At least I'm hoping, because the amount of attention they poured into the fact that two recent characters with no real names are in fact Adam and Eve was a bit much. The flash-forwards didn't seem necessary, I think most Lost fans saw the connection and compared to other "revelations" from this season (Christian was Smoke Monster, whispers are ghosts) it got a lot of screen time.

Sadly, I'm thinking The Light (or The Source as some are calling) is going to get the Wallace's Briefcase treatment from Pulp Fiction. In fact, they might even be the same thing. With one normal episode left before the finale, I'm not holding my breath for any more complete explanation than the one Mother gave Jacob.

So in the long run - it was an interesting episode which gives us at least some depth ... even if not filled with answers.

TV Watch: Lost, The Candidate

Verrrry mixed feelings about this episode.

The Good
SmokeLocke's strategy was pretty brilliant - when Jack mentioned that they wouldn't die unless they killed themselves I think a lightbulb physically manifested above my head. I'm a little curious as to why SmokeLocke didn't just allow them to try and escape in the plane and blow themselves up, but I suppose that might have been harder to trap Jack.

Most the sidestory in LA X was pretty solid too - we have more creepy intrusions from the Lost world, and a pretty solid Locke story to boot (which has always been one of the show's strong points). This was the first time that it really occurred to me that a very potential ending to the show is to have the LA X world be the "real" one and have the island disappear. Or perhaps they can continue to co-exist, and the LA X can stand as the "happy" ending, even if they keep killing off characters.

Sayid's fate was certainly better than some suspected it might be - essentially that he was not a zombie assassin for the AntiJacob all the way to the end. Sayid was still Sayid, just a little sickly. That said, he got very little room to breathe before getting to that point. We had his coming to Jesus, I mean Desmond, moment ... and then boom. So I'm willing to put it in the plus column, but considering the amount of time we've spent in the last few episodes having characters largely just walk around ... it feels like he could have been given a little more space to evolve.

The Bad
Speaking of room to breathe ... while I found the end of the Kwons touching and romantic, it seemed to top off a very odd handling of their relationship in general this season. Having spent a good deal of time trying to find each other, Sun's bizarre aphasia, the emphasis on their child - this seemed like a very abbreviated cap to otherwise well developed characters. Sayid's death was at least heroic.

I'm also feeling a bit for Claire right now. As a character, she's turning into a bit of ping pong ball.

The writers are clearly raising the temperature slowly, maybe a little too slowly, but I'm still very optimistic for the final episodes.

TV Watch: Shows You Probably Should Be Watching

No Lost last night, so let's do a quick rundown on shows you really shouldn't be missing right now:

Fringe
I was luke warm to warm on the show last season, but Season Two has been particularly good and I'm already getting somewhat stoked for the next season. They're moving away from a disassociated monster-of-the-week style plots and getting more and more intwined with the rather interesting backstory. And if you missed the time-travelling episode with Petere "Buckaroo Banzai" Weller - well, you missed one of the best time travel stories ever put to screen.

Justified
I'll admit to a certain overzealousness about this show. But look: Timothy Olyphant was clearly engineered, possibly by aliens, to play a cowboy. It's co-produced by Elmore Leonard and based on one of his shorts. He spends most of his time battling either racist hicks or the Miami Mafia. It's not going to have the most complicated story arcs on television, but it is clever, fun and terribly fun to watch.

Doctor Who
OK, so kind of a lateral toss here since American viewers need to find sneaky ways to catch the latest of this BBC show. And if you haven't caught up on all the previous seasons, don't start this one. So, because I know several Cathode Readers are way behind on Who, I'll be mysteriously brief: it's actually more of the same than it might seem, but that is a good thing.

And I'm going to toss in a quick plug for .comEDY, which you can't see because it hasn't actually aired yet. Actually, still in production. But it's in production by long time Cathode Tan secret decoder ring wielder The Futon Critic and loosely based on some of our mutual history. Thankfully not about the time we broke into a secret government and released that zombie virus thing. Because woah. That would be embarrasing.

TV Watch: Lost, The Last Recruit

If I had to sum up this episode in one phrase, it would be: getting the band back together.

This was a quietly good episode. It didn't blow up nearly as much stuff (but explosions seem to becoming more common). There wasn't a lot of revelation (OK, so Christian was the Smoke Monster, like duh). The plot didn't move drastically forward, this was another one about getting the pieces in place for the next scene.

But - look at what we did get, the small bits:

Sayid steps away from the dark side
Who's Anakin? (hee hee). Easy money that Sayid did not shoot Desmond. I'd say Desmond has probably gotten his walking legs again, in fact. There was decent evidence that Dark Sayid was just lost to us, an empty shell of the character we had seen before - but Desmond managed to kick him where it counts, and he may well be back on the path of redemption.

Claire gets a bit of humanity
I think one of the great fails of the show is obscuring what actually happened to Claire (unless we have more information upcoming). We know she disappeared, left Aaron, showed up in The Cabin with who know suspect was the Man In Black (not Jacob) and took over Crazy French Lady's position as Lead Other Killer. Here we see what may have been driving her nuts was not The Sickness (if there ever was or is such a thing) but abandonment. Left behind by her son and her friends, she went native. The look in Claire's eyes when she watched her fellow Losties rush into the jungle without her was precious - and Kate's speech to bring her back into the fold was excellent.

Sun recognizes The Man In Black
I'm now safely within the camp that Sun's plot-induced aphasia was just dumb, but the scene in the LA X world where she recognizes Locke as The Man In Black. Or at least, that seems the most reasonable explanation for her freaking out when he's wheeled next to her since it seems like she has never encountered Locke in LA X nor has any reason to fear him. LA X is coming apart at the seams.

Finally, my prediction for the week: Jack is totally the next Jacob. Sorry Hurley and Desmond fans. It's the classic squaring off of Jack and Locke, only now Jack is the Man of Faith and Locke is the Man In Black. Also, the Losties better hope they packed some sandals.

I think they're staying for some time. The island is certainly not done with them yet.

TV Watch: Lost, Everybody Loves Hugo

Indeed, everyone loves Hugo. This episode didn't do much for me in terms of moving the overall plot forward, but when it comes to delivering just great scenes overall - it hit all the bases. I mean, if you didn't have a bit of a moment with Hugo getting back with Libby in the "apparently love conquers all" LA X world, you've got a heart of stone.

Hurley on-island was a little more hit or miss - but thankfully we had big explosions to distract us. My first thought in seeing the Black Rock explode? Well, guess they didn't need that set around anymore. Ilana's Arzt moment was almost sadly cool - a reminder that the island is still dangerous (especially, as Ben noted, when it is done with you). At the same time, though - two things are sort of annoying me about last night's events:

OK, so Michael can't move on. But he also knows that "people will die" if they try to blow up the airplane. Death seems to bring this odd ability to know everything that's going on. Are they unstuck in time like Desmond was?

And more importantly - why can't he move on? The whole "I know what the whispers are" was the most anti-climatic reveal of the entire show. We kinda already knew they were the voices of the dead (Lost fans had uncovered Shannon's voice in the midst, if I recall correctly) - it is more about the why and how that we need to know. These are actually the kind of reveals I'm more afraid of as we get to the final episodes ... that it will be a "oh, Hurley knows" kind of thing.

Oh, and one more thing - the island is freakin' purgatory. OK, it may not be the Judeo-Christian style of purgatory ... but Michael died and he's a ghost and he can't move on so he's stuck here as .... that's purgatory. OK, so normally the living don't get to hang around all these purgatory types, so maybe it's more like purgatory's lobby. But how close were the early season one guesses about the show?

Desmond and The Man In Black brought us just a little more awesome though - especially with the climax of Desmond running over Locke in the LA X world. Locke is already living with the love he lost, so was this meant to remind him of falling out of the window? Will Lassie save him from the well? A well apparently dug by ancient compass-wielding power hungry island dwellers (Lost And Gone Forever points out that compasses are, in fact pretty ancient). This puts an interesting spin on the "Ancient Others" as it were .... did Jacob bring people to the island only for them to go digging into the island, creating wells and donkey wheels?

Speaking of - we have three front runners for Jacob's position. Jack is the most obvious - one of the major characters, always up against Locke in the past, etc., etc. Hurley is the fan favorite since, well, everybody loves Hugo. And Desmond - who is probably the most "Jacob" like. I'd love to nominate Sun for the job, but her sudden, writer-induced inability to speak English is already damn annoying.

Finally - I normally try to skip the promos for the next week's episode, but I'm glad I didn't. The tripped out Willy Wonka song was truly haunting. Another tip from the clue conscience producers? Wonka is often described as a Faustian character, offering deals of experience as a test of morality. Question is - is that Jacob or The Man In Black?

TV Watch: Lost, Happily Ever After

About half way through this episode, I was really bemoaning the fact that it was clearly going to be a LA X heavy one - but I think the clever use of Desmond pulled it out in the end.

There's a "have cake, eat cake, still want cake" problem here - I've been mentioning nearly every week how the LA X world is clearly not "real" and yet we've only gotten a few nudges from the writers that anything is going to actually happen about it ... well, now something is clearly going to actually happen about it. Desmond "I have a constant" Hume is going to tie the whole thing together. Old Mr. Hume may have just been upgraded to one of the more important characters in the story, and I'm hoping this time it won't be quite the "time traveling Jesus" style that it was before (which resulted in sometimes clever, sometimes annoying results).

My real issue with this episode is that it spent a great deal of time unravelling a lot of details we sorta already knew - primarily that the LA X world is a construct and not an accidental one. However, bonus points for making "love" the key ingredient in poking through the veil of construct without making the average viewer wanting to puke sugar. The final scene with Desmond was touching and fun, not disgustingly romantic.

The question for me is - is Desmond walking behind Sayid in the jungle or driving around with George ... or both? He's the only character who appears aware of transitions between the island and LA X, and they're coordinated so it isn't necessarily like he is simply remembering one during the other. Course, the entire episode took only a few minutes to him "island time" ... so perhaps he can multi-task competently.

So not a lot of exciting reveals, but certainly a major plot push forward. We have some serious movers on the island now - Richard, Man in Black, Widmore and Desmond. This isn't a simple battle between opposing forces anymore.

TV Watch: Lost, The Package

After last week's episode, this one had a lot to live up to ... and well, partially because of that it felt extra boring. I have a soft spot for the Kwons, so I didn't really mind it so much - but there was very little movement in this episode, and the Sun's aphasia had one moment of brilliance - where she was yelling at Richard in Korean actually came out as slightly poignant and emotional in her native language (as I once said to a Serbian friend of mine, "You'll ruin your appetite" sounds the same in any language). Other than that it felt like a distraction more than anything else.

The sidestory was nearly all throw away though, mostly explaining Jin's presence in Sayid's story and affirming things we already knew about the couple. I did think Mikhail's presence in Keamy's band ... in the Island world, Keamy was a Widmore thug and Mkihail was an Other - not really the same team there. So we have even more convenient folding of Island related people into the LA X microcosm. The entire thing is starting to remind me a bit much of Donnie Darko.

Widmore being out to destroy the Man In Black is curious. Is it possible his original goal was to wipe everyone off the island, and start over with himself in control? It's hard to reckon him as a "good" guy, but again the show has been sneaky about what is really "good" and "bad". His treatment of Desmond doesn't seem to be all the kind, of course, but at least we may now know who was "coming to the island" mentioned during The Lighthouse episode.

And finally - ABC, the V countdown may have been the worst television marketing stunt in recent history. Twitter and blogs are talking about the annoyance factor in watching an ad constantly remind you just how little show you have left to watch. The Girl's comment was "is that V huge or just in HD?" (answer: both). Let us hope you never do something that stupid again.

TV Watch: Lost Instant Dharma on Ab Aeterno

Spoilers ahead.



Via (somewhat obviously) the other Anti-Jacob, The Futon Critic.

Normal post on Ab Aeterno should be up later today.

TV Watch: Lost, Ab Aeterno

This was a highly anticipated episode and it really, really did not disappoint.

Where to start?

Richard.

This was really the first true backstory we've had on the show for some time - and it makes one a bit dreamy for the time when such things were really interesting on the show. The flashsideways and flashforwards have their merits, but Lost was most excellent when shockers in someone's past would act as a foil to events on the island ... and nothing has worked as well as the early backstories for that. Especially when we finally get a little light on the themes of redemption which of have been part of the core of the character development - none of it is incidental, it's been part of Jacob's plan all along.

Jacob.

The Man In White doesn't want to get directly involved, so he has Richard be his intermediary. Does this make Richard the first Ben ? Well, there aren't any Others yet, and it would be odd that immortal Richard wouldn't still be the leader, so he may be more of just the emissary. What did Jacob do before the emissary though? Who built the statue? (And why is his house a testament to a relatively unknown Egyptian god?) We are slowly getting a focus on The Man In Black, but Jacob remains fundamentally undefined. The dichotomy is setup, the plot is in motion - but we have a ways to go.

The Island.

We did get a great concept of the island itself. As a "cork" for The Man In Black, it keeps him from entering "the rest of the world" ... whatever that actually means. People can arrive on the island if Jacob brings them there, people can leave under very specific situations (well, situation - a very specific bearing). Which begs the question - can The Man In Black leave now that Jacob is "dead", and he just needs to fly out in the right direction?

Smoke Monster ... and Dead People.

When watching the Instant Dharma with The Futon Critic and Kris White, Kris noted that Isabella's appearance while the Smoke Monster sounds were going outside was the first instance of both those happening at once. As an aside, I never realized that one of my least favorite characters, Nikki, was bitten by a spider ... which was actually a Smoke Monster manifestation (the Smoke Monster clicking can be heard before the spider's appearance and was confirmed on a later producer podcast). The boat had a butterfly, a boar, the Smoke Monster, and Isabella all visiting Richard. The butterfly and the board may have actually just been a butterfly and a boar - obviously the other two weren't.

Also curious that all the Smoke Monster sounds seemed the same. Even the relatively modern foghorn sound.

So the question remains - what are the apparitions? Hurley was clearly talking to Isabella. She knew things only she would know, wants Richard to kill the Man In Black, etc. The castaways aren't actually dead, Jacob somewhat proved that by dunking old Ricardo into the ocean - but the island is clearly some kind of gateway between one world and the next.

Fate and Free Will.

After this episode, I doubt my theory that there were two Smoke Monsters, or rather that Jacob could also be the Smoke Monster, is accurate. I think their abilities are more closely tied to what they represent - fate and free will. Jacob can control the fate of others, make sure they don't die, weave events to make sure they end up on the same plane, etc. The Man in Black can't do any of that - but he can go rampaging around the jungle and kill things.

Long enough post for now - might have to do a mid-season summary before next week or something though.

TV Watch: Lost, Recon

This episode seems to have hit with mixed reviews from fans, but I'm on the side that really, really liked it. On one level partially because Sawyer remains a pretty interesting character - consistent but unpredictable, likeable but a jackass, smart but good with a gun.

But mostly? Because I think it shows hope that the writers are not going to be holding back as we get into the last half of the last season of Lost. And I think the most interesting bits of this last episode weren't Sawyer.

But SmokeLocke.

This is the guy (or thing) that Dogen called the incarnation of evil. And also killed everyone at the temple who stood in his way. And plotted the backstabbing of Jacob since he himself could not kill Jacob. And I dunno, probably kicked a puppy.

Yet I kinda liked him this episode. And not just in a "wow, that's a cool villain" kind of way. It's impressive that would could otherwise be an amorphous killing machine presented himself in such a human way. Those people at the temple? Out to kill him. He doesn't want to be killed ... so he killed them. His primary goal isn't to destroy but to escape.

And he apparently had a crazy mom. Who may well have been like Crazy French Lady and Crazy Claire Lady. Some have even suggested it is Crazy Claire Lady and through a wild adventure of time travel, Aaron is SmokeLocke. I'm not really buying into that, though I think there is an interesting line of continuity between Walt, Alex and Aaron. Well, some continuity. Walt seemed to have powers, Alex doesn't show any. Alex and Aaron were born on the island, Walt was not.

My guess is that we lost a lot of backstory when Walt was prematurely removed from the storyline due to puberty related acting. There is a lot of grey zone with Michael's past, considering how little we know of Walt's mother ... and if the other island kids are of note ... the mother is the important one to watch here. Vincent, originally Walt's stepdad's dog, has a very loose, potentially non-canon link to the Hanso Foundation via the Retrievers of Truth portion of a previous Lost ARG. So there may be a very tenuous link to DHARMA with Walt's mom, or at least his stepdad. All we really know of Brian Porter is that he was an American lawyer working in Amsterdam (Hanso is HQ'd in Denmark).

Let us remember one of the fundamental themes of Lost: kids are important, and almost all pregnancies on the island end very, very badly. So the identity of SmokeLocke's mom is fairly core to what the hell is actually going on here ... it's unlikely that she is just some random crazy broad.

What's fun is that it once again feels like Lost has almost laid out enough clues in the past to point us in the right direction, bringing some of the old mystery feel to the show again.

The side story also, once again, showed an unlikely pairing ... Miles and Sawyer being both cops and partners. The Girl pointed out that they were both con men in the past (Miles being a somewhat unorthodox one, but still...). Like Alex appearing in an LA school, this is obviously not just the days of their lives if Jacob / The Island weren't a part of it.

My guess at this point? "LA X" as it were, is the island. It might not be tropical, and it might not be surrounded by water ... but everyone is stuck there just as they were in Season One. They may have arrived in a different way, but LA X is the same kind of fishbowl that the entire show has been playing with. Now, I don't know if the writers have any great reveals in mind to connect these two, or to show LA X's artificiality ... or if it will just vanish in a big white light at the end of the show (or what was the color of the exploding sky? Violet?) ... but I'm sure it bears little connection to the "real" off island world.

For the really super spoiler avoiders, stop reading now (though I'm only talking about the previews and not any plot spoilers).


Next week, however, is the episode many a Lost fan has been waiting for ... and if the writing so far has started to form a cohesive backdrop to end this story, then this one will be a milestone. Why? Because it appears to focus on Richard Alpert - who stands at the intersection of many things concerning the island and may have some pretty keen perspectives on what is going on. Certainly not one to miss.

TV Watch: Lost, Dr. Linus

This episode was of note because the side-story was, for a change, nicely integrated with the on island story ... and also because both were pretty telling. While Sayid's two tales played off each other somewhat, here we get to see Ben Linus in similar moral territory, or more specifically we get to see Ben revisit an old moral quandry - would he save Alex or his power on the island, in a simpler setting.

I think it worked very, very well. I've always been luke warm on Ben ... he's fun when he's being all manipulative and evil, but there's an almost cliche aspect to it and I've always wondered how it will play out with the "we're the good guys" speeches The Others were known to give. But this is Ben at his best ... showing both his soft side, his manipulative side, and his please-don't-kill-me side. The guy has a lot of sides. Even if this is the last real look we get at his character, it is a darn good one.

On the parallel universe: clearly things aren't up to spec here. Alex should most likely be speaking French and not, say, be in the same school as Ben ... she was, after all, the Crazy French Lady's kid before anything else. The overt character interactions have now officially gone over the line of plausibility that there isn't a subtle hand at work creating this world for them. Also interesting that Ben and Ben's dad were in DHARMA and on the island until some point they decided to leave. What exactly happened to the island in this little snow-globe of a universe is up for grabs, but I'm guessing this must be "non-templed" Ben. So did Ben not get the same darkness as Sayid and Claire? Is this just how Ben is?

On island, I'd still love to see Hurley become New Jacob, but I think all signs are pointing to another Jack versus Locke showdown. Jack's seen the light, gotten the faith and is out to convince others. The most important tidbit about Richard, of course, is that Jacob's touch is responsible for his near immortality. So did Jacob touch Michael and that's why he was adrift in non-suicidal behavior? And does this mean Jack won't age?

Course Ilana has kept Sun in the running as a candidate. Hottest. Candidate. Ever.

These are pretty good party tricks that Jacob and AntiJacob can perform. Opening locks with their mind. Putting out fuses from beyond the grave. Keeping people from aging. I think we are safely out of sci fi related explanations, into something very old, very magical. I can't help but feel a little robbed from the early seasons' notion that Lost was like a puzzle ... if the solution to the puzzle is "it's magic!" well, that's a magic trick and not so much a puzzle. Not even a magic trick you can figure out, at that.

Still - the plot feels cohesive, and that's what I was really asking for out the last season. The revelations are still fun and they still fit into the larger aspects of the show. We're nearly half way there now, and I think the last few acts are going to rock.