It's about time!

I am beyond behind on my rewatch schedule. It all started when the first season of Arrested Development arrived in my mailbox. And then I had to get two and three. And now there is actually good new TV on my DVR. So I haven't been watching as much Lost as I had planned. The result is that I'm supposed to be almost done with season 3 and I'm still only halfway through season 2. I'm going to do my best to catch up.

In the meantime, here is the season 6 promotional poster. It gives me chills every time I see it.

2:2 Adrift

-I hate to say it, but by the end of this episode I am already sick of hearing Michael yell "Waaaaalt!" and call him "my son." It's at this point in the story that Michael becomes seriously one-dimensional, which is really too bad because he didn't start out that way.

-When Desmond asks Locke "Are you him?" it tickles me that Locke almost immediately said "Yes." What did he think Desmond meant?

-The snowman riddle ("What did one snowman say to the other?") parallels the Ajira passengers' ("What lies in the shadow of the statue?")

-I noticed for the first time that there is a Black Rock-esque model of a ship in the conference room where Michael and Susan discuss custody of Walt.

-Michael gives toddler Walt a toy polar bear.

-Visually, so far season 2 has been overwhelmingly dark. Interesting parallel to the theme of light vs. dark?

-Kate is a girl after my own heart. When she discovers that she's in a food storage closet, she goes straight for the chocolate.

-When we first were introduced to Desmond we thought he was crazy and a little bit scary. Now we know that he had good reason to be afraid of Jack, Locke and Kate - he thought they were Hostiles. I'd be scared too.

-Speaking of scary, Mr. Eko scares the crap out of me in this first introduction. No wonder Jin assumed they were the Others.

-Sawyer remarks when the current brings them back to the Island, "We're home." The Island really does become his home when they go back to the 70s.

Favorite lines:

Michael: Well, I guess I know why the shark is hanging around -- your shoulder.
Sawyer: Oh, well, I'll just stop bleeding then!

2:1 Man of Science, Man of Faith

Without further ado...let's start season two!

-The title "Man of Science, Man of Faith" centers on Jack and refers to his constant struggle to believe in what can't be proved. The usual approach is to see Jack and the man of science and Locke as the man of faith, but another option is to see Jack as both. He has a hard time believing in anything other than science, but at times he does choose to believe. At one point he believes he can fix Sarah, because he wants to so badly even though he's aware of how unlikely it is. In the same way, his love for Kate drives him to follow Kate and Locke into the hatch, even though it's not a logical thing to do.

-The beginning sequence is probably my favorite opener of any season. I remember seeing it for the first time and about halfway through the sequence saying out loud, "Wait a minute - is he in the hatch?!" I don't think anyone thought there would be a guy on an exercise bike listening to Mama Cass down there.

-This is the first time we see a Dharma Initiative symbol, on the front of the cabinet Desmond opens to get out his injection. It's a Swan Station symbol.

-Speaking of those injections, we still don't know what those were. Were they just a placebo, designed to keep the DI volunteers from leaving the hatch?

-Jack is seriously annoying when he bosses Locke around. Locke is great at listening to him and then just ignoring whatever he says.

-Jack's wig in his flashbacks is so bad. Oh so bad.

-Locke seems to know that their lives are not really in danger. Jack was desperate to get the hatch open so everyone could hide inside it, but this is clearly not Locke's motivation - he just goes along with it to get Jack's help. How does Locke know that the Others aren't coming after them?

-Vincent leads Shannon into the jungle where she sees Walt, who is drenched from head to toe and speaking backward. He says "Don't push the button. The button's bad." Still unanswered is 1) how Walt appeared to her in this way and 2) why he would say the button's bad.

-Sayid will face his own dilemma of science vs. faith when deciding whether or not to believe Shannon about what she's seen.

-Jack gives his now infamous "live together, die alone" speech, following his father's advice about how to deal with patients: "Folks are much more inclined to hear that 1 percent chance that things are going to be okay."

-When Kate is being pulled into the hatch, the sound effect is the same as when Locke was pulled into the ground by the smoke monster.

-I had forgotten that there was water at the bottom of the hatch entrance. Do we ever find out why it's there?

-The hatch has lost most of its mystery for me now that I know the history of the DI, etc. I remember though how bizarre and cool it was to see it outside of that context. I wish I could get my LOST virginity back somehow.

-Sarah being healed seems to coincide with Jack meeting Desmond. Was her healing (similar to Locke's) just a random occurrence, or does it have something to do with the Island, or Jacob?

-Did Desmond intend a double meaning when he told Jack to "lift it up"?

-Favorite lines:

Hurley: Joke, dude.
Jack: I'm not really in the mood, Hurley.
Hurley: Really? Wow, usually you're, like, Mr. Ha-ha.


Jack: I'm - I'm intense.

1:23 and 1:24, Exodus I and II

One thing about LOST I know for sure: they make bitchin' season finales. And it's probably not a coincidence that all of the finales have been written by Carlton Cuse and Damon Lideloff, writers/producers extraordinaire.

In "Exodus" we get flashbacks for all of the main characters, showing their final hours before boarding flight 815. On the Island, the Losties prepare for the coming of The Others (having been warned by Rousseau that they're "coming for the boy" (which we think means Aaron but we later learn meant Walt)) and launch the raft.

In no particular order, here are my thoughts:

-Rousseau says the black smoke is a security system to protect the Island. Why does she think that's what it is? And if its purpose is to protect the Island, is that why it brought Arzt back - in other words, did Jack, Kate, etc need to get the hatch open to protect the Island?

-We see the Black Rock for the first time. Very cool scene. I don't think anyone expected it to be a slave ship. I like the symbolism there - are the Losties all slaves to fate? If not fate, what else is holding them in bondage? Still unsolved: how the Black Rock got to be in the middle of the jungle when we saw it sailing towards the Island in "The Incident." Is it similar to how Jack woke up in the jungle after the 815 crash?

-Sawyer telling Jack about meeting his dad in Australia might be my favorite scene of the season. It's so well-written and acted, and it never fails to get an emotional response out of me.

-Arzt blowing up = pure awesomeness. Bless his heart.

-"You have some Arzt on you." Best. Line. Ever.

-It bugs me how Jack tricked Kate about which pack the dynamite was in. Yes, it was to protect her, but he's so patronizing sometimes.

-Now that we've seen Rousseau's flashback, we know that there was no pillar of black smoke predicting the kidnapping of Alex (or if there was, we didn't see it.) Was she lying?

-Enter Ana-Lucia. I've got to admit, she was never one of my favorite characters, and I wasn't too upset when they killed her off. I was more upset about Michael having committed cold-blooded murder than I was about the fact that Ana-Lucia was off the show.

-Pretty ironic that Walt gives Vincent to Shannon, telling her that he will protect her, when it's Vincent that leads Shannon through the jungle to her death.

-Once again Locke brings up his love of games. I think this is an oblique reference to Jacob and his nemesis - the whole plot is one big game being played between two unseen powers.

-It's a great plot twist that the Others were actually going after the raft, not the Losties on the beach. They went to all this effort to get everyone on the beach safe when all they would have had to do was not launch the raft. This parallels the hatch metaphor: a simple solution was available (going in another door) but they were all blind to it.

-Sun speculates that they're all on the Island because they are being punished by fate. Claire asserts that there is no such thing as fate. This is a central theme that still has yet to be answered by the show.

-When Locke comes face to face with the smoke monster he seems afraid and surprised. Does this mean that what he saw earlier in the season was something different?

-Nooooooooooo, a cliffhanger ending! Oh wait, I forgot. I can just get out my season 2 DVDs. Phew!

-My favorite lines:
JACK: I don't believe in destiny.

LOCKE: Yes, you do. You just don't know it yet.

Who would have ever guessed that by the end of season 5 Jack would be the one going on and on about destiny? But that's exactly what happens.

Comic-Con Coverage

Just a quick note that Doc Arzt has great video coverage of the LOST panel at Comic-Con! If you haven't watched yet, it's a must-see. It's semi-spoilery, with some nice hints about season 6, so if you don't want to know ANYTHING, skip this post. I avoid spoilers like the plague, but for me hints are OK. These have me SO excited for the final season I can barely contain myself.

A few of my favorite bits:

-We'll get Richard Alpert's back story before the show is over, and they semi-confirmed that his past is related to the Black Rock.

-Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet) will be in the final season of LOST in some capacity. (My husband is hoping it will be like when Desmond blew up the hatch and ended up naked in the jungle. Sicko.)

-Jeremy Davies (Daniel Farraday) will also be on the show at some point.

-Jacob has never appeared as another character. (Very interesting, since this is a leading theory out there.)

-Someone asked a question about whether season 6 will have any pre-2004 flashbacks. Here's Carlton's answer: "We're doing something different in season 6. Each season...tells its own story....So season 6 is something different....Time travel season is over, the flash-forward season is over, we have something different planned. So hopefully you will like it, but we're not going to commit to what exactly that is going to be." To me, that points to alternate timelines as the new M.O. - we'll see what *could* have been. Any other theories??

1:22 Born to Run

I know a lot of people don't like Kate/Kate-centric episodes, but I'm not one of them. I actually find her a very sympathetic character. She gets used by the writers as a way to cause complications (probably too much) but I try not to hold that against her. So that said, here are my thoughts on "Born to Run."

-Is it just me, or does Leslie Arzt (hee hee, Leslie!) remind you of every annoying high school teacher you had? I was having flashbacks to junior year chemistry watching him. Even more annoying is when he later admits that he made up everything he was telling them about monsoon season.

-Once again, Kate tells Jack "I'm going with you." She's not lying in season 5 when she tells him "I have always been with you." This seems to contradict her need to run away from things; on the Island with Jack, she always seems to be running towards them.

-It's cool that we now know that the New Kids on the Block lunchbox they dig up was bought for Kate by Jacob.

-Lostpedia says that the Japanese title for this episode is "Time Capsule" which I like much better. It reinforces my idea that Kate and Tom's time capsule is a reference to the hatch.

-Sayid comments that since there is no handle on the outside of the hatch, it was not meant to be opened from the outside. Locke later speculates that there must be another entrance, and in fact there is, not far away. It's an interesting metaphor: Locke et al struggle so hard to open that hatch when a simple and easy solution is mere feet away.

-How does Walt know about the hatch? Is it part of his "special" abilities? And why doesn't he want Locke to open it?

-Ahh, Sun, showing us the dark side of holistic medicine. I actually like this twist of the plot, since so far we've seen Sun mostly as a victim of Jin's domineering personality. It shows that she has another side where maybe she has more control over things than we think. And well done Kate, for making Sun think it was all for her benefit.

1:21 The Greater Good

-The title "The Greater Good" refers to a basic tenet of utilitarianism: the idea that the useful is the good; the goal is the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Through his notions of tabula rasa and empiricism, John Locke (the philosopher) provided a starting point for utilitarian ethical thought, and it was later developed extensively by none other than Jeremy Bentham. LOST's John Locke is definitely a utilitarian.

-Locke believes that Boone was "a sacrifice the Island demanded." Was Boone's death really for the greater good? Or is Locke being duped by a force on the Island?

-Why does Locke decide to tell the truth about how Boone died? And why does he continue to lie to Sayid about the hatch? I'm still not sure about his motivations here.

-Kate drugs Jack, just like she drugged her husband Kevin in a season 3 flashback. (I just realized that Kevin is also the name of Sarah's fiancé when she meets Jack. Definitely not the same guy though.)

-In an episode all about the greater good, it cracks me up that Hurley sang "I Feel Good" to baby Aaron.

-Walt worries about a shark attacking them on the raft and Michael assures him that won't happen. It turns out Walt's concerns were pretty valid.

-Shannon tries to take revenge on Locke but is thwarted. I can't help but wonder if Locke being killed would have resulted in the greater good after all. (Can you tell I'm on a Locke-hating streak? I was so disappointed by him in the season 5 finale. But more on that later.)

-Sayid's extremist friend Essam is willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good, but he's unsure about whether the task he's been given will really accomplish it. In contrast, Locke seems much more sure of himself.

-My favorite lines:

LOCKE: Why don't you trust me, Sayid?

SAYID: For one thing, you've been carrying a gun you've told no one about.

LOCKE: [taking the gun out of his pocket and giving it to Sayid] We found one of the smugglers about a half a click West of here dressed as a priest -- Nigerian currency in his pockets, and this. Now you're armed and I'm not. Does that earn me any trust?

SAYID: You gave this to me because I caught you concealing it. That earns you adaptability.

-Locke reveals that he was the one who knocked Sayid unconscious when he was trying to triangulate a signal. He claims it was to protect the group, but the real reason is that he doesn't want to get off the Island. I think he really believes that staying on the Island will accomplish the greater good, but I'm not sure he's right.