2:8 Collision

My notes on this episode say "Can I just skip this one?" This Ana Lucia episode was not my favorite, probably because Ana Lucia is not my favorite.

-One positive - Unlike nearly every other character, Ana Lucia actually has a good explanation for her gun skills from all her training as a police officer.

-Negative - Michelle Rodgriguez over-pronounces and overacts in just about every. Single. Scene.

-Ana Lucia first met with her psychologist 4 months ago.

-Ana Lucia's working relationship with her mother strikes me as a parallel of Jack's relationship with his dad. Both want the professional approval of their parents, and both sometimes react in very childish ways to setbacks. Now that I think of it, Ana Lucia and Jack are actually quite similar characters; they're both natural leaders, pessimists, skeptics, driven to achieve their goals, and prone to overreactions. It's interesting that some of those traits make me respect Jack, and the same traits make me hate A.L. Sexist double standard?

-The golf match between Kate and Jack provides some nice light moments to contrast with the darkness of Shannon's death and Ana Lucia's flashbacks. This is something the LOST team is incredibly talented at - keeping a balance of just the right amount of emotional intensity.

-I've wondered before if Danny had feelings for Ana Lucia that went beyond a working relationship as her partner. When we see him question Hurley in season 4, it definitely comes across that way.

-Locke answers the crossword clue "Enkidu's friend" with "Gilgamesh." Gilgamesh was a Sumerian king who ruled around 2700 BC. The Epic of Gilgamesh is a series of stories about his life, and depict him as a godlike man. (And yes, I had to look that up on Wikipedia.) One of the later stories about him was written in Greek:
The King of Babylon determines by oracle that his grandson Gilgamos will kill him, and so he throws him out of a high tower. An eagle breaks his fall, and the infant is found and raised by a gardener.

Sound like Locke's story at all?

-Rose and Bernard are reunited!


Best lines
Sayid: She has no plan. She only has her guilt and a gun. [This could apply equally well to Sayid once he gets off the Island.]


Sayid, to Ana Lucia: What good would it do to kill you when we're both already dead?

2:7 The Other 48 Days

-Finally, we get to see what happened to the Tailies and why they are so scared all the time. Their experience on the Island is a mirror image of what our families Losties went through, just much, much worse. As it turns out, tarps, food, medicine, and weapons make a big difference.

-48 days; 4 and 8 are the first two of The Numbers.

-Libby is so incredibly nice; she almost balances out Ana Lucia.

-Since I have an irrational fear of heights, Bernard being stuck in that chair up in the tree is pretty much my worst nightmare. I think I would freeze up and die out of sheer terror.

-Is it just me or does Brett Cullen (who plays Goodwin; no relation to vampire Edward) look a lot like Aaron Eckhart?






-Goodwin says "We're not savages," which is a phrase we also hear from Jack, Kate, and Sawyer.

-Poor Nathan - Ana Lucia and Libby are suspicious of him because he was in the jungle going to the bathroom for two hours, and because he was in the lavatory on the plane. They think he's an Other but really the poor guy just has IBS.

-When the Tailies catch the chicken it always makes me think of Lord of the Flies.

-I love the scene where Bernard speaks to Boone on the radio, because we've already heard it from the other side. Brilliantly done.

-Goodwin tells Ana Lucia "Nathan was not a good person" and that's why he wasn't on the list. Which makes me wonder, what is their criteria for deciding who is a "good person"? And how in the world did BEN make it through that screening process?

-A contradiction I noticed - both Cindy and Ana Lucia say that 815 was in the air for 2 hours. We've been told elsewhere that the plane was in the air for 6 hours. Who is right?

-Mr. Eko's 40 days of silence could be a reference to Jesus' 40 day fast.

2:5 ...And Found

-I love that we get to see both Sun's and Jin's points of view in the same episode.

-The tail section survivors are a glimpse of what the Island could have been like for the fuselage people: no luggage full of clothes and shoes and medicine, no guns, no airplane food, and no tarps (although I'm still puzzled as to why the fuselage crew got all those tarps anyway. Who packs tarps on a plane?) Even the hatch the Tailies discover sucks compared to the Swan station.

-Sun losing her wedding ring in the sand strikes a chord, because that happened to me. Except mine was in the water and I never found it.

-Jin's friend suggests that he could let a woman take care of him - which is exactly what he does when he goes to work for Sun's father.

-The "Destiny Book" says that Jin will find love and it will look orange. A woman wearing orange causes him to pause and bump into Sun. He also wears an orange rose in his lapel, which he gives to Jae Lee, which Jae Lee gives to Sun. There is orange juice on the table during Sun and Jae's blind date.

-Jin spends so much time and energy overcoming the shame of his low class. Is class still really such an issue in Korea?

-The 360˚ shot of Eko in the jungle is so. Brilliantly. Done.

-The scene where we get our first view of the Others (muddy bare feet only) is chilling every time, even when I know it's coming.


After Season 5:

-When Eko and Jin come across Goodwin's body, Jin asks him if it was the Others who killed him. Eko nods. At the time, I thought it meant that the Others had killed Goodwin. Of course, the truth is that it was actually Ana Lucia who killed him - and Goodwin was an Other.

-Speaking of Goodwin's death - the place where Ben later brings Juliet to see his body looks totally different than the place where we see Ana Lucia kill him.

-Jack tells Sun that he lost his wedding ring, and had a replica made so that Sarah would never know. An early example of his ability to lie?

2:4 Everybody Hates Hugo

-We start to get an idea for just how rough the tail section survivors had it when Libby says that "there *were* 23 of us."

-Aaron is one big baby. I pity the mother who had to birth that kid without an epidural.

-One of the key characteristics of Hurley's personality highlighted in this episode is that he doesn't like change. Kind of rough for someone who spends any amount of time on the Island.

-Out of all the characters, Hurley is one of the only ones I'd say is really a 100% good guy. With both winning the lottery and being in charge of all the food, he genuinely doesn't want to have something others can't have.

-On a similar note, Ana Lucia is fundamentally unlikeable. The combination of the way her character is written and Michelle Rodriguez's harshness makes it impossible to relate to her or feel sympathy for her when she messes up. She's like Arrogant Jack on steroids.

-I just love Hurley's mom. She's one of those overly-involved, nagging, quirky moms that you know loves her kid to death and would do anything for him.

-Rose saving the Apollo Bar for Bernard always makes me tear up a bit.

-Nikki Stafford points out that when Sun buries the bottle, you see her wedding ring as she's digging the hole, but then when she's covering the hole you see her hand without the ring. Very cool tie-in to the next episode.

Favorite quote:

Ana Lucia: I say jump, you say-
Sawyer: You first.

2:3 Orientation

And...I'm baaaack!

Jumping right back in with my rewatch notes, to "Orientation."

Favorite quotes:
Hurley: Things are finally returning to normal-ness.
Kate [running up to them]: Sayid!
Hurley: Oh crap.


Locke: We're gonna need to watch that again.


-The title refers both to the Dharma video they find, and to the Losties' introduction to the protocols of the Swan hatch via crazy Desmond.

-It always strikes me in Locke flashbacks that he is a completely different person off the Island. I used to think that it was because he was in a wheelchair, but this episode reiterates that paralysis was not the cause of his feelings of powerlessness (although it certainly added to them.)

-Locke's dad is pretty much the worst father ever. He makes Jack's father seem like Santa Claus.

-Mirror images: Helen tried to get Locke to make a leap of faith by letting go of his anger toward his father. Now Locke is trying to get Jack to make a leap of faith by pushing the button.

-We get a glimpse of the book The Third Policeman, which like LOST deals with themes of perception, mind games, alteration of time flow, and even an underground bunker.

-We get to see the first Dharma Orientation video, introducing us to lots of great mythology, including the first we hear of the Dharma Initiative.


After Season 5:

-We now know that Marvin Candle's real name is Pierre Chang. Why he felt the need to use an alias in these videos (Mark Wickmund, Edgar Halliwax) is unclear.

-Dr. Candle mentions an Incident, which he says occurred at the Swan Hatch "not long after the experiments began." However we saw in season 5 that the Incident happened while the Swan was still under construction.

-We know now why Dr. Candle/Chang has a prosthetic hand; his hand was crushed during the Incident.

-Locke convinces Jack to push the button. Very interesting now that we know that Jack was the one who caused the Incident to happen in the first place (by insisting they detonate Jughead) - the reason the button needs to be pushed every 108 minutes.

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!