Update: 6th June - According to sources over at The Tailsection, Through the Looking Glass has been selected instead of The Man from Tallahassee
Thanks to Constantinos for the info.
ABC's "Lost" hopes to avenge its failure to be nominated last year after winning the award for its first season in 2005. Some Emmy watchers blamed the snub on the episode its producers submitted — it had dangling plot lines that baffled any judges not regular viewers of this serialized drama. This year's entry is a self-contained story cheered by TV critics: "The Man From Tallahassee."
Source: LA Times
Showing posts with label The Man from Tallahassee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Man from Tallahassee. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Emmy News - The Man from Tallahassee
Friday, May 25, 2007
The Season 3 Episode League Table
Here is the final Season 3 Episode League table as voted for by you the fans. The Top 5 are all so close but the winner was Wednesday's finale episode, Through the Looking Glass and is set to become the most voted for episode. Do these correspond to your personal top 5? My Top 5 would have to be.1) The Man Behind the Curtain
2) Flashes before your Eyes
3) Through the Looking Glass
4) The Man from Tallahassee
5) A Tale of Two Cities
Monday, March 26, 2007
Sky One Podcast for The Man from Tallahassee
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Friday, March 23, 2007
The Man From Tallahassee : Behind the Scenes
Originally posted in the spoilers section.
Labels:
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The Man From Tallahassee - Ratings
Jumping from its lead-in by 6.9 million viewers (12.0 million vs. 5.1 million) and by 136% in young adults (5.2/14 vs. 2.2/6), “Lost” won Wednesday’s 10 o’clock hour across the adult demographics. Despite CBS’ decided lead-in advantage coming into the hour from “Criminal Minds,” ABC’s “Lost” defeated CBS’ “C.S.I.: NY” by substantial margins across each of the adult demographics: AD18-34 +68% (4.7/14 vs. 2.8/8), AD18-49 +27% (5.2/14 vs. 4.1/11) and AD25-54 +10% (5.7/14 vs. 5.2/13). In fact the ABC drama has won its hour in the key Adult 18-49 sales demographic on all 7 telecasts since entering in its new time slot.
“Lost” was up from the prior week among Adults 18-34 (4.7/14 vs. 4.6/14) and Women 18-34 (5.1/14 vs. 5.0/14).
“Lost” grew the time period for ABC from the same night last year by 2.9 million viewers and 53% in Adults 18-49 (9.1 million & 3.4/9 on 3/22/06).
Source: Nielsen Media Research (Fast Affiliate Ratings)
“Lost” was up from the prior week among Adults 18-34 (4.7/14 vs. 4.6/14) and Women 18-34 (5.1/14 vs. 5.0/14).
“Lost” grew the time period for ABC from the same night last year by 2.9 million viewers and 53% in Adults 18-49 (9.1 million & 3.4/9 on 3/22/06).
Source: Nielsen Media Research (Fast Affiliate Ratings)
Locke's Unlucky Episode by J. Wood
Another indepth review of The Man from Tallahassee by the always interesting J.Wood.
Now we know. Locke's back was broken after his father knocked him out of an eighth story window.
The thirteenth episode of the third season, "The Man from Tallahassee" — the unlucky episode for Locke — gathers more narrative threads together than it introduces. This episode shows us why Jack seemed comfortable with the Others (he was promised passage off the island), raises the point of why some people are rapidly healed on the island while others aren't (Ben's surgery isn't healing too quickly), let us in on both Locke and Ben's motivations, and we now know how Locke ended up in that wheelchair. Every moment in that chair must have been a reminder of being rejected by his father three times, each more violently than the previous. And this episode is fraught with narrative mirror twinning and audience manipulation (and I mean that in the best sense possible).
The literary/philosophical references of this episode occur mainly in the names. Ben's room is littered with books, but almost none of them can be made out (although Lostpedia claims Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time can be seen, which brings us back to "Flashes Before Your Eyes" and the ideas of time warps and wormholes on the island). The most significant play of names is between John Locke and Anthony Cooper. John Locke the 17th C. empirical philosopher was retained by Anthony Cooper, the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, and was mentor to Anthony Cooper, the 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, who became a somewhat prominent philosopher in his own right. As echoed in Lost, Locke the philosopher was retained by the elder Cooper when he helped Cooper with a surgery on his liver (something which the poet John Dryden teased Cooper about in his writings; apparently Cooper had to wear a silver tap to drain his liver, and since Dryden didn't approve of Cooper's politics, he teased Cooper about his tap). Cooper the philosopher was also a deist and Neoplatonist who believed, much as Locke, that people were not born bad, and the natural state of man was not warfare (contra Hobbes). He understood the person to be a mess of competing appetites which had to be brought into balance. His ideas were really only collected in his book Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (which Powell's has an early edition of for $450); this book influenced thinkers like Immanuel Kant, who in turn was strongly rejected by last week's Ayn Rand. The 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury is very much a kind of mirror-twin to the Anthony Cooper of Lost; Shaftesbury pushed the idea of an innate moral sense imbued in every person, and argued that morality could be calculated in an almost mathematical sense. The Cooper of Lost calculates his immorality in an almost mathematical sense; he enters relationships only when there is profit to be had, nothing more. Whereas the Cooper of history worked towards social harmony, the Cooper of Lost manipulates for self-benefit.
And manipulation is the key to this episode: Ben, the seeming leader of the tribe, is a master manipulator. But as I argue in the book, the audience is as much a part of this narrative as the characters, so when a character is being manipulated, we can watch our own backs too. When Locke visits the disability case worker in his flashback, we assume he's in the wheelchair, partly because he's sitting and we can't see if the chair is there or not. It's a bit of a reversal of what we saw in Locke's outback flashback when we first find he was in a wheelchair — a narrative mirror twin. But this time, we learn his disability is severe depression after being rooked of his kidney. That's the first clue that this episode is going to play with our expectations and predetermined assumptions. There are the little manipulations — Jack playing the piano (Charlie's domain), Richard Alpert first hinted at in the noir scene through the closet slats and showing up at the end (Ram Dass will be back), Kate being told by Jack, "I'm not with anyone, Kate," (so much for the relationships). Where things get interesting are the scenes that play with audience attention. Locke at the disability official's desk and its mirror-twinned scene from "Walkabout" are both moments where Locke was at his weakest in front of people of authority. Cooper pours Locke some MacCutcheon whisky, which we saw in "Flashes Before Your Eyes" was named for Admiral MacCutcheon. Admiral MacCutcheon was also a character from ABC's television version of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Bear with this one: Verne also wrote Around the World in 80 Days, a travel tale that employs a Henry Gale-like hot air balloon. This is their 80th day on the island, and Locke comes around full circle (around the world) in facing his fate on the island, deciding to destroy the submarine in order to remain on the island, and whole. Locke entering the submarine recalls Locke going down the Swan hatch at the end of the first season episode "Exodus," but this time he's controlling the destiny of the machine, rather than having his destiny controlled by the machine. When Locke looks down at his feet after being dropped into the wheelchair, the scene is a mirror twin to the pilot episode, where Locke looks at his feet after the crash and realizes he can feel them. Locke strung up in the boiler room at Otherville is a mirror-twinned image of Ben being strung up in the Swan station armory. Ben in the wheelchair is a mirror-twinned image of Locke off the island, and in many ways Ben is also a man of science while Locke is the man of faith. But Ben is manipulating Locke better than Anthony Cooper could have, and as such is a kind of mirror-twin figure of Cooper to Locke. The final scene of this episode, when Ben explains his gambit of using Locke to keep Jack on the island in order to not look weak to his people, is chess-like in its strategy, and the way Ben predicted Locke's reactions and moves was Desmond-like in its prescience. Locke won the chess match in the Flame station, but lost the one against Ben.
Yet Ben says two particular things that bring the audience right back into play. In these two instances, what he says has direct relevance to both Locke and the way the audience interacts with the narrative. The first is occurs in Ben's kitchen, when he explains to Locke that if Locke blows up the submarine, he'll have a problem with his people. As much as his people love the island, he explains, they need to know they can leave it, and the sub "maintains that illusion" (which suggests they can't really leave the island). Ben's people — much as the audience itself — is there on the island because they want to be, but haven't necessarily made a full commitment yet. One of the major topics on websites like LOSTCasts, The Fuselage and Lostpedia is Lost's ratings, and how the thirty-some million audience members dropped by about half in the third season. Many of the grumpier responses to the complexities of the mythology reflected a desire for more traditional television faire, where an episode was self-contained and the threads were tied up more neatly than we were getting. Others complained that there wasn't enough focus on the relationships, while still others complained there was too much focus on the relationships. The scheduling issues didn't help matters. But Lost isn't like any other television narrative we've experienced, and as I've argued all along, it should be read more like a hybrid novel/game than a standard television show. That takes some effort; ask your friends who are familiar with the show, but found that when they missed an episode or two, the work it takes to catch up is almost prohibitive. If they get back into it, they have to wait for the DVDs to come out so they can spend a weekend crashing through the past episodes. Furthermore, the demographic where Lost still wins is in the 18-40-somethings; this is the generation who grew up with computers, video games, and their participatory narratives, and they're a much smaller population than the baby boomers (who make up the majority of the television-watching demographic). The attention the first season garnered could be likened to the attention a car wreck or side show gets; it was a strange phenomenon that caused many people to rubberneck over to ABC on Wednesdays to see what was going on. When more was asked of those people than they were willing to give, the audience thinned some, and even split into camps — those who devoured the complexity, and those who wanted little to do with it. That's not unlike what happened with modernist literature like William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying or James Joyce's Ulysses (and certainly Finnegans Wake, and possibly with their experimental inheritor David Foster Wallace), a phenomenon noted in the post for "Stranger in a Strange Land". But as Ben says, for those who stay (like Locke, who's made the commitment), he can show you "things you want to see very badly."
The other such double-meta-moment came with Ben's box metaphor. There's the link back to Hurley's flashback in the first season episode "Numbers"; when Hurley told Leonard Simms he played the lottery with the numbers, Leonard tells him he shouldn't have done that because he "opened the box." The box idea recalls the notion of the Skinner box experiments that were the Swan and Pearl stations (at least to an extent). Ben describes his box as a thing that contains imagination. In the second season episode "Man of Science, Man of Faith," Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman is shown on Desmond's bunk (another one of those narratively complex modernist novels). In that book, the protagonist opens a box he thinks contains money, but instead contains something called omnium, a substance that's at the root of everything and can be anything one desires. This sounds very similar to Ben's box, and omnium operates in a similar way to the stomping smoke that manifests as Yemi, horses, Christian Shephard, and possibly Anthony Cooper on the island (unless you think Ben really has Locke's father). But what other boxes would the audience be familiar with that contain imagination? The boxes we use to engage this narrative — television sets and computers. The television is the box that contains just about anything we could imagine, and in many cases shapes the contours of our collective imagination. It certainly has with Lost. The computer is the box where the audience goes to imagine theories about the show, and stray into the matrix of links and information that drive the audience's collective imagination about the show. Ben's box metaphor, like his talk of commitment to the island, breaks that fourth dramatic wall and steps into the world of the audience.
Of course this isn't the first time that's happened. Whenever the writers acknowledge audience response in the narrative, the fourth wall is busted. The alternate reality game was all about breaking down that wall, which was marked by a television commercial for the Hanso Foundation that appeared during station breaks. When that fourth dramatic wall is dropped, the audience becomes a character — we're literally scripted into a show that's structured like a game, invited to actively participate in solving its mystery. The mirror-twin shot looking down the hatch of the submarine/the Swan station is an homage to the game Myst, letting us know that this is more than just television. As a game, as a narrative that the audience actively participates in by using these boxes that contain imagination, Lost may very well be the most massive video game ever played.
Article by J.Wood
The thirteenth episode of the third season, "The Man from Tallahassee" — the unlucky episode for Locke — gathers more narrative threads together than it introduces. This episode shows us why Jack seemed comfortable with the Others (he was promised passage off the island), raises the point of why some people are rapidly healed on the island while others aren't (Ben's surgery isn't healing too quickly), let us in on both Locke and Ben's motivations, and we now know how Locke ended up in that wheelchair. Every moment in that chair must have been a reminder of being rejected by his father three times, each more violently than the previous. And this episode is fraught with narrative mirror twinning and audience manipulation (and I mean that in the best sense possible).
The literary/philosophical references of this episode occur mainly in the names. Ben's room is littered with books, but almost none of them can be made out (although Lostpedia claims Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time can be seen, which brings us back to "Flashes Before Your Eyes" and the ideas of time warps and wormholes on the island). The most significant play of names is between John Locke and Anthony Cooper. John Locke the 17th C. empirical philosopher was retained by Anthony Cooper, the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, and was mentor to Anthony Cooper, the 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, who became a somewhat prominent philosopher in his own right. As echoed in Lost, Locke the philosopher was retained by the elder Cooper when he helped Cooper with a surgery on his liver (something which the poet John Dryden teased Cooper about in his writings; apparently Cooper had to wear a silver tap to drain his liver, and since Dryden didn't approve of Cooper's politics, he teased Cooper about his tap). Cooper the philosopher was also a deist and Neoplatonist who believed, much as Locke, that people were not born bad, and the natural state of man was not warfare (contra Hobbes). He understood the person to be a mess of competing appetites which had to be brought into balance. His ideas were really only collected in his book Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (which Powell's has an early edition of for $450); this book influenced thinkers like Immanuel Kant, who in turn was strongly rejected by last week's Ayn Rand. The 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury is very much a kind of mirror-twin to the Anthony Cooper of Lost; Shaftesbury pushed the idea of an innate moral sense imbued in every person, and argued that morality could be calculated in an almost mathematical sense. The Cooper of Lost calculates his immorality in an almost mathematical sense; he enters relationships only when there is profit to be had, nothing more. Whereas the Cooper of history worked towards social harmony, the Cooper of Lost manipulates for self-benefit.
And manipulation is the key to this episode: Ben, the seeming leader of the tribe, is a master manipulator. But as I argue in the book, the audience is as much a part of this narrative as the characters, so when a character is being manipulated, we can watch our own backs too. When Locke visits the disability case worker in his flashback, we assume he's in the wheelchair, partly because he's sitting and we can't see if the chair is there or not. It's a bit of a reversal of what we saw in Locke's outback flashback when we first find he was in a wheelchair — a narrative mirror twin. But this time, we learn his disability is severe depression after being rooked of his kidney. That's the first clue that this episode is going to play with our expectations and predetermined assumptions. There are the little manipulations — Jack playing the piano (Charlie's domain), Richard Alpert first hinted at in the noir scene through the closet slats and showing up at the end (Ram Dass will be back), Kate being told by Jack, "I'm not with anyone, Kate," (so much for the relationships). Where things get interesting are the scenes that play with audience attention. Locke at the disability official's desk and its mirror-twinned scene from "Walkabout" are both moments where Locke was at his weakest in front of people of authority. Cooper pours Locke some MacCutcheon whisky, which we saw in "Flashes Before Your Eyes" was named for Admiral MacCutcheon. Admiral MacCutcheon was also a character from ABC's television version of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Bear with this one: Verne also wrote Around the World in 80 Days, a travel tale that employs a Henry Gale-like hot air balloon. This is their 80th day on the island, and Locke comes around full circle (around the world) in facing his fate on the island, deciding to destroy the submarine in order to remain on the island, and whole. Locke entering the submarine recalls Locke going down the Swan hatch at the end of the first season episode "Exodus," but this time he's controlling the destiny of the machine, rather than having his destiny controlled by the machine. When Locke looks down at his feet after being dropped into the wheelchair, the scene is a mirror twin to the pilot episode, where Locke looks at his feet after the crash and realizes he can feel them. Locke strung up in the boiler room at Otherville is a mirror-twinned image of Ben being strung up in the Swan station armory. Ben in the wheelchair is a mirror-twinned image of Locke off the island, and in many ways Ben is also a man of science while Locke is the man of faith. But Ben is manipulating Locke better than Anthony Cooper could have, and as such is a kind of mirror-twin figure of Cooper to Locke. The final scene of this episode, when Ben explains his gambit of using Locke to keep Jack on the island in order to not look weak to his people, is chess-like in its strategy, and the way Ben predicted Locke's reactions and moves was Desmond-like in its prescience. Locke won the chess match in the Flame station, but lost the one against Ben.
Yet Ben says two particular things that bring the audience right back into play. In these two instances, what he says has direct relevance to both Locke and the way the audience interacts with the narrative. The first is occurs in Ben's kitchen, when he explains to Locke that if Locke blows up the submarine, he'll have a problem with his people. As much as his people love the island, he explains, they need to know they can leave it, and the sub "maintains that illusion" (which suggests they can't really leave the island). Ben's people — much as the audience itself — is there on the island because they want to be, but haven't necessarily made a full commitment yet. One of the major topics on websites like LOSTCasts, The Fuselage and Lostpedia is Lost's ratings, and how the thirty-some million audience members dropped by about half in the third season. Many of the grumpier responses to the complexities of the mythology reflected a desire for more traditional television faire, where an episode was self-contained and the threads were tied up more neatly than we were getting. Others complained that there wasn't enough focus on the relationships, while still others complained there was too much focus on the relationships. The scheduling issues didn't help matters. But Lost isn't like any other television narrative we've experienced, and as I've argued all along, it should be read more like a hybrid novel/game than a standard television show. That takes some effort; ask your friends who are familiar with the show, but found that when they missed an episode or two, the work it takes to catch up is almost prohibitive. If they get back into it, they have to wait for the DVDs to come out so they can spend a weekend crashing through the past episodes. Furthermore, the demographic where Lost still wins is in the 18-40-somethings; this is the generation who grew up with computers, video games, and their participatory narratives, and they're a much smaller population than the baby boomers (who make up the majority of the television-watching demographic). The attention the first season garnered could be likened to the attention a car wreck or side show gets; it was a strange phenomenon that caused many people to rubberneck over to ABC on Wednesdays to see what was going on. When more was asked of those people than they were willing to give, the audience thinned some, and even split into camps — those who devoured the complexity, and those who wanted little to do with it. That's not unlike what happened with modernist literature like William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying or James Joyce's Ulysses (and certainly Finnegans Wake, and possibly with their experimental inheritor David Foster Wallace), a phenomenon noted in the post for "Stranger in a Strange Land". But as Ben says, for those who stay (like Locke, who's made the commitment), he can show you "things you want to see very badly."
The other such double-meta-moment came with Ben's box metaphor. There's the link back to Hurley's flashback in the first season episode "Numbers"; when Hurley told Leonard Simms he played the lottery with the numbers, Leonard tells him he shouldn't have done that because he "opened the box." The box idea recalls the notion of the Skinner box experiments that were the Swan and Pearl stations (at least to an extent). Ben describes his box as a thing that contains imagination. In the second season episode "Man of Science, Man of Faith," Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman is shown on Desmond's bunk (another one of those narratively complex modernist novels). In that book, the protagonist opens a box he thinks contains money, but instead contains something called omnium, a substance that's at the root of everything and can be anything one desires. This sounds very similar to Ben's box, and omnium operates in a similar way to the stomping smoke that manifests as Yemi, horses, Christian Shephard, and possibly Anthony Cooper on the island (unless you think Ben really has Locke's father). But what other boxes would the audience be familiar with that contain imagination? The boxes we use to engage this narrative — television sets and computers. The television is the box that contains just about anything we could imagine, and in many cases shapes the contours of our collective imagination. It certainly has with Lost. The computer is the box where the audience goes to imagine theories about the show, and stray into the matrix of links and information that drive the audience's collective imagination about the show. Ben's box metaphor, like his talk of commitment to the island, breaks that fourth dramatic wall and steps into the world of the audience.
Of course this isn't the first time that's happened. Whenever the writers acknowledge audience response in the narrative, the fourth wall is busted. The alternate reality game was all about breaking down that wall, which was marked by a television commercial for the Hanso Foundation that appeared during station breaks. When that fourth dramatic wall is dropped, the audience becomes a character — we're literally scripted into a show that's structured like a game, invited to actively participate in solving its mystery. The mirror-twin shot looking down the hatch of the submarine/the Swan station is an homage to the game Myst, letting us know that this is more than just television. As a game, as a narrative that the audience actively participates in by using these boxes that contain imagination, Lost may very well be the most massive video game ever played.
Article by J.Wood
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Things I Noticed – "The Man From Tallahassee" by Vozzek69
WOW. Just WOW. The episodes keep getting better and better, and this week was no exception. Here are the things I noticed:
Previously on LOST...
The first thing I couldn't help but notice was that my manifestation theory might be a little more popular after this week. :) For those who haven't read it, it's been in the THEORIES section of Dark's site for almost a year now. Here's the link:
http://theoriesonlost.blogspot.com/2006/08/thoughtdreambelief-manifestations.html
The Jack & Juliet Show
Seemed to me that the whole Jack/Juliet happy afternoon have a good night thing was a big farce. To say they were bait for the incoming rescue party might be giving the Others a little too much credit, but by the time the episode ended I realized that's exactly what they were (whether they understood it or not). Once again Ben gets credit for being one step ahead of just about everyone, and you'd be a fool to believe he didn't know about Sayid and Kate way before Mr. Friendly showed up in his bedroom to tell him.
Right before Jack shook Ben's hand however, I thought I saw a bright red tattoo on the inside of Jack's forearm. Was that always there? I also thought Sayid's glance at Kate (while she was viewing Jack with Juliet) was pretty telling. Kate's jealous.
Danielle IS Weak
Mikhail was dead on about her. Once again Danielle fades back into the jungle just as things get interesting, and I'm still sure she's no coward. Danielle fears facing the fact that Alex is alive even more than she fears not having her daughter in her life. This is a struggle she would have to overcome all on her own... except for what Sayid did this episode. With the seeds of doubt now planted over her mom being alive, at this point I think Alex will make the first move. She'll take the ball out of Danielle's court.
Apparently Locke Didn't Go Back for the Money
Seeing Locke's run-down apartment and need for benefits, I guess that answers that question. And with Cooper still scamming people, maybe he didn't go back for the money either. Which means some chambermaid got a GIANT tip.
Locke initially lying to the woman's son seemed strange, until you realize he wanted to handle everything himself. Bad move once again, because pre-island Locke couldn't handle boiling an egg. I noticed some strange glyphs on the TV tray Locke ate his dinner off of, with the number '40' written in the middle. Not sure any of that planted stuff means much at this point, but I guess someone will decypher it.
What Submarine?
You have to hand it to Ben. Even woken up at gunpoint in the middle of the night he still manages to put on an Academy Award-winning performance to convince an ever-skeptical Locke that what he's "choosing" to do is his own design. Even with Alex flat-out telling Locke that her father is tricking him into doing what he wants, Ben's plan still goes off without a hitch. Unbelievable. And even if you give Ben less credit and assume he didn't know Locke was going to waltz in there with a pack of C4 wanting to blow up the sub, he still manages to both get the explosives back without question AND send a guide along with him to show Locke exactly where the sub is. Crazy quick thinking or insane planning ahead, Ben is NOT to be messed with.
The Others Have a Kickass Rec Room
Pool table, pinball machines, and a really nice fooseball table? Can you really blame Jack? I mean come on.
Watching the whole Jack/Kate scene, I think we're meant to be shocked by so completely 'out of character' Jack's being. In truth though, he's really not. Of course Jack's not with the Others - in his own words, he's not 'with' anyone. When Jack emerged from that dreary cell to find Kate and Sawyer's naked cage romp, something inside him broke. His will to stay was completely destroyed.
"The first time I saw Jack he was risking his life pulling people out of burning airplane wreckage" (Locke's words). That Jack is long gone now. The old Jack thrived on leading, helping, healing, and caring about everyone on the island. Since the beginning he's gotten nothing but headache and heartache from it, and it's now a lot easier to just push all that away. Jack wanted his plan to free Kate and Sawyer to be the last thing he owed them. After that he was indebted to no one and could leave the island with a clean slate. Kate showing up this episode was like twisting a knife in an existing wound.
It was funny how Kate went from complete incredulity over Jack's attitude to sudden comprehension that Jack knew about her and Sawyer. Her facial change as she realized this was priceless. "What did they tell you?", she stammers... and then Juliet walks in. Now that Jack's still stuck on the island, the dynamic between him and Kate (not to mention Sawyer and Juliet) is going to be very interesting.
Kids Kids Kids
The writers showed us a swingset last episode, but this time they hit us over the head with it by chaining Sayid to it. The Others must have kids around, right? Nah. I'm still not buying it. I know it was dark, but the swingset just felt pretty unused to me. I think it was all for show. I still believe the children are someplace (sometime?) else, simply because I think children have the potential to be more dangerous than adults on this island.
And when Kate asks Jack about the people/kids the Others took, he answers simply with "they're safe". Although Jack physically 'saw' the kids a couple of episodes ago, that answer sounded contrived. It sounded like an answer Ben would give.
We Have Two Giant Hamsters Running a Massive Wheel in Our Secret Underground Lair
This was the best line of the week, but the conversation that followed here was the real meat and potatoes of this episode. Not only was a huge secret of the island finally revealed, but we also see a giant hole in Ben's seemingly impenetrable armor: he doesn't have total control.
It turns out that the island CAN manifest things, and it works exactly as I've always thought it would - on the thoughts of those who inhabit it. The box analogy was for Locke's benefit, but in short the thoughts, dreams, desires, and fears one might have can be physically realized by the 'place' on the island (interesting the way Ben put that).
This is extremely powerful knowledge, but Ben confides the secret of the island to Locke for several reasons. First, Locke's "commitment is genuine" and Ben knows he's got no desire to leave. This puts the two of them in the same boat, so to speak. Ben also recognizes that Locke already has a kinship with the island that, at this point in time, might even surpass his own. Finally, Ben needs to learn from Locke. If Locke has knowledge of how the island works that Ben does not, he needs to gain that knowledge. Especially now.
The really awesome part of this scene was how nonchalant Locke was about everything. Ben's really not telling him anything new here - since season one Locke's known that this place is very special. In fact, Locke is angry at Ben because he is abusing the very purity of the island's gifts. He uses its power to make himself comfortable with electricity and running water... in Locke's eyes he's 'cheating', just as his father cheated everyone he came into contact with. Locke shames Ben. "If you had any idea what this place was, you wouldn't be putting chicken in your refrigerator!" Ouch, man. Locke takes a proverbial crap over Ben's whole house, his lifestyle, and his leftover chicken. Then he punches him square in the face with "That's why you're in a wheelchair... and I'm not".
As awesome a character as Ben is, it was enormously satisfying to finally see someone get the upper hand on him. Ben is totally astonished here, maybe for the first time ever. How could Locke be there only 80 days, and yet know more about the island than Ben does having lived there his whole life?
The answer of course, is that Ben has lost sight. Living in comfort, Ben's lost his own communion with the island. Of all people, Locke knows the penalty of straying from the island's set path. When Boone lost interest in helping Locke enter the hatch, Locke lost faith and the island punished him temporarily by taking his legs away. The island then sacrificed Boone to show Locke the penalty for going against the flow. Locke understood this lesson immediately. Locke understands more than Ben gives him credit for.
Still, the island DID provide a spinal surgeon to save Ben's life. Whatever its agenda truly is, the island must still need its favorite son for something. And as Ben struggles to learn the secrets of how the island 'works', he believes the answers must lie within those who are closest to it. Walt, Locke... maybe even Rose.
Finally, if we accept that the island can manifest things based upon thoughts (and I think we've seen evidence that belief plays a major role too), those with the most vivid imaginations would be the most powerful and dangerous. And which group does this apply to the most? The children. Children believe in everything, from monsters to aliens to Santa Claus. I think this is why the others took the children first. This is why they isolated them who-knows-where.
Fool Me Once, Shame on You. Fool Me Three Times? I'm a Gullible Moron.
Pre-island Locke was an angry sucker. This episode marks the third time Cooper has gotten the best of him. It's almost unbelievable how stupid Locke is, confronting his dad yet again, knowing that any encounter he has with him can only end in pain and deceit. And this one ended by answering the question we've all been anxiously waiting for: how the hell did Locke get paralyzed?
The sudden shove and 8-story fall was awesome. The filmmakers did an incredible job with it. I was expecting it and it was STILL shocking - the music change, the rush of it all, and especially the crunching sound Locke's spine made when he hit the ground. That moment had a lot of hype to live up to, and I think it pulled it off.
The bottle of scotch Cooper drank was McCutcheon's, but by this point I hope no one is surprised to see this. The island has a limited amount of brand names to work with, and then everything else gets labeled 'Dharma'. More evidence to what I said last week, that the island is messing with the flashbacks.
Stars, Subs, and Time
Ben tells Locke that since the anomoly, 'no one will find this island'. Yet even before the sky turned purple, way back in season two, Ben said 'God can't see this place'. I've always thought the island was unreachable, at least by normal means, and I think faith and belief is the only way to gain access to it. Unless of course, the island itself wants you there.
Still, I believe Ben when he says he's recruited people to the island (Richard, Juliet, etc...) I also think he keeps his people in the dark about a good many things. The phantom 'food drop', the sub, the 'contact with the outside world' - these are all illusions to keep his people from realizing that they're really LOST. Maybe some of them have made the big commitment he talks about, but to others it's nothing more than a job. The big question though: What exactly does Ben need these people for?
Watch the scene where Ben's staring at the photos of young Alex on the wall of his room. He's not looking at the photos, he's looking at the clock. In watching the clock, you'll see it changes time several times througout the scene. Right at the part where Alex hands the pack over to Locke, the clock goes from 12:40-ish to about 4:13. It might change during the scene where Jack shows up also, I didn't check.
With one huge mystery of LOST revealed, the other big mystery we need to solve is the one involving time. Maybe the clock in Ben's room means something. Maybe the star chart on the wall means something too. Maybe the writers just like to mess with our heads. In any event, the time anomolies are something we're bound to see more of in the future. Remember the producers during season one: "We never said WHEN flight 815 crashed". More ammo for the argument that they've planned this all along.
The Man From Tallahassee
The final scene of the show was awesome. Locke seeing his father in that chair really cemented everything Ben had been saying. Up until that point there would be non-believers who would throw the whole 'magic box' thing over their shoulders as something Ben lied about to mess with Locke. But not after seeing the man from Tallahassee.
Who knows how long ago Locke inadvertently manifested his dad. The point is that upon stumbling across the man from Tallahassee, Ben immediately knew who was responsible for him. This made Locke a very important commodity to Ben, which may be why he came looking for him in season two. Which would make Cooper cooped up for a pretty long while.
Incredible episode.
Previously on LOST...
The first thing I couldn't help but notice was that my manifestation theory might be a little more popular after this week. :) For those who haven't read it, it's been in the THEORIES section of Dark's site for almost a year now. Here's the link:
http://theoriesonlost.blogspot.com/2006/08/thoughtdreambelief-manifestations.html
The Jack & Juliet Show
Seemed to me that the whole Jack/Juliet happy afternoon have a good night thing was a big farce. To say they were bait for the incoming rescue party might be giving the Others a little too much credit, but by the time the episode ended I realized that's exactly what they were (whether they understood it or not). Once again Ben gets credit for being one step ahead of just about everyone, and you'd be a fool to believe he didn't know about Sayid and Kate way before Mr. Friendly showed up in his bedroom to tell him.
Right before Jack shook Ben's hand however, I thought I saw a bright red tattoo on the inside of Jack's forearm. Was that always there? I also thought Sayid's glance at Kate (while she was viewing Jack with Juliet) was pretty telling. Kate's jealous.
Danielle IS Weak
Mikhail was dead on about her. Once again Danielle fades back into the jungle just as things get interesting, and I'm still sure she's no coward. Danielle fears facing the fact that Alex is alive even more than she fears not having her daughter in her life. This is a struggle she would have to overcome all on her own... except for what Sayid did this episode. With the seeds of doubt now planted over her mom being alive, at this point I think Alex will make the first move. She'll take the ball out of Danielle's court.
Apparently Locke Didn't Go Back for the Money
Seeing Locke's run-down apartment and need for benefits, I guess that answers that question. And with Cooper still scamming people, maybe he didn't go back for the money either. Which means some chambermaid got a GIANT tip.
Locke initially lying to the woman's son seemed strange, until you realize he wanted to handle everything himself. Bad move once again, because pre-island Locke couldn't handle boiling an egg. I noticed some strange glyphs on the TV tray Locke ate his dinner off of, with the number '40' written in the middle. Not sure any of that planted stuff means much at this point, but I guess someone will decypher it.
What Submarine?
You have to hand it to Ben. Even woken up at gunpoint in the middle of the night he still manages to put on an Academy Award-winning performance to convince an ever-skeptical Locke that what he's "choosing" to do is his own design. Even with Alex flat-out telling Locke that her father is tricking him into doing what he wants, Ben's plan still goes off without a hitch. Unbelievable. And even if you give Ben less credit and assume he didn't know Locke was going to waltz in there with a pack of C4 wanting to blow up the sub, he still manages to both get the explosives back without question AND send a guide along with him to show Locke exactly where the sub is. Crazy quick thinking or insane planning ahead, Ben is NOT to be messed with.
The Others Have a Kickass Rec Room
Pool table, pinball machines, and a really nice fooseball table? Can you really blame Jack? I mean come on.
Watching the whole Jack/Kate scene, I think we're meant to be shocked by so completely 'out of character' Jack's being. In truth though, he's really not. Of course Jack's not with the Others - in his own words, he's not 'with' anyone. When Jack emerged from that dreary cell to find Kate and Sawyer's naked cage romp, something inside him broke. His will to stay was completely destroyed.
"The first time I saw Jack he was risking his life pulling people out of burning airplane wreckage" (Locke's words). That Jack is long gone now. The old Jack thrived on leading, helping, healing, and caring about everyone on the island. Since the beginning he's gotten nothing but headache and heartache from it, and it's now a lot easier to just push all that away. Jack wanted his plan to free Kate and Sawyer to be the last thing he owed them. After that he was indebted to no one and could leave the island with a clean slate. Kate showing up this episode was like twisting a knife in an existing wound.
It was funny how Kate went from complete incredulity over Jack's attitude to sudden comprehension that Jack knew about her and Sawyer. Her facial change as she realized this was priceless. "What did they tell you?", she stammers... and then Juliet walks in. Now that Jack's still stuck on the island, the dynamic between him and Kate (not to mention Sawyer and Juliet) is going to be very interesting.
Kids Kids Kids
The writers showed us a swingset last episode, but this time they hit us over the head with it by chaining Sayid to it. The Others must have kids around, right? Nah. I'm still not buying it. I know it was dark, but the swingset just felt pretty unused to me. I think it was all for show. I still believe the children are someplace (sometime?) else, simply because I think children have the potential to be more dangerous than adults on this island.
And when Kate asks Jack about the people/kids the Others took, he answers simply with "they're safe". Although Jack physically 'saw' the kids a couple of episodes ago, that answer sounded contrived. It sounded like an answer Ben would give.
We Have Two Giant Hamsters Running a Massive Wheel in Our Secret Underground Lair
This was the best line of the week, but the conversation that followed here was the real meat and potatoes of this episode. Not only was a huge secret of the island finally revealed, but we also see a giant hole in Ben's seemingly impenetrable armor: he doesn't have total control.
It turns out that the island CAN manifest things, and it works exactly as I've always thought it would - on the thoughts of those who inhabit it. The box analogy was for Locke's benefit, but in short the thoughts, dreams, desires, and fears one might have can be physically realized by the 'place' on the island (interesting the way Ben put that).
This is extremely powerful knowledge, but Ben confides the secret of the island to Locke for several reasons. First, Locke's "commitment is genuine" and Ben knows he's got no desire to leave. This puts the two of them in the same boat, so to speak. Ben also recognizes that Locke already has a kinship with the island that, at this point in time, might even surpass his own. Finally, Ben needs to learn from Locke. If Locke has knowledge of how the island works that Ben does not, he needs to gain that knowledge. Especially now.
The really awesome part of this scene was how nonchalant Locke was about everything. Ben's really not telling him anything new here - since season one Locke's known that this place is very special. In fact, Locke is angry at Ben because he is abusing the very purity of the island's gifts. He uses its power to make himself comfortable with electricity and running water... in Locke's eyes he's 'cheating', just as his father cheated everyone he came into contact with. Locke shames Ben. "If you had any idea what this place was, you wouldn't be putting chicken in your refrigerator!" Ouch, man. Locke takes a proverbial crap over Ben's whole house, his lifestyle, and his leftover chicken. Then he punches him square in the face with "That's why you're in a wheelchair... and I'm not".
As awesome a character as Ben is, it was enormously satisfying to finally see someone get the upper hand on him. Ben is totally astonished here, maybe for the first time ever. How could Locke be there only 80 days, and yet know more about the island than Ben does having lived there his whole life?
The answer of course, is that Ben has lost sight. Living in comfort, Ben's lost his own communion with the island. Of all people, Locke knows the penalty of straying from the island's set path. When Boone lost interest in helping Locke enter the hatch, Locke lost faith and the island punished him temporarily by taking his legs away. The island then sacrificed Boone to show Locke the penalty for going against the flow. Locke understood this lesson immediately. Locke understands more than Ben gives him credit for.
Still, the island DID provide a spinal surgeon to save Ben's life. Whatever its agenda truly is, the island must still need its favorite son for something. And as Ben struggles to learn the secrets of how the island 'works', he believes the answers must lie within those who are closest to it. Walt, Locke... maybe even Rose.
Finally, if we accept that the island can manifest things based upon thoughts (and I think we've seen evidence that belief plays a major role too), those with the most vivid imaginations would be the most powerful and dangerous. And which group does this apply to the most? The children. Children believe in everything, from monsters to aliens to Santa Claus. I think this is why the others took the children first. This is why they isolated them who-knows-where.
Fool Me Once, Shame on You. Fool Me Three Times? I'm a Gullible Moron.
Pre-island Locke was an angry sucker. This episode marks the third time Cooper has gotten the best of him. It's almost unbelievable how stupid Locke is, confronting his dad yet again, knowing that any encounter he has with him can only end in pain and deceit. And this one ended by answering the question we've all been anxiously waiting for: how the hell did Locke get paralyzed?
The sudden shove and 8-story fall was awesome. The filmmakers did an incredible job with it. I was expecting it and it was STILL shocking - the music change, the rush of it all, and especially the crunching sound Locke's spine made when he hit the ground. That moment had a lot of hype to live up to, and I think it pulled it off.
The bottle of scotch Cooper drank was McCutcheon's, but by this point I hope no one is surprised to see this. The island has a limited amount of brand names to work with, and then everything else gets labeled 'Dharma'. More evidence to what I said last week, that the island is messing with the flashbacks.
Stars, Subs, and Time
Ben tells Locke that since the anomoly, 'no one will find this island'. Yet even before the sky turned purple, way back in season two, Ben said 'God can't see this place'. I've always thought the island was unreachable, at least by normal means, and I think faith and belief is the only way to gain access to it. Unless of course, the island itself wants you there.
Still, I believe Ben when he says he's recruited people to the island (Richard, Juliet, etc...) I also think he keeps his people in the dark about a good many things. The phantom 'food drop', the sub, the 'contact with the outside world' - these are all illusions to keep his people from realizing that they're really LOST. Maybe some of them have made the big commitment he talks about, but to others it's nothing more than a job. The big question though: What exactly does Ben need these people for?
Watch the scene where Ben's staring at the photos of young Alex on the wall of his room. He's not looking at the photos, he's looking at the clock. In watching the clock, you'll see it changes time several times througout the scene. Right at the part where Alex hands the pack over to Locke, the clock goes from 12:40-ish to about 4:13. It might change during the scene where Jack shows up also, I didn't check.
With one huge mystery of LOST revealed, the other big mystery we need to solve is the one involving time. Maybe the clock in Ben's room means something. Maybe the star chart on the wall means something too. Maybe the writers just like to mess with our heads. In any event, the time anomolies are something we're bound to see more of in the future. Remember the producers during season one: "We never said WHEN flight 815 crashed". More ammo for the argument that they've planned this all along.
The Man From Tallahassee
The final scene of the show was awesome. Locke seeing his father in that chair really cemented everything Ben had been saying. Up until that point there would be non-believers who would throw the whole 'magic box' thing over their shoulders as something Ben lied about to mess with Locke. But not after seeing the man from Tallahassee.
Who knows how long ago Locke inadvertently manifested his dad. The point is that upon stumbling across the man from Tallahassee, Ben immediately knew who was responsible for him. This made Locke a very important commodity to Ben, which may be why he came looking for him in season two. Which would make Cooper cooped up for a pretty long while.
Incredible episode.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
The Man from Tallahassee - Key Moments
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