2.08 Collision

Follow along! The episode guide for “Collision” is in Finding Lost, pp. 218-223.

Another great episode. Love her or hate her, this AL flashback is amazing, and gives new insight and sympathy to a character who’s barreled through this season as a wall of rage. I LOVE that scene at the end where she and Jack finally come face to face again. They each recognize the other, remembering when they’d last crossed paths in a bar at the airport, and how vastly different their lives – and they – are now. As the two leaders, they’ve have two very different experiences. And now, she stands in the jungle as the failure. She’s just been abandoned by her people, who have completely lost faith in her. Jack’s lost a handful of people; she’s lost about 80% of hers. As she stares at Jack, we see a leader who is defeated, who has lost her self-respect and her pride, who has seen more death and fear than anyone on the other side of the island, and who has now pissed off one of the people in the other camp, meaning her life is NOT about to get any easier.

Fun things I noticed:
• I never get tired of badass Sayid. NEVER.
• Wow, Ana’s mom rolls over really fast. “NO, absolutely not, I will not put you in the field. Never. No way. Nyuh-uh.” “Fine, give me a transfer.” “Okay fine, here’s your car.” Sheesh.
• Why does her mom tell her the surprise of the birthday cake? I’ve always found that interesting: it’s like an insight into her character, not allowing her daughter that one moment of surprise and happiness. “Oh, they got you a cake. Try to look surprised.” Well, I wouldn’t have to TRY if you hadn’t TOLD me about the damn cake, Ma.
• That golf speech always cracks me up. My husband is a golf writer, constantly traveling around the world for pieces, and as a close-to-scratch golfer, he’s REALLY serious about it. So in our house, when the discussion isn’t about Lost, it’s about golf. I don’t golf, but I know a hell of a lot about the game. Jack and Kate having their “golf-off” always makes me laugh.
• Scenes of screaming babies always unnerve me. I always imagine the mother of the baby sitting just off-screen by the camera, fretting about how many takes they’re doing of this scene and how traumatized the infant must be. :::shudder:::
• Kate: “You really put it in there!” Jack: “That’s what she said.”
• Has there EVER been a moment on this show where Jack says, “Kate, please get me this STAT! It’s imperative that you hurry. This person will die if you don’t move RIGHT NOW” and Kate actually doesn’t just stand there gawking at the situation and have to be asked twice?
• Libby says AL’s a bad judge of character, because “I was with you when you put Nathan in the pit.” Yeah, and when AL questioned doing it, it was LIBBY who convinced her to stick with her gut and keep him in the pit.
• I don’t believe for a second that after EVERYTHING that has happened, the moment Eko says, “Ana Lucia” Jack’s mind would immediately go, “I’m sorry, what? You mean the Latina I bumped into at the airport? I remember she was ordering a tequila and tonic and then her cellphone rang. In fact, I saw the number on the display, and it was 323-555-2342.” I just don’t buy it. As much as the drama at the end requires both of them to have a memory of that bar scene, I might believe that they would remember each other by sight, but definitely not by name.
• This is the first time I noticed Jason wearing a redshirt. ;) But it’s not exactly fitting the definition, since usually redshirts are unnamed characters whose only purpose is to die.
• The Bernard/Rose reunion is one of the most wonderful moments in the entire series. It makes me well up with tears every single time.
• The Sun/Jin reunion is another great moment, but it pales in comparison to Bernard and Rose. It's not because I don't love seeing them together (I'm praying for a reunion in S6). It’s because Michael comes to the garden and tells Sun that Jin is OK. This after a week of her thinking her husband is dead... of fretting over a ring that to her, if she lost it, meant she may have lost her husband, too... of thinking she might be alone after all. Now she gets word he’s OK. What does she do? Does she run to the hatch and tell Jack she needs to go with them to find Jin so she can see him again? Does she run around the camp shouting with glee that her husband is alive? Does she beg Michael for details of just HOW okay he is and where he is and what she can do to get back to him? No. She does the laundry. Huh? This, from the woman who will later abandon her own child to return to her husband via crazy Dharma Lamp Post Plane? It doesn’t add up.
• I’ve also always thought it was a little strange that Jin walks back into the camp and everyone jumps up with huge smiles on their faces and rushes over to greet him, rather than thinking, “Aw, CRAP, I guess this means no rescue?”

Things that have new meaning:
• AL’s partner, Mike, is the guy who interrogates Hurley in “The Beginning of the End” when Hurley freaks out and is involved in the police chase.
• I love that scene of Eko and Locke staring at each other for the first time, and Locke’s simple, “Hello.” The alarm has just sounded, the button has been pushed, and now they are staring each other down. It foreshadows the ultimate war they will have over the button, and Locke being by Eko’s side when Eko dies.
• Sayid has the long speech about his life as a torturer and what he’s done when AL asks him if she should kill him, and concludes it with, “Maybe you were meant to.” WHOA!! Talk about foreshadowing. Not only is that definite destiny talk, but he’s suggesting maybe her purpose for being on the island is to kill him as punishment for his crimes, as if a higher purpose put her there for that reason. In S5, he’ll believe his own destiny is to kill Ben Linus BEFORE he can perpetrate the crimes, and that a higher being put him there.
• AL says she’s already dead because she was shot, but lived. It made me think of Locke, who was momentarily dead before Jacob touched him (I think) and who felt dead afterwards, like his life had no purpose. And now… IS dead. :::sniffle:::