Lost Rewatch: Week 6

Hello rewatchers! This is a note to give you a heads up that you'll have to give yourself a bit of extra time this week for our rewatch: there are closer to 5 hours than 4. On the schedule this week:

1.21 The Greater Good
1.22 Born to Run
1.23 Exodus, Part 1
1.24/5 Exodus, Part 2 (2 hours)

But as of next week we'll be wrapping up season 1, and ready for season 2!

Just a note that I'm away on vacation all this week, so I'm hoping to get through everything and postdate the posts for you. If I can't make it through all of the eps until I get back, I'll send out a further note. If I do make it, the schedule will be the same, with The Greater Good and Born to Run on Wednesday at 8, and the Exodus episodes on Thursday at 8. See you then!

1.20 Do No Harm

Follow along! The episode guide for “Do No Harm” is in Finding Lost, pp. 126-131.

The first major character death on the show, and the first birth. The circle of life continues… and Jack’s hatred for John Locke begins.

Fun things I noticed:
• As I mentioned in the previous episode, watching this one points out a glaring inconsistency in “This Place Is Death.” In that episode, they see Locke’s glow suddenly shoot out of the hatch, followed immediately by Claire giving birth. But the two events didn’t happen simultaneously… they occurred 24 hours apart. OOPS.
• Despite his singlemindedness, Jack is pretty amazing in this episode. Boone’s chest looked like spaghetti, and he stitched it up; he got him to breathe again after his lung collapsed; he figured out how to transfuse blood into him… the guy was pretty awesome.
• Jack’s wearing a watch while playing the piano. In the mobisode, “The Watch,” Christian gives Jack a watch the morning of his wedding and he slips it on. Must have been a different watch (thought it’s weird that he was wearing it in every scene except his wedding day).
• Charlie asking Jack how to check for dilation is HILARIOUS!
• I mentioned this in my book, but Jack’s instructions on what to do when the baby begins to emerge are insane. But then again, he’s not a GP.
• I could never find a translation for what Jin says to Claire when he’s trying to calm her. Does anyone reading this speak Korean?
• “You’re lookin’ kinda Goth.” Haha!
• Sun’s English suddenly becomes REALLY GOOD in this episode. Hmm…
• I still love that Scut Farkus is Jack’s best man.

Things that have new meaning:
• The way Jack resets Boone’s leg – right down to the stick in Boone’s mouth – is exactly the same as the way Locke’s leg was reset in “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham.” Could that have been karma?
• Picnics on the island are bad bad bad. First Sayid and Shannon come back and Boone’s dead. Later, when Hurley and Libby plan to have one, Libby is shot. Then when Amy and Paul go to have one, PAUL is shot and Amy is almost killed. Next time someone asks you to picnic on the island, JUST SAY NO.
• I love seeing the birth scene once again, mostly to be reminded that Kate not only says “this baby is all of us” and indicates raising him will be a communal effort, but that she’s the one who delivers him and holds him first, and later will be his mom. It’s a great scene to watch again, knowing what Aaron will mean to Kate three years from now.

1.19 Deus Ex Machina

Follow along! The episode guide for “Deus Ex Machina” is in Finding Lost, pp. 119-124.

This was the episode that clinched it for me – Locke’s flashbacks are the best. From this point on, with two fantastic Locke episodes in the can, every time I heard that a flashback was going to be a Locke one, I was very excited. This episode ramps up Locke’s destiny talk, as we hear about things that were meant to be, or supposed to happen. Locke’s loss of faith leads to his inability to walk, and his comment to Boone, that they were meant to crash on this island, is a precursor to the one he’ll eventually give Jack, telling him they were destined to be here.

Fun things I noticed:
• Did Desmond hear the bang of the trebuchet?
• Bonneville of death is back!
• If the island can heal bullet wounds in about 3 hours, then why is Sawyer getting headaches over a little farsightedness?
• I actually loved Jack in this episode… he makes the joke about Sawyer – “If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll get a new nickname” – and then he continues to eff with him throughout. Him sitting and asking Sawyer a bunch of questions about STDs and when his last outbreak occurred is hysterical, and he actually laughs at one of Sawyer’s jokes. And then he diagnoses Sawyer with “hyperopia” just to freak the poor guy out. Could these two guys BE more fun together? Oh... I can’t help it… you know what time it is? It’s time for FUN!!!



(Hey, I warned you when I posted this the first time that I’d be posting it often!!)
• The guard’s name is Eddie, which is the same name as the cop that Locke accidentally befriends in “Further Instructions.” He needs to stay away from anyone with that name (including beautiful vampires who sparkle in the daytime…)
• It’s so sad watching Boone agree to go along with things, knowing now it’ll lead to his death.
• I remember watching this the first time when Boone threw the statue out of the plane and thinking, “Uh oh… there goes Charlie’s sobriety.”
• The voice you hear on the other end of the radio isn’t Sam Anderson’s, but they can be forgiven for that.
• John dumping Boone off and leaving is the beginning of Jack’s true hatred for him.
• I said in “The Variable” that Eloise just beat out Anthony Cooper for Worst Parent Ever, but now I’m on the fence again. What he does is HIDEOUS. I think Terry O’Quinn is just stunning in this episode…

Things that have new meaning:
• I found Locke’s description of how Mousetrap works very intriguing. In my book I’ve explained how it could be applied to this episode, but it can also be applied to Locke’s character arc through the rest of the series – piece by piece it comes together, and then you spring the trap. If Locke’s entire life had been shaped from babyhood (with Alpert at the infant’s side in the hospital) to his death, then it’s like a higher being was putting his life together, piece by piece, until the trap was sprung. And, like the little plastic mouse, Locke was trapped.
• The trebuchet falls apart the same way the structure does over the Swan station in “The Incident.”
• You know, I’ve often wondered if Emily Locke is really out of her tree, or if part of Cooper’s con is that he isn’t actually John Locke’s real father? Could there have been something different about Locke’s conception? She tells Locke that he’s special (check), that he was part of a design (check), and that he was immaculately conceived (er…) Is there a chance she’s not bonkers?
• Emily was in the hospital for schizophrenia, which is genetic. Is it possible Locke has some of the symptoms? They include hostility and violence, delusions, hallucinations… (despite the common belief, schizophrenia is NOT actually a multiple personality disorder… if it were, I’d obviously be focusing on that in light of the Man in Black).
• As we see in this episode, the light that comes on isn’t exactly the bright beacon we saw in “The Little Prince.” I’ll talk more about the inconsistencies between this season and that episode in the next guide for “Do No Harm”… the writers made a huge consistency error in season 5. Oops.

1.18 Numbers

Follow along! The episode guide to “Numbers” is in Finding Lost, pp. 113-119.

Until now, we’ve just seen happy fun-time Hurley… that all changes with this episode. It’s strange to think there was a time when we didn’t know Hurley was a millionaire, or that he thought he was cursed, or that we didn’t know his beloved Ma, or that we didn’t know he was in a mental institution. In this episode it’s still not clear – was he in the hospital or did he work there? The weird comment he makes to the reporter about putting his family through a lot lately clearly referred to him being in the hospital, but at the time it wasn’t clear.

Fun things I noticed:
• I thought at first the Asian reporter who asks Hurley the questions was meant to be Tricia Tanaka, but she’s being played by a different actress.
• Hurley in the gold chains and Hummer will never cease to crack me up.
• OMG! Smokey attacked Hurley’s house!! Hehe…
• I’ve noticed this before, but Jack always looks like he’s about to have a giggle fit when he’s in scenes with Jorge Garcia.
• This is possibly the loveliest John Locke moment of the series. My heart melts every time he turns over that cradle. And yet… it makes me wonder if Locke already realized just how important Aaron would be. Remember how he was in Claire’s eerie dream in “Raised by Another”? There’s always been a connection between Aaron and Locke. I wonder if it’ll be realized in season 6. (Remember that when the group splits in season 4, Claire will go with Locke, not Jack.)
• I could never figure out why Hurley’s shirt didn’t catch on fire as he was holding it over those flames.
• UPDATE: I forgot to add this in when I originally posted it, but if you go back to the beginning of "This Place Is Death," where Montand is standing on the beach as Danielle is trying to talk to Jin, Montand is listening to the numbers being read over and over. I've turned the audio WAY up on it, and listened to it with headphones, and there is no doubt in my mind that it's Hurley's voice reading the numbers. Did he actually cause his own problems? I remember being convinced after that that there would be a scene where Hurley would head up to the radio tower and create the transmission in 1977. But then it never happened...

Things that have new meaning:
• I wonder why we never see Diego again. It’s Hurley’s brother, and his family is obviously close-knit. He’s not there when Hurley gets off the plane and is reunited with his family for the first time post-crash. He’s not living in the mansion with the Reyes family, yet in this episode we hear Diego’s moved back home to live with his mother. So why doesn’t he continue to do that? Why did the writers just make him disappear?
• Lenny tells Hurley that he’s opened the box. It could be a reference to the hatch – that great unopened box that will soon unleash everything on the island – but it could also refer to something bigger. In recent seasons fans have wondered what Hurley’s purpose is? He’s the guy with the numbers, and they’re integral to the island. He’s one of the Oceanic 6. He’s clearly important, but what’s his link? Why does Jacob visit him?
• Charlie tells Hurley that he’s acting like a lunatic, and only now do we know just how much those words must have hurt him.
• Sam Toomey’s wife tells Hurley that he makes his own luck, which is what Hurley’s father will later tell him in “Tricia Tanaka Is Dead.”
• Claire mentions that Locke should have a show where he fixes up houses. Locke sort of chuckles, but we’ll later see that he was actually a home inspector, so he really DID know something about houses.
• Locke tells Claire that he’s good at putting bits and pieces together, and he’s the one who begins piecing together the mysteries of the island before anyone else. Even if everyone else disagrees with what he says…
• This is the biggest discrepancy in Rousseau’s story from what we later see in This Place Is Death. She tells Hurley that they looked around the island for weeks, and found the tower, and after that the sickness came. But we know now that the “sickness came” the day they arrived on the island, right after they went down to get Montand. Are we to assume they went down to get him, and emerged appearing to be OK? And then they got sick later? The fact we don’t see what happens in between would suggest it happened pretty quickly.
• Locke believes in luck, and adds that he believes in a lot of things. I found this really interesting, considering that it’s hard to pin down Locke’s belief system, as he says. He seems to be familiar with the bible, but when Eko begins telling him a biblical story in season 2, he acts like he doesn’t know it. It’s not clear if he’s religious or pagan or agnostic. I really liked this line.

1.17 ...In Translation

Follow along! The episode guide for “...In Translation” is in Finding Lost, pp. 107-111.

It’s so hard to believe there was ever a time when we hated Jin. But 17 episodes into season 1, the writers finally showed his side of the story, and fans were pretty much head-over-heels. We see the truth about his father, who he was before he became a hardass, and WHY he became a hardass.

Fun things I noticed:
• There are no numbers on Paik’s watch. Watches on Lost are very important, as is time (obvs) and the fact that he doesn’t have numbers could suggest he’s separate from time.
• Did you notice Jack wearing that damn key around his neck still? It makes me angry every time I see it. Thank goodness we lost that.
• Jack’s actually right about Jin. This is a rare moment where he’s up against everyone and is actually completely right. I bet no one apologized to him, either.
• Someone asked me in one of the other posts what the Chinese characters on Boone’s shirt stand for: they’re for the number 84.
• Locke saying to Shannon, “Should I be writing this down?” was hilarious to me. The thought of serious John Locke having to deal with a whiny little romantic kerfuffle and actually give his sage advice on it was hysterical.
• Here’s something that I’ve always wondered, and my husband and I were discussing it while watching this ep: think back to “Solitary,” where Sayid is interrogating the prisoner in Arabic. The camera moves around past his back and when it comes out on the other side, he’s speaking English. In actuality, he’s speaking Arabic, but the camera movement indicates to us that we’re listening to it in English so poor Naveen Andrews doesn’t have to learn the language phonetically and they don’t have to keep providing subtitles (it’s like when you see a movie where Hitler is speaking English with a German accent... though that’s never made sense to me; why not just have him speaking in an English accent, since he would have been speaking German, not English with a German accent...) ANYWAY... the use of English in this scene makes it more powerful for us, because we can understand what he’s saying and can feel it more than if we were simply reading subtitles. In the scene where Sun finally calls out to Jin that she was going to leave him, he passes close by the camera right before she shouts it, and I’ve often wondered if she really did say it in English, or are we to assume she’s speaking Korean, but the words are more powerful for English viewers to listen to if she actually delivers them in English. It’s probably something we’ll never know, and everyone will have his/her own theories on it. I thought of the tent scene at the end of “Ji Yeon,” and wondered if she revealed to him there that she was going to leave him, but she tells him about the affair, not the leaving him part. What do YOU think? I think if she’s speaking English, it’s an amazing moment because she still can’t bring herself to tell him the truth, but does it in a roundabout way. But if she’s speaking Korean, then she really is on her way to becoming a new woman, as we see at the end of the episode, and knowing he still returns to her despite it would be really touching.
• I still find it strange that Hurley has a CD player and not an MP3 player... this was only 2004, not 1994, and the guy was a multimillionaire. If anyone could afford an early device, it’s him. (If you haven’t listened to Damien Rice’s album, “O,” which the song Hurley’s playing is from, please do... it’s transcendent.) While I always thought that was one of the best endings of ANY Lost episode (and I enjoyed how it anticipated that next week’s ep would be Hurley’s) it makes me sad knowing we won’t have those musical montages anymore.

Things that have new meaning:
• Sun smacking Michael is an early indication of the badass she’ll end up being (think of her approaching Widmore, or whacking Ben with the oar... she always had it in her).
• Jin playing golf made me think of the mobisode where he has the complete breakdown. It's set right around the time of this episode, and it still makes me laugh, even if at the end you feel badly for Jin (if you haven’t seen it, here it is):



• Sawyer kicking Jin and then holding up a knife to him seems SO weird now. I couldn’t help but think of him hugging him and laughing in “This Place Is Death” after they were finally reunited.
• John Locke: “Everyone gets a new life on this island.” Me: “WHOA.” Talk about a prescient line coming from the one guy who literally HAS gotten a new life on the island... even if it’s as someone else.
• I love watching that “we’re not the only people on this island and we all know it!” speech again (especially since the “previously on Lost” bits will play it ad nauseum for about 2 more years). It’s interesting to see John Locke turning everyone against his own people right from the beginning.
• Knowing what we know about Jin’s dad (that Jin’s prostitute mother abandoned him in a fishing village and Jin’s father raised him... it’s still not 100% clear whether Jin’s father is his biological dad, but that doesn’t matter because he loves him more than most of the fathers love their sons on this show), the scene where he goes to see him is even sadder.
• I love how quiet Locke gets when he tells Walt that no, his father wasn’t cool. He sees a kindred spirit in Walt – both were raised by people who didn’t want them; both of them are “special” in a certain way; neither one of them wants to leave the island and had done violent things to sabotage efforts to leave.

Rewatch Schedule: Week 5

Hello everyone: This week's rewatch schedule will be as follows:

Wednesday, 8pm:
1.17 ... In Translation
1.18 Numbers

Thursday, 8pm:
1.19 Deus Ex Machina
1.20 Do No Harm

Some of my favourite season 1 eps coming up. I can't wait!!

Also, just a quick note that I've been told both ABC.com and Hulu.com are now streaming Lost seasons 1-5 (they must have heard about all the rewatches) so if you're American, you can watch them all there. If you're Canadian... you can't. Thanks to everyone who sent me the info.

Outlaws Whisper Transcript

Here's the transcript that was accidentally cut from Finding Lost (all the other whisper transcripts are in there); this goes with the Outlaws rewatch.

The first moment where Sawyer hears whispering is when he first chases the boar into the jungle:

(Sawyer breathing)
There goes another poking his head in here (could be ‘There goes somebody’)
Yeah, let’s see what he’s doing
Let’s
Let me decide
Come back
Wait
I see another one
(Frank Duckett’s voice) It’ll come back around
------
Oh my god there’s a guy out there
Dennis (?) find out what’s going on
Did he see us?
Maybe
Open it
Did you see what direction he went?
Right through those trees
Go and get him
There is an explanation (resolution?) and I bet you haven’t thought of it
What is it?
He’s been in a plane crash
Are you sure?
I know what it’s like for a plane to crash
Complain, complain, complain
I want to get closer
I know what you said, but he’s looking around
What if he shoots us or something
------
There may be something, but it may be slack (?)
Let’s go
Has he seen us? (Alarms go off)
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry (faint . . . could be echo from alarm)
Intruder, Intruder
Hide against the bushes
Open the door
I know what it’s like for a plane to crash
Complain, complain, complain
I know what you said, but . . .

Later, Sawyer faces the boar and holds the gun up to it, and he hears the whispering again:

How could you say that, I knew he was American
It was a large group
(Frank Duckett’s voice) It’ll come back around
Now listen
Here’s what we should do
Nothing
It’s not the one
He’s coming up on the gate
------
How could you say that, I knew he was American
Hey listen, come on let’s go
Go and see what he’s doing
Duetch negg or Joice leg (perhaps another language or reversed)
Like it’s your choice
He’s coming up on the gate
My guess is to shoot the pig (or ‘Guess he’ll shoot the pig’)
Yes
My hand (or head) is free
------
How could you even say that, I knew he was an American
Hey listen, come on let’s go
Go and see what he’s doing
He’s coming up on the gate
My guess is to shoot the pig . . .
Okay