5.11 Whatever Happened, Happened

Follow along! The episode guide for “Whatever Happened, Happened” is in Finding Lost — Season 5, pp. 160-169, and an explanation of the Miles/Hurley argument is on pp. 169-172 (featuring many regular Nik @ Niters as contributors!)

This episode contains one of the funniest moments of the season (the Miles/Hurley debate) and the single saddest moment in the series for me, when Kate leaves Aaron behind. GUTTED. I still can’t get over it, and I’ll be honest, when it came around this time I had a magazine on my lap and tried to distract myself with it so I wouldn’t have to watch again. THAT is how much that scene hurts me.

Fun things I noticed:
• I’m still not convinced that Hurley pwns Miles the way he thinks he does, and I think the writers purposely had him halt Miles on the very thing that he’s wrong about: I believe Ben DID know who Sayid was.
• Oh that goodbye scene… honestly, my son looks even MORE like Aaron, because his hair went from blond to platinum over the summer and he’s two-and-a-quarter now. He was only 18 months when it first aired. I can’t stand it!!

Things that have new meaning:
• Locke’s “Welcome back to the land of the living” MUST have greater significance than just a throwaway line. Do Ben and Locke have something in common? Is it possible Ben was killed in the Temple and resurrected somehow the way Locke was? Is he being controlled by another entity and when he wakes up with Locke sitting there, he’s somehow turned back into the original Ben? Wait… is it possible the Man in Black was in Ben and when he jumped to Locke, Ben became different? Hm. Argh, this is all too much for my head. Hurry up, Season 6!!!

5.10 He's Our You

Follow along! The episode guide for “He’s Our You” is in Finding Lost — Season 5, pp. 140-149, and a summary of Carlos Castaneda’s A Separate Reality (the book Ben passes to Sayid) is on pp. 149-160.

(Apologies to everyone -- especially Marebabe! -- for this posting late; my internet conked out and we couldn't get it back up until now.) This was the first episode where I started thinking, “Oh my GOD, what if the actions of the survivors actually CAUSE the very things that hurt them later? Could they have been the masters of their own downfalls?” What if Sayid turned Ben into the person he became? Will he remember? It’s one of the big questions I’m looking forward to in Season 6.

Fun things I noticed:
• DEFLATED GHOST CHICKEN!!!!
• Seriously, Ben, I canNOT take that fedora seriously. It’s like all that’s missing is a long mustache that he could twirl around his finger, and a foreign accent.
Jarrah… SAYID Jarrah: “Do you expect me to just go on with my life?”
Benfinger: “No, Mistah Jarrah… I expect you to die!!”
• How poor was Desmond? Mr. Widmore says one glass of McCutcheon is worth more than Des makes in a year, and Ilana says here it’s $120 a glass. Wow, Des. Geez, Widdy. Exaggerate much?
• I didn’t notice this before, but when Sayid refers to the Swan, Radzinsky says, “How does he know what we’re going to name it, when we haven’t even BUILT it yet?!” It seems to me Radzinsky has already referred to the station as the Swan, am I right? Or is it possible they named it that because Sayid SAID that’s what it’s called?
• I just have to say this again: Have you seen the episode of Buffy called “Fear, Itself”? In it everyone is terrified of Gachnar, the fear demon, and at the very end the floor breaks open, he rises up… and he’s six inches tall with a tiny chipmunk voice, screaming, “Fear me!” (One of my all-time fave moments in Buffy.) Well… that’s how Oldham seems to me. As Xander says in that ep, “Big overture… Little show!”
• “Even the new mom wants you dead.” HAHA!!

5.09 Namaste

Follow along! The episode guide for “Namaste” is in Finding Lost — Season 5, pp. 130-141.

Bear with me on this one… my 2-year-old found my notebook and scribbled in pink marker all over it. And then probably on himself somewhere. I’m sure I’ll find it in his armpit later tonight. I love this episode, which completes what was begun in “316” and brings the two separate storylines together. Isn’t it crazy to think that we’d been watching for a couple of months and Sawyer, Kate and Jack were never in the same scene together? Great to have them all back.

Fun things I noticed:
• I’m surprised Jin going on about a plane landing on the island didn’t immediately raise alarm bells for Radzinsky. Why doesn’t he question Jin about it later? WHY do you think a plane landed, for instance?
• Phil: “You’re not on the sub manifest!” Kate: “F*** you, Phil. Why don’t you go get impaled on a rebar?”
• Radzinsky: “He saw the model of the Swan!!! Because… I… um… led him here and walked him right by the table where I’d been building it.” God. Ambivalentman, I’ll add one more for you: F*** you, Radzinsky.
• I can’t believe I didn’t notice this the first time, but Phil tells the new recruits to enjoy the hamburgers and “the punch.” Hahahaha!!
• Who would you rather have in your corner if it all came down to a war: Jack or Sawyer? Can I pick a third option? SUN. That woman is crazy awesome.

Things that have new meaning:
• Ilana has a knowing look on her face when the plane turbulence begins.
• I always find that “Thirty Years Earlier” title card deceiving in light of the conversation Miles and Hurley have in “Whatever Happened, Happened.” Because it’s all a matter of perspective, and to the people involved in the very scene they show there, it’s not actually 30 years earlier, it’s a few minutes later. It’s only 30 years earlier if you’re looking at time in a linear fashion, which we aren’t. But I guess it’s the only way they could have really explained this.

5.08 LaFleur

Follow along! The episode guide for “LaFleur” is in Finding Lost — Season 5, pp. 120-130.

So, we’re REALLY close to the end and about to set a record for most Lost discussion without a single shipper war, and I’m praying it doesn’t break out on this one (please please please pretty please no shipper talk please?) “LaFleur” is one of those great episodes that is a lot of fun to watch, but I don’t feel like I have much to say about it after other than, “Wasn’t that scene great? And when he said this, wasn’t he awesome?” And no one needs to listen to me do that. “LaFleur” acts as the bridge that gets our island folks from Point A to Point B (or should I say Point M back to Point C via 15 points in between?) and it introduces us to the DI, to Sawyer’s relationship with Juliet (which, as I said at the time, will always be problematic for fans simply because it lasts all of 4 minutes for us, and 3 years for them, so we can never properly understand the seriousness of it), and to Sawyer’s enduring pining for Kate, which is pretty obvious by the end.

Fun things I noticed:
• Damn, I meant to point this out in the earlier episode so that you could listen at the beginning of this one and tell me what you think, but when Locke first yells, “Does anybody hear me?” does anyone else think he says, “me” the way Kermit the Frog would have said it? Honestly, I walked around saying that line like Kermit for weeks. Yes, I’m strange and off-putting.
• Jeremy Davies is seriously, seriously amazing. Honestly, is there a better cast on TV right now? (Let me answer that for you: NO.)
• Thanks to Ambivalentman, the first thing out of my mouth when the episode flipped to the DI was, “F*** you, Phil.” That's a drinking game I'd gladly do.
• Watching the “deleted scene” with Miles and Juliet (Buena Vista sent out a deleted scene to bloggers at the end of November that wasn’t really one at all), again I see there was barely anything new in it, and just a comment about a birthday party.

5.07 The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham

Follow along! The episode guide for “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” is in Finding Lost — Season 5, pp. 99-115.

You know, I was just thinking the other day that S4 had its standout episodes – “The Constant” and “The Shape of Things to Come” (and of course the finale) were real game-changers for the show. In a great season, these episodes stood out. But in S5, the entire season was outstanding, and I couldn’t really pull out any that particularly blew my socks off, probably because every episode did. Entertainment Weekly recently named this episode one of the best hours of television in 2009, and maybe if I had to choose one, this might be it. It’s filled with inconsistencies, many of which I point out in my book (Locke dies here but his body isn’t seen by Jack for another month, yet it didn’t decompose… I’m hoping that’ll be explained and it’s not actually an inconsistency; Hurley’s mental institution is CALLED Santa Rosa, but it’s not IN Santa Rosa; Locke never says the things to Jack that Jack will later tell Ben he said; Locke never insists on being called Jeremy Bentham, etc.) But even with all of these inconsistencies, the scene of Locke standing on that table with the cord around his neck gets to me every time, especially now on the heels of our rewatch. We’ve watched in just a few short months the entirety of a man’s life, and for him to stand there after everything he’s been through and say, “I’m a failure” breaks my heart every time. I think it’s a crime that Terry O’Quinn wasn’t nominated for the Emmy for this scene alone. He is so brilliant.


Fun things I noticed:
• Ilana tells Locke that Lapidus and Sun took off in the middle of the night… but they didn’t. We’ll later see them leave in broad daylight.
• Widmore is as awesome a liar as Ben is; he tells Locke that for three decades they protected the island “peacefully” and yet we know they slaughtered the soldiers in 1954, and their truce with the DI in the 70s wasn’t exactly “peaceful.”
• I love Kate, I really, really do, but GOD she’s so self-important and annoying in the scene with John Locke. It’s the only time in the entire series where I really don’t like her at all.
• The scene of John in the cemetery. At that moment, I thought to myself that more than anything, I want that to be a lie. I want Helen to be alive, I want the real John Locke to somehow resurrect, and I want them to be reunited.
• In my book I have photos I got from this guy who lived in the apartment building adjacent to the intersection where they staged the big car crash with Locke, and he sat in his window and took pics of them doing the scene. Could you IMAGINE looking out your window and seeing that?
• OK, not just Terry O’Quinn deserves an Emmy for this episode, but Matthew Fox (again). His acting in the scene where he comes face-to-face with Locke once again is BRILLIANT. He’s clearly high, hanging on by a thread, on the verge of a nervous breakdown yet desperately trying to hold it together. What a scene.

Things that have new meaning:
• The writers have said the Oceanic 6 were off the island in January 2005, and were gone for 3 years. But when Sun and Lapidus and Ben landed on the island, they’re apparently in 2007, according to the same writers. Does that mean they actually time-travelled backwards, too (which would make sense, since we’ll later see they land in the day even though it’s nighttime in the sky) or was it just a rough estimate of 3 years, when in fact it was actually close to three years and was actually November 2007 or something when they decided to return?
• From this point on, we have to watch John Locke on the island as the Man in Black, which is such a strange thing to do.
• Take a look at the scene where Ben pleads with Locke to come down. Locke is holding his hands out to his sides, and Ben is on his knees in front of him. Locke is set up as a Christ figure, one who must die to save our sins....

5.06 316

Follow along! The episode guide for “316” is in Finding Lost — Season 5, pp. 68-79 (followed by my epic 20-page summary of Ulysses. Damn you, Ben… you couldn’t have brought along a People magazine to keep you occupied on the plane?)

I love this episode (I think I start out every summary of the S5 episodes with this line, but this season was simply STELLAR). The opening is brilliant, reminding us of the pilot. But on a rewatch, after having seen the finale of S5, it made me think: was this a hint that a do-over simply isn’t entirely possible? I mean, landing on the island a second time was a do-over of sorts, but even when they’re given a second chance, things play out the same. Jack will always be the hero, racing to rescue the others. There will always be that spark between Sawyer and Kate. These people have very entrenched personalities – screw a hydrogen bomb: I don’t think a nuclear holocaust would make things different the second time around.

Fun things I noticed:
• I know that in the flashback of “Dead Is Dead” I commented that Ben had Pee-wee Herman hair when he stole Alex, but I think he kind of has it already in the church. Is it just me or is his hair really creepy after the donkey-wheel turn? He needs to lighten it slightly. The island needs to give that guy a hairdo makeover.
• I’ve always liked the significance of the church being a front for the Dharma Initiative, as if it’s a subtle comment on God becoming simply a front for man’s relationships to each other and to the Earth, which is what the DI was connected to.
• I commented in the book that the army photo is 09/23/54, meaning it’s 50 years less a day before Oceanic crashed. I wonder what the significance is of September 22? I’m assuming the Army landed on the 22nd, and took that picture the next day, right before they were obliterated.
• That scene with Desmond STILL drives me nuts. Does anyone else think that while Des is talking, Eloise somehow has the ability to put the others in a trance or something? Notice no one says anything to him, and he tells them that A) Eloise is Daniel’s mother, B) she’s the one who sent Des to the island and it turned out to be nothing but a waste of time, C) the island is sending him signs, and D) they’re all nothing but game pieces being played by larger forces at work… in other words, pretty freakin’ significant stuff! And they all stare at him, slack-jawed (watch closely: there may actually be drool coming out of the corner of Jack’s mouth) and say nothing, and the moment he’s gone they all give a big, “ANYway…” and get back to business. Like… HUH?! Did you somehow miss the part of the crazy Scotsman explaining this is nothing but a cosmic joke?
• By Jack putting his father’s shoes on Locke, Locke in a way becomes his father, which is a crazy twist in the greater scheme of things, especially since we just rewatched four seasons of them despising one another.
• Notice how many times in the ep Jack tries to have a drink and is interrupted. The island apparently wants him sober this time around.
• Hurley’s reading Y: The Last Man, which is the best book I read this year (I also review that in Finding Lost Season 5, but it’s after the Bentham entry, simply because I couldn’t have it follow Ulysses or readers would wonder if I’d ever get back to the actual episode guide in the thing!)
• You know, watching this again, perhaps in light of the terrorist scare a few days ago, I wonder why Hurley didn’t raise alarm bells. Why exactly is this guy buying 78 seats? Does he know something the rest of us don’t? Could he have an inkling that the plane is going to go down and he doesn’t want too many people going with him? And how could he know that? Is he a large, curly-haired terrorist?
• Just watching the plane take flight gives me the heebie-jeebies. The Oceanic 5 are truly brave people. I would have been curled up in a fetal position.
• “How can you read?” “My mother taught me.” BEST. COMEBACK. EVER.
• Matthew Fox is SO fantastic as he reads Locke’s note. I think I said this in the book, but he really looks like Locke just punched him in the stomach.

Things that have new meaning:
• We were discussing in light of “This Place Is Death” the curiosity of the island reacting so violently to Rousseau’s team, and in this ep I was reminded of Caesar and how he’s going to die, too. Could the island have something against the French? (I don’t mean that as a joke, actually… I wonder if there’s some underlying symbolism of the French Revolution or something, especially with Locke and Rousseau hanging about.)
• Does Ben bring down the plane? He goes to the bathroom and doesn’t return? Remember that thing he pulled out of the vent in “Because You Left”? Could it have been something he used in the bathroom? Was it hidden in his sling?

5.05 This Place Is Death

Follow along! The episode guide for “This Place Is Death” is in Finding Lost — Season 5, pp. 56-65.

This episode has always felt like more than one to me. First, the Rousseau story. Then the story of the survivors trekking across the island to get to the Orchid and dealing with the time flashes along the way. And finally, Ben getting Sun and Jack over to the church. It always feels like it took a lot longer than 42 minutes, but they’ve just packed so many storylines into one episode that it feels very dense.

Fun things I noticed:
• Yunjin is SO good in that first scene on the cellphone. When Ji Yeon tells her she misses her, her voice catches and she’s barely holding it together. I bet every parent in the audience knew exactly how that felt. She’s so brilliant.
• At the end of that phone call, when she says, “Annyong,” does anyone else think of Arrested Development or is that just me?
• Montand says, “Next thing you know he’ll be talking about a submarine.” Oh how I wish Jin had said, “Don’t be silly. We blew up the submarine.” Hahaha!
• I know a lot of people thought the girl who plays Rousseau was a bad choice of actress for it, but I think she’s near-perfect. I totally believe she could grow up to look like Mira Furlan – gaunt because of lack of food, face drawn and lined because of the sun, eyes wilder because of losing her mind. I think this actress is great.
• Okay, okay, my bad: back in “Solitary” I was playing “Nitpick that nitpick” and said that she’s wearing a chocolate sweater, but in “This Place Is Death” it’s grey. And now we see that she had TWO sweaters, and the chocolate one is the one she had one when she killed Robert. That made it even more effective for me, though, remembering that she’d be wearing that same sweater when she met Sayid.
• You know, Charlotte says the Orchid is a way off the island, so it’s often made me wonder why they didn’t all push their way down that well and all try to turn the wheel. ;)
• Does Christian not help John because he’s ephemeral and can’t actually touch him (which would be strange, since he touched Aaron… but that could also be an indication that Aaron is different) or is it a spiritual reason, that he can’t help John because he has to do this himself?
• Ben pushed the wheel; John pulls it. I have no idea if that has any meaning. I’m just saying it.

Things that have new meaning:
• I think that is TOTALLY Hurley’s voice reciting the numbers when Montand is listening to the recording. Listen especially to the way he says “forty-two.”
• I said at the time that Juliet’s “thank you” to Locke is such a huge moment for him, since NO ONE ever thanks him (mostly because they think he’s bonkers) but now that we’ve rewatched the series, I think that even more.
• Charlotte’s final words are the first words she will ever say to Daniel. :::sniffle:::