Stranger In A Strange Land

What’s the matter dude? How bad could it have been? Exactly what have you done? From the looks of things, Jack has screwed things up so royally, his only purpose left in life is to try and find a way to die. Even that doesn't seem to be going so well. He's driving around oxy-co-zoned out of his head, guzzling booze and reading obituaries rather than watching the road. He is flying on planes, hoping they crash. He even gets as far as the ledge of a bridge but the poor guy can't even do something as simple as jump. His display causes a traffic accident, leaving people that must be fixed, and apparently, incredibly, there's one tiny place left in the melted jell-o of his brain that still responds to a thing that must be fixed. Only not everything is fixable, as we learn in the season finale. Jack is experiencing the ultimate nightmare of a control freak. Something has happened, something that is in the past, that is immutable and beyond his ability to fix. In between the end of our on island story and wherever poor crazy Jack is now, something horrific happened. Was Jack responsible for the horror? Could he have changed it had he been a different kind of man, a different kind of leader? A leader must make decisions. Decisions have consequences.
Whatever the consequences of Jack's decision were, in Jack's mind at least, he deserves to be killed for them. Taking a long step back, into the way this Reluctant Leader assumed control of this group, one is left to wonder. What made Jack the best choice to lead? He was a doctor, and that was a huge godsend to everyone, but doctors don't lead armies. Did the doctor pictured above lead his men? Remember how he used to say "Dam it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not an elephant trainer"? That guy knew his place. He had humility. He knew better than to project his superior intelligence and skills into some presumption of general superiority. But what we learned this episode - incredibly, given the golden light this character has been painted in up until this one pivotal episode - is that, as a Leader, reluctant or otherwise, Jack was a spectacular failure. A big problem was that there really were no other likely candidates for the position. The ideal choice may have been Sayid, a hardheaded soldier with a brilliant technical mind and a lion's heart. But in the aftermath of 9/11, it's easy to see how a group of mainly Westerners wouldn't have accepted an Iraqi to command them. (Which makes the fact that Jack ended up looking like Saddam Hussein's lost brother just a little more comical.) So Sayid was relegated to Sergeant and maybe that was the first mistake. Certainly this hip move with the Assassination by Ankle reminded us how deep Sayid's skill set really is, and hinted at what a bad ass leader he might have been. But...bygones must be bygones, as Jack now knows all too well.
Sawyer couldn't have been the leader, not that he'd ever have wanted to be. His psychic agony was all there in real time this episode. His head is still in the brig with Cooper's corpse, and when Kate finally showed enough compassion to ask him what had happened, all he could do was lash out at her, feign indifference though his torment, as always, is painted all over his expressive face. However unleader like Sawyer is, he does have one asset a leader needs, that Jack lacks. He doesn't bargain with the enemy. He knows they lie. So when he plugged Tom, there was one less problem that would ever need to be fixed. Here's one guy who could never have been the leader: Bernard! Seriously, dude, name, rank and serial number! At least make something up. But at least Bernard has enough McCoy in him to realize he's a dentist, not a Rambo. Juliet wasn't around to become the leader in the early days, though she has a lot of assets. She's as smart as Jack and a hell of a lot cooler under fire. Who knows what's being set up for Juliet? Have to wait and see, but clearly things are changing when it comes to Juliet's status in the story. It might have been a good move to woo the noble savage Rousseau a little more gently. As crazy as she appears, she knows the lay of the land. She's invested in the place and she knows how to handle Ben. In his way, Locke tried to be a kind of leader. A kind of crazy ass way that no sane person would follow. But Locke has entered some zone with access to secrets a leader might have found useful. When he was laying in the skeleton pit, it looked like his wound was glowing, almost healing as we watched. Then who should appear with some magical healing incantation but WAAAAAALT !!!! - fresh from the NBA draft apparently. (Jeez did he grow!) The point is that no one could have led these people in this mystical place. The Island is in charge of this story. There are a lot of people in the play, but none of them as beautiful or compelling or mysterious as the Island itself. Reminded of that this episode, one must hope that this story never strays too far from it's most fascinating and vital character, the Island.
Matthew Fox gave a bravura performance in this episode. I've heard it described as "balls to the wall" and even though I really prefer not to think of Matthew Fox's balls up against any walls (what is it with testicular metaphors anyway?), I have to admit it was spectacular. For a man whose main driving force in life has been competitive success - being better than his father, finishing medical school a year early, being recognized as a premier surgeon in one of medicine's most elite specialties - Failure is the most frightening of specters. Jack was so afraid, so ashamed of, so horrified by this failure, he had to hide his soul from even himself. Narcotics are the ultimate attempt to control reality and addiction is the ultimate punishment for that arrogance. The storytelling was masterful. As we witnessed Jack's utter disintegration we were flashed back to the moment on the island that this disintegration began. Jack is leading his people up to the signal tower. He doesn't clue in when Naomi flatters him as Moses and makes sure he knows only one way to use the phone. When Ben confronts him, and pleads with him not to call the rescuers, and blackmails him with death threats against his friends, Jack can't cope. He loses his cool, as Jack so often does. This is not the way great leaders react but Jack has failed as a leader...he just doesn't know it at that point. In all fairness, what could Jack have done differently? Jack was faced with three things: the known knows: Ben is a liar, the known unknowns: everything loony Locke says, and the unknown unknowns: Who is on the other end of that phone? A new character has entered the story. There's a gun on the table in the middle of the stage. We can see it now but we don't know yet why it's there. Whatever is coming to the Island is going to unleash a new hell on our Losties. All we have to go on are the clues we were given - they loaded all of them - in the two final scenes.

"I know exactly what I'm doing", says Jack. Ummm.....No, you don't, dude. This here seems to be your first mistake. "You are bringing people here that will kill every LIVING person on this island" says Ben. Who pray tell isn't a "living" person? "You're not supposed to do this", says Locke. There is no way in hell Jack is going to listen to Locke. He even sounds like a whiny schoolboy telling him "You're done keeping me on this island." But Locke does know something. Game Changed? The kicker here didn't kick all that hard, but it was cool. The final scene, where Kate steps out of her sweet ride looking all glam and synthetic, reads like a list of cryptic clues. I believe we are expected to talk about these all summer, so get out your notepads. "Why would I go to the funeral?" Who was in the coffin? Why did Jack care and Kate not? Is Kate just a hardhearted bitch? "I'm sick of lying." What lies is Jack telling? Did they fabricate a story about what really happened on the Island? Is that how Kate has escaped justice? Did some powerful syndicate swoop in and rescue them, installing Kate in a witness protection program to keep her yap shut? If so, why are they letting Jack barrel around L.A. driving drunk and babbling like a madman? "We made a mistake" We? Was Kate in on whatever decision Jack made that put him in this condition? Or is he just playing the addicts game of sharing the guilt? And of course - what mistake? They've got three years to explain this to us, but seeing how it has made such a total wreck of Jack, it had better be a doozy. "He'll be wondering where I am." Who is Kate's man? It’s more than likely not Sawyer, because that’s what we’re supposed to think. Of course maybe they are doing reverse reverse psychology. "We were not supposed to leave." How much must it kill Jack to fully realize Locke - friggin' Locke! - was right all along? "We have to go back." How? Does the Island have a fixed location now? Does he think he can fix something by going back? Were there people left behind? Things are never that straightforward on Lost. What a wonderful season of Lost this was and a very fitting finale. I don't think any games were changed all that much. I don't think too many minds were blown. But it was SOLID entertainment, two exciting hours worth, and Matthew Fox got the chance to redeem himself after a sleepwalk of a season. Showing Jack humbled and ruined gave layers to the character that three years of pompous posturing failed to even hint at. It will be fascinating to come back next year - in *sob* February - to see what painful pleasures they have in store for us.

Flashes Before Your Eyes

Well, there is so much to digest after the finale. So many things to touch upon and to hypothesise about. Questions answered and new ones asked. One of the questions is - "Why did Charlie have to die.", well the short answer is because he had to.
The rock star turned addict turned looser turned daddy turned hero. He could have easily escaped the communications room he was in and escaped the hatch with Desmond. But he wasn't supposed to. The outcome of the flashes showed Charlie dying and then Claire being rescued by a helicopter. Charlie wanted to make sure that the actions he had taken so far had not changed the course of the flashes and that was still the final outcome. "Any more flashes?" was what he asked Desmond. Not because he wanted to live, he knew he was dying. As long as the flashes hadn't changed he was dying, and he was resolved to that fact.
The way he dealt with the two girls in the hatch: "Is that Ben? Tell him I said 'Hi!'" was a bittersweet moment. He was actually laughing in the face of death. For a character I didn't care for very much, I found myself hoping maybe all the rumors and spoilers were wrong, maybe he would live. A hero to the end, he manages to use the sharpie to leave Desmond a message to take with him.
So die he did, and if there is a way to describe the act of dying as beautiful, that's how he did it. In an homage to Star Trek this time, not Star Wars. Goodbye Charlie, I'll miss you.

Not In Portland

OK, he might not be the hottest on the show anymore (Juliette and the new chick that fell from the sky may or may not have him beat) but he is the hottest person I can still trust on the show.

Does this pic look like his mouth is open and awaiting?

Anyway, back to the point of this new blog post:

The Top Reasons It Is Great Being A Guy

Movie nudity is virtually always female

A 5 day vacation requires only one suitcase

Monday Night Football

Your bathroom lines are 80% shorter

You can open all your own jars

When clicking through the channels, you don't have to stall at every shot of somebody crying

Your butt is never a factor in job interviews

All your orgasms are real

You don't have to lug a bag of useful stuff around everywhere you go

You understand why Stripes is funny

You can go to the bathroom without a support group

Your last name stays put

You can leave the hotel bed unmade

You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness

You see the humour in Terms of Endearment

Nobody secretly wonders whether you swallow

You can be showered and ready to go in 10 minutes

Sex means never worrying about your reputation

Your underwear is $10 for a three-pack

The National College Cheer leading Championship

You don't have to shave below your neck

None of your coworkers has the power to make you cry

You don't have to curl up next to a hairy butt every night

If you're 34 and single, nobody even notices

You can write your name in the snow

Everything on your face gets to stay its original color

You can quietly enjoy a car ride from the passenger's seat

Flowers fix everything

You get to think about sex 90% of your waking hours

You can wear a white shirt to a water park

Three pairs of shoes is more than enough

You can eat a banana in a hardware store

You can say anything ("Wow, do my balls hurt!") and not worry about what people will think

Michael Bolton doesn't live in your universe

Nobody stops telling a good dirty joke when you walk into a room

You can whip your shirt off on a hot day

You don't have to clean your apartment if the meter reader's coming by

You can quietly watch a game with you buddy for hours without ever thinking He must be mad at me

The world is your urinal

You never misconstrue innocuous statements to mean your lover's about to leave you

You get to jump up and slap stuff

Hot wax never comes near your pubic area

You can admire Clint Eastwood without starving yourself to look like him

You never have to drive on to another gas station because this one's just too skeevy

You can sit with you knees apart no matter what you're wearing

Same work...more pay!

Gray hair and wrinkles only add character

You don't have to leave the room to make an emergency crotch adjustment

Wedding dress: $2,000; tuxedo rental: $75

If you retain water, it's in a canteen

The remote control is yours and yours alone

People never glance at your chest when you're talking to them

You can drop by to see a friend without having to bring a little gift

You can buy condoms without the shopkeeper imagining you naked

You needn't pretend you're "Freshening up" to go to the bathroom

If you don't call your buddy when you say you will, he won't tell your other friends you've changed

Someday you'll be a dirty old man

You can rationalize any behavior with the handy phrase "Screw it."

If another guy shows up at the party in the same outfit, you just might become lifelong buddies

The occasional well-rendered belch is practically expected

New shoes don't blister, cut, and mangle your feet

Porn movies are designed with your mind in mind

Not liking a person doesn't preclude having great sex with them

Your pals can be trusted never to trap you with: "So...notice anything different?"

A Short Rant

I interrupt my normally scheduled blog to talk about people that piss me off. They piss you off too, you just might not know it yet, or even know they are classified. Now I'm not talking about just people in general; although on a daily basis if you see one (a person I mean) chances are if given the opportunity they could piss you off. Aside from the normal band of usual suspects IE: the exact change old lady in line in front of you at Wawa (I just want my fuckin' cup of coffee, sometimes I wanna throw a quarter at 'em and shout "Here, will this get you out of my way faster, Granny?"), or the lovely preppy couple out for a movie with their two darling children in line at the concession stand in front of you. Mom wants this, Dad wants that. Junior wants this, but Mom don't think he should have that, and their precious little girl stands at the counter with her finger in her mouth, head tilted and leg swinging. She's doing everything cute she can to make me hate her even more than I already do! And you know why? Because she won't say a fucking thing when Daddy asks her what she wants. Which causes him to read off the entire movie theatre menu to her. All the while I ain't no closer to the Jujube's and I'm missing the goddamn previews. Of course this all happens while either (A) there is no other line open or (B) the line I thought was going to move slower than the one I ended up in is now moving faster than a colon cancer patient after a nice big tall glass of prune juice.

All of the previously mentioned are bad, but I never do anything about it. Oh, maybe I sigh my displeasure or quietly whisper "Jesuschristcomeon!", but nothing dangerous, harmful, or otherwise illegal. The next group of people are treading on thin ice. It's happened to you. I know it's happened to you. I'll set the scene for you. You are in your car, driving through the parking lot of the mall (the grocery store, the porno shop, just down the road in general, you get the idea) and you come upon the crosswalk with the "Vehicles Must Stop For Pedestrians In The Crosswalk" sign. I don't have a problem doing that, I think that's a good law, or rule, whichever it is. I remember when this was not universally accepted and you took a chance walking in front of a car, maybe they will stop or maybe they won't. But it's okay by me, usually. All those handicapped parking spots in the front of the lot are a different story and one we can discuss another day, but for now let's go back to the fuck wits in the crosswalk, shall we? I slow down, occasionally I'll even stop, if they are old I pull out War and Piece cause this could take a while. Here are the rules. I'll say that again. Here are the goddamn rules. These are the rules for those of you, those of us, using the crosswalk:

1. Before you even think about entering the crosswalk, be sure you have all necessary preparations take care of before hand. Like all your kids with you. Don't let them stray out single file like I'm watching ducks cross the highway! Or your car keys. The middle of the crosswalk is not a good place to stop and dig inside that papoose you call a purse for your keys. Or even your wife. Grandpa Jones gets in the middle of the crosswalk and suddenly he remembers he's not a widower. Yet. Meanwhile, Grandma Moses who is exactly ten shuffled paces away can't figure out that the man she has fondled, blown, fucked, salad tossed, and taken shit from for the last 50 years is ... right fucking in front of her! All she can do is look in every direction except where he is and yell; "Jed, where are you?" All of this just happens to be going on in the crosswalk that I stop to let you cross and walk in. So move your fucking asses!d

2. If by chance you are lucky enough to not have kids with you, or a spouse to hold you back, and you really got your shit together, it is still not a 100% sure shot you are doing what I need you to do. Chances are you are going to do the one thing that just makes me want to pretend to be the second car coming off of turn two just inches away from taking the lead on the last lap of the Daytona 500 and well, I guess all I gotta do is gun it. And run you down like a dog in the street. When you enter the crosswalk, go in a direct line. Perhaps you remember way back in elementary school when you learned this little pearl of wisdom: The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Not an angled one! You have left the safety of the sidewalk, it should be ingrained in you that you now need to get to the next safest point as quickly as possible. That next safest point being anywhere that I can't run your ass down with this 1,000 pound * death machine I call a car. It's not a gun pointed at your head but in the wrong hands it might as well be.

So what have we learned? Get in the crosswalk and get out of the crosswalk. As fast as possible, especially if I am the driver of the car that stopped to let you cross. You'll recognize me, I'll be the one with the evil smile on my face wondering what you would look like in a wheelchair.

* The writer of this blog does not know the exact weight of the car he drives but 1,000 pounds sounded pretty damn good and heavy enough to kill the average asshole.

I Do

Well, congratulations to Lost, this moment, captured above, was the first time in the shows history that Sawyer was on the screen and he wasn't the hottest thing to look at. So like where has Kate been hiding the epilady or Nair or whatever she is using to get rid of the winter bush that she must be sportin' by now?
Of course Sawyer, James, Ford, whatever you wanna call him is still the hottest thing on the show for my money.
But Juliette is a close second. If the bitch wasn't so untrustworthy she might make it a closer race. Now that all that is out of the way, lets get on with the latest scoop on what is coming up on the best show on TV today. No, I'm not talking about Heroes, which is a close second so if you ain't seen it I highly recommend it. Of course at this point you should just wait for the 1st season DVD to come out, but I digress. Here is the order of the remaining episodes and who's flashback we get to see:

5/2 The Brig-Locke (although this is misleading in it is only flashbacks from the last 3-8 days)
5/9 The Man Behind The Curtain-Ben
5/16 Greatest Hits-Charlie
5/23 Through The Looking Glass-Jack

No for the spoiling so if you don't wanna know stop reading now. My sources are almost 100% trustworthy so even though some information could be a big swerve by "the powers that be"; meaning JJ Abrahms, Carlton Cuse, et. al., I am taking most of this as true of what is to come. First let's go to the episode I have the most info about, this weeks, The Brig.

Ben tells Locke about Juliette's tape recorder and tells him (Locke) that he has to kill his father, that is the only way "the others" will accept him and allow him to go further in his joining them. Locke can't do it and with the help and advice of Richard Alpert (that's the guy who recruited Juliette) Locke is pointed into the right direction on how it could still be accomplished. Which brings us to Sawyer. Cooper is finally revealed as the original Sawyer, something some of us have seen coming for a while. Locke goes and gets Sawyer and the two of them head to the Black Rock where Locke has his father waiting for them. This is where "The Brig" part of the episode comes in. Cooper tells Sawyer they are all dead, that his son (Locke) was killed in a plane crash and before waking up on the island he was in an auto accident and the last thing he remembers is a paramedic giving him an IV. While Locke is waiting for Sawyer to kill Cooper, Rousseau shows up and gets some dynamite (how much was on this frigging ship anyway?) which could be foreshadowing something to come in the next few weeks. Meaning a large explosion.

Back inside the Black Rock, the deed is done, yes, Sawyer kills Cooper, rather violently from what I can tell from the description I got. I won't spoil that much for you because it will probably be best to see it than read about it. I for one am actually a little saddened as I was hoping Sawyer wouldn't kill him, I expected better, but I guess this is his life's journey. This does not go unappreciated by Locke who, before taking the body back to Ben, tells Sawyer that Juliette is a mole and in three days their camp is going to be attacked by the others who are coming for the women. He also gives Sawyer the tape recorder Juliette used to leave Ben messages about Sun as proof.

Meanwhile back on the beach, Hurley, Charlie and the rest of the group are back with the parachutist chick Naomi. They hide her because they feel that they can't trust Jack with the info. In a nutshell, this is what she tells them: the wreckage of flight 815 was found of the coast of Bali and all of the passengers were dead, she was hired by Penelope to find Desmond. She gives Sayid her her radio and he gets it to work but no signal (big surprise!). Kate sees the phone and asks Sayid about it who tells he about it and the girl but also tells he not to tell anyone about it. To which she goes right to Jack to share this info with. She doesn't want to tell him in front of Juliette but Jack insists she do just that. And then she does! After that we then find out that Jack is in on the plan with Juliette. Whatever that plan is of course.

Best line of the episode: Sawyer to Locke "OK Tarzan, now that you are back from your 'Blow up everything that could get us off of this island tour' why don't you tell me why you joined up with the damn enemy."

Now what is known (or thought to be known) for the remaining episodes. Counting Coopers death there will be four more before the end of the season. Speculation is that Charlie is one of them. Beginning with tonight's episode, it is going to be reminiscent of Lord of the Flies. Some hints are pointed towards the fact that Locke may not have blown up the submarine (which would explain why he was wet when he walked back up the dock right before the explosion. We will find out who the mysterious Jacob is next week in Ben's flashback. We will also see Ben as a boy. We will see what "the purge" was and we will be surprised who we see in Dharma uniforms. Roger "Work Man" may have been Ben's father. Marvin Candle will make an appearance in Ben's flashback, and not in an information film either. The Charlie death rumors could be very false and it could end up being Claire and Sayid instead. "The Cable" will be explained and used. Jack and Locke will be having a showdown. A huge Jack reveal about a secret in his past by season end. The producers notes on the season finale (which is a two hour episode) has ranged from "The Snake in the Mailbox" to "The Rattlesnake". Meaning someone, probably Jack, is coiled to strike. Jack and Claire may be finding out they are related by seasons end. Look for the season finale to separate the survivors into two groups. The Toe statue will be back before the end of the season as will Michael and/or Walt.

Sounds like a rough few weeks to come and then we wait until January for season 4