ALL THE BEST COWBOYS HAVE DADDY ISSUES
Locke and Jack should have taken a tip from this episode and continued to work well together for the remainder of the show. Of course if that happened then there wouldn’t have been a show now would there? They quickly figure out the situation that Ethan has dragged off Charlie and Claire. When Locke and Jack realize Ethan has taken them, Jack asks "How can one man drag off two people?" whereas Locke asks "Not how, why?". Science answers how - the way in which - something happened; faith answers why - the reason for which - something happened. This reflects the contrast between Jack and Locke as a man of science and a man of faith, respectively.
We have another Jack back and we see that he has a problem with letting go and giving up. Jack is trying to do the honorable thing to a fault. Sometimes people just die and Jack can’t come to terms with that. The writers continued to peel back the layers of the onion as we see what the rift was between Jack and his father that Jack’s mother blamed him for in White Rabbit. Paralleled on the island we have another father/son issue between Michael and Walt. The son on the island, Walt, just like the son in the flashback Jack, lays it all out on the table. Walt about his relationship to Locke and Jack about what really happened in the operating room.
Boone talks about the “red shirts” on Star Trek. Locke replies; “I would call that a piss poor captain.“ In Star Trek the Next Generation, Terry O’Quinn plays a Star Fleet Admiral who, as a captain, suffered mutiny due to his poor leadership skills. Locke tells Boone he used to work for a box company. Wonder if they made any “magic” boxes? Locke then pulls a “John Bolaris” and predicts the coming rain storm.
So we see a line drawn in the sand when it come to exactly who Jack will lie for and who he won’t. We know Jack lies for Kate when he testifies at her trial but he won’t lie for his father to the board of directors in this episode. Taking this point even further he also lies for Locke and the rest of the people on the island when he makes up the fake rescue story. Seems Christian is pretty low on the list of people Jack would lie for. Christian is the first person we hear mention the “greater good” theory in the show. Seems he makes a better ghost than he did a father.
Sawyer calls Walt "Tattoo", after the dwarfed character on the television series Fantasy Island. Tattoo was the assistant of Mr. Roarke, who ran a magical resort on a mysterious island. Sawyer and Sayid sort of kiss and make up after Sayid tells Sawyer about the French woman. Instead of getting revenge on Sayid, Sawyer tells him that while he was gone he kept Sayid’s signal fire going. Hey, that’s as close to “kissing and making up” as these two are probably going to get so don’t harass me pal!
Hurley foreshadows his back story a little bit when he tells Walt that he will get the twenty thousand dollars he lost to Walt on the backgammon game. Walt is the luckiest person on the island, even more than Hurley and we know he’s fairly lucky even though you wouldn’t know it to ask Hurley.
Jack hears Claire scream but Kate doesn’t. Is it because Jack has a connection to Claire because it seemed that Kate should have been able to hear the scream as well. Either way it leads Jack straight into an ass whooping courtesy of Ethan. Listen to what Jack says to Kate very closely afterwards; “I’m not going to let him do this again.”. Let who do what again? Was Jack talking about Ethan or Christian? It’s hard to tell. As Kate and Jack fumble their way through the jungle they discover the Charlie piñata that Ethan has left behind for them. Jack refuses to give up on Charlie in a move that is juxtaposed with his not giving up in the beginning of the flashbacks. Jack is able to save Charlie’s life however, unlike in the woman in the flashback. See I can praise Jack for something sometime, especially if he is saving lives, because he certainly saved Charlie’s. Right? See, now that I know as much as I do, I’m guessing he just might not have. This is another version of Charlie and he did die but the island, with it’s ability to resurrect when it wants or needs to, knew it needed Charlie later down the line. What do you know, this version of Charlie it resurrected can even swim. Now why do you suppose he would need to be able to do that? Charlie doesn’t remember anything (which fits in with my theory that they have all done this before, we now have a pattern of dying, being resurrected, and not having any memory of it) but he does say “All they were after was Claire.”. What or who did he see? We never found out.
Locke says he feels “it” and Boone and he find the hatch. The first DHARMA station in now in play.
The title of the episode may take it’s name from an album by Pete Townsend titled All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes. Specifically, this is a reference to a story inside the album jacket which tells a tale of leadership and sacrifice in a crisis. "A natural leader emerged...the most remarkable thing about him was his eyes...Somehow they arrived alive. Somehow they found the broken bottle trail without help. All stars, great and small, shine under God...All the best cowboys have Chinese eyes."
WHATEVER THE CASE MAY BE
Kate and Sawyer look so damn sexy swimming in the “blue lagoon” island style. This was just some eye candy as it gave Sawyer a chance to take his shirt off and Kate stripped down to her underoos, but who really cares about her. It almost looked like a little slice of paradise. If you don’t count all the bloated dead bodies underneath the water. There’s also the Halliburton, hence the title of the episode.
OK, I’m asking it right now, was Boone gay or at least bisexual? During the first season we hear Shannon mention to Boone several times about someone being his boyfriend. This episode she asks if Locke is Boone's new boyfriend. Maybe Tom Friendly wasn’t the first alternative lifestyle-er on the show.
Sawyer tells Michael he had better start making a runway and then later Sawyer ends up working on what Juliette tells him is a runway. Somewhere there is an island spirit laughing it’s ass off at Sawyer.
While getting the key from the Marshall’s grave Kate makes it obvious that she still doesn’t trust Jack when she tries to palm the key. Good job by Jack seeing Kate slip the key but he didn’t feel her take the radio from his back pocket this past season? What the hell Jack, I mean really? Oh and did you notice Kate had safe deposit number 815? Now how is that for a coincidence? Or not. Kate deceived Jason in order to get the plane, just as she attempted to deceive both Jack and Sawyer for the same reason. While Kate simply used Jason to get the plane back (as witnessed by her nonchalant "My name's not Maggie."), she truly does care for Jack, as her revelation to him ("It belonged to the man I killed!") is obviously something that is much more important for her. A metaphorical parallel is found here: Kate reveals her identity to Jason to be false, but shows her true self to Jack. Holy crap did I just say “metaphoric parallel"? Real-time events are spent trying to open the case, while flashback events detail Kate trying to get to the safe-deposit box, both of which happen to hold the same object. Kate opening up to Jack in the end of the episode also parallels them opening the case. I can say without a shadow of a doubt we can give Kate the award for worst flashbacks of the entire series. I just think her back story is so blah that we are going to get a real kick in the teeth one of these days. Now the only question remains is who exactly gave her the other key that she needed to get the box open at the bank?
Now let’s talk about the song that Shannon discovers to be a part of Danielle’s maps and notations. Shannon says that they are lyrics from a song that she remembers hearing on a movie she used to watch with the child she was a nanny for back in France over and over again. The song is La Mer written by Charles Trenent, first recorded in the 1940’s. The song Beyond The Sea by Bobby Darin and sung by Robbie Williams is the ending theme song to Disney’s Finding Nemo. The movie was released in France in May of 2004 which is actually four months prior to when their plane is supposed to have crashed. Little slip up there by the writers. But anyway, in the movie a father fish looks for his missing son and goes to drastic measures to find him. Sound familiar? Nemo is also a reference to Captain Nemo who is the legendary character in Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The Mysterious Island is about a group of castaways who use their survivalist skills to build a functional community on an uncharted island that holds many secrets. Full circle baby!
4 comments:
sorry man i posted the carlin comment on the wrong entry hangovers are a bitch
I don't think Boone was particularly bisexual -- I just think he preferred men. . .and his half sister.
I still don't see the whole "Kate's flashbacks are the worst" angle and I never did. Kate's flashbacks are always filled with action and twists that have always been highly entertaining. Actually they're as good as anybody elses -- and always a lot better than Charlie's. THOSE are the ones I cringed to see focused on. You wanna talk blah: musician and his brother get a hit single. One brother does drugs and then the other one does. Rivetting.
Why exactly was Shannon SO EMPHATIC that she didn't speak French when it's perfectly obvious that she does -- she practically busted a gut denying it when they were handing her the walkie talkie of the French woman's message. After all who gets a job as a French nanny and doesn't speak French. More to the point who HIRES a nanny for their French kids when she can't speak French. Is this another of those questions which will be answered someday?
At this point I think we are going to have many unanswered questions by the time the series is over. Most of them will be minor ones and probably just enough to make you scratch your head and realize that we put way too much stock in this show. But them again I'm hooked so I'm already prepared ahead of time.
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