WHY?! | Season One |Season Two

Right. Here we are. Season three. Nowhere near on schedule for doing all these in a week. Schedule? I laugh at your puny schedule, etc.

SEASON THREE!

I warn you though, I was having very little fun with most of this season, and the posts reflect that; they’re very dull, more for me than general public entertainment – if you don’t have to read them, don’t.

episode one | episode two | episode three | episode four | episode five | episode six | episode seven | episode eight | episode nine | episode ten | episode eleven | episode twelve | episode thirteen | episode fourteen | episode fifteen | episode sixteen | episode seventeen | episode eighteen | episode nineteen | episode twenty | episode twenty-one
| episode twenty-two/twenty-three

Onward! To season four.

SEASON THREE, EPISODE ONE: TALE OF TWO CITIES

What happens in this episode
The Others live in a nice suburb somewhere in the middle of the island. They have book groups. Not good book groups, book groups where people discuss Stephen King books. They have sofas and coffee pots and white picket fences.

And, where I had secretly hoped that Sawyer, Jack and Kate getting captured meant that we weren’t going to be seeing them for a bit, we actually ONLY saw them. Well, them and The Others.

There was Ben Other, formally known as Henry Gale
Juliet Other, formally unknown,
and Tom Other, who even without the Captain Birdseye costume he wears to be Mr Friendly, STILL looks like he’s wearing a fake face, which is a remarkable achievement.

Jack woke up in an examination room, with various chains and tables, an intercom, and all the doors locked tight shut. After a while a nice lady called Juliet came to talk to him, to explain where he was, and to show him an enormous document in her possession: Jack, she said, THIS IS YOUR LIFE!

And then the music started, and he was like “Oh YOU GUYS! You went to all the trouble of arranging that?”

Not really.
They do have an awful lot of information on him though.
And, presumably, on everyone else too. He’s sbeing trapped in his examination room underwater, in the meantime. And softly interrogated by this mousy blonde.

Kate woke up in a shower, where she was greeted by Cpt Birdseye, who gave her a pretty dress and took her to breakfast with Henry Gale, King of the Others, weasel-nosed high-potiff of Odd, who told her that she should enjoy breakfast, because the next few weeks after it were going to be nsaty.

Sawyer woke up in a cage, among other cages. If he presses the buttons and flick the switches in a particular order, he gets a biscuit in the shape of a fish.

I think we all know which of the Lost Family Lostinson is getting favouritist treatment from the Others. Yes. Who’s got the fishbiscuit?

flashbacks
Jack’s divorce was an ugly, messy thing. I don’t care about that so much right now, though

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) The Others are NOT who they said they were. Walt was right.
2) They have a zoo! There were bears in the zoo at some point. Polar bears?
3) It seems that our Losts are to be the focus of study. But why? And who ARE These people? And what the what is going on here?

Back to the top

SEASON THREE, EPISODE TWO: THE GLASS BALLERINA

What happens in this episode
Ok – really brief one here, because I’m trying to get through to a point where there are a few more answers and a few less questions.

I was sort of hoping that this was going to bear close relation to those piss-weak endings that you used to tack onto to stories in primary school when you couldn’t think of anything to say but you didn’t want to write anymore.

But no. No “and then I woke up and it was ALL a dream”.

The specimens are still in the specimen jar. Eating fishbiscuits.

Meanwhile, on the island (or just off it) Jin, Sun and Sayid are still on the boat, trying to work out what to do. They find the pier, and decide to try and lay a trap for The Others. Meanwhile, the others have discovered they have a boat, and they want it.

The two plans collide.
Sun ends up shooting one of the Others, and the other Others run off with the boat. Sail off. Sail off with the boat.

Just before she got shot, the shot Other said:”We are not your enemies. But if you shoot me, we will be”
Sun may have just started a war.

In other news
Kate and Sawyer snogged. Yes, it did feel a little out of place, now you mention it, yes.

flashbacks
Sun slept with her English teacher. Jin knows.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) That Sun slept with her English teacher. And that Jin knows.
2) Kate tastes of strawberries.
3) The Others seem to be building some kind of thing that neccesitates the breaking of rocks. Are they a-workin on the railroad? Um. Where will the railroad go? will there be banjos and hobos and a mountain that
4) Henry Gale/Ben Other – he’s lived on the island all his life. But likes Baseball. So this is part of the US then, Island Island? Because that’s the only thing that fits those two facts.
5) If the Others are needing to study people, what was the point of all the subterfuge? Why the torn clothes and the decoy village? Why bother with all of that? Why be offended when people think that’s what you are? How do they make no noise when they walk? Why? WHY? Oh GOD, WHY?!

Back to the top

SEASON THREE, EPISODE THREE: FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS

What happens in this episode
John Locke wakes up in a grassy meadow, near (we assume) what ever remains of the Button Hole. He cannot speak. I can’t decide whether this would be great, as it represents some timespan without John Locke saying weighted and portentous things, or dreadful, as it would mean an indeterminate amount of time in which John Locke will be miming weighty and portenteous things.

He makes his way back to the camp, and, through communicating with Charlie – who makes it known that he currently detests Locke for all the punching in the face stuff last season – through writing and hammy gestures (right, yes, that would be more annoying, I understand that now) tells him that he’s going into a sweatlodge to talk to the island. And then starts smooshing up leaves into a paste.

“You’re not taking drugs are you John?” says Charlie “I only ask because I know the zero tolerance policy you’ve adopted, and I’d hate to see you having to start punching yourself in the face…”

So, high as a giraffe on a pogo stick drinking a carton of smackade (left) John is visited by Boone, who whisks him off to Sydney airport and tells him that someone in there needs saving. So John looks, and dumbshows, and points at various members of The Lost Family Lostinson, and Boone says no to all of them, until we’ve seen every single person that isn’t Mr Eko. And Locke sits in his wheelchair looking confused.

‘You have to clear up your own mess … own mess …. own mess … you have to clear up your own mess … own mess … own mess. clear up your own mess. You have to clear up your own mess … mess … own mess … clear up your own mess… you have to clear up your own mess…” says Boone.

And Locke STILL looks lost and clueless. I presume he was expecting a marching band. Or everyone to be wearing t-shirts with instructions posted on them. Hell, even I know what he’s trying to tell you, and at this point in the marathon I can barely remember my own name.

Exploding out of the sweatlodge, he suddenly finds his voice again. “I have to go and save Mr Eko” he says.

He tracks down Mr Eko, who has been taken by a polar bear. And he saves him. The end.

Oh, also: Mr Eko speaks to him and tells him to go and save Sawyer, Jack and Kate (although, to be precise, Mr Eko is unconscious at the time he speaks to Locke and tells him this, so he kind of appears to John in a vision, but the location of the vision is ‘His Actual Face’ – it’s a location-specific hallucination, if that makes sense).

In other news
Desmond is not dead. Hurley happens upon him, in the forest, and the nude.

“He’s going to get them [Jack, Sawyer and Kate]. He said so in his speech” said Desmond – a speech that Locke hasn’t given. Were they somewhere together on the other side of the button-pushing?

flashbacks
John Locke used to be part of some kind of crazy hippy thing. He was used, treated liike a sap and undermined, again.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) The boy that John Locke picked up when he was a hippy was wearing a Geronimo Jackson t-shirt. There was a Geronimo Jackson album in the Button Hole.
1) The Button Hole is gone. It is now a whole hole.
2) There’s a new guy! And he must be hanging around, because he spoke! He said “Where Are they!?” – or something. And as one, in my living room, we shouted “Wait! Who the fuck are YOU!?” Because the unnamed characters, they don’t talk.
3) Locke gave the speech that Desmond mentioned. Only, he gave the speech at the end of the episode. So … Desmond can see the future now?

Back to the top

SEASON THREE, EPISODE FOUR: EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF

What happens in this episode
Back to the Other camp: Sawyer hatches a cunning plan, to electrocute someone if they come and come and get him.

Someone does come to get him – Ben. Henry Gale. Darth Other. And when Sawyer tries his clever plan, it doesn’t work. Because of course there are cameras in the cages – it’s a zoo, so they would be being watched as samples under examination. Also, as a zoo, they need to have cameras, because otherwise how do does the internet know if the baby panda sneezed?

Darth Other takes him into a surgical room … and when he comes to, puts a watch on his wrist and explains that they’ve fitted him with a pacemaker that, if it reaches a certain level above ‘mildly excitable’, will explode. He demonstrates this by killing a bunny rabbit.

Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, Lost seems to be borrowing storylines from Jason Statham movies in reverse-world. I can honestly say that I did not see that coming.

Jack, meanwhile, is taken from his cell by Juliet Other, who needs his help performing surgery on the woman that Sun shot. He goes with her, staring intently at some X-Rays on the wall outside the operating theatre until sharply told they are not hers. I can testify, however, that others are entirely human on the inside. Completely normal.
Apart from the scale model of a tractor they seem to have instead of a Pancreas, and the fact that the rest of the torso is full of bees wearing fezes. But other than that, normal, human innards.

Surgery fails. It wouldn’t have done, but the Defilbrilator paddles were broken. They’ve never really had much need for them, Juliet Other says, which, given the amount of punching and shooting and hanging and riflebutting that goes on round these parts, seems a little unlikely.

The husband of the woman who died decides to go outside to the cages and take it all out on Sawyer, beating the hell out of him with Sawyer not wanting to fight back in case his heart explodes, and the only thing that can make the man stop is a declaration of True Love for Sawyer from Kate. Christ, well that’s one way to move the love-triangle storyline on, isn’t it?

By the end of the episode, Kate has escaped, Jack seems to be having a bit of a case of the hots for Juliet the lady Otherdoctor, and Darth Other takes Sawyer up to the cliffs, points out that they’re on a second, smaller island with no chance of escape, oh, and that he hasn’t really got an exploding pacemaker inside him, and the bunny isn’t really dead, it’s here, in his handbag, TA-DAH!!!

Ooh, he’s quite the card, that Ben-Henry Darth-Other, isn’t he?

flashbacks
Sawyer in prison, befriending a multi-millionaire, and lying and conning his way out of prison. Do I have to keep paying attention to these flashbacks? Or can I use the time to do something else, like take up knitting.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) Sawyer has a daughter. Called Clementine.
2) Ben Other – which still seems too cute and buttonny a name for him. ‘Ben’. Is quite keen on the idea that The Others are “not killers”. Which, given the previous few seasons, Charlie hanging from a tree, Nathan with his neck broken, poor darling Steve, no, wait, Scott. And others, the ones who are disappearsed? They are a LITTLE bit killy, aren’t they? So I will continue calling him Darth Other. For I consider him the bad guy.
3) WHY aren’t we seeing more of Frogurt. You can’t just introduce me to the idea that there’s someone called Frogurt and then not actually give me Frogurt.
Mmm, Frogurt.
4) I’m not that taken with this season so far, and now all the grumbles that I was hearing from people several years ago but trying not to listen too hard to because I knew one day I’d be doing this.
5) I may have to start a drinking game.
6) The island is twice the size of Alcatraz, says Darth Other. And you can see Island Island, bright and clear, right there in front of them. And yet, of all the high places they’ve been, routes they’ve taken, trees they’ve climbed, beaches and rafts and boats (oh my!) – none of them have ever noticed that there’s an Othertraz over the water?

Back to the top

SEASON THREE, EPISODE FIVE: THE COST OF LIVING

What happens in this episode
Oh no! Another one gone! And the chance of losing another – although seeing as my Entertainment Weekly arrived a couple of days ago and I saw this chracter on the cover before shoving it in a drawer – it’s only a very slim chance.

On Island Island

Desmond, who is turning out to be quite a jolly chap now that he’s been through death and can now see the future and everything – though I do wish he’d stop eating with his mouth open – has told Locke that he thinks the computers can be used to communicate with other stations.

And thus, perhaps, with The Others. So off they toddle to the Pearl station – the observation station in next to the Little Smack Plane.

Locke approaches the beach kitchen, where Hurley is chopping with his beach-knife on a beach-chopping-board, and asks if anyone fancies a jaunt, which surprises the members of the Lost Family Lostinson that are gathered there, used as they are to Jack and Sawyer and Sayid and co just taking off and having adventures while they hang out on the beach getting tans and drinking fermented cactus juice and running bizarre competitions where they try and get different kinds of desert island animals to mate.

So the new bloke we noticed last week decides to go – or rather his woman does, a devestatingly hot mousy-blonde that you would have imagined we might have noticed before now (or at least Sawyer might).

And off they go into the jungle, singing a happy jungle song.

They get to the Pearl station, Sayid faffs about with the wires, New Lost (Male) has the affrontery to use the sub-station-shitter (this is not a convenience stop, bud: it’s adventure mission mystery job, you should have gone at the … at the …. wait, how DID they sort out the plumbing and sanitation needs at the beach camp? I haven’t noticed anyone digging any kind of slurry pit or drop toilet? How on EARTH are they avoiding cross contamination? And what about wardrobe space? Where do they hang things so they don’t crinkle? Does the fact that I’m asking these questions suggest a certain lack of engagement with this season, you know, I think it might, but I’d still like to know who’s dealing with these practical matters)

Anyway, New Lost (Female) suggests using the video feed instead, and they’re just about to give it up for a good but pointless idea, when a man with an eyepatch appears.

Mr Eko died. His last words to Locke were not jolly ones about wallpaper or fishbiscuits. They are below, in the flashback bit, though.

On Othertraz

After Darth Other comes in the middle of the night and takes Jack out to a funeral, we discover that those x-rays were his after all. More than that, it’s a tumour on his spine, and he wants Jack to operate. He they’d planned a big elaborate scheme that was going to make him WANT to do it and love Darth and want DESPERATELY to save him, but they’ve given up on that now that he saw the x-rays by mistake. And the fact that Darth Other appears to be a terrifying sociopath, and they can be quite hard to love.

Juliet Other, after he’s told Darth he will think about it, comes in bringing a copy of ‘To Kill A Mocking Bird’, the movie, to help Jack pass the time. But it isn’t that. It’s a movie of her, holding signs saying that Ben is a liar, and dangerous, and mad, and that it would be quite nice, and helpful to those Others that want change, if he could operate, botch the surgery and kill Ben/Henry/Darth.

flashbacks
We learn how Mr Eko went from being a gangster and a bad man pretending to be a priest, into being a real priest and man of true faith etc. It was a bloody, bloody life.

At the end of the journey, he meets his brother in a meadow and is asked if he wants to confess. “I ask for no forgiveness Father, for I have not sinned. I have only done what I needed to do to survive”, he says, getting the basic tenets of Catholicism wrong, but coming out the better man in the process. And then his brother says he is not his brother, and the smoke monster appears and bears down on Eko, and picks him up, slamming him against trees with its big smoke-arm until he is almost dead, hanging on just long enough to whisper his last words to Locke. “You’re next”, apparently. Nice.

And it was through this inner journey that Mr Eko found peace, or the complete opposite of peace, by not confessing to the ghost priest that was his brother but then wasn’t his brother and might have been the smoke monster in disguise, whatever the smoke monster is.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) You would imagine that, as there have been quite so many twists and mindgames involving the others, Jack might not quite trust Juliet Other either?
2) I am sad that Mr Eko is dead.
3) Do those new people have names?
4) What the hell is going on? What happened to the Dharma thing? What’s with this smoke monster crap? Why do we have scientist zookeepers from a separate island pretending to be angry supernatural feral natives of a different island?
MY HEAD HURTS.

Back to the top

SEASON THREE, EPISODE SIX: I DO

Oh! Oh! OH LOOK! Look! It’s Nathan Fillon! SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Ahem.

What happens in this episode
More sex. As we know, where there is Sawyer there is sex, and where there is sex there is death.

On Othertraz
Jack meets with his wannabe patient, and tells him that, looking at his x-rays, he’s only got about a week to live. Because let’s face it, if the tumour doesn’t get him, the bees or the tractor certainly will.

Darth Other really does need the surgery, says Jack. But he’s not going to be doing it.
“I’m disappointed in your choice, says Henry-Ben-Darth
“Well, at least you won’t be disappointed long”, says Hot Hypocratical Jack, Doctor of the Snappy Comeback.

Kate is pulled off rock-breaking duty to try and talk him into it. She doesn’t. In the compound, in their cages, she squeezes between her bars (demonstrating her awesome thinness) and breaks into his, and then they have grinding, honey-coated cage-sex. In full view of the CCTV, obvs, the filthy buggers.

Then Juliet Other lets Jack out of his cell, or we assume it is her: when he gets into the corridor and sees the cctv feeds there (what a coincidence!) Ben-Henry-Darth Other is standing there, ready to make the most of the moment.

It’s not just me, right? I mean, this season IS actually shit, right?

The Jack does the surgery but makes a small nick in Darth Other’s kidney sack, and demands to speak to Kate. In the compound, they’re holding a gun to Sawyer’s head, and threatening to kill him, and Kate’s all “boo hoo hoo, I wuv him and I don’t want him to DIE” and then they give her the walkie talkie with Jack on the other end and he’s like “I WUV YOU KATE, EVEN IF YOU DON”T WUV ME! WUN! WUN!” and so she says that she’s going to run, but he doesn’t know that they’re on Othertraz and she CAN’T run, and oh for goodness’ sake. And that’s the end of that episode.

Hell’s TEETH when did this turn into General Hospital? Take me back to the beach, I literally couldn’t care less about these fools.

sigh

On Island Island
They bury Mr Eko. As they bury him, Locke notices a quote from scripture on the stick about lifting up your eyes and looking to the north, and underneath it says John – 3:05

Now, You’ll have to excuse me here, I’m an atheist but a preacher’s daughter with a ridiclous memory for things I don’t need – that’s from the old testament somewhere; either a psalm or genesis or something. SO that means it’s a message to Locke, right?

flashbacks
Kate was once married to Nathan Fillon.
And then told him the truth, drugged him and left him.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) This is not something I’ve just learnt, but it is something I keep forgetting to say: Ben-Henry-DarthOther has the scariest blank stare EVER.
2) “Jack wasn’t even on Jacob’s List” according to Numbnut Other, who keeps trying to kill Sawyer for apparently no reason.
3) It is proving very difficult to have fun with these episodes, just because I’m not enjoying them. I’m sorry. I really will get more fun again. When I start enjoying it more. I’m just a sodding bad mood with them all right now. “Meh, look at US we’re LOST! Meh meh meeeeeeeh” Good. Get loster. And also shut the fuck up.

Back to the top

SEASON THREE, EPISODE SEVEN: NOT IN PORTLAND

Although it is only minutes after we last saw them at the end of episode six, having just checked wikipedia to find out if I’m going to want to cut my own head off by the end of the night, it turns out that we’re now coming into the second block of season three, aired three months after the last six went out, and taking into account the fact that the fans and critics HATED the first bunch. Phew.

What happens in this episode
Stoic Jack, Doctor of Neutrality, finishes up the spine operation – with a couple of complications, but otherwise just fine.

Kate and Sawyer ran into that young Gallic-looking girl that keeps randomly helping people – her name is Alex – and she offers to lend them her boat, if they’ll help find her boyfriend, Kyle, and save him too. They go and find him – he’s wearing special glasses and watching a video of flashy brain-washing images.

After speaking to Ben-HenryGale-DarthOther, Juliet helped Sawyer and Kate escape with Kyle, the young male prisoner Sawyer met on the first day. Alex has to stay. Juliet says her ‘dad’ – Darth Ben Other, I believe – will be cross when he wakes up if she’s not there.

Why did she do that?
She tells Jack: “If I let him live and helped you, he’ll finally let me go home” – and I swear, on camera, you could see Dr Jack’s heart (and pants) melt clean off for the lady.

flashbacks
The first “Other” flashback: How Juliet, who was a researcher working fertility something, came to be working on Othertraz. So wait: fertility?
What the hell are they doing?

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) “God loves you as he loved Jacob” and other such messages in the brainwashing video that Karl (the boyfriend of Alex – also, I believe, the daughter of The Frog of Doom)
2) Whoever it is that brought these people out here (Dharma Collective? The other Pharmaceutical company mentioned in this episode?) is very powerful. Say the only way that you could come and work for them is that if someone else gets hit by a bus? They WILL be getting hit by a bus.
3) This episode was better. I am not entirely in a great mood about it yet, but I am at least not dreading the fact that I will have to get up in the morning and set back into that random, unfocussed, dour and unlikeable world.
4) Hey! Remember all those people on the island that were really cool? I miss those guys.

Back to the top

SEASON THREE, EPISODE EIGHT: FLASHES BEFORE YOUR EYES

What happens in this episode
On the way to a simple adventuring adventure connected to Eko’s stick (no euphemism intended) Desmond suddenly stops, turns around, and runs off, straight into the sea, saving Claire from drowning before anyone even knows she’s drowning.

Suspecting his ’seeing-the-future’ power, Charlie proposes to Hurley that they find out his secret the only rational British way: they should get him drunk. SO they pull out some whisky from the depths of Sawyer’s tent, and try it. It doesn’t work.

What WORKS is that they remember one of the greatest British folk songs ever:

“She swore like a docker with a cracking set of knockers she was only the farmer’s daughter”

Yes. Of all the quotes about time travel and alterate universes I could have picked out of this episode, and that’s the one I go for. You know why? It’s because I can’t believe that such a seminal British folk classic such as this has gone without going viral after appearing on a major US show for so long.

I can only hope that this opens the door for a few more, like “She bounced on me knob, and ‘er mam was a snob, I was a roofer with two’fer one deals on” and “‘Cos she had a tight quim, married ‘er on a whim. ‘Er aunt worked for Boots the Chemist”

But anyway. Nothing else comes of it. Except we get to see: Desmond saving Charlie’s life, apparently. Alan Dale, Jim-off-Neighbours, being a twat; and what could, in general, be the future of this show, if that’s what the electromagnetic pulse meant: a world of alternate universes and time travel.

awesome.

flashbacks

Flashback that wasn’t flashback. At the moment of the electro-magnetic spong, Desmond went back in time to when he asked Penny to marry him: but it wasn’t just a replay for our benefit – he had free will, and the power to change things, if he wanted to; this was different from ever before: a reliving, not a replay.

It seemed he could change things. Or he kind of could. But then, when he tried to buy the engagement ring he didn’t buy the first time around, the shopkeeper told him off for moving away from the script.

When he tried to make things work rather than fail, they failed in a different way … but still failed.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) Alan Dale: “Do you know anything about Whisky?”
Desmond: “No, I”m afraid not, sir”
Bollocks. I do not know a single Scotsman who would say that, even IF it was true.
2) This is still feeling very pro-therapyish. Does that make sense?
3) Don’t get me wrong: still better than the front six.

Back to the top

SEASON THREE, EPISODE NINE: STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND

Finally! Jacks gets tattoos! Or, at least, Jack gets A tattoo. Finally that starts to unravel….

What happens in this episode
Back on the incredible rogue science-island of Othertraz, Belagured Jack swaps cells with someone who is, apparently more in need of punishment: Juliet Other. He’s walk past her in purposeful fashion, as she goes to her new sorry-cell.

So off Jack goes to the outdoor cells, where Sawyer and Kate were last spotted having sex.

And Juliet comes by to check on the x-rays… and nothing much is said. And a woman called Isabel comes to question him about his part in what Juliet might have been planning…. and he denies it all, and nothing much more is said.

Jack goes to Ben and tells him that his spine is infected and needs a doctor’s attention, so he’ll need to stick around.

flashbacks
Jack having a wild and TMI-laden relationship with a person in Thailand. I use ‘person’ advisedly. Jack gets tattoos. Jack likes noodles. And, blah blah blah… Jack flies a kite. FOR NO REASON.

THE ONLY IMPORTANT THING TO HAPPEN IN THIS EPISODE

“I am not a tattoo artist: I am able to see what people are. My work is not decoration, it is definition.”
Says Jack’s lay, sounding like every other pretentious hipster tattoo artist I’ve ever heard of.
So Jack’s tattoos are, apparently really, REALLY meaningful. So, the tattoos on Jack describe, apparently, who and what he is on a deep and mystical level. You know, like that little butterfly that welcomes the world to your bum-crack: deep. Meaningful. The man’s got tats. That’s it. I’m giving up, going to bed, and coming back fresh in the morning. I am DONE with this show for today, no matter how ’slightly-less-shit’ it has got in the last three episodes. I will go to bed, and look forward to everything being brilliant tomorrow (yay!)

Seriously. I’m going to enjoy this more in the morning.
So will you. I hope.

Back to the top

SEASON THREE, EPISODE TEN: TRICIA TANAKA IS DEAD

What happens in this episode
After a brief conversation in which Charlie tells Hurley about Desmond telling him he’s going to die, and Hurley agreeing that, as his friend, yes he probably is. Hurley is surrounded by bad luck after all. So Charlie’s going to die, eh? Does that mean we have to sit through another episode of Driveshaft songs?

On the beach, New Person (Male) and New Person (Female) are concerned about running out of food, but still display very little personality. But a great deal of hotness. Obv.

Hurley finds a VW camper van in the forest, and enlists Jin to help (mainly because Jin doesn’t know what he’s volunteering for) and Sawyer (because he has some beer). Although soon enough, Sawyer and Jin have cracked open the beers and are very little use. To Hurley. They’re usseful enough to each other, mind. Sawyer teaches Jin the “only things a woman needs to hear’: “I’m Sorry”, “You were right” and “You don’t look fat in those pants”, apparently. Next lesson: “I apologise for treating you like a cliche” and “My perception of women was formed by the Hagar the Horrible comic strip”

Desmond won’t tell Charlie the date of his imminent death, and Charlie is moping about because of it.
But Charlie pulls him out of it by forcing him to help with the van. They push it to the edge of a large slope; they will roll down, and, Hurley says, he will pop the clutch and drive off. If he doesn’t, he will hit some rocks at the bottom and die. He and Charlie, because Charlie suddenly develops a relaxed attitude to death.

The van rolls down the hill. Roll roll roll, hill hill hill, there are shots of the rock, shots of the van, shots of us at home trying to work out if we’ve switched over to Last of the Summer Wine by mistake, shots of the van, shots of the rocks and VROOM! The van drives off.

You make your own luck, determines Hurley. There is no curse.

flashbacks
A little more of the history Hurley’s bad luck PLUS a healthy dose of daddy-issues. Seriously. I’m so annoyed by the fact that the Daddy-issue theme has re-emerged that I’m not going to give a gnat’s nutsackful more magic computer-ink to it.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) Kate believes Sawyer should be sorry for something (letting Karl go?) and they appear to have broken up.
2) For the Hulu subtitle machine, ‘Touché’ renders as Touché
3) You make your own luck.
4) I am glad the writers of Lost have rediscovered the comedy font on their Macs.
5) There is no five.
Back to the top

SEASON THREE, EPISODE ELEVEN: ENTER 77

What happens in this episode
Sayid, Kate and Locke go out searching for the Other village. By a stroke of luck, they happen upon The Frog of Doom, who agrees to help them when she hears that Kate has met her daughter. Again. But only if she can pout, doomfully, all the way. And occasionally mumble things about everyone being about to dahhhhh!.

They discover first a cow, and then its farm – and then the man with the eye patch that they saw over the video feed at the Pearl Station. After a touch of light ambushing, Sayid gets bulleted in the arm, and the man, who declares himself to be Mikhail, last surviving member of the Dharma Initiative, invites them in for tea and stitches.

After a brief chat, Sayid suspects that this man is not Dharma, but an Other. And he’s right. they scuffle, they tie him up, they discover another Other in the basement – it’s Bea Other, Miss Klugh from the decoy village. It is nice to see her again, we think … until she convinces Mikhail in Russian to shoot her dead. Oh.

John Locke finds a computer in the back room that, it seems, only plays chess. He gets exxcited by this, and plays it, even though Mikhail says he can never beat it; and he beats it. When he does, the man from the orientation videos appears and offers the opportunity to communicate with the mainland. But the satellite is down. And the sonar is down. “Has there been and incursion of this station by hostiles?” asks the man “If so, press 7-7″ – the first time it asks, Locke doesn’t have the chance, but the second time he does, proudly telling Sayid, Kate, Their hostage and the Frog of Doom about the fact when he emerges from the farmhouse… which then explodes.

Sayid is not pleased.

On the beach
The Lost Family Lostinson play ping pong. If Sawyer loses, he’s not allowed to call people by nicknames. Hurley takes him on, with hilarious consequences
No, really. That’s the plot.

flashbacks
Working in a restaurant leads to a chain of events that end with Sayid meeting someone he used to torture in Iraq. He says he’s sorry and cries a lot. The end.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) There appears to be an increasing fluidity between flashback and island life; the cat at the
2) This station is the ‘Flame’ station. Or, more accurately after John’s chessular brilliance, the “In flames” station.
3) There’s going to be a pet kitty for the Lost Family Lostinson.
4) There was a ‘purge’, when the Others killed all the Dharma initiative people. Thus proving Ben-Henry-Darth Other’s point once again that the Others are not murdery people. Oh nononono.

Back to the top

SEASON THREE, EPISODE TWELVE: PAR AVION

What happens in this episode
John, Sayid, Kate and the Frog of Doom are still on their way to “The Barracks” with their prisoner. They get as far as a weird pylon fence that, Mikhail says, hasn’t worked in years.

To ‘prove’ this, Locke pushes him between the pylons, at which point his mouth starts fizzing like someone who’s eaten sherbert and fizzy pop at the same time, and then he falls over. OH NOES! He is allergic to either sherbert or fizzy pop! Man, he’s REALLY allergic. He’s bleeding-out-of-the-ears allergic. Oh no wait, he’s dead.

They make a complicated ‘getting over the pylons’ structure, and climb over, one step closer to the village. One step. Just one. In the next episode of lost: it will be a completely different day down on the beach … and Locke, Sayid and Kate will have managed to get another 10ft across a meadow, bickering all the way.

Not really. They’ve got to the village. And seen Jack. He was, wait for it … throwing a football around with Captain Birdseye. Oh, we have the measure of you NOW, Traitor Jack, Doctor of Selloutness.

On the beach
Claire is trying to catch some seabirds flying overhead, believing that she noticed a tracking tag on one of them.
Desmond, meanwhile, is still trying to save Charlie’s life. Apparently he should have died when electrocuted, when hit by lightning, when Claire almost drowned and, today, when retrieving a bird from the rocks. Desmond’s new-found skill of seeing the future is mainly being used to stop Charlie dying, right now. But it seems like death is not giving up any time soon.

flashbacks
Reveal that Claire is a half-sister of Jack. Because his dad, Jacksdad (played by Tim Gunn) once got in a horny mood with a naughty Aussie, and ended up with a Claire (Thank you, horny mood!)

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) Locke’s being odd. OddER, I mean. He clearly blew up the farm on purpose; he stole some c4, he’s lying and avoiding things all over the place, and to top it off, he apparently pushed that man into a trap becase he was about to tell everyone John should be in a wheelchair.
2) Claire is determined that She and Charlie will get through this together. Through Charlie being dead?
3) You know one good thing? At least this doesn’t have an annoying earwormy theme tune. I’m not wandering around the house singing it to myself incessantly. No, there’s very little that is earwormy about a single‘Whhooooooooooomve’ noise.

Back to the top

SEASON THREE, EPISODE THIRTEEN: THE MAN FROM TALLAHASSEE

What happens in this episode
After discovering Jack having the temerity to enjoy himself in Suburban Otherville, Kate still tries to save him. In the process, she’s caught by the Others, who are watching, as ever, over the CCTV thing.

Jack, it turns out, has now done his duty, and will be leaving Island Island on the next submarine. He tells Kate that he’s leaving Island Island, but that he’ll come back for her all the same. Oh, what a gentleman etc.

Meanwhile, we get to find out why Locke really wanted to come on this rescue mission: he wants to blow up the submarine. Long story short: Ben is amenable to this, and manipulates John into being able to do it thinking he’s being an enormous rebel, whereas in fact, he’s really doing precisely what Ben wanted. This way, none of his people can leave.

He blows up the submarine, and Jack and Juliet Other see him do it. That relationship, I trust: is going to be a little strained for a while, I’m guessing.

Ben-Henry-Darth Other and Locke seem to be forming some kind of alliance, based on the fact that John has a special relationship with the island; so special that it gave him back his ability to walk.

So Ben, after talking for a while in mysterious terms about boxes, and whether, perhaps, there might be some kind of giant box on the island that, when opened, might turn out to contain whatever you want. He also reveals that he knows a lot about John: about his childhood, about his accident, and about his Daddy issues. About the fact that one of the main reasons John doesn’t want to leave is that he fears meeting his dad and being fecked over by his dad once more, and Island island is the one place John’s safe from ever having to see him again.

He then directs John to a room containing, he says, the contents of John’s giant magical Island box, and guides him into a room.

You’ll never guess who’s tied to a chair in there.
No, but try.
Ah, seriously, you’ll never ever guess.
No, but you should try.
Oh, alright.

IT’S HIS DAD!

I KNOW, RIGHT?!?!

flashbacks
We finally, finally find out how John Locke broke his back. After going through a laborious search and eventually finding his dad conning some poor lady, the bugger pushes him out of an eighth floor window. Wow. In the draw for Daddies, Locke really lucked out, didn’t he?

In fact, that’s it, isn’t it? That’s how he got the be the central character in this whole thing: Because he won the ‘who’s got the biggest Daddy Issue’ conpetition.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) Ben-Henry-Darth Other said something amusing for the first time ever, so he DOES have a sense of humour after all. In fact, SEVERAL amusing things. I mean, I didn’t actually release urine at his suggestion that the electricity in Suburban Otherville comes from two giant hamsters on wheels underground, but it was still a pleasant surprise.
2) There is no end to the amount Locke likes standing up, apparently – down to sabotaging everyone else’s chance of escape if the cuts down on the chance that he’ll have to go back to the real world, and back into a wheelchair.
3) So Ben-Henry-Darth Other can’t control whether his people want to stay or go, but he can summon any person he wants like magic, from nowhere. Brilliant.
4) This episode severely tested my patience. Not sure why this one particularly, but it really did.

Back to the top

SEASON THREE, EPISODE FOURTEEN: EXPOSÉ

14 things you could do with 43 minutes: an Exposé
1) Run a 5k race, and then have a good few minutes left over to sit around feeling all smug about it.
2) Make cookies.
3) Phone your dad, and discuss all the points in your life that you feel your relationship might have been tested or improved, and resolve any outstanding issues you have had. By the end of 43 minutes, you will have erased any daddy issues you may previously have harboured, and any future desert island experience will be a mercifully peaceful experience.
4) Indulge in a nice relaxing bubble bath.
5) Write a poem about toenails
6) Consider the attraction of devilled eggs.
7) Have sex, like, five or six times.
8) Try (and fail) to draw a better cow than this.

9) Shave your legs. Shave someone else’s legs. Shave a kiwi. Shave your cats. Shave your legs again. Wow, you have fast-growing body hair.
10) Write the word HAM approximately 1500 times.
11) Think of thirty new insults regarding the relative sexual promiscuity of someone’s mother, and text them all to the same person.
12) Nap
13) Knit.
14) Discover that New Person (Male) and New Person (Female) had names (Nikki and Paulo), back stories (con artists and diamond theives), and that the Lost fan community hated them so much the creators just decided to kill them off quickly and easily (WOO! Fan power!) and then spend a whole 43 minutes of your life watching an episode about them, which, while it was interesting to see the writers testing out a technique of following B-Characters through the scenes we’ve known and loved from the A-Character point of view. Curse the writer that made you spend almost an hour that way. Curse them to hell.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) How good so many of the other episodes are. In contrast.
2) Sun knows about it being Charlie and Sawyer who pretended to be others and attacked her. She wasn’t happy.
3) In terms of karma points, burying two people alive is not great for the Lost Family Lostinson, even if it was by mistake.

Back to the top

SEASON THREE, EPISODE FIFTEEN: LEFT BEHIND

What happens in this episode
Still locked up in the recreation room of Otherville Suburbia and Holiday Camp, Kate is visited by John Locke who says that ‘they’ are going and he is going with them. He’s clearly referring to the others, who are now his bestest mates in the whole world. As Kate watches out of the window, they’re all packing up to go, and in a bit of a hurry at that. But that’s all she sees, as a smoke canister is thrown through the window and knocks her out.

She comes to in a jungle clearing, handcuffed to Juliet. They make their way back to the ‘Burbs. On the way, they almost get attacked by the smoke monster, but discover that it doesn’t like the pylon fence. In stopping it, however, Juliet reveals she had a key for the handcuffs all along. She just wanted to stay cuffed in the hope that that could be friends – or rather, in the hope that she might not be left behind (again)

She also tells Kate that Jack saw she and Sawyer biffing on CCTV

They get to the ‘Burbs, find Jack and Sayid and head back to the beach. Sayid is not happy about bringing Juliet. Not happy at all. He pulls his not-happy face. It is like someone at the point of realising they have just sat down on a plate of devilled eggs in their favourite white hotpants.

It is not a happy look.

At the Lost Family Beach Resort and Hotel
Hurley plays a clever trick on Sawyer, telling him that they’re going to be taking a vote on whether he should be banished from the village for being a big douchey douche-face, and that he should do nice things for everyone for a couple of days to see if he can sway the vote.

There is no vote, of course – just Hurley testing out whether Sawyer is suitable for a temporary leader of camp, since all the other big boys are out of town.

flashbacks
Kate, at some point, met Sawyer’s one true love (and mother of his baby) and they joined forces for some time.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1)The smoke monster is scared of that noise.
2) They also had considerably more money for CGI by this point.

Back to the top

SEASON THREE, EPISODE SIXTEEN: ONE OF US

What happens in this episode
Sayid, Jack and Kate take Juliet Other back to the camp. Or, since she has apparently been deserted by the other Others, Juliet NotOther.

Sayid tries to question her a couple of times on the way, and at the beach, people are wary about having her there. But suddenly Claire is sick – and Juliet says she knows how to fix her! Claire had been secretly getting an antidote thing that Juliet had been developing to stop every pregnant woman on the island from dying (um, hello? Sun? Wah!) and the antidote seems to have run out, so she can run and get more.

She runs into the forest to find where it was hidden when Ethan was secretly administering the antidote… and is confronted by Sawyer and Sayid, or get short shrift for acting like the moral police when they’re two of the most murdery, torture-lovin’ fools on the beach.

They let her through: she tends to Claire, Claire gets better, and the Lost Family Lostinson give her things to make a tent. Well, THAT was easy.

flashbacks
Juliet was brought to the island to deal with one particular problem: no pregnancy on the island can survive. The foetus rebels against the mother’s body, and both die. Juliet is sorting this out. We see her trying and trying to fix this, and failing.

And the last flashback is to only a couple of days before: Juliet being briefed by Ben-Henry-Darth. Curses! It all turns out to be one of Ben-Henry-Darth Other’s plans. They made it so Claire would get sick at that point. They hid the medicine. They faked Juliet being gassed. It’s all a bloody plan! And whatever they’re planning , it’s going to all go down in a week. “See you in a week were Ben’s departing words.

She IS Juliet Other!

OH MY GOD IT’S SUDDENLY GOT GOOD AGAIN!

Thank heavens for that, I was preparing to throw my computer out of the window after that Expose insanity.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1)The concepts of ‘Us’ and ‘them’ are shifting, from being about ‘others’ and ‘losts’ to being about people who want to leave the island and people who want to stay.
2) One of the things I simply love about this can be summed up in a little exchange between Hurley and Juliet:
H: “I didn’t see you at the dock. When you all put bags over our heads. After electrocuting us.”
J: “It was my day off.”
3) As well as all the information the Others COULD have about everyone, they also know things that people couldn’t possibly know. Like the thing about Sawyer shooting a man in cold blood the day before. There were no witnesses, it’s not something he’s told anyone – how does she know?!

Back to the top

SEASON THREE, EPISODE SEVENTEEN: CATCH-22

What happens in this episode
Desmond sees the future. This we’ve known for yonks. Mainly, Desmond sees future things involving Charlie kicking the bucket.

This time, however, it is about a helicopter coming to the island and a female pilot – who Desmond believes to be his long lost love, Penny – falling out of it, into the forest. Oh, AND about Charlie kicking the bucket on the way.

Long story short (because talking about egg mayonnaise during the last episodes inevitably led to me wandering in and out of the kitchen during this one): Charlie didn’t die (though Desmond pointed out he can’t KEEP saving him forever) and the parachutist came down, but she wasn’t Penny, the love of Desmond’s life. It was some random other bird.

Oh, and Kate and Sawyer had sex. Again. Though it seemed to be mainly because Kate was jealous of Jack and Juliet, and their Love Connection. I’m now singing my Love Connection song. Trust me, this is better than the other songs that I’ve been making up for most of the day as my brain starts slowly dribbling out of my ears, the “Are you a ninja, or are you a balloon?” song, and the “I am a taco truck” song. I may perform one or both for you later if you’re really, REALLY unlucky.

flashbacks
Desmond went to a monastery instead of breaking up with a girl; Desmond got chucked out of the monastary; Desmond met Penny.

He went to a monastery … in Scotland? A winemaking monastery. In Scotland. Bathed in sunshine and rolling Tuscan scenery. In Scotland. Look, I realise this is fantasy sci-fi adventure but that’s just ridiculous. Surely someone in the cast or crew had BEEN to Scotland (cough Desmond cough)

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) Desmond once broke up with someone by running away to a monastery. I know this isn’t going to sound likely, but I once did Exactly the same thing.
True fact.

Back to the top

SEASON THREE, EPISODE EIGHTEEN: D.O.C

What happens in this episode
On the beach:
Kate tells Sun that Juliet said bad things happen to pregnant mothers. So Sun demands to hear about this: and Juliet takes her to the hospital hatch to do a scan.

Women cannot have babies on the island, traditionally. If they concieve off the island, they can be ok, but if they conceive on the island the mother dies by her second trimester. Thing is, Jin was sterile off the island, but she also had sex with that shiny bald English Teacher of hers.

So they do the scan. Sun is pleased because the baby is Jin’s (although, of course, that also means she’s going to die), but she’s very pleased. Not that that cancels out the fact that it COULD have been Lex Luthor’s of course. And that, let’s face it, her tummy is probably still lined with Lex Luthor’s man-custard and that the baby will probably come out with it all over its head. Yes, that is how it works.

In the jungle
The men in the jungle, Desmond, Jin, Hurley and Charlie-boy are battling to save the honey from the helicopter. Luckily, a handy Other turns up to help: weirdly, however, it’s Mikail – you remember, the one we thought died in the pylon fence? Yeah, turned out that it WAS a reaction to sherbert and fizzy pop after all.

He uncollapses her lung, and then tries to run off with the satellite phone that she has on her. They get the phone back, but, with Desmond telling the group that, really, they have done worse things to the Others than the Others have done to them, they let him go.

But that’s not the important thing. The important thing is this. The Helicopter Honey, who used to be in las Vegas which was a VERY bad show, suddenly starts talking to Hurley while the others are making a stretcher.

On hearing that Hurley is Hurley, and how he got there…
“They found flight 815. There were no survivors. They were all dead”

Oh cock OFF.
WHAT!?

flashbacks
Sun and Jin … boy from the wrong side of the tracks … yadda yadda yadda.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) The average male sperm count is between 50 and 80 million. On the island, it’s five times that. That’s what Juliet said. And certainly explains why the men on the island have testicles the size and weight of ripe watermelons.

Back to the top

SEASON THREE, EPISODE NINETEEN: THE BRIG

“They found Oceanic flight 815 four miles down in an ocean trench off Fiji” – Some cockmonkey on the telly that has sent me over the edge. Officially.

What happens in this episode

We finally Find John Locke, again. He’s at the Other camp, being mentally tortured by Ben, who thinks that Locke will never be truly great until he kills his father. And to help with that, he’s tied up Locke’s father to a post in the middle of the Other camp. In the middle of the night he wakes him up, thrusts a knife at him and says it is time. It is time for him to kill his father.

He doesn’t kill his father, of course. And Ben mocks him in front of all the crowd of others, who have gathered to watch. Ah, so peaceful and kind, the Others, aren’t they, My dear Ben-Henry-Darth Other?

A man comes to Locke on the hill and tries to explain that Ben just wants to degrade people’s inflated opinion of John Locke. And taht if he cannot kill his father, he knows someone who will.

“But why would Sawyer kill my father?” says Locke.

OOOOH! BAGSY I KNOW WHY!!!!!1!

Yes, John Locke’s bastard dad is the same bastard badman who killed Sawyer’s family/childhood/ability to love.

So Locke goes to fetch Sawyer, tells him that he’s been an undercover other for the last few days, and that he has to come with him to kill Ben. It’s not Ben who he wants him to kill, of course – it is Cooper/Sawyer/Twatface, who he’s locked up in the brig of the Black Rock.

Sawyer works this out, quickly, and forces that bloke to read the letter. Perhaps because the letter is quite so long, Cooper only reads some of the letter before tearing it up and mocking Sawyer. He should have stuck with a shorter, simpler, “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”

And then he strangles him with chains.

On the beach
Sayid is brought in to check out the Helicopter Honey – Naomi, apparently – and look at the gadgetry she has with her.

The conversation in my living room goes like this:
Me: “OH! OH MY GOD It’s a … what is that?”
My friend Tom, who has come round to share the pain: “It’s a vibrator”
Me: “Is it? Why does it have a screen? Is it so you can have a picture of a penis on it?”
Tom: “Yes, or anything you like, a penis, a sausage, a unicorn horn. So as to make the experience more authentic.”

You heard it here first. Pictures to follow. Maybe.

Anyway. They can’t tell Jack about it because, Desmond says they shouldn’t trust Jack, because he’s spending all that time with the Others, and they should never trust the Others. Which is funny, because in just the last episode he was advocating the precise opposite. There ois no consistency in this season whatsoever, is there? It’s like a gigantic game of pong with multiple balls. Not only physically, running about the island. But also characterwise. It’s quite annoying, I won’t deny it.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) Apparently there ARE ways of working through your Daddy issues. They’re just a little more brutal and, you know, illegal than I was expecting.
2) The plane is apparently found, the people all dead, etc etc.
3) There is a new character who wants to topple Ben. His name is Richard, and he wears a lot of eyeliner.
4) Ben is very threatened by Locke.
5) Locke still has that scar on his eye from the crash. The amount of beatings and tumbles and explosions – why does that one stick?

Back to the top

SEASON THREE, EPISODE TWENTY: THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN

What happens in this episode
Seeing Locke returning to the Other caravan with his dead dad slung over his back in a sack, Ben is clearly rattled. He tells Locke about Jacob, who is the big boss. Locke demands to see him. Ben grudgingly agrees to go.

Ben leads him into a cottage, with a woodburning stove and other rustic accoutrements. And there he introduces him to a chair. OH MY GOD, JACOB IS A CHAIR. No, hang on, wait: Apparently, Jacob is IN the chair, says Ben.

Locke accuses him as being completely and utterly hatstand, and, just when he turns to go, hears a voice saying “HEEEEEEEEEELP ME”

And then there are things flying across the room, and things exploding and things setting on fire and a terrifying flash of face which will be the thing that replaces “Bob at the end of the bed” as my staple nightmare image of choice.

And then they leave. And Ben is cross. In his quietly sociopathic way, in his ‘not showing a single emotion’ kind of way, he is VERY angry. You can just sense it.

He wants to show Locke something. He shows him the mass grave where the Dharmas are flung, and then shoots him, and flings him in it. And why? Because Jacob spoke to Locke, and Ben-Henry-Darth couldn’t hear it. It may be the Emperor Palpatine to his Vader, but it seems he likes Locke more. Which makes Locke. Um. Luke? Yes. Luke. And all the Lost Family Lostinsons are those teddybear things then, aren’t they. Brilliant!

flashbacks
It is Ben’s turn for a flashback! We get to learn important things about Ben. And I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking: Primarily, you’re wanting to ask “Anna? DOES Ben have daddy issues? Please tell me he does?” I can tell you yes. Yes he does. When he was born, in a forest somewhere outside Portland, his mother died in the process. Every year on his birthday growing up – including the one when he’d only just arrived on the island, aged about ten – his father told him he’d killed his mother.

As he was growing up he met, one day in the forest, an Other. Richard Other, to be precise, looking exactly the same age as he did when we saw him in the last episode. Ah, that Mediterranean Skin. It’s a blessing.

Anyway. He manages to get in with those guys, and then, when the purge comes, and the Dharma initiative are all killed all at once, Ben watches his daddy die. And you rarely get bigger daddy issues than THAT motherbear!

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) It was Ben’s dad who was driving the beer van – the one that Hurley and chums appropriated in the Last of the Summer Wine episode.
2) Ben has something against Bunnies. He uses them whenever he wants to demonstrate the relative danger of something (or test it) he’ll potentially kill a bunny.
3) I’m determined to push through this whole season and into the next within today – but I really am losing my mind, here. I mean, I’m now, at least, enjoying it again. BUT I’m ALSO going a bit nuts. I’m just saying.

Back to the top

SEASON THREE, EPISODE TWENTY-ONE: GREATEST HITS

What happens in this episode
Charlie is told by Doomy Desmond Downer that he’s had another vision, and it’s one that doesn’t look good for him, and his future “being alive” prospects. The thing is this:

Naomi, the Hottie from the Helichopper, says that her ship is about 20 miles off shore. Sajid suggests that they should go to the radio mast to cut off The Frog of Doom’s repeating message, then use the frequency for a distress call.

Juliet says that that won’t work anyway, because the signal is already blocked by a station called the Looking Glass.

In Desmond’s vision, Claire and Aaron got saved, but Charlie died. And one can’t happen without the other, he explains to Charlie.

So Charlie chooses. And spends the rest of the episode thinking about the greatst moments of his life, which include meeting Claire. What a poppet.

In other news
So: at the end of the last episode Juliet and Jack explained to the Losts that Juliet, a spy, was meant to be marking the tents of the most pregnant members of the Lost Family Loistinson, and the Others would be coming to take them away.

But Karl – Alex’s boyfriend, remember? – arrives on the beach saying that the Others are coming a night early. So the plan – which is going to involve a lot of bombs and shooting and boom-boom sticks from the Black Rock going KABLOOEY! must start now, a day sooner than they otherwise might have imagined.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) Juliet seems to have turned, completely from the Other side.
2) I think Charlie might have saved Sayid’s beloved childhood friend from getting mugged in London, once.
3) Now I want to get to the last episode of the season …

Back to the top

SEASON THREE, EPISODE TWENTY THREE/TWENTY FOUR:

What happens in this episode
So – it’s the culmination of all of that running around the island, all of that toing-and-froing and manipulating and bluffs and undercover Others and undercover Lostinsons and all of that giant game of Pong? It’s the culmination of that.

So: the Lost family set off up to the radio mast, where they hope to shut off The Frog of Doom’s message, and, once Charlie has done his job in the underwater signal-blocking station (and died), use the phone brought by Naomi, the hottie from the helichopper, to contact the people on her boat, presumed to be sent by Penny, Desmond’s love, to find him.

Down at the camp; Jin, Sayid and Bernard, of all people, have been left to ambush the Others who come to take the pregnant women of the camp. They kill seven of them, and then get taken hostage by the remaining three. There’s some bluffing and backing and forwarding, but at the end of it all, Sawyer and Juliet come in shooting, Hurley turns up in Ben’s dad’s V-dub camper. They kill the rest of the Others – Sayid kills one with his ankles, people. WORD – and have a beer. Because there are beards in the van. Obvs.

Charlie and Desmond Downer have some kerfuffles and shenannigans in the underwater radio blocking substation, due to the two young feisty ladies that they find there.

The one-eyed man that just won’t die – Mikail – turns up down there to try and stop them, and Desmond shoots him with a harpoon, after he shoots the two feisty young women (with a gun) so they can’t tell Charlie the code. But once Mikail is ‘pooned, one of the lasses managed to squeeze out the information: it’s a musical code. The Beach Boys Good Vibrations.

Once he’s input the code, and while Desmond Downer is getting some diving stuff together, Penny appears on the screen – she’s over excited to find out Desmond’s still alive, and then says it’s not her boat. she’s never even heard of the boat. Suddenly, before she can explain more, Charlie notices Mikail is outside the radio room window with a grenade. Charlie slams the door (to save Desmond? Somehow?) and Mikail pulls the pin, squeezes the grenade and KABLOOEY. And god knows he’ll probably survive that too. And Jack manages to tell Desmond Downer that it’s not Penny’s boat before he dies a wet death, the dear boy.

On the top of the mountain, they turn off the radio mast, and suddenly, can get a signal, and Naomi’s putting in a call to the ship … cut short when Locke puts a knife in her back.

What’s that? I didn’t mention that Locke managed to undead himself? Yes! So he was in a mass grave with a lorry load of dead dharmas, and, coming to with a bullet in his gullet and two lumpen legs, grabbed a nearby gun and was about to suck the nozzle till it petit-morted all up in his brain, when suddenly, Walt appeared at the lip of the lake of old corpses and told him not to do that, and that he had work to do.

SO.

He’s come up to the radio mast, killed the heliflopper honey with a dagger in the midsection, and is begging Jack not to call for help because it’s not what’s meant to happen. Ben-Hanry-Darth Other is saying the same, with a little more “I am your father, Jack!” and Kate’s all “You’re my only hope” and … no, that’s not true.

But Jack calls for help.
And he speaks to a man. And the man says he’s coming.
Whether he should or not. He does.

flashbacks
Jack is as we have never seen him before. He’s depressed, and seemingly suicidal and volatile. And more than any of that: he’s got a beard.

Really. A beard. A big one. A big Beardy beard beard, like a Russian peasant in from 1820s. A Russian peasant who has been drinking vodka for a straight week and no money for expensive things like razors – only saved enough money for a big fake beard. That kind of beard.

After being on a plane, seeing a piece of news in a newspaper, Jack, clearly drinking heavily, gets a bit suicidal and goes to jump off a bridge, causing a crash. He’s taking oxycodone, he doesn’t seem fit to operate, and basically has not much going for him. He turns up at this funeral home alone, from the thing in the newspaper, there’s no one there to grieve, and he leaves.

And then just when you wonder how this fits into the timeline, he’s sitting on the floor of his flat looking at maps of the Pacific, and charts and things, and …

And then he meets up with Kate.
And they talk about how they shouldn’t have left the island.
And they’re not in the past.
They’re in the future.

Oh.

Guess I’m going to have to change that heading.
And get something to plug my ears, because I don’t want my top to get stained by brain-dribble.

Things I know. Now. Having watched this episode
1) I just got so confused I actually burst into tears.
2) They do get off the island.
3) Ben-Henry-Darth Other is likely to be deposed as leader of the Others, since he’s been exposed as a liar and a manipulatey person. And weak. And also scared of Locke.
4) After a really shaky start to season three – one which pissed me right off, I won’t deny it – this is good. This is interesting.

Things I do not know having watched this episode
1) Why Charlie couldn’t let the water flood into the rest of the Looking Glass station?
2) Who Kate is with in the future?
3) Who was the funeral for that Jack went to?
4) If the boat that’s docked nearby isn’t anything to do with Penny, who are these people? What do they want?
5) Why did Jack try to kill himself?
6) What’s going on?
7) How far into the future is this?
8) What’s up with that Richard Other who never seems to age?
9) How far is this in the future?
10) Where is Walt? Was that Walt? A ghost of Walt? Why did he look so much older? Is it from the future or … no, let’s face it, it’s just a continuity issue when you’ve got a kid in something, isn’t it?
11) Who is this Jacob?
12) Why can Locke hear Jacob but Ben-Henry-Darth Other can’t?
13) And about ELEVENTY BILLION OTHER QUESTIONS. Ouch. Ouch, my head.

Back to the top