WHY?!? | SEASON ONE | SEASON TWO | SEASON THREE | SEASON FOUR

Right – here we go. Only one more season to go before the season six opener tuesday night, huzzah. Again, I’ll be writing up the episodes as I go along, possibly ranging from very brief notes and thoughts, to longer bits. And pictures if I’ve time, hopefully.

Oh, and I warn you -I’m knackered. So while I’m really enjoying The Losts, these are bound to be a little more perfeunctory than earlier in the week when I was feeling a bit skippier about all this whole ‘five seasons in a week’ goal.

SEASON FIVE
episode one | episode two | episode three | episode four | episode five | episode six | episode seven | episode eight | episode nine | a note | episode ten | episode eleven | episode twelve | episode thirteen | episode fourteen | episode fifteen | episode finale (ish)

So. Onward.

SEASON ONE | SEASON TWO | SEASON THREE | SEASON FOUR

SEASON FIVE, EPISODE ONE: ONE

On the Island, somewhen
As I’m pretty sure that the more I talk about this, the more confused I’m going to get, so bear with me now but you know how Desmond was moving about in time?

Well, now the Island’s doing it; apparently. Or the Lostinson-Scientists are (as the new extended family are known) ON the island, or maybe both the Island and the Lostinson-Scientists are, and they keep meeting in the middle.

Sawyer Lostinson, Juliet Other, Daniel Scientist, Charlotte Scientist, Miles The Grumpy Psychic and Rose and Bernard, among others, are still on the island. WHEN they’re on the Island Island, though, is a different matter. It would appear that they’ve not moved physically in location (although I’m not promising anything), but they have moved backward in time, to some time long before they arrived there.

They spend the rest of the episode skipping merrily back and forth in time sometimes appearing by something they recognise – like the deep pit where the Button Hole once was, and then, with a shimmer and a *POP*, they’re next to the hatch to the button hole itself.

And at this point, Daniel Scientist – who is not as pleasantly chaotically-minded as once he was – figures out that Charlotte, whose pretty little nose has just started bleeding, is displaying the early signs of time-travel fatigue that will one day explode her brain, and that there is only one way to fix her. He bangs on the Hatch side door until Desmond appears. Desmond doesn’t know him, of course, but is told that, one day, once he’s off the island, he has to go back to Oxford University, where he first found Daniel and there find his mother, who will help.

X amount of time in the future, Desmond wakes up on a boat with Penny, and remembers he has to go to Oxford.

Yeah, I think I might just draw pictures of bunnies for most of the day today.

Locke is elsewhere on the island, seperated from the others, and the Others (of whom he is now the king, although, since that technically isn’t going to be the case for several decades, he might have a bit of a problem convincing them of that).

One person he doesn’t have to convoince, however? Richard the Immortal Other, who comes to Locke, injured on the ground, and tells him there is only one thing that can save them all, and save the island: Locke has to bring all the people that just left back to the island. And to do that, he has to die.

Oh great, well that explains everything.

In the world, somewhere
Ben, having revealed that Jeremy Bentham, the dead guy in the casket, the one that wanted everyone to return to the island who left it is, after all that, a big dead Locke, he goes about talking about how to get the gang back together. Because since they left, bad, BAD things have been happening on the island. And the only way these bad things can stop, is if the 815 Six return.

Jack is still currently long on beard and short on sobriety. Still, once Ben has convinced, him, he has a shave and *PAF*. He is all better.

Meanwhile, someone appears to have tried to order a maternity test for Kate and Aaron, and Sayid has broken Hurley out of his mental institution.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) Locke has to die to get everyone back to the island. I’m honestly not sure that’s what’ll do it, but fair enough.
2) There is NO WAY I can even vaguely attempt to keep these recaps detailed for this season. I’m going to give up. Now – being detailed, I mean. Not the recaps.
3) Richard seems to travel through time in a structured, intentional way – if he can be places to give messages at just the right time etc. So maybe it isn’t that he never gets older, but that he’s always there.
4) About 59 other points of “What?”

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SEASON FIVE, EPISODE TWO: THE LIE

On the Island, somewhen
Frogurt, Frogurt, Frogurt. After four seasons of merely having the best moniker in all of Christendom, Frogurt finally had his moment … of losing his temper with the lot of them, trying to convince the remaining Lostinson-Scientists that making a fire is futile, before dying of a flaming arrow to the chest.

GO FROGURT! “GO” IN THE SENSE OF “R.I.P”!

To be fair, he’s got a very good point. Now that they’re going back and forth through time like a packet of biscuits through a bulemic, lighting a fire is the potential equivalent of leaving the house and suddenly remembering you’ve left the iron on.

The rest of the episode, after Frogurt and some other longstanding Lostinsons die a flaming death, is spent running about on the island, away from an unknown enemy – a group of men in unidentifiable military uniforms, who seem to be quite cross indeed. To the point, in fact, that they’re about to cut off Juliet’s hands in order to illicit information (boys, boys, if you want to know her ring size just ask)

Has there ever been a pooint when the island was a pleasant, happy, non-killy place to live? Doesn’t is seem a little bit like fighting over it is a bit like trying to determine the ownership of a really smelly dog that barks all night and poos in your shoes?

Wouldn’t you, after a while, just be, like No, seriously, YOU guys have it.

In the world, somewhere
Sayid may hve come to save Hurley, but after a guy suddenly needs making dead at their safe house and Sayid gets shot with two poisoned darts, Hurley must save Sayid.

So he takes Sayid round to his parents’ house. His dad’s a bit confused by it all, his mum listens long and hard to Hurley’s version of life on the island – not wanting to lie anymore.

Of course, it is a jumble of boars, Others, ghosts, hatches, buttons, magnets and smoke monsters, and makes no sense whatsoever. Still, it’s a pretty fair reflection of the inside of my head right now, so I am grateful to hear it all laid out out loud. It makes me feel better. And less mad.

She doesn’t understand him, of course: and she doesn’t follow a minute of it, but she believes him. And that’s the important thing.

In other news, Sun happens to be in town and Kate, on the run with Aaron to avoid this maternity test thing, visits with her. Sun forgives Kate for making the decision to leave Jin on the boat. Kind of. Oh, and Ben has to get them back to the island within 70 hours. Or … Um… Jacob will turn into a carrot pie.

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SEASON FIVE, EPISODE THREE: JUGHEAD

On the Island, somewhen
Charlotte Scientist is having nosebleeds, and as if that didn’t seem health concern enough, there’s also a hydrogen bomb on the island.

It’s 1954, apparently, and, while Daniel Scientist is off working out how to best diffuse the hydrogen bomb – and any show where this counts as a tangental plot point is clearly deeply, deeply special – Locke strides staight into the Other Camp and demands to speak to Richard.

While Richard – who doesn’t appear to be very time travelly yet – is understandably confused by Locke’s confidence, the magic words “Jacob Sent Me” are enough to ensure he gets listened to.

He explains that he is their leader, sometime in the future, and explains to Richard that he will be born in California two years from now. Richard looks unsure, so Locke suggests that maybe Rick should just go and check for himself, and if that’s not enough to convince him, there’s a department store in his hometown with a VERY good make-up counter. Richard looks happier about this.

So wait: doesn’t this count as Locke, essentially, making HIMSELF the leader?

The VERY VERY important thing that we learnt, however, was that in 1954, Charles Widmore, father of Penny, seeker of Ben, driving force behind all this, and Jim Robinson from Neighbours, was an Other.

Well THAT’S a turn up for the books.

He was an Other in 1954, and just smug and angry and pompous then as he is now. Except back then he was actually British. And not a British Businessman slowly becoming Australian in his advancing years.

In the world, somewhere
Ben is still trying to get the A Team back together again. Kate is worrying about who is trying to take Aaron away from her.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) Well, it’s a weird thing, really, I didn’t learn it DURING this, but suddenly had a memory – from out of nowhere, of my third birthday party, and someone arriving that looked just like me, but in a really big beard, and telling me something, I’m just damned if I can remember what it is. Something about not forgetting to mention the Smoke monster in episode five of season something something something. Then they gave me a kiss on the head, and mumbled something about how if I was every going to embark on a marathon series catch up, I could try and remember to do it more than a week before the new season started, for the love of Pete… smacked me round the ear and vanished. Weird.

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SEASON FIVE, EPISODE FOUR: THE LITTLE PRINCE

On the Island, somewhen
Oh, lots of bloody noses now, though mainly the sticky stuff is dribbling out of the schnozz of Charlotte, who seems to be being affected worse by all this almanac-flapping than everyone else, though why, we have no idea.

Daniel loves her, by the way – he said so suring the hydrogen bomb diffusion episode, but I got all distracted by, you know, hydrogen bombs.

I’m having to catch up, though, so no time to dwell on those things, and not on the survivors who are just time-flipping all over the historical island, but not in a way that works very well in recap

SHAZAM! They’re in a bush! SHAZAM! They’re in the same bush but it’s smaller and younger, like a bushling! SHAZAM! They’re in the same bush but it’s burned down to the ground, because some damned FOOL left the iron on. SHAZAM!

In the world, somewhere
The A-Team are coming back together, albeit slowly.

Kate thinks she’s found the person who might be trying to get Aaron off her – that it’s Claire’s mother, which at least makes sense … but Jack (who spoke to her at the funeral and discovered Claire was his sister, by the by) speaks to her and discovers that, no, she’s just here to collect her Oceanic settlement after all.

Hurley’s managed to get himself arrested, but Ben’s lawyer – who happens to be the man that tried to serve the maternity test writ on Kate – seems confident that he can get him out by the next morning.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) Jin is still alive. Still alive, having been blown into the sea,
2) This constant leaping about thing is alright to watch, but absolutely no fun to recap whatsoever. They should stop it.

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SEASON FIVE, EPISODE FIVE: THIS PLACE IS DEATH

On the Island, somewhen
Charlotte, who claims to have been brought up on the island as part of the Dharma collective, nosebleeds to death All Over The Floor.

Which is a shame. She was sparky and clever and funny and not, like so many other women in this, somewht damsel-in-distressy and desperately in need of saving from her daddy issues. In fact, she seemed to be remarkably short of daddy issues. Maybe that’s why she had to go: someone figured out she was in the wrong show. I am sad about this.

Regardless, she does die imparting some decidedly crucial information: that when she was a child a scary man told her that if she left the island, she must never return because (he said ) “this place is death”. And that man was Daniel Scientist. The man who loves her, madly. I really hope he doesn’t turn out to be her dad.

Anyway PAF! goes the time-scrunchie, and all the Lostinson-Scientists – including Jin, who was hanging out with the young Frog of Doom and all her scientist mates in 1988 before the sky went spangly and he found his way back to his mates again – are on their way to the Orchid, where Locke is going to try and get off the island to bring the others back. PEYOOOOOO! goes the island, as they arrive at the Orchid and Jin tries to tell Locke not to bring back Sun, as Charlotte has impressed upon him the idea that this will kill her. SHHW-PING! goes the island as Locke climbs down the well where the Orchid should/was/will be to find the magic cave.

And find it he does, of course. And there finds Dr Jacksdad as well, who chastises him. “I told YOU to move the island, John.”
“Ben said he knew how to do it, and I had to stay here and lead the Other”
“And when has listening to him done anything worth a damn?” asks Jacksdad, correctly.

The man’s got a point. And, as Locke turn, turn, turns the wheel of Island…

In the world, somewhere
Everyone is listening to Ben. Sun, who would very much like to shoot him in the face with a gun, has been convinced that she shouldn’t because Jin is still alive somewhere. And though Hurley is in prison and the Kate and Aaron question is still unanswered (why did Ben organise the maternity test thing? As a way of scaring Kate into wanting to leave civilisation once more? Then what was with the appearance of Claire telling her she mustn’t ever, ever bring Aaron back to the island? Oh MAN this is confusing me) he doesn’t quite have all the Oceanic Six.

But he takes them to see a woman in a church, who will help them to return to the island, and who happens to be Daniel’s mother. And we know that, because Desmond has just turned up to see her too. Because he’s trying to save the people in the fluctuating past from one angle, at the request of Daniel (in about 2003), and she and Ben are, apparently, trying to save them from the other angle at the request of Locke and Jacob in 2007, 1954, 1988, 2004, 2005, 1996, or, quite possibly several hundred years before that?

Hey! Remember those kinds of shows where someone with a funny moustache and a stupid accent wold go to a country house hotel for the weekend and then someone would get murdered, but in a relatively bloodless, clean fashion, and then the guy with the moustache would find out who did it and it would be someone quite obvious, like the illegitimate child who’d been pretending to be a scullery maid at the hotel, and for a really obvious and logical reason, like an inheritance? And then the man with the moustache would make a joke about having a silly accent and the credits would roll? Good times.
Good times.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) I am still considering the magical recovery of Jack. After a serious-looking painkiller and alcohol addiction, can rehabilitation be achieved by merely shaving off one’s beard? Is that how the whole thing works? Is addiction stored in the beard?
2) What’s with all this going down in a chuch. This isn’t going where I fear it to be going, is it?
3) It seems we might be reaching the end of all this annoying jumpy-jumpiness. We are, right? Because it’s a cock of a thing to make notes on.

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SEASON FIVE, EPISODE SIX: 316

In the world, somewhere
“I apologise if this is confusing, but…” starts Daniel’s mother, who is almost certainly speaking on behalf of the show’s creators, when starting to explain the secret room that has been set up at the back of this Los Angeles church, full of maps and charts and computers and a giant, swinging pendulum.

If the world were a bottle of shampoo, and Lost was a 100 hour long shampoo commercial – and considering the silken locks of some of the people concerned (Sayid, although Jin’s been catching up fast) then this lady is its Jennifer Aniston. Because here’s the science bit.

The island moves.
The Dharma Initiative managed to work out how to know where it *might* move to next. And … well, let’s leave it there. Electromagnetic something something something, to boot – but that’s enough. It moves, they can work out where, she knows how to get them back there: they just need to get on a flight tomorrow and recreate the conditions of 815 as best they can. And it involves getting on a plane to Guam. Flight 316.

Desmond gets cross, tells her what Daniel Scientist asked him to tell her, and she brushes it off, saying the island is not finished with him yet. Desmond gets crosser, saying that the island may not be finished with him, but he’s finished with the island. Which, you would imagine, with all his experience of the way these things work, might be a little hopeful.

Old Posh Anniston Danielsmother takes Jack into her back office (NB: not a euphemism) and informs Jack that in order to make the conditions of the crash as much like the last one, John Locke must have on him something of Dr Jacksdaddy on him.

Jack goes to see an old man in a retirement home … and comes out with a pair of his father’s shoes. Yes, there’s an older generation of Dr Jack: It’s Jacksgrandad. And you’d better believe that there’s going to be some VERY good reason for introducing him at this late stage of the game. I just have no idea what that reason might be.

Returning from seeing Dr Jacksgrandad, Jack finds Kate in his flat and, once she has told him never, ever to ask about where Aaron is ever again, they bonk, miserably.

In the morning, after recieving a call from a beaten up Ben, Jack takes his daddy’s shoes to Locke, and slips them on.

Then they all get on the plane. All five of the adult six; Ben – who Hurley isn’t very pleased to see – a marshall handcuffed to Sayid; a man with a moustache; and the crew. And who’s flying the plane? Why, it is The Dude. You know, the helichopper pilot Dude. And no one else is on the plane. Hurley bought all the seats.

So the plane takes off, and, somewhere in midair, starts shaking and…

On the Island, somewhen
Jack wake up, clutching the corner of Locke’s note. Kate, and Hurley (with a guitar case) are in the lagoon, nearby.

A van rumbles up, and a man comes out with the intention of shooting these trespassers … luckily, it’s Jin.
And he’s looking GROOVY.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) “Stop thinking how ridiculous it is, and start thinking whether or not you think it’s going to work. That’s why it’s called a leap of faith, Jack”, said Daniel’s mother, bringing us back to the Man of Science, Man of Faith them from four days ago. Sorry, I mean “The beginning of season two”.
2) Jack’s grandad is still alive.
3) Why does everyone call Claire freckles?
4) I understand he’s torured about it – I understand he’s conflicted, but I still don’t understand how many other impossible things Jack would have to see before breakfast before he started believing these things to be true.
5) Does this mean we stop jumping about erratically so I can start having fun and drawing pictures again, please? Yay!

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SEASON FIVE, EPISODE SEVEN: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JEREMY BENTHAM

On the Island, somewhen
The Marshall and the random moustachioed bloke from the plane who are, for some unknown reason, ransacking an office, announce – to … well, to one another – that they hav found a man standing in the water. In a suit. And that, of course, is John sodding Locke.

But HOW did he get here, I hear you ask?

Well, it’s funny you should ask that, because…

Eerie music, screen goes wibbly

In the world, somewhere
John Locke wakes up in Tunisia, which, unexpectedly, has been revealed as the portal from which the magic wheel-gate of the Orchid Station disgorges itself.

He’s picked up by some swarthy locals, who take him to the local hospital, and make him bite down on something and reset his broken legs. Then Charles Widmore arrives, and is nice to Locke, telling him all about the happy, peaceful years he spent as an Other. And that Ben tricked him into banishing himself, just as he did, he assumes, John Locke.

Locke half tells him this is not the case, and says he has to find all the others, and take him back … and Widmore lends him Matthew Abaddon – Cedric from the Wire, obvs, who wil be his driver and take him to find the people he wants to find.

Meanwhile, the speakers connected to the laptop I’m using to pump Hulu to my TV screen, have started picking up a local radio station. So I can hear ‘Islands In the Stream’, quietly, underneath the complex conversationalising.

Locke goes to all the Ocenaic Six, tells them they have to return – and everyone refuses. And his driver Matthew Abaddon gets shot. Even Jack, who is bearded (so obviously, therefore, in the throes of some addiction or other) doesn’t want to come back, EVEN when he hears the father that has been dead for 3 years isn’t dead after all. Weird.

The radio started playing “Celebrate Good Times (Come ON!)’ at this point. My soundtrack is a lot more fun than their sound track, I’ll give it that…

Eventually, John decides to kill himself. He strings some electrical flex to a rafter in a cheap hotel, writes a note to Jack and is just about to leap when Ben arrives, finds out what Locke’s plan is (find the people, return to the island via Daniel’s Mum) and once he finds out the information about Daniel’s Mum, kills Locke. With the flex. In the cheap motel.

OH GOD I’M REALLY CONFUSED. DOES ANYONE EVER GET ANY KIND OF SATISFACTION IN THIS BLOODY SHOW?!

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) Widmore says that he is good, that he led the Others peacefully, and that Ben banished him from the island.
2) Ben is still claiming that Widmore just was using Locke, and that his driver, Cedric from The Wire, was just going to kill Locke at some point anyway. So he killed him to save John. The fact he then kills John himself rather undermines this point. But never mind.

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SEASON FIVE, EPISODE EIGHT: LAFLEUR

On the Island, somewhen
It’s the story of Jin, Juliet, Sawyer, Daniel and Miles, and what happened to them after the last jump.

To be brief: they landed back in 1974, and got taken in by the Dharma Initiative after rescuing one of their members from a couple of Others.

And, through some clever story told by Sawyer, they got to stay. They joined the crazy science-hippies on the camp of doom, and Sawyer finally found a way to contribute as a useful member of society. By being in the seventies. Certainly, it’s not a path many of us could choose, but still: it works for him.

When the truce between the Others (or ‘Hostiles’) and the Dharma Initiative gets put in danger by Sawyer killing the two they happened across, he manages to explain it away to Richard by mentioning the things he knows from 1954 – the bomb, John Locke, and the fact he’ll return … and the things that he knows that will make Richard happy: like the arrival of Glam Rock and the subsequent new romantic movement of the late seventies and early eighties, which will help justify his liberal use of eyeliner forever.

And thus, they settle into a happy, post-nostalgic lifestyle.

It’s good, because with a show like Life on Mars, you had to be careful where you pointed the camera, because if you got a shot of the wrong building, or a brand name from the wrong era, your bubble was burst for good.

But with this one? Hell, just put Sawyer in a pair of really tasteless spectacles, and PING! it’s 1975. Or perhaps it’s season two. Could go either way. Right on!

So, Sawyer and Juliet are in the mid-seventies, in love, and in cahoots. Groovy!

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) There’s a baby born in 1977, and I feel sure he’s going to become wildly important later on. I just don’t know who he
2) Polyester – a terrible fabric for a hot, humid land.
3) First mention of the polar bears. They are, at least, in cages. And rose-tinted round glasses. And terrible, terribly stringy hair.

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SEASON FIVE, EPISODE NINE: NAMASTE

On the Island, 1977

YES! Yes let us ALL go and live in the seventies, where the polar bears are chilled and the and the jumpsuits are hot, and the only monster smoke is the kind that’ll be coming out of the end of your port Dharma-Day Doobie.

Let us go and frolic in the woods, if by frolic we mean ‘perform acts of equipment maintenance’ and ‘drive vans’.

And let ALL our friends come to play. Jack and Kate and Hurley – they have come to play in the mid-seventies, where they can dazzle with their knowledge of the secrets behind the lives of all the famous and influential people in the world. And all the words to songs that only came out last week.

They’re brought in as new recruits, janitors and mechanics for whatever it is that the Dharma DO.

And, in the process, Sawyer gets to prove that he’s a different kind of leader to Jack, who comes to him in the night (not in that way) and demands to know what they’re going to do, right now, to make STUFF HAPPEN.

And Sawyer just sits, reading his book. Because he’s thinking things through. Because that’s what he would have done as leader. None of this ‘running around in circles acting on impulse’ crap that Jack was so fond of.

Of course, it doesn’t always work so well – when one of the remaining Lostinsons is found, wandering around the forest near the Flame station, he’s locked up and distrusted as an Other and a spy. Of course, he’s Sayid and even though it’s Jin that finds him, he can’t save him from being locked up.

On Othertraz
Meanwhile, the rest of the crashed plane discovers where they are: on a small island by a big island, with some offices, and some cages. Ben, awake at this point, knows where this is: It’s Othertraz, and there are boats on the other side of the island.

Sun follows him to the boats, The Dude follows her, and, after she knocks out Ben-Henry-Darth Other, they take off on the boat toward Island Island. But when they get there, Dr Jacksdad comes out of a cottage to meet them, and reveals the unfortunate truth: they’re too late.

BY
THIRTY
YEARS

ffs.

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IMPORTANT NOTE UNRELATED TO MUCH ELSE…

There was the smoke monster! In 1988, the French people found it by the temple and that, they said, made them sick.
It was in episode five. So the Smoke Monster was totally known to be active in the mid-1980s.

And I forgot to mention it. I wish I could really should go back and change that! Because, you know, it’s going to come up sooner or later, I know it is, and it’s going to look terrible if I’ve forgotten to mention it.
If only.
If only there was a way.
I’ll sit here and consider it, and perhaps if I just put this fake beard on. It helps me think, after all.

SEASON FIVE, EPISODE TEN: HE’S OUR YOU

On the Island, 1977
When Sayid refuses to talk, he is taken into the woods by Horace, the leader of the Dharma Initiative on the island, and Radzinsky, an engineer and designer of the Swan Substation who fears Sayid has seen his Swan model, and wants to go and tell the big hostile Others about it.

There, he is introduced to Oldham, who is, Sawyer says “our you”. Does this mean – gasp, etc – that the torturer is about to be tortured?

Oldham reaches into his pocket and pulls out a vial, which he drops on Sayid’s tongue. And, you know, usually, in this situation, truth serum would be precisely the thing to give someone. In most situations, that would be enough: but in this one? Not the case. Because the truth sounds stupid.

“I know about the Swan. And the Flame. And the Orchid Station. I know, because I have been on this island before. For one hundred days. In twenty-seven years time. And you’re all going to have died, a long time before, some years from now. Also, smoke monter.”

Unsurprisingly, the truth serum is judged not to have worked, although they are shaken enough by the ‘YOU’RE ALL GOING TO DIE” suggestion – and by a nice, tearful speech by that mother Sawyer and the gang saved, and her son, Ethan (Ethan!) – to democratically vote that he should be executed.

GO TEAM HIPPY!
Free love, crazy science, and executions for all!

Before they can do that, Ben Linus, who has been taking Sayid sandwiches, breaks him out of the Dharma jail, and asks that he takes him to the Others.

Sayid, thinking of another, better plan, shoots him in the chest and runns oft.

Right. Well. Um. That works, I suppose.

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SEASON FIVE, EPISODE ELEVEN: WHATEVER HAPPENED, HAPPENED

On the Island, somewhen
Jin wakes up and finds the Kid-Ben on the floor, takes him to the Dharma Camp, where Juliet battles to save him. She calls for Jack, who refuses to help, even though he’s the only one with the skill to do so.

He says the island must want ben dead – and while it’s interesting that he’s finally jumping on the blind faith bandwagon, it’s certainly a hypocratically hypocrical time to choose to do so.

When Juliet can’t do any more, she suggests the only thing she knows will work: taking the little bundle of not-yet-evil to the Others is the only way to fix him.

she dispatches Kate with the kid, and Sawyer follows to help wrangle Richard.

And wrangle he does.
Richard, who now trusts Sawyer thanks to the Locke revelations and Hydrogen bomb things from before, takes Ben off their hands, warns them it will change him, take away his innocence and leave him not remembering any of it (which at least answers some of the tim travel anomolies that Hurley and Miles were pointing out this episode. God, I love those boys) and they agree that that’s a bit sucky, but it’ll have to do. Yes, those exact words.

One of the Others warns Richard that Charles (Widmore) and Ellie (DanielScientist’s Mum) will be cross, and Richard says he doesn’t answer to either of them.

And then he takes him to be healed by the Smoke Monster. Yes.

The smoke monster, as active in the 1970s as he ever was in the … whatever the hell decade we were in last week. Or earlier today. Or the previous season. Oh god I think my brain just farted.

In the world, somewhere in 2007
Kate makes friends with Sawyer’s ex, and helps provide for his daughter Clementine, as he requested she should.
And thus does she come to the conclusion that she only really wanted to hang on to Aaron because after 100 days of flipping and flopping – physically, and often nakedly – between the rugged blond bad boy and the square-jawed hero-doctor, Sawyer broke her heart. And THAT is why she was wanting to care for Aaron.

And once she has realised this – like so many theraputic breakthroughs – she can let go. Of that pain … and of Aaron. She hands him off to Claire’s dubiously-Australian mother, and heads off to the island. And, you know, to Sawyer.

Way to let go of the past, Freckles. “Freckles” indeed. Whether they’re covered in make up or only available in HD, I’ve no idea, but Freckless is much more like it.

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SEASON FIVE, EPISODE TWELVE: DEAD IS DEAD

It’s been almost a straight week of watching these. And this is, to all extents and purposes, the 99th episode I’ve seen. And I’m really glad I’ve been doing it – although I’m quite tired at this point, and frustrated with not having enough time to write these through, and with as many diversions and fun as I was hoping to. And tiredness means that while I’m watching them all assiduously, my fingers are getting a bit weary for typing through them all, so I’m kinda behind. I may come back and clear them up later on. OR just write it off to ‘at least I’m up to date now’ and prepare to make the season six individual posts aces. Yes. Anyway, so, I’ll just zip through these so I can enjoy season six beginning tonight…

On the Island, somewhen
For once not in the 1970s at all, we get to see the moment that Ben met – well, techincally stole – his daughter Alex from The Young Frog of Doom, and telling her to keep away from the whispers. And we learn that, actually, he was supposed to kill her, to kill them both. On orders from Charles Widmore, who is angry that he hasn’t carried them out.

Sometime later, we see Charles Widmore being led off the island in ropes, banished for good. They have a brief conversaition in which Charles Widmore insists that “The Island wants Alex dead” and Ben disagrees, saying it was Charles who wanted her dead. And they say that one of them will be proved right in the end (though strictly, if Charles SENDS someone to make her dead, does that count?).

And in the time just before the Oceanic Six came back to the Island, when Ben got the beats? It was because he’d gone to see Penny, while on the phone to Charles Widmore, and told him that he was about to kill Charles’ daughter, just like Charles has killed his.

He doesn’t, though. Desmond beats the crap out of him before he can.

Back to Island Island

Locke, Ben and Sun go to the Temple where Ben was first healed, and climb in trough a hole in the ground. Ben disappears into a lower chamber, to be JUDGED by the Smoke Monster. Yes. The smoke monster. It’ll kill him, if that’s what he deserves, apparently.

The smoke monster comes out of a vent in the ground, with lots of holes in. Like a big garlic press filled with very old garlic. POF! it goes. And surrounds him with a swirl of smoke filled with a ‘Best of Alex’ Montage of Moments from Lost, as available on a special features disc near you. It’s not ideal, as clips shows go.

You know what would be great? Being surrounded by the smoke monster, swirling around you playing all Hurley’s nicknames. Or all the times that Hurley says ‘DUDE’. Or just the blooper real. For some people, it would not be so great. I can only imagine what it would have in store for Charlie. A shower of heroin and whose same three lines of You All Everybody over and over again on a loop. Wearing expensive clothes. Acting like Stupid people.

*shudder*

Anyway, Alex appears, and pins Ben against the wall. She/it knows about the fact that Ben is planning to kill John Locke (again) and says that if he doesn’t quit that, if he doesn’t follow John Locke’s every order and every move unquestioningly, then She/it will chase him down and make him deader than a donut would be if someone put that donut in front of me right now.

Man I want a donut.

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SEASON FIVE, EPISODE THIRTEEN: SOME LIKE IT HOTH

In the world, somewhere
Before he came, we see Miles discovering and learning to love his special skill of being able to talk to the dead.
And then we learn about his … wait for it: daddy issues.

On the Island, somewhen
In 1977, we finally meet and get to know Doctor Chang, presenter of everyone’s favourite orientation videos.

And find out that he’s Miles’ dad.

We also find out that there are some random things going on on the island. Secrets being kept by some parts of the Dharma Initiative from the others; people dying by their fillings firing through their own brains; energy surges in the new stations they’re building.

And we find out that Hurley is writing The Empire Strikes Back from memory, in a notebook, so he can send it to George Lucas as a favour. He’s added in some improvements, you’ll be glad to hear.

Now THERE’S a man that knows what one should do with time travel.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) I really like Miles. And while this season has kind of detracted from the power of the flashback, since so many things are flashback, and while it’s been too busy moving things along to get to know the new characters as well as I would have liked, I just hope he gets the chance to stick around longer. Him AND his damned daddy-issues. That is all.
2) The other passengers on the plane are part of another group who are getting to the island for a whole other reason. Or Other reason, I’m not sure. They want to know “What’s in the shadow of the statue?”. To which the answer, surely, is ‘very little, any more, there’s only a foot left’.

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SEASON FIVE, EPISODE FOURTEEN: THE VARIABLE

The life of Michael Farraday:
Son of Charles Widmore, who was absent, and Eloise Other, who was awful and controlling, Daniel Scientist was a genius, brain-killed his girlfriend, very much by mistake, he went a bit mad, Charles confessed to him about having put the fake crash in the ocean, and it all adds up to a miserable life, a dysfunctional family, and a horrendous shower of terrible, terrible “I’m A Bit Mad” wigs.

On the Island, somewhen
In 1977, Daniel arrives back! Yay! I like Daniel. He’s a bit mad, yes, and possibly somewhat unpredictable, but he’s a man with a good head for science, and that’s ALWAYS brilliant, isn’t it? So: he’s come up with a brilliant plan, too! Yay! His plan is … he’s going to detonate the Hydrogen bomb and blow them all to kingdom come.

No, wait, that sounds like a terrible idea.

Still. It’s a plan. He’s going to set off the bomb, he’s going to kill the magnet, the plane won’t get pulled to the island, the freighter won’t come, and none of this will happen.

So he, Kate and Jack head up to the Other Camp, where Daniel rushes in asking to find his mother. Richard says she isn’t there. But then he gets shot in the back by his mother.

In the world, somewhere
in 2007, Locke has met back up with the Others, and is doing his leadery thing.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) There is, was, one character with mummy issues in this whole thing. But now they’re dead. Oh.

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SEASON FIVE, EPISODE FIFTEEN: FOLLOW THE LEADER

On the Island, somewhen
Now Daniel is dead, someone has to take responsibility for blowing everyone to smithereens for their own good, and who better than Responsibility Jack, Doctor of Having The Weight of the World in his Big Square Chin.

After yet another miserable conversation with Kate about how miserable they are and how miserable they made each other etc etc, Jack says that he wants to blow everything up.

Hell, I want to blow them all up if it means I’m not going to have to listen to the whinings of two miserable people whose chief similarity is that they’re both as miserable as each other, and both as good at making each other miserable.

Kate doesn’t think the brilliant idea – the idea that will send them back to where they were and render all of this out of existence – is a good idea. So she goes back to the village, and she and Sawyer and Juliet are placed in the Submarine in handcuffs, to get off the island and away as fast as possible.

So Jack and Sayid and Ellie and Richard go to fetch the big bomb. Brilliant.

Back on Island Island
None. Just into the future, or rather the more recent past. GAH! It’s 2007 and Locke, now leading the Others, takes Richard to see the time-jumping him with the bullet in his leg, and gets Richard to tell him he has to die.

And then he goes to collect the rest of the Others, and lets them know the plan: they’re going to see Jacob.

Ben is confused about this. He doesn’t know why they would be doing that, particularly all together. Locke says that it’s because he hasn’t come to see Jacob. He’s come to kill Jacob.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) Um. John Locke’s seeming to be extremely calm and zen and that: but he ALSO seems to have come back a little bit batshit insane. Just a little. Maybe.
2) Also: if this is some grand, extended, Fraudian pstchoanalysis schtick aboutmoving past the daddy-issues thing by the symbolic death of one’s father then….

But no. THAT would be too simple, wouldn’t it?

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SEASON FIVE, EPISODES SIXTEEN AND SEVENTEEN: THE INCIDENT

In which a handsome doctor sets off a nuclear device because he’s sad that he and his girlfriend broke up.

It all went off
As you’ll know, if you saw this. I’ve only just seen it though, and though I’ve got all my notes, I’ve not time to pull it together right now, as the whole point of this exercise, really, was getting all this done in time to actually sit and enjoy watching the beginning of Season 6 with everyone else

So that’s what I will do.
I’ll add the Season 5 write up in the next couple of days, and 6.1/2 to boot.

A couple of days later:

The Lostinsons, Scientists and significant Others run around in circles shouting and occasionally punching one another while trying to decide whether to set off a hydrogen bomb that might reset time and negate the last five seasons of their lives or not. They decide to, and then do, killing the significant Other in the process.

On the other side of the island, under the base of an old statue with four toes, someone who isn’t who they say they are convines someone else with eyes like a bug in bear hug to stab a nice man until he is dead.

But who is the bad man pretending to be an old friend, REALLY? And why is the nice man so very dead? And did the hydrogen bomb really go off? Find out soon.

As in ‘in a couple of hours when I have finished this season 6 opener.

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