LOST episodes 4.03, 4.04 and 4.05- "The Economist," "Eggtown" and "The Constant"

First of all, many apologies for falling behind on my weekly LOST updates. Over the past couple of weeks, I have been busy putting off studying for midterms, actually studying for midterms, trying unsuccessfully to wish myself into Spring Break, and thinking about life. See, BUSY. Throughout this time, LOST has been a real haven for me, as it always is, but especially recently. This season's dynamic is particularly fantastic and mind-blowing, with the introduction of the Freighties and the Oceanic Six and the 2 island teams. I've read articles about how the show is "back on track," about the "10 reasons why LOST is found." I'm personally one of those who thinks the show has never had a time when it was off-track. And that's not just me being overly-loyal like I can sometimes get (*cough* Alias Season 5 *cough*). But I do agree that there is some special element this season. Perhaps it's the newness of the flash forwards, perhaps its a new group of characters who don't make me want to kill anyone I meet for the rest of my life named Ana Lucia, Nikki, or Paulo. Or perhaps it's the knowledge that the end is near, that every episode is full of purpose, that people are actually going to get off the island. I really should give credit where it's due: My discovery of Doc Jensen at EW.com has significantly enhanced my LOST experience. His pre-episode cheat sheets/post-episode recaps are freakin' phenomenal. They are insightful, fascinating, and truly inspirational from a potentially-aspiring-television-journalist standpoint. I've printed all of them out and put them in my official LOST box so that I can reference them later to see how much he gets right.

What happened in "The Economist": Sayid, Miles, and Kate arrive at the Barracks to find nobody there except Hurley, who is tied up in a cabinet. He says that Locke went crazy and left him there because he tried to stop him from kidnapping Charlotte (a believable claim since Hurley had earlier said that he didn't sign up to take anyone prisoner). Sayid searches Ben's house and finds a hidden room behind the bookcase- it's full of clothes and passports. Kate is looking in the bedroom and is apprehended by Sawyer. Locke and Rousseau capture Sayid at gunpoint. In a moment of sweet vulnerability, Sawyer tells Kate he wants to play house with her. She decides to stay. Sayid convinces Locke that he only stayed with Jack to find out the real reason why the Freighties came. He doesn't expect Locke to give Charlotte to him- he trades her for Miles so that Frank will take him on the helicopter back to the boat. He also says that he will report back to Locke what he discovers on the freighter. Meanwhile, Jack, Juliet, Daniel, Frank, and Desmond wait for Sayid to return with Charlotte. Desmond still wants to know why Naomi had a picture of him and Penny. He tells Frank that he is coming with them to the freighter. Daniel does an experiment that reveals a time discrepancy between the island and the outside world. At the end of the episode, Frank, Sayid, and Desmond take off in the helicopter.

Flash-forwards show Sayid looking very dashing in suits, working as a hitman in Germany. He starts dating a woman named Ilsa with a mysterious boss (my theory: Penny Widmore's father). She tells him she loves him, he feels guilty because he's using her to get to her boss, she shoots him because she's using him to get to his boss, he's badass and kills her. He works for- pause for dramatic effect- BEN, killing people who are on a list. Apparently Sayid is "protecting his friends" by what he does off-island, and apparently Ben becomes a veterinarian in the future.

Who I thought was the most awesome in this episode: Hurley. He acted as the bait for Locke when Sayid came looking for Charlotte (According to the enhanced episode, this part was an homage to The Empire Strikes Back). Miles called him Tubby, to which Hurley responded, "Awesome. The ship sent us another Sawyer." It was pretty adorable. He had another great line when Sayid said that he wasn't going to hurt him: "Yeah, I saw you snap that guy's neck when you did that break-dancing thing with your legs. I think I'll hang back here."

What happened in "Eggtown": Kate is living in a house with Claire, Sawyer is living with Hurley, and Locke is trying to find answers. Holding Ben captive in a basement (sounds familiar, doesn't it?), Locke wants to know about his inside man on the freighter (favorite theory of most people is that it's Michael). Kate really wants to talk to Miles because she wants to know what he knows about her /what's waiting for her if she gets off the island. Locke refuses to let her speak with him (They aren't living in a democracy anymore, but at least it's not a dictatorship, in which case he would just shoot her), but since when does Kate listen to anyone? She finds out where Miles is, and he says he'll tell her if she gets him in to talk with Ben. When she does, Miles tells Ben that he would tell his boss that Ben was dead in return for $3.2 million. Locke finds them and kicks Kate out of the Barracks. Sawyer says she can stay under his protection. Lots of hotness ensues, but Sawyer says the wrong thing (something not very nice about Kate using Sawyer and Jack to fulfill her needs), causing her to head back to Team Jack. Locke ties Miles back up, pulls the pin from a grenade, and sticks it in his mouth. As long as Miles keeps his mouth shut on the trigger, he won't explode. As Locke leaves, he says, "Enjoy your breakfast." Whoa.

Flash-forwards follow Kate's trial for murder, arson, theft, etc. The main witness for the prosecution is her mom, whom she confessed to right after she blew up Wayne. Her attorney wants to bring in her son to get sympathy from the jury, but she says no. Jack testifies about how Kate saved his life. Based on the Oceanic Six story that he told, 8 people get off the island, but only 6 survived. So 2 bodies. Kate's mom says that learning about Kate's heroism has made her not want to testify against her, but she wants to meet her grandson. Kate adamantly denies her this, saying she doesn't want her son anywhere near her. Her mom backs out of testifying anyway, so the DA makes a deal with Kate: 10 years of probation and she can't leave the state of California. Kate quickly accepts. I guess she's done running for good. She and Jack talk (he's still in love with her). He wants to get together with her, but she says that she can't until he can come visit her son. Kate returns home and hugs her little boy: Aaron.

Who I thought was the most awesome in this episode: Kate. For some reason that I am very interested to learn, Kate is the supposed hero of the Oceanic Six, according to the testimony Jack gave at her trial. I loved the scene with her mom because she showed some serious integrity and a maternal protectiveness that I never would have believed she possessed. The reveal of Aaron being her son was, in my opinion, the best of the season. What happens to Claire??? Another great moment: she tricks Hurley into telling her where Miles is. Or as Hurley says, "You totally just Scooby-Doo'd me, didn't you?"

What happened in "The Constant": Jack is freaking out about not hearing from Sayid and Desmond, who left with Frank on the helicopter more than a day ago. Daniel tells him that time doesn't work the same way on the island as it does everywhere else. (It makes you wonder: If and when the Oceanic Six get back to the island- years later for them, it seems, since Jack has grown a mountain man beard- how much time will have passed for the people left behind???) Frank flies straight into a storm, Desmond flashes into the past- a time in which he is part of the Scottish regiment- and his 1996 consciousness returns to his body in the helicopter, making things very confusing. They land on the freighter, and Desmond is taken to sick bay where he meets Minkowski, who is experiencing the same condition. Sayid and Frank come to see Desmond because Daniel wants to talk to Desmond on the phone. He tells him that when he returns to the past that he needs to go visit him in Oxford. He gives him some numbers so that Desmond can convince past-Daniel that he is really time-traveling. Desmond does what he says, and Daniel shows him an experiment in which his rat, Eloise, has the same consciousness transfer that allows her to complete a maze that she hasn't yet learned. Then she dies. Daniel tells Desmond that to prevent that from happening to him, he needs to find a constant- something to connect his past to his future. Desmond needs to call Penny from the boat. Minkowski was the guy in charge of communications and shows Sayid and Desmond where they need to go. Then Minkowski dies. Flashing into the past, Desmond goes to see Charles Widmore so that he can find Penny. He goes to her address, she doesn't want to see him, but he convinces her to give him her phone number so that he can call her on Dec. 24, 2004. He begs her to answer that call, 8 years away, if she still cares about him. Back on the freighter, Desmond dials the number, it rings for what seems like forever, and then Penny picks up. What follows is one of the sweetest scenes in television history. He tells her over and over how much he loves her. She promises that she won't stop looking for him. And then Desmond is okay. The constant has allowed his consciousness to settle again.


Who I thought was the most awesome in this episode: Tie between Daniel Faraday and Desmond. Daniel is brilliant and quirky. Without his help, we never would have understood what was happening to Desmond. Which brings me to... Desmond. Favorite character #2. Has been ever since the Season 2 finale when he returns to the island. He was amazing in this episode, shifting between his 1996 and 2004 selves. I cried when he finally got to talk to Penny, tell her he was sorry and that he loved her, and realized how much she still cared for him. That was enough. He was going to be okay.

Mad Men + Dexter

It took me until about the fifth episode of Season 1 to get into Mad Men. This is kind of how my thought process worked: This is Don Draper. He is handsome. I like these clothes. I wish men still wore fedoras and three-piece suits. Wow, everyone sure smokes a lot. I'm nearing the end of the first episode and I still feel like I know absolutely nothing about Don. Oh wait. He's married. Dammit. I hate affairs. Okay, everyone's still just doing their job, smoking, and having affairs. Pete Campbell is a jackass. So is Roger Sterling. Hmm, somebody just called Don the wrong name on the train. That's interesting. I've already forgotten about it. What's the point of this show again?

And then, a man enters who turns out to be Don's long lost brother. And we find out that Don Draper is really Dick Whitman who supposedly died in the Korean War. And Don doesn't want to talk to his brother about the past because he has a new life now. And then Don is at home and he puts something into his briefcase and he's going to visit his brother at his hotel late at night. I'm wondering if Don is going to pull out a gun and shoot his brother. But instead Don gives his brother $5000 in cash to disappear and never contact him again.

And now I'm intrigued.

For the rest of the season, I'm trying to figure out who the hell is this guy? "Don Draper." The man with fewer emotions than a tree. My favorite scenes, inevitably, were the flashbacks- the windows into Don's past as a child on a farm during the Depression and as a soldier who switches dog tags with his burned-beyond-recognition lieutenant, Don Draper, in order to fulfill his service requirement early (or maybe it was just to get away from where he had come from?)- because then I got to see a little bit about what was going on inside the head of this mysterious man.
(**spoilers ahead**)
Mad Men gives you a glimpse into another culture, presenting both the good and the bad. Sure, they say "swell" a lot. But they say other stuff, too... Horrible, objectifying things about women, who get treated no better than dogs. I'm telling you right now: if a man ever tried to tackle me because a bunch of guys were playing a game where they guessed what color underwear I had on, he would be coughing up blood for a week. The only woman able to break out of the typical-female mold is now-Junior Copy Writer, Peggy. Speaking of whom, congrats to creator Matthew Weiner for the curve ball in the finale. I had imagined the possibility of her getting pregnant by Pete, but I, like everyone else in the office, thought she was just gaining weight. She freakin' went to the doctor and popped out a baby, like, a second after she found out she was pregnant! Awesome. Also great about the finale: Betty Draper. That woman can be so annoying. Don is completely right when he says that sometimes it's like living with a little girl. She seems so petty about so many things, especially about the divorced woman down the street. I swear, when she told her friend that she didn't like her family portrait photos because "Sally looks fat" (Sally being her daughter, who can't be older than 8), I could have reached right into the show and punched her in the face. In the finale, however, a sequence of events happened that left me absolutely reeling. Her friend, Francine, comes over in hysterics because she discovered that her husband was cheating on her based on telephone records. Betty talks to Don about it and asks how a person could do something like that to the person they claim to love. Betty looks at their phone records and calls a number. Her psychiatrist, Dr. Wayne, picks up. She knows that Don talks to Dr. Wayne about her sessions. In her next appointment, she moves beyond the petty stuff and starts talking about Don's infidelity and how she feels sorry for him because "he doesn't know what family means." Sadly for Don, I think he begins to understand when he presents his idea to Kodak about the Carousel, looking at pictures of his kids and his wife and talking about home being the place where you know you are loved. He goes home to an empty house. End of Season 1.

On an almost completely unrelated topic: Dexter. (The small connection being that Mad Men and Dexter are both superb dramas.) Until recently, I have had no one to talk to about this show. I watched it because I try to make a point of watching as much great television as I possibly can, but when you're the only person you know who watches it, it's harder to get emotional about the characters and the story. When I have really intense reactions at something hilarious in The Office or something awesome in LOST, the first thing I want to do is talk to my respective Office/LOST buddies to see what they think. Otherwise, I end up having a whole lot feelings that I keep to myself. Now, however, after 2 seasons of Dexter, during which I tried explaining to a few people how incredible it is ("You see, it's about a serial killer who only kills bad people! Get it?! It's, like, the coolest justice system ever!!" "But doesn't that make him a bad guy too?" "NO!! It's stretching the traditional moral code! It's complicated and wonderful!"), I finally have a Dexter-buddy! Watching Season 3 is going to be infinitely more exciting because now, when Dexter does something badass, I can text my friend, "That was so badass!" instead of silence.

Ever since I got into learning about the Mafia, by which I mean watching The Sopranos, Martin Scorsese movies, and The Godfather, I have been fascinated by the anti-hero. I'm sure I was fascinated before I started loving everything about mob culture, but gangsters are the epitome of the anti-hero. You have to wrestle with the fact that you are rooting for Tony Soprano to be successful and realize at the same time that he can garrote a man to death with no remorse. In a similar way, Dexter Morgan murders people. These murders are premeditated, calculated, and he enjoys them. And they all deserve it. And he works for the police department as a blood analyst. Season 1 revolves around a series of murders by someone called the Ice-Truck Killer. He leaves his bodies in pieces with their blood drained. Dexter respects his style. (Dexter's style is to sedate his victims, bind them to a table with plastic wrap, they wake up with him standing over them, he makes an incision on their cheek and puts a few drops of their blood onto a glass slide, then he chops their bodies up, and dumps the garbage bags in the middle of the bay. His collection of glass slides = trophies.) About halfway through the season, we get to see who the Ice-Truck Killer is. Not until the finale is his true identity revealed: Dexter's brother. Dexter kills him and comes back in Season 2 with all sorts of emotional problems. Well... to the extent that Dexter can feel emotion. He has killed the only person who would ever accept him for who he truly was. It creates a sort of mental block for him, making killing difficult for a little while. Plus, all the garbage bags with his past victims are discovered in the ocean, making things very interesting.

Up to this point, I have managed not to mention a single supporting character. This is not to say they are not good. Dexter's sister, Deb, is a police officer, as well. She is in the unfortunate position of having been the girlfriend of the man who turned out to be the Ice-Truck Killer. And he tried to kill her, too... As you can imagine, this makes her a bit unstable in Season 2. Dexter's girlfriend, Rita, was totally awesome. She had 2 adorable kids. Dexter really liked her because she was "damaged, too," as he would say. He kinda ruined things with her because he cheated on her with Lila, or as I like to call her: "The Worst Human Being on the Planet." Literally. As in, she tried to burn children. Sgt. Doakes is the hardcore police officer who knows that there is something not right with Dexter. In Season 2, he starts following Dexter around because he wants to catch him "in the act." Unfortunately, Doakes is no longer with us, thanks to the worst human being on the planet. While I think that each of these characters adds something important to the show, Michael C. Hall is Dexter.

Marathon #2: Veronica Mars

Veronica Mars is the new love of my life. Not since Sydney Bristow have I found a female character written so well. I tend to think most of the girls on television are annoying/not cool/emotionally psychotic. Veronica certainly has her flaws, but they don't overpower all of the qualities that make her so admirable.

It's impossible to talk about this show without discussing the amazing relationship between Veronica and her dad. Their banter is hilarious and much like the way that Lorelai and Rory talk to each, except slower. (One of my favorite scenes is when Veronica walks in and her dad is sitting on the couch. She says something about how she comes home after a hard day's work to find him eating bonbons and reading Harper's Bazaar. When he fails to offer a witty quip in response, saying he's not in the mood, she says, "Amuse me, dammit! Amuse me now!") Their mutual love and respect is constant and evident by everything that they do. I'm not ashamed to admit- there were tears streaming down my face when Aaron Echolls had her locked in that box and her dad comes to rescue her. Aaron has poured gasoline all over the place, he and Keith fight each other, and Aaron sets the deck on fire. Veronica's screaming and crying, and her dad doesn't even hesitate: he walks through the flames to free her before collapsing. Even in the normal, everyday things like making dinner for each other, they are completely adorable.

I can't even talk about the ending without getting upset. It's one of the great injustices of the world (in the perspective of my t.v.-dominated life, of course) that Veronica Mars got canceled. It certainly hadn't run its course yet, and Rob Thomas/Kristen Bell/everyone else involved deserved so much better than the ending they had to make. I don't know what it would have been like if Season 4 were about Veronica in her first year at the F.B.I. with no more Wallace, Logan, et al, but I do know that I would have been willing to follow that show anywhere.

Favorite episodes include "Donut Run," "Mars, Bars," "My Mother, the Fiend," and "The Wrath of Con."


A great scene from Season 2

LOST episode 4.02- "Confirmed Dead"

What happened in this episode: Jack and Kate find Daniel in the jungle. He explains that rescuing them is not their primary objective for coming to the island. They use his sat phone to find Miles who pulls a gun on Jack and demands to be taken to Naomi because he thinks they killed her. He does his thing and affirms their story that it was Locke who threw the knife into her back. Miles thinks he can boss everyone around, but then Jack says that his people are hiding nearby with guns. Sayid and Juliet arrive. Frank joins the group next after landing the helicopter. Team Locke apprehends Charlotte on their way to The Barracks. Locke asks Ben the question that every single person who watches LOST wants to know: "What is the monster?" Ben says he doesn't know, but he does know why the Freighties are there. He starts telling details about Charlotte's life. He knows because he has a man on the Freighter (maybe Charlotte herself?). The Freighties came to the island to get Ben.

Flashbacks revealed that Oceanic 815 was found on the bottom of the ocean with the bodies of all passengers accounted for. Hence the "confirmed dead" thing. We also get a glimpse into the back story of each of the Freighties. Daniel Farraday is a physicist (sorta. He doesn't like to be pigeonholed.) and for no apparent reason cries when he sees news stories about what happened to the plane. Frank Lepidus is a pilot and was supposed to be flying our Losties from Sydney to L.A. He recognizes that the underwater plane is not really 815 because the body of the pilot (monster-ravaged Greg Grunberg) did not have a wedding ring. Charlotte Staples Lewis- referencing, I presume, Clive Staples (a.k.a. C.S.) Lewis- is an archaeologist who also believes that 815 is not in fact the plane from the bottom of the ocean. She goes to a dig site in the desert where a polar bear skeleton is being excavated and finds a Dharma collar (Hydra station). Miles Strom is a ghostbuster... And now-dead Naomi was assigned by creepy Matthew Abbadon to protect the little team on their mission to find Ben.

Who I thought was the most awesome in this episode: Ben. Beaten, tied up, and led along like a dog, Ben still manages to get inside people's heads. Sawyer gives him the endearing nickname "Yoda" and says that it's just a matter of time before he is in control again.