Mr. Eko and the Jesus stick
Wherein I do not discuss the very uninteresting Jack, but am left wondering where is the very interesting Sayid. I hope he's working on a way around the blocked off portion of the hatch...a plot point they gave us in week 2 and have yet to revisit.
Just a couple quick notes on last night's Lost. This show has me so warped I'm actually taking notes while watching it. Here's some jottings:
Hurley
Hurley has a girlfriend!
Michael/Walt (pseudo-Walt)
The problem with the character Michael is that they've never let him be anything other than a hothead asshole. He should have our sympathy, he does not. He is the person most likely to endanger all the other survivors and not care.
Last line we see on the computer: you need to co ...co? Cooperate, cook, collect, contact, conjugate? I suspect Michael will do something rash - yep, he said, watching previews for next week.
Leading credence that this is not Walt - or maybe Walt is being told what to say; and if he is, then do The Others have a camera inside? - Greg asks:
Mr. Eko
Wow. Now that's a backstory. To try and recap it would not do it justice, let's just say he is living with a lot of tough choices and when his brother tells him "You have no soul," well, he's wrong. I doubt the show will come up with a decent reason why a drug plane from Nigeria ended up in the South Pacific - thanks to Charlie for saying it out loud - but as long as it doesn't involve aliens, time travel, or worm holes, I won't complain too loudly.
Memorable Mr. Eko lines.
They had a good shot of his stick that I'll need to review, one item I did catch was Revelation 5:3. Looking that up, it reads: But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it.
Question: shouldn't a big plume of black smoke in the middle of the island have attracted every group stuck there?
The Monster
No idea what is going on here. For what they showed last night, I'll again quote Greg:
Locke
He can pick locks, too? He's locking up the guns, finally someone is concerned about security. He loses a point for wasting ammunition. He's an aficionado of silent films...any clues there?
Charlie
Claire kicks him out for lying about the drugs. No evidence he's back on the stuff. We're left with Charlie looking ominous as we see his giant stash of drugs. I'm voting for misdirection. Charlie has previously exhibited the ability to fly off the handle and we're all waiting for him to start shooting up again. I don't think so. I think he's clean and will remain so. Perhaps he's holding onto the heroin because knowing it's there gives him the security not to use it. In the end, I think his stash will become a plot point - perhaps as a weapon - and Charlie will behave heroically. Of course, I'm probably overthinking this and he'll die a junkie.
Charlie does get off the funniest line: What are you gonna do, beat me with your Jesus stick?
Just a couple quick notes on last night's Lost. This show has me so warped I'm actually taking notes while watching it. Here's some jottings:
Hurley
Hurley has a girlfriend!
Michael/Walt (pseudo-Walt)
The problem with the character Michael is that they've never let him be anything other than a hothead asshole. He should have our sympathy, he does not. He is the person most likely to endanger all the other survivors and not care.
Last line we see on the computer: you need to co ...co? Cooperate, cook, collect, contact, conjugate? I suspect Michael will do something rash - yep, he said, watching previews for next week.
Leading credence that this is not Walt - or maybe Walt is being told what to say; and if he is, then do The Others have a camera inside? - Greg asks:
I'm voting for Not Walt at the moment, and here's why: because Walt wouldn't have bothered to ask if Michael is alone. Why would he care?
Mr. Eko
Wow. Now that's a backstory. To try and recap it would not do it justice, let's just say he is living with a lot of tough choices and when his brother tells him "You have no soul," well, he's wrong. I doubt the show will come up with a decent reason why a drug plane from Nigeria ended up in the South Pacific - thanks to Charlie for saying it out loud - but as long as it doesn't involve aliens, time travel, or worm holes, I won't complain too loudly.
Memorable Mr. Eko lines.
- When asked what he's writing on his stick: Things I need to remember.
- Tell your friends Mr. Eko let you live.
- Is what I did a sin or is it forgiven because it was you that was saved?
- I realize that you live in a world where righteousness and evil are very far apart, but that is not the real world
They had a good shot of his stick that I'll need to review, one item I did catch was Revelation 5:3. Looking that up, it reads: But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it.
Question: shouldn't a big plume of black smoke in the middle of the island have attracted every group stuck there?
The Monster
No idea what is going on here. For what they showed last night, I'll again quote Greg:
We got our best look yet at the Monster. More black smoke, only this time we also saw some electrical flashes, right? That's what I thought. But just in case, I re-watched it with my DVR. What good is that frame-by-frame feature for if you never use it? To get the full effect, I also had to turn off all the lights to reduce the glare in the room. But once I did, I was able to see what I never would have seen before. When the camera travels "inside" the Monster, each one of those electrical flashes contains a little snapshot from Eko's life. I couldn't make them all out, but the ones that were most clear were the old man from the village bowing down just before young Eko shot him, a head shot of his brother, the priest, another of his criminal comrades on the drug plane, and statue of Jesus on a crucifix. Eko was—literally—watching his life flash before his eyes. Weird. I'm not sure how that's supposed to work. Maybe the Monster (or security system, or whatever) has a way of eliciting visions from the subject's past. I do know one thing, however.
Locke
He can pick locks, too? He's locking up the guns, finally someone is concerned about security. He loses a point for wasting ammunition. He's an aficionado of silent films...any clues there?
Charlie
Claire kicks him out for lying about the drugs. No evidence he's back on the stuff. We're left with Charlie looking ominous as we see his giant stash of drugs. I'm voting for misdirection. Charlie has previously exhibited the ability to fly off the handle and we're all waiting for him to start shooting up again. I don't think so. I think he's clean and will remain so. Perhaps he's holding onto the heroin because knowing it's there gives him the security not to use it. In the end, I think his stash will become a plot point - perhaps as a weapon - and Charlie will behave heroically. Of course, I'm probably overthinking this and he'll die a junkie.
Charlie does get off the funniest line: What are you gonna do, beat me with your Jesus stick?
posted by bill at 8:32 AM
6 Comments:
Man, you got me! I'm going to have watching this show now. Is it too late to begin?
Thanks!
Season 1 is on DVD and season 2 can be downloaded from iTunes for $1.99 an episode.
I would not recommend starting with next week's episode, you really need the background. Especially since I expect the rest of the season to start getting fast and complicated.
I am so caught up in this show it isn't funny. I stay away from most Lost websites to avoid people looking for spoilers. I try to approach each week with only the knowledge that has shown. For after show discussion I usually check out Throwing Things and Begging to Differ (links on side).
Lost is the very definition of a show that needs a built in date of conclusion. If ABC tries to run it out, eventually it will collapse from the weight of unmet expectations and disappointing storylines.
We've seen it before, Moonlighting and X-Files being two good examples. It's not a sin for a show to end.
Lost may have a good long run ahead of it, but it's a balancing act for sure. You can only ask yourself how they got there for so long before you stop caring.
One thing I do like about Lost, as an infrequent viewer, is the time spent giving each character a backstory, and exploring that. It gives us and the writers a rest from constant questions about the big mystery. They've got a lot of characters. The natural life of the show might even be doubled as we learn about all these people.
A show with this sort of depth is a double-edged sword though. The people who get into it will be really into it, but if you're not into it from the beginning, it's easy to get shut out. Fortunately, we now have dvd and the chance to get caught up.
Thanks for the show talk; I'll try to remember to get back each week.
Bill, did you see Stephen King's editorial in EW to the producers of the series before the season?
RIA, the show is that good (though it started a little slowly this year, last night was spectacular.)
The more I think about this episode, the more I like it. I'm really glad that they took Lost back into very dark territory. Right from the first of the episode, we had a child being forced to shoot and old man at close range. It doesn't get much darker than that. (Lost is definitely a show I wouldn't let my children watch until they are older.)
The acting is so uniformly great on this show, too. Not to mention that the characters are fantastic and all deeply flawed.
I started watching from the season 1 dvds. I know of several people who have recently been hooked on the show that way. The one down side to this is that once you blow through the season 1 dvds, you have to start waiting around for new episodes like the rest of us, and that sucks.
Great insights, Bill.
I'm trying to come with a hook to write about Lost's storytelling. In some ways this conversation is what I think a good book club would be like (never participated in a club).
Or some discussions about Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon I took part in. Especially concerning Enoch Root.
There's enough character and plot to warrant discussion and enough tidbits to reward those paying attention. And there's enough of a feedback loop for the creators/writers to acknowledge a certain level of fanaticism and play with it. Thinking specifically of the first viewing of the film strip and Locke saying "I think we need to see that again" right before the commercial break.
This is closest narrative show I can think of that makes me think this is similar to how readers read Dickens in the newspapers.
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