>:execute

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

filet of sole

i'm on a trip, and when i fly, i usually buy a dean koontz book at the airport to pass the time.
this time i picked up 'sole survivor'

it's a decent read, as far as koontz books go, and i think a few people writing for lost have read it. i'm not talking any rip-off or anything here, nothing like that, but there are definitely a few... similarites? if nothing else it got me thinking that after we finally find out what has really happened to everyone on the island, they could keep the show going, centering on those that are dealing with the death of loved ones that were flying oceanic flight 815.

if you're reading it, or plan on it, you might want to stop here, as i'm about to give most everything away. the book is from '97 though, so this isn't really breaking news.

the story centers on joe carpenter (thinly veiled biblical reference?), a guy who lost his wife and two little girls a year earlier in the crash of flight 353. a woman claiming to be a survivor of the crash contacts him, and all hell breaks loose. the woman that contacts him? an older black woman named rose, who, when she had boarded the flight, 'implied' that she was married to a white man. so, 400 page story short (i don't want this to sound like a 5th grade book report, but it might), rose worked on a secret goverment project, 'project 99'. it was an offshoot of the human genome project, but they were looking for those genes that "seem to be associated with unusual talents. Paranormal talents. telepathy. telekinesis. pyrokinesis. it's a long strange list.", rose explains. they then create children in a lab, and give them names like ATX-12-23 and SSW 59-58. 59-58 is a genius who can remote-view and take over someone's mind. when he does this, it's as if a ghost has entered the room, drafts of cold air, etc. joe picks up on the ghost aspect of it when he comes across a copy of 'turn of the screw', which, he notes, "would be on the short list of the most famous ghost stories ever written.' the orientation film was behind turn of the screw in desmonds bookshelf. 59-58 is also kept in the most imhumane of conditions, and used only when the government needs him to be used. is this what is happening to walt now?

one of the experiments, a girl 'named' CCY 21-21, has the ability to heal. she is asked to cure a geneticist working there of his pancreatic cancer, and she does, but as she is doing so, she also senses something else wrong with him and fixes that as well. koontz explains this a lot better than i could sum up, so here it is.

"...Amos has decided that life is without purpose or meaning, that we have no destiny but the void, that we are only dust in the wind. The darkness in him is blacker than the cancer, and and the girl heals this as well, by the simple expedient of showing Amos the light of God and the strange dimensional lattices of realms beyond our own."

the strange dimensional lattices of realms beyond our own. nice. will aaron have a gift like hers? a few times in the book, by different people, joe is told he has to "lift it up", another desmond reference. there's also an alvar hanso type, a mysterious billionaire who is funding the project.
anyway, it's a good read, and while it doesn't really tie in to the show at all, there are a few similarities that i found striking. and if in rose's flashbacks we learn that she worked on the human genome project, well...
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Thursday, November 17, 2005

48 days earlier

***First off, I want to say that I’m a converted michelle rodriguez fan now. The tension in the scene between her and Goodwin totally sold me on her. I never really enjoyed her as a actress before.

Anyway, it’s day one for the tailies. Sweet opening like the old twister teaser trailer…SLAM!
First person we really see is ana lucia… no eye opening in this episode (a glass one later, though, to make up for it)
Eko’s wearing a nice suit. He’s not mute yet. Wonder what will do it? He pulls a woman out of the water, starts helping others.
The kids and the teddy bear… hey, we saw them, libby!
Ana knows CPR…she seems to be doing better than boone is on the other side of the island.
Shot of an asian guy shouting for his wife. (is this the real Bernard, and the guy in the tree is a plant? no, probably not)
Ana, to the kid whose mom is waiting for her to arrive in LA,
“I promise we’re gonna get you home soon, okay?”
ana stops to take a look around now… looks kinda like a deserted island, no?
flight attendant cindy looks after the children while eko starts collecting the dead.

Libby’s not a bad doctor. Snaps a broken leg back into place. Year of med school (Dropped out? she couldn’t hack it?) before becoming a psychologist.
A dry Goodwin comes running out of the jungle calling for help.
Bernard’s up in a tree, strapped into his seat next to a dead guy (kid?). Ana immediately takes control, calming him down by asking his name, then she talks him through what he needs to do. (meanwhile Goodwin wants to climb up. because he knows it would cause the seat to fall and kill Bernard, who might have seen him come from the jungle?) is ana some kind of negotiator in real life? A fed, a cop? she's definitely used to dealing with people.
That’s a nasty drop there. Ugh.

Goodwin’s starting a signal fire so “they” can find us. Who does he mean? interesting choice of words, find, not ‘rescue’?
“what are you, a boy scout?”
-grown up version, the peace corps. Hmm…
They introduce themselves, and ana shows some signs of real emotion.
Eko’s looking pretty haunted as Bernard comes over. Was it pulling all the dead bodies out of the sea that made Eko mute? guess not. Bernard wants to know if he pulled rose out. No, so there’s still hope. Eko tells Bernard he’ll pray for rose.
Bernard asks where the rescue planes are
“I will pray from them, too” – best line of the night from the mute guy.

Nice shot of the signal fire and the moon. The sounds of a struggle wake everyone up. It’s the first time we really see Nathan (ethan?). there're a couple of wet sounding crunches. Goodwin is the first to grab a torch and run toward the sounds. Ana orders libby to watch the kids. Taking control of the situation.
Okay, here’s what shut eko up for a while. Some nice gore. Goodwin probably knows these guys… he's got a good poker face.
The next morning eko still has the bloody shirt on… not for long though. He’s got a big tat on his shoulder I can’t really make out. Marines? A globe or something? If it’s really just the actors(did he have it in oz?), are they planning to work it in the way they are jacks?
Eko breaks off a staff (or a rod, to comfort him?). he hasn’t washed his hands yet. It’s probably been hours. All part of his atonement/penance?
Who are these dead guys? The guy we see looks pretty young, with a fresh looking haircut (unlike Goodwin). The fire led the others right to them. and who lit the fire? Mr. peace corps.
“no wallets, no cell phones, no keys, nothin’”
they took the blond guy, the curly haired guy, and the german guy who was helping with the injured.
“these people were here before us.”
Ana wants to move on, but Nathan wants to stay on the beach, and Goodwin is all over that idea. Cindy lets them all know what weiss told us last season -before getting eaten and dropped in a tree- that they’ll need a fire, cause no one will be looking for them anywhere near the crash site.

Day 3
They’re doing what here, searching for food? Eating clams? I cant tell.
Donald with the broken leg is dying of an infection.
“he’ll be the fourth to go”
"what are we supposed to do about that?”

Day 5
dig some graves, I guess. 9 graves we can see, 4 dead since the crash including Donald, 5 others? How many dead did they pull from the ocean? Have more been washing up? Did they bury the 'others' here too?
right now there are 16 people still breathing at the 'island palms' cemetery.

Day 7
Goodwin’s good at snapping that chickens neck. (haven't seen any of those on the other side) Lots of practice, maybe?
Eko's putting hash marks into his staff. counting the days. Looks like some writing too, but I cant make it out. Better tat shot here?


Libby tries out some of her psychology on eko. She was better at fixing the leg. ummm... or not.

Day 12
Ana’s making her spear out of someone’s souvenir Australian boomerang. Nice.
Nathan takes a 2 hour bathroom break. Not getting along with the poultry? Getting high?
The others come that night. There’re no whispers or rain with these guys. They’re just there. Silent like ninja. They take the kids and some others, 9 all told. Ana clocks a woman, I thought it might have been Danielle at first. Maybe it’s goodwin's wife and he’s got a REAL good poker face? (although he doesn’t look too happy kneeling beside her body after the commercial break.) she’s carrying a knife and a list of the nine they just took. Ana’s suspicious, Bernard asks why infiltrate us? goodwin gets all shifty-eyed.

Day 15
We’re down to Ana, Goodwin, Bernard, Libby, Eko, Nathan, and Cindy.
Ana’s in charge.

Day 17
Ana’s digging a hole for Nathan.

Day 19
A boot to the head!! Did everyone else know that he was going to say Canada? She’s good at interrogating - not that’s he’s giving anything up, but hey, there’s nothing to give, right? But this dude took another two hour bathroom break on the plane? Musta ate the fish. Or caught something during his “company retreat”

Day 23
Someone gave nathan a banana, but Ana’s not about to mess with eko. Anyone else, she woulda been all over. Does ana have any kids? Nope… but did she give any up? Maybe sign one away in a big office in LA? Maybe there are similar offices in new york, and Australia? maybe?
Ooooh, there's gonna be some finger cutting tomorrow!
I was not suspicious of Goodwin at all by this point. I so did not see that neck snap coming. Just like the chicken. Very cool twist. ouch.

Day 24
Its time to move

Day 26
Ana’s not trusting Goodwin now.

Day 27
the bunker... Didn’t it have a metal door when they got there with the rafters?
Quarantine! The dharma logo with a nice arrow pointing up.
A glass eye?!? Weird… with a bible and a radio! “we’re the surv…nope, not yet.
Ana’s onto Goodwin, so she goes along when he offers to walk up the mountain alone to get better reception.. This whole scene is just great.
“maybe they’re not attacking us”
Ana sarcastically says, yeah, there’s no real harm done.
Goodwin tells her she has a “good point”, and his face is dripping with irony.
by now his guy either knows she’s on to him and he’s given up, or he’s just kind of an idiot as he gives himself away while she’s questioning him.
“they didn’t take you”
back and forth they’re passing the knife. Tense tense tense!!!! that army knife must be as old as the computer under the hatch on the other side of the island! Ana lays it all out for Goodwin. It’s doesn’t matter that he killed Nathan, cause Nathan was not a good person. “that’s why he wasn’t on the list” (so the others just want to take the pure people? Walt, Claire, alex, aaron, eko. Wow. I guess the ratio of naughty to nice was much worse up in the front of the plane.)
“the children are fine. They’re better off now”
they roll down the hill and Goodwin is impaled (where Eko and co will find him later) Doink!
Ana comes back, and I guess everyone kind of knows what happened? Either way it explains why they are all kind of leery of her when we first met them.

Day 41
The great “we’re the survivors of flight eight one five!” moment. But ana's now super paranoid, and rightly so… Goodwin was the first person she really opened up to on the beach. they show that everyone knows about rose when ana hurts Bernard with “there’s no one out there” line. Different personality once she killed a man (like Charlie for a while there).
Ana cried and eko talks.
“going to be okay.”
40 days all around.

Libby and cindy find jin washed up. The look on jins face when he sees the size of eko is priceless. “he has a broken handcuff on his wrist!” good point there, i mean, if you didn’t know the guy...
“Michael! Sawyer! Others!”
they're tossed in. eko cracks ana a good one. she's tossed in.

Day 46
They let them out, bring them back to the bunker. I thought I remembered there being some more people in this scene. I guess not.

Day 47
Moving out… long day here. I thought a few days had passed during this time. No wonder sawyer's almost dead.

Day 48
Cindy’s gone. The whispers start. “that’s them.” “yeah, they shot her.” – what I heard. (Probably not right) -is that what Shannon yelling for walt sounds like to them for some reason?- Where’s the “RUN!” and the running? Editing decision I guess… they could have easily stretched this episode into 1 ½ hours. or a season. what a great episode.

There's no question who shot Shannon now.
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Thursday, November 10, 2005

death sucks, doesn't it?

“you thirsty, dog?” – I wonder how many times sayid said those exact words to someone he was interrogating. That's a nice house he built for Shannon. Almost nice enough to get him laid. Shannon finds the gun in his pants… he, “only carries it because he has someone to protect.”
He’ll get some leg tonight for sure!
Pushed the right button there, sayid.

Back to the tailenders and rafters:
Cindy the Australian stewardess is looking over a ridge thru some trees
New nickname from sawyer for ana lucia – ponce de leon – future guest director darren aronosfky fountain reference?
Sawyer tells them mike “only cares about himself and his kid. And neithers got squat to do with me.”
“Glad you feel that way” mike, eko and jin show up…
jin winces while looking at sawyers wound
“yeah, yeah, chewie, I know … m’arms about to fall off.”
Eko tells ana lucia “I saw them”
Bernard clearly says “what do you mean, you saw them?” - so they’ve never actually seen them?
Cindy asks how many of them were there, and libby asks, “did you see the kids?”

If they’ve never seen them, how does she know some are kids? Do they assume the whispers are the others, and they’ve heard children whispering? Do they assume/know it’s their own dead coming after them?
They move out.

Back to a glowing, post-coital sayid and Shannon (sounds like a law firm)
Sayid pushes that “takecareofmeplease” button again and goes to get Shannon some water. He’s getting some when he gets back…

Wet Walt’s appearance causes the candle to blow out. He talks backwards at her, "esolc er'yeht dna, gnimoc er'yeht"

Fade to LOST

Sayid doesn’t believe her, she must have been dreaming. When he tells Charlie that in front of her, he pushes the jolly red candy like button that he really shouldn’t have pushed. She’s pissed.
Charlie gets the line of the night when Claire comes running over with the baby because she heard screams.
“You heard screams so you woke up the baby and ran towards them?!?”
then he chews her out. Verbally, people.

We flashback to a sweeter Shannon, just so we all care a little more. Teaching ballet to a French pervs daughter, sophie, along with some other kids.
She gets a call… her stepmom. Her dads been in an accident, and he’s at St. Sebastian’s. So he was the adam rutherford in jacks flashback. If st. sebs is their local hospital, there could be some more instances of boone, her and jack crossing paths. Or mr rutherford, whose full face we never really see during the episode. But maybe the tale of the Rutherford/carlyles ends tonight.
Jack brushes by as evil stepmom and Shannon are told by another doctor that her dad stopped breathing at the site of the accident, and they couldn’t resuscitate. Does that jibe with what really happened, and was that rose sitting under the acute care unit sign? Looks like her hair…
Boones mom is a bitch.

Back to the jungle, and we find out that libbys a clinical psychologist. She uses a little of the power of positive thinking to get sawyer back up on his feet and moving.

Rose and hurley are hanging laundry (in a scene aimed at us narcissistic internet dweebs?)
Hurley asks why they’re hanging clothes out to dry instead of using the dryer in the hatch, rose answers, “cause we wouldn’t want to spoil ourselves, would we?”
Hurley says “yeah, heh heh, spoil”
(I wish he’d looked up into the camera like Costner at the end of JFK. “It’s up to you.” One of the best moments in cinema history.)
As he says spoil, cue the spoiled (in more ways than one) Shannon.
Yep. She’s dead. Or was hurley laughing cause she’s not?

(---Little grassy knoll theory aside here: what if some of those leaks were plants? And the one that’s dying in this episode was really cindy all along? They kept the buzz going in the off weeks, and it all built up to this. *disclaimer- I didn’t know until today that everyone knew she was gonna die. I just didn’t read the stuff, between getting married and always trying to avoid spoilers, I only went over to the LFF to play some games once in a while* Then they sent out all the stories the day after about Maggie being great at keeping quiet the whole time what with her contract over and all… and that was all a set up to have a complete surprise when she lives in a couple weeks and is still part of the show? We get punk’d as viewers. Yeah, and the red sox and Theo Epstein are gonna clear things up and get back together too… anyway…)

Back to rose, who still knows Bernard is alive somewhere. “it cant be easy losing the one person you love on the island”

Shannon shoves walts clothes in Vincent’s snout. “Find Walt!”
The dog takes her-directly to boones grave. Why? And why is he whimpering when they get there? precog-dog?

Back on the beach, Locke swaddles Aaron and hands him to Claire, with three unknown survivors milling about in the background. Add a few boars looking on and it could be a lost nativity scene. Claire tells locke about Charlie’s statue of the virgin mary (see! Nativity!), fearing he’s a religious freak.
Locke - “hmmm… how ‘bout that.”

“death sucks, doesn’t it?”
boone shows up at adams wake. (Some serious subtlety there, no?)
he’s wearing more makeup than Shannon here, and I'm not a gay man, but he’s actually prettier then she is, too. Carlyle, out!
“I’m 18, boone."
didn’t she tell hurley she was 20? But des met jack at least three years ago, and jacks wife recovered in two years, married and left him or died and then the thing with his dad happened, all in a year? Weird, something doesn’t add up here.

Back on the other side, eko wants to move inland to try and make better time so sawyer has a chance to survive. Ana lucia is not impressed. “you would risk our lives to help him?”
“it’s the only way I know” (woulda been cooler if he said roll there)
she liked him better when he wasn’t talking. Should be an interesting backstory.

On the beach, locke is putting a piece of a plate or a mirror in his pack. Why? He holds aaron, tells claire he smells good. Better than jack smelled after his tour de stad? Charlie’s a little jealous.

Back in the jungle, and everyone’s looking straight ahead except libby, who’s looking up. Have they been attacked from the sky or the trees before? Sorta odd behavior. Quick shot of Bernard thru the trees like he’s being watched. Sawyers hurting, and anas being a bitch. Mike – “what happened to you people?”
“they came the first night and took 3 of us, two weeks later they took nine more. They’re smart and they’re animals that can be anywhere at anytime. One gun and one bullet won’t stop them.”
“they took my son”
“they took a lot of things”

only one grave next to boones… the fed, or the guy ethan killed? Fed’s probably buried nearer the beach?
Flashback. Shannon’s spelling something out with her alpha crunch. Her place looks an awful lot like the hatch with some nice French doors. she got her internship, and her rent check bounced. She goes to talk to Sabrina the stepmom bitch. No help there.

Locke and Charlie are playing some backgammon. Exactly opposite set ups: 2 white pieces across from 2 black, and 5 across from 5 further up the board. Is this the initial set up for backgammon? It’s been years and years, I don’t remember. Locke rolls two sixes which land weirdly on the pieces. Talking about the baby, Charlie says Claire needs to be more responsible, and locke notes that’s an interesting thing to say for a heroin addict. Charlie corrects(?) him, “Recovering!”
“recovering.”

sawyers about down for the count, mikes cradling him. Awwwww
before he passes out he tells mike “I did leave you behind” (are these sawyers last words? Only if they wanna lose most of the female audience. And the guys that like han solo. But at the end of the episode, as far as we know, he could be as dead as Shannon. That’d be a shocker… my grassy knoll theory comes into play… his whole backstory has pretty much been told, right? Plus now Ana lucia is there to take over as the ‘bad guy’. Yeah, right.)
mike tells sawyer “it’s a good thing I ain’t you”
ana wants to get going, of course. The others want to help sawyer.
“don’t you remember Goodwin?”, she asks. guess we'll meet him soon?
the locke of the tail, eko, can make a stretcher for sawyer.

Shannon tells sayid about finding the bottle.

Eko put together one hell of a stretcher… that said, “ascent with a stretcher” is not the greatest musical movement in the series.
Cindy hands her stick and bag up to libby. She’s standing next to a dark area by the roots of the tree. It’s the last time we see her. (in this episode, at least) they get to the top but she’s gone. “did they take her?” asks libby. (I don’t think I trust her.)
Ana blames eko for the loss, for taking them thru the jungle for sawyer, who she believes is already dead.
The whispers start. The only thing I could make out here was maybe “rose”, or “roz”, repeated a couple of times. is he not the Bernard we think he is?
“RUN!” - Michelle Rodriguez is not my favorite actress.

Flashingback, Sabrina the stepmom bitch gives boone a cushy job near home so he can’t help/be near Shannon in NYC. Boones tries to give Shannon some money, but she doesn’t want help from someone who doesn’t believe in her, the way she’s also trying to find walt on her own without sayid, who doesn’t believe in her.

Back to those two…Uh oh. It’s suddenly raining. It always seems to rain when the others are near. And wet walt apparition is always, well...wet. does it suggest they’re related somehow? Is the water needed to help conduct enough electricity to boost walt’s psychic abilities and make the dead walk? “They’re alive! Alive!”
(is the water from ponce de leons fountain of youth?)
“you’re just gonna leave me” it all boils down to the loss of her dad, boone taking the job, sayid not believing about walt, all the men she depended on letting her down. Now she’s a sympathetic character. Just in time to kick the bucket. Or does she?
Sayid tells her he will never leave her, and he loves her!
Passionate embrace, and…cue the whispers.
Here I think I heard “ana lucia”, “in the eyes” it sounds like Judi dench saying something like “that one had to go first”, and then someone yells, “sawyer!” right before we see Walt. (i don't know if any of what i heard is what was actually said. i doubt it is)

Sayid sees him this time. He’s shushing them (backwards, creepy), so Shannon of course starts yelling, “Walt!” duh.
Sayid’s frozen for a moment, at the shock of seeing walt? He didn’t think he was dead really, did he? He tries to catch up to Shannon and trips. She yells for walt to wait, and BLAM! Gunshot!
Sayid catches up and she turns around. No exit wound on her back, and the wound in front looks more like a slash/stab than a bullet wound. Did an other slash her and ana shot at it? was it locke with one of his knives? (I doubt it, but possibly maybe? i'm sure it was just ana shooting her. that will turn out to be a more interesting story than yet another mystery, "who shot shannon?")
She falls into sayids arms. He looks up to see ana holding out the gun, and she slowly puts it down by her side as everyone else enters and sees what happened. if they were so close by, wouldn't mike have heard her yelling out for walt and run toward her?
Sayid starts to get up, and I don’t wanna think about where he’s gonna put those bamboo shoots. ouch.

***interesting post over at the ABC boards. are we gonna meet this per lundquist or einar ragnarrson soon? is the island off the coast of zanzibar, not in the south pacific as we've been led to believe?
there's some kind of nasty strain of meningococcal disease? did candle have it as a kid? is that how he lost his arm? did locke somehow contract it at some point and that's what led to his dead legs?
article #2342 (weird coincidental? link here), of course... but why is it dated 9/19/05?
does the disease decimate the world, ala captain trips, and the people on the island are the only survivors? maybe everyone died in the plane crash, and some were revived and frozen and others became, well, the others?
here's a link to the Joop press release. Joop?
interesting choice of words, "harvested". has everyone on the island been "harvested"?
or were they brought out of cryostorage to repopulate the world after it was wiped out?
does the life extension project turn some people into the infected, and some just live longer? how long ago did the plane really crash? did the plane really crash? how old is everyone, and are all the flashbacks just implanted memories?
wow, some more questions there...
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BLAM!

early in the morning at work here... this'll be short and i'll update later tonight.

i'm good at avoiding spoilers and don't watch any commercials or previews, so i wasn't expecting a death (like everyone else was, i guess)
that said, everything sayid was doing and saying at the beginning of the episode made me turn to my (brand new)wife and say, "looks like shannons gonna die soon".

but is she? or was the death everyone was waiting for someone else who has been with us since the beginning, the stewardess? i dunno, but i sure wouldn't mind never seeing shannon again.
"why doesn't anyone believe me?!!?"
um... because you're a whiny princess with no credibility, maybe?

are the boat others experimenting on walt (underwater?) and somehow boosting what he can do? why would he appear to shannon and not michael? cause he and vincent have some sort of connection and he can hone in on where the dog is or something? he's obviously (?) just trying to lead shannon (or whoever he's appearing to, maybe he can't even tell) to his dad.
"esolc er'yeht dna, gnimoc er'yeht"
who's coming and who's close? what is the definition of the 'others' at this point? the tailenders, the shuffling zombies, or the people on the boat? what's yours?
i think the shufflers that jin and the big dude saw are the tailenders that were taken by the others. or the passengers that didn't survive the crash. either way, i hope there are some damn zombies on this island. i love zombies.

nice to see a brief glimpse of jack in the past, the wig didn't look so bad this time. desmond said it was three years ago that he was on his race around the world, right? how long do you train for something like that? so shannons flashback was at least three years ago? maybe a lot more? i missed any mention of her age...
is the emergency room flashback gonna be surprisingly similar to what happens soon when jack has to work on both saywer and shannon?* is another rutherford gonna fall victim to his negligence?

anyway, i'll stay away from the boards today and rewatch and post a longer post when i get outta work.

great fucking episode.

*-thanks beto
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