Rocks In My Dryer

*UPDATED* It's Like the Island Doesn't Want This Post To Be Written

Thanks to an unfortunate encounter yesterday with a bowl of freshly steamed potatoes right out of my microwave, I'm minus two fingers.

(Well, not minus them. They didn't fall off, they just burned badly. Though there was a point yesterday in which I thought they might be falling off, because OUCH.)

Last night was a haze of doctors and pain medication, so I determined I'd wait and watch Lost this morning. And it occurred to me that there was a really good chance I might be able to understand Lost better on pain pills.

But this morning I emerged from my haze to find that my DVR, for some reason, didn't record Lost last night. This, despite the very firm talking-to I've given my DVR multiple times over the importance of never, ever doing this to me.

So when (if? please?) I'm able to watch the online episode, I'll get a recap up straight away, pain-med-induced commentary and all.

*UPDATED* So it was a rerun. Nothing missed. I'm befuddled why the Lost producers would do this to us at a time of such momentum, but there you go (full story here).

Lost Recap: The Last Recruit

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't seen the episode airing April 21, don't read this.

(Before I go any further, take a look at this link that The Cake Mom sent--Lost cookies! Love it!)

I can't help but feel frustrated at the pacing in these final episodes. There are only four left, after all, and I feel like there is more than four episodes' worth of material to cover.  But I have my rose-colored glasses firmly in place, trusting that these writers know where they're going. If they're saving up the loose ends until the last episode...well, it will be one heck of an episode.

Still, there were some notable points in "The Last Recruit":

Christian Shepherd = Smokey
According to Fake Locke (who is about as trustworthy as...well, the devil) the frequently appearing Christian Shepherd has, in fact been Smokey all along. This isn't a huge surprise, but it does raise an important question: If Smokey is unable to leave the Island, then how did Christian appear to Jack in Season Four, back in Los Angeles after the rescue?

"It has to be all of us."
The presence of all the candidates is critical to the coming and going on the Island. That's what it took to get the Ajira plane properly crashed on the Island, and it's what it's going to take to get this crew back off the Island (again, according to Fake Locke). But why? This plot element is one that confuses me the most.

Intersecting lives
In the sideways reality, the Losties' lives crash more and more into each other. Sun and John enter the hospital together (where Sun recognizes him). Jack performs surgery on John. Miles and Sawyer head out to arrest Sayid while Kate waits back at the station. Ilana and Claire meet with Desmond and Jack. This almost surely must be a build-up to some giant "hey-we've-met-before" moment in the next couple of episodes.

Desmond: Is he dead or not?
The question of the night, as far as I'm concerned, is whether Sayid went through with Desmond's murder. My vote is that he didn't--that he might have, in fact, helped Desmond escape.  If we can possibly see a glimmer of redemption in Sayid, maybe there's hope for all the other people on the dark side as well. My son's fifth-grade English teacher (we Losties find each other, I'm tellin' you) swears up and down that even John Locke is going to be fully redeemed at the end. We'll see.

Jumping ship
Sawyer, Kate and Co. escape on Libby's old sailboat, but Jack follows his conscience and swims back to shore. Was this a good choice? I think a fair gut reaction in this show is to bet on Jack.

Adam and Eve
Did you catch the scene where Sawyer was eating the apple and offered it to Kate? That was a rather Adam-and-Eve-ish moment, no? Was it a hint of things to come?

Reunited and it feels so good.
I was thrilled that Jin and Sun were reunited, even if the cornball factor was pretty high on that scene ("Look who got her voice back," said Lapidus). In this show, true love will not only serve as your Constant and help you recognize alternate realities, it will also magically reinsert the English language into your brain. That's a stretch, even for Lost.

Just for grins, here are a few polls to see where your predictions stand:

Blogging Lost at your blog? Feel free to leave a link below. This list will close to new links in a few days, to keep away the spammers.

 

I'm playing catch up, reading through my favorite craft blogs--thought I'd post some highlights here. Enjoy!

Paint Old Baking Pans for Storage :: Natalie Jost

Handmade Paper Corsages for Mom :: Make and Takes

Wall Pocket Tidy Tote :: JCasa Handmade

Custom Paper Silhouettes :: Design Sponge

DIY Paper Medalions :: How About Orange

Lost Recap: Everybody Loves Hugo

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't seen the episode airing April 14, don't read this.

My apologies for my late posting of my Lost recap, but, you see, I've only just now stopped shrieking at the television.

(I'm kidding. Kind of. This was easily one of the most dramatic episode conclusions we've seen all season, perhaps in the whole series, and I just haven't yet gotten my wits about me.)

But let's start at the beginning.

Michael appears to Hurley to tell him that the Ajira flight must not, at all costs, be blown up. I'm a little puzzled by this; if the good guys (presumably Team Jacob) want the bad guys (presumably Team Smokey) to contain their evil on the Island, then some plane destruction definitely seems like a good idea to me. The Island, however, has other wishes, and Ilana (in the ultimate Very Bad Day) is blown to smithereens in her efforts to do what she thinks is right. I'm really sad to see her go. 

Next up, quite notably, was my first shriek-inducing occurrence of the night: the reappearance of my much-loved Libby. She recognizes Hurley, though he does not recognize her (at first). Through this, we learn that one is most likely to experience awareness of the sideways reality if one is a) a junkie, a la Charlie, b) near death, a la Desmond, or c) stark raving nuts, a la Libby. This leads me to wonder if some of our other Losties are far too rational and sane (a la Jack) to ever be made aware of the concurrent reality, but I suppose we'll see.

Also notable in this episode was the appearance of the strange boy in the woods. In a colossal lack of curiosity which is epidemic among characters in this show, Desmond doesn't follow him, despite my shouted instructions to the contrary. For the record, I predict that this strange boy is a grown-up Aaron, a hunch I base entirely on the fact that the actor seems to look like Claire, and perhaps this is by design. (Any other good guesses out there?)

This wasn't Desmond's only other unwise move of the night. He strangely is quite trusting and open with Fake Locke (who he thinks is Real Locke). This baffles me. In the last episode, Desmond seemed to accept (cheerfully!) the fate dealt to him by Widmore. Yet when he's kidnapped--at gunpoint--by others, he all too quickly spills the beans. It seems that if he were more fully on Team Widmore he would've viewed his captors with some suspicion.

He should have.  In a truly awful moment (my shriek #2), Locke throws Desmond into a well (some strong Christ-like imagery there, imagery which seems to follow Desmond consistently). Thank goodness for sneak peeks at next week, which show a very alive Desmond sitting at the bottom of a well. 

Things take a curious shift, however, when the "sideways Desmond" purposefully rams a car into a wheelchair-bound Locke (my very loud and extended shriek #3). Did he do this because he wanted to induce a near-death experience to help John see the island reality? Or was it some sort of vengeance for the well episode, which Desmond may have remembered during his MRI flashes? I'm betting on the former.

We learned a few more important things in this episode:

• The whispers, Michael tells us, are the voices of "the ones who can't go on". I'm disappointed by this, since the writers have repeatedly and firmly insisted that the Island is not some sort of Purgatory. They've got some 'splainin' to do. 
• John tells Desmond that the Island is a place that "makes compass needles spin." I liked this reference, however brief, to the physicality of what goes on at the Island. Certainly there are significant spiritual forces at play, but this confirms there is some very physical and scientific action taking place as well.
• Jack gives us a little more insight into his changed view of the world (see Quote Of The Night below), telling us he's learning to let go. I'm dying to know more about this trusting, mellowed Jack, and it looks like I won't have to wait long--the reports are that next week's episode is Jack-centric.

Quote Of The Night:

"Ever since Julie died--ever since I got her killed--all I wanted was to fix it. But I can't. I can't ever fix it. You have no idea how hard it is for me to sit back and listen to other people tell me what I should do. But I think maybe that's the point. Maybe...maybe I'm supposed to let go." --Jack

-also-

"How do you break the ice with the smoke monster?" -Hurley

Blogging Lost at your blog? Feel free to leave a link below. This list will close to new links in a few days, to keep away the spammers.

Lost Recap: Happily Ever After

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't seen the episode airing April 6, don't read this.

Let me be clear: I don't have the foggiest ideas what direction the Lost writers are headed. I feel like my grasp on the timeline is so tenuous that I'm having vague flashbacks of my own: to the head-scratching and total puzzlement I felt in college algebra. But I understand just enough that last night I announced back to the television: "Oh, I like where you're going with this."

It appeared earlier that we were heading down a course of Anything Can Happen--simultaneously realities, and all that. Last night we began to have a vague sense that there may, in fact, be one course that is supposed to occur, and it will find a way to happen, regardless of how our interferences mess things up. My old Presbyterian heart loves this. 

(Before I go any further, I have to give props to my friend Kathleen who watched the episode with me last night and stayed up late hashing all this through with me as we sat in front of the Lost message boards. Because we know how to par-tay.)

Last night we finally learned that Desmond is "special" because he is able to survive catastrophic electromagnetic events. We're not sure why he's able to survive these events (could it be all the immunizations he gave himself back in his hatch days?) Widmore has called him back to the Island in order to make a sacrifice (dear Lost writers: PLEASE DON'T KILL DESMOND) that will somehow save humanity. Before we can learn more, we screech over to the sideways reality.

Interestingly, Desmond is one of the few characters (maybe the only one) whose sideways reality is less desirable than his Island reality. He's alone in the world, and he doesn't have his Penny. (Of note: Did anyone else notice that when Desmond walked into Widmore's office at the beginning, there was an interesting painting on the wall? You can see the screencap here: it appears to be justice scales weighing the black rock and the white rock, though the design is curiously reminiscent of a cross.)

So far, all of the sideways flashes have shown that our characters have brief moments of memory or recognition, where they have a strong sense that they've been on another path before. Last night, Desmond, Charlie, and Daniel (HI CHARLIE AND DANIEL! We missed you!) took their memories to a much deeper level. Their flashes of awareness of their other lives are actually driving them to action. Interestingly, all three of these men find this recognition because of the women they loved in their Island life (Penny, Claire, and Charlotte, respectively). I love this, though it comes as no huge surprise--many years of listening to country music has assured me that love can build a bridge, between your heart and mine. *cheesy grin*

Hopefully we are about to see these three men move mountains (or islands, or dictatorial corporate giants) to reunite with the women they love, at all costs. NOT, however, if Eloise (Hawking) Widmore has her way, which brings me to another interesting point...

Eloise clearly knows what's going on. Her recognition of Desmond was unmistakable, and her "explanation" to him, although cryptic, made it clear that she wants him to abandon his search for Penny, calling it "clearly a violation". We do not know if the sideways Charles Widmore shares his wife's awareness of what's going (the episode didn't reveal this either way, but it makes sense that he would). If Eloise knows, then how does she know? Is it possible she engineered this entire thing as a way to save her son Daniel from being killed? Since she had access to all her strange Dharma knowledge and the Island's powerful forces, maybe she decided to harness them to change her son's future by changing his past (having him become a pianist instead of a physicist). That theory seems a little shaky to me, but it's the only one jumping out at right me now.

A few general wondering-ments raised by this episode (feel free to share your opinions):

• What kind of "violation" was Eloise referring to? Are these the same "rules" that Ben and Widmore have spoken of before?
• Does Widmore also know about the double realities, as Eloise does?
• What kind of sacrifice is Desmond going to be asked to make?
• Desmond is setting out to find the other passengers. Do you think they will all respond to the memory flashes with the same degree of certainty?

Blogging Lost at your blog? Feel free to leave a link below. This list will close to new links in a few days, to keep away the spammers.

Arise, arise,

And with His burial-linen dry thine eyes.

Christ left His grave-clothes, that we might, when grief

Draws tears or blood, not want a handkerchief.

George Herbert, Anglican priest, 1593-1633

 

Image via **Mary** on Flickr