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Lost: Further Instructions

Locke: "Bad things happen to people who hang around with me."

So Locke, Eko, and Desmond all survived the strange, supermagnet-induced blast. How the hell did they do that when the Hatch was a huge, imploded hole in the ground?

Locke returned to his role as mystic in a great big way, getting in touch with the spirit of the Island (apparently, Boone) to get "further instructions". I just loved Locke's exceptionally cool hallucination in the airport, with Boone as his spirit guide pushing his wheelchair. I watched it four times.

1. Charlie, Claire, and baby Aaron were together and happy, like a family. "Not them. They'll be fine. For awhile."

2. Sayid, Sun, and Jin. "I think Sayid's got it." (I assume Boone was referring to the unsuccessful rescue attempt.)

3. Hurley was behind a counter at the airport, punching the infamous numbers into a computer. "Not Hurley."

4. Desmond was with three female flight attendants that looked a lot alike. Dan thought they were even triplets. (Twins and triplets again.) "Forget it. He's helping himself."

5. Kate and Sawyer, acting like a couple, were in the security line. Jack was in the same line, alone. (Much like their situation with the Others.) They were cut off from Locke by a wall of glass. Henry Ben, dressed as security, was wanding Jack (Ana Lucia's old job); the wand beeped like the button in the Hatch. "There's nothing you can do for them. Not yet. First, you have to clean up your own mess."

6. Locke at the bottom of the escalator, dragging himself to the top, was a call back to Locke and Eko at the cliff, and how they were in each other's heads. Locke had to climb up to save Eko, who was represented by both the bloodied Boone and by Eko's Jesus stick.

It was interesting what they were all wearing in the vision. Claire, Sun, and Kate, the women, were all wearing black dresses. Were they in mourning? Jin, Sayid, Sawyer, and Jack were all wearing blue shirts. Charlie, Hurley, and Desmond were wearing suits. I have no idea what it meant, but these were not the clothes they were wearing the day of the crash.

I was tired of Locke obsessed with his swindling, kidney-stealing daddy, so I enjoyed the switch to the pot-growing survivalist commune, Locke's second and again unsuccessful attempt at having a family. The Fusies on the Island are his third, and Boone said he was there to help Locke bring his family back together.

This was nearly all Locke's episode, but Charlie got some wonderful lines as well as the opportunity to show that he can forgive with the best of them. And there was a tantalizing tidbit about Desmond: he heard Locke's beach speech before Locke actually gave the speech. (Cue the Twilight Zone music.) Is Desmond psychic? Unstuck in time, like Slaughterhouse Five? Like the radio that Hurley showed Sayid?

Character bits:

This episode began with a close-up of Locke's right eye, and he woke up in the jungle, flat on his back. This was much like our first glimpse of Jack in the opening shot of the pilot. The first thing Locke saw was Desmond running around naked, just as Jack saw Vincent the dog.

Locke took the same homemade drug that he gave Boone. Locke's familiarity with creating homemade drugs now makes sense.

I was disappointed that we still didn't learn how Locke became paralyzed. Come on, guys. It's way past time. When we finally find out, it's going to be such an anti-climax.

Jump Street Eddie could just as easily have been called Metaphor Boone. As soon as Eddie mentioned the fertilizer, I knew he was undercover. I'm glad Locke didn't kill the poor guy. According to the stat sheet on him, Eddie's name was Edward F. Colburn, and he worked for the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department.

Two of the beach extras suddenly had lines. That was a surprise. So I checked IMDb and son of a gun, they were our two new cast members: Kiele Sanchez as Nikki, and Rodrigo Santoro as Paulo.


Claire assigned Charlie to find out what Locke was doing. Jeez, Claire, do it yourself.

We saw the back of a woman named Lizzie who had a crush on Locke. Do we get to see more of her later? Wasn't there another Lizzie in the story somewhere?

Desmond got his clothes blown off and didn't turn into the Hulk. That tie-dye looked good on him. How the frilly heck did Desmond lose his clothes in an implosion without getting blown to pieces?

The over-the-counter firearms paperwork had: "Johnathan Locke, 25164 Franklin St., San Francisco, CA 94099." Locke is 5'10", 175 lbs., and his birth date is 11/15/1946, meaning he just turned 58. In Island time, that is.

Spirit Boone was calm and wise and knowledgeable, unlike the real Boone. I liked seeing him that way. Were Ian Somerhalder's eyes always that blue?

I was liking Charlie a little better than last time. Locke tried several times to protect Charlie, worried that he would get hurt or die like Boone.

Eddie was wearing a Geronimo Jackson tee shirt. There was a Geronimo Jackson album in the Hatch, now vaporized into a vinyl afterthought. It's really too bad that the Hatch is gone. No more hot showers, clean laundry, or really old, obscure music.

Bits and pieces:

— The pot-growing commune had a Dharma sixties kind of feel. Some of the dates I saw on the paperwork were in the 1990s, though.

— Eko being dragged off by a polar bear had its comical aspects. How many bears are there on the Island? Why did the Others let them go?


— There were several candidates for Most Obvious Symbolism. Locke woke up mute, symbolic of what? Being helpless? No one listening to him? Not having anything important to say? After waking up, Locke was promptly struck on the head by Eko's Jesus stick. That was about as obvious as symbolism gets. And Locke created the sweat lodge at the site of Eko's future church.

— What was a toy dumptruck doing in the bear cave, with the skeletons in Dharma Initiative clothing? Bear food?

Quotes, all of which were Charlie's:

"So you're gone for a whole day, after a massive hatch detonation. You don't call, you don't write."

"So where are Eko and Desmond? Are they off being mute and building structures as well?"

"You're not taking drugs, are you, John? I only ask because of the strict zero tolerance policy you've enacted. I wouldn't want you to have to start punching yourself in the face."

"You're going to go into your little magic hut, and I'm going to stand out here in case you devolve into a monkey." Reference to Altered States.


"You know, when I used to get high, I'd watch nature programs on the Beeb. Polar bears are meant to be quite clever. Very clever. They're like the Einsteins of the bear community."

"Hair spray. I hate to be the one to point this out to you, but..."

Four out of four polar bears,

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

4 comments:

  1. Were Ian Somerhalder's eyes always that blue? Aren't they simply amazing? Sigh...

    Not my favourite, I'm afraid. I'm bored with Locke and with his backstory. He's damaged; he's made and continues to make some bad decisions; he's easily manipulated. Great. I get it. Let's move on.

    Agree, however, that the scene with Boone was amazingly well done. It really looked like a dream or an hallucination. Again, the photography was stunning.

    What interests me is that the writers have chosen the first three episodes of this season to show very negative aspects of some of our key characters. I'm not sure why, but I am willing to continue along for the ride.

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  2. Love the review, as always, but I don't agree with the rating. For me, this was not one of my favorite episodes. I like John, but...I don't know. The best part of the episode, or parts I should say, were whenever Charlie was in the scene, shooting off zingers left and right. And of course, we got the introduction to two of Lost's most infamous characters, Nikki and Paulo, who would soon disappear as quickly as they appeared. I don't remember them being that annoying, but maybe as I continue to re-watch the series, I'll change my mind.

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  3. The worst flashback ever,in my opinion.
    Brilliant the hallucination,so surreal and vivid,with John and Boone.

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  4. Considering we finally return to the other Losties after 2 whole episodes with the Michael crew, I wasn't all that thrilled about it once they lingered on Locke and Charlie with the sweat lodge thing. Though the hallucination was really fun, Locke being led around on wheelchair by Boone and pointing/gesticulating at random Losties he's scared for, lol. "Come up here, John!"

    Even though I didn't care for the flashback I liked Eko calling him a hunter. It's what he needs to hear. And loved the ending, Hurley catching onto Desmond's future sight. But mostly only because I know what's in store there.

    ReplyDelete

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