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Lost: Orientation

Desmond: "I push this button every hundred and eight minutes. I don't get out much."

I was somehow intrigued, amused, and disappointed at the same time.

The orientation film was shelved behind Turn of the Screw, the classic Henry James novella about a governess' belief that the two children in her charge were turned evil because of ghosts. We never find out if it was true, or if the governess was demented. This paralleled my uncertainty about what was going on here. Were Desmond and Locke deluded? Or were they the smart ones who knew what was really happening? I'm usually on Jack's side, but this time, I was on Locke's – at least temporarily. I think Locke (or someone) should keep hitting the button until they know for sure what will happen when they stop.

Yes, the film itself was fun. It contained all sorts of interesting goodies about island stations and unique electromagnetic properties and polar bears. But am I the only one who was a tad bummed to discover that the Island might just be an old social science experiment? There has been too much build up for something so outright pointless. At least we found out why the bunker had a combination of old stuff (the project was from the 1970s, and the film was copyrighted 1980) and new stuff (new recruits bringing in new supplies?). What I don't understand is why the computer was still so old.

Leaving aside the hilarity of Locke in group therapy, the flashbacks were mildly disappointing, too. Two years after the kidney-napping, and Locke was still stalking his father? Helen was very likable, although her motivations for trying to make Locke stop stalking Daddy weren't clear.

In other news, we have now met Ana Lucia, and she seems to be a lot like Kate. I can completely understand why she and the other people (from the tail section?) were being so cautious, but would everybody please stop hurting Sawyer now?


And I'm missing everyone else on the Island. Can we get back to the beach, please?

Character bits:

Desmond has been in the bunker for three years, which means that it has probably only been four years or so since Jack's bad haircut.

It was confirmed that Jack lived in Los Angeles, and that he did marry Sarah. He got upset while he was talking about Sarah. Did she die?

Helen wasted twenty years of her life being angry, huh? She can't be the same woman Locke was talking to on phone in "Walkabout." He must have asked the woman he was paying to let him call her Helen.


Who was in the photo with Desmond?

Where did Desmond go when he left? Is there a shuttle leaving in ten minutes? Will the little dinosaurs get him on his way out?

Ana Lucia woke up under water. If she was telling them the truth, that is. Maybe the other people weren't from the tail section.

When they panned over the food stores, all I could think was that there was peanut butter for Claire.

Desmond's dead partner's name was Kelvin. Kelvin, as in temperature scale?

Sawyer got in a couple of nicknames: he called Ana Lucia "Cupcake," and the big black guy "Shaft."

Locke's father told Locke: "You think you're the first person that ever got conned? You needed a father figure, and I needed a kidney. Get over it." Someone on LostReviews speculated that Locke's father might be the original Sawyer. The personality certainly fits.

We still don't know about Locke's paralysis, dammit.

Bits and pieces:

— Please stop with the bad wigs. I promise to suspend belief without them.

— I'm rarely impatient with Lost, but I got very tired of the endless bunker confrontation.


— Dan said that the Others in the opening scene looked like the family from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

— I want to see the door Kate used to get outside. If it was so hard for them to find the hatch, how did they conceal the front door?

— How did Locke get the keys to his car back?

Quotes:

Helen: "I like bald guys."
Locke: "I'm not bald."
Helen: "I can wait."

Locke: "We're going to need to watch that again." I did watch it a couple of times, and got the following: Dharma Initiative, Dr. Marvin Candle, Gerald and Karen deGroot, University of Michigan, B.F. Skinner, Alvar Hanso, the experiment was supposed to run 540 days, and "Namaste and good luck."


I don't know what I was expecting when we started to get some answers, but this wasn't it. Two out of four polar bears,

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

5 comments:

  1. I’m now officially bored with the bunker. I screeched at the television when Jack, Desmond and Locke launched into the same dialogue for the third (yes, I know, three) episode in a row. Pardon me while I doze off…

    I also figured out as soon as we saw Ana Lucia that the people who attacked our crew on the beach are also survivors from the crash. My guess is that “Shaft” is Bernard and Rose will be proved right -- he did survive. OK, that’s fairly obvious so let’s get everyone out of the pit, out of the bunker and back either on the beach or into the caves.

    I am far too quickly losing interest...

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  2. I might be the only Lost fan who likes Ana Lucia and Michelle Rodriguez. She's so kick-ass and beautiful at the same time. And she conned the con man! How cool is that?

    Sayid not asking questions about the button is weird. In fact, Sayid's character--who was so thoughtful for the first season--loses some of his mojo in Season Two, doesn't he? I already miss Season One Sayid.

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  3. You are not alone. Well, I'm nearby at any rate. I thought Ana Lucia was a good character, because she added something interesting to the mix. But I never found her very likable as a person. (Kind of like Dr. Rush on SGU --- intriguing, good character with shades of grey, but not terribly personable or likable.) Still, I did usually like her backstory episodes. I found them very illuminating.

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  4. I too liked Ana Lucia and remain perplexed about the fan distaste.
    I'm rewatching the season specifically to find a small moment, I hope I won't find it a slog. Though I'm thinking it might've been in the 3rd season, crap... but I don't wanna start jumping around.

    Something really funny to me about the violence from that giant black guy who's with Ana Lucia. When he's clubbing the 3 Losties at the beginning of the episode I mean. I like it when they move faster than they look. Fast giants are intimidating.

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  5. Have to agree with everyone’s comments here during my rewatch. 3rd time through the same scenes is beginning to be a slog. Lost is such a thoughtful, character driven show that repeating these sequences takes away from that.

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