LOST 5.14 The Variable (Faraday)

One of our favorite characters dies suddenly on this episode.  He is the one who realizes that you can change your destiny (or fate) because the human spirit can make its own way and can choose its own path.  We are the variable that determines the future (our future).

Daniel Faraday is playing the piano when his mom walks in.  She says he destiny is not to play, but to work at his gift of intelligence and its her job to nurture it.  Young Dan wants to do both but at his mom’s insistence he follows her advice and becomes the youngest graduate at Oxford.  His research assistant is also his girlfriend and her name is Theresa.  But his mom (Eloise Hawking) thinks Dan is wasting his time with her.  He needs to get back to his true destiny as a scientist.  Luckily Dan has just received a research grant from Charles Widmore to do just that.  At lunch she gives him a journal which says roughly paraphrasing ” Daniel… even if you forget, I still love you, Mom”.

Daniel’s research goes on for a while and we later see him watching the newscast of Oceanic 815 deep underwater in the Sunda trench.  His caretaker wonders why he is so upset.  He does not know.  Apparently Dan has been testing out his research on himself causing memory loss.  A man comes to his apartment (flat) and tells him he is Charles Widmore his benefactor.  He mentions he is a friend of Eloise and that the Daniel should not be upset of being kicked out of Oxford.  (Dan’s experiments led to his girlfriend ending up in a coma).  Widmore says he has not come about that.  He has come to offer Dan a job.  He wants him to return to the island because the real 815 crashed there.  Dan asks how he knows this.  It’s because Widmore faked the crash and put another plane into the Ocean to hide the real whereabouts of the island.  He promises the Dan’s memory will be restored if he returns to the island.  After talking to his mom, Dan agrees to go back.

LOST @ 100

Hey LOST Fans,

I just wanted to share my thoughts now that LOST has reached it’s 100th episode.  According to Damon Lindelof, LOST was never going to go this long in his mind.  He was asked where the show would be in the story at episode 74 and he replied he would be laughing if it made it past the first 13.

 Early on in Season 1, LOST had huge ratings and significant social relevance.  How could people of a variety of different backgrounds survive in today’s multicultural “world trade” like environment?  To top that off, there was a huge debate about terrorism, hijacking (the shoe bomber), torture and other such goings on.  And what does Lost do?  It addresses these issues nearly head on with its multinational cast, jungle survivalism, and overt reference to the Iraqi National Guard (Sayid) and torture (again Sayid).  Would the castaways be able to survive the island, and even more, could they survive each other?

Lost won best drama for Season 1.  And we all awaited eagerly the advent of Season 2, and what was ” in the hatch”.  I was betting on a World War II bunker.  But what very few if any of us could guess, what we found was not a “what” but a “who”.  Desmond.  A man cut off from the world but committed to one purpose… to push a button every 108 minutes by faith because someone told him it was his duty and his destiny.  More on Desmond later.  

Now the biggest event to happen to LOST in Season 2 was not the hatch or the button, it was something they found in there.  A video.  It was a video of a much larger story.  The Orientation video for the Swan (starring Dr. Chang aka Wickmond).  This event was the dividing line between the lovers of the Season 1 story line, and those who felt that Lost was telling a greater story.  A story full of mystery and adventure on the island and “about” the island.  Many fans dropped out not wanting a sci fi adventure.  Some others hated that answers to key mysteries were not quickly resolved (what brought down the plane?, where was rescue?, who were the Others?).  

In the meantime, the execs at ABC and the writers of Lost were trying to stretch out the story, a story whose ending was already known, for as long as possible.  That was until fans really started to complain about how slowly things moved.  For me the turning point was the killing of Mr. Eko and the lame introduction of Nikki and Paulo (which was done in an attempt to please the fans).  This marked the end of the “tailies” mostly, so why did they even bother to introduce them in Season 2 in the first place?  I was frustrated!  Really frustrated!  Would Lost regain its glory?  Thankfully the good news was just around the corner and it would literally be a turning point for LOST and it’s fans.

All About Lost eps 5.13 (Some Like it Hoth)

In this edition of All About Lost Jeremy and T.L.E. take a look at the Miles centric episode of lost. Episode complete with rapid fire recap, official recap, thoughts/analysis, feedback, and for the first time in several weeks T.L.E. goes back on the clock.

MP3 File

LOST podcast coming this weekend

 We are doing a mega podcast this weekend.  LOST Eps 5.13 and a double episode Prison Break podcast.

Special: The Superheroes of LOST

 

Watchmen by Alan Moore

Damon Lindelof’s biggest influence was the graphic novel “Watchmen” a story about superheroes who were past their prime and being watched by an unknown force who wanted to kill the Watchmen.  In fact, these super’s were just ordinary people who became something special as a result of events that changed their lives.  Now in this past week’s episode of LOST, Hurley makes a somewhat of an off-hand comment to Miles, “My superpowers are better than yours…”.  This made me think that some or maybe all the people of LOST have some sort of special powers.  

Let’s think back.  John Locke was told he was “special”.  He has already proved it by coming back from the dead and now he seems to know some things about the island that he never seemed to know before.  Like knowing how to find the temple for instance without ever being there.  And what about Walt, he too was consider special by his parents and by Ben Linus who said he was much more than we expected (He has also been known to kill birds with his thought power).  

The aforementioned Hurley claims he can talk to dead people while Miles says he knows their last thoughts and emotions.  Jack’s talent is healing people and he was told (by Locke) that he was never meant to leave the island.  Kate seems to act of compassion and empathy even when its not the smart thing to do.  She killed her step dad to save her mom (even though her mom did not want to be saved).  She took care of Aaron and helped make sure Clementine was okay (even though both the mom’s involved told her she did not have to – although Claire had a creepy way of telling her).

Of course we have seen Desmond’s powers pretty clearly.  He aims to do good even if he has to die to do it.  He saved Charlie multiple times and also turned the fail safe key in the Swan hatch.  He can travel through time safely with Penny as his constant and rearrange events (although he can’t stop something that is eventually course corrected).  He seems to have a great faith but not in the power of the island – instead his faith is in goodness.  Speaking of which I wonder, do you have to be born on the island to get these powers.  We know Aaron was on island (but we don’t know his power yet (although he seems to have a rather large head).  And Ethan was born on island (he seems to be super strong).  Locke and Ben were both born off island.  We haven’t seen any other births (that I can think of).  Perhaps the rest were all born on island.  Kate in particular seems to know her way around the place.

Anyway it will be interesting to see if our Losties do have some latent superhero powers yet to be fully revealed.