This wasn’t the mind-bender of an episode that was last season’s finale, but it sure was entertaining. The fight between Kemmee and Sayid was one of the best one-on-one action sequences I’ve seen in any form, although I found it a little odd at the end of the fight when all the scruffy Others emerged from the woods. They couldn’t have helped out with one of their electronic darts or something?

The whole bomb countdown was also quite suspenseful. Michael is actually dead now, and Jin…well, the rule of thumb is if you don’t actually see someone die, they’re probably still alive.

I love that all of the random survivors were on the raft instead of any key cast members…clever. I’ll miss Faraday, though. I think he’ll be back.

The orchid was pretty awesome. How does Ben know so much about the island? And where did the island go? Somewhere in space-time, but when? Where?

I love the setup for next season, particularly the happenings on the island. Locke will finally get the inside perspective of the scruffy Others—maybe we’ll learn how they don’t age, and how they find it so easy to get on and off the island. And I like the red-haired chick and the creepy Asian dude are on the island—their stories seem really interesting, and they might play into all that goes wrong on the island after Jack leaves.

Locke being dead…well, somebody had to die at the end. I don’t consider it that big of a reveal, since it won’t really impact what we experience as Lost viewers for the next two seasons. Locke will still be there on the island, acting away…I guess we’re supposed to wonder how he got off the island. Probably the same way Ben used to.

I think I’ll be a little annoyed by Jack’s future efforts to get Kate and Aaron to join Hurley, Sayid, Ben, possibly Desmond, and the Asian woman to go back to the island. There’s going to be a lot of crying and shouting and coercing…hopefully they’ll make it interesting. And is Ben even going back? Hasn’t he pledged to hunt down and kill Penny? (Sidenote: My favorite moment of the episode was when Penny and Desmond were reunited. There’s no evidence to support this, but I may have cried.) Will the Asian woman’s baby have to go back as well? And Walt?

So I think I have more questions than answers. That’s okay. This is Lost. Eventually we’re going to need explanations about what the Island is, how it works, what the black smoke monster is, and if Walt or Aaron are important at all. And who Jacob is!

You want answers? Okay, here they are in short: The island is an aberration in space-time, a place that cleans up destiny-based discrepancies so the world doesn’t end. At the end of Lost, the island will no longer exist. The black smoke monster is made of millions of lost souls who determine if other people’s souls are ready to join it for eternity or not. Walt himself is not important, but children are important to the Others because they have yet to mess with the space-time continuum. Aaron is very important and will end the world if the island doesn’t do something about it. And Jacob…Jacob is the island.

Bam. There it is. I’ll see you for more Lost commentary and complete contradictions to all my theories in 2009.

The title of this entry refers to a male contestant (Erik) in the final five on Survivor who decided, thanks to some supreme manipulation and tomfoolery by the four female contestants, to give his immunity idol to another contestant to prove his loyalty. As planned, the four female contestants promptly voted Erik off the island. I feel really, really bad for the dude, as his intentions were pure, but his decision-making ability was poor at best.

But I’m here to talk about another island. One where immunity necklaces and allegiances don’t help you, one where Jeff Probst isn’t going to send in the medical team to help you when you’re burned or bleeding.

The island of Lost.

This season of Lost, despite its brevity (and perhaps thanks to it), has been a delight to watch. Even tiny little details, like that weird device strapped to the underside of Lt. Kimmie’s bicep, make me smile. The whole show is both an homage to good science fiction and an object to be given homage to in the future.

I love Locke episodes. Ever since he realized his legs worked on the island, you knew the guy was special. But this episode showed that he was special well before he stepped onto the island, before he survived an eight-story fall, before he gave his kidney (liver? Duodenum?) to his father. From day one he was a survivor. (Politically incorrect sidenote: If a baby born after being in the womb for 9 months is born on the same day as a baby who has been in the womb for 9 months, which one is older? Shouldn’t the 9-monther get credit for the extra time? Thus, shouldn’t our birthdays be our dates of conception? Take that as you will.)

I loved the scene with Richard (who, by the way, is really interesting. He’s timeless, ageless, a try native of the island.) as he scouts Locke as a young boy. He asks Locke which objects he already owns—I would think that plays into theories that say that time isn’t linear, that everything has already happened regardless of whether or not we’ve perceived those events as being in the past or the future. When Locke picks the knife, Richard packs up his bags. That’s not the Locke he needs.

Locke again denies his destiny when he tries to be a tough guy in high school. And finally, when he’s in the wheelchair, someone else steps in. Richard’s had his chance. Now Lt. Daniels from the Wire has his chance. Who does he work for? We still don’t know? But I’m guessing he doesn’t work for Richard, as he practically hands Locke a knife. He tells him to go on a walkabout, armed with only a knife. He wants Locke to embrace that destiny.

Is Lt. Daniels the same as Jakob? Why is the Australian chick hanging out all creepy-like in the cabin? Is she already dead too? And yes, yes, we already knew the island moves, but how do you make it move?

All great questions, all answerable in the next two (?) episodes. The teaser for the next episode hinted at big stuff, but we already know who the Oceanic 6 are, and it seems clear that Sayid’s the one who will be taking them to the boat. Not a lot of suspense there. But maybe there’s something I’m missing.

In all, the episode was a good reminder of why we’re not supposed to like Michael. I had totally forgotten his betrayal, and it makes perfect sense that Sayid wouldn’t trust him (or Ben) and would turn him in. I’m interested to see what the captain does next.

My only complaint is that we still haven’t seen what happens to all the kids that the Others took. Why has that not yet been revealed? We should have been shown what happened to Walt by this point, especially since he has some sort of superpower that is probably quite relevant. What did the Others do to him?

Honestly, my guess is that the producers haven’t given us that episode because the actor who plays Walt grew up. They can’t film that episode because he wouldn’t look or sound the same. To that, I say: We don’t care. Use the real Walt or bring in a younger, replacement Walt—we’ll understand. We just want to see what happened. Maybe the fifth season will delve into the children.

I’m going to wait a day or so for the votes to finish, and then we’ll start the next round of the March of Mad Ideas.

(Warning: Lost spoilers.)

Eh.

This episode wasn’t bad, per se, but it just wasn’t that interesting. Maybe I’m just used to watching rom coms that make two unrelated events seem connected, but it was obvious from scene one that Jin and Sun weren’t existing at the same time. But even if you didn’t catch onto that, the voiceover had already told you in the previous week’s preview that the last—singular—member of Oceanic 6 would be revealed. Son wasn’t pregnant before the island, so as soon as she called the hospital, you knew that she was the sixth.

The rest of the episode on the island was spent convincing us how great of a guy Jin is so a tear comes to our eye when we see his tombstone. Woopee. Go back and watch the Jin episodes. In some of them, we’re made to believe he’s a great guy. In some of them, the opposite. All too manipulative for my taste.

Plus, it’s made suspiciously unclear about whether or not Jin is actually deceased, or if that’s a memorial marker for the fact that he’s still on the island. Probably the former. But still. Make it clear.

The only good part of the episode was the stuff on the boat. The captain seemed to actually be telling the truth, or at least a good part of it. And the questions he posed about the 324 dead people on the fake Oceanic 815 are pretty interesting. Just how much power does Ben Linus have?

Also, Lost, if you’re going to try to surprise us with the reappearance of an old character, please try to keep it a secret. Seriously, that scene with Michael should have been filmed at least a year ago. Lost needs to think ahead!

Probably the most intriguing part of this episode was the commercial for High School Musical: On Ice. It’s fascinating to me that Disney feels the need to put every single successful movie it owns on ice. What’s so special about that? Do little kids watch Tarzan and think, “Man, I’d like to see that guy wear skates”? When your daughter saw Finding Nemo for the first time, did she tug on your shirt sleeve and beg to see those little fish try to triple lutz their way out of a solid block of ice?

Maybe I’m not understanding the novelty of watching familiar characters skate instead of walk. But really, what’s the difference? Why not just dress up a bunch of people like Lion King characters and send them out on a basketball floor to run around for a while? Or even better, send them out on the ice without skates.

However, I’d pay to see Disney produce ice versions of more adult shows like Lost or Desperate Housewives. I mean, if High School Musical makes sense on skates, why not a bunch of rugged survivors skimming around a tropical island…on ice. The one big advantage you have on ice is that everything moves faster. Instead of trudging through the jungle for days, Jack and Kate would return to their camp within a few crossovers. Hurley and Sawyer would have some intense arguments symbolized by exaggerated hand movements (everything on ice is greatly exaggerated), and Ben Linus would calmly weave figure eights among the other survivors (except during the back surgery scene, which would get messy). John Locke would maneuver his wheelchair onto the ice, timidly place one toe pick onto the surface, and suddenly spring to his feet, legs a-dancing.

Lost on Ice. Make it happen, ABC.

Matchup winners: Pirates over Maggie Moo, reversible baby clothes (definitely my best idea yet…I gotta outsource that to China) over Doubletree cookies. I’ve gone 7 for my last 7.

Today:

TiVo Clothes: A way to pause a TV show, select an item of clothing an actor is wearing, and buy it with one click

Vs.

Smearable ink and personalized handwriting font: People will open any envelope that looks like someone actually wrote the address by hand–now your computer/printer can do this en masse

Investing in me:An option to buy shares of me so if I become rich and successful, you cash in your shares at a high rate of return

Vs.

Amazon Kindle: Electronic book that lets you download most books immediately from anywhere

Another strong episode—we’re now at 5 out of 7 on the season. It’s confirmed that Penny’s father is behind something big, that he wants the island for himself. Probably to get rich. We learn about Goodwin, a character we had all but forgotten about. We learn how Ben killed all the Dharma Initiative people. And we learn that the Shippies may not be all that bad for the survivors…except that, like everyone else on the island, they refuse to just tell someone when they’re trying to do good. Instead, they hit them on the head with a gun and scamper off. I’m glad people don’t communicate like that in real life.

Jamey (to Caroline, who is standing up from the kitchen table): Hey, where are you going?

Caroline (before refilling her glass of water, her reason for standing up): I’m…turning up the volume on the TV.

Jamey: But I have the remote right here.

Caroline: (hits Jamey on the back of the head with a gun and refills her water cup)

Also, damn you Lost for cutting away as soon as Ben told Locke to sit down. At first I was thinking that he was going to tell him that Locke was the one on the boat (through some space-time continuum vortex), but as you can tell from the mini-afro in the teaser for next week, it’s Michael. It has to be. Michael’s on the boat. But where’s Walt?

The results from the second day matchups are in. The victors are jog-a-dog and treadmill racing. Looks like a treadmill matchup in a few weeks. As for today:

Mirrors on chapstick: Lets you always have a mirror in your pocket to check for food in your teeth

Vs.

Microsoft Office format paintbrush: Copies all formatting from one place to another in Word and Excel

The Grid System backscratching technique: Prevents any part of your back from going unscratched–ask the scratcher to work in a grid from top left to bottom right

Vs.

RSS feeds: Brings new content on the internet on you instead of making you look for it

Okay, so we’ve had five episodes of Lost this season. Two have been mediocre, if not boring, and three have been mind-blowing (literally, tonight, as was Minkowski’s fate). 3 for 5 ain’t bad. Lost is batting .600 for the season.

Almost purely with the aid of good storytelling, Desmond’s mind jumping was explained tonight. I love how the tension built and built, how the flashes came more rapidly. I love how time travel in Lost involves the travel of consciousness, not physicality. I really like Faraday–he’s one of the few people from whom the island hasn’t taken the ability to give a straight, honest answer.

I don’t know what more to say. I could gush about this episode, but I’d be wasting your time. I will say that the scene with the Black Rock is pretty significant, especially since Penny’s father was there. That rich dude is behind some of this stuff. He knows about the island…I’m guess he wants a piece of the island itself, and he’s trying to figure out how to get to it. Little does he know that Desmond’s going to end up there…or did he send Desmond on route to the island? Hmm…

Looks like a lot of girl-on-girl action next week, so I’m excited. Hopefully the Lost writers will make it 4 for 6.

Tomorrow:

A new writer! JoshVision premieres for the weekend edition.

Hm. I’m not sure I’m totally satisfied with tonight’s episode…it wasn’t as strong as the last two, but it was definitely a necessary evil. We needed to know why Kate wasn’t a fugitive after she got off the island. As it was shown, she was a fugitive when she got off the island (I’m not sure why she had to talk to Miles about that…did she want to see if the rest of the world knew who she was? Of course they did), and she wasn’t relieved of her fugitive status by having Oceanic wave its golden wand.

As for the baby, that was a good reveal. I turned to Caroline a few seconds before that and said, “They haven’t shown the fifth member of the Oceanic Six yet. It’s going to be Sawyer. He’s going to leave the island for Kate.” And then a split second before she picked up the kid, we both realized what was going on. It raises a HUGE question: Why doesn’t the blonde Australian chick leave the island with her own kid? And why would Kate leave if she knew she was going to be a fugitive when she left?

We still haven’t figured out how Hurley will end up among the Six, and we’re told by Miles that Ben is a much bigger deal–at least to those in the know–than we thought. I really just wish we could know Ben’s true intentions, but I have a feeling we’ll have to wait a while for that information.

We also learned what the Oceanic Lie was…except it seems odd that they used the number eight for the survivor tally. Who did they claim died? Does that matter?

As I write this, I realize that some important questions were answered, but I’m still left with a dissatisfied taste in my mouth. I crave more information. Maybe we’ll get it next week, or maybe we’ll get more moments where someone says, “Okay, let me tell you the truth about everything” right before an alien spaceship lands or someone sticks a grenade in their mouth (oh yeah, that was pretty cool. I’d get dry mouth and drop that thing in less than a minute).

Oddly enough, last week’s preview revealed that one more member of the Oceanic 6 would be revealed today, not three. The one is definitely Sayid. But what about Desmond and Ben? Desmond…well, I’m guessing that he gets off the island, but something happens to prevent him from being one of the 6. I have a feeling that Ben is most definitely not one of the 6. As you can see by all the foreign money and passport’s in Ben’s secret chamber, that guy has another way off the island. He also has an agenda off the island, which he has convinced Future Sayid to be that they’re protecting their stranded friends on the island from the baddies. I kind of wish we could know Ben’s true agenda for once, but that may be something we’ll have to wait much longer to find out.

Other Lost news if you haven’t heard: The producers are going to shoot 5 more epidodes to air for May sweeps. They’re basically going to cram 8 episodes worth of material into those 5 episodes, which is fine with me, because (a) that means more fast-paced episodes like last week and this week, and (b) it means that the producers had a pretty cool season finale planned after the break (possibly with another great reveal), and they’re going to accelerate the plot to catch up with that finale. Well done.

All of this aside, I feel like I need to give TV characters some tips. They make the same mistakes over and over again, and it’s like they don’t realize that they’re on TV. Everybody’s watching you, dude! Don’t walk into the scary forest with your hot virgin girlfriend, because you’re both going to die. Seriously.

So here are some tips from tonight’s episode:

1. If you find a secret door, close it behind you. This should be obvious now, for a variety of reasons. If you leave the door open, not only do you leave your back to a truly conspicuous entrance that will attract attention, but you’re backing yourself in a corner. Also, if the thing you find in the room is valuable, why would you want anyone else to know about it? Keep it to yourself until you have a plan. Close the damn door.
2. If you don’t want to shoot to kill, don’t turn your back on the victim before securing them. Again, seriously. I understand that you have to make a phone call. But just tie up your victim with some string and duct tape before walking away. You could learn this by watching Austin Powers.
3. Don’t forget to buy your girl flowers on Valentine’s Day. No wonder Kate ends up with Sawyer instead of Jack.

So that’s my advice. Stick to it. Happy Valentine’s Day, and I’ll be back in a few days with the next in my series about redefining the future of electronic communication, as well as some thoughts about drinking your own urine.

Before tonight, my favorite episode of Lost was the first Sawyer episode. Since then, there have been many wonderful episodes, particular the season premieres and finales, but none connected with me like that Sawyer episode. None were that good.

Until tonight.

Maybe I’m just excited about stuff actually happening (see last week’s post about hardly anything happening), but wow. This episode floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee. It moved. The ghosthunting scene? The polar bear found in the desert (confirming my suspicions that the island moves through space and time)? Ben knowing exactly who those people are? The curiosity of a fake Oceanic flight 815, planted in the ocean with substitute dead people? Oceanic knows way more than they’ve let on.

Who wrote this episode? I want to make out with her on the mouth. Ain’t It Cool News reveals…Drew Goddard and Brian K. Vaughn. Awesome. Two dudes. Maybe we’ll just do a group hug instead.

And what does “It doesn’t scatter quite right” mean?!

Six more episodes. Six people leave the island on that helicopter. Six semper tyrannus. Coincidence? I think not.

I’m one of the people who trust the Lost producers. I trust that they know all of the mysteries of the island. I trust that each of the characters is purposefully and intentionally created. I trust that everything will wrap up and make sense at the end of Season Six.

The producers solidified that trust last season by declaring that the show would air for exactly three more seasons (or two and a half after this half season). That declaration indicated to me that they had a distinct plan, and if they were pussyfooting around at all, they’re done with that. There’s no time to pussyfoot. Only time to foot.

However, last night’s premiere spent most of its time pussyfooting. Very little new information was gleaned. Let’s review:

Hurley got off the island too.
Six total people got off the island.
The people who got off the island have a pact of secrecy with Oceanic.
The survivors separate into two tribes, not unlike the reality show “Survivor.”

There’s other stuff going on, and other information revealed, but none of it’s new, and none of it’s clear. For example, Naomi, who appeared to die last season, isn’t dead for a little while, but then she’s dead again, for absolutely no reason. Hurley talks to dead Charlie, but again, no new information is gained from that conversation (unless it turns out that Charlie actually was there, dead but real and alive, in which point I’m lost). And the coolest part of the episode, Hurley seeing Jacob’s house and Jacob himself, is left completely unclear. Does the house move, or is Hurley imagining things?

I think the mistake the producers made with this episode (and have made before) is that the best questions left unanswered arise from certainties. Hurly got off the island—why him? Especially why him when he went with Locke instead of Jack and Kate, who we know got off the island. Only six people got off the island—why only six? Are Michael and Walt two of them? The people who got off have a pact of secrecy with Oceanic—why would they do that? (The answer to that one is close to being answered—I can say with some confidence that the people who got off agreed not to tell the world that they left behind survivors both for Oceanic’s sake and for their own—people would stone them.) Also, we don’t know if Oceanic was instrumental in getting the six off the island—this we will learn in the next few episodes, and I have a feeling it won’t be so simple.

The biggest question I want answered—and am confident will be answered—is that we know that 91 days have passed on the island. How many days have passed off the island? I’m guessing the answer is not the same.

So not much happened in this episode, and Jacob’s house, although intriguing, just adds a level of uncertainty that I’m not comfortable with. I trust Locke to see the house, but not Hurley. Also, could Locke just come out and say why he’s so sure that they people coming to the island are going to try to kill everyone? Same goes for Ben. Just say why you’re so certain if you’re that certain, and if it’s really just a strong hunch, say that. Don’t pan for the camera with a pained expression and say cryptic things.

Of course, none of this will stop me from watching next week when that helicopter lands.

Bonus Theory: Desmond and his predecessor in the hatch swore that not typing in the combination and hitting enter every 108 minutes would end the world. We know that one of the times this happened, it caused a magnetic disruption that crashed Oceanic flight 815. Was that all it did? Or 6,000 miles away, did it cause a 22-story beast—big enough to end at least part of the world—to rise from the sea and destroy Manhattan? J.J. Abrams, creator and producer of both Lost and Cloverfield, loves to tie together different forms of media, sometimes without telling us. It’s a bit out there, but why not? (Plus, check out the Dharma Initiative symbol that appears in the opening frames of Cloverfield.)