Featured Posts

Feb 17, 2010

LOST Episode 3 Breakdown

Oh yeah, I guess I am supposed to put together a Lost breakdown for last night’s episode, that crapfest last night didn’t exactly inspire me, so between that and Fletch’s minions disparaging my grammar last week (ripping on my grammar… that was really hitting me where it hurts, sniff), let’s just go with the top 11 reasons that John Locke/Smoke Monster centric episode blew:


11. I liked how they casually mention that the Monster can’t change form anymore, a nice little homemade loophole to keep Terry O’Quinn on the show. Besides who’s going to question this retarded Island rule they made out of convenience, when they make up an average of about 20 an episode.

10. Wow, so John Locke would have still been paralyzed if they hadn’t landed on the Island?? Who’d have guessed? We get it, things would have different if the plane had landed in LA, I don’t think I can stand a season worth of these “flash sideways” (as the Lost nerds are calling them).

9. I had almost forgotten how annoying Ilyana was until last night’s episode, plus she’s not that attractive either, how did she manage to seduce a multi-millionaire Sayid back in the day… curious.

8. Their plan to do two retarded storylines and just rotate them every other week that they started last season (with the 1977 past plotline one week, then present day plotline the next week) and continued into this season (with Team Locke one week, and Team Temple the next) is really annoying me. Its fine if you’re churning through a season on hulu in a week, but when you can barely remember their retard plots anyway and then they switch to a completely different one next week, it just takes us out of it, by next week I will have forgotten that Claire is back and allegedly psycho.

7. Oh my god, so Rose is working in Temp office and still has cancer!!! I’m beginning to think things might have played out differently for the characters if the plane hadn’t crashed on the Island…

6. Wait I thought Ben was just bs-ing with his story about Jacob’s list, apparently Jake really does have a list, and his chosen people all correspond to a number. Whatever, I think everyone got over all that number/list hoopla back in season 2, they better have a hell of a resolution if they’re reintroducing it.

5. Holy cow, Hurley would have still been rich if the plane hadn’t crashed!! This strange new world frightens and confuses me, it’s too different from my reality. At least Hurley is still fat and still a douche, otherwise my head would have surely exploded!!!

4. I knew something was missing this season, a weird looking kid who couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag, hopefully this ghost kid follows around “Locke” for the rest of the season. Better yet maybe he and Walt will get their own spinoff next season.

3. Apparently Alpert doesn’t know as much as we hoped he did, too bad, if he and “Locke” had been able to just have a candid discussion about what was happening on the Island, they could have wrapped up a good chunk of their retarded “mysteries “, and put this season out of its misery early.

2. What does it take to get some damn Desmondo up in this piece? The guy appeared in like two episodes last season, and only made one 5 second cameo this season. I guess you can’t fault the producers, anytime you can completely write your best character out of a show, you have to do it.

1. Benjamin Linus, alternate reality history teacher?!?! But, but he’s an Other leading, good guy killing psycho, how could he be an ordinary history teacher?? It must be some sort of secret plan of going undercover to kill John Locke again, because if he was just an ordinary teacher that would mean Jack blowing up the Island somehow changed things… and if that were the case, surely they would have found a subtle way to let us know things were different in this reality.


15 people have chosen wisely: on "LOST Episode 3 Breakdown"

Jason Soto said...

Ok, I been keeping quiet for awhile since this started but I gotta ask, who's this tool writing these recap things? Last night's episode was pretty good and it's only the 4th episode into one long ass season, so it's gonna take a few episode to get things going and whatnot. Do you want EVERYTHING to be explained right away?

In other words, patience.
-Jason

Sasha James said...

I loved Ben showing up as the European History teacher. Loved it so much.

Fletch said...

Ah, the ever-inflammatory Kid Vegas strikes again. If you want a short "bio/intro to K.V.," see my comments in this post: http://blogcabins.blogspot.com/2010/02/lost-episode-1.html

I'll let him respond to the rest of your query, Jason.

As for last night's ep...

I read recently (mild not-really-a-SPOILER) that the flash sideways business should be wrapped up by about midseason. If so, I say yay - they aren't awful, and they're clearly having more fun writing them than we are watching them, but they don't seem to be adding much of anything to show aside from seeing people bump into each other again, granting us the opportunity to say "Hey, it's so-and-so! Yay, I like them!" What exactly was the point of Locke's sideflash yesterday? That he should get over his depression and come to terms with the fact that he's paralyzed? Ok.

The on-island stuff was much more interesting. Of course, I agree about the Alpert stuff - they tease us with answers only to give us nothing. Then they give us an answer of sorts with the numbers, but they only lead to more questions, really. Didn't care for the fake drama with Sawyer on the ladder thingies, but the rest of all that was pretty good and sets up Sawyer to be in a bad spot (right where he expects himself to be) for at least a few episodes. And I'm fine with them keeping Terry O'Quinn any way they have to. In fact, that's probably the best aspect of the sideflash - the Locke character is good for the show, even if the story they put him in is somewhat lackluster.

Ed Howard said...

I agree with Jason. These writeups are poorly written and kind of pointless, with this one being the nadir of the series so far. Get someone to write about the show who actually cares enough to string together some coherent sentences about it.

Anyway, this was another set-up episode like the Kate one last week. Nothing mindblowing but a good balance between character beats and some subtle revelations.

And I loved the resonances between the "flash-sideways" and the island story this week. Off the island, a slightly changed Locke is learning not to be so angry at the world, to accept life as it comes, while on the island the man inhabiting Locke is frustrated enough to howl out "don't tell me what I can't do," spasmodically rebelling against the rules the way the old Locke would have done.

Nick said...

Hey, I love the side-flashes (is that anything like a side-boob?). I'm enjoying these episodes quite a bit, really. And though I've already said my part a couple weeks ago, I'll just leave it at I agree with Jason and Ed.

Fletch said...

Ed - my problem is this (and I feel K.V. shares this as well): this is the final 16 episodes of a 6 season show. We're down to 13 remaining - how much more set-up do we need? Do we not yet have enough questions and places for the plot to go without them introducing more new characters and wacky conventions? These things were fun in season 2 or 3, but at this point, the closer we get to the finale, the more it feels like we'll all be supremely disappointed when that time comes.

I hope I'm wrong, by the way, and will be more than willing to eat crow if I am.

Rachel said...

I just have to ask if KV seems to hate everything on the show, except when Desmond appears, why does he bother to even watch it?

Fletch said...

Rachel - I made that same argument a few weeks ago - if he really hated the show that much, why would he write about it? He's just having fun (and more or less pointing out the same kind of dumb things and plot holes I love to point out about movies like Ninja Assassin and their ilk).

JacksSmirkingRevenge said...

I have to agree with everyone else on this one.
This guy calling Hurley a douche is like Kate Moss calling Hurley anorexic.

Nick said...

JSR: Haha... now THAT'S funny :P .

David Bishop said...

I really like the connection between the first season moment when John Locke presents Michael's son Walt with the rules of Backgammon (one side light/ one side dark) and seeing the black and white stones on the scale in the name cave. Don't know if it was intentional, but it was what I thought about. It makes me think that this battle between light and dark forces was always the intention of the show, even if it just got sidetracked.

I like the "flash-sideways" stories for some of the more subtle changes in each of the character's lives. Hurley actually believing he's a lucky man is such a contrast with the 'bad numbers' Hurley I remember from early seasons. I can't make up my mind if when Kate told Claire "Would you believe me if I said I was innocent?" she was making a reference to actually being innocent or if it was just a character moment dealing with her ability to inspire undeserved faith. And I think Ben Linus as a European History teacher is going to have a great payoff.

Fletch said...

JSR - Indeed - that was funny.

David - I'm sure it was entirely intentional, but yes, the scale was a nice touch.

BostonSucksMyBlog said...

I liked the writeup by my man Vegas. Although I do like the non-island stuff, and hate the island stuff now. They do make up everything as they go along. I really dont give a shit about anything of that stupid island anymore.

Iron Mike Sharpe said...

I have seen the series finale. The final scene involves Locke watching Walt and Aaron take a shower together.


--Iron Mike Sharpe

Anonymous said...

I am not able to put in the long stories about this episode here in comment. I just wanna say that the episode was gud and i can't repeat the whole stuff written already by u people.