Tag: commentary

  • UH, OH

    All right; let’s get this out of the way right off: I’m pretty sure Lapidus is full fathom five. They made his death a little too Boba-Fett-in-the-Sarlaac pit for my personal taste, and there is hope in that a little something like a flying bulkhead to the solar plexus and an apparent drowning is the sort of thing that Lost regularly throws at its characters who otherwise come out unscathed. Lapidus; you should have had a polar bear bite your head off or wrestle a giant squid so your friends could get away or something. But there’s a few things here at the end that is making it not look too good for my man Frank: 1., He’s not a main character; 2., In terms of the narrative, they’re weeding out everyone they don’t need as they get to the climax of the show; 3., He’s surplus to requirements now that it’s been revealed that Sideways Locke had his private pilot’s license. Sure; there’s a real-world difference between private and commercial aircraft, but, hey! it’s a TV show. So it’s not looking good for Lapidus. Although we haven’t seen him in the Sideways world yet, one imagines he’s out there taking ‘er easy fer all us sinners, like a wiser fella than m’self once said. So who knows? If the whole point is that it only ends once and everything else is just progress, maybe we’ll see Frank again. Shoosh. I sure hope he makes the finals.

  • IF I’D KNOWN THEN WHAT I KNOW NOW

    Because there’s no new Lost tonight (and since I’m one of those guys who’s more absence-makes-the-heart-grow-fonder than one of those out-of-sight-out-of-mind chuckleheads), I’d figure I’d watch the two-hour pilot and look for stuff that seemed simple or out of place at the time but is completely LOST-tastic now that we’re here at the end.

    Also, if I don’t do this, Samantha Olsson Shear (Congratulations to you and Mike!) won’t have anything to read tomorrow at lunch.

  • IT’S ALL YOU, DUDE

    Right here at the end, there doesn’t seem to be the sort of weirdness we are used to ruminating on. No pictures in the background full of import; no slightly-different prop or costume changes to make note of and chew over. Just half-answers that seem clear at first but disappear when looked at under the lamp.

  • EVERYBODY LOVES DYNAMITE

    “In the mid-20th century, the encyclopedic works of French mathematician Nicolas Bourbaki traced every mathematical concept back to the subject’s foundation in the theory of sets — the stuff of Venn diagrams — and changed the face of his field. Like many of his notions, Bourbaki existed only in the abstract: he was the pseudonym for a tight-knit group of young Parisian researchers. The Internet-age version could be D. H. J. Polymath, another collective pseudonym who could redefine mathematics.

  • LIVING IS EASY WITH EYES CLOSED

    It was great to see Charlie again last night, and an interesting thematic echo to see him leading Desmond towards true love, instead of Desmond trying to save poor doomed Charlie…

  • CLASH OF THE TITANS: THE EJ FEDDES INTERVIEW

    They call him “The Golden Boy,” and not just because he was the only American boxer to win a gold medal at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona wearing spray-on tanning make-up. Undefeated W.B.O. lightweight champion EJ Feddes looks like a movie star after a long night at Roscoe’s eating chicken and waffles, talks like a tenured English professor in an after-hours meeting with the father of one of his coed students, and punches like a miniature Mike Tyson. Like, a 24″ tall Mike Tyson. But all but two of his twenty-one pro fights have ended in knockouts, and now Feddes is about to face the sternest test of his career: answer a bunch of questions posed by a stranger via email on the Internet. If anyone can handle it, it’s Feddes.

  • THAT’S A BIG TWINKIE

    Dr. Egon Spengler: I’m worried, Ray. It’s getting crowded in there and all my data points to something big on the horizon.

    Winston Zeddemore: What do you mean, “big”?

    Dr. Egon Spengler: Well, let’s say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area. Based on this morning’s sample, it would be a Twinkie… thirty-five feet long, weighing approximately six hundred pounds.

    Winston Zeddemore: That’s a big Twinkie.

  • A JUG OF WINE, A LOAF OF BREAD, AND THOU

    While watching last night’s ep of Lost, I was reminded of the time a friend of mine and I made a bet that we could live an entire day amongst ourselves and interacting with the world in our usual way, but saying nothing but quotes from Star Trek, Fletch, and Star Wars. Since that was sort of how we interacted with the world back then anyway, it was an easy bet for us to win. Manure spreader jack-knifed up on the Santa Ana; whew! You should see my shoes.

  • CAST AWAY

    Like the Tom Hanks movie Castaway and the Beechen/Bello graphic novel Dugout which both have dual-meaning titles (Hanks’ castaway character had been “cast away” from society, while the prison-baseball book had the guys in the dugout actually digging out of jail), last night’s Lost ep “Recon” underscores the dual nature of the narrative. Overtly, the Locke-Dressed Monster sends Sawyer on a recon mission to Hydra Island, while “the best liar I ever met” pulls out his confidence man bag of tricks and re-cons nearly everyone he talks to.

  • GOOD GRIEF, DR. LINUS

    Betsy Warren and Steve Higgins both independently told me of their dimensional theories: that the Lost world we know is the world as massaged by Jacob, and that the Dimension X of Season Six isn’t a world in which Jughead goes off or some sort of wish-fulfillment universe for our merry band. Both say it’s the world in which the Locke-Dressed Monster’s view is ascendant. I dunno about you, but I find that one pretty compelling.