Sadly, this week centered around everyone's least-favorite castaway. Let's see if we can find some stuff to talk about anyway.
* Well, at least they gave something for Bernard to do. I had to remind someone watching with me that he was a dentist and not a fish out of water in the OR. And you know Jack would do the surgery on himself if he could.
* Jack medicates himself because: 1) He sees dead people, 2) He has trust/control issues with Kate, 3) He's not sure if he would be a good dad, 4) I'm sure there is one.
* Poor Hurley. Doesn't he know that theory has been consistently debunked by the show's creators?
* Who else thought Jack's visitor was going to be Mr. Abbadon and not Christian Shepherd?
* "You're not even related to him." So, I guess Jack knows all about the convoluted family tree, of which he and Aaron are both parts.
* All those negatives aside, Jack got one thing right: He hates A-Rod.
* Was it just me or was there a lot of cheesecake in this episode? Cleavage, Panty shots, you name it, Kate showed it this week.
* Sawyer really does seem to be more Han Solo-ish every week.
* The best part of the episode had to be Jin and Charlotte's conversation in Korean. Not only funny, but we're setting the seeds for Jin's presumed sacrifice to get Sun off the island.
Certainly not a great week (no Ben, Locke, Desmond or Sayid), but it's better than no show at all.
For a Jack/non Island episode I was actually okay with it.
- I guess we know that Russo didn't get winged. A sahme we will never get a flashback for her.
- What's up with the smoke monster? It thrashes a bad ass like Eko, but can't finish Camo man?
- We've all been through the survivors on the island as being dead, but not the Oceanic Six. I like it as a twist on their minds.
- I felt pretty bad for Sawyer seeing Jack scooped up his lady, but it made me feel happy that she was still fulfilling some kind of promise that she made to him.
- Jack can't raise the kid because he's a drunk/addict?
- Jin striking a side deal was nice to see. The island has been so rah rah stick together that we have lost some of the character traits that we saw in season one.
Next week looks like more Locke, Ben and Sayid. You can't go wrong with that.
I like that for a Jack episode we got 4 of the Oceanic 6 in the flash-forward.
If not for the fact that the casket didn't seem that big, after his breakdown this week, I'd be very scared that it was Hurley in the casket.
Did Jack reveal that Sawyer survives the incident that causes the O6 to leave? Even so, when he was yelling for Claire at the end, I was still worried that Sawyer would get gunned down a la Rousseau.
And I'm surprised the freighters had the decency to poorly bury the bodies. That REALLY sucks cuz I was hoping that Rousseau would have survived to make a surprising return at a later date. Montand's arm, my ass!
Jack can't raise the kid because Aaron must not be raised by another! I was so glad that they came back to this.
It was way too obvious that Charlotte spoke Korean. I'm glad they didn't dick around with that for a week or two before Jin's confrontation.
Maybe I missed the reasoning for this, but why didn't Bernard go to the Medical Station with Sun instead of Faraday? Being a dentist, he would be just as useful at identifying supplies. At least he was put to good use during the surgery.
Jack's "you're not related" line was clearly meant to be ambiguous enough to suggest that he knows, but he could have just been throwing that in Kate's face regardless of his own status. I want to know what Christian said to Claire. I want to know if Christian's said anything to Jack. I wonder if it will be Sawyer who figures out that Claire and Jack are siblings once he sees the person Claire referred to as "Dad."
I agree that the Smoke Monster should have killed more of the soldiers rather than just beating them up a bit.
Jack stumbling on the Millenium Falcon was amusing. Is Aaron old enough to be playing with that yet?
You believe me, don't you? Please believe what I just said...
Jack demanding to know what Kate was up to was reminiscent of Jack demanding from Sarah the name of her new guy. There are some things you don't need to know, Jack.
So, at the beginning of the flash-forward, Jack clearly doesn't have a surgery scar, right?
The smoke detector goes off when "Christian" is in the room. Cute.
EDIT:
About the Yankees-Red Sox article...
The Yankees swept Boston twice since 2004: August 2006 and August 2007. The former is the only choice that makes sense in the context of the unofficial flash-forward timeline, but a closeup of the article (lostpedia.com) reveals it's the latter, which puts the flash-forward AFTER last season's finale. Must be a production goof, right?
Well Jack isn't my least favorite castaway so I don't think you can say everybody's. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's Kate for most people. Personally I think Jack would be fine without Kate. Sawyer on the other hand continues to be awesome despite his relationship with Kate.
If Hurley was in the casket then what would be the reason for nobody else showing up? Everybody loves Hurley.
I'm hoping that Jin's negotiating, Jack saying that Sawyer decided to stay behind and Claire's disappearance means that none of them die but are just not able to get on the helicopter.
It was nice seeing Miles putting his ghost talking to use for once.
Originally posted by Mayhem I'm wondering if Kate is doing something for Sawyer's daughter?
I assumed that's what it was. The name she mentioned, wasn't that Sawyer's baby's mama's name?
- StingArmy
I would also assume the same thing. It's probably something like telling them that Sawyer was thinking of them or just letting them know that they can sue Oceanic for the crash. But Jack had to turn into alcholic drug using asshole Jack from the end of last season.
Marge I am just trying to get into heaven not run for Jesus.
This was actually a pretty cool episode. It established pretty succinctly how Jack spiraled into a drunken haze. I wonder if Sayid, Sun and Kate (and Aaron?) are also being visited by spirits from the Island. The smoke detector going off just before the apparition showed up was either a hint, or just another red herring that the Smoke Monster can take other forms. Remember, this has never actually been established on the show. I sort of assumed that the Island itself (or Jacob) was controlling the visions that the characters have been seeing, whereas Smokey is just the security system that wreaks havoc.
I love that Claire, Miles and Sawyer were able to hide from five trained soldiers by...hiding behind a tree. Slick.
Nice recall from someone in remembering that Sawyer also knows what Jack's dad looks like, so he can connect the dots on that relationship.
One of the underrated parts of having the flash-forwards is that though we know the six who live, it creates tons of added tension about the characters who apparently don't get off of the Island. I was worried for Jin when he was in the medical hatch, worried when Sawyer was screaming at the end of the episode with those soldiers possibly still around, and obviously worried for Claire when she vanished along with (Bill Cosby in) Ghost Dad.
“How is it that I am a good actor? What I do is I... pretend to be the person I’m portraying. You’re confused. Case in point: in Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson comes to me and says ‘I would like you to be Gandalf the Wizard,’ and I said ‘You are aware that I am not really a wizard?’ and Peter Jackson said ‘I would like you to use your acting skills to portray a wizard for the duration of the show.’ So I said ‘Okay’ and then I said to myself ‘Mmm.. How do I do that?’ And this is what I did: I imagined that I was a wizard, and then I pretended, and acted, in that way on the stage. How did I know what to say? The words were written down for me in a script. How did I know where to stand? People told me where to stand." -- Sir Ian McKellen, Extras
In the New York Times today (Monday, May 15th), there is an article about Jeff Zucker who is the programming guru at NBC. It details the network's falling fron 1st Place to 4th in the primetime ratings.