Lost! Back!



The new series of Lost arrives to save this void of a TV season Thursday night, and I can't wait. I have no earthly idea of what might happen in the eight (or hopefully more) episodes we're going to get, but I'm reasonably certain it'll range from awesome to incredibly awesome. My appetite for new Lost-related material has slowly been whetted by the Hidden Pieces 'mobisodes' that have been released through Verizon phones and the ABC website. In case ABC.com is being wonky and you don't own a Verizon phone, you can always check the transcripts of these mobisodes here, or just read my mini-reviews of them here....wait, no fancy link needed, just read below. But at least read the transcripts first so you know what the deuce I'm talking about.

The Watch
An underwhelming debut for the mobisodes, as takes the traditional LOST beginning (i.e. the S2 and S3 premieres) of focusing on Jack's played-out relationship with his father. If tomorrow's premiere is yet another Jack-centric episode, my enthusiasm for the new season will drop to a mere 99.7%. On the bright side, now Lost's more obsessive fans can look back through every episode to see where and when Jack is actually wearing the watch. Christian telling Jack to be a better father than he was is sort of like Ryan Leaf telling the next Chargers quarterback to play better ball. As for what it forecasts, Christian will be possibly be playing a bigger role this season, as I'll discuss later on.

Hurley and Frogurt
You know you watch too much TV when you see this mobisode and instantly recognize the guy playing Frogurt from his three-line tiny role as a pizza guy in a first-season episode of Friends. I need a life. Anyway, this was a funny little nerd-rivalry story. Frogurt will definitely be showing up sometime this year. Though Lost has always struggled with giving everyone proper screentime, I do wish a few more of the background crash survivors had been developed more in three seasons, if for no other reason than to give us a bit more of an idea of how the Losties' community actually functions on a day-to-day basis. The only non-main character crash survivors we've really gotten to know are Rose, Bernard, Artz (who quickly died), Sullivan the hypochondriac, Scott and Steve (and one of them are dead) and sort of Nikki and Paulo. There are still 20 or so survivors who haven't been explored. That's enough for almost a whole season of Survivor.

King of the Castle
Surprise surprise, Ben is smarter than Jack. Thanks for the new information, mobisode! How many chess matches out of 100 do you think Ben would take from Jack? 90? 95? He'd win at least a few from disqualification after Jack angrily swept the board from the table out of frustration --- Jack just seems like that kind of guy.

The Deal
Yay Michael's back! I'm really interested in seeing how he's going to be re-incorporated into the show. Hell, I'm just curious to see how he'll turn up on the island again. Will he show up along with the people on Naomi's boat? Will it turn out he's been held somewhere on the island this whole time? Will he show up in flash-forwards? This mobisode reflects once again just how bizarre Jacob is. Let's not forget, whatever Jacob is, he has sway over Juliet as well. Ben got her to stay on the island solely on the promise that Jacob would cure Juliet's sister's recurred cancer (though there was no hard proof that Rachel's cancer actually had come back), and Juliet believed him. What is it about Jacob that would make Juliet, a doctor, believe that he/it could cure cancer?

Operation: Sleeper
I can't help but feel that this scene would've been more helpful to see on the actual show, rather than let Jack flounce around acting like a dick for two episodes without letting the others know about Ben's plan. The scene also raises doubt as to whether or not Locke actually blew up the Others' submarine. Did Locke actually have enough C4 to completely total what seemed to be a military sub? Keep in mind that these were the explosives that Locke toted from the Flame station to the Others' camp, which crazy ol' John carried in his bag. Only Locke would make a several-mile hike with large quantities of explosives on his person. Maybe he thought if they went off, the island would cure him.

Room 23
Ok, this one's pretty freaky. Here's another addition to the Lost time-travel theories --- Walt is somehow sent back in time to 1960's San Francisco and causes the events in The Birds. We'll know this is true if Tippi Hedren shows up in a flashback. Anyway, what's most interesting here is that it shows once again that the Others weren't the super-efficient creepy group of bad guys that they appeared to be. Apparently Walt was getting out of control (presuming it's Walt they're talking about) and they and Jacob just gave up on it.

Arzt & Crafts
Arzt! Man, they should've kept him alive. Talk about great comic relief. Also, I had completely forgotten about the whole 'Sun secretly speaks English' storyline from S1. That literally seems like a whole different show. The monster roar is an interesting occurance since it doesn't seem to fit in, timeline-wise, with the other times we've heard/seen the monster on the show. Does the monster just occasionally roar from within the jungle and the Losties are freaked out? If so, what is the monster reacting to? Running into the sonic fence?

Buried Secrets
Speaking of forgotten storylines, oh yeah, the quasi-romantic tension between Michael and Sun! *slaps forehead* When you think about it, Jin and Sun are by far the most changed from their time on the island. In the first 15 or so episodes, they were a stereotypically old-fashioned Asian couple of a domineering husband and a submissive wife. Now, they're totally back in love and seem like a completely normal couple. What's weird is in the flashbacks, they seemed totally normal before their marital strife started. Did Jin just decide "Well, I'm mad at my wife, time to revert to the 1950's," and did Sun just decide to go along with it? Also, in the Lost costuming department's eyes, apparently being submissive equated to dressing like Lillith from Cheers.

Tropical Depression
Arzt! Man, that poor schmuck. For some reason, when he mentioned his date in Australia, I immediately thought it was Libby. I don't know why aside from my inner belief that Libby will end up filling in the blanks of at least one major mystery on the show. There just has to be a reason for that damn character to have been on the show. Also, Arzt's admission about making up the monsoon story actually fills in a couple of plot holes. For one, the monsoon never actually happened, and two, in the show's timeline (it's allegedly December 2004 in island time) and given the fact that we're reasonably sure the Island is in the south Pacific, they should be getting hit with some ancillary weather effects from the huge Indian Ocean earthquake that went down on Boxing Day 2004. Then again, the island may just protect itself against outside weather. Why the hell not.

Jack, Meet Ethan. Ethan? Jack.
William Mapother is awesome. What a creepy actor. Fun fact: he's Tom Cruise's cousin. This probably helps with the creepiness. That suitcase full of medicine, in all likelihood, came from the Others --- why would a passenger carry that much stuff on them? This shows that the Others showed at least some basic human decency for the crash victims. Or, the medicine was to help keep people alive to harvest their potential children. That would be less decent.

Jin Has A Temper Tantrum On The Golf Course
Frankly, Jin's little breakdown here isn't even in my all-time top 50 golf course tantrums. For example, in the span of three shots on a single hole, I once hit a soaring drive and hit a branch and dropped straight down about 60 yards past the tee box, hit a second shot that caromed off of a tree and stopped it from being a perfect hook around a dogleg left, and then hit another slow-rising iron that would've been near the green had it not slammed into the yardage marker and launched backwards. I hate my golf game. Fun fact: Jin's rant is taken word-for-word from Phil Mickelson's press conference after he blew the 2006 U.S. Open.

The Envelope
This 'missing piece' is actually a deleted scene from the S3 premiere. We know the envelope contains Ben's medical tests that revealed the tumor on his back. What's interesting here is Amelia asks Juliet if Ben had finally told her 'how he felt.' What, Ben's got a crush on Juliet? Please tell me that's the reason he made up that stuff about Rachel's cancer returning. That would be hilarious. Ben needs to get laid. If that's true, however, then given that Juliet was shagging Goodwin at the time, it throws Ben sending Goodwin off to infiltrate the tailies' camp into a whole new light. Maybe Ben purposely sent Goodwin into a potentially dangerous mission in the hopes that he would be killed (which ended up happening at Ana Lucia's hands). Also, Amelia and Juliet both seem aware of Ben's feelings about her, so....yikes, how awkward. Douche-chill! [/Tobias]. Finally, Amelia is one of the three little easter eggs the Lost producers have thrown into the show that seem to reference Amelia Earhart. The Others-run airline that took Juliet to the Island was name Herarat Airlines. There is an Earhart reference in Find 815, the ongoing Lost online game. When the S3 premiere aired, some fans speculated that Amelia actually was Ms. Earhart. Given what we know about the island's weird relationship with time, who knows, maybe it is her. Lostpedia notes that some fan speculation about Adam & Eve (the skeletons in the cave) centered around them being Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan. Also, this mobisode's title starts with the letter E, and so does Earhart! And all of the Lost characters have ears and hearts! *cymbal crash* That's incredible!

So It Begins
Now THIS was a mindfuck. This provides concrete proof that of all the visions we've seen characters have on the island, at least one of them (Christian) is real. Maybe not real in the sense of being the actual flesh and blood Christian Shepherd, but *real* in the sense that it is some kind of a being. Seriously, what the hell is going on here? 'Christian' could have been the monster in shape-shifting form, but again, it's still just speculation that the monster can take other forms besides the smoke. And if it was the monster, why would it take Christian's form to talk to Vincent? I tell you, this damn dog will end up playing a huge role in the endgame of this series. Perhaps the final shot of LOST will be Libby and Vincent playing backgammon on the foot statue. While Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan watch.