Lost Series Finale: The END – on the big screen !

Yes ! Finally it happened ! At least one theater near me will broadcast the series finale LIVE on the big screen ! Obviously I already RSVP’d. And not just that, they will also broadcast the 2 hours of pre-finale material – the recap too. Thats 41/2 hours of LOST on the big screen. Wow ! I have been searching the internet for the past couple months to find a theater showing the finale on  the big screen – and I finally found one. I couldn’t be more excited ! What better way to end the journey ?

Lost: The Last Recruit

Spoilers Here !

I don’t understand what everyone is complaining about. How was this not a good or awesome episode ? What are people expecting  – they would be given all awesome answers to the big questions they’ve had since day 1 on a big island-sized platter ? How would that make for exciting TV ? One of the things I love about Lost is not knowing what the hell is going on, having to work my brain inside out trying to make a theory out of something, anything. And so, yes I loved this episode of Lost, like I always do.

The best part was of course the intense chat between Jack and Smokey. Wow ! One theory confirmed ! While I was re-watching Lost from the beginning (for the third time), I theorized that the apparition of Christian Shephard could be Smokey – trying to kill Jack OR trying to lead him to water. But why would Smokey want to lead Jack to water ? Because he wanted the castaways to survive. No, he needed the castaways to survive. Why ? Because when the plane crashed, he knew he had just found his loophole. And thus began his elaborate plan to get Locke off the island and get him killed somehow. And when he returned, he oh-so-easily assumed his form. So everything that happened to the castaways on the island was part of the elaborate plan of Smokey to get off the island (or whatever it is that he wants to do, if not leave the island). Cool, huh ?

So here’s the thing – if the Candidates are supposed to take Jacob’s place and if Jacob is the “good” one (of course if Smokey is evil), and if the Numbers represent the candidates, then the numbers should be good too, right ? Wrong ! Apparently, the numbers are cursed. Here’s how the story goes –  A guy on a listening post in the Pacific hears a voice through the static repeating the numbers over and over again. This guy was Sam something. This appears in Season 1 “Numbers”. He uses the numbers to play a game and wins money. Only, ever since then, things start going bad for people around him. As for he, himself ? Nothing bad happens to him. He gets lucky. But then he kills himself. Then, Hurley uses the numbers to play the lottery and wins, causing bad things to start happening around him. Rousseau’s ship comes to the island in search of the source of the numbers. And nothing good happened to her or her crew ever since. So the numbers aren’t good. Which means the candidates don’t represent something good. Does that make Jacob bad or evil ? Hmmm. Don’t know. But cool idea, right ?

Also, why would Jacob send a transmission of the numbers ? Rousseau said that the numbers were being transmitted from the Radio Tower and that later on she changed the transmission from the numbers to her distress call. Unless, it wasn’t Jacob who sent the transmission, it was Smokey. Oh interesting ! Provided the cave in the cliff featured in “The Substitute” really did belong to Jacob, Smokey could have read the numbers from the cave. He then knew that those were Jacob’s candidates and that if he could kill Jacob and kill the candidates as well, then he would be free. So in order to call the candidates to the island, he sent a transmission as a signal. And if Smokey is evil, then his evilness could be transmitted to whatever he does, including his transmission of the numbers ! Wow ! I spend way too much time theorizing about Lost. Not to worry though – its gonna be over real soon. Serious withdrawal is coming soon !

Lost : Happily Ever After

Lost: Episode 10: Happily Ever After: Review

Spoiler Alert !

Spun my head, but Wow ! This season is gaining momentum fast ! Each episode is more mind spinning than the previous one. And each week I say – “This is my favorite episode of this season so far !”, only to see the next episode and say the exact same thing for the next episode. But that’s good news for us fans. This week’s episode was ingenious. It made me realize that the writers of the show are not going to disappoint us after all and that they actually know what they are doing. I had started having doubts after Ab Aeterno – not that I started disliking the show. But the course the show was taking led me to believe that the rest of the story was going to be all mythical and a good vs evil battle in the end. That to me would be a total disappointment. I wanted it to be more than Jacob and the MIB. What about all the talk about electromagnetism and energy pockets and time traveling ? The reason I liked the show was that it mixed together elements of science and mythology. But the last 2 episodes rebooted my faith. At the end of the package, I realized that the writers are still thinking about electromagnetism – when Zoe asked Jin about the pockets of energy and some grids on the island, I said “Yay!”. And then we saw Desmond and more of him this week.

Ah “Happily Ever After” ! We learned about the connection between the island world and the Sideways world. Not so much the true nature of the connection – but that there is one. I heaved a sigh of relief. So the Sideways world is not a hypothetical world after all. I always thought that it would be a massive waste of fans’ time and thought if the Sideways world was a mere “What if” scenario. But its not. I rejoiced when I saw Daniel Widmore bring his journal with his physics equations that he had no idea what they were. I read “Imaginary Time” scrawled in his journal. Wow !

I need to re-watch the episode to refresh my memory about the details of the episode, but I remember the most significant parts. Daniel saying to Desmond “What if this is not the life we were supposed to lead?” Now that thought scares me. I felt like saying to them – No, you don’t want to reverse time and go back to the island world somehow. Why ? Because Daniel Faraday – you are dead there. Because Desmond – you are almost dead there. But the most interesting part to me was that people in the Sideways world were able to remember some bits about their island life. As if they realized, upon provocation, that they lead some other life somewhere else. And now Desmond wants to make everyone else realize the same thing. Try to make them remember their island life.

More interesting – Eloise Hawking, who is by the way one of my favorite characters on the show, seemed to have an idea about the 2 different existing worlds. She knew. And she wanted to prevent Desmond from realizing that, prevent him from meeting Penny, prevent him from choosing the same path in life as he did in the island world. As if choosing the same kind of life as the island world would be dangerous somehow. Is it then that the MIB/Smoke Monster has been somehow contained/restrained in the Sideways world, and the only way to ensure that he stays contained is by living the life that our characters are living in the Sideways world and not poke their noses in their life in the island world ? Did our characters, with help from Charles Widmore (who I believe is a good guy and is on Jacob’s side) manage to do something to restrain the MIB somehow, in the process submerging the island, creating a new timeline and changing the entire lives of themselves ? Confusing ? You bet.

So lets say that the Good guys on the island defeat the MIB, but cannot kill him, so they find a way to keep him trapped somewhere. Then with the help of electromagnetism and Desmond, they create a new timeline. Now here’s the part where my mind spins – Daniel faraday said to Desmond that he thinks he already detonated a nuclear bomb – indicating that the Sideways world was created as a result of the nuclear bomb. But it cannot be as simple as that. Because in that case – the lives of the Oceanic 815 people would change from the moment of their flight. How ? Well – if the nuclear bomb worked as we think it did, then no Swan station = no Hatch = no Desmond forgetting to push the button = no 815 crash. Thus they would have suddenly found themselves on the plane with a weird feeling. And their lives would have been different from then on. But we see in the Sideways world that their lives have been different from the start. They made different choices in their lives pre-815. Sawyer is a cop, not a con-man. Locke’s dad did not push him from the 8th floor. Ben is a school teacher and not on the island. So whatever they do to defeat the MIB changes their entire lives and causes the creation of the Sideways world.

I think I’ve rambled enough. I need to give my poor head a rest now. Everybody loves Hugo – next week. 6 episodes left. I’m already mourning.

Lost: Dr. Linus

Spoiler Alert !

Another episode ended 2 nights ago. And I was laughing gleefully when I saw the last few moments of this week’s episode. Of course Dr Linus had zero action (physically) compared to last week’s Sundown – but it had plenty of thematic and emotional and story-building action, which left me saying Wow ! again. As the title suggests, this was a Ben episode. But we  have learned that titles can be misleading (Remember last week’s Sundown ?).

I don’t know which world I enjoyed watching more – the island world in which Ben is a fallen leader and now at the mercy of Ilana for his life or the Sideways world in which he is a humble school teacher who cares deeply for his students. I am biased towards the island, since I love “the beach” and all scenes that are portrayed there. Season 1 is still my favorite season, so I always gravitate to anything that reminds me of the castaways’ initial struggles to survive on the island. There was one common thing between the two Bens – both were lured by the forces of evil to do something, well evil, for a position of power. While island Ben was lured by the “evil incarnate” Smokey to kill Ilana and join his gang at the Hydra station so that he could assume the responsibility of Island Leader again, Sideways Ben was lured by the prospect of having a position of power in his otherwise petty existence as a history teacher by blackmailing Principal Reynolds. In both cases he had to do something “evil” – be it killing Ilana or killing Alex’s career. And to my joy he redeemed himself in both worlds ! The scene in the Principal’s office when he comes to drop off a sign-up sheet was mesmerizing. As Ben entered the office I was afraid that he had acted like Ben and given up Alex for his own gain (as he had done in the island world). But to my surprise Alex came and raved about the awesome Letter of Recommendation that the principal had written for her, followed by the entrance of Principal Reynolds. Yes he was still the principal. As Ben left the office I was struck by the portrayal of a familiar character in a way I had never expected. Seeing Ben walk away from the office was an immense emotional experience, since we are so used to watching the character as a lying manipulative power-hungry man. That scene made me feel that all was right in the world again. But then that has been the theme in the Sideways World – each character we have seen so far (except Sayid) has made things right in the Sideways world. Locke is not angry and has accepted his crippled life and even has the love and support of his fiance Helen, Jack let go of his father issues and bonded with his son and now Ben chose the right path instead of the path he chose in the island world. But even on the island, Ben chose the good gang instead of the evil one lead by Smokey. This episode was in extreme contrast to the previous one – last week I felt hopeless for the Island and everything looked dark and ominous. This week though was all about warm feelings and things going right for some time.

Then there was Richard Alpert. The man lost his faith in Jacob and called Jacob’s touch a curse. But out of nowhere Jack became a believer ! Maybe he realized while looking out at the ocean that he was meant for something bigger. Whatever fueled his faith, he got rewarded for it and even got proof of it. The spark on the dynamite wire died off telling them that they had more work to do on the island. And so they set off to “where it all started”. Yeah !

The reunion at the beach was one of my favorite scenes in Lost. It felt very Old School. Remember how they had such reunions when we hadn’t been introduced to Jacob and the MIB ? When the only threats they had were from not finding boar, or from the Others, or Sawyer hiding the damn guns ! Good Times ! Anyway, so while everyone was happy for a while reuniting, someone was watching them from the water. For a moment I thought it was Smokey watching while traveling to the other island, but then the camera revealed a submarine and my eyes grew wide. Then there was a face, a familiar face…Charles Widmore ! He was back to the island ! I know some people believe him to be on the evil side of things as far as the island goes, but I somehow have the feeling that he is instead on the good side. I never got an evil vibe from his character. And I also feel that he is needed to set things straight on the Island again.

Last week it was Smokey recruiting members for his gang. This week we saw our very own good gang uniting. What will next week bring ?

Lost: Sundown

Spoiler Alert !

The coolest episode of season 6 so far ! It had the darkest and most ominous scenes we’ve ever seen in Lost. From Claire’s expression when Kate told her that she took Aaron to Sayid’s chilling slitting of Lennon’s throat. All was awesome ! And of course Smokey ran amok through the Temple, killing everything in its way. And now poor Kate is stuck with the “evil incarnate” MIB / Flocke. The last scene left me wide-eyed for several moments. As Claire, Sayid and Kate walked out of the temple, with a creepy Catch a Falling Star playing in the background, Flocke was waiting with his new army. He did look a bit surprised to see Kate, but then walked off into the jungle leading his new cavalry. I was scared. Scared for the rest of the survivors (Jack, Hurley and the Ilana team), scared for Jin, Sawyer and Kate and scared of Flocke myself. Damn Terry O’Quinn looks scary !

As for the questions I’m pondering most – Is Flocke really evil or is he just trapped ? Is Jacob the evil manipulative person / thing ? Who is coming to the island ? And who sinks the island in the other timeline, because I’m sure its not an alternative timeline, but maybe a new timeline created somehow by the people on the island by sinking the island. See, no island = no Jacob = no manipulation to get people to the island and also no island = no Hatch = no Desmond = no plane crash. See ?

Now lets see what Benjamin Linus is up to this evening. His portrayal of a school teacher in the other timeline cracked me up. This is gonna be an awesome episode ! Here’s to Dr. Linus !

LOST Season 6: What Kate Does

Warning: Spoiler Alert !

Review:

This was a Kate-centric episode and unfortunately what Kate did was the least interesting part of the whole episode. Overall it was OK, not too great. Here are some of the highlights from the episode –

1.  Sayid was NOT reincarnated as Jacob, as popularly theorized by most. My gut feeling was right about that (As proof – read my previous post). Instead he was “infected”. Now that’s the part I liked ! Here’s more on the Infection –

• The Infection was first introduced to us in Season 1 by Danielle Rousseau, when she suspected that Sayid was infected. She warns him to watch out for the “sickness” and look out for people who start behaving differently. Then we didn’t really hear about the sickness for a long time, until Season 5, when we were shown the sickness that infected Danielle’s crew. All the infected people had gone into the hole outside the temple prior to getting infected – all except Rousseau. Apparently, the MIB or the Smoke Monster had “possessed” them and changed them to somewhat evil. Else why would Rousseau’s boyfriend / husband try to kill her ?

• Dogan told Jack that Claire had been infected. Now that was super interesting ! That actually proved another one of my theories – that Claire died in Season 4 in the bomb blast by Keamy’s men. By the time Sawyer got to her, her body had been “claimed” by the MIB – or she had been infected in other words. The same thing happened to Christian Shephard. Jack couldn’t find his body – and that would be explained if his body too had been claimed. Then, he came to get Claire in the same episode of Season 4 and she left with him. The duo then meet Locke in Jacob’s cabin, and she definitely seemed different. Recall her face when Locke asks – “How do I save the island?” – she looked a little evil. Maybe you wouldn’t call it evil, but she looked like she knew something was going on, something not good.

So Sayid is really dead. Claire is really dead. Christian is really dead. Their bodies have been possessed by MIB. Don’t ask me why. I have no clue.

2.  Kate and Claire are together again in context of Aaron. Kate was the one who delivered Aaron and ended up being the one who raised him in the island time-line. Now, in the no-crash time-line, we see Kate and Claire together again…along with Ethan ! That was a nice surprise. Ethan, too was involved with Claire’s baby in the island time-line. Now he was Claire’s doctor in the other time-line. This is another group of people interacting the same way they did on the island. Destiny, anyone ?

3.  The most boring part was when Kate ran away from the Others.2 to go to Sawyer. Lately, I like her character less and less. Why can’t she choose between Jack and Sawyer once and for all ? Moreover, it seemed like Sawyer wanted nothing to do with her anyway. After a teary conversation with Sawyer about Juliet, she packed her bags to go back, presumably to the Temple.

4.  Somewhere in the middle we were given hints about some other person (other than the Others and Rousseau) laying the traps in the jungle. And in the end, we were introduced to a new rifle-wielding and infected Claire. Awesome ! But remember – she is dead (according to me). Lets see how that theory pans out.

I will re-watch the episode to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Next week promises to be a much more interesting and eventful episode. Looking forward…

Lost Season 6: LA X (Premiere)

WARNING: Mega Spoilers Alert ! Do NOT read if you haven’t seen the season premiere of Lost…unless you don’t mind missing on the edge of your seat viewing experience.

Review:

The season premiere of LOST finally aired yesterday amid much hype and anticipation. And boy was it awesome! The first couple of minutes blew my mind away. Of course we didn’t really get a lot of answers (not that I expected that anyway), instead we got another big pile of questions and mysteries. There was so much to discuss in the 2 hr episode, that it would take me days to analyze all of it. So I’m just going to go over the most important (according to me) bits –

Bit # 1  :   The Opener

The episode opened with the view of a plane cruising through the clouds and Jack speaking the same words he did on the original 815 (Lets call it 815.1). The first odd thing I noted was that Rose says to Jack “It’s normal”. If you remember, it was Jack who said those same words to Rose on 815.1. At that moment I thought that they reset the time thanks to the bomb. But more important that the characters’ lives seemed inverted. Bernard returns from the toilet, Jack is nervous, Rose is not, Hurley is not “cursed” and considers himself the luckiest man alive. That hinted towards a new timeline being formed in which things happen the other way around. Hmmm…interesting. And then the view panned out to the clouds and we were taken deep beneath the ocean where I spotted some Dharma cottages (my heartbeat quickened), some more familiar island things, and then…a giant foot ! I gasped ! The island is submerged, destroyed, gone…WHOA !

I seriously think that that might just be the coolest and most awesome scene in Lost yet.

Bit # 2  :  Island Reality Post-Jughead

Ok, I found it really funny to watch Kate hanging from a tree post-blast (or whatever happened). I’ve found a lot of people talking about how anything could survive a hydrogen-bomb explosion. Here’s what I think – There was no explosion. The bomb did detonate (Thank you, Juliet), but did not explode. Now, I’m no nuclear scientist or physicist, but in a pure theoretical form I think that the bomb simply negated the electromagnetic energy emanating from the Swan site. It might not make any sense at all – since we do see the island submerged, which could have been due to the Jughead exploding. But it makes sense to me (for now) that the bomb detonating + pocket of electromagnetic energy = No explosion and No electromagnetic energy. Instead the pocket of energy would get nullified. But that doesn’t make much sense since the DI built the hatch anyway, which was found by the survivors post-Jughead (in the same imploded situation as they left it). I don’t know what really happened there.

What I found intriguing were the few Juliet’s lines – “Let’s go for coffee sometime” – it didn’t seem that she had gone crazy (remember Charlotte ?). But it did look like she was onto something – like she knew that time had been reset somehow and they were off the island somewhere (like is shown in the no-crash scenario). It’s like she knew that an alternate reality was taking place and maybe she was alive in that reality. Which would explain why she wanted to tell Sawyer something really really important – that “It worked”. I’m fairly certain that she was referring to the alternate reality when she said that.

Bit # 3  :  Pseudo-Locke is the Smoke Monster

Frankly, that one didn’t surprise me at all. I was expecting that anyway, as did a lot of you. And there were clues to that effect in the season 5 episode
“Dead Is Dead”. But it was still pretty cool to see Smokey after a long time and apparently it doesn’t like ashes. The coolest part of that scene was Locke saying “Sorry you had to see me like that” ! Haha. That was fun !

Bit # 4  :  The Temple

So Jacob is really dead ! Did not see that one coming. I expected him to get resurrected somehow. One of the most popular theories currently is that Sayid would be resurrected as Jacob. It is possible but my gut says No. My gut has been wrong before in Lost.

I loved watching the interior of the Temple and finding that some other Others live there. Maybe these Others (Others.2) are a super-special-skilled class who have been selected to protect the Temple. And the pool was cool too. I think that the reference to the pool water being murky somehow reflects upon Jacob being dead. What came out of Hurley’s guitar case was cool too. And of course, then they found out that Jacob was dead and began preparing to protect the temple, covering the perimeter with ashes. I would really like to know what is so special about the Temple that Smokey/MIB/Pseudo-Locke wants to be there.

Bit # 5  :  The No-Crash Scenario

This was really fun to watch. My eyes were glued to the screen all the time. I think that this is an alternate reality that might end up being true/real as well as the island reality. The survivors might do something to reset everything and destroy the island in the process. Hence we see the island submerged and things happening differently for the characters. Some of the most notable things-

1. Desmond is on the plane somehow and later vanished.
2. Shannon is not on the plane and has decided to stay in Australia instead.
3. Kate is still a fugitive. And ends up being in Claire’s company.
4. Charlie almost dies and says that he’s supposed to die.
5. Boone interacts with Locke and says that in case the plane crashes he’s sticking with Locke.
6. Christian’s coffin is missing along with his body.

It seems like the same group of people are congregating together as they did on the island. Boone with Locke, Kate with Claire, Charlie almost dying. It’s like fate is making things happen the way they are supposed to. Destiny trying to course-correct (Hawking’s words). Charlie HAS to die, Kate HAS to be with Claire and raise Aaron ?, Boone HAS to be with Locke somehow, Christian’s body HAS to be lost somewhere…

I might be totally wrong but this made for some really fun and interesting watching.

Bit # 6  :  Smokey wants to go home

Apparently, Richard has met Smokey before when he was in chains ! Awesome ! Smokey wants to go home…I’m guessing the Temple. And he’s very disappointed with the Others ! What does he want them to do ?

All in all, one of the best episodes ever ! Looking forward to next week. Not looking forward to the withdrawal I’m going to go through after May.

Did I miss any important bit from last night’s premiere ?

Lost – Theory from Season 4

Season 4 – “The Shape of Things to Come”

Just a random thing I noticed yesterday while re-watching Season 4 Episode titled “The Shape of Things to Come”, which btw was a very eventful episode. Towards the end of the episode, in one of  Ben’s  flash-forwards he visits Charles Widmore. The conversation between them was  very interesting. At one point their conversation goes like this –

Charles – ” Are you here to kill me?”

Ben – “You know very well I can’t do that.”

→ Sounds familiar? For some reason (a rule?) Ben and Charles can’t kill each other, in much the same way that anti-Jacob cannot kill Jacob and needs a loophole in order to do so. I’m guessing that the same “rules” apply to both couples. What are these rules?

According to Ben, Charles changed the “rules” when he killed his daughter. So what they can kill all the other people on the island, but not each other and their families? That doesn’t sound right.

If Ben and Charles are followers of either Jacob or anti-Jacob, I cannot decide which one of them follows whom? One of them is the good side and the other is the bad one, but which is which? Ben has said on a number of occasions – “We are the good guys”. But are they? Since in the same conversation between Ben and Charles, Charles says – “Everything you have, you have taken from me” and “You very well know that island is mine”. Moreover, in the Season 5 finale, Ilana (who I guess is working for Charles) is pro-Jacob. So is Charles on Jacob’s side? Which would mean that Ben is anti-Jacob. Now I also believe that the smoke monster is working for anti-Jacob. And Ben calls the smoke monster to kill the people from Widmore’s boat (the guys who killed Alex) – which also proves that Ben is on anti-Jacob’s side. Does that make sense?

But I really want to know what the “rules” are and who made them in the first place?

I also think that Claire might have died when her house exploded. To prove this –

1. How can anyone survive a blast that transforms a house into rubble?
2. She was feeling “woozy” for quite a long time after the blast and was apparently “seeing things” that were not there.

This was my biggest clue – when she admitted to seeing things. Because right afterwards she disappears. So maybe she simply died in the blast and what everyone was seeing as Claire was an apparition or something just like everyone saw John Locke after he died. Make sense ?