I Hate Best Buy - Lost Musings During Hiatus

Forewarning: this message has basically nothing to do with Lost. I'm just giving you something to do while it is on hiatus.

Hello everyone -

Do you ever walk down the street with headphones on and realize that you are actually walking to the beat of the song you have playing, and you feel like a bad-ass and you wish the people who make the iPod commercials could see you because it would make an awesome ad? Well, I actually feel like that every day when I walk to or from work, but tonight really would have been a good one, except I didn't have the right song playing. I wished I had "The Freaks Come Out at Night" on my iPod, because as I made my way from the El to my place, every time I thought I'd seen the most horrendous costume in the world, a few seconds later someone topped it. I live in, oh, let's say an "eclectic, diverse" neighborhood of characters where grown adults seem to enjoy Halloween to an unhealthy extent. Even though I've lived in this same area for the majority of the past ten years, I did not realize until tonight that they block off all these major streets for some huge block party.

Needless to say, I was disturbed by the freaks, was getting drenched in the rain because I forgot an umbrella, and I decided that it was going to be one of those nights where I just don't feel like doing anything productive. As in, the dreary weather combined with my already depressed state because of Lost's hiatus was not necessarily motivating me to unload the dishwasher and then put the stack of dirty dishes in the dishwasher, or clean up the piles of mail and random papers all over my place, or pack for my upcoming trip or even (gasp!) read about Britney's Heartbreak or find out Why Brad's Falling Apart in my newly-arrived In Touch magazine.

No, instead, the only thing I feel like doing right now is writing my favorite people a little message to tide you over for another week before Lost is back with new episodes. I will still send the "...And Found" write-up next week, but for now I decided it would make sense to cover a bunch of random things that are kind of related to the show that I'd been meaning to mention. So feel free to stop reading because I'm not going to cover anything about any show plot points at all...

GOOD IF YOU ARE BORED
Someone out there had some time on his hands and created this flash movie with a bunch of Lost characters, set to Weird Al Yankovic's version of Bohemian Rhapsody. It is not really that great, but still clever in parts. Whoever it was did a good job of matching some of the lyrics with actual happenings on Lost. If you have 5 minutes to spare and are somewhere where you can play Weird Al Yankovic without getting dirty looks or in trouble, then you may find it a nice break.
http://albinoblacksheep.com/flash/lost



KATE AND CHARLIE SITTIN' IN A TREE
You first heard about their off-set romance here about a year ago, but the latest is that they may soon be getting engaged.

THE GLORY OF SEASON ONE
Remember how I recently achieved my life's goal of watching all three Lord of the Rings extended edition DVDs? Well a few weekends ago I made another momentous achievement when I re-watched nearly all of Lost: Season One (shout-out to TVap, aka Tortellini, without whom this would not have happened). And you know what? D@mmit, my love for this show was reignited. Season One was really incredible, I was moved. I started remembering all of these things that we still don't know the answers to that I'd forgotten about... some little (like when Hurley said he was considered "somewhat of a warrior" back at home and "won 17th place in a tournament" before the crash... what is he referring to?), and some not-so-little (like "who in the heck was Ethan?" and "where is Alex?" and "who did Boone hear over the radio transmission before he fell to his untimely demise?").

Over the last few nights I've been watching the bonus disc - They have the audition tapes of all of the major characters (except Terry O'Quinn/Locke... naturally he was a given because he rocks the house too much). The funny thing is that nearly every male read for the part of Sawyer - the actors who play Jack, Charlie, and even Hurley all initially tried out for Sawyer. I must say they were all horrible for that role, but perhaps I am now biased. The actress playing Sun had first tried out for Kate. It was interesting because they didn't have a set script or a set cast of characters, so they created roles out of thin air for Sayid, Sun, Charlie and Hurley based on the actors' try-outs. Kate was originally supposed to be the "hero" of the show because Jack was supposed to die half-way through the pilot, and Michael Keaton was going to play Jack. Craziness!

SPECIAL GUEST DIRECTOR FOR MAY SWEEPS
No spoilers here, fear not. But it has been widely circulated that Darren Aronofsky, director of cult films like Requiem for a Dream and Pi, will direct an episode of Lost set for May sweeps. I saw Pi and thought it was perhaps one of the worst movies of all time, and I have seen some BAD movies. I have not seen Requiem for a Dream because I generally do not like to watch movies about crazy people bugging out on drugs (except Trainspotting, because I love me some Ewan/Younger Obi-Wan). So am I psyched about this news? Not really. Some people assume because of the drug-related plot of RforaD that his episode will be about "Charlie relapsing in the field o' hero!n," but I guess we'll see. If they get Peter Jackson to be involved in some way, THEN I'll be excited.

PASS IT ON - BOYCOTT BEST BUY
If you or a family member works for Best Buy, you might want to stop reading now...

I have been wanting to mention this since the premiere write-up this season, but I seriously get so worked up every time I think about this that I figure it is not good for my health to re-live the pain, and then I move it to the next write-up. Now it is time for me to just vent about this long and hard and then move on. But I should preface this story with the fact that my entire family has a dubious past with Best Buy. For example, my brother sprawled out across their check-out counter and nearly began staging a protest when they wouldn't let him combine reward certificates, and I had written their VP of Customer Service a few years back complaining about a myriad of issues we had after buying our TV from them. Don't even get me started on their web site. Therefore, I had vowed that I would never shop there again. But alas... temptation struck a few months ago, and they reeled me back in...

On the boards, someone posted a link to a special page on BestBuy.com where you could get an exclusive Lost bonus disc when you purchased the Season One DVD. I caved. I HAD TO HAVE the bonus disc, for the love of God! But I didn't trust them. I actually took a screenshot of the page because I knew somehow they would screw it up. The screenshot is attached for those of you who are extremely bored, don't believe I was nerdy enough to actually take a screenshot, or unusually sympathetic to my plight. I ordered it in mid-August, knowing that it would be shipped during my two-week vacation in early September.

During my vacation, I actually worried about this stupid bonus disc. My sixth sense was kicking in and I KNEW they would somehow mess up the order. So imagine my surprise upon my return to the country - there was a box from Bestbuy.com, sitting gloriously atop my stacks o' mail.

But it was not to be. A few days later I finally opened the box. The Lost: Season One DVD set was in there, but I saw no bonus disc. I checked my screenshot before I tore open the box set... hmmm... no, it looked like the bonus disc would be separate. I rummaged through the rest of the mail. No additional box. I opened the DVD set. No bonus disc.

I AM FUMING. Although I'm sure you've figured out from these write-ups that I'm an excitable person, and I am, I would like to think that it takes A LOT to get me mad enough where I start shouting out every swear word in the book and am so seething that I can barely see or think straight. But the plot thickens... I look at the packing slip. IT IS NOT MY NAME ON THE PACKING SLIP?!?!?!!? Although my name was on the outside of the box, on the inside the packing slip had some dude's name on it who lives a few streets behind me?!?!?!! At this point, I'm delirious with anger. I call their frickin' customer service number and of course the guy said that "this was a very complex situation" and that "he would have to escalate this to the research
team" and that "I would be hearing the resolution from them in a few business days." I'm sure all of you would've loved to have heard my conversation with this poor guy. I was like, "Listen to me. I know this is not your fault. And I KNOW that this may seem ridiculous, but I am a HUGE FAN of this show, and the ONLY REASON I bought this from you guys was for this disc. So they better rummage around and find me that d@mn bonus disc, or it is not going to be acceptable."

I hang up with them, but then get another idea. I look up Mr. Probably Got My Bonus Disc on whitepages.com. And guess what, he is ON there! AND there's a link to some high school reunion site that lists not only where he obviously went to high school (Glenview South), but also his phone number, his email address, and his age (26). So yes... I called him. Later my husband asked me just exactly what I was hoping to accomplish by doing that, but it doesn't matter, because he never answered and he had no voicemail?!?! What I WOULD HAVE said was "Hey, I know where you live, and if you don't give me MY bonus CD then I will stalk you forever and make your life utterly miserable." No, honestly, I was planning to be quite calm if he answered (I realize this was NOT his fault), and try to explain what happened, see if he got my packing slip, if he even had the bonus CD in the first place, and then invite him to my premiere party because obviously he is also a fan. I never called him back though. But I still have the packing slip... Best Buy research did email me within hours:

"Erika,
Thank you for contacting Best Buy about receiving the promotion with your order. I'm Lou- Ann with Customer Care. We can understand your frustration at not receiving the product and promotion as expected. We show that the promotion you were interested in ordering was included in a special promotion, and was available while supplies lasted. We cannot send the promotion as we no longer have inventory of this item. We apologize for the disappointment this has caused you. Please check back in the future to find out if we offer this promotion again.
Best Wishes from Best Buy,
Lou- Ann and the Best Buy Customer Care Team"

This email will remain in my inbox. Some night in the future, I will come home and perhaps have had too much to drink, or will be upset about something else related to Best Buy, or will be mad about something not even related to this at all. But at that time, I will pull up that email from
Lou-Ann, and I will reply and let her have it.

Until then, if you feel any sense of loyalty toward me after I toil over these write-ups week after week after week - you can repay me by avoiding Best Buy from here on out. I hear Circuit City's not too bad.

Until next week,
- e

S2Ep5: ...And Found (Jin and Sun's first joint flashback) - 10/19/05

Hello my dearest and most patient friends -

So we have now been made to suffer through what I'm sure is just the first of many multi-week hiatuses (is that a word?) this season, just like last season. But even though I know nothing about sports and could care less, I will forgive The Powers That Be at ABC because even *I* was aware that not only was Chicago in the World Series, they WON the World Series, hence the reason for the break in the schedule (even though the WSeries was on Fox, they thought they would lose viewers to it). And since I live in Chicago (as many of you may not have known, I just realized), I will forgive them. And yes, the World Series was over a while ago, but they had to plan for all 7 games in the TV scheduling, hence the long break. Shout-out to CJ just for being the only long-time Sox fan I know!

On to the episode:
Do you ever get the feeling that perhaps you're on crack and you just don't know it? Because that's how I feel right now... I just remember watching this episode live with my peeps and all of us thinking that it was horrible. In fact, I dare say I thought it was the worst episode in the entire series because literally nothing happened. I was dreading writing this to all of you because I've now somehow started feeling personally guilty for any time the show sucks. But for the past few minutes I've been on the boards collecting the posts for this write-up, and have been blown away by the fact that apparently everyone else LOVED this episode. I am just perplexed, befuddled, confused... you name it. As Whitney Houston so eloquently said, "Crack is wack!"

WHY did these people enjoy watching Jin and Mr. Eko (gotta love that name, though) run through the woods all episode and accomplish nothing? I just don't get it. I did like the Sun/Jin flashbacks, but not enough to make up for the rest of the show. Here is what little I could scrape together on this episode...

THE OTHERS
I think there is only one thing actually is worth noting in this episode, and that is that we supposedly saw a glimpse of The Others traipsing through the jungle. Here is what you should contemplate:
- Mr. Eko made a point of saying:
- They do not leave footprints (remember on the season one finale... there were no footprints around the black smoke column, either, and Sayid and Charlie noticed it)
- They will not be found unless they WANT to be found
- Other Others points:
- They appear to be human, although I still think it's possible that they can shape-shift (X-Files term) into human form
- The last Other was dragging along a teddy bear, leading me to believe that Walt was not the first child taken (that bear was NOT Walt's). Or perhaps The Others ARE children who were raised on the island and developed superpowers?
- Even if they are not human and they do not leave footprints, they still appear to kill people the old-fashioned way judging from the Tailaway guy with the huge cleaver in his chest

MR. EKO
That is a cool-@ss name. Say it with me now: Mr. Eko. My peeps watching it with me all agreed that we liked him. But here is something bizarre. When he and Jin were having their pseudo-discussion about being married (involving lots of pointing to rings and whatnot), and Jin replied, "Yes, you?" Eko's answer was "Worse." I checked the transcripts, too, because at first I thought he said "Was" and then there was a big debate about it on the boards, and the transcripts say "Worse." My head is just kind of blanking on this one - anyone have any ideas as to what he could mean? All guys who are thinking of sending lame replies like "There's nothing worse
than marriage!" can now go think of other witty responses.

My second question about Eko is: was he on the plane? I'm not so sure he was... I think we're assuming he was because he is with the Tailaways. He never actually SAID anything about being on the plane. He seems kind of like their "Locke" to me. It is going to be awesome when/if Locke and Eko meet. Someone may have to watch me to make sure I don't explode with excitement.

Here is a possible future exchange:
Locke: *I* made glue out of rendered animal fat.
Eko: Well, I made a huge machete and I'm not going to tell you how and spill my secrets!
Locke: I can predict when it's going to rain out here.
Eko: I can sense The Others coming even though they don't make any sound.
Locke: I've seen The Monster and I'm friends with it.
Eko: Everyone in my group is pretty much dead yet here I still am.
Locke: I used to be a regional collections manager at a box company.
Eko: Well I was the NATIONAL collections manager at a box company - HA!!!!!!!
Then they have a knife duel to the death.

MUTE CHICK
I'm just sayin'.... there was some girl who looked kind of freaky and didn't talk. She was with the rest of the Tailaways. So we've got Eko, Ana Lucia, Libby, Bernard and Mute Chick. Now watch, she's going to have some heart-breaking flashback about why she really is mute and then I'm going to feel awful.

MICHAEL
At the polar opposite end of the spectrum from Mute Chick, I present to you: Michael. Seriously, dude, just stop yelling.

ANA LUCIA
Even though I have never positioned this as a "family-friendly" distribution list, I am not compelled to write out the various nicknames that Ana Lucia has earned on the boards, for they are quite profane. Suffice it to say, there are only a few posters out there who like her, while most are hoping she bites the bullet. But I have a feeling we will not be that lucky. The only thing to mention with her is that she does have a thick band on her left ring finger, yet told Sawyer she wasn't married. Since I re-watched nearly all of Season 1 recently (mentioned last week), I remembered that in the flashback on the finale where she was flirting with Jack at the airport, I got the feeling that perhaps she was in the middle of a divorce.

SARA - DEAD OR NOT? DO I CARE? NOT REALLY.
Jack was married to Sara, that we knew. Now he is not, which we also knew. At first I thought she must have ended up dying after his miracle "saving" of her (possibly with the help of Hatch Man/Desmond's powers), and that is what turned him back to Man o' Science. But after his comment to Sun that his ring was "rolling around in a drawer back at home," I'm not so sure. Perhaps she did end up leaving him or vice versa.

LOCKE
When Sun is talking to Locke after he spied her ripping apart her garden, she says "Don't you ever get frustrated?" Locke says something like "I'm not lost anymore." My brother would like to point out that "he is totally lying. He DOES get frustrated. Remember when the computer broke and he hit his head on the desk and was like 'What do you want me to do?!' He totally lost it. So, he is lying about that." While I do not deny that Locke's actions seem to be different than his words, I also think he wasn't consciously LYING to Sun. I think he's giving himself a little more credit than he deserves... he's definitely not Mr. Calm, Cool and Collected ALL of the time.

Also on Locke, my brother asks "have you ever discussed *who* he is talking to/at when he talks/yells at the island? He also yelled at the island when he went paralyzed before Boone died, right? (ERIKA: Yes, along with when he was banging on the hatch and the light came on.) Has somebody or something talked to Locke? If not, then why does he feel like he can talk to the
island? Why does he think it is "listening" to him?"

My answer to this is that when Locke has "talked to the island" on several occasions, I think he thinks he is either talking to God, or some higher power that he believes is controlling his destiny. I do not think any person or thing ever literally talked to him on the island and that now he is shouting back at it. We know that he DID see the monster twice... once he said it was "beautiful" and the other time he became very afraid and then the monster almost dragged him down a hole to who knows where. So perhaps whatever it was he saw, combined with his miracle cure, has convinced him that there is some power or being that brought him to the island for a
reason.

BEST LINES OF THE EPISODE
[Hurley and Sun sitting nearby Vincent, watching him.]
HURLEY: So, Seoul. Is that in the good Korea or the bad Korea?
(awkward silence)
SUN: The good one.
HURLEY: Dude, dogs will eat anything. When I was a kid, my dog, Buster -- I had this drawer where I'd throw in all my change, right -- and I guess there were some Smarties in there -- so, like, the next day, Buster craps out a $1.35 in nickels.
[Sun doesn't respond.]

GREAT NON-PC/SWEAR-WORD-INFESTED SITE
Shout-out to Uncle Grambo for forwarding along this link... Definitely hilarious and highly recommended for the true Lost fan, and nothing TOO offensive... basically the gist of this site is that they "snark" (rip on, find fault with) various people/topics. The page below is them snarking the cast of Lost.
http://www.snarkywood.com/2005/09/snark_for_a_cau_1.html


PREVIEWS
D@mmit, CreepyDrownedWalt is back! I was just getting over my nightmares. Apparently someone is going to die. I don't know who it is. It better stay that way until showtime!

Also, apparently NEXT week they are going to do something different with the show. We may be spoiled by the previews at the end of this week, but I really hope they keep it under wraps. However, I have been forewarned that if you do not want to be spoiled (like me), then do NOT read the episode listing on Tivo or TV guide or whatever your source is for next week, because it gives it away. Is NOTHING sacred?


ON THE SENTIMENTAL TIP
I often mention "my peeps" who watch the show faithfully with me each week, put up with my antics, don't make fun of me for going as overboard as I do, and keep me on my toes by noticing things I never would have seen. KG and EG are two of these people and I am happy to announce that they recently added the first Lost Baby to the distribution list a few weeks ago. OK, so no, he doesn't already have his own email address, but he DOES already have his own dedicated mini-bean bag in my TV room. Lil' Will got his first visit by Crazy Auntie E tonight and is now the proud owner of a bib with "the numbers" on it, a baby t-shirt that says I Love Sayid (Love is a big red heart, Sayid is his mom's fave character), and then a jumper reading "I'd rather be watching Lost." You KNOW he's being schooled in Lost Season One the next time I see him! Seriously though you guys, congrats.

Enjoy the show this week, back on at the regular time Wednesday night...
- e

S2Ep4: Everybody Hates Hugo (Hurley's second flashback) - 10/12/05

Hello everyone -

Sorry about the late delivery of this week's write-up... normally I would not try to play the sympathy card (oh, who am I kidding, yes I would - but whatever)... but since so many of you gave me crap about it, I am going to tell you WHY it was late and then you will feel bad for me. Not only does The Man continue to beat me down with his politics, bureaucracy and supreme
Dilbertness, but I actually had leg/vein surgery last week. As in, they found out that I truly am a freak of nature and that NONE of the major veins in either of my legs worked (pumped blood the wrong way, yes, I know this seems impossible) and therefore they had to close all of them and rely upon the miracle that is the human body to reroute blood on its own so I can watch Lost in the future without my legs constantly falling asleep. SO THERE! I have mostly been confined to a chair with my legs elevated, so I took that time achieve a life's goal: to watch all 3 Lord of the Rings extended edition DVDs... we're talking 15 hours, people. Time slipped away and here we are at Wednesday already again... but it was funny to see Charlie from Lost back in his Pippin mode. (Note: I intended to send this out on Wednesday and then my DSL went down. When it rains, it pours.)

So back to Lost: I was very pleased with this episode, despite its general lack o' Locke. It goes to show that they can pull off a great episode and satisfy viewers even when nothing too major happens, as long as it is just well done overall. The love was back on the boards as well as you will see in the attachment - and those people are way more critical than I am. For the most part, everyone liked Hurley's second flashback and felt that Lost was back to "firing on all cylinders." Another thing to note is that nearly everyone hates Ana Lucia way more than any of us ever felt the Kate Hate, thus giving weight to the phrase, "It's all relative." Kate is way more tolerable than Ana Lucia ever could be. Grrrrrr.

HURLEY'S FLASHBACKS and ISLAND STORYLINE
Did I not call that Jin speaking English would be a dream? I did. But in case you didn't know, that was Daniel Dae Kim's "real" voice... he actually had to learn a specific Korean dialect for the show (he was already knew Korean, though).

We didn't really learn anything new from Hurley's flashbacks, but I enjoyed them nonetheless. His little mousy friend guy (DJ Qualls) was cool, and I learned from all the Vassar peeps watching at my place that the girl Hurley asked out at the CD store went to school with them (but is a few years younger).

Here are random comments from the flashbacks, but nothing of importance really:
- In Hurley's dream sequence at the beginning, when he had his feeding frenzy in the storage room, he is guzzling a carton of some liquid, and on the side it says "MISSING:" and then shows a picture of Walt, like milk cartons did back in the day. This has no significance since it was a dream sequence, but I caught it on my second viewing and thought it was clever, so I figured I might as well share.
- Hurley's boss at Mr. Cluck's was also Locke's boss at the box company. They are played by the same person (I initially didn't think they looked anything alike at all, but they are indeed the same actor) and the character's name is Randy in both Walkabout (Locke's original flashback) and this episode. It is strange because both of those flashbacks were shortly before the plane crash. However, Hurley's was further in the past because he hadn't actually cashed in his Lotto winnings yet, and I believe that all of his "bad luck" occurred over a series of months immediately following, during which time we know that Mr. Cluck's was hit by a meteorite (Hurley mentioned this on the premiere this season), and perhaps that is when Randy moved to become the manager of the box company. Locke's original flashback was just mere days before the plane crash. Or another theory is, since we know from Hurley's original flashback that he actually ended up OWNING the box company that Locke worked at, he himself might have moved Randy to that company after the meteorite hit.
- The scene with Hurley and his friend singing "You All Everybody!" (which might possibly be the worst song EVER - this coming from someone who has the full version in her laptop as I write this) was hilarious - notice the CD was in the $2 Bargain Bin under One Hit Wonders. Poor Charlie.
- It was great when Hurley thought CD Girl was going to turn him down and then she said "I could probably go Saturday..." - yay! I was very happy with that. So funny that he gained the courage to do all of these things BEFORE he cashed in, typically people would have more courage after the money was in hand.
- I loved the Cluck You! garden gnome display, because garden gnomes ALWAYS rock.
- While not necessarily telling us anything we didn't already know, I felt that Hurley's flashbacks were still very relevant to the goings-on at the island, unlike some other flashbacks that don't seem to move anything along. We knew Hurley won the lottery, but now we know that even before he actually had the money, he wasn't all gung-ho about getting it because he dreaded how his life may change. And since he was that upset about having to be in charge of managing the food, we can guess that a lot of people tried to take advantage of him after he became rich, not to mention all the freaky bad luck that descended upon him supposedly because of the cursed numbers.
- I thought the ending food party/bonfire montage was great - it was nice to just see a brief moment of normalcy for our beloved Lostaways. Who in the heck was manning the button though... and poor Sun, burying the message bottle so that no one else loses hope of rescue.
- Claire and Charlie got their d@mn peanut butter, hooray!
- ... But we still don't know why Hurley was in the mental institution where he learned the numbers... thus guaranteeing another Hurley flashback.

LOCKE
As mentioned above, there was precious little Locke in this episode, but when he was onscreen I think he did some telling things. First off, he was back to his old ways of forcing people to confront their fears/weaknesses, and he did this in two ways for Hurley: 1) Telling Charlie everything he wanted to know about the hatch, including revealing that there was a food stash AND that Hurley was in charge of it, and 2) His big "Yeah, I've had a lot of jobs I didn't want to do. I still did them. I'm sorry, Hugo, you don't get to quit" speech.

On a different note, Locke is getting really into his whole "I've created a system where people will take 6 hour button-pushing shifts" and it is frightening me. On yet another note, I read someone that the writers said in a recent interview that Locke and Jack represent two factions of fans - the ones who "want the island to be weird" (uh, like me) and those who "want the island not to be weird - for there to be an explanation for everything."

THE HATCH
So Sayid and Jack go crawling around all over the place in the hatch, and trying to break apart walls wherever they can, all to no avail. They cannot break through any walls, big surprise. Apparently they are trying to get to the whatever's on the other side of the hatch, though I have no idea why - the low, pulsing humming sound would not be motivating ME to get closer, but I am not Jack or Sayid. Sayid mentioned the similarity to Chernobyl, so I think I can guess where this is all going...

WHERE THIS IS ALL GOING
Actually I don't really know, but here is my guess. My guess is that we actually have already learned what is up with the island. It IS the base for a series of experiments, which had hatches/labs scattered across the island, each focusing on a different thing (magnets, animals, climate control, the paranormal, time manipulation, etc). I am totally fine with that, because it still leaves a ton of ways they could go with several different things. Such as: are the people who crashed on the island over the course of time there for a reason (as in, picked or forced to be there somehow), or were their crashes just random because there's some magnetic pull from the island? What is The Sickness? Where is all this power coming from, and the food supplies in the hatch, and the gas for the Hillbilly Boat, etc? What do they want with Walt? What exactly are The Others? Is there a way to escape the island? Is there some sort of time warp going on?
There are literally still hundreds of questions IF the island is really all an experiment base, which still may not be the case. But enough people have asked me what I thought was going on, so there you go. I will probably change my mind in 2 hours.


THE DEGROOTS = THE OTHERS?
OR ADAM AND EVE (THE SKELETONS)?
OR JUST U of M HIPPIES?
Here is a current theory circulating, that I mentioned last week as well... that the two U of M grad students (The Degroots) who started the Dharma Initiative and were in the video were actually the same people on The Others' boat on the season finale (who took Walt). Judge for yourself at the link below. I personally do not think the women look anything like each other, and the guy only has a faint similarity (just because two people have mustaches doesn't mean they are actually the same person...) (This web site goes down a lot, be forewarned)

http://www.humpys.net/images/thedegroots.jpg

Another theory is that The Degroots are the two skeletons Jack found in the cave last season (nicknamed Adam and Eve). But he said they had probably been there 40-50 years, and it has not been that long since 1980, unless there is some time warp thing going on. However, I was not under the impression that the Degroots themselves ever went to the actual island, but I could see how they could have in order to set up the experiment labs.

THE RETURN OF ROSE
To prove that I am not totally crazy, I will now reveal that I DO realize these characters are not real people, because I know that the reason Rose has not been on the show since early in Season One is that she was in a Broadway play. OK, now quickly! Back to Escapism Land...
- I do like Rose, and I like how Hurley chose her to be his partner. They made a good team and she was definitely ready to knock sense into him when he was going to BLOW UP all the food... ?!?!?!
- I wanted to bring up what may or may not be an important thing Rose said (in the original pilot episode)... when they had first crashed and they were all out on the beach the first night on the island, they all saw the trees shaking and heard what we now know to be the "monster sounds," and Rose said "That sound that it made, I keep thinking that there was something really familiar about it." And then Shannon asked her where she was from, and she said, "The Bronx." Hmmmm...
- So this whole time we knew that Rose held firm to the belief that her husband was still alive. And drumroll please... we find out he is a white guy. This was the big shocker to everyone on the boards, who then felt bad for making assumptions... but seriously, as you will see in my attachment, even all of the African-American posters were like "Uh... we didn't see that one coming, either." But the funniest thing was that even all of the hard-core toughies on the boards admitted to getting a tear in their eye when Bernard revealed himself to the Three Amigos, and then when we saw the shot of Rose saving the candy bar for him. *Sigh.*

INSIDE HATCHLITE
(or Hatch #2, The Ghetto Hatch, whatever you want to call it)
- There are now three Dharma Logos: The Swan (original hatch), The Straight Line (I'm just making that up, I don't really know what it's called, but it's on the shark), and The Cross (also making that name up, it's in the second hatch where the Tailaways are hiding out).

Several other sources had also reported that the Dharma logo could be seen on the wreckage of Flight 815. However, that has been widely negated since, and I myself have seen the screenshots and they are not the same logo. Planes have several warning logos and whatnot all over the place and some are octagons, but they do not appear to be the Dharma logo.
- There were 23 original Tailaways... one of the numbers. When they all reached HatchLite, and there were only a handful of Tailaways there, Michael asked Libby, "I thought you said there were 23 of you?" to which she replied, "There WERE." My father happened to be watching it with me and all my peeps that night, and he immediately was like "Cannibalism!" Nas-tay. But a lot of the people on the boards assumed that, too. Seems as though the original Lostaways fared much better than the poor Tailaways have...
- There is a theory that since there are 6 numbers, and everyone's assuming there are 6 Dharma stations, that each number has some sort of significance to one of the stations - like 23 is for HatchLite because there were 23 of them, and 42 is for the Swan because I think there is that number of them remaining now, etc, etc. That doesn't make sense to me but if it makes
sense to someone else, let me know.

BEST LINES OF THE EPISODE
HURLEY: Dude, look, I'd never lie.
CHARLIE: Oh, and the time you told you were worth 150 million dollars?
HURLEY: It's 156 million.
CHARLIE: I'm sorry, I must have confused it with the 900 TRILLion *I* am worth myself!!!


RANDY to Hurley after viewing Mr. Cluck's security video: You owe the company for an 8 piece dark meat combo!!!


MICHAEL: Everything's cool. We had a talk and they believe we were on the plane, too.
SAWYER: Swell, I guess we can all sue Oceanic together.

(Erika's personal favorite... do you think they got a hold of one of these write-ups and this is a shout-out?)
CHARLIE: You're saying no to a nursing mother?
HURLEY: It's not like that.
CHARLIE: Oh, it's exactly like that. You know, I never thought this would happen but it did. You've become one of them.
HURLEY: One of them?
CHARLIE: Them - The Man - management.


JOHNNY: Driveshaft - more like Suckshaft.

JOHNNY [as they are leaving the record store]: Dude, you've been crushing on this girl for months and doing nothing. Today you're frickin' Fabio.


LOCKE: Change is good, Hugo.
HURLEY: You know, people say that, but it's not true, man. Trust me, I know. And guess who gets to be the bad guy who has to say: no you can't have peanut butter for the cute blonde and her poor... island... baby.

JOHNNY: Do you think we got enough gnomes?

SAWYER ROBBED at GUNPOINT (in real life)
http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,17570,00.html


DON'T PLAY THE LOTTO WITH HURLEY'S NUMBERS
http://news.yahoo.com/s/eo/20051020/en_tv_eo/17621

- e

S2Ep3: Orientation (Locke's third flashback) - 10/5/05

My dear and sympathetic friends -
I need to begin this message with an apology. I do not anticipate this is going to be a very good write-up, because The Man has got me extremely down,and I am feeling sorry for myself and depressed. Therefore, if any of youcan think of a way that I can make a living writing Lost recaps rather than working for The Man, I would be all ears. Enough of my sob story.

So I finally broke down and bought "Make Your Own Kind of Music" (aka: Desmond's Hatch Song) from iTunes last night. It is quite the catchy tune,I must say.

One quick thing before we get going on Orientation:

DHARMA LOGO
The Dharma swan logo that's in the hatch is actually different from the one that was on the shark. The shark just had a straight line through the inner circle on the logo, leading me and many others to believe that the shark is controlled by, or part of another experiment from, another station of the experiment somewhere else on the island.

Now on to Orientation.

HELEN / LOCKE'S FLASHBACKS
Cue the music, cue the Buckingham Fountain shooting a jet of water up into the air... "Love and marriage, love and marriage.... "

How YOU doin', Peg Bundy? It's good to see you again! I was pleasantly surprised at Peg's turn as Helen, Locke's love interest. Of course Helen was also the name of Locke's s@x phone operator "girlfriend" in his original flashback, and since I'm assuming the Helen from this episode didn't devolve into that, something ends up going sour in their relationship but Locke still pines for her, and therefore asks the phone woman to take on the name of Helen. Other people assume that the same accident that causes Locke to be paralyzed will kill Helen, but of course that is all speculation. Her purpose in this episode was help us see that clearly, in his past, Locke was NOT a Man of Faith.

God help me if I ever see the actor who plays Locke's kidney-stealing father, because I don't think I will be able to separate real life from TV, and I will beat him down.

MORE ON DESMOND
So we now know that Desmond WAS on his race around the world and crashed onto the island. He was not a part of the original experiment team, but was brought into the hatch by Kelvin, who was randomly wandering around the island when Desmond arrived. What happened to Kelvin's original partner? Anywhooo, Kelvin somehow convinced Desmond that they needed to press the button in the hatch every 108 minutes. Kelvin ends up dying, but we do not know how.

I am glad that they just straight up addressed the whole issue of "what if this is just all a mind game?" by having Jack ask Desmond if he ever thought that this was all just an elaborate experiment on HIM or on human behavior, and Desmond answering, "every single day."

I am confused as to why neither Jack nor Desmond made a bigger deal out of the fact that they MET EACH OTHER BEFORE, and NOW THEY ARE BOTH ON THE ISLE O'CRAZINESS. I mean, shouldn't that have resulted in a stronger reaction from both of them?

Some people thought the woman with Desmond in his pic in the hatch was Jack's wife. I don't think it was because Jack had no reaction when he saw it. Plus it didn't look like her, duh. Jack freaking out to Desmond asking what happened to "that girl" once again signals to me that she is now dead.

THE TURN OF THE SCREW
This book was briefly shown as they were searching for the film canister. In brief summary, in this story, the reader of the story is left to figure out on his or her own if the main character is delusional, or if they are actually seeing ghosts. Guess what movie was loosely based on this book? Oh, that would be "THE OTHERS."

THE THIRD POLICEMAN
This book was also briefly shown. The book itself is crazy, so who knows what it could be a hint to for the show itself... there are complete threads devoted to this topic, so if you are interested you should investigate and report back to me.

THE DHARMA INITIATIVE
First off, that movie was hilarious. Second, we better all be scared if some hippies from U of M are behind the whole experiment, because you KNOW those peeps are freaks (yours truly being the obvious exception - ha)! Here are some important things to note from the movie:
- The tape was 3 of 6, meaning that perhaps the other tapes exist somewhere that explain more about the project.
- The initiative was started in 1970. The date at the end of the film was 1980.
- BF Skinner was mentioned as an inspiration. He is famous for the "Skinner Box" - an experiment in which animals would receive food if they performed certain functions. There was a device in the box recording their actions to collect data. Sounds very similar to the hatch itself, no?
- One thing that concerns me a tad is that basically EVERYTHING going on thus far on the island could be explained by this experiment, from what they mentioned it encompassed in the film: meteorology, psychology, parapsychology, zoology, electromagnetism, and utopian social (... film jumps at this point)
- Alvar Hanso was the creepy dude (Reminiscent of The Cigarette Smoking Man/Cancer Man from The X Files, I dare say) standing in the building that they zoomed in on, who provided the financial backing. I am SURE he will appear again in the series somehow.
- They allude to at least 2 other stations for the experiment on the island, as this is station 3. They also say that this station, The Swan, was focused on the special electromagnetic force existing on that part of the island.
- Participants in the research stay in the station for 540 days. There seems to be no significance to this number thus far except that it is 5 x 108.
- People have said that possibly the narrator was Korean and therefore could be linked to Sun's father?
- At the end, in his signoff, he says Namaste, which people found odd. This is a Hindu phrase that roughly means: 'The God in me greets the God in you. The Spirit in me meets the same Spirit in you.' Look at all this stuff we learn from this show!!!

THE BLONDE MYSTERY WOMAN
Shout out to K-gibbs (aka Nerdy G) for letting me know that someone sent in some screen captures to a radio station that show that the woman in the Orientation video looks very much like the Others' blonde woman who threw the bomb-thing onto the raft. I tried to compare myself but it wasn't that clear. The Orientation video was taken 25 years ago, so that would be odd if they were the same person unless time warps are involved, which I still think is possible.

THE CON MAN GETS CONNED
It is lame that Sawyer and crew fell for Ana Lucia's trick. I am seriously thinking that Kate is not so bad anymore. You know it took a lot for me to write that.

SAYID = AWESOME, PART 1
The supporting evidence:
LOCKE: Can you fix it?
SAYID: This man, who ever he was, replaced the motherboard. The power transformer is blown.
LOCKE: Don't you need to know why?
SAYID: All I need to know is that the timer is counting down to something, and that this computer needs to be repaired. I'm sure you'll tell me why once I've done so.
Case closed.
Once again. Sayid = Awesome. I seriously think he's the only sane one left on the island at this point.

THE LAME BUTTON STANDOFF AT THE END
Yes, we all realize that they were trying to make a point by focusing on the importance of the INITIAL decision to push the button or not in order to further evolve the Locke vs. Jack tension, but seriously, is there anyone who WOULD NOT have just pushed the button in order to buy themselves 108 more minutes to think it through more clearly? The boarders feel that this was done to represent "whether they consciously decide to go mad" or not, because surely if they give in to pushing the button, they are resigning themselves to eventual madness. Others pointed out, correctly I feel, that the "leap of faith" on Jack's part would've been to NOT push the button. Of course Jack was going to push it, because he's the Good Doctor and cannot possibly knowingly endanger everyone else. So had he NOT pushed it, that would've been more of a stretch for him.

Everyone was annoyed that they pushed it.

But fear not, I don't think they are going to make the rest of the series about Button Shifts.
And remember, Hurley was going to let Locke enter in the wrong number at the end. He's that convinced of the numbers' evil-ness.

SAYID = AWESOME, PART DEUX
The supporting evidence:
During the Button Showdown
LOCKE: You do it, Jack.
JACK: What?
LOCKE: You have to do it.
JACK: You do it yourself, John.
LOCKE: You saw the film, Jack. This is a two person job, at least.
SAYID: This argument is irrelevant.
Case closed.
I repeat, Sayid = Awesome.

BEST LINES OF THE EPISODE
LOCKE at group therapy session: You want your damned 30 dollars back? I want my kidney back!

HELEN: ... I like bald guys.
LOCKE: I'm not bald.
HELEN: I can wait.

HURLEY: Dude, I've got to say, I didn't think we were going to get through the night. And I wasn't even here for that baby stealing part.
SAYID: I can assure you it was very exciting.
HURLEY: It's about time things are finally returning to normalness.
[Kate comes running onto the beach.]
KATE: SAYID!!!!!!
HURLEY: Ah, Crap.

And of course, the best line of the night was the shout-out to end all shout-outs to all the obsessive Tivo-dependent boarders...:
LOCKE (after video ends): We're going to need to watch that again.

PREVIEWS
Hurley's flashback...
Jin speaking English? I feel that must be a trick or a dream sequence... we shall soon see.

WEB SITES OF INTEREST
The Montauk Project (shout-out again to K-gibbs/Nerdy G)
For true conspiracy theorists, this page (scroll down, DON'T click on the top of the page links that reference Lost) discusses the supposed Montauk Project, a continuation of the Philadelphia Experiment. There are tons of similarities to Lost (possible time travel, electromagnetic experimentation, etc.) and it was quite interesting.

http://www.mygeekyplace.net/montauk_project.html

Dharma Video:
http://thedharmainitiative.org/orientation


Alvar Hanso Foundation:
http://www.thehansofoundation.org/activeproject.html


Til next week,
- e