Lost: Episodes 9-11.

More Lost stuff coming up:

Episode 9 (Solitary)

1. These bullet points are getting a bit long. I may skip some stuff from now on. FYI.
2. Sayid sits on the beach looking at pictures of his lady. So maybe we’ll get Sayid flashbacks this episode? Anyway, on the beach he spies a cable running from the middle of the jungle, across the sand, and into the water. I wonder what it’s connected to.
3. Kate’s mad at Jack for torturing Sawyer. As are all right-thinking people.
4. Sayid follows the cable into the jungle, gets caught in a snare. Hangs upside down for hours. Gets cut down. But by whom? THE CAMERA WILL NOT SHOW US!
5. Jack bandages some dude we’ve never seen before. He has John Lennon glasses, like Ben Linus will have. He has hives. I think we will never see him again, maybe he died of hives.
6. OMG, the credits say “guest star: William Mapother”. You know who that is, right? Hint 1: he’s Tom Cruise’s cousin. Hint 2: he’s Ethan!
7. Sayid wakes up, to a woman’s voice asking in various languages: “where is Alex?” As we all know (but didn’t know then), it’s Rousseau. Alex is her daughter. Alex is hanging with the Others! But this information is all well in the future. We flashback to Sayid torturing some dude. He used to be a real jerk, yes? I have to admit, I didn’t find Sayid’s backstory that interesting so I probably won’t bother talking about it much. Obviously there’s irony in seeing flashbacks of him torturing people and then, back on the Island, seeing him getting tortured by Rousseau. Let’s just stipulate to the ironic juxtaposition and move on.
8. Okay so someone shows up whom we haven’t seen before. It’s Tom Cruise’s cousin. It’s Ethan. It’s AN OTHER! But so far he just seems like a genial dude we’ve not met yet. This is awesome to watch again.
9. Hurley is up to something wacky. We don’t know what yet. But I’ll just tell you a few minutes early: it’s a crappy golf course he made! This is kinda sweet. He points out, accurately, that they are totally screwed and their lives all suck, and that they need to have some fun. Of course, in real life everyone would just start sleeping together. But I guess a makeshift golf course is more family-friendly.
10. Rousseau is ranting crazily. She has been alone for 16 years and has clearly lost most of her marbles. Sayid reveals that Nadia is dead. Because of him. Rousseau cozies up to him creepily and it’s weird.
11. The gang plays golf. Hurley made life awesome! Oh wait, that guy with the glasses with the rash? He showed up again! I forget if he’s a meaningful character. And if he is, I forget if he dies violently (Ethan maybe?). We’ll see.
12. So Rousseau’s group got stranded on the Island in a storm. They got sick from the Others (first proper mention of them!). We see all this from their perspective in Season 5. Turns out Rousseau had good reasons for going nuts. Anyway, she fails to mention that they came across a time-jumping weirdo and he disappeared in front of her very eyes, but I guess you can’t blame her–she already sounds crazy enough without that little tidbit.
13. Shannon in a bikini. I think I’ve lost the ability to make deeper observations.
14. Okay, she’s off screen. Now I can be insightful again. Sawyer and Kate share some banter. But nobody gives a crap.
15. Sayid fixes Rousseau’s music box, which delights her. Then he asks her to let him go (did I mention, by the way, that he’s been tied up this whole time?). She gets mad again, and then she runs off into the jungle to shoot something making noise (“if we’re lucky, it’s one of the bears”). Rousseau says there’s no such thing as monsters.
16. In the flashback, Sayid feels guilty and helps his childhood friend (who is the woman, Nadia, he carried a photo of) escape the Republican Guard. To be honest, Sayid became a much more compelling character after he did a bunch of stuff on the show–no matter how many people he tortures, his background flashbacks are kinda boring. On the plus side, the flashback reveals that Nadia may not be dead (and of course we know she isn’t, because he finds her again when he gets off the Island in later seasons).
17. All the extras are standing around while the main characters play golf. It’s kinda pathetic. Oh, but Shannon’s wearing a nice blue dress that shows off her… excellent personality. Michael kinda ignores Walt a little bit and he walks off, presumably into Locke’s waiting arms.
18. Rousseau and Sayid (he escaped) have a little faceoff with rifles. Nobody will actually get shot though, if only because his gun is busted. She reveals that it’s the same gun that Robert was using when he tried to shoot her, and when she shot him (which we saw in Season 5, but I forgot that she had rigged the gun back then!). Anyway, they bond over the loss of loved ones. But no, they don’t sleep together, you jokers. Rousseau reveals, finally, that Alex was her child. But she still doesn’t say “daughter” so that we can all be surprised when Alex makes her first appearance. She lets Sayid go and walks off into the jungle, to be speculated about by Lost fans.
19. Sawyer shows up at the golf course and gets reintegrated into the group in a marginally heartwarming scene that doesn’t really feel earned but whatever. Meanwhile, Locke teaches Walt how to throw knives. That’s kinda messed up.
20. And… scene.

Episode 10 (Raised by Another)

1. We open on Claire’s eye, with the iris contracting just like Jack’s did in the pilot. It’s almost like they’re related! Also, Claire’s having a nightmare that someone took her baby. This is what is known as an ominous portent. Or, if you prefer to think about it from the writer’s perspective, foreshadowing. Anyway, the dream is weird and disturbing. In the dream, Locke has one black eye and one white eye and speaks for the Island. If they set that up for Season 5/6, that’s pretty impressive. Okay so Claire wakes up screaming with blood on her hands. So far this seems like a lot of symbolism.
2. The flashbacks in this episode are about how Claire got pregnant by her painter boyfriend, and then a psychic freaked out and told her that she could not let anyone but her raise the child, because the child is like a magical vampire or something. He tells her that if she puts the baby up for adoption the earth will open up and swallow her whole. Somewhere between those two events, Claire’s boyfriend started wigging out about the baby and left her. She didn’t handle it well, understandably.
3. Claire wakes up screaming again. Man, that woman has powerful lungs. This leads to Hurley coming up with a good idea–figuring out who everybody is. He gets everyone’s name and info, and at some point I think he compares that information to the flight manifest. The upshot of this project: they figure out Ethan doesn’t belong there right as he’s trying to steal Claire’s baby. As I recall it was really quite shocking at the time. It’s not every day you see Tom Cruise’s cousin acting creepy. Unfortunately.
4. But before all that happens, Jack suggests that Claire might just be having (really) bad dreams. Charlie gets oddly defensive and weird because he loooooves her.
5. Shannon does not respect Hurley’s plan. Neither does Boone. Hahaha, Shannon called them “the rape caves”. She just justified her inclusion on my list of Best Lost Characters Ever. Hurley finally asks Sawyer for the flight manifest. It’s a funny conversation, and at the end Sawyer gives the manifest to Hurley.
6. Claire’s having contractions in the jungle! Charlie is trying to help but he’s a goofball (and tells her that he’s a recovering drug addict). So Claire asks him to get Jack, and he leaves her alone in the jungle in what is unquestionably a mistake. And in what’s even more of a mistake, Charlie tells ETHAN to go get Jack because Claire’s babying. So Ethan is totally gonna ruin everything and it’s all Charlie’s fault.
7. Now she flashes back to meeting with a potential adoptive couple, who will set her up with a bunch of money and then take her baby (a plan which the psychic totally would not support). She tries to sign the adoption papers but all the pens don’t work! It wasn’t meant to be! I don’t know why we ever thought we’d get rational answers for this show’s mysteries–it was insane right from the start. Anyway, the psychic tells her to fly to LA, where some people will take care of her or something. He doesn’t get too specific. Charlie suggests that maybe the psychic told her that just to get her on the plane so she would end up on the Island, in the rape caves. Meanwhile, Hurley figured out that Ethan wasn’t on the plane. At the same time, Ethan’s found Charlie/Claire. Ethan has cold, dead eyes.
8. THAT’S THE END OF THE EPISODE? Wow. Guys, that’s how you cliffhang.

Episode 11 (All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues)

1. Everybody in the rape caves is freaking out (understandably) about how Ethan is an interloper. They run off into the jungle (say, shouldn’t people still be worried about this smoke monster thingy?). Locke finds tracks, signs of a struggle. Jack and Locke argue about stuff–Jack wants to run after them, Locke wants to go back and plan. Jack runs off by himself. This should go well.
2. Oh, it’s another Jack flashback episode. Should have known when the episode title included “daddy issues”. In the first flashback, Jack loses a patient while his dad watches. It’s kinda pathetic. Also, I think we’ve seen this scene or ones just like it a hundred million times over the course of five seasons.
3. Boone and Locke go into the jungle to try to catch up with Jack. Michael offers to help but Locke is like, you’re so two thousand not. We cut to Jack, completely lost (literally), and flash back to him completely lost (figuratively). His dad is yelling at him for taking over his surgery (Jack says it’s because his dad has alcoholism problems). Back on the Island, Locke finds Jack. Jack is upset that Locke doesn’t seem to be in much of a hurry. That’s because Jack doesn’t believe in destiny (yet!). Also, he’s feeling guilty for not believing Claire. Locke finds one of Charlie’s stupid finger-wraps (the L from “LATE” that he had on each finger–so now his hand must say “ATE”; does that mean Ethan’s a cannibal?????).
4. Sawyer and Walt are hanging out now. Walt says “it’s stupid to lie about your name” and Sawyer laughs because Sawyer lies about his name! Also, Walt basically calls it: Ethan was already on the Island before the plane crash! But Sawyer thinks that is a stupid theory. But Sawyer is the stupid one.
5. Boone makes a joke about redshirts always dying first. Coincidentally, Boone is gonna die this season. Oh, uh, that was a spoiler.
6. Flashback again. Jack is still mad that Christian is a drunk surgeon. Christian assures Jack that it won’t happen again and asks him to just sign the damned report that will clear him of any wrongdoing. I think he might have cried a little bit. Jack does it! I forgot about this, I thought Jack refused, which sent his dad into a tailspin, which ended up with him on a bender in Sydney. But I guess not.
7. Sawyer finally found out that Sayid was back in the rape caves. He goes over there and they have a tense (yet oddly boring) conversation. Sayid tells him about Rousseau. Then, to be honest, I stopped paying attention and read about Herschel Walker’s ugly MMA performance. I guess they probably said some other stuff though.
8. Walt and Hurley play some game involving dice. Walt keeps rolling whatever he wants. It’s uncanny. Almost… unnatural. He wins $20k off of Hurley, which of course we think is absurd because money doesn’t matter on the Island. But it’s actually absurd because Hurley is a millionaire! Which we don’t know yet, because Tricia Tanaka is still alive.
9. Locke tells Boone to head back to the camp because it’s getting late. Boone insists on proving himself as a man. It starts to pour and Locke raises his arms in the air because it’s like a rebirth or whatever. At the same time, Jack and Kate find another fingertape letter. Then they hear screaming or something in the jungle and Jack runs after it. It’s kind of incoherent. Jack slides down a hill and hits his head. He looks up and sees… oh hey, it’s Ethan! He is upset that Jack’s following them and makes clear that he’d like them to stop. Then there’s a mediocre fistfight. Jack gets his ass kicked. Also his face.
10. In flashback, we see Christian comforting somebody the exact same way he comforted Jack in convincing him to sign the false report. Jack finds out that the patient who died was pregnant. Oh crap. So now a guilt-ridden Jack’s obviously going to see the error of his ways, reveal his father’s problem, and everything I described above will ensue. And that’s what happens! im a genious!
11. Jack and Kate come across Charlie, suspended from a tree, by his neck. He’s not breathing. He’s not dead though, y’all. Don’t you worry about ol’ Charlie. Jack resuscitates him using DOCTOR POWER. DOCTOR POWER, in this case, means pounding Charlie’s chest over and over again, and crying. Eventually, after Jack beats the crap out of him, Charlie wakes up. Jack cradles him in his arms like an infant. Anyway, obviously Ethan still has pregnant Claire. Later that night, Charlie is catatonic. He says he doesn’t remember anything. He’s upset because “all they wanted was Claire”. Typical Charlie, trying to make it all about him. Shannon’s worried because Boone and Locke aren’t back yet. Little does she know that they’re just out male bonding. Locke is ranting about “feeling it”. AND THEN THEY FIND THE MOTHERFUCKIN’ HATCH. THE HATCH! But we don’t known it’s a hatch yet; just something metallic on the ground. Anyway, this is awesome.

So, I’m only up to episode 12. And this season has 25 episodes! My point is, I’m not going to make it all the way through the season before the Season 6 premiere on Tuesday. I think I’ll continue this, though, and should be able to get something up on all of the Season 1 episodes before we get too far into the upcoming season. If that’s not satisfactory, you’re welcome to file a complaint with the office of get your own blog.