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tori_reviewsWell, I think that’s three out of the last four weeks that I’ve only remembered to post once. And I almost forgot to post anything tonight. I’m doing so great at this project, aren’t I?
LOST 1x12 – Whatever the Case May Be
I feel kind of weird about this episode, but…I think I liked it. I sort of feel like I shouldn’t, I don’t think I’d recommend it to people, but it works for me. Things feel very settled in this one, and I like that about it, it’s kind of a day in the life story, not really pushing the big arcs along just the small mostly interpersonal ones, and that seems to be more what I’m looking for.
I even like that it’s mostly anticlimactic; it does create a wrinkle in the existing dynamics by introducing guns into the equation which I expect will come into play before too long (what is this, the first act of a Chekhov play?), but it’s not all that important to this story. The ending does make Kate’s behavior, both in the present and the flashback, seem pretty illogical, but that’s a different issue that we’ll come to shortly. And while I don’t mind that Danielle’s notes aren’t very helpful, I’m not sure that makes a ton of sense in character; or it makes perfect sense that they’re so scatter-shot and she kept making notes in whatever margins she had so they’re in no particular order.
If I hadn’t been watching the reviews I think I would assume there had to be more to Kate’s toy plane than I think now since it comes up so rarely in the reviews. Because it seems really silly that Kate is going to all this trouble for a toy plane, even if it has sentimental value. Really, from this episode I think I would assume there were a couple other things in the envelope when she stole it from the bank, and she did something with the other pieces, or they were taken as separate evidence, while the only thing of hers that was left was the toy plane the connected her to the man she loved and killed.
But with that assumption, that the plane was not her goal but a personal effect that she got in addition to the rest of the case’s contents, then I have different things to say about her actions here. If the main goal was the plane, I think she might be a bit off in the head, but if she was really after the guns for herself that’s a different story. And I really think that makes more sense, even if the plane was important to her, that her main focus was on the guns. Given her actions, I’d say she wasn’t planning to share them with Jack until maybe some later on point when it was done on her terms.
And maybe it says something about me that I think I’d be more interested in Kate as a manipulative user of people than I am in thinking of her as an actual center point in a love triangle. I suppose she should choose herself, even if herself isn’t that good a person. Which I guess is more or less what Sawyer does, and therefore almost exactly presents a proper love triangle where the two guys are representations of Kate’s inner conflict between choosing her own self-interest like Sawyer (they could never trust each other except to each serve their own self-interest), and possibly becoming the better person and upstanding member of the community that Jack’s theoretical blank slate would allow her to become. Still I’d rather see that internal conflict played out in some way other than a love triangle.
Also Jack is…a mess this episode. And I don’t mean his interactions with Kate as much as with Sawyer. I dislike his interactions with Kate in terms of a romantic or even friendly relationship, but I don’t think he’s entirely out of line considering her behavior in this plotline. But Jack’s threats to Sawyer are…well exactly what Jack probably feared about Sawyer possibly getting the guns. That you give one person among the survivors a clear advantage over the rest and their little island utopia experiment turns into a dictatorship really quickly. But Jack is showing that he’s already taken that power for himself, he’s a soft dictator rather than the hard one someone like Sawyer would likely be, but he is in running to be a dictator.
Also, what is his plan when they run out of things like antibiotics? There can’t have been that many people on the plane who were traveling with antibiotic treatments, probably a lot more pain relievers (both generic and prescription) and Midol and sleeping pills. Good thing they don’t have anyone in the group who needs insulin or high-end anti-psychotics, they’d be running out of those quickly.
Again, I know Shannon and Boone are step-siblings, but that look at the end would be especially creepy if I didn’t know that. It’s still creepy and possessive and I want to punch him in the face, but it could be slightly worse.
LOST 1x13 – Hearts and Minds
Well, that one was not as good as the last one. I suspect it’s absolutely no coincidence that the last ep had almost no Locke while this one has a lot of him and even more influence of his. I’m also not sure how to feel about so much of the episode being a vision quest, even though I kind of assumed all along it would be since Locke’s yucky mash sure seemed to be setting up some kind of drugging.
Locke is looking like quite the sociopath at this point. Drugging may be less than what Boone imagined Locke had done, but he still left one person out in the woods to very likely die. And maybe the weirdest part is that the show has to know that Locke comes off this badly, the vision quest of this story only works if we believe there’s at least a chance that Locke would do what Boone imagines happened. Which means that in spite of the text mostly telling us Locke is awesome and he knows what he’s doing, I just think Charlie is wrong. That he (Charlie) could just as easily be the one tied to a tree and likely to die attacked by either animal or people they know nothing about. While I think Kate’s suggestion says more about her than it does about Locke, she’s closer to the truth than the people who think Locke great. He’s deciding to put his personal goals ahead of continuing to fill the hunter role he claimed for himself as recently as two episodes ago.
And I suppose this type of projection runs through all the plot threads this episode. Which makes Locke as much or more a product of projection as Sun and Jin. However, where Sun and Jin work as letting their actions speak for them, Locke’s actions are not consistent enough for that, either in the world of the show or as a viewer. But I do think his negative to terrible actions speak louder than his better ones.
It also kind of puts the hatch on the same level as Kate’s stupid toy plane. Going to a lot of trouble to both get something and keep people from knowing what he’s doing when they could just tell the truth, at least to some people. Will it be as useless as Kate’s toy plane? (I ask as if I haven’t seen seasons’ worth of reviews.)
I have some half-baked thoughts about Boone here. For one, the final scene doesn’t work the way I think it needed to, nor the way I can almost imagine it might have worked. There is no indication that Boone was relieved when he thought Shannon was dead, and the fact that this was the scenario his mind came up with really just shows that she is his primary motivation. But, taking the statement at more face value, I think relief wouldn’t be entirely out of the realm of possibility for what he’d feel. If she’s dead then he’s free of a lot of what she represents in his life; he’d be devastated, vengeful, and wrecked, but it would be over. He could mourn her as a brother instead of the mess of things he feels for her alive; he wouldn’t need to be angry with her or himself anymore (save how she might have died); he wouldn’t have to wonder if things could be different, because that story was over.
I don’t like this set of flashbacks, but I think it does make a degree of sense. I mean, still icky, but I think the context it puts to their dynamic so far pretty much fits. They had just gone through all that before they got on the plane and then crashed, there was never time to sort through what had happened between them in Sydney, and that means something different to each of them. Although it does make her actions back when she was getting guys to fish for her (even less time after she had gotten into that mess with Boone) even a bit more bitchy not quite girlfriend than it already was.
The song reveal inspires a couple thoughts too. I actually kind of thought bits of it sounded familiar in the translation scene too, but I assumed it was a poem or something that I might have heard/encountered somewhere but didn’t remember very well. And that was still more or less how I felt when she started singing it at the end. I did eventually recognize it, but it took longer than it probably should have. Or it again shows how much I remember the lyrics of songs better than the melody.
Then as I thought about it, it crossed my mind that it was another foreshadowing that they were all dead and off beyond the sea. But…then I had to rethink that and go listen to it because all the reasons I associate it with being about death are outside the song itself. For one, how it’s used in X-files; for two, the Minbari talk about going to the sea when they die (which…come to think of it, this was the ramblings of not-Delenn); and three, so does Lord of the Rings more or less. So its use on this show may or may not have been the reference to be about death, but it’s how it slots into my brain.
LOST 1x12 – Whatever the Case May Be
I feel kind of weird about this episode, but…I think I liked it. I sort of feel like I shouldn’t, I don’t think I’d recommend it to people, but it works for me. Things feel very settled in this one, and I like that about it, it’s kind of a day in the life story, not really pushing the big arcs along just the small mostly interpersonal ones, and that seems to be more what I’m looking for.
I even like that it’s mostly anticlimactic; it does create a wrinkle in the existing dynamics by introducing guns into the equation which I expect will come into play before too long (what is this, the first act of a Chekhov play?), but it’s not all that important to this story. The ending does make Kate’s behavior, both in the present and the flashback, seem pretty illogical, but that’s a different issue that we’ll come to shortly. And while I don’t mind that Danielle’s notes aren’t very helpful, I’m not sure that makes a ton of sense in character; or it makes perfect sense that they’re so scatter-shot and she kept making notes in whatever margins she had so they’re in no particular order.
If I hadn’t been watching the reviews I think I would assume there had to be more to Kate’s toy plane than I think now since it comes up so rarely in the reviews. Because it seems really silly that Kate is going to all this trouble for a toy plane, even if it has sentimental value. Really, from this episode I think I would assume there were a couple other things in the envelope when she stole it from the bank, and she did something with the other pieces, or they were taken as separate evidence, while the only thing of hers that was left was the toy plane the connected her to the man she loved and killed.
But with that assumption, that the plane was not her goal but a personal effect that she got in addition to the rest of the case’s contents, then I have different things to say about her actions here. If the main goal was the plane, I think she might be a bit off in the head, but if she was really after the guns for herself that’s a different story. And I really think that makes more sense, even if the plane was important to her, that her main focus was on the guns. Given her actions, I’d say she wasn’t planning to share them with Jack until maybe some later on point when it was done on her terms.
And maybe it says something about me that I think I’d be more interested in Kate as a manipulative user of people than I am in thinking of her as an actual center point in a love triangle. I suppose she should choose herself, even if herself isn’t that good a person. Which I guess is more or less what Sawyer does, and therefore almost exactly presents a proper love triangle where the two guys are representations of Kate’s inner conflict between choosing her own self-interest like Sawyer (they could never trust each other except to each serve their own self-interest), and possibly becoming the better person and upstanding member of the community that Jack’s theoretical blank slate would allow her to become. Still I’d rather see that internal conflict played out in some way other than a love triangle.
Also Jack is…a mess this episode. And I don’t mean his interactions with Kate as much as with Sawyer. I dislike his interactions with Kate in terms of a romantic or even friendly relationship, but I don’t think he’s entirely out of line considering her behavior in this plotline. But Jack’s threats to Sawyer are…well exactly what Jack probably feared about Sawyer possibly getting the guns. That you give one person among the survivors a clear advantage over the rest and their little island utopia experiment turns into a dictatorship really quickly. But Jack is showing that he’s already taken that power for himself, he’s a soft dictator rather than the hard one someone like Sawyer would likely be, but he is in running to be a dictator.
Also, what is his plan when they run out of things like antibiotics? There can’t have been that many people on the plane who were traveling with antibiotic treatments, probably a lot more pain relievers (both generic and prescription) and Midol and sleeping pills. Good thing they don’t have anyone in the group who needs insulin or high-end anti-psychotics, they’d be running out of those quickly.
Again, I know Shannon and Boone are step-siblings, but that look at the end would be especially creepy if I didn’t know that. It’s still creepy and possessive and I want to punch him in the face, but it could be slightly worse.
LOST 1x13 – Hearts and Minds
Well, that one was not as good as the last one. I suspect it’s absolutely no coincidence that the last ep had almost no Locke while this one has a lot of him and even more influence of his. I’m also not sure how to feel about so much of the episode being a vision quest, even though I kind of assumed all along it would be since Locke’s yucky mash sure seemed to be setting up some kind of drugging.
Locke is looking like quite the sociopath at this point. Drugging may be less than what Boone imagined Locke had done, but he still left one person out in the woods to very likely die. And maybe the weirdest part is that the show has to know that Locke comes off this badly, the vision quest of this story only works if we believe there’s at least a chance that Locke would do what Boone imagines happened. Which means that in spite of the text mostly telling us Locke is awesome and he knows what he’s doing, I just think Charlie is wrong. That he (Charlie) could just as easily be the one tied to a tree and likely to die attacked by either animal or people they know nothing about. While I think Kate’s suggestion says more about her than it does about Locke, she’s closer to the truth than the people who think Locke great. He’s deciding to put his personal goals ahead of continuing to fill the hunter role he claimed for himself as recently as two episodes ago.
And I suppose this type of projection runs through all the plot threads this episode. Which makes Locke as much or more a product of projection as Sun and Jin. However, where Sun and Jin work as letting their actions speak for them, Locke’s actions are not consistent enough for that, either in the world of the show or as a viewer. But I do think his negative to terrible actions speak louder than his better ones.
It also kind of puts the hatch on the same level as Kate’s stupid toy plane. Going to a lot of trouble to both get something and keep people from knowing what he’s doing when they could just tell the truth, at least to some people. Will it be as useless as Kate’s toy plane? (I ask as if I haven’t seen seasons’ worth of reviews.)
I have some half-baked thoughts about Boone here. For one, the final scene doesn’t work the way I think it needed to, nor the way I can almost imagine it might have worked. There is no indication that Boone was relieved when he thought Shannon was dead, and the fact that this was the scenario his mind came up with really just shows that she is his primary motivation. But, taking the statement at more face value, I think relief wouldn’t be entirely out of the realm of possibility for what he’d feel. If she’s dead then he’s free of a lot of what she represents in his life; he’d be devastated, vengeful, and wrecked, but it would be over. He could mourn her as a brother instead of the mess of things he feels for her alive; he wouldn’t need to be angry with her or himself anymore (save how she might have died); he wouldn’t have to wonder if things could be different, because that story was over.
I don’t like this set of flashbacks, but I think it does make a degree of sense. I mean, still icky, but I think the context it puts to their dynamic so far pretty much fits. They had just gone through all that before they got on the plane and then crashed, there was never time to sort through what had happened between them in Sydney, and that means something different to each of them. Although it does make her actions back when she was getting guys to fish for her (even less time after she had gotten into that mess with Boone) even a bit more bitchy not quite girlfriend than it already was.
The song reveal inspires a couple thoughts too. I actually kind of thought bits of it sounded familiar in the translation scene too, but I assumed it was a poem or something that I might have heard/encountered somewhere but didn’t remember very well. And that was still more or less how I felt when she started singing it at the end. I did eventually recognize it, but it took longer than it probably should have. Or it again shows how much I remember the lyrics of songs better than the melody.
Then as I thought about it, it crossed my mind that it was another foreshadowing that they were all dead and off beyond the sea. But…then I had to rethink that and go listen to it because all the reasons I associate it with being about death are outside the song itself. For one, how it’s used in X-files; for two, the Minbari talk about going to the sea when they die (which…come to think of it, this was the ramblings of not-Delenn); and three, so does Lord of the Rings more or less. So its use on this show may or may not have been the reference to be about death, but it’s how it slots into my brain.
