the blast door map

written by: eddie kitsis and adam horowitz. eddie and adam are the comedy team of the writing staff. they usually write the hurley episodes, and they are also champions of 'the socks,' or background players who have tangential storylines. we have them to thank for arzt, the development of bernard and rose, but we also have them to blame for the creation of nikki and paolo. they keep track of who is scott and steve, and of course are big fans of 'frogurt.'

directed by: jack bender - lead director of the show. until 5.1, he had directed every premiere and finale (minus the pilot, of course), plus just about every other episode you can think of as being 'awesome.' jack bender is my hero.

in brief, i thought this was a pretty great episode, encompassing a lot of humor and character moments, but also giving us a good chunk of mythology to go with it. in contrast to the first episode, most of this one takes place off the island.

the big questions:

1. whose episode is this?
2. when are the survivors now?
3. how many times has locke entered a scene by throwing a knife into it first?
   
4. is it so hard to make fire?
5. is charlotte going to die?
   
6. why should i care about frogurt?
   
7. what is ms. hawking doing?
8. who was that butcher lady?
9. why (structurally) are they jumping around in time?
10. what were the great moments?
11. was this preboomer any better?
12. any gripes?

1. whose episode is this?



the producers defined this as a 'hurley' episode - which makes sense, because we spend the most time with hurley, and the episode is framed by his actions. it sets him up as uncomfortable with The Lie, allows him a chance to finally tell the truth, and also take decisive action by getting himself arrested. there's even an old school inner-consciousness whoosh flashforward from when hurley says to sayid 'when you need my help, you won't get it' to him driving a passed-out sayid through la. ah the delicious irony. is this how 'centric' episodes are going to be handled from this point on? i think probably, yes. the show is telling us 'we are done with observing the pasts of our characters, now we're going to interact with it.'

the opening shot of this episode was pretty great too - and it's too bad that it had to be preceeded by the 'three years earlier' titlecard. that was unnecessary, and removed part of the joy of placing the scene in the greater timeline. watching a mystery hand grab beer and walk through a doorway has never been filled with more tension. how wonderful to see frank lapidus again! and drinking this very appropriate fictional beer:



we still don't know if frank is supposed to return to the island as well. probably not, since ben hasn't mentioned him, but i'd sure appreciate it if the show at least addressed why he doesn't have to go back.

while the opening shot was fun, the following scene on the boat was ho-hum. mostly exposition for the sake of those poor souls who don't know the story, and a chance to do what 'lost' must sometimes do: shoehorn an episode theme into the framework of character-centric time flashes. when hurley says that line to sayid, 'when you need my help, you're not gonna get it,' it sure is convenient to flash-forward to a future point when it's ironic, but don't forget that just a month after he said it, sayid and nadia were laughing and sipping coconut drinks at hurley's birthday party.

2. when are the survivors now?

we don't know yet, other than that they have jumped to a time before the plane crash, and are being attacked with flaming arrows by hand-hungry british people in jumpsuits. the jumpsuits resemble dharma, but i didn't see any logos. perhaps they predate dharma? something about the haircuts and clothes suggest the anywhere from the 50's - 70's.. the one called jones is british.. perhaps they are the 'first time' widmore made it to the island, which miles referred to in the previous episode? we just don't know yet.



because episodes 1 and 2 aired back to back, it feels like the opening scene was foreshadowing this attack. pierre chang, while shooting the orientation film for the arrow station (this is the station that the tailies took refuge in), tells us the station is devoted to combating the hostile natives of the island. i think this is just thematic coincidence: the arrow station probably was not a storehouse for actual flaming arrows. plus, the arrow station is way on the other side of the island, over a day's journey from the survivor's beach. i think these guys predate dharma.

3. how many times has locke entered a scene by throwing a knife into it first?

this question popped into my head, and i thought for sure that someone on lostpedia would have already counted for me. sadly, no. i'm a diehard fan, but not that die hard. the knifethrowing flourish needs to be used judiciously, so as not to become one of locke's clichés. but i'll bet money he throws a knife into someone in this season's finale.

4. why is it so hard to 'make fire?'



did anyone else feel like the exchanges between rose and bernard were thinly-veiled dirty metaphors for their lovin' (or lack of it)? awkwaaard... on the podcast, damon and carlton love to joke about rose and bernard's sex life, referring to a planned spinoff called rose and bernard: love island, and how the censors cut all the sex scenes between the two. there ain't no doubt in my mind that dialogue like this...

ROSE: You really think that thing is gonna work?

BERNARD: Rose, I've told you a hundred times. Of course it's going to work. Yes, it's better than two sticks together.

ROSE: Bernard, that's what you're supposed to do is rub -

BERNARD: Well, I think this is going to work better.

ROSE: Look, I think you've got too much wood here in the inside. That's gonna smother the leaves.

BERNARD: Rose, if you don't have enough wood the leaves just burn out.

...is the result is a writer's room drinking game.

5. is charlotte going to die?



i sure hope so. so she's got the nosebleed, can't remember her mother's maiden name, and is about to start going totally fisher stevens. will we learn her story through a psychotic dislodging from time similar to desmond's in 'the constant?' at this point charlotte is essentially a blank slate. they've dropped some clues that she's been to the island before, and she seems to think she was born there. so her constant is probably around there, somewhere. i hope it's a good story. right now rebecca mader is barely capable of carrying my interest much less an entire episode.

but. here's what i think is fantastic about the introduction of the freighter folk - these are characters designed by the writers to carry us to the END of the show. their storylines were developed and conceived after the end date was set, so their express purpose is to reveal the island's mysteries and bring the plot to its final resolution. right now faraday is doing the heavy lifting, but each of them will have their turn to guide us through a different mystery: faraday will guide us through the time shifting, miles will handle the metaphysical, and charlotte (the anthropologist) will deal with the island's history. she'll know how to read the heiroglypics. basically she's 'andie' from 'the goonies,' who saved the day because she knew how to play the bone piano... which sounds like something else rose and bernard might enjoy doing. ba-dum-pum!

6. why should i care about frogurt?



frogurt's death was a fantastic payoff to three years of podcast jokes, and has been almost a pet project of writers eddie kitsis and adam horowitz. after first being mentioned in the podcast, diehards squealed with delight when frogurt was actually mentioned on the show in the rose/bernard episode 's.o.s.' but sadly, frogurt was only mentioned, and not seen until the 'missing pieces' leading up to season 4 last year. he's played by sean whalen, who you might recognize from the 'got milk' commercial in which he loses a radio trivia contest because he cannot speak the words 'aaron burr.'



frogurt's death was beautifully executed. in order to raise the stakes in a given situation, someone must die, and who better than a redshirt? and then they actually put the guy in a red shirt! and simultaneously paid homage to that other great death, dr. arnzt! eddie and adam are sometimes too cutesy for me, but i think this is one of their best episodes. i forgive them for nikki/paolo.

7. what is ms. hawking doing?

ms. hawking is trying to find the island. and for that she needs a very loudly whooshing foucaultish pendulum and an apple iii. she must really like her oregon trail.



covering the apple logo on her monitor is a very tiny dharma logo we haven't seen yet, but which has appeared in the video podcast, and on the ajira airways promo tie-in website:



let's talk about ms. hawking for a sec. damon and carlton have said many many many times that any questions you have about how time travel works on the show can be answered by rewatching her first scene with desmond in season 3. here are both of her scenes:



ms. hawking introduces the idea of 'course correction,' which i've written on before as an extension of the structure of the show itself. through all of the previous 4 seasons, the writers have been going 'back in time' and showing us new pieces of the timeline. occasionally things happen that force them to 'course correct:' an actor drops out, the audience hates a character, the writers go on strike.. and so they (like the god of destiny on 'lost') must reweave events to reach their foregone conclusions. this is why i love this show: it is as much about itself as it is about its content.

so who is ms. hawking? she is probably faraday's mother - has likely been to the island at some point.. perhaps at the same time as widmore? she is chummy with the head monk at the monastary desmond lived at. perhaps she has something in common with jean claude van damme? timecop? she has the means to locate the island, a commodity widmore would kill to have.. and perhaps sun will get it for him. (rob and i disagree deeply about sun's motivations. he believes that she is going to double cross widmore. i think she's going to become absolutely evil. in some ways the ambiguity about her position has made her the new juliet.)

damon and carlton are adamant that there will be no paradoxes on lost. there will be no undoing what has already been done, because dramatically, once you've done this, the audience no longer has any reason to invest in what happens to the characters if it can all be undone later. characters who die, are dead. events that happened, happened. what we are watching on the show, just like faraday described it, are pieces of one long unchanging timeline, like a string. we go forward and back, but there will never be another string. rob brings up an interseting point that it feels like locke is not actually dead, and will be 'resurrected' at some point later. while it's probably true (we don't yet know exactly what happens to bodies brought to the island), i don't think his 'resurrection' or whatever it ends up being will be explained by paradox.

8. who was that butcher lady?



seems like there is a network of people who were once on the island, planted around the world. butcher lady and ms. hawking seem to fit this category. also richard alpert, in the number of times we've seen him off-island, as well as mr. friendly and ethan. what has not yet been explained is exactly how off-on island transportation took place before the turning of the frozen donkey wheel. now that the wheel is turned, it's clearly not so easy to go back. ben asked jill, the butcher lady, if 'gabriel' and 'jeffrey' had checked in yet - is ben collecting more than just the oceanic 6? perhaps the upcoming 'event window' in 70 hours is the last chance for everyone on the outside to get back. some of them must return, and others just don't want to miss the boat.

9. why (structurally) are they jumping around in time?

the prospect of where this season could go is so exciting. one of the key reasons to jump the cast around in time would be to explain one of the central island mysteries. and i think we'll see that this season. sawyer banging on the door of the hatch is just the beginning - imagine this: remember all those times, especially in season 1 and 2, when the jungle air was filled with tension and you heard.. whispers? what if. what if the whispers.. man, it gives me chills just to think about it. but what if the whispers are actually the survivors, now, watching themselves make crucial mistakes in their lives, trying to fight against fate to prevent themselves from doing it? they try and try to affect change, but as faraday said, what happened happened, and all that happened... was that they heard whispers. check out the whisper transcripts. not all of them fit this theory, but many of them do, especially whispers taking place after the point when the writers would have known what they were doing (mid season 3)

if these first two hours are any indication, this is going to be a season about rewarding fans for having watched so closely during the last 4 years.

10. what were the great moments?

• hot pocket shot put
• i heart my shi tzu t-shirt
• 'why is there a dead pakistani on my couch?'
• hurley's rehash of the entire plot of lost for his mom.
• mom saying 'i believe you.'
• hurley's dad watches 'exposé'
  
• sun starts to get a little bit scary
• frogurt flambé
• i did kinda think for a moment that they might chop juliet's hand off. hey, if it's good enough for arrested development, it's good enough for darlton.
  
  
  
  

11. was this preboomer any better?

MS. HAWKING: 70 hours is what you've got.

BEN: Look, I lost Reyes tonight. What happens if I can't get them all to come back?

MS. HAWKING: Then God help us all.

(boom)

the line was a bit ho-hum, but was pretty good because a) it circled back to pierre chang's 'then god help us all' line in the opening, and b) OMFG it's ms. hawking!!!

12. any gripes?

i kind of liked ana-lucia as a character, and was maybe one of the only people upset when she was killed off. damon and carlton have maintained that it was always the plan to kill her, but i don't think so.



remember when jack sat down with her and said 'how long do you think it would take to train an army,' and then dropped the idea completely? i think they had big plans for ana lucia that just didn't pan out. it's too bad. my one minor gripe is about guest stars returning to the show to play their dead characters: i always find it disappointing when i see that they're playing ghosts instead of flashbacks. as ghosts they can offer nothing but guilt or guidance.. it's much more exciting when we might find out more about who they were and what else they might have contributed to the bigger story. ghosts are a cop-out. also, the throwaway reference to libby was annoying. if there's any ghost scene i'd actually like to see played out, it would be hurley getting a chance to say goodbye to libby. i'm still really peeved about her lame cameos in michael's episode last year. what a waste.

check back on wednesday for my treatise on preboomers. analysis of wednesday's episode 'jughead' will likely go up on friday. questions, comments? post below!

(thanks to rob konigsberg for edits/suggestions)