the blast door map

directed by: mark goldman, who is normally an editor on the show, but like steven semel, who directed 'ji yeon,' mark is another show editor who has been given the chance to direct for the first time. i think he did a great job. mark can be heard on the dvd commentary for 'the constant,' which he edited exquisitely.

director of photography: edward pei, once again. maybe he's settling into the role - i thought this week's photography was much improved, though jungle scenes are still excessively color-tinkered.

ok!

short version: holy whew. i breathed, i counted to five, i felt the fear for those hot seconds, and now the show is stitched back together, and hopefully back in top form. this episode flew by so quickly.

the topics of conversation:

1. the statue and its face
2. sawyer and juliet
3. three years later
4. timing and questions
5. olivia goodspeed
   
6. rose and bernard
7. burning questions
   
8. preboomer
   

1. the statue and its face.

the earliest bit of awesomeness in this episode was of course the reveal of the full, complete gigantic statue, albeit from behind. it appears to have ears, and may be anubis, or horus. given the appearance of the ankh in this episode, it's clear that egyptian influence is at play here. by only showing us the back of the statue, they save the reveal of the face for later.. will it be the face of a major cast member? will it be anubis with the face of vincent?


spoiler alert! the statue is vincent. he travels back eons and spends millenia evolving into an island deity. we'll soon be visited by the great great great (x27) grandchild of vincent who is a smooth-talkin hip-hop dog. he is jacob. he is jack's father. he is claire. season 6 will be a re-play of the entire series from vincent's perspective, where we can hear his thoughts, like, 'how about you just use the side door down around the hill, locke? hey hey hey!' or 'hey nikki and paolo ain't dead yet! hey hey hey!'

will the opening of season 6 feature an ancient island celebration around the feet of the statue, only to be interupted by the earthquake or volcano that eventually topples it? for that matter, was it toppled by the 'earthquake' of the final flash? we've been guaranteed more answers about the statue this season.. can't wait.

2. sawyer and juliet.



finally, a couple besides desmond and penny to root for! for me, what makes me buy this relationship is that juliet hasn't fallen for the sawyer she knew, she's fallen for the man he's become. (if you remember, juliet's early encounters with sawyer involved training a gun on him to build the runway, and shooting him with a taser.) i think this revelation also falls under the category of 'most interesting flash forward storyline.' just the few scenes between them in this episode are enough to get behind them as a pair - if we couldn't, the structure of the episode would fail. instead of feeling dread when kate steps off the bus, we'd be feeling relief that kate had finally returned to mend sawyer's broken, lying heart. what was relieving was to see a depiction of a couple that 'felt right' instead of forced. this is all going to be quite interesting. i just hope it doesn't turn into a 'friends' thing where we kill time by trying every possible pairing between jack/kate/sawyer/juliet. unless they go in some fun homo directions, please no.

3. three years later.



the network must think we're dumb, because the episode would have played just fine and beautifully with only one 'three years later' title card. we'd understand, as we have for four seasons now, that when we hear the whooshy sound effect, that we've jumped in time. and after having established the two time periods covered in this episode, it would have been a much cleaner approach than having title cards spell it out every time. i can't help but think it's a battle d&c fought and lost with abc.

but again, what i find completely surprising about this three year jump is that it has now equalized the entire cast in terms of 'time experienced.' i thought for sure that the island story would remain linear, covering roughly 1 month of storytime during long seasons, and 2 weeks of storytime during the shorter seasons. i thought for sure that kate, jack, and hurley would drop back to the island, three years older, with only a few days having passed for the leftbehinders. nope! we have a whole litany of secrets to discover, now that our heroes have been living inside the dharma initiative for some time.

this development could potentially put us, the audience in an irritating place. we identified with the survivors and the left behinders because as they discovered island mysteries, we were as in the dark as they were. now, with this three year gap, sawyer, juliet, jin, miles, and daniel have deeply intimate knowledge of not only dharma, but the island itself. they're ahead of us, and it's kind of not fair. i'm sure we'll be flashing back to moments during those three years in which they learn major island secrets, but hopefully it will still be just as much fun as discovering the info in 'real time.' the other possible scenario is that nothing much of interest happened on the island during those three years, and with the imminent arrival of young ben.. it's about to get interesting.

one cool thing about jumping forward though is that jin gets to finally speak in fluent english. daniel day kim must be so happy.

4. timing.



ok, sawyer, juliet, jin, miles, and daniel joined dharma in 1974, and have been with them for three years, putting them 'currently' at 1977. here are things we know about this period:

• it is before whatever happened that kills women impregnated on the island... will we learn later this season what causes this change to occur? is this even truly the case? when will we learn the complete set of pregnancy rules for the island?
  
• it is the year sawyer, as a child, witnessed his parent's death. this is the character-shaping event causing him to write the letter he's seen reading in the pilot.
  
• the year kate was born.
• there is a truce between dharma and the hostiles. what were the terms of this truce?
  
• charlotte is a young child, despite ben having stated her birthdate as being in 1979. does jin teach her some korean? i don't believe that charlotte became fluent in korean while on the island, but it would make sense later, that her childhood association with korean to the island would compel her to learn it fluently as an adult.
  

i'm going to assume that the scenes we saw of ben linus coming to the island in the late 70's as a child have not happened yet. juliet meeting young ben is certainly going to be an interesting interaction, and may explain his later obsession with her. it reminds me of a scene from 'the other woman,' in which bad-plastic-surgery-harper said to juliet 'you look just like her.' at the time we asumed she was talking about ben's mom, but maybe she's actually talking about juliet herself!?

what's also possible with this timeframe is that it places our cast firmly in the past, at a point where they are able to manipulate their own destinies. will be learn that several of the show's phenomenon actually exist in closed loops, like alpert's compass?



will hurley himself be the origin of the numbers? when rousseau's raft landed on the beach, the recording of the numbers could be heard, and many have pointed out that the voice sounds like hurley.. perhaps hurley attempts to warn his future self by inserting the numbers in every place he can while he's with dharma?

for that matter are all the events leading up to the passengers of 815 getting on the plane somehow manipulated in order to 'help destiny along?'

this episode had huge task ahead of it. it had to answer 'what now?' and set a framework for the rest of the season, now that we're all finally back on the island. while the question hasn't been fully answered yet, the great feeling from this episode is that answers are coming, and we are entering payoff time. my excitement is back. just as long as they are mindful of continuity. please, please be mindful of continuity!

i wonder if damon and carlton knew that the previous two episodes were going to be so polarizing and disappointing to fans who've followed the show as deeply as i have. probably they took on the task of writing both those episodes because the writing assignment called for in them was nearly impossible to fulfill, so they took the fall themselves. it's too bad. there's no writer's strike to blame, nothing. those episodes just have to go down as major disappointments in 'lost' history. hopefully this points to things being back on track.

5. olivia goodspeed.



a big conundrum however is what happened to olivia goodspeed? let's lay it out:

• early 1960's she was with horace when they assisted in ben's birth outside of portland.
• she was a dharma teacher when ben was a boy. she taught about the on-island volcano, and whipped out a rifle with the 'hostile-alert' alarm sounded.

somewhere inbetween these two events, horace gets married instead to amy, but olivia stays on the island and continues to teach. is olivia horace's sister? or maybe they just have a swingin' 70's 'arrangement?' most likely, is that they cast somewhat of a name actress (samantha mathis) as olivia, and weren't able to get her back when the time came to use her again. how they'll write themselves out of it is beyond me, but i'll be very impressed if they do.

6. rose and bernard.


don't worry. rose and bernard have been doin' juuuust fine. they are old and naked and running through the trees. gross.

the question everyone seems to be asking is 'where are rose and bernard!?' we haven't seen them since the flaming arrow attack. well, sawyer and company have been wondering the same thing. in his exchange with jin, it's revealed that they have been engaging in a sector-by-sector search of the island for their people, to no avail. such a search is likely also a violation of the other's truce, unless sawyer has special permission from alpert to conduct it.

i doubt it though, because i think rose and bernard are hangin with cindy and the kids, and have been indoctrinated into alpert's camp. alpert always seems well dressed and clean - are they still living in the 1954 army tents? do they live in the temple? wherever it is, it's well out of sight of sawyer's search operation.

rose and bernard jumped in time alongside sawyer, juliet, etc, so it is most likely that they have been stuck in the same timeframe for these three years, and are not with the ajira people, hangin at some point in the future.



the exception to alpert being well-scrubbed up is when he meets ben. what has happened to him during this period?

'lost' is all about reunions. we got a big one last night, and eventually we'll see the two halves of the 'time flashers' come back together.

but also, where is claire!? now it's been three years, so she's either as rotted away as montand's arm, or is she hangin back with a snuggie and a lean quisine waiting for it to be season 6. i know claire wasn't anyone's favorite, (rob has jumped to her defense, saying that she was great in the beginning until she was suddenly given nothing to do. i think she was dumped by the writers b/c she's not a smart enough actress.. they tend to do that.. ) but we are owed major answers regarding her sudden disappearance.

7. burning questions.

• why did jack, kate and hurley appear at this particular time?
• what happened within 2 weeks to either change juliet's mind about leaving, or prevent her from leaving? (rob says to this 'who cares! the audience is smart enough to know how drama works. i think they're withholding a crucial event concerning the mechanics of the sub.)
  
• travel on and off island seems relatively straightforward in this time period. have sawyer, juliet, jin, miles and daniel been back and forth to the mainland?
  
• what is the deal with dead bodies on the island? amy was desperate about having the bodies of the hostile's buried deep - seemingly to keep them from being found.. but is there another reason? then the hostiles want her husband paul's body.. for what, exactly? and then there's that whole thing with locke being, oh, completely and flawlessly reincarnated. something fishy is going on with dead bodies, that's all i know.
  

8. favorite stuff.



i was really impressed by the dark scene with jin, juliet, daniel and miles sitting around the table, and juliet talks about how she used to live in one of the houses. i think this is the scene, more than any other, in which mark goldman was really trying to flex his directorial/editorial muscle. it feels like one unbroken shot around and around the table as each person theorizes, but it's actually expertly edited from several different takes.

the setup to use paul's death as metaphor for being over kate. i didn't see it coming until the end of sawyer's monologue when the dread sets in.. kate is arriving imminently. fantastic.



also patrick fischler has joined the cast. he is fantastic - has one of my favorite scenes in mulholland drive, and tears it up in 'mad men' as a lenny bruce type insulting comic. can't wait to see how they use him.

9. preboomer.



an emotional, musical moment, ending with kate stepping out of the van.
(boom)

sawyer does a pretty nice wtf-face, on par with jin's wtf-face. i pretty much love any preboomer that ends with a wtf-face. look at how he's grown up. daddy has a real job now. and has juliet finally met a guy who isn't such a douchebag?



(thanks to rob k for edits and suggestions)