FlashForward: Believe

When you’re working with an epic concept like the one in FlashForward, it’s easy to get lost in it.  One of the biggest problems for the series thusfar is the lack of attachment to the characters. Believe doesn’t do much in terms of progressing the overall mythology, but it does give us the most humanizing look at a character the series has shown so far.

Believe is basically a Bryce-centric episode. We’ve been shown little about the young doctor, aside from his positive obsession with the flash. He’s played a foil to Olivia in the “Is it or isn’t it?” dialogue of whether the future is set in stone. Aside from that we know virtually nothing about him. This episode changes that.

Believe begins with a quick history lesson on Bryce. We know that immediately prior to the blackout he was standing on a pier with a gun to his head. But why? Before being hired by the hospital, Bryce had been diagnosed with Renal Cell Carcinoma - or kidney cancer to the layman. Bryce is really at the end of his rope; he’s already had one kidney removed and is undergoing strenuous chemotherapy. His cancer has bacically reached the terminal point.

Everything changes when Bryce blacks out. He sees a future that not only includes his (seemingly) healthy self, but also a beautiful Japanese girl meeting him for sushi. The flash comes at an opportune time for Bryce, and according to him, has given him something to live for. Believe follows Bryce on his journey, and I thought it mirrored an earlier episode, The Gift.

Similar to Agent Gough in The Gift, Bryce decides that rather than wait for his future to happen, he’s going to take iniative. Rather than jump off a building, Bryce instead decides to take a positive route. After being granted a few days off to try an experimental treatment, Bryce instead travels to Japan to find his mystery woman. Prompted by a Japanese patient’s knowledge of his mystery woman’s t-shirt, Bryce’s journey takes him to a sushi bar, where he discovers her name - Keiko.

Much like Bryce, Keiko puts a lot of stake in her flash. Even though she is gainfully employed at Tokyo’s best robotics firm, she longs for a different life, one in which she can be free-wheeling, guitar playing self. She has come to the realization that in Japan, she is nothing more than a typical, subservient woman – one that will always be less than the men she works with. Keiko also knows there is a different man out there than the one her parents have paired her with – that man is Bryce.

While Bryce takes his journey, Agent’s Mark and Demetri are trying to get a leg up on the mystery caller who informed Demetri of his murder. Although denied by Weddick, Mark and Demetri decide to go to Hong Kong…and that’s where their thread stalls for this week. Mark also questions the trust of his friend/sponsor Aaron and his boss Weddick, which lead to ridiculous reactions from both. Seriously, FlashForward writers, were those reactions really neccesary? I thought Mark asked a legitimate question, and wasn’t a dick about it. In the wake of an event like the blackout, are blatant flip-outs really justified?

For the first time, FlashForward does not hit us with a crazy overarching twist. Instead, we get a continuation of our Bryce/Keiko story. Unsuccesful in his attempt to find Keiko (with no thanks to her mother) Bryce returns home somewhat deflated. Little does he know that Keiko was on his plane, herself looking for her mystery man. We see that in her flash, she isn’t in Japan as Bryce thought, but instead in LA.

I enjoyed Believe. For the first time in the series I actually had some feelings for a character. I think a lot of this had to do with the exposition of Bryce. We found out more about his character in the first 10 minutes of the episode than we have the rest of the season. I also am finding the FBI portion to be the hardest part of the show to watch – which isn’t a good thing. Whether this is through the acting, or the ridiculousness of the story I can’t decide. But how many times are we going to see Mark be told he can’t do something, only to leave the office and declare, “We’re going to ‘location X’!”

FlashForward takes a week off next week, and it looks like in two weeks we’ll see Lloyd coming clean. Just the teaser scene waxed of the novel to me, and I’m wondering if Goyer and Co. are going in that direction. If so, they’ve already dug themselves into a hole by spreading the traits of the characters across the TV version. The main thing I took away from Believe is that the writers at least know how to give us character background. Hopefully this can continue in weeks to come.

BNR LOST Rewatch: Raised by Another

Throughout the first season of LOST we glided from episode to episode, slowly peeling back the layers of characters to learn more about thier pre-Island life. For Claire Littleton, pre-Island life was not much fun. She was young, single, and pregnant. But much like Charlie, it’s easier to understand Claire if we first look at how she came about.

In my recap of The Moth I noted the similarites between Charlie Pace and Larry Underwood from “The Stand.” Charlie isn’t the only character with influences from the novel, though. Claire Littleton also has roots in “The Stand.” Much like Claire, Franny Goldsmith was an expectant single mother attempting to survive in a new place. Also much like Franny, Claire was haunted by dark dreams threatening the safety of her child.

Raised by Another opens with one of these dreams. The mythology dispensed during this dream is dense, and contains many clues – some explained, some not. Claire “wakes” to the sound of crying. She follows this crying into the jungle to find Locke. He is sitting at a table (the same table as psychic Richard Malkin), dealing out tarot cards. Upon looking up, Locke has one white eye and one black eye. Claire then runs toward the screaming and finds a crib – complete with a mobile of Oceanic 815 – the same mobile found in The Staff station.

The significance of this dream is still unclear, as is the message of Richard Malkin to Claire.  He insists Claire board Oceanic 815 to meet a couple in LA. Does the couple exist? Or was it all a ruse to get Claire aboard 815 and get her to the Island? It’s hard to say.

Richard Malkin is an interesting character. In Raised By Another we’re lead to believe that Malkin is a psychic, and has the power to see the future. This spins Malkin’s words as a plan he set into place. If he has the gift, and really is psychic, he knew Claire would crash. Was his plan for Claire to end up on the Island? Later, in ? we’re presented with a different view of Malkin – he’s a fraud.

It’s hard to say which is true, although it’s possible that both may be. Following the events of Season 5, we know that there are Others that live off of the Island. This raises the distinct possiblity that Malkin is an Other and sending Claire to the Island was a calculated effort. If this is true though, the crash of Oceanic 815 was always supposed to happen. Again, this raises new questions about Malkin, and really the time angle of LOST. Has Malkin, like our surivors who stumbled upon DHARMA times, experienced this all before? I feel like this really explains both – that Malkin isn’t really a psychic, and that he may be an Other. Of all guest appearences in Season 6, I’m hoping we get to the bottom of who and what Richard Malkin really is.

After Claire’s dreams, and alleged attack, the survivors (especially Hurley) feel the need to organize. Hurley takes it upon himself to conduct somewhat of a census. After obtaining the flight manifest, he comes to find that there is one person who wasn’t on the plane. And with that we meet Ethan Rom.

Random Observations

- Thomas’s painting will make another appearance - in Charles Widmore’s office. How the painting was in Widmore’s office in the 90s, and in Thomas’s apartment in 2004 is interesting.

- Of all the daddy issues, Claire may have it the worst. Not only did her father abandon her, but the father of her child did as well.
- Numbers alert: Richard Malkin has been telling Claire for 4 months that she has to raise her child.

 

FlashForward: Playing Cards with Coyote

Oh, FlashForward, why? You influenced me to read the book of the same name; to get invested in a new show; to hope (upon unlikely hope) that something would come along to fill the void that LOST will inevitably leave at the end of next year. And what do you do? You beat me over the head with a FUCKING POKER GAME?!?!

Excuse my language, but that’s how I’m feeling with this show right now. Two weeks ago I thought the show hit a high point with Gimme Some Truth. Then the rollercoaster that is FlashForward stopped clicking and took a nose dive. I’m hoping Playing Cards with Coyote is the bottom of that dive, but judging from the way things went down in this episode, my guarded optimism is waning faster than you can say “Q.E.D.”

For weeks ABC has teased us with promos featuring Dominic Monaghan aka Simon. We’ve seen short glimpses of him in various episodes, all pointing to him having knowledge of the flash. Per Simon we also know that Lloyd Simcoe had something to do with the flash. In Playing Cards Lloyd has finally made the decision to come clean. He sends a mass email to several people (the names Gordon Myhill, Gabe Clayson, Phillipe Tarhan, and Elizabeth Rhee are seen – Thanks to my brother and his watchful eye on this) saying “WE NEED TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY.” Apparenly Mr. Myhill and Simon still maintain a relationship, as Myhill forwarded the email to Simon.

Unlike Lloyd, Simon wants nothing to do with coming clean. Instead he offers a proposal. He and Lloyd will play a game – if Lloyd wins they come clean; If Simon wins they keep their mouths shut. What great game is worthy of revealing the cause of 20 millions deaths? Poker of course.

Let me preface this – I hated the Bond reboot Casino Royale. Why? Because I felt like I was watching World Series of Poker: The Movie. That said, you can probably figure out what I thought of FlashForward’s main plot point this week. The less said about the game the better, as it was as cliche as it gets, but in the end Lloyd wins using his new found illusion skills (A trick is something a whore does for money). I actually liked that Lloyd cheated, and kind of paid off the whole magic thing he’s been doing at the hospital, but that was about it.

The cliff hanger from last week left us wondering how Aaron’s daughter had survived the missle hitting her Humvee in Iraq (Really though, how couldn’t she survive? We saw a similar RPG take out the FBI agents a couple weeks ago and no one ended up with more than a scratch). It seems Teresa saw something she wasn’t supposed to see, and as a result got her leg blown off by someone called Jericho. How and why a private military contractor fits into this puzzle is yet to be seen, but I’m guessing their massacre had something to do with the flash, or at least was a precursor to it. Needless to say Teresa has a hard time trusting anyone of government authority.

In our Mark-story, a local pet store owner witnessed a murder committed by a man with the three-star arm tattoo. The same tattoo appeared on Mark’s board in his flash, which causes him to ditch out on his romantic getaway with Olivia (For a guy who’s going to lose his wife, Mark isn’t trying too hard).  The tip leads Mark and Demetri to the woman’s store and in the end Mark decides to kill the three-star man. By doing so he thinks he has changed his future and stopped the three star man from being able to invade his office. Little does he know there is more than one man in the world with a three star tattoo – shocking!!! How could more than one person have an emo three-star tattoo?

Unsurprisingly, we see a whole group of men with three star tattoos handling a briefcase full of rings. Apparently the man at the baseball game was wearing a ring, which I’m guessing is the one missing from the briefcase. The destination is none other than everyone’s favorite illusionist Ricky Jay – or Kurt Longjohn from Boogie Nights. Ricky questions the absence of one of the rings before blowing away a three-star tattoo soldier, and calmly leaves the room.

As I continue to watch FlashForward, I keep waiting for something to really grab me. There’s been bits and pieces here and there, but I’ve only truly enjoyed one full episode. If we’re lucky, Playing Cards is the bottom of the pit the show has fallen into and hopefully it will claw its way out sooner rather than later. I’ve actually quit watching the “Next week on FlashForward” promos to avoid getting my hopes up. The one thought that constantly runs through my head while watching is “How is this going to go on for 3-5 years like Goyer said it would?” The statement implies they have a plan, but the output say otherwise. What happens next is anyone’s guess, but please, FlashForward, no more fucking poker.

Other Observations

- Was Janis really “researching” sperm donation on Wikipedia? Wow.
- The FBI is able to blow up a cell phone camera picture and someone picks up a ring by seeing a “shiny blot”? What?
- Aaron has one of the worst accents in the history of television. Judging from his accent, I’d say he’s an eastern European Irish Russian who was raised in New York.

BNR LOST Rewatch: Solitary

LOST is a show with international appeal. Just check the front page of Lostpedia. There are links to airdates in 6 different countries, as well as a link to find further “worldwide” airdates. Obviously the story is at the center of the global LOST fandom, but what about the characters? LOST is a melting pot of culture – something I think has big stakes in the show’s appeal around the world.  House of the Rising Sun dealt with a couple from the far east. Solitary, on the other hand,  deals with a man from the middle (east, that is.)

The character of Sayid is probably the most daring choice made by the Lindelof and the writers. The wounds of 9/11 were still fresh, and the ill-conceived “revenge” war was taking place in Iraq. Still, the writers decided to introduce us to not only an Iraqi, but a former soldier. From the beginning even the audience was being asked to put aside past indescretions, and we’re just the observers. How would a recently crashed plane full of people react to having a “gen-u-ine I-raqi” on board?

Sayid has always been a main character, but has also seen himself relegated to the sidelines. Like many other early episodes, Solitary is our first look at Sayid’s past. We knew he was in the Republican Guard, but until Confidence Man, we didn’t know what he did. After showing Sawyer the wrong side of some bamboo shoots, Sayid goes out on his own, ashamed of his actions – action he’s vowed to never commit again.

These actions go back a long way (farther than we’re able to see here) but by the time we flashback to Sayid in Solitary, he’s already been trained to torture. The problem is, Sayid is ordered to torture a woman he knows, and loves. We meet Nadia for the first time in this episode, and her relationship with Sayid is established. Childhood friends, they grew apart over time, possibly as a result of Nadia’s action (or even Sayid’s). Off the Island we see Sayid visting Nadia during her incarceration, and eventually freeing her.

These events again mirror on-Island events, as Sayid is taken prisoner himself, and for the first time we have concrete proof of someone else on the Island. Danielle Rousseau will appear many other times, but her first appearance is the most memorable to me.

According to former LOST writer David Fury though, the most important part of the Rousseau/Sayid conversation never made it into the show. Fury tells of an early draft of Solitary that included an exchange between Sayid and Rousseau. After telling Sayid she was part of a research team, Sayid asked what kind of research the team was conducting. Her answer: TIME. ABC read the draft and asked that the line be removed, wanting to nix any kind of hardcore sci-fi genre elements. I’ll let you take away from that what you want, but to me this is just another example of planning paying off.

Rousseau’s story also contains a few other now known mysteries, as well as some we don’t know yet. The Monster, of course, is one of LOST’s main questions. Rousseau gives the first opinion/clue as to what it might be: a security system. She also talks of the sickness that infected her team, and of removing the firing pin from Robert’s gun. We’d see all of these events take place in This Place is Death.

Back in Cave Town, Hurley organizes the survivors for a game of golf. This was just another of the many one-off side stories that LOST would apply over the years. The golf sideplot has little significance aside from seeing the survivors relax and Sawyer delivering the great line, “Doctor playing golf? Boy howdy! What’s next, cop eatin’ a donut?” Lost amongst the fun is our first meeting with Ethan Rom. I found it funny that he and Locke spent so much time together. Again it raises the question with me about who Locke really is/was? Did he know Ethan’s secret?

At the time of Solitary, The Others themselves were a big secret. Rousseau gives us the first mention of them. Sayid, on the other hand, has what could be a first-hand encounter with them in the form of the whispers. For me, the whispers are a top 5 “What are they?” question of LOST. Are they the Others? Are they time travel/Island moving related? Accoring to those with high powered audio equipment, the voices Sayid hears are as follows:

Male voice: Just let him out of here
Male voice: He’s seen too much already.
Male voice: What if he tells?
Female voice: …”Could just speak to him”
Male voice: No.

Solitary is another early episode that introduced mythology elements we waited a long time to pay off (the beach wire, Rousseau) and some we’ve yet to see (whispers, the Monster). I think it’s weird that the network wanted the “Time” line removed, but had no problem with polar bears, ghosts, smoke monsters, and crazy French women. That point is moot now though. As LOST’s first season moved on, we would learn a great deal more about our characters, while at the same time delving deeper into the mysterious Island.

Random Obervations

• The wire found by Sayid on the beach would be seen again several time, next in the Season 1 episode Numbers.
• Nadia’s photograph reads “I will see you in another life, if not in this one.” We’ll hear a very similar sentiment echoed by Desmond - “See ya in anotha life, brotha.”
• Numbers alert: Rousseau’s distress signal has been on a loop for 16 years.
• We get the first mention of Alex, but Sayid incorrectly assumes Alex is a “he.” We’d find out in Exodus that Alex is a girl, but wouldn’t meet her until Maternity Leave, although she’d only be known as “Teenage Girl.”
• The term for the Island’s “natives” is used for the first time – The Others.

FlashForward: The Gift

After the strangly named Halloween episode last week, FlashForward got back to the matter at hand with The Gift. Whether you thought that was a good or bad thing is up to you, but after a handful of episodes the show appears to be finally tackling some of the issues that would arise from an event like a global blackout. The Gift also takes the first in-depth look at the argument of free will vs. fate.

The episode opens with a misdirection – not a first for the series. We see a woman with her children as a voice over reads a letter written to her. Celia then discovers a note on her windshield from the Blue Hand group. This leads to a nice segue into one of the mysteries discovered last week – Just what is the Blue Hand?

In the aftermath of the Blue Hand corpses found last week, Agents Mark, Demetri and Al have a new lead on their hands (sorry). The Blue Hand is another clue from Mark’s board. Considering they’ve turned out right so far, the agents take the initiative to see just what they’ve gotten themselves into. One of the dead blue hands relates to Agent Al Gough’s flash – as a result of this we’re privy to the entirety of Agent Al’s flash, and why he’s so upset. Apparently he’s responsible for “her” death, something he hasn’t shared with anyone else - even the British MI-6 agent working the case with him.

Following the Blue Hand lead, the agents find their way to a secret underground meeting. None of them looked or acted too secretly though, which kind of made me laugh. Mark even “blended in” with his Police t-shirt. Apparently the Blue Hands are big fans of Andy Summers. To gain access to the Blue Hand meeting, the agents were asked to play a game of Russian Roulette. Agent Al wasted no time in pulling the trigger, which turned out to be a nice bit of foreshadowing, while at the same time asking a central question – Are the flashes set in stone?

That question is really the central theme of The Gift. Whether it’s the contrast between Demetri and his fiance’s flashes, or the impending doom created by certain character’s flashes, so far our characters have been living as if they were unable to change what they saw. In The Gift we’re given the option of a future that isn’t set in stone. While some believe that the flashes are inevitable, others believe that the flash was just a possible preview of the future.

With that we return to the letter from the opening of the show. It turns out the letter wasn’t Blue Hand related at all, but instead written by Agent Al to a woman yet to die. Agent Al is the first character to distinctly challenge the concept of the flashes in the most extreme was possible. In Al’s mind, if he’s dead, the events of his flash can’t happen. Whether this causes a ripple effect is yet to be seen, but it’s the first time we’ve seen a character directly question the concept of the blackout.

The Gift also contained some side story on the orderly and the Japanese speaking babysitter, but the meat of the side story was with disappearing-accented electrician (Aaron).  It has nothing to do with the story, but where is that guy from anyway? Sometimes he’s got an eastern European accent, some times it’s Bronx, sometimes it’s not there. Aaron has several encounters throughout the episode with a guy who served in the army with his daughter, Tracy. Tracy’s fellow soldier gives Aaron a knife – a knife he will give Tracy in his flash (shades of John Locke/Richard Alpert anyone?). Aaron also receives closure on his daughter – something that is shattered in the final moments of the episode when she shows up sitting at his table.

To me, The Gift was middling. I liked that it finally addressed the first question I’d ask – Is my future set, or can I change it? It took a guy leaping from a building to bring that question to the forefront. At the same time, I found it a bit heavy handed. It seems that the writers give the audience little credit in terms of intelligence. Lines like Mark’s “It’s like a book club…with bullets” keep coming at a steady rate, and they clunk every time. I also have to call out my displeasure in the way the show is using Dom Monaghan. He’s been in 3 or 4 episodes, and he’s seen maybe 5 minutes of screen time. I complained about this last week, and I know it’s picky, but I hate that they’re teasing us with what appears to be a major character. I do think The Gift was a small step in the right direction for the series, but we’ll see how next week follows up.

BNR LOST Rewatch: Confidence Man

“Dear Mr. Sawyer, You don’t know who I am but I know who you are and I know what you done. You had sex with my mother and then you stole my dad’s money all away. So he got angry and he killed my mother and then he killed himself, too. All I know is your name. But one of these days I’m going to find you and I’m going to give you this letter so you’ll remember what you done to me. You killed my parents, Mr. Sawyer.”

Characters are the heart of LOST. There have been many events, plot twists and turns, and  heavy mythology doled out in the 5 seasons we’ve seen so far, but in the end it’s all about the characters. As season one unfolded, much of the mystery from week to week was character based. To be more specific, it was, “Who’s flashback will we see next?”

Confidence Man opens the book on one of LOST’s most complex characters, James Ford – or as we knew him then, Sawyer. No character in the series has undergone more transformation than Sawyer. To fully understand this though, we first need fo find out just where Sawyer came from.

From the beginning, Sawyer was painted as the antagonist to our hero, Jack. He was everything the good doctor wasn’t – rude, selfish, condescending. But was he? In Confidence Man, we start pealing back the layers on the Sawyer onion. The first layer to dissect is his letter.

Sawyer’s letter is another of the first, great mysteries of LOST. We see him reading it multiple times in the first few episodes. I don’t know how many times I found myself needing to read that letter, to find out what was so great about it. Was it from his wife? A lover? A family member? It had to be extremely important to warrant the amount of care and attention paid to it.

Apparently Kate had the same desire for answers I did, and she’s the first to read it. At first, upon reading it, she has a similar reaction I imagine the audience having – this guy is an asshole. But like almost everything in the series, LOST is not about taking things at face value. It’s about looking inside, finding the true meaning.

The true meaning of the letter is much, much different. By the time Kate discovers this, Sawyer has been tortured and stabbed in a vain effort to obtain inhalers. I thought the inhaler plot is another of LOST’s great, unsung moments. We’re presented with a situation – the lack of medicine – that could take place after a plane crash of such nature. Using said situation, the writers paint the portrait of a man who wants nothing more than to be the enemy. This, combined with the revelation of the letter really portray exactly what Sawyer wants to be.

Sawyer wants to be hated. Kate says as much. Watching this episode the first time through, it seemed like we’d see the end of the letter. We see Sawyer nearly burn it, but then decide not to.  I think it’s amazing that we’d see the letter come to fruition, and the path taken by the letter, its writer, and its subject  is one of the greatest twists we’ve seen in the series.

We get glimpes of what Sawyer really is in his flashback. Yeah,  he’s a hustling con man. But in the end, he shows that he’s much more. When presented with a similar situation to one that shaped his life, Sawyer takes the high road. Rather than ruin the lives of another young boy and his family, he walks away. LOST always provides humanizing moments for its characters, and this is Sawyer’s first. It’s also obvious that Damon Lindelof really cares about Sawyer, and it comes across in his writing of this episode.

The other main thing I took away from Confidence Man was the set-up for Sayid. We knew Sayid was in the Republican Guard, but we didn’t know his exact duties. According to Jack, Sayid was a communications officer. We find that this is quite a literal term – Sayid was in charge of making people communicate. His torture of Sawyer hits him harder than one would think for a person who’s job is to torture. Of course, we’ll find out why Sayid feels this way. But that’s for another time.

Random Observations

- Sawyer is reading Watership Down. “It’s about bunnies.” LOST is kind of about bunnies to, isn’t it?

- Numbers Alert: Shannon only had 4 refills left of her inhaler; David and Jessica were providing Sawyer with $160,000.

FlashForward: Scary Monsters and Super Creeps

I’ve never been much for Holiday themed TV episodes. It seems they’re much more of a novelty/gimmick than they are a functioning part of a larger story. Tonight’s episode of FlashForward was the show’s Halloween episode. While it did some things right, it also fell flat in a couple of ways.

Before we got to Halloween though, we finally got more of Dominic Monaghan’s Simon. Simon is apparently a super-genius who enjoys posing in nothing but a pair of goggles. He’s also a smooth talker, and a future strangler. But that’s really all we get to learn about Simon. FlashForward has doled out Monaghan in small doses (more than likely in an effort to hook LOST fans and keep them around to see just who Monaghan is).  I thought Monaghan’s character finally provided a foil to our hero FBI agents, and it will be interesting to see if this is true, or simply a bit of misdirection.

Back in LA, things are getting back to normal after the DC shootout. Surprisingly, no one in the car hit by an RPG suffered more than a cut, and all the agents have congregated in the hospital to check on the status of Janis. This doesn’t last long, though, as Director Stanford sends everyone out of the hospital.  Here, the agents choose different paths – Mark decides to head home and spend Halloween with his daughter and the rest of the neighborhood. Dimitri, on the other hand, takes Agent Gough and heads to the morgue to investigate the lone gunman responsible for Janis’s attack.

Mark ends up donning some fake teeth and an eye patch and going trick-or-treating. I found it a bit strange that not more than two weeks after 20 million people died, our characters are having a regular old Halloween night. This is one thing FlashForward has struggled with – providing a context for the situation in which they live. The world’s largest mass death just occurred, and Mark and his neighbor are out bobbing for apples. This doesn’t add up to me.

While Mark’s evening begins with a run through the grave yard (and his second musical chase scene), Dimitri’s is much different. Dimitri finds a blue hand stamp on the Asian gunman, and connects it to Mark’s flashforward board. This leads the pair on a scavenger hunt through the city that ends at a mysterious house full of blood and bodies – one with blue hands. I’m very intrigued by this Blue Hand Group, and I wonder if they have something to do with Simon, or Lloyd for that matter.

Speaking of Lloyd, he finally figures out just who the woman was in his flash – the good doctor Olivia who’s been treating his son. The humor highlight from last night came in Lloyd’s son Dylan’s costume – “A 6 year-old in a pimp costume.” In what can be best described as awkward, Mark, Olivia, and Lloyd have a tension filled moment in the living room that Mark owns, and one day Lloyd will share with Olivia. Mark and Olivia’s argument in the kitchen is interesting in that it sets their relationship up as one that will fail – almost creating a self-fulfilling prophecy to match that of their flashes.

Janis, on the other hand, is a different case. With the surgery she underwent, it is nearly impossible for her to have a child. This spins her sonogram themed flash in a whole new way. Did Olivia just change the future? Or will we see some sort of course correction, to borrow a LOST term? I think this is the most important question raised by the episode, and it’s interesting that we see Janis slowly moving away from what she saw, and Mark/Olivia moving toward what they saw.

FlashForward often has great endings, and this week’s with Simon and Lloyd tore me in different ways. Simon speaks of his and Lloyd’s experiment. This is the second time we’ve heard Simon mention their involvement in the flash, but the first to give an inclination of why. I’m wondering if this experiment is at all related to CERN and the particle collider from the novel “FlashForward,” and if so, how the show will address it.

In the end, this week’s episode wasn’t on par with last week’s Gimme Some Truth, but the show is still showing signs of improving. The proper introduction of Monaghan now has me hooked at least until I find out exactly what his role is, and what side he’s on. Until then I remain cautiously optimistic.

BNR LOST Rewatch: The Moth

“You all, everybody

You all everybody

Acting like you’re stupid people, wearing expensive clothes”

Charlie Pace is an interesting fellow. When we first meet him, he’s standing near an exposed jet engine in a heroine/shock induced daze. The first thing we find out about his pre-Island life was that he was getting high in the plane’s bathroom prior to the crash. But what else is there to Charlie? To answer that question, you first need to know where he came from.

Cuse and Lindelof have repeatedly mentioned “The Stand” when asked what their influences for LOST include. If you haven’t read the book, go out and buy a copy. It is Stephen King’s opus, an epic tale of survivors in an unfamiliar world (sound familiar?). With the country gripped by mass H1N1 hysteria, it’s even more timely now, at least for apocolypse minded folks.

I bring up “The Stand” because of one character in particular – Larry Underwood. Larry is an aging, drug addled, one-hit wonder “rock star.” His famous hit, “Baby Can You Dig Your Man” touches many, if not all of the characers in the story, and provides a common thread. Larry is also an unlikely hero – something I don’t want to spoil for the uninitated.

I bring up Larry because he really is Charlie. In the beginning the writers wanted Charlie Pace to similar to Larry in age and accomplishments. Dominic Monaghan says that someone like John Hannah was being considered. But Monaghan posed a question – What if Charlie was just scratching the surface, rather than being on his way out? And with that, Larry Underwood became Charlie Pace.

Charlie wasn’t always the heroin-addicted rock star we meet on the Island. In The Moth we first see him in confessional, pledging to give up the band, and the life it creates. Big brother Liam has other ideas though – the band has just been signed, and they need Charlie. He’s the heart of the band (something Liam would later discount).

On the Island though, Charlie has been a nobody. He’s constantly told “we don’t need you.” The only person that has shown any faith in his thusfar is Locke. In House of the Rising Sun, Locke took Charlie’s drugs. Charlie is given three chances to ask for them back. After the second time, Locke tells Charlie a story about the titular moth:

LOCKE: You see this little hole? This moth’s just about to emerge. It’s in there right now, struggling. It’s digging its way through the thick hide of the cocoon. Now, I could help it, take my knife, gently widen the opening, and the moth would be free. But it would be too weak to survive. The struggle is nature’s way of strengthening it. Now this is the second time you’ve asked me for your drugs back [he holds the heroin up]. Ask me again and it’s yours.

Locke’s speech is beautifully echoed with action later in the episode. After a cave in traps Jack, the group of Survivors band together to free him. Digging in isn’t enough, and someone needs to try to get inside the cave and help Jack. Finally, Charlie feels needed and volunteers. I saw Charlie’s struggle through the tunnel to get to Jack, and his digging out as the perfect physical representation of Locke’s story. Charlie was the moth – he needed to struggle, to fight against adversity to become the person he knew he could be. His addiction is finally revealed to Jack here, and the good doctor pledges to keep his condition between them.

While the cave in event happens, Sayid again uses his electronics knowledge to devise a plan. Hoping to triangulate the signal from the French woman, he enlists Kate and Boone to help. Circumstances interfere, but two of the antena are in place, and Sayid finds himself alone. Shortly thereafter he is knocked in the head, and his equipment destroyed. And with that, LOST gives us the first impression that not only WERE there other people on the Island, but maybe they’re still there (although we’ll find out a MUCH different cause of Sayid’s pain).

The Moth is a great episode, if only for the Charlie exposition. Not much in the way of mythology is revealed, but in the first season we didn’t need all the long range action. Moving forward though, things start to get much more interesting and focus on the long range plan – with the next step being the curious case of James Ford.

Random Observations

- Charlie’s church serves as Brother Campbell’s monastery in Catch-22, as well as Daniel Faraday’s Oxford University in The Constant.

- Numbers Alert: Crazy Eights – Kate: “We crashed 8 days ago,” Michael worked 8 years of construction, Driveshaft’s 8 week tour

- Liam wears a shirt that features a picture of the Egyptian god, Anubis. We will later see a picture of what looks like Anubis in catacombs below the Temple.

BNR LOST Rewatch: House of the Rising Sun

 

I’ll be upfront right away – I was never that big of a fan of Jin/Sun episodes the first time through. They’ve just never really provided that much excitement for me. That being said, I can appreciate these episodes for what they are.  Jin/Sun bring a soap opera element to LOST that isn’t always there. In the early going, they also provided a great deal of mystery.

Going into House of the Rising Sun, we knew virtually nothing of Jin and Sun. We had seen glimpes of them though. As early as the pilot we knew Jin had a fishing background, and we saw Sun as a typical, subserviant Asian wife. Their original flashes do little to debunk these conceptions, but with LOST there is always something hiding beneath the surface.

The amount of forward thinking that takes place in House of the Rising Sun is probably the most interesting part of watching it in a new context. House of the Rising Sun takes place from Sun’s perspective; many of the events in the episode are revisited in …In Translation from Jin’s point of view. LOST is about the little things, and whether it’s seeing the dog Jin got from the man he would later assault, or Jin’s bloody hands from said assault, it was obvious that there was much more to the story of these two star crossed lovers than met the eye.

Late in the episode we find that Sun is not the resigned woman she’s been painted as so far. Not only does she speak English, but she planned to leave Jin. The contrast of their relationship from the beginning of the episode to the end is a thing of beauty. We see a couple so in love at the beginning – to a point where Jin will sign his life away to marry Sun. By the end, their relationship is in shambles, and nearly broken. But when it comes time for Sun to leave, she just can’t say goodbye to the man she married, whether Jin is that same man or not. And what else is LOST about but second chances?

LOST has also proven to be about time, and the central Island drama involves a special watch. Jin was given the watch to deliver to one of Mr. Paik’s associates in America. The importance of the task would be reinforced by a Paik associate in Exodus. But the watch never makes it to American, and instead finds its way to Michael’s wrist. This would begin a journey that took it through Michael, back to Jin, back to Michael, through a raft attack, an Others abduction, and finally was pawned by Michael in exchange for a gun in NYC. We’re yet to see the true importance of the watch, but judging from the role Mr. Paik seems to play in the large scale plan, we’re sure to revisit Mr. Paik, if not the planned final destination of the watch.

In the midst of the Jin/Sun/Michael drama, we’re also hit with what Cuse and Lindelof cite as one of the earliest example of “we knew what we were doing from the beginning.” Personally, I can cite a few examples of such in the first 4 episodes, but here we’re talking about Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve have prompted more discussion and theories than most other LOST mysteries. Who are they? Many people say Jack and Kate, or Sawyer and Kate. In Season 5 we got an indication that Bernard and Rose may be the fated duo.

I’m not so sure about any of this, and I think we need to take a look at a few factors in the Adam and Eve discovery. First is Jack’s quick analysis of the bodies. He states that for their clothing to degrade, they’ve been there for 40-50 years. With what we now know about the Island and its movements related to time, it’s hard to figure anything out from this time frame. Second is Jack’s dismissal of Locke. When Locke asks “But who were these men?” Jack quickly corrects him with “One of them was female.” But was she/he? Or was Jack just dismissing Locke’s claim? I would imagine it would be hard to tell the sex of a decayed body from a quick once over (although he IS Jack). If they were both male, it opens another set of possiblities – could the men be Jacob and his enemy? Jack and Locke? Maybe even Jack and Christian?  The third seemingly important thing about the discovery of Adam and Eve are the black/white stones. Jack finds these, but we never see what he did with the pouch. The black/white motif is one that has flowed throughout the series.  If it’s still with Jack, we’re sure to see the pouch again this season.

Upon recent watch, House of the Rising Sun contains so much more than it did at first viewing. Obviously this is a result of all the information between then and now. Still, I found it very interesting that an episode that I didn’t enjoy too much on first viewing had so much more to watch for now. Going forward I think this is something I’ll encounter more, and makes rewatching LOST such a great experience.

Random Observations

- There is also a line from Michael – “Time doesn’t matter on this damn Island!” How wrong he was – time, as Dr. Cheng once said, IS the essence. We now know that time, and the Island’s movements have much to do with the Orchid Station. It’s been pointed out elsewhere, but I think it’s interesting to look at the Orchid Station logo and the Paik Heavy Industries Logo.

Orchid Station

 

Paik Heavy Industries

They are EXTREMELY similar. Whether Paik and his watch are related to the Island is yet to be seen, but we do know they are related to the Hanso Foundation. We’ve heard Paik speak of Hanso to his associates in D.O.C. and Hanso/Paik were also connected during The Lost Experience game. The Hanso Foundation is also very similar to the Orchid.

Hanso Foundation

- Numbers Alert: It’s been 8 days (11 hours) since Charlie played his guitar; Sun was suppoed to leave the airport at 11:15.

- As per Lostpedia, this episode contained the first use of the “whoosh” both into and out of the flashes.

FlashForward: Gimme Some Truth

 

In only 5 episodes, FlashForward has been everywhere. It had an entertaining pilot, an awful couple of episodes, and then last week’s uplooking Black Swan. Gimme Some Truth seemed to be proof that FlashForward is learning from itself and going in the right direction.

We started this week at the end. I liked the structure established, but at the same time I felt like FlashForward was still relying on it’s shocker ending – only this time it was at the beginning. This time we didn’t have to wait a week, but after some bad episodes, 40 minutes of FlashForward can sometimes feel like days.

Gimme Some Truth took things on a bit differently. For me, the worst part of FlashForward has been its clunky dialogue. I understand that we’re meeting new characters, and learning about the others, but  there tends to be too much talk, not enough action. Sometimes it feels like the writers don’t know how to tell us something without a character telling us – word for word. This week ramped up the action, and let the characters be themselves, and produced the best hour the show has offered so far.

Mark, Stanford, Dimitri, and a karaoke-singing Agent Vreede are in Washington to testify for a house subcommittee. It seems that the US government is finally getting around to figuring out the flashes, and need to straighten out where the funding is going. There are several different opinions on what happened – the most prevalent to US security being China. All of these take a backseat to Agent Mark’s flash. He’s already based an investigation around it, and now it’s time to secure some big money.

While the boys are doin’ work in DC, Janis is back home, doing karate, and rejecting men. We find out that the Nazi was right about Janis and her thumb ring- she’s a lesbian, with a girlfriend – although she’s not out yet. I’ve questioned in recent episodes why Janis was so shocked by her sonogram. The fact that she’s not into men really changes the context of what she saw in her flash, and ends up putting a damper on her current  relationship.

Janis is also busy at work, exploring satellite images from Somalia. A big development put on the back burner a couple of weeks ago, viewers were left wondering exactly WHAT they were looking for at the end of 137 Sekunden. Was it the clouds? The scar-faced kid? No, it was the giant towers. Apparently several had been built in Somalia slightly before the 1991 flash, and the FBI has isolated their location. I’m sure we’re going to find out much more about these towers in the coming weeks, as well as hopefully meet the sheep-herding boy who wasn’t affected by them (Early AV Club commentors are calling for Omar from The Wire.)

In Washington, we find that not only does FBI Director Stanford Weddick have close ties with the President, he’s could have been a member of his cabinet. “Could have” is the key phrase, as Stanford apparently did quite a bit of dirty work for the Pres. This work caused him to run afoul of Senator Clemente, head of the subcommittee. Stanford gives his account of Mark’s flash, but Sen. Clemente wants it from the horse’s mouth. Mark obliges, but unable to clearly recall all of his flash, he’s blasted by the senator, and loses all but a shred of the credibility he had.

After being chewed up and spit out in their testimony, the boys go where any FBI agent on global safety related business goes – a hotel karaoke bar. This was another area where FlashForward seemed to struggle. It appears at times the show is trying to shoehorn in humor. Dimitri and Agent Vreede jam out to “Sister Christian,” which someone transforms into “Like a Rolling Stone” halfway through – after Dimitri asks to sing some Rolling Stones. Mark also offers up some unintentional humor when he bursts out with “I WAS LOADED” in the bar.

Stanford joins the boys late, as he’s too busy blackmailing his good friend the President. It seems the President may/may not have a kid, and definetly has another woman in the picture (literally – Stanford uses it for blackmail). The result of the move for FBI funding is two-fold; Sanford gets the money, and Sen. Clemente is now the newly appointed Vice President. In Clemente’s flash, she was President. In the President’s flash, he was getting alarming news. The two are obviously related, and it’s going to be interesting to see how their two paths cross.

And with that, we’re back with the boys climbing into the car, right where we started. Mark is on the phone with Janis, discussing the hearing and Stanford’s “rabbit.” The boys are rammed by heavily-armed Asians, while at the same time Janis is jumped and shot by another Asian man. Are the lone assassin and the gunmen working for the same person/place? We’ll see.

I don’t know if the writers were going for humor or what, but the slow-motion gunfight set to “Like a Rolling Stone” was one of the best moments of the show. The way it was cut with Janis laying on the pavement and seeing her flash was a great way to end the episode, and again showed some positive signs that we’re going somewhere.

So, what did you think? I’m really liking that some of the flashes are paying off, or at least opening some new doors. We know the President’s and Sen. Clemente’s (yet unseen) flash are related. What about Janis though? We saw her getting a sonogram, but as we left her she was laying in the street bleeding out as her new alarm clock circled in her blood. It seems that the attacks are related, and it will be interesting to see if these people are flash related, or something else.

With FlashForward, the more focused the show is, the better is works. It also looks like we’ll get our first real taste of Dominic Monaghan next week, which has me excited for our next episode, even if it is called “Scary Monsters and Super Creeps.”