I'll try to hit "The Nine" (which I haven't seen yet), "Gilmore Girls" and "Jericho" (both of which I have) later today. In the meantime, "Lost" thoughts just as soon as I can down a fifth of Chivas to blot out memories of the 2004 ALCS...When I was writing my newbie's guide to "Lost," I initially referred to The Others as "hostile natives," until it occurred to me that the odds were slim that someone as old as Michael Emerson was born on the island back in the '50s. Whoops. But the best part of that final scene wasn't the tiny clue about the origins of The Others, but the payoff to the old bit about Christian Shephard believing the Red Sox would never win the World Series.
Overall, The Others still don't make a lot of sense to me. If they have easy access to the outside world, why would Ben be so obsessed with getting his hands on Desmond's boat? He used to have his own, not to mention a compass heading that allegedly would allow someone to escape the island's pull. The "Cool Hand Luke" chain-gang stuff, meanwhile, doesn't really fit with their whole "We're the good guys" image, and seemed there mainly as an excuse for Kate to get sweaty in that sundress, for Sawyer to make the fangirls go wild with that kiss, and for Sawyer to once again prove that he's the roughest, toughest hand-to-hand fightin' grifter of all time. (I could have done without Kate being turned into a damsel in distress again, though. I'm not even a fan of the character, and there was arguably nothing she could have done in that situation without a gun, but it's irritating how they spent so much time setting her up as a bad-ass and then inevitably use her as a human shield for the bad guys.)
But internal logic has never been this show's strength. As someone once said (I think on this blog, though I can't find the comment), "Lost" is great at the micro (action scenes, bizarre imagery) and lousy at the macro (the "mythology"). I accepted it a long time ago, so now my only question is whether an episode engaged me on an individual level, which this one did.
A strong flashback, thanks to the always sterling performances by Yunjin Kim and Daniel Dae Kim, plus a rarity for such a late-date "Lost" flashback, in that we learned something important -- in this case, that Sun was wise to decide in the Sydney airport that the man she fell in love with hadn't disappeared completely.
Meanwhile, does anyone more anal than me want to do a tally of number of Oceanic 815 passengers killed by The Others vs. Others killed by Oceanic 815 folk? It's hard without knowing what The Others did with all of the tailies they abducted (are they some of the people busting rocks with Sawyer and Kate?), plus the question of whether you count the murders of Ana-Lucia and Libby since Michael was working for The Others. Judges? Either way, just when I was feeling happy that Paula Malcomson had found an ongoing post-"Deadwood" gig, Sun has to go and shoot her. Somewhere (most likely in Kansas), Gerald McRaney is smiling.
As I understand it, this episode and next week's were originally reversed, which I suppose means we won't be seeing any of last night's characters for at least a couple of weeks. Feels weird that we've gone so long without Locke, Mr. Eko, Hurley and the rest. Hell, I even miss Charlie a little. A little.
What did everybody else think?
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