LOST: Meet Kevin Johnson
I’m currently with my family on Spring Break vacation. The odds of me actually watching tomorrow’s episode of LOST tomorrow are slim to none. Rather than leave Kulturblog readers stranded, I thought I’d put together the usual list of links and miscellanea, then leave the post up as a place for open discussion for those who have had a chance to see the show. I won’t get to see the episode until I return home on Friday night (and maybe not until Saturday). I might go back and add my observations and speculations, but then again, maybe I won’t. We’ll see.
Word is, “Meet Kevin Johnson” is going to be a cliffhanger and a key episode. Should be good. By the way, after tomorrow’s episode, there will be a four-week break until the final five episodes of season 4 will be aired.
Links and miscellanea
- Thankfully, the four-toed statue is not gone from the minds of the show’s writers. Damon Lindelof reportedly had this to say about it:
We did the four-toed statue on the show and basically we got a note back from the network, which was, ‘This is too weird.’ We’re like, ‘Do you watch the show? This is too weird?’ And essentially they said, ‘Could it be a six-toed statue?’ If someone could explain why a six-toed statue is less weird than a four-toed statue, that’s exactly what we will do.
- Another attempt to link LOST with college basketball: “SEC Tournament and LOST, the Striking Similarities.” (Mostly, it has nothing to do with LOST.)
- Here’s a list of the top 20 LOST fan sites. If you want to go deeper down the rabbit hole of LOST fandom, this list is a good place to start.
- This blogger has included LOST on a list of top 12 current TV shows with characters who are disabled.
- According to Michael Ausiello , Carlton Cuse says, “Damon and I will say you have now seen all of the Oceanic Six in this season’s episodes.” Cuse and Lindelof are not clarifying at this time, so make of that what you will.
And that’s it for now. Seems it was a slow news week for LOST. I’m sorry I won’t be able to participate in the discussion while it’s still fresh, but I trust the regulars will keep it lively.
Posted on March 19, 2008, in Television and tagged Lost. Bookmark the permalink. 48 Comments.
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Have you guys been following the Lost bracket at the Washington Post? (BTD Greg linked to it last week.) It’s down to the final four: Charlie vs. Sayid and Ben vs. Desmond. You can still vote on them today. Tomorrow the last matchup will be revealed.
There’s also this excellent article at Popular Mechanics discussing the dynamics behind the Lost flight data recorder.
Who are they counting as disabled on the show? Locke? (Alex’s boyfriend?)
Dang man, what is it with all these guys that Ben gets close to? Do they not realize how easily he is playing them? Ben is the bad guy. It was nice to see Mr. Smiley again, but the way he treated Michael just proved to me even more that he was bad, and I’m glad Sawyer took him out. Perhaps y’all don’t remember the searing moment at the end of season one. Mr. Smiley took Walt from Michael. He had Sawyer shot. He stole Michael’s most prized and valuable possession. His son. Only bad people do this. I’m getting kinda frustrated at the show for its continual push that Ben and his Others are anywhere close to “good guys.” They are not. They are evil people.
They killed Carl! Those bastards!
They killed Rousseau! Those bastards!! MAN!!
I think Ben thinks he’s a good guy but yeah, he’s not. Neither is Widmore.
There’s no way they did in Rousseau. She’ll be alive. Mark my words.
Dan,
I’m not so sure the show is trying to portray them as good, I think the show is having them portray themselves as good. They want us to feel conflicted about it. But I’m not so sure that in the end we’ll have a clear good guy and a clear bad guy. I think it will probably end up with just two different sides, both with originally good intentions but both gone wrong. I would actually love the show to end that way, to suggest that there’s a lot of messiness when trying to navigate what to do and how to live.
I thought it was funny that Mr. Smiley is gay because of his line at the beginning of season 3 where he told Kate that she’s not his type.
My problem with this episode was that I don’t think Michael’s reasons for going on the freighter were good enough. To redeem his badness of killing two innocent people he needs to kill a bunch of possibly innocent people on the freighter? Doesn’t seem good enough.
I also have a feeling that the ships captain is going to say, “we know he’s a mole,” it seems like guys in positions like him on this show all seem to know stuff like that.
And lastly is the question of who shot Karl and Rousseau? It’s gotta be the original Others, right? Once they get Ben’s daughter then they have leverage with Ben.
But the previews for the new episodes look pretty good. Not looking forward to this wait, but still excited.
Clark,
Rousseau is dead. The preview for this week said someone gets killed, not someone gets shot. I think she’s a gonner.
Also, it appears confirmed that Aaron is one of the Six. I guess that he was a survivor counts enough even though he wasn’t on the manifest.
They had a gay guy playing football? I’m calling ‘fake!’
Rusty,
I guess my problem is that the characters we are attached to (the Losties) can’t seem to grasp that Ben and his Others are really bad folk. Miles had a good point when he said that a week ago Ben had a gun to his head and now he’s eating pound cake. I hope Sawyer is bubbling over with anger and frustration like I am that John Locke continues to let this guy live!
And you know, I think what will end up happening is that Ben uses one of his other trump cards and is the one who gets the Oceanic Six off the island.
As for who killed Rousseau and Carl. The answer is simple. It is Ben. Just look at how he stared at Carl making moves on his daughter in Locke’s apartment. Ben sent the three of them out so that he could get his daughter back from the evil influences of her mother and Carl. The Others are not working against Ben. Ben is still their leader. The Others are working FOR Ben. Just think back to the Juliet episode when her old friend, the psychiatrist, appeared and told her Ben wanted Juliet to kill Charlotte and Daniel. He’s very much where he wants to be and very much in charge (at least that’s how the writers are wanting us to see it).
I think in the end, the reason why Jack wants to go back is because Ben is the one who sets the Oceanic Six free, but at a huge price (hence why Sayid is conflictingly working as an assassin for Ben—note how both he and Michael are clearly not wanting to work for Ben, but feel they have no choice). Jack never got under the influence of Ben and will want to go back and free those still held captive (including Jacob) from Ben’s control.
Yeah, folks. We may wind up conflicted about the Losties (and some of the Others), but Ben is evil. I love how the writers are using the gaps in seasons to help the audience forget that; it makes Ben being evil again surprising.
What is it with Brenda Lee on this show? Her music has been played in several episodes (when they entered “the hatch”, at the beachside funeral, and when Michael tried suicide by car).
Go back and watch the episode where he plays football. He throws like a girl.
Motivations didn’t seem strong in this episode. As noted, Michael seemed to go along with the plan of blowing up the ship way too easily. Also, I didn’t think it made sense that Carl, Alex and Rousseau all agreed to just desert everyone in favor of a plan given to them by Ben. I just don’t buy that.
The ad says “someone dies.” Well, Carl dies, so that means Rousseau could survive. I hope she doesn’t. There have been too many fake deaths on this show and we could use the thinning out of some characters.
The writers are using time as a way to soften how we are supposed to feel about evil characters and how characters feel about one another when they used to hate each other, I would agree with that.
John,
They advertised that someone major would die. That would be Rousseau. Carl is a minor character in the story.
I’d be amazingly surprised if Rousseau dies. I’m sticking with that. Plus they’ve been pretty clear that folks only die if the island wants them dead. They explained a lot right there last night.
As for Michael’s motivation to go on the freighter. It wasn’t to redeem himself. It was to kill himself. It just hasn’t worked.
BTW – while this wasn’t a “great” episode in the way some are it sure was informative.
It could be Keamy and some of the thugs from the freighter who sniped Karl and Danielle. Of course, semi-automatics seem to be more their style, so it’s likely it was the Others after all, whether on Ben’s orders or not.
Eddie, that was Mama Cass tonight and at the beginning of season 2. It’s true that Brenda Lee was the one at Colleen’s funeral.
I think “Make Your Own Kind of Music” is Desmond’s theme song, in a way – not only was it in that first episode of season 2, when we first see inside the hatch, but it also appeared in “Flashes Before Your Eyes.” Another singer whose music has been used repeatedly is Patsy Cline, I think twice in Kate’s flashbacks, once in Christian’s car in Australia, and once on the Island in Claire and Kate’s living room.
I agree that Michael was not going along for redemption. He clearly was a broken, conflicted man who wanted to end it all. Each time he tried to kill himself, he said, “sorry.” He just wanted the guilt to stop. I think the redemption helped push him over the edge, but, in the end, he wanted to die.
The producers make fun of the ABC announcer guy in their podcasts. They say “he is not canon” and that they have no control over what he says (it’s the ABC promo folks). Soooo, I don’t think that it really matters one way or the other. Rousseau may be dead, but we still don’t know her backstory (in flashback form)…so, my bet is that we will see her again one way or the other.
Also is Michael time traveling? The car, his clothes, and the music all seemed very 70′s to me.
This is not about this episode, but I got to thinking about music in Lost, and I also saw where someone mentioned Short Circuit in comments on the Wall-e post. In Short Circuit 2, wasn’t “Downtown” (played on CD by Juliet in the first episode of season 3) an important clue to getting Johnny 5 out of the freezer or something? And wasn’t it played on a keypad, just like Charlie played “Good Vibrations” on the keypad to unjam the signal in the season 3 finale? I haven’t seen either of the Short Circuit movies for a very long time.
Also, IMDB wasn’t any help with the song, but holy crap that was Fisher Stevens (Minkowski on Lost) who played “My name is B-E-N, I spell it Ben” in the Short Circuit films?!?!?
I don’t think the Freighties killed Rousseau and Carl. Look at where Ben told them to go, to the Temple, the last supposed safe haven on the Island. It is highly doubtful that the Freighties would be able to have gotten close to that location, but I’m just guessing on that. It fits Ben’s m.o. to have Carl killed. See, Ben likes to think of certain women in his life as his possessions (i.e. to Juliet “You’re mine!”). He thinks his daughter is his possession. And Carl is encroaching on that control. And her mother is enabling it. Carl and Rousseau were done in by Ben.
Niki, no he was just broke so had to get really used junk. But I was thinking this was pre-crash rather than post-crash initially. (Which was what I think they were after – tricks for tricks sake)
Heather P., you’re right about Fisher Stevens. Classic!
The big question is what the next 5 episodes will hold. Especially since they are having to drop 3 planned episodes.
Clearly this season will end with them off the island but with some big shocker. I suspect we’ll get introduced (finally) to the inner core of the island ala the secret underground computer of Forbidden Planet.
Michael bouncing the tennis ball in his room. Is that the sound the Sayid and Desmond hear that is obviously not mechanical but “someone” making that noise?
Do you think that Ben was testing michael when he gave him the fake bomb?
Skeet shooting, anyone?
Why do you think Sayid exposed Michael to the captain, and do you think that him doing so leads Sayid to work for Ben instead of Michael?
Okay, so here are the questions I want answered about Mr. Friendly. How long was he off the island? When did he leave the island? Does that fit the time line for what he was doing with Jack and Kate? How did he get off (submarine or sail boat)?
According to here, Karl is definitely dead.
I still want to know about the four toed statue.
Favorite moment was the suitcase bomb and the note. Sort of like if the gun had a little flag that came out and said BANG!
It is funny that Sayid turns Michael in (right after determining that he works for Ben) and yet, Sayid… well.
I feel a little lost myself because I missed the part of the season where Michael killed Ana Lucia and Libby. I have absolutely no recollection of those. Can anyone point me to a good site with synopses (TV.com is just not that good for me)
FHL,
I’m sorry, but no synopsis will do for that scene. You have to watch the last few episodes of season 2. They are some of the best episodes of the entire show IMO.
I really do think that Ben is one of the good guys, though it will take some time before we will appreciate it. This should make for a good start though: Widmore wants to kill everybody on the island. Ben, on the other hand, let those from 815 live when he didn’t have to.
Okay, I did the math, and it turns out that there was a week which passed between Tom taking Jack from the Hydra to the Barracks and the time that Kate saw those same two playing football together. This must have been when Tom left to visit Michael. If this is true, then Michael had only been away from the Island a week, give or take a couple days, before Tom contacted him. (It should also be noted that Ben was still in his wheelchair while talking to Michael on the phone.)
Jeff,
Ben and the Others took Walt from Michael. Like Sawyer said when he rightly killed Mr. Smiley, “This is for Walt.” Ben and the Others are the bad guys of the show.
But, you don’t even know why they took him. We don’t know why Ben and Widomore think the ends justify such terrible means.
I’m not trying to say that Ben is a saint, only that he seems pretty good compared to his alternatives.
Jeff G -
yes, but if the picture of C. Widmore we’ve been getting is accurate, saying Ben “seems pretty good compared to his alternatives” is like saying Pol Pot wasn’t so bad when you compare him to Hitler or Stalin.
Jeff, Ben’s killing of whatshername’s lover because he wants her two weeks ago should have ended any plausible discussion that the Others are the Good guys.
Yeah, I agree that the whole Juliet thing is more than a little twisted. Nonetheless, I’m convinced that the Others believe themselves to be the good guys, and that they have a good reason to believe this, a reason which has not yet been revealed. Call me crazy, but I’m stickin’ with it.
What were his alternatives? To lop their heads off? Well, I guess he didn’t go that far, but then again, there wouldn’t be much of a show if he had.
Finally caught up! My thoughts on the show so far:
-Best speech: Hurley over the walkie at the end of season 3, “Attention Others….come in Others…if you’re listening to this, I want you to know that we got you bastards, and unless the rest of you want to be blown up, you best stay away from our beach.â€Â
-I want to see more of Claire as a goth.
-I usually don’t mind suspension of disbelief issues but I’m not cool with the fact that we are supposed to believe that the radio tower, the underwater beacon and the satellite telephone were all on the same frequency. They’re not even on the same ranges – it’s not even theoretically possible. It’s been suggested that light refracts differently on the island and given the hatch explosion, there’s clearly something strange going on with electromagnetic radiation. But they’d better have some sort of explanation for why everything between 3 MHz and 300 GHz is combining into a single frequency. Sayid ought to have noticed something was amiss.
-I don’t know if there are theories about this, I’m sure there are somewhere, but I’m thinking these flash-forwards are actually time jumps of the characters ala Desmond and that the characters will still have the opportunity to change the course of the future.
-I keep waiting for Desmond to say, “I am telling you the truth!â€Â
-Tom being gay is the most shocking twist of the show so far.
-This is really going to suck having to wait in between episodes for now on.
I think they consider themselves the good guys. Primarily because I think the initial Others (presumably the pirates from the 18th century) were battling Dharma and Widmore who were really bad. (I’m still not yet convinced Widmore and Dharma are the same thing) But the Dharma thinks they are good too. Using the numbers to bring about a kind of mystical nirvana via sympathetic relations. However they were willing to commit near genocide to do it – killing hundreds of thousands if not millions of polynesians and southeast Asians to bring populations in line with the numbers.
The fact that Ben thinks he the good guy and had an as yet unrevealed reason for murdering his father and the rest of the Dharma folks doesn’t mean he is good.
But they are all on Jacob’s list. Doesn’t that mean that they must be good guys?
Tom being gay brings a level of humor to Kate’s bashfulness in the showers the first time that she was captured.
Is Jacob necessarily good?
I watched “Meet Kevin Johnson” last night online, since my DVR decided that while I was on vacation would be a good time to skip a recording. Here are a few of my thoughts (much more random than my typical LOST post):
* ABC has made it a lot nicer to watch online. No commercials, and the video quality is much better than it used to be (though “HD” is probably a bit of a stretch).
* I liked the way they got the “Michael is my spy” bit out at the very first of the show. No need to belabor it when everyone had it figured out anyway. The writers successfully used a similar approach with the “What Kate Did” episode: just get it out there. Despite what some may think, the writers aren’t *always* thinking up ways to screw with the viewers.
* Similarly, Hurley’s reaction was classic “Yeah, we knew that, like, forever ago!” Many times, Hurley is the character who gives voice to the fanboys and fangirls. This is another example, and it was hilarious.
* Overall, I though this episode was pretty awesome. The action and suspense worked surprisingly well, considering that almost all of the key moments happened during Michael’s flashbacks. I know some people think Michael is irredeemable, but I’m almost on board with him now–or at least very sympathetic to his situation.
* What’s up with Mama Cass haunting these character’s personal moments? That’s somewhat creepy right there.
* And speaking of creepy, the Libby hauntings were too. I’m not sure what we are supposed to take from them. Are they just the product of Michael’s deranged mind, or is that some manifestation of the island? If it’s the latter, why would the island be warning Michael against blowing up the freighter? According to Lostpedia, there were whispers on the freighter before Michael saw Libby’s ghost. Not sure what to make of that. I thought the whispers were an island thing.
* Speaking of the island, it appears that the island’s reach goes beyond its geographical limits and affects all those who have been there. Weird, dude.
* The chronology in the show is very confusing to me. When Michael goes to his mom’s place to see Walt, it is decorated for Christmas, so it’s December or late November at the earliest. When Sayid and Desmond arrive on the freighter, it’s Christmas Eve. That doesn’t leave a lot of time to pass for Michael to join the freighter’s crew and for Tom to do his stuff.
* I guess a major plot element from here on out will be to figure out who is more evil, Ben and the Others, or Charles Widmore and his peeps. (Yum, peeps.) Both blame the other group for sinking the fake Oceanic 815 in the bottom of the sea. Ben and his people seem to have documentary evidence (though documents can always be faked).
Greg,
He is a very sympathetic character. How would you react if your son was snatched from your arms at sea? Let me tell you how satisfied I was when Sawyer killed Mr. Friendly and said “This is for Walt.” You just don’t take someone’s son at gunpoint. Bad bad vibes there. I completely sympathize with Michael. But I also think he’s too easily gullible (as the rest of the Losties are—except for Jack, Sayid and Desmond). They are too believing in the Others.
As for Libby, well I don’t think the Island and Ben are on the same page, honestly. Ben is far too controlling to be subservient to the ghostly Jacob. I think it is the other way around. I think Jacob is a prisoner of Ben’s. j
As for chronology, remember that Tom told Michael that he had to get going in a matter of days off to Fiji to be on this boat. The plot moves quickly, but in proper chronological order.
I’m in the firm belief that Ben placed the fake plane in the water.
Wow, a very interesting theory on time travel in LOST
There was an interesting segment in Friday’s episode of the official Lost podcast. Someone wrote in to ask for answers about which category certain people/animals fell under: the Monster, human, animal, an apparition, or whatever. Here are the answers (though sometimes Damon and Carlton are kidding and they have said themselves you can’t always believe what they say in the podcast):
Emily (Ben’s mother) – apparition
Wild boar (Sawyer) – animal
Spider (paralyzed Nikki) – Monster (followed by laughter)
Hurley Bird – not going to comment on that
Dave (Hurley’s friend) – figment of imagination/apparition
Yemi (Eko’s brother) – Monster
Nadia (Mikhail’s cat) – animal/coincidence
Walt – the person is a person, there are apparitions of Walt that may not be Walt and also Monster-related
Boone – Monster. No, he’s just Boone. In Locke’s dream, he’s dream.
Jack – Apparation, that’s going to be the big twist at the end of this season. No, that’s a joke.
Kate’s horse – Undead. On a board in the writer’s room there are three photos on the “Undead” door – Christian Shepherd, Yemi, and Kate’s horse.
I actually rented Short Circuit 2 this weekend. I haven’t watched it yet, but I totally am going to. awesome.