Lost: Season 5, Episode #02: "The Lie"

“The Lie”

Season 5, Episode 2

This review & commentary contain spoilers. If you don’t want to know what happens in this episode, don’t read this review.


The Review
Ben and Jack are still “trying” to get everyone to the island. Though truth be told if not for some other unfortunate circumstances, they would still be at square one. Kate and rutabaga head are on the run (a familiar place for Kate). There are strange doings on the island and Hurley’s parents are very cool.

Season Five of Lost is moving really quickly. I can’t imagine what this season would have been like watching it week-to-week. I can see why it regained some of its gusto, in the eyes of some jaded fans. Mine included.

The best part of “The Lie” is Hurley and his family. The absolutely, positively best part is Hurley explaining the lie to his Mom. And his Mom just going with it.

The on-going plot for the season is moved along (though you do have to wonder what Ben would have done had Hurley not dropped Sayid in his lap?) and the island is still a place of discontent.

In fact, the discontent on the island is almost moving in a disturbing direction. While it is great that we are on a path to conclusion, there are enough loose ends to be wrapped up without adding more. So far, there were one-or-two new (old?) adversaries on the island for the castways in “The Lie”. In one scene they are volleying flaming arrows, in another they are armed with machetes and rifles. Okay, the time skipping… might be able to explain that. But (as much as it pains me to say) I do hope we find out who was shooting those arrows at some point. (Because really we need more subplots in this series).

Overall though, two episodes in to season five and we are still enthralled. Or at least ready to watch the next episode (without mocking).

Characters
Ben and Hurley are the main characters in the future story. Jack, Juliette and some new guy lead the charge for the islanders. Hurley’s parents play an awesome role and Sun makes another appearance.

Grade: B




Running Commentary (or Greg’s Inner-monologue)
I kind of miss all the episodes opening with someone’s eyes opening.

On the Searcher
Why does it look like Kate is trying to breast-feed rutabaga head?

Hurley: I don’t think we should lie dude.
Go Hurley.
Jack is so full of it. He is so bent, how is it that any of these folk are buying this. He’s working from so many flawed assumptions it’s not even funny. The least of which would be that Widmore wouldn’t already know what happened!!! Go Hurley!

Awesome! Hurley totally just took out a FedEx box. Oh yeah, go Hurley! Wait, I mean, I love FedEx.

Hey!!! It’s Ana-Lucia! No wonder she pulled him over… he was driving like she does in real life! Who said that?

On Fantasy Island
Neil!?!? Arrgh!!! Another new person. C’mon… no more new people!!! Please!!!

Wow. Daniel’s really cool. It’s too bad he’s not hot like Jack and wasn’t stuck on the island with them from the beginning. They’d be home by… oh yeah, home didn’t work out so well did it… he’s still cool! J

Back to the Future
Wow, Kate and Hurley missed each other by “that much”…
That is the worst cell phone “simulated screen” I have ever seen.

Jack & Ben are kind of like DeNiro and Grodin in Midnight Run. And kind of not.

Dad: You killed three people?
Hurley: No, Sayid did.
Dad: Oh, that’s better.

Dad’s are great.

Dad: That’s not going to work, we need a doctor.

Ha-ha! They need Jack! Yay!

And Kate re-unites with Sun. Kate and Sun, Hurley and Sayid, Jack and Ben. And of course, Ben goes to another new person (Jill). How many new people am I going to have to remember?!?!

Fantasy Island
Ugh. Neil. Maybe the Polar Bear will get him.

Awesome. Looks like Neil got fire. Okay, and arrows. Fire and arrows, uhm the Dharma Initiative circa 1700?

The Hugos
That is a beautiful house. And Hurley has great (very understanding!) parents.

Kate & Sun
…hmm… now that is an interesting turn of events. Sun’s recollection of Kate’s uhm, betrayal?... I wonder where Sun stands in all of this right now. Clearly she’s on her own in her dealings with Widmore.

Jack & Dad
It’s nice that Dad can see that Jack is full of #(*$#&.

Hurley’s recap of the first three seasons… four seasons to his mom is awesome.

Mom: I believe you. I don’t understand you, but I believe you.
And yes, that’s exactly how it felt for the rest of us. Up until the third season when we gave up. It’s fun to hear it all recapped like that.

Island
Uh oh, Sawyer stepped on a horrible poisoned spike. The one horrible poisoned spike in all the jungle, he’ll most likely be dead by morning. Or sooner if the shadow guys get him.

More people! I hope I don’t have to remember their names. This island is worse than Grand Central station. It needs its own Census.

General Hospital
Oh good, Sayid is alive. It would suck to have to drag two dead guys back to the island.

Ben is creepy. How does he know all this stuff. I mean sure he’s from the island, but how can he know what would happen or what has happened?!? Has this all happened before? Is there like a bug-log for the island?

Hurley has always been very clever!

Island of the Danged
He’s going to cut off her hand. Of course he’s not going to get to cut off her hand. Of course, were I her, I would have busted some caps!!! Just sayin’…

Back to the Future
Okay, very dramatic pause. Old lady in a hood. Are we supposed to know who the old lady in the hood is?!?! For pete’s sake there are more people in this story than you can shake a stick at. Forget the census, we need them all to wear nametags.

The end?!? Already? That’s a good sign.

Lost: Season 5 ep 01: “Because you left”

“Because you left”

Lost Season 5, Episode #1

This review & commentary contains spoilers. If you don’t want to know what happens in this episode, don’t read this review.

The Review

You might think adding actually jumping through time might be more confusing than flashbacks and flashforwards, but you’d be mistaken, at least in the case of “Because you left”.

While we still don’t know why the people who left the island need to go back, or how Locke got off the island or how Ben got off the island… (at this point I’m just going to assume tribal council didn’t go their way), the story is firmly set in motion that they have to go back. Ben and Jack are heck-bent to bring the old gang back together.

Kate and Sun have problems of their own. Kate has little rutabaga head in tow and now has someone hot on their tail. And Sun has another showdown with Widmore.

A really solid episode, no new mysteries and everything that happens moves the most prominent story arc (time skipping) forward (so to speak). It is also really cool to have the castaways go back in time to things (and people) we recognize from earlier in the series.

Characters

Sawyer and Daniel are the featured characters on the island, while Sayid and Hurley pull the lion’s share of advancing the plot in “real time” back on the mainland. Oh yeah, Locke also features prominently, back on the island.

Grade: B+

Running Commentary (or Greg’s Inner-monologue)

The record skips…

Dr. Chang is super cool.

An almost limitless energy that will allow them to manipulate time. And there are rules, rules that cannot be broken. I’m just curious, who do you suppose writes these rules? I’d like that job.

Heather says, she writes the rules. In fact…

She writes the rules that make the whole world sing… she writes the rules for every-thing…

Oh, it’s that guy. I guess, I’m going to have to remember his name. I think it’s Daniel. He’ll be Daniel until I can tell you his real name.

Mortuary

Jack was a train wreck when the plane crashed. Jack became a train wreck on the island and is a train wreck now.

I’m glad Ben has a plan. I’d be sad if Ben didn’t have a plan.

Three years earlier

Okay, a time reference. I guess that’s good. They’ve been off the island for three years. Watching Ben move the island, I am reminded that he was the one who said, “Whoever moves the island can never come back.” Uhm. Maybe he’s not going to go all the way, it would be a shame for something so cryptic to be contradicted so quickly. I mean that sounds like one of those rules. If someone is going to go to the trouble to write them and people are going to remember them, they shouldn’t be so easily cast aside. At least that’s what I think.

The Island – moved

Everything but the people is gone.

Oh, good. His name is Daniel. Apparently Daniel (the physicist) knows something about the camp...

Daniel: Your camp isn’t gone, it hasn’t been built yet.

Oh, I am sooo sure that’s not what Sawyer wanted to hear.

Now. (Kate)

And away she goes…

Island

Sawyer is the voice of reason.

Daniel: blah-blah-blah-blah

Sawyer: SLAP

Ah, there we go. All is good.

Cool, the island (or the people) are skipping through time like a record? Oh yeah, Daniel was on the island way back when Chang was. That’s pretty cool.

It’s ironic (and big of me to point out) that in my review of the last episode, it totally escaped me that that Locke was not one of the folk who got rescued. Good job guys.

Eco’s brother’s plane! The drug madonnas!

Wow. Evil Ethan! Huh, who’d have thunk. I suppose the whole moving the island is kind of like the creators calling for a mulligan. I’m actually good with that. I’d rather go back to a show that I like and enjoy it all over again than be sad that it went ca-ca.

Back to the future

Sun – Whitmore round 2: “Common Interests”

Uh-oh, Hurley has been implicated in Sayid’s dirty work.
A change of plan, should just be built into to all of Ben’s plans. Because his plans don’t really seem to go very well.

Sayid: …whatever he (Ben) tells you, just do the opposite.

Now, that sounds like a plan.

Wow. That was the worst action foreshadowing I’ve ever seen. I called the frying pan. Heather called the knives. Like it was choreographed by Charlie Brown.

We were really doing well up until the lame fight scene.

Back on Gilligan’s Island

Having the story jump back and forth in flashbacks and then flashforwards was one thing. Having the actual story jump back and forth in time is kind of fun. But I like time travel.

Time is like a string.

That is such an antiquated concept. Totally linear. Good theory, easy to prove (since we can neither go forward or backwards in time) but if we could… then this theory would kind of be like the whole “world is flat” concept. Just give us some time… we’ll figure it out.

Richard

Okay, I can totally see why my cool friends are hooked on this show again.

Richard: It’s a compass.

Locke: What does it do?

Richard: It points North, John.

That is awesome dialogue. That was a really scene with a guy who know what time travel is all about. Okay, Richard (whose name I apparently know) can stay.

Time-skips

Can I just say it now, I really like the time-skips. Sure if they go on all year I can see them becoming annoying. But this is kind of cool.

Sawyer: This would all be fascinating, if I was listening.

LMAO!!!

You can’t change the past

We say that only because we don’t know if anyone if anyone already has.

Miles is an idiot. And yes, apparently I know his name too.

Uh-oh, Charlotte has a nose-bleed. Dang, I know her name too. Frak me.

Daniel is definitely my new favorite character. Desmond is definitely like a little marionette, time’s puppet. I say, “puppet” but mean a word that rhymes with bitch. Oh wait, I mean bitch.

Oh crap that the end.

Okay friends, you are right. At least for one episode: Lost is back.