Friday, March 06, 2009

Lost Season Five: Episode 8

I blame the lateness of this review on the many hours I've spent Googling 'LaFleur'. The only thing I could come with is that i means flower in French. Since there isn't much that is flowery about Sawyer, could it be that the Lost guys have finally come up with a name that (gasp) has no significance? That unforgivable mistake aside, this episode gave Sawyer and Juliet a chance to shine. I'm really hoping we don't have a love quadrilateral between Sawyer, Jack, Kate and Juliet. Season three suffered a lot with all the lovey-dovey digressions, and any romance that doesn't involve Desmond and Penny will just be a diversion from the end-game.

Anyway, on to the bullets:

- Nice to see that the four-toed statue from Season two hasn't been forgotten. Not that we got any explanation for it. And not that I have any theory to explain it either. Sorry, I'm really down on my game today.

- Since Locke managed to stop the flashes by turning the wheel, why did he need to bring back the Oceanic Six? I suspect Richard Alpert and Ben have been lying to Locke because they have some other purpouse in mind for them. It certainly wouldn't be the first time Locke has been manipulated.

- On a related note, what were the really bad things that hapenned on the island that Ben mentioned to Jack in last season's finale? If he meant the flashes, then I don't think it qualifies. Most likely, Ben was lying yet again.

- I, and most probably everyone else, am still confused by the time travel. Faraday told the Losties that "What happened, happened." But isn't their simple presence changing the past? Had Juliet not been there, Amy's baby wouldn't have been delivered. And given Lost's track record, that baby is probably someone important.

- Hey, Jin learned English in the three years he was with Dharma.

- What did Sawyer do to convince Juliet to stay beyong the two weeks? Surely, she didn't fall for him that quickly.

- Which timeline are Locke, Ben etc in? Are they also in the Dharma period? And in the next episode, titled 'Namaste', I sure hope we see Ben as a kid.

- In the coming war between Dharma and The Others, which side will the Losties be on. I forsee a huge split occuring.

- Another episode with no Desmond. Can we get him back on the damn island already?

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

sorry this is going to be another shamelessly superficial comment;

the sawyer-juliet story was inevitable. if nothing had happened between them, there would've been some serious concern as to their sexual orientation.
besides juliet's revelation to sawyer about leaving sounded like more of a prompt for sawyer to speeding things up and realise his feelings for her. you could see she was hesitant and waiting for him to declare some semblence of feelings for her, platonic or not.
sawyer may be a former conman but his eyes gave away signs of deeply excruciating pain when talking to h.. what's his name, howard? hubert? about it three years being a sufficient enough period to get over anyone. then we see that guilty look wash over him as he learns of kate and co's return to the island. gotcha!!

i actually kind of like richard now(aka. ''guy with eyeliner on'') for his straight up tit-for-tat attitude, i'll bet he's a cyborg underneath. (clue: the non-twitching face muscles and that flawless symmetry of facial features.) i even found him terrifying in this episode, for the first time ever.

omg!! michelle the ctu agent from 24 playing amy!! i was overjoyed. but that means poor tony's going to be lonely over at 24.

i wonder who the baby is going to be, sawyer? desmond? the age seems just right for either of them two. although it's most likely desmond given his scottish origins.
but then if it's sawyer, then omg! juliet delivered sawyer!

right with you bubs, the show can't go any further without brutha.

Anonymous said...

UNlikely* for the baby to be desmond, is what i meant, doh!

Anonymous said...

Supe: I've loved Richard this season. Apparently, he doesn't wear any eyeliner and he just naturally looks he does. In The Dark Knight they digitally altered his eyes so that it wouldn't seem like he was wearing eyeliner.
Speaking of Michelle Dreschler, how ridiculously awesome has 24 been this season. (Spoilers ahead). I can handle all the time travel you through at me, but breaking into the White House through a secret underwater passage is beyond belief.
I doubt the baby is Sawyer. We saw his mother get killed in season one and that didn't sound like Amy (Michelle from 24).

Anonymous said...

great, thanks a lot bubs, i was hoping to watch the missed 24 episodes sometime in one sitting. i haven't watched any 24 since episode 3 (which was a fan-bloody-tastic one).

it made me laugh when sawyer made that eyeliner remark, he also called faraday 'play dough' haha! yes, we all need a little sawyer in our lives!

oh yes, you're right, but that baby's definitely someone important, wrong decade for ben or locke, bug eyes seems more of a '60s baby.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, a bit late in commenting on this. I actually really liked the episode, if nothing but for the character development.

For one, the four-toed statue - all the Lost boards were abuzz with the Egyptian mythology displayed in this episode - the Ankh, everlasting life symbol, was Paul's necklace that Amy kept with her. In terms of the statue, many felt it was an Egyptian god like Anubis. But I actually did some research and came up with my own theory (I know, I am SUCH a nerd). I think the status is the Egyptian hippo fertility goddess. Here is an image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7816708@N06/2222651660

And here is a blurb when I tried to read more: "In all of the ancient Egyptian astronomical diagrams there is one figure which is always larger than all the rest, and most frequently found at the center of what appears to be a horizontal parade of figures. This figure is Taweret "The Great One", a goddess depicted as a pregnant hippopotamus standing upright."

She has four toes, and also in some of the images (see this link for more pictures as well as more info) holds an Ankh in one hand. She is not only a goddess of fertility and birth but also the goddess of REbirth = everlasting life.

Definitely has interesting connotations given the Lost obsession with childbirth, fertility, and re-birth.

Oh, and Bubs, Entertainment Weekly had an interesting take on the LaFleur symbolism:

"LaFleur." Which is flower in French. Which reminds me of Ulysses, the James Joyce novel that Lost dropped into its mix o' hyperlink literary references two episodes ago. In the book, there's a pathetically poignant bit of business in which Everyman mock hero Leopold Bloom — painfully aware that his wife is having an affair with another man — tries to get into the infidelity game himself by trading correspondence with a would-be mistress using the pseudonym ''Henry Flower.'' We learn all this while the Irishman wanders around his island town, lost in a daze, deliberating whether to open his potential lover's latest letter and pondering his father's suicide."

I also heard that the actor playing Richard Alpert doesn't wear eyeliner, those are how his eyes are naturally (I wish my eyes did that, but alas). I actually am really curious of what his role is in the Widmore-Ben power play - and why the eff does he never age? I mean, we see babies like Rousseau's daughter Alex grow up, as did Ben, etc. so what is Alpert's deal? Very curious...

Alright that's all the brain power I have for right now.

Anonymous said...

Oooh, maybe Alpert doesn't age because he is indigenous to the island...

I really need to go to bed.

Anonymous said...

that about the goddess of fertility is one clever find kalsoom.

i was skeptical when i first saw the four toed foot statue(in season 1 was it?) i found the touch was a bit lord-of-the-rings-ripoff. (don't know if you've seen fellowship of the ring where members of the fellowship are rowing down a river and are met by humongous ancient statues.)
that was back then, now i know better. lost, ripoff? never!

i'm envious of alpert too. not so much about the never-aging but the eyeliner effect and those lush, full eyelashes!
i actually believe he never ages because he flits between time. could be wrong though.

Anonymous said...

Alpert is prettier than most women I know!

The time flit is plausible - in general, he seems to be more a part of the island than any other character in the show. He is also the most constant character. If everlasting life is a theme on Lost,then he is the greatest manifestation of it.

Anonymous said...

By now its obvious that Alpert is the true leader of The Others. So I'd like to know where Widmore, Ben and Locke fit in. Could it be that Alpert is Jacob or a manifestation of Jacob (which could also explain why he doesn't age).

Kalsoom: I read Doc Jensen's Entertainment Weekly piece after I did this post.

About the four-toed statue, there was a theory going round that it was actually Sawyer. A few episodes ago he stubbed his toe and many thought he would eventually have it amputated, and they'd flash back to a time where Sawyer is worshiped as a god. Thankfully, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Anonymous said...

I actually also think that Alpert is Jacob. I really hope they do an episode focusing just on him soon. He is the most interesting character on the show.