Oops, I Forgot About "Walt"

How could I forget to mention anything about Stand-In Walt. That was frustrating, but understandable. When Michael left his mom's house, Walt looked out the window. Only it wasn't really Walt - as in it was not Malcolm David Kelley. Disappointing.

Oh, and - I don't watch the credits at the beginning, like a lot of fanatics do. I don't like to know ahead of time who may be on the show. That's why Libby was a surprise, even though I predicted it WITHOUT having seen the credits.

I Met Kevin Johnson

Before I begin, let us take a moment of silence to mourn the 5-week long absense of our beloved Lost.


Okay. Done. When I said beloved, I think I really meant, "I've invested 3 and a half seasons to this show; therefore, I cannot turn my back on it."

Not that "Meet Kevin Johnson" was bad. Let's take a look at the positive of last night's episode, shall we?

• Locke's "Family Meeting," starring Ben. LOVED Hurley's reaction to the "revelation that the Freighters were ther efor Ben. I was also pleased that Ben revealed pretty quickly to the group that Michael was his Man on the Boat. (Thankfully so, since the rest of us have known for a LONG time.) The reaction throughout the room was appropriate, and I loved it as well.
• Funny, I wrote in my notes, "What's with the suicide note clipped to his jacket?" I struck the word suicide, because I didn't really know, but apparently, I knew.
• The moment I heard Michael's nurse's voice, I knew it was Ms. Libby. We need more Libby! Too bad Michelle Rodriguez is probably never coming back. Not that I like Ana Lucia, but I think it would be even more haunting to Michael if she appeared as well. Creepy.
• I knew pretty quickly that this was a flashback of what happened after Michael left the island. I mean, they kinda tried pretty hard to trick us, but duh. (Meanwhile, my husband couldn't figure it out, and we did argue about it for a couple of minutes. Haha.)
• I'm glad that Walt has his grandmother to look after him.
• I also knew that someone would appear to Michael in that alley right before he was going to shoot himself. Only, I thought it would be Ben...
• I LOVE off-island Friendly! He's so clean cut and assertive. I shouldn't have been so surprised, though. We knew that Alpert and Ethan have been off the island.
• Mmmmm-hmmm... Michael changes his mind when he sees the footage of that 315 "discovery."
• Arturo! Love it! And Michael's face. Hahahaha!
• The proof that the 315 wreckage was staged - thank you! Although, the skeptic in me still thinks that Ben could be twisting this around. We still have no reason to trust him.
• I think we've pretty much confirmed that Frank is totally clueless.
• Duh, that's Ben on the phone, not Walt.
• Finally, we get some island stuff again.

All right, that was about the good of it. As for the rest of what happened....

• It took a bit long to get the flashback, didn't it?
• I guess Michael was too distracted being Kevin Johnson that he forgot to clean up the brain stain, eh?
• It looks like KJ cleans up all the "biohazard" on the boat, and there happens to be a lot of it.
• Uh, so Michael's going to ease his suffering by pawning Jin's watch for a gun?! I'd like to think that the watch just brings back too many painful memories for Mike.
• Michael, Michael, Michael. Who the heck would tell his 10-year-old son that he killed two people in order to get him back? Yeah, I don't know what I would do if I had to keep two months of my life secret, and I had just killed two people - on my own, not at the direction of Ben. So, ok.
• It's taking us long to get out of this flashback too.
• Ah, Michael can pick up Naomi's accent because of his familiarity with good ol' Charlie.
• Sayid, Sayid, Sayid. Way to eff it up for everyone, bro. Is that why you end up working for Ben? Now you need to redeem yourself too? Then again, it could be all part of the grand plan, as Michael didn't seem to have an incredibly strong reaction...
• Karl died. We kinda knew that would happen. Ooops! Then Rousseau died! That, I wasn't so sure of. Poor Alex... that moment when Rousseau told her she loved her... awwww.... Then mommy dies! Could it really be the freighters? Is it Frank and whoever it was that left with him on the 'copter? Is it Daniel and Charlotte? Or is it the Others, instructed to kill Karl and Rousseau by Daddy Dearest?

I guess we'll have to wait until April 24! I'm surprised they had a preview for episode 9. I thought they were still working on it. Looks like the monster makes its way to New Otherton and wreaks havoc.

I'm very sad, as I will be in Helsinki the week that Lost returns. Hopefully I can find a way to watch it on ABC.com, but I don't think I can do it until the weekend. I never wait to watch Lost! It will be tragic, I tell ya.

I'll still be posting here and there, when I find juicy tidbits. So, see ya around!

More On Ji Yeon

A new day can shed a lot of light on a situation. Such is the case with me and "Ji Yeon." I realized that I do like this episode. It just took a while to get going. To put it in American Idol terms, it started out a bit pitchy, got more comfortable toward the middle, and worked it out at the end. So, I have a couple of things to add/fix since I posted my recap last night. (If you haven't read it yet, what are you waiting for?)

First, I read the beloved Jeff Jensen's recap on ew.com, and I realized that the captain's name is Gault, not Golden. (I must be really tired when I'm watching the show.)

Next, I could be really really wrong about the whole 'Ben staged the 815 wreckage' thing. I mean, there was that whole note, "Don't trust the captain." But is that what it really said? I mean, it looked like it was written by an illiterate person, or a first grader. Also, did the author mean the captain of the ship, or another captain? I'm sure that's looking too far into things, so, perhaps I shouldn't be so quick to believe Cap'n Gault when he implies that Ben wrangled up 324 bodies to send to the depths of the ocean.

Finally, perhaps the O6 are just the O6: Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sayid, Aaron, Sun. Done.

What's Goin' On Ji Yeon?

Hmmm.... I really want to go to sleep right now, but I should get all this Lost stuff off my chest and out of the way.

With the last two episodes prior, we started a bit of a slump, and I'm not sure where we're ending up. "Ji Yeon" left me with mixed feelings again. I'm a bit wistful over the fact that, had we not known that Harold Perrineau was returning, we would have been pretty shocked about his presence on the freighter. I was glad to finally see him, but I couldn't help but feel a bit robbed of that wonderful "OOOHHHHHHHH!" moment.

Also, we were promised that we would know who the Oceanic 6 were by the end of this episode. Well, I'm sorry, but I don't know who they are! I think I do, only because I read on lostpedia.com that Jin's tombstone had the date of the crash on it - September 22, 2004. (It does, I checked again.) That says to me that Jin doesn't make it off the island, so Aaron is one of the 6...? Lordy lu.

All right, I guess I'll organize the rest of my thoughts by Freighter, Island, and Off-Island events.

Freighter

What is this errand that Frank was preparing for, eh? And why, oh why, does Frank tell Sayid and Desmond that they don't want to meet the Captain?

(By the way, ain't it a hoot that Say and Des both have long hair and beards, and they were both in the military?)

What's up with poor Regina? At first, I thought her reading upside down was a silly little cover-up for something more sinister that she had up her sleeve. Well, sinister, not so much. Just plain ol' depressing is more like it. I'm not sure what this extreme cabin fever is that El Capitan speaks of, but I have a feeling it's induced by something/one other than just the cabin itself.

We finally meet the Cap, and his name is Golden. I'm sure there's some crazy literary reference that I'm missing, but that Jeff Jensen will be sure to know. For now, I'll just say that it's... huh? Cap'n doesn't look ominous. He doesn't look scary or threatening, and yeah, he does seem pretty forthright as one of our boys said. The episoded finally got interesting. Cap'n clearly knows that Des and CW (that's Charles Widmore to you) have a history, and he knows all about the staging of Flight 815, which he seems to claim was done by none other than...

BENJAMIN LINUS!!!!!

I don't know why that never ever occured to me. Of course Ben would want to stage that.... he doesn't want anyone finding out what really happened. And, heck yeah, I've been wondering where the hell 300+ bodies come from... oh Ben. What the EFF have you been up to?!

Last, but not least, we have the "big reveal," or rather, the big fat disappointment. Really, the fact that Ben was possibly responsible for the staging of the 815 discovery was way more WOW. But, ok, ok.... Michael's return was fulfilling to an extent. He goes by Johnson, Kevin Johnson. He cleans up bio-hazards (to put it mildly). He and Sayid pretend to never have known each other. (I can't remember, but I don't think Des ever met Michael.) Strangely enough, the Freighter Folk seem to know that there's a "saboteur" on their ship, but they do not know who it is.

Island

Jin's broken English was all over the place. When Kate returned, he asked, "What happened?" as if he was saying, "What's up, dude?" DDK (that's Daniel Dae Kim to you), you are better than that.

The dialogue for the first 10 minutes or so of this episode is excruciatingly contrived... ugh. Or maybe it's the delivery of the lines. It's actually both. Both. Bad lines, bad acting. Kate and the Kwons don't have very good screen chemistry.

Juliet and the Kwons though, that's another story. Oh, when J let it slip that Sun had cheated, I knew that a hard slap was in order. Thank you, Sun, for delivering. Though, Juliet sure knows what cards to play to get what she wants. Love it.

Bernard! Where have you been old man! It's a Wolfram and Hart reunion! (That's an Angel reference, in case you were wondering.) I'm glad they answered some of our questions with Bernard's ponderings. And before we even saw an episode! The only thing I'm a little iffy on, is the whole 'we went with Jack because Locke is a murderer' thing. Um, didn't Jack attempt to shoot Lock in the face right in front of everyone?! I would stay away from both of them, gosh darnit!

I actually liked the remaining island scenes - Juliet explaining to Sun what the hell would happen to her if she stays, and Jin returning to the Kwon tent with dinner. During the latter scene, however, it was clear that poor Jin was not going to make it. Their fate was clearly doomed. How many times did he have to say "You will never lose me," or something to that effect? Doomed.

Off-Island

So, honestly, honestly, I had a flash of "what if they did and flash forward and flashback at the same time?" But it was just a flash, and I gave in and bought that Jin and Sun were in the same time. They totally got me! I'm a fool.

I was all freaked out by the nurse and doctor. I was sure they were going to kill Sun or steal her baby. (Damn, they got me good.)

I was so sure that when Jin dropped his cell phone and it kept getting run over and all that awful stuff was happening to him, that people were out to get him. Although, I did notice how severely outdated his cell phone was, so that should have solidified the fact that Jin was in way-back-when. (I was duped!)

Sun has the baby, and the doctor doesn't steal it, and it doesn't come out a black baby, or bug-eyed like Ben, so that's good. But what's not good is seeing someone cooing over placenta-covered baby. No no no. I think that in real life, they actually clean that stuff off before they hand baby over to Mama.

Hurley is the only one to show up for... baby's birth? Jin's death anniversary? (Or is it the crash anniversary?) And why exactly is Hurley glad that it's just the two of them?

Ok, I think that's about it for the moment. The battery on the laptop is about gone, and I am just too tired to plug in or keep writing.

Calling Out "The Other Woman"

First of all, I'm pretty bummed that I never did get to write something about one of the best episodes ever, "The Constant." Perhaps it's best to leave that one alone anyway - there's so much to be said, that it's better left unsaid.

So, this week, we had "The Other Woman." I'll hold off on my opinion until later.

We started with a would-be trick by the writers, who tried to get us to think that maybe Juliet did leave the island. I didn't fall for it. Even more disturbing than the writers trying to trick us, was Harper's (Andrea Roth) over-cosmetically-enhanced face. I looked up Andrea Roth on IMDB - she did not always look so rubbery. She's very pretty in the pictures I saw. I feel kinda bad for saying this, but in last night's episode, I was so disturbed by the unnatural look of her face that I cringed every time she was on the screen. To make clear, she was not creepy in an actor/character sense, like Michael Emerson is with Ben - though her acting was fine. Who knows, the makeup people coulda done it to her, but either way, bad choice on someone's part. She's probably a very nice person. Normally I wouldn't feel so awful about pointing out that someone's face turns me off, but this week I apparently do.

So, enough about that. Juliet went into the jungle to find those sneaky Freighters, and started to hear the whispers. We all know by now what the whispers mean - something is going to appear. And voila! There was Harper. Here's where I started to wonder - do you only see people who don't really exist, or who are dead? It seems that Juliet knew that Harper wasn't really there. Here is where I made my first and only prediction of the night - that Harper got prego and died, and that's how Juliet and Goodwin end up getting it on.

I was so completely wrong. And DUH, I should have knowng better, given that the title is "The Other Woman." Harper knew what was going on, and really she couldn't care less, except that Ben will take it out on Goodwin. So, who is it exactly that Juliet looks exactly like? Annie? His Mom? Either way, Ben had some twisted obsession with our little Dr. Burke, and apparently still does.

John Locke, you're a fool. Though he has grown a lot in some sense, he's still plagued by the same flaws he had pre-crash. He still has a faulty sense of pride that won't allow him to see things any way but his own. (Ok, he's not the only one - Jack.) He still wants the approval/acceptance of a man who has power over him. Off-island, it was his father. Now, it's Ben. How disappointing. If Sawyer can become a man who plays horseshoe with Hurley and not call him nicknames or be a bad sport when he loses, can't John manage to get out of someone's shadow for once?

Best line of the night: "What's Ben gonna do?" - Goodwin

Jack and Juliet catch up with Kate, who was knocked out by Ginger Jones. Juliet realized she'll always be the other woman, and while Jack was distracted by Kate's head injury, she ran off to go get some water, aka find some Freighters to go kill.

Meanwhile, back at the Barracks, Ben showed Locke a Red Sox tape-turned-last-ditch-effort. Bradford Meade - I mean, Charles Widmore - is The Man Who Sent the Boat. I feel a bit dumb for not knowing this, because - duh - that's how Naomi would have gotten a picture of Penny and Des. So now, the question is - did Daddy widmore calculate every step so that Des would end up on the island, turn the failsafe key, and ultimately allow people to locate it? Ah, yes, my friends, I believe that is very probable. So who was it that Widmore was beating to a pulp on that video? And why was he doing it himself, and not having one of his goons do it? Another - when exactly was this shot, given that it had to be after he showed Jack the Red Sox game about a month or two ago...?

After all that, we flashed to a scene of Ben trying to romance - or freak out? - Juliet by having a dinner party of two. He mentions Zach and Emma, those two kids, but what they are needed for - who knows. He is still mentioning Jacob's list, and I'm wondering if there's really a list. Ben was creeping J out in this scene, and we saw more of just how obsessed he was with the doc.

In real time, J finally made it to the Tempest, which is a HUGE station with some fancy pipes and tanks in it. Daniel's a sweetie, Char, not so much. And here was where it all clicked - Juliet is still very much under Ben's thumb. Sadly, it took Charlotte kicking her around a bit for her to realize that. Side note - nothing against Kristen Bell, but so glad that Rebecca Mader plays Charlotte, because it just wouldn't have been believeable with petite little Kristen kicking ass. Unless you called her a Slayer.

Ok, here's the sucky part. Ben showed J the body of her beloved Goodwin. She asked him why he was showing her. He answered something - but our DVR messed it all up, and we couldn't hear what he said. At all. The screen was all frozen and pixillated, and the next thing we heard was Ben telling her to take as much time as she needed. Damn.

Jack and Juliet had a moment that many fans have been waiting for - awwww.

Ben gleefully carried his clean clothes to the house and told Hugo and James that he's see them at dinner. The end.

All in all, not the best this season. The reveals were not so shocking. Although, one thing I did not know was that Ben can control the whispers or the apparitions or whatever those are on the island. I'm not sure if he has done it every time we've seen them, but he sure knows how to get someone to see them.

Last, because I do need to get to work, the promo people at ABC need to get their act together. In the teaser for next week's episode, they actually said we'd see a face we never expected to see again. Come on, people! You think we all haven't been smart enough to figure out that Michael is that one on that freighter?

And with that, I close. I'm tired.