Lost, the Lighthouse

[mariness]

1. I don't know about you, but when I'm impatiently waiting for answers on this show the one thing I desperately need more of is gratuitous shots of Jack's naked chest. Thanks, show :) And no, show, showing a mysterious scar does not make that initial chest shot any less gratuitous.

2. Hi, alternate Jack's son. Let's examine your life. On the bright side, you're not stuck on an evil island getting chased by smoke monsters and weird gods with number fixations. On the decidedly negative side, you have Jack as a father. I'm honestly not sure that you're better off.

Meanwhile, was anybody even mildly surprised that alternate Jack couldn't be bothered to pick up his son on time? I didn't think so. (Yes, yes, excuses for having the coffin in Berlin and all that. I have to say, however, couldn't the family just go ahead with at least the memorial service part while waiting for the coffin to make it back to LA?)

3. "Everything is an option." Well, when you live on an island with tattooed sharks, polar bears and huge building complexes that nobody ever sees until a later television season, and nuclear bombs that generally untrained people have no problems merrily trekking across an island in frighteningly unsecured ways, sure, maybe. On the other hand, Samurai Dude, this is the most rule bound island I have ever heard of. "You can only leave at this specific angle! You have to hit buttons every few minutes or the planet blows up! If you eat the peanut butter, the smoke monster will hit you!" And so on. Just saying.

4. I'm impressed that on an island filled with polar bears and smoke monsters and number fixated gods and poisonings and resurrections two people can still find the time to play Tic-tac-toe. It's heartwarming. If that is the adjective I'm looking for, and it may not be.

5. Jacob is remarkably informed about the Temple's eating arrangements for someone who is supposedly too dead to be intrigued about food issues. Just saying.

7. Yeah, Jacob. Start this conversation off by insulting Hugo's memory capabilities. And the show is still trying to convince me that you're not evil.

8. Ah, good to know that island Jack has not lost his endearing habit of failing to answer perfectly reasonable questions. Again, good and endearing may not be the adjectives I'm going for here.

9. Oh, Lost. I get my necessary dose of grossness from Fringe. No need for you to jump in.

10. Sidenote: I heard "Why don't you go back to the courtyard" as "why don't you go to the cornfield" and immediately had a nasty flashback to that Twilight zone episode where the kid kept sending everyone to the cornfield. Which just convinces me that yes, yes, Jacob is evil. Cornfield.

Second sidenote: Reason number 9467 to love the internet: knowing that you don't really have to pay attention to any of those weird hieroglyphs on the wall because someone, somewhere will have screenshots and translations up in a couple of hours. Thank you internet!

11. This samurai dude is like the least effective guardian of secret passages marked by weird hieroglyphs ever.

12. "I just lied to a samurai."

13. Jacob's Grin of Evil. (I'm sticking to this. Anybody in charge of an island like this and who delivers messages by large ankhs in guitar cases instead of nice simple texts has to be evil.)

14. Far be it from me to sympathize with Jack, but if I had to hear that my alcoholic father was turning into Obi-Wan Kenobi I'd have the exact same expression. Incidentally, this entire conversation: comedy gold.

15. You know, for an evil island freaked out by the idea of infected people running around, they're all a bit careless about actual infections that could easily lead to tetanus or at the very least loss of a leg or gangrene. I'm just saying.

16. Wait, the black guy wasn't dead? Isn't this breaking one of Lost's rules or something?

17. Six. Seasons. To. Explain. An. Asthma. Inhaler, and still leave it essentially unexplained? SERIOUSLY, show?

17. "Jack. I almost shot you." I, for one, have no hesitation in admitting that I kinda regretted that she didn't, and even more regretted that the gun didn't accidentally go off in the other direction.
18. Jack. Six seasons into this show, and you still haven't figured out that telling Kate to wait for anything, much less you, is an utter exercise in futility?

19. Single most confusing moment of the episode: Kate, failing to join Jack and Hurley. For a moment I felt as if Lost were showing us yet another universe. Or that I was watching another show.

20. Good lord. What is alternate Jack driving?

21. "I came back here because I was broken. And I was stupid enough to think this place would fix me." In a long, long list of Stupid Things People Have Done On This Show, this would be at the top of the list, yes. Jack. It's an EVIL ISLAND. Have you not been paying attention to the death toll?

22. Seriously, Lost. How many hidden buildings are ON this island?

"Why haven't we seen this before?" Sing it, Jack. Seriously, that little survey of the island someone suggested you make back in the first season? Reconsider making this little survey of the island again. Incidentally, has anyone bothered to map the place?

23. A, Jin, probably should have mentioned Kate's little kidnapping attempt a bit earlier, b) yeah, Claire, I couldn't believe it either but c) on the bright side, this gives yet another person an excellent reason to hit Kate on the head. So all good.

24. Claire, I'm all for the chopping people up with axes, but could you direct that hatred to someone else? Like, say, Kate?

25. Um, show, why are you playing Loud Meaningful Music over the very nice Chopin piece that we are meant to be impressed by? We GET that this is an Important Character Moment. Don't whack us over the head with it. (While I'm at it, the sign about "candidates" for the conservatory? I almost saw the falling anvils.)

26. Nothing against Hurley's interpretation of the lighthouse, exactly, but the problem doesn't so much seem to be getting TO the island as getting OFF the island.

27. Jacob. Allow me to introduce you to a little program called Microsoft Excel. It comes free with your Microsoft Office software and will happily sort 360 names for you and do all kinds of things with numbers without, say, forcing you to pull on ropes to move mirrors around or build rather fake looking lighthouses on otherwise pristine and lovely bits of coastline causing a million million viewers to shout out, "Why didn't we see this before?"

28. Sure, Jack, go ahead and smash the first thing on the island actually willing and able to provide a few answers. Of course, you're the same guy who thought that blowing up an Evil Island with an atomic bomb was a good idea, so, I guess this is not exactly unexpected.

Off topic: I missed this, but according to other, sharper eyed people, number 108 is Wallace, or William Wallace, which means that the last scene of this show will consist of the Losties shrieking out, "You can take our sanity! You can take our souls! You can take our destiny! BUT YOU CAN NEVER TAKE OUR FREEDOM!" as Jacob and the Man in Black merrily rip them all to pieces. Look, this is the same show that likes to shoot off nuclear bombs and cause appendix scars to appear marring certain people's beautiful wax (or laser hair removal) jobs WITHOUT WARNING. IT COULD HAPPEN.

29. See? Even Claire has joined the Let's Kill Kate bandwagon! Incidentally, show, the best and greatest gift you could give me? LET THIS HAPPEN. I may even forgive the inevitable disappointment of the end.