Thursday, March 15, 2007 - 9:23 PM
First of all, an apology - I really should've done this recap last Thursday. See, on Friday I went from NYC down to Maryland to visit a near and dear friend of mine for the weekend. Then, on Monday, I went back to New York to meet up with a few college friends, and from there we went to New Jersey, and then Massachusetts to hang out in Cape Cod for a bit. Then, yesterday, I was on a few buses all day going from there 
to Marcellus, NY, my hometown. I got home in the evening, and before I knew it, the next episode of Lost was on already. There. Like how I turned an apology into an indulgent paragraph about my life?
So this recap concerns last week's Lost - when Sayid, Locke, and Kate first met our dear friend Mikhail Bakunin, aka Eye Patch Man, who lives in a large house on the middle of the island. And by the way, what a great temporary character. He's a brute and a weasel at the same time. "I am the last survivor of the Dharma Initiative," he tells them at nearly the beginning of the episode, and already: wow. This is going to be a good episode.
Of course, the twists were far from over. After he reveals some backstory about how he got on the island, the whole thing turns out to be a ruse, thanks to the perception of our dear friend Sayid: he's actually a member of the Others. Or, as Dharma people tended to call them (including, if you remember, Kelvin Inman of the Swan hatch), the Hostiles.
What followed was a fun trip through one of the best episodes of Lost this season: Sayid and Kate found Dharma records in the basement, along with some dynamite; Locke discovered a hidden message on the computer; and that MIA Other, Ms. Clue, reappeared. Briefly. Kate and Sayid find her in the basement - by the way, nice punch, Kate - and bring her upstairs, only to find Bakunin holding Locke hostage. A standoff occurs in which a lot of Russian yelling is involved, which ends with Bakunin shooting Clue dead.
Of course, while that was the climax, the kicker at the end was Locke's discovery on the computer of Creepy Asian Dharma Guy (of Orientation Videos fame), who told him to press 77 if the station had been overrun by the hostiles. He did, and poof - the place friggin' exploded. (Good thing it gave him enough time to leave, eh?)
So how about a round of "Cool Things In the Episode"/"What We Learned":
-Sayid had a glorious return! This was his episode, and his flashbacks luckily only took up a little bit of screen time: they made their point and got out of the way of the main action. They were actually pretty cool. I guessed the reversal at the end - Sayid really did torture the woman - and was really glad when I turned out to be right. Sayid's the only guy who can be tied up on the ground begging for forgiveness of a woman he tortured, and still seem like a really cool, stand-up guy.
-More Dharma and Others history. This, of course, depends on how truthful Bakunin was about his exposition, but I can reasonably assume he was; I doubt the writers would throw that much out there as just red herrings. His personal history was obviously a lie, but we can deduce that the Others were once directly at odds with the Dharma folks (and apparently won the war), and that the Others were there beforehand. The cynics will say that actually leaves us with another dead end - we now have even less of an idea of where the Others came from, since even the Dharma folks didn't know - but I actually think that's pretty cool. It confirms, sort of, that the Dharma Initiative isn't as central to the mysteries of the island as we may have believed before - actually, at this point they seem to be just as clueless as the flight survivors. But we also know that the Others are connected to some shadowy group too, thanks to Juliet's flashback - one more than a little interested in fertility.
-Finally, I have to mention the B plot - Sawyer's big game of Ping Pong with Hurley. The outcome was a foregone conclusion (obviously Hurley's going to beat him) but the outcome was perfect: since Sawyer lost the bet, he can't call anyone by a nickname for a full week. In show terms, that could be until almost the end of the season. I was getting a bit tired of the whole obscure-nickname-reference anyway - and it seems the writers were, too - so it was cool.
to Marcellus, NY, my hometown. I got home in the evening, and before I knew it, the next episode of Lost was on already. There. Like how I turned an apology into an indulgent paragraph about my life?So this recap concerns last week's Lost - when Sayid, Locke, and Kate first met our dear friend Mikhail Bakunin, aka Eye Patch Man, who lives in a large house on the middle of the island. And by the way, what a great temporary character. He's a brute and a weasel at the same time. "I am the last survivor of the Dharma Initiative," he tells them at nearly the beginning of the episode, and already: wow. This is going to be a good episode.
Of course, the twists were far from over. After he reveals some backstory about how he got on the island, the whole thing turns out to be a ruse, thanks to the perception of our dear friend Sayid: he's actually a member of the Others. Or, as Dharma people tended to call them (including, if you remember, Kelvin Inman of the Swan hatch), the Hostiles.
What followed was a fun trip through one of the best episodes of Lost this season: Sayid and Kate found Dharma records in the basement, along with some dynamite; Locke discovered a hidden message on the computer; and that MIA Other, Ms. Clue, reappeared. Briefly. Kate and Sayid find her in the basement - by the way, nice punch, Kate - and bring her upstairs, only to find Bakunin holding Locke hostage. A standoff occurs in which a lot of Russian yelling is involved, which ends with Bakunin shooting Clue dead.
Of course, while that was the climax, the kicker at the end was Locke's discovery on the computer of Creepy Asian Dharma Guy (of Orientation Videos fame), who told him to press 77 if the station had been overrun by the hostiles. He did, and poof - the place friggin' exploded. (Good thing it gave him enough time to leave, eh?)
So how about a round of "Cool Things In the Episode"/"What We Learned":
-Sayid had a glorious return! This was his episode, and his flashbacks luckily only took up a little bit of screen time: they made their point and got out of the way of the main action. They were actually pretty cool. I guessed the reversal at the end - Sayid really did torture the woman - and was really glad when I turned out to be right. Sayid's the only guy who can be tied up on the ground begging for forgiveness of a woman he tortured, and still seem like a really cool, stand-up guy.
-More Dharma and Others history. This, of course, depends on how truthful Bakunin was about his exposition, but I can reasonably assume he was; I doubt the writers would throw that much out there as just red herrings. His personal history was obviously a lie, but we can deduce that the Others were once directly at odds with the Dharma folks (and apparently won the war), and that the Others were there beforehand. The cynics will say that actually leaves us with another dead end - we now have even less of an idea of where the Others came from, since even the Dharma folks didn't know - but I actually think that's pretty cool. It confirms, sort of, that the Dharma Initiative isn't as central to the mysteries of the island as we may have believed before - actually, at this point they seem to be just as clueless as the flight survivors. But we also know that the Others are connected to some shadowy group too, thanks to Juliet's flashback - one more than a little interested in fertility.
-Finally, I have to mention the B plot - Sawyer's big game of Ping Pong with Hurley. The outcome was a foregone conclusion (obviously Hurley's going to beat him) but the outcome was perfect: since Sawyer lost the bet, he can't call anyone by a nickname for a full week. In show terms, that could be until almost the end of the season. I was getting a bit tired of the whole obscure-nickname-reference anyway - and it seems the writers were, too - so it was cool.
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