Friday, April 25. 2008
LOST: The Shape of Things to Come [RECAP]
Well, how many wrinkles did that episode throw at us? Boy, shocking deaths, lots of little clues to the future, and some concrete references which start to put the "history of the future" into perspective. I guess as usual, we'll start at the beginning. Or is it the end, or somewhere in the middle....argh.
Doctor Ray
We'll get this part out of the way up front. On the beach, Jack is getting some pills out of the "pharmacy briefcase", when Kate busts him. He says they're antibiotics, that he hasn't been feeling well. Kate voices her concern that Sayid and Desmond haven't returned with help.
Vincent (yay! Vincent!) starts barking at something. Bernard fishes a body out of the water, and yells for help. Faraday and Charlotte both know who it is, its the doctor from the ship.
Ray's had his throat slit, and Jack asks if Faraday knows anything about it. "He was fine the last time I saw him." The satellite phone is still broken, but they devise a scheme to use it to transmit morse code.
Once they rig up a telegraph to the phone, Faraday asks the freighter about the doctor. They reply, according to Faraday, "They didn't say anything about the doctor, but the helicopter will be back in the morning."
"He's lying." Bernard pipes up. They really said that the doctor is in fact on the freighter, and he's fine. "Why are you lying?" Jack asks Faraday. "Were you ever going to take us off this island?" "No."
And then Jack doubles over in pain, apparently he's more ill than he led Kate to believe....
Australia is the key to the whole game!
"We're all going to die!" announces Hurley. "Calm down!"
And we find Hurley, Locke and Sawyer sitting around a table playing a rousing game of Risk (I think?) An allusion to the coming war? Perhaps.
Alex, meanwhile, is being led, bound and blindfolded by the squad from the freighter. They arrive at "the fence," and order Alex to turn it off. She does, but adds a sequence which sets off a warning. (And there was a 16 and a 23 in there if I was paying attention....)
The phone rings back at the barracks. A befuddled Locke answers, and a recorded voice keeps repeating something. "I think its for Ben."
Ben, is playing something on the piano in the other room, and Locke, Sawyer and Hurley enter the room.
"What's code 14J?" Ben panics, and grabs a sawed-off shotgun from the piano bench. "They're here!"
"I take it 14J isn't the code for the pizza boy?" Sawyer retorts. It's an early warning system, so Ben surmises that one of his people has been captured. They've already lost five minutes due to Locke's indecision. "So much for a head start."
"It's very important that you survive, John. Stay close to me, if you want to live, I'm your best chance."
They start to "dig in", bracing the doors with furniture. Sawyer's off looking for Claire, and one of the LOSTie "redshirts" is shot, and then another. The commando team launches a rocket into Claire's house, and blows it to bits. "Claire!"
"You said I need to survive, why?" Locke asks Ben. "You're the only person who can help us, who can talk to Jacob, and we need to find him." "I don't know where the cabin is!" "I know, but Hurley does."
Sawyer digs through the rubble of Claire's house, and finds her still alive. She mumbles "Charlie?" as he picks her up and starts back towards Locke's cabin.
Hurley puts the baby in a clothesbasket and sees Sawyer and Claire, he goes to open the door, and Ben threatens to shoot him. Instead he throws an ottoman through the window, and Sawyer and Claire make it safely inside.
A Shocking Death
"Those people were murdered to make you mad, James. To make you throw me to the wolves." "Sounds like a great plan."
And the doorbell rings. They contemplate whether or not to open it, but decide to. It's Miles, looking very nervous. "Who let you out?" "The people who gave me this." And we see he's got a radio in his hand.
Miles realizes he's in over his head. "They told me they were security, for him, to escort him back to the mainland." "Why would I talk to them?" "They have a hostage." "Every one of my people is ready to die..." "It's your daughter."
He takes the phone, and the voice orders him to look out the window. Whats-his-name (Keaton? I forget.) Is out there with the other radio. "If you step out no one else will be harmed. What kind of a guy do you think I am?"
And then Ben proceeds to rattle of the guy's entire resume of evil deeds. "I know exactly what kind of man you are." "OK."
They bring Alex out to him, and a gun is put to her head. "Get out here right now, or I kill your daughter." "I'd like to offer a counter-proposal. You and your friends turn around and leave, and forget you ever heard about the island."
"Tell your daddy goodbye," and he lets Alex talk. She tells Ben about Karl and Danielle. "I have this under control," Ben tells her. Ben tries to bluff his way out as the countdown begins. "I'm not coming out of this house so if you want to kill her, go ahead and...."
BLAM. He does just that. Ben goes into shock.
"Let's just hand him over," Sawyer says. "They changed the rules," Ben finally speaks, and makes a run for his secret room, and closes the door behind him.
He opens another secret panel in the closet. Behind it is a stone door with some carvings around it. He opens it, and goes inside.
Sawyer continues to yell at Ben to open the door. Ben finally emerges. "All of you listen. When I give the signal, run straight for the treeline." "You mean towards the guys with the guns?!" "No, we want to be as far away from them as possible."
The Return Of....
The house starts to shake violently. A familiar bellow comes from outside. It's our favorite non-corporeal entity, the smoke monster! "Outside, now!"
They exit the cabin to find Ol' Smokey tearing up the commando squad, leaving none of them alone.
"What did you do? Did you just call that thing?" "Go!" They run, but Ben stays behind to say goodbye to Alex, and actually sheds a tear for her. Maybe he's still got some shred of humanity left?
"Sorry about your daughter" Locke tells Ben as he catches up. "You lied to me, you told me you didn't know what the monster was." "You can ask Jacob when you see him."
"Who's Jacob?," asks Sawyer. "The man who's going to tell us what to do next."
Instead, Sawyer decides he's taking Claire, Aaron, and Hurley back to the beach. John pulls his gun on them. "Hugo stays with us." Sawyer draws next. "Not a chance!"
Hurley agrees, although relucantly, to stay with Locke, and convinces Sawyer that its OK. "If you harm so much as one hair on his curly head, I'll kill you." "Fair enough."
And they go their separate ways.
A Little Overdressed
So there's Ben, lying in a slight crater, in the middle of the Tunisian Sahara. He's dressed in a DHARMA Parka, with Halliwax's name on it, and (presumably) the Orchid station insignia. (Remember the Orchid?) He's got a nasty tear in the sleeve, and possibly his arm.
A pair of locals approach on horseback, with AK-47's. "I can explain!" They pull his coat off and frisk him. He pulls a small stick from his pocket. It's one of those nifty collapsable batons, and he proceeds to use it quite adeptly on the one, and shoots the other. "(I) Surrender!" Oh, so you do speak English?" And Ben kills him as well. He jumps on one of the horses and rides away.
Later, and much worse for wear, Ben arrives at a decent hotel in a city in Tunisia. "I'd like a room." "Is this your first time in Tunisia?" "No," he says with a bit of a smirk. "It's been a while. Actually I'm a preferred guest, Dean Moriarty."
The clerk looks through her records, and gets a troubled look on her face. "Certainly Mr. Moriarity." We find that we are now sometime in 2005 (I missed the exact date.) He glances at the TV, and sees none other than Sayid, talking about his wife's murder, and how he wants to bury her in peace.
Holiday in Tikrit
Some time, later, again, Ben shows up in US-occupied Iraq. Sayid's wife's funeral procession is making its way down the street. Ben darts into an alley and up some stairs, to wind up on top of a building. He gets a camera and a telephoto lens from his bag. His first target is a bald man leaning up against a building, watching the procession. His next? Sayid, who happens to glance up, and sees Ben.
Ben panics (doing a lot of that lately, aren't we?) and tries to flee the scene. Sayid tackles him, thinking he's just another dirtbag photographer. He quickly realizes who it is.
"What are you doing here?" "I'm here to find the man who murdered your wife." Sayid picks him up and throws him into a nearby alleyway. "How did you get here? Off the island?" Ben feeds him a story about Desmond's sailboat. (Aside: Wasn't it destroyed? Wouldn't Sayid know that?)
"You remember the name Charles Widmore, don't you?" "What does it have to do with me." "There was a man at her precession, Ismail (something) one of Bakia's (? huh ?) men." He tells Sayid about the man who was found less than three blocks from where Nadia (yes, it is, er, was her!) was killed.
"Why would these people want to murder her?" "I don't know, but they did."
This is My War
Fast forward some more, and Ben's in a bar, sipping on a small cup of something or other. Actually he's following Ismail, who spots Ben, and leaves. Ben tails him, rather poorly, and eventually is caught himself.
"Who are you and why are you following me?" "I need you to take a message to Widmore for me." And someone shoots Ismail in the back.
It's Sayid, who then empties the entire clip into him, and keeps firing the empty gun. "That should do it." "Wait!" "We're finished here Sayid, mourn your loss and get on with your life. Go home. Once you let your grief become anger it will never go away. I know. This is my war, not yours."
"I spent eight years searching for the woman I love, found her, and married her, and buried her yesterday. Don't tell me this is not my war. Who's next?"
"I'll be in touch," Ben tells him, and walks away with that content smirk on his face.
London Calling
Ben gets out of a taxi in front of a decent hotel somewhere in London. He's dressed rather well this time. "I'm here to see the Kendricks in 43, feel free to call up," he tells the doorman as he paws his baton. "No need sir."
In the elevator, he unlocks the penthouse button, and heads on up. He opens the door to a dark room, with a lot of small lamps about (I just thought that was strange.) There's someone in the bed. And then one of the strangest conversations ever on LOST occurs.
"Wake up, Charles." It's Widmore.
"I wondered when you were going to show up. I see you've been getting some more sun."
"Iraq is lovely this time of year. When did you start sleeping with a bottle of scotch by the bed?"
"When the nightmares started. Did you come here to kill me?"
"We both know I can't do that."
"Then why are you here?"
"I'm here, Charles because you murdered my daughter."
"Don't you lay the blame for that on me. You murdered her. You creep into my room like a rat, and pretend to be the victim? I know that everything you have, you took from me. So. Once again I ask you, why are you here?"
"I'm here to tell you that I'm going to kill your daughter...Penelope, is it? Once she's gone, dead, then you'll understand how I feel, and you'll wish you hadn't changed the rules."
"You'll never find her. That island's mine, Benjamin. It always was. It will be again."
"But you'll never find it."
"Then the hunt is on for both of us."
"Sleep tight, Charles."
BONK.
Whoa! (silence) So... this whole Widmore thing is really getting deep, now....
Analysis post forthcoming, stay tuned.
Technorati Tags: LOST, recap, review, episodes, the shape of things to come
We'll get this part out of the way up front. On the beach, Jack is getting some pills out of the "pharmacy briefcase", when Kate busts him. He says they're antibiotics, that he hasn't been feeling well. Kate voices her concern that Sayid and Desmond haven't returned with help.
Vincent (yay! Vincent!) starts barking at something. Bernard fishes a body out of the water, and yells for help. Faraday and Charlotte both know who it is, its the doctor from the ship.
Ray's had his throat slit, and Jack asks if Faraday knows anything about it. "He was fine the last time I saw him." The satellite phone is still broken, but they devise a scheme to use it to transmit morse code.
Once they rig up a telegraph to the phone, Faraday asks the freighter about the doctor. They reply, according to Faraday, "They didn't say anything about the doctor, but the helicopter will be back in the morning."
"He's lying." Bernard pipes up. They really said that the doctor is in fact on the freighter, and he's fine. "Why are you lying?" Jack asks Faraday. "Were you ever going to take us off this island?" "No."
And then Jack doubles over in pain, apparently he's more ill than he led Kate to believe....
Australia is the key to the whole game!
"We're all going to die!" announces Hurley. "Calm down!"
And we find Hurley, Locke and Sawyer sitting around a table playing a rousing game of Risk (I think?) An allusion to the coming war? Perhaps.
Alex, meanwhile, is being led, bound and blindfolded by the squad from the freighter. They arrive at "the fence," and order Alex to turn it off. She does, but adds a sequence which sets off a warning. (And there was a 16 and a 23 in there if I was paying attention....)
The phone rings back at the barracks. A befuddled Locke answers, and a recorded voice keeps repeating something. "I think its for Ben."
Ben, is playing something on the piano in the other room, and Locke, Sawyer and Hurley enter the room.
"What's code 14J?" Ben panics, and grabs a sawed-off shotgun from the piano bench. "They're here!"
"I take it 14J isn't the code for the pizza boy?" Sawyer retorts. It's an early warning system, so Ben surmises that one of his people has been captured. They've already lost five minutes due to Locke's indecision. "So much for a head start."
"It's very important that you survive, John. Stay close to me, if you want to live, I'm your best chance."
They start to "dig in", bracing the doors with furniture. Sawyer's off looking for Claire, and one of the LOSTie "redshirts" is shot, and then another. The commando team launches a rocket into Claire's house, and blows it to bits. "Claire!"
"You said I need to survive, why?" Locke asks Ben. "You're the only person who can help us, who can talk to Jacob, and we need to find him." "I don't know where the cabin is!" "I know, but Hurley does."
Sawyer digs through the rubble of Claire's house, and finds her still alive. She mumbles "Charlie?" as he picks her up and starts back towards Locke's cabin.
Hurley puts the baby in a clothesbasket and sees Sawyer and Claire, he goes to open the door, and Ben threatens to shoot him. Instead he throws an ottoman through the window, and Sawyer and Claire make it safely inside.
A Shocking Death
"Those people were murdered to make you mad, James. To make you throw me to the wolves." "Sounds like a great plan."
And the doorbell rings. They contemplate whether or not to open it, but decide to. It's Miles, looking very nervous. "Who let you out?" "The people who gave me this." And we see he's got a radio in his hand.
Miles realizes he's in over his head. "They told me they were security, for him, to escort him back to the mainland." "Why would I talk to them?" "They have a hostage." "Every one of my people is ready to die..." "It's your daughter."
He takes the phone, and the voice orders him to look out the window. Whats-his-name (Keaton? I forget.) Is out there with the other radio. "If you step out no one else will be harmed. What kind of a guy do you think I am?"
And then Ben proceeds to rattle of the guy's entire resume of evil deeds. "I know exactly what kind of man you are." "OK."
They bring Alex out to him, and a gun is put to her head. "Get out here right now, or I kill your daughter." "I'd like to offer a counter-proposal. You and your friends turn around and leave, and forget you ever heard about the island."
"Tell your daddy goodbye," and he lets Alex talk. She tells Ben about Karl and Danielle. "I have this under control," Ben tells her. Ben tries to bluff his way out as the countdown begins. "I'm not coming out of this house so if you want to kill her, go ahead and...."
BLAM. He does just that. Ben goes into shock.
"Let's just hand him over," Sawyer says. "They changed the rules," Ben finally speaks, and makes a run for his secret room, and closes the door behind him.
He opens another secret panel in the closet. Behind it is a stone door with some carvings around it. He opens it, and goes inside.
Sawyer continues to yell at Ben to open the door. Ben finally emerges. "All of you listen. When I give the signal, run straight for the treeline." "You mean towards the guys with the guns?!" "No, we want to be as far away from them as possible."
The Return Of....
The house starts to shake violently. A familiar bellow comes from outside. It's our favorite non-corporeal entity, the smoke monster! "Outside, now!"
They exit the cabin to find Ol' Smokey tearing up the commando squad, leaving none of them alone.
"What did you do? Did you just call that thing?" "Go!" They run, but Ben stays behind to say goodbye to Alex, and actually sheds a tear for her. Maybe he's still got some shred of humanity left?
"Sorry about your daughter" Locke tells Ben as he catches up. "You lied to me, you told me you didn't know what the monster was." "You can ask Jacob when you see him."
"Who's Jacob?," asks Sawyer. "The man who's going to tell us what to do next."
Instead, Sawyer decides he's taking Claire, Aaron, and Hurley back to the beach. John pulls his gun on them. "Hugo stays with us." Sawyer draws next. "Not a chance!"
Hurley agrees, although relucantly, to stay with Locke, and convinces Sawyer that its OK. "If you harm so much as one hair on his curly head, I'll kill you." "Fair enough."
And they go their separate ways.
A Little Overdressed
So there's Ben, lying in a slight crater, in the middle of the Tunisian Sahara. He's dressed in a DHARMA Parka, with Halliwax's name on it, and (presumably) the Orchid station insignia. (Remember the Orchid?) He's got a nasty tear in the sleeve, and possibly his arm.
A pair of locals approach on horseback, with AK-47's. "I can explain!" They pull his coat off and frisk him. He pulls a small stick from his pocket. It's one of those nifty collapsable batons, and he proceeds to use it quite adeptly on the one, and shoots the other. "(I) Surrender!" Oh, so you do speak English?" And Ben kills him as well. He jumps on one of the horses and rides away.
Later, and much worse for wear, Ben arrives at a decent hotel in a city in Tunisia. "I'd like a room." "Is this your first time in Tunisia?" "No," he says with a bit of a smirk. "It's been a while. Actually I'm a preferred guest, Dean Moriarty."
The clerk looks through her records, and gets a troubled look on her face. "Certainly Mr. Moriarity." We find that we are now sometime in 2005 (I missed the exact date.) He glances at the TV, and sees none other than Sayid, talking about his wife's murder, and how he wants to bury her in peace.
Holiday in Tikrit
Some time, later, again, Ben shows up in US-occupied Iraq. Sayid's wife's funeral procession is making its way down the street. Ben darts into an alley and up some stairs, to wind up on top of a building. He gets a camera and a telephoto lens from his bag. His first target is a bald man leaning up against a building, watching the procession. His next? Sayid, who happens to glance up, and sees Ben.
Ben panics (doing a lot of that lately, aren't we?) and tries to flee the scene. Sayid tackles him, thinking he's just another dirtbag photographer. He quickly realizes who it is.
"What are you doing here?" "I'm here to find the man who murdered your wife." Sayid picks him up and throws him into a nearby alleyway. "How did you get here? Off the island?" Ben feeds him a story about Desmond's sailboat. (Aside: Wasn't it destroyed? Wouldn't Sayid know that?)
"You remember the name Charles Widmore, don't you?" "What does it have to do with me." "There was a man at her precession, Ismail (something) one of Bakia's (? huh ?) men." He tells Sayid about the man who was found less than three blocks from where Nadia (yes, it is, er, was her!) was killed.
"Why would these people want to murder her?" "I don't know, but they did."
This is My War
Fast forward some more, and Ben's in a bar, sipping on a small cup of something or other. Actually he's following Ismail, who spots Ben, and leaves. Ben tails him, rather poorly, and eventually is caught himself.
"Who are you and why are you following me?" "I need you to take a message to Widmore for me." And someone shoots Ismail in the back.
It's Sayid, who then empties the entire clip into him, and keeps firing the empty gun. "That should do it." "Wait!" "We're finished here Sayid, mourn your loss and get on with your life. Go home. Once you let your grief become anger it will never go away. I know. This is my war, not yours."
"I spent eight years searching for the woman I love, found her, and married her, and buried her yesterday. Don't tell me this is not my war. Who's next?"
"I'll be in touch," Ben tells him, and walks away with that content smirk on his face.
London Calling
Ben gets out of a taxi in front of a decent hotel somewhere in London. He's dressed rather well this time. "I'm here to see the Kendricks in 43, feel free to call up," he tells the doorman as he paws his baton. "No need sir."
In the elevator, he unlocks the penthouse button, and heads on up. He opens the door to a dark room, with a lot of small lamps about (I just thought that was strange.) There's someone in the bed. And then one of the strangest conversations ever on LOST occurs.
"Wake up, Charles." It's Widmore.
"I wondered when you were going to show up. I see you've been getting some more sun."
"Iraq is lovely this time of year. When did you start sleeping with a bottle of scotch by the bed?"
"When the nightmares started. Did you come here to kill me?"
"We both know I can't do that."
"Then why are you here?"
"I'm here, Charles because you murdered my daughter."
"Don't you lay the blame for that on me. You murdered her. You creep into my room like a rat, and pretend to be the victim? I know that everything you have, you took from me. So. Once again I ask you, why are you here?"
"I'm here to tell you that I'm going to kill your daughter...Penelope, is it? Once she's gone, dead, then you'll understand how I feel, and you'll wish you hadn't changed the rules."
"You'll never find her. That island's mine, Benjamin. It always was. It will be again."
"But you'll never find it."
"Then the hunt is on for both of us."
"Sleep tight, Charles."
BONK.
Whoa! (silence) So... this whole Widmore thing is really getting deep, now....
Analysis post forthcoming, stay tuned.
Technorati Tags: LOST, recap, review, episodes, the shape of things to come
Comments
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#1
Amy
on
2008-04-25 12:32
(Reply)
The thing that stands out to me is, Why did Miles act like he didn't know those people (the soldiers or whatever they are that killed Alex)?? Aren't they from the freighter?? Didn't he travel with them thus far?? I don't get why he's afraid of them and why he's running from them as well.
#1.1
Qatgirl
on
2008-04-25 19:34
(Reply)
I think Miles thought the freighter soldiers were freighter crew... not ex-military goons. Miles thought this was about taking a man back alive, not slaughtering innocent bystanders.
