Staying Lost After Lost - Solitary

Sayid episodes are never my favorite.  He is just too violent.  But I am happy that they balanced the torture out with the Island Open in this episode.  These episodes just usually never do anything for me.  But I did notice that we got a lot of heavy island history in this episode.  I never noticed how many things they throw at us here.

Isn't it funny how all of the survivors have something that brings us into their past?  Jack had the coffin, Kate had the Marshall, Locke had his wheelchair, Charlie had his drugs,  Sawyer had his letter and Sayid had his picture of Nadia.  I am sure that the rest of them have something as well.  I just think that it is kind of interesting that they all come to the island with this piece of something that keeps them connected to their flaw.

It seems that Sayid's flaw is his inability to stop himself from killing and torturing.  But I think it more so has to do with Nadia.  The flashback was so focused on her.  Think about it, all of the episodes thus far show us how the survivors are broken.  I haven't exactly come up with why is has to do with Nadia.  Possibly he is stuck on this experience with her.  Maybe he had never shot someone in cold blood like he did with his superior officer and that's what kind of broke him.  Letting her go is one thing (I would try and do it too!), but killing someone for someone else is another thing.  Maybe he just feels like he has to love her since he did what he did.  But to me it seems like he just did that to cover himself.  Not really for her.  Also, he never once said to Danielle in this episode that Nadia was the woman he loved (Team Shannon).

It was interesting to come back to Rousseau and compare her to Claire how she was in Season 6.  They had a bit in common with their babies being taken and no one with them on the island.  And I am more inclined to feel like this is a product of the island rather than a product of being Solitary. "Mother" also acted a little bit like this too.  It seems like the island has to have this broken mother figure on the island.  Possibly it has to do with the statue of Tawaret being crushed or maybe with the fertility issue on the island.  I know that the fertility issues will never be solved, but for me this makes a nice connection.

The sickness is something I will never understand.  I suppose we are supposed to believe that members of Danielle's crew were "claimed" by MIB in the same way that Sayid was.  So does this mean that Ben was also sick?  And Dogen said that Claire was sick which would mean that since she acted exactly like Danielle, then Danielle would actually be sick.  So, if Danielle was actually sick, does that mean her crew members weren't?  See, it really confuses me.  The only thing that I did get to make sense out of it was that I found it really ironic that Danielle tells Sayid to watch out for his friend's getting sick, but he is the one who actually gets sick.  Haha.

Hurley is awesome.  Building a golf course is a great idea.  They were really stressed out and board waiting for something to happen.  A perfect example of Hurley taking care of people.  Hurley would be a great leader.  I can't wait for the DVD to come out so that we can see the epilogue of him being the island's protector.  It is going to be awesome!

The one thing I really noticed in this episode is that Season 1 is really a lot like Season 6.  From the sickness and the whispers, to Danielle/Claire comparisons, there was just a lot there.  I'm sorry I keep comparing the two.  I don't know if it is because Season 6 is so fresh in my mind or what.  But I really think I am going to go through the whole show and see how it brings everything right to Season 6.  The entire path leading to the end.

Staying Lost After Lost – Solitary

Sayid episodes are never my favorite.  He is just too violent.  But I am happy that they balanced the torture out with the Island Open in this episode.  These episodes just usually never do anything for me.  But I did notice that we got a lot of heavy island history in this episode.  I never [...]

WRLB Lord of the Flies Podcast is up!

The WRLB Lord of the Flies Bookclub Podcast Discussion is now up! On the call is @bam0mbot @lostiegirl78 and @jedimasterchief Download here! (http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-76142/TS-381697.mp3) Forgive the audio, for whatever reason, Amber’s audio sort of came in waves. And and here’s what I meant when I said I was disappointed in my younger self. I am absolutely [...]

Matthew Fox on Jimmy Kimmel Live #lost

Diehard LOST fan Jimmy Kimmel interviewed Matthew Fox last night, here it is in three parts:

The Boba Fett Paradox

Sorry for the post-Comic-Con reports, but I had a hard time finding a spare moment to write entries during SDCC.  And I'm not so in love with my smartphone that I'm willing to compose actual material with that touch keypad.

One of the things that I love about SDCC is the small panel you attend that isn't part of the massive queue system and doesn't involve movie/tv stars, which ends up unexpectedly being one of your favorite moments of the week.  For me, that session was with author China Mieville.

Mieville's works are not easily classified into a specific genre, though I guess most would fall into a fantasy/sci-fi realm.  But even then that doesn't totally feel right.  "King Rat" (which I just read) takes a fairy tale and overlays it onto modern London.  And it *is* London, just with an underground subculture that would be considered fantasy.  Then you have "The City and The City," a book that Mieville considers his most accessible, which won the 2010 Arthur C. Clarke Award, the 2010 BSFA award for best novel, and is in the running for the Hugo award for best novel.  He joked that until he was nominated, he hadn't realized his book was science fiction.  I would have considered it a highly-politicized detective novel with a slightly odd conceit.  Mieville self-categorizes in the relatively recent genre of "new weird" -- a classification that has yet to gain traction in the academic world.  Regardless, if you haven't read him, and think you might like this type of writing, I highly recommend picking up one of his novels.

Mieville's panel was the only one in which I reached for a notepad to jot down what he was saying.  (Yes, I work with technology every day but yearn to spend my time writing on paper.)  And there was one moment that resonated with me -- and that I thought might also resonate with the Losties.

A woman asked a question about "Un Lun Dun", Mieville's young adult fantasy novel.  The woman explained that she loved the characters of Deeba and Zanna and was wondering if Mieville was going to write a sequel to the book because she wanted more adventures for the girls.  Mieville, who answered questions with a prolific thoughtfulness missing from most panelists, kindly explained that he felt as if he told their story and wasn't planning on revisiting the characters.  He continued on to say that as geeks, we (including himself) don't know how to let the things we love lie -- we can't leave them alone.  And that's how we end up with "The Boba Fett Paradox."  In that scenario we have a character we all think is cool -- Boba Fett -- so Lucas decides to give us more Boba Fett in the prequels, thereby ruining the mystique of Boba Fett and rendering him uncool.

It's so freaking true.  And the Star Wars prequels are a great example of not being able to let go -- I know some of you probably want to punch me now, but I am a girl weaned on the originals and I hate the prequels.  Darth Vader should never throw his arms up in the air and scream "NOOOOOO" like he's a lovelorn teenager.  Darth Vader crushes people's throats with his clenched fist -- he's a badass.  But, once again, I digress.

And I couldn't help but think of the interviews Cuse and Lindelof were giving towards the end of LOST where they were basically saying, "Look, we have no control over what ABC does with our franchise, but we're ending our story -- and we're ending our story for our characters."  And it was obvious that they were trying to wrest as much control over their show from ABC as possible.  A move I respect.  Because, honestly, I don't want a LOST movie like the second X-Files movie -- a movie that made me sad because it was *so* clear that that show was over and should have been left alone -- that I want my memories of Mulder to be from seasons 1-6, not of him sitting in a home office surrounded by newspaper clippings.  My last image of LOST is of Jack and Vincent in a bamboo forest -- and I don't ever want that image sullied by later adaptations.

But that's just me. . . .I'm kind of a narrative purist.

Seriously, buy a China Mieville novel.

@tahoewikander

“Jin and Sun” by Tara McPherson

Even as beautiful as this print was designed, Tara McPherson‘s “Jin and Sun” still strikes a sober cord today. “The Candidate” (6.14) gave us an explosive end to Sayid, the possible death of Lapidus, and the subject of this print, the drowning of Jin and Sun Kwon.  Conversations following the episode airing and around the office [...]

WTAL “Solitary” Re-watch Podcast details

Hey LOSTblog fans! Tonight we are back in the game to discuss another fantastic episode of LOST! “Solitary!”. Sayid’s first episode was classic as the mystery of his torturer past came to the forefront. Be with us as we talk about Sayid and his introduction to the flashback in LOST . If you would like [...]