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Post by Rob on Feb 10, 2005 20:00:54 GMT -5
Disagreeing, here: not only allowing Jack to take his testicles back from when Ethan walked off with them in the woods before, but he was one tough little sonuvabitch. I'd have kept hitting and kicking him, too, until my mates had him well well covered: and I sure as hell would not have stood as close to him as Sawyer was doing, holding the gun on him. If Jack had stopped after the first few unanswered punch, there's the chance that Ethan could have been using it to lull him into a false sense of mastery over the situation. Guess he wasn't, but that guy was TOUGH. Strong. Sociopathic. Best to keep him occupied till you could restrain him. Also? Jack got some leader-payback on the guy for him having killed one of Jack's tribe. Maybe not right, but human. And counts as a weakness, too.. Maybe she got him in the eye with that scratch, or knocked him silly with a blunt object, or somethig. She's a pretty brave girl. Disagreeing back....sort of. Is it a requirement for a leader to have the ability to beat people up? Wouldn't it have been nice if, just once, the leader was NOT the strongest fighter? Maybe once...just once....a man can be shown on television having full testicular potency without having to "win" a fight with the bad guy. I mean, come on...how could everyone else have been so damn far away that Jack and Ethan had ample time to duke it out once more? No way could Sayid and Sawyer been more than a few seconds away...I mean, hell, Claire had just passed under Sayid's tree, yes? Plus, Jack took several gratuitous swings while the others were gathered around, guns in hand. Seemed like the writers made an effort to allow Jack to take another round with Ethan...but this time letting him win to establish some sort of manly "leadership" cred. Gotta say, I hate that. As for Claire, I would agree she is a brave girl...but ain't no way she subdues a man who can take out someone as capable as Jin AND hold Charlie against a tree with one hand. Not alone...unless Claire is no longer who SHE appears to be. Of course, another possibility would be someone among Ethan's group helping, with the price for her freedom being a mind-wipe. The most annoying thing about this episode was the lengths the writers went to in order to keep us from learning anything...from the handy old amnesia card to Charlie conveniently silencing their only living lead...even throwing in some gratuitous backstory to make it seem understandable. In my view, the fact that Ethan hanged Charlie was more than enough justification. I didn't entirely hate this episode, by the way...though it probably appears so. I'm just disappointed that, for the first time, the writers felt they had to stall a little...using tired old cliches, no less. EDIT: Of course, cranky Rob should probably understand the difficulty of doing any kind of stand-alone episode in a series such as this. BtVS could get away with character explorations like "The Zeppo" or "Fool For Love" because the serialized plot arc could be more easily put aside. But no, dammit! I wanna be cranky tonight, and I plan to stay that way! So there!
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Post by Lola m on Feb 10, 2005 21:28:14 GMT -5
Hurley's backstory is coming in March, according to TV Guide. Yeah, I'm hot for that, too. Loved his graveyard speech, esp. the "I don't know how to end this. Er. Amen." It seems a little surprizing that of 40-plus people there isn't a single one with religion and a familiarity with funerals--wait a minute, Anne would fit the bill. But then we wouldn't have Hurley doing it, which would be a loss. Charlie acted completely in line with his disease. Whether or not he was right about not getting info from Ethan, whether or not Ethan would have been a hazard as a prisoner, most addicts and alcoholics would have done whatever they wanted (including shooting someone) and felt entirely justified in doing so. They are also often as charming as Charlie was in the bar. I think Charlie's wanting to take care of someone is really wanting to shore up his ego by being needed. And when people need you they can't leave you. Maybe I'm clutching at straws of hope that the writers understand the nature of addicts, which is pretty silly in such a fantasy world, I guess. And I do love Charlie. But then I'm a recovering codependent. And Boone. Dude. Your daddy musta been a pip. Overall, not a satisfying episode. Tho I find Ethan's killing so soon in the arc to perhaps signify greater satisfaction to come. **nods along with the Charlie thoughts** The need is just kinda pouring off him every time he talks about wanting to take care of someone. Lola
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Post by Lola m on Feb 10, 2005 21:32:58 GMT -5
Hellooo lovely S'cubies! I haven't caught up with the main thread, but I just thought I'd check out tonight's Lost thread. Eetah with everything in Spring's post. Sorry Lola, I can't see your Hurley = puppetmaster theory. How 'bout this for an alternate theory: Maybe they're saving Hurley's backstory for Drew Goddard to write. I would be extremely happy to wait for that. Does anybody know which story Drew got? (Tonight's was by Damon Lindelof, the co-creator.) Agree with Patti's disappointment that Ethan is dead. I do think it was demonstrating the important development that Charley was unbalanced, though. And agree with Rae that there will probably be serious consequences stemming from Ethan's death. Agree with Rob about Jack's extra punches. (IIRC, there were some extra kicks, too.) Apparently Charley wasn't the only one with Ethan issues. Agree with Rachael about the amnesia. Oh, and to go along with the amnesia cliché was the red-shirt-y death of Steve Scott. Scott Steve is doomed. And Matthew, I *like* your stream-of-consciousness posts. Reminds me of becca's, though with a bit less emphasis on color & clothes (except when you're describing Victoria's Secret commercials, of course… ;D) Oh, and especial Eetah! on your con men demographic and Pandora's suitcase comments. Ooh! Thanks, Winter, for the addict's behavior insight. Agree about Charley's self-esteem problem, although I think he does have genuine chemistry with and feelings for Claire. So, just a couple of other random thoughts: The episode did *not* begin with an eye, unless you count sleeping Charley's closed eye. I think they have strengthened the contrast / parallels between Charley and Boone: they both had caretaking urges. Except Boone's unbalanced caretaking phase was pre-island. Charley's is on-island. Also, Charley's incompetence phase was pre-island and Boone's is on-island. Boone has made himself into Locke's acolyte. Charley has made himself into a killer. (Aw Charley. Why'd you go and do that?) Agree with you guys that Jin seems to understand more than he lets on. It's perfectly logical for him to have learned English to help him in the course of his past business dealings. Dunno why he would conceal it from Sun, though. Jack showed Sawyer respect by asking for his help. Huh. (Though if we're to believe next week's preview, looks like that step forward gets violently erased next episode. Hope not.) Sawyer shows his Kate-liking tendencies by bringing out his gun. For her to hold on to. ;D Claire runs pretty good for a (as Matthew says) 97-months pregnant woman. Any significance to the rain? Which always seems to appear when Jack's fighting Ethan? Linda, and yes, Matthew, Hawaii still pretty. Oooooh, clever and interesting points about the similarities between Boone and Charlie! And, hey! Don't be dissing my puppetmaster!Hurley theories! **pouts** Just you wait - he'll turn out to be an eeeevuuuhhhhlll genius and then you'll all be sorry and he'll only love me because I was able to see the real him! **sticks out tounge at everyone else** So there! ;D ;D Lola Hawaii very pretty.
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Post by Lola m on Feb 10, 2005 21:35:04 GMT -5
Hi again: This week's list: Known/suspected killers On-island: Charlie killed Ethan. Jack & Sawyer killed the Marshall. (Mercy.) Crazy French Lady said she killed her companions. Off island: Sayid killed his commanding officer. And he would have shot the Crazy French Lady in self-defense. Kate said she killed the man she loved. (And actually shot & injured her co-robbers.) Jack feels responsible for his father's death. Jin possibly killed someone for Sun's father. Locke may be scary, but he's doesn't have a human death on his hands at this point. That we know of. As always, feel free to point out inaccuracies or disagreements. Linda, They're up, they're down. They're good, they're bad. They're more fun than a barrel of dead monkeys…oops, wrong show. I like the list of known/suspected killers. We've got quite the crew of con artists and death dealers, don't we? Oh, and one more for the monkeys bit. ;D Lola
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Post by Lola m on Feb 10, 2005 21:36:26 GMT -5
No - you are not imagining this - it is the most boring episode. I was very disappointed. Amnesia - are you kidding me? How very cliche of them. I want to know more about the island mystery. Charlie's backstory part 2 was boring - absolutely nothing in this episode to get excited about. And next week looks like love triangle time - they seriously need to address island issues. I am sorry to see Scott go. See ya Scott. The amnesia part was not the most novel idea out of the box, that's for sure. Bye, Scott! Bye!
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Post by Lola m on Feb 10, 2005 21:38:52 GMT -5
My random thoughts: Claire asked a very good question when she said, "Who are you people?" So far, only Jack is who he has appeared to be, all of the others, even Charlie, are conning someone. Kate was conning the bank robber boyfriend and she conned the marshall. Sawyer was conning women on a regular basis. Locke was conning himself about his telephone "girlfriend" and he's conning all of them about his wilderness abilities. Sun is conning Jin about speaking English, and he may be conning her about the same thing. Also, did Jin con Sun when he showed her the flower at the airport? Did Sun just con herself when she decided to stay with him? Claire and Michael were conned by their partners. Was Claire conned by the pyschic into getting on the plane? Shannon conned Boone into "rescuing" her, and he let her get away with it. Sayid conned his military superiors into thinking he was suited for a job that required him to torture other people. Did Nadja--a more Arabic spelling--con him into helping her escape? And, now, even our sweet, innocent Charlie turns out to be a con man. He'll romance a girl who his friend calls a "moose" so he can steal something from her and buy drugs. Later, he cons himself into thinking that he's doing it all so he can take care of her. Charlie's been shown to be very weak and easily swayed. His brother wants to keep the band going, so Charlie agrees. His brother uses drugs, so he does too. Charlie has no identity or self-esteem without "Driveshaft." Getting high or drunk are probably the ultimate way to con oneself. People can do "anything" when they're high, or so they think, but getting high and trying to fly just means you're going to end up badly hurt or dead. Lying and cheating someone so you can "take care of them" means they'll end up badly hurt. I want to believe that Charlie's a sweet kid who "lost" his way, but I'm not sure anymore. Did he kill Ethan to protect Claire or to protect himself somehow? Is there something Ethan could have told them that Charlie didn't want known? I want some answers!!! That last smile on Locke's face really creeped me out. When Locke said he hoped Ethan wasn't around, it made me wonder if they were working together. Yes! First Hurley several weeks ago and now the line from Claire. None of these people really know who their fellow castaways are. What they really are capable of doing, who they are. And all the conning, as you point out. The moment I saw how things were going with the back story for Charlie, I was thinking "we've got another one"! Lola
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Post by Lola m on Feb 10, 2005 21:42:21 GMT -5
I didn't think this episode was boring at all. I guess it's like watching waves on a beach, the waves can get boring, but underneath all sorts of things are going on--shark attacks, etc. Or a killer slipping up onto the beach from those waves to quietly kill Steve Scott Steve somebody while everyone else is watching the forest edge. **shiver, shiver** Lola
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Post by Lola m on Feb 10, 2005 21:43:21 GMT -5
I think Jack has many of the earmarks of some sort of military training, except that Ethan bested him the first time out. That's a good thought. And there are the unexplained tattoos that would fit right into that idea.
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Post by Lola m on Feb 10, 2005 21:45:27 GMT -5
I just skimmed over everyone's reaction to last night's "Lost" episode. No nakid Sawyer. Hardly any Sawyer at all, actually. I felt that this episode was very disjointed. I haven't been able to pull all the pieces together in my mind. Hopefully, Vlad will be able to do that for me. I did notice that Linda wondered when Drew Goddard's episode will be airing. It's on next week: Drew Goddards' "Outlaws" (1.16) - Scheduled to air Feb. 16, 2005.EETAH on wanting a Hurley backstory. Altho, from the looks of everyone else's, I don't think it's going to be a happy one. No nekkid Sawyer is definitely something they need to do something about. I mean! All that water and beach and what not and they couldn't even have him just, oh I don't know, doff a shirt or something? Man! ;D
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Post by Lola m on Feb 10, 2005 21:52:24 GMT -5
Disagreeing back....sort of. Is it a requirement for a leader to have the ability to beat people up? Wouldn't it have been nice if, just once, the leader was NOT the strongest fighter? Maybe once...just once....a man can be shown on television having full testicular potency without having to "win" a fight with the bad guy. I mean, come on...how could everyone else have been so damn far away that Jack and Ethan had ample time to duke it out once more? No way could Sayid and Sawyer been more than a few seconds away...I mean, hell, Claire had just passed under Sayid's tree, yes? Plus, Jack took several gratuitous swings while the others were gathered around, guns in hand. Seemed like the writers made an effort to allow Jack to take another round with Ethan...but this time letting him win to establish some sort of manly "leadership" cred. Gotta say, I hate that. As for Claire, I would agree she is a brave girl...but ain't no way she subdues a man who can take out someone as capable as Jin AND hold Charlie against a tree with one hand. Not alone...unless Claire is no longer who SHE appears to be. Of course, another possibility would be someone among Ethan's group helping, with the price for her freedom being a mind-wipe. The most annoying thing about this episode was the lengths the writers went to in order to keep us from learning anything...from the handy old amnesia card to Charlie conveniently silencing their only living lead...even throwing in some gratuitous backstory to make it seem understandable. In my view, the fact that Ethan hanged Charlie was more than enough justification. I didn't entirely hate this episode, by the way...though it probably appears so. I'm just disappointed that, for the first time, the writers felt they had to stall a little...using tired old cliches, no less. EDIT: Of course, cranky Rob should probably understand the difficulty of doing any kind of stand-alone episode in a series such as this. BtVS could get away with character explorations like "The Zeppo" or "Fool For Love" because the serialized plot arc could be more easily put aside. But no, dammit! I wanna be cranky tonight, and I plan to stay that way! So there! Oh go ahead and crank! Why not! ;D I was not happy with the time it took everyone to get there, either. Mostly because of what it said about their plan for making sure Claire didn't really get hurt. Of course, perhaps she ran farther than they had been thinking. Or in slightly the wrong direction so that they weren't all placed optimally. Jack definitely whacked away a bit more than was necessary once the others gathered around. I think the writers are ramping up the violence among the survivors to kind of bring that "Lord of the Flies" vibe. Whether that is necessarily the best way to really go at things if stranded on an island is a different question. Of course this is also an island with CFLs and polar bears and mysterious Big Monsters and looney kidnappy killers. So that kinda warps all of my theories a bit. Lola
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Post by Pixi on Feb 11, 2005 10:17:42 GMT -5
Disagreeing back....sort of. Is it a requirement for a leader to have the ability to beat people up? Wouldn't it have been nice if, just once, the leader was NOT the strongest fighter? Maybe once...just once....a man can be shown on television having full testicular potency without having to "win" a fight with the bad guy. I mean, come on...how could everyone else have been so damn far away that Jack and Ethan had ample time to duke it out once more? No way could Sayid and Sawyer been more than a few seconds away...I mean, hell, Claire had just passed under Sayid's tree, yes? Plus, Jack took several gratuitous swings while the others were gathered around, guns in hand. Seemed like the writers made an effort to allow Jack to take another round with Ethan...but this time letting him win to establish some sort of manly "leadership" cred. Gotta say, I hate that. As for Claire, I would agree she is a brave girl...but ain't no way she subdues a man who can take out someone as capable as Jin AND hold Charlie against a tree with one hand. Not alone...unless Claire is no longer who SHE appears to be. Of course, another possibility would be someone among Ethan's group helping, with the price for her freedom being a mind-wipe. The most annoying thing about this episode was the lengths the writers went to in order to keep us from learning anything...from the handy old amnesia card to Charlie conveniently silencing their only living lead...even throwing in some gratuitous backstory to make it seem understandable. In my view, the fact that Ethan hanged Charlie was more than enough justification. I didn't entirely hate this episode, by the way...though it probably appears so. I'm just disappointed that, for the first time, the writers felt they had to stall a little...using tired old cliches, no less. EDIT: Of course, cranky Rob should probably understand the difficulty of doing any kind of stand-alone episode in a series such as this. BtVS could get away with character explorations like "The Zeppo" or "Fool For Love" because the serialized plot arc could be more easily put aside. But no, dammit! I wanna be cranky tonight, and I plan to stay that way! So there! I have got to say that I agree 100% with the points you are making. I too think if this fight with Ethan part 2 was just to build up Jack's capabilties - waste of time. Also we do need to know how Claire could have gotten away from Ethan. I think they just wanted to bring Claire back and tell the viewers nothing. Absolutely nothing happened in this episode to move the island arc forward. Charlie's backstory part 2 was a complete and utter waste of time - we already knew most of this stuff about Charlie and if it was supposed to show us his motivation for shooting Ethan (ie taking care of someone) - truly it was pointless. Aside from some cute "Office" references, it didn't really help and for the first time I was really unhappy to see a flashback. I have faith that the writers can do better than this and I do understand the necessity of not revealing everything at once but I completely agree with you that the writers wrote a stall episode. As I've already posted I did find good things in the episode which have already been mentioned. Being curious and wandering if I was being too critical - I did pop over to the Fuselage website - the one where Terry O'Quinn and other members of the cast occasionally post on and the general consensus did seem to be unhappiness with the episode. Hopefully J.J. and the writers will pop in and read some reactions.
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Post by Pixi on Feb 11, 2005 10:24:00 GMT -5
Oh go ahead and crank! Why not! ;D I was not happy with the time it took everyone to get there, either. Mostly because of what it said about their plan for making sure Claire didn't really get hurt. Of course, perhaps she ran farther than they had been thinking. Or in slightly the wrong direction so that they weren't all placed optimally. Jack definitely whacked away a bit more than was necessary once the others gathered around. I think the writers are ramping up the violence among the survivors to kind of bring that "Lord of the Flies" vibe. Whether that is necessarily the best way to really go at things if stranded on an island is a different question. Of course this is also an island with CFLs and polar bears and mysterious Big Monsters and looney kidnappy killers. So that kinda warps all of my theories a bit. Lola Oohhh, I like your Lord of the Flies comment. Perhaps that was a motivating factor for this episode.
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Post by Pixi on Feb 11, 2005 10:25:01 GMT -5
I like the list of known/suspected killers. We've got quite the crew of con artists and death dealers, don't we? Lola This is a very good point. I'm sure its a factor in the plane crash/island of mystery.
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Post by Matthew on Feb 11, 2005 14:15:26 GMT -5
Disagreeing back....sort of. Is it a requirement for a leader to have the ability to beat people up? Wouldn't it have been nice if, just once, the leader was NOT the strongest fighter? Maybe once...just once....a man can be shown on television having full testicular potency without having to "win" a fight with the bad guy. I mean, come on...how could everyone else have been so damn far away that Jack and Ethan had ample time to duke it out once more? No way could Sayid and Sawyer been more than a few seconds away...I mean, hell, Claire had just passed under Sayid's tree, yes? Plus, Jack took several gratuitous swings while the others were gathered around, guns in hand. Seemed like the writers made an effort to allow Jack to take another round with Ethan...but this time letting him win to establish some sort of manly "leadership" cred. Gotta say, I hate that. True enough.. but in a survival situation, the one who acts like he knows what's going on, and acts competent and able to enage in neccesary violence is gonna be a leader. Sayid, Locke, Sawyer, and Kate are the other heavy-hitters on the island, and they all have that "you don't wanna mess with me" vibe. What you say is true: I'm discussing more than arguing, as I can see your point. But my main point was that with someone as dangerous as Ethan, one hits him and hits him and hits him until one is certain he won't get up on you. Sort of an Ender Wiggin philosophy of fighting. Granted, he probably should have stopped when the others got close enough to hold their guns on him, but he was pissed and was engaging in a very human act of retribution for having been bested, himself, and for having lost one of the people he feels is his repsonsibillity. Oh, I was thinking that she might have had a cast-iron frying pan at hand, and got very lucky. Something like that. True: could be indeed. But we don't know what or who is there... Oh, eetah!! on all of this. I'm cool with cranky: it allows for fascinating discussions.. ;D and you are never too cranky, sir!
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Post by Matthew on Feb 11, 2005 14:17:22 GMT -5
That's a good thought. And there are the unexplained tattoos that would fit right into that idea. That was what I was wondering about, too...
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