Jack might love Kate, but Peter definitely loves Lost‏

Whatever your feelings on the finale, you have got to admit that the
producers and writers on this show have got humongous balls to do what they
just did.

They potentially alienated a huge chunk of the audience, not only by killing
a very popular original character, but by possibly setting up a story that
does not have a happy ending. (For their main character, at least.)

Personally, I thought it was fantastic.

As is Lost's tradition though, it was short on answers and added more
questions:


Peter's Assumption #1: The flash forwards to Grizzly Adams Jack do in fact
happen in our present day.

If that is true, whose funeral did no one else attend? My first instinct was
Ben. After thinking about it all night, my other thoughts are Locke, Michael
or Sawyer.

If the flash forwards do actually occur in the present, then either Jack's
Dad never died and he's part of the conspiracy (something I have thought
since the beginning of season 2) or Jack is being sarcastic or too
high/drunk to realize that his Dad is dead. I prefer the former.

Angela said that she thought that they were trying to make Jack look older
in the flashes with the beard and all. I didn't get that at all, but another
big clue was the cell phone he was using. I remember thinking when he pulled
it out for the first time that it looked pretty (2007) modern. But I wrote
it off as a mistake or me not having any concept of current technology.

Could they all be dying since leaving the Island? If that's true, that could
explain why no one attended the funeral. (Either they are dead or don't want
to be reminded that they are dying.) And maybe that's why Kate has to get
back to "him." Whoever "he" is could be sick and dying. Another thought I
had was that "he" could be Kate and Sawyer's child. Or could "he" just be
the husband that she left when she was on the run from the cops?

If we are to believe that this is the aftermath of them getting off of the
Island, wouldn't Jack be famous for being an 815 survivor? People know him
from saving the kid and his mom, but I would think being the survivor of a
plane that was found at the bottom of the ocean (and after having been gone
for at least 3 months) would take precedence over his recent heroics. Maybe
it is another cover-up by whoever "saved" them?

How long has it been since they were "rescued"? If it takes place in our
present day and they left soon after they made contact, I guess it would be
about 2 1/2 years.

I didn't think of this until this morning, but why wasn't Kate in jail?


Peter's Assumption #2: The flash forwards take place in a timeline that
exists IF they continue on the path that started with Jack making contact
with Naomi's ship.

What if the events we saw were "flashes" that Desmond saw?

Desmond's flashes were always related to Charlie. By continuously saving
him, Desmond obviously not only influenced the present, but the future too.
Perhaps if he had let Charlie die previously, it would have been he who had
to go into the Looking Glass and sacrifice himself for everyone else. But by
having Charlie as his agent, he is now free to change the future himself.
Maybe he had the flashes of Charlie for a reason and that reason was to
prevent the future that would come (as we saw last night).

I don't think I'm describing this well. Ok:
Step 1: Desmond turns the fail safe key and develops precognitive abilities.
(Given to him by the Island?)
Step 2: Des saves Charlie multiple times.
Step 3: Des gets a flash of the button being pressed and Claire and Aaron
being rescued. He assumes Charlie does the pressing because that's who he
gets flashes about.
Step 4: He tells Charlie what Charlie has to do to get everyone saved.
Step 5: Charlie dies a hero, but not before warning Desmond about Naomi.

If this is all true, then the point of Desmond's flashes may be to save
everyone from Naomi's crew. Now that Des has the knowledge that Penny is not
associated with Naomi, he has the opportunity to stop the "rescue" from
coming and prevented the bleak future.

Maybe the flashes aren't from Desmond, maybe they are Jack's flashes.

Maybe they are constructs of Jack's imagination, his self-doubt, about
leaving the Island. Maybe he's still in captivity with the Others and they
are fucking with his head. (Not likely, I know, but anything is possible
with this show.)


Peter's Assumption #3: The flash forwards have nothing to do with anything
on the Island, and are simply another timeline entirely and were put there
to confuse us even more.

I don't really think this is the case, but it could explain how Christian
Shepard is alive, why Jack is not a celebrity from being a crash survivor,
why Kate is not in jail and anything else they want to explain that has no
relation to the Island.



Other questions/thoughts:

- Where will the series pick up next year? Will it be told from Grizzly
Jack's time, with flashbacks showing how everyone got off the Island? Will
it be focused on Jack's (and maybe other castaways) attempts to get back to
the Island? Or, taking a cue from Memento, will the story be told backwards,
with Kate & Jack's meeting the beginning/end, heading toward the moment they
left the Island?

- Charlie had to die. And he died a hero, by his own choice, which was a
nice way for him to go. However, if he didn't die, I was going to kill him
for giving those 2 commando chicks so much information - what was he
thinking? (Not that it ended up mattering anyway, but…) Him "singing to
himself" was hysterical though.

- Was Walt Jacob? Was he Smokey? Was he one of those crazy Island-induced
visions? All three? Could it actually have been Walt? Are Michael and Walt
dead do you think? Ben obviously does not want anyone he cannot trust off
the Island. What did he do with them?

- Matthew Fox was really good last night, especially when Jack thought he
had caused the deaths of Sayid, Jin and Bernard. But what kind of world is
Jack living in if in the future Kate seems more together than him? Come on!

- A whole bunch of awesomeness:

1. Hurley and the van: awesome. I had underestimated Mr. Reyes. I thought he
was going to get himself killed saving the day - instead he just saved the
day.

2. Desmond's excellent harpoon shooting: awesome. Too bad Mikhail is only on
#3 of his 9 lives. (He had a cat, do you think that means anything? Kidding,
I think.)

3. Rose's multiple zingers: awesome. "If I told you I'd help with your SOS
sign, would you reconsider?"; "If you say, 'Live together, die alone,' Jack,
I'm going to punch you in your face."; and making Bernard repeat "I am a
dentist; I am not Rambo."

4. Naomi's hysterical line to Jack: "What did you do before you became
Moses?" Awesome.

5. Sayid's death by legs: awesome-est killing ever.

6. The pinnacle of awesomeness last night: Jin. Awesome a zillion times
over. His unquestioning acceptance of death and refusal to give the Others
any information. And his English speaking to Sun. (I have to admit, that
made me well up a little.) However, Bernard is a big loser. A dentist and a
loser. Not only was he giving up his people, he gave up his wife! Come on!


- I think one of the reasons I didn't see the flash-forward reveal coming is
because I saw the names of Malcolm David Kelly (Walt) and Sonya Walger
(Penny) in the credits, so I figured the big twist would have something to
do with them. That is a good use of actors' names in opening credits.

- Could Naomi's people be Dharma/Hanso people? Angry at being purged from
the Island and seeking revenge?

- What is Jack sick of lying about? The cover-up from 815? (If such a thing
exists.)

- Was it a coincidence that Aaron cried when Charlie died? Maybe Walt's not
the only 'special' kid?

- Sawyer's shooting of Tom was pretty damn cold-blooded, but warranted, I
suppose. I had grown to like Tom though. Pity.


I feel like I'm not really doing the episode justice and there are other
things that should be touched upon. (Well, we do have 8-9 months to discuss
them.) On one hand, I am frustrated that we won't get any new episodes until
February, but on the other hand, I am so very happy that we have to wait
that long.

If no other definitive conclusions can be drawn from last night's Lost, at
least I can say I am sure about this: the writers know what they are doing,
they know where they are going and they are all way smarter than I am.

Even if every other finale I saw this spring sucked, Lost has made up for
all of them with two hours of well-paced, well-acted, well-written
confusion.

Peter Petrelli!‏

So I will start with the stuff I liked (believe me, it's not much): My favorite part of the whole episode was at the beginning when Sylar was painting and he exclaimed "Peter Petrelli!" and slashed the canvas in half. That scene (and the rest of the stuff with Sylar) is essentially why I have enjoyed Zachary Quinto's performance this season. He's really not a great actor, but he seems to know it, so he plays his scenes with enough campy-ness and eeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil that I never really take him seriously. I wish the show itself could take a cue from him. I think that if the show is going to consistently work, it doesn't necessarily have to be light-hearted, but it has to stop being so self-important and dour. Also, I'm going to try exclaiming "Peter Petrelli!" myself whenever I get frustrated with something. It seems like a very cathartic thing to say. I liked when Claire jumped out of the window. It at least showed some smarts. (Unlike the idiocy show by nearly all of the characters tonight, especially, I think, Peter Petrelli! and Parkman.) I like that Mr. Bennet has a first name, but I wish it could have been revealed better and that it wasn't such a stupid name. The reveal was completely distracting - why can't he have a name like Bill or Steve? Noah makes me think of the Ark and that seems a little to obviously allegorical to me. An episode of Heroes is bad if the only bad thing I can say about Mohinder is that he exists. I was expecting some sort of cliffhanger. Was Nathan sacrificing himself (if that's what he did) supposed to be shocking? That's a seed that was planted in the middle of the season when he was running toward Peter in Peter's vision. And you knew that since he was being called a "bee-lan" (villain) by Hiro last week, he would have to be redeemed somehow. What I am especially annoyed by in Nathan's case is the future storyline from a few weeks ago. Are we supposed to believe that an awkward Japanese (almost) stranger calling him a bad guy would change Nathan's outlook on life so drastically? I've always liked Nathan because he's got more than one dimension and because Adrian Pasdar is the best actor on the show. I don't disagree that Nathan might have sacrificed himself to save Peter, but according to the future of a few weeks before, he didn't. Seeing Simone again was pointless and a waste of time. I like Greg Grunberg but Parkman is really annoying. (At least) four bullets in the chest and we're supposed to think he has a chance? The episode also featured some of the corniest dialogue all season. My forehead was red because I kept smacking it: - When Molly was setting up next season's big bad, she reminded me of Haley Joel Osment from The Sixth Sense: "Because when I think about him (voice lowers to a whisper) he sees me." - Peter Petrelli!: "Is this a dream? Am I time-traveling? Are you doing this?" Simone's Daddy: "It doesn't really matter what it is, now does it?" It only matters that the writers are too lazy to come up with a good explanation and for some reason they wanted to bring back Shaft and show that he was part of the original Legion of Superheroes. - Regardless of how he got there, all that "All You Need is Love" talk between Shaft and Peter Petrelli! was also quite painful to watch. (As was Nathan's "You saved the cheerleader so we could save the world." Ugh.) - Another dialogue highpoint: Niki to D.L.: "What happened to them?" Did she expect him to say anything? "Oh, I don't know honey, I guess Nathan exploded into a million pieces in the sky and now that the radiation from the explosion is in our atmosphere, I'm guessing a lot more than .07% of the world's population is going to die. It doesn't really matter though, because I'm slowly dying anyway so I won't have to deal with the radiological fallout. I might be wrong though; I'm no Isaac Mendez. You'll have to ask Sylar, who, as evidenced by the snail trail of blood has vanished to the sewers to steal the powers of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." Why couldn't Peter Petrelli! fly himself away? If Nathan is dead, it's a shame that the Petrelli name will be carried on by such a moron. I used to really like Hiro, but the ‘fish out of water' storyline grew tired half a season ago, and the end of the episode did nothing for me. Are we supposed to be shocked that that stupid symbol has been around for centuries? We already knew that! Are we supposed to think that Hiro went back to when it all began? The solar eclipse was obviously supposed to make us recall the beginning of the series. Is it like ‘It's A Wonderful Life' ("Every time a bell rings; an angel gets its wings.")? "Every time the sun goes bye; humans will evolve – some fly." I will not miss the show this summer. Finales are supposed to make you not want the show to end. When the high point of the episode was Sylar and his destruction of artwork, that's not a good thing. Peter Petrelli!

Do you think Desmond saw that oar coming?‏

I don't really think there's that much to discuss this week. (In terms of my
crazy theories, at least.) So this will be a quick email. (Relatively
speaking, of course.)

Another good, entertaining episode and nice set-up for the finale. I'll
break my thoughts down into bullet points:

- I honestly had no idea if Charlie was going to die this week. I think that
made for a very taut, edge-of-your-seat episode. I also think the abnormal
use of flashbacks this week helped to form a better episode - it was very
linear throughout. (In the "present" at least - Charlie's flashbacks were
decidedly non-linear.)

- I still like Jack. I'm glad that he finally learned to grow a set of
balls.

- It was nice to see Rose and Bernard, but I did not miss them. I almost
feel like the show should kill them so we don't constantly wonder where they
are. Since they are not regular cast members, and really aren't that
interesting, maybe it's time to end their story. (Bernard is a Tailie after
all.)

- The girl that Charlie saved in the flashback was Sayid's Nadia. Do you
think she's important at all since she's also been in Locke's flashback?
Just another crazy coincidence which will never be explained? Or is she just
a bad actress who needs work? (I don't remember her being bad in the past,
but her acting in that scene last night was distractingly awful.)

- Was Desmond lying to Charlie about the vision or is he just dying next
week or next season? Could his vision be wrong if he was telling the truth?
I'm a little confused as to what exactly the vision was based on Charlie's
reaction after coming up for air. I thought that Des said that he wasn't
going to drown until he pushed the button.

- Tangential to the previous bullet, was Juliet telling the truth when she
said that the Looking Glass station was abandoned? Did she really think
that? If she was lying, why?

- I feel like someone needs to punch Kate in the nose. (Or Juliet just needs
to use that crazy karate move on her again.)

- The girls in the Looking Glass reminded me of Rousseau (in attire, at
least - especially the one that you couldn't really see).

- The castaways actually worked as an ensemble last night. Haven't seen that
in awhile.

- Is Naomi telling the truth about anything?


Now onto my Lost Finale Death Watch:

Who I think is safe:
- Ben
- Claire (and Aaron)
- Juliet
- Kate
- Locke (I hope by assuming he is alive, I haven't cemented his fate as a
goner.)
- Sawyer
- Sayid
- Sun


Characters who might be in danger, but my gut (almost) tells me they
(probably) won't die next week (I think):
- Jack (but only because it's his flashback next week; otherwise I think
he's safe)
- Mikhail
- Naomi
- Richard
- Rose
- Tom


Who I think will die next week:
1. Rousseau or Alex or Karl
I am hoping that it is Karl, because he is the worst actor of the three. If
I had to bet, my money would be on Karl. But it would be awesome if Rousseau
accidentally killed Alex. That would make her even more crazy.

2. Bernard or Jin
Based on their scenes this week, I feel like one is going to go. I really
like Daniel Dae Kim, so I hope that he survives. If I had to choose between
the two, I would say 51% chance that Bernard dies; 49% chance that Jin dies.

3. Desmond or Hurley or Charlie
I think someone that people really like is going to die and the first
character I think of in that regard is Hurley. Charlie almost seems too
obvious, but although there are many Charlie haters out there, I still think
Dominic Monaghan is a fan-favorite. (Speaking from the perspective of a
Charlie disliker (but not quite hater), he has gotten better in previous
weeks, but I wouldn't really miss him.) I think Desmond is awesome, and it
would be really tragic if he died before Penny could find him. I'm not sure
that he has the fans that Hurley and Charlie do, so his death might not be
as emotionally powerful.

4. Blake Lewis
Oh, sorry, wrong show...

I can't help but think that there will be a death that will piss people off.
I just can't really think of anyone they could kill that would really piss
me off. Yeah, I would especially miss Ben, Juliet, Sayid and Sawyer, but if
they did decide to kill any of them I don't think it would piss me off, so
long as it wasn't poorly executed. I don't want any more smoke monster
deaths right now. I want shocking and cool. I want Rose brandishing a gun,
shooting Sayid between the eyes. Or Hurley pushing Sun off a cliff and
laughing about it.

Oh, Roger Work Man, if only you remembered birthdays!

Some thoughts before I go into my crazy theorizing:

#1: I think Ben's flashback gets the award for weirdest back story ever.

#2: The end of the episode COMPLETELY shocked me; my mouth was hanging open
for at least two minutes. I haven't decided if I think he's dead or not
because the last time a character was shot in the gut (Libby), I assumed she
was not dead, and I was wrong. I guess I'm hoping that he's dead, because I
thought it was a well-executed death. Although I love Terry O'Quinn and find
Locke frustratingly intriguing, so I wouldn't be annoyed if he pulled
through. I suppose time will tell. (But to never have interaction between
Michael Emerson and O'Quinn again would be criminal. They have more
chemistry than Evangeline Lilly and Matthew Fox have ever had.)

#3: I know I mentioned last week how well-coiffed Batmanuel (Richard)
appears, but damn, whatever Botox the Dharma Initiative produces must be
frickin' effective. (I don't know if they had Nestor Carbonell play
"younger" Richard so we would recognize the character or so we would think
that he doesn't age. If it's the former, I guess that messy hair was
supposed to symbolize adolescence, because Batmanuel can't be over 40, can
he?)

#4: Once again, Sayid is awesome in his small amount of screen time. Juliet
also. (And don't you think if it was just the two of them that Sayid would
actually have burned her at the stake just to get answers?) And I'm back on
the Jack Wagon. I can't wait for his flashback. I haven't liked him this
much since the very first episode.

#5: I'm curious as to the point of little Ben's girlfriend, Annie. Did he
spare her somehow? Could she be someone we have seen already? Libby? The
Sheriff? Jack's ex-wife? Maybe he got her pregnant as a teenager and she
went kaput, further solidifying him against Dharma.

#6: Really good casting of young Ben. He doesn't have Michael Emerson's bug
eyes, but he could easily pass as his son. Same chin, same profile almost.

#7, courtesy of Angela: You may have recognized Ben's Dad as Uncle Rico from
Napoleon Dynamite, but did you know that he also played the pre-wolf (as in
the human version) of the Wolfman in The Monster Squad? here.>

#8: I wonder how many of the (current) Others were Hostiles? Could the
Hostiles be survivors/spirits/descendants of crewmembers of the Black Rock?

#9: I am concerned about Rousseau taking a ton of dynamite on an island that
once had an active volcano, but maybe that's just me.

#10: Theorizing at this point (almost) feels fruitless, because I cannot
fully understand anyone's motivations at this point. That's not a
condemnation (yet), but I hope that in two weeks, I'll at least have a
better idea who's conning who. And I hope it's not the producers conning the
audience.


All of this leads me to Jacob, because that's all I could think about as I
tried to sleep last night and tried to work this morning.

Before I really get into it, I am reserving full judgment on Jacob right
now, because there is too much we don't know about him/her/it. Granted, if
it is a ghost, I have a feeling I am not going to like it, but I want to
wait until we learn a bit more.

Theory #1: Batmanuel is "Jacob" and he has been playing Ben and everyone
else for decades.

Evidence/Theorizing:

Young Ben meets Batmanuel when he leaves Dharma Town. Batmanuel tells him to
have patience, seemingly indicating that he has a plan. Years later, the
Purge is executed and Ben is installed as leader of the Hostiles because he
is a turncoat. Perhaps Batmanuel tells his people that Ben is the man behind
everything so they look up to him as leader.

Batmanuel "creates" Jacob and gets impressionable Ben to believe in Jacob.
Perhaps Batmanuel has control over Smokey and uses Smokey to appear as Jacob
to Ben. However he does it, he gains control over this obviously unstable
and abused young man and Ben believes that this Jacob lives in this shack in
the middle of the jungle. Maybe he thinks Jacob is a spirit (as evidenced by
the circle around Jacob's home - that reminded me of witchcraft).

If Jacob is Smokey, we already have seen that Ben is susceptible to the
Island's hallucinatory power (he saw his mother more than once). And if
Smokey is in league with/controlled by Batmanuel, that would be why Ben's
"mother" appeared outside the fences and told him that he had to wait or
that it wasn't time or something like that - in other words, have patience,
like Batmanuel tells him later. (I'm assuming here that Ben's mother was
Smokey and not just a simple hallucination.)

Batmanuel has shown his ability to manipulate in the past few weeks. He
convinced Locke that if he killed (got Sawyer to kill) his dad, he would be
one of them. He did the same with Ben and his dad. Perhaps he gave Locke the
tape recorder; after all, he was the one who brought it to Ben's attention
that it was missing.

So maybe Batmanuel is the "Man Behind the Curtain," but not even Ben knows
it because he had such a damaged childhood. He continues blindly following
Jacob, the truth obscured by the wounds from his younger life and his
delusions of grandeur (much like Locke, actually).

Maybe if this is true, I'll have to start calling Batmanuel by his "real"
name. But he'll always be Batmanuel to me.


Theory #2: The Island's "unique" properties have become an extension of
Ben's psyche

Evidence/Theorizing:

Ben was born in the seventh month of his mother's pregnancy and she died
giving birth to him (something his father never let him forget.) Women on
the island don't last past the second trimester, or around the 6th month of
their pregnancy.

I've got other ideas regarding this but I can't really put them into words.
Things related to Ben contending that his people are the "good" guys and the
Smoke Monster.

Factually, Ben was lying when he said that he was born on the Island.
However, when he showed up on the Island he was a bookish wallflower. The
Ben we know now is the leader of a cult. So maybe he wasn't actually born on
the Island, but Ben was formed by the Island. Maybe his relationship to the
Island has resulted in him putting his imprint on the Island as well.

In this case, I'm thinking that Jacob is just a further extension of Ben's
psyche, (perhaps Jacob is Smokey in this case as well), almost like a split
personality.


Other Jacob-relatedness:

If there is actually a human Jacob and he is not Batmanuel or in Ben's mind,
maybe he was in the hut and left after Ben's warning to set up the
Poltergeist-like activities. But if this all was just smoke and mirrors, why
did Ben shoot Locke? Did he shoot him in a way that he knows that he will
survive?

Did anyone see Jacob? (There was a quick flash of something, but I haven't
rewatched it yet. I have my further suspicions as to what/who it was, which
I will keep to myself until after the season is done.)

And now for something totally nonsensical:
Linus Van Pelt from Peanuts had the Great Pumpkin and Benjamin Linus from
Lost has the "Great" Jacob. Coincidence? Or further evidence that the whole
series hinges on Vincent? Discuss.

If I go to Hell, I bet Mohinder will be there‏

I think this week's Lost episode was more of a set-up episode than anything.
No crazy WTF moments, no cliffhangers, but a lot of foreshadowing.

Some stuff I loved:
- Josh Holloway was AWESOME. That was the best acting he has ever done on
this show. Especially the stuff with Cooper/RealSawyer.
- I don't necessarily like Jack, but in the past few weeks he has become so
much more interesting. I think the best scene of the night was when
StupidKate went and tattled on everyone else. I love that Jack and Juliet
act so superior to StupidKate. I bet that infuriates her. It's like they are
king and queen of the prom and StupidKate is Jack's dumpy ex-girlfriend or
Juliet's nerdy friend. (And not that we saw much of her this week, but I
still trust Juliet. But I don't necessarily trust Jack.)
- Sayid doesn't trust Jack. (Or really anyone.) Sayid is awesome. They
should have a whole episode of Sayid and Ben trying to get the upper hand on
one another. Lock them in a room and see who breaks first.
- Terry O'Quinn's nonchalance when he addressed Rousseau: "What brings you
to the Black Rock?" Not only did that serve to set up something for future
episodes, but it felt very much like Locke of season one. Actually, in much
of his interaction with Sawyer (James), Locke felt like the old Locke. Not
so much when he was being played by Ben. AGAIN.
- I liked that the episode was off-the-island flashback-free. I thought it
worked really well with this particular episode and wouldn't be upset if
they revisited this device periodically in the future. However, I really I
hope they don't abandon the traditional flashbacks next year, as I think
they really gives the show its meat and emotional power.


Other thoughts/conclusions:
- Even if Naomi is telling the truth, I don't think it would be too hard to
fake the results (especially by people with money) of a deep sea exploration
of a "crashed plane." I'm still hoping for multiple timelines though. Or
maybe she is just an Other and is executing another part of Ben's (or
Jacob's) Master Plan.
- I don't doubt that many people think that Cooper will come back to life,
but I'm not so sure. There's so much we don't know about the Island's
healing ability. I never thought Patchy was dead in the first place, so I'm
not so sure he actually came back to life. I could be wrong though. It would
not be the first (or last) time I read something wrong on this show.
- Ok, the tape recorder - Locke is just not that smooth. Why would Ben tell
him all that information about Juliet, about the raid on the beach, etc.?
Ben is not the "I must reveal my evil plan before it comes to fruition" type
of villain - he's the type that makes gullible assholes like Locke and Jack
think that he actually is that type of villain. BUT WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? Why
does Ben want the castaways to know that Juliet is a plant? Confusion? Is he
double-crossing Juliet in anticipation of her double-cross of him? Or was
all of this part of his original plan? And does Juliet know that this is
coming?
- Why is Richard so well coiffed? Nice hair, nice clothes, messenger bag.
It's like he has a personal stylist stashed somewhere on the Island.
- Wherever the Others were camping, it reminded me of the 4-toed statue.
- It seemed obvious that Cooper wanted to be killed, but why? Has he really
reached that point of complete self-loathing? Does he really think he's in
Hell?
- Who is more annoying: Kate or Locke? If Kate actually once stopped to
think about her actions before doing something, I think my head would
explode because I couldn't handle it. And Locke is just a whiny bitch of a
man when he's around people like Ben and Cooper. How could he not have
killed Cooper? For all intents and purposes, he was castrating him in front
of a crowd of strangers. Locke looked like he wanted to run behind a tree
and cry.

Next Wednesday won't get here soon enough - it is the long-awaited Ben
episode and I'm thinking that no matter what happens, I am going to love it.
Because the more Michael Emerson, the better.

And so begins my anti-Heroes rant of the week...

You know what I love about Lost? The shows creators are not shy about their
outside influences. While the show as a whole is certainly a unique TV
concept in design and execution, from the beginning the producers have
explicitly stated (and subtly imply within episodes) that they have been
influenced by a number of science fiction and pop culture icons.

And I know by now you have guessed (if you didn't already know) that the
exact opposite approach has been taken by the creator of Heroes. The dude's
name is Tim Kring and he has stated more than once that he has never picked
up a comic in his life (which I can't fault him for), but that because of
that, all of the ideas that he came up with for Heroes were not influenced
by ANYTHING ELSE. Now I can't even go into the argument that the world of
entertainment hasn't come up with a truly original idea in at least ten
years (just other ways of presenting it), but it is just so fucking arrogant
of the creator of this show saying that he is in no way influenced by comic
books.

After last week's obvious Watchmen overtones, this week was ripped right
from the X-Men Days of Future Past storyline (and I'm not even that familiar
with the latter - only what I remember from the cartoon and some
supplemental reading I have done). I have no problem with someone paying
homage to other material that influenced them, but to say that they are your
own ideas is bordering on plagiarism.

Anyway, I already told Joe that this week's episode game me a headache, so
here are a few reasons why. Answer my queries if you can, please. Prove me
wrong, please. (Just don't tell be I'm being over-analytical, because that
is a fruitless argument with me.)

1. Why does Peter - who has regenerative powers - have a scar? (I don't know
why I didn't think of this question until this week.)

2. Sylar, who we have seen is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, manages
to keep his secret for years? I can see him duping Mohinder, but Parkman? He
can read minds! And how could Sylar as Nathan even be around the Haitian
when the Haitian can block powers?!?

3. Why can PresentHiro suddenly understand English fluently? And why does
FutureHiro have no trace of an accent?

4. I can't even begin to question the time travel aspect of the show,
because it makes little to no sense. Two Hiros makes no sense in the
equation that they have created. Their whole idea of time travel in regard
to Hiro makes no sense.

5. Niki/Jessica survives? Why? All the groping and kissing she and Peter did
made me feel even dirtier when I remembered that she already slept with
Nathan. Yuck.

6. Not really a question, but: The 9/11 overtones were very uncomfortable
(and as misplaced as anything this show has ever done), but I don't recall
watching the news every year since 2001 and seeing Bin Laden's picture pop
up on the screen like the news in the future did with Sylar.

7. Did anyone else notice that Mohinder developed a super power of his own
this week? (Other than killing every scene that he is in.) He has the
ability to lengthen and shorten his facial hair at will when he walks
between rooms. (Or Heroes just has a really bad makeup crew.)

8. Also not a question: I know not everyone pays attention to stuff like
this, but Zachary Quinto (Sylar) had his name in the opening credits, so I
was waiting for him to show up at some point in the episode and figured that
he wasn't dead. It lessened my surprise when he was revealed to be
fauxNathan. What could have been a real shock, was just a "huh" moment for
me. (But Adrian Pasdar was really good in the episode, because as I was
watching fauxNathan, I kept thinking that something was really off about
him.)

Funny thing is, I still have no plans to stop watching the show. So this
headache is self-inflicted. At least I have all my other TV shows to give me
respite.