No ... the dicking principal was a Yale grad, and Linus was not ...

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

aha...miss a little. you know, that dick principal was also against the ghostbusters. what a bastard.

FIXED

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Yes - but Linus could have forced the Principal to write the letter before tendering his resignation as part of the blackmail deal. Linus clearly had all of the power at that point.

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“Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.”- JD Vance
“My god, what an !diot.”- JD Vance tweet on Trump
“I’m a ‘Never Trump’ guy”- JD Vance

I thought that was the first good episode of the season. Ben has always been my favorite character on the show and they did him justice last night. And for the first time all year I finally saw a connection between the island story and the sideways story. Loved how sideways Ben chose to protect Alex whereas real Ben let her die.


btw, I get credit for having my 2 year prediction about Richard being from the black rock confirmed. No one said that before me! YEah, I finally got something right on this show!

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Yes it's true. This man has no dick.

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"Tubby? Oh yes, Tubby."

I thought I would share my 2 cents with my fellow Lost geeks. I thought "Dr. Linus" was a great episode. I think it can be said that Michael Emerson (Ben) is hands-down the best actor on the show and maybe throughout television. I'm not a bible-banger myself, but I am really starting to see a certain religious aspect of the story arc. It seems Flocke, or Smokey, or whatever you want to call him is going throughout the Island, tempting the characters with "whatever they want," in a similar fashion to the devil. I thought the whole exchange between Ben and Ilana was great. My friend told me it is similar to a passage in the Old Testament, which I wouldn't know.

Ilana: Where will you go?
Ben: To Locke.
Ilana: Why?
Ben: Because no one else will have me.
Ilana: "I'll have you."

Thought it was a well-written piece of dialogue, and something atypical of all the other crap we see on television. Also, when Richard Alpert asked Jack where they would go next, Jack said: "Back to where we started." The camera immediately cut to the beach, and focused on the crosses in the graveyard. Throw in other minor details, like Jack's father's name (Christian Shephard), and you can see why some see the spiritual side to this show. Again, this could be way off, so I was just curious as to what you all thought about the whole "God vs. The Devil" idea.

At any rate, I really have loved every minute of this show. Did season 5 get a little campy with the time-travel? Of course. I can say, unequivocally, there isn't another drama on par with Lost on television. It's consistently provided a sense of wonder, next-day water cooler discussion, fantastic writing, memorable characters, and an exceptional musical score. Aesthetically, Lost raised and set a new bar for television drama. I enjoy the fact that show doesn't spoon-feed answers, and challengers the viewers. Those that gripe that they haven't had enough answers need instant gratification and need everything spelled out for them. That isn't what Lost is about. It's good vs. evil, science vs. religion, love vs. hate, past failings and redemption. It will be no surprise to me if there are loose ends or unanswered questions; Lost is the type of show that leaves you wanting more and allows the viewer to fill in the blanks. I am confident the show will leave us satisfied, and surprised, as every season finale thus far has. I'd love to hear you other geeks chime in on this. Sorry for the lengthy post.

dude most of what "lost" has become is campy.

"dr. linus" brought some much needed credibility to the show that i've not seen since season 2.

enough with the sawyer/jack/kate saga.

ben is the most complete character that show has offered, even if he is a deus ex machina. which he is.

I agree with some of what you're saying. There have been great episodes since season 2, however. I thought Charlie's "Greatest Hits" episode right before the end of season 3 was great. Season 4's Desmond time-travelling episode "The Constant" was right up there with any great episode the show has offered at any time. Is God vs. The Devil way off in your opinion? I'm not a big Christian or anything. Just curious. Glad to see that you enjoyed "Dr. Linus" as much as I did.

no i just think the god vs. the devil is so played and predictable.

you know what i liked about the black smoke was that it wasn't taking a bias. there were no good guys or bad guys.

making jacob into a "character" suddenly made that *something*. gave it tangibility.

i liked it when you didn't know what it did, what it wanted, or what it *took* with it. i mean that kind of gives it away...and i think the mystery of the smoke is one of those things you don't need to expose necessarily. until the end...or even then...you could keep it open.

Agreed on that point. If they didn't explain the black smoke, all the idiots that watch the show would whine, so I'm sure they felt compelled to do so. You could argue that it has killed characters with reason, though. Thats with exception to the pilot killed in the premiere. I'm with you on the Kate-Jack-Sawyer love triangle, though. We've all had enough of that. I'm sure they have to keep that storyline going to keep the housewives and teeny-boppers watching, though. Do you still enjoy the show? Or are you one of those who loved it but hates it now? I have lots of friends like the latter.

i've been pretty vocal in the last couple seasons of being disillusioned. but i took a different approach for the final season, that i wanted to just enjoy it. when i think too much about it, i get really really critiquey-film-snobby-lamey about it. 24_guy knows what i'm talking about.

i'm trying to give it one more chance to see itself through, but there are still some gaping holes.

i loved it for the first 2 seasons. defended it for 2 more. gave up after that. came back to it.

i'm trying to be fair now. i literally had to rip the beard off my face, remove the horn rimmed glasses from my face, strip the pabst blue ribbon from my lips, and peel the leather bound poetry book from my fingertips to give this one more chance. i hope you know now what i've sacrificed here.

it is now documented.

That's quite the fucking sacrifice! I get what you're saying, though. I think when you look back on it all, you'll be right that no season after season 2 matched the level of the first two. I still enjoy it, and I've kind of taken the same stance as you since about the middle of season 5. I think we'll walk away satisfied, and when a few years from now when its off the air, you'll wish you had something that entertaining or aggravating to watch on a weekly basis. That said, my two favorite episodes are "Walkabout" and "Deus ex Machina" from season 1. So I guess you beat me down into thinking it sucks now. Look what you did there. Turned me all around. What the fuck? Do you write for the show?

grrmrgghm...breaking into television writing. have tried it. will continue to. i think i have some good ideas. one involving this good city.

i know what you mean, "lost" has at least shaped me in some way even if it has been a pain in my ass for some seasons. it's certainly been more compelling consistently than "the x-files" was. for the first couple years, it owned my teenage years. but man did it drop off.

contrary to what some believe here (heheh) i do want this show to end well. i really want to know that fateful night in september of 2004 was not all for naught.

afterall, i hooked up with a girl on the howard stern bb *because* of this show...

Last season, in the "island timeline", Ben sacrificed Alex to Keamy and company in order to keep his power. In the "flash sideways", he sacrifices his oppportunity for power to give her the opportunity to go to Yale. I think the "flash sideways" are showing us the main characters in situations where they are facing choices that can "redeem' choices they made in the "crash timeline". Jack makes choices to have a better relationship with his son than he had with his father....Sayid, who doesn't want to kill anymore, makes the choice to kill again. It will be interesting to see how the choices they make in the flash sideways impact their future in the island timeline.

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I follow where my mind goes...

Redneckmommy....paging Redneckmommy.... CODE RED CODE RED

The new episode starting in 11 minutes is a SAWYER centric episode. Hopefully, he WILL be SHIRTLESS.

Redneckmommy....please report to the Hydra Station ASAP!

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I follow where my mind goes...

OMG! shirtless Sawyer in the first 5 minutes...please report in RNM!!!

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I follow where my mind goes...

You dont want to know.

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I can't think of the last episode Sawyer was in that he wasn't shirtless.



Yet another episode, yet more questions added and nothing at all answered. Although I'm looking forward to the Richard centric episode next week.

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Team Cutler.

another shit episode. That makes every episode this season except Dr. Linus.


I expect next week to be the best episode of the year, including any episode that comes after it.

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what are you talking about? the most important question of all time was answered last night - what TV show sawyer enjoys watching on a weeknight, while pondering his life.

I've gone back and forth trying to decide if this show is shadowing The Bible or Egyptian mythology ... last night with Locke's monologue about "mommy" issues, I've jumped back onto the Egyptian side. Yes, a parallel of sorts could be roughly drawn to Jacob and Esau, but it takes a lot of cramming and inference.

On the other hand, there's the Egyptian mythology of Osiris and Set.

I have a feeling that Locke may actually be based on Set from Egyptian Mythology. Set is the son of Nut (even her name is a wink at "crazy"). She is also a sky goddess, which is extremely rare in ancient religions as the sky is almost exclusively attributed to a male figure. So, while everyone is having "daddy issues" on the island, Set (Locke) could be perceived as having "mommy issues," as she herself considered the day of his birth to be unlucky and favored his siblings.

Set was also jealous of his brother Osiris (His brother ruled the fertile valley of Egypt while he ruled the desert) and cut him up into several pieces. Osiris (who went on to rule the underworld - he was willing to admit all people to the Duat, the gentle, fertile land in which the righteous dead lived, that had lived a good and correct life upon earth) was resurrected only long enough to create a son - who he named (wait for it .....) Horus, who was a sort of jailer to Set, as he was banished for all eternity.

And, just to add one more bit of parallelism, Set's animal to represent him is an ambiguous and mysterious dark monster.

Are the candidates jailers, and is the island a prison? Or could it also be Duat? I don't know. I suppose we all will soon enough. The problem with thinking to much is sometimes you end up "booking" a better finish than the real booikers.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

Ok, we know you hate Lost.....

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I follow where my mind goes...

i think this episode exposed a lot more inconsistencies than it wanted to; especially if you read "Lostpedia".

The one question I have is...why would Richard want to live forever? Where did that come from? He knows his wife is dead...he knows he's not really in hell...the only thing I could think of was that Richard would want to live as long as possible to see if Jacob was telling the truth, or if the man in black was. But obviously Richard never ages through the years, and after 140 years of servitude, suddenly he doesn't believe in Jacob. He went through the DHARMA Initiative, the Others, going back and forth in time, and he never mentioned anything about a wife or speaking Spanish (because earlier he actually spoke in Latin, when it was revealed he was also known as Ricardus).

the scene between jacob and the man in black suggests this really is a "battle between god and the devil" kind of story; something that the writers swore was not the case in season 1 when they were asked, "are the survivors dead? are they in hell?" even if the island isn't hell and the two aren't god and the devil, they are certainly ancient deities of some kind and the island seems more like purgatory than hell.

I expected something more mind-blowing ... in essence, I was looking for an episode with balls that would be the best one until the last one.

It also apparently shot my Egyptian exposition all to shit; oh well.

It really didn't seem to move anywhere ... however, I don't know that it introduced more questions to answer, which is a nice change of pace. It STARTED to place hard parameters in place, if not started to fill them in.

I get the purgatory feeling as well. Maybe I'm overdoing it, but if that's the case, Roman Catholicism was the only major sect to buy into that nonsense.

However, if they're trying to portray this as simply as Jacob = God, then it certainly doesn't appear that it's the Triune God (e.g., the Nicene and, subsequently, Athanasian Creeds), but rather something more like Arianism (no, not the cracker Aryan's ... modern pseudo-versions include whackos like Unitarians and Jehovah's Witnesses) - for our purposes the part that says God had no beginning but the Son did (thus Richard playing the Christ part). An very odd blend if that's the case.

EDIT: Richard wanted to live forever so he wouldn't have to go to hell ... he'd been advised that he could never go to heaven (love that good old works-righteousness heretical bullshit), so his only way to not go to hell (in his mind) was to never die.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

well richard does kinda look like jesus...with the beard.



well, that's what the padre told him. but all he knew from jacob was that he couldn't be absolved from his sins. if he didn't know whether he was in hell or not already, being on the island, i'm not sure why staying alive was going to be a better option.

but that's just me...

I thought it was probably the best episode of the season. Really enjoyed watching it tonight

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Team Cutler.

Jacob explained that the island was not hell, both directly and indirectly (proving to Ricky that he wasn't dead) - quick aside, he dunked Richard 4 times, not 3 (which would have been in line with the Trinitarian blessing - yes, I rewound that scene and counted out loud and held up fingers to be sure!). So, if you're not dead, you can't end up in hell. Even if you're alive in Nowheresville, it's still generally agreed that boredom beats the beard off of being on fire.

Now as I sit here, I'm starting to wonder if Richard's role isn't more like the Holy Ghost ... it could only come to us after Christ had left us (the final Ascension after the Resurrection, followed by Pentecost). The Holy Ghost is simply a messenger and (to be coarse about it) doesn't do anything except what he's told, asks no questions, and doesn't interfere (leaving free will on the table for any and all that receive whatever message he has). I'd do a lot better if we were all sitting in someone's front lawn and were drinking a little bit. Best part if my brief time at seminary ... sitting up to all hours of the night outside drinking and talking both shop and non-shop topics. People would come and go, including instructors now and then, but it was generally after dinner until around 2am ... except the night I dropped my pants and then loudly proclaimed I was the Whore of Babylon and demanded more wine, but that's another story.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

The shows writers are lost. I liked the episode, but I too was looking for something more mind-blowing. I was hoping Richard was just going to start spilling shit around the fireplace.

I assume now that Richard takes over for Jacob. Richard had his moment of doubt and despair. Now he will lead. I just want this thing to end. I just want this to end the hockey regular season to end. Ive actually given up and started reading spoilers and I think I am glad I did.

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