Whew, what a ride. According to the preview trailer for episode 4, called “The Substitute,” this episode will focus heavily on Jacob’s nemesis, as John Locke, on the island.

From the look of things, it’s going to be a very good episode. We see John and Sawyer, never the best of friends, interacting in the jungle; Sawyer with a gun pointed at John’s back, at one point. We see Richard, in the jungle, warning the Survivors that John wants to kill all of them, every last one. It looks like high stakes, and it looks like they’re focusing on what I had hoped they would last week: John and Richard.

Ever since Fake John dragged Richard into the jungle after killing Jacob and Ilana’s men I’ve been wondering what’s up, and waiting to find out. It looks like we’ll finally know.

First of all, it looks like Jacob’s nemesis either doesn’t have a chance to kill Richard, or decides not to, because Richard gets away long enough to warn the Survivors of the nemesis’ evil plan (which apparently is to kill everyone). How Richard gets away, or why he’s let go is still a subject of mystery, as is Jacob’s nemesis’ rationale for killing all of the Survivors. What exactly is his game? I have a thesis going that the entire premise of the show has been Jacob’s nemesis trying to have him killed, but why, after Jacob is dead, would he need all the other residents of the island killed? I have no idea. Obviously that’s his plan, because as soon as Jacob was killed, the Others at the temple began their fortification, but exactly what vendetta the nemesis has to settled, we don’t know.

I’m very interested in seeing how the whole Sawyer/John thing plays out. Remember, Sawyer doesn’t know that John isn’t actually John but he seems to figure it out, judging by the promo trailer. I’m frustrated by Sawyer, post-Juliet’s dead, and I hope a confrontation with John will shake him back into character. I understand he’s upset and brooding over Juliet, but all the tired mopping around and angst—I want to see the strong, tough, and tender-hearted Sawyer again! I want to see him kick John’s ass, too.

While last week’s episode was good, I really hope this episode moves the plot along a lot more, and answers any of the burning questions we’ve had for years. It looks like it might, so here’s hoping.

Well. It’s been and gone again, and we’ll have to wait another grueling week until the next episode. But, for what it’s worth, here’s my take on this week’s LOST, “What Kate Does”.

About half-way through the episode I was in agony. I turned to Maria and said, “They’re not answering any questions, they’re only creating more!” That about sums up my sentiments for this episode. For a season in which I thought they’d be answering lots of questions, this episode didn’t really answer very many. In fact, I think it answers a grand total of one: what happened to Claire, and even that question is only half-answered—but let’s start there, with Claire.

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Some thoughts on tonight’s upcoming episode of LOST.

At the end of last week’s premiere episode, Sayid, who had been brought to the healing spring at the Others’ temple suddenly woke up. I assumed when we saw that, that Sayid was healed, and that even though it didn’t work right away, somehow the spring ended up working and healing him, like it did for Ben back in the 1970′s. But what if Sayid wasn’t healed. What if Jacob possesses the same ability as his Nemesis—what if Jacob can inhabit dead bodies? What if Sayid is Jacob reincarnate? Will it be revealed right away? Probably not. If I were Jacob, and I’d just been killed by my nemesis, I think I’d want to lay low before revealing my cover. How are we to even know? We couldn’t tell that John Locke wasn’t himself until they showed it to us, right? I wonder how long Jacob could go on living as Sayid, undercover, until we’d find out.

I also wonder what happened to Claire. Surely it’ll be revealed in time, but considering that Jacob’s nemesis was posing as Jack’s dad, and lured Claire away from the survivors and away from her baby, I wonder what’s become of her. Jacob’s nemesis must’ve had some sinister plan, some larger plan, apart from just separating her from her baby. Although, perhaps that was what it took to get Kate to leave, and then come back from the island. If you put all the pieces together, I’m fairly confident that Jacob’s nemesis has been orchestrating things for a long, long time. I’m willing to suspect that perhaps the entire show has been about Jacob’s nemesis working to kill Jacob. Perhaps.

Maria and I will be watching LOST tonight, at 9EST. We’ll be twittering it again, like last week, and it was a lot of fun, so join us if you can. I’ll be blogging my complete thoughts on Wednesday. So, losties, stay tuned.

This is the first installment of what will be a weekly round-up of things and stuff that have been going on throughout the course of the week. A chance to reflect and remark. So here it is.

Film

Upcoming in film is Martin Scorsese’s new film, a thriller, called Shutter Island. It looks utterly terrifying and a thriller like this, in the hands of a capable director like Scorsese, it’s bound to be incredible. It comes out in Canada on February 19 and we’re just waiting. With Maria and I both not feeling great over the weekend, we also spent a lot of time laying around and watching movies. Look for a bunch of reviews over the next few days; I won’t give anything away just yet.

Music

On the encouragement of someone who’s musical tastes I sufficiently trust, I dug out The Decemberist’s most recent album The Hazards of Love to give it another go. When I originally heard it—and reviewed it—I wasn’t a fan. It felt disconnected and obnoxious. It’s a rock opera, after all. Giving it another shot though and it’s growing on me, a little bit. I think, perhaps, I was originally too quick to judge but we’ll see. One thing I can say for sure, is that The Talking Heads greatest hits record has been on rotation on my iTunes since Christmas, when I got it, and it ain’t go anywhere.

Television

On the television side of things, there isn’t really anything else to discuss, it’s LOST. So many questions to consider after last week’s episode, and you can believe I’ll have a huge review up here after this week’s installment. I guess the one real question is: what the heck is going on?! But I’m also wondering about Richard, last we saw he was being dragged into the jungle by Fake Locke. And where’s Ilana? What was her job exactly, because it certainly wasn’t to save Jacob, she didn’t even enter into the room under the statue with the rest of her group—where did she go? And, what’s going on?!

Last week I twittered through the episode, it was fun, and I’ll be there again this week if you care to follow.

OK, I think that’s all for this week’s round-up. I’m off to do some dishes and bake some brownies for a Superbowl party; now if I can only remember which teams are playing…

If you’re a Lostie at all then you’ve been waiting for this event with unbridled anticipation: the 2-hour premiere of the final season of ABC’s LOST. In our own anticipation, Maria and I rewatched both Season 4 and 5 and mentally prepared ourselves for the journey that was to take place last night at 9.

We both knew that the biggest reveal was going to come in the very first seconds of the episode. That last season had ended with the explosion of a hydrogen bomb in an attempt to reset the events of the entire series thus far. We knew that if all went well at the end of Season 5, if the bomb went off (and it looked like it did), then all of the survivors would be back in the air, on their flight bound for Los Angeles Airport (LAX). Even those that died.

The fade in from white, after the obligatory recap, was painfully long, and intentionally so, the producers knew that had us in the palm of their hands, so to speak. Read the rest of this article »