Lost 5x01: "Because You Left" & 5x02: "The Lie"

[Gertch]

I don't have the energy, time, or inclination to get this wrapped up in another show.

It's one of the reasons I hesitated starting with Heroes. I don't bother trying to actively remember a lot of the details with Heroes or SG:A and other arc shows. It's the only way I can really watch them. With Lost, however, I do try to remember details so it can be a little much.

 

[Gertch]

I've been thinking about something else. The parallels of Christian's drinking and Jack's.

Could it be that Christian was at one time on the island and had to go back? And like Locke, who has to die to get them to come back, Christian had to die to get back? Could the Island have had the plane packed with people it required and made Christian go to Sydney to lure Jack there?

Yeah, crazy.

 

[gh4chiefs]

I don't have the energy, time, or inclination to get this wrapped up in another show.

It's one of the reasons I hesitated starting with Heroes.

Yes, that's exactly why I gave up on Heroes. It was like LOST all over again with all the mysteries and what not.

 

[Jaron]

At least with Lost you get the impression the writers know what's going on. I'm not sure anyone can explain the most recent chapter of Heroes.

 

[gh4chiefs]

At least with Lost you get the impression the writers know what's going on.

Actually I don't, I get the total opposite impression. Seriously I'm not trying to be a smartass here, I'm not trying to be negative for the sake of being contrary. But honestly, the other night, I had these visions of the writers all sitting around smoking weed and crack, and then writing the episodes.

 

[Dream]

Above Average
Average

Liked the episodes but they didn't wow me. I hope this season will be able to reach the heights of season one or season four.

Looking back at season one it's like a completely different show now.

 

[Jono]

Both above average. Looking forward to the rest of this season

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Because You Left: Average. Sayid's fight was kick-ass (especially the playing-possum part) and time-travel hijinks are always fun, at least on Lost (due to the writers showing some ability to think about time travel rather than just toss a lot of arbitrary shit our way), but the spectacle of Our Heroes being smacked around by time-fu wasn't very compelling or very original (tho it's a new element for Lost) and frankly I was getting a little bored by all the bickering and tromping through the jungle.

And "solving" the dilemma of protagonists being helpless because of predestination by arbitrarily designating Desmond as magically special (I'd like a good explanation for that, tho I don't expect it) smacks of cheap writer manipulation and awkward retconning (since Desmond has already been established as capable of changing the timeline). I know they're trying to avoid the greater problem of total chaos breaking out if all the characters can change the timeline, but this kind of fishy writing reminds me uncomfortably of the patchwork time-travel rules of ENT, and that makes my tummy hurt.

Also, I still don't get the logic of the Oceanic Five lying "for the sake of the people on the Island." Widmore won't believe the lie, so why bother? If everyone tells the same crazy story, the worst that will happen is that the world will believe they suffered a mass hallucination due to trauma, they will be checked out medically, but since there will be no further evidence of insanity on their part, or evidence one way or the other about their story, they will be released to go about their merry lives, and they will have nothing to feel guilty about.

Poor Hurley was right and apparently the only one who was thinking clearly at the time. Then again, it was Jack's idea, wasn't it? And it's a wonder any of them would have been thinking clearly. I can buy this angle as a poorly conceived plan borne of panic and stress, that they were locked into even after they'd had a chance to reflect on it, but Jack really owes Hurley an apology.

The Lie: Excellent.

Much better, with a lot of great character moments. The powerful scene between Sun and Kate, Hurley's insistence on telling the truth and his mother believing him, Sawyer rescuing Juliet (the start of something...? says the obnoxious little shipper voice in my head ), Hurley threatening not to help Sayid in the future and then forgetting all about it. And funny/revealing stuff like the horrible decor of Casa Reyes, the "dead Pakistani on my couch" and Sayid briefly trying to murder Jack. And Hurley's inventive scheme to evade Ben's grasp, all great stuff.

But as always, it's meaningless to rate these episodes individually. Because You Left was also a nice set-up to The Lie, and if there were some draggy parts, it was in the service of a greater whole, and together they add up to a high Above-Average.

Season 1: The Crash
Season 2: The Hatch
Season 3: The Others
Season 4: The Rescue
Season 5: The Return

Season 6: The Really Really Really Really Large Turtle Under the Ground

My guess about the island? Not only is it jumping in time, but also in location as well (hint: the pendulum marking various locations on a large map)...

It would be easy for time travel to be causing the changes in location, either because the Earth is spinning, moving in orbit, the Universe is expanding or the Turtle is just getting restless...

 

[McCoy]

I guess with all this time-jumping, we'll find that Adam and Eve of the black and white stones really are a couple of our people. Maybe Daniel and Charlotte?

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I remember people theorizing that Adam and Eve were Jack and Kate...way back in season 2 before any time traveling elements were even introduced.

 

[McCoy]

Yeah I remember that too. And I wondered why they would think so. And now look. Good on them.

 

[Mr Light]

Temis: Des was unstuck in time because he executed the Swan Failsafe and then got time-flashes after that; isn't that a logical explanation for his special status? ... As for them lying, it makes sense to me, regardless of Widmore believing it. If six people showed up talking about a magical island where the dead came alive and a vast black smoke monster swirled around killing people and creepy invisible whispers happened all the time... without any evidence... wouldn't they all be institutionalized? Or at the very least ridiculed?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

At least with Lost you get the impression the writers know what's going on. I'm not sure anyone can explain the most recent chapter of Heroes.

Yeah, but Heroes is a lot simpler - really, there's no overarching mystery (I doubt that nonsense about the eclipse is going anywhere) - and with the recent change in the writing staff, the results of which will start showing up at the end of this season, I have some hopes for a turnaround. Also, the upcoming Volume is a simpler sort of storytelling than the Heroes/Villains switcheroo thing, so maybe even hack writers can do a decent job of it?

Lost is written at a whole other level, and gives me a motivation to pay closer attention to things - if the writers are making an effort, maybe I should too.

For instance, I recognized that the reason for the somewhat iffy* shoehorning of Desmond in as The Special One Who Can Defy Time" is that time-travel stories are a double-edged sword.

Impose predestination on the story, and your characters are helpless to affect the story and the audience gets bored and wonders what's the point. Let your character change the past, and the inevitable questions arise, why didn't they go back in the past and not get on the plane, etc? Make your characters travel helplessly through time and only allow them to change certain things invariably smacks of writer manipulation, as the things the characters can change will never be the important "don't get on the plane" stuff. In light of all this, having just one character be the powerful one is the best of all the bad alternatives - somewhat artificial, but it sure could be worse.

*But maybe not so iffy, if there's a solid reason for it, such as it being related to Desmond "surviving" the hatch exploding - maybe he didn't, and another Desmond was dragged in from another timeline and he can affect this timeline because he isn't native to it? Just any rationale that clicks with what we've seen before would be nice, and explaining what makes Des unique. And it would also add validity to why the numbers needed to be input - because somebody was going to die otherwise.

I wouldn't be surprised if at some point if the Losties are present for the wrecking of the Black Rock.

Yeah, I want Mr. Friendly, Richard Alpert and late lamented Karl to be the crew of that ship. And because it is likely to be a slave ship, I expect Mrs. Klugh to be part of the cargo.

Desmond is special because he got caught in the "hatch explosion" and as such, got knocked out of time... or to put it another way... "becuase of all that semi-incomprehensible time crap that happened to Desmond in Season 3 and 4 because of the hatch explosion". At least that's the way I read it.

So did Locke and Eko (and maybe Charlie).

Yeah but if you recall, Desmond is the one who got knocked into a time travel adventure, as depicted in early season 3.

Desmond turned the key - being at the heart of the explosion, why wasn't he killed? I think maybe he was, in a sense. I've never liked the idea that everyone walked away from the explosion - there should have been more of a consequence.

 

[chrisspringob]

Impose predestination on the story, and your characters are helpless to affect the story and the audience gets bored and wonders what's the point. Let your character change the past, and the inevitable questions arise, why didn't they go back in the past and not get on the plane, etc? Make your characters travel helplessly through time and only allow them to change certain things invariably smacks of writer manipulation, as the things the characters can change will never be the important "don't get on the plane" stuff.

I may be a mutant, but I actually love time travel stories in which the time travel adheres to the Novikov self-consistency principle (i.e., there is only one timeline, and it is immutable). Twelve Monkeys is one of my favorite time travel stories. But yeah, it didn't do great numbers at the box office, so I may be in the minority.

One thing to keep in mind though, is that there's a difference between "change" and "affect". Time travel with self-consistency means that you can't "change" history, but there's nothing to stop you from having an *effect* on history. It's just that your actions were always part of the timeline. So, for example, you could go back in time 100 years and invest in General Electric under an assumed name, and then return to the present and collect your $100 million. The investment would have always been part of history, it's just that you didn't know about it before.

But back to Desmond. I forget the details of the previous episodes that focused on him. Has it already been established that Desmond can actually change the timeline, or is it still possible that what's different about him is that his memory is swiss cheesed.....so that, for example, his meeting with Faraday in the past was always part of history, but he just forgot about it, and the memory came back to him at a convenient time?

 

[biotech]

I dont know why people thought the soldiers where Dharma operatives, those were WWII era uniforms and weapons, they could have been from a plane shot down in the pacific, for all we know Candle could have been there at the same time.

The time shifting island makes all things possible, I always suspected that the island moved under the black rock depositing it inland, but it could also be that the island appeared under the black rock during these time slips, and that Richard and the others arent immortal, they just havent been there that long in their own timeframe.

After all anyone seeing Sawyer and Julliette in WWII and again in 2004 would they they were immortal too.

Depending on how big the time slips get, we might even get to see that whole statue and the people who built it, not just the four toed foot.

 

[Spot's Meow]

^I thought it was Dharma people mostly because of the uniforms. They were that same gray color with the zipper in the middle and name tags on the side. We didn't get a very close look so of course I could be wrong but that was the first impression that I got.

 

[biotech]

They looked green to me.

 

[biotech]

http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/lostpedia/images/7/7a/OurIsland.jpg

Link as its quite a big image

 

[Spot's Meow]

^Honestly, it looks too dark to really tell what color it is. I really don't know who they are and I'll wait to see how things turn out before I make up my mind on it.

 

[TheArsenal]

After last night's episodes, I've come to the conclusion that I'm:

A) too old;
B) too dumb;
C) too unimaginative or;
D) all of the above

to truly understand and enjoy this show. This show has just totally gone over my head. I don't know why I watch it anymore, it's like a train wreck that I can't turn away from.

How about overwhelmed? I had a little overload by the end. So much had gone on and trying to fit the pieces together was tiring.

It was a lot of information thrown at you for a show which has been off the air for quite some months. They certainly didn't ease back into it. So, three things for me were going on at once: absorbing the current information, remembering what the hell had happened 6 months ago, and recalling characters who appeared on the screen for a few moments two and three years ago. The Sopranos was the same way for me.

I actually found going back afterward and watching the primer which came on before the two parter helpful. Not because it gave us anything new, but it jump started my memory on many things - some which they showed on screen, some which I recalled on my own.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the episode and give both hours a solid Above Average. I'm also, like some others, amused that they've dropped the trappings of being "sci-fi light" and gone whole hog for the time travel weirdness.