Whatever Happened, Happened: George Lang and Matt Price on Lost
George Lang of Staticblog and Matt Price of Nerdage again jump into the “Lost” universe with a look at last night’s episode, “Whatever Happened, Happened.” Spoilers for that episode ahead! Share your thoughts in the comments.
Does being in 1977 means the fully grown Jack Shepherd gets to act like the 10-year-old spoiled son of a doctor he actually was at that time, or something to that effect?
Nerdage: So, in 1977, Jack is the new Sawyer and Sawyer is the new Jack. Sawyer, the “leader” of the
displaced-in-time Losties asks Jack for something to save a kid’s life. Jack says, “What’s in it for me?” and blows Sawyer off. It’s not as charming on Jack as it was on Sawyer; in fact, Jack has become something of a tool. (I guess you can argue he’s trying to stop saving everybody, but, at the cost of becoming a jerk.)
Staticblog: It’s possible that he sees that the messiah market is just too crowded in 1977, what with Horace, LaSawyer and especially Richard Alpert holding most of the savior cards on the island. He also appears to think that his Hippocratic Oath is nullified by the fact that he’s now toiling in the janitorial arts. I agree that he’s being kind of a choda here, but he has to become that choda in order to achieve his inevitable redemption. Because redemption is what “Lost” is all about these days (Ajira Flight 316, anyone?)
Did Cuse/Lindelof just cop out on us with 12-year-old Ben Linus forgetting everything that happened, so he won’t remember in 27 years when he’s being tortured by the Iraqi National Guard veteran that he was shot by that guy back when “Night Fever” was a hit?
Nerdage: Richard can save Ben at the “loss of his innocence.” I’m assuming the smoke monster is involved? Man, I really would like to dig into who leads the Others, and why, and what does that mean? Given Richard saying he “doesn’t answer” to Ellie (Faraday’s mom, right?) or Charles in last night’s exchange, what exactly IS Richard’s position? How did Charles (Widmore, I presume) become leader of the Others, if that’s what Richard meant last night, and how did he lose it?
Staticblog: I actually think, at this point, that Richard Alpert could be Smokey the Sentient Vapor, and that we might see him morph into a trail of soot next week and heal The Boy Who Lived To Become He Who Must Not Be Named Henry Gale. I think Charles and Ellie got control of the island wrested from them by the resident god, Richard Alpert, and all this noise about “We’ve got to go back!” is because Charles and Ellie (Eloise Hawking) are doing battle with said eyeliner-wearing freak.
So, does this Time-Space Continuum business make any sense now, thanks to Hurley and Miles’ exposition-heavy give-and-take?
Nerdage: The Hugo-Miles conversation seemed in there to bring the viewers up to speed — why isn’t time travel in “Lost” working like “Back to the Future”?
Staticblog: I thought that was an odd scene — one of those rare moments when the Lindelcuse decided to hold our hands and empathize with our plight. So, in this case, Hugo and Miles are us, trying to determine whether anything they do in their new status as Dharmanian grunts makes any difference.
Was Kate just trying to get attention when she went superdramatic over the question of Aaron, or is she, true to her Shakespearean name, a shrew?
Nerdage: I guess we can read Kate’s earlier “never ask me what I did with Aaron” blah-blah as kind of overdramatic. “I left him with his grandma” doesn’t seem to be the kind of thing you can “never ask
about,” but then Kate can be kind of a drama queen. That said, the Kate-Cassidy relationship was nicely played, and the explanation for Kate’s need to be a mother to Aaron worked for me, for the most part. Hey, a Kate episode I didn’t hate!
Staticblog: Seriously, Kate was freaking out because she handed off her pre-schooler to his grandmother? Happens all the time in my house, and I don’t go into a petulant frenzy. She’s a little more sympathetic these days, but I want to know what’s going on with all her flirting with Roger “Uncle Rico” Linus. He needs to watch his drunk self — Kate is supernaturally cute, but her ethics are deeply defective. If she ever makes it back to the real world, she probably has a bright future in Ponzi schemes and scamming the TARP.
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