Everything Else

The new Lost, “The Other Woman” is here this week. And it’s about her in the picture. I don’t think I like her anymore after a full episode.

Go here to watch last night’s episode of Lost. It is perhaps one of the best episodes in the entire four seasons. I am completely gobsmacked by this. NB: you really need to be willing to go with the writers/creators by now. If Lost is a curry, and some people don’t like spicy food, they’ve begun to drop bags of chillies into it week after week.

So I think most people would agree this was way better than the first episode last week. Some notable parts for me included:

1. Ben to Carl: “R U boning my daughter?”
2. Extremely annoying new character Charlotte. They might as well have accompanied her first scene with a subtitle that said “This is a haughty British person (Trademark property of United States of America)
3. Ben again: “I owed you one”. He is such a brilliant character, and a great actor too.
4. Was I the only one who laughed out loud at Locke standing in the rain, arms aloft, with a huge shit eating grin on his face? I mean it’s the BILLIONTH time they’ve used this shot! But why not use it again, just in case you didn’t know he fucking loves the island deeply and on a level no other human being can understand. He’s seriously indie about the island.
5. Lots of questions, even beyond the perennial ones. Who is Ben’s mole? (some people saying Michael) How do Faraday/Miles etc have a picture of Ben? Is there another mole amongst the others? Why are they looking for him anyway? Nice to see a main character (Locke) ask a dumb viewer question at last too: “WAHT IS THE MONSTER?”
6. What is the significance of this Lapidus guy being the original choice to fly flight 815? Did this in any way lead to him being selected to go to the island?
7. I’ll stop with the questions now as I’m even confusing myself.
8. “Who are we to question taller ghost Walt”- For a character that’s been gone for so long, they’re really getting great mileage out of Walt, both in terms of plot and humour.
9. Polar Bear in the Tunisian Desert, not even worth trying to wonder why.
10. Nice to see Sayid threatening people and shooting at them again.
11. Irrational crush on Juliet character shows no signs of abating.

I reckon if you don’t watch Lost and have just read that list you might hate it even more, what a disparate amount of stuff happens in the show. All in all, though, I thought this was a really great episode that was so much more exciting than the season opener. Roll on Friday (or Sunday, or Monday) for the next one.

Some trailers:

After last night’s GREAT second episode of Lost, an episode that will have you wondering what was up with last week’s borefest even more (my thoughts on episode 2 next week) somebody on a message board points the above resemblance out. A hearty LOL for all .

For the other impatient people, there’s a stream of last night’s episode, “Confirmed Dead” here. (This isn’t a particularly dodgy site, but it may try and get you to sign up for some adware, albeit fairly politely by internet standards, as you click on it. Just read how to abstain from signing up for it quite carefully as it tries to confuse you)

We really are all tuned into a pile of different media these days aren’t we? Between the net, Sky One, and Irish TV, I assume everybody who cares has seen the first episode of Lost series 4 by now!

I thought it was a pretty poor episode, and I am a major apologist for Lost normally. I mean, I enjoyed it, for sure. But if you put it next to the start of Season 3 (”you can always go, downtown”, burnt muffins, exploding plane frenzy) or the start of Season 2 (”make your own kind of music”, “you’ve got to lift it up”, “BROTHER!”) it really just seems like a standard episode, not a curtain raiser at all. I mean, those two openers were so well-made, so clever. This is badly paced and a bit of a mish mash.

Someone made the point that after the ridiculous events of the Season 3 finale, they needed to take things down a notch. I guess that’s what they did. It wasn’t a total waste of time though. Hurley’s creepy visitor in the mental hospital (above) was the best part and Ben was great as usual. (”I owed you one”)

Of course the whole thing raised more questions than it answered: is Hurley hallucinating all these dead people? Who is the mystery visitor working for? When will Charlie eventually GO AWAY and be dead?

The plot kind of hangs together as well a bit, there’s just so much suspension of common sense required with Lost. I mean, at no stage did Hurley try to convince people that he felt the rescuers were bad news by explaining what Charlie had written on his hand. He didn’t make it in any way clear. He just cried. If he was actually sure it was a bad idea you’d think he’d be screaming and yelling at his friends about it. And the others just stood there silently and let this weird “debate” between Locke and Jack trundle along. Except it wasn’t a debate. Nobody made any clear argument for either course of action! They just wandered to either side of the divide.

And why on earth would anyone go with John Locke, given that his express desire seems to be to stay on the island at all costs? (He’s a bit weird too)

Still, it’s generally best not to ask these questions, but to sit back and enjoy the schlocky action of it all. (Then read wackjob theories on the internet about it the next day.)

That trailer is the cheesiest thing I’ve ever seen. Still, TWO DAYS till this airs in the US and the inevitable streams and downloads. TWO DAYS. Two days until more Matthew Fox bobbling his head as he makes grave inspirational speeches, two days until more stupid unsatisfying schmaltzy episodes about somebody’s favourite childhood doll acting as a buffer between episodes where stuff blows up and things end on a ridiculous non sequitur, two more days until more erm…redneck dude and Evangeline Lilly kissing in strange jungle settings.

“WE HAVE TO GO BACK!” Oh my god!

I know I shouldn’t compare the Westboro Baptist Church to some Irish band called You’re Only Massive. But they do sound alike.

Except it would be unfair to the Church really, their flow is a lot better. And if you’re going to steal someone else’s track to rap over then at least the WBC knew to start at the top, with “Big Pimpin’”.

Seriously though, it is kind of catchy, I guess you can’t ruin a good beat! Fans of Uffie will love this. Apart from the whole “every human being is a fag” feeling that’s lightly hinted at, erm, once or twice.

If you’ve never heard of Reverend Phelps and his strange family (whose theory really is that everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY is a “fag”) then Louis Theroux has done a good documentary about them which you can watch below. (Their other material is a bit more folksy. I didn’t like it.)

PS: I just realised I posted the above video without adding: WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON ON PLANET EARTH WHEN THIS KIND OF CRAZY SHIT CAN EXIST?

I haven’t just posted this documentary about people who have sex with animals simply to disgust you. Nor have I posted it because it borders on hilarity at times (”I call them maregasms”). I have posted it because it is a brave documentary and some interesting issues are raised. And above all because it attempts to discuss something utterly weird and disgusting (to me) in a rational way.

Interesting post about scouse medium Derek Acorah over at Present Tense, with added Jon Ronson. I think the above video pretty much closes the door on Acorah’s psychic powers. Rule 1 of being a psychic, avoid using names that double as meaning for the penis as you spit out your predictions through clenched teeth.