Behind the Scenes at LLL

A lot of you may wonder where I get my ideas, observations, thoughts and premonitions about "Lost." As we head into the long winter hiatus, I thought I'd provide a look into my sources. For most readers of this blog, my function is not to add to the huge stack of lostology available on the internet; rather, I digest what's out there and bring it to you in bite-sized little bits. So where do I get my ideas? There are six major sources

1. The Show Itself
No TV show has ever invited its audience to pick it apart the way "Lost" has. In training us to scrutinize every piece of set decoration in the background, the casting of extras, the meaning of every line of dialog and the believability of what we see on screen, "Lost" makes us a more critical audience for TV in general. A lostophile does not tolerate leaps of logic or out-of-character actions without a good explanation.

Think about this: the "h" in "Dharma" stands for "heuristics." The Encarta online dictionary defines "heuristic" as "a helpful procedure for arriving at a solution but not necessarily a proof." That perfectly encapsulates the experience of watching the show -- we must question what we see, and our assumptions about everything on that fekakte island, lest we be taken even more by surprise than is necessary.

2. The Powers that Be
This phrase is what the online lostophile community has affectionately nicknamed the show runners, Damon Lindeloff (who co-wrote the pilot) and Carlton Cuse. Lacking the celebrity (for now) of co-creator JJ Abrams, these two are now the driving creative force behind the show. Moreover, they have made themselves in many ways more accessible than almost any other creative type in Hollywood. Their roughly weekly podcasts on ABC.com clue us in to what was important in the prior week's episode, what to watch for in coming installments, and, to the extent something appeared more ambiguous on camera than they intended (e.g. the suicide of Jae Lee), exactly what we saw. They also have developed a special relationship with certain columnists and reporters, including TV Guide's Ask Ausiello, and Entertainment Weekly's...

3. Jeff Jensen
The "Doc" of lostologists, I've cited to Jensen's columns frequently on the blog. He has a wealth of literary references at his ready disposal that provide an incredible insight into the creative forces that may or may not have influenced the powers that be. His theories, while occasionally "shark-jumping" in their unsupported assumptions, are usually quite thought provoking. And by publishing Cuse's weekly "ten-word tease" every Wednesday morning, not to mention his very active role in the recently completed "Lost Experience," Jensen is the foremost partially in-the-know expert around. He also links to...

4. ew.com's TV Watch
Every week, Entertainment Weekly's website posts recaps, much like mine, which are fantastically illuminating considering their brevity. I routinely steal at least one observation from the "Lost" TV watch.

5. ABC/ American Express's "Lost and Found"
A new feature on the official "Lost" website (lost.abc.com), this recap cuts the previous night's episode into a 3-4 minute highlight reel of relevant moments. The video is followed by a series of still frames that asks (but never answers) many questions you may not have thought to ask when the episode aired.

6. The Online Lost Community
Alas, but this blog is not all there is out there. Nor is it the most complete site online. Maybe it's the timing -- "Lost" hit the airwaves as broadband internet access became commonplace -- but the online following for this show is unmatched in TV history. Some sites are clearly better than others. A favorite that I reference often (and which is in my links list to the right) is thetailsection.com. It offers what few other sites do - legitimacy. This kicked in over the summer when thetailsection.com's "Lost Experience" recap was hacked by TLE character Rachel Blake, bringing these bloggers into the actual narrative of the "Lost" universe. Other sites are out there, too, some better than others.

So that's where "LLL" comes from. Of course, there's my own innate brilliance, but I didn't want to hog all the credit!

Coming soon...

A three-part tour of the Swan hatch blast door map, and the hints it provides.

Email me your questions

To make it easier for you to get your questions answered, I've added an email address to the blog. Anything you want me to consider in my posts, or questions you might want answered about "Lost" or other issues covered in my posts can be emailed to "lostquestions@gmail.com."

Literary References in Lost

As you all know, "Lost" teases its viewers with clues (actual and false) in the form of literary references. Some are overt, as in characters reading Carrie, Watership Down, Of Mice and Men, etc. Others are less apparent. For a great analysis of the "Lost" phenomenon and the literature which informs it, check out this column on mania.com (the recently renamed cinescape.com):

http://www.mania.com/52757.html.

Top 30 Shows on TV - part 2 (11-30)

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Episode 306 - Do you wish it was February? "I Do."

(As always, thanks to ew.com for this image of Sawyer of and Kate)

So Kate (Monica?) loves Sawyer (James?), while still maintaining a connection with Jack, some time after marrying Kevin. As Hurley (Hugo?) would say - dude.

Not a lot of big reveals in the so-called "fall finale," but plenty of character development. The flashbacks belonged to Kate, but the episode really belonged to Jack.

In flashback, we learned that Kate, some time after the mysterious black stallion enabled her escape from the marshall, had shacked up with a Miami-Dade Police officer named Kevin (played by "Firefly's" brilliantly understated Nathan Fillion), whom she married under the alias "Monica." We later learned that Kate believed she was pregnant, only to have a test confirm otherwise (the test she mentioned to Sun last season). Believing she finally had a chance at a normal life, she called the marshall and pleaded with him to stop chasing her so she could settle down out of love. Not the brightest move, but at least she was smart enough to use a kitchen timer to hang up before the call could be traced. Once the pregnancy test came back negative, however, Kate realized her on-the-run nature was incompatible with being a cop's wife (and with, as she put it, "taco night,") drugged Kevin, confessed, and fled, running away from her honeymoon to Costa Rica aboard...Oceanic Airlines!

I truly hope Kevin eventually discovered who Kate really was and has been searching for her ever since. Nathan Fillion is a great addition to any ensemble cast, and it would be great to see him team up with Penelope Widmore...

Back on the main island, in a somewhat weakly-scripted aside, John Locke, Sayid, Desmond, Niki and Paolo bury Eko. Locke takes a detour with Sayid while picking up shovels to dig the grave so as to retrieve Eko's prayer stick. He tells Sayid that "the monster" killed Eko, that the monster may have been what brought them to the island in the first place (guess he's not satisfied with the "Desmond forgot to push the button" explanation, either), and that he believes the monster killed Eko for a reason - he just doesn't know what that might be. At the makeshift funeral, as Locke marks the grave with the prayer stick, he reads the same bit of scripture we all clearly saw falling from the sky after the implosion - "Lift up your eyes and look North." Again, the great tracker Locke literally had a sign fall out of the sky only to not spot it until something awful happened. Locke may in fact believe that Eko's death was just meant as a way for him to receive this message (which would be awfully egocentric), but we'll have to wait until after the Superbowl to know for sure.

But on to the main action (and boy, was there some action - nothing like sex and violence to make you want to skip Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, the football playoffs and Groundhog Day). Jack first tells Ben the spinal tumor will probably be inoperable and fatal within a week, but that he has no intention of operating (he seems to enjoy "playing God" over his captor, doesn't he?) During a work detail, an alarm voice, the same one we've heard when the Swan hatch went into lockdown, alerts the Others that there has been a "compound breach." Danny already knows who it is - "how did she get in?" he asks - before Alex assualts the group, taking out a couple of Others with her slingshot. She gets into a standoff with Danny (rock vs. bullet?) and demands to know where Karl is. He holds his ground as Alex is grabbed from behind. As they drag her away, Alex screams to Kate that they'll kill her boyfriend "like they killed mine."

As this disturbance ends, Juliet asks Kate to put on a hood to help them convince Jack to perform the surgery on Ben. Calmly and cooly, she lets Kate know that Sawyer will be killed if she can't convince Jack.

Kate is led to Jack's cell, and they exchange a wonderfully tender moment - Jack asking if they've hurt her, Kate struggling to keep from telling Jack that they've hurt her by hurting Sawyer. When she asks Jack to do the surgery, he knows she's been coerced. When he demands to know what they did to make her help them, she tells him Sawyer will be killed if he does not. His angry refusal was a powerful moment - was he jealous of Sawyer? Convinced they were dead either way? Sick of being manipulated? And all along Ben is watching, none too pleased.

Once back at the cells, Kate tells Sawyer the Others' whole plan - that they want Jack to perform the operation, and that Sawyer will be killed if he does not. Again she slips through the ceiling bars on her cage and, as she breaks the lock on Sawyer's cage, begging him to run, she is devastated when he tells her that they're on a second island, with nowhere to go. Realizing their predicament, they finally consummate their long flirtation. In the afterglow, Sawyer asks Kate if she meant it when she said she loved him. Her response was a non-committal kiss, to which Sawyer replies he loves her, too.

Back in the tank, the mysterious squawk box awakens Jack. A voice (that I thought sounded like Alex's) tells him to try the door. To his surprise, it is unlocked. He finds his way down the hall, grabs a pistol from an unlocked armory (only one gun?) and is just about to leave when he spots Ben's control room. There he sees Kate and Sawyer canoodling, just as Ben arrives. In his delightfully creepy manner, Ben tells Jack he's surprised - "I would have thought she'd have chosen you, too" - and realizes this can't help to move Jack to save Sawyer's life by saving Ben's. However, Jack turns the tables and tells Ben he'll do the surgery the next morning.

As Ben is prepped he asks if Alex asked about him (indeed she had, when Danny wouldn't talk about Karl, though more in a "take me to your leader" way than in a "how's the tumor" way). Juliet responds she was "taken back home", leaving us to ponder just what kind of discontent there is in Otherville, whether Juliet is on the same side as Alex, and where all this will lead. Ben goes under and Jack starts cutting.

From the gallery, Danny Pickett, believing Jack has lost his leverage, lets his rage seep through and storms off to kill Sawyer as revenge for Colleen (which seems really misdirected, since Sawyer was in the cage when Colleen was shot on a boat). When Tom tries to stop him, Danny mutters what will probably be the most important line of the episode, if not the entire mini-season: "Sheppard's not even on Jacob's list." Is this "Jacob" guy the "Him" we've heard about? Is he Mr. eyepatch? What is this list? What does it mean to be on it? And why is our main protagonist not on the list?

As Danny pulls Sawyer from the cage and demands that Kate watch him execute the con man, Jack is busy springing his plan into action. As Kate pleads with Sawyer to stand up and fight (he doesn't because he won't let his final act be one that puts Kate in danger), Jack intentionally nicks Ben's kidney sac and demands to talk to Kate. Tom radios Danny just before the trigger is pulled and tells him to give Kate the walkie or Jack will let Ben die. With two sets of Others watching, Jack (who already told Tom and Juliet that Ben will bleed to death if not patched up within the hour) tells Kate she and Sawyer have an hour head start before the Others go looking for them. He instructs her to call him and relate the story Jack told her just after the plane crash (the one about how much he wanted to run from his first surgery) to let him know she's alright. She refuses to leave without him, but Jack ends the mini-season by screaming, "RUN!!!"

One final mention goes to Juliet - the look she shot Jack when he announced what he'd done to Ben was fantastic. Although only her eyes were showing, she was clearly saying, "umm, this is not the 'surprise' death we planned for Ben, and I don't think I can cover this one up." (For that matter - my wife points out that Juliet could have instructed Jack not to perform the surgery on the terminally ill Ben if she just wanted him to die, so what is really up with her plan?)

So we wait for 13 weeks to see if Jack will let Ben die, if Danny will let his rage overcome any loyalty he may have to Ben and kill Sawyer, and if Kate and Sawyer will escape without Jack.

But, loyal readers, fear not. I have some posts planned for the coming weeks (including the rest of my top 30 TV shows, since you'll all need something else to watch while we wait). In the meantime, I have a big request. Please post any questions you want "Lost" to answer for you as comments to this post. I plan to organize, discuss, and speculate about these during the break.

Tonight on Lost - "I Do"

Because of the super double secret cliffhanger-y nature of tonight's "fall season finale," entitled "I Do," Carlton Cuse's weekly 10-word tease was reduced to just three words:

COMMITMENT CHANGES EVERYTHING

For more on this tease, a couple of shark-jumping theories on the true nature of the Others, a Cambellian discussion of Desmond as the classic hero and how Eko was transported back in time to relive he pre-murder childhood with Yemi as his own personal heaven, and an analysis of how the repeated rabbit referenced indicate a great "trickster" lives on the island, see Jeff Jensen's column on ew.com, available at:

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/commentary/0,6115,1556185_3_0_,00.html

Podcast, interviews, and Eko

(Thanks to Entertainment Weekly for this image).

If you don't want to know anything about the producers' plans for Lost, you'd better stop reading this post right now. That said, with one possible exception (the end of this post), there are no revelations of story elements that have not yet appeared on screen.

In interviews in Entertainment Weekly and TV Guide, and in their weekly podcast, producers Damon Lindeloff and Carlton Cuse discussed the behind-the-scenes goings-on that led to the death of Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) in last week's episode. In short:

• The character of Eko was always meant to be a short-lived, but crucial part of the cast.


• Eko did not die last season because the deaths of Ana and Libby made that just a bit too much.


• The producers would have preferred that Eko lived a little longer. However, since Adewale wanted to end his time on the island, they wrote the death in early this season.


• Part of the reason Niki and Paolo were conspicuously, yet lamely, introduced early this year was a red herring designed to counteract the ads the producers knew that ABC would run. They knew that killing off a main character during November Sweeps would require ads that said a character would die. So they introduced two new characters, much like Dr. Arzt, in part so that fans would assume the ads referred to the newbies instead of Eko. Were you fooled?

The producers also discussed some of what we have to look forward to after the coming 13-week hiatus ends in February. Again, there are no "answers" given here - just a partial timetable of topics to be addressed:

• In roughly the 8th episode (second one back), we will learn what happened to Cindy, the children, and the other tail section abductees.


• The characters will return to the Black Rock at some point soon.


• The end of this week's episode, a Kate-centered edition entitled "I Do," will fundamentally change the game for the survivors and shift the focus of the show back to the beach on the "main" island.

And finally, the producers discussed some of the Smoke monster mystery, and what we've seen already. What follows may or may not be a spoiler; on the other hand, the producers may not intend to better explain this. With that caution, read on or not (it's up to you)...

Lindeloff said in this week's podcast that you would not be wrong to interpret the end of "The Cost of Living" to indicate that the manifestation of Yemi and the smoke monster are one and the same. They also suggested that, when we last saw Smokey, the images from Eko's past that played were Smokey's "downloading" of images from Eko's mind that could be manifested this way. They stopped short of saying all of this was clearly the case, but implied it very strongly.

So that's it, Lostophiles. See you later this week for the recap of "I Do" and of the "Fall Season."

The Many Faces of Smokey

In the Wake of Mr. Eko's traumatic death by "Smokey," I want to throw open the discussion on just what this strange entity is. Is it a "security system" as Rousseau discussed? The "beautiful" "heart of the Island" as Locke described it? The guardian of the afterlife, Cerberus?

And now, my big question - is "Smokey" an "it?" In other words, is there only one monster. Consider the appearances. The first time we got a clear look at Smokey, it was as a thin, wispy, fast-moving streak (from "Exodus, Part 1", the penultimate episode of the first season). (The moving image below was taken from "Amber's" myspace page, http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=441550).



Then, in last season's "The 23rd Psalm," we got a longer, closer look at the...whatever, when it approached and confronted Eko. Before it began projecting images from his past, it looked like...(Thanks to the Lost Wikipedia entry, lost.wikia.com/wiki/The_Monster, for these images).

At the time, I figured this just indicated an increased effects budget from ABC. But then, in this week's "The Cost of Living," Smokey had both appearances. The thin wispy version streaked past Eko as he followed the Yemi doppleganger. Then the big, thick, morphing cloud version loomed, attacked and ultimately killed Eko.

There is also an implication, found on the Swan hatch map (see the link to the right) of something patrolling the island called "Cerberus."

In Greek mythology, Cerberus was a three-headed giant dog that guarded the doorway to the underworld. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerberus. Could the multiple heads of "Cerberus" be a fast-moving scout, a "beautiful" bright light as seen by John Locke, and the vicious enforcer that killed the pilot of flight 815 and, most recently, Eko? Why should we assume that the island's oddities are singular? The polar bears were not...

What do you all think?

Episode 305 - "The Cost of Living..." is Dying?

(Thanks to losteastereggs.blogspot.com for this collage of Eko's final confrontation).

The fifth episode of the third season brought some answers (again, one of them is simply, "Ben"), expanded some recently introduced characters, introduced us to yet another Dharma installation (and its inhabitant), brought back a favorite mystery, and killed off a beloved character. Could this much in one hour indicate that we're in November sweeps? I submit that it can...

The loss of Mr. Eko, the occasionally violent religious nut played brilliantly by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, is a tough one to swallow. Mr. Eko's journey seemed to be one of the ones with more stops left than most of the 815 survivors' (he really didn't outlive Claire?) His death reminds Locke, Sayid, and the we the audience that life on this island is nothing to be taken for granted. Moreover, from a pattern-spotting perspective, Mr. Eko's death reminds the audience that any character featured in an episode's flashback is the most likely to die before the scenes from next week (Shannon, Ana Lucia and Eko were the featured flashbacks in each of their death episodes). And while "The Cost of Living" raised some interesting questions about our ability to trust what we see on the Island, the producers have often reiterated, if a character dies on-screen on Lost, that character is dead. But that does not necessarily mean we have learned all there is to know about Mr. Eko...

And what did we learn about the on again/off again priest from Nigeria? In the immediate aftermath of Yemi's fatal gunshot and Eko's betrayal by his ill-fated drug gang members, Eko returned to Yemi's village to take his brother's place as the local priest. Years before, in the church where Eko would someday embark on some of the more brutal "justified" homicides in his life, Eko was both scared and defiant when a nun angrily ordered him to confess to stealing food to give to his starving brother. Upon his return, as a fabricated member of the cloth, Eko learned two things about Yemi: 1) he had been procuring a vaccine from a local medical clinic and funnelling some of it to the local gangster/ warlord to protect the village, and 2) he had planned to relocate to London. As a notorious drug lord himself, Eko knew he could only hide under the collar in Yemi's village for so long, so he formulated a plan - he would procure the vaccine, ostensibly to funnel to the gangsters, sell it on the black market instead, and run off to London in Yemi's place. The gangsters learned his plan, tried to hack off Eko's hands with a machete, and found themselves beaten and cleaved to death by the angry priest. When the villagers saw Eko emerge from the church carrying the bloody machete, they knew what had happened. Alter boy Daniel told Eko his mother had said that Eko was a bad man. When he asked Eko if this were true, Eko replied, "only God knows." Before leaving for London, Eko saw the villagers boarding up the church. He took umbrage, but was told the church was no longer sacred because murders had been committed inside. Eko's defense that he had saved the village from the gangsters was met by the harsh truth that others would take their place, and the accusation that he owed Yemi "one church."

So now we know exactly why Eko had started to build the church on the island. But when we look at the order things went down, some interesting questions arise, which may even explain Eko's demise - he started to build the church, presumably to repay his debt to Yemi. He then saw images of Yemi leading him to the Pearl hatch, where he found his new calling - pushing the button in the Swan hatch, at which point he abandoned the church. Was that the moment his fate was sealed? As producer Carlton Cuse teased this week, "What does the island want?"

An excellent question, and one which Eko's final day attempted to answer with a number of disturbing visions. Still recovering from the Swan implosion and time spent as a polar bear chew toy, Eko awakens to Yemi, telling him it is time to confess and be judged, and that Eko knows where to find him. At that very moment, Eko's tent begins to burn, but Eko is saved by Hurley, Charlie and Sayid, who has just returned from his boatless hike back from the Pala Ferry. Charlie recounts the brief emergency for Locke, and that he had muttered something about his brother, only to discover Eko has wandered off.

Having accompanied Eko on the journey to the Pearl last season (and encountered Yemi, himself), Locke knew that his plan to use the Pearl station's computer and monitors to search for Jack and co. would coincide nicely with the search for Eko. Locke calls for volunteers to join him, Desmond and Sayid, which Hurley immediately points out is quite different from Jack's technique of quietly selecting expedition members. Locke reminds Hurley that he's not Jack, and, accompanied by Charlie, Hurley, and newbies Nikki and Paolo, they make for the Pearl. I actually liked how Nikki, speaking for all the nameless extras, jumped at the chance to be included for a change, though I'm not a fan of grumpy Paolo's at this point. Caution, Nikki - when Dr. Arzt went on his first trip with the main gang after grousing about being an outsider, he blew up.

In the jungle, Eko has another couple of visions. First, the warlords we would learn he slaughtered attack him, but Eko again gains the upper hand. As he is about to slay their leader, the helpless victim transforms into alter boy Daniel, who tells Eko to confess before disappearing. Pausing to reflect by a stream (a scene quite reminiscent of Eko's cleaning off the gangsters' blood with holy water), he is joined by...our old pal, Smokey! Smokey appears intrigued, hovering over Eko as if wondering what he will do next. When Eko turns around, Smokey skittishly departs...

That's when Locke's party finds Eko, and together they journey to the burnt out husk of the drug plane. Locke shows Sayid and the rest how to access the Pearl hatch but remains topside with Eko. Eko discovers Yemi's body is missing from the plane, which Locke explains could either be due to the fire Eko set or the animals on the island, and returns Yemi's cross, which he found on his polar bear hunt, to Mr. Eko. Eko reacts violently to Locke's mention of Yemi's name, and Locke leaves Eko to join his crew in the Pearl hatch.

Down in the Pearl, Nikki, having watched the Mark Wickmund orientation tape, notes that the multiple monitors are meant to watch the other stations (plural) and not just the Swan. So she comes up with the idea of trying to establish a feed from another post to try to find their missing comrades. Sayid and Locke start splicing cables, and an image appears of what can only be described as a 1970s cubicle. Suddenly, into the frame steps a mysterious figure with an eyepatch, wearing a Dharma jumpsuit. Mr. eyepatch knows he's suddenly being watched, and disconnects the camera, leaving only static (real subtle of the Dharma folks to put a signal on the "hidden" cameras that someone has tuned in).

Who is this guy? Where is he? I could not get a clear look at the Dharma logo on his jumpsuit, but suspect I know what it would show (see the possible spoilers section, below, for my thoughts). As for the eyepatch, is that covering the space the glass eye found by the tailies in the arrow station used to occupy? Speaking of things found in the arrow station, am I the only one who notices Eko keeps finding answers in bibles that are anything but scripture (i.e. the removed section of the Swan film, and the picture of him and Yemi)? Locke's crew doesn't have time to investigate this new mystery, however, as a disturbance topside gets their attention...

That disturbance was Eko's last stand. Yemi emerges and again tells Eko to confess. However, grasping Yemi's cross, Eko says he will not confess as he has not sinned - everything he has done, from killing the old man to save Yemi from being press-ganged into a life of crime, to stealing to feed Yemi, to killing the gangsters who menaced the village in Nigeria, to killing the Others who ambushed the tailies, was necessary, and Eko is in fact proud of some of these actions. I was a little bothered that the things Eko did as a vicious drug lord between some of these incidents didn't inspire some amount of guilt...and apparently so was "Yemi," who angrily snatched away the cross, snarled that Eko spoke to him as though he were his brother, and marched off into the jungle. Shouting "who are you?" repeatedly, Eko follows Yemi, only to be overtaken by Smokey, who suddenly looms large and menacingly, then grabs Eko like a giant arm, and pummels him to death against the trees and ground. When Locke finds Eko in his dying moments, Eko whispers to Locke that they are all next...

Which would have been enough to make this a fantastically full episode. But we actually got to spend some time with Jack, Juliet and Ben at the Hydra station. "Invited" to attend Colleen's viking-style funeral in the linen pajamas the Others are all wearing, Jack tells Ben he knows it was Ben's spinal x-ray that he saw. Ben denies it at first, but after asking Juliet why she told Jack the x-ray was his (she did not), he confesses several things. First of all, Juliet's flirtations were meant to subtly win Jack over to perform the surgery (does Ben really think Juliet looks like Sarah? I mean, other than blond hair a certain level of attractiveness, I don't see it). Second of all, the Others' manipulations were designed to get Jack to want to perform the surgery, since we all know a motivated doctor is a good one. And finally, Ben believes there is a God, since two days after he learned he had a spinal tumor, a spinal surgeon literally fell from the sky.

This revelation from Ben is interesting. At face value (a serious leap of faith, to be sure), this confirms the Others had nothing to do with the plane crash, or the people who would be on board. It also suggests that Juliet's ostracizing of Ben from the book club apparently coincided with the revelation that Ben had a fatal ailment.

But Juliet's relationship with Ben was even better illuminated by her "my lips say yes, but my cue cards say no" conversation with Jack (thanks again to losteastereggs.blogspot.com for this collage)...

Since the cell is monitored constantly, Juliet could not tell Jack out loud to intentionally botch the surgery, so she pretended to be showing Jack "To Kill a Mockingbird" while instead doing her best INXS/ Love Actually impression. Interesting choice of films - doesn't Juliet know, as Atticus Finch told Scout in TKAM, "it's a sin to kill a mockingbird?"

So now, as always, there are more questions. Can Juliet be trusted? Does she really want Ben killed? Is he in fact dying from a big tumor? What does their rift mean for the Others' society, and how will Jack's choice, whatever it may be, impact himself, Kate and Sawyer? What did Eko do in London before relocating to Sydney? What, if anything, is the connection between Smokey, who last year projected blurry images of Eko's past, and Yemi (and the other visions on the island)? What did these various island entities want from Eko (and the rest of the group, for that matter)? How did Eko deserve death in his third encounter with Smokey, and not in his first two? Who was the guy with the eyepatch? Where was he, and why did he not want to be watched? And what else is in store in next week's mini-season finale, entitled "I do?"

****SPOILER WARNING******

Taking a look at the Swan hatch map, it should be obvious there is at least one station that has been teased that we have not yet seen - The Flame. The producers have said that we will see the Flame this season. It would seem that this was the spot where Mr. Eyepatch was lurking. As for what goes on at the Flame, and what Mr. Eyepatch is doing there, your guess is as good as mine.

"The Cost of Living" - delayed by penguins

As a “programming reminder,” due to my attendance of the Kings-Penguins game tonight, I will not be able to watch tonight’s Lost episode, “The Cost of Living,” until tomorrow, which will delay my recap. To make it up to all of you (who are probably reading this post after you watched the episode, but before I did), I invite you to post your questions about the episode as comments to this post, which I’ll try to respond to in the recap.

On to other tidbits…

As I’ve said before, one of my main sources is ew.com’s resident lostologist, Jeff Jensen, whose weekly essays and theories about the show are often insightful, though frequently “out there.” This week’s edition deserves a special shout-out. Some highlights:

• Jensen clearly has regular contact with Lost show runners Damon Lindeloff and Carlton Cuse, and, for the second Wednesday in a row, Cuse has given Jensen a “tease” to keep in mind heading into tonight’s episode (I don’t consider Cuse’s teases “spoilers” because the producers are far too tight-lipped about their creation to actually reveal any substantive information before it shows up on screen). Here’s the tease: “It's judgment time. Yemi. Eko. What does the island want?”
• Jensen promises he knows who the Others really are, and will tell us next week.
• It’s no secret Lost is riddled with references to pop culture and literature. Last week’s reference to Of Mice and Men was pretty obvious. But there was another reference last week to a non-fiction memoir by avowed Lost fan Steven King (entitled On Writing). The quote from Jensen (quoting King, who posits that writing is in fact telepathy):

“’Look — here's a table covered with a red cloth. On it is a cage the size of a small fish aquarium. In the cage is a white rabbit with a pink nose and pink rimmed eyes. In its front paws is a carrot stub which it is constantly munching. On its back, clearly marked in blue ink, is the numeral 8.’

It's King's belief that upon reading that, and reflecting upon the bunny, we would all agree that ‘the most important thing here... [is] the number on its back.... This is what we're looking at, and we all see it. I didn't tell you. You didn't ask me. I never opened my mouth and you never opened yours. We're not even in the same year together, let alone the same room... except we are together. We're close. We're having a meeting of the minds.’”

How fitting that Steven King would use one of “the Numbers” …

• Jensen reiterates his belief/wish that Lost and NBC’s Heroes will at some point cross over (and that the eclipsed helix symbol that recurs on Heroes will turn out to be a Dharma logo, with the “heroes” themselves the product of a Hanso experiment). At least we know Lindeloff watches Heroes.
• The latest of Jensen’s master theories, the “redemption of television” theory, is far more interesting and thought-provoking than some of his whackier ideas. I can’t do it justice here, so I’ll just refer you to Jensen’s column:http://www.ew.com/ew/article/commentary/0,6115,1553147_3_0_,00.html.