Lost: The Other Woman (season 4, episode 6)

Full disclosure: my cable box went cukoo at 8:56 central time, meaning I missed most of this episode's last few minutes. It returned to normalcy in time for me to see Ben walking free among the Losties, but I have no idea what I missed.

 

Recently, in the wake of the writer's strike, it was revealed that the rest of the season will now be trimmed to only an additional five episodes. Even so it will end with the same finale; in other words, the story line will be condensed this season and some stories bumped to future seasons.

 

For those who complained online that they couldn't imagine how any episode could be shuffled to another year without damaging the show as a whole, take a look at this one. A good story, full of action with some interesting fleshing out of the Juliet character: but all in all a tale that could have been told last season, or this one, or one two years down the road.

 

Essentially the plot and backstory boil down to a sentence each: Juliet and Jack pursue the two freighter personnel to stop them from releasing poison gas on the island. In the backstory Juliet's affair with Goodwin leads Ben to send him to his death (ala David's actions in the Bible).

 

What do we learn? What questions are raised/answered?

 

Well, Locke again demonstrates his inability to lead and his predisposition to being suckered in by a con man.  Be it his father, the undercover cop, or Ben, time and time again he goes against all logic and listens to the wrong guy. Why oh why take Ben's word on anything? Why release him to the community? Why take his bait and even talk to the guy?

 

[oh, and uh, if you're worried about rebellion: don't release a hated evil-doer into a community skeptical of your leadership. The word I'm looking for John, is Duh.]

 

Via the backstory and his manipulation of Locke we get yet another lesson on how devious Ben is - "I've always got a plan John". This guy is turning into the Superman of bad guys, and no one's found his Kryptonite quite yet. One word of warning: I'd tone down his all-powerful evil powers, or he'll be so over the top he'll become a farce.

 

Do I buy his spiel about Charles Widmore as the big bad villain of the piece? No, not really. Too obvious for a true Lost revelation, although some facts certainly fit. Wait and see, as always.  

 

Juliet continues to perplex me. There's real meat to her character but, perhaps because of the actress, she just seems so ho-hum to me. Between her and Kate I'd probably go with her (more brains, good job, no known felony record and all) but as it's being played I can see why Jack still carries a torch for Kate off-isle.

 

[nice setup at the episode's start, prepping the audience to assume Juliet was off-isle and one of the 'rescued'. Well played, sirs, well played]

 

[I also love the exchange between her and Jack. To paraphrase: "it's very tiring being a Other Jack" and "Don't you have any secrets you don't want everyone to know?" Jack responds: "Sure. You read them all in my file". Touche!]

 

Juliet is the 'other woman' of the title, first in Harper-Goodwin's marriage (Harper-Goodwin indeed - it sounds like a publishing group) then, in a fashion, between Jack and Kate.

 

 

Near the start of the show the 'whispers' start and Harper

 

 

appears to instruct Juliet to stop Dan and Lewis from going to the Tempest power station.

 

 

Some points here:

 

1. The Tempest is a play about a sorcerer that manipulates survivors of a shipwreck.
2. In retrospect, Harpers instructions very nearly put the lives of the entire island at risk and in the hands of Ben. When combined with the whispers, does this mean that Harper was a manifestation of the Monster? I think so. After all, killing all the survivors 'protects' the island.
3. What's the point of having mass quantities of poison gas lying around in a power station? What kind of Nazi stuff is going on there anyway?

 

I wonder about Ben's "[the rabbit] didn't have a number on it, did it?" comment. Were the rabbits mutated as part of an experiment or was he just being a wisenheimer? Ah, who cares I guess. Small potatoes when you want to gas a whole community and dispatch others to their death for banging a girl you have a crush on.

 

[Oh, and for the record, I think he sent Goodwin out to put him in harm's way, but I don't think there's anyway he could have predicted he'd meet his death on the assignment.]

 

That's just about it I think. No numbers that I caught, no great hidden meanings that I managed to catch. Of course, there are those missing three minutes . .

 

Oh, and uh, that man of Ben's on the boat, the 'face you thought you'd never see again' . ..c'mon folks, it's Michael, don't you think?

 

Til next week Lost fans!

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Tags: Lost

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What the panel of docs and teachers said about Smiley

In retrospect I find my Favre post, at its heart, a pretentious piece of crap. Kindly ignore it.

 

As an excuse I can say that I wrote it while waiting to leave for the final evaluation of Smiley's learning ability. I was a bit nervous. I was expecting something out of Back to School, with Lisa and I playing the role of Rodney Dangerfield facing down a hostile panel of educators.

 

Instead what we got was a friendly discussion around a conference table, with the psychologists displaying their opinions on a large projection screen in the room.

 

They were very complimentary of us, especially Lisa (for her persistence in getting him seen) and of Smiley in general. "You guys are swell," one of the doctor's said, causing a giggle in the room.

All three of the ladies that saw Smiley were there, and all gave their opinions. #1 was still critical of his overall abilities, but #'s 2 and 3 leant far more weight to the opposite side of the scale.

 

In the end here's the verdict: for the time being the assumption is his only learning problem is his inability to speak, despite an obvious interest in doing so. The cause? "We may never know," they said.

 

The solution? They're going to put him into a special education class three hours a day, four days a week, for the next (projected) two years, with a full re-evaluation in three years. The class will be of kids with 'normal' academic ability but speech difficulties, which means he won't be below or above the curve.

 

They did mention that should a more serious problem be present, it's far more likely to be spotted with daily exposure to a classroom than a few hours of testing, so in a way we're not out of the woods yet.

 

The big boss of MPS who was at the meeting go the ball rolling quickly, making a conference call then and there; he starts Monday at 12 noon at a nearby school we once toured for YaYa.

 

So my boy is going to school .  . . I'm happy and proud and I think it'll be good for him.

 

I'll update everyone after his first day.

 

Tags: Smiley

Happy Birthday Stacey

Before I run out of time today, let me say that Lisa and I wish our niece/Goddaughter Stacey a very happy 7th birthday!

On a less joyous note today is also, as you know, the 172nd anniversary of the fall of the Alamo (may Crockett/Travis/Bowie live forever in our memory) and the 12th anniversary of a horrific car accident that nearly crippled my cousin.

All in all, I think we'll stick with the birthday wishes :) Happy Birthday!

The End of an Era - Brett Favre Retires

Brett Favre, three time MVP, Super Bowl Champion, record holder for most consecutive games at QB, most TD passes, most wins at QB, and beloved hero of millions of Wisconsin fans, retired yesterday after 17 years in the NFL.

'I know I can still play. I'm just tired mentally. I'm just tired.', he was quoted as saying.

The news came as a shock following a great season that only ended in OT during the NFC Championship game, as most fans were  confident he'd return to lead the charge towards another elusive Super Bowl ring.

If you don't live in Wisconsin, or haven't for the last 15 years, I think it's impossible to accurately portray Favre's status in this state.

In Wisconsin he is sports icon/respected elder/warrior/leader/sex symbol/iron man. He is Moses, bringing a once proud people out of obscurity and to the Promised Land. He is Achilles, strong and feared, but with weaknesses that made him human. He is Beowulf/Arthur/Washington and Babe Ruth.

If this was a different era bards would sing tales of his life, and centuries from now children on the banks of the Wolf River would recite his exploits in exaggerated awe.

Think I'm stretching the truth? Move here.

The local nightly news devoted a full 14 minutes to his retirement, at which point the anchor apologized for having to relate 'other' news - like those pesky Texas and Ohio primaries. A few minutes later the sports segment started and we were back at it.

A local company started producing 'Green Bay 4 Ever' t-shirts and marketing them. Local papers blasted headlines as large as any announcing a war or the moon landing. Montages recounting his wife's cancer, his father's death, his own addiction, and his greatness flowed across the airwaves.

Here's the front page of the Journal website from this morning, a full day later:

You have to understand, the Packers had more world championships than any other team in the NFL. Green Bay left the '60's, the era of Lombardi, the undisputed kings of the road and then . . .  30 horrible years of nothing.

No championships. No Super-Bowl appearances. A rare playoff appearance in a strike year.

I remember many times watching the Packers take a comfortable lead (this would be in the midst of one of any number of mediocre years) and turning away from the TV, fearing they'd give up the game.

And they would.

4-12 . . I remember that as the last season before Holmgren and Favre took over. 4 and 12.

And then nearly two decades of constant playoff appearances, highlight reel passes, a Super Bowl ring and another that should-have-been, and a quarterback that is legitimately mentioned in best-ever discussions.

(I remember Socialist, many years ago, telling me in a hushed tone. "I always thought we'd have a decent quarterback someday. But I never dreamed we'd have a stud like Favre, not  the Packers. Never in a million years . . .")

I never fully embraced the Favre religion, largely because I'm only a casual football fan, but also because it seemed a bit too . . . well, like worship.

But I do remember the excitement and hope some kid from Mississippi inspired in the frozen tundra of Wisconsin. I remember Milwaukee exploding when the Pack took the Super Bowl in New Orleans. I remember disgust over his interceptions and acceptance of it as part of his necessary 'gunslinger' mentality. I remember getting sick of his yearly off-season 'maybe I'll be back/maybe I'll retire' dramas. I remember his triumphant game on the heels of his father's death. I remember countless victories, far fewer defeats, and endless confidence that  we'd do it all again next year.

We'll miss you Brett. Thanks for everything.

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Tags: Brett Favre, Green Bay, Packers

Happy Birthday Katie

Today is my sister Katie's [redacted] Birthday, and while she may have cancelled her party due to illness, the Slapinions household wishes her a happy and productive year! Love you!

Tags: Katie

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Beowulf and 30 Days of Night

It was pretty hard to lay hands on a rental copy of 30 Days of Night in this town yesterday. It was only on my second round of calling every Blockbuster on the south side that I came across a recently returned copy.

To my disappointment Lisa didn't want to sit down and watch it once she found out it was a vampire movie. Horror she likes; vampires and zombies not so much.

I really enjoyed the movie and I think the director was great at using the isolated and brutal Alaskan landscape as a secondary (but equally deadly) opponent. The story was strong for a genre film, even if the climax wasn't to my liking, and I disagree with critics who labeled this a 'gore' fest. Frankly, I think the blood and guts was kept to a bare minimum given the requirements of the story.

Plus this wasn't as much a vampire story as a zombie story disguised as a vampire film. A small group of survivors clings to life in an environment dominated by zombie/vampires . . .I have a slight fetish for films with that premise, and if for nothing else I'd recommend the film on that alone.

3 out of 4 stars.

I also rented Bewoulf in the past week.

 

I enjoyed it in the moment but in retrospect felt a little let down, like the old cliche about Chinese food: an hour later I was hungry again.

Visually it's grand, no question about that, even if that whole 'spooky-eyes' thing has yet to be fully worked out. And yeah, it's a little freaky to see cartoons talking and acting sexual - that's for the Internet people, not the movies! - but again, great visuals throughout the movie.

I don't agree with Roger Ebert that it was intended as satire. Nor do I think that Grendel was  a sympathetic character gone wild because of unjust banishment. I didn't sympathize with the monster, child-like mentality or not, and he WAS a freaking monster. He ATE people for pete's sake.

I just think that Zemeckis had no real love for the material (on the DVD he admits not liking the source material). Top it off with some alterations of the poem's plot by screenwriter Neil Gaiman and I started to lose some interest in the film.

Look I love Gaiman's novels - American Gods was superb - but the man is a maverick. Why would you ask him to adapt the oldest existing epic in the English language is beyond me - you just knew in your bones that he HAD to mess around with the story; it's his nature.

I agree with making Beowulf's kingdom the same one he rescues from Grendel, as that did solidify the story for moviegoers, but the Angelina Jolie/bestiality thing? Yeah, uh, no.

And I will say this - Beowulf is a hero, a legitimate and unconquerable champion. To make him a 'flawed man' betrays more of the 21st century's sad mentality than it does the heart of the character.

2 of 4 stars.

Tags: 30 Days of Night, Beowulf

An example of how honesty has never been an issue in our marriage

I had my wife read a post I did yesterday (but have yet to post).

"It's good. Very well written today."

"Today? As opposed to what?"

"As opposed to some of the junk you pass off as posts"

Later I asked if she'd read the Leap Day post.

"Maybe"

"Maybe?"

"Yeah, I think so. It was that boring one wasn't it?"

"What do you mean, 'boring'? Did you even read it?"

"Of course."

"What was it about?"

"It was about . . [shrugs] I don't know. Something about snow and the car. And you wrote 2009, not 2008. See, I told you I read it! Ha!"

{note: I did indeed write 2009, and later edited it out}

"So what did you think about the phone call?"

"What phone call?"

''You didn't even read it to the end??!"

"I  . . . mighthavestoppedhalfwaythrough. Look, you would NEVER read 30 posts a month if I had a blog. I bet you wouldn't even glance at more than three a year, would you?"

"Ah, that's not true. I've told you to get a blog for years."

"That's such a crock. You'd hate my blog. It'd be 'Danny did this' and 'Danny said that' and you'd spend all day trying to get me to edit out all the stupid things you do all the time".

Snort. "Bull. You don't have a blog because no one wants to read about making flannel frog pins and paper mache dolphins. You'd put people to sleep."

Laughs. "Uh, half of Blogger is about paper mache dolphins, thank you very much. And just for that, maybe I'm going to start a blog and make it all about those flannel frog pins. And you know what? I'm going to make you read every-single-word- aloud. Would you like that bunky? Wouldya?"

And finally, her complete email response to a whiny email of mine.

that was the main point, dont look between the lines for derogatory sh*t,  you know i love you, shut up.

Ah, true love lol

 

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Tags: Lisa

Happy Leap Year!

I hope everyone has had a happy and memorable Leap Day 2008.

It was kind of a mixed bag for me. Three more inches of snow overnight, making the glaciers in my alley oh, six miles deep. I got stuck and unstuck and stuck again, and bottomed out the car moving from one ice pack to another. It'll be a miracle if the cars don't need alignments and shocks by spring.

At work my day was hampered by the misery that is a Friday in Lent (please let my birthday not fall on such a day this year!), and the lousy meatless lunches that come with it.

I also engaged in a long and fruitless argument with a customer who refused to see facts that were as plain as day.

Believe me, few things are as enjoyable as explaining, time and again, in a myriad of different ways, that $65 times three purchases is  $195 EACH AND EVERY TIME. There is no 'trickery' involved, and no amount of math, new, old, verdic, algebraic, whatever, is going to change that fact.

On the other side of the scale we closed out the month significantly ahead of Feb of '07 (not even including today's totals) and ahead of Feb of '06 as well.. A hearty thank-you to all involved in making that happen.

I also had the pleasure of enjoying an evening at home minuse the wife and kids, although I've done nothing more exciting than complete my federal taxes.

* * *

I had a bit of a smile today too, albeit a heartless evil one.

 Midway through the day I took a call from a salesman who was pushing . .what was it? Oh yes, a new brand of drain cleaner. Obviously he wasn't the best man for the job or I'd remember the product without a four minute pause, but it was how truly AWFUL he was that made it special.

"Mr. S I'd like to thank you for returning the comment card showing interest in our product," he began.

Never heard of the company, certainly never wasted my time filling out postcards about Drano.

"and as a special thank-you I'd like to offer you a XY brand 4 inch pocket knife as my gift," he said.

Not sure how a pocketknife would inspire a purchase from someone in my industry, but, uh, sure.

Now you have to picture this next bit as if it was ripped clean out of a failed sitcom. You know the scene because you've seen it a hundred times: someone's kooky uncle or the Ashton Kutcher of the class gets a job as a telmarketer. Hilarity ensues. Cue laugh track.

"And I bet there's plenty of dark nights and back alleys in, uh .  .in Milwaukee where that blade is going to come in pret-tee handy, ha ha ha".

You should have seen my smile. I could hear the guy turning the pages of the script. I could hear him whispering to himself in panic when he forgot what city he'd called. And best of all, oh, best of all dear reader, the 'ha ha ha' was just that: a mechanical, forced, actual 'ha ha ha', devoid of even a child's efforts to imitate a real laugh.

I immediately decided to devote a  few minutes to the guy. There'd be no curt 'no thanks' from me today, nosirree.

[And again, I'm in a suit and tie industry. What is his company trying to say, that I go slumming in the Bowery on my off hours? And thanks for ridiculing my hometown. Did anyone think out this marketing angle, or did they come up with it over a bong one night?]

He went on with his pitch, and the turning of his notecards, and after awhile I began to discern a womans voice in the background. It was faint but oh, it was there, and I began to notice that it spoke the man's words just a moment before they rolled out of his mouth.

Dear Liza, the poor woman was training this man! How miserable was her Leap Day?

So he tries to get me to buy his stuff. "Send me a sample and I'll make a decision," I said, for no other reason than to let him off the hook without a real 'no'. Ah, but his trainer was having no part of it and I knew the spin before I heard it. I parried it quickly and she came back with yet another flanking attack (the woman was obviously a veteran salesperson)

Here is where pity began to overcome my amusement. The longer he and I - well, she and I - went 'round and round, the more he fell a step behind. Eventually I would hear her voice first, and only after she was finished speaking would he try and stumble through and remember what she said, his voice full of misery.

Enough was enough, and I disconnected after a polite 'no thank you'.

Now I'll probably never get that pocketknife.

Tags: Leap Year

Lost: The Constant . . . Season 4, Episdode 5

If you weren't a fan of Lost before this episode, well, you're probably still not a fan now.

 

Not that it wasn’t a fine episode, but it wasn’t the best way to introduce the series to a new viewer, especially if the newbie had an aversion to science-fiction. Without question "The Constant" was the most Star Trek-yof any episode I've seen to date.

 

The events on the island are so secondary as to be extraneous, and largely act as a plot device for the off-shore action. So with your kind permission, I think we'll start on the freighter.

 

While en route to the ship Desmond experiences a dramatic out of body experience. For the rest of the episode his consciousness is bounced back and forth between 1996 and 2004; keep in mind that at no point is the ‘Desmond’ we know present except at the start and end of the show. From the moment the trouble starts his body is inhabited by the 1996 version of himself.

 

 

 

There are a dozen different time travel stories that have used a similar idea, so it’s certainly not very original: Somewhere in Time, Slaughterhouse Five, Quantum Leap, 12 Monkeys, etc. I think it was crafted well and did what it needed to do, but really, why bother? I have to assume, based almost soley on the note in Daniel’s journal at the end, that the time-travel issue will arise again, perhaps as a major plot point.

 

 

 

If it doesn’t, then the whole episode was really just filler.

 

Not that we didn’t learn some things. There is a legitimate time discrepancy between the island and the ‘world’. Daniel acknowledged it, Sayid mentioned they left at dusk for a 20 minute flight and arrived at midday, and there was of course the whole rocket experiment in a previous episode.

 

{anyone else find the Oxford bit a straight rip-off of the Back to The Future scenes where Marty convinces the 1955 Doc Brown he's legit?}

 

 

 

But how much of a variance is there? The freighter is shown to exist on Christmas Eve of 2004, yet the Losties on the island are somewhere near their 100th day (I forget the exact number) so they too are nearing Christmas. What gives? Is this just a continuity error or is the time variance nothing more than a perception issue, rather than a real time lag? If the latter, how the hell does that make sense?

 

Minkowski was kind of a wasted character, no? He’s introduced as the voice on the radio early in the season, presumably for no other reason than to validate Desmond’s experiences here, then drops dead. Whatever.

 

 

 

Why would ‘Ben’s man’ on the boat both release the hostages and destroy the radio room? With Sayid and Desmond looking for a way off the island, wouldn’t it have made more sense to keep them locked up?

 

[Love Sayid’s ‘give me a minute’ when asked if he could repair the mangled radio room. And could someone please tell me where the heck Penny was on Christmas Eve? I get the whole dramatic endless ringing of the phone, but if you’ve been expecting a call on that date for 8 years wouldn’tyou take the dang phone with you wherever you went, even to the loo?]

 

 

 

Penny might have waited eight years for the call, but she’s seen him in the years between ’96-’04, at the very least at the track stadium, no?

Note that at the auction, when the log of the Black Rock was sold, they gave the sailing date as March 22nd 1845. Dynamite, of which there was plenty in her hold, wasn’t invented until 1866. 

Could a blatant error like that be intentional? And the seller was Tovard Hanso, presumably of the Hanso foundation, an (evil?) organization that’s popped up before in the Lost mythology.

 

Anyone else catch the Charles Dicken’s item up for sale after that? A pretty non-subtle nod to Desmond’s obsession, I thought. And note that Keamy, the guy on the freighter, states that they are in the Pacific, laying waste to some thought I saw online that they might be in the Indian Ocean.

 

One thing that really irked me throughout the episode was the use of The Numbers. They seemed to be popping up everywhere, as if the writers were beating us over the head with them. Desmond told Daniel to set the machine for 2.342. The auction lot was number 2342. Penny’s address was 423, etc. I’m sure were more that I’m forgetting,(Or at least I hope so, lest this be a b.s. paragraph) 

 

In the end, I loved the Penelope-Desmond phone call that served as the climax of the episode. At it’s heart Lost is about two things: mystery, and love, albeit not very trouble-free love.

 

Doubt the last part? Think I’m a melodramatic fool?  Ok then – love of family (Kate/her Mom – Jack/His Dad – Charlie/his brother – Locke/his Dad - Walt/Michael - Shannon/Boone). Romantic love (Sayid/Shannon – Kate/Jack/Sawyer – Sun/Jin – Desmond/Penny – Hurley and his crazy, now deceased gal).

 

So the ending was romantic, and sweet, and over the top in its foolish idealistic notion of love reunited, but you know what?

 

I had a wee bit of a tear in me eye watching it, so I’m not about to complain.

 

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Tags: blogplugs, Lost, Sayid, Desmond

Another Smiley Update

Today's evaluation went MUCH better.

Bear in mind the majority of the results/opinons/beliefs of the psychologists were still not revealed to us, probably because of all the confusion they generated yesterday. We'll have to wait until the 5th for that.

But . . Smiley charmed the heck out of the women, just being as friendly and outgoing as he's ever been - and more than once they commented on how big of a smile he has.

They ran him through a whole battery of tests, many more than yesterday. On everything remotely mechanical or hands on he aced it. Break a toy into its component pieces and put it back together - check. Unscrew a bottle, remove the contents, replace them one by one - check. Stack and build blocks - check. Untie a knotted necklace, remove the beads, and then thread them back on - check (and without even being instructed; that seemed to impress them).

When he finished threading the beads he went up to one of the psychologistsm,put the necklace on her neck and tried to tie it on - priceless.

He also did surprisingly well in identyifing both colors and shapes, given the fact that he refuses to acknowledge those things whenever we've tried to teach him. In fact, we were floored he knew them at all.

He could also ID items and pictures and immediately associated a photo of an object with the real thing, like a door for example.

His attention span was much better, although they too noticed he was hyper-focused at times and distracted at others.

Again, they were loathe to tell us too much, but one of the women said that he was far and away too intelligent and advanced for her (very extremely disabled) program and that she would be recommending he be rejected.

That's great news.

The bad news is much shorter in length because we won't know much until the 5th.

Smiley's vocab is still limited to 11 words, and most of them chopped up vowel sounds rather than full English words.[dada, 'ocks (socks), kay (ok), 'all (ball), 'ore (more), mom/'om, bu-eyyye (bye), bu-oke (broke), and three more that slip my mind.)

He uses no two-word combinations, does not respond to or try to engage in singing, and showed no sign of developing language.

Yet again, more news to follow on the 5th, but I think the general consensus is that it's it's like a whole chunk of his ability to communicate verbally just fails to fire up, or isn't there at all.

From what they said it seems certain he will have intensive treatment of some type in the summer and will quite probably be in a special-ed program come the fall. They were quick to point out that it's not as bad as the stigma implies and that it isn't/wouldn't be a lifelong label, but something to be reviewed again every three years.

So, wait and see. More news to follow on the 5th.

Tags: Smiley