I’m not sure where the title of this post comes from. I just always know that it’s somehow going to include the word Lost… and then I sort of let it go from there.

Well, I guess this one didn’t have to go very far. If it sounds a little lacking, perhaps that’s my general mood coming through. I just closed my blog doors on another awesome month hosting a guest blogger here at johncabrera.com. I’ve been really lucky. I’ve had two fantastic bloggers join the ranks here (actually 4 counting Amrie and Vanessa of the past two days). Last year Marivic Tagala won the SYTYCD FDL (The Lark had yet to emerge from its shell), and filled my blog with Filipino delicacies and trips to the Navy Yard. Well this time around, Rae had us discussing Tears, Career Dreams, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The last of which got me inspired actually. I need to know what you guys are talking about. Check it out:

So it’s been nice having Rae here. And once again, I’m a little sad to see my guest go. I’m also thinking I should probably start blogging about a little more than Lost, huh? They’re making me look like an obsessive Lost fan.

Speaking of which… this week’s episode is probably also why that title is a bit lack. Maybe because it’s how I felt about the episode itself. I have no idea if I’m in the minority on this one, I really haven’t read much online about the episode, but to me it was a bit of a stinker. I’m hoping that down the line I can look back and say, “wow, there was so much going on there that I just didn’t see.”

But to me, this episode was just too thin on plot. It didn’t feel like it went anywhere. I guess one could argue that every season needs its own bit of exposition… and we are just getting to know these Temple hippies. But six seasons in? It’s hard not to feel a little gipped knowing that 75% of Miyagi’s dialog it’s gonna repeated. That’s valuable “what the hell is going on here” time! This episode is only 43 minutes long!

I remember when the prospect of seeing that Temple (back in Season 4) almost exploded my imagination. But now that it’s here, I guess… I don’t know… it’s just not doing it for me yet. Am I alone, here?

I sort of want to make more Mr. Miyagi jokes, but I’m sure the internet is filled with enough already… and I have a feeling the character is actually inspired by Miyagi anyway… meaning that I’m sure the word Miyagi has come up at least 10 times in the writers’ room this season.

Maybe even in past seasons.

Remember back in seasons 1-3 when we often wondered how The Others just happened to be bad ass ninjas. Others like Juliet, who we knew were just ordinary folks back in the real world, able to do extraordinary physical feats on the Island? Someone in the writers room had to have one day chimed in, “Maybe they have a sort of Mr. Miyagi type guy who teaches them all this stuff.”

“Brilliant! We’ll even put some Bonsai trees in the background!”

So I hope you guys don’t mind, but on this blog, Do-gun or Dohgin is probably going to be referred to as Miyagi most of the time.

The big question I keep getting from fellow Lostlings, though, deals with Sayid and the sickness. What I took from the episode is that Claire has become, in a sense, the new Rousseau… and if Claire is indeed “infected” that would mean Rousseau was likely also “infected”.

Now, what “infected” means, is hard to say. But I do think it’s interesting that for 5 season’s we’d taken Rousseau sort of at her word (or at least I had) that her colleagues were “sick” in some way. As crazy as she was, I guess I assumed her friends really were infected. It even seemed supported last season when we watched Montand attacked by the Black Smoke at the Temple.

But I guess I never considered that maybe her friends weren’t infected… but that only she was… and that she murdered her friends in the midst of her delusion.

Damn, that’s sad. What’s up with all the sadness at the beginning here? Juliet crying? Sawyer crying? Sayid crying? Kate crying? Rae crying? Me crying? And I guess it’s sort of spilling into this post, huh? *sniffle*

But what I can’t really figure out is… what’s the danger of this “infection”… outside making a person bat $h!t crazy? I mean, we know Danielle’s condition isn’t contagious. Otherwise, the Losties who were exposed to her would have contracted it. So is Miyagi trying to give Sayid that powdered bonsai tree in order to put him out of his misery?

I mean Miyagi’s only explanation is that eventually the darkness will spread and consume the person. And then the person we knew will be gone. I mean that sucks, yeah! But is that a reason to kill the guy? Is it like killing a rabid dog?

Or is it to prevent Sayid from becoming another booby trapper? Minimizing the danger on the Island? But is that really necessary? Most of them are in the Temple, no?

Here’s another possibility… what if Sayid is faking? What if all those reactions to the poking and electrocuting was just a ruse to convince them that he hadn’t passed the test. What if Jacob is inside of him and he’s just trying to stay undercover? The Undercover Lover……… I don’t know why I felt the need to type that, but I think that’s gonna be my new nickname for Sayid, whether it’s true or not.

One thing’s for sure, I’m not accepting that the sickness is related to The Smoke Monster. I’m just not. I don’t think The Smoke Monster is inside Sayid… I don’t think it’s inside Claire or was inside Rousseau. I think the writers want us thinking something like that… they know we associate Smokey with darkness and evil, and this “sickness” sounds like a bit of the same. But I think it’s a red herring.

Smokey operates differently. He doesn’t take a host body. He mimics a body. Remember, Locke hasn’t been resurrected through Smokey. Locke’s body, unlike Sayid’s, is dead. Dead is dead. Yemi was smoke, Alex was smoke. Sayid is not smoke. Sayid was resurrected, biblical style.

And I think there’s a major clue in the fact that Sayid was resurrected. If Sayid is like Claire, we’d have to assume she was also resurrected somehow. And Danielle too. So there’s something that doesn’t seem to fit.

Hmm.

As for the Altiverse, I thought the guy in the garage who broke Kate’s handcuffs was sort of amazing. Am I the only one who thinks maybe that character is coming back in a surprising way somehow? He just gave a really interesting performance… felt different from most of the “one scene” guest stars.

Also, did you guys notice that Alti-Claire is wearing a wig in the hospital room scene? Maybe they shot the scene after cutting her hair for Claire the Wild Things Are later in the episode.

Anyway, it’s definitely getting clearer that what these characters have experienced on the Island is sort of mirroring itself in this Parallel Universe. I’m eager to see a storyline about a character like Hurley or Sawyer, though, who seemed slightly more “changed” than Kate on the flight. I mean, sure, she does help Claire with her pregnancy, which matches their dynamic on the Island… but she’s still on the run… still deceiving. She doesn’t seem to have grown much… internally. But has she really grown much on the Island? Has she grown as much as Sawyer has?

I feel like the scene with Sawyer on the dock was a reminder… not just of the pain the man has gone through… but of how far he’s come in his personally journey. A man who’s always hidden behind his own set of temple walls, finally after 6 seasons, breaking down in such a quiet and personal way. I thought that moment was pretty great. For me, it was a gem in an otherwise pretty boring episode.

But maybe that’s just my own personal sensitivity.

What’s everyone else’s thoughts on the Episode?

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