The Placeholder

 "Can you believe I turned out to be a such a dick???"

Having not been online for the past week    TimeWarner Cable sucks balls!    I feel an obligation (or perhaps a deep seated pathological need, for which I should receive counseling) to put up something about Across the Sea, the latest episode of Lost, this very minute.

But I am truly at a loss as to what it is I should put up.

Never before has an episode of any show so confounded me, both for good and for ill, and so the idea of doing a long dissection of such a densely packed episode fills me with trepidation.  Others have done so, and you can find several of those others via the links to my favorite Lost recappers which I provide on the left side of this page, but I don't simply want to write another liked/didn't like piece on Across the Sea (or, as I like to think of it, Happy Freaking Mother's Day).  Instead, I would like to come to a somewhat more definitive conclusion about the piece before I go hog wild writing sheafs and sheafs about something I know deep down I did not quite understand.

But, you know, I'll probably write sheafs and sheafs, anyway, after the jump...

From Beyond

No, I didn't die.  But my internet connection did.  It went down Sunday night, and the modem has been sitting there stubbornly not blinking at me ever since.  Expect a very vitriolic Time Warner-sucks-eggs-the-size-of-Uganda-post coming very soon.

But it's up now, although my tech guy assures me that he's going to be pulling everything back off line for what will supposedly be "the ultimate super-duper solution" in a few minutes, so I'm taking those few minutes to let you all know that I ain't dead, and I will be back (hopefully ) soon with all kinds of chocolatey Lost goodness (although at the moment I don't have a lot of hot chocolate love for Across The Sea or Mother's Freaking Day or whatever the frak they called that last Lost episode---but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt since my cable television also cut out on me part way through the episode, and it will not be until tonight that I will be able to watch it in it's entirety).

Ok, he's telling me that he's cutting power now, so I'm going to have to hit "publish post" right the frak n...

Dead is dead, and that's how it should be.

 ("Yo, Jack, would you put this in the sub for me?")

It ain't the death.

As Lost has been winding to a close these past three months, there has been an internet war (although a semi-polite one) breaking out between those who thought happy endings were coming all around, and those who felt death and destruction was inevitable.

I've never been in the happy ending camp.

Early Reaction to Lost 614: Fine Wine?

The return of Lost tonight, following a self imposed six year mid-mid season hiatus (or so I have heard tell online), was...

Yeah, I'm not really sure what that was.

I think I'm going to have to let this one marinate, lest I give it the same short shrift that causes me so much aggravation when others do it.  It makes no sense to me to give anything an instant negative review, but giving an instant negative reaction to a single episode of a television show I actually love and follow regularly seems especially pointless and self important. 

But after the break, I'll probably go ahead do something at least partially pointless.  Click 'read more' to find out what that is.

Welcome to Smodcast: Live and in the nude!

So, Tuesday night Mrs. Schmoker and I braved the unexpected frigid cold to go and see Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier do a live version of their weekly podcast, Smodcast, in a dingy pit called Peabody's in Cleveland.  It was a crazy, fun, occasionally frustrating, and unexpectedly intimate evening.   The boys were in fine form, and the intimate setting (only 100-150 seats set up in what looked to normally be a headbanging dance club) made for one of the cooler experiences I have ever had.  And I got a sex toy in the bargain.

You would think that my having a blog and all now, I would have snapped some pics (I was in the front row for the second show, after all), but I didn't even think about it.  I even left my phone at home.  I've never been a big picture taker, preferring memories to photos anytime, but after the jump I will drop a pic or two of the gifts Kevin and Scott gave to my wife and I (along with about a dozen other attendees).  Just remember, if you click 'read more,' it's definitely NSFW.

Live Nude Smod: It's better than '80's Night'!

,

And we're back!

Taking a break from Lost today to work up a post on attending Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier's Live Nude Smod tour last night at Peabody's in Cleveland (which included me winning one of the six Fleshlights the boys raffled off     and my wife getting smacked in the face with a Pink Limpy thrown by Mosier    and our running for the exit when Peabody's made Kev and Mos get off the stage at 11:30 so they could start 80's Night).

If you have never listened to Smodcast or used a Fleshlight, then come back later for a full description of the zany, scatological (both in content and location), freezing cold fun provided by Smith and Mosier live and in the nude (nudity not included).  A review of the Fleshlight itself will be, ahem, forthcoming.

My carpal tunnel is better today, so I'll have a description coming up later tonight.  In the meantime, listen to Smodcast 15, The Pretty Good Worker, for an instant lesson in how funny and offensive (and offensively funny) this weekly podcast can be.

Warning: Not Fucking Safe for Fucking Work

A pain in the...

Having a little fun with carpal tunnel this week.  Since Lost is off, and since work is crazy, I'll be paying scant attention to the blog this week.  I will, however, be posting something; just don't know what or when.  But I will definitely be doing some big posts before the next Lost episode airs next week.  They are already in the can, but they need to be edited for at least haphazard punctuation and sanity.

So, if you are new here, please read on, because there are a shit-ton of crazy Lost posts from the past month and a half which will maybe make you think, but which should definitely make you laugh (maybe at, maybe with     your call!).  But if you are a regular    (both of you)    looking for something new, check back in a few days.

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

No time for a real post today, but a guy calling himself Fiftypence over on the Zap2It board where I steal my best Lost ideas (hey, I'm a comedian, not a thinker) dropped the idea that the MiB moved to the Sideways World in the form of Jack's son, David.

Hmmmm...

Ok, so Jack's son is really the only major sideways character (major in terms of importance, rather than screen time) who never existed in the Island world (at least as far I can remember without doing more digging than I have time for today).  So, there is that.  And Fiftypence also pointed out that, in the most recent episode, The Last Recruit, there was a Jack, Claire, MiB scene on the Island that was shortly followed by a Jack, Claire, David scene in the Sideways World.  So, there is that.

So, let me refer back to the biblical stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Esau which have provided so much fodder for all us crazy Lost theorists over the years.  Abraham was ordered by God to kill his son Isaac as a sacrifice.  Old Abe didn't want to do it, but he eventually decided he must.  Just before he did so, however, the Angel of the Lord stopped him, and God allowed the sacrifice of a ram in Isaac's place.  Isaac then went on to father Jacob and Esau, those bad brothers who have lent so much back story to our Island Jacob and MiB.

So, if we go ahead and assume David actually is the MiB in mortal form, is all of this leading us up to Jack being told he must kill David in order to fix everything?  Is that the sacrifice Jack must make to set right what once he got so very wrong?

 Since Abraham (Jack) ended up not having to kill Issac (David) in the biblical story, this analogy does not seem to bear out completely.  For if our David really is the MiB in doe-eyed, mushy-faced, teenager's clothing, then I don't see how his getting a last minute reprieve will work out for our story.  But it is an interesting idea, no?

By the way, the name of Isaac's mother: Sarah.

Again, all credit to Fiftypence, who peaked my insanity with this idea in the first place.  And some credit to Doc Jensen, who has been writing about Abe, Isaac, Jake and Essy for years.

Oh yeah, and credit to God for inspiring the whole bible thing, too.

Not sure I really buy this theory, but it is a cool idea.  So, what do you think, peeps?

Early Reaction to Lost 613: Did I even have one?

Lost 613, The Last Recruit, seemed to me the ultimate set up episode.  I've never said that about an episode before, as every time I've ever heard someone else refer to an episode in that fashion ("They were just moving pieces around the Island, getting them in place for the next episode"), it always bugged me.  I thought it was the coward's way of saying you didn't like an episode.  And recently a lot of people used that very description to impugn one of my favorite episodes of the season, The Package.

But now, with only five hours left, for the first time that is exactly how I feel.  A lot of pieces got moved around the board, while we got a few new answers and a few new questions, but nothing was extremely revelatory, and intense character development was put on hold for a week (or two, since Lost is off next week).

I'm going to need to watch it again before I mess with any sort of major recap, but here are a number of things that hit me like a kiss from a sonic fence...(just click 'read more')

Two Questions

Time is fleeting today, so let me ask all of you two Lost related questions:

1.  Will the show end in the Sideways World or the Island Universe?

Despite barely changing my main theory over the course of the season, I am starting to believe that the ending will be very different from what I had been imagining.  I think perhaps the War of the Island will end in the Sideways World.

I had previously thought the sideways Losties would wake up, then they would have to run with the ball right up until they fixed whatever it is they needed to fix (what that may be, I still have no idea), then   POOF    bye-bye Sideways World, and hello to a giant re-do in the Island Universe.  Whatever went wrong on the Island and created the Sideways World in the first place, the Losties would get a second chance to fix it thanks to the efforts of their Sideways selves, who would, following their awakening by Desmond, sacrifice their very existence in order to stop Smocke from escaping and creating the Sideways World in the first place. 

Now I am not so sure.  Now I think that perhaps the end game will play out in the Sideways World, with the Losties winning out over not just Smocke, but also Jacob and the Island, too.  Then perhaps the ones who survive will live out their lives in some sort of merged version of the two universes    one where they remember the Island and all that happened there, but one where that Island is still sitting on the bottom of the sea.

Jacob said he wanted the world to be a place where humans did not need his help, and maybe that is what the Sideways World will be once all is said and done. 

More detail on this in another post, but please use the comment button below to let me know where you think the show will end, and why you think that.

And now on to...

2.  I have a vision of John Locke in recovery at the hospital.  He is wiggling his toes for Dr. Jack, when    BOOM     both of their memories come flooding back.

For Locke, he needs a recreation of that "miracle moment" when he looked down his prone body after the 815 crash and saw his toes wiggling for the first time in four years.  Much like the image of Charlie Pace underwater and pressing his hand to a window first sparked Desmond's memories, seeing his toes wiggling again might just be what sparks John Locke to wake up.  I would not be surprised to see that exact shot from the pilot recreated, with the camera at ground level and looking up along John's body from behind his feet.

For Jack, it could then be a recreation of  his "miracle moment," which was the one between he and Sara, his ex-wife, when he thought she was paralyzed forever after he could not "fix" her during surgery.  Jack came back from his run in the stadium (where he just happened to meet Desmond for the first time, and which we may also see recreated) to see Sara wiggling her toes.

John Locke's toes may not be as cute as Sara's, but recreating that "miracle moment" might just bring it all back for Jack, too.

It's not all lost-loves and near-death-experiences that will bring back your memories.  Sometimes it is just seeing something you have seen before... something from another life, brutha.

So, what do you think of these mini-theories?  Sound off in the comments below by clicking "comment" and leaving me your two pennies.  The comments are wide open, with no restrictions, log-in, password, or verification required.  All you need to comment is an opinion and an attitude.

So, show me some attitude.

(I'll be back tonight around midnight EST with an early reaction to 613, The Last Recruit, and then I'll be back tomorrow with a full recap.)

The lost season of Lost

I'm about two-thirds of the way through my re-watch of season three of Lost, and the two things I have noticed and am working up a new post about are:

1.  Eloise Hawking flashes just like Desmond, and she and Charles have been running their long con on poor Des at least since the day he met Penny at the abbey in Catch-22. 

I was hipped to the idea that Eloise and Charles were conning Desmond during this season's Desmond-centric episode, Happily Ever After.   It was their attempt to motivate Desmond to wake up (rather than really trying to get him to back off), and with that idea in hand so much else becomes clear.  In Flashes Before Your Eyes and Catch-22, you can see that Ellie and Charles were working on Desmond (to get him to the Island, and beyond) from the very beginning.  The notion of sacrifice is woven throughout those Desmond-centric episodes, as are clear signs that Des is being manipulated by Ellie and Charles.

But most of all what I saw was that Eloise "flashes" just like Desmond.  I didn't fully comprehend what was happening to Des back then, and we had never met Eloise before, but now you can see that she knows things that could not have come from Daniel's journal, or from Jacob or the MiB.  She was acting just like Desmond would act in the following episodes as he tried to save Charlie's life again and again    all while trying to piece out what was happening to him.  Everything we saw from Desmond as he became a master-flasher, so to speak, were things we first saw from the original "flasher," Eloise Hawking.

2.  Season three was criminally underrated by all (myself included).  In addition to really laying the foundation for all the mythology that would unfold and deploy in the following seasons, the third season of Lost had some of the most profound and affecting character-centric episodes of the entire series run.

A bonus #3:  Ben was never quite as evil as we thought.  Knowing what we know now, we can see that Ben was under orders to keep Juliet on the island.  Obviously he loved her (or thought he did), and so it was something he was at first happy to do, but later we could see (through today's eyes) that he really did love her and felt a heaping butt-load of regret over what he had to do.  There is a scene between Ben and Juliet in Ben's kitchen during One of Us where you can see that Ben not only loves Juliet, but that he would have let her go were it up to him.  Watching it now I could tell that Ben was simply following orders he simply did not understand---Jacob's orders---and it was a heavy burden to bear.

In fact, Jacob is all over S3.  His mantra of non-involvement falls apart when re-watching that season.

More (in more detail) to come before tomorrow's show.

"I've got a theory" - Buffy Summers

So, I was hanging out over on Ryan McGee's blog  at Zap2It (because, you know, that is what internet pervs do    we hang out at blogs, cruising chicks electronically).  And while I was there, I saw a post from someone named "I Like Kate."

Now, don't freak out, because I know right away you're saying to yourself, "She likes Kate?  What is she, crazy?"

But it's cool.  Trust me.  One day I'll do a post on why Jack and Kate were purposely made to be so unlikeable, and then you'll go, "Oh, hey, well now I kind of like Kate, too.  And maybe one day I'll even like Jack."

So anyway, ILK had a theory.  Her theory (and it could be "his theory" or "Its theory," but I'm going with "her theory") was that Eloise Widmore (ne' Hawking) was, in fact, not worried about any sort of violation at all when she found out Desmond was waking up.  ILK thought that Ellie had staged that whole kerfuffle with the guest list and Penny's name all for Desmond's benefit, in order to give him a little push.

So, let's think about that.  Why would Ellie let her son get together with Charlie Pace in the first place if she were worried about "violations"?  Why would she let her husband get involved with all of it, too, knowing full well that he may send his #1 fix-it man, Desmond David Hume, around to help out?  And then, when Des did start poking his head into the guest list, why would Ellie then take him aside and say just enough to stir him up and peak his curiosity?

Well, she wouldn't.  Not if she were really trying to keep a lid on everything.

But she would have done all of that if she wanted to push Desmond into fulfilling whatever his part of the equation just may be.  And now that I think of it, so would Charles.  And so would Daniel.

Were those three running a long con on Desmond in the Sideways World?  Were they all working together to push Desmond into doing exactly what he is now doing?

Yeah, I think so, too.

I never bought Ellie as a Smokey accomplice, which is the popular theory that has been gathering steam out there in the ether.  I thought   if anything   maybe love of son might have caused her to decide to step out of the game once they got to the sideways universe and she found she had him back alive, but I did not really believe it.  And, as I reported below, no less than Damon and Carlton poo-pooed that idea in their podcast yesterday.

And I never bought that what we saw in Happily Ever After proved that Widmore was "in the dark" about what was going on.  He didn't show any hint of knowing anything, but the absence of proof is not proof itself of anything.  And the decorations in Charles' office sure reeked of knowledge of something.  They sure seemed designed to push someone's psychological buttons.  And the whole spiel about having "no attachments, no entanglements, the perfect life" was just a little too on the nose, wasn't it?  Now that this idea has hit me, all that little rap from Charles sounds like now is a carefully designed push for Desmond.  It was Charles saying, "Remember when you did have a family, Desmond?  And remember how much you loved it?"

The long con is a Lost staple.  It was an episode title in S1, and it's been a thematic and dramatic staple that has recurred each and every season.  Honestly, it is something we all should have been looking for when trying to figure out where this season was headed.

I think "I Like Kate" should start her own blog, or perhaps take over mine.  Because I'm sold.  This is one of those "I'll believe it until it's proven wrong" moments. 

And, yeah, I like Kate.  So what?