GENTLEMEN'S CLUB
but the stakes are much different. Men of power need a proper motive in order to be tempted into competition. Something real. Tangible. Valuable.... Like a magical island accessed through mystical portals and ruled by a mythical spirit who sits in a rocking chair in an invisible cabin. You know. Important stakes like that.
Lost doesn't seem to be shaping up to be about a bunch of plane crash survivors after all.
Doesn't that all seem like a million years ago?
Doesn't that all seem like a million years ago?
It also seems more and more that those original themes of loss and redemption are less and less significant.
It's not really about the characters so much anymore. And in fact, some of them have been so feathered through the gears of the merciless plot machine that they've been stripped of almost all their dimensionality.
I know. It's a mystery how that happens.
It's not really about the characters so much anymore. And in fact, some of them have been so feathered through the gears of the merciless plot machine that they've been stripped of almost all their dimensionality.
I know. It's a mystery how that happens.
Lost is not necessarily a fantasy either. Not totally. What Lost may be about, in the end, is the very thing our own global community so often seems to be about:
Old rich white guys fighting over real estate.
Old rich white guys fighting over real estate.
It's a game with a rich and textured history.
It's important to have Luck,
because a lot of games rely on the element of chance.
Strategy is key to most games.
But strategy often depends on making choices without knowledge of what choices your opponent is making simultaneously.
In order to maximize one's advantage, it may be necessary to form Alliances with other players. As we saw these three men and a baby doing,
sometimes two join together to beat one who would otherwise defeat them both.
A cooperative alliance is when you join with those you trust in order to serve your own self interest,
the way that Sawyer and Hurley and Claire do to try and get back to the beach.
And there's probably some form of self interest here at work in Jack's placid and passive Lotus Eating commune on the beach
but it's like trying to read dolphin language to figure out what's going on there.
Some alliances are different.
Instead of trust, some allies accept the risk of betrayal in order to make use, perhaps temporarily, of another player's resources, as we see that Locke is still willing to bend over for Ben if it means he'll get to Candy Mountain.
This alliance has one crucial playing piece - Ben's pet dog Super Cujo.
But they still need to bargain for Hurley,
who is the piece they need to jump to their next open space - Jacob's cabin.
And Miles has made a sudden alliance with Sawyer,
but there's a pretty good chance there's a playing piece
he's angling for to improve his position in the game.
Sayid, he of the newly impulsive temperament,
makes an instantaneous alliance with Indiana Ben in the future.
And there's no way this alliance is about trust.
Mathematicians have tried to formalize games - how we play them, how we win them - into theories, where choices are analyzed according to models that predict outcome.
They've even tried to use game theories to predict how economics and genetics and politics will operate. But it remains a very unreliable field of study. Mainly because the theory relies on determinism, on effect following cause. And it's that very thing that is so often violated. Things don't always go according to plan. What ultimately destroys game theory is irrationality. Including the most irrational behavior of all: Altruism.
Courage.
Heroism.
Pure heroism, when a man acts against his own self interest for the good of others. Indeed, this is the ultimate fly in the ointment of game theory. Much of game theory is predicated on the belief that organisms will behave in their own self interest. But heroism is the kind of variable that blows those game theories all to hell.
On Lost message boards, it's commonly accepted that the ultimate hero of Lost must be Jack.
In fact, even raising any doubts on this topic can create quite a bit of...tension. Yet Jack has been nothing but a chump this season. It took Mr. Med School Genius a whole week to process what dainty Daniel told him the very first day they met!
The freighter was never coming to Lost Island in order to rescue these mooks.
I know I heard Daniel tell this to Jack in the second episode. Didn't you? Why was Jack listening to his "gut" instead of to the words that came out of the frakking guy's mouth? Was he distracted by his menstrual cramps?
Or did he start dipping into the meds a lot earlier than we'd previously suspected?
It used to seem like a good thing to have a doctor around. But maybe this playing piece didn't provide quite the advantage we'd presumed. I mean, did they need a doctor to tell them that the guy on the beach died from a slit throat?
No shit, Sherlock.
But strategy often depends on making choices without knowledge of what choices your opponent is making simultaneously.
In order to maximize one's advantage, it may be necessary to form Alliances with other players. As we saw these three men and a baby doing,
sometimes two join together to beat one who would otherwise defeat them both.
A cooperative alliance is when you join with those you trust in order to serve your own self interest,
the way that Sawyer and Hurley and Claire do to try and get back to the beach.
And there's probably some form of self interest here at work in Jack's placid and passive Lotus Eating commune on the beach
but it's like trying to read dolphin language to figure out what's going on there.
Some alliances are different.
Instead of trust, some allies accept the risk of betrayal in order to make use, perhaps temporarily, of another player's resources, as we see that Locke is still willing to bend over for Ben if it means he'll get to Candy Mountain.
This alliance has one crucial playing piece - Ben's pet dog Super Cujo.
But they still need to bargain for Hurley,
who is the piece they need to jump to their next open space - Jacob's cabin.
And Miles has made a sudden alliance with Sawyer,
but there's a pretty good chance there's a playing piece
he's angling for to improve his position in the game.
Sayid, he of the newly impulsive temperament,
makes an instantaneous alliance with Indiana Ben in the future.
And there's no way this alliance is about trust.
Mathematicians have tried to formalize games - how we play them, how we win them - into theories, where choices are analyzed according to models that predict outcome.
They've even tried to use game theories to predict how economics and genetics and politics will operate. But it remains a very unreliable field of study. Mainly because the theory relies on determinism, on effect following cause. And it's that very thing that is so often violated. Things don't always go according to plan. What ultimately destroys game theory is irrationality. Including the most irrational behavior of all: Altruism.
Courage.
Heroism.
Pure heroism, when a man acts against his own self interest for the good of others. Indeed, this is the ultimate fly in the ointment of game theory. Much of game theory is predicated on the belief that organisms will behave in their own self interest. But heroism is the kind of variable that blows those game theories all to hell.
On Lost message boards, it's commonly accepted that the ultimate hero of Lost must be Jack.
In fact, even raising any doubts on this topic can create quite a bit of...tension. Yet Jack has been nothing but a chump this season. It took Mr. Med School Genius a whole week to process what dainty Daniel told him the very first day they met!
The freighter was never coming to Lost Island in order to rescue these mooks.
I know I heard Daniel tell this to Jack in the second episode. Didn't you? Why was Jack listening to his "gut" instead of to the words that came out of the frakking guy's mouth? Was he distracted by his menstrual cramps?
Or did he start dipping into the meds a lot earlier than we'd previously suspected?
It used to seem like a good thing to have a doctor around. But maybe this playing piece didn't provide quite the advantage we'd presumed. I mean, did they need a doctor to tell them that the guy on the beach died from a slit throat?
No shit, Sherlock.
So, Jack hasn't been much of a hero this season. But others have.
Bernard pulled out one of those mad secret skilz he has. First sharpshooting. Now Morse Code. If they don't fill us in on Bernard's secret ops background one of these episodes, he'll go down as the greatest waste of tertiary character since Rousseau.
Who's really dead, apparently. (I get that you need to cut down the payroll, guys, but that was still unfrakkingforgivable.)
Hurley's Cowardly Lion has been growing ever less cowardly and more lion.
He's taking care of the Chosen One. In the Bible, Aaron is the brother of Moses - whose life was saved from a baby killing monarch when his mom set him afloat in the Nile in a reed basket.
Hard to ignore a foreshadow like that one.
Hurley's defying the evil alliance of Locke and Ben, who would have hung Sawyer and Claire out to dry.
And he's acting against his own self interest when he offers to guide that evil alliance to Jacob's cabin, in order that his friends can get safe.
In the quiet way of life's many unseen gentlemen, Hugo has evolved into the noblest kind of hero.
Bernard pulled out one of those mad secret skilz he has. First sharpshooting. Now Morse Code. If they don't fill us in on Bernard's secret ops background one of these episodes, he'll go down as the greatest waste of tertiary character since Rousseau.
Who's really dead, apparently. (I get that you need to cut down the payroll, guys, but that was still unfrakkingforgivable.)
Hurley's Cowardly Lion has been growing ever less cowardly and more lion.
He's taking care of the Chosen One. In the Bible, Aaron is the brother of Moses - whose life was saved from a baby killing monarch when his mom set him afloat in the Nile in a reed basket.
Hurley's defying the evil alliance of Locke and Ben, who would have hung Sawyer and Claire out to dry.
And he's acting against his own self interest when he offers to guide that evil alliance to Jacob's cabin, in order that his friends can get safe.
In the quiet way of life's many unseen gentlemen, Hugo has evolved into the noblest kind of hero.
But he's still not the coolest! That honor goes to the man of the hour, the only viable Action Hero in the whole mythical islandverse.
(gif thanks to susan14509)
Apparently, the serenity of a week at Othertown Spa has washed away all the Cooper killing anger in this tortured soul and filled him with the pure spirit of a Knight.
When danger strikes, he thinks first of saving poor, doomed Frenchie and her kids.
Then he runs instinctively to scoop up the sleeping Claire.
Talk about your Superman!
Faster than a speeding bullet!
More powerful than a bulletproof barbeque!
Redshirts were going splat right
and left
all around him, but even playsets were watching over Sawyer.
Either the Island doesn't want him to die, or this guy has Kevlar skin.
Which is awesome, but pales next to the fact that Claire is apparently made of Adamantium Steel.
Heck, Wicked Witch of the East couldn't survive a house falling on her,
but Claire's house got incinerated all the way down to particulate matter and her makeup didn't even smudge.
Sawyer and Hurley obviously never learned about game theory,
because the whole self interest thing never reared its ugly head with either of them. Refusing to behave in one's own self interest is the primary fubar of all game theories. So that makes Sawyer and Hurley the irrational forces here, the wild cards. Nothing fraks up a formula worse than an irrational force like friendship.
Sawyer's line about killing Locke if he hurt a hair on Hugo's curly head hearkened back to the words he used in prior episodes
to threaten those who would injure Kate.
Sawyer's learning things about love that don't come connected to self interested triangles at all.
Literally.
Women don't get to play The Hero on Lost. They get to be dear little Moms.
They get to be helpless victims.
And they get to wash their boobies in public
and grin madly about how excited they are to go home and face those eight felony counts.
(gif courtesy of susan14509)
But they don't get to be Hero. There's a No Girls Allowed sign hung on that club door.
But don't be sad. It's not as if women have no important role to play in the world of Lost. They do get to die quite often.
In this episode, in the darkest moment they've ever filmed, it was a teenage girl who got to suffer the consequences of the gentlemen's game. Not only did she get a bullet in the head, but she got to hear the only father she's ever known disown her before she took it.
Alex joined the long line of shocking female murder victims.
And like most of the others, her death wasn't about her at all. Like Ana's and Libby's deaths were about Michael, and Shannon's and Nadia's deaths are about Sayid, Alex's death was all about Ben,
and the ways this tragic rule change affects his primary objective. Which, for all his tears, is not and has never been loving the child he "stole from an insane woman."
When children play games, they aren't so much into the objectives. They're more about the fun. Like getting to play Pretend.
A good place to start pretending is Tunisia, which is not only useful to our story as one of the possible Vile Vortices, but which was also the setting George Lucas chose for both his Star Wars and his Indiana Jones series. And from the hotel in downtown Mos Eisley
to the swashbuckling Bedouin in the desert,
Michael Emerson got to fulfill about as many dreams as one actor could possibly hope for.
In fact, Michael Emerson has popped out as maybe the central leading actor on Lost this year. Who knew?
Do you like him in a coat?
Do you like him covered in smoke?
Do you like him playing tunes?
Do you like him reading runes?
Do you like him with big eyes?
Do you like him playing spy?
Do you like him picking locks?
Do you like him in Iraq?
Is it time to rename this show yet? How about this?
Now that Ben is carrying the show, deciphering the mysteries has become almost one stop shopping. First of all, he landed in the desert,
in pretty much the same pose Jack originally landed in the jungle.
And he was wearing a big furry jacket. Was that because it gets cold at night in the desert? Or because he thought he was headed someplace entirely different? Someplace cold? Like Siberia, where polar bears come from, which Sawyer attacked in the game of Risk...which meant they lost Australia to Locke, giving him "the key to the whole game".
The most interesting thing about Ben's overdressed arrival in the Sahara was the name on the coat. Halliwax. One of the aliases of Dr. Marvin Candle, a/k/a Mark Wickmund, a/k/a Edgar Halliwax.
That guy (or guys?) with various candle related names who made the video about the doubling rabbits that popped out of nowhere in the Orchid Station. The guy with the weird left arm...just like Ben was having some kind of brief trouble with his arm.
What do they do? Rip a twin out of your arm when they dupli-transport you through the outer limits? I have dibs on this twin dealio being the ultimate Gotcha! WTF! Sucka! tricky dicky device that they end the season with. (Bonus points if it's Sawyer that they duplicate.)
Whatever trick is used to get Ben from here to there, it must be a pretty rough trip.
Once transplanted to the sands of Tunisia, our little doughy pantsed nerd
was transformed magically into superhero badass Indiana Jones
...it had to have been the desert air, because in the tropics, Ben gets his ass kicked by everyone.
Then he slipped into ultra hip Dean Moriarity mode, going on the road on his magical mystery tour
as a Preferred Customer, of course.
The question of time travel is bandied about here.
The team insignia on Ben's coat, from the Orchid Station, echoed the old Time Tunnel from the vintage days of sci fi tv.
And, in fact, looks a great deal like CERN's Large Hadron Collider which some think will be capable of time travel experiments.
So, when Ben confirmed the date as October 21, 2005, this naturally sent a thousand Lostaholics all diving en masse into wikipedia...However, sadly, this appears so far to be an entirely inconsequential date. Not even like the 108th day of the year or anything. Nada. Watch out for the red herrings around here. It's easy to slip and fall on them. They're everywhere.
Ben got to dress up all Hunter Thompsonesque
and to play tv's most ordinary looking international spy.
And lastly,
he got to have one of those high caliber confrontations where gentlemen adversaries discuss how cleanly they will disembowel one another while sharing inside jokes about bottles of Scotch.
It's not as if the fate of the world is at stake. Or that innocent people's brains are being blown out right and left. It's more like they're fighting over the rowing cup that Oxford stole from Cambridge and who they're going to have to kneecap in order to steal it back. It's a very refined kind of game these gentlemen are playing.
Ben and Widmore have a history. Ben knows that Widmore didn't used to sleep with a bottle of Scotch next to his bed, for one thing. (Actually, that implies a rather more intimate history than we really ever want to know.)
Was young Ben shipped off by Richard for some finishing school education in Europe, by any chance?
And did he perhaps encounter an older man there, a professor perhaps, or some kind of mentor, who told him about his Shangri La - the mythical, magical Island told of in the Tale of the Black Rock? Why does Widmore think the Island belongs to him? Where was he all those years Ben was making himself the boy king of paradise? And why can't he find it any longer? We got some clues at least that either that freighter never did belong to Widmore or that this coming rescue of the O6 has not yet resulted in Widmore reaching his objective.
There are two different kinds of games.
There is a Zero Sum game, where anything you gain is something your opponent loses. Chess is a Zero Sum game. If I win, my king lives and yours dies. If I win poker chips, someone else loses poker chips. If I attack Siberia, I lose Australia.
Most simple games are Zero Sum.
But Ben and Widmore aren't playing a Zero Sum game. They're trapped in a different kind of game, described best by the Prisoner's Dilemma.
Without all the prologue, this puzzle offers two prisoners the choice to each gain a small advantage by ratting out the other guy. However, since self interest rules, both inevitably choose to rat out the other and both end up, quite hilariously, more screwed than they were before.
That ever reliable force of self interest ends up having exactly the opposite effect.
If you want to see how this works, drive your car into midtown Manhattan around five o'clock on a Friday afternoon. Gridlock is the perfect example of how well the Prisoner's Dilemma predicts human behavior. And so, Alex is dead. Penny is next. But the gentlemen elite in their penthouse suites still want to win the game.
It has been theorized, by the Beautiful Mind of John Nash, that when the Prisoner's Dilemma is played over and over, eventually the prisoners amend their decisions and begin to realize that in order to truly benefit from their own choices, they must begin to act against their own self interest and start to cooperate. Even, sometimes, with their enemy. Otherwise, all those Friday afternoon drivers on 42nd Street would be sitting there for all eternity. Is that what will end up happening with Ben and Widmore? In the end, maybe one of them will get back the prize they want - the Island.
But neither one will win anything.
In this case, it's not whether you win or lose.
It's how you play the game.
There is a Zero Sum game, where anything you gain is something your opponent loses. Chess is a Zero Sum game. If I win, my king lives and yours dies. If I win poker chips, someone else loses poker chips. If I attack Siberia, I lose Australia.
Most simple games are Zero Sum.
But Ben and Widmore aren't playing a Zero Sum game. They're trapped in a different kind of game, described best by the Prisoner's Dilemma.
Without all the prologue, this puzzle offers two prisoners the choice to each gain a small advantage by ratting out the other guy. However, since self interest rules, both inevitably choose to rat out the other and both end up, quite hilariously, more screwed than they were before.
That ever reliable force of self interest ends up having exactly the opposite effect.
If you want to see how this works, drive your car into midtown Manhattan around five o'clock on a Friday afternoon. Gridlock is the perfect example of how well the Prisoner's Dilemma predicts human behavior. And so, Alex is dead. Penny is next. But the gentlemen elite in their penthouse suites still want to win the game.
It has been theorized, by the Beautiful Mind of John Nash, that when the Prisoner's Dilemma is played over and over, eventually the prisoners amend their decisions and begin to realize that in order to truly benefit from their own choices, they must begin to act against their own self interest and start to cooperate. Even, sometimes, with their enemy. Otherwise, all those Friday afternoon drivers on 42nd Street would be sitting there for all eternity. Is that what will end up happening with Ben and Widmore? In the end, maybe one of them will get back the prize they want - the Island.
But neither one will win anything.
In this case, it's not whether you win or lose.
It's how you play the game.
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102 Comments:
Ugh, altruism doesn't have to be irrational.
Nice review though, 4/5.
games have variants eg chess
Fischer variant
Korean play
Chinese chess
One line.
Then a freaking photo.
Then another line.
Some kind of attempt to give each statement gravitas.
Oh.
And you hate Jack.
;)
That was exceptionally rude of you, Crikey, to mess up the comments section with that post. I think we all get that you're addicted to Fishbiscuit, must always rush to be among the first to comment and that you have a need to whine about this writer. It's really not her fault that you want all reviews to follow some static, uniform format. Luckily, Dark UFO has shown a more original and open minded taste and continues to offer this popular review.
This reviewer is the only one who seems brave enough to confront how radically the show has changed this year. Characters we knew and loved have become one dimensional jokes and the themes we thought were being developed have been abandoned. It's still a rollicking good show and has lots to offer, as this review captures. However, the character of Ben has consumed the entire show and how much you're enjoying season four is probably in direct proportion to how much you like this character.
I also think it's worthwhile that someone calls out these writers on their shameful underuse of the women characters. An episode like this makes that painfully obvious.
Entertaining as always, Fish. Keep having fun with it. It's only the odd gentleman whiner who can't appreciate an unconventional approach like yours.
Gentleman whiner? Love it! :D
Pardon me, I forgot rule one of the internets... it's serious business :)
Well said Gary. crikey, if you really don't like Fishbiscuit's reviews that much because of her style, then either check out the facts and copy all of her words without the pics to see how much she has actually written or stop messing with space in your posts - a LOT less entertaining than Fishbiscuit's review.
Love your game theory Fishbiscuit - and thank you for discussing the heroes of this episode - Sawyer and Hurley. I thoroughly enjoyed this review.
Great review, seriously as if you get upset over a tv show.
how many people who are supposed heroes are actually heroes and are not just doing the hero crap for self gain because a lot of those people would fit nicely into the game
Well said nickelback, it's only a bit of fun. ;)
I'd like to hear crikey's views on game theory and how it relates to Lost. ;)
These reviews might not be to everyone's taste, but I really look forward to them. They always bring something new, and this reviewer is uncannily good at putting a finger on what's troubling in Lost. This was a terrific episode, but it also highlighted what, for me, are the two most disturbing trends on the show: the increasing focus on Ben--and thus away from our original Losties--and its "casual misogyny." (A poster on TWoP used the phrase first.) At at time when they're all in potential danger and the "rescuers" look increasingly dangerous, our female lead has nothing better to do than to take a very public bath on the beach. Claire must have had all of five lines. Sun was nowhere to be seen. Rousseau and now Alex are dead. Juliet is the only female character left who still seems to have some agency--and I can't imagine she'll be allowed to keep that long, now that she's been sucked into the black hole that is the Jack-Kate "romance."
Anyway, terrific review as always. One quibble: in your chess pic, all the Losties should have been pawns.
this fact was already stated, but i think it's important to note that altruism does not have to be irrational and, in fact, is often a form of rational biology. Shared DNA percentages often determine whether an organism will perform an altruistic act for another orgranism.
i have no beef with the style or layout of fish biscuit's post, but i did find this one to be a bit more against my feelings than usual. i'll try to hit a few in a fair way:
although i am a huge feminist (guys can be feminists, too), i don't really feel the "casual misogyny" going on as much as some people apparently do. sure, claire didn't have many lines and there weren't many female characters in this episode, but just as many male characters have been low-profile this season as female. further, i reject the notion that kate is the female lead. she might be the highest-profile lady or the fan favorite at times, but i have always maintained that kate has less to do with the forward motion of the show and the ultimate destiny than almost any other character. juliet, penny, and claire all seem to me better candidates for "lead" than kate. the bathing scene seems to me to be setup for next week's jack/kate interplay as jack is ill. i'm sure i'll be flamed for these statements, however.
next, i couldn't disagree more with the take on sawyer's heroism. sure, he has been courageous, but is there a real point to it? his character has developed, but sawyer obviously has absolutely no thought into what is really going on with the island/situation. other characters out of the know (jack, sayid, hurley come to mind) seem to get the sense that something bigger is going on, while sawyer questions everyone. but when he jumps into a burning building and shows off the pecs, the women go crazy and think he's amazing. i'm not buying it.
i don't think jack has really been dumbed down this season, i think it's more of a shift of his awareness to what is going on. when the situation becomes less about "survival" then the fact that he is a doctor means much less. jack suffered the shock of not having the radio contact turn into rescue and the defection of people he thought were on his side, which has tuned him into a different mode of thinking. we didn't need to a doctor to tell us his throat was slit; he only said that to get some answers from the boat folks.
i do agree, however, that focus of the show as a whole has changed. but isn't that what everyone has always clamored after? isn't everyone whining about never getting answers? well, answers about the show's mythology probably require the character development to take a back seat. the notions about loss, etc, that seem to be lost are not gone, in my opinion, but we're merely in the stage of the show where the reason why these people were drawn to the island, how these people could be drawn to an island because of those special attributes is playing out.
don't forget, also, that the strike threw everything into the dumpster and compressed it all. the first two episodes demanded info on the boat people, but after that, i think if you examine the majority of episodes, characters have been developed in the same way as before, just they're different characters now because it shows development in the present and future. we got juliet, we got sayid, we got desmond.
the plane survivor aspect does seem a million years away and i do have small problems with the arc of the show, but i also realize it couldn't be about character development for six seasons. people want answers. to me, the quick build-up of the Others (scary, omniscient keepers of the island in season 2 to bumbling, killed-off after thoughts in season 3, to simply Ben and Juliet in season 4 verges on poor storytelling, which is a major aberration for Lost).
I just typed too long for one of these responses; so I'll stop now.
blandestk, you're right that there are also male characters pushed into the background. The point is that ALL the major characters on this show are now male. Every last one. I agree Kate isn't the female lead, because there is no female lead. What's insulting, I think, about the way women are treated on this show is that not only are there no important female characters, but the females that do show up behave in a sexual or a victimized manner designed to appeal to male tastes. It's become rather blatant and I don't think you have to be a woman to see it.
For ease of comparison, look how well formed and complex the many female leads of Battlestar Galactica are, and how vital to the ongoing plot.
I, uh.
I just lost the game.
Speaking as someone who actually quite likes Jack (but dislikes Jaters, or at least the moronic ones) I agree that jack has been useless this season. So far at least.
I appreciate Lost partially relies on characters like Jack rarely questioning anything but his inane trust of Dan and Charlotte has been absurd. He better get up to some interesting things in the next few episodes to redeem himself. Although the it seems he's going to be sick for a while now (yawn).
Good review. I'm always surprised at the idiots that criticize your picture/text layout even now despite the fact it's been like this for months.
Hey look, it's a bunch of pictures. Take out your "funny pictures" and work on your writing for a change.
I love the pictures you use fish, but the writing itself could use some work.
3/10
by the way, wasn't the date the 24th of october, not the 21st?
Good job pointing out the show's change of direction and disappointing lack of female agency in the current story lines. I'm curious to see how they mean to deal with the Losties who don't get off the island. If it looks like we'll see little or none of them, I won't be interested in continuing. A show that's merely focused on the O6, plus Ben and Widmore and their organizations won't get me back for a 5th season. Fingers crossed the Losties - ALL of them - remain at the heart of the show.
One of my favorite things about this episode is that we got to see the real beginning of Jack's unraveling. The complete certainty that they'd be rescued, as expressed to Kate, was astonishing to me given the info he had from Daniel. There's the Jack who's flying around on random planes, hoping to crash because he "needs to go back", and it has nothing to do with drugs and alcohol. It just has to do with the fact that he cracked under pressure, and we saw the beginning of that in this episode.
Bravo, Fishbiscuit!
Some very insightful and funny points here.
The thing that gets me every time is the treatment of women on the show, and I think that you point out succinctly how it's such a problem. What is their purpose these days if not to be the damsel in distress? And of course, any woman who experiences anything sexual must immediately punished.
I love Lost, I've adored it since the first episode, but as time comes on it becomes harder to reconcile what I see on the screen with my own beliefs. The worst part is that the writers seem to think that they write women well. Which, just, NO.
I also found this review interesting and a fun read. I like the format with the pictures and an alternate view of how I see/saw things.
I get that you despise Jack and while I agree with you he hasn’t been heroic this season, it is telling that in all the numerous times leading up to S4 when Jack was VERY heroic and honorable, you never gave him credit then either.
Great review, even know the pics below Sawyer holding Claire in his arms didnt work.
3/5
Keep up the good work Fish.
This episode has to be my favourite episode so far this season, with The Constant coming in 2nd. I can't wait to see Hurley, Ben & Locke at JAcob's cabin. Hopefully we will see Jacob longer than b4. Also I don't think it will be a walk in teh park when they are with Jacob. Something bad is gonna happen, I can feel it.
Pretty good observations, pretty focused on the game aspect of the show.
You got the date wrong though, you wrote October 21, 2005, it should be October 24, 2005.probably insignificant, unless you're Gil Perez.
I think it was the 24th of october too. On that date, Hurricane Wilma was the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic basin.
Brilliant analysis of the episode. There're so many questions asked and a few answered.
A lot of theories can be seen from this episode of what's about to come.
I agree that men are the real heros for now. It's a shame that they killed Alex and Danielle, two strong and independent women that didn't need a man to survive.
Juliet and Kate used to be little warriors too. But lately they're only used like a distraction for the important men missions.
Please give us our female warriors back!
Awesome episode recap, Fish.
I have yet to agree 100% with any of these recaps, from Fishbiscuit or otherwise, but they remain as entertaining as ever so good job :)
However I think you need to re-paint the line between humour and sarcasm, it appears to have faded a little.
According to Jeff Jensen's review, the possible significance of Oct. 24:
"I can't resist noting that (1) October 24 is Take Back Your Time Day, appropriate to this season's time-travel themes, and (2) October 24, 1593, is the day in which a Spanish soldier named Gil Perez ''suddenly appeared'' in Mexico City, claiming that he had just teleported from the Philippines."
Aside, Fishbiscuit's reviews are my favorite, always enjoyable. This one was especially insightful for me...
Great review!
the ben-logo thing was hilarious!
It´s obvious you don´t like jack and you are upset with the way the writers are using the female characters, but I think you are doing just the same thing with the, "Was he distracted by his menstrual cramps?". What, girls can´t just think once every month?
In my opinion, Jack has suffered a lot this season, and this suffer came from his own people. Not only the loss of Charlie (by the way, he was one of the few that cried that death) and that Hugo, who was his friend, betrayed him going with locke. Kate left him for a couple days and Desmond and sayid were lost for a while. So i understand he doesn´t take faraday words too seriously.
P.S. Who the writters think they are kidding with the " bernard is a dentist" thing. Not only he shoots extremely well, he, wait for it, knows morse code! What´s next?
Haha, Indiana Ben!
Great review if you ignore half of it, the part which as usual is all about praising Sawyer to the skies and making sure there is no doubt that Jack isn't a hero and deserves no credit whatsoever. It's a shame, some parts of your reviews are so intelligent and draw on so many references, but then it all comes down to the same point: who's a hero, and who's not. You've argued the same point a hundred different ways in almost every single of your reviews, and never once opening your mind to a alternate perspective - that maybe all the Losties are heroes in their own way, including Sawyer, Jack, Sayid, Locke, and yes, even the women. It's true, they die, and it's getting tedious and predictable. And unlike Charlie and Boone, who died "for the greater good" (using quotation marks deliberately), Shannon, Ana, Libby, Alex and Rousseau died as consequences, and to emphasise the feelings of the men around them. There is still hope, however, that Kate will rise above that standard, so let's not be so quick to write her off. I hate to think that she's really been reduced from what she was in seasons 1 and 2 to only being an instigator for Jack and Sawyer - and I believe that she will "rise again", if you will, and become the great female role model she had such potential to become. It's ironic that the original main character and leader of the Losties was going to be Kate, a female, considering what women have been reduced to in the past two seasons. But I like to think that the writers were aware that they deliberately upset the balance when Jack, Kate and Sawyer were separated from the group at the start of season 3, when Kate was turned into the midpoint of a triangle (metaphorically speaking, of course) and lost all other aspects of her personality, and that hopefully soon, female characters (if there are any left at that time - if Claire dies, the only original females left will be Kate and Sun, whose current storylines both involve small children, and then Juliet of course) will reclaim their original position in the Lostverse.
Unless of course you are right, and this really is all a game of gentlemen. But I like to think there is more to the story. This is not JUST Ben and Widmore's play for the island, if it was, it would not have been revealed in a random episode in season 4. Widmore and Ben are just two of the pieces in a larger puzzle, and we haven't seen the half of it yet.
And as it were, I think next episode we'll see Jack acting in ways akin to Sawyer pulling a bullet out of his own shoulder - I'd like to see you shrugging that one off. You'll probably just show another Jackface. I believe that both Jack and Sawyer are true heroes, and I see no reason for belittling one to raise the status of the other - but hey, whatever works for you. Sawyer certainly WAS amazing this episode.
Yay! Fishbiscuit is back. Makes the episode complete. Enjoyed your thoughtful and intelligent review and totally agree. Loved the get out of jail free card. Too funny.
Keep calling it like you see it, just as all the reviewers here should do.
About Sayid and Nadia: they were living in LA, their origns are in Iraq. Why it happens in Tunisia?
Fishbiscuit, I enjoyed your review as always. In fact, I'm still laughing at your Jin's ghost story joke. I really enjoy your more flowing and narrative style. Anyway, I thought you made some really excellent points. I would also like to respond to some of BLANDESTK's comments because I think they are really well thought-out.
First about gender representation on the show. I tried to bring this topic up a couple years ago but it really got lost in some major plot developments. So I'm glad that we are revisiting the subject. I don't believe that this is necessarily a qualitative argument (number of lines, scenes, etc.). I believe this is better undertaken by a qualitative examination of the female characters (their sexualization, the aspects of their characters that are developed and contribution to their agency, their affect within the larger picture, etc.) I will say no more as many here have already made a good point of this subject. But needless to say, I am not exactly riveted by what is going on with the ladies.
Finally, I would like to repond to the themes about the shows focus and its relation to some of the new character arcs. I glad Fishbiscuit pointed out something that has been going on the show for some time now, and so subtly that I completely missed it. Briefly, some may dislike that the shows focus seems to be more on Ben. But the thing is, he DOES seem to be the only one really playing the old games in lost that we became addicted to. We may see changes in our old lost friends that are leading them to make different kinds of decisions--maybe even more one-dimensional ones. But I see this as symptomatic of their gradual understanding that they HAVE become pawns in someone elses larger game. The old lost characters are therefore refocusing and refining THEIR determinism within the game rather than their old mentality which was more simply "if we can hold our own and beat The Others we can get off the island." It seems they are coming to understand, as we are, that they represent a battle and skirmishes in a much larger war. However, I wouldn't count out their signifigance just yet. The Others did that several times with their eyes only on the larger picture and paid the price. But I do think that we should expect some growing-pains as these arcs develope.
Fishbiscuit great as ever! I always agree with your point of view.
I adore this show but this season is soooo focused on Ben (I like him but I have too much to continue with this).
The woman are still writed as a decorative article (mujer florero in spanish). It's sad cause I think that Kate and Juliet were more much than that some time ago.
A season focussed in just 6 losties plus Ben or Michael (OMG what a boring episode)can't be better than the last three. I missed a lot Sawyer and Locke.
This episode was good for The barracks action and it was the best of the season but this is not as good as the three past seasons, in my opinion.They (TPTB)have to do a great great job the rest of the season to increase the level on this.Good luck.
There simply is really no female leads.
Kate and Juliet is really it. And even Juliet has been just a clinger lately.
Hopefully they unleash Charlotte to do something useful or get that Claire storyline we've waited for :)
Still... Michael Emerson is a very very strong actor and he's mostly simply been rewarded for it. He has the ability to carry a show.
Interesting that you are upset by the writer's treatment of the female leads and then call Jack a "girl" by making a joke about his menstrual cramps.
I agree that the women of Lost are given short shrift in the power department, but you aren't helping when you show your disdain for Jack by feminizing him.
Grt way to put it Selina :) Love your post! The Jack bashing and Sawyer worshipping is getting old but whatever worksfor some ppl!
Cricky- that is my fav comment of all time! Lol I didnt see any rudeness!
Kate will never rise again. The triangle is gonna be in play until the final episode of Lost. Kate was always only "the girl" for them and they never had anything else in mind for the character. If they did, they wouldn't have whitewashed the entire premise of the character in one swift motion in Eggtown. She's nothing more than a sextoy and that also won't change in the next 2 years.
LOST always ebbs and flows, and the emphasis on particular characters changes as the story demands. If this entire series can be seen as a novel, it's quite unfair to judge the novel before you've been able to read it in its entirety.
This show has been chocked full of strong female characters for years. Why should it matter if they have taken a backseat during this particular phase of the story? I would be very disappointed if LOST worked on a quota system.
We still have a long way to go. I think the accusation of misogyny is pretty unfounded. But I enjoy reading your reviews.
When was Lost ever chocked full of strong female characters? They had Ana Lucia but she got killed off pretty quick. Kate is a pathetic joke who I agree with Precious can never be salvaged now. Sun is defined by her pregnancy. Claire is a baby mama and nothing else. Rose gets five lines a season. Danielle, who I thought had such great potential, was just thrown in the trash. Juliet is hanging by a thread now that she's trapped in the triangle of doom.
So when exactly did the show ever have strong female characters? This isn't even a new development. It's never been a show that respects women. It might be more noticeable now that none of the original characters matter anymore, but it's not new.
Awesome review FishBiscuit. :).
im surprised that no one has mentioned the fact that ben might have set the whole thing up with killing nadia in the first place because he NEEDS sayid to do his dirty work. not for the fact that he is the closest thing to a mercenary that ben can get, but for the fact that sayid most likely CAN'T die off the island and therefore an indispensible asset to ben's cause.
i look forward to fishbiscuits coverage after every episode. some people here seem to find their format annoying, which is funny because i think theyre the most engaging and stylish. in fact if i didnt know better, and i dont, id say fishbiscuit worked in a visual media field.
I'm actually wondering what the 2 female writers on the show do in the writer's room. I mean, when they break a story together and let's say Damon Lindelof sits in his chair and says "The first scene in the episode is going to have Kate washing herself right in front of the entire camp. She takes her top off and sees Jack. Her eyes follow him and she makes goggle eyes at him. Jack sees her and waves at her. In the next scene, Kate follows him to his tent and flirts with him like a 14 years old teenager.", do Sarnoff and Kim just sit there and do nothing or do they actually assert themselves and speak up? Do they actually say that a scene like this is going to turn Kate into a big fat hypocrite and that it makes her even more hated than she is now? That's something I would really like to now.
The female characters rarely interact and when they do, their interaction is filled with animosity and bitchiness most of the time. The only relationship between the women on the show that even deserves to be called a friendship nowadays is Sun/Claire. I can't consider Kate as Sun's friend anymore because the last 2 times she interacted with her, she only used her as a tool to get to Juliet and especially in Ji Yeon, she did it for no good reason at all. Not to mention that she tried to send her into certain death in that episode. What a great friend she is.
I just can't shake the feeling that TPTB hate their female characters. There's no way they didn't believe that the "Juliet rats Sun out" scene wasn't going to turn many people against her. Even the actress didn't like it and asked if it was really necessary. I have the feeling that they would have thought about it at least 10 times before writing something like this for a male character.
*semi-serious head on*
I think some of the criticism of the writing team is valid in relation to the female characters, however I don't believe it stems from some kind of crypto-mysogyny, rather from the unfortunate situation that the writers have created where the previously strong female lead is yoyo-ed between two strong male leads in pursuit of ratings gold.
I'm hoping that come the end of season 6, Kate will give the big "screw you" to both Sawyer and Jack and in the process will salvage some credibility (or will it be too late by then?)
It's amazing how people can read things into scenes - the opener with Kate washing herself was there for two reasons imo: Firstly - she's a sex symbol don't ya know! (whether you agree with this or not... it's a Hollywood convention). Secondly and more importantly as a plot device to show the audience that Jack was sick and trying (unsuccessfully) to hide it, even in the presence of 'oh my gawd I'm so hot' Kate.
At least that's my take on it.
Thanks for pointing out the similarities in the pictures of Ben "apprearing" in the desert in the opening scene, and of Jack in the opening scene of the pilot episode - it's given me a lot to think about!
Also, speaking of games in the show - don't forget the computer game that lead to the destruction of the Flame station. You need a failsafe in case of emergencies? Let's create a game around it!!
Five stars! Fabulous review as always Fish but particularly since you seem to be one of the few reviewers who speaks for the female side of the audience. Last time Dark ran a poll on the issue, 49% of Lost's audience were women. Women who fell in love with Lost long before there were ships or shippers. The women of Lost were originally strong, complex, layered, sneaky, capable, liars, could handle a gun and a tube of lipstick, contributed, bonded initially with one another and were often able to go toe to toe with the guys. The were lying/cheating wives, unwed mothers, wanted fugitives, twisted Valley Girls, former cops, nut jobs, beautiful trapped doctors, scrappy teenagers, and one crazy Frenchwoman. The Valley Girl, Hurley's nut job friend, the former cop, the teenager with the sling shot and the oh so interesting woman who had 16 years of Island intel are all gone. ALL shot and most of them killed off before their potential as interesting characters was tapped. NOT ONE of them died a hero's death as did Charlie or even one that tied back to their story as did Eko's or Boone's.
Kate has been ruined by the triangle and Juliet seems to be slated for the same fate. Women have become defined by their ability to entice men, produce or mother babies and die for the OMG factor. Once they had skills, they could track, shot, lead the Tailies, tend a garden, heal injuries, translate French, conduct a memorial service, find an unknown hatch, kill when necessary and formulate a thought other than how to expose a bit of skin or be the damsel in distress of the week. THANK YOU Fish for saying what so many of us are thinking:
1. Why can't Lost find a single writer who loves women and can write one with strength and brains?
2. Has Lost become a cardboard playing board where the characters we all love have become pawns moved around by the now central focus of the story Ben?
I love Michael Emerson but too much of a good thing worse than too little.
Bravo Fish for saying so and bravo to the other posters who have mentioned the same issues. NOTE to TPTB: Please stop with the hype and let the viewers decide what is and isn't spectacular. We will be the judge of that, those kind of remarks make you sound a little desperate.
I am shocked that anyone can defend the representation of women on this show. They are not merely taking a back seat in this particular episode or story, they have been pushed back for a long time. What's more, when they're not pushed back they're treated as madonna or whore.
This is not a show that writes women well. This is a show that has women handcuffed to one another, fighting in the mud over a man. Defend that. Tell me that is not misogynistic.
As someone mentioned above, watch Battlestar Galactica, then tell me that the women here are written well.
Great recap, Fish! I love the three men and a baby mention, and the part about alliances, and the comparison between Hero Sawyer and Jack. Interesting about the time machine and Orchid logo similarities. Lost has changed a lot since the beginning when it was a show about a group of plane crash survivors, and I don't know how I'll like the Ben/Widmore storyline.
Losttvfan - I completely agree with you. Precious, I see what you're saying too and I admit that I was being a little too optimistic - maybe this is an area where the producers have done irreparable damage. But still, as Losttvfan points out, Lost USED to have strong female characters, who if nothing else had great potential to become something, to have a real part in the mystery side of Lost. As I said before, Kate was originally slated to be the leader of the Losties, and even when they decided to keep Jack around, Kate still went out and did things on her own, haunted by her past but still proving herself to be compassionate, brave, and yes, a very strong and independent character. I know it's a long time ago, and she's almost done a complete 180 turn, but she WAS like that once. Shannon was a very spoiled, Paris Hilton type, but she had the potential for change, especially through her relationship with Sayid after Boone died. Suddenly her brother and forever-protector was gone and she was romantically involved with the former torturer for the Republican Guard, and if she hadn't died, that could have developed her! Claire seemed so sassy in her flashbacks, even in s3, but Aaron became the sole reason for her existence - Emilie de Ravin has said in interviews that she really wishes she could just stuff the baby in a backpack and go hiking with the other characters. And if Claire survived on the island without Aaron, she could become such a character - but she probably won't. Sun was really looking like a powerful character for a while, breaking free from her abusive husband and coming into her own. Of course we had to find out that her husband was really the good guy and she was really the sinner, and then she got pregnant, and that became what her character is now all about. Even Juliet, who I never liked, had such great potential - despite being a fertility doctor and thus pretty much being all about babies to begin with. She is cool, strong, has apparently super strength or something.. but along came The Other Woman, and turned her into just that. Her existence became defined by Goodwin, Ben and now Jack. Waste! The reason I want Jack and Kate to be together is because I believe that Kate will be able to be the woman she has the potential to become through Jack. Others believe she'll achieve this through Sawyer. But the point is that we want Kate to become what it looked like she'd be in seasons 1 and 2, namely a strong female character who had overcome her issues in the past, and had grown - and either made Jack accept her past, or tamed Sawyer, whichever way you wanted the triangle to go. But meanwhile, all it seemed Evie Lilly wanted for her character was to be like Claire, and have a baby (according to interviews). Wish granted, she has now literally BECOME Claire, both in future and present. Her behaviour this entire episode was completely like you'd expect Claire to behave. Smiling, acting pretty, completely oblivious and not suspicious, smiling happily at Dan and telling Jack to eat some crackers. Personally though, I think this is the writers' very over the top way of contrasting her to Juliet, who is authoritative and well educated, to set up the next episode. Unlike umm whoever it was who said it, I don't think Eggtown ruined Kate, I saw it as a good thing that in the future, Kate was willing to put Aaron in front of Jack and herself. Future Kate seems to have gotten her drive back, but this time it's not for selfish reasons, but out of love for a child who is not even her own! I think this speaks of MASSIVE character growth, and this is where my hope for her character comes from. She's so intent on protecting and caring for Aaron, Claire's child, and this shows compassion, drive, and that Kate has (regained?) a mind of her own. So I choose to be hopeful that while the past two seasons haven't been at all up to par with its females, Lost HAS had good females in the past, and could have in the future again.
Sorry for the long post! This is a very interesting debate, and I'm so glad that Fish pointed it out in her review.
Selina, you made a comment about the Fish never discussing another Lost character as a hero other than Sawyer. I don't believe you're correct on that, since in this review alone, she has spoken about other characters heroic status, including Hurley. Also, her Season 3 finale review discussed heroism among a lot of the characters - Sawyer, Desmond, Jack, Juliet, Locke and even Ben. One statement made was: "Truth be told, there doesn't seem to be any one hero or protagonist on Lost, any more than there is one theme" while going on to discuss the island as the main protagonist on the show.
Interesting discussion generated here about the female role on Lost. I agree with a lot of what has been said, including the Fish's take on it. To me, Kate is the main female character who seems to have lost her original identity the most, the kick-ass, sometimes dangerous yet occasionally vulnerable woman we got to know originally. I would so love to see her and all of the women on Lost regain their strength of character. I believe it is possible to do so while still being able to move the story forward to anyone who may argue against that. However, I do also agree that Ben has taken over too much of the show - I love his character but like Losttvfan, I think he is now being overused.
I hope the remainder of the season shows us the characters we love in action to the best of their abilities again.
Btw, you're stil my fav recapper Fishbiscuit - you have my 5/5 stars. :)
"Selina, you made a comment about the Fish never discussing another Lost character as a hero other than Sawyer."
Leonie, did I say that? That's not what I meant, at any rate! I am well aware that Fish doesn't only show Sawyer as the hero, in fact because she shows so many of the others to be heroes, it's all the more obvious that she just doesn't want to accept Jack as a hero. I have read most of her reviews but of course I can't claim that she's never said that Jack is a hero too, but it seems to me that every time she talks about heroes of Lost (which is often), she mentions Sawyer, Hurley, Charlie, Sayid, Desmond and possibly others - and then shows some Jackface and captions it something like "of course, not everyone is a hero" or something like that. I was just pointing out that just because Sawyer is a hero, and just because Jack this season has come to a standstill to make time for the development of characters like Ben, Locke and Hurley, doesn't mean that Jack is NOT a hero, and it doesn't mean that he has not done heroic stuff in the past - I believe the burning wreckage parallel between Sawyer and Jack is very strong after this episode, and next episode will show Jack paralleling Sawyer pulling a bullet out of his own shoulder in season 2. Sawyer and Jack are very similar characters in this sense, and they are BOTH heroes. I've just always felt that Fish seems to underplay a lot of what Jack does in order to make Sawyer seem better. But anyway, that was just to clear up my point, I like your point about the women on the show. Kate needs to regain her kickass status! Let the writers put the ships aside for a second and focus on that!
Ok, I have to pipe in again because I feel a bit of the misogyny claims are just getting out of hand. It seems the real issue here is not that Lost is misogynistic, but that the female characters are not exactly what many female viewers want them to be. Well, I have a clue for you, most of the male characters are not what I want them to be either.
Every time I see Sawyer take his shirt off, which without a doubt excites many female viewers, I don't fly off the hook claiming that the writers of Lost have reduced male characters to a stereotype. In fact, there are absolutely zero male characters that have all the qualities I would want in an ideal world. But guess what, people aren't perfect, so why should the characters be?
It seems that people are upset that women have children or are "defined" by children. Well, even feminists will tell you that women have children and if you have a child how can you not be somewhat defined by it? I've seen just as many dudes taking care of children in Lost as women. In fact, I see more men. At different points, Hurley, Locke, Jack, Sawyer, and Charlie have all coddled the youngster. Is that misogynistic? The guys should be out slapping each other on the ass and giving high fives when they tip back a few cases of Milwaukee's Best.
1) Kate had her own episode this season, where she not only stands up to her mother and others, but stands up to Jack's pansy stance toward Aaron.
2) Sun has her own episode. Yes, she has a child, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the simple fact of her having a child. It's the culmination of interplay between herself and her husband. As to the post above where Jin turns out to be the good guy despite being abusive, while Sun is the sinner, I have to disagree. Sun did cheat on her husband; he was abusive. In my opinion, neither was painted as the good one and the other bad, they both took their licks for their transgressions. Seems fair to me.
3) Juliet had her own episode. If I'm not mistaken, she pretty much went in guns blazing and showed Charlotte what was up. Not to mention she shrugs off her MALE escort in the episode (Jack, who stops to care for Kate, another really misogynistic, manly act) to go whip ass on her own.
As I stated in my post above, I am a feminist, but I think many people are taking this issue a bit too far in Lost. The show that features the most diverse cast in television is suddenly misogynistic? Are you kidding me? There are so many examples in the real world and entertainment where women truly are degraded and left behind and Lost does not even come close. I feel Juliet, Claire, Rousseau (in the future we'll see it), and Penny will all turn out to be extremely strong, independent, important characters. We're not at that point of the show. Yes, some characters are taking a back seat, but a great deal of those characters are men, as well as women. I'm sure people will respond negatively to this viewpoint, but I had to stick up for the writers of the show, because I think Lost is as far from a racist/misogynistic/non-diverse show as you can get on television.
I think this is the first fishbiscuit review in which she does a great job in covering-up her wikipedia research or she actually has a little bit of knowledge on the subject she is discussing. Considering the blatant plagiarism of the past, I have to be skeptical.
Her style is still annoying. It's cool or whatever when Zizek does this stuff, but this broad doesn't have the clout.
She finally begins to touch upon something relevant for once as well, but still kind of completely ignore an honest analysis of the games "rich white men" play.
I don't know why I read these reviews. I'm always annoyed while reading and then I always feel like I've been cheated after I finish.
Selina, this is what you said: "You've argued the same point a hundred different ways in almost every single of your reviews, and never once opening your mind to a alternate perspective - that maybe all the Losties are heroes in their own way, including Sawyer, Jack, Sayid, Locke, and yes, even the women." I took that as meaning the Fish never discussed other characters as being a hero of the show. Apologies if I took that up the wrong way.
What do you mean about the burning wreckage parallel between Sawyer and Jack? Just interested. I think the only difference between Sawyer and Jack by the way is in the fact that they're different sides of the same coin as Damon once stated. Obviously I prefer one side of the coin to the other, just as many other fans do too. ;)
Well what I meant with that sentence was that everyone INCLUDING Jack is a hero. I was interlacing Jack and the women with characters Fish has previously defined as heroes - Sayid, Hurley, etc. - to show that I don't completely disagree with her, I just think there are MORE heroes than she gives credit.
Anyway that's splitting hairs now, I hope you get my point though :)
As for the burning wreckage parallel, sorry for not explaining that! Sometimes you get so caught up in all you want to say, you know? I've long seen the parallels between Sawyer and Jack (becoming more consciously aware of them since the coin comment from Darlton), and when Sawyer ran into Claire's exploded house to save her, the first thing I thought was Jack in the Pilot, and Kate saying in TTLG, "Still pulling people out of burning wreckage, huh?" I just think it kind of completed the parallel in a way, that now Sawyer is also pulling people out of burning wreckage, which was kind of Jack's "trademark heroism" if you will, though of course both he and Sawyer have done other heroic things which were very different from one another.
"1) Kate had her own episode this season, where she not only stands up to her mother and others, but stands up to Jack's pansy stance toward Aaron."
Thank you blandestk! I don't agree with your overall point - I do think there's been a serious lack of proper feminine representation in the past few seasons (whoever said that about the women being handcuffed together in the mud got it right; that was an all-time low), but I do believe that all hope for Kate isn't lost! Exactly because in her flashforward she seemed to have gotten some stones back.
I think everyone is forgetting a potential fly in the Gentleman's Game ointment: Penny
She knows where the Island is. Her father does not. That means that she and her father are not working together. There's a lot more to Penny than we've seen so far. She has the knowledge and the means. Perhaps in the end game, if there is any (female!) character on the show who can truly stand up to Ben and Widmore, it will be Penny.
Personally, I hope she kicks both of their as..behinds.
You Sawyer fans are so one note. Really.
All you ever do is bitch and moan about Jack, while proclaiming Sawyer "the great leader of men."
Uh-huh. Imaginary Lost at its best.
(Incidentally, my above comment was aimed at the original reviewer.)
Blantestk, I won't harp on it but I'd like to respond to your argument again. I definitely get your point about Sawyer and agree that calling the show misogynistic is taking the point too far, but I still believe that the writers have let most of the female characters go to crap.
The issue here is not that the female characters must be perfect. But the initial characters were exceptional material thrown into an exceptional situation requiring them to assert the most independant, thinking, affective parts of themselves.
Around the time Shannon and Anna Lucia died, I began to see a periodic or sometimes steady decline in the agency of these female characters. More and more, rather than asserting their voice and autonomy as affect within the direction of the Losties collective and individual fates, they became overall more reactive than the active characters they once had to potential to be. As we see many of the male characters partake in their "quests," we see many of the females being defined in their relationship to the males.
Again, of course there are exceptions to this, but I would say it seems to be the more frequent case with the female characters. And as for the female characters who were true anomalies, they are mostly dead now.
I'm hope you don't think I'm trying to pick on you. I'm just responding as a fellow feminist.
This is a tricky slope to climb; I've discussed it in one shape or form with many people. Does "diversity" (having characters of many races and of both genders PRESENT) really mean anything? I remember after Eko got killed, there was the raging controversy about racism on LOST. And I was torn then, as now, because both sides have good arguments.
*Yes. The women of this show do mostly suck now. Their current storylines all boil down to their vaginas - what does or doesn't go in and what does or doesn't come out, if you'll pardon my frankness. Who is Kate having sex with, and if she's pregnant...who is Sun pregnant by...who will "own" Juliet in the end...Claire basically being a shuttle for a baby...Rose being the ball-busting black woman with an attitude (does she have to tear Bernard down all the time and always be in everybody's face? She might as well wear a shirt that says, "Big Momma Don't Play That." And has anyone else noticed that EVERY TIME a person is being rejected by a careless bureaucrat, it's some black woman doing it? Just thought I'd unload that.) NEWay, once upon a time, it wasn't like that. Kate was hot (and everyone on the island is, male or female), but her story was that she was a fugitive and a torn woman - between being law-abiding and being a criminal, NOT between two men.
*That being said, MOST of the storylines of LOST, when you think about it, are about love, somehow. Sayid's whole journey is (was) about Nadia. Jack's big issue besides his father was his ex-wife. Saywer slept with women to get their money - and of course, fell in love with Cassidy, and has a daughter. Jin is madly in love with Sun, and their SHARED storyline is about their marriage. Even Bernard and Rose have this sexless, old-people-in-love thing going. The whole show is really about people and their love lives, not just the women.
*STILL, when Sawyer takes of his shirt, it's to chop wood for the entire camp. True, it's pandering, but at least it's the useful kind. When Kate takes a bath in front of everyone in the world, it's not useful or helpful at all (not even to her...did she really even get clean? Looked like she just sponged off her boobs and face to me).
*Finally, @ blandestk. I see some of your points. I'm just going to point out this: No one said they wanted the women to be "perfect". Far from it. I think we just want them to be reasonably well-drawn instead of cardstock stereotypes. Wehn LOST first started, I was blown away by how the writer seemed aware of the stereotypes at play on primetime TV and news - the irresponsible unwed mother, the deadbeat black dad, the brainless pretty girl, the Asian DRagon Lady, the dumb Southern redneck, the Great White Male Superhero Whose Only Flaw Is That He Cares So Much - and they seemed determined to bust those all down. Claire was more than irresponsible; she was misused, but determined to be more than just a baby mama. Michael actually WANTED to be a dad, but was actually prevented from doing so by outside forces. Kate and Shannon both had checkered pasts - far from being perfect, they were pretty f$cked up, but we loved them because they were more REAL that way. The same for Sun; she started out the MOST complex, both vulnerable and tough, and so hard to figure out. Now she's pretty much the Dragon Lady (damn, I hope Jin's not dead, because she did that man SO wrong!)
Anyway, their imperfection when perfection is the norm on TV was what we liked about LOST's women, and that's what we want back: women who aren't perfect pictures of some worn-out stereotype we've seen over and over again, women who offer surprises in their actions for once...and pleasant ones, not just letdowns.
I always enjoy Fishbiscuit's witty recaps, and while I don't agree with everything (and don't even want to, everyone has their opinions) I'm really happy that someone brings up the poor treatment of female characters.
Ben is my favourite and IMO he hasn't taken over the show as some claim, there have been episodes in S4 with little or no Ben. But as much as I enjoy Ben I'd rather see him have crappy storylines for the rest of Lost than have ANOTHER FEMALE CHARACTER brutally murdered only to have a male character mourn over her and plot for revenge. Same goes for Sayid too. This is the third time when a woman gets killed just so that we could see Sayid cry and be the tragic hero who looses everyone he ever cared for. Give the man some happiness for change, and let the women live!
I think the sucky love triangle has destroyed two great male characters, too, but Kate's has suffered the most, going from kickass to idiotic. The FF motherly Kate is an improvemement, but actually I'd really like to see the female characters being more involved with the mythology. Not with boyfriends, babies or pregnancies, not being shot, but having a argument between a woman of faith and a woman of science, defending the group against enemies, trying to solve mysteries, doing stuff. And if they die I'd like them to have a meaningful death, like Charlie, Boone and Eko, not shot to the gut for shock effect.
The mrs, I'm also hopeful that Penny will add something new and exiting to the story.
PS-
However, I think they can be saved. If Kate says screw you to both Jack and Sawyer and learns how to live without being a reflection of some man (thinking she could only be as good or as bad as her father or mate), I'll stand up and cheer. Ditto for Claire coming into her own again on the island, without Aaron. I'll say YAY, for having old spunky Claire back.
"Jack is the inarguable hero, Sawyer is a knight now, and Ben and Locke have an evil alliance."
sigh.....
It baffles me how Vozzek's overly simplistic review of "Shape" has like a 4.6, while this is struggling with the stars.
How is it that I can agree with basically all criticism of Lost and still love the damn show?
Oh, and the Ben logo cracked me UP.
'Selina': Great review if you ignore half of it
That statement pretty much sums it up. It's a real shame, too. This review makes some very valid claims and insights about the show. 'Game theory' was a very nice gateway into this episode. The comments about the role of women on the show were very valid. However, it sabotages itself because its form does not match its content. Your message tends to be obscured when you place insights about mysoginy right alongside macho hero worship, selective memory, and jokes about homosexuals and menstrual cramps.
I thought this review was much, much better than Vozzek's work, but I hope this comment helps explain the mystery that 'Chris' referred to above.
Yet Jack has been nothing but a chump this season. It took Mr. Med School Genius a whole week to process what dainty Daniel told him the very first day they met! The freighter was never coming to Lost Island in order to rescue these mooks. I know I heard Daniel tell this to Jack in the second episode. Didn't you? Why was Jack listening to his "gut" instead of to the words that came out of the frakking guy's mouth? Was he distracted by his menstrual cramps?
If you're confused about this issue, then refer back to the actual episodes. In the second episode, Daniel said "I'm Daniel Faraday. I'm here to rescue you." Later, Daniel told him "Er ok, see, erm, rescuing you and your people. Can't really say its our primary objective." The key word here is 'primary'. There can be a primary objective and a secondary objective. Jack thought that their primary objective was to find Ben and that their secondary objective was to rescue the people. He only interacted with Dan, Charlotte, Miles, and Frank, and none of them appeared to be cold-blooded killers. Also, try to keep in mind that the months of time in real life have passed while only days have transpired on the island.
Also, to the poster above: it does seem quite hypocritical for an essay about respect for women to try to insult Jack's appendicitus by comparing him to ... a woman! It's really twisted logic if you think about it.
Anyway, great job with this recap. The Shape of Things to Come was the worst episode of the entire series. The only way to save the show will be to put Ben inside that coffin at the end of the season.
I very often get the feeling that a female character on the show is only allowed to be useful for 1 season. They get reduced to girlfriend, damsel in distress or a prob in their second year on the show.
Kate is a human ping pong ball bouncing back and forth between 2 men. Juliet has been sucked into 2 love triangles now and most of the time only stands in the background of Jack scenes and looks pretty after she kicked so much ass last season. Sun shows up every fourth episode and when she does, it's all about her pregnancy. Claire is a damsel in distress who needs to be protected and rescued. Rose shows up every eigth episode. Penelope is a damsel in distress in the future who needs to be protected and hided from Ben. It's frustrating. Makes me wonder if they are going to reduce Charlotte to love interest next year as well.
@autumnatic - I understand that not everyone wants "perfect" women, I simply think that the slide in what was developed in the characters actually pertains to both the men and the women. somehow, only the slide of the women is really a firestorm.
further, sawyer's shirtless escapades are far from just chopping wood for everyone. i remember watching sawyer take a bath and daring kate to take a good look...
and everyone points out that the women are somehow defined by their vaginas and their romances. if that's true, then isn't the same true of the men? jack and sawyer have turned into 12-year-old boys in the face of kate, which, to me, reduces their characters. so why is that ok? and to answer that by saying, "well, the guys get to fawn over kate while still tromping around like rambo" is inaccurate. this season, kate shunned both jack and sawyer, at different times, to trek through the jungle on her own to investigate her convict past.
i also don't understand how claire needs to shed aaron in order to regain her island self. claire's ENTIRE storyline (other than Christian Shepherd) is based on her child. Just because it has arrived does not make her weak or suddenly defined only by her child. It is a dominating factor in her character's story; that's inescapable, not weakness.
juliet has been involved with several men in the show, but i have never viewed her in terms of her romances. honestly, if anyone really feels juliet is not a strong woman, i think i'm watching a different show.
another point to the ana/eko arguments. neither character was killed for storyline reasons...
blandestk, you're missing the point by ignoring that Jack & Sawyer have never been just about their crush on Kate. Jack is supposedly leading them off the island and is the doctor and thesupposed leader. Sawyer got drawn into killing Cooper and is now rescuing Claire, etc. There's always more to the men. Even as a guy, this is hard to ignore.
Just compare the importance of women to men this way: Juliet, Kate, Sun, Claire vs. Ben, Sawyer, Locke, Jack, Sayid, Desmond, Hurley, Jin, Daniel, Widmore, Michael. Not only are there three times as many important male characters, they run the gamut in age and attractiveness and all of the men have a function in the plot besides their looks. It's pretty simple.
If you really want to see what a diverse cast looks like and what meaningful (though always imperfect) female characters are all about, check out Battlestar Galactica. It puts Lost to shame in every way, sad to say.
Why do the cries of mysogeny only come after Jack-Kate-heavy episodes? I didn't hear much about exploitation after the cage scene...
I'll tell you why. Fishbiscuit has an agenda, and that can make a hypocrite of anyone if they try and present themselves as objective.
What was misogynistic about the cage scene, Crikey? Do you think consensual sex is misogynistic?
I think the word misogynistic is throwing everyone off. That's too strong a word and I didn't see it anywhere in the review. What I did see in the review was the idea that dissing Jack causes tension in the conventional thinking fanworld. That at least is true. This great review always brings out hostility in a certain few regulars, who still seem to be madly addicted to it. It's predictable and amusing.
Anyone who wants a dry recap without any personal perspective should really stick to Vozzek.
Skate 101
A man objectifying a woman's body without her knowledge: Sexy.
http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1181-239.html
A woman willingly trying to use her body get a man's attention: Sexist.
http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1402-8.html
Or, should it be the other way around?
^erm, that last comment isn't from me.
I appreciate having an impersonator by the way... it feeds my already MASSIVE ego.... but please, whoever you are.... stop it. :)
@blandestk: another point to the ana/eko arguments. neither character was killed for storyline reasons...
O_O
Seriously, where are you going with this statement?
Fair analysis of gamesmanship, as well as some interesting points about how women are written on Lost, though I tend to disagree about Alex's death.
Let's face it. Alex as a character was never going to be more on Lost than someone Ben cared about. Her death will have more impact on the plotline than Boone's, Eko's, or even Charlie's. Not what Charlie DID- I mean the fact that he DIED.
And don't though they've missed the mark on some female characters, don't pretend that they just write female characters worse. Sun has tons more depth than Jin. Juliet is an awesome character; Alex's boyfriend Karl was infinitely more stale than she was...
But nice review.
@gary
For the record, I agree with you 100% about BSG.
BSG is NOT futuristic. In fact, the position in time of the show is never stated. It could be in the past. Part of the point is that it's an allegory for our current political situation, especially when it comes to religion, and the view on THAT on BSG are certainly in no way futuristic.
While the women in the military on the show are called "sir," there is otherwise very little actual difference between the equality of women on BSG and in the "real world."
The difference is, as some commenters have pointed out, an issue of female AGENCY. The female characters Laura Roslyn and Kara Thrace and Number 6 DRIVE THE ACTION of the show jut as much as Lee or Admiral Adama or Gaius Baltar do--arguably moreso. They are the leaders, they are the soldiers, they are the prophets. They are the Jacks, Sawyers and Lockes of BSG.
While I love Lost and understand that it was created and is run by a bunch of dudes who admit they have father issues and that this is in large part what the show is about, and while I am not a "pc" type who demands a certain quota on the shows I love (I mean shit, I loved Deadwood more than any show in history, and there sure wasn't much female agency there), I also can't pretend that Lost isn't a man's show...and that BSG isn't pretty much superior in every way.
But that won't stop me from watching. Because I love me some men and am fascinated by their stories. I can get my female fix elsewhere.
I hate to put down reviews (at least those of people that don't get paid to do them) as part of what I do for a living is write reviews. But really, this isn't a review but a Ben-Bashing. I am sorry that FishBiscuit doesn't like Ben and even though I do, I can understand when someone doesn't as I've had some on this show that I detested and felt got way too much screen time (AnaLucia. I wish they'd left her in the bar after she met Jack and never let her board ... but I digress). So, while an entertaining read ... most of the way, honestly I got bored with the Anti-Ben hashing and re-hashing, it's simply not a review but a diatribe of someone's dislike for where the show seems to be heading. I've felt from day one (even with AnaLucia) that it's their story and I'm just along for the journey. I will hold off on judgment calls as to 'whose show it is' when the final credits role on the finalé of the last season because, until then, it's everyone's show.
Just my virtual 2 cents. :)
Awesome article as always Fish Biscuit
Didn't read thru the comments, not sure if this is up there, but Sawyer being the only badass? He's totally badass, don't get me wrong, but what about Sayid? Does anyone remember the neck-break-dancing from S3's finale? Now that's badass right there.
@jb_dean: I will hold off on judgment calls as to 'whose show it is' when the final credits role on the finalé of the last season because, until then, it's everyone's show.
IAWTC. For me it's not so much whose show it is, as much as it is what the show is all about. It is about the characters, yes, but surrounding all of them is a big bubble from which none of them can escape.
The show is all about the Island. Really. Heroes will come and go, but the Island will still be there.
@jb_dean, Really? I didn't get the Ben bashing. Fishbiscuit is talking about the two most powerful puppeteers on the show and the ways they (mainly Ben) use and misuse the Losties in the overall power struggle for the island. There is some humor in it but I didn't get anything entirely negative about it.
In fact, the interest in the opinions and insight she offers is evidenced by the enormous amount of comments her review is generating. It may not exactly be a review, but it has generated a very addictve conversation here.
you hit the nail on the head. again. I look forward to your reviews almost as much as the episodes
love ya work fish, you have a sense of humour which alas some of the other bloggers here do not.
Crikey, you gotta a be an Aussie with a name like that, I am sure you did not mean to cause any offence. Very funny though!
Has any other TV show ever caused this much debate ? just shows us how good the writers are at gettng our juices flowing that we can sit here and write essays on our theories and argue amongst ourselves for a week between shows.
ps I would not kick the Bad ass out of bed and thats for sure.
LONG LIVE LOST
gary, not only did you miss the point, but you obviously didn't read what i wrote. i already covered the jack/sawyer definition outside of kate. which, i must say, you seem to miss, as well as the depth of female characters. you left a few characters of your list, which made the guy-to-gal ratio look good for your argument, but it's really just not true. the point with the cage scene, i think, is that people go crazy when kate glances at jack while washing herself, as if that is completely objectifying the woman, when in reality they're both acting like little kids, but the kate/sawyer interaction is just seen as steamy, mutual hotness. which it is, and that's how both situations should be viewed...
also, so if there's one show to exist in the history of television that is more evenly balanced than Lost, does that mean that Lost is terribly unbalanced?
@the mrs. was it really so hard to see what i was getting at with the comment about ana and eko? people at different times claimed their deaths were sexist or racist in motivation, but both departures had zip to do with the wishes of the writers at the time...that's pretty well known in the lost world.
date was the 24th, and it is anything but consequential - see Vozztek's writeup (instead).
This post was a good read. I like reading all peoples takes on the show. Wouldn't it be boring if our collective consciousness all thought the same thing????
People bickering about who is more worthy to have an opinion are true idiots, congratulations to the few. hehe
To all the posters: keep up the good work.
simply gorgeous
very cool, reminds me of the end of desparate housewives when brenda talks.
I LOVED this one. Don't change a thing!
I think this is the best episode recap I have read, by anyone. Way to go fishbiscuit