Introduction
What a week this was for the Fantasy League! New leaders for the Celebs and overall! Points were flying all over the place, and if you had the right players on your Fantasy Team, you hit the jackpot!
"The Other Woman" may not have been the most exciting episode ever, but it has injected life back into the League and sets us up for some very close competition from here on out. Many people, especially the top of the leader board are all very close in points, and I'm proud to announce that one of our celebrity contestants has cracked the Top 20!
I didn't make a traditional video this week, so this short little recapper will have to suffice. Yes, that's right- I said short! No 13-minute stutter fests this week! I will be back in all my glorious low-grade video action for the Week 7 Update though, so don't get too excited. :-P
Check all the sections below, because all of the explaining is done through the Important Points Rulings due to the lack of a proper video. Thanks for waiting patiently an extra couple of days for this update. Hopefully you were rewarded with a high Week 6 score! I know I wasn't.
Comments and questions are always welcome. Make your voice heard in the comments section or drop us a line at LFLquestions@gmail.com.
“The Other Woman” (in 500 words or less)
Jack’s latest bright idea of telling everyone that the Freighter Four are friends backfires when he freaks out about Daniel and Charlotte marching off into the jungle unannounced. He and Juliet wander around in the dark and in the rain hoping to pick up their trail. Juliet is confronted by a woman who may or may not be Smokey and is told to stop the newbies before they can unleash deadly gas from a DHARMA station and kill everyone on the Island.
Daniel and Charlotte take a pit stop and discuss his performance anxiety regarding the gas and Kate drops in on them. Kate catches them in a lie but she is swiftly knocked out by Charlotte. After much chatter and hyping up Juliet’s mysterious past, she and Jack happen upon Kate. While Jack plays doctor, Juliet runs away to finish her job.
At the Barracks, Claire questions Locke’s authority and is basically told to go bake some cookies. Locke gives Ben food and clothing and Ben tries to sneak in a quickie mindf**k. Locke finally calls him on it and gets some information out of Bug-Eyes Ben. Charles Widmore has been looking for the Island for some time now and wants to exploit it. Ben shows Locke a video of Widmore beating the crap out of a guy who looks like Jude Law in a blindfold. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want THIS Charles in charge of me! Ben also reveals (off-screen of course) who his spy is on the boat. Locke lets him move in next door to Sawyer and Hurley for this little tidbit.
Juliet reaches the DHARMA station, called the Tempest. My first car was a 1966 Pontiac Tempest and when I bought it, it looked about as dirty and run down as this DHARMA joint does. Juliet holds Daniel at gunpoint and tells him to stop. He tells her that he’s actually trying to render the gas inert so it CAN’T kill anyone. Juliet is then assaulted by Charlotte and a cat fight ensues (sorry boys, no mud or DHARMA Jell-o involved).
Danny boy saves the day and they all patch things up like cautious allies do. Jack and Kate reach the Tempest after all the action is over. Kate wants an explanation but Jack just wants to make out with Juliet. Juliet is worried what Ben will do to Jack because he thinks she’s his, which brings us to…The flashbacks fill in a few gaps in Juliet’s back story and some interesting information is revealed: the Others have shrinks on call; Ben has the hots for Juliet like a sixth grader smitten with the pretty school nurse; Juliet begins sleeping with Goodwin, who is her shrink’s husband; Ben wises up to their canoodling and sends Goodwin to his eminent demise for it when 815 crashes; Ben is so obsessed that he take Juliet out to see Goodwin’s dead body and proclaims his possession of her in a creepy Gollum-like way.
Before we get to the important points rulings, I want to take this time to shore up any doubt on the Desmond/Flashback controversy from "The Constant". We are sticking by our initial ruling that Desmond's time travel does not count as any kind of flashback or flashforward. The time travel occurs in such a way that creates a very paradoxical situation, one that is impossible to sort out or determine. It's like a "chicken and the egg" scenario. Basically, there is no past or future in the episode. It all occurs in two presents (if you can wrap your mind around that).
However, contestant Chillindude did make an astute observation that resulted in us awarding Desmond with an additional 20 points. When Past Desmond jumps into Present Desmond, the helicopter and everything on it (i.e. Sayid and Frank) are new to him. The event is completely random, so Desmond gets points for discovering the helicopter, Frank and Sayid all in one bundle. This brings the episode total up to -5 points overall.
Now for this week's details:
While the episode may not have excited audiences like "The Constant" did, "The Other Woman" left us with many questions to shore up. Please let us know if we missed anything. Here's what we decided upon:
1) Juliet does NOT get points for meeting Harper in her flashback. Juliet was in harper's office, so Juliet went to her, even though she didn't know her.
2) Juliet does NOT get First Line points. Both Lostpedia and my TV's closed caption system credit Harper with the first line of the episode.
3) We've decided to rule it an encounter with the Smoke Monster when Harper appears to Juliet in the jungle. DarkUFO and I both seemed to think that the swiftness of her entrance and exit was a little to perfectly executed to be the real Harper. So, both Juliet and Jack get Smokey points for encountering Jungle Harper. If we later receive information that proves otherwise, we'll reverse our ruling on Jungle Harper.
4) Juliet double dips on Whisper points. Both instances of the Whispers were close together, but we're counting them as separate occurrences for now. If we find out this season that the Whispers are some kind of side effect of Smokey, some kind of Casimir effect or something else, we may revise this ruling.
5) Juliet has On-Island Flashbacks, not Montage Flashbacks. While there are time jumps between each of Juliet's flashes, a linear narrative is still told. The flashbacks cover Juliet's growing relationship with Goodwin and Ben's growing obsession of Juliet.
6) Juliet does NOT get DHARMA Visit points for her flashbacks. Her time at the Barracks in her flashback is a continuation of her visit that began in episode 3x16 "One of Us". Her date with Goodwin by the water was difficult for us to rule on. Since the Others do not seem to leave the safety of the Barracks very often, we did not rule this as time away from the Barracks. They may have just been at a secluded are withing the sonic fence perimeter.
7) Juliet DOES get points for meeting Goodwin. Yes, Goodwin knew who she was through the Others' grapevine, but Juliet did not know him and Goodwin did not set out to find her. They met by chance
8) Kate does NOT get discovery points for finding the masks and bio-hazard suits in Daniel's pack. In 4x02, Jack opened a box containing masks and suits, so he and Kate already knew the Freighter Four were carrying these items. Also, Faraday let Kate look in the pack.
9) Nobody gets points for discovering the Tempest. Juliet told Jack limited information about it and Jack relayed that limited information to Kate. They all get points for visiting the Tempest though.
10) The fight between Juliet and Charlotte is considered one extended injury session. Juliet only loses points once for getting hurt and for hurting Charlotte.
11) Both Sawyer AND Hurley get Last on Screen points. On my non-wide screen TV, it appeared that only Sawyer was last on screen, but I watched the scene on ABC.com and Hurley does sneak in at the end.
12) Ethan does NOT appear in the episode. The scene where Ben orders Ethan and Goodwin to infiltrate the survivors of the plane crash was edited in such a way that Ethan does not actually appear.
13) Ben does NOT lose points for sending Goodwin to his death. Yes, Ben hoped Goodwin would die trying to infiltrate the Tailies, but Ben was not the actual person who physically killed Goodwin.
14) Charles Widmore is only charged with hurting Ben's man. If we learn later on that Widmore killed him during that beating, we'll adjust the score.
After last week's depressingly low overall episode score, "The Other Woman" was a breath of fresh air. Fitting squarely in the middle of our episode totals, there was enough action and points being dished out to seriously shake up the points standings.Points giants that had been leading for a while have fallen and newcomers to the Celeb and overall Top 5 have become giant killers. Will next week prove the same? Maybe and maybe not.
I find it rather ironic and amusing that the favorite episode of the season ("The Constant") had very little points action to its name, while the least favorite episode this season ("The Other Woman") provided us with a much needed points boost that results in a lot of people being tied with some very high scores.
Here are this weeks detailed points breakdown:
Group 1-
JACK (+90): Attendance (+5); Encounters Smokey- Manifestation of Harper (+30); Hears the Whispers (+30); Visits a DHARMA Location- The Tempest (+5); Kisses Juliet (+20)
BEN (+25): Attendance (+5); Appears in Juliets Flashbacks (+15); Last Line in the Episode (+5)
SAWYER (+15): Attendance (+5); Last on Screen (+10)
LOCKE (+5): Attendance (+5)
KATE (0): Attendance (+5); Gets Hurt- Knocked Out by Charlotte (-10); Visits a DHARMA Location- The Tempest (+5)
Group 2-
JULIET (+175): Attendance (+5); First on Screen (+15); On-Island Flashback (+10); Episode Centricity (+25); Hears the Whispers (+30); Encounters Smokey- Manifestation of Harper (+30); Hears the Whispers (+30); Encounters a New Person- Goodwin (+20); Visits a DHARMA Location- The Tempest (+5); Gets Hurt- Attacked by Charlotte (-10); Injures Someone- Fights with Charlotte (-5); Kisses Jack (+20)
HURLEY (+15): Attendance (+5); Last on Screen (+10)
DESMOND (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
MICHAEL (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
SAYID (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
Group 3-
CLAIRE (+5): Attendance (+5)
JIN (+5): Attendance (+5)
SUN (+5): Attendance (+5)
JACOB (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
ROUSSEAU (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
Group 4-
ALEX (+20): Attendance (+5); Appears in Juliets Flashbacks- Her picture is on the wall of Ben's house (+15)
BERNARD (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
KARL (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
ROSE (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
WALT (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
Group 5-
AARON (+5): Attendance (+5)
CINDY (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
MARVIN CANDLE (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
PENNY (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
RICHARD (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
Group 6-
WIDMORE (0): Attendance (+5); Injures Someone- Beats up one of Ben's men (-5)
ETHAN (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
LIBBY (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
MS. HAWKING (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
RACHEL (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
Group 7-
CHRISTIAN (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
KELVIN (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
KEVIN CALISS (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
MR. PAIK (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
NADIA (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
There were only three Fantasy Geniuses of the Week this week and they all scored phenomenally well! Here are your Geniuses and their winning teams:
Pgtbeauregard- Jack, Juliet, Claire, Alex, Aaron, Charles Widmore, Mr. Paik
Desmond- Jack, Juliet, Claire, Alex, Aaron, Charles Widmore, Mr. Paik
Munson51- Jack, Juliet, Sun, Alex, Aaron, Charles Widmore, Christian Shephard
I find it odd that a contestant named Desmond doesn't include Desmond on their team! :-P But it sure is working out well for them. Both Pgtbeauregard and Desmond are tied for First Place overall this week! The 290 points they scored as Geniuses of the Week rocketed them up in the standings. Will they be able to hold their lead for the remaining half of the season? We'll find out!
The title of Week 7's episode (which airs in less than 24 hours for us Americans and Canadians!) basically gives away who the episode is likely to focus on if you think about it. Thus, I won't say anything here, in case there are any die hard "No spoilers!" folk around who don't even read the episode titles.
After Week 7 we have one more episode left before a short little hiatus. What kind of revelations will we get in these two episodes before being left hung out to dry for a few weeks? There's only one way to find out! :-P
During the mini-hiatus we'll be discussing the Season 5 LFL and any changes you think we should make. It will be a time for you to voice your opinion and to give us feedback on the LFL to this point. Also, use the time to suggest anything you want, but keep in mind that we won't enact every suggestion from contestants and fans. Also, please be civil about it. Everyone has been very easy going about this contest up to this point, with only a few minor exceptions.
That's it for this week! Come back on Monday for the second Fantasy Update in a week's time to see how Week 7 treated you!
