Introduction
DarkUFO may be away, but G-Man's ready to play! Here's your hook-up with the results of Week 9's episode, "The Shape of Things to Come." It was a solid episode overall and featured a fair amount of points being spread around. There was also some high octane thrills and a few dashes of sadness to boot. In other words- GREAT EPISODE!
But will a high-quality episode translate to success for your Fantasy Roster? There's only one way to find out! Check out the usual data and maybe even the video perhaps? Let me know what you think of the new LFL logo and, as always, feel free to leave comments or email me directly at LFLquestions@gmail.com.
Two important things to note- First, with DarkUFO away, I had to make all the points charts myself, so some of the data may look funny (specifically the Last Week's Score and This Week's Score options). It's all because funny things happen when I convert the spreadsheet on my computer. Secondly, we made a few points adjustments based on new information regarding "Meet Kevin Johnson" and "The Other Woman." Be sure to check out the Important Points Rulings section to see if you were hit by these changes.
SPOILER WARNING: THE CONTENTS OF THIS FANTASY UPDATE CONTAIN EPISODE INFORMATION FOR EPISODE 4X09. IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SEEN THIS EPISODE (AS IS THE CASE WITH OUR EUROPEAN FRIENDS) THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION WILL SPOIL THE EPISODE FOR YOU. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
“The Shape of Things to Come” (in 600 words or less)
While practicing for her Oceanic 6 Girls Gone Wild video, Kate and Jack have quickie eye sex. Jack starts popping pills, Kate starts asking why it’s been four episodes since anybody has been concerned with the delay in their rescue, and Bernard starts discovering dead bodies and calling for help. It’s the freighter doctor and Daniel gives a really crap answer about what’s going on. Bernard suggests they use what’s left of the sat phone to build a telegraph to ask the freighter people what the fark happened.
Alex has been captured by Keamy & Co. and flips the panic switch on the sonar fence. Despite Hurley’s warnings founded on superior Risk strategy, Sawyer gives Locke Australia and the game. Locke answers the Batphone but doesn’t understand the message. Ben gets it loud and clear and whips out a sawed of shotgun hidden away in his piano bench, bringing new meaning to the phrase “tough meets sophisticated.”
New Otherton comes under attack. Several redshirts die and Claire’s house is blown up by an RPG with Baby Mama still inside. Luckily, she was taking a nap with her mithril blanket on, as she is virtually unscathed despite the house being completely hollowed out. Miles sucks at “Ding-Dong Ditch” and Keamy reaches out and touches Ben on the radio.
Ben tries to mindf**k Keamy and convince him that Alex is unimportant as a hostage and bargaining chip. Instead of letting her go as Ben predicts, Keamy just executes her. He just…freaking…shoots her! I bet he has a wallet that says “Bad Mother F**ker” on it. After moments of frozen astonishment, Ben mutters “He changed the rules” and locks himself in his secret closet, which happens to have a secret closet of its own.
The dark of night descends on New Otherton and a dirty Ben emerges from his closet. Instead of playing “7 Minutes in Heaven” Ben was paging Dr. McSmokey, who barrels through town and begins stomping on Keamy & Co. The remaining A-listers in Camp Locke book it into the jungle and Ben mourns the death of his adoptive daughter. For the first time we see signs of humanity in Benjamin as he sheds tears for the deceased. Sawyer, Claire, Aaron and Miles head for the beach while Ben, Locke and Hurley set off for Jacob’s cabin.
Back at the beach, Faraday tries to lie about the incoming telegraph from the freighter, not considering that the guy who suggested building a telegraph might know Morse code! Guess Eloise isn’t the only one with a fried brain. Jack gets him to confess that they never intended to rescue anyone.
In the future, Ben pulls a Randall Flagg and pops up in the middle of nowhere. He snarkily lays some hurt on a few locals and rides off into the Tunisian sunset. He uses a fake passport to garner respect from a hotel clerk and meets up with Sayid in Iraq. He helps Sayid track down his wife’s killer and Sayid demands to help Ben rid the world of Widmore associates. Cue Ben’s snarky grin that screams “I totally own you now!”
Ben lets himself into Charles Widmore’s penthouse bedroom, adorned with MacCutcheon’s Scotch whiskey and an oil painting of the Black Rock. Charles is in no mood for a slumber party and the two share angry dialogue and glares. Ben claims Charles changed the rules and for that he will see to it that Charles’ daughter Penny suffers the same fate as Alex. Widmore wants the Island and Linus wants Penny’s head in a box. The hunt is on.
Heading into the Hiatus I said that I was going to re-watch all of the first 8 episodes of the season to double check all the scores. Unfortunately, I never got around to it, so there are no re-watch points adjustments just yet. I still hope to work my way through all of the episodes just to ensure that we have all the scoring done absolutely correct before announcing a champion.
We do, however, have a few points corrections that stem from information revealed on the show and via the Official Lost Podcast with Damon and Carlton:
1) Danielle Rousseau is dead. After "Meet Kevin Jonhson" we only listed Rousseau as being injured because it didn't seem like she would killed in such a seemingly random way. But, in "The Shape of Things to Come," Alex stated that Keamy and his men killed both Karl and Danielle. We are taking this information to heart and we have replaced Rousseau's Week 8 injury deduction with a full -30 death deduction.
2) Jack and Juliet lose points from Week 6. In a recent podcast, Damon and Carlton answered a question about "The Other Woman" and whether Harper was real or a manifestation of the Smoke Monster/Island. Damon and Carlton stated that what we saw was the real Harper, so we have stripped Jack and Juliet of their points for encountering Smokey during that episode.
WEEK 9 POINTS RULINGS:
Believe it or not, "The Shape of Things to Come" was actually a fairly easy episode to score. Despite all the violence and action, there were only a few events that could have been considered "on the bubble."
DarkUFO is on vacation this week, so all of these rulings were made without his input. It's getting easier to determine injuries and such, but DarkUFO and I will review all the rulings for this episode upon his return. While there is a chance one or two rulings may change, I have a feeling that all of them will stick.
1) Alex getting forced to her knees by Keamy is an injury. The use of force was there, but it also counts as an injury because she was blindfolded and defenseless when it happened.
2) Ben's first flashforward scene opens with an eye close-up. While it's not a single eye, I felt that the tight shot on both his eyes should be credited.
3) Ben's disorientation, vomiting and wounded arm all count as an injury deduction. Whether he was experiencing the effects of teleportation or not, Ben's disoriented state coupled with the puking was enough of a physical hinderance to him to count for a deduction. His arm is counted in with these, as it is the first time we ever saw Ben with that wound, even though we didn't see it happen.
4) Ben killed one of the Bedouin's but only injured the second. It is unlikely that such gun wounds would be non-fatal, especially as the shoulder holds major arteries and the man would likely bleed to death before reaching medical assistance. The other guy just got knocked out.
5) Bernard is credited with the discovery of the doctor's corpse. While he mentioned that the dog was barking, we heard Bernard hollar for help before Vincent's barking. Since Bernard called everyone's attention to the body, only he gets credit for the discovery.
6) Jack's stomach ills were enough to merit an injury deduction. At first it didn't seem severe enough, but by the end of the episode it was evident that his guts were causing him a tremendous amount of pain.
7) Nadia gets the 30 point death deduction. While we did not see her death, we have indisputable evidence that she is dead. We saw her funeral procession and Sayid confirmed it.
8) Sawyer does nto receive an injury deduction when he falls as Claire's hosue explodes. Sawyer was not forced down by the explosion. Rather, he did a little pre-emptive tuck and roll to guard himself from any debris flying towards him. The only visible damage done to Sawyer during the attack was a redshirt's blood staining his shirt.
As I said, Week 9 provided us with a solid episode with a fair spreading of points. Once again, our centric character (Ben this time) seemed to underperform. Of course everyone looks like a lightweight compared to Hurley's impressive 4x01 centric dominance.We finally have an episode where at least one character from each of our seven groups showed up! Granted, they didn't all end up in the black, but it's still nice to see all of our groups in action for a change! Hopefully we'll see more attendance from our lower groups through the rest of the season.
Anyway, here is this week's detailed points breakdown:
Group 1-
BEN (+75): Attendance (+5); Centricity (+25); Flashforward (+20); Eye Close-Up (+5); Gets Hurt- Disoriented and vomits counted as an injury, plus wound to his arm (-10); Injures Someone- Bedouin #1 (-5); Kills Someone- Bedouin #2 (-20); Gets Hurt- Tackled by Sayid (-10); Encounters Smokey (+30); Kisses Alex (+20); Last Line (+5); Last on Screen (+10)
LOCKE (+35): Attendance (+5); Encounters Smokey (+30)
SAWYER (+35): Attendance (+5); Encounters Smokey (+30)
KATE (+30): Attendance (+5); First on Screen (+15); First Line (+10)
JACK (-5): Attendance (+5); Gets Hurt- His stomach problems cause enough pain and discomfort to count as an injury (-10)
Group 2-
HURLEY (+35): Attendance (+5); Encounters Smokey (+30)
JULIET (+5): Attendance (+5)
SAYID (+5): Attendance (+5); Appears in Ben's Flashforward (+25); Injuers Ben- Tackles him to the ground (-5); Kills Bakir (-20)
DESMOND (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
MICHAEL (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
Group 3-
CLAIRE (+25): Attendance (+5); Gets Hurt- Injured when her house blows up (-10); Encounters Smokey (+30)
JIN (+5): Attendance (+5)
SUN (+5): Attendance (+5)
JACOB (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
ROUSSEAU (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
Group 4-
BERNARD (+25): Attendance (+5); Discovers a New Person/Thing- Doc Ray's corpse (+20)
ALEX (+10): Attendance (+5); Gets Hurt- Forced to her knees by Keamy (-10); Uses the Numbers- Enters the Panic Code on the sonar fence; 1623 (+20); Visits a DHARMA Location- The Barracks (+5); Dies- Executed by Keamy (-30); Kissed by Ben (+20)
KARL (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
ROSE (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
WALT (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
Group 5-
AARON (+35): Attendance (+5); Encounters Smokey (+30)
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 (+30): Attendance (+5); Appears in Ben's Flashforward (+25)
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-
NADIA (0): Attendance (+5); Appears in Ben's Flashforward (+25); Dies (-30)
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)
There was only one Fantasy Genius of the Week this week, and I owe them an apology!
Congratulations to Charlie! Their team scored a whopping 205 points for the episode! I owe Charlie an apology because in the video I stated that Ben had held their team back and that Charlie wasn't in the top tier of our contestants, but I'm as wrong as Alex is dead. Charlie is very much alive in the LFL, currently sitting in 14th place, up 162 positions from Week 8!
Charlie's team: Ben, Hurley, Claire, Alex, Aaron, Charles Widmore and Christian Shephard
Charlie was fortunate to have 4 characters on their roster that encountered Smokey in 4x09, a 120 point boost in itself! Way to go Charlie!
Character Groups
Scoring Chart
Table Toppers
Celebrities
SORRY, NO ONLINE OR DOWNLOADABLE DATABASES THIS WEEK!
DarkUFO works these items up, so you will have to wait until he gets back to see where you stand after Week 9. If you absolutely have to know what position you are in, email me at LFLquestions@gmail.com and I'll try to get back to you as soon as possible.
Next week's episode is titled "Something Nice Back Home." What exactly does this mean? I'm not 100% certain, but I feel pretty confident that this will be a Jack episode.With Jack having some kind of stomach bug going on (the previews revealed more info about his condition) I'm sure he will be front and center. Well, at least he'll be the focus. If the Losties lose their de facto leader at such an important time, trouble could be brewing. Who will step up and take charge? Will the be a group breakdown? Will they get any closer to getting off the Island?
We'll just have to wait and see. Come back next week to see how "Something Nice Back Home" affects your Fantasy Team! The update may come a day or two late, to provide DarkUFO ample time to get back into the swing of things coming off his vacation, so don't panic if we don't post next Monday.
