I've got a fever... and the only cure is more cowbell! Okay, so that's the wrong kind of fever. We're talking "Cabin Fever" here folks! How has this, the eleventh episode of Season 4 treated you? Check below in all of the glorious data we have put together just for you.
Strong fan reaction but this episode earned a meager amount of points. This may cause some of you alarm. Well here's something else to worry about- next week (Week 12) I'll be announcing all the points adjustments we're making for the first 8 episodes of the season along with the Fantasy Update. Some changes have been made already, but I guarantee you that there are some big changes coming. You won't want to miss it because these sweeping changes could shoot you up into the Top 20 or drop you into oblivion. Be afraid! Well, don't be afraid, but be prepared.
The season is coming to an end, so we'll soon see if your picks paid off for you in the long run. Drop us some comments and shoot any questions you have to LFLquestions@gmail.com.
Also, don't forget about the DarkUFO Facebook Group and the Lost Fantasy League Facebook group. They're two more ways to strengthen our little Lost community!
SPOILER WARNING: THE CONTENTS OF THIS FANTASY UPDATE CONTAIN EPISODE INFORMATION FOR EPISODE 4X11. 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!
“Cabin Fever” (in 600 words or less)
Locke, Ben and Hurley share a delightful Three Stooges moment in the jungle, each one thinking the other is leading the way. Hopelessly screwed, they set up camp. Locke has a vision of Horace Goodspeed repeatedly cutting down a tree. Personally I’d rather be forced to eat the same Apollo bar over and over, but to each his own. Horace tells Locke to find him. Locke wakes up to find that Ben likes to watch him when he sleeps. Creepy.
QUESTION: What do a dead DHARMA Initiative member and a dog with no legs have in common?
ANSWER: You can find them both in the last place you left them!
Locke leads the trio to a literal pit stop- the pit full of dead DI folk. After a little grave diving, Locke finds Horace’s remains and pulls a map out of his pocket. Locke convinces Hurley to stay with them by trying to talk him out of coming along any further. Ben applauds Jungle John’s manipulation skills but Locke says he’s not like Ben. Yes but no, John. You are becoming more and more like Ben with every episode.
They find the cabin but only Locke goes inside. There we find Christian Shephard and Claire having the creepiest father-daughter bonding time ever put on celluloid (or is it all digital now?). Ben and Hurley share a tender moment and a chocolate bar. Just when you thought “Surley” was forever, we now have “Burley.” Locke comes out and says they need to move the Island. Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?
On the freighter, Keamy & Company come back telling wild tales of black smoke monsters. Omar gets the Morse code message from Daniel two episodes after we saw Faraday send it. Keamy beats Michael when he learns Michael is Ben’s spy. Sayid feels regret for selling out his fellow 815er. Captain Gault and Keamy exchange words and icy glares. Gault turns to the light side of The Force and helps Sayid head back to the Island in a motorboat. Desmond says he’s never going to set foot on that Island again and stays behind. Keamy straps himself to some kind of funky bomb-like thing, kills the doc, Captain Gault and forces Frank to take them back to the Island with weapons galore in tow.
At Lostie beach, Juliet scolds Jack for walking around after his surgery. The chopper flies low over their camp and Frank drops the tracking phone so they can find the chopper and the guys waiting for them with guns. Yeah, that’s safe.
The flashbacks are offbeat and we learn that Locke has been watched by one or both of the opposing sides of this conflict since he was a kid. Yeah, we get it- Locke is special. I have the memo.
Ever since he was a boy, Locke has been pretending that he’s supposed to be a rugged macho man, when he should be digging deep into religion and science. Teenage Locke is almost laughable as he boldly proclaims “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!” like he was Peter Brady. “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!” is the new “Claaaire!” which became the new “Waaalt!” last week. Way to kill an otherwise cool phrase.
Ominous foreshadowing of the week: Locke “owes one” to Abaddon.
Well, after "Millenium Falcon-gate," where Jack either steps on or kicks Aaron's Star Wars toy in the future, DarkUFO and I went back and looked into some of the past rulings we have made on injuries. In the effort of fairness, we've decided to consider Jack's run in with the Millenium Falcon an injury. We hope to have a better setup for injury deductions next season, but we're also trying to remain consistent this year. So, Jack loses 10 of his points from "Something Nice Back Home" and all of you who voiced your opinions can rest easy.
This week wasn't terribly difficult to score and, while some of you may take issue with a ruling or two, we are satisfied with the way the episode was scored and do not plan on revisiting any points rulings from "Cabin Fever".
1) Locke does not lose points when his mother is struck by a car. While John was born premature, his resiliency against all illnesses and conditions as a baby were remarkable. With this in mind, we felt that Locke was born perfectly fine for a premature baby. His mother was roughed up by the ordeal but we do not think Locke was harmed.
2) Locke does not earn any points for meeting Richard Alpert, Matthew Abaddon or Christian Shephard. It seems evident that Richard had been searching for Locke each time he met him this episode. Because Matthew Abaddon has had a knack for finding people in the future, we did not feel as if his meeting with Locke was a chance encounter. From the way he acted and what he said, Abaddon made it seem to us that this was no random crossing. Finally, the cabin was made visible to Ben, Hurley and Locke. Seeing as Jacob is the type of "person" who acts deliberately, it seems that they were meant to find the cabin. Since Locke was meant to find the cabin, he was meant to find anyone inside it, in this case it was Christian Shephard and Claire.
3) Both eye close-ups for Locke counted for points. Locke's Island vision was bookended by eye close-ups. The first began with Locke awaking in his vision and the second when he awoke for real. Both were used as establishing shots and fit our eye close-up criteria.
4) Locke does not get points for meeting Horace in his Island vision. The Island sent him that vision, so he was meant to meet Horace as a means of learning what to do next.
5) Nobody earned First Line points. League rules state that First Line points are awarded only to the very first person who speaks in the episode. Since Mrs. Locke is not a League Character, nobody gets first line points.
6) Locke's flashbacks are considered Montage flashbacks. While the flashbacks all reinforce the idea that Locke is somehow special, they do not add up to a linear narrative. Instead, they just jump around to different points in Locke's life to show that he has always been a person of interest to either side of the present conflict over the Island.
We went from the all-time highest scoring episode ever to the second lowest scoring episode ever. Who'd have thunk it?!? I guess there's really no correlation between how much fans and critics will like an episode and how well it performs for your Fantasy Rosters. Makes sense though, as the producers and writers are making the show for our enjoyment, not for the LFL.Thanks to that quick scene where the Losties recover the phone Frank dropped on the beach, a number of regulars picked up appearance points. Aside from that, Locke stole the show and Richard Alpert came in a distant second.
Here is this week's detailed points breakdown:
Group 1-
LOCKE (+100): Attendance (+5); First on Screen (+15); Centricity (+25); Montage Flashbacks (+10); Eye Close-Up (+5); Island Vision (+30); Eye Close-Up (+5); Gets Hurt- Beaten and stuffed into his locker (-10); Last Line (+5); Last on Screen (+10)
BEN (+5): Attendance (+5)
JACK (+5): Attendance (+5)
KATE (+5): Attendance (+5)
SAWYER (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
Group 2-
DESMOND (+5): Attendance (+5)
HURLEY (+5): Attendance (+5)
JULIET (+5): Attendance (+5)
SAYID (+5): Attendance (+5)
MICHAEL (-5): Attendance (+5); Injured- Beaten by Keamy (-10)
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 (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
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-
RICHARD (+20): Attendance (+5); Appears in Locke's Flashback (+15)
AARON (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
CINDY (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
MARVIN CANDLE (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
PENNY (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
Group 6-
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)
WIDMORE (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
Group 7-
CHRISTIAN (+5): Attendance (+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)
"Cabin Fever" may not have been big on points, but it gave us an astonishing 63 Fantasy Geniuses of the Week! Everyone below scored 125 points for the episode and had both Locke and Richard on their team. The rest was a mix an match of several characters scoring your basic 5 attendance points. Congratulations to all the following:
Adie32, Aldo, andres.alvayay, andrewdswallow, annanaranja, BamboLeo, barbacrack, beckstippex, Bloody Rock God, Bob, borja-dharma, Brainy, Chris Pepper, cinemocion, debsmad, DH, Ditas, dpkuk, DráGoNk, DriveShaftBassTech, droles, even_flow, filmschooldrunk, Foofighter, gargol, Howl, http://darksideinheaven.blogspot.com/, Jacob y sus amigotes, jcoleslaw, Jenifesto, Jenni, jesusher79, jjfreeze87, Jose Javier, jOsWiT Lost, Karin, kaylin, KYRA, lost-in-ch, LostPerdidos, martin.dibella, melancholy brain, Merco, Mokita, Monkstro, najwito, noryglory, philallen, phoenixautumn, PJSprkls, ptrstvns04, Reg, roomforhuman, rowlandchane, Shaughn, Stefan, TodoSeries.com, turp56, Tylerloveslocke, Valios, Watanabex, xavif66, yokieroaclaire
Click your heels together and say it with me now! "There's No Place Like Home, Part 1" is coming at us this week. What can we expect? Well, from the previews it looks like there might be glimpses of the Oceanic 6's return to civilization. We know that it doesn't turn out to be such a good deal in the future, but maybe it's not so bad right out of the gate. We've had flashforwards for five of the Oceanic 6 so far- Hurley, Sayid, Kate, Sun and Jack. Will the first part of the season finale focus on one of these characters again? Or, could the writers have thrown us a curveball and given us an Aaron flashforward? Or perhaps it will just be O6 in general.
It's hard to say, but what's certain is that this episode will not disappoint us! With two episodes and three hours left of Season 4, Lost is going to hit fever pitch in a hurry. All the action and adventure of previous season finales is to be expected and we may even be seeing a few gamechangers along the way. Lost has ventured into the unknown by showing us the future, so what will happen when the past, present and future collide as the Oceanic 6 finally seem on the verge of leaving the Island?
One word: excitement.
Check back next week to see how our points overhaul and the Week 12 episode "There's No Place Like Home, Part 1" have affected your team. Will you be poised for victory or left with a tall task going into the final episode? Find out next week.
Namaste and good luck!
