Lost - “Meet Kevin Johnson”

Well, I made my last post real quick after the episode yesterday, and I’m still in denial about Rousseau’s “death.” I’m putting it in neat little “quotes” because I hope by doing “that,” it might end up being an apparent “death,” and not a real one. I don’t really care about Karl, except that I feel terrible for Alex (who has become incredibly good-looking all of the sudden)… but Rousseau?! Was it really her time to die?

After sixteen years on the island, that’s how she meets her end? Don’t misunderstand me, if she really is dead, I’m not complaining about the story. Some people die senseless deaths, and if she’s one of them, that’s fine. I just will miss the character, moreso than a lot of others, because in a lot of ways she represents the first big mystery. When I first starting watching season one, I thought it was all about people surviving on an island after a plane crash, and then… the french woman was introduced. Who had been there for 16 years. Her crew dead, thanks to a mysterious sickness. And she knew about the whispers in the forest and that they were bad news.

I think, ultimately, she was a victim of the storytelling. I think perhaps she was introduced hastily in season one, before the rest of the island’s story was fleshed out, and as soon as the island’s history was determined by the writers, they realized Rousseau didn’t really fit. Sixteen years on the island and no idea about who the Others really were, or that they even had houses? If she really is dead, I think it’s a death we’re all supposed to accept quietly as a botched storyline put to sleep. Otherwise, it just doesn’t make sense to me. But I definatley have more faith in the writers than that, so…

…not dead. Can’t be.

But who might be the shooters? I have to believe the scene involving the macho men on the boat who were shooting machine guns off the side meant something other than convincing Michael these people were not exactly “the good guys.” Frank Lapidus took the helicopter in the last episode and we haven’t seen those same macho guys sense, so perhaps they went to get something important to Ben in order to coax him out since Miles was captured.

But, man, that last scene was intense. The music that was playing when Alex got up and shouted, out of desperation, “I’m Ben’s daughter! I’m Ben’s daughter!” sounded right out of a horror movie.

But enough about the last scene. We met Kevin Johnson!

Definitely the best episode this season, for a number of reasons, most notably my man Brian K., who co-wrote this one. His previous one, “Confirmed Dead,” kind of lagged, but this one made up for it. I was not bored for one second during this one, and loved seeing Michael again. I hated him by the end of Season Two, but now that he’s been gone all this time I kind of got to thinking that he’d do what any of us would have done in the same situation. Obviously to an extreme, but I was reminded how surprised he looked when he shot both Ana Lucia and especially Libby — he didn’t mean to. It was an accident. And now, here he is, trying to save his friends, knowing that they all hate him. So, welcome back, Michael! I’ve missed you.

Obviously the Michael-time-traveling-to-the-past theory was not correct, because we got to see everything that happened to him, and it seemingly happened in real-time. Or did it? I noticed that the very first establishing shot of Michael’s flashback was a shot of a running water faucet. Much like the one shown in “The Constant,” during the bathroom scene when Widmore purposely didn’t shut off the water faucet as Desmond collapsed and time traveled. I think “water” signifies time travel, somehow (come on, why would Widmore just NOT shut off the water after washing his hands?), so I have not yet ruled out the possibility that Michael isn’t when he should be, but I have no theory with which to elaborate.

And Tom is gay. Not a shocker, after he told Kate last season she wasn’t his type, and then the producers saying “one of our characters is gay,” in a podcast. Big deal? Not really. The only reason I mention it is because I guess it was a “mystery” that was revealed.

Speaking of! Another mystery was revealed last night that we didn’t even know was a mystery. Remember Jack’s suicide attempt at the end of Season 3? He was going to jump from a bridge, end it all… and then conveniently there was a distraction, an auto accident right behind him. Jack (and Michael, and presumably all of our Oceanic Six… maybe even Ben) can’t die in the real world, because “the island won’t allow it.”

Huh? Are we speaking literal, here? The island won’t allow it? Assuming the island is not a living being, or a VALIS that influences events by it’s own free will (I think that would be cheesy), I think it’s more likely that the spacial and temporal anomalies that surround the island won’t let him. In other words: course correction. Let me explain!

In Season Three, when we first saw Desmond time travel, he met up with a strange woman named Ms. Hawkings who seemingly knew he was time traveling. She explained to him that he cannot alter the past, because the universe is essentially pre-determined and follows a specific path. So, anything you do in the past can’t change the future because “the universe has a way of course correcting.” This was proven when Desmond thwarted Charlie’s death, only to have to keep doing it again and again, because the universe was now out to get him. To use a better analogy, course correction essentially means: if you go back in time and kill the mosquito that caused a worldwide plague, the plague will still happen in the future just as it did before because the universe will have another mosquito do the job.

So, the universe is not allowing Jack, Michael, or any of the other survivors to die, and I think it has to do with course correction. Something is not right. What that something is, I have no idea, but I’m sure it has something to do with Ben saying “you were never meant to leave the island.” Thoughts?

And who else is thinking that we got a pretty good idea that it’s probably Michael in the coffin at the end of Season Three? The neighborhood he was in looked pretty much the same. When he was walking through the city I kept looking at the names of the buildings, hoping to see the “Hoffs/Drawler” funeral home where he likely later ends up. It would make sense, and Jack’s reaction after reading the newspaper clipping might very well have been something like, “oh, my, he finally found a way.”

One more wild thought I had… that Sayid is already working for Ben. I half expected him, after hearing Michael tell his story, to pull out a gun and shoot Michael point blank in the face. Something like this:

Sayid: So, you’re telling me you work for Benjamin Linus?
Micahel: Yes.
Sayid: So do I. [SHOT TO THE FACE]

This obviously wasn’t the case, but would have been a cool twist. It seems like the Captain already knows about Kevin/Michael, or he’s just too cool to let his surprise show, so I’m anxious to see how this all turns out in five weeks. This episode was definately one of the most pivotal of the entire series, I’m sure.

So cheer, up, Alex! It’ll all be over soon.

Until then… Battlestar Galactica is back soon, just in time for Comcast to give me the SCIFI HD channel, then Lost AND Battlestar Galactica for 5 more weeks. Can’t wait!