I Think I'm Lost: Deus Ex Machina

I did something that I promised myself I wouldn’t do. I watched season one of LOST again. Well it was actually just one episode, and a damn good one at that. It’s the John Locke episode with the one and only Swoosie Kurtz as his fur clad estranged mother.

I noticed a few weeks ago that ABC has been playing season one at 1:30 late Saturday night/early Sunday mornings (I had just finished SNL). This week I decided I would treat myself to a bit of perspective and watch an old episode. The info on the cable told me it would be “Fire + Water” the episode where Charlie tries to drown baby Aaron. Turns out it was “Deus Ex Machina,” an entirely important episode in the lineage of LOST.

I had been against re-watching LOST since I began watching it. I wanted to rely on my memory (and, yes, lostpedia) to piece this mystery together. I didn’t want to delve into the past of the show for fear of it tainting with my perception of its present (ha!).

I forgot that LOST has always played with time. It constantly shines light on its characters from all angles of their existence and I forgot how mysteriously the past spoke to the present during the show’s first two seasons.

Turns out it’s a hell of a lot of fun to watch this show knowing (part of) its fate. It’s almost like watching the episodes from this side of the looking glass, where the past, present and future all dance around each other.

Right now I’m watching John Locke get swindled by Anthony Cooper aka Sawyer (who as we all know swindled the parents of our beloved James Ford aka Sawyer) and knowing the fate of this terrible and despicable man is so pleasing. And without realizing it the first time around, this dynamic between John and his father is still perfectly relevant in the grand scheme of the show; looking back on it did not make it seem superfluous, minuscule or unimportant. The flashback remains a valuable tool in the narrative.

The true joy of watching this early episode was its present. It has everything to do with what it was like a mere handful of days after these people crashed on the island. It was a really new time. I mean, Boone is there and Kate and Sawyer and Jack (who is relied upon constantly for medical advice) and Michael and Jin all live together and Sun has her garden and a thick Korean accent. I was filled with joy revisiting early life on the island. It’s pure nostalgia for the present.

This is the episode where Boone gets into the plane! (“Theresa falls up the stairs, Theresa falls down the stairs…”) Pivotal, really. His death not only marks the first departure of a regular cast member but also ushers in the birth of Aaron, who goes on to become quite a controversial character (hello, he’s part of the Island Dynasty). This is also where the show becomes dangerous in a way - the first time a character’s life is compromised by another’s.

This is also the EXACT episode I was watching (alone in the middle of the night on the couch at La Condesa) when I decided I needed to keep a journal. The journal ended up being mostly exclamations, quotations and questions rather than fully-formed thoughts. Here is the (short) entry for this episode:

Poor Boone, I don’t want him to go.
Who’s to say what’s right or wrong anymore? It depends on who you trust and what you’ve done.
“Don’t tell me what I can’t do!”
Boone… is this it?

I am personally shocked that I did not reference this episode's end in my LOST journal. What an ending!! After discovering he has lost the feeling in his newly reanimated legs, getting rudeboxed by his fake father and his REAL mother, coercing Boone deep into the jungle (only for Boone to get rudeboxed by a Nigerian priest’s drug plane falling off a cliff), dragging said Boone all the way back to camp with numb toes and shrapnel in his calf and then stealing away in the night, John Locke pounds on the eye-shaped hatch’s window. This is the first time we can see – the hatch is a giant eye, the window its pupil. He curses the island for misleading him, curses himself for believing things were getting better. Then the light goes on. Have all his prayers been answered? Is he on the right path? Was Boone’s accident in vain? And what the fuck is this light?!...LOST

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Open Text to Patrick Conn: Biggest Loser

Was in awe of what can only be called an Official Trainer Bob Meltdown on last night's Biggest Loser. I've never seen our boy like this. It's bigger than when we discovered that he's the mean one on BL:Australia

Open Text to Katie Clark: Melrose II

It's getting truly crazy. I think Alison may have been raped by her father! Everybody hates Sydney (which is sad) because she is ACTUALLY clinically insane and is now running the high class hooker biz while the bosslady is in the slammer! And Kimberly's is just waiting in the wings to rudebox them all!! I'm going to send you the box set when I'm done, but only if you promise to watch.