Underpants On The Outside

Lost has a habit of setting up dozens of mind-boggling mysteries and solving NONE of them. My friend Jordan, whose use of imagery is nothing short of genius, describes the experience of watching the show as frustrating as “Dry Humping a Supermodel”.

This week’s supermodel: the motherfuckin’ polar bears.

While the previous profanity might seem unnecessary, I felt it appropriate.  You see, the show takes place on a tropical island, so it’s pretty odd that there’s a polar bear around.  Luckily, in the first couple episodes the castaways restored the proper order of the world by shooting the polar bear.  By placing a polar bear on a tropical island, the show’s writers alienated a lot of smart people who believe in science and learning and what-not, who said to themselves “this is stupid”, and went off to go read The Odyssey.  Not me.  This is exactly the type of mind-humping that gets me hooked.  Show me a stupid mystery box, and I stick around to see the stupid surprise inside.  And if I can pass the time dry-humping supermodels that wander in and out of the room, so be it.

Now allow me to digress for a moment.  Imagine what your reaction would be if you shot a polar bear on a tropical island.   Me, I’d freak out a bit.  Actually, I bet that five minutes later I’d be naked and covered in polar bear blood, acting out my own personal Apocalypse Now.  At the very least, every sentence out of my mouth would end in, “…and holy shit I just shot a motherfucking polar bear.”  (Actually the more I think about it the more it seems pretty awesome.  I want to shoot a motherfuckin polar bear.)  Well, not the castaways.  A couple of them shoot a polar bear, then with some limp-ass reasoning like, “It would scare everyone else if we told them there were polar bears on the island,” they pretty much never mention it again.  And yeah, news of tropical polar bear existence would scare people, but that kind of information could also save lives.  If you were on a tropical island and saw a polar bear, you’d probably think you were suffering some sort of coconut induced hallucination.  Then you’re getting eaten.

Digression aside, there’s been almost no mention of the bears except for a couple throwaway remarks, meanwhile we’ve been distracted by the Hatch and the Others and other well-dry-humped supermodels.  It’s as if the writers were trying to sweep the bears under the rug, which would be difficult, though hilarious, particularly if it were a bear-skin rug.

But I never forgot.  For the past two seasons, I kept thinking, “but what about the polar bear???”  Eventually this became “what about the fuckin’ polar bear???”, and as these things tend to evolve, “what about the motherfuckin goddamn polar bear???” 

Well the motherfuckin goddamn polar bear is back.  At the end of last season, the Hatch blew up…sort of.  Everyone says that the Hatch IMploded, but everyone inside was knocked unconscious and scattered over the island, like some kind of EXplosion, so that doesn’t exactly add up.  Whatever.  I don’t dry-hump supermodels because they’re scientists.  Besides, I don’t even have time for anything more than a dry-quickie with this chick, and I’m sure we’ll meet again before the year is through.

In any case, Locke, the island’s official Old Crazy Guy, wakes up and decides to build himself a sweat tent so he can communicate with the island. With his sweat tent and the help of some homemade hallucinogens (a skill I really need to learn) Locke learns from the island that Eko, after being EX/IM-ploded in the hatch, was dragged off into the wilderness by…the polar bears.  This might seem oddly diabolical for polar bears, but scientific proof is offered in the form of Charlie the Ex-Drug Addict, who mentions that the nature shows he used to watch often called bears the geniuses of the bear community.  Even smarter than the brown bears, which as we all know, trap and stun their human prey with a mesmerizing three-tier system of beds and porridge.

Thankfully, even though Locke finds Eko in a cave littered with human remains, he’s not missing even so much as a limb or a head.  It really proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that polar bears are evil masterminds.  I can only imagine the thousands of penguins hidden in iceberg abattoirs as they await their turn to die in the Icicle Maiden. 

That’s what drives me crazy about the show: it makes me look like a moron.   I accept that Locke’s hallucination was perfectly accurate, whereas mine used to make me believe that my buddy Eugene was the Devil.  I believe that a polar bear surviving in the South Pacific would drag a human body through the jungle back to a cave, without causing it significant damage.  I believe.  Why? Because when the supermodel talks, you smile and nod and try not to get caught staring at her tits. 

So the polar bears are back, but what kind of supermodel is it?  I think they’re like that girl you got to first base with in summer camp ten years ago.  She was cute, but nothing special, and yet for reasons you can’t comprehend, from time to time you’re reminded of her and wonder, “What’s she been up to?”  Then one day, you open a Victoria’s Secret catalogue and she’s staring back at you.  She certainly filled out nicely, didn’t she?  Six months later, you quit your job because it took too much time away from clipping her photo out of magazines, yet for some reason everyone thinks you’re the one talking crazy, even though she’s the one that can’t see that the two of you were meant to be together.

(Note: Sorry about the lack of posts.  I started a new job, and it’s definitely taking a good deal more of my time, so I’m still working out what my writing schedule is going to be.)