Underpants On The Outside

I know what you’re thinking: “z, didn’t you say you were done with dry-humping supermodels?  Didn’t you acknowledge that this bit was old and stale?”  Yes.  Yes, I did.  But if you’ve read this site for a little while, you’ve probably noticed I’m not tremendously reliable.  And for the past two episodes, the switcheroos, fake-outs and shenanigans have gotten out of hand.  It needs to be said.

Take two weeks ago.  The episode focused on Jin and Sun.  If I may digress, they’re the island’s Asian couple, and while I’ll admit I’m prone to cheap humor - often resorting to chauvinism, dick jokes and racial stereotypes - I’m still amazed that with all the broken electronics on the island, no one has turned to them and said, “Are you SURE you can’t fix it?”

Sun and Jin have always been a good couple of characters.  Their past is filled with the intrigue of organized crime, an extramarital affair, potentially illegitimate children and class struggle - it’s like Goodfellas, Unfaithful, and Lady and the Tramp all rolled into one.  The episode two weeks ago revolved around Sun’s pregnancy, because if she stays on the island, she’ll die like every other pregnant woman there.  (The island is seriously against unsafe sex.)  Fortunately for her, we find out that she’s part of the Oceanic Six, as her flash forward shows her back in Korea when she goes into labor.  We also see Jin, desperately trying to pick up a giant stuffed panda and make it to the hospital, but nothing can go right for him - his cab drives off with the panda inside and he drops his phone, where it is crushed by a motorcycle. The tension got pretty thick as scenes of Sun and Jin on the island were interspersed with scenes of Sun in the throes of labor and Jin frantically trying to make it in time.  It really seemed like something terrible was going to somebody.  But Sun had her child, both of them were healthy, and Jin made it to the hospital.  The wrinkle was that Sun was in the future, post-island, while Jin was in his pre-island days, bringing the panda to some ambassador as an errand for his boss.  Jin is dead in the future.  (Admittedly, I should have seen this coming.  Several months ago, Daniel Dae Kim, the actor who plays Jin, was caught driving drunk in Hawaii, where the film the show.  He is now the fourth actor on the show to get a DUI, and it would appear that the producers don’t really appreciate that sort of behavior: of the other three actors, two of them had their characters get shot to death, and the third’s character was beaten to death by the flatulasaurus.  I appreciate that they’re socially conscious, but you’d think ABC would start keeping a couple taxis on retainer.)

In a show where nothing is what it seems, even this was intolerable.  For instance, it was a shock to find out that the Others weren’t some tribe of long-lost, backwoods sociopaths who got their jollies from kidnapping - they’re just scientists who masquerade as backwoods sociopaths to give their kidnapping a little more pizzazz.  That was quite the fast one the writers pulled on us, but what’s important is that it moved the plot forward without negating any of the previous material - after all, the Others were still kidnappers.  If anything, the twist made them even more creepy, like some sort of nefarious drama club.

But the episode with Jin and Sun was nothing more than cheaply manufactured drama.  I had just wasted an hour watching two innocuous events that did nothing for the overall plot.  Sun had a baby.  Jin bought a panda.  I ate a sandwich - big fucking deal.  But because they added some quick cuts and ominous cello music, I spent forty-five minutes being nervous. The episode wasn’t ‘Lost’ so much as it was ‘Lost Time.’ (ZING!)

I’m still a little resentful.  This was supermodel dry-humping at its worst: it was intentional. Some gorgeous creature had taken me home, turned out the lights and worked me into a sexual insanity, but at the last moment the lights came on, revealing my dick tucked into nothing more than a well-lubricated armpit.  And in that moment of horrible realization, she started to laugh, because I had just been dry-humped for sport.  (I might be overthinking this.)  That’s just mean.

Then there was last week’s episode, which actually managed to be entertaining despite the fact that it followed Michael.  I hate Michael.  Once his son was captured by the Others and turned into a semi-omniscient weirdo, his character consisted solely of weeping, pouting and shouting, “They took my boy!” anytime someone pointed out that he was being a prick.  The only positive was the he killed the abhorrent Ana Lucia (sucks for you, Michelle Rodriguez - maybe next time you’ll have a designated driver.)

We thought we were done with Michael - after freeing Kaiser Soze, Michael and his son Walt were given a boat and allowed to leave the island entirely.  But he’s back, working under an assumed identity on the freighter that brought the new arrivals.  Here’s a superfast rundown of why:

Mike tries to kill himself because he’s still a weepy little girl. But he can’t, and he’s told that it’s because the island doesn’t want him to kill himself. In an effort to become mortal, Michael agrees to work for Kaiser Soze and sabotage the boat, to foil the plans of the billionaire looking for the island.

Maybe it’s just me, but if I found out I couldn’t die, there would be a bunch of things on my to-do list that would go above “work for man who kidnapped my son,” and “become mortal.”  Things like, “Become famous stuntman,” and, “bang groupies befitting a famous stuntman.” But what do I know?

I don’t know what the term for personifying a land mass is - is it anthropomorphize? Landopomorphize?  Whatever it is, landopomorphizing the island used to be one of the symptoms of Crazy, Stabby Locke, and I for one never thought it was “real.”  Now that sane people are talking about the island’s desires, it’s one more signal that Lost is letting go of any grip it still had on reality.  The island is just a much larger, leafier version of the Narnia closet.  But the episode was still decently interesting, and rating my interest in terms of supermodels, I would give the episode a solid Gabrielle Reese.

But the biggest dry-hump of all came at the end of the episode when I found out there wouldn’t be any new episodes until late April.  Fuuuuuuuuuuuck that.  Lost takes a ridiculous number of hiatuses.  By now I don’t even know what season we’re in anymore. It’s like when you’re in an off-again, on-again relationship and someone asks you how long you’ve been dating, and you say “six months” at the same time she says “four years,” and you suddenly realize the only way either of you is getting out if this is if one of you moves to Canada. 

It’s especially infuriating because the producers said they wouldn’t be doing this bush-league hiatus stuff.  (Well, okay: I don’t actually know that they said that, but that’s what ex-Roommate Kat said, and she’s always right about that sort of thing - she’s the most anal-retentive person I know. In a good way.)  The show may be on a decline, but I still want to watch it - I enjoy it, and at the very least it provides me with a weekly occasion to hang out with my friends, not to mention a terrific source of conversation.  I need my Lost!  I suck at conversation!

For example, I now need to get a month’s worth of small-talk out of my latest island theory: the island is a fully sentient landmass, but it is only a baby island, which is why no one is aware of its existence.  In fact, the island is the illegitimate child of Australia and Indonesia, and while Indonesia insists that the baby is Australia’s, Australia refuses to pay any support, pointing out Indonesia’s loose morals and recent associations with New Zealand and Fiji.  (And we all know how many kids THOSE two have.)

 Yeah, yeah… I haven’t done this in a while.  Whatever.  Okay, here’s the quickie rundown of the last three episodes.

Three episodes ago: This was an episode all about Kate. For those of you who don’t watch the show, Kate is the hottest non-pregnant woman on the island, and boy does she know it.  She’s got the two best-looking guys on the island wrapped around her finger, and if the island were anything like real life, all the other female castaways would be calling her a slut behind her back and spreading rumors that she has herpes.

Originally she had a shadowy criminal past that she refused to talk about.  It was one of the show’s few mysteries that have actually been explained, possibly because it was so tame: Kate killed her abusive stepfather and was being extradited from Australia when the plane crashed.  That’s it.  One murder, and a ‘nice’ murder at that. As far as I’m concerned, that’s not exactly supermodel dry-humping caliber right there.  At first it seemed like we’d be dry-humping a stripper in a cop outfit, but then it turned out she was just a meter maid with cleavage. 

Kate walks around half the time like she killed a man just to watch him die, and the other half she seems more haunted than your average ‘Nam vet.  She’s so phony - like those kids who think they’re bad-ass because they once shoplifted a Cadbury Cream egg. [Editor’s note: Yes, that was me.  But in my defense, I was fourteen, a straight A student, and I had absolutely no idea what the female body felt like. Kate’s in her late twenties and is smoking hot.]

Anyway, anytime they talk about rescue, Kate gets all freaked out, because se’s afraid that when she gets rescued they’ll send her to prison.  But no one has explained why she considers the island to be a better option.  It’s not like she’s getting the chair. True: on the island she’s got her pick of the men.  On the other hand, the only things on the menu are mangos, boar and fish, there’s no kind of medical care, and it rains hourly, so you KNOW she’s chafing all over the place. She has no idea what’s going on, people are dying left and right, and there also happens to be a giant smoke monster roaming around the jungle. What’s the worst thing she has to fear about prison? Is she really that averse to a little cunnilingus?  As an amateur lesbian myself, let me say that it can be quite enjoyable.

That whole episode was kind of a wash. Kate spent most of the episode pseudo-crying.  They did push the Oceanic Six bit a little: in court, Jack tells a story about how there were eight survivors, but only six make it back alive, so now we’re left wondering not only who the rest of the Oceanic Six are (we know five of them) but now we’re wondering who the two that die are.  Again, it’s not exactly supermodel dry-humping.  I’m curious, but I have no problem waiting a few more weeks.  If anything it’s more like dry humping a mediocre-looking girl because you’ve heard she’s into group sex. 

Two episodes ago:  This was a bit of a twister. Desmond (”if it’s not Scottish, it’s crap”) and Sayeed were airlifted to a freighter a few miles off the island. We saw more freaky time effects associated with the island, in particular, one that caused Desmond’s consciousness to travel back and forth in time.  I thought that was an interesting little twist on time travel.  A little way of saying, “Suck it, Newton.  I’ve got some mass you can conserve RIGHT HERE!”

Eight years in the past, Desmond pays a visit to Pehneh (during an “off” part of their off again, on again relationship) to convince her to give him her phone number so that he can call her eight years later.  He tells her he’ll be calling Dec. 24, 2006, and stresses that she can’t change her number.  Once his consciousness jumps back to the present, he calls her from the ship’s radio room, which he and Sayeed had broken into.  What followed was possibly the most ridiculous scene in Lost history.

• Pehneh takes at least 10 rings to answer the phone. The first mystery is: what kind of phone service does she have that doesn’t go to voicemail after four? The second is, what the hell was she doing for so long? Say Wonder Woman had a falling out, and months later she showed up at my door, looking panicked and desperate, and swearing up and down that she’d be calling me on Christmas of 2016. I’d probably set up a reminder in Outlook. I might even invite friends over on the actual night, open a couple bottles of wine, and let them listen on speakerphone. Whatever I did, you better believe I’d have my phone on me at all times. And it was a cordless phone, so even if she was “dropping a deuce”, that’s no excuse.
• When she does finally pick up, she and Desmond spend the next ten minutes telling each other how much they love each other. Yeah, it’s sweet and all, but I kept imagining myself in Sayeed’s shoes: Here I am on a boat miles off an island of wackiness. The boat’s crew do not appear to be friendly, and we’ve just broken into their radio room to make a call for help. Any minute now someone’s going to find us and give us a thorough beat down, I haven’t gotten laid or used conditioner in months, and if that weren’t enough, the guy calling for help is saying, “you hang up first… no, you…”

Here’s my gut reaction: I’m not too curious about the whole time distortion thing.  It’s not like a tropical polar bear, which is the type of phenomenon one really has to explain. When it comes to space-time, things just… happen.  Even Star Trek just shrugs and says, “I dunno, maybe it was a wormhole or something.”  There’s no way Lost is ever going to satisfactorily explain this time distortion, so I’m not going to get all riled up about it. The only thing this episode made me curious about was how Desmond could drop the ball so badly.  There was no real mystery, and while the episode was exciting, the more I think about it the less appealing it seems.  In other words, it wasn’t dry-humping a supermodel; it was more like real-humping a jar of Miracle Whip.

On that note, on to this week’s episode, with a special new feature!

Readers of this space might be aware that as time has gone on, I’ve become increasingly uneasy presenting Lost recaps in the ol’ “Supermodel Dry-humping” context.  Don’t get me wrong: it’s a great image, and has provided me with some great material over the years.  But for the most part it’s stale as fuck. 

Well, it took me a while, but I’ve finally come up with a new way of doing the recaps.  It’s actually pretty obvious, and I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before.  Presenting: A Message in a Bottle: What’s New on Lost!  Each week, I’ll write a recap from one of the character’s perspectives, as if they had left a letter in a - oh, you get the idea. (Please note: any similarities between this and “The Superhero Diaries” are completely coincidental, and are not an indication that my imagination and sense of humor are rather limited.)

Observe…

This week’s author: Juliette

Dear Reader,

I can only hope these messages are reaching someone.  I am trapped on an island, and desperate for rescue. Unfortunately, that’s really all the information I have at this time.  We’re somewhere in an ocean, though there are some serious disagreements as to which ocean.  There are palm trees, and once I’m pretty sure I saw a shark.  Does that help?  We’re also the tropical island with a polar bear on it.  There can’t be that many.

If you’ve received any of my past sea-mails (LOL!), I should say mention that I am even more desperate than usual to get off this island.  It seems like every time I think things can’t get worse, they find a way.  At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if I grew a pair of testicles, just so somebody could come along and kick me in them.

I was once a successful fertility doctor.  I also used to smile sometimes; even laugh on occasion.  Then I was brought to this secret island community to try and figure out why pregnant women always die here.  The only thing I’ve figured out is that it’s really depressing when dozens of pregnant women die right in front of your eyes.

I tried to make the best of things - I started seeing this guy, Goodwin.  Of course he was married.  Maybe my therapist was right: maybe I am always sabotaging myself.  I mean, the most meaningful relationship I’ve had in years, and I find it on an island where sex is potentially lethal.  (If my letters ever make me seem moody, it’s because I take a birth control pill eight times a day.)  I’m turning out just like my mother.

Maybe it was wrong of me to date a married man, but my only other option was this guy Ben.  He had the biggest crush on me, but…ick.  The guy is totally creepy.  He’s got these big buggy eyes, clammy hands, and he always smells like some kind of ointment.  But he’s also the leader of our community, because once he locks those buggy eyes on you, it’s like he’s in your head.  It’s freaky.  He’s like Kaiser Soze.  The only time he ever gets flustered is when he’s around me. See, Ben was raised on the island, and has the type of social skills one usually finds with the home-schooled.  I’m pretty sure he’s a virgin. 

At first I thought it was cute the way he’d get all sweaty and stutter every time I was around.  Like this one time, he actually tricked me into a date.  I thought I was coming over for a dinner party, but he hadn’t invited anyone else.  He made me a ham.  Sure it was weird, but I have to admit, I liked the attention.  A girl likes to feel special, you know?  But when Ben found out about Goodwin, he had him killed.  Then the sick bastard showed me the body, and as we’re standing over it, he tells me “you’re mine.”  What a ladies man, right? I mean, just because I eat your ham doesn’t mean we’re going steady.

How do you break up with a guy when you’re not even going out with him?  I stopped inviting him to the book club - take a hint.  But he just finds any excuse to hang around me.  He even got a spinal tumor, and guess who is the only doctor around here.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he gave it to himself somehow just so that I’d have to touch him.

I actually thought I had come up with a clever way out, but you’ll have to bear with me for a second:

A plane recently crashed on the island.  There were several survivors.  One of them, Jack, is a spinal surgeon.  (And he’s totally hot, too.)  Ben came up with a plan to manipulate Jack into operating on him involving kidnapping, extortion and death threats, which as you’ll remember is also how he asked me to be his girlfriend.  But while Jack was staying with us, I befriended him, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping for more.  Mom always wanted me to date a doctor.  I told him to kill Ben, and I even tried to imply that there would be a little “somethin’-somethin’” in it for him afterwards. 

The problem is Jack’s kind of an idiot.  Dreamy, and with the best of intentions, but an idiot none the less.  He screwed up my plan, saved Ben’s life, and even managed to throw me under the bus by letting Ben know I had conspired to kill him.  Way to pick the winners, Juliette! Of course, now that he betrayed me I find him even hotter.  Thank you, deep-seeded father issues…

A couple days later, Ben hit me with some knockout gas and when I woke up, everyone was gone except for Jack and another of the survivors, Kate.  She totally thinks she’s hot, but it’s just because she’s skinny.  I don’t know why Jack can’t see that she’s a total slut.  He’s such an idiot.  She probably has herpes.

Anyway, everyone I knew was gone, so I had to latch on to Jack and Kate and follow them back to their camp.  Plus, it really seemed like Jack and I were hitting it off.  It’s also given me the opportunity to realize that when you’re stuck on an island, you shouldn’t take things like indoor plumbing for granted.  Palm fronds make for poor toilet paper. 

And then things got really weird.  Some scientists just arrived from a freighter.  We thought they were here to rescue us, but that’s definitely not the case.  Rescue workers don’t bring gas masks.  Two of them disappeared into the jungle.  Jack and I set out to find them, and already I had a bad feeling about this.  Jack seems to think he’s some kind of master tracker/woodsman, even though from what I hear he never even got past Cub Scout.  I’m not much better, but I had some outside help: as I was walking through the jungle when my ex-boyfriend’s wife appeared out of nowhere and told me that the scientists were going to one of the power plants on the island in an effort to kill everyone.

I’m not crazy, I swear.  This shit is actually going down.  Seriously, send help.  How many islands can there be, anyway? 

Where was I?  Oh yeah - Jack and I were trying to catch up to the scientists.  But guess who decided to show up all knocked unconscious?  That’s right: Kate.  She’s like, “Ow, those mean old scientists knocked me on my head, I’m helpless, and apparently allergic to sleeves because all I wear are low-cut tank-tops…” The whore.  Oh, surprise surprise, Jack stays back to help her.  Don’t mind Juliet - she’ll go take care of everything.  She always does!  Always trying to fix everything and everyone! 

When I caught up with the scientists at the power plant (nicknamed “The Tempest”, because we’re very mysterious around here) it seemed like they were attempting to release some kind of deadly gas. At one point I might have been curious as to why there was a large store of deadly gas on the island, but after all this time I just take this shit in stride.  Then again, I didn’t even have a lot of time to think about it.  As I was attempting to stop one of them, the other snuck up behind me and hit me.  But I managed to stay conscious, Kate! I’m not gonna take a sucker-punch like some little bitch - I turned around and kicked that motherfucker’s ass!  Hellz yeah!

But here’s the thing:  both of the scientists swore that they weren’t trying to release the gas; they were trying to make it inert.  And for some reason, maybe the fact that I had just taken a blow to the head, I believed them.  Whatever they did, it sure didn’t seem to have any negative effects.  But that’s not important.  Back to Jack.  So I was all pissed off at him for staying with Kate.  I even tried to break it off with him. I told him that Ben would try and kill him if he knew I liked him.  I don’t even know if it’s true, but I didn’t want to sound jealous.  But then he kisses me!  (It was totally hot!)

What should I do? I mean, I think he likes me, but he’s going to have to do something about Kate if we’re going to move this relationship forward. 

Anyway, please send help. 

-Juliette

1 Beach Road

Island City, Island

 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.”

My dad firmly believes that Lost will only end up breaking my heart.  Deep down, I know that he’s probably right, but it reminds me of a certain Bill Withers classic: “My Brother / if you only knew / you’d wish that you were in my shoes / Oh, you just keep on using me / until you use me up.”

I especially feel this way after last week’s episode.  It was awesome.  In fact it was the epitome of a Lost episode - it raised ten questions, it answered none, and even though I should have been frustrated I wasn’t.  Exhausted?  Yes.  Confused? Even more than I usually am. Wanting more? Desperately.  Sure sounds like a dry-humping to me…

This week’s mystery:  what the fuck is going on?????  I know, I know - it’s the official mystery of the show.  But there’re at least two ways that question can be asked.  The first is when you know exactly what’s going on, but you just want to know the reason why, like when you find your wife having sex with your pool boy.  Last week’s episode was a good example of this, because I could understand how and why strangers had come to the island, I just couldn’t understand why they had chosen that particular group of fuckwits.

The other way to ask “what the fuck is going on?” is when you truly have no understanding of what is happening around you. Like when you find your wife having sex with your parakeet. (So THAT’S why she wanted a macaw so badly!!!) You’ll worry about the reasons behind it later - first you just want to make sure you’re not having some kind of stroke.  That’s what this episode was. 

In the alternate storyline (Lost episodes always have two stories - one on the island, and one in the past or future) we see Sayeed on a golf course.  To remind everyone, Sayeed is a former torturer in the Iraqi army and all-around ladies man.  I also feel the need to point out that in this flashforward Sayeed’s hair looks incredible.  It was the first thing I noticed about him. (I think this has more to do with the fact that mine is rapidly falling out, rather than a general interest in hair care, fashion and dude-humping.)  But seriously: it’s like the man sweats conditioner.  When it comes to heroic hair care, Sayeed is right up there with Lion-o and He-Man.

As I said, Sayeed is on a golf course, preparing to take a swing when a jovial looking man pulls up on a cart.  The guy starts chatting Sayeed up, advising him to use a different club, and generally getting on his nerves, which is not a smart thing to do to a man who never realized pliers had so many non-mutilating uses. When Sayeed mentions that he was part of the “Oceanic six” the man gets extremely nervous, and that’s understandable because a moment later Sayeed shoots him in the chest. What the - ?? Who was that?  Why did Sayeed kill him??? Unfortunately, I can’t ask too many questions, because when a supermodel knows how to handle a gun and a pair of pliers, you dry-hump her and you like it and you don’t say shit.  (On the plus side, Sayeed is doing a good job healing the Jack Bauer-shaped hole in my life…)

Since we’re at our first WTF moment and we’re only minutes in, this looks like it’s going to be more of a marathon dry-hump than a sprint.  I wish I had stretched first - I could pull a hammy. But dry-humping is a lot like being stuck in an elevator; it’s better with friends, and fortunately I was joined by ex-Roommate Mary (ex-Roommate Kat was working on her taxes - boooo!) and fellow Lost devotee Banana Bread, named so because she brought over banana bread.  Do not attempt to understand the workings of my creative process.

The next time we see future-Sayeed, he has stopped filming Herbal Essences commercials long enough to meet an attractive blonde in a German café.  She says that she works for a very important economist who mysteriously contacts her via a phone she keeps on her at all times.  She tells Sayeed this because she is totally down to hump, while Sayeed listens because he is going to kill the economist, and probably her. There’s also a good chance that he’s gonna hump at least one of them before the hour is up, because that’s what happens when your hair has volume, bounce and a healthy sheen.  My bald-ass gets a dry-hump and no apology.  Or, putting it as an economist might, the demand for supermodel-humping is a great deal larger than the supply of willing supermodels. 

But let’s leave Sayeed here in the future. Back in the present, as you’ll recall, the Losties have split into two camps.  First is the Lord of the Flies camp, led by John “I Stab Because I Care” Locke.  It might seem weird that people would follow a man who will throws knives at people just for the fuck of it, but then again, their other option was the camp led by Jack.  Sure, Locke is crazy, but that’s only dangerous on rare occasions.  On the other hand, every time you go somewhere with Jack the best outcome you can hope for is that you’ll only be taken hostage. If I were offered the choice between stupid and crazy, I’d probably take crazy too - crazy tends to make for better stories.

There are four Newbies on the island, and each camp is trying to be the first one to collect the complete set.  Jack’s camp is in the lead, 3-1, with extra points because they have the helicopter.  Sayeed makes a deal with Lawnmower Man: if Sayeed rescues the redhead-newbie from Locke’s Funhouse of Flying Pointy Things, he’s on the first helicopter when it goes back to the boat.  He takes Kate and the asshole-newbie, and suggests Jack stay behind to guard the Lawnmower Man and the Sad Sack.  Jack actually has a good chance at pulling this off, because neither of them wants to go anywhere.

Unfortunately for Sayeed, nothing goes as smoothly as his hair.  He, Kate and the Ghost Whispering Dickhead get trapped by Locke, who curiously places Sayeed in a room where Kevin Spacey’s Cousin is tied up.  Now, normally, when you take a man who knows how to ask a question (while pushing a bamboo spike under your fingernails) and put him in a room with a man who knows all the answers (and is tied up in a chair), what you get is 90% screaming, 10% thorough explanation.  But then this show would have to be called “Found”, and I’d have to rename the column “Humping a Supermodel Whenever I Want.”  And while Sayeed seems to really hate Kevin Spacey, he doesn’t want to question him because he knows Kevin Spacey is a liar. What??? What kind of half-rate interrogator is he??? “Sayeed, how’s the interrogation going?” “Not good boss - he’s lying. I might have to go home early - I all out of ideas…”  I imagine this came up a lot during his performance evaluations.  It’s like a supermodel who can’t walk in heels.

I must admit that when it comes to intrigue, this half of the story is less a supermodel, and more an ugly girl I’m listening to while I wait for her supermodel friend to come back from the future in her time machine.  However, there are a couple interesting developments.  First, remember that Sayeed hates Kevin Spacey - he even says that the day he trusts him is the day he sells his soul to the devil.  This is going to come up again.  Also, while Sayeed is gone, Sad Sack (a physicist) sets up an experiment: he places a beacon on the ground and radios the boat to fire a particular kind of rocket at it. But while the boat’s radar shows that the missile reached the target, the rocket doesn’t actually arrive until several minutes later. When Miles compares a clock from the rocket and a clock from the beacon (which presumably should be running concurrently) the missile’s clock is ahead by several minutes.  That’s WTF #2.  Maybe it’s unwise of me to try and hump a supermodel whose vagina bends space-time, but what can I say?  I’m a man of science.

Speaking of bending space-time…If Sayeed thinks thinks things are bad now, they’re going to get worse in the future.  Like when his pending German girlfriend shoots him because she knows he’s planning to kill her boss. First Sayeed turns down an opportunity for a bloody interrogation and then he lets his guard down; I’m going to have to revoke his “Jack Bauer” status and demote him back down to “Curtis”.  Not that Jack doesn’t have a weakness for awful women (Audrey…) but at least they don’t shoot him.  Jack knows how to lay the pipe. 

Sayeed does manage to rally, though, killing his girlfriend/assailant.  In three-plus seasons, Sayeed is now two for two in the category of “love interests fatally shot in torso.”  That’s the danger of luxuriously long-haired men, ladies.  Maybe you should rethink your stance on balding guys.  That is, unless you like the feel of Kevlar.

Now Sayeed finds himself in the enviable position of being newly single in Europe.  On the downside, he’s been shot.  Worse, if he doesn’t get himself fixed in a hurry, the stress might give him split ends. So he lurches his way to veterinarian, where a mysterious voice asks him about what happened.  When I say mysterious, I mean, mysterious to everyone but me.  BECAUSE IT’S KEVIN SPACEY.  Once again, Kaiser Soze controls everything.  I should have seen it coming.  Sayeed said trusting Ben (the character’s actual name) was like selling his soul to the devil.  Well, Ben = Kevin Spacey.  Kevin Spacey = Kaiser Soze.  Kaiser Soze = The Devil.  Transitive property, bitches.  In fact, I’m renaming Ben/Kevin Spacey’s character to Kaiser Soze. WTF #3.  The trifecta!

And if that weren’t exciting enough, on the island Sayeed traded Kate and the dickhead for the redhead, making out like a bandit.  And at the end of the episode… WE SEE THE HELICOPTER TAKING OFF AS IT HEADS BACK TO THE BOAT.

This was a phenomenal, hall-of-fame episode. For all this time I, and I think a lot of people, assumed that the flash-forwards occurred outside the scope of the show - that the show would end “before” these events happened.  But now it seems like we could be flashingforward to as soon as next season, or maybe the one after that.  Giving credit where credit is due, before we watched last week’s episode, Banana Bread thought this might be the case.  Still… wow.

Analogous Dry-Hump:  It’s as if you were invited to participate in a supermodel foursome… only you had to wear a haz-mat suit. 

Analogous Supermodel (In this case, supermodELS.  Plural.): I’m going to go with Victoria’s Secret models Adriana Lima, Karolina Kurkova, Izabel Goulart, and Selita Ebanks, as they appeared in the February 2008 copy of Esquire. But remember: you’re in a haz-mat suit.

Some final thoughts… In the comments of last week’s post, Robbb put his theory out there: the island is an anomaly that will be protected when the Earth’s magnetic poles switch.  This is actually close to my own theory, which I had developed about a half-hour before this week’s episode.  Lately the show has included more of the paranormal.  For so long, we’ve wondered how this show would fit into the regular world, but I’m starting to expect that rather than fit the island into the plausible, they’ll just introduce the fantastic.  What I mean is, I think the island is an anomaly, but I think it’s a gateway to some kind of alternate dimension.  I’m slightly disappointed, because it’s the easy way out, explaining smoke monsters, teleportation, immortality, ESP, and whatever else tickles their fancy.  I also think certain people, like our newbies, will have an affinity for this new dimension, manifesting in special abilities, like how Dickhead Miles can talk to ghosts.   As for Sayeed and Kaiser Soze, this is what I think happens: during this episode, Sayeed is in Kaiser’s house, looking at his bookshelf, and he pauses when he sees a copy of the Qu’ran, along with other holy texts.  I think companies like Hanso want to research this dimensional rift for their own gain, but I think that other people will view it as something sacred and holy, and they fight to protect it.  I think Kaiser is on this team, and when Sayeed discovers more about the island, he is convinced to join Kaiser on his crusade.

Boom.  Recognize the skills.

[Editor’s note: I’m exhausted. There may be some typos and/or incoherent rambling, but that’s only because I don’t have the time or energy to proofread more than half of this, and I want to get it up. (That’s what SHE said!)]

 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.”

As I mentioned in my engagement recap, I was unable to watch Lost on Thursday due to unforeseen reveling.  In fact I wasn’t able to get to it until Monday night - hence the lateness of this dry-humping.

About a year ago, Lost’s producers announced that the show would only run for seven total seasons.  I believe I’ve mentioned it before, but this was genius.  When a show like this continually throws weird shit at you, one starts to suspect that they don’t really know what they’re doing; they’re just including the weirdest thing they can think of, and they’ll figure it out later.  “What about a polar bear?”  “Sure, why not.”  “Wait - a polar bear on a tropical island???” “Hell yeah - I like it.  Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out later.  Or we’ll go on strike.”

By slapping an expiration date on the show, the producers let everyone know that they would not just be coming up with increasingly outlandish shit for as long as the public was stupid enough to watch it (cough, cough - 24 - cough cough).  Whether or not they actually have a plan, I believe that they do, so once again I’ll buy whatever it is they’re selling. It’s like I found myself at the end of a two-hour marathon dry-humping (I don’t even real hump for two-hours - THAT’S HOW GOOD THE SHOW IS!), and just as I’m rubbing Cortaid on all my chafed parts and texting my friends “no, not this time either,” the supermodel patted me on the head and said, “Don’t worry.  I know we’ve been doing this for three years, but I’ll make it up to you at some point in the next four.” Keep in mind she hasn’t said WHAT she’s going to do to me anymore than the producers have said “don’t worry, we know exactly what’s going on, and once you do too, you’ll realize that it makes complete sense.  In fact, you too will be able to raise polar bears and smoke monsters in your own backyard, using nothing but everyday cleaning products!”  In other worse, I could be waiting four years for the metaphorical equivalent of a wool-mitten handjob.  The things I do for my Underpants readers…

This week’s supermodel: new people

Even before the producers announced the seven year timeline, the show had already established a countdown clock: there were 48 survivors, and they just kept dying.  If they’d continued on a linear path, by now the show would be nothing but Kate, Sawyer, and Jack, sitting on a beach with Jack muttering, “Sexual tension, sexual tension, sexual - y’know what??? Screw it - I’m gonna go hotrail that slutty looking coconut!  How about ‘dem apples, Kate! You had your chance, and now this ship has sailed!!!!”

So how do you introduce new characters? Okay, first there was the crazy French chick, and while it was plausible that she could have learned to survive in the jungle commando-style, I had a tough time believing that after all those years she had yet to befriend a lovable lazy bear or a gorilla and worked out some kind of musical number.

Then there were The Others. Being the mysterious jungle ninjas that they were, there really was no way to tell how many there were, so that was a good source of new blood (particularly Ben, who is tied up and bloody and is still running the show.  When I say he’s the poor man’s Kevin Spacey, I actually mean it as a compliment.) After that, things started to get a bit silly.  First there was Desmond, the Scot who can see the future who was holed up in the hatch.  (I’ve decided to call him Groundskeeper Willie.) Then there were the Tailies, the biggest bunch of unintended pregnancies I’ve ever seen. 

The overarching dilemma was that as far as solutions go Desmond, the Others and the Tailies were a lot like condoms: you need them for a short time and you never, ever try and reuse them.  I couldn’t see how they could keep bringing in new characters, even though the answer was staring me right in the face: CONTINUE TO CRASH AIRCRAFT ON THE ISLAND. The sky is a bottomless well of new people!

After that long-ass intro, let’s talk about what’s actually going on, and find out just what kind of supermodel we’ll try to get to second base with.

Towards the end of last season, a woman named Naomi parachuted onto the island, crashing onto the trees.  She said she was part of a rescue mission sent by Groundskeeper Willie’s supremely rich long-lost love, Pehneh.  (People keep telling me her real name is Penny, but I know what I hear.)  But Naomi’s not working for Pehneh. (Don’t worry how we know that - it’s a long story involving an underwater radio jamming station, a man who doesn’t die and a Hobbit, and I’ll just sound like a lunatic if I try and sum it up. Just take my word for it.)

[Editor’s note: Fuck.  I just realized I’m about five hours from the next episode and I’m only a paragraph into the setup for last week’s episode after over a page of navel gazing.  Time for a power boost! {reaches into desk; pops three Adderalls} YEAH, BABY! LET’S GO DRY HUMP LIKE WE’RE TRYING TO START A FIRE!!!!!  CHAAAAARGE!!!]

After landing on the island, Naomi revealed a satellite phone, with which she could phone her boat nearby.  I don’t know much about the nautical rescue business, but I’m pretty sure that the standard procedure is not to get real close with a boat, then launch parachuters into an area with lots of tree cover.  I think they just pull the boat even closer, then send a smaller boat in to pick everybody up. 

The same moment when Naomi got a signal through to her “boat”, Batshit Crazy Locke threw a knife into her back - because the island told him too.  (Oh, did I not mention that?  The island talks to people, though it generally gets chatty with the crazy ones. Intriguing? I think so too.  I think the supermodel has a bare spot of thigh, if you want to get in on some of this action, or lack thereof.) Undaunted, Jack picked up the phone and told the guy on the other end to come pick them up, and if Jack saw fit to do it, it pretty much guarantees that it’s a bad idea. 

ADDigression: I know I always talk about how Jack is an incompetent leader. I believe this largely stems from the fact that Matthew Fox is really chewing the leafy scenery these days. Jack believes so adamantly in everything he says that when it invariably goes wrong he looks all the more stupid for being so gung-ho in the first place.  In fact, (or based on no evidence whatsoever) I’m pretty sure he’s been doing it ever since the Tailies came ‘round. Yes: I’m now saying that Michelle Rodriguez manages to fuck Lost up from BEYOND THE GRAVE!!! (Wait, she’s not dead? Oh. Whoops.)  

But the Naomi stabbing incident really illustrates the incompetence of Jack.  A woman has been stabbed and a homicidal psychopath and/or weirdo is among his people; as both a doctor and a leader, this is really Jack’s moment to shine.  Yet while he’s on the phone with the boat, both Locke and a woman WITH A KNIFE IN HER BACK manage to disappear!!!! Jack sets out to find Naomi following a trail of blood, yet when Kate finds another trail, suggesting one might be a decoy, Jack assures her that it’s probably someone else’s blood… I mean, who ISN’T bleeding, right? He also assures her that he has a foolproof plan to catch Naomi: he’s going to paint the image of a tunnel on the side of a rock.  If that doesn’t work, he’ll place a dish of bird seed under an anvil. Thankfully the ACME company ships to Lost Island.

I’m not surprised in the least when Jack is outfoxed by a woman who’s bleeding to death.  Because it’s not like I’m dry-humping a supermodel for her mind.

Later that night, Jack and Kate see a helicopter spinning out of control above them.  (See what I mean?  New characters, falling from the sky like angels…) Enter “Dan”, who parachuted from the helicopter and tells Jack he’s there to rescue them.  

And that’s just the setup for last week’s episode.  At the time that I’m writing this, there are three hours ‘til the next episode.  Oh boy.

Dan wasn’t alone in his helicopter, and last week’s episode focuses on his companions.  They are:

Dan: the only back story we get on Dan is that the day the plane crashed, he started sobbing uncontrollably while watching the news footage.  When his wife asks him why he’s crying, he replies that he doesn’t know.  You know what sucks?  Dry-humping.  You know what’s worse? Trying to enjoy the dry-humping while the supermodel won’t stop crying. I speak from experience.

Lawnmower Man (I didn’t catch the character’s real name, but he’s played by the guy who played the Lawnmower Man): In the very first sequence of last week’s episode, underwater scientists discover the wreckage of Oceanic flight 815.  I mean the entire wreckage, even though that makes no sense: we know that the middle of the plane landed on the beach, the cockpit landed in the jungle, and a tail full of douchebags landed close enough to a beach for the douchiest dozen to swim to safety.  But we’re the only ones who know this wreckage is a fake…until Lawnmower man shows up.  He sees news coverage of the wreckage and notices that photos of the pilot show no wedding ring on his finger.  Lawnmower calls Oceanic and tells them that he knows that’s not the real flight 815, and when they ask him how he knows, he says “because I was supposed to pilot the plane that day.”  DUNH-DUN-DUHHHHH.  Wait, you’re telling me I’m supposed to be dry-humping someone else?  Oh man… This is awkward…

Miles: [Editor’s Note: It is now Friday, and I have been lapped by Lost.  Dang it. Things might get a bit abbreviated.]  Miles talks to ghosts.  And he seems like kind of a prick.  Insert tired supermodel dry-humping joke here. 

Charlotte: Charlotte is an archaeologist.  Our introduction to her is when she goes to a dig someplace where there’s a lot of sand.  They probably mentioned the location, but I forgot it.  The dig has uncovered the skeleton of what Charlotte identifies as… you betcha - A POLAR BEAR.  She also finds the remains of a collar, branded with the same “Dharma Initiative” logo that’s all over the island.  The Dharma Group is an industry leader in the field of all-weather polar bears. I wish I was on their marketing team.  I  think my slogan submission would be, “Dharma all-weather polar bears - why should Inuits get all the fun!” Except we would lose the prized Eskimo demographic…

These are our four new islanders, and they’ve just discovered why the island isn’t called “Runway Key” - it’s pretty friggin hard to land there.  When they bailed out, Crybaby Dan landed near Jack and Kate, Charlotte risked perforation by being captured by Locke, and Miles is found unconscious on a rock.  OR IS HE??? No, of course not, and instead he puts a gun in Jack’s face.  Congratulations, Miles - you captured a nitwit.  Maybe after a few more months of training you’ll be ready to invade a day care center.  Ostensibly Miles is upset because in her last moments, Naomi radioed the boat and told them to tell her sister she loves her, which was code for “some asshole threw a knife into my back.” But he’s also a prick, so it’s tough to tell.

As Miles is leading Jack, Kate, and Crybaby Dan to go pick up the Lawnmower Man, Jack suddenly stops.  He says that Miles has guns pointed at his head.  Miles doesn’t believe him. I don’t believe him either. But we’re both wrong, because Sayeed and someone else I don’t care to discuss come out of the jungle with rifles.  I mention it because Jack got this smug smile on his face as he took Miles’s gun from him - did he not realize he was the bait??? It’s not like you’ll ever find a worm yelling, “What’s up now, you bitch-ass sea bass?!?”

At the end of the episode, they find the pilot.  Astoundingly, he did not actually crash the helicopter - it’s sitting in a clearing. 

This may seem like a huge development, and it might actually turn out to be one.  But I’ve already seen a submarine get blown up, and I can’t help but feel that these new four are a bunch of fuckwits.  Something’s bound to go wrong, especially with Jack hanging around, so I’m not getting my hopes up.

Supermodel to be Dry-Humped: I know that I said I’m in for the long haul, but not because of this episode. These new four just feel like next-generation Tailies, and I bet they’re dead within a year. That’s why I’m going with Kate Hudson.  First of all, she isn’t a supermodel.  Second of all, I don’t even think she’s that hot, and it has nothing to do with the time when she was a real dickhead to me when I was working as a cashier in a Blockbuster Music. 

Dry-Humping Scenario:   Me and Kate meet in a bar. She asks me if I know who she is.  I say, “Sure I do, but I won’t lie to you:  I haven’t seen any of your movies, and I don’t expect I ever will. Besides, you were an asshole to me when I was fifteen.” After I relay the story to her, she feels guilty over her immaturity. She offers to make it up to me over drinks. She’s intrigued by my indifference to her celebrity, and as the night proceeds, she invites me back to her house. I go. (I’m not engaged to be married in metaphors.) But as we make out, she begins to miss the adoration of most of her sycophantic lovers. Sure, I’d hump her, but would I ever love her? (Answer: nope.) She stops me before anything serious happens. But I’m not surprised.  I saw this coming a mile away, and I was just going through the motions.  On my way out, I steal her CD collection.

Reading that again, I realize it has NOTHING to do with an episode of Lost that happened over a week ago. But it would be really awesome.

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.”

What is it about exes? Why do we remember them being hotter than they were, and the sex being better than it was? Why do we forget the pain, and the moments when we’d look at them and think, “I’ve wasted so much time on you…”?  I don’t know.  All I know is that on Friday at six AM I sat down to watch two hours of the most infuriating show on television. 

That’s right.  6 AM.  Thursday was a terrible, no good, very bad day.  The work day sucked, I overcooked my dinner, I found holes in two of my best workshirts which meant I had to do laundry, and by the time I was done it was 10:30 and I was too damn tired to handle the confusion and unfulfilled expectations that come from watching Lost.  Also, given my luck that day, there was a good chance my TV would catch fire.  I set my alarm for six and went to bed. 

I woke up feeling happy and refreshed, and then spent the next two hours ruining that feeling…

From the very first minute, the show had already given me a Blue Ball Special.  For the past several months ABC advertised a blockbuster, two-hour premiere.  PSYCHE!  The first hour is a recap.  That is not a two-hour premiere.  That is a one-hour premiere, and a one-hour reminder.  Up yours, ABC.  That isn’t equivalent to dry-humping a supermodel - that’s a supermodel who just pulled the move where she plants kisses all the way down my torso to my waist… then comes back up.  I hate that maneuver.  Women who do that should be given empty Tiffany boxes for every birthday for the rest of their lives.

In theory, recap episodes are for new viewers who have heard all the talk about this show and want to jump on the bandwagon without bothering to Netflix the DVD’s.  These people are lazy.  Lost is like a religion.  You can convert in, but in order to truly call yourself a believer, you have to have spent dozens of hours digesting the literature and constantly reviewing it.  You have to have spent long nights searching for meaning in insignificant details.  You have to believe in something that will continually test your faith and accept shit that makes no sense because deep down you believe it will all be revealed in the end.  Oh yeah - and it will deny you sexual release.

Some of you might wonder why I sound a bit angry.  That’s because when I originally took these notes it was early and I could have had another hour of sleep.  That and I’d just found out that Cinnamon Pecan Special K tastes nothing like Cinnamon Toast Crunch.  That was sort of the cornerstone of my new weight-loss program.  Now I’m going to have to take up smoking.

Considering I have trouble recapping a single episode in less than three pages, I’m curious to see how ABC recaps three seasons in an hour.  Turns out: not so well.  Fifteen minutes in, this is what a new viewer would know: there’s a polar bear, a smoke monster and a pirate ship, while people are constantly scared, bloody, and being rained on. It makes no sense.  Take away the polar bear and the smoke monster and you’ve got everything I can remember about European History. Welcome to the program, Johnny-Come-Latelys.

I’m just going to end the recap of the recap here.  Instead I’ll take a moment to discuss some of the commercials.  Unlike a lot of people with DVR, I don’t manage to save a ton of time fastforwarding through commercials.  There are a few reasons for this.  First, a lot of commercials contain hot women, and it’s hard to press fast forward when I’m masturbating furiously.  Secondly, some commercials happen to be entertaining.  You know what’s not one of them?  The one where the Maytag guy uses a pitching machine to shoot baseballs at a washing machine.  Call me old fashioned, but where I come from we wash our baseballs by hand.  Even if I didn’t, I certainly wouldn’t load them into a washing machine using a 90-mph fastball.  I don’t expect my car to make my whites whiter, so I don’t expect my washing machine to survive high-speed collisions.  However, I do like the commercial where the chick says “door open” and hits the glass door at full speed with a cup of coffee.    My dad constantly runs into pull doors the same way, and it never gets old. 

This week’s mystery:  The Future.  I’ve already made the analogy of this show as an ex-girlfriend, but let’s flesh out some details.  She and I had a tumultuous relationship.  She said I moved too fast, but in my defense, she IS a supermodel, and she wore EXTREMELY scandalous outfits.  Over the past few months she and I took some time apart to think things through. 

Just before the split, she gave me the mother of all dry-humps.  The show has always relied on flashbacks, but in last season’s finale they pulled a flashFORWARD.  The flashbacks always gave me blessed relief - finally a character’s odd behavior made a bit more sense with context. The flash forwards do the exact fucking opposite. 

The episode of that first flashforward focused on Jack, played by Matthew Fox.  When the show started he was the charismatic, quiet, reluctant leader of the castaways.  His reluctance may have been a result of him being an incompetent leader, because since then he has fallen for every single trap the island had to offer.  He’s still waiting for someone to tell him how you keep an idiot in suspense.  Then again, I’m the one sitting down for a fourth year of this crap, so I’m not really one to talk. 

In that episode, Jack was back in Los Angeles.  This is great, I thought.  There was a light at the end of the tunnel.  From the context of the future, mysteries of the present would be gradually revealed.  I was filled with hope.  Then that hope was told that the supermodel loved him like a brother, and that meant no handjobs.  For some reason, in the future, Jack wants to get BACK to the island, he thinks they never should have left, and he goes on flights hoping they crash. Of course, he doesn’t feel like any explanation is needed for any of these statements.

Now it looks like the flashforward is going to be the show’s M.O.  When Thursday’s episode began, we see a pile of mangos.  I figured they would turn into some kind of flying mango monster back on the island.  Instead, we find ourselves in a farmer’s market, and the mangos explode when Hurley, the show’s big tub of comic relief, goes plowing through them in a Camaro.  We’re back to the future (sorry - couldn’t help myself), and Hurley’s being chased by the cops.  Of course, like most fat people, it’s not long before Hurley’s caught, but as he’s dragged away, he yells, “I’m one of the Oceanic Six!  I’m one of the Oceanic Six!”  (FYI: Oceanic is the airline whose plane started this whole shebang.)   In the present, there’s like forty something people still living on the island.  So if Hurley’s part of the “Oceanic Six”, that means a whole bunch of people are going to die.  I would really like to know who, and how.  That there is the supermodel.  The fact that I may die before I ever find out… well, that’s the dry-humping part.

The cops put Hurley in an asylum because he’s having visions of The Hobbit, who died back on the island. Then a man comes to visit - a lawyer from Oceanic.  Right away, I know this guy is bad news.  Not because he’s black - because he’s THIS black guy.

This guy is ALWAYS EVIL!  ALWAYS!  On top of that, half the characters on the show are conmen, liars and thieves, so of course he’s not what he says he is.  But just before he leaves he asks Hurley, “Are they still alive?”  Just in case that weren’t vague enough, Jack then pays Hurley a visit because wants to know if Hurley is going to “tell.”  Hurley doesn’t answer.  Tell what??? Tell who??? It’s amazing that this show can be so good when its mysteries are only mysteries because no one is willing to finish a sentence or use proper nouns.  Fuckers.

A bunch of other things happened in this episode, but overall, it was the flash forwards that affected me the most.  At the end of the episode I was overwhelmed by the sense that not only do I not know what’s going on, but even when I do finally find out what’s going on, I won’t really know what the hell is going on.  The supermodel analogy is especially appropriate here, because the previous sentence is an incredibly concise yet accurate summation of all of my sexual relationships.

So where does this rate on the supermodel/dry-humping scale?  (I’ve decided that when I do these posts from now on, I’m going to a) relate them to an actual model based on how intrigued I am, and b) describe the dry-humping scenario.)

Supermodel to be Dry-Humped: This week’s episode was a terrific one.  I am completely charged for this season.  So of course we need someone really really hot.  But Lost is also trying some new tricks and looking ahead into the future, so I need someone I wasn’t previously aware of; someone with a bright future ahead of them that I would like to watch (with x-ray specs).  I’m going with new Guess Girl Sarah Mutch.  (Thanks to my Maxim subscription.)

Dry-Humping Scenario:  With this new flash forward device, the show’s writers are messing with me from the future.  It doesn’t have the same feeling as dry-humping a supermodel.  Instead, it’s like I actually got a supermodel to agree to hump me, but just before I stick the tip in, a cyborg from the future shows up and cock-blocks me.  DAMN YOU SKYNET!!!! 

P.S.  Throughout the episode, there were commercials (get this) advertising a “commercial” from Oceanic Airlines, to be aired during Eli Stone, the following program.  It’s a ploy by ABC to take advantage of the insatiable curiosity of Lost’s viewers and increase ratings.  So just in case dry-humping a supermodel weren’t frustrating enough, imagine trying to enjoy it while she’s pitching Amway products.

It’s taken me too long to write this, but a travesty has occurred. A hero has been silenced.

I’m talking about a man who has saved Los Angeles and/or the universe from nuclear fire and chemical plagues. If the ancient Egyptians had experienced the terrors he faces in an average work day, they not only would have freed the Jews, they would have sent them on their way with gift baskets and some maps. He has been shot, stabbed, poisoned, trapped, beaten, and tasered*, and regularly goes 24 hours without taking a shit. Yet Jack Bauer has finally met the one force on Earth that can stop him. A bunch of writers.

Fox has officially postponed the next season of 24 indefinitely due to the writers’ strike. I always thought the worst thing the Writer’s Guild ever did to Jack Bauer was Audrey, and for that alone they deserved an evening in Jack Bauer’s Oubliette of Agony**. But to shut him down entirely?? Highly trained terrorists couldn’t do that. By the transitive property, that means that the Writer’s Guild is worse than terrorists. You heard it here first.

These are men whose collective upper body strength would suggest they spent their childhoods selling Thin Mints, yet they were able to incapacitate Jack Bauer by simply not going to work. Meanwhile, Jack Bauer wouldn’t miss a day of work if his life depended on it. (I don’t mean that figuratively; Jack seriously ups his chances of dying just by going in to work in the first place. Of course, it also maximizes his opportunities to inflict pain, so he takes the bad with the good.)

If the average writer is anything like myself, he noodles around on the internet for a couple hours debating who to start on his fantasy team, starts writing around 11:30, hits a snag around a quarter to one and goes out for a burrito. Compare that to Jack Bauer, who in an average work day will be incapacitated up to fourteen times and his first eighteen to twenty plans will go horribly awry. Despite all that, he doesn’t complain about five or six bullet holes, so you certainly won’t hear him whine about “unfair shares of internet revenue.” You hear that, Writer’s Guild of America?!? Thanks to you, Jack Bauer isn’t on the job! Maybe the next nuclear bomb will go off somewhere a little more close to home than VALENCIA, and then we’ll see how much your royalty checks can protect you!

Actually, the more I think about it, the more it seems like Fox had an awfully itchy trigger finger when it came to putting 24 down like Old Yeller. I don’t even think the writers had finished thinking of clever puns for their picket signs. I see it as more of an indictment of how terrible last season was. The story was like reverse-Darwinism: the best characters were killed off, and now only the weak (or not-so-pretty…CHLOE) survive. Fox just saved themselves millions of dollars on advertising a show starring Jack Bauer, Chloe, and 526 anonymous CTU agents with very short lifespans.

There is one good side to this strike issue. Since I’ve started watching the show, I’ve struggled with the fact that Jack does more than an hour than I do in a week. Well, not this year! SUCK MY PRODUCTIVITY, BAUER!

*There’s also a tremendously stupid sounding rumor about an incident with a cougar or puma or something. Maybe a Yeti, or Jawas. I don’t know, I just remember it was stupid.

**That’s my name for Jack Bauer’s basement. I imagine it filled with all sorts of four-point restraint harnesses, handcuffs (both standard and furred; Jack likes ladies who live on the edge), blood-stained tools (sets in both English units and Metric), along with a TV and a beer fridge. Then again, that’s kinda how I imagine every room in the Bauer household.

The Big Bang Theory

Two quantum physicists try and have sex with their smoking-hot neighbor.  First of all, Kudos to CBS for finally listening to those legions of fans clamoring for content about the riveting, laugh-a-minute lives of quantum physicists.  (Anyone who has ever heard Stephen Hawking tell “The Aristocrats” knows what I’m talking about.)  In an average sit-com, the “Hot Chick Next Door” scenario would be a single episode, but I’m sure the writing staff will have no problem stretching that one flimsy premise into a TV franchise to rival Cheers.  Just imagine the comedic gold as the lady fends off the geeks’ awkward advances while flirting just enough so they’ll rip her CD collection onto her new iPod.  Then tune-in next week, when she fends off the geeks’ awkward advances while flirting just enough so they’ll hook up her digital camera and upload her vacation photos from Cancun.  It’s like a Madlib of hilarity, and best of all, the title says “Bang.”

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I’m a big fan of 24. Sure, the story is good, but I’m mostly impressed by how much Jack Bauer manages to squeeze into a day. To illustrate, I’m going to compare each hour of Jack’s day to the corresponding hour in my own day.

Jack’s Day, 4-5 AM:  Even though there are only two hours left, Jack begins them by once again being put into custody, which might make this the first season where Jack gets arrested more times than he kills people.  Luckily for him, over half of the CTU workforce seems to have just come from a temp agency – they don’t even bother to take away his phone. 

Jack calls Chloe, who explains what is going on in a matter of minutes – meanwhile I’ve written about 40 pages on this season and maybe three of them have been coherent.  I should either stop being a writer or Chloe is Hemingway. 

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I’m a big fan of 24. Sure, the story is good, but I’m mostly impressed by how much Jack Bauer manages to squeeze into a day. To illustrate, I’m going to compare each hour of Jack’s day to the corresponding hour in my own day.

Yesterday I got a phone call from Big Brother.  His first word was “Hey”.  The next four were, “Your 24 blogs suck.”  To that I say… there’s only three more to go, let’s just get through this.

Jack’s Day, 3-4 AM:  As the Chinese lead her illegitimate son away, the Widow starts freaking out, but not the finds-super-strength-and-lifts-car-off-of-baby, Incredible Hulk type of freak out.  More like the high pitched shrieking and blubbering.  I didn’t realize that the Buzzkill also comes in a brunette model.

We’ve seen in the past that Jack doesn’t handle women screaming too well – he tends to freak out and act very impulsively.  Like the way he tries to rush to the Widow/Buzzkill, forgetting that there’s a Chinese dude with a rifle standing right behind him. The guy reminds Jack by rifle-butting him in the kidneys, showing Jack a good use for rifles other than, “stuff in vent fan.” 

(Yet another parenthetical comment – I do so love them: many members of the Chinese Assault team have facial hair.  It’s an interesting contrast to all of my Asian friends, who on average shave once every two weeks.  Therefore the preponderance of beards lets me know that these guys are BAD ASS and not to be trifled with.  Jack doesn’t seem to pick up on this.) 

Frankly, I wonder if having a Chinese man cause him intense physical pain gives Jack a sense of nostalgia, considering that’s what was going on a little over 21 hours ago.  For the past two years.  That probably pisses him off, so Jack counterattacks by – oh fuck, he’s begging again!  Goddamnit - show some fucking dignity! 

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I’m a big fan of 24. Sure, the story is good, but I’m mostly impressed by how much Jack Bauer manages to squeeze into a day. To illustrate, I’m going to compare each hour of Jack’s day to the corresponding hour in my own day.

Jack’s Day, 2-3 AM: It’s been 20 hours now. Jack has a dead brother, a crazy girlfriend, and the Secretary of Defense just called him cursed. Sure, he stopped a threat of nuclear terrorism, which would be awesome if he hadn’t then gone and incited a possible nuclear war.  Not exactly Jack’s best day.  Now to win Cold War II, Jack’s going to have to do more than JFK, Reagan, Maverick and Rocky combined. Too bad he’s incarcerated.

2:04 AM: Even though it sounded like “Mrrflmorg”, Audrey and the rest of CTU’s Chess Club have managed to track down a lead to some building where they think the Chinese are hiding, which is really impressive since the sign doesn’t contain any of the following words: Happy, King, Dragon, Jade, Palace.

Yet again, Jack pleads with someone, this time to go on the raid. First of all, it’s surprising how little he seems to understand the concept of arrest. Perhaps that’s because it’s so rare that he actually puts people in it. Second of all, his reasoning for why he should go is that he believes he knows how Hello Kitty (the Chinese Ambassador) thinks after two years of being tortured by the guy. That means that Jack developed a deeper relationship with his torturer than with the Buzzkill. Surprisingly, parole is not granted.

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