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.

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”.

Allow me for a moment to go on a tangent about Lost. See, there’s a whole lot of mystery on the island, everybody knows that. But lately there’s been a serious shortage of bad-assary, ever since Locke went from bad-ass-crazy to lame-ass-crazy and someone reminded Sawyer that he’s too pretty for fighting. As for Jack, well…when he’s not sitting around looking like he’s going to cry, he’s either losing an argument, pouting like a child, or getting punched in the face. Sooner or later, that guy is just going to have to learn to keep his mouth shut.

Now, Mr. Eko was bad-ass. He was a second season addition that reinvigorated the show, keeping it afloat while Michelle Rodriguez walked around trying to prove that there’s no nuance of human emotion that can’t be conveyed by making a face like you’re slightly near-sighted.

Eko was played by the same guy who played Adibese on Oz (nothing says bad-ass like prison rape). He spoke little and walked around with a big stick that he had carved scripture into, and while he never hit anyone with it, you definitely got the impression that if provoked there would be some serious smite-downs handed out.

Now why am I referring to Eko in the past tense? Because they killed him, that’s why. He didn’t even get to die a cool death, like dying after he kicked a polar bear in the nards. (That would be sweet. You do that, and I don’t care what kind of afterlife your religion has; you’re gonna spend the first couple millennia of it doing nothing but high-fiving guys.) No, Eko had to be one of maybe ten guys to die on a deserted island from pollution.

Allow me to explain: when the castaways first landed on the island, they couldn’t leave the beach. Those who went into the jungle were mauled by something huge, something that made noise like a tyrannosaur and knocked down trees…like a tyrannosaur. Locke came face to face with it once, but we had no idea what it looked like, since they showed his face the whole time. What the fuck was it?

On the dry-hump scale, I’d say this was a really really really hot supermodel, like Zorro-era Catherine Zeta-Jones. But on a satisfaction scale, I’d say it’d be like dry-humping her while she’s wearing Kevlar. Covered in sandpaper. Sixty Grit sandpaper.

For whatever reason, the monster left Locke alone; Locke even claimed that it had shown him something “beautiful”, and I think it was his use of the word “beautiful” that put finally put his bad-assness out of its misery. Of course, he couldn’t explain to anyone just what it was that he saw. That would be too easy. But eventually we’d see it. It was black smoke. Ta-da!!! Whoop-dee-doo, an intelligent fart. In fact, it marked the very first of these Dry-Hump Supermodel posts. So in honor of that post, I call the smoke “Flatulasaurus Rex”.

Back to Eko. After being mauled by the polar bear, Eko was sitting in his tent, when he saw a hallucination of his dead brother, who had been a priest. His brother told him to confess. Next thing you know, his tent had suddenly caught on fire. By the end of the episode, a huge cloud of Flatulasaurus killed him by picking him up and slamming him into the ground, completing the trifecta of “most improbable misfortunes ever.”

I kind of wish he had survived. I mean, I like the character, but I also like imagining him sitting around camp, waiting for someone to complain about being tired or something, so he could go “oh yeah, Charlie? Did all that FISHING tire you out? Yeah, when I was getting mauled by a polar bear, set on fire, and beaten up by a fucking fog, the whole time I just kept saying to myself, ‘well, at least I’m not fishing!’ You say you’re tired one more time and I’m gonna take this stick and smite your colon, so you best put on a smile, pal! I’ve been to prison!”

So what is the black cloud? Well, I have a theory. It’s the same theory anyone who’s read Michael Crichton’s “Prey” should have.

Prey is about a company making state-of-the-art nanotech. Of course, because it’s a Crichton book, money-hungry executives at the company never install proper fail-safes, and then the velociraptors escape and…wait, I got confused somewhere, but you get the idea. Just replace “velociraptors” with “big black cloud o’ nanotechnology”.

Now if you’ve read the book, and you know that there’s all kinds of scientific research taking place on the island, everything seems to fall into place. I’m just perplexed why the writers went in this direction, because Prey was by far the worst book I’ve ever read by Crichton. I like most of his stuff; Andromeda Strain, Terminal Man, and Jurassic Park were all terrific. Prey was crap. A great big black cloud of it.

I keep hoping that nano-cloud-o’-doom is not what’s going on here, but it looks that way. After two and a half seasons, I finally wore out a smooth patch on the sixty-grit, I’m halfway through the Kevlar, and more and more it looks like Catherine’s got a glass eye and an adam’s apple.

Now for this week’s episode. I’m late on last week, so I’m going to tack this week on the end because let’s face it: not a lot happened. When we left off last week, Kevin Spacey’s life was in Jack’s hands because if Jack doesn’t remove a tumor from Spacey’s spine, he’s gonna die. Sawyer and Kate had a whole lot of sexual tension without a whole lot of sex, which I sympathize with every time I watch the show, and Locke was walking around talking crazy.

This week. Locke’s still talking crazy, and Jack still has Kevin Spacey’s life in his hands, though now he tricked Spacey into the operating room (yes, there’s an operating room on the island – at this point someone could pull up in a new Nissan Versa and I wouldn’t bat an eye) and waited until the guy was under anesthesia before pulling the ol’ “psyche!” (Nice, Jack. Way to pick up the bad-ass slack by threatening a guy with a spinal tumor. Who is asleep. It works for those times when tripping a blind girl seems too high-risk. What ever happened to lines like, “My name is Sayid [something I can’t spell], and I am a torturer”?)

The only thing new in tonight’s “season finale” is that Sawyer and Kate managed to have sex, which only would have been exciting if the show was on cable. (Any rumors from my roommate Mary that I was shouting “PAN DOWN, PAN DOWN!!!” at the TV after Kate took off her shirt are complete lies.) But not only was tonight’s episode a bit of a let down, it was also the last one until February, when they’re starting back up with new episodes.

For the record, I’m not sure if I’m going to continue recapping the show, but if I do, I’ll probably put the whole “dry-humped supermodel” joke to bed; lately it’s felt a lot more like “Dry Humping a Dead Horse”.

Now that’s just gross.

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: A SUPERMODEL SHOWDOWN!

In a single hour of television we had a very large wrinkle added to one already wrinkly mystery, and a whole new oddity to contend with. But who is to say which is more intriguing? That’s why, as I tend to do in these types of situations, I’m proposing a face-off, a fight to the finish, a steel cage match of doom.

But since we’re talking about supermodels here, let’s put them in a kiddie tub filled with hot-oil.

IN THE RED BIKINI: The Others. “The Others” is an experienced fighter. She’s been around a while, almost two whole seasons. We’re already familiar with a lot of her tricks, such as “using costumes to pretend we’re savages”, “baby stealing”, and “torture zoo”, but this crafty veteran still probably has some tricks up her sleeve. Except she has no sleeves, because she’s in a bikini, standing ankle-deep in a tub of baby oil.

IN THE BLUE BIKINI: The Supermodel known as “Desmond.” For those of you unfamiliar with the show, at the end of the first season, the castaways found a hatch buried in the ground on the island. Inside was the whole electromagnetic anomaly the island is known for, which had to be periodically deactivated by a button on a computer terminal, which needed to be pushed every 108 minutes. Stuck down in the hatch, pushing the button for the past two years, was a Scottish guy named Desmond. He’s a nice enough guy, though he’s a bit twitchy, and the way he calls everyone ‘brother’ is kind of obnoxious. Then again, when your best friend is a Commodore 64 and the only conversation you have is you pressing ‘Enter’, it stands to reason that your social skills are going to be a bit rusty.

What’s intriguing about Desmond is that he’s become a psychic. Two weeks ago, he and the fat man were walking along, and Desmond referred to Locke giving a speech that wouldn’t happen for another ten minutes. But while this supermodel and I know that we are destined to dry-hump, like characters in a Greek tragedy, our struggles to avoid our disappointing and chafed fate only propel us further towards our doom. Which is my way of saying, “Relax, baby, and it will all be over soon.”

The problem is that I’m like a two-headed snake, and if these two supermodels head off in different directions, I’m going to split in two, or have a Ritalin seizure. So who wins? Who commands my attention and sexual frustrations? The aging superstar or the young up-and-comer? Let’s find out.

Round One: The Others come out strong to open the round. Sawyer attempts a break-out, and is beaten down by who-else, Kevin Spacey. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he also makes a mean soufflé; that guy can do anything. As punishment, they take him into a room, strap him into an operating table, and put a stick in his mouth “for the pain.” This is an incredibly bad-ass thing to say to someone, and it kind of makes me long for Jack Bauer. I also really hope to say it to someone one day, and I don’t think my career in advertising is going to help me reach that goal. Even more interesting, one of the Others is overheard saying “The sub is back.”

On the other side, Desmond tells the pregnant chick that something is wrong with her roof. She looks up. Nothing is wrong with her roof. Clearly the Supermodel in blue is not ready for the big-time.

Round Two: The Others go all Pulp Fiction on Sawyer, stabbing him in the heart with a needle. When he wakes up, Kevin Spacey tells him that there is a pacemaker in his chest now, and if his heart rate gets above 140, it will make his heart explode. Kevin Spacey then demonstrates with a rabbit in a cage, which he shakes until the stressed out rabbit falls over, limp. This seems mean, but less so when I realize that Kevin Spacey probably made into a delicious roast. Desmond is still wandering around like he belongs on a subway at four in the morning. One no-name castaway is hitting rocks into the ocean with golf clubs, and Desmond asks him if he can borrow one of the irons. He even advises the guy to square his shoulders on his swing. The guy gets really snotty about it, but Desmond explains, “I’m Scottish”. I’m disappointed. Every Scottish guy I’ve known would have beaten him senseless with the club then said something incredibly snide that I didn’t understand, but probably contained the word ‘Irony’. Then again, I only know Scottish guys from Trainspotting. In any case, Desmond clearly has no fight in him, and I’m just about ready to award this one in favor of the Others. Never has a supermodel oil fight been so disappointing.

Round Three: The Others obviously mean to make an example out of Desmond, and make me sorry I ever looked at another supermodel. After breaking Sawyer’s spirit, Kevin Spacey takes him on a hike. You see, it was all one big fake-out. Kevin Spacey even pulls out the rabbit, healthy and whole. They just wanted Sawyer to know that they were in control. And to prove it, Kevin Spacey crests a hill to reveal…THE ISLAND. Oh my god! The Others have TAKEN SAWYER TO AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT… oh, who am I kidding, I’m really not all that impressed by this. We already knew they had a boat; now we know they have a sub, and it’s really not that far between the two islands. It’s farther from Santa Monica to Catalina, and that has a ferry. That’s the thing about veteran fighters; they tire easily.

Meanwhile, Desmond takes his five iron and makes a lightning rod outside the pregnant chick’s hut. Minutes later…you guessed it. Kablammo, and you better believe I have some questions, though none of them have to do with how he knows the future. It doesn’t make sense, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s just another Wednesday in Dry-Hump Cove. I’m more curious as to Desmond’s reaction.

If I’m playing pool and I’m going for any sort of double-bank advanced-geometry shot, I call my shot and get verbal agreements from any and all nearby females that in the unlikely event that I make my shot, I get a blowjob. (My working title for these is, ‘blowjob shots’.) Banking the nine off of the two and sinking both is a blowjob shot. Predicting a lightning strike deserves a kind of sex I don’t have the anatomy or fortitude for. Yet Desmond is sitting around looking like he just found out he was double-jointed.

The result: It may not seem fair, but I’m going to have to give this one to Desmond. Maybe I’m bitter, after dry-humping the Others for so long. Maybe I’m just happy to rub up on a new leg. Who cares. I want to know why isn’t Desmond going around selling stock tips, but as much as I’d like to ask him, when a supermodel finishes a hot-oil fight, it’s usually considered rude to dry hump her before she’s had a chance to towel off.

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.)

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”.

For the most part, last night was a dud in terms of supermodels and dry-humping.  It was more of an adventure tale, and for the first fifty minutes the only moment of intrigue was when Kevin Spacey found out that the other castaways had a boat.  Suddenly he seemed concerned that their island suburbia would be found, and it became the number one priority that they capture the boat.

I’ll admit; I was curious why the Others would seem so concerned.  After all, they’re the ones with houses, food, an amusement park, a shitload of guns and tasers; that’s like me hiding from a platoon of kittens.  But that’s the thing about talking to supermodels; it’s easy to read too much into what they’re saying.  The next time you hear a supermodel say, “It’s really important that I go out with you,” take a second to make sure she didn’t actually say, “It’s really important that I go out with (a guy with a great sense of humor, like) you, (but taller.)”  Kevin Spacey probably just said, “I want that boat…because the weather is supposed to be great for sailing this weekend.”

And yeah, everything goes down just about how we all imagined, because the castaways are like the Washington Generals.  But even the Generals score a basket or two, and one of the Others gets gutshot in the boat-jacking.  And it’s a girl.  I get the feeling we’re in that moment right before Bruce Lee tastes his own blood and goes batshit-insane.  Hell hath no fury like a woman, and that’s just when she’s scorned.  The castaways better PRAY she doesn’t survive this. 

Back at the zoo, the Others have Sawyer and Kate breaking rocks, but it’s not really clear why. Usually slavery has some kind of point, so I can’t tell if the Others are just dickheads or if there is some larger metaphor I’m missing, like in that book where the pigs could talk to the horses.  Maybe if I paid attention in history class I’d realize that the island is about colonization or the war of 1812.  All I know is that from all this talk of dry-humping and history class, this supermodel is starting to look like Ms. Hipolito from junior year, who I definitely would have liked the LeTourneau treatment from.

The real surprise came ten minutes from the end, when Kevin Spacey came in to talk to Jack in the dolphin interrogation center.  He introduced himself, mentioned that he had spent his entire life on the island, and then he told Jack that they still were in contact with the outside world; that George Bush was reelected and the Red Sox won the World Series.  At this last bit, Jack’s skepticism was cute but predictable, but Kevin Spacey had a television rolled in and played a tape of the broadc- wait, WHAT??? You’ve been on this island your ENTIRE LIFE!??  How?  Why?  Have you really worn nothing but khaki that entire time???  In one sentence I went from healthy skepticism to spending a week’s pay buying Professor McSupermodel  drinks.  Damn it!

As we all knew would happen, Kevin Spacey swears to Jack (and by extension the viewers at home) that if he “is patient”, and “cooperates”, and “does what he is asked”, then “when the time is right”, he will let Jack “go home”. 

Go back and read that last sentence.  Now exchange “go home” for “…you-know-what”, and what you get is exactly the conversation a supermodel gives you when she’s telling you she wants to save it for marriage.  And I’m filled with the same sense of dread knowing that not only am I in this thing for the long-haul, but even when I reach my goal it will be a) anti-climactic and b) probably awful.

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”.

Today’s Supermodel: The Zoo

Holy moley, that was one hell of an episode.  At the end of last season, Jack, Sawyer, and Kate, were all captured by the mysterious “Others”, who inhabit the other side of the island and seem to know what’s going on.  We also saw that the Others have a boat and know how to get off the island, so the only reason they stick around kidnapping people must be because they get a kick out of it.  Who can blame them?

Now as far as Supermodels go, the Others are nothing new.  We’ve danced this particular Blue Ball Waltz before.  It’s got to the point where the metaphor of the Dry-Humped Supermodel has broken down – this particular supermodel has a name.  Lena.  She was this chick I used to take out.  At the end of every night we’d make out for like a half hour.  Then I’d start arguing that it was time she and I did some Grade-A hot-railing, she’d say no, and I’d drive home with a semi while my buddies would call me and laugh.  I did this for like a year.  At some point her vagina had become my very own White Whale; I was doomed to chase it all the while knowing it would be my downfall. 

What makes “The Others” so much worse is that they keep introducing more and more conundrums. (Honestly, if I keep saying mysteries I’m going to go insane.  Enter: Thesaurus.com)   It is like if Lena had introduced me to a constant stream of really hot roommates, sisters, cousins, co-workers, and best friends, etc., all of whom weren’t about to touch me because they thought me and Lena were hooking up, but felt safe enough around me to wear nothing more than lacey panties and a bra.  Even the real Lena had too much decency for that, though not enough for a measly handjob.

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