Air France Flight 447 or Oceanic Flight 815?

Does this screenshot look familiar? Apparently not to a Bolivian TV station or Dutch radio station who thought these pics from ABC's LOST were actual pictures from the Air France Flight 447 tragedy earlier this month. C'mon guys.



[Gawker]

LOST Conspiracy Theory Thursday

This LCTT is brought to you by Overheard in New York

That Jerk Never Returns My Calls

Girl #1: This whole Ben situation is really starting to piss me off.
Girl #2: I know! I just don't know what his deal is.
Girl #1: He called me like twelve times yesterday.
Girl #2 (stopping in the middle of Penn Station): He called you? (pauses for a moment) Oh, you mean Ben your boyfriend, don't you?
Girl #1: As opposed to?
Girl #2: Ben from Lost.
Girl #1: Don't talk to me for an hour, please.

LOST Conspiracy Theory Friday

Been a little crazy here at work lately. Here's My Buddy Joe with this week's LOST recap:

This week's episode, "Namaste", does indeed pick up where "LaFleur" left off. Or slightly before. Or after. Depending on how you perceive "now" to be in the LOST timeline. We're back flying the friendly skies with Frank Lapidus and Ajira Air (Motto: "No weird disappearances by unexplained flashes since 2007!") when BAM! There’s a flash and Flight 316 is going down. Lapidus channels his inner Sully (see, I’m not always a smart-ass, sometimes I’m right) and makes one hell of a landing. (Except for getting his co-pilot speared through the chest. Oops.) Quick inventory of first class reveals that Sayid is gone, but Sun and Ben are still there. (Answers part of Question 6 from yesterday… good start…)

Flash back to 30 years ago… Wait a dern-tootin’ minute! (One of the great parts of living in the South is that you actually hear phrases like “dern-tootin’” and “a-fixin’” in regular vernacular.) I was just getting used to 3 years ago. Ok, so here’s a quick timeline recap… Oceanic 815 crashed in 2004… Locke turned the wheel and made it 1974… Three real-time years passed… The year in the real world is 2007… The year on the island is 1977. Got it? Good.

Sawyer, Jin, Jack, Kate, and Hurley have their awkward little reunion, where we learn 2 important facts: Jin’s English is 1000% better (Answer to Question 5! I am on a roll!) and its 1977 and everyone is in the Dharma Initiative. Sawyer’s plan is to blend the Big Three in with the rest of the new Dharma recruits, and have Juliet forge some paperwork. Jin takes off for the Flame Station to find the plane.

Back at the plane crash, Lapidus tries to BS everyone into thinking help is coming, but Cesar is having none of it. Ben uses Cesar’s grandstanding as an opportunity to slip away unnoticed, and Sun clumsily follows. Ben has figured out that they are on the wrong island, and knows where there is a boat to take them back to “our island”.

We’re in 1977 again, and Juliet goes to check on Amy and the baby. Amy still hasn’t questioned the fact that a mechanic delivered her baby (Question 1!!), who is named Ethan. Now, before you get your panties in a bunch, Horace’s last name is Goodspeed. Ethan’s last name was Rom. Ben is going to kill the entire Dharma initiative, so why would he spare the life of a kid?

While Jin is in the Flame, outside motion sensors go off. Hostile alert! Oh, no, its just Sayid, who Jin must pretend is a Hostile to keep the other guy from shooting him. Sayid gets locked up in the Flame to wait for LaFleur.

Ben and Sun reach the hidden boats, and, because they are on the island, Ben’s arm is miraculously healed. He’s going to row across the channel to the main island. Lapidus pops out from the jungle and implores Sun not to go with Ben. Claims Ben is some sort of bad dude, wherever he got that crazy notion from. Sun says she has no choice, and then bitch-slaps Ben with an oar. (Lesson: Don’t mess with Sun.)

Back in ’77, Pierre Chang (aka Dr. Marvin Candle) informs Jack that he will be a janitor. (Think Sawyer is screwing with him? Or is Juliet??) Juliet and Kate have a mini catfight staredown (bring on the love trapezoid!). Sawyer heads to the Flame to retrieve Sayid and take him to Dharma Gitmo.

Ok, the episode has been pretty good so far, with several of my burning questions answered, but now it gets f-ing mindblowing (Question 9!!)… Sun and Lapidus arrive at the main island to what looks like a deserted Dharma colony. But then, a solitary light comes on in the scary looking building, and the scary looking door creeps open. If this was Saw IV, Sun’s face would now melt and Lapidus would have his fingers cut off. But since its LOST, CHRISTIAN F-ING SHEPARD opens the door!!!! He shows Sun a picture of Jin in 1977 and says that she has a long journey ahead…

Jack knocks on Sawyer’s door looking for some answers, only to be met by Juliet (Question #2!!). Sawyer is inside, reading a book and thinking about how to make this situation work. Jack makes a snarky remark about the reading, to which Sawyer responds that “Winston Churchill read a book every night, even during The Blitz… helps me think… you reacted, Jack, you didn’t think… and a lot of people ended up dead.” Jack takes his verbal ass-whupping, tucks his tail between his legs and leaves. Sawyer, after making sure the door didn’t hit Jack’s ass on the way out, catches Kate outside her new digs. Definitely a love rhombus brewing.

Final scene: A kid carrying a brown-bag sandwich enters Dharma Gitmo to feed Sayid. It’s little Ben!!! Is this why elder Ben is stuck in 2007? But then why is Sun? How come Sayid got separated from the Big Three? Where is Faraday and why doesn’t anyone seem to care that he’s not there? What happened to Charles Widmore and his Others in the last 20 years? What is going to happen to the Ajira survivors? Does this whole ridiculous scenario repeat itself with new people every couple years?

LOST Conspiracy Theory...Wednesday?

Hey folks,

Had some downtime with the Conspiracy Theory Thursday posts, so without further ado, My Buddy Joe with this week's LOST preview.

Because I did not write a LOST Conspiracy Theory Thursday recap two weeks ago (it’s a fairly long story involving a complicated April Fool’s Joke and some co-workers who F-ed up said April Fool’s Joke), here’s the first ever LOST Wednesday Afternoon Preview….

This week’s episode (entitled “Namaste”) will pick up where “LaFleur” left off. Good, because I have some burning questions I need answered:

• Will there be backlash for Juliet and her newfound skills?
• Sawyer and Juliet are getting it on?
• What did Sawyer say to Juliet to get her to stay for three years?
• What did Sawyer say to Horace to get all of them to stay for three years?
• Has Jin learned English in the last three years?
• Where the hell are Ben, Sayid, and Sun?
  Has little Ben arrived on the island? If so, do Back to the Future time travel rules come into effect?
• Are Sawyer, Kate, Jack, and Juliet going to end up in some sort of weird island love-quadrangle?
• What’s up with the week off? This episode better be F-ing mind-blowing.
• Will I write a timely recap for posting in the morning?
  

LOST Conspiracy Theory Thursday!

You know the drill by now, don't read if you haven't seen. After a great job on the recap last week I've invited My Buddy Joe to fill us in on the recaps from now on.


Ok, GREAT episode this week. I’m an unabashed John Locke fan, mostly because he is by far the most complex character on the show. Also, he inherited the mantle of Joe’s Favorite Character because the bastard producers killed off Mr. Eko.

This week’s episode, “The Life and Death of Jeremy Benthem”, opens with Dead Man Walking from last week (real name Cesar) pulling a Danny Ocean in one of the Dharma stations, where he finds a map of the island and what appeared to be Captain Jack Sparrow’s pistol. New Ana-Lucia (real name I Forgot to Write it Down) walks in without knocking and catches Cesar masturb…. I mean putting the gun in his bag. They go back outside, where the plane has crashed intact on the beach. Who was Lapidus’s co-pilot, Sully Sullenberger? Nice landing. The scuttlebutt around the Coachies camp is that there is an interloper who was not on the plane. Is it an Other? No, it’s John Locke, who apparently is the Messiah of the island (which I guess answers part of my question from last week, “Who is the son?”). Sweet resurrection JL. Better check yourself for puncture wounds. (This episode was supposed to air last week, with the episode “316” airing this week. Ben’s story about Thomas the Apostle would have made better sense in that context, I think. And why couldn’t the producers have named him John Calvin so his initials would be JC?)

Let’s get your backstory shoes on…. Locke clicks the Orchid wheel in place and is magically whisked away to… Tunisia. (“Hi, we’re in… Tunisia.) JL lies on the desert floor with his shattered tibia for at least 12 hours until a bunch of Jawas find him and throw JL in the back of their Datsun. JL is brought to the same hack doctor who “fixed” my back and has his shin bone rammed back into his leg. Just before he passed out from excruciating pain, JL sees Matthew Abbadon in the shadows. When JL wakes, Charles F-ing Widmore is waiting at his bedside. JL, of course, does not recognize Widmore, who seems astonished that Locke looks exactly like he did 50 years ago. Charlie, you know what the island can do. Why is this news to you? Widmore basically explains the situation, telling Locke he as to bring them all back, Ben is a goon, there’s a war coming, etc etc. Then he drops this bomb on us – he was the leader of The Others (called it!! Crazy Theory #3 after the episode “Jughead”!!) and Ben stole the island from him. Cry me a river dude, you’ve got more money than God and your granddaughter used to be Mischa Barton. Widmore sends JL to round up the usual suspects, and loans the services of Matthew Abbadon (who, if he was 7’6”, would bear a striking resemblance to Manute Bol). Irony of ironies, Abbadon pulls out a wheelchair for him. JL stares down Abbadon, as if he’s trying to remember…

First stop on the John Locke Reunion Tour is Sayid’s old stomping grounds… Santo Domingo? How many languages does this guy know? Sayid tells JL to blow it out his ass and Locke moves on to… NYC! Wait a minute, Walt? What a random cameo. Next stop, Hurley’s Funny Farm, where Hurley exposes Abbadon. Abbadon then confirms that he is, in fact, Ellis Redding, and is a man who knows how to get things. A quick jaunt down PCH to LA, where Kate spews some philosophical mumbo-jumbo at JL. Pretty sassy for a baby-stealing ex-con, Kate. Finally, Locke convinces Abbadon to bring him to his old girlfriend, Peg Bundy, who unfortunately died of some horrible thing that I forgot because its not really that important. Going back to the towncar, Abbadon gets sniped, so Locke takes off and gets t-boned at the first red light he drives through by some asshole who was probably on his cell phone. JL, I know you haven’t been behind the wheel in a long, long time, but that was some of the worst getaway driving I’ve ever seen.

Locke wakes in a hospital, this time with Jack at his bedside! They quickly fall into their old routine – “Who’s on first?” “Yes.” No, seriously, they have their usual repartee about science vs faith and karma vs coincidence. JL tells Jack that “your father says hello”, at which point Jack flips out, grows a horrible beard, drinks heavily, beats his wife, and kicks his dog. Locke is discharged from the hospital and goes back to his REALLY shitty hotel, where he writes the famous suicide note and starts rigging up a noose. JL climbs up on the table, writes “Locke was here” on the ceiling, and is almost about to do it… when Ben breaks down his door and talks him out of it. Ben spends the next 10 minutes convincing Locke that Widmore is a goon, there’s a war coming, etc etc. JL is talked off the ledge, only to have Ben strangle him when JL mentions Eloise Hawking. (What is Ben’s fetish with Hawking? Are they secret lovers and he’s jealous of other men?) Ben rigs the scene to look like a suicide, cleans up, and leaves.

The episode concludes (at 10:04, totally f-ing everybody’s Tivo) with JL finding an unconscious Ben among the injured Coachies. What is going to happen to all the Coachies? Will Ben recover? Why wasn’t Locke paralyzed again when he went back to the real world? What time are they in? Where did Lapidus take off to? How come the Others haven’t found the Coachies yet? Where are Sayid and Sun? Whose side is Locke on, Widmore or Ben? Most important, now that everyone is back, what happens next???

LOST Conspiracy Theory Thursday!

If you haven't seen this week's episode, stop reading immediately!

Overall, I'd say a pretty slow episode until things picked up toward the end. Hopefully they're setting things up for the next few episodes.

• Too bad they didn't actually show the full conversation between Jack and Claire's mother. That must have been awkward.
  
• Although it was pretty easy to guess he wasn't gone forever, it's still good to have Jin back, sunburned lips and all. Man, that was disgusting.
• There's clearly something special with some of the 815 crew. Can they die? Maybe not. Jin survived both a plane crash AND a boat explosion. What mode of transportation will catastrophically fail him next?
  
• Speaking of Jin, this whole time-travel thing is going to be ridiculously difficult for Jin to comprehend. Even the folks that speak English as their first language are having a hard time with it.
  
• Rousseau! LOST.
  
• As much as I like the teasers for the upcoming episode, I thought this week's gave away just a little too much. They should have left it with Sun ready to pop Ben, ultimately leaving us guessing until next week.