It made me smile when they sort of reprised Season 2's cold open for Season 3 (in the first video, stop at the record scratch to avoid any spoilers):
I wouldn't mind if they kept that a running thing for Seasons 4-6.
I'm quite digging Juliet, too, from the goofy way she bops her head to the music, to Sawyer's chilling observation after he backs down from a Mexican standoff that, "That blonde [Juliet] who had a gun pointed at you [Kate], she would have shot you, no problem."
I almost hesitate to say that, because the last time I said I liked a new character, they summarily killed her. I was surprised by Libby's death, too, since they seemed to be going somewhere with that--first the reveal that she'd been institutionalized with Hurley, and then Desmond's flashback of her loaning him her late husband's boat. Speaking of those two character deaths . . . oh Michael, Michael, Michael. Ana Lucia's accidental shooting of Shannon was one thing, but I hope you make it home, because there's no coming back after what you did, even if it was for your son. Was all this death and departure stuff what Patman was talking about when he said in comments, "Just be warned -- you're about to enter a rocky period of the series, where . . . a lot of interesting characters just get dropped because of off-set happenings,"?
I've been pretty impressed with their depictions of the plane crash, first in the cold-open of Season 2's harrowing tail-survivor episode, and then in S3 E1, shortly after the second video above. It just looks horrifying. I can't even imagine witnessing something like that from the ground in real life, let alone living through it as a passenger.
As for the Others, their claim to be the "good guys" and their Platonic ideal of a Suburb are belied by their fucked-up response to the crash--to infiltrate any survivors, rather than trying to help with medical assistance or anything like that. Well, Ethan and Goodwin pay for it with their lives, and Ben gets tortured in some horrible cruciform stress position by Sayid. He's luckier than he deserves that Ana Lucia didn't cap his ass like she was going to. I'll be curious to see if the show's creators really try to shift my sympathies from the survivors to the Others, where the latter really do turn out to be the good guys. I'll need a lot of convincing, but stranger things have happened, I suppose.
In the meantime, this is far and away the worst things have looked for the survivors so far, with three of them imprisoned--betrayed and abandoned by one of their own--and three on the run after a disastrous attempt to support the first three.
Onward . . .
5 comments:
Yup. Libby, and a couple of others I won't spoil, left because of things that were happening off-set (if I remember correctly, a couple of arrests and one decision that 'Lost' required too much time away from loved ones). As much as I like the Others arc, it's marred by this kind of thing.
Re: Ben's torture-- it's been said that the original plan wasn't for Emerson to do more than a few eps; that his character would've been more of a grunt-type. Supposedly the producers liked his work so much that they upped his character's status. I never did quite figure out what goal he accomplished by infiltrating the castaways. Just trying to mess with the head of whoever seemed like the Weakest Link? Ben did have a genius for that, all right.
Patman, I think the DUI theory was pretty thoroughly and credibly debunked by the show and the actors. Even if you're not inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt, keep in mind another performer also got a DUI and didn't get kicked off, while (as you point out) still another who DIDN'T get a DUI DID leave.
Fair enough. But whatever the reason, you have to admit that the cast departures in this phase of the show were pretty off-putting. I mean, why the hell introduce [character's name here] as such an important plot and thematic element, and then...poof. Gone. Annoying.
Thankfully, the core cast was more reliable for the last few seasons.
I can't quite remember the season or episode, but hands down one of the best moments in the series comes with Sawyer's humiliation in the polar bear cage. Just sayin'
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