Great post, Blam. I've been waiting for your post on this episode, and I enjoyed it greatly. Thanks for the gravy shout out, too. :) It's become my favourite exclamation since those boys on the Amazing Race first threw it into my lexicon. I hope they win (I'm finding out tonight, when Batkitty gets home from work).
I understand why many people felt dissatisfied with the rapid-fire deaths in The Candidate, without, as you say, so much as a slo-mo pass to extravagantly swelling strings, but I can't count myself among the disappointed. The fact that it all happened so fast, without hesitation, utterly chaotic, was precisely why I loved it. If anything, it made it more real for me (as real as a TV show gets, anyway).
I also enjoyed seeing Bernard show up, but I wasn't one of those who found him sinister. If anything, I thought that AT Desmond had already been to see him, and he was 'enlightened' (SOP for a Zentist, really).
Love the reference to the bomb with the longest ever fuse. Sayid could have used that fuse. But then, Michael and Sawyer could have used some Shark-Repellent-Bat-Spray way back at the start of Season 2.
The penultimate paragraph of your post, really spoke to me, and not only because I've been a Jack-fan from day one. This: ...wonder if Jacob didn't go through something similar; and this: ...humanity as a breed apart and perhaps below...just disconnected from their own race...; and this: ...distancing himself even from Kate as he realizes that he's not going to be with her or anyone again if he sees this thing through. These are just the prime examples, but it really illustrates to me Jack's arc for this whole season, if not the whole show. I'm actually having trouble getting this down. Jack in the AT, when seeking out Anthony Cooper in order to find out how John was injured reinforced his drive to fix whatever he can. The fact that he'd already saved John's life 'wasn't enough'. I think the same can be said for OT Jack, but in this past season (and in the latter half of season 5) Jack has been learning to take a back seat. His instincts to act against this new laid back persona resulted in Juliette's death. This season he's realised that he can't ever make that better, so to speak, and he straight up took responsibility for killing Juliette to Sawyer's face (one of the best Jack scenes ever). I think it's all gone along this way as a lesson in humility for Jack. I agree with you that Jack's drawing away from Kate and Hurley on the beach is his latest attempt to distance himself from the rest of them, to still feel, but to suppress his humanity in order to deal with the responsibility of 'leading' the Island. After all, Jacob's sense of detachment is balanced by a belief that humanity is inherently good. I think that's where Jack is headed.
Wow, that went way long. Sorry about that! Loved the post. Can't wait for the next post and the pics of this mysterious napkin... of mystery!
Also, thanks for prompting me to dig out Abbey Road. Carry That Weight has been in my head all day, and right now I'm relaxing, having a beer or three and am up to I Want You (She's So Heavy). It's a nice place.
VW: giseflu: a little known strain of avian influenza, that travels south in the winter.
Oh! I'm sorry, then, but thanks for saying so. 8^) I almost posted my initial reactions last Tuesday while waiting for Nikki's recap to go up, but decided to see if it and some of the comments spurred me to add anything. They did, plus life kept happening, and here we are. Next week... er, tomorrow night... maybe I'll just post what I have if I'm thinking decently again and revisit whatever strikes me later.
I haven't forgotten that you very flatteringly suggested I should do episode posts on Fringe, too, and I've been talking notes but I also keep falling behind. Dunno if I'll get to catch up and write about it before the finale, but I hope to at least add on to my series-to-date thoughts from February with a Season 2 postmortem. Meanwhile, Batman Reborn and other comics posts keep growing, as I write and the issues pile up and I read them and then I write more but by then more issues have piled up; you see where this is going.
The penultimate paragraph of your post, really spoke to me, and not only because I've been a Jack-fan from day one.
We talked about Jack at dinner on Friday and I admitted that he never really bugged me until I started hanging out at Nikki's. I'd always seen him as an imperfect leader, and his almost Scully-like clinging to denial of Island weirdness was frustrating, but it wasn't until cases were laid out in the comments and during the Rewatch especially that I could see why some folks found him a total, uh, Koosh Ball. He was always promoted as first among equals in the ensemble cast, he got more story time than anyone but maybe Locke, and within the narrative most of the group looked to him as the man to follow, so I just sympathized with him as Primary Protagonist even when he pulled some really stupid stuff because he meant well. When he started becoming blatantly unsympathetic I got upset, because as with potential good-guy Widmore and even decent but imperious Jacob it's dangerous to turn off viewers from a character you're ultimately going to hold up as a if not the main player on the team to root for in a story about, y'know, good and evil.
Can't wait for the next post and the pics of this mysterious napkin... of mystery!
Ha! I'm hoping to have my theory up here tonight, but that scrap of enlightenment was firmly in the hands of Ms. Stafford when we left the restaurant. Kinda curious to see it again myself.
Great stuff, as always. I particularly enjoyed your parallels at that beginning, about the 4th episode of the season and the 4th to last.
Also, this:
in both "The Substitute" and "The Candidate" it's John who fulfills those titles in the AT as a substitute teacher and candidate for Jack's surgery; if the OT reference was to his body as a substitute for Christian Shephard's on the Ajira flight or his appearance as a new guise for Esau, then perhaps he and not Jack is the true candidate for Island guardian in Jacob's stead.
was inspired. I know many people (myself and, presumably, Terry O'Quinn included) would love for the island to not quite be done with the "real" Locke yet, and that analysis suggests that perhaps the show is setting that up.
Great post, Blam. I've been waiting for your post on this episode, and I enjoyed it greatly. Thanks for the gravy shout out, too. :) It's become my favourite exclamation since those boys on the Amazing Race first threw it into my lexicon. I hope they win (I'm finding out tonight, when Batkitty gets home from work).
ReplyDeleteI understand why many people felt dissatisfied with the rapid-fire deaths in The Candidate, without, as you say, so much as a slo-mo pass to extravagantly swelling strings, but I can't count myself among the disappointed. The fact that it all happened so fast, without hesitation, utterly chaotic, was precisely why I loved it. If anything, it made it more real for me (as real as a TV show gets, anyway).
I also enjoyed seeing Bernard show up, but I wasn't one of those who found him sinister. If anything, I thought that AT Desmond had already been to see him, and he was 'enlightened' (SOP for a Zentist, really).
Love the reference to the bomb with the longest ever fuse. Sayid could have used that fuse. But then, Michael and Sawyer could have used some Shark-Repellent-Bat-Spray way back at the start of Season 2.
The penultimate paragraph of your post, really spoke to me, and not only because I've been a Jack-fan from day one. This: ...wonder if Jacob didn't go through something similar; and this: ...humanity as a breed apart and perhaps below...just disconnected from their own race...; and this: ...distancing himself even from Kate as he realizes that he's not going to be with her or anyone again if he sees this thing through. These are just the prime examples, but it really illustrates to me Jack's arc for this whole season, if not the whole show. I'm actually having trouble getting this down. Jack in the AT, when seeking out Anthony Cooper in order to find out how John was injured reinforced his drive to fix whatever he can. The fact that he'd already saved John's life 'wasn't enough'. I think the same can be said for OT Jack, but in this past season (and in the latter half of season 5) Jack has been learning to take a back seat. His instincts to act against this new laid back persona resulted in Juliette's death. This season he's realised that he can't ever make that better, so to speak, and he straight up took responsibility for killing Juliette to Sawyer's face (one of the best Jack scenes ever). I think it's all gone along this way as a lesson in humility for Jack. I agree with you that Jack's drawing away from Kate and Hurley on the beach is his latest attempt to distance himself from the rest of them, to still feel, but to suppress his humanity in order to deal with the responsibility of 'leading' the Island. After all, Jacob's sense of detachment is balanced by a belief that humanity is inherently good. I think that's where Jack is headed.
Wow, that went way long. Sorry about that! Loved the post. Can't wait for the next post and the pics of this mysterious napkin... of mystery!
Also, thanks for prompting me to dig out Abbey Road. Carry That Weight has been in my head all day, and right now I'm relaxing, having a beer or three and am up to I Want You (She's So Heavy). It's a nice place.
ReplyDeleteVW: giseflu: a little known strain of avian influenza, that travels south in the winter.
ReplyDeleteI've been waiting for your post on this episode,
Oh! I'm sorry, then, but thanks for saying so. 8^) I almost posted my initial reactions last Tuesday while waiting for Nikki's recap to go up, but decided to see if it and some of the comments spurred me to add anything. They did, plus life kept happening, and here we are. Next week... er, tomorrow night... maybe I'll just post what I have if I'm thinking decently again and revisit whatever strikes me later.
I haven't forgotten that you very flatteringly suggested I should do episode posts on Fringe, too, and I've been talking notes but I also keep falling behind. Dunno if I'll get to catch up and write about it before the finale, but I hope to at least add on to my series-to-date thoughts from February with a Season 2 postmortem. Meanwhile, Batman Reborn and other comics posts keep growing, as I write and the issues pile up and I read them and then I write more but by then more issues have piled up; you see where this is going.
The penultimate paragraph of your post, really spoke to me, and not only because I've been a Jack-fan from day one.
We talked about Jack at dinner on Friday and I admitted that he never really bugged me until I started hanging out at Nikki's. I'd always seen him as an imperfect leader, and his almost Scully-like clinging to denial of Island weirdness was frustrating, but it wasn't until cases were laid out in the comments and during the Rewatch especially that I could see why some folks found him a total, uh, Koosh Ball. He was always promoted as first among equals in the ensemble cast, he got more story time than anyone but maybe Locke, and within the narrative most of the group looked to him as the man to follow, so I just sympathized with him as Primary Protagonist even when he pulled some really stupid stuff because he meant well. When he started becoming blatantly unsympathetic I got upset, because as with potential good-guy Widmore and even decent but imperious Jacob it's dangerous to turn off viewers from a character you're ultimately going to hold up as a if not the main player on the team to root for in a story about, y'know, good and evil.
Can't wait for the next post and the pics of this mysterious napkin... of mystery!
Ha! I'm hoping to have my theory up here tonight, but that scrap of enlightenment was firmly in the hands of Ms. Stafford when we left the restaurant. Kinda curious to see it again myself.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
ReplyDeleteOh, that was awesome. >wipes tears of laughter<
Man, I love that movie.
Great stuff, as always. I particularly enjoyed your parallels at that beginning, about the 4th episode of the season and the 4th to last.
Also, this:
in both "The Substitute" and "The Candidate" it's John who fulfills those titles in the AT as a substitute teacher and candidate for Jack's surgery; if the OT reference was to his body as a substitute for Christian Shephard's on the Ajira flight or his appearance as a new guise for Esau, then perhaps he and not Jack is the true candidate for Island guardian in Jacob's stead.
was inspired. I know many people (myself and, presumably, Terry O'Quinn included) would love for the island to not quite be done with the "real" Locke yet, and that analysis suggests that perhaps the show is setting that up.