Here are some thoughts and theories about last night’s new episode, “Left Behind.”

JULIET

Jack is just as gullible as Locke. Juliet is totally pulling a Henry Gale. Ben (as Henry) allowed himself to be captured to learn more about the Losties, and now Juliet has manipulated Jack to the point where he’s protecting her and bringing her right where she wants to be – among the Losties on their beach. She knows exactly where the Others went and is just doing her part for their master plan…whatever the hell that might be. Perhaps the Others are testing Juliet’s loyalty since she was punished for killing one of their own (Pickett).

Then again, why on earth would the Others need to gather any more information about the Losties? They certainly seem to know everything about everyone already. And now they have Chatty Cathy Locke, who will tell them anything they want to know about his fellow castaways.

Kate and Jack were quite groggy when they awoke from their tear gas stupor. Juliet was only pretending to be knocked out. Her quick, lucid grab of Kate’s wrist as she went for the pocket knife indicate as much.

What kind of fertility doctor has such quick reflexes and strength? Juliet has clearly had some kind of physical training or expertise. Also, letting us know that she has dislocated her shoulder on 4 occasions is a clue. To what, I have no idea.

Juliet knew that Sayid and Jack were also left behind, and didn’t mention Locke, so she must have been aware that he left with the Others.

Timeline wise, I thought it was very interesting that Juliet said she knew how Jack’s dad died. He was not dead for very long before Jack flew to Sydney to retrieve his body and bring it back on Flight 815. Is the Others’ intel really that up to date? Or was it because the Others and/or Dharma had something to do with his demise?

Like Locke, Juliet predicted the rain. She also anticipated and quickly reacted to Kate’s assault in the rec room. Is she ‘special’ like Walt, or is it just another coincidence?

BLACK SMOKE MONSTER

We’ve never seen the Black Smoke Monster use flash photography before. Perhaps it is the Monster’s way of collecting data about a potential new victim. Or perhaps it was erasing or implanting memories…

The Black Smoke Monster could have gone up and over the security perimeter, but it ran directly into it instead, heading right for Juliet. We’ve seen it up high before (the dead pilot up in the tree, for example). Which means that whatever it is, Juliet and the Others do have control of it, she is only pretending to be frightened by it, and it purposely didn’t go up and over the security system to kill her.

THE OTHERS

If the Others were only throwing tear gas into the locations where Kate, Jack and Sayid were being held, why did all of them don gas masks?

They each had a backpack, which could signify a short trip. Were the Others only temporarily relocating? Did they set off the tear gas so that Sayid, Kate and Jack wouldn’t know/see where they were headed?

Sayid said that the Others left no tracks after they abandoned their village. And Ben’s wheelchair should have left a trail. I think that the Others went underground. I’ve said all along that there are tunnels and a rail system of sorts beneath the island, and that would explain why Sayid couldn’t track which direction the Others headed. Sayid did find that damn cord coming from the water in Season 1, and we now know that there was a sonar system and beacon connected to the communications center in the Flame Hatch. Don’t be surprised when we’re introduced to a subterranean and/or underwater hatch.

Or did the Others relocate outside of the security perimeter, to the main part of the island where the Losties live, because they all need to be healed in some way? They were very quick to trust Locke, and Ben was more than fascinated by his miraculous ability to walk after the plane crash…perhaps they were just following their new leader.

LOCKE

Now this is where I’m confused. Just days ago, Locke killed Mikhail, one of the Others. And now he’s on his high and mighty pedestal, telling Kate that the Others aren’t very forgiving of HER past?? Why is it that Locke is getting a pass? They must truly believe he is ‘good.’

CASSIDY

Sawyer’s ex, Cassidy, told Kate that she’d fallen in love with the wrong man. Looks like Kate did too (did you see the look on her face when Jack asked about Juliet?).

If Cassidy knew she was pregnant, why did she go have drinks with Kate at a bar? Because she wasn’t actually drinking; we only see Kate throwing back a few.

If Cassidy lost her life savings in Sawyer’s con, and she knew Kate was a wanted fugitive, wouldn’t it have made sense to turn her in for the reward money?

KATE

Why is it that Kate recovered fairly quickly from the tear gas, and yet Jack was still knocked out after Kate and Juliet had already been in the jungle overnight?

Kate’s got car issues. She crashed the farmer’s truck and then saved his life. She crashed her ex-boyfriend’s car while trying to escape with him, and he died in the accident. She and the Marshall crashed while swerving to avoid the black horse. And then she was stranded in Iowa after her car broke down.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

Um…where the hell is Rousseau?

Ok, so both Nikki and Paulo are indeed dead. Double yawn.

Not that anyone tells anybody about anything they’ve seen on that island, and not that it matters now that he’s dead…but wouldn’t it have been great if Paulo was still around when Juliet came to their beach, and he recognized her from when he was hiding in the bathroom of the Pearl Hatch?

Backgammon Alert! Kate was playing the game by herself in the rec room. Locke taught Walt how to play on the beach in Season 1, and then Walt beat Hurley.

Why is it that the Black Smoke Monster seems to take many forms, and kills many people, and yet it can’t get to people when they are hiding in clusters of very thin tree trunks?

In a Season 2 flashback, we saw Kate’s mom serve Sawyer and his friend at the diner as they were talking about a con job…Cassidy.

Kate’s “Cowboy Up” baseball cap is a total shout-out to Jack. That was the catchphrase of Jack’s beloved Red Sox and there was a Jack-centric episode in Season 1 called ‘All The Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues.’

Why the hell don’t the Losties move off of the beach (winter is coming, after all, in Lost time) and into the abandoned Other homes? They would be surrounded by a security system, with plenty of food and shelter.

There were references to ‘good’ and ‘bad’ again on last night’s episode: Cassidy told Kate that Sawyer was a bad guy (without actually saying his name; it is Lost after all), and Locke told the Others that Kate was a good person.

CRAZY THEORIES OF THE WEEK
1. We know how obsessed the Others are with children. And conveniently enough, Juliet is a fertility doctor. Way back when, while eating breakfast with Ben on the beach, perhaps Kate had to promise that she’d hook up with either Jack or Sawyer.  To get pregnant and produce a child for the Others. SO…did the Others leave Juliet behind because they knew she’d come in handy for the pregnancies of both Kate and Sun?

2. Locke didn’t really blow up the submarine. He entered the sub completely dry, but emerged drenched, which wouldn’t have happened had it still been docked. He anchored the sub underwater somewhere away from the dock, swam to one of the Others’ boats, brought it to the dock and blew that up instead.

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SO•PRAN•O

1. The uppermost part of voice.
2. The highest singing voice in women and boys.
3. A part for such a voice.
4. A singer with such a voice.
5. One badass mo-fo from Jersey. Who happens to be a father. Who has panic attacks. And sees a therapist.

They’re baaack. HBO will own and rule Sunday nights once again beginning this weekend, as Entourage is also returning, following The Sopranos.

They are two of the best shows on television and you should be watching them.

The end.

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Best news of the week (to me, anyway)…there is going to be a 2nd X-Files movie! Instead of revisiting storylines and themes from the TV show and first film, the focus will be on the supernatural (which will be a welcome change from the little green men).

I heart Mulder & Scully. Always have, always will.

Bring. It. On. 

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THOUGHTS & THEORIES

It seems we’ve met yet another pair of cons marooned on that island: Nikki and Paulo. They join Sawyer and Kate as those with mysterious and criminal pasts.

I may not be a forensic expert, but worrying about leaving behind cigarette ashes as evidence after killing a guy and then opening a safe without gloves is pretty damn stupid.

How close could Nikki & Paulo have really been if she wasn’t aware that he was stashing a bag of diamonds in his boxer briefs, and she never smelled the nicotine gum he was secretly chewing?

In Season One, Kate sent Sawyer into that same body of water to find the briefcase with the guns. Knowing how much Sawyer likes to pilfer through other people’s belongings and then claim them as his own, you would think that he would dive down there on many occasions in search of loot. How could he not have seen Nikki’s bag and found the diamonds?

After Boone & Shannon ran into Nikki & Paulo at the airport before boarding Flight 815, Shannon told Boone to stop flirting with random guys. Either she was just being bitchy Shannon, or that was the producers’ not-so-subtle way of informing us that Boone was indeed the island’s gay character (which would be kind of creepy, considering that he had slept with step-sister Shannon).

After the last scene on her show, Expose, Nikki made the comment that “you know what happens to guest stars.” Nice inside joke, now that she and Paulo have joined Boone, Shannon, Libby and Ana Lucia in that category.

After reading Nikki’s Expose script, Hurley said that the identity of the Cobra on that show, who was supposed to be a good guy, had been shrouded in mystery for 4 seasons. Duh. The producers are letting us know that either the identity of “Him” and/or “Jacob” will be revealed next season on LOST, or that one of our Losties is really a bad guy after all.

Poor Locke. You know he’d be bummed to find out that Nikki & Paulo discovered the Pearl Station and yellow plane before he did.

Last season, when Locke found the Pearl Station, there were recently smoked cigarette butts on the tables in front of the television monitors. Did Paulo find cigarettes while rummaging through the luggage in search of the diamonds, and then go to that hatch for secret smoke breaks??

Do you think that Paulo failed to mention that he saw Ben and Juliet in the Pearl Hatch on purpose, or that he really didn’t know who Shepard, Ford and Austen were (since he knew them as Jack, Sawyer and Kate)?

Did Paulo ever actually use the walkie-talkie he found in the Pearl? Did he communicate with the Others? He doesn’t seem like the sharpest knife in the drawer, so it’s quite possible that he was manipulated and/or tricked by the Others into providing information about his fellow survivors.

The infamous ‘monster’ sound appeared after Nikki threw the spider at Paulo, followed by the baby spiders that then bit her. Were the baby spiders this week’s Black Smoke Monster Manifestation? After all, right before dying at the hands of the Black Smoke Monster That Was His Brother Yemi, Eko told Locke that “they were next,” and Nikki & Paulo were there when that happened.

Before (apparently) dying, what do you think Nikki said to Hurley and Sawyer: a) Paulo Lies, b) Parallel Lives, c) Power Lines or d) Paralyzed? The answer is: Paralyzed. Which is quite an interesting term to use in light of the fact that last week’s episode was all about the formerly paralyzed Locke…

Did Vincent the dog remove the blanket that was covering Nikki & Paulo because he sensed that they were still alive?

Geez, Jack is nowhere to be found and folks get buried alive based on an assumption that they look dead. They need the Doc back, stat.

Are both Nikki and Paulo dead? No. Not yet, anyway. It was no secret that one character was being killed off of the show last night, and clearly that was Paulo. It didn’t help that Rodrigo Santoro, who plays Paulo, gave an interview a few months ago to the Brazil version of Rolling Stone Magazine that said his character was going to die this season. I’m sure the producers were less than thrilled when that tidbit hit the Internet…

FORESHADOWING

While opening the safe, in Nikki’s Anti-Smoking PSA Moment, she tells Paulo that they already poised Zuckerman, so they shouldn’t poison themselves. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Foreshadowing.

But wait, there’s more! After meeting Boone & Shannon at the airport, Paulo tells Nikki that he hopes they don’t turn out like them. Oops, you did. Bye-bye now.

AND…when Nikki tells Paulo to climb up to the small yellow plane and he refuses, she makes fun of him for preferring to go down into a dark tunnel instead. Our friend Locke did the exact same thing; he sent Boone up to the plane (and to his death) and didn’t even hesitate to blow the hatch door to explore the thing once he discovered it. 

FILE UNDER ‘RANDOM’

LOST creator JJ Abrams is a huge Star Wars geek. Thus, the Billy Dee Williams cameo.

Paulo is from Brazil, and the two men in Penny Widmore’s listening station were speaking Portuguese? Coincidence? I think not.

Dr. Artz discovered many new species of bugs on the island. More than likely, they were born or manufactured in the zoological station/hatch on the other island (with the empty aquarium tanked that housed Jack as a prisoner and the bear cages that held Kate and Sawyer).

Charlie is toast. You just know that Jin will find out about his abduction of Sun.

Let’s see…the late Mikhail was Russian and Nikki’s diamonds were hidden in Russian stacking dolls. Interesting.

Hurley Numbers Alert! The diamonds are worth $8 million and the spider bite paralyzes for 8 hours.

In an island flashback, they made a point to remind us that Jack used to have the key to the guns around his neck. Nikki took the key from around Zuckerman’s neck after killing him.

Last week in my LOST blog, I posted the above photo of what I thought was Sayid discovering an underwater cable. Yeah, I was wrong. It was Paulo diving for the diamond bag. Yawn.

Between Sun last night and the preview for next week’s episode…Women of LOST: 2, Men of LOST: 0. The island ladies are kicking some serious ass lately, and it’s about time.

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Queen, please!

My, my. Eddie Izzard has transformed himself once again.

Are you watching The Riches? It’s a strange and funny series about a family of Travellers (similar to gypsies) who pretend to live above their means by utilizing whatever methods are neccessary: lying, acting, squatting houses, etc. Minnie Driver plays white trash much better than I expected, and this role is a perfect foray onto the small screen. I haven’t decided if I’m committed to the entire season yet, but I will stick around for the time being.    

Check it out for yourselves:
http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/originals/theriches/

Kudos to FX for now offering some of the most innovative and original programming outside of HBO and Showtime, from Rescue Me to Dirt to The Riches. These shows break and explore more boundaries far more than most series on traditional networks, so grab your remote and set this channel as one of your favorites. You won’t be disappointed.

On to the next new show…

“Ellen!”

Remember that high-pitched shout out on Ellen? It certainly didn’t belong to Ellen DeGeneres, nor was Joely Fischer responsible for it. That yelp came from none other than Ellen’s friend Audrey, played by Clea Lewis.

Well, Lewis is back. And thankfully, that voice has changed. It might have even come down a decibel or two. She’s now appearing on Andy Barker, P.I. as Andy Richter’s wife.

I have watched the first 6 episodes online, and they were entertaining enough to earn a Season Pass. The comedy is subtle and the supporting cast is excellent. The show highlights the misadventures of Richter, an accountant who dabbles in the private investigator business with a surprising level of success.

Although I’m still mourning Arrested Development, it is really nice to see Tony Hale (a.k.a Buster Bluth) again on a regular basis.

And character actor Harve Presnell, who I’ll always think of as the curmudgeonly Wade Gustafson from Fargo, plays crabby just about better than anybody on television.

So give Andy Barker, P.I. a shot. It is currently in NBC’s Thursday night lineup, but who knows where it might wind up.  You can still watch the first six episodes for free online right now: http://www.nbc.com/Andy_Barker_PI/.

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For reasons I cannot explain, I have watched the entire first season of Dirt on FX. The show is a guilty pleasure; the characters are deplorable and yet I can’t turn away. The good news is that Courtney Cox is absolutely nothing like Monica on Friends, but the bad news is that she is surrounded by far less talented yet far more over-the-top actors. I doubt that the series will be renewed, but I would be curious to see what executive producers Cox and hubby David Arquette bring to the table in a second season.

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