Once again, some thoughts about last night’s new episode:

* Whether or not it has anything to do with the magnetic field beneath the hatch, Rose, Locke and Jin have all experienced miraculous healing. Could that also explain Libby’s apparent recovery from mental illness? Or Sawyer’s quick recuperation from the gunshot wound?

 

* Rose never actually mentioned cancer or specified what kind of illness she had…just that she was in remission.

 

* The faith healer told Rose that there are certain places with great energy, energy which may be magnetic. Duh, the hatch.

  

* The faith healer told Rose he couldn’t do anything for her, much like the psychic told Claire in season one.

 

* It seems kind of ironic that Rousseau and Desmond are so concerned about ‘the sickness’ and yet the survivors are getting healthy and recovering from their various ailments and conditions…

 

* Note that baby Aaron is the only Lostie to have actually gotten sick so far. Was he infected by the Others while in Claire’s womb?

 

* When Michael reappears, was he delivered from the Others as part of the trade Jack was proposing? Did they send him because they won’t give Walt back? Was Michael brainwashed or blackmailed? Is he going to turn on the survivors? Did the Others threaten to harm Walt if Michel didn’t help them? The Others were able to drug and/or brainwash Claire, so it’s possible that they did the same to Michael.

 

* What if the food wasn’t dropped from a plane or balloon? What if it was carried in by the Others and left to look as if it was dropped? Perhaps the hatch blast doors came down because whoever was in the hatch was not supposed to see how the food gets delivered.

 

* If you recall from the first season, Walt’s mom got ill and died rather suddenly. Is it possible that she had some connection to Dharma? Had she been on the island and contracted the so-called ‘island sickness?’ Do we know for sure that she’s dead? The Others are clearly obsessed with Walt and his powers, so it makes sense that his mom might have been involved at some point.

  

MERE COINCIDENCES?

 

* Kate found a pair of crutches in the fuselage section a while back and we see tons of them in the faith healer’s office…

 

* Fake Henry Gale goes on a hunger strike right after a supply of food has arrived on the island…

 

* Just after the food drop, we hear for the first time about a survivor we haven’t met yet named Neil, a food industry guy (frozen yogurt)…

 

COMING UP

 

April 26

“Reckoning”

Recap episode

 

May 3

“Two For the Road”

Ana Lucia-centric

 

May 10

“?”

No character focus specified yet

 

May 17

“Three Minutes”

Michael-centric

 

May 24

2-hour Season Finale!
(followed by a summer of watching Season 2 all over again with inevitable overanalysis and speculation)

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Last night, I caved. I avoided MySpace as long as I could.  It is equally annoying and addictive, but I could no longer ignore the viral nature of the beast. It is a great way to reconnect and network with friends, share blogs, promote events, and market new artists/films/products/sites/shows.  Of course as an adult, I am very aware of public domain, and leery of strange requests, content and photos. It is unfortunate that some of the younger contributors lack parental supervision and are not exercising the same discretion, because there are an alarming number of personalized MySpace pages created by kids who clearly lied about their ages in order to become members.

 

The number of visitors is astounding, and corporate media giant Rupert Murdoch is looking like a genius. Murdoch is the Chairman and CEO of News Corporation, which owns and runs FOX Broadcasting Company, 20th Century Fox, FX, DIRECTV, TV Guide, The New York Post, and Harper Collins Books, among many others. Last year, News Corp. acquired MySpace for a cool $580 million, adding it the Fox Interactive Media division. With access to the personal preferences of millions of people of all ages, News Corp.’s opportunities for direct marketing on all consumer levels are endless.

In case you’re interested, here is my official entry into the world of MySpace. Be gentle, I’m new and it’s a work in progress:
http://www.myspace.com/jopinionated

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Better late than never – here are some thoughts about last week’s Lost.

 

* Was Libby stalking Hurley after they both left the institution? Is that why she was on his flight? Did he really step on her foot on the airplane like she said when he told her he looked familiar? 

 

* Libby also heard Leonard mumbling the numbers in the institution…did that result in bad luck for her too?  

 

* Was Libby really sick and/or crazy? Was she employed by Dharma as a clinical psychologist? That may explain her ability to know how to act exactly like a mental patient. Also, she must have noticed the numbers on and in the hatch by now – and note that she hasn’t mentioned them or reacted to them…

 

* Libby was institutionalized for what seemed like a mental illness requiring meds, whereas Hurley seemed to be in a temporary, curable fog. Clearly she doesn’t have her meds on the island, so either she is acting or faking.

 

* If Libby wasn’t a clinical psychologist, then how was she able to hypnotize Claire to help her remember her kidnapping ordeal? Could the treatment Libby received as a patient really have resulted in her ability to do a spot-on impersonation of a psychologist?

 

* Libby told Hurley she’d buried a man with a broken leg. Was it broken before the crash? Were those his crutches that Kate found and gave to Locke?

 

* My only real clue that Libby is indeed still ill/crazy? When she led Hurley off of the cliff at the end of the episode, and he asked her if she thought it was possible to change, she said yes to his face, but her smile quickly dissolved into misery as soon as he looked away.

 

* Hurley has been eating the Dharma packaged food consistently, more so than any of the other survivors. Is the food drugged? Could it be contributing to his delusion?

 

* Dave said the same thing to Hurley that Desmond said to Jack in the stadium after he hurt his ankle running: “See you in another life.” And Nadia’s note on the back of her photo to Sayid also said something similar. What is the connection between these three?

 

* Hurley is yet another survivor who had contributed to someone’s death (the deck collapse) before the crash. He joins Locke, Kate, Jack, Sayid, Ana Lucia, and Sawyer on the list so far.  

 

* Was Henry Gale telling the truth about not entering the numbers? Something tells me he used the computer to contact Walt or the Others instead. Did he tell Locke he didn’t enter them because he wants the survivors to stop entering the numbers for some reason?

 

* Is the magnetic field beneath the hatch directly related to the numbers, blast doors or food drop? Did it contribute to the ‘incident’ that is referred to both in the Orientation film and on the hatch blast door map?

 

* If bearded ‘Other’ Zeke isn’t the HIM that Gale was referring to, then who is?

 

* Is Gale really HIM?

 

* Did Gale orchestrate this entire series of events, from capture to trade? Was he selected to learn more about the survivors? If he is indeed traded for Walt in this week’s episode, then he will return to the Others with key information to expose the weaknesses of the survivors: who’s in charge, power struggles, specific names, etc.

 

* Why didn’t Gale leave when he had the chance? Was he hoping to gather more information and then wait to be traded? 
 
* Right before Sayid was about to shoot him, Gale shouted that he wasn’t a ‘bad person.’ Was he referring to the Others, who only take good people?

* Were Sayid and Ana Lucia playing good cop/bad cop with Gale, or was their interaction real?

* Could the real, deceased Henry Gale have been Desmond’s traveling partner on their race around the world?

 

* This theory is way out there…Henry Gale was the name of Dorothy’s uncle in The Wizard of Oz.  Could the deceased Henry Gale be the uncle of a survivor? Walt, perhaps? 

 

* Looking back at who visited Gale when he was locked down in the hatch…it seems that Sayid, Ana Lucia and Eko all made confessions of sorts, like the makeshift jail cell was a church confessional. 

 

* By the way, if you take the words Henry Gale and Minnesota, you get an anagram for SEE AN OTHER LYING MAN. Remember that Ethan Rom is an anagram for OTHER MAN. Too coincidental…

* When Rosseau originally captured Gale in the net, why didn’t she torture him herself, to find out about her daughter Alex’s whereabouts?

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I just got chills. I’m having a total guy moment. It is opening night of the new baseball season, and my favorite team has just taken the field for the first of 162 games this year. I love it. The unshaven boys of spring (training) have emerged from the desert healthy and ready to go, and I have a good feeling about their chances of winning the division and making it past the first round of playoffs this year. The uniforms are clean, but I look forward to the slides and catches that will promptly wear them in. The home crowd is dutifully booing the visiting opposition. The Golden Gloves have been rightfully doled out, and now it’s game time.

 

I admit to watching Baseball Tonight on ESPN. Every night.  And I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of the new book “Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports.” Of course that means that I need to find time to finally finish “Juicing the Game: Drugs, Power, and the Fight for the Soul of Major League Baseball” first. I was at PacBell Park when Bonds hit two historic home runs (numbers 71 & 72) in 2001. I will always remember the absolute appreciation and joy emanating from the crowd at deafening levels, the physical response throughout the stadium. However skeptical I may be now, neither this new book nor the endless speculation about Barry will ever ruin that night for me. It is forever etched into my short list of fantastic sports memories.

Although I grew up near two ballparks and attended high school with the kids of several major leaguers, I was not a true baseball fan until about ten years ago. In retrospect, I should have gone to more games and saved those damn baseball cards. I’m sure I’m not the only one who wishes they had predicted and prepared for the advent of eBay…

 

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