Wednesday, November 1, 2006

TAGS Lost

Terminus

Another! Lost! Entry!

Okay, let me not spoil it. This episode, "The Cost of Living," brought back the psychedelic darkfog--the same curious fog? smoke? Are those chains rattling in there? that confronted Eko mid-way through last season in the Eko-centric episode, "The 23rd Psalm." Soon after the earlier episode aired, I recall that the forums were abuzz with screenshots of darkfog's electrically-charged flickers of images from Eko's life, his memories. I admit, I went to the forums a time or two. But it was February (first, to be exact) in Syracuse, N.Y. For kicks and digression: Lost forums. My point is that the psychedelic darkfog, with all its industrial ticks and mystery, seemed to mirror Eko's mind. That is, during that first encounter with the darkfog, it tapped into something that presumably had bearing on the events of tonight's episode, even if that earlier encounter wasn't reintegrated by any of the catch-'em-up moments in tonight's episode ("Hey, what are all of the other monitors for?"). It got to know Eko. Who else does darkfog know?

And then there's the matter of Ben's neck-tumor. Keep an eye on Juliet. She did not play To Kill A Mockingbird in the VCR for Jack.

What would a Lost entry be without glossing meta? Fine: Aside from a few small and loose threads and beyond the most obvious turn of events, tonight's episode made the series seem endable.

Bookmark and Share Posted by at November 1, 2006 11:20 PM to Lost
Comments

Juliet's video was the creepiest part. But is it yet another level of deception?
And how does Ben know what Jack's wife looked like? It's one thing to have electronic access to information on others' lives; but to know what Sarah looks like?

Posted by: jeff at November 2, 2006 10:02 AM

Yeah, it is bizarre. I've been thinking about the possibility (er, likelihood) that there's more mind-gaming than they're letting us in on. The fog has the potential to assume bodily forms or, at the very least, to hack the perception of any given character. It's hard to tell how this happens, but the burial at sea could suggest that the land burials somehow enable the island to tap the minds of the dead as well as the living. This is the best I can do to understand all of the hallucinations. But the mind-reading capacity of the fog could, by some unknown string of events, tie in with Ben's comprehensive knowledge about everyone on the island (including who was good and bad among the tailies). It's almost as if the others have access (beyond conventional surveillance) to full psychosomatic readouts about the island's environment and inhabitants.

It's up in the air whether Juliet's being deceptive, but there's just enough breakdown between her and Ben that I hope her plot is legitimate.

Posted by: Derek at November 2, 2006 11:23 AM

The burial - with the white clothes - looked like a Hindu burial. That would tap into the pseudo-Eastern religion theme (dharma). I wonder, unless the producers really want the supernatural feel, if the monster/fog is remote-controlled. Otherwise, I find that part of the narrative to be out of place. A group of messed up "others" living in their own little world of fertility and animal experiments who have odd notions of psychology and behaviorism? That's cool. A fog monster? Eh.

Posted by: jeff at November 2, 2006 6:04 PM

I'm with you about the peculiarity of the others. And while I can't say I was on the edge of my seat wondering when we'd see the fog monster again, it wasn't until this episode that I realized the likelihood that it played a role in all of the other hallucinations (Jack's dad, Kate's horse, Hugo's mad pal, maybe even Locke's vision of Boone, and Shannon's vision of drenched Walt).

Posted by: Derek at November 3, 2006 8:04 AM