Harry Potter hints

I know I haven't written a non-Lost post in a while, so I thought I'd move to something more substantial: Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling recently dropped some hints on the seventh book, saying that two characters may die. I don't find this all that surprising, though I feel like killing Voldemort and Harry would be sort of predictable.

It's a lot more than two, but I'll stick with this prediction I put on Rachel's blog a while back:

...major casualties continue to escalate through the books (a minor character in Cedric to a suddenly major character in the Godfather to a fully major character in Dubmledore). I think [the seventh book] gonna be worse than any of us can imagine. Something like Malfoy kills Ron, Hermoine kills Malfoy, Voldermorte kills Hermoine, Harry kills Voldermorte.

The Lost running diary: 1.09

Solitary
Ok, now we're back to episodes that heavily reveal stuff in the island, plus we get good backstory on Sayid. Opening scene not only sets us up for his backstory, but Sayid finds the random cable that goes into the water and into the jungle.

I believe Sayid's female friend is in a second season episode at a house inspected by Locke. Something to check on more thoroughly when the second season comes out.

We are now on Disc 3 of the season 1 set. During Disc 1, I mentioned a couple times how the term "The Other's" was used often to refer to people on the crashed flight. Disc two rarely uses the term. Now that we're in to Disc 3, suddenly Sayid gets taken captive by someone not on the plane.

Oo, and we see Ethan Rom for the first time. The others are here...

I forgot where the signal broadcasts from, but evidently it's not from Russo's tent. So where is it?

Russo's husband is Robert. That's a name I can never remember.

Of course Walt is going to run off and play with Locke if Michael is going to ignore him to play golf.

The episode ends with Sayid hearing the voices, but damned if I can tell what any of them are saying.

The Lost running diary: 1.08

Confidence Man
So I just mentioned how I like Charlie's backstory best. I might like Sawyer's second best. Especially the deal with his name. Again, you're not supposed to blame him because of his past. I still blame him though, he's a total asshole.

And Claire's back, and she's definitely on the beach. Every time I see her now, all I can think of is that damn horror flick about the nuclear exposed kids. "Lady, will you play with us."

My sis says there may be significance to some of the books mentioned in the show. Anyway, evidently Sawyer was reading "Watership Down."

Oo, Sayid very quickly goes to Locke and asks him what he was doing when he got hit over the head. From what I remember, it was Locke who did it. Anyway, Locke is a total asshole and pushes him towards Sawyer.

"Wow man, that was awesome. That was like, a, Jedi moment." Ah Hurley.

Up until this point, I thought they were going to make Sayid into a total good guy despite people's preconditions about Arab's. Now we find out he can torture people. Nice twist, totally caught me off guard.

Lots of backstory characters in this episode, including the woman Sawyer almost scams and the black guy that is some sort of crime boss. But I don't think either of them are connected in any way to anyone else on the island.

If that jar were filled with peanut butter, I wouldn't care how much I wanted it. After Charlie sticks his grubby black-nailed finger in it, I'm not having any of it.

The Lost running diary: 1.07

The Moth
For some reason Charlie the recovering drug addict looks WAY more creepy then the drug addict Charlie. Probably for obvious reasons, but still.

And creepy Locke, after using Charlie as bait, slits the boar's throat. Did I mention CREEPY?

Quick point: Boone, Shannon, and Claire were all missing from the last episode. That sort of thing happened a lot in the second season, but I don't think I noticed it in the first. Anyway, we've yet to see Claire in this episode as well, and I don't think we know if she's at the beach or the caves.

...Okay, I guess I haven't found a lot to write about this episode...

So Charlie emerges from a small hole at the top of his cocoon. That analogy was totally lost on me the first couple times I saw this episode.

For lack of anything to else to write about with this episode, I think I like Charlie's backstory the best of anyone else's. Not that I rejoice in his life falling to shit because of drugs, I just think it was well done I guess. My feeling is that the point of the backstory is that you don't blame him for his drug addiction, that you know he's deep down a good guy. And I think they accomplished that well.

The Lost running diary: 1.06

House of the Rising Sun
So this is the first episode about Sun and Jin. On the lookout for hints she speaks English...

Offhand exchange between Kate and Jack about Jack's tattoos. I think I mentioned them before, but we don't really learn anything about the tattoo.

Interesting that Sawyer (and Sayid) help get Jin off of Michael (when Jin attacks him). Not the sort of thing Sawyer usually does.

Not a hint that Sun speaks English, but when they're all trying to figure out why Jin attacks, she points to her wrist and they think she's talking about the handcuffs. Something you don't realize the first viewing, anyway.

So, if I'm running away from a swarm of bees, when I run to the cave of water, I'm jumping in the water. I'm not taking my shirt off like Kate and Jack.

I don't remember a thing about the dead bodies they find in the cave. Jack thinks they've been there 40 to 50 years, and one of them is carrying a pouch with a white stone and a black stone. Two people, one male one female.

Sun comes home in a flashback carrying a Chanel bag. Woohoo product placement. It's ok, my hatred for product placement is quickly erased by my love for puppies.

First scene (I think) where we find out Walt doesn't really know Michael. But that's about it, I suppose more on that later.

We get that flashback scene where Jin is washing his hands of blood. I think in the second season we see that scene again and find out what Jinn was doing, but I don't remember.

So they ended season 2 with backstory on Desmond. How long before we get backstory on Walt's dog, Vincent?

First flashback where we find out Sun is leaving Jin. We get a slight hint where someone says "You've taken all your lessons?" I still feel like we should have a hint somewhere on the island before she randomly starts speaking English to Michael, but I guess not. Anyway, that's a great scene when she tells Michael in English she needs to talk to him.

I think we see Michael pick up the watch in the first episode. I can't fully remember though.

"What I know, is that this island might give you what you're looking for. But you have to give it something" Translation: Locke thinks the island is God. If only we knew how creepy that was gonna get.

The Lost running diary: 1.05

White Rabbit
Jack gets beat up as a little kid. Poor guy.

This is the episode that starts with Jack saving Boone, who is trying to save the girl being carried out to the sea. Do we ever have any idea who that girl was by the way (her name is Joanna)? Also, how does Boone get out that far and then spontaneously drown?

Last episode was the first time we got the creepy vision of Jack's father. We just got another one. I don't think there's anything significant about when he pops up, but I'll try to keep track of what's going on when it happens anyway.

Claire asks Kate if she's a Gemini and goes into a short creepy rant about astrology. Just a bit of foreshadowing on the whole Claire going to a creepy psychic thing.

I don't really remember why Jack can't make decisions as a leader in this episode. I remember thinking at the time it was some sort of Christ reference to when Jesus disappears from the Bible during his childhood which people believe is because he had a crisis of faith and didn't want to lead people. Cause you know, evidently I'm not only a Christ expert but also a run-on sentence expert.

Jack sees his father again while Boone is yelling at him about saving Boone and not the girl.

I do really like that they address the leadership issue on the island. People look to Jack as the leader because he is good and attempts to help people. In my opinion, Sayid is probably the best suited to lead on the island, but he recognizes his limitations and leads where he is able. Boone thinks he is entitled because he's a rich kid who was given a business to run by Daddy. Locke seems to be knowledgeable enough to lead but has no desire whatsoever.

Something I just thought of in reference to Joanna (the woman we never see who gets swept out to see). Kate mentioned that she was not supposed to be on that flight; that she got an ear infection and got bumped onto that plane. I seem to remember a number of other people who were not supposed to be on that plane that were. Sayid stayed an extra day in Sydney to see that the Arab guy got a proper burial. I think Claire ended up on the plane last minute because of weird psychic guy.

I'm kinda schizophrenic with this episode tonight: back to Jack as Jesus. What I remember of stories where Jesus is not in the Bible as a teenager is that he had a crisis of faith and didn't believe that he was the son of God (maybe because he was Jewish, but I digress). He finds himself, and his faith, and believes that God is actually his father. Jack is also in the forest running around shirking responsibility and the flock looking for his father. Also somewhat fitting that he almost falls off a cliff and is saved by Locke, AKA man of faith.

Chalie's tattoo on his left shoulder: "Living is easy with eyes closed"

I've been looking for signs that Sun speaks English. So far, I have seen none.

Interesting point from Becky: Locke encourages Jack in this episode to lead. Very different from the second season where they have a power struggle.

I'd like to again point out the liberal use of the term "the others."

"What if everything that happened here, happened for a reason... I looked into the eye of this island and what I saw was beautiful." Locke becomes total man of faith, and slightly less creepy.

I like the "Ice in Glass" noise that is supposed to signify Jack's father. Sort of like brief theme music for the snobby drunk. Anyway, Jack's father makes the noise and leads him to the natural spring, along with the cave and piece of the plane and Jack's father's coffin. And it's empty. DUN DUN DUN!!!

Any chance Jack's father was brought back to life by the same healing power that healed Locke and Rose? Probably not, just throwing that out there.

Great final scene: Jack returns to the flock, leads them away from their wrongful behavior. Right after he says the words "We're going to die alone," we get a shot of two people: Boone in the foreground, Shannon in the background.

Sawyer has asked a lot of people how it feels to be the new most hated person on the island, yet he continues to take back the thrown pretty quickly.

I really do like the leadership struggles in this episode, it might make it one of my favorite episodes. Or at least my favorite episode that doesn't reveal much about the island.

One final comment from Becky. While reading over my shoulder about Jack returning to the flock and setting right their wrongful ways, Becky was reminded of Moses coming back down fom the mountain to the golden calf. Yay religion.

Would you believe it happened again?

I have written in this space before about my crazy gambling adventure recently. For lack of another long, drawn out story, it happened again. I went down this past Sunday and Nick managed to roll a 5 alarm fire.

This fire was very different for some reason. Nick and I had two dollars each down this time instead of one, so we won twice as much. And yet, there was something less exciting about it. Maybe it was because it wasn't midnight and we didn't have a bus to catch. Maybe it was because we weren't at the casino for as long or because the points were hit much faster (I don't think he doubled up on a single point).

However, I think the reason was more because the five alarm fire had already been done. I felt it was similar to when Bonds broke McGuire's home run record (yes, I'm a typical guy making a sports analogy. It's a gambling story, what do you expect?). It didn't matter that Bonds ended up with more home runs than McGuire, baseball fans had already spent all their energy on the '99 season. The Bonds record happened to quickly, almost as if this was going to become a regular and therefore less special thing.

Of course, it's entirely possible that my ego is getting the better of me and it was less exciting because I wasn't the one rolling. Regardless, I'm happy to have won money again and am not trying to insult Lady Luck.

But I'll let you know when one of us hits the full 6 alarm fire.

The Lost running diary: 1.03 - 1.04

Tabula Rasa
Jack looks in shrapnel guy's pocket to find out Kate is the criminal. DUN DUN DUN!!!

Jack, man of science, tells Hurley that the thing in the forest is not a dinosaur because dinosaurs are extinct. Hurley, man of the obvious, says shrapnel guy is dying. High comedy once again.

"That's [the medicine] is inside the plane. That's where the bodies are. They're all, like, dead." Ah, Hurley.

Charlie first really interacts with Claire with Locke's wheelchair and says "Whoever had this is better off than we are." He's probably right, Locke is all crazy faithful now and thinks this is the best thing that ever happened to him.

It's raining again. Kate went into shrapnel guy's tent and got choked by him, but no one has died yet. Though Kate asked if Jack could put him out of his misery.

Quick answer to yesterday's question of what Locke said to Walt: Walt says Locke said a miracle happened to him.

Ah yes, Michael says he's getting the dog back when the rain stops. So of course, the rain stopped. No one died, but shrapnel guy comes close and I believe dies later in the episode.

I've noticed a rather liberal use of the term "the others" in these first few episodes in reference to the other people who were on the plane. I know it means nothing, but common, you can't do that to all us hardcore fans who look for everything.

Remember in season 1 where they could run concurrent plot lines at the same time in the same episode? Like when Locke could find Walt's dog and have that relationship develop between Locke and Michael while Jack tried to save shrapnel guy? When not everything that Jack or someone else did happened in a vacuum they call "The Hatch?" Those were good times.

In the final scene, we see Charlie change his letters on his hands from FATE to LATE. We also see Locke look rEdiculously creepy, more creepy than anyone one man should ever look.

Walkabout
I remember really liking this episode; it's about Locke if you forgot. I think it's cool how Locke's cut over his right eye, which makes him look extra creepy, slowly disappears over the show as Locke gets less creepy (though not that less creepy does not always mean less weird).

Locke gives a speech to the entire island about hunting, opens up the creepy suitcase of pyscho knives, then flashes back to his box company cubicle where someone calls him up and calls him colonel. Seriously, we never know what's going on with this show.

I wish I had a friend who spoke Korean to translate all the things Sun says while everyone thinks she doesn't speak English. I bet when Michael hand gestures to her if she'll watch Walt she replies "You have really funny hair, I'll like it better next season until you kill a few of the tallies."

Locke is evidently with one Helen before he goes on the Walkabout. I don't think we know who that is.

Oh I remember who Helen is now. He's on the phone with her in this scene that just came on. He pays to talk to her. He asks her to go with him and she says no, because, well, he's a customer. Wow, he pays $90 an hour.

I forgot that in this episode Locke sees the beastly mechanical thing that tears down trees. We never really hear much about that thing in the second season.

Jack sees his father for the first time in this episode. Creepy...

The final scene in this episode is when the burn the fuselage and Claire reads off a bunch of the names. I was listening specifically for Gary Troupe, author of the book Bad Twin. His name was not read.

The Lost running diary: 1.01 - 1.02

This is something I've kinda wanted to do for a while. This summer, I'm going to go through the first and second seasons of Lost and, taking a page from Bill Simmons, keep a running diary of all the things I deem worthy of writing about. This is that diary:

Pilot Episode, Part 1:
Here's something that I've thought about for a while now. In season two, Anna Lucia knows the guy that's with her is one of the other's because he comes running out of the forest totally dry. The entire series starts out with Jack in the middle of the jungle TOTALLY DRY.

Jack has some pretty bizarre tattoos. When Kate is sewing Jack together in their first meeting, you see a tattoo on his left shoulder with a 5 on it and some sort of semi sun something or other. It doesn't look like it has any relevance to any sort of Dharma symbol, but I thought it was weird and noteworthy.

In the same scene, Jack mentions the thing about how he got scared during a surgery and allowed himself to be afraid for exactly 5 seconds. I forget when, but sometime in the second season Kate uses that counting to 5 thing.

The first night on the island, the first time we see Sun and Jinn, Jinn says: "Don't worry about the others, we need to stay together." Foreshadowing? Maybe, but then I might be giving the writer's slightly too much credit.

In reference to my first comment about Jack in the forest, he also says he blacked out during the crash. Could be a likely story from a guy who wasn't actually on the plane. Or they may have already explained sometime in the past two seasons why he blacked out. Regardless, it seems to be my thing that I think Jack wasn't on the plane. I know, everything points to the contrary and that would be a bit too much. I guess I'm weird like that.

First flashback scene, we see the stewardess tallie that ends up in only an episode or two. That was one of the things I wanted to confirm as I watched the series.

Kate asks Charlie if they've ever met before. We assume it's because she knows DriveShaft ("You are everybody!"), but maybe they have met? We don't have a connection between the two of them to my knowledge so far.

While watching the second season, my sister pointed out to me that whenever it rains, someone dies. We've now hit the first rain scene in the series, and Jack, Kate, and Charlie are about to find the pilot who will soon get mauled/eaten/bloodied by the beast/black/metal-sounding stuff. Anyway, another goal of going through all this again is to make note of everytime it rains and what happens.

According to the pilot, "6 hours in, the radio went out..." So maybe Desmond crashed the plane with the magnet, but why did the radio go out?

So Kate just counted to 5 'cause she was scared of whatever demolished the pilot. I thought it happened in the second season, but maybe this happens a number of times.

Pilot Episode, Part 2:
Something I noticed during the first part of the Pilot but forgot to point out until now: Charlie writes "FATE" on his fingers after he gets off the plane while he's high. I don't know if that's significant.

I like how awkward Hurley is, especially in his conversation with Sayid when he finds out that Sayid was in the Republican guard. Just throwing that out there.

Enter Locke with the backgammon set. Remember when Locke was the creepy guy who blindly believed in things and was altogether weird? He also seemed to be all knowing and mystical. I miss that Locke, he was fun.

Also regarding Locke, do we know what the secret was that he told Walt? Was it that he used to be paralyzed? For some reason I seem to remember another episode where it flashes back to Locke telling Walt that a "great miracle" happened there, but I can't really remember.

Seriously, why is there a polar bear on the island? What the hell is that?

Oh yeah, another awkward Hurley moment where he's with Jack and the shrapnel guy. Hurley says "Hey guy, you awake? Hey, it's a rescue plane, we're saved! Yeah, he's out." Then Hurley proceeds to pass out on top of Jack and shrapnel guy. High comedy.

Final scene of the pilot, great way to end it. As if the polar bear and the crazy beastly mechanical black smokey stuff didn't confirm it enough, now there's a repeating message from some French woman recorded 16 years ago about dead colleagues. That's one fucked up island.

"Guys, where are we?"

Jon Stewart at his finest

At the risk of posting another simple link without much substantial writing from me, here's a link to a great Daily Show clip with Jon Stewart destroying some random conservative who doesn't believe in gay marriage. I attempted to embed the video again, but failed misberably.