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This episode of “The Transmission” looks back at the next three episodes of Season 3 of “LOST”: “Not in Portland,” “Flashes Before Your Eyes,” and “Stranger in a Strange Land.” We recap the episodes in eight minutes, then share our take. Next, listener feedback in “You All Everybody.” We share another song by The Others LOST Band. Finally, we report on the last two weeks of production here on The Island.
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Segments:
- 0:00:28 Introduction
- 0:02:56 “LOST” in 8 Minutes
- 0:11:21 Discussion
- 0:40:50 You All Everybody
- 1:08:50 “Hit By A Bus” by The Others LOST Band
- 1:10:50 The Forward Cabin
- 1:15:53 Closing
Next: We’ll cover Episode 10, “Tricia Tanaka is Dead” (Hurley), Episode 11, “Enter 77” (Sayid), and Episode 12, “Par Avion” (Claire). We’d love your feedback! Email us at lost@hawaiiup.com, call the LOSTLine at (815) 310-0808, or leave a comment below by Friday, Oct. 16.
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thanks for the mention. i’m leaving tomorrow and i can’t believe i won’t be here for the Lost day in 2 weeks… btw, i think you said by mistake that ethan was dr. Goodwin instead of doctor Goodspeed.
Where i it filming spoilers clip?
Hummm… If Rich gave a phone call, I will have to try that myself one time!
Instead of my horrific spelling you will have to deal with my horrific accent!
Why does everyone call Faraday’s plan Jack’s plan? because he died?
Jack didn’t know about the bomb or even the idea of changing things until
Faraday told him. It wasn’t jack’s plan— credit where credit is due
OMG, an audio spoiler in the Forward Cabin!! I’m swooning like a Southern lady with the vapors! You two are truly the King and Queen of LOST!
I have a couple of comments on Par Avion. I actually really like this episode. I love Claire, and the reveal that Christian is her dad was a great one. But… I do have a couple of frustrations as well.
I wanted to slap Danielle when she cut off Mikhail as he was saying something about the John Locke he knows. Wha? I need more information! How does or did he know John? Something as simple as reading his file? Or are we talking alternate timeline stuff? Or did Richard share what he knew about John from before his time on the island?
The biggest frustration I have about this episode is the fact that Charlie and Claire tie a paper note to a sea bird’s leg, expecting that the note will remain intact as the bird flies to civilization. They must realize that sea birds do actually land in the…SEA. Sigh. Surely there was an old test tube of Artz’s or some other kind of vial of some kind around somewhere that they could have used, yes? 😛
@soko: geek vs leader. It’s a leader that carries a plan, not the geek that brought it in the first place. That’s how life work…
Time travel question: who “knows” destiny
_Faraday knew (his book) but lost his memory
_his mother knew (Desmond) but not that things could change
_Desmond knew but things turned out differently (has someone seen Claire in an helicopter yet?) but might be eventually the one who knew best (PS)
_Christian Shepard/the Monster(?) (Telling Locke he would have to die way way in the past) but maybe just a trick
…
_but who knew the second plane would land on the other Island?
PS: Charlie sacrifice allowed access to the Freighter, which lead to the ocean 6, which lead to them in the past, which might lead to something else that might lead to Claire safe in a helicopter… (Aaron already left safe in an helicopter, it was not specified it would be in the same helicopter)
Me again! I answer my last post: the monster using the cabin asked for the runway so that Ben will land safe to kill Jacob.
But now something else bother me… How Jacob went off Island? Especially the Hugo meeting! Was he on the plane or how could he be in the foot so fast?
Comments on the first half of the previous podcast:
Juliet does have a duality to her character now, displaying vulnerability and remembered innocence between the moments when her others’ training comes out. Then she rivals Ben for her efficient dispatch of enemies and for making the coldest of calculations. The problem is that she has none of this strength in her flashbacks. These are acquired skills.
Great discussion of what it means to fulfill Fate and the multiple marina photos from “Flashes Before Your Eyes.” Sometimes you fulfill Fate precisely because you try to avoid or even fail to fulfill it as you understand it. Although Hawking does specify that “pushing the button” is the one great thing Desmond will ever do. And remember that the island isn’t done with him yet so that whatever happened may play out again. This also applies to Charlie who you wrote off in a recent podcast. “Am I Alive?” That’s going to be my Halloween costume.
Yet another example of exile occurs in Stranger in a Strange Land. Jack is banished from an island paradise because he partakes of a gift not intended for him. Forbidden fruit. He’s free to fly kites and drink cokes on the beach and the Thai boys are cool about his tryst with Achara–as long as he doesn’t gain that knowledge of who he really is. I think the obvious parallel is with the Others who have a special knowledge and a temple meant only for them. And the consequence of eating from the fruit of the tree of knowledge is precisely the loss of innocence that occurs with Adam and Eve.
I see the others like the grail guardians. The politeness (someone commented on Ben), the constant striving for self-improvement (the book club, research), the strictures against harming one of their own, and the service to a higher calling are all part of the code drawn from “The Book of Laws.”
On the comment about the opening scene of “Not in Portland.” Most of that scene aligns very well with the obvious fake out–except Juliet’s emotional distress. She hasn’t met Ethan so it can’t be due to guilt about leaving Rachel behind. In my mind, it’s either because her research was failing or it is a flash to the end of the record. If it is a flash, Rachel’s line about “Are you afraid he’ll find out?” takes on wonderful new meaning because we’re meant to think she refers to Edmund Burke. If not him, then who is Juliet afraid of?
Finally, good call on Sawyer’s trance during the room 23 brainwashing video. I think Ben at one point said the purpose or rather an effect of this process was to neutralize Carl’s sex drive in order to protect Alex. That agrees with what you said on the podcast and with its origin from “A Clockwork Orange” in which a futuristic government uses Skinnerian conditioning (the DeGroots, anyone??) to make a sociopath experience physical revulsion at the mere thought of violence or deviance thus rendering him harmless. But the brainwashing does seem to instill the higher values and realizations the Others want and so is about much more as Ryan suggested. Another explanation for Sawyer’s reaction is that he was either “amenable for coercion” or a “candidate” depending on how you want to put it. In this way, the process wouldn’t be gender specific and could apply to Cindy as well.
Defend the island.
A comment on the Others training:
Ethan single handly took Jack out (and uplift him with one hand) and hanged Charlie in a few minutes.
They can move and ambush without ever getting noticed.
Ben gets kicked a lot but I noticed he always did it to stay in control… either to know more about the losties and then use John against Jack, either to convince Jack he should not call the freighter by faking the death of the people on the camp knowing he will be made prisonner and beat up.
Mikail knows how to fight and survived, survived and survived.
Juliette KO Jack with a single punch.
Tom can through bollas like a pro (and who train at bollas throwing these days?)
And they all speak latin.
Yet during the cages episodes Sawyer managed to overpower the guards telling Kate it was quite easy because they had no formation.
So… the guards don’t know how to guard but the two doctors can fight like pros???
On “Tricia Tanaka is Dead.”
“It’s a puff piece.” I absolutely love this episode and will forever feel the triumph of hope every time I hear “Shambala” (interchangeable with Shangri-la, the mythical Lost Horizon.) I very much miss the comic relief and character development afforded by this type of full-season episode.
But it’s far from devoid of meaning, especially concerning the central theme of hope. The presentation of this theme as it relates to Hurley has always alluded to yet another Greek myth on Lost, that of Pandora’s box. Leonard is horrified to hear that Hurley has used the numbers and claims he has “opened the box.” A host of evils follows Hurley’s every step from then on. But Jacob says it’s a blessing because the gift of hope remains. Locke might have a different name for this gift: faith. Belief is the essence of many religions and even in the Greek myth, hope is presented as something that far outweighs all the other evil that has been unleashed. “I needed my pain to reach this point.” We endure the trials of life to grow as spiritual beings, and then make the leap of faith to achieve the transformative miracle. Hurley’s little triumph of hope here foreshadows the conclusion of Lost in which the survivors come together to fix a much larger broken machine.
But not all the characters share Hurley’s view of hope. To some the island isn’t a place for redemption, for the “fresh start” that Kate begged James for in a truly magnificent and poignant scene. It’s such a great touch when she reverts to calling him Sawyer creating immediate emotional distance from the selfish cynic who has nothing to be sorry for (don’t let that which has no name catch you saying that!) Then later, Sawyer makes his view even clearer when he tells Hurley, “If it’s hope you’re looking for, you’re on the wrong damn island. There sure as hell ain’t no hope here.” Compare that with the inscription on the gates of Hell from Dante’s Inferno: “Ye who enter here, abandon all hope.” Much like The Man from Tallahassee, a character provides us with a clear allusion to hell beyond the numerous, but not accidental offhand uses (blow em to hell, go to hell. Why was Ben the only one to say shot to sunshine? A knowlege that creates a deeper respect so that he doesn’t invoke its name so lightly?) I like to think Hulrey’s miracle turned Sawyer around. Although I think he still wants his stuff back so he hasn’t become a bodhisattva just yet.
The humor is a very underrated part of Lost and this episode had ample material. The nicknames were great of course. The expression on Charlie’s face when Sawyer called him Jiminy Cricket and the idea that Hurley recruited his chef/servants from Bennigan’s both had me rolling.
Any significance to the fact that the candy bar Hurley gets from his dad is not an Apollo bar?
“Even if you were speaking English, I wouldn’t understand you.” Hurley to Jin. How does that make sense? More impossible difficulties with communication: Speaking in Tongues.
Finally, I love the scene with the psychic. She’s a plant for sure, spinning whatever interpretation she’s paid to on to the cards she is dealt. But Fate delivers the “Death” card into the reading. The fortune may be a fraud on her part, and yet an authentic reading at the same time in terms of the cards that come up.
Just a thought or two I had when watching Ep. 10-12.
In Enter 77 Locke sits down to play chess and theres a camera watching. Mikhal says that the game cheats. Could it be that whomever watches that computer decides if they want the person playing to win or lose. In this case, it would mean that the person wants Locke to blow the Flame up and even further cut off the island from the mainland. Who could this be?? I don’t believe we have closure on this….
In Par Avion, claire’s car accident is caused by someone hitting her, she tells the cop. It made me think a bit about Nadia getting ht in the last finale and Juliet’s husband getting hit by the bus. All tramatic incidents in our characters lives. We know that Jacob was responsible and present for Nadia’s death. Could Jacob be behind the major emotional events of these other two? More so, is there a chance that Season 6 will have additional Jacob flashbacks to see his interaction with the remainder of the characters?
There’s always someone watching via the camera with the red blinking light.
My half-hearted defense of Bai Ling
Ok, I tweeted to Ryan and Jen prepared to give a lengthy defense of Bai Ling. I must admit that my defense has gone from spirited to half hearted due to the lack of support I have found online, but I will proceed nonetheless. My initial response to the last podcast (She’s the Chinese Paris Hilton!) was met with a lot of spirited laughter by myself as well as many others. However, my spirits started to dampen when I watched an episode of “The Rotten Tomatoes Show†where, as a guest, she was asked to speak about her top 5 favorite movies.
Her first response? Casablanca. I admit, this blew me away. Casablanca? Really?
I kept listening. She then proceeded to launch into what I thought was a very respectable defense of Casablanca, in which she described the sublimity of the script along with the face that the great love story (involving self sacrifice) that is seldom seen in this day and age.
At this point, she had my full attention. She then went on to talk about Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic, where she praised Soderbergh’s unique artistic vision and his ability to redefine himself as a filmmaker based on the trends and interests of the time.
At this point, I must admit, I was paying attention.
The thing, however, that made me rethink Bai Ling and all of the nasty things I had assumed about her came when she described another movie. She admitted that it was a selfish favorite, because it was her first American starring role…
Red Corner.
Readers, I was knocked off my chair at this. At the time that Red Corner came out, I was working at a video store, and it was (sort of) my job to watch the movies. When Bai Ling said “Red Cornerâ€, I had a Desmond-style flashback. I SUDDENLY remembered this movie. It didn’t get great reviews. I remember some critics describing it as “heavy handed†and “xenophobic†for the time. But I also remembered one other thing…the fact that Richare Gere plucked this young, talented Chinese actress (ostensibly) out of the ether. No one knew who she was; the only thing they know is that she was the only redeeming part of this film.
She was a newcomer, and her name was Bai Ling.
Since then, I can’t hate Bai Ling, and even though I laughed at Jen’s comment, I can’t bring myself to refer to her as a “Paris Hilton†of anything. I have seen Paris Hilton in action, and yes, she is pretty worthless. Bai Ling? Not as much.
So what I wonder is, what HAPPENED to Bai Ling? What changed her from a “Hollywood darling†to a “chick-dressed-as-a-prostitute who sometimes plays in the movies�!?? I don’t know, but honestly, I kind of feel sad for her. I really believe that she is a good actress doomed to crappy roles. Don’t believe me? Re-watch Stranger in a Strange land. The fault of this episode doesn’t rest on the shoulders of Bai Ling; the fault rests on the terrible writers who forced us to watch it.
The End
P.S. Even if Bai Ling were truly the Paris Hilton of China, I could still give you an equally passionate response as to why “Expose†is a million times worse than SIASL. And I wouldn’t need a flashback to justify it. Expose just plain sucks.
“Enter 77” is one of my favorite episodes of season 3 and maybe the whole series. The ping pong game reminds me a lot of some of the best of season 1, and they do a great job getting Sawyer to dish about a bunch of nicknames in Tricia Tanaka is Dead (Skeletor!) so the stakes of the game are that much higher.
But I have a question about Sayid and company’s time at the Flame: Locke beats the computer at chess and a video of Chang plays. During Chang’s prompts on the computer, Locke enters the code 3-8 in an attempt to communicate with the main land. Yet, in the same episode he blows up the station to keep it from being used to communicate with the outside world and a few episodes later he blows up the submarine. He does some pretty crazy things to keep anyone from leaving the island, so why would he enter the code in this episode?
Long-time listener, first-time commenter. Looking forward to this podcast. Thanks!
Hey Ryan and Jen. Can’t wait to hear the newest podcast this weekend (hopefully).
Don’t know if anyone has mentioned it to you yet, but in Tricia Tanaka is Dead, as Sawyer and Kate travel through the jungle to the beach camp, Sawyer steps on some sort of dart, which gets stuck in his foot. Remind you of anything? In season 5, Sawyer steps on something sharp in the jungle as he and Juliet are walking through the jungle in “The Lie”. I don’t know if it means anything, but it seems conspicuous as if our attention was supposed to be drawn to it. A subtle reference to repeating time loops and mirror images, maybe?
Tricia Tanaka:
Love Cheech! Love Jin learning english from Sawyer!
Love the van (hehe!)! And Kate/Sayid/Looke/Daniel is the best A-team party.
Enter 77:
Between fun with the ping-pong game (reminds me of the great season1 golf game), the horrible flashback and the whatthef*** Klugh being shot and the building being blown out… Very good episode!
Funny how we asked ourself what would Sawyer be as a leader while it is clearly referenced here by Hugo asking Sawyer to step up now.
Was the Dharma Initiative still present after the cold war and the second war in Irak? I really hope we will know more about that. Being responsible of the communication maybe he just knew about the war and was not part of it… who knows.
Locke pushed “77” but I think he didn’t knew it would blow the building… but I think he took it as a sign (following the stick) and so that’s why he blows the sub latter on. 77 the year of the “incident”! 😀
Par Avion:
Claire is a Shepard… ok, why not.
All the mother/daughter issue is nice (Claire/mother/addoption, Daniel/daughter…).
Will the seagull ever reapper? Especially since the comicon where it was given to someone. Will it be the reason why they realise that something is different? Will they know that time has changed due to that?
First revelation of what ARE the lists: non flawed people, that can “understand”, picked by a “Great man”. They know who the losties are and why they are flawed.
Their, to keep his secret angry and manipulable John try to kills Mikhail (and it would be my best death scene… if only he died!). Mikhail wanted to suicide since he killed Klugh, but why? He told them about the lists and the sub anyway, what kind of information was he suppose not to tell?
And then Jack plays football! LOL! Poor Jack…
Love when the episodes are funny and yet more than that… Love “Y” the comicbook or Whedon stuffs that knows how to do that. Wish we will see more of that in the next season.
And has “from france” I have to say: Sayid is in Paris! (and I don’t know why, remembers how lovely it is here) Par Avion! (for no reason in french but why not) and Daniel during those episodes… :p
The next 3episodes are top notch again! Yeah!
Enter 77 is a great source of exposition, but I wonder if some of it will ever pay off. Mikhail talks about being stationed at a listening post, much like Leonard. He talks of conducting “unpleasant activities,” much like Sayid’s Basra incident and many of the other survivors’ dark histories. They teased us with the manual for the food drop protocol and showed a way it could be ordered, but that could be a dead program as Chang has been gone for quite awhile. So how are the palettes still arriving? Was Mikhail initially in the Dharma Initiative? The story he told definitely sounded like the DI’s MO. What did the red chemical drums contain? What was up with the pony? This was one of my favorite episodes when it aired (playing mind games, scattering clues, and showing that Lost could have thrilling action as well unlike the cheesy gunfights of S5), but it has suffered a bit in retrospect because of all the loose ends.
I like the way Sami served as a proxy for the smoke monster. “Admit what you did or you will leave this room in that bag.” Foreshadowing everyone’s eventual judgement.
Finally, the best morsel is when Mikhail tells Locke that the computer cheats. I was going to get into this during Cabin Fever, but there’s a reason Jacob doesn’t trust technology. Chang warned those who would inherit the duty of pushing the button not to attempt to communicate on the computer. Wasn’t that the part that someone spliced out? Who was communicating and perhaps misleading Jack over a broken intercom? Notice in an episode like “The Economist” wher Sayid tosses his cell after a single use and Widmore uses an antiquated pager. I think AJ can somehow use this technology to manipulate and mislead the pawns in his game.
Assuming that was Jacob in the cabin or that Ben had any idea of what he was talking about. Sorry. Yann set the precedent for having a discussion with yourself.
In “Par Avion,” you can say what you want about the efficacy of Claire’s plan, but the important part is the symbolism of the bird in flight. It’s very reminiscent of Charlie’s vision in “Fire & Water” and the cover of “Everything Rises…” that Jacob reads in “The Incident.” The bird is a symbol for the soul in flight, freed from the constraints of the earth, and ascending toward heaven. Claire is trying to rise above it all and help herself, but Charlie is trying to hold her back because he is so attached to her bordering on possessiveness as mentioned earlier. In Buddhist theory, we must let go of such selfish attachments or be bound to mortal existence for yet another cycle until we grow. Namaste.
We are the causes of our own suffering.
@Rich: lol! I am sorry everyone that’s my fault! 4 in a row… seems like a usual Yann posting! 😀
I think Jacob hates technology and now that you told all those things, I so agree with you! I am sure it was smokey with the interlock…
Now two things:
_Sayid get ride of the cellphone because he doesn’t want Widmore to track him after he killed so many of his people.
_Now the second point is more important: why did they build communication possibility to the computer if the point is to tell them not to use it??? Or maybe MY biggest mistery is the reason (the psycho test/the pearl/the tubes). Now second point: who got rid of this part? it has been filmed by the Razinsky time… so it means it wasn’t him, it would have been stupid. Now, is it due to Kelvin? Then we can ask ourselves, in regard of Mikhail, was he Dharmah or Other? If he was Dharma why would he want to get rid of this piece of info? If he was an other and they knew about Jacob/AJ again, why would he want to get rid of this piece of info?
I stand by my idea that Jacob wasn’t in the cabin during the Locke and Ben meeting… but he played the part so that Ben would eventually be mad at Jacob for making his life miserable.
Claire is not letting a bird fly by as his own (as in the other two exemples) but she trapped it, attached something to it and then free it… I guess it still a great alegory toward what this show will eventually be about.
In is not only selfish attachements that Buddhist philosophy discards, it is all kind of attachements because, since everything changes, nothing can stay the same forever and therefore you will lose what you were attached to eventually. That is the reason for suffering and therefore the only way to stop that is to stop caring.
I would add that the H of D.H.A.R.M.A. stands for holistic: everything and everyone is connected…
@Jasob B and Rich
It seems you are both hinting that technology can be used to manipulate all people (both the others and Losties) by the Island/Jacob. This could account for the Others utilizing older technologies and why the Losties had to go back (all the way to 77).
Maybe Sun didn’t go to 77 because the Island didn’t need her to be disconnected from current time. Jin did go to 77 because he needed this distance in space and time to get where he needed to be (not the least of which means speaking English!)
oops, sorry Jason for mistyping your name!
I heart Tricia Tanaka is dead because I used to drive a 68 bus that we put a V8 in. Brings back sweet memories!
I was also struck by Kate switching from James to “Sawyer” who says, “he ain’t got nothing to be sorry for”. This reminds me of Eko’s judgement.
An observation: Australia is “the Key” and where the numbers start. Maybe these numbers represent coordinates on the timeline – where time needs to be corrected and Australia is the constant?
Big Question I still want answer to: Why Rosseau let them keep Alex all these years? Just writing it off to she went crazy seems too easy.
Enter 77:
Question I still am not sure of: Did Sayid really torture Amira? Or did he just admit to it to give her peace he could not find himself?
I also am wondering if the Animals we have seen might be Totems or Animal spirit guides? (or just Redherrings?)
Par Avion;
Mikhail says “Of course I don’t know you, Sayid Jarrah. How could I? And you, Kate Austen, are a complete stranger to me. But you, John Locke, you I might have a fleeting memory of you. But I must be confused because the John Locke I knew was–”
Was what? Patchy will be back, I hope.
Par Avion:
I am not sure if this has been brought up before but after watching this episode I remember wondering if it is possible that Claire and Penny are related?
@Bonita: The numbers never got started in Australia, the 2guys picked a radio signal before going back to Australia… and we know that it was a radio signal emitted by The Island. Probably Dharma time (because Russeau changed it and there were no radio station before), if you have followed the Lost Experience game you might have some clues there. And, yes, the numbers are doom/doomed.
But interestingly we know there are other “magnetic” pocket and Australia has one (Rose/Bernard).
Why Rousseau did not go look for Alex? Well… there’s only in movies that you see someone rampaging an army before saving your son. Bruce Willis and Schwarzenger can do it. Michael couldn’t do it for Walt as an exemple. And I guess when you have seen your lover and friends going there and coming back brainwashed you might not want to try your luck.
We will never know for her specificly but the whole speach he gave eventually was still really true and I guess he thought he would never torture again from this point on (poor Sayid).
The cat was just a cat (according to Demon and Carlton in one of there podcast (and my reference one since I bring it everytime), but Kate’s horse was the monster and Nikki and Paulo too).
Par avion: I knew was pa… If they got the same files as Jack and others I guess paraplegic or paralysed would be the most probable. And the reason why John kills him, he doesn’t want others to see him as week. Patchy drown/exploded… by the way: grenade explosions through water are much more powerfull (instead of air molecules pushed in your face (which is few) you get water molecules in your face (which is more dense))
@Jason B: “We know that Jacob was responsible and present for Nadia’s death.” Wow! Nonono… I agree with the chess game. I agree that car crash are a recuring theme (Kate is a specialist). But I can’t agree with “we know Jacob is responsible!” How? We absolutly don’t.
The way I see it: everything is again fate/free will… AJ is manipulating them all through time as seen on and off Island. What did we see Jacob do in the last episode: coming at defining moment of there life and: giving them free will.
Jacob and AJ are playing since a long time now and a draw seems to be the usual results. “They come. They fight. They destroy. They corrupt. It always ends the same.” (Boat people/Island(?); US army/Island; Dharma/Island; Desmond/Kelvin; Losties/Island; Freighter/Island… next: Ilana/AJ(?)).
But who planed better during this battle? First phrase that Jacob tells AJ:
” You like it? I did it myself. It takes a very long time when you’re making the thread, but, uh… I suppose that’s the point, isn’t it?” How clearer could that be… AJ thinks “you have no idea what I’ve gone through to be here” but I think he just missed the first phrase!!!
Well next season… the grand war promised by Widmore will start.
@Bonita in Atlanta
Mikhail says “Of course I don’t know you, Sayid Jarrah. How could I? And you, Kate Austen, are a complete stranger to me. But you, John Locke, you I might have a fleeting memory of you. But I must be confused because the John Locke I knew was–â€
. . . . in a wheel chair” He knows because when the plane crashed he had to pull up their files.