Mari

I read the transcript for the episode i missed - Ep 5 "The Cost of Living"
http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/The_...ing_transcript
Wow - that was important... Juliet and some others that aren't specified would like us and Jack to believe she and some others have a subversive movement going... against Ben... can't decide if this is for real, or if they are playing Jack - either possible at this stage. or maybe i'm just hypersuspicious of everything i've been so sarcastic lately my parents alot of the time can't tell if i'm being serious any more!!

The stuff with Eko was really hard to visualize and I wish I had seen it instead. Especially as it kept alternating between his jungle experience part of which seemed like they could be visions, and flashbacks. Very very very difficult for me to get a good feel for what was shown reading the transcript even with all the screenplay notes.

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Anyway, I'm up to date through S3, Ep6 "I Do".

(That is the one with Nathan Fillion in Kate's flashbacks, where Kate tries to get Jack to operate and Jack ultimately starts to but, at end episode, blackmails the others by placing Ben's life in the balance.)

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I have *NOT YET* seen "Not in Portland" - that is Episode 7! Hope to watch that Monday evening if dinner is not late. This Monday being Easter Monday means lower odds of being freed up in time though. I may end up watching on Tuesday. I really want to see this one - I really hope I get to SEE it and not have to resort to the transcript!

Thanks for the info on Sun's pregnancy dealy... I still cannot be sure from that the child is Jin's... I think what I said on it before still applies

~ waves ~

You are correct. We do not know about Sun.

The Cost of Living

I was so happy to see Sayid back at the camp. I feel that we might work on getting Kate, Jack, and Sawyer back soon.

I wrote this about what Ecko’s brother said: “It is time to confess. To be judged, Brother. I will be waiting.” (It is interesting to hear the word “brother” used for a fraternal relationship when we have been hearing Desmond say ‘brother” differently.

In this episode Ecko’s fate / destiny/ luck catches up with him.
I do not understand this episode because many times we see that the island helps people heal from their past. Sometimes death means that the person has done what they needed on the island. This death feels different. I think we are to figure out that the brother was not his brother and it was the monster who was asking him to confess his sins.
This is the music playing during Ecko’s end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2Kwv8TYOqY


Jack is doing chin up type exercises. We see him as physical and strong. Ben makes him wear a while monk-like shirt for the funeral of Colleen. Brenda Lee’s “I wonder” plays playing during the funeral. (it is beautiful and haunting. ) Maybe the song is for Ecko as well.
It is hard to know whom to trust. Everything Juliet says can be construed in several ways – even her “I hate funerals” to Jack as if it is a normal thing people say. But Juliet seems very careful about what she says.



Jack really wanted to eat that hamburger that Juliet brought him. I was almost worried that he would not get to eat it . He eats while Ben talks. There is a weird scene where Juliet talks to Jack and has him watch cards of her holding up the exact opposite of what she says. She speaks about Jack helping Ben through surgery but holds up cards in the video asking him to kill Ben by making it look like an accident.


It is cool to see Sayid and Desmond together. Sayid does not know Desmond and is not comfortable with him. I think they just meet here in this episode. Nikki and Paulo are new characters for the viewers but they have been at the camp since the beginning.
Locke and Sayid sort of explain the video communication of the hatches to Nikki and Paulo and thus to the audience. That section ends when they see another man (new character) looking at them. Your transcript is wrong in this section. The guy looking at them does not say anything. Locke says this, “I guess he'll be expecting us.”

When you watch, you cannot get a read either. It does not help that I know the actor playing Juliet from another show where she played a down to earth psychologist who was lesbian. In this role the actress is playing someone buttoned up and we cannot get a read on Juliet.
We know Ben lies.


M

By the way,

Season 1 -- 25 episodes
Season 2 - 24 episodes
Season 3 -- 23 episoeds

Writer's strike along with some producer decisions

Season 4 -- 14 episodes
Season 5 - 17 episodes
Season 6 -- 18 episodes


By my rough count (at The Cost of Living) we are half way through the show now. The plot pacing picks up.
Mari

That is good perspective to have - 1/2 way through.

I am reading the transcript ahead... i've got a TVD one to read too by now i think - i stay up to date with US airing via transcripts on that show, because the network that shows it played mean tricks after season 1 and i went into deprivation and broke down and said screw them. But I digress.

Re pre-reading on LOST:

I figure reading even just one episode ahead might
1. help me pass the time because i am agitated/bored other not good stuff. it is hard to concentrate i tend to be "skippy" but i am managing...
2. help me with the shock value if an episode is difficult... easier to read than to watch... as you say when it is a repeat it is less difficult... if i've read it i don't get hit from left field... kinda dilutes the expierence but maybe i need it diluted right now

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on a separate note

You've mentioned literary references ... here's one i noticed from the start but it struck me as really odd:

What do you think about John Locke having the name of a famous philosopher - but not just any philosopher - an EMPIRICIST!

Locke... especially at beginning is the big faith/destiny dude... there is even an episode early on which brings this out in a conflict with Jack our science guy "Man of Science, Man of Faith"

i can't figure it being a coincidence they chose that name for him....yet it seems like a contradiction in terms... at least for now....

~ waves ~

... especially not now that I've found out Desmond's last name is Hume!!!

Locke and Hume, well go figure!

So why then Desmond instead of David... I suppose further along I'll find out he changed his name or something....



~ waves ~

Yes. We get lots of name stuff. Sometimes the names go somewhere useful. Sometimes they are only distractions.

That is great to read first. It does lesson the impact.

Mari

Jack's father is Christian Sheperd

Danielle Rousseau -- Jean Jacques Rousseau was a Swiss philosopher and composer.

M

I went back and watched the Nate Fillion episode with the wedding and the surgery stuff. Then I watched Season 3 Episode 7 “Not in Portland” Somehow watching the wedding episode about two or three (?) episodes ago messed up my idea of the narrative.

Well, well well, "or something" indeed:

From the transcript of "Flashes Before Your Eyes" (S3 Ep8)

[Desmond in a second-hand shop]
So we have both John Locke and David Hume, two major empiricists - if this doesn't have some meaning then one or more of the screenwriters were having a pretty good chuckle when they decided these names.

I don't know anything about Rousseau's philosophy I'm afraid, I'd have to look it up, so I'll leave that aside for now. Also that is only a single last name. I'd have to research possible relationship matches... like a daughter or wife called Danielle.

I can deal with the presence of a name being incidental or coincidental, especially just a last name. Indeed at first, I thought "John" was just a common enough name and that "Locke" was a cute pun with his fighting with the "locked" hatch. But now, we have two characters with the full names of two contemporary and historically relevant empiricists.

NOW this is really bugging me, though!

John Locke and David Hume are both primary figures in the development of the empirical thinking used in science today.

While their philosophies have slight differences, neither refutes God or Faith - in fact these aspects are integral to both philosophies. Yet, the episode "Man of Science, Man of Faith", seems to want to point to distinct attributes of Jack and Locke (respectively) but in fact both would apply to Locke the philosopher... IN that order. I may have to review the transcript to see if what is attributed to Jack is more intrinsic to episode content, or more of an interpretation we are "encouraged" to have at that point in the series.

Oh dear I suppose we could write an essay on the similarities and differences... especially if we go fishing for similarities.... this is so bizarre.

Btw, Hume, the philosopher, was Scottish, just like "our Desmond".

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Am I starting to sound like a broken record?
Did you notice these two figures / the empiricist parallel before?
What did you / do you make of it - if anything?

~ waves ~

Waves,

These are some of the mysteries of Lost.
Some get answered and some do not.
in the case of these two characters there is a satisfying enough show down later.

Mari