On this episode of the Cranky Fanatic Lost Podcast we cover LOST season 5, episode 3, titled “Jughead”. Wow. I mean…WOW! Jughead blew my mind. This episode is a perfect model for what I’m looking for in an episode of LOST. Enjoy the show, and be sure to join us live next week!

 

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I happened to be switching channels just at the exact right moment September 22, 2004 when I landed on ABC and saw an eye. Then the camera pulled back this dude in a suit was laying in the jungle… My timing couldn’t have been more perfect if I’d known what I was getting myself into.

I watched Season 1 by myself. Tuning in weekly to find out what happens next on this freaky island. Learning about the characters through their flashbacks and imagining I’d likely starve to death if I found myself in this situation.

I couldn’t wait for Season 2. Matt, a co-worker at the bar I worked at watched the show too, and since the bar was slow when the show was on, we’d get together there to watch it. Our boss hated it because he didn’t understand what was going on.

Just before Season 3 started, I had a desk job now, I went online during a slow work day to refresh my memory and get ready for the show to start again. I took a good long look at the blast door map which I naively thought held all the secrets to all the mysteries of the show. If only I looked at it long enough, I thought, I’d find the thing that was the answer.

I started seeking out other people’s possible interpretations of it through blogs and podcasts and found a whole new level to enjoy the show on. Like most people, I started with Jay and Jack, but I branched out to listening to most of them in headphones while I was at work thanks to The LOST Podcasting Network.

I enjoyed all the thoughts and theories coming at me, but I couldn’t help but feel like I was forgetting too much to keep up in the conversation. When Season 3 ended I decided to do a rewatch from the beginning to see if things take on a different cast once you know stuff you didn’t before.

Lucky for me, Josh and Amanda decided to do their own rewatch podcast. I spent the 9month long hiatus watching and discussing 2 episodes a week. The time flew and then there was Season 4.

By this time I’ve been listening to all the major podcasts and made some appearances here and there in the listener feedback sections. I’m full of trivia and I’m ready for anything Damon and Carlton want to throw at me. Bring it on.

I’m listening to Big-O and I’m thinking, I don’t know jack about torches, so it seemed reasonable to me that a big group of people could simultaneously light them all up at once… but what I want to know is how Claire is such a trendsetter that month after the plane crashed she has a haircut and a pair of jeans that will be fashionable 2 yrs in the future.

Big-O was kind enough to take me on board to write fashion reviews of the episodes, and I was just starting to feel like I was finding my voice when the show finished for the season.

I never did the last episode.

I meant to get to it. Right up until this week I was still swearing I was going to do it but for some reason I just couldn’t bring myself to.  In fact I stopped listening to most of the podcasts and I didn’t even rewatch the last episode until last week.

It’s not just me. All the LOST talk has sort of faded away over the last 9 mos. Its not that we’re less interested in the show, its that we learned from last time. When we spent 9 months over-analyzing every possible detail only to find out that the highly anticipated return of the show came with a whole bunch of new characters and plot lines we couldn’t possibly have predicted if we’d tried because we weren’t given enough information to.

The blast door map wasn’t that important, and any theories I had after Season 3 are pretty much blown completely out of the water now. The plot is so complicated now I can’t even devise another crazy stupid theory. And I’m pretty good at that.

I trust Damon and Carlton to tell me a fantastic and coherent story. At this point I really have no other choice but to trust them.

I look forward to online discussion with other uberfans like Big-O about Season 5 as is happens. I have every intention of doing fashion commentary as well. After all, with each new season comes new hairdos.

But I think we’ve all come to this place where we realize speculation is pointless because we’ll all be wrong.

The show started with the eye and they’ve been pulling back farther and farther and showing us more and more context and information. Since Damon and Carlton say they already know the last shot of the series, I’m holding onto my one and only theory that hasn’t been shot down, that the last shot will be the whole world, or the whole universe, after they’ve told us the whole story.

I’m probably wrong about that too.

It totally works on you whether you’re alive or dead; in the past, present or future; if you’re real or imaginary. The key to pulling this off this dramatic look is to be sure to be somewhere no one would expect you when you finally show your face.

But never mind that now because Sawyer’s not wearing a shirt.

Yeah, we all know it makes no sense that he’d swim out of his shirt but leave his jeans on… but that was sooooo last season. What makes sense this season is that he’d be so concerned with looking for a shirt when he’s tromping around the jungle barefoot.

Luckily Frogurt was wearing two long sleeved shirts (while living on the beach on a tropical island) that got caught in the weird time travel flashes so that Sawyer gets to have a shirt that will come with him. He shoulda stole his shoes.

As many of us suspected, The ‘crazy’ was all in Jack’s beard.

Forehead band-aids, also sooooo last season.
Even Frank Lapedis took his off so you know it’s a trend that’s over.

Yellow is the color of the season as seen here modeled by Desmond:

and Hurley:

Big-O has pointed out how rare it is to get any T-shirt in such a large size at your average gas station, but you can get your very own knockoff  yellow “I heart my Shih-Tzu” T-shirt in sizes up to 4x here.

Meanwhile, Sun was looking very job interview for her unscheduled business meeting with Widmore, who apparently just sort of hangs around in the back room at the airport in case she should show up.

So who the hell are these guys? and when are they for that matter? They’re wearing what looks like green military uniforms. Not brown like the others/hostiles and no Dharma logos. They’ve got names sewn onto their jackets. This guy’s called “Jones” and he seems to have an English accent and he thinks its his group’s island.

I’m inclined to think he’s from a past era when the island belonged to Widmore but whatever the case I’m sure we’ll find out that Mr. Jones is deep down just a guy who had daddy issues and got thrown into extraordinary circumstances.

Penny and Desmond are still together three years in the future. They both still seem to like boats and Penny doesn’t wear pants even though she doesn’t believe he’s really time traveling in his sleep. Oh come on Penny. by now that should be a concept that’s part of your life.

And then there’s the ring lady. Looking very ’space age’ in her hooded cloak with her old computers. Shouldn’t she be using the Windows 7 Beta to calculate and determine whatever she’s calculating and determining? Isn’t it 2009 in this scene? Surely the iphone can do whatever that 1980’s computer of hers does, only with a lot more style plus she could surf the web, get her email and use it as an mp3 player too.

Well that’s all for these two episodes…. Hopefully we’ll get to see the future one day which will no doubt be all-white home decor, and everyone wears metallics and has robot butlers.

Back to you Big-O!

On this episode of the Cranky Fanatic Lost Podcast we talk about the Lost season 5 premiere!! At last, LONG LONG LAST, Lost is finally back! Season 5 is off to a great start, and we had a great discussion about it.

 

 Standard Podcast [1:18:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

It’s currently one week from the premere and just to clear things up for people who keep asking me questions:

1. YES I will be doing a live show for the premier next week. The talkshoe show is already schedualed, the chatroom will open at 8pm Eastern time on Jan 21st. Please join us!
2. NO I did NOT get an advanced screeners copy of the premier like certain other podcasts did. I think ABC didn’t trust me enough to give it a good review. And I can’t blame them for that, cause I would totally rip on it if I don’t like it. The season openers are usually pretty good though, so I don’t expect to be disapointed.