LOST's Still Got It

My head is still spinning from LOST's Season Four premiere.

Like, that didn't happen for the first three seasons.

That was a crazy episode. I totally loved the Camaro chase scene. I knew it was gonna be a Hurley-centric episode, but I never imagined it would start with a chase scene featuring the Camaro that bonded Hurley and his dad when he was a kid. Awesome, man, awesome.

It was also nice to see Big Mike, Ana-Lucia's patrol partner.

But why did Hurley say he never met Ana-Lucia? He did! Is that one of the (possibly) many secrets the "Oceanic Six" are keeping from the rest of the world?

Speaking of which, who are the Oceanic Six? Obviously, Jack, Kate, and Hurley were rescued. Who are the other three? I can't assume that only the people who went with Jack were rescued because Hurley went with Locke and still got off the island. So who else? Sayid? Sun? Jin? Claire, with or without Aaron? Rose? Bernard? Juliet? Even Sawyer? Desmond?

And who is Matthew Abbadon? Is he really a lawyer for Oceanic Airlines? And what's up with his question that freaked Hurley out? Did anyone die when the Oceanic Six got off the island?

Anyway, what the heck was that in Jacob's cabin? Who was that in the rocking chair? Christian Shephard?! And whose eye was that?! Locke? Jacob himself? By the way, Hurley finally heard the mysterious Whispers!

The most shocking of all? Our dearly departed Charlie Hieronymus Pace appeared to Hurley, not once, but twice! First, in the convenience store. Second, on the mental hospital (still Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute?) grounds. Three, if you include Hurley's vision/dream (see below). But he's dead! DEAD! How was he able to slap Hurley and still be dead as a doorknob?! The other guy saw Charlie, as well.




By the way, I had hoped Desmond would try his darnedest to get Charlie's corpse out of the communications room of The Looking Glass. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to bring Charlie's body back. Awww...

Anyway, Charlie said while Hurley was counting to five (remember "Pilot Part 1" and "Not in Portland"?), "You know that they need you." They? Who was Charlie referring to? The people who were left behind on the island?

Was Charlie referring to the same "they" that Matthew Abbadon was?

Remember the scene where Big Mike was out of the interrogation room, getting a donut? Hurley's vision/dream mirrored Charlie's final moments in "Through the Looking Glass". But, instead of "Not Penny's Boat," it was "THEY NEED YOU."

Anyway, I almost wept when Claire (and the rest of the survivors) was looking for Charlie as she watched Sun and Jin, and Rose and Bernard reunite. That definitely broke my heart. Then I just about cried when Hurley was telling her that Charlie had died.

Pardon me if I mostly talked about Charlie. I miss him. I really do. I began to miss him a minute after watching the Season Three finale last May.

So. LOST's still got it. Kept me on the edge of my seat. Made me gasp when Naomi lived long enough to talk to Minkowski, when the mysterious eye filled the hole in Jacob's cabin, when Charlie re-appeared (can't help it), when the gun (the magazine) turned out to be empty.

Wow.

Seven days to go before the next episode!

Todd Bertuzzi Kicks the Maple Leafs' Butt

While I was having a horrible day, Todd Bertuzzi was having a fantastic night.

He picked up three points - one goal and two assists - in Anaheim Ducks' win over the Toronto Maple Leafs tonight.

According to the game's box score page on Yahoo Sports, Bertuzzi scored his seventh goal of the season within three minutes of the first period. Then he and Ryan Getzlaf fed Anaheim's leading goal scorer, Corey Perry, the puck in the last ten minutes of the first period. Perry shot and scored! In the first four-and-a-half minutes of the third period, Bertuzzi and Getzlaf - again! - assisted in Brandon Bochenski's first goal.

Two power-play goals by Doug Weight and Chris Kunitz finished Anaheim's five-goal rout of the Leafs.

Woohoo!

Todd Bertuzzi ended up with nearly 17 minutes of ice-time and three points - his first since coming to Anaheim.

And, oh, he ended up as the first star of the game!

As I understand, when an NHL team wins in a shutout, the goaltender usually becomes the first star. (Correct me if I'm wrong; I've only been a hockey fan for almost six years.) In this case, my favourite ex-Vancouver Canuck right winger was recognized as the first star.

Yay!

Obviously, I'm a Todd Bertuzzi fan (d'oh) and I've always believed he'll go back to his butt-kicking self on ice. Hopefully there'll be more games like this.

Mwah, Bert!

(And, of course, go Canucks go!)

Jack Shephard Speaks!

I chanced upon this Entertainment Weekly interview with Matthew Fox - the hottest actor to play an intense spinal surgeon on TV. He talked about the best season finale ever ("Through the Looking Glass"), his two new movies (Vantage Point and Speed Racer), and LOST's Season Four.

He also confirmed one of my theories regarding the season three finale. If you remember, while Jack was talking to (would arguing with be a better term?) the new Chief of Surgery, Dr. Rob Hamill (who's a hottie, by the way), he said this:

OK, I'll tell you what, you do this. You get my father down here, get him down here right now, and if I'm drunker than he is, you can fire me.

When asked about this, he answered:

He was so loaded and emotionally distraught that he talks about his father as if he's still alive.

And then he went on and described what Damon Lindelof told him and how it made sense. And it does, compared to what the other fans say - such as, the reason Christian's body was not in the coffin was that he was somehow brought back to life (by the Island? by Cerberus? by Jacob?) and that he is indeed alive in the flash-forward.

When asked about one of the mysteries generated by TTLG - the identity of the person in the coffin, the death of whom brought Jack to a suicide attempt - he replied:

It hasn't been revealed yet. I'm pretty sure I know who it is, but I'm not 100 percent sure.

Apparently, he got an answer from Damon, but who knows, the answer that he got may not be who it really is.

He was also asked about what we're going to expect in season four, with all the new characters created and the new cast members. I won't re-print it here. But that, of course, led to the most reviled characters in LOST (and probably all TV) history: Nikki Fernandez and the surname-less Paulo. He said, "Those characters didn't work for me from the very beginning." He called it an experiment, and he agreed with the virtually entire LOST fandom that it didn't work. Yay!

He also discussed the ripping that LOST got for its split season schedule, particularly the six-episode introduction to the major fun that began in "Not In Portland". Here's what he has to say about it:

I kind of liked that. There's something really frightening about when the bandwagon-jumping starts, when it's all the rage. That's when you're like, I don't believe that everybody that's doing this is a completely truthful Lost fan. So there's something cool about now — I know we've got 15 million people watching the show, and these people are the same 15 million that have been die-hards from Day One. Those are the ones that we're making it for.

Fantastic response! Of course, I'm one of those 15 million people.

He also talked about Racer X, his role in the film Speed Racer:

Racer X is all about mystery. And it's all about not just disguise of suit, but it's disguise of voice — he's, like, impenetrable....

I've actually seen a trailer of Speed Racer. With the black leather costume, Matthew Fox is even hotter. Although I probably won't see any Jackface with the black leather mask. Racer X looks like the exact opposite of Jack Shephard, which is absolutely fine. I may just not have the chance to smile and think, "Jackface," while I'm watching the movie.

But I think I will see at least one Jackface in his other movie, Vantage Point, which is set to be released on 22 February 2008 (wow, the 15th anniversary of my father's death). Look at this trailer I saw on YouTube.



He also talked about his film career.

There's no question. For me, it's more about my own quality of life. It's better for me to do films because it gives me much more flexibility in my life. I love the idea of becoming all-consumed in this one thing for four months, and then it's done, and I'm just floating around going, F---, I don't know what I'm doing next.

If you don't know this by now, I'm a big fan of Jack Shephard and Matthew Fox. No matter how flawed and how broken the character is, I still love him. Did I mention, he's hot too?

I cannot wait for Season Four! Twenty-seven days to go!