LOST
Season 4 Episode 2
“Confirmed Dead”
Written by Drew Goddard and Brian K. Vaughan
Directed by Stephen Williams
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

So just as Season 2’s new faces were the Tailies, and Season 3’s, the Others, this season brings us the Boat People, with this episode introducing a quartet of them, who also supply the episode’s 5 flashbacks, the fifth courtesy of the still apparently dead Naomi.

Daniel Faraday: physicist. Headcase. (And who better to play him than Jeremy Davies, who we got a glimpse of in last episode’s cliffhanger.)
Faraday’s flashback opens the episode, as he watches TV, inexplicably moved by the underwater footage of the “discovery” of the 815 wreck in the Sunda Trench.

Miles Straume: ghost whisperer. Played by Saw‘s and X-Men: The Last Stand’s Ken Leung (who joins fellow Sawer Michael Emerson on Lost), Straum can apparently communicate with the dead, and is not above making quick money off this talent.

Charlotte Staples Lewis: anthropologist. Played by Justice‘s Rebecca Mader, Lewis discovers the skeletal remains of a polar bear. In Tunisia. Wearing a Hydra Station collar.
So I guess someone figured out teleportation… (And just maybe, time travel, if that skeleton proves to be ancient…)

Frank Lapidus: Played by The Lawnmower Man’s Jeff Fahey, Lapidus is the pilot who was supposed to have been at the controls of 815 that fateful flight, but I guess he traded with poor Greg Grunberg.
And when he sees what’s supposed to be the skeleton of Grunberg on TV, he notices that the corpse isn’t wearing a wedding ring, and it should be…

Naomi’s flashback shows her talking to creepy Abaddon about the “team,” made up of Faraday, Straum, Lewis, and Lapidus.
She objects, since these aren’t field operatives, but Abaddon overrules her. Apparently, she was the head of this team, though it strikes me as an odd thing that she went off ahead of the team she was supposed to be leading…

Back on the Island, Daniel tells Jack and Kate that he bailed out of the helicopter, and that there are 3 other members of his team (all of whom are equipped with GPS transponders, that, acting in tandem with the NaomiPhones, can indicate where the others are). Jack and Kate are also quick to note that Daniel is armed. Oh, and Daniel says rescuing the 815ers isn’t their primary mission.
When they find Miles (thanks to the handy GPS thingamabob), he pulls a gun on Jack. Apparently, Naomi sending her love to her non-existent sister was a code phrase meaning she’d gotten into trouble with whoever she was with. Miles knows she’s dead and insists they take him to her. Kate says “A man named Locke killed her, but he isn’t with us anymore.”
Miles still insists on seeing Naomi’s body.

When they reach her body, Miles does the ghost whisperer thing and apparently makes contact with her; he says they told the truth, that she was indeed killed by this Locke person.
They’re about to move on, when Sayid and Juliet arrive and turn the tables on the Boat People.
They then pick up Charlotte’s GPS device, but it turns out to be attached to good old’ Vincent. (Yay, doggie!) So they now know that Charlotte is with the man who killed Naomi…
They then spot a flare, which turns out to be Frank, who was able to land the helicopter safely. Sayid checks out the helicopter, and except for some minor damage, it’s operational.
While Juliet tends to Frank’s scrapes though, he asks her what her name is, and notes that she wasn’t on 815’s manifest, and thus, was on the Island before the crash. A “native.”
Thus, the primary mission is revealed: they’re here for Ben…

Meanwhile, over with Locke and company…
On the way to the Barracks, they make a detour, and Locke says they’re headed for the cabin. Hurley says, “But isn’t it that way?”
Locke and Ben take note of this, though Hurley covers up by saying, “Oh, I thought you meant the cabin on the plane…”
Locke explains to Sawyer that he’s headed there to talk to Walt, who helped him after Ben shot him. (Ironically, Locke points out that if he still had his other kidney, the bullet would have hit it and he’d probably have died from it.)

They then find Charlotte, but of course are suspicious of her. So they take her GPS thingamabob and send Vincent traipsing off into the jungle with it. (Damn these people! Aren’t they worried the poor doggie’ll be accosted by Smokey?)
Ben then filches Karl’s gun off the poor sap and shoots Charlotte. She is, however, wearing a flak jacket, so she’s fine.
Ben however, is not.
Locke is about to shoot him (protests lodged by Alex and Claire), but Ben tries to buy himself time by saying he’s indispensable and that he still has answers that Locke needs.
So Locke asks, “What’s the Monster?” To which Ben replies, “I don’t know.” (Naturally.)
So Locke is about to shoot him for real now, but Ben starts to rattle off Charlotte’s full name, birthplace, schools attended, etc. etc.
He then says there are 3 others with her, and what their names are.
And he says he knows this because he has a mole on the freighter…

So this installment moves along at a nice clip, and I must say most of the new faces are interesting, particularly Daniel, since I’m a big believer in Jeremy Davies. (That early scene where he’s watching the TV, and the bit where he says the light doesn’t scatter right on the Island… Small scenes, but great nonetheless.)
Actually, the only new character that doesn’t really fire me up is Charlotte, though her flashback is great, since it’s got that polar bear skeleton in it…

And when Locke asks Ben what the monster is, is it just me or did that sound more like a question the fans are dying to know the answer to, as opposed to the first question Locke would want answered? I mean, didn’t he get a good look at it way back in Season 1? Didn’t he say it was like looking into the eye of the Island, or some such mystic blather?
Somehow, I guess I imagine Locke would ask something else, like, how did my father really get here? Or, how can I be seeing a Walt that’s older than he should be, and how can I be seeing him when he’s supposed to be off the Island?
In that moment, it just seemed like Locke was more a mouthpiece of the audience than a real character.

That cliffhanger meanwhile, where Ben claims he’s got an inside man…
That seems to me like some possibly manipulative BS on Ben’s part. I mean, who’s to say that wasn’t Jacob whispering into Ben’s ear?
Of course, Ben really could have a mole (and an astoundingly accurate memory), but I guess we’ll have to see what the deal is between the Boat People and why they want Ben so badly…

COUNTDOWN: 46

(Images courtesy of ABC and aol.com.)

PLANET TERROR
(Review)

Robert Rodriguez confuses me.
El Mariachi blew me away with its crackling, low budget ingenuity and I had high hopes for whatever Rodriguez would cook up next. What came after however, tended to disappoint, more than anything else.
Desperado just seemed to be El Mariachi on a Hollywood budget, Four Rooms (the anthology he contributed to alongside Quentin Tarantino, Alexandre Rockwell, and Allison Anders) seemed more self-indulgent than actually funny, The Faculty lacked the visual frenzy of Rodriguez’s audacious debut, Once Upon A Time in Mexico didn’t really come alive for me, and Sin City was little more than an interesting ultra-violent visual experience.
Then there are his kiddie movies (the Spy Kids flicks and The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lava Girl) which were clearly not made with me in mind.
Perhaps the only post-El Mariachi film Rodriguez helmed which I actually enjoyed was his team-up with Tarantino, From Dusk Till Dawn, a vampire movie which reveled in its B-movie roots.
The only one, that is, till I got to visit Planet Terror.

Originally one half of Grindhouse, Planet Terror is Rodriguez’s crazy-a$$ contribution to the raging subgenre of zombie cinema.
Here, a chemical is unleashed on an unsuspecting Texan populace, which mutates its victims into pustule-ridden monstrosities hungry for flesh. As per the template of your average zombie mash, Planet Terror follows a number of characters who eventually converge to become one ragtag group of survivors that must navigate the chaos of a world that’s suddenly gone Romero.
Among the motley crew are go-go dancer/aspiring stand-up comic Cherry Darling (Scream’s Rose McGowan), anesthesiologist Dakota Block (Marley Shelton, from Pleasantville and Sin City), and the mysterious El Wray (Six Feet Under’s Freddy Rodriguez). Along for the ride are biochemist/testicle fetishist Abby (Lost’s Naveen Andrews), would-be barbecue king J.T. (Jeff Fahey, set to appear in Season 4 of Lost), J.T.’s brother Sheriff Hague (former James Cameron collaborator Michael Biehn), and Deputy Tolo (make-up effects maestro Tom Savini). Oh, and a certain Earl McGraw (Michael Parks), who some of you may have seen in Tarantino’s Kill Bill saga as well as Death Proof. (Earl happens to be Dakota’s pop, and Dakota is also actually seen briefly in Death Proof.)

Populating this wild ride with these misfits, Rodriguez delivers a solid exercise in fun, B-movie schlock; this is the sort of tongue-in-cheek insanity that some low budget horror films can only hope to attain. Utilizing a good mix of old school practical make-up effects, digital effects, and painfully obvious dummies, Rodriguez showers the audience with over-the-top gore as the infected transform into oozing grotesqueries ready to chow down on the nearest live human being, while spurting copious amounts of the red stuff as they’re being gunned down, or run over, or chopper rotored, by El Wray and company.

Planet Terror is a runny, rowdy, four-cheese pizza without the dough. It’s messy and messed-up and one of the most lunatic popcorn flicks ever made for the midnight movie crowd.
At long last, Rodriguez is back in the game, and I am so looking forward to his remake of Barbarella, where he re-teams with McGowan (who has since become his real-life Cherry Darling).
Bring it on, baby!

Parting shot: Notable musical moments: Rose McGowan’s cover of “You Belong To Me,” which is played over the end title crawl, and, though it’s not my favourite cover of theirs, Nouvelle Vague’s “Too Drunk To F*ck,” which plays as QT tries to do something nasty to Cherry, only to have something really nasty happen to him…

Parting shot 2: Reportedly, Rodriguez is also set to turn his faux trailer from Grindhouse, Machete—which plays right before Planet Terror starts—into a full-fledged straight-to-DVD film.
More schlocky insanity! With Cheech Marin as a gun-toting priest! Brilliant!

(Planet Terror OS courtesy of impawards.com; images courtesy of ew.com; Robert Rodriguez on-set image courtesy of rollingstone.com.)