HEROES
Season 3 Episode 2
Volume Three: “Villains”
Chapter Two: “The Butterfly Effect”
Written by Tim Kring
Directed by Greg Beeman
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

“You have no idea of the fire that you’re playing with. You don’t screw with time.”
-- Mama P

Say what?! (In reaction to Mama P’s big cliffhanging reveal, and not the quote above.)
Urrrr… this better be some cockamamie scheme on Mama P’s part, ‘cause if not, why are we dipping into hackneyed soap opera territory? (Wasn’t Peter’s amnesia last season bad enough?)
And while I’m happy to see a bigger role for Mama P, given that she’s now in charge thanks to the Company’s chain of command, I am terribly disappointed that Bob has now suffered one of those thankless Heroes deaths: blink, and the character’s history. (And it happens off-screen to boot.)
And now poor Elle’s out of a job… but only after she inadvertently causes the escape of about a dozen powered lowlifes from Level 5 (when she lets out a massive electrical discharge as Sylar is cutting her head open, she causes the power grid to go down, and presto, escaped supervillains).


That escape gets Mr. B out as well, and he runs off into the night, but only after ensuring Sylar’s confinement (which Mama P looks about to rescind, thanks in part to the reveal that, gasp, he’s her son!).
Sigh.
As I said though, maybe this is Mama P trying to manipulate Sylar into doing her bidding, by giving him a mother figure by claiming to be his real mother.
Gods, I hope so.


So Mr. B heads back home, to have a brief reunion with Claire, and is set to go off again, to take down the Level 5 escapees.
But not before he brings back Claire’s pyrokinetic bio-mom Meredith, to keep his family safe.
Hurrah!
And I say that without sarcasm, as, honestly, this was one of the few high points of the episode. I just hope that Meredith is on the level here, ‘cause she did seem a tad mercenary the last time we saw her…

Oh, and one of the Level 5 escapees, Jesse Murphy (played in a little bit of stunt casting by Veronica Mars alum, Francis Capra), is where scarred Peter-from-the-future “put” the real Peter. (Does Future Boy feel like such a d!ck now, or what? Is a portion of Volume Three basically just cleaning up the idiot mess he caused by gunning down Nathan, while the other is cleaning up Hiro’s idiot mess?)
So now Capra gets to share screen time with Milo Ventimiglia in the role of supervillain on the lam (does Capra get half a paycheck then?)
Jesse’s power: sound manipulation.


And my mention of The Fly in response to Mo’s totally irresponsible “oh, I’ll inject myself with an untested compound because I am so conflicted and tortured right now” moment?
Well, what do we have here but a scene straight out of Cronenberg’s remake, where a shirtless Mo is hanging off the rafters, then does some wall-climbing? He then makes the moves on Maya, who succumbs to his shirtless charms, and ends up in bed with him.
Of course, he wakes up in the middle of the night, and, well, he seems to be… flaking. Or something.
You know, he’s looking in the mirror, very Fly-like, and there are some odd looking patches of skin on his back that are coming off.
Sigh.
So we’re raiding soap operas and sci fi remakes.


Meanwhile, Nathan’s Linderman appears to be a figment of his imagination.
Gods, Nathan is certifiable.
Either that or Linderman (who is supposed to be dead) is just invisible to everyone else, but that’s just plain silly, right?
Heh.
Nathan, by the way, takes the offer for the junior Senator seat, provided Tracy-who-looks-exactly-like-Nikki will be on his team.


Oh, and Tracy-who-looks-exactly-like-Nikki? Well, she apparently has the power to instantaneously deep freeze anyone she touches, and of course, when a human insta-popsicle falls to the ground, the body shatters, leaving itty bitty bits of bloody ice all over the place.
Ick.
(The poor sap who gets the messy death? The Greatest American Hero himself, William Katt! Stunt casting, hurrah!)

And Parkman?
‘Ported to Africa, where he meets Usutu (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine), who knows Parkman’s name, and claims that he shouldn’t be there, and that this is not the future he painted.
Another Isaac?
Oh, and Usutu is apparently the one who painted that cracking globe symbol which Parkman saw in the previous episode.
(And why hasn’t anyone wondered what happened to Parkman? Has no one noticed that’s he’s gone missing?)


Hiro (I’m the idiot who’s responsible for that dangerous half-formula being stolen by some super-speedster, and can’t I see that how I’m treating Ando could very well turn him against me?) Nakamura on the other hand, has a plan to track Daphne the super-speedster and catch her before she steals the other half of the formula.
Fine, let’s see how that pans out, though why do I get the feeling that won’t work out too well either?


Claire, meanwhile, realizes that she now can feel no pain, which troubles her deeply since, despite her extraordinary regeneration, what kept her grounded and human before was the fact that she could still feel pain.
Now, while I admit that’s an interesting turn of events, the “attempt #7” scene is curiously lacking in the emotional weight department. I’m not sure if the greenscreen is totally to blame (as such shots always seem to be bereft of any genuine tension due to their artificiality), but it certainly doesn’t help any.

Meanwhile, Mama P has a disturbing (and rather comic book-y) dream where some of the heroes are shown being defeated/killed by a bunch of baddies, which include Nikki (or whatever the hell her name is) and Parkman Sr.


Well, I can’t say that that was significantly better than the first hour, and I have to say that this troubles me a bit.
After the largely slapdash and compromised affair that was Volume Two, I had hoped that this third volume would waste no time and from the opening, immediately detonate at ground zero and recapture the glory of the golden age of Heroes (back in Season 1, when Bryan Fuller was still in the house).
Sadly, that didn’t happen.
There are still too many characters running about, and worse, some of them are acting rather idiotically, apparently just to kick-start some subplots.
And then there’s that whole Sylar-as-long-lost-Petrelli-son reveal.
Urg.


Well, hope springs eternal, and there’s always next week for another shot at redemption…

Parting shot: In the lag between the time the premiere aired, I got to see it and wrote this review, and today, when I finally got to post the review, news broke regarding the “letting go” of Heroes co-executive producers Jeph Loeb and Jesse Alexander. (Details here and here.)
As much as this came as a shock, how this will affect the show is also at the forefront of my mind.
It has already been indicated that Kring will be “simplifying” the storytelling, and “refining the tone of the show.” There’s also a bit about—thank Heavens—“emphasiz[ing] character development more than plot twists.”
I imagine the exact repercussions of this sudden shake-up will become evident sometime in the second half of the current season, during Volume Four (reportedly titled “Fugitives”).
Though it does seem like Loeb and Alexander have been shafted—and who exactly did the shafting is up for debate—this does present yet another opportunity for the show to clean up its act (if Loeb and Alexander were indeed the problematic pieces in the Writers’ Room).
Like I said, hope springs eternal. Let’s see, shall we?

(Images courtesy of comicbookresources.com, gregbeeman.blogspot.com, and eonline.com.)

ENTOURAGE
Season 3 Episode 18
“The Resurrection”

It’s the day of the premiere of Five Towns on NBC, and the reviews are out, but Drama wants nothing to do with them, so he spends the day trying to relax. But it’s as he’s getting a “massage” that he succumbs to checking out the Variety review, much to his aggravation.
One confrontation with a TV reviewer later, and Drama’s in a proper funk.

Meanwhile, Turtle picks up Drama’s car, which the boys have had restored at Rufus’ Body Shop (Rufus, who got them their home system in Season 2, is now into cars, apparently). While waiting at the shop, Turtle meets Kelly, Rufus’ daughter, who’s also a sneaker freak. (Turtle later describes her as “… like me, but with tits.”)
One minor car crash later, and Turtle’s got himself a date.

Meanwhile still, Vince and E head into Ari’s office, and though Ari thinks the boys are back, they’re really only there to tell Ari to resuscitate Medellin. Knowing this is the one way he can get Vince back as a client, Ari ropes in Joe Roberts, producer of Matterhorn, the film Vince passed on way back in the Entourage pilot.
Apparently Matterhorn hasn’t gotten made yet, as Colin Farrell (who signed up to star in it) broke his arm weeks before filming was to start. So, seeing Vince’s fervent desire to do Medellin, Joe proposes a back-scratching: Vince does Matterhorn first, then they do Medellin.
But Vince still doesn’t want to do Matterhorn, and Roberts announces he’s considering buying the Medellin script. So Vince does what he can do: he decides to buy the Medellin script, with the long-term plan of producing the film himself. In what is one of the best scenes in the episode, E puts up every penny he has behind Vince’s scheme, once again confirming the depths of his friendship with Vince, and his faith in him.
And Vince is willing to put the Aquamansion up for sale just to buy the script.
One call to Roberts later (in which he talks about his days as a P.A. on Apocalypse Now), and Vince is the proud owner of 150 pieces of paper, and Ari’s got the prodigal client back.

Oh, and one pilot premiere later, and Drama’s in a hit TV show.

(Image courtesy of hbo.com.)

LOST
Season 3 Episodes 22 & 23
(WARNING: SPOILERS)
“Through the Looking Glass” 1 & 2

Gentlemen, I asked you to dazzle me after enduring “Stranger in a Strange Land.”
Well, I’m officially blinded.
That has to go down as not just the best Lost season finale thus far, but also one of the most kick-a$$ season finales in all of TV history. When they said that this finale would change everything, that wasn’t just hyperbole.
I could go on about the twisty-turns of the episode itself (and it had that in spades), but the ultimate twisty-turn is that brilliant climax, of Jack, by the airport, as Kate drives away, because “he” might be wondering where she’s gone to.
Once again, Lost deftly toys with the show’s story structure, as what we assume to be the flashbacks (of a depressed and suicidal Jack hooked on prescription meds), turn out to be the present, and all the Island stuff is actually the flashbacks.
I said there were spoilers, didn’t I?

So it seems as if the Flight 815 crash survivors were indeed saved and rescued from the Island (at the cost of Charlie, who drowned in the Looking Glass station, just as Des saw in his flashes*).
Just before the off-screen rescue though, three crucial points:
1) Ben says that Naomi is “one of the bad guys,” and that she’s part of a group that’s been looking for the Island for a really long time, and that they would kill Jack and the survivors, not rescue them.
2) When Charlie gets the transmission from Penny at the Looking Glass, she does not know who Naomi is, and has no idea about any boat.
3) Locke actually kills Naomi and threatens to shoot Jack, since contacting Naomi’s people is the wrong thing to do.

And then of course, in the “flashbacks,” Jack is clearly a lost soul, and in his clandestine meeting with Kate, he says they should never have left the Island, and that they need to go back.

This is such a crackerjack finale, “brilliant” seems like an understatement. That ultimate twisty-turn opens the door to a whole host of possibilities, and raises all sorts of questions. (My head is doing a Linda Blair even as I type this.)
Whose viewing did Jack attend? A viewing apparently no one else from 815 went to. Locke’s? Michael’s? (Yes, I still hate the a$$hole’s guts.) Ben’s?
What happened to all the rest of the 815ers? Is Jack the only one who feels something is wrong, or are some of the others “lost” as well? (Heh. “Others.” “Lost.”)
Rousseau said she would stay on the Island since that was where she belonged. Is she still there? Is Alex? Is Locke? (If he wasn’t the one in that casket.)
As Jack suffers, where is Juliet? They did do the kissy-face back on the Island, so where is she in Jack’s time of need?
And did Kate really end up with Sawyer?
So many questions…

And of course, the other reality here is, Lindelof, Cuse, and company have again (for the time being) managed to evade addressing long-standing Island questions, among them one from all the way back to the Pilot (What is the Monster Alternately Known As Smokey?), to ones of more recent mint (Who is Jacob?), to the Mother of all Lost questions (What is the Island?**).

Having said that though, I cannot deny the guts it took to make that leap. I also cannot deny the skill with which that leap was made.
That was explosive television, gentlemen. The storytelling on this show continues to be some of the best on the cathode ray horizon, and as Carrie Fisher said over On The Lot, “My hat, wherever it is, is off to you.”

And thanks for not having Sun die horribly in labor on the Island. (Of course, for all I know, she and her baby have been abducted by Dharma or some other mysterious organization to undergo insidious tests. Her baby, after all, is the first child to have been conceived on the Island in what I guess is a very long time, assuming of course that the baby is alive and well.)
Speaking of babies, when exactly will Jack find out that Claire is his half-sister and that Aaron is his half-nephew? I mean, wasn’t that bit of info in the files the Others had on the 815ers? Didn’t Juliet read that? Surely Ben did.

Let’s just toss that on the massive pile of Lost questions, shall we?
I’ll admit it: I love this show, but it’s the biggest tease on television.
Onward ho! Season 4!

* Incredibly moving, but couldn’t Charlie have squeezed through that porthole, once the room was filled with water? And did he really need to shut the door in the first place?

** I’ve got a theory which grew over the course of season 3, and burst into my consciousness as I watched the 2-hour finale. But somehow I’d still feel like a raving lunatic if I voiced it here.
Tell you what. When Lost finally does that reveal, I’ll admit whether I was right or wrong.

COUNTDOWN: 48.
COUNTDOWN TO RESUME IN 2008.
THE DHARMA INITIATIVE NEEDS YOU.

(Season 3 promotional image courtesy of atnzone.com.)

ENTOURAGE
Season 3 Episode 17
“The Return of The King”

The whole Medellin thing comes to a head (as Ari said it would 4 episodes back) on Yom Kippur, of all days; and we all know how many Hollywood types are circumcised, right?
It seems Benicio’s walked away from the project (as has Paul Haggis, as we find out later on), and the producers need a star in place before sundown, or the project collapses.
But it’s Yom Kippur, and the fasting and the moratorium on business deals has to remain in place… till sundown.
With Ari’s regular cell phone as well as his BatPhone confiscated by Mrs. Ari, Ari slinks around with the producer’s son, making deals with Amanda in the back alley of Temple by the dumpsters!
Ari does his best to pull the deal together (ostensibly representing the co-producer, as he’s no longer Vince’s manager), but in the end, the deal falls apart.
Agreeing with E that Ari would have never let the ball drop on this one, Vince confronts Amanda, and though it’s made clear that this really wasn’t her fault, they still go their separate ways.

Meanwhile, there’s a subplot involving Johnny Drama and a race horse who happens to be the grandson of a horse that Johnny bet on years ago, and from whose winnings he bought a Lincoln that the whole gang remembers.
Though the horse loses, Drama ends up buying him as it looks like the owner’s about to send “King” off to the glue factory. But Drama spends a whole lot more than he bargained for on King’s upkeep, so he gives the horse to Ed Burns as a gift, much to Burns’ daughter’s glee.
And though that subplot is serviceable enough, the meat of the episode is in the Medellin subplot, as it picks up the thread of the long-running storyline, becomes the catalyst for the end of Vince’s professional and personal relationship with Amanda, and paves the way for next episode’s goings-on.

(Image courtesy of hbo.com.)

LOST
Season 3
Episode 21
(WARNING:
SPOILERS)
“Greatest Hits”

Now this is Lost at its best, when the emotion which accompanies the focused character’s story is potent and incredibly moving, while the Island story’s plot is cruising at a rapid clip. The success is all the more notable in that the Island story isn’t just “cruising at a rapid clip” in this particular episode, it’s careening into overdrive as we speed on towards this season’s finale.

Charlie’s the focus this time out, as he learns from Des that he needs to die in order for Claire and Aaron to get on board a helicopter, apparently to get rescued. It seems Charlie will flick a switch, and then drown, and this event has to take place, in order for the “rescue” to occur.
So, facing his impending death with as much courage as he can muster, Charlie sets out to write a list of the 5 best moments of his “sorry excuse for a life,” his Greatest Hits, spurred on by Naomi mentioning that his “death” in the Oceanic 815 crash caused a big stir, and even led to a new DriveShaft album, a Greatest Hits package.

And herein are some of the most moving bits in Charlie’s story thus far. Weighted by all the emotional baggage that his character carries (and which we’ve been privy to over the past 3 seasons), we’re in on the process of letting go, just as Charlie is. The journey is astoundingly moving, and I guess I should’ve been psyching myself out for that goodbye, given that Charlie’s death has been in the cards since early on in this season, but there you go.
Man, this was a toughie to get through, what, with all his goodbyes, to Claire, Aaron (you left the ring in the crib! Doofus!), and Hurley.
And then, the apparent last minute reprieve, as Des offers Charlie an out, but Charlie opts for the Ferro Lad Gambit. (Sorry, comic book reference. In case that went over your head, Bruce Willis pulled the Ferro Lad Gambit too, in Armageddon.)
And then!
Oooh, these sneaky little buggers!
You get all worked up and prepare yourself for Charlie buying it at episode’s end… and he doesn’t! Some gun-toting women are in the Looking-Glass Station and they’ve got Charlie in their sights.
Great. Now I’ll have to go and psych myself out from square one all over again…

Parting shot 1: I’m sure the Lost people know this, but Michael Giacchino is such a prize. Man, he does know how to rachet up the suspense with that score.

Parting shot 2: That was Nadia, right? In Covent Garden, with Charlie? If that was, then she’s crossed paths with 3 survivors thus far: Sayyid, of course, and Charlie, and Locke. I guess she really must’ve gotten around in her life as a fugitive.

Parting shot 3: Wow. I didn’t even get to talk about the Island story…
Okay, Lemme just say, I apologize for not trusting Rousseau and her motives for raiding the Black Rock’s store of dynamite. Apparently, it was for Jack’s scheme to get back at the Others (Jack, who I also mistrusted for a spell back there; sorry, the Island doesn’t really foster trust, if you know what I mean).
Oooh, we’re leading up to a doozy, aren’t we? With the shooters staying behind, and the rest hiking to the radio tower…
Next up, the two-part finale, with Jack as spotlight character.

COUNTDOWN: 50

(Image courtesy of sparklies.org.)

LOST
Season 3
Episode 20
(WARNING:
SPOILERS)
“The Man
Behind the
Curtain”

Okay, that’s a cliffhanger. Locke, shot, in a pit filled with the corpses of the Dharma contingent Ben had a hand in exterminating.
The man is a stone cold lunatic.

While back at the camp, it becomes clear that Juliet has told Jack about Ben’s nefarious plans to abduct Sun (and any other pregnant survivors) and that Jack has been (presumably) hatching his own scheme (I apologize for not fully trusting Jack; probably lingering resentment for his having been the primary reason I had to endure “Stranger in a Strange Land,” arguably this season’s lowest point) to deal with the problem.
So everyone’s apparently on the same page now. I already apologized for calling Juliet a “two-faced lying slag,” but somehow, I still can’t bring myself to entirely trust her. Like I said, if she busts her a$$ to help Sun, then maybe.

Of course, the major focus of the episode is Ben and what he’s lied about and what he hasn’t.
“Born on this island,” my a$$. Liar.
I mean, this is the man responsible for the “hostile” takeover of the Barracks. Sure, he had a pretty miserable life, with a father who blamed Ben for the death of his mother (and perhaps herein lies the fuel for Ben’s crusade to get women to come to full term on the Island; so that other kids won’t have to endure the hell he went through), but he ends up not just killing his old man (thus giving us the back story of the VW van Hurley and company had a joy ride in in “Tricia Tanaka Is Dead,” and justifying that episode’s existence) but paving the way for the slaughter of all the other Dharma people.

And what is up with “Jacob”?
That was a masterly sequence, stretching out the question of whether Ben was completely bugf*ck crazy, talking to an apparently empty chair, then all hell breaking loose when Locke unwisely shines that flashlight (Ben did warn him that Jacob felt the same way about technology as Locke did. Refresh my memory though, ‘cause Locke never struck me as a Luddite).
Of course, it really all could have been some elaborate parlour trick, but that just seems too far-fetched (says he, as opposed to the idea of a man seen by one man but not seen by another, who hears him when the other doesn’t; that’s not far-fetched at all, is it?).

And here, I thought we’d see about the whole Alex thing, but of course, we don’t. We also don’t see what happened to Annie, though I imagine Ben got her pregnant and she died. (More personal fuel for his crusade to make the Island a conception-safe zone.)
But really, weren’t those dolls Annie gave him just creepy?
And why does Richard look like he’s younger than Ben, when he’s not?

Crackerjack episode, gentlemen.
I continue to be dazzled, as does my iguana.

(Image courtesy of sparklies.org.)

ENTOURAGE
Season 3 Episode 16
“Gotcha!”

It’s the morning after Amanda and Vince’s one time thing, and they’re in the tub together, with E trying in vain to get in touch with Vince. Afterwards, Vince sends her flowers. (Yup. Definitely a one time thing.)

Meanwhile, Drama gets into a verbal altercation with UFC champ Chuck “The Iceman” Liddell over a parking spot and ends up in the octagon with him (all part of the long-range, two-fold master plan of Drama’s arch-nemesis Pauly Shore—their history stretching back to Season 2’s “Aquamansion”—for his new hidden camera show, Gotcha).

And on the Ari front, Ari’s frat brother Scott stays over with his hot fiancée and Ari finds himself getting jealous of this ex-loser’s success. The subplot winds down with Ari and Mrs. Ari having hot monkey love anyway, so it’s all good. (It’s great that Mrs. Ari is getting some.)*

Before the episode wraps up, E finds out about Vince’s “one time thing” and ends up talking about it with Amanda, who admits she may like Vince after all. And when Vince hears this, he says he may like Amanda after all too…
I’ll say it again: Complication, anyone?

* Seriously though, it’s one of the great things about this show, Ari’s loving relationship with his wife. I mean, they have problems, but they really do sincerely love each other.

(Image courtesy of hbo.com.)

LOST
Season 3
Episode 19
(WARNING:
SPOILERS)
“The Brig”

Given the pet theory I’ve been nursing for quite awhile now (that Locke’s scumbag dad is the conman responsible for Sawyer’s childhood tragedy), I quickly smelled Locke’s lie. Still, it led to one of the most intense sequences this season, as Sawyer is trapped in the Black Rock with the man who destroyed his life and single-handedly made James the man he is today. (A sequence that also led directly into one of the most morbid endings I’ve ever seen on network television.)
Ultimately though, Locke used Sawyer. Sure, dear old Daddy deserved it, and yes, the old fart is responsible for Sawyer’s pain as well, but Locke used James. How honest is that in Locke’s journey to discover the Island’s mysteries?
At any rate, Sawyer now has the evidence of Juliet’s hidden agenda, so, uh-oh, Julie baby…

Speaking of mysteries though, so Juliet and Jack are sharing a secret, a secret Juliet says they should share with Kate, but Jack resists that idea. What is up with that? Has she told Jack about her secret tapes to Ben? (He was nosing around Sun last episode…)
I still think it was a mistake to tell Jack about Naomi (Parachute Girl has a name now) and the high-tech satellite phone thingie, but hey, let’s see where that goes.

Meanwhile, another of the many theories regarding the nature of the Island is tossed out there and apparently shot down. Here, it’s “the Island is Hell”; in episode 2.18 (“Dave”), it was “the Island is someone’s wild imagining.”
Of course, based on Daddy’s story of how he got to the Island, it seems that Ben’s “magic box” isn’t only a metaphor, it’s an outright lie. The man is such a mindf*cker.
So to the outside world, Oceanic 815 crashed into the ocean and all the passengers died. Is that a massive cover-up, or what? So if Dharma is keeping the gears moving so efficiently out there, how can they not know what’s going on on the Island?

Meanwhile again, Rousseau is scrounging around the Black Rock for dynamite? Whatever for? Honestly, I’m still dubious about the whole Alex is my daughter/Alex is Ben’s daughter/Ben conveniently stepped in one of Rousseau’s traps deal, that I’m leery about her motives. But, as with telling Jack about Naomi, let’s see where this one goes too.

Heading into this season’s home stretch, people.
And yes, gentlemen, you are dazzling us. (See Lost Episode 9 review. Archive: March 2007.)

(Image courtesy of aol.com.)

LOST
Season 3
Episode 18
(WARNING:
SPOILERS)
“D.O.C.”

Crackerjack cliffhanger right there!
But let’s backtrack, shall we?

So Eyepatch Dude is still alive?! And Desmond makes a deal with him to help Parachute Girl (who’s apparently multi-lingual like nobody’s business). Urg. These people.
And what does Eyepatch Dude do? He tries to steal the satellite phone thingie. And they still let him go!
Why do I think Charlie’s supposedly impending demise will have something to do with Eyepatch Dude? If so, it’ll all be on Des’ head, for letting the bugger go.

Meanwhile, Juliet helps Sun by bringing her to the medical station, where an ultrasound machine is kept in a secret room. The size of the fetus can help them determine when Sun conceived. If it was off the Island, then fantastic; if it was on, then she’s in the deep doo-doo I mentioned in my review 2 episodes back.
And in the flashbacks, we see Sun as a newly-married woman, approached by Jin’s mother, whom Jin was told was dead. Well, not only is she alive, she’s also an ex-prostitute! So Sun is blackmailed into getting the woman a hundred thousand dollars (I think was the sum) to keep her mouth shut regarding her former profession, money Sun asks from her father.
Interestingly enough, the price of her father giving her the money is that he’ll “promote” Jin, which is how Jin ended up being Mr. Paik’s enforcer!
In all of this, there are a bunch of really great scenes: Sun secretly meeting her father-in-law; Sun and her father, making the deal that will get all that blood and guilt on Jin’s hands; Sun and Juliet, in the medical station, where she confesses to her infidelity with bald hotel owner guy.
Man, I’ve always loved Sun, and this episode was a motherlode of Sun Moments.

Of course, she’s got about two months left to live, so… arrrggghhhh!!!
As it turns out, the baby is Jin’s. (Apparently, just as the Island is particularly brutal to pregnant females, it also ups a guy’s sperm count into the stratosphere; in Jin’s case of being infertile, well, it apparently just made him fertile. What a chauvinistic Island!)
So Sun’s got this death sentence on her now. (First Charlie, now Sun!)

And Juliet’s making tapes for Ben. And apparently remorseful about it.
Okay. Sorry for calling Juliet a “two-faced lying slag.”
Still.

And back to that cliffhanger.
Parachute Girl comes to and says that Oceanic 815 was found, and that there were no survivors…
Hmmmmm…

Parting shot: Fine. If Juliet really busts her a$$ to save Sun’s life, then maybe I’ll consider getting her off my Sh*t List.

(Image courtesy of sparklies.org.)

ENTOURAGE Season 3
Episode 14
“Dog Day Afternoon”

Vince continues to dodge Amanda’s calls, holding out for Medellin, while Sam Mendes expects an answer soon.
With that biz bit as backdrop, this episode is pretty much relationship stuff: Eric tries to plan a vacation with Sloane without Vince as tag-along; Turtle and Drama pick up girls at a dog park, with Arnold as bait (finally! A subplot with Arnold playing a pivotal role); Ari gets Lloyd to help rope in a gay client.
It’s that last subplot that’s probably the most interesting, as not only do we see Ari maneuvering his way through a crowded dance floor in a gay club (“No touching! Civilian!”), but he surprises once again, showing us his humanity by rescuing Lloyd from a compromising situation.
All this, catalyzed by a Donna Summer song about a hooker!* Brilliant.
Ari whips out a fantastic metaphor, Lloyd has a great scene at the club, and we see Mrs. Ari. Yay!! (I love Mrs. Ari.)

* Did I say “hooker”? Sorry. I meant “waitress.” (Heh.)

Parting shot: I may have initially missed Emily after she moved on to work with James Cameron, but I didn’t miss her for long. (Sorry, Samaire.) Lloyd is such a great character, and is a fantastic counter-balance to Ari. Given that the boys’ camaraderie is often something that we take for granted in the show, the Ari-Lloyd relationship is actually the most fascinating one to watch, and this episode brings that pairing further.

(Image courtesy of aol.com.)

LOST
Season 3
Episode 17
(WARNING:
SPOILERS)
“Catch-22”

Like Hurley said, this is future crap.
So it’s Des and his flashes, and being placed in a situation where he must choose if he’s willing to sacrifice Charlie for the sake of the possibility that Penny’s about to arrive on the Island. (Catch-22, indeed.)
We also see Des’ brief life in a monastery, making wine, before he’s whisked off by Penny. (Huh. First Eko’s stint as a priest, and now Desmond. What is it about Lost and men of the cloth? Maybe Kate was a nun for awhile…)
Speaking of Kate, she can be such a doofus. After making her solid choice back in the cages, now she’s hurt ‘cause Jack is making time with that two-faced lying slag Juliet, and she jumps Sawyer’s bones. At least Sawyer was canny enough to figure out he was being used. (And isn’t that cute? He gave her a mix tape…)
Getting back to Des, it’s an interesting perspective he voices, that maybe his flashes are a test. Maybe the test is knowing all this is inevitable and resisting the urge to change what he sees.
I was also about 94.6% sure that it wasn’t gonna be Penny there, hanging dead from the tree. I certainly didn’t wait for almost a year just to have her wind up on the Island, dead.
But really, who was that?!

(Image courtesy of sparklies.org.)

ENTOURAGE
Season 3
Episode 13
(WARNING:
SPOILERS)
“Less Than 30”

After, what, a four month break, the boys are back, and look who their new hottie agent is: Amanda, played by Carla Gugino!
And speaking of breaks, that’s sort of the way Vince and Ari are acting, as if they were once an item and now they’re on the outs. (E makes an interesting point: outside of Mrs. Chase and the guys, Ari’s is the longest relationship/friendship Vince has had.)
All this tension (and yes, jealousy) comes to a head when, ostensibly as a birthday gift, Ari gives Vince the script for Medellin (which was once a bone of contention in light of the Aquaman franchise; of course, Benicio Del Toro ended up with Medellin, and Vince was passed over for Aquaman 2). Amanda’s understandably annoyed by that, and Ari makes his pitch at Vince’s party.
It’s a great scene, where it’s pretty clear that beneath all the agent schmooze, this is really just a friend reaching out to another, hoping to salvage the relationship. And the thing is, with Ari, his friendship with Vince is all wrapped up and intertwined with their being agent and client. (Perhaps not the best set-up, but there you have it.)
And though Vince says all they really can be at this point is friends, he holds back on signing a deal to make an Edith Wharton adaptation with Sam Mendes, just to see if the whole Medellin thing pans out the way Ari claims it will.

Parting shot: It’s too bad the Carla Gugino-headlined Threshold was cancelled. One of the Lost clones to storm the network schedules in 2005, Threshold was a great X-Files throwback I enjoyed.
Maybe that was its downfall, though. Classic case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. If it had come out during the whole X-Files boom, it would have been a rip-off. In 2005, when it premiered, it was probably a little too late, given that the boom had already gone bust. (Invasion—another show I enjoyed—was a fresher and more involving approach to the X-Files idea of aliens among us, but even that couldn’t get past its freshman year.)

(Image courtesy of aol.com.)

LOST Season 3

Episode 16

(WARNING:

SPOILERS)
“One Of Us”

There `ya go. As I suspected, Juliet’s a stone cold lying b!tch.
She’s made another deal with Ben. She handcuffed herself to Kate and lied about it, and the thing is, Jack knows she lied. So what did she tell Jack? Or is Jack part of some insanely Byzantine plot?
We also finally get to see the circumstances of Juliet’s arrival on the island, and the fact that her three-year stay hasn’t exactly been voluntary (thus shedding light on her “history” with Ben; somehow, I perversely thought it would be some sexual thing).
But the most interesting aspect of the episode is the revelation that Claire’s being pregnant at the time of the crash, which I honestly thought as I watched the pilot, was a ploy to invest the show with some potential emotional blackmail material (aww, look, she’s pregnant; let’s feel really bad about all the crap she’s in), is actually a vital plot point.
So all the women on the island can’t come to term, and they recruited Juliet for her expertise, in the hopes of reversing this alarming trend.* And she does, finally, after three long hard years… with Claire!
But now it seems Sun’s in some deep doo-doo, ‘cause she’s got a bun in the oven, a bun apparently made on the island, which could prove fatal, as per Juliet’s theories. (Claire, after all, conceived off-island. Unless… Sun has lied before, and she did sleep with what’s-his-face, the bald hotel owner who did some pavement diving. Or is that too far back in time for any possibility that he's the father? Whatever the case though, someone better tell Sun this latest turn of events, and fast.)

With seven episodes to go, it looks like the momentum to get us all to the season ender is starting now, and Juliet and Ben have a date a week from when they “left” her with Jack and company.
What happens in a week, exactly?

* Why is it so important though to get women to come to full term on the island? Is this some imagined modern-day Eden, the only flaw in that idea being that we can’t populate from here? So why don’t we just bring people here once they’re born? Let people conceive, carry, and give birth to children off the island, and shuttle the happy families here when the rugrats are born?
Or are they planning a contingency for a time that may come when there will no longer be an “off the island”?

(Image courtesy of lost.about.com.)

LOST Season 3 Episode 15 (WARNING: SPOILERS)
“Left Behind”

Getting back to the Others plot thread, the episode opens with Locke saying goodbye to Kate, before things go totally off the wall, and Kate gets gassed, and wakes up in the jungle, handcuffed to Juliet!
That’s an interesting notion, which, among other things, lets Kate in on the fact that Jack knows she and Sawyer got it on, and that she “broke his heart,” as Juliet puts it.
The gals even get into a scuffle that ends with Kate dislocating Juliet’s shoulder (which she then admits has already been dislocated a number of times in the past).
By the time they get back to the Barracks, Ben and company are gone, having left Jack and Sayid behind. The episode ends with Jack deciding that Juliet comes back with them to the camp.
You know what? I don’t trust Juliet. I’ve said it before: Anything she does and says is suspect in my eyes.
For all I know this is all a ploy so the Others have someone on the inside. As Juliet says to Kate, Ben loves mind games.
Centerpiece of the episode: definitely the Monster chasing Kate and Juliet through the jungle. As per the usual though, all we see is the black smoke, which apparently doesn’t like the sonic barrier that surrounds the Barracks. Hmmmm.
I’m still of the mind that “the Monster” is mechanical in nature, and that it’s moving largely underground, and the smoke we see is its exhaust. (Though why the smoke often seems sentient is beyond me.)

Meanwhile, Hurley pulls a fast one to groom Sawyer for taking the leadership reins (since all the alpha dogs are gone from the camp), also another interesting idea.
Of course, the one Sawyer’s gonna have a difficult time to get on his side is Sun, and no one can blame her, really. She was used as a pawn in Sawyer’s power games, roughed up and terrorized. She should make Sawyer squirm a good long time.

As for the flashbacks, they’re centered on Kate, as she crosses paths with Cassidy (who, of course, doesn’t mention the name of the con man who broke her heart and knocked her up).
The episode’s flashbacks are okay, as far as they go, but I’m not certain they add anything particularly significant to our knowledge of Kate. Even her meeting Cassidy seems a bit gimmicky, since it wasn’t exactly pivotal. (It’s not like Cassidy was thinking of an abortion and Kate convinces her to keep the baby.)

At any rate, the episode was fine, and certainly better than “Stranger in a Strange Land” (arguably still the lowest point of the season), so it’s all good, so far.
We’re approximately two months away from season’s end, and I’m honestly not sure where we’re going and what the cliffhanger’s gonna be this time out, but hey, I’m all eyes and ears.

LOST Season 3 Episode 14 (WARNING: SPOILERS)
“Expose”

It’s interesting that I’ve got a lot to say about an episode that does nothing whatsoever to forward the island plot threads…
Lots’a pluses, though.

So we find out Nikki and Paulo’s stories and end up with an interesting CSI on the island/morality tale/re-working of an old TV show convention.
A) the “murder mystery” was passable, though the second Artz (hey, dude! Good to see ‘ya!) talks about the Medusa spider, bam! There’s your culprit, Grissom. Though I must admit, I didn’t catch the whole “Paulo lies”/”paralyzed” thing. Sneaky…
B) again, passable, in that we have seen this sort of morality tale before (ultimately, they both end up getting what they want, and they can’t even enjoy it).
Also, I’m not entirely convinced this sort of side story has a proper place in Lost, given that at the end of it, both characters are (apparently) dead.
Lost flashbacks have always helped me understand characters and motivations better; once I’d seen where these people were coming from, it would become clear why they did certain things. But in this particular case, Nikki and Paulo end up dead. So what if I understand them better now? Thing is, I didn’t really know them at all. And perhaps that’s one of the points of this episode, that we never really know people, the way the other 815ers had no idea what this couple was up to.
But because they were introduced in Season 3, and hardly did anything at all in the past 13 episodes, I had no feeling for them one way or another, other than to hope that they contributed something significant to the show’s narrative before they died (as has sometimes happened in the past).
Well, if their ultimate contribution was this little morality tale, I’m not so sure it was all worth it.
C) Remember how your favorite TV shows of yesteryear would have those episodes where characters would reminisce, and we would see recycled clips from episodes past (among other things, a strategy to control a show’s budget, since you essentially shaved off the production cost of one entire episode)?
Well, this episode does it in grand style, not just by bringing back the dead (yay, Maggie Grace! And Evil Blush-On Man* himself, Ian Somerhalder!! And Leslie!!! I mean, Artz…), but by astoundingly inserting Kiele Sanchez into the amazing footage of the crash wreckage from the pilot.
Additionally, now that we know their story, it also becomes apparent why we never really saw a lot of them in the first two seasons, as they apparently had their own agenda, searching the island for a little black bag… (And didn’t they pull the old “someone hid something in the bathroom/oh, that’s why he went to the bathroom in that episode” trick with Charlie already?)

So, all in all, it was an enjoyable episode, though ultimately, it feels like a diversionary tactic, not having moved the island story forward and not really making me understand Nikki and Paulo any better. (What it did was neatly explain to me why I hadn’t seen them before.)
I don’t really see any long-lasting ramifications of this episode, unless 1) either or both of them pull a Beatrix Kiddo and somehow manage to dig out of their graves, or 2) that despite Sawyer’s poetic gesture, the contents of the little black bag become a plot point for the future… (And not in some hokey sort of “Here, Ben and the Others, take this and let us go, please” “Oh, sure, why not? I’ve always wanted these…” way, either.)
We’ll just have to see, won’t we?

* What I named Somerhalder after his recurring role in Smallville, where he played Adam Knight, one of those guys who gets involved with Lana, only to get Clark jealous, only to reveal himself to be a baddie. (Also, see Jensen Ackles, currently on Supernatural.)

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA Season 3 Episode 20 (WARNING: SPOILERS)
“Crossroads, Part 2”

“`There must be some way out of here,’ said the joker to the thief…”

Oh, man, what a way to end the season and leave us for at least nine months…
After an impassioned testimony by Lee (which almost got me convinced), Baltar gets a Not Guilty, and is spirited off by some mystery females. (Presumably, these are the people who think he’s some sort of divinity… Either that, or some people pissed off he didn’t get blasted out of an airlock and are about to go all Death and the Maiden on him.)

“`There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief…’”

Then, four of the Final Five are revealed, as is the sinister reason for that song Tigh and Sam and Tory were hearing last episode (which turns out to be Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower”!).
Slyly, they saved the Chief for this episode.
Man, I’m really sad that the Chief is a skin job (making all of that anxiety he felt after the whole “Boomer is a toaster” thing horrifyingly justified). And, hey! That means his rugrat with Cally’s a hybrid. Well, at least Hera’s got someone to play with now. And if they get it on when they grow up…
I’m upset about the Chief. That doesn’t surprise me. What does, is my reaction to Tigh.
As I’ve said ‘round these parts before, I’ve never been a big Tigh fan, but what he said, to the other three, about wanting to be the man Saul Tigh is, and getting out there to do his job, that was moving, and as much as I think he can be a bull-headed pig sometimes (now, he’s a bull-headed toaster pig!), the level of respect I have for him has risen. Of course, ironically, now I have to keep a closer eye on him, now that his true nature has been uncovered.*
Maybe though, this is exactly what Tigh needs to pull himself together: the knowledge that he needs to deny his Cylon nature (just as Caprica Sharon/Athena has done). Here’s hoping.
Funny, for a character I never really took a shine to before (and who was behind the whole suicide bomber thing), Tigh made this stunning, gradual turn-around in my eyes, over the course of this season. Fantastic job, guys, making me give a frak about a character I once couldn’t have cared less about (and at some points, even hated).
And, before I leave the subject of Tigh, could he have been the Cylon D’Anna apologized to in “Rapture “? (They did, after all, torture and put out one of his eyes back on New Caprica…) Or was she apologizing to the still unknown Fifth Cylon?**

“`No reason to get excited,’ the thief, he kindly spoke,
`There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.’”

Aaaaand… voila, Starbuck’s apparently back, claiming to know the way to San Jose (which is on Earth, right?).
Either that, or Lee, not having fully purged himself of his guilt on the witness stand, was so distraught he took some chamalla extract off-camera and was hallucinating like mad.
From CAG to junkie. Them’s the breaks.

“Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl,
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.”

Frak, this may not have the balls to the wall immediacy of Season 2’s cliffhanger, but this one left us with so much dizzying potential and a frakload of anticipation.
Ooohhh…

* Actually, there’s so much irony here, it’s not even funny.
It’s ironic, given the Chief’s dalliance with Boomer and the fact that his job demands a certain affinity with machines to begin with, and it’s ironic given Starbuck’s resistance to Leoben’s pervy and twisted idea of “Happy Families,” when all long, she’d fallen in love and married a toaster! (Not to mention campaigning really hard to get back to Caprica to save Sam’s toaster a$$.)
I so cannot wait for the other characters to discover who’s a naughty toaster…
(Of course, given that Starbuck got whisked off to see “… the space between life and death,” she may just have already seen who the Final Five Cylons are, and thus, already know that her dear hubby is a skin job. Good luck, Sammy boy…)

** And considering the auditory switch for the sleepers turns out to be “All Along the Watchtower,” maybe Bob Dylan’s the Fifth Cylon!!!

(Quotes in italics from Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower.”)

Parting shot: For the lyrics to “All Along the Watchtower,” go to bobdylan.com. And for a great blow by blow account of how Bear McCreary approached the song, go to Bear’s Battlestar Galactica Blog.

LOST Season 3 Episode 13 (WARNING: SPOILERS)
“The Man From Tallahassee”

When Locke says, early on in the episode, “This is gonna be more complicated than we thought,” all I could think was, That is such a loaded line.
For one, that could refer to we, the viewers, and our own reaction to the show.
It could refer to the people making the show, and the discovery, once they were well into it, that Lost was a show that didn’t really have a lot in the way of precedents, so they couldn’t really look around to see how things could be done.
That line could even refer to the show’s current straits: once you have a critical and ratings darling on your hands, you pretty much think you’re in the clear, but all of a sudden, your third season hasn’t even really gotten into full swing, and ratings have lowered drastically, and people are talking early send-off.
Yes, indeed, John. “More complicated than we thought.”

Thankfully, “The Man From Tallahassee” feels like Lost has gotten back on proper track.
When Locke stands (after his disability checks are suspended), I thought to myself, Finally! We’re gonna see how John ended up in the wheelchair, which was, in my books, the biggest personal mystery that had not yet been addressed since the show started.
(I’ve also been waiting for a scene of this sort ever since “Walkabout,” knowing in my gut we’d see a “reverse reveal” to contrast with that killer moment when we first see Locke in his wheelchair.)
And now that we see the moment of John’s crippling, this is what I have to say: Brutal.
For some reason, I always thought, Car accident. Not, Oh, my conman dad pushed me out of a building. (So much for “I’m a conman, not a murderer.”)
The guy is evil. There is no other word for it. (And I’m still waiting for the reveal that’ll confirm my big suspicion of his exact connection to Sawyer…)
I may hate John from time to time (and what he does to the sub is next to unforgivable) but Terry O’Quinn just slays in this role. The scene where he’s first lowered into his wheelchair is potent. Here’s this broken man (literally and figuratively) who has yet again been monstrously hurt by his father, and he has to cope with this. You can almost understand the whole sub deal.
Almost.

And while that’s going on, Kate and Jack have their face to face, Danielle and Alex don’t, and Ben does what he does best: manipulate. Locke is so his bitch at the moment, it isn’t even funny.
A lot goes on in this episode, and a lot is left hanging, with a whopper of an ending.
So the dazzling begins in earnest…

Parting shot: Ben and his Magic Box… Hmmm…

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA Season 3 Episode 19 (WARNING:SPOILERS)
“Crossroads, Part 1”

As if to waste no time getting to Baltar’s trial, we get no opening credits sequence this time out (missed the Gayatri Mantra), and let me tell you, the trial gets ugly.
I’ve never been a part of the Col. Tigh fan club, but you’d have to be totally unfeeling not to think what went down between Tigh and Ellen back on New Caprica was frakking heartbreaking.
And all that stuff comes out.
On the witness stand.
I mean, to have to admit under oath that you killed your wife because you were the leader of the resistance and she was a collaborator. That’s bad enough. But to know (and further admit) that she did it because she truly loved you and was forced into doing it to keep you out of jail…
I may not really like Tigh, but that’s tough. (And that’s the understatement of the century.)
In a fleet of walking wounded, Tigh is hemorrhaging. He returned from New Caprica not so much a different person, but as a Tigh that was broken somehow (something that he shared with, ironically enough, Starbuck).
And now the poor guy’s deep in his cups and hearing a damned song! It’s a scary, unsettling sight, and seeing him with that mad, sick gleam in his remaining eye at episode’s end was truly disturbing.
And apparently, Sam’s hearing the same song too! And what is up with Tory?
Meanwhile, the Adamas continue to tear into each other like mad dogs, and Apollo has crossed the line from flawed hero to a$$hole.
To cross-examine the President the way he did, to see him hurt her the way he did, all in the name of his beloved system…
A$$hole.
It was one of those Pyrrhic victories to see his face when he gets shafted by hearing Roslin tell him exactly why she was taking the chamalla extract again. Take that, a$$hole!
And power to Dee! It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a real person there, and her packing it in had, again, Pyrrhus written all over it. She needed to do that, not just for herself, but to prove something to Lee too. Of course, something tells me that could very well have been the straw that breaks Lee the Idiot Camel’s back…
And crap. Let’s get back to Roslin.
Crap.
I love Mary McDonnell. She was one of the biggest draws for me to sit down and watch the BSG mini-series. There’s this sensitivity there that’s always a joy to watch onscreen (and she was marvelous in Donnie Darko). So I sat down to watch the mini-series largely because she was in the cast, and I haven’t looked back.
Understandably, when they saved her from the cancer, I was massively relieved. And now it’s…
Crap.
This sucks. (There better be some way to get around that whole prophecy thing about Roslin not living to see the Promised Land…)
And whilst we’re talking religion, Baltar is being treated by some as divinity. He has been looking very Jesus-y lately… Of course, this is also the sleazoid who not only slept with the enemy, but collaborated with them as well, right?
Oh, and have I mentioned? The Cylons have returned! Granted, the fleet is trying to shake the toasters off their tail, but Helo does the whole doomsayer thing and refers not-so-cryptically to “a storm coming.”
We can see where this is going, right?
Season end cliffhanger, people…

(Image courtesy of spacecast.com.)

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA Season 3 Episode 18 (WARNING: SPOILERS)
“The Son Also Rises”

The loss of Starbuck colours the proceedings of this episode,* which establishes the lawyer for Baltar’s defense, the unfortunately named Romo Lampkin (Mark A. Sheppard, 24 Day 5), a man who was apparently taught by Joseph Adama; a man who is all too ready to lie, filch, and manipulate to suit his own ends.
Initially put off by his manner, it wasn’t until the hospital bed scene that I found the interesting character that was there. (And episode’s end confirmed that. This is a new, dangerous variable that needs to be watched, constantly.)
Starbuck’s loss understandably affects Sam (who has a great scene on a Viper), as well as the Adamas, the tension between father and son flaring anew. Conceivably, if circumstances were closer to normal for Apollo, he might have been more aware of the subtler deceptions and manipulations taking place, but he’s in mourning, so there you go.
The stage is thus set for Baltar’s trial, with the Old Man as part of the Tribunal, and Lee assisting in Baltar’s defense.
And still no sign of the Cylons. (Hint hint.)

* I’m honestly surprised at how shocked I was at the absence of Katee Sackhoff from the opening credits. Yes, I know she’s supposed to be dead, but as per my review of last week’s episode, I really do think it’s one of those cases of temporary death…

LOST Season 3 Episode 12 (WARNING: SPOILERS)
“Par Avion”

The difference of this episode is split between Sayid and company getting into the Barracks, and Desmond’s heroic attempts to keep Charlie amongst the living. (Why Des has fixated on Charlie though is still a mystery… And just how long can Desmond keep it up? I mean, it has felt to me like Charlie’s been on borrowed time ever since Ethan strung him up to that tree in season 1 anyway, so…)
A good balance is struck between those two island plot threads and Claire’s flashbacks, where we see her in her Goth-y body artist phase. Seeing Emilie de Ravin in an ill-fitting black wig is as mind-boggling a sight as flashing back to her Beastmaster days, when she wore a glittery green body suit as she pranced around the forest as Curupira.
But the trauma was worth it, if only for the reveal, which confirms a niggling thought I’ve had ever since season 2’s “Two For The Road,” where we saw Christian trying unsuccessfully to see someone in Australia.
What is it about Jack’s da though? I mean, not counting Jack, he’s connected to three other 815ers: Sawyer, the dearly departed Ana-Lucia, and now Claire. And though Claire not knowing his name borders on being contrived (Ana-Lucia didn’t know his name either), I can accept the idea, as it was one of those wild Lost thoughts that I’ve entertained since the series premiered almost three years ago.*
It also adds some surprising resonance to the events of season 1’s “Do No Harm,” where Jack assigns Kate to help Claire through labour, as he’s busy trying to save Boone’s life. You gotta wonder, if he knew that that was his nephew (or half-nephew, if you want to be technical) being born, would he have been quite so eager to help Boone?
Sadly, this is a connection that may not be revealed to either Jack or Claire, unless those files that the Others had on Jack are really as complete as Juliet intimated they were. Presumably, the Others may have files on some other 815ers as well, perhaps even Claire.
Either that, or the possibility that Jack carries a picture of his da in his wallet, if he even still has his wallet, though I don’t quite see Jack as the carry-a-picture-of-my-beloved-parents-in-my-wallet type.
Or (and I could very well be reaching here), in “White Rabbit,” the body of Jack’s da was missing from the coffin. And I’m not suggesting that the ex-Doctor Christian Shepard is doing the zombie shuffle on the island (though who knows?), but perhaps the Others got up to some perverse grave (or coffin-) robbing and have the body stashed somewhere in the Barracks. As to why, who knows? They’re all nutters, right?
At any rate, Claire sees the body and goes, “Oh my God! That’s my dad!” And Jack goes, “But that’s my dad!” And then they go, “Then that means you’re my…” Much tearful hugging and kissing, and afterwards, Jack has someone new to obsess and feel protective over, leaving everyone happy and fulfilled.
Ah well, we shall see.
Also, that final scene with Jack playing football was so surreal, I can imagine what Kate was thinking… “Damn f*cker. I risked a messy death-by-sonics and this a$$wipe is playing football!”
Next week: Sayid and Locke join the football game!

* We also see Jack pass by in the background in “Abandoned,” when Shannon’s da is at hospital, having apparently been in the same accident as Sarah, Jack’s future wife. (Interestingly enough, it was Jack’s call, to either save the man or the woman…) Maybe the senior Dr. Shepard met Shannon too. He’s like Lost’s Mr. Linderman, he is.