Lost - Season 4

*SPOILERS EVERYWHERE* Don't read this post if you haven't seen Lost before. This is intended as a retrospective review from someone who has seen the show before, and so will not resonate as well or be particularly revealing for someone who hasn't.

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Sawyer

Sawyer is a character who, while always amusing, is generally predictable. You can always look to him to make up ridiculous nicknames, to show macho bravado, and to flirt incessantly with any woman who looks remotely attractive to him. He's the jerk with the heart of gold, the rogue with a past, the one who refuses to take any dangerous situation seriously. These traits define his character for much of the series, though one can definitely observe a change from think-for-your-selfer to defender of the group, like any good Han Solo.

But what I want to talk about here is how his relationship with Kate seems to change him. From day one, we know that Sawyer has the hots for her, but we're never given much of an impression that he would genuinely change himself in order to get her. Yes, he says that he loves her but, hell, so does everyone else on the island. More seriously, despite what he says in how much he cares for her, you're never really convinced that the two of them hooking up will make him become anything but what he appears to be: a charismatic, happy-go-lucky, independent philanderer.

However, this seems to change subtly in season 4. Presented with the opportunity to finally leave the island, Sawyer tells Kate that he's going to stay. What's more, Sawyer asks Kate to join him, to move in with him, and to make a life on the island together. Given the context, this is tantamount to a marriage proposal. Kate is unable to take the offer seriously, but Sawyer looks as serious as we've ever seen him. When she later spends the night with him halfway through the season, Sawyer is happy as can be, viewing it as her being close to taking up his offer to live together on the island, no matter what others say. But then he discovers that the truth is anything but. In a bittersweet scene, Sawyer tries to reason with Kate about what's bothering her, but fails to reach her (mainly because she's there to spy on Locke's group and has to manufacture an excuse to leave). I found this poignant because, of all people, Sawyer tries to solve a problem just like someone in a marriage or relationship would, by talking about what Kate really wants and how he can factor that into his own point of view.

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Why the change?

This isn't something I really noticed the first time I watched Lost, but Sawyer here genuinely tries to shape himself into something solid and lasting. Faced with the choice of the island or the real world, Sawyer chooses the island and, in that choice, it's as if he's decided to grow up. Instead of going with the flow of things, rejecting to look out for others, and following his own interests, Sawyer embraces as his own those who chose to stay on the island. And he tries to get the one person he truly loves, Kate, to be a part of this with him.

As for why, I think that Sawyer wised up. From conversations with Ben and others, Sawyer can see that what Kate wants is someone who is good at heart, caring, and selfless (like Jack). This shift in his goals and interests, this maturing, is what he believes Kate will stay for, and so he makes that change his number one objective. It's hard not to appreciate how much this says about the depth of his caring for her. It's frankly adorable, like watching a gruff hairy dog that never listens to you suddenly trot up to a cute dog, lick her, and quietly walk along beside her.

Dog analogies aside, I thought the change in Sawyer's character worthy of note. For a character defined by his independence, it was surprising to see him try to stretch as far as he could to sway Kate to spend the rest of her life with him. It doesn't work out for Kate and Sawyer in the end, but it is the first change we see of what results in him becoming a responsible leader of all the others remaining on the island after the main survivors split off.

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Desmond Hume

I actually don't plan on writing much about Desmond himself here so much as I want to point out why it is that he's everyone's favorite character. The funniest part is that the reason for this is because the writers failed. They tried to write him a certain way, but screwed up. The result is to ironically make him better than he would have been if he had 'worked as intended'.

Lost is defined by showing us characters who are inherently flawed. Nobody is perfect. The average character of the show is a person who tries to do good but is prevented from easily doing so by a crippling imperfection, usually deriving from a past experience. Here are some examples:

• Jack – Great, determined, good leader. Doesn't know when to quit, hates leading, and cries a lot.
• Locke – Capable, caring. Rejects the status quo if it doesn't have something he is driving towards. Needs lessons in anger management.
• Jin – Entertaining. Resolved to do the right thing. Occasionally forgets that he can be a good husband.
• Sayid – Great guy. Has trouble not torturing people.
• Charlie – Cool dude. Drug addict.
• Claire – Cute with baby. Unspeakably annoying.
• Hurley – Adorable heart of the group. Technically useless.
• Vincent – Dog. Never around.
• Michael – WAAAAAALT!

I could come up with more, but the point is that every character has at least one clearly negative trait that prevents them from being fully admirable.

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Pictured: Vincent, who tragically never gets his own episode

But what about Desmond? What makes Desmond an exception (and a writing failure) is that the audience is informed that Desmond's weakness is that he is a coward, but he is clearly anything but. There is nothing this guy does that doesn't reek of courage. When Locke flips out because he messed up the hatch, Desmond takes charge and risks his life to save everyone on the island. When Desmond receives visions of Charlie dying, he goes out of his way to stop fate itself from succeeding. When presented with the fact that the love of his life is out in the real world and far away from the island, he does everything within his power to reunite them both while simultaneously saving everyone he can.

Even in moments where we are supposed to view him as a cowardly failure, we see him as anything but. Any scene he has with Charles Widmore is indicative of this; Widmore tells Desmond why he's useless and Desmond stands up to him and refuses to say the same. When Widmore tells Desmond that he isn't worthy of marrying Penny, Desmond completely ignores him. If this is cowardice then how are we supposed to tell when Desmond is being courageous??

This is why I say that the writers failed. Unlike the other characters, whose flaws we can visibly see, we are simply told that Desmond is a coward but not given any actual evidence. It's like George Lucas telling you that Darth Vader is intended to be a super cuddly nice guy and then him putting you in a chair to watch Star Wars for the first time; it just doesn't make sense! Consequently, because Desmond is arguably the only character in the show without a genuine flaw, he becomes everyone's favorite guy, the character you can always root for, with an epic romantic odyssey besides.

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Conclusion

I have less to say about how the overall story of season 4 progressed because it was relatively short and wasn't objectionable. Well, let me correct that: everything that happened on the island was pretty cool. We see Jack's camp versus Locke's camp, the warring factions of Ben's Others versus Widmore's freighter mercenaries, and we start to see interesting manipulations of the island's supernatural side-effects, such as time travel.

By contrast, everything that happens in flash-forwards was a pain in my ass. Seriously, if it had been less of a chore, I might have skipped these scenes. It isn't necessarily because the events within them are uninteresting, it's because the characters themselves moan endlessly about how we should go back to the island, just like I am. This show is based on weird stuff happening on the island, so why the hell are we off it? Flashbacks are one thing, but to have actual plot occur off-island when the real important stuff is what happens on it made it feel like a depressing waste of time. It also features Jack at his most annoying (beardy alcoholic).

On the bright side, I'm really looking forward to season 5 because, flash-forwards aside, I want to see the progression in Sawyer and Juliet (who was ridiculously hard to write about and pin down, if you couldn't tell). More to come soon!

Lost - Season 3

Season 3 takes a different tack from the previous two. Instead of being with the main group of survivors on the beach, we are put into a scenario where many of the main characters are captured by the enemy, splitting our attention between the faction of the Others and the “Losties”.

Is this good? Not really. I'm going to make an extremely nerdy reference now:

In Dungeons & Dragons, if you are the 'dungeon-master' in charge of the players, the last thing you want to do is let players go off away from the group. Once this happens, the overall pacing of the adventure slows to a crawl. You have to describe different things to different people, construct entirely separate events and challenges. And, while you do all of this for the splinter group(s), everyone else has to sit back and twiddle their thumbs. This is what turns an hour-long masterpiece into a six hour slog.

The same applies for Lost. This season is where events grind slowly to a halt. We are introduced to two pointless new characters who get killed off in the same episode they get introduced in. Jack shows off his tats. Hurley fixes a van and goes joyriding (admittedly, this was awesome, but had zero relevance to the overall plot). Claire gets an episode... Stuff like this creates drag.

Then the writers miraculously realized that this show won't last forever, and that they needed to take it somewhere. Shit goes downhill, starts to swirl around, and then goes out of control (do not visualize that). And the island is finally opened up to outside intervention. All things considered, this was a pretty good season, no time spent in a stupid hatch, and with genuinely interesting questions being asked and character moments being had.

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Benjamin Linus

Ben is one of the more remarkable characters in the show. Perhaps the funniest part about him is that his character was written to be killed off within two or three episodes of his introduction but, because the fans loved Michael Emerson's performance so much, they essentially rewrote him into being something close to the main villain for the entire series. Part of me is impressed by the flexibility of the writers in doing this. The other part of me is horrified at all the plans they must have shifted around crazily in an effort to accommodate a character who was never supposed to be around.

But it was a wise decision. Season 3 is where we see Ben at his strongest, leader of his little island fiefdom, every single person on the island either subservient to his wishes or wanting to kill him but not having the power to do so. Rewatching this, it was particularly interesting to watch the extent of Ben's authority and its slow erosion. Things spiral rapidly out of control for Ben and his people during this season, but Ben constantly adapts and shows himself incredibly flexible, utilizing his powers of manipulation as adroitly as he can in an effort to keep control over everyone.

And yet, watching this made me notice just how fragile Ben is as a character. It also illustrated to me how unlikely it was that he would ever find true happiness. We see Ben's youth as one where he was completely powerless. He is constantly held as an unwanted curse by his alcoholic father. He is largely friendless, grown up on a tropical island surrounded by people indifferent to his interests or activities. Ben is near completely bereft of human connection, a situation which the writers set up as a way to justify his willingness to murder and use others as pawns later on.

And so we see Ben dominate the island as some sort of tropical Machiavelli. But it occurred to me that this is the closest to happiness he'll ever be. Ben's comfort derives from control; he constantly seeks to make everything subservient to what he wants. And, to some extent, you can't blame him. His youth left him with no control at all, no goals outside of getting through the day without getting put down by his father. It is only on this isolated island, with people that have next to no choice but to obey him, that he can create his own society that is dependent on what he wants. You also see this in how he treats Locke. He is jealous of Locke's status as a sort of prophet to his people and, once Locke is able to hear something that Ben cannot, this is the last straw for Ben. Ben doesn't want to live in a world again where his opinions no longer matter, where he is just forced to follow in the wake of someone else like he did with his father long ago. So he kills Locke, not because Ben loves to kill, but because he can't stand sharing power. Ben doesn't want to face a world where he is not paramount. It's remarkable how powerfully our childhood can shape our lives, and Ben is a perfect example of how a lack of caring can result in someone doing 'villainous' things in an effort to feel whole and happy in the world.

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Juliet Burke

Juliet is a really odd character, and one that I found particularly interesting as I rewatched the series this time around. I say this because, for lack of a better comparison, she's like a bizarre mix of Ben and Kate's characters. She has a personality that often is akin to Ben's, and her motivations are comparable to Kate's. Juliet faces life with a mask. It's hard to tell what she's thinking, and we quickly gather that this is a shield from getting hurt or too attached to anyone. Like Ben, she's more than willing to engage in manipulation in order to get what she wants. The only difference is that manipulation defines Ben; with Juliet, we get the feeling that she uses it more because she feels like she has to in order to survive.

As for comparing her to Kate, I found Juliet to be a fish out of water. Like Kate, Juliet is constantly discontent, looking for a home but simultaneously unable to feel like she's home anywhere she goes. Both characters focus on survival before anything else. Then the comparison starts to deviate. Juliet neither identifies with the Others or identifies with the “Losties”. Nobody really accepts her, and her detached personality doesn't help matters any. But you almost get the sense that Juliet's okay with that.

You know, she's actually surprisingly hard to write about. But I wanted to try nonetheless, as I found that her time with Jack as her captive was powerful stuff. I'm still not sure if their bond was a genuine one created by both of them feeling like they were separate from everything else, or if it was a complicated form of Stockholm Syndrome. Juliet's attempts to stage a coup to overthrow Ben also were really cool. Their struggle for authority is an interesting back-and-forth, and her relationship with Ben is complicated and well done. I look forward to watching her character more and trying to get a better sense of what makes her tick.

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Conclusion

This saddens me, because the quality of Lost really starts to flip-flop drastically from this point on. Things start to get ridiculously convoluted, with flash-forwards, time-travel, and more. I'm also not sure how much I look forward to watching it because I find the parts where they go back to the real world to be relatively uninteresting compared to what happens on the island. But I shall soldier on.

Hypertheticals: 50 Questions for Insane Conversations

by DionysusPsyche

A DIFFERENT KIND OF REVIEW
Let's do something different. Normally on IL, there are book, film, television, and video game reviews. They're enjoyable, and some of them may pique your interest more than others, some not at all. Perhaps this is your first time to the 'Loon, and you have no frame of reference (but I'm sure you've read a review or at least been given a recommendation).

No one has reviewed a game that isn't a video game on here before, and I'm pretty much quoting word for word what the creator of the blog told me when I mentioned I wanted to review this. There is good reason for it. You can explain Apples to Apples or Risk or (please no one do this) Monopoly, but it's difficult (especially when explaining Apples to Apples) with a game to persuade someone why they would or wouldn't enjoy it. With most games you only have some idea of how it's played, what with it being an interactive experience. It's highly subjective, and although one could argue that for one of the other mediums as well, one can more easily assess if they like the other entities reviewed here. You can say, "Well, since I generally dislike movies, chances are I won't watch this" or narrow it down based on genre, actors, script, and finally the blogger's own individual take on it. A game doesn't capture that type of assimilation as easily.

HOWEVER...
It's not your typical card game. It's not a drinking game, it doesn't involve dice, and there are no winners or losers technically speaking (I'll elaborate on this later). You don't bump anyone off a board, in fact, there is no board. You're not bartering for resources, and you don't have to have a dealer if you don't want to (although it's most fun if everyone gets to choose a question). There's no set time, so you can play while waiting for a friend to arrive, a whole afternoon, or over Skype with your pen pal.

The creator of the game is author and pop culture essayist, Chuck Klosterman. The birth of this game was described in Klosterman's second work of non-fiction entitled Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. In it, Klosterman introduces only some of the questions by labelling them, "the 23 questions I ask everybody I meet in order to decide if I can really love them."

Because I have read all of Chuck Klosterman's books except for one, I naturally squealed when I saw that he'd extended the questions into a card game online, because I'd been debating how to get people to play this with me while awkwardly reading out of two books. I knew most of what was coming, but I was excited nonetheless. I had no idea what he would say about them. Below is an excerpt according to Klosterman defining the game:

"I refuse to make small talk...I don't care what the situation is or what the protocol is supposed to be: I see no value in asking someone a friendly, non-adversarial question if neither party cares what the answer is. Instead, I prefer to ask questions where the solution is irrelevant--I pose hypothetical questions where how one answers the query matters far more than the literal conclusion. There is no "right" answer..."

Sometimes the details leading up to the question take the whole card, sometimes they're shorter. Occasionally you get options, sometimes you get a "yes/no, but WHY" question. In order for you to better understand what types of questions are included, I will provide one card.

EXAMPLE:
The Honesty Room
Someone builds a paranormal "Honesty Room." Within the walls of this room, it is impossible for anyone to tell lies (or to avoid answering whatever questions they are asked). This same inventor also creates a memory loss drug that is released into the air inside the Honesty Room as an airborne mist; what this means is that people who enter the Honesty Room will not remember what they said, what questions they were asked, or even that they were ever there.  The only antidote to the memory loss drug is a pill, and you have this pill. So--in essence--you have access to a room where every guest who enters will tell you the absolute truth (about anything) and then immediately forget what they were asked and what they said. But you will retain everything you learn. You are inside the Honesty Room with your parents. What do you ask them?

For a completely different question...or a physical representation for the variables you get

RESULTS
Since we're not in the Honesty Room right now (and I did NOT have a memory loss/retaining pill for these questions), I won't breech confidentiality to what was said between friends, especially as pertains to the above question (plus, you don't know them, so it'd be far more interesting to ask your own friends). What I will say is that people's answers vary greatly from question to question. No one answers the question the same way for necessarily the same reason--although sometimes it's extremely close. Like Klosterman says, "why" is a huge factor. The individual players can be as different as night and day so the responses may come quickly and easily or can take more time (granted, it probably depends on who you're playing with, how comfortable they are with each other, and whether or not anyone has been imbibing). Some people have very straight forward answers, and some are like me and answer a question with a question. Usually the interrogations are so well detailed that they don't require further questions in order to answer them (but sometimes they do, and those can add even more dendrites onto any given feedback. Sort of a "Choose Your Own Adventure" branch).

You may be completely shocked by some of the answers you received--hopefully, in a good way. Additionally, it was fun to leaf through the cards (each has a title like Honesty Room), and imagine what solution those around you would come back with. I had one of my party pegged pretty well, but for the other two, I got contrasting answers that I didn't expect.

I found myself going back to these questions over the next few days and turning them over in my mind. For some questions, I found that the more I thought about it, the more I changed my mind on what I said. It didn't help that some of the questions bring up matters of justice (although not in any particular political sort of way that I saw) where one may feel guilty and justify. There was an in depth discussion that ensued between me and one member of my party where I felt the need to defend my answer by providing my facts and fears based around said response.

CONCLUSION
I didn't read all of the questions, because I plan on playing this game again in the future, hopefully with an even larger group of friends. These questions are not for everyone, but over all I and my group (at different levels) enjoyed the game and would play it in the future. If not, I really need to find that honesty pill...

Sea of Ghosts

 Written by Joe the Revelator

I've reviewed novels by Alan Campbell in the past, and my feelings about his work are usually mixed. It's stimulating, imaginative, deeply emotional, and borderline insane. Paradise lost meets the industrial age. The flaws displayed by his characters strike personal nerves, and the violence is visceral and bloody.

On the same token I've said a few disparaging things about his sequels. The Deepgate saga seems to follow a crooked, meandering path that often breaks from the main characters to follow other, stranger viewpoints. That said, and having had more time to reflect on his later work, there's nothing in Campbell's collected material that I regret reading. His strange visions of hell on earth, and of noxious forests and glass trains still pop into my head from time to time.

Sea of Ghosts is a beast of a slightly different stripe. It's closer to a traditional "Fantasy" with magic and treasure, bizarre powers and elves (not called elves, nor do they have pointy ears. But they are a mystical, tall, waspish race with light hair) Dragons play a part in the story too, as do ghost-ships and mermen, which are more like oceanic zombies.

The Sea is a Harsh Mistress, with an STI

The story starts out with promises of trove. And let me be clear that although the word trove (as in treasure-trove) is thrown about, Sea of Ghosts is NOT a pirate-themed book. Trove is a term used for magical items imbued with powers drawn from the cosmos, or from a yawning void in the cosmos, as one of the characters tried to explain late in the book. Trove is money and power, and it is found at the bottom of the poisonous seas.

A dunk in the ocean without washing off the brine will result in a tight, infected patch of gray skin. A full-body dousing will turn you into a gray-scaled monstrosity known as the Drowned; wandering the sea bottom, breathing the brine. Which leaves the dangers of trove-finding and dragon-slaying to men experienced with the sea's fickle nature. Think Dune's deserts, except wet, and slowly rising to consume what remains of the land.

Granger, an ex-military officer turned prison warden, lucks into the best trove finding tool in the empire; his own estranged daughter. With her uncanny ability to see treasure lying on the seabed from the bow of a boat, the two of them are able to haul in more curious brass artifacts and glowing gems than anyone living on the island. Which, of course, begins to attract unwanted attention to the young girl who Granger is just getting to know.

But you don't mess with a Gravedigger. And Granger's past as a naval lieutenant and a hunter of Unmer (magical not-elves) has given him a 'very particular set of skills' as another enraged father once said. The inevitable kidnapping of his daughter sets Granger, aka Unstoppable Force, into action- blowing through virulent waters, haunted ships, fortresses, even cosmic roadblocks. It's hard to make men this driven seem believable, but Campbell does it.


Don't drink the water

I haven't read a novel that so completely captured my attention in a long while. Campbell throws illuminating descriptions and intriguing ideas out like live wires for the reader to grab onto, and doesn't stop to dwell on his own neat notions, like so many other genre writers. A few things are reminiscent of other fantasy works (I swear to god he was playing Skyrim while writing this, or channeling 'Dwemer' ruins) but any similarities are easily forgivable. Most fantasy overlaps itself until it becomes a giant tapestry of the collective human subconscious anyway.

Lost - Seasons 1 and 2

This is not your conventional review. I say that because I've seen Lost before, all of this is familiar to me. But I haven't seen it knowing what I know now, learning everything that happens in the final season of the show. Lost is much like a mystery; it is full of sudden surprising reveals that cast everything you've seen before into doubt, or into a new light. Some of these are epic. Others are shit. But, for lack of another show to passionately watch many episodes of back-to-back, I thought I'd return to one that I have a very strong affection for, and to see how it was on a return viewing.

This will be rife with spoilers.

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The Rise and Fall of John Locke

Man, do I feel sorry for this guy. Unfortunately, Locke is a character who was built up into a mystic old man capable of leading everyone to salvation, and then replaced with one who is tired, embittered, and ultimately killed off so that the ultimate big bad could adopt his form like some fucked up body suit. I watched seasons 1 and 2 again wishing I didn't know this. After all, Locke at the beginning is just so awesome and inspirational. He gets Charlie off of his heroin addiction, he helps Jack resolve some of his father issues while simultaneously teaching him lessons on what it takes to be a leader, he motivates Boone to separate himself from the unhealthy relationship he has with his sister, teaching him that being his own man is something desirable and ultimately within his grasp. Locke (at first) has all the promise of an island Obi-Wan Kenobi, the kindly old man who teaches you something crucial about life before vanishing mysteriously into the wilderness.

I miss that Locke. Instead, what I watched (knowing what I know) was a borderline delusional old man seeking some purpose out of life that is ultimately ephemeral for him. Season 1 Locke finds purpose in helping others through their problems, but he then fails to learn that this can be an end in itself. Instead, he begins to fixate on how the island has nominated him for some undefined greater purpose, believing in this so utterly that he starts to forget that he cares for the people around him. As season 2 ends, we find him in the hatch, everything crumbling all around him, endangering everyone on the island, with a terrified expression on his face. “I was wrong,” he says. This moment is indicative of everything he does from here on out.

Locke has always been one of the most interesting characters in the show for me, but I found watching him at his best to be far more bittersweet now that I know what happens to him in the end.

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Born to Run

As is infamous among anyone who knows me, I've always had a loathing of the character, Kate Austen. It wasn't that she was necessarily annoying to watch (Claire wins the award of most annoying female character), it was that her love triangle with Jack and Sawyer DOMINATES the show. Tvtropes would call this a Romantic Plot Tumor. By this logic, I should hate Jack and Sawyer too, but I don't. The fact remains that, due to Kate's perpetual inability to commit to anything, she acts like a ditzy, scatterbrained moron, flip-flopping wildly between the two men, driving pretty much every other character and the audience to insanity.

This time around, though, I... *sigh*... I kinda liked her.

The thing is that, in paying closer attention to her character and trying especially hard to empathize with her, it finally clicked. Yes, her back-and-forth was still a little aggravating. But I connected more with her psychology. With Jack, it makes sense (from her backstory and personality) that Kate would be attracted to him as a pinnacle of goodness that she strives for but has never been able to fully reach. It made sense that she would want to simultaneously flee from that because of her history of inevitably hurting those good people who get close to her. With Sawyer, it makes sense that she'd be attracted to him as another renegade with experiences similar to her own. And with him, it also made sense that she would be skittish about committing his way. Kate wants to be something more (like Jack) than what she perceives herself to be (equivalent to Sawyer). And so, as we see later on, she only seems to decide on Sawyer when she feels divorced from everything else, or when she's going through a bout of self-loathing.

I don't know how easy that was to follow, but the short of it is that I suddenly found Kate intensely interesting to watch. Her personality is so rife with paradoxes and opposite desires that, if you can see what is going on with her, it becomes easy to empathize with her struggle. People have passions that conflict with reality. Everyone has an aspiration of who they want to be struggling against what they know as truth. In that sense, Kate becomes a mirror of humanity, a reflection of our dichotomy of wants and needs.

Damn, that's heavy stuff.

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This, while having nothing to do with what I'm talking about, is awesome

Differences in Quality

Other than those characters, the other thing I noticed about seasons 1 and 2 is how many more good episodes are in the former versus the latter. I thought about it for a while and then I figured out what it was. It's all in how the story is shown to us.

In the first season, we are introduced to Lost's now famous method of inserting character-centric flashbacks into every episode. This continues on throughout the entire series, though later on it starts to get silly tricky with flash-forwards, flash-sideways, and all sorts of crazy bullshit. But season 1 & 2 are flashback only. Yet one is better than the other.

What I found was that season 1 did a much better job of tying the flashbacks of the character-of-the-episode into what is happening on the island. Jack gets flashbacks of how his father's dominance and cynicism consumed his childhood; we see him overcome these issues in a cathartic odyssey through the jungle. Sun gets flashbacks of the difficulty of her marriage with Jin; we see her reenact similar problems with him on the island and then ultimately reaffirm their love together at the end.

By contrast, by season 2 we get flashbacks that have, at most, a distant relation to what is happening on the island. For example, with Mr. Eko we get flashbacks of how he became the scary, intense guy he is today, but it doesn't have that strong of a connection with anything that happens on the island. It's like watching another TV show and then being given a biography of one of the characters to read during commercial breaks. It could be interesting, but isn't altogether relevant to what's happening in the show, and so makes it harder to get into the episode as much as you could if it were more concise. It's distracting. As any Lost veteran knows, the best episodes are the ones where the flashbacks and the main plot are seamlessly woven together into something that keeps your attention solidly focused on one point throughout.

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Conclusion

It's also worth noting that (with season 2) the hatch takes us from the novelty of having the show on a tropical island, and forces us into a small, enclosed location where even the characters are frustrated by how not much happens. It is part of the challenge for them, but it is also a test of patience for the audience themselves.

Rewatching Lost like this has been interesting, and I'll undoubtedly have more thoughts to come as I continue to delve through it (as I get time). More to come later!

A Dance with Dragons

Yep, I finally got around to finishing A Dance with Dragons. And, to my astonishment, it was actually pretty damn good! It helped that it was preceded by the Game of Thrones equivalent of a pile of poo (I'm sorry A Feast for Crows, but you just weren't that interesting). But, more seriously, I think that its quality was about comparable to A Clash of Kings in terms of cool stuff that happened and characterization that occurred.

Now, I'm definitely going to talk about this, but I wanted to point out that I'm going to do two things with this review. First off, I am going to review it by viewpoint character. Every character that gets a chapter will get some commentary from me about if he/she was interesting and how they went. The other thing is that I'm going to avoid major spoilers. I will share what I think of as “minor” spoilers (such as where the characters are and their general goals in the book), but events of crazy awesome will be at most hinted at, no more.

Without further ado, I present A Dance with Dragons!

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Jon Snow

You're goddamn right, Jon's back, and he's more epic than ever. When we last saw Jon, he had near single-handedly taken the shittiest rangers in all the lands to beat back a Wildling army worthy of Mordor, long enough for one Stannis Baratheon to show up with all of his knights to lay the smackdown. Now in ADWD, we find Jon as Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, balancing carefully on a path between supporting Stannis' claim to the throne and preparing the Wall for the invasion of the Others.

Jon's chapters are freaking awesome. Through his station at the Wall, we see how difficult leadership can be and, by god, Jon is going to stick to his principles no matter what. He has always been an admirable guy like that, and that aspect of his character bleeds through especially strongly in ADWD. Watching him try to recruit the Wildlings to his side while placating the Night's Watch veterans while trying to retain Stannis' help while doing his best to stay out of the gargantuan war happening to the south of him while preparing to repel this fictional universe's equivalent of a Nazgul army... This is one shitty situation. Ancient Night's Watch fortresses are prepared, factions are approached for help, a lot of people tell Jon he knows nothing, and WHOA HOLD ON. Stuff actually happens in this book?? Thank you, George R.R. Martin!

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Tyrion Lannister

Oh wait, this is the Feast for Crows shit that I remember. Yes, unfortunately the worst part of ADWD is that it somehow manages to make Tyrion Lannister chapters uninteresting. The sad part is that he starts out so well. Tyrion has just killed his father and escaped onto a ship heading to Daenerys is on. After a great deal of drinking and whoring, Tyrion decides that h should go find Dany and serve as an impish Machiavellian advisor, kicking her in the pants to go conquer Westeros with his help. Holy. Shit. Epic, right?

Then we get a truly grueling amount of chapters where Tyrion apparently decides to take the longest route possible to Dany. Seriously. This is a spoiler, but he never even really gets there. We meet some thoroughly uninteresting characters, a few that are really important, and then suffer through him learning how to entertain people with his dwarfishness. It's not all bad; he does start manipulating people like badass old Tyrion near the end. But most of it is one interminable trek after another where nothing of real note seems to happen. That and an enormous number of people giving him dwarf noogies (though this is awesome; it is apparently a tradition on this continent to rub a dwarf's head for good luck, and it happens a LOT).

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Davos Seaworth

I've always been a huge fan of the Onion Knight. There's something about his character that is just really cool. He's like everyone's favorite uncle, if uncles were regularly faced with starvation and death. Davos never lets up, and his personality is so solid that you're able to see a lot of what happens in the series through how relaxing his chapters can feel.

Anyways, Davos is given a mission from Stannis. He is tasked to approach White Harbor, the wealthiest city and vassal of House Stark, as a diplomat and envoy in order to convince them to swear fealty to Stannis and ally together against the factions who betrayed Robb Stark (Lannisters, Freys, Boltons) and killed most of the Stark household. He is presented with a political situation so bizarre as to seem Shakespearean in the theatricality of it. Needless to say, it is awesome, and the results have a huge impact in what happens in ADWD. Yes! Things happen AGAIN! Oh, I love you so, George R.R. Martin!

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Hawt

Daenerys Targaryen

Goddamnit! Yes, dear readers, it was a trap and, despite the sheer marvelousness of Dany in the previous few books, George R.R. Martin manages to make her a pain in the ass in this one. Now, let me clarify, it isn't that things don't happen in Dany's chapters that makes her irritating. It is the fact that the things that happen with her don't seem to really matter in the larger conflict, and the fact that she starts acting against her character.

We find Dany managing the city of Meereen and doing her best to be a benevolent queen. She rejects the slave trade, manages alliances with nearby cities, hires mercenaries, etc etc. But because it involves nations and factions that we don't know and who don't appear to have any relevance to anything happening on Westeros, I just lost interest after a while. It doesn't help that Dany starts to compromise and give in to pressure. That's right, the character most famous for being the uncompromising determinator starts to go back to being a scared little girl. Then she chooses to sleep with a thoroughly unlikable character, marry another, and generally be kind of stupid.

But it ends with her in a much better place than she was before, so there is hope that she'll do something useful when Tyrion shows up in the next book.

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This pretty much sums up the weirdness of the average Bran chapter

Bran Stark

Bran Stark is one of those characters who I hated for a long time. From the moment he was crippled, I replaced the name “Bran” with “That-Interminable-Whiner-Cripple-Kid”. He just wouldn't shut up. And the references to his purported powers were so cryptic that I just couldn't care less.

Needless to say, this changes in a huge way in ADWD. I wanted more Bran chapters. A lot more. We encounter Bran where we left off, with him passing the Wall and going deep into the land of the Others, searching for the Children of the Forest. All I can say without spoiling more is that he finds the Others. And he finds the Children of the Forest. And a lot of awesome and weird shit happens that indicates that Bran might have the most important viewpoint of them all.

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Arya Stark

I have to admit that I don't have much to say about Arya. While she was on Westeros, she was one of the coolest characters of them all. But in Braavos (a city in the middle of nowhere on the-continent-we-don't-care-about), Arya continues her assassin training surrounded by characters who aren't interesting who we don't give a second fiddle about. If you like this growth in her character, then you'll love her chapters in ADWD. But because I've read far too many books about training characters to become assassins, and because I have no connection to what is happening around her, I really don't care. I skimmed all of her chapters.

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Asha Greyjoy

Our first new viewpoint character, Asha is the first and only Greyjoy we've met who is actually likable. She's a badass girl who grew up into a sexy, independent woman, all within the most grotesquely masculine culture since the Vikings. And she owns it. In ADWD, we find her within the occupied castle of Deepwood Motte (a Stark vassal located near the western shore by the Greyjoys). She gets the second hottest sex scene of the series. She weighs her chances, what with a hostile uncle now in charge back at home, takes her men, and decides what she wants to do.

She then joins up with another group and serves as a viewpoint character for the movements of one of the more important characters in the series. But I can't tell you who without spoiling things. Regardless, Asha has a lot go on with her point of view, and I found her a thoroughly enjoyable character to read about.

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Quentyn Martell

Another new viewpoint character, Quentyn Martell is less interesting. An uncharismatic heir of House Martell, he is sent by his father to marry Daenerys. Unlike Tyrion, Quentyn actually makes it to Dany and presents her with an offer; if she will marry Quentyn, Dorne will give Dany the military that she needs in order to take Westeros. In exchange, Quentyn becomes king and Dorne the paramount House of the realm.

Dany's answer is for you to figure out when you read the book. As for Quentyn's character, I kind of liked him. I say it like that because he doesn't really have much to him. He isn't handsome, clever, or skilled in combat. What he is is dogged. He sticks to his guns. And his men listen to his orders, even though you can tell that they might not necessarily impress them too much. Quentyn isn't the most interesting character we've ever seen in the Game of Thrones series, but I found him fairly interesting on the whole.

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Theon Greyjoy

Yes, Theon Greyjoy isn't dead. Some may groan at this revelation, but I thought it was pretty cool. The thing is that, even though Theon has always been rather annoying in his own way, he has changed. He is held captive by House Bolton (which is apparently the House for all of the creepy assholes of the realm). He has been thoroughly tortured and abused. He doesn't even identify himself as being a Greyjoy for a long time.

But he starts to become a better person. And this makes Theon perhaps the most deeply characterized person in the series, turning from arrogant douchebag into defeated trash into something more. On top of that, Theon manages to serve as a viewpoint character into the machinations of the Boltons, the Freys, and a bunch of other Houses besides. This made him one of the most interesting characters to read about and, on top of his characterization, made me genuinely hope that he turns out okay in the end.

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Barristan Selmy

Barristan the Bold gets his own viewpoint chapters but, unlike aforementioned others, Barristan's kinda suck. For whatever reason, Barristan shifts from the wise old Gandalf-like father figure for Dany to that-one-old-guy who stands in the corner and never says anything. Even when Dany makes poor decisions, he never says a word unless prompted and, even then, he doesn't say much beyond, “Make queenly decisions so I can keep standing prettily.”

He does end up taking some initiative in the end but... Frankly, he spends most of it whining to himself about how “true knights only do things that are pure and righteous”. Which kind of drains some of the awesomeness out of the asskicking he delivers. For someone who seemed more than willing to provide his thoughts and act independently before he was made head of the 'Queensguard', Barristan the Bold seemed to turn rather timid.

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Everyone Else

Victarion Greyjoy pulls a less interesting Tyrion. Spends most of the book traveling to Dany. Doesn't get there by the end.

Cersei Lannister has a small handful of rather interesting chapters where her back is against the wall and we actually, finally, see her overly prideful facade crack, revealing a character who we can actually care about who isn't a power-crazed harpy bitch.

Melisandre gets a chapter which is really cool. And everything that happens with her is really interesting new information. But she only gets a chapter, so her importance is fleeting.

Jaime Lannister gets a chapter where he dashes off with the only person he'd predictably dash off with.

Areo Hotah (the blandest character in the series whose only purpose is to give us eyes into what's happening in Dorne) shows us that Dorne is secretly planning some really epic and crazy shit.

And then, finally, a new character named Griff turns out to be someone who will shake up the world of Game of Thrones in an enormous way. Then he begins an invasion. Really cool stuff.

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Conclusion

Altogether, I really enjoyed A Dance with Dragons and recommend it to those who enjoyed the series before A Feast for Crows. Yeah, Dany and Tyrion's chapters are a bit disappointing, but so much happens elsewhere that it didn't bug me that much. When/if other people read it, I'm looking forward to hearing some other thoughts out there!

Sherlock

Written by Joe the Revelator
 

Ever since reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arther Conan Doyle, I've had an affinity for British sleuths from Baker street- crusaders with an eye for detail and a magnifying lens in their waistcoat pocket. After watching Robert Downey Jr. nail the role of Sherlock Holmes with a twist of humor and a slice of hyper-vigilance and aspergers, I thought; who could possibly do better?

Enter Benedict Cumberbatch. (War horse,  Atonement) Young-looking for a Sherlock, modern, and plays the classic detective a bit on the fussy side. But with the success of the show riding on the strength of his portrayal, I say he nailed it. His need to be validated, to show he's always 'right' takes precedence over all else, even going so far as to risk poisoning himself to prove it. Downey's character was fastidious. The new Sherlock is downright anal.

Cumberbatch's Sherlock is accompanied by Martin Freeman (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) as Dr. Watson. He's a friendly, personable, salt-of-the-earth type. A battlefield medic just come back from the war. He's introduced to Sherlock through a mutual acquaintance when John expresses his need to find a roommate, and it's love (for sleuthing) at first sight.

Digital Detective

As it has always been in any adaptation of Sherlock, the diaries of the detective's conquests are kept by the good doctor. But to add a modern twist to Watson's storytelling, the trail of cases are kept on a blog that steadily attracts more clients and crime investigations. Sherlock's methodology has also gotten a kick in the cummerbund by the modern boot. He uses cellphones and text messaging, crime labs and microscopes, laptops and card readers. Instead of coming off like a cheap CSI knockoff, this digital era Sherlock manages to enhance his repertoire in ways that would make his horse-and-carriage predecessors jealous.

To say the hour-and-a-half episodes are humorous might be an understatement. Dry wit is plentiful in the most British of ways. And a tip of the hat is made to both written works about Sherlock Holmes and movies. One of Watson's blog entries is titled "A Study in Pink", which is a reference to the original Study in Scarlett. Hounds of Baskerville are actually H.O.U.N.D.S, a fictional elite unit of soldiers. And Holmes' sexuality is brought into question more than once, as it has remained questionable in almost all adaptations. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows was one long gay joke.

Long Format

My only complaint about Sherlock might be the length of the episodes. As I mentioned, each episode is around 90 minutes, which makes it difficult for someone with a busy schedule to enjoy it all in one sitting. At least compared to most 50-60 minute serials that have cropped up.

Also be prepared for lulls and long moments of deep contemplation. The clues and deductions may be fast paced, but the action is not. Doyle's Sherlock hardly ever got into any scrapes at all. It feels to me that modern adaptations of the character go around picking fights, just to show he can locate someone's liver with his knuckles.