LOST: To Gas or Not To Gas?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


mojo-photo-lost0307.jpgWhile last week’s episode was a surprisingly affecting reminder of how emotionally powerful this show can be, even when you have very little idea of what the hell is going on, last night’s episode was more about giving us edge-of-our-seats suspense while, uh, having no idea what the hell is going on. Plus, you know, a quick blowing of all the semiotics majors’ minds with the line “It’s very stressful being an Other.” Tell me about it!

Actually, we did get some interesting back story on Juliet, whose relationship with Ben turns out to be even creepier than we thought. Juliet’s dalliance with Goodwin basically got him killed, as a madly jealous Ben sent him off to his demise. Turns out Juliet looked just like Ben’s… 3rd grade teacher? Just a guess. So, that explains how Juliet went from angelic Lifetime-TV-special “I’m just trying to save the mothers” doctor lady into manipulative Other. It happens to the best of us.

Back in “the present,” bumbly Faraday and grumpy Charlotte head off to The Tempest, a power station-slash-extermination center, on a random mission to either gas everybody on the island or not. Kate stumbles onto them, looking for all the world like she just had 3 or 4 margaritas. For God’s sake, Kate, if you’re that suspicious of what they’re up to, maybe don’t turn your back to Charlotte so she can bonk you in the head? Whoops, too late! And seriously, why won’t anybody on this show just explain what they’re doing? “Well, Kate, there’s a power station full of poison gas just up the trail, and we want to render it inert to save your sorry asses from psycho Ben.” How hard is that? Apparently harder than a head-bonk.

Just in case you didn’t catch the VALIS reference from last week, here’s a 30-second close-up shot of the book again. Philip K. Dick everybody! Unfortunately, VALIS is the one PKD novel I was never able to slog through; I’ve read every one of his short stories like 10 times, but VALIS‘ “it could be real or I could be crazy” back-and-forth kind of gives me a headache… just like Locke and Ben, whose cat-and-mouse games are getting on my nerves. But, thanks to a video Ben shows us, we learn the freighter really is Widmore’s, as the Riff speculated last week, although what Richie McMoneybags wants with the island is anybody’s guess. (Condos? In this market? “Bchfrnt vus, scry smke mnstr.”) And, gulp, if he’s a baddy then Faraday and Charlotte are his baddy minions, right?

So, I have no idea who the good guys or the bad guys are, but for God’s sake, we better turn off (or on) the gas computer data system before the bar goes any higher into the red and kills us all (or saves us all)! Hey, Shakespeare wrote something called The Tempest, didn’t he, maybe he can help:

All torment, trouble, wonder and amazement
Inhabits here. Some heavenly power guide us
Out of this fearful country!

You said it, Will.

Photo courtesy ABC.

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate