February 12, 2009

LOST: Please Tell Me They’re Not in Purgatory

Photo courtesy <a href="http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/index?pn=photos#t=54633" target="blank">ABC</a>

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


The title of last night’s LOST episode should have been a giveaway: “This Place is Death.” But I’m hoping to Hurley the island-bound Losties are not in limbo, or in purgatory, or just plain old dead because the show’s creators promised they wouldn’t be.

That sinking feeling aside, some really interesting information is helping progressing the series toward a (hopefully) satisfying conclusion. We now know the smoke monster used to guard a temple inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphs, the same glyphs seen when Desmond’s hatch computer was allowed to time out. The Egyptian symbols, together with Charlotte’s Tunisian Dharma Initiative research, and the slave ship the Black Rock, gives this season a bit of an African flavor, but it’s hard to tell what the link is between Africa and the island.Another theme that’s been marinating for a while is babies. The island
seems to be able to import human life (from planes, ships, etc) but is
incapable of producing it organically. Women who land on the island
pregnant can give birth, but women who get pregnant on-island miscarry
and die if they stay there. Perhaps the island has a radiation-like
effect: a little dose can kill a cancer, a huge does can create it. I don’t think this will be the last we’ll hear about the island’s effects on babies, especially the ones born there.

All thematic motifs aside, the episode got back to the character-driven scenes and good acting that attracted many people the show’s first season. The director got tears from actors without it feeling schmaltzy (Sun talking to her daughter on the phone) and that just-right mix of pathos and humor (Charlotte’s deathbed ramblings). Quote of the night came out of left-field from Miles, when asked to translate for Jin, “He’s Korean. I’m from Encino.” So true. And Locke’s expression when redheaded, freckled Charlotte started translating instead: priceless. I’m hoping for some Hurley-originated non sequiturs next week, as the off-island folks make tracks to wherever, and whenever, the island currently exists with a little help from Daniel’s mum.

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 can’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 won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—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 can’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 won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—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