Another filler (?) episode LOST that was really disguised as something actually interesting?  No show in memory has ever had a satisfying season finale, not even the great THE WIRE ended well.  I am starting to fear for LOST the same fate as all of those.  More after the break.

***SPOILERS***

This is the kind of ep I am thinking, “hmm, this is a pretty good ep, BUT, something just feels off, like the writers left out one key ingredient that without it causes a lack of pizzaz, though as is remains a semi-savory meal.”

I guess it just goes back to me being done with filler episodes.  The produces said, give us a finite end date so we can tell the story right.  Seems like the series should have ended after season 5.

Really, I mean really, the second the Oceanic 6 set first foot off the island, the show was over for me.  THAT was the premise of the show, stuck on an island, got to get off somehow.  They did, so no matter what happens, no matter what super cool history or mythology of the island they reveal, or what twist they bring in, to me, nothing will be bigger than them first getting off the island.  Increasing the scope of the show to go off island in the current timeline, for me, actually shrank the scope of the show in my eyes.

Anyway, about 6×08 Recon in particular . . .

WHAT I LIKED:

• The is he a cop or isn’t he few seconds at the end of the teaser
• Miles being loyal to Sawyer even in the flashsideways, great turnaround for that character
• Charlotte looking radiant at the restaurant, two pools of blue framed by red
• Sawyer’s cavalier attitude when being marched to Widmore

WHAT I DID NOT LIKE:

• More Claire insanity, don’t need it, don’t want to see it
• The introduction of yet another new character, Zoe, this late in the game, don’t care how minor she is, sick of henchmen coming in all the time now
• Sawyer being into Kate seemingly so soon after wanting to destroy the world over Juliet dying
• Why in the hell is Flocke so damn careful and slow when he is the smoke monster, why not just cruise to the other island and destroy Widmore in the bat of an eye?  Why does he need ANY of those people?  And why does he NEED to kill any of them?
• No Hurley

I was intending to give this episode 3 stars, but I may be talking myself into only 2 stars.  I really do not want all the action to be jammed into the final 2 or 3 hours of the series.  The battle between Widmore and Flocke had better the hell happen WAY before the series finale.  Their better be something more than just a fight to cap all this.

Basically an entire ep to tell us what we already knew from the 30 second ending of the previous ep, Widmore is setting up shop on the Hydra Island.  Widmore and Flocke don’t like each other.  Claire is crazy.  Need more happening each ep.  And I wish they had just had the respect to give Sayid an honorable death, whatever the hell he is now is an insult to his character.

In honor of Corey Haim’s memory, and to revisit a movie that has long had legendary status in my teenage recollections, this Saturday’s movie was LICENSE TO DRIVE.  I can remember being stoked to go see this movie when it came out in theaters, though at that age going to see any movie at the theater without parental supervision was cause for an ecstatic state.  As always with seeing a movie for the first time in 22 years, I was not sure at all how it would hold up.  Within the first five minutes all doubts were erased and I was reliving LICENSE as if still 14 years old.

Many of the decades in the 20th century had their own, distinct identity.  Certainly from the 50s on pop culture made its own stamp on each set of 10 years.  To me it cannot be argued that there was any better decade than the 80s to grow up in.  See any fashion from that time, you will know it is the 80s.  How many TV shows can you say are decade defining?  Many.  Iconic movies?  Ample.  Music?  No doubt 80s music had not just its own sound, but at least three distinct genres to choose from.

LICENSE is a pure 80s entertainment, and the type of entertainment you just cannot get from a teen movie, or movie of any kind, today.  No irony to be found in the least, sexual content there, but checked in reality, throwing up yes, but it is off camera and minimal.

I cannot say when I ha’ed as loudly as I did at a line early in the movie about mothers helping their sons hold a certain something.  You going to get a line like that in a PG-13 movie nowadays?  Hell no.  Hell, they even used the F word once!  Sweet.

The plot of the movie could not be any purer American teen – taking your parent’s car out without permission, for a wild night, risking all kinds of horrible consequences.  But you still do it anyway.

Add in a true movie dream girl in Heather Graham, with one of the best names ever written for a silver screen character, Mercedes Lane, and you know it is going to be all good times from there.

Then there is Corey Haim, recently deceased, famous for perhaps being an 80s punchline of sorts, but undeservedly so.  I actually thought his acting was good in LICENSE.  Corey Feldman was just a supporting character, but seemed to be reading his lines from his memory too much.

I cannot say how much I enjoyed revisiting LICENSE.  I am so glad I did.  All the hyperbole about a 16 year old boy getting his license in the movie, I can testify that it is all absolutely realistic.  There is no greater Freedom that can be bestowed upon any teen than receiving that license.

I believe that streak of decades with their own identity stopped in the 00s.  The first decade that saw the birth of no new musical genres.  Any song you going to hear 20 years from now that will say, ah, the sound of the 00s?  Any clothing style?  I think not.  That’s why the 00s took so much from past decades that actually had identities of their own.

LICENSE is a PG-13 rated movie, movie at its best.  Entertainment from another time.

In a comment just posted today, I asked for the produces of LOST to finally start delivering, as they set a firm end date for the show and promised us this would allow for tight story telling and ending the show how they wanted.  That to me meant no filler, all killer.  Up to now, Season 6 had an intolerable level of filler.  6×07 might have had its share of filler, but its other qualities made up for it.  Spoilers and more after the break . . . .

***SPOILERS***

Easily the best episode of the season so far.  Ben re-establishes himself as the most interesting character on the show, and provider of the best acting.  Helluva choice he made to protect Alex’s future.

WHAT I LIKED:

• the principal pulling up an e-mail of his own, outstanding twist
• the revelation that Dr. Linus also spent time on the island!
• the source of Richard’s chains, yet another very well done revelation
• Hurley giving perhaps his most passionate dude yet!
• Ben still feeling the pain of Alex being killed in front of him
• Miles finally getting to burn someone instead of being picked on all the time
• obviously the badass, yet campy, arrival of Widmore on the sub
• ending the episode with a classic LOST poignant piano slow-mo beach scene

WHAT I DID NOT LIKE:

• Jack just betting it all with the dynamite
• Jack lighting the fuse and not pumping Richard for answers first

I saw Alan Dale’s name in the opening credits so I knew he’d be appearing sometime, so I was not surprised by him on the sub, unfortunately.  I was surprised that Mario Van Peebles (!) directed this episode!  He did a helluva job I think.

Just a classic LOST emotional episode.  The way they wrap things up with that piano slow-mo scene at the end, makes you feel good about watching LOST, like getting a spoonful of medicine that warms your insides right up.  Glad to see them seemingly setting up to make a last stand on their beach.  Back to the water, tents up, exactly where I’d want to be, especially with such lively reading material still lying around!

Anytime the Black Rock comes into play basically rules.  Great flash sideways with Dr. Linus showing compassion and cunning.  Alex looked good!  I did not recognize her until the end of the doorstep conversation.

Maybe not much happened plot-wise, not sure, it is easy to get distracted by the power of Ben’s acting.  No doubt now Candidates are to replace Jacob.  Seems Flocke thinks he can choose who the replacement is by offering control of the island back to Ben.

How did Widmore find the island?  What does he want?  To replace Jacob?  We thought he was a bad guy all along, but it would seem Widmore is the person Jacob wanted to find the island.  So this just further muddies the waters to me on who is the true good, Flocke or Jacob?

I was somewhat tempted to give this episode an extremely rare 5-star rating, but I’ve calmed down and will give it 4-stars.  Got to assume the series finale will be a 5-star affair so can’t just toss that rating out casually.

Due to a set of very unusual circumstances, I found myself with 4 hours of sanity today.  It was a preview to how my days will be once I win the lottery this year, except of course in the parking lot will be a Porsche 911 Turbo instead of a Saturn Vue.  I found myself being very grateful for something that should be a given, not an extraordinary exception.  Such are the ill things one is often trapped into when living in the world of Men.

There is absolutely nothing I like greater than traveling to some place I have never been before and having that feeling of discovery.  It used to happen often in my early years of living abroad, but much less so the past few years.

Nevertheless, I found myself behind the wheel on a brilliant Florida sunshine day, crisp not yet spring air, with Kiki sniffing out the window as is her greatest traveling thrill.  I saw on a map the night before a place called Crystal River Preserve State Park.  This is the place I headed for expecting a formal state park with ranger station, info board, pamphlet, but there was none of that.  Just two long winding roads leading to the coast, independently of each other.  I took the northernmost one first.

Stopped at what turned out to be a boat ramp surrounded by a nice, finite park with a t-shaped pier.  Saw several manatees swim by then gave veteran Florida travel advice to a very nice older British couple.  One of the other great things I like about travel is chewing the fat with people I meet out on the Road.  I hope they enjoy their time in my suggested destination of St. Augustine, after they visit Kennedy Space Center of course.

The grasslands Kiki and I ran free on reminded me of places I explored as a child in Cape Cod.  I was quite ecstatic to have been lead to this place.  Kiki being a lover of tall (for her) grass and new smells I believe was ecstatic as well.

The 4 hours of sanity continued thusly.  For a good 45 minutes of that time I just sat on the white sand beach (first photo) doing no-thing.  It really, really feels great to do no-thing.  Kiki did dig a few holes before calming down herself and lying in the sand with a nose that looked like it was dipped in sugar crystals.

It was a 4 hours I used all my senses.  A time my eyes almost never left the horizon . . .