SPOILERS!

Let me start by saying that I was tring to put my fussy baby niece to sleep while I was watching LOST last night. It makes for a frustrating viewing of the show, especially since it was Faraday-centric! When rewatching it later, I only had enough brain power to watch the bits that I missed (like Widmore being Eloise’s baby daddy).

Ohmigah. Last night’s episode, “The Variable”, was FANTASTIC….but I’m totally depressed! Eloise Hawking is a fucking monster, if you ask me. We got a lot of insight and background on Faraday. In present time (1977 group), Faraday basically tells the Losties two things: 1) You don’t belong here, my mother was lying to you and 2) Maybe we CAN change the past and thus prevent all of this crap from happenning. Ooh, I have chills. Poor Daniel believes all of this and has managed to convince himself that it’s true….but is totally led to his own terrible fate. Anyway, some fans give Faraday a hard time for being such a weirdo, but with a mother like that, can you blame him? She’s a lot more weird than he is!

My random thoughts:

- I have to say that I’m with Sawyer about all of them going back to the beach. I miss the beach! And that Dharma jumpsuit takes his sexiness down a couple notches.

- Desmond is alive! He’s allliiiiiiiiiiive!!! More importantly, he did suffer a wound when Ben shot him, ending all hope that a bag of groceries can act as a bulletproof shield.

- OK. So. We all know people will die on this show. BUT….I saw the ComiCon video, and it’s obvious (is it?) that Faraday is in the room with Chang. So, um, when did this video get filmed? Or are the writers totally messing with us? Or did they fuck up? OR…is this part of the whole the-island-can-raise-the-dead/is-reincarnation-a-big-part-of-LOST stuff? Or will time-traveling Daniel-doing-his-experiments-at-Oxford help? AUGH!!!!! I mean, Desmond’s story obviously isn’t done, and he is Faraday’s constant….oh boy. Did I just come up with a crackpot theory?

- Did I mention that Eloise Hawking is a fucking monster? And she told Penny that, for the first time, she doesn’t know what’s going to happen next. Karma’s a bitch, Ellie, and so are you!!!

- When exactly did Daniel get healed? He’s always been a total headcase, but he seemed relatively coherent after landing on the island from the freighter. At least now we know why he didn’t remember meeting Desmond at Oxford.

Enough. I’m getting a nosebleed. THREE MORE EPISODES! I’m scared and excited. I’m sure a lot of stuff will go down and I’m confident that it’ll be fantastic, but I don’t know if I can take a long cliffhanger (especially if it takes a season to be resolved, a la “who’s in the coffin?”).

Happy 100th episode!!

Recap of the recaps (A.V. Club, The Lost Podcast with Jay & Jack, Doc Jensen) with my thoughts thrown in:

• People are going nuts over the whole “did this all really happen before…did Ben know…if he knows, why would he let Sayid come back…”. Fan have having LOST nose-bleeds all over the place just trying to wrap their minds around what happened in last night’s episode. The fans seems to be split into two camps: 1) I’m going to melt my brain by trying to put all of this together (Doc Jensen delayed the posting of his recap because he’s so confused – and because of a stomachache) and 2) I’m not even going to speculate and just enjoy what the next episodes tell us.
• Is the book “A Separate Reality”, which Ben gives to Sayid to read, indicative of what’s happening on the series?
• People feel that the “torture” scene is equal parts hilarious and totally ridiculous. Will we see Oldham again (and doing something much more controversial than giving a doped up sugar cube)? Seems a shame to waste a great actor and – seriously – I was fearing for Sayid and was actually let down that he didn’t lose an ear or something.
• Radzinsky is annoying the crap out of just about everyone. At least we know he dies eventually.
• The flashback to Sayid’s childhood seems to parallel that of Mr. Eko.
• Is Amy a hostile? I know she’s still pissed about Paul’s death, but why decide so quickly to kill Sayid? Is she protecing herself?
• It was nice to have a Sayid-centric episode, except that people are starting to worry that this episode was the beginning of the end for him (which is tragic, but a lot less traumatic than the other major death rumor going around)
• Did Sayid break the rules by shooting Ben?
• Kate better not say that she went back to the island for Sawyer because that’s totally fucked up.
• I truly felt for Juliet during the burning bacon scene. Everyone is saying, “Why aren’t the O6 asking more questions or freaking out?” and it was nice to see the Dharma group react to the return of their “friends”.
• It was nice to see Roger Linus. What an ass.
• Yay! Return of the flashbacks. Flashfowards? Y’all should have heard me trying to explain the timelines to my mom yesterday.

This episode was another complete mindscrew from the powers behind LOST. Everyone is still shocked over the final two seconds of the episode, even though we all knew what was going to happen. The question of whether this was what really happened or if Sayid changed the past will be debated wildly! I am in the camp that’s just going to sit back and enjoy whatever happens.

Michael Emerson gets a lot of love for his creepy and clever portrayal of Ben on LOST, and he definitely deserves it. But after tonight’s episode, I think we should all take ten seconds out of our lives to literally clap our hands for Sterling Beaumon, the young actor who plays young Ben. Here’s a photo of him without his creepy Ben-glasses on:

I think this kid is super talented! He is so good at playing Ben that it’s genuinely creepy. And if you check out his imdb page and Wikipedia entry, you’ll learn that he’s already an accomplished actor on the stage and screen.

Okay – I don’t want to spoil anything so all I’m going to say about tonight’s episode is I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT YOU-KNOW-WHO ACTUALLY DID YOU-KNOW-WHAT AND WHAT THE HELL IS GOING TO HAPPEN NOW?! I mean, I think we all saw it coming, but it was still so SHOCKING! Also, where the heck is Locke? That’s two episodes without Terry O’Quinn. Goodness, I hope the writers aren’t sitting around wondering, “So…if Locke’s not dead, then what is he? What happens now? We probably should’ve thought about that before killing him and bringing him back to life…” LOL….yes, this is totally a passive aggressive comment on Battlestar Galactica. But, seriously, I’m a little bit sick of the Dharma Initiative. And while I’m complaining, can’t they give Reiko Aylesworth something cool to do? I was so so excited when I heard that she was going to be on this season, but she’s a bore. They could have hired anyone to play the part of Amy. Alright, rant over. I apologize.

I’ll read the recaps tomorrow and then give you a summary of what everyone is saying about tonight’s episode along with my own thoughts and reactions. I know you’re excited. Try to contain yourselves.

Compiled from A.V. Club, Jay & Jack, and my own brain:

• You can hear the numbers when Lapidus is landing the plane on the island (I have yet to check this out myself)
• There is someone standing in the doorway (over Sun’s shoulder) when Christian is showing the 1977 picture to Sun
• When the hell are Frank, Sun, et al since we haven’t really seen Dharmaville look like that? No signs of Dharma-ness (eg, signs on the buildings) appeared to be present at the time The Others lived there.
• Is Dan Gauthier (aka dead co-pilot) going to be back? I can’t take him seriously since he was on Teen Witch, especially because he looks EXACTLY THE SAME.
• The general theory is that Sun was on the island in 1977, which is why she didn’t flash with the everyone else. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this.
• Where’s Faraday? Where are Rose and Bernard? Where’s Vincent (and did his little nose bleed during the flashes)? And is Sayid going to totally try and murder young Ben next week?
• Now we know why Ben’s in the infirmary (see pic above).

I can’t help myself…I am totally crushing on James LaFleur right now. I hope that his method of leadership doesn’t blow up in his face later on, because he deserves a happy ending. And what the f is up with Kate? I don’t get her. And I’m glad that next week’s previews seem to imply that Hurley is telling her to get it through her thick skull that James and Juliet are together.

Okay. Allow me to geek out about LOST for a minute. This show is so freaking great. Have you been watching this season? It has been so good. Don’t worry, no spoilers! This greatness of this season has led me to have LOST marathon this weekend. There is SO MUCH care put into creating this show. It is SO damn smart. Everything is coming full circle. When all is said and done for this show, fans will be marveling for years about how genius LOST is. The production value is just…okay, I’m not high or anything. I just really love this show. I love the characters. I love the island. I love the mythology. I CANNOT wait to see how it all ends and to have all our questions answered.

Geek out session finished.