"This Place Is Death" Postmortem

Hello, all. My apologies for the late posting.

One again, Michael identifies the pacing issue quite eloquently. I'm fiercely protective of the show, but am not above acknowledging some storytelling weaknesses. And while I love the end-date countdown (Can you imagine the show lasting for twelve more seasons? It would end up as one convoluted viewer-less mess), there is certainly an awkward sense of urgency in the dialogue and plot structure. Although I suppose the randomness of the flashes (including the amazing back-to-back ones) and subsequent "What is going on here?!" chaos of the island is being echoed in the more frenetic pacing. So maybe it's completely intentional.

Some random thoughts from Wednesday's viewing:

- Sun's daughter is alive!

- Poor Jin. He finally knows some English, and everyone's talking FRENCH.

- Okay, so I love that they're yelling "Nadine" over and over. It's ridiculous how happy this makes me.

- Shoot. Nadine is dead. Dumb monster.

- Why does Robert suddenly want to kill the mother of his child? Does Smokey possess people too?

- Sawyer and Jin reunite. Bromance at its best.

- Apparently Ben's not a fan of everyone threatening to kill him.

- Funny how Jin gives Locke his ring to prove that he's dead; Ben shows Sun the ring to prove that Jin's alive.

- The frozen donkey wheel. Christian won't help him up. Is he real?! John cranks the crazy wheel that confuses me to no end. "Say hello to my son." "Who's your son?" I have a feeling we don't know everything yet. I just hope the final twist isn't that they're all related. I don't think I could handle that.

- DESMOND! So ridiculously attractive. (Sorry for the random aside. But it's true.) Talk about uber-convenient timing. The Mrs. Hawking reveal does nothing for me. No surprises anymore. "All right. Let's get started." Um, but they're not all there!!!!!

Last season, Desmond was the character to introduce a whole new level of emotional entanglement and scientific insanity to the show. This season, it's all about Faraday. Charlotte's death was worth it just for that little piece of information about Dan's past. I'm hooked.

And the Biblical scholar in me is obsessed with next week's episode. Could 3:16 be a literal reference to Locke (as in John 3:16), or is it the content of the verse that it's alluding to? You know, the whole one-man-sent-to-die-so-that-others-may-live thing? I guess it could be both....

Stay tuned.

TAGS: Postmortem, Recap, This Place Is Death
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