Flashback, flashforward, flash-two-places-at-once?
Last night’s episode of Lost brought the intensity of the story to a whole new dimension. Literally. We’ve seen Desmond’s flashes of the future before and learned that time on the island was weird, but this episode really delved into the subject.
Not only was Desmond transported back in time, the quality of the writing was a blast from the past seasons with intensity normally only seen on the season finales. I mentioned in an earlier blog post that Lost has really redeemed itself after the pathetic third season, and I now I think it really has potential to be better than ever before.
The fourth season of Lost, however, is addictive and intense in a different kind of way than the first two seasons. The show used to have so many undertones and subplots of religion and philosophy, but it seems that the writers are abandoning much of that to go deeper into the sci-fi aspects of the island than before. Daniel the physicist seems to be a character that’s going to help us understand more about the island, and so far I really like him. By “like him” I mean “trust him.” Don’t get me started on Charlotte and Miles. They creep me out.
I’m glad that the new science-heavy Lost isn’t losing the humanness that made the earlier seasons so good. The flashbacks were such a great way to get to know characters, and the connections between the characters that were shown were always fun—especially because the characters themselves didn’t know the connections exist (ex. Clare and Jack are half-siblings, but don’t know it). Anyway, bringing Penny back as Desmond’s “constant” was a great way to keep the personal, emotional touch.
I’m so glad that Penny was back, even though we probably won’t see her again for a while. Her storyline drives me crazy because it has the most holes in it. Why was the communications room on the ship sabotaged and who did it? Why aren’t the people on the ship allowed to take Penny’s calls? And HOW DID SHE FIND OUT ABOUT THE ISLAND IN THE FIRST PLACE?
I can’t wait for next week’s episode.
Sick and tired of stress
At Wednesday’s assembly, the administration asked us to give an honest critique of the school with regards to what factors create a stressful environment. What I’d like to ask the administration is “why are we still talking about this?”
We all know what causes stress. The WHS atmosphere is extremely competitive, and there are so many students who “cut corners” that it skews the field for anyone who wants to play fairly.
Students who choose levels based on where they feel they actually belong aren’t always able to find a perfect fit because the gap between level one and two classes is too large. Also, as much as guidance counselors and the administration would like to pretend that all teachers are fair and kind, they aren’t. I know way too many people who have dropped down a level because they had a problem with the teacher.
I feel like I’ve had this conversation so many times before, and people always bring up the same topics: parents, midyears, GPA, sports, college, SATs, sleep, friends, blah, blah, blah.
I get it. Life is stressful. Can we please stop asking “why?” and start talking about what we’re going to do to fix the problem?
As someone who has stressed myself out numerous times by staring at a computer screen for days typing and deleting sentences in an effort to convince myself that I was making progress towards finishing a paper by “thinking about the question,” I’d say “thinking about the question” isn’t what we need.
Please just propose a couple of solutions already. Filling out surveys when I have legitimate work to do is starting to stress me out….
Found: One great show, no new answers
If you’re one of those people who recorded the season premiere of Lost last night to do homework and hasn’t watched it yet…go read someone else’s blog.
For those of you who did watch (or who just don’t care), I think you’ll agree that Lost is returning to its former glory.
I have to admit that although the third season finale’s flash-forward brought thrill, excitement, and an agonizing desire for answers that’s been bugging me for months, it also made me nervous. Lost’s third season was weak. Although not every episode was as bad as the Nikki-Paulo fiasco, I was really doubting whether the show could survive. Would jumping into the future to show us that Jack and Kate (and we can now add Hurley and three unknowns) got off the island take the intrigue out of future episodes?
Absolutely not. If anything, answering one question about the future has only intensified the mystery. As much as I love the flashbacks, I really hope that we see more about the future as the season develops.
The only thing that really bothered me about this episode was that Jack tried to shoot Locke. Actually, it seemed like Jack and Locke had a bit of an identity swap.
Five minutes before the end of Lost’s fourth season premiere I was yelling “GO WITH LOCKE, YOU STUPID, STUBBORN, FAITHLESS, EGOMANIAC MURDERER” at Jack, but several minutes later I was silent.
Hurley thinks that he should have gone with Jack? Wait. What? This is such a role reversal. I’m used to Locke being the one to maker the freaky-faith-based decisions that end up being right. Also, he’s not afraid to shoot, while Jack is much more about the “saving.” It was so uncharacteristic of Jack to try and kill Locke that I assumed no good could come of his decision to meet the mysterious boat crew. Actually, depending on how you view the choice’s consequences on his future, it could be “good” or “bad….”
This brings up the question of whether Locke is “good” or “bad.” First of all, I hate to use the terms “good” and “bad” because right and wrong are so ambiguous on the show. Putting this aside, there’s never been any question in my mind that Locke is a good guy. Sure he can be a little eccentric, but faith can make you kind of crazy, right? It just seems weird that Hurley, looking back on his experience, decides that he was wrong to follow Locke.
I’ve always thought that Locke’s supernatural connection to the island would help protect the group, and when he was so sure that the boat could only bring danger, I assumed that he had received cautionary advice from Jacob. Is Locke purposely leading his group towards danger under the direction of Jacob? I guess we just have to wait to find out the consequences of the Jack-Locke schism.
Also, what’s up with Penelope? Is she just someone who’s going to pop up during season finales to annoy us and raise more questions? Lost leaves A LOT of things hanging, but it’s been two years since we saw the men working for Penny in the listening station, and I’d really like to know what’s going on over there.
Lost, you drive me crazy. And I love it.
Why being a junior is a bit like being Jon Krakauer
Hey guys, I’m Caroline D, and I’m co-layout editor for The Bradford. When I’m not buried under the mountains of work that come with junior year, I like to watch TV and movies, play my guitar, hang out with my friends and dog, Shanna, and read. Actually, I really don’t read anything by choice from September to June because I’m too busy reading required stuff for required classes so that I can fulfill annoying requirements to graduate and go to college.
If my regular obligatory work is Everest, I’m also struggling to get over a couple of other Kilimanjaros right know known as “junior history thesis” and “junior English IRP.” When did it become ok to assign massive amounts of additional reading and papers without giving students a break on the normal homework?
As you can probably tell, I’m not a big fan of school. I used to enjoy it, but that was back when school was only about learning, and grades didn’t actually matter.
As you can also probably tell, I’ll be ranting a lot in this blog. I don’t have a particular topic in mind, but you can expect a couple irritated tirades about the various problems I have with this school.
Of course, I could always talk about happy things too. I’m the kind of person who tries to see a glass as half full even when it’s filled with disgusting, sour milk, so I guess we’ll just have to see what my brain serves up in the future.
