Wednesday, March 31, 2010

RECAP: Lost - "The Package"

God I'm getting really sick of this show. I don't know why I bother writing these recaps, other than to vent my frustration. This week's episode was one of the more useless this season; infuriating because they only have like 6 episodes left to wrap up their storylines. These damned side-flashes are going nowhere fast, and I have no idea how they're going to resolve the problems they've created without pissing everyone off (oh wait, I forgot, it's Lost. They don't care whether they piss everyone off or not. Sigh). Anyway, read on for the full recap.



Monday, March 29, 2010

Internet Goodness: Batman Predicts Bioshock

There are certain things in this world that I feel like it would be hard to improve upon. Batman: The Animated Series is one of those things. The show was damn near perfect, and now I've discovered that it apparently had the ability to see the future. In a 1994 episode titled "Deep Freeze," Batman and Robin are forced to go to an underwater city built by a billionaire capitalist...you know, almost EXACTLY the same plot as Bioshock.

This page has a pretty awesome analysis of the similarities between the episode and the video game. Check it out. Or don't. What am I, your mother? Do what you want.

RECAP: The Amazing Race - "Anonymous?"

I don't want to jinx it, but it seems like this season of The Amazing Race is gradually getting better. The challenges are creating a lot more drama, and appear to be slightly more difficult (or perhaps just more frustrating), thus causing more shuffling in the order of team check-ins (i.e., the teams aren't arriving in the same order every leg of the race; the challenges are allowing some teams to catch up, while putting others at the back of the pack). After the jump, I've got the full recap (spoilers).


Friday, March 26, 2010

Internet Goodness: 1960's Lost Credits


Another way Lost could be way better would be if it started with these opening credits:



Also, click read more for a surprising Sun moment.


RECAP: Lost - "Ab Aeterno"

Well it only took 6 goddamn seasons, but we finally got the full story on Richard Alpert, the Island's mysterious, never-aging Jacob servant. After the jump I've got the spoiler-filled recap, but for now I'll just say that while it was probably one of the better episodes of the season, my overall reaction was "meh." For something they've been building up for like 3 or 4 seasons, it seemed like a pretty anticlimactic episode. But more on that later. For now, Read More for the full recap.


Internet Goodness: Mocktopus Comics!


I haven't read many of these web comics, but if they're anything like this one, they're probably worth checking out.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Internet Goodness: Harry Potter Obama Sonic #10 Backpack


I have no words. Other than "I want this backpack."


Monday, March 22, 2010

RECAP: The Amazing Race - "Cathy Drone?"

It's incredible how a show can go from stupendously boring to wildly entertaining in the space of one week, and The Amazing Race has managed to do exactly that. While this week's episode featured just as little actual travel as last week's, the difficulty of the challenges combined with mistaken directions and general team frustration to create a whole lot of drama and an overall fun-to-watch hour of television. After the jump, I've got the full recap.


Friday, March 19, 2010

RECAP: Lost - Recon


After the jump, I've got the recap of the latest episode of Lost. As I mentioned last week, Lost has a bad habit of going long periods of time without giving us any indication of a particular character's motivations, and now they seem to be going through the cast and trying to correct that. This week's episode, titled "Recon," followed Sawyer, and the side-flashes were some of the more confusing that we've seen thus far. Read on for the full recap (Spoilers Ahead).


This Is Important


Pictures like this make my insides explode.

Internet Goodness: Mace Windu vs. Droid Army

I've always been of the opinion that George Lucas should just find a cave somewhere and live out the rest of his days in solitude instead of inflicting his particular brand of stupidity on mankind by continually pumping out shitty remakes and spin-offs of his classic films (what's next, you ask? Why, it's goddamn Star Wars for Babies). That said, after the jump I've got a clip from Star Wars: Clone Wars, the animated TV miniseries, in which Mace Windu, whose face appears to be constructed entirely of angles, fights off an entire droid army. It's pretty amazing, but it begs the question: if the Jedi knights could use the Force like Mace does in this clip (basically tearing enemies apart by thrusting a hand meaningfully in their general direction), why the hell would anyone ever bother with lightsabers? It seems impractical, no?


Futurama EEEEEEE!!!

I'll be honest, I haven't been this excited for a show in a long time.


Thursday, March 18, 2010

Internet Goodness: SNL Digital Short


From here on out I'll be composing my posts in an "after the jump" format, just to ease the readability of this site. An advantage to doing things this way is that any of my posts that contain spoilers (such as my Lost and Amazing Race) won't be right in your face when you come to this site.

So after the jump, I've got the new SNL Digital Short from the Lonely Island. It's not as good as some of their other stuff, but it's still got a few laughs. Enjoy.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Internet Goodness: Between Two Ferns


If you're anything like me, you spend most of your afternoons fighting crime before returning home to your mansion to pleasure multiple supermodels. Also, you probably find most of Zach Galifianakis' stuff hilarious, and own several exotic cars.

Anyway, here's the latest Between Two Ferns, with special guest Ben Stiller.


*Edit: I'm getting really goddamn sick of all my videos being cut off because of the stupid width restrictions in this blog. I may need to switch to a different format soon.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Stupid Awesomeness


Listen, I like awesome things as much as the next guy (probably even more so), and I find a lot of awesome things in my adventures on the Internet. However, there comes a point when something becomes so awesome that it circles around and becomes stupid. And that's what this painting is.

That's right. It's Batman. Fighting a shark. With a goddamn lightsaber. This painting is so dick-punchingly awesome it's stupid. I don't even know how to be right now. I'm literally in a state of shock. There's so much testosterone in this picture that my computer is starting to smell like a combination of steak and Axe Body Spray. I feel like my speakers are about to start blaring Slayer's "Raining Blood." I'm going to go eat some red meat and work on my beard.

RECAP: The Amazing Race - "I Think We're Fighting the Germans, Right?"

This week offered us another fairly lame installment of The Amazing Race, although the producers tried hard to ensure that we wouldn't notice by creating a fairly impressive setting for the Detour/Speed Bump. The interesting thing about this leg is that teams didn't really do any significant travelling on their own. During the pit stop, all of the teams got on a bus and went to an "unknown destination," which they all immediately figured out was somewhere in France. I'm not sure why TAR chose to point out that the destination was unknown, as it had absolutely no effect on the game, but whatever, I'm not in charge of the show (if I was, you can bet the teams would be doing something more exciting than crawling across a field or painting the side of a house for their challenges).

On the bus, Joe iced his knee and mouthed off about how he wasn't scared about any of the other teams. Despite the fact that he was limping noticeably throughout the episode, he seemed to view his injury as more of an annoyance than any real hindrance to his game. The teams arrived in Les Monthairons, France, and drove to a bakery in a nearby village, where they had to buy a fresh baguette. I'm starting to think that this season of The Amazing Race is so Amazing because of how incredibly stupid some of these teams are, as Steve, Jet, and Cord didn't know what a baguette was (and the cowboys couldn't even pronounce the word properly). Team Bro was ecstatic about finally getting a car with an automatic transmission, and Caite was excited about getting to eat a baguette, planning to "eat the crap out of it," and "just shove it in [her] throat." Uhhh.

Once again, TAR gave the teams a detour that was so obviously skewed in terms of the difficulty level it was laughable. Teams had to choose between "In the Trenches" and "Under Fire." For "In the Trenches," teams had to decipher a message in Morse Code using a small field manual, and for "Under Fire," teams had to crawl 100 yards under (probably fake) barbed wire, get a message from a "soldier" in a machine gun nest, and crawl back. Every team chose "Under Fire," because unless you already knew Morse Code, why in God's name would you ever even attempt this one if you didn't have to? The challenges were set on a elaborately constructed battlefield, complete with planes dogfighting overhead (Brent was confused by the "flying things" in the sky, and viewers were confused about how he remembers to breathe), and the teams had to dress up as WWII soldiers for no discernible reason other than to make things more difficult, as their equipment was ill-fitting and kept falling off. TAR, if you're going to make the contestants dress up like idiots, at least give them costumes that fit.

Team Bro and Team Lesbian were back to their bickering ways, as Dan and Jordan fought about nothing for the entire episode, and Brandy acted like a brat at the Detour, bitching non-stop about how ridiculous it was that she had to crawl through the mud and insisting that "smart people do the Morse Code" challenge. Listen Princess, I would love to have seen you try that challenge. Maybe then a deserving team would have been eliminated.

Team Detective finished the Detour first, and arrived at their next Clue Box, which had a U-Turn option. For those who don't remember from seasons past, the U-Turn allows one team to screw over another team by forcing them to do both challenges in a detour. This wouldn't be that ridiculous, except for the fact that the Morse Code challenge was next to goddamn impossible. As retaliation for Joe's bus bragging, the detectives chose to assign the U-Turn to Joe and Heidi. As it was a Blind U-Turn, the team that used it was able to remain anonymous, but since there were only two teams ahead of them and Steve and Allie arrived at the U-Turn at the same time as Joe and Heidi, it was pretty obvious to everyone that the detectives were to blame. Joe and Heidi were forced to go back to the "In the Trenches" challenge, and they never recovered.

After the Detour, teams had to go south along a road to the U-Turn box, then find some old-fashioned bicycles, dress like idiots again, and bike 4 miles to the Pit Stop. Most teams had no problem with this except for Brent and Caite, who upon finishing the Detour, simply used Brent's compass to figure out which way was South, and headed in that direction.

Louie and Michael checked in first again, winning 55" HDTVs in the process. As stupid and pointless as the costumes are, watching Louie wear a fake moustache over his moustache was pretty funny. Jet and Cord commented that they like horses better than bikes, because "you don't have to pedal a horse."

This episode focussed heavily on Team Big Brother, primarily because they were so far behind. They started well behind everyone else, and had multiple problems throughout this leg of the race. First, Jordan couldn't figure out how streets work, so it took them a while to find the bakery. Once they found it, it took Jeff a few minutes to realize that their clue was inside the baguette. They got lost again, and when they finally found the Detour, Jordan had apparently decided that she didn't care about the Race anymore, because she dragged her feet and whined throughout the entire challenge. Her costume didn't fit, her helmet kept coming off, and she couldn't figure out how to crawl properly. At one point, she plopped down on the ground to fix her shoes, and Jeff put the barrel of his rifle in his mouth. They got to the Speed Bump, which was another asinine challenge that had them reinforcing a section of trench by weaving branches together (really, TAR? Is that the best you can come up with?). To be fair to Jordan, Jeff was definitely being a dick about it, but he definitely had a point when he mentioned that he had a 1 in 8 chance of winning a million dollars, and if he picked any random person off the street to be his teammate, they'd probably put more effort in than Jordan was. The best quote of the episode came when Jeff was waiting for Jordan to catch up to him in the crawling challenge, and yelled "Put your boobs on the ground, and drag 'em over here!" He followed that up by bringing the message ("The war is over") to the soldier at the end of the Detour and asking if the war was over "because of this message or because it took us so long to get here?"

Brent and Caite checked in 6th, but because they hadn't gone to the U-Turn box, they had to go back to the Detour site and find their missing clue. They still managed to check in 6th, however, because Jeff and Jordan were so far behind, and Joe and Heidi were stuck at the Detour. Unfortunately, Joe and Heidi were never able to decipher the Morse Code message, and Phil eventually showed up at the trenches and eliminated them.

Overall, the episode felt lazy. There was no real travel other than the bus ride during the Pit Stop, and the producers apparently decided that since they had spent so much energy creating the impressive battlefield, the entire episode should be staged there. The U-Turn twist was completely unfair, as it essentially allowed the Detectives to single-handedly eliminate Joe and Heidi. I wouldn't have minded if it had been a non-elimination leg, but it wasn't. Joe and Heidi seemed at the beginning that they would be a really annoying team, because they were very cocky in the first episode, but they ended up not being bad at all. I'm not saying that I liked them as a team, but they didn't do anything completely terrible, and it sucks to see a team get eliminated because of a stupid twist like this. Get with the program, Amazing Race.

Current Standings

1. Louie and Michael
2. Steve and Allie
3. Jet and Cord
4. Dan and Jordan
5. Carol and Brandy
6. Brent and Caite
7. Jeff and Jordan

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Movie Preview - Batman: Under the Red Hood

I'm not going to lie; there are few things in this world that I'm more excited for than the next DC animated movie. So far, they've been pretty consistently good (although Batman: Gotham Knight was kind of meh), and Batman is clearly the best character DC has. Based on the story arc Under the Hood, we'll see Batman and Nightwing facing off against Red Hood, Joker, Ra's al Ghul, and Black Mask. My pants are getting tight just thinking about it.

The website is here, for anyone else who wants to keep track of this thing like I do.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

RECAP: Lost - Dr. Linus


Lost has a bad habit of going long periods of time without addressing certain characters, so that when we finally catch up with them, we've almost forgotten what the last thing they did was. For the past 3 seasons, it seemed like we couldn't go 5 minutes without getting an update on what was happening with Ben Linus, but thus far in the sixth season he really hasn't done much other than follow others around looking scared and confused.

This week's episode, while maintaining his scared and confused demeanor, at least allowed us a glimpse at what was going through Ben's head. Apparently killing Jacob at the end of last season has turned him from a badass conniving mastermind into a whimpering little girl who always does what he's told.

The side-flashes showed us Ben's life as a high school teacher (as was indicated by the earlier Locke-centric episode). Despite having a doctorate in Modern European History, Ben finds himself running detention sessions instead of his true passion, the history club. His best friend is Leslie Arzt (the guy who was blown up by dynamite in season 1), and the principal of his school is the whiny reporter who was trapped on the plane with John McClane's wife in Die Hard 2 - and he's just as much of a dick this time around. Ben wears ridiculous little glasses and lives with his ailing father. Apparently in this timeline they still went to the Island (as Ben's dad seems to regret having left, thinking that they would have had a much better life if they had stayed there), and Alex Rousseau is a student in Ben's history club.

Substitute Teacher Locke suggests to Ben that Ben should replace the principal, and Ben starts plotting. Alex mentions that she overheard the principal and the school nurse getting it on in the nurse's office one day, and Ben enlists Arzt (who apparently moonlights as a hacker) to gain access to the nurse's email account in order to find proof of the affair. However, when Ben confronts the principal and tries to blackmail him into giving up his position, the principal shows Ben an email from Alex (which was displayed in an email program that looked like it was from 1993) asking for a recommendation letter to Yale. The principal is a Yale grad, and Alex wants to go to Yale, but she needs the recommendation letter. The principal states that he will torch Alex's aspirations if Ben proceeds with his blackmail plan. Ben backs off and allows Alex to get what she wants.

In the present, Ben, looking scared and confused, meets up with Ilana, Miles, Sun and Frank. Ilana gives Jacob's ashes to Miles, and asks him to tell her how Jacob died. Miles reveals that Ben killed Jacob, and Ilana says that Jacob was the closest thing she ever had to a father. Ben looks scared and confused. The group heads to the beach where the Oceanic survivors had made their camp, and once there, Ilana reveals that she was instructed to protect someone with the last name Kwan, because they are candidates to replace Jacob - she just doesn't know if it's Jin or Sun. She tells Sun that there are 6 candidates left.

Hurley wakes up from a dream about cheese curds (how the hell has he stayed so fat during all this time on the island?), and tries to stall Jack from going back to the temple. Richard appears, having freshly applied his eyeliner, and tells them he will lead them to the temple.

Back on the beach, Frank reveals that he was supposed to have been piloting Oceanic 815, but he overslept. Ben comments that the Island got him in the end, regardless of how he got there. Ilana takes Ben to the graveyard, chains him to a tree, and instructs him to dig his own grave using a bamboo shoot. Ben looks scared and confused, and tries to bribe Miles into helping him, but Miles has apparently been chatting with the dead people in the graveyard, as he asks Ben why he would want Ben's money when there is $8 million in diamonds buried with two of the bodies (oh yeah, forgot about that one). Ben claims that Jacob didn't care that he killed him, and Miles tells him that right up until the second Ben plunged the knife into his heart, Jacob was hoping he was wrong about Ben.

As they walk, Hurley asks Richard why he doesn't age. Of course Richard can't give a straight answer (this is Lost, after all); he merely says that Jacob gave him a gift. They arrive at the Black Rock instead of the temple, and Richard tells Jack that everyone at the temple is dead. Richard mentions that he's been at the Black Rock before (somewhat confirming the theory that Richard came to the Island on the ship), and that this is the first time in all the years he's been on the Island that he's come back. He wants to kill himself, as he feels that now that Jacob is dead, his life has been wasted. However, because Jacob touched him (ew), he can't kill himself. Jack lights a stick of dynamite for Richard, but then sits down to chat. Jack tells Richard about the lighthouse, and says that he doesn't think he'll die either, since Jacob apparently had big plans for him. Of course, the dynamite doesn't explode.

Back at the beach, Evil Locke shows up (he does the best smug smile I've ever seen) and releases Ben, telling him to come to the Hydra Station on the other island. He needs someone to be in charge of the Island when he and his group leave, and he wants Ben to be that person. Ben escapes, Ilana chases him, and they have a showdown. Ben tells Ilana that he allowed Alex to die, choosing the Island over his "daughter," because he thought it was what Jacob wanted and he was afraid of losing his power. He killed Jacob because he realized that Jacob didn't care about any of that, and he had sacrificed Alex for nothing. He says he's going to Locke because "he's the only one who will have me," but Ilana says she'll have him (aw). They return to the beach, where Miles is inspecting his diamonds. Richard, Hurley and Jack arrive at the beach, and the episode ends with a submarine periscope spying on them from out in the water, with Charles Widmore aboard.

Overall, it was a pretty decent episode, although I'm not completely sold on the direction Ben's character is going. As I said, he used to be this amazing mastermind, and everything he did was part of some diabolical plot, but lately he just follows orders, whether they be from Ilana, Evil Locke, or whoever else he happens to be with at the moment. Ben used to be one of my favourite characters on this show, but this new Wimpy Ben is somewhat aggravating. On the other hand, I do understand that he is essentially a dictator who has lost all of his power, and is now just struggling to survive amidst groups of people who have every reason to hate him. This might just be the natural progression for his character.

On a final note, I could have done without the submarine bit at the end. Up until the periscope appeared, the ending of the episode was very reminiscent of the first season, in which Hurley would listen to music while we got a glimpse of what various people were up to. Lately, it seems that the writers are intent on ending every episode with some shocking twist moment, and they really need to stop doing that soon, because they're fast running out of time to wrap things up.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Logorama

I'm not usually one for short films, so a short film that won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film seems like an odd thing for me to be plugging, but come on. Michelin Man cops chase a criminal Ronald McDonald through a world where everything is composed of brand names and trademarks. There's not a single thing about that sentence that doesn't rock the tits off a giant space babe.

It was directed by Franรงois Alaux, Herve de Crecy, and Ludovic Houplain, and if you don't know who those guys are, well then...I don't either, but it seemed like pertinent information. It's about 15 minutes long, but it's well worth watching the whole thing, as it just gets more and more incredible as it progresses.


Admit it. If you were a giant space babe,
your tits would officially be rocked.

Iron Man 2 EEEEEEEEEE!!!

As a tremendous nerd fantastic badass, I spend a lot of my time scouring the Internet for news about things that are exciting, incredible, or otherwise erotic. I feel pretty secure in saying that Iron Man 2 falls squarely into all three of those categories. Behold, Loyal Readers (of which I'm sure there are only like 2), the new trailer for Iron Man 2:

I want one of those briefcases.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Lost, Only Better

I'll tell you what, Lost would be a much better show if we had this to start us off instead of that dreary white text on black background.

RECAP: The Amazing Race

I have to say, this season of TAR is doing a great job of ensuring that I can't maintain an opinion about any one team for more than a week. Each week I find myself cheering for teams that I couldn't stand the week before, and disparaging the teams that I had previously been rooting for. This week was no different, as we saw Team Big Brother make one asinine decision after another on a path of stupidity that eventually ended with them in last place.

This leg of the race saw the teams travelling from Argentina to Germany, a task that initially seemed as though it would be another big equalizer, but instead created a pretty staggered series of arrivals in Frankfurt. From there, they had to take a train to Hamburg. There was a bit of drama, as Team Lesbian and Team Bro missed their train by a matter of seconds, because they couldn't read the giant signs leading them to the right track. Team Cowboy and Team Detective were well out in front when they reached the Intersection. In a fairly stupid twist, one person from each team had to partner with someone from another team to find Hamburg Harbour and go bungee jumping. It seemed like there would be a lot of drama here, as Brandy was freaking out about the bungee jump, but Dan managed to calm her down, and it was a lot less hilarious than it could have been. Jordan and Caite did the challenge for Teams BB and Model, which is probably the worst pairing I could imagine. These girls are both dumb as a box of rocks, but they were expected to navigate the Hamburg subway system to get to the Harbour. This set them back significantly, and they weren't able to catch up for the rest of the leg. Jet and Michael's jump was hilarious, as Jet successfully proved to the world that you can, in fact, bungee jump without losing your cowboy hat. Despite being in the lead, the Cowboys got lost on their way to the Kaiser Wilhelm statue, and ended up coming in 4th.

The Detour on this leg of the race had teams choosing between Soccer and Sauerkraut. The teams either had to kick a soccer ball from the penalty line through five targets or eat a plate of sauerkraut in the time it took a band to play a polka. Again, this seemed like an absurd choice; unless you're team David Beckham and Ronaldino, why would you not choose the sauerkraut? Of course, this season is apparently populated by idiots, and most of the teams initially chose Soccer. The most mystifying of these choices was Joe and Heidi's (I don't have a snappy name for them) choice to do the Soccer challenge, despite the fact that Joe had been complaining all episode about how his knee was killing him. Apparently he didn't think he'd need his knee to kick a soccer ball, and after failing for a while, they switched to the Sauerkraut challenge.

Joe wasn't the only one in pain at the soccer challenge; Caite's thighs were apparently trying to escape her body, as she was screaming in agony every time she tried to kick the ball. I guess playing soccer since you were five years old doesn't prevent you from injury, like, such as a broken thigh. Team Model managed to finish the challenge, despite her mystery injury.

Jeff and Jordan essentially got screwed in this leg of the race, as their idiot cab driver relied entirely on his GPS device, driving them into the middle of nowhere before they finally realized they weren't going to the right place. In his defence, it took Team BB a while to figure out that they must have made a mistake, but honestly, you'd think a cab driver would know his way around the goddamn city he works in. Anyway, they finally arrived at the Sauerkraut challenge, only to daintily pick at their plates until the song ran out and Jeff declared that they were going to do the Soccer challenge, saying it with a lot of attitude as though he didn't look like an idiot for not being able to eat one plate of Sauerkraut.

After the Detour, teams had to head to the Haifischbar (Shark Bar) and drink a boot of beer between the two of them. Despite the fact that this challenge was totally awesome, a lot of teams complained about it, with Cord making Jet drink almost the entire boot because he didn't like the taste of beer (and Jet claiming that he never wants to drink another beer in his life when he was done), Joe burp/vomiting so that he couldn't even read the clue when he was done, and Brent just throwing up on the sidewalk outside. The Detectives (who really grew on me this episode - they have a great dynamic and are often pretty funny) and Steve and Allie (or, as I like to call them, "...Who?") were excited about the challenge, as Steve loves drinking beer and had been complaining about wanting to drink since starting the race. The producers apparently realized that Steve and Allie had been virtually invisible for the first three episodes of this show, so they spent quite a bit of time with them during this leg.

When Jeff and Jordan finally reached the Pit Stop, they were in dead last, although the editors had done a fair job of making it look like they were right behind Team Model. However, in an obvious twist, this was a non-elimination leg of the race (it almost seemed guaranteed to happen, but I'm just not sure why. Maybe the show is just getting too predictable). They'll have to do a Speed Bump in the next leg, but I'm sure there will be some giant equalizing train ride or camel trip that will make the Speed Bump less of a big deal.

Current Standings

1st - Louie and Michael, Detectives with Moustaches
2nd - Steve and Allie, Invisible Father and Daughter
3rd - Joe and Heidi, Husband and Wife Who Haven't Done Anything Noteworthy Yet
4th - Jet and Cord, Cowboys with Immovable Hats
5th - Carol and Brandy, Bickering Lesbians
6th - Dan and Jordan, Bros, Bro
7th - Brent and Caite, Really Dumb Models
8th - Jeff and Jordan, Really Dumb Reality Show Contestants

Thursday, March 4, 2010

RECAP: Lost (Warning - Spoilers Ahead)

"Uhhh..."

The above statement was my official reaction to this week's Lost. You can quote me on it.

I honestly don't know what to think about this show anymore. It's been through more ups and downs than a pair of saggy jeans, it's had entire seasons that were god-awful and it's followed them up with seasons that were so good my pants got a little tighter every Wednesday night. Or Thursday night, I guess; I'm too poor for cable so I have to catch the episodes online the next day. I want to like this show again, I really do, but I'm afraid it's too late for that. At this point I really just want it to end. I know there's no way in hell they're going to be able to wrap up all of the loose ends they've created in this monstrosity; in fact, they've basically guaranteed they aren't going to, which is pretty infuriating, given the hours of my life that I've sacrificed to this show. Damn you, Lindelof and Cuse!

Anyway, to the recap.

This week's episode was Sayid-centric, which is always a good thing. Sayid has consistently been one of the best characters on the train wreck that this show has become, but although they've been doing a lot with him lately, they haven't really given us anything from his point of view.

In the side-flashes (flash-sideways? Flash-alternate universes? I don't know what to call these things now) we see Sayid arriving at Nadia's house. Nadia is married to Sayid's brother, which made us all look back at the fact that we always thought Sayid was travelling to LA to hook up with Nadia and say "Wait, what?" Sayid's brother, Omar, has borrowed money from a loan shark who is now demanding more money. The loan shark beats up Omar, and his associates bring Sayid to see him...Surprise! It's Martin Keamy, the mercenary from the freighter ship who came to the island looking for Ben! Keamy eats some eggs while trying to act like a badass, until Sayid gets sick of it and kills everyone. He then hears a noise coming from the freezer, and surprise again! It's Jin, tied to a chair and rambling in Korean!

In the present (well, in 2007--Lost's present), we finally see some reaction from Sayid about the shit the Others have been putting him through, as the episode begins with him bursting into Dogen's office. Their meeting quickly becomes one of the more awesome fights we've seen in the last few seasons (although what Sayid fight isn't awesome? Come on, he snapped a dude's neck with his feet! His FEET!!!). The fight doesn't really solve anything, however, as looking at a baseball makes Dogen sad, and he tells Sayid to leave, then quickly changes his mind when Claire shows up. They're really playing up the Claire-is-Rousseau angle, as her hair gets gnarlier every episode. Evil Locke has sent her to get Dogen out to talk to him (read: bring him to be killed), and Dogen decides to send Sayid instead, with instructions to kill Evil Locke before he can get a word out. Surprisingly, Sayid follows Dogen's instructions, stabbing Evil Locke in the chest, with no effect.

Evil Locke explains that Dogen know the dagger wouldn't kill him, and in fact expected Sayid to be killed in the assassination attempt. He then implies that he would be able to reunite Sayid with Nadia, who if you remember was killed by a speeding car when Jacob prevented Sayid from crossing the street with her. Sayid returns to the temple with an ultimatum: any of the Others that do not leave the temple and join Evil Locke by sundown will be killed. Some boring Kate stuff happens that has very little effect on anything, other than revealing to Claire that Kate in fact did take Aaron from the island (I'm really hoping that Claire kills Kate like she said she would, thus ending the 6-season-long borefest that Kate has brought to the island--yes, I know it's unlikely to happen, but a guy can dream, can't he?).

Sayid confronts Dogen again, and Dogen reveals a backstory that no one really asked for: several years ago he killed his son in a drunk-driving accident, and Jacob brought him back to life in exchange for Dogen coming to the island and never returning. The emotional baseball that Dogen keeps fondling apparently belonged to his son, or reminds him of his son, or something; it's never really made clear. In any case, Sayid waits for Dogen to finish his story, then throws him into the pool and drowns him. He kills Lennon (Dogen's translator--yeah, I had to look up his name too) for good measure, but only after Lennon explains that Dogen was the only thing keeping Evil Locke out of the temple. Sayid then sits down to wait, or sulk, or something.

Evil Locke bursts into the temple as the smoke monster and kills everyone who's not a main character. At the same time, Sun, Lapidus, Ilana and Ben show up out of nowhere with no explanation as to how they got there, and rescue Miles. They escape through the same secret passage that Hurley and Jack took last week. Kate, Claire and Sayid are left with Evil Locke and the remaining Others, and Evil Locke leads them dramatically towards the camera as the episode ends.

Overall, I think this has been my favourite episode of the season so far. As I said, Sayid is one of my favourite characters, and I'm interested to see what they're going to do with him now that he's apparently a bad guy. It definitely seems like the writers are dividing the characters into camps of Good and Evil, and it feels like some sort of epic battle is coming.

One final note: I love what they've done with Locke. In my opinion, John Locke has been the absolute worst character on this show since Day One. For five seasons, he didn't do a single thing (other than dying) that didn't piss me off. However, Terry O'Quinn does evil really well, and the writers have finally given him a story arc in which he can shine. He's just as effective as a bad guy as Ben Linus ever was; perhaps even more so, because Evil Locke is a whole lot creepier than Ben ever was. It just remains to be seen whether or not Evil Locke can be as cold and diabolical as Ben has proven himself to be.