Lost Recap 4/1

This week’s episode picks up right where we left off, with an unconscious Jin and a presumed dead 13 year old Ben Linus. After gaining consciousness and radioing Dharma about the attack, Jin finds that Ben is still breathing. It seemed like kind of an obvious tease at the end of last week’s episode, since we’re all well aware that nothing they do in the past can effect the future.

In the next scene finally answers one of the questions that’s been dogging me since the end of last season, what Sawyer whispered to Kate shortly before he Greg Louganised off of the helicopter. Kate arrives at the house of Sawyer’s ex-lover and partner in crime Cassidy (Friday Night Light’s Kim Dickens) offering her an envelope full of money for Sawyer’s daughter Clementine. After Cassidy makes some disparaging remarks about Sawyer, Kate defends him and tells Cassidy about Sawyer’s selflessness on the helicopter. Cassidy tells her that Sawyer was just trying to run away from Kate.

Back in 1977 Miles has put the losties in house arrest while Sawyer looks for the person responsible for Sayid’s escape. This leads to one of the best, and most helpful, exchanges so far this season. With Ben near death, Hurley stares at his hand and wonders aloud if he’s going to disappear ala Back to the Future (I really wish Lost time travel worked this way, can anyone argue that it would be a lot less work and a lot more fun?). Miles knows better and tries to explain to Hurley what Faraday explained earlier this season, that the future is set and everything they’re doing now has already happened. Speaking of which, can we get Faraday back? He’s one of the only characters that can explain things without being a total dick. Hurley then asks why Ben didn’t recognize Sayid in 2004, if he shot him in 1977, Miles says that he’d “never thought of that.” It’s nice to see characters on the show as confused as I am.

In the meantime, young Ben is at deaths door, and the Dharma doctor is away. Juliet calls on Jack to operate, but Jack refuses and throws Ben to the mercy of the island. I’m not sure whether this signifies a shift in Jack’s feelings, he’s obviously less skeptical now than ever before about the mystical powers of the island. Still, he’s no John Locke, and he seems a little hopeful that the future can be changed and young Ben will meet his demise.

Kate, disgusted with Jack’s complacency, goes to the infirmary to donate blood to young Ben. While there Robert engages her in a conversation, lamenting Ben’s shitty childhood and telling Kate that Ben needed a mother. During this conversation it’s also revealed that Kate and Jack were engaged after getting off the island.

Back (forward?) in 2004, Kate loses Aaron for a moment in the supermarket and immediately loses it, looking like Edward Norton the last 15 minutes of Fight Club. Cut to Cassidy’s, Aaron safe and sound, Kate is telling Cassidy that she’s been expecting to lose Aaron ever since she got back from the island.

1977 again, Sawyer arrives to help Kate take Ben to the others, and a chance to be healed. For the first time in a long time, Sawyer calls Kate “freckles.” Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, but I think that spells doom for Sawyer and Juliet playing house. Sawyer concedes that things never would’ve worked between he and Kate once they got off the island, but I don’t think that closes the door on an island romance. And I think Jack’s refusal to operate on Ben because he’d already “done this once” for Kate, squelches any possibility between those two.

After finding the others, Richard tells them that if he saves Ben he’ll never be the same, his memory will be lost (Sayid explained) and he will lose his innocence. This changes Ben from a justifiably bitter person who was abused and shot as a child, to someone the island made evil. Personally I prefer this way, he’s like a Hannibal Lecter type character, any attempts to explain his evil through pop psychology are unwanted and unneeded. Richard then takes Ben into the temple, and presumably to Smokey for his healing and transformation. This process also means that by refusing to operate on Ben, Jack inadvertently caused him becoming evil.

In the final scene of the episode, adult Ben wakes up inside the crashed plane to a understandably disgruntled Locke, welcoming him back to the land of the living. It’s about damn time we get to see Locke in the present, I’ll be crossing my fingers for a Locke flashback episode next week.

Xiing Wars: Best Comedy EVER. The Cosby Show

The Cosby Show

Call it an unexpected pick, but like my favorite sports team of all time, the Utah Jazz, I take pride in the fundamentals. Sure, Arrested Development is funny as hell, and no one has been as quotable and memorable as the unlikeable Seinfeld foursome, but when push comes to shove, the comedy I admire most is the one without the unbelievable hijinks and surreal characters. Without the outrageous leads of the others, The Cosby Show found its bread and butter with the simple things in life and with characters that were, in most respects, pretty reasonable. Yet the Huxtables still managed to create a captivating – and hilarious – decade-long series.

The root of Huxtable hilarity isn’t ridiculous situations or infantile adults or any of the other contemporary comedy go-to’s, but the subtle and sometimes not so subtle interactions of a close-knit family. Who knew everyday intergenerational interactions could be so lulzy? Well, it isn’t a formula that automatically delivers a win. The lols are made possible in the Cosby Show by likable actors and their excellent delivery—the dialogue quick and realistic, the characters just silly and flawed enough to keep it light, but normal and nice enough to evoke a little admiration. It’s the little things in life that make it worth living, and the irreplaceable chemistry between our Huxtable seven made that clearer than ever.

“But the Huxtables are too pure and wholesome to be funny,” a hater might say. That hater clearly hasn’t seen Rudy steal that money from Claire for the light-up sweatshirt, or Theo being picked up by Cliff at the police station after he and his unlicensed friend drove out of the borough for hot dogs, or Vanessa going to that concert in Baltimore only to be stranded when her friend’s car is stolen, or even the close-to-perfect Claire Huxtable lose her damn mind when Vanessa finally returned home.

Okay, so they’re not exactly the Bundy kids. But let’s face it, cynicism is an easy game to play in comedies. What made The Cosby Show so outstanding is that it remained funny and enjoyable even while maintaining an optimistic outlook on society and families. These characters were funny without being idiots, and there was plenty of conflict without outright dysfunction. Who wouldn’t want to be a Huxtable—or at least watch them on TV?

The contemporary comedy has a lot to offer, and I’m always grateful for the display of comedic range and ridiculousness. But when it comes down to it, there’s nothing more appealing to me than the comfort of the old sitcom pick-and-roll: Cute but witty kids, oblivious teenagers, and their goofy but knowing parents. Hey, they’re sitcom fundamentals for a reason, and they’ve never been done better than they were on The Cosby Show.

Clip of Gold

Stats

Series Run: 1984-1992

On DVD? Yes! Including this 25th Anniversary Set

Honorable Mention for Best Comedy Ever

Arrested Development

Project Runway will return! but...to Lifetime

Hallelujah! Prepare for more Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum fabulousness!

After the months' long dispute between NBC Universal and Lifetime over the Project Runway creator Weinstein Company's bizarre decision to pull the hit fashion-design show from NBC's Bravo and move it to the sob-a-lot network, the two companies have FINALLY reached an agreement and the injunction on PR's long-awaited sixth season will be lifted.

The only question left to be answered now is, can this show be half as good on a network with so little style?

At least we really will xii it soon and know once and for all how much a network affects a show! I just hope they give us a premiere date soon, or I might start designing my own garments out of strange materials and then verbally beating the shit out of myself to fill the gap left by Nina Garcia.

A Little Bit of Love

I don't know if these small doses will keep us from going crazy over the next nine months without Big Love, but it will certainly keep my VHS copy of Twister in the drawer, despite my insatiable desire for Paxton. At worst we can all set our desktop image to the screencap of Bill's ass from season 1?

Victory for the Underdog: Friday Night Lights to Return x2

The cult-favorite has been renewed for two new seasons, after struggling every inch of the way to make it to its current third year. Its adoring followers are undoubtedly celebrating 'round the world.

via Variety