Lost : Through the looking glass part 1

Lost. 3.22. The flashback was really a flash forward. While on a plane, Jack sees a newspaper obituary that makes him want to jump off a bridge. Seeing him about to, some woman driver is distracted and a car smashes hers. Jack hears screams and gives up his death to once again be a hero. His pregnant ex-wife visits him in the hospital, but she won’t even give him a lift home. Great choice of a spouse, there. Jack wants to operate on the injured woman, but she’s not his patient and the hospital is aware of his “issues.”

On the island, suddenly Jin speaks English. Naomi shows Jack how her phone works. Rose reminds Bernard that he’s a dentist, not Rambo. The Others sneak into the beach camp. Two dynamite explosions kill a bunch of them but Jin, Bernard and Sayid are captured. The hikers, not hearing the third explosion, know something’s wrong. Kate wants to go back. Sawyer sulks for a while until he decides he, without Kate, will go back. Juliet says she knows where some guns are and she’ll help him and her karma. En route, he asks her why they were breaking rocks. I couldn’t tell if she was joking when she said they’re building a runway, but she did lie about the guns. There are none. Hurley’s followed them and offers to help. Sawyer puts him down, saying he’ll get in the way and off Hurley goes, dejected again.

Greta and Bonnie beat up Charlie who jokes that he arrived in an invisible submarine. The girls, in a room with a blinking yellow light, break radio silence to call Ben who sends Patch who questions why Ben previously told them the Looking Glass was flooded. Ben admits to lying. Charlie admits he’s there to turn off the jamming equipment. Only three people know the code: the girls and the programmer. Desmond wakes from his nap to find Patch shooting at him. He dives to the Looking Glass and evades the girls and hides. When Patch/Cyclops scuba’s in, he asks the girls why Ben told them it was flooded. Bonnie answers they’ve done everything for the island. They trust Jacob. The island is under assault and it’s for everyone’s security. Ben asks Patch to “help clean up this mess I’ve made” by shooting Greta, Bonnie and Charlie.

Ben decides to go for a walk. Alex asks to go with which he considers a good idea. That way he can hand her over to her new/old family. He admits he did what he did to Carl because he didn’t want Carl to get her pregnant and overreacted. Alex wonders why they don’t just let the Lostaways leave. Ben says they can’t. Locke regains consciousness but can’t move. He’s ready to shoot himself when he sees Walt (who’s mysteriously aged, as opposed to Richard who never ages.) Walt tells him that he has work to do. Best line: Rose to Jack: “If you say live together, die alone to me, I’m gonna punch you in the face.”

24 : 5 - 6 a.m.

24. 6.24. Chloe downplays her illness. A thermal scan of the platform proves it’s the group they’re after because who else would be out there at that hour of the morning? The government decides to launch an air strike, despite the fact that little Josh won’t survive it. One innocent kid has to be written off as an acceptable loss. It’s not acceptable to Jack. Bill accompanies him as he commandeers/steels a helicopter. Nadia uploads info on how many hostiles and where to Jack’s handy PDA. Papa Bauer can’t believe Josh is behaving like a child. Next time he should kidnap someone his own age. Josh hits him with a wrench, takes his gun and shoots him as Jack arrives on the scene. Jack sends Josh back to the chopper. There’s no time for him to carry Papa Bauer back. He must be left to die in the explosive air strike.

Jack jumps to the chopper as everything blows up. One destroyed platform makes it seem likely enough the circuitboard has been destroyed, so the Russians back off. Gullible much? Jack drops from the chopper into the ocean and swims to shore. He has his jack sack/purse, so we’re certain he’ll be fine. The VP drops charges against Karen and Bill, allowing them to resign with their reputations in tact. Chloe is pregnant. “With child?” Morris asks. No, with a laptop. Better question might be who’s the father? Cheng’s in CTU custody but is sure his people won’t abandon him the way Jack was. Jack’s gone off for a showdown with Heller who knows Jack can’t walk away from work and Audrey will end up paying the price. As if she hasn’t already. Series ends with Jack walking off into the sunrise. Yawn.

24 : 4 - 5 a.m.

24. 6.23. Ricky’s confident they’ll recover Josh as soon as they have the circuitboard because they’ve jabbed a tracking device in him. The tracker made me seriously wonder if Josh would see the light of day with all of his limbs. Jack convinces Karen that Papa Bauer is planning to manipulate the exchange. She enlists Bill’s help. Papa Bauer demands CTU turn off its satellite feed. Josh’s tracker is on an internal monitor, so they’ll still be able to see where he is. Nadia passes along the security code to Karen so she can view the transaction. Thinking it might make some of the viewers care about her, Marilyn throws a hissy fit. A car forces Turner, who’s taking Jack into custody, off the road. Turns out it’s Bill who demands Jack’s release as Jack’s sneaking up behind Turner. He didn’t have to ask twice.

Some guy named Stewart, or Stuart, saunters into CTU and receives a sympathetic hug from Chloe. He’s Milo’s brother, possibly adopted because they look nothing alike, who disappears as quickly as he appears and left us wondering what the point was. Karen’s access is shut down and she’s about to be arrested. But she’s learned to never negotiate with a sociopath. A couple guys in a boat interrupt Ricky and Josh’s picnic. One hands Ricky the subcircuitboard. As he’s verifying it, the thing blows up in his face. Jack and Bill arrive but Josh has been spirited away in the boat and his tracker removed. Jack’s sure the boat must be meeting up with a larger vessel and this is a really convenient time for him to remember Papa Bauer owns some oil platform. Chloe collapses. Quote of the hour: “It blew!” Yeah, kind of like season 6.

Lost : Greatest hits

Lost. 3.21. The brief flashbacks concerned some of Charlie’s fondest memories in life. Learning to swim. Hearing Drive Shaft’s song on the radio. Liam giving him a family heirloom. Saving a woman, who turned out to be Nadia, from a mugger. And meeting Claire. It’s the learning to swim one, and subsequently saying he was the junior swim champ of Northern England, that is confusing because he said on at least two other occasions that he didn’t know how to swim. Either the writers have given up on continuity, or Charlie lies.

Jack informs the Lostaways that, thanks to Juliet, they know the Others are coming tomorrow. Hiding is pointless. He’s enlisted Rousseau’s help in bringing dynamite to place in the tents the Others will search. They don’t know that Ben told his camp Locke had an accident and Jacob wants the raid to happen now. If Juliet isn’t ready, they’ll take all the women. If any Lostaway men get in the way, they’ll kill them. Hearing this, Alex runs to Carl who canoes over to inform the beach camp. Jack decides to lead all but three people up to the radio tower. The three left behind will serve as dynamite shooters. At the radio tower, they’ll try send a message to Naomi’s freighter. Juliet says the Others are jamming all frequencies with the Looking Glass hatch. She’s never been there. Some accident occurred and the station was flooded, but it still works. Isn’t that convenient?

Charlie’s pleased to hear from Naomi (who is from Manchester now?) that Drive Shaft’s career was resurrected after his “death,” and sort of pleased to hear that Desmond’s latest future flash involved Claire and the baby leaving the island via helicopter. Sort of, because Charlie has to die for it to happen. He must switch off a blinking yellow light in a hatch, but drowns doing so. When Jack asks for volunteers to dive to the Looking Glass, Charlie knows it’s his fate. Never mind that, since the Looking Glass is connected to the island by a cable, it would be much easier to cut the cable. Desmond goes with to help paddle, or something, and ends up offering to take Charlie’s place, for which he gets a whack upside the head. Charlie swims down to the hatch and finds a room with air and a couple women with guns who start shooting at him. Quote of the episode: “Why does everything have to be such a secret?”

24 : 3 - 4 a.m.

24. 6.22. As the Chinese herd the CTU staff off into a holding room, inexplicably rather than killing them, Jack, Nadia and Morris fight back and, surprise, win. Reasoning that he knows the building’s schematics better than anyone, Jack’s sure he can find the kidnappers. He traces them through the sewers from which they came. Back in the refinery, Grandpa Stretch calls to talk with and apologize to Josh who hasn’t forgotten he was about to kill him. Stretch says he was merely being convincing so he could escape. He really wants to protect Josh by taking him away from this ungrateful country. He seems to think China will appreciate them more. Jack sees the Chinese getaway car and starts to shoot so they have to evacuate. He chases them up to the roof. Cheng runs out of bullets but Josh has fallen and is hanging by a chain so Jack has to save him while Cheng escapes.

And then CTU sets up a perimeter. Um, late much? After finding out Papa Bauer is still involved, Jack realizes they must find out where he is. Meanwhile they Russians are on the move. Bishop nearly accesses Lisa’s PDA but suspicion or something makes him hesitate long enough for Lisa to go ballistic about his betrayal and smash him over the head with a wine bottle, then a lamp. Tom and the Secret Service crew move in just before Bishop strangles Lisa, but not before oxygen to her brain was compromised. Tom forces Bishop to send the Russians e-mail. Papa Stretch is unimpressed with Cheng’s operational incapacities and refuses to give him the circuit board. He’s not afraid of threats, either.

Division sends Ben to assess the security breach. Nadia feels guilty about Milo’s death. In a conference with the VP, Subaru wants proof the subcircuit board was destroyed. When VP can’t provide it, Subaru says he knows Bishop sent fake material because he was under surveillance. If the Russians don’t have the board back in two hours, they’ll attack. Papa Bauer calls VP on a scrambled line. He wants Josh and a clear passage out of the country in exchange for the board. Someone mentions how there may be more Russian generals besides the late Gredenko involved in this mess of a plot. Ricky takes Josh as three guys hold back Jack. Only three? It’s been a long day, indeed. Still no word on the fate of either Logan.

Lost : The Man Behind the Curtain

Lost. 3.20. Flashback to Emily and Roger out for a hike just outside Portland. Emily enters early labour and gives birth. Her dying words, “Call him Benjamin.” So Ben wasn’t born on the island after all. His father, Roger, brought him there as a boy. Roger signed up to work for the Dharma Initiative sometime in the 1960s, it seems from the “Welcome to the island, man.” He’s none too pleased to be a janitor, as he didn’t come there to clean up after them. The DI group skirmishes with the natives and Roger really didn’t sign up for that. He demands more money. The child Ben, who Roger blames for killing Emily, sees her several times, once on the opposite side of the sonar fence. She warns him it’s “not time yet.” Ben uses the code to get past the sonar. After voices start whispering, Richard, who appears the same age as the present, appears. When Ben is maybe ten years older, he accompanies his father on a run to the Pearl Station. They decide to drive the hippy van to the mesa for some father-son time. Cue “Shambala.” Ben feels he’s put up with Roger long enough and gasses him to death. When he returns to the village, everyone there has met the same fate. Ben, Richard and the hostiles have purged the DI.

Real time: Ben’s concerned the tape he recorded for Juliet is missing, so Locke must have stolen it. Locke returns with Cooper and demands to know everything about the island. They all answer to Jacob but only Ben has seen and talks to him. Locke’s sure Ben is the man behind the curtain and a liar and the Others are idiots. Patch races in. Guess the sonar fence wasn’t set on lethal. The Lostaways have an injured parachutist and the Others need to go to the Beach Camp now. Locke would rather go see Jacob and beats up Patch to accomplish that. Ben warns him that Jacob will be angry. “This is not a man you go and see.” Nor does he like technology. Whey they enter his cabin, Ben has a one sided conversation with an empty chair. Locke actually asks, “Are you crazy?” Uh, yeah. Ben thinks Locke’s too limited to see Jacob. When Locke starts to leave, he hears Jacob say, “Help me,” suggesting Ben has him captive. Turning on a flashlight makes everything in the cabin freak out and there’s a brief glimpse of Jacob that Locke denies seeing, saying he’s sure Ben set everything up ahead of time. Ben takes Locke back via a different route to show him the mass grave of the DI who couldn’t co-exist with the natives. One side had to be purged. When Ben demands Locke tell him what he heard Jacob say and Locke refuses, Ben shoots him. He tumbles into the grave and Ben walks away.

At the Beach Camp, Sawyer plays Sayid the tape. When they confront Juliet, she has them flip the cassette over and play Ben’s response which states that he’s sending three teams to get Sun. Juliet is to mark the tents of any pregnant women and they’ll take them too. Juliet already informed Jack what Ben was forcing her to do. Jack hadn’t decided what to do yet. Hadn’t? Has he decided now? Quote of the episode that all fans have asked themselves since the end of Season 1: “So when do we leave?”

24 : 2 - 3 a.m.

24. 6.21. Heller’s threatening restraining order. Yeah, that’ll work. Jack asks Nadia to release him so he can get back or destroy the component which should be easy since he knows how Cheng thinks. Nadia’s not falling for that. Morris honestly thinks they’re all professionals but Chloe doesn’t look like she’s fine. Ricky can have the units rolling to Jefferson Heights Copper Refinery in five minutes. He better because Cheng plans to attack his target in fifteen minutes. Josh and Marilyn are still hanging around CTU, watching television. Josh feels bad for all the people who died because of his lunatic father. “I wish I was never part of this sick family,” he says, expressing the thoughts of pretty much everyone at Thanksgiving. Chloe tells Marilyn about Audrey’s fate. Marilyn promises to be there for Jack. Suddenly it’s a soap opera. Since she has to allow him to access her PDA (is that a euphemism?), Lisa contacts her boyfriend. If they can make him think the component is destroyed, maybe the Russians will believe it.

Cheng’s men head down into the sewer lines. Talk about job dedication. By the time Ricky reaches the refinery, it’s evacuated except for empty weapon crates. Obviously they’re planning an assault, but on what? Morris tells Chloe he broke up with her because of what he did. He knows she’d never be able to get past it. Nadia can’t reach Ricky. Perhaps there’s a hiccup in the server. Nope, can’t access the server either. I don’t know how this company has survived this long. The security cameras fail and Nadia orders a code red lockdown, but not fast enough. Cheng’s men have come up from the sewers, through the bathroom, I guess. Nadia orders everyone to their assigned safe rooms. If you need one of those where you work, maybe it’s time to brush off that resume.
Jack frees himself, as usual. Milo tells Cheng’s men that he’s in charge, saving Nadia from the bullet in the forehead he receives. Cheng has gone to all this trouble apparently just to take Josh. Luckily, possibly, Jack ushers Josh and Marilyn out of harm’s way. Josh manages to crawl into the air duct but Jack runs out of bullets so he and Marilyn must surrender. Ricky calls Nadia who’s advised not to warn him what’s going on. The Chinese tell Josh to come out of the vent in ten seconds or they’ll kill his mother. They’re working for Grandpa Stretch. He’s the one who gave them codes to access CTU. Would he know CTU access codes just because his son worked there? Stretch also appears ready with more codes to help Cheng with the blessed component. Line of the hour the writers must find especially ironic: “We’re all doing some improvising today, aren’t we?”

Lost : The brig

Lost. 3.19. The flashback backs up to Locke’s being shown Cooper who Ben says Locke brought there. Even though Ben warns him not to get too close, Locke does and Cooper bites his hand. Charming guy. The Others are leaving in the morning to go to a new/old place. Ben invites Locke. Ben seems somewhat infatuated with Locke, enough to say, “The minute you showed up, I started to feel pins and needles.” But before he can be ready to learn all about the island, Locke must release the hold his father has over him. This then switched to the more sinister: to join the Others, Lock must show a gesture of commitment by killing Cooper. Couldn’t they just exchange rings in a nice civil ceremony? Cooper strangely goads Locke on to kill him. He doesn’t spare his captor either and calls Ben “bug eyes.” Locke’s not a killer and balks. Ben’s disappointed. Locke must not be who they thought he was. The strangest thing about this scene was all the Others, even the children, gathering to watch the execution. But they’re the Good Guys. Sure. Richard then tells Locke that Ben purposely embarrassed him so the camp would see him fail. Locke’s extremely special but Ben doesn’t want him to think so. Richard gives him Sawyer’s file. The Others camp is on the move again. Ben tells Locke not to follow unless he’s carrying the dead Cooper on his back.

Sawyer notices Hurley and Jin acting strange. Before he can think about it, Locke shows up, back from his “gonna blow up everything that could get us off the island tour.” Locke wants to make it clear he’s infiltrated the Others camp, not joined them. Okay Tarzan. He claims he’s kidnapped Ben and wants Sawyer to kill him since he’s killed before, something Locke found out from the file the Others mysteriously acquired. Sawyer would rather not but Locke assures him he will after he hears what “Ben” has to say. Locke takes Sawyer to the Black Rock, which looked completely different, and locks him in a room with a hooded captive who turns out, of course, to be Cooper. Rousseau makes a brief appearance, dropping by to pick up some dynamite. For? Cooper says he was driving in Tallahassee when his car was smashed into. He was placed in an ambulance and woke up on the island. Among many alias’s he chose Tom Sawyer because Huck Finn was taken. How ‘bout that. More surprising, after everything he’s been through, Sawyer still has the letter he wrote as a child. Cooper isn’t impressed. Sawyer’s dad overreacted. He’s convinced the island is Hell, something the writers have denied many times. When Cooper rips up the letter, Sawyer strangles him. He had it coming, indeed. Before setting off on his own private journey, Locke gives Sawyer the tape Juliet made which Ben deliberately gave to Locke seemingly to set Juliet up. The Others will raid the beach in three days and take all the pregnant women. Sawyer must warn them.

Desmond doesn’t trust Jack enough to tell him about Parachute Girl who the campers have snuck back to the Beach Camp. Sayid would be a better bet. Parachute Girl, Naomi, claims she was part of a search and recovery team hired by Penny, based on a freighter ship. The entire Oceanic plane was found, complete with bodies, off Bali. She was given co-ordinates to the middle of the ocean, choppered there and saw land. The instruments started spinning, so she bailed. Sayid’s questions give her an immediate dislike of him. So much that she tells him, “Remind me not to rescue you.” Sayid fixes her phone thingie but there’s interference blocking any signal. Kate shows up. Though they ask her to keep it quiet, she immediately blabs to Jack and Juliet who seem to have their own secret that they don’t feel it’s time to share. More bewildering: how Juliet, who’s known Ben for three years, could trust him. We won’t miss her smug, superior grins.

24 : 1 - 2 a.m.

24. 6.20. Audrey’s non-responsive and post-traumatic. In other words, normal. Nadia refuses Morris’s request to sit across the classroom from Chloe, or be transferred. She can’t indulge his personal melodrama and would rather he kept his personal life to himself. President Subaru sets up a conference with the VP. He’s heard the trouble news and threatens action if the component isn’t recovered. The VP doesn’t appreciate being dictated to, especially when a Russian general brought the weapons in the country. More worrying, how did Subaru find out? There must be a spy either in the White House or CTU. Lisa goes home for a quick rendezvous with her boyfriend who isn’t the VP by a long shot. Chen has a pal run a diagnostic on the component. He finds the circuitboard damaged. Someone needs to fix it, but who?

Morris ditches Chloe. She’s devastated and her chair is empty the rest of the hour. We somehow doubt she’s gone home for a nap. Dr Bradley, a psychiatric specialist from District diagnosis Audrey as a type 3 catatonic. I was wondering why they didn’t cover her with a blankie until they had to make note of the hundred or so injection sites on her. Bradley wants to shock her out of her state with more drugs, but that could kill her. Ricky suggests Jack talk to her but Bradley doesn’t like having his toes stepped on. So Ricky goes behind everyone’s back and uncuffs Jack, who then renders him unconscious and fights his way to medical. The VP calls Lisa back even before Tom informs him the leak is at the White House. Years ago they flagged a lobbyist named Mark Bishop. Lisa’s made lots of calls and hotel trysts with Bishop recently. The VP confesses he’s also seeing Lisa. “You understand how these things happen.” Something tells me, no, Tom doesn’t.

Jack spirits Audrey to the lower levels. The CTU guys weld through the door and there’s another yelling stand off complete with the phrase “Lower your weapon.” Audrey mumbles out the name Bloomfield which turns out to be a copper refining facility. There were traces of copper on her clothes. The VP confronts Lisa about Bishop. She tries to say he’s an acquaintance but VP won’t be insulted. She’s to get the component from him or he’ll have her declared an enemy combatant. Heller appears from the bottom of the bay. He doesn’t want Jack near Audrey ever again. The condition she’s in is Jack’s fault. No matter that she went looking for him. The most attuned if obvious phrase of the entire series: Heller to Jack: “You’re cursed. Everything you touch one way or another ends up dead.”

Lost : D.O.C.

Lost. 3.18. In the flashback, Sun is accosted by a woman who knows Jin’s parents are a fisherman and a hooker. She wants money to keep it quiet. When Sun asks Jin about his discrepancy with saying his father died when he was sixteen versus when he was in the army, he loses his temper. What a surprise. Rather than deal with his wrath, she tracks down his father. The mother, who apparently got around, left her baby with him. He’s not sure if he’s Jin’s father but felt he should raise him because no one else would care for him. Sun approaches her father for the blackmail money. He’ll only agree if Jin works for him personally. Sun, who’s aware what her father does, accepts the terms. Jin discovers the envelope of money. Sun lies and says it was for their furniture and honeymoon, wounding his pride. Sun later delivers the money to the woman who she’s already figured out is Jin’s mother.

On the island, Sun is creeped out by Jack checking on her condition. She mentions to Kate that Jack seems different. What if the Others want her baby and Jack is working with them? Instead it probably ties into the research Juliet is doing. Sun confronts her about what happens to pregnant women and is told they all die. But wait. Only if they conceived on the island. If Sun accompanies her to the medical hatch, they can do ultrasound to determine the D.O.C. Which Sun needs to do anyway to figure out if Jin is truly the father since he’s been diagnosed infertile and she had an affair. The good news: the baby was conceived on the island. The bad news: no other woman survived into the third trimester. While at the medical hatch, Juliet leaves a message for Ben that she’s working on getting samples from the other women.

Parachute Girl is bleeding to death from a branch puncturing her lung. Hurley mistakenly fires the flare gun. Oops. It brings Patch running to the campers. After a brief stare down, he runs. Jin chases and tackles him. Nice kick. Everyone’s confused because Patch “already died once this week.” Apparently on the island the “rules are a bit different.” He offers to help Parachute Girl if they let him go. When her lung is fixed, she says something in Portuguese that Patch translates as “thank you” even though it sure didn’t sound like it. Apparently she said she’s not alone. Patch tries to steal the fancy radio phone thingie but they catch him. He had to try. Parachute Girl tells the guys that the crashed Oceanic flight 815 was found and there were no survivors. What? Line of the episode: Juliet’s final words for Ben, “I hate you.”

24 : 12 - 1 a.m.

24. 6.19. Ricky “acquires” a car. Or steals one from some poor unknown. Attention would be car thieves: try the phrase “I’m a federal agent in pursuit. I need the vehicle.” Jack uses power lines as a shield while he removes his tracking signal. He calls Cheng and arranges to meet in an abandoned motel on highway 305. Just by looking at the tire tracks, Ricky figures this out and follows, calling for a field team. The writers seem to think we care about Karen and Bill and that one of them has to take the fall for Fayed. Since Bill had him in custody and released him and Karen’s closer to the president, she fires him.

Jack leaves a message on Bill’s voice mail saying he’s set an explosion to incinerate the circuitboard. Bill never hears the message. Morris and Chloe can’t work next to each other without bickering. He moves across the room. Oh the drama! Bill names Nadia as acting director until Division sends an interim director in a few hours. She tells the CTU gang before the news hits their internal forums. Internal forums? Ricky finds Jack’s truck outside the motel. Cheng pulls up in a limo, also containing Audrey. They go inside. Jack apologizes to Audrey. For what, I can’t imagine. She’s the one who went searching for him.

The field team’s too slow for Ricky. He starts shooting. Then everyone shoots. Cheng and some cohorts escape with the component out the back in three black hummers. A helicopter tries to follow but is shot down. Jack’s bummed that Ricky’s firefight ruined his plans. “Why didn’t you listen to me?” he asks as if anyone has ever listened to him so he should have expected it. Nadia has Jack arrested. Audrey’s traumatized. I’m traumatized myself from the VP and Lisa’s smooch. Line of the hour: Chloe’s annoyed, “Halfway – fifty percent – point five!”

Lost : Catch 22

Lost. 3.17. In the flashback, we learn why Desmond calls everyone “brother.” It’s from his time spent in a monastery preparing to become a monk. He and his Brothers made wine from the Moriah Vineyards, probably in Scotland since Main Brother also had the accent. One day some guy enters and punches Desmond. Turns out he’s Derek, the lower case brother of Ruth who couldn’t seem to decide whether she was Irish or Scottish. Desmond dated Ruth for six years and was engaged to marry her but left a week before the wedding. He claims to have had a “greater calling.” I didn’t buy it any more than Ruth did. Next time “just tell the girl you’re too bloody scared.” When Main Brother finds Desmond drunk on their expensive wine of a limited supply, he fires him. Desmond’s final act is to help pack up the wine crates in a customer’s van. Enter Penny.

On the island, Desmond has a puzzle flash thingie where Charlie is shot in the neck by an arrow and dies. This time, Desmond wants the flash to happen because he thinks it leads to Penny’s arrival. He enlists Hurley, Jin and Charlie to hunt down the cable. Despite the prospect of being “kabobed by one of Rousseau’s spiky death trap things,” they go. Their little camping trip includes a ghost story in Korean interrupted by sounds of a helicopter overhead. The chopper falls into the ocean, suggesting that there’s some magnetic field or similar that makes it impossible for any plane or boat to make it to or over this island. Since the guys see a beacon, the pilot seems to have bailed pre-crash. After some debate, they agree to search for her, as Desmond is sure it’s Penny, at daybreak.

Kate doesn’t know what to do with herself so she decides to do the dishes. Jack assures her not to worry. “I’m sure something will go wrong soon enough.” When he takes oatmeal to Juliet, Kate becomes jealous and turns to Sawyer who doesn’t mind being used but would rather she was honest about it so he didn’t have to make mix tapes. Or steal them from Bernard. The next day the campers start their hike. When Charlie steps on the trip wire, Desmond yells at him to duck, then pushes him out of the way, then worries he’s changed the future. Charlie’s not so happy Desmond planned on sacrificing him. They find the pilot hanging in her parachute from a tree. There’s a Portuguese copy of Catch 22 and a dead satellite phone in her bag. The book contains a picture of Desmond and Penny. The pilot isn’t Penny but she does know Desmond’s name. Line of the episode “You two arguing over who’s your favorite Other?” eclipsed by Hurley’s “This is future crap, innit?”

24 : 11 p.m. - 12 a.m.

24. 6.18. Ricky gives Jack some shot for pain. Yeah, can I have one of those? Jack gets back to Cheng who, in exchange for Audrey, wants some component from the nukes since it will give him access to Russian technology and defense codes, we guess. Jack calls Chloe for help in retrieving the circuit board, later called a subcircuit board. The info is in Morris’s report, on his computer. She sidles over and surreptitiously sends it to Jack’s phone. Morris notices someone accessed his files and downloaded the nukes schematics. Chloe admits it but excuses it away because Jack gave his word that he wouldn’t let Cheng have the board. Morris is prepared to tell Bill, so Chloe fesses up.

Wayne thinks there’s no need to hide in the bunker anymore. There’s also no need to work with the VP anymore. Wayne can’t lead effectively with him questioning everything he does. He asks for Daniels’ resignation. Since Wayne knows about the conspiracy to commit perjury, Daniels goes off to write it up. Jack tells the nuke guards the building has been compromised and he has a presidential order to confiscate the board and they believe him. Ricky bursts in with CTU thugs. He and Jack have a shouting match until Jack is “subdued.” Jack should have worked out a game plan with CTU. He goes crying to Wayne, offering to sacrifice himself if he has to.

It’s the guilt card that works. They were willing to hand Jack over sixteen hours ago and he went willingly. Jack asks for Ricky’s help in making sure Audrey is safe while he sees about killing Cheng. Ricky, like the rest of us, can’t believe Jack would compromise the world for some woman. Jack begs to differ. It isn’t about what he has with a woman. Audrey has served the country, bla bla. Huh? They put a tracking signal on the component. At a press conference, Wayne collapses from a cerebral hemorrhage. The VP pockets his resignation and makes CTU shut down the operation. Jack pulls a gun on Ricky. He shot Curtis earlier. He won’t hesitate now. He goes rogue, leaving Ricky behind. Quote of the hour: “I didn’t think you’d back me up. Obviously I was right.”

Lost : One of Us

Lost. 3.16. In the flashback, Juliet starts her new job. If Ethan’s such a great doctor, why is he retrieving and carrying her bags (and during the plane crash, seemingly fixing her house’s wiring?) Because he’s such a nice guy? They won’t tell her where she’s going, just that it’s “special” and that she’s “gonna want to be asleep for the trip” which can be “intense.” She willingly drinks the tranquilized OJ and wakes in the sub. Ben escorts her ashore. Soon she’s assisting in surgery, trying to save a woman possibly named Sabine who dies. Ben doesn’t seem sympathetic (what a surprise), figuring Sabine knew the risk and it was her choice to get pregnant. Juliet feels she can’t help anymore. She can’t figure out why pregnancy kills all the women. But Henry informs her that her sister Rachel’s cancer has returned and she’ll be dead in three months unless Juliet stays on the island. Then Jacob, whoever he is, will cure her.

Time goes by and Juliet discovers Ben’s tumor. If no one on the island’s ever had cancer, why does he now? Juliet wonders if he lied about Jacob’s miraculous ability to cure Rachel. Ben insists he didn’t and after the plane crashes, takes her to Patch’s place, making sure Patch hears him say “We’re approaching the house, don’t shoot us.” Why would Patch shoot at all? Only the Others and Danielle were at that time living on the island. Anyway, Ben orders Patch to get files on all the passengers, then shows Juliet a video of her sister and two year old nephew Julian. I found it chilling when Juliet said the “mothers keep dying” and Ben said “then we’ll find more mothers,” like he viewed women as expendable lab rats to experiment on. And look, here’s a plane with a bunch of women to use. So why didn’t they steal all the women? They seemed more focused on children and “good” people. At any rate, we learned Juliet and Goodwin were involved. And he did seem good, as did all the Others. So why are they all psycho killers?

On their way back to the beach, Sayid is full of questions. Juliet figures if she told him everything, he’d kill her. The island curing cancer but killing pregnant women isn’t anything to kill over, so what’s really going on there? Jack gets all protective of Juliet even though she’s never given him cause, other than being a pretty female. It’s especially odd because we’re clued in that Jack knows Juliet lied about being gassed. She dragged Kate into the jungle on purpose.

At the beach, Claire falls ill. The three men and a baby (Sawyer counted Hugo twice) don’t know what to do. Juliet explains Claire’s immune system is turning on her. Ethan kidnapped her to give her a drug designed to keep her alive in the late stages of pregnancy. (Did Danielle also have this drug?) Every pregnant woman on the island dies, which makes the future grim for Sun. (Is anyone going to tell Sun? Or all the other women? Shouldn’t they have been informed as soon as they crashed?) Juliet says she can use the serum in Ethan’s hidden medical supplies to cure Claire. The camp’s moral police (Sayid and Sawyer) are suspicious, but the case really does contain medical supplies and Juliet saves Claire. Or so it seems. Viewers learn that before the Others left, Ben and Juliet arranged to set it up so it looked like that so she’d be accepted into the Lostaway camp. They’ll meet up in a week. Quote of the episode: Ben re Carrie: “Boy is it depressing.”

Ain't that peculiar

Your Personality is Very Rare (INTP)

Your personality type is goofy, imaginative, relaxed, and brilliant. Only about 4% of all people have your personality, including 2% of all women and 6% of all menYou are Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Perceiving.

How Rare is Your Personality?

24 : 10 - 11 p.m.

24. 6.17. Fayed’s Country’s ambassador calls Wayne because he’s not happy about nukes headed to his country. Oh, it’s his country now? Can we just name the place already? As they speak, a General Habib is arrested and interrogated. He was in contact with Fayed but doesn’t know the weapons whereabouts. Wayne’s patience isn’t gonna take that. He stops the missile but wants a dossier on Habib. He doesn’t mention the missile was unarmed anyway. Jack’s “interrogating” Fayed, although he hasn’t begun to enjoy himself. We know Ricky is a famous star and everything but I’d miss less lines laughing at his pronunciation if someone would correct him. This hour jihad was more like jee-had as if they were cowboys about to rustle up some cattle. We don’t know how long Jack’s been awake, but he nearly falls asleep at the wheel and hits a van. Armed terrorists stream out with machine guns and take down Ricky and Jack, then rescue Fayed.

Naw, they can’t fool us. Jack’s not dead. He’s faking it. Ricky too. The rescuers are really a cover team posing as terrorists. They have Fayed talk with Habib about rendezvousing with his men. At the barbaric suggestion of Wayne, the ambassador threatens Habib’s family so he’ll comply. Milo seems jealous Nadia asked how Ricky was. It’s a good thing they kept her on since she’s able to translate the ensuing Habib/Fayed conversation. The suitcases are in a safe house. Wayne’s blood pressure drops and then so does he. Nadia notices an inconsistency in the transcript. Habib mentioned a Samir who was killed two years ago. Jack warns the cover team but they disappear in a convenient tunnel.

Jack pursues and sees Fayed steal some hapless sanitation worker’s sandcrawler/garbage truck. So Jack does what anyone would do and grabs hold of the truck’s undercarriage. While holding on for dear life, he calls CTU to tell them Fayed’s headed east but there’s too much traffic noise for Bill to hear. When the truck stops, Jack goes in alone against the entire group and picks them off one by one until only he and Fayed remain. They both run out of bullets and resume the battle with lightsabres. Or a lead pipe. Nice head butt, Jack. He fashions a ceiling chain into a noose and strings up Fayed. The bombs are secure. Despite everything Jack’s been through these seventeen hours, he’s fine. Until Audrey calls. She’s not dead. She’s being held by some guy Jack is to call back in ten minutes on a secure line, or else.

Lost : Left behind

Lost. 3.15. In the flashback, Kate’s car breaks down in Iowa. At the nearest station, she runs into Sawyer’s ex, Cassidy, trying to sell fake necklaces and keeps a mark from calling the police. Helping a sister or avoiding the cops? Cassidy guesses the answer. Kate really wants to talk to her mother. In a fake wig, pretending to be selling Bibles, Cassidy approaches Mom’s house and is mobbed by feds lying in wait. Kate ends up confessing what she did. She wants to know why her mother betrayed her, choosing her step father over her. It is a good question, since the abusive man is dead. Why keep defending him? Cassidy arranges a ladies room meeting between the women and all Mom can say is she feels Kate murdered him for Kate, not her. Later Cassie mentions she’s pregnant with her own betrayer’s baby. Kate suggests she have him arrested.

On the island, Locke informs Kate he’s leaving with the Others, wherever they’re going. They told him what she did. “Forgiveness is not one of their strong suits.” Wouldn’t appear to be one of Locke’s either. The Others put on gas masks and throw a canister in Kate’s room. When she wakes, she and Juliet are inexplicably handcuffed together out in the jungle. Even weirder, the Others left a jackknife in Juliet’s pocket. On their way back to the village, it begins to rain. Kate takes offense at Juliet’s objection that she’s returning for Jack and they have a catfight, seemingly placed in the mud for the male viewers. Juliet says Jack saw Kate with Sawyer and it broke his heart. So he went out and played a spirited game of football with Tom? The smoke monster chases them, flashing a strange light at Juliet. They manage to keep it outside the village’s sonic fence, then find Jack and Sayid. Jack didn’t need Kate’s help and is now stuck there because of her. They decide to return to the beach but Sayid isn’t thrilled with Juliet tagging along, even though the Others left her too.

At the beach, Hurley mentions there’s been some chatter. More specifically, the Lostaways want to vote to banish Sawyer unless he makes amends. He doesn’t do amends. He tries to fish but quickly realizes amends would be easier than gutting fish. His way of sucking up to Claire is to tell her Aaron is “not as wrinkly as a couple weeks ago.” He hunts with Desmond and they shoot a boar. Hurley ends up telling him there was never going to be a vote, but “wasn’t it nice being nice?” Actually, without Jack, they need Sawyer as their temporary leader. “What the hell are you smoking?” Sawyer wonders. Line of the episode, Kate’s: “Welcome to the wonderful world of not knowing what the hell’s going on.”

24 : 9 - 10 p.m.

24. 6.16. The best name the writers could think of for Fayed’s country was “Fayed’s Country.” They’ve completely given up, haven’t they? Just out of a coma, Wayne leaps into a suit and tie and hops over to the bunker (unless the medical facilities were already there) to hear the cabinet debate on whether he’s in possession of his faculties. The 25th amendment is purposely vague. They need a majority vote, not a split, which is what they get. The VP thinks one vote is invalid since Karen resigned. She was never formally reinstated and he doesn’t recognize her. Wayne refuses to allow him to steal the presidency. They’ll have to recall the Supreme Court into session to determine whether Karen is still employed.

The VP never questioned Karen before and treated her the same. His inaction suggests he accepted her. His secretary Lisa offers to perjure herself. But Tom once again stuns us by protecting the country. He’s planted a microtransmitter in the room and recorded the conversation. The VP must give up. Chloe appears to have spent the first half of the episode out to dinner or catching a cat nap. Ricky’s somewhat sorry he and Nadia got off to a bad start which she’s more likely to call assault. The wrong security parameters were logged on Milo’s computer. Nadia agrees to get evidence, or betray him for his own good. After looking at a few screens, she determines Milo forgot to refresh the parameters. Ricky fixes it so no one need know. They need Milo on board this sinking ship, he reasons.

Jack has Gredenko set up a meeting with Fayed. CTU places an isotope in Gredenko’s arm to track him. Fayed sends a text message. They’re to meet at some fairground’s Building J. I don’t know how Gredenko knew which building that was. Once there, he informs Fayed that he’s being tracked. Was there anyone who couldn’t guess his next move? That’s a lot more dedication to one’s job than seems necessary. Jack finds the hacked off arm and follows the blood trail, calling for a perimeter. In a nearby pub Gredenko strangely rats out Fayed who shoots until he runs out of bullets, whereupon the patrons start beating him up. Jack enters and orders them to back off. Gredenko sneaks out, staggers to a nearby pier and collapses. Wayne decides he won’t be seen as weak. He’s going ahead with the strike.

Lost : Expose

Lost. 3.14. In the flashback, Nikki guest stars in an Australian television show called Expose. She’s ingratiated herself with the director, Zuckerman, who’s also hired Paolo as a personal chef. Nikki and Paolo, lovely people that they are, conspire to poison Zuckerman and steal a matryoshka doll, or whatever’s inside it. When the plane crashes, they can’t find their bag. Professor Arzt talks to Nikki about the medusa spider he’s collected but we’re guessing she didn’t listen as carefully as she should have in school. Ethan suggests they look inland for their stuff. She and Paolo find the Pearl hatch, the small plane and the pond, but tell no one. Paolo lies and tells her the bag wasn’t at the bottom of the pond when it was. Locke later sees him digging a hole and warns him things don’t stay buried on the island. Especially when the beach erodes during high tide.

Paolo puts the doll in the Pearl hatch, seeing Henry and Juliet as he does so. Again, he tells no one. But viewers learn that Henry’s intention was to manipulate Jack into performing surgery, not to take Locke. He planned to find out what Jack was emotionally invested in and exploit it. When Locke finds the Pearl hatch, Paolo goes with to recover the doll. Later Nikki sees some nicotine gum Paolo has. Gum that was in the bag. She asks Sawyer for a gun but he’s not giving his stuff away so Nikki takes Paolo on a little walk. She knows he has the diamonds. To get them, she throws a medusa spider at him. The spider bite quickly paralyses him, with his heart rate slowed to near death. He’ll stay that way for eight hours. Unfortunately Nikki didn’t pay attention to Arzt when he said the pheromones released during a spider bite will bring lots of little friends. She’s bitten too but only has time to run towards the beach.

Before collapsing, she says something to Hurley and Sawyer. Power lines or plywood or Paolo lies. They can’t tell. Her trail leads to Paolo who’s also dead. There’s no forensics hatch that Sawyer knows about, so they can only try to piece together what happened. Sawyer does a perimeter sweep, a la Jack Bauer. Hurley checks with Desmond but as far as superpowers go, his are kind of lame. Sun suspects the Others, since they abducted her which leads Charlie to confess that he was the one who did that, although he’s quick to add it was Sawyer’s idea and way of getting even with Locke. Everyone suspects Sawyer who doesn’t wait for the villagers to get themselves some torches. He says he noticed dirt under Nikki’s nails so she must have hid something. They dig up the diamonds that were in the doll and then dig a grave for Nikki and Paolo, not realizing Nikki was saying “Paralyzed.” By the time her eyes open, she and Paolo have been buried alive.

24 : 8 - 9 p.m.

24. 6.15. Gredenko contacts some dude named Mark Hauser with a brother named Rainman, or Brady. Same difference. Brady doesn’t like red food but he’s excellent with computer files. Chloe picks up on the phone call and, while she can’t determine what was said, she finds Mark’s address. Nadia’s been classified an enemy combatant. One of the gang brings Ricky an access monitor on Nadia’s computer which she could never have known about. The nuke happy VP’s assistant passes him a note which I suspect contains boxes for him to check off whether he likes her or not. No, wait, the doctors are taking Wayne out of a coma. A tact team, led by Jack, who’s not letting floating rib fragments get him down, storms Mark’s house. Why Mark would keep a shotgun right out in the open with a mentally challenged and/or autistic brother there is anyone’s guess. But he shoots back and is hit in an artery.

Jack handles the questioning of Brady well. Must have been all that experience with the lesser watt bulb Kim. Mark wanted Brady to go through some firewall instead of a proxy server. Jack warns the heavily bleeding Mark to give up Gredenko or be prosecuted for treason. Apparently dying is not an option, though it sure appears Mark is on that route. He tells Jack he was getting some security specs for a nuclear power plant and is wheeled off to the hospital. Jack needs Brady to go through with the transaction with Gredenko. They’ll meet in the convenient parking lot across the street. Jack orders the tranquiliser darts, making me wonder why they weren’t using them all along, since they could have learned a lot from some of these now dead Bad Dudes. Brady performs well and Gredenko is captured.

Milo’s ticked that Ricky sat on evidence to clear Nadia. Ricky begs to differ. He gave it to Morris because they had to make sure it was real. Nadia’s cleared. Bill thinks her first instinct would be to quit CTU. I think it would be to whack a certain someone upside the head. Saundra/Sandra gives the okay to take Wayne out of a coma. He suffers an increase in brain swelling and crashes. Within minutes, though, he’s on the phone, ordering a stand down. The strike is called off and he’s resuming his duties. No hostile action will be taken. The VP is sure Wayne can’t be thinking clearly. He can’t allow him to remain in power and summons the Attorney General.

Lost : the man from Tallahassee

Lost. 3.13. In the flashback, the con artist formerly known as Anthony Cooper is set to marry some woman whose family is worth two hundred million dollars. Through medical records, which some hospital clearly didn’t keep confidential, her son tracks down Locke as having donated a kidney. Locke says it was anonymously and he never met Cooper. Who donates a kidney for the fun of it? Locke tracks down his father and orders him to call off the wedding or he’ll tell the woman. Shortly afterwards the police inform Locke that the woman’s son was found dead. She calls off the wedding because she’s too devastated. As Locke picks up the phone to call her, his father, who just said he wasn’t a murderer, pushes him out the window. Locke falls eight floors but survives. What is he, a cat? Explanation of paralysis, finally.

On the island, we see Locke using binoculars. I don’t remember him doing binocs before. Maybe he picked them up at Patch’s place. Kate seems to want to start shooting Others and hope for the best but Locke thinks it would be better to approach Jack when he’s alone. They wait until nightfall. Kate enters his house and finds him playing piano, seemingly alone except for the video camera watching him. The Others easily capture her and Sayid. Locke went in search of Henry. Alex hears them talking. Locke spirits her into the closet when Henry calls for help. He asks the help (Richard?) to bring him the Man from Tallahassee. Unfortunately he doesn’t have a code for: there’s a man in my closet with a gun held on my daughter, although he should.

Locke wants to know where the submarine is. Henry questions how he’ll operate it. “You don’t just press submerge.” Since Locke mentions Patch, Henry figures out that he also found the explosives and is planning on blowing up the sub. Henry knows a lot about Locke’s life pre-island whereas Locke shares a bond with the island that Henry, although born there, seems to lack since he’s not healing as fast as he should and probably shouldn’t have become sick in the first place. Locke objects to Henry’s use of electricity, created by “two giant hamsters running in a massive wheel in a secret underground lair” according to Henry. Communicating with the outside world is cheating and hypocritical.

Sayid intimates to Alex that her mother is still alive. After some discussion about a magic box that creates whatever you think about, Alex leads Locke to the sub. Jack either believes Henry's promise is good or he doesn't care about Kate and Sayid's fate. He and Juliet, ready to leave the island, arrive at the sub just as Locke blows it up. Jack’s furious with Locke. The sub loss is very convenient for Henry, who was looking for a way to keep his dissenting people and the Lostaways on the island. Henry takes Locke to a door, behind which is a bound Anthony Cooper. Real or magic box/smoke monster illusion? Line the writers probably wish they’d thought about sooner: “This is gonna be more complicated than we thought.”

24 : 7 - 8 p.m.

24.6.14. Jack has floating rib fragments. We don’t imagine that will slow him down. With the fuzz moving in, Gredenko orders a drone launched. CTU’s tracking ability appears mysteriously disabled. Chloe’s more concerned that, during a security upgrade, she discovered Nadia is using Milo’s code. He may be just trying to help but that’s a felony and someone else is bound to notice too. The nuke happy VP isn’t just rattling his sabre. Put that away before someone gets hurt. Marilyn makes a move on Jack who moves out of the way. First he needs to talk to Audrey. Marilyn isn’t torn up to tell him she read about a year ago in the newspaper Audrey had a car accident in China. Furious, Jack grabs Chloe’s phone. She should have told him and he wants the file now. Chances are Audrey was murdered while trying to find and free him. If she’s really dead, that is.

Karen returns to the bunker and quips over Tom’s boo boo. He jokes that he tripped over her ineptitude. She finds the VP’s actions dangerous and reckless, rather than the US standing up for herself. In a moment of comic relief, Chloe checks Morris’s breath for alcohol. Nope, he’s fine. Something about anticipating repositioning directives leads them to discover a leak at CTU. Ricky suspects Nadia because she’s “Mooslim.” Mooslim? Is that the official religion of moose? Is someone directing this show? Anyway, some signature trace matches Nadia’s. She’s taken into custody and interrogation. The drone is scheduled to hit San Francisco in twenty minutes.

Wayne has a build up of intracranial pressure. A coma has been induced but Karen needs to speak with him. The doctor won’t take responsibility for any ensuing brain damage. She’ll have to gain consent from sister Saundra/Sandra. Some feedback on Morris’s computer leads him to the location of the drone pilot. Just a couple blocks away on Hillcrest. That’s sure convenient. Jack accompanies the team who shoot their way in. He takes the pilot’s controls, which are navigation only. Never mind he’s been away from technology for almost two years. Also, never mind there’s a large body of water close by. He lands the drone in an industrial park. The firemen are exposed to its radiation. That’s enough of an attack for the VP to proceed with his warning strike. No word on either Logan this hour. Best line: “We don’t have time for your personal differences.”

Lost : Par avion

Lost. 3.12. In the flashback, a Goth Claire has a car accident which leaves her passenger mother with severe head trauma and comatose. Expenses have been taken care of and a new American doctor arrives on the scene. He’s not there to treat Mom, though. He’s there to tell Claire he’s her father. He visited her lots when she was little, but keeping two families going didn’t work well, I guess. He never tells Claire his name (or that she has a half brother named Jack) but he does mention there are alternatives to keeping her mother alive on machines. Hope isn’t the same as guilt, in his experience. Claire kicks him out.

On the island, Desmond wants to engage Charlie in a spot of boar hunting. Why Desmond cares so much whether Charlie dies or not might be a good question to ask. No one does. Claire notices some migratory seabirds heading south. She figures they’ll be tagged and someone will read those tags. If they can catch a bird, they can send a message to the outside world. Charlie doesn’t see the point. He thinks it’ll only encourage false hope. Desmond continues to linger, seemingly subverting Claire’s plans. She follows him and sees him catch a bird for her. He explains that Charlie would have tried but slipped on the rocks and broken his neck.

Sayid is still brooding over Locke blowing up the house. Locke thinks Sayid should have warned him the basement was rigged. Patch informs them that two weeks ago the underwater beacon stopped. He mentions an electromagnetic pulse and something I couldn’t catch as my cats have developed spring fever and were racing through the living room. Whatever it was, he doesn’t explain further to Kate because she’s not capable of understanding because she’s not on the list because she’s flawed. Somehow he knows their names. More curious is that he remembers Locke from the past. Locke interrupts him before he can elaborate.

They reach a security perimeter of pylons that encircle the barracks. There’s no way around it. Locke shoves Patch in. After strangely thanking Locke, Patch dies a gruesome death. Life amongst the Others must not be so great after all, if they’re so keen to die. (See Mrs Klugh from last episode.) Kate figures they can go over the barrier. They rig up a tree and she climbs up. The rest of the gang follows. Sayid sees Locke has some explosives in his backpack. So he knew about the basement after all. Go figure. Shortly the gang arrives outside the Others village where people are riding bicycles and Jack is involved in a friendly game of catch football with Tom. Everybody say, Huh?

24 : 6 - 7 p.m.

24. 6.13. Logan is taken for debriefing at CTU. They’ve brought in the night manager, Mike Doyle. We like to think of him as Ricky. Milo wanted to think wouldn’t be a jerk. No such luck. Mike/Ricky and Morris don’t hit it off either. But Morris’s shirt is a blend, it doesn’t wrinkle, so that’s okay. Mike/Ricky’s putting a tactical profile together. Liberating Jack is a secondary goal. They need to abduct Markhov, even though that constitutes an act of war. Jack’s captor pushes him down a flight of stairs, onto the dead guard whose belt Jack surreptitiously liberates, then uses it to whip captor’s gun from his hand in one of the hour’s few exciting moments. He calls CTU and reaches Morris, but the line goes dead. CTU figures Markhov won’t let himself be taken alive. Since Martha is friends with Anya Subaru, she could call and convince her to speak on their behalf to her husband.

Martha’s been “institutionalized” which means she’s shacked up in a cozy bungalow with Aaron Pierce, reading gossip rags, eating fruit and probably playing the occasional tennis match. Charles calls but she refuses to see him. Aaron doesn’t have to deal with his sarcasm anymore, either. Logan’s not playing games. There’s an international incident brewing and he’s choppering in. Jack happens upon a Russian couple. He sends the man for a phone and tells the girl not to be scared, she’ll be fine. Seriously. Has Jack spent any time around himself? No one around him is ever fine and should be scared to death, because that’s how they usually end up.

The VP coerces Tom into telling some ambassador that Assad carried in the bomb. He saw the detonator. Now they’re holding his country responsible. The peace plan was all a ruse. Aaron’s worried Martha’s getting herself all stirred up. We couldn’t have that, could we? She goes a little ballistic chopping the fruit. As soon as we saw the knife, we figured it would be used. She jabs Logan in the neck, hitting an artery and is surprised to end up in handcuffs rather than given a medal. But she must have got through to Anya (I zoned out until the neck jab) because Subaru orders Markhov to surrender and turn over Jack. Of course he refuses. Subaru authorizes CTU’s use of force. They storm the consulate as Markhov calls Gredenko to launch the drones now. Logan crashes in the ambulance. Quote of the hour that could apply to any hour: “What you understand really doesn’t matter.”

Red Dwarf series 7 quotes

• Ship’s log… one.
• Garbled, confusing, and quite frankly duller than an in-flight magazine produced by Air Belgium.
• Sometimes, you just gotta say, the laws of time and space? Who gives a smeg!
• The ability to sing the Bay City Rollers greatest hits is no longer a priority.
• Bet he’s a sour krout.
• How are those kippers doing?
• That suit's as sharp a page of Oscar Wilde witticisms that have been rolled up into a point, sprinkled with lemon juice and jabbed into someone's eye!
• According to the log, we’re down to our last 3000 vomit bags. It’ll never be enough.
• I’ve begun researching the definitive history of pockets and, I've alphabetised our entire stock of alphabet soup, grouping each individual letter together with it's fellows.
• I want him to choke to death on his smug gittyness.
• This is where you must be to become Maria Von Trapp.
• 67% more weasely.
• Stoke me a clipper, I’ll be back for Christmas.
• I accepted shopping was unlikely.
• Cheese slice snap can only entertain for so long.
• He’s a bit of a psychopathic killing machine, but he has his good side.

The party on the left

According to the test at The Political Compass, me and Gandhi are like this. That is, in about the same place on the resultant graph, a libertarian leftie. Go figure. The exact compass bearing:

Economic Left/Right: -4.13

Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.79

Lost : Enter 77

Lost. 3.11. The Lostaways find a ping pong table leftover from when the hatch collapsed or exploded. Hurley doesn’t ask questions. He just makes himself a salad and moves on. Sawyer’s still lamenting his stolen stash, flinging nicknames left and right. Poor Hurley, i.e. Avalanche. Sawyer challenges anyone to a game of ping pong in return for his stash. Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon think it’d be a hoot if he had to give up the nicknaming for a week if he loses. Sawyer gets three points, which is better than zero. Best part of this comic relief was his questioning who Nicky was.

Kate and the rescue team have been walking north at a compass bearing of 3:05 for two days. They end up discovering a farmhouse with a large satellite dish. Rousseau’s survived by avoiding such encounters. She bails. Sayid foolishly walks right up to the house and is winged. Kate and Locke corner the culprit who says he’s Mikhail, the last living member of the Dharma Initiative. But we like to think of him as Patch. Wanting to do something good after being dismissed from the Soviet military eleven years ago, he replied to a newspaper ad. Everyone else died in the war, or purge, against the hostiles. The Others offered him a truce. If he didn’t cross their imaginary line, they’d leave him alone. Although his only companion seems to be a cat named Nadia, after the gymnast, Sayid suspects someone else is around.

Locke snoops around and finds a computer chess game that Patch says he can’t win since the computer cheats. Way to go. Tell Locke he can’t do something and that’s what he’ll become determined to do. He wins in no time and the screen is replaced by Dr Candle. Mainland communications are down. The sonar access is inoperable. If there’s been an incursion of hostiles, Locke is to enter 77. You’d think his experience with the hatch would have made him realize it’s not wise to go messing with other people’s things. During this chess match, Kate and Sayid realize Patch isn’t their friend. He attacks them but the fend him off. They find an operations manual and Mrs Klugh in the wired basement.

Patch has recovered from the fight and taken Locke outside. An exchange of prisoners would make sense. Mrs Klugh telling Patch to shoot her would not. Maybe she didn’t want to be on the receiving end of Kate’s wrath anymore. Rousseau reappears. She thinks Sayid should kill Patch. The episode’s pointless flashbacks have to do with mercy and regret or whatever (seeing Sayid beaten to a pulp is not any more entertaining to me than seeing Sawyer beaten to a pulp), so he doesn’t. BTW, the wife in the flashbacks must not know cats. They all do that. Because Locke entered 77, the house explodes. Luckily, we guess, Sayid took a map of some barracks they can check out next week. Best line: Sawyer’s “It was mine when I took it.”

24 : 5 - 6 p.m.

24. 6.12. Logan thinks Jack should listen to the voice in his head. Um, no. For all his efforts at peace, Assad is dead. There must be doctors and a mini hospital on stand by at the bunker because Wayne is taken to surgery after being hit by shrapnel. The Secret Service starts to sweep the bunker. Reed's friend (I still haven't learned his name) thinks getting caught was never part of the plan. It rarely is. He wants to kill Tom but Reed thinks they can reason with him. The FBI will blame Assad who conveniently can't set them straight. Instead, first chance he gets, Tom rats out Reed & Co. Once a weasel, always a weasel. But I was proud of him. The VP Daniels isn't so impressed. He figures Tom was the architect of the plan and it would be best to go with the "blame Assad" motto.

At the Russian consulate, Logan asks Markhov where Gredenko is. The Russian boys aren't close anymore, so Markov doesn't know. Logan threatens to send tapes of Markov's involvement in last season's nerve gas/canister fiasco to President Subaru but that doesn't work any better than asking. Logan's positive Markhov is lying. He knows the signs. So Jack has Chloe hack the DWP server and disable the consulate's power so he can sneak back in. How long has Jack spoken Russian? I don't remember any foreign language knowledge before. He takes Markhov hostage at gunpoint, then phones CTU to inform them he has "a situation." It's a gross violation of sovereignty and he needs to go through proper diplomatic channels. Let's all laugh.

Markhov doesn't know Jack who starts lopping off the Russian's fingers until he confesses Gredenko is in Shadow Valley launching some unmanned aircraft drones or clones or something. The Russki's blast through the door and capture Jack. Karen decides she best return to the bunker. We'd almost forgotten she existed. Almost. VP Daniels prepares to implement his "aggressive agenda of national security" which will suspend civil liberties. It appears Morris also knows Russian, as he figures out Jack is a prisoner. CTU prepares a special ops team to rescue him, something they never thought about doing when he was in China, we guess. Jack convinces a guard to call CTU and tell them about the drones, but the guard is shot.

Plastered in Paris

Movie: Marie Antoinette. Other than the storming of the Bastille and subsequent guillotining of whoever’s heads the peasants felt like lopping off, I know little about French history. And didn’t learn much more from this film. They several times blamed the high taxes on supporting the US Revolution and Marie’s excessive gambling but I suspect there was more to the peasants starving than that. Namely, the horribly poor weather conditions which caused years of crop failure. What the movie did provide was an extremely gorgeous visual, since it was filmed at Versailles. The lives of the royals didn’t seem that bad, especially since the brutal imprisonment and assassinations weren’t dealt with. At the end, they just rode off in a lovely carriage. Most unusual, right off in the opening credits and throughout the movie, viewers are rather assaulted by present day music. And punkish music at that. A little jarring. Ignoring that, I kept wondering how, with all the champagne, candy, sugary cakes, confectionaries and immense meals gorged upon, Marie and Louis didn’t end up weighing 400 pounds.

Lost : Tricia Tanaka is Dead

Lost. 3.10. “How does your light shine in the halls of Shambala?” The little dude Hurley must have been listening to an oldies station because there’s no way he’s about the same age as me. When he can’t fix the car, his father, Cheech, reminds him that having hope is never stupid and “you make your own luck.” Does that include bad luck? Then Cheech does the Deadbeat Dad Shuffle so Hurley too has father issues. His parting gift: a chocolate bar. The rest of the flashback focuses on many chocolate bars later when the adult Hurley won the lottery. He buys Mr Cluck’s where reporter Tricia Tanaka interviews him for a puff piece that isn’t fluff enough. A meteor or asteroid CGI’s into the restaurant, killing Tricia. Hurley wants to go to Australia to break the curse but wait, his father has returned home after 17 years.

Concerned about Hurley’s mental health, his mother phoned Cheech who admits he dropped by for the money. Hurley decides it might break the curse to give away the money. Cheech has a better idea. They visit a psychic who knows the numbers sequence. She thinks death surrounds Hurley because there’s a curse on him. When the curse’s removal involves some untoward exorcism practice, Hurley figures out that his father told her what to say and offers her money to admit it. “The mystic arts are not subject to bribes.” Not small ones, anyway. She goes for the big bucks. Cheech doesn’t think travelling to Australia will break the curse. Hurley should fix up the old car and give away the rest. Then they’ll go to the Grand Canyon on a road trip. Guess that didn’t fly.

On the island, Vincent brings Hurley a skeleton arm that’s clutching a rabbit’s foot attached to a keychain. Hurley chases the dog who leads him to a tipped over “hippy car.” They kept calling it a car, but we always called them VW vans back in the 60s. The skeleton in the car wears a Dharma t-shirt with Roger Workman on it. Hurley tries to engage the Lostaways in fixing up the car but only Jin, who has no idea what he’s talking about, volunteers. There’s a payoff when they find beer in the car. Just before Kate and Sawyer return, he steps on a dart that looks to be from Desmond’s pub days. She yanks it out unceremoniously. Sawyer’s none too pleased that the munchkin, Oliver Twist, stole his stash. Hurley figures Sawyer will help fix the car because there’s beer involved. No one told him about the skull in the back seat. “That’s just Roger.” Or Skeletor, one of the many Sawyerisms in this episode.

While Sawyer teaches Jin all the English he needs to know (i.e. “Those pants don’t make you look fat,”) Hurley admonishes Charlie to “stop feeling sorry for yourself ‘cause someone says you’re gonna die.” Instead, they should “look death in the face and say, whatever, man!” Jumbotron and Jimminy Cricket decide to pull a Thelma and Louise (with a push start a la Little Miss Sunshine) with Hurley driving down into the valley and Charlie riding shotgun. They manage to miss the deadly rocks at the bottom and enjoy their ride as the eight track coincidentally plays “Shambala.” Meanwhile, Kate decides to search for Jack. Sayid and Locke, a little put out that she didn’t ask them to go with, find her. The sunlight hitting Mr Eko’s Jesus Stick showed them the direction they need to go. Shots fire out but Kate tells the shooter she’s there to talk. Rousseau steps out of the jungle. Kate explains Rousseau’s daughter Alex helped her escape The Others. Line of the episode, Sawyer re Jin: “Somebody’s hooked on phonics.”

24 : 4 - 5 p.m.

24. 6.11. Okay, the intense whispering is way out of control. Do I have to put the closed-captioning on? I’m sure I missed half of what was said. Or whispered. President Wayne is arranging for Assad to make a global appeal to extremists to put down their arms. Jack somehow got himself to an airport and asks CTU to give him a helicopter so he can bop over to Logan’s retreat in Hidden Valley. Logan’s under house arrest there but the public doesn’t know it. Tom’s learning the wonders of duct tape. Reed’s cohort, whose name I have yet to catch, wants to kill Tom and make it look like a suicide. Reed’s sure he can keep Tom quiet. Besides, they’re not cold blooded murderers. They just want to blow up Wayne. Morris’s work appears to be suffering. “He’s been tortured. Maybe he should be pulled.” You think? Chloe leaves a message for his sponsor, Jeanne.

Logan’s sources have kept him up to speed on the current situation. He’s reconnected to his faith and changed. He’ll help without a pardon or any conditions by talking to Gredenko’s liaison, Markov, who he knows from the previous conspiracy. Jack asks Wayne for a temporary furlough for Logan. Since this “may not be the same man you hated for so long,” Wayne grants it. Morris’s data merge is incomplete. He prefers to think of it as irrelevant. Try that one at work. Jack and Logan dress up for the Oscars. No, wrong night. In his spare time Logan’s been highlighting passages in the Psalms. Jeanne returns Chloe’s call. She hasn’t talked with Morris for two years. Chloe finds him in the men’s room. He says Ted is his sponsor now and Chloe’s showing signs of obsession, not worry.

After she leaves the men’s room, Morris pours the remaining scotch down the drain which seems like a good sign. Reed has the bomb detonator. I don’t know what Tom was trying to do by moving some pressure gauge with his feet, but it didn’t work. As Assad is about to give his speech, he notices something dripping from the podium. Yeah, that can’t be right. He yells that it’s a bomb and tries to leap out of the way but, in the hour’s only excitement, the podium explodes. Everyone in the room, including President Wayne, is injured. Someone calls for a medical team. Line of the hour: “I’ll be glad when we no longer have to deal with this man.”

More than this

Stolen from Kristín who stole it from a Parisienne blog :
1. Someone knocks at your door at two in the morning. Who would you want it to be? My ex, but the odds are not slim, they are none.
2. Your boss says he/she will give you a pay raise if ..? Ha ha ha ha
3. The essence of you? Intelligent but reserved.
4. Have you seen a ghost? At least once. Heard them many times.
5. Happy with your body? No, not at all. Never have been, never will be.
6. I would move to America if...: Already there/here. Was born here but have been known to curse the Kaiser for forcing my great-grandparents to leave Sweden.
7. A place you have lived in and miss: Massachusetts
8. A job you would never take, no matter how much you'd be paid: Quite a lot of them. I'm not very adventurous or business minded or money obsessed.
9. A band you found cool when you were 13: Queen.
10. You wake up after a bad nightmare. Who would you call? No one.
11. Do you want children before thirty? Since I'm past 30, I'll say I did. Once past 30, not so much.
12. The strongest memory from college: When the entire homecoming court was killed in a car accident.
13. Ever been in love with a friend's spouse? No.
14. The greatest prank you have played on a coworker? We don't play pranks on each other at work.
15. Are you more like your mother or father? Father. No doubt about that. Can't count the times I've said something to my Mom and she'll tell me, "Your father said the exact same thing just this morning." Scary.
16. Something you've always wanted to learn: Proficiency in foregin languages, rather than just a smattering of Icelandic and Swedish.
17. Still in contact with an ex? One, yes. Thankfully.
18. Where would you want to be in 10 years time: Alive?
19. Anything you've learned about yourself in the past year (2006): That I'm not as bad as everyone, especially myself, thinks.
20. What do you want for your birthday? Nothing special.
21. Name three things you did today? I've only been up for half an hour, so all I've done is clean the cat box.
22. The last thing you bought for yourself? A purple sweater.
23. Do you have anything dangling from the rear view mirror of your car? No
24. What did you have for breakfast? I will have an apple & cinnamon pop tart.
25. Who of your friends or acquaintances has the most tattoes: I only know of a few relatives of a sister who have tattoos.
26. How many hours sleep do you normally need? 7 or 8
27. Ever been tied up? No.
28. What would you rather have been doing right this moment? Nothing printable.
29. What is the first name in your address book? My aunt.
30. When did you last witness a fight? Nothing since my nieces were little and would say "Yes!" when they'd rubmle I'd ask them, "Is this how ladies behave?"
31. What was the last alcoholic beverage you had? Glass of wine.
32. Do you like having your hair pulled? No.
33. Name three places you'd like to travel to: Iceland, Sweden, did I say Iceland?
34. Are you good at skating? No. Too uncoordinated.
35. What is your opinion about BRAD PITT? He's mighty good looking. I don't know him personally.
36. What colour are your toenails? I don't paint them, so clear.
37. Who was the last person you spoke to on the phone? My mother. Or Anne from work who called my department with a question.
38. Do you have anything picturing a skull? Not unless it's cleansers with warning labels.
39. Have you travelled a lot within your country? Been to NYC, Mass, PA, Washington DC, Virginia, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana.
40. The last movie you watched? Fast Food Nation, last night.
41. Where were you when you received the first kiss? School cafeteria.
42. The last card game you played? Solitaire.
43. Have you had a blackeye? Smashed my face sledding as a kid.
44. What video rental do regularly you use? The library!
45. Do you wear tights? No.
46. Do you know someone who is doing time? No, but there's one who should be.

Lost : Stranger in a Strange Land

Lost. 3.9. Not a very interesting flashback. To me, anyway. That might be because I’m not a Jack fan. I don’t consider him a “likable guy” like he considers himself. And that’s why. Our egotistical hero is vacationing in Phuket where he meets a girl who helps him fly a kite. She has a gift but one she doesn’t think she should share. Turns out she’s a tattoo artist. She sees who people are and marks them according to her definition, not decoration. Jack demands his personal tattoo. Afterwards he’s beat up by some previously friendly guys at the beach and told to leave the country.

Show me the way to go home. Kate doesn’t want to leave Jack behind. Sawyer does. Carl’s blabbering brainwashing mantras. Thanks for the input. After they return to the main island, Carl goes off crying. Sawyer wishes he’d cowboy up instead of being like Bobby from The Brady Bunch. Carl’s never heard of The Brady Bunch. That can’t be good. He mentions they only work on the small island. They live on the main island. And they gave the children a better life than the Lostaways. He’s convinced they’ll kill him if he’s caught. Sawyer still urges him to go after Alex.

Tom asks Jack “What kind of people do you think we are?” And the answer would be: psychos. Maybe he should give Jack some stones to throw in his glass house. Jack’s taken out of the aquarium so Juliet can be brought in. He’s taken to Sawyer’s cage but doesn’t care to figure out the fish biscuit. The sheriff, Isabelle, who doesn’t like coming to the little island, reads tattoos (and apparently Chinese) and finds Jack's ironic. Juliet is escorted to inform Jack that Ben’s stitches are infected, his vitals low and he has a fever. Jack refuses to help.

During interrogation, Isabelle wants to clear up some inconsistencies. Such as, did Juliet ask Jack to kill Ben? Jack says he lied to create chaos to help his friends escape. He asks to return to his cage where Others drop by to watch him. Cindy and two of the kids are in the group. Jack shoos them away. Alex appears and asks him to speak with Ben. Jack wonders why they don’t have a surgeon in the group. But they did. Ethan. Ben writes Isabelle a note that commutes Juliet’s sentence. Execution is off the table. Juliet’s branded on her back, where no one can see it. And the Others decide to return to the main island. Poor Tom had to hold the umbrella over Ben. Line of the episode, Sawyer’s: “Well, ain’t that quaint?”

24 : 3 - 4 p.m.

24. 6.10. Marilyn and Milo are pursued by hostiles. Papa Bauer wants Marilyn taken alive so she can give him Gredenko’s address. Milo is winged. Just as he’s about to buy the industrial park, Jack picks off the guy about to kill him. Another Minion threatens to kill Marilyn but Jack’s sure if he wanted to, she’d be dead by now. Jack must have taken some medical courses in China because just by examining Milo’s arm, he knows the wound isn’t fatal. Concerned Marilyn tipped off Gredenko, he pushes her until she says it was his father, not Susan, that called her in the car. Man, I hate her lipstick. Marilyn’s, not Susan’s. “How could I have been so stupid?” Jack wonders aloud. He’s asking people who watch this show?

Morris takes a walk to collect himself or buy a pint of whiskey but has second thoughts before it’s down. Luckily he remembered Altoids. He should have chosen vodka, because Chloe’s superior senses can smell the whiskey through the Altoids. Jack plans to force his father’s hand. Remaining Minion will call and have Marilyn say she won’t give the location unless she sees Josh. Crazy Papa thinks they can rebuild whatever’s left of the family. Josh hears Grandpapa say he’ll kill him and decides it’s time to go for a soda. Grandpapa stops him. No one’s life is worth the destruction of everything he’s built, whatever that is. In the presidential bunker, Tom’s buddy wants to get a security specialist inside to carry the ball and/or make it look like Assad kills President Wayne. When Tom has second thoughts, he’s bonked on the head a couple times so the issue is resolved.

A team sweeps the real Russia House but no one’s there. Jack, Marilyn and Minion arrive at the hotel. I’m sure I saw the door was already open, but Jack seemed to have missed it. No one’s around but the phone rings. Papa Bauer’s across the way, holding Josh at gunpoint. Jack tries to convince him there’s no legacy or empire and it would be best to make a deal with the government but he knows immunity is impossible at this point. He’ll surrender Josh in exchange for Jack. Gredenko found out about Papa Bauer’s role in President Palmer’s assassination and blackmailed him. He’s also miffed Jack became a civil servant (aka federal agent) and turned his back on the Bauer family by going his own way. Jack says he’s sorry. Weirdly, Papa leaves, and leaves Jack a phone number to call. On the line is former Pres Logan. Line of the hour, Chloe’s: “I don’t have to believe him, I was married to him.”

The NHLer test

NHL skill: 74%
This means you're: career 2nd liner
What does it mean?
You're a good player with enough skill to play big minutes but are very inconsistent and streaky. You can go 5 games without a point then light the lamp in the next 5. You have to earn most of your goals by playing "dirty" down low and you are still prone to mental mistakes and some improvement can still be made to your game.

Take the: Do you have what it takes to play in the NHL test

Lost : Flashes before your eyes

Lost. 3.8. Locke and Company inform Hurley and Charlie, in hopes that they’ll keep everyone else calm, the island killed Eko. Desmond isn’t calm. He runs to the beach, strips off his shirt (thank you very much) and dives in the water. So how did the Bearded Wonder know Claire was drowning? Hurley believes, “That guy sees the future, dude.” Charlie isn’t convinced because it doesn’t seem like Des would have ended up in the hatch, then. They decide Sawyer’s McCutcheon whiskey will help him talk. Des says he heard Claire calling for help a mile away. That’s good hearing. Funny he also knew about and averted the lightning strike. Charlie calls him a coward and they scuffle.

When the hatch exploded, Desmond either dreamed or hallucinated or time travelled back to his apartment when he fell off a ladder while painting the ceiling an ugly red. Penny’s moving in and securing a job with her father for him. The microwave beeping sounds like the hatch countdown warning. Des notices the numbers all over the place but pulls himself and his concussion together to ask Pen’s father about marrying her. We learn that Des worked as a set designer for the Royal Shakespeare Company and Mr Widmore’s foundation is sponsoring a race around the world. Unfortunately, Widmore doesn’t think Des is worth a dram of McCutcheon whiskey, or his daughter. Furious, Des heads out to the street where Charlie is performing “Wonderwall.” Since Des is acting weird, saying he knows Charlie from the island and such, Charlie utters the line of the episode: “This is why we don’t do drugs.” And then it rained.

Talking with a friend in a pub, Des tries to figure out if he went back in time and is living his life over again. But his future memories don’t work out right. Off he goes shopping for an engagement ring where he annoys the woman clerk. She informs him that he’s supposed to have second thoughts, break Pen’s heart and enter the race. If he doesn’t, they all die. Pointing out a man in red shoes who eventually snuffs it under some fallen scaffolding, she explains that if she had saved him, the universe would correct her action and he would die some other way or day since he was supposed to. Free will doesn’t exist. Desmond ends up accepting this, unlike his namesake.

Des and Pen have their picture taken with the marina background. He can’t afford the five pounds to pay for the photograph and tells Pen it’s over. He can’t look after her and they’re not supposed to be together. Back in the pub that night, the soccer game turns out right. Des was just off by a day. And Jimmy Lennon walks in to smash the bartender with a cricket bat but Des steps in the way and is hit himself. The bartender’s eventual fate remains unknown because Des wakes on the island after the hatch explosion which made his life flash before his eyes but the flashes didn’t stop. And he’s not trying to save Claire. He’s trying to save Charlie who, now that we think about it, has had many close calls. But Des thinks no matter how many times he’s successful, the universe will course correct and Charlie will die. Probably when Sawyer returns and finds out he ransacked his stash.

24 : 2 - 3 p.m.

24. 6.9. The previous hour was such non-stop action that this one was a snoozefest in comparison. And Kiefer’s infectious habit of intense whispering seems to have spread to most of the cast. I’m sure I missed a lot of dialogue. Milo finds an e-mail fragment with a link to Gredenko who is no longer in Moscow, but on the west coast, probably in or near Los Angeles. Here’s where Jack tenderly touch Chloe’s arm. Awww. In CTU’s morgue, Papa Bauer is busy deleting phone messages from his dead son’s cell. Jack asks him about a Russian liaison but Papa says Gray oversaw the project and dealt with Gredenko. He can call the company executives to see if they know anything. Instead he warns someone (possibly named Carter?) to find Gredenko and kill him.

Jack is informed the drug used during Gray’s interrogation caused his death. Bill offers to cover up Jack’s exceeding protocol and losing control, but Jack’s prepared to accept any consequences for his actions. Marilyn doesn’t blame Jack for Gray’s death. In fact, she’s been trying for years to leave her toad of a husband but he threatened to take Josh away from her. One night, hoping she could find some leverage on him, she followed him to a house in West LA where she heard Russian accents. Could she find the house again? She could try. Hearing this plan, Papa Bauer offers to take Josh for quality grandparenting. Before that, he calls his crew to set up a fake house in West LA.

Vice President Daniels, while not directly involved, will help enact Tom’s agenda. Tom and cohort Reed whisper a lot about conduits and architects and itineraries. Morris is in sick bay kicking himself for being a coward. Chloe utters the line of the hour with: “I know you’ve been through a lot today but you’re really starting to piss me off.” She orders him to stop feeling sorry for himself and get back to work. Out searching for the Russia House, Marilyn receives a call from Papa. Unless she calls him Susan and directs Jack to the address he provides, he’ll kill Josh like he killed Gray. Ah, the family that kills together… The CTU tact team storm the house she points out. Jack spots a bomb and leaps to safety through a window while Milo and Marilyn are chased by Papa’s men.

24 : 1 - 2 p.m.

24. 6.8. Between hours, Jack found a helicopter and is in it, searching for Aussie’s car. Chloe’s too distraught to pull up a satellite. Milo relieves her. Bill informs Jack of Gray’s death which appears to be from cardiac arrest. Jack doesn’t seem heartbroken. CTU finds Aussie headed west but he realizes they’ve spotted him. Could it be from the noise of the helicopter? Talk about obvious. Stupidly, he tells Meg Ryan they aren’t aware of her existence. At the 110 Interchange, they switch vehicles. Then they switch drivers as Meg shoots Aussie and kicks him out of the silver pickup into the street. Morris thinks he’s saved but she still plans to deliver him to Fayed. That way she alone wins the 7 million.

Weasel Tom is pouting because President Wayne is putting forth his own agenda. The nerve. Wayne wants Assad to lead a peace mission and make a statement now. What follows is a lot of intimating from Tom’s treasonous cohort Reed about finding a way to secure power for the more agreeable Vice President. Jack finds Aussie’s body and a phone whose data he magically uploads to CTU. Chloe pulls herself together and traces a call to an apartment building. Yes, we have a perimeter. And a staging area. Fayed says he’ll give Meg her money when Morris completes the task of modifying the device so it can reprogram the 4 remaining bombs. To ferret out the 215 people in the building, they use the emergency service grid to trigger a fire alarm. Fayed doesn’t fall for that old trick. He’s busy torturing Morris with a power drill to make him comply. Meg’s had enough. Forget the money, she wants out. Fayed is happy to shoot her and put her out of her misery.

Three apartments remain occupied. Jack surmises he doesn’t have to worry about the woman in the wheelchair or the man with a criminal record. He and team storm in the last apartment and shoot up the place. Once the smoke clears, Morris is okay but Fayed is nowhere. Jack finds a suitcase in the bathroom which is where everyone should keep their bomb. Chloe mentions a failsafe device that prevented forced entry. Somehow she knows the get around and talks Jack through which gears and wires and switches to move so the bomb is disarmed. Turns out, there was a secret wall in a closet leading to the basement and that’s how Fayed escaped. He may be slippery, but he’s still not as cool as Marwan. Morris informs Jack that Fayed has the reprogramming device. Clearly Morris wasn’t watching the exchange with Desmond last season. “You gave him something that worked?” Jack berates. Line of the hour is Chloe’s: “Get away from me, there’s not a problem.”

Lost - Not in Portland

Lost. 3.7. In the flashback, Juliet injected some of the mysterious vial drug into her sister Rachel who lives in Miami Beach. The scarf around Rachel’s head made us think it was because of some cancer. Juliet was apparently engaging in employee theft, as she stole the vials from the laboratory where she worked with her former husband, Edmund Burke. Coincidence both their names are Shakespeare characters? Probably. Her research was either genius or ethically criminal. Somehow a Portland-based company named Mittelos found out about her impregnated male mouse and tried to recruit her. Only if Edmund’s hit by a bus, she said. Seriously, she’s not a leader, she’s a mess.

Eventually Rachel shared the good news that she was pregnant. From Juliet’s injections, we guess. When Juliet told Ed, he stupidly stood out in the middle of the street where a speeding bus hit him. When Mr Alpert from Mittelos showed up to offer condolences, complete with tissue-carrying Ethan, Juliet suspected he was responsible for the bus. He didn’t remember her mentioning any bus. All he wanted was for her to work with them for six months. But not quite in Portland. Juliet probably agreed because he seemed to know all about her sister. Six months quickly turned into three years, two months and 28 days. Not that she’s counting.

On the island, Juliet orders some Others to find Kate and Sawyer and bring them back, or kill them. Whichever. Ben’s anesthesia wears off and he wakes and asks to speak with Juliet alone. Whatever he says makes her change her mind and agree to help Kate and Sawyer escape if Jack will finish the surgery. For their part, Kate and Sawyer need a boat. And a buffet lunch. As Danny and cohorts shoot at them, Alex/Sheena conveniently appears with her trusty slingshot and hides them. She’ll give them her boat if they help her rescue her boyfriend. Wait a second. She has a boat? Has she ever taken that boat to the main island and run into her mother?

The kids scamper off to a hatch where the guard is reading A Brief History of Time. They overpower him with the Wookie Prisoner Gag and find Carl in Room 23. Or his own personal A Clockwork Orange. They hurry to the beach but not quick enough. Danny finds them and is ready to shoot Sawyer. Before he can, Juliet kills him. She reminds Alex she must stay on the island so that Ben will let Carl live. Jack, finishing surgery, warns Kate not to return for him, like that’s going to make a difference. Juliet tells Jack that Ben promised she could go home if she allowed Kate and Sawyer to escape. And she believed this lunatic?

24 : 12 p.m. - 1 p.m.

24. 6.7. Karen reassigns herself to CTU. Jack and Papa Bauer are taken to a quickly and freshly dug grave where of course they overpower their guards. Jack has CTU set up a perimeter around Gray’s house with orders to take him alive. Jack and Papa arrive at the scene in seconds & Jack storms in, eager for another chance to torture his brother. Family togetherness. Can’t beat it. Jack has Marilyn & Josh Boy taken to CTU. Are Marilyn’s eyes freakishly pale? She looks like an alien to me. I’m just saying. Aussie McCarthy has found an engineer but not someone who will work willingly with Fayed. He sends a file on the possible engineer which, together with his phone call, is intercepted by our gal Chloe. Morris sets to work on recovering the image file even though a message comes in that his brother is in critical condition, having been in the Valencia blast.

CTU torture guy helps Jack inject a neuro-inflammatory. Gray insists he doesn’t know how to find McCarthy. Eventually he admits to arranging the deaths of Jack’s pals at CTU to lure him out of hiding. And that wasn’t the first time he tried to have Jack killed. The motive seemed to be because Gray loves his country. Count me confused. Raising these two brothers must have been Dr Spock’s worst nightmare. In the boring subplot Saundra appears to now be concerned that Walid’s attackers need legal protection. Tom takes his 1066 Executive Order to the VP who’s creepily all for it. But President Wayne won’t endorse any detention centers. The Constitution is always valid and we can’t be governed by fear. Or some such speech.

Chloe finishes up working on the engineer image which turns out to be Morris himself. He just left for the hospital. Chloe reaches him on the phone and alerts him that the brother in the blast was a ruse. Unfortunately Morris doesn’t have time to escape from McCarthy’s clutches and he’s whisked away by gunpoint. Gray feels quite proud of himself that Jack was distracted from what’s really going on by his confession about the past. He’s certain he can hold any mud. We’re not sure what he means by that but Papa Bauer isn’t convinced. He kills Gray, then tells the remaining CTU guys Gray had a seizure and it’s their fault. Line of the hour: “I’ve seen what happens when you try to protect people.”

With all due respect

Movie: Scoop. It's been a while since I've seen a Woody Allen movie I enjoyed, so I wanted to be sure to mention this one. It's no Hannah and her Sisters, but it was cute and funny. Sort of the antithesis of Match Point which, though well filmed, grew more disturbing as the film went on, culminating in the killer getting away with his crime. Scoop concerns two bumbling Americans in London, an often ditzy journalism student and a neurotic vaudeville magician, who try to figure out the identity of a serial killer. While there are plenty of plotholes and the movie definitely isn't a staggering work of any form of genius, it is entertaining and fun.

Quote for the season

"I was enjoying winter until it actually arrived."
--my friend Becky

Yesterday, in a dramatic role reversal, the groundhog did not see his shadow. I'm guessing this means spring will arrive in five and a half weeks instead of six.

íslensku tónlistarverðlaunanna 2006

The Icelandic Music Awards for 2006 went like this:

Lag og texti ársins (song and lyrics) - Ghostigital: Not Clean
Flytjandi ársins - Björgvin Halldórsson
Popp Hljómplata ársins - Hafdís Huld: Dirty Paper Cup
Dægurtónlist Hljómplata ársins - Baggalútur: Aparnir í Eden
Rokk & jaðar Hljómplata ársins - Pétur Ben: Wine for my Weakness
Ýmis tónlist Hljómplata ársins - Skúli Sverrisson: Sería
Söngvari ársins (male singer of the year) - Bubbi Morthens
Söngkona ársins (female singer of the year) - Lay Low

ÖNNUR VERÐLAUN (other awards):
Myndband ársins (video) - Trabant: The One
Plötuumslag ársins - Lay Low: Please Don´t Hate Me
Bjartasta vonin (brightest hope) - Elfa Rún Kristinsdóttir, fiðluleikari

24 : 11 a.m. - 12 p.m.

24. 6.6. The writers must have gone out for lunch. Most of this hour concerned Weasel boy Tom’s efforts to make Karen resign. Yawn. He did have some good lines, including “Why don’t you just hop a shuttle over to the Justice Department?” and “She’s gone from being an irritant to an obstacle.” Turns out 14 months ago, Bill had Fayed (and some other cohorts) detained at CTU but there wasn’t enough evidence to hold him. Karen kept the info under her hat or somewhere. And for it to stay there, she either has to join Wrestlemania or resign. She resigns. Will she bounce over to CTU now? They could use more help. Nadia’s been racially profiled which is making her even crankier and her processor extremely slow. Eventually Milo logs in her computer under his user id. Everybody say uh oh.

Unfortunately Jack stops suffocating his brother. What fun they must have had as children. Gray explains Dad is trying to clean up a mess he (Gray) created by dealing with Gredenko, who was an independent munitions contractor with excellent references. Recycling bombs into energy sounds too noble for Gray. We suspect there’s plenty he’s not saying. Jack takes him to McCarthy the Aussie’s office in Simi Valley. Meanwhile Aussie McCarthy is still trying to find help and it isn’t Meg Ryan. Her negativity is not what he needs right now. “This isn’t some easy one stop shopping.” In the boring subplot Walid (every time they say his name, I think they’re saying Wowee) learns one of the inmates carries a cell phone. He steals it so Chloe can untangle the numbers but is beaten to a pulp for his efforts. Civilian down indeed.

The phone has a browser which leads Chloe to a web page with information on the nukes. She concludes the inmates are merely spectators in today’s game. Over in Simi Valley, Jack and brother learn Aussie McCarthy is somehow electronically shredding info and deleting files. Jack hears someone in the building and is hit from behind by men seemingly employed by Papa Bauer/Stretch Cunningham/George from Six Feet Under. He’s trying to find McCarthy so no one will know Gray didn’t report the stolen nukes. Probably. In a dramatic turn of events, Gray takes over and lays his cards on the table. He’s really in charge and takes Jack and Stretch prisoner.