Outroduction.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!! This blog contains information about creating this blog.  It might contain info you never wanted to know.  It certainly contains little to no information about lost.  But it also includes some merch so you should check it out anyway.

The Stork is claiming joint custody.

As mentioned in the spoiler alert, all this is answering some questions people have asked either through Twitter or the comments.

Oh, and the video from the live reading.  Which was fun and super awesome.

And some merchandise.  Which is super lame to only have created now, but so it goes.

There’s also links to other stuff that has been going on.

I’m gonna level with you.  I need to take up space in this section for that picture to show up properly.  Thanks for your patience.

That was fun.  Let’s put this baby to bed.

Episode 17 of the Final Season of LOST

SPOILER ALERT!!!!! Do I really need to say that?  The series is over.  There’s nothing left for us to spoil.  We already know all about the show and what it was about.  It’s crystal clear.  For those who hate math, Episode 17 is also the finale.  To be even more transparent, this is the last two and a half hours of LOST.  So it might be Episode 17, Episode 18, and a super short Episode 19.

That was fun, huh?  We got all of our questions answered all in this one episode.  Well, almost all of them.  Ok, the majority of them.  Some of them?  Cool.

Filing this away with the other 30 billion pages about LOST

I did not watch the series recap clip show.  I did DVR it though so I can watch it and get all caught up in two hours.  I enjoyed the finale.  The little flashback things to previous seasons made me want to watch them.   But it also made it seem like a completely different show from what this last season was.

I’ll be back the next time a series is going into the finale.  Send me an e-mail at neverseenlost [at] yahoo.com if you want to get a notification of whenever that is.  Or for the 1,000th time you can follow me on the Twitter (@jdurbin).

As a friend pointed out, this might be the first blog with a definitive end.  Good to be a part of history.  I will be back (hopefully Thursday) with a wrap up entry where I answer some questions and will read the comments for the first time since week 1.  I can’t even imagine what’s been going on down there.

For the live reading: Looks like The Shady Lady at 712 N. Clark St. on Thursday.  Reading will go from 6-7 so be sure to be there a little early.  Please also RSVP to fanclub[at]denuology.com if you have not already.  That way if plans change last second we can notify you.  Worst case scenario, I will be there hanging out and I can just read to you from the newspaper or draw you a picture.

And finally…

Episode 16 of the Final Season of LOST

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!  This blog goes into graphic detail on the theories and philosophies of the latest episode of LOST.  It also lies to you about what it is about in it’s first sentence after the spoiler alert.  Proceed at your own peril.

That is one clean house. The stack of papers is next week's entry.

I guess since there is only one more episode left we should do a little housekeeping.  The LOST finale post will be up either on Monday or Wednesday.  Depends if I try to keep continuity of Wednesday entries or next day entries.  As the intro to this blog says, don’t be haters.  Also, be prepared for an abhorrently long entry for the finale.  Two and a half hours is a lot of LOST to catalog.  In other news, there will be one more post after the finale.  If you guessed it would titled “Outroduction” then you are very smart and probably figured out LOST before it was even written.  I will be answering Q’s and junk.  Feel free to send some my way.  My contact info is in the about tab. One last thing, potentially going to do a live reading of the last post in Chicago the Thursday after the finale (May 27).  Don’t book your flights just yet, still working on some details.  I will update this paragraph if it gets figured out and I will make tweets about it too (@jdurbin).

[UPDATE: (cue Unsolved Mysteries music) We’re trying to figure out location.  Looks like it will be a bar on the northside of Chicago (not super north) May 27 around 6pm.  We’re trying to get a headcount so we know how much space we’ll need, so e-mail fanclub@denuology.com or contact me if you’re interested.  It’s not an RSVP, we’re just trying to make sure we have the right amount of space.  Since we’re looking into bars, it will be a 21+ affair.  That is all.]

Now that we’re all caught up, let’s get all caught up on LOST.  Which I am now.  Thanks to this episode.  Which is pretty nice.

Episode 15 of the Final Season of LOST

SPOILER ALERT!!!!! Loads of info in this episode of LOST.  So much so that I am completely caught up on the series (brushes dust off hands).  Excellent.

Something about those "18 or older" signs attract people in trenchcoats

To be fair, this might not have been an episode of LOST.  It seemed more like the Truman Show made love to Lord of the Flies, put on Step Brothers pants then took a Flinstones vitamin.  The only similarities are that it was on an island.  And Jacob was in it.  And Sad Day Monster showed up.  Which, in hindsight, seems like a fair amount of similarities.

If you’ve seen the episode then I don’t have to tell you that the title of the first half of this episode should have been “Innuendo” or “Double Entendre”.  If you haven’t seen the episode then might I direct you to the spoiler alert above.  You want to keep going?  Kudos.  Anyway, I think they switched writers/directors/key grips at around the midway point because they realized they were getting dangerously close to making the kind of show you have to go to the back of the video store to purchase.  I’m a little nervous reviewing this since I will probably make R rated jokes.

We’ll see what we can do…

Episode 14 of the Final Season of LOST

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!  There are all kinds of surprises in this episode of LOST.  And it is my intention to ruin them for someone.  So if you have not seen last night’s episode, keep reading.  We’re not talking about LOST at all (wink!).  By putting that wink at the end I absolve myself from any responsibility that I would have in someone reading this and being upset about its contents.

I call dibs on the motorcycle.

Big night, eh?  We’re making some great headway into the end of the series.  Which is exciting.

This has probably been one of the more eventful island adventures we have seen in a while.  More importantly, my theory that you could watch only the first 5 minutes and last 15 minutes of each episode is holding strong.  Which actually makes sense following a three act structure because you get introduced to what you need to know then you see the final conflict.  Everything in between leads up to that conflict. Story structure lessons, like survival tips, are free of charge.

The thing that does not make sense, however, are all these lucky run-ins in Snoozeville. Oh well. With that, let’s take a spin on the Coincidence Carousel.

Midtroduction

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!! This blog post contains a bunch of information about this season of LOST.  At one point it was also going to contain spoilers about Saw V.  But that’s too important to run the risk.

Frankenstein's monster hates camping

This post has a terrible title, I know.  We’ll put it in the Mr. Cluck’s file.  There was no new episode this week so I have nothing to recap… Or do I…?  I took suggestions from folks via the Twitter (@jdurbin) on what to put in today’s post.  A lot had to do with watching/recapping other shows, but Saw V was on and seeing that movie is on my bucket list (check). I got some good suggestions but the ultimate winner is…

Recapping the season thus far and present some other tidbit theories.  I’m not going to get real detailed.  My goal is to provide a user guide for any other n00bs who want to catch up but don’t want to watch 13 hours of television in one weekend (new guy updating new people is so meta).  So really I am getting you caught up with me.  Which isn’t very caught up.  I’m also going to pepper in some other suggestions in small chunks.  I also am going to include a lot of pictures.  So basically I just Frankensteined a bunch of ideas into one monster that’s afraid of fire.

Episode 13 of the Final Season of LOST

SPOILER ALERT!!!!! We’re here for one reason only.  To talk about the latest episode of LOST and the goings ons that transpired.  As you can imagine there will be a lot of filler since not a lot of goings ons transpired.  I also am going to throw out some random future thoughts which might actually spoil something, but I doubt it.

I am filing last week’s structure experiment as a success.  However, we’re going to tell one story at a time this week.  This episode is going to make more sense if we break them up instead of jumping back and forth (are you listening, Lost writers?). There is one point in this where you will see it does a disservice to one of the plot twists that I found completely ridiculous.  Shrug.

The different posters for this fall's ABC line up

It’s also clear this week that this is all a set up for the different spin offs ABC has planned for it’s fall line up.  Here is the list:

• Miles and Sawyer star in a crime drama called “Not Without My Sawyer”.  Kate guest stars as a former crook turned informant. Alternate title: “A Miles in his Shoes”
• Claire stars in a dramedy called “Up Over” (instead of Down Under) about a single Australia mom learning about life and love in Los Angeles. It’s a heartfelt comedy with heartfelt laughs.  Desmond plays the love interest.  Claire thinks they could never be more than friends.
• Sun and Jin star in a female-scaling-the-corporate-ladder drama called “The Rising Sun”.  It’s about how Sun has to fight against stereotypes and tradition to be the breadwinner in her family and coping with Jin’s mixed support and jealousy.  Think Ally McBeal but not funny.  So just like Ally McBeal. Zing!
• Linus and Locke star in a TV version of the movie “Stand By Me”.
• Jack stars in the medical dromcom (patent pending) “Neuroses”.  He’s a single dad and successful surgeon.  He seemingly has it all.  Except love.  Kinda like Gray’s Anatomy ate the Deep End washed it down with some ER then had House for dessert.
• Hurley goes on the Biggest Loser or Celebrity Fit Club.

Bulleted list came early this week.

Episode 12 of the Final Season of LOST

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!! This is a blog about another episode of LOST where nothing happens for 45 minutes then we get teased to tune in next week.  If you haven’t seen this week’s episode, then you should wait to watch it before reading all the different ways the LOST writers and I team up to disparage Hurley.

Everyone is ganging up on Hurley.

Side note. I was in high school when the last episode of Seinfeld aired.  For those unfamiliar with the show, one of the big gags of that final episode was having a cavalcade of past residual characters make appearances.  It was immensely rewarding for people who had loyally watched the show through its entirety.  The next day I was talking about the episode with a couple people (as you can surmise, I was very cool in high school) and one of the people said it was dumb and stupid and not funny and the worst thing he had ever seen (paraphrasing).  We didn’t love the episode, but we certainly didn’t have the same vitriolic reaction that he did.  Then someone asked if he had ever seen Seinfeld before.  He said no.  Mystery solved.  He just didn’t get the point.

Why did I write that really boring paragraph with lots of obscure words?  Because I realized I am that guy who had never seen an episode of Seinfeld but watched the finale.  When old characters come back I have no connection to them, I just judge based on what I see.  I think it finally dawned on me in this episode because it there were a couple characters from past seasons that would make a Lostie squee with delight.  But I just want to see someone fight or blow up.  Lucky for me, I got one of my wishes.

Oh, and this episode is about Hurley.  Which means that the writers on LOST and I will get a lot of stored up comments about his weight out of our system.  If you get offended, don’t shoot the messenger, the show makes more fun of him than I do.  I’m just more blatant about it.

Episode 11 of the Final Season of LOST

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!! Yet again we will be exploring the latest episode of LOST for super secret secrets.  Like what the show is REALLY about.  I mean it this time.  I’m sure they won’t change it again.  Right? Sigh.

Love as depicted by this episode of Lost.

My plan was to go do some internet snooping and sound all smart as I explain what multiple universe theories are and how they are related, but then I got really confused by the Wikipedia entry and gave up.  I can’t imagine anything as intellectually degrading as being confused by Wikipedia.  Frown.

I’m also a little nervous that last week a guy got pulled out of a submarine and this week we got a whole episode dedicated to him.  If each of these characters is getting their own storyline, then we have a long way to go before getting to the end of the series.  Thankfully (for many reasons), we stopped dedicating every other episode to Jack.  Thankfully we have one storyline to follow this time.  Unthankfully the theme of this episode was love.  And not the good, passionate kind of love that Ricardo treated us to.  This was the love at first sight, everything is sunshine and lollipops, I’m gonna marry that cute boy/girl/class pet that I met in jr high kind of love.  Gross.

Episode 10 of the Final Season of LOST

SPOILER ALERT!!!!! This blog is all about the tenth episode of LOST in its final season and nothing else.  If you read it, you accept the consequences.  The only one of which that I can think of is that you will have read this.

Ummmmmmm, sooooo.  There’s 6 episodes left, huh?  Of all the things I have boffed in our short time together, this is the one that I am most thrown off by.  Why

Using colored Sharpies now. Look out, world.

did I think there would be only 12 episodes?  The worst part is I don’t understand why there are only 16 episodes in this season.  Aren’t tv seasons usually 22 episodes or is that no longer the case?  How much more is there to explain?  We just have a huge fight left to happen between good and evil and we’re square, right?  There’s a lot of questions in this paragraph.  Wait.  I thought I was supposed to be getting answers.  You win again, LOST.

Another development I didn’t see coming: There was a V in the corner of the screen with a countdown.  Not sure what this has to do with LOST.  I think it might be a numbers thing.  Ya know how everyone had a number earlier.  Maybe they were counting down to the death of #5 but wanted to be more subtle so they used a roman numeral.  It was just way too prominent not to be a critical piece to the LOST puzzle.

Episode 9 of the Final Season of LOST

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!  If you have not seen the latest episode of Lost you are all at once missing out and missing nothing.  And you should not read this until you check that thing out because I am going to talk about it. That’s the point of this webternet site.

With a cover like that, how can you not read "Amor en la Isla de la Meurta".

I tell you what.  This is my favorite episode so far.  One plot line.  Not a lot happening.  Veeeery straightforward.  Sign me up for more of these.  Now, of course, the downside is since we didn’t get much done this hour we’re in for more ultra plot packed episodes in the future.  Sigh.

While we’re fist bumping the writers, they had a real nice recovery from last week’s misogyny episode.  This episode was clearly for the ladies.  It was like reading a Harlequin romance novel that had all the intimate parts edited out so it could be put in the school library.  Plus, no women were harmed in the making of this episode.  Good work, fellas. Unless this was a work of fan fiction.  Which I’m not entirely convinced it was not.  Eesh, that was a lot of negatives.

I’m gonna call Richard by the name he deserves, Ricardo.  Seems more fitting.  So without further ado, Ricardo’s episode; entitled, Amor en la Isla de la Muerta.

Episode 8 of the Final Season of LOST

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!  Read this if and only if you have seen the latest episode of Lost.  I’m going to reveal more secrets about the show.  I have exclusive behind the scenes knowledge of the series and where it is going.  Not really, I was just trying to get you to click the continue reading button.  I’m sowwy for lying to you.  Although lying seems to be one of the themes of this episode (see what I did there).

This was supposed to be an emo kid. But I think I just drew a blind robber.

A little behind the scenes of Never Seen Lost.  Typically I scan the pictures in at work.  I’m going on vacation today so I am updating from home.  I found an old drawing pad to do the drawings and found some stuff I drew in high school.  Yikes.  I think I might have been EMO before it was cool.  That of course, is assuming that EMO is cool.  And, ya know, before it involved wearing all black and make up.  I don’t think I know what EMO is.

You can tell I couldn’t think of anything else to write here, can’t you?  You can?    Well, let’s get started then.

Episode 7 of the Final Season of LOST

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!   If you have not seen the latest episode of LOST then you didn’t miss much.  But you will also find out what happens if you read this blog.  So proceed at your own peril. Even though there is no real danger, just potential psychological damage from finding out what happens in an episode of LOST before watching it.

That "Oops" file is getting pretty full, Bad Genie.

This week’s lesson is “Be careful what you wish for”.  The last couple weeks I’ve had a hard time keeping up because so much was happening in each episode.  I was hoping it would slow down a bit.  Then it’s like an incompetent Genie heard my wish and made it happen.  Although, since he is incompetent, he made an episode where we got two story lines where the same thing happens in both and it’s really boring.  Incompetent Genie needs to file this one in the bad-over-delivery-on-a-wish file.

The other theory here is that the writers, in a scramble to wrap up the season, crammed as much as they could in the last two episodes.  Then they realized they still have 5 episodes left and have explained everything already.  So now we get 4 episodes of everyone just kinda hanging out, waiting for the final conflict.  Ruh-roh, Shaggy, this could be a long 4 episode stretch.

Episode 6 of the Final Season of LOST

SPOILER ALERT!!!! This blog contains information about LOST.  Not only that, but I am gonna spoil my own post and inform you that there is a killer video tribute at the end.

When I went to start last night’s episode I noticed Said was spelled Sayid in the cable guide description.  Fine.  I was using the spelling a college friend uses, but it’s their show so I am going to honor their wishes by adding another letter in there.  I’m not counting this on my ignorance tally.  It’s pretty high already.

The movie poster for the Ballad of Sayid has him fighting a dragon on top of a mountain.

This week we’re given a nice break from all the meaningful activity on the island.  Sure, we could talk about the fact that Sawyer already left.  We could talk about how Jack and Hurley are with Jacob and that Jack is clearly the frontrunner in Bachelorette: Maiden Voyage.  Perhaps we could discuss Jin’s current status since when we last saw him he was severely wounded with Claire.  Or maybe, just maybe, we could spend 50 minutes learning Sayid is a bad person.  We’re going with the last one.  Not my choice.  I only suggested it because I was running out of other ideas.  But, as mentioned above, not my show.  So on to the Ballad of Sayid…

Episode 5* of the Final Season of LOST

SPOILER ALERT!!!!  This blog posts contains everything you ever thought you knew to be true about LOST.  Actually, that’s a lie.  This will get you nowhere close to understanding what is happening in LOST.  In fact, it is likely to bring you further away from understanding if the episode itself didn’t already.

The words are on the lawn. More a temple than a shrine, really.

Some housekeeping.  You’ll notice this is labeled Episode 5 instead of Episode 4.  A friend of mine informed that I have been mislabeling episodes. Apparently what I thought was a 2 hour super-episode was actually two different ones.  Seems odd to me since my cable guide had it as one block with one title.  I’m reluctantly relabeling from now on for accuracy and so we all know how close we are to the end (dry those eyes).  I am leaving the old entries as-is so we always have this living shrine to my incompetence.

After last week and figuring I had this totally solved, it turns out I was wrong.  Last week’s episode had nothing to do with the series.  We’re back this week to apparently what is the real story on the island, Jack and Hurley’s budding friendship.

Episode 3 of the Final Season of LOST

SPOILER ALERT!!!!! This blog is about Episode 3.  It contains details about the episode and also explains exactly what LOST has been about all these years.  I’m just smart like that.

College dorm room or LOST writer's room? You decide.

Before we begin.  Was it just me or did it seem like the writers realized it was their last season and they had to tie a bunch of loose ends together?  Watching this I just kept imaging a college kid who didn’t realize his midterm paper was due tomorrow so was scrambling to pull an all-nighter and just started making up facts.  You know what I mean?  Course you do. Personally I think the writers jumped the gun because they clearly explained everything in this one episode.  All in the last 5 minutes no less.

I have no idea what anyone’s name is anymore.  I thought the Rebel was named Sawyer but the Sad Day Monster kept calling him James Ford.  I though the portly gentleman was named Hurley but apparently his name is Hugo Reyes.  Again, shame on the LOST writers for naming a huge person Hugo.  It’s probably glandular.  I’m pretty bad with names to begin with, so this is not helping.

Episode 2 of the Final Season of LOST

SPOILER ALERT!!! This is my usual disclaimer that this blog contains a bunch of secrets. Unless you have seen the episode. Shhhhhhhh.

At least it has a nice airport.

Before we dive in I have to admit that looking back on the notes I jotted down I have no idea what half of them mean. I am not sure if that is an indication of my poor ability to take notes or the show’s inability to make any sense. One thing is clear to me now though: Each episode will feature a different person in their “we didn’t crash” life. Last night it was Kate’s turn. She’s a fugitive with a heart of gold. She is also a living example of why women will never make it as ruthless criminals (they’re just a bunch of softies behind that tough exterior). As such, I am going to break up these descriptions into what is happening on the island and what is happening in the non-plane crash world. Or as I like to call it, Snoozeville. ZING!

Episode 1 of the Final Season of LOST

SPOILER ALERT!  I am going to reference a bunch of junk that happens in the episode.  So if you are waiting to see it, don’t get mad at me if you read this anyway and I ruin your surprise.  I also plead innocent to inadvertently ruining any other surprises in this blog.  Like the ending to “The Usual Suspects” or how babies are made (stork).

The Stork is making babies while dad watches the news in the other room.

[ED. NOTE: I thought his name was “Jake” instead of “Jack”.  Rather than change it I thought I would just admit I didn’t know the main characters name and leave the original post as is. Recap: Jake = Jack.]

Before I get started in my interpretation, I have to say I knew we were in for a treat when the opening had a handsome guy (named Jake) on a plane then immediately took us into the ocean where there was an ancient ruin shaped like a foot.  Dramatic music played.  Cut to commercial.  I immediately raised an eyebrow in confusion.  Of course it was never referenced again in the episode so maybe I am not alone in wondering what that was all about.  As an aside, there was a village with a playground at the bottom of the ocean.  And I mean pretty deep in the ocean.  Are we to believe that an ancient culture had a playground or someone poked a hole in an island and it sank to the bottom of the ocean?  No really.  That wasn’t rhetorical, I don’t know which it is supposed to be.

Introduction.

Hi.  As you can probably tell from the totally sweet title of this blog, I have never seen LOST.  The final season starts tonight.  I thought I would watch the final 12 episodes even though I have very little knowledge of what is happening.  Since blogging is the kewlest, you get to read my interpretation of what is happening on a potentially confusing show.