Bev Vincent

Every word we write is born out of our blood and sweat. No, not really, but that’s what we would like people to think. The odd looking device pictured here is a pen that…wait for it…allows you to write with your own (or, presumably, someone else’s) blood. It needs all that complicated assembly to squeeze the blood out of the syringe onto the nib of the pen. Creepy or what? There’s a video of it in action here.

Apropos of nothing, I had to sign my name 250-300 times last night and I’ll have to do the same again tomorrow. I received via UPS the signature sheets for an upcoming project from Cemetery Dance. I’d already signed the pages once, but they went astray somewhere along the line from one author to the next, so now we have to do them all over again. Good thing I’m not signing with my own blood.

I discovered yesterday that I’d missed an episode of Happy Town, so I had to catch up on two. Glad to see M.C. Gainey out of his trance. The show had some real potential, but you have to dig around to find it. Steven Webber, after a promising start in the pilot, has reverted to being dreadful. He should go back to sitcoms, in my opinion. I hope there is some resolution at the end of these remaining episodes.

What do you do to liven up a show after three successful seasons using mostly the same formula? Drop a joker into the mix. The joker in Burn Notice this season is another spy, one who Michael accidentally burns while doing an assignment for his new buddy/handler. The guy is still a valuable asset as he has information about the big bad scary conspiracy Michael is trying to track down, so he’s got to keep him close at hand and gain his trust. Where better to keep him than at Mom’s house? The guy is a bit of a lone wolf, so it should be interesting to see how he and Michael mesh over the coming episodes. Already he’s ruffling feathers and stirring up the dynamics. This could be a positive change for the show, or it could be the death of it, depending on how it’s handled.

I’m about 330 pages into The Passage. Several of the characters went on a mission from the California compound to the nearby energy station. This section reminds me vaguely of the part of Battle for the Planet of the Apes where Caesar, Virgil and MacDonald head for the Forbidden City. Though the “creatures” in this book are called vampires (and it is true that they do crave blood), they also seem to have a zombie-like element to them. Some of them don’t seem terribly smart, and they gravitate back to the place they knew before they were infected, like the zombies in Dawn of the Dead.

At 7:45 this morning it was 80°, which is manageable. However, with the humidity it felt like it was about 108°. Stifling is the word that comes to mind. Sultry is another.

Happy Town returns tonight for its series burn-off. I think there are five episodes that, when aired now, won’t harm ABC’s precious sweeps ratings. I wonder of M.C. Gainey will get a chance to take another bullet.

Speaking of “Mr. Happy,” Justified wrapped its first season last night. I like the 12-13 episode cable seasons. It gives the writers a manageable time for a meaningful arc, plus it provides them with the opportunity to see what works and what doesn’t work, and retool as necessary. The finale was as much about Boyd Crowder as it was about Raylan. His was an interesting arc. He came out of prison a changed man, and it took us (and Raylan) the rest of the season to figure out he wasn’t just putting on a show. By the time Raylan figured it out, both Boyd and Raylan were on the outs with their respective fathers, and it was only natural that they would team up for the season’s final showdown. Boyd was “disowned” by his father and confused by his Father. Raylan put a bullet in his daddy’s shoulder, which isn’t recommended by Dr. Phil. The sniper’s bullet took me by surprise, I will confess, though it made sense in terms of resolving what happened in the first episode, and the subsequent shootout was excellent, with bullets and bon mots being tossed about with equal verve. (You do seem to have a penchant for getting abducted, Raylan said to Eva.) All in all an excellent first season and I hope they can come up with something equal intriguing for next fall.

I’m working my way through The Passage by Justin Cronin. The book is full of surprises. Just when it seems like it’s going to be a very linear story, he zigs and zags. The first part is basically the story of where the virus came from, and how it got free. Reminiscent of the earliest pages of The Stand. Then it goes off into The Road territory, with an adult and a child surviving alone. It’s an interesting way to execute the apocalypse. Put two non-observers in a remote cabin, let a couple of sketchy reports come in, but basically let the world go to hell without showing much of it. Now I’m in the section that deals with a enclave. Bright lights are the main line of defense against the “jumps.” A new society has formed inside these walls, with its own set of laws and punishments. The two worst punishments are execution (if infected) and banishment (most other violations). Since it is a banishable offense to possess a radio, no one knows what’s going on in the rest of the world. For all they (and the reader) know, the situation may have been resolved in some places. It’s a fascinating way to tell a story. I find myself studying his style and word choices and storytelling approach while enjoying the story–that’s my choice. It really is an accomplished work.

I’m contemplating signing up for another Citizen’s Police Academy program this summer. There’s one starting up at the end of the month nearby — it would be a smaller police department, which might be interesting. Haven’t decided yet, but I have the application form, at least.

A very sultry weekend. Threatened rain a few times, but not much materialized. Windows are blurry with condensation and walking outside is like wading through sauna air. It feels like all I need to do is add a drop of water to the mix and the rain will all come crystallizing out.

Watched part of the Black Hawks/Flyers game last night. I think it was 5-2 when I checked out. Chicago seems to have found its second wind.

We saw a couple of movies this weekend. First up was Young Victoria, starring Emily Blunt. It tells the story of her ascension to the throne from a year or so before until about a year after. Her mother was under the influence of a guy who wanted Victoria to sign over her power to a regent until she was 24, but Victoria had the wherewithal to withstand his duress. Her German cousin, Prince Albert, becomes at first her friend and confident and eventually her husband and the love of her life. He died at an early age, and Victoria seemed to pine for him the rest of her life. Blunt is excellent as a mischievous and strong-willed young queen, and the story is interesting, although it suffers from the same problem as any other biopic that limits itself to a certain period–it runs out of steam at the end when there’s no monumental event to mark the conclusion of this story. Roll the text to explain what happened for the next sixty years.

Then we watched Dear John, based on the Nicholas Sparks novel. The film has some interesting subplots that you don’t get from the trailers that have to do with juvenile and adult autism. However, once the real (and very understandable) Dear John letter goes out, the movie sort of collapses on itself. If it weren’t Amanda Seyfried, the female character could easily have vanished from the story at that point and it could have been completely about the soldier dealing with the loss and the jolt of patriotism caused by 9/11. It just becomes a tangled mess after that.

I’m about 150 pages into The Passage by Justin Cronin, who is a professor of creative writing at Houston’s Rice University. That means I’m about 1/5 of the way through — it’s a heavy book, even in galley, and I wish I had it on my Kindle instead. Cronin is a fine writer, and he’s laying the groundwork for his main cast of characters very well. It’s taking a while to get them all together, or at least into whatever positions they need to be for the rest of the action to take place. I’ve been scrupulously avoiding reviews and articles about the book because I want to experience it with as little forecasting as possible. So far, so good.

I posted my review of Drink the Tea by Thomas Kaufman last night.

Just one episode of Breaking Bad left. Who knows what the repercussions of the final minute or so of this week’s episode will be. As Jesse plodded across the street, I thought: geez, could you have parked any further away? My lighter side notes with amusement that Walt, Jr. will probably end up having to use his mother’s car, sticky brakes and all, for his driver’s test. The notion of Skyler looking up money laundering on Wikipedia was pretty amusing, as was Marie’s solution to Hank’s recalcitrance. The PI’s story was gripping–I’ve liked that character from his first appearance. And what to make of Jesse, standing up to Gustavo like that. Takes some cojones. Walt’s reaction at first: “Murder is not part of your 12-step program.” However, Walt doesn’t see anything wrong with a former addict working in a drug factory.

This week on Doctor Who:

Well, for starters, it had Bill Nighy in it, so 4/5 out of the gate. Nice banter between his museum curator and the Doctor, with the Doctor quickly recognizing his predilection toward rambling, and their exchange of compliments over bow ties. I got a huge kick out of the fact that the actor playing Van Gogh had a Scottish accent, and when he heard Amy speak he asked her if she was from Holland, too. The monster was a bit daft (looked like a space chicken in the end), and I was a bit concerned by the episode’s structure, in that it seemed that everything was sorted at the 2/3 mark. However, there were some terrifically funny bits (Is this how time normally passes? Reeeeeallly slowly. In the right order.) and some extraordinarily touching moments (including the one where Van Gogh saw Amy crying when she didn’t realize it).

I’m never quite sure where the Doctor stands on weapons, though. Guns are definitely out, but he doesn’t mind poking at things with very sharp sticks. I suppose there has to be an alien in every episode–is that true?–but I can’t help wondering what this one might have been like without the creature. If instead the Doctor had just decided to show Vincent what his reputation was going to be like. Make it purely a character piece. Ah, well. I wonder if next week’s “The Lodger” has anything to do with Hitchcock?

About once a month I go to the local comic and gaming shop to pick up the latest installment of the Dark Tower graphic novel series and, recently, the American Vampire books. I usually go at lunch time–the place only opens at noon. The place I used to go when the first of the Marvel DT series launched closed up shop, and I discovered this other place, which is in a strip center, next to a tanning salon and at the opposite end from a gas station.  I don’t go often enough to really get to know the two or three guys who run the cash register, but I recognize one fellow as the guy who probably owns the place. I sure hope he owns the place, or else he should be fired.

I went in at noon today. The guy looked like he’d just arrived from an Australian safari. There was really loud Michael Jackson music playing. I couldn’t find #3 of American Vampire, and I couldn’t get him to understand what I was looking for–even when I showed him a back issue of #1. I would have guessed he was stoned, but he later said in a loud voice that he was really drunk. Maybe. He did mishandle his book of checks when he was trying to put it on the counter. He absolutely could not figure out the title of the one book I bought: #1 of The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger. He kept trying to look up Daredevil for some reason. Finally, he gave up and said, “I’ve made you wait a long time, dude. I’m just going to give this to you.” I didn’t argue–indeed it had taken him something like 10 minutes to handle my business, and the Fed-Ex guy was waiting to get a payment or a signature or something from him. He was either totally trashed or stoned. At noon. Is there a law against running a store under the influence?

Burn Notice started up again last night. At the end of last season, Michael was spirited away after being arrested while stopping Simon, the escaped psychopath who tried to kill “management” (aka John Mahoney from Frasier). When his hood was removed, he was in a poshly decorated room, which made me think of The Prisoner for some reason. They wrapped up that situation fairly quickly and Michael is now working for the people who burned him. However, as in the past, he’s always juggling two things–the big picture task and the local clientele. When he got back home after presumably weeks in captivity, he finds out that Fiona and Sam are carrying on in his tradition, helping out people who have nowhere else to turn. Michael’s a little miffed that they don’t stop everything the minute he shows up–instead they hand him a gun and take him out on a mission. The case was a little like an episode of Sons of Anarchy in reverse. It’s a fun, light little show that occasionally makes a stab at being profound (Hey, Michael, you just burned another spy! Isn’t that ironic?).

I’m getting to the end of Drink the Tea. Not a great book, alas. I’m hanging in there, but it feels loose and sloppy. Tries a little too hard to be hip and droll.

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a bit of a math geek. I like numbers. I probably have a touch of OCD that encourages me to count things or keep track of statistics — my car’s gas mileage, for example, or the distance I go on the elliptical trainer, and how long it takes me to get there.

As of yesterday, I am, once again, a perfect square. It’s been 13 years since I was last able to say that, and it will be fifteen more before I can again. I went from an age with a whole bunch of factors down to an age with only a few.

I planned to tackle novel revisions yesterday, but I didn’t quite manage to get around to it. And this morning I got a batch of short stories back into submission. Tomorrow? Maybe. This weekend at the very latest.

We’ve entered the TV doldrums. There’s only a few shows on that I watch, and many of them are coming to an end. A handful of new episodes of Doctor Who. A couple more of Breaking Bad. Some unknown number of  Law & Order: Criminal Intent. And just one more of Justified. Next week’s finale looks like a doozy. At least we know now why Boyd was stockpiling heavy ammo, and it seems like his prison conversion is real. His stint as an impromptu speaker at church (the Crowder gospel) was aimed directly at his father, as was that rocket launcher, in a sense, since it’s going to put Bo in a severe bind with his financial backers. Bo had another gun pointed more directly at him–the one Eva got from Raylan’s mother. The scene with Raylan’s father and the guy with the hand grenade was fascinating, and it had a payoff in that it motivated his agreeing to wear a wire, only to have him turn around and play some sort of long con.

Starting up this week: Burn Notice. And for the rest of the summer, what do we have? The Closer and Eureka in early July. Mad Men in late July. I’m not sure there’s much else.

Summer is here in full force in Texas, with highs in the 90s and overnight “lows” in the 70s. We had a nice thunderstorm on Friday or Saturday evening, but it’s definitely A/C season. I received an e-mail from one of my coworkers on Sunday saying that a motor in the A/C had burned out spectacularly (he described my office as “ground zero” for the smoke event) and because of the holiday they still haven’t been able to fix the cooler. By noon, they promise, hopefully. It’s not too bad yet, but it’s going to get uncomfortable before much longer. The whole building isn’t affected, just our corridor, so I can wander the halls in search of relief.

It was hard to get up at 5 a.m. this morning after a few days of lying in. I did a little work over the weekend. Mostly it was getting a very long CD column ready for submission. It’s not as long as some of the first ones I wrote when Bob Morrish was the editor, back in 2001, but it’s longer than any of my recent columns, mostly due to the interview with Tullio Dobner. I told Norman Prentiss that if he was running short of room we could push the interview off to issue 66. Haven’t heard back yet whether that will happen.

A couple of nice new reviews of When the Night Comes Down. First, Nick Cato’s review and then Dark Scribe’s review appeared yesterday. Everyone has been very kind to us so far.

I finished and reviewed Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith this weekend. It’s o-kay, but not great. I was really irked by too many scenes that seemed to be narrative that turned out to be just dreams. The first time was acceptable. The next three or four weren’t. I moved on to Drink the Tea by Thomas Kaufman, which is a light noir (gris?) detective novel set in D.C. I’m not entirely sure about this one yet. Everything seems too tightly woven, but it may be that something will be revealed that explains why so much is interconnected.

We went to see Iron Man 2 on Saturday afternoon. The theater was full for this 1:40 p.m. showing, but it was in one of the smaller venues in the megaplex. I liked it. Robert Downey, Jr. is a credible wealthy megalomaniac asshole whose heart is in the right place even if his mouth needs reining in at times. Mickey Rourke was excellent, too. The only part I thought felt out of place was Scarlett Johansson’s overlong martial arts display, which was essentially the lengthy setup for a brief punchline. Truly, I wanted to see an Iron Man movie, not a shoe-horned in Avengers mash-up. I liked the relationship between Pepper and Romanoff–it was only when she went all kung fu for what felt like five minutes that I minded her presence in the film. Yes, we sat through the credits for the teaser tacked on at the end.

From the trailers, I am sort of looking forward to Super 8, but I think The A Team could be fun. I never watched the TV series, but the movie looks like a good mindless action film.

FlashForward came to its unfortunate cliffhanger ending on Thursday. How the hell does anyone plant bombs on every floor of the FBI headquarters without getting caught? The series had its problems over its limited run, with too many secondary plots that diluted the main thrust of the story to no advantage, but it really seemed to be finding its feet near the end, and the finale was pretty strong, logic holes notwithstanding. And now we’ll never get to find out what it all meant–why the bad guys created the blackouts when they’ve clearly been able to hop forward in time for years without causing any disturbances. What the new flashforwards herald, and whether the ultimate date really did mean the end of everything. Ah, well.

Breaking Bad has its strong moments and its questionable ones. The entire first 30 minutes of last week’s show falls into the latter category. But this week was mostly strong. Walt’s supper meeting with Gustavo was a riddle wrapped in an enigma, as it remains unclear what “mistakes” he was alluding to. Skyler’s intervention in the money laundering business takes her one step farther off the straight and narrow–and clearly, her dealings as an accountant with her errant lover has given her some credible experience. And this year’s chain of coincidence emerges as we discover that the brother of Jesse’s new girlfriend was the little boy who shot Combo last year. Based on the previews, it looks like we’re in for a heckuva final two episodes.

Only four episodes remain of Matt Smith’s first season as Doctor Who. This week, we got the conclusion of the two parter featuring the pending war between the “apes” on the surface and the Silurians, who have been mostly biding their time beneath the Earth’s surface. The episode seemed like a cross between a Star Trek: The Next Generation show (with the peace council) and something akin to The Planet of the Apes. I got a kick out of the Doctor’s reference to celery, which I guess was a Peter Davison flashback. Lots of yelling and shouting and threatening with weapons, and an angry mother who was the fly in the ointment, the human who couldn’t be the best humanity had to offer. And what do you do with a character like Rory once you invite him along for the ride? Well, interesting solution to that problem. I thought at first that the diamond ring he put on the TARDIS console might cause some problems for its operation, but now I wonder if it won’t emerge as a tangible link to him in the coming days. Very much looking forward to Bill Nighy in next week’s show.

Interesting season finale to NCIS last night, with Papa Walton, I mean Papa Gibbs at risk. I think I see how it will conclude. After all, if there’s an armed guard in Abby’s lab then Gibbs probably has someone (possibly Ziva) hanging out in the country store. It was interesting to see another part of Gibbs’s house and to watch him going through his “list” of rules. Someone said that he should write these things down, and apparently he does.

Breaking Bad was excessively weird this week. The first half of the episode reminded me of a coyote vs. roadrunner sketch, with Walt obsessed by the fly. Even stoner Jesse thought Walt was a little off. “You didn’t happen to try our product, did you?” And then dosing his coffee with sleeping powder. Walt’s tumble from the catwalk looked very painful–I was surprised to see him up and about at all the next day. Two things about the episode made me nervous: Jesse on the top rung of the stepladder with a dopey Walt sort of holding it in place, and Walt rambling on about Jane’s death. He kept getting closer and closer to saying too much, and wouldn’t that have been a disaster? Jesse’s story about his aunt was good, too. Line of the evening: “When did he become O-possum? Makes it sound like he’s Irish.”

I hear rumors that they’re doing a prequel to the Planet of the Apes called Rise of the Apes. I wasn’t a huge fan of the Tim Burton remake, but I’ll be interested to see how this one develops. Since it’s set in a more or less contemporary San Francisco, it sounds like it might be derived from Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. Filming takes place this summer in British Columbia. “British director Rupert Wyatt will helm the film from a script penned by Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa.” Unfortunately, the apes are going to be computer generated, and there seems to be an element of genetic engineering in the storyline. Hmmm.

Law & Order almost went out with a bang, with a bomb-related plot, but the fund-raiser at the end, coupled with Van Buren’s good news, made for a decent series finale, even though they didn’t know that’s what it was going to be when they filmed it.

Doctor Who did it’s version of Under the Dome last weekend, bringing back the Silurians as the villains of the week. Amy’s disappearance clearly put the Doctor off his game, based on the way he let the little boy wander off in the midst of a crisis. I wonder if the engagement ring that Rory put in the TARDIS’s console will gum up the works at some point. Funny line of the episode: “Don’t diss the sonic.” I also liked the idea of “defending the universe with meals on wheels.” I have a suspicion that some of the human characters are going to cause trouble, possibly with weapons. I would dearly love to know how to pronounce Cwmtaff, though. Spot a vowel or two, at least.

Ashes to Ashes had a metaphysical ending, too. Running just a few days before the Lost finale, it made me wonder if there wasn’t something in the air. Half of Lost is about a purgatory-like place where people have to learn to let go, and all of Ashes to Ashes and Life on Mars has been, it turns out, about a purgatory-like place where people have to learn to let go and move on. In the former, moving on meant allowing the light to wash over them. In the latter, being a British series, it involved going into a pub. I liked that Jim was revealed to be something akin to Satan, if not exactly Satan. Shame about the Quattro, though. It took a helluva going over.

This is going to be a very long post, and it consists of a combination of ramblings, musings and observations, but it’s all about Lost, so it’s all behind the cut.

First off, I thought it was an excellent idea to enlist the actors and producers for the recap show. It made the review much more enjoyable, especially hearing things like the fact that Locke had no idea through all of Season Five that he was the smoke monster. Or to hear that Michael Emerson thought that Ben used “taking a beating” as a way of extracting information from people. Terry O’Quinn’s opinion that Locke wasn’t a man of faith but rather a man desperately needing faith.

In passing – I really hope that Cuse and Lindelhof get along as well as they appear to on podcasts and other interviews. (Maybe they get along even better than that: see the third alternate ending from Kimmel!)

I loved the Target commercials that were mini Lost spoofs. I wasn’t as sold on the way they injected the Final Transmissions into scenes from Lost. I couldn’t decide if it was exceedingly campy or clever. (And damned if those mooing cows on the Chik-Fil-A commercials didn’t remind me of LOST sound effects.)

Four and a half hours of Lost went by far too quickly. Two hours of recap and suddenly we were into the real action. How to sum up my thoughts on the finale, and most particularly the last ten minutes or so?

I think the entire series could be enjoyed without the sideways parts of Season Six. That’s not to say that I didn’t like that part. What I mean is that the sideways confused some people into thinking that much of what happened on the island didn’t matter in the larger context. I’ve seen people argue that Desmond was right when he tried to convince Jack that putting the cork back in the hole in the cavern and killing Locke didn’t matter. I think they mattered very much. Everything that happened on the island was “real life.” It’s what tested a person’s mettle and determined what kind of person they were. Ben remained on the bench outside the church because he felt he had a lot to atone for. Even though he saw the light and became Hurley’s right hand man (for who knows how long? Years? Centuries?) he still had to come to terms with his other sins. As Matthew Shepherd said on Jimmy Kimmel: “You have to remember your own death and all the people who were instrumental in it.”

For a while, during the episode, I thought there was going to be a third timeline, because Desmond seemed eager to leave both the island line and the sideways “timeline.”

I think someone should transcribe Christian Shepherd’s explanation to Jack, because therein lies the truth behind the sideways universe. The producers have always said that what happened on the island was important. The bleed-through in awareness was always from sideways to island…never the other way around. A fundamental question of Season Six was always: how could there possibly be two timelines? How could the bomb going off have created parallel realities? Well, now we know it didn’t. The sideways universe had absolutely nothing to do with Jughead. The bomb explosion might have propelled the gang back to island present time, but I don’t think it did anything more than that. Maybe that was enough—it got them back to where they needed to be to confront MiB. If they’d stayed in the 1970s, the smoke monster wouldn’t have had any opposition in 2010 when Ajira landed.

I have to watch Season Six over again to see some of the Easter Eggs they left for us in the sideways universe. Kimmel pointed out one: Rose telling Jack that it was okay to “let go” in the first episode, when Oceanic 815 survived the turbulence. Also, the cut in Jack’s neck that kept reappearing. I think there is a lot to be mined by watching them again with our current knowledge.

There were some fantastic scenes in the purgatory part of the finale. Hurley talking to Sayid: “None of this is ringing a bell? You, me, a tranquilizer gun?” And then the look on Sayid’s face when Hurley dumps the unconscious Charlie into the back of the Hummer. And Charlie’s reaction later on: “I was shot by a fat man.” And Hurley can’t get away without another Star Wars reference after a vague explanation. “That’s kinda true, Dude – he’s worse than Yoda.”

And that was one hell of an ultrasound. One scan and suddenly everyone can speak English. I wonder if their insurance covered all that. Their amused grins when Sawyer showed up as a detective—hilarious. “Hello, detective.” I never had any doubt that Juliet was Jack’s ex-wife—but one has to wonder what kind of purgatory involves divorces and the kinds of stuff Keamy got up to. If this was a place they all created, then why were there some bad things going on?

The reunions, of course, were the highlight of the finale. Sayid running to Shannon’s rescue when they were getting mugged outside the nightclub—and Boone was in on orchestrating her arrival. Kate and Claire…Claire and Charlie. (I very much liked Kate’s little black dress, by the way. She looked…angelic.)

Sawyer and Juliet at the candy machine, which robbed Sawyer the same way it robbed Jack back in the Jacob days. “Maybe you should read the machine its rights,” Juliet says before telling him how to legally rob it. After the first spark and Juliet recoils, she comes up with “We should get coffee sometime.” And then it’s “Kiss me, James” and “You got it, blondie.” Cue tear ducts.

I knew that Jack would be the last one to “get it,” and his scene with Kate was terrific. She’s preparing him for what’s coming, but this is his big wake up call, and it can’t be easy. It takes more than Kate…it takes his father.

And on the island, it was great to see Rose, Bernard and Vincent again. I think there should be a spinoff featuring them. “We don’t get involved in that stuff anymore,” Rose says, but something new comes up every week and they have to figure out how to get back to the status quo and their quiet retirement.

I was also happy to see Lapidus again. I was sure he was a goner, and Fahey even said his character was dead, but I guess that was part of the game. I was nervous when he talked about testing the electrical system, as I thought there might be some remnants of the C4 bomb that Locke dismantled. Great scene with Miles fixing the hydraulics while Richard (Ricky boy, to Lapidus) held up the schematics. “I don’t believe in a lot of things but I do believe in duct tape,” Miles says. Ultimately a pointless scene, only a delay tactic to allow Kate and Sawyer and Claire to make it to the runway, but funny. I do wonder how Lapidus is going to explain to his bosses at Ajira where he’s been all this time and why he brought the plane back with only one of the original passengers and four strangers. The Ajira Six, they’ll be called, and no one will ever fly on a plane with Kate Austen again.

And I loved Jack’s smackdown of MiB while they were lowering Desmond in to the hole. “You’re not John Locke. You disrespect his memory by looking like him. He was right about just about everything. I just wish I could have told him that while he was still alive.” I think the cut-to-commercial as Jack was attacking MiB was one of the best near-a-cliff hangers in recent memory. And Kate gets in the kill shot. “I saved a bullet for you.” Sounded like a line out of a western.

Ben is so good on the island at the end. He comes up with the dingy old Oceanic water bottle for the transfer of power to Hugo. “This is only temporary,” Hurley says. “As soon as you get that light back, I’m giving it right back to you.” No magic words required and now Hurley is like Jack. When Jack got to the bottom of the well, it reminded me of the scene where Ben was lowered to turn the frozen donkey wheel. He was injured then, too, wasn’t he? And Jack uses Desmond’s catch-phrase on him: See you in another life, brother.

And Ben gets a purpose when Hurley enlists him as his #2. I loved this exchange so much I wrote it down:

Hurley: It’s my job, now. What the hell am I supposed to do?
Ben: I think you do what you do best. Take care of people. You could start by helping Desmond get home.
Hurley: But how. People can’t leave the island.
Ben: That’s how Jacob ran things. Maybe there’s another way. A better way.
Hurley:  Could you help me? I could really use someone with experience for a little while. Would you help me, Ben?
Ben: I’d be honored.
Hurley: Cool.

And then the Ben scene with Locke outside the church. Though he’s redeemed himself in our eyes in recent weeks, he still has some things to work out. He was a “real good #2” according to Hurley and he gets absolution from Locke, which helps, but he still has other amends to make. He’s not ready yet—just like Ana Lucia wasn’t ready, according to Desmond. Or Eloise Hawking, who murdered her son but gets the chance to live a new life with him—which explains why she was so desperate to stop Desmond’s machinations.

I have a theory that might have some holes in it concerning Jack’s escape from the cave. When the hatch blew up, Desmond was propelled into the jungle (without his clothing, as I recall). I think the same thing happened to Jack when the electromagnetic pulse returned. For a while I also speculated that Jack was projected back in time to the day of the Oceanic crash, which would explain the shoe hanging from the branches and the fresh crash debris on the beach, but then he saw what I assume to be the Ajira flight passing overhead, so it couldn’t be that.

Random question: What made the MiB suddenly vulnerable? Was it because Desmond pulled out the plug? He withstood Kate’s fusillade but then Jack was able to punch and hurt him. Presumably the same thing that made Richard start aging (grey hair)? But that happened before Desmond’s actions. Richard was able to survive the MiB attack shortly before.

The Jimmy Kimmel show was fun. I don’t know if he realized that people were showing up in the jungle set behind him, one of them a boy who looked conspicuously like a young Jacob! The three alternate endings were pretty funny. One was a spoof of Survivor (Sayid turning to Michael saying: Where the hell have you been?), one a spoof of The Sopranos (Daniel Day Kim trying to park the Dharma bus) and one a Newhart finale spoof with Evangeline Lilly and Newhart himself.

This has been a long post, and I’m not sure it’s entirely coherent. My thoughts on the finale are still gelling. For a few minutes I was dismayed by the “we’ve been dead all along” revelation, but now it seems to make perfect sense. If the show had ignored this metaphysical sideways, then the show would have ended with Jack dying on the beach without any payoff. The big family reunion was the payoff, I guess. (I kept waiting to see Nikki and Paolo or even Frogurt show up. Apparently the guy who played Eko was offered the chance to come back but he demanded too much money and they decided to leave him out.) They all move on to whatever comes next—the great unknown. And the actors, all currently unemployed, can tackle such great new projects as Snakes on a Plane 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Shows are wrapping up left and right for the season. For some reason I thought last night was going to be the (series) finale of FlashForward, too, but I guess there’s one more episode left. I can’t say I was entirely fond of last night’s episode, especially the forced plotting that put Benford together with a drink near the end. None of it felt very true to the characters up to that point. This has always beena show on the verge of being canceled by me. Next week might be a wowser, of course, but I doubt it.

Now Fringe—that was a great finale. I did guess what happened with Olivia based on the discontinuity before she threw William Bell’s amazingly potent hand grenade, and it sets up some terrific possibilities for next season. The  episode had it all—a kick-ass cat fight between Olivia and her alterna-self, Olivia’s declaration of love and a kiss, Walter and William’s reunion, some great lines (“I supplied Fringe division with the 76 model,” William Bell says as he pulls out a big gun and blows up an SUV with one shot. “This is the 77.”) and a sacrifice scene that brought to mind Wrath of Khan. Nimoy is on the record as saying that his scenes in Fringe will probably be the last acting he ever does—and he moved like a man in pain. Not a bad swan song, in my opinion.

Not a bad finale for C.S.I., either, though it emulated Silence of the Lamb a bit too much. The resolution to the Jekyll & Hyde murders wasn’t nearly as satisfying as the wrap up of the miniature killer a couple of seasons ago. It’s clear that Ray Langston is no pro when it comes to dealing with convicts—it was more than a little careless of him to get within arm’s length of his old nemesis. He’ll survive his wounds, I suspect.

The Mentalist was interesting. Patrick is in an awkward position vis-a-vis the attractive psychic. He’s intrigued by her except for her annoying habit of believing she’s a psychic. He’s all about the trickery, the smoke and mirrors, and she refuses to admit that she’s a sham…if she is. A nice diversion with the copycat killers, leaving Patrick wrapped up like one of Dexter’s victims. And then the real Red John struts on stage to edit their film. His voice was odd, don’t you think? Perhaps masked? His parting shot (“go tide”) made me think of two possibilities: either Red John is the female psychic (wouldn’t that be a twist?) or he’s someone who was at the restaurant the night of their date. Who else would know that detail? I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: the show is at its best when it isn’t trying too hard to be funny.

I’m almost at the end of the second season of Sons of Anarchy. This is a fascinating show in that it makes us care for some really despicable characters. The writers and the actors do a great job of humanizing this biker gang. They aren’t neanderthals or testosterone fuelled gorillas. The things they do bother them from time to time.

When I saw this scene at the end of this week’s NCIS, I was immediately reminded of Taylor (Charlton Heston) riding up the beach near the end of Planet of the Apes. The only thing missing was the Statue of Liberty.

Another good episode of Justified. It remains an open question whether Boyd has truly turned over a new leaf or if his prison conversion is the cover for something else. My thought is that he intends to reform but circumstances will pull him back in, starting with the accidental killing of the undercover informant. The judge was a real hoot, with his red speedos and bon vivant lifestyle. My favorite line of the evening was Raylan’s response to the accusation that he’d been involved in some gun play during his vacation. “I wasn’t in a shootout,” he said. “I was just near one.” His prayer was funny, too.

I started reading Avoid Boring People by James D. Watson and Villain by Shuichi Yoshida. The former is a biography of one of the two men who solved the structure of DNA, and the latter is a crime novel translated from Japanese.

There were reports that alternate endings of the series finale of Lost would be aired on Jimmy Kimmel on Sunday night, making people think of the season ending surprise concerning who was in the coffin a couple of years back. At that time, they filmed the alternate endings to prevent leaks. This time, however, the alternate endings weren’t filmed by the production company but are part of Kimmel’s gag, apparently.

While I was on the fence about last week’s episode, I can see now exactly what they were aiming for. I do agree that the entire exposition could have been done in a few minutes (perhaps part of Jacob’s fireside chat), but I think last night’s episode paid last week’s off. (I know not everyone will agree with that.)

I appreciated the storytelling symmetry—both with the camera lens on Jack’s eye and Jack sewing up Kate, since Kate did the same for Jack all those years ago. Kudos to Kate for being one of the few Lost characters to ever ask a direct question to someone who has all the answers. No beating around the bush—straight out. Tell me that this has all been worthwhile.

The ongoing theme of personal choice versus random destiny came up again during Jacob’s chat: “I want you to have what I never did—a choice.”  In my opinion, though, Jack jumped on the opportunity too quickly. (“I only thought the guy had a God complex before,” Sawyer said). Hurley mumbled that he was glad that it wasn’t him—which may be a subtle hint that it will end up being him after all. My vote is either for him or for Desmond. Thematic statement: “I didn’t pluck any of you out of a happy existence. You were all flawed.” We also learned why Kate was eliminated, and that the elimination was arbitrary and revocable. “It’s just a line of chalk. Job’s yours if you want it.” I wonder if Jacob did something to the water in the pool at the temple to make it something like the water-into-wine trick he did with Jack.

I’m sure people must have wondered why Fake-Locke wandered around in human form when he could travel as a cloud of smoke. Now we know. “I like the feel of my feet on the ground. It reminds me I used to be human.” I think he made a major miscalculation concerning Ben, though. Ben, who cooly waited on the front porch and offered Fake-Locke a glass of lemonade after he pulverized Richard. (Richard, who still thought it was all about him. And is Richard dead? Can he be?) MIB offered Ben the island all to himself in return for his service…but at the end he told Ben that he was going to use Desmond to destroy the island. (Maybe sink it like we saw a while back?) I think Ben agreed to help MIB too quickly—in much the same way that Jack agreed to be the island guardian too fast. Ben always has a plan. Always. As much as MIB is using him, Ben is using MIB—witness his actions against Widmore. “He doesn’t get to save his daughter.”

Miles got the lines of the evening. When they were in Ben’s closet they see the passage underground. “What’s that? A secreter room?” And, later, after challenging Ben’s directions. “I lived in this house thirty years before you did. Otherwise known as last week.”

Lots of fun off island. We still don’t know who Jack’s wife is (my bet: Juliet. I mean, who else could it be? Unless it was his wife from the original timeline.) Ben gets his nose punched in (again) by Desmond (again) and has his first awareness of island time. Then he gets his little family when Alex invites him home to dinner and Rousseau brings him to tears by saying that he’s the closest thing Alex has ever had to a father. Nice little inside joke about having to “kidnapping” Ben, too.

And Locke hears the echoes of destiny and decides to see Jack, who immediately reminds him not to mistake coincidence for fate (again). Desmond is the man with a plan (a plan that includes putting Kate in a little black dress—bravo, brother!), exacting promises from the jailbirds and enlisting Hugo’s help. Nice interplay between Hugo and Ana Lucia, who “isn’t ready yet” for whatever Desmond is planning. It looks like everyone is headed to a concert…except perhaps Jack? Why else lure him off to the airport on a wild goose chase?

Does anyone else feel another Sawyer sacrifice coming on? He knows that his pig-headedness played into MIB’s plans, with deadly results. Maybe he’ll have another chance to jump from the chopper and save everyone.

So it all comes down to this. The end of our six year journey is at hand. I can’t wait. I don’t want it to end.