[KingPriest2]

'Lost' recap: Uncorked
Share Comments (1634) Add your comment All AboutLost
Get the latest photos, news, and more
The Black Rock found itself bumping through the proverbial dark and stormy night. Ricardo and his fellow human cargo worried as their stomachs heaved: This is the end/for us my slavey friends/The End... Their frightened tenor turned apocalyptic when they all peeked through the slats and saw the toothy crocodile grin of towering Taweret on the shores of The Island. Taweret: the Egyptian goddess of pregnancy and childbirth, a former bad girl goddess who redeemed herself and helped keep the god of evil Set in check. Not that the Spaniards knew their Taweret from toejam, but they did know their Dante. ''Inferno,'' SlaveSock intoned. The Black Rock caught a wave and hurtled straight into Taweret's mug. In the aftermath, Taweret lost her head and became The Four Toed Statue, and The Black Rock crashed in the center of The Island, where the impact shattered the ship into a million pieces and Ricardo and his friends died instantly... but then both boat and humans were miraculously reconstructed by a flock of magical talking Hurley birds. All to say that I didn't quite understand how The Black Rock survived The Island belly flop, but I rolled with it because 1. If rolling with it hasn't become an instinctive reflex by now, you better check yourself before you wreck yourself; and 2. It evoked one of Lost's key literary touchstones, The Wizard of Oz. Ricardo and The Black Rock touching down on The Island = Dorothy and her house landing in Oz. Indeed, just like Dorothy's adventure was a fantastical mirror of her hard-luck dustbowl life and plucky spirit, Ricardo's Island origin story played like a ''This is your life!'' phantasmagoria of his hardscrabble underclass existence and religiously shaped/scarred psyche. (P.S.: I know many of you are wondering if Lost made a continuity error regarding the time of day of The Black Rock's arrival. The error assumes that the ship that Jacob and the Man In Black saw last season during the sunny breakfast talk was The Black Rock. I was among those who assumed it was The Black Rock; I am now going to assume that I was simply wrong to have assumed that. See? Error resolved!)

Of course, Ricardo's Island ordeal also followed the beats of the mythical drama that apparently must always play out when castaways arrive on The Island, albeit with some bleak derivations. The Mysterious Island Arrival is followed by The Mad Scramble To Get Our Bearings, followed by A Heroic, Idealistic Embrace Of Live Together, Die Alone Survival Ethos... unless you're two-thirds man slave property and deemed a drain on precious resources, in which case you get skewered through the heart by the designated castaway leader. The scene was Richard's class struggle of life in little deadly strokes. (That scene, with Mr. Whitfield systematically murdering Ricardo's' steerage friends — chilling. In his small defense, I got a whiff of mercy killing, too, and certain eau de Dogen: I think it would be better if you were dead.) And then: Monster Attack. First, the crew was chomped. Then, Mr. Whitfield was plucked and crunched. With that, Jacob and MIB's latest Olympiad of the Soul had been christened with bloody sacrifice.

NEXT: Bound, we pray to be made free
Previous Page 1 2 3 4 5 … 12 Next