John Durbin of Never Seen Lost
Hello Followers of the Hot and Bothered Effect.
As has been promised to you, once a month I will have a guest blogger from another blog come and post on the Hot and Bothered Effect so that you can get an appreciation for different writing styles, points of view, and blogs. It will also give other blogs operated by friends of mine to get some exposure for their blogs as well as exposing my readers to blogs that I like. This month's Guest Blogger will be John Durbin who operates Never Seen Lost. His blog gives humorous detailed summaries of and reactions to Season Six Lost episodes from the perspective of somebody who has no clue what is going on because he hasn't seen the first five seasons. You will see that in the following post. I do not know John Durbin and this post is simply an excerpt from his blog. Without further ado, here is John Durbin:
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.
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…
Overall What is Happening
This week’s episode was a great example of why dominoes are so awesome but also don’t seem worth the trouble. The last ten minutes are nothing but action with the Sad Day Monster going into Raincloud Mode and bustin’ skulls. There was adventure, murders (one sad, one not), and intrigue. The problem is it took 350 minutes (including ads) to get to this 10. It’s like setting up dominoes. You spend all that time and energy setting something up, you push the first one and then 10 minutes later your hours of work are over. Just remember to record it so you can put it on Youtube.
The island makes sense this week. Sad Day Monster gets to the temple, uses Claire and Sayid to deliver his message then delivers on his promises to beat the bag out of everyone. That’s how you get stuff done.
I think I covered this already, but Sayid is a bad person. We get to learn this on land and… well… land since I guess the island is land. In Snoozeville and on the island is more accurate. We learn this through his repeated thirst for blood and get to see him turn into a killing machine.
More Detailed Episode Recap
In civilization, Sayid takes a cab to his bro’s house (Omar). Because he loves awkwardness and hates the bonds of marriage, he brings his sister-in-law (Nadia) flowers. Everyone is enjoying a nice family dinner when Sayid’s niece and nephew misbehave, nag him for presents, and are excused from dinner so they can get their presents from Sayid’s stuff in the next room. While at dinner, Omar gets a phone call and declares dinner is over. Seems a little unfair that he gets to make those decrees, but it’s his house. Nadia and Sayid talk about some letters she sent him. Impeccably timed, the kids finally return with boomerangs. I don’t know why it took them so long to find those, but it did. And while they were snooping they found a picture of Nadia in Sayid’s bag. Between the kid’s rudeness in going through someone else’s things, Omar’s dictating meals, and Nadia and Sayid trying to get freaky, I think we can safely say this is a broken home.
That night Omar sneaks up on Sayid while he is sleeping on a couch despite the fact that the house is pretty well sized and they probably have three unoccupied bedrooms. Omar took out some loans from some dude and now that dude is demanding a monthly fee even though Omar has paid them back. Sigh. C’mon, Omar. You’re better than that. Omar asks Sayid to go rough up the guy Omar borrowed from. OK, maybe Omar isn’t better than that. Sayid says no thanks, he is not that man anymore. Now he is just the kind of man who tries to sleep with his sister-in-law.
Sayid walks the kids to the bus stop so he can get the inside scoop on their mom and whether she is interested. They say “for sure”. Meanwhile, Omar gets beaten up by the loan sharks. Or Sayid’s goons. We’re not sure yet. Sayid goes to pick fights with the loan sharks until Nadia pleads that he doesn’t. She asks him to stay at home and wait for the kids. They just left for school so he should have a solid 6 hours of alone time to go find these guys. He doesn’t though. Instead he takes his rage out on the various vases they have in their home and then blames the kids for it.
Sayid is gluing one of the vases together when Nadia gets home. She says that Omar is out of surgery and awake. A perfect time to leave someone alone at the hospital with nothing to do. We learn that Nadia is all about Sayid’s vibe and Sayid pushed her away to his brother (probably a fetish). He says it’s because he doesn’t deserve her. His brother, the guy who borrows money from thugs and tells her when to stop eating, however, does deserve her.
The next day Sayid is minding his own business when some guy approaches him. Sayid is reluctant to go with him, but then the guy threatens him in a foreign language and so he agrees. We could have all saved some time if he just spoke the foreign language in the first place. They get to a kitchen in a restaurant where a dude in a pinstriped suit is making eggs. He is best described as what would happen if a used car salesman stereotype and Tony Robbins had a baby. Being polite he offers Sayid some eggs and even offers to poach them (no easy task). These two have an exchange where we find out Martin (egg guy) put Omar in the hospital. They also talk about how Sayid is from Iraq. Oh.
Sayid goes all ninja on the goons and kills them. Then he stares down Martin who says the debt is forgiven. Sayid says “no dice” and shoots him in the chest. Finally someone uses some common sense and kills the head goon without hesitation. Good work Sayid. The one thing I would change is after shooting him you should have said “I’ll take those eggs now” and started eating the eggs Martin made. Or he could have said “Your eggs are just like you, a bit runny.” That would have showed him.
Oh yeah, and Sayid finds Jin in a freezer tied up and not speaking English. It’s never brought up again, so I am going to only acknowledge it happened and move on.
Back on the populated island, Sad Day Monster and Claire make it to the temple. He promises Claire her son back if she goes to the temple for him since he can’t.
Sayid asks Toga what happened. They gave him a test to see if he was good or evil and it turns out he was evil. They get into a fistfight that blatantly uses stuntmen. It reminded me of something you would see in Cowboyland at an amusement park. Case in point, Toga tries smashing Sayid with a heavy stone thing, Sayid defends himself with a broom. But the broom snaps completely through which means if Toga had been trying to force the stone through, he would have succeeded. Anyway, Toga’s baseball falls on the ground. He remembers that it is the start of spring training and far be it from him to deprive anyone a full summer of baseball. He decides to ban Sayid instead.
In the courtyard, there’s a little chit chat about Sayid coming back to life and how 2 hours had passed since being drowned in the hot tub. Everyone was surprised and it wasn’t Toga’s buddies who brought him back to life. zzzzzzzzzz… huh? what? Oh, that’s over? Good. Nodded off there.
Claire enters the temple and all the guys with guns point them at her. Translator says “don’t shoot her”. I don’t think they were planning on it, chief. Claire gets all up in Toga’s grill. They argue about leaving the temple and Toga will get killed if he does. Toga, in non-english, instructs the translator to “Put her in the hole until he is ready for her.” I don’t know about the language choice, Toga. If I was talking to a dude who looked like Translator I would be careful about using the words “hole”, “put”, “in”, and “her” in the same sentence without using English. Who knows what he heard.
Toga finds out that Jack and Hurley left the temple and tells Sayid to come inside with him. Toga acts all buddy-buddy with Sayid and asks him to kill the Sad Day Monster because he is evil incarnate and won’t stop til everyone is dead. The key is to stab Sad Day Monster in the chest before he speaks. Sayid says he will do it, but only to prove there is still some good in him. Interesting theory, Sayid. If I wanted to prove I was a good person, I would volunteer to help the kids on the island learn to read. But hey, if you want to prove you are a good person by stabbing someone in the chest, then to each his own.
Out in the jungle, Sayid runs into Kate (making another cameo). She asks: “What’d I miss?” I answer: “Not much. Just a couple episodes. You should be able to get caught up pretty fast.” Kate gets back to the temple where she hangs with a dude named Miles. He must feel pretty left out so far. They talk about Sawyer and some other stuff. Then Miles tells Kate that he’s not sure what’s going on but “the blonde that had the baby is back. She’s still hot.” I don’t think I have ever related to a character more than I relate to Miles.
Sayid is out in the jungle now. Sad Day Monster (as John) approaches him and says “What up, playa” and Sayid stabs him. John stumbles a little but doesn’t die. Awk-ward. John takes out the knife and we learn that Sayid epically failed at following instructions. First, he let John talk before stabbing him. Second, he missed his chest and got him in the spleen. John is a classy dude and gives Sayid his knife back. He also tells him that it was a setup and a roundabout way to kill Sayid. If he goes and delivers a message for him, Sad Day Monster will give him prizes. Sayid makes weird soap opera faces.
Sayid gets back to the temple to deliver the news that Jacob is dead and no one has to stay at the temple anymore. There’s some talk about the temple and sundown. I didn’t know Sad Day Monster was Jewish. It’s good he has religion in his life. I honestly don’t know why people wouldn’t be excited about leaving the island and agree to it.
Kate beats up the Translator and talks to Claire. Kate tells Claire she took her kid off the island and raised him. Now she’s back on the island (?). Claire has gone completely insane and says she isn’t the one who needs rescued. That he’s coming and no one can stop him.
The Translator has gone from creepy to incredibly annoying and is flipping out on Sayid for causing a panic. Sayid goes into the temple where Toga is sitting by the hot tub contemplating if the Rays stand a chance in the AL East this year. Sayid claims he stabbed the Sad Day Monster in the chest before it talked (both lies). Sayid asks Toga why he didn’t just kill Sayid himself. Toga doesn’t answer his question but instead goes into a story about when he was a businessman. He got promoted. He got drunk. He picked up his son from baseball practice and got into a car wreck and his kid died. He was very upset. Jacob offered him a chance to save his son’s life if he came to the island but he could never see him again. Since these are fictional characters and not real people I feel comfortable saying this: We saw your son last week. He turns out to be pretty creepy. You’re not missing anything. In fact, what happened might have been for the best.
Sayid, as bored with Toga’s story as I was, drowns him in the hot tub. It’s cool though. That’s the hot tub that brings people back to life. He should be back to being pretentious in no time. At least I hope so. I was really starting to like Toga. Translator walks in and says “What have you done!” I think it’s pretty clear. He drowned Toga. Translator starts freaking out and yelling at Sayid. Predictably, Sayid cuts Translator’s throat and pushes him in the hot tub. That’s not a wound I think the hot tub can heal. Also, stop throwing dead people in the hot tub, Sayid.
We finally have all our dominoes in place. Sad Day Monster goes Raincloud Mode and starts killing everyone in the temple. Miles hides in a room and tries holding the door shut. Miles, we are what I would now define as “best friends”, so don’t take this the wrong way. But if a monster is made of gas, then holding the door closed will do nothing to prevent it from entering through the cracks in the door. Turns out Team Jacob busts through the door instead, complete with Sea Captain. They run and find a secret passage and escape the Sad Day Monster.
Meanwhile, Kate has associated herself with an insane woman (Claire) and a murderer (Sayid). They go outside where Sad Day Monster and some other dudes are waiting for them. Finally their dance crew is complete. They walk off into the jungle to practice their routine.
Thoughts I have
As has been promised to you, once a month I will have a guest blogger from another blog come and post on the Hot and Bothered Effect so that you can get an appreciation for different writing styles, points of view, and blogs. It will also give other blogs operated by friends of mine to get some exposure for their blogs as well as exposing my readers to blogs that I like. This month's Guest Blogger will be John Durbin who operates Never Seen Lost. His blog gives humorous detailed summaries of and reactions to Season Six Lost episodes from the perspective of somebody who has no clue what is going on because he hasn't seen the first five seasons. You will see that in the following post. I do not know John Durbin and this post is simply an excerpt from his blog. Without further ado, here is John Durbin:
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.
 | |
| The movie poster for the Ballad of Sayid | has him fighting a dragon on top of a mountain. |
Overall What is Happening
This week’s episode was a great example of why dominoes are so awesome but also don’t seem worth the trouble. The last ten minutes are nothing but action with the Sad Day Monster going into Raincloud Mode and bustin’ skulls. There was adventure, murders (one sad, one not), and intrigue. The problem is it took 350 minutes (including ads) to get to this 10. It’s like setting up dominoes. You spend all that time and energy setting something up, you push the first one and then 10 minutes later your hours of work are over. Just remember to record it so you can put it on Youtube.
The island makes sense this week. Sad Day Monster gets to the temple, uses Claire and Sayid to deliver his message then delivers on his promises to beat the bag out of everyone. That’s how you get stuff done.
I think I covered this already, but Sayid is a bad person. We get to learn this on land and… well… land since I guess the island is land. In Snoozeville and on the island is more accurate. We learn this through his repeated thirst for blood and get to see him turn into a killing machine.
More Detailed Episode Recap
 |
| Sayid's niece and nephew also found this in his suitcase. |
That night Omar sneaks up on Sayid while he is sleeping on a couch despite the fact that the house is pretty well sized and they probably have three unoccupied bedrooms. Omar took out some loans from some dude and now that dude is demanding a monthly fee even though Omar has paid them back. Sigh. C’mon, Omar. You’re better than that. Omar asks Sayid to go rough up the guy Omar borrowed from. OK, maybe Omar isn’t better than that. Sayid says no thanks, he is not that man anymore. Now he is just the kind of man who tries to sleep with his sister-in-law.
Sayid is gluing one of the vases together when Nadia gets home. She says that Omar is out of surgery and awake. A perfect time to leave someone alone at the hospital with nothing to do. We learn that Nadia is all about Sayid’s vibe and Sayid pushed her away to his brother (probably a fetish). He says it’s because he doesn’t deserve her. His brother, the guy who borrows money from thugs and tells her when to stop eating, however, does deserve her.
The next day Sayid is minding his own business when some guy approaches him. Sayid is reluctant to go with him, but then the guy threatens him in a foreign language and so he agrees. We could have all saved some time if he just spoke the foreign language in the first place. They get to a kitchen in a restaurant where a dude in a pinstriped suit is making eggs. He is best described as what would happen if a used car salesman stereotype and Tony Robbins had a baby. Being polite he offers Sayid some eggs and even offers to poach them (no easy task). These two have an exchange where we find out Martin (egg guy) put Omar in the hospital. They also talk about how Sayid is from Iraq. Oh.
Sayid goes all ninja on the goons and kills them. Then he stares down Martin who says the debt is forgiven. Sayid says “no dice” and shoots him in the chest. Finally someone uses some common sense and kills the head goon without hesitation. Good work Sayid. The one thing I would change is after shooting him you should have said “I’ll take those eggs now” and started eating the eggs Martin made. Or he could have said “Your eggs are just like you, a bit runny.” That would have showed him.
Oh yeah, and Sayid finds Jin in a freezer tied up and not speaking English. It’s never brought up again, so I am going to only acknowledge it happened and move on.
Back on the populated island, Sad Day Monster and Claire make it to the temple. He promises Claire her son back if she goes to the temple for him since he can’t.
Sayid asks Toga what happened. They gave him a test to see if he was good or evil and it turns out he was evil. They get into a fistfight that blatantly uses stuntmen. It reminded me of something you would see in Cowboyland at an amusement park. Case in point, Toga tries smashing Sayid with a heavy stone thing, Sayid defends himself with a broom. But the broom snaps completely through which means if Toga had been trying to force the stone through, he would have succeeded. Anyway, Toga’s baseball falls on the ground. He remembers that it is the start of spring training and far be it from him to deprive anyone a full summer of baseball. He decides to ban Sayid instead.
In the courtyard, there’s a little chit chat about Sayid coming back to life and how 2 hours had passed since being drowned in the hot tub. Everyone was surprised and it wasn’t Toga’s buddies who brought him back to life. zzzzzzzzzz… huh? what? Oh, that’s over? Good. Nodded off there.
 |
| Miles and I are celebrating our new friendship via high five. |
Toga finds out that Jack and Hurley left the temple and tells Sayid to come inside with him. Toga acts all buddy-buddy with Sayid and asks him to kill the Sad Day Monster because he is evil incarnate and won’t stop til everyone is dead. The key is to stab Sad Day Monster in the chest before he speaks. Sayid says he will do it, but only to prove there is still some good in him. Interesting theory, Sayid. If I wanted to prove I was a good person, I would volunteer to help the kids on the island learn to read. But hey, if you want to prove you are a good person by stabbing someone in the chest, then to each his own.
Sayid is out in the jungle now. Sad Day Monster (as John) approaches him and says “What up, playa” and Sayid stabs him. John stumbles a little but doesn’t die. Awk-ward. John takes out the knife and we learn that Sayid epically failed at following instructions. First, he let John talk before stabbing him. Second, he missed his chest and got him in the spleen. John is a classy dude and gives Sayid his knife back. He also tells him that it was a setup and a roundabout way to kill Sayid. If he goes and delivers a message for him, Sad Day Monster will give him prizes. Sayid makes weird soap opera faces.
Sayid gets back to the temple to deliver the news that Jacob is dead and no one has to stay at the temple anymore. There’s some talk about the temple and sundown. I didn’t know Sad Day Monster was Jewish. It’s good he has religion in his life. I honestly don’t know why people wouldn’t be excited about leaving the island and agree to it.
Kate beats up the Translator and talks to Claire. Kate tells Claire she took her kid off the island and raised him. Now she’s back on the island (?). Claire has gone completely insane and says she isn’t the one who needs rescued. That he’s coming and no one can stop him.
The Translator has gone from creepy to incredibly annoying and is flipping out on Sayid for causing a panic. Sayid goes into the temple where Toga is sitting by the hot tub contemplating if the Rays stand a chance in the AL East this year. Sayid claims he stabbed the Sad Day Monster in the chest before it talked (both lies). Sayid asks Toga why he didn’t just kill Sayid himself. Toga doesn’t answer his question but instead goes into a story about when he was a businessman. He got promoted. He got drunk. He picked up his son from baseball practice and got into a car wreck and his kid died. He was very upset. Jacob offered him a chance to save his son’s life if he came to the island but he could never see him again. Since these are fictional characters and not real people I feel comfortable saying this: We saw your son last week. He turns out to be pretty creepy. You’re not missing anything. In fact, what happened might have been for the best.
Sayid, as bored with Toga’s story as I was, drowns him in the hot tub. It’s cool though. That’s the hot tub that brings people back to life. He should be back to being pretentious in no time. At least I hope so. I was really starting to like Toga. Translator walks in and says “What have you done!” I think it’s pretty clear. He drowned Toga. Translator starts freaking out and yelling at Sayid. Predictably, Sayid cuts Translator’s throat and pushes him in the hot tub. That’s not a wound I think the hot tub can heal. Also, stop throwing dead people in the hot tub, Sayid.
We finally have all our dominoes in place. Sad Day Monster goes Raincloud Mode and starts killing everyone in the temple. Miles hides in a room and tries holding the door shut. Miles, we are what I would now define as “best friends”, so don’t take this the wrong way. But if a monster is made of gas, then holding the door closed will do nothing to prevent it from entering through the cracks in the door. Turns out Team Jacob busts through the door instead, complete with Sea Captain. They run and find a secret passage and escape the Sad Day Monster.
Meanwhile, Kate has associated herself with an insane woman (Claire) and a murderer (Sayid). They go outside where Sad Day Monster and some other dudes are waiting for them. Finally their dance crew is complete. They walk off into the jungle to practice their routine.
Thoughts I have
- Is this show about a plane crash on a deserted island or not?
- I mentioned Bachelorette: Maiden Voyage above. I Googled it and hasn’t been done. It should take place entirely on a cruise ship and have one of the major cruise lines be the title sponsor. ABC needs to put me on the payroll.
- We’re at the halfway point. Take a breather. Get a Gatorade. There are some orange slices and bananas over there. Stretch it out, don’t want to pull a hammy. Let’s recoup a bit before we finish this thing out.
- I think I underscored how upset I am that Toga is dead and likely not coming back (even though he is face down in the hot tub of life). I made a tribute slideshow to him below. I’ll miss him.
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