I’m quite enjoying the comments my posts are getting. Instead of being actual comments from people who want to talk about LOST, they are auto-comments from some nameless e-worm that seems to not only be posting random sentences, but occasionally in random languages. But it’s cool. I like seeing the “1 New Comment” tag and then finding a message that says something like, “Thank you for this. You have an informative writing. I am in a place and discovered this very happy. Milk!”

It’s moments like that when you realize, Wow, maybe I changed someone’s life.

Speaking of changed lives, these flash-sideways things are really flooring me. Parallel Reality Locke’s story was one of the most satisfying side stories the show has told, whether it was him finally finding happiness with Helen (yay!) or meeting Hurley’s psychic at the job center or simply being able to laugh at himself when he falls helplessly on the wet lawn, this was Locke as we’ve never quite seen him before. I also very much enjoyed his no-nonsense discussion with Rose, as well as the return of everybody’s favorite d-bag, Randy. Can’t wait to see where all of these characters are in the 2.0 version of their lives.

Of course, there were two other Lockes as well. One was a corpse rotting on the beach, and the other is a smoke monster thingy that is a copy of Locke’s body and mind. I liked the touch with the little bits of the real Locke’s personality coming through with our smokey friend, particularly when he yelled “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!” I get the impression that the black smoke inhabits his new personality somewhat uneasily, and that there is a little bit of a bleedthrough effect. Evil Island Copy Locke claims that he was once a man, which I find pretty fascinating. Obviously we’ve seen him as a man before (the Man in Black, muahahahahaha) but we’ve also seen him as a scary cloud of malevolent black smoke that throws people around like rag dolls until they like die and stuff. Not to mention he’s pretended to be Yemi and possibly Christian, and maybe even Alex Krycek and Leland Palmer. So forgive me if I’m not very trusting, Mr. “Locke”. The show has done a terrific job of giving us so much contradictory information as to what the black smoke could be, that I’m about ready to say the answer to any black smoke questions is basically “all of the above”. So yes, it’s a Demon Robot Man Ghost From Another World. There. That explains everything.

The trip to the seaside cave was also pretty cool, and I’m not just talking about the view (though admittedly that’s a big part of it). We saw a scale with a white stone and a black stone, and the black smoke threw the white stone into the ocean now that Jacob is dead. What does this mean? The answer is obvious: the black smoke monster hates white stones because he’s reverse stonist. So ignorant. JK! Honestly though, I’d probably be mad at Jacob too if I were stuck on some magical island but was so bored with my own supernatural powers that I really just wanted to skedaddle cause I was so over it already, Snookie.

We got another sort-of explanation about the numbers, this time that they represent some of the castaways who Jacob is considering as a replacement. Some are complaining that this is a lame explanation for the numbers, but honestly, I don’t see how a recurring string of weird numbers could ever possibly have a concrete explanation, anyway. It’s more about the effect they create, not an actual answer. It always felt like these numbers probably directly related to these characters, even back when we first saw them in season one, so I think this was a pretty satisfying way to bring them to the forefront again. Much has been made over Kate’s absence from the numbers, but I’m guessing that has everything to do with whether or not she’s really supposed to raise Aaron.

Speaking of scary blonde kids, did you notice the scary blonde kid? That was weird. I find it entirely terrifying that the black smoke monster is also seeing things. I think it’s fairly clear that the kid is Jacob or Aaron or some combination thereof, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Speaking of Sawyer, major props to him for blasting “Search and Destroy” by the Stooges, one of my all-time favorite songs. It seemed appropriate for the Man in Black’s mission as well, and provided a decent soundtrack to Smokey’s “Oh BTW did you know I am also the sinister Kandarian demon presence from Evil Dead II?” moment.

Back to Crab Bait Locke for a second: I found it very touching and sad that Ben was the only one who seemed to really, really care about the actual John Locke. Of course his eulogy was absolutely hee-larious, but also very tragic when you consider he probably meant everything that he said. In addition to deterring me from eating at Red Lobster, this scene really stood out as one of the best Ben moments, brief as it was. And later we got Ben as the new version of Dr. Arzt: the angry nerdy teacher who definitely eats by himself in the break room. Maybe him and Alterna-Locke are destined to be besties. (I’m talking about the other Locke, not the other other Locke, dig?).

I’m quite excited for tonight’s episode, “Lighthouse”. I noticed in the preview they briefly show Jack smashing some kind of magic-mirror looking thing. Wouldn’t it be weird if he cuts himself somehow and then that’s why his neck is bleeding in the other reality? I’m a real sucker for parallel universes and stuff like that, especially when they connect in weird ways, so I’ll be pretty stoked if that’s the direction this show takes. I’m greatly enjoying the magical weirdness of this new season so I hope the writers really take the magic eight ball and run with it. Actually, that makes it sound like I’m hoping they get really high and I promise that’s not what I meant because we all know what happened to Charlie, so maybe you could just word that better in your head and pretend that whatever you’re thinking is what I really wrote and forget everything I said. What are we even talking about? WINK.

Lastly, I saw that a couple weeks ago Damon Lindelof tweeted about his frustration with people accusing “What Kate Does” of being filler, and that he got a lot of flak for not being able to take criticism. Without getting too opinionated here, I think Damon deserves a break. Expectations for this final season are so high (higher than Charlie on a magic eight ball, oh wait we’re forgetting about that) that it seems to be verging on hysteria. Visit a message board or a comments section and the whining about LOST is even more cacophonous than usual. Every single moment of the series is undergoing such scrutiny that you’d think the fate of mankind rested in every episode of LOST being some whiz-bang action-packed answerfest. But when was LOST ever like that, anyway? The days when the show actually had to produce what is all-too-often referred to as “filler” are long over, and even then, LOST was a lesson in how to stall creatively. I don’t see the problem with “What Kate Does”. It was a perfectly solid episode that wasn’t that different from your typical episode of LOST. I think it’s a little unfair to call for Darlton’s blood just for doing a slower episode. My two cents, right there.

I hope that you could reading that. Thanks for such a thing. You are so nice! Milk.