LOST

Some like it Hoth. One thing LOST still knows how to do -- even four episodes from the end of the second to last season, we can still have a pretty light episode where two guys talk about Star Wars and hang out. The fifth season of Buffy was unrelentingly grim, the fourth season of Angel was also very serious (though very good), and I don't remember Alias having any goofy stuff in it's fifth season (though that season, and the previous two, were pretty forgettable). Lost does a good job distinguishing Hurley's abilities from Miles in funny scene (“You’re just jealous my power’s better than yours.”), and it does an especially good job with the sort of "second generation" problems -- Jack with a chance to assert himself leaves the leader-ing to someone else now, and Hurley can impart the wisdom he learned from his relationship with his father to Miles. I also like how Miles is totally incurious -- not quite as Nikki and Paulo, but still: on the island with his long lost dad for three years he never gets to know him, even after he sees the birth of HIMSELF. There is something really fantastic about the use of the Darth Vader relationship to discuss this: it plays with and against the way pulpy stories will draw on the classics to give their stories the sheen of gravitas -- superheroes, people are always telling me, are modern incarnations of the ancient Greek heroes. That argument has always struck me as sort of pointlessly true -- there have always been heroes in history, sure. Star Wars of course highlights these Arthurian legend stuff and it is nice that LOST -- which seems about to head into Egyptian territory -- can point to the pulps like Star Wars for importance knowing both how CLASSIC the text is for fans, MORE important to most people that saying the island is like the moving island in the Odyssey or whatever -- but also fundamentally the same kind of thing.

These "do you know what lies in the shadow of the statue" -- last week I assumed they were more of Widmore's guys because of the way Ben talked to them. This week it seems like they were Ben's guys, trying to talk Miles OUT of working for Widmore. Is it possible they are a third team?