Shades of Grey

• Random Pop Culture:
• So what's the best shocking reveal of the week? Was it the fact that John Locke is dead and the implications of that or was it "007" on tonight's Grey's Anatomy? Sure, I was half-rooting for the cancer to take Izzie and I was ready for some sappy ending where she's reunited with Denny forever. But we didn't get a sappy ending. We didn't get a good ending. We got a great ending to the season.
• At some point during tonight's Survivor episode, I realized that Coach is more than just a douchebag. He's completely insane. He's not lying to himself, he's delusional. Part of me hopes it's an act, but I know it's not.
• Down to the no-brainer final four (could have predicted this easily four weeks ago), but there are some cracks. J.T. did not look happy when he realized that Stephen voted for Coach behind his back. Basically, if J.T. gets into the finals, he wins going away. Stephen wins against Erinn or Taj. Stephen has to get J.T. out of there if he wants to win. Maybe tonight was the first move in that flip.
• Random Hatred and/or Love:
• I'm a little confused about Obama being so secretive with the torture stuff. I understand it could lead to backlash, but he's just perpetuating the policy we all hated. Okay, we stopped torture now, but we need to face the facts of what our country did for the past seven or so years. It's the only way we move on. Still no pictures of coffins returning from Iraq. I don't want to be voyeuristic or morbid, I just want us all to be able to confront the truth. I want answers, I want the truth, I can handle it.
• A Little More Lost:
• Can't promise this will be the last bit, but it should dry up soon enough. I can't stop thinking about the episode; in its own way, it was more shocking than the "We have to go back, Kate!" ending two seasons ago. Jeff Jensen from ew.com wrote about the characteristics of the Jacob/adversary relationship that show up in Stephen King's writings since the show is so clearly influenced by King). I may not be the most versed in Lost canon (I can hold my own), but I have the King stuff down pat. Jensen looked at the two obvious King works, The Dark Tower and The Stand. His theory was that Jacob is Roland Deschain and his adversary is Randall Flagg. Problem is that Flagg plays only a fairly small role in The Dark Tower; the Man in Black was actually Walter, one of Flagg's minions as talked about in The Eyes of the Dragon. Jacob's adversary seems to be a certain comparison to Randy Flagg, the shapeshifting Walking Dude, but that would make Jacob more of the Mother Abigail type. In The Stand, which as I've pointed out -- and the producers have admitted -- was the source material for Jughead, Mother Abigail is the force that draws the good survivors together to battle Flagg and the evil survivors. She appears to the heroes in their dreams and brings them to Nebraska to organize them, but she dies before the heroes leave for Flagg's Vegas. She sets them up to do what they will on their own. Similarly, Jacob has touched the castaways in their lives and has seemingly brought them to the island to help him in his battle with his adversary. It's why I firmly believe that the "they" in "they're coming" is Jack, Sawyer, and Kate. It's why I think the white flash at the end is from a jump in time and not the bomb. Jacob has (literally) touched our heroes and then dies, leaving them to fight in his place. Of course, this is assuming that a) Jacob is dead and b) Jacob is good. 50/50 odds on either one of those.