Jericho and Lost

Some thoughts on the two shows tonight.

I hope this isn’t the end of Jericho. The show ended the season on a very high note. New Bern trying to invade Jericho. The Green men, Johnston, Jake and Eric leading the defense of the town. Touching moments like Stanley, Mimi and Bonnie at the Richmond graves talking to Stanley’s parents. Alicia Coppola is a great member of the cast. So is Brad Beyer.

And it’s really too bad the show has to kill off cast members. I was hoping tonight’s death would be Mayor Gray Anderson, but instead, it had to be Johnston, killed by gunfire. Jericho had a Lost-type of flashback surrounding the wedding of Eric to April. The entire family is worried about Jake’s toast to Eric, but while drunk, Jake ends up doing the right thing.

And with Johnston’s death, Jake now becomes the leader of the defense of Jericho. I do want to know what exactly is up with Hawkins. Is he a rogue? Is he trying to defend against another nuclear bomb? We now know the old man is in the government, but is the old man bad?

I’m glad to see Heather back. I knew she wasn’t dead. We just need Sprague Grayden to be made part of the regular cast if the show returns next season. Tonight’s grade, an A. And we hope at the CBS upfronts next week that Jericho is on the fall schedule.

Lost has had some strong episodes lately. The first seven episodes of this season were absolutely horrible. Then after the long hiatus, the show began to rise to the level it was back in Season One. I hated Season 2, but the last seven episodes have been very strong. Then we get tonight’s confusing episode which tried to give some answers about the island. We now know Ben’s mother died at childbirth after having Ben in the woods two months early.

And then Locke challenges Ben’s authority, beating Mikhail into a pulp. It appears Locke is about to be the new sheriff in town. Ben wants to know about the secrets. So Ben takes Locke to see “Jacob”.

In the meantime, we get to know more about Ben. That is father is a miserable drunk and was lured to the island by the guy who helped Ben’s dad when Ben was born. That Ben was shy. That his father was a janitor and is the body that Hurley found in the VW van in the woods (nice touch to have the same Three Dog Night song play). That Ben was part of the team that killed the Dharma Initiative.

And we also see the castaways wondering about Jack and Juliet’s intentions. We do find out that Juliet told Jack of Ben’s intentions to invade the castaways. Nice to see Sawyer asserting more leadership. To me, Jack has become a throwaway character and I wouldn’t mind seeing him as part of the cast bloodbath that apparently began tonight.

So after Ben takes Locke to Jacob’s house, we go inside to see an empty chair. Ben talks to it and says to Locke, “Do you see him?” Locke does not and shines a light when all of a sudden, things move in the house and we hear, “Help me.” It’s Jacob, but Locke doesn’t want to acknowledge it.

And the following day as Locke and Ben are walking back, Locke notices they’re walking a different way. Ben says he wants to show him something. It’s a mass grave of the Dharma people. Then Ben shoots Locke and John falls into the grave. Ben asks Locke what did he hear? Locke finally tells him and it appears that Locke has died.

Now I didn’t see that coming. I know that there is supposedly a cast bloodbath and five deaths are coming, but not Locke! Damn!

Up until Locke’s “death” and I put that in quotation marks for now, I was giving this episode a C. But with the shooting, it’s raised to a B-.

Next week, Charlie is supposed to die.