Remember That Time On LOST When: Shannon Translates the Creepy Distress Call?
[Remember That Time On LOST is a daily post running the entire month up until the season premiere of LOST on February 2nd. I’m going to just pick something awesome, noteworthy, or ludicrous about LOST when I wake up that morning, and hopefully get you geeks talking about it with me.]
LOST started off pretty fucking creepy. I mean, before it plummeted into mundanity for the majority of the first season, they kicked the shit off with thunder. The initial crash is still one of my favorite scenes ever. Watching people walk around, completely rocked, the perpetually firing engine in the distance? C’mon, that shit is fantastic. The running around, the screaming, stupid Shannon sitting there useless as always, Jin firing off Korean you can’t translate, but probably something like “Beautiful Slave, despite the crash I require food, I shot dudes for your Dad, now I hunger!” And then there is the most iconic moment for me, which is when the dude gets sucked into said engine. Priceless.
But that creepy vibe swept through the entire two parts of the Pilot. From the initial scene, to Smokey eating the crap out of the pilot Seth Norris, to the creepy distress call that the gang pick up from the Battered Piece of Human Bark We’ve Come to Call Rousseau, the entire Pilot gave you a case of the skincrawlies! The fucking skinscrawlies!
Nothing was creepier to me than the crackling broadcast that the Cool Kids came across when they finally get the plane’s transceiver working. As Sayid turned that radio on expecting milk, cookies and a rescue party, the dude realizes that there’s another transmission being broadcast from somewhere on the Island. The intrigue! And, in case you didn’t know, it’s common knowledge that there are few things creepier than crackling recordings in foreign languages. There’s something about the foreign nature of the tongue, combined with the poor quality of the transmission that casts a foreboding feeling.
It wasn’t like I expected the receiver to actually get them help. I mean, even the daftest of douchebags had to realize they weren’t going to be saved any time soon. But I guess I just wasn’t expecting it to work at all. So when the transmission began broadcasting, I did what any asshole did. I leaned in a little closer towards the TV screen, as if that would give me the ability to hear the transmission better, and translate it.
Note: I don’t speak any French.
Thankfully for the people of the Island, and for the viewers at home, Little Ms. Hot Stuff Shannon can speak French. Of course they have to cajole her into speaking it. She’s all, no, no, I couldn’t, I can’t! And then the next thing you know she’s a fucking advertisement for the success of Rosetta Stone or some shit. Inbetween crying for no good or acceptable reason, Shannon begins to let the rest of the people around her just how fucked and doomed they are. At least it’s coming from an attractive person. If Hurley was vomit-burping up the translation stinking of Hot Pockets, I personally would have taken it a lot worse.
I’m alone now. Uhm … On the island alone. Please, someone come. The others, they’re … they’re dead. I-it killed them. I-it killed them all.
Not bad, Shannon. Not bad at all, considering it was coming through shitty reception in the middle of nowhere. I find your faux-humility to be egotistical! And preening! Fuck you!
In what could only happen in a television show, Sayid finishes doing some rough math in his head at exactly the same moment that the translated bit of gloom is beginning to register with everyone. Judging from the frequency of how often it replays and this and that and blah blah blah…FOR REASONS, he can figure this out: Hey guys! Guess the fuck what! Think all that garbled French translated into English sounds shitty? Well, it’s been running for sixteen years!
In response to this, Charlie says what everyone at home is thinking:
Guys…where are we?
Dude Charlie, guess what. It’s been six years, and absolutely no one fucking knows. None of us. Maybe you’re on a crashed Battlestar Galactica. Maybe you’re on Atlantis. We have no idea.
The distress call is clutch, because it lets everyone know that they’re not just a bunch of unlucky assholes caught on a bad flight. They’re stuck on some Island with a monster, and there are other people out there. Being murdered for reasons unknown. All of a sudden the trees in the distance look just a bit more haunting. Who the fuck knows what or who is out there.
There appears to be some serious shit going on, and your biggest problem is that you’re a Whore On The Run From The Law or you can’t find your shitty acoustic guitar. There’s a mad French woman ready to ventilate your body with bullets.
As well, it also lets them know that they can expect help to come sometime between never and you’re fucked. If this sneaky french women was marooned here sixteen years ago and the message is on repeat, then you guys are going to be there for a while too. It’s time to start partitioning out your heroin, Charlie. You’re going to have to go on to some sort of Jenny Craig diet for addicts, where you only spend so many points a day.
You fucks are LOST.