[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.]

[I tried to do a solid to all of those who haven’t seen LOST yet in my title today. As an aside: Watch LOST, you schmucks.]

When Michael shot Ana Lucia, I could literally feel my asshole unclenching and fluids beginning to leak out. When he then spun around and shot Libby, my mouth opened and I couldn’t believe what had just happened. It was one of those moments when you praise writers for having serious balls. And I also resented them for significantly bumming me out. Hugo’s date with Libby was interrupted by gunshot wounds, and as the blood spilled out and the episode ends, you’re left there trying to comprehend what the fuck just happened.

The entire episode is excellent, and it is wrapped around the push and pull of relationships between children and their parents. There are several threads running through the episode with this theme. We have Christian Shephard, running from his confrontation with Jack. We have Ana Lucia, deserting her mother, incapable of facing a parent and the shame they have for letting them down. And we have Michael, who in a desperate move to save his son sells his soul to the devil. Or at least Benjamin Linus, who seems close enough to El Diablo for me.

At the forefront of this episode is Ana Lucia and Christian Shephard, and their inability to deal with their mother and son respectively. While Lucia has fled her mother from guilt, Shephard’s storyline is an inversion, and he can’t deal with the shame he feels for firing Jack, despite his son’s correct condemnation of his lifestyle. And what is most telling is that both of these characters are ultimately condemned to death for their inability to change their ways.

We got Christian Shephard straight chillin’ in Australia, trying to see his daughter, who just so happens to be Claire. Having fled both sobriety and his family out of guilt, he seems to want to make it up through a proxy, his illegitimate daughter. Who may or may not be carrying some sort of Satan-spawn to term. The dude rolls up in the middle of the night, banging on the door completely shit-faced. I’m not sure what continent this is a good tactic on, but just like in North America, the dude gets shoved out the door by Claire’s aggravated mother.

What I’m wondering is, where was the koala bear? Aren’t they standard protocol for individual protection?

Shephard takes this shit hard like woah, and eventually spirals into his drinking binge that will kill him. There’s a moment, a CROSSROADS if you will, where he could have saved himself. Lucia is all like, Christian, don’t go into that bar and get hammered again. You’re just hiding from your troubles and you smell like piss and vodka. And instead of confronting his baggage, he turns to her and comments, I SAY TO THEE NAY. Except he didn’t say that, because he isn’t Thor. Unfortunately.

Actually, who the fuck knows, this is LOST.

Then there’s Ana Lucia. She was suffering some serious shit over the fact that she totally PEW PEW‘D some guy who tried to kill her when she was a cop. Dude was rigor mortis, and instead of dealing with the guilt she had over her Mom knowing she totally ventilated a guy with her bullets, she fled. Physically and emotionally. Totally deep, man. She takes off to Australia with her buddy Christian “I’ll Be Walking As A Ghost Soon” Shephard.

You think Ana Lucia is going to do a solid, and right her ways. I mean, she sees what a clusterfuck Christian is for not dealing with his problems. She’s getting ready to return to LA with him, save for the fact that he’s encased in pine. So she calls up Moms Lucia and is like “Yo, I fucked up, let’s be friends again and watch The Fast and the Furious”, and her Mom is like “Solid, let’s do it. I’ll bring the popcorn, extra butter, I know. Love you!, ttyl.”

But then! Then the fucking plane crashes. You knew that already.

Ana fucks up and is sentenced to death when she fails to move beyond her desire for vengence. You think she’s done gone and been good when she can’t bring herself to kill Benjamin. I was like, hey personal growth! Well played, girl. Did I mention I think you’re so sexy with your curly hair? And I dig how strong you are and how you can probably take me in a fight, pin me down, and then take advantage of me.

But instead, she gives the gun to Michael. And we know how it goes from there! Blam, blam! Everyone thinks you died because you got a DUI in real life Ana Lucia, but at least your death fits thematically! Blam, blam! Ana Lucia’s death stems from her own ability to move past her faults. Which is a decent message, but it means I’m totally fucked. I can’t stop swearing, passing gas in public, and overeating. I wonder what sort of death I’ll have on LOST.

It’s interesting though, since Ana Lucia does resolve her parental issues. If the plane had just landed, maybe she wouldn’t have regressed into a vengeful chick. Who knows.

And then there’s Michael. Unlike Christian who can’t face his son, and Ana who can’t face her Mom, dude just wants his fucking kid back. Snagged by the Others, who appear to be pederasts or harvesters of uber-children like Walt, he is on a one-man machine to get Walt back. Maybe he’s trying to make up for the fact that he’s been an absentee Dad and shit. Or maybe he saw Taken – don’t give me that it wasn’t out yet, we’re time-traveling hurr on the Island – and was really inspired by Qui-Gon’s performance. Cutting a deal with the Devil, he blows away Ana Lucia, after her gluttony for vengeance gifts him the gun, and releases good ole Benjamin from captivity.

If Christian and Ana could be condemned for fleeing from their problems, Michael seems to be battering into them with a head full of steam, fuck the consequences. I’d call the killing in cold blood, but Pepsibones disagrees, and we had a conversation that went something like this:

Me: I’m Michael, blam blam! I kill you in cold blood

Bones: It wasn’t cold blood

Me: Sure it was, he killed her

Bones: But it wasn’t in cold blood, he had a reason

Me: It was cold blood!

Bones: What’s “in cold blood”?

Me: Whatever he did! So there!

Bones: No, no, no

Me: Christ, you’re going to kill me in cold blood, and be like, “I did it for your Uncanny X-Men collection”

Cold blood or not, it was jaw-dropping, and it finished an episode which explored the relationships between children and their parents, and once again called on the LOST coda of people serving their punishment for an inability to face and conquer their own flaws.