My co-workers have been trying to get me to purchase a Captain America costume so I can participate in their little superhero theme, but until fags can legally get married everywhere in this country, this fag is not dressing up as Captain America. It's a matter of principle. Plus, I just don't like superheroes. Or my co-workers.
I did find this awesome thing, and would have bought it if I could have somehow rationalized spending the seventy bucks it would have set me back:
Maybe next year.
[Cross-posted.]
Flashback and Hurley is in front of Mr. Clucks with his old boss and he is being interviewed by Tricia Tanaka. She asks him about the lotteryand why he bought the restaurant and he starts tell her about the bad shit that has happened since winning the money. She yells cut and calls him a douche for pissing all over her puff piece. Her and the cameraman head inside to get some b-roll and outside Hurley and his ex-boss argue over their safety. "Do you hear something?" asks Hurley. Then a meteor slams into Mr. Clucks, destroying it. Back on the island Hurley looks inside the van. There is a corpse behind the wheel, his Dharma jumpsuit says "Roger." On the beach Nikki and Paulo inform the audience the survivors are out of granola bars. Way to prove useful Nikki and Paulo. I see soap opera work in both your futures. Sun asks Jin to pass her the Lucky Charms. In English. She tells him she's no longer going to speak Korean to him, she's going to immerse his ass in English like she's a Rosetta Stone CD-Rom. He's annoyed. And when Hurley arrives to asks for help fixing up the van, Jin is the only one who follows him into the jungle. Nearby, Kate and Sawyer bicker, as per usual, as they approach the beach. Kate wants Sawyer to apologize for being a douche about them doing it. Sawyer won't apologize. The two make it back to the beach and there are hugs all around. Except for one between Sawyer and Kate. In flashback Hurley arrives at his mansion and tells his mother "Mr. Clucks got hit by a meteor, or an asteroid. I don't know the difference but it's gone. It's the lottery money, the numbers, I'm cursed. And now Tricia Tanaka is dead, and her camera dude, and it's all my fault." Mom slaps him. He says the only way to break the curse is to go to Australia and mom tells him to shut up and that he's not cursed and she'll prove it. She calls out and Hurley's dad strolls in from the next room. Jin and Hurley open the back of the van and find a bunch of beer. Jin and Hurley communicate as best they can , and agree to pull Roger from the wreckage. His head falls off in the process. On the beach Charlie asks Desmond when he's going to die and Dez tries to explain it doesn't work that way, because apparently Charlie's never seen a single fucking movie about psychics in his entire life. 
Sawyer interrupts and asks what the fuck happened to his stuff. Dez apologizes for drinking his scotch. Charlie confesses the three of them drank his liquor and Sawyer demands to know who the third person was. He then stomps off into the jungle to find Hurley. Jin wants to tip the van up but before they can get going Sawyer arrives and asks what the hell they're doing. Hurley gives him a huge hug. "I'll be damned, you all found yourselves a hippy car," says Sawyer. Jin says "It's good to see you" in English and Sawyer is impressed. Hurley tells Sawyer he's going to help them and he asks why. "Because there's beer." On the beach, Kate, Sayid and Locke discuss the Jack situation. She tells them what a douche Michael is and relays what Karl said about the Others living on this island. Then she runs off saying she's going to go get help to rescue Jack. Locke and Sayid are all, what the fuck? In flashback Hurley and his parents sit around the dinner table. After dinner is served, Hugo fires his staff, throwing a huge wad of cash at them. Dad asks what is wrong and Hurley asks mom if she's not at all suspicious that dad just mysteriously showed back up after seventeen years right after he won the lottery. She says she called him because he'd been freaking out about the numbers. Plus she wanted to get laid. Hurley screams and covers his ears. Mom sends them to the garage. The old Camaro is there. (Daddy issues. Again.) Back in the jungle, the three get the van tipped back over. Sawyer crawls in back and finds a map. And Roger's head. He freaks out a bit. Hurley explains it's Roger Workman pointing to his shirt and Sawyer replies "It's Work Man, you blockhead. That's his job. He was a Dharma janitor." Hurley tries to start the engine but no luck. Jin tells him it can't be fixed and Sawyer opens the beer. It's skunky. Sawyer asks why he cares about getting the van started. Because people need hope, Hurley explains. "If it's hope you're looking for, you're on the wrong damn island. There sure as hell ain't no hope here." Back home dad wakes up Hurley and tells him he's going to help break the curse. Dad takes Hurley to a psychic. "I'm seeing numbers. 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42. There's darkness around these numbers. Great tragedy." She tells Hurley he is cursed and starts to exorcise him. He offers the psychic a thousand bucks to admit his father put her up to this. She scoffs. He offers ten thousand dollars and she admits it's all bullshit. At the van Sawyer teaches Jin English and Hurley prays. Sawyer asks what the hell is doing and throws him a beer, but it just rolls down the hill. Later Hurley approaches Charlie and tells him to stop moping and come with him on a possibly fatal errand. "Look, I don't know about you, but things have really sucked for me lately and I could use a victory. So let's get one, dude. Let's get this car started. Let's look death in the face and say, 'whatever, man.'" At home, Hurley packs his bags. He tells dad he wants him to leave. Dad admits he just came because of the money, but that he now thinks Hurley should give it all away. Just save enough to get the Camaro running so they can take a trip to the Grand Canyon. Back at the van Hugo returns with Charlie, who will be riding shotgun. 
Hurley and Charlie climb in the van and Jin and Sawyer give a shove and it sails away down the hill. The van gathers speed and heads dangerously toward some rocks. Hurley pops the clutch... and vrooom vroom! the van sputters to life. Woo hoo! Sawyer and Jin and Vincent all jump in and enjoy a ride with Hurley. Later, Jin and Charlie and Sawyer return to the beach, and everyone seems happy. Except Sawyer, who is now regretting not apologizing to Kate. He drinks his beer alone. Deep in the jungle Kate finds some netting and Locke and Sayid find her. She asks why they followed her, because if they gave a shit they would have looked for her when she was missing. They said they wanted to find her, but had no fucking clue where to look until Eko's murderstick fell on John's head. (And somehow now they suddenly have a clue?) There is gunfire as Rousseau shoots at them. They tell her it's cool they just need to talk to her. Kate asks her to help them find the Others' camp. Why should I do that, Rousseau asks. "The girl who helped me escape was about sixteen years old and her name was Alex. I'm pretty sure that she's your daughter."
Whatever. I'm pretty sure the survivors have just been defending themselves. And totally not kidnapping children. Tom takes Jack from the aquarium and Juliet is put in his place. There is a new Other presiding over the transfer. She does not look happy. Flashback to a beach in Thailand and Jack is there and a boy sells him a soda pop. Jack tries to put together a kite but is kind of stupid about it. So Bai Ling approaches and helps him. And ever since The Crow II: Electric Boogaloo she's sort of given my the creeps. Not that it matters, Jack digs her. She introduces herself as Achara. The two go to dinner at her brother's restaurant. His name is Chet. His name is Chet. She asks him if he's in Phuket to find himself. Then she asks why he can't put together a kite. He starts to tell her about his father and she tells him she doesn't give two fucks about his father. Then a man approaches and hands her a giant envelope of cash. She explains she has a gift. What that is, is as yet unclear. It's Thailand, so I think the implication is it is something sexual. On Hydra, Jack is now in Sawyer's cage. Tom brings him a cheese sandwich and Jack complains about it not being grilled. He asks why Juliet is being put into his aquarium. "Because she's in trouble." On their boat, Sawyer and Kate argue. Kate wants to sail around to their beach, Sawyer contends it is will be too dark for that and heads toward shore. They continue to bicker until Karl tells them the should be glad to be alive. He also explains that the Others only work on the Hydra, on "projects," (Sawyer: "Sure, like the steal-the-kid-off-the-raft project. That was a humdinger.") and live here on the main island. Kate asks what they did with the kids. "Gave them a better life." He them stares up into the night sky and gets all wistful about how he and Alex would lie in their backyard and stare into the sky at the constellations. "You have backyards? Ain't that quaint." Juliet visits Jack in his cage, bringing him a grilled cheese sandwich. She shows him a photograph of Ben's stitches and asks if they're infected. They are. She asks Jack to come look him over. He refuses. Later he is visited by the new Other he saw earlier, and she introduces herself as Isabel. She asks him about his tattoo and says she finds the Chinese characters ironic. Jack is escorted to a room somewhere and Juliet and Tom are there and Isabel asks if it's true he told Tom that Juliet asked him to kill Ben. Jack says he was lying, that he made it all up to create chaos and help his friends. Isabel asks why he is lying. Jack asks to be taken back to his cage. In flashback, Achara visits Jack's bungalow at night, and he complains he doesn't know anything about her. She tells him to just go with it. They fuck. On the Hydra Jack wakes in his cage and is startled to see a bunch of Others staring at him. He yells at them and one of them approaches. Holy shit, it's Cindy! She approaches and says hello to Jack. He recognizes her as the stewardess from the flight, and says he thought she'd been abducted. "It's not that simple." He asks why she is here. "To watch." To watch what? Jebus, why are they always so secretive? I guess that's part of their culture. The two Tailie kids are there too, and one of them whispers into Cindy's ear. Cindy tells Jack the girl asked how Ana Lucia is. Jack gets pissed and tells them to get lost. Back on the other island Karl is missing. A quick search turns him up crying in the jungle. Sawyer has a mano a mano with him and tells him A) to stop crying, b) to Netflix the Brady Bunch and c) if he really loves Alex he should go find her. Karl says the Others will kill him if they find him. "It least it'll be worth it," says Sawyer. At the cages, Alex shows up smashes the camera with a rock. Alex asks him why he saved her father. Because Jack said he would. He asks her where Juliet is. Having her verdict read. She's killed someone and will likely be put to death. Eye for an eye. Jack asks if Ben is still in charge. He is. Jack tells Alex to break him out of the cage. In the operating room, someone is about to stick Ben with a needle but then Jack busts in and tells them not to do that. Jack tells them they need a better surgeon. Ben says they used to have a great surgeon. His name was Ethan. Oh, I guess that's supposed to be a major burn on Jack. Whatever. If he was the island's best and only surgeon, and you just found out you had a potentially fatal condition, why did you send your best and only surgeon into the jungle on some black ops kung fu mission full of kidnap and murder? 
Maybe Ben is not such a brilliant leader after all. Jack tells Ben his infection may have lead to nerve damage and that he may not walk again. Oops. So Jack makes a deal to save Juliet, and in return Jack will supervise his recovery thoroughly. "Juliet doesn't care about you, Jack." Anyway, Ben sends a note to the "courtroom," like he's Mom excusing Juliet from gym class or something. In flashback Jack secretly follows Achara through the red-light district. Oh, I guess Jack thinks her gift is shooting ping-pong balls out her coochie. He follows her inside and finds her workplace. No ping-pong balls. It's a tattoo parlor. This is her gift? Why all the secrets then? "I am not a tattoo artist. I am able to see who people are." He asks who she sees in him. "You are a leader, a great man. But this, this makes you lonely, and frightened, and angry." He demands she tattoo this on him. She tells him she can't. He demands again. There will be consequences, she says. "There always are," he says. On the Hydra, Alex and Jack interrupt Juliet's sentencing. Isabel reads the note, her sentence has been commuted. "Ben has, however, ordered her to be marked." Oh, that can't be good. In flashback, Jack strolls the beach and Chet and some of his pals approach. They look at his new tattoo and then beat the shit out of him. Then they tell him to get out of the country. They can do that? Damn! Achara watches, then turns away. Meanwhile, Jack is back in his cage. So much for his close supervision of Ben's recovery. Juliet brings him a grilled cheese sandwich and he asks to see her mark. She shows him the small of her back, she's been branded with some weird upside down cross thingy. Jack rubs aloe on her wound. She asks why he helped her. Because Ben promised to let her go. Because he promised to let Jack go too. And they're going to make sure he keeps his word. How are they going to do that, she asks? Together, Jack says. On the other island, Kate asks Sawyer what happened to Karl. "I let him go." Then he tells her to stop feeling guilty. She says she doesn't feel guilty for leaving Jack behind. That's not what he's talking about. Stop feeling guilty for boning me just because you thought they were gonna kill me, he says. I don't feel guilty, she replies. Okay then. Isabel visits Jack and remarks on his tattoo again. "He walks amongst us, but he is not one of us." He tells her that's what it says, but not what it means.
Charlie is ransacking Sawyer's tent, telling Hurley that's what Sawyer would want. Hurley isn't buying it. (Because he's not a douche, unlike Charlie.) Desmond shows up and asks them to come with him. He leads them into the jungle and to Locke. Locke tells them the island killed Eko and to remain calm so as to not panic the rest of the survivors. Charlie wants to know what the fuck "the island killed Eko" means, and Locke tells him not to be a douche, he knows what it means. While they're all there marvelling at Charlie's doucheyosity Desmond starts spacing out, like he's having some sort of E flashback, and everyone wonders what the fuck is up until he snaps out of it and runs off. They follow and see him jump into the ocean and swim toward Claire's lifeless body. He pulls her to shore and performs CPR on her. She sputters awake and Desmond carries her to her tent. As they walk away Charlie asks how Dez knew she was drowning. "I'll tell you how he knew: that guy sees the future, dude." Charlie doesn't believe that, so he plans to get Dez drunk and force him to spill the beans. "You do realize he's going to know your plan before you even come up with it, dude," says Hurley. I love Hurley, by the way. So, blah blah blah, Dez, Hurley and Charlie get drunk on 60 year old scotch (and jebus, how much is that bottle worth?) and then Charlie and Dez fight when Charlie demands to know what happened in the hatch. "You don't want to know! And I don't want to know!" screams Dez before he's sucked into his flashback. Dez is in the hatch, he says good-bye to Locke and heads to the failsafe. "I love you, Penny." He turns the key, and... flash, bang ...just like before. Dez wakes up covered in blood. The camera pulls back and reveals he's not in the jungle, but on his apartment floor. It's not blood, it's paint. He fell off a ladder painting the room. Penny helps him up. Dez is disoriented, unsure exactly where he is or what is going on, as if he's in a flashback that's not quite right. Later Dez is putting on a snazzy tie, he glances at the clock, 1:08, and he is unsettled again. Penny helps him with his tie and the two are pleased she has moved in with him. Penny tells him he doesn't really need to see her father about a job, but Dez says it's more than about getting a job, it's about earning her father's respect. The hatch's alarm goes off and Dez almost panics, until Penny turns off the microwave. She asks him if he's okay. 
"Déjà vu." At the office Dez introduces himself to the receptionist, just as someone delivers a package for 815. Déjà vu again. Dez meets with Penny's dad and, surprise surprise, he's kind of a douche. In his office is a model of a sail boat and the Old Man mentions the race he sponsors. Déjà vu. The Old Man offers him a job but Dez tells him he really didn't come here for a job, he came to ask for his daughter's hand in marriage. The Old Man admires his nobility and grabs a bottle of sixty year old scotch and pours a glass of it. Blah blah blah the Old Man goes on about how the guy who made the scotch was a great man. "This swallow is worth more than you could make in a month." See? I knew that shit was expensive! "You're not worthy of drinking my whiskey. How could you ever be worthy of my daughter?" Ouch. Dez walks out of the building and Charlie is there playing "Wonderwall" and more déjà vu as Dez asks him how he knows him. You're Charlie, he says. Duh, Charlie points to the sign in his guitar case. Dez tells Charlie he was in the hatch, on the island, but Charlie just thinks he's a loon, even when Dez says this all happened before, right before it started to rain, right before it starts to rain. Later Dez meets his physicist pal Donovan and asks him if it is possible he's travelled back in time and is living his life over again. Donovan scoffs and asks him what happens next. Dez says the football team on the telly makes a big comeback and some bruiser comes through the door of the pub and smacks the barkeep with a cricket bat for owing him some money. But the football team doesn't make a comeback and the bruiser never shows up to beat on the man behind the bar. Dez heads home and tells Penny he didn't get the job. Oh well, no big deal, she says. The next day Dez visits and antiques shop in search of a wedding ring. The woman behind the counter shows him a beauty and he decides to buy it, much to her surprise. She demands it back, and Dez is confused. She tells him he has second thoughts and leaves without the ring. What is she on about? "You don't buy the ring, Desmond." He's still not getting the hang of this flashback thing. "How do you know my name?" "Well, I know your name as well as I know that you that don't ask Penny to marry you. In fact, you break her heart. Well, breaking her heart is, of course, what drives you in a few short years from now to enter that sailing race, to prove her father wrong, which brings you to the island where you spend the next three years of your life entering numbers into the computer until you are forced to turn that failsafe key. And if you don't do those things, Desmond David Hume, every single one of us is dead. So give me that sodding ring." He refuses. She takes him outside and points out a man in red shoes. Who's that, he asks. No one. The two argue over what is real and what isn't and suddenly a scaffolding collapses and the man in the red shoes is killed. Dez asks why she didn't tell him if she knew he was going to die. Because, he was meant to die. If she warned him about the scaffolding, then he would have been killed by a taxi, or he would have slipped in the shower. You can't escape your fate, it seems, no matter what. She tells him his fate is to push the button, that it is the only great thing he will ever do. Later Dez meets Penny, and the two get their picture taken together. Then Dez breaks up with Penny before tossing the ring into the Thames. He then visits the pub. On the telly, the football team makes a big comeback, and that goon walks in through the door with a cricket bat. Dez realizes he had the wrong night. He tells the barkeep to duck and accidentally gets hit in the head instead. Dez wakes. He's in the jungle. He looks at the crater from the hatch implosion. He cries and asks to go back so he can do it right this time. Cut to Charlie asking Dez how he knew Claire was drowning. "When I turned that key my life flashed before my eyes. And then I was back in the jungle and still on this bloody island. But those flashes didn't stop." That's how you knew to save her, asks Charlie. Dez confesses, "I wasn't saving Claire, I was saving you. You were supposed to be hit by lightning. You were supposed to drown. But I can't stop it forever. I'm sorry because no matter what I try to do you're going to die, Charlie."
