"The Brig" was the first episode written by Darlton Cuselof we've seen in a long time, and it was well worth the wait.  The post is up at the Powell's Books Lost blog, and there's a lot there about war and slavery.  It all comes from Locke and Cooper's namesakes; the philosopher Cooper had a theory of moral sense that the narrative is developing (especially with Sawyer), and the philosopher Locke had a particular approach to war and slavery that gets enacted by Lost Locke putting Lost Cooper in the slave ship's brig.  I've never seen television perform ideas like this.

The episode has quickly made the shortlist for best of the season.  For a lot of people, it made up for Bai Ling.

Shaftesbury: Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times

Lord Shaftesbury

Second Treatise of Government

John Locke

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Liz Kelly and Jen Chaney invited me to write with them this week about "The Brig." 

We used 37 Signal's Campfire app, which was perfect for a quick, private multiple-user chat.  (But it does throw up a tiny ad on occasion, which you get unless you pay for the service.  It's a small inconvenience for a very useful app.)

As they told me, Liz is the pop culture person, and Jen is the religion person, and they asked me on to be the literature person.  A good time was had by all, and the first commenter thought the episode was awful and proved the writers didn't know what they were doing.  The trolls always bite first.

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Bill Keveney of USA Today interviewed me recently about the use of philosophers in Lost.  His story just ran with me and a philosopher from La Salle University, David Thomer, cited for "expert comment".  It's a nice sum-up of the many philosophical names that appear in the narrative and the use to which they've been put.

*Note: They used my full first name, Joley, which I almost never go by because it's a family last name, I'm a dude, and it's just confusing.

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