Episode 411 - The Dead Get "Cabin Fever"

Whoah. I mean, full-on, Neo-from-The Matrix Whoah. The return of Richard Alpert! The return of Matthew Abbadon!! The pre-ordained death of Doctor Ray!!! And the return of...Horace Goodspeed???!!! All this and so, so much more, in "Cabin Fever."

This Week's Motif - Avoiding Being "Boxed In."
I'm sure we Lostophiles all remember Locke's enraged scream to the tour company head in Season 1's brilliantly-executed "Walkabout," in which John, as it was revealed to us that he was wheelchair-bound, demanded not to be told what he could and could not do or be. This theme, of being boxed in, but not wanting to be kept to these limiting boxes, surrounded this week's brilliant, brilliant episode.

Borrowing Heavily From the Good Doc
Since I don't believe in passing others' work off as my own, I'll be frank with you. Doc Jensen said a bunch of stuff in his recap that is far superior to anthing I could come up with. So I'll borrow heavily from his massive posting (Jensen's words appear in blue text). Much of what he had to say I am not too sure I want to agree with, but if you want to read the entirety of his column, please click on the title of this post. (And, to answer my friend, Joe's question from last week, I only link to Doc Jensen's column where, as here, I think it adds enough to my own post to warrant separate reading...). I begin with an excerpt from the Doc's initial sum-up of the episode:

Last night was for us. The cultists. The obsessives. The crazies who have committed to this long, strange trip and gotten lost in it. Like the candy bar Hurley generously shared with Ben while Locke was chatting with the spectral squatters inside Jacob's shack (a nod to the Neo-Oracle-cookie scene in The Matrix?), ''Cabin Fever'' was an episode packed with a chunky abundance of brain-fattening cryptonuggets to nourish our fevered theory making and message-board blustering. Comic-book references. Biblical allusions. Mythological connections. Double meanings to scores of lines. I loved Hurley's ''theory'' that he, Ben, and Locke were chosen for this vision quest because they were the craziest ones on the Island. ... Amid the clues, red herrings, and tomfoolery, I saw in the episode a fiendishly clever love letter to those of us who've become so locked up inside Lost that they've been somewhat deliriously messed up by it.

Flashback - John Locke
I have to admit, when I first read that this week's episode would be a Locke flashback, I truly wondered why the producers would even bother delving back into a backstory that seems to have been fully realized already. Silly, silly boy - we learned so much in Cabin Fever, it's overstuffing my brain...

We learned that John Locke was born prematurely to a rebellious 16-year-old named Emily (she would not be put into that "good girl" box), who had hidden her pregnancy (by a man - presumably, Anthony Cooper - who was twice her age) until she was hit by a car on her way to a forbidden date with, we assume, Cooper. Though prior accounts had Locke born in 1956, Emily was listening to Buddy Holly's 1957 song, "Everyday," immediately before the accident.

After John was born, and spent a few months in an incubator (another box), the nurses told Emily and her mother that John was the youngest premie ever to survive in that hospital, despite numerous maladies, a real "miracle baby." As they prepared to take him out of the incubator so Emily could hold him for the first time, she fled the room, and her mother asked who to talk to about adoption. A strange figure watched from outside the room - Richard Alpert, looking pretty much exactly the same as he did the day 48 years later when he told John that Sawyer would kill Cooper for him.

Aside Number 1 - based on a Jensen passage I'll provide below, it seems this scene also took place about 16 years before young Ben encountered Richard for the first time in the jungle. That iteration of Richard was only different in the sense of wearing hippie clothes and long hair. Query - was that just a look Richard adopted some time between his John encounters, or was it a look designed to appeal to Ben at that moment in time?

Aside Number 2 - not that I like to revel in others' misfortune, but thank goodness Cane got cancelled, freeing Nestor Carbonnel to return to the role of the ever-mystifying Richard Alpert.

Aside Number 3 - you may recall that Benjamin Linus, too, was born earlier than expected, also to a woman named Emily, though this would occur roughly five years later. Could Ben and John be brothers, (unlikely, given John's adult visit with his biological mother, played by Swoozie Kurtz, and the death of Emily Linus in childbirth), or is "premature birth to Emily" the criteria for would-be island saviors?

About five years later, John, living with his adopted family, received a visit from Richard as John was playing backgammon. Richard said he ran a school for "extremely special" kids, and had reason to believe John may be one of them. John had drawn a picture that looked suspiciously like a child's rendering of an attack by the smoke monster, which Richard stopped to observe.

Alpert gave Locke a test, and with that, Lost gave us a scene so dense with (potential) subtext it just might take all of the forthcoming eight-month hiatus to unravel it.

The test was to determine which of these objects that Richard laid out before him was already John's: a mitt, a book entitled Book of Laws, a compass, a knife, a mystery comic book (see below for the rather humorous cover - observations are too obvious to note here), or a vial of powder.

Locke seemed to fail the test. He slid the vial toward him and off to the side. Then he picked up the compass and set it down. Both of these actions seemed to please Alpert. But then Locke chose the knife and held on to it, and even seemed to enjoy holding on to it, like a knight getting the feel of his sword. Alpert was not only crestfallen but vaguely pissed. ''I'm afraid John isn't ready for our school,'' he said as he left in a huff, and raced out to...catch the next time machine back to the Island?

Aside number 4: I'm not ready to explain everything by way of time travel, as the good Doc does here. But I share his interpretation of the events we saw, and add this note: What if John somehow sensed what the correct answer to the test was (and I'm open to suggestions on that score), but this was the first instance of young Johnny Locke not wanting to be put in a box? He wants to be action-jungle guy, the survivalist who intrigued us in the first season, and not whatever Richard wants him to be...

Eleven years later, a teacher freed 16-year-old John from a locker that contained a Geronimo Jackson (Hurley's favorite band) poster inside. The teacher relayed to John a private inviation from a Dr. Alpert (!) to spend the summer at a science camp run by Mittleos Labs in Portland (or, as we learned last season, "not exactly in Portland.") John denied that he was a scientist, and when the teacher said he couldn't be a superhero or quarterback, John belted out his familiar refrain, "don't tell me what I can't do" (more of that not being boxed-in thing).

Years later, we revisited the more familiar, wheelchair-bound and balding adult Locke, following a frustrating round of physical therapy. The orderly that wheeled then-despondent John away told him not to give up, because anything was possible. The orderly, once his face was revealed, turned out to be none other than Matthew Abbaddon, who reasured John that his survival was enough of a miracle to allow him to believe he might one day walk again. As Abbaddon menacingly pushed John to the precipice of a staircase, he obliquely mentioned that a miracle happened to him, too (but of course did not elaborate). He then suggested that John go on a walkabout (which of course we know he eventually tried to do). John, however, resisted, saying he was a cripple. "Is that what you are, Mr. Locke?" asked Abbaddon. "I went on my walkabout convinced I was one thing, and found out I was something else. Oh, I'm not just an orderly John." Abbaddon concluded this exchange by noting that, after walkabout, John would owe him one.

Aside number 5: It's great that one episode gave us glimpses of so many of Lost's sporadically-appearing but thoroughly perplexing figures. But none fits the bill more than Matthew Abbaddon (if that is indeed his name). We've seen him three times: first (in time, not on the show), he was a conveniently-placed orderly who planted an idea in Locke's mind that would eventually lead him to the island, by way of a foiled attempt to go on walkabout and an early departure from Australia on flight 815. Then, he recruited Naomi Dorritt and the freighter science team, we presume on behalf of Charles Widmore - though note the disconnect made ever clearer in this very episode, between discrete groups of Widmore's employees. Finally, after the Oceanic 6 returned home, he claimed to be an attorney for Oceanic Airlines when he visited Hurley at Santa Rosa and asked "if they're still alive." So who the frak is this guy, really, and what was the miracle he claimed to have experienced?

Finally, I'll let Doc Jensen take a stab at recapping the flashback as a whole, because he pieced this next passage together absolutely brilliantly...

Now, do the timeline math.

Locke is born early. At age 5, he takes a test that most likely would have taken him to the Island if he had passed. He didn't. That same year, Benjamin Linus is born.

At age 16, Locke is invited to go to a science camp that again would have taken him to the Island. He refused. About that same time, Benjamin Linus and his father joined the Dharma Initiative.

The implication, it seems, is that Ben has been walking the path that was originally meant for Locke. Ben was the contingency plan — the course correction — for Locke's altered destiny. But Ben is his own person, of course, and he has done things differently from what Locke would have done, and this, in turn, has created further changes in the original order of things — changes that I think a certain ticked-off, Island-deprived billionaire named Charles Widmore is trying to reverse. The scene at the rehab center between paralyzed adult Locke and his wheelchair pusher, the creepy Matthew Abbaddon — who accepted the description of ''orderly'' with knowing irony — was meant to suggest one way Widmore is scheming to restore the original order: by getting Locke on that Island and taking back the birthright that was supposed to be his.

(Unless I’m getting this reversed: What if Ben was the man of destiny, but for decades, various forces — including Alpert and Widmore-Abbaddon — have been vainly trying to change destiny by getting Locke to the Island to supplant the über-Other?)

To this I add something the producers revealed in this week's podcast - in writing this episode, they heavily researched the process undertaken by Bhuddists to seek out and find their next Dalai Lama...

Freighter Time
...which, as we confirmed again this episode, is ever-so-slightly distinct from "island time."

Sayid wakes Desmond as the helicopter returns. Dr. Ray - still alive, despite having washed up on the beach - helps unload the wounded merc. "What did this to him?" Ray asks. Keamy responds, "Black pillar of smoke threw him fifty feet in the air, and ripped his guts out." Keamy demands that Sayid tell him the locations of everyone on the island (as if!). Keamy then holds Captain Gault at gunpoint, and demands to know who gave him up to Ben. The captain leads him to Michael. Michael admits giving Ben his name. Keamy points his gun and pulls the trigger - but his gun misfires (I guess suicide isn’t the only thing the island won’t allow for its pawns). The captain, who really seemed likeable in this episode, says not to kill Michael, since, as the saboteur, he is the only one who can fix the engines. So Keamy just knocks Michael out.

Keamy's man dies, and Keamy demands that Frank gas up the chopper for a return trip. He then rips a key off the captain's neck, and uses it to open a safe, from which he retrieves his “secondary protocol,” a folder, which the captain has never seen, bearing a somewhat familiar DHARMA logo (see photo for where we’ve seen this image before).

He says that if he’s going to “torch the island,” there's only one place Ben can go (according to Widmore; and, based on the logo, I’d say that’s the Orchid station). Gault says torching the island was not what he agreed to do on this mission. Realizing Keamy can’t be reasoned with, the captain finagles some alone time with Desmond and Sayid (by sending Omar below deck), and tells them to hide as soon as Keamy leaves. (Note -as Omar left the deck, he finally received the Morse Code message we saw Daniel send two weeks ago). Sayid demands a bearing to the island and says getting his people off is the only way to save them, and Gault agrees to meet them behind a container in ten minutes to take the Zodiac boat.

Frank awakens Michael, and asks why he never told him he was an 815 survivor. Michael says Frank can't fly Keamy back, because he's going to kill everyone on the island. As Frank leaves, he sees Omar attach some kind of device to Keamy's arm (an anti-smokey thingee? If they had these, why not bring them the first time?)

The captain gives Desmond and Sayid the small Zodiac raft and a device that will provide the only safe bearing to the island. But Desmond says he can't go - he's been on the island for three years, and can never set foot on it again, since he knows Penny's coming for him. So Sayid leaves on his own, ready to start ferrying his fellow survivors back to the freighter (any guesses who will join him on the first jaunt?).

That evening, the mercs load ammo into the helicopter for battle. Omar tells Ray about the Morse code message saying he was dead. Frank refuses to fly them to the island, and, since Keamy can’t kill the only pilot, he makes his point a different way - by slitting the doctor's throat and throwing him overboard, menacingly asking, “does that change anything?” Gault appears with two men and shoots a warning shot. Keamy hands his knife to Omar, then shoots Gault with a hidden gun (so much for liking the captain). Frank has no more resistance, and says, “we're flying.” He boots up his sat phone, and conspicuously tucks it into a pack that sits on his copilot seat. Keamy retrieves his gun from the captain's body, and the mercs board the now heavily-armed chopper, as hidden Desmond looks on.

Keamy's sarcastic line after dumping the doc overboard was interesting: ''Did that change anything?'' It changed more than Keamy could imagine. As we saw in ''The Shape of Things to Come,'' the doc's corpse traveled through the offshore anomaly and washed up on the beach in the past. As a result, Jack and company confronted Faraday and Charlotte and finally confirmed that the freighter folk aren't there to save them. This is all to say that, thanks to the doc's death, Jack's camp knows to either avoid that helicopter or, if they follow after it, do so cautiously, and with a battle plan in their back pocket, just in case.

Island Time - The Beach

Juliet chides Jack for leaving his tent, for fear of tearing his stitches. Suddenly, the whole camp sees and hears the helicopter's return. As it passes overhead, a pack is dropped. It's Frank's, and it contains his phone, which shows the helicopter moving further away. Jack, of course, assumes they're to follow the signal.

Aside number 6 - Seriously, Jack? Haven't you figured out that it's time to stay away from those guys? Hopefully you're not as dumb as you look (and I don't just mean when you're wearing your Racer X costume from Speed Racer). But, and I've said it before, I love me some Frank.

Island Time - The Jungle

Of the myriad aspects of this week's episode, though, it was the quest for Jacob carried out by Locke, Ben and Hurley - the Holy Trinity of Weird - that proved most interesting.

Hurley wants to know why they're cabin-hunting, and where they're going. Ben says he's been following Hurley, since he's the last one who saw the cabin. Following a bit of panicky confusion over this little Three Stooges routine, Locke insists they make camp, over Hurley's objection that the smoke monster is out there. "Dude," emphasizes Hurley, "what's going to happen when those freighter guys come back?" Locke pats him on the back and says, smiling (unconvincingly), "I don't know - yet."

Locke awakens - that eyeball closeup again - and hears what sounds like the chopping down of a tree. Ben and Hurley are still asleep, so John investigates and finds...Horace Goodspeed? Clearing some small trees? Horace says he's building a place for himself and the Missus. A place to take a break from the DHARMA Initiative. Blood trickles from his nose, and he says he's been dead for 12 years. "You gotta find me, John, you gotta find me, and when you do, you'll find him...Jacob. He's been waiting for you a real long time, man." Horace then rechops the same tree. It was a dream, and when John awakens, Ben is already up, and watching. Ben says, "I used to have dreams," and then nods.

So...who all thought they'd see Horace Goodspeed again? And that he would have been the guy who built Jacob'the s shack? Now, this was not the first time Locke had such a dream vision - remember the crashing drug plane? The pow-wow with Eko's brother, Yemi? And what did Ben mean, he used to have dreams? Is this tied to the start of Widmore's nightmares? Also, now we know when the purge took place - in 1992, 12 years before the crash.

Hurley theorizes only the craziest can see the cabin - hence he, Ben and John. They stop at the DHARMA gravesite, and John explains to Hurley how DHARMA suddenly disappeared after making all that ranch dressing he likes so much. Ben has an eerie look on his face. Hurley looks in, "whoah - what happened to them?" "He did," says John, indicating Ben.

John digs through the pit, looking for Horace. Ben muses that he should have realized shooting John wouldn't do anything, but he wasn't really thinking clearly. Ben says it wasn't his decision to kill DHARMA - it was the Others' prior leader.

The whosiwhatsit?

John finds Horace, and sees blueprints for the cabin, and a map to get there, in the dead mathematician's pocket.

John offers to send Hurley back to the beach, but being alone at night in the jungle doesn't thrill him, so he decides to stay. "He actually thinks staying was his idea," smiles Ben. "Not bad, John, not bad." "I'm not you," replies John. "You're certainly not."

Ben and Locke debate how certain the location of the cabin is. John says it won't have moved because he was told this was where it would be. Ben says he was told things, too, how special he was. But then he got a tumor and had his daughter's blood on his hands. There was going to be consequences to John's being chosen, because "destiny is a fickle bitch." Hugo points it out - they found the cabin. Ben refuses to enter - the island wanted him to get sick, and John to get well. He declares his time is over, and the island is Locke's now.

It would appear Ben's attempt to shoot Locke was his last desperate attempt to hold on to his special spot as the island's go-to guy. And if he hadn't changed his priorities before, the death of Alex has certainly made him less interested in the island's well-being, and more interested in revenge on Charles Widmore. But I wonder - Is the island but a pawn in the larger Ben/Charles game, or is Charles part of Ben's gambit for the island?

Hurley also is not thrilled to go in, so Locke goes by himself. Ben wishes him luck. Locke lights the lantern, then enters. Jacob is sitting right where we last saw him...only...it's not Jacob, but the figure says he can speak on his behalf. It's Christian! John sits down. "You know why I'm here?" "Yeah, sure, do you?" "I'm here because I was chosen to be." "That's absolutely right." And in the corner, there's Claire! "Hi, John," she says, with the same knowing smile her father has been sporting. "What are you doing here?" "Don't worry, I'm fine, I'm with him." "Where's the baby?" "The baby's where he's supposed to be, and that's not here. It's probably best that you don't tell anyone that you saw her." "Why?" "We don't have time for this. The people from the boat are already on their way back, and once they get there, none of these questions will matter one bit, so why don't you ask the one question that does matter? "How do I save the island?" Christian and Claire smile.

Penultimate Aside: Does that smile mean he asked the right question? Now, to unpack this whole scene...Christian has now appeared to both of his children, a dog, Hurley (briefly) and Locke. Locke has received appearances from Christian, Yemi and Boone. I hope somewhere there's a book of rules as to how this all works, because I'm confused. But one thing I'm getting less confused about is the likelihood that Claire Littleton is dead. It would seem she died in the explosion of her New Otherton bungalow, and was reborn as whatever it is that Christian has been since Jack first saw him shortly after the crash. Only for some reason, Claire seemed to need Christian to tell her what she is. But if Claire is dead, that what of the prophecy that she and she alone must raise Aaron, or Charlie's message that Jack is not supposed to raise him? And is Claire the only dead one? My wife has theorized that a number or our characters actually died way back in the crash - among them, Locke and Rose (which explains their healing). Does this also explain the "fake" flight 815, i.e., perhaps it's not a hoax, but the "survivors" are actually nothing of the sort? Ouch. My head hurts.

Outside, Hurley and Ben sit quietly. In one of those brilliant character moments that takes place without a line of dialog, Hurley pulls out a candy bar, sees Ben eyeing it, breaks off a small piece and offers the rest to Ben. John emerges. Ben asks, "Did he tell you what we're supposed to do?" "Yes, he did," says John, a little dazed. "Well?" "He wants us to move the island."

Final Aside - move the what now? That does not seem like an easy task. And yet, it is one I believe will be successful. If I'm not mistaken, as early as next week, the following will transpire: Sayid will return to the beach with a boat that fits himself and five others (Hurley and Aaron will average out to two people). The first group to leave will be Sayid, Hurley, Aaron, Sun, Jack and Kate (as for why they're each chosen, I have no idea). Sayid will attempt to return on the same bearing, but Locke will have successfully "moved" the island, making it impossible to find anyone else. This will also make it impossible for Frank, Keamy, or the rest of the freighterites to return to Kahana. Thus, the freighter, all but empty now that the science team and the mercs are on the island and the captain and doctor have been killed, will return to port with the O6, as well as Desmond and Michael. Desmond was not on flight 815, and Michael was under two layers of assumed names, so nobody will associate him with the flight - hence "Oceanic Six." Michael's real task - returning these six people to the real world - will be complete, and he will, at last, be free to kill himself, ending up in that coffin in L.A. from last season's finale. Or not.

Next week, lostophiles, the first part of the three-hour finale. Until then, Namaste!

Response to Reader BT

My cousin, who posts under the name "BT," had this question (in 37 parts - just kidding, Cuz):

Why have we not seen more of Matthew Abaddon? I was sure that we’d get more of him in ‘Something Nice Back Home’ to connect him to Jack’s eventual breakdown.

As of now, we’ve only seen him twice (in the first and second episodes of this season):

1) Discussing the recruits with Naomi, telling her that “Every member of the team was selected for a specific purpose, everything relies on you [Naomi], getting them in, getting them out, and preventing anyone from getting killed” and
2) Soliciting information from Hurley, posing as an Oceanic Airlines attorney when he asks in a panic, “Are they still alive?”

It seems clear to me that whatever happens to everyone to get the O6 back to civilization, the freighter-people will not be leaving the island, as Abaddon would likely have made contact with them once reaching mainland to be fully debriefed.

So, my question is: Did Abaddon only go after Hurley because he was in a vulnerable state in the mental hospital and figured he could get more information out of him? Why has Abaddon not tried to get information from the other 4 survivors (minus Aaron who wouldn’t have any answers for him)? Should we anticipate seeing him over the remaining episodes this season, or will it be in Season 5, when we’re presumably going to be dealing with off-island action as ‘Present’?Thoughts/Theories?

Or am I crazy to be asking for MORE characters/plotline?

Well, BT, first things first. I have good news for you - according to the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com), Lance Reddick will be reprising his role as Matthew Abbadon in this week's installment of Lost, entitled "Cabin Fever." For more on why this is particularly interesting, click here to see what I have to say on the spoilers blog.

As for why only Hurley? It would appear that Sayid may not be so easy to track down, Sun is likely protected by her father's powerful corporate juggernaut (which may or may not be either in cahoots with or adverse to Widmore/ Abbadon), Aaron is, as you noted, roughly 18 months old, and Kate and Jack are just a little too strong to be the first approached. This leaves only Hurley, who, as you note, is "vulnerable" during his voluntary commitment.

Finally, I tend to agree with you - however the O6ers get back to civilization, it is likely not accompanied by too many freighter folks.

Looking forward to this week's ep!

Namaste

Episode 410 - Jack Squanders "Something Nice Back Home"

A big victory for the Jaters! A bigger victory for the Yankees!! Potentially an even bigger win for the Skaters!!! All this, plus lots of "connective tissue," in "Something Nice Back Home."

Foreword I - on Motifs
In Lost's nearly four years on the air, one of tits most effective devices has been the use of recurring motifs throughout an episode. Last week, in "The Shape of Things to Come," the motif was games or, more specifically, the game of Risk. This week there were two. On parallels to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (which Jack reads to Aaron in flash-forward), I suggest you check out Jeff Jensen's recap on ew.com today (accessible by clicking the title of this post). The other recurring motif was the consequences of eavesdropping. But we'll discuss that as it comes up.

Now, while this episode did not pack the mythological whallop of the previous Ben-centered outing, what we did get was a ton of detail that helps to tie in several previously unconnected elements, set up promising new developments, and explains a bit about timing.

Foreword II – What, No Pictures?
Folks, you’ll notice this week that I have chosen not to dazzle you with apropos screen grabs. “What’s the deal,” you must wonder. “Doesn’t he love me anymore?” I do, good reader, I do. But I didn’t see anything visually this episode that requires screencaps to do this recap. No offense to the actors or the camera crews – they did their jobs admirably. But this was an expository/ relationshippy episode. So, unless you wanted a nice shot of Kate in her panties or Jack in a towel, I think you’ll agree, no photos needed.

We start on the island...

Island Time - Jungle
As Sawyer leads his little group from New Otherton back to the beach, Claire is recovering from the exploding house - she says she is no longer seeing things. (Big note - according to Doc Jensen, a scene was cut from last week's episode in which Claire had some interesting visions, the nature of which I simply don't know. DVD bonus features, anyone?) Miles asks Claire what she was seeing, but before she answers, Miles starts channeling the last moments of Danielle Rousseau and Karl. He starts to dig, and finds them buried. Yup - they're dead.

Bum-mer! I was sure Rousseau would have survived the ambush. I know there is some debate as to her value to the overall story, but, despite her comment in last year's finale that she would not leave the island because there was nothing for her back in the world, I still thought there would be more to her arc, particularly with Alex’s death last episode to serve as a motivating factor. Still, the producers have promised us her backstory (and like to remind us that dying on the non-linear Lost doesn't always mean your story has been fully told), which I guess will have to be told through another character's perspective. Hmm...

Miles insists to Sawyer that Keamy and his crew are not his buddies, and that he "did not sign up for this."

Later, Miles eyes Claire, who is about to breast feed Aaron. Sawyer gets very big-brotherish, and issues a "restraining order" for Miles to stay away.

Back to Doc Jensen here - he surmises that Claire actually died in the explosion last week, and is only a ghost/ island manifestation here, which is why Miles is so interested in her. I disagree. This episode showed us what Miles experiences when he communes with the dead, and it appears to be a mostly auditory thing. That we would not be given any similar type of experience for Miles with Claire tells me he's talking to a walking, talking, living person. And, strange shared visions on the island aside, that Sawyer sees her and that Aaron is carried by her suggests Doc Jensen missed the mark on Miles' ghost whispering Ms. Littleton.

Frank comes stumbling out of the brush with a first aid kit. He tells them to hide, since Keamy is coming, and will kill them all if he sees them. With Keamy are five guys, one of whom is injured (so much for smokey's big scene last week - how come he can kill Eko with one strand of smoke but only wounds one of six mercs against whom he unleashed his full fury?). Keamy hears Aaron in the jungle, but Frank convinces him they need to leave immediately so they won't have to fly the chopper at night.

Have I mentioned how much I want to like Frank?

Later, as Team Sawyer sleeps around a campfire, Claire awakens to find... Christian Shepherd holding Aaron! Quizzically, she asks, "Dad?"

More evidence for Claire not being dead - we've never seen an indication that island manifestations believe themselves to be anything they are not. A "fake" Claire would not likely be surprised to see Christian Shepherd. Also, her confused state when she saw her father (still, we suppose, nameless to her) suggests her prior visions following the explosion were of something other than her dad.

Sawyer wakes up. Miles says Claire wandered off into the jungle in the middle of the night with someone she called dad. "I'd have followed, but I have a restraining order," he says through a smirk. Sawyer hears Aaron crying, and finds him, left alone on a bed of leaves. Claire is nowhere to be found, and the episode ends with Sawyer screaming her name.

Poor Emilie de Ravin. Ever since Roswell I have really liked her as an actor. But it seems that Claire's biggest moments on Lost - both in the first and fourth seasons - involve her sudden and unexplained absence. This disconnects the actor playing the role from the character's dramatic weight to the story, and, I believe, leads viewers to the general consensus around the message boards that Claire's only real contribution was to give birth to Aaron. Still, in an episode where both she and Jack saw visions of their shared father (more on Jack later), I have to feel they are getting closer to at least learning about their own relationship. This all makes the fact that Jack and Aaron are amongst the Oceanic Six while Claire is not all the more troubling...

Island Time – The Beach
The first shot of the episode recalls the first shot of the series – a close-up of Jack’s eye as it opens. Here, Juliet awakens Jack - but everything is blurry for him. They leave the tent, and see Bernard demanding truth from Daniel about why there is no response from the boat on the telegraph. Jack calms his troops: “Sooner or later their people are going to come back, and when they do, we'll be waiting for them.” Jack reiterates that he promised he'd get everyone off the island...then collapses.

Juliet diagnoses an inflamed appendix and says they're going to have to take it out. She asks Sun and Jin to get supplies from the medical station, but since Sun doesn’t know what all the items are, Daniel offers to help, and, over some initial objections, he and Charlotte join the party (though Juliet hands Jin a pistol and says to shoot them in the legs if they try to run).

Bernard tells Rose Jack will be okay, but Rose wonders why Jack got sick, on the day before they're all about to get rescued? People don't get sick on the island, she observes. They get better there.

Unless…the island has a reason for the person to get sick. Like Ben with his tumor. What was up with that, and why is Jack sick now?

Jack insists that he stay awake through the procedure to guide Juliet, and that he wants Kate to hold a mirror so he can see what’s happening. He then stumbles out of his tent, and Kate rushes to help him, as though inserting herself between Jack and Juliet. Jack starts to say, "If something happens to me..." as though the sentence would conclude, “you must lead them.”

Sun and Jin arrive at the medical station. Charlotte seems to be keenly aware of the Korean conversation about Daniel’s obvious attraction for her. Daniel wonders aloud where the power's coming from, and Charlotte comments he should add it to his list (and I shall have to add it to my questions, as well).

As Sun discusses her lack of faith that Daniel’s people will help them leave, and Jin reiterates his promise that Sun and the baby would get off the island alive, Charlotte continues to listen in (there’s that eavesdropping) begging the question – does she speak Korean?

After Sun’s crew returns with the supplies, Jin tells Charlotte he knows she understands Korean. She tries to pretend she does not, but Jin, in Korean, threatens to torture Daniel. She gives up the ruse, and he makes her promise to take Sun off the island when the helicopter returns. She asks why he doesn’t also express concern about the others, but Jin just reiterates - Sun has to go.

A lot just happened here! First, the first signs of an act taken by someone we know does not leave with the O6 to ensure that someone specific gets to leave. As Jin states several times this episode, his promise is that Sun will get off the island – not him, and, unlike Jack’s pledge, not anyone else. The other big thing is why on Earth Charlotte speaks Korean. The theory bandied about online today (especially by Doc Jensen) is that Charlotte is somehow connected to Sun’s father, Mr. Paik. After all, a cultural anthropologist arguably would have pretty extensive language skills. But for an Englishwoman who digs in Africa to know Korean? So why Paik? The hints have been dropped over the years that Paik may be every bit the island-connected heavy that Charles Widmore is. Paik may have even commissioned the Kahana (see The Lost Experience), and in one of the Jin/Sun flashback episodes, Paik and his Korean associates said in non-subtitled Korean something about working with Hanso people. Factor in Charlotte’s apparent familiarity with DHARMA bears, and there are some interesting connections to explore here.

Jack’s self-surgery plan doesn’t work out as he planned, and Bernard knocks him out to let Juliet work without instruction. Bernard comes out and tells Kate it went well. Kate goes in to see Juliet finishing the sutures (not the best-looking stitches ever, eh? Perhaps this is why Jack has to leave the island?) Juliet says to Kate, "you know he kissed me. It was nice. But it wasn't for me, it was for him. I'm pretty sure he was trying to prove something...that he doesn't love someone else." Kate thanks her, ostensibly for saving his life, but really for stepping aside. Kate leaves, and Juliet tells Jack she knows he’s been awake for awhile (more of that listening in…).

Does anyone else think Jack is not yet out of the woods on this illness? Also, strange how fast Juliet decided to let go of Jack. Then again, if loving him means Ben will kill him, maybe this is Juliet’s only real choice. But the understated heart of these beach sequences was clearly the non-verbal cues Kate gave Jack. Indeed, seeds of a Jater future are sown here…

Flashforward – Jack Shepherd
Amazingly, for Jack’s appearances in Kate’s and Hurley’s flash forward sequences this season, we made it ten episodes in before Jack got his own ep. And really, the major action this time around is in this ff which connects three other ff episodes and places them in time.

Jack rolls out of bed, throws some red panties into a cupboard, then trips over a Millenium Falcon (so presumably the owner of the panties has a little boy). After starting some coffee, Jack approaches the “mystery” woman in the shower, and it is, of course, Kate! And she steps out and gives him a huuuuuuge kiss!

Update to original post. I totally missed this on the first viewing, but did you notice that half-naked Jack had no appendectomeny scar? And after that Frankenstein stitching job done by Juliet? Does not seem like a continuity error to me. Rather, I'd say it's a clue about something...

So did Jack get over his Aaron issues? Is this his happily ever after? But this still clearly precedes Jack’s downward spiral from “Through The Looking Glass,” so what will go wrong?

Jack reads to Aaron from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which Christian used to read to him as a boy.

Seriously – read Doc Jensen’s column. His analysis of this Alice passage is fantastic.

More gratuitous groping and kissing after Kate expresses relief to hear Jack talk fondly about his father.

Back at the hospital, Jack thinks for a moment he sees his father walking the hallway from behind. A Dr. Stillman from Santa Rosa calls about Hurley, who refuses to take his meds, because he doesn't think the doctor exists. Hurley says the Oceanic Six are all dead, which is why he's not taking his meds. He points out that Jack, Kate and Aaron’s idyllic life is akin to heaven. "I was happy too, Jack, for a while, anyway, and then I saw Charlie." Charlie told Hurley Jack would be coming by, and Hurley was to give him a message - "you're not supposed to raise him, Jack." Jack demands that Hurley take his meds. Hurley says Charlie told him somebody would be visiting Jack, too, soon.

Ok…digesting here. So we now know how to put the ffs in order: Hurley’s narrowly predates Kate’s, which predates Jack’s in this episode. All of these predate Jack’s first ff from last year. And this episode we know takes place in 2007 – based on the headline Jack read that the Yankees completed a series sweep over the Red Sox with a 5-0 win…which means last season’s finale was essentially a flash forward, not just for Jack, but for us, the audience, as well. The question remains – how far forward?

Why isn’t Jack supposed to raise Aaron? Is this tied to Richard Malkin’s exhortation that only Claire can raise Aaron? And why would that be so?

Also, we know the Charlie visions have continued to haunt poor Hugo. And, given what comes next, I’m starting to think Charlie has some legitimacy to himself there. So what are these off-island visions?

After sitting outside Santa Rosa for a while, Jack returns home and awakens Kate. He lies and says he had to stop and get something, then asks if Kate really thinks Jack is good at the daddy thing, and she reassures him. He asks Kate to marry him, and she says yes, tears streaming from her eyes.

Happy tears? Tears of despair? And since we know Kate won’t be along for Jack’s downward spiral, their eventual parting just got even more tragic. Is there no happy ending for Team Jate?

Jack, working late, is summoned to the hospital lobby by a malfunctioning smoke detector. He removes the battery...and his father calls to him from a waiting room chair! When another doctor approaches, though, Christian is gone. Jack is visibly shaken. He asks for a scrip for an anti-anxiety medication, to deal with the stress he's under.

So…in the future (of this future), when Jack delusionally told his chief of medicine to call his father down there, it wasn’t just the drugs – it was a hallucination he had been having for some time, which he finally accepted as reality. And, to further turn that scene from last year on its head, it turns out that Jack started popping pills to cope with his daddy visions.

Jack comes home and Kate is on the phone, saying she thinks Jack will be at least another hour. She tells him it’s one of the moms from the park. Kate goes upstairs and Jack pops a pill...which he washes down with a beer.

In the words of Barney Gumble…”It begins!”

Kate comes in and finds Jack in a chair with lots of empty bottles. Jack wonders why the nanny was there late, and Kate says she was running errands. She wants to know why he was home so early. He confesses his visit to Hurley from earlier in the week, but writes Hurley off as "crazy" and says he didn't mention it so as not to upset Kate.

So Hurley is “crazy” for seeing Charlie visions, but Jack just suffers from stress because he sees his dad? Kind of a double-standard, eh Dr. Shepherd?

Jack has gotten paranoid about Kate's whereabouts. But she doesn't answer - instead she asks him to trust her. He gets upset at her dodge, and she finally admits she was doing something for Sawyer, that she made him a promise, but she can't tell Jack what it was. Jack angrily responds, “Sawyer made his choice, he chose to stay. I'm the one who's here, I'm the one who saved you.”

So…Sawyer is not an O-sixer by choice? Surely he wasn’t still clinging to the naïve belief that life was better on the island after he got shot at and Claire’s bungalow blew up? And how did Jack “save” Kate? Ironic twist, given the story the world heard about Kate saving the rest of them. Finally, that “I’m the one who’s here,” umm, settle much, Jack?

Kate says she can't have Jack around her son like this, and he says she's not even related to him...just as Aaron walks into the room. Realizing the damage he's done, Jack wanders off.

Maybe it’s just me, but the way Jack said that, I felt there was emphasis on it being Kate that’s not related to Aaron, i.e., Jack somehow had figured out that Aaron is his nephew. Did Christian tell him? Did Claire learn during her disappearance, which also began this episode? And, to reiterate, why did Aaron leave, and Claire stay behind on the island? Is this the moment Jack and Kate break up, leading to his collapse into pills, booze and bad beard day? And was it his father to whom Jack apologized before trying to kill himself on the bridge? And why do Charlie and Christian seem to want the O6ers to go back to the island?

That’s it for this week all. Namaste!

Episode 409 - Rules Change In "The Shape of Things to Come"

An unbelievable death! Smokey's most magnificent appearance yet!! And big clues as to what's really going on, along with two "Holy S--t" moments, two "WTFs," and an "Ah-ha," all in "The Shape of Things to Come."

Foreword
If every episode were a Ben episode, don't you think we'd get much further in decoding Lost? What was amazing this week was not just how Michael Emerson outdid all of his prior performances put together (if he doesn't win an Emmy this year, whoever beats him must have blackmail material on the vote counter), but the extent to which so many characters had a chance to shine. I'll quickly dispense with the fastest of the episode's three plotlines first...

Island Time - Team Jack
As an abdominal problem begins to affect Jack, not even a flirty look from bathing Kate seems to make him happy. Kate then expresses concern over how long it has been since Sayid and Desmond left for the freighter and how long it's been since they have been in touch. Jack remains optimistic, explaining that it's understandable given the wrecked engines on the boat and damage to Faraday's phone. Suddenly, a body washes ashore. It's Ray, the ship's doctor, and he has stitches in his cheek and a slit throat. Daniel says that Ray was fine the last time he saw him, but "'when' is a relative term." He agrees to cobble together what's left of his phone to make a Morse code device. At night, Daniel sends a signal asking what happened to Ray, and gets a response. Daniel says they didn't say what happend, but they'd be returning soon. Bernard, however, knows his Morse code. According to him, the message says, (in one of the WTF moments) "what are you talking about, the doctor is fine?"
Jack has had enough. He grabs Daniel hard and asks, "were you ever going to take us off this island?" Defeated, Daniel replies, "no." Jack is...displeased. Then he starts to wretch.

Random thoughts...ok, so more observations that time is wonky between the island and the rest of the world. But so wonky that a man can be dead in one locale and alive in the other? And how happy do you think Ray will be if the news of his impending death reaches him? Jack's budding illness also seems interesting. Perhaps this will lead to his becoming one of the Oceanic Six (because absent some form of necessity, I can't imagine this Shepherd abandoning his flock). Otherwise, the beach sequences were primarily set-up to whatever is to come in the four remaining episodes this season, and need not receive further discussion here.

Island Time - Team Locke
Keamy and a crew in military garb have Alex is plastic cuffs and order her to turn off the barracks' fence. She pleads with them to spare Aaron before entering a code - not 4-8-15 - which causes the phone to ring in the house Locke appropriated from Ben. Locke answers, and a recorded voice says, "Code 14-J." (Before the phone rang, Locke, Sawyer, and Hurley (holding Aaron) were playing Risk, which we would soon learn is a metaphor for Ben's war with Widmore. During the game, Hurley had one of those throw-away lines only Hurley can deliver - "Australia's the key to the whole game" - that seems eerily as prescient as his comment to Sayid a couple years back that a radio transmission could be coming from "any time.")

Also, a further note on the house formerly belonging to Ben. Some conspiracy theorists online have noted that the picture of the blonde woman holding a hamster that hangs on the wall changed in appearance slightly from last year to this year. I chalked it up to the recreation of a lost prop...until now. If you look closely, it seems the picture has altered - again, only slightly - a third time. What gives? Locke and Sawyer fetch Ben, who is playing piano in his new house. "14-J" startles Ben, who grabs a shotgun out of his piano bench, gives it to Sawyer, and says they need to get to the other house, which has better positions to defend because "they're here." Ben is perturbed they waited five minutes to get him, eliminating what small preparatory advantage Alex's message was supposed to provide. Ben assures Locke it's important he survive even as Sawyer goes to help Claire. Ben, it appears, needs Locke to get back to Jacob (whassup with that?). Ben and Locke start barricading and instruct Hurley to stay away from the window. An extra gets shot, then another, and then a third (weren't there only two in Team Locke?) Sawyer gets pinned down as he tries to fetch Claire but ducks behind a picnic table, then a fence, then a gas grill (which, if he's half the survivalist he claims to be, is not the best place to take cover in a fire fight). A rocket detonates Claire's house!

As if the furious action in this scene would allow us time to contemplate, this was obviously meant to play on the increasing belief that Ms. Littleton is not long for this Earth. Not only was talk of a "spectacular death" leaked before this episode, but given that baby Aaron will call Kate Mommy in the future...

Ben tells Locke only Jacob can help them now, and they need to go together. When Locke notes the cabin wasn't where he thought it would be, Ben says Hurley knows where to find it. Meanwhile, Sawyer finds Claire in the wreckage of her house. She first calls him Charlie before asking where Aaron is. Sawyer runs to Locke's house and passes Claire in through a window Hurley breaks for him, since Ben warned not to open a door for them. The shooting stops, and Miles rings the doorbell. They let him in as he has a walkie talkie given to him by the mercs, who had set him free. Miles tells Ben they have Alex hostage, and he takes the walkie. Keamy, on the other end and visible out the window, promises to hurt nobody else if Ben surrenders. Ben tells him everything he knows all about him, as proof that he will indeed hurt the others. Keamy holds Alex gunpoint and says he'll kill her if Ben doesn't come out right away. Ben, who seems coolly confident that Alex will not be hurt, gives a counterproposal - they turn and fly away. When Keamy is unfazed, Ben says she's not his daughter, she was stolen from Rousseau, and was just a pawn (more of that game imagery, eh?), but she means nothing to him. Keamy then shoots Alex in the head before pulling back (the first "Holy S--t!" moment). Ben stares with a look that seemed more one of disbelief than one of horror or sadness (one of Michael Emerson's finest subtle acting moments to date). Ben mutters, "he changed the rules," then walks briskly past the rest of the group, opens his secret door, then shuts a gate behind him. Behind his clothes, there is another secret door, covered with glyphs, which Ben opens and passes through. (Special thanks to Jeff Jensen of ew.com who took this photo of the door on a recent set visit).
The markings on the door are quite reminiscent of the "underworld" symbols that appeared in the Swan hatch when the button wasn't pushed on time. What gives with the history of this island, and the DHARMA builders' apparent appropriation of things that predated them?

Ben reemerges, covered in soot. "In a minute, we need to run from this house as fast as we can," he tells his group. The house starts to shake, and Smokey erupts past the window. Ben then orders them out. Smokey then infests the trees (the second "Holy S--t!" moment) and shooting can be heard. Hurley asks if Ben called Smokey, but Ben just looks on. Smokey appears to ravage Keamy's group, who are soon silenced. Ben sends the group off to the trees, and says "I have to say good-bye to my daughter, John." He walks over to Alex and closes her eyes, crying, (an even greater moment from the usually stone-faced Emerson). Sawyer and company light torches. Ben returns from the jungle. John says he's sorry about Ben's daughter, then accuses Ben of lying when he said he didn't know what the smoke monster is. "You can ask Jacob all about it when we go to the cabin," responds Ben. "Who the hell is Jacob?" demands Sawyer, who by now has had enough of these two acting as though they're in charge of everything. Sawyer says he is taking Claire, Aaron and Hurley to go back to the beach. Locke pulls a gun on them, and insists that Hurley stay behind. Sawyer holds his gun back at Locke, but Hurley agrees to go with them. "You harm so much as one hair on his curly head, I'll kill you," warns Sawyer. "Fair enough," responds John, and Sawyer, Claire, Aaron and Miles head off for the beach before Ben, Locke and Hurley begin their trek for Jacob's cabin.

This ever-improving friendship between Sawyer and Hurley is one of the best character development bits to happen on this show. Sure, Sawyer could be cruel to Hurley at times, but it's like he's a teasing older brother, and nobody else better mess with his guy. That, coupled with his heroic dash to save Claire when the shooting started, make it all the more tragic that, if I'm right in my prediction, Sawyer will not survive the series finale...

Flashforward - Benjamin Linus

Ben appears in the Sahara desert in a cold-weather DHARMA parka bearing what I assume is the logo for the Orchid station, and the nametag "Halliwax" (seriously, if you haven't seen the Orchid station video on YouTube yet, you're really missing out on the station, its potential purpose, and the name, Halliwax). I say "appears" because 1) although we did not see his arrival, he seemed a little taken aback about his locale, and 2) how far do you think the man could get in the Sahara in a winter jacket without leaving tracks? His arm is cut.

Ben takes off the parka as two armed nomads approach and hold him at gunpoint. Ben goes all James Bond on them, shoots one and knocks out the other before taking their horse and riding off, his wound bandaged with the shumag he took off the head of the dead man.

Later, in Tunisia, Ben, still bandaged, rings a concierge bell at a hotel. It's not his first time in Tunisia, but it's been a while. He's a preferred guest, with a reservation under Dean Moriarty (which gives the woman at the desk pause). Ben confirms it's October 25, 2005, as though he was unsure about the year. He then sees a TV showing Sayid, who says "I just want to bury my wife in peace."

We don't know why Ben came to Tunisia, but hopefully we will at some point. But it's worth remembering that Tunisia is where Charlotte saw the Hydra Station collar on a polar bear skeleton...And Sayid has a wife? What a quick few months he's had!

Next, Ben treks to Iraq. To give you an idea of just how much travel Ben did in these flash-forwards, I point you to this graphic posted by Kristen Dos Santos on E! Online:

In other words, Ben really got around in this episode - very Bond-like, when you think about it.

Ben shows up in a "journalist" land rover, climbs some stairs, then looks down on a funeral procession. We instantly recognize the photo in front of the coffin as Sayid's lost love, Nadia. Ben pulls out a camera and snaps photos of a bald man sipping a drink near the procession. One of the pallbearers in Sayid, who looks up and seems to see Ben. As Ben tries to flee, Sayid ambushes him, thinking at first Ben is just another paparazzo trying to profit off this O-6er's misery. Ben lies about how he got there, saying he took Desmond's boat to Fiji then flew to Tunisia. Ben says he wants to find the man who killed Sayid's wife. Ishmael Bakya, the bald man. Ben says Bakya was last seen five days ago in L.A., speeding away from the place where Nadia was killed, and that Nadia's death is all tied to Widmore.

Later, Ben pursues Bakya, who knows he's being followed and tries to lose Ben. Bakya dips out of sight, then surprises Ben from behind in an alley, holding him at gunpoint. Ben tells Bakya to take a message to Widmore, but then Sayid arrives and empties a full clip of ammo into Bakya. Ben tells Sayid they're finished there, and he should just mourn his loss and live his life. "Once you let your grief be anger," Ben says knowingly, "it will never go away." Sayid responds, coolly, "I spent eight years searching for the woman I love. I finally found her and I married her, and now I buried her. Benjamin - who is next?" The look on Ben's face as he turns and walks away was one of smug satisfaction.

This was our Ah-ha! moment: we learned that, in the months after their return to civilization, Sayid found and married Nadia. We also learned that her death shortly thereafter, apparently at the hands of one of Widmore's agents, was the trigger that turned Sayid from international celebrity into Ben's hitman (a role he would fully embrace before the events of "The Economist). But here's the question - the look on Ben's face, the smug little smile...was he behind Nadia's death, knowing he could manipulate Sayid into joining him? Or did he just take advantage of Sayid's pain to expand his anti-Widmore campaign?

Later, in London, Ben gets out of a taxi and tells the doorman he's expected by the Kendricks. In the elevator, Ben picks the lock to the penthouse, enters, and demands that Charles Widmore wake up. As DocArzt so carefully noted in this photo taken from his blog, Widmore's bed sits under the painting of Black Rock that we saw at auction..."I wondered when you were going to show up," Widmore says coolly. "I see you've been getting more sun." Ben responds, "Iraq is lovely this time of year. When did you start sleeping with scotch by the bed?" "When the nightmares started," answers Charles.

What nightmares are these? Does he really need to self-medicate with scotch that costs more for one glass than Desmond makes in a year? And if these dreams are island-linked, just how effective could the scotch be?

Ben says he can't kill Charles.

Why the frak not? Is this related to the island's ability to prevent Jack and Michael from killing themselves? If so, why on Earth would the island want Widmore alive? Does this suggest Ben is not so much in line with the island's wishes?

Ben accuses Charles of "changing the rules," but Charles insists it was Ben who got Alex killed when he took everything he now has from Charles. In retaliation, under the "new rules," Ben tells Charles he's going to kill Penny. "And once she's gone, once she's dead, then you'll understand how I feel, and you'll wish you hadn't changed the rules." "You'll never find her," boasts Charles, who then changes the subject by insisting, "that island's mine, Benjamin. It always was, and will be again." "But you'll never find it," retorts Ben. "Then I suppose the hunt is on for both of us," snorts Charles, creepily suggesting that even with the stakes so much higher now, their feud is but a game. "I suppose it is," agrees Ben, before signing off with, "sleep tight, Charles."

And, of course, this last scene was the second "WTF" moment. Rules? What rules? Is this entire Linus-Widmore war some sort of bizarre game? If so, who is its arbiter? What are the stakes? And what were the rules before Alex died?

For that matter, will Ben really try to kill our beloved Penny? Will he somehow try to convince Sayid, a one-time comrade of Desmond's, to do his dirty work for him? Will this type of revenge be Ben's ultimate undoing?

How exactly was the island Widmore's? Certainly, ties between Widmore and Hanso have been bandied about in the past, but was Widmore involved in DHARMA? Did he make the island available to Hanso? If it was his, why can't he find it? And, it bears repeating, why can't Ben just kill him?

Meanwhile, how is Penny so hard to find? Is she no longer at 423 Cheyne Walk?

In short, one of the most densely-packed scripts we've seen in Lost's 3-plus-year run, and easily one of the top five episodes ever. Even as answers were spooned out, questions continued to pile up. It had been five long weeks between Lost fixes, but man was this juice worth the squeeze.

So that's all for this week, Lostophiles. Until, "Something Nice Back Home" next week (from which two leaked clips are posted here on the spoilers blog), Namaste.

Previously on Lost...

As we return to Lost after a short, month-long break, I thought it would make sense to review where we've been this season, what we've learned, and where we left off.

Previously on Lost
On the bizarre island at the center of Lost, war is brewing between two mysterious factions. Caught between them are the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815. Those survivors have themselves broken into two rival camps. And now these divisions are about to come to a head.


The Others
First, there were the Others. Comprised of island "natives" once called "the Hostiles," at least one survivor of the DHARMA initiative, recruits specifically brought in from off-island, and indoctrinated abductees from the tail section of flight 815, the Others (as they were first called by Danielle Rousseau) believe they serve the interests of a godlike entity called Jacob. Jacob purportedly only appears to and reveals his will through Benjamin Linus, who has thus become the Others' de facto leader. At the end of Season Three, Ben dispatched the Others, under the leadership of ageless former Hostile Richard Alpert, to a sanctuary (and possible former DHARMA Initiative facility) called The Temple. Aside from the sudden appearance (and disappearance) of Other psychologist Harper to former Other Juliet, the Others have not been seen since. We've learned in flashback, however, that the Others have known for some time that a zealous billionaire named Charles Widmore has designs on the island, and would do anything to get there. To that end, they are prepared to defend the island, apparently at all costs.

Widmore's People
Widmore, on the other hand, has apparently convinced his own people that Ben is, in fact, the real evildoer to contend with. Both Widmore and Ben have, to different audiences, blamed each other for the phony wreckage of Oceanic Flight 815, which was planted in the Sunda Trench near Indonesia, along with 324 dead bodies. This fake plane caused the world to abandon the search for Flight 815, which prevented anyone but Widmore from finding the island. Meanwhile, Widmore dispatched the freighter, Kahana, from Fiji, to the general vicinity of the island. On board for this supposed rescue mission is an army of mercenaries (who scoff at the idea of rescuing anybody), and a science team assembled by the mercurial Matthew Abadon. That team consists of: Naomi Dorritt, team leader and general badass, who was the first to arrive on the island, parachuting out of a crashing helicopter, only to eventually die from a knife wound inflicted by John Locke; Fank Lapidus, apparently benevolent pilot extraordinaire who detected the sham flight 815 - a flight which he, himself, had originally been scheduled to pilot; Miles Straume, self-serving and manipulative gost whisperer who offered to falsely tell Widmore that Ben was dead in exchange for 3.2 million dollars; Daniel Farraday, theoretical physicist who seems to have perfected mentally projected time travel by harnassing energies like those found on the island, and who, despite social deficiencies and what appears to be a poor memory, seems to have an uncanny understanding of some of the island's stranger properties; and Charlotte Lewis, a cultural anthropologist who seemed completely unfazed when she happened upon a polar bear skeleton wearing a DHARMA Initiative collar at a dig in Tunisia. Miles remains in the custody of Team Locke. Daniel and Charlotte have undertaken several of their own missions, including the apparent disabling of a DHARMA chemical weapons plant called The Tempest, which they claimed Ben would use to kill everyone on the island to prevent the freighter people from arriving. Frank flew Desmond and Sayid back to Kahana where they learned, to their surprise, that Ben had installed as his spy and saboteur their former comrade, Michael, under the alias Kevin Johnson. Frank and his helicopter have since left the ship, presumably flying back to the island, and, while it was gone, Sayid revealed Michael's deception to the ship's captain. During their stay, Desmond learned that his beloved, Penny (Widmore's daughter) was unaware of the freighter but that she had been searching for the island in hopes of finding him there for more than two years.

Team Jack
Meanwhile, the flight 815 survivors are torn about how to respond to the freighter folk. Though nobody actually trusts the newcomers, Dr. Jack Shepherd believes it is in everyone's best interest to give these newcomers the benefit of the doubt in the hope that they would provide rescue. Following the initial schism into two groups, Jack was joined by Kate, Jin and Sun, Rose and Bernard, Sayid, Desmond and Juliet, as well as most of the unnamed extras from among the crash survivors. Kate briefly stayed with Team Locke until she confirmed that the freighter people knew who she was and her fugitive status, then returned to Jack's beach party, albeit far less trusting of their new visitors. Desmond and Sayid have gone to the freighter, and had been reporting back to Jack's camp via calls to Farraday's phone until the device apparently began to malfunction. Meanwhile, despite growing worry that the new arrivals may be there to harm them, Sun and Jin heeded Juliet's warning that she needs to leave the island within three weeks lest her pregnancy kill her, and decided to stay.

Team Locke
Initially, this group consisted of Locke, Hurley, Claire (and baby Aaron), Sawyer, Ben (who at the time was a prisoner), Rousseau, her long-lost daughter Alex, and Alex's ostracized former Other boyfriend, Karl (as well as two extras). After Locke failed to find Jacob's cabin (which seemed to have moved to a spot where Hurley enountered it), they took refuge at the DHARMA barracks, which they figured they could secure by means of the DHARMA energy fence. Initially they took Charlotte captive, but, at Sayid's urging, traded her for Miles, who seems to have confirmed that his people were to find Ben and then kill everyone else on the island. Ben's revelations of Widmore's plans and of placing Michael as a spy led Locke to release him, and Ben now lives among this group. Ben, however, convinced Alex (and Rousseau and Karl) that they needed to head to The Temple to find safety from the coming attack. While they were en route, they were ambushed by unknown assailants. Karl was shot in the chest, Rousseau was shot in the side, and Alex surrendered, announcing that she was Ben's daughter.

Flashbacks
There have been five flashbacks so far this season. In one, the freighter's science team was introduced. In another, Jin's past as an angry, brutal thug was revisited both to contrast his evolution as a doting husband and expectant father, and as a red herring suggesting Jin would soon leave the island. The third delved into Juliet's past, and revealed that her romantic tryst with deceased Other Goodwin was his extramarital affair, and that Ben, whose weakness appears to be his lust for Juliet, actually intended that Goodwin would die when he was sent to spy on the tail section. The fourth "flashback" involved Desmond's self from 1996 being pulled forward into his 2004 body and returned to 1996 in a continuous loop until the 1996 version of Daniel Farraday told him he needed to find a "constant" in both times that would enable him to orient himself. That quest eventually reunited him (by phone) with long lost love Penny, who confirmed she had been searching for him and vowed to find him. This flashback also teased the theories that would lead Farraday to join the science team on the freighter. Finally, we flashed back to Michael's post-escape story to learn that he became suicidal after his confession of killing Libbie and Ana Lucia alienated his son (Waaaaaalt!), only to learn that somehow the island would prevent him from killing himself. Enlisted by deceased Other Tom on Ben's behalf, Michael assumed the identity of Kevin Johnson and planted himself as Ben's spy and saboteur on Kahana, where visions of Libbie continue to haunt him.

Flash Forwards
Continuing in this new narrative structure that was first revealed in the season 3 finale, we have seen four flash forwards. These have taught us that the world believes that only 8 people survived the crash of flight 815, and only 6 lived long enough to find rescue. These "Oceanic Six" are Jack, Hurley, Sun, Sayid, Kate, and Aaron, who Kate raises as her own son. Kate stood trial for her crimes but was set free on ten years probation when her mother refused to testify. Hurley has been haunted by visions of the late Charlie telling him "they need you" and that he has to go back to the island. Sun gave birth to daughter Ji Yeon and, with Hurley, visited a gravesite for Jin which gives his date of death as the date of the crash. Sayid has become a James Bond-like super-assassin, taking out rich and powerful people on a list provided by Ben, who has also left the island. Meanwhile, Jack, who for some reason refuses to see Aaron, becomes first an alcoholic and then a drug addict who ultimately comes to agree with Hurley that the Six were not supposed to leave and will need to get back to the island.

What to expect when we get back
I'll post this over on the spoilers blog (though there are no true spoilers), which you can view by clicking here.

Revisiting the Questions

As many of you will recall, waaaay back in June I posted a list of questions that in my mind Lost has asked but not yet answered. (Click on the title of this post to go straight to my June 2007 archive for the full list).

Well, midway (or thereabouts) through the new season, it's time to look back on these questions and see which, if any have been answered. Also, what new questions have been asked.

But first...some Lost scheduling news. I'm pleased to report that ABC has confirmed we will get one more hour of Lost than previously announced. As the producers were writing the season finale, they realized they had too much plot (and, apparently, too many revelations) to squeeze into one final thirteenth hour. So instead of ending Lost with a one hour episode on May 22 following the two hour Grey's Anatomy finale, we will get a two hour Lost finale on May 29. The only downside is that the finale, which is actually a three-hour story, will begin May 15, but will only conclude two weeks later. Still, for one more hour of Lost, I'd say it's a fair trade!

Now, on with the questions (or the ones that have been answered, anyway):

5. DHARMA
0. Have we seen all the DHARMA facilities on (and around) the island?
No, folks, we most assuredly had not. This season we have already encountered The Tempest, a chemical weapons manufacturing facility that was commandeered by the Hostiles in their purge of DHARMA. We will also soon see the three-level Orchid station, which was teased in that "found" footage that was displayed at comic-con.

7. Smoke Monster
f. Does it in fact take different forms (like Christian Shephard, Sawyer's boar, Yemi, and the green eagle?)
In a recent podcast on ABC.com, the producers confirmed that sometimes Smokey takes the shape of a person or thing, sometimes that person or thing is some other sort of apparition, and sometimes it's just what it appeared to be. Yemi was Smokey. Christian...the jury's still out. The boar was just a boar onto which Sawyer was projecting his inner rage. And the eagle...they wouldn't talk about the eagle.

8. The Others
g. What do the Others call themselves as a group?
It doesn't appear they have a name for themselves. Juliet, however, has referred to them (and herself) as "Others," adopting the name given the group by Rousseau and used by the crash survivors.

9. Benjamin Linus
b. What does Ben want, and why is it different from what the Others and/or Jacob want (if it is)?
We've learned that Ben occasionally "steps out" from his island duties and pursues personal goals, often with deadly consequences. One such goal has been his romantic pursuit of Juliet, which resulted in his sending Goodwin off to die as a spy in the tail section camp.

e. Has Ben left the island since he was a child?
From the secret room Locke and Sayid discovered that was filled with passports and foreign currencies, I would say this is a yes. And we've seen in flash-forward that Ben certainly will leave the island.

10. Danielle Rousseau
c. What is this “sickness” supposedly suffered by Danielle’s crewmates? Why did she have to kill them? Why has nobody manifested this sickness in the three months of island time that we have seen?
We have finally seen more "sickness" in the form of time-tripping and otherwise nutty behavior on the freighter. It would appear that approaching or leaving the island at the wrong vector, particularly after being exposed to radiation or electromagnetism causes wildly erratic behavior. Those traveling through time (mentally) will die from an aneurysim if they don't find a "constant" in both time frames. Others tend to off themselves, so perhaps Danielle didn't really have to kill her people. Oh, well. As for why the crash survivors have not manifested the sickness - they all came in on the same vector, which presumably was the "right" one.
Random thought - Desmond's close-range exposure to the hatch implosion made him susceptible to the sickness. But, other than Aaron, who may have special properties due to his birth on the island, the Oceanic Six were farther away from the implosion than any other crash survivors - Kate, Jack and Hurley were being held by the Others on the dock, and Sayid and Sun were sailing around the island to try to ambush the Others. Of course, this doesn't explain why Sawyer and Jin are not amongst the Six, but it may explain why the other five are. Or not.

12. Desmond
b. What is the precise nature of his precognitive abilities? Is it completely linked to Charlie?
We now know (or think we know) that Desmond's consciousness actually gets propelled in time to inhabit his body at different times. It's a form of mental time travel. Whether or not it will continue at all now that he's contacted his constant (Penny) remains to be seen.

c. Did Desmond ever really change the universe, or did it course correct?
Yes, and yes. Desmond did not (and could not) create paradoxical alterations of the time stream. But he did go back and enable Farraday to perfect his time experiments (and determine that Desmond should be his constant), and he set Penny on the path to look for the island years before he contacted her from the freighter.

14. Penelope and Charles Widmore
b. What does Charles want, if not just to keep Desmond from marrying Penny?
Despite some variations in the accounts of Ben and the freighter people, it seems pretty clear - Widmore wants access to the island. As for why, we still don't have the full story (though Ben's observations regarding his ability to exploit the island's powers seems to get us part of the way there).

c. Why was Penny trying to contact the Looking Glass Station?
Penny, we now know, had been researching and trying to find the island for three years as part of her search for Desmond. She obtained equipment that could contact the Looking Glass Station, and was alerted by the equipment that the station's jamming had stopped, enabling her to make the call while Charlie was in the comm room.

d. Why did Penny have Arctic researchers looking for large E-M bursts?
By extrapolation, this would appear to have been connected to Penny's search for the island, in general. I could not begin to guess why she would employ Arctic researchers looking for E-M bursts to that end, but that seems to be what was going on.

e. Why was she surprised Desmond would be in a DHARMA hatch?
She was not, it turns out, surprised, so much as elated. She was looking for Desmond all along, and the fact that he was in the very station she contacted at that moment was just exciting.

17. Richard Malkin (Claire’s Psychic)
a. Does he have any real abilities, or is he a sham like he told Eko?
b. Why was he so insistent that Claire raise Aaron?
c. Why was he then so insistent that Claire take flight 815, and no other flight, to give Aaron up for adoption?
d. Were there real people hoping to adopt Aaron? Was their hope specific to Aaron? Why go through Malkin?

I'll tackle this whole topic in one fell swoop. Now that we know the island can exert influence far beyond its borders, my take is that Malkin is a sham, but the island somehow provided him with one (and only one) clear flash. I believe (but cannot conclusively prove) that the island attracted Claire (and Aaron) by speaking through Malkin. Or not.

18. Oceanic Flight 815
a. How did so many people with such interconnected backgrounds end up on the same plane?
See my previous response. If I'm right about that one, it applies here, too. As Locke said back in season 1, the island brought them all there for a reason.

b. How did more than 50 people survive the crash of a jumbo jet that broke up at cruising altitude?
I suspect the how is not so important as the fact that the island seemed to know that they would.

d. Why did both Naomi and Anthony Cooper seem to think Flight 815, and the bodies of all aboard, had been found?
As we've learned, a sham flight 815 was recovered by a salvage vessel that had been searching for, of all things, the Black Rock, from the Sunda Trench in the Indian Ocean, complete with 324 bodies. We know this was a sham because the pilot's body did not have on his wedding ring. Both Ben's people and Widmore's people have blamed each other for the fake plane crash. The Others, at least, had a paper trail backing up their story, though all of it could have been faked fairly easily.

19. John Locke
b. Why is he the only person, aside from Ben, who could hear and see Jacob? Why couldn’t Ben hear Jacob at the moment when John could?
The former is now a moot point, as Hurley has seen Jacob. The question now should be why certain people can see Jacob (and his shack), while others cannot, and why Jacob appears at different places or to different people at different times.

c. What does he want to achieve by keeping people on the island?
It now appears that Locke himself doesn't know this answer. But he firmly believes that he should listen to the island, and that the island does not want people to leave.

20. Hurley
a. Why is he so jinxed? Can the numbers do that?
I have theorized that Hurley is not so much jinxed as gifted with mind-over-matter powers. He just doesn't know it. The jinx effect is merely a by-product of his low self-esteem. At other times, though, he actually seems to get "lucky."

d. Was “Dave” ever a real person?
No - he was always just an imaginary friend, even on the island. But perhaps the island "spoke" to Hurley through this image to which it knew he would respond.

21. Walt (and Michael)
d. Where did Walt and Michael go when they followed Ben’s directions?
Somehow they returned to New York under assumed names (and rather quickly). Michael, wracked with guilt, confessed his killing of Libby and Ana Lucia to Walt, who then refused to talk to him. Walt went to live with his grandmother, and Michael become ineffectually suicidal before being recruited by the Others to spy on Widmore.

e. Did Ben, who never seems to want to let somebody go, actually allow Michael a path off the island?
The Others tracked Michael and recruited him to be their spy and saboteur on Widmore's freighter, by playing off Michael's guilt and convincing him that helping them would redeem him by saving the rest of the survivors.

22. Claire and Aaron
a. How did Claire survive to give birth to Aaron, when all other women since Rousseau have died?
Juliet's theory has been proven - the lethal combination is conception and birth on the island. If either occurs off-island, pregnancy and birth will be as normal as they can be while living in makeshift huts in a jungle or on a beach.

b. Does Aaron have a special property about him other than just surviving birth on the island?
If my one theory is correct, then yes (and this will make him one of the Six).

c. Why were Malkin and, presumably, the couple who wanted Aaron, so intent on getting this specific baby?
If my other theory is correct, it was actually the island making sure that Aaron would be born there.

23. Naomi and Minkowski (and the Other Freighterites)
a. Who does Naomi (and Minkowski, who answered the phone) work for, if not Penny Widmore?
Charles Widmore.

b. Why did Naomi have HALO jump gear while in a helicopter?
Whatever knowledge both Widmore and Farraday had about the island warned them that approaching would be rough. The jump gear was just a precaution (that proved necessary as Naomi's bird went down).

c. Why did Naomi have a picture of Desmond and Penny?
Presumably acquired by Charles Widmore from Penny's nightstand (though how Penny got a copy remains a mystery).

d. If not Desmond or the 815 survivors, what was she looking for?
We've been told Ben, but this seems unlikely to be the whole story.

e. Did Mikhail know whose flair Hurley had shot up?
Yes - the Others were aware that the freighter was sent by Widmore, and who the people on board were.

f. Was her phone, in fact, a futuristic design not available in 2004?
It was a proprietary design with only one use - communication with other similar phones on and off the island (i.e. it won't work to call any other phone in the world).

24. Jack
a. What lie did he tell that has him so distraught after his return to L.A.?
We don't know the whole story, but we do know that the world heard that Kate fished seven other people out of the water following the crash, but only six of them survived to get back to civilization.

e. Why did Jack tell the new Chief of Surgery "Go get my father"?
Typical response of an addict in a stressful situation - making reference to people who have died as though they are still alive.

25. Kate
a. Was she pregnant? With Sawyer’s baby?
No.

b. Boy or girl?
Neither (though she ends up raising Aaron in L.A.).

c. Does the baby know about the sister (Cassidey’s baby)?
Not applicable.

d. Who was the “he” Kate needed to return to? Is it Sawyer, the Floridian sheriff she left at the alter, her son, or someone else?
Aaron.

e. Are she and Jack the only flight 815 survivors to make it back to civilization?
No - they are part of the Oceanic Six, along with Hurley, Sayid, Sun and Aaron.

f. Why wasn't Kate immediately arrested as a fugitive when she arrived back home?
She was - but her mother then refused to testify at trial, and public sympathy over Kate's heroism in the fake Oceanic Six story and her custody over Aaron convinced the D.A. to take a 10-year probation deal.

30. The Black Rock
f. Is Magnus's getting marooned on the island connected with Alvar's knowledge and exploitation of the island through the DHARMA Initiative?
Somehow pirates found the first mate's log and brought it to Madagascar. Eventually, the Hanso family acquired the log, presumably informing them about the island. Widmore then bought the log at auction.

So that's it. In my mind, most of the questions on the June '07 list are not yet answered, and many of the answers discussed above will receive further clarification down the line. After Season 4 concludes, I'll address these questions again, and supplement the list with the additional questions we all know we'll have at that point. So, until I re-rehash the first eight episodes of Season 4 in anticipation of "The Shape of Things to Come" (which will air April 24 at 10, 9 Central), Namaste.

Responses to Reader Comments

It has been a while since I've taken time to respond to some of your comments, but with a five-week hiatus underway, I thought now might just be the time. Some of these go back a ways, so bear with me...

RWSELLY024
This user, who posts under "Libbe" on lostusers.com, is one of my favorite recappers out there. She and I have a back-and-forth habit of reading each others' recaps (only after we post our own) and providing lots of comments. So, a few highlights from Libbe's comments since mid-February, and my responses:

Maybe Abaddon asks Hurley if "they" are still alive, because he had hoped "they" were all dead? In your words Dan, "or not". :)

I'm starting to think that in the next five weeks we will see the O6, and, perhaps Michael, get off the island, but what we will not see is anyone (or most anyone) from the freighter escape. The continuing war between freighterites and Others/815ers will be why Jack thinks he needs to get back. Abaddon's question was therefore in reference to whether his own people were still alive.

Or not :)

And another: " So then why did she show up claiming to have been sent to rescue Desmond? Why even connect Desmond to the island where the 815ers"First I wanted to say GOOD POINT! Like I said before, your really asking good questions here Dan, bravo.I had some points/questions to add to yours...Not only did Naomi claim she was there to rescue Des, but she also sticks her with the story (lie, and she knows it) that 815 was found, and they were all dead...Why bother telling Hurley, who is from flight 815, what she knows is a lie about his plane (and him) being found? It doesn't add up...

My interpretation, for what's it's worth, is that Naomi had enough information to suspect the island was connected with Flight 815, and that the found plane may be a hoax, but not enough to know for sure. This made her skeptical when talking to Abaddon and doubtful when, still delerious, she told Hurley he was supposed to be dead. After all, she warmed to the concept of the people she met on the island being 815 survivors very quickly.

Or she's a seriously evil manipulative bitch. Either way, eh?

One more: "And how does this synch up with Penny having a direct video conference link to the Looking Glass station, and her denial that she owned the freighter from which Naomi and co. arrived on the island?"I personally think that Penny has been trying to contact the island ever since she got the phone call from her men in Antartica (was it Antartica?), via the numbers. However, this does bring up the question: What was she doing, just sitting in front of her computer calling the island over and over again, until Charlie finally answered? Although that is possible, I think maybe it's just another instance of FATE. She was calling at the perfect time...

As we've since learned, Penny doesn't own the freighter...but her father does. This explains Penny's plausible deniability over knowing about the boat and Naomi's ability to have a copy of Penny's picture of her with Desmond (though not how Penny ever got that picture as Desmond had what appeared to be the only copy). As for the timing of her video call to Charlie, the producers have said in a podcast that we should assume Penny had some kind of signal that would let her know that a call would connect. Once Charlie deactivated the jamming, this signal alerted her that it was time to try again. Finally, with respect to the start of Penny's search for the island, we since learned in "The Constant" that it began almost as soon as Desmond disappeared. This is probably why she was already in touch with the arctic researchers. What we don't know yet is why and how Penny learned about the island or came to believe Desmond would be on it (though the clue may be her father's purchase of the Black Rock journal at auction).

I'd also like to add here, that I think it's possible that Penny has stumbled upon some secret info of her father's (during her search for Des) that has helped her along the way.

As we've since learned (and as I said above), I'd see this was pretty prescient of you, Lib.

I'd like to add something that just dawned on me as I was reading your wonderful recap (SEE LUJ, recaps are good!). It hadn't occured to me before, but for some reason all of the F4 (Miles, Dan, Frank) except Charolette are not acting very suprised by the 815ers being alive....Is this somehow another clue that Charolette is Ben's mole?

It may have been a false clue, but as we've since learned (hindsight does make one seem brilliant, doesn't it?) the mole is Michael. But that does not mean we've learned everything there is to know about Charlotte or her background (and why she seemed less than surprised to see a polar bear in a DHARMA collar in Tunisia) by a longshot.

You said: "it was not so much that Ben would not allow anyone off the island. It's more that he would not let Juliet leave.""I agree that this episode helped explain why Ben seemed especially adament about not letting Jules leave the island. However, I don't think it means that anyone else can leave, and he wouldn't care (I dunno if that's what you meant, but that's what it seemed like...). I think that Richard and Ethan were ok to leave the island, because he was sure that they would come back...he trusted their loyality to him (and the island). I'm sure it was the same for whomever the man is that Charles Widmore was beating info out of (and that man working the camera, no doubt). But I know Ben wouldn't be ok with Cindy, Emma, or Zack leaving (for example)...I think that's what he meant when he told Locke:"Most of them were recruited and brought here and as much as they love this place, as much as they would do anything to defend it, they need to know they can leave if they want to. The sub maintains that illusion." AND "They're here because they want to be here. Some of them are just not ready to make a full...commitment yet." So, at some point Ben may trust all "his ppl" enough to let them come and go, but obviously that takes time...

Got nothing to add except valid points. In retrospect, not all of Ben Linus's motivation can be explained by lusting after Juliet. But perhaps just enough that it may prove his weakness. On that end, maybe his turning his attention from island priorities to Juliet priorities is the reason Jacob "allowed" him to get cancer?

Anyway, good call on ["The Other Woman"] shining light on why he would confide in Jules about the Looking Glass station. about why Richard and Tom were questioning him (etc).

It was, wasn't it? :)

Moving on...during what part (when Harper arrives, or when she leaves) did you hear "Sarah"? I've listened to the whispers several times on Darkufo, but I can't hear anything...I'm waiting for someone to decifer them completely...cuz it seems (as usual) they need to be reversed and slowed down.

It was at the arrival. However, on a second viewing, it was not so clear to me. Also, I mistook the significance of the name - Sarah is Jack's ex-wife; Rachel is Juliet's sister; and Sarah Rachel is my daughter. So there you go.

You said: "This was not the "real" Harper, but rather Ben somehow causing her to manifest to communicate with Juliet, much like Yemi, Christian and Kate's horse have manifested in the past."It dawned on me when I read this, that maybe Harper came from the "magic box" that Ben has spoke of...I dunno if you have to be dead in order to be brought through the "magic box", but maybe Harper left the island, or died, and Ben brought her there to do him a favor (maybe she owed him?)...I dunno, just a thought....Dan, something just dawned on me. (as I was re-reading my post, btw sorry I can't spell...)I think when we found out (rather, assumed) that Yemi was the smoke monster, everyone went kinda smoke monster crazy, and started saying that all mysterious beings on the island could be explained by it...but I personally think there's a couple of different explanations for different situations...This applies here...MAYBE Christian appearing to Jack has to do with the "magic box" (which makes me think that you do have to be dead for this scenerio to work)...if Jack really wanted him there, maybe that's why he appears to him from time to time..Althought I suppose it doesn't explain why Hurley can see him...or why (as we learned from the last mobisode) Christian was already walking around and conversing with Vincent before Jack even woke up...I dunno, I still think it's possible...whatta ya think?

Ben has since told Locke that the magic box was but a metaphor, and that there is no real dream-making chamber. On the other hand, Ben is a serial liar. But as we've discussed on lostusers since you posted this comment, the producers have since reported in a podcast that there are differences between manifestations, smoke monster appearances, people really being there (even though they should not be), and, they joked, the undead. As for Christian already walking around before Jack came to, I don't see why unconsciousness would prevent Smokey or the island from "reading" Jack the way it did Eko. Christian, in the mobisode, would seem to have just suddenly been standing there, but even though this was before Jack awoke, it was still after the plane crash, so Smokey could have done his thing by this time. Or not.

In regards to the map Dan and Char had...someone (somewhere on LostUsers.com) mentioned that maybe Dan actually drew up the map himself...with all the "time tripping" (as Joe would say..) that's been going on lately...maybe Dan has gone to the future and drew the map for himself. I dunno if that's even possible, but it would kinda explain why some parts were "unknown".

It would - and given Dan's need for a Constant, you may be right. Still, I hope Lost doesn't have too many people bouncing around in time, or else the no-paradox rule the writers try to stick by will be a tough one.

You said: "So, despite thwarting Ben's doomsday device, Juliet seems to know Ben still has the upper hand in the struggle to come. "How to get to" her clearly was with Harper, who would highlight for Juliet what happens when she chooses anyone or anything over Ben." Good thought Dan-o!

If it isn't obvious already, I'm always willing to reprint gratuitous praise...

Btw, I dun mind Jack and Jules making out...but I do wish Kate would just piss off now. I definitely dun like the idea of there being a "love quadrangle", and unfortunately it seems to be inevitable (since we have seen Kate and Jack together in flashforwards).

Ultimately, I'm just not a "Jater." That's not even a word. I think the "Skater" relationship is much more fun and, while I like the effect Kate has on Jack as a character, I don't like the thought of them together, either.



Mollie D
The official down-under reader-and-poster of this blog has chimed in a few times, as well...

Hey thanks for the shout out!! Yes even us Aussies are hooked on this show.

Given the crucial connection between Australia and the story of Lost, I would certainly hope so!

Usually I read you write-ups after I've watched the ep, but this week i've been super bad and am reading it before the ep, therefore spoiling.

Nooo!!!! Mollie, don't do it! I know how powerful curiosity can be - I stupidly read a summary of "Through the Looking Glass" online before it aired last year, completely ruining Charlie's death and the revelation that we were watching a flash-forward. While I would never discourage anyone from reading this blog (or clicking on the ads!!!), please wait until you've watched an episode before reading the recaps.

Ahh well! So, there goes my theory on the last O6's I thought it would be Sawyer (wishful thinking... but i suppose we still have one to go) and Claire and Aaron (I wasn't counting Aaron as a survivor though, cos you know...he's a baby and he didn't "technically" survive the crash since he wasn't "technically" a person yet...or something???) So Claire didn't get on the plane like Desmond said she would, and therefore my favourite character (Charlie) died for nothing... Or did he? (I'm so holding on to him not "technically" being dead... or something?)

Even Charlie the vision told Hurley he was really dead, so I think you may be out of luck here. Also, though Aussies may not have seen the same promos that get run in the U.S. by the ABC network, I can assure you that Aaron is one of the Oceanic 6 - the promo that ran heading into the hiatus here confirmed that, and the producers vouched for the accuracy of this promo in a podcast. So the Oceanic Six are, in fact, Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sayid, Sun and Aaron.

Clone 56
I've gotten some great comments from a guy named Chris, who recently started posting comments, including the following:

Long time reader of your blog, first time commentie...Currently rewatching series one and i've noted a few things that could be relevant to the series four eps Eggtown and The Constant. Claire's psychics vision of the bad future from "Raised by Another" may now come true as Kate has Aaron and that could be possibly one of the reasons behind the "We have to go back Kate"...

With the psychic, there is a problem - he told Eko he was a complete fraud. And yet, he certainly seemed correct about a few things. Given what we've since learned about the island's ability to affect people who have left it, is it possible that the island also exerted some influence to get certain people to come in the first place? Did it give the psychic his first "real" flash, which did not really indicate Aaron was in danger, but rather that Claire had to board the plane, just so that she (and he) would eventually arrive? For that matter, did the island arrange for Christian's suicide by alcohol to take place in Australia to get Jack and Ana-Lucia on the plane? Or for Sawyer to find the wrong "real" Sawyer so that he'd get himself deported from Australia in time to get on the plane? Or for Shannon's boyfriend to take her to Australia, so that Boone would arrive just in time for the two of them to get on...etc. etc.?

Secondly, in "Whatever the Case My Be" Sayid is decoding the maps from the "French Woman" which make constant use of the numbers... and as you noted these numbers appear extensively in the time travel equations (also 8 appaered in eggtown as the number of survivors named in the official oceanic story) it is therefore not entirely implausible that Rousseau's equations have something to do with time travel. And that when they were shipwreck that they were not there by chance and that like the frieghterites were actually looking for the island because of what it can do... (The were a science experdition after all)

The Valenzetti Equation is not about time travel - it's about calculating the end of the human race. That is the reason why the numbers mattered to the DHARMA initiative. On the other hand, the producers said recently that those numbers had power of some sort since well before the equation was conceived. As for Rousseau, the sickness she described her crew having endured sure sounds a lot like what has been happening on Kahana. On the other hand, her story has some fishiness to it, so I can't wait to see what it really turns out to be.

Also i was rather suprised when re-watching by Charlie's statement in "White Rabbit" when the randomer is drowning "I cant swim!"... Which is backed up in series three as Desmond sees charlie die in the water no fewer than three times... Yet he made it all the way to the Looking Glass without any help whatsoever... the mysteries of the island eh?

Maybe Charlie's statement was just a lie to avoid putting himself out there. He was at that point pre-redeemed, and still jonesing for heroin. On the other hand, the links between Charlie and watery death have certainly been around for a while, eh?

Keep up the good work Chris

And you keep up the good comments ...which you did, below...

If you want to go down the biblical route of explaining the island and how Ben is able to get messages out while still locked in the basement room the how about the Holy Trinity. Father Son and Holy Spirit, otherwise known as Jacob Ben and Smokey.

Although I spent a year and a half in Catholic School when I was young (and living in Hong Kong), as a Jew, I didn't think about the New Testament side of things. But this does have some interesting validity to it.

If you ask me this episode hinted at the idea that over the coming weeks the F4 will disable all of Ben's defences, starting with the Tempest, then maybe the Fence and ending with Miles "ghostbusting" either Smokey or Jacob.

I don't think we know enough yet about Miles' abilities, but it would certainly seem that Jacob and Smokey are both a lot more to contend with than a dead drug dealer harassing his granny.

As for the whispers they are clearly one of the manifestations of the island... They first appeared to Sayid and now Juliet, (i can't remember if there were others in between) so maybe the clue to what persona of the island they are is in the people they chose to appear to?

There have actually been quite a few whisper sessions since Sayid first encountered them in the jungle. The most recent one before Harper's arrival was what Locke heard just before Walt appeared to him in the DHARMA pit. Yesterday's Jeff Jensen column at EW.com a really nifty theory about what the whispers are. You can see that theory over on my spoilers blog (since, if it turns out to be right, I'd hate to unwittingly spoil for you in this space) by clicking here.

And yes i agree with you about the lack of chemistry between Juliet and Jack, although Juliet has irratated me since day one, as have most of the "others", the only exception being Tom...

Don't get me wrong - I love Juliet. She's a great character. I just really don't like Jack for some reason, or think he should be with anyone - Kate, Juliet, or whoever - until he sorts his own sh_t out, you know?

i was quite shocked that he was killed off, he seemed to be the only "good" other! One question though... Why would the others/dharma create a leathal gas and in the same facility a way to make it innert? The ability to do so would not be helpful if the gas was leaked (as Juliet clearly pointed out) so what would be the point? And even so i'm assuming if they used the Tempest to create the gas then they could do so again. So why not destroy the facility instead?Just a thought...

Many critics have pointed out what appeared to be narrative shortcomings with this whole storyline. I'm willing to just accept that this precise mechanism was necessary to move the story the way it had to go. I can't even figure out why a theoretical physcist was the only person properly trained to tell a computer to make a chemical inert - it's kind of like why I don't understand why the SWAT team had to take Nicholas Cage with them in "The Rock." Couldn't he have just said, "you have to be careful with the poison" and stayed home? But as the producers have said in a podcast, the real question should be, why would the hippie DHARMA people have a chemical weapons factory?

Ok... Theories? Miles... It is pretty much taken as written with Ghosts that they are actually the impressions left by strong emotions, so what if Miles doesnt talk to ghosts but can actally pick up these feelings. At the moment Micheal steps onto the frieghter he would be working very hard to maintain his cover, his mind would be on nothing else until the ship left dock, maybe that is what Miles is picking up on?

Don't know if you're right, but it's good an explanation as I've heard. Or...Miles was just being creepy and didn't actually know what he was talking about.

Also (as i am now rewatching season 2) Micheal was given the watch by Jin when they left on the raft, which was why i was shocked when he pawned it, especially for a gun to kill himself with. I also felt that the killing himself bit was more than a little contrived, pretty much a way for the writers to tell us "micheal can't die til he's done his bit" rather than a realistic view of his character's state of mind, becuase lets face it, he'd only told Walt less than a month ago and we all know from Micheal's never ending "I want my son back" flashbacks and post "Other-snatchin" episodes that Micheal does not give up that easily...

You're not the first the point out the apparent weakness in the compressed timeline of Michael's story - Jeff Jensen did so in his column yesterday. But within the constraints of "that happened fast," I can believe that Michael would be willing to pawn Jin's watch to hasten his own death because, if he were really that much in despair, what importance would a gift from Jin hold for him at that point? As for Michael not giving up too easily - he also hadn't in those prior episodes had to deal with the guilt of what he did to save Walt. I think retrospective guilt in his actions is still fully consistent with his decision at the time that those actions were necessary to save his son. And besides, by the time he was suicidal, Walt didn't want to talk to him because of what he had done, so perhaps he just considered Walt permanently lost to him?

Also, when did Tom find the time to sail all the way to New York? As far as i'm aware he was on the island for all of season three, at the end of which he was brutally killed. But i'll check when i get round to re-watching that season.

The only thought I have on this is that sailing was not Tom's mode of transport. I mentioned at some point I think that Ben's immediately summoning Richard back to the island after flight 815 crashed indicated to me that they could get back and forth from the Eastern U.S. much faster than submarine travel alone would seem to allow.

Another question about Miles... Last we saw of him Locke fed him a grenade, yet we never seemed to find out any additional information from that encounter. What did Locke find out from Miles and why was Miles so cooperative?

I don't know about you, Chris, but a grenade in my mouth would be might motivating. As for what Locke found out? I'm thinking it's just what he told the assembled group. Miles did not, after all, deny any of it.

The guy in the coffin in through the looking glass? Sayid! It has to be, it would explain why there was no one at the funeral, who attends the funeral of an assassin?

The assassin's mother? Those he sought to protect by killing others? My money is still on Michael, though we still have a lot to find out before I can be sure.

As for the island being able to extend its influence a long way we already know that from Hurley's flash forward at the start of the series with the apparition of Charlie. However there seems to be little in the way of satisfactory answers as to why and how... i really hope they dont try and explain it as "magic" cos that's almost as bad as "it was all a dream." Maybe, using another biblical anology, it is something like selling your soul to the devil. The island spared the survivors of 815 and now it owns them, no matter how far they run they cannot escape until their purpose is served.

I don't know if we'll ever get a neatly-wrapped answer to this sort of existential question. Part of me hopes we just don't. But as the producers said in a recent podcast, you just can't answer some questions of the "why are some witches born to muggles?" variety to anyone's satisfaction, so there's no reason to try. I say, viva the debate!

Is it just me or is Ben a bit of a liar? He tells micheal that he doesn't kill innocents... Remember Ethan and the i'll kill one every day until i get the baby back bit...? That said i really want to believe that Ben is the good guy he claims to be...

It's not just you. Ben lies all the time. Even before he was "Ben," the man who lied about being "Henry Gale" must have lied to Locke about not pushing the button, since we now know what happens if you don't. But even if Ethan was generally following Ben's wishes, his "I'll kill one every day" strategy was not necessarily endoresed by Ben, and there was some indication last season that Ethan's actions were a bit off the reservation during the Claire incident. But I too want to believe there is some higher justification for Ben's actions. I'm just not sure it will be enough to make him an unambiguously "good" guy.

Finally Rousseau, she isn't dead... I'm fairly sure. Your point about Libby is valid, but if they have promised a flashback to tell her story then it has to be from her point of view, which means she has to survive. The Lost format is only to tell stories from the living...

...and yet we had a Naomi flashback after she was dead enough for Miles to commune with...

Even a Ben flash back couldn't tell us about her ship wreckness or about why her expedition were trying to find the island (i'm sure they were... she has become too promenient a character for her to be there by coincidence.)

I'll not pretend to know either way on this one, but don't brush off coincidence too easily - it certainly seems to occur with some frequency on this show.

Also i agree with the theory that Ben arranged to have them shot...

I'm moving away from the "arranged" and towards the "had knowledge beforehand." I think Ben might have Desmond-like flashes that told him exactly what would happen. Otherwise, there's no way to be sure that Alex would not also get killed by the gunshots (hey, accidents happen, even to the best snipers).

Sorry for the length of the comment... turns out i had more to say than i thought i did...

Story of my life, Chris. Can't shut up a good lostophile once the mojo gets going...

An after thought...So far only men have been allowed to leave the island... Maybe this is all part of Ben's goal to have a sucessful pregnancy on the island? If he lets the women leave maybe he runs the risk of loosing them as they try to escape ther fate on the island? Just a thought...Chris

So far...though we know Kate and Sun will leave. But if Ben's goal is just to let his women have babies, and if Juliet theorized (correctly) that off-island birth was safe, why not just let them women take a birthing trip and then come back?

Razz
I don't think there's a lack of chemistry between Jack and Juliet. For once, I really enjoyed this turn. One of the reasons I briefly stopped watching Lost during the 3rd season was because I was sick and tired with Kate bouncing back and forth from Jack to Sawyer. I know this is a major plot element, but most of the times it's portrayed in a predictable, totally soapy way. Jack and Kate act just the same from season 1 around each other, so the pairing of him and Juliet was refreshing at the very least!As for Annie.. since Charlotte has been again on the island (and kinda looks like Annie) could they be the same person?
and since it's my first time commenting here, congrats for your blog and keep on the good work :)

Thank you, Razz. The mystery of Annie, and the several mysteries of Charlotte, continue to intrigue me. Are they one and the same, or related? It would be pretty cool... See above for my thoughts about Jack.

Carl
long before this episode, i used to think juliet and penny widmore kinda looked like each other... that could make for an interesting storyline.

Talk about cans of worms! Or maybe the casting director just likes blonds of a certain age and sophistication...

Alyss
I have nothing to add to this thorough recap except thanks!

And I have nothing to add to you, Alyss, except you're welcome, and keep on coming back for more!

Meanwhile, Lostophiles, before we return after the April 24th episode, "The Shape of Things to Come," I plan on at least two more posts - one would be a return to my list of questions from the summer, to see what, if any, have been answered (and what new ones have been asked), and the other would be a quick recap of the first 8 episodes of this season so we remember where we are when things start up again.

Namaste!