For the Season 5 finale, the LOST cast rallied and decided to act out the Bible in roughly 84 minutes. Technically, they did it in about 72 minutes, when accounting for the artificially added, twelve-minute gunfight, which I totally don’t remember being in the standard-issue Catholic go-to, King James edition.
Still, it was all very impressive.
My only gripe was not getting to see Ben and John’s rendition of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” which I understand had to be cut for time.
And while that duet would’ve been killer, I’d be grossly remiss if I didn’t state, right here and now, that I am effing thrilled with “The Incident.” I think it was brilliantly executed.
Also, I am totally 100 percent crushing on Jacob.
Wait…was that a blasphemous statement?
Forgive me Father, for I have sinned…

Dear Micro-Me…

Dear Micro-Lyndsey (circa 1987),
I know you hate it. I know you cannot comprehend why your mother inflicts this gnarly-ass extra hour of ‘school’ upon you every Sunday, especially AFTER you’ve been made to sit through that interminable Roman Catholic mass.
Still, I heartily encourage you to pay attention to those seemingly ‘meaningless’ parables that bore you so…
While I am trying to keep your life as ‘spoiler-free’ as possible, I will tell you that one day you’ll have a favorite show in the whole wide world (no, not “Who’s the Boss?”,) and all of this preachy nonsense will suddenly thread itself together and become the genesis of a most awe-inspiringly intricate web of characters and events, which you will come to know as, “LOST…”
This is precisely why you will not regret devoting some time to the tale of Esau and his kid brother Jacob.
Their pals Thomas, Moses and Judas are wicked fun too…
I swear to God (even though we aren’t supposed to,) that it’ll be worth your time.
Trust me on this one; I’m from the future.
Love,
Macro-Lyndsey (circa 2009)

“One of these days, sooner or later, I’m going to find a loophole, my friend.”

Jacob weaves his divine threads of creation, and then catches a super-symbolic salmon to satiate the Original Hunger.
Jacob is joined by Esau a conspicuously unnamed, diametrically-opposed-older-brother-type, on the beach. They converse as The Black Rock approaches from the sea, and it quickly becomes obvious that Jacob and The Other Boleyn Girl the guy who really wants to kill him, seem to have majorly disparate opinions on the whole ‘You-can’t-change-the-future’/‘Oh-yes-I-can!’ debate.

“If I could chhaaaannngggeee the world…” Eric Clapton

Radzinsky thinks consequences are for pussies.
And in spite of his Eric Clapton-inspired eyewear, Stuey is not a pussy.
Far from it, actually.
He’s really a lot like the O.G. badass, Thomas Edison.
And thank Jacob God!
Because, just think of where we would be sans electricity and you know, The Swan Station…

“Yes, I lied. That’s what I do.” Ben Linus

The jig is up.
Ben admits that he’s a total phony and that he’s never seen Jacob. He feels blue.
I’m sure it doesn’t help that just 20 paces to the left, Richard and John swap ‘Super-Special-Island-Guy’ beauty secrets.
Ben feels way left out, as he is neither age-less nor un-dead.
He suddenly wishes he hadn’t been so cavalier with Ethan’s life, because hey, at least Ethan was loyal. Sigh.
But now Ben is loyal.
To his leader… John Locke.
And John Locke decrees that Ben must kill Jacob.
Because he said so. And actually, he’s doing Ben a favor.
Just as Ben did for Locke when he delivered Anthony Cooper to John for retribution…
Though, thinking back, that didn’t really go so well, did it?

Even God Changed His Mind on Occasion…

Richard attempts to enroll Jack in some ‘John-Locke-Ain’t-All-That’ trash talk, for which Jack is traditionally totally game.
However, recently, Jack’s had a change of heart re: Crazy-Leg-John.
He’s developed a soft spot for the guy and his ‘Destiny’ mumbo-jumbo.
He encourages Richard not to ‘count John out’ just yet.
Because John is his disciple or apostle or whatever.
Awesome.
*The preceding ‘awesome’ was a retrospective, sarcastic ‘awesome,’ brought to you from the future. This ‘awesome’ is a Variable and was derived from the end of the episode. If things had gone differently, I’d not have added that bit of sarcasm, as it would not exist. Or would it? *
Juliet also changes her mind.
And hey, even though Juliet is not God or even Jack, it’s still her prerogative and she’ll do what she wants to do.
So she stages a flashy ‘Coup d’Sub’ and heads back to the Island to live together , die alone save the Others.
And also to escape Sawyer’s moony-eyed ‘Kate-looks.’
Which was sad, because I for one totally got sucked into all the “Blondie” and “I love you, back,” Suliet stuff. Which I’d resisted. For a long while.
As the French say, “Que Sera, Sera…”

“I’m sorry that this happened to you…” Jacob

Jacob bops around spreading his divinity and touching his ‘chosen ones.’
Please note that Juliet was not ‘touched.’
Except for by Sawyer, who is pretty effing divine himself, so I would’ve called it a wash, except for the fact that Sawyer is not actually God, Jesus, Jacob or any other savior. Turns out that sheer physical beauty and hella quick wit, do not a deity make.
Also, the presence of Jules’ red t-shirt (never a good color choice in a finale sitch) just didn’t bode well…

“We hide in plain sight” Sayid

So Ellie is ‘in charge’…
Even though Richard claimed (in “Whatever Happened, Happened”) that he does not answer to Ellie or Charles. Still, upon performing the now-famous “LOST-gun-to-the-back-of-the-head-knockout,” he declares that he did it to protect his leader, Ellie. He sends Jack and Sayid into the wild (a.k.a.- alarms blazing, almost-Incident-ridden Camp o’ The Others.)
Sayid, feeling fortified by his discovery of Horace’s ‘mathematician’ jumpsuit, does some quick calculations and remembers that the quickest way to get from point A to point B is via straight line, and suggests that he and Jack make their way directly through the fracas. Sadly, Uncle Rico is still all angsty toward ‘the Hostile who shot his kid,’ and he promptly shoots Sayid in the stomach.
Hey, an ‘eye for an eye’ or a ‘stomach for a stomach,’ you know?
Once again, Hurls and his mystery ship Dharma van, arrive just in time to scoop Jack and Co. up, and expediently transport them far away from “The Battle at Dharma-ville.”

“It’s always something with you people” Rose

Post-‘Great Sub Escape,’ Sawyer, Kate and Juliet paddle furiously toward the Island.
Kate and Sawyer share a moment. Juliet cries on the inside.
Once they arrive on the beach, Juliet and Kate share a moment and have a laugh about all those times they bitch-slapped one another.
That was their internal dialogue anyway…
Suddenly, Demon Dog Vincent makes an appearance, which prompts the much-anticipated re-appearance of Earth Mother Rose and Scraggly Beard Bernard.
Bernard has clearly spent the last 3 years enjoying the herbal offerings of the mysterious Jungle and dancing naked in the moonlight with his beloved.
Island ‘retirement’ has been good for the Phil Collins (a.k.a.- Genesis) fans, and they care not at all to shoot people and save lives and stress out over shit like, saving the universe, man…
They point ‘Team Stop-Jack’ toward the barracks and bid them adeiu.
But not before Bernie asks Jules to stay for the weekend, and invites her to enjoy a spot of the delicious magic mushroom tea he’s concocted.
She seems momentarily tempted, but instead opts to forge on with her love and his love.

“In my experience, the people who go out of their way to tell you they are the good guys are the bad guys.” Frank J. Lapidus

Massively good call, Frank.
Call me a cynic, but I’ve gotta agree that the truly good, authentic people in life, tend not to harp on said ‘goodness.’.
Still, Frank (the ‘Candidate’) joins Team Ilana (against his will) and immediately wishes that he hadn’t been given access to ‘Locke-in-a-box.’
Especially after his new ‘friends’ start burning and looting…
Frank may be a helluva pilot, but has no experience with extinguishing forest fires.
He’s also not down with the whole ***“And the enemies set fire to the house of God, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burnt all the towers, and whatsoever was precious they destroyed,” nonsense. ***(2 Chronicles 36:19)

“I don’t speak Destiny” Sawyer

Team Destiny runs into an issue, in the form of Team Free-Will.
It’s all so ‘Hatfield’s vs. McCoy’s’…
Just as Jack and John had once done, Sawyer and Jack settle in for  ‘5-Minutes-Tops’ leader talk.
Sawyer channels Churchill and requests that Jack pull up a tree stump, so they might speak like gentlemen. Jack refuses. Sawyer insists. Jack obliges.
This is already going better than ‘Locke-Talk ‘05’

Sawyer spills his tragic tale to Jack and concludes that even though he knew that he’d have been able to prevent his tragedy, he’d decided not to. Because what’s done is done (read: ‘Whatever Happened, Happened’.)
He asks Jack what he wants…because “a man always does what he does because he wants something for himself.”
Jack admits that he’d wanted Kate. And he’d had what he’d wanted.
But now it was too late to get her back, so he’d rather change the course of the entire Universe, in hopes that he might ‘Eternal Sunshine-ize’ his mind and heart.
This is clearly the logical thing to do, as Jack is obviously not a fan of the ol’ “get over it and move on,” school of thought.
Sawyer sees that Jack is pretty solid in his decision to nuke the Island, so he takes the opportunity to kick Jack’s ass. And groin. Which I can imagine was no picnic for Jack.
Juliet saunters in, just in time to save Jack from Sawyer’s years of pent-up aggression.
Jack slips away during Jules announcement that she’s defecting from Team Stop-Jack.
Though Sawyer was the heavy favorite in his scuffle with Jack, Juliet turns the tables and easily decimates Sawyer when she spits the reason behind her sudden ‘change of mind.’
It seems she and Jack are now on a common mission… to avoid losing the ones they loved and skip the heartbreak altogether, by never encountering them in the first place.

Same Line…Different Time

*Radzinsky learns that the ‘Hostiles’ will soon descend upon the site of the future Swan Station. He commands Phil to fortify the perimeter so that “when they get here, we’ll be ready for them,” which is exactly what Jack said when Karl informed the 815-ers that the Others were coming “NOW!” back in S3’s “Greatest Hits.”

* Kate wipes the blood from Jack’s head wound and they discuss how it ‘feels like a million years ago’ that she first stitched Jack up in the Jungle.

A similar line was uttered in S3’s “There’s No Place Like Home,” as the two waited for the ‘rescue’ helicopter. That time it was Jack who commented, “It feels like a hundred years ago that we first came out here.”

Shortly thereafter Jack repeats his favorite convince-Kate line, “Are you with me?”

And just like that, Kate is magically re-enrolled on Team Destiny.

Back at the van, Sayid gets weaker and Jack promises him that ‘this will work’ and Sayid will be saved. Sayid disagrees, claiming, “Nothing can save me.”
Jack stomps off to prove him wrong, and throws some metaphorical salt in Sawyer’s gaping wound as they pass in the Jungle, by promising to “See him in Los Angeles.”

“So maybe the best thing to do is nothing? I’m glad you all thought this through.” Miles

Miles suggests that maybe “The Incident” was always Jack setting off the nuke, and that perhaps everyone needs to just, like, let everything run its course. Clearly Miles has NEVER MET EVEN ONE OF THESE PEOPLE.
Jules vetoes the ‘sitting still’ plan and Team Help-Jack, head for The Swan.

“This Don’t Look like LAX” Sawyer

Phil spies Jack and another madcap shoot-out begins. The ‘Van that Dharma Built’ once again squeals into town, in just the knick of time. Sawyer saves Jack by taking Phil hostage… which  seemed like a way ill-conceived plan, right from the start.
I mean, seriously?
PHIL?
I’m a loyalist and all, but were I as hell bent on ‘changing the world’ as Radzinsky seemed, the sacrifice of that woman-beater Phil, would be the least of my concerns…

Still, Sawyer’s gun-to-head-of-Unibrow tactic seems to have worked, and after his trademark “5 second pause for fear,” Jack drops the bomb.
And we wait. And wait. And wait…
And then we collectively realize that perhaps in his weakened condition, Sayid’s
‘re-jiggering’ of the bomb, so that it detonates on impact, may have gone awry.
But before any brilliant new plans can be hatched, that crazy magnetic force that Alvarez got caught up in, unleashes itself times a bazillion, causing major issues. And while it was gratifying to see un-Radzinsky and his entire Jeep of cronies get sucked into the vortex, as well as watch Phil become the victim of “flaming-arrows-2.0” better known as “metal rods through the chest,” what happened next broke my wretched heart.
And I cried.
And so did you.
Deny it if you must, but Sawyer fighting for Juliet’s doomed life was phenomenal.
And gut-wrenchingly poetic. And, in my mind, maybe the saddest goodbye on LOST…ever (don’t maul me Charlie-lovers…it’s an opinion.)

“I’m the same man I’ve always been” John Locke

I am totally not a gloater, but I would now like to gently point out how totally ‘un-Locke’ S5 John Locke really is. Was. Whatever.
John and Co. arrive at the statue and he promptly gets snippy with Richard regarding why they’ve stopped. Rich-y totally faces John when he tells him that they’ve stopped because they’ve arrived.
John proceeds to get all lippy with Richard and accuse him of “making up rules,” after he suggests that Jacob would prefer to speak ONLY to the leader…
And that only one leader is allowed on the Island at a time.
This causes John to play his “But-I’m-the-leader-and-what-I-say-goes” card for the 90th time in the past three episodes.
Ben and John proceed into Jacob’s lair…

“I’m a Pisces” Ben Linus

Benjamin Linus is a Pisces. Jacob Jesus was also said to be a Pisces.
The symbol of Pisces? Why, a fish of course.
Just like the symbol of Jesus, which somehow reminds me of the fish Jacob filleted on that rock, all those years ago. Fun.
Other notable Pisces?

Bobby Fischer- Chess Genius. Ben also likes chess…
Maurice Ravel- Composer and Famed Concert Pianist. Ben enjoys the piano…
Albert Einstein- Scientist- concocted some theory about time being relative. Tres’ Ben…

And last but totally un-least:
Linus Pauling- Scientist and peace activist
Pauling was born in Portland, Oregon. Just like Ben…

According to Wikipedia:

*During the Second World War, Pauling worked on military research and development. However, when the war ended he became particularly concerned about the further development and possible use of atomic weapons and with the destruction inflicted on the world by war in general.”
* In 1946, he joined the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, chaired by Albert Einstein.
*In 1962, Pauling was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his campaign against above ground nuclear testing. His beliefs were not without controversy at the time and he was criticized by some for his actions.
* Linus Pauling died of cancer.
* Benjamin Linus had cancer as well, but our Linus also had Jack…

I wouldn’t dare to attempt to connect all of the above with the Benjamin Linus we saw last night, but I like the connections that might be drawn in terms of Ben actually being a ‘good guy’. I’ve clung to this hope that Ben really has a genuine love for something other than Ben, and that he was simply protecting that thing, by any means necessary.
The Ben we saw last night was the pretty much the anti-Ben.
We saw a complete character 180 and it was wholly powerful.
Pre-finale-Ben totally hinged on the idea that he was special.
That he was chosen.
That he was a leader.
And now he thinks that he was merely a pawn…

And he is spinning.

“NO EFFING WAY!” Collective viewer outcry post ‘Locke-in-the-box’ reveal

Ilana and crew arrive at the statue for a quick show-and-tell with Richard starring the corpse of ‘John Locke 1.0.’
Sun was already craving a stiff drink and this revelation only serves to stoke that desire.

“What about me?” Benjamin Linus

Jacob and Not-Exactly-John exchange not-so-pleasantries.
Jacob acknowledges that Non-John has found his ‘loophole,’ and then he addresses Ben.
Ben is fired up, vengeful, and ready to scrap.
He makes a stirring speech about ‘always doing what he was told and continually being ignored.’
He is a man spurned and he is done with doing as he’s been instructed…
He asks what was wrong with him.
“What about me?” he yells
Jacob calmly sneers, “What about you?”
Ben replies by stabbing Jacob…exactly as he’d been instructed to.
Ahhh Bartleby. Ahhh Humanity.

With his last, dying breath, Jacob warns Non-John that “they are coming.”
Non-John tosses Jacob into the hell-fire and watches him burn.

But here’s the kicker…Jacob totally goads Ben into killing him.

He was dealing with an emotional madman and instead of giving him the ‘choice,’ as he’d always done (even if it was a manipulative, faux-choice) he made sure that Ben would snap. He needed Ben to kill him.
Exactly as he always had. Exactly as he was meant to. So that everything would be ‘Constant.’
But then Juliet got her hands on the bomb…

The Last and Final Sacrifice

Juliet finds herself up close and personal with that dang faulty bomb.
She makes her final sacrifice. Her final choice. And she chooses ‘faith.’
She detonates the bomb. And she changes everything.
White screen… blank slate…Tabula Rasa.
The ‘black’ had been written. The ‘black’ had been the Constant.
The white is still un-written…it’s the Variable in the truest sense.
Juliet was the Variable.
She was never ‘touched’ by Jacob.
No one knows anything from here forth.
And though, according to Jacob, there is but ‘one ending,’ we are left to wonder if this particular brand of ‘progress’ is big enough to change all of that?

A New Thought for a New Day

We are all familiar with the story of Jesus and his Judas.
The widely accepted version of the tale dictates that Judas betrayed Jesus by delivering him to the Romans.
But what if that weren’t exactly the case?
According to the ‘Gospel of Judas’, Judas and Jesus struck a deal whereby Judas would deliver Jesus to the Romans so that Jesus could carry out his duty to God.
This ancient scroll was written in the 2nd century AD,  and described the story of Jesus’ death from the viewpoint of Judas.
“Where was this thing discovered?” you ask…
Beni Masah, Egypt.
During the 1970’s.
In a leather-bound Coptic papyrus (probably just like the journal that Daniel carried…)

I am not necessarily saying that Ben IS Judas.
In fact, in addition to his Judas-y characteristics, Ben is a fun Moses, Thomas, Andrew hybrid.
Along with a slew of others, I’m sure.
In the end, I think that drawing direct parallels to the Bible is a bit of a cop-out, but I do think there is merit in some of the conclusions that might be drawn through consideration of these possibilities.

I’m also liking the idea that Jacob may actually be Aaron.
Yes, I know that I have previously shunned this notion, but what if he were?
And what if (as Miles pointed out) the future has already happened and essentially becomes the past, thus the actual ‘timeline’ (1954, 1977, 2007,) would matter not at all?
Because its all ‘past’…
What if the ‘Esau’ figure isn’t actually a brother at all?
Might he be anOther?
Might he be a version of Ben or Jack or Christian or someone else entirely?
Food for thought…

Just Asking/ Saying…

* Simon was the father of Judas. ‘Simon’s Butcher Shop’ served as Benny’s ‘dead-Locke storage,’ as he attempted to gather the O6.
* Ben could not kill Widmore, just as ‘Esau’ could not kill Jacob.
Do the players change, but the rules remain constant?

* Both John and Ben have Mother’s named Emily. Neither John nor Ben appears to be as ‘special’ as they’d hoped. Might John and Ben represent ‘twins?’ Warring brothers? Duality? Cain and Abel?
* The still-intact statue holds an ankh.
* Jacob physically touches each 815 survivor that he ‘chooses.’
* What’s Frank’s story? Why him?
* Nadia is killed in the same over-the-top, way-fake looking manner that Juliet’s ex-husband was.
* John Locke ‘never should have survived’ his eight-story window tumble.
Seems as though he may not have. Good thing Jacob was hanging around…
* Jin wrote out his wedding vows (as did Jack’s ex, Sarah). Sun wings it (a la Jack)
* Christian always believed in Jack. But, it seems Jack may not have always believed in Jack.
* Hurley is discharged from jail. Against his will.
* Ever the easy mark, Hurls believes it was really his ‘choice’ to get on Flight 316.
* The knife Ben uses to kill Jacob is the knife that John ‘chose’ as the thing that was ‘already his,’ when Richard visited him as a child.
* The music playing behind Ben’s maniacal stabbing of Jacob is a total ode to “Psycho”
* Jacob ‘makes the thread’ (of life) by hand. He spins his own silk.
This totally brings me back to S1’s “The Moth.”
In that episode, Locke attempts to save Charlie from relapse by explaining the mysterious nature of struggle.

Locke: Come here. Let me show you something. What do you suppose is in that cocoon, Charlie?
Charlie: I don’t know. A butterfly, I guess.
Locke: No, it’s much more beautiful than that. That’s a moth cocoon. It’s ironic. Butterflies get all the attention. But moths, they spin silk. They’re stronger, faster…
Charlie: That’s wonderful, but…
Locke: You see this little hole? This moth’s just about to emerge. It’s in there right now, struggling. It’s digging its way through the thick hide of the cocoon. Now, I could help it. Take my knife, gently widen the opening, and the moth would be free. But it would be too weak to survive. The struggle is nature’s way of strengthening it.

Could John be the real ‘Judas’?
Could he be supporting the ‘true’ leader’s strength by forcing his (or her) struggle?

“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.” Albert Einstein

Super-Duper Brief Recap

Season 5 Episode 16 “Follow the Leader”- Ellie kills her future son and then invites Jack and Kate back to her tent for tea explanations.
Jack wants to play with Jughead; an activity that Kate wants no part of. They fight.
John, Richard and Ben re-unite. They make an odd trio.
Sawyer protects Kate and is brutally beaten by Radzinsky.
Phil proves that he really is the son of a motherless goat, when he hits Juliet.
It’s disgusting.
Miles gets closure on his Daddy issues.
Team Jack and Team Ellie merge to create Team Destiny, forcing Kate to strike out on her own and form Team Free-Will.

The Island Really IS in a Time Loop

Author’s Note: I’m in Hawaii. I will be here for a long time to come. I was unreasonably stoked to watch “Follow the Leader” and next week’s “The Incident,” in the land where the show is shot (okay, I’m on Maui, but the idea is there…)
I waited all day, forcing myself to avoid the Internet during the interminable six hours between the East coast airing and the Hawaiian airing…
Finally, at 8:56pm, I turn on the television, flip to ABC and see… Juliet and Sawyer.
On a submarine. And she is asking him ‘what they will do when they get to Ann Arbor.’

And my heart breaks. Apparently, one must never take for granted that LOST airs at 9pm everywhere on Earth. It does not.
My record totally skipped and my only consolation is that at least this nonsense didn’t happen during the finale.

As an aside, my Sirius Satellite Radio does not work here due to ‘poor signal quality,’ so I am currently seeking volunteers to help triangulate a signal and get that beast transmitting. Just saying….
Alas, here is my belated take on “Follow the Leader…”

“Take Me to Your Leader…Whoever the Hell He or She May Be…”

Post-tragic-Daniel-death, Kate and Jack hide like ‘rats’ in the Jungle and argue.
Jack wants to charge the camp and save Daniel; Kate thinks this is a really bad plan.
Jack preaches the merits of blank slate.
Otherwise known as ‘Tabula Rasa.’
Kate preaches the virtue of the experience.
Otherwise known as ‘Kate-is-sad-that-Jack-wishes-they’d-never-met.’
Jack doesn’t give a hoot.
The argument is unceremoniously ended when Widmore clocks Jack in the head with his gun resulting in the capture of K&J.
Ellie and Charles have a lover’s quarrel, which Richard wisely attributes to the fact that love is ‘complicated.’
Thank God we have Richard on board as the resident Island consigliore, because that ‘love is complicated’ stuff was a total gem and not at all obvious.
Anyway, Ellie wins the argument and Jack and Kate are untied.
They retire to Ellie’s tent for bourbon and cigars and re-join their Jungle disagreement, already in progress.

“And the Beat Goes On…” Sonny and Cher

Radzinsky beats Sawyer in vain attempt to acquire intel re: Kate’s whereabouts.
Sawyer ain’t playin’; which seems more than a mite vexing to Juliet.
Horace proves to be a super shitty leader and also a massive wuss, when he bitches out in the face of Radzinsky and Phil’s collective fists of fury.

Once an 815-er…

Jack done taught Hurley well.
Miles and Jin send Hurls to the Barracks to collect rations to sustain them at the beach.
Hurley believes that they are about to embark on ‘Operation Save Suliet,’ and is quick to remind his cohorts that Sawyer would never leave them behind.
This turns out to be a false statement.
Still, Hurley was clearly trained in the ‘No man left behind,’ ‘live together, die alone’ school of Island survival, and he cannot help but return to his roots when the going gets tough.

Dr. Chang: So you fought in the Korean War? Hurley: There’s no such thing.

Best. Hurley. Dialogue.
Maybe ever…
The interrogation scene, between Dr. Chang (trying to get Hurls to admit that they are from the future) and Hurley (denying this balderdash,) was brilliant.
It was classic, loveable Hurls.
After admitting that they are indeed from the future (which finally seems to be the ‘get out of jail free’ card it was always meant to be,) Miles and Pierre share a completely unremarkable moment of  ‘Oh, so yeah… we are related…’
In their defense, I guess the imminent cataclysmic event on the cusp of occurrence, could be regarded as something of a buzz-kill.
Miles vouches for Danny’s pristine ‘time-related-event’ accuracy record, and P.F. Chang orders the evacuation of the Island.
Right on schedule.

Speaking of ‘Right on Schedule…’

Three years after his hasty departure, John waltzes back to the Others camp toting a massive boar and a brand new attitude.
Richard acknowledges the latter and John credits the change to ‘having a purpose.’
Ben appears not to be so lucky.
He is battered, bruised, and (thanks to Smokey) forced to follow Locke around like, well…like Locke is the leader.
Witty repartee between John and Ben ensues but ends quickly due to time constraints.
John Locke is on a mission. And Ben and Richard live but to serve him.
Praise ye fearless leader…
The incongruous trio head toward the Beech craft so that John can walk Richard through saving him, which he does… exactly as he should. Or did. Or will. Or always has.

“In this journey, you’re the journal, I’m the journalist. Am I eternal or an eternalist?” Eric B & Rakim

This episode focuses on leaders and such, and in following that theme, I must state my open concern for the current condition of the D.I. hierarchy.
First, Radzinsky wrests control from Horace as he and his bitch-boy Phil, commence training for a future in the UFC all over Sawyer and Juliet’s faces.
Then Chang, whom I’d assumed was an upper-echelon Dharma-guy, also allows his authority to be wholly mitigated by the Swan-architect-turned-terrorist, Radzinsky.
This entire thing is way disturbing and though the D.I. is in an understandable state of turmoil, why is Radzinsky suddenly the go-to guy?
I blame this egregious leadership failure on the Republicans.
I’m not sure why precisely, but blaming the GOP seems super-effective these days; thus I shall take the cue from my leaders and follow suit…

“Then away he’ll schlep on his elephant Shep while Fella and Ursula stay in step” George of the Jungle

Kate’s totally over the merger of Team Jack with Team Ellie.
She decides she’d rather leave on her own, than swim into bomb-laden tunnels with ‘Team Destiny.’
Sadly, this is simply not in the cards, as Ellie feels she’s already said too much in front of her new ‘friends.’ Just as some heathen named Erik, cocks his rifle in Kate’s direction, two shots ring out and Erik keels over. Sayid, doing his best George of the Jungle impression, emerges from the foliage.
Ahhhhhhhh! Watch out for that tree!

“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”

Kate remains steadfast in her belief that while arson is sometimes excusable, detonating bombs and shooting children is never okay.
Jack pleads ‘innocent by reason of destiny.’
Kate equates him with that other crazy F.O.D. (Friend of Destiny), John Locke.
She vows to stop him and runs off to gather the rest of ‘their people.’
She hopes they’ll have her back…

Speaking of Having Someone’s Back…

Sawyer has Juliet’s. And he tells her so.
Juliet loves Sawyer. She tells him so.
He loves her back… which he openly states.
There is so much communication happening here that I almost forgot that I was watching LOST.
Until Kate falls down the rabbit hole steps through the submarine hatch.
Then I remembered…
And so did Sawyer.
And so did Juliet.

Ben Sawyer Always Has a Plan…

In this case, the plan is to run far, far away from Ann Arbor and use his future-knowledge to pick stocks and bet big on sporting events.
That sounds just like what Widmore did to make his fortune…
Still, something tells me Suliet may never make it Ann Arbor, let alone their local O.T.B. facility.

“You’ll find he is a whiz of a Wiz! If ever a Wiz! there was…”

John gathers his people and makes a Jack-style speech about not blindly believing in that which we cannot see (read: Jacob).
He tells them that he intends to unmask the wizard (read: Jacob).
He also intends to kill the wizard (read: Jacob), but he (wisely) doesn’t mention that fact to his people…
And on his ‘people…’
I couldn’t help but notice that Richard seemed just a smidge condescending towards John and his ‘new leader-whims,’ throughout this episode.
He seemed to be placating John the Baptist.
It’s almost as though Richard is allowing John to believe he is the actual leader while in reality, he is merely paving the way for Jack , the true prodigal son.
Just thinking aloud…

“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” Theodore Roosevelt

Season 5 Episode 14 “The Variable”- Desmond fights for his life and Mrs. Hawking haunts Penny in the hospital waiting room. Hawking is appalled at the erroneous notion that Benny is her son. Still, we may soon find out that she does have a child named Penny. Daniel inspires the return of Sawyer’s cute nicknames, such as “Twitchy” and “H.G. Wells.” According to Miles, Daniel is crazy on a ‘whole new level now,’ which he seems to prove by crying throughout 76 percent of his episode…just like Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five. Sometimes, being ‘un-stuck in time’ is completely un-awesome.

One Night in 1977…

Daniel has been hunkered down in Ann Arbor re-reading his journal and playing with numbers, coordinates and such, but returns to the Island to shake things up a bit.
He drops in with a solid four hours to spare before the, um…Incident.
Daniel thinks Jack is still in charge and storms his cabin, only to find out that he is wrong and Jack is not at all in charge, but that he is quite sleepy.
Daniel then reveals his Mommy issues.
He tells Jack that he’s heard his mother’s whole “destiny” schpiel before, and that all of this “meant to be back on the Island” stuff she’s been spewing, is bunk…

Jack wishes he were still asleep, dreaming of ‘something nice back home…’

The Scientist and The Video Star

Well, that clarifies that…
Daniel runs off to The Orchid with Miles in tow, and suddenly that bizarre-o scene from the S5 premiere is played out allover again, but this time, in far more comprehensible fashion.
Pierre and Daniel face-off, and Daniel instructs Pierre to immediately evacuate the Island.
He warns of the impending Incident
Pierre is super doubtful, which prompts Danny to offer up the fact that he’s ‘from the future.’
Seriously, when are we going to understand that positing this notion really gets us nowhere and also corroborates the idea that we actually are certifiably insane and should be delivered to the torturer dude in the tent, poste-haste?
In a wld turn of events (insert sarcasm here,) the “I’m a time traveler” nonsense fails to impress, Daniel tells Chang that Miles is his son; a charge which Miles promptly denies. When Daniel gets cagey with any real explanations other than, “he’s Chinese and his name is Miles,” Pierre is officially done with Daniel.
WTF, Miles? Why’d you do Danny dirty like that?

“There is a time for departure even when there’s no certain place to go.” Tennessee Williams

Daniel is a gifted pianist with a hell of a memory, but Mama Ellie is obsessed with nurturing Daniel’s ‘real’ gifts and assisting him in fulfilling his destiny. She believes that there is simply not ‘time’ to properly cultivate both, so she unceremoniously bans the piano and sets about seeing to it that destiny has Danny’s undivided attention. Daniel is displeased.
He believes that he can “make time.” Uh-huh…

There’s a Monster in the Closet…

Phil reminds me of one of those people in high school who soooo wanted to hang with the popular kids, but the first time someone cut class or lit a cigarette in the bathroom, he’d run off and promptly alert the powers that be…
Phil should be so lucky…
See, in Phil’s case, he gets his ass beat by the popular kid and his girlfriend, and then finds himself bound and gagged in a closet. He doesn’t quite make it to the authorities.
This totally sucks for Phil.
Needless to say, Sawyer is too busy dealing with Unibrow (who is still harbouring the illicit footage from the Deliverance of Baby-Ben) to be uber-concerned with the return of Boy Wonder, Daniel.
However, when Daniel busts in on the mini-Town Hall meeting Sawyer is conducting, and insists that he needs to find the Others, because Ellie is the “only person who can get them back to where they are supposed to be,” Sawyer is suddenly forced to reckon not only with Whiz Kid, but with Jack, too.
Oh yes, Jack is most certainly back.

“Letting all the people know, that I’m back to run the show” Mark Morrison “Return of the Mack”

Sorry for the obscure, mid-90’s, one hit wonder musical reference, but seriously, Daniel seems to have reminded Jack how good it feels for people to look to him for answers. Jack is so over living in the shadow of Sawyer’s statue.
Really, Jack couldn’t just eat waffles and janitor-ize forever. He’s a leader, dammit!
Indeed, the moment Daniel starts preaching about finding the Hostiles/ Others, Jack’s all in. He’s jonesing for adventure.
He turns to Kate for back up and attaches himself firmly to her Achilles heel (that whole Aaron debacle,) and suggests that whatever she came back for is probably ‘out there’ rather than here, in 1977. Sawyer suddenly gets all nervous that “Freckles” may be itching for a romp with Jack through the Jungle and asks her to come with them.
Juliet can imagine nothing worse than losing another man to our fickle freckled friend, and promptly tells Kate the code to the sonic gamma-ray fence and instructs she and Jack to buzz off.
They do.
But not before Daniel goes all creepy-pedophile on young-Charlotte, who reiterates that she’s not allowed to have chocolate before dinner. This is not new news, as she mentioned it just before succumbing to the final flash through time, but it’s nice to see that those seemingly nonsensical ramblings weren’t all for naught.
He turns on the water works again, scaring the beejeezsus out of mini-Charlotte, and makes her promise to leave the Island when Dr. Chang instructs them to get on the submarine.
He then dashes off to meet his homies at the motor pool locker, just in time to reenact the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
I have so missed the gunfights of earlier seasons.
Don’t get me wrong, poison darts are rad, but sometimes a good old-fashioned showdown with guns and ammo just feels necessary. Plus, Radzinsky is so irksome to me, that I encourage any and all encounters between he and deadly weapons. That was mean. Sorry.
Danny takes a bullet to the neck (just a flesh wound) and the Three Amigos take off in the Jeep.

Mummy and Daddy Dearest…

I once read that Tiger Woods father was very ‘anti-relationship’ for the bulk of his prodigal son’s life. He believed that Tiger would lose focus and never reach his full potential if he got involved with some hussy a lady-friend.
Based on Eloise’s reaction to Theresa, I’d say she also subscribes to this ideal.
Daniel has wild hair and is totally channeling Teen Wolf as he eats a tense lunch with Ellie, who actually shows some emotion and is visibly shaken when Daniel throws in his “Widmore is my benefactor” revelation. She gives Danny that dang journal he’s always writing in, and then runs off to make destiny happen, elsewhere.
Flash forward to the continuation of our first-ever Daniel Faraday encounter back in S4’s “Confirmed Dead.” This time we witness Charles Widmore (and Faraday father,) visiting an emotionally distraught Daniel and copping to that whole gnarly “I put that faux plane on the ocean floor,” situation. This seems rather bold on Widmore’s part, but he assures us that it’s cool because Daniel won’t remember any of this tomorrow. He then promises all kinds of soul healing and answers to Danny’s myriad questions, if he accepts this new opportunity and agrees to explore the Majickal Island. Something about Widmore’s tone and the nature of these promises is super-reminiscent of Bram’s ill-advised method of appealing to Miles, when he attempts to draft him onto Team Ilanna.
Still, this tactic proves oodles more successful with Daniel, for it only takes a slight bit of coercion from Eloise, and Daniel dries his tears, tucks away his feelings of ineptitude, and hops aboard the Kahana. Destiny calls…

“We’re Off to See the Wizard…”

Jack fixes Danny and Kate fixes the fence.
Daniel has some fun with repetition, and he hits Jack with Miles old “any one of us can die,” line.
Meanwhile, Radzinski gets Jules and Sawyer in compromising positions, but totally not the fun kind…
Back at the Jeep, Daniel explains that the Incident, or the first link in the chain of events that will eventually bring 815 to the Island, is about to happen. The past is about to start becoming an inevitable future. In about 4 hours…
Jack and Kate think longingly back to a space in time when baby thievery was their biggest worry. Jack even (momentarily) misses John Locke.
This is when Daniel verbalizes that he’s had an epiphany. That he’s been so focused on the idea of “constants” that he’d disregarded the “variables.” Danny is done with the Gospel according to Eloise, and is over this antiquated Destiny nonsense. Faraday is suddenly pro-free will and he believes that destiny CAN be changed!  He claims they have the power to switch the course of events and the 815 may land as planned, in Los Angeles.
Oh Dear.

Will Kate and Jack et al, want to change everything? Will they be tempted to re-do the whole thing and go on as ‘normal’? Never meeting? Never knowing? Could that be? Or would they maybe change the course of history up until a certain pont, but never leave the Island? Would it be too late by then? Sorry for the barrage of questions, but this is exactly what was occurring in my head as we went to commercial break and my partners in LOST-viewing, debate the merits of the entire series finale ending with the plane landing in LA right on schedule, and everyone walking away to fulfill their other realities. Their alterna-destinies, or whatever…
My cohorts think it’s sort of interesting, but I wholly disagree.
I intensely dislike this idea…I hate it, even.

Dear Darlton…

Dear Darlton,
NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!
Please, this proverbial “snow globe” shit didn’t work for St. Elsewhere; it will most certainly NOT work for LOST! It’s too much for the human soul to handle; this attaching oneself to fictitious characters for years, only to be rewarded with the whole darn thing never taking place at all.
No way. Please don’t let it go there…

Love, Lyndsey

It’s All So Parent Trap…

Okay, before everyone gets all hot and bothered about my “Eloise could be Penny’s mother” idea, yes, I am aware that Ben specifically charged that Charles “had a child with an outsider,” and that this was part of the reason he was banished from the Island. And no, Ellie is not an outsider. However…
A) Since when is Ben’s word bond?
B) Maybe Ellie and Charles split the kids, each agreeing to raise one and not speak of or to the other (hey, that’s what happened in the Parent Trap…)
C) Ellie looked a lot like Penny during her mid-70’s days as an Hostile/ Other…
D) Charles was handsome enough, could the child Ben referred to have been yet another child with another woman…one who really was an ‘outsider?’

Anyway, back in the hospital, Ellie echoes to Penny, the very words Charles spoke to Desmond earlier this season in “Jughead.”
She tells Penny that Des is but a casualty in a chain of events that is ”much larger than he.”
This means something. I’m sure of it…

As an aside, while Ellie and Charles are civil to one another, it seems they are on opposing teams. Ellie worked with Ben and preaches destiny and Charles seems more than a mite anti-Ben and pro-entitlement (as in, “It’s MY Island, Benjamin…”)
But perhaps Ellie was merely using Ben to get the O6 back to the Island, and she was always on Widmore’s payroll…
Questions abound…

“I Come in Peace, Take Me to Your Leader”

Danny infiltrates the Others camp. He lets his presence be known by shooting up the joint. Apparently, Daniel’s genius extends to firearms, as well. He hath gone from “beginner gun” to common terrorist in less than 40 minutes. Astounding.

Richard registers slight recognition circa 1954, but Daniel has no time (Thank God) to explain how they met in the past and that he’s from the future.
He wants only to see Eloise.
Which he will…moments later…
As he lies dying of the gunshot wound that Ellie has inflicted on him.
On her very own child… which certainly explains her hesitancy to sympathize with Charles having to ‘sacrifice his relationship with his daughter…’
Ellie 1977 may not have known that she was killing her son, but Eloise circa 2004 sure knew what would happen…
So it seems (for now, anyway), that destiny has eaten Daniel’s variable.

Un-cool.

“As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.” Henry David Thoreau

Super-Duper Brief Recap

Season 5 Episode 13 “Some Like It Hoth”- Miles and Hurley go road trippin.’
Kate looks for love in all the wrong places and Jack revels in the satisfaction of a well-cleaned blackboard. Miles auditions for Naomi by speaking with a dead delivery guy named Felix, and we finally understand where in tar nation he came up with the seemingly asinine bribery figure of $3.2 million in the S4 ep. “Eggtown.” We also learn that Lapidus is not the only Widmore-cohort who is shabby with riddles. Faraday finally returns and he and Miles share a ‘moment.’

Carry On My Wayward ‘Sun’…

The woman who I was sure was “old Sun” throughout the entirety of my first viewing of  “Because You Left” (there was a lot of Dharma wine flowing at our premiere party,) actually turned out to be Mrs. Pierre Chang and Miles mama. She looks at trashy Encino apartments with Mini-Miles, who hears death everywhere. He follows their desperate cries directly to the white rabbit shaped hide-a-key situation, and enters apartment number four.  He sees a half eaten sandwich and the guy who’d been eating it, sprawled on the floor. It’s traumatizing.

“I keep nothing from you, you keep nothing from me… and round and round we go.” Meet The Parents

Back on the Island, Miles affirms his allegiance to Team Juliet and lets Sawyer/La Fleur know that he ain’t diggin’ this teaming up with Kate nonsense. Sawyer/ La Fleur is in a hurry and asks Miles to erase the incriminating tape, which apparently, he does not. This will cause problems.
Enter Horace, who begrudgingly inducts Miles into the ‘Circle of Trust.’
The first rule in the Circle of Trust is that you do not ask questions about the Circle of Trust.
Sadly, Miles is no Jin, and is NOT the greatest with following instructions.
The moment the dead guy is presented, Miles breaks the first (and only) Circle of Trust rule and asks all sorts of questions about the deceased and his unfortunate circumstance. This seems like a total waste of a rule infraction, considering how chatty dead people seem to get around Miles anyway…

“To cry is to know that you’re alive but my river of tears has run dry…” H.I.M. (His Infernal Majesty)

Miles has spiky hair and a goatee. He probably likes Type O Negative, Cradle of Filth and other 90’s hoth Goth rock bands.
Mrs. Chang has cancer. It’s sad. I’ll just bet we have Jughead to thank for that shit.
Miles finds out his dad’s a douche (his words) and also that he’s dead.
Miles is super-intrigued by this and wants to chat with the body, which Mama Chang claims he will never find.
Clearly, she does not share her son’s fondness for “Back to the Future,” as Lady Chang seems to shun the notion that her son might one day meet his father, circa 1977 on this supposedly unfind-able Island, entirely.

“To infinity, and beyond!” Buzz Lightyear

Miles and Hurls team up for a tandem mission to the Orchid. Hurly wants to feed the people and prevent global warming. Miles just wants to deliver a package named ‘Alvarez.’
So far, he thinks the Circle of Trust sucks.
Hurls writes poetry about a bounty hunter and accuses Miles of stinking up the van.
Miles denies the charge, which leads to Hurley having an anxiety attack re: the potentially rancid garlic mayo he’s concocted. Hurley may be ‘crazy,’ but being from the future, he totally gets how gnarly salmonella poisoning can be, and does the right thing by insisting on a quick inspection.

Rotting Mayo? Bad. Dead Body? Really Bad. Telling Uncle Rico his kid is gone? Super Bad

Though obviously relieved that his mayo is solid, Hurls is none too thrilled to learn that A) there is a dead body on this road trip, and B) that this interloper is actually to blame for the olfactory nightmare wafting through the van.
The discovery prompts Miles to initiate Hurley into the ‘Circle’ on the fly.
Unlike Miles, Hurley is stoked re: his admission into the club.
Alvarez (a.k.a ~ the dead guy in the van) had some unfortunate dental work, which apparently did not mix well with the electro-magnetic properties of the bomb buried within the radius of the hole he was digging. His dental work magnetized itself right through his skull, which is how he became dead.
Therein lies the risk surrounding the burial of a massive hydrogen bomb… one never knows when some newbie’s from the future are going to want to build a ‘Save-the-World-By-Pressing-a-Button’ station and become dead, due to their old school metal fillings.

So, props to Jules and Kate for the teaming up to save Young-Ben and all, but why hadn’t they thought of cover story? Seriously, this lame-o “Sorry Roge, I think your boy scuttled off into the jungle, but I’m sure he’ll be okay” nonsense feels weak.
Roger thinks so too, gets dramatic and storms off to get smashed on some Pabst Blue Ribbon Dharma Beer.

“Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Screw?” Jimmy Buffett

Roger gets his mid-afternoon drink on. He is the kind of guy who says things like, “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere!” as he cracks a beer at lunch. Just saying.
Never one to miss an opportunity to make Jack, Sawyer, La Fleur jealous console a friend, Kate stops by the swing set to give Roger a pep talk.
He acts like a dick to her.
Though she was only mildly interested in Roger before, suddenly Kate can’t stop thinking about him.
She goes home to play Patsy Cline and swoon.

“Flying away on a wing and a prayer. Who could it be?” The Greatest American Hero theme

Miles and Hurls bond while comparing super powers and rocking out to the spirited tunes of Captain & Tennille, but the fun meets an untimely demise when Miles is reunited with Papa Chang, and it feels totally un-good.
Pierre is not very ‘Namaste’ when the duo arrives at the Orchid, but Hurley remains optimistic re: the potential for a ‘Chang-Straume-relationship-do-over.’
On the way to the future home of the Swan station, he prods Chang for information which might interest Miles. His sleuth-y nature pays off and we learn that Miles is named after Jazz great, Miles Davis who is a fave of Mrs. Chang’s, though the Dr. prefers ‘Country’.
We also learn that Miles is presently three months old, which proves that you can, in fact, co-exist with your past/ future self on the Island. Hmph.

“When you’re feeling low, when you’re hurt and don’t know where to go…” The Beu Sisters

Always willing to lend a hand to his fellow workman, Jack covers classroom cleaning duty for Roger on account of his missing kid. However it seems that Roger would prefer to continue to work while throwing temper tantrums and kicking buckets around, than accept Jack’s gracious gesture.
He tells Jack to leave, but before he can, Roger talks a bunch of smack about Kate and how he thinks she is ‘in on’ the disappearance of Young-Ben.
Jack talks Roger down from the ledge before running off to alert Juliet and Sawyer of the ‘situation.’

“Off With Her Head!” The Queen of Hearts

Fun with role reversal!
Jack shoots the shit with Jules, as they wait for Sawyer.
Upon his arrival, Jack spills the beans re: the potential Roger/ Kate debacle.
Jack remains calm and speaks of Kate’s good intentions and her properly placed heart.
Sawyer gets flustered and inquires as to the whereabouts of her head.
Jack digs his ‘reduced responsibility’ role more than ever.
Sawyer isn’t so lucky. Being a leader is rough and after an entire day of tromping through the jungle, Sawyer still has to deal with that ass-clown Phil and his knowledge of the tape that Miles neglected to erase. Sawyer does just what Churchill would’ve, and knocks Phil out, before enrolling his beloved Juliet in some old school ‘Cowboy Justice’ type of shenanigans. Awesome.

“There’s a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem” Wayne W. Dyer

Bram kidnaps Miles and attempts to lure him to work for the ‘good guys’ with promises of increased internal knowledge and understanding of thyself.
Miles prefers his temptation in the form of money or at least the delicious taco that Bram interrupted…
Bram counters with promises of spiritual solutions to Miles troubles.
Miles still prefers monetary fulfillment for his empty soul.
Bram behaves like bratty child, and tosses Miles back out on the street, which felt super un-virtuous.

“Maybe he’ll let you hold baby you or change your own diaper” Hurley

Turns out Hurley was not actually writing poetry on the Orchid road trip, rather re-writing “The Empire Strikes Back” (with a few tweaks, of course.)
Miles thinks this is stupid, but I think it’s brilliant.
Hurls gets metaphorical about Ewoks and the Death Star and then Miles peers in the Chang’s window and observes his father reading about polar bears to mini-him. He cries.
Pierre then enlists Big-Miles to help him greet the incoming sub o’ scientists, which includes Daniel Faraday.
Membership in the Circle of Trust suddenly sucks less for Miles.

Interlude

Nothing means everything, but neither does anything mean nothing. I just made that up and actually have no idea what it means, but it seems appropriate for the musical reference we are about to look at.
As Hurley and Miles ride toward the Orchid, we hear notes of Albert Hammond’s 1972 hit “It Never Rains in Southern California.”
Albert Hammond himself may be a new ‘featured artist’ in LOST’s music game, but he’s worked with/ wrote songs for numerous LOST musical ‘go-to’s’, such as Cass Elliot, Perry Como, and Chang-fave, Willie Nelson.
He also had a hit with a track called “I Don’t Wanna Die in an Air Disaster.” Just mentioning.

Lyndsey has OCD. Lucky for you, in between color-coding her closet and using anti-bacterial hand sanitizer, she channels her mania into over-analysis of “Lost”. She believes the idea that “TV rots your brain,” is bullshit. She is sure her brain is not, in fact, rotten.

First Things First

One at a time, people. One at a time… together we will figure this out…
I have a confession to make: I am not a theorist at heart. This thing…this LOST obsession I’ve developed, began as a character study. I liked the inter-connectedness. I liked the notion that this life is not made for planning and knowing, rather for belief in experience. Plus, I have a really good memory and it was fun to be able to connect a phrase or mirror image  from S4 to something seemingly inane and from S1. Does that ‘qualify’ me to talk about LOST on a website dedicated to theories and themes? Maybe. While I am always open and excited to draw conclusions, it is the people behind the stories that excite me. Their journeys somehow serve to validate this winding path that we travel in the name of ‘existence.’

So, while I have loved S5 for its answers, I have furtively missed the heart-pounding, hard-core ROOTING for a character that I so often felt during earlier seasons. But this night, ahhh, this night I felt redeemed. This night my heart raced and I cheered and mentally danced (okay, I physically danced a bit as well) through this adventure on the Island. LOST was back. And so was I…

“Come, my friend! Make his sacrifice an act of honor! Come now.” Azeem “Robin Hood Prince of Thieves“

Angry Charles Widmore (who had exceptionally great hair as a young man) channels Robin of Locksley and gallops into camp to take Richard to task re: saving Young-Ben. Though according to Richard, he does NOT answer to Charles, he does allay his  anger by claiming that Jacob hath sent this order. This is a lie.
Charles is momentarily placated and approaches the Recovery Tent for a chat with “Boy.”

Ben wants only to be ‘one of them.’ And also to never see his daddy again. Apparently, Cowboys are not the only ones with these issues.
Oh, Ben…
Flash-forward to continuance of John and Ben’s 2007 on-Island reunion…

John sits, shadowed in the darkness and Ben is bathed in light. Ben is filled with hope. John is in control. This is fun…

I have no more of what they call character, my dear, than a canary-bird, but I know I am trustworthy.” Charles Dickens “Our Mutual Friend”

Ben tries to get friendly with the other survivors, on the beach. It’s awkward.
Ben senses he’s not exactly ‘in’ with the ‘in-crowd’ anyway, so he decides to make a tactical switch and climb in bed with Caesar. In a fun ‘mirror- convo,’ Caesar asks Ben what he makes of John (who is, per usual, staring lovingly into the ocean.)
This reminds me a heck of a lot of that S1 scene from “Hearts and Minds” where Charlie and Jack discuss the merits of trusting Locke.

However, as often happens in the mirror, things get all reversed-like. When asked by Jack if he trusted Locke, Charlie replied, “Trust him? No offense, mate, but if there’s one person on this island I would put my absolute faith in to save us all it would be John Locke.” Ben decides to try a different response and posit the notion that John may be a ‘native’ and is ‘possibly insane.’ Caesar seems unaware that Ben is mostly insane and takes him on his word. Good times.
Next, just to prove how un-insane Ben is, we witness Ben (with floppy, Leo-DiCaprio-circa-Titanic-hair) and a boy (who I’ll just bet is ‘Younger-Ethan’) kidnapping Alex. Totally the sane move…

Still, it should be noted that he did spare her mothers life and warn her to ‘run from the whispers’, much to the chagrin of ‘not-as-hot-as-he-used-to-be’ Widmore, so there must be redemption in there somewhere…

“And after all that we’ve been through, I will make it up to you…” Chicago

John is super-comfortable in his surroundings. This being ‘reborn’ thing, clearly agrees with him. He suddenly wants to ‘talk it out,’ ‘identify’ and ‘work through it.’ Ben takes this to mean he should explain that pesky ‘why-I-murdered-you’ situation, which was awesome, but all John really wanted was an apology. Ben decides that killing Caesar is better than a regular ol’ I’m sorry,’ and he does just that. Et tu, Brute.

“Home is not where you live, but where they understand you” Christian Morgenstern

Maybe it’s that ever-vexing ‘taking responsibility for your actions’ part of the program, but Benny looks way less than ecstatic to be ‘home’.
He spits some nonsense about having to be ‘judged’ for breaking the rules and returning to the Island. John calls bull-shit and tells Ben that he is more likely going to be judged based on the blood of his daughter, which is all over his hands.
You say tomato, I say tomaeto…

“We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation.” Paulo Coelho

Ben moves forward, ready to face his Fate…he walks tall towards the big ‘Alex-confrontation.’

Ghost-of-Alex is not actually home but Frank and Sun are…

They are waiting for John Locke (per Christian).  According to Frank, they haven’t been holding their breath in anticipation of his arrival, but if they HAD been, it would’ve been totally okay because John’s right outside (he waves.)
Frank is incredulous re: John and his web of truth on how they might find Jin. He suddenly misses getting sloshed in the Bahamas and decides to try that again. He’s out. Sun’s still in. Meanwhile, Ben goes into the closet and gets to work. That’s not what it sounds like…

Is Smokey a Hair Clog?

Seriously, it kinda sounds like it.

After Ben un-locks the Smoke-ster, he and Sun debate the merits of John’s ex-deadness. Ben claims ‘Dead Is Dead’ and John is an anomaly. Apparently, he ‘cannot control what comes out of those woods.’
Enter John. Hitchcock would be proud. This shit was “frame for emotion, dialogue means nothing, surprise and twist, and MacGuffin” all rolled into one.
Or is it….

When Someone Who Avoids Theory Development, Develops a Theory…

Okay, so as I’ve mentioned, I’m a ‘noticer.’ I’d rather not attempt to predict where this juggernaut is headed. That having been said, the moment John claims he has ‘ideas’ about how Smokey can be found; I mentally begin my touchdown dance.
In this moment, I am wholly convinced that JOHN IS SMOKEY.
I am gasping for breath and trying to explain my idea to LOST-junkies scattered about my living room… I rant about how Smokey took on Harper’s form when she encountered Juliet in the jungle in the S4’s “The Other Woman” and it took on the form of Adebisi’s Eko’s brother Yemi, as well. What if John really IS dead and is not (as he claims) the ‘same as he’s always been?’ What if John is SMOKE!?
This would explain everything…all that jibber jabber and belief in ‘Fate and Destiny’ suddenly makes sense if John IS fate. How twisted would it be if the ‘Preacher of Island-Destiny’ himself, ultimately determined the fate of everyone…
Then my high crashes… fast. I’ve been down this road. We all have.
I am a pawn. I am doing exactly what I am supposed to. I am thinking precisely what the men behind the curtain want me to think.
Moments ago, I thought I’d been Queened, and now I realize I’m headed directly for capture.

“I have never been quit of you since I first saw you. Oh, that was a wretched day for me!” C. Dickens

Girls with money are cool.
For example, say you are a poor Scotsman who intends to read the only Dickens novel you haven’t read, sometime before you die.  As if by magic, the fates align and suddenly your dream girl (along with her inheritance) fall in your lap; does it not make sense that you would opt to buy a large boat and Christen it “Our Mutual Friend,” in honor of the afore mentioned novel and then live out your days in ironic bliss as you consider all the parallels between the lessons of this story and your own story?
Makes sense to me…

Ben rings Chucky Widmore to reiterate his ‘you killed my daughter, so I’m killing yours’ plan. Ben reaches for his gun to carry out said plan butis uncerimoniously interrupted by Desmond, who has this gnarly-timing thing down to a science.  Des is suddenly collateral damage in the guerre de Ben/ Widmore. Ever focused on the task at hand, Ben remains unshaken and turns his attention back to Penny…

Like a Bird, Like a …

Desmond carries his groceries in bags made of Kevlar. Thank Goodness!
Desmond suddenly possesses super-human strength and lumps Ben up, something awful.
Well, that explains the sling…

The Shadow of the Huh?

Ilana wastes no time appointing herself leader of the not-so-free world, and poor Lapidus is really at a loss when she and her teamsters start with the ‘riddle-me-this’ shit…
He has no idea what lies in the shadow of the statue and like any honest and fair leader might, Ilana deems this reason to introduce Frank’s head to the butt of her gun.

“You often meet your fate on the road you take to avoid it” French Proverb

Evaporate. John. Smoke. Smoke thyself, I say!
I am fully willing John to smoke-ify himself… I so want my theory to be right.
Alas, it is not to be. John leaves in search of some rope to save Ben (who’s just fallen through the floor), and what to my wondering eyes should appear…oh yes.
Inside the smoke, Ben revisits his past.
He appears to feel actual pain.
I suddenly hear the voice of my Kindergarten teacher warning us ‘not to look directly at the eclipse…’
The Smoke clears and Alex emerges looking a shade less innocent than I remembered her…
Ben cries in this uber-creepy, somewhat disturbing manner and claims responsibility for everything.
Alex isn’t having it, and throws Ben up against the wall then forces him to vow to follow John. He does.

Just Asking/ Saying…

*Ben sees Charles off, and reminds him that he was being banished because of choices HE made. Choices like creating a child (Penny, we assume) with a (gasp) outsider…

*I love when Charles calls Ben “BOY.” His tone is so utterly disparaging…
It’s kind of hot…

* John claims that there is “No sense in me dying twice”
Could the reason why there would be no ‘sense’ in John dying twice be because he is still dead (whatever the hell that means…)

* Locke throws Ben the rope and asks what happened. Ben replies that ‘it let him live.’
Oddly, he does not mention his recently avowed devotion to John as his Worshipful leader.
Strange.

Super-Duper Brief Recap

Season 5 Episode 11- “Whatever Happened, Happened”- Sawyer continues pretending he doesn’t care about Kate. Juliet pretends not to notice Jack is naked in the bathroom. Jack pretends not to care about anything at all, though at this point, he actually may NOT care about anything at all. Hard to say. Roger makes eyes at Kate. Kate’s disgusted. Kate sings, “Catch a Falling Star” to Aaron, just as Claire had wanted…
Miles and Hurls partake in an inspiring tit for tat surrounding existence and time/ space stuff, which makes me really miss Daniel.

Zombie Zoo and Kate: Over Before it Began

Kate and Roger bond over her lack of experience with a winch. She seems minorly charmed by him and his Tom Petty hair, until the van bearing a dead-ish Young-Ben comes squealing into the town square. At that point, Roger gets all, “That’s my kid!” and Kate realizes that this jive turkey contributed 23 chromosomes to the child who will one day be Big-Ben, and she suddenly looks like she might vomit. Luckily, we don’t see that part because we get a commercial break in the form of a flash-forward-back (it’s all a circle anyway, according to Miles…)

They’re Playing Our Song!

Kate listens to her go-to ‘Sawyer-on-the-brain’ song, Patsy Cline’s “She’s Got You.”
Just like in S4’s “Eggtown,” Kate is about to spit some truth involving Sawyer and a baby, only this time, the recipient is old pal, Cassidy, and the bundle of joy is an envelope.
Filled with bundles of bills. Oh joy!

John 8:32 (The Truth Will Set You Free)

Wow! Kate is like a geyser of truth when Cassidy is around…
She must’ve felt seriously weighed down by all of those fabrications and lies, because it takes surprisingly little coercion before she uncontrollably spews all of the O6’s most ‘classified’ secrets plus a bonus in the form the ‘Aaron tale’, to her new/ old friend, Cassidy.
Cassidy is surprisingly dismissive and a little mean re: Sawyer’s heroic intentions and his attempt to make it ‘right.’ She’s a hard hearted woman thanks to Sawyer…
And while that’s all super interesting, throughout the entire scene, I found myself totally fixated on the fact that Kate had a red scrunchie in her hair. Why Kate? Why?
2005 is totally a no-scrunchie zone. That shit is a basic truth a’ la Mathematics and Consciousness.
There is just no excuse.

“Yeah, well, history is gonna change.” Marty McFly

Sawyer puts Jack, Kate, and Hurley on house arrest.
Miles and Hurls engage in a witty pas de deux re: the rules of time travel according to the other Doc (Brown,) and how they apply to the current circumstances.
Kate channels Juliet as she pensively stares out the window and Jack channels Young-Ben as he makes sandwiches. Then in the least shocking turn of events ever, we learn that Juliet ‘I’m a Fertility Specialist, Not a Surgeon,’ needs Jack’s help to fix Young-Ben. But Jack’s not playin.’ He’d rather pout and eat his sandwiches than save Ben AGAIN (because, according to Miles, he already saved Ben in the past, because the future is the past, got it?)
Kate tells Jack that he is ‘different’ than he was before and she doesn’t like it. Ha.
Jack reminds Kate that she didn’t really like him before. Ha HA!
Never one to stay put in spite of terms like ‘house arrest’ and threats like ‘I’ll shoot you in the leg,’ being
brandished about, Kate has leavin’ on her mind and she does just that.
Apparently, Miles was more suited towards ghost whispering than prison guarding, cus he does very little to stop her.

That’s Gotta Sting…

Kate and Roger have some alone time after she donates blood. Uncle Rico Roger laments his crappy fathering and whines about his dead wife. He asks Kate if she has any kids, and after mentally-calculating the time-line, she says she does not. She looks super, super sad.
Then, Young-Ben crashes.
Juliet begrudgingly offers that the Others (read: Hostiles) may be able to save him.
She and Kate load Lil Ben into the Dharma Ambulance (read: van) and in a poignant hark back, Jules offers to give Kate a ‘head start’ before she tells Sawyer what’s happening.

Other Notable ‘Head Starts’ Include:
*Kate offered Sun a ‘head start,’ before she ‘had to tell Jack’ in S4’s “Ji Yeon”
*Sam Austen offered Kate ‘an hour head start’ before he alerted the authorities in S2’s “What Kate Did”
*Kate offered herself a head start after copping her convict-status to new husband (and policeman,) Kevin in S3’s “I Do.” She did this by poisoning his tea. This is illegal and also not nice. There are better ways to get a ‘head start’ in life.

De-Claire Thyself

Aaron wants milk. No, juice. Yes, a juice box. Kate seems wholly confused by the grocery store lay-out, and then seems even more confused when Goober goes M.I.A. Confusion quickly turns to panic when he’s really-gone (not like, hiding-gone) and the epiphany that ‘she was never meant to have Aaron’ is solidified when she sees a woman with Claire-hair walking hand-in-hand with her (read: Claire’s) son. They are ostensibly heading towards the customer service desk to make an announcement, but frankly, that blonde un-Claire looked kinda evil when she smiled and my gut was screaming “Amber Alert!” the moment she turned around.
Kate and Aaron then pay Aunt Cassidy a visit. Cassidy hypothesizes that Kate used Aaron to replace Sawyer. Um, awkward?
Kate now knows that she needs to give Aaron up and drops in on Carole Littleton at her hotel. Carole is a MILF. I mean that in the general sense, not the personal sense. For the second time in her life (and this episode,) Kate spits the whole truth and it sounds even more incomprehensible than it did during the first go-round.
Also, I kept waiting for some bonding or high-fiving re: how those Shephard-boys are so delicious and enticing, but neither Kate nor Carole seem interested in trading Christian /Jack ‘in the sack’ stories.
Fully de-claire-d, Kate says a tearful goodbye to Aaron, and sets off to Jack’s house surreptitiously hoping to have him help her replace Aaron straight away, while simultaneously enabling her to act as Claire’s ‘proxy’ on the flight to Guam the Island.

Dear Kate…

Dear Kate,
I get that you have a soft spot for damaged men, but why do you need to save Ben so damn badly?
Don’t be fooled by outward appearances. He IS going to try to steal that kid you are pretending is yours, put you in a cage, torture all of your boyfriends, and make you break rocks while wearing a dress…
C’mon, Kate, I know Jack is slacking these days, but you don’t HAVE to be the hero.

I Don’t Wanna Talk About It…

Juliet confronts naked Jack about potentially letting Ben die and asks him (just as Sawyer did Kate) why he came back. He says something about ‘saving them’ and I realize that it’s somewhat un-gratifying when people do communicate on this show. Kate’s answer being trumped by the flaming Dharma van was way more fun. At least we got some gratuitous nudity. Yay for that.
Sawyer (not Lafluer) comes to help Kate. I know it was Sawyer because he calls her ‘Freckles’, which totally makes my heart flutter. Then he tells Kate that he’s doing it all for Juliet, which makes my heart categorically un-flutter.
The mind-blowing part of this whole scene for me, was not all the tromping through the jungle with Lil-Ben’s half-dead body seeking the Others/ Hostiles, it was actually what didn’t happen.
Kate did not mention her previous connection with Cassidy, to Sawyer.
Say what?
Come to think of it, I could’ve used a bit more shock and awe from Kate when it was Cassidy who opened the door and turned out to be Sawyer’s baby momma. These are some of Fate’s best tricks people. Seriously.

He Will Always Be One of Us

Kate and Sawyer choose to save Ben’s body and eternally screw his soul. They turn him over to Richard who, by the way, does not answer to Ellie or Charles, in spite of his warnings that Ben will heal but will never be the same and will always be one of them. He also will not remember any of this. Oooohhhhh (the light dawns,) so that’s why he doesn’t remember Sayid shooting him, or any of the other 815-ers…
Thanks, Richard!

Welcome to the Land of the Living.

I’m sure my eyes deceive me, but Ben seems legitimately surprised to see John.
Further, thanks a bunch, LOST writers, for throwing a book title at us disguised as dialogue in the last 3 seconds of the show. Awesome. John Locke welcomes Benny to the land of the living, which just so happens to be the title of a mystery novel by Nicci French. The opening scene in the story depicts the heroine captured ‘hands and feet bound, head covered by a rough bag, a wire around her neck and a filthy gag in her mouth.’
While that wasn’t exactly the scenario here, that description sounds lots like the time Ben kidnapped, bound, gagged and covered the heads of Jack, Kate, Hurley and Sawyer on the dock in S2’s “Live Together, Die Alone.”

Just mentioning…

Final Thought: Love, love, love the resurrection (oh yes, I went there) of John Locke’s evil grin which was totally reminiscent of the ending of S1′s “Tabula Rasa.” It scared me then, but is totally intriguing now…

Lyndsey has OCD. Lucky for you, in between color-coding her closet and using anti-bacterial hand sanitizer, she channels her mania into over-analysis of “Lost”. She believes the idea that “TV rots your brain,” is bullshit. She is sure her brain is not, in fact, rotten.

I’m new here. I once had a home on another website, but after some domestic drama, I felt the need to indulge my inner escapist (tres’ Kate Austen of me, no?) and run away. The good Doc (Arzt, not Shephard) took pity on my orphaned soul and invited me home for dinner. And now I’m here. And I’m secretly hoping for an official adoption, cus “I think I’m gonna liiiikkeee it here!” Um, yeah… that was a little orphan Annie reference.  Rad.

“Truth is a point, the subtlest and finest; harder than adamant; never to be broken, worn away or blunted. Its only bad quality is, that it is sure to hurt those who touch it; and likely to draw blood, perhaps the life blood of those who press earnestly upon it.” Walter Savage Landor

First Things First

Many apologies for the belated column.
My friend Helles Belles (not her given name, rather a pseudonym I’ve assigned her, much in the same way Chucky Widmore assigned ‘Jeremy Bentham,’ to our pal, Locke) asked me if I’d like to go to a block party. I was like, “Hells yes, Helles Belles!”
I thought attending a block party sounded super retro and I immediately started imagining myself sitting on a stoop somewhere in the Bronx, eating hotdogs and drinking beer with KRS-One and DJ Marley Marl, and
I was way stoked. I don’t actually eat hotdogs nor do I drink beer, but these images were situational-ly appropriate, so I went with it.
Boy, was I shocked when I end up at this concert with a bunch of emo-kids and nary a busted fire hydrant in sight…
OK, so I’m obviously kidding, but I did have an opportunity to see one of my uber-fave bands Bloc Party in concert last night and thus, I missed LOST. Quelle horror!
So yeah, I swear this will not happen again.
Unless The Shins come to town, then you’re on your own, just like Sayid, apparently…
Oooohhhh, seamless transition, no?

Super-Duper Brief Recap

Season 5 Episode 10 “He’s Our You”- Young-Ben is abused by his heinous excuse for a father, who it seems fully deserved to be ‘Purged.’ He also makes more sandwiches for Sayid.
Sadly, Sayid is on a hunger strike so the sandwiches remain uneaten.
Kate and Juliet posture and dance around their mutual obsession (read: Sawyer)
Sawyer asks Kate a question that she doesn’t answer. Some things just don’t change.
Jack eats ham and chills the eff out, which is quite refreshing.
Radzinsky plays on my last nerve.

Well, wasn’t that Machiavellian?!

FAKE DEATH! FAKE DEATH!
I’m so calling a fake out. The cunning producers of LOST are going to have to wake up pretty early in the morning to make me believe that Young-Ben is really dead. I’d actually heard rumblings that there would be two deaths prior to the end of S5, but the details on death #2 were sketchy, so I couldn’t really pontificate on it before.
BUT the death I’ve previously spoken about was not; I repeat not, this death. Trust me.

Oh Sigh-yd!

Sayid proves that he IS, in fact, the ‘natural born killer’ that he’s always claimed (in spite of his job description) NOT to be.
We see present day Sayid in the making, when we observe Young-Sayid kill farm animals, during a fun flashback involving some unfortunate chickens, Sayid’s wussy brother, and his cruel father.
Later, we witness Sayid completing the final assassination of Widmore’s thugs and Big-Ben (who is totally channeling Dark Man in this scene) ‘freeing’ Sayid, by telling him to go live his life; that his friends are safe now.
This depresses Sayid beyond belief, and causes all sorts of ugly abandonment issues to crop-up.

Young-Ben: Wise Beyond His Years?

Lil-Ben done trained good and hard for his future as Big-Ben a.k.a.-Leader of the Others/Hostiles.
Even as an adolescent he was voracious reader who happened to have a keen curiosity about trippy drugs like mushrooms and peyote. OK, perhaps the drug part was not the inference we were intended to draw from Ben’s literary interest in Carlos Castaneda’s “A Separate Reality,” but it’s a logical conclusion nonetheless.
Anyway, Young-Ben is way excited about ideas like learning to ‘See’ or ‘perceive energy directly as it flows through the universe’, which is totally key to Island-living, and wants to share his knowledge with his new friend, Sayid.
Ben-cito brings his prisoner a copy of the book, another sandwich (because Hostiles get hungry too) and verbally  pledges to help Sayid, if he is patient.
Awesome.

Don’t Fret, Juliet!

Juliet stares longingly out the window and burns some perfectly good bacon, whilst lost in her reflections. Sawyer (who somehow gets beautiful-er and beautiful-er each episode) rescues the smoldering pig and then engages in some heavily subtexted dialogue with Jules about impact of the 815-ers return.
The writers take this opportunity to rip a page from Woody Allen’s book of irony, and create parallels by recycling phrases used by other characters earlier in a story line.
For instance, Juliet asks Sawyer if their simple life of ‘playing house’ is over now that Team Jack is back.
This is an obvious counterpart to the scene in S4’s “Eggtown” where Kate disparagingly asks Sawyer how long they can go on ‘playing house.’
Oh, and I love the subtle bacon/egg connection between these two scenes…well played, writer guys.

You’re Invited to the Awkward-est Breakfast Ever!

So, it seems that ex’s Jack and Kate are shacking up in New Dharma-ville, but only in that totally platonic ‘yeah-I-tricked-you-into-impregnating-me-after-we-broke-off-our-engagement-and-you-got-all-strung-out-on-pills’ sorta way.
So, obviously, it’s super weird when an ever-tactful Hurls informs Kate that Jules and Sawyer “…live together, not as roommates. Like you guys were”.
Kate, who cannot fathom that Sawyer could possibly have gotten over her during the past three years, turns to Jack for verification. Between bites of his delicious ham, he corroborates the truth Hurls just spit. Spat. Whatever.
And on Jack, I am loving how amazingly comfortable he seems in his position of non-position and the fun hint of role reversal, when Hurley and Kate decide to create an official ‘P.O.A.’ (plan of action) when Jack seems more interested in those tasty dipping sauces.

“I Guess I’m on My Own”

Sayid tells Sawyer exactly where he can shove his invitation to the Dharma party, leaving Sawyer with no option but to let crazy-torturer-dude, Oldham have a go at him.
They proceed to strap Sayid to a tree, which makes him look more than a shade Jesus-y, and give him some truth serum. Sawyer looks on nervously as Sayid tells the whole tale, just as it happened.
Luckily, it all seems so asinine that no one believes him.
Huge sigh of relief.
Sayid then laughs manically in the face of death, which somehow lightens the mood, even though it’s a tad disturbing.
One thing leads to another and all of a sudden, Amy, that Ethan-breeding D.I. trollop, is siding with “Radzinsky’s ‘anything-but-rad’ solution”, to put Sayid to death.
A vote is taken and (after Sawyer folds like a house of cards) they unanimously decide to execute.

Radzinsky’s Super Sucky Solution

Sometimes, holding the ending consonant of a word a micro-second longer than necessary is a total tell regarding it’s importance. At least on LOST, anyway.
Thus, when Horace ever so slightly over-enunciated the phrase “Radzinsky’s solution,” a little voice inside me screamed ‘Google that shit!’ (yes, my little voice swears when it gets excited…)
Totally worthwhile.
It seems that there is a Russian playwright and historian named Edvard Radzinsky who wrote about fun topics like personal responsibility, the struggle between ideas and power, and the roles of victim and executioner.
Unfortunately, the Radzinsky on LOST doesn’t seem nearly as profound as this Russian guy.
He just seems mind-numbingly aggravating.

Dear Sayid…

Dear Sayid,
While I’m no expert on the topics of love and romance, I thought I might offer you some friendly advice…you may want to consider issuing a cease and desist order on your tendency to believe that random hot bitches in bars and coffee shops are actually ‘random.’
They aren’t.
They are all bounty hunters and assassin’s, and I’m not just being metaphorical, my friend.
Just a thought…

Wordplay Is the Best Way!

I love meeting new people.
Especially in bars, where it’s completely appropriate and necessary even, to play coquettish games and act shocked when someone insinuates that you might be a hooker or murderer.
Apparently, Ilana also enjoys such games.
Whereas some people order their meat ‘rare,’ Ilana specifies that she’d like her rib eye ‘bloody.’ Yum.
The convo continues at a fun pace and Sayid asks Ilana if she is a ‘professional,’ which I automatically correlated to “The Professional”, that Natalie Portman movie from like ’94 (which was before she had her nose done, so check it out, if only for that…), but Ilana believes he is calling her a prostitute, which she denies.
She claims she’s simply trying to save Sayid’s sad soul.
Good luck, sister.
Sayid says he’s sad because he’s quit the only thing he was ever good at and is trying to change.
Good luck, brother.

They proceed to get drunk, and passionately make their way to a hotel room, which is where Ilana reveals that though she’s not a prostitute, she is a bounty hunter who needs to return Sayid to Guam to explain his cold-blooded killing of that dude on the golf-course last year (which was way harsh, even though I do love me some Sayid)
At least that Elsa chick gave Sayid a lil’ lovin’ before she tried to kill him. That, my friends, is class.

Destiny Has its Day

It wouldn’t be an ep. of LOST if there weren’t some ‘fate vs. free will’ acknowledgment.
Thumbs up on the extra-creative method of justifying Sayid’s presence on 316 in spite of his initial protestations.

“Three years and no burning busses, y’all are back for ONE day…”

Sawyer stomps over to la casa de Jack and Kate and asks why they came back to Island. Kate says she can’t speak for anyone else but that she knows why she came back. She appears to be opening her mouth to allow, I don’t know, some form of COMMUNICATION to fall out of it, when in typical LOST fashion, a distraction in the form of a flaming Dharma van comes wheeling into New Otherton. Swell.

Turns out that Young-Ben hath set this vehicle alight, in a bid to cause chaos so that he might bust Sayid out of his cell. He hopes that they might run off and become Happy Hostiles together.
Good thoughts. Bad timing.
It seems that Sayid is a mite frustrated with Big-Ben and decides to nip this shit in the bud and take out Young-Ben, execution-style.
This was sad. Or it would be sad, were it like, real, but as I said, I believe that this is a faux-death and that Young-Ben and Big-Ben, will prevail.
Or there really could be two timelines, which has been a thought-lette (or an un-developed thought) for some time now. Time will tell.
Actually while it is generally true that time will tell, on LOST time will probably just opt out altogether, and take the submarine home, leaving us with nothing but questions. Yeah, that seems more likely.
Sigh.

Just Asking / Saying…

* Is the restaurant that Sayid and Ilana meet in, the same place as Jack went for a drink when he got the call about his grandfather running away from the nursing home in “316”?
* Sayid drinks McCutcheon Scotch, which happens to be Charles Widmore’s drink of choice
* Young-Ben, like Big-Ben never blinks. Weird.
* When Sayid frets about getting on Flt. 316, Ilana offers to buy him a ‘rabbit’s foot.’ at the gift shop. Something tells me, this was not uber-comforting to Sayid…

Lyndsey has OCD. Lucky for you, in between color-coding her closet and using anti-bacterial hand sanitizer, she channels her mania into over-analysis of “Lost”. She believes the idea that “TV rots your brain,” is bullshit. She is sure her brain is not, in fact, rotten.

Season 5 Episode 9 “Namaste”- Frank and Sun take the Island Outrigger Tour.
Juliet and Kate mentally bitch slap one another and Sun physically bitch slaps Ben (with an oar, anyway.)
Kate stares at Sawyer’s porch thinkin’ bout what mighta been, and Jack gets a taste of how Sawyer must’ve felt all that time…
Christian insinuates that Sun and Frank should follow him as he can bring them to Jin.
Sadly, he was referring to a photo of Jin as opposed to Jin-the-human.
He then helpfully suggests that Sun might need try time jumping a few decades to find ‘4D’ Jin.
Not-yet-evil, 11 year old Ben brings Sayid a sandwich with no mustard.
Sayid has feelings about meeting young-Ben.
Most of them are un-good.

Frank J. Lapidus: One Helluva Pilot…

Dude, What CAN’T Frank land?
He is ridiculous.
We know he can safely land a helicopter that is totally out of gas and over weight, and tonight we saw him land a power-less jumbo jet airliner, with style and grace on a super conveniently located airstrip.
Frank is no joke.
He and that Chesley ‘I’ll put this beast down in the Hudson’ Sullenberger should totally have “land-off.”
That’d be splendiferous.

It does occur to me that during the S3 finale, Juliet, in what we assumed at the time was merely sarcastic witticism, told Sawyer that he and Kate were breaking rocks because the Others were “building a runway.”
A runway, you say…
So, this means that the Ajira plane landed on the Island where Kate, Sawyer and Jack were being kept in cages…the Island with the Hydra station…
Could Sawyer and Kate have, unbeknownst to them, been laboriously breaking the very rocks meant to build the runway that would eventually bring them back together?!
Two thumbs up for romantic irony!

Reunions, Sexual Tension, and Other Hostilities…

The long awaited Kate/Sawyer reunion gets a little muddied up as Jack looks on in all his passive-aggressively-nonchalant-but-totally-disgruntled glory.
Sawyer updates his old chums on the stuff they may have missed such as the fact that Hostiles are Others and that the year is 1977.
Sawyer mulls the possible ways he may be able to integrate his ‘friends’ into the D.I. without arousing suspicion.

Back at Little House on the Island, Sawyer runs around like a kid on crank as Juliet pumps him for answers re: the return of the 815-ers.
Juliet seems (justifiably) nervous that Sawyers allegiance to her will be tested now that the wily little minx Kate is back in town.
Sawyer realizes this (because he is way sensitive as ‘La Fleur’) and takes a moment to reassure his precious Jules that everything will be OK.
Juliet (who is secretly a masochist) suggests that the submarine filled with new D.I. recruits, which happens to be arriving in like 8 minutes, might be a solid method of seamlessly blending the Returnees with the postmodern Islanders.

Breaking out of my body and flying away… Like a bat out of hell

Jin’s all about authority and takes direction well.
He is also a relatively quick learner and speaks awesome English.
And as any ESL teacher will tell you, English is NOT a simple language to master.
Thus, life in the D.I. has worked out well for Jin ‘the Asian Persuasion’ Kwon.
He accepts his role and plays his position…until he learns that Sun was on the plane with Jack / Kate and crew.
At that point, all bets are off.
My man straight steals that Jeep, in spite of Sawyer’s protestations, and is off to find his beloved.

Seriously though, what the eff did Jack, Kate and Hurls TALK about with Jinny-Jin Jin on the ride from wherever he scooped them up, until they reached Sawyer?
Jin never thought to ask about um, his WIFE???
Further, no one thought to say, “Wow Jin, your baby sure is cute… and your wife…she really misses you… she’s around here somewhere…”
Oh, right… we’re stuck in the ‘Land of Taciturn Miming.’
Tagline: “Why speak aloud when you can say nothing at all?”

Jin jets in the Jeep and hurries back to the station to see what Radzinsky knows about any recent wife-bearing plane crashes…
Now seems like a good time to mention that this Radzinsky character was Kelvin’s partner in the Swan Station pre-Desmond.
He committed suicide by shooting himself in the mouth and the bloodstain on the ceiling of the station served as a constant reminder of his heinous exit.
This sucked for Des, particularly after Kelvin left, and he started to go a smidge crazy.

“Waiting Doesn’t Interest Me” – Ben ‘I’m Back, Bitches’ Linus

Lapidus takes over as leader and tries to calm the 316 survivors.
The problem is that they don’t seem to need ‘calming.’
Someone was ridin’ dirty with a serious supply of Xanax and Vicodin, which apparently they dished out liberally on the way down, because this crew brings the meaning of the term ‘reaction-less sloth-like robots,’ to a whole new level.
Still, Frank uses his best Jack-voice and tells everyone to “stick together, hunker down, and wait until help gets here.”
Shady-Caesar has a better plan.
He suggests they search the buildings on the Island as they may find a radio…
A power struggle ensues.
Honestly, Caesar’s is obviously the stronger plan, but I am a loyal member of Team Frank, so I’m following the Captain.
Then again, I was also a Team Jack loyalist, so you may just want to do exactly the opposite of what I do…

Meanwhile, Ben wanders off into the Jungle and Sun follows him.
Frank follows Sun following Ben.
Ben reveals that he is going back to “Our Island” and invites Sun to come along.
Frank tries to dissuade her and questions Ben’s trustworthiness, which is obviously ludicrous as Ben is nothing if not upfront and honest.
Sun then knocks Ben out, which makes sense as Ben is contractually obligated to have his ass kicked at least one time during every 24-hour period, while on the Island.

Um, Does This Mean the Island Is In Canada?

Juliet runs over to Amy’s hut to snatch the submarine manifest, because no one should work the day after they give birth, and finds out that the mystery child she delivered has been christened “Ethan.”
This moment was awesome because it’s hard to play ‘Holy-Crap-I-delivered-a-baby-who-will-become-a-surgeon-who-steals-babies-and-claims-to-be-from-Canada,” in a convincingly casual manner, but Juliet’s Other-dom kicks in and she pulls it off with ease.
Soooo, Horace is Ethan’s father…
Hot Damn…

“Be Aware of a World Others Just Might Have Missed”

Way subtle, Dharma dudes…
Dharma welcomes the Class of ’77 with puka shell necklaces (which are thought to ensure safe travels while at sea) and upbeat tunes like “Ride Captain Ride.”
I know everyone is still a little foggy from their drug-addled submarine ride, but you’d think that someone would notice lyrics like:
“No one heard them calling, no one came at all,
‘Cause they were too busy watching those old raindrops fall.
As a storm was blowing out on the peaceful sea,
Seventy-three men were sailing off into history.
Ride, captain ride on your mystery ship,
Be amazed at the friends you’ve got there on your trip.”

Who’s Laughing Now, Doc?

Sawyer briefs Hurls, Kate, and Jack on the D.I. intake process.
Hurley worries he may not know answers to the some questions they ask, like who the President is in 1977…
Jack questions the ‘work assignments’ portion of the program.
Sawyer tells him not to worry, he took care of it.
Sawyer may be a changed man, but he still knows a golden opportunity when he sees one…
Pierre Chang (see, I told you he’d be back…) issues Jack his Dharma jumpsuit and tells Jack that his aptitude test indicated that he is qualified for basic janitorial service.
That’s gotta sting, as Jack thoroughly identifies himself with his intellect.

There is also a brief moment of despair when we are led to believe that Juliet has one-upped her old friend, Ms. Austen by not including her name on the intake roster.
Luckily Jules swoops in with the ‘updated’ roster, and saves Kate from ‘Mean Dharma Unibrow Guy.’
PS ~ What is his damage? Seriously.

It’s Not a Hostile… It’s Sayid! Who does seem a shade hostile…

Jin runs after a Hostile, who has breached the Sonic Gamma Ray Blaster Fence, and the interloper turns out to be Sayid.
Jin is then forced to faux threaten Sayid, when Radzinsky shows up.
Sayid is way confused.
The situation is not exactly cleared up when Sawyer interrogates Sayid, but it is cool to see the role reversal shout out to S1 when Sayid interrogates Sawyer regarding the disappearance of Shannon’s inhaler.

Best. Scene… Five Years in the Making

Or three years in the making if you are calculating via the show’s time line.
Or 30 years in the making if you are thinking as if it’s 1977.
Whatever.
The Jack/ Sawyer showdown was worth the wait.
Jack isn’t loving taking orders from Saw-Man, and decide to wrest control the only way he knows how… with words.
He marches right past Unibrow, and knocks on the door of Sawyer’s Hut o’ Happiness, and is greeted by a radiant Juliet.
Jack looks ever so slightly flummoxed but quickly recovers and gives Juliet some looks previously reserved only for Kate.
Juliet responds by opening the door wider to reveal Sawyer reading in the easy chair, which leads to Jack making his ‘sour apple face’ again.
Score one for ‘those they left behind.’

There is nothing that I can say about this scene except for:
Watch it…listen to it…watch it again…take it in, and apply it to your life.
That’s my goal…

Just Asking / Saying…

* When 316 is going down the transmission heard in the cockpit is repeating the numbers “4, 8, 15, 16…” Even though the dialogue obscures the rest, I’ll just bet we know what comes next…
* Code 14J is the code used when Sayid wanders through the fence, and is the same code that Locke, Hurls and Sawyer hear when they pick up Ben’s ringing phone, as they played Risk during S4’s “The Shape of Things to Come.”
* When Hurls asks if he feels the need to warn the Dharma folk about the impending Purge, Sawyer quips “I ain’t here to play Nostradamus to these people.”
Vintage Sawyer-ism.
* Ethan’s last name is Rom (um, why not Goodspeed, like his Dad?)
Anyway, Ethan Rom is an anagram for Other Man and Roman.
Fun.
* Did anyone else think that Ethan looked older than 26 or 27 when we met him after the original crash in 2004?
* Sawyer compares himself to Winston Churchill, who was married to a woman named Clementine. Sawyer has a daughter named Clementine.

Lyndsey has OCD. Lucky for you, in between color-coding her closet and using anti-bacterial hand sanitizer, she channels her mania into over-analysis of “Lost”. She believes the idea that “TV rots your brain,” is bullshit. She is sure her brain is not, in fact, rotten.

Super-Duper Brief Recap

Season 5 Episode 8- “La Fleur”- John’s gone. Daniel’s a grieving mess. Jin has like 5 lines of dialogue, only 3 of which I understand. Juliet is a mechanic. Sawyer’s a hippie and Miles says really funny shit.
Also, Horace is back. He gets drunk and blows up trees as his lady is giving birth to his child. Dad!?

First Things First

I remember being a small, beggar-child in France during the Revolution. There were these really evil rich kids, who liked to come round and dangle croissants and baguettes in my gaunt little face, and act as if they’d come to feed me.
Just as I’d reach my waifish arm to accept their generous bounty, they’d snatch it all back and run off howling with laughter.
While I am obviously making that up, I feel I can relate to this fictitious street urchin, as this scenario is precisely what the producers of LOST put us through every, single week.
They dangle an “answer,” yank it back, throw us two questions in it’s place and run away in hysterics.
This week, they dangled that four-toed foot statue at us. Except now, it’s not JUST the foot. This beast is whole. And it’s HUGE.
It seems we done gone waaayyyyy back in time. I’m thinking like, B.C., even?
That ish looks crazy old and would be really rad to explore!

Which is, of course, the perfect time for a massive FLASH (“like an earthquake,” according to Miles) and that single glimpse is all I get.

The puppet masters snicker in amusement.

Who’s Got the Time?

After what seems to be the final FLASH, the Islanders decide that John has obviously succeeded and that they’ll just, you know…wait.
Until he comes back or whatever. Because, like, what else is there to do?
That was a loaded question.
While in this moment, there doesn’t seem to be a lot to do except for debate which of their “only two plans” (The Beach or The Orchid, The Orchid or The Beach) they should be executing, there is going to be some assimilation into our very favorite Initiative of the Dharma real soon, and that is sure to be more than a little time-consuming.

I’ll Bet Those Dharma Hippies Just Love Geronimo Jackson

Some Dharma-hippie types drop acid and dance while on Station duty. I made up the acid part.
Then they notice drunken Horace with dynamite, on the security camera. Not good.
Thing One promptly kicks his gal to the curb and then he and Thing Two begrudgingly decide to tell some guy named “La Fleur,” who apparently does not appreciate being woken up, unless it’s serious.

Well, THAT Was a Seamless Transition…

Sawyer seems to have found his niche as a ranking member of the D.I., operating under the pseudonym
La Fleur which is French for “flower.” Ain’t that precious?
He also has real glasses, not taped up hybrids from the crash wreckage, and Miles as a wingman.
Life is good.
Apparently, 3 years earlier, with Daniel crumbling over Charlotte’s death, everyone started listening to Sawyer…even Juliet, which I thought was weird until I realized she hadn’t had sex in a really long time, and that she probably assumed he was a sure thing.
On the way back to the beach (per Sawyer’s command) the gang saves some chick, Amy, from execution by the Others. Or Hostiles. Or Old Others aka- the Other Others, depending on when we are.
After some gunfire, death, a couple of quick burials, and an agreement to cart Paul’s (Amy’s husband, who was caught in the crossfire) body back home, Sawyer tells Amy that his ship crashed on the Island on the way to Tahiti (this SCREAMS “Mutiny on the Bounty” reference to me, which I’ll get into later.)
Amy is totally wary, and Juliet doesn’t help the situation when she openly calls out that sonic-blaster-gun-gamma-ray-fence which Daniel is about to wander directly into.
While Amy doesn’t know that Juliet is a former / future “Other / Hostile,” she is now positive that something’s amiss and gets tricky and sizzles our crew with that fence anyway.
Suddenly, Sawyer awakens from his sonar-induced nap and has Horace to answer to.
He rouses his inner con man and uses his knowledge from the future to make up a reasonable story, with verifiable facts to manipulate Horace, which thrills me to bits, because all that “future knowledge” was starting to feel like the most underplayed hand ever.
Horace tells “Capt. LaFleur” that he and his people will be shipping out via a submarine bound for Tahiti in the a.m.
Sawyer’s displeased, because he really has zero desire to leave the Island at all, and at least needs more time to find “his people,” but Horace ain’t havin’ it.

The Truce, The Truce, The Truce is on Fire!

Soooo, I guess the D.I. and the Island’s Indigenous people or “Hostiles” had drawn a line in the sand and agreed to disagree, but evidently murdering two of the other team’s guys, and then hiding the bodies is considered “breaking” the truce, and Richard “Guyliner” Alpert is displeased.
As displeased as he can be through all the Botox, anyway. I totally can’t wait till the episode where he tells Juliet where she can find the top-secret “Syringe Station,” thus explaining both of their inability to age or move facial muscles.
Tangent. Sorry.
He walks right on through that sonic fence, and confronts Horace, who appears to be a top guy at the D.I. in spite of that inherent wussy vibe he gives off.
Their chat is unsuccessful as far as Horace is concerned and Sawyer, ever the diplomat, decides to have a go at Richard. Finally recognizing this time travel shit as the bargaining gem that it is, Sawyer talks about Jughead, the bomb and John Locke, the fearless leader and Richard gets sucked in and barters Paul’s cold, dead body, for continuance of the Truce.
Sawyer runs on inside to tell his new friends all about the deal he struck, and collect Paul from his mourning widow and deliver him to Richard.
Horace is thrilled; Amy not so much, but she does what she must for the D.I.
She quietly pockets Paul’s ankh necklace, which is completely epic in terms of significance and I will revisit momentarily, before bidding her husband farewell.
Horace grants Sawyer a two-week reprieve to search for “his people.”
Juliet’s not stoked about the two extra weeks at “Casa de Dharma by the Sea,” but decides to seize the opportunity to get it on with Sawyer and agrees to hang in there and “have Sawyer’s back…”
Naughty, indeed.

Yours, Mine, and Ours. A Tale of Free Love in the 70’s, Man.

The Island may be hidden, but was apparently, not exempt 70’s “free love” ideal.
3 years post-Paul, Horace and Amy have partnered up and she’s this close to birthing mini-Horace.
Unfortunately, Horace can’t be present, as he is sloshed on Dharma beer and has passed out, when this miracle takes place.
Juliet (who has apparently gotten over leaving the Island…I wonder why) is moonlighting as a mechanic, but scrubs in to deliver Amy’s baby. She is understandably nervous, considering all the death associated with birth around here, but Sawyer believes in her and she successfully delivers a perfect baby boy.
No one dies.
No one arrives either, as Jin gravely reports to Sawyer. Sawyer commits to wait forever.

La, La, La, La, La…

James LaFleur picks his sweet Juliet a sunflower and she cooks up a carb-rich pasta dinner for her man, to ensure that he has plenty of energy for… whatever, and they embrace blissfully (if not uber-passionately.)
But before everyone can join hands in the sunset-friendship-circle and sing Kumbaya, Horace needs to account for his insane display with the dynamite and that poor tree.
He divulges that he was borrowing a pair of socks from Amy, and he found Paul’s ankh in her drawer.
He proceeded to drive himself mad wondering if 3 years is really enough time to get over someone.
Sawyer tells a thinly veiled story about Kate, revealing that he can barely remember what she looks like now. She’s gone and he loves Jules.
That is, until the next morning, when he gets the call that Kate’s come home, and he lies to Juliet as he sprints out the door to greet his fair maiden.
On the upside, Jack is wearing a tie that looks way cleaner than poor Faraday’s, so maybe he’ll do Danny a solid and donate it to him. Anyway, I’m sure Jack will be half naked by next week, in vain attempt to compete with Sawyer, so no skin off his back, really.

The Mystery of the Ankh

Amy thieves her dead husband’s ankh necklace, and for good reason.
Let’s start with some “Fun Facts About the Ankh”:
*In Egyptian hieroglyphics, an ankh means “Eternal Life.” Eternal life is big on the Island.
*In James Arthur’s book “Mushrooms and Mankind,” he tells a story involving a man named Horus (don’t let the spelling throw you) and accepting a gift of an ankh in the mouth. Yeah, it’s best if you Google it.
*In Egyptian culture, it is thought to symbolize and even encourage “the act of conception”

OK, so we have a widow stealing her husbands’ necklace shaped like the ancient symbol for healthy conception, in a bizarre-o place which seems to be to be pro-Eternal Life, but anti-Healthy Newborns. Interesting.
Throw in the fact that Amy seems to be the only woman who has been able get pregnant on the Island AND give birth on the Island and not end up dead, and I think we have a bonafide mystery here.

Further, what if Sawyer hadn’t insisted on ignoring Faraday’s advice about not messing with the future and hadn’t saved Amy? What if Juliet had just stuck to fixing carburetors and not saved the baby when the “internist” could not? I suppose this miracle child just would never have happened.
Maybe he wasn’t supposed to happen.
And most importantly, who the heck is this unintended baby boy, anyway?

“A Well-Read Con Man Is The Most Dangerous Kind…”

I just made that quote up, but it definitely qualifies as “one to grow on,” so I’m standing by it.
Sawyer, for example, is a far better con man because of his vast literary knowledge.
When he speaks to Horace he identifies himself as the captain of a salvage vessel that crashed en route to Tahiti. That immediately harkened back to a tale of long ago, known in popular culture as “Mutiny on the Bounty.”
I almost wish I could’ve missed this connection, because it runs deep.
Here are some “Fun Facts About Mutiny” to get us started:
* The Bounty was headed for Tahiti, to gather breadfruit trees.
*One of the guys leading the “mutiny” was named Fletcher Christian (as in Christian-maybe-Jacob Shephard)
* The other was William Bligh. Bligh is historically regarded as arrogant & self-serving, but was actually said to have been a fair and capable leader (Is it Ben? Is it Widmore?)
* They had a disagreement and it all came to a head and the proverbial “camp” was divided. People died.
*The ship Pandora was sent as a salvage vessel to collect the ravaged Bounty.
* Long story short, it ran aground round about Tahiti (just like Capt. LaFleur’s ship).
More specifically, it ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef (dude, how did they not see that?)
The Great Barrier Reef is off of Australia.
When Locke, Hurley, and Sawyer are playing Risk near the beginning of S4 fave “The Shape of Things to Come,” Hurley says, “Australia is the key to the whole game”. Sawyer retorts, “Says you…”
Maybe he’s changed his mind?

Worth a Mention

*Sawyer is a pop-culture junkie. Amy asks Sawyer not to spread the word around Utopia that Horace is a pyromaniac and a lush, and he responds “It’ll be on the Coconut Telegraph before morning”
“Coconut Telegraph” was a Jimmy Buffett song circa 1980 (had it even been written yet?!) with lyrics about gossipy Islanders.
As an aside, Buffett dedicated the song to “All My Reefers.”
Like, Great Barrier “Reefers?” Is that a stretch? Maybe, but I do not fear being wrong.
I fear leaving something out. Which is why these re-caps are a bit lengthy. Sorry (no, I’m not.)

*Did Miles hair turn gray in the last week or is that ash or some majickal temporal-jumping dust?

* The “I’m an internist, I’m not qualified to do this” line delivered by the Dharma doc who couldn’t deliver Amy’s breech-baby, echoes Juliet’s line from S3’s “Not in Portland,” about not being qualified to repair Ben’s kidney sack which Jack sabotaged during surgery.
* Little ghost girl Charlotte is creepy.
* Daniel seems creepy-happy when Little Ghost Charlotte waves at him.

* Best line of the night goes to Miles with: ‘by now, he’s probably trying to explain time travel’ regarding the exorbitant amount of time that Sawyer has been speaking to Horace.

Lyndsey has OCD. Lucky for you, in between color-coding her closet and using anti-bacterial hand sanitizer, she channels her mania into over-analysis of “Lost”. She believes the idea that “TV rots your brain,” is bullshit. She is sure her brain is not, in fact, rotten.

Season 5 Episode 7 “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham”- Ben MURDERS John Locke.
Other stuff happens, but seriously… Ben MURDERS John Locke, so like…yeah…

First Things First

Must. Gather. Wits. Slow, deep breaths. Focus.
OK, so I’m shocked. The “Ben-is-a-horrid-murderous-wretch” development was a lot, but I will gather myself and take this beast step by step. Baby steps. Baby steps back to 9pm. Back to a time before LOST had once again grabbed me by my ankles, flipped me upside down and shook me really, really vigorously for a solid hour.

All right.
I am thrilled to report that my fear about this episode possibly being “filler” and thus interchangeable with last week’s was unsubstantiated. This episode was certainly NOT filler. But I am glad that it was aired after last week’s “316″.
I think it would’ve been perplexing to decipher who the heck “Ceaser” and “Ilana” were, if we hadn’t sorta met them last week. But not like, “oooohhh, interesting” perplexing. More like, “WTF?” perplexing.
I mean, we still don’t know their game or their purpose, but I’m not actually convinced that we know anyone’s game or purpose anymore.
I trust no one. I’m officially jaded. Thanks LOST.
Where the eff are my pills?

Is That a Flashlight or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

On the Island, some shady-dude named Ceaser, snoops around some unidentified office-like space, looking for some unidentified thing. He finds a gun. He seems satisfied with that, though I’m not sure if he knew it would be there or if he’s just nosy.
Enter the Chick who escorted a handcuffed Sayid onto the plane. Her name is Ilana. I still think she bears a resemblance to Ana Lucia.
Ceaser lies to Ilana and claims he found a flashlight, and makes no mention of the gun. Ilana must be new in town, because she believes him.
Ilana tells Ceaser that they found someone standing in the water wearing a suit. She doesn’t think he was on the plane.

John sits in the middle of a circle of new “survivors”, cloaked in a blanket.
The whole scene is super “Lord of the Flies.”

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall…

Ilana tries to be slick and entice Locke with fruit. She brings him a Mango (which is the “best Mango he’s ever had”) and pumps him for information regarding who was and was not on the plane. Locke says they should take a Census (cus like, that’s what Hurley did back in the day) and then confesses that he was dead on the plane, which is why no one noticed him. He was riding in the cargo area.
If I were John, I wouldn’t be so quick to show off and tell newbie about the majickal “it’ll make you un-dead” properties of the Island.
Not everyone has good intentions towards this particular Island, or has “risen-again-John” forgotten that lesson?
I digress.
As we know, LOST adores a good mirror image scene (Jack’s eyeball, for example) and this scene with John eating a Mango while staring out at the water with renewed sense of purpose and saying freaky things to people he doesn’t know, totally reminds me of the Pilot episode where John stares at the ocean and eats oranges while marveling over his newfound mobility and then does the creepy “orange peel” smile.

Oh and also, there were three rowboats but apparently Frank took 316’s manifest, and an unknown woman and rowed away.
Something tells me they’re not headed out for an afternoon delight.
So either Frank was like “Eff this, I know Faraday’s bearing, I’m out, who’s coming with me?” or he has more altruistic intentions.
Maybe he’s taken Sun for a ride out to where the freighter had been? We never did see her post-crash…
But why would he need the manifest for that? Major sadness wash if Frank has gone AWOL again.

So, now there are two boats.
Which our original survivors are just a few flashes through time from finding and stealing.
Oddly, Ilana claims the boats do not belong to them. Apparently, they were there when the plane landed or crashed or whatever.
If I trusted anyone at all, that’d confuse me.
Because, if they’re not yours and they’re not mine, then who’s are they?
But that’s the benefit of thinking that everyone is lying at all times. I needn’t bother being confused.
She’s just lying.
See, this jaded thing actually adds simplicity to one’s life. Rad.

At Least That Donkey Wheel is Consistent…

Locke turns up in the same desert in Tunisia that Ben did.
Guam, Tunisia and the Island must all share an electromagnetic pocket.
I sure hope Mrs. Hawking is impressed by my stellar observational skills.
After many hours pass, some hooligans pick John up and throw him in the bed of their truck as he screams in pain. Turns out they’re “good guys” (if I believed in such nonsense,) and they take him to a primitive-ass hospital and snap his leg back in place as Matthew Abbadon looks on ominously.

Where There’s Smoke…

So, if Abbadon is back, could Widmore be far behind? Nope.
Widmore visits Johnny in hospital. John doesn’t know who he is.
Widmore claims that his people ruled the Island peacefully for 3 decades before Ben took over.
That’s funny… he seemed pretty violent when we met him in 1954.
That’s why they called him “Quick-Fire Charlie.” He was all kinds of trigger-happy.
They didn’t really call him that, but I think it would’ve been cute and appropriate if they had.
Anyway, Widmore tells John that they met when he was 17. John says it was 4 days ago.
Widmore says Ben exiled him and was exiling John too. John says he chose to leave.
War is coming. John is the key to victory. He’s special. Blah, blah, blah…

A Sense of Humour : Essential While Naming Your Bastard Child

Widmore “renames” Locke, Jeremy Bentham, after the radical British philosopher.
John asks why he chose “Bentham.”
Widmore declares “Your parents had sense of humour when they named you, why shouldn’t I?”
Swell point Chuck, except that John’s “parents” did not exactly sit about and have a chuckle about naming their blessing from God after Oxford-educated, English philosopher, John Locke.
What actually happened was that John’s teenage mom got knocked up, and hit by a car (these incidents are unrelated), which induces labor four months early. She freaks out after she gives birth and randomly yells that his name should be “John” as he was rushed to the incubator.
That was it. Very little fore thought.

***Incidentally, though it was completely a fluke, John Locke’s name does have a ton of fun connections and relevant themes around it.

John has trust issues. That’s reasonable.

John asks Widmore why he should trust him.
Widmore counters by saying “I haven’t tried to kill you. Can you say the same for him?”
Touché, Old Widmore.
Widmore then tells John he’s special. John is highly co-dependent so he’s thrilled.
Then he sees the wheelchair, and has a wide range of thoughts flash across his face, such as, “At least when I was on Team Ben, there were no wheel chairs. I hate being a cripple.”

“I’m Not the Man They Think I Am At Home. No, No, No… I’m a Rocket Man…”

Matthew Abbadon and John Locke do a kitschy remake of “Driving Miss Daisy,” as John attempts to gather his friends and enemies for a reunion.

Sayid is repenting his murderous ways by building schools in Santo Domingo. John drops in.
It doesn’t go that well.
Next stop… New York City.

Walt “I was 10 when we shot the Pilot episode” Lloyd returns. He’s tall.
Abbadon notices how big Walt got, too. Great, we all agree.
John wheels over to Walt and they have an awkward convo in which Walt doesn’t appear at all surprised about John’s visit. This actually makes him fit in quite well with the LOST-ies. No questions whatsoever.
Walt does have dreams about John, though. He’s on the Island, dressed in a suit surrounded by people who want to hurt him. Crazy because in the first scene that was just what happened. John leaves.
Abbadon points out that John is 0 for 2. John tells Abbadon to shut up and drive.
Now, it is Ben who looks on ominously.

Hurley thinks John’s dead, which doesn’t scare him. Dead people are par for the course for young Hurls. It is only when Hurley realizes that John is, in fact, alive that we have fun with some dramatic delayed reactions. But the good times really roll when Hurley sees Matthew lurking by the car. He says Abbadon is evil, freaks out and leaves.

They head for Kate’s and on the way, Abbadon claims that he isn’t evil, but that he “helps people get to where they need to be.” OK.

Kate and John talk about love. It’s heartwarming.
John says that he lost his love because he had been “angry and obsessed.”
Kate notes how far he’s come. She is being sarcastic.
I believe she is implying John has used what we call “transference.” He is now obsessed with the Island.
Either way, she’s not going back, so…

John then goes to see his ex-girlfriend / “love of his life,” Helen Norwood.
Sadly, Helen is dead.

Just minutes later, so is Matthew.
He was shot in the back several times. Uncool.
John gets freaked out and drives madly until he hits a main road. Sadly, he doesn’t stop when he hits said main road; he just gets in a crazy bad accident.
Luckily, Jack is on duty at the hospital and is available to save John.

John takes the opportunity to tell Jack how important he is to the Island and tries to convince him to go back.
Jack replies by telling John that not only is he insane, but that he’s totally un-special. Jack can be asshole.
John figures out that this would be a good time to pass along Christian’s “Tell my son I said hello” message.
Jack is shaken but not stirred (enough to go back to the Island, anyway.)

“I been hanging around this old town for way too long” Counting Crows

John is about to hang himself and Ben shows up. Ben says Charles Widmore is evil.
John is sad. And confused. He feels like a failure. Ben talks John off the ledge.
John tells Ben that he needs to see Eloise Hawking re: getting back to the Island.
This prompts Ben to strangle John and kill him.
Ben then hangs John from the ceiling, suicide-style, cleans the joint, hatches a plan to entice Sun using Jin’s wedding band, gives a quick eulogy, and heads out. Super disturbing.
Funny how the shot of John dangling there, just screams “Crucifixion,” no?

“I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart. You broke my heart!”

Dear Ben,
You are a wormy, squirmy little man. What you just did to John Locke was heinous.
I may never forgive you for this.
Still, I only hate you because I have loved you so damn much. I find myself drawn to your buggy-eyes and I want so badly to believe you are the man you claim to be. I cry for what I thought I saw in you.
You seemed so damaged, yet somehow… salvageable. And that made me want to save you.
Oh, Ben…I’ve been a fool for you for too long. I’m done. I must be done.
But please, “if you see me walking by, and the tears are in my eyes, look away, baby, look away…”

Love never truly dies…

Survivor Island 2.0

John tries to tell Ceaser that he’s been here before. Like Ilana, he’s not super-receptive.
Upon seeing him sleeping in the sick bay, John also mentions that it was Ben who killed him.
Ceaser remains undaunted.
Also, why is no one freaking out? These dudes seem to know exactly where everything is. It took the 815 folk 40 days to blow open one hatch, yet it’s Day 2 and you guys are resting comfortably in the New Otherton infirmary. There is zero worry about food or water or rescue.
WTF? Are these people robots? Can I get some emotion???
Your jet just crashed on an Island! C’mon!

Just Saying…

* The date on the London Daily Telegraph newspaper that Widmore gives Locke to read about the O6 “Hero’s Welcome” was January 14th. Author, Lewis Carroll (“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass”) died on January 14th.

* How do Ceaser and Ilana know one another? They seem familiar and comfortable, somehow.
Yet on the plane, they had no dialogue. I’ll just bet those two are up to no good.
I’m jaded now, remember?

* Who healed all those people and set their broken limbs? I’m pretty sure that Jack is in a different time space continuum, so he can’t be responsible. So, who is?

* Why did Jack, Kate, and Hurls end up in one time line and the rest in another? Ceaser says they disappeared in a flash of light before the plane went down. Interesting

Lyndsey has OCD. Lucky for you, in between color-coding her closet and using anti-bacterial hand sanitizer, she channels her mania into over-analysis of “Lost”. She believes the idea that “TV rots your brain,” is bullshit. She is sure her brain is not, in fact, rotten.

Super-Duper Brief Recap

Season 5 Episode 6 “316”- Jack hits the Island with his usual panache, and a scrap of paper bearing the words “I wish.”
Hurley, a “metaphorical Charlie” (played by his guitar case) and Kate “I’ll never go back” Austen, are also present.
Ben lies about something while in church, but makes up for it shortly thereafter by quoting the Bible. Desmond is so effing hot when he’s angry and Jack and Kate have sex.
Then, Sun, Sayid, Hurley, Jack, Kate, Ben and Frank fricken’ Lapidus decide to hightail it to Guam, which happens to share a magnetic pocket with another far-away land…

First Things First

Let’s talk about this episode’s title, “316.”
The obvious correlation heads directly to the front door of the “LOST School of Religious References,” and leads us to the 3rd chapter, verse 16 in the Gospel of John.
This is where we get the Cliffs Notes version of Christianity, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Um, why do we torture children with an hour of religious school every Sunday?
We should just cut to the chase and have them memorize that lil’ gem.
Anyway, this seems to hold some messages of FAITH (which is totally John Locke’s OCD) as well as talk of “everlasting life…”
Sounds like a Resurrection Party to me! Perhaps, our sweet Bentham will rise again?
Dare to dream…
Still, I was forced to dig a bit deeper. LOST wouldn’t dare hit us with a super-obvious episode title at this stage in the game. That would be amoral.
Let’s see:
316- area code for Wichita, Kansas… I can do better than that.
316- The chapter in the Oregon State Legislative Laws referring to Personal Income Tax? I’m bored. We’re “Not in Portland.”
Oooooh! I know!
Pg. 316- otherwise known as the dedication page to Prince Caspian in the 2001 single-volume compilation of all seven “Narnia” novels?
“Narnia” as in “The Chronicles of…”
As in the C.S. Lewis (and Charlotte Staples Lewis namesake) novels about four siblings who assist in the unfolding of history, on a magical island. Strange.
The focus of the “Prince Caspian” volume?
Returning to Narnia, years later… and the fact that it’s…bizarre.
Uh-huh.
Just to preserve my integrity, I must acknowledge Entertainment Weekly’s Doc Jensen for the “Narnia” info. I simply cannot read everything!

Rejoice! Thou art in God’s house…

In the church where Jack’s Dad was mourned (maybe not, but it looks awfully similar, don’t cha think?),
Hawking acquaints the O2 (all we could get on “short notice”) plus Ben and Des to the off-Island Dharma station called the “Lamppost.”
Simple name, not so simple purpose.
Ben lies about his knowledge of the station. Lying is a sin.
Hawking gives us a quick lesson in electromagnetic Island movements. Riveting.
Desmond gets all fired up and rails against “I-used-to be-really-hot-in-1954” Hawking for being a “time thief.” As in, “you stole four years of my life, you evil wench and I’m still angry,” which feels justified.
Also, I know that I should be totally engrossed in the drama of this moment, but I am so distracted by the notion that Des is going to get knocked the eff out by that pendulum which keeps swinging perilously close to his head, that it’s slightly tough to focus.
Anyway, Ajira Airways
Flight 316 (oh, I see)…
36 hours. Go. Gather your friends. Hop aboard.
Recreate the first go round.
The catch?
Hawking just wants one night alone with Jack and then she can die a happy woman.
Joking.

She does want to have a private convo though. She says a number of outlandish things, not the least of which is that Jack needs to gather some remnants of Christian and ship those to Guam in John’s coffin, for safe keeping.
Okay, but the real GASP! moment in this scene comes when Hawking gives Jack JOHN LOCKE’S SUICIDE NOTE.
No disrespect to the deceased, but John writes like a girl.

“Lessons in Trust” starring Ben “I Love to Lie” Linus

Jack thinks that Hawking is off her rocker, which he expresses to Ben in the church sanctuary.
Luckily, some conveniently placed art inspires Ben’s extra-obvious appeal to Jack’s Achilles’ heel.
Ben alludes that Jack bears some similarities to Thomas, the Apostle who has trust issues.
He reminds Jack that Thomas is not remembered for his heroism… just his doubt.
Jack sheds a tear.
Then he goes for drink. Cus’ that helps while de-toxing from Oxy.
Sadly, he doesn’t get far before he receives a phone call, which has a very similar vibe to the one he got from the mental institution regarding Hurley in S4’s “Something Nice Back Home.”
But this time Hurls isn’t the trouble… Grandpa Shephard is…
Grandpa Shephard loves magic shows starring white bunnies.
He should totally see what Ben can do with a white bunny.
Apparently, Grandpa totally belongs on LOST, because he prefers life on the run. He’s even packed a suitcase, which includes a pair of Christian’s shoes. Great news for Jack, as those will easily fit in the coffin with John.

Kate takes Quaaludes, and gets over that whole “Aaron” idea…

Kate apparently had an epiphany or some life-changing encounter with someone who is probably dead, after storming off the Pier in “This Place is Death,” because by the time she stumbles into Jack’s bed, my girl is in bad shape.
She tells Jack that she’ll go back to the Island, but makes Jack promise not to ask about Aaron ever again.
Jack never really liked the kid anyway, so he agrees.
Then they get it on, which seems random, but totally makes sense to those of us who believe that sex is a great substitute for dealing with the emotionally heavy shit in life.
Jack gets Kate morning-after coffee with milk and a couple sugars, and thankfully a ringing phone interrupts any threat of real intimacy between the two.
Kate leaves, which is super weird for her.

When Jack Meets Jill…

Ben’s all banged up and sends Jack to meet Jill at Simon’s Butcher Shop. Jill is the Butcher chick, harboring Locke in the freezer. Ben asks Jack to do him a favour and grab John’s body, before they hit the road to Guam.
Jill leaves Jack alone to defile the dead with insults, as he puts Christians shoes on the sacrificial corpse. Then he throws John’s unread suicide note in the coffin.
Curiosity may have gotten the cat, but Jack seems largely unaffected by it…

815 Redux

All the fanatically devoted mother’s seem to toss the kiddies aside in favour of a little excitement…

Sun’s suddenly down for cause, in spite of the fact that Ji Yeon was not invited back to the Island, and Kate shows up, right on schedule, sans adorable but verbally-challenged, Aaron.
Sayid appears to be playing the “Kate” role and boards the plane while handcuffed, and accompanied by an FBI chick (who kinda looks like Ana Lucia.)
Hurley buys a bunch of seats on the ill-fated 316 in order to save the lives of as many people as possible, and brings along Charlie’s “spirit,” for good measure. He still prefers his comic books in Spanish.
Ben’s all slung-out and no one bothers to ask what happened (though Sayid’s current state of captivity might be relevant…)
I really wish this group were a shade more curious about shit…you know, like who whooped Ben’s ass in the past 36 hours…

Alas, no one seems to care.

Perhaps, that’s because Ben got daily beat-downs when they were on the Island, before.

Maybe they think he is in training…

Thanks to the new strict security measures, Jack can’t escape this dang suicide note.
He tries to convince Kate that “this is destiny.”
She’s like, “Yeah, whatever…” but thankfully Frank Lapidus chooses that moment to hop on the PA, and gives a dash of credence to Jack’s “meant to be” mumbo jumbo.

Splendiferous Surprise!

I was so wishing and hoping and thinking and praying that Frank would be back! I loved his soused ass.
Jack pulls rank and asks to chat with Frank, who is apparently no longer an alcoholic and looks tanned and radiant.
Frank is clueless as to the fact that Jack’s presence is NOT a coincidence, until he spies Sayid and Hurls, and realizes that Guam isn’t actually going to happen today.
I am thrilled that Frank has to go back… he was, after all, “supposed to be flying 815 on that day,” as we learned last season.
Also, Frank is privy to “The Lie” … it would have been sheer sloppiness to leave him behind.
Yes, this is what was supposed to happen…
Way to pull together a re-enactment!

Ben Linus- Unflappable Flier!

Again, Ben is not scared of anything, even the impending PLANE CRASH and calmly catches up on some reading.
Still, I’ll bet he kinda misses that submarine that Locke blew up.
Jack and his BFF Ben have a heart to heart and Jack decides to read John’s note.
John gets the last word (for now), and re-states his wish that Jack had “believed him.”
Lightning storm.

Aaaaannnndddd… ISLAND!

Jungle Life: just like riding a bike…

Jack “saves” Hurley, rouses Kate, and starts coordinating the inaugural Jungle-Recon mission.
But before they can actually mobilize, time-traveling Jin pulls up in a very new-looking Dharma van. Oh, and he’s wearing a Dharma jumpsuit, and brandishing a large gun.
Luckily, he seems happy to see Jack and Co., so I do not foresee any “Who are you? I haven’t actually met y’all (yet),” type of altercations next week.

Perhaps…

* Could the “Simon” in “Simon’s Butcher Shop,” be a reference to “Simon the Tanner?”
As the legend goes, Simon removed his eye at the suggestion of a Biblical verse which said: “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.”
Then, he moved a mountain using Faith.
Sorta like John Locke, huh?
He sacrificed a leg and moved an Island. That’s similar.

* While I like the idea that Sayid’s arrest has something to do with Ben’s less than stellar appearance. I’m wondering if perhaps Ben has attempted his promised revenge against Widmore-daughter and Desmond-lover, Penny? Oh dear…

* Why doesn’t Hawking seem, like, happy to hear that Daniel’s keeping up the family time-travel craft?
In fact, she seems pretty displeased to hear Daniel’s name at all…
Maybe she feels like he shouldn’t be dishing out “warnings” all willy-nilly and shit…
Why can’t boy-genius truly understand the concept of “you cannot change the past / future…”

* Who’s the dude in the airport who gives Jack his “condolences,” for the loss of his “friend.”?
His front row seat to all the on-board action, tells me that he just may become…important.

* This episode (“316”) was originally meant to air as the seventh episode of the season. Next week’s ep “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham,” was actually supposed to air first. Hmph. Not sure if I love that… it kind of seems like one or the other of these ep’s is going to be filler of sorts, if they were interchangeable. But maybe not.
Maybe the producers just got high and watched “Memento” again, and thought it would be fun to flip the episode order.
Here’s hoping…

Sun’s kid is cute. It does occur to me that present-day, toddler Ji Yeon, is prominently featured as Sun’s cell phone screen-saver, yet just a bit earlier, she showed Kate a photo of the child which depicted her as an infant. What gives, Sunny? Why so close to the vest with the current snaps?

Anyway, just as Sun prepares to exact her revenge on Ben-ny, her Mom calls and she picks up (perhaps, the idea of call-screening is still considered gauche, in Korea?). Still, her barren heart melts as she hears her child’s voice and she eerily informs Ji Yeon that she’ll be home with a new friend for her to play with, real soon.
Hey, Sun! I get that all Americans look alike, and you’ll surely be able to pull the wool over your three year-old’s eyes, but you’re gonna have some splainin’ to do, with those ass-y guys in Customs. They’re just not going to buy that whole “I wanted to bring something extra-special back to my father-less child,” defense.

Ben Linus: “I STILL Ain’t Scared!”

Ben isn’t scared of the Smoke Monster. Ben isn’t scared of Hot Pockets. Evidently, Ben is also not scared of guns…as proven when Sun threatens him with one, and he STILL doesn’t blink. In fact, he gets even more RoboBen on us, ups the ante on the staccato speech patterns, and behaves as though he’s just been asked to pass the pepper at dinner; rather than become a witness to the obliteration of his otherwise genius bid to get the gang back together. Sigh.
Anyway, cue the BIG REVEAL that Jin is alive. There is actually very little that is “big” or “revealing” about this moment.

Time Travel…Does an ESL Student Good!

Jin’s English is suddenly superior. Which is lucky, because the French are notoriously impatient when it comes to trying to understand linguistically subpar Asians. That isn’t true. That was an unsubstantiated racial slur. Against French-ies, Asians, and patience. Sorry.
Anyway, Smokey is back!
I love this course-correcting, old-school railroad train sounding, life-flashing-before-your-eyes, “WTF!?” inducing, beast!
Oddly, Smokey makes Jin’s English suck again, and all he can squeak out when that shit arrives is, um, “monster!”
Hot French guy (Montand) isn’t keen on this “explanation,” and is kinda aggravated that Jin has broached such an offensive notion.
The Monster then shows Mont-y who’s boss, and kicks his ASS!
This was sad.
Pause for propriety.

Still, TELL me you didn’t see the comedy in the moment Montand’s half-dead voice emanates from within the shallow grave he’s been left to die in, (you know, just after his ARM WAS RIPPED FROM IT’S SOCKET and tossed back out to his friends) and he yells:
“I’m hurt!”
Chalk that shit up to the understatement of the Century.
Don’t worry, dude…we got your arm… I mean your back (Freudian slip)…
Anyway, Danielle thinks it best just to shoot Montand, but is unceremoniously interrupted…

aaaaannnndddd switch…

The sky lights up and Jin experiences his very first Island-style Flash.
He drinks from a ginormous leaf and suddenly finds himself with courtside seats to Rousseau’s warp speed flip from “adorable” to “certifiable,” which is actually completely justified.
Then has a happy reunion with Sawyer.

Jin’s still not as language-proficient as he was earlier (like 16 years ago, evidently), but luckily Sawyer’s been down this road and knows how to motion wildly with his hands and speak really loudly in the classic “all-American method” of “inter-cultural communication.”

Again, Miles is from Encino and is not Korean.
Luckily, Charlotte and Jin had established their linguistic rapport as they gathered medical supplies, back in S4 ep “Something Nice Back Home,” so Char takes over where Miles cannot and Sawyer proves inept, and  communicates with Jin.

“Sittin’ on the dock of the bay…Wastin’ time…”

Things on Pier 23 aren’t exactly panning out.
Kate calls Jack “crazy” and leaves. That’s rich.
Sayid makes violent threats and leaves. Also rich.
Ben tries to salvage the very rickety bridge through time he’s been crafting, by convincing Sun to come with him and see how “alive” Jin really is.
Sadly, Kate has already left with Aaron, thus thwarting Sun’s ill-conceived promise to bring a real live American, home for Ji Yeon.

Temps sur les marches… (Time Marches On)

When Jin hears that his peeps are taking a trip trough time via The Orchid, he naturally wants to help. John ain’t down. Jin is apparently still thinking that the sitch is still just as it was during the “Reign of Jack”. Sorry Jin, but “Adventure Quest: Jungle Mode,” is done, dude.
He doesn’t seem to fully grasp that these “Flashes” are serious shit and not just fun exploratory pleasure jaunts

Road Trip in the Reincarnation (Canton Rainier) Van!

Sun complains about the fact that Ben promised the “Jin Lives” evidence within 30 minutes and that was 32 minutes ago. Ben blames traffic. Jack chooses this moment to apologize to Sun for leaving Jin behind. Then, Sun and Jack openly plot to kill Ben.
At this point, Ben HAS HAD IT!
He gives Jack and Sun a wicked verbal lashing and threatens to turn this van RIGHT AROUND!
They promptly fall in line.
Ben’s a good guy.

Charlotte looks dead. Again.
Luckily, she can still yell in Korean and Jin’s surprised look translates into any language.
She can also still say cryptic shit like “You’ll find it in the well.”
Sawyer promptly hurls a “When are we?” at us, and they magically happen upon the aforementioned “well.”

BOTOX, anyone?
Time travel may not be great for like, living, but Juliette’s skin is looking radder and radder. Seems as though there is a hidden supply of Botulinum on this most majickal of Isles. Just observing…

Dear Daniel:

Our Condolences.
Totally not gonna say “I told you so,” in terms of all those empty promises you made to Charlotte, vis-à-vis “everything being OK,” and all…
That would be in super-poor taste.
So I’m NOT doing that. Nope.

Since when is “well” code for “Top-Secret Time Portal?”

Good call, Charlotte (R.I.P.)!
That “well” you recommended finding in lieu of The Orchid was a total gem.
John makes another dramatic exit from the group, and begins his descent, only to become victim (yawn) to another time shift and plummet to the ground.
Once again, he finds himself with a severe leg injury and no plan.
Fortuitously, Christian (gasp!) turns up to shed literal and figurative light on the sitch. He has a lantern (that’s the literal light) and a strategy (which has been in crazy short supply in recent days.)
Side note: Christian totally says that John came to see him in the Cabin.
In reality, John had gone to see Jacob (not Christian) at the Cabin…
Did Christian just subtlety admit that he is JACOB?!
That wasn’t exactly a “Let’s circle-back on that, later” sort of moment, so WHY does John pick this opportunity not to ask any questions?
Am I over-analyzing based on the idea that every word, every syllable ever uttered on this show is designed and spoken with INTENTION? Is this simply an inconsequential nit-pick or a massive LOST Series reveal, shrouded in understated restraint (soooo not LOST-like)?

Anyway, I’m loving how Christian straight-up verifies that John IS a mere “sacrifice” of the Island and tells him not to let the Donkey Wheel hit him in the leg on his way out.
Oh, but not before telling John to be sure to say “hello” to his son. This gets John’s attention, but just as he asks Christian who his Son is… FLASH.

Filed Under: Totally saw THAT Coming…

And, cue Desmond (love, love, love!)
Des is just in-Time (get it? in-Time?) for the totally un-stupefying reveal of Daniel’s Mum! I use that exclamation point loosely.
And yes, it sure is our favorite old-Other, Eloise Hawking!

Crazy but Maybe…
Why does Charlotte totally drum up similar vibes for me, as Ben’s Dharma Initiative childhood friend, Annie? The producers said (long ago, but they said it,) that “Alex and Annie were the two most important females in Ben’s life.”
We know that Charlotte is “of” the Island, but could she be closer to the Ben / Annie mystery than we thought? This is totally a hunch, but I just have to throw it out there.
I am highly intuitive.

“My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.” ~Jack Kerouac

Super-Duper Brief Recap

Season 5 Episode 4 “The Little Prince”- We are back on Penny’s rescue boat and Jack and Kate are having a discussion regarding Aaron. We learn that it was Kate’s idea to say the child was her spawn and Jack openly gets mad about Kate’s lamentation that Sawyer is “gone.” Jack needs to relax.
Meanwhile, Sawyer seems real surly again and Daniel still has his tie on. Juliette reverts to being all emotionless and “Other-y” and Charlotte recovers from her face-plant. Oh, and John Locke wants to go back to The Orchid, but STILL has no legitimate plan.
Hurley is totally rocking that orange prison jumpsuit and Sayid off’s a guy who tries to off him. There are poison darts involved. Always fun.
Sun is still vengeful and sneaky, but she needn’t be, for as we speak Jin’s not-at-all-dead body is being cared for by a very preggers Danielle Rousseu circa 1988-ish.

I Love a Charade!

Imagine with me for a moment…
It’s time to book a vacation. You consult your trusty online travel agent, you log onto Fodors.com, you research and plan, and then you bite the bullet. Point, click and three months later, you land in gay Paris!
But something’s amiss. You notice that this language which the locals speak, sounds distinctly less…romantic than you’d have imagined.
You’ve seen nary a baguette and that dude kinda growled at you when you asked where you might find the Louvre.
At this rate, how long do you think it’ll be before you realize that you’ve somehow ended up in Munich?
Qu’elle Horror!

While this is obviously an extreme example, I have been experiencing a similar sort of disorientation ever since last week’s fun “coup d’everything-we-thought-we-knew.”

Thus, I am asking for your preemptive forgiveness. I fear that this musing may be a touch interpretively over-indulgent, but I simply do not wish to take a single facet of this episode for granted. We’ve seen how well that’s worked out in the past…

Plus, I am stoked to have any reason at all to pontificate on yet another “not-at-all-meant-for-kids” bit of children’s literature.

Without further adieu…

Le Petit Prince

Raise you hand if you think the “Prince” referred to in this episode’s title is Aaron.

Raise your hand if you think we are meant to draw parallels like Aaron is to the Island as The Prince is to his Planet, B612

Raise your hand if you totally need to take a second and read the Wikipedia entry on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s, “The Little Prince”
You should. You’ll get a lot more out of this section if you do. Go on. I’ll wait.
OK, now that we are all on the same proverbial page, I’d hope that no one still has their hands raised.
Once again, I think our wily producers are having a bit of fun with us. And because this is a somewhat Kate / Aaron-centric episode, it is both simple and seemingly appropriate to assume that Aaron is, indeed, the “Prince.” He is described as “having light blonde hair and possessing a profound innocence and poignant insights.” Oh, yeah…totally Aaron. Remember when he had that rad insight about the “Choo-Choo” and the “tunnel?” Way “poignant.”
Yeah, OK, I’m still bitter.
So, back to Jack… Oops, did I let that slip with no build up? Apologies.
At any rate, it’s true, I think that the idea that Jack is “The Little Prince” is rife with possibility.
Admittedly, this theory is exactly the sort of thing LOST producer’s Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse looovvveee to dangle before us and then batter and shred before our weary eyes in a virtual minefield of “Ha! Ha! We got you!”
Still, I’m rolling with this one…
On the Island, Jack tromps about, fixing things and people while being haunted by his un-dead father. He has no idea how good he had it.
Upon returning to “Earth,” he loses his “rose” (read: Kate) and his mind (read: brain.) That’s when he grows that awful beard and makes a deal with the duplicitous snake (read: Ben) just to get back to the place where he belongs (read: Island.)
Next time, he should cut out the middle man and, you know, NOT LEAVE.

Also, I do see that this correlation could easily be drawn to John Locke, as well (especially when the Prince agrees to die just to get back to his home,) but I’m just not buying it. The whole “John Locke is the true ruler of the Island and the Others” just doesn’t sit well with me. It’s too…obvious.
I really believe that John is going to end up being the Islands “sacrificial lamb” and Jack, it’s Prince.

Back on the Rescue Boat…
I must say that I love the fact that we’ve re-visited the O6 “to lie or not to lie” conundrum, a few times now. I like that between last year’s finale and this years first 4 eps, we’ve seen this decision from a variety of angles and have subsequently learned the POV’s of several of the survivors. I think it was important to see that everyone wasn’t automatically “all in,” just because the Prom King and Queen, Jack and Kate, thought they should be.

I Cannot Tell a Lie

I am a sucker for Jack and Kate.
It’s hard to explain, but I love the drama and the sexual tension that forever exists between these two. I like the irony in the story of the girl with the dark past, choosing to change her ways, stay put and let somebody love her, just in time for that somebody to go crazy.
That having been said, when Jack tells Kate that he is going to turn to her first whilst trying to convince the others to get on board with the lie and says (all intense and broody-like) “Are you with me?” and she sees his broodiness and ups his tearful eyes and says, “I have ALWAYS been with you.”

Ugh. I just died. I break for a great scene ending moment.
Sun lends Kate a blazer, baby-sits Aaron and receives a package containing a report, pictures of Jack and Ben, and some delicious looking chocolates with a side of handgun. That’s dark.
Kate goes to visit the really irritable lawyer-with-a-mystery-client. He’s still mean.

John Rips a Page from the Book of Ben
John Locke may be a man with no plan, no Others to lead (they seem to have gone missing), and just one kidney, but he still knows how to manipulate Sawyer. Sawyer is the con man forever being conned and all John Locke has to do is mention that he believes he can get Kate to come back to the Island, and Sawyer is suddenly John’s right-hand man again.

Then we see the light from the Hatch and Kate delivering Claire’s baby and we have a fun round of “When are we?” starring Daniel, John, and Sawyer. But of course, John and Sawyer don’t tell Daniel “when they were,” because shrouding the truth and games of subterfuge seem like the best tactic right now.

Gettin’ the Band Back Together!
Speaking of “once and again” type alliances, Ben and Sayid put their differences aside and take a family trip to see Ben’s lawyer, and Jack convinces Kate to let him come with her while she stalks the lawyer who reps the mystery “give me blood samples” client.
Then, in a fun nod to a “Three’s Company” making-all-kinds-of-erroneous-assumptions type of situation, Jack and Kate follow the lawyer to a motel where Claire’s mother’s (Carole Littleton) is staying (BIG SCARY REVEAL music plays here). Kate panics and assumes she KNOWS and has come to take him back. Jack then knocks on her door and tries to explain that everything that he and Kate had done was for Aaron. She doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Meet Carole Littleton… apparent total non sequitur.
Meanwhile creepy lawyer goes to see his other client… Ben Linus.
Oh. Dear.

Danielle Rousseau: Graduate of the School of Hard Knocks
You know why I love LOST?

Totally a trick question, because there are obviously SO many reasons, but the one I was thinking of involves their “First Class All the Way” approach to secondary characters. I loved how intricately planned out the story arcs of all the characters are, but especially those of seemingly “minor” players like Alex, Mr. Friendly (a.k.a. ~ Tom the Other) and particularly Rousseau.
I loved her when she was crazed in all her trap setting, “the Others stole my baby” mania, and I love, love, love that we are meeting her before she spent the past two decades sans sunscreen and human contact. Plus, she and her people FOUND JIN!
And while I’m clearly thrilled, I can’t help but wonder how this will affect that Godforsaken time line?

Obviously, Jin washed up about 16 years prior to the freighter getting blown up, so HOWever are they going to merge those two timelines?

Just Saying / Wondering…

* Kate’s address is 42 Panorama Crest

* Sayid was unconscious for 42 hours

* Ben dictates that they all meet at the Long Beach Marina slip # 23

* Ben is driving around in a van with the name “Canton Rainier” printed on the side. This is an anagram of “reincarnation.” Ooooohhhhh.

* Miles and Juliette both get nosebleeds, which means that they too are becoming victims of the crazy time travel. Daniel surmises that this means that they have been exposed for longer than himself, Sawyer or Locke. Juliette has been on the Island for three years, but Miles insists that he has never been to the Island before a couple weeks ago. Daniel doesn’t seem sure.

* Hmmmmmm…. Could it BE that Miles is Pierre Chang’s (Dharma Orientation video-star) son????? We see his child as a baby in the first episode of the season, but he is not referred to by name. WHAT IF Miles actually is his son? That would explain why Matthew Abbadon told Naomi that Frank, Daniel, Charlotte and Miles were are selected for a specific reason, in S4 ep “Confirmed Dead.” We know the reasons behind the others selection, but could his true identity as Baby Chang be the “reason” behind Miles presence on the Island???

* Our Island friends find Ajira Airways Water Bottles in the boat, which now resides on the shore of their old camp. LOST has always been awesome about cross-platform marketing, but I think they’ve outdone themselves on this one. Check it out: http://www.ajiraairways.com/

* I don’t really love the Juliette trying to bond with Sawyer thing. Is this high school? Is Juliette ALWAYS going to accept Kate’s sloppy seconds?

* Locke finds the washed up remnants of Rousseau’s crew’s stuff. The canister says “Besixdouze” which is a direct reference to The Little Prince. The translation? B 612. As in the Planet from which the Little Prince hails.

* Does anyone else think that Ben’s line delivery gets creepier and creepier? Oh, and he never blinks. Ever.

* Who is Sun going to wild on at the Marina? Gun? Check. Kate, Ben, Jack? Check. Check. Check. My guess is that it would be Ben, but lucky for him, he has the one tidbit she’s been waiting to hear. That her man is alive and he can take her to him. Aw. Yeah.

I HEART Quotations
I like quotations.

I kind of blame the highly stylized, mid-1990’s expressionless style of expression, popularized by the very TV shows I related to most as a teenager.

I swear if Joey and Dawson had been able to articulate a complete thought just once, without Katie Holmes getting all shoulder hunch-y and insecure or James Van der Beek’s Mom walking in, perhaps I’d be more adept with matters involving verbal communication.

But they didn’t and I’m not.

So, I embrace the ellipsis in my own life and consult the experts when it comes to conveying

the importance of the innately mystifying stuff.

“The Little Prince” is so filled with weighty quotations which easily correlate to LOST’s endgame (or at least where is seems directed this week), that I felt they deserved a section all their own.

Une Section Tous Leur (A Section All Their Own)

* “Where are the people?” resumed the little prince at last. “It’s a little lonely in the desert…”

“It is lonely when you’re among people, too,” said the snake.

* “Men have forgotten this truth,” said the fox. “But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”
* “What makes the desert beautiful,” says the little prince, “is that somewhere it hides a well.”

* “It is the time you have spent with your rose that makes your rose so important.”

Lyndsey has OCD. Lucky for you, in between color-coding her closet and using anti-bacterial hand sanitizer, she channels her mania into over-analysis of “Lost”. She believes the idea that “TV rots your brain,” is bullshit. She is sure her brain is not, in fact, rotten.

Super-Duper Brief Recap

Season 5 Episode 3 “Jughead”- Penny and Desmond are hanging on the yacht off the coast of Thailand, when she goes into labour. Desmond runs wildly through the streets searching for someone to deliver the wee one. He happens upon a doctor whom, as luck would have it, has his entire medical bag including forceps at the town square poker tournament. That’s handy.
We learn that Ben isn’t the only liar the Island ever produced and Daniel declares his love for Charlotte. Those two thoughts are not related.
Oh, and we also learn that there is a massive atomic bomb on the Island. It’s name is “Jughead.”

“What the World Needs Now…”

Ahhh, love! Aren’t you glorious?
Desmond and Penny are blissfully drifting on their love boat and well, loving each other so much, that one-day all that love mixes together and POOF! a child is born. That is how it happens, right? Naturally, they name the offspring “Charlie”…after dead rock star and Island savior, Charlie Pace, NOT after Penny’s dastardly daddy, Charles Widmore. Still, I am sure that this fun experiment in irony was not lost (no pun intended) on our crafty producer / writer friends.
Suddenly, Des gets that wild, bleary eyed look about him, which Penny knows all too well and she asks him to promise that he’ll never go back to the Island. He avoids the “promising” part of the program and asks, “Why would I ever go back there?” Then he leaves.
This proves that Desmond’s lying methodology is totally similar to my own…bob, weave, answer a question with a question, and get outta Dodge. Again, these thoughts are un-related to the matter at hand, but I really heart Desmond and want to connect myself with him as much as possible.

“When (pause) (pause) are we?”

First off, I’d like to thank Jacob (and the writers) for seeing to it that the most over-used dialogue in the history of the Island was only uttered once in this episode. Also, John Locke did the uttering, so it must be OK. For John is the leader. Just ask him.

Dear Daniel:

Dear Danny-boy,
We really wish you’d stop promising Charlotte that you won’t let anything happen to her. You should take a peek into the “Book of Jack” and see what happens when your hero complex gets all riled up and then something goes awry. You end up with a crazy beard and an addiction.
Hey, we’re pulling for Charlotte too, and we completely dug your insanely adorable declaration of love, right in front of the crazy “old Others” (a.k.a. “Hostiles”), but you really should control the tenuous guarantee’s of safety. Especially because you know that shit’s just gonna course correct itself. Even you “cannot change the past” or the future. Whatever. Um, when am I?

The other Others

Hot blonde chick named Ellie with tough British accent and massive gun comes tromping out of the jungle and upon seeing, Daniel, notes that he “just couldn’t stay away…”
Well, all right then…
So, she knows that Daniel has been to the Island before, but upon learning that this convo happened in 1954, I am forced to ask how in tarnation Ellie knows Daniel.
Yes, Daniel’s a time-traveler, but he’s no Richard Alpert…he’s not impervious to the aging process, so unless Daniel looks really rad for 65, something tells me that Lil Miss Ellie and Daniel have met in anOther space…and of course, in anOther time.

Dominus Illuminatio Mea (That’s Latin for “People at Oxford are smarter than you”)

So, Daniel doesn’t exist as far as the Oxford computer knows, but our intrepid explorer, Desmond knows better. Hence, when he sees the very clever “Do Not Enter! Fumigation,” sign, he disregards that shit and breaks right in. His persistence is rewarded. He participates in some witty banter with a surly janitor and finds a dusty photo of Daniel and a pretty flaxen haired lady (super reminiscent of the now iconic Des / Penny shot that we saw 8 times per episode, from S2 forward.)
Sadly, we learn that this blonde chick is named Theresa (not the sad part) and that she’s comatose in some hospice-type situation across town (that was the sad part.) Oh, and Daniel has seemingly abandoned her (another sad part.)
Tres’ shocking though, when we find out that Widmore is Daniel’s “benefactor.”
Cus, you know, I kinda thought that Daniel was this innocent, guileless character who got enrolled in these freighter shenanigans because he answered some “Physicist Wanted” ad on Craigslist. Not so, apparently.

Don’t I Know You From…?

Though definitive knowledge of deserted-by-Daniel, vegetative-state, Theresa is sketchy at this point, we do know that she is “a British woman in her 30’s who suffers from dementia.” We also know that Widmore is taking care of her hospital bills (which brought me back to another “vegetative blond woman in a hospital” scene, when it was revealed that Christian Shepard is paying for Claire’s mom, Carole Littleton’s, hospital bills.)
There have been other notable Theresa’s in LOST history. Ana-Lucia’s mother was Teresa (no “h”) and Boone Carlyle’s (R.I.P) nanny was Theresa.
This feels significant.
In “Deus Ex Machina,” John Locke eats some crazy-paste, goes into a sweat lodge and comes out trying to figure out “who Theresa is”. At this point, Boone chimes in with a fun story about being a bratty 6 year old who would entertain himself by repeatedly summoning his nanny, Theresa, on the intercom, causing her to climb up the massive staircase leading to his room over and over again. One day while doing so, she slipped and broke her neck.
Super interesting. Trust me.

Juliet Remembers Where She Comes From, Y’All…

Once an Other, always an Other…
When the angry-Others-in-jumpsuits bust out their fantastical linguistic skills, Juliet has a Dorothy moment and remembers that she too, was once an Other. She tells us that Latin is the language of the “enlightened” and convinces her new homies to take them to Richard. There’s no place like home…
Meanwhile, Richard being a sucker for a good love story lets Daniel, accompanied by Ellie, have a go at disarming the bomb.
Daniel suggests they bury it.
I suggest we dethrone Daniel as the de facto “smart dude” cus any child over the age of three understands that just because you cover it up, doesn’t mean it’s no longer there.

Tourettes Syndrome, While Sort of Funny, Is Not a Joke

Look John Locke, I get that your still green in the “Leader of the Others” department, but Ben would NEVER have pulled that “charge-the-camp-like-a-kid-with-Tourettes” stunt. Maniacally screaming “Richard! Richard Alpert!,” does not a pathway to respect make. Post-antics and a quick mention of Jacob later, John discovers that irate-est of the irate “Old Others,” is actually a young Charles Widmore.
Shock. Awe. OMG. Gasp. Silence. Holy. Crap.
And suddenly nothing is what it seemed and yes, the entire game has again shifted.
At least with Ben at the helm, we were aware that we were always being lied to. At this point, we aren’t sure who’s playing whom, and the show-that-interconnectivity-built is forcing us to examine every single facet that we thought we understood, through different eyes. Way to increase the sales on the Season 1-4 DVD’s, Producer dudes!

Crazy but Maybe…

OK, this is totally a theory at this point, BUT Old Widmore tells Desmond that he musn’t do anything that will change “years of events” that he has no involvement in (or something like that. I‘ve only seen it once and am paraphrasing at this point.)
Then we learn that Widmore was on the Island before BEN was even born. Before Locke was ever a twinkle in his crazy-slightly-slutty mother Emily and liver-stealing daddy’s minds.
Could Ellie (the Brit blonde Other) and young, old-Other Widmore have, you know, gotten down on the Island circa1954 and created a (gasp) child???? Could Ellie BE Ms. Hawking? As we’ve mentioned, Hawking is a pseudonym… we do not know her actual first or last name. Add to that the idea that Ellie did mention that Daniel “couldn’t stay away”, her tough Brit exterior, her association with Widmore, and Hawking-like ability to control the men around her (she’s obviously an upper echelon Other), even her pinned back “strict-looking” hair feel Hawking-ish.
Could this Widmore / maybe-Hawking pairing have created Penny (we never see her mother.)
If so, and if Hawking DOES turn out to be Daniel’s Mommy-dearest, that would make Penny and Daniel (wait for it…wait for it) BROTHER AND SISTER (well, half anyway.)
In related possibly-related news, both Ben and Locke have mother’s named Emily. Though we believe that Ben’s mother died during childbirth and we have seen Locke’s mother in far more recent history, it is fully possible that the crazy woman claiming to be Locke’s mom in the flashback episode, Deus Ex Machina, was NOT actually his mother? Go with me here…
Every character on this show is duped over and over again… at the end of Deus Ex Machina, Emily admits that she assisted in the kidney-heist scam for money, but she does not say whether or not she was being honest regarding being Locke’s mother. He’s never met her. Could that entire relation have been part of the set-up?
Further, both Ben and John see the ghosts of their mothers on the Island. It seems that the half-dead on the Island all have ties to the Island, which Emily Locke as we know her, does not. Totally inconclusive at this point, but I’m a know-it-all and at least if I call it now, I can legitimately say, “I told you so.”

Sawyer’s Back!

Sawyer was (understandably) moody during the first two eps of this season. Thus, aside from a couple “Frogurt” jabs at Neil, I was left a bit bereft of my favorite redneck’s humor.
Tonight, he totally rebounded.

Two best lines of the night:

(Walking up to Juliet and her new old-Other friends)

Sawyer: “I hate to break up your “I’m an Other, you’re an Other reunion, but…”
(Coming out of the jungle just as Daniel has feebly explained to Ellie that his people are from 50 years from then)

Ellie- “Are they from the future too?”

Sawyer- “You told her?!”

Lyndsey has OCD. Lucky for you, in between color-coding her closet and using anti-bacterial hand sanitizer, she channels her mania into over-analysis of “Lost”. She believes the idea that “TV rots your brain,” is bullshit. She is sure her brain is not, in fact, rotten.

Super-Duper Brief Recap

Season 5 Premier “Because You Left”- Off the Island, Grizzly Beard and Bug-Eyes are suddenly BFF and cavorting around the globe, attempting to convince the rest of the O6 to pack their shit and their dead frenemy “Bentham”, and take a joy ride through time back to a locale which no longer exists. That sounds rad.

Also, Sawyer, Juliet, the Science guys from the freighter and some random dude named Neil, are ripping through time on the supposedly-gone-forever-but-obviously-not-really, Island. It’s rough on them.

WTF?

Dude, Sun looks…older
I won’t pretend that I didn’t think that Sun was in bed with some faceless, un-Jin-man during the opening sequence of “Because You Left.”

I won’t even pretend that I caught on that it WAS NOT some “future” Sun during my first viewing of the episode. I didn’t. But it wasn’t. It was an entirely separate character, known at the moment only as “Mrs. Pierre Chang”, whom I believe we will meet more intimately throughout the duration of the series. She and mysterious Dharma Orientation video-star, Dr. Pierre Chang and their child reside in New Other-ton and like Willie Nelson.

Where Have I seen This Before?

Sometimes, the producers and writers of Lost like to taunt and toy with their audience. They enjoy a good chortle at our expense. But sometimes, they REALLY want us to know that there is vital importance within a scene. The latter seems to be the case regarding the musical opening of Season 5. We’ve been down this road before. This scene is noticeably similar to the Season 2 opener, where we meet a still hatch-arrested Desmond, aerobicizing and injecting himself to the Mama Cass classic “Make Your Own Kind of Music”, and Season 3 opener which introduces Juliet (the Other) and features fun, Petula Clark ditty “Downtown.”

Both Desmond and Juliet become major characters with significant storylines and arcs throughout the show. Thus, it hardly seems presumptuous to think that the Chang’s plot is about to spike in a major way.

“Shotgun Willie” by iconic American country singer/ stoner, Willie Nelson is the soundtrack to Dr. Chang’s morning routine. Sadly, you “can’t play the record”, “can’t play the record”, “can’t play the record”, “can’t play the record”, “can’t play the record…”
And just in case you somehow missed the “skipping record” allusion in the first scene, we have trusty science whiz kid Daniel Faraday to spell it out for half-naked Sawyer. He explains that the Island is like a spinning record but something seems to have “dislodged” it and now it’s “skipping.”

Phew! Thanks Producers of “Lost” for breaking that down both physically and verbally within the first 18 minutes of the episode. Still, it may be important, so perhaps it’s good that we’re clear.

As an aside, I swear if heard one more Islander utter the words “When (pause, pause) am I?”…

Right…gotcha…we’re not so sure which time period the Island is in.

All Aboard! Train to Obvious-ville! All Aboard!

I’m on the fence about this whole “Choo-choo, tunnel” debacle. After Aaron indicates that the train is perilously close to the tunnel, Kate responds, “choo-choo knows better than that. He goes into that tunnel, he’s never coming back out.”

Thanks, “Goober”, your incoherent ramblings just cost me FOUR hours of internet searching, in vain attempt to identify a 2 and a half second cartoon clip, which I was sure had some obscure subtext behind it. I want my life back.

While I do fear that the Kate’s line was exactly what it seemed to be (an allusion toward the idea that if they go back to the Island, they can never leave), I’m still hoping that the spoils of my over-indulgent trip into the depths of hell known as Google, may be significant at some juncture, so I will share what I’ve learned:

* Kate refers to Aaron as “Goober” in this scene, which could be a reference to the mid-70’s Hanna-Barbera cartoon series, “Goober and the Ghost Chasers.” Kinda like the ghosts that everyone both on and off the Island are habitually chasing? Hmph.

* I was sooooo pulling for this theory to work, but I think it may be one of those funny coincidences that I don’t truly believe exist on this show (or in real life, actually.)

There is a pop-up book called “Choo-choo Charlie: The Littletown Train,” which I would have loved to be able to link to Aaron’s superbly narrated description of “Choo-choo.” The ideas are so THERE. “Charlie” being the man who first acted as a father figure to Aaron. “The Littletown Train”: “Littletown” sounds a heck of a lot like “Littleton,” a.k.a.: Aaron’s biological Mother’s last name. Sadly, I can’t dig up any animated cartoon links for this, thus I must abandon this theory for now.

* There is also a bit of an “Alice in Wonderland” reference in here for me. The story has oft been referred to throughout the series and the idea that if Alice falls down the rabbit hole, she cannot get out (much as the train cannot come out of the tunnel) seems significant.

Ben Can’t Hide His (creepy) Lyin’ Eyes

Ben is a sick obsession for me. I find it impossible to despise him yet it is obviously tough to sympathize with him. Still, he seems to love that Island and I can respect a man who has hometown pride.

Which leads me to Ben’s latest “truth alteration.” Jack asks Ben when the last time he saw Locke was. Ben replies, “On the island. In the Orchid Station below the greenhouse. I told him I was sorry for making his life so miserable. “And then he left.” (The problem is, the clip clearly shows BEN (not John) “leaving.”
Why the lies, Benny? We know you “always have a plan,” but why is it so important that Jack not know that you left the Island before John?

Dear Daniel:

Dear Daniel,
Yes, Charlotte is hot and smart and interesting in that aloof, semi-snooty British way, but don’t go switching up all the “rules” just because you’re in love with her and she seems to be suffering the consequence of the frequent and sudden “flash travel.” We understand that it’s tempting to manipulate the gray areas in your theory and chat with the crazy-eyed hatch-version of Desmond, even though you just told Sawyer that he couldn’t. But there are tough decisions associated with being the smartest guy in the jungle. You may have to personally sacrifice for the good of the group. We’re sure your freaky Mother would agree (Huh?! What?! We’ll get there…)

~ Good Luck! And Namaste.

Mother Doom

Ms. Hawking. Mistress of Time Travel. Foreboder of death. Mother of Faraday. Uh-huh.

This one actually feels a little obvious. Both Daniel and Hawking are deeply involved in the time travel aspect of the show. Both are named after famous scientists. Though Daniel never actually gets to tell Desmond his mother’s name before the flash changes the time line, he does tell him to go see her at Oxford. Daniel was a professor at Oxford but he’s not British (yes, I know you don’t HAVE to be British to work there) but Ms. Hawking does have a British accent… could it be that Daniel’s mom is his connection to England? Daniel’s phrasing as he explains that there are “rules” involved with time manipulation, is eerily similar to Hawking’s admonition to Desmond in “Flashes Before Your Eyes.”

She also controls the final scene with Ben at the end of “The Lie“. Ben seems genuinely intimidated. Could Hawking be closer to Jacob than we know?

Just Wondering…
*Did anyone else not realize that Sawyer had never met Daniel Faraday? Upon thinking about it, I recall that Sawyer was chillin’ in the Land that the Others Built as Daniel parachuted through time and space onto the Island, but his overt hostility toward adorably awkward Danny was a little surprising at first.

*Richard gives wounded Locke a compass. This is the same compass that John did NOT choose in the Season 4 flash back ep Cabin Fever, thus prompting Richard to declare that John wasn’t “ready.” Is he “ready” now or is he merely the martyr he’s always been?

*John Locke’s body is being kept at Hoffs/Drawlar Funeral Parlor. Hoffs/Drawlar is an anagram for “Flash Forward”

Super-Duper Brief Recap

Season 5 Episode 2 “The Lie”- Flashback to the rescued O6 on Penny’s boat debating the merits of lying to the world. Hurls thinks it’s a bad plan. The rest disagree. They win. Hurley’s mad. Hurley vows “not to help them” someday in the future when they really need it.

Then there’s a cool ninja scene involving some bad guys, Sayid, Hurley and a not-so-safe house. Poison darts fly and Hurley ends up wearing an “I (HEART) My Shih Tzu” T-shirt. Later, he throws a Hot Pocket at Ben, who seems unphased.

Neil gets extra-irritating on the Island.

Presenting the Top 3 Reasons Jack Shouldn’t Have Ignored His Gut

That gnarly ass beard.
Silly Oxy addiction
Creepy alignment with Ben “I’ll gas you if I have to” Linus

Season 4 episode “Something Nice Back Home” was mega-important (and not just cus we first glimpse the Grizzly Beard in a flash forward.) In this ep, Jack is sick. Kate catches him popping pills and asks him if he “has a prescription for those” (fun sign of things to come.) The conversation ends with Jack claiming that his “gut is telling him that they’re getting off the Island.” Kate observes that his gut is sick.
Jack and John Locke have long been pitted against one another as symbols of faith vs. science and free will vs. destiny, but in recent episodes Jack’s been portrayed as out of control, reckless and severely unsure of the very idea which anchored him to reality on the Island…that he needed to get everyone home, thus fulfilling his promise to save them.
Personally, I believe that Jack changed his mind about leaving the Island before the rescue boat even plucked them from the dinghy in the ocean…possibly even before they left the Island at all. Locke is a convincing dude, and in the S4 finale, he specifically warns Jack that he shouldn’t leave the Island. Once he realizes that his pleas are useless, he tells Jack that they’ll all have to lie.

Symbolically, the stomach is the center of emotion. Severe anxiety is said to physically manifest through stomach-related illness. Could Jack’s sudden appendicitis waaaayyyy back in “Something Nice Back Home”, have been a manifestation of his anxiety towards leaving the Island?
Back in the Lost school of religious references, The Bible contains several parables containing sickness of the stomach as an important symbol. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden; Jacob (Jack’s father’s name) and his brother Esau; and Jesus Christ himself all endure ailing stomachs.

Oh, Neil!

You may remember a dark period during Season 3 involving some randoms called “Nikki” and “Paolo.” I was actually the leader of the “Nikki and Paolo Un-Fan Club.” We mostly just got real incensed about the presence of these two non-entities and sat around complaining, but it was healing in some semi-disdainful way.

Therefore, the moment “Neil” showed up in all his cranky, whiny, “I don’t wanna start all over again” glory, I started digging out my old Club phone list from those sad N& P days.

And just as I find it, THWACK! bitchy Neil takes a flaming arrow to the chest! YAY!

That was one of those aforementioned chortles those writer boys seem to have at our expense. They wanted us to think that this dude was going to step up to that uber-annoying platform previously occupied by Nikki and Paolo, but his speedy demise almost seems like a final apology from them to us, for enduring those two clowns throughout the third season. And an implicit promise that they wouldn’t pull that stunt again.

Ben’s Merry Cult of Saints

Lost has always been ripe with religious references, but the names of Ben’s LA-based cohorts in this episode are significant:

Jill- Jill is the female form of the name Julian. Julian is a Patron Saint of Travelers and Shepard’s. In this scene, Jill refers to Jack as “Shepard.” Additionally, Jill Pole is a character C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia. She is described as “a non-believer who is miserable in the “modern” world but can conceive of nothing else.”

Lost producers have said that author C.S. Lewis was the namesake of Anthropologist/ possible Island native/ apple of Faraday’s eye, Charlotte Staples Lewis.
Gabriel- sometimes regarded as the angel of death or one of God’s messengers. First mentioned in The Book of Daniel (Faraday?!)

Jeffrey- Meaning God’s Peace

Just Saying…

*Tee-hee. Hurls’ father watches Expose’. Expose’ was Nikki’s crappy TV show.
*Ben’s ardent defense of Jack after Jill the Butcher’s crack about his pill popping was note worthy.

*Hurley and Sayid make a quick “comfort food” run on the way to the Safe House. They stop at a drive-up called “Rainbow.” As in “Over the…”

Just like fellow not-really-intended-for-children tale, “Alice in Wonderland”, “The Wizard of Oz,” has received frequent shout out’s on “Lost.” The parallel’s are too numerous to mention in this section, but episode names like “The Man Behind the Iron Curtain,” and three-part Season 4 finale “There’s No Place Like Home,” indicate that perhaps the stop at Rainbow was about more than French Fries.

*Did it strike anyone else that Aaron asks Kate if he can “push the button” in the elevator at Sun’s hotel?

*So, Sun seems…angry. And Kate seems to feel…guilty. Why do I think that Sun may just be attempting to manipulate sweet, Ms. Austen? I have an inkling that Sun may be more in control than we think. And it does seem convenient that she turned up in LA, just as Kate was about to hit the road to who knows where…

Aaaaannnndddd breathe! I know that was a lot. But we had lots to cover. “Lost” is one of those shows that can be digested on so many levels, that the possibilities become infinite and the gray area between relevance and irrelevance becomes massive. Which is cool, because in my humble opinion, life doesn’t happen in black or white, it happens in the massive abyss of gray.

“So, tell me John. How do you expect to pilot our submarine? I mean, it’s a complicated piece of machinery. You don’t just press ‘Submerge’.” ~ Ben Linus

Lyndsey has OCD. Lucky for you, in between color-coding her closet and using anti-bacterial hand sanitizer, she channels her mania into over-analysis of “Lost”. She believes the idea that “TV rots your brain,” is bullshit. She is sure her brain is not, in fact, rotten.