“Hello Richard, it’s good to see you out of those chains”

“you”

“me!” “I am very disappointed- in all of you”

It occurred to me that perhaps Richard was, as many speculated, tied closely to the black rock. Perhaps even a slave on it. If Jacob saved Richard who then worked as an advisor between the people on the Island and the will of Jacob than it makes very good sense as to why Richard is so scared of Flocke and why Flocke is so hostile towards him. It would also explain why Flocke is disappointed with the followers.

The storyline between Jacob and MIB and Richard is turning out to be one i’m most interested in… I cant wait to see the history behind this…

www.TheSanatorium.com

My theory is that Ilana is a character intended to represent the Egpytian goddess Sekhmet.

Ilana is clearly in charge on the island, a strong female leader among her people, and Sekhmet was a warrior, protector and hunter. Sekhmet was commonly referred to as a lioness, and from a purely physical perspective, Ilana’s beautiful hair can certainly be described as a mane.

But Sekhmet is also known as both the Lady of the Flame and Devouring Flame, which is quite significant given that when we last saw Jacob, he had been kicked into the fire by Not-Locke/Mystery Man.

One of Sekhmet’s other designations was the Lady of Life, because she was able to cure illnesses and heal the wounded. Enter Jacob. He approached her at the hospital and asked for help, and we can assume that this took place before the events of 2007 on the island during the finale. If Jacob knew ahead of time that Mystery Man was going to take advantage of the loophole as Not-Locke and finally attempt to kill him, perhaps this favor he asked of Ilana involved protection from the future inferno, followed by her restorative powers. Further, I believe that Jacob was wearing gloves in the hospital because they had to avoid physical contact prior to the moment of salvation.

Before being tossed in the flames, Jacob told Not-Locke that “they’re coming,” and he very well may have been alluding to Ilana and her people. They were just outside of the statue, and I have a feeling that (at the beginning of Season 6) we will see Ilana rescue and/or save Jacob.

We are not privy to how, when and where Ilana sustained her injuries. But if Ilana is indeed an embodiment of Sekhmet, some of you might be wondering why she herself was susceptible to bodily harm. I would venture to guess that her gift may be activated or enhanced upon arrival on the island, which we know has unique healing properties itself.

Relevant side note: when you combine the names Ilana and Sekhmet, one of the applicable anagrams is heal mistaken.

In addition, there are some who believe that Sekhmet was the daughter of the Sun God RA, so it isn’t out of the question that Ilana could be Richard Alpert’s daughter. According to Alpert, he is ageless because “Jacob made me this way.” So if Jacob had the power to bestow eternal life upon a man, who’s to say that he did not also bequeath that man’s daughter with a predisposition for rejuvenation. That Ilana appeared to recognize Jacob in the hospital seems to indicate that they were already acquainted with one another, and it is logical to assume that she has been to the island before because she is more than familiar and comfortable with the layout of it.

There is great debate about exactly which Egyptian god or goddess is represented by the statue on the island, and Sekhmet may be a candidate; she has an Ankh in her right hand and a solar disc on her head. That being said, I am convinced that the infamous statue on Lost is an aggregate of several Egyptian idols rather than one in particular.

So there you have it.  To be honest, at first I was trying to figure out if Ilana was injured after a turn of the Frozen Donkey Wheel and poor landing or reception in Tunisia, or if she herself was somehow the one who was kicked into the fire. But neither of these theories seemed feasible after analyzing the logistics of both situations.

I was hesitant to follow this path, to compare yet another character to a historical Egyptian figure. Because despite the obvious mythology that exists on the island, I am still optimistic that this lore does not explain the entire series. To be frank, I will be disappointed if that is the case.

Thank you for reading, and feel free to discuss and dissect this theory in the Comments, but please be constructive!

[For other theories and episode analysis, please visit Jo's LOST blog]

That said, WOW! Wowee wowee wow wow. Didja see when the smoke monster…? And he shot Desmond…? And Locke looking all…? And Miles & Hurley going all Han & Chewy on us…? And Dan! Poor Dan. Poor Ellie. Poor everyone. It’s so not going to end well. At least Des is on the mend and looks like he’ll be OK. For now. (*insert ominous music here*)

Season 5 of Lost is now and forevermore to be known as the Greek Tragedy Season™. And it’ll be even more of a tragedy for me if I don’t start tearing through the last few episodes.

But don’t panic. Base eight is just like base ten really…if you’re missing two fingers. Shall we have a go at it? Hang on.

I know that the above quote from dear Mr. Lehrer doesn’t really apply so much except for the “Hang on” sentiment, except perhaps in that, throughout the present-day narrative in “Dead Is Dead,” Ben was starting to show us a side of himself that we’d rarely seen: the side that has a problem he’s not sure how to solve. In fact, harking back to “He’s Our You,” Post-Donkey-Wheel-Turn Ben has if anything been someone giving the appearance of fighting the future. Granted, he’s using a very advanced toolkit of skills and resources that allows him to improvise better than some people’s best-laid plans, and he’s fighting with the tenacity of an animal in a trap willing to gnaw off its own leg, but the fact remains.

In the grandest of Lost traditions, “Dead Is Dead” has re-contextualized previously-seen events, making us see them in a whole new way. From his reveal as the leader of the Others at the end of Season 2 to Ms. Hawking dressing him down in “The Lie,” Ben Linus looked like one of The Major Players in the grand game at the heart of the show. But the cracks in that façade started becoming more and more obvious as time went on…and around…and twisted back on itself…and, well, you get the idea.

But now…now we see it differently. We see Ben chastising Widmore for being too seduced by the perks of being The Other Lama™ only to become, if anything, even more seduced by them in the post-DHARMA era than Widmore likely ever was. Don’t get to literal in assessing the story of Alex as pertains to Ben’s life. When Smokey was showing him that montage (and, by the way, does Smokey moonlight as the background in inane political commercials for wingnut groups? Just askin’…), it wasn’t that Alex’s life was being held as more valuable to the Island than anyone else Ben ever killed, cheated, tricked, or lied to. It was that the story of Ben’s adoptive…OK, larcenous…fatherhood of Alex was indicative of lost humanity.

Ben went from sparing Rousseau’s life and adopting young Alex to being the doting father and faithful Island steward to being willing to sacrifice teenage Alex like a piece on a chessboard. He’d come to value his position and power more than the life of the person closest to him in the entire world. And even then he didn’t get it, choosing not to atone but to compound the wrong by storming down the path of vengeance, willing to take the life of someone who’s never done him a single wrong rather than admit his own complicity in Alex’s death.

It seems that the Island needs its leaders to be able to make hard decisions and do dirty work, but it also needs them to retain their sense of compassion for their fellow human. Why else would the knife be such a deeply wrong choice in the Other Lama Test™? The seed of that humanity remains, as witnessed by Ben’s hesitation to kill Penny Widmore when her golden-haired moppet showed up saying, “Mommy?” And I suspect that this is the only reason that Ben wasn’t killed outright by Smokey the way Eko was at the end of “The Cost of Living.”

And his penance of serving Locke faithfully with a great, big, bolded, italicized, all-caps OR ELSE? Priceless. The Island won’t have any of this self-preservation or -aggrandization. Oh, no, you have to give big, bad Papa Island everything—your pride, your faith, even your life.

You’re the largest liar that was ever created. You and Pinocchio are probably related!

Now, I don’t know if you’ve read your Dante, but the Ninth and lowest Circle of Hell was reserved for traitors and betrayers. And Ben’s betrayed everyone at every turn. He betrayed his father (who admittedly kind of deserved it) by killing him, he betrayed his extended DHARMA family by helping plot their slaughter, he betrayed his leader (Widmore) by mutinying, he betrayed the Island by going off course in so many ways, he betrayed Sayid by cutting loose after making an assassin of him, he betrayed both Locke and Juliet so many times it’s not even funny, and then he betrayed the Island again by coming back when he wasn’t supposed to.

Even despite the admonition…and threat…from Smokey-as-Alex, can anyone really think that he isn’t going to turn around and betray everyone (but especially Locke) again before all’s said and done?

What’s more, what always seems to lurk behind the betrayal is the raw, festering wound that was young, Roger-abused Ben. Think back to his tantrum to Juliet as Ben pettily showed her Goodwin’s decaying body, his petulance as he turned the Frozen Donkey Wheel, his “nyah-nyah” attitude anytime he’s one-upped someone.

The only conclusion I can draw is that Ben, for all his intelligence and endurance (I mean, the man spends most of his time in a state of recovery from being beaten to within an inch of his life, doesn’t he?), is like a child with a toy. Big, bad Charles has what I want. WAAA! Mean old John and Richard want to take my magic box away. WAAA! I’m being sent to my room (the outside world) for being bad. WAAA!

The ultimate tantrum/betrayal of wounded-child Ben can only be yet to come — probably as Ben tries to either a) ingratiate himself with the “Shadow of the Statue” people and/or b) destroy same from within — and you don’t want to be anywhere nearby when it happens.

Gimme head with hair…long beautiful hair. Shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen!

OK, I have to ask. Are the hair & makeup people on Lost having an extended joke at our expense? I mean first, we get Jack’s chin-badger. Then we get the Michael Emerson in the ludicrous rug pictured to the right. And Alan Dale in a piece that looks to me eerily like a more “salty” version of my departed father’s kinky salt-n-pepper ‘do. The rest of the time, Lost’s actor image enhancers seem to do such a good job, too.

At least Dale got a stand-in to play his younger Widmore of Arabia self. And Fionnula Flanagan got no less than two stand-ins for various points along her personal history as Eloise “Don’t Call Me Ellie” Hawking.

But we’re actually supposed to buy Emerson as a twentysomething. I mean, the guy’s an amazing actor and all, but at this point I’m surprised they didn’t try to have him play tween Ben as well just to mess with us.

And the second we see Desmond in a novelty nose, glasses, and mustache, I’m taking a hostage.

Right before your eyes see the laughter from the skies and he laughs until he cries, then he dies, then he dies. Come inside, the show’s about to start, guaranteed to blow your head apart!

But the centerpiece (as opposed to the hairpiece) of the episode was the Ben & Locke Show, which has now taken a dramatic reversal. Suddenly, Ben’s mojo is completely gone with his former dupe, John Locke. He can still work a yokel like Caesar without difficulty (alas, poor Ceasar, did we hardly know ye?), even sow the seeds of doubt with no less a Ben-skeptic than Sun.

But rain-divining, Island-attuned, fully faithful Messiah Locke is having none of it, and is going to make a truth out of Ben’s probable lie that he came back to be judged for his misdeeds. And along the way from watching Ben’s waking eyes bug out over seeing him, the resurrected Locke played an oddly ascendant Virgil to Ben’s Dante, out to strip away all of Ben’s self-deception and ensure that the Island actually did get its chance to judge its former Anointed One.

From continued needling about Ben’s notion to engage in the New Otherton (née Dharmaville) “pharisee” life, to reminding Ben that all his manipulations have left him alone, to rubbing Ben’s nose in his previous treatment of Locke, to the repeated hints that Locke was “something [Ben] can’t control,” to ultimately driving home the point that it was no one’s fault but his own (well, and Keamy’s) that Alex was killed. The canary in the coal-mine of Ben’s soul was dead because the toxicity had gotten too high.

But it was Smokey in the guise of Alex who ultimately got through to Ben, laying bare his intent to kill Locke anew and assigning him that most humiliating of atonement: serving the very man he’s manipulated perhaps more grossly than anyone faithfully.

Let’s be completely clear about this. Somehow, Ben thought he could challenge destiny. And he got farther than anyone else…you don’t see Widmore back on the Island, after all. He still failed, just like everyone else has this season, and Locke finally gets to be the Other Lama™, even if it ends up being a comparatively short reign.

And speaking of John Locke, I’m going to part company with anyone theorizing that he’s now an Island manifestation a la Christian Shephard or Yemi. When he says he’s “the same man [he's] always been,” I believe him. He’s just unbound by all the things that prevented him from being the Island’s perfect instrument. His anger, his daddy issues, his need for a self-aggrandizing destiny. I think they’re all gone. I’ll grant that he took a bit of malicious pleasure at Ben’s discomfiture, but one can hardly blame him for that, especially when he’s doing what can only be described as the Island’s bidding. But this just points all the more strongly to the Island being Locke’s ultimate exploiter, which I’ve been banging on about for goodness only knows how long. Longer than I’ve been writing for this site, certainly.

Quick Hits From “Dead Is Dead”:

• I actually find I believe Ben both when he says he knew Locke would be resurrected and that it scares him to death because he’s never seen anything quite like it. The rest in both of those exchanges was typical Ben BS.

• The Temple’s outer perimeter is a half-mile in radius?!? With all the over “the line” galavanting that various Lostaways did, not a single one of ‘em saw a massive stone wall surrounding a circular mile?

• Locke should never tell Ben to “shoot.” Ever. Jus sayin’.

• Smokey gets summoned by unclogging an ancient drain? All I ever get in my bathtub is my discarded hair. Yeesh. The only way that could have been more underwhelming would have been if Ben had filled out a form in triplicate.

• Is it just me or did Anubis look supplicant to the image of Smokey in the Temple hieroglyph? I find this…disturbing.

• Ben looked genuinely surprised to see Jack, Hurley, and Kate in the DHARMA Class of ‘77 photo. Curious.

• Widmore got some of the best lines, what with constantly sneering, “Boy!” at Ben and getting in a sweet reference to The Prisoner.

• Locke got so very many great lines: “I was just hoping for an apology.” “You just make friends everywhere you go, don’tcha.” “No sense in me dying twice, eh?” And even his little smile and wave to Frank & Sun. Priceless!

• “What lies in the shadow of the statue?” doesn’t sound like the Snowman Joke so much as some kind of Illuminati secret signal. At last, we have our other party in the “war” that Widmore’s always going on about. I’m coming around to the notion that Ben, Widmore, Hawking, Alpert, and now Locke, are all on the same side here even if there’s internecine struggle.

And now, “Some Like It Hoth!”

That is why evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.

From a Ben-tastic mythology-fest to a Miles & Hurley, pop-culture-laden, authentic Lost throwback to the days of pure flashback storytelling…and another one of those “breather” episodes before the roller-coaster that is Season 5 goes into a three-gee barrel-roll en route to the explosive finish.

Now, the discerning Lost fan had long since figured out that Miles was Dr. ChangCandleWickmundHalliwax’s son. So, that revelation was a distinct non-event to anyone reading this blog. But we still got some good insight into Miles’ character…enough to know that he’s a walking, talking example of the Hedgehog’s Dilemma, more comfortable with the leftover impressions of the dead than with anyone living.

Me, I’d be surprised if someone being brought up under those circumstances and losing his mother so young didn’t develop intimacy issues and a larger-than-healthy dollop of bitter cynicism. And can you honestly imagine being privy to all the mundane, nasty detritus of a dead mind effectively trapped in amber? There’s a reason Douglas Adams construed telepathy as a punishment in The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. (And I thought working tech support could give you a dire opinion of your fellow human!)

Good thing that Miles was playing Han to Hurley’s Chewbacca with the DHARMA van standing in for the Millennium Falcon on their little smuggling run around the Island. Hurley, as always, laid on the wisdom. If people just communicated more, they’d be a lot less miserable. And Ewoks suck, dude. Yes, his spelling may be atrocious and he may be ignorant about the time-scale on global warming and he may not be too swift on the uptake about the nature of time-travel in the Lost universe, but when it comes to matters interpersonal, Hurley seems to have more on the ball than any other character on the show.

You’d also think that Miles would be able to take his own advice as given to Mr. Gray (played by Dean Norris, a regular on the truly amazing Breaking Bad. If you’re not watching this unbelievable show, then start. Now!) not to miss his chance to tell a loved one he is loved. But noooooo…or at least, not yet.

Running on a treadmill after you and I’m running on a treadmill now

But it wasnt going to just be easy-breezy Lucas references from opening to closing credits. No, it wouldn’t be a Season 5 episode if there weren’t a few more inexorable time-loops constricting our characters in their coils.

Yes, the one involving Miles is patently obvious. It’s going to be thanks to him and the rest of the time-travelers that Dr. Chang turns his back on his wife and baby to save their lives, thus making him much less of a “douche” than Miles had been led to believe during his upbringing. (Note the way Miles kind of “fell in” behind Chang at various points in the episode, as if indulging his desire to be a boy following his father’s commands?)

But did you see the look on Hurley’s face as he watched the Numbers be stamped into the Swan Hatch-to-be? It was as if the number chisels were being hammered directly into his tormented heart. That was more painful than watching Jack & Kate, the troublesome twosome, trying and failing miserably at allaying the suspicions of Roger Linus about his dying son’s sudden disappearance. Those two really can’t do a damned thing right, can they. *sigh*

Paternal relations aside, I can’t help but think that the reading of Alvarez of the lethal orthodonture was not Miles’ purpose in being back on the Island. After the events of “The Variable,” I can’t help but wonder if Miles won’t be reading poor, dead Daniel to get at the crucial information in his cranium. I also can’t help but think that Miles is also headed to a bad end along with the rest of the freighter people.

Charlotte seems to have been brought back just to realize she’d been there before and to motivate Faraday to work himself up to thinking he can change the past. Faraday had to fail at that and get killed at the hands of his own mother. And Miles? I have a bad feeing about this…I don’t think he’s going to survive The Incident while Chang does, thus forcing another parent to see the ultimate fate of their child who was unnaturally transported to the past. But I hope I’m wrong. Miles has kind of grown on me.

Things that make you go, “HAH!”

• “Circle of trust.”

• “Why don’t we carpool? It’ll help with global warming, which hasn’t happened yet, so maybe we can prevent it.”

• “You’re just jealous my powers are better than yours.”

• “Polar bear feces.”

• “That douche is my dad.”

• “Third day we were here, I was on line at the cafeteria, and my mother got in line behind me. That was my first clue.”

• “We should all… get together for a beer sometime. How awesome would that be?”

• Miles’ deadpan reading of Hurley’s alternate script for The Empire Strikes Back.

• Phil getting beat up and tied up.

Hurm

• Is it even possible that the DI was managing to build the Swan without the knowledge and at least tacit approval of the Others?

• Emotional scenes with the dead always seem to cost extra with Miles, then end up getting refunded.

• Did anyone not know that it was Widmore who staged the fake 815 wreckage?

• OK, it was nice to know how Miles settled on exactly $3.2 million, even if it was a little underwhelming.

• Wow, but Bram came off like a recruiter for Jonestown in his attempt to persuade Miles. Kind of creepy. Also, their “team” clearly has nothing to do with Widmore, Hawking, Ben, or Alpert. Makes me happy Miles was so snarky with them.

• I so need to make myself one of those stylin’ black jumpsuits Dan was wearing when he got off the sub.

Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion of me working through my backlog after “Follow the Leader!”

In “Jughead,” ambiguity is the watchword of the day with very few scenes being what they seemed to be on the surface. Hell, even the reference in the title is ambiguous, since “Jughead” was both the name of an actual experimental H-bomb and of a time-traveling Archie character! (Don’t think they meant the Archie reference? Then why did Widmore’s appropriated uniform say “Jones?”) About the closest thing we got to straightforward was Locke’s closing the time-loop that brings him to the Island and makes him either the resurrected Once and Future Island King™ or else the biggest patsy ever used and abused by this particular hunk of exotic-matter-laden rock, putting even poor Michael to shame.

(Aside: And really, wasn’t it just one of the most cold-blooded moments on the show so far when Island Apparition Christian appeared to pointedly dismiss the at least partially redeemed Michael? No one deserves that…except Nikki & Paulo, of course.)

So let’s start with the Locke subplot before we get to the main course of Desmoliciousness. (I do so love Desmond-based neologisms, or “Desmologisms.” )

Pre-des-tin-a-tion, pre-des-tin-a-yay-tion…it’s making me loop!

That grown-up Locke ended up being the cause for Alpert’s previously-mysterious interest in young Locke may seem anticlimactic to the hardened sci-fi geeks in the house. I mean, we’ve all seen predestination loops before. But that reaction gives short shrift to this scene by focusing too narrowly.

Just as important in the exchange between time-jaunting Locke and 1954 Alpert was the fact that Alpert and the 1954 Others (including promising rookies Charles Widmore and Ellie-probably-Eloise Hawking) seemed ignorant of time travel as a possibility on the Island. It certainly looked to me as thought it was this strange visitation by the class of 2004 that first showed them it was even a possibility and that they should start studying bleeding-edge physics, stat!

In so doing, Locke (and Faraday) actually gave rise to the epic-scale ensurance trap being spearheaded by Hawking and blessed by Alpert (after all, Jacob sent Locke, right?) to ensure that all the Lostaways were aboard fateful flight 815 and Desmond entered Widmore’s sailing race.

It also resulted in the careful grooming of Faraday (who I’m more convinced than ever is Hawking’s son, but more on that later) as a temporal troubleshooter. Think about it…if the sudden disappearance of of the ‘04 Lostaways didn’t completely verify their outlandish story, then the birth of one John Locke in Tustin, CA, a mere two years later certainly did. It also explains the seemingly excessive emotional response by Alpert to 5-year-old Locke’s failure of the Other Lama Test™.

So, while Locke’s role in setting the predestination loop in motion was clarified, his fate was rendered more ambivalent than ever. Locke’s ascension to Other leadership as a child would clearly have gone against the time-stream’s (or maybe just the Island’s) necessary configuration. As Faraday said, most of us can’t change the past. Locke had to fail that test and he had to turn down the “Science Camp” invitation from Mittelos as well. He had to lose the kidney, survive his 8-story fall, be miserable in a wheelchair for some years, crash with Oceanic 815, be miraculously healed, do all the things we’ve seen him do on the Island, and actually die in the service of this grand design.

(Further Aside: Is it just me or does this throw some serious doubt on the ultimate employer of Mr. Matthew Abaddon thanks to his visit to the convalescing Locke? The possibility that he’s a double-agent only pretending to work for Widmore while actually serving Ben, Alpert, and Hawking is intriguing, to say the least.)

Furthermore, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that Jeremy Bentham-vintage Locke actually did not spend three years leading the Others and soaking up Island lore. Instead, bouncing around through time and never managing to get full explanations out of any version of Alpert he meets, he seems more out of control and less clued-in now than he’s ever been (his quick adaptation to using details like when certain rifles were made as temporal landmarks notwithstanding). Increasingly, he looks like the Island’s most-exploited dupe.

But then…it’s still only the beginning of Season 5 with the better part of two full seasons to go and Locke’s biography remains studded with miracles, the list of which I’ve gone through before. I still read this as setting Locke up for the ultimate miracle of resurrection and a chance for our master player of games to finally make the decisive move that “wins” for everyone the show and possibly everyone on Earth. Who knows? Maybe like poor, canceled John Doe, Locke will wake up with the Akashic Records in his head and Jack as his converted apostle. (I really like that scenario, by the way! You listening, Darlton? )

We also got to see that Richard doesn’t merely seem ageless by virtue being a time-traveler, as some had suggested previously, but has actually stayed young for very long periods of time. If anything, the evidence at hand would appear to suggest that Alpert has only ever traveled in time at the usual 1:1 speed. (“How old is he?” “Old.” I still say Alpert, at least, was on the Black Rock, dangit!)

Of course, this segues nicely to those fresh-faced youngsters, Widmore and Ellie…

I had a feeling when I’d met you that I’d seen you before. I saw the city of Paris in civil war…

The fact that Widmore was an Other in 1954 utterly confirms for me the basic premise of my “Others Civil War” hypothesis from last week’s recap, while still forcing me to change the details given that young Widmore would certainly appear to be “temporally appropriate” (ditto Ellie, assuming she’s Hawking, which I very much do!) to the grizzled, vicious old corporate raider in the present day.

Clearly, at some point, Charles tried to usurp power over the Others and the Island for himself. Though now I’m forced to conclude that this happened sometime in the late ’50s or ’60s in order for him to have gotten exiled to the outside world with enough time to spare to become a captain of industry thanks to his mad Other skillz before being the “silent partner” helping fund the DHARMA Initiative in the ’70s.

His ruthlessness was established early on by his willingness to snap his compatriot’s head rather than lead Locke, Sawyer, and Juliet to the Others’ camp. Ditto his arrogance by his inability to see Locke as anything more than “a sodding old man” who couldn’t possibly track His Otherness or know the Island as well as he does. Certainly sounds like the profile of an ill-fated would-be revolutionary and all-around hot-headed malcontent, don’t you think?

Meanwhile, young Ellie was given a really fine reason to start learning all she could about Minkowski space-time and probability by a traveler from the future. She also certainly seems to have ended up off the Island in the future, raising the possibility that she might have been a rebel on Widmore’s side. Possibly even his lover, as some are already theorizing, making Penny and Faraday half-siblings. (And we all know how Lost loves itself some secret half-sibs courtesy of Christian Shephard’s philandering ways…)

For her to turn around and fashion her son into an instrument for either troubleshooting or monkey-wrenching time itself (depending on how you choose to interpret it) would add yet another Dickensian touch to the proceedings. Anyone remember nasty old Miss Havisham, raising her daughter to break the hearts of men as a man had broken her own heart by jilting her at the altar in her youth? I know most of you are still trying to forget ninth grade English, but still…do try to remember your Great Expectations!

Despite all this seeming clarification, we once more find ambiguity in Eloise Hawking’s agenda in the future. Is she ultimately on Ben’s side? Widmore’s? Time’s? Her own? Whatever she is, she’s certainly not some passive Oracle of Time willing to do her thing for all sides without an agenda of her own. Yes, she may be helping Ben and the Oceanic 6 get back to the Island, but is that an alliance of convenience or a true loyalty to Ben (or just against Widmore) on her part? Is she trying to preserve the timeline, as she said to a confused Desmond all the way back in “Flashes Before Your Eyes,” or is that just a smokescreen for her attempt to use Daniel and Des to perpetrate the biggest temporal hack ever undertaken?

So, the reveals that both Widmore and Hawking were once Others, and that Ellie almost certainly grew up to be Eloise Hawking, mother of Daniel Faraday (and really, are those assumed names or what?) may seem par for the course on Lost, but don’t focus too much on the surface. Focus on the murkier depths instead, because meeting their past selves has done little to clarify the future of either character or their progeny.

Also, regarding Ellie, I think people are making wayyyy too much out of her comment to Daniel, “You just couldn’t stay away, could you?” This is a classic misdirection on the part of the Lost writers. This was a comment born out of the initial misapprehension on her part that Daniel, Miles, and Charlotte were somehow connected to the US military, with whom the Others had only recently done battle (and slaughtered to a man), and who left behind the titular Jughead, the H-bomb. It wasn’t Ellie recognizing Faraday at all, though as we heard in subsequent dialogue, Daniel recognized Ellie. (Holy broad hint, Batman!)

(Yet Another Aside: In further ambivalence news, weren’t the young Ellie and Widmore both dead ringers for how we’d expect them to look in their youth while simultaneously having two of the worst attempts at English accents ever heard on television? Oh my, yes!)

Okay, okay…now on to Desmond!

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!

I know I can’t be the only one who gets a little misty over Des & Pen getting at least three years of globetrotting, off-the-grid connubial bliss or that they named their adorable little moppet Charlie. (Awwwwww!) But nothing good can ever come of seeming to get your “happily ever after” only two-thirds of the way through the story. And, sure enough, poor Desmond has to go back to Ithaca…er, Oxford…to run another errand for Daniel and all the endangered leftover Lostaways. Being a unique temporal anomaly can really have its down-sides.

And, for all that Desmond showed us a more take-charge side as he stormed into Papa Widmore’s office rather than approaching as a supplicant, he (like Locke) seems to be dancing on the strings of hidden puppeteers. Eagle-eyed viewers have already noticed that the receptionist at Oxford was played by the same actress who played the Oceanic Airlines gate attendant in Sydney who saw flight 815 off. On a show that’s used the same extras to mill around in the background since Season 1, that simply can’t be an oversight on the casting director’s part.

We know for a fact that extra special attention has been paid to the manipulation of one Desmond David Hume’s life—Brother Campbell, Ms. Hawking, Charles Widmore, Libby, Faraday, and no doubt many more have been expending Herculean efforts to ensure that he act as required for as-yet-unknown purposes thanks to his “specialness.” (Yeesh. You turn one little key and suddenly the burden of the entire time-stream is on your shoulders…very unfair, I say!)

So, the trip from her to Faraday’s “sealed” lab to meet the suspiciously helpful caretaker, to poor, time-unstuck Theresa, to Widmore’s office to get the slip of paper with Mama Faraday’s LA address on it seems awfully orchestrated…which only further obfuscates Hawking’s ultimate allegiance if so. And, even if the caretaker was on the up-and-up—an unexpected wrinkle based on Desmond theoretically being rebuffed by the “Daniel’s not here, man!” response from the planted receptionist—it still seems odd that Widmore would know how to find Hawking and be willing to give Desmond that info.

That the destination of Oxford was originally planted in Desmond’s brain by Daniel is also curious. It doesn’t beggar imagination that 2004 Daniel didn’t know that mummy had relocated in the intervening three years to LA, but somehow someone still knew that Desmond Hume would be showing up in Oxford on that lovely 2007 day. Hell, at this point I might be willing to believe it was a future version of Desmond, all Wyld Stallyns style.

It’s going to be one mighty interesting day when Des faces Ms. Hawking again after over a decade, and double trouble to boot since it’ll put Penny and Ben Linus in close proximity. Hopefully, he’ll remember Hawking. That Des couldn’t remember that it was in 1996 that he’d last gone to Oxford with the events of “The Constant” comparatively fresh in his mind (only three years as opposed to eleven years previous) is more than a little unsettling after Charlotte’s memory lapse last episode. If Des has time-travel sickness as a result of Faraday’s implanted memory or as a delayed, dormant effect of the effects of all Des’ other time-jaunts, I’m gonna get mighty pissy.

This is what you want. This is what you get.

Which finally leaves the 800 lb. gorilla in the room, by which I mean the 6-megaton-yield hydrogen bomb, Jughead. The one question I’m not hearing anyone ask, let alone answer, is how the US military managed to stumble its way to this particular Island to test a bomb capable of vaporizing it entirely when Widmore, Ben, and others with astonishing skills and resources can’t find their way there even with very specific intent.

I can only formulate one possible answer to this question: the Island wanted that bomb.

Why? Beats the hell out of me. It clearly didn’t have much use for the military personnel accompanying said bomb as it allowed its faithful servants to mow them down expeditiously. It also prevented the one man likely to have the acumen to “render it inert” from actually doing so by yanking on the ol’ time-strings to leave Faraday and the others goodness knows when.

As has been observed on several occasions, things buried on this particular Island have a way of showing up again, and burying the bomb is exactly what Faraday told the ‘54 Others to do. That means there’s still a highly experimental nuclear fusion bomb with compromised shielding somewhere on this Island fifty years later, thus becoming the single largest instance of Chekhov’s Gun ever seen on network television.

Could the Island be considering suicide like the Luna Central Computer in Steel Beach? On Lost, anything’s possible…

(Final Aside: To all you people out there speculating that Charlie Hume-Widmore somehow time-loops back around to become Charles Widmore, I’m sorry…I really just don’t think that Darlton would have a major character be straight out of a novelty song. There is such a thing as a time-loop too far!)

Here is the 4-1-1 on Lost 411

TEASER

A – In a flashback reminiscent of Season Two’s first episode, Locke’s rebellious teenage mother, Emily, gets hit by a car and is forced into labor where she delivers a preemi-John Locke (He’s okay for now, just real early).

A – Presently, on the island, Locke, Hurley, and Ben do their take on the Three Stooges before making camp for the night.

B- Sayid and Desmond watch Keamy and his injured men return from the island.

Act Out – Capt. Gault reveals to Keamy that Michael is Ben’s spy and Keamy’s gun jams when he tries to shoot Michael. He has to settle for pistol whipping him instead.

ACT ONE

A – In a dream scene Locke meets Horace Goodspeed, who is building the cabin that Locke is looking for. Horace tells Locke to find him – while stuck on a loop. When Locke awakens with a purpose Ben laments, “I used to have dreams.”

A – Preemi-John Locke, the youngest to survive at the hospital, conquers every illness thrown at him to be abandoned by his mother and “discovered” by Richard Alpert.

Act Out – Locke, Hurley, and Ben make a “pit-stop” where Hurley learns that Ben is responsible for all the bodies in the pit.

ACT TWO

A – Richard Alpert visits five year-old John Locke (Did you draw that) and is unhappy when little Johnny chooses a bottle of sand, a compass, and a knife over a baseball mitt, a comic book, and The Book of Laws (for the best argument on what this book represents check out http://forums.buddytv.com/lost-theories/69073-island-jacob-theories.html by CathyH).

A – Back on the island, Locke finds Horace and his map to the cabin while Ben reveals to Hurley that his wasn’t his decision to purge the Dharma Initiative and that he wasn’t always the leader of the others.

B – Keamy leads a one man mutiny of the ship and opens the Second Protocol to find out where Ben is going to next.

Act Out – Capt. Gault tries to keep Desmond and Sayid safe, but Sayid knows that they must “get all our people off that island,” in order to be safe.

ACT THREE

A – With the map, Locke offers Hurley a chance to leave, but Hurley chooses to stay. Ben thinks Locke has conned Hurley, but Locke points out he is not Ben. And Ben agrees.

A – Teenage Locke is freed from a locker and given an offer to go to Mittelos in Portland, but he’s not a geek (Teacher: You can’t be a superhero. Locke: Don’t tell me what I can’t do.)

B – Back on the boat, Lapidus visits Michael and learns that Keamy plans his own island purge.

Act Out – Capt. Gault gives Sayid the Zodiac runner to rescue the Losties, but Desmond stays on the ship because it’s closer to Penny than he’s been in a long time.

ACT FOUR

A – Locke, Hurley, and Ben find the cabin (Destiny, John, is a fickle bitch).

A – Recently crippled Locke begins physical therapy when Matthew Abaddon plans the seed of a walkabout in his head after a brief discussion on the existence of miracles. (When you see me again, you’ll owe me one).

Act Out – On the B-story, Keamy forces Lapidus to fly the chopper after slashing the Doctor’s throat and killing Capt. Gault in a standoff. On board the chopper, Lapidus prepares a package for the Losties.

ACT FIVE /TAG

C – In the very brief C-story, Juliet chastises Jack just before Lapidus flies over and makes a delivery onto Claire’s tent. Jack thinks they’re meant to follow the chopper.

A – Ben “passes the torch” to Locke (It’s your time now) and John goes into the cabin alone where Dead Daddy Christian and Creepy Claire tell Locke what he must do to save the island.

Act Out – Hurley shares an Apollo bar with Ben as Locke returns from the cabin and tells them they must move the island.

At first glance this episode seems plot heavy with the mere intent of preparing us for the Season Finale. What could it possibly have to do with that overarching monomyth I keep talking about?

Looking at the A-story we can see that John is a chosen man of destiny. Seems simple enough, but take a closer look. It’s also in the B-story. If you blinked you missed it.

In Act Four when Keamy slashes the Doctor’s throat it is after we have already seen his body wash up and shore and Omar has told the Doctor about the Morse code message. It would seem like a “Neo-visits-The Oracle” moment if it weren’t for the fact that Keamy was not privy to this information.

Now, look closer at the B-story. Keamy pulls the trigger on Michael at the end of the teaser, but since it’s not Michael’s time (we assume) his gun jams. In Act Two Keamy takes matters into his own hands and opens the Second Protocols. Then of course there is the Doctor’s murder, but also notice that by forcing Lapidus to fly the chopper Frank is the one who gives the Losties a “heads-up” if you will. Sometimes his actions turn out the way he intends, and sometimes they turn out the way someone or something else intends.

Now, back to the A-story, where the flashbacks reveal that the island, or at least the people aware of the island, has been involved in John Locke’s life since his birth. Richard Alpert is the first one to show interest in Locke, but he’s not the one who ultimately influences Locke. Notice that Richard first offers Locke a test, “Which of these things belongs to you?” He’s essentially asking Locke to tell him who he is. When he doesn’t like the answer he leaves. We do not see another attempt at reaching Locke until he’s a teenager. This time, Richard simply sends a pamphlet with an invitation. He seems to have given up somewhat on Locke…but we know he’ll see him on the island.

Then there’s Matthew Abaddon, who talks to Locke about miracles and walkabouts. Abaddon is more successful than Alpert because Locke, as we know, actually attempts to go on a walkabout (which leads him to the island).

What do these two men reveal about Locke? Alpert tries to tell John who he is while Abaddon tells him how to discover who he is. This battle of free-will and predestination is juxtaposed against Martin Keamy, who takes matters into his own hands and tries to force the outcome. Both Keamy and Locke see themselves as men who make their own decisions, but in very different ways.

Let’s look at the little exchange at the beginning of Act Three where Locke offers Hurley the opportunity to leave. When Hurley chooses to stay Ben sees it as Locke progressing into a master manipulator like him, but Locke points out that he is not him. Locke was sincerely offering Hurley a choice.

Without getting too deep into the conflict between free-will and predestination, Arminism versus Calvinism (huh? Click on the link already), let me just say that if the two do indeed co-exist, then in the grand scheme of things the only “choice” you have is which side you’re going to be on.  For example, if you knew you were destined to be a leader no matter what you did, then you’d at least have the choice of what type of leader you would be. Ben seems to know how things are going to play out, that is why he always seems a step ahead of everyone and willfully manipulates others. Keamy, has no clue how things are going to play out…except he knows what he’s going to do to make things happen. Locke, thus far, has shown willingness to give and take. Sometimes destiny leads and sometimes Locke leads.

In the big overarching monomyth of the show, this episode reveals that Locke did not need to purse his destiny but instead who he would be when his destiny found him. Remember way back in season one when Charlie made the foreshadowing statement, “He’ll be the one that saves us all”? Well, it seems that Locke may be the chosen one after all.

The question now is whose side is Abaddon and Alpert on? Doesn’t one seem to be a man of science and the other a man of faith?

There are two sides. One white, one black.