I Am DB

Wow. Where to begin? How about the beginning…

DAS BOOT
That dude in the wife-beater – Keme? – asks Frank if he’s ready. Frank looks apprehensive, resigned to something he is not looking forward to, and says he’ll be up in minute. He proceeds to bring some canned food to Sayid and Desmond, still being held in the medical ward after their brief visit to the radio room, where Minkowski went to that great big freighter in the sky. Their door is guarded by Regina – the woman who Faraday, Charlotte and Miles have all communicated with via satellite phone from the island. She was the one who launched Faraday’s rocket…31 minutes before it actually made it to him. Anyway, she’s pretty disoriented when Frank comes by. And we never find out exactly why, because the next time we see her, she is wrapped in heavy chains, jumping overboard as if in a trance. And so like Minkowski, there goes another freighter denizen that I had expected to stick around for awhile. Perhaps we’ll those two again in flashbacks?

O’ CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN
When Frank drops off the canned food to Sayid and Desmond, the former reminds him that they still want to see the captain. With a tone of foreboding, Frank says, “No you don’t.” Later, a note is slipped through the door of their makeshift room. Sayid unfolds the paper and shows it to Desmond. It reads, “Don’t trust the Captain.”

When we finally do meet the captain – who introduces himself as Gault – he turns out to be a pretty straight shooter…which is not what we were expecting. He doesn’t hesitate to say that his orders come from Charles Widmore, a name with which he knows Desmond is well acquainted. He shows them the black box that was recovered from the wreckage of Flight 815 along with all the passengers, dead and accounted for. He displays surprising sensitivity to the feat of staging the remains of a large plane crash and putting all the passenger’s families through “a grieving process based on a lie.” He says that Widmore expended considerable resources to obtain the black box, and suggests that Ben is responsible for arranging the fake wreckage, complete with 324 dead bodies – “just one of the many reasons” that they have come to the island to find him.

Gault appears to tell it like it is, but here’s the dilemma: who can we trust? Frank seems to be sympathetic to Sayid, Desmond and all the castaways, so when he suggests that Gault is not someone Sayid wants to meet, I’m inclined to believe him. But maybe he just finds Gault too intense for his liking. Also, if we assume that Ben’s onboard spy – who has sabotaged not just the communications room but also the engines – is the one who dropped off the note to Desmond and Sayid, then of course he’d be telling them not to trust the captain, who works for Widmore. Who to believe?

MAGIC JOHNSON
Speaking of Ben’s spy, weeks of speculation and growing assumption were confirmed when the ship’s doctor summoned a janitor to clean a rather ominous looking bloodstain from the wall of Sayid and Desmond’s grim, cockroach-infested new quarters. The janitor makes his way down the hall, and though the doctor introduces him as Kevin Johnson, we know him as Michael Dawson…father of Walt, builder of rafts, turncoat of Flight 815. Sayid plays dumb for the doctor’s benefit, and introduces himself to “Kevin,” but we know he is dying to go into interrogation-mode. So how did Michael come to be on the boat, presumably in Ben’s employ? And where is Walt?

SEASICKNESS
The bloodstain on the wall is just one of many chilling signs that all is not well on this vessel. After Regina’s fatal plunge, Gault tells Sayid and Desmond that some of his crew have experienced a “heightened case of cabin fever,” most likely due to the proximity of the island (an explanation that is left hanging). Did the bloodstain on the wall result from a murder, or was the wound self-inflicted, another example of “heightened cabin fever?” What is it about the island that drives some people crazy, and why were none of the 815 survivors affected during their time on the island? It’s been suggested online – and this is probably true – that whatever has been affecting the freighter crew is the same thing that Rousseau’s shipmates suffered years earlier – something she has called the “sickness.”

LIFE AND DEATH
Of course, it wasn’t all cockroaches and lima beans in this episode. For one thing, we discovered another of the island’s mysterious powers. Not only does it return mobility to the paralyzed, send cancer into remission and cure sterility, it also rapidly accelerates language-learning, as evidenced by Jin’s significant progress with English. Unfortunately, his efforts may be in vain; it doesn’t seem like he’ll be settling down in Albuquerque anytime soon. The episode’s big kicker was that Sun’s baby-delivery flash-forward was cleverly, deceptively juxtaposed with a Jin flashback. Jin was not present at the birth of his daughter Ji Yeon, because according to the episode’s final scene, he’s dead. Sun, along with a visiting Hurley, takes her new daughter to a cemetery, where she weeps before Jin’s headstone and tells him about his daughter. The twist of Jin’s death was a shocker, but all may not be what it seems. The headstone shows his date of death as September 22, 2004 – the day of the crash. So could Jin still be alive, on the island? And if he is, what set of circumstances could possibly occur in which Sun would leave the island without him and play along with the Oceanic lie? Or perhaps she believes he actually is dead, and is just allowing the story of how/when he died to be manufactured in exchange for…what? Or maybe his death is real, and only the date is fabricated. This head-spinner will be one of our primary curiosities for the remainder of the season.

One nicely written and played component of the Sun/Jin storyline was Juliet’s tough love campaign to convince them not to leave the beach for LockeLand. Telling Jin about Sun’s affair was a stone-cold move, and a reminder of how Juliet has evolved over time. As her flashback last week showed again, Juliet came to the island sweet and timid, but her time there has hardened her emotions and toughened her resolve. Here’s hoping she gets off the island and is reunited with her sister so she can find her happy place again.

By the way, the producers promised that by the end of this episode, we would know the complete list of the Oceanic Six. So for those of you keeping score at home, we have Jack, Hurley, Sayid, Kate, Aaron and Sun. What will happen to the other crash survivors? And where will Desmond and Juliet fall?

FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Here a few random observations and questions the episode left me with:

-Where are Frank and the helicopter? The freighter doctor tells Sayid that Frank is on a little errand. Why do I suspect that this errand is not good news? As I mentioned above, Frank seemed uncomfortable about something at the beginning of the show, just before heading into some kind of meeting. What has he been sent to do?

-When Hurley arrives at Sun’s apartment and asks if anyone else is coming, she says no…and he says “Good,” sounding relieved or pleased. What’s up with that? Probably nothing, but it struck me as highly odd. Also, when does Hurley and Sun’s visit to the cemetery take place in relation to Hurley’s flash-forward from earlier in the season? My guess is that his visit to Korea happens before his return to the mental institution amid visions of Charlie. But I’m not sure…

-Did anyone notice that when Sun turns off her television just before experiencing labor pains, the program was the episode of “Expose,” which starred the late castaway Nikki? Cool.

-Did anyone catch the name of the freighter? After the scene with Jin and Bernard fishing (a really nice scene, by the way), which concludes with Bernard talking about karma, the next thing we see is a wide shot of the freighter. I couldn’t make out the name, but it looked like “Karma.” If it’s not, it’s definitely something close to that.

-I feel like the episode shortchanged Desmond a bit, in that it didn’t give him nearly as dramatic a reaction as it should have to learning that the freighter is Widmore’s. I hope the next episode deals with his reaction a little more. Knowing that Charles Widmore once again seems to be controlling his destiny somehow has got to be troubling.

-If you just can’t get enough, I direct you to Entertainment Weekly’s preview of last week’s episode as well as its recap. The preview covers some interesting topics such as The Numbers and the questionable logic of how Michael can be on the boat given the timeline of events on the show. The recap (its third page, specifically) talks about some of the episode’s literary references and their relevance to the show – like the book Regina was reading upside down.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Tonight’s episode is the last that was filmed before the writer’s strike, which means it is the last we’ll be seeing for a month. Based on the preview, we’ll be getting some answers to our long-brewing questions about Michael. I’m really looking forward to having him back. I recently put in the DVD of the season 2 finale and watched a couple of scenes, getting a reminder of how terrific Harold Perrineau was, conveying such deep anguish and desperation. The scene where he’s leading Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley across the island and is forced by Jack to come clean about his actions, including killing Ana Lucia and Libby…wow. He was a total wreck. Great stuff.

Tonight’s Episode: Meet Kevin Johnson