I Am DB

BABY MAMA
We begin once again on Penny’s boat, the Searcher, in the days following the rescue of the soon-to-be-dubbed Oceanic Six. In a nice, quiet scene between Kate and Jack, we learn that it was Kate who concocted the Aaron portion of the Oceanic Lie, almost as if she owes taking care of him to those they left behind – dead and alive.

Kate: After everyone that we’ve lost – Michael, Jin and Sawyer – I can’t lose him too.

Jack: Sawyer’s not dead.

Kate: No. But he’s gone.

And so we move back to our new present day, which is three years later. Kate is still staying with Sun in her hotel, and she is about to go see Dan Norton, the lawyer who came to her house asking for blood samples from her and Aaron. She leaves Aaron with Sun, who receives a delivery seconds after Kate’s departure. She opens the package, which contains a file from Surveillance Data Investigations, Inc. that includes a report of some kind, as well as photographs of Jack and Ben outside the funeral home where Locke’s coffin resided. Sun’s envelope also contains a small package – a box of chocolates, and beneath them, a handgun…giving new meaning to the phrase, “Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get.”

I have a theory about Sun’s delivery. I think Ben sent it to her. Remember the small wrapped package he removed from the hotel room heating duct in The Lie a few weeks ago? Jack thinks Sun blames him for Jin’s death, and he told Ben that at the funeral home, so I think Ben is trying to take advantage of it (so un-like Ben, I know) to lure her out and then convince her to return to the island. And if he has friends who run a butcher shop and a carpet business, why not friends who operate a surveillance company? On the other hand, if Sun went looking for a company to spy on Ben, how would it happen that she chose the very company Ben is affiliated with? Still, if I am right, Ben may learn soon enough that Sun blames him for Jin’s death, not Jack. So that should make things interesting when she shows up with her chocolate-scented pistol.

But I digress. Kate goes to see Norton, proposing that she will give the blood samples if she can speak to Norton’s mystery client first. Norton says he’ll take her offer to his client when they meet that afternoon, but tells Kate that he’s quite certain the answer will be no, emphasizing that she is in no position to bargain. He says that while he could summon a sheriff to take the test then and there, his client wants to handle the “exchange of custody” more quietly. He tells Kate she has only herself to blame for the predicament, and warns her to prepare herself: “You are going to lose the boy.”

JUST LIKE OLD TIMES
Jack is at the hospital, still helping Sayid recover his full strength. He has to step outside briefly, and while he’s gone, an orderly comes in to give Sayid his meds. Unfortunately, he tries to deliver those meds in the form of two more tranquilizer darts. But Sayid is too quick and gets the drop on his attacker, roundly kicking his ass and giving him a taste of his own tranquil medicine. Jack re-enters, with Ben, just as Sayid finds a piece of paper in the faux-orderly’s wallet. The paper has an address, which Jack immediately recognizes as Kate’s. He calls her to say she has to get Aaron and leave the house, but she tells him that she’s not home and that Aaron is in a hotel with Sun. Jack makes plans to meet her, while Ben prepares for another task.

Ben: Good, I’ll go deal with Hugo.

Sayid: Sorry Ben, I’m not letting you get anywhere near him.

Ben: You have friends in trouble; let’s get them to safety and save the dirty linen for later.

Yeah, we still don’t know what happened between Sayid and Ben. We still don’t know much about their arrangement at all, in fact. Who are the people Sayid was killing? And why is he not killing for Ben anymore? Though they take off together in Ben’s van, those answers will have to wait.

Jack finds Kate parked in her car on a downtown street, staking out Norton’s office. She reluctantly tells him what’s going on, and when she sees Norton drive out of the building, she tells Jack to get in if he wants to keep talking. He does, and off they go. They follow Norton to a motel, where they see him climb a flight of stairs, knock on a door and hand an envelope to a woman: Claire’s mother.

You watched it, so you know that Claire’s mother turned out to be in town because she had sued Oceanic and was collecting her settlement. She knew nothing about Aaron. But her appearance raised a couple of questions for me. I’ve been under the impression that Jack never shared with Kate the details of his first encounter with Ms. Littleton – about his father, the affair, Claire being his sister, even that the woman was Claire’s mother. Yet when Kate sees her from the car, and based on the dialogue with Jack that follows, she knows the woman is Claire’s mother. So if I’m wrong, and Jack did tell Kate who she was, wouldn’t he have had to explain his relationship to Claire…and to Aaron? How else would he make sense of Claire’s mother showing up at his father’s funeral? And if he didn’t mention Claire at all and instead just described the woman as someone who’d had an affair with his father, how would Kate now know that the woman is Claire’s mother?

My curiosity over this is that it would be a pretty big deal for Kate to know that Jack is Aaron’s blood relative, and I’ve never had the impression that she’s aware of it. I’ve always interpreted the pointed dialogue on this issue to be clever wordplay on the part of the writers. In last season’s episode Something Nice Back Home, for example, Jack and Kate are arguing and she reprimands him for his increased drinking and says she can’t have that kind of behavior around her son. Jack yells, “You’re not even related to him!” I didn’t get from that scene that she caught the true meaning of that. Or in this episode, when Jack offers to go up and talk to Claire’s mother, he says, “Aaron is my family too.” Kate cries a bit at this, seemingly moved by Jack’s statement…but it didn’t seem to me that she got more from that, or was acknowledging his true relationship to the boy. I assumed she was just touched that he feels that way. So…am I wrong? Does Kate know that Jack is Aaron’s real uncle? Or did the writer’s mess up? And perhaps the most relevant question: who the hell cares? Did I really just spend two fat paragraphs talking about this non-issue?

Yes. Yes I did. Further evidence of my sad state of mind. Or a relevant point that will eventually allow me say, “I told you so.”

Getting back to more overtly important matters, Ben and Sayid pull their van into an underground parking garage, where none other than Dan Norton meets them and hands Ben some papers relating to the charges against Hurley. He explains that they won’t stick and that the big man should be free the next day.

I’m not sure how he justifies going there, but Jack gets Kate to drive to the Long Beach pier, and upon arrival, they meet up with Ben and Sayid…much to Kate’s surprise and anger (toward Ben, not Sayid. And can I just say that I loved Naveen Andrews’ performance in this scene? The look on his face toward Kate and the way he leaned against the van, all as if to say, “Here we are again…and don’t look at me.”). Jack can see Kate is furious to find Ben there, and he tries to explain without undoing the progress he’s made with her that day (seeing as the last time they saw each other was that night at the airport where he was yelling that they “have to go back!” and she was pretty much disgusted by the sight of him). He tries to tell her that Ben is there to help them, that they all need to be together again so they can go back to the island, but he doesn’t get far before realization strikes Kate.

Kate: It’s him! It’s him, he’s the one who’s trying to take Aaron!

Jack: No, no, you don’t understand…

Ben: No Jack, she’s right. It was me. Sorry. [Classic Ben!!]

Kate: Who the hell do you think you are? Why don’t you just stay away, why don’t you leave me and my son alone?

Ben: Because he’s not your son, Kate.

I love the way he says it, because it really is delivered like a reality check. Just after her trial ended, Kate told Jack that she’d heard him tell the lie about the plane crash so many times that she worried he was starting to believe it. Well, Kate’s comfort playing the role of Aaron’s mother shows she is just as committed to a lie as Jack is.

Whatever is said between them all after that, we don’t hear. The POV switches to that of an unseen watcher, looking on from a car just a few spaces away. And in that car is Sun, with Aaron in the backseat…and her newly delivered gun in the front. She picks it up and gets out of the car. Cliffhanger!!

THE NOSEBLEED SECTION
We pick up with our friends on the island right where we left them, with Charlotte unconscious and the others nervous and agitated. Juliet asks Daniel if he knew this was going to happen to her.

Daniel: I thought it might. I think it’s neurological. Our brains have an internal clock, a sense of time. The flashes throw the clock  off. It’s like really bad jetlag.

Juliet: Jetlag doesn’t make you hemorrhage, Daniel. Tell me why it isn’t happening to the rest of us.

Daniel: I don’t know. But thank God it’s not.

While the two of them and Miles are occupied with the red-nosed redhead, Locke tells Sawyer that they need to return to The Orchid station, suggesting they use the zodiac raft on the beach to expedite the trip around the island. Sawyer is skeptical, but Locke thinks that if he can figure out what Ben did there that allowed him to leave the island, then he can do it too…and save them all.

Locke: This is all happening because they left. I think it’ll stop if I can bring them back.

Sawyer: Bring who back?

Locke: Jack. Sun, Sayid, Hugo, Kate.

Sawyer: The boat blew up and that chopper was probably on it!

Locke: They’re not dead, James.

Sawyer: Says who?

Locke: That doesn’t matter. What matters is they have to come back. I have to make them come back. Even if it kills me.

In thinking about this “it’s all happening because they left” mindset, we should remember that before everything went to shit – that is, before the freighter blew up – Ben released Kate and Sayid, who were in the captivity of Richard and the Others. Before heading off to The Orchid to move the island, he told them they were free to take the chopper and go. So if he was okay with them leaving then, what happened to make their return so essential to the island’s survival? Did he release them thinking that they wouldn’t have time to get out of the island’s grasp before he moved it? If their presence on the island is so important, why did he let them go?

Charlotte soon wakes up, and other than not recognizing Daniel at first, she seems okay for the time being. So the crew begins the long walk back to the beach to get the raft and make for The Orchid.

“TIME TRAVEL’S A BITCH”
Their journey gets interesting that night when they see a beam of light shooting into the sky off in the distance. Locke realizes almost immediately what it is, which Daniel picks up on, asking if he knows when they are. Locke just cautions them all to keep moving. Miles gets a slight nosebleed while they walk, and then they hear a woman’s screams in the jungle. Sawyer goes to investigate and finds Kate delivering Claire’s baby.  He watches transfixed, and just after Aaron’s birth, the next flash comes and takes him away.

Sawyer doesn’t tell the others what he saw when they regroup, but Locke knows he must have seen one of their own, and shares with Sawyer how he knows about the source of the light beam. Miles, meanwhile, alarms Daniel with news of his nosebleed and asks why only some of them are affected.

Miles: Why her? Why me?

Daniel: I don’t know. I think it might have something to do with duration of exposure, you know, the amount of time spent on the island.

Miles: That doesn’t make any sense, those yahoos have been here for months. I’ve never been here before two weeks ago.
Daniel: Are you sure about that?

An interesting point. It’s been pretty much spelled out that Charlotte has been to the island before, though we don’t yet know how or when. But what of Miles? I’ve heard speculation out there on the internets that Miles might be the son of Dr. Pierre Chang, star of all your favorite Dharma orientation videos. In the very first scene of this season’s premiere, Chang wakes up in his island home and tends to an infant son. Could the internets be right? Might that son be Miles?

The group arrives back on the beach to find the camp site is there, indicating that they aren’t in the past. But the place is deserted and in disarray – empty Dharma beer cans litter the table, Vincent’s leash is on the ground and the zodiac raft is gone. Clearly they’re in the near future…but how near? The biggest surprise they find is an outrigger canoe sitting on the beach, empty save for the oars and a water bottle bearing the label Ajira Airways. Juliet doesn’t recognize the canoe as belonging to the Others, but she has heard of the airline, remarking, “They’re based in India but they fly everywhere.”

This marks the first mention of Ajira on the show itself, but a few months back, in the ramp-up to the season premiere, a music video was released for a song by The Fray, and it was done as a tie-in to Lost, complete with clips and two subliminal flashes of the Ajira logo, signaling perhaps that the airline would play an important role in things to come (I speculated that the airline might be tied to Sun’s father). The question, for the time being, is who does the bottle – and the canoe – belong to?

They aren’t waiting to find out. The group takes the canoe and begins the long ride around the island to The Orchid. Unfortunately, they can’t catch a break; early in the journey, another craft appears and its occupants start shooting. Juliet fires back, and in a stroke of perfect timing, another flash comes and brings them to safety. Or, you know, not. They find themselves in the midst of a tumultuous nighttime storm and start rowing for the shore. They make it back, and while catching their breath, Sawyer notices Juliet’s nose bleeding, a grim discovery which precedes a more curious one: wreckage – apparently fresh – from another vessel. They find a French label on the side of a container.

Somewhere out in the stormy waters, six or seven people sit in a raft, speaking French to each other. They notice something floating in the water nearby. It appears to be a human body on a piece of flat paneling. They reach it and pull the figure onto the raft, turning it over to reveal…oh yeah, baby: Jin is back.

They too make it to shore, and the next morning, with the sun now shining, Jin wakes up. A woman from the raft tends to him, offering him water and trying to speak to him in English. He can speak well enough to say that he was on a boat that sank, but he’s too weak to say much else. The kind woman stands up and removes a cloak, revealing a pregnant belly. She introduces herself to Jin, who recognizes the name: Danielle Rousseau.

Time travel’s a bitch.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT
-So Dan Norton works for Ben. But exclusively? Kate was right to ask about the coincidence that the same attorney handling Ms. Littleton’s lawsuit just happens to represent the mystery client trying to take Aaron away…a mystery client whose identity she soon learns. Is there more of a connection than meets the eye between Norton’s clients?

-Reintroducing Claire’s mother was a cool red herring, but it didn’t really further the story, did it? I’m enjoying seeing where the stories go, but I do feel like the writers and producers are definitely stretching out the reunion of the Oceanic Six. How much more padding we’ll get remains to be seen, but with Sun currently in Los Angeles, how much longer could it really take them all together? And once they’re all onboard with the plan, how long will it take them to get back to the island?

-Of course, the appearance of Claire’s mother, coupled with an appearance by Claire herself when Sawyer finds himself witnessing Aaron’s birth, was a clever way to keep her in our thoughts while she is MIA this season. In fact, the writers made a smart move by having the time-tripping castaways land on that particular night in the island’s history. It was a significant night for many characters on the show – Locke, Kate, Claire, Charlie, Sayid, Shannon, Jack…and I’d say it was pretty damn significant for Boone, seeing as he died. The Season One episodes that cover those events are Deus Ex Machina (which ends with the Locke pounding on the hatch and the beam of light shooting up) and Do No Harm, in which Claire gives birth, Boone dies and Sayid and Shannon spend their first night together. The Little Prince offered a welcome dose of nostalgia by referencing that particular episode, in which nearly every main character factored prominently into the action (Jin, Sun, Michael and Hurley also played big roles in Do No Harm; only Sawyer, Walt and Locke were not heavily featured). In many ways, The Little Prince felt like a Season One installment, and it probably goes in my Lost episode Hall of Fame. It had great storytelling, great writing, and great performances (particularly from Josh Holloway and Terry O’Quinn).

-There was no mention in this episode of Ben’s visit to Mrs. Hawking, or her warning that he had only 70 hours to reassemble the Oceanic Six (though he did tell Jack to hurry when they split up to go after Kate and Hurley, respectively). When will we see her again, and what will we learn about her when we do? Is she indeed Daniel’s mother?

-If we can assume the island has been moved before, should we also assume that the flashes are a natural result of such a move? And can we also assume that multiple flashes occurred, just like this time? If so, how were they stopped? And if the flashes didn’t happen at all, why now? And if the flashes are happening now because Jack and company left, well, what the hell does that have to do with anything?

-Last week, when I was listing all the boats and planes that have crashed into the island, I forgot to mention Rousseau’s ship. How appropriate that this episode would remind us of that fact…

-The return of Jin was a nice surprise, in that it came much earlier in the season than I expected. I thought we’d be eight episodes or so in before he reappeared. Now that he’s back, how soon will he make sense of the time-tripping, and how long will it be before he finds Sawyer and the rest?

SECOND BEST LINE OF THE NIGHT (I used the best line twice already; I’m sure you can figure it out)…
“Great, maybe they got a flight outta here to Vegas tonight.” – Sawyer

Tonight’s Episode: This Place is Death

I have been watching Lost since the show premiered on September 22, 2004, and I have never lost my faith. I’ve witnessed other friends, who were as excited by it as I was in the early days, fall by the wayside when their questions didn’t get answered quickly enough or when the story started to get “too weird” for them. Fine. Let them stare blankly at vapid reality shows with one hand in the chip bowl and the other down their pants. While their brains slowly turn into Velveeta, mine is sharpened by the puzzle I’m trying to assemble. Not getting answers fast enough? Grow a pair! This is serialized television. It’s a complex story meant to unfold over several seasons – a concept that doesn’t lend itself to instant gratification. If only they could muster a little patience, they would be rewarded; ask any Harry Potter fan.

But I have to say, as the latest episode was nearing its second half-hour, I started to get a little frustrated. It’s not that I wasn’t enjoying it; there were some genius line readings, and more twists on the flashback/flashforward structure. All cool. But there were also more scenes of our weary survivors being confronted by more rifle-toting mystery folk, more marching through the jungle as this one demands to know how they got here and how many others there are while that one demands to know what they’re doing there…and I thought, is this what Season Five is going be? Is it really going to take a whole season to get the Oceanic Six back to the island? Are we just dragging things out because we can’t reveal all our Big Mysteries until Season Six? Mysteries like what is the Black Smoke? Who is Jacob? Why does the island have the powers it does? What is the history between Benjamin Linus and Charles Widmore? How does Richard Alpert look so young and healthy when he seems to be 149 years old?

And then, a bit past the 50 minute mark, something happened that made me bolt upright on the couch and exclaim something along the lines of, “No fucking way!!” And in the remaining minutes, two more things happened that led me, by the end, to feel ashamed that my faith had faltered even briefly.

Here are the three things that happened.

1) John Locke met Charles Widmore.

2) I learned the name of Desmond and Penny’s son.

3) John Locke told Richard Alpert when and where he was born.

So with that….

THE SEEKER
After waking up on the boat one night with a sudden memory from the island of Daniel, Desmond set a course for Oxford to find Daniel’s mother. Penny is not happy that Desmond is bringing them back to London, within reach of her father. “Don’t underestimate him, Desmond. If he finds out we’re here I don’t know what he’ll do.”

“This has nothing to do with your father, Penny,” he tells her. “We’re here because of Daniel Faraday.” He says he’s the only one who can help those still on the island, and promises her he’ll be back that night and then he’ll be done with all of this. “If you’re gonna promise me something Des, will you promise me that you’ll never go back to that island again?” Penny says, concern in her voice. “Why in God’s name would I want to go back there?” he replies.

I don’t know yet Desmond, but I have a feeling something will come up. And I’m really worried for Penny.

Upon arriving at Oxford, Desmond is told that the university has no record of Daniel Faraday. Remembering where Daniel’s lab was, Desmond finds the room, which is sealed shut with a “Danger: Fumigation” sticker. He busts in and finds the remnants of Faraday’s work. The chalkboard, now blank; the maze through which the rat Eloise ran in his experiments; the overhead lamp. He also finds a framed photograph of Faraday standing with a pretty young woman. But his investigation is interrupted when a maintenance man enters, remarking that he wondered how long his fumigation ruse would hold up. He says that Desmond is not the first to come poking around asking questions about Faraday and his work – work which was rumored to involve sending rats brains through time.

This comment helped remind me of something which I think we need to keep in mind, and which was mentioned by Doc Jensen from Entertainment Weekly in a portion of his article which I included in one of last week’s messages. There are two types of time travel happening in Lost. There’s the kind we’re used to seeing in time travel stories, where individuals physically move through time and find themselves in different locations, like what’s happening to the people on the island. But there is also the kind where only one’s consciousness moves through time, while the body stays behind. This is the kind of time travel Desmond experienced in The Constant; his body remained on the freighter with Sayid in 2004, but his mind was bouncing back and forth between the freighter and his army days in 1996. I figure this is an important distinction as time goes on, no pun inten…oh who am I kidding? Pun totally intended.

The time travel of consciousness brings us to the next part of Desmond’s journey. Before he left the lab at Oxford, he told the maintenance man that the university had no record of Faraday. “Can you blame them?” the man asks. “After what he done to that poor girl?”

Desmond goes to see this girl – the same one from the cracked picture frame, I assume – named Teresa Spencer. Her sister Abigail answers the door, and invites Desmond in to “speak to” Teresa when she learns that Desmond got Teresa’s name from Faraday. Abigail leads him into a room where Teresa is bedridden, vacant, hooked up to machines. Abigail says Teresa can’t hear them; that’s she’s “away.” Apparently she wakes up not knowing where…make that when...she is. She’ll be talking like she’s three years old, or speaking to their father who died five years earlier. Abigail is plain in her disdain for Faraday, who she says abandoned Teresa in this condition and ran off to the states. She then praises Mr. Widmore for all he’s done to help.

Sorry, let me rewind my DVR and twist a few Q-Tips in my ear because for a second there it sounded like you just said “Mr. Widmore.”

When Desmond questions the name, Abigail describes Widmore as Daniel’s benefactor. “He funded his research for ten years and then took responsibility for the result of it. He’s been taking care of Teresa ever since this happened.”

Whoa. So what does this leave us chewing on? The biggest reveal is obviously that of a direct connection between Faraday and Charles Widmore. This makes for the closest thing we have to a confirmation that Matthew Abbaddon, who selected the team of scientists for the freighter, indeed works for/with Widmore. And the fact that Widmore is funding Faraday’s research takes on an even more fascinating dimension later in the episode…but we’ll get to that in good time.

But we’re not done yet. “He funded Daniel’s research and then took responsibility for the result of it.” So Teresa’s condition is the result of what Faraday was studying. What was the relationship between Daniel and this girl Teresa? Were they colleagues? Lovers? What exactly happened to her? Based on Abigail’s explanations of her behavior, Teresa seems to be exhibiting the same symptoms Desmond was in The Constant. But at the same time, not quite. For one thing, when Desmond’s consciousness returned to 2006, he knew where he was, even if he didn’t understand how he got there. But it seems that Teresa wakes up talking as if she is still someplace/sometime else. Furthermore, Teresa has been like this for years, it would seem. Yet we saw what happened to Minkowski on the freighter when his consciousness was leaping through time. The experience seemed to fry his brain in a matter of days. So what’s the difference between what happened to him and what happened to Teresa?

Does Widmore have an ulterior motive for providing Teresa’s care? Does Faraday know that Widmore is taking care of her? Why did he leave? Was it really out of callousness, or was something more complex at the heart of it? Did he love her? And if he did, has he truly forgotten about her and fixed his affection on….ahhh, but again I get ahead of myself.

THE IN-LAWS
After promising Penny that they would be in and out of London and that her father would never know they were there, the revelation of a Faraday/Widmore connection is too much for him. He barges into Widmore’s office looking for answers. “I know you have questions for me,” Desmond says. “I’m not here to answer them. I’ve come here to ask you something, and once you’ve told me everything I need to know, you’ll never see me again.”  Though Widmore is a man who plays things close to the vest, we can guess that he was not expecting Desmond’s question to be about the whereabouts of Daniel Faraday’s mother. Widmore says he hasn’t seen his daughter in three years and asks if she’s safe. But Desmond stays on topic, so Widmore takes a moment to consider and then tells him that Faraday’s mother is in Los Angeles. He removes an address book and writes down the address. “I suspect she won’t be pleased to see you. She’s a very private person.” (Though given that she and Desmond have met before, she might not be opposed to a repeat visit.)

This is the second time Desmond has asked Widmore to provide him with contact information for someone (the first was Penny in The Constant) and it’s the second time Widmore has obliged. But why? Why not tell Desmond to fuck off? He’s never approved of Desmond for Penny, and he worries about Desmond’s role in this little drama. “Deliver your message, and then get out of this mess,” he says before Desmond exits. “Don’t put Penny’s life in danger. You’re getting yourself involved in something that goes back many, many years. It has nothing to do with you or my daughter. Wherever you were hiding…go back there.”

When Desmond returns to the boat that night, he tells Penny that Faraday’s mother died a few years earlier. She asks why he’s lying to her, and he says that it’s over; he’s done with the island. She wonders what will happen the next time he wakes up with a memory, and the time after that. “I’ll forget it,” he says. “It doesn’t matter, Pen. You’re my life now. You and Charlie. I won’t leave you again. Not for this. Not for anything.”

Oh yes. Charlie. I neglected to mention that Desmond and Penny have a son now. A cute little boy who will have an awesome accent someday. And his name is Charlie. I can’t tell you how much that made me smile. Desmond and Penny named their little boy after Charlie. Charlie, who died so that Desmond could live and someday reunite with his love. Charlie, who Penny briefly communicated with, passing on critical information that Charlie was able to relay to Desmond in his final moments. Charlie. Awwwww, Charlieeeeeeeeee!!!!

Anyway, Penny knows that Desmond will not be able to truly move on, so she agrees to accompany him wherever he needs to go…which makes me worry about her even more. Next stop: Los Angeles.

OTHERS: THE EARLY YEARS
Our next stop is the island, where the story picks up post flaming-arrow attack. Miles, Daniel and Charlotte are captured by a group of people wearing what looks like a cross between military fatigues and the jungle chic that the Others wore in the Season Two days. Led by a pymgy-ish girl named Ellie, they are marched off into the jungle.

Charlotte’s symptoms – headache, dizziness, etc. – are getting worse and Daniel is worried. But he says that nothing is happening to her; that he won’t let anything happen to her. Probably not the smartest thing to say Danny Boy, since something is definitely happening to her and there probably ain’t a whole hell of a lot you can do about it. (In fact, the boys over at Entertainment Weekly theorize that your actions on the island are altering the future and causing Charlotte to be erased from existence.) As they walk, Miles has one of his “I sense dead people” moments and tells Daniel that they’ve just passed a fresh grave – four U.S. soldiers, three of them shot, one of them dead from radiation poisoning.

The trio is led to an encampment of tents, and out of one comes Richard Alpert, who asks the prisoners if they’ve come back for their bomb. Daniel has seen and heard enough to surmise that there is an active hydrogen bomb on the island, placing them sometime in the 1950’s, when the U.S. was testing bombs on islands in this region. Richard and the others assume that Daniel and everybody else from the beach are with the U.S. military. He makes it clear that his people didn’t start this aggression. “You come to our island to run your tests, you fire on us and what, you expect us not to defend ourselves?” Daniel says that he’s a scientist and doesn’t know anything about that. He says that if he isn’t allowed to neutralize the bomb, everyone on the island could die. Richard asks how he can trust that Daniel isn’t on a suicide mission. “Because,” Daniel says, “I’m in love with the woman sitting next to me and I would never…I would never do anything to hurt her.” Charlotte is taken aback, and Richard agrees to let Daniel deal with the bomb.

I gotta say, Richard seems like a reasonable man. More evidence of that comes later in the episode, but considering all the crazy things that happen around him, he genuinely listens to those worthy of his suspicion, and he gives fair consideration to what they say. Of course, he is as old as the universe itself, so I imagine logging that kind of time would eventually lead one to a pretty Zen state of mind.

Meanwhile, thanks to Locke’s well-timed arrival, Sawyer and Juliet have two of their attackers still alive – one of whom is the guy who had threatened to cut off Juliet’s hand. His uniform bears the name “Jones.” Locke tries to get them to talk, which they do…but to each other, in another language. Juliet readily interprets, explaining to Sawyer and Locke that they were speaking Latin. Not-Jones asked, “Why aren’t they in uniform?” and Jones replies, “Shut up!” Juliet says they know Latin for the same reason she does: they’re Others. She tells them, in Latin, that she and her people are not the enemy, and asks to be taken to their camp. She speaks to Not-Jones and asks if “Ricardo Alpert” is there. He wasn’t expecting that…nor was Locke. Juliet calmly, politely asks if he will lead them to Richard. She convinces him, but just as he starts to give directions, Jones snaps his neck and runs off into the jungle. Locke raises the commandeered rifle, but doesn’t fire. “Why didn’t you shoot him?” an incredulous Sawyer demands. “Because he’s one of my people,” says Locke – an unexpected yet somehow understandable answer.

MR. JONES
As Richard is releasing Daniel to go fix the bomb situation (under Ellie’s supervision), Jones comes tearing into the camp telling Richard that he was captured but managed to escape. He sees Daniel, and urges Richard not to trust him even as Richard sends him and Ellie on their way. Richard asks Jones how he knows he wasn’t followed. “Their leader is some sodding old man,” Jones fires back. “What, you think he can track me? You think he knows this island better than I do?” Let me answer both questions with one word: yes. Sure enough, there’s Locke up on a hill overlooking the camp, with Sawyer and Juliet.

Locke: How did you know Richard would be here?

Juliet: Richard’s always been here.

Locke: How old is he?

Juliet: Old.

While Sawyer and Juliet go after Daniel, who they see being marched away from the camp, Locke walks right into the middle of it, calling for Richard. Jones watches him in disbelief, a “how the fuck did you get here?” look on his face. He grabs a rifle and points it at Locke’s back, ordering him to stop just as Richard re-emerges from a tent to see what’s going on. Locke gives Richard his name, but just as Richard had told him would happen, the name means nothing to him. So Locke says, “Jacob sent me.”

There were a whole bunch of scenes in this episode where one person says something that catches a second person quite by surprise. This was yet another.

Jones still has his rifle up, and his trigger finger is itchy. I’m not sure if he heard the Jacob comment, but seeing that Richard is willing to listen to what the “sodding old man” has to say, he angrily chimes in. “Richard, you can’t seriously trust him.” When Jones doesn’t lower his gun as instructed, Richard walks over and physically pushes it out of the way. “I said put the gun down, Widmore.”

Insert visual of me shaking my head from side to side really fast like a Looney Tunes character, accompanied by a goofy sound effect.

“Your name is Widmore?” Locke asks. “Charles Widmore?”
“What’s it to you?” the man snaps back.

Holy. Shit.

Charles Widmore is on the island. He’s an Other, somewhere in his 20’s.

Holy. Shit.

DROPPING BOMBS
The episode gives us little time to digest this. Ellie and Faraday have reached the bomb…and they weren’t kidding around: it’s a big, honkin’ hydrogen bomb, suspended two stories above ground from a derrick, the name “Jughead” affectionately painted on the side. After examining it and noticing a small leak, Faraday hustles back down to the ground and tells Ellie that they need to seal up the crack with lead or concrete and then bury the bomb. She doesn’t trust him, and insists on knowing how he knows that burying it will solve the problem. He finally tells her he knows because the island is still there 50 years later; no bomb has gone off. He starts to explain where/when he and his people have come from, when Sawyer and Juliet show up. Outnumbered, Ellie lowers her gun and they head back to the camp.

Camp…where Locke is now trying to explain his situation to Richard. He gives Richard the compass which Richard gave to him in a previous time flash…but Richard is understandably skeptical.

Richard: I’m not sure what you expect me to say, John Locke.

Locke: I expect you to tell me how to get off the island.

Richard: That’s very privileged information, why would I do that?

Locke tries to explain that in the future he’s described, Richard has told him that he needs to leave the island to do something important, and that he – Locke – is the leader of Richard’s people in the future. “Well look, I certainly don’t want to contradict myself, but we have a very specific process for selecting our leadership, and it starts at a very, very young age.”

We have a very specific process for selecting our leadership. “WE” WHO?!? What are they doing there that would require a leader chosen under such special circumstances, and at such a young age?

Richard tells Locke that they are in the year 1954. “Alright. Alright, May 30th, 1956, two years from now, that’s the day I’m born,” Locke says. “Tustin, California. And if you don’t believe me, I suggest you come and visit me.”

Which, we know from last season, is just what Richard does. First at the hospital, and later at one of his foster homes, spreading multiple objects out before ‘Lil Locke and asking him to choose the thing that “belongs to him already.” Among the objects? The compass.

Unfortunately for Locke, the next flash occurs just after this, before he can convince Richard to give him instructions for getting off the island. When the light subsides, Richard, Widmore, the tents, the bomb, Ellie – all gone. Daniel, Juliet and Sawyer have just arrived back, and Miles and Charlotte are visible now too. Daniel frees them from their wrist binds, but no sooner than Charlotte smiles at her freedom – and Daniel’s return – does she begin to convulse. Blood pours from her nose, and she collapses onto the ground. Unconscious? Or worse?

LOOSE ENDS
-Let’s start with Widmore. From the beginning, this guy is a cocky, arrogant prick with a short fuse. He shows little respect for Richard’s authority and clearly thinks he knows better; he completely underestimates Locke; and he claims intimate familiarity with the island. But how did he come to be there in the first place? When and why will he leave? The Dharma Initiative doesn’t come to the island until the 1970’s, or maybe late 60’s. Is Widmore still there when Dharma arrives, or do he and Ben meet back in the world somewhere? Widmore once said to Ben, “Everything you have you took from me.” Does Widmore rise to a position of power within the Others?

-When Widmore arrives back at camp after escaping, he has a brief encounter with Faraday. Though he doesn’t learn Faraday’s name, he definitely gets a look at him. So years later, when he starts funding Faraday’s research, does he recognize him from the island? Faraday has said that they can’t change the past. “Whatever happened…happened,” he said. But is he sure about that? I suspect that we don’t fully know yet what Lost’s rules of time travel are. So when Sawyer, Daniel and the others move through time, do their interactions in the past change the course of the future? Does older Widmore seek out Faraday and offer to fund him because he knows that Faraday’s work will eventually lead him to the island? These questions of time travel fascinate and baffle me to no end.

-Another question I had after this episode involves the island and how people get to it. We know that it has a habit of making things crash on it: the Black Rock; the cargo plane with Eko’s brother; Desmond’s boat; Flight 815. We also know that it’s a hard place to find, and is actually invisible from above. So how was the U.S. military able to land there to test bombs? How does the Dharma Initiative find it years later? Is the island always hard to find, or does man’s involvement/interference/presence make it hard to find? Do its inhabitants somehow actively keep it hidden?

-When John tells Richard about the time traveling, Richard doesn’t respond like someone who is already familiar with the concept. So can we assume that at that point in history, he is not aware of the island’s time-travel-enabling properties? When will those be discovered, and by whom? How did Dr. Chang know about the “limitless energy” near which The Orchid was being built?

GUEST COLUMNIST
Reader David E. sent me the following amusing e-mail last week, and I felt it was well worth including here:

Do you think there is any website that has a body count for these two guys?  I think it would be interesting to see which man has killed more people and/or been directly responsible for their deaths.  Just think about it…it’s like a really bad action movie.

Ben
All the people Sayid killed for him.
Dharma initiative (including his own father….his own father!)
How many have the others killed on his behalf?
Michael killed two people for Ben.
He shot Locke…that should count for at least a half.
I’m sure I’m missing a bunch.

Charles
The survivors/extras that the freighter people killed.
Bomb on boat.
That kid whose neck he broke.
Ben’s daughter.
Almost Desmond’s spirit….that only counts as half as well.

Any idea who’s in the lead on this one?

Nope, no idea Dave. Sorry. Maybe you should start that site.

LINE OF THE NIGHT
“Are they from the future too?” – Ellie

FINAL THOUGHTS
The clips that were shown for tonight’s episode lead me to suspect that a new twist is about to be introduced into the island’s time shifts. I think our friends are going to land in a time on the island when they are already there, meaning they will see themselves and/or their fellow 815 survivors living through some of the events that took place during earlier seasons. We’ll see in a few hours if I’m right…

Tonight’s Episode: The Little Prince

Although they were not made with the intention of airing back-to-back, The Lie formed a nice little two hour block with Because You Left, so much so that they did have the flow of one long episode.

Interesting that these two abandoned Lost‘s traditional flashback/flashforward structure. Though these episodes do take place years apart, the off-island activities are not flashforwards in the same sense that they were last season since the Oceanic Six are now off the island. As for those left behind, though they keep hurtling through time, their anchor period is three years earlier than the events unfolding for the Oceanic Six. Will the show continually use that “Three Years Earlier” flashcard to remind us of this, or will they assume that we get it and move on?

The Lie puts its own twist on the structure by focusing on one character – Hurley – but doing so without flashes back or ahead. So my guess is that this season will provide an assortment of these structural offerings. Some episodes will unfold as these two did, while others will still involve more traditional flashes – particularly for Faraday, Charlotte and Miles, whose backstories remain unexplored.

THE LIE TAKES SHAPE
Okay, so there was one flashback for the Oceanic Six. The episode begins on Penny’s boat in the days after the rescue, with Jack asking the others if they’re all in agreement about lying, knowing that it will affect every aspect of their lives going forward. Sayid is reluctant, but agrees to the plan. Only Hurley speaks up strongly against it, convinced that while one of them might be perceived as crazy for telling the true story, they would find safety in numbers by sticking together. But the big guy is an island unto himself in this argument. And while it doesn’t fully answer my question about Penny’s relationship with her father, we do get some insight into the Widmore family dynamic when Jack says that Charles Widmore is trying to kill everyone on the island and Hurley asks Penny why she can’t call him off. “There’s no calling my father off,” she says.

Jumping ahead to 2008, Hurley is driving an unconscious Sayid around, unsure what to do and suspected by the police of killing the men who are in fact Sayid’s victims. Keeping up his recent habit of encountering dead people, he gets pulled over by former L.A. cop Ana Lucia, who tells him to get his head on straight, take Sayid somewhere safe and above all, avoid the police. “Don’t get arrested,” she warns him.

YOU CAN CHECK OUT ANY TIME YOU LIKE, BUT YOU CAN NEVER LEAVE
Ben unscrews the vent in the hotel room he is sharing with Jack (and can we please just take a moment to enjoy the humor of Jack and Ben sharing a hotel room?) and removes a small package, wrapped in cloth, which he slips into his bag just before Jack walks in. “Where are we going?” Jack asks.

“You’re going home,” Ben replies. “And find yourself a suitcase. If there’s anything in this life you want, pack it in there. Because you’re never coming back.”

Really? Never? Jack lets this sink in for a moment, but then he seems to accept it. Does that mean he’s going to live out his remaining days – however many there may be –  on the island? Or in a different place? Or does it mean that he’ll die soon? We know the Oceanic Six have to return to the island, but can’t they just, you know, sacrifice a goat for Jacob and then go home without leaving the island angry at them?

Ben says that while Jack heads home, he’ll be finding someplace safe for Locke’s casket. “Safe? He’s dead, isn’t he?” Jack asks, in a tone suggesting that something which should be certain is, in fact, not certain at all. Ben’s answer?  “I’ll see you in six hours, Jack.”

Ohhh Ben…

SAFE HAVEN
Just as Hurley was driving around unsure of where to go, so too is Kate, having fled with Aaron from shady lawyers. But then she receives a phone call from a friend who is in town, and soon Kate is in a hotel penthouse with Sun, who says she’s in L.A. for a few days to attend to some business. I gathered that this is the first time they have seen each other since the Oceanic Six went their separate ways upon returning home. And the reunion seems happy enough.

But this is Sun 2.0, and she’s gotten in touch with her dark side. When Kate tells her about the lawyers, Sun says they were not interested in exposing the lie; if they were, they would just do it. They want Aaron, she says…and adds that Kate needs to take care of them and do whatever is necessary to keep Aaron. (Note that she says “keep Aaron.” Not “keep him safe,” but keep him, period.) When Kate recoils, and asks what kind of person Sun thinks she is, Sun stares her down and, recalling their final moments on the freighter, replies, “The kind of person who makes hard decisions when you have to. Like you did on the freighter.” The tone in which she says it, and the look on her face, is devastating, and I thought she was about to let Kate know that all was not forgotten or forgiven. But she goes on to make it clear that she knows Kate did what she had to do, and that if she had followed through with her promise to get Jin, they might all have died. “I don’t blame you,” she says, before moving on to ask, “So…how’s Jack?” And was it just me, or did her sweet, casual tone of voice in asking that question mask some unresolved ill will toward our doctor friend?

Whatever her true feelings are, I love that the writers used this scene to acknowledge Kate’s actions on the boat (actions that were largely directed by Jack, who half-pulled Kate onto the helicopter). What was that I said in the last write-up? We now know the two people Sun blames for Jin’s death?

Uhhh…do we?

PRIVATE PRACTICE
With Sayid not waking up and the police staked out in front of Hurley’s parents’ house, Mr. Reyes follows Hurley’s plan to take Sayid to Jack for medical attention. Jack, in turn, takes Sayid to a hospital and manages to avoid everyone else around while trying to revive his old friend, which he does successfully. Meanwhile, Hurley is back home with his mother, who uses her maternal magic to break his resolve and tell her the truth about the plane crash and its aftermath – albeit, a fractured, confusing truth which hilariously condenses the last four seasons of the show into about a minute. But as he has shown over the years, Jorge Garcia has a gift for mixing humor and heart, and Hurley facing down the guilt over all that’s happened and the part he played in it makes for a scene as sad as it is funny.

JILL THE BUTCHER
Ben enters a butcher shop and, after its lone customer exits, converses with a…butcheress?…named Jill, who he seems to know well. He tells her that he has something he needs her to keep an eye on. Is it what she thinks it is, she asks? He says yes. (Is it what we think it is?)  “He’ll be safe with me,” she tells Ben. (Yes, it is. Ewwww, gross!! Remind me not to buy my meat there.) Ben then asks if Gabriel and Jeffrey have checked in.

Uhhh…sorry? Whobriel and Whofrey?

Jill says yes, everything is moving according to schedule, then asks how it’s going with Jack. Ben says Jack is with them, prompting her to ask if Ben bribed him with pills. “Cut the man some slack,” Ben says. “He’s been through a lot. We all have.”

“We all have” meaning the Oceanic Six and Ben? Or “we all have” meaning the Oceanic Six, Ben, Jill, Gabriel, Jeffrey and whoever the hell else is part of this operation? Has Jill been to the island too, or she is part of some kind of mainland-based cabal? Hmm. He tells her to keep “him” safe, because if she doesn’t, everything they’re about to do won’t matter at all.

TRUST THE MAN
The funniest scene of the episode – even funnier than Hurley’s abridged story of life on the island – comes when he removes a burrito or something from the microwave, gets startled by Ben, who walks right into the kitchen, and as if by reflex, throws the food at him. Not too funny when described like that, but it cracked me up in real time. Anyway, Ben explains that he’s there to pick him up and take him to Sayid and Jack, but Hurley doesn’t trust him, especially after what Sayid told him outside the safehouse. Ben insists that he can help Hurley, that Sayid and Jack are with him because they all want to return to the island (though I haven’t heard Sayid say that yet), and that he can bring the lie to an end. Hurley’s not buying it, and is so resistant that he runs out of the house and right to the cops out front, confessing to murders he didn’t commit and begging to be taken away. Ben watches from the front of the house, unseen by the police, and Hurley gives a triumphant smile as he’s handcuffed.

TROUBLE IN PARADISE
Let’s switch gears and pick up the action on the island. Faraday returns to the beach two hours after the others left him at the hatch. Another time shift has occurred since then, and when Sawyer and Juliet suggest using the zodiac raft to try and find a shipping lane, Faraday says leaving the island is unsafe until he calculates a new bearing…which he can’t do without knowing when they are. That night, Charlotte tells him that she doesn’t feel right – not only does she have a headache she can’t shake, but she had the odd experience earlier of forgetting her mother’s maiden name. He tries to tell her it’s nothing, but his expression says something else, and she asks if he knows what’s wrong with her. They are interrupted before he can answer.

Doc Jensen of Entertainment Weekly has a cool, McFly-ish theory about Charlotte’s symptoms. He writes, “Here’s my theory. Somehow, time is being altered, and Charlotte is being erased from existence. Yes, Faraday did say the past can’t be changed — but what we’ve seen on the show suggests that fate is both fixed and flexible, willing to renegotiate certain details of its predetermined plan. (Example: History will kill Charlie, there’s no stopping that, but it’s open to any number of scenarios to do it.) It could be that some people’s whole lives could count as a negotiable detail. Sorry, Charlotte: The cosmos just isn’t that into you. But she’s a pretty girl, and so I hope I’m wrong.”

Things just keep getting better for the islanders when out of absolutely nowhere, they fall under attack from a barrage of flaming arrows, the first of which fatally skewers poor fretful castaway Neil, aka Frogurt (whose presence in these first two episodes connects to one of the minisodes that were created during Season Four. Feel free to go digging for the link. And I guess technically, the first arrow doesn’t kill him. He takes two more before he dies. Grisly…).

Everyone runs into the woods as fiery spears rain down from the dark sky. Some people fall, but most seem to make it, including Sawyer and Juliet. As they make their way to a rendezvous point after the attack subsides, they are seized by a small group of armed, uniform-wearing men. One of them, whose outfit bears the name Jones, demands to know what Sawyer and Juliet are doing on their island. They are about to cut off Juliet’s hand when another surprise attacker arrives and kills the would-be-assailants. Juliet, now in possession of their gun, lowers it when Locke emerges from the brush.

Whew. So now who the hell were these guys? Those were not Dharma uniforms they had on, so what gives? Are we in the past or the future? Was this small band of bad guys with the arrow-shooting forces, or are these two separate groups? Hopefully we’ll get answers soon, because if I’m not mistaken, Jones is still alive – albeit getting his ass kicked by Sawyer.

COUNTDOWN
The episode concludes with a cloaked and hooded figure in a room that looks like a cross between Faraday’s Oxford lab and the computer room in the hatch where Desmond pushed the button. The figure is drawing equations on a chalkboard, making calculations, typing into a computer which displays a crude map of the world and text reading “Event Window Determined.” A pendulum-like device with chalk on the end swings all around, making marks on floor – some kind of diagram. The figure exits through a hatch-like door, ascends a spiral staircase and comes into a church where Ben is waiting. The figure removes her hood, and reveals herself: Mrs. Hawking.

Ben asks her if she had any luck, to which she says yes. She tells him he has 70 hours, but he says he needs more time. “What you need is irrelevant,” she tells him. “70 hours is what you’ve got.”

“Look, I lost Reyes tonight,” Ben says. “So what happens if I can’t get them all to come back?”

“Then God help us all.”

Yes, God help us all if Ben can’t get everyone together in 70 hours, and God help us all if the energy in The Orchid gets released. You know what? God help them all if I don’t get some damn answers soon. What to make of Mrs. Hawking’s reappearance? Well first of all, my suspicion is that her work down below involves figuring out when the island will next be visible, or at least accessible. So if that’s true, does Ben have 70 hours to get the Oceanic Six and Locke back there? Or is it 70 hours to depart L.A. for a journey that will take them close to the island, in time to be there when this “event window” takes place? And is this the only opportunity they have to get back, or will there be others? And who the hell is this woman? How does Ben know her? I’m not sure how she connects up to what’s going on, but my guess is that when Desmond goes to Oxford looking for Faraday’s mother, the search will end at her doorstep. And if I’m right, will he be able to do something that will buy Ben the time he needs to reconvene the Oceanic Six?

LINE OF THE NIGHT
“Why there’s a dead Pakistani on my couch?” – Mrs. Reyes

FINAL THOUGHTS
None, except this – can we just take a moment to acknowledge that Aaron is super-adorable? Oh my God, I want his cute little voice to be on every voicemail I ever call. Maybe then I won’t get so annoyed when I’m told to stay on the line and leave my message at the beep, like I’m a moron who has never used voicemail before….sorry, what was I talking about?

Tonight’s Episode: Jughead

It’s actually back!!! Oh sweet relief…

DHARMA DHARMA DHARMA DHARMA DHARMA CHAMELEON, YOU COME AND GO, YOU COME AND GO
Season Five began much like Season Two did, with a man waking up and getting ready for the day – showering, eating breakfast, playing a record – his face unseen the entire time, and the location unclear to us. In Season Two, we turned out to be witnessing Desmond in the Hatch. This time, it was the inconsistently-named Asian doctor from all the Dharma orientation videos, whose real name we learn to be Pierre Chang. He emerges from his house into the cluster of homes that will later be used by Ben and The Others. He goes to work, recording the orientation video for a Dharma Initiative station known as The Arrow. (Have we seen that station yet? I’m not sure we have…) What he says in his introduction to the video is worth paying attention to.

“Given your specific area of expertise, you should find it no surprise that this station’s primary purpose is to develop defensive strategies and gather intelligence on the island’s hostile, indigenous population.”

Think about that. From what we know so far, each Dharma hatch had a purpose that involved scientific research and experimentation. But this station, The Arrow, seems to be dedicated from the beginning to preparing for battle with the island’s original inhabitants. The effort to “develop defensive strategies and gather intelligence” doesn’t appear to be reactionary. Does that mean the Dharma Initiative, from the beginning, posed a threat to those already on the island? Were the “hostiles” intended as experimental subjects for some kind of Dharma project? Who are the hostiles, and are they really the island’s original inhabitants, or one group in a long line that came to the island and tried to build a life?

Before Chang can continue, he’s interrupted and told of a problem in The Orchid station. Once there, a construction foreman informs him that while drilling on specs provided by Chang himself, his team hit an obstacle – something behind the rock wall that has melted six drillbits and mysteriously injured a worker. He shows Chang a sonar image of the wall, and buried in the rock, partially obscured, we see what appears to be the wheel that Ben turned to move the island. The foreman suggests blasting through the wall to get at it, but Chang puts the kibosh on that. “This station is being built here because of its proximity to what we believe to be an almost limitless energy. And that energy, once we can harness it correctly, is going to allow us to manipulate time.”  He instructs the foreman to stop the work, saying, “If you drill even one centimeter further, you risk releasing the energy. If that were to happen, God help us all.”

So what can we take away from this scene?

1) Chang is kind of a dick. Seriously, is there anyone this guy doesn’t snap at?

2) The Dharma Initiative has designs on time travel from early on. The island’s ability to enable this is not an accidental discovery.

His description of “an almost limitless energy” ain’t much of a description at all. What does he mean, specifically? What is it about this energy that makes time travel possible? And what would releasing the energy do? When Ben turned the wheel, did that release the energy? Is that what causes the island to do…what it’s now doing?

A WRINKLE IN TIME
When Ben turned the wheel and the island was engulfed in a blazing white light, we only saw the reaction of others to its disappearance. Now, we learn what happened to those still on it. Sawyer and Juliet notice something wrong when the smoke from the freighter, visible on the horizon moments before, is gone. Then Bernard and Rose emerge from the trees and tell them that the camp is gone – the tents, the kitchen table, the Dharma food – all gone. Luckily, their friendly neighborhood physicist – the delightfully twitchy Daniel Faraday – shows up to explain. And by “explain” I mean “make things impossibly more confusing.”

The camp isn’t gone, he says; rather, it hasn’t been built yet. He asks Juliet to lead him to something man-made on the island, so she and Sawyer make for the blown-up hatch, with Charlotte and Miles in tow. (Strange as it seems, this is actually the first time Faraday and Sawyer have met.) Sawyer insists on an explanation, so Faraday attempts to give him one by describing the island as a record spinning on a turntable; now that record is skipping (a metaphor nicely foreshadowed in the opening scene when Dr. Chang’s record exhibits that exact behavior). Faraday says that whatever Ben did in The Orchid station, it seems to have “dislodged” the island from time; either the island is moving through time, or they are, and such movements will continue. When the next wrinkle occurs, accompanied again by that blinding white light, Juliet suggests seeing if they are at a point in time when they can stop the helicopter from flying to the freighter (as they all assume that Jack, Kate and the rest were onboard when it exploded). Faraday says it doesn’t work that way. He describes time as a string (or did he say “street?” I couldn’t tell). He says you can move backwards, you can move forwards, but you can never create a new string/street. If you try to change the past, it won’t work. Whatever happened…happened.

This is similar to what Desmond was once told by the kindly but creepy woman who guided him through his initial flashes – the lady from the jewelry store, whose name I’ve since learned is Mrs. Hawking. She explained to him that fate can not be tricked or avoided. If someone is destined to die, they’re going to die, no matter what interference tries to prevent it. The circumstances of the death may vary, but if it’s meant to happen…it happens (Exhibit A: Charlie. Awww, Charlieeeee!!!!)

Faraday also says that he knows what’s happening because he has been studying space-time for his entire adult life. He pulls out his notebook and says that it contains everything he’s learned about The Dharma Initiative. “This is why I’m here,” he says. Okay, Faraday has long been learning about Dharma’s interest in time travel. So if that’s why he’s on the island, why are Charlotte and Miles there? Knowing that Miles’ talent is communing with the dead, was he chosen for this mission to find a specific deceased individual or group of individuals and learn about the circumstances of the death? Perhaps to change those circumstances (since stopping them altogether is apparently not possible) through the miracle of DING DING DING!!! Time travel!!!

The next flash puts the islanders sometime in the past again, when the hatch is still intact. Sawyer wants to attract the attention of Desmond, who he assumes is inside, but Faraday convinces him that such a meeting can not occur. Sawyer, Juliet and Miles head back to the beach, as does Charlotte – though not before Faraday notices her nose is bleeding. She dismisses it as nothing, but Faraday knows – as did the freighter’s communications officer George Minkowski – that in this place, a bloody nose can be more than just a bloody nose.

Despite having insisted to Sawyer that he can not meet Desmond at this point in time if a similar meeting didn’t happen before, Faraday tries himself to rouse Desmond once the others are gone. Praying for his efforts to work, Faraday bangs on the hatch door until it opens and out comes Desmond, sealed up in a hazmad suit and gas mask, brandishing a gun at the unfamiliar intruder. Desperate to impart his message before the next flash unfolds, Faraday tells a bewildered, paranoid Desmond that he’s the only one who can help them all because the rules don’t apply to him; he is, Faradays says, “uniquely, miraculously special.”  (Do the rules not apply to Faraday either? Is he able to connect with Desmond because both of them have time-tripped?) Faraday gives Desmond his name and tells him that everyone he left behind after the helicopter took off to safety (if it took off to safety) is in danger. By this time, the white light is ramping up and the next flash is imminent. Faraday just barely has time to tell Desmond to go back to Oxford, where they met, and find his – Faraday’s – mother, whose name is…and flash. He’s gone.

Desmond immediately wakes up three years later, in bed with Penny on her boat, and knows that what he experienced was a memory. To Penny’s confusion, he immediately changes the boat’s course…for Oxford.

So who is Faraday’s mother, and how can she help? I have a quasi-theory as to who she might be…but that will have to wait.

Oh yeah – before everyone leaves Faraday at the hatch and returns to the beach, Sawyer asks how they can stop what’s happening. Faraday says they can’t. He doesn’t answer when Sawyer asks who can, but as if to answer the question for him, the scene cuts to Locke.

DE PLANE! DE PLANE!
While Sawyer, Juliet and the rest are experiencing the island’s time shifts together, Locke is facing them alone. When the first flash occurs – the one when Ben turns the wheel – Locke is with Richard and the other Others. Then they’re gone. We get a cool nostalgic experience when Locke sees the cargo plane carrying Mr. Eko’s former comrades crash onto the island, complete with heroin-filled Virgin Mary statues.

(Slight pause whilst I bow my head for Charlie, Eko and Boone.)

Umm, anyway….Locke also has an encounter with Ethan, who shoots him in the leg before the next flash whisks him away to the future. (Ethan…what a jerk. Somebody should really kill that guy.) Soon Richard finds Locke, rushing to tend the bullet wound and give him some important information before the next time shift. Richard tells Locke that the only way to save the island is to get the people who left to come back. Locke assumes they died on the freighter, but Richard says no, they made it to civilization. And in order to get them back, Locke will have to die. That’s all he has a chance to say before the next flash, though he does give John a compass, telling him that the next time they meet, he won’t recognize Locke and to give the instrument back to Richard, as if that will make him understand. Is this the same compass that Richard once offered to Locke many years earlier, in a mysterious visit to the boy’s house?

BACK TO THE FUTURE
And so it goes on the island. But what of the Oceanic Six, livin’ the dream back in the real world, three years after Ben turned the wheel? Sorry, did I say livin’ the dream? Perhaps I misspoke. The action picks up right at the Season Four finale, with Jack and Ben in the funeral parlor staring at Locke in his casket. With Jack having agreed to go back to the island, Ben’s plan is to take Locke’s coffin, and one by one collect the rest of Jack’s friends. Jack doubts they’ll be able to do that, and says, “They’re not my friends anymore.” I know in print that reads like the statement of a petulant child. But it worked on the show.

In a hotel room, Jack shaves the Beard of Insanity and tries to get his head clear for the task ahead. Ben says that Locke, aka Bentham, must have made an impression during their visit. He asks what Locke said that made him such a believer. Jack says he was told that those left behind would die too if he didn’t come back. That still doesn’t quite add up with what else we’ve been told – that bad things happened on the island after they left, that those things happened because they left, that going back was the only way to keep Kate and Aaron safe. But I suspect we’ll be learning more about Locke’s agenda before too long.

Kate, meanwhile, is home with Aaron when she receives a troubling visit from a pair of attorneys, one of whom introduces himself as Dan Norton. He explains that they’ve come with a court order instructing Kate to let them take blood samples from her and Aaron to determine their true relationship. Kate asks who it’s for, but Norton says he is not at liberty to divulge the identity of his client. Kate refuses and sends them away, knowing they’ll be back with a sheriff. I wondered briefly if this could be a set-up by Ben to blackmail her into joining the trip to the island, but I suspect something more sinister is at work. Not about to be forced into the blood test, Kate packs a bag (and packs some heat), takes Aaron and leaves the house. Will she ever be back?

Halfway around the world, Sun attempts to check onto a flight bound for Los Angeles, but she is detained and locked in a security room. In comes Charles Widmore, displeased that their last meeting took place in public in front of his business associates. He asks Sun to elaborate on her comment that she and Widmore have common interests, so Sun makes it plain: they both want to kill Benjamin Linus. Now it looks like there’s no doubt as to the second person that Sun blames for Jin’s death (the first, we already know, is her father).

And then there’s Sayid and Hurley. When last we saw this wonderfully odd couple (seriously, after Lost ends, can we resurrect these two characters on a sitcom?), Sayid had killed a man outside Hurley’s mental hospital and come to take the patient to a safe place. Sayid informed Hurley than Bentham was dead. He was clearly uneasy about this, and so then was Hurley. We pick up the action with Hurley and Sayid arriving at the latter’s safehouse. Unfortunately, they quickly learn that it’s not so safe; a pair of bad guys are there waiting for them. Sayid manages to toss one over the balcony to a fatal smack on the pavement. The other would-be-assailant meets his end on a set of steak knives, but not before shooting a tranquilizer dart or the like into Sayid’s neck. Hurley comes in to help him, but Sayid can only tell his friend to get him into the car before he loses consciousness.

So who were the attackers? The same people responsible for Bentham’s death? What danger do Locke, Sayid, Hurley and the others pose? Who is trying to eliminate them?

Before the attack, Sayid tells Hurley that he’s been working – killing – for Ben. And interestingly, he now seems to express regret about that, saying to Hurley, “If you have the misfortune of running into him, whatever he tells you, just do the opposite.” What soured Sayid on his arrangement with Ben?

LOOSE ENDS
You probably watched the recap special that preceded the season premiere, and I always think those specials are helpful for highlighting some of the mysteries that we should be keeping in mind as the show goes forward. So do not take it for granted that the show mentioned the four-toed statue seen by Sayid, Sun and Jin in the Season Three finale, or the two corpses Jack discovered in the caves way back in Season One – the ones Locke referred to as “Adam and Eve.” Every indication is that those two decomposed figures are a key to one of the show’s central mysteries.

The recap show also cleared up two minor things that I had been questioning. One, that the island is in fact invisible to those flying over it. And two, that the freighter crew did consist of two distinct teams: Keamy’s military crew and the scientist crew of Faraday, Charlotte and Miles (and by extension, Frank…though he seemed to be at Keamy’s service too).

The one thing that happens in this episode out of context, time-wise, is the opening sequence that takes place during the Dharma days…a sequence that ends with Faraday revealed down in the Orchid as Dr. Chang leaves. How did he get here? Is he here via another flash on the island? And if so, how long after the other flashes we witnessed does this flash take place? Are Sawyer, Juliet and the others lurking about too?

Now then, as you may now, there a lot of Lost-themed websites and blogs out there. And when I say a lot, I mean a lot. I don’t have the time or patience to go to most of them, but I do tend to visit the recaps on the Entertainment Weekly website. Their writer, Jeff “Doc” Jensen is insane and sometimes annoying, but also spins some pretty good theories. So from now on, I’ll be including some of his content that I find especially interesting or noteworthy. Here are a few things he had to say:

1) On Faraday’s encounter with Desmond outside the hatch: “I initially thought ‘Hey! Shouldn’t Island Desmond remember Daniel Faraday?’ After all, in The Constant, we saw Pre-Island Desmond visit Pre-Island Daniel at Oxford. But that was an example of mental projection time travel, not physical time travel, and I’m guessing Lost adheres to the controversial perspective that memory resides not in the physical structure of the brain, but in the electrical currents of consciousness.”

2) On Sun and Widmore: “And another burning question that stems from the fact that Sun told Widmore she wants Ben dead. But do you believe her? Sure, Ben is a bad man. But was he responsible for Jin’s death? No. That was Keamy the Merc whose bomb blew up the freighter. Which belonged to Widmore. Who wanted everyone on the Island dead. It should be Chuck’s blue blood that Sun should want spilled. Maybe she’s playing double agent, pretending to be a Ben Hater but really a Ben Friend tasked with spying on their mutual enemy. Maybe she’s just getting close enough to shiv him when he’s not looking.”

3) He pointed out a detail which whizzed by me, but which could prove significant. When Charlotte asks Miles if he thinks Widmore is looking for them, Miles says he’s not holding his breath considering that it took Widmore 20 years to find the island the first time. (But does the first time mean this time, with the freighter? Or some time before that?)

4) This is from the piece he published the day this episode aired, and involves his latest theory on the big picture. I don’t fully buy it, but like a lot of his theories, I do find it intriguing. If you’re interested, scroll down and start reading at “The Competing Timelines Theory of Lost.”

LINE OF THE NIGHT
“You know maybe if you ate more comfort food, you wouldn’t have to go around shooting people.” – Hurley

FINAL THOUGHTS
I don’t think Faraday, Charlotte and Miles have had a change of clothes since they got to the island. That’s disgusting.

…..aaaaaaannnd exhale. Welcome to the jungle, everyone. The wait has been long and difficult, but hours from now, we’ll be watching the first new episodes of Lost in seven months. I’ve completed re-watching Season Four, and I’ve got enough questions to fill a Dharma hatch or two. Some of these will likely be addressed this season, while others will probably just get more complicated before their answers come in the sixth and final season. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. As we get rolling, here are some of the things on my mind; my sad, obsessed, freakish little mind. To whatever degree I ever aim for eloquence of prose in these messages, you’ll find little such aim here. This is just a down and dirty, catch-up message; a sort of “what-the-fuck-is-going-on-with-this-show,” if you will.

The last thing we saw at the close of Season Four was John Locke, aka Jeremy Bentham, lying in a coffin. So let’s start there. It seems Locke came off the island to try and convince Jack and the others to come back. He tells Jack that some very bad things happened on the island after Jack left, and that those things are his fault for leaving. This is what Jack tells Ben as they stand near Bentham’s coffin. So Bentham somehow got off the island and visited the Oceanic Six one by one, trying to convince them to return. Kate said she knew he was crazy, but Jack believed him. “Yes, Kate, I did because he said that that was the only way I could keep you safe. You and Aaron.”  Keep her safe from what??? In fact…okay…wait…

Breathe, stop, collect your thoughts:

• How did Locke get off the island?

• What things happened that could have been prevented had Jack and company stayed?

• How will the return of the Oceanic Six, not to mention Bentham’s corpse, fix things?

• Why was Locke traveling under the name Jeremy Bentham?

• Why does his death lead Sayid to fetch Hurley from the mental hospital and flee to somewhere safe?

• Why did Bentham go to see Walt, and does Walt need to return to the island as well?

• Why did Jack believe whatever Bentham told him, when he’s never believed any of the “crazy” things Locke has said before?

The questions about Bentham off the island lead me to questions about Locke on the island. Mainly, what is the relationship between these two? From the time of his birth, the island has had an interest in him, particularly in the form of Richard Alpert, who seems to have been watching over him since he was a baby and trying to get him to the island. Ben has always tormented Locke with the idea that he is important, that he shares a connection to the island, and Locke has believed as much himself since he first encountered the Black Smoke. But what is this connection? Locke has a dream in which long-deceased Dharma worker Horace is chopping down trees to build what will become Jacob’s cabin. Horace tells Locke that Jacob has been waiting for him for a long time. Why? And if the Oceanic Six and Ben bring his body back to the island, will he come back to life? 

Can the island return life to the dead? When Jack found his father’s coffin shortly after the crash, the body was missing. But we’ve seen Christian Shephard on the island several times now, most notably last season when he took Claire’s baby – his grandson – and then when Locke encountered him in Jacob’s cabin (remember that Hurley spied him in there too, earlier in the season). So what is Christian’s state? Hurley has seen him, Locke has seen him, Claire has seen him and we can infer that Miles has seen him too. But Jack has also seen him, off the island, at the medical office where he works. This is the stuff I’ve been trying the hardest to wrap my head around, come up with a theory…but I’ve got nothing. Jacob…Christian…Claire…I should let it all go for now, because I don’t think we’ll get any answers until the final season. And remember, Claire is off the show until then. Short of a possible surprise cameo, we won’t see her this season.

So let’s turn our attention to some things that are more likely to get answered in the short term. Where…or more appropriately, when…is the island? Last we saw it, Ben was deep below its surface, turning some big frozen wheel and transporting it somewhere else…in time, if not also in space.

• Is it in the future or the past?

• Did the small island where Jack, Kate and Sawyer were once held captive by The Others move too?

• What did moving the island accomplish?

• Is the move supposed to protect it from being discovered by Charles Widmore?

• Does that mean Jacob doesn’t want Widmore to find the island?

• How many times has the island been moved before?

• Does the time travel explain Richard Alpert’s agelessness?

• Where does the Dharma Initiative factor into the island’s history and any previous movements?

We still don’t really know what happened to the Dharma Initiative. I mean, we know Ben gassed their asses into the next life, but why? What were they really doing? What is with all those creepy videos featuring the Asian scientist?

Other things I expect we’ll learn more about soon: Daniel, Charlotte and Miles. And maybe Frank. The writer’s strike that interrupted last season meant we didn’t see the backstory episodes intended for at least two of the four freighter folk. We can expect to start learning more about them soon, and there are plenty of questions.

• What is Charlotte’s connection to the island?

• How did the skeleton of a Dharma polar bear come to be excavated in Tunisia, and how did Charlotte know to expect it there? Was she on the island at some point in the past when it was moved?

• What is wrong with Daniel? Has he been leaping through time, like Desmond?

• Why did he have a note indicating that Desmond would be his constant?

• Why doesn’t 2004 Daniel remember his meeting with Desmond from 1996? What has happened to him in the interim?

• Why was he crying when he learned that Oceanic 815 had been discovered on the ocean floor?

• Why did the freighter’s doctor and that glorious son of a bitch Martin Keamy react so defensively to him talking to Desmond on the phone? Why did the doctor say “he can’t even help himself?”

• Now that Miles’ plan to get paid off by Ben is moot, what is his interest in the island?

• Why didn’t he return to the freighter when Daniel gave him the chance?

• Why did Frank not pilot Oceanic 815 on the day of the crash, as he claims he was supposed to?

Questions about these four still-mysterious newcomers to the island feed into the larger puzzle of how they were brought together in the first place. Matthew Abbadon, the creepiest man alive, told dear departed Naomi that each of them was chosen for a specific reason, and that she was responsible for getting them in and out of the island without them coming to harm. By the end of Season Four, Daniel had admitted to Jack that they never intended to rescue the survivors. And though Miles says early on that they came to the island looking for Ben – which was clearly Keamy’s mission – it never seemed that Daniel and Charlotte were there for that reason. They always appeared to have another interest in the island.

• What was it?

• Why did Abbadon bring these four together? Is he in league with Charles Widmore, or does he have his own agenda? Naomi asks him what happens if they find survivors of Flight 815, but he insists there are none, even though she knows that that may not be the case. What do Abbadon, Naomi and the freighter’s Fantastic Four know about the plane and the island?

• Why does Naomi have a picture of Desmond and Penny?

• Do Daniel, Charlotte, Miles and Frank know why they were chosen for the mission?

• Do they know anything about Abbadon, or were they recruited through Naomi?

Continuing with the Abbadon thread, what is his interest in the survivors? Post-island, he approaches Hurley at the mental institution. Pre-island, he pretended to be an orderly tending to Locke during the latter’s physical therapy. In that encounter, Abbadon suggested that Locke go on a walkabout – something Locke eventually attempts to do, which is why he was in Sydney. Is Abbadon actually on Ben’s side, trying to get Locke to the island? Trying to keep tabs on Hurley and the rest of the Oceanic Six post-island so that it will be easier to get them to return? Before leaving Locke in the rehab center, Abbadon tells him, “When you’re ready Mr. Locke, you’ll listen to what I’m saying. And then, when you and me run into each other again, you’ll owe me one.”

My head is spinning anew, and the damn season hasn’t even started yet. I could go on and on and on, but I do have other things to do you know, including making my final predictions for tomorrow’s Oscar nominations. So here’s a random assortment of other questions and thoughts that are gnawing at me after re-watching Season Four:

• Why is it so hard to find the island? Is it invisible to the outside world? The Season Four DVD includes a feature called Lost in 8:15, which humorously breezes through the first three seasons’ events in 8 minutes and 15 seconds. In covering the Season Two finale, the narrator says that the two people on the boat in the arctic – the ones working for Penny – locate the island on the radar only briefly. We already know that when Desmond neglected to push the button in the hatch, it caused a huge electromagnetic burst that brought down the plane. Lost in 8:15 makes it sound as though that same burst caused the island to momentarily appear on radar, when otherwise it would be hidden. I hadn’t considered that before…

• When we last saw Sun, she had taken over her father’s company and was apparently looking for an alliance with Charles Widmore. Was that for real? What is she up to? (Bringing up the Season Four DVD again, there’s a deleted scene in which Kate and Hurley arrive at Jack’s father’s funeral service and meet up with Sayid and Nadia outside the church. Kate asks if anyone’s heard from Sun, to which Sayid replies, “No. And I don’t expect we will.” But sometime after that, Sun gives birth, and Hurley shows up to visit Jin’s grave with her and the baby. When he arrives at her apartment, he asks her if anyone else is coming. She says no, and he replies – rather oddly, as if he’s relieved by her answer – “Good.” I still think there’s something more to that.

• Juliet’s ex-therapist Harper appeared out of nowhere on the island to give Juliet a message from Ben. Jack saw her too. And then she disappeared. How do people materialize on the island like that? What is the whispering that seems to precede appearances by The Others? Was Harper really there?

• How did Ben know where Daniel and Charlotte were going when he was being held captive by Locke? How did he get Harper to deliver the message to Juliet? Is it all based on time traveling he’s already done?

• We learn that Ben sent Goodwin undercover at the tail section of the plane as punishment for his affair with Juliet. Why was Ethan sent away to go undercover?

• Who are the people Sayid is killing for Ben? Ben tells him that killing them is helping his friends. How is killing these people helping Sayid’s friends and achieving Ben’s goal? Why is Ben pleased to learn that his enemies know he is after them (after Sayid’s cover is blown with “the economist”)?

• Desmond knows that the freighter was Charles Widmore’s. Now that he’s off the island, with Penny, what will he do with that info? Will he try to find out why Widmore was looking for the island? Will he talk to Penny about it? How much does Penny know about her father’s activities? When they parted ways, Jack said to Desmond, “Don’t let him find you.” Was he talking about Penny’s father? Or Ben, who told Charles that he was going to kill Penny as revenge for the murder of his “daughter” Alex? And why would Jack tell Desmond to be safe from either of them? What does he know about it?

• After Regina, a crew member on the freighter, takes a fatal suicide plunge, the captain tells Sayid and Desmond that some of his crew has experienced a “heightened case of cabin fever,” most likely due to the proximity of the island. That explanation is left hanging. Why would he think the island is causing this strange behavior?

• When Ben breaks into Widmore’s house, the latter asks if Ben has come to kill him. Ben replies, “We both know I can’t do that.” Why can’t Ben kill Widmore? And does it work both ways? What is the relationship between these two?

• After Keamy kills Alex, a stunned Ben says, “He changed the rules.” The “he” is Widmore, but what does the remark mean?

• How does Ben manipulate the Black Smoke? And enough already – what is the Black Smoke?

• What favor is Kate doing for Sawyer?

And so it goes.  I suspect that come the beginning of Season Six, I’ll be listing more than half of these questions again, with a slew of new ones as well. But for now…Season Five. If you can’t remember anything that happened last year, tune in at 8:00 for one of those recap episodes that will likely highlight some of the storylines to be addressed sooner than later.

Enjoy the kickoff.

Tonight’s Episodes: Because You Left; The Lie