I Am DB

“AS LONG AS IT TAKES”
The episode begins immediately after Locke disappeared down the well in another violent flash, leaving Sawyer holding a rope that disappears into the ground. In fact, it was so immediately after that moment that I thought we were still watching the recap of that episode. That is, until Miles pointed toward something and indicated that they were quite a ways back in the past. Jin, Sawyer and Juliet follow his gaze over the tree line and see an enormous statue facing out toward the water, its back to them.

From behind, I first thought it appeared Greco-Roman…but the more I looked at it, the more I thought about the Anubis warriors from Brendan Fraser’s Mummy movies (I’m not proud that The Mummy occurred to me, but hey, I worked at ILM all through the making of the second flick. It was hard to avoid). Anyway, the Anubis vibe would suggest that the statue has Egyptian origins…which would fit with some of the other things we’ve seen on the island – mainly the hieroglyphics on The Temple exterior, on the door in Ben’s secret room when he summoned the Black Smoke and on the 108 minute countdown panels in the hatch. There are also the columns that surrounded the well down which Locke climbed. The pillars had a distinctly ancient look to them. And isn’t Egypt kinda sorta close to Tunisia, which contains what Widmore described to Locke as the island’s “exit?” What if the door between the island and Africa swings both ways? (That’s what she said.)

Bottom line: it looked pretty damn cool. Hopefully this intriguing glimpse of what is probably (but not definitively) Season Two’s four-toed statue isn’t just thrown in there to satisfy us, but rather will be explained more thoroughly later on. Because…wow.

Their viewing is interrupted by another flash, which is the most violent one yet. Miles even remarks when it stops that it was different than the others; more like an earthquake. We know this is the one that occurs when Locke turns the wheel, transporting himself off the island. After a moment, Juliet realizes that her headache is gone. They all realize the same, and that their noses are no longer bleeding. Whatever Locke was attempting to do down below, they figure it must have worked. Now they just have to wait for him to come back. “For how long?” Juliet asks. “As long as it takes,” Sawyer answers.

Three years later, we’re in a Dharma Station with a couple of security guards named Jerry and Phil, who notice something odd on the monitor. One of their own seems to be drunkenly stumbling around the large pylons that surround their territory’s perimeter. A closer look reveals the man to be Horace, a familiar face to us: he delivered baby Ben before moving to the island; he brought Ben and his father to the island and gave his father employment as a Work Man; he was among the people killed by Ben in The Purge; and he appeared to Locke in a dream telling him to find his body in order to locate Jacob’s cabin.

As seen on the security monitor, Horace has dynamite and is blowing up trees. Jerry and Phil debate whether they should go wake someone called LaFleur, who we gather would not be pleased about being disturbed…or about letting this Horace situation continue. So they run out into the Dharmaburbs and knock on the door of one of the recognizable yellow houses. The unseen LaFleur opens the door and listens to their explanation of the situation. Then we get a look at him: Sawyer. He steps back inside and grabs his Dharma uniform, identifying him as Head of Security. Upon laying eyes on Sawyer, one big question came immediately to mind: what kind of conditioner is he using to make his hair so straight and shiny, with such healthy body?

It looks like Sawyer wasn’t kidding when he said “as long as it takes.” He has ascended to a position of major authority and respect in The Dharma Initiative. Now behind the wheel of a Dharma van, he picks up Miles, also uniformed in Dharma garb. They go out to the pylons to get the now passed-out Horace, and while Miles stays to put out the fires, Sawyer brings Horace back to his extremely pregnant wife, Amy. She addresses Sawyer as Jim, and tells him that she and Horace had a fight about Paul. She’s about to elaborate when she suddenly goes into labor.

GOOD SAMARITANS
Three years earlier, Sawyer, Juliet, Jin and Miles return to where they left Charlotte and Faraday, but only the latter is there – kneeling, crying and mumbling things like, “I’m not gonna do it. I’m not gonna tell her.” He manages to explain that Charlotte died and that her body disappeared during the last flash. “She moved on, and we stayed,” he says. This prompts Sawyer to ask if they’ve stopped moving through time. Faraday says yes, it’s over. “Wherever we are now…whenever we are now, we’re here for good.”

Sawyer says they should go back to the beach, the most logical place for Locke and the others to look when they return. Miles argues that after the assault of flaming arrows, the beach doesn’t sound too welcoming, adding that their camp is probably not even there. Sawyer says they don’t have a better option and Juliet agrees, so they head off. As they walk, Sawyer thanks her for getting his back. Their banter is playful as she says, “You should thank me. It was a stupid idea.” They’re smiling. It’s cute. If they were Muppets, the next scene might show them riding bikes together through Hyde Park.

The Great Muppet Caper? Anyone? Alright fine…

They are interrupted by the sound of gunshots and a woman crying for help. Off in the distance is a body on the ground, a crying woman and two guys putting a bag over her head. Miles is hesitant to step in, turning to Daniel. “We don’t get involved, right? That’s what you said?”

“It doesn’t matter what we do,” Faraday says through his glass cage of emotions. “Whatever happened…happened.”

Sawyer’s not about to stand idly by, so confirming that Juliet again has his back, he approaches the group and calls for the men to drop their guns. One swings around and takes a shot at him, only to take a fatal bullet himself – not from Sawyer, but from Juliet. When the second guy fires, Sawyer takes him down. They tell the woman she’s safe and remove the bag. It’s Horace’s wife, Amy. Though she’s not his wife yet…

The first dead guy – the one who was with Amy – has a Dharma jumpsuit, so Juliet figures they’re in the 70’s or early 80’s. The assaulters have a walkie-talkie and Sawyer worries they may have reinforcements on the way, so he tries to keep his group moving. When Amy asks who they are, Sawyer says their boat shipwrecked en route to Tahiti. But she pleads with them to help her, saying something about a truce and that they have to bury her attackers and take Paul, her husband, back with them. (So this is obviously the Paul that she and Horace have a fight about in the future.) Amy is distraught and upset, so they reluctantly agree to help bury the assailants. I’m not sure what they did this with, considering they’re in the middle of the island without a shovel. But no matter. They finish the job and follow her lead with Paul’s body.

Sawyer: Alright listen up. When we get there, there’s gonna be a lot of questions. So just keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking.

Miles: You really think you can convince them that we were in a boat wreck?

Sawyer: I’m a professional. I used to lie for a living.

They come up to the pylons, which Daniel is about to cross until Juliet screams for him to stop. She tells Amy to turn them off. Amy plays dumb, asking what she means. Juliet tries to play dumb back, saying they look like some kind of sonic fence. Amy is definitely suspicious, asking again where their ship was going. Sawyer says that since they saved her life and are continuing to help her, she can show them a little trust. So she turns off the fence and walks through. When the others follow, they immediately feel the effects and collapse to the ground. Amy removes earplugs and looks down at her unconscious rescuers.

JUST WHEN I THOUGHT I WAS OUT, THEY PULL ME BACK IN
Three years later, Sawyer/LaFleur is in a Dharma hospital with Amy, who is experiencing serious labor pains. An internist wants to know where Horace is, but Sawyer brushes off the question and keeps the focus on Amy. The internist says her baby is upside down and two weeks early. Amy was supposed to leave on a sub for the mainland for her delivery, and he doesn’t know if he can help her. He says all the babies get delivered on the mainland. Desperate, Sawyer runs to get Juliet, who he finds laying underneath a Dharma van doing mechanical work. He tells her that Amy is in labor and in trouble. Juliet stands up alarmed and reminds him that they have an agreement.

Sawyer: Screw our agreement, we gotta help.

Juliet: Don’t you understand that everytime I try to help a woman on this island give birth, it hasn’t worked?

Sawyer: Well maybe whatever made that happen hasn’t happened yet. You gotta try. You gotta help her. You’re the only one who can.

Sawyer could be right about the baby issue not being a factor yet…although the internist did say that all babies are delivered off the island. Hmm. Regardless, Juliet (whose Dharma uniform looks like it says Motor Pool) follows Sawyer and tells the internist what she needs. She’s nervous, but Sawyer tells her she’ll do great, and even Amy says she wants Juliet to do it when the internist expresses his doubts.

While Sawyer waits outside, Jin arrives wearing a Security uniform. Sawyer explains what’s happening and that he had to pull Juliet “out of retirement.” Jin’s English is solid by now, and when Sawyer asks if he had any luck, Jin says they swept grids one through three (or something like that) and had no luck. So Sawyer says they’ll move on to the next one. “How long do we look, James?” Jin asks. Sawyer repeats his answer from three years earlier. “As long as it takes.”  Juliet comes out and says it worked; she delivered a healthy boy. She’s crying with relief and Sawyer is literally beaming. Sawyer! Beaming! What a softie.

Three years earlier, Sawyer awakens on a couch after the pylon incident. He’s alone with Horace, who tells him that his friends are fine, but that they’re waiting for him to explain who they are and why they’re on the island. He also says that Amy filled him in on what happened, and he appreciates what they all did to help. When Sawyer says they have a funny way of showing their appreciation, Horace explains, “Look, we have a certain defense protocol. There are hostile, indigenous people on this island and we don’t get along with them. So why don’t you tell me who the hell you are.”

Without missing a beat, Sawyer says his name is Jim LaFleur and that he’s the captain of a salvage vessel that shipwrecked while searching for an old slave ship out of Portsmouth, England called The Black Rock. He asks if Horace has heard of it. “Can’t say that I have,” Horace answers. (Can’t say because he doesn’t know, or can’t say because he knows but doesn’t want to say?) Why were they wandering in the jungle, he wants to know. Sawyer says they were looking for some of their missing crew members and that’s when they found Amy in trouble.

Horace says if he finds any of LaFleur’s people he’ll send them along, but that LaFleur and his present company have to leave the next morning on an outbound submarine. Sawyer asks if their good deed can buy them a little time to try and find their missing men, but Horace denies him. “No, the only people who are allowed to stay on this compound are members of The Dharma Initiative. And look, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, please Jim, but you are not Dharma material.”

YOU SPIN ME RIGHT ROUND, BABY, RIGHT ROUND
Juliet, Miles, Daniel and Jin are seated around a table outside, Juliet staring at the house she lived in as an Other and explaining to her companions her familiarity with the barracks. Jin asks Daniel if there will be more flashes. Daniel, still lost in his grief and not totally with the program, says, “No, no more flash. The record is spinning again…and we’re just not on the song we want to be on.” Then, as Dharma people continue to pass to and fro, he sees a little girl, maybe three years old, with red hair trailing after her mother. She turns and looks at Daniel, and he at her. It’s Charlotte.

Horace and Sawyer come out and join them, and Horace says someone will come by shortly to take them to their rooms for the night. He leaves them alone, and Sawyer explains his improvisation and informs them that they have to leave in the morning. Miles is wondering how this is bad news, but suddenly an alarm starts to sound throughout the compound and people scatter. Phil, the security guy from the beginning of the episode, runs up to Sawyer and the rest and brings them inside a house to hide. They look out the window and see a lone man enter the compound carrying a torch, which he sticks in the ground. The man keeps walking and when he passes under a streetlamp, he is illuminated to Sawyer and Juliet: Richard.

He waits in the now empty “village square,” where Horace walks out to meet him.

Horace: Hello Mr. Alpert.

Richard: Hello Mr. Goodspeed.

Horace: I wish you would have told me you were coming, I would have turned the fence off for you.

Richard: That fence may keep other things out, but not us. The only thing that does keep us out, Horace, is our truce. Which you have now broken.

Horace: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Richard: Where are my two men?

So what is the nature of this truce? How did these two groups first come into contact with each other? What is their arrangement? What does Richard get out of allowing Dharma to stay? Why doesn’t the electrofence keep out Richard and his people?

Horace comes back inside a minute later and asks Sawyer how well he buried the bodies. When Sawyer says it depends on how hard they look, Horace turns to Phil and says, “Call The Arrow. Tell them we’re at Condition 1. Take the heavy ordinance, and make sure the fence is at maximum.”

The last time we heard mention of The Arrow station was at the beginning of this season, when Dr. Chang was taping an orientation video for it, only to be interrupted by news of an incident at The Orchid. Before that interruption, he said that The Arrow’s “primary purpose is to develop defensive strategies and gather intelligence on the island’s hostile, indigenous population.” At the time, I didn’t think we had seen The Arrow yet, but I’ve since learned that we have. Way back in Season Two, when Ana Lucia and Eko finally accepted the truth that Michael, Jin and Sawyer were also from Flight 815, they all went to an abandoned Dharma hatch where the other Tailies – including Bernard – were staying. That was The Arrow, and if you recall, it was completely run down and virtually empty.

Back to the scene, Sawyer tells Horace he’ll go out and talk to Richard. Horace protests, but Sawyer makes it clear he’s not asking for permission. So out he goes, telling Juliet as he exits that he’ll figure something out. He approaches Richard, who is sitting casually on a bench as if waiting to pick up a to-go order of food. What follows is a great scene between these two, in which Sawyer plainly, truthfully explains that he killed Richard’s men, and why. He says that he’s not with The Dharma Initiative, so any truce they might have has not been broken. When Richard asks who he is if not part of Dharma, Sawyer takes a seat next to him.

Sawyer: Did you bury the bomb?

Richard: Excuse me?

Sawyer: The hydrogen bomb with “Jughead” written on the side, did you bury it? Yeah I know about it. I also know 20 years ago some bald fellow limped into your camp and fed you some mumbo jumbo about being your leader. Then poof, he went and disappeared right in front of you. Any of this ringing a bell? That man’s name is John Locke, and I’m waiting for him to come back. Still think I’m a member of the damn Dharma Initiative?

Richard is clearly stunned by Sawyer’s statements, and accepts that whoever he is, he’s not part of Dharma. But nevertheless, two of his men are dead and his people need justice. Uhh, why don’t we talk about the fact that your two men attacked a couple who were trying to have a picnic? Okay, I guess we don’t know how the skirmish got started. Maybe Paul and Amy were in territory they weren’t entitled to be in based on the terms of this truce. But whatever happened, it sure looked like Richard’s men were the instigators.

By the way, you gotta love Sawyer’s ability to play such a badass and still make the term “mumbo jumbo” sound acceptable.

Finally, the mention of Jughead reminds me of something interesting that I failed to mention before. In the wake of that episode, when Faraday told Ellie to bury the hydrogen bomb and pour concrete over it, there has been speculation amongst fans that the bomb was buried beneath the hatch that imploded at the end of Season Two (the hatch known as The Swan). I didn’t recall this, but early in that season, Sayid and Jack went into the crawlspace below the floor of the hatch and found a huge block of concrete that they could not get around. Their trip below the floor was prompted by Sayid discovering this same concrete block above them, behind one of the walls. So obviously, it’s pretty damn big. When Jack asked Sayid for his thoughts, Sayid answered, “The last time I heard of concrete being poured over everything in its way…was Chernobyl.” The Swan might have been destroyed, but it certainly wasn’t H-bomb level destruction. Is Jughead buried beneath that spot? And wherever it’s buried…could it still go off?

TWO WEEKS NOTICE
Horace and Sawyer find the grieving Amy, and Horace explains that LaFleur has worked things out with Richard, but in exchange for what happened they need to let him take Paul’s body back with him. Amy starts to cry, and Horace says that if she doesn’t want to do it, he understands and they’ll accept the consequences. Amy reluctantly agrees that if it will keep them all safe and maintain the truce, they can take him. Before leaving the body, she removes a chain from around his neck. It’s a small wooden symbol, which according to Lostpedia is an ankh, an Egyptian hieroglyph for fertility and eternal life. (Egyptian. I’m just sayin’…) In the meantime, Horace tells Sawyer that he and his people can stay there until the next sub run in two weeks.

Sawyer finds Juliet sitting on the dock, the submarine anchored behind her, and shares the good news. It’s a still, quiet night. She points out that the submarine brought her to the island, and for three years she’s been trying to leave. She says she’s taking her opportunity now. Sawyer says that whatever she thinks she’s going back to doesn’t exist yet, but she counters that that isn’t a reason not to go. Sawyer asks if she’s really going to abandon him with the “mad scientist and Mr. I Speak to Dead People? And Jin, who’s a hell of a nice guy but not exactly the greatest conversationalist?” He asks her to stick around and give him two weeks. Again, their conversation is light and playful. How far they’ve come from the days, just weeks ago in the show’s timeline, when he was a prisoner doing manual labor under her watchful eye.

LOVE IN THE TIME OF DHARMA
Three years later, they’ll have come even farther. The two are living together in domestic bliss. He even picks flowers for her. Who’d have thought Sawyer had such a creamy soft center? He’s like a human Cadbury egg. He tells her she was amazing that day, delivering Amy’s baby. She thanks him for believing in her, they hug, they kiss, she tells him she loves him, he says he loves her…all I can say is enjoy it while it lasts, kids.

Later that night, Sawyer is in the same room where he first met Horace, only now the positions are reversed, with Horace on the couch waking up with a headache. Sawyer tells him that he’s father to a newborn boy. Then he asks what happened to lead him on his bizarre escapade. Horace says he was looking for a pair of socks when he found Paul’s ankh buried in the back of Amy’s drawer. Sawyer can’t believe they got into a fight about that. “Yeah I know,” Horace says.  “But…it’s only been three years, Jim. Just three years that he’s been gone. Is that really long enough to get over someone?”

Sawyer looks like he understands, and a small smile comes over his face. “I had a thing for a girl once. And I had a shot at her, but I didn’t take it. For a little while I’d lay in bed every night, wondering if it was a mistake. Wondering…if I’d ever stop thinking about her. And now I can barely remember what she looks like. And her face is…she’s just gone. And she ain’t never coming back. So…is three years long enough to get over someone? Absolutely.”

Next thing we know, it’s morning and he’s asleep with Juliet when the phone rings. He answers it grumpily, and receives some news that startles him. He tells the caller not to “bring them in,” but that he’ll meet them. He jumps up to put his uniform on and tells Juliet it’s nothing, but that he has to go meet Jin. He drives a jeep along the coastline and gets out to wait as Jin’s van approaches and stops a few yards away. And out comes Hurley, Jack and Kate. They all look at him. He stares back,  barely believing his eyes.

Is three years long enough to get over someone? Let me get back to you on that.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT
-Although his uniform simply labels him as Mathematician, Horace seems to be the leader of The Dharma Initiative during this era. How did that come to pass? Where are Gerald and Karen DeGroot, the scientists who conceived The Dharma Initiative in the first place?

-Those with sharp memories might remember that the first time we met Horace – when he delivered Ben and then brought young Ben and Roger into The Dharma Initiative – he had another female companion, named Olivia. From what I heard, the actress who played her – Samantha Mathis, for you Pump Up the Volume fans – was not available to return. So they gave Horace a new girl.

-Where the hell are Rose and Bernard?!?

-So the flashes have stopped, and our travelers have settled into life on the island sometime in the 70’s, working for The Dharma Initiative. The implications of this are wide-ranging and mind-numbing.

Are they really stuck in this time period for good, or will they be able to return to 2009? Jin and Sun have a daughter waiting for them after all, and I have a hard time believing that at least one of them won’t make it back to her (though Sun didn’t seem to give a thought to leaving her behind and returning to the island).

What future events will be affected/changed by their presence on the island? Will Daniel alter Charlotte’s fate? Will young Ben Linus meet the 815 survivors? Now that Sawyer, Juliet, Jin, Miles and Daniel are all part of the Dharma Initiative (and Jack, Kate and the rest may have to join up too), where does that position them for The Purge, which granted, is still years away? Will the Adam and Eve skeletons in the cave near the beach turn out to be the bodies of a pair of 815 survivors?

Whatever the answers to these questions turn out to be, this episode really feels to me like the beginning of the end. If the shifts through time have indeed stopped and everyone is settled in 1970’s Dharmaville, then this episode feels like the one that sets the stage for the series climax. The final chapter of Lost may have just begun.

STATE OF THE SEASON
With two weeks between episodes, I had been hoping to find some time to meditate on what we’ve seen so far this season and what it all means going forward. But as Ferris Bueller said, “Life moves pretty fast,” and I didn’t get to give it the thought I’d hoped. (I believe the second half of Ferris’ statement goes, “If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss is it”…which might hit too close to home for a guy who devotes hours every week to sitting alone at a computer geeking out over a TV show).

Anyway, the big picture stuff continues to elude me, so I have no new theories to put forth about Ben and Widmore, Eloise Hawking, Jacob, Christian and Claire, Walt, time travel, The Dharma Initiative, the JFK assassination, the Watergate tapes, the Lindbergh Baby, Jimmy Hoffa or how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. But in reviewing my write-ups thus far, here’s a recap of some questions/thoughts:

-When Jack and Ben first meet up over Locke’s coffin, Ben asks Jack what Locke told him when they met weeks earlier. Jack says that Locke told him some very bad things happened after Jack and the others left, and that those things were their fault for leaving. Now that we’ve seen that encounter between Jack and Locke – and please correct me if I’m wrong about this – but Locke said no such thing. He only said that Jack and the rest needed to come back with him.

-When Ben brings Locke’s coffin to his butcher friend Jill, he tells her to keep the body safe or else everything they’re trying to do will be useless. So even though he killed Locke, he makes the point that Locke is still a vital part of his plan and must make it back to the island. Why?

-When and how will Desmond re-enter the story?

-Will we learn more about Teresa, the woman Faraday left behind in England after his research went awry?

-Have the interferences by Flight 815 survivors on past island events resulted in the creation of new timelines? For example, when Jin stopped Rousseau from following her companions beneath the Temple, wouldn’t that have caused a splinter in the space-time continuum, seeing as Jin would not have been there to stop Rousseau the first time she landed on the island? Ditto for Locke confronting Richard Alpert, Daniel telling Ellie to bury the hydrogen bomb, Daniel meeting Charlotte as a little girl, etc.

-While my guesses are never deep or too risky, I was pleased to see a few of my mini-theories along the way bear fruit. Like the idea that Locke would realize Jack was Christian’s son, and that telling him about his father’s presence on the island would be the deciding factor in Jack trying to return. I was also right that when the time jumps stopped, Sawyer and company would land in the middle of the Dharma years – not a hard call to make given that we had already seen Faraday appear during construction of The Orchid, but still, that could have been a short, flash-induced visit. So I’ll give myself half a point.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Another great episode, featuring terrific developments for Sawyer and excellent work by Josh Holloway. Elizabeth Mitchell was awesome as well; she’s two seasons overdue for an Emmy nomination.

Tonight’s Episode: Namaste

Click here for a larger picture of the full statue. It’s pretty cool. And apparently, though it’s hard to tell, he/she/it is holding one of those ankh symbols in each hand…

MYSTERY GUEST
We begin with our new characters, Caesar and Ilana. The former is looking around in a cluttered office. What’s he looking for? Is he familiar with this place, or did he just find it? He seems to be looking for something specific. He finds a folder with a Dharma logo on the front. There are maps, and a sheet covered in geometric sketches – circles and lines, along which are written the following: space time, real time, imaginary time and imaginary space. He also finds a shotgun, which he tucks in his bag just as Ilana enters…and which he keeps hidden from her.

She says they found a man standing in the water, wearing a suit. She says no one recognizes him from the plane; in fact, she is positive he was not onboard, and says with certainty that he was not among those who disappeared in the white light. They’re outside at this point, walking along a broad gravel road, and the plane rests right alongside them, apparently in one piece (from what we can see of it). I guess that means it never got to Guam.  They arrive on the beach, where several people are gathered around a fire. The mystery man sits, concealed by a shroud. Caesar introduces himself, and John Locke removes his hood and reciprocates.

It would appear that the theory I included last week from Entertainment Weekly‘s Doc Jensen was correct: Ajira Airways Flight 316 landed on the island that houses Dharma Initiative’s Hydra station, where polar bears once toiled and where Jack, Kate and Sawyer were kept prisoner. Locke stands in the surf the next morning, staring out at the big island. When Ilana approaches, Locke asks if she has a passenger list, but she says he’ll have to ask Caesar. Locke also points toward two outrigger canoes on the beach, which Ilana says were already there. She says there was a third, but the pilot and a woman took it during the night, without telling anybody. (This makes me happy, because it means we’ll be seeing Lapidus again soon!) But who is the woman that Ilana references? Something tells me it’s not Sun…

Ilana wants to know who Locke is and how he got there. She’s friendly, but firm. He doesn’t know how to answer her, but wagers a guess that he’s dressed in the clothes he was supposed to be buried in. (This is probably way too observant, but the shirt Locke is wearing in these scenes does not look like the white shirt he was buried in. Significant? I doubt it.) He says the last thing he remembers is dying.

BENEATH THE SHELTERING SKY
We revisit Locke’s final moments on the island, turning the wheel under Christian Shephard’s watchful eye, and the next thing he knows, he’s laying on the desert floor. Just like Ben before him, he has materialized in Tunisia, and promptly vomits. But something is different this time. There are poles strung all around, with wires and surveillance cameras pointed toward him. Is he in the same exact spot where Ben appeared earlier?  If so, the poles and cameras are a new addition. Or is he in a different spot? (Ben turned the wheel in late December 2004/early January 2005, but it was October 2005 when he arrived in the desert and checked into a hotel. So what accounts for the difference in time from island departure to desert arrival? And how do those who instruct Locke to leave the island know what time he’ll end up in?)

Locke’s leg is still badly injured and he can’t move. Come nighttime, he’s still lying there, shivering, when a group of Arabs speeds over in a pick-up truck, throws him in back and brings him to a village hospital. Doctors chattering in a foreign language rush to treat him. He’s disoriented…but not so much that he doesn’t notice the familiar figure of Matthew Abaddon peering at him from behind a thin curtain!!

Locke wakes up the next morning to find Charles Widmore sitting by his bed. Widmore introduces himself, seeing as he was 17 when they last met. He asks Locke how long it’s been for him since that encounter on the island, when John walked into the Others’ camp looking for Richard Alpert. Four days, Locke answers. Widmore says the cameras in the desert are his.

Widmore: I was afraid Benjamin might fool you into leaving the island, as he did with me. I was their leader.

Locke: The Others?

Widmore: They’re not The Others to me, they’re my people. We protected the island, peacefully, for more than three decades. And then I was exiled, by him. Just as you were.

Is this true? Because in Widmore’s younger days, when we met him previously, Richard seemed to be in charge of the Others. So did Widmore succeed him? And if so, was that transfer of power peaceful? Because Richard remains on the island during Widmore’s alleged rule, yet when he meets young Ben, his hair is long and he looks more ragged than when we met him in the 1950’s. Has he been cast out of his own group by Widmore?

Locke says he wasn’t exiled; that he left on his own and Ben is already gone. Widmore first asks why he’d do that, but quickly surmises that he’s trying to bring his people back. He says that three years have passed for the Oceanic Six, and that they haven’t spoken a word of truth about where they were or what happened to them. Locke says he has to bring them back, and Widmore says he’ll do everything he can to help, “because there’s a war coming, John. And if you’re not back on the island when that happens, the wrong side is going to win.” Widmore’s behavior with Locke is the most benevolent we’ve ever seen from him, but a dark undercurrent reveals itself when Ben is mentioned.

When Locke’s compound fracture is healed enough for him to begin his mission, Widmore gives him the Jeremy Bentham passport, funds, a cell phone for reaching him anytime and folders with info on the whereabouts of the Oceanic Six.

Locke: You’ve been watching them?

Widmore: I’m deeply invested in the future of the island, John, so yes I’ve been watching them. I wouldn’t mention I’m involved in this. I can’t imagine what they think of me, having listened to Benjamin’s lies.

Locke: How do I know that you’re not the one who’s lying?

Widmore: I haven’t tried to kill you. Can you say the same for him? You still don’t trust me.

Locke: You sent a team of killers and a boatload of C4 to the island. That doesn’t exactly scream trust.

Widmore: I needed Linus removed, so it could be your time. The island needs you, John. It has for a long time.

Locke: What makes you think I’m so special?

Widmore: Because you are.

Couple of things about this exchange before we move on. Widmore says he’s been watching the Oceanic Six because he is invested in the future of the island. So he obviously knows that they need to go back there. But how does their return serve his interests?

Also, Widmore’s response to Locke’s remark about the freighter is hardly sufficient. Did he really intend to have Keamy kill everyone on the island? It was Ben who kept insisting that; unfortunately we never know if we can believe Ben. Was the C4 truly just supposed to be insurance that Ben wouldn’t try anything, only to have him call their bluff? Would the island really have been torched? If Widmore’s goal is to get back there, how does destroying the place achieve that? Keamy told Captain Gault on the freighter that, according to “the secondary protocol” The Orchid was the one place Ben would go if he thought the island was to be torched. But was this idea of destroying the island just a ruse to tempt Ben to go to there? When Faraday realized that the mercenaries were going to apprehend Ben at The Orchid, he realized this meant danger for everyone on the island. Was that because he assumed that the truth behind the secondary protocol was that the island would be destroyed, when in fact it was always meant to be an empty threat?

I’m losing my thread here. The main points are that a) Widmore’s interests would not seem to be served by destroying the island, and b) the excuse he gives to Locke about sending the freighter full of mercenaries and C4 leaves an awful lot of unanswered questions.

Getting back to the scene, Locke tells Widmore that Richard said he’d have to die in order to bring the others back to the island. “I don’t know why he said that,” Widmore says, “but I’m not going to let that happen.”

A car pulls up and Widmore introduces its driver to Locke: Matthew Abaddon. There’s a moment between them, but neither acknowledges their past meeting…not even when Abaddon echoes that occurrence by setting up a wheelchair for Locke to sit in. Widmore says Abaddon is there to transport Locke wherever he needs to go, and to protect him from those who mean to do him harm.

SIX VISITS
Locke travels to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, where Sayid is doing humanitarian work with a Peace Corps-like group called Build Our World. Sayid says he has no intention of returning with Locke. “For two years I was manipulated into thinking I was protecting everyone on the island,” he says, adding that he did so in service of Ben. “So who is manipulating you, John?” he asks.  He also questions why Locke really wants to go back. “Is it just because you’ve got nowhere else to go?”

After parting with Sayid, Locke travels to New York. While parked outside of a prep school, he asks Abaddon to look up his old flame Helen. Then the school begins to empty, and out comes Walt, who sees Locke and crosses the street. Locke remarks that Walt doesn’t look surprised to see him. Walt says he’s been having dreams about John, wearing a suit, on the island, surrounded by people trying to hurt him. So I’m guessing it’s only a matter of time before we see that prophecy fulfilled.

After a brief exchange of pleasantries, including Locke reporting that to his knowledge, Michael is on a freighter near the island, Walt goes on his way. Locke says to Abaddon that the boy has been through enough.

The meeting between Walt and Locke made me wonder why such a big deal had been made a while back about Locke traveling under the name Jeremy Bentham. It occurs to me now that the only reason this name was used repeatedly in last season’s finale was so the characters could talk about him without revealing until the end of the episode that it was Locke in the coffin. In that episode, Walt goes to see Hurley in the mental institution, and says that “Jeremy Bentham” had visited him. But during their interaction on the street, Locke never refers to himself by the name Bentham or tells Walt to call him that. In that episode, everybody kept using the name Bentham: Kate, Jack, Sayid, Hurley – they were all so committed to it. I can understand that the writers evoked the name so pointedly last year in order to maintain the surprise of Bentham’s identity, but seeing as that’s how they played it, a bigger deal should have been made in this episode of Locke being careful by asking everyone to use that name if referring to him. Now it’s just hanging out there as sloppy continuity, and if you’ve been reading these messages for a while, you probably know that stuff like that bugs me.

But I digress. Next stop is Santa Rosa, where Locke visits Hurley just feet away from the place where the big dude once conversed with a deceased Charlie. (Awwww, Charlieeeeee!!!) Hurley assumes Locke is an apparition as well, but he quickly realizes the truth. He doesn’t see how Locke is going to get everyone to go back to the island, and then he becomes distressed when he sees Abaddon hanging out by the car, watching them. Locke says they’re together, which alarms Hurley even more given his own earlier encounter with Abaddon. He freaks out and retreats inside.

Back in car, Abaddon points out that Locke is zero for three. Locke asks Abaddon what he does for Mr. Widmore. And then it comes: “You’re not really going to pretend you don’t remember that I was an orderly in the hospital right after your accident? That I was the one who told you to go on a walkabout? The same walkabout that put you on the plane that crashed on that island? I help people get to where they need to get to, John. That’s what I do for Mr. Widmore.”

Okay, at this point we have to stop again. Last year, before the two part season finale aired, I sent out one of these messages that was not tied to a specific episode, in which I threw out some shaky theories I was working on. Part of those theories have since been debunked, but some pieces are still in play. If Abaddon encouraged Locke to go on his walkabout, that means even at that point in time, Widmore knew about Locke and wanted to get him to the island. Which is one of those strange time travel conundrums – at that time, Locke had not yet been to the island, and therefore had not met 17 year-old Widmore. Unless the time travel rules on Lost don’t work that way. They must not work that way, because Widmore must have known that Locke would wind up on Flight 815, and that Flight 815 would crash on the island. So Abaddon merely had to plant the walkabout seed in Locke’s head, and then destiny would take care of the rest…right down to Locke’s trip being timed correctly so that he’d be on Flight 815. Maybe?

This also makes it feel likely that Ben was being truthful when he told Locke, way back in Season Two while he was captive in the hatch, that he – Locke – was the reason Ben was crossing the island. When he got caught in Rousseau’s net – the first time we met him and he was claiming to be Henry Gale, a balloon traveler from Minnesota – he was actually coming to find Locke. But why exactly? Because he somehow knew that Widmore wanted him, prompting him to try and beat Widmore to it? Or maybe because Richard Alpert had already been trying to recruit Locke to the island? Again, it must not matter that Locke hadn’t yet told Richard where and when he’d be born. GRRRRRRRR, TIME TRAVEL!!!!! MESSING WITH MY MIND!!!!!

Abaddon’s explanation that he gets people where they need to go also finally clarifies that Widmore was ultimately responsible for putting Naomi, Faraday, Charlotte, Miles and Lapidus together and sending them to the island. We know how Faraday and Widmore are connected, and we know how Charlotte and the island are connected (though not what Widmore has to do with her). So what about Naomi, Miles and Lapidus? Why did Widmore want them?

Abaddon’s explanation does not explain why he tried to have Hurley moved to another facility. Was he trying to entice him back to the island without using Locke?

Alright, so back to Locke’s faltering quest. He moves on to Los Angeles, visiting Kate at her house. This is a short but terrific scene, well written and beautifully acted by Terry O’Quinn and Evangeline Lilly. In fact, this whole episode is excellent in its writing, directing and acting. This was some of Terry O’Quinn’s best work ever as Locke, and that’s saying something. He might be looking at another Emmy nomination for this one. And in this scene, he does some outstanding, subtle work – his reaction to Kate’s biting remarks, his openness in telling her about Helen and the anger that drove her away…great stuff. She rejects his proposal, of course, and with each successive person refusing him, you feel worse for him.

That feeling isn’t helped when Abaddon takes Locke to Helen – at a cemetery. He informs Locke that she died of a brain aneurysm. Locke muses that she loved him and that they could have been together, but Abaddon says it wouldn’t have changed anything. “Helen’s where she’s supposed to be. Sad as it is, her path led here. Your path, no matter what you did or what you do, your path leads back to the island.” If that’s true, why does he need the Oceanic Six at all? Won’t he wind up back on the island through some stroke of circumstance? Locke must feel the same, remarking, “You say that like it’s all inevitable.”

Locke gets back in the car, but as Abaddon closes the trunk on the wheelchair, he is suddenly gunned down by an unseen attacker. Locke, still injured, maneuvers into the front and speeds off, leaving a dead and chillingly wide-eyed Abaddon on the road. But he doesn’t really have control of the car, and in the panic of his flight, he gets into a major crash. He wakes up in the hospital…with Jack sitting bedside, staring at him. It’s a brilliant reveal, and the look on Jack’s face couldn’t be more perfect. He immediately asks what Locke is doing there.

Locke knows that convincing Jack to return is the key to getting the others. He explains the accident was caused because someone was trying to kill him; someone who doesn’t want him to succeed, because he’s important. Jack can’t stomach it. “Have you ever stopped to think that these delusions that you’re special aren’t real? That maybe there’s nothing important about you at all? Maybe you are just a lonely old man that crashed on an island. That’s it.”

As he’s about to walk out, Locke plays his last card.

Locke: Your father says hello.

Jack: What?

Locke: The man who told me to move the island, the man who told me how to bring you all back, he said to tell his son hello. It couldn’t have been Sayid’s father and it wasn’t Hurley’s. That leaves you. He said his name was Christian.

Jack: My father is dead.

Locke: He didn’t look dead to me.

Jack can’t listen to anymore, and despite Locke’s cries that he is supposed to help, Jack storms out, yelling to Locke, “It’s over!”

And so it is. Over. The look of disappointment, anger and frustration on Locke’s face is heartbreaking. Despite blowing up submarines and satellites, killing people, lying…you just want to give the poor guy a hug. And it’s about to get worse.

SUICIDE IS PAINLESS
Next we see Locke in a cheap hotel room, writing his suicide note to Jack. As he prepares a power cord so he can hang himself, I wondered: has he really given up, or is he testing himself, as he has in the past? Testing his destiny, this idea that he’s going back to the island and he has to die…

He slips the noose around his neck and is just about to step off the table when there’s a knock on door and Ben bursts in. Locke seems bewildered.  Ben explains that he had a man watching Sayid, and was informed when Locke showed up. He says he’s been watching all of them, making sure they’re safe, just as he’s doing now. He admits to killing Abaddon, claiming it was only a matter of time before Abaddon killed Locke. Ben explains that Abaddon works for Widmore and is extremely dangerous.

When Locke, still with the noose around his neck, says that Widmore saved him, Ben pushes back that Widmore is just using him to try and get back to the island. “Charles Widmore is the reason I moved the island. So that he could never find it again; to keep him away, so that you could lead. You can’t do this. If anything happens to you…John, you have no idea how important you are.”

Both Widmore and Ben are telling Locke that he is meant to lead, that the island needs him, that he’s is special and important…and once again you just feel such pity for Locke and the way he’s being manipulated and pulled in both directions by people who seem to undermine him at the same time that they build him up. Locke says he’s a failure, not a leader; that he couldn’t convince Jack or any of them to go back with him. But Ben says Jack bought a ticket to Sydney: flying at night, returning the next morning. Apparently Locke’s description of Christian motivated Jack’s desire to return to the island…contrary to what he told Kate on the night they met in a parking lot next to the airport. At that meeting, Jack told her that he believed what “Bentham” had said because it was the only way to keep Kate and Aaron safe. But Locke never said anything about Kate, so Jack was either lying to her in the hope she would agree to come, or once again the writing is inconsistent.

“John you can’t die,” Ben pleads. “You’ve got too much work to do. We’ve got to get you back to that island so you can do it.” Locke agrees to come down, and sits on the table crying. I’m tellin’ ya, the whole thing done broke my heart. He’s a wreck. Ben seems to be genuinely concerned for him, talking him through what the next steps might be in trying to get the others back to the island.

And then it happens. Locke says that Jin is alive, but that he did not want Sun to come back to the island; that he wanted Locke to say his body washed up on the beach, and that he gave Locke his wedding ring for proof. As soon as John starts talking about this, Ben’s expression changes. A lightbulb goes off, an opportunity presents itself….something happens. Ben is now playing along with Locke, who adds that he knows what to do once they have everyone together: they need to find a woman named Eloise Hawking. The look on Ben’s face seems to say, “If you know about Eloise then you know too much.” Locke can’t see this look, but can tell from Ben’s voice that he recognizes the name, and asks if he knows her. Ben says he does…then grabs the power chord and chokes Locke with all his strength. The struggle is brief. Locke is dead.

The last time Ben tried to kill Locke, it didn’t work. He would later tell Hurley, “I should have realized at the time that it was pointless, but I really wasn’t thinking clearly.” So does he think it will be different this time? After he stages Locke’s body to look like he did hang himself, tidies up to remove evidence that he’d been there, takes Jin’s ring and gives a last look around, he says, “I’ll miss you, John. I really will.” The tone of his voice doesn’t suggest that he expects to see Locke again. Yet why does he want to bring Locke back to the island? Will he be surprised to see him apparently resurrected?

DEAD ALIVE
Back on the island, Locke goes into the room where we saw Caesar at the beginning. Caesar is there again, sitting and reading from a Dharma file. Locke asks for a passenger list, but Caesar says the pilot took it. He then asks if Locke can shed any light on the mystery of several passengers on their plane disappearing into thin air when they flew through that blinding white light. He describes the passenger across from him – clearly Hurley – and a slight smile appears on Locke’s face. Locke realizes how he might have got there (though why did he end up on the small island, while Jack, Kate and Hurley are on the main island? And where are Sun and Sayid?) Caesar says all the passengers are accounted for, except for those who disappeared or got hurt. He brings Locke into a room of injured, and there, unconscious, bruised even worse than before, is Ben.

That should be interesting.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT
-This episode left me completely befuddled about who to trust in the Widmore/Linus battle. I’ve always come down on Ben’s side, but for the first time that choice seems less obvious. I don’t know if I believe Ben about Widmore’s intentions toward Locke; I don’t believe that Abaddon would have tried to kill him; but I do believe Ben was sincere in not wanting Locke to kill himself and in believing that he is vital to whatever Ben wants to happen on the island.

But I don’t know how to reconcile that with his sudden decision to kill Locke. I suggested in a recent write-up that Ben seems to be doing all the things that Locke was supposed to do: Ben moves the island instead of Locke, and Ben tries to reconvene the Oceanic Six and get them to return to the island. But that is something we witness him doing after he’s killed Locke, and given the look that comes over him when Locke starts talking about Jin, it seems that the decision to try reuniting them himself may have been born in that moment. It’s like learning about Jin and the ring provides him a way to convince them all himself, without Locke. Does he think that if he gets the Six back to the island, then whatever powerful destiny awaits Locke could instead become his?

-Let me tell you what Locke needs to do to Benjamin Linus. Sit him up in a chair, tie him down with his arms and hands flat out in front of him, palms flat, fingers spread. Then start asking him questions. If he thinks Ben’s lying, cut off a finger. Ask again. If he lies or tries to change the subject by offering “answers”…cut off a finger. Hell Locke, cut it off even if you think he’s telling the truth. And then cut off his hands at the wrists. And maybe an arm at the elbow or shoulder. Just start goddamn mutilating the son of a bitch. Maybe it will finally get some truth out of him, and even if not, I’ll bet it would feel great to just hack off some of that asshole’s appendages.

But that’s just me.

-I was definitely disappointed by the fate of Abaddon. He’s such a great, intriguing character. I hoped he would have a bigger role to play in the ultimate gameplan, and in fact I expected lots of him in Season Six. I wonder if that had been the original intention, and if they had to alter their plans because the actor, Lance Reddick, is now a regular cast member on Fringe, and therefore wouldn’t be available to shoot Lost more regularly. Either way, his demise sucks. I hope we will at least see him in more flashbacks.

-My old friend and current reader Dimitris S. and I were e-mailing last week and he offered a smart take on potential future developments that I admit had not occurred to me. Sorry to call you out, D, but I wanted to share your insight: “My undeveloped theory on this all getting religious was triggered by Widmore’s admission that he was ‘exiled’ from the island despite once being the leader of its inhabitants.  This conjured up thoughts of fallen angels, which naturally made me think that the ‘war is coming’ phrase meant the apocalypse.”

Maybe some of you had picked up on that too, but I hadn’t…possibly because I’m a Jew. The only apocalypse I really know is the one in which Martin Sheen motors upriver to assassinate Marlon Brando. Anyway, this theory scores points with me. And makes me wonder further if I’m right about the show having to curtail its Abaddon intentions; among the several approximate translations of “Abaddon” is “Satan.”

-While I’m sharing others’ theories, there are two brief thoughts from Doc Jensen that I wanted to include this week. The first involves Walt, and a cool theory about how he has appeared on the island even after leaving it: “The kid’s got The Shining times 10, and he can use his scary=psychic powers to astral project himself to the Island — most likely unknowingly, perhaps only in his dreams.” Who knows what the truth is, but I like the sound of that.

The second theory involves the fate of Locke’s ex, Helen: “Locke was told that Helen had died. Brain aneurysm. Or so Abaddon said. Do you believe him? Consider: What if Team Widmore faked that grave and fabricated that story to keep Locke on task and make sure he had no possible motivation for wanting to back out and not go back to the Island? Regardless, like some time traveling Scrooge confronted with an awful future, Locke grieved and owned his stuff: ‘She loved me. If I had just…’ Locke left the thought hang, then finished: ‘We could have been together.’ I’d like to think they could still be.”

If Widmore is the one who faked the wreckage of Flight 815, surely he could conjure up a solitary headstone. I think Helen probably is dead, but again, I like the idea that it’s just a Widmore ruse.

-The man Sayid killed outside of Hurley’s mental hospital – was it one of Widmore’s men, or one of Ben’s? What about the guys with the tranquilizer guns? Who are they working for?

-When Richard told Locke he’d have to die in order to bring the others back, did he already know how Locke would die? That it would be at Ben’s hands? That he would come back to life?

-Oh yeah – what the hell is up with Locke coming back to life??!!??

Tonight’s Episode: LaFleur

DEJA VU
We wake up with Jack in the jungle, in a shot that recreates the very first scene of Lost ever, right down to the music. But we quickly see that this time is different. Jack’s hair is longer. There is no Vincent the dog watching him. And he looks just the slightest bit excited and hopeful. Unlike the last time, when he ran out of the jungle, this time he runs further in (and I wondered if there was any significance to him dropping the torn note from his hand).

He finds Hurley and Kate in a lagoon, and Kate is surprisingly unharmed – not even bruised – despite laying across a few big rocks in the water. How did she manage to land there without getting hurt? When Jack wakes her up, he says they’re back on the island.

MS. HAWKING’S A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME
46 hours earlier, Jack, Sun, Ben and Desmond are meeting Eloise Hawking. She leads them into the basement of the church, where we saw her emerge a few episodes ago from a hatch-like room. Turns out it looks like a hatch because it basically is a hatch, complete with Dharma insignia on the door. The station, as she explains a moment later, is called The Lamp Post.

As they all observe the room with its huge map of the earth on the floor and a massive pendulum swinging over it, she tells them that this is how they – the Dharma Initiative – found the island. Ben claims he didn’t know about this place, but Ms. Hawking casually tells Jack that Ben’s probably lying. Jack notices a picture of the island taped to a chalkboard. Printed at the bottom is “9/23/54 – U.S. Army – Op 264 – Top Secret.” Ms. Hawking begins to explain, and as it’s a lot to take in – and pretty important stuff – I’m including it all:

“The room we’re standing in was constructed years ago over a unique pocket of electromagnetic energy. That energy connects to similar pockets all over the world. The people who built this room, however, were only interested in one.”

“The island,” says Sun.

“Yes,” Eloise continues, “the island. They’d gathered proof that it existed; they knew it was out there somewhere but they just couldn’t find it. Then a very clever fellow built this pendulum, on the theoretical notion that they should stop looking for where the island was supposed to be and start looking for where it was going to be.”

“What do you mean ‘where it was going to be?’” Jack asks.

“Well this fellow presumed, and correctly as it turned out, that the island was always moving. Why do you think you were never rescued? Now, while the movements of the island seem random, this man and his team created a series of equations which tell us, with a high degree of probability, where it is going to be at a certain point in time. Windows, as it were, that while open, provide a route back. Unfortunately these windows don’t stay open for very long. Yours closes in 36 hours.”

This is a long bit of exposition, but in the hands of the great Fionnula Flanagan, every word drips with intrigue. So my questions, which I’m sure will be answered somewhere down the line:

-She said the Dharma Initiative had gathered proof that the island existed. Why were they looking for it in the first place? How did they know to look for it? And how long ago was this?

-Who was this clever fellow that built the pendulum, and who was his team that helped him develop the equations? Why do I suspect – though I have no idea yet how it would make sense – that Daniel might be the clever fellow? It’s gotta be someone we already know; why else keep the name so deliberately secret?

-What is the connection between this church and the Dharma Initiative? Why is The Lamp Post there?

On a side note, I was especially jazzed by the notion of these “windows,” having just completed reading Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, in which parallel universes exist and can be accessed through small windows that can only be seen under unique circumstances. Those windows are in space, not time…but still. Cool stuff.

Back to the scene at hand. Desmond looks amusingly skeptical during Ms. Hawking’s speech, and he can’t believe they all want to go back to the island. For his part, he tells Ms. Hawking that he’s there to deliver a message from Faraday, her son. (Why don’t Jack or Sun react at all to learning that this woman is Faraday’s mother? She doesn’t even react much to Desmond’s news. She almost looks as though she expects this and has to put up with hearing it.) He’s about to leave, but she says the island is not done with him yet…which is too much for him.

“This woman cost me four years of my life,” he explodes, “four years that I’ll never get back, because you told me that I was supposed to go the island. That it was my bloody purpose.” He approaches Jack and says, “You listen to me brother and you listen carefully. These people, they’re just using us. They’re playing some kind of game and we are just the pieces. Whatever she tells you to do, ignore it.”

It does often seem like they are all pawns in a game…but who are the ultimate players?

“You say the island’s not done with me?” Desmond says to Ms. Hawking. “Well I’m done with the island.” And out he goes. Again, there’s little reaction from anyone to what he had to say…like the fact that he went to the island because of Ms. Hawking. That’s one thing I’ll say has bugged me about this show over the years – characters often fail to react appropriately to the revelations and circumstances they witness. Who would stand there in that room and listen to Desmond’s rant and not say, “Wait a second...what happened?” In a way, this is the same thing as my big beef with last season – the complete lack of mourning Claire did for Charlie, aside from the moment she first learned he was dead. It’s just bad writing…and all the more noticeable when everything else is written so well.

Ms. Hawking hands Jack a binder with pages of flight information, presumably related to all of these pockets of energy around the globe. She says their window will be open in a little over a day. In order to catch it, they must be on Ajira Airways, flight 316, bound for Guam. All of them.

Ajira Airways. Well, now we know how that water bottle got to the island. This is probably nothing, but I was struck by the fact that only half of the flight number is composed of one of Hurley’s numbers. Their original flight, 815, used two of the numbers, and almost every time a number is used on the show, it combines others from the infamous 4 8 15 16 23 42 sequence. Yet this one is 316. I couldn’t help wondering if this suggests a shift in the fate of the 815 survivors, as if their history is about to be altered in a significant way. It’s probably nothing, but this is how Lost has conditioned my brain to work.

Some of the particulars of Ms. Hawking’s language are important to note. “If you have any hope of the island bringing you back, then it must be that flight.” This suggests again that the island itself holds the power. And the words “it must be that flight” hearken directly back to Season One’s episode Raised By Another, in which a psychic tells Claire that she has to go to Los Angeles to give her baby up for adoption, and that she has to be on Flight 815. His words were nearly identical: “It has to be this flight.” Kinda makes me wonder if the psychic, Richard Malkin, is part of this society of people who know about the windows and the pockets of energy and the island. Maybe he’s too marginal a character for that…but the coincidence is striking. And Malkin did show up in another flashback later on – when Mr. Eko was a priest sent to investigate the miracle of a girl who survived drowning. The girl was Malkin’s daughter, and he confessed to Mr. Eko that he was a fraud who bilked people out of their money. But later developments in that episode suggest that he might have some real ability after all. Anyway…another random Lost connection? Or something more?

On another note related to Ms. Hawking’s revelations, remember the Season Two episode S.O.S., a flashback for Rose and Bernard? When he learns she has cancer, he takes her to Australia to see a healer named Issac of Uluru, who says to her, “There are certain places with great energy. Spots on the earth. Like the one we’re above now. Perhaps this energy is geological; magnetic. Or perhaps it’s something else. And when possible, I harness this energy and give it to others.” After a brief psychic examination, he says he can’t help her. “It’s not that you can’t be healed. Like I said, there’s different energies. This isn’t the right place for you.”

Lots of digressions, I know – but I love the way the show is drawing on its history as it enters these final seasons.

Another thing Ms. Hawking tells them is that they need to recreate the circumstances of the original flight as best they can, meaning (among other things) as many of same people have to be on it as it is possible for them to arrange. Which begs the obvious question: where is Walt in all of this? Why isn’t his presence required…at least on the flight, if not on the island? I was convinced all during the episode that he was going to show up. I was waiting for it in the airport, I was waiting for it on the plane…waiting…waiting…I just can’t believe that his still-mostly-unexplored-“specialness” is not going to come back into play. Maybe, like Claire, his full-time return is being saved for Season Six.

Jack asks what will happen if they can’t get anyone else onto the plane. Ms. Hawking says, “All I can tell you is the result would be…unpredictable.” I hope the show will explore at some point the significance of them all needing to return together, and not just leave it hanging. I also was left wondering why this window was their only opportunity to return. Given the many flights listed in the binder, surely it would be possible to reach the island again sooner than later. How much time passes between the openings of a given location’s windows?

PRIVATE SESSION
Ms. Hawking leads Jack into her office. (When she opens the door and turns on the light, we briefly glimpse the back of a Virgin Mary statue on her desk – just like the heroin-filled ones from the island.)

She hands Jack an envelope with his name on it: John Locke’s suicide note. Jack didn’t realize Locke had taken his own life. Ms. Hawking said that obituaries don’t usually mention it when people hang themselves. There’s a minor inconsistency here. Last season, when Sayid busted Hurley out of mental hospital and informed him of Bentham’s death, he said, “They said it was suicide.”  Who said it was suicide? How did Sayid learn of the death? Not by reading the obituary apparently, because Ms. Hawking says it wasn’t mentioned. And Jack would have known if it was mentioned, considering what effect the obituary had on him when he first read it.

Ms. Hawking tells Jack that as part of the need to recreate the circumstances of the flight, Locke must serve as a proxy for Jack’s father. Jack must take something that belonged to his father and give it to Locke…an idea Jack dismisses as ridiculous. “Oh stop thinking how ridiculous it is,” she chides him, “and start asking yourself whether or not you believe it’s going to work. That’s why it’s called a leap of faith, Jack.” (Nearly the exact words Locke said to him in Season Two when he first asked Jack to push the button in the hatch.)

THE APOSTLE
When Jack emerges from his meeting with Ms. Hawking, Sun is gone. Ben is in the sanctuary, and asks Jack what Ms. Hawking said to him. Jack says it doesn’t matter and asks in return, “Who is she? Why is she helping us, how does she know all this?” Uhh…those are all great questions, Jack. Why didn’t you ask her, when you were just in there??? Idiot.

Ben, of course, ignores his question and launches instead into a story about a painting on the wall. “Thomas the Apostle,” he says. “When Jesus wanted to return to Judea, knowing that he would probably be murdered there, Thomas said to the others, ‘Let us also go that we might die with him.’ But Thomas was not remembered for this bravery. His claim to fame came later when he refused to acknowledge the resurrection. He just couldn’t wrap his mind around it. The story goes, he needed to touch Jesus’ wounds to be convinced.”

“Was he?” Jack asks.

“Of course he was. We’re all convinced sooner or later, Jack.”

I sense more foreshadowing at play here; foreshadowing that positions Jack as Thomas and either his father or Locke -or both – as the resurrected. Jack looks one more time at the painting of Thomas touching Jesus’ wound.

Tonight’s episode deals with what happens to Locke when he leaves the island (and it promises to feature some major revelations). What I wonder – and I don’t know that we’ll get the answer tonight – is will this episode be the last we see of Locke alive, other than perhaps flashbacks? Or will he come back to some semblance of life upon returning to the island? He seems crucial to the island’s future (and it’s hard to imagine the show without him), so I have to think that he’s not done yet. But maybe this act of sacrifice – the specifics of which we’re about to learn – is his final duty to the island. Perhaps like Moses, who led the Jews to the Promised Land but was forbidden by God from entering himself, Locke’s final purpose is to lead his one-time comrades back, without the hope of being able to stay. It would be a truly bold, intriguing stroke to remove him (largely, at least) from the story at this point—not unlike what J.K. Rowling did in the sixth Harry Potter book to a certain character who I won’t mention (but c’mon, anyone who doesn’t already know who I’m talking about doesn’t deserve to be shielded from the spoiler in the first place. Seriously, the book is like four years old).

Anyway… seeing Locke to his end-point halfway through this season and then moving the show forward in the wake of his sacrifice would be quite a development. But I don’t think we’re done with him yet…

The final – and crucial – note of the church sequence is Ben leaving, and saying to Jack, “I made a promise to an old friend of mine. Just a loose end that needs tying up.”

Oh shit…he’s going after Penny.

UNEXPECTED VISITS
There’s an odd, mid-episode interlude with Jack’s grandfather, and I didn’t know what to make of it. If the only purpose of the scene was so Jack could get his father’s shoes, why bother? It seems like a waste of time. Jack must have something of his father’s already that he could have used. Why this diversion? Was it planting the seed for something yet to come? In an episode that seems to make heavy use of foreshadowing, perhaps this was another sign? The fact that Ray Shephard is trying to escape, has a packed bag, an interest in magic…I dunno. The whole thing was weird.

So was the next visit, but for entirely different reasons. This time, Jack is the visitee, not the visitor. When he arrives home at night, he discovers Kate curled up, dressed, on his bed. She looks a mess – tired, out of it. A day must have passed since she took Aaron and left Jack and the rest at the pier. She asks if he’s still going back to the island, and when he says yes, she says she’s going with him.

Jack: Kate, what happened? Where’s Aaron?
Kate: Don’t ask questions. If you want me to go with you, you’ll never ask me that question again. You will never ask me about Aaron, do you understand Jack?

He easily, quickly says yes; she says thank you; she kisses him…and I’m thinking, what?!? A little boy, your nephew, just dropped out of the picture, and you’re going to roll over and not ask any questions? What do you think, she left him with his grandma? You don’t wanna know where he is? You don’t care what happened to this three-year-old child?!? Dude…I don’t care how much you love Kate and want her to come with you. Unless you lied to her face and are planning to ask her where he is the moment the plane is in the air, then that is seven shades of fucked up.

YEAH, CAN I GET A 1/2 POUND OF SMOKED HAM, A 1/4 POUND OF MUENSTER AND THE DEAD GUY IN THE BACK?
The next morning, just after Kate leaves, Jack takes a phone call from Ben. He’s on a pay phone at a pier; his face is badly bruised and streaked with blood; his hair is wet and matted, and he’s soaked all over. He says he’s been sidetracked and asks Jack to pick up Locke’s body. Seems obvious Ben went after Penny. My hope is that when he got there and prepared to go in for the kill, he saw little Charlie, which caught him off guard long enough for Desmond to arrive, kick the shit out of him, throw him overboard and sail away at Ludicrous Speed.  That’s what I hope. Ms. Hawking said the island isn’t done with Desmond. I sure hope the Irishman doesn’t return to the island to avenge Penny. I’m still not over Claire and Charlie being ripped apart. I can’t handle the demise of Penny and Desmond’s relationship.

Jack goes to the butcher shop, where we see Ben’s friend Jill again. Her appearance is brief, so it looks like we’re going to be left for a while with the question of who she is, who her associates are (Ben had asked her about people named Jeffrey and Gabriel), and what the deal is with this network of off-island helpers who seem very much in the know. Alone with the coffin, Jack opens it up and replaces Locke’s own shoes with his father’s. “Wherever you are John, you must be laughin’ your ass off that I’m actually doing this. Because this, this is even crazier than you were.” So apparently Jack is now back to thinking that Locke is crazy. ‘Cause we know from a past conversation with Kate that after Locke got off the island and came to see Jack, he believed what Locke told him. But that was in his boozing, pill-popping phase.

Jack puts Locke’s suicide note back in coffin. “I’ve already heard everything you had to say John. You wanted me to go back, I’m going’ back.” He closes the coffin and adds, “Rest in peace.”

I suspect there will be no peace just yet.

FLIGHTPLAN
At the Ajira Airways ticket counter, Jack arranges to have Locke’s body transported to Guam for burial. As he walks away, the man in line behind him says, “My condolences. I’m sorry you lost your friend.”

This is Caesar.

Jack sees Kate arrive, but she doesn’t stop for him. Sun arrives and greets him, much to his pleasure. “If there’s even a chance that Jin is alive, I have to be on that plane,” she says. Which is great, Sun…but what’d you tell your mother, who is home in Korea with your daughter? Do you have any concerns about how you’re going to get off the island this time? Do you expect to be able to return? Cause Ben told Jack to pack a bag with anything he wanted in this life; he’d never be coming back. Was that just because of what Jack must do to fulfill his own destiny? Or is this a one-way ticket for all involved? Why didn’t anyone ask Ms. Hawking about that?

And speaking of Ji Yeon, this would be a good time to bring up a fine point from reader Kathy W., who was irked that Sun’s daughter wasn’t required to return to the island too. After all, Sun was pregnant with her when she left. Shouldn’t the kid be right in the thick of the mystery? A fair point…

Jack and Sun are stunned to see Sayid across the terminal, being led by a woman to a security checkpoint. She flashes a badge and they go through.

This is Ilana.

Although I didn’t know how Sayid came to be there, my initial reaction to this appearance was that he was trying to recreate the day of Flight 815, when he was detained by airport security because Shannon, at her bitchy best, reported than some Arab guy had asked her to watch his bag while he went to the gift shop.

We next see Hurley, obviously out of jail and sitting in the terminal, reading a comic book. He was reading a comic on Flight 815 too. This time, he carries a guitar case. Is that supposed to represent the guitar case Charlie was traveling with?

Jack approaches Hurley, clearly happy to see him, but surprised. He asks how Hurley knew to be here. “All that matters is that I’m here, right?” answers Hurley, who seems uncomfortable to see Jack.

As Jack boards the plane, Sayid sees him and leans forward, looking as if he wants to say something. But then he glances at Ilana seated next to him and thinks better of it. She notices his movements, notices Jack, but then faces front.

Jack is happy to see everybody, but Kate, Sayid and Hurley all seem on edge. Something is going unsaid. None of them seem to acknowledge that they know each other. Caesar is there, seated across from Hurley. And just as the doors are about to close, Ben arrives. Sayid sees him, and this time his face registers…what is that look? Relief? Surprise? Whatever it is, he seems unable to do anything in his present situation. Is he handcuffed? I can’t tell, but if so, that would be another recreation of Flight 815, when Kate was handcuffed by the federal marshal.

Unlike Sayid, Hurley’s reaction to Ben’s arrival is vocal.

Hurley: Wait! What’s he doing here? No no, he can’t come!

Jack: If you wanna get back, this is how it’s gonna have to be.

Hurley: No one told me he was gonna be here!

Ben: Who told you to be here, Hugo?

Jack tells the concerned flight attendant that everything is fine, looking to Hurley. “Right?” Like an irritated teenager telling his parents what they want to hear, Hurley says, “Yes, Jack, I’ll be fine.”

The flight attendant hands Jack an envelope, telling him it was discovered when customs checked his cargo. It’s Locke’s note, and as she hands it to him, Caesar is framed directly in the background, watching. Coincidence? Not a chance.

Ben takes his seat across from Jack, and when Jack asks what’s going to happen to everyone else on the plane, Ben responds – in that way only Ben can – “Who cares?”

After they reach cruising altitude, Jack sits down next to Kate and marvels at the coincidence that Sayid and Hurley are there, and that they are all back together. Does he really think they just happened to be on this flight? Does it not occur to him that they were somehow notified, which might then lead him to wonder how they were convinced to come? Kate’s buzzkill response is, “We’re on the same plane, Jack. It doesn’t make us together.” Just then, the captain introduces himself over the intercom…and the hits just keep on coming: it’s grizzly chopper pilot extraordinaire, Frank Lapidus.

Jack asks the flight attendant if he can speak to the captain, and moments later he is greeting a clean-shaven Frank, who says he picked up the Ajira gig eight months earlier and has flown this route many times. He asks why Jack is going to Guam, but then looks into the cabin and sees Sayid. And Kate. And Sun. And Hurley. “Wait a second…we’re not going to Guam are we?”

Some time later, Jack is back in his seat, and Ben is reading Joyce’s Ulysses. Jack asks Ben how he can read. “My mother taught me,” he answers drolly. Of course, seeing as his mother died in childbirth, I don’t think she taught him much of anything. Even in his sarcasm he can’t be honest! (But now that I think about, as a boy on the island, Ben met his dead mother in the jungle once. Maybe they got together occasionally after that for poltergeisty home schooling.)

Jack asks if Ben knew Locke killed himself. Ben says no, but doesn’t seem to react with surprise or emotion at all, making me think he did know. Jack wonders if he (himself, not Ben) is to blame for Locke’s suicide, and Ben assures him that he’s not – for what that’s worth coming from Ben. Ben moves to another row further up to give Jack privacy while opening the letter. The note is brief. It reads, “Dear Jack, I wish you had believed me.” It is signed “JL.” Then the plane starts to shake. It grows worse, and soon we hear the same noise that accompanies the flashes on the island. We see the white light….

DEJA VU REDUX
…and we’re back where the episode started…which was already back where the whole series started. Jack in the jungle, getting up, dropping a torn piece of Locke’s note from his hand as he runs toward Hurley’s cries for help. In the lagoon, Jack wakes up Kate, and together with Hurley, they wonder why none of them remember crashing. There is no sign of Sun, Sayid, or Ben (or Locke). As they prepare to split up and look for the others, they hear a noise. A Dharma van drives up on the ridge overhead. The driver emerges, rifle pointed down at the new arrivals. It’s Jin. In a Dharma uniform.

Whoa.

 

FOOD FOR THOUGHT
-Now that our friends are back on the island, how long before we learn more about Eloise Hawking? And speaking of which, remember when Desmond was living in a monastery making wine with the monks? The head monk had a photograph on his desk, and in that photograph was himself…and Ms. Hawking. Does that monk, and his church, have a connection to the Dharma Initiative, like Eloise and her church? And just what is her connection to the Dharma Initiative? If she is indeed one and the same as Ellie from the Jughead episode, how did she go from being an Other with Richard to a Dharma dame? And as for Desmond, was his fate already in motion even then? Remember, as he was preparing to leave the monastery and resume his normal life, he helped a visitor load several boxes of the monastery’s wine into her car. That visitor was Penny, who told the monk that her father had sent a check for the wine in advance. The monk said to thank her father for his generous donation.

So to sum up: Ellie was an Other with Charles Widmore; Ellie might be Ms. Eloise Hawking; Ms. Hawking operates out of a church; Ms. Hawking is pictured in a photograph with a monk in England; Charles Widmore supports this monk’s monastery. Are we seeing the pieces of a network reveal themselves?

-You may be wondering why I brought up Caesar and Ilana before we even know them by name. In my first message of the season, I mentioned that we’d be meeting two new people who are said to factor into the overall arc of the show in a big way. Well, we just met them. According to Damon and Carlton, they will be recurring characters this season with the likelihood of becoming regulars next year. So I highlight them now because we haven’t only seen their faces for the first time; I believe we’ve seen their influence as well. Sayid is obviously in some form of Ilana’s custody, and I have little doubt that she and Caesar are somehow responsible for Kate and Hurley being there as well…which means they are responsible for Aaron’s current whereabouts. Are they also responsible for Lapidus flying this particular plane? We saw in the preview for tonight’s episode that Ilana talks to Locke at some point after his return. And Caesar definitely knows something about Locke’s suicide note. Who are these two, and who are they working for?

-It appears that the plane did not crash, but rather that it got caught up in one of the flashes. Did the plane continue toward Guam, with only those who are supposed to be on the island staying behind? We’ve gotta figure that Caesar and Ilana will be on the island. What about Lapidus? I hope so. That guy rules.

Entertainment Weekly’s Doc Jensen suggested another possibility regarding the fate of Flight 316, which I liked…though I’m not sure I believe it: “Remember back in Season 3, when the Others made Kate and Sawyer do hard labor on Hydra Station Island? According to Lost lore, the thing that they were helping to build…was an airplane runway. So…what if instead of getting magically downloaded out of the sky by The Island like Jack, Kate and Hurley, Ben’s Ajira contingent merely landed safely on that runway? What if the very reason that Ben wanted to build that runway was because somehow (Jacob? Time loop? Precognitive powers?), he knew that one day he would need it?!”

-I’m less curious about why Jin is in a Dharma uniform – I can pretty much make an educated guess about that one – as I am about how he happened to be on that ridge at that moment, almost as if he expected somebody to be in the lagoon below. What was he doing there?

-Did it bother anyone else that no Ajira flight crew asked Hurley to stow that huge guitar case? He just had it sitting in the seat next to him!  That’s so not regulation…

Also from the EW.com files, Doc Jensen was answering reader mail, and addressed a question about Locke continually getting wounded in the leg after the island restored his ability to walk again. Here is his answer:

“It’s interesting to note that Locke loses his legs whenever he gets put on a new path — and, perhaps, sometimes as a karmic scolding for deviating from the path he’s supposed to be on. Locke succumbed to the temptation of chasing after his cruel, criminal father — and he got tossed out a window. Locke got caught up in the Hatch’s weird drama — and he got his legs crushed under the Blast Door. What happened right before Alpert gave him his mission to bring the Oceanic 6 back to the Island? That’s right: shot in the leg by Ethan. Every time Locke’s hero’s journey gets rebooted, he’s delivered back to a square one: Busted legs. But then he takes the leap of faith, and he’s healed anew.”

I would add to that list Locke’s legs failing him when he and Boone discovered the cargo plane in the tree canopy…but I can’t remember the specifics of that event, so I’m not sure if it fits Doc Jensen’s theory. Anyway, kinda neat.

LINE OF THE NIGHT
“You tell me, Jack, you’re the one that got to stay after school with Ms. Hawking.” – Ben

Tonight’s Episode: The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham

There’s a LOT to say about this episode, so hold your calls, cancel your dinner plans and let your kid walk home from soccer practice; it’s only five miles. We’re gonna be here a while.

SMOKEHOUSE
On the island, Jin is trying to wrap his head around his introduction to a young, pregnant Rousseau, who tells him that her ship sailed in November 1988. Jin wants to look for his camp, but agrees to help lead the French crew to the island’s radio tower, since he doesn’t know where his camp is from their current location. (Though I’m not sure how he knows where the radio tower is, from there or anywhere. The only time we’ve seen the radio tower was when Jack led the bulk of the crash survivors there to call the freighter for help. But Jin wasn’t with them. He stayed on the beach with Sayid and Bernard to spring a trap on the Others. Captain Continuity, at your service…)

Early in their journey through the jungle, shit starts to go down. One of the French crew, Nadine, disappears. As they look for her, we hear the ominous chirping/flapping sounds that precede the classic appearances of an old, familiar friend. You know him, you love him…give it up ladies and gentlemen for the Smoke Monster!! [Insert sound of applauding crowd.]

Yes, Smokey starts doing his uprooting-trees-from-the-ground act, and drops a dead Nadine down from above. He/she/it circles around and grabs Montand, dragging him through the jungle while the others give chase. They arrive at an old building, with a large opening in the ground where two corners meet. The smoke starts to pull him down, so they all jump and grab his arm, forming a chain to try and pull him back. The tug-of-war results in his arm being torn off as he is yanked below.

Ehh, good riddance. That guy was a prick from the get-go. But moments later, they hear him calling from the depths, crying out that he’s hurt, that the smoke is gone and that he needs help. Despite Jin’s objections, the others start to go in. Rousseau tries to follow, but Jin stops her, indicating her baby. As they wait, another flash occurs. Jin buckles, holding his hands to his ears. But Rousseau just looks at him, already freaked out, and asks what’s wrong. It seems as if she doesn’t see the flash and is not affected by it.

I had questioned this in an earlier episode; I haven’t been able to tell if only those moving through time can see the effects of the flash or if others can see it too. When Daniel approached Desmond at the hatch, Desmond seemed to take note, but maybe that’s just because of Desmond’s own time-tripping experiences. Richard didn’t seem to notice it when he was mending Locke’s gunshot wound, though he was expecting it. 1950’s Richard didn’t seem to notice it either when Locke came to the Others’ camp to ask him about getting off the island.

That’s just one of the questions this scene leaves. How about the fact that way back in the Season One finale, the smoke grabbed hold of Locke and tried to drag him into a hole in the ground (though not the same hole). In that instance, Jack grabbed Locke’s arms and was able to hang on long enough for Kate to retrieve a stick of dynamite and drop it down the hole.  Yet now, in less time than Jack was able to hold onto Locke alone, four people fail to overcome the smoke’s strength, which is so intense that the dude’s arm rips off. So why did Locke fare better? Was Smokey not trying as hard? Maybe as some kind of extension of the island’s consciousness, it knew that Locke was too important to harm? Maybe it was just luck, and Locke was only seconds away from losing his arm too. Or perhaps Smokey’s heart just wasn’t in it that day, lucky Locke.

Another important question, which reader David E. raised, was what would have happened if Jin wasn’t there? There was a time when Rousseau and her people arrived on the island and didn’t meet Jin. That Rousseau would be the same one we eventually came to meet after the plane crash. Did that Rousseau follow her companions into the hole? If so, does whatever happened to her down there partly account for her fragile mental state sixteen years later? Or is the behavior we’ve always observed purely the result of being isolated in the jungle for sixteen years, watching her crew go crazy, killing them and having her daughter stolen? Seems like that would be enough to do it. So did she follow them down the first time? If she did, then Jin has altered the future by stopping her. What will be the consequences of that?

AND THEN THERE WAS ONE
Jin is alone now, and we get a better look at the building above Smokey’s nest. It looks like stone, and has carvings all over it – which resemble the same hieroglyphic-like marks we saw in Ben’s secret room last season. Remember? He disappeared behind a similarly marked door and came back having apparently summoned Herr Smokey. The markings also look like the ones that started flashing when the 108 minute countdown in the hatch expired and the alarm went off.

I wondered if this structure where Jin is now standing might be The Temple, where Ben directed Alex, Rousseau and Karl before Keamy invaded. If it was, Rousseau showed no sign of recognizing it on the map as the place where she had once been. (And speaking of which, I sure hope Ben’s sooty chamber wasn’t a secret passage directly to The Temple, because if it was, why didn’t he just send Alex, Karl and Rousseau that way?)

Jin notices Le Prick’s severed arm still on the ground – rotting, but not yet fully decomposed. There’s still flesh on the hand, so it must be relatively soon after the arm was torn. Making his way to the beach, he finds two of the Frenchmen shot dead, and then he sees Rousseau, still pregnant, pointing a rifle at her lover Robert. He pleads with her to lower the gun and stop what she’s doing, but she yells, “You’re not Robert. You’re someone else. That thing changed you. You’re not Robert. You’re sick. That monster made you sick.”

“It’s not a monster,” he tells her. “It’s a security system guarding that temple.” He convinces her that he doesn’t want anything to happen to her or their baby, but when she lowers her weapon, he raises his and fires. Unfortunately for him, the gun either jams or is empty. Either way, she shoots him dead. Jin runs over, but she turns the gun on him, shouting that he disappeared and that he’s sick too. She starts shooting, so he runs into jungle, where the next flash occurs and reunites him almost immediately with Sawyer and Co.

Before we get to that, what are we to make of the comment about the security system? We’ve heard Smokey described that way before – by Rousseau, in fact, back in the Season One finale when she was leading Jack, Kate, Locke, Hurley and Dr. Arzt to the Black Rock for explosives. When Jack asked her what the system was protecting, she simply answered, “The island.”  So that’s as much as we know about the smoke; what does Robert know about it? What did happen down beneath The Temple? What led Robert to pull his gun on Rousseau? (I thought my suspicion from a few scenes earlier was confirmed by Robert’s line about the temple. But then I wasn’t sure, as I feel like older Rousseau, who knows the island so well, would have registered this when journeying there with Alex and Karl. So I don’t know if the place is The Temple or a just a temple.)

By the way, here’s another interesting reference, which I stumbled across on Lostpedia: on that Season One journey to the Black Rock, when Rousseau and company enter the Dark Territory, she tells them, “This is where it all began; where my team got infected; where Montand lost his arm.”

I had forgotten about that. Did I mention that I love this show?

ORCHID BOUND
Though Jin’s English skills are coming along mystically well, he still can’t quite grasp everything Sawyer is explaining about the time warps. He asks Charlotte to translate…which makes her a bit uncomfortable, as if she was deliberately concealing her ability to speak Korean. They do all seem surprised when she translates. Jin wants to know how Locke is sure that Sun is off the island. When she explains to Jin that Locke is attempting to leave so that he can bring Sun and the rest back, Jin can’t figure out why he’d do that. “Because,” Locke says, “she never should have left.”

As they continue their trek to the Orchid, Charlotte asks Daniel if Locke’s plan will work. “It does make empirical sense that if this started at the Orchid then that’s where it’s gonna stop,” he tells her. “But as far as bringing back the people who left in order to stop these temporal shifts, that’s where we leave science behind.”

Two more flashes occur, one right after the other, and everyone is feeling the effects – only Daniel and Locke have yet to suffer nosebleeds, and Charlotte collapses after the second flash. When she comes to and sees Jin standing over her, she speaks to him urgently in Korean, then switches to English to implore, “Don’t let them bring her back! No matter what! Don’t let them bring her back! This place is death!”

As Charlotte seems to trip in an out of the present, talking like a little girl one moment and addressing the group the next, Locke knows they have to get to The Orchid as soon as possible and that Charlotte will slow them down. Daniel refuses to leave her, and finally – after yet another flash – agrees to stay with her while the others go. I wonder if his decision to stay with her is somewhat prompted by guilt over abandoning his perhaps-one-time-girlfriend Teresa, given both women’s common symptoms. Is he looking to Charlotte to provide him with redemption?

As the others prepare to move on, Sawyer asks Locke what happens if the Orchid is not there yet/anymore when they arrive? Casually, Charlotte answers “Look for the well. You’ll find it at the well.” The well, eh? This seems reasonable, considering the shape of the hole Ben descended into from The Orchid to turn the wheel. That space seemed well-like. Hmm…

Something else I want to mention. Did you notice that in this episode, the flashes looked significantly different? They were much more violent and jagged then in previous episodes – less sci-fi, more horror. Was this just a different director introducing his own style (the director of the episode hasn’t directed any others yet this season)? Or was it a deliberate attempt to make the flashes seem more dangerous and aggressive?

REDHEAD REVISITED
Locke, Sawyer, Juliet, Miles and Jin arrive at the Orchid…only to have it disappear in another flash almost instantly. But just through the leaves, Locke discovers Charlotte’s well. It’s surrounded by three or four stone pillars, giving the whole site a sort of ancient look. I wonder if these stone columns and the well might have been built by the same people who created Smokey’s temple…and perhaps a certain four-toed statue that we haven’t seen in a while. Don’t they all look like they could be the work of the same group?

Miles asks the question on all their minds: “How the hell did Charlotte know this was here?” (An interesting question coming from Miles, who told Charlotte last season while Daniel was ferrying people to the freighter that he was surprised she would want to leave the island after trying for so long to get back there. Charlotte played dumb, but Miles clearly knew that Charlotte had a history with this place.)

Regardless, the question is valid, and we get a hint of the answer when we return to her and Daniel and she reveals that she grew up on the island but left with her mother when she was young, only to spend the rest of her life searching for a way back. Her confession takes a turn for the creepy when she says, “When I was little, living here, there was this man…this crazy man, he really scared me. And he told me that I had to leave the island and never ever come back. He told me that if I came back I would die. Daniel…I think that man was you.”

There really is nothing like having the woman you love tell you that when you traveled back in time, you met her as a little girl and scared the Christ out of her. But Charlotte’s story makes sense; we’ve already seen Daniel appear in the good old Dharma days, when The Orchid was under construction. If Charlotte was on the island as a girl, with the Dharma Initiative, it stands to reason that she could have crossed paths with Daniel. But there’s that whole circular thing of time travel that plays taunting games with my mind. I’m attempting to recall my Doc Brown lessons from Back to the Future Part II, but Lost‘s time travel rules may be different. Charlotte telling Daniel that this incident in her childhood happened seems to ensure that it will happen, because Daniel hasn’t actually made that trip back in time yet. Now when he does, he’ll most likely find the younger her and warn her not to come back. But that act will create a new timeline that runs parallel to the one we’re witnessing; an alternate reality (a concept which the show’s producers have already dismissed, but stay with me anyway!). For the Charlotte existing at this moment, that encounter with Daniel shouldn’t have happened at all, because it would take her telling him about it to make it happen. Damnit, I can’t explain myself without a chalkboard!!! Trust me, I know what I’m trying to say even if I can’t really say it without illustrations. It’s the same thing I was saying earlier about Jin and Rousseau (again, credit to reader David E.): in the timeline of older, now-deceased Rousseau, Jin was not there to stop her from going into the hole. So when he stopped her, an alternate timeline was created. Right?  Am I crazy?!?

Don’t answer that. Let’s just move on. You wouldn’t want my brain to explode before I finish this write-up, would you?

Would you?

Daniel tells Charlotte that he spoke to Desmond about tracking down his mother, who can help. But he doesn’t get to explain any more. Charlotte briefly goes back to a little girl voice…and then dies.

Now I don’t think there’s any doubt we’ll see Charlotte again. The question is, will we only see her in a younger form, or will we see her as played by Rebecca Mader again? Is that really it for Charlotte as we’ve known her? If so, it seems like she never quite got to fulfill her character’s potential. What purpose did she really serve? And why (I know, I know…I ask this every week) was she chosen by Matthew Abbadon to go to the island? I guess we’ll have to see what the show has in store for her. The story she told Daniel about her childhood didn’t mention what happened to her father, or her two younger sisters. (We know about them from early last season, when Ben rhymed off a list of facts about Charlotte to prove he had information about the people on the freighter – information that included her getting her Ph.D at Oxford. Might she have crossed paths with Daniel pre-island?) And why do I think that Charlotte might have some connection to Annie, Ben’s childhood gal pal from the Dharma Initiative?

JOHN LOCKE’S FANTASTIC ISLAND
Anyone remember the Looney Tunes compilation flick Daffy Duck’s Movie: Fantastic Island, in which Daffy and Speedy Gonzales shipwreck on a remote island and discover a magical wishing well? I’m not saying that the movie holds the key to Lost‘s mysteries. I’m just saying…I love me some Looney Tunes.  Anyway, where were we?

Oh right, back to the well, thanks to Charlotte’s tipoff. And by the way, even if she spent time on the island, how would she know about the well and where it led?

A rope descends into blackness, and Locke is about to climb down. He tells them he’ll be back as soon as he can, but Jin stops him and says not to bring Sun back. He grabs Locke’s machete and threatens to cut the rope, insisting that the island is bad and Locke is not to bring Sun back. After Locke finally promises, he says, “I won’t go to Sun, Jin, but she might find me. If she does, what do I tell her?” Jin answers, “Tell her I’m dead. You say I wash up. You buried me.” He gives Locke his wedding ring for proof.

John says his farewells and climbs down the rope. But just after he disappears into darkness, the next flash comes, and the now-familiar blinding white light seems to emanate from deep within the well itself. He falls and crashes onto rocky, uneven ground. Far above, Sawyer is left holding a rope that leads into the dirt. There’s no well, no Orchid. For all Sawyer knows, he has just lost yet another companion.

Underground, Locke is in excruciating pain – a sharp rock or some such object has violently pierced his leg. And then a figure approaches from around the corner. Enter Christian Shephard. “I’m here to help you the rest of the way,” he says. Christian explains to Locke,  “When you came to see me in the cabin, you asked me how to save the island and I told you you had to move it. I said that you had to move it, John.”

Locke: Ben said he knew how to do it. He told me that I had to stay here and lead his people.
Christian: And since when did listening to him get you anywhere worth a damn?

Explaining what Locke must do, Christian goes on, “There’s a woman living in Los Angeles. Once you get all your friends together – and it must be all of them; everyone who left – once you’ve persuaded them to join you, this woman will tell you exactly how to come back. Her name is Eloise Hawking.” When Locke says that Richard told him he would die, Christian says, “I suppose that’s why they call it a sacrifice.” Locke takes this in, and then says he’s ready.

I gotta say: anyone who says Lost has become mired in sci-fi wackiness at the expense of it’s tradition for rich character explorations can put this whole sequence in their pipe and smoke it. Here is a true character moment 4.5 seasons in the making – John Locke accepting his fate, doing something monumentally important even knowing that it will result in his death (a noble sacrifice that follows in Charlie’s footsteps). The Man of Faith is on the cusp of taking the ultimate leap and fulfilling his destiny, and the show has been preparing us for that since the fourth episode of Season One, when we saw his first flashback. Terry O’Quinn is terrific in these scenes, conveying the full weight of what Locke is taking on and showing us his fear mingled with his excitement. When he is about to climb down the rope, Sawyer asks if he wants them to lower him down. “Where’s the fun in that?” he says, nervous but smiling warmly.

Christian tells John what he needs to do, and we see the wheel sticking out of the wall – “off its axis,” loose, moving back and forth on its own, green light emitting from the crack in the wall. When Locke echoes Ben’s actions by moving the wheel, the white light starts to fill the room. Christian tells John to say hello to his son. “Who’s your son?” Locke asks, but it’s too late. He’s gone. (I wonder if, when Locke visits Jack, he’ll realize that Christian is Jack’s father and will tell Jack that his father is on the island. Maybe that’s what prompts Jack’s sudden change in attitude toward returning.)

Some thoughts after this sequence:

1) Locke moving the wheel caused yet another flash, so wherever Sawyer and the rest wind up next will be a result of Locke’s act. But is his turning of the wheel going to stop the flashes? Or will they continue until the Oceanic Six return? I’ve been assuming that the need for the Oceanic Six to return is about much bigger issues that stopping the time-jumps, which I’ve considered to be an unwelcome side effect of Ben’s exit. The island could stop moving after Locke leaves, but still face dangers that require the return of Jack and Co. If Locke’s departure does stop the island’s time jumping, my guess is that those up above will find themselves smack in the middle of the Dharma era, giving Daniel plenty of time to explore, and setting the stage for Sawyer, Juliet, Jin, Miles (and somewhere Rose and Bernard) to experience their own taste of the Dharma Initiative. Will we see them interact with any familiar faces? Dr. Chang perhaps? Or a young boy named Benjamin Linus?

2) When Locke leaves the island, will he land in the Sahara, like Ben did? And more importantly, when will he land? When Ben left the island, he wound up about eight months in the future. But Jack and the rest are three years in the future from when the island is supposed to be. We don’t know what year they had moved to when Locke turned the wheel. And what’s with the Sahara connection, anyway? Charlotte excavated a Dharma polar bear skeleton there once, so we know the magic wheel was turned at least once before Ben came along and made his little desert drop-in. Why the Sahara?

3) Christian says that Locke, and only Locke, was supposed to move the island. But if everything bad happening on the island is happening because Jack and the rest left, what difference does it make who turned the wheel? If Locke had done it instead, would the island not be in trouble? Would the Oceanic Six not need to come back? How does the fact that Ben moved the island instead of Locke affect what is happening and what’s to come?

4) An injured Locke asks Christian if he can help him up, but Christian just looks at him and says, “No. I’m sorry, I can’t.” He might have said that because he wanted Locke to pick himself up, the way a parent might withhold their support to encourage the child to find their own way. But I had a different interpretation, or at least I wondered about another possibility. Remember Field of Dreams, and how Shoeless Joe Jackson couldn’t cross the line of rocks at the edge of the field? There has been much speculation – and rightly so – about what is going on with Christian Shephard. Is he alive? Dead? Or perhaps somewhere in between? If one of the latter two is true, then he might be literally, physically unable to interact with Locke because he – Christian – is not quite of this world. But then I thought no, that can’t be it, because last year Claire woke up to find Christian holding Aaron.

But then I thought (I really have to stop thinking) that maybe Aaron is special. We have been told that Aaron is meant to play an important role in the endgame of Lost. If the theories about Christian being not-quite-alive are true, what if Aaron is somehow a bridge between the world of the living and the world of the dead? I’m not sure how that would play out exactly, though another theory I once came across online suggested that Jacob was some sort of spirit in search of a new body, which is why Ben has been trying to stop pregnant women from dying on the island – so that Jacob could have a baby to be born into. (Very Ghostbusters II, isn’t it?) This theory purported that Aaron was to be that body. Then again, Christian – who supposedly represents Jacob – made sure that when he and Claire went off in the jungle, they left Aaron behind, so that wouldn’t seem to make sense. I also wonder, assuming there’s some truth to this theory, if Jacob has been in search of a body for so long that Ben kidnapped baby Alex from Rousseau intending to use her as Jacob’s vessel, only to decide to keep her as his daughter instead and leaving Jacob in perpetual limbo…waiting for a new baby to be born on the island or to arrive there by some other means.

Yes, all of that comes from me wondering about the line, “No. I’m sorry, I can’t.”

5) Christian told Locke in the cabin last season that he can speak for Jacob. But can he? Is Christian really Jacob’s errand boy, or could it be that Christian represents some other force on the island that is in opposition with Jacob? After all, Ben is supposed to have been in Jacob’s service, but Christian asks Locke where listening to Ben has ever gotten him.

Then again, if the theory from #4 is true and Ben has in fact failed Jacob by not providing a baby (or failed him in any way, really; it doesn’t have to fit with the Jacob-needs-a-body theory) then maybe Jacob is done with Ben and looking for someone new to aid him. After all, when Ben first took Locke to Jacob’s cabin in Season Three, Jacob wasn’t so happy to see Ben, and croaked the words, “Help me” to Locke. So maybe Christian does represent Jacob, and his line about Ben just goes to show that Ben has let Jacob down.

Whew…man, we haven’t even dealt with what’s happening off the island yet. Time to do that. Luckily there’s not much to cover. We might get out of here before midnight.

THE FELLOWSHIP IS BROKEN
Ben, Kate, Jack and Sayid are meeting on the pier when Sun suddenly comes marching up with a gun and tells Kate to move away from Ben. As Kate runs to Sun’s car to get Aaron, Sun tells Ben that he is responsible for Jin’s death. (I’ve asked this before, but how does she come to blame Ben? Locke must tell her that Ben killed Keamy, resulting in the freighter exploding. I’m not sure how she’d arrive at that belief any other way.) Ben tells her that Jin is still alive, and he can prove it. Needless to say, this startles her.

Ben: There’s someone, someone here in Los Angeles…let me take you to them and I’ll show you the proof.

Sun: Someone? Who?

Ben: The same person who’s going to show us how to get back to the island.

Kate: Is that what this is about? You knew about this, and that’s why you’re pretending to care about Aaron, to convince me to go back…

Jack: I wasn’t pretending anything…

Kate: This is insane, you guys are crazy.

Kate, with Aaron now in her car, starts to drive off, resisting Jack’s attempts to stop her. Sayid walks away too, saying, “I don’t want any part of this.” He looks to Jack first, then Ben, and says, “And if I see you, or him again, it will be extremely unpleasant for all of us.” (Why you gotta be hatin’ on Jack, Sayid? He didn’t bring you here. All he did was revive you from a horse-tranquilizer injury! How about a thank you?)

It’s just Ben, Jack and Sun now. Ben says that if she comes with him, in 30 minutes she can have proof that Jin is alive. Or she can shoot him and never know. Poor Jack just looks like a kid watching mom and dad have a blow-out. Sun agrees to go, and during the ride, Jack apologizes to her for leaving Jin. She asks why he’s telling her that now, and if he’s going to ask her not to kill Ben if he turns out to be lying. Jack says that for what Ben did to Kate – trying to make her think Aaron was being taken away – he’ll kill him if she doesn’t. Ben looks irritated as he listens to the exchange, and at Jack’s statement he slams on the brakes. “What are you doing? Jack yells. Ben gives it right back, to both of them. “What I’m doing is helping you! And if you had any idea what I’ve had to do to keep you safe, to keep your friends safe, you’d never stop thanking me. You wanna shoot me then shoot me, but let’s get on with it. What’s it gonna be?”

It’s a great moment, and Ben makes his case with such apparent sincerity that we want to believe him. Ben has a finely honed skill for convincing people that he means what he says at any given moment, but we never really know, and he usually turns out be manipulating something. Maybe he has helped them all and gone to great lengths to keep them safe, but to what end? As Sayid told Jack in the hospital during the previous episode, “The only side he’s on is his own.”

The trio arrives outside a church, where Ben pulls out Jin’s ring and hands it to Sun. He tells her he got it from Locke, who got it from Jin before he left the island. Sun asks why Locke didn’t tell her this himself. “I don’t know,” Ben says. “Maybe he never had a chance before he died. I’m sorry I had to bring you here before I gave it to you Sun, but all those people back on the island, Jin included, need our help. There is a woman in this church and she can tell us how to get back to your husband, but we’re running out of time, Sun. So I need you to decide right now: will you come with me?”

She agrees. When Ben mentions that Locke is dead, a look of surprise crosses Sun’s face. Given how quickly everything has happened and the fact that she’s only been in Los Angeles for a few days, is it possible she is just hearing of this for the first time? And did Locke even go to see her, breaking his promise to Jin?

Just after Sun says she’ll go, Desmond walks onto the scene, asking what they’re all doing there. No one quite knows what to make of his arrival, and the look on Ben’s face is particularly ambiguous. Does the sight of Desmond lead Ben to suspect that Penny – who he has threatened to kill – may be nearby? When Ben says he assumes they’re there for the same reason he is, Desmond says, “You’re looking for Faraday’s mother too?” Again, Ben’s face is impossible to read, but Desmond’s words have some kind of impact. Ben finally turns and walks into the church, with the others close behind. A woman inside is lighting candles. “Hello Eloise,” Ben says. The name Eloise gets Desmond’s attention, as he knows that is the name of Faraday’s lab rat. When the woman turns around and he sees who she is…well, I can’t wait to see what happens when they start talking to each other. When she looks at all of them, she makes no sign of recognizing Desmond, so their reactions to one another will have to wait.

“Hello Benjamin,” she says, scanning the small group. “I thought I said all of them.” When Ben says this was the best he could do on short notice, she says, “Well, I suppose it will have to do for now. Alright…let’s get started.” (That’s an awfully low-key reaction considering that her answer to Ben’s earlier question about would happen if he couldn’t bring everybody with him was, “God help us all.”)

FOOD FOR THOUGHT
-So we now know, officially, that Eloise Hawking is Daniel Faraday’s mother. More details about that will surely follow. The next theory in the wings, which I failed to arrive at myself but which I’m certain is correct, is that Eloise Hawking is Ellie, the young Other who marched Daniel, Charlotte and Miles into Richard’s 1950’s camp site and then led Daniel to the H-bomb. And if that proves true, then Eloise interacted with her grown son when she was a young woman. What are the implications of that? Is she his biological mother, or adopted? And if older Eloise Hawking is indeed young Ellie, that would mean she served as an Other with Charles Widmore (who eventually funds Daniel’s work). Yet here she is, assisting Widmore’s sworn enemy, Benjamin Linus. So what is Mrs. Hawking’s role and interest in all of this? Where do her loyalties lie? And how is it that she knows how and when the island can be located?

-It seems that Ben is doing everything that Locke is supposed to be doing, right? Locke was supposed to move the island, but Ben did it instead. Locke is told he must leave the island, reassemble those who left and bring them back. Now Ben is attempting to do that. Are these deliberate actions on Ben’s part, meant to undermine Locke and restore himself to a place of power on the island?

-This has nothing to do with this episode, but it’s a question that suddenly struck me last week, and I couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to me before. When Ben turned the wheel and set off the first flash, Locke was sitting with Richard and all the other Others. But when the flash happened, they all disappeared? But why is that? Locke wasn’t with them in the past or the future; he was with them in the present, so shouldn’t they have moved with him? My shaky theory in this is that although Richard and the gang were there with Locke in his present, they were actually from another time period. What if Richard and the Others traveled through time at some point and made a secret base on the island where they remained…meaning that at any time, there might actually be two Richard Alperts on the island at the same time?

Remember last season when Ben, Locke and Hurley were on their way to the Orchid, and Ben dug up a box with old Saltines, binoculars and a mirror? He held the mirror up to a high batch of trees, reflected the sun to make a signal, and then saw a reflection in return. Later in the episode, Richard and the Others show up and, together with Sayid and Kate, rescue Ben from Keamy and the freighter mercenaries. There’s an odd moment between Ben and Richard, where Ben thanks him for coming, as if he wasn’t sure Richard would have shown up. Richard, in return, tells Ben he’s welcome…but doesn’t look too thrilled to see him. What if that Richard and those Others were of a different era and were hiding out in those trees? If there isn’t some truth to this idea, then I don’t understand why Richard and the Others weren’t still there with Locke when the flashes started.

-Okay, after writing this entire message, including the bullet point above, I came across two things that deal with several of my curiosities. First, a line from this season’s premiere, which I forgot about. When Richard is mending Locke’s leg wound and telling him to bring his people back to the island, Locke asks Richard where he and the Others went when the sky lit up. Richard answered, “I didn’t go anywhere, John; you did.”

Second, I found this Doc Jensen article from Entertainment Weekly, which was posted last week prior to the airing of this episode. It addresses some of the things I question in this message, so check it out if you’re so inclined. It starts to go on a tangent during the “Zero Point” section, but there’s some helpful stuff before that.

FINAL THOUGHTS
I thought last week’s episode might qualify as a Hall of Famer. This one came even closer. I loved it like Robert Duvall loves the smell of napalm in the morning.

LINE OF THE NIGHT
“He’s Korean; I’m from Encino.” – Miles

Tonight’s Episode: 316

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