4eight15sixteen23fortytwo

2012-02-06T10:26:00.001-08:00

2011-03-08T09:54:00.001-08:00

2010-07-01T11:47:00.000-07:00

when i was living this lie, fear was my game...

2010-03-16T09:47:00.001-07:00

Ben’s running away from the temple, crashing through the jungle, when he finds Ilana, Sun, Miles and Lapidus. Ilana asks where Jarrah is, and Ben tells them Sayid killed Dogen and the translator. She wants to know if he’s sure. “He was standing over their dead bodies holding a bloody dagger, so yeah I’m pretty sure.”
They decide to head back to the beach.

=flashsideways=

“It was on this island that everything changed. And everything finally became clear.”
Dr. Linus is referring to Elba (anagram of Abel…), and telling his students about Napoleon, “Exile wasn’t the worst of his fate – what was truly devastating to him was the loss of his power. Sure, they allowed him to keep the title of emperor, but without any power it was meaningless; he might just as well have been dead.”
The bell rings and Principal Reynolds enters as the class ends. Something tells me we’ll want to see Bonnie Bedelia punch this dude in the face before the episode is over. Sideways Ben doesn’t seem to have much power to lose. Reynolds informs him that, due to events above his pay grade, Ben’s been assigned detention after school all week, effectively canceling his history club. Although there are only 5 kids in it, Ben feels the ones with ambition should be encouraged. “The club isn’t for them, it’s for you; it makes you feel needed. Unfortunately for now, you’re needed. In detention. Thanks for your understanding, Linus.”
What a dick. He is a dick, isn’t he?
“It’s Doctor Linus, actually.”

The shot of Ben getting his lunch from the fridge is one of the saddest in the history of the show. Just some sushi with his name written on it, and a jar of sauce with his initials on top. Ben’s mug has his name on it too... I mean I guess they’re trying to show how anal he is, how he takes control over everything he has the power to do so with, but it’s all very melancholy and bleak in a way. Humanizing… so yeah, I’m loving the directing in this episode. Anyway, here’s Arzt to liven shit up. He’s got some formaldehyde on his shirt – which is a step up from getting some Arzt on your shirt.
"You know what gets out formaldehyde? Nothing."
Doc Arzt, believe it or not, is complaining. About his shirt, about having lab equipment from the 50’s, about the science department getting no funds. Ben tells him it’s because Reynolds is an administrator who’s forgotten what the public school system is about. “Yeah, summers off in exchange for a crap pension.”
“No, taking care of the kids, that’s what important.”
Arzt tells Ben to keep dreaming.
“I know you’ve given up. I refuse to.”
Locke’s at the next table and has a suggestion, “Maybe you should be the principal.”
“So says the substitute.”
“Just sounds like you care about this place, and if the man in charge doesn’t, then maybe it’s time for a change.”

=island=

Ilana doesn’t believe Bens story of what happened at the statue. She gives Miles Jacobs ashes so he can do his thing. He does that thing, and tells her that Linus killed him. She asks if he’s sure. “Well, he was standing over Jacobs’s body with a bloody dagger so... yeah, I’m pretty sure.”
Ilana shoots Ben a look that could kill, if looks could kill, “Jacob was the closest thing I had to a father.”
Miles’ “Uh oh.” is an instant classic line, along with, “Guys, where are we?” and Hurley’s 1977 “uh...what?”
Hilarious.

L O S T

They arrive at the old beach camp. Ben is trying to get a read on Ilana, who is ignoring him. He attempts to weasel his way out of it, telling her how unreliable psychics are and that Miles tried to blackmail him. She walks away, still paying Ben no attention.

=flashsideways=

We get the mirror shot, in a microwave door. He doesn’t really acknowledge himself (like Sayid), however, only looking up when the timer goes off. He brings the meal out to his dad, who is attached to an oxygen tank and wearing incredible aging makeup. Great job there, for real. It’s an organic TV dinner, because Ben is trying to keep his dad healthy.
“Oh, it’s a little too late for that.”
Oh, the irony.

This dad is not a bitter drunk – but what changed... almost losing Ben? Because this IS the Ben that was shot and brought back with the spring on the island, right? But if 815 never crashed did Sayid ever travel through time and shoot this Ben at a young age? I lean toward this being the Ben we saw in 1977, and he and Dad just left on the sub along with Miles and Charlotte.

So it’s the same elder Linus too, and he sort of confirms it as Ben is changing out his oxygen tank for a fresh one. “This isn’t the life I wanted for you Ben, I wanted so much more. It’s why I signed up for that damn Dharma Initiative and took you to the island and we were with decent people, smarter than I’ll ever be. Imagine how different our lives would have been if we’d stayed.”
“Yes, we’d have both lived happily ever after.”
“No, I’m serious Ben. Who knows what you would have become.”
Ben turns on the gas from the new tank, “Now does that feel better?”
“Ah yes, thank you.”
Oh, the irony.
The doorbell rings... its Alex. She’s one of the five kids with ambition. They share some pleasant banter and seem to have a nice relationship. Ben agrees to help her study before school while he is busy with detention in the afternoons. “Thanks. You’re the best Doctor Linus.”
“My pleasure, Alex.”
He seems to have one of those déjà-vu moments as she walks away, or else he’s just basking in the glow of someone needing him.

=island=

Sun is desperate to continue the search for Jin, and is surprised that Ilana feels the same way. “Why do you want to find Jin?”
“Because your last name is Kwon and so is his, and I don’t know whether I’m supposed to protect you, him, or both of you.”
Sun doesn’t know what she’s talking about. “You’re candidates. To replace Jacob.”
“Replace him? To do what?”
“You’re the one selected; I imagine you’ll find out.”
She sounds bitter. Sun wants to know how many candidates there are. “Six. There are only six left.”

Hurley’s dreams of cheese curls are rudely interrupted when Jack wakes him so they can continue on to the temple. Hurley is being difficult and they’re arguing about in which direction the temple lies when Richard emerges from the jungle. Jack asks where he came from, and Richard says he wouldn’t believe him if he told him. “Try me.
“Not yet. If you want to go to the temple it’s this way.”
Jack starts to follow and Hurley doesn’t get why he would trust this guy.
"At least he's not stalling…”

Back at the beach Ben is going thru Sawyers old tent, checking out the library, or at least what’s left of it. There’s a Booty Babes magazine promising big bouncy beautiful buns – the “b” spot - going there - getting to the bottom of it – rear view mirrors.
Benjamin Disraeli – Justice is Truth in Action – which is just a quote, not a book, as far as I can tell.
Chaim Potok - The Chosen
Ben finds an Oceanic bottle and reminisces with Lapidus, who tells him he would have been the pilot on flight 815 if he hadn’t overslept, “Imagine how different my life would be had that alarm gone off.”
“How different would it have been? The island still got you in the end, didn’t it?”
Ilana comes over and points the gun at Ben. “Walk.”
She leads him to the graveyard and secures his leg to a tree, then tells him to start digging his grave.

=flashsideways=

Ben has his history book open to chapter 19, the East India Trading Company – with a painting of a ship that looks like the Black Rock. He stumps Alex when asking, “The East India’s Trading Companies power extended to all of India except for...”
Alex freaks out about her chances at getting into Yale, and how she’d even be able to afford it with her mom working two jobs just to pay the rent. No dad? How’d she end up in LA? Ben assures Alex that she’s one of the brightest students he’s ever had, “I don’t worry about your future at all.”
She says she needs a recommendation letter from that pervert Principal Reynolds, and explains by telling Ben that she caught Reynolds and the nurse having sex on school grounds. This Ben Linus goes into that Ben Linus’ calculating mode. He snaps out of it after a second or two and suggests they get back to work. “Shall we return to the high seas?”

=island=

We return to the high seas. Miles - maybe feeling a little guilty? - offers Ben some banana and green beans, then chides him for digging slowly - maybe not feeling guilty?. Ben’s not hungry and he’s in no rush. He gets that look in his eye and asks Miles if he still wants the 3.2 million. “What are you gonna do, you gonna write me a check on this banana leaf?”
Ben tells him he has a vast network off island that can get him the money if he’ll only set him free. “Why would I need your money when there are a couple of jaboneys named Nikki and Paulo who got buried alive with 8 million dollars in diamonds on top of them?” Ha!
Ben doesn’t know how Miles can be so aloof, “Ilana's going to murder me for killing Jacob, a man who didn’t even care about being killed.”
Miles tells him he cared, “Right up until the second the knife went through his heart, he was hoping he was wrong about you. I guess he wasn’t.”
Ilana breaks up the little chat by shooting the ground at Ben’s feet.
“Dig!”

Hurley is trying to get to the bottom of Richard as the three trudge though the dense jungle. “So, you’re not time traveling?”
“No.”
“But you look the same as you did thirty years ago, how is that possible?”
“Not easy to explain.”
“This like a terminator thing? You a cyborg?”
“No, I’m not a cyborg.”
“Vampire?”
Richard is getting irritated.
“Jacob gave me a gift.”
They arrive at the Black Rock. Richard tells the guys he led them away from the temple because everyone there is dead, but that he also didn’t see their missing friends there. He informs Jack that whatever he’s looking for at the temple, it’s not there. Hurley says Jacob hinted at that, and Richard asks if Hurley has talked to Jacob. Hurley confirms this, and Richard tells him not to believe a word he says. Thinking Smokey could take his form, or just untrusting of the real Jacob? Richard says there’s something he needs to do. “Need to do what?”
“Die.”

=flashsideways=

Arzt is miserably grading papers, mostly F’s, when Ben comes in to ask for a favor. He knows Arzt is good with computers and wants him to hack into the principal’s account. He confides that it’s to collect incriminating evidence so that he can usurp the ‘throne’ – Arzt has a few demands, like a better parking spot- it all feels kind of like a Buy More subplot, in a good way. Some Jeffster would make it even better. Ben agrees to the deal and Arzt is excited, “You really had me fooled with that sweater vest! Linus, you’re a real killer.”
Déjà vu-ey ness again, sort of – or just the inherent evil conniving Ben bubbling to the top? Maybe once the island was sunk the Springs and whatever they ‘changed’ forever in someone were just eradicated, so Ben doesn’t have that ‘corruption’ any longer?

=island=

Killer Ben is standing shackled in his nearly completed grave.
Richard and the others are inside the belly of the Black Rock, Richard holding the chains with pain in his eyes. He tells Jack that in all the time he’s spent on the island today is the first time he’s ever come back, pretty much confirming he was from the Black Rock originally. He opens up a crate of dynamite and Hurley freaks out. He tells Richard it’s unstable.
“I know”
“Yeah well so did Dr Arzt, and I was wiping him out of my shirt two days later.”
Richard tells them that he wants them to kill him, as he can’t do it himself, “Jacob touched me, and when Jacob touches you it’s considered a gift, but it’s not a gift at all, it’s a curse.”
So the blast killed Juliet because she wasn’t touched by Jacob in the flashbacks?
Jack wants to know why he wants to die.
“I devoted my life, longer than you can possibly imagine, in service of a man who told me that everything was happening for a reason, that he had a plan, a plan that I was a part of and when the time was right that he’d share it with me; and now that man’s gone. So why do I want to die? Because I just found out my entire life had no purpose.”
He asks Jack to light the fuse, promising it’s long enough for them to get away. Jack agrees to help, lights the fuse, and then sits down with Richard, “Now let’s talk.”
Hurley freaks as the fuse burns down, “Jack dude we gotta go guys crazy and I know crazy. Dude you're gonna blow up!”
He assures Hurley they’ll be all right. “If you change your mind i'll be like a mile away.”
Jack tells Richard that they’re not gonna die, and launches into the story about Jacob sending him to the lighthouse to see his childhood home in the mirror.
“For some reason he wanted me to know that he had been watching me since I was a kid. I have no idea why, but I’m willing to bet you that if Jacob went to that trouble that he brought me to this island for a reason, and that is not to blow up sitting here with you right now.”
Crazy Jack closes his eyes as the fuse burns down and out. Can’t die, like Michael.
“Wanna try another stick?”
“All right Jack, you seem to have all the answers, so now what?”
“Go back to where we started.”

Ben’s still digging as UnLocke, in another grand Smokey entrance, appears before him. He’s gathering a group and they’re leaving the island, but once he’s gone someone needs to be left in charge. He can’t think of a better man for the job than Ben. He releases Ben from his shackles and gives directions to a gun in the jungle nearby, telling Ben not to hesitate, because she won’t. He disappears and Ben runs into the jungle, with Ilana taking chase.

=flashsideways=

Ben confronts Principal Reynolds with some scandalous emails and lays out his plan for taking over. Reynolds counters by threatening to keep Alex out of Yale; effectively destroying her life, or at least her dreams, “So, I put the ball back in your court. You can execute (button) your little Machiavellian maneuvers, go for my job; sit at my desk. But alas, there will be an unfortunate side effect. I will torch Mrs. Rousseau and her future. Is my job, my power, that important to you? So, what’ll it be, Doctor Linus?”
Will Ben want power so badly off-island that he’ll betray Alex again? It’s kind of like the flashsideways’ are the mirror images of the island redemptive journeys in the first few seasons. Same soul searching, different location. That should have been clear to me before but I didn’t really see it. Another hint that the Flashsideways-verse is the main story now and the island drama this season is more akin to the flashbacks of yore?

=island=

Ben reaches the gun in time and forces Ilana to drop her weapon. What follows is an Emmy waiting to happen. Michael Emerson can monologue like no one else on television. Seriously.
“I want to explain that I know what you’re feeling. I watched my daughter Alex die in front of me and it was my fault. I had a chance to save her, but I chose the island... over her? All in the name of Jacob. I sacrificed everything for him. And he didn’t even care. Yeah, I stabbed him I was so angry, confused, I was terrified that I was about to lose the only thing that had ever mattered to me; my power. But the thing that really mattered was already gone. I'm sorry that I killed Jacob. I am, and I do not expect you to forgive me because I can never forgive myself. Just let me leave.”
Ilana has tears in her eyes, she knows he’s sincere. Her acting here is almost as good as his, and it probably helps to be reacting to Emerson laying his soul bare (assuming they shot this together). She wants to know where he’ll go.
“To Locke.”
Revulsion crosses her face, “Why?”
“Because he’s the only one that’ll have me.”
“I'll have you.”
(I really gotta do something about the dust in here. That was stunning – in the same league as "You bow to no one." and "That’ll do, pig.")
An astonished Ben follows Ilana back to the beach... perhaps thinking about Napoleon, “Sure, they allowed him to keep the title of emperor, but without any power it was meaningless; he might just as well have been dead.”

=flashsideways=

Ben enters the darkened principal’s office, turns on a light and picks up Reynolds name plaque, looking kind of disgusted. Alex knocks at the door and comes in; she’s looking for the Principal, who wrote her an amazing letter of recommendation. She’s sure that Ben had a hand in it somehow.
“No, it wasn’t me, Alex. But I always say you’re a great student, obviously I wasn’t the only one who noticed.”
Reynolds bursts in and Ben takes a small measure of control and power in this life, even if it’s just over history club, “Principal Reynolds found someone to cover for detention, isn’t that right?”
Alex seems to have one of those déjà vu flickers as Ben leaves the office. Arzt is bummed about the parking space.

=island=

A weeping Ilana returns to the beach with Ben. He offers to help Sun with her tarp and she accepts. Miles has the diamonds. Razzle freakin' dazzle. What a fucking payoff there, in both regards. Who knew Nikki and Paulo would tie into the last season in any way other than zombies… Jack, Hurley and Richard show up at the beach in slo-mo. They all greet each other warmly, except for Ben, who stands off to the back of the group and makes some uncomfortable eye contact with Jack.

A periscope rises from the water off the beach and gets the group in its sights. The man operating it asks if they should stop.
Charles Widmore tells him, “No, proceed as planned.”

L O S T

you can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill...

2010-03-16T09:46:00.000-07:00

=flashsideways=

Sayid is bringing Nadia flowers – are they married? Oh they have kids... ah, no they don’t; he’s Uncle Sayid. The love of his life is married to his brother. Rough. Sayid is away a lot. “The world traveler off on his exotic business trips.”
“Translating contracts for an oil company is hardly exotic. It’s painfully dull.”
Sounds like a boring cover? His brother, who runs a dry cleaning company and just opened a new store, leaves the table to take a business call that seems to distress him. The kids, looking for gifts, find an old picture of Nadia in Uncle Sayid's luggage. He carries his baggage around the world. The brother peers around the corner and we know he knows what’s up.

=island=

Sayid busts into Dogen’s room demanding answers. He asks what the machine he was hooked up to was for.
“For every man there is a scale. On one side of the scale there is good, on the other side, evil. This machine tells us how the scale is balanced. And yours... tipped the wrong way.”
“And that’s why you tried to poison me?”
“Yes. I think it would be best if you were dead.”
"You think you now me but you don’t. I’m a good man, so if you’re trying to kill me...”
Dogen attacks. Nice long fight scene - I like these, long fight scenes are always cool cause its less to recap so i get to bed a little earlier. They’re beating on each other mercilessly until Dogen gets the upper hand. He holds his knife to Sayid’s throat and throws him against his desk, causing his baseball to fall and hit the floor.
Dogen looks over at it and suddenly gets himself under control, releasing Sayid and telling him to leave the temple and never come back. He tosses the knife away and picks up the baseball reverently as Sayid looks on. Dogen’s baggage?

Outside, UnLocke and Claire are looking at the entrance to the Temple, a thick grey line of ash laid at their feet. Claire wants to know why she has to do it.
“If I could do it myself I wouldn’t be asking you, Claire.”
She wants to be assured that he’ll do what he’s promised if she goes in there.
“I want my son back.”
“I always do what I say.”
“You gonna hurt them?”
“Only the ones who won’t listen.”

L O S T

=flashsideways=

Sayid’s brother wakes him in the middle of the night to tell him about the trouble he’s in with some men he borrowed money from. Sayid offers to pay them off, but that’s not the help his brother looking for.
“I need you to convince these people to leave me alone. I know what you did in the war. You were an interrogator for the republican guard. I know what kind of man you are. I know you care about Nadia. If you care about us, about her... you will do this, Sayid.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not that man anymore.”
Sayid NOT killing when asked? Huge Flashsideways difference here!

=island=

Sayid is explaining to Miles why he’s been banished.
“Apparently I’m evil. These people say I’m better off dead. Which is surprising, considering they were the ones who saved my life.”
Miles tells him that they just tried to save his life, but failed. He was dead for two hours.
“Trust me, when you sat up they were just as surprised as the rest of us. Whatever brought you back... it wasn’t them.”
Claire storms into the courtyard with her arms raised and walks straight up to Dogen.
“He wants to see you.”
Dogen starts to speak in Japanese and Claire interrupts, “Speak English.”
She tells him he’s right outside waiting.
“I’m not a fool. If I step outside this temple, he’ll kill me.”
“Then maybe you should send someone he won’t kill.”
Dogen, in Japanese, tells Lennon to put her in the hole until this is resolved, and to bring Shephard and Reyes to his room. Lennon tells him they’re missing and an angry Dogen tells him to look harder. He then approaches Sayid, and asks that he come with him.
“I thought you wanted me to leave?”
“Things have changed.”

Dogen unearths a box from one of the potted plants in his room, while explaining the new Claire to a curious Sayid.
“She’s a confused girl, under the influence of an angry man. For years he has been trapped, but now Jacob’s gone; he’s free. This man will not stop until he has destroyed every living thing on this island. He is evil incarnate.”
Dogen wants Sayid to kill UnLocke. He gives him some instructions and the knife he retrieved from the buried box.
“He will come to you as someone you know, someone who has died. As soon as you see him, plunge this deep into his chest. If you allow him to speak its already too late.”
“Since I’ve been here I’ve been drowned, tortured, and beaten - at your hands! Why would I ever do anything for you?”
“You said that there is still good in your soul. Then prove it.”

=flashsideways=

Sayid is walking the kids to the bus. I’m half expecting to see Locke face down in a lawn nearby, getting sprinkled on. Sayid tells them he’s only around for a couple of days, and then he’s off to Toronto for work. The kids like it better when Unc is around.
“Yeah, and mommy likes it too.” Worst part of the episode spoken by a little girl that looks suspiciously like Chaka. Is this the land of the Lost? Nadia rushes out of the house as the bus pulls away. Something’s happened to Omar. They go to St. Sebastian’s, where they pass Doctor Jack Shephard in the hall. No knowing/curious glances. Omar’s doc says it was a mugging but Sayid knows better and wants revenge. Nadia tells him she doesn’t want him to do that. She wants him to do this for her instead; go home and wait for the kids, and make them feel safe.

=island=

Kate finds Sayid in the jungle. Was I the only one thinking he was about to plunge the knife deep into her chest? Thank god he doesn’t think she’s dead. He brushes off her questions and tells her to ask Miles what’s happened before continuing on. Miles is playing solitaire in the temple courtyard when Kate gets there.
“Sawyer sent you packing, huh?”
It’s easy to forget that Kate knew Sawyer for a few months before leaving the island, while Miles was with him the past three years, and one of his closest friends too, it seemed.
“I thought about going after him too, but I knew he’d just end up berating me until I turned around and came back. That pretty much what happened?”
“Pretty much.”
He tells her the Australian chick that had the baby showed up acting all weird, but still hot.

Back in the jungle Sayid stops for a drink, and UnLocke puts on a wind and noise show before appearing to Sayid as Locke.
“Hello Sayid.”
Sayid plunges the knife deep into his chest. Unbleeding UnLocke pulls it back out.
“Now why’d you go and do that?”
He hands the knife back.
“Take it, I won’t bite.”
“What are you?”
“Well Sayid, you seem to have some idea about that considering you stabbed me in the chest without even saying hello.”
Sayid tells UnLocke he’s been told he is evil incarnate. Something UnLocke doesn’t deny. He tells Sayid that Dogen’s plan was to have UnLocke kill him, and knows he’d already tried it with someone else.
“…shame on you for being talked into it so easily.”
“And what is it you are trying to talk me into?”
UnLocke wants him to deliver a message.
“Sayid, if you’ll do this for me, what if I told you that you could have anything you wanted...anything in the entire world?”
“I would tell you the only thing I ever wanted died in my arms and I’ll never see it again.”
“What if you could?”
Soul sold.

Shannon and Nadia both died in his arms, so does this mean the only thing he ever wanted is love, and not Nadia specifically? Awww, Sayid. :(

=flashsideways=

Sayid is gluing together the pieces of a vase - the one that held his soul? Omar is going to be fine. Nadia seems like she wouldn’t mind if he had bit it, though. She’s miserable and would be happier with Sayid. This is the wrong life... for her. But at least she’s alive in it.
“If you care about me, why did you push me toward your brother?”
“For the last 12 years I’ve been trying to wash my hands of all the horrible things I’ve done. I can’t be with you... because I don’t deserve you.”
The kids are in bed… you think they did it? So has world traveler sideways Sayid actually just been a translator these past 12 years? I think so. But old habits die hard, as we soon find out.

=island=

Sayid returns to the temple with a message for all the Others.
“There is a man in the jungle about a mile south of us by the outer wall. He sent me back here to give you a message; he wants you to know Jacob is dead, and because he’s gone none of you have to stay here anymore, you’re free. The man that I met is leaving the island forever. Those of you who want to go with him should leave the temple and join him. You have until sundown to decide. “
Cindy(andthekids) wants to know what will happen if they stay.
“You die.”
Smokey’s choice. Not quite free will at play here.

Kate and Lennon meet in the temple and she manhandles the scrawny Other (ha ha ha ha) into bringing her to Claire. He shows her to the pit and gives her two minutes. Claire is crazy singing at the bottom of the Silence of the Lambs well (how is it that Ted Levine hasn't been on Lost yet??) She’s excited to see Kate, who explains all about Aaron. Uh-oh.
“I took him off the island. You were gone and we couldn’t find you so i raised him, and he is the most beautiful amazing little boy. But I came back here to rescue you so that you could be with him, so that you guys could be together again.”
Raised by another... Great acting here by Emilie De Ravin – her face sells insanity well.
“I’m not the one that needs to be rescued…He’s coming, Kate. He’s coming and they can’t stop him!”
Lennon and some Others take Kate away.

Outside there’s a mass exodus happening that Lennon is powerless to stop. Miles asks Sayid if they’re leaving too. Sayid pulls out Dogen’s knife.
“Not yet. I have to return this.”

=flashsideways=

Some heavies pull up to Sayid outside Nadia’s house and threaten to get the kids involved if he doesn’t go with them. He gets in the car. The two men walk him into a restaurant kitchen, where a third man is making himself some eggs. He offers Sayid some, but is refused. It’s Keamy.
“Martin Keamy.”
He’s got a nice watch on. I wonder if he carried that uncomfortable hunk of metal... anyway, he does a good Walken creepy bad guy. He tells Sayid his brother still owes him money.
“And somebody is gonna pay me that money.”
“Did you put my brother in the hospital?”
“You think it was me? I didn’t do that. It’s a dangerous world, Sayid, you know that, you’re from Iraq; never know when somebody’s just gonna sneak up...”
BAM! Sayid takes out the two goons in a heartbeat. Keamy's eyes get really wide. Sideways Keamy sure is a pussy, aiight?
”The debt’s forgiven, aiight? Ok? Just relax and forget about it.”
“I can’t”
Sayid shoots him dead. He tried to take the high road, but ultimately was given no real choice. He hears someone kicking in the freezer and opens it up. Shocker - it’s a bound and beaten Jin.
“Who are you?”
No knowing/curious glances.
Also,”No English.”

=island=

Now we get about 8 minutes of the most exiting Lost to date. There are 12 more hours left?? This feels like the pulse-pounding third act of a fucking awesome movie. Dogen is reflecting by the reflecting pool, baseball in hand, when Sayid enters.
“That’s twice you’ve tried to have someone else kill me. You had the opportunity to do it yourself. Why didn’t you?”
Dogen tell his story; he was a businessman in Japan once. He had too much to drink on a Friday after a big promotion at work. He picked his son up from baseball later that night, like he did every Friday.
“He was 12. The accident was very bad. I survived. But my son... and then, in the hospital, a man came to me. A man I had never met. And he told me that he could save my sons life, but I would have to come here to this island where I would have a new job, and I could never see my boy again.”
Again, not much of a choice here.
“Who was this man?”
“His name was Jacob.”
“Jacob drives a hard bargain.”
“The man outside, I take it he offered you a similar bargain.”
“Yes.”
“It is sundown. Do you choose to stay or go?”
“Id like to stay.”
Sort of a Good Bad Ugly/Inglorious feel to this scene - more Walken even, him and Hopper in True Romance. True Romance more on the nose I think - in both cases the father is dying to save his son. Dogen knows this is it, I think. Sayid drowns him violently in the pool. Lennon rushes in to help but it’s too late.
“Do you realize what you just did? He was the only thing keeping it out. Idiot, you just let it in.”
Sayid slashes his throat.
“I know”
Will they be back as infected like Sayid became after dying in the pool? Why was Dogen the only thing keeping it out??
Outside Smokey arrives, and it is GOOD (I mean, bad, but shit… oh so good). Miles and Kate run for it, going their separate ways when Kate goes to get Claire. Ilana, Sun Ben and Lapidus meet up with Miles. Awesome.
“Where are Shephard and Reyes? And Ford?”
Why would she ask about Jack and Hurley, with Sawyer as an afterthought? The only real candidates remaining? He tells her they’re gone. Smokey’s getting closer. She asks about Jarrah and Miles tells her he’s in the pool room. Ben goes to get him.

Kate gets to Claire, who isn’t going anywhere.
“It's much safer here.”
Smokes rollercoasters by above their heads, carrying a load of screaming Others. Too fucking cool.

Ben finds Sayid and the dead men at the pool.
“I know a way out of here. There’s still time.”
Completely infected soul sold Sayid turns his blank eyes on Ben.
“Not for me.”
Ben backs away verrry slowly, not taking his bug eyes off of Sayid, then turns and runs.

Sun, Miles, Frank and Ilana are looking for the secret tunnel Jack and Hurley used. Miles tells Sun that Jin is alive. At least last he saw of him, he was. Again, these two have been friends for the past 3 years. Smokey is getting closer, making Godzilla sounds. Ilana finds the secret passage, and they enter and close it behind them just as Smokes rolls down the corridor.

Some slo-mo carnage in the temple courtyard set to Catch a Falling Star. Infected Sayid and Claire walk zombie-like to the entrance. Kate takes it all in and wisely arms herself before following them. I’m sure she’s thinking what we all are; how the fuck did she end up on this side? Free will, right? She had a choice to go with Miles or try to rescue Claire - a real choice, unlike quite a few of the others in this episode, and look where it landed her. UnLocke and the Others who left the temple earlier are waiting outside. Sayid, Claire and UnLocke share creepy looks and UnLocke regards Kate coolly (NOT good) when he sees her arrive. He turns and leads the flock away from the temple. Bad-ass Empire Strikes Back sort of vibe.
Great music, great directing, great everything except that little Chaka girls mommy line. This is one of the best seasons a television show has ever had.

Alright, I’ve been having a tough time wording this, so if it’s hard to understand I apologize. First off, I think it’s gone too far (on the basis of the final scene of this episode alone, even) for the powers that be to reveal that Smokey is the good guy. Smokey bad, Jacob good. But it gets twisty, because I’m pretty sure Smokey doesn’t think he’s bad (although he doesn’t deny he is evil incarnate). The best intentions and all that…
I think that we are definitely seeing the end of the show in the flashsidewayses as we watch the end of the island saga unfold at the same time. The trick here is to make sure that the ideal life we’re watching isn’t destroyed by UnLocke’s army. This, I think, explains Dogen’s actions, or inactions as the case may be. He says he killed his son, and Jacob came to him, at a time when he was “miserable and vulnerable” and offered him a deal to save his sons life, with the understanding that Dogen could never see him again. Dogen took this deal and has been at his ‘new job’ on the island since. Dogen KNOWS about the Flashsideways world, and knows that he and his son are alive and well there. (Sidetrack, covering my bases, maybe he isn’t alive there – did he interact with his son? – And just appeared to Jack to ‘push’ him in the right direction ala Jacob. No way, but still putting it out there) the only way to assure this realities continued existence (and not kill his son AGAIN) is to let the drama on the island play out with no interference on his part. i.e. not killing any of the possible candidates, whether they are ‘infected’ or not, and the Ankh list had Jarrah on it. So yeah, drowning him in the pool maybe not the best idea, but it was the only way they could think of to possibly save this candidates life?
Where it gets twisty for me is here: Sayid was offered a VERY similar deal. Nadia is alive in the sideways world, but Sayid cannot be with her because he needs to atone for his sins and is not worthy. This doesn’t explain why Dogen and his son ARE together, except that maybe God’s deals are a little better than the Devil’s? He is in the details, after all. Or even more simply, Sayid has much more to atone for than the others we’ve seen sideways so far, and that’s why his sidelife isn’t as rosy as the rest.

Sayid’s is also the only sideways story that didn’t contain a look into a mirror, at least not that I picked up on.

"it did have his reflection, in the door. But he looked through it at into Nadia which I thought was interesting." - Thanks Sara!

I heard there was a big spoiler voice-over at the end of the episode/during ‘next week on…’ please don’t repeat it here if you heard it. Thanks!!

when men on the chessboard get up and tell you where to go...

2010-03-16T09:44:00.000-07:00

First a podcast update - the date on Claire's ultrasound was a fuckup. Flashsideways Oceanic flight 815 landed in LA on 9/22/04.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

=flashsideways=

Jack enters his bachelor pad . There’s a Photoshop disasters-looking picture with 90's mushroom hairdo-ed Jack in a tux, posing with Mom & Dad, and also a real picture of Jack and Dad years later as docs. Green mug like the hatch. Jack walks in (past a lot of mirrors) and starts getting dressed quickly. He stops to look at himself in the bathroom mirror, and it seems like he notices the appendix scar on his belly for the first time – he searches for the memory but can’t find it. The phone jars him back to reality(?). It’s his mom freaking out – Christian’s coffin is headed for Berlin, they still haven’t found the body, and she can’t find his will. Jack tells her not to worry, he’ll be over later to help search for it. He asks when he had his appendix taken out . Mom says he was 7, 8 maybe (didn’t the scar look a little fresher and bigger than it would be if he had had it removed that long ago?), he collapsed at school and his dad wanted to operate but they wouldn’t let him. Doesn’t he remember?
“Yeah, I... I guess I do.”
He sees the time (2:51) and freaks out, tells mom he’s gotta go.
"Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!"
He pulls up to Saint Mary’s Academy and approaches a sullen kid waiting on the stairs. Jack apologizes for being late.
“Sorry, David.”
“It’s okay, dad.”
Whoa.

Plane whoosh back to the

=island=

Smokey clacks reserved for Locke episodes? Something to keep an ear out for.

Jack’s reflection is staring back at him from a pool outside of the temple. He looks up and seems to be looking right at us for a bit in a long shot. Almost Truman showy. Dogen comes up behind him, relieved to find Jack didn’t leave the temple.
“Is leaving an option?”
“Everything is an option, but I would have to stop you.”
“Well, I appreciate your honesty.”
Dogen asks if Ford, Austen and Kwon are coming back, to which Jack replies probably not.
“I appreciate your honesty.”

In the courtyard Hurley and Miles have apparently been playing tic tac toe to a draw for a while.
“Tied again, dude.”
“Shocker. That’s it for me.”
Hurley goes off to look for some food, and finds Jacob at the magic spring. He needs Hugo's help and tells him to get a pen to write a few things down.
“What kind of things?”
“Someone is coming to the island. I need you to help him find it.”
Desmond is my first thought… will he end up being Jacob’s loophole somehow?

L O S T

=flashsideways=

Jacks pad – the kid’s room, where Jack has hooked up cable so David can watch the Red Sox. But there’s a Dodger Stadium picture on the wall? Jack sees that he’s reading The Annotated Alice.
“I used to read this to you when you were little. You always wanted to hear about Kitty and Snowdrop, they were Alice’s...” (…black and white cats)
David just gets up and leaves. Jack follows, trying to connect, but the kid isn’t having it.
“We see each other like once a month, cant we just... get through it?” ouchie.
Grandma calls to remind Jack she needs his help looking for Christians’ will. He tells David he’ll be back in an hour and they’ll have some dinner.

=island=

Sayid joins Jack in the courtyard, wanting to know why all the Others are staring at him.
“You told me that these people think I have an infection, that they wanted to give me some mysterious pill you instructed me not to take, and then you disappeared. What are you hiding from me?”
Jack tells Sayid about the poison and that what the Others believe has happened to Sayid also happened to someone else.
“Who?”

Infected Claire (someone on the podcast this week came up with “Claireseau” – I like it, but it’s too long. She’s just Claire.) frees Jin from the bear trap. She tells him she’s been in the jungle since he left three years ago.

Hurley’s traversing through the temple tunnels, checking the notes on his arm against the symbols on the wall when Dogen arrives and demands to know what he’s doing.
“Nothing. I’m just, you know, looking, cause I’m a big fan of temples and like… history, Indiana Jones stuff.”
Dogen orders him back to the courtyard and Jacob appears (standing next to a block in the wall carved with the symbols from the countdown in the Swan) to Hurley. He instructs Hugo to tell Dogen he’s a candidate. Hurley can get behind this.
“I’m a candidate, and I can do what I want.”
“Who told you that?”
“Doesn’t matter. Why don’t you go back to the courtyard?”
Dogen hilariously goes nuts in Japanese and storms off. After telling Hurley he doesn’t want to know what was just said ["You're lucky I have to protect you, otherwise I'd have cut your head off !!"], Jacob asks why Hurley didn’t bring Jack along as instructed.
“You have to bring him with you, Hugo.”
”Ok, it’s bad enough you already made me write down way too much stuff and I just lied to a samurai… look, if you have any idea how to get Jack to go on your little adventure, I’m listening.”
Jacob smiles.

He had an idea, ‘cause next we see, Hurley is meeting with Jack in the courtyard. He tells him about Jacob and a secret tunnel, and that Jack needs to come with him. Jack tells him he’s not going anywhere.
“He told me you’d say that, so he told me to tell you ‘you have what it takes.’”
That hits Jacks execute button and, kinda tearing up, he demands to see Jacob. Hurley explains that - ”he’s kind of dead – turns up whenever he wants like Obi-Wan Kenboi. But... if you want to talk to him he’s where we’re going, dude”
“Well then let’s go see Jacob.”

Jin comes to in Claire’s ...shacky kind of thing. He’s got some funky boxers on, but they’re not as funky as Sawyers last week. The dynamite from the Black Rock is there, some baby books including 'Wish Upon a Star', which reminds me of Catch A Falling Star – the song Claire loved as a baby and wanted sung to Aaron. Also, 'Best Loved Stories'. There’s a bloody pan with surgical tools on top of a first aid kit – and a baby blue cradle with some freaky goddamn Texas Chainsaw Massacre Hills Have Eyes animal bone and fur baby nesting in it. Claire comes back with Justin in tow. She ties him up with plans to interrogate him about Aaron’s whereabouts, but first she tends to Jin.
“Gotta get that cleaned up. If there’s one thing that’ll kill you around here its infection.”
Heh heh, don’t she know it. Jin wants to know if she’s been here the whole time by herself.
“Oh no, I’m not by myself.”
She leaves the hut for a minute and Justin tells Jin they have got to leave.
“If we don’t get out of here now, she’s gonna kill us both.”

Jack and Hurley are walking through the jungle, with Hurley checking his arm for directions. They find Kate filling her canteen and Jack startles her, which almost results in Kate shooting him. They laugh about it, though. Hurley gives her instructions on how to get back to the temple, but she tells them she’s going to find Claire. Jack tells her to come along with the two of them and this freaks out Hurley, who tells Jack Jacob said just the two of them, that she’s not invited. Jack’s inviting her anyway, but she still wants to find Claire, and Kate heads off on her own.

=flashsideways=

Jack and mom in dads study, looking for the will. She’s frustrated, wondering why he wouldn’t have just left a copy with his lawyer.
“Why would he make it easy on us now?” Jack asks.
Mom pours herself a drink (bottle of McCutcheon on the bar, of course) and Jack declines. Is she the alcoholic here? She tells him David was really upset at the funeral, which Jack was unaware of.
“Communication’s not one of his strong suits”
”Well, it runs in the family.”
Jack tells her he was terrified of his dad.
“How do you know David isn’t terrified of you?
"Why would he be?”
”I don’t know Jack, maybe you should ask him.”
She finally finds the will and looks it over, perplexed.
“Jack? Did your father ever mention a Claire Littleton?”
Can recognition flash across your eyebrows? Because it can across Matthew Foxes.

=island=

Claire’s busy outside the hut, sterilizing the surgical instruments and sharpening an axe. Justin is busy inside the hut, trying to convince Jin to free him. They’re soon interrupted by Claire's return. She explains to Jin that she had to stitch herself up once when the Others shot her in the leg. She’s convinced they have Aaron because first her father told her, and then her friend.
“You’re still my friend, aren’t you Jin?”
“Yes of course.”
So Smokey has infected (infecdoctrinated?) Claire ‘against’ the Others using the specter of her dad and her ‘friend’– his version of room 23? She finishes with Jin and turns toward Justin, while picking up the axe. “So... now it’s your turn.”

Jack and Hurley are opening up on their trek. Hurley is wondering what happened to Jack and Kate back in LA; he thought they’d be married with a dozen kids and is sure Jack would make a great dad.
“I make a terrible dad.”
Does Hurley become Jacob and grant his friends the life they should have had, and that’s what we’re seeing in the sideways? Doubt it, but it would be a happy ending. I hope somehow Hurley is the hero when all is said and done, dude.
They come across an asthma inhaler and Hurley recognizes it.
“Dude. It’s Shannon’s.”
They’re at the caves they used to live in, with the Adam and Eve skeletons.
“I totally forgot these were in here, man. Wait a sec – what if we time traveled again, to like dinosaur times? And then we died and then we got buried here. What if these skeletons are us??”
awesome.
Jacks distracted by the sight of his dad’s smashed up coffin, and he confesses to Hurley.
“Did I ever tell you how I found this place? I was chasing the ghost of my dead father. He led me here. That was his coffin before I smashed it to pieces.”
”Why’d you do that?”
“Because he wasn’t in it.”
Chasing the ghost of his dad back in the first season mirror episode, White Rabbit, just like he’s spending this episode searching for David and Jacob... "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!"

=flashsideways=

Jack’s back with pizza, but David is nowhere to be found. Looks like Jack's got an Aaron’s dad painting on the wall. Some time seems to have gone by as Jack is sitting in front of his ‘sliding doors’ with a beautiful view of LA behind them. He’s drinking – non alcoholic beer? Calls David (not for the first time, it seems) and apologizes if he did anything wrong. He tells him he’s heading to his mom’s house to look for him.

who is mom? We know in the old timeline he was married to Sarah a few years before the crash, and she left him for another man because he was working too much. When she sees him in the hospital after the return of the oceanic 6, she’s pregnant. Jack almost had an affair with Gabriela Busoni during the marriage, and honestly the kid kind of looks like her. More so than Sarah at least. Regardless, the kid is in his teens, not a toddler, so who knows if either of these women are involved.

He gets to house number 233 (23, 2+3+3=8) and it’s locked. He lifts a stone rabbit next to the door, revealing a key. Follow the white rabbit. David’s room – the kids a musician. And a Dodgers fan. He’s been working on Chopin’s Fantaisie – Impromptu. Jack notices messages on the answering machine and hits play. Dr Sutherland from Williams Conservatory is calling to confirm David’s timeslot – 40 minutes from now. Jack looks at his fancy watch ("Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!”) as the messages continue to play, and he hears himself calling from Australia.
“Hey David, its dad. I’m in Sydney Australia. Something happened and I just needed to hear your voice. I guess I’ll try you again later. I love you.”

=island=

Hurley’s having fun trudging thru the jungle with Jack; just like old times. He tells him he came back to the island because Jacob popped in to the back of his cab and told him he was supposed to, so he came. He asks Jack why he came back.
“I came back here because I was broken. And I was stupid enough to think this place could fix me.”
Hurley is sympathetic. They get to the lighthouse soon after. Very cool. Ancient ancient at least. Jack asks the question the entire viewing audience is asking at the same time. How come we haven’t seen it before?
“Guess we weren’t looking for it.”

Claire’s interrogation. Scary shit, Cheney would be proud. She’s convinced they have Aaron, and we find out she was taken and given the same test as Sayid, with the same results; branded and all. She says if she hadn’t escaped they would have killed her. Justin says she isn’t remembering things right.

So why not just kill her and Sayid? Why trick Jack into doing it? Justin is willing to snap Claire’s neck... but he was the one reminding Aldo last week that they couldn’t kill... candidates. Even infected ones? They have to trick others into doing it for some reason, or is that just on the temple grounds.?

Claire’s about to lose it and thwack Justin with the axe when Jin stops her by telling her that Kate took him.
“What do you mean she ‘took’ him?”
"He’s been with Kate for the past three years. Aaron is three."
Justin tells her it’s the truth and asks to be untied; he promises he won’t tell anyone he saw her. She looks over at the fucked-up crazy crib while Justin pleads, and Claire starts to cry before burying the axe in his chest. Thunk.

Jack and Hurley are outside the lighthouse and the door won’t open.
“Doesn’t say anything on your arm about the door being jammed?”
”No.”
Jack kicks it open.

=flashsideways=

Jack arrives at Williams Conservatory, where a sign for the tryouts reads "Welcome all Candidates." He’s just in time for David’s audition. It’s the most beautiful music Jack’s ever heard in his life, I think. At least the directing would lead you to believe that. He’s moved to tears. However, David looks almost ashamed of himself when he’s finished. A young boy next to Jack asks if it’s his son up there, and tells him he’s really good. Holy shit, this kid’s dad is Dogen, who stops Jack as he’s about to leave the room.
“They are too young to have this kind of pressure, aren’t they?”
“Yes, yes they are.”
“It’s it’s hard to watch and be unable to help. Your son has a gift. How long has he been playing?”
“I... I don’t know.”
Hard for Dogen to watch everything on the island and be unable to help? Going to be hard for Jack to do the same?

=island=

Jack and Hurley have climbed to the top of the lighthouse. Panels of mirrors are arranged above a stone circle with degrees etched around it and a fire pit in the center. Looks a little like the watch Jack checked earlier.
“Dude this is cool. They musta built this to help ships get here and stuff. I guess they used the mirror because electricity hadn’t been invented yet.”
Hurley checks his arm for directions 4 levels stairs giant mirror pull chain @ 108 deg
He starts pulling.
“Tell me when it gets to 108 degrees”
The chains look new, this place is used often? Oh, fucking cool, the numbers around the base of the mirror have names next to them. Jack looks up to see the image in the looking glass change from the sea behind him to an older-style Oriental building – the place where Jin and Sun were married? Something to do with Dogen? It goes back to normal when he looks away. Hurley keeps pulling and a church goes by - Yemi’s? Sawyer’s parents funeral? Jack tells Hurley to stop and check the mirror, but it’s just the reflected ocean again.
Jack looks down to see the names and numbers. 108 is a scratched out Wallace. Sayid isn’t crossed out yet. 51 is Austen, also not crossed out. 20 is Rousseau. He sees Shephard at 23 and turns the chains to it – the mirror image changes and Hurley can also see it this time. It’s the house Jack grew up in.

are the lighthouse mirrors the white version of Smokey itself? Able to see into people and show them what it sees, ala Eko?

“That’s weird.”
“I haven’t lived in that house since I was a kid. He’s been watching us the whole time, all of us, he’s been watching us.”
Jack is entering freak-out mode. He grabs a bronze telescope/sextant thingy from its stand and starts grilling Hugo.
“Why was he watching me? Why is my name written down on this thing? What does he want from me?”
“I don’t know, Jack!”
Jack swings and smash go the mirrors.

=flashsideways=

Jack meets his son outside the conservatory, and tells him he was great. The kid thinks he missed a few notes. Jack thinks he was perfect.
“You scared the hell out of me.”
David thought he could get back before Jack got home.

the ‘hour’ timeline seems ridiculous – intentional or not, Time has a dreamlike quality to it in the flashsideways world during this episode. One of those dreams where you know you’re supposed to be doing something, but keep getting sidetracked as time goes by.

David has been keeping Jack in the dark about his piano playing because he didn’t want dad to see him fail. Jack recognizes this kid.
“You know when I was your age my father didn’t want to see me fail either. He said that I didn’t have what it takes. I spent my whole life carrying that around with me, and I don’t ever want you to feel that way. I will always love you, no matter what you do. In my eyes you can never fail. I just want to be a part of your life.”
Fixed. Or at least mended pretty well.

=island=

Jack is off on a cliff staring at the sea when Jacob appears to Hurley at the lighthouse.
“You’ve got ink on your forehead.”
”I have ink on my forehead? That’s all you have to say? Jack broke your lighthouse dude. Mission unaccomplished! Whoever you said we need to help get to the island is totally screwed.”
“Well, I’m sure they’ll find some other way”
Hurley realizes this was probably Jacobs plan all along. Less sinister than Smokey but still manipulation. “Jack is here because he has to do something. He can’t be told what that is; he’s got to find it himself. Sometimes you can just hop in the back of someone’s cab and tell them what they’re supposed to do. Other times, you gotta let them look out at the ocean for a while.”
He tells Hurley he had to get them out of the temple because someone’s coming there.
"Someone bad.”
Hurley wants to go back and warn them.
“We can’t warn them Hugo. I’m sorry, it’s too late. “
Miles, Sayid, Dogen, Lennon, Cindy and the kids – is there anyone else we know by name there?

Claire’s camp. Jin knows she’s batshit crazy now, so he’s going along with her delusion to placate her. He tells her he only said Kate was raising Aaron to try and save Justin’s life.
“But you were right; the Others have your baby. Aaron is at the temple. I know because I saw him there. But you will need me to get to him.”
He tells her there’s a secret way in, where no one will see them.
“Thank you Jin. I’m so glad to know you were lying, because if what you said was the truth, if Kate was raising Aaron, I’d kill her.”
UnLocke pops his bald head in.
“Am I interrupting?”
Jin is shocked!
“John?”
“That’s not John. This is my friend.”
Crazy smiles all around.
Poor Jin.

UnLocke is building his army, and now he has a way into the temple and a box of dynamite. This can’t end well.

So, Smokey and Jacob’s “game” theory: Jacob has the list of the candidates up in the lighthouse, which Smokey has copied on the ceiling of the cave, maybe?
Now it’s a race (around the world?) to counter the other’s moves, and for Smokey to scratch out the names before they become the candidate – kinda like tic tac toe.
“Tied again, dude.”

I look all white, but my dad was black

2010-02-17T13:06:00.001-08:00

Poor Locke can’t get a break... his crappy vanagon has a crappy chairlift that sticks a couple feet above the ground. He decides to try and jump it, tumbles out of his chair, and lands face down on the front lawn. Then the sprinklers go off, soaking him. And John motherfucking Locke laughs it off?? Who the fuck is this guy? I’m really surprised to see Helen came out the front door – with a nice rock on her finger to boot! Amazing what you can do with your life when the hand of fate hasn’t been tugging you toward some mysterious island in the south pacific against your free will. Not poor Locke here after all.
The wedding is in October – next year? According to Claire’s ultrasound its late October now. Regardless, Helen wants to ditch all the formalities and have it shotgun style in Vegas, with her parents and John’s dad. (Shotgun thing just a joke or is she pregnant?) Getting along with dad – wow. John is choosing the fabric for the chair backs from a couple swatches that look like the colors of the few shirts he’s worn on the island. Just sayin’. Helen is asking him how the conference went when she finds Jack’s business card in his pants and asks about it.
“I met him at lost luggage”

ok – so was sideways Jack’s dad missing because that he represented the physical manifestation of his ‘baggage’. Sideways Locke is getting along with dad, laughing when life trips him up instead of railing against it – he lost his baggage too.

“Nice guy. He offered me a free consult.”
Helen wants him to take Jack up on the offer.
”What are the odds of you just running into a spinal surgeon?”
quite a few people were asking that about Ben and Jack back in the day.
“Who knows? Maybe it’s destiny.”
“Maybe it is.”

=island=

Smokey POV is awesome, rollercoaster sounds and all – chains rattling more like it? Is the clicking some kind of tether device playing out? He’s searching – for anyone, it looks like. Empty jungle and creek, then to Dharmaville, where he/it hears music coming out of Sawyers place. Iggy and the Stooges! Nice reflection of Smokey in the window. Back thru the jungle until he comes across a rusty machete on the ground. POV stops and we see Locke picking it up. He uses it to cut down a trap from a tree, containing a beat up Richard Alpert.
“All right, Richard. Time to talk?”

L O S T

=flashsideways=

Locke wheels into work at the box factory. Got a picture of himself (standing) and Helen in Hawaii, and another of him with hair and his dad, who is wearing a jaunty beret. Asshole Randy is still his boss, so it’s not all unicorns and rainbows over here.
“Welcome back, colonel.”

Still wargaming here, or hell, was he a colonel that was paralyzed in the first gulf war when being tortured by Sayid? Heh heh

Randy is curious why he blew off Ken Fisher and never picked up his credentials at the conference. John tries to apologize for flying to Australia on the company’s dime and explains it was for a personal matter, but Randy fires him.

=island=

UnLocke apologizes to Richard for punching him in the throat and dragging him off the beach. Alpert asks what he wants.
“What I’ve always wanted. For you to come with me.”
“Why do you look like John Locke?”
“I knew he’d get me access to Jacob. Because John’s a candidate... or at least he was a candidate.”
Alpert doesn’t know what he means by ‘candidate’, and Locke acts surprised that Jacob hadn’t explained anything to him.
“You mean you’ve been doing everything he told you all this time and he never said why? I would never have done that to you, I would never have kept you in the dark. I would have treated you with respect. Come with me and I promise I’ll tell you everything.”
Smooth talker – way out on a hyperbolic limb here, but is this all Satan and God keeping the balance of souls in check on this island?
Alpert refuses.
“Are you sure about that Richard? Because people seldom get a second chance” (except in the flashsideways’).
Locke is suddenly distracted by a barefoot blonde boy in a yellow shirt and brown vest (otherwear tm), with his palms out, arms dripping blood. Alpert doesn’t see him and he is gone when Locke looks back. Is Smokey as Locke now subjected to the islands attempt at ‘fixing’ or ‘judging’ people, ala Kate and the horse, etc? I don’t think he was expecting that. Does it mean he is a candidate as well?

Back at the foot, Ben comes across a weeping Ilana. She wants to know what happened to her friends. “John Locke killed them. He turned into a pillar of black smoke and he killed them right before my eyes.” “Did he kill Jacob as well?”
“Yes”
“Then where’s his body?”
“Locke kicked him into the fire and he burned away.”
Great John Williams style strings here as Ilana gathers some dust from the fire pit and puts it into a bag. “Do you know why he carried Richard out into the jungle?”
“He’s recruiting.”

UnLocke is in Dharmaville, hoping to recruit. Sawyer is still blasting Iggy and the Stooges.

I'm a street walking cheetah
with a hide full of napalm
I'm a runaway son of the nuclear A-bomb
I am a world's forgotten boy
The one who searches and destroys
Honey gotta help me please
Somebody gotta save my soul
Baby detonates for me
Look out honey, 'cause I'm using technology !
Ain't got time to make no apology
Soul radiation in the dead of night
Love in the middle of a fire fight
Honey gotta strike me blind
Somebody gotta save my soul
Baby penetrates my mind
And I'm the world's forgotten boy
The one who's searchin', searchin' to destroy
And honey I'm the world's forgotten boy
The one who's searchin', searchin' to destroy
Forgotten boy, forgotten boy
Forgotten boy said
hey forgotten boy

The ideal UnLocke/Smokey theme song, no?
He finds Sawyer trashed in his trashed bedroom.
“Hello James.”
“I thought you were dead.”
“I am.”
The song ends and does a cool loud reverse thing before breaking to commercial.

Sawyer pours a couple drinks and toasts to Locke's death. UnLocke is surprised at how well James is taking that fact.
“I don’t give a damn if you’re dead. Or time traveling, or the ghost of Christmas past. All I care about is this whiskey. So bottoms up. And get the hell out of my house.”
UnLocke tells him it’s not his house; he just lived there for a while.
“Who are you? Cause you sure as hell ain't John Locke. Cause Locke was sacred, even when he was pretending he wasn’t. But you, you ain’t scared.”
“What if I told you I was the person who could answer the most important question in the world?”
“And what question is that?”
“Why are you on this island?”
“I’m on this island because my plane crashed, because my raft blew up, because the helicopter I was on was riding one too heavy.” Interesting when you put it that way…
“That’s not why you’re here. And if you come with me, I can prove it.”
“Well I guess I better put some pants on.”

=flashsideways=

Don’t tell Locke he can’t park in the regular space next to the empty handicapped one! There’s a big yellow hummer parked too close to Locke’s van to get in. After trying to deploy his ramp into the side of hummer (it jams, of course) he pounds on the offending vehicle and the alarm goes off.
“Dude dude...”
Hugo comes around the corner and keys off the alarm. He’s all apologetic and nice and disarms Locke.
“I haven’t seen you before. You work here?”
”Actually I own the company.”
He introduces himself and they shake. After 5 years of these guys, these simple handshakes in the flashsideswayses are really effective. They mean a lot, if that makes sense. Anyway – Locke tells Hugo he just got fired by his boss, Randy.
“Randy Nations? Yeah, that guy’s a huge douche. Tell you what, John. I own a temp agency too. Call this number and tell them that Hugo said to hook you up with a new job, pronto. And chin up – things are gonna work out.”
Locke gives him a big smile. Goddamn it’s dusty in here.

=island=

Locke’s corpse has a similar smile - and a crab behind his ear.
“He’s getting pretty ripe.”
Ilana and Ben join Lapidus, Sun and rotting Locke. Ilana is ready to lead them to the temple. When Sun questions this, Ilana tells her she knows she wants to find Jin.
“What do you know about my husband?”
“I know that if he’s on the island and he’s alive, then he’ll be at the temple.”
Sun doesn’t want to leave without burying Locke.

UnLocke and Sawyer are trudging thru the jungle. UnLocke is trying to get some answers from James (he now knows the others are at the temple) when Sawyer sees the blonde kid. UnLocke is shocked that he can see him, and takes off after the kid.

So Jacob did his own ‘infecting’ of them all off-island with his touch. Now Smokey is in a body that has been touched/infected by Jacob, and he’s dealing with this kid from his past on the island. A young Jacob?

He trips over a root and is thrown at the kid’s feet.
“You know the rules. We can’t kill him.”
Of course he knows the rules! He got John Locke to kill himself. But was breaking the rules in the first place what got him trapped here?
“Don’t tell me what I can’t do.”
The kid walks away
“DONT TELL ME WHAT I CAN’T DO!!!”
Did Smokey not know that the baggage comes with the body? It really seems like that is what is happening here. A little transference... is Smokey now the substitute for Locke's candidacy?

Richard comes across Sawyer waiting alone in the jungle for UnLocke’s return. He wants to take Sawyer to the temple, but Sawyer tells him he’s already been there and he’d rather stick with Locke.
“That man is not John Locke”
”I know”
“Then why are you with him?”
”Because he’s got answers, says he knows why I’m on this island.”
Alpert tells him he wants to kill him.
“He doesn’t just want you dead, he wants everyone dead. Everyone you care about, all of them. And he won’t stop...” he runs away as Locke approaches.

So is this the twist here – all the Jacob touched people on the island need to die, so that their sideways lives will be the real ones. Will Sawyer be the next to go on the island, with a happy sideways life where he and Juliet are buying each other coffee?

Locke asks who he was talking to.
”Nobody. You ever catch up with the kid?”
“What kid?”
“Riiight. Let’s get on with it, shall we?”
”Yes James, let’s get on with it.”

=flashsideways=

...where Locke is dealing with a crazy job interview at the temp agency (lots of “dream” job posters), and asks to see the supervisor. It’s Rose! She agrees to dispense with the bullshit and asks what kind of job John is looking for. He wants to be a coordinator on a construction site. Rose is straightforward about the limitations he has, and asks him to be more realistic.
“And what do you know about realistic?”
She tells him she has terminal cancer.
“When the doctors first told me I had a hard time accepting it. But eventually I got past the denial part and I got back to living whatever life I’ve got left. So, how about we find you a job you can do.”
No more fool’s errands.

=island= (just noticed smokey noises bring us back to the island instead of the old 'whoosh')

Sawyer is asking UnLocke if he reads books. Tells him his favorite Steinbeck is Of Mice and Men (East of Eden guy myself). Steinbeck was a little after UnLocke's time. Sawyer gives the cliffs notes to him.
“'Bout these two guys, George and Lenny. Lenny's kinda slow, causing George problems, so George walks him out in the woods, tells him to look out yonder and picture the pretty little house they’re gonna live in one day. Then he shoots Lenny in the back of the head.”
“Doesn’t sound like a happy ending.”
“It ain't.” Sawyer pulls a gun on UnLocke and asks what would happen if he put a bullet in his head.
UnLocke tells him to give it a shot. Sawyer is puzzled.
“What are you?”
“What I am is trapped. And I’ve been trapped for so long that I don’t even remember what it feels like to be free. Maybe you can understand that. But before I was trapped I was a man, James, just like you. I know what it’s like to feel joy, to feel pain, anger, fear, to experience betrayal. I know what it’s like to lose someone you love. If you want to shoot me, shoot me. But you’re so close James. It would be such a shame to turn back now.”
He can be very convincing.

Sun and the others have carried Locke’s body to the graveyard. Ilana tells them she had to take the corpse to the foot to show the Others; they needed to see the face of what they’re up against. Ben wants to know what would stop him from changing his face.
“He can’t. Not anymore. He’s stuck this way.” Wow. Huge.
Win one for the reaper, John. They put him in the grave and Ben says a few words.
“John Locke was a... believer, he was a man of faith, he was a much better man than I will ever be, and I’m very sorry I murdered him.”
Lapidus picks up the shovel and starts burying the late John Locke.
“This is the weirdest damn funeral I’ve ever been to.”

=flashsideways=

After his usual morning routine, Locke decides to call Jacks office. He hangs up after the secretary answers, but Helen (wearing a peace and karma, joy and tranquility t shirt) wants to know who he was calling. He tells her and she asks when he’s going to see him. John says he isn’t going to see him and breaks the news about his firing, then the doorbell rings. It’s his baggage.
He tells Helen he got fired for lying to his boss about going to the conference in Sydney and asks her to open the luggage before she can ask why he lied to her, too. It’s his knives.
“What are these for?”
“My walkabout. An adventure in the outback. Man against nature. But they wouldn’t let me go. And I sat there yelling at them; shouting at them that they couldn’t tell me what I can’t do. But they were right. I’m sick of imagining what my life could be out of this chair, Helen. What it would be like to walk down the aisle with you. Cause it’s not gonna happen. So if you need me to see more doctors, have more consults, if you need me to get out of this chair I don’t blame you. But I don’t want you to spend your life waiting for a miracle, Helen, because there’s no such thing.” - was Abbadon still the one that put the walkabout idea in his head?
“There are miracles, John. And the only thing I was ever waiting for was you.”
She tears up Jack’s business card and they kiss.

=island=

UnLocke and Sawyer are at a steep cliff edge, and UnLocke tells Sawyer they need to descend. They climb down rickety ladders and UnLocke saves Sawyers life after a ladder breaks free of the cliff. They enter a cave when they reach the bottom and I get the chills. Scales evened out with a white and black rock. Maybe the skeletons weren’t Rose and Bernard after all... There’s a compass and a lute on the table. UnLocke picks up the white rock and tosses it into the ocean. Sawyer asks what that was about.
“Inside joke.”
UnLocke lights a torch and leads him further into the cave. The ceiling here is filled with hundreds of names and numbers in chalk, most scratched out. THE numbers are the ones remaining, with our castaways names!
“That’s why you’re here. That, James, is why you’re all here."

=flashsideways=

Locke is teaching a gym class and later, a health class. He goes to the teachers’ lounge (“teachers touch lives forever” plaque – can kinda be read two ways… did Alpert get the teachers touch?), where Benjamin fucking Linus is being a little tyrant about the coffee pot etiquette.
“All right, I know I sound like a broken record but how many times do we have to go over this? If you have the last cup of coffee, you remove the filter and throw it away. Fear not, I will make a fresh pot.”
Locke just wants some Earl Grey.
“Tea? Now there’s a gentleman’s drink. I don’t believe we’ve met, Ben Linus, European history.” (not vice principal?)
“John Locke, substitute.”
They shake and Ben welcomes him. A banner on the wall behind him reads “live in the present”. Are they gonna become friends? Will we see either of them ‘off island’ again, or are their stories done? Happily ever after?

=island=

Sawyer asks who wrote it all. Locke tells him it was Jacob, who died yesterday.
“You don’t seem too upset about it.”
“I’m not.”
Sawyer reads the names not crossed out
23 – Shephard
we see the Jacob touches as they go through the names and numbers.
8 – Reyes
“What's the 8?”
Locke shrugs “Jacob had a thing for numbers."

ties to Valenzetti Equation in a real way. "The numbers, 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42, are explained in the Sri Lanka Video, as the numerical values to the core environmental and human factors of the Valenzetti Equation." The numbers are the names and the names are the numbers.

16 –Jarrah
42 – Kwon
UnLocke doesn’t know if it means Sun or Jin. Ilana seemed to think it was Jin... I think.
4 – Locke
“I think we both know him”
Last but not least is 15 – Ford
“That would be you.”
“Why would he write my name on this wall? I never even met the guy.”
“Oh no, I’m sure you did meet Jacob. At some point in your life James, probably when you were young, when you were miserable and vulnerable he came to you, he manipulated you, pulled your strings like you were a puppet and as a result choices that you thought you made were never really choices at all, he was pushing you James, pushing you to the island.”
“Why the hell would he do that?”
“Because you’re a candidate”
Sawyer wants to know what for.
“He thought he was the protector of this place. And you, James, have been nominated to take over that job. You’ve got three choices...you can do nothing and see how this all plays out, and possibly your name will get crossed out.”
He crosses out Locke’s name. Did Austen get crossed out last week? Were all the people on 815 ‘candidates’? Are all the numbers and names on the wall people that Jacob had ‘touched’?
“Second option, you can accept the job, become the new Jacob and protect the island.”
“Protect it from what?”
“From nothing, James. That’s the joke, there’s nothing to protect it from - it’s just a damn island and it will be perfectly fine without Jacob, or you, or any of the other people whose lives he wasted.”
“The third choice James is that we just go. We just get the hell off this island and we never look back.”
“And how do we do that?”
“Together. So what do you say James? Are you ready to go home?”
“Hell yes.”

Once they get there, I’m sure if Sawyer wants a little whisky they can just sell a few eggs or something, or some milk. Is the con man being conned? I’m afraid he’s not long for ‘this’ life.

we got your disease

2010-02-10T15:05:00.000-08:00

Lennon, the scrawny Other dude, is rushing through the temple tunnels as Dogen works at his desk in what looks like the Others’ version of the hatch. He’s typing something on an old typewriter.
4 8 15 16 23 42? …kidding.
There are a lot of papers, books, and types of writing utensils scattered throughout the room. Is this guy a historian? Documenting everything? I’m sure there’s a version of this character in most mythologies, but I’m most familiar with the Dragonlance one, Astinus. Sad, I know. Lennon shows up.
“He’s alive.”

At the spring, the newly risen Sayid gets a bear hug from Hurley. Sayid asks Jack what happened.
“You died.”
Sawyer takes Kate aside and tells her he’s planning on running.

=flashsideways=

Back to Kate stealing the cab at LAX in 2004. Claire’s in the backseat and you can’t tell if she’s pregnant or not. The puppetmaster cabbie slams on his breaks to avoid running over Arzt, who is bent over in the crosswalk picking up his spilled luggage. Does this dude drop everything or what? Good thing there’s no nitro in his suitcases. He yells at the cabbie Ratso Rizzo (Marty McFly Jr.?) style, “I’m walking here!” …or is it Sawyer style – this same scene happened after he met Christian in the Sydney bar, but with Ana Lucia at the wheel. Skipping over the multiverse like a stone.
Kate glances over and sees Jack on his cell phone. He looks up at her and they sort of do a double take. Déjà vu.

I didn’t discuss this in the last post, but if the bomb went off in ’77 and the island has been underwater since then, then yeah sure, Faraday was right and the plane didn’t crash because Desmond didn’t not push the button, but did he think far enough back about why Desmond didn’t push the button? When Jack did his double take with Desmond on 815, what I thought at first was hey, the stadium, they met there. But why would Des have been there if there was no ridiculous race around the world plot device set in motion by Widmore to get him to the island? So are these double takes glitches in the matrix? Or was this look because the last time Jack saw her on 815 she was in handcuffs?

Claire tries to escape; Kate pulls her back in the cab and tells the driver to step on it. He runs over Arzt’s bag.
“Hey! I got your license plate!”
Little dig at fans that read something into everything there? Um… it was 4DO(Q?)S554. Sad, I know. The cabbie jumps out at a red light, and Kate steals Claire’s purse at gunpoint before she forces her out of the cab. A very pregnant Claire wants her suitcase, but Kate takes off. Welcome to the jungle, baby, you’re gonna die!

=island=

Hurley tells Sayid the Others caught them… again, but they’re protecting them this time.
The gunshot wound is almost completely healed. Sayid is thanking Jack for saving his life when they are interrupted by Lennon and Dogen. They want to ask Sayid some questions and agree to answer any questions Jack has once they’ve finished. This is not good enough for Jack who ends up getting beat down along with Miles while Hurley cowers. A gun goes off – it’s Sawyer. Lennon tells him they won’t hurt his friend.
“He ain’t my friend. You do what you want with him and anybody else. But me, I’m walking outta here.”
Season one Sawyer is back. Dogan speaks English in front of everyone.
“Please, you have to stay.”
No he doesn’t. He gives Kate a stern, “Don’t come after me.”
Again.

L O S T

The Others want Sawyer back. Kate tells them she’ll track him, bring him back and make him stay. “I can be very convincing when I want to be.”
Jin, who still needs to find Sun, offers to go along.

=flashsideways=

That guy who’s been a guest star in every TV show (best gig was on ER) snags his LOST credit just in time. He’s a mechanic. Kate pulls into his garage, gets out of the cab, and there’s a great Tarantino-like scene I loved.
Kate, pointing the gun at him. “Where’s your tire hammer?!?”
Guy stops working, lifts up his sunglasses and looks down at her cuffs. “You got a problem.”
Gun. “So do you.” Where’s your tire hammer?”
Calm. “The hammer’ll just cut off your wrist. Your problem is you need a punch press and you’re not gonna be able to use one of those and keep that gun pointed at me.”
“You volunteering?”
“I got a steady hand but I kinda feel like we got off on the wrong foot.”
“I’ll give you two hundred dollars.”
He gets the cuffs off and asks why she had them on. She tells him she’s a murderer and asks to use his restroom. She opens up Claire’s bag to find baby stuff, including the stuffed whale Aaron had when he saw Jack and Kate fighting.

=island=

Jack and Kate share a tender moment before she leaves to get Sawyer with Jin and a couple Others. In his sanctum, Dogen has a whimpering Sayid strapped down to a table. He blows ash over Sayid’s bare chest – Smokey exorcism? – and attaches wires to his skin. Shades of Rosseau torturing Sayid. Dogan hand cranks a generator and turns it on, and up. Watches Sayid write in pain and flicks it off. Sayid asks why he is doing this, and tells him he has no secrets. Dogan uses a red-hot iron to brand Sayid on the ribs. The scarlet Smokey letter? Lennon releases Sayid.
“Sorry we had to put you through that. It was a test. We had to be sure.”
He tells him its okay, he passed. After Sayid is led out, Lennon asks Dogan if he just lied to him.
“Yes.”

=flashsideways=

Kate finds Claire (hey, it’s fate…) and she very convincingly convinces her to let her drive her to Langdon Ave in Brentwood, where the adoptive parents live.

=island=

Our old friend Aldo is one of the others with Kate and Jin, and he tells her what they are protecting her from.
“You been on this island a while, right? Ever see a big pillar of black smoke, makes a tickey-tickey sound, looks pissed off? From that.”
Aldo tells Justin, the other Other, to shut up as he’s about to tell Jin what happed to flight 316. They continue through the jungle, and Justin stops Kate just before she springs a tripwire. Jin says it looks like one of Rousseau’s traps.
“The French woman? No, she’s been dead for years; this couldn’t be one of…”
“Justin, SHUT UP.”
Aldo reminds Kate that he’s the one she knocked out to escape from the Hydra just before she does it again. She trips the trap to topple Justin (why couldn’t they have named him Tim?) and she and Jin are free. Not that Jin asked for this.

Back at the spring, Hurley is getting some inspiration for his script. Someone needs to remix this scene on YouTube and put in the plaintive wookie cry when the limp Sayid gets tossed into Hugo’s arms. He tells Jack they tortured him, but “…they didn’t ask me any questions.” They didn’t ask Han any, either. Jack heads to Dogen’s sanctum. Do is in there reading from a cookbook and mortaring and pestleing away, while Lennon is reading a plain white book. Maybe it says the beatles somewhere on it. He tells Jack Sayid is sick with something that has no literal translation.
An “infection.”

Like Montand and the French team. Smokey takes over the dead people, you were dead, now you’re infected. RIP Sayid. If Sayid wasn’t dead before he was in the temple, then how did Smokey get in to possess him? The water? Or did Sayid die next to the van? Could Smokey have been Jacob talking to Hurley, even though there was no body? He was already infected but wanted to get this body healed so got it to the temple, and now he’s infiltrated it? He was in before they spread the ash. What is the difference between a corpse that is reanimated with the ‘infection’ and the corpses that Smokey replicates? Big question there.

Dogen hands Jack a green pill, telling him only someone Sayid trusts can give it to him. Jack wants to know what’s in it, and Dogen deflects to play Jack like a fiddle. He asks how Sayid died.
“He was helping me.”
“So it was your fault. And there have been others who were hurt or died helping you?”
“Yes.”
He tells Jack this pill is his chance to redeem himself.
“It’s medicine. And your friend needs it.”
If Jack doesn’t give it to him the infection will spread.

Miles is quizzing Sayid about the afterlife at the spring.
“So nothing, there wasn’t anything? No white light? Angels singing? No dead relatives?”
But leave it to Hurley to ask the best question of the season so far:
“You’re not a zombie, are you?”
“No, I am not a zombie.”
That’s right; you’re infected, 28 Days Later style. Not a real zombie. (At least not til next season.)
Jack comes back and sends Miles and Hurley away. He tells Sayid about the medicine and confesses that he didn’t save his life.
“I didn’t fix you, they did.”
“I don’t care who fixed me, I only care about who I trust. So if you want me to take that pill Jack, I’ll do it.”
In the jungle Jin and Kate go their separate ways with no love lost between them. Remember, Jin has been Sawyer and Juliet’s friend for the past three years. He only knew Kate for a few months before she left the island.

=flashsideways=

The house in Brentwood looks like a fancy Dharmaville cabin. The prospective mom is a mess; turns out her husband left her and her life is falling apart. Ok, JJ Abrams has got to have some pull with Jennifer Garner. Why not just call her up? “Jen, can you do me a solid? The role is a piece of cake; you’ve already done it once.” Juno shit aside, Claire goes into labor. Pretty sure that the first time we saw this story, she wasn’t in touch with the adopters at all, it was set up though the psychic. This time she’s been in contact before leaving Sydney.

=island=

Speaking of Dharmaville, Kate has tracked Sawyer down to his old place. Old as in he lived there thirty years ago yesterday. She watches him as he tears up and tears up some floorboards to pull out a shoebox. Kind of like a time capsule, no? No airplane or baseball in this one, though. He catches Kate watching.
“The hell are you doing here?”
“I was worried about you.”
He storms out past her.

Ok, during this commercial break there was a Hawaiian Air spot that looked just like LOST and had me stopping the TiVo skip early. Well played, advertising agency, well played.

=flashsideways=

Kate brings Claire to the hospital in the cab and goes in with her. The nurse is the same woman that was Aaron’s nanny in the Oceanic 6 episodes. The doctor is Ethan Goodspeed! Ethan, who was evacuated from the island as a baby along with his mom, and never returned, you know, due to it getting all blown up and shit. I wonder if they ended up in LA because his mom got a job at CTU? He tells Claire that Mother Nature has gotten a little ahead of herself. She can have the baby now, if she wants to.
To stop the delivery, it “would require a number of drugs…They’re perfectly safe, I just don’t want to have to stick you with needles if I don’t have to. So it’s up to you.”
Said by the guy that was sneaking and sticking needles in her every night on the island. Awesome.
Claire decides she’s not ready yet, and the monitors start freaking out. So does Claire. She blurts out, “Is Aaron okay?!?”, and it looks like Kate recognizes both the name AND Ethan for a split-second – glitch in the matrix. The baby is fine, and Claire and Kate’s hands have been clasped together through the ordeal. Awww… tugs at the heartstrings like Locke and Jack’s handshake last episode.

=island=

Broken Sawyer is sitting on the dock of the sub. Kate sits next to him and tells him she came back to the island to find Claire, and she wants his help.
“I’m sorry, I never should have followed you.”
“Which time?” Sawyer growls.
He tells Kate that he’s responsible for Juliet’s death. He convinced her (he’s very good at it) on this very dock to stick around for two weeks back in 1974, and they stayed for three years.
“I made her stay on this island ‘cause I didn’t want to be alone. You understand that, right? But I think some of us were meant to be alone.”
It was a ring stashed in the shoebox; he was going to propose. He tosses it into the sea, ala Desmond, and leaves Kate crying on the deck. She is NOT an attractive crier, by the way.

Jack enters Dogen’s room and finds him spinning the baseball – is he practicing the gyroball? Jack asks what it is.
“It’s a baseball.”

Just like Locke, Alpert and the compass. “It’s a compass.” “What does it do?” “It points north, John.”

He explains to Jack that he pretends not to understand English because it keeps him separate from the people he’s in charge of. It makes it easier when they don’t like the decisions he makes for them. He’s the decider. Shit, Dubya shoulda spoken Japanese. Jack asks if he was born here, and Dogen tells him he was brought here like everyone else.
“What do you mean, brought here?”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
Jack refuses to give Sayid the pill until he knows what’s in it.
“You just have to trust me.”
“I don’t trust myself, how can I trust you?”
Jack swallows the pill and Dogan jumps into fucking hyper-Heimlich kung-fu mode and forces jack to eject the pill.
“Now are you gonna tell me what’s in it?”
“Poison.”

=flashsideways=

Claire is looking at her ultrasound - dated October 22, 2004 at 9:29:42 am, one month after the crash of Flight 815 in the first time line, and one day before the Red Sox start their World Series run. I hope Jack didn’t fuck that up. But maybe Bush doesn’t get reelected (something else Ben refers to when showing Jack the end of game 4)? I hope he DID fuck that up. Anyway, this is huge, it moves around everything we think we knew. Detective Rasmussen and her partner come in looking for “Joan Hart”. Claire tells them she was just the cab driver and they believe her. The teenage witch comes out from a back room to thank Claire once the cops leave. Claire asks what Kate did. Would Claire believe her if she said she was innocent? Yeah, she would. After all, Kate can very convincing when she wants to be. But hey, it could be the truth in this universe, right? She told the other guy she was a murderer sure, but maybe just to keep him wary. Claire offers Kate her credit card. Kate, about to leave, stops for a second.
“Aaron’s a great name.”
“I don’t know why I said it. It’s like, I dunno, I knew it or something.”
Kate tells Claire she should keep the baby, they wish each other luck and share a long lingering look. Déjà vu… just a glitch in the matrix.

=island=

Kate fills a canteen before heading out to find Claire, leaving mopey Sawyer alone at his house in Dharmaville.
Back at the temple, a flabbergasted Lennon asks Dogen, “He swallowed it?”
Dogen hands Jack a cup of tea to wash away the taste of deathly poison, and drinks his own cup first. Jack wants to know why they are trying to kill Sayid. They believe he is “claimed”.
“There is a darkness growing in him. Once it reaches his heart, everything your friend once was, will be gone.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because it happened to your sister.”

Back in the jungle the Others have caught up with Jin. Aldo wants to kill him, but Justin stops him, saying he’s “one of them.” (the 1977-2007 group - 7707ers?). Jin makes a break for it but doesn’t get far before stepping on a bear trap. Fucking ow. Aldo is about to kill Jin when he is shot and killed instead. Another shot rings out and Justin goes down. Jin looks up to see Claire with a rifle, looking like a young blonde Rousseau. His poison angel.

L O S T

dug these quotes:

“’Course he’s fine. He’s an Iraqi torturer, he shoots kids. He definitely deserves another go around.”

“As you can see, Hugo here has assumed the leadership position so… that’s pretty great.”

“Yeah, see private talks kinda freak me out cause they usually lead to me having to do something I don’t quite understand.”
“Right there with ya.”

if you choose not to decide - you still have made a choice

2009-05-18T20:39:00.000-07:00

Surrounded by ancient-looking clay pottery and a huge fire pit, a guy in homemade clothes and sandals is working a loom – creating the strands of fate? It’s an Egyptian looking tapestry with the Eye of Horus in the center, and what looks like the wings from the Grateful Dead's AOXOMOXOA album cover on top – Watchmen reference? Or just pretty framework? There’s Greek (I think) lettering across the top, but the last word looks like something in the Roman alphabet – menoinaz.
Who’s Meno and what’s he doing in Arizona?
The dude catches a fish outside for breakfast and cooks it, then leans back, watching a ship (let’s assume The Black Rock?) on the horizon. A scruffier looking guy in more homemade clothes walks up.
“I take it you’re here ‘cause of the ship?’
Scruffy tells the weaver guy that he knows he has guided the ship here, to ‘prove him wrong.’
“You are wrong.”
“Am I? They come, fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same.”
“It only ends once. Anything that happpens before that is just progress.”
“Do you have any idea how badly I want to kill you?”
He does.
“One of these days, sooner or later, I’m going to find a loophole, my friend.”
“When you do I’ll be right here.”
“Always nice talking to you, Jacob.”

Nice pan out to find that they were talking in the shadow of the statue. It’s got a crocodile head, and is holding ankhs in each hand. Sobek?
(Scroll down a few comments here to FairVerona’s second post. I didn't really look any deeper into this - but check out her take, it's really cool.)

Flashback - A cornfield and some crows... looks like a shot from The Stand miniseries – or children of the corn. He who will protect us all between the rows. Lil’ Kate and her buddy that eventually gets killed because of her are in the Ames Central General Store parking lot, and he’s playing with ‘the plane’. Part of an Iowa license plate we can see is 023. They go into the store and the boy stands lookout while Kate’s shoplifting a NKOTB lunchbox, the same one she gets the toy plane from years later. Patsy Cline’s Three Cigarettes (in an Ashtray) is playing in the background, of course. They’re busted as she tries to leave with it. Always getting caught, that Kate. Great casting on the kid too. The manager is gonna call her mom and the cops, but then Jacob shows up and pays for it. Kate thanks him.
“You’re welcome. You’re not gonna steal anymore, are you?”
He boops her on the nose.
“Be good, Katie.”

The sub is on its way in 1977. Kate tells the other two prisoners what’s going on back on the island. She wants to get back and stop Jack. Sawyer’s having none of it.
“You just don’t get it Kate. We were happy in Dharmaville until you all showed up...Jack wants to blow up the island, good for Jack.”

Back under the island of the Others, Sayid uses Faraday’s notes to figure out how to dismantle an atomic bomb and gets to work. The plutonium core will be easier to carry around than that big-ass Jughead. Richard is wary of the radiation around a pregnant Ellie! Daniel! Who’s the dad? I’m still thinking Widmore, gross as it may be. They’re the upper crusty Other parallels to the Carlyle’s, Boone and Shannon – who also slept together.

At the swan, Radzinsky is acting psycho insane as usual. He’s flipping out because Pierre stopped the drilling as they got close to the pocket. Chang argues that they have no idea what will happen when they tap into the energy.
“If Edison was only worried about the consequences, we’d all be sitting in the dark. I came to this island to change the world Pierre, and that’s exactly what I intend to do.”
Well, mission accomplished, I’d say.

Thirty years later, Locke is leading the flock of Others to Jacob. Richard is still perplexed at the resurrection of John Locke.
“You’ve been on this island much longer than I have, Richard. If anyone should have an explanation I’d think it would be you.”
“I have been here a long time John, and I’ve seen things on this island that I could barely describe but, I have never seen someone come back to life.”
“And I’ve never seen anyone who doesn’t age, doesn’t mean it can’t happen.”
“I’m this way because of Jacob.”
So did Richard take over for the scruffy guy at the beginning looking to kill Jacob? Or was he already there even at that time? I’m assuming he came on the Black Rock, just because he was making the model. If he did, and he’s been ageless since, maybe it’s because Jacob needed someone to take scruff’s place and cast Alpert in the part.

The Ajira castaways are landing their boat on the main island, laden with a huge crate and an unconscious Frank Lapidus. Bram wants to know why they brought him, when he didn’t even know the answer to the question. Ilana tells him that doesn’t mean he isn’t a candidate. Lapidus is awake and hears all this, and asks what it is he’s a candidate for - and doesn’t get an answer. My guess, replacing Alpert. Or Jacob. More on that later. They start to move out and Frank asks what’s in the crate. Bram tells Ilana it’s her call, so she shows him the contents.
“Terrific.”

Flashback, and now we’re at Sawyers parents funeral. I’m getting my bad robot shows confused, ‘cause I see one of the pallbearers is bald and I think I spotted the Observer! D’oh. Wrong show. James is writing “the letter” and his pen is running out of ink, when our Observer that seems to do more than just observe shows up. Jacob’s got a fresh one for him, and their fingers touch briefly as he hands it over.
“I’m very sorry about your mother and father, James.”
Jacob leaves. James’ Uncle (or something – definitely sounds like Sawyer) catches him writing the letter – he says he understands how he feels, but that he has to move on.
“They’re gone. And there ain’t nothing you can do to change that. What’s done is done.”
James promises he won’t finish the letter. The first in a long line of cons, maybe.

Back on the sub in ‘77 – Kate and Sawyer are still arguing about stopping or not stopping Jacks plan when Juliet suddenly takes out the guy with the keys and frees them. The name of the sub is the Galaga. Interesting… the game came out in ’81. They hold the the sub captain at gunpoint, and order him to surface and let them go, then continue away from the island. He wants to know what to say if Horace calls – Sawyer pulls a Han Solo and blasts the radio.
“You ain’t home”

On the island, Sayid’s dismantled the bomb, and it’s now officially a suitcase nuke. Well, backpack nuke. Alpert asks Jack about Locke – he tells him John came 20 years ago and told him he’d be their leader, Since then Alpert’s been off the island a few times to observe him and hasn’t seen anything special. Does Jack know him?
“Yeah, I do, and if I were you, I wouldn’t give up on him.”

The march toward Jacob continues in 2007 – Locke wants to know why Ben didn’t tell Alpert he was going to kill Jacob. Ben explains how he’s been doing things differently since, “…my dead daughter threatened to destroy me if I didn’t do everything you said”
This surprises Locke – and he quickly uses it to his advantage.
“You’re willing to do whatever I say, no matter what it is?”
I don’t even know how to explain the emotion Ben shows when he replies ‘yes’ under his breath. Is great acting an emotion? Locke’s happy that he now won’t have to convince him.
“Convince me of what?”
“I’m not going to kill Jacob, Ben…” (right here Locke goes out of focus briefly – how could that be an accident? But what could it even mean? Either someone behind the scenes messed up pretty bad, or the writers are playing with the fourth wall Like King does in the Dark Tower?)
“You are.”

Flashback (well, forward for Sayid time-wise, just not life-wise) - Sayid and Nadia are walking down La Brea in Los Angeles – it’s their anniversary. They get to a crosswalk and Jacob stops Sayid to ask for directions just as they’re about to cross, Nadia keeps walking and gets creamed, Meet Joe Black-style. Jacob puts his hand on Sayid’s shoulder before he runs to her side. Nadia’s dying wish is to be taken home.

In the tunnels back in 1977, the bomb is packed up and ready to go. Alpert leads the group through the catacombs, and then sledgehammers thru a wall into Horace’s Dharmaville basement. Ellie makes to go first, but Alpert knocks her out. He tells Jack he’s protecting his leader; “…she ordered me to help you, we helped you, now you’re on your own.”
Jack and Sayid go up into the village and try to hide in plain sight as the Dharma security alert is happening. It works for a few seconds, until Uncle Rico sees Sayid.
“You’re the guy that shot my kid!!”
He shoots Sayid in the gut, and Jack starts blasting away at everyone - he gets a few too. Hurley, Jin and Miles pull up in a van and rescue them in the nick of time.

Out on the ocean, Juliet wistfully watches the submarine submerge – her last chance at a real life with James slowly sinking away. The three of them land on the beach and are greeted by Vincent. Sawyer is thrilled. “HEY! How you doing boy? Haven’t seen you since the flaming arrows three years ago.”
Ha ha ha, quote of the episode so far. Rose and Bernard emerge from the nearby jungle. Sawyer wants to know why they didn’t come and join them in Dharma.
“We’re retired,” says Rose.
Bernard explains a little more, “People try their whole lives to get themselves a nice quiet place near the ocean where they can live in peace, and we did. It’s what we made for ourselves.”
Kate explains about Jack and the bomb, but they just don’t care. They’re done with the island drama.
“So we die, as long as we’re together, that’s all that matters in the end.”
Juliet watches Sawyer looking longingly at Kate during this, and knows for sure it’s over for them. They set out for the barracks, and as she’s leaving, Bernard asks Juliet if she’s sure she doesn’t want any tea? “Maybe another time.” – as she holds her stomach and walks away – is she acting out the figurative punch to the gut she just received from Sawyer - or is she pregnant? Anyway, what a great conclusion to the Rose and Bernard storyline. Who didn’t want them to end up happy? And this is almost 30 years before 815 crashes – plenty of time to live out the rest of their lives and end up as a pair of skeletons near a natural water source, no?

Forward to 2007, and the Ajira hike. Lapidus wants to know what they’re gonna do with what’s in the box. They’re gonna show it to someone to let them know what they’re up against, something a whole lot scarier than what’s in the box. Bram tells him, “as long as you’re with us, you’re fine.”
“That’d be a lot more reassuring if I knew who you were, friend.”
“We’re the good guys.”
“In my experience the people who go out of their way to tell you they’re the good guys are the bad guys.”
Ilana stops the group – they’ve arrived at Jacob’s cabin. They see that the ash circle has been broken and look pretty worried. Ilana goes to check out the cabin and we...
Flashback – to Ilana, in a dismal hospital with her face covered in bandages – the people are speaking some Russian sounding language. She has a visitor, its Jacob, but he’s wearing gloves. He’s sorry he didn’t make it sooner, and she’s happy to see him. She knows him for sure. He needs her help.
“Will you help me, Ilana?”
“Yes”
He doesn’t touch her.
Back to the cabin in 2007. Left to the elements, it’s been pretty much torn up, but the painting of the dog is still there. A piece of cloth stuck to the wall (with the knife Jacob was using to clean his fish at the start of the show, back in the 1800’s or so) also remains. She takes a look at it and goes outside. She tells them ‘he’s’ not there, and hasn’t been in a long time, but that someone else has been using it. They burn the cabin to the ground while Lapidus worries about the whole jungle going up in flames.

Flashback - A gloveless Jacob is sitting on a bench reading Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O’Connor. The cover is a drawing of a dove being pierced by an arrow. Locke falls from the building behind him. He looks pretty damn dead until Jacob puts his hand on John’s shoulder... Locke gasps and opens his eyes.
“Don’t worry, everything’s going to be all right. I’m sorry this happened to you.”
Ok there’s some kind of bait and switch happening here for sure – did Locke actually die way back then? Been a vessel since? Even on the plane and hammering on the Hatch? Couldn’t be… I don’t think so. Just a life meant to end extended.

The Other marchers have arrived at the losties old beachside camp. Home sweet home. Locke sits down to talk to Ben – in front of the door to the hatch where they first met. In a rare moment of honesty, Ben reveals that he is a Pisces. Locke wants to know what happened when Ben took him to Jacobs cabin.
“I was pretending, John”
But he was surprised when everything started flying around. Locke still wants to know why he would go thru the trouble to make something like that up.
“I was embarrassed. I didn’t want you to know that I had never seen Jacob. So yes, I lied, that’s what I do.”
Locke gets up to walk away, but a frustrated Ben stops him
“Why do you want me to kill Jacob, John?” (smith jingleheimer?)
“Because despite your loyal service to this island, you got cancer, you had to watch your own daughter gunned down right in front of you. You reward for those sacrifices? You were banished. And you did all this in the name of a man you’ve never even met. So the question is, Ben, why the hell wouldn’t you want to kill Jacob?”
Just as manipulative as Ben at his best. Nice.
Sun finds Aaron’s old crib... that Locke built – and Charlie’s driveshaft ring is still in it. Ugh... sad. Really sad.

Flashback – Sun and Jin’s vows during their wedding ceremony. Later, in the receiving line, Jacob is there ungloved, and he touches both of them
“I’d like to offer you my blessing. Your love is a very special thing. Never take it for granted.”
Neither of them know who that white man was, but apparently his Korean is excellent.

Back in the van in 1977 – someone should be singing “you’re gonna be okaaay, you’re gonna be okaaay!” to Sayid. He ain’t looking good. They’re five minutes out from the swan when they’re stopped by Sawyer, Kate and Juliet. Sawyer wants five minutes alone with Jack. If Jack knew the Pantera song, he might’ve stayed with the van.

Flashback – Jack operating... we see where he got the whole count to five strategy he used with Kate way back in the first episode. It’s a technique from his dad – who was really trying to help, but of course Jack takes it the wrong way and thinks he was showing him up, that he doesn’t believe in him.
“Are you sure I’m the one who doesn’t believe in you, Jack?’
Jack was trying to get an Apollo bar (next to the Lindos and the Humdingers) out of the vending machine, but it sticks. A few minutes later a gloveless Jacob has gotten Jack’s Apollo bar out of the machine along with one of his own – he touches Jacks hand when he hands it to him. Jack tells him, “The machine got stuck.”
“I guess it just needed a little push.”
Ok… so the touching is done by the hands of fate, trying to guide destinies, while free will wears gloves so as not to give a hand?

’77 again. Sawyer tells Jack about his parents, and that it happened a year ago, in 1976. He could have gotten on the sub anytime and stopped his Dad. He didn’t because what’s done is done. The less said about the Jack/Sawyer melee the better – unfortunately it’s revealed that Jack is doing it all to try and get Kate back in some cosmic way. Ugh. It was better when it was just crazed faith, like Locke. They beat the shit out of each other, and, moving on, Juliet breaks it up and tells Sawyer that it all has to happen, Jack has to do it.

Flashback to lil’ Juliet and Rachael – their parents are splitting up. Mysteries of the Ancient Americas coffee table book under a conch shell on the coffee table. Nice touch. Speaking of touches – no Jacob. Juliet isn’t important in the grand scheme of things, or at least Jacob/anti-Jacob doesn’t think so. It’s all just a setup for Juliet’s current mindset, realizing that even if Sawyer loves her and she loves him, it’s nothing compared to what Kate and he have, so it seems obvious to her that they’re just not supposed to be together.

On the island in ’77, Sawyer is confused. “One minute you’re leading the great sub escape and now you’re onboard with blowing up the damn island?”
It’s because she saw who he looked at during Rose and Bernard’s tender moment. He tells her he doesn’t care WHO he looked at, he’s with her.
“And you would stay with me forever, if I let you, and that is why I will always love you.”
She gives him the whole speech we just saw her getting from her parents about loving each other but not being meant to be together. Fate or free will?
“If Jack can make it so that none of you even come here, then he should...if I never meet you, then I never have to lose you.”
Family. It fucks you up.

Things are going nuts at the swan, and Phil is calling Radzinsky to let him know that Sayid and the other new recruits are on the loose with a bomb. Jack is watching all this from a distance and Kate shows up. She worries over his busted up face and asks if he remembers when she sewed him up, when they first got there.
“Yeah, it seems like a million years ago.”
“Or 30 years from now.” Heh heh
He wants to know why she told him never to ask about Aaron. Seems it was mainly because she was so mad at him for making her come back to the island. Jack is convinced in a John Locke-ian way that he’s doing the right thing.
“Nothing in my life has ever felt so right, and I just need you to believe that.”
The incident starts at the site down below.
“Are you with me on this?”
“Yes.”
“Then lets go.”

Flashback – Hurley’s getting released from prison. Getting his stuff back – one wallet, $227 cash, a ballpoint pen, and one fruit roll up (and one used prophylactic – seriously, they couldn’t get Frank Oz for this one little scene?) He goes to get in a cab out front, and gloveless Jacob is already in it, with a guitar case. He tells Hugo they can split the fare. Hurley asks what he was in for, and he tells him he wasn’t in prison, he was waiting for him.
“Oh, then you must be dead.”
“I’m definitely not dead.”
He wants to know why Hurley refuses go back to the island. Hurley tells him he’s cursed... he caused the crash, his friends died, and now they talk to him.
“What if you’re blessed…you get to talk to the people you’ve lost. Seems like a pretty wonderful thing to me.”
“Sure, it’s wonderful, except for the part where I’m crazy.”
“I’ve got some news for you Hugo, you’re just gonna have to take my word on this. You are not crazy. Ajira airways flight 316 out of LAX, it leaves in 24 hours. All you have to do is be on that plane.”
Here’s the touching... and, “It’s your choice, Hugo. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”
He gets out and Hurley stops him - “You forgot your guitar.”
“It’s not my guitar.”

Back in 1977 at the van, Hurley is assuring Sayid that everything will be ok once Jack changes the future, or the past... one of those. A dying Sayid has somehow rigged the bomb to explode on impact, and Jack tells him its going to work and it will save him.
“Nothing can save me.”
Jack runs off alone with the nuke. Ok – quibble... if they’re all just going to die and reset anyway, then why not ALL go help him to make sure it happens... I mean like right away, I know they do eventually, but still... dramatic license and all that. Boo on that decision. Anyway - Jack passes Sawyer and Juliet on the way to the swan and looks at James... “See you in Los Angeles.”
Another life, brother.

2007. The marching Others arrived at the foot of the statue a while earlier, and it’s nighttime now. Sun asks Ben what happened to the rest of the statue.
“I don’t know, it was like that when I got here.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Not really.”
Alpert and Locke are heading into the foot. Locke calls Ben over to join them. Richard doesn’t want Ben coming along.
“Only the leader can request an audience and there only one leader at a time and...”
Locke interrupts... “I think you’re making up the rules as you go along, Richard. Ben is coming in with me and if that’s a problem, I’m sure Jacob and I can work it out.”
Richard moves his second wall of the episode and tells Locke to say hello for him. Locke and Ben enter the foot... “Will you be able to do this, Ben? I know it won’t be easy, but THINGS WILL CHANGE ONCE HE’S GONE, I promise.”
My emphasis.

Back in time at the van – Miles brings up something pretty obvious that hasn’t been brought up yet... maybe the nuke IS the incident? So what should be done is nothing? Everyone looks dumbfounded.
“Ok, I’m glad you all thought this through.” They see Phil and his crew driving toward the swan, and know that if he sees Jack he’ll kill him. Sawyer looks to Juliet.
“Whadda you think, Blondie?”
“Live together, die alone?”

Jack ain’t too sneaky and gets seen pretty much right away. He’s a crack shot with that gun though... it’s almost as if the bullets are being guided by the hand of fate or something… He seems trapped, but then our buddies show up in the VW bus, tearing shit up like the Libyans in back to the future. Sawyer clocks Radzinsky on the back of the head, takes Phil hostage with Chang’s help, and the rest of the Dharma group drop their weapons. Chang can’t shut the drill down because it has already hit the pocket. Jack goes over to the hole with the bomb and Sawyer looks to Juliet instead of Kate. She is just tickled pink by this, forthcoming atomic explosion be damned. Jack gets that ‘Locke and the hatch’ look in his eyes, and he drops the plutonium core down the shaft. They all close their eyes and steel themselves, and.... nothing.
Sawyer opens his eyes. “This don’t look like LAX”
Then the magnetism shit starts happening.... big time. Chang’s hand gets trapped (it doesn’t seem like his whole arm though... has stuff changed?) and Miles runs to help free him. Jack gets knocked the fuck out by a flying tool chest. I’m guessing a lot of people liked that part. Phil is horribly impaled by some rebar. Juliet gets some chains wrapped around her and is pulled toward the opening of the shaft. Kate and Sawyer are helping as much as they can. It’s not enough though.
“I love you, James. I love you so much.”
And she goes down. Sawyer’s as broken as he’s even been on the show.

Thirty years later, The Ajira’s arrive at the foot of the statue with the crate and Lapidus in tow. Ilana puts down her gun and asks for Ricardo.
“It’s Richard, actually.”
“What lies in the shadow of the statue?”
“Ille qui nos omnes servabit”
[He who will protect us all]
“Richard. I’m Ilana. And I have something you need to see.”
They open the crate and dump out the contents... Locke’s lifeless body. They found him in the coffin in the cargo hold.
“I don’t understand. If this is Locke, who’s in there?”

Ok so the REAL Jacob is the one behind this – he’s the one wearing the gloves – trying to show Richard the John Locke he knows is a fake before it’s too late. But it is too late, isn’t it?

In there, Locke and Ben see the tapestry from earlier in the show, now completed. Jacob is sitting in the corner, in a chair.
“You like it? I did it myself. Takes a very long time when you’re making the thread, but I suppose that’s the point, isn’t it?”
“Hello Jacob.”
“You found your loophole.”
“Indeed I did. And you have no idea what I’ve gone through to be here.”
Ben is surprised. Seems to happening a lot lately. “Have you met before?”
“In a manner of speaking,”
UnLocke tells Ben to do what he was asked. Jacob speaks up first.
“Benjamin. Whatever he’s told you I want you to understand one thing; you have a choice...you can do what he asks, or you can go and leave us to discuss our issues.”
“Oh, so now, after all this time, you’ve decided to stop ignoring me. Thirty-five years I’ve lived on this island and all I’ve ever heard was your name, over and over, Richard would bring me your instructions, all those slips of paper, all the lists. And I never questioned any of it, I did as I was told. When I dared to ask to see you myself, I was told you have to wait, you have to be patient. But when he asked to see you, he gets marched straight up here as if he was Moses. So why him? What was it that was so wrong with me? What about me?”

“What about you?”

stabby stab stab

Ben gets him right in the chest, a couple times. Pretty brutal. He hits the ground and whispers something through the blood bubbling from his lips. UnLocke leans in closer to hear him.
“They’re coming.”
UnLocke kicks Jacob into the fire pit and he’s engulfed in flame. Dead is dead.

Back to the incident in 1977. Jack comes to in time to help Kate get Sawyer away from the hole before everything metal in the area goes flying down it. Juliet is lying broken and bleeding at the bottom of the shaft, but alive. Barely. We can hear that electromagnetic humming… she sees the bomb next to her, grabs a rock and starts hammering on it. Only way to save her life and unbreak her heart, right?
“Come on!!! Come on!! Come on, you son of a bitch!”

Boom.

So after all this talk of science vs faith, it looks like what we really have is fate vs free will. In the flesh (sort of). Jacob vs. the anti-Jacob. This Dr. Fate has been ‘giving the machine a little push’ this whole time – throughout all of our characters lives. I like the idea that that can also explain the odd coincidences and crossovers in all the flashbacks. That shit really was Fate – messing with them. Guided by the hands of fate, quite literally. Why? The incident was his loophole, somehow? He had to make sure all the pieces were in place. Can fate and free will exist together? It’s like The Great and Secret Show meeting Weaveworld by way of Piers Anthony’s Incarnations of Immortality series (less the puns). It’s hurting my head, that’s for sure. I’m thinking that ‘he who will protect us all’ has to keep fate in check on the island, but he somehow escaped and was able to manipulate people to create this outcome. The whole Ben stabbing Jacob in the heart bit. But why then would Jacob have ‘guided’ the Black Rock to the island, to prove to fate that there is free will? Seems odd – not very logical.
Poor Locke is the pawniest of all the pawns – he was supposed to die that day, after being thrown out the window, but Fate had other plans and kept him alive. That means for all the theories about the island being purgatory – had actually been correct in a manner of speaking, at least as far as John Locke was concerned. He was a dead man walking for years.

Was it Fate interfering with Michael off the island, making sure he couldn’t die? Is it fate that split up Eloise and Widmore? It’s twisty as to which side either would be on… arguments can be made either way, but I’d guess that arrogant bastard Widmore doesn’t want to be told nothing he does makes a difference, putting him on Jacob’s side – and the mystical Hawking could be on Fate’s – but why then did Widmore send the freighter – wait – because Ben was never supposed to be a part of this – and the somehow significant time-loophole 815er’s made him who he turned out to be. All part of Fate’s plan. Which I guess does tie back to the Jack/science vs Locke/faith thing.

But there are variables – the power of love. If Jennifer hadn’t been in love with Marty, she wouldn’t have written the phone number on the back of the clock tower pamphlet, Marty would have no way to know when lightning would strike, and he would have eventually just vanished in 1955. It might just save your life. For some reason Fate couldn’t see that Juliet was important (thus not visiting/touching her in the past – at least as far as we’ve seen) and would end up falling in love with Sawyer. If she wasn’t in love with him, she wouldn’t want to erase the pain of knowing that he will always love another so badly that she would want to erase ever knowing him, and find the strength to hammer the bomb, which I think is going to send the 1977 group to 2007. (Wow, sorry for that sentence. It sucked.)
“They’re coming.”

If Jacob is dead is dead… did the Ajira’s (I think we can call them Disciples of Jacob now) know he was going to die and are talking about Lapidus as a candidate for his replacement? Speaking of replacements and variables – was Desmond Widmore’s attempt at introducing a variable into the equation, which was somehow negated when Daniel managed to talk to him? Interesting that if he were on the side of free will that he would steer Des’ life in the same way fate was working the 815er’s. Or will Des still have a part to play next season? And did Widmore leading Des to the island allow all this to happen in the first place – it had nothing to do with Fate/free will for him, he just wanted back on the island so badly that he sent Des there, who ended up crashing the plane and may have started this whole mess.

Desmond - more parallels – let’s say Jacob has to keep weaving to hold fate on the island so that mankind has free will. To gain access to him, you have to know the riddle of the statue. He who will protect us all. Lapidus doesn’t know the answer, but he could still be a candidate. Des’ didn’t know what one snowman said to the other snowman, but he still became the man stuck on the island doing a repetitive task to save the world, didn’t he? Protecting us all. Until he crashed the plane and started all this loopy shit happening. Nice job there Des. If Jack somehow knows the Latin answer to the statue riddle let’s give him the job. I think he’s going to be the one who ends up crafting the next tapestry. Just like stitching a dural sac back up. It’s his destiny.

Bentham? I don't even know him!

2009-02-26T15:51:00.000-08:00

cool episode but mellow and mostly answery instead of raising more questionsy - mostly.

one thing i was iffy on was that Locke's talk with Jack didn't correspond with Jack's recollection of the talk we've heard previously (its all your fault, everyone is going to die if you dont return, etc).
another is the timeline - i'm guessing Locke had to have been in the hospital for a couple days at least after talking to Jack or something, yet the day Locke dies is the first time Jack flew to try and crash? the way they explained it back then he had been flying a lot with his golden ticket, but how many times can u really fly to australia from LA, takes a day(ish) to get there, day to come back - Jack was fully bearded and reading the obit when we saw him flying back a few seasons ago. the funeral couldnt have been more than a couple weeks (at absolute most) from Locke's death - and we know he was found the night of his death cause of the obit - so thats all kind of weird.

either Ben didnt know about Hawking being in LA or didn't know Locke knew about her, either way i thought that was when he decided to kill him (again).
So why did he stay away from the six for three years THEN suddenly decide to contact them? maybe it's cause he JUST learned about Hawking being in LA and knew she would know where the island was - maybe then he figured he didn't need John after all and he could get back in the island/Jacobs good graces if he could get back there? The ring was his in with Sun, and he was right there. But why did Ben kill Locke then go thru all the trouble to get him back on the island? Remember when Michael was trying to kill himself but the island wouldn't let him? Maybe Ben knows the island wouldn't let Locke kill himself, but knows the only way he can return is if Locke is dead... easier to just do it than tell him what has to be done. Although if anyone could convince Locke to "relax, let me kill you," it would be Ben

Widmore was 17 - it was 4 days ago... awesome!! Obviously neither of these guys are to be trusted - it seemed like Abbadon was playing on Locke's insecurities the whole time. "Are you going to stop pretending you don't remember me as the orderly that told you to go on your walkabout after you broke your legs?" heh heh... ok, plenty of questions rasied about Widmore and Ben and Alpert and who leads the others when...

who left with Lapidus? people are saying Sun, but why wouldn't she and Sayid have flashed back with the other 6? Because if everyone (Aaron, Des) doesn't return the results are 'unpredictable'? could be it, and I guess that would make sense.

so was Ben having the runway built on the other island a few seasons ago because he knew this was all going to happen? i think so... sorta.

and um....last season when Walt visited Hurley, they both talk about meeting with Jeremy Bentham - when did Locke reveal his alias to either of them?
guessing this was a goof cause they couldn't call Bentham Locke last season - they'll use the Walt's psychic excuse or something :)

I'm leaning on a lamp post...

2009-02-26T15:49:00.000-08:00

I’m gonna start this post in a way I’ve never started a LOST post;
Things I didn’t like:

Jack’s grandfather scene – forced, seemed pointless.
Jack’s bizarre, out-of-place surprise at Sayid and Hurley being on the plane.
Replaying the entire opening scene at the end. Unnecessary.

Those parts made it seem a little like an episode of Heroes. Not a good thing when you're talking about LOST.

Okay, minor gripes aside – another amazing episode.

I dug the parallels while recreating Flight 815; A federal agent escorting a handcuffed prisoner, dead body in a coffin, dude wracked with guilt carrying a letter, guy with a guitar case. Loved the return of Lapidus, “We’re not going to Guam, are we?”
Ben. “How can you read?” “My mother taught me.” The guy just has to lie, even if he’s making a joke.
Biggest question on the flight would be how/why Hurley, Kate and Sayid ended up there (obviously not some random event like the poorly-written Jack was supposing).
Hurley was released from jail like the lawyer said, I’d guess, but who/what convinced him to get on the plane?
Sayid was probably set up by Ben, but why is he being extraordinarily renditioned to Guam?
Kate?
I’m not sure how much time Ben had – did he go to all three again and explain what Hawking told Jack, Sun and Des? Did Hawking? There had to have been guilt involved in some way, Jack will die if you don’t help, Aaron’s real mother is alive on the island (I don’t think so, but it’s what could have convinced Kate maybe), etc. – and it looks like they were definitely told about the ‘re-creation’ aspect – why else would Hurley bring a guitar? Which then makes me wonder if Kate jumped Jack’s bones for a reason… baby in the belly like Claire?
The Hispanic dude in line and in first class has got to end up involved somehow, the federal marshal too?
Flight 316 – John 3:16? The ubiquitous sporting-event only begotten son sacrifice bit right? John Locke…

The Lamp Post – awesome! The way Hawking was talking about the island made it sound like the Atlantis myth... Who was really behind Dharma, and why didn’t Widmore just join up/finance them? Also, if Widmore was an Other, why couldn’t he get back to the island? Seemed like they, at least, could come and go at will - because Hawking always let them know when/where to return to? Or is that just necessary when the island is skipping? The Freighter people got there, sent by Widmore, not Hawking, so how did they know where to go? How did the food drops work? If Widmore has been trying unsuccessfully to get back to the island since he left, does that mean he turned the frozen donkey wheel himself back in the day? Did Hawking help him turn it? Ok, my nose is starting to bleed.

Did Ben kill Penny? Desmond? Little Chuck? If the island isn’t done with Des how is he getting back? Where did Ben, Sayid, Sun, Lapidus and the others end up? Did Lapidus flash down? If so… who’s flying the plane?? (Also, great bit with Hurley buying up all the available tickets, assuming there was gonna be another crash. If the six were so famous, and you’re passing thru first class into coach and see all six of them on the plane, what would you do? I’d be on a later flight for sure!)

It looks like they’re back in the 70’s. Have Jin and the other losties been working for Dharma for the past 3 years? If so, whatever they’ve learned sure woulda come in handy 4 years ago...

fatal nosebleeds...

2009-02-12T14:30:00.000-08:00

kinda back? i'm posting randomness like below on facebook now. i'll cut and paste to here too from now on in case anyone ends up at this page.

Montand’s arm!!! It was back in the first season finale (I think?), on the way to the Black Rock, when Danielle told Jack about it:
“The Black Rock is not far. This is where it all began -- where my team got infected -- where Montand lost his arm. We must move quickly.”
“Lost his arm”. Nice way of saying it got ripped off violently (one of the greatest Lost scenes ever.). So the temple is near the Black Rock, and Smokey or something/someone ‘infected’ the rest of the crew when they went in search of the rest of Monty.
That was a nice long look at the smoke monster/cerebus (guarding the entrance to the temple/underworld)!

Poor Charlotte – too much tripping thru time fried her brain. Why is there a stronger effect on people that have spent more time on the island? Something to do with becoming attuned to the island? How much time had Minkowski (the radio operator from the ship last season) spent on the island? Are we gonna see him there in the past… I remember his last flash memory had something to do with a roller coaster – always thought it would be cool to have seen that off-island during someone else’s flashback, but we don’t get those anymore, do we? Dear departed Charlotte loved Geronimo Jackson (I wonder if she was listening to it on the record player in the hatch, or in one of New Otherton’s bungalows), couldn’t have chocolate before dinner - is that how Faraday gets her attention in the past? “Here’s some candy little girl, when you leave this island never come back because you’ll die a nasty headachey death!!”, and her Dad was still on the island when she left. I loved the idea that her mom raised her telling her the island was just a fantasy…island, and she spent her life tracking it down. Man, she musta been psyched to find that Dharma Harness on the polar bear in Tunisia!!

I had a theory that Christian/The Mouth of Jacob was some sort of “shepherd” of death, leading people to the great beyond; Mikey, Claire. I could still be right I guess… but I don’t know what it means. He was pissed that Locke let Ben turn the frozen donkey wheel! Say hello to my son… “Who’s your son?” ha ha ha, great!

And I was off on Sun being evil, but what i don’t quite understand is why she blames Ben for Jin. Widmore i can understand - she knew he was the one that sent the boat that blew up with Jin on it. Maybe she knows they were looking for Ben, but as far as i know she doesn’t know that Ben killed the guy that made the boat detonate - unless Locke/Bentham ended up telling her all that? Still kinda weird, you'd think she'd want to shoot Jack or Kate first, the ones that actually LEFT Jin on the boat.

“If the two of you knew what I've done to keep your and your friends safe the past few years, you'd be thanking me for the rest of your lives!!!!!!!” Ben’s had a lot of good lines, and that was right up there.Was Ben shocked to see Desmond show up? Seemed like Faraday being Hawking’s son was a revelation to him, I thought that dude knew everything!! So did he, by the look on his face. Speaking of Des - Charlotte had always seen Daniel when she was a kid, Alpert had always seen Locke in the 40’s, but Des woke up with a NEW memory from the past - he’s like the time travel wild card; rules do not apply to him. Hawking, the time travel queen of hearts, seems to know this and was in the right place at the right time during the whole engagement ring thing… to steer him in the right direction, because he alone could do something different in the past thus destroying the space/time continuum as we know it?… freaky. Mindblowingly freaky.

So when are everyone on the island? Did it stop back in the 70’s for now and that’ll explain Daniel’s infiltration of Dharma? How long will they be stuck there (if they’re there, that is…)? If they kill Ben as a kid what would happen? Will Miles run into Marvin Candle/Mark Wickmund/Edgar Halliwax/Dad? If Smokey is Cerebus guarding the underworld (remember the map on the blast door), and Hawking does all of her Foucault's Pendulum shit from the bowels of a church – is that the writers telling us who’s good and who’s evil? Or are smokes and Hawking on the same side – course correction for the universe.

Locke kept his word, he didn’t tell Sun about Jin when they met. Did he tell Ben, or is Ben just guessing to play Sun?

so. many. questions. Can you believe there are only about 30 hours of LOST left??

the island is the fountain

2008-02-15T08:30:00.000-08:00

of eternal (almost) youth.

and that was best fucking twist since the wheelchair. goddamn.

the beginning of the end?

2008-02-01T09:45:00.000-08:00

it's finally back!!

i'm planning on keeping this updated with my recap thingys for the season, but the best laid plans and all that... i'll definitely get to this episode sometime before next week's, but a few quick thoughts:

The oceanic six?!?
so six of the people from 815 are back, and are famous for surviving - but if all six got famous, then whoever was in the casket ALSO got off the island, but wasn't part of the six, otherwise it would have been big news. Meaning there are at least seven that got off the island... Jack, Hurley, Kate - or is Kate even one of the six? if whoever was in the casket came back and was anonymous, then the same could have happened with Kate, and it would explain why she's not in jail. Then again, Jack talks to her about the Golden Oceanic tickets they all got, so i'd say she is one of the actual six.

I thought the guy that visited Hurley at Santa Rosa was gonna wipe his memory! ...wrong show, though. What could have happened to make six people leave the rest behind?! Especially Jack and Hurley, two of the most loyal castaways on the island. And they have to lie about the time on the island and all that... part of the why is because the rest of the world thinks the plane is at the bottom of the ocean, but still, why???

I can't believe Jack pulled the trigger.

recap soon!

shameless self promotion

2007-09-24T19:41:00.000-07:00

hey all, or whoever stumbled here thru some search engine - i am planning on keeping up next season, and maybe throwing up a few recappy things from the last one once the dvds come out.
planning on it.

but in the meantime, i've been playing in the american daisycutters. click the link to check us out, let me know what you think.

i also wrote a bunch of the music for "The Freeloaders Guide to Easy Living", a series of internet comedy shorts, and did the same for Matt Besser's "The Very Funny Show", which premieres on Oct 4th at TBS.com
very funny.

february seems so far away.

flash forward

2007-05-24T09:09:00.000-07:00

who is J______ ____ntham?

is it Jeremy Bentham

"...Bentham was a violent critic of the revolutionary discourse of natural rights, and of the violence which arose after the Jacobins took power (1792)"

although it looks more like 'antham' on the clipping.

someone from new york living in a downtown LA loft? michael was an artist... the casket seemed tiny though; child, amputation, short guy like ben?
someone kate doesn't like. ben, maybe locke.

The Tower on grand avenue... a 40-50 story iconic tower, maybe?

someone heard loud noises - went to investigate, found the person hanging from a beam? i'm reading bewteen the lines here, i think that's roughly what it says.
maybe "locke was here" or "ben was here" is scratched into the beam? just like brooksy, once he was a 'free man' he found there was nothing to live for. everything he wanted/needed was back on the island/prison.

or not. my first thought was that it was rose, black neighborhood, small casket, she woulda died from her cancer - then of course it says 'man' found, and why would kate hate rose? so yeah, it's not her.

why is kate a free woman? what is jack sick of lying about? the only way i can imagine kate free is if she's under an assumed ID, and if they were rescued thru normal channels, i'm sure she would have been put into custody immediately. but then why is jack himself and not using an alias?

my first thought is that only those at the radio tower were rescued, including ben. i have NO CLUE who naomi was working for, but it's interesting that Ben's manipulative lie seems to have come true this time.

i'll post more during the day.

that was just incredible.

nine hours

2007-05-23T11:34:00.001-07:00

...and counting

Return of the John Locke

2007-05-03T11:07:00.000-07:00

Another home run! Grand slam, even...

First though, a snippet of a post from last season:
They go to a bar to talk, and Dad tells Locke he knows what he did was wrong, but he was dying. “You could have just asked me."
“What do you want from me?”
He explains to Locke that if he hadn’t killed himself off, a couple of guys looking for him would have beaten him to it. “What’d ya do, steal their livers?”
Actually, he took them for $700,000.00 in a retirement scam. A clue that Locke’s dad is likely the man Sawyer has been searching for?

I know I was hardly the only person to make that connection... regardless, very cool that it's been proven true.

Hey Diana, I bet you were imagining Sawyer wearing Leia's slave costume when he was strangling Cooper the Hutt... I know I wasn't.
But I was picturing Ben wearing The Emperors robes when he was trying to coerce Locke into killing his father. Strike him down and join the dark side! We'll tell you everything about the island!
During the Others' trek to the campsite, they should have had them pass the crater from the imploded hatch... Tom could have fallen in and gotten sucked under. The islands very own Saarlac Pit.

Great scene with Locke and Rousseau... I was cracking up the whole time.
Just getting some TNT. Just holding a couple prisoners in the brig.
Carry on, then.

The Jack/rest of the camp dynamic is just nuts. It makes perfect sense, though. I wouldn't trust him. What is it that they won't tell yet? My guess is that Juliet has let Jack in on her working for Ben, and the imminent raid. Rather than tell everyone right away, they're going to wait until right before it happens to get everyone ready (or gone); most likely because there is another mole in the camp. However, Sawyer is going to come back with the tape recorder and fuck that all up. No one will ever trust her then, and they'll trust Jack even less for conspiring with her.

The pillar Cooper the Hutt was tied to was cool too... more ruins from the ancient Simpsons that used to rule the island?

I'm pretty sure Richard Alpert - Be Here Now, baby! - was telling the truth. Locke really is like a C-3PO to their ewoks (These writers really must have loved Return of the Jedi). Even Ben acknowledges this, telling Locke he's responsible for his rapid healing. The further away from the chicken in the fridge he gets, the better he'll feel - i think that's all this means - Locke reminded them they need to be closer to nature... Now Locke has served Ben's purpose, however, and he sets him up to fail in front of everyone, hoping to diminish him in their eyes as well. It's not working. Locke will soon be leading the Others, hopefully in time to stop the raid. He's gonna blow Ben's fucking mind when he shows up with the dead Cooper.

Still not sure about Naomi - she could be who she says she is, or she could be an other returning from the outside world after getting info on the new guy, Desmond. Crazy shit about 815 and everyone in it being videotaped at the bottom of the ocean... I wonder if Mr. Paik or Mr. Widmore hired ILM or WETA for this? Capricorn One, anybody? Great line when she asks for Sayid's name, so she can be sure to NOT rescue him. Heh heh.

Only a few more episodes left...

five years gone...

2007-04-30T22:42:00.000-07:00

I hope I'm still watching Heroes.

...and the Zombie season of Lost.

Seriously though, if you haven't been watching Heroes, you really fucked up.
Big time.

The O.C. (wait, or was it D.O.C.?)

2007-04-26T14:55:00.000-07:00

Emmys for Yunjin Kim and Elizabeth Mitchell! now!

That was some good shit... where to start?

Interesting that Sun doesn't trust Jack anymore. Maybe she could hear the ominous music before he came out of the bushes? i was expecting Vincent, myself. Where's he been? Chasing Nadia thru the jungle... unless the cat blew up too.

That hidden dead mother room was CREEPY... but is the baby really Jin's? Juliet could be playing everyone at this point... if she tells Ben that it's Jin's and Sun survives, maybe that helps her out in some way? Not sure how, but shes been stuck there for over three years trying to solve the problem, maybe she thinks if she can fake a solution for Ben he'll let her go? Either way, i still don't trust Juliet to tell the truth, unless it benefits her in some way. Plus she's such a great actress how would we ever know??
i think this may have been the best Kwon flashback so far, even if it was obvious from the get-go that Jade Fox was Jin's mom. The real question would be if Sun's dad ever slept with the whore... Loved seeing the kick ass take no prisoners Sun at the end there. Daddy's little girl.

Speaking of kick-ass, who knew Jin had that in him? Nice roundhouse kick - Van Damme would be proud a'ya. So Mikhail's alive but everyone is dead? To quote Hurley, "What?"
What happened there? Did the sound fence just incapacitate him? Because if he came back to life, why not Boone or Eko or any of the other dead people? Maybe gunshot wounds to the chest and being exploded into pieces from TNT are too 'final', but Boone was just losing blood and had a fucked up leg, right? The island couldn't fix that? Couldn't fix Eko? hmmmm... it has limitations, but what are they? Cause Mikhail looked pretty damn dead. Kate even checked his vitals, right? Is the island healing people or is it Ol' Smokey? Or was 'this' Mikhail alive all along (see theory # 2 below), maybe somewhere off of the island? Maybe he was just returning with Naomi, the parachute lady?

So there are two scenarios that I can think of, one likely, one not so much. The likely one is a cover-up, perpetrated by whom I don't know... The Others in the real world? Once all these subjects showed up unexpectedly, they used their resources to create an elaborate hoax, so no one would search for survivors and they could do whatever they want to them? What resources? Kinda makes you think that Widmore or Paik would be involved somehow, no? And if it was orchestrated by the Others, there's no way they would have let Michael and Walt (and Juliet and Jack) leave, without knowing there was no way they could ever reach the outside world. Ben's integrity seems pretty dear to him though, so was he lying the whole time, or is he unaware as well? Maybe Dharma is behind it all, hoping that the survivors and the 'hostiles' wipe each other out, so they can get back to their research on the island unimpeded?

The other is that there's some sci-fi explanation; parallel universes, etc. When Des forgot to push the button causing 815 to crash, did it also rip something in the space time continuum - creating two planes at that instant (two planes of existence?), one that went on to crash in the outside world, leaving no survivors, and the other to crash on the island leaving our losties? and now the catch-22 is that they should all be dead... how could they ever return to the world even if they found a way? They're all dead and buried in that reality. The island/nature might be trying to course correct itself, and will somehow kill them all off... when it's not healing them. Goddamn this is like Donnie Darko confusing... which is why although I think it's a much more interesting theory, it's probably more of a cover-up thing going on.

No way it's really purgatory, not after so many repeated denials from the creators. Although Carlton did say Mikhail was really dead in one the podcasts. So are the losties in the 'real' world? Hmm.

...and back to parachute lady, is she who everyone assumes she is? (Assuming everyone is thinking she's part of Penny Widmore's Patagonian Portugese Electromagnetic Anomaly Patrol.) Sure, she had a picture of Des, but Des is relatively new to the others, she could have easily been an Other trying to get back to the island after doing research on him in the real world. After Des turned the key and the sky turned purple, she didn't know that she couldn't get back, and something caused the whatevershewasin to crash when she tried to return. Maybe she was trying to return instead of just faxing the picture because she couldn't get through to Mikhail. She knows a bunch of languages, so does he... they could both be part of the Other's communications team. or not.

Charlie is pretty damn bloodthirsty, huh? I guess being strung up by your neck and left for dead will do that to ya. Desmond had a good point though... who has been responsible for more deaths since the crash, the others or the losties? The look C shot Hurley when he was blabbing to Mikhail was priceless. Then the phone thing... "Uh... like I'd tell you!" And trying to call mom at the end. He's the best... but is he really Jacob?!?!
dun dun dun!

great read about the death of god and how it relates to lost here. This Doc Jensen guy at EW has got it going on.

so i guess i'm posting again, just not the elaborate recaps. It's been so good I have to spout off somewhere!

ardil-22

2007-04-19T10:34:00.000-07:00

that was a great one.

i thought the korean ghost story was one of the funniest moments ever on lost...

how CAN someone eject from a helicopter? when they first pulled up the visor i thought it was sanjaya! then maybe nadia... but it's not. (it's naomi - and des' fiance was named ruth... biblical scholars take note!)

*****
this is from doc jensen's EW recap - i'd like to think i would have gone there if i was still writing the long ass recaps...
"In ''Catch 22,'' the characters Ruth and Naomi have nothing to do with each other. But in The Bible, they are the stars of the Book of Ruth. Well, it just so happens that the book right before Ruth is the Book of Judges. The very last story in the Book of Judges is the story of a war among the tribes of Israel. The bad guy in this story: the Tribe of Benjamin. The war started over a murder that the other tribes believed needed to be avenged; it ended with the near-obliteration (''The Purge,'' perhaps?) of the Benjaminites. Here's where it gets creepy: In the aftermath, the people of Israel felt badly about wiping out Benjamin's people. So they decided to repopulate his tribe by forcing the women from another city to join the tribe of Benjamin. You know: to make babies and stuff.

What does this foreshadow for Lost? I think it means that war is coming to the beach. Castaways vs. Others. Survival of the species. At long last: Lord of the Flies time, people.
"
******

one thing i did have a gripe with - when des is telling charlie about how penny found him once before and told him with enough money and determination, blah blah blah - don't you think that just maybe he would have said, 'oh yeah brutha, this is strange, right after she tracked me down i went for a jog and met jack for the first time.'
that kind of stuff doesn't usually bother me, but this time it did.

the ping pong table has become like lost's central perk or warsaw tavern. someone's gotta build a bar next to it. bernard and rose could run it, and they could spin it off into a sitcom or something.

nice to see exactly why it is that des refers to everyone as 'brother'. being a monk will probably get you in the habit (so would being a nun, but that's a different kind of habit altogether). and what was up with the picture on the head monks desk of him and the pawn shop/jewelry store lady (at first i thought it might be the other that presided at juliet's trial...)? is it his sister? how strange was that? they both seemed to know something about des' "higher calling" during his flashbacks, and they're close. crazy. were they pushing him toward the island for some reason? fucked up shit, yo.

Moriah vineyards = des' near sacrifice of charlie (biblical scholars take note! again!).

oh, and jack and kate are starting to remind me of jim and pam... although kate gets a lot nekkider.

man...

2007-04-05T09:18:00.000-07:00

i may not have the time to recap, but i can still ask some questions here... probably to myself at this point, but...

is locke maybe some kind of C3PO to the others ewoks?
not sure what happened with the whole cooper thing, and i guess we won't know for a few weeks yet - but the others just all taking off like that, i wonder if it's related to locke's comment about the chicken in the fridge... the island healed him and later spoke to him (or at least made him look it in the eye), and he seemed to be implying to ben that it was his lack of respect for the island that had let his tumour spread.

the others then left 'downtown', leaving those that weren't good (am i forgetting someone that jack has killed, or have we just not gotten to that flashback yet?) to be judged by the smoke monster.
are they just going deeper into the jungle to live peacefully off of the island? to show locke the 'box'? are they headed to exterminate the losties camp? but then they would be bad... how did these 'hostiles' wipe out the dharmas that were there without getting blood on their hands? or did the island tell them it was okay?
was mikhail faking it with a hidden ketchup packet?

was juliet in on the gassing or was that the one thing she wasn't lying to kate about? i don't think she was left behind as some kind of mole, that would be too obvious. but she obviously awoke before anyone else and had time to drag kate into the jungle with her to try and gain her trust. nice try. was jack involved somehow? is this his and juliets plan? or were the two gas canisters next to jack supposed to explain why he was still out a day later? or did kate and juliet just doze off and not fall asleep for a whole night? why did the monster not judge her when it flashed at her - she killed danny in cold blood. does that maybe have something to do with the injections? does it keep the monster at bay? i loved how when kate saw it coming she just fucking took off at first!

i was hoping des was gonna ask sawyer if he had "the beast in his sights" when they were on the grassy knoll there... and do all grifters fall back on the door to door bible thing, or just bones' dad and cassidy?

great stuff.

so glad there aren't any repeats 'til the end...

promises, promises...

2007-03-19T11:21:00.000-07:00

I didn't know I'd never keep

i still love the show!!! and i'd love to keep recapping it, but...

the major excuse - my commute used to be about an hour a week, but it's closer to ten now. it used to take me about 4 hours to finish a recap.
do the math...
that's the main place where i've lost time.
I just don't have the extra time to do it right, so I haven't done it at all.
the episodes are now eating up my TIVO, and i've gotta start deleting.
i still don't want to give up on this place, and there's always itunes before the DVDs come out - so if I find any extra time, i will update.

if you want me to let you know when i've put something new up here, email me at:
4eight15sixteen23forty2@gmail.com

and i'll send out an email when (if, at this point) i get back to recapping.

sorry!

thanks for reading...

second verse, same as the first...

2007-03-01T11:19:00.000-08:00

I'm still working on catching up on the recaps, and just getting further and further behind. I just don't have the free time I used to - but I will eventually get them up here!
In the meantime, I kicked this blog off with some lyrics, so I figured I'd throw some more up here after last night's episode, Tricia Tanaka is Dead.
It was a great match to Hurley's story, and I loved how they incorporated the melody into the orchestral piece at the end of the show. Really cool. Shambala is the name of a hidden mystical tibetan city, a place of peace, tranquility and happiness.
Downtown?

Shambala - Three Dog Night
(D.Moore)

Wash away my troubles, wash away my pain
With the rain in Shambala
Wash away my sorrow, wash away my shame
With the rain in Shambala

[Chorus:]
Ah, ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Everyone is helpful, everyone is kind
On the road to Shambala
Everyone is lucky, everyone is so kind
On the road to Shambala

[Chorus]

How does your light shine, in the halls of Shambala

I can tell my sister by the flowers in her eyes
On the road to Shambala
I can tell my brother by the flowers in her eyes
On the road to Shambala

[Chorus]

How does your light shine, in the halls of Shambala

excuses, excuses...

2007-02-14T08:59:00.000-08:00

I haven't forgotten about this place, just been busy... I'm hoping to catch up over the long weekend, with all four recaps I've missed.

Don't hold your breath, though. I wouldn't want to be responsible for that.

see you soon?

(well, i didn't catch up. still working on 'em... i did make a handy episode recap list thingy on the sidebar, though!)

hiatus all around us

2006-11-09T23:05:00.000-08:00

vacationing on an island in the pacific

will return soon... i hope.

in the meantime:

...and she doesn't even love this guy!
Jack's in for some serious lovin' - if he, or she... or either (or both?) of them live...

R.I.P. Mister Eko

2006-11-02T09:07:00.000-08:00

a man who did what he could with the life he was given

we'll miss you

...is this the 50's or 1999?

2006-10-26T11:30:00.000-07:00

Desmond is on the beach watching Claire put Aaron to bed. She’s writing in her diary when he comes over to tell her that there’s a problem with their roof. He asks if she’ll move down to the beach for the night so he can fix it. She tells him Aaron just fell asleep and she doesn’t want to move him. Jealous little Charlie comes over. "Whatcha doin’ brother?"
Des tells him about the roof and Charlie tells him he can take care of it, he’s quite handy. "I was building a church before Eko... exploded."
Des leaves and Claire asks what that was about. Charlie doesn’t know, but he thinks they need to get that guy another button to push.

Jack’s watching the TV. It’s some old cartoon with a vulture trying to eat a baby swan - our losties destroying the station?

Juliet pounds on the door and he assumes the position. She enters with some food for him. "Am I gonna keep watching cartoons or are you gonna tell me why I’m here?"
- If he keeps acting like a three year old they're gonna keep feeding him cartoons - She won’t answer any of his questions, so he decides to start pushing some buttons of his own. He asks if he should be talking to Benjamin, instead of the person that just brings him his food. "You work for him? He’s in charge?"
"It doesn’t work that way over here Jack, we make decisions together."
Aww, utopia!
"Really? Cause when I was holding that broken plate at your neck he seemed happy to just let you die. It felt like he made that decision on his own."
...or not.
She's smiling, but you can tell he's getting to her. "You don't know what you're talking about. I don't answer to him."
As if on cue, Ben bursts through the door. "Juliet, I need you."
She feels she needs to assert herself in front of Jack, "Can it wait?" – but now’s not the time for that.
"The sub is back - we have a situation. So come with me now."
The sub? Nice... did they use that to get the Elizabeth? how did they get onto the beach without getting wet though? Pop up and jump onto the dock? Not too shallow for a sub there?

Colleen is being rushed thru the jungle on a makeshift stretcher. She’s pale as a ghost.
Danny’s opening up Sawyer’s cell. It’s time for work. He has a bandage on his nose from Sawyer’s beating last episode. "Sounding a little stuffy there, Chinatown."
Before Sawyer can insult his mother, Danny gets a call on his walkie-talkie. Ben and Juliet come running from one direction while Tom and some Others come from the other, with Colleen. They all rush off together. Kate asks Sawyer what happened. "We happened."
"What?"
"We been on this rock long enough to realize they ain’t in the business of shooting each other. We did it. Our team."
Kate asks if he’s smiling. "Damn right I’m smiling. Cause we just got our ticket out of here."

Sawyers setting off the fish biscuit machine. "You know that chick they brought in on a stretcher? That’s Broken Nose Man’s girl."
"They call him Pickett."
Sawyer has a plan. He’s made a puddle with the water from the fish biscuit machine – and when someone comes to let him out, he’s going to shock him by hitting the red button three times; then they can make their escape. Kate’s impressed with the plan, but what about Jack? "What about him? We don’t even know if he’s here, hell, we don’t even know if he’s alive. We gotta take of us. It’s every man for himself, freckles."

Flashback – James Ford is boxing in prison. Prisoner number 840. He’s good... explains how he beat the crap out of everyone last week.

He’s being herded back to his cell when he sees a prisoner getting the crap beat out of him by another inmate. He asks the guy in front of him who the punching bag is. "Name’s Munson. Rumor has it he ripped off the government for ten mil, but they never found the money."
The warden breaks up the fight, and he and James exchange a look.
Later on, James, on trash duty, approaches the new guy. "You think the warden’s breaking up those fights because he thinks you’re cute, Costanza? He’s making a play for that ten mil. First step, butter you up... step two, warden'll reach out for your wife, use her against you. Textbook con."
"And you’re telling me this out of the kindness of your..."
"Advice is free, murgatroid. Past nine months that warden has made my life a living hell – he gets that ten mil you ain’t got, I’ll just have to kill myself."
As if on cue, the warden shows up. He’s a bad ass and he doesn’t like smart-ass Sawyer.

He threatens to extend his stay, telling him it would only take one call. He drops his half-eaten apple at Ford’s feet and tells him to clean up the trash.
Munson can see why Sawyer would want to stick it this guy.

Back in the cages – Sawyer sees Ben approaching. He mutters to himself, "Oh yeah... big kahuna."
Ben stops just short of the puddle in front of the door and asks Sawyer what he weighs.
"One-eighty, give or take."
Ben steps closer, but still not in the puddle. "How old are you?"
"Thirty-two."
"Don’t lie."
"Thirty-five."
Ben says good, and takes one more step, right into the trap. Sawyer grabs him by the arm and kicks the red button three times. "Sayonara, sucker!"
But nothing happens. Ben tells him he turned it off, and then cracks Sawyer in the face with a Snoop Dogg baton. He beats him with the thing and then kicks him in the head, knocking him out while Kate watches helplessly.
Sawyer wakes up strapped down to an operating table in a cell similar to Jacks. Tom is complaining to Ben. "...been two days since the sky turned purple, we’ve been blind, our coms are all down, I can’t get 'em back up again, and in case you forgot, Colleen’s in critical..."
"Juliet’s taking care of it."
Sawyer tries to sit up and they take notice of him. There are two other guys in the room as well, both armed. One of them, Jason, puts something in Sawyer's mouth and tells him to bite down on it. Ben tells him it’s for the pain, as the other armed guy taps a long-ass syringe. Ben hates needles. Sawyer’s not particularly into this one, either. The guy holds it as if he’s going to spear a fish in Sawyers chest.

Quick cut to Jack in his cell, where the scratchy intercom is kind of working again. – maybe the release of the magnet brought this ‘com’ back to life? He can barely make out Sawyer’s screams...

Back to Sawyer on the table... Jason tells the other guy it has to be in the sternum, and taps it for effect. "You know, like in the movie..."
Maybe it would be easier if he could write on it with a big fat magic marker.
I guess if they can watch the Sox win the World Series, they probably have some Tarantino on tape, too. Looking back at it, the shot pulling back from the cartoon in Jack's cell was kind of reminiscent of the Bruce Willis flashback in Pulp Fiction. The Walken speech part, great moment in cinema history... and then Sawyer referring to Ben as the big kahuna, you know, like the burger...
anyway - the other guy counts as Sawyer yells, and then plunges the syringe into his chest.

Paulo’s hitting some fruit into the ocean with the golf clubs. Des comes over and asks to borrow one. "Hurley said it’d be alright."
"Hurley, huh? This mean you’re off to save the day? Take the five iron, I never use it. That way when you die in the jungle doing whatever you’re doing I don’t have to go looking for it."
So the other survivors seem just a little bitter that they haven’t been included in all the action, no?
Des tells him to square his shoulders a bit. "You play golf?"
"I’m Scottish. Cheers."

Sawyer comes around, still tied down. He has a band-aid where the needle stabbed him and some bloody gauze taped over his heart. Tom and Ben come in with an albino bunny in a cage. It’s got the number eight stenciled in black on it. Ben starts shaking the cage and yelling at the bunny. Faster and faster, louder and louder, until the bunny just drops. Sawyer asks if he just killed that bunny.
"Do you know what a pacemaker is? They stick them in the tickers of people who’ve had bypass surgery; whose hearts need just a little jump, a kick-start. The rabbit had a small pacemaker, set to deliver its kick-start should it get too excited, or anxious or frightened... or should it try to escape."
He shows Sawyer something that looks like a digital watch before putting it on his wrist. "Assuming that you were telling the truth about your age and weight, your resting heart rate should be about seventy beats per minute. Your active heart rate would be about 140, which is the point at which your pacemaker will cause your heart to explode. Which is how I know that you’re going to start behaving now. The watch monitors your pulse. If you get within 15 beats of your danger zone, it will start to beep. When it beeps, you’re going to want to relax yourself. Do some deep breathing, some yoga."
"If you want me dead why don’t you just shoot me and get it over with?"
"Because we’re not killers, James. Oh, and one other thing... Kate. You tell her what we did, what we put in you, we’re watching you; you tell her any of these things, we’ll put one in her, too."

Tom locks Sawyer back in his cage, gives them both a bucket of water and a sponge to wash up with, and gives Kate a sack with some new clothes in it. He leaves them and she asks what happened, but Sawyer just tells her they asked some questions. She knows he’s lying... She dumps the clothes out and tells him to turn around... this should get the heart rate going... uh oh. He checks under his gauze to find a long slice... and then looks over his shoulder at a half-naked Kate.

The watch starts beeping... he’s up to 125. Kate asks when he got a watch. He’s frustrated. "I don’t tell you everything! Just leave me alone, damnit! Put some clothes on!"
He dumps the bucket of cold water over his head.

Flashback - in the visiting area, Sawyer is watching Munson arguing with his wife, Munson looks over at him, defeated. Sawyer was right. His old flame and long con Cassidy shows up to visit. "Hello, Sawyer."
"It’s James Ford, and I know you know that cause you got it right when you pressed charges."
Hey, he conned her, what did he expect? She shows him a picture of a baby girl.

"What’s this?"
"This is your daughter."
"You think I'm going to take one look at this picture and turn into Father Knows Best?"
"We’re living in Albuquerque, near the university... I just thought that you could write her a letter. Her name’s Clementine."
"What the hell am I gonna write; ‘Dear goo goo ga ga’? She’s a baby, she ain’t mine. I ain’t got no daughter."
Clementine? Poor kid... or is it even real? It could be that Cassidy is pulling a long con back on Sawyer.

Back in the cages, Kate is coming up with a plan. She wants to climb her cage and crawl out thru the wider spaced bars at the top. Sawyer tells her not to bother. "I think we should just chill out here a while, get the lay of the land."
Kate knows something is up.

Jack is still listening to the scratchy intercom in his cell. Juliet comes in wearing a Hydra logoed smock covered in blood. Jack asks what they did to Sawyer; he thinks it’s his blood. "I heard him yelling, you’ve got blood on your clothes, what did you do to him?!?"
"It’s not his blood. It’s the blood of a woman who’s dying. Jack... I need your help."

She and some Others walk a hooded Jack past Kate and Sawyer in their cages, as an earsplitting claxon sounds. Kate and Sawyer scream his name, and he turns slightly, seeming to hear them over the din, before being hurried away.

Damn, they’ve got a hospital. Why didn’t they bring Claire here instead of that little bunker? Ben is following Juliet and the hooded Jack as she leads him through the halls. "Have you lost your mind? You bring him here!?"
"He’s a doctor, he can help."
"Look, this is not why..."
"Do you want her to die?"
She unhoods Jack and shows him Colleen in the next room, lying prone on an operating table with Danny standing over her. Tom is in the room as well. They scrub in and Jack asks what happened. "Gunshot wound. To the abdomen."
Jack takes note of some spinal x-rays on the wall. "Those aren’t hers. Come on."
Danny gets upset when he sees Jack. "Tell him who did this, he oughta know that. She’s my wife"
Tom takes the frantic Pickett out of the room. Jack tells Juliet to assist him. "I’m not a surgeon."
"I know."
Colleen flatlines and Jack asks for a crash cart, but it’s broken. "We haven’t had anything happen before..."
Jack tries to start up her heart manually, but she’s gone. Tom, Danny and Ben watch from an observation room. Jack looks around for a clock to call the time of death, but there isn’t one. "She’s gone."
Tom tries to calm Danny down, but he storms out.

Storms out and goes directly to Sawyer’s cage. He pulls him out and starts beating the shit out of him in front of Kate, as the heart monitor beeps wildly. "Do you love this guy?"
With every punch, he yells out, "Do you love him?"
Sawyer won’t fight back... Kate is hysterical...
"Do you love him?" Wham!
"Yes, I love him, I love him. I love him, please..."
She’d say anything at this point, just to get him to stop.
Danny stops and tells someone to lock Sawyer back up. He then leaves, crying.

Flashback – Sawyer’s reading Of Mice and Men. Munson, prisoner number 248, comes up to him. "I need to talk to you. You were right. I loved her, and I really thought she..."
"Ten mil is a lot of greenbacks, killer. Tends to change things. That’s why you can never get attached. Once you care, that’s when they can come at ya."
Munson asks what the woman that was talking to Sawyer wanted. "Something I ain’t got. That all? Mind if I go back and see if George gets his farm?"
"I need you to move it. The money."
Sawyer refuses and walks away. Munson begs, "If you don’t help me the warden’ll get it all. He’ll win. Please."
A smile crosses Sawyers face.

Back at the cages. Sawyer’s washing up. Kate asks if he’s okay. "Just dandy. The guy hits like a girl. No offense."
"Why did he do that?"
"Hell if I know. These people ever make any sense to you?"
Kate scales her cage and slips through the bars at the top. Sawyer tries to get her to stop, telling her the time isn’t right. It starts to rain. "I don’t know what they did to you, but I know you’re scared enough to lie about it, and that scares me more than anything that they’ve done to us before."
She’s free. She runs to Sawyers cage and starts hitting the padlock with a rock. He tells her to leave him, to run. His watch starts to beep. "What is that thing?"
"You run, you go. It’s every man for himself."
"Why didn’t you fight back? Tell me the truth for once in your life!"
"If you really love me, go."
"I only said that so he’d stop hitting you."
Ouch.
She climbs back into her cage, ignoring Sawyer'spleas for her to run and hide. "Damnit freckles, go. Every man for himself!"
She lands on the floor of the cage. "Live together, die alone."

Ben and Tom are watching all of this on the monitors. Tom tells Ben that Danny wants to kill Sawyer.
"Danny can wait."
"You want me to bring Shepherd back?"
"No, I want him to sit with her for a while longer."
The monitor shows Jack chained to the gurney in the operating room, alone in there with the dead Colleen. Juliet enters. "I’m sorry they had to put handcuffs on you. I’m a fertility doctor. I’m not used to death."
Jack asks the dead woman’s name. "Col, short for Colleen. I should have come to get you sooner."
Jack says it wouldn’t have made a difference, that she was dead before they put her on the table. "Are you just saying that to make me feel better?"
Jack laughs at this. "I don’t care about making you feel better."
Nice. Juliet leans in to take the handcuffs off and lead him back to his cell. Jack grabs her arm. "Whose x-rays are those outside? Those are spinal x-rays and they belong to a man about forty years old, and whoever he is, he has a very large tumor on his L4 vertebrae. And I just happen to be a spinal surgeon. So you tell me Juliet. Who am I here to save?"
Fox’s got to be the front-runner for an Emmy so far this year. Are they Ben’s x-rays? Has he never left the island because if he does, the tumor will spread and kill him? Of course, he could have been lying about never leaving the island, maybe he’s here because it’s considered inoperable, but the healing properties of the island have put it into remission, like Rose?

At the camp Desmond is building some kind of lightning rod or something... bamboo tower with the five iron up top, and some wiring leading down to a post in the sand to ground the contraption. Weird. Hurley’s making a healthy fruit salad. "Is that...art?"
"Nope. Just an experiment."
Hurley goes to leave and Des tells him to wait a minute. "Why’s that?"
Des just nods, and thunder crashes. Did he see into the future and know the exact moment it was going to rain, kind of like the clock tower in Back to the Future... is he trying to generate 1.21 gigawatts of electricity? The wiring he was running looks kind of like Doc's too. It starts to pour, and sure enough, Claire's roof leaks on her Charlie and Aaron. Lighting strikes the tower and it falls back to the beach in flames.

Charlie looks over at Des, who seems satisfied. He’s seen all this before – maybe in his "other life, brother". He’s just saved someone; the baby, Claire or Charlie, or maybe all three. In the other life the lightning killed them – he was trying to get them to move to the beach because of this. He couldn’t tell them the truth; that he knew lightning was going to strike there, because they’d think he was crazy. So he built the rod to attract the bolt. Was this what Boone meant last episode when he told Locke the three of them were okay, "...for now."? He’s their savior. But is Des fucking something up by changing the future? Think about Back to the Future again, Doc writing on the chalkboard... they’re now all living in a parallel timeline because of what he just did.

Kate and Sawyer are asleep. Ben wakes Sawyer up. "Good morning. Let’s go for a walk."

Flashback – James is led by some guards to the boxing ring, where the warden and some suits are waiting on him. "I have to be honest, Ford. When they first brought you here, I thought you were nothing more than a dumb hick. Now I know better. You’re a dumb hick that knows how to steal."
"Can we just get this over with?"
"Yeah, lets. You remember Agent Freedman from the treasury department"
They know each other. Freedman asks Sawyer what he’s got. "10 million’s in a red bronco parked in a store-quick facility in Sawgrass (could have used the five iron there). Right off 441, unit 23C. That’s where your money is."
The warden, per their agreement, commutes the last six years of James Ford’s sentence. He’s getting a commission too. They want to know what to do with it. "Set up a new account; don’t matter what bank. Just make it in Albuquerque. Put it in the name of Clementine Phillips. And I want it so there’s no way she can ever find out who the money’s from."
The warden congratulates him. "...you just lied and cheated your way out of prison. You’re a free man."

Back on the island... Ben and the two armed Others from the room are leading James on a strenuous hike... probably not too good for his heart (but if they didn’t have someone who could save Colleen’s life, who would know how to put a pacemaker in?) Ben tells him it’s not much further, just over the top of the next rise. "What’s up there?"
"Something I want you to see."
"'That little place you always wanted, George?'"
"Sorry?"
"What, don’t you read? It’s from Of Mice and Men. You’d like it... puppies get killed."
They keep climbing, along with Sawyers heart rate. The watch starts to beep. Sawyer asks if they brought him there to kill him, to make that thing inside him blow up his damn heart. "Your heart’s not going to blow up, James. The only thing we put inside you was doubt."
Ah hah! Ben pulls a rabbit out of his bag... the albino with an eight on it. "We gave him a sedative, not a pacemaker."
"How do I know that’s the same bunny, that you didn’t just paint an eight on another one?"
"You don’t."
Sawyer's had enough. He hauls off and punches Ben in the jaw. Ben spits blood into his hand. "The rabbit wasn’t the thing I wanted to show you."
He leads him further, past a PA post, way out here? They get to the top of the ridge and look out over the ocean... at the island. Home. Whoa.

"You ever been to Alcatraz? Take the tour? Right now you’re standing on a small island roughly twice the size of Alcatraz. And that over there, that’s your island. The one you’ve come to know and love. I just wanted to let you know, there’s nowhere to run."

- So does the Hydra connect the two islands? This one must be tiny... Alcatraz is pretty small. Alcatraz... the Golden Gate bridge was pictured on whatever it is Sawyer was holding/taking from Kate in Locke's hallucination last episode... Good thing polar bears are great swimmers. It makes a great hiding place though... So if the flashback is paralleling this, and Ben is the warden, what’s the set up here? He’s a guy Sawyer hates, but the only one that can give him what he wants, his freedom? Are they planning on using Jack only to fix whoever is sick, then use Sawyer’s love for Kate somehow to make him kill Jack, so their hands aren’t dirty? Are they good, in their own way? Goodwin is the only one that has killed anyone, right? Ethan did leave Charlie to die, but he could have just killed him outright, it was more like a warning for everyone else. It’s not strange that they’d want Jack dead, he is the de-facto leader of the group, the group that has now killed quite a few of them (and quite a few of their own)...their numbers are dwindling and it seems that they can’t reproduce or something, which is why they’re stealing kids and have a fertility doctor? –

Sawyer is dumbfounded. "You did all this just to keep me in a damn cage?"
"We did all this cause the only way to gain a con mans respect is to con him. You’re pretty good, Sawyer. We’re a lot better. Funny thing is, us telling you about the pacemaker wasn’t what kept you in line - it was when I threatened her. You work so hard to make her think you don’t care, that you don’t need her. 'A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody. It don’t make no difference who the guy is, long as he’s with ya. I tell you, a guy gets too lonely and he gets sick.'"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"It’s from Of Mice and Men. Don’t you read? Come on. Let’s get you back to your cage."

the good locke is in the smoke lodge...

2006-10-19T11:13:00.000-07:00

Another eye opening opener... this time it’s Locke. He’s splayed on the ground, mirroring Jack in the pilot...

a naked Desmond runs through the jungle nearby - kind of mirroring Christian from the pilot – Locke tries to yell to him, but nothing comes out. John is bloodied and he can’t speak, but at least his legs are working. He looks like Frankenstein’s monster when he gets up – and as soon as he does, Eko’s Jesus stick falls from a tree (or the sky?) onto his head. Locke picks it up and reads it; it looks like a side of the stick we haven’t seen before.

‘Lift up your eyes and look north’ – which is from one of the many pieces of scripture etched into the stick:
‘gen 13:14’: And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward:
‘hab 1:3’: Why dost thou shew me iniquity, and cause [me] to behold grievance? for spoiling and violence [are] before me: and there are [that] raise up strife and contention.
‘john 3:5’: And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin.
‘acts 4:12’: Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
‘rom 6:12’: Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.
And scratched across the bottom? 4 8 15 16 23 42.
(I don't know about you, but ever since Pulp Fiction every time i read scripture - okay, BOTH times - it's Samuel Jackson speaking it in my head.)
Locke heads back to the camp. Once there, he begins cutting down the tarp sheltering his hammock. Claire and Charlie see him, and Claire is full of questions; “When did John get back? What’s he doing? Where’s he been, where’s everyone else? Don’t you think you should go find out?” Charlie can’t get a word in edgewise.

He follows Locke to the framework of Eko’s church. "So you’re gone for a whole day, after a massive hatch detonation. You don’t call, you don’t write..." We’ve heard this one before. Locke is putting something together using the tarp and some bamboo. He signals to Charlie that he can’t speak... but that he needs to say something. They're forced to play charades, and Charlie’s no good at it... granted, the answer isn’t obvious. Sand, the trees, Locke gets frustrated – but Charlie finally guesses correctly.
"The island...you need to speak to the island."

Later on in the camp, Charlie’s using some new kind of tarp (is it the balloon skin?) to roof a structure. Locke approaches with a sharpie and a pad of paper, writes something down and shows it to Charlie. "I need your help...I need you to stand guard."
Charlie’s not interested, he detests Locke and explains why; "You do remember repeatedly punching me in the face and accusing me of using heroin when I was not?"
Locke ignores this and shows him the pad again. "@ the sweat lodge."
"What the sodding hell is a sweat lodge?"
What Charlie, you’ve never read It?

Flashback – John’s driving a pickup (plate # 5Q49938) in the rain listening to the blues. Is the truck gonna roll? Is this when John ends up in his wheelchair? Nope. He pulls over for a hitchhiker, Eddie, who’s looking to get to Eureka and do some logging. John can get him as far as Crichville (I think)? Eddie’s just looking for a job somewhere away from his dead mom and drunken dad.

John can sympathize with the fucked up family thing. As the rain is letting up, a cop pulls in behind them, flashing his lights... Eddie asks John if he robbed a bank... he grins.
"’Fraid so."
Is there gonna be a shootout and that will be how John ended up in the wheelchair? Nope. It wasn’t a bank robbery, just a busted taillight. Officer Williams asks them to step out of the vehicle... he asks John what he’s got in the truck bed. "Guns and groceries."
He ain't lyin'... lots of guns (one of the pistols has a custom grip, looks like a sheriff’s star or something) and all the appropriate paperwork. Williams checks the paperwork. 3 handguns, 5 Winchester shotguns, a Varmint Pro rifle, 2 Nef Handi Rifles, and two H-S Precision rifles. We can see the info on the registration:
Jonathan Locke
25164 Franklin St
San Francisco CA 94099
He’s 5’10”, 175 – ss # 553-45-2651 D.O.B. 11/15/1946. He’s almost sixty on the island? Get the fuck outta here… I guess it makes sense, but he’s pretty damn hale and hearty for his age… 60 is the new 50.
The date on the registration is 10/20/97.
The cop tells him he could still bust him for picking up a hitchhiker, but Eddie tells the cop John is an uncle he just called for a ride. The cop doesn’t believe it, but lets them go anyway. The two get back in the truck. "So what is with all the guns, uncle?"

Back in the shell of a church, Charlie is admiring the completed sweat lodge. Locke’s now busy making the hallucinogenic paste that gave Boone bad dreams, and eating it himself. Charlie is aghast – "You’re not...taking drugs, are you John? I only ask because of the strict zero tolerance policy you’ve enacted. I don’t want you to start punching yourself in the face."
Locke shows him the pad. "I need u 2 stand gaurd."
Locke’s not booksmart, huh? He spelled it right the first time... Charlie agrees to wait outside the ‘magic hut’ in case Locke devolves into a monkey. Locke explicitly writes Charlie to not come in. A couple of minutes later, n the magic hut, a shirtless Locke (not exactly a shirtless Sawyer, but hey, he’s almost 60, cut him some slack – looks better than me without a shirt...) is eating the paste and making the fire smoky... he’s staring into the flames, waiting for his vision. It comes rather quickly.

Boone claps him on the shoulder. "Hi John. It’s good to see you again."

Locke mouths an apology. "That's ok... I was the sacrifice the island demanded.'
John tries, but can’t get any more words across. "Don’t worry... you’ll speak when you have something worth saying. I’m here to help you find your way again, so you can bring the family back together. Come on... I want to show you something."
Locke tries to get up and can’t... Boone points to his overturned wheelchair next to the fire and tells him he needs it. Some bad trip stuff starts happening (as in the camera gets all shaky and there are some rapid cuts – Hollywood for bad trip) and suddenly Boone is pushing Locke through the Sydney airport.
He tells John that someone there is in serious danger, and he is the only one that can save that someone.

Locke points to a dressed-up Charlie, Claire (with straight hair – nice) and Aaron, waiting in line.

"Not them, they’ll be fine... for a while."
For a while?

Sun and Jin are in line in front of the Oceanic departures wall and Sayid is standing behind them. Jin is arguing with Sun.

She walks away and Sayid pats him on the back, then points forward... the line is moving? "I think Sayid’s got it."

Hurley is behind the counter in a uniform, typing the numbers into a computer. He’s the one that knows where everyone is, and it shows in Locke’s dream.

But it’s not Hurley who needs help.

Desmond comes down the escalator. He’s wearing a pilot’s uniform and has three hot female flight attendants with him.

"Forget it; he’s helping himself."

Sawyer and Kate are in the screening line – Ana Lucia’s not waving the wand though... they should have gotten her back for that. Sawyer says something to Kate; I can’t make it out, something about stars?

Then something like, "Watch the line (watch and learn?), little lady." ...and it looks like he steals her plane ticket... it’s got a pic of the golden gate bridge on it. Sawyer has a cell phone in his hand as well.

Jack’s taking off his watch in line behind them. Ben (or Henry, as Locke knows him) is the one waving the wand over Jack.

Okay, that’s cooler than Ana, I guess. Locke flails his arms, trying to get their attention. "There’s nothing you can do for them, not yet. First you have to clean up your own mess."

Boone is suddenly at the top of a tall bank of escalators. He wants Locke to come up. Trippy again... cool cinematography and some great music... Locke lies down, riding the escalator up... he crawls across the floor when he gets to the top, and puts his hand in a puddle of blood. Eko’s stick is there too, covered in blood - but there’s no sign of Eko himself. Boone is standing above Locke. He looks like Griffin Dunne in An American Werewolf in London, all torn up and covered in blood.

"Clean it up, John. They’ve got him. You don’t have much time."

Locke snaps to in the smoke hut. As he moves to leave, a polar bear comes lunging out of the flames at him. He spills out onto the sand next to Charlie, who asks him what happened, if he’s alright. Locke doesn’t answer right away, instead he goes over and picks up a knife out of its sheath and looks at it. Charlie asks what he's doing... as in, are you gonna cut me up with that thing? It’s first-season badass hunter Locke now, and he can speak again.
"I’m going to save Mister Eko’s life."

The two of them are searching for signs of Eko in the jungle a while later. I’m loving the music in this episode. Locke finds Eko’s cross... he tells Charlie that a polar bear dragged him this way. Charlie can’t believe it. "Sawyer killed the polar bear!"
"He killed A polar bear."
How many are there? Boone said 'they've' got him. Tom never answered Sawyer when he asked. They continue on... Locke finds some blood and tells Charlie he’s going to go on alone, and that he should go back to Claire. "You don’t want to go with me, Charlie. Bad things happen to people who hang around with me."

Flashback – John drives the pickup to a gate, and a little kid named Bobby opens it for them. Locke gives him a bag of candy. Kinda odd... This place is some kind of orchard, complete with a sweat lodge. Eddie, wearing a Geronimo Jackson shirt, asks about the lodge. "Anybody who wants can go in there and light a fire, get it nice and smoky... meditate...then you’re supposed to figure out what to do with your life ...figure out if you’re a farmer or a hunter."
"Which are you, John?"
They walk over to a large group of people just sitting down to eat... John introduces Eddie to Mike (it’s Norma’s husband!), who looks like he could be Tom's brother, and Jan. Mike compliments Eddie on the Geronimo Jackson shirt and asks John to say grace. "Thank you Lord, thank you for the food and the friends...and for me, thank you for helping me stop being so angry, and helping me find a real family. ‘Cause they’re a hell of a lot better than the ones I used to have."
He sits to eat, and Eddie thanks him greatly.

Back in the jungle, Locke and Charlie (I guess he's coming anyway)come across a huge crater – it’s what’s left of the hatch. It looks like it imploded. What the hell happened there and how the hell did any of them get out alive? Did the island or the black smoke save them somehow? Is this whole quest to get Eko a test from the island to see if Locke has regained his faith? Locke finds a dead boar nearby, recently gored. "It’s an active kill; meaning that whatever was eating this is gonna be back for more."
"If you wanna say polar bear you can just say it."
Locke finds some white fur stuck to a branch. "Alright... Polar bear."
They hear something in the jungle coming toward them... and take off running... it’s the bear, but they lose it quickly and stop in a clearing. Locke hears some more rustling and throws a knife in the direction it’s coming from... and they hear a man grunt in surprise. Locke parts the bushes to find Hurley with a knife sticking out of his canteen.
"Dude."

He tells them about Jack, Kate, and Sawyer, and the Others’ orders to stay away. "Oh, and that dude we had in the hatch, Henry? He was there... he’s like their leader."
This catches Locke off guard... or gaurd... but he has to fix his mess first. He tells Hurley to go on back and tell everyone what he just told them. Hurley wants to know what Locke and Charlie doing, so Charlie fills him in. "The island told Locke he has to save Eko. Apparently a bear's got him, and it’s just made an active kill. You may want to hustle."
He and Locke continue deeper into the jungle, leaving Hurley all by himself.
"Bear? What bear?"

Charlie tells Locke about the nature programs he watched on the Beeb when he was stoned; they told him that polar bears were the Einsteins of the bear community. Locke finds the cave... Einstein’s lair.

Flashback – Eddie and John are going to work in the orchard. Eddie’s razzing him about some girl, Lizze, saying that she’s into him... but she’s half John’s age and too granola for Eddie. He tells John she wants a daddy - like everyone else here. "You should take advantage of that."
"That’s not really funny, Eddie."
Eddie apologizes, and then asks Locke why he never talks about his dad. "Nothin’ worth talking about."
I dunno about that, it’s a pretty good story.
They pass a large opaque greenhouse next to the orchard. Eddie wants to know what they’re doing in there, but John won’t tell him, or isn’t allowed to. Eddie harps on it... he sees a lot of fertilizer going in (he’s been there for six weeks already) he wants in - he thinks they’re building a bomb and are planning on blowing something up... John laughs at him. He tells him he’ll talk to Mike and Jan about letting him in on the secret.

Back at the entrance of the cave – Locke’s going in alone... "I’m going in there because I’m supposed to go in there."
He’s putting together a torch and Charlie watches him pull a spray can out of his pack. "Hairspray? Now... I hate to be the one to point this out to you, but..."
Locke smiles... It kind of breaks the tension between them... they’re friends again. Locke lights the torch and enters the cave.

Hurley’s on his way to the camp when he hears something rustling in the jungle. "Bear... is that you?"
It’s not the bear. We hear a familiar voice. "Are you alone, brother?"
He says yeah, and a naked Desmond, looking an awful lot like Christ resurrected, emerges from the jungle. Uh oh, where’s his book? Hurley shields his eyes.
"Whoa, dude... I’m not alone!"
Des tells him he woke up in the jungle naked. "So, like, the hatch blew off your underwear?"
Hurley gives him a smelly oversized tie-dye t-shirt to wear and he and Hippy Jesus Des make for the camp.

Locke finds a toy Tonka truck as he makes his way deeper into the cave... creepy. Do the Others feed bad kids to the bears?

Flashback – John walks up to the guard at the greenhouse, who’s cradling a shotgun – Mike and Jan are looking for him. He goes in... there’s pot...lots and lots of weed. Damn! Mike and Jan are rushing around, packing everything up. "You screwed up John, you blew it big time."
They show him a file on Eddie – he’s an officer in the Humboldt county sheriff’s department.
Badge # 84023
Edward F Colburn.
"You know how much jail time we’d get for this much weed?"
"He has been in here for six weeks gathering evidence because you brought him here."
"He played you for a sucker... now it’s over."
Will John ever trust the right person? Has it happened at least once in his life?? John tells them to wait... "It’s not too late to fix this. I can fix this."

Deeper in the cave he comes across a lot of skeletons... one of them has a Dharma vest on or something.

How many people have the bears eaten?!? How long ago did they escape? He sees Eko lying behind a boulder, beaten and bloodied... Locke grabs his shoulders to carry him out, but the bear suddenly appears and pulls Eko back by his legs. Locke busts out the hairspray and gives the bear a high school flamethrower right in the face... it lets go, and he drags Eko away as the bear runs from them. Locke gets him out of the cave and Charlie helps to carry him. I bet they’re wishing the bear had chosen someone a lot lighter.

Hurley and Desmond are on their way to the camp, and Des tells Hurley what happened down in the hatch, and about the key. "That seems kinda convenient...if you had this magic key the whole time, why didn’t you, like, use it."
"I didn’t know what would happen."
"So what did happen?"
"The failsafe key must have detonated the electromagnetic anomaly, made the hatch implode."
"You didn’t implode... you’re not gonna like turn into the Hulk or somethin'?"
He tells Des what happened while he was ‘failsafing’. "...the whole island vibrated, and Kate and Jack and Sawyer saw it too, right before they got bags pulled over their heads..."
Des tells him not to worry. "Locke’s gonna go after them, he said so in his speech."
Listen: Desmond Hume has become unstuck in time. Fucking awesome. When did the hatch blow him to? What happened? Is it time travel or psychic shit? I’m hoping for time travel myself... maybe he’s already read his book and he’s dead?
"What speech? He said he was going to save Eko and kill bears."
I can’t read Des, is he confused himself, or is he angry with himself for slipping up? "Right, I'm sorry... I’m just a bit shook up."

Charlie and Locke are dragging Eko across the island. Charlie wants to know, now that they’ve survived the suicide mission, what Locke saw in the spirit tent. "I saw Boone. He told me I had to clean up my own mess."
"Well...I agree with Boone, after all if you kept pressing that button like Eko told you to..."
"We wouldn’t have had to save him in the first place – yeah, Charlie - that’s what cleaning up your own mess means."
"Spoken like someone who’s had a few too many messes to clean."

Flashback – John and Eddie are out hunting... John pretends to see something over Eddie’s shoulder, and when he turns to look for it, John points his rifle at Eddie’s back. He turns to see the rifle pointed at him, and John asks, "Did you know it would be me in the truck... did they choose me?"
(Did the island choose me?)
Eddie tells him he doesn’t know what he’s talking about and starts to raise his own rifle. Is this when John ends up in the chair? John tells him he didn’t load that one. I guess not. Hey, it's like Jack and Michael...
Eddie drops it.
"So how about you just answer the question, Eddie."
"Yeah, they chose you, John. Because you hadn’t been here long, didn’t have a criminal record, and psych profile said you'd be amenable for coercion. Lower the gun... this isn’t personal."
Eddie starts to back away and John tells him to stop. "I’m sorry John, but you’re not gonna shoot me. You’re not a murderer (we heard this last week... remember how that turned out...), you’re a good man (sounds like an Other), you’re a farmer."
"Nope, I’m not a farmer. I was a hunter... I’m a hunter..."
BLAM!!!
Nah, he doesn’t shoot... he’s too busy fighting back tears; he can’t believe he’s trusted the wrong person yet again. Eddie walks off. So maybe Mike and Jan end up busting Locke’s legs over this? How does he go from being a pot farmer to working in a box factory? argh, I wanna know!

Charlie, Eko and Locke stop by a stream to get some water. Charlie takes off to fill the water bottle and Locke sits down next to the unconscious Eko. "Sorry. Sorry I ever doubted you. Sorry I gave up on my faith (he says something here - in god? again?). I messed up... now our people are captured... if I’d just listened to you, if I’d just let you keep pushing the button; I could have gone with them… I could have protected them, I could have saved them."
Eko’s eyes open. "You can still protect them. You can still save them."
"I don’t even know where they are..."
"You will find them. After all, you are a hunter, John."
Charlie comes back and Eko is unconscious still... he never actually woke up... or did he?

The two of them get him back to camp, where Hurley has arrived as well. Hey, a couple of the background people are getting their SAG cards this week! One of the extras wants to get Jack to take care of Eko. Hurley pipes up; "Jacks not coming back. They’ve got him."
Two of the background artists are getting definite roles here... the girl who wanted to get Jack snaps, "Okay, when were you planning on telling us this Hurley?!?"

She looks like Ashley Judd, but she can act, so I guess it's not her. Some guy with a beard has a few lines too, "What do you mean, they? Who’s they?"

Everyone is starting to freak out.
Locke stands and speaks. "’They’ are the Others. And yes, they’ve taken Jack and Kate and Sawyer."
Claire asks about Sun, Jin and Sayid, if they’re okay.
"I don’t know. I’m gonna find our friends. I don’t know how yet, but I will."
Hurley looks nervously down at Des, who’s standing at the shore throwing rocks into the ocean.
"We're gonna find them, all of them. And then we're gonna bring them home. But first things first, we gotta look after Mister Eko, so Paulo (beard guy) and Nikki (fake Ashley Judd) bring towels and water. Claire, we gotta clean him up, so bring all the first aid supplies."
Okay, I guess they've had some speaking roles before. Paulo is also listed as 'Neil' in The Glass Ballerina. Huh?
Locke goes into the tent where they laid Eko. Charlie, speaking to Hurley, hammers the point home, for those of you that might have missed it. "Not a bad speech."
Hurley does his best Keanu impression. "Whoa. I just got hit with... you know... deja vu."
He's watching Desmond. Charlie watches him - he thinks he’s crazy. Can he not see Desmond? Is there a Sixth Sense/Dave thing going on here? "Okay, well when that wears off can you get bandages from the kitchen?"
There’s look of confusion - and maybe a little anger - on Hurley’s face as he continues staring down at Desmond, who is still casting stones into the ocean.

Damn, he looks like Jesus here... halo and all... casting stones - is Desmond without sin now? Reborn after the implosion?

the glass ballerina

2006-10-17T16:34:00.000-07:00

The glass ballerina is spinning slowly through the air – then it’s hitting the ground and smashing into pieces... A little Sun runs away from the shattered mess.

She’s practicing at the piano a short while later when her father enters, holding the pieces of the ballerina in a trash bag. He asks if she did it, and she tells him no, that it was the maid. "If you tell me the maid did this, I will be forced to fire her...who broke it?"
"The maid did."
Wow, Sun was a baaad girl.

Present day, Sun, Jin, and Sayid are on the Elizabeth, just offshore from the beach where the black smoke signal fire is burning. Sayid is busy checking Danielle’s maps. Jin interrupts with questions, which Sun translates (for us as well, Jin isn’t subtitled). He wants to leave, he doesn’t think that Jack and the others are coming – it’s been over a day. Sayid believes it could be because they aren’t able to see the smoke, and he wants to sail a little further and light another signal fire. Jin disagrees, and Sun tries to convince him. He reminds her that Sayid is not her husband (we have subtitles now). She tells Sayid, "My husband thinks we have to do as he says because he’s the only one who knows how to sail. But he’s wrong. I can help you sail the boat."
Bad girl.

Jack’s crouched and broken in the corner of his cell. Juliet comes in with a tray of food. "I made the soup myself."
Jack won’t speak or even look at her. It’s the three year old version of Jack again. She leaves, and this time there’s a guard at the door (although he’s missing when they show her in the hallway – maybe he just ran away quickly). Juliet knocks on a door with a red handle and Ben answers. He’s in a room reminiscent of The Pearl – video monitors mounted in the wall. We can see Jack’s cell and the cages. "You never made soup for me."
So the cell is wired for sound as well. But why would he care about the soup? Did Juliet hold him captive in the past? Were they together? Another blonde woman enters the station and asks if she’s interrupting something? "Would it really matter if you were?"
There’s no love lost between the two women. She tells Ben that Ryan has informed her they have a problem. The Iraqi has found the decoy village. Ben doesn’t care about that, "...that’s what we wanted."
How did they know about Jack and Sayid’s plan? Is the survivor’s camp wired for sound too? Ben is surprised when the woman tells him what Ryan found when he followed Sayid. The sailboat. Now they’re worried they could be found.

Ben is flustered – which makes me think he planned to get caught... this guy doesn’t strike me as someone used to surprises. "How quickly can you put together a team?"
Within the hour, she tells him. "Then don’t waste time talking to us."
The woman turns to leave, and Ben has one last thing to say. "Hey Colleen...I want that boat."

Tom, Pickett, and a few other Others are rousting Sawyer and Kate from their cages. Pickett hands Sawyer a lunch box. "...you’re gonna need to keep up your energy."
They’re leading them down a trail under a canopy when they meet up with Colleen and some other Others. Pickett's first name is Danny, and he and Colleen are a couple... why would she care about Ben and Juliet? Tom leaves with Colleen’s group as Sawyer and Kate are led on.

Back on the boat, Sayid is loading a rifle, while Sun is trying to apologize to Jin. She’s telling him that she shouldn’t have disagreed with him in front of Sayid. "You shouldn’t have disagreed with me, period."
He asks her why she came on the boat with them, and she tells him, "I didn’t want to be without you."
Is she lying? Why?

Flashback – Well, she has been lying. She’s nekkid in bed with baldy Jae. She’s trying to end it. Before she can get up to leave Jae hands her a beautiful string of pearls, but she tells him she can’t wear it because of Jin. Jae is insistent. "I don’t want to share you anymore."
So this affair has been going on for a while? He wants her to run away to America with him. She doesn’t answer, but they move in for a kiss. They’re interrupted by a knock at the door – Jae gets up and answers it. It’s Sun’s father.

He ignores Jae completely and walks into the bedroom, where he finds a naked Sun. "Get dressed."
He leaves.

Back on the island, Dan and friends have led Sawyer and Kate to some kind of rock breaking work camp chain gang thing. There are some Others breaking rocks and carting them around, are they prisoners as well? Or being punished for something? Danny hands off his gun to someone – it looks like one of the AK’s from the Swan. He turns to talk to Sawyer and Kate. "Alright, here’s the jig; see these rocks here? That’s where you two come in."
He orders Kate to chop them loose, while Sawyer carts them away.
"You expect me to work in this dress?"
"It’s up to you; you can take it off if you want."
Ha ha ha... she looks to Sawyer for support, but he just grins like it’s a good idea, until he sees that she’s hurt, at which point he tries to redeem himself. "How dare you?"
Ha ha... nice try Sawyer. Dan ignores this and continues. "If you need anything, raise your hand."
Sawyer raises his hand. "I got a question, boss."
"No questions."
"She got to ask a question!"
Danny’s losing patience; Sawyer has gotten under his skin. "If you try to run off, you will be shocked..."
Sawyer mishears (or is just playing with) him, "Shot? We don’t even get a warning?"
Now Danny is really irritated. "Shocked! I said shocked! If you talk to each other you’re gonna be shocked. If you touch each other, you’re gonna be shocked...matter of fact you do anything at all that pisses me off, you’re gonna get shocked."
Kate demands to see Jack, and won’t start working until she does. Dan takes a couple of threatening steps toward her – reaches over, and shocks Sawyer, knocking him to the ground. "That was a partial charge. You got any more questions?"

Flashback – Jin enters his father in-law’s office. Dad slides a folder across the table to him. "We have a problem."
Jin opens it – it’s a picture of Jae. Uh oh. "This man has been stealing from me."
So he’s not going to tell Jin? Either way, he wants Jin to kill him. Jin refuses, dad tries to force him into it, and Jin quits. "You don’t get to quit! This man has shamed me. You married my daughter Jin...that makes you my son. My shame is your shame (yeah – in this case it sure is). I need you to restore our families honor."
Jin takes the folder from him and bows.

Now – Jin, Sun and Sayid have reached the Pala ferry dock. Sayid doesn’t believe it’s been used in quite some time. He wants to tie the boat to the dock and start a signal fire on the beach. Jin wants to know if it’s safe. Sayid snaps at him. "Yes Jin, of course it’s safe."

At the work camp, Kate is busy chopping rocks with a pickaxe while Sawyer is busy checking out her ass.

Danny and Juliet are nearby, going over some kind of schematic. Danny notices Sawyer slacking and yells for him to get back to work. "Whatever you say, boss."
Alex is hiding behind some bushes near Kate. She gets her attention. "Careful – don’t let them see you talking to me. Are they keeping you in the cages?"
Kate nods yes. "Did you see another guy in there with you? About my age, named Carl?"
Kate tells her it’s just the two of them. Alex either says, "I thought he was supposed to be in that cage," or, "I’m not supposed to be in that cage."
I couldn’t make it out. Neither could Kate, she asks what’s she’s talking about, and who she is.
Alex doesn't answer, but asks where she got the dress and Kate tells her, "They gave it to me."
"It’s mine. You can keep it. Looks better on you anyway."
Alex takes off as Sawyer approaches Kate. "Having fun yet, Freckles?"
"Quit staring at my ass."
"Gimme something else to stare at."
Danny tells them to shut up. "Yezzir, boss."

At the Pala beach, Sun is bringing a gas can from the boat to Sayid (the sailboat does have some kind of motor). She’s wondering about the size of this fire and Sayid tells her he needs a big one so Jack won’t miss it. "Why are you lying to me, Sayid?"
"And what would you know about lying, Sun?"
A lot more than he thinks... and she’s better at it than him. Nevertheless, he comes clean. "I’m fairly certain our friends have been captured. There are tracks all over the dock...fresh, as recent as yesterday."
His plan is to build the fire so the Others will send a scout party... by the time they get there it should be night, and Sayid will ambush them, taking two of them hostage and killing the rest. "Two," Sun asks?
"One to make the other cooperate."
He asks Sun to lie to Jin for just a while longer, until the fire is lit, at which point there will be no turning back.

Flashback – Jin comes home to Sun and tells her he saw her father today. She’s sweating it... He tells her dad in-law called him Son for the first time; because he wants him to deliver a message. Sun understands what that means, and tells Jin he doesn’t have to do it. They could run away and start a new life – he won’t have to do this anymore. "I do this for you, Sun. I do this because your father expects it. I do this because that’s what it takes to be married to you."
"And what does it take to be married to you?" Sun snaps back.
Jin leaves, presumably to deliver the message.

Back at the Pala beach – Jin asks Sayid for a gun. Once again we don’t get subtitles for Jin, as Sun translates for Sayid (she’s such a good liar, how do we know that Jin is saying what she says he’s saying?). "He knows what we’re doing...he says he understands English better than I think he does...he knows I betrayed him."
Sayid hands a gun over, asking Jin if he can handle it. Jin answers by deftly popping the clip and checking the chamber or something (I dunno, I don’t have any guns - looked impressive though). The men send Sun back to wait on the Elizabeth. Sayid tells her where he’s hidden a gun on the boat, in case the Others get past him and Jin. "If they get past you that means my husband is dead. And I won’t care anymore."

The work camp again – Juliet tosses Sawyer a Dharma canteen. He opens it, dumps the water out, and tosses it back at her feet. He walks over to Kate and plants one on her...

Danny runs over and hits Sawyer from behind with his rifle. What follows is one of the best fight scenes on Lost so far. A big guy is getting the best of Sawyer, who reaches in and tries to use his own taser on him... but it doesn’t work – the safety is on. Sawyer manages to throw him to the ground anyway, and picks up an AK from the ground. He holds the others back at gunpoint. "James!"
It’s Juliet, holding a gun to Kate’s side. "Put the gun down, right now."
He knows she’s not bluffing and drops the gun. Danny tasers him and he goes down hard.

It’s nighttime now on the Pala beach, while Jin and Sayid wait in the jungle, Sun is making tea aboard the boat. She hears some footsteps and grabs the gun from its hiding place as we see the Others boarding the boat.

Flashback – Jin follows Jae up to the second floor of the hotel – room 1516. Jae turns to see him, and is rightfully scared shitless. Jin pounds Jae’s head against the door, throws him into the room, and proceeds to beat the tar out of him. Is Jae going to confess? Has Jin known all along? "Do you know why I’m here?"
"I’m sorry!"
Jin puts a pillow to the side of Jae’s head and holds a gun against it... but he can’t do it. He tells Jae to leave the country and never come back. "And if I hear you’ve returned, if you have any contact at all (holy shit – DOES Jin know??) I will finish this. Am I clear? You don’t exist."
He leaves him and walks back out to his car. He’s composing himself in the driver’s seat when he hears a strange flapping sound. A second later Jae does his glass ballerina impression and lands on the hood of Jin’s car, smashing the windshield.

He’s clutching the pearls he gave to Sun. I don’t think it was someone finishing the job for Jin, I think Jae just jumped. But did he go up to the roof first? Cause that was a pretty rough landing from just the second floor.

Back on the boat, Colleen finds Sun down in the cabin. Sun points the gun at her and asks to be let off the boat. Colleen can’t do that... she tells Sun there are five of her friends up top. She takes a step toward Sun, who tells her to stop, or she’ll shoot. "No you won’t Sun. I know you, Sun-Hwa Kwon and I know you’re not a killer. Despite what you might think, I am not the enemy, we are not the enemy. But if you shoot me, that’s exactly what we will become."
She takes another step toward Sun as the engine starts up, and Sun pulls the trigger, shooting her in the gut. It seems like she may have been startled by the engine and that’s what caused her to pull the trigger – regardless, Colleen now has a bullet in her torso.

An Other brother peers down into the cabin and sees Sun... he starts shooting at her. Jin and Sayid hear the shots and run to the dock, where they start exchanging gunfire with the Others on the boat. Another great action scene – shootout at the Pala dock. Suns makes her way topside, where Tom spots her. He takes a shot at her as she jumps/falls off the side of the boat. Jin jumps into the water to get her, and they find each other as the boat motors off.

Flashback – Sun is at Jae’s funeral, but standing off in the distance. Her father comes up behind her and tells her she shouldn’t be there. She wants to know what he’s doing there. "I do business with the young man’s father. I’m told he jumped from a balcony (well this kinda makes me think that he DIDN’T). He must have felt a great shame."
He’s hoping that if she didn’t learn her lesson about lying from the glass ballerina, maybe this will do the trick? But it didn’t; she’s still lying to Jin as far as we know. She asks dad if he’ll ever tell Jin. "It is not my place to tell him."

Jin’s drying Sun off on the beach. "I don’t know what I’d do without you..."
He puts his hand on her stomach – "...without both of you."
Sayid apologizes, and asks Sun to tell Jin that he will listen to him the next time. "We should go; we have a long walk ahead of us."
Sun looks pained – is she considering telling Jin the truth? She doesn’t know about Rose and Locke’s miracles – even if the island did get Jin’s little guys swimming again, as far as she knows, the kid is Jae’s.

Sawyer and Kate are being thrown back in their cages – Sawyer’s still hurting. Kate asks him what he was thinking. "I couldn’t help myself. You just looked so damn cute swinging that pickaxe...chain gang looks good on you, freckles."
But he had an ulterior motive – "Two of the guards got some real fight in ‘em, the rest...I ain’t worried about. The heavyset guy packs a helluva punch. Shaggy haired kid's got some martial arts training, but I think I could take him if I had to. FYI, those zapper things got a safety on ‘em."
Kate’s impressed. "Did you see the look on their faces when you got a hold of that rifle?"
"I’m guessing most of these boys never seen any real action. But that blonde that had a gun pointed at you? She woulda shot you, no problem."
Kate asks Sawyer why the woman called him James.
"’cause that’s my name."
Kate looks hurt that he’d never told her that before. "I noticed something else, too. You taste like strawberries."
The hurt goes away. "You taste like fish biscuits. So what do we do now?"
"Well shortcake, now we wait for these bastards to make a mistake."
The POV switches from outside Sawyer’s cage to Ben watching him on one of the monitors in the Hydra.

Jack’s on the monitor above him, Kate to the right. Bottom left is the other half of Jack’s cell, above that, I’m not so sure – it looks like the inside of another station. The top right is a jungle shot, but there’s a floodlight there – maybe somewhere along the canopied path? The monitors seem to change cameras as well, so who knows how many places Ben can observe ...and there’s audio. "...sooner or later they’re gonna let their guard down. And when they do, we’re gonna be there to put them in their place."
Argh, that sucks... it’s a good plan! Frigging Ben.

Jack in his cell – Ben comes in for a visit. He unfolds a chair and sits down. "You know what’s crazy, Jack? A week ago you and I were in exactly the opposite situation."
He knows Jack was angry because he lied about being Henry Gale, but if he had admitted that he was "...one of those people that you and your friends have been calling ‘Others’ all this time, it would have been right back to Sayid and his fists...I want for you to change your perspective, and the first step in doing that would be for me to be decent enough to introduce myself honestly, so... Hi, my name is Benjamin Linus and I’ve lived on this island all my life."
He holds out his hand, but Jack won’t take it. Ben has an a/v cart with a television on it wheeled into the other side of the room. He tells Jack that Kate and Sawyer are safe and close, and that’s all he wants to tell him about them. He says that if Jack cooperates, they’ll send him home. Jack doesn’t believe him. "If you could leave this island why would you still be here?"
"Yes Jack, why would we still be here... your flight crashed on September 22nd, two thousand and four. Today is November 29th... that means you’ve been on our island for sixty-nine days. We do have contact with the outside world, that’s how we know that during those 69 days your fellow Americans re-elected George W Bush, Christopher Reeve has passed away, the Boston Red Sox have won the World Series."
Jack laughs at him. "If you wanted me to believe that you probably should have picked someone else besides the Red Sox."
"No, they were down three games to none against the Yankees in the league championship and then they won eight straight."
Jack still won’t believe him, and Ben looks flustered again. He hits play on the remote in his hand and the TV clicks on, showing a very familiar sight (to me). "Back to Foulke...Red Sox fans have longed to hear it...the Boston Red Sox are world champions!"

Jack is watching the celebration on the field incredulously. "That’s home, Jack... if you listen to me, if you trust me, if you do what I tell you when the time comes... I will take you home."

i was shivering inside...

2006-10-10T23:10:00.000-07:00

Ah, the obligatory eye-opening to start off a new season!

Mirroring last seasons opener, a hand brushes over a CD rack (the only title I can make out is ‘Self Sufficient'?), chooses The Talking Heads ‘Speaking in Tongues’ case, takes out the CD and puts it in a player. We get a look at this blonde woman as she tries to compose herself in the mirror. Petula Clark singing ‘Downtown’ seems to perk her up a bit (does she have to hide that song in a talking heads case?), but it still looks like she’s fighting back tears... great acting here...

she walks around her house, setting up some chairs and fluffing some pillows – and either a timer or a fire alarm starts beeping. She rushes to the stove – her muffins have burned... she burns herself on the tray while pulling them out and drops it, scattering them across the floor as the doorbell rings. We see an outside shot of a small yellow house. There’s an old woman in blue waiting at the door when our blonde-haired woman answers. She tells her about the muffins, and they both peer around the corner at a pair of legs sticking out from under the house. "He hasn’t fixed your plumbing yet?"

Later, seven people are sitting around, including the blonde and old woman... it’s a book club. One guy is complaining about the book they’re reading, saying that its popcorn, not literature. "There’s no metaphor, it’s by the numbers religious hokum pokum – science fiction."
It’s Carrie by Stephen King. The blonde looks distracted, but the guy, Adam, gets her attention when he mutters, "Now I know why Ben isn’t here."
Julie is the blonde-haired woman, the host, and she’s thrilled that Adam can’t stand her favorite book. "Silly of me, for sinking so low as to select something that Ben wouldn’t like. Here I am thinking that free will still actually exists on th..."
She’s cut off suddenly by what seems to be an earthquake...it’s strong, but over just as soon as it started. They go outside, and we see what looks to be some kind of tract housing, military maybe, all the houses look the same. The person fixing the plumbing pops up from under the house – and it’s Ethan Rom. Fake Henry Gale walks out of another house. Julie walks over to him while everyone gathered is looking up at the sky, seemingly waiting for something, almost as if this has all happened before.

They can hear it before they see it... Oceanic flight 815, breaking into two pieces in the sky above them. Fake Henry is all business now. "Goodwin."
Our old buddy Goodwin looks up. "You see where the tail landed? You run you can make that shore in an hour. Ethan, get up there to that fuselage, there may actually be survivors; and you’re one of them, a passenger, you’re in shock. Come up with an adequate story if they ask, stay quiet if they don’t. Listen, learn, don’t get involved (Goodwin blew that one). I want lists in three days... go!"
They take off running. Fake Henry looks over at Julie, still holding her copy of Carrie. "So I guess I’m out of the book club."
She turns away from him.

The camera pans around the village, then cuts to a shot from further away – the village is set in a clearing on the island – what looks like Charlie’s dove flies out of the trees - does a single dove always fly away on this island when a plane crashes? The camera jumps back twice more, and we can see the vapor trails leading down to the wreckage on either side of the island.

Goodwin must be a fast runner; that beach is far away and this island is huge, way bigger than I’d imagined. The Others' village would seem to be the ‘Downtown’ of the island.

Flashback – Jack’s hospital ID is next to a pager (it’s 7:15:23 am) and a finished crossword puzzle, all resting on the front seat of a car. Jack’s in the driver’s seat, unshaven, still wearing his wedding ring. He’s waiting outside a schoolyard, watching Sarah from a distance as Moonlight Sonata plays on the radio. She’s being flirty with some artist-type.

Jack wakes up... he’s laying on some kind of table – he takes a bandage off the inside of his elbow; he’s been injected with something, or they drew blood. He gets up and tries to force open a nearby door, no luck. There’s a big old intercom on the wall. Jack pushes the ‘Communicate’ button under it, but nothing happens. He sees an open door across the room and rushes over to it, getting about halfway before smacking into a wall of glass dividing the room in two. He tries to kick it down, but it’s not budging. He yells out to Kate.

She wakes up on the floor of a locker room, and Tom, Mr. Friendly, is standing over her. He won’t answer any of her questions, and tells her to take a shower. "I’m not showering in front of you."
Tom looks surprised, and then laughs at her. "Kate, you’re not my type."
Is he the first gay person we’ve met on the island, or is he just into chunky blondes? Maybe it's a black thing, and Bernard will have some competition?
She has the same bandage as Jack.

Sawyer wakes up in a cage... it looks like Jurassic Park or something. There’s a Dharma symbol on a nearby water tank, and a post with P.A. speakers mounted on it. There’s also a dark haired kid in another cage across from Sawyer, but he’s not talking. Inside Sawyer’s cage is a big red jolly candy-like button, with a knife and fork painted on it. Under that is a chute, next to a pipe leading into a dry trough. There’s a huge foot pedal kitty-corner from this contraption, and a lever near the top of the cage in another corner. He presses the button, and there’s a loud buzz, accompanied by a woman’s recorded voice saying, "Warning."
He pushes it again, same thing. He moves to push it one more time, and the kid speaks up, "I wouldn’t do that."
"If I want your advice, I’ll ask for it."
He pushes it a third time and an electric shock sends him flying back into the bars of his cage.

Jack starts yanking on a chain in his cell, trying to rip it from it’s moorings on the ceiling. After a few tugs, he hears a woman’s voice from the other room. "Stop that."
It’s Julie, the blonde-haired woman from the book club. "Hi Jack. I’m Juliet."

Flashback – Jack’s meeting Sarah in a large office building, presumably to finalize the divorce. She wants to know where his lawyer is. He’s still wearing his ring; he wants to reconcile. Before she can say much, her cell phone rings and she answers it, speaks with someone, and they share a laugh before she hangs up. It makes Jack insanely jealous, and he insists on knowing the other mans name. "I just want to know the name of the man who is sleeping with my wife!"
Sarah gets up and leaves.

Back in the cell, he’s still yanking the chain furiously, while Juliet is speaking to him calmly. She fiddles with a mixing board on a table in her side of the room, turning up the speakers in Jack’s cell.

She says she tell him where his friends are if he promises to let go of the chain and get down from the table. He barks at her, "Do you think I’m stupid?"
She doesn’t, but "...I think you’re stubborn."
Yeah, stubborn like a three year old throwing a tantrum. He keeps jerking the chain.

Meanwhile, Kate’s finishing up her shower. Sometimes I really wish this show were on HBO. She gets out to find her clothes are missing... there’s an open locker nearby (# 841) and a piece of masking tape with "wear this" written on it is stuck to the door. Through the looking glass.
It’s a sundress... Tom comes up and whistles at her while she’s looking in a mirror. "C’mon, Kate. He’s waiting."
Tom, along with two other men and a woman, walk Kate outside under a canopied pathway leading to a beach. Fake Henry is waiting there at a table set with breakfast for two. He pulls out a chair for her and she sits. There’s a pair of handcuffs on the table, and Henry asks her to put them on. Is it for Henry’s safety, or is it a psychological dig at Kate, they know she’s a fugitive? "...and if I don’t?"

"Then you don’t get any coffee."
She slips them over her wrists. "A little tighter, please."
Kate asks him about Sawyer and Jack, and he’s curious as to why she asked about Sawyer first.
"You don’t know me," she spits at him.
"Of course we don’t," Fake Henry replies, looking down at her handcuffs.
She asks for her clothes back, and Fake Henry tells her they’ve been burned. "Why did you bring me here? Why did you make me put on this dress, why are you feeding me breakfast?"
"I brought you here so you’d look out at the water and feel comforted. Comforted that your friends were looking out at the same ocean. I gave you the dress so you’d feel like a lady. I wanted you to eat your food with a real live fork and feel civilized. I did all these things so you’d have something nice to hold on to. Because, Kate, the next two weeks are going to be very unpleasant."

Flashback – Jack's in his office being a frigging creep. He has Sarah’s cell phone bill, and is calling every number on it. Christian interrupts him and sees what he’s up to. "You’ve gotta stop this, Jack. It’s over."
Jack dials the next number on the list and Christian’s cell phone rings. Jack starts to accuse his Dad, but Christian tells him she only called because she was afraid for Jack. She could see that he was losing his grip. No shit, I think even Ray Charles could see that. Christian tries to help, telling Jack that he understands obsession. "Being a drunk is not obsession," snaps Jack.
That hurt, and Christian walks away.
"Let it go, Jack."

Back in his cell, Jack is trying to force the door open again. He opens his mouth to swallow some water dripping from above, and promptly spits it up. Seawater? The intercom comes to life, emitting scratchy noises... Jack approaches it and hears Christians voice.
"Let it go, Jack."
Jack jumps back just as the lights snap on. Juliet is in the other half of the room, where she has some water and a grilled cheese on a tray for him. "This is how it will work. You sit there, across from the door, back against the wall. I open the door and leave the tray. Can I trust you to do that, Jack?"
Jack tells her the person on the intercom can just give it up. "Maybe you’re hungrier than you think. That intercom hasn’t worked in years."
He points at a button on the wall behind her and asks what it’s for. "It’s for emergencies."
Man, is he three years old or what?
She asks if he’s going to sit against the wall and he tells her she can have the sandwich. She puts the tray down and asks what his profession is. "I’m a repo man."
She asks if he’s married. "No, I never saw the point."
He asks Juliet what she does when she’s not making sandwiches. "Oh, I didn’t make it. I just put the toothpicks in."

She gets a genuine smile from Jack. "When your plane crashed, where were you flying from?"
He tells her about the trip and his dad, and she’s sympathetic. She touches her hand to the glass separating them. "You can trust me, Jack. I’m not going to hurt you."
Jack gets right down to it. "What the hell is going on here?!?"
Juliet walks away.

In the cage, Sawyer is trying to figure out the switches and levers... the kid across the way asks how long it would take to get back to the survivors’ camp. "You talking to me now, Chachi?"
Chachi wants to know what the people from the plane are like. "Oh, they’re just awesome. Last one of you boys came for a visit got tortured by an Iraqi – he tortured me too."
While Sawyer was talking, the kid picked the lock on his cage. He comes over to Sawyer's cage and picks that lock too, telling Sawyer to run one way while he runs another. The P.A. lady is repeating "Subject escaped" as Sawyer runs past some more cages and an aviary (Hurleee!!).
"Hey!"
It’s Juliet. Sawyer stops and looks at her, just long enough for her to taser him.
Cut to Sawyer being tossed back into his cage by Tom, while some Planet of the Apes music plays. Tom holds the kid up against the bars of Sawyers cage.

"Say it, Carl."
"I’m sorry I involved you in my breakout attempt."
They take Carl back through the jungle. He’s a lot younger than the rest of them, it seems, maybe a little older than Alex. Where did he come from? Why was he in the cage?

Back to Jack and Juliet. She’s telling him the drug they gave him causes dehydration, and that if he doesn’t eat soon, he’s going to start hallucinating. - are they behind all the hallucinations we’ve seen, somehow? - She tells him once more to sit against the wall so she can give him his food. "I know it feels like you’re giving up, like you’re losing if you do anything I ask you to, but you’re not. You need to eat."
He moves over and sits with his back to the wall. "Thank you, Jack."

Flashback – Jack’s in the hospital, watching his dad talking to someone on his cell phone. He gets angry when Christian starts laughing. He follows him to the Lynford Hotel, into an AA meeting. The director of the meeting asks Jack to take a seat, telling him that they’ve heard a lot about him. Jack cracks, totally losing it... "What’d you tell them about me, dad? That your son never really had it, not like the old man? I didn’t have the will to make it work, my life, my job, my marriage... WHAT DID YOU TELL THEM ABOUT MY MARRIAGE, DAD?"
The director tries to diffuse the situation, telling Jack that they are all proud of Christian, now 50 days sober. "Wow, dad! I wonder what helped you turn that corner; you think maybe it was a new lady friend? I will not let you sleep with my wife!"
"Oh, Jack, I’m your father, please just let it go."
Jack tackles him.

Back in the cell... as soon as the door opens Jack tackles Juliet, throwing the taser across the room and holding a broken piece of plate to her neck. He drags her into the hallway and tells her to open the nearest door. "I can’t Jack. I do that, we die."
He screams at her to open it, and Fake Henry comes out from the shadows. "She’s telling the truth, Jack."
He holds the broken plate against her skin. "I swear to god, I will kill her."
"Okay..."
Juliet didn’t like that answer from Fake Henry. "...I have her open the door and she dies anyway, we all do."
Jack pushes her away and begins opening the door himself. Fake Henry escapes through the door nearest him, closing it before Juliet can make it though. She’s trapped with Jack – he gets the door open and water quickly fills the hallway. He and Juliet manage to make it into Juliet’s side of the interrogation room and close the doors, but it doesn’t sound like they’re going to hold for long. "The yellow button!"
Jack pushes it, stopping the flow of water, and then Juliet swings and knocks him the fuck out.

Sawyer has finally figured out the contraption in his cage. It plays some carnival music while saying, "Reward...Reward...", and shoots out a fish-shaped biscuit with Dharma etched into it. A bunch of peanuts follows this, and some water flows into the trough. He takes a bite of the biscuit and a sip of water, and then hears Tom’s voice. "Keep movin’"
He looks up to see Kate being locked into Carl’s old cage.

She looks a bit worse for the wear since we’ve last seen her, and she looks a bit ashamed or something when Sawyer looks over at her, she turns away from him at first. Tom takes off her handcuffs, and we see that her wrists are all cut up from them. What happened? Was she beaten? Tom tells her he’ll bring some antiseptic later. Sawyer pipes up, "How about you bring me an ottoman? While you’re at it, I could use a blow dry."
"Hey! You got yourself a fish biscuit! How’d you do that?"
"Figured out your complicated gizmos, that’s how."
"Only took the bears two hours."
Tom leaves them alone. He really reminds me of Sawyer.
"You okay, freckles?"
She nods, and asks about him. He says he requested the cage she got, but whatever. "Nice dress."
"They made me wear it."
She trembles and looks away for a moment. Was she raped? "You hungry?"
He tosses over the fish biscuit and she takes a bite.

Jack comes to... he’s figured out where he is. "It’s an aquarium."
Juliet is busy reading something in the other room. Jack looks down at the table he’s on. "This thing is for what, sharks?"
"Dolphins too."
"We’re underwater, aren’t we?"
He asks if it’s a Dharma station. Juliet tells him they called it ‘The Hydra’. "So you people are just...whatever’s left over of them?"
"Well, that was a long time ago. It doesn’t matter who we were, it only matters who we are. We know exactly who you are, Jack Shepherd. I know that you’re a spinal surgeon based out of Saint Sebastian’s hospital in Los Angeles. I know that you went to Columbia, and you graduated med school a year faster than anyone else. I know that you were married, only once, and that you contested the divorce. I know your father died in Sydney. I know this because I have a copy of his autopsy report."
She won’t answer when he asks where she got her information, but when he asks what the large folder she’s holding is, she tells him. "This, Jack, is your life."
He asks if it’s simply about him, or if they have information on his family and friends, and if they know about Sarah. "It’s pretty much about everything...we know all about her. What would you like to find out?"

Flashback – Jack's in a prison cell. A guard lets him out; telling him someone has posted his bail. He walks out to find Sarah waiting. Christian told her he was there. "I called you a cab, so...goodbye."
He follows her outside, where there’s a guy waiting for her across the street. "I need to know who he is."
"It doesn’t matter who he is, it just matters who you’re not. Jack, your father, he called me...to help you. He was so drunk I could hardly understand him. Look at the bright side... now you have something to fix."
She walks across the street and leaves with the guy.

Back in the cell, Juliet asks again, "What would you like to find out?"
"Is she happy?"
"Yes, Jack, she’s very happy."
Jack starts to cry. Juliet wants to bring him food again, but needs to know he’ll behave. "Can I trust you, Jack? Put your back against the wall, please."
He’s a broken man now, and he does what she asks.
Juliet leaves the room, and Fake Henry meets her in the hall. "Good work Juliet."
"Thank you, Ben."

...if i only had a nerve

2006-10-02T17:47:00.000-07:00

"Are we saved?"
The castaways gathered at the funeral rush toward the ocean, toward the sailboat in the distance. Jack, Sayid and Sawyer swim out to meet it while Kate follows the action with a pair of binoculars. They board the boat and cock their wet pistols. They hear some opera music coming from below decks and approach the door to the cabin. They almost get killed as whoever is down there unloads his gun up through the door. After the eruption of gunfire, they hear the clicking of the now empty gun, and a familiar voice. "Awww...damnnit." (the 'brother' is implied) Kicking down the door, they find a very drunk Desmond with a shotgun in his lap.

He looks up and laughs, then mockingly parrots Jack’s line to him from the season premiere.
"You?"

Later on, and it's nighttime now in the mess tent. The castaways are restless and looking to Kate for answers. She leaves them for a minute to ask Jack what they should be told. "Just tell them Desmond’s back, until I find out the rest."
I guess this points out that they DO talk amongst each other between episodes. Jack goes to find out what that 'rest' is from the still drinking Desmond, who explains, "I was sailing due west and making nine knots. I should have been in Fiji in less than a week, but the first piece of land I saw wasn’t Fiji...it was here, this island."
He tells Jack it’s because that’s all that’s left, the ocean and the island. "We’re stuck in a bloody snowglobe! There’s no outside world, no escape."
As Jack is getting up to leave, Des asks, "You still pushing it?"
"Yeah, we’re still pushing it."

Flashback – A short haired Des is being released from some kind of military prison. The guard is returning his belongings. (It should have been Frank Oz in this scene – ‘one used prophylactic’) He’s got a set of keys, a gold plated pocket watch, and the photo we’ve seen in the hatch, with Des and the blonde woman. He’s also got one book; Dickens’ "Our Mutual Friend". The guard asks why he didn’t bring the book inside with him. "To avoid temptation, brother."
He’s read every wonderful word Charles Dickens has written, "...every book, except this one. I’m saving it, so it’ll be the last thing I ever read before I die."
"Nice idea. Long as you know when you’re gonna die."
Lance Corporal Desmond David Hume is then dishonorably discharged from the Royal Scotch Regiment of Her Majesties Armed Forces. He exits the Southway Garrison from MPS B company gate, 5B. There’s an older man and his driver/bodyguard waiting in a fancy car. Somewhat against his will, Des joins the guy in the backseat. There are two boxes on the seat between them. The man tells him one contains his future, the other, his past. He has him open the past. It’s full of dozens of unopened letters, addressed to:
Penny Widmore
23 Densmore Gardens
Knightsbridge, London SW4 8PS

The return address is:
Desmond Hume
Southway Garrison
42 Berechurch Road
Halstead, Essex CO8 5WE

The old man is Penny’s dad, and he wants his little girl to think that Des has forsaken her. He shocks Des by telling him Penny is to be married soon, and opens the future box. It’s full of money. Lots of it. Under the condition that there is to be no contact between Des and Penelope, Des can just take the money and run away.
"And what makes you think I would just run away?"
"Because you’re a coward."

Back on the island, Sayid has formulated a plan. He wants to take Des’ boat and sail to the Others’ camp, arriving before Jack and his party, to scout it out. He’ll then light a signal fire of black smoke on a nearby beach, Jack's group can meet up with him, and then they'll enter the camp together. They need to keep the everyone in Jack's party in the dark until Sayid signals them, the element of surprise is all they have going for them. Jack agrees. "Black smoke, huh?"
"This time they will know WE are coming."
(well, that kind of takes the element of surprise out of the situation, doesn’t it?)

In the Swan, Eko is leafing through the printouts from the Pearl while sitting at the computer. Locke arrives – he’s been thinking. He wants them to not push the button this time around. Eko doesn’t agree at all. "Why wouldn’t I?"
"Because you don’t want to be a slave..."
Eko gives him an oh no, you didn’t just go there look, but Locke continues.
"...just like I was...so I’m going to tell you again; don’t push it."
"Do not tell me what I can do."
And the role reversal completes it’s full circle. The timer begins to beep its countdown, and Eko moves to enter the numbers. In desperation, Locke grabs the huge-ass Jesus stick and tries to smash the computer, but Eko restrains him without breaking a sweat. He punches in the numbers and then throws Locke out of the hatch, HIS hatch, while Locke babbles about them all being "...puppets on strings."

It’s morning on the beach and the five - Michael, Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and Hurley - are preparing to leave. Jack hands out some pistols, but Hurley doesn’t take one. Their outfits are very colorful, like the teletubbies or power rangers – or like pieces on a board game - i'm thinking Sorry.

Kate is still unsure – what if the Others are just pretending. Mike sells his story again, with gusto. Sawyer’s ready to go. "Enough jibber-jabber. Let’s roll."

A little further down the beach, Des is coming ashore on a rubber raft with supplies (meaning more booze – looks like Dharma wine) from his boat, the Elizabeth of Newport Beach. Sayid meets him as he’s getting off the raft, and asks if he can use the ship to sail to the north side of the island.
"Off to see the hostiles, are ya? ...boat’s all yours, brother. For all the good it’ll do ya."
Sayid tells him he doesn’t know how to sail, so Des tells him he should find someone who does.

Flashback – Des is in America now, trying to buy a cup of coffee at Dina’s coffee shop, but he hasn’t changed his money over yet. A darker haired Libby is in line behind him, and she picks up the tab against his protests.
"It’s just four bucks," she tells him.
"I don’t suppose you have forty-two thousand more of those, do ya?"
This line works on Libby, proving that she really IS crazy. They sit down together and Des tells her his plan.

He has eight months to get ready, then he'll enter and subsequently win the International Open Ocean Racing Association’s race around the world, winning it from one Charles Widmore. "He tried to buy me off, and when I wouldn’t take his money, he took away the only thing in the world that I ever truly cared about...his daughter."
(I love this show, but winning a sailing regatta to win back his true love? Wasn’t that the plot of at least two cheesy 80s comedies? I think John Candy was in both of them, too. Or maybe it was John Cusack.)
He tells Libby the forty two grand is for a boat, an integral part of his plan that is missing so far. Libby looks a bit taken aback that he mentions a boat, and then speaks up. "I have a boat. It was my husbands, but he...passed away about a month ago. I want you to have it."
Des can’t accept this, but Libby insists, saying it’s what her husband would have wanted. He asks the name of her deceased, and she tells him, "David."
Dave? Des thanks her and tells her he "Shall win this race – for love."
Peter Cetera should have written the soundtrack to this episode. So I wonder if that’s why Libby ended up in the nuthatch? Her husband's family probably committed her when they found out she gave away the boat to a total stranger.

Back on the island, Sun is telling Jin that both of them are going to help Sayid sail. In the jungle, the five are on the move. Sawyer sees a baby doll and reaches for it, but Kate stops him before he sets off the trap. She tells him about Rousseau’s nets. "When the Doc told me y’all got caught in a net, I thought he meant... something else."
They're interrupted by the giant green bird from last season’s finale. (Lots of parallels in these episodes) It’s like a giant mutant parrot or something.
"Hurleeeeee!"
Hugo has to ask. "That bird just say my name?"
Sawyer answers with a straight face, "Yeah, it did... right before it crapped gold."
Mike, also startled by the bird, had a taken a couple shots at it, only to find out that his gun was empty. Jack takes it from him and loads it, telling him he’s sorry, he must have forgotten to load this pistol. Yeah, ok. I don’t know if Mike buys that.

Elsewhere in the jungle, Charlie comes across Locke, bawling his eyes out. Eko won’t let him play in HIS hatch! Charlie is amused to see the ever stoic Locke reduced to tears. He tells him about Desmond showing up during the funeral. "I’m sure you two have a lot to talk about."
On the beach Sayid is not convinced that Sun needs to travel with he and Jin, she tells him she will translate, plus he really needs two people who know what they are doing to sail the boat – Desmond managed to sail by himself, counters Sayid. "And look where he ended up."
Touché, Sun. Jin just looks at Sayid and shrugs. He knows there’s no use in arguing once her mind is made up. At the camp, Des watches as Claire debates giving Aaron a shot with the auto-syringe. He tells her she’s wasting her time ("…sister."), that he shot himself up with it every nine days for the past three years. He asks about Aaron’s dad, and Claire tells him he took off long ago because he couldn’t handle it, so he did what he felt was best for him. It makes Desmond...

Flashback – The night of the ‘tour de strade’... We get a patented Tarantino trunk shot, as Des opens his up; he’s getting ready for his run. Jack pulls up nearby and heads into the stadium to run. Another car pulls up – it’s Penny. Des wants to know how she found him.

"I have a lot of money, Desmond. With enough money and determination, you can find anyone."
(I guess we’ll find out if that’s true this season?)
She asks if he read his book while in prison, and he tells her he didn’t. She then asks why he never wrote. I don’t know why he doesn’t tell her the truth, instead he just asks when she’s getting married – they haven’t set a date. Presumably because somewhere inside, she’s still waiting on Des. He tells her he’s going to win her Dad’s race – and in a year he’ll be back. She’s asks him what it is he’s running from.
"I have to get my honor back; and that’s what I’m running TO."

On the island, Locke has found Des. "So what did one snowman say to the other snowman?"
"Smells like carrots."
They share a drink, and Locke starts talking. "What if I told you that...all those years that you...were down there pushing that button...what if I told you it was all for nothing?"
Locke tells Des about the Pearl station and the orientation videotape. He has a plan to find out what will happen when the button isn’t pushed, and enlists Desmond's help. (Getting ahead of myself here, how does he know that Des knows how to cause the lockdown? Or is his plan at this point just to distract Eko then smash the computer?)

The five are camping for the night. Mike is off a ways in the jungle, kind of freaking out. Is he having second thoughts? Afraid that he’s been found out? Jack comes by and guilty-ass Mike thanks him for helping to save Walt.
"Live together, die alone, man," Jack tells him.
I think Mike just threw up a little in his mouth.

I know Sun just threw up a lot over the side of the boat. It’s the next morning, and the sailors are cruising by a curiosity on the not-too-distant shore. The left foot and ankle are all that remains of what looks to have been an enormous statue. (Maybe related to the possible overgrown green pyramids, if they’re even there? I could be making them up, I'm talking about the part in "?" when Eko climbs to the top of the cliff and looks out over the island.) It’s wearing an ancient looking sandal wrap.

Sayid isn’t sure what is more disquieting, "...the fact that the rest of the statue is missing, or that it has four toes."

Under the hatch, Eko is carving '922' into his Jesus stick. Is he copying some of the numbers from the printout - did he already figure out the '922' that preceded the lines of 'system failure' are related to the plane crash? so is he operating on faith, or on what he thinks is his proof, and why doesn't he show it to Locke? or does it relate to scripture somehow? The lights flicker and go out, then emergency power kicks in. 101 minutes to go. Eko goes to the fuse box in the corridor – and in the next room Des makes the lockdown happen by hotwiring a couple of wires. Eko thrusts his stick under the rapidly falling door, but Locke snatches it away from the other side as the door comes crashing down. Des asks Locke if he’s sure about this – Locke is. They wait inside as Eko pounds futilely on the blast doors.

Flashback – Des sailing the really, really, really, stormy seas. He goes below deck to check on his book and he makes sure it’s waterproof before stuffing it in his coat and heading up. Seconds after he’s back topside, he gets knocked the fuck out by the mast (or whatever you call the part of the sail that hit him). He wakes up on a strange beach, seemingly trapped in a Rob Zombie video – flashes of grainy footage of him seeing double-triple-quadruple as a man in a yellow haz-mat suit approaches him – now he is dragged quickly through the jungle – now he’s in the bottom bunk bed – the guy in the suit is looking frantically through Des’ belongings, and seems upset that he didn’t find what he was looking for. He takes off the mask, and it’s Inman, the spook from Sayid’s past, the torture teacher. He leans over a very confused Desmond. "Are you him? What did one snowman say to the other?"
Des most certainly isn’t Him. ‘Kelvin’ Inman introduces himself. Des asks about his boat, but Inman tells him he just found Des washed up on the beach, no boat. The timer is counting down, and Desmond hears the warning beeping for the very first time. Kelvin punches in the numbers and hits execute. "What was all that about, then?" asks Des.
"Just saving the world."
(they should have left it at Des’ question...)

Some time has passed, and Des is watching the orientation film – apparently not for the first time, as Kelvin asks him how many times he’s going to watch it. Desmond asks him about the obvious splices. "Rezinski made some edits."
Kelvin is suiting up to go outside, so he doesn’t get infected. He gives Des the auto-syringe and tells him to inject himself once every nine days. Hopefully it’s not too late; Desmond was out there and exposed for a long time.

In the swan now, Des is asking about Eko. "We locked out a priest?"
Said priest climbs the rope hanging from the blasted hatch door, and, when he gets up top, sees the quarantine warning on the twisted door for the first time. Charlie is on the beach strumming his guitar when Eko runs up. "Charlie! Do you know how they got the hatch door open?"
"No, but if you hum it, I can probably play it."
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
Eko tells him what Locke has done, and warns that in ninety minutes, everyone on the island will die if they don’t try and stop Locke from not pushing the button. Charlie agrees to help.

The five are still marching across the island. Sawyer’s sharing his theory of the others. He thinks they’re aliens, with fake beards and pathetic heads. "Prosthetic, dude."
Kate lags behind a bit with Sawyer and whispers to him that they’re being followed. She points out two Others across the river – she wants to turn the tables, and Sawyer is down with that. She starts shooting immediately, scaring the hell out of everyone. Sawyer takes out one of them, and the Other runs away. Kate wants to give chase before he can warn anyone, but Jack says no. He turns to Michael and tells him to come clean. Michael tells them about the list, and that bringing them to the others is the only way he can save Walt. Kate asks if he let Henry out, and something clicks in Hugo’s head. "Did you kill them?"
Mike apologizes; he didn’t know what to do... Hurley wants to head back. He doesn’t understand why Jack would knowingly lead them into a trap. Jack tells the others that he has a plan. Speaking of which, Sayid, Sun and Jin have found the Other's camp.

In the jungle, Charlie shows Eko the dynamite. Eko reaches for it, and Charlie warns him to be careful, "...don’t end up like Dr. Artz."
Eko brings the explosives to the swan, where he starts to place them around the doors in the corridor. Charlie is worried that the blast might hurt Locke and Des, or blow up the computer. He tries to reason with Locke through the door, telling him what Eko is planning. Locke is a little worried, but Des assures him that it won’t work.

Flashback – Kelvin’s filled a measuring cup with some detergent and is swirling a paintbrush in it. Des is pushing a rolling file cabinet, slightly crushed. Des hotwires the lockdown – like Kelvin taught him – using the cabinet to keep the door between the computerdome and the living area open. Kelvin gets busy painting the map of the hatches that was revealed to Locke, but he’s doing it blindly, with no black light. Continuing the work of the mysterious Rezinski, who, we find out, put a shotgun in his mouth one night, and all that is left of him now is a stain on the ceiling.

Des tells Kelvin that if he doesn’t want his new partner to end up the same way, he’ll let him go outside to pick up the next drop – it’s been two years – but Kelvin still isn’t planning on letting him out.

In the Swan now, Charlie is still trying to talk to Locke through the doors. "Seriously, you’re about to be detonated!" He tries to talk Eko out of blowing the doors, telling him that maybe the button is just a joke. Eko gets up, throws Charlie against the wall and rips the belt from his pants – uh-oh, I’ve seen this episode of OZ – He throws the belt at the concrete/magnet, where it sticks to the wall. "Is that a joke?"
He gives Locke one last chance to come out, and Eko will forgive him. "Forgive me for what," asks Locke?
Eko prepares to light the fuse... Charlie tells him, stammering, that it’s a bad idea (shades of Hurley and Locke in last seasons finale) it’s a very confined area... Eko lights it – it explodes almost immediately, and a fireball shoots through the corridor as Charlie tries in vain to outrun it.

Flashback – Des wakes to the sound of the alarm beeping, and no Kelvin. He puts in the numbers, and then hears some drunken singing coming from somewhere. He follows a trail of empty Dharma merlot bottles to the basement, where a drunk and somewhat insane Inman is dangling a Dharma key next to the box that reads: CAUTION SYSTEM TERMINATION. He tells Des he couldn’t do it. It’s the only other way out (this or a stain on the ceiling?) Turn this key and it all goes away, poof! (but that’s really the same way out, isn’t it?) Des asks him what is behind the wall, what the incident was. "Electromagnetism...geologically unique...there was a leak, so now the charge builds up and every time we push the button it discharges it before it gets too big."
Des asks if they can just stop it here, why bother pushing the button at all? "Here’s the real question, Desmundo; do you have the courage to take your finger out of the dam and blow the whole thing up instead?"

In the Swan now, Des is afraid that Charlie and Eko have blown themselves up and he wants to check on them. Locke thinks it could be a trick. Des asks Locke if he’s letting the clock run down because he needs to look down the barrel of a gun to find out what he really believes. "I looked into the barrel of the gun, and...I believed, I thought it was my destiny to get into this place. And somebody died, a kid, because he was stupid enough to believe that I knew what I was talking about, and on the night that he died, FOR NOTHING (there’s the rub), I was sitting right up there, all alone, beating my hand bloody against that stupid door, screaming to the heavens asking what I should do. And then a light went on, I thought it was a sign. But it wasn’t a sign, probably just you going to the bathroom."

Sayid goes ashore to scout out the Others’ camp, and finds it deserted. He sees the metal Dharma doors, and thinks they may be hiding behind there. Suspenseful music builds to a crescendo as he opens the doors to find...
...a rock wall. It’s all a sham. This doesn’t bode well for the five, who are still on the march elsewhere on the island. Kate spots something and stops everyone. It’s a huge pile of those cylinders for the pneumatic tube machine, piled under a pipe sticking up from the ground. This is where they all go, Desmond and Eko are right. She opens one to find a notebook inside. They’re all filled, she reads an excerpt. "0400 S.R. moves ping pong table again, 0415 takes a shower."
Sawyer finds Locke’s discarded map of the hatches and hands it to Jack. Then he sees the black smoke signal rising in the distance. Way in the distance, miles away. Jack turns to Mike. "Where were you taking us?"
Mike stammers, tells him that he had to, then some whispers start. I hear 'Elizabeth' clearly, but that’s about it. Sawyer gets a dart to the neck and goes down hard. There are more whispers, this time I think it said "Baggins...Shire...", although I could be mistaken. Jack yells for them to run, but it’s too late. Hurley covers his head and sinks to his knees. Kate goes down and Jack fires blindly into the surrounding jungle, before throwing Kate over his shoulders and starting to run off. He is shot in the leg and tries to fight it, but he goes down as well. More Rob Zombie footage, as the others tie them up and put hoods over their heads.

We didn’t see Hurley get shot.

Twenty one minutes left under the hatch, and Des wants to know more about the Pearl. He’s afraid Locke has it backwards, that place was the experiment and the button is the real work. He needs some proof from Locke, but there’s no VCR in the Swan, so he has to settle for the batch of computer printouts handed to him by Locke. "Reading material for the next nineteen minutes. Knock yourself out."

Flashback – Desmond notices a rip in Kelvin’s pants as he suits up to go out, but doesn’t say anything. He follows him outside, wearing just a scarf over his nose and mouth. He watches as Kel takes off the suit and breathes in the ‘contaminated’ air. He follows him to a rocky harbor with the Elizabeth anchored in a nearby cove. The landscape is otherworldly – it reminds me of Planet of the Apes.

So does the music in this scene. Kelvin pops up behind Des. "I was a spook for ten years Des; I know when I’m being followed."
He tells Des it will be ready to leave in a week, and invites him to come. Des asks about the button and Kel tells him to just forget about it. Desmond flips out and slams Kelvin against the rocks, inadvertently bashing his brains out. Oops. He seems to be in a state of shock, but he pulls it together enough to grab the failsafe key from around Kelvin’s neck before racing back to the Swan. But it’s too late... the hieroglyphics are showing, the place is shaking, and the PA woman is repeating "system failure" over and over. Des punches the numbers into the computer, and ‘system failure’ starts scrolling and filling up the screen. He pounds the execute button – and the clock resets – the madness grinds to a halt. (as flight 815 starts to fall from the sky...)

In the Swan today, Des is pouring over the sheets of printouts, trying to make sense of it – I think he’s figured them out, 'date/timestamp, accepted' repeated over and over – until he gets to one entry and stops – he asks Locke the date of the plane crash. "September 22nd."
He looks down at his finger resting on the entry reading 922044:16 (which is 4:16 on Sept 22nd) followed by not the accepted tag, but 'system failure', repeated over and over.

"I think I crashed your plane."

Mr. Friendly, Beardo, is leading four of our five, bound, hooded, and gagged out onto a dock. Michael is walking freely with them. They kneel them down in a row and remove the hoods. Kate looks up at Beardo and says something through her gag. He can't understand her, so Mrs. Klugh translates. "She said she knows your beard’s fake, Tom."
He takes it off and sarcastically thanks 'Bea' for telling them his name. A boat motors up to the dock and a barefoot Fake Henry Gale disembarks. Interesting reaction shot of Alex, who looks surprised to see him. He walks right past Mike to Jack and he bows. "Hello again."
He turns to ask Tom where his beard is. "I think they know."
He walks over to Michael. "Alright, let’s take care of business, shall we?"

Under the hatch Charlie comes to and we hear how he hears... everything is muffled, barely there. Cool. He finds an unconscious (or dead?) Eko pinned beneath some rubble, and digs him out. Inside the blast doors Des is trying to convince Locke to push the button. He tells Locke what happened down there the day the plane crashed. The numbers turned to hieroglyphics, and when the last one came down this whole place started to shake (but it was shaking and all the numbers were flipped by the time he had gotten back... a fuck up?) He shows Locke the system failure printout, but Locke still thinks it’s all a lie. Des moves to enter the numbers and Locke smashes the monitor. 3:11 left. Des can't believe it, "...you’ve killed us all."
"No, I’ve just saved us all."

Flashback – Desmond is sitting at the breakfast nook with a gun and some booze... top shelf stuff this time, no Dharma brand. This looks Australian, judging by the kangaroo on the label. J Darby. He finally cracks his book open... and a letter falls out. From Penny.
"Dearest Des,
I am writing this letter to you as you leave for prison. And I’ve hidden it in the one place you would turn to in a moment of great desperation. I know that you go away with the weight of what happened on your shoulders. And I know that the only person who can ever take it off is you. Sorry to be so dramatic, but these are dramatic times, are they not? Please don’t give up, Des, because all we really need to survive is one person who truly loves us. And you have her. I will wait for you. Always.
I love you,
Pen"
Des loses it and starts tearing the place apart, throwing books and records everywhere. He slumps to the floor, exhausted, and then hears a repetitive thumping noise. He follows the sound to the hatch door, and can hear a muffled Locke pounding his fists and screaming to the heavens, asking what he should do. Des turns on the light... at least he wasn’t just going to the bathroom. They’ve inadvertently given each other a reason to live.

Now they’re together under that hatch door and time is running out. Des grabs his book from the shelf and opens it up – to reveal the failsafe key. Appropriate place to keep it. Thirty seconds left. Before going into the basement he tells Locke about the pounding, and the light. (is this the first time someone on the island has shared their flashback with someone else? Does it even count, considering the flashback took place on the island?) "You say there isn’t any purpose, there’s no such thing as fate? But you saved my life, brother, so that I could save yours."
Time is up, and the counter starts to flip to hieroglyphics. "I’m sorry for whatever happened, that made you stop believing. But it’s all real. And now I’ve got to go and make it go away."
The cowardly lion has found his courage after all. He drops down into the basement. "I’ll see you in another life, brother."
The siren starts squawking 'system failure' and the entire place starts to shake. Out in the corridor, Charlie has woken Eko and is trying to help him to his feet. Suddenly everything metal in the area is flying past them at the concrete/magnet wall... Eko pushes Charlie out of harms way, toward the exit, and then goes back for Locke. Des is crawling toward the failsafe box below. The much-speculated about washer and dryer set are smashed into the wall by the electromagnetic force.

Eko and Locke are looking at each other in the computerdome as the metal clock/counter crumples like tin foil. They both think they are about to die. Locke looks at Eko and tells him, "I was wrong."
No shit, buddy. Under it all, Des crosses himself and puts the key in the hole. He hears Penny in his head, "All we really need to survive is one person who truly loves us. And you have her. I will wait for you. Always. I love you."
"I love you, Penny."
He turns the key and everything fades to white. Now we’re back at the dock, right where we left off, as an ear-splitting vibrating hum and blinding white light envelops the entire island. We see Sayid, Sun and Jin/the prisoners/Michael/Bernard/Aaron/Random castaways/Mrs. Klugh-Bea/Henry/Claire

The sky turns violet, almost like a negative image, and it’s over. A shot of Henry barely registering surprise. At the camp Bernard sees something screaming down from the heavens, and pushes Claire and Aaron out of harms way just in time. It’s the hatch door (parallelely blown up again – I was hoping for Donnie Darko’s jet engine, myself.)

It’s a short time later, and the losties are picking up the mess left by the magnet. Charlie emerges from the jungle, still a little deaf. He seems surprised to find that Locke and Eko haven’t made it back yet. Is that weird? I think so... how did he get out of the Swan? Anyway, He’s certainly happy that Claire looks happy to see him.

At the Pala Ferry dock, Henry is walking Michael to the boat. Is Walt going to be dead in there? That’s what I was expecting... "I’m not happy about the arrangement we’ve made with you... but we got more than we bargained for when Walt joined us (?), so I suppose this is what’s best. When you let me go... you lived up to your word. We live up to our word too. You’re going to take this boat and follow a compass bearing of three-twenty-five. And if you do that exactly, you and your son will find rescue."
Michael doesn’t understand why the others aren’t worried about him telling the authorities all about the island. Henry tells him that he’ll never find his way back here, and, if he does decide to tell, "...people will find out what you did to get your son back."
It looks like he’s almost made Mike cry. "My friends...I was promised you wouldn’t hurt them."
"A deal’s a deal," Henry assures him.
"Who are you people?"
"We’re the good guys, Michael."
And then when Walt and his dad, during what most would have assumed was going to be a celebratory scene this season (provided they were both alive), finally are reunited, well, no one is celebrating.

Walt is happy though – Hurley seems conflicted by it, happy for his friend Walt, but... well, you know. The 'good guys' untie Hugo, ordering him to return to their camp and warn everyone there NOT to come here.
Henry them tells him, "Your friends are coming home with us."
There are great shots of Jack, Kate, Sawyer, then Henry himself, reacting to this line. Hurley looks down at Jack, who nods for him to go. Michael fires up the boat and he and Walt start to leave. Mike gives Jack a look as he moves by, (I'll be back? I'm sorry? You would have done the same thing?) and Walt sees the three of them tied up and gagged on the dock. How’s dear old dad gonna explain this one?

The others help the prisoners to their feet...and Alex totally cops a feel from Kate... full on hands around her breasts before she repositions them under her pits. It looks like the actress might even be cracking up a bit - check the DVD, I swear I saw this! Kate and Jack then share a mysterious look... is it I bet you wish you had copped that feel? An Empire Han/Leia I love you, I know moment? Hey, our plan is working out perfectly? Everything will be okay? I’m thinking it’s along the lines of everything will be okay... Sawyer is looking at the two of them as they share this look, and I think it will come up later that in this dire situation, Kate looked to Jack rather than Sawyer for strength/comfort.

The bags go back over their heads.

Charlie and Claire are sitting by Aaron’s crib, near a campfire... after some small talk, we finally get it. The Kiss.

Awww... all’s forgiven, Charlie. Prelude to the more ‘romantic’ season 3 on the way? ugh.

Now we’re suddenly in a landscape of blowing snow and ice-capped peaks (raise your hands, how many people thought this was a commercial? ...don't lie!). There are two guys in a small research station playing chess and speaking Portuguese. One of them notices a red light flashing, and they both jump up frantically. The computer reads >/ 7418880 ELECTROMAGNETIC ANOMALY DETECTED
"That’s it isn’t it? We missed it again."
Did they miss it sixty-five days or so ago? Once they’re certain it’s not a false alarm, one of them picks up the phone and makes a call. A phone rings in a darkened bedroom, and a woman’s arm reaches to pick it up. "Miss Widmore?"
The woman reaches over to turn on the light, and it illuminates the photo of Penny and Des we know from the hatch.

"I think we’ve found it."

the hanso video thing

2006-09-10T09:55:00.000-07:00

thanks to timdorr @ youtube for sticking it all together

2006-05-24T23:49:00.000-07:00

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the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon...

2006-05-24T00:53:00.000-07:00

13 days ago - (or, 12 new episodes and 5 repeats ago, either way, it’s back when the armory was just an armory and Henry Gale was just Dorothy’s uncle.) Locke is in said armory, getting organizized. Michael wants to borrow a gun for target practice, just to “stay sharp”. He knocks some ammunition on the floor and when Locke bends to pick it up, Mike knocks him out with the butt of the rifle. He grabs a pistol before hurrying over to the computer. He starts typing furiously, but there is no response at first. Eventually it kicks in:

>: You okay?
ok. no time. come soon?
>:I’m ready. Coming NOW. You said north
>: -- north WHERE?
when they take me out, there’s huge rocks
with a big HOLE in the middle by the
beach. You’ll know when you see.
>:It’s gonna be okay. I’m coming.

Mike whispers, “I’m coming, Walt” to himself, just before he hears Jack calling Locke. He clears the computer screen and sneaks up behind Jack in the armory. We’ve seen this before. Michael locks them in and leaves the Swan.

Today – Michael’s outside the doors of the Swan station, holding a piece of paper with Jack Shepherd, Kate Austen, Hugo Reyes, and James Ford written on it.

A list, maybe like the one Ana found on the Other? He sets it afire before Jack emerges from the doors, asking Mike to join them down under the hatch. Michael drops the flaming piece of paper and crushes it under his heel before he does. The bodies of Ana and Libby are wrapped in grey shrouds. Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Sawyer are standing by them when Michael enters. The list… how convenient. Sawyer tells Jack there are only eleven total rifles and pistols left. Mike wants to leave now, just the five of them, so they can move fast and take the others by surprise. Jack argues against this plan, but Michael seems adamant. Hurley interrupts their disagreement. “They’re dead! Ana Lucia and Libby are dead. I mean, we haven’t even buried them yet.”
Jack asks Kate and Sawyer to take Ana above; he and Hurley will collect Libby. He tells Mike to stay, explaining that they'll "...bury them tonight. Then we’ll figure out what’s next.”
After everyone leaves, Mike looks down at the floor, covered in Libby’s drying blood.

13 days ago – Michael is hoofing it due north. After correcting his course with a compass, he hoofs it some more, and comes across an Other taking a piss.

He pulls the rifle on him, and actually says, “Put ‘em up.”
The guy turns around smiling, and tells Michael to relax. Michael tells him to shut up, and the smile fades. “You’re Walt’s old man, aren’t ya?”
Michael is distracted long enough for Beardo, or Mr. Friendly, to sneak up behind him. They wrestle for the rifle, and two shots go off. Beardo gains possession of the gun and Mike makes a break for it, firing the pistol over he shoulder as he runs. He gets off one shot and one of the Others fires back with a pistol of his own, twice. There are three Others now. Mr. Friendly stops the one with the gun from firing. “What are you doing? We need him.” – if Henry hasn’t been caught yet, what do they ‘need’ him for? I can think of two reasons, one, Walt has refused to help them until he is allowed to see that his dad is okay, or two, and I think this is most likely, that Henry’s ‘capture’ was all part of the plan, or the experiment – Michael shoots back twice before Beardo tosses a bolo, knocking Mikes legs out from under him. They go to retrieve Michael, and there are four Others now. “Bag him quick. His friends are right behind us.”
A burlap sack is placed over Michael’s head.

Today – Michael is trying to wash the bloodstains from the floor. Eko arrives silently, startling him. “I left my shoes outside. They were muddy.”
Wouldn’t want to dirty up the bloody floor. He tells Michael they didn’t find Henry.
“I hear you’re a priest…guess you believe in hell, then?”
Eko kneels down to help wash the floor. “For a brief time I served in a small parish in England. Every Sunday after mass, I would see a young boy waiting, in the back of the church. And then one day the boy confessed to me that he had beaten his dog to death with a shovel. And he said the dog had bitten his baby sister on the cheek and he wanted to protect her, and he wanted to know whether he would go to hell for this. I told him that god would understand; that he would be forgiven. As long as he was sorry. But the boy did not care about forgiveness. He was only afraid that if he did go to hell, that dog would be there waiting for him.”
As Eko is speaking of forgiveness, he is squeezing the blood he collected from the floor out of a sopping rag and into a bucket. Michael’s sins could be washed away so easily? I’m thinking this is all just to let us know that once Michael sacrifices himself in the finale, we can rest assured that he went to a better place, one without Ana and Libby waiting for him. If he’s sorry, that is. Man, has Eko ever turned into Locke.

Later on, Jack comes across Mike puking in the jungle. That guilt don’t exactly go down smooth, does it? Again, Mike stresses to Jack that only the two of them, Kate, Hurley and Sawyer can go to rescue Walt. “It’s gotta be just the people who already know…anybody else, look… it puts him in more danger. You don’t get to decide this. It’s my son. It’s my call. And that’s the way it has to be.”
“Then that’s the way it’ll be.”

Claire’s fussing over Aaron at the camp - Charlie comes by, ostensibly looking for Eko. Claire is cold towards him, and asks if he wants anything in particular. There is… Charlie found something on the pallet that he thinks they might need. It's eight vials of vaccine and a pneumatic injector, in a cool Swan station case.

He doesn’t know what the injections are for, but feels if anyone should have them; it’s Claire and the baby. - Huh? This is really weird, isn’t it? - Anyway, he’s already injected himself to make sure it’s safe, and he feels fine. The instructions call for a shot every nine days. Claire seems genuinely touched by this gesture, but before Charlie is able to milk the moment, Mike shows up in camp. He causes quite a stir, understandably, but the reunion is cut short when people notice the bodies wrapped in shrouds, along with Kate digging another grave. Mike tells them it’s Ana and Libby. When Sun asks what happened, he tells her, “They were murdered.”

13 days ago – Beardo unhoods Mike at a campfire being tended by Alex. Michael spits in Mr. Friendly's face, and he takes the opportunity to live up to his name. “Not gonna hold that against you. Fair’s fair, I took your boy. But don’t do that again, okay?”
The Pisser shows up with a hooded Kate. “Lookit what I found! She was following her friends, about half a click behind us.”
Beardo gags Mike, and warns that if he makes a sound, he’ll never see Walt again. “Get ready with the torches. I’m gonna go talk to her people.”
A few minutes later, “You’re exactly right Jack.” – and we’ve seen this before. When Sawyer is shot at, it cuts back to Alex’s campfire. She leans over to Michael. “It’s okay. He’s just delivering a message. He needs to scare your friends to do it.”
Back with Mr. Friendly, and Jack is refusing to give up the guns. “Bring ‘er out, Alex.”
She doesn’t want to do it, and talks the Pisser into doing it for her. The moment he leaves with Kate, Alex turns back to Michael. “Is Claire okay? Did she have the baby? Is it okay? Is it a boy or a girl?”
Beardo trades Kate for the guns and returns to the campfire. “His friends are going home.”
The Others divvy up the guns, and Alex apologizes before knocking Michael unconscious.

Today – Vincent! Michael’s hanging with the pooch. Jack and Sawyer are sorting through the remaining guns. Sawyer asks what happened to keep Jack and Freckles out in the jungle all night. “We got caught in a net.”
“That what they’re calling it these days?”
Sayid is waiting when they leave the tent. They fill him in on what’s happened, and of course he wants to be a part of the rescue. Jack tells them Mike’s plan, and Sawyer throws his two cents in. “Even though Pippi Longstocking and the damn Grape Ape are ideal candidates for the dirty dozen…we might wanna bring the Red Beret.”
Sawyer hands Sayid a pistol. “Welcome aboard.”

Under the hatch, Eko’s crucifix meets the magnet. He hears the four-minute alarm start, goes over to the computer, and enters the numbers. It seems to give him an enormous amount of satisfaction. Charlie finds him there. “So… you wake up in the middle of the night and you grab your Jesus stick and race off into the jungle. You don’t call, you don’t write.”
Eko tells him simply that he had business, and asks If Charlie could bring his things from the beach. “I’m moving in here.”
“What about the church? You said we were supposed to be building it together, man.”
“I am supposed to do something different now.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Charlie asks.
“Bring me my things.”
Charlie tells him to get his own stuff and points up at the counter, “…you better leg it, mate. Clock’s ticking.”
Back on the beach, Sawyer tells Mike that Captain Arab is in. Michael flips out. “Oh, I’m sorry. I just figured if we were going to war we’d want the one guy that’s been in a war.”
Mike calms down and tells Sawyer it’s not a problem.

11 days ago – Beardo, Pisser, Alex, and two Others (I guess the multitude of torches was a ruse, after all) are leading Mike across the island. Michael looks up to see the rock formation Walt described to him.

It looks like it could be the ruins of an old structure. Maybe this is going on on the other side... They have arrived, and the Other’s camp is pretty much as Mike described it. Surprise. There are a bunch of tent-like buildings, yurts, and two men with guns guarding a pair of steel doors displaying the Dharma logo with a rectangle in the center.

The Box? The Room? Also plenty of dried fish. They sit Michael down on his knees facing the ocean. Beardo orders Alex to, “Tell her we’re here.”
The Pisser takes out a nice, clean, syringe, sticks Michael and draws some blood. He puts the sample in a nice, clean, Ziploc baggie. “See ya in the funny pages.”
He waves the bag at the black woman who is approaching as he leaves. “Hello, Michael. My name is Mrs. Klugh. I was hoping you might help me answer some questions… about Walt. Is he your biological son? Are you his father? How old was he when he started speaking? Did he have any illnesses growing up? Headaches, fainting spells?”

Mike tells he her wasn’t there, that Walt was halfway around the world. She doesn’t let up.
“Did Walt ever appear in a place he wasn’t supposed to be?”
This seems to strike a chord within Michael, and she senses it. “You say he was halfway around the world, but… did you see him?”
Michael explodes. “I want my son! You bring him to me right now. I want to see my boy!”
“For someone who wants his son back so badly, you don’t seem to know much about him, Michael.”

Today – Michael is confronting Sayid, telling him that he can’t come. Bad idea, man. Sayid, unlike most everyone else on the island these days, isn’t an idiot. Mike knows Sayid wants to help, but it has to be his way. – is he trying to tell Sayid something here, maybe? Probably not, he would have tried earlier – Sayid claps Michael’s hand. “Of course. Good luck, Michael.” He knows.
Down the beach, Charlie is working on the church by himself, and seems to be taking a few steps back in the construction. Vincent runs over and drops one of the Mary full of H’s at his feet. “Are you kidding me? Did someone put you up to this?” I’m guessing either Locke or Claire. Vincent leads him back to Sawyers stash. Charlie pulls one of the statues out and looks down at it, before we cut to him on the shore, hurling them into the sea. – nice gesture, but the tide? – Great scene with some great music. After tossing the last one out to sea, Charlie looks over to see Locke sitting on the sand not too far away, watching.

Was this part of Locke’s pact with the island, to wean Charlie from the H? Is it the last thing he had to do for it?

Under the hatch, Jack finds Eko at the computer. He berates him like a child for not reporting when they got back, and tells him they are burying the girls at sunset. “Thank you. I will mourn them in my own way.”
Nice try Jack, but the priest ain’t gonna speak for you. One hell of a new religion he’s got; it’s more important than building a house of worship or delivering some funereal rites. Nice tender moment now between Jack and Sawyer - not that there’s anything wrong with that. “I never knew her last name. Ana Lucia…”
“It’s Cortez”, Jack tells him.
Sawyer confesses to screwing Ana, or being screwed by her. “It’s how she got my gun…she jumped me.”
Jack looks confused.
“We got caught in a net.”
He gets it now. “Why are you telling me this, Sawyer?”
“’Cause you’re about the closest thing I got to a friend, Doc.” – shit, I hope Sawyer doesn’t die in the finale - “…because she’s gone.”
The moment of uncomfortable hetero silence that follows is broken by the pump-action click of Sawyer's shotgun. “Well... at least now we get to kill somebody.”
Kate and Hurley are still digging the graves. Why Kate? Why not Jack or Sawyer? Michael comes over and lends his good arm. He tells Kate they’re leaving first thing tomorrow morning, across the island to the Others camp. He asks Hurley if he’s coming with them. Hugo says no, and Michael tries to work him up, appealing to a desire for revenge. “I’m sorry about Walt dude, but I’m not coming.”
Michael tries to persuade him again, but Kate stops him before he upsets Hurley any further.

3 days ago – Michael is a prisoner in one of the yurts. Mrs. Klugh enters with some dinner on a leaf. Michael asks when they are going to kill him. “I’ve seen where you live… I know how to get here. You have been asking me questions I don’t know the answer to for a week! I don’t even think my son is still alive.”
Klugh tells him Walt is standing outside right now, and explains, “There’s been a development since you came here, Michael. One of our people was captured by yours.”
The Others can’t get him back, but Michael can. “…and if you do, we’ll let you and Walt go free.”
Michael demands to see Walt, “right now!”
Klugh acquiesces, and calls out to Pickett (the Pisser has a name!) She tells Michael, “You have three minutes.”
Pickett herds Walt into the yurt. He’s not looking too rough. Mike asks if he’s okay, if they hurt him? Walt looks at Klugh, who gives him a ‘you know what will happen to you if you tell the truth’ glare. Walt tells dad that they made him take tests, causing Mrs. Klugh to shake her head in disapproval. “We’re not gonna talk about that.”
Walt asks about Vincent, and Michael tells his boy that the dog misses him. He tells Walt not to be afraid, that he is going to get Walt out of there. Walt musters up some courage and blurts out, “They’re not who they say they are! They’re pretending!”
Mrs. Klugh threatens to put Walt in “The Room” again, which scares the shit out of the kid.
She tries to cut the meeting short, but Walt breaks free of Pickett/Pisser, and wraps his arms around his father. “Help me please… don’t leave me!”

Mike promises to get him out of there as Pickett pulls him away. “I love you dad!”
“I love you too, Walt!”
Now that's how you brainwash a guy. Klugh has Michael right where she wants him now, a broken man. She starts writing on the piece of paper Michael will burn later, outside of the Swan Station. “I’m writing four names down…we need you to bring them here. You have to bring only these four people, Michael, just them. If you don’t bring all the people on the list, you’ll never see Walt again.”
She shows him the list. “Who’s James Ford?”
If Mike does what she says, “You get your son back. You both go free.”
Michael has some terms of his own. “I want the boat.”

Sunset – everyone is gathering for the funeral. Charlie walks up behind Sun – look out! Locke is still sitting on the beach, watching from afar. Is he wracked with guilt? If he had told the truth about Ana and Henry in the first place… He cuts the splint from his leg and walks away gingerly, leaving his crutches in the sand. Is he finally going on his long-overdue walkabout? Jack and Sayid are walking to the graves together. Jack tells him about his dad, that he was heading right from the airport to the cemetery, where he had no idea what he was going to say. “Here we are again.”
Sayid drops the bomb on Jack, who honestly, along with Sawyer, really should have seen this. “I think Michael has been compromised.”
Jack stops short – “Let’s keep walking, Jack.”
Sayid feels Mike’s actions are not those of a man who is telling the truth. Jack is still disbelieving. “Why would he lie to us?”
“Because I believe a father would do anything for his son. Because I believe that Michael may have freed Henry and because I believe that he is leading you into a trap.”
“You believe a lot, Sayid.”
“I also believed that Henry was one of them.”
Touché. Jack wants to talk to Michael about it, but Sayid convinces him they must let Michael think he is in control so they can create an advantage. Jack asks how. “I don’t know yet. But we have one night to figure it out.”
Eulogy time - Jack on Ana. “Ana Lucia Cortez…was a police officer…I don’t think it was easy for her being here (is it easy for anyone?), but she did the best she could. She was a woman of few words and I’m going to follow her example. Rest in peace, Ana.”
Hurley’s turn – poor Hurley – “Libby was… she was… Libby was a psychologist, or a psychiatrist. Either way she probably helped a lot of people. She helped me. She was my friend. It’s not fair that this happened to her. It’s not.”
He turns to Michael and tells him he’s going with them. Mike’s like, hey, cool man, but keep it on the down low, okay?
"Goodbye, Libby.”
They all bow their heads in silence. Claire takes Charlie’s hand. Sun looks out over the water, and her eyes slowly widen in shock. “Boat.”
People turn to look at her then follow her gaze to the ocean. There is a white sailboat sailing in. Desmond?
“Boat!”

96 tears...

2006-05-12T21:45:00.000-07:00

It’s a beautiful day at the beach and Eko is working on his church, which is coming along nicely. “What are you building?”
It’s Ana, looking about as angelic as Ana possibly could.
- guess this is a vision or dream - “I’m building a church.”
“Now why the hell would you want to do that?”
He tells her he was told to do it, “…I think it was in a dream.”
“A dream like this one?”
She’s not looking angelic anymore. Eko sees the bullet wound in her chest; blood is running from her mouth as she cries.
“You need to help John.”
Memories of Eko’s past flash by, accompanied by the sound of the counter numbers resetting: – plane crash in the water – something brown and blurry in the jungle – a woman doing the dead mans float – the cross on the chain on the ground – barefoot others and teddy bear walking past – campfire – blindfolded Jin – nine Mary statues on the table outside the church in Nigeria – He and Charlie watching the drug plane burn – Yemi in the church – the Dharma arrow station logo – the bible with the missing filmstrip pieces – his scripture stick – Gold Tooth’s corpse – Locke – the monster; a vision of Yemi in the smoke – the drug plane taking off with the army in pursuit – Yemi shouting before he is killed – Marvin Candle in the orientation filmstrip – the swan logo –
Eko is in the swan station now and he finds Yemi sitting (praying?) at the computer.

“Hello, brother.”
Eko tries to apologize for everything, but Yemi shushes him. He has instructions. “The work being done in this place is important, Eko. It is more important than anything, and it is in danger. You must help John. He has lost his way. You must make him take you to the question mark.”
The timer starts to beep and the counter starts flipping the red and black hieroglyphic tiles, but this time they are all question marks. Yemi types something into the computer – all the keys are question marks as well. The counter resets. “John will not want to show you, so you must make him.”
The room and everything in it begins to shake violently. “There are many distractions brother, but you must move past them. What is done is done. Do you understand?” (Henry and the dead women?)
He does. The shaking is getting more and more violent.
“…and Eko. Bring your axe.”
Eko wakes up near Charlie, trembling and clutching the cross around his neck. “You alright, mate?”
Eko gets up, pulls the axe out of a log and throws it over his shoulder. “I need to find John.”

John is with Jack, Kate and Sawyer, on their way to the Swan station. They’re arguing about “Gimpy McCrutch” covering up that “the artist formerly known as Henry Gale” tried to strangle their little amiga. Michael spills out of the doors to the station just as they arrive. “He shot me. He’s gone. He ran out.”
Locke, Kate and Sawyer head down into the station. Michael tells Jack he was sleeping and woke to the sound of gunshots and there was some guy in the hatch with a gun. Eko arrives and gives Jack a hand helping Mike back down under the hatch, where the other three have already discovered the bodies. Kate checks Ana for a pulse as Sawyer rushes to Libby’s side. Locke glares into the empty armory. Eko, Jack and Michael get there, and Kate tells them Ana is dead. They look to Sawyer, and he looks down at Libby - just as she has a sudden convulsion and spits up a mouthful of blood.

She’s alive, just barely; but that’s more than enough to scare the shit out of Michael.

Eko lays Ana to rest with a prayer. “Grant us this mercy O lord. We beseech thee, amen.”
God’s not granting much mercy to Libby, who is convulsing in pain on the bed. Jack knows she can’t survive, but he’s doing all he can for her. He asks Michael how long it’s been since Henry left; it’s been twenty minutes to a half an hour. Jack is ready to take off after Henry, but Sawyer stops him. He wants to know who’ll take care of Libby while the doctor is out playing Daniel Boone? Eko seizes his opening. “I will go. John, you have tracking experience, yes? We will find his trail together.”
Jack tells them if they find anything to come back so they can discuss what the next step should be, together.

Flashback – Eko the priest is listening to a confession from an Australian guy. - the stained glass behind him is in memory of Walter Atkinson Ridings –ry 12, 1873 – October 17, 1946; under that it reads –le Bacon Ridings March 9 1873(?). It looks like a scene of an explorer posing next to a globe. Maybe he was the captain of the Black Rock? - The Aussie confesses to having some forged I.D. papers for a guy pretending to be a priest. They meet in the hallway outside, and Eko is handed an Australian passport.
Number 223652 made out to Oduduwa Ulu, birthdate 23 August ‘68(?). The passport is good from the 16th of April ’04 to the 16th of April ’14. Eko hands over some cash, and the confessor offers to hook him up with friends in L.A. who can get him work, doing “stuff”. The Monsignor interrupts them. Eko introduces “Mr. Caldwell” as the man helping to arrange his trip to the United States. The Monsignor tells him he has to postpone that trip, there’s a miracle that needs investigating. He takes Eko to meet Joyce Malkin, the mother of the miracle. Her daughter, Charlotte, drowned in a river and woke up the next day. “It’s a miracle, a confirmation of faith.”
She wants the world to know about it, but the Monsignor tells her Father Tundi must investigate the miracle before anyone is told. Eko takes the man aside and tells him he cannot do what is asked of him, because he doesn’t believe the woman. “Why do you think I chose you?”

Locke and Eko are traveling through the dark jungle. Locke asks where they are going, and Eko confronts him. “Where is the question mark?”
Locke feigns ignorance.
“I know you do not want to show me, but you must.”
Locke says he doesn’t need to show him anything, and Eko apologizes before knocking him unconscious with a vicious head butt.
John comes to later, and asks Eko why he hit him. It was because he was being difficult. He says that Ana wants them to find the question mark, together. Eko doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about, and Locke calls him on it. “No, but you know what I am talking about John, and that is all that matters.”
Locke hands over his crudely drawn map of a memory, “…ten seconds of nothing.”
He is dismissive when Eko tells him about his dream, where Ana spoke to him.
“Tell me John. Haven’t you ever followed a dream?”

Flashback – Eko is in the coroner/undertakers office. The coroner explains that Ambrose (Bierce?) brought the girl in, and she was dead. She had been underwater for two hours. “And when did you find out that she was… not dead?”
“During the autopsy.” – was it done in room four? –
He plays Eko the audio tape of the autopsy. His name is Ian, and his assistant is the lovely Valerie MacTevish. He states that it is a clear case of drowning, and is about to begin the autopsy when there is a bloodcurdling scream – Val starts to panic and scream as well – Ian pops out the tape and hands it Eko. “I don’t ever want to listen to that tape again.”
That was a great scene…

Back in the jungle, Eko is having a hard time deciphering Locke’s inexact map. “These landmarks…is that a river?”

“No, it’s a wavy line.”
Locke asks him what the axe is for. “I don’t know yet.”
Eko steps on the remnants of a Mary statue. They’ve arrived at the wreckage of the drug plane. Eko asks Locke what happened when he found it. “It was up there…Boone made it fall. Then he died; a sacrifice that the island demanded.”
– back when Locke was following his dream – I wonder if the island is demanding a sacrifice from Eko? -
Eko decides to make camp and get some rest, and await further instructions.

Under the hatch Jack is freaking out, wondering what is taking them so long. Mike asks how Libby is, and Jack says all he can do is make her comfortable at this point. He then gets pretty hardcore; Sawyer is going to get the heroin from his stash, and Kate is going to go with him. Either they find out where the guns are now, or Sawyer is going to be responsible for Libby’s suffering. It’s cruel, but he’s doing what he thinks is right at the time he thinks it. It’s a huge turn off for Kate, but Sawyer doesn’t try to call Jacks bluff. “Let’s go, freckles.”
While they’re traveling, Kate grills Sawyer about Ana getting the gun from him; she knows something is fishy. He’s not talking. It turns out the stash has been at Sawyer’s place the whole time. Makes sense. Nice place he’s got. They’re leaving when Hurley comes over and asks if they’ve seen Libby. They tell him what happened.

Some weird clouds blowing through the sky… another dream? Yemi appears to Eko while Locke sleeps next to the shouldering campfire. “Come… follow me.”
Eko follows, limping like Locke… Yemi scales the cliff and Eko climbs behind, using the axe to grab hold. He reaches the top and pulls himself over to find his brother sitting in a wheelchair. “Wake up, John.”
Locke as Eko plummets backwards from the cliff – and jolts awake as he hits the ground. The real Eko questions him. “You had a dream…was there a priest? The man that you saw was my brother. This is why we needed to come together; this is how we are going to be led, and this is how we will know where to go next.”
Locke remembers Yemi leading him up the face of the cliff. But, “…it wasn’t even me, it was you.”

Flashback – Eko the priest is at the Malkin’s house. Charlotte is sitting on the porch, waiting, it seems. Joyce comes out of the house and warns Eko that it’s a bad time… her husband Richard follows.

It’s Claire’s psychic! He tells Eko the doctor made up the story to cover for his own incompetence; Charlotte wasn’t dead, she had hypothermia, which only made her appear dead. Joyce and Charlotte go into the house. Richard continues. His wife is convinced of the miracle and wants to spread the word to spite him. “Because she knows I’m a fraud. Because I make my living as a psychic… I gather intelligence on people and I exploit it (Like the Dharma Initiative?). Everyday I meet people looking for a miracle…but there are none to be had. Not in this world, anyway.” (there are other worlds than these?) - so this explains why he freaked out when he was 'reading' Claire. He felt something real. a psychic burst from Aaron in the womb? did he then contact someone about it? someone who told him to get Claire on flight 815? -
Eko will report that there has been no miracle. “Your daughter is alive, this is all that matters.”
Leaving, he turns to see Charlotte staring out of the window after him.

Eko on the island has climbed the cliff wall, with the help of the axe – he stands on top and looks around – this island is huge – there’s a nice panoramic shot of what almost look like two man made hills, and what may be a large statue of some sort, everything is overgrown and green.

I was expecting to see a pterodactyl fly by… “Rwarrrrrk…Hurley! Hurley!”
He turns and looks back down on Locke and the wrecked plane, and can make out a circle with a question mark in the center, laid out with dirt in the grass. Someone salted the dirt to create a target that could be seen from above, Eko guesses. He uses the axe to tap at the earth under the body of the plane, and hits something metal. He calls John over and they push the plane aside to get at the buried hatch. They uncover it and Eko uses the axe to unstick the latches keeping it shut. He bends to open it, and Locke stops him. “Eko, may I?”
“Be my guest.”
Locke grabs hold of one side and they lift the doors together to reveal a shaft leading down into darkness, déjà vu all over again.

The deathwatch continues back at the swan. Michael’s hurting… he clearly didn’t want this… but he definitely doesn’t want her to survive. Hurley tells him about the date he was about to have… then says, “I’m glad you’re okay, man.”
Ouch.

Locke and Eko climb down the shaft. They reach the bottom and Locke flicks on the lights. The Dharma wheel with a big white circle in the center… the Pearl. They walk into a circular room... some sort of surveillance set up. There are two Frankenstein chairs in front of a wall holding nine monitors… they look like 60’s television sets. The beaten leather chairs have ashtrays installed in the armrests, with a swivel desk bolted to the opposite arm, and a large magnifying panel attached. The desk is a mess. I’ve heard John Carpenter has a chair like this… Locke starts flipping on the monitors… all are full of snow except number two, which is a shot of the swan station.

Locke looks up at the tattered ceiling to see a camera pointed down into the surveillance room as well. There’s an oven knob on the armrest of one of the frankenchairs, and Locke dials it up. The lights turn up with it. There’s a computer on a desk by the wall.
>: PRINT LOG? Y/N
Locke hits Y, and a dot matrix printer chugs to life, spitting out pages of data. It may be a log of the button pushing, time stamping every occurrence.

41602108:05 (is 05 the year?) and the numbers continue, increasing by one every time. Is this a count of how many times the button has been pushed consecutively? Forty one million, six hundred two thousand, one hundred eight times? Yeah, probably not. Eko finds a pile of empty notebooks, and Locke finds a pneumatic tube. He crumples up his map and sends it up the tube. That might turn out to be a bad idea.
Eko holds up the Pearl Station Orientation videotape. They pop in it a dusty VCR.

The Dharma Initiative
5 of 6
Orientation
Orientation - Station 5 – The Pearl
It looks like Marvin Candle, but this guy is younger and both his arms are working. He’s also dressed like Carl Sagan. I guess I’m not the only one tivoing Cosmos on the discovery science channel.
– I like how it’s a scratchy old videotape in the same way the swan was a scratchy old filmstrip –
The Marvin Candle bad twin is standing in front of the wall of monitors, back when everything was shiny and new. They are all displaying the Pearl logo.

“Hello. I’m Doctor Mark Wickman (candle-wick), and this is the orientation film for station five of Dharma Initiative. Station five, or the Pearl, is a monitoring station, where the activities of participants in Dharma Initiative projects can be observed and recorded. Not only for posterity, but for the ongoing refinement of the Initiative as a whole.”
- The scene switches to Gerald and Karen DeGroot observing and taking notes on a group of people doing jumping jacks in matching uniforms –

“As Karen DeGroot herself has written, ‘careful observation is the only key to true and complete awareness.’ Your tour of duty in the Pearl will last three weeks, and during this time you and your partner will observe a psychological experiment in progress.”
- cut to a shot of Jack walking in front of the camera in the swan… Locke’s getting pissed –
“Your duty is to observe team members in other stations on the island. These team members are not aware that they are under surveillance, or that they are the subjects of an experiment. Working in eight-hour shifts, you and your partner will record everything you observe in the notebooks we’ve provided.”
- back to Wickman in front of the monitors. This time the one above his right shoulder is a (presumably) live shot of another station. There’s a guy sitting at a computer, and another man walks over with a printout –
“What is the nature of the experiment, you might ask? What do these subjects believe they are accomplishing as they struggle to fulfill their tasks? You, as the observer, don’t need to know. All you need to know is the subjects believe their job is of the utmost importance. Remember, everything that occurs, no matter how minute or seemingly unimportant, must be recorded. Each time a notebook is filled with the fruits of your diligent observation…”
– seems like the tape might be edited here –
“…roll it up…insert into one of the containers provided. Then simply place the container in the pneumatic tube, and presto! It will be transported directly to us.”
- hmmm… sounds like that whole process might have been a dig at blogs like this and the message boards, no? –
“At the end of your eight hour shift, proceed to the Pala ferry, which will take you back to…” (unintelligible…the village? Prepare for your next?)”
– seems edited again here –
“On behalf of the DeGroots, Alvar Hanso, and all of us here at the Dharma Initiative, thank you, namaste…”
– both hands raised together this time –

“…and good luck.”

It’s copyrighted 1980, the Hanso Foundation. In the video the place looked spiffy, nice clean walls and shiny leather chairs. It’s kind of a mess now… the world has moved on.
Eko asks Locke, “Would you like to see that again?”
“No. No, I’ve seen enough.”
Eko starts to collect the printouts. He wants to take them, they may be important. Locke scoffs at the idea. “Important? I’m sorry, weren’t you just watching the same thing I was?”
Eko tells him he now believes that pushing the button is more important than ever. Locke laughs, they’re all “…rats in a maze, with no cheese.”
Eko says they are being tested. “The reason to do it, push the button, is not because we are told to do so in this film…we do it because we believe we are meant to. Isn’t that the reason you pushed it, John?”
Locke has lost his faith. Did the island or the Initiative somehow see this coming and start ‘programming’ Eko to replace him?
Locke throws a tantrum. “I was never meant to do anything! Every single second of my pathetic little life is as useless as that button…it’s meaningless. And who are you to tell me that it’s not?”

Flashback – Eko’s at the airport waiting to board Oceanic flight 815. – hey, maybe the plane crashed because there were motherfucking snakes on it! – The psychic’s daughter, Charlotte, followed him there, against her father’s orders. She has a message for Eko that she promised to deliver. She tells him Yemi says he is a good priest. She saw him when she was… between places (in the territories? With his bad twinner?) He wants Eko to know that he will see him soon – true enough – “Even though you don’t have faith in yourself, he has faith in you.”
Eko is upset, and he gets loud, asking why she is doing this to him. Libby is passing by and she interrupts to make sure everything is all right. Charlotte nods and Libby continues on her way. – so she was on the plane for sure –
“He has faith in you. One day you’ll believe me.”

In the Pearl, Eko tells John about his brother, about eventually crashing on the island and then somehow finding Yemi in the plane now above them, concealing the entrance to the station. “And I took this cross from around Yemi’s neck, and put it back on mine. Just as it was on the day I first took another man's life. So let me ask you? How can you say this is meaningless?”
Eko is now the Locke of season two. Locke, Eko. Eko, Locke.

“If you will not continue to push the button John, I will.”

Back in the Swan, Jack is shooting up Libby to ease the pain. It doesn’t seem like she has much time left (my tivo bar is near the end….), and Hurley wants to talk to her. Jack gives Hugo’s shoulder a squeeze. So sad, we’re right by the washer and dryer where the ‘romance’ pretty much began. Hurley is sorry he forgot the blankets… Jack is holding back tears as Hurley breaks down…Libby suddenly becomes coherent…she’s trying to spit a word out… “Michael!”
Jack takes it for concern, not for the warning she surely intended. “He’s okay, he made it, Libby.”
She passes away, having used up the last of her strength to try and warn them. She was on the plane and she’s not an other. Moreover, she’s dead. Too bad about the occasion, but I love this melancholy Lost theme. Haven’t heard it in a while. Jack softly closes Libby's eyes then walks away, leaving Hurley crying by her side. Kate is sobbing alone in the dining nook. Sawyer sits and holds her tight, consoling her. Jack is trying to compose himself in the bathroom.

The timer starts to beep its four-minute warning.

Eko and Locke are returning through the jungle.

Michael is in the armory, standing over Ana’s body. He hears the beeping and looks up. The cursor blinks on the computer screen.

>:

– is he gonna try and IM Walt again? –

the grand facade, so soon will burn...

2006-05-10T07:47:00.000-07:00

Back right where we left off... “Michael?”

He’s not responding. Jack wants to search for Others nearby, but Kate convinces Jack that Michael came back to them on his own. Jack eventually hoists him over his shoulder and they start back to camp.
Under the hatch, Ana’s chopping up some fruit in the kitchen while Locke saws some wood, loudly, in the bedroom.
Flashback – LAPD parking lot. The cars we can see are units 04, 08, 15, 16, 23, and 42. Ana and her partner pull up. Mom is there to confront her as she gets out of her cruiser, asking Ana Lucia where she was the night before. Ana hasn’t thought of much of an alibi, past ‘watching TV’. Mom takes her for a ride; to the morgue. “Remember Jason Alder?”
His corpse is laid out on the table in front of them, riddled with bullet holes. Mom knows Ana did it, and tells her she needs help. She needs to come clean, if not for mom, then for the badge. “You’re a police officer Ana, if you don’t respect me, at least respect that.”
Ana hands over her badge and quits.

Back under the hatch, Ana brings the bowl of fresh fruit in to Henry and starts talking at him. She tells him she was a cop; she’s been around a lot of killers in her life and, surprisingly, they all love to talk. “But you’re different, Henry…quiet.”
Henry mutters something under his breath. - “he said you were safe”? -
Ana leans in closer to hear... bad idea. He lifts up his arms, smashing the bowl into her face, and starts throttling her. “You killed two of us...good people who were leaving you alone."
(the woman on the beach during the second attack, and Goodwin)
“You’re the killer, Ana Lucia.”
He throws her down and continues choking the life out of her, but Locke comes up from behind and canes him before he can finish the job.
“I guess he decided to start talking, Ana.”

Flashback – Ana has a new job as a TSA security wander, working the Pan Pacific airlines gate. She hits the airport bar after work and Christian Shepherd is there getting drunk(er).

That makes two castaways he’s run into sitting at a bar - there's a joke in there somewhere. He recognizes her from being ‘wanded’ earlier, and they start chatting. She tells him she used to be a cop, and he tells her he used to be a doc, until his own son cost him his job. Ana doesn’t think family should work together, and Christian will drink to that. I think Christian would drink to anything... he invites her to come to Sydney with him. “Why would I go to Sydney with you?”
Christian tells her maybe fate brought them together, two drinks in an airport bar - like Ana and Jack - She wonders why fate would do that, and he tells her it’s for the same reason fate does anything. So they can help each other out. “You do need help, right? Unless you don’t...”
He tells her he needs a bodyguard because it could get dangerous for him down under. Ana would like to know his name at least, but Christian suggests they make up names for each other instead. She tells him he looks like a Tom, and he calls her Sarah. His daughter-in-law. Creepy. Ana’s considering his offer.

Back on the beach, Ana is cleaning the gash on her forehead. Libby comes over and asks what happened, if she's okay? Ana tells her the guy in the hatch did it, and she’s fine, but he won’t be. Libby tells her not to try anything stupid... is she trying to protect Henry? Under the hatch, Locke is fiddling with the retracted blast doors before he decides to open up the cell and talk to Henry. He needs to know why Henry didn’t kill him when he had the chance. “Because you’re one of the good ones, John.”
Henry knows he’s a dead man either way; Jack will come back empty-handed and they’ll kill him, or Jack will get what he wants and turn Henry over to the Others, and the man in charge will kill him. “...the man in charge...he’s a great man, John, a brilliant man. But he is not a forgiving man.”
He tells John he’ll be killed for failing his mission; he was coming for Locke all along. Before Locke can question this, Jack and Kate return with Michael.
Ana tracks down Sawyer picking mangos in the jungle. She asks for a gun, and Sawyer tells her she should ask Jack for his gun, that is, if he wasn’t so busy running around in the jungle with Kate. When Ana responds, saying he’s bitter because Jack is “making time with his girl” (weird anachronism here - sounds more like something Locke would say), Sawyer yells at her to “scram”, to “git”, as if she’s a stray dog.

Flashback – Ana’s drinking in a Sydney hotel room at 3:51 am. There’s a knocking on the door, and she opens it up to find a very drunk Tom/Christian. It’s time for protection duty, he tells her. “After four days of drinking and doing nothing, now, in the middle of the night, you’re ready to go?”
“That’s exactly right...fate’s calling, Sarah.”
The two of them go driving in the pouring rain, while Pasty Cline sings ‘walking after midnight’ (Kate’s song, right? Wonder if that record is in the hatch's collection?) Christian/Tom has Ana/Sarah pull up to a house in the suburbs. He gets out and pounds on the door until a disheveled blonde woman answers (of course she's disheveled, it's four in the morning). He asks if he can come in, and she shakes her head no. He starts to get belligerent, “...she’s my daughter and I have every right to see her!”
The woman sounds like a native aussie, “...no, you don’t have a right!”
Christian starts to push his way in – he paid the mortgage on the house – and Ana rushes up to pull him back into the car.
“I was just trying to have a conversation with the lady.”
(isn’t that an Indiana Jones line? Or Han Solo? either way, the guy sounds like Harrison Ford)
The woman is young, but could definitely be Claire’s mom...

is Jack her half-brother? Or... did Jack's parents have a daughter he somehow didn’t know about and she and Christian sent/gave her away? Paid to have her taken away? explains the mortgage comment... Luke/Leia... of course it's a whole lot more likely Christian is just a slime that can't keep it in his pants.

The beach again, where Hurley’s looking to borrow the radio Sayid built. He'd like to get some tunes on it and impress Libby, Say Anything style. Apparently they didn’t have Say Anything in Baghdad, so Hurley tries to explain the 'in your eyes' scene to Sayid, before just telling him to check it out sometime... if they ever get off the island, that is. Sayid suggests a trip to a beautiful secluded beach instead, a beach that he once took Shannon to. Awww
Under the hatch Jack is trying unsuccessfully to wake Michael. Locke wants to know if the plan worked, but Jack tells him the Others didn’t hand Michael over, that he must have just heard and followed Jack’s voice. Locke is unconvinced, causing Jack to snap, “What, they just let Michael go hoping that we would keep up our end of the bargain? You think they’re on the honor system?”
The jungle again, where ‘little red riding hood’ is following the big bad wolf to his guns. "Lucy" tells him she doesn't need all of them, she'll just take the one he has, and they start wrasslin’ for it. We all know where this is leading, but Sawyer's pleasantly surprised. Easy way to snag the gun.

Flashback – Sydney, 5:29am (song on the radio?) Ana asks Christian who the woman was. “She is a very long story, Sarah.”
It's Ana Lucia, not Sarah, she tells him, but he wants to remain Tom. "Why are you here"' she asks? "I’m here because I can’t apologize to my son. He tried to help me so I thanked him by cutting him off; I thanked him by hating him."
He knows she’s there for the same reason, that she is running away from something.
- I wonder if Christian saw something in Sarah, and wanted her to get together with Jack, so he ordered Desmond to bump into Jack and pass on some smelly magic healing power? Probably not... -
Tom/Christian invites her to relax and have a drink or ten with him, but she adamantly refuses. Chris opens the door right into Sawyer as he’s walking by, who does his best Ratso Rizzo impression; “Hey, I’m walkin’ here!”
Ana tries to talk Christian into leaving Sydney with her and going back, but he “can never go back.”

On the island, post-coital Sawyer doesn’t notice Ana lifted his gun. He wants to cuddle. Libby catches Hurley raiding the pantry, and he confesses to the picnic idea. She acts as if she would be delighted to go with him. Ana shows up under the hatch, and Jack asks what happened to her head. Locke quickly makes up a story about her slipping in the bathroom, and Ana goes along with it. Is he covering for Henry, or Ana’s stupidity? Kate calls everyone over, Michael is waking up. “I found them.” He hiked north, then back to the place where the tailies found the rafties, where he saw an Other and followed him back to their camp. They live in teepees and tents and eat dried fish; they’re worse off than the castaways are. Kate asks how many he saw, and Mike says he counted twenty-two (if he adds himself it gets up to that magic number). He didn’t find the boat, Cindy, or any other kids, but he’s sure that Walt is there. “They have a hatch” – two metal doors leading underground. They could be holding the kids and Cindy there too. It's guarded 24-7 by two armed men. “...and two guns are all I saw; they’re barely armed. Most of them are old and half of them are women.”
Unable to rescue Walt alone, he came back, “...to tell you we can take them. As soon as I get my strength back, I will take us back there, and we are gonna get my boy back.”
Later, Locke is busy trying to draw the map he saw ever so briefly when Jack comes over to apologize. He shouldn’t have gotten in Locke and Sayid’s way when they first brought Henry down; they were right. “You did what you thought was right at the time you thought it”, Locke replies.
Locke just wants to be included in the upcoming attack, and they decide to take Kate and go get the guns back from Sawyer, leaving Ana to watch over Henry. Uh-oh.

Hurley is leading Libby around in circles, before finally surprising her with the most excellent secret beach on the island.
“Hurley, this is our beach...,” she points out a Korean man cleaning a fish nearby, “...there’s Jin.”
This is as good a place as any for a picnic, she assures Hurley, but it turns out he’s also forgotten a blanket and drinks. She offers to go find a blanket if he tracks down Rose and Bernard. She saw them grabbing some wine from the Dharma drop. Hurley lights up, “Oh, wine...groovy. Hey, maybe if I get drunk enough I’ll remember where I know you from!” Libby forces a smile and walks away, before Hurley turns to see Jin giving him the thumbs up.

Locke, Jack and Kate arrive at the beach to confront Sawyer, who’s reading the “Bad Twin” manuscript. He’s almost done, but Jack throws the last few pages in the fire before he can finish. “It’s time to give us the guns back.” Sawyer refuses, and Jack pulls his pistol out, aiming at Sawyers wounded shoulder. Sawyer reaches back for his own piece... ”Oh, that bitch.”
It’s gone. He tells them Ana stole it. Locke speaks up (too little too late? he and Jack sure have some serious trust issues, and this ain't gonna help)
“Jack. I need to tell you something.”

Under the hatch, Ana cocks the gun and opens up the armory door. She slides a knife over to Henry and tells him to cut himself loose. Henry knows she’s planning to kill him, so he starts talking, as he does best. “He kept saying you were misunderstood. Goodwin. He told us all about you Ana, how he thought you were worthy; that he could change you. But he was wrong. And it cost him his life.”
He finishes cutting himself free and sets down the knife. It’s working, he’s rattled Ana. “He was gonna kill me.”
“Was he?”
She raises the gun to Henry's head. “So this is it, Ana?”
“Yes Henry, this is it.”
We’ll find out if Ana shoots him...after the break.

Flashback – Ana and Jin are in line at the Sydney airport. Jack’s in front of them, giving Chrissie behind the counter a hard time. He needs to get his dad’s body back to America on this sixteen-hour flight. Jack “...needs it to be done. I need it to be over.”
He inspires Ana to call her Mom. “I made a mistake, mom. You knew, so I got as far away from you as I could. But now, I wanna come home, mommy.”
“So come home.”

Under the hatch, Ana’s sitting on the couch, playing with the gun. Did she do it? Michael comes in and asks where everyone is. They went to get the guns from Sawyer, which is a long story in itself. She confesses to Mike about Henry, the prisoner in the hatch. “He tried to kill me today so I wanted him dead. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even kill him...I can’t do this anymore.”
(I get so tired, working so hard for our survival)
Michael gets up and stands before the armory door. “Then let me do it.”
The animals took his son right out of his hands. “Gimmie the gun. I’ll kill him. ‘Cause that’s what they’d do!”
She hands it over and gives him the combination to the lock.
– 18 right one left 31 right –
Michael looks down at the gun in his hands.
“I’m sorry”, he tells Ana.
“For what?”
He raises it and shoots her square in the chest.
(the grand facade, so soon will burn)
She dies almost instantly. He’s shaking and choking back tears when Libby enters the room.

“Michael?”
She startles him, he turns around and shoots her twice in the gut, through the blanket in her arms. She looks pretty dead... he looks very surprised, even scared, to have seen her there.

- He has a different look on his face then when he killed Ana... I've heard that quite a few people think that Michael was told to kill Ana as well as rescue Henry, but I don't think so. He was just told to get Henry free at any cost, but was he also told to send Libby back with Henry or something? Did he just fuck up? -

Michael opens the armory door – Henry stands and looks at him.
Michael is seething with rage at what the Others have made him do in order to get Walt back (wait until he finds out they're not going to give him up...). He raises the gun once more, this time pointing it at his own left shoulder, and pulls the trigger. Now Henry can escape, Michael has an alibi, and everyone is going to be ready to attack the Others after seeing the carnage. I bet "He" loves it when a plan comes together.

- sorry for the kind of half-hearted recap for one of the best episodes of the season so far. it's been a long week... and i dunno why blogger is sizing the pictures all weird. irritating -

technical difficulties

2006-05-04T07:35:00.000-07:00

***update***
STILL no DSL as of monday the 8th. at&sbct sucks.

i just moved, and won't have an internet connection at home until tomorrow.
which is probably a good thing, considering how much shit happened last night!!

i'd guess that this has been a setup since henry was in the trap, maybe even since 'walt' IMed mike... they got michael because they knew they could control him by threatening walt. teepees and tents my ass. shoots ana and libby to cover his ass, then shoots himself and lets henry go. now he's gonna lead everyone right to the trap the others have laid for them. what do they want? the guns? do they want everyone that isn't a 'good person' dead? what did they promise michael? that he'd get walt back, or that they wouldn't hurt walt?
and is jack aarons uncle?
i can't believe that wasn't even the season finale....

check back in a couple days for the regular recap.

reckoning

2006-04-27T09:24:00.000-07:00

thoughts after watching the clips:

the tailie kids will be back before the end of the season, in one way or another

there were a lot of kate and jack scenes... what will this mean?

i think desmond is 'him'. if the guy is getting up every 108 minutes to push a button, why was he spending all that time getting ready down in the hatch, and why was he all grimy once they got down there, just a few minutes later?
i think he was there to set up the button pushing test for locke and the rest of the castaways. the others knew the hatch was about to be blown up, and after desmond ate and showered, he used his dharma initiative makeup kit to dirty himself up and make it look like he had been down there alone for a long time.
they blow up the hatch, he tells them his story and takes off. takes off cause that was part of the plan? maybe he was supposed to infiltrate them, but the computer gets shot, and knowing what will happen if the button isn't pressed he leaves, not wanting to be around for that? once he figures out its working okay, he sends 'henry' back to do the job he was supposed to be doing. or henry is the real boss, and he decides if he wants the job done right, he needs to do it himself?

and maybe the plane 'crashing' is dharmas way of keeping the test running; providing new subjects along with new workers. the 'good ones', the innocents, are abducted by the others and groomed to be replacements on dharma's island skeleton crew - children are most sought after because they will last longer and are easier to coerce, or brainwash; especially if they've never known another life -, while the 'lost' passengers are the new test subjects. once all the test subjects have outlived their usefulness the process begins again.
are there agents around the world selecting people for the test without their knowledge? desmond, the psychic, the healer, people in the government?
they conspire to get the people that they've selected together, aboard a flight, or maybe a cruise. of course there is collateral; spouses, families, etc., who become the new worker bees?
interesting that there weren't any nuclear families among the survivors. Michael, Walt and Vincent are about as close as they got.

ahhhh, i have no idea.
the god voice during these clip shows is cool, though.

i'll send an s.o.s. to the world...

2006-04-13T11:32:00.000-07:00

Rose is stocking the pantry on the beach with some D.I. green beans and carrots. Bernard is trying to help, but he just can’t understand why she’s not curious as to where the food came from. She was apparently raised never to question her blessings. “I was raised to question piles of food with weird labels that just fall out of the sky, Rose.”
As all kids should be raised, Bernard. After all, you never know when that situation might come up. He’s in culture shock, and still can’t believe how complacent everyone has become on this side of the island. He doesn’t understand why they’ve given up. “Given up? On what?”
On being rescued Rose, jeez…

Under the hatch the clock is ticking down – because that’s what this clock does. Ticks down. Then ticks down some more. Locke’s sitting at the computer desk, trying to recreate the briefly blacklit map of the hatches on the island that he saw illuminated on the inside of the blast door pinning him to the ground. He remembers the ? in the center, and is working on counting how many stations he saw as the timer begins to loudly trumpet the one minute countdown. He pays it no mind – is he so engrossed he doesn’t hear it, or has he been doing this every 108 minutes since Henry told him he didn’t press the button, daring himself to trust Henry, and to try the same (or is it more a question of talking himself out of trusting him every 108 and pressing it)? - Jack pops his head in. “Hey. You gonna get that?”

Locke does. Jack finds Ana Lucia on the couch reading an atlas. He asks about Henry, and she tells him Henry’s gone the past two days refusing food and water, and refusing to speak a word. Jack’s tired of waiting, so he and Ana go in the cell. Is Henry sleeping when they walk in or is he looking intently at something on the floor… maybe using his feet to unscrew something? He’s still not talking, which is fine with Jack, as he's never been that good at the whole bedside manner thing. He changes Henry’s bandages while talking about that idea Henry had to lure them into a trap so a trade could then be worked out.
“Pretty good idea, Henry. And since you are one of them, I thought now might be a good time to use it. I’m going out to the line that we’re not supposed to cross and telling them that we’ve got you. And if they want you back it’s gonna cost them.
And when we get Walt back, you might just have been worth all the trouble.”
Henry snorts as Jack turns to leave.

“They’ll never give you Walt.”

Flashback – Rose is stuck in some snow and Bernard approaches her car with some suggestions. This is their first meeting… and the second time in two weeks a character has said “All due respect…” You think maybe the writers have been watching the new season of the Sopranos? He gets behind the car to help her rock it out – he can do this. He does, but ends up facedown in slush. Rose gets out of the car (New York plates) and they make some smalltalk before remembering to introduce themselves. After much hesitation on both their parts, due to shyness I think, Rose gets up the nerve to ask him out for a cup of coffee. Of course he agrees. We do kinda know they end up together.

Back at the pantry, Rose is tempting Hurley with a box of Dharma Initiative Dharmalars (huh?), but Hurley’s on a strict fish and water diet. Sounds yummy. Bernard stomps up, a man on a mission. He wants Hurley and Libby to meet him in five minutes, and bring along Jin and Sun, Jenkins, and that frogurt guy, Neil. He tells Rose he has an idea and takes off, recruiting Richard, Bret and Bro? on the way.

Under the hatch, Jack is busy packing for his trip to meet the others. Ana asks to come, but after sneaking a look at Locke in the computerdome, Jack decides it would be wiser for Ana to stay there. We know what happened the last time Locke and Henry were left alone. She hands over the gun with the condition that he not go alone, he needs to find someone to bring with him. Jack agrees.
Kate and Sawyer are doing some weird shit on the beach - picking barnacles or something? - when Doctor Giggles comes over. Kate looks happy to see him. Jack asks her to come with him to talk to “our friend with the beard” about a trade. Sawyer assumes Jack wants him to come to this prisoner exchange as well, since he’s got the gun. But he’s not invited, just Kate, and Jack’s already got his own gun. (but thanks for offering.)

Bernard is rallying the troops - "Two months we’ve been on this island…we’ve got a food pantry…people are taking showers in your hatch. Have you forgotten we all crashed on this island? It’s like none of you want to go home again.”
He asks why they’re not doing anything about it. Hurley says they have, “Dude, we like built a raft! …but it got blown up.”
Bernard’s plan is to construct a huge sign on the beach, one that could be seen by a satellite in orbit – or by a plane like the one that just dropped the food. “We want to make damn sure that they know we’re here; that they know about us.”
He has everyone in the crowd nodding in agreement, but then Rose chimes in. “Maybe we should speak to Jack about this first.”
Jack’s not the president, he’s only a doctor, Bernard points out. Rose, much to everyone’s amusement, rebuts with the fact that Bernard is a dentist. Remember to spay and neuter your husbands, people.

Ouch. He takes her aside and explains that he’s just trying to do something so they can get back to their life.
“Well the only thing you’re doing is giving these people false hope.”
Everyone looks like they’re in one of those ‘wanna get away?” commercials (most of them probably have been…).
Bernard heads back to the group; he’s got a sign to build.

Flashback to five months later (since the last flashback, not the part on the island where Rose just cut off his balls), and Rose and Bernard are having dinner at a nice restaurant overlooking Niagara Falls. Rose is amazed by the natural beauty surrounding them, but Bernard is distracted. He’s busy trying to motion someone over to the table, prompting Rose to ask what god would have to do to get his attention? I dunno, but Bernard knows how to get Rose's; all it takes is two violinists at the table and getting down on one knee. The 56 year old bachelor tells her he’d always dreamed of meeting someone like her, but had given up hope that he ever would. “I know it’s crazy, we just met five months ago…but five months is long enough because I knew after five minutes. Rose, I love you. Will you marry me?”
“Bernard, I’m dying.”
The band plays on while she tells him she’s sick and dying (did these guys play on the Titanic, too?). He has to ask them to leave, then Rose explains; her sickness had been in remission, but now it’s back and she only has a year, maybe a little longer.
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“Are you sure?”
Bernard takes her hands. “Oh, I’m sure.”
“Yes.”

Eko and Charlie ARE building a church, I knew it. Bernard shuffles over. He can’t understand why everyone is building something on the island, while he is the only one working on getting them saved. “People are saved in different ways, Bernard.”
Bernard tells Eko he liked him better when he just hit people with his stick.
“I like you just the way you are,” Charlie assures Eko.

Under the hatch, Locke is still trying to work out the map he saw. He gets up to tell Ana that he needs to talk with Henry. She tells him Jack has the gun, so the door stays closed, but they can talk through the door if he wants to. Does he want to ask about the map? I think if he got some alone time, he would. As it is, he has to shout through the door for Henry to hear, meaning that Ana can hear everything too. “Henry… did you enter the numbers? Did you push the button or not?”
Locke is getting frustrated. “Henry? I need to know, I want you to answer me. Answer me!!!”
Henry sits silently, smiling in his cell.

Craig, Frogurt, and at least a few others have already abandoned Bernard’s project. A few more disappear after he explains the black rocks they need are at a lava field about a half mile into the jungle, and while everyone is hauling the rocks from there, he’ll be busy sketching out the 40 foot letters in the sand.

Flashback – Rose and Bernard are honeymooning in the middle of the outback. She’s convinced they’re lost, but Bernard knows where he’s going. He’s set up a ten thousand dollar meeting for Rose with some kind of faith healer, Isaac of Uluru. He hands a stunned Rose the brochure. There’s a copy of the National Flash newspaper inside, touting the ‘winning lottery numbers’ and your ‘personal horoscope’. The front page story is “MIRACLE IN THE OUTBACK”

- The picture in Isaac’s pamphlet is of Ayers rock, but it looks a lot like the picture hanging on the wall of the swan station. Maybe just a similar rock? A place of power… the picture in the swan station could maybe be somewhere on the island itself? either way, it's definitely there representing a 'place of power' -
Isaac was born in 1949, and has been a spiritual healer for over 25 years.
The brochure reads:
“Isaac’s Healing Powers:
Spiritual healing is effected by the act of attuning to the life force energy by meditation or prayer
so this energy can be channeled via the agency of a trained spiritual healer
to any person, place, situation, or life form, whether present or not,
via contact by the hands or by the projection of loving thoughts in order to have a beneficial effect on the whole, at all levels of being.
Distinctions of race, class, gender, customs, belief, philosophy or religions are irrelevant
No affirmation of religious faith is required.
Spiritual healing may be given to any person, place, situation, or life form for any illness, injury, problem, or circumstance, at any time.”

- well, that explains the island and why the Hanso foundation and the DeGroots were so interested; is Walt the only person born with the proper gifts to channel the energy of this island? That’s why they’ll never give him back? -

Rose is upset. She “didn’t ask for this!”, and has already made her peace with what is happening to her. Bernard hasn’t. “I can’t just do nothing Rose. That’s not me. That’s not who I am. I have to try. Will you try for us? For me.”

On the beach, Bernard, or Norma Rae (why is Sawyer always calling him a girls name? scrubs reference? Or is it his gaydar?) is lobbying unsuccessfully for Sawyers help. He gives up, and walks over to Rose at the watering hole. He wants to know what’s wrong, why she won’t support him…he’s hurt by this, all he’s trying to do is help, to just do something. Rose tells him to just let things be, he doesn’t always have to “do something.”
“If I didn’t always have to do something, you wouldn’t be here.”
So she did go to the faith healer for him?

Kate and Jack are hiking through the jungle… she finds out she was Jacks second choice, after Sayid turned him down. She shouldn’t flatter herself, he just chose her because the others already had a chance at keeping her and didn’t, so they must not want her. Or him, for that matter. They’re damaged goods. Too true? Hey, even if they don’t say it, at least they want each other. Kate sees a doll lying on the ground and moves to pick it up. Jack runs over to try and stop her, but he’s too late, and they’re both scooped up into one of the French chick’s net traps.

“Sorry.”
It’s cozy in there, and Jack is worried Danielle may not come by for a week. Kate wiggles the gun out of Jack’s pants, and takes a shot at the rope holding the net off the ground. She misses wide, and Jack gives it a try. He’s got a better angle, anyway. He surprisingly makes it on his first shot – something we don’t know about Jack and guns? – and they crash to the jungle floor below, tangled up in each other.
“Nice shot.”

At the SOS site, Bernard is nagging Jin, the only person with enough patience to have made it this far. Even he has had enough by now. Bernard just wants to get Rose home. Speaking of Rose, she’s down the beach a ways, talking with Locke. She tells him Bernard is building a big sign in the sand so a satellite will see it. “The man doesn’t know the difference between an errand and a fool’s errand.”
Our button pushing Locke can certainly relate to that. She asks him what he doing out there, and he tells her that he’s done with his hatch, his fool’s errand. She tells him he’s just frustrated. “You’ll be out of that splint and running around the island in no time.”
“And yet Jack said it’d be at least four weeks.”
“But honey, you and I both know it’s not gonna take that long.”
Rose smiles at Locke knowingly, and he takes a moment to consider before returning the grin. They both look out over the sea.
Whatthefuck?!?!?!?

Flashback – Rose is in Isaac’s ‘temple’; a graveyard of crutches, wheelchairs and walkers. The walls are covered with thank you notes and postcards, letters, and photos.

Anyone we know?
Isaac enters and they sit, Rose asking how it works, does he chant or pray?
“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.”
Fucking awesome.
– so does Walt harness it and give it to The Others? This is a huge revelation, as we now know the actual secret of the island, we’ve been told outright twice tonight. It’s a place of power, like an ancient Micmac burial ground, or ley lines –
Isaac holds his hands open and places them on either side of Rose’s face for a minute before breaking away. He’s sorry, but he can’t do anything for her. -shades of Claire and her psychic - “It’s not that you can’t be healed. Like I said, there are different energies. This is not the right place for you.”
He doesn’t know where the right place would be, however. Isaac offers to return Bernard’s ten grand, but Rose tells him to keep it.
“I’m gonna tell him you fixed me.”

In the jungle, Jack and Kate are back on the trail. It’s raining, so they must be getting close, right? Kate confesses to her adventure with Claire and Danielle at the other hatch, the empty medical station. “I found some lockers, they had clothes inside, all worn and dirty and they were on hangers like costumes, ya know? And there was a makeup kit and a fake beard.”
Jack is aghast… “When were you gonna tell me this?”
She was gonna tell him once she was let back into the club. She and Hurley need some membership cards or something.
They come across the clearing, which is also the site of a rather large black rock. Jack stands in the middle of the clearing and starts yelling for the others. He has their man, and he’ll wait for them to come and talk to him about it. He knows they can hear him. He’s all yelly and stuff, but he’s rational, not quite the maniacal angry Jack from earlier in the season.

Bernard’s management skills have left him alone on the beach, filling out the enormous letters with lava rocks all by himself. Rose brings him some dinner, along with an apology for lying to him. She reveals that Isaac didn’t heal her. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not healed.”
She tells Bernard that when you’re sick the way she was, you can feel something inside you that doesn’t belong. After the crash, she didn’t feel it anymore. “It’s this place.”
She deceived him so that he wouldn’t spend the time they had left trying to do something. Bernard asks if it could be in remission, if maybe Isaac did heal her, how can she know it’s the island?
“I know.”

Flashback – the gate at the airport in Sydney. Bernard gets up to go take a piss or something, and Rose is shuffling through her purse. She drops a bottle of pills, and they roll up against the wheel of a wheelchair. Locke picks them up and hands them to Rose.

She thanks him as he wheels away. (that explains the look they shared that was driving me frigging crazy!)

“Trust me. I know”
Once Bernard comes to the realization that Rose doesn’t want to leave the island, that she feels she can’t without risking getting sick again, he holds her tight and starts to cry. “We won’t ever leave, Rose.”
He’d offer to take down the sign, but he didn’t get very far. They show an aerial shot of the SOS, and the stacks of rocks along with what Bernard has managed to fill in looks an awful lot like a frowny face.

Locke is back under the hatch, where Ana’s telling him that she pressed his button. “It’s not my button.”
He settles back in next to the button that is not his, and gets to work on remembering the map again. He lost his faith for a little while, but speaking with Rose reminded Locke that the island has a purpose for him, and he believes that it showed the map to him alone for a reason… it also healed him, so the least he can do for it is push a button every 108 minutes.

The return of the musical montage! Otis Redding's 'These Arms of Mine' - which was playing in the car when Bernard met Rose - we see Eko and Charlie hard at work on the church – Jin lying next to Sun, caressing her belly – Sun has a horrible look on her face, probably thinking about the whole truth – Hurley and Libby are entertaining themselves with shadow puppets (an old psych ward game, perhaps?) – Sawyer feeding Vincent (Vincent!), probably as a way of making amends to the viewers that couldn’t believe he would squish a harmless tree frog ; ladies, Sawyer loves the animals! – Rose and Bernard cuddling by a campfire.

Kate and Jack have their own campfire in the clearing. She wants to know how long Jack is gonna wait. “’til I get my voice back, then I’m gonna yell some more.”
Kate tells him she’s sorry for kissing him, and Jack tells her he’s not sorry it happened. They lean in, and just as it’s about to happen again they hear someone crashing through the nearby trees. They see a torch headed their way, but before it's bearer can reach them, he collapses facedown. They rush to the body and roll it over.

“Michael?”

the lunatic is in my head...

2006-04-06T13:55:00.000-07:00

“Isn’t this nice?”
Libby’s trying to hook Hurley on the natural highs of exercise. He’s getting frustrated; he just wants to drop a few pounds. She tells him it won’t happen overnight, that he could just have a slow metabolism… he interrupts before she gets to big-boned, “It’s not my metabolism…I’m sick.”
He tells her he’s got a secret, and she assures him he can trust her… so he takes her to Hurley’s Secret Stash – the dude’s got a shitload of food in there! – He tells Libby the story of finding and distributing the food from the hatch, “…but I guess I kinda kept some of it for myself.”
He wishes he could just get rid of it, and Libby tells him he can. If he wants to change, then change. Food Fight!!

This must’ve been fun… wonder how many takes? – but don’t you think Libby woulda been jonesing pretty hard for one of those Apollo bars or something? – Hurley feels free! Nice hug… go in for the kiss, dude… some Korean shouting harshes the mellow big time, as Jin and Sun come rushing through.
“They’ve found something!”

Libby and Hurley follow them to the Dharma drop site. Hurley can’t believe this shit. Everyone is there, tearing into the bundles of food. Charlie grabs some risotto, and mentions that he heard blast doors trapped Locke in the hatch last night… maybe so they wouldn’t see who dropped it? He asks if anyone saw a plane, and Sawyer tells "Tattoo" yeah, but that he had forgotten to mention it.
Food Fight!!!!

- for real this time. Sawyer tries to restore order, and his integrity is called into question by the “babysnatcher”, who wants Hurley to take charge of the food again. Hugo goes all rain man… “No. No way! Not me, no. Not again, no.”
Libby distracts everyone from the crazed look in Hurley’s eyes by suggesting they all just take what they need. “Great plan, Moonbeam. After that we can sing Kumbaya and do trust falls,” snarks Sawyer.
Hurley notices a bald guy in a bathrobe watching him from across the pile of food. He walks off into the jungle and Hurley follows, with Libby watching. Crashing through the jungle in pursuit, Hugo takes a spill facedown into the dirt. He looks up to see a slipper from the (cinderella?) man in the bathrobe. He reaches out and grabs it, to find that it’s real and tangible.
“Uh oh”

Libby finds Hurley on the beach. He hides the slipper he’s playing with, as she sits and asks what he was running after. He doesn’t want to talk about it. “Pretty weird, huh? That the island won’t let you lose weight? Destroy your stash and then BANG - food falls from the sky.”
“How about that?”
Libby’s proud of him for not freaking out.

Flashback – Picture of a tropical island, smaller than the island we know and mountainless, hanging on a wall of a doctors office. Senator Kelly is Hurley’s shrink; we’re in the mental hospital. Hugo tells the doc that he’s not mad at his mom anymore for putting him in there; he knows she put him in there for a reason. “What reason is that?”
“The accident.”
It’s been two months and Hugo still hasn’t opened up about it. The doc doesn’t push it, and asks for the homework he assigned, a list of things Hugo likes about himself. He didn’t do it because Dave didn’t do it, and Dave is the sanest guy in the place. Senator Kelly isn’t Dave’s doctor, but he knows that Dave doesn’t want Hugo to change.
Down in the gym, there’s a mental game of basketball being played, where no one is passing the ball to Dave, making him very upset. He doesn’t like to be neglected. Hurley shows up behind him, and gets the ball right away. Gee, ya think maybe no one else can see Dave? Looks like Kareem sitting in the lotus position on the parquet floor. Dave talks Hugo into forsaking his diet for some tacos, telling him not to let the doctor into his head. After all, three’s a crowd, right?

Under the hatch, Locke’s twitching his toes for Jack. As best as Jack can tell without an x-ray, Locke’s got a small hairline fracture in his right leg, meaning he’s got to stay off it for a couple of weeks. Kate shows off her superior bedside manner again, and when Locke bristles at the idea of using a wheelchair (HIS wheelchair), she offers to go find him some crutches – guess they were in the wreckage too. When she leaves, Locke asks Jack why he thinks Henry came back to help him when he had a chance at an easy escape? Jack thinks he came back because he thought his story would check out, and wasn't counting on Sayid digging up the grave. Makes me wonder if that story had been successful before? In the cell, Henry’s now tied up to the wall. He’s explaining to Sayid and Ana Lucia that he was part of a search party that found Henry Gale four months ago, hanging from his basket with a broken neck. He buried him and placed the grave marker, that’s all. Sayid tells the fake Henry that he should have checked the wallet first, because the real Henry wrote a letter to his wife on the only paper he had, a twenty dollar bill.

“Jennifer – Well, you were right, crossing the pacific isn’t easy. I owe you a beer. I’m hiking to one of the beaches to start a signal fire, but if you’re reading this, I guess I didn’t make it. I’m sorry. I love you, Jenny. Always have, always will.
Yours, Henry.”

Fake Henry is sweating now… he swears he wasn’t the one that killed Gale. Sayid wants to know how he knew Henry’s wife’s name, if they interrogated him to get information. He wants to know how many of them there are. “If I told you about them you have no idea what he’ll do.”
Ana assumes the ‘him’ is fake Beardo, or Mr. Friendly. Henry laughs. “Him? He’s no one, nothing!”
Sayid sticks the gun in Fake Henry’s face and gives him three seconds to tell him how many others there are. One second left, and Henry cries, “You can’t do this; I am not a bad person!” - sounds like Goodwin - Sayid pulls the trigger, but Ana is quicker and his shot goes wild as she puts some LAPD moves on him. Jack comes running at the sound, and Locke starts yelling, demanding to know what happened. He hates being immobile again. Jack removes Sayid from the cell, and tells Locke he’s got it covered, not to worry. Ana locks the door on fake Henry, who looks a lot relieved and a little surprised to still be alive.

Charlie shows up at Eko’s construction site dragging the pallet from the Dharma drop, and wants to know what he’s building. Is it a starbucks? Eko won’t tell him what it’s going to be, not right now. He recruits Charlie to help out though, so now are two people in need of redemption building a church? Hurley, back at the drop site looking for clues, finds a box of D.I. fish crackers and tears into them. The boy eats goldfish the same way I do! Dave appears, and Hurley tells him he’s not there through a mouthful of fish, so Dave picks up a coconut and chucks it at Hurley, nailing him in the gut. He picks up another and takes off running into the jungle, with Hurley in pursuit. The chase music here sounds kinda like planet of the apes – nice. He crashes through to the beach, where Charlie and Eko are stacking some Lincoln logs, and asks if they saw a guy in a bathrobe with a coconut run by. Charlie can’t resist, “Noooo, saw a polar bear on roller blades with a mango.”

Flashback – “Pretty sneaky, Leonard.”
Crazy numbers Leonard and Hugo are playing a game of connect four – 8 15 16 23 42 while Dave heckles from the sidelines. He makes Hurley steal one of Lenny’s graham crackers, which are much more appetizing than the celery sticks he’s been munching on. “What’s he gonna do, call you a ‘twenty-three’?”
Nurse Lazenby gives Hugo his meds, which Dave says not to take so that they can escape ASAP. Hugo’s on clonazepam. Senator Kelly- Dr. Brooks comes over to snap a Polaroid of Hugo and Dave for the bulletin board. Or to show Hurley later that he’s alone, whichever… You notice Hurley never uses Spanish? This is kinda weird, to not throw in a word here or there when his mom and his grandpa are probably more comfortable speaking it than English. Dave, however, throws Spanish words around like they’re going out of style. It’s the Santa Rosa mental health hospital. Saint Rose? She is one, at least as far as we know. Hugo palms his pills, to Dave’s delight.

“Deep dish” approaches Sawyer, who’s having a tough time eating an Oreo. He fills him in on the proper technique, and tells Sawyer he needs something from him. Sawyer says he’s done trading now that he’s got enough food to open up a mini-mart. “Hey, you think Sayid needs a job?”
Hurley doesn’t want to trade, he wants a favor in return for helping out with the tree frog. He needs some clonazepam – but didn’t Jack win back all the medicine?
“Klonozowhat?”
He explains that he needs it so he’ll stop seeing this guy in a bathrobe. Sawyer points past Hurley’s shoulder, “What, that guy there?”
Hurley looks…“Gotcha!”
He snaps, tackles Sawyer and starts punching him, landing a blow for every degrading nickname: “Jabba” wham! “Stay-puft” pow!
“Lardo” crack! “Kong” whap!
After watching and giggling for a moment, Jin pulls him off of Sawyer. Sawyer calls Hurley crazy and storms off.
“I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy.”

Freckles has found a pair of crutches for Locke, but can’t resist razzing Sawyer before she returns to the Swan station. She says it looks like he got his ass kicked, and Sawyer tells her he doesn’t know why Hurley hulked out on him, but that she should keep away from the crazy man. Said crazy man is packing his bag for a move to the caves where he can become a crazy naked hermit that throws doodie at everyone. Libby can’t stop him and no one can help him. Trudging through the jungle to the caves, his backpack rips and spills peanut butter everywhere. He scoops some off the jungle floor with a leaf, and is starting to chow down when Dave shows up again.

Flashback – Hugo’s done his homework. He likes his grandpa and chicken. Doc Brooks steers the conversation to the accident – Hugo thinks his weight caused a deck to collapse – Brooks explains that there were twenty-three people on a deck meant to hold eight, it wasn’t his fault. But Hugo’s convinced it was. After the accident he became semi-catatonic and stopped going out or even sleeping, while continuing to eat, perhaps as a way of punishing himself. He tells Doc Brooks that Dave told him he’s a quack, prompting Brooksie to bust out the Polaroid. “Dave isn’t your friend Hugo, because he doesn’t exist.”
Hurley looks at the picture, and sure enough, he’s got his arm around nothing at all.
That night, sleeping next to pictures of his Mom and Grandpa on the night table, Hugo is woken up by Dave, who slaps him when Hugo suggests that he’s just a hallucination. “Maybe I just imagined you slapped me?” – like he imagined the slipper and the coconut? – He agrees to leave with Dave anyway, who’s like a caricature of that devil on your shoulder by this point, the guy telling you to just try it once; it’s not going to hurt anyone. “Yo, check it out. Marcus didn’t finish his lasagna. That is a waste, man. One for the road?” (yo, ding dong. ding dong, man.)
They sneak downstairs, where Hugo opens up a window with the keys he stole from Brooks’ desk earlier. Dave jumps out, but Hugo’s become resistant to his cheeseburger wishes and chili fry dreams… “You’re not real. You’re trying to get me to run away and get cheeseburgers because I want to get cheeseburgers.” – does this mean that later he wants to jump off a cliff? -
Dave warns that if he doesn’t leave now, he’ll never get out of that place. Hugo shuts the window and locks it.

“Bye, Dave.”

But now Dave’s back on the island, and he wants his slipper. He’s sorry Hurley’s freaking out, but warns that it’s going to get a little worse before it gets better. - I was totally expecting someone to come up behind Hurley and clock him here – “You ready, dude?” None of this is real; he’s still in Santa Rosa, which he never even left. “You, me, this island, that peanut butter; none of it is real, man, none of it is happening. It’s all in your head, my friend.”
Hugo’s brain popped a gasket when he closed the window on Dave and he went back to catatonia, where’s he’s remained to this day. “In your own private Idaho inside Santa Rosa”
Hurley doesn’t believe this, and tells Dave what happened after he left the hospital, about winning the lottery. “Whoa, wow. Awesome dude! What numbers did ya play?”
“You seen them around anywhere else?”
“The hatch with the button that you gotta push every 108 minutes or the world ends… and what’s the code for this button?”
It’s all in his head, how else to explain the mega cute blonde chick that magically appeared from the other side of the island. “Who just happens to have the hots for you?”
That finally convinces Hurley, and he gets up to follow Dave through the jungle. Interesting red flowers against the green jungle, it almost looks hallucinatory, like 'what dreams may come'. After telling Hugo that everyone on the island is just a part of him, Hurley wants to know what part Dave is. He says he’s the part that wants Hurley to wake up, as he leads him to the edge of a cliff. The big finale, the answer to all your problems...

– vanilla sky? Or, as Dave would probably say, abre los ojos? – all this will be gone if he jumps. (no shit.) He’ll just wake up. “And when you do wake up, come find me. I’m sure I miss ya. See you in another life, Hurley.” –shades of Desmond -
Dave takes a trust fall dive off the cliff to the ocean far below, laughing the whole way down.

Under the hatch, Locke crutches his way over to Ana, who’s guarding the armory door. She informs him that Jack’s on the beach telling everyone about Henry, “…that we’ve got one of them.” Locke wants some time with Henry, but Ana doesn’t think that’s part of the program for today. “All due respect Ana Lucia, but I don’t care what you think…I earned five minutes with him.”
She relents and locks him in with the fake Gale. The first thing Locke asks is his real name, but Henry just wants to be called Henry, he’s gotten used to it. Locke wants to know if he got caught on purpose, “You and your people have been here for God knows how long, and you get caught in a net?”
“God doesn’t know…God doesn’t know how long we’ve been here, John. He can’t see this island any better than the rest of the world can.” (whoa)
John’s convinced the others were searching for the hatch, and that Henry was caught on purpose.
“This place is a joke, John.”
He tells him the timer went all the way to zero, and then some funny red pictures flipped up in its place. “They looked like hieroglyphics, but I’m no expert… there was a loud clunking and a hum like a magnet, a big magnet…and do you know what happened? Nothing happened at all. Your timer just flipped back to 108.”
Henry tells him he never entered the numbers or pushed the button, but Locke doesn’t believe him. Given Locke’s judgment lately, this probably means Henry is now telling the truth.

Libby finds Hurley at the dizzy edge of the cliff, alone above a raging sea. He asks how she found him, and when she starts to say something about Jin seeing him up there, he cuts her off. “Ha! Jin doesn’t speak English!”
She patiently explains that Sun translated. Hurley tells her she’s the part of him that’s scared…she doesn’t want him to wake up. In real life no girl like her would ever want him.
“Remember when I said I knew you from somewhere?”
- Libby looks scared –
“Well maybe it’s cause I made you up.”
Relief washes over her face, and she asks Hurley the name of the man with the broken leg she buried on the other side of the island. He doesn’t know…because it happened to her. “Don’t tell me you made me up, it’s insulting!”
– it’s insulting to the writers that we would think the mystery is all just in someone’s head? Good to know, it’d be insulting to the viewers if that’s all it was too –
“I am real, you are real, the way I feel about you? That’s real.”
Big smooch! Awwww
“And that was real.”
– what was the tear rolling down her cheek all about then? –
“Maybe you should do it one more time, just to be sure.”
They step away from the cliff, and a look of disgust crosses Libby’s face while she peps Hurley up with some positive talk.

Flashback –

It’s the connect four Polaroid scene again, but from a different perspective. There’s no Dave in sight as the camera pans over to a familiar face under an unfamiliar mop of dark hair.

“Here’s your pill, Libby.”