"Exposé" and Other Commentary, Official Podcast Recaps, and "Left Behind" Spoilers

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Now, without further ado, let's get on to discussion of last week's Nikki- and Paulo-centric episode, "Exposé."

"Exposé" was interesting, but one has to wonder what the point was. Why show us an hour's worth of two insignificant background characters' lives, only to kill them off by the end of the episode? What's the big, important reason for Nikki and Paulo being on the show that the executive producers hinted at several times? There didn't seem to be very many plot-relevant revelations in this episode, but here's what I've been able to glean from it.

First, there are a couple of odd exchanges between Ben and Juliet in The Pearl. Ben tells Juliet, apparently speaking of Tom and The Pearl's hatch door, "have him cover it up with the plane," (presumably meaning the Beechcraft plane flown by Eko's cronies). Could it be that somehow Tom was connected with Boone's fall and death? Or does this only indicate that Tom would have pushed the plane down himself if Boone hadn't caused it to fall? UPDATE: An anonymous commenter pointed out that the Beechcraft had already fallen by that date. Specifically, the plane fell 8 days earlier, on November 1st (Day 41 on the island).

Another line from Ben may hint at the answer to a LOST mystery from Season 2—was it really Walt who talked to Michael via the computer in The Swan, or was it someone pretending to be him? Juliet asks Ben how he intends to capture Jack, Sawyer, and Kate, and Ben explains, "No, they need to come to us," and when Juliet asks how, Ben replies, "Michael, of course." This conversation took place on the same day that Michael received the first communication from "Walt" via the computer, which strongly indicates that it was actually Ben or one of his minions conning Michael.

Perhaps the special reason for Paulo's character being on the show is that he stole one of The Others' walkie-talkies from The Pearl. Since the walkie is now in the possession of the Flight 815 survivors at the beach, perhaps it will be of some use to them in a future episode.

Now on to some comments regarding some earlier episodes.

In an Official LOST Podcast, it was explained that while the episode title "Par Avion" can be literally translated as "by plane," it also means "air mail," which is the intended meaning and has reference to the note that Claire and Charlie attached to the sea bird.

Also from Par Avion, I observed a parallel between Alex and Danielle and Claire and her mother. Danielle tried to explain to Kate that it would be difficult for her to reunite with her daughter because Alex would not know her. This made me think of Claire's situation with her mother being in a coma. If Claire's mother awoke from her coma, she might find it difficult to reconnect with Claire, whose personality has changed greatly and who is now an unwed mother.

Curt from the Black Rock Podcast pointed out that Kelvin may have been the last surviving member of the DHARMA Initiative on the island (assuming, of course, that he wasn't an Other in disguise like Mikhail was). But if Kelvin was working for DHARMA, how did he know that Desmond's boat had crashed on the island? If Kelvin had waited any longer after the storm before going beach combing, Desmond would have awakened and Kelvin wouldn't have been able to find him unconscious and drag him back to the hatch. It seems awfully convenient that Kelvin happened to explore the beach at just the right moment to find Desmond. However, if Kelvin was really one of The Others, he could have had access to the island's surveillance system and potentially other resources. On the other hand, Ben seemed surprised to find out that there was a sailboat, which indicates that Kelvin never said anything about it. Still, if Kelvin was an Other (but not a fully indoctrinated one) it would make sense that he would have kept the boat secret from the other Others if he thought he could use it to escape the island. Yet another theory that supports the possibility that Kelvin might be an Other is that he's the one who taught Desmond about the fail-safe, which ultimately led to the destruction of the hatch. At present, I'm leaning toward the theory that Kelvin was really working for DHARMA, although unless the LOST writers or producers make a statement about it, we may never know the truth about him.

It was pointed out on Jay and Jack's podcast and elsewhere that Stephen Hawking's book A Brief History of Time, which was seen in the episode "Not in Portland," was also seen in Ben's house. This is evidence that The Others are "masters of time and space," or are trying to become such. You can get a copy of the book here.

Following are some revelations from recent episodes of The Official LOST Podcast. The remainder of this post contains some spoilers.

Carlton: "You should actually believe everything that Mikhail says other than the fact that he says that he was a member of the DHARMA Initiative."
Damon: "Everything that he says about The Others while he's pretending to be a member of the DHARMA Initiative is true, or at least he believes it to be. It's all perspective, I guess."

There will be more about the "hostiles" (who are confirmed to be The Others), and there will also be "a lot more" about the DHARMA Initiative. What we learned in Enter 77 is "not even close" to being "the definitive text on the DHARMA Initiative."

We're going to learn more about "the purge" Mikhail spoke of that apparently led to the death of the DHARMA Initiative members on the island.

The executive producers call the Barracks or Otherville "New Otherton."

Carlton: "I think when the series is all said and done, they're probably going to erect a statue of John Locke in Tallahassee." Locke is not, however, "the man from Tallahassee;" as far as we can tell, this title belongs to Locke's dad, Anthony Cooper.

Damon: "There's another ping pong story to come." (This may have simply been the small game that Hurley and Sawyer were playing at the beginning of "Exposé.")

Carlton: "I don't know if you can say definitively that [John Locke] killed Mikhail."

Carlton confirmed that Jacob is "Him." Carlton implies that they may revisit Jacob this season.

Surprisingly, Damon and Carlton implied that The Others may not have known about the Swan Station until after Flight 815 crashed. This is rather shocking to me because Ben seemed to have been intentionally trying to mislead Locke to get him to not enter the numbers. Why would Ben have done this unless he knew what would happen if the numbers were not entered in time? Did he only expect the hatch to implode, but not for The Others' communications to go down? Plus, doesn't it stand to reason that since DHARMA set up cameras in The Swan and The Others have control over a DHARMA monitoring system on the second island that The Others would have been able to monitor The Swan? In "Exposé" we saw that The Others knew about The Pearl, The Swan, and an underground tunnel system (which fans had speculated about because of writings on the blast door map) before Ben was taken captive in The Swan, which would happen 9 days later. Carlton indicated that when Ben was being held captive in The Swan, he was genuinely skeptical about the necessity of pushing the button every 108 minutes, which could possibly be true, although we know that The Others had access to several volumes of DHARMA instructional manuals in The Flame. Were the executive producers confused, or misleading us with their comments? Or did The Others truly only find out about The Swan sometime after the Flight 815 crash and before they led away Michael?

The executive producers are currently finishing work on Season 3 Episode 22, which will be the 2-hour season finale.

Damon indicated that the box is not physical—"just some sort of metaphor that Ben is using to explain whatever this box construct is on the island, because I think it would be sort of silly to walk to the middle of the island and there's kind of a big, large refrigerator box sitting there, and Kate's horse comes tromping out and Sayid's little cat and Jack's dad..."

Wait, "Sayid's cat" is supposed to be same one from his flashback after all? As I mentioned previously, screenshots of the two cats from "Enter 77" show that in reality, a different cat played each role. Either it's really supposed to be the same cat, or else Damon said this in response to a fan theory that the cat on the island was a manifestation of the smoke monster.

Damon: "The next time when we revisit this story of what happens next to Locke and Ben and Mr. Cooper, who is bound and gagged, then we will have a much clearer understanding of whether or not Ben was being literal or figurative when he was talking about the box." We will be seeing Locke in the next couple weeks, but it will be at least several weeks before the box and Anthony Cooper will be revisited.

In response to the question of whether Locke really blew up the sub, Damon said: "I would say it certainly appeared that he blew it up." Carlton: "Exactly." Damon: "Unfortunately it was at the expense of Jack." So... did it really blow up or did it just appear to have blown up? That wasn't much of an answer, unless you want to try to read into it and assume that by Damon's evasiveness that the sub may not have actually blown up. But then again, you can't really rely on a lot of the comments in The Official LOST Podcast because the producers use a lot of sarcasm, sleight of hand, and frequent avoidance of giving straight answers.

Carlton: "The Others are not going to be completely and fully encamped in that place, maybe, for the entire season." It sounds like The Others may be leaving the Barracks at some point in the next several episodes.

Carlton: "By the time the season finale rolls around, you will not think that it's out of character [for The Others to have tried to kill Charlie, etc.]. The Others are a lot badder than maybe you might think that they are."

They hinted for the second week in a row that Mikhail might not have actually died.

Damon said that we will see Hurley's bus again. Also, Carlton: "I'm going to even make a bolder and audacious revelation right now, which is that you will see yet another Volkswagen product before the end of the season on the island."

Damon: "Believe it or not, we have known since the very beginning that there was at least one smaller island off of the coast of our main island." Does this indicate that there are other smaller islands? Is it possible that Michael and Walt may have been taken to one of them? All we know about Michael and Walt after they sailed off is what has been revealed in official podcasts, that "we will be getting back to [their] story, but not for a while," that what happened to them "is very compelling," and a promise that that Walt is "fine."

In this week's Official LOST Podcast, Carlton Cuse revealed that Rose and Bernard will be back this year with a "really awesome story line"—not just as background characters. Carlton also said (possibly in jest) that in the season finale "they will be getting captured and blowing up things like the hatch." Additionally, he indicated that Locke may have been on to something in his accusation that Ben was "cheating." Carlton indicated that perhaps Ben's use of technology makes him less in tune with the island than Locke is. It was also revealed that at the end of April or the beginning of May, we'll be returning to the story line of Anthony Cooper and the metaphorical "box."

Now on to spoilers for this week's Kate-centric episode, "Left Behind." The official ABC synopsis is as follows:

"After discovering that one of her own has betrayed her to "The Others," Kate is left to fend for herself in the jungle with Juliet. Meanwhile, Hurley warns Sawyer to change his selfish ways and make amends with his fellow survivors or he may face a vote of banishment."

Guest characters will include Cassidy Phillips (Sawyer's former girlfriend and con trainee) and Edward Mars (better known as the marshal).

In the Official LOST Podcast, it was revealed that Kate and Juliet will be handcuffed together and that the monster will be back. In trailers for "Left Behind," Kate asks Juliet, "Why would they handcuff you to me and then drag us all the way out into the jungle?" Juliet tells Kate, "The reason Jack told you not to come back is because you broke his heart." This makes Kate furious and she punches Juliet hard in the face, and the two appear to get into a violent brawl.