"316" Discussion

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the JoshMeister, congested, James721, and fellow LOST fans discuss Season 5 Episode 6, "316", review additional points from "This Place is Death", and take a look at what we might see in episode 7, "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham".

Season 5 Episode 5 "This Place is Death" additional notes:

• Popup: The inscription on Jin's wedding ring read "We Will Never Be Apart" in Korean (how ironic; they had been apart for three years by that time)
  

Season 5 Episode 6 "316" notes:

• Flashforward:
• Jack wakes up in the jungle like right after the Oceanic Flight 815 crash
  
• What does Jack's note say?
• Hurley is in the water holding onto a guitar case, Jack jumps in to save him
• Hurley: "It really happened"
• Kate is face-down on a rock in the water, Jack wakes her up, she's fine
• Jack: "Yeah, we're back."
  
  
• 46 hours earlier:
• Eloise Hawking opens a door with a DHARMA logo inside the church
  
• Eloise: "The DHARMA Initiative called it The Lamppost. This is how they found the Island."
  
• 1954 photo U.S. Army (screenshot)
  
• Eloise: (mostly quoted, somewhat paraphrased) The Lamppost was "constructed over a unique pocket of electromagnetic energy like there are all over the world, the Island is/has such a place of energy, and they knew it was out there somewhere but they just couldn't find it. A very clever fellow built this pendulum on the notion that they should stop looking for where it was supposed to be but where it was going to be. He knew that the island is always moving. While the movements of the island seem random, this man and his team created a series of equations that tells us with a high degree of probability where the Island will be at any point in time. Unfortunately these windows don't stay open for very long. Yours closes in 36 hours."
• Desmond delivers Dan's message to Eloise, and says he's done with the Island after Eloise tells him that the Island is not done with him
• Ajira Airways Flight 316 - commercial airliner going from L.A. to Guam right through our window
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guam
  
• Hawking: "As many of the same people as you can being with you. If not, the result would be unpredictable."
• Jack asks "So we just get on that flight?"
  
• Eloise: "No, that's not all, Jack. At least not for you."
• Eloise gives Jack the suicide note John Locke wrote - John hanged himself
• John is going to be a proxy - a substitute for Jack's dad Christian, who was dead already on Flight 815
  
• Some of the other apparent proxies:
• Hurley for Charlie (with guitar)
• Sayid for Kate (with a U.S. air marshal)
• Sun for Rose (worried about husband, holding his ring)
• Jack for Sawyer (holding a letter)
• Ilana for Edward Mars (the original U.S. air marshal, and Kate's captor)
• Ben for Hurley (boarded late)
• Frank Lapidus for Seth Norris (pilot). More on this theory later.
  
• Kate for Claire? More on this theory in a moment.
• For whom is Caesar acting as a proxy?
  
• Who (if anyone) is acting as a proxy for the other characters, such as Jack, Michael, Walt, Jin (true, he's currently on the island, but then again there's a proxy on the flight for Sawyer), Boone, Shannon, Ana Lucia, Libby, etc.?
  
• Eloise says that Jack needs to give something of Christian's to Locke in the coffin
• Eloise: "That's why it's called a leap of faith, Jack."
  
• Ben lights a candle and prays for Alex
• Ben tells Jack the story of Thomas: "Let us also go that we might die with him" - his claim to fame came later when he refused to acknowledge the resurrection"
  
• "Of course he was [convinced]. We all are sooner or later, Jack."
  
• Ben "goes to see an old friend, tie up a loose end"
  
• Penny Widmore? Did he try to kill her? Did he succeed? (I presume not, on the last point.)
  
  
• Jack goes to visit Ray, who is trying to escape from assisted living
• Ray is Jack's granddad
  
• Ray has a pair of Christian's shoes, sent to him by Jack's mom after Christian's death - Jack takes them
  
  
• Kate sneaks into Jack's place
  
• Kate: "They still going back to the island? Then I'm going with you. Don't ask questions. You will never ask me about Aaron. Do you understand me, Jack? Thank you."
  
• Did Kate give up Aaron, or was Aaron taken from her?
  
• natalie_in_seattle: "I think Aaron is with his grandmother"
  
• congested: "Maybe Kate left Aaron with Cassidy"
  
• Maybe Kate is a proxy for Claire, if Kate is pregnant with Jack's child after last night
• Maybe Kate's just filling in the role of Aaron's mother, nothing more
  
• Kate makes out with Jack
• How could she possibly do that if "her baby" was just taken from her?
  
• Jack explains the white tennis shoes that Christian wore on the island: they were Jack's because he didn't think Christian was worth a nice pair
• Ben is beat up, tells Jack to retrieve Locke's body
  
• Who beat up Ben?
  
• congested said that the marina from where Ben was calling is in Long Beach - a sticker in the phone booth said Long Beach Telephone
  
• congested's screenshot:
  
  
• Screenshot of a different sticker on the phone itself (look closely at the one on the very bottom)
  
  
• Jill pulls the van around for Jack (...wait, Jack and Jill?)
  
  
• A man in the airport (Caesar) says to Jack "My condolences. I am sorry you lost your friend."
• Sayid is in the airport with a woman (Ilana) who sort of looks like Jordin Sparks
  
• Why is Sayid being brought to Guam?
• Guam is a U.S. territory, so how could it make sense for him to be brought there?
  
• Hurley: "All that matters is that I'm here, right?"
  
• Hurley, Jack, Kate, Sun, and Sayid are all on the plane. Where's Aaron?
  
• Hurley brings a guitar case
  
• Ben boards the plane all beat up
  
• The envelope (which Jack previously put in Locke's suit) was waiting for Jack
  
• Frank J. Lapidus is the captain!
  Did the universe course correct because he was supposed to be on Flight 815, not Seth Norris (the pilot in the Pilot episode)? Or is Frank just a proxy for Seth?
  
• Frank sees Jack, Sayid, Hurley, Kate, and Sun and says to Jack: "Wait a second. We're not going to Guam, are we?"
  
• Ben is reading Ulysses on the plane. From Wikipedia:
  
• "Ulysses chronicles the passage through Dublin by its main character, Leopold Bloom, during an ordinary day, June 16, 1904. The title alludes to Odysseus (Latinised into Ulysses), the hero of Homer's Odyssey, and there are many parallels, both implicit and explicit, between the two works (e.g., the correspondences between Leopold Bloom and Odysseus, Molly Bloom and Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus and Telemachus). June 16 is now celebrated by Joyce's fans worldwide as Bloomsday." (bold emphasis mine, to illustrate similarities to LOST)
  
• Ben encourages Jack to read Locke's suicide note
  
• The note says "Jack, I wish you had believed it. -JL"
  
• Jack was holding onto the piece that said "I wish" at the beginning of the episode
  
• Kate: "Where's the plane?"
  
• Jack: "Do either of you remember crashing?"
  
• They're back in time, and Jin is wearing a new-looking DHARMA jumpsuit and driving a DHARMA bus that looks brand new
  
• They stopped jumping when Locke left the island, but how did Faraday etc. know that the jumping had stopped? They didn't actually see Locke leave. Maybe they figured after a few days with no more flashes that they might as well integrate with DHARMA.
  
  
• baileybear: "If Ben survives then he might meet his younger self."
  
• Just a handful of the unanswered questions from this episode:
  
• Why wasn't Walt on the plane? Jeremy Bentham visited him, too, after all
  
• Why wasn't Aaron on the plane? Was he supposed to be? He wasn't born yet on 815 (although he was far enough along in his prenatal development to have safely survived outside his mother's womb). Doesn't it matter that he was on the Island, though? He was born there, even. Why wouldn't the Island want him back? Or is Aaron secretly on the plane, unbeknownst to Kate (or at least to the viewers)?
  
• Wouldn't the island want Desmond back, too?
  
• Why is Sayid in cuffs, on his way to Guam with an escort (presumably a U.S. marshal)?
  
• After the plane crashed... umm... disappeared, where were Ben and the other people who were on the plane? We only saw Jack, Hurley, and Kate so far.
  
• On the podcast we discussed lots of theories about where Aaron went and why Kate chose to go on the plane
  
• Among the *differences* between Oceanic Flight 815 and Ajira Airways Flight 316:
  
• Different planes; Boeing 777 and Boeing 737
  
• http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Oceanic_Flight_815
  
• http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Ajira_Airways_Flight_316
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Commercial_Airplanes
  
  
• Screenshots and Easter Eggs:
  
• Screen capture of Hurley holiding a comic book on the plane
  
• Brian K. Vaughan comic Y: The Last Man, issue 15, "One Small Step: Conclusion"
  
• Wikipedia doesn't have a specific episode synopsis for just issue 15, but here's the description of issues 11 through 17:
  
• "One Small Step (issues #11-17)
  "In Oldenbrook, Kansas, Yorick, 355 and Dr. Mann help a Russian woman named Natalya Zamyatin race to recover two male and one female astronauts forced to return to Earth after being trapped on the International Space Station the day the plague hit. The four meet twins Heather and Heidi who are geneticists working in isolation. After Alter Tse'elon acquires Yorick for her nation, 355 tells Alter of the two men coming down in exchange for Yorick. Alter tries to use a surface-to-air missile to kill the astronauts but is stopped by Yorick. Both male astronauts die, but Dr. Ciba Weber is pregnant. The three go back on the road, leaving Natalya and the Twins to look after Weber and her unborn baby.
  "Comedy & Tragedy has a travelling group of actresses find a wayward Ampersand, inspiring them to write a play called The Last Man (The main character's name taken from Mary Shelly's novel The Last Man). On the night of the premiere, the play is interrupted both by the local women (who find the play to be offensive) and a disguised Yorick, accompanied by a similarly masked 355 and Dr. Mann, looking for Ampersand. Yorick discovers that the play ends with the eponymous man killing himself to end the fighting over him, contributing to his growing depression."
• LOST has had its own sets of twins (Scott and Steve, Bad Twin)
  
• Issue synopsis from Comic Vine:
  
• "Alter tries to destroy the spacecraft but she's stopped by Yorick and Sadie. Nevertheless, the vehicle explodes with only one survivor, Ciba. Later is revealed that she is pregnant leaving a little light of hope."
  
• Pregnancy is a theme on LOST, and as mentioned above, Kate might be pregnant

SPOILERS:

• Preview for next week:
• Announcer: "From death to life"
• [John Locke pulls back a black hood, revealing his face.]
• Locke: "My name is John Locke."
• Ilana [talking to Locke on a beach]: "What do you remember?"
• Locke: "I remember dying."
• Announcer: "Next Wednesday, the mystery of his death..."
• [A car pulls up in front of an injured Locke, presumably right after Locke turns the donkey wheel and winds up somewhere else]
• Charles Widmore: "The island needs you."
• Locke: "What makes you think I'm so special?"
• Announcer: "...will be..."
• [Locke gets in a car accident.]
• Locke to Kate and Jack: "You have to help me! You're supposed to help me!"
• Jack: "It's over!"
• Announcer: "...revealed."
• Ben: "You have no idea how important you are."
• [Locke hangs a noose around his neck, made with an orange electrical cord, and then someone (Ben?) kneels down in front of Locke as he prepares to hang himself. Locke has a cast on his right leg, presumably from when he fell down the well on the Island.]

• From SpoilerFix (WARNING: don't click this link unless you want to risk being majorly spoiled!)
• The next episode's title is "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham"
• 9:00 to 10:06 PM - looks like it might be a slightly long episode

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