"Recon" Discussion and lots more!

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the JoshMeister and fellow LOST fans discuss Season 6 Episode 8, "Recon" and briefly review points from two Season 4 episodes, and discuss at length the revelations from this week's Official LOST Podcast.

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We'll get into "Recon" in just a moment.  First, I had the opportunity to rewatch Season 4 Episodes 9 and 10 this past week.  I chose those episodes because I was looking for any indication about when Claire became infected before she went off into the jungle with (who she thought was) her father, Christian Shephard.  Although I didn't notice any obvious indications of whether Claire was already infected before she walked off in the middle of the night, I ended up making some interesting observations about the smoke monster, who we now know is the Man in Black.  Here are some of my thoughts:

Season 4 Episode 9 - "The Shape of Things to Come"

How is it that Ben can summon the smoke monster to do his bidding?  How did Ben know it would only attack Martin Keamy's goons and not himself?  At the time, Ben (and the viewing audience) had no idea that the smoke monster was another form of the Man in Black, Jacob's nemesis.  So unbeknownst to Ben, he called on Jacob's nemesis for help—right before going to try to get help from Jacob to know what to do next.

Season 4 Episode 10 - "Something Nice Back Home"

Hurley said Charlie said that someone would visit Jack (referring to the apparition that looked like Jack's father, Christian Shephard).  Jack had already seen "Christian" in a crowd at the hospital before that, and the second time he saw his father was after hearing the smoke alarm's low-battery warning beep at the hospital.  The smoke alarm led a lot of fans to believe that Christian was a manifestation of the smoke monster.  Christian being the smoke monster is corroborated by Damon Lindelof's remark in the March 11, 2010 Official LOST Podcast about the smoke monster no longer being able to take on any human form other than Locke; the form of Christian was specifically mentioned by both Damon and Carlton as a form that the smoke monster could have been able to take prior to Jacob's death.  Additionally, in "Something Nice Back Home" we also saw Christian luring Claire into the jungle, after which she left her baby behind and eventally degenerated into an infected Rousseau-esque version of herself who considered the Man in Black to be her friend.  It would make sense that she came to be the Man in Black's friend because she originally got to know him when he had taken the form of her father.  At this point I think it's safe to assume that the manifestations of Christian Shephard have been the smoke monster taking Christian's form.  But if that's the case, how in the world did Charlie know that the smoke monster was coming to visit Jack?  Hurley's ability to see and speak with dead people is supposedly a gift from Jacob.  So did Jacob tell Charlie to tell Hurley to warn Jack about the smoke monster apparition of Jack's father?

• "charlie was smokey visiting hurley maybe" -jennielyn 

And now without any further ado...

Season 6 Episode 8 "Recon":

2007 on the Island:

• Sawyer at Claire's hovel with Jin
• Jin wakes up and says they need to leave before the man who looks like Locke gets back, and 
• Sawyer says he's with "Locke"
• Sawyer agrees to not leave the Island unless Sun can go with them
• I wonder if this deal will come back to haunt him later
• Sayid, Claire, and the rest come to the hovel, and Kate says hi to Sawyer, who replies "Hi yourself"

2004 "flash-sideways":

• Sawyer seems to be pulling a typical con, but it turns out he's actually a cop—and working with Miles!

2007:

• Claire checks on her "squirrel baby" and Kate asks about it
• Claire seems agitated and angry about this.  Does Claire still want to kill Kate?
• The Man in Black tells the surviving Others—including Cindy, Emma and Zach from the Oceanic Flight 815 tail section—that "the black smoke" killed those who stayed behind at the temple, but he promises to take care of them

2004:

• Detective Ford is trying to track down Anthony Cooper

2007:

• The Man in Black tells Sawyer the truth, that he's "the smoke thing"
• Man in Black: "It's either kill or be killed, and I don't want to be killed."
• If he's concerned about being killed, he's either lying or else he must have a weakness.  If he has a weakness, what is it?
• Can sawyer kill him since he's following orders from the Man in Black, similar to how Ben who followed Jacob's orders was able to kill Jacob?
• "he is trying to con sawyer by telling half truths" -jennielyn
• "Sawyer is a better conman then Smokey" -baileybear
• The Man in Black sends Sawyer to the Hydra island to do some recon at the Ajira plane

2004:

• The date Miles hooked James up with is Charlotte Lewis, who is still an archaeologist
• Before seeing Charlotte's face, I thought that James would connect with Juliet and Juliet would give the same line about "going dutch" that she said on the Island before she died
• An alternate theory about Juliet: "i am saying juliette will be on a date with jack" [when she gives the line about going dutch] -jennielyn
• A theory from diesel929 (admittedly unfounded) about Charlotte: "she is jack's ex wife, David's mom"
• Jim says he got to the point in his life where he was either going to become a criminal or a cop, so he chose to become a cop
• Books on the dresser: Watership Down, A Wrinkle in Time, Lancelot (screenshot)
• All of these are books that Sawyer read on the Island
• Charlotte finds a photo of Jim with his parents and a newspaper clipping about it, and Jim yells at her and makes her leave
• In a later flash-sideways scene, Jim is watching Little House on the Prairie (which he told Kate in Season 3 Episode 10, "Tricia Tanaka Is Dead" that he watched as a child)
• Michael Landon's character tells a little girl that when someone dies, they're not really gone; you still have your memories of them that you can hold onto until you see them again someday
• Jim seems to be touched by this insight and seems to relate it personally to his own loss of his parents
• Afterward, Jim goes to Charlotte's to apologize, but she turns him away and says he blew his chance

2007:

• Sawyer finds the dress that Kate wore at the polar bear cage when they were together
    
• Kate talks to Sayid, asks "Are you all right?"
• Sayid says No, and then Claire attacks and tries to stab Kate
• The Man in Black pulls Claire off, smacks her in the face, and tells her what she did was inappropriate, almost treating her like a child (with the exception of smacking her of course)
    
• Sawyer finds the Ajira plane wreckage, then a pile of dead bodies, and a woman runs by
• Sawyer catches the woman and she says she's the only one left

2004:

• Charlie's brother Liam is trying to find Charlie, who has apparently gotten in trouble with the law because of his drug use
• Miles questions what Jim was doing in Australia instead of Palm Springs like he claimed
• Miles says he's no longer Jim's partner, and Sawyer puts his fist through a mirror
• "the mirror in this ep sawyer broke what do you make of that" -jennielyn
• "he doens't like his image in this world?" -baileybear
• There have been a lot of mirrors and reflections in the flash-sideways: "ben in microwave, kate in mirror" and Sayid's reflection as noted in the script — they all seem to be seeing relections of themselves; what is the significance of this?
• Perhaps this is a reflection (pun intended) of the way in which the two realities coexist, à la Through The Looking Glass
• "i think that the breaking of the mirror/glass is probably important." -baileybear

2007:

• The woman Sawyer caught says her name is Zoe, and in explanation of the dead bodies, she says she heard screams and when she got back everyone was dead (seemingly implying that the smoke monster killed them)
• Sawyer offers to take her back with the other group
   
• MIB apologizes to Kate and explains that he told Claire that The Others had her baby; he gave her something to hate
• Kate asks where Sawyer went, and MIB says "I'll show you"
   
• It turns out that Zoe isn't alone; a bunch of other people pop up out from behind bushes with big guns and make Sawyer surrender his weapon
• Sawyer: "Take me to your leader."
   
• The Man in Black says to Kate on the beach: "I know what you're going through because my mother was crazy. ... She was a very disturbed woman and as a result of that I had some growing pains, problems that I'm still trying to work my way through, problems that could have been avoided had things been different."
• Kate: "Why are you telling me this?"
• MIB: "Because now Aaron has a crazy mother, too."
• Does he want Kate to take care of Aaron?
• Or does this mean Aaron is going to become the next MIB?
   
• Sawyer is led to a sub; Zoe is part of Widmore's team (and it seems Zoe is her real name)
    
• "again I think our losties' friendships are really going to define the end of this show - the line at the end of season 5 "they come they destroy" — MIB is going to be wrong and their friendships run deeper then he thinks and it will start all over - new game" -jennielyn
    
• Very insightful theory: "Remember when Claire came to Kate and said don't bring him back to the island?  Do you think she was smokey? if you think that Smokey wants a normal Aaron that would make sense." -baileybear
    
• Sawyer asks what's locked up behind a door in the sub (screenshot) and doesn't get an answer
• Charles Widmore introduces himself to Sawyer
• Widmore claims he didn't murder all the Ajira people
• Who really killed them?  Widmore's people or Smokey?
• Sawyer makes a deal with Widmore to bring the Man in Black to Widmore so Widmore can kill him, and in return Sawyer get to take his friends unharmed off the Island; they shake on 
• So who will Sawyer ultimately decide to follow?  He has two ways off the Island, potentially:
• Widmore's way seems more certain since we actually know he has a working sub and knows how to get to the Island from the outside world, but as Saywer points out Widmore may not be trustworthy because he sent the freighter with mercenaries to the Island
• On the other hand, the MIB's plan seems pretty weak if he really expects to fix and refuel the Ajira plane.  How on earth could they do that?  Maybe Sawyer will go with the more logical exit
    
• Claire hugs Kate and apologizes sincerely, saying she knows Kate just cares about Claire and Aaron
    
• Sawyer tells MIB that they're setting up pylons "like the ones at New Otherton" that "can keep out that smoke thing"
• Sawyer gives MIB a lot of information; it seems at this point in the episode like he really is sticking with MIB's deal

2004:

• Jim hands Miles a book that says Sawyer on it, and Miles asks "Who's Sawyer?"
• He explains what happened to his parents
• Jim was in Australia (and on Flight 815) to find the man responsible, and that's where he heard the name Anthony Cooper
• He says he's going to kill Anthon Cooper when he finds him
• Someone slams into their car.  It's Kate!  Jim seems pleased to see her again
• Now we know how Sawyer knew that the code on the walkie-talkie in the airport meant that Kate was an escapee
• Someone in the chat pointed out that perhaps the reason why he didn't turn in Kate at the airport was that he might blow his cover and Miles might have found out that he had been in Australia

2007:

• Sawyer tells Kate about Widmore and that they're here for Locke
• Sawyer says he's going to "let them fight it out, and while they've got their hands full of each other, you and me are going to get the hell off this Island"
• Kate asks about the plane, and Sawyer says he intends to take the sub

Screenshots and Easter Eggs:

• Screenshot of Jim's books in the flash-sideways
• Screenshot of the locked door in Widmore's sub

SPOILERS:

Following is a detailed discussion about several points from the latest Official LOST Podcast, some of which may be considered by some fans to be spoilers.  If you're very spoiler-sensitive, you may want to stop reading now.

Notes from The Official LOST Audio Podcast, May 11, 2010:

Carlton Cuse: "The big question that's hanging over the season is how are these two timelines going to reconcile and what are we to make of what's going on in the sideways. But...there's more information about those things coming as the season progresses."

Damon Lindelof: "Do you think that Charles Widmore is perhaps the person that Jacob was referring to back in 'Lighthouse' when he said someone is coming to the Island?"
Carlton: "Yeah, I mean, I think it's a good chance he could be referring to Charles Widmore. ... That would be my educated guess."

Carlton: "What does 'Recon' mean?"
Damon: "Technically, it means that reconnaissance, which is basically sort of sending someone behind enemy lines to figure out what's going on. But it could mean 'to con again.'  Like 're-con.' And he is a conman."

Carlton (reading a fan question): "In the episode 'Lockdown' who was responsible or behind the dropping of the palette of DHARMA food that lands on the Island?"
Damon: "The answer to the question is, we have every intention of answering where the palette came from. However, it might not happen in the actual show itself.  That's all we're willing to say at this point."

• This makes me wonder whether the writers and producers are planning to make some sort of special podcast, book, or documentary that resolves a lot of the loose ends and mysteries that don't get answered by the end of Season 6.

Carlton indicated that Annie is not an important character.  She was only meant to be in that one episode in Ben's flashback, and her character has no "vast mythological significance."  (Thus, I think we can assume that all the theories about Annie are probably moot.)  They did say that Annie probably left the Island before 1977 because we didn't see her or even hear any mention of her in that timeframe.

Carlton said that we're going to learn more about the volcanic and/or seismic activity of the Island "before all is said and done."

Regarding Kate's name not being crossed out in the lighthouse but being crossed out in the cave, "the show speaks for itself."  When the Man in Black brings Sawyer into the cave, is he telling the truth?  Damon feels that there's strong evidence on the show that Jacob wrote the names in the cave.  So why write in both the caves and the lighthouse?  "Is it possible, Carlton, that maybe he wanted his nemesis to find the cave, and that there's a little bit of misdirection going on here?  That maybe he crossed off Kate's name in the cave to throw the monster off his scent?"  Carlton: "I'm going to say that theory could live.  I think that is a possibility.  I think this kind of speculation is actually good speculation."

• Based on this, it sounds like Jacob might have secret plans for Kate to be the one who will ultimately replace him, and he doesn't want anyone—especially his nemesis—to know that.
• But does Smokey somehow know she's a candidate anyway?  He seems very protective of her and friendly with her in this episode.  Perhaps he's trying to get her to become a candidate to replace himself.

Ilana's comment about the Man in Black now being stuck in Locke's form has created confusion.  "It seems that if Locke—if he were stuck in this form, that would sort of rule out the possibility that the monster had been appearing as perhaps other dead figures on the Island: Yemi, Christian Shephard, etc.  So is there something that happened between the end of last season, you know, when Alex appeared to Ben, what happened, Carlton?"  Carlton: "Yes.  I think that the critical event was Jacob's death.  The Man in Black may have had the ability to take multiple forms, but after Jacob died, I think it's a very likely explanation that he was stuck in the form that he was in when Jacob died, which happened to be John Locke."

• Since Christian Shephard was specifically mentioned (first by Carlton and then repeated by Damon), I think it's fair to assume that the post-mortem Christian Shephard sightings have been the smoke monster in disguise, if there was still any doubt in anyone's mind about this.

Preview for next week's episode:

• Richard: "You want to know a secret?  Something I've known a long time? All this?  It's not what you think it is."
• Narrator: Now his incredible story will be revealed.
• 8 episodes left until the series finale
• Richard: "I've seen things on this island that you'd never imagine."
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_DoGTxgHj4

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LOST Rewatch Podcast

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I've posted an MP3 in the podcast feed containing all of my insights and observations from the LOST Rewatch. (98 minutes)

If you prefer to read the episode commentaries on the blog, click here to read all the blog posts, and start from the bottom of the page to read them in order.

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LOST Rewatch: Season 5 Locke Episodes and More

In between the Season 5 finale and Season 6 premiere, I participated in The LOST Rewatch.  During the hiatus, I wrote detailed commentaries with fresh insights into the first 21 episodes of Season 1 (see all of my previous posts; start reading from the bottom of the page).  Following are my notes from the rest of the LOST episodes I had time to rewatch, including all of the Season 5 episodes involving John Locke (or rather, in most cases the fake John Locke, aka Jacob's nemesis).  Enjoy!

Season 1 Episode 22 - "Born To Run"

Kate, as a blonde, has at least 9 different license plates from various states in the trunk of her car, and she swaps her Nebraska plate for an Ohio plate.  She dyes her hair brown and picks up a letter from a motel lobby for a guest named "Joan Hart."  (Incidentally, the most prominent person named "Joan Hart" is Melissa Joan Hart, the actress who played the starring roles on the TV shows "Clarissa Explains It All" and "Sabrina the Teenage Witch".)  The envelope contains some 20-dollar bills and a letter which Kate reads tearfully.  The letter is difficult to read from the viewer's perspective, but here's what I was able to make out:

"...have to tell you... have gotten... and the doctors... and there's nothing else they can do.  She's still as stubborn as ever and refuses to stay at the hospital,... but I can see she's growing weaker and fear that before long there may be no other choice.  I can only imagine how hard all of this may be for you.  I wish more than anything that things were different.  I don't know when this letter will reach you, but I am hoping it's soon because she may not have much time left.  I am so sorry Katherine.  You will be... and prayers.  Love, ..."

Based on the context of the episode, it seems that someone sent a letter to Kate to let her know that her mother was sick and may soon be in the hospital.  Who sent this letter?  Was it perhaps her (non-biological) father, Sam Austen?  This could explain the cash; sending money seems like a parental thing to do.  There probably wouldn't be too many people in Kate's life who would both know her mother well and would also sign a letter to Kate with "Love" at the end.  The letter writer clearly wasn't Tom Brennan because we find out later in the episode that he obviously hadn't been expecting her.

On the Island, Charlie approaches Kate while she plays with the toy airplane on the beach.  Charlie thinks Michael's raft will be a success, and he tells Kate that when the Oceanic survivors are rescued they'll be "ridiculously and eternally famous.  What's the matter?  Don't you want to be famous?"  Kate, of course, doesn't want to be rescued; she knows that if that happens, she will be taken back into custody and probably spend the rest of her life in jail for murdering her biological father and her later crimes including orchestrating an armed robbery of a bank.  We now know that Charlie didn't get his wish of coming back alive to enjoy eternal stardom, but the Oceanic Six did indeed become celebrities as he suspected.

Dr. Arzt says that they need to leave "yesterday" to avoid monsoon season, during which the winds would take the raft south to Antarctica.  Michael prepares to leave the following day.  Kate tries to convince Michael to let her on the raft, but he says "the raft's full."

In a flashback, Kate pretends to be a flower delivery person taking flowers to her mother, Diane Janssen.  Kate sees a police officer in the hallway and walks past, deciding that it's too risky to approach her mother.  Instead, she hides in Tom Brennan's car, miraculously without triggering his alarm (or, at least, if she did trigger it, she reset it before Tom came to his car).  Kate enlists Tom's help to get to her mother.

Kate and Tom's time capsule is a New Kids on the Block lunch box, presumably the same one that young Katie tried to steal in her Season 5 finale flashback, which Jacob ended up buying for her.

Season 3 Episode 1 - "A Tale of Two Cities"

Perhaps Ben knew or suspected that Ethan might have had feelings for Juliet, which could explain why he selected Goodwin and then Ethan to go to the crash sites as spies.

Season 4 Episode 2 - "Confirmed Dead"

After Ben attempted to assassinate Charlotte, Locke took Sawyer's gun and had the chance to kill Ben, but ultimately Locke decided to let Ben live.  If Locke had killed Ben at that time, then Ben would never have had the chance to kill Locke after they left the Island.  For that matter, if John had killed Ben, then Ben never would have killed Jacob either.

Season 5 Episode 7 - "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham"

Charles Widmore tells John Locke that a war is coming and says that if Locke's not back on the Island the wrong side is going to win.  We now know that John never really came back, unless you count his corpse; does that mean Jacob has lost?  Personally, I suspect Jacob still has a trick or two up his sleeve.

John can dial 2-3 to reach Charles (23 is one of the Numbers).

Season 5 Episode 12 - "Dead Is Dead"

Ben says to Cesar, trying to turn Cesar against "John": "What if he [the person claiming to be John Locke] was already here before the crash?"  As it turns out, he actually was!

In a flashback, Ben said to Danielle as he stole Alex from her: "If you want your child to live, every time you hear whispers, you run the other way."  What exactly do the whispers mean?  The Others are nearby?  The monster is near?

Fake Locke remarks to Ben that his decision to move The Others into the DHARMA barracks "just doesn't seem like something the Island would want."
Ben: "You don't have the first idea about what this island wants."
Fake Locke: "Are you sure about that?"

Christian told Sun that if she ever wanted to see her husband again, she'd wait in Ben's old house for John Locke.  Sun and Frank Lapidus knew that Locke was dead, and yet there he apparently was, standing outside.  Given that Christian told Sun to wait for Locke, does this mean that Christian is actually in league with Jacob's nemesis rather than Jacob?

Fake John left when Ben went into the hidden cave to summon the monster, and the monster didn't come when summoned... or did he? Fake John came back shortly after Ben walked outside.  Is Fake John (aka Jacob's enemy) the same as the monster?  Ben says he doesn't know where the monster is, but Fake John says he knows.

As soon as Ben fell down the hole underground and Fake John supposedly went to find something to help Ben get out, Ben saw the smoke monster, and then Alex (or rather, Fake Alex) appeared and told him not to kill John again and said she'd hunt him down and kill him if he didn't follow everything "John" told him to do.  After "Alex" was gone, "John" came back.  "John" and "Alex" weren't there at the same time because they're the same person: Jacob's nemesis.  The nemesis was playing with Ben's emotions and deceiving him in every conceivable way in order to trick him into killing Jacob.

Season 5 Episode 15 - "Follow the Leader"

Richard sensed "there's something different about you" which Fake John dismisses, saying "I have purpose now."

Richard tells Sun that he watched Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Jin die 30 years ago.

During one of the brief time travel flashes when Real John flashes to their place and time, Fake John instructs Richard to tell Real John to tell him that he needs to die.  (All of that was part of Jacob's enemy's plot to create a loophole so he could kill Jacob.)

Fake Locke points out to The Others that they all take orders from Jacob, whom none of them have ever seen.  He says he wants to take all of them with him on his trek to go see Jacob.

Fake Locke privately tells Ben that the real reason he's going to see Jacob is not to be reunited with his people, but that he's going to kill Jacob.

Season 5 Episodes 16 and 17 - "The Incident," Parts 1 & 2

The real John Locke's Season 1 monologue to Walt about light and dark was a direct foreshadowing of Jacob and his enemy; Jacob wears a light-colored shirt while his enemy weaks a dark shirt.  This whole time there have been two sides determining to some degree the outcome of events on the Island.

Richard is still puzzled how John could have come back to life; he's never seen that happen in all his years on the Island.  Fake Locke quips that he's never met someone who can't age, and Richard reveals that Jacob made him that way, and says he'd guess that Jacob is why John came back to life.  Fake Locke says that after he visit Jacob "to thank him," they'll "take care of" the rest of the people from the Ajira flight, implying that he wants them dead.  This should have sent up red flags for Richard since presumably he knows that every group that comes to the Island is brougt there by Jacob as an attempt to prove himself right to his enemy; by killing the Ajira survivors, Fake Locke would be going against Jacob's plan.

Fake Locke points out to Ben "the door to the hatch where you and I first met."  Jacob's nemesis seems to have Locke's memories, perhaps similar to the smoke monster's ability to read and analyze the memories of a person.

Just before Jack drops the hydrogen bomb, Sawyer orders Dr. Chang to turn off the drill, but the drill fails to turn off because, as Radzinsky explains, they've "hit the pocket," which apparently means they've punched through to the point of no return and the electromagnetism is about to become too strong to control.  Jack then drops the bomb and it doesn't detonate.  A few moments later, after it's clear that the bomb hasn't exploded, everything metallic that's nearby begins to be pulled toward the hole.  I'm convinced that the electromagnetic event is what Dr. Chang (as Dr. Marvin Candle) described as "an Incident" in The Swan's orientation film, and that this event would have taken place regardless of whether or not Jack had dropped the bomb down the hole.  The exact consequences of the Incident seem to vary at least somewhat from what originally happened in 1977, as is seemingly evidenced by the fact that Dr. Chang's hand was impaled, whereas in some of the orientation films he has an entire prosthetic arm, not just a prosthetic hand.

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LOST Rewatch: S1E20 "Do No Harm" and S1E21 "The Greater Good"

Here are some of my thoughts after rewatching episodes 20 and 21 of the first season of LOST, as part of my contribution to The LOST Rewatch (see my previous rewatch posts). When I get a chance, I'll post my rewatch commentaries in the podcast feed as well.

Season 1 Episode 20 - "Do No Harm"

Jack promises Boone, "You are not going to die. I'm going to fix this, okay? I am going to save you."

We find out through flashbacks that Jack was married to Sarah, who became his fianceé after he "fixed her" when a car crash left her with a broken back that other doctors said was irreparable.

Claire begins to go into labor while Jack is trying to save Boone. Jack can't deliver the baby because by the time he finds out about Claire, he's in the middle of giving a blood transfusion from himself to Boone using a rubber tube and sea urchin spines as needles.

In a flashback, Jack's father shows up the night before the wedding. Jack has been drinking, and he asks Christian, "What if I can't be the husband, or the father, that I want to be? What if I asked her because I saved her life? Should I marry her, dad?" Christian's response seems very insightful, especially in the context of Jack's attempt to save Boone's life: "Commitment is what makes you tick, Jack. The problem is, you're just not good at letting go."

Jack decides that Boone's leg needs to be amputated because the blood is pooling there. Sun discovers that Boone is coughing up blood, indicating that he's bleeding internally, and she tells Jack that he can't save Boone. Interestingly, Jack says to her one of Locke's oft-repeated lines, "Don't tell me what I can't do!" Boone regains consciousness before Jack can amputate, and Boone lets Jack "off the hook" for his promise to save him. Boone's last words are "Tell Shannon— tell Shannon I..."

Meanwhile, at about the same time that Boone dies, Claire's baby boy Aaron (as he will later be named) is born.

As Claire, her newborn, Kate, Charlie, and Jin return to the beach, the other survivors all gather around to see the new baby. While everyone adores Aaron, Sayid and Shannon return from an overnight excursion on another beach, and Jack approaches them and tells Shannon about Boone. Later when she sees his body, she mourns bitterly.

Jack sits alone on the beach. Kate walks up to him and asks if he wants to talk about Boone's death. Jack answers, "He didn't die. He was murdered." He begins to walk away while donning a backpack, and a confused Kate asks, "What? Jack, where are you going?" "To find John Locke." Rather than blaming himself for Boone's death or just letting it go, Jack seems to want to put the blame on someone else. In the next episode, Jack explains to Kate that the reason he blames Locke is that "Boone did not fall off any cliff. His leg was crushed, and I based my medical treatment on his lie."

Season 1 Episode 21 - "The Greater Good"

The episode begins with Sayid trying to comfort Shannon as she plays with her deceased step-brother's hair. Sayid asks if there's anything he can do for her, but she doesn't respond.

In a flashback, Sayid is escorted in handcuffs through Heathrow Airport in the UK. This wouldn't be the last time Sayid would wear handcuffs in an airport; in Season 5, Ilana escorts a handcuffed Sayid onto Ajira Flight 316. In the UK airport, Sayid is coerced by CIA and ASIS agents into helping them shut down a terror cell to which his former roommate Essam is connected, and in return the agents offer to give Sayid information on Nadia's whereabouts.

At Boone's funeral, Shannon doesn't want to say anything. Everyone is quiet until Sayid shares a few kind words. Then Locke shows up wearing a shirt drenched in Boone's blood, and he explains how Boone died. He says that Boone died while trying to call for help on the Beechcraft's radio, and that Boone was a hero. After Locke finishes his speech, Jack flips out and runs toward Locke, tackles him, and screams at him, demanding that Locke explain where he was and what he did to Boone, and accusing him of having lied the night before. Jack collapses, still weak and exhausted from the blood transfusion he gave Boone the night before.

A little later after Jack has had a chance to calm down a bit, Jack tells Sayid that Boone had mentioned a hatch and that Locke had told Boone not to tell anyone about it.

In a flashback, we see Sayid praying in the same mosque where Essam is praying. We would later see Sayid pray in this manner on Desmond's boat in the Season 2 finale, "Live Together, Die Alone". At Essam's apartment, Sayid finds a small microphone concealed in a non-working smoke detector and defuses it, and Essam explains to his leader Haddad that Sayid worked for the Republican Guard and "He knows things." This pleases Haddad, who says, "Perhaps it's not happenstance that you and Essam met at the mosque. Perhaps it is fate."

Charlie calls Claire's baby "Turnip-Head" for the first time, explaining to Claire that "It's just what I'm calling him until you give him a name because his head—it's like a turnip." Thankfully, Claire doesn't take long to decide on a name. She names him Aaron in the second half the season finale, "Exodus, Part 2".

Locke approaches Shannon while she's sitting alone on the beach and gives Boone's backpack to her. He sits down with Shannon and offers her a sincere and heartfelt apology. Locke asks for her forgiveness, and when she doesn't say anything else, he gets up and walks away. Shannon then goes to Sayid and says, "You asked if you could do anything for me. John Locke killed my brother. Will you do something about that?"

Sayid goes with Locke to the plane, interrogating him along the way. He tells John that he knows he's concealing a gun, and John gives it to Sayid explaining that he found it on the body of a drug smuggler, but this fails to bring Sayid to trust him. Locke then voluntarily reveals something that Sayid doesn't know: that Locke was the one who knocked out Sayid when he tried to triangulate the source of Danielle's radio transmission (as seen in the episode "The Moth"). Sayid is furious, and Locke explains his opinion that Sayid hadn't been thinking clearly and wouldn't have listened to him if he told Sayid it was a bad idea to go to "The source of a distress call that kept saying they're dead, it killed them all, over and over." Sayid asks John if he burned the raft, and John says no. He then asks "What is the hatch?" and Locke is visibly surprised, but quickly thinks up the response that there are "Two hatches on a plane, Sayid, could be forward or aft."

In flashbacks, the CIA agent orders Sayid to convince his friend Essam to go through with a suicide bombing, and the agent threatens to arrest Nadia if he doesn't, saying "Your girlfriend's an Iraqi living abroad with a record of insurgency. Wouldn't it be terrible if she got picked up as an enemy combatant, Sayid?" Sayid begrudgingly complies. Essam is concerned about taking the lives of innocent people because "The Imam preaches peace, Sayid. Every human life is sacred." Sayid convinces him by saying "It's true, innocent lives will be lost—in service of a greater good." This is where the episode title comes from.

Kate drugs Jack to force him to get some sleep. While Jack is sedated, Shannon steals the key to the gun case from him and goes to get a gun to kill John Locke. How in the world did Shannon know where the gun case was? Or even that Jack had the key to it around his neck? These mysteries were never explained on the show.

Shannon corners Locke in the jungle and Sayid finds her holding a gun and preparing to shoot. Jack and Kate show up, and Locke repeats to Shannon that "it was an accident," and Shannon says "Jack, you told me he was a liar." Shannon then shoots at Locke, but Sayid leaps at her just as she begins to fire the gun, and the bullet just grazes the side of John's head. Jack gives Locke a dirty look and walks away.

We find out through flashbacks that Sayid tries to convince Essam at the last minute not to kill himself and to run away instead, explaining that he has been working undercover for the CIA. Essam is distressed and angry at Sayid for lying to him, and he shoots himself in the head (yet another suicide by a gun to the head). When the agents show up, they give Sayid an Oceanic plane ticket, but Sayid asks "What happens to his body?" They explain that Essam will be cremated because there's nobody to claim the body. Sayid tells the agents that "A Muslim man is supposed to be buried," and he volunteers to stay in Sydney an extra day so he can ensure that his friend will be buried instead of cremated. Sayid was on Oceanic Flight 815 because he stayed the extra day in Sydney to ensure that his friend received a proper burial. If he had gone on the earlier flight, he never would have been on the Island, and he likely would have found Nadia and lived happily ever after. Back in the episode "Walkabout", Sayid was the first to object to Jack's plan to burn the fuselage and all the bodies inside because he felt it wasn't right to have no regard for the wishes or religions of the deceased passengers.

Sayid approaches Locke as he puts some ointment on his head wound. John thanks Sayid for saving his life, saying "I know what it cost you to do what you did," referring to losing Shannon as his girlfriend (although Sayid begins to woo her again by the season finale). Sayid demands that John take him to the hatch: "John, no more lies."


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LOST Rewatch: S1E18 "Numbers" and S1E19 "Deus Ex Machina"

Here are some of my thoughts after rewatching episodes 18 and 19 of the first season of LOST, as part of my contribution to The LOST Rewatch (see my previous rewatch posts). When I get a chance, I'll post my rewatch commentaries in the podcast feed as well.

Season 1 Episode 18 - "Numbers"

Hurley notices the number sequence "4 8 15 16 23 42" written over and over again on Danielle Rousseau's papers. He has a flashback to winning the lottery with those numbers. Throughout the episode, there are lots of individual occurrences of these numbers, so I won't attempt to chronicle all of them here. There are lots of things that happen in Hurley's flashbacks that indicate to him that the Numbers are cursed. I like the juxtaposition of the very serious and grim episode "...In Translation" right before this very humorous Hurley-centric episode.

Hurley finds out from his accountant that he is "the majority shareholder for a box company in Tustin." Guess who worked at a box company in Tustin? John Locke. Hurley's former boss from Mr. Cluck's Chicken Shack, Randy, would later work at the box company as John's insolent boss.

We find out that Hurley got the Numbers from Leonard Simms, a patient at Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute, where Hurley used to live. After Hurley begins to believe that the Numbers are cursed, he goes to tell Lenny that he used the Numbers to win the lottery, and Lenny freaks out. He tells Hurley, "You've opened the box. ... It doesn't stop. ... You've got to get away from it or it won't stop," and says that he got the numbers from Sam Toomey in Kalgoorlie, Australia. Hurley visits Sam Toomey's house (which is the reason why Hurley was in Australia prior to Flight 815). Sam's wife Martha explains that Sam and Leonard "were stationed at a listening post monitoring long wave transmissions out of the Pacific" and one night they heard "a voice repeating those numbers over and over again." Perhaps this was the same voice that Danielle and her team heard being transmitted from the radio tower on the Island. Sam used the numbers to win $50,000 at the local fair, and on the way home Sam and Martha got into a car accident that caused Martha to lose part of her leg. After that, "Anything terrible that happened to anyone around us, he believed it was all because he used those numbers." Martha tells Hurley that Sam committed suicide to get away from the Numbers. Interestingly, his chosen method of suicide ("He put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger") is identical to that of Kelvin's hatch mate Stuart Radzinsky, who also had a connection with the Numbers, having to type them every 108 minutes into The Swan's computer. Perhaps Radzinsky also felt cursed by the Numbers, or perhaps he simply went crazy from being cooped up in the hatch for so long. Martha Toomey tells Hurley that the numbers aren't cursed, and that "You make your own luck, Mr. Reyes."

I wonder why Hurley takes so many life-threatening risks on the Island in this episode. Is it because he believes that the curse of the Numbers will keep him safe, or because he's testing Sam's wife's theory that you make your own luck?

John recruits Claire to help him build something out of wood, but he doesn't tell her what it is. I wondered in my commentary for "Raised By Another" why Claire would later become friends with Locke after having seen him in a frightening dream. At least part of the answer is that Claire lost her memory, and she's still getting it back "Bits and pieces here and there. Nothing that makes any real sense." She most likely doesn't remember her nightmare.

Danielle Rousseau rigged her lair with explosives in anticipation of the return of Sayid or another one of his fellow crash survivors. Beforehand she moved all of her belongings to some undisclosed location. When Hurley finally locates "the French chick," he demands that she explain the Numbers. Danielle responds, "Our ship picked up a transmission: a voice repeating those numbers. We changed course to investigate. After we shipwrecked, my team continued to search for the transmission source. It was weeks before we found the radio tower... up by the Black Rock. Some of us continued to search for the meaning of those numbers while we waited for rescue. But then the sickness came. When my team was gone, I went back up to the tower and changed the transmission." Hurley asks about the Numbers' power and says that they're cursed. She replies, "The numbers are what brought me here. As it appears, they brought you. Since that time, I've lost everything, everyone I cared about. So yes, I suppose you're right. They are cursed." Hurley is overjoyed that someone finally agrees with him, and embraces Danielle in a big hug. It's been over 16 years since anyone has hugged Danielle, so Hurley's hug must be quite a surprise to her. Shortly after that, Hurley comes back with a battery which presumably Danielle gave to him; earlier in the episode, Hurley had used the battery as an excuse to go find Danielle, since Michael had been looking for a power source for a distress call for the raft.

John Locke finally shows Claire what she has been helping him build. It's a crib for her baby. I find it a bit humorous that Claire didn't figure out what it was sooner considering that she was right there the whole time it was being built. Claire reveals to John that it's her birthday, and she hadn't told anyone because she didn't think it mattered, but John warmly says "Happy birthday, Claire" after showing her the cradle.

Charlie approaches Hurley on the beach and they have a conversation about Hurley's bad luck. Charlie doesn't think it was Hurley's luck that led to the plane crash, and he tells Hurley about his heroin addiction and rhetorically asks Hurley whether he thinks that was his fault, too. Charlie then asks Hurley to reciprocate and tell his biggest secret since Charlie has just revealed his own. Hurley says "Okay. Back home I'm worth 156 million dollars." Charlie doesn't believe him and storms off, shouting "I bare my soul, and all I get is bloody jokes"—a classic moment.

The episode ends on a mysterious note, as we see a shot of the partially unearthed hatch door, and the camera zooms in to reveal "4 8 15 16 23 42" engraved on the side. Hurley later sees these numbers on the hatch in the season finale, "Exodus, Part 2", and repeatedly shouts "The Numbers are bad!" while trying to prevent Locke from blowing open the hatch door. In the Season 5 episode "Some Like It Hoth", when Hurley is stuck in the 1970s, he sees a DHARMA Initiative worker engraving the Numbers into the hatch door as The Swan is being built. The worker refers to the Numbers as "the serial number that goes on the hatch lid." Hurley explains to Miles how he knows about The Swan: "...they're building our hatch. The one that crashed our plane."

Season 1 Episode 19 - "Deus Ex Machina"

The episode begins with a flashback to when John Locke has some hair and is working in a toy store. He shows a kid the game Mouse Trap, which he says he used to play with his brother. This game would later appear in the recreation room at The Others' barracks in the Season 3 episode "Left Behind". In the toy store, John sees a woman watching him. He walks over to her to ask if she needs help, and she says she's looking for footballs, so Locke tells her "Aisle 8 for regulation, aisle 15 for Nerf." We find out later in the episode that the woman is his biological mother, Emily Locke, whom John has apparently never met. She claims he doesn't have a father and that he was "immaculately conceived." As an aside, the Immaculate Conception is the Catholic doctrine that the Virgin Mary was conceived free from all sin, and is unrelated to the doctrine of the Virgin Birth, which seems to be the doctrine that Emily Locke meant to reference.

Locke's plan to break the glass on the hatch door using a trebuchet fails. This makes him angry and he yells "This was supposed to work!" Boone notices that a large metal fragment of the trebuchet is embedded deep in Locke's leg, which doesn't cause Locke any pain. John discovers that he's lost the feeling in both of his legs. This may have been caused by his wavering faith in the Island.

In a flashback, a private investigator tells John that there's a 99% certainty that the woman claiming to be Emily Locke is really his mother, based on a hair sample DNA analysis. Before handing over the red folder containing information on John's father, Anthony Cooper, the private investigator warns John, "I've done this enough times to know this stuff isn't meant to be, even though it may feel that way. But this probably won't have a happy ending." John takes the folder anyway and meets Anthony Cooper for the first time, who invites him to go hunting.

On the Island, Locke has a lucid dream in which he sees a Beechcraft airplane crashing on the Island, a bloodied Boone repeating "Theresa falls up the stairs, Theresa falls down the stairs," and his own mother standing in the jungle. After awakening from his dream, Locke wakes up Boone and convinces him that the dream is a sign by mentioning Theresa. Boone later tells Locke that she was his nanny when he was six, and she broke her neck falling down the stairs in their house. Locke's vision of a bleeding Boone and the story about Theresa falling and receiving a (presumably) fatal injury foreshadow Boone's own demise.

On the way to where Locke saw the plane crash in his dream, Locke and Boone find the body of a Nigerian man with gold teeth dressed like a priest and toting a gun. We now know that this is Goldie, who had been a drug smuggler along with Mr. Eko. Goldie was directly responsible for Yemi being on the Beechcraft plane and Eko getting left behind in Nigeria, which saved Eko's life and led to him falsely assume the role of a priest in Yemi's stead.

John begins to have difficulty walking. Eventually they see the plane, a yellow Beechcraft just as John had envisioned it. It's up high on a cliff, lodged in some branches. Because of the condition of his legs, Locke tells Boone, "You're going to have to climb up there for us and find out [what's inside it]." Boone nods in compliance and takes off toward the cliff. Inside he finds Virgin Mary heroin statues and a two-way radio embedded in the console. He fires up the radio and it still works, so he sends out an SOS. He hears a man's voice reply, "We're the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815!" In the Season 2 episode "The Other 48 Days" we find out that the person who responded to Boone was Bernard, although the actor who plays Bernard had not been cast yet when this episode was filmed, hence the voices don't match.

The plane begins creaking and suddenly falls with Boone still inside, leaving him badly injured. Locke somehow musters enough strength to carry Boone back to camp and bring him to Jack. As Jack prepares to operate, Locke sneaks away without any warning.

In a flashback, we find out that John's dad conned him into giving up his kidney. Emily Locke shows up in the hospital and apologizes to John, saying it was all Anthony's idea and that she went along with the plan for the money he promised to give her. It turns out that the private investigator was right; there wasn't a happy ending to Locke's reunion with his father. Little did the viewers know that there was more to this tragic story that would be revealed later in the series, including John being pushed out an 8th-story window by his father. Anthony Cooper didn't have much of a happy ending, either; he was strangled to death by Sawyer in the Season 3 episode "The Brig".

Interestingly, Anthony Cooper's driveway security guard is named Eddie, which is the same name as another character seen in Locke's flashbacks in the Season 3 episode "Further Instructions".

Locke pounds on the hatch in frustration, much like he pounded on the inside of his car after learning that his parents had conned him. Suddenly, the hatch light turns on, and that's the shocking end of the episode. John later related to Desmond in the Season 2 finale, "Live Together, Die Alone", that he originally thought that the light emanating from the hatch was a sign, "But it wasn't a sign. Probably just you going to the bathroom."

The title of this episode, "Deus Ex Machina", is a Latin phrase that literally means "god from the machine." The term is used to denote a sudden unexpected occurrence that saves the day. What was this episode's deus ex machina? The episode title seems to have reference to the light that came on in the hatch. Prior to that moment, nobody had any idea what was inside the hatch, so this event was a shock to both Locke and the viewer. Locke viewed it as a sign that he was on the right track, that he had pleased the Island and was fulfilling his destiny, thus turning John from his feelings of despair and intense frustration to feelings of wonder and elation.


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LOST Rewatch: S1E17 "...In Translation"

Here are some of my thoughts after rewatching episode 17 of the first season of LOST, as part of my contribution to The LOST Rewatch (see my previous rewatch posts). When I get a chance, I'll post my rewatch commentaries in the podcast feed as well.

Season 1 Episode 17 - "...In Translation"

The episode begins on Jin's eye, and it focuses on his perspective as he deals with the frustration of not being able to communicate with any survivors other than his wife (hence the episode title, LOST "...In Translation").

We find out in a flashback how Jin became such an unpleasant person: the deal he made to work for Sun's father, Mr. Paik, turned out to be not at all what Jin expected. Mr. Paik "promotes" Jin to be his new special assistant to personally deliver messages of Mr. Paik's displeasure. When Jin simply delivers a verbal message to the man at his home, apparently the recipient doesn't take the hint, and Mr. Paik later tells Jin that another associate will show Jin how to deliver a message. As Jin drives back to the house, the associate puts on gloves and pulls out a gun with a silencer on it. Upon arriving, Jin rushes past the associate into the house, violently beating the man with whom Mr. Paik is displeased—right in front of the man's wife and children. Jin says quietly to the man, "I just saved your life." Thus Jin begins "saving people's lives" from assassination by Sun's father's thugs.

Incidentally, the first time Jin went to the man's home, Hurley was on the television in the background, so this evidently took place sometime after Hurley won the lottery.

On the beach, Jin sees Sun wearing a bikini and rushes over to cover her with a blanket. They get into a small scuffle, and Michael runs up to stop Jin from mistreating Sun. When Michael pushes Jin, Sun slaps Michael's face, and Sun and Jin walk away. Shortly thereafter, Jin asks Sun, "What's going on between you and him?" Sun denies that there is any connection between her and Michael. She later explains privately to Michael that slapping him was her way of protecting him from Jin, saying, "You don't know what he's capable of."

Michael's raft gets set on fire during the night and everyone wonders who did it and why. Michael and some of the other survivors blame Jin. When Sun sees that Jin's hands are burned, she accuses him, and Jin leaves angrily.

Sawyer, who was one of the 4 people who would have been on the raft, finds Jin, attacks him, and ties him up. He tells Jin, "Folks down on the beach might have been doctors and accountants a month ago, but it's Lord of the Flies time now."

I hadn't given it much thought previously, but the book Lord of the Flies (Wikipedia, Amazon) has a number of striking parallels with LOST. In the book, a plane crashes on a deserted island with no adult survivors, leaving a group of boys completely on their own. Two factions arise, one of which is led by Ralph, whose group is concerned with keeping the signal fire lit, and the other group is led by Jack, whose group is concerned with hunting pigs and protecting each other from a monster that they believe to be on the island. Eventually only Jack's group remains, and Jack becomes a true savage, setting the entire island on fire—at the risk of destroying their only sources of food—just to murder the evasive Ralph. An adult navy officer sees the blazing island and comes to rescue the boys. In spite of being rescued, Ralph is deeply troubled, having witnessed the darkness that can come to possess a human soul. The transition from civilized to barbaric behavior is precisely what Sawyer was referencing when talking to Jin. Sawyer's remark leads us to perhaps the most stunning connection between the two tales: Ralph's discovery of man's potential for darkness is a direct correlation with Jacob's enemy's views about the wickedness of human nature. In the opening scene of the Season 5 finale, Jacob and his enemy watch as a ship (presumably the Black Rock) approaches the Island. Jacob's enemy says, "You brought them here. Still trying to prove me wrong, aren't you?" Jacob replies, "You are wrong," and his enemy comes back with "Am I? They come, fight. They destroy. They corrupt. It always ends the same." Jacob's enemy (who badly wants to kill Jacob) seems to think that man will always degenerate to a savage state because it's their nature, while Jacob seems to be trying to prove that human nature is not inherently evil.



After Sawyer brings Jin back to the camp, Michael begins beating Jin, and Jin keeps standing up and voluntarily taking punches without fighting back. To prevent her husband from getting badly injured, Sun blurts out in English, "Stop it! Leave him alone!" Everyone, including Jin, stares at her in shock. Only Michael and Kate knew her secret, and now everyone knew it. Obviously, Jin would be upset that Sun had lied to him so many times on the Island about not knowing what was going on, and for never telling him that she spoke English. Sun defends her husband, explaining that "Your raft was already on fire when he arrived. He burned his hands trying to put it out." After Locke steps in and reminds everyone that there are others on the Island who have attacked them before, everyone walks away, leaving Sun and Jin standing there. Sun approaches Jin, and feeling betrayed because she had lied to him about not understanding English, he walks away from her, and later he refuses to speak to her at all.

Jin's treatment of Sun may have been a bit harsh since she wasn't the only one who had lied in their relationship. Ashamed of his heritage, Jin had tried to make Sun believe that his father was dead, as early as before they were married. In this episode's final flashback, Jin goes to visit his father, who is still very much alive. Jin tells his father that he's married, and that he doesn't speak to Sun anymore because he doesn't want her to know about the horrible things her father does. Jin's father encourages him to do the one last job that Mr. Paik asked of him—deliver watches to his associates in Sydney and Los Angeles—and then to run away and live together in the United States. Jin was planning to follow his father's advice to try to save his marriage, but the crash interrupted his plans.

Michael tells Walt that he's going to rebuild the raft and make it even better, and Walt offers to help. Later, Walt is sitting in front of a backgammon board, and he tells Locke that Hurley now owes him $83,000—a lot more than the $20,000 he owed him just six episodes earlier. Walt asks if Locke's dad is cool, and John says, "No. No, he's not." We'll learn a bit about why Anthony Cooper isn't "cool" two episodes later in "Deus Ex Machina". Locke asks Walt why he burned the raft, which indicates that Locke's earlier speech about there being other people on the Island was purely out of a desire to support Sun's statements and protect Jin from being attacked when Walt was the secret arsonist. Walt confesses to the crime, saying that he doesn't want to move anymore and "I like it here." John confesses, "I like it here, too."

After telling Sun that "it's too late" to start their relationship over again, he brings Michael some bamboo and says "boat" in English, indicating that he brought the bamboo to help Michael rebuild his raft.

Hurley's CD player finally dies on the 34th day on the Island.


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LOST Rewatch: S1E15 "Homecoming" and S1E16 "Outlaws"

Here are some of my thoughts after rewatching episodes 15 and 16 of the first season of LOST, as part of my contribution to The LOST Rewatch (see my previous rewatch posts). When I get a chance, I'll post my rewatch commentaries in the podcast feed as well.

Season 1 Episode 15 - "Homecoming"

After Claire comes back, she can't remember anything that has happened since she was on the plane. The entire past month is gone from her memory. Jin asks Sun if Claire is all right, and then he asks about the baby. Sun says in Korean "I'm sure the baby is fine." Sun and Jin exchange awkward looks, which in retrospect was a small hint about their inability to conceive a child of their own prior to the Island.

Ethan seems to have been a very mentally disturbed person. He tells Charlie in this episode that he'll kill someone every day until he gets Claire back and that he'll kill Charlie last. On the first night, Ethan not only murders Steve (presumably by breaking his neck) but he also breaks "his arms [and] all the bones in his fingers" according to Kate. Later when Ethan sees Claire, he has an angry, sinister look on his face before he begins chasing her through the jungle. This is a very different perspective from what we later see of him in flashbacks. He seemed to have been very kind to Juliet, and surprisingly he even seemed to care for Claire after having captured her (aside from keeping her drugged and injecting her abdomen, of course).

How did Ethan sneak past the Flight 815 survivors' guards and traps to kill Scott? Locke suspects that Ethan came by water, and although this was never verified we do know that The Others had a submarine, at least two boats, and canoes at that time. It's also possible that Ethan sneaked past Boone, who fell asleep during his shift.

Ahh, the Numbers again. In Charlie's flashback, the copier machine he was trying to sell was a "Heatherton C815 Copy Center."

In spite of the horrified look Claire gave Charlie after he shot and killed Ethan in front of her, she seemed to have completely forgotten about it by that night when she walked up to him and asked him why she remembered peanut butter. Perhaps after some introspection she became attracted to Charlie because she knew how vigilantly he would protect her. Either that or her sudden leap from horror to love was a bit of an oversight by the writers, directors, or producers.

Season 1 Episode 16 - "Outlaws"

The episode starts on the eye of a young Sawyer, and we witness his perspective from under his bed of what happened the night that his father killed his mother and then himself.

Sawyer wakes up from this nightmare flashback and sees a boar rummaging through his things. He chases the boar into the jungle, and after it gets away, Sawyer hears whispers much like the ones Sayid heard in "Solitary", but he also hears one that says clearly, "It'll come back around."

In a flashback, Sawyer's former partner Hibbs is missing a finger, which is another instance of a missing body part. Hibbs tells Sawyer that he found the original Sawyer—the man who conned his mother, leading to the deaths of his parents. We find out later in the episode that the man whom Hibbs identified, Frank Duckett, was not really the original Sawyer; Hibbs conned Sawyer into killing someone who owed him money.

Why is Charlie being a creep to Claire all of a sudden? At the end of the last episode they were becoming friends again, and now suddenly Charlie's conscience is catching up with him for killing Ethan? Again, it almost seems like the last Claire and Charlie scene from "Homecoming" doesn't fit well with the rest of the plot.

Sawyer and Kate's "I never" drinking game is the first time we hear about Kate's brief marriage. We don't find out the details of her marriage to police officer Kevin Callis until the Season 3 episode "I Do".

Locke tells Sawyer a really strange story about how his foster mother believed that her daughter, who died in a tragic accident for which the mom blamed herself, was reincarnated as a golden retriever. The dog showed up out of nowhere about six months after the daughter's funeral, and after the mother died five years later the dog "disappeared back to wherever it was she came from in the first place." Sawyer later seems to relate this story to Frank Duckett and the boar who has been causing him trouble.

When Sawyer meets Frank Duckett at his shrimp truck, they introduce each other casually, and we learn that Sawyer's first name is actually "James." In the first part of the season finale, "Exodus, Part 1", we learn from an officer at an Australian police station that Sawyer's full name is James Ford.

In a flashback, Sawyer runs into Christian Shephard at the bar. Christian admits that he loves his son and that he's proud of him and grateful for "what he did to me. What he did for me."

I came across an interesting theory on Lostpedia that Sawyer may have unknowingly and unintentionally contributed to Christian Shephard's death. The coroner told Jack that Christian died of a heart attack caused by excessive alcohol consumption, and Sawyer paid for Christian's liquor because Christian claimed he had misplaced his wallet (he apparently left it in his hotel room according on Jack's flashback in "White Rabbit"). Christian's death is ironic because of his remark to Sawyer that Australians "think Americans can't hold their liquor."

There are an awful lot of Flight 815 survivors who have killed someone. In this episode, Kate and Sawyer reveal to each other through their drinking game that they've both "killed a man." In an attempt to help Charlie work past his feelings of remorse for having killed Ethan, Sayid tells Charlie about the nightmares he had after voluntarily being on a firing squad that killed a terrorist.

After Sawyer shoots Frank Duckett, Frank says "You didn't have to— tell Hibbs I would've paid." He realizes that Sawyer was conned into being Hibbs' hitman. Just before he dies, Frank says "I was going to pay. It'll come back around." The last sentence is what Sawyer heard amidst the whispers more than once in this episode.

When Sawyer finally tracks down the boar, it just watches him calmly. Sawyer, presumably thinking about Frank Duckett and perhaps about the story Locke told him, has compassion on the boar and decides not to shoot it. This is a redemptive moment for Sawyer, which is very interesting because death often follows redemption on the Island. Two of the most notable examples of this phenomenon are when Ana Lucia, in spite of having murdered Jason prior to the Island, was unable to bring herself to murder Ben, and then right afterward she was killed by Michael, and later Michael redeemed himself for the murders he committed by sacrificing his own life to save the lives of several people including fellow Flight 815 survivors on the freighter. In spite of Sawyer's notable moment of redemption in this episode, he's still alive as of the Season 5 finale (unless, of course, the explosion of the bomb in the last few seconds of the finale killed him).

By the end of the episode, Charlie has apparently let go of his remorse for killing Ethan, and he finds Claire on the beach and offers to take her for the walk that she asked for earlier in the episode.

Sawyer recognizes Jack's line "That's why the Red Sox will never win the Series" and figures out that the man he talked to in the bar was Jack's father. Rather than tell Jack that his father loved him and thought very highly of him, Sawyer chooses not to say anything at all. In the first part of the season finale before Jack goes off to get dynamite from the Black Rock and as Sawyer prepares to leave on Michael's raft, Sawyer realizes that they might not see each other again and he tells Jack about his conversation with Christian.


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LOST Rewatch: S1E13 "Hearts and Minds" and S1E14 "Special"

Here are some of my thoughts after rewatching episodes 13 and 14 of the first season of LOST, as part of my contribution to The LOST Rewatch (see my previous rewatch posts). When I get a chance, I'll post my rewatch commentaries in the podcast feed as well.

Stay tuned for my commentaries on episodes 15 and 16, "Homecoming" and "Outlaws", coming soon!

Season 1 Episode 13 - "Hearts and Minds"

This episode starts out on Boone's eye as he jealously watches Sayid flirt with Shannon.

We find out that Shannon has been pulling a long con on Boone: she consistently feigns involvement in an abusive relationship to get Boone to pay substantial amounts of money to her boyfriends to get them to leave her, and then the faux boyfriends split the money with her. Shannon sees it as her way of getting what Boone's mother owes her after treating her unfairly after Shannon's father died.

Sayid discovers a magnetic anomaly on the Island after Locke gives him a compass. Sayid notices that the reading on the compass is dramatically incorrect based on where the sun rises and sets. He tells Jack, "A minor magnetic anomaly might explain a variance of two or three degrees, but not this." Sayid presumes the compass to be defective, but of course this episode takes place before anyone knew about the powerful magnetic anomaly at the Swan Station.

In the past I've heard rumors that in Boone's dream sequence, Shannon was missing an arm after the monster killed her. However, after watching this scene again, I can confirm that this rumor is not true. Each of Shannon's arms is clearly visible in a couple of shots as Boone approaches and picks up her body.

Jack asks Charlie about his opinion of Locke, to which Charlie replies, "Trust him? No offense, mate, but if there's one person on this island I would put my absolute faith in to save us all, it would be John Locke." Charlie's assertion may have been partially true, but sadly Locke didn't save Charlie.

Locke told Boone, "I gave you an experience that I believe was vital to your survival on this island." As shamanistic as Locke may seem, he was rather incorrect about this one. Boone didn't even survive until the end of the season.

Season 1 Episode 14 - "Special"

We begin the episode on Michael's eye. Through the flashbacks in this episode, we learn how Michael ended up being separated from Walt very early in Walt's life, and we learn that this was quite a struggle for Michael.

Locke teaches Walt how to throw a knife. When Walt visualizes throwing the knife into the tree, he can do it perfectly. Walt excitedly says, "It was weird. I actually saw it, in my mind or something, like it was real," to which Locke responds, "Who's to say it wasn't?" Here we have yet another hint about Walt's apparent psychic powers, and we get more hints later in the episode. Locke tells Michael, "Maybe you haven't spent enough time with him to see it, but he's different. ... And we're not back home, Michael. As long as we're here, I think Walt should be allowed to realize his potential."

Shannon decides to help Michael build a raft and asks Boone to help her, but he just says "No thanks." Boone apparently has so much faith in Locke that he thinks the hatch is more important than trying to find a way off the Island.

In a flashback, Walt's adoptive father Brian Porter ignores Walt when Walt is trying to talk to him. When Walt got angry at Brian, a bird suddenly hit the glass window and died. Walt had been reading a book about birds when he became angry. Brian seems very disturbed by this.

In one of the LOST: Missing Pieces mobisodes (which are officially part of the LOST canon), we learn that Walt was held in Room 23 after being captured by The Others—the same place where Alex's boyfriend Karl was later brainwashed. When Walt was in that room, several birds of all shapes and sizes crashed into the window and their bodies piled up outside.

In another flashback we learn that after Walt's mother Susan died, Brian came to Michael to convince him to take custody of Walt because "Sometimes when he's around things happen. He's different somehow."

When Walt wanders off with Vincent, he is chased by a polar bear. Earlier in the episode, Michael burned the comic book that Walt was looking at, and the pages Walt had been reading showed a polar bear attack. Obviously, Walt was angry about his father throwing his comic book into the fire. Was this polar bear a manifestation of Walt's anger, or summoned by his anger or his visualization of a polar bear?

The comic book that Michael burned was Hurley's Spanish edition of Green Lantern and Flash: Faster Friends Part One, the same one that Walt was reading in "Pilot, Part 2" (see my rewatch commentary for that episode). I was curious about the words that Walt was trying to read aloud, which didn't sound much like Spanish except for "oso polar" (polar bear) at the end. (I happen to speak Spanish, by the way.) I took a screen capture of the comic book so I could find out what it really said. In Spanish, the sentence is "Wally se pondrá muy feliz cuando sepa que me comió un oso polar," which in English means "Wally will be very happy to know that I was eaten by a polar bear." Wally and Walt are both nicknames derived from the name Walter (Walt's full name is Walter Lloyd).


In a flashback, a nurse suggests a silly joke for Michael to write in his birthday card to Walt, and says "Trust me. Mother of 4 talking here." This is another appearance of one of the Numbers.

After fighting the urge to read Claire's diary in her absence, Charlie ultimately succumbs to the temptation. He reads in her diary that she dreamed about a black rock: "I had that weird dream again, the one with the black rock I can't get away from. I try to leave it but it won't let me." Charlie wonders if it was the same black rock that Danielle referred to. Of course, we know that there's a slave ship on the Island called the Black Rock, but there have also been other black rocks including the large black rock at The Line. Refer to Lostpedia's article on the Island's various black rocks.

At the very end of the episode, Locke and Boone are looking for Vincent, and they come across Claire walking through the jungle all by herself, perhaps still delusional; as we find out in the next episode, she doesn't remember anything beyond being on the plane, and yet she went with strangers back to their camp prior to revealing that she has amnesia.


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LOST Rewatch: S1E11 "All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues" and S1E12 "Whatever the Case May Be"

Here are some of my thoughts after rewatching episodes 11 and 12 of the first season of LOST, as part of my contribution to The LOST Rewatch (see my previous rewatch posts). When I get a chance, I'll post my rewatch commentaries in the podcast feed as well.

Season 1 Episode 11 - "All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues"

At the end of the previous episode, Ethan was staring creepily at Claire and Charlie, and meanwhile Hurley began telling Jack that Ethan wasn't on the flight manifest. This episode begins with Jack and Locke trying to find them. Locke finds footprints and evidence of two people having been dragged off. Jack says, "This doesn't make any sense. How could one man drag two people, one pregnant?" For a while, many fans assumed that The Others had superhuman strength because of hints like this about Ethan. Oddly, this never seems to have been fully explained on the show, and we now know that at least some of The Others—including Ethan—are normal humans who have been recruited by The Others. We know that Ethan and Ben were originally DHARMA Initiative members' children, Juliet grew up off the Island and was recruited for her medical expertise, Cindy, Zach and Emma were tail section survivors who were assimilated, John Locke was chosen as the next leader of The Others before Ben's departure from the Island, etc. Richard Alpert and Jacob comprise a different class of Others who never seem to age, but we haven't seen any indication of them having unnatural strength.

So, since Ethan was apparently born to normal human parents under normal circumstances, did he have some help from other Others that we never found out about? Presumably if Ethan had assistants, they could have walked in each others' footsteps when dragging away Charlie and Claire, or perhaps they dragged the bodies in such a way as to cover their tracks. However, based on the conversation that Tom had with Ethan (as seen in a flashback in the Season 2 episode "Maternity Leave"), it sounded like Ethan acted on his own, even before making the list that Ben ordered him to make. The mystery of Ethan Rom's apparent superhuman strength remains unsolved.

Walt does exceedingly well against Hurley at Backgammon, rolling exactly what he wants twice in a row (4 and 3, then double sixes). Hurley contends "No one is that lucky," to which Walt responds that his step-dad Brian Porter "said I was the luckiest person he ever knew." Yet again we have subtle hints that Walt may be able to subconsciously make things happen with his mind.

When Walt beats Hurley and Hurley walks away, Walt says "You owe me 20,000 dollars!" Hurley replies seriously, "You'll get it." I wonder whether Hurley ended up giving Walt his $20,000 after they both made it off the Island.

Shannon is concerned about Boone not being back yet after Jack and Kate bring back Charlie. Kate tells Shannon reassuringly, "If there's anyone on this island that your brother's safe with, it's Locke." Considering that Boone ended up dying because of his later adventures with Locke, I guess Kate was wrong about that after all. Earlier in the episode, as Boone carries a torn red shirt for making markers of where they've been, he comments to Locke about red shirts on Star Trek indicating the characters who "always got killed," a foreshadowing of his own fate. Locke remarks, "Sounds like a piss-poor captain." I suppose this turned out to be a self-referential comment considering that Locke was partially to blame for Boone's death, having sent him into the perilous situation that got him killed.

The episode ends with Locke and Boone accidentally discovering the hatch; John throws Boone a flashlight, Boone fails to catch it, and it lands with a metallic clank on the steel hatch door.

Season 1 Episode 12 - "Whatever the Case May Be"

Sayid comments that "Everything is getting washed out to sea. This can't be normal. The tide shifting so suddenly, rising in so short a time." Does this sudden shift of tide have anything to do with the Island constantly moving? Another theory is that the sudden tide shift may be evidence of time dilation, the phenomenon observed by Dan Faraday that time moves more slowly on the Island than off the Island.

Shannon says that Boone "and Locke have been leaving before sunrise and coming back after dark for the last 4 days." Of course, 4 is one of the Numbers. Later, Kate tells Jack that the Marshal had 4 guns in the case.

Later in the season we find out that Kate's toy airplane had belonged to her childhood sweetheart, Tom Brennan. When Tom died, the Marshal retrieved the toy airplane and put it in a safety deposit box (number 815, the Oceanic flight number and also two of the Numbers, 8 and 15, put together).

Kate pulled a long con on Jason the bank robber; she made him think that her name was Maggie, and she developed a relationship with him apparently for the sole purpose of getting him to orchestrate the bank robbery that would get her to the safe deposit box. Clearly, Sawyer is not the only person on the Island with a history of pulling long cons.

Why is Jack so concerned about getting Kate to tell the truth about her past? Jack has challenged her in three different episodes since initially stopping her from voluntarily revealing her past in "Tabula Rasa", telling her "We should all be able to start over." So much for that idea; now Jack wants to get Kate to confess everything to him.

After being pressured by Jack to tell the truth about the toy airplane, Kate tells Jack, "It belonged to the man I killed!" We find out later this season in the episode "Born To Run" that Kate didn't actually kill Tom Brennan, although he died because of his involvement with Kate's plan to speak to her mother in the hospital. We don't find out what really caused Kate to begin her life on the run—murdering her biological father, Wayne Janssen—until the Season 2 episode "What Kate Did".


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LOST Rewatch: S1E09 "Solitary" and S1E10 "Raised By Another"

Here are some of my thoughts after rewatching episodes 9 and 10 of the first season of LOST, as part of my contribution to The LOST Rewatch (see my previous rewatch posts). When I get a chance, I'll post my rewatch commentaries in the podcast feed as well.

For those who are strictly following the Rewatch schedule, you'll notice that I didn't get a chance to watch all four episodes this week. I found so much to research and write about these two episodes that I spent several hours on them, so I've had to put off episodes 11 and 12 for now. You can subscribe to this blog (see the links in the sidebar) and/or follow me on Twitter to be notified about my LOST articles as soon as I publish them.

Season 1 Episode 9 - "Solitary"

The episode begins with Sayid sitting on the beach looking at a picture of Nadia with a note written on the back. He later tells Danielle that the writing says "You'll find me in the next life if not in this one" and we find out in a flashback that Nadia wrote this.

The episode title has reference to both Sayid, who has been traveling by himself around the Island, and more particularly to Danielle, who has been all alone for 16 years (16, of course, is one of the Numbers which we find out about in a future episode).

Sayid notices a cable partially buried in the sand. He digs it up and sees that one end goes into the ocean, and he decides to follow the other end into the jungle. Kate tells Jack that Sayid has been gone for two days, so apparently it's a pretty long walk to get to the cable when following the shoreline. We now know that the cable goes to the underwater DHARMA station known as The Looking Glass. According to Mikhail Bakunin in the Season 3 episode "Enter 77", the cable's main purpose is for communication, and that the other end goes to the Flame Station.

While following the cable, Sayid triggers one of Danielle's snare traps. He wakes up in Danielle's lair and hears voices repeating over and over again in French, Spanish, and English the words "Where is Alex?" It is well known that Danielle speaks French and English, but apparently she also speaks Spanish, or at least knows some basic phrases.

Regarding her science team's crash on the Island, Danielle says that "Our vessel was three days out of Tahiti when our instruments malfunctioned." She doesn't specify which direction their vessel had been heading, or whether she was going to or coming from Tahiti, but assuming a similar rate of speed to the 9 knots Desmond was traveling when trying to escape the Island, the Island was definitely in a different place when Danielle arrived than when Desmond arrived (refer to my Google Earth file and search the globe for Tahiti to see its location in relation to where Desmond thought the Island was).

Danielle claims that she and her science team "made camp" and "Dug out this temporary shelter" in which she is now living. Her story seems to conflict with what we later see in the Season 5 episode "This Place Is Death," in which (as far as I can recall) it appears as though Danielle and her team never left their initial camp on the beach. Danielle tells Sayid that two months after their vessel crashed on the Island, they were coming back from the Black Rock when something happened (implying that that's when her team got infected), and she says that "The Others" were "the carriers" of the sickness. From what we later see in "This Place Is Death" it is implied that going into the Cerberus Vent—the hole in the ground next to the wall surrounding the temple—caused Danielle's colleagues to become infected, so it doesn't look like they ever went to the Black Rock with her unless it happened sometime after that event. Another discrepancy is that Danielle tells Sayid that she hasn't seen other people on the Island, although she's heard them whispering in the jungle; however, we know that she saw Ben when he took Alex from her. There are a number of inconsistencies in Danielle's story, many of which are detailed in the Lostpedia article about her.

Danielle explains that the sickness "took" her team members "one after the other," which is why she killed them. "I had no choice. They were already lost." Her use of the word "lost" is interesting, and may hint at some sort of connection with the title of the show. Does being changed by the Island make someone lost?

Danielle finally explains who Alex is, saying only that "Alex was my child." Danielle doesn't correct Sayid's repeated assumption that Alex is male, and hence for a long time most viewers probably assumed that Alex was Danielle's son until eventually a teenage female named Alex is seen on the show.

We hear whispers for the first time on the show when Sayid makes his way through the jungle as it's getting dark. By the time he makes it back to the caves, he tells Jack that they're not alone on the Island, and his franticness implies that he's referring to the source of the whispers, not just to Danielle.

Another notable event in the episode (or should I say "an Other event") is when Ethan Rom shows up at the caves with Locke, and Locke introduces him to Hurley as his hunting partner. This is the first time we've seen Ethan on the show. We see him later in the episode among other spectators at Hurley's golf course.

Season 1 Episode 10 - "Raised By Another"

The episode starts on Claire's eye as she begins to have a frightening dream about her baby. Among other occurrences in the nightmare, Claire sees a scary version of John Locke who tells her "You know what's happening. He was your responsibility but you gave him away, Claire. Everyone pays the price now." Assuming there's some significance to Nightmare Locke's words, what does he mean by "everyone pays the price now"? How would "everyone" (perhaps meaning the other Flight 815 survivors) be harmed by Claire's choice to fly to Los Angeles to give up Aaron? Perhaps the meaning is that if Claire hadn't been on the plane, Ethan would not kidnap her and try to take her baby, Charlie might not get hanged nearly to death by Ethan, Ethan would not get shot and killed by Charlie, etc. Certainly a lot of things were set in motion because of Claire being on Flight 815.

When Nightmare Locke looks up at Claire, we see very clearly that his left eye is white and his right eye is black. This gets back to the theme of black and white, light and dark, but perhaps more significantly it may have been a hint about who Locke would ultimately become—or rather, that Jacob's enemy would ultimately take on the persona and appearance of Locke. The real John Locke was loyal to the Island and to Jacob, hence the all-white eye. In contrast, Jacob's enemy (who would pose as Locke on the Island throughout Season 5) wore black when Jacob wore white in the beginning of the Season 5 finale, indicating that he's not one of the "good guys"; hence, Locke's all-black eye in Claire's dream may represent Jacob's enemy.

Also interesting is what Nightmare Locke had on the table in front of him: crystals (possibly quartz) and a deck of cards (perhaps tarot cards), which are tools of the fortune telling trade. This may be an indication that the things Locke said to Claire were wise and based on knowledge of future events, or perhaps they may have just been a concoction of Claire's mind because of her interest in psychics, astrology, and the like.

I also find it interesting that Claire would later become friends with Locke after having seen him in such a frightening nightmare.

After Claire wakes up screaming a second time, she claims that someone held her down and then just ran away. Ethan is one of the people who comes running up to see what the commotion is about, and Jack asks Ethan to bring some water for Claire.

In a flashback, Claire's boyfriend Thomas says during their breakup fight when discussing the baby, "Perfect. Now I get all your daddy abandonment crap." We didn't realize it at the time, but it sounds like Thomas was referring to Claire having previously mentioned that her dad had abandoned her. We now know that Jack's dad Christian Shephard is also Claire's father, and that Christian chose to live with his wife and son in the United States rather than staying in Sydney with his mistress and his daughter. Later in the episode, Claire says that her dad used to sing "Catch a Falling Star" to her when she was little, so perhaps Christian made frequent visits for some time after Claire was born.

Hurley begins taking a census to find out about all the survivors, presuming that one of them may be responsible for attacking Claire the previous night. One of the people he talks to is Ethan, who reveals that his last name is Rom. Ethan Rom is an anagram for "Other Man." Later in the episode, Hurley gets the flight manifest from Sawyer and discovers that Ethan's name was not on the manifest.

Richard Malkin, Claire's psychic, says "It is crucial that you yourself raise this child. ... This child parented by anyone else, anyone other than you— danger surrounds this baby. ... There is no happy life—not for this child, not without you. ... It can't be another. You mustn't allow another to raise your baby." Many fans have pointed out that the line "You mustn't allow another to raise your baby" could also be interpreted as "you mustn't allow an Other to raise your baby."

Richard Malkin later tells Mr. Eko in the Season 2 episode "?" that "...I'm a fraud. ...I make my living as a psychic. You see, that's what I do. I gather intelligence on people and I exploit it. Every day I meet people looking for a miracle, desperate to find one. But there are none to be had." Why, then, did he give Claire her money back after both readings, and why was he so persistent for four months trying to convince Claire not to give up the baby for adoption?

Perhaps Richard Malkin really does have some psychic ability after all. My theory is that someone either paid or threatened Richard Malkin to get him to tell Claire about the supposed couple in Los Angeles, offer her money with the promise of more in L.A., and give her the ticket for Oceanic Flight 815. It may even be that his daughter Charlotte Malkin was nearly drowned by whomever was trying to get him to convince Claire to take that flight. Perhaps Jacob (or someone on his side like Richard Alpert) used Richard Malkin to make sure that Claire would come to the Island. It could be that Richard Malkin told Mr. Eko that he was a fraud because of the guilt he felt about having just deceived Claire.

In a conversation with Claire in the jungle, Charlie shares a different theory about the psychic. He speculates that Richard Malkin was a real psychic and that he knew that Flight 815 would crash on the Island, that Claire would survive, and that this would force her to raise the baby herself. Now that we've seen more of the story, however, Charlie's theory is less plausible. If Richard Malkin really sent Claire to the Island on purpose to force her to raise her baby, he should also have foreknown about Claire's unexplained disappearance in the middle of the night to go with her dead father and that Aaron would afterward be raised by Kate, not Claire.


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