Driving Mister Lockey

CleanedUpBen stops by to see John. ("Avon calling!") Ben helps John with his necktie. Widmore gets an A in bedside manner. Caesar and Ilana get more answers from John in one hour than Ben gave the Losties in 4 seasons. TallWalt gets even taller. JackBeard cries...again. Lapidus successfully lands the plane in the jungle AND then joins the island crew team - suck on that, Sully.

Lost 5x07: The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham

I'm not sure why, but I felt underwhelmed by this episode. In a show where we see Widmore gain Locke's trust, Abaddon's return and Ben pull some moves that are even crazier than we've come to expect from Ben, I still came away feeling a little disappointed. Perhaps the expectations were too high for an ep written by Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof.

On the island:

The “condolences guy” (Caesar) from 316 opens the episode. He’s rifling through an office, looking for something. He finds a shotgun, and conceals it in his pack. The female officer (Ilana) who was handcuffed to Sayid on the plane interrupts him and they walk out to the beach where they find – camera pans around for a dramatic reveal from behind – John Locke. (It’s their signature reveal method, but it’s tired. Or maybe I’m just tired…?)

Lapidus successfully landed on the second island near the Hydra station. I guess the runway that Juliet said they were building several seasons ago worked. Though it seemed like the plane was in the middle of the jungle, so I'm not sure when this is supposed to be. Clearly not the same time that Jack, Kate and Hurley seem to be in though.

Geek alert: Caesar is flipping through a Life magazine from April 1954 with the cover headline: Color Pictures of Hydrogen Test. This is from the same year as the photo on the dossier Hawking gave Jack, and I'd be willing to bet a foreshadowing of the fact that Jughead, the H-bomb on the island, will need to be used at some point in time. Also, anyone else notice the picture of the Creature from the Black Lagoon as he was flipping through? Not sure what it means. Maybe nothing since there was also a vintage Hanes underwear ad in there as well. ;)

John is risen. Which would have been a tad more shocking if we hadn’t seen it in the previews for the episode… or we didn’t call it when we saw him in the coffin…

Locke asks about the outrigger canoes and it turns out that the pilot and some woman (Sun, perhaps, to go look for Jin?) took one of three that were there. (I guess we know who was shooting at the other canoe in the earlier episode.) Locke tells Ilana that he remembers dying.

Tunisia:

John’s eyes open after the donkey wheel push and he’s in the desert, with his bone protruding still. Cameras line the area and John calls for help. Night falls, and a truck zooms up and whisks him to a crude hospital. He bites down on a bit and they re-set his leg. Watching the procedure? Matthew Abaddon.

Geek alert flashback: In case you'd forgotten, his name is fraught with meaning. Matthew, in Hebrew, means gift from God. And also from Hebrew, Abaddon means Hell or destruction. Put together, it's as if his name means gift from the god of hell.

When he wakes, he gets a little sweet bedside manner from none other than Charles Widmore. This was a shock. But he seems like a genuinely good man. He sent a specialist to deal with John’s leg, hooked him up with a chauffeur (Abaddon), given him a world cell phone and a special number in case he needs a booty call to reach him (23, of course), a Canadian passport with the name Jeremy Bentham and given him access to whatever he needs to complete the mission of getting the O6 back to the island. Widmore explains that he knew to find John there because that spot was the “exit”.

Geek alert: If you want to dive deeper into this, check out the theory on vile vorticies. Perhaps you have to go in order from one to the other. So from the island to Tunisia...

Widmore seems genuinely amazed that Locke appears not to have aged and that it was only 4 days in Locke’s timeline since they’d met 3 decades earlier on the island.

Widmore tells John there’s a war coming. He then tells him he’s supposed to lead and plays into Locke’s need to be important.

“What makes you think I’m so special?”

“Because you are.”

Abaddon takes him to the airport and Locke tells him he doesn’t want to talk. Asked where he needs to go, Locke says Santo Domingo.

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic:

Sayid is building homes for “Build Our World”. Locke tries to convince him to go back to the island. Sayid is not convinced and tells him to come back to the DR if he wants to make a real difference.

Fail #1.

New York City:

A somewhat convincing intersection on what’s supposed to be the Upper West Side. (I’ve seen worse, anyway.) John and Abaddon are across from a private school, Fieldcroft. The students leave the building, and out walks Tall Walt! He sees Locke and walks over to speak with him, with an even deeper voice than when he visited John in the mass grave on the island. (When it’s time to change, you’ve got to rearrange.) He’s been having dreams about Locke, he says. He asks about his dad and John lies and says last he’d heard, he was on a freighter. Well, I guess that wasn’t a total lie. That was the last place he was alive. Locke doesn’t even ask him about going to the island.

Fail #2.

Locke and Abaddon drive off, and we see an even more ominous than usual Ben spying from another corner.

Santa Rosa, CA:

Locke visits Hurley at the hospital. Hurley seems unimpressed to see him there, but he just thinks he’s talking to a ghost. The staff tells him he is in fact talking to a guy in a wheelchair and he freaks out. Locke tells him they need to go back to the island and Hurley freaks out and is escorted back into the hospital.

Geek alert: Hurley was painting a picture of the Sphinx in Egypt. Not sure what this means, but I'm sure we'll see.

Fail #3.

Then we get an even more labored explanation than last week’s Doubting Thomas one. Abaddon says John has to remember him. From the hospital. Where John was. When he was paralyzed. And he was the orderly. Who told him to go on the walkabout. That got John to Australia. That got him to the island. (Seriously? Is there anyone watching the show in season 5 who didn’t recall who Abaddon was and needed that? Maybe we should be tallying the show’s failures, not John’s…)

Los Angeles:

Locke visits Kate. Kate says no.

Fail #4.

Locke demands to know what Abaddon found out about Helen Norwood. He claims he was unable, but John suddenly grows a pair and forces him to reveal that he does know where she is…

Santa Monica, CA:

Helen is six feet under. Abaddon explains that she died of a brain aneurism.

Geek alert: She died on 4/8/06. 4…8…

Fail #5.

As they are getting back into the car, Abaddon is shot. John somehow with a broken leg manages to climb into the front seat and peel out of the cemetery. His car is hit twice and he wakes up in the hospital.

Bearded Jack is sitting bedside this time. He demands to know why Locke is there. Locke says it’s fate. Jack dismisses it as probability. Locke tells him they need to go back to the island and Jack flies into another difficult-to-explain rage, tears fall and he says no.

Locke tells Jack that Christian says hello. Jack doesn’t believe him. He leaves John.

Fail #6.

Westerfield Hotel, Los Angeles:

Having failed again, John decides he’s not special, he can’t get back, and is going to end it. He uses an electrical cord to make a noose and is just about to jump off the table when there’s a knock at the door.

It’s Ben!

Ben is there and tells John not to do it. He is special. Paraphrasing, it went something like this: ‘Don’t believe Widmore. I’ve been protecting you. Yes, I shot Abaddon, but it was to save you. You are supposed to lead, John. ‘ Ben kneels in front of John who is about to die in close to a cruicifixion pose (more religious imagery). Ben tells him that Jack just bought a ticket to Sydney – he was seemingly successful after all. And John changes his mind.

He helps John down. Ben says they’ll talk to Sun next and that he has Jin’s ring. Ben seems genuinely shocked that Jin is still alive. John reveals that he knows who can help, a woman named Eloise Hawking. Ben’s demeanor changes. He grabs the cord and uses it to choke John to death.

And Ben’s role as a miserable, double-crossing bastard is reprised.

Ben makes the death look like a suicide, cleans up and leaves. Oh, luckily, Jin’s ring just HAPPENED to be sitting right on the nightstand. Pretty convenient.

Back on the island:

John is speaking with Caesar again and he brings him to see the injured from the plane. Among the injured is none other than Ben Linus. He tells Caesar that Ben was the man who killed him.

Questions:

• Was Ben injured because the island knew he wasn’t supposed to be back?
  
• Except for New York, why was every other stop on John's itinerary one with a religious name? Santo Domingo, Santa Clara, Los Angeles, Santa Monica. (Props to Phil on this call.)
  

So I'm sure I was in the minority feeling a little disappointed by this one. Help me out. What did you love about it? What did I miss that would have endeared me more to the ep? Comment below!

Hello Lamppost, whatcha knowin'?

Mrs. Hawking loves to gossip and tell secrets. Jack makes a stop at the butcher’s for some meat. Ben looks like raw meat. Locke gets some fresh kicks. Frank J. Lapidus is the new spokesman for the Schick Quattro razor. Hurley dropped coin on several dozen plane tickets and takes a swim. And Jin gets a new job, proving Obama’s stimulus package is working.

Lost 5x06: 316

Let’s start with the obvious. An episode titled 316 has to be a Biblical reference…and it’s a doozy:

John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Locke, anyone?

On the island:
Episode opens as the series opened: Jack’s eye close up and Jack on the jungle floor. But this isn’t 2004. They’ve made it back.

Jack runs toward Hurley’s voice and makes it to the lagoon. Hurley’s floating on a guitar case. Jack saves him in chest-deep water (ha) and sees Kate on the rocks on the shore. He wakes her up and they begin recounting how they got there. Yes, they’re back!

In Los Angeles, 46 hours earlier:
Mrs. Hawking is lighting a candle in the church as Ben, Jack, Sun and Desmond arrive. She’s in front of a painting of Thomas the Apostle, The Indcredulity of Saint Thomas. She takes them downstairs to the pendulum chamber. She tells them…well…everything! The DHARMA Initiative built this structure and called it the Lamppost. The station’s purpose is to find the island in time, though it can find other points of energy on the planet as well. More specifically, they used the station to try to figure out where the island is GOING TO BE.

Geek alert: There’s a US Army photo of the island from Sept. 23, 1954 in the Lamppost in the binder Hawking gives to Jack. The US Army photo was taken exactly 50 years plus a day from the crash of Oceanic 815. (Though on the other side of the International Date Line, the 23rd would still be the 22nd in the US, perhaps making it 50 years to the day of the crash.)













She tells them that they have to take Ajira Airways flight 316, as that will fly directly over the coordinates at the exact moment in time necessary and they need to be on that flight.

Desmond confronts her for ruining four years of his life, and she tells him that the island is not done with him yet. But he storms off telling Jack and the others that they should ignore whatever she says. (Felt like Sayid telling Hurley to do the exact opposite of whatever Ben told him to do…)

Mrs. Hawking gives Locke’s suicide note to Jack and explains that John is going to be a proxy for Christian Shephard. Jack chooses not to read it though. She tells Jack that he needs to get something of his father’s and bring in on the flight and asks him if he believes it will work. She tells Jack that he has to take a leap of faith. Faith continues to be a strong theme and, at least for now, working in tandem with the science of the Lamppost Station.

He talks to Ben in the church who tells Jack that he needs to believe and not be like Thomas, the apostle, who was best known for not believing that Jesus was resurrected saying he needed to touch Jesus’ wounds to believe. The Caravaggio painting again drives the point home. (It’s not like the writers of Lost to be so blatant with their metaphors and clues. Though there is a limited amount of time left in the series, so perhaps they feel compelled to start blurting out the answers.)

Ben says he has a loose end to tie up – we can assume this meant killing Widmore’s daughter, Penny, as he promised he would.

Jack visits a retirement home. Turns out he has a grandfather, Ray. (Seems an odd thing to never have come up in any flashbacks or forwards that he was still alive.) Ol’ granddad is watching a magic show with a white rabbit with a black spot. (Allusion to Ben’s rabbit?)

In a suitcase he’d packed, Ray had a pair of Christian’s shoes Jack’s mother had mistakenly given him. (Questions: Isn’t that convenient that the home would call Jack to come talk to Ray and Ray would have a pair of shoes his dad owned handy? And Couldn’t Jack have just taken Ray who hated the retirement home anyway along with him? He’s related to Christian? Just a thought.)

Back at Jack’s place, it turns out that Kate is there and miserable about what she had to do with Aaron. She tells Jack he cannot ask about him. (The guess my wife had, which makes total sense: Kate gave him to Claire’s mom, which works considering she was in LA for the seemingly unnecessarily long trip to pick up a check from Oceanic Airlines.)

Kate and Jack spend the night together and the following morning, Jack tells Kate that the shoes that are there were his dad’s and the he was the one who put the white tennis shoes on Christian’s body, since he didn’t think his dad was worth a good pair of shoes.

Geek alert: White shoes on Christian; Black shoes on Locke. Is this a good/evil allusion? Or is Locke actually worth the good shoes, meaning he’s the rightful ruler of the island as he’s been led to believe?

Ben calls Jack in a panic. He’s been badly injured and is a mess. Ben tells him that he needs to pick up Locke’s coffin at Simon’s Butcher Shop.

Geek alerts: Several Simon options here… Simon Peter was Jesus’ key apostle; he denied Jesus three times the night before he was crucified and upon whom the Church is built. There is also Simon the Zealot, an apostle about whom little has been written. Also, Simon was the name of one of Jesus’ stepbrothers.

Jack speaks with Jill the butcher who gets Ben’s van for him and Jack puts Christian’s black shoes onto Locke and tucks the suicide note into his pocket.

At the airport and aboard Ajira 316:
Jack is checking in and explaining the transport of Locke’s body to the ticket agent. A strange man offers his condolences. He sees Sun and Kate there and we see Hurley in the gate waiting area.

Geek alert: Hurley’s reading a Spanish comic book called “El Ultimo Hombre”, a translation of “Y: The Last Man”, a comic series about the only man to survive the simultaneous death of every male mammal on earth. (Similar to the problem of all pregnant women on the island dying…)


The gate agent makes an announcement about standby and Hurley wigs out and says that he bought 78 seats and doesn’t want any of them filled with standby passengers.

When Jack boards, he sees Sayid in custody and is confused. And he’s similarly confused that Hurley is on board. Who told Hurley to get on that flight. (My guess – with the guitar case he’s carrying, it was Charlie who told him he needed to go.)

Ben boards the plane just before they’re closing the door and he’s shocked to see Sayid there. (Is this because Sayid is the one who kicked the crap out of Ben? My guess: Ben turned in Sayid for the crimes Ben had him commit over the last 3 years off the island, knowing that he would be extradited for them on a flight that would take him to or through Guam.)

The freaky guys behind Jack is the only other passenger in first class with the rest of our Oceanic Sixers, Sayid’s marshall and Ben.

The pilot makes an announcement and it’s Frank Lapidus. He comes out to say hello to Jack and realizes the Oceanic Six (well, five without Aaron) and Ben are all aboard and says to Jack, “We’re not going to Guam, are we?”

The flight attendant gives Jack the suicide note which was found during the inspection of the coffin. Ben’s reading Joyce’s “Ulysses”. Jack asks Ben how he can read. Ben replies, “My mother taught me.” (However, his mom died giving birth to Ben.) Jack tells Ben about the note and Ben gives him some privacy to read it. It simply said, “Jack, I wish you had believed me. JL.”

Theory: Whether trying or not, they did simulate Flight 815 in several ways – Locke was in the coffin (like Christian), Sayid was in cuffs (like Kate was), Hurley had a guitar case (like Charlie), and most interestingly, Ben was injured (like Locke). Is Ben even supposed to be there? If not, is he simulating the role that Locke did on 815 in order to try to re-gain control of the island?

Back on the island:
We return to the arrival of Jack, Kate and Hurley, and as they are in the lagoon, a DHARMA van in near-mint condition drives up with the 8-track blasting. Out pops a DHARMA member with a gun pointed at them…and it’s JIN! They yell out his name, and he smiles.


And cut to LOST.
-----

Despite giving us tons of answers, we were spoon-fed most of them in this episode, no? Yes, we have a limited number of episodes left in the series and yes, people want answers, but there was so much detail given and not much was left to the imagination. Notice the painting in the church? In case you missed it, we’ll show it to you again. Oh, still missed it, no worries, Ben will give you the significance of it. And Hawking’s over-exposition of every detail of the Lamppost station was interesting, but so not what we’ve come to expect of Lost.

So what did you think? Like this pace? Or do you agree it might have been over-the-top?

And a leftover Geek Alert: The net was aflutter this week with this speculation: Was that actually Hurley reading the numbers on the 1988 transmission from the radio tower that Montand was listening to on his radio in the beginning of This Place is Death last week? And if it was, does that mean that Hurley set into motion the insanity of the patient in the hospital, Sam Toomey, who repeated the numbers which Hurley used to play the Lotto, which he won and cursed him, and forced him to go to Australia to find Toomey’s wife, and then back on 815 which landed him on the island…like a big crazy loop?

Locke Fell Down and Broke His Crown

John fetches a pail of water and then walks like an Egyptian in the hieroglyph-covered Orchid. Smokey plays fetch with some French folks. Charlotte’s not allowed to have chocolate before dinner. Desmond shows up uninvited to Ben’s party – awkward. Christian gives Locke a D-minus in “follows instructions.” Sun puts the gun down reluctantly. Jin apparently took a crash Berlitz English class while floating in the ocean. Daniel’s been stalking Charlotte for decades. Rousseau develops some serious issues with men. And Ben does his best road trip-dad impression with an: “I will turn this car around right now!” Yet another all-killer, no filler episode of Lost last night!

Lost 5x05: This Place Is Death

In Los Angeles:
Sun gets a call from her mother and the unbearably cute Ji Yeon. She wants to know when Sun is coming back. Sun replies, “I’ll be on a plane tomorrow.” That she will, though it’s not the plane she thought it would be, I’m sure. She hangs up and leaves Aaron in the car to confront Ben.

Sun has her gun sights on Ben for causing Jin’s death. But he drops the ‘Jin’s alive’ bombshell on her and can prove it. He’s got Jin’s wedding band. She agrees to let him take her to someone who can prove it. Kate and Sayid fume off and it seems the plan is falling apart. Sun and Jack are discussing and Ben has a hissy fit, stops the van and says everything he’s done has been to keep them and their friends safe. (It will be quite the mindf--- if it’s revealed at the end of this that Ben actually is a good guy.)

Ben, Jack and Sun arrive at a church to meet the woman who can prove Jin’s alive. At the same exact moment, Desmond pulls up! Made for some nice drama. Ben looks freaked out. (Question: Is this because he knows Widmore sent him or because he wasn’t expecting Des there? Or did he not know that Daniel is Faraday’s son?)

They enter the church and – not-so-big reveal – the lady they’re both there to see is Mrs. Hawking. (The use of the filmed-from-the-back-or-in-the-shadows-and-reveal surprise is getting a bit overdone on Lost, no? Michael, Christian, Mrs. Hawking, Jin, etc…)

Somehow, despite her decree of “God help us all” if Ben didn’t get all of the Oceanic Six to the church in 70 hours, Hawking says, “I suppose it’ll have to do for now. Let’s get started.” Not sure where on the 70-hour timeline they are, but perhaps they have more time to convince Kate (with Aaron), Sayid and Hurley to come along too.

On the island:
Danielle and crew talk to Jin, who says he needs to look for the camp and the helicopter. ‘Planes, helicopters…Next it’ll be a submarine’, Montand jokes. Danielle says that they sailed from Tahiti and that it’s November 15, 1988. Robert, Danielle’s baby daddy, is listening to the radio broadcast with the numbers (4-8-15-16-23-42) that has been broadcasting and asks Jin if he knows if there’s a radio antenna on the island. Jin says yes and then they convince him to take them to the tower before he looks for the camp. They set off and immediately Nadine goes missing. They hear the clickety clack of the smoke monster and they’re looking for Nadine when Smokey crashes up through the ground and Nadine comes crashing down from above – dead. They run and Montand is scanned (?) and then caught by Smokey and dragged. The crew and Jin chase after him and grab hold of him as he’s about to be pulled into the ground. (This is just like the scene when Locke was almost pulled under by Smokey in Season 1.) Just as it seems they might snag him back, Montand’s arm is torn off and the rest of him goes down the hole. Gnarly!

The hole is in front of the Orchid station. The building is covered in hieroglyphics, similar to those on the countdown clock in the Swan station and below the Orchid when Ben went into the frozen donkey wheel room.


Geek alert:


They hear Montand call out for help, saying the monster is gone. Jin warns them not to go, but Robert, Brennan and Lacombe go down the hole. Jin convinces Danielle not to go for the safety of the baby. And suddenly the sky turns purple and Jin is in the future with the decayed arm in front of the temple still.

It’s the near future and Jin makes his way back to the beach, sees Brennan and Lacombe dead, and hears Rousseau and Robert fighting. They are fighting about the monster. Robert says it’s a security system for the temple. Danielle says he’s sick and changed. But he charms her and says he doesn’t want anything bad to happen to her or their baby and he tries to take a shot at her. Too bad…no ammo. Rousseau hits him right between the eyes. Did it seem to anyone else that Robert had been brainwashed or maybe replaced with a new Robert, like an Invasion of the Body Snatchers pod person?

Geek alert: The music box Jin finds is Rousseau’s which Sayid later fixed in Rousseau’s hideout when he was held captive in 2004.


Geek alert: Why did Rousseau’s team need explosives?






Jin steps out and Rousseau accuses him of having the sickness too. He runs into the jungle and the island skips again. Jin shows up back in the present and runs into Sawyer, Locke, Juliet and the rest of that group. It’s an “awwwww” moment when Sawyer and Jin hug. They set off again together for the Orchid and the island flashes numerous times. Charlotte’s near death and Daniel stays behind to help her. She tells Daniel that she was born on the island and lived there until she moved away at 16 with her mother to England. She was also warned by an old man not to go back to the island – and she thinks that man was Daniel. (So much for him not altering the past, huh? Though it seems the universe course corrected and killed her anyway.) More flashes, more nosebleeds, Charlotte dies. The reaction to her hasn’t been overwhelmingly positive, but I will miss her. It is interesting that she’s a person of science and died. More on that later.

At the Orchid Station:
They make it to the station and Juliet remarks, “what are the odds we’d end up in the same time as this thing.” And then Sawyer called her out for jinxing them as time jumped again and the station disappeared. (Question: In such close proximity to the station, shouldn’t some piece of it have remained when they jumped, like their clothes, their backpacks, the canoe, etc.?)

They go to look for the well that Charlotte had tipped them onto and find it. Like Alice in Wonderland, Locke decides to go down the well in a scene reminiscent of John going into the hatch in season two. Sawyer says they should lower him, Locke asks, “Where would be the fun in that?” Time flashes, light emanates from the bottom of the well, Locke goes plummeting down the well and Sawyer is left playing tug of war with several tons of topsoil.

John fell down and broke his crown…er…leg. Locke’s got some revolting bone protrusion when someone walks up, lights a lantern and reveals (again with the secret reveal) himself as Christian Shephard. He’s tells John he’s there to guide him. He also chides John for not having been the one to move the island as he told him to in Jacob’s cabin. He has to do it, but Christian can’t help him. (Seems to me this is because Christian is an appartition and not physically there.) Christian tells John he has to go to Los Angeles and look for Mrs. Hawking to help get the others back to the island. John says that Richard said he was going to have to die, and Christian says “that’s why they call it sacrifice.”

Locke manages to hobble up and into the frozen donkey wheel room. The wheel is skipping around, seemingly the cause for the island’s frequent jumping. John manages to push the wheel and Christian looks on approvingly.

“Say hi to my son,” says Christian. Of course time flashes right before he can say who his son is…

---
Question: Locke & Faraday are the only ones who don’t have bloody noses yet. Why not them?

Half-baked theory: My brother brought this up, so credit to Phil. But it’s interesting that Charlotte, a woman of science, died. Could this mean that it all comes back to faith. There’s quite a possible religious parallel:

• Jacob is God. Christian is Jacob? Or at least a messenger for Him?
• John Locke is Jesus – the son of God who has to sacrifice himself to save the world
• Ben represents Lucifer or Satan, the fallen angel who was cast down from Heaven, the island.

We'll see...

Killer episode last night. It really propelled the storytelling ahead. What did you think? Comment, debunk, debate.

Jin Returns!

The island time jumpers join the Lost varsity crew team. The French I took in high school wasn’t needed to figure out who the new/old castaways were. The dad from My So-Called Life is the busiest (or only?) lawyer in LA. Sayid and Ben become BFFs again. Sun might just be the worst babysitter in the world. And Jin auditions as a “before” model for a lip balm commercial. Wait…uh…JIN!?!

Meet me at Slip 23 in Long Beach, it’s another episode of LOST. “Thank the Lord!”

Lost 5x04: The Little Prince

“The Little Prince” provided a couple of “oh crap!” moments, but wasn’t the crazy, answer-filled episode we’ve seen the last couple of weeks. Still, we got one of the happiest – but also most anticipated – answers of the series so far.

On Penny’s boat:
We open the episode with Jack and Kate on the deck of Penny’s ship before the Oceanic Six are rescued. Kate says to Jack, “I have always been with you.” I guess the monkey love scene in the cage with Sawyer, among others, doesn’t count?

On the island:
Charlotte wakes up and has no recollection of Daniel, but soon comes around. (Where in time was Charlotte when she was out?) Miles cracks, “Hooray, everything’s back to normal.” The time skippers head for the Orchid Station and en route, they skip through time. It’s night and they hopped back to the moment post-crash where Locke knocked on the hatch and the beam of light shot up. (Either that or they are able to see that beam of light from the top of the Luxor in Las Vegas.) It’s also the night Kate helped Claire deliver Aaron. Sawyer sees them in the jungle and freezes up. (Chicken!) Though if he had spoken to her, he might have changed time, so it’s best he didn’t.

Miles’ nose starts to bleed and Daniel explains that it’s related to duration of exposure. I think there’s no question any longer that Miles was born on the island and is Dr. Marvin Candle’s son. They make it back to the beach and the camp’s empty and all the supplies are gone. There’s a canoe on the beach, but the Zodiac is gone. They start to paddle around the horn of the island and the paddlers of a mysterious canoe in pursuit start shooting at the canoe.

Geek alert: There was an Ajira Airways water bottle in the boat. Who took an Ajira flight there? Juliet’s “They fly everywhere” line is not a throwaway. Was it the Oceanic Six? And was the O6 shooting at Locke and crew on the canoe? If so, why? To stop them from making it to the Orchid station?

Geek alert/Question: Why didn’t the canoe disappear in the flash? Were the canoes on the island prior to Rousseau’s crew getting shipwrecked? And if so, whose were they?, where have they been?, and why were they on the beach in the future?

The shooting continues but just as all seems lost, time skips. Sawyer says, “Thank you lord!” as the sky lights up, but they wind up in a monsoon at night. “I take that back!” They make it to the beach and there’s signs of a recent ship wreck. Some of the debris has French writing on it, including a canister with the word, BESIXDOUZE.

Geek alert: Be (B)-six (6)-douze (12). B-612 was the asteroid home of the prince in The Little Prince.
Related Geek alert: The little prince had a snake bite him so he would die and go “home”. Similar to Locke having to die to go "home"? (Or is this foreshadowing of Aaron's fate?)

Flashback:
An old school flashback with new characters! We see the life raft of the boat that was shipwrecked. It’s a French crew and they pull aboard someone floating on debris. And it’s JIN! (Though I don’t think many people thought he was really dead, if you say you saw this reveal coming you’re a boldfaced liar.) They get to the beach, Jin wakes up and is in bad need of some Blistex. STAT! The woman caring for him was a 16 year younger Danielle Rousseau. Welcome back, crazy French lady!

Question: Doesn’t this create a paradox? Shouldn’t older Danielle Rousseau have recognized Jin in the future?

In Los Angeles:
Kate visits the Agostini & Norton law firm and asks Dan Norton, aka My So-Called Dad, to speak to the person requesting her blood. Norton says his client will say no.

Sayid is in the hospital and Jack is treating him. Jack gets called out and Sayid takes out a fake nurse with his I.V. line. (Is there anything he can’t use a weapon?) Fake nurse had Kate’s address in his wallet. (Geek alert: 42 Panorama Crest)

Later, Kate and Jack pull a stakeout and follow Dan Norton to a hotel. He’s there meeting with Claire’s mother. Jack approaches her, but she claims she’s only in LA to collect the settlement from Oceanic. (So is Dan Norton the busiest lawyer in Los Angeles, or is she lying? Doesn’t seem she is, but it does seem odd that she’d have to fly to LA from Australia to collect a settlement check.)

Ben and Sayid drive to a parking garage and meet with Dan Norton. He's apparently working for Ben and has determined Hurley will be released the next morning.

Geek alert:
Canton-Rainier on the side of Ben’s van is an anagram for REINCARNATION. Wasn’t Locke in the van?



Jack and Kate drive to Slip 23 at the Long Beach marina and meet up with Ben and Sayid. Ben admits to being the one who hired Agostini & Norton. However he didn’t explain why, of course. No answers on why he was also seemingly working for Oceanic too. The scene ends as we see Sun about to step out of the car with a gun - the assumption is to use it against Ben.


So what did you think? Hit me up with some thoughts or comments.