“There’s no place like home.” Dorothy famously uttered the phrase in The Wizard of Oz, and it’s also the name of last night’s episode. The difference is that Dorothy realized everything she needed was right where she left it before the tornado hit. The Oceanic Six, on the other hand, are conflicted and don’t all appear to be thrilled about being “found.” And as I’ll explain below, several of them come to realize that everything they needed was actually back on the island. Perhaps they may have been better off as castaways.

Lost 4x12: There's No Place Like Home

SYNOPSIS
Jack is finally clued in to the show’s worst-kept secret, Hurley has a rockin’ luau, Sun owns Mr. Paik’s company and Mr. Paik gets ‘owned’ by her too, Sayid gets a blast from the past, On-Island Alpert finally makes an appearance this season, the freighter is raring to blow, Daniel goes from nerd to hero, Ben surrenders, and Jim’s proposal to Pam gets upstaged by Andy…oh wait - scratch that last one.

Full explanation after the jump.

Off The Island:

The episode begins on the Coast Guard cargo plane flying the Oceanic Six to Hawaii. An Oceanic representative, Ms. Decker, is explaining that there will be a press conference. Why would an airline want or need to use a military flight to return them to Hawaii? The pilot seemed to realize there was something special about the “cargo.” They land at military facility near Honolulu. (Barbers Point Coast Guard Air Station.)

Family members are there to meet them. Mr. & Mrs. Paik, Hurley’s mom & dad, Jack’s mom; but no one’s there for Sayid, Kate or Aaron.

The press conference reveals the story that after the plane crashed in the water, they drifted with life vests and seat cushions to an uninhabited island in Indonesia, and had the good fortune of having a pallet of food and supplies wash up on shore during a typhoon. They later made it to a nearby island and the town of Manukangga, where some fisherman took a photo of them arriving on shore. (While I guess it’s possible, what are the odds that fishermen would be carrying around their camera on a beach?) Their story states that everyone else either died in the crash or in the ocean before making it to the island.

The Oceanic rep tells Sayid that Noor (Nadia) Abed Jazeem, who was not on the list, was there to see him. (Was this a reference to Ben’s and Jacob’s various lists and the “good people” being on the list?) Nadia has made her way to Sayid. And Sayid, the romantic, is finally happy again. She was there with a police officer however, so it seems she’s there with protection or perhaps in custody – the CIA used her as a bargaining tool for Sayid’s loyalty at one point, though she was later supposed to be working as a lab tech in California, so it’s not clear why she’d need protection at this point.

Sun visits her dad at the office. Mr. Paik’s a bit freaked out about something to do with five banks. We find out that Sun has used her settlement from Oceanic to buy a controlling stake in Paik Heavy Industries. She’s going to call the shots now, as a payback for Mr. Paik’s place in Jin’s death.

Exactly how much $$$ could and the survivors and Oceanic have settled for – even if she received a payout for Jin as well? Isn’t Paik’s company a billion dollar enterprise? Could Sun being among the Oceanic Six be a part of the larger plot for control of the island? Perhaps she’s being bankrolled in order to throw off the power balance for control. She blamed her father as one of two people responsible for Jin’s death. Who is the other? Widmore? Ben? Sun herself? I’m holding out hope that she’s using his death metaphorically and Jin’s still alive on the island.

Next we see Hurley get home with a bag of food from Mr. Cluck’s Chicken Shack, the restaurant he bought – the one that was destroyed by the meteorite. The front door is open, and there’s a coconut on the floor. Next, we hear whispers – a clever similarity by the writers to the island’s whispers. His parents are throwing him a party – a luau, actually. His dad shows him the car they’d been restoring together, a project he finished. But Hurley bolts when he realizes the car’s odometer is at 48,151.6 and the trip meter is at 234.2. Are all of these things together too much of a similarity? Is his father trying to push him mentally over the edge, like when he paid the psychic to freak him out?

This scene contains the line of the night: Hurley was holding the statue, ready to hit whoever was whispering, and his mother was appalled and exclaimed, “Jesus Christ is not a weapon!”

Finally, we’re at Jack’s father’s memorial. Kate and Aaron are there, as is Hurley. But the real surprise is a visit from Claire’s mother. Claire’s mother dropped the ‘s-bomb’ – “sister” – on Jack, and revealed Christian was also Claire’s father. Tears began to flow. If the pills on the island weren’t the start of his spiral toward addiction, this news likely will be. Claire’s mother tells Kate how beautiful her baby is. Did she see similarities to Claire in Aaron?

Question: How exactly was Claire’s mother – who was on her deathbed in a coma – make it to Christian’s memorial service? When Christian visited Claire’s mom in Australia, he told Claire that she didn’t have to live like that. Perhaps the island’s magic helped her recover, even though Claire didn’t take Christian up on his offer.

On The Island:

Jack listens to the radio and hears Keamy’s team say “employ the Orchid” and “secondary protocol,” none of which means anything to him. But Daniel gets a little twitchy as he and Charlotte flip thru his marble composition notebook. Besides the phrases “Time Like Factors” and “Space Like Factor,” there is a large DHARMA Orchid logo as well. He tells them all they need to get off the island right away.

After meeting in the jungle, Jack and Sawyer set out to try and rescue Hurley. The interchange between them is pretty cool since it seems like they’re swapping places. Jack yells out “sonuvabitch!,” Sawyer’s catchphrase. And Sawyer tells Jack, “you don’t get to die alone”, reminiscent of Jack’s “live together die alone” speech. When they’re walking through the jungle, Sawyer asks him about the blood on his shirt, and Jack replies, “I’m separating.” Sure, it’s a term to describe his surgical wound coming apart, but there’s something more to that statement. (Anyone care to help me out with that?)

Ben, Locke and Hurley continue their mission to the Orchid Station. Ben finds a box he’d buried, in which there was a tin containing 15-year old crackers (Hurley eats them), a rope, a leather pack, and a mirror. He uses the mirror to send signals to the top of the mountain. He receives signals back. Was he communicating with Apert’s team at the Temple, Jacob, someone else?

Ben’s mirror had printing on the back and what looked like the crosshairs of a gun’s scope. I’m sure some intrepid bloggers have already isolated and transcribed what’s on there, but I’m not any closer, even with a hi-res screen-grab.

(pic credit: losteastereggs.blogspot.com)

After Ben sends his mirror message, they set out for the Orchid. Ben stops them in the jungle as they approach it. He realizes Keamy and team are already at the Station and Ben says they’re there for him. Locke confronts Ben about this and he replies, “I wasn’t being entirely truthful.” Locke retorts, “When have you ever been entirely truthful?” Locke’s not sure what to do next, but Ben’s confident. “When are you going to realize I always have a plan?”

Ben gives Locke the instructions on how to get into the Orchid Station and he goes to distract them. Instead, he walks right up to them and surrenders. “My name is Benjamin Linus. I believe you’re looking for me?” Keamy pistol whips him with his gun.

Question: Locke knows how to get into the station. But what’s he supposed to do once he takes that elevator down there? Ben hasn’t clued him in about anything.

On The Freighter:

Faraday’s first group of islanders makes it to the freighter, including Sun, Jin and Aaron. This is the first time they’re seeing Michael and you could cut the tension with a knife.

Michael repaired the engines and they start out toward the island with the freighter. But there’s a radio signal interfering with the sonar. Desmond goes to look for the source, and they find a room filled with C4 explosives. I guess we know what that arm thingy on Keamy is for now.

Sun makes her way up to the deck and we have to wait 2 weeks for the answers to what happens. Though we can at least be confident that Sun and Aaron made it off the island safely.

So, the episode was plot-heavy, mythology-lite one. But it’s probably not fair to judge it since we’ve only seen what is 1/3 of the finale episode. What did you think? Hit me up with some comments below.

The Resurrection of Christian Shephard

(Note - this is a re-post of an old entry - somehow went missing)

Like the black smoke monster in last week's episode, this season of LOST has mostly moved along like a freight train. Last night's episode, "Something Nice Back Home", was more like a leisurely double-decker bus tour of a city with the fanny-packed masses. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with straightforward storytelling and revisiting of the beach crew. It was kind of nice…quaint, even. But with a shorter than normal season, followed by a further truncated number of post-strike episodes, a storytelling episode is not what I was expecting.

Half-siblings Jack and Claire both got visits from Daddy, Jin pwned Charlotte, Kate scampered around in her skivvies, Claire leaves Aaron safely in a tree (huh?), Karl and Danielle were unequivocally taking dirt naps, Hurley plays the telephone game with Jack, Saywer's heart grew three sizes and Miles was still a douche.

On the beach:

Tight close up on Jack's eye, just like the season 1 pilot episode. Could this indicate that a new Jack woke up? (See Alice idea below…) Jack's got appendicitis and needs emergency surgery. Juliet sends Sun and Faraday to the medical station to retrieve supplies. Charlotte and Jin tag along.

When they return, Jin pulls Charlotte aside and says to her, in Korean, that he knows she speaks Korean and that she understood what he and Sun had been talking about. After some denial, Jin threatens to break Daniel's fingers one by one until she tells the truth. She answers him in Korean. While not out of the realm of possibility for an anthropologist to speak Korean, could this be a clue that she has some connection to Mr. Paik, Sun's father?

Jack's surgery was a success, despite less than sterile conditions and no anesthesia, and a surgical staff consisting of a fertility doctor, a dentist and a fugitive.

In the jungle:

Sawyer, Claire, Aaron and Miles continue their journey back to the beach. Sawyer gives Miles a restraining order against Claire. (Sawyer's become very protective of her and has evolved pretty dramatically from his "every man for himself" days.)

Frank Lapidus comes barreling through the jungle and convinces them to hide because Keamy and his team right behind him. (Why weren't they killed by the smoke monster?) Frank convinces Keamy to keep going to the helicopter, despite Aaron's whimper almost giving them up.

In a clearing, Miles has a ghostbuster moment and can hear the last moments of Rousseau and Karl. He uncovers their bodies, which are barely buried.

After continuing their journey, they set up camp and Claire gets awoken by an unexpected visitor: Christian Shephard, who's holding Aaron. (Dun dun dun…)

When Sawyer wakes in the morning, Miles calmly says that she went off with someone she called "Dad", and Sawyer follows Aaron's cries to find him safely in a tree. Claire is nowhere to be found.

Will we see Claire again in the episodes ahead? Or will she be gone for much of the rest of the season, like when Ethan kidnapped her in season one?

Flash forward:

Jack and Kate are playing house, raising Aaron together. Jack reads a newspaper article about the Yankees sweeping the Red Sox in a 3-game series with a 5-0 win. Based on actual events, that puts the paper's date as August 31, 2007.

(pic credit: Losteastereggs.blogspot.com)

Geek alert: Jack tripped on a Millennium Falcon, another ode to Star Wars.

Later, Jack is reading to Aaron from Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" – "How queer everything is

today! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle!" The passage is not unlike Jack's transformation. We see the close up of his eye at the beginning of the episode. (Is this a new Jack?)

At the hospital, Jack is doing a consultation on a patient when he sees his father walking through the lobby. His colleague, Dr. Erika Stevens, snaps him out of it and Christian's gone. She asks him to review a patient's x-rays. It's an L-4 tumor – the same vertebra where Ben had his tumor. He gets a call from the administrator at Santa Rosa Hospital to come see Hurley.

When he visits, Hurley is despondent. He's claims that the Oceanic 6 are all dead and reveals that he's been seeing Charlie. (Seems this is a regular occurrence now.) Charlie's left a message for Jack: "You're not supposed to raise him." Hurley tells Jack that he'll be visited by someone soon. (Is this a reference to Dickens and A Christmas Carol with Scrooge getting visits from the 3 ghosts? Is the hope that he will change back to that pre-appendectomy Jack?)

Jack goes home and proposes to Kate, who accepts. Jaters rejoiced. Skaters booed.

Back at the hospital the next evening, Jack's reviewing the chart again when he hears a beeping outside his office. Turns out it's a smoke detector's low battery beep. He removes the battery from the detector and sees his dad again. Christian calls out Jack's name. He's startled. But his colleague, Erika, walks in and when Jack turns back, his father is gone. He asks her to write him a prescription because he's overworked and stressed.

Geek alert: Was the fact that the smoke detector was beeping some sort of wink from the writers that Christian is a manifestation of the black smoke monster? (Though it also vaguely sounded like the button timer beeping from the now-imploded hatch.)

Geek alert 2: Why is it that Erika shows up both times Jack sees his father? Is she somehow related? Or is she protecting Jack from him? And was the connection to her patient with the L-4 tumor a coincidence, or is she connected to Ben?

Geek alert 3: On the wall behind Jack are the names of the other doctors in the practice there. Directly behind him, are the names "Gardez" and "Evenson". Gardez is French for "keep". Was this a clue that Jack should stay with or keep Aaron?

(pic credit: losteastereggs.blogspot.com)

Jack arrives home to find Kate on the phone. He's suspicious and asks her who it was. Kate gets some water from the fridge, which is covered with kids' art. However, closer inspection also shows a monster-type cutout (black smoke monster?) on the freezer door and a shark, perhaps, on the top of the fridge door.

Geek alert: The flowers, ladybugs and butterflies on the fridge were the same as those on the wall in Hurley's hospital when Matthew Abaddon visited him in the first episode of the season.

(pic credit: getlostpodcast.com)

Let's discuss:

• Why does Jack only marry people he saves? First, Sarah. Then Kate. And why does he turn on them when there's nothing left to save?
• Rose posed the question, and it was a valid one: Why did Jack get sick on the island that heals people? Is he doing something he's not supposed to be doing? Is the island trying to keep him from getting people rescued?
• Why didn't Smokey kill Keamy's crew?
• Why would Keamy and his crew have buried Rousseau and Karl at all? If they didn't, who did? And why were they buried in such shallow graves?
• Faraday asks Charlotte where all this electrical power is coming from. She says to add it to the list. Is this merely a list of the island's unanswered questions?

While I enjoy a break from the frenetic pace the show can take, I wasn't expecting a slower-moving episode just the second week after the strike-induced hiatus. Though at the end of the day, a mediocre episode of LOST is better than anything else on TV. What did you think? Were you disappointed? Or did you think the episode was killer? Comment below with your thoughts.

They changed the rules on us

LOST returned from hiatus last night with an all-killer/no-filler, story-based episode titled “The Shape of Things to Come”. If this type of intensity is the shape of things to, I might need some adult diapers. Ben showed us some of his ninja moves, Charles Widmore upped the ante, the Black Smoke Monster took the bullet train to Othersville, we say goodbye to an innocent pawn, we learned Claire is made of Teflon, Bernard gets to practice the Morse Code skills he learned in dental school, and Ben took in the sights in some beautiful parts of the world.

LOST 4x09: The Shape of Things to Come

“The Shape of Things to Come” will likely be seen as one of those “game changer” episodes. They’ve changed the rules of how they will tell the story of these characters and this island moving forward. Sure, the episode relied heavily on a flash forward – Ben’s. But the storytelling was so intense that the mythology of the island almost played second fiddle to the plot.


On the island:

Alex hits the panic button when her captors – the motley crew from the freighter led by Keamy – try to get to Ben. Locke answers the phone and hears the emergency message, “Code 14 J.” Ben tries to barricade himself in the house, but Keamy bargains with Alex’s life to get Ben to surrender. Ben, in both a selfless and callous move, says that he doesn’t care about her, figuring they’ll let her go. Keamy proves himself the ruthless mercenary that he is and actually carries out the execution.

Ben was stunned, as were we all. As if Alex’s short life wasn’t sad enough, she died thinking Ben didn’t love her. This is the most sympathetic moment we have for Ben since being introduced to him, trapped in that net a couple of seasons ago. Ben announces “he changed the rules” and goes into action mode.

He exposes his hidden office and shuts a security door behind him. But not before we get a glimpse of what’s behind a wall of suits in there – some sort of cave or tunnel door. It’s covered with hieroglyphs and other symbols. Want to take a shot at deciphering them? Feel free. Seems to me this is something left behind by the original island inhabitants – the ones who built that four-toed statue we have yet to get the scoop on.

(Photo from losteastereggs.blogspot.com)



Right before they were attacked, Hurley put Aaron on a pillow in a laundry basket. Is this an allusion to Moses in the basket being sent down the river? Will Aaron be the key to the Oceanic 6’s freedom or safety? Or perhaps Future Aaron will play a key role in leading the Losties back home.

(Photo from losteastereggs.blogspot.com)


The crew blows up Claire’s house with her in it. But somehow, she emerges with just a scratch on her face. Good luck explaining that one.

Back on the beach, the freighter’s doctor washes onto the shore with a slit throat and a stitching job across his cheek that looked like shoelaces. I guess the poor guy probably had to stitch himself up, though. Bernard suggests Faraday try to fix the radio to send Morse Code since the microphone is broken. They manage to make it work and Daniel sends a message asking about Sayid, Desmond and the doctor. Faraday says the reply is “friends are fine – helicopters coming in the morning.” But Bernard utilizes that dental school training in Morse Code (huh?) to translate the real message, “What are you talking about? The doctor is fine.” Yet another time glitch perhaps – the island time is actually ahead of the freighter and the real world by some amount of time.

Ben emerges from the room and tells them they need to run for the treeline. The house begins to shake and the Black Smoke Monster comes racing at the freighter crew like a bullet train. Ben clearly called in the island’s backup defense system, and it does a number on them.

Sawyer’s takes Claire and Aaron back to the beach. Hurley, however, has work to do with Locke and Ben, and they set off to find Jacob’s cabin for further instructions.


Off the island:

Ben appears out of breath in the Sahara Desert wearing a parka with the name Halliwax on it. Why he’s wearing a parka, we’re not sure. Perhaps there are no non-stop routes from the island, and he had a stopover in Antartica. He also had a gash in his arm. Maybe he encountered one of the polar bears on his trip. Two men on horses question him and Ben takes them both down with some kickass Rambo style moves.

(Photo from losteastereggs.blogspot.com)


Geek alert: Edgar Halliwax was the name given by the narrator in the Orchid Station orientation film. He called himself Dr. Marvin Candle in the video for the Swan Station and Dr. Mark Wickmund in the Pearl Station film.

Back from commercials, we see Ben in Tunisia checking into a hotel as a preferred guest using his Dean Moriarty passport from “The Economist” episode. The hotel employee seems alarmed. He asks what day it is, and she replies “October 24th.” “2005?” he asks. Ben sees a TV report of news crews hounding Sayid as he begs, “Please, I just want to bury my wife in peace.” Ben high tails it to Tikrit, Iraq, and although in the middle of a war zone, he manages to use press credentials to get to the top of a building where he photographs a bald man. Sayid catches a glimpse of Ben on the roof and then ambushes him. He didn’t realize it was Ben (is there paparazzi in a war zone?), but Ben convinces him the bald man is working for Widmore and was responsible for Nadia’s death.

Later, we see Ben chasing after the bald man again, but Sayid takes him down and empties out his handgun into the guy. Sayid volunteers to work with Ben, who walks away with a smirk. Was this Ben’s plan all along?

Next we see Ben in London. He enters a posh building and tells the doorman he’s visiting the Kendricks in 4E. However, he uses his key to access the penthouse and walks into Widmore’s bedroom. This ain’t no late-night booty call, and he’s not there to kill Widmore either. He’s there to confront him on having changed the game by killing Alex and to let him know that now he’s going to kill Penny. The rules appear to have been that no family would be killed, but Ben’s going tit for tat.

Ben cannot kill Widmore. Will the island not let him or is Ben still following some rules despite them having been changed by Widmore?

Did you take note of how stunningly this scene was filmed, with shadows and both Ben and Widmore only half-lit. It seems to play off the whole idea of light/dark, black/white, good/evil.

There are some fans that are drawing connections to theories of dark matter coming into play. Feel free to check the link for a detailed description, but be prepared for a serious headache.

(Photos from losteastereggs.blogspot.com)


For discussion: Hurley, Locke and Sawyer are playing the game Risk at the beginning of the episode. Hurley gets frustrated at Sawyer and says that “Australia is the key to the whole game.” Is this a clue that the writers view this all as a big power struggle – perhaps with the armies of Widmore (and Paik) advancing on the island? Perhaps Australia actually is the key to understanding what is going on here.


The shape of things to come on LOST is good since the writers keep raising the bar. What did you think? Leave me some comments in Morse Code below.