LOST 6x17/18: "Perfectly perfect in every way"

The finale of LOST was one of the most highly anticipated television events ever -or at least hyped as such. The ratings seemed to support this, as they remained fairly steady for the duration of the episode – an unprecedented occurrence for a single event that lasted two and a half hours. If you’re reading this blog, you undoubtedly watched the episode, and you’ve probably been debating it for the last couple of days anyway. So rather than recap the full episode, I’d rather share with you my reaction to it and a couple of parallels I drew.

I loved it. I haven’t been uniformly positive about every episode of the series, but this was an amazing finale. Yes, it was sentimental. No, we didn’t see Walt or get the answer to what the numbers really meant or get the Man In Black’s name. (It was Samuel, by the way, according to a video clip on E!'s site.) And yes, it got pretty dusty in the room numerous times on Sunday night. But I feel great about “The End”.


Lost 6x17/18: The End


Top moments from the finale:

• The Jack vs. UnLocke Crouching Tiger-like fight scene on the cliff. Epic in the storytelling, this was an epic moment in cinematography, as well.
  

• Jack hands the keys to the island to Hurley. Hurley was always a fan favorite, and probably the most innocent among them. He was also a very simple, but that also made him pure and a very similar choice to Jacob.
  

• Locke and Ben's conversation outside the church. It was good to see Ben's redemption continue and that he wanted to continue his life with Alex and perhaps Rousseau to repent for his on-island denial of her. To see John Locke kick away that wheelchair and embrace the island was a great moment.
  

• Juliet and Sawyer finally go Dutch. The moment in LA X when Juliet is dying in Sawyer's arms is paid off finally as they meet at the candy machine over, of course, an Apollo Bar. To see their recognition was perhaps better than any other "awawkening" on the finale. (Though I'm sure some Sawyer/Kate "Skaters" felt otherwise.)
  

• The callbacks to earlier episodes. From Jack and Locke looking down the golden cave waterfall toward Desmond reminding us of looking down the Swan hatch at him, to Juliet giving Sun a sonogram again, to Vincent and Jack in the bamboo forest, to the literal cork in the island that was keeping good in and evil out...
  

• The score. Michael Giacchino's score was at least as important as any other element of LOST, and perhaps even more important than most. Thankfully, they made the decision for the series to use Giacchino and a live orchestra to score the series. In case the ending of LOST didn't get you somewhere between teary and sobbing, Giacchino's score undoubtedly did. Or else you have no heart.
  

* * * *

Some of my thoughts on the episode generally...

One theory of the Big Bang is that the Universe will eventually attain a critical density after many billions more years of expansion. It will reach its maximum size and then begin to contract, pulling in on itself and eventually ending with a dense mass of hot matter – known as the Big Crunch – resuming to a state similar to that in which the Universe started. As this happens, at least as I imagine it, the closer the matter returns to the Big Crunch state, the faster it moves.

This is how I interpreted the last season of LOST. We saw the Universe of the Losties begin to contract into the Big Crunch (or the big church?). And as we neared the end of the season, the action began occurring faster – Jin and Sun got a quick goodbye, Widmore no more, Sayid see you later…

The series ended much the way it began, with Vincent finding Jack on the beach and a close up on his eye. Except now, as the Big Crunch completes its contraction, we see Jack die, content as he sees a plane fly overhead that the next Big Bang will take a different path.

* * * *





One other thought I’ve been stuck with since yesterday… The final scene in the apparently non-denomonational church (on the stained glass window were a Christian Cross, a Jewish Star of David, a Hindu Om, a Muslim Star and Crescent Moon, a Buddhist Dharma Wheel, and a Tao Yin & Yang) felt to me a lot like the final scene in the 1984 film, Places in the Heart, a movie I saw as a kid. The film, set in the 1930s South, ends in an idealistic scene of redemption where all the characters are celebrating communion together at a church – black and white, killer and victim, alive and dead, etc. Regardless of their places or their actions in life or even when they died, they were all together spiritually. In the final battle of science vs. faith on LOST, the writers make the statement that the winner is faith.

* * * *

I can understand the confusion or even frustration of many fans. The ambiguity of elements of the final episode – and especially the final shots of the wreckage of an Oceanic flight – might appear to negate all of what we’d watched for the last 6 years…perhaps even negating anything we’d learned about the mythology of the island – from Jacob and MIB to the Dharma Initiative to the Others and the 815ers. I don’t believe that’s the case at all. Everything that happened on the island happened. After all, we know that on LOST, Whatever Happened, Happened.






In the Jimmy Kimmel reunion/recap special, Jimmy points out that in the season premiere, “LA X”, as the turbulence starts to subside, Rose tells Jack, “You can let go now. It’s ok, you can let go.” This was the first clue – in retrospect, a massive one – that the sideways was all leading to Jack letting go and crossing over. However, that off-island sideways flashes were happening in the limbo of Jack’s mind as he was stumbling through the bamboo forest. (Coincidentally, bamboo is tied to the creation myth in some Asian cultures.) He lays down there, just as we’d first found him, with Vincent escorting him again to his next phase…letting go.


As Juliet is giving Sun a sonogram, she tells Sun that her baby is "perfectly perfect in every way." LOST had its missteps, but as far as an overall television experience, it was a near-perfect experience to me.


Thank you, LOST, for six amazing years of unprecedented television.



Drop your comments, interpretations or recipes below.

- Sean Salo

LOST 6x14: Ocean of tears

The LOSTies try to fly the friendly skies, but instead swim the angry seas. Bernard accuses Jack of making a move on Rose. Sayid makes one hell of a bang as he sacrifices himself. Sun and Jin were apparently on the Titanic. And…well…no snark. This was a sad one.

Lost 6x14: The Candidate

In choking back the tears over Sun and Jin’s sad passing, it was easy to overlook that we also lost Sayid and Lapidus in this episode. But seriously, we spend TWO YEARS of TV time waiting for Sun and Jin to be reunited for them to be together for, what, 12 minutes? LOST writers, you sank lower than the depths of the sub now laying on the ocean floor.

Rough one for you too? Let me know what you thought below in comments...


2004, Los Angeles:
Close up on John Locke in the hospital bed, post-Desmond hit & run, and Jack tells him that he is a candidate (!) for a new procedure to repair the spinal injury and perhaps allow him to walk again, but he refuses. Helen bursts into the room and thanks Jack for saving John.


In his medical office, Dr. Nadler – Bernard – is working on some sort of dental cast when Jack enters and asks to see John Locke’s file. (Bernard had apparently performed emergency oral surgery on him.) Asking why he needs it, Jack starts to explain how he and Locke met, and Bernard spurts out, “Oceanic 815…I sat across the aisle from you. If memory serves, you were flirting with my wife, Rose, while I was in the bathroom.” Jack looks more than a little confused at the coincidence.


Bernard tells him that he can’t share Locke’s records, but he remembered the name of another man in the accident, and hands Jack a slip of paper with Anthony Cooper’s name.


At a nursing home, Jack’s asking about Anthony Cooper when Helen shows up with flowers for him. Helen asks him to leave, but he insists. Sideways Cooper is catatonic in a wheelchair.

Back at his bedside, Locke’s mumbling in his sleep, “Push the button…I wish you had believed me.”

Unnecessary nerd alert: “Push the button” – reference to his on-island Swan Station button pushing. “I wish you had believed me” – a callback to the suicide note he left for Jack when he tried to kill himself.


Claire shows up at the hospital looking for Jack, and they go to a waiting room. Jack gets a candy bar from the machine. She shows him the box that Christian left her asking what it’s supposed to mean, but neither of them have a clue. She asks how he died, and Jack explains he was flying home from Sydney with his coffin, and they realize they were on the same flight. Jack looks at the box, a music box, but neither of them has any idea what the significance is.


Nerd alert: the selection Jack made was #E4, an Apollo Bar.

Question: Was it just me or did the machine make a noise that sounded not unlike either the Smoke Monster or even the hatch button re-setting.

Nerd alert: The box was a music box that played “Catch a Falling Star”, the song that Christian used to sing to her and that she – and Kate – used to sing to Aaron as a bedtime song.

Awaiting Helen to pick him up, Jack tries to convince Locke one last time to consider the surgery. Locke tells him that he’d gotten his pilot’s license and was in an accident with his father as the passenger on board, leaving him unable to walk or talk. Locke’s been punishing himself for the accident in this timeline. Locke’s mind is unchanged. Jack says to him, “I wish you’d believed me”, using Locke’s mumbling – and the suicide note message from the main timeline – to try to convince him. Locke wheels himself out of the hospital.


2007, The island:
Jack awakes in a boat on the shore at Hydra Island. Sayid is keeping watch. UnLocke tells Jack and Sayid that they’re going to have to rescue the other Losties and then make it onto the plane to escape the island. Jack reminds UnLocke that he doesn’t intend to leave the island. He asks for Jack’s help in convincing them to leave with them, but Jack’s not sure he can be trusted. UnLocke reminds Jack that he could kill them any time, but he’s saved his life and wants to save the others.


Widmore’s henchmen are throwing Sawyer, Jin, Sun, Hurley, Lapidus and Kate into the polar bear cages when Saywer grabs a rifle and tries to get free, but Widmore points a gun at Kate. Widmore tells them he's putting them in the cage for their own good. Sawyer challenges him, saying he needs her, but Widmore confirms what that Kate’s name was not on the list.

In the polar bear cage, Kate is annoyed and tells Sawyer that Widmore wouldn’t have killed her. But Sawyer tells her she was on the cave wall, but her name was scratched out, meaning he was done with her. Kate gets knocked down a peg or two.


Jin and Sun are speaking to each other – in English (why?) – and he tells her that he saw pictures of Ji Yeon, and she gives him his ring that she’s been carrying. Just as they’re about to get snuggly, the power goes out on the sonic fence and Smokey arrives, wreaking vengeance against the henchmen. They try to free themselves from the cage, just as Jack shows up and they all run after Jack explains, “I’m with him.”

In the jungle, Jack tells Kate he’s not leaving the island with them because he’s not meant to go. Sayid arrives and they rush to UnLocke.


The fate of the henchmen guarding the Ajira jet is no better than those by the cages. UnLocke snaps one of their necks and shoots the other. He steals the watch off the one who’s been shot and boards the plane, only to find it rigged with explosives.

The UnLocke flock arrives at the plane and he walks off the plane explaining that Widmore wanted them all to get on the plane so they would die. Assuming there might be other explosives on the plane, UnLocke says that they need to take the sub. Hurley reminds the flock that Alpert said UnLocke can’t leave the island, but Sawyer says they’re going. Sawyer apologizes for not trusting UnLocke, and Jack offers his help, but says he won’t be leaving the island. Sawyer pulls Jack aside and tells him that they’re getting off the island without UnLocke and to push him into the water when they get to the dock.

The dock appears to be unguarded, and a handful of them run ahead to the sub. Sawyer and Lapidus climb into the sub and surprise the captain at gunpoint. The remaining bunch head to the sub, and UnLocke hands Jack his backpack. They make it onto the dock and UnLocke is trying to convince Jack to go, but he pushes UnLocke off the dock and into the water. They get fired upon, and Kate is hit. The rest climb into the sub, but Claire and UnLocke are still outside. Saywer climbs up and tries to get Claire into the sub, but he has to close the hatch when UnLocke makes a run toward the sub. Claire looks despondent, but UnLocke is perfectly content.


Looking for a first aid kit, Hurley hands Jack his backpack. UnLocke put the bomb in it. (Did anyone not see this coming when UnLocke handed him the backpack?)

Nerd alert: The watch used as the timer was the one UnLocke stole off the dead man.

With less than 4 minutes left, the only way to get the bomb off is to get to the surface. Lapidus tells the captain to take them up. As they try to figure out what to do to diffuse the bomb, Jack tells them that nothing will happen and that UnLocke can’t kill them, and that UnLocke wanted them to leave without him. Sawyer doesn’t buy it and pulls the wires out of the bomb, which unfortunately only speeds up the timer.

Sayid tells Jack where to find Desmond. Jack asks why he’s telling him this, and Sayid replies, “Because it’s going to be you, Jack.” Sayid grabs the bomb and runs ahead into another compartment of the sub, where the bomb goes off.


RIP Sayid. :(


Still in with the captain, the hatch door blows off, and knocks Lapidus down.

RIP Lapidus. :( (we assume)

The sub is filling with water, and Sun is pinned behind a cabinet. Jack tells Hurley to take the injured Kate and swim to the surface. He gives them a rescue canister of oxygen. Jack and Jin shift the cabinet, but Sun is still trapped behind some metal. Jin tells him to take Saywer up, and he stays to try to free Sun. Jack and Sawyer swim up.


Sun demands that Jin leave, but he refuses to go. (Shouldn’t one of them have gone for the sake of Ji Yeon?!) Finally speaking in Korean, Jin tells her “I will never leave you again.” And in a Titanic-worthy scene, we see their clasped, submerged hands separate, and Kleenex stock goes through the roof.


RIP Jin-Soo Kwon. :(

RIP Sun-Hwa Kwon. :(




Jack, Sawyer, Kate and Hurley make it to the island. Jack tells them that Jin and Sun didn’t make it and Kate and Hurley bawl like the rest of us watching at home.

UnLocke tells Claire that the sub sank. She asks if they’re all dead, and he says no, grabs a rifle and heads off to finish what he started.


I know my wife cried herself to bed. What about you? Drop the comment love below.

-Sean Salo

Welcome back to the circus.

Clousseau is still batsh!t crazy. Dogen and Lennon take a swim. Sayid switches teams. Smokey does a little spring cleaning around the Temple. And Kate gets sucked along for the ride.

LOST 6x06: Sundown

For someone who grew up listening to the mopiest of mope-rock to call something dark, you know it had to be DARK! Perhaps the darkest episode of LOST to date, and sets the possibility that the show will end on a down note. Certainly not what most fans would expect, but when have LOST’s writers not thrown a wrench in the works for fans? A more interesting concept, though, is that the flash sideways is actually a culmination of the deals done with UnLocke and Jacob. Nadia is still alive, but Sayid can’t be with her. If this is the case, I worry about what will happen to Claire who believes UnLocke will get her Aaron back. I’m feeling like we’re going to see some merging of the two stories within the next 10 weeks, where the realization that the deals done for happiness weren't all they were chalked up to be. It’s a Wonderful LOST. (Zuzu’s petals!)

Drop some comment love below.

2004, Los Angeles

Sayid arrives at Nadia’s house, but in this reality, she’s married to Sayid’s brother Omar, with two kids. (Torture for the torturer…) Sayid says he’d been translating contracts for an oil company. Omar’s business has been taking off, or so he claims.

Question: Was the oil company Sayid claimed to work for owned by Widmore?

Question: Was Nadia alive, but married and not with Sayid, because of the deal Sayid did with UnLocke on the island for Nadia to live if he followed him?

Omar wakes Sayid in the night to ask him to help by killing a gangster who lent him money and is putting the lean on him, even after re-paying his debt. Sayid says he’s not that guy anymore. The next day, however, Omar was beaten outside his store and Nadia begs him at the hospital to not take vengeance, but instead to go home and wait for her children and make them feel safe. (Jack was one of the doctors in the hospital.)

Nadia returns from the hospital and says that she knows Omar was responsible for getting beaten, but she clearly knows that Sayid is in love with her and doesn’t understand why he pushed her toward Omar, and he says it’s because he doesn’t deserve her.

Nerd alert: Sayid was repairing a vase that was broken with the boomerang that he brought the kids from Australia. A boomerang, in theory, always comes back to where it’s thrown – perhaps a metaphor for what may be happening on the show with a sideways timeline that may eventually be launching back with the earlier timeline. Or could it simply be an allusion to the fact that Sayid has come back to Nadia, where he started/belongs?

Sayid goes to meet his niece and nephew at the school bus and a carful of goons take him to the mob boss, who turns out to be Martin Keamy, the freighter mercenary. He tries to shake down Sayid for the cash that Omar owes him, threatening Omar’s family. And Sayid goes all Sayid on them, killing all three.

Question: In this sideways reality, did Keamy seem to be much more mortal than on the island when he seemed semi-indestructible?

As Keamy goes down, Sayid hears struggling from the walk-in freezer, and opens it to find someone being held captive. None other than Jin!

2007, On the island

Sayid pushes Dogen for answers on why he was tortured, but Dogen says that the tests were to determine Sayid’s evil-factor, and the scales tipped toward evil. Sayid claims, as always, that he’s a good man, but then he and Dogen get into a mixed-martial arts brawl. Dogen lunges to stab Sayid in the throat, when the baseball on his desk rolled off, and he commands Sayid to leave.

Clousseau and UnLocke are in the Temple garden area, standing on the line of ash. He tells her she needs to go in, but she says only if he keeps his promise to get Aaron back. “I always do what I say,” he replies.

Question: Does this set Claire up for disappointment in the sideways timeline? Sayid’s life is a disappointment, though Nadia was alive. What will happen to Claire and Aaron there?

Sayid tells Miles that he’s been banished because he’s evil. Miles tells him that he was dead for two hours and they were as shocked as anyone when he came back to life, so he wasn’t brought back by the Others. Clousseau bursts in to the Temple walls and says that UnLocke wants to see Dogen. He knows he’ll be killed if he goes, so she tells him to send someone that UnLocke won’t kill.

Dogen tells Lennon to put Clousseau in the hole and get Jack and Hurley. When Lennon says that they’re missing, Dogen wigs out and tells him to find them. Then he tells Sayid to come with him because “things have changed.” He tells Sayid that she’s under the influence of an angry man. He pulls out an ornate box (any ideas on this???) from a planter with a special dagger in it, which he asks Sayid to use to kill someone who he sees and knows is dead before he can speak, or the man “won’t stop until he has destroyed every living thing on this island.” Sayid asks why he’d do this for him, and Dogen tells him to prove that he’s still got good in his soul…by killing something. (Poor Sayid.)

Nerd alert: Ben said virtually the same line, “If you phone her boat, every single living person on this island will be killed” in the Through the Looking Glass season 3 finale episode to Desmond.

Kate arrives back at the Temple and Miles sympathetically says “Sawyer sent you packing.” He tells her that Claire was there, “acting all weird…still hot though.”

Sayid is in the jungle when suddenly everything goes quiet – no bird or bug noise – and then Smokey appears as UnLocke. Sayid stabbed him right in the chest with Dogen’s dagger, but he’d paused until Locke said “Hello Sayid.” UnLocke pulls the dagger out of his chest and hands back the dagger.

UnLocke says that Dogen sent Sayid out assuming he’d be killed. UnLocke promises him anything he wants to deliver a message to Dogen, including letting him see Nadia again. Sayid returns and delivers the message in the rain to the Others: Jacob is dead and they are free to leave the island with him, those who don’t will die. They were given until sundown to decide.

Kate gets Lennon to take her to see Clousseau, who is in a pit (“It puts the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again...”) in the temple humming “Catch a Falling Star” – the song she’d sung to Aaron, and the song that Kate sang to Aaron after they were rescued – to herself. Kate tells Claire that she raised Aaron, though frustratingly doesn’t tell her that Mrs. Littleton is raising him. Claire says with a creepy grin, “He’s coming Kate. He’s coming and they can’t stop him.”

The Others are in a panic and most of them are leaving the Temple, as Lennon tries to get them to stay. Sayid brings the dagger back to Dogen, who tells Sayid about an accident he had after celebrating a promotion in which his son was killed. Jacob came to him in the hospital and said to him that he would save his son’s life, though he would have to come to the island and work for him and never see the boy again. Sayid says he made a similar bargain with UnLocke. Dogen points out that it’s sundown and Sayid throws him into the pool and drowns him. Lennon confronts Sayid, who then slits his throat. And the Smokey train pulls into the station, wreaking havoc unlike anything we’ve ever seen on LOST. Dozens of men and women are killed as Kate goes to look for Clousseau, when Ilana, Ben, Sun and Lapidus burst in to try to save them. Ben goes after Sayid, who maniacally smiles as he tells Ben there’s no time left for him.

Miles asks Sun where Jin is, who was thrilled to know he was still alive, and Ilana pressed on the wall at the spot that Jacob had told Hurley to look for. They open a secret door and are safe.

Nerd alert: The symbol was a Shen ring. The shen ring is most typically carried by one of our favorite LOST god references, Horus, but also Nekhbet. When the shen ring encircled objects, it was seen to eternally protect them. Is this what the rings of ash were meant to be?

The camera pans the destruction left behind, as Sayid, Clousseau and Kate join UnLocke and the rest of his now-followers.

Question: Did they look a bit more rag tag, as if they were the crew that we saw walking through the jungle when Mr. Eko and Jin were searching for Michael in the “…And Found” episode, back in season 2, when they saw the barefoot Others walking and a child holding a grubby teddy bear?

Comment with your thoughts below!

You've got ink on your forehead.

Jack pulls an Alice and goes through the looking-glass. Claire tries out as a “Before” model for a Pantene commercial, and then gets all “The Shining” on Justin. Jacob looks constipatedly at Hurley throughout the episode. Jin finds out that Alt Dogen imparts parenting wisdom. Oh, and Alt Jack’s got a teenage son. No biggie.

LOST 6x05: The Lighthouse

Vacation and work challenges have delayed the publishing of this recap. (Ep. 6x04 will go up next - sorry.) The season sadly is chugging along, with another killer episode in The Lighthouse. We find out what Infected Claire (Clousseau) has been doing on the island all these years – mostly going batshit while evading the Others – and we learn of a mysterious lighthouse that’s somehow been hidden from view in all their time there.

What did you think? Hit me with your comments below

2004 Alt Timeline

Jack’s on the phone with his mother discussing his father’s will, and somehow becomes acutely aware of his appendix scar. He asks his mom about it and it seems as though he doesn’t recall having the operation, although he was apparently 7 or 8 at the time. A kid that age would have a vivid memory of such an event. Is this a nod to the fact that this is a false timeline?

Jack arrives at the St. Mary’s Academy and picks up his son (what?!), David. (David – another Biblical name.) David storms up to his room in Jack’s house and is giving Jack the cold shoulder. Jack picks up The Annotated Alice by Lewis Carroll and asks David if he’s reading it, reminding him that he used to read the book to him when he was little. He said that he always wanted to hear about Kitty and Snowdrop.

Nerd alert: Kitty and Snowdrop were Alice’s black and white kittens in Through the Looking-Glass. Black and white are the recurring theme on LOST. Good vs. evil. In the book, the black kitten, Kitty, is connected to the Red Queen and Snowdrop, the white kitten, to the White Queen. Wikipedia has the following to say about Through the Looking-Glass: “Through the Looking-Glass [is] a kind of mirror image of Wonderland: the first book begins outdoors, in the warm month of May, (May 4), uses frequent changes in size as a plot device, and draws on the imagery of playing cards; the second opens indoors on a snowy, wintry night exactly six months later, on November 4 (the day before Guy Fawkes Night), uses frequent changes in time and spatial directions as a plot device, and draws on the imagery of chess. In it, there are many mirror themes, including opposites, time running backwards, and so on.”

Nerd alert: Post Oceanic 6 rescue in LA, Jack was reading Alice in Wonderland to Aaron. So as things are mirrored in this alt timeline, it makes sense, I guess, that he would have read it as well to David. Alice has been a consistent theme throughout the series.

David storms off and Jack tries asks what’s wrong. David replies, “we see each other like once a month, can’t we just…get through it?”

Mrs. Shephard offers Jack a drink while they are looking for Christian’s will, which he refuses. They find the will on a shelf, and as she reads it, she asks Jack if he’s ever heard of a Claire Littleton. (Question: Was there a slight glimpse of recognition when she mentioned Claire’s name?)

Jack gets home with pizza and David’s gone. He goes to his mom’s house to look for him and hear’s an answering machine message confirming David’s audition slot at a music conservatory. The second message was one from Jack calling from Sydney when he went to pick up his father’s body. The message, I believe, was the message we saw Jack leave from Sydney in the original timeline, though the original message clearly couldn’t have been for David.

Nerd alert: The house number is 233 - one of the few references to the numbers we've seen in the alt timeline). And the key to David's mom's house is under a rabbit. Another allusion to Alice - down the rabbit hole and/or a visual reference to Ben's rabbit on the island?

Jack rushes to the conservatory to hear the end of David’s audition and is clearly dumbfounded that he had no idea this was happening or that music was this important to him. A random kid tells him that David’s really good. Then the boy’s father – Dogen! – says that the kids are too young for this pressure and that it’s tough to not be able to help. (A nod to Jack’s role of the perpetual “fixer”?)

As David is unchaining his bike, Jack commends his performance and they have their first real conversation of the episode. David says that he never told his father that he was still playing piano because he didn’t want to Jack to see him fail. He tells David that his own father used to say that he “didn’t have what it takes” and he spent his whole life carrying that around with him. But Jack tells him that he just wants to be a part of his life and all a wall seems to have been broken down.

Nerd alert: The sign at the entry to the audition said in large letters: "Welcome Candidates".

Question: Is David possibly a Candidate or future Candidate in this timeline? Both Jack and Christian have connections to the island, and although we don't know for sure yet, we can assume Jack's granddad did as well.

2007 On Island

- Jack and Hurley sory arc:

Dogen tells Jack that he has free will, but he would try to stop him if he did. He asks if Kate, Jin or Sawyer are coming back, and Jack says that they likely aren’t.

Hurley enters the Temple to look for some food, and Jacob is there waiting to give Hurley an assignment to help someone who is trying to get to the island find it.

Question: Who needs to get to the island?

Sayid confronts Jack with a laundry list of questions about why he’s being stared at to what the pill was that they wanted him to take, and Jack tells him that they were going to poison him.

Hurley is in a hallway looking at a wall of hieroglyphs, when Dogen questions what he’s doing there. Jacob appears and tells Hurley to say that he is a candidate, and Dogen backs off. Jacob says that Hurley should have brought Jack too and tells him how to convince Jack to come along.

Outside, Hurley tells Jack, “You have what it takes.” Clearly this was what Jack needed to hear, for reasons yet unknown, and Jack and Hurley set off.

Jack and Hurley run into Kate in the jungle, and Kate sets off to find Claire, even though Jack says that there’s something wrong with her.

Hurley and Jack are talking and Hurley asks why he and Kate never got together and had kids. Jack says he thinks he’d be a terrible dad, but Hurley disagrees. They come upon Shannon’s asthma inhaler at the caves they were living after the 815 crash. Hurley sees the Adam & Eve skeleton and poses the question that we’ve been pondering for years: “What if we time traveled again to - like - dinosaur times and then we died and got buried here. What if these skeletons are us?”

As they trek through the jungle some more Hurley remarks that it’s like old times – on a mission in the jungle they don’t quite understand. Hurley tells Jack he came back because Jacob asked him to. Jack says he thought the island could fix him.

They arrive at a lighthouse and Jack asks how they could never have seen it, to which Hurley replies that guesses they weren’t looking for it.

Question: Didn’t the lighthouse appear in strangely good shape for as old as the architecture appeared to be?

Hurley and Jack ascend the lighthouse and find a fire pit and mirrors – the design certainly seems old. Hurley checks the notes on his arm and pulls the chain to orient the lighthouse to 108^o. Jack sees images in the mirrors and then realizes his name is on the dial at 23^o and turns the dial – at which point he sees a reflection of his house. Amazed that some man he doesn’t recall meeting has apparently been watching him for…years?...he smashes the mirrors with a telescope.

Nerd alert: It seems Jacob has been using the lighthouse to watch the Candidates through the "looking-glass".

Question: Just a continuity error that “Shephard” and some of the other 815ers’ names seem to be so much more darkly written than the other names on the dial and in the cave that UnLocke took Sawyer to?

Nerd alert: Thanks to the diligence of others, here are the rest of the names that appear on the dial.

Jacob shows up and asks Hurley how it went. Although he says he failed, Jacob shows Hurley that he wanted Jack to understand how important he is by seeing the lighthouse. Jacob tells Hurley that he had to get them far away from the Temple because someone bad was coming there, and that they don’t have time to warn the folks at the temple.

- Clousseau’s camp story arc:

Clousseau frees Jin from the bear trap, but passes out from the pain after she says she’s been out in the woods since they left the island.

Jin wakes up in Clousseau’s camp as she’s bringing in Justin, who apparently was playing possum when she shot at him and Aldo in the jungle. She ties him up and Jin realizes that Clousseau’s not right. She pushes Justin for answers on where her son is, thinking that the Others have him. Justin warns Jin that they’re not safe with her.

Nerd alert: The actor playing Justin, Dayo Ade, also played “BLT” on the original late 80s/early 90s Canadian cult kids dramas, Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High. (Zit Remedy!!!)

Justin tries to convince Jin to untie him, but Claire comes in to tend to and stitch up Jin’s wounds. She says that she’s had to move around the jungle a lot to hide from the Others. She says that Christian and “her friend” told her that the Others took Aaron.

Clousseau is interrogating Justin who instists they’ve never had Aaron. Jin steps in to say that Kate’s been raising him and Clousseau is confused and upset. So she axes Justin in the gut, to Jin’s amazement.

Question: Why didn’t Jin explain that Kate was trying to protect Aaron and that they hadn’t seen Claire, so they could rightfully have assumed she was dead?

Jin tells Clousseau he was lying about Kate and Aaron to try to save Justin’s life, and that the Others do have Aaron and he says he’ll take her to the Temple through a secret entrance. She gets all wiggy and says that if he hadn’t been lying that she’d have killed Kate. Then UnLocke walks in. “John?!”, Jin says, amazed. Claire replies, “That’s not John. That’s my friend.”

Drop some comment love below.

-Sean Salo

No. I'm not a zombie.

Sayid gets some complementary electrolysis and a purple nurple from Dogen. Jack’s pill-popping habit goes to extremes. Dr. Ethan Rom Goodspeed does obstetrics right this time. The new flight clearly crossed the International Month Line. Claire takes the place of Rousseau – I claim dibs on naming her Clousseau!

LOST 6x03: What Kate Does

This isn’t my favorite episode, but it was a solid episode where we not only see how the two realities are diverging more, but also learning more about just how different they are. We learn nothing about what's going on with UnLocke, Richard and crew. More to follow on them next week, according to the previews.

What did you think? Comment below with thoughts, questions, recipes or social security numbers.

2007 On the island

Sayid awakens in the Temple, and Lennon and Dogen are genuinely concerned. Sawyer plans his escape, bitter than an Iraqi torturer gets a second chance, while Juliet’s in the ground.

Miles to Jack: “As you can see, Hugo here has assumed a leadership position, so that’s pretty great.” Sayid thanks Jack for saving his life, which Jack denies. They ask Sayid to come with them for a few questions alone.

Nerd alert: This was the same thing they were “asking” of Jack just before Sayid woke up. Was he poised to be tortured until Sayid awoke? Did they think Jack was “infected”? (Thanks Phil)

In an un-LOST-like turn of events, Jack is suddenly filled with questions – “Who are you? Why are you holding us here?...Something tells me you’re not going to tell us anything.” (No answers, of course.) They try to subdue Jack, and Sawyer breaks it up with a gunshot in the air. Dogen begs him to stay as he exits the Temple, and tells them not to come after him. And yet Kate goes following after him as always.

Dogen blows a black powder all over Sayid (the ash to keep in the smoke monster?) and shocks him, then uses a red hot poker on his skin (trying to see if the monster is strong enough to come out yet?). Lennon says that Sayid passed the test, but then says to Dogen, “I just lied to him, didn’t I?”. “Yes.”

Nerd alert: Giving Sayid electric shocks was the same thing that Rousseau did to him when she held him captive in the jungle. Clearly now, she was checking for “infection” then. So it appears they are looking for Smokey in Sayid. (Smayid?)

Kate and Jin are walking with two Others. One of them, Aldo, tells her that they’re concerned about the black smoke pillar. Jin asks if Ajira 316 that landed, and the 2^nd Other, Justin, almost gives up that it had. Kate almost trips up a trap that Jin said was one of Rousseau’s. Justin said that she’s been dead for years. Aldo reminds her that she cold cocked him when she escaped from the polar bear cages several years ago – and she does the same to him again, and then trips up the trap and knocks Justin out. She tells Jin that she’s escaping.

Sayid’s brought out from Dogen’s torture room, and Jack goes back to see him. They don’t try to stop him. They tell Jack that Sayid is infected and give Jack a pill to give him. They say that they weren’t torturing Sayid, but diagnosing him, and that he needs to take the pill willingly. If he does so, he’ll redeem himself from getting Sayid shot.

Question: Did they want Jack to give him the pill because they can’t kill him – is Jack their loophole to kill the smoke monster?

Question: What was in the pill? Was it the black ash?

Question: Does Dogen fear technology like Jacob did in the cabin? He was using a typewriter and appeared to have an abacus on his desk.

Miles asks Sayid, “So, nothing?...there wasn’t anything? No white light?...no dead relatives?” The only thing he remembers was being shot. Hurley asks if he was a zombie. “No. I am not a zombie.”

Question: Moment of levity, or is Sayid a “zombie”? Miles definitely appears concerned, and Dogen believes he’s been infected. Or is it just a nod to the fans who’ve been expecting a “zombie season” since a script page was leaked in the first season with a reference to a zombie Vincent, the dog.?

Jack shows Sayid the pill. But Sayid says he won’t take it unless Jack thinks its safe. Jack tells him that he didn’t have anything to do with saving him and he trusts Jack.

Kate tells Jin that she’s not actually looking for Sawyer, but that she’s trying to escape. (coughbullshitcough) He asks who she cares about her. Kate finds Sawyer at the house he and Juliet had lived in and he’s dug out a shoebox with an engagement ring in it. Kate starts to walk away, realizing that he had actually been in love with Juliet.

On the dock Kate tries to take blame for Juliet’s death for bringing them back to the island from the sub. But Sawyer takes the full blame as he throws the ring into the lagoon. Kate realizes she’s been a fool to think he’d pined over her all those years.

Dogen tells Jack that he doesn’t speak English because he has to remain separate from the people he’s in charge of – that it makes it easier when they don’t like the decisions he makes for them Dogen says he was brought to the island, like everybody else. He tries to get Jack to trust him to give Sayid the pill, and it doesn’t work. Instead, Jack takes the pill himself. Dogen goes medieval on him to get him to spit it out. And he tells Jack that the pill was poison.

Question: Was there the protective ash in the capsule? If not, what was the medication in there?

Question: What was the significance of the baseball Dogen was bouncing? Was it related to the Red Sox winning the World Series in 2004 – a game that Ben had made a point of referencing to Jack when he was being held captive? Reference to Christian Shephard, big Sox fan?

Dogen gives Jack tea and tells him that they think Sayid has been “claimed” with a darkness that will overtake him. And he knows this because it happened to Jack’s sister. (Jack’s tears almost started flowing again.)

Jin encounters Justin and the Aldo, and tries to run, but gets caught in a bear trap. Just then, the Others are shot – by Claire looking raggedy and a mess. And Jin and Claire look at each other with recognition.

Question: So has Claire literally replaced Rousseau? (Clousseau?!) She is on the lamb from the Others, living in isolation, setting up traps on the island. She was also pregnant when she arrived on the island, successfully delivered her baby, and had her baby taken from her.

Random question: All of a sudden, the birds are chirping like mad on the island. But they never did after the crash of 815. It was typically almost bird-less. Why? There was speculation that Walt had something to do with the lack of birds, but is this the case?

2004 Los Angeles

Claire’s taxi driver nearly runs over Arzt. The driver runs out of the car, and Kate hops behind the wheel and takes off, leaving Claire behind, but keeping her purse and suitcase.

Kate gives a mechanic $200 to get off her cuffs and she changes into Claire’s clothes. She finds the photo of Claire pregnant in the bag, along with a large stuffed killer whale doll.

Kate finds Claire – still standing where she was dropped off, I guess? – and Claire says that she was on her way to Langdon Street in Brentwood to find the adoptive parents, who didn’t show up at the airport to pick her up.

Claire has a full-on case of the Stockholm Syndrome and is now BFF with Katie. They arrive at the Baskums’ house (the couple who were adopting Claire’s baby), and Mrs. Baskum tells her that her husband has left her. She meant to call Claire to, I guess, say that she can’t go through with the adoption any longer.

Questions: What forces were working to split the Baskums up? And what made Claire go into labor at that very moment?

They arrive at the hospital – Angel of Mercy – and her doctor is Ethan Goodspeed, aka Ethan Rom! He’s examining her when the fetal monitor flatlines, but he finds a heartbeat again after she yells his future name, Aaron. Turned out that the monitor was in the wrong place. She decides not to deliver early, and they try to slow her down with various drugs.

A Detective Rasmussen shows up looking for a Joan Hart (the name Kate used when signing in to the hospital – a reference to the actress Melissa Joan Hart, “Sabrina the Teenage Witch”?) and Claire protects her by saying she was just a cab driver. She offers Kate her credit card before she leaves.

Nerd alert: the date on the sonogram printout was 10/22/04. The date of the original Flight 815 was 9/22/04. So this is a full month later. How is that possible that all of these folks’ timelines were pushed a full month? This probably wasn’t even Flight 815. The plane itself was different (rows of 3-4-3 vs. 2-3-2), none of our 815ers were sitting in rows with the numbers, etc.

Nerd alert: The letters directly under the fetus’ image were: WRKSHT. The corresponding numbers to those letters in the alphabet are 23-18-11-19-8-20

Drop some comments below. Namaste.

- Sean Salo