Ewoks suck polar bear poop, dude.

Dental work proves deadly. Miles converts the Dharma van to a hearse. Roger Linus blows his chance of getting Kate’s digits. Phil finds the tape of LaFlawyer and Kate – no, not that kind of tape. Hurley works on that screenplay he always wanted to write…if only he knew how to spell “furry”. And Daniel somehow got on a sub to the island.

Lost 5x13: Some Like It Hoth

Last night’s LOST premiere gave us Miles Straume’s back story and confirmed at least one not so well-kept secret. They seem to have further confused the issue of who is working for whom. Do Ilana and Bram work for Ben? Are they a faction separate from Ben and Widmore? Also, we got to see more daddy issues reveal themselves. Big thanks to Phil and Katie for working out a lot of the points in this entry.

What did you think? Comment below with your thoughts.


Miles’ Flashbacks:
Young Miles’ mom (guessing he’s about is renting an apartment – we can assume in Encino, where Miles said he was from – when he somehow finds a key for the apartment and opens the door, finding a dead Mr. Vonner on the floor. He says that Vonner was calling out for Kimberly and was talking to him.

Geek alert: Miles finds the key for the apartment with Mr. Vonner in it under a rabbit with the number 8 on its ear. And the apartment he was found in was number 4.

Geek alert: Probably reading too much into it, but the “No Lifeguard on Duty” sign on the pool fence was a nice touch with Miles speaking to the dead.

Geek alert: There’s some interwebs chatter that Mr. Vonner looked like an older Roger Linus, but since Roger was killed in The Purge by Ben, seems unlikely.

A grunge-era Miles goes back to the apartment in Encino to visit his now-dying mother. He begs to know why he can speak to the dead and why she never speaks of his father. She says he’s dead, he asks where the body is and she says, “somewhere you can never go”.

Question: Is the island somewhere he can never go because they were banished, like Widmore? Or does she just think he’ll never find it? Good guess seems to be that Future Miles told Pierre about The Purge and he forced them to leave.

Adult Miles visits a grieving father who asks if his late son knew he loved him. Miles demands more money and tells him the son always knew he loved him.

Bad-wigged Naomi convinces Miles to go with him to a restaurant for a request from her employer. The go into the kitchen and she throws him a wad of cash to listen to a corpse. Miles says his name is Felix and he was bringing Widmore photos of the empty graves and a purchase order for a plane. She invites Miles on the expedition to try to get information from a number of corpses on the island for $1.6million. Miles greedily agrees.

Geek alert: Naomi says that “a bunch of dead people reside on the island”. Is she talking about the dead in the pit, or the dead people who seem to be walking around like Christian, Jacob, perhaps Claire and Richard? (Thanks Phil for this one.)

Miles is at the La Vida (“Life” – Ahem) Taco stand and he gets abducted by a group of men that tries to talk him out of working for Widmore. A man named Bram says he can’t go. Bram asks him, “Do you know what lies in the shadow of a statue?” Miles can’t answer and Bram says that if he doesn’t go, he’ll learn everything – why he has his gift and about his father. Miles says he’ll do it for double – $3.2million – and they throw him out of the van and say that he’s on the wrong team and that their team is going to win.


Geek alert: Bram is the guy that was on the beach with Ilana when Lapidus came back to the Hydra Island, when she asked him “What lies in the shadow of the statue?”

Geek alert: Bram was in a black van, Ben had been in a white van. Could this indicate the sides of good and evil? Let's hope that Bram - as in Stoker - isn't a clue about impending vampires.

Later, he revisits the father, Mr. Grey, gives the money back, says he didn’t speak to the son and that he should have told his son he loved him while he was alive.



Island, 1977:
Sawyer radios to Miles to tell him to erase the security tapes from the Pylons to cover up their Little Ben transfer. As he’s about to erase the tape, Horace walks in and sends him to make a delivery and pickup to Radzinsky, bringing Miles into the “circle of trust”. However, Miles questions why they’d be going to sector 334 since it’s hostile territory.

Geek alert: The Sports Illustrated with Tommy Lasorda Miles is reading is from March 14, 1977. Its headline, “After 23 Years New Boss in L.A.” Coincidence on the number, I’m sure, but it is a number.

Turns out the delivery was a body bag, whick a couple of workers fill with a corpse whose head has a hole in it. Miles goes back to listen to the body to see what really happened.

Horace is on the phone with Radzinsky who is talking about the corpse. Whatever killed him may have been caused by the electromagnetism and they’re sending the corpse to Pierre Chang to determine the cause of death. Miles protests, but with LaFlawyer not back yet, he has to go. Hurley is going to the same place and Miles reluctantly takes him with him.

Roger gets to the infirmary as Kate returns from the mission and Juliet covers up by saying she was out for 10 minutes and Ben disappeared.

In the van, Hurley forces them to stop the van to check the foul odor, thinking it’s his sandwiches for the Orchid workers. Hurley sees the body back and Miles tells him that the guy’s name was Alvarez, that he was digging a hole, thinking about a woman named Andrea, when a filling from his tooth was yanked out and blew right through his skull.

Geek alert: They’re saying that the electromagnetism on the island – specifically near the Swan – did this, though it seems a stretch since fillings aren’t made of steel or iron and aren’t significantly magnetic.

Roger is getting drunk and Kate tries to console him. But Roger gets suspicious and tells her to mind her own beez wax.

Captain and Tennille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together” is on the van’s 8-track player when they arrive at the Orchid. Chang gets upset that Hurley knows about the corpse. He threatens Hurley with weighing polar bear feces if he tells anyone. Hurley properly calls him a douche, and Miles says, “that douche is my dad”. Whoa! Surprised?! (Not really.) Chang tells Miles they need to go to Radzinsky. He tells Hurley to keep quiet.

Roger shows up at the school to clean it and Jack’s filling in, but Roger tells him to leave and that he’s suspicious of Kate. Jack tries to stop Roger and tells him to calm down.

Geek alert: The blackboard had a lesson on Egyptian languages on it, including the phrase, “Writing the words of God”.

Hurley tries to make a connection between Miles and Chang on the trip to the Swan building station.

They get into the Swan construction site and they see the hatch being built and stamped with the “serial number” on it. Hurley completes the numbers (“42”) and explains to Miles that it was The Hatch that crashes Oceanic 815. Hurley tells Miles on the drive back about the numbers and pushing the button, and Miles laughs it off. He says that it’s awesome that Miles can meet his dad. Miles gets angry and says that his father is dead and there’s no reason. Hurley pushes more and Miles grabs Hurley’s notebook. Turns out that he’s been writing a screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back – “with a couple of improvements” – to send to George Lucas.

Jack tells LaFlawyer that Roger is suspicious about Ben. Phil of the Eyebrows shows up at LaFlawyer’s house with the tape Miles didn’t erase, and LaFlawyer knocks him out and they go to tie him up.

Hurley and Miles return, and Hurley says that reconnecting with his dad was the best thing he ever did. Miles says he doesn’t want to know his dad. Hurley pulls out a Star Wars reference saying that if Luke had just connected with his father, we wouldn’t have gotten the Ewoks. Miles goes to Chang’s house and sees him reading a book to Baby Miles.

Geek alert: Chang is reading the book Me and My Polar Bear to Baby Miles.

Geek alert: Hurley makes the Star Wars analogies specifically re: Luke getting an arm cut off in Empire. In some of the training films, Chang had a prosthetic arm. We shall see if he loses an arm at some point in the future. (Montand from Rousseau’s crew also lost an arm. And Vincent was carrying around a skeletal arm with the key to the Dharma van that Hurley fixed in Season 3.)

Chang walks out of the house and tells Miles they need to head to the docks to pick up scientists from Ann Arbor. And who is emerging from the sub as they arrive? Daniel Faraday. “Hey Miles, long time no see.”


Potential Geek alert: Might be a stretch, but the episode title, Some Like It Hoth. Hoth was the frozen planet in The Empire Strikes Back where the Rebel Alliance relocated until the Empire discovered them. The Rebels were able to stage a successful escape, even though they lost the Battle of Hoth. Thoth (SOME LIKE IT HOTH) was an Egyptian God of who was a mediator between good and evil, making sure neither had a decisive victory over the other, credited with inventing writing and hieroglyphics, and was present at the judgment of the deceased.

Potential Geek alert: The man Young Miles found dead was named Mr. Vonner. In the Blade series, there was a doctor of obstetrics named Vonner who selected young women and implanted them with virus incubators instead of babies. He also ran a vampire test lab. A stretch as well, most likely, but interesting that there's a second potential reference to vamps, with Bram (Stoker).

Post below with your comments/thoughts/input/calls of BS.


- Sean Salo

Don’t forget to try the dipping sauces, they really bring out the ham.

Last night on LOST, we went to Tikrit, Moscow, Los Angeles, Santo Domingo and the island... not bad for an hour, minus commercials. Oldham ("I'm Larry, this is my brother Darryl, and this is my other brother Darryl") feeds Sayid’s sweet tooth. Juliet thinks it’s time to stop playing house. Little Ben serves Sayid a chicken salad sammich; and Sayid serves Ben up a dish of cold revenge.

Lost 5x10: He’s Our You

Last night’s episode of LOST was a strange one. We’ve come to see Saywer in the last few episodes as in control. That control seemed to be on the verge of falling apart with both his love life and “playing house” with Juliet because Kate is back, and with his control of the island’s security between not getting Sayid to comply, a flaming DHARMA bus and barracks fire. And we saw Sayid go from confident, strategic and suave alpha male to captured (by a woman), imprisoned, emotional and vengeful. It’s an uncomfortable place as a viewer. But LOST is certainly known for challenging our comfort.

Putting the big questions of the episode up front. Comment with your thoughts/answers below.

Questions:

We don’t really believe Little Ben is dead, do we? Seems that would create a paradox which Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof have been adamant would not be the case. Faraday’s assertions that the future is the future – how can the future for all those folks move forward without Ben?

So did Ben HAVE to die? In order to lead the Others, even to go to the Others, did Ben have to die, like Locke or perhaps others before him (Christian, Jacob, Richard)? And if so, did Richard tell Ben that he had to die during that initial meeting four years earlier?

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Tikrit, Iraq (early 1970s?):
A father pushes his boy to slaughter a chicken, and his younger brother, Sayid, comes to his brother’s aid and breaks a chicken’s neck. His father praises the act as that of a man. An honest to goodness early character flashback!

Moscow:
Post-Oceanix 6 Sayid pulls off one last kill for Ben. Andropov, the target, offers Sayid cash, but he shoots him. Meeting Ben afterwards, Ben tells him he’s done – they’ve eliminated everyone in Widmore’s organization. Sayid is seemingly distraught and asks Ben what he should do now and Ben tells him he’s free to live his life. (Call backs to when Ben told Walt and Michael they were free, or when he told Juliet she was free to leave the island.)
Geek alert: Russian license plate was E608PC 158.

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic:
Sayid’s working for Build Our World after being set “free” by Ben. Ben shows up there and says that Locke’s been killed and they’re in danger. He says that Widmore’s worker has been waiting for Ben or Sayid outside of Hurley’s hospital. Ben entices Sayid to kill the man and says that it’s in his nature to be a killer. Sayid says he’s not a killer, but manipulator Ben knows what buttons to push.

Los Angeles 2007: Sayid is at a bar drinking $120/glass MacCutcheon whiskey. He says he’s trying to change, but she says that when you are good at something, people will always try to convince you to stay the same.

Sayid and Ilana are in a hotel room and she thwacks him and reveals she’s a bounty hunter working for the family of Peter Avalino, the man Sayid shot on the golf course in the Seychelles. She has been hired to bring him back to Guam.

At LAX, Sayid sees Hurley and Kate, and flips out. We see Ben walk onto the plane, and Sayid asks if Ilana works for Ben. She says no, and Sayid’s emotions continue to take over.

Geek alert: A bit of a stretch, perhaps, but does the Ajira logo looks like Eye of Horus? (Thanks, Phil, for this one.)





Island, 1977: Phil of the Eyebrows is cleaning a gun at his security post outside the cell where Sayid is being held. Little Ben shows up with another sandwich. Little Ben asks Sayid if Richard sent him. He tells him that he met Richard four years ago and he promised to help Ben. He offers to help Sayid if he’s patient.

Geek alert: Ben offers Sayid a book by anthropologist Carlos Castaneda called A Separate Reality. The allegedly non-fiction book details Castenada’s apprenticeship under a sorcerer named Don Juan Matus while under the influences of peyote and a smoked form of mushrooms. The purpose of these trips was to allow him to “See”, or “perceive energy directly as it flows through the universe”. Castenada also claimed that Don Juan had identified him as having the aura of a “nagual” who could become a leader of a party of “Seers”. This realm was referred to as nonordinary reality, a reality that was a different state than those of humans going about their everyday lives. (Sounds a lot like what Locke went through in the sweat lodge he built in season three.)

Horace and Radzinsky question Sayid. Sayid, master at interrogation, gives up nothing.

Juliet realizes she and Sawyer aren’t going to be able to play house any more. (A call back to Kate’s conversation with Sawyer before the Oceanic 6 were rescued.) Horace tells Sawyer that he’s going to have to turn Sayid over to Oldham for answers.

Sawyer goes to the jail cell and head butts Sayid hoping that he will pretend to be a hostile defector. Sayid says no, threatening Sawyer’s con. Sawyer’s game of house/house of cards is falling.

At the commissary, Chef Hurley has served up some waffles and ham with delicious dipping sauces. Hurley metaphorically kicks Kate in the gut by clueing her in to the painfully obvious fact that Saywer and Juliet were living together, like not as roommates.

Geek alert: Geronimo Jackson poster in the background of the mess hall. Also, go to iTunes to download a free track from Geronimo Jackson that’s rumored to actually be by a California retro rock band called the Donkeys.

Roger Linus, Ben’s father, is mopping outside Sayid’s cell and taunts him that he wasn’t smart enough to not get caught, not realizing Sayid could shut down that argument by pointing out that he was mopping up the floor. Little Ben walked in with a sammich for Sayid and Roger flipped out.

Saywer zaps Sayid and they take him into the jungle where Oldham - a creepy old dude played by William Sanderson who played Larry, of Newhart’s Larry, Darryl and Darryl fame – has Sayid restrained to a tree. He gives Sayid a sugarcube dosed with a truth serum.

Sayid’s truth serum has kicked in. He starts spouting out the truth and they seem to think they overdosed him. He reveals what he knows about The Flame, The Pearl and The Swan stations and that they are all going to be killed in the future.

Juliet’s talking to Kate in the auto shop when they bring Sayid back. A DHARMA panel converges to decide what to do with him and they agree – unanimously, including Sawyer – to kill Sayid.

Sawyer tries to free Sayid, who refuses. Sayid says he is fine there and he knows his purpose there. (Sayid's sugarcube incident seems to have given him clarity about the island and his purpose - like the sweat lodge experience. Did he encounter anyone (Jacob? Richard? Christian?) while he was tripping?)

Sawyer reluctantly goes to seek the help of Jack, but Kate answers the door. He asks her why they came back and before she can answer, a flaming DHARMA van goes careening into building 15.

Little Ben set up the diversion so he could free Sayid. Ben had been beaten by Roger and he frees Sayid when he promises to take him to the Others.

Little Ben lets Sayid out of the jail and they run. In the jungle, Jin finds them and Sayid knocks him out, takes his gun and shoots Little Ben. Sayid was a prisoner and feels he's a prisoner of his own destiny, as spelled out by Ben.