5.10 He’s Our You

Well, it was an episode that somewhat clumsily moved along story lines, gave us a lot of insight into the true nature of Dharma, and a somewhat surprising ending. But let’s address a few things right off the bat. Last week, there seemed to be a hot internet rumor about a woman in the background behind Sun while she and Frank were in the darkened, abandoned cabin with Christian. I didn’t think that was important enough to mention, and this week, it was confirmed that it was a crew member that accidentally didn’t get edited out of a shot. So, no, Claire was not there with Christian. Secondly, it is fairly established now, based on the last few episodes, that the future has changed, dramatically, because of the actions happening in the past, by the time traveling folks. Whatever happened, happens is bullsh!t. Yeah, the first few episodes that Daniel preached that simplistic crap, I believed it. Not anymore. No way. We need to identify more of these game changing moments as they happen during our journey of watching this show. We know the future has changed, which is why we have some characters in the future, and some in the past; this is to gauge and observe the extremity of it. The question isn’t has it changed, but rather, can it be changed back to the way it was. Ben knew as soon as Alex died that the rules were out the window. If this is Groundhog Day, a Loop of time with these same characters, based on time travel, and the goal is the get to the point where Oceanic 815 crashes on the island again, it has to come through Desmond. He is the only one special enough to be a game changer. Ben and Locke are special in their own way, but Desmond is the cavalry. Lost will have an ending in Season 6, most likely looping back to Jack waking up in the jungle as Oceanic 815 burns on the beach. Would you be satisfied with that ending? I think I would be. At this point, I think we have seen, and are seeing two parallel alternate timelines. A branch in the road if you will. Will they join up at a later point in time is the question?

Sayid is the key character in this episode, as we see him at an early age slaughter a chicken. And not for himself, but for his brother/friend. But this scene stirred up echoes of Mr Eko and Yemi, and how Eko killed a man for Yemi, a sacrifice, when one of them had to. Now, a chicken is a popular animal in sacrifices, all around the world. The symbolism was too great to ignore. Sayid, much like Mr Eko, will be tested by the island. The island wants to know if Sayid is sorry for his sins, being a ruthless killer. All through out the episode, we see Sayid as a thoughtless killer, trying to become reformed, only to go back to being a torturer or killer again and again and again. Sayid is certainly headed for a fate much like Mr Eko. A fight against our fuzzy little smoke monster pal. Sayid just needs to see a hallucination, maybe Nadia or Shannon, and then get beaten to death. I’m not skipping ahead necessarily, but Sayid is a dead man with no soul and no apologies. So Ben brings Sayid a chicken salad sandwich, ironically enough., and a book. A Separate Reality, a supposedly non-fictional book by Carlos Casteneda. The author was an apprentice to several shamans, took great quantities of mind altering drugs such as peyote, and tried to see the universe as energy flowing throughout. I have a feeling the book title is more crucial, as a separate reality is certainly a reference to the chain reaction changes happening in the LOST universe. But certainly, a point can be made that Ben, young and old, is trying to make Sayid see a large truth about himself, and once Sayid realizes, finally realizes that he is a heartless killer, he will be at peace with his work and be malleable to be used as a mindless tool, a golem. Ben read the book twice. Hmmm. Does this mean the two realities, or that he lived through the time loop twice. Very curious. Young Ben tells Sayid about meeting Richard several years earlier, and that they both need to be patient.

Sayid politely declines a bribe by pumping several bullets into some nameless goon in Moscow. But as he meets up with Ben, he is summarily dismissed. You’re all done, Sayid. But I killed these people for you. This is where is gets really pathetic. Sayid is like some vicious animal that needs to be told to attack. When he starts to think for himself, things get really weird. While Ben was guiding him, he was a well oiled killing machine. Now, his master has whacked him with a rolled up newspaper and told him to get a life. Sayid doesn’t regret killing; he is upset that he is rejected by his master, like a pit bull living at Michael Vick‘s house. You could just see that puppy dog look as he says “What do I do now?” Well, for starters, you have a couple hundred million from the Oceanic crash settlement. Why don’t you go out and get a hooker and some heroin. Live it up a little. Nope, he goes and starts building houses in the Dominican Republic. Yawn.
Horace foreshadows torture by telling Sayid to hold out his hands before removing his cuffs. Sayid still won’t blab. Radzinsky is obsesses with the Swan model, the kind of obsession needed to push buttons over and over again, like he will in the future.
Juliet is burning bacon. With a point blank question, Juliet asks James “It’s over, isn’t it? Us? Playing house?” Sayid insists that nothing has changed. So let me break it to you, dear. Yes, it’s over. The Incompetent Oceanic 6 have returned, and they are screwing everything up. Kate will get Sawyer back. Locke stopped the time jumps on his own. Turns out the O6 didn’t have to return, as far as I can tell at this point. There better be some good reason for it in the future, because I’m tired on their little cute scenes. Sawyer tries to give Sayid a story to get himself out of trouble, but Sayid would rather be on his own. The most interesting part of that scene was Sayid’s first comment was addressing the fact that they were living with Ben, and how could they do that? Nothing about getting out, or what the plan is, or what year it is, but clearly we see evidence of Sayid being obsessed with Ben. When Sayid is laying on his bunk, and closes his eyes at night, the only thing going through his mind is…
“Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben.”
Chef Hurley serves Jack and Kate breakfast. He breaks the news to Kate about Juliet and Sawyer being together. Kate’s expression hasn’t changed since she came back to the island; her face is stuck in perpetual indifference. She might be the worst actress in modern TV history. That’s an impressive feat considering all the female characters on The Cosby Show, Shelly Long and Kirsten Alley from Cheers, and the entire cast of Sex and the City. Yuck. I want nothing more than to take a shower right now. I feel so unclean.
Ben’s father is mopping the floor, trying to trade witty barbs with Sayid. Ben walks in and tries a feeble attempt at a lie. I made you a sandwich, dad. Mr Linus got pissed, and yelled at Ben, that he never made him a god dam sandwich in his life. Yeah, we get it. We are supposed to feel bad for Ben because he has an “abusive” father. Guess what? I felt bad for Mr Linus. Imagine that your wife dies giving birth to an ugly, creepy kid. You uproot your life to move to this island to give your child a better life, and this ungrateful sack of suck won’t even make you a sandwich after a hard day of being a custodian. Are you kidding? If I were Ben’s father, I would not hesitate in giving him a beating. And how does this colostomy bag of a kid repay me for all that I did for him? He gasses me to death years later. Whaaaaaa, whaaaaa, whaaaaa, daddy forget me birthday again. You douchey sissy. Daddy didn’t love me. Well, maybe was an alcoholic because he had such a creepy kid. Do you think Mrs Cartman has issues as well being the mother to Eric Cartman? I so badly wanted to reach through the screen and punch Ben myself. Good for you Mr Linus, and in tossing the sandwich on the floor that you just mopped. That’ll teach somebody a lesson. Who, I have no idea. What kind of monster doesn’t make a meal for his parent?
Ben visits Sayid in Santo Domingo. I was expecting him to have a hoagie to give to Sayid. I believe Locke was murdered. No kidding? I wonder who did it? I guess Locke must have asked for a Monte Cristo and somebody needed to teach him a lesson. Ben plants a bunch of seeds in Sayid’s head. Ben is a very skilled killer, as he certainly showed by knocking off Abaddon. But he asks Sayid to kill the guy outside Hurley’s mental institution. He needs Sayid on that plane, and he knows that Sayid is very protective of Hurley. This is the only way he can get Sayid to continue to do what Ben wants and to come back to Los Angeles. So, Sayid did exactly that. Of course, then Ben turns around, and hires Ilana to capture Sayid, and take him on the Ajira flight. It’s the typical Ben move, like how he hired those lawyers to position Kate into returning. “It’s what you are. You’re a killer.” Always planting seeds.
Sawyer tasers Sayid, bringing up memories of how the Others used most likely these same tasers to subdue the Losties during the first couple of seasons. We head out to the outskirts of Dharma nation to meet Oldham, a recluse living in a tent. Hey, it’s Larry, without Darryl and Darryl. He’s our you, giving us the reason for the title of this episode. It seemed odd that Sayid didn’t attempt to break away from Phil and Radzinsky as they were securing him to the tree. I believe that Sayid did not want to escape until he fulfilled his perceived upcoming destiny. Sayid is drugged so that he can tell the truth. He positions himself inches away from Oldham in a classic stare down. Meh. I’ve seen meaner scowls from Bobby Flay on his Throwdown shows.

Back at the pier near Los Angeles, Sayid swears unpleasantness upon Ben if he ever meets him again. He proceeds to a bar and is pounding down McCutcheons by the snootful. We remember this liquor as what Charles Widmore was drinking when he told a proposing Desmond that he wasn’t worth a sip of that drink. Years later, Hurley and Charlie got Desmond drunk on the beat on McCutcheons in order to get Desmond to confess what was wrong - that Charlie was going to die. Ilana shows up, sweet talks Sayid, obviously looking to pick him up for some sinister reason. ‘Ole Sayid’s spidey sense wasn’t tingling, I suppose.
The confessions of Sayid come pouring out
I am a bad man
I am not a Hostile.
I came on a plane.
I returned to this island.
I was previously here 100 days then left
I arrived originally on Oceanic 815
Ask Sawyer, but Radzinsky interrupted that nugget with his Swan obsession.
The Pearl, Flame, and Swan identities
I’m from the future
then the giggling starts by Sayid. Horace at times seemed to look like he believed some of what Sayid was saying. The others were morons, that didn’t believe what they were hearing. Why would you doubt Sayid’s story without investigating it? And the first thing out of Sayid’s mouth was I am a bad man. Talk about no self esteem. The guy is so ready to die.
We see an awkward conversation between Juliet and Kate, where the essence is that Juliet wants Kate to stay away from Sawyer. Unfortunately, we know that won’t happen.
The Dharma elders debate the fate of Sayid, and these so called hippies are demanding blood. These people sicken me. They aren’t harmless scientists, preaching Namaste. They want to kill Sayid in cold blood for no apparent crime other than trespassing. And it’s unanimous. Wow. These people suck. I don’t feel any pity at all for the purge. I hope it still happens. You are building hatches on a special island where you feel time travel is possible. You have a man in your presence that claims he is from the future. So you decide to kill him, like a dimwitted villager with torches and pitchforks chasing Frankenstein’s monster. Even Amy twists Horace’s gonads and with her best Rev Lovejoy’s wife “What about the children? Won’t someone please think of the children?” Amy is pretty much useless.

Sayid gets jumped by Ilana in a hotel room. Turns out she is a bounty hunter, and not as careless and stupid as the broad in The Economist that let Sayid get the best of her. She declares Sayid will answer for what he has done. True, but not by you, the people who hired you (most likely Ben), or the law. Nope. The island will be the judge and jury and executioner. Sawyer yet again tries to talk sense into Sayid, but nothing doing. Sayid is at peace with himself, talking about destiny, and now knowing why he is back on the island. Huffy Sawyer, watching his world crumble, his iron grip control being shaken, marches over to Kate’s house to demand answers. Why did you come back? Kate gives a roundabout response, but before she give an answer along the lines of “I came back to make sure you weren’t having a happy life, but if you were I would take the time to ruin it….” a flaming bus crashed down a hill and plows into a house, which is the equivalent of having Kate in your life. It’s too bad Frank wasn’t steering it as it would have glided to a stop in the flowerbed instead. LaFleur is barking orders, getting his Abott and Costello fire brigade up and running. This was memorable because Jack actually had a second line in this episode “What do you want me to do?” or something like that. Oh, Jack, how far you have fallen. Good times, good times. Ben sneaks back into the holding cells. Ah, the little creep was the one that caused the fire. Clearly, it couldn’t have been Kate or Saywer, who were talking to each other, and Jack was close by. The only suspects at that point had to be Hurley or Little Ben. I wonder how the cameras will reveal this in upcoming episodes. Clearly Ben is caught on camera, hoodie or not, as the person who released Sayid. It had to be a child, based on Ben’s height. But do the camera’s record? I don’t know, but you would think so. The upcoming scandal will be why did Ben release the prisoner? Ah, that poor Mr Linus. He will catch grief for that as well. Sure, Ben showed up to free Sayid with broken glasses. But look at how Ben is behaving. Setting a van on fire to drive into an occupied house to release a dangerous prisoner. Parents, do you think a timeout would have resolved Ben’s issues. If you think so, please go suffocate your children with a pillow right now. If you are unfamiliar with the technique, just fast forward to the end of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I’ll wait. …….All done. Good. Because I don’t want any more Bens running around this planet. And don’t give me that medication crap. It stiffles creativity. Drugs and kids don’t mix. Just like Hurley and Atkins, it just doesn‘t mix. Stupid Ben says “I hate it here”. Notice, he didn’t say I hate HIM. He hates it HERE. So, even Ben realizes what a rotten son he has been and doesn’t blame his father for trying to straighten him out. I hate it HERE. And what’s to like about living in a paradise location? Hell, he could be living it up in Portland Oregon, or Salt Lake City, or some other God forsaken place. At this point, throw the whole Linus family into a wood chipper and let’s be done with it. They suck in 1977, every last one of them. Sayid tells Ben he will take him to the Hostiles. It is his destiny. Um, NO. How is it your destiny to walk this kid to a group of people that have never met you, years before Ben was supposed to lead the purge? Sayid is going to fock up the Other’s plans just like that. I wasn’t buying it for a second. I figured that Sayid would make it out into the jungle, then run away from Ben, leaving him behind.

Sayid notices all the Oceanic 6 in the airport and doesn’t want to get on the plane. No dice. Ilana insists. Sayid asks Ilana if she is working for Ben. She says don’t be silly. Um, reality check is that she is. Little Ben and Sayid are running through the jungle. As they get off the road, a van stops, and Jin emerges. Sayid tells Jin that Sawyer let him out, a crucial bit of dialogue, no doubt, for future reference. As Jin calls in to Lafleur, Sayid knocks him out and pulls out his gun. “You were right, I am a killer.” Little Ben is completely baffled, since he has never told this to Sayid, yet. Nevertheless, Sayid shoots Little Ben through the heart. THE HEART. Ben is dead. And make no mistake, BEN IS DEAD. If you are thinking that the island will heal him, you are ignoring the spinal tumor that he got, how he is laying in a cot in the present, beaten into a bloody mess. No, the island stopped healing Ben a long time ago. The only way, only way Ben lives is if the island needs him in the future. But the island had the Jungle folks and Losties time jumping for a reason, to fix the past. This was it, a game changer. The island could have left Sayid in the present. But it sent him to the past to kill Ben. Christian told Locke that listening to Ben never got him anywhere. Ben is out. But can Ben still be alive in the future? Depends on which time line you look at. The one where he lived until he purged Dharma, and is on Hydra island. Or the alternate reality, where he is now dead. I get the feeling Desmond can unite the two alternate timelines. When Locke was shot, it was through the spot were his kidney was surgically removed. Even he said he would have died if that kidney was still there. Naomi recovered from a punctured lung, but she still was breathing. A direct shot into the heart is life ending. Ben is dead. In THIS timeline.

The writers set out to make the viewer feel certain ways during this episode.
Ben more sympathetic as an abused child.
Ben’s father is an abusive assh0le.
Sayid is an unemotional killer.

I consider those agenda items as mixed results. Obviously, I felt zero sympathy to Ben’s “abuse”. Give me a break. I got roughed up by my parents, teachers, other kids quite a bit. That’s called learning life lessons. Makes you a better person. The fact is that Ben didn’t learn anything but how to act like a crybaby that vowed revenge for nobody taking his whining seriously. Ben’s father had a shitty son. What can you do but drink? How would you feel if your kid is cooking meals for a prisoner, while not doing chores around the house? While I think Ben’s father is an assh0le, part of that is caused by Ben. Mr Linus is a dink, but not a monster. Just a drunk, missing his wife. More importantly, the writers spent a lot of time making Sayid’s character into what it needed to be in order to shoot in cold blood an unarmed child on prime time TV. That’s really bold right there. I suspect the island will judge Sayid for this very soon. Mr Eko style. It’s certainly possible that Ben was pulling the strings to get Sayid to shoot him as a child for God knows what reason to benefit Ben in the long run. But the bottom line is that I was supposed to feel like Ben was some kind of victim, and Sayid was a ruthless barbarian. I’m sorry, but I didn’t feel that at all. I just expressed surprise at the shooting. But it’s time to move on, hopefully to more interesting episodes. This one wasn’t particularly good.

5.9 Namaste

Not every episode is going to have the wall to wall What The Fock? moments. This episode did a nice job of advancing a number of story lines, filling in some gaps in this year’s story telling, and setting us up for future twists and turns.

We begin on the Ajira plane, with the co-pilot recognizing Hurley as a celebrity. I had to ask myself, with Frank knowing that the plane was going back to the island, and that the original plane crash killed a bunch of people, how could Frank consciously keep the plane on course towards the island. Change course settings, you selfish mook. Sure, Frank is a fantastic pilot, but if one of your main jobs is to protect your passengers, how can you make the decision to sacrifice lives to do a favor for Jack and Hurley. Weak, dude. I hope you noticed how the plane started hitting turbulence when it was night time, and when they emerged from the clouds, it was high noon. Yep, the time difference strikes again, as Frank flies through the bubble that separates the rest of the world from the island’s circumference. Kudos go the Frank for keeping the plane from ripping into multiple pieces, unlike some other pilot from the ironically pilot episode who didn’t do such a good job. Maybe that is another reason the smoke monster killed that original pilot. He screwed up in the plane crash. And lo and behold, as the plane turns, they spot a runway. OK. How ridiculous does it sound to build a runway on a remote, lost in time island? Well, it was done on Ben’s orders. Remember back in Season 3, during the stretch of brutally awful episodes featuring Jack, Kate, and Sawyer being captives of the Others on the Hydra station island, Kate and Sawyer were hauling rocks all day as work duty. This must have been part of the runway clearance. It was mentioned that the time table for the project had been moved up, so there was certainly prior knowledge that a runway needed to be built, for this specific situation. How, how, how did the Others know? Jacob? Well, if my supposition is right that Ben can’t really talk to Jacob, then the answer is no. Ability to see the future? Maybe based on Walt’s gift, they were able to get some things out of the kid while he was a prisoner. Ben remembering things during time loops? My simple conclusion is that Ben is able to have knowledge of future events. That is how he stays in power. How, I’m not sure yet. I also feel bad for the co-pilot. If this is playing out like the Oceanic plane crash, he is going to die shortly. But he does an important thing first. He tries to call for help, and the signal is overridden by a voice saying over and over again, “4,8,15,16,23,42” This is of ENORMOUS significance. And something I completely missed hearing until I re-watched the episode today. If you recall, during Season 1, the Losties discovered Rousseau’s distress call transmitting over and over again in French. She said that she changed the message from the numbers being broadcast over and over again, 16 years prior. When Hurley traveled to Australia, he was told that the numbers were broadcast for a long time, where the military was listening to it. Jack and the Losties turned off Rousseaus transmission at the end or Season 3. Right now, there should be silence. Yet, he are hearing the numbers. Faraday is very wrong. Whatever happened does not mean is happens. Maybe during the time jumps this may have been true. But now that the island folks are stationary, and interacting with the past, something that was done has drastically affected the future, as we will keep seeing over and over again this episode, in very subtle ways. Well, that didn’t take long, the co-pilot is dead. Frank checks on the passengers. As Caesar checks Ilana, she mutters a name before waking up. I wish I had subtitles, but that has to wait until the DVDs come out. Was the name “Sarah” muttered? Well, the only Sarah in Lost is Jack’s ex wife. It also sounded a bit like “Gerald” and the only Gerald is DeGroot, a founder of Dharma. Don’t know the significance of the word slip at this point. Sun does not jump, confirming what we all strongly suspected. As Frank asks Ben what happened, we get a “How should I know?” Other than knowing the plane was going to crash, and you knew exactly how long the runway had to be to save your life, you don’t know a thing. Sure. 30 years earlier, Sawyer is staring at Jack, Kate, and Hurley. Well, mostly Kate, as Jack looks at this blatant ogling by sticking his hands in his pockets and looking like a glum idiot. Yeah, I slept with her a day or two ago, but by all means stare at her as if she was naked. Oh, that’s right, you’ve seen her naked. Never mind. I’ll just stand and sulk over here. Hugs all around, and Kate strangely calls LaFleur “James”. Is this the first time she called him “James”? Probably. Unusually formal. Both groups trade stories. Locke is dead (wrong again Jack), and that JKH are now in Dharma time, 1977.

So, 3 years have passed in the real world and on the island, so time moves at a somewhat similar rate in a large scale sense, but a day or two behind or ahead in a practical sense. When Jin hears Sun was on the plane, he loses his mind. Instead of doing the smart thing and running and hiding from a female that would make Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct get goose bumps, he goes to look for the plane. No doubt so he can find her and put a bullet into the back of her head. After 3 years, surely he has had time to reflect how much she has ruined his life. Juliet, playing the snooping jealous girlfriend, catches up with Sawyer and is stunned, in the bad way, that Jack, Hurley, and especially Kate are back. Hell, she probably watched Kate have sex with Sawyer in the polar bear cages on camera. She can’t feel good about having Kate around. Sawyer explains that they have to do something with them “before they screw up everything we got here”. This was left vague on purpose. Was he talking about Dharma and his life with them, or his relationship with Juliet? Both? Neither? As Jin arrives at the Flame station, long before Locke blew it up, I can’t help but wonder why a communication station was built at the base of a mountain. Um, reception might be spotty. A man looking like a scruffy Paul Giamatti is startled by Jin’s barging in and running around the place like either Tom and Jerry of cartoon fame. Turns out the guy in the station is Radzinsky, the guy that killed himself inside the Swan station Back on the beach, Frank is doing a Jack speech, gathering everybody together, giving a pep talk, and promising to look after them. Caesar starts to take charge, noticing the cages and houses nearby. Ben knows they are on the Hydra station island, and better skedaddle in case Caesar finds a picture or evidence of Ben in those houses. Sun follows him. Ben decides to double back rather than hide from Sun, and asks her to join him on the island. Why? I have no idea. Remember, that confused, mentally unhinged woman was trying to kill you a couple of days ago.

Juliet checks on Amy and the baby while slyly taking over the sub manifest. Very reminiscent of Ethan sneaking into the Losties camp, as she and Sawyer are trying to sneak JKH into Dharma. And wouldn’t you know it? The baby is named Ethan. Most likely the same Ethan who worked with Juliet, the same Ethan who kidnapped Claire, hung Charlie, and killed either Scott or Steve. Creepy Ethan. Juliet was repulsed, as if she was holding the baby Rocky Dennis. The main question here is how did Ethan end up with the Others down the road. Remember, we were led to believe that Ben was the only Dharma survivor from the purge, which is still many years away, as Ben was a grown up when he poisoned his father and many others. Ethan is a baby. So, do the Others kidnapp Ethan at some point? Did he convert? Did Horace have to give him up in some deal with Richard? Amy asks When are you and LaFleur going to have a baby? When the time is right. Bullsh!t. What Juliet meant to say was when Kate is dead. Jack admits to Kate that Hawking didn’t tell him anything about a time jump. I wonder if it would have made a difference as to whether the Oceanic 6 would have come back with this condition known. Hell, maybe Hawking had no idea this was going to happen. Interesting plan to sneak JKH into Dharma by way of sub. But since no new recruits are due for 6 months, does this mean that the island will be inaccessible to everybody for that time; the island is going to be hiding. Which makes me wonder. Since the purge happened in the future in some time line, not this one, but some time line, there really was no escape from it. Everybody was trapped, doomed to die, unless they had a gas mask. Or maybe make a dash to the Hydra station island. Anyway, Jack asks Kate what she thinks, and then Hurley chimes in. This is the exact opposite of what Jack would have done on the island the first time around. He did all the decision making and no listening. Quite a remarkable change. A red alarm goes off in the Flame, and Jin runs out to confront the hostile. Who happens to be Sayid. Sayid had a lot of practice putting on his surprised face this episode, as Jin points the gun at his head when Radzinsky shows up with his gun.

Hurley brings up the mass grave Dharma pit and if Sawyer is going to warn them. Sawyer counters with Faraday’s theories (which we know are wrong) and that he isn’t here anymore. Since we’ve seen all the other Losties and Widmores in their Dharma roles, with the exception of Daniel other than scene one of episode one of this season, you could speculate that Daniel may have left the island at some point. I prefer to think that he has left the island, mentally. He’s gone bat sh!t crazy. A mental meltdown. Sawyer reveals the plan of concealment as we arrive at a Dharma recruitment party, complete with alibis and fake work assignments. Sawyer is decisive, thinking ahead, and staying quick witted. He truly has become what Jack never was. Miles tells Sawyer about Sayid, who is moved to a holding area in the Flame. Ben leads Sun to a spot where several outrigger canoes are conveniently hidden. Again, an example of Ben knowing the future in advance, most likely. He knew he would need these vessels, like the runway. But, during the time jumps, all three canoes were at the Losties old beach. So….how did the canoes get from one island to the next, and specifically, on the opposite side of Lost island, since from the small island to the big island in a straight line from where Ben and Sun stood were the Barracks. Another example of things being wrong. Ben discards his arm sling, either showing off the island’s healing power, or a ruse designed to keep people from beating up a one armed man getting on a plane. Frank shows up, leaving a bunch of passengers behind to chase a woman who walked off into the jungle. Frank is an irresponsible dummy. Can you trust Ben? I have to. The more important question, oh foul wench, can Ben trust you. A showdown between the two biggest liars on the show, Ben and Sun. Frank points out that a boat full of commandos came after Ben. And the lovely comeback How did that work out for everybody. Sun shot Ben a dirty look, and I bet he knew it to. Brass balls on this guy. Ben explains how close he is to his own people just on the other side on the island, and he offers to help the plane crash victims. For his most generous dubious offer, Sun blindsides him with a canoe paddle. I lied. Yep, you sure did, Sun. And as a result, you knocked down the best chance of rescue those poor Ajira people had. Might not have been a great chance, but it was there only chance. They are all trapped in this world. And now Frank has to abandon those folks and go with you because your scrawny ass and flimsy wrists aren’t going to be able to handle the canoe in the open ocean. So, you screwed Ben, Frank, the Ajira folks. To go back to a huge island to look for Jin without the guidance of the guy that knows all about the island. Just to get a cute line in. Sun, will you ever win your constant battle to try to do something intelligent rather than succumbing to idiocy. I am overjoyed that Jin is 30 years away from you, and it’s still not far enough. Sun should be standing around a bubbling cauldron. Oh, yeah. How’s that kid of your’s doing? That’s right. You have a kid you abandoned, Ms Mother of the Year. You won in a landslide over the OctoMom. But don’t feel bad for OctoMom. She’s been cast as the villain in the next Iron Man movie: Iron Man vs. Iron Uterus. And all this happened before they looked around and discovered Locke was back near the crash site. Fools, every last one of them.

While the hippie recruitment party is in full swing, including the orientation film recorded by Dr Chang, who explains that the compound is surrounded by pylons, the actual Dr Chang processes Jack. He mutters how disorganized they are on the other side, most likely a reference to Dharma in the real world, run by the DeGroots. Chang speaks highly of LaFleur, a good man, runs a tight ship. Another comparison to Jack can be made here, a common theme running through the episode until the conclusion. Based on aptitude, Jack will be a workman. Well going from doctor to janitor should make Jack feel like a legal U.S. immigrant. On the bright side, he doesn’t have to be a cab driver and deal with traffic all day long. Kate is questioned by Paul. I swear, the more I look at this lunkhead, the more convinced I am that they have a unibrow but they really don‘t. I’m talking about Paul and not Kate, so pay attention. He looks like one of those villains sitting at Dr Evil’s table from an Austin Powers movie. Maybe it was the lesbian golfer. Dunno. Juliet shows up just in time. She and Kate spend some time with idle chatter while staring daggers at each other. Juliet looked extremely psychotic. I think Kate will be working in the motor pool. Random thought. Remember when Juliet got branded back in Season 3. Was there any evidence of that mark last week when she was in bed with Sawyer? Radzinsky puts in his bid for craziest person of the episode with his paranoia over the Swan hatch plans, the future location of it, the hostile is a spy, and they need to shoot him. Well, if Radzinsky designed it, I guess I can understand how he ended up in the damn thing pushing buttons. Sayid confesses to being a hostile under the questioning and helpful hints of Sawyer. He is taken back to the Barracks jail. Frank and Sun arrive on the main island, and it’s dark. They walk along a dilapidated pier. We know this to be the pier the sub was stationed at during Season 3 and Juliet‘s flashback. The problem is that the dock is long abandoned, in desperate need of repair after a long period of time of neglect. But how can this be? After Dharma was purged, we saw the Others living at the Barracks. We saw this same dock just before Locke blew up the submarine. Things have changed based on actions from the past. Hey, the trees are shaking. It’s Smokey!!! And….nothing. Wow. Smokey left. Why? Was it coming for Frank, like it did in the pilot episode, killing the Oceanic 815 pilot in a gruesome way. Was it coming for Sun, for her willingness to partner with Charles Widmore? Was is called off by our next contestant on the price is right, Christian? As Sun and Frank wander around, I couldn’t help but make the connection of the Dharma Processing Center orange wall with the Jungle 6 time jumping, and Juliet looking at the wall and saying, Thank God we are in this time period before jumping immediately again. This was the same wall. A light comes on, and a man appears. But it’s no ordinary man. It’s Christian Shepherd, making an appearance, but this is not Jacob’s Cabin. And it makes his appearances less special if he is going to reveal himself to Frank and that evil Sun. I’m looking for Jin. Follow me. If I’m in that situation, I would probably think twice about walking into an old, dirty, unlit building, but nobody is ever going to call Frank or Sun smart. So Shaggy and Scooby Doo follow Christian.

Christian is searching for a photo. It’s as if Dharma just sort of disappeared, and the Others never moved in. Let’s face it, if you killed all these folks in a purge, would you keep their photos hanging up? Well, Christian confirmed the 1977 Dharma recruitment class contained Sun’s friends from the plane. Christian mentions a long journey ahead for Sun. Now, here is the thing. If Sun reunites with Jin, will it happen through the wheel in the Orchid. Will it happen with Desmond’s help, since he is special. And if Sun and Jin reunite at some point….hmmmm. Could this huge upcoming battle not be Ben vs. Widmore or something like that. How about Dharma vs. Hostiles. Locke and Richard vs. Horace and Sawyer. I don’t know how Ben fits in. Yet. But that would be fascinating. What if Ben doesn’t lead a purge? What if the Losties in the past have an effect on him where he doesn’t become an evil genius and Dharma survives. How would that have played out on the island? Probably with a Jughead detonation. The last scene of Lost is a mushroom cloud, and nobody outside the island’s little bubble ever sees it. Anyway, Sayid is escorted to jail, while he sees Jack, Hurley, and Kate about to have some burgers and punch. Yeah, life is a kick in the groin. Jack goes to look for Sawyer’s house, and is scolded by Paul not to call him James. Geez, these people are walking on eggshells around Sawyer. Juliet answers the door, and tells him Yep, it’s the right house. Jack didn’t see that one coming, Sawyer with Juliet. Sawyer sets aside his book, looking quite regal sitting on his living room throne. Concerning Sayid, Sawyer says he had no choice and refers to Dharma as “my people”. Ah, quite interesting here. Remember how Locke didn’t shoot at the Other (who ended up being Widmore) earlier this season because he was one of “my people”? Same thing with Sawyer here. Here is the moral conundrum. Do you put your loyalty into the people you’ve been living with for 3 years, including the people you time jumped with, including your live in girlfriend. OR do you have more loyalty to people you knew for 3 months, including a girl that playing kickball with your heart, folks that you haven‘t seen for 3 years? Yet, Sawyer kept looking for any survivors, any of these people. Was it loyalty to Locke saving their lives? Was it for Kate if she came back? But it must be nice to be on the island with knowledge of the future to guide your decisions as well. Sawyer points out he improvised, Sayid is safe. He likes to read like Churchill since it makes him think, something Jack never did. Jack always reacted. A lot of people died. I mean, Sawyer is really laying into Jack at this point, and Jack is simply a defeated person. He is simply along for the ride, taking a backseat to everybody. It’s not an accident I’ve temporarily discontinued the Jack sucks moments of the week, mostly because right now, Jack is a background character. How about that? Can you imagine this, based on watching Seasons 1-4? This is the complete opposite of when Jack dressed down Locke in the hospital after the car accident. Of course, a lot of people died that followed Locke, but let’s not quibble over details? Right? Let’s face it, Sawyer came off a bit pompous and egotistical. Probably because Jack had the opportunity to play Hide the Pickle with Kate for 3 years. Not that Sawyer was spending his nights alone by shacking up with Juliet. But this Kate issue is unfortunately not going away, and the responsible thing for the writers to do is to have Kate tied up in the boat house, stick a grenade in her mouth, pull the pin, and walk away. I bet you hear an explosion in less than 5 minutes as that girl won’t shut up. Jack!!!! Sawyer!!!!! Fight over me!!!!!! I have to be the center of attention!!!!!!!! BOOM!!!!!!!! Jack with a feeble “I got us off this island”. Um, Jack, remember that there were 48 original survivors. And that isn’t counting the Tailies. And how many people got off the island? Six? One of them wasn’t even an original passenger (Aaron). Jack, bubby, you aren’t exactly hitting a high percentage there. Plus, if Sawyer doesn’t jump off the helicopter, you go down in the ocean near a soon to explode freighter. How the fock do you brag about getting your best friends on the island rescued, while you left every body else to die. Juliet wanted off the island, but she kept letting other people go before her on the raft. That is an unselfish act. You jumped on the first chopper you could to get out while the getting was good. Jack, go pound sand. And the ones you rescued weren’t exactly having a fun time in the real world. Sawyer points out Yet here you are back. Exactly. Sawyer points out he saved Jack’s ass today, and he will do the same for Sayid. Yikes. Really, really egotistical. While it’s true Jack used to be the same type of goon leader, you don’t want to see Sawyer become the same monster. Plus, I’m not so sure how much Sawyer wants to save Sayid. Sayid and Jack conspired to torture Sawyer when they couldn’t find Shannon’s inhaler back in Season 1. Bamboo. Fingernails. This is a unique spot for Sawyer to get revenge. While I doubt he will do this, it might be a thought bouncing around the back of his head. Sawyer even points out Jack looks relieved that he is no longer a leader. What a brutal beat down. This was more cringe inducing than watching Dick Clark wish in the New Year by drooling on a microphone. More horrifying was Sawyer waving to Kate after Jack left. Yuck. It doesn’t matter how good life is for Sawyer. Ugh. All these characters on this show suck. I guess that is part of the appeal. I spend an hour each Wednesday watching, the next week complaining how much these imbeciles p!ss me off. It’s a terrific show with great writing and pacing. But can we make the characters less douchey. Please. It’s slowly turning into an MTV reality show. Where was I? Oh, a creepy looking young kid brings some food to Sayid. Turns out this kid is young Ben. Now, did I mention this kid was creepy. We’re talking Children of the Corn meets the Exorcist. Seriously creepy. I used to think that fidget in Jerry Maguire was the scariest looking monster I’d even seen, but young Ben would give him a run for his money. So, the main question at this point is whether this meeting with Sayid is before or after young Ben met Richard in the jungle. If it is before, Sayid might play a hand at keeping Ben from purging, by never meeting Richard, and Dharma lives on. If this is after Ben met the Others, this might be his curiosity in conversing with someone that piqued his interest into what he wants to become. A bonding situation. Either way, Sayid becomes a huge influence on Ben. And whatever happened, doesn’t necessarily happen.

5.8 ½ Midseason Musings

With no new episode this week, it’s a good time to take a deep breath, and post some miscellaneous rambling thoughts on LOST. I’m going to try a similar format as the season opening write-up, and revisit each main or semi main character, and see if I have something to say.

Sayid: Well, he doesn’t seem to be on the Hydra Island. Which means he is most likely in the 1970’s with Dharma. Except that he is still in handcuffs. That seems to be quite a bit of bad news, to be alone in the jungle, in handcuffs. He better hope no polar bears are around that are willing to chase him. Then again, if Sayid is in the Dharma time, we may meet the little known Radzinsky and Kevin Inman, two guys that were stationed in the Swan, pushing the button. Radzinsky is the less known guy, responsible for putting the hatch drawings on the lock down doors in the Swan, and eventually put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Kevin Inman is the guy Desmond was partnered with for a while in the Swan. He also had a connection to Kate’s military officer father, and had a prominent role in the Sayid flashback where Sayid did some torturing in Iraq. Inman and Radzinsky survived the Dharma purge, probably because the Others didn’t know where the Swan hatch was, even though they could see them through the monitors in the Pearl station, as we recall Ben and Juliet spying on the Losties in the Swan back in Season 3. It would be nice to get more info on these two mystery guys. And what exactly did Sayid do to get arrested and sent to Guam?

Jack: Final scene of Lost, as I keep on saying: Jack wakes up in the jungle, as the past meets the future in that split second. If the Dharma 7 never time jump to the present, they are the proof of the time loop, Groundhog Day angle, they will then live out the next few months on the island, Seasons 1-4, maybe with past knowledge, maybe not, but it would be interesting to see how the end is actually the beginning. Jack has undergone a remarkable change in character just before coming back to the island, now ignoring common sense to become a man of faith. So odd to see Jack ignoring his brain to follow his heart. Oh, wait, he was on his way to see the Wizard in search of a brain, so this might have been a good strategic move.

Hurley/Hugo: His character has receded into the background. Just as soon as you start thinking he is important, like finding the Cabin, he becomes the invisible man. Hurley’s paranoia over Ben is annoying me. Hurley is probably justified in his mistrust, but it doesn’t make it less annoying.

Sawyer: Locke and Sawyer are neck and neck for most dramatic character change since arriving on the island. I hope this dope realizes the happy time he spend with Juliet is not something to be treated lightly. Kate is a horrible person, Sawyer is one of my favorites on this show. Don’t do it, buddy. Don’t do it. Oh, you ARE going to do it, aren’t you?

Jin: After spending last season as Sun’s whipping boy, he has rebounded a bit, has made several very selfless acts, and is very good as Sawyer’s sidekick. Very natural.

Sun: Well, for all the hate I spewed in her direction, I find myself spewing less. Sure, she is a dope, betraying her father, betraying Jin, cutting a deal with Widmore, then abandoning her child to go look for Jin. She is still an ice queen, but I chalk it up to being a dummy at this point. She was trying to act like a hitman for a while, but as soon as she saw Jin‘s ring, she became as docile as a cow being led to slaughter by Ben. I hope for Jin’s sake, she is trapped in the present, and never has a chance to ruin Jin’s life again.

Kate: Easily, the worst actor and worst person on this show. I don’t care how many people Ben slaughters, his heart is not as ice cold as Kate’s. Please, island, what sacrifice do you need from me to ensure Kate dies? Why does she matter to the show’s story anymore. Jack is connected to the island by family. Hurley can see the cabin. Why is Kate in the past, other than to give Sawyer blue balls. Fock you, Kate. I’d want her to be pregnant and die in early childbirth, but that would be 2 trimesters too long for my liking. Kate has the same snaky obnoxiousness as the lady that called 911 3 times because McDonalds wouldn’t give her the chicken nuggets that she ordered.

Locke: Locke is in the present. Being that Sawyer knows Locke jumped to fix the time jumping, he and Jack can compare stories where Jack knows Locke was coming back to the island, it might be worth speculating on their part that Locke is in another time line. What would I do? How about writing messages to Locke, and leaving them where only Locke would find them. Maybe make an orientation film for him, or leave a message at the Swan. Something to let Locke know they are trapped in the past. A war is coming. Maybe it’s not so simple, a battle between Ben and Widmore. How about a battle between people from different time periods, a battle to see which time period triumphs. Or something even crazier. And let’s consider a truly interesting scenario. It’s pretty obvious that Locke’s loyalty is to the Others and the island at this point. What if this big battle coming up is between Locke led Others vs. the Losties and friends. Locke has to lead a final battle vs. Jack and his friends. Locke will have mixed emotions about that one. And towards the end of Season 6, Locke betrays the Others for the better good and helps Jack, and dies one final time for the island. Jack is then forced to become the guardian of the island and as a result the spiritual leader.

Claire: turns out, she is pregnant in real life, and is having a kid. Which explains why she isn’t on the show at the moment. So, no need to speculate anything about her.


Benjamin: Holy smokes, Ben is a liar. When Jack turned to Ben aboard the Ajira flight, and asked him if he knew that Locke killed himself, Ben acted surprised, despite being the one who killed him. But let’s not overlook how Jack asked Ben how can you be reading? Ben answered, “my mother taught me”. You know what, I missed this lie the first time. Ben’s mother died in child birth. Even when Ben is asked an innocent question, he can’t help but lie. So….my belief is that Ben NEVER could communicate with Jacob. He was able to find the cabin. But he may have fooled Widmore into leaving the island. He had Dharma killed off. He may have fooled Richard into thinking Ben was to be the Others leader. Then pretended to hear Jacob speak. But since Ben was not meant to be the leader, the island punished the island with childbirth issues, an homage to Ben’s mother dying in childbirth. And that is why Ben was so shocked when Jacob spoke to Locke the first time. Ben was pretending to talk to an empty chair, but Locke heard “help me” Jacob needed Locke’s help to rescue the island from Widmore AND Ben. Ben is a larger than life character that just continues to get better with every episode. Just get ready to hate him, because he killed Penny. No. Doubt. In. My. Mind. We will see that flashback soon enough, probably in a few episodes, as a reason for Desmond to return to the island this season. Revenge. If we saw Ben kill the beloved Locke, why not Penny? Who in their right mind would be so incensed to stop watching at this point? Also, if you consider Ben’s lust for Juliet, you may consider the stupid romantic angle on the show as a love pentagram.

Desmond: I know Penny is dead. Hell, I hope it too. Desmond knows Ben is going back to the island. Revenge moves him to go back, with Widmore’s help. But since he is special, does his arrival reunite all the Losties and the rest into the same time frame? Does Desmond time jump? Does Desmond stay in present day.. The writers can go in so many wonderful directions.

Juliet: Just when I think they are about to kill her off, she starts doing the between the sheets tango with Sawyer. I hope she makes it to the end of the season alive. Again, I have to point out how Juliet is hiding information from the rest.

Vincent: have we seen him this year?

Shannon/Boone: consider someone just starting to watch Season 1. They come up to you and ask “how are Shannon and Boone doing?” You have to rack your memory to try to remember who the hell these people are. Oh, yeah. I remember them. But you can’t tell your friend they have been dead for many seasons. How cool is that?

Walt: No way the island is through with him. He will be back at some point, probably Season 6.

Mr Eko/AnaLucia: We’ve never seen Mr Eko since he died. It would be nice, writers. More Ana Lucia = more gooder.


Libby: I get the feeling we will never get her back story, how she was in the same mental hospital as Hurley, how she gave her boat to Desmond. Seems like the time has passed on her character, and her lingering questions will continue to linger.

Daniel: As much as I loved his character last year, and as important he was the first half of this season, he is becoming a whiny 5 year old. Boo fraking Hoo. Charlotte is dead. You had a crush on her. Get over it. Again, let me point out, you never even kissed her. This is like some horrible Drew Barrymore movie. I know, I know, that’s redundant. Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy. Daniel and Charlotte is a joke. Writers: just stop.

Miles: Best wiseass on the show. Hope he sticks around. Plus, after spending 3 years on the island, Lord knows what he has learned by now, after hearing the dead chatter. His character is about to take a step up to the next level.

Charlotte: I never want to hear her name again. Enough.

Danielle: We got the back story in a fantastic flashback with the monster. As the French say, vaya con Dios.

Rose: Eve part of Adam and Eve skeletons in the caves from Season 1? Maybe. But I’m glad she has disappeared for a number of episodes. She is yet another character I’ve done a 180 on since the beginning of the series. I used to really like. Maybe it was because she wasn’t afraid to give Jack some grief. Once she decided to stick with Jack and turn her back on Locke, I lost a lot of respect for her character.

Richard: Richard never ages. I think the island is more important and powerful than the people on the island. Therefore, is it logical to think Richard doesn‘t age because he was time jumping and popped into the wrong time before the wheel stopped spinning. The island isn’t aging him until he gets to the right time, then the clock starts. If Sawyer, Juliet, Miles, Jin, Jack, Kate, Hurley remain in Dharma time, I bet they don’t age a bit until they reach 2007. So what is the right time for Richard? I’m not sure. He may be related to the Black Rock in some way, since he looks a bit Johnny Depp pirate-like. Could it be that he won’t age until he time jumps to the correct past, possibly the Black Rock time. Until that happens, he is not allowed to age, because whatever happened, happens. If he ages and dies, he can’t go back to the past and do what he is meant to do. In essence, Richard is somewhat lost in time, much like the island. How’s that for the first plausible Richard theory you’ve heard? And I don’t want to hear the Richard is a god theory. He isn’t.

Bernard: Adam part of Adam and Eve skeletons from Season 1? He was a likeable dope for a while, but his down home advice he was giving to others rubbed me the wrong way. The same way Garrison Keillor made me send him hundreds of death threats. I didn’t want to do it. But I felt I owed it to him. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you Garrison.

Alex: Well, we found out Danielle was really her mother, and Ben was not her father. Closure.

Nikki/Paulo: I want a Nikki dead character appearance. What? I’m the only one? But she was a stripper!!!

Christian: the zombie that we all have grown to like. I am looking forward to his next appearance. I want another Christian Jack meeting.

Frank: Well, he isn’t gone for good after all. He continues to be more important than anyone realizes.

Penny: most likely dead. Little Charlie might be dead too. I don’t care.

Dr Candle/Halliwax: We will see this guy a lot more, if we are in Dharma time. I want to hear more about the truth behind the tapes, and what the leaders of Dharma are actually doing with all of these hatches, and which ones we haven’t seen.

Charles Widmore: the apparent villain, but his story suddenly has much more complexity. We need more. If Penny is dead, he is going to be more vicious in going after Ben. Good.

Aaron: Enough with Aaron. I hope when Claire returns, she is motivated to kill Kate.

Caesar: The way he was searching the hatch, he was looking for specific information. Can he be anything but a Widmore spy?

Ilana: She seems more like an innocent victim of circumstance, but is likely to be a puppet to Caesar’s string pulling.

The Smoke Monster: I have been demanding a flashback for many seasons. Can we get one soon? Please?

I’ve been spot on with how the season will progress, from the time travel beginning, to the shift to Dharma, a clever way to get their all important back story. It’s most likely going to continue for a while, with several episodes to explore a young Ben Linus, young Charlotte, possibly a young Miles, and other surprise appearances, no doubt. So, after Dharma, where do we go? The only possibility left will be the Others back story. Where they came from, why some of them don’t age, what is their motivation in anything they do, where do they hide on the island. I think the statue story is done. The Black Rock is still unresolved. But when you think about it, what major mysteries are still left? We have gotten so many answers in the last year and half, it makes me dizzy.

5.08 LaFleur

Well, my rage-aholic therapy will have to wait this week, as I slap together another installment of my self indulgent rambling take on an episode of LOST, a show that should be bottled and sold as a cross between heroin and Viagra, but much more addictive. First, let me revisit last week’s write-up. I mentioned that I thought Ben decided to kill Locke as soon as he heard Jin was alive and that Locke has his ring. As opposed to the whole internet world that thinks Ben decided to do it when Locke said “Eloise Hawking”. I just never fully explained WHY. You have to remember, Sun was trying to kill Ben. And if Ben was having everybody watched, he would know Sun had bought out her father’s company and had met Charles Widmore in public. Therefore, he had major problems in trying to get Sun to come back because Jin was dead and Sun wanted Ben dead too. Ben could not possibly bring Sun back by himself, and return to the island himself. He needed Locke to convince Sun to come back. As soon as he heard Jin was alive, and the ring was in Locke’s possession, bingo, this was his ticket to manipulate Sun, which would have been the toughest nut to crack, which leads to I’ll really miss you, John.

Oh, those sneaky LOST writers. They jump from a scene of Previously on LOST of the Jungle 5 telling Sawyer to let go of the rope, Locke is gone, to a seamless picture of the back of the 4 toed statue. For those that need a refresher, When Sayid, Sun, and Jin took Desmond’s sailboat at the beginning of Season 3 to try to rescue Jack, Sawyer, and Kate from the Others, they sailed past a part of the island where they saw what looked like an ancient statue, well, the remains of one, as only one foot was left of the structure. The foot only had 4 toes. This was source of mystery on the island, until we got fed a bone here. The statue looked very Egyptian, with a foreshadowing in last week’s episode when Hurley was sketching a drawing of a Sphinx in the Egyptian desert. Unfortunately, we only saw the back of the statue. So, who was it? I have seen the screen caps of this, and did a little fact checking. First of all, it’s clearly a woman with long human hair. I’m sorry, but men do not have the same type of backside, a full round butt. And child bearing hips. So toss out all the male Egyptian gods, like Horus and Anubis. So what does make sense? Well, what was the most important development in this episode? Yeah, yeah, we will get to the whole Sawyer Juliet thing later. But I’m talking about Juliet, for the first time in 3 years, successfully delivered a baby. So…..let’s take a look at the Egyptian goddess Taweret, protector of motherhood, fertility, and childbirth. Google it and read Wiki or something similar. Pregnant women wore amulets with her name or likeness to protect their pregnancies. Her image was often shown as a pregnant woman, but we did not see the belly of the statue in this episode. She has four toes. Also, her likeness would often be seen holding an ankh, the symbol of life, the symbol on the necklace around Paul’s neck which Amy kept as the dead Paul was taken away by the others, something our statue was indeed holding. It just fits all too nicely and neatly for this statue to be . How cool would it be if we ever saw the front of the statue, and it had the face of Juliet on there, a big reason why the Others recruited her to the island.

Well, as the Jungle 5 are admiring Taweret‘s ass, another time jump happens, the well is sealed shut, the headaches and nose bleeds are gone. Much to our dismay, the fascinating time jumps have stopped. Locke saves the day. While the Oceanic 6 have a hard time believing in Locke, this group is instantly grateful for what he has apparently done. Faith. Such a key part of this show. Sawyer wants to wait for Locke, as long as it takes. If he knew what we know, he might want a really large stack of books to read and maybe some Rip Van Winkle sleeping pills, because it may be a while until he sees Locke on the island again.
\3 Years Later. Hey, remember when we had to guess if something was a flashback or a flashforward or present time. Yeah, those were the days. Anyway, John Travolta and Olivia Newton John are in the midst of a hootenanny, a word that never quite made it’s way into popular vernacular the way it should have. I would love to see a couple of gangstas on the street conversing “Hey, dog, where you be goin’ tonight?” “I’m going to a hootenanny at my boy‘s crib.” See? It just sweetly rolls off the tongue. The Dharma folks put down their marijuana brownies for a second, to watch Horace light up some Dr Art’s special brand of unstable dynamite from the Black Rock ship. This is the third time we have seen Horace on the show, an interesting character indeed. I’m a bit jealous too. When I get nice and drunk, for the life of me, I just can’t find any dynamite. Oh, and the fun I could have trying to light my farts. It’s off to the barracks and wake up the scary LaFleur, who turns out to be an alias of Sawyer, who is apparently the Head of Dharma Security. Well, this is no surprise. We have to recall Daniel in the Orchid during Dharma construction in the very first scene of Episode 1 of this season. This was a glimpse of this exact time frame for the Jungle 5. They are in Dharma time. And have to be careful, as he all know that Dharma was purged by Ben. Well, we know. Locke and Ben and Hurley know. Maybe Miles. The rest don’t. So when Hurley flakes out about the open grave in the jungle, somebody better pay attention. And, yes, the show is now focused on Dharma, much like I suspected a couple of weeks back. I am on a roll. Remember, I still avoid previews and spoilers, believe it or not. I enjoy the show in the moment. I’m not always right, but I certainly spend a lot of time congratulating myself when I do, not always in print. I’ll be sitting in a bar, talking to a lovely young lady, after buying her a drink. What do I do? Well, I have a government job, but that’s just a hobby. I mostly write blogs about LOST, the TV show. Never heard of it? Well, that’s OK. It’s only the most important thing in the world. Some people say getting married or having kids are great. Well, not me. Being right on theories on LOST episodes is as good as life gets. Um, I understand you are going to the ladies room, but you are taking your purse, jacket, finished your drink, and left a tip. Oh, you don’t want anybody stealing your stuff. OK. I’ll be here the next couple of hours waiting for you to come back so that we can finish my soliloquy on LOST blogging….hours later in a Sawyer voice “Son of a b!tch”.

Sawyer picks up Miles, who is working for him. It is really odd to see Sawyer with his hippie hair, clean shaven, and wearing glasses most of the time. Nerd. Nice touch calling Miles “Enos”. Seems like ‘ole Roscoe P Coltraine hasn’t had to chase them Duke boys around much lately, so he is in fine spirits. Does this mean Jin is Cletus? They bring a passed out Horace Goodspeed, mathematician extraordinaire back to Amy, his wife we assume. Amy is pregnant. At that point, we all knew Juliet was going to deliver this kid by the end of the episode. You can’t fool me all that often LOST writers. Sawyer tells us Horace was near the Flame hatch, and if you recall, this was the communication station run by Mikhail back in Season 3 that Kate, Sayid, Locke, and Rousseau found and subsequently blew up. Amy goes into labor.
3 years earlier. Daniel is having a break down. Oh, boo hoo. Look, jerky. I like you. You are a harmless character that is going to be alive for awhile because the audience needs your explanations. But plenty of people have died on this focking island so stop thinking about your little creepy infatuation with a girl that never gave you the time of day and focus. I’m perfectly willing to put you on my sh!t list and treat you like a production assistant on the set of a movie starring Christian Bale. Just this weekend I yelled at some teenage girl trying to sell me repackaged crap disguised as cookies. Did I have to make her cry? No. But I felt I owed it to her. Apparently you can’t time jump if you are dead. Well, that comforting to know that the corpse of Charlotte is lying somewhere in time, rotting away. Charlotte said she was born on the island, so I guess it is ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Just think, you hang on for another hour or so, you would still be alive and cured. Sucks for you. They are done with the time traveling thing. Miles doesn’t understand why Sawyer wants to go back to the beach, since the camp is gone, and they were last seen fleeing a rain storm of flaming arrows. Then it will be back to the Orchid. Beach. Orchid. Actually, this made so much sense, it was scary. What was even creepier is that if they were in the future, they might be considered the new Others, while the Ajira were the new Losties. It is so amazing the changes that happen in this show, with Sawyer probably the biggest. Was it really only 3 months prior he was hording food on the beach, stealing the guns from the Losties, and having Sun “kidnapped”? And just a couple of weeks since he killed the original Sawyer? Now, Miles is wondering “who put you in charge”? Um, because the guy is kicking some ass. Gun shots. We see a man lying on the ground, and two men putting a bag over a woman’s head. Others. Clearly Others, as that is their modus operandi from Season 3, Season 2, Season 1, hell, probably going back to the dawn of civilization. They probably built a giant bag from parachutes, climbed up the 4 toed statue, and put one over her head. They kept doing it to the Losties and Tailies, over and over and over again. Daniel with his whatever happened, happens. Um, he is saying it so much, I’m starting to doubt the validity of the statement, with all the course correcting going on and some details changing in scenes from episodes in the past. I’m also bothered why exactly Amy and Paul were picnicking outside the pylons, and it was never explained in this episode. Kind of dumb, dontcha think? Sawyer and Juliet kill the Others, and Amy is so grateful that she wasn’t raped and killed that she demands “Who the hell are you?”

Sawyer doesn’t understand why Juliet couldn’t tell the newly dead were Others. Yet, somehow, Juliet doesn’t recognize this technique. Um, what the fock? It was before my time. I keep saying that Juliet is still holding information back, constantly. Don’t give me that it was before her time. Season 3. Hydra hatch island. Jack, Kate, Sawyer. They wore those sacks more frequently than a baseball player wears a cap, than a kid in Minnesota wears mittens during January. Before my time my hairy bean bag. Sawyer starts to spin his web of lies. We were shipwrecked on the way to Tahiti. Amy insists they bury the bodies and bring Paul back. So, after a few minutes of being in the jungle, with no shovels or equipment, they bury the bodies, and head back to Amy’s camp with zero dirt smudges on their hands or clothes. Allllllllllllll right. They reach the pylons and Juliet tells Amy to turn them off. Amy goes through first, unharmed. Cool. Now, the Jungle 5 walk through one by one, spread out, to make sure Amy wasn’t tricking them. Nope. They all try to cross the defensive field at the same time. Good Lord, are they dumb or what. And Juliet didn’t see this coming? Seriously? Hmmmm. Amy takes out ear plugs, apparently the way to defeat the fence. Juliet didn’t know this? Too bad the smoke monster didn’t figure that out. Oh, how about the focking thing doesn’t have ears. NO EARS. How do you keep a thing without ears outside of the fence. Sure, I could see someone with giant ears like Ashley Judd, Obama, or Mr Bean, even with ear plugs, which would have to be the size of a kettle drum, having issues. But Smokey? I call bullsh!t. Way to show your gratitude Amy. Or should we just call you Leona Helmsley, the Queen of Mean?
3 years later. Amy is still in labor. There is no doctor, just an intern, as the plan was for Amy to give birth off the island, and no doctor was there to help. I think this was a bit of a red herring. Sure, Amy was in labor 2 weeks early. But there is no reason to think women could not give birth on the island right now, as Sawyer would later speculate. After all, Charlotte claims to have been born on the island. Miles confirmed in Season 4 that he knew Charlotte spent her whole life trying to get back. So, if Charlotte was born here, why not this kid? And, further, what if this kid is special for some reason? Did the island purposely course correct Juliet into the past to make sure this particular Horace Amy baby was born? I think so. Let me go even more off topic. During the Ben episode from Season 3 where we see him born as his mother dies off the side of the road, we first meet Horace with his companion Olivia, who I believe was, or I assumed was his wife. Sure, this was most likely course correcting in a way, for the Linuses to meet Dharma, but if Horace has a kid with Amy, where does Olivia fit into the picture. Unless something changed, and Horace got married to Amy instead of Olivia. In this alternate timeline, Horace and Amy have a special baby. Let’s say it could be anyone, but how interesting would it be if this was Jacob? Probably not, and this kid is going to be about 28 years old by the time the Losties crash on the island. I simply can’t speculate which male this could be. Yet. Sawyer pulls Juliet out of the motor pool, and Sgt Bilko talks Juliet into blowing her cover and help try to deliver the baby. During a conversation between Sawyer and Jin, we hear that Jin keeps scouring grids of the island, searching for some of their long lost people. Juliet actually delivers the kid, and you can just feel that this is somehow incredibly significant.

3 years earlier. Sawyer is on a couch, being questioned by Horace, who is apparently the leader of the Dharma folks on the island. I was a bit surprised by this. But then again, Eloise Hawking told us a clever man figured out how to find the island and designed the pendulum in the Lamppost, and why couldn’t this have been Horace? A man with his pull in camp could be the Matrix Neo guy. He talks about how there are hostile people on the island, we don’t get along with them. Now, we have heard about a truce in the past, namely when the Locke, Sayid, Kate, Rousseau group found Mikhail at the Flame. As they approached, he shouted out that they had a truce, until he found out they were Oceanic 815. Mikhail was pretending to be Dharma Initiative. But the story seemed to be true then, and it is based on history as we just found out. So, how did the truce come about? The natives killed the military men. But they allowed Dharma to stay? Seems odd. Sure, the military shot first. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but why can’t the Others/hostiles simply chase off Dharma. Was Dharma convincing in their mission statement of the powers of the island and apparently trying to harness them. Then why build the pylons if there was a truce? Was Smokey around back then? Possibly. I need to hear more about the origins of the truce. I’m sure it will be visited again. So, Jim LaFleur was shipwrecked while looking for the wreckage of the Black Rock, and is searching for his crew. That is all well and good, but he has to leave by sub in the morning. Well, we now know for sure Dharma had the sub originally, and the Others simply took it over, along with navigational charts. It was mentioned that the sub would not make another trip for 2 weeks. You have to wonder if this is the normal period of time the island is accessible to the outside world, once every 2 weeks, or was so back then. Something to file away for later thought. Juliet explains her history to the Jungle 5, and gets a welcome home comment. Daniel sees someone that looks a lot like a very young Charlotte. Much to my frustration, we did not see who she was with, like her parents, which might be incredibly important in the scheme of things. Fock. Meanwhile, I feel a bit bad for Daniel. He will have to confront Charlotte at some point, as Charlotte recognized him for being the guy that warned her not to come back to the island. But he will look like a creep doing it. And the way I see it playing out, he will end up in a kitchen, answering a teenage Chris Hansen’s questions about what exactly he was doing there with Charlotte. My, those brownies look tasty. As Sawyer explains that they will have to leave tomorrow, and alarm sounds, and everybody runs and hides. Now we know what security was watching for when they saw Horace the other night. Cameras at the pylons. Looking for hostiles. It’s our favorite eyeliner wearing Other, Richard.

Horace goes out to talk to Richard. Richard poo-poos the fence, saying it only keeps other things out. I guess Smokey might be around after all, considering it is the security system, supposedly, for the Temple. Horace comes back, orders a call to the Arrow, the hatch discovered by the Tailies, the strategic center, code 1, and turn up the power on the fence, since it was such a help in keeping Richard out. This screams out to me: tunnels. It’s daylight, Richard is carrying a torch, and the fence didn’t stop him. Tunnels. Sawyer goes out to talk to Richard. This reminded me of the “list” from Seasons 1+2. Why were certain people on the list? Maybe because they were seen time traveling by the Others. So far, this means Locke, Daniel. Charlotte, Miles, Sawyer. Jack, Kate, and Hurley are on the island right now too. Remember, Michael had to bring Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sawyer with him to the Others to free Walt, most of the list that was on the island at that point. Ben was captured so he could meet Locke. And if Richard figures out Juliet is also in the Barracks, she is recruited to come to the island because she is on the list too. Jacob’s List? Perhaps. Special list? For sure. Because everybody realizes that the bodies aren’t buried well enough, and we know the Others to be expert trackers and at disguising their movements, they will find the bodies, Sawyer goes out to talk to old ageless Richie. I killed your men, but I’m not Dharma. Richard seemed almost half-interested. Which is the opposite of how I felt. What a great confrontation. After so many years of watching Ben slap around the Losties, and he still does, Locke and Sawyer have now slapped around Richard this season. Sawyer starts to drop bombs, so to speak. Did you bury Jughead? How about the bald headed guy that walked into your camp, then just disappeared? 20 years ago. Which again reminded me of Richard visiting Locke in his foster home and Locke failing the pick the right objects on the table game. Then, don’t forget, in the same Locke episode, when he was in high school/college, Mittlelos Bioscience was trying to recruit him to come to their summer camp, possibly on the heels of this visit by Sawyer to Richard in 1974 to remind them again how special John Locke was. Richard wanted justice for his men. So, Sawyer told him where the bodies were, and they have to give up Paul’s body. Creepy. Why? How about a Pet Semetary scenario, where they bury the bodies, and they crawl out of graves like zombies. Hell, isn’t Locke technically a zombie right now? How evil would it be if Paul come back from the dead, only to have the Others kill him again. Ouch. Amy yanks the ankh necklace off Paul to keep. Horace gives Sawyer and his crew 2 extra weeks on the island. Sawyer is on a roll, and he keeps momentum going by convincing Juliet not to leave on the sub and stay for 2 more weeks.
3 years later. Sawyer is wearing a retro shirt, still on the island, picks a flower, and….

QUOTE(phillybear @ Jun 1 2008, 06:24 PM)

Sawyer swims ashore, and finds Juliet drinking at the beach. She points out the plume of smoke of where the boat used to be. I think this couple be an interesting power couple in the future. I mean, who exactly is left on the island?

Did you notice the date of that quote from a site that I post at? POW!!!!

walks into a home with Juliet preparing dinner. Just what Sawyer talked about with Kate during season 4. Live at the barracks in a home, a perfect life. They seem very, very happy. They embrace, kiss, and toss around I Love You like they mean it. Ah. Let me enjoy this for a moment, a union between two of my favorite characters on the show. We will see them rubbing noses like Eskimoses for a few episodes, their relationship being embraced by LOST viewers, until Kate The Destroyer of All Things comes by like a wood chipper at a pencil factory. But we will certainly have time to enjoy this one, unlike torturous unions like Kate and Jack that last 5 seasons. After all, this union was sprung on us just seconds ago. Time for a commercial…

Sawyer is reading, and Horace wakes up. A complete reversal of Sawyer waking up 3 years earlier to Horace watching him. You are a daddy, Horace. Amy and Horace apparently argued over the ankh necklace that she saved from Paul’s dead body. How long does it take to get over somebody. Sawyer explains that he used to be crazy about somebody, and think about her all the time, but after 3 years, he can’t even remember what her face looks like. Good for you. If I ever got herpes, I’d probably think about it for years too, but eventually I’d get used to it, I suppose. Kate used you, toyed with your emotions, and loved being the center of attention in your battle with Jack for her favor. Good for you. You got Juliet, a huge upgrade over Kate. You are a lucky man. Not to mention, I believe Sawyer is leading all males on the island in the total women he has slept with: Kate, Juliet, and Ana Lucia. I wouldn’t be surprised if the reason Rose and Bernard are missing are that Sawyer had an all night session with Rose, Bernard stumbled across the tryst while time traveling, and there was a sudden murder suicide. Phone call for Sawyer from Jin. Which he does not tell Juliet about. Oh, how stupid. You know she will find out. Hell, you just explained to Amy that Horace’s drunkenness was going to be know far and wide soon, that secrets can’t be kept. Why not tell the truth, dummy? He drives off. Meanwhile, I am just agape at the suddenness of this horrific reunion. We got exactly one commercial break to enjoy Sawyer with Juliet. ONE COMMERCIAL BREAK. Are you kidding me? Daniel has been moping over Charlotte all focking season. We get 3 minutes of Juliet and Sawyer. THREE FOCKING MINUTES. The Dharma van pulls out. Out step Hurley, Jack, and a freckled succubus. Oh stop with the sappy, happy instrumental music. There is no joy in Mudville. While we hear an epic John Williams score, I kept hearing the Darth Vader theme song. I so badly wanted Jin to point to Kate and yell “MONSTA!!!!!!!!!!! RUN!!!!” Dammit, Jin. You did it for the French, but you won’t help your buddy Sawyer out. Fock fockity fock. FOCK. I have a hard time discerning the difference between Kate and the stupid woman from Progressive Auto commercials, the one with all the makeup that makes her look more sinister than Heath Ledger from the Batman movie, and a more scary and wider smile. For the love of God, are we going to endure more horrific moments from a love triangle, no, love TRAPAZOID, NOBODY CARES ABOUT. AGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!! Stop it. Just stop it. If we see Sawyer dump Juliet, is she going to stick a gun in her mouth and pull the trigger. I'd like to think that the last thing that went through her head, other than that bullet, was to wonder how the hell Kate Austen ever got the best of her (an homage quote to Shawshank Redemption, think about it). Twice. Well, Juliet, you could always date Ben. On second thought, good luck with the gun thing.

One week hiatus, as no episode this week. I’ll be back in two weeks. I need a break.

5.07 The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham

Welcome to a belated Festivus, the aftermath of a fantastic episode. This particular holiday includes the "Airing of Grievances", in which each person tells everyone else all the ways they have disappointed him or her over the past year. Also, after the Festivus meal, the "Feats of Strength" are performed, involving wrestling the head of the household to the floor, with the holiday ending only if the head of the household is actually pinned. Unfortunately, since I live alone, I plan on finishing this writeup and then giving myself a purple nurple. I got a lot of problems with you LOST people! And now, you're gonna hear about it. With plenty of foul language.

Previously on LOST, the opening of the show, really seemed to emphasize a couple of items for me, specifically Christian’s speech to Locke at the bottom of the well. “Eloise Hawking will tell you how to get back.” and on the topic of Locke needing to die to get the Oceanic 6 to come back, “that is why it is called sacrifice”. That right there made it inevitable that Locke was to die. But he was also destined to meet Hawking. Since he didn’t at the end of this episode, things went a bit wrong going back to the island.

Last week’s “My condolences” plane passenger is snooping through a building. To save time, let’s just refer to them as Caesar and the Hydra station, the small island next to Lost island, as we come to know the name and location later on. Caesar is behaving suspiciously, as instead of looking for supplies, whether medical or food, he is breaking into file cabinets and scouring papers. Why? He is exactly where he wants to be, and it seems more and more likely he is a Widmore employee. Especially if you consider the reference to Julius Caesar, a man that led a revolution to become leader of the Roman Empire, only to be betrayed by his friends and is assassinated at the end of rule. There seems to be some foreshadowing to Widmore’s story about his story on the island, so I have to assume Caesar is his associate. He finds maps of the main island, something that looks like a map of the magnetic portals of Earth, and a gun. He is interrupted by Ilana, the woman transporting Sayid in handcuffs last week. This feels like the Tailies all over again. Ilana reminds me a lot of Ana Lucia, and not just the similarity of the name Ilana with Ana. She is emerging as a leader, and will most likely die at the hands of Caesar. Or they fall in love like Caesar and Cleopatra did. Sigh. This stuff can be confusing. I can say at this early point in their character introduction, I wish they get bitten by spiders and get buried alive. Bring back Nikki and Paulo, as these two fockers are even more annoying. Ilana, who Caesar doesn’t trust about the discovery of a gun, proclaims that they have found a man standing in the water. First of all, this is a reference to a baptism for Locke, the ritual act, with the use of water, by which one is admitted as a full member of the Christian Church and, in the view of some, as a member of the particular Church in which the baptism is administered. And why not another Christian reference, as Locke has risen from the dead, resurrected most likely in 3 days, considering the time line Hawking set up to get to the island, and this parallels the story of Jesus Christ. But Locke better realize that Christ then ascended up to heaven in 40 days after the Resurrection, so it may be Locke has a limited time to do what he has to do on the island. We quickly gather up the facts of the situation. The plane landed in one piece on the small island next to Lost island, another fantastic job by Frank, the greatest pilot in history this side of the Red Baron. Hear that Sully? You get a spot on Letterman and senile Larry King; big deal. On the other hand, Frank is becoming a regular on LOST. Several passengers disappeared from the plane, as no doubt Jack, Kate, and Hurley are time traveling, or at the very least, island traveling, as they are on the main island. This seems to be the present time, and Locke is trapped in the present. Now, I always have thought that the time of the Oceanic 815 crash is the beginning and end of the time loop I’ve been trumpeting. Well, this particular time loop is now different, with Ajira airlines. But the fact that it was SIMILAR to the Oceanic 815 characters, including some of the actual people, it created the nearly same result, a skipping record if you will, or an alternate timeline. And, it would happen again, and again, and again with the same circumstances, if we stuck the same/similar people on a plane that Eloise Hawking approved. The question here is why Locke is not time traveling, as he was earlier, but is stationary in the present instead. The island clearly has other work for him to do, much like it had people jumping in time earlier to course correct, to have Locke leave the island to fix the Ben damage.

Locke accepts a mango from Ilana. She explains that they found the boats, but there used to be 3, but the pilot and a woman took off in one. Clearly, Frank left, but who else. Kate time jumped. I don’t see Sun around anywhere, nor the stewardesses, and those were the only other women we are sure were on the plane. So, is it Sun that left with Frank? Assuming that why didn’t she jump? The major event for her on the island was that she got pregnant. But she got pregnant on the island, and not before the crash. She left the island pregnant, but no big deal. Is the island punishing her for her willingness to work with Widmore? Again, Locke was too, so is Caesar. So why didn’t Sun time jump? Does Jin have important work left to do, where a Sun jump would have interfered with it? Is this an unpredictable result? Does this mean that Jin and Sun are the new Desmond and Penny, a pair of star crossed people separated by time and space. I’m sorry, but I still don’t like Sun. Locke asks for a passenger list, trying to make sense of what is happening. “I remember dying”. What a perfectly innocent yet creepy comment to make to a perfect stranger. Um, Locke, you might want to keep a few things to yourself, until you figure out who you are beach wrecked with. A quick flashback to Locke turning the frozen donkey wheel, and he is spit out in Tunisia, the same spot as Ben and the polar bear, in the middle of the desert. While Ben came prepared with a weapon, to fight off what now seems to have been Widmore’s men back from last season, Locke is very injured, but is being recorded by a camera. Help arrives to take him to a rickety clinic. As Locke is about to be racked with pain, he sees our buddy Mr Abaddon in the background, and just before Ben passed out, I saw a woman pop up that looked a lot like Nadia, a lot, as I rewound 5 times, who married Sayid, among the doctor’s helpers. Charles Widmore is sitting by Locke’s bed. I don’t know exactly why, but this scene reminded me a lot of the young woman with time travel difficulties from Daniel’s experiments; I suppose it’s because Widmore paid the medical expenses in both cases. Locke doesn’t recognize Widmore, which is odd, since Locke saw photos and a video of him back in the Barracks from Ben, but he simply didn’t recognize him. You know, if there is a guy trying to invade the island with commandos, trying to kill everybody, I might try to get that photo memorized for future reference. I don’t care how much morphine if pumping through Locke’s body, you wake up and see the face of the devil, I fall out of bed and try to drag myself to safety. Widmore says that he met Locke when he was 17, and it struck me how young Widmore was back then. How young was he when he arrived on the island? Or did he grown up on the island. 17, and he was hunting what the Others thought were armed military personnel in the jungle. Impressive. The camera was Widmore’s as he knew it was the exit from the island. Widmore tells a story of Ben tricking him into leaving the island and knew the exit, Widmore was the Others leader for about 30 years, and Widmore didn’t understand why Locke chose to leave the island if Ben was already gone….oh, you need to bring them back. There is no getting around the fact that Widmore is a clever man. He knew right away what Locke’s mission was, right freaking away. The Oceanic 6 have been off the island for 3 years, showing again how time is much different on regular Earth vs. the island. Widmore wants to help Locke, since a war is coming. Um, I don’t know how much of these “facts” from Widmore are true. For now, I accept that Ben tricked him, he was a key Other if not leader for years, and that a war is coming. But I think it’s much more likely he was exiled. But in either case, he is not meant to return to the island.

The passport for Locke says Jeremy Bentham, generally credited as the father of utilitarianism the idea that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its contribution to overall utility that is, its contribution to happiness or pleasure as summed among all persons. It is thus a form of consequential meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined by its outcome: put simply, the ends justify the means. What a beautiful description for Widmore and Ben for that matter, and even Locke at times, “the end justifies the means”. Aside from that, on the passport itself, and many other times this episode, whether license plates, gravestones, phones, etc, the numbers 4-8-15-16-23-42 keep popping up. Come to think of it, I can’t remember the last time I had to look up those numbers to type them up. I think I have them ingrained into my head more than my social security number. It is currently December 2007 in the lost real earth universe. Widmore gives Locke files on the people off the island, as he has been spying on all of them. Locke finally has had enough, and finally starts to bring up Widmore sending a freighter to the island to kill everybody and a boat load of C4. Widmore says it was to eliminate Ben and that Locke is special to the island and it needs you. OK. Hold on. First of all, don’t gloss over the fact that Locke watched young Widmore break the neck of his fellow Other , one of his people. when Locke, Sawyer, Juliet had them at gun point, to protect the location of the camp. He dug up over 300 graves and planted a fake crash in the ocean. This guy is ruthless. The 2nd protocol was capture Ben alive and kill everybody, EVERYBODY else on the island. If Locke was special, why wasn’t he mentioned in the protocol, why was Keamey and others shooting at him. I call bull sh!t. I know the writers are trying very hard to make Ben good one week, bad the next. He bounces between hero and villain more often than a professional wrestler. But one thing I simply cannot accept. Widmore was never a good guy, and never will be. It’s possible Ben AND Widmore are evil, but there is no chance, NONE, that Widmore is a good guy. Sure, as Widmore said, he hasn’t tried to kill Locke yet, but this is the first real chance he’s had, and right now Locke is more valuable to him alive than dead. He needs help to the get access to the island. Locke and at some point Desmond both appear out of nowhere, and Widmore sees that he can exploit somebody/both to smuggle, oh let’s just say Caesar and maybe Ilana, onto the plane. He knows Locke is going back, and he wants to be a part of that mission, hitch a ride. Locke is special because Widmore saw him time travel, not that he knows what the island wants. Widmore just cares about going back. Locke mentions that Richard said Locke has to die. Widmore tells Locke that he doesn’t know why he said that, but he will make sure that doesn’t happen. What? If you were leader of the Others, why would you not do what Richard says. And he doesn’t know why….Widmore isn’t that stupid. I’m sorry, but Widmore is as big of a liar as Ben. Period. Matthew Abaddon is Locke’s driver. This is his fourth episode appearance on Lost. He showed up at Hurley’s nut hut after he left the island, pretending to be with Oceanic, but then asks Hurley in a menacing way, are “they” still alive on the island. He also appeared as an orderly/nurse in the hospital where Locke was rehabbing after being tossed out a window by his father. He told Locke to take a walkabout in Australia. He was also seen with Naomi, organizing her mission to arrive with Daniel, Miles, Charlotte, and Frank on Lost island. He seemed sure they would be fine, and as we have seen, these cast of misfits have connections to the island. When Abaddon brings out a wheelchair for Locke, he starts to feel the same off island anxiety. Here we go again. The guy is Superman on the island, doing amazing things. Off island, the guy is Christopher Reeve, after falling off a horse. This is going to get ugly. It’s off the Santo Domingo to meet Sayid, off the radar, building shelters as part of a charity, no doubt trying to make amends for all the murders he did at Ben’s behest. He tells the story of Nadia’s death. Sayid then pulls out his sucker punch “Why do you need to go back?”. He doesn’t give a sh!t about anybody on the island. Nice guy. Locke’s confidence is wounded. Next up for the Amazing Race is New York City, and a meeting with Walt. Yet another Lost character says that Walt has gotten big. Well, it’s been 5 years into this series, and the kid is now a teenager. If he wasn’t getting taller, he’d have progeria. Now, do not gloss over what Walt says next, about having dreams where Locke is on the island, he sees him in a suit, surrounded by people who want to hurt him. This is very, very important, since we already know the first part came true. This is apparently part of Walt’s special ability. He can see the future in his dreams. So, why did the Others let him go after kidnapping him? Did they see that he was important in future events, and needed to leave the island. And is this how Ben is always one step ahead? The Others can either see into the future while on the island, or they kidnap people who can, so they can use them. Maybe Ben can do what Walt can do? Much like Hurley, Locke can’t bring himself to tell Walt that Michael is dead. So he lies about it. This is actually interesting. Michael told Walt too much truth in how they left the island and how he shot two people. Now, nobody want to tell Walt the truth. Opposites. In the end. Locke decides not to ask Walt to come back, which may be a crime of kidnapping anyway. Locke rebukes Abaddon, and in the distance, Ben, looking very dapper, much like Jeremy Brett’s portrayal of Sherlock Holmes on the British television series. Which is ironic when you figure Ben has passports with an alias of Moriarty. And also interesting when you consider the name Jeremy Bentham.

Santa Rosa, and Hurley is drawing a picture of the Sphinx from Egypt, possibly a magnetic portal point on the Earth. Apparently, when people die on the island, they form a conga line and dance their way to Hurley’s part of the world. I wonder if Hurley is developing a talent like Miles has. After Locke convinces Hurley he is still alive, Hurley is not excited about going back. Then he spots Abaddon and freaks out, like he freaked out when he saw Ben and turned himself in. Hurley is a big ‘ole scaredy cat. Abaddon keeps needling Locke about his lack of success. They finally have a conversation. Yes, Locke does remember his visit in the hospital. Abaddon finally confirms what I have been saying ad nauseam for years now. “I help people get to where they need to get to.” Yes, this is what Widmore, Hawking, and Ben have been doing for many years. Richard has shown signs of it too, along with the island. Course correction. Now, we finally have people owning up to the manipulation, the puppeteers pulling the marinate strings, a real life Being John Locke Malkovich. That is what Abaddon does for Charles Widmore. On to what is becoming such an important place, Los Angeles. John Locke tells Kate that everybody on the island will die if you do not go back, and Kate emphatically says NO!!!. Huh? What a horrible person. A lot of people will die, including Sawyer, and you don’t give a sh!t. Because Locke had the guts to second guess her with “you don’t care about them?” This hussy proceeds to give Locke the 5th degree about love. “You were desperate to stay on the island because you didn’t love anybody.” Are you kidding? Kate, you were desperate to LEAVE the island because you loved Sawyer. Then you keep playing musical hop in the sack between Sawyer and Jack, playing them against each other, because you can’t decide who you love. “You don’t love anybody.“ What a pretentious comment. Holy self importance. Locke explains how he loved Helen, but lost her because he was angry and obsessed, but he failed to mention how his craved his father’s love and attention, but lost a kidney in that mission. His father tried to kill him, for fock’s sake. Kate digests the angry and obsessed comment, and punches him in the face with “Look how much you’ve changed.” And I pretty much lost it right there. Angry and obsesses. These are two very common words you can use for the hypocritical Kate. I spent a good 30 seconds yelling out “c*nt” at my television, including when I was watching this episode a second time on Saturday. Holy focking hell, what an unfeeling colostomy bag of a human being. Nobody, and I mean nobody, dislikes Locke that watches LOST. Well, maybe somebody does, I just haven’t met one. How can a guy so likable, so compelling, so unselfish be treated like this throughout this whole episode. And the people left behind. But to be so horrible to Locke, mock him like this to his face….Kate is garbage. And who is lining up to proclaim that they are a Kate fan? Now that she is on the island, the next time I see her, I want her nose to gush blood like a fire hydrant from inner city Philadelphia during a hot and humid August day. You want to know what happened to Aaron? I surmise that Kate the Kunt threw him in a dumpster. Then shook up a box of cobras, made them angry, and threw them into the same dumpster. Then nailed the dumpster shut. Then doused it gasoline. Then set it on fire and pushed it down a steeply inclined street. The street ends at the edge of a cliff. 100 feet above the ocean. Right below the cliff are hundreds of jagged rocks sticking out of the water, like a watery Iron Maiden. Kate really, really sucks. She should be chased through a Labyrinth by a bleeding AIDS patient. She…..OK. Deep breath. On the other hand, Locke was given Kate’s file to read by the Others during Season 3. He knew all about her murdering, absconding ways. Yet, he didn’t judge her. He accepted her. Kate took the low road. Locke is getting incredibly dejected at this point, and again demands to see Helen. Santa Monica, and we are at Helen’s grave site, as Peg Bundy died from a brain aneurism. Abaddon tries to explain to Locke that there was nothing he could have done, as he was inevitably going to have to follow a path to the island. An argument of destiny and inevitability is emerging. What if Locke had scored 4 touchdowns in a single game at ‘ole Polk High then went on to be a shoe salesman? Richard told Locke that he will die. Is death a choice? I mean, it’s staring to get complicated, so we have to cling to Daniel’s initial statement early in the season, what happened, happens, I guess, and it’s hard to knock that off it’s path. Some of the details can change along the way, but the key events have to happen. Right? And to make sure, there are people along the way to make sure they get to where they need to get. I suppose different factions could be trying to work in different directions in course correcting. As Abaddon is putting away Locke’s wheelchair, he takes several bullets, and is about to go back to his full time job on Fringe. If you aren’t watching Fringe this year, shame on you. Good bye Abaddon. You were a creep and an assh0le. Locke desperately drives away and becomes a public service announcement when trying to run a red light. Is he dead? Yeah, right. I don’t care how much the LOST writers keep trying to keep us guessing, but Hawking told us that Locke killed himself, and being T-boned in a car isn’t suicide. Too obvious.

Locke wakes up in a hospital bed, and Jacks sitting there, glaring at him. “John, what are you doing here?” Jack didn’t ask that. “John, how are you feeling, you almost died?” Jack didn’t ask that either. Instead, John is confused by Jack being in the room and by Jack’s unforgivable anger. We have to go back. The following is all a part of This is The Biggest Douche Moment in TV History, Jack‘s character flaws on full display, a cavalcade of awfulness….
1. (We have to go back) How many times are you going to say that?
2. It isn’t fate that you are in this hospital.
3. (Somebody is trying to kill me, I’m important.) Have you stopped to think that your delusions about being important aren’t real.
4. And that you aren’t special.
5. You’re a lonely old man that crashed on an island
6. Good bye
7. (You’re father Christian says hello) My father is dead
8. (He didn’t look dead to me, he told me what to do, you’re supposed to help me) We aren’t important. Leave us alone.

Oh, where do I begin. Kate is now the 2nd most despicable person in this episode at this point. In the future, we see Jack a bit more humble, while Kate shows zero remorse, but we have to remain in the moment. Again, I would myself yelling “c*nt” at the TV. Good Lord, Jack is an idiot. Sure, I’ve been making fun of his stupidity and lack of leadership skills for many, many years, But our facsimile of George W Bush just outdid himself. I can’t begin to follow any bit of his logic. He doesn’t want to go back. Well, you don’t have much going for you at this point, but OK. Plus the horrific stimulus bill is going to cause historic inflation, so run while you can JackAss. And buy as much gold as you can along the way. Hell, I’m trying to start up a militia in Montana as I type this out. Does Jack know how many hospitals there are in Los Angeles? Does he know how remote the odds are of Locke being brought into the same hospital as Jack? Locke isn’t important, but you watched him move two islands, dummy. Not special? He just survived a horrible car accident. He warned you about the freighter. He found the hatches. Lonely old man that crashed on island. So? He was the King of the Island. Yeah, Boone died, and the hatch blew up. But Locke was amazing. You were a schmuck. You are a man that made his father lose his medical license, got divorced, and watched your on again and off again girlfriend steal your step nephew and call Aaron as her own. And Kate Yates probably ended up drowning Aaron in a bathtub. You’re a lonely young man that crashed on the rocks of life. Your father says hello. He’s dead. Oh, bullsh!t. You’ve seen him walk around on the island, never found the body, and on a magical island you doubt that he could be alive? Do you ever believe what your eyes are telling you? Ever, you horse’s ass? We aren’t important. Well, you are all seriously flawed people who I’ve grown to despise, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t important. Hey, Jack, how about asking Locke how he got off the island. Oh, it’s all about you, isn’t it? Doesn’t matter about his health or anybody else. Me. Me. Me. Me. This is why Jack and Kate deserve to die in each others arms. They are the same person. Stupid, irrational, selfish, and unlikable. I don’t care if they are attractive people. There is something ugly inside each of them. Now, going forward, I look forward to not ripping Jack so much, as he needs to transform for the sake of the island, his family, the universe. Kate, you are in my crosshairs more than ever. The real monster of the show isn’t black smoke; it goes by the nickname of Freckles.

John Locke is finishing up writing his suicide note. I guess working in a box company trains you in beautiful penmanship. As Locke is preparing his gallows of an extension cord, a radiator, and a ceiling beam, I was reminded so much of the suicide from Shawshank Redemption. All Locke had to do was carve “Brooks Was Here” into the ceiling. The enormous question here is the mindset of John Locke. Is he killing himself as a sacrifice, a beaten physically and emotionally person, ready to die for the plight of the people on and off the island, a Christ like action. Or is he killing himself because he is too miserable to go on, missing the paradise that was the island for him, a selfish reason. And I strongly feel this difference is the key to whether Locke would have woke up back on the island or not. The sacrifice leads to Resurrection. The selfish suicide leads to death. So it was actually a good thing that Ben burst into the room at that time, at the last second. It’s possible in an alternate timeline, Ben knew when Locke killed himself based on a coroner report, so in this time line, he burst in just before it happened so he could course correct. Ben’s lies and truths start to pop out of his mouth, and we scramble to figure out which is which, and I think there were a number of truths. He’s been watching all of them, he’s been trying to protect Locke, he killed Abaddon, Widmore used you, Widmore is really evil, Locke has no idea how important he is. Locke responds with a moving, heartfelt, truthful self examination. There’s no helping me, I’m a failure, I couldn’t get any of them to come back, I can’t lead anyone. I mean that was a very nice acting job, and a great summary of the John Locke character as Locke looking at himself from the outside. Interesting and very humble. Jack apparently bought a ticket to Sydney. Ben gets on his knees, which I’ve never seen him do, except for maybe when he was a prisoner in the Swan hatch back in Season 2, and most of us didn’t trust him then, much less now. You can’t die, you have too much work to do, back on the island. Ben the negotiator is making headway in talking John off the ledge, but this is the second time that somebody directly refutes the need for John to die, in direct opposition of what Richard and Christian both said. Ben and Widmore say that Locke can’t die. Holy hell, what is going on here? But then everything changes. No, don’t skip ahead to the Hawking lines. Pay attention. Locke tells Ben that he can’t visit Sun, because he promised Jin he wouldn’t and has his wedding ring. Ben’s expression complete changes. He stops looking at Locke, and stares off into space, his mind racing at the speed of light. THIS is where the decision is made. He quickly takes off his jacket, giving his arms more flexibility and freedom to move. He helps John to a seat, and then winds the orange extension cord up. He is already plotting murder, no doubt in my mind. But he needs a bit more information. Ben, we need to see Eloise Hawking in LA. And that was that. Ben had what he needed, and choked the life out of Locke in a gripping, powerful scene. Locke went through his tribulation, his injuries, the mocking, the disbelief, only to die in the end like he was supposed to, as a sacrifice. Why did Ben do this? We can only speculate at this point. No, I don’t think it was jealousy this time. If he needed to return to the island, Locke needed to be dead, like Richard said, like Ben might know somehow, but Locke had to die the right way, with the right “faith” mindset. In a series where one, maybe THE primary focus is Science vs. Faith, that mindset is crucial in moments like that. The island asks for sacrifice; just ask Boone, Mr Eko, Michael, etc. You have to listen to it.

In what feels like the epilogue of the episode, Ben stages the murder scene, cleans it up so the boys in CSI Los Angeles have nothing to go on, and tells a swinging in the breeze Locke that he will miss him, he really will. Yeah, until they meet again. By the way, remember when last week on the Ajira plane, Jack asked Ben if he knew that Locke committed suicide. Ben looked so somber “No, I didn’t” The man has ice water in his veins. And I made a point of saying this was a lie last week. On the island with the Hydra station, Caesar continues to do research for his senior term paper. Locke walks in and tells him that he was on the island before, 100 days, which is completely untrue, since he never set foot on the smaller island. Caesar is fishing for answers, as he describes Hurley to a tee, and Hurley and several passengers disappeared from the plane. The pilot took the manifest with him as he fled. Locke is realizing what happened. Everybody else is accounted for, so no Ethan shenanigans this time. But why did Frank take the manifest, or is Caesar hiding it, like the gun. Caesar takes Locke to the sick bay, where we find Ben, or as Locke describes him, the man who killed me.

Well, I had my say about Jack and Kate, again. Ben, well, I don’t mind that he killed Locke; it had to be done. All of the Oceanic 6 annoyed me again. Charles Widmore is an ass. Caesar is a sneaky ass. I’m already annoyed with Ilana. Abaddon is dead. Walt, if you are reading this, your father’s dead, deal with it. I suppose the only character the whole episode that was fine was Locke. The rest can go pound sand. The sand in a litterbox.