"Expose" Analysis

(Yes, I've officially given up on making that mark above the "e"...)

Well, “Expose” turned out to be quite the expectation roller coaster, didn’t it? Months ago, when we first heard about a Nikki and Paulo-centric episode, everyone feared the worst. Then suddenly, after a few intriguing stories in magazines (Entertainment Weekly) and quotes dropped by the Lost creators (Lindelof and Cruse), there was some honest excitement for this episode. There were rumblings about this being an episode with a “game changing event”, holding the potential to answer “mythological questions about the Island”, and turning Nikki and Paulo into “iconic characters” on the show. Personally, I found myself getting more excited for this episode than last week’s Locke-centric masterpiece.

But in the end, “Expose” turned out to be nothing of the sort. It was cheap fun without much substance, and certainly didn’t change any games or turn Nikki and Paulo into characters central to the show. In my “Instant Reactions”, I summarized the episode as “entertaining”, and that’s exactly what it was. But there isn’t too much to analyze from it, so this should be a fairly short and sweet post. Brian Leonard, you’re right – I should have been in Europe for this episode!


Nikki and Paulo. These two characters appeared in a handful of episodes, never with more than a line or two of dialogue, really only had two very brief pre-Island flashback scenes (but one of them featured Nikki stripping, so at least we got our money’s worth), and died in the first episode where the audience started to learn who they actually were. The big question that a lot of people are asking is "why"?

Looking back at the entire time that Nikki and Paulo spent on the Island, including their flashbacks in "Expose", what contributions did either make to any storylines? You could argue that Nikki helped Sayid and Locke figure out the television screens in the Pearl (although you have to figure they would have eventually figured this out anyways), but otherwise, I'm hard-pressed to come up with any physical or emotional impact that either character had on any storyline or other characters on the Island. Really, they were throwaway characters.



In my mind, this was a huge missed opportunity. If you remember my episode preview, I thought I understood the purpose of the characters, and thought the writers were brilliant in their thinking. Nikki and Paulo could have served as the gateway for the audience to view prior events from different perspectives, gaining more understanding about them, revealing mysteries, and providing information you couldn’t otherwise logically provide to the viewer. Unfortunately, the writers only seemed to get halfway there. Sure, they showed us new perspectives on scenes from prior episodes – but we didn't actually get any new material or understanding from them.

There’s nothing wrong with the way the episode played out – personally I got a sort of nostalgic happy feeling seeing familiar scenes replayed from different angles. But by doing it this way, we’re still left with the fundamental question of "why?” as in “Why did Nikki and Paulo exist at all?”

In my mind, there are two possibilities here, or some combination of the two:

1. Nikki and Paulo were originally going to be more “major” characters on the show, but the writers screwed up in their introduction leading the audience to absolutely hate them. Rather than slowly and painfully phasing the characters out, leading to more fan backlash, the writers quickly killed them to clean up their mess.
2. Nikki and Paulo existed merely as a representation of the "background" characters on the show, and were meant to simply give a commentary of the isolation and lack of communication between the Survivors of Flight 815. Having served their purpose in delivering this message, they had no further purpose and were killed off.

Personally, I have a hard time believing that the writers could screw up as badly as they did with the introduction of the characters. They were never formally introduced, never had any meaningful dialogue, and just seemed out of place in every scene they were in. Compare these characters to Ben, Desmond, or Juliet. These characters were properly introduced, given a purpose, and are now arguably some of the most popular characters on the show. So I’m tempted to fall down on the second possibility and look at the symbolism of the characters.

How ironic that “major events” on the show such as the discovery of the Beechcraft Plane and the Pearl Station could have been revealed much earlier if the Survivors actually communicated with each other. Heck, Paulo could have single-handedly prevented the kidnapping of Kate, Sawyer, and Jack if he relayed the conversation he overheard in the Pearl.

But instead, each Survivor is truly an Island – fighting their own inner demons and overcoming their own issues rather than banding together with each other. The inclusion of Jack’s “live together, die alone” speech wasn’t by accident. It was meant to highlight the central theme of the episode, and perhaps even the series.

At least that’s the best justification I can come up with to answer the “why”.

Because of this, part of me is tempted to ignore some of the analysis of these two characters – to toss them out as “exceptions to the rule”, rather than hold their experiences on the Island up to the same logical analysis as other characters – because if you include them, some of the commonalities we’ve seen over the course of the series don’t match up… in particular their deaths.

Every other character on the show seems to have found some sort of peace before they died – either on the Island or in their flashbacks (Boone got over Shannon, Shannon learned to love, Ana-Lucia gave up her “tough girl” act, Libby got over her crazy, Eko accepted his past actions, and Arzt learned a valuable lesson about the dangers of dynamite). But if anything, Nikki and Paulo were worse off right before they died. They seemed to have forgotten about the diamonds and learned to love each other mid-episode, but at the end they were as hateful and greedy as ever. They didn’t get their peace that the writers have given every other character.

Does this mean that they are truly “bad people”, and everyone else on the Island is really “good” at heart? Or is it more that everyone else was supposed to die, and these two were not – merely victims of bad luck? Or is it just a product of the “quick exit” of these characters, that the writers didn’t have time to exhibit character growth? I’m not sure – but it’s not something I’m going to dwell on. It’s almost like this episode taught us to not worry about the background characters on the show. It showed that even if we did get to know these people, we wouldn’t like them, wouldn’t want them eating up screen time from the core characters we already know, and wouldn’t miss them if they were dead.


Jokes. Which brings up another interesting point: more than any episode of Lost ever, this seemed to be an episode where the writers were talking directly to the audience. I remember one of the early explanations for Nikki and Paulo from the writers was that they “represent the audience, viewing the action on the Island, but not being a part of it.” Therefore it’s fitting that the writers used their episode to throw out a number of “inside jokes” and references to the hardcore viewer. Things like…

• Sawyer and Hurley's argument about what Eko meant when he said "you're next". Did he mean Locke was next, Nikki and Paulo were next, or all the Survivors were next? This is a question we all asked after the episode, and the characters on the show are asking the same thing.
• Paulo being afraid to climb up into the Beechcraft plane to look for a radio out of fear it will fall – which we all know Boone foolishly did, and eventually led to his death.
• Nikki accepting her death on the television show “Expose” because she was just a guest star… just like on “Lost”.

They all made me laugh, and made this one of the most tongue-in-cheek episodes of Lost ever. But again, these are all just stylistic and subjective thoughts about the episode. Is there anything we actually need to analyze? Just a few things…


Ben and Juliet. It seems as though the Others used the Pearl Station to observe our Survivors once the entered the Swan Station, and this is how Ben formed his plan to get Jack to perform the surgery on him. It’s important to note that this further confirms that Ben was well aware of his tumor back before the Hatch Implosion, when he still (in theory) could have gone back to the mainland to have the surgery performed. He definitely is not willing to leave the Island for whatever reason. It also reminded us of the former ruse of the Others, trying to look derelict to keep our Survivors in the dark about their knowledge and power. It all ties back into the “we are protecting a huge secret and they can’t find out” theory I mentioned a few weeks back.

Ben also mentions the need to cover the Hatch entrance to the Pearl with the Beechcraft Plane. For one thing, I find it quite ironic that Locke (who was so consumed with figuring out a way to get into the Swan Hatch) was basically standing on top of the much easier to open Pearl Hatch when he and Boone first found the Beechcraft Plane. Later, this dragging of the airplane over the top of the Hatch may have led to the apparent image of a question mark that was seen from above.

We can also assume that the Others used tunnels to get to and from the Pearl Station after the plane was moved – which makes it curious that none of our Survivors tried to follow them when investigating the station. Are they hidden? Will we finally see them when the Search Party tries to leave the Barracks?


Smokey. Yes, I know that Arzt said that the Medusa Spider emits a powerful pheromone that would attract other spiders, logically explaining why they would have attacked Nikki at the end of the episode. But go back and watch it. Before the spiders show up, when Paulo is still giving his heartfelt “I thought the diamonds would break us up” speech, the Smokey Chatter starts. Nikki looks up and around, frightened. She hears it too, and seems to know what it means. It’s this noise that distracts her from noticing the Medusa Spider climbing on her leg.

So while we can’t jump to the conclusion that Smokey caused the death of Nikki and Paulo, his (her? its?) near appearance could be indirectly attributed to them. Does this mean that Smokey wanted them dead? Is Smokey an Island Grim Reaper, nearby whenever someone dies to judge their souls? Or is this all a coincidence? There’s really not enough evidence to come down on any sides here, but it’s nice to know that the writers haven’t forgotten about one of the biggest mysteries on the show. We’re due for another Smokey attack any time now, aren’t we?


Dead! I know a lot of people have speculated that Nikki and Paulo could still rise from their grave in the next episode, but I would bet pretty heavily against it. While Locke’s line that nothing on the Island stays buried for long might hint at the possibility, doing so would cheapen the most shocking deaths that Lost has ever seen and would seemingly undo what this episode was at least partially trying to accomplish – getting rid of Nikki and Paulo.

Miscellaneous. Just a few other miscellaneous items, not warranting dedicated paragraphs:

Vincent. He knew that Nikki and Paulo were alive, and was trying to save them. He continues to be one of the most knowledgeable characters on the show, but unfortunately he can’t talk. If he could, I’m pretty sure our Survivors would all be off the Island by now.

Big Bad. The “reveal” in “Expose” about who the Big Bad (Buffy term for “main bad guy” of a season or series) truly was at the end of Season Four has some wondering if the same will be true for Lost. It would tie in with the original planned five or six season arc of the show – find out the bad guy, then have a season or two to overcome them – but who would it be? It’s pretty obvious that the Others aren’t the bad guys. I’m still a big fan of our Survivors being the bad guys, but there are also options like Hanso coming back, Island Savages, other Outsiders, etc. But again, I think that introducing this Big Bad would be the best way to get our Survivors merged with the Others, so I’d like to see it happen by the end of THIS season, not next season. We shall see…

Shannon and Boone. I love that Nikki asked Paulo to promise they wouldn’t end up like Boone and Shannon, fighting with each other. Ironically, they ended up exactly like them in more ways than one, since all four characters died on the Island. There was also some quote about a gay character being revealed in this episode which some have assumed meant Boone based on Shannon’s comment about flirting with other guys to him. But wasn’t that just in jest, meant to mock Boone rather than a commentary of his sexuality? I don’t buy it.

…and that’s all I’ve got. Some episodes I look back at my Instant Reactions and think “man, I must have been tired when I wrote that” because after a day or two, my thoughts about an episode have totally changed. But with this episode, they still ring true. This was an easy episode - in a way, ironically designed for the hardcore fans even though it centered around their two most despised characters and didn’t reveal anything. But for me, that’s fine. Every episode doesn't have to be earth shattering or continue one big long plot. Standalone episodes like this provide a breath of fresh air from the sometimes over-powering season long plots. As long as it's entertaining, I'm happy – and this definitely was entertaining.


Quick Update on the Control the Blog contest. I’ll be sending out a request to everyone who expressed interest asking that they write a few paragraphs about something – an episode preview, an episode analysis, some sort of thematic point about Lost, whatever – just so that I can get a feel for who can actually put together coherent thoughts in English sentences, and who writes in text message shorthand and misuses homonyms. They’ll be judged, and I’ll pick out the winners, who will be assigned one of the following tasks:

Episode 3.16 Analysis
Episode 3.17 Preview
Episode 3.17 Analysis
Episode 3.18 Preview
Episode 3.18 Analysis

…and maybe Episode 3.19 Preview, since I’m likely to be totally swamped the week I get back. I think it should all work out pretty great, and am excited to see some different writers on the Blog rather than my own quote-and-parentheses-heavy, overloaded-sentence style of writing.

I leave you with some pictures of Nikki in bikinis. Think of it as a montage to a character who has just died (I’d recommend humming along “One Shining Moment” to get the full effect), or as an excuse to put up an inordinate amount of pictures of a scantily clad girl on the Blog. Enjoy.

"Expose" Instant Reactions!

Brian's One Word Review: Entertaining.

For an episode that was (unjustly) hyped as revealing answers to the "mythological" questions on the Island, "Expose" ended up being the exact opposite. Rather than progressing any of the existing Island storylines or opening up new mysteries, it simply explained the strange actions of Paulo and Nikki thus far, and cleanly (albeit shockingly disturbingly) wrapped up their storyline.

But damned if I wasn't grinning like an idiot throughout the episode. Entertaining indeed.

Just a few things to discuss:

1. I loved the continued "who are you?" comments from Sawyer to Nikki and Paulo. Ironically, maybe if our core group of Survivors took the time to talk to them, they would have discovered things like the Beechcraft Plane, the Pearl Hatch, and even prevented Ben's scheme to kidnap Kate, Jack, and Sawyer.
2. Finally our confirmation that there was no greater reason to kidnap Kate and Sawyer than to get Jack to do the surgery! Leave your crazy theories about "Ben's List" at the door!
3. Paulo and Nikki's weird behaviors suddenly make sense (going to the Pearl, going to the bathroom, etc.). It's almost as if this episode existed to justify these characters being on the show for the first half of the season. Ironically, since they didn't end up adding too much to the story, it might have been just as easy to not have them exist at all.
4. Did Ben say "we should cover the hatch with the plane?" to Juliet? But the plane crashed over the Hatch entrance due to Boone climbing into the Beechcraft, right?
5. Did Smokey cause the spiders to attack Nikki, sealing her fate? I definitely heard the "chatter" of Smokey prior to the swarm of spiders appearing.
6. In the end, Charlie's confession to Sun about the kidnapping came off a bit forced for me. It was a little rushed and didn't have much impact other than Sun slapping Sawyer. I guess it "wraps up" a dangling storyline - but didn't really have as much resonance as it could have.
7. Nikki was hot.
8. That was maybe one of the more shocking endings of Lost yet. It wasn't some huge twist, but it definitely left my jaw dropped. I really can't believe they just buried two people alive. Don't you feel bad for hating Nikki and Paulo now? Yikes.

As I said, this ended up being a surprisingly "light", almost "filler" episode - but it was well done, creatively done, and a satisfying story for me - so I'll take it. It should be a pretty brief "Analysis", but I'm sure I'll find some things to over-analyze and write about. For now, the Comments Section is yours...

Lost - "Expose"

Episode Title: “Expose” (note: with a tilde over the e, but I can't figure out how to do that)


Brian's Deeper Meaning Guess: Once again, Lost is forcing me to learn the French language. I suppose this will come in handy in a few weeks when I’m in Paris and can drop phrases like “Par Avion” and “Expose” like a local… I mean, I’m sure those words come up all the time in day to day conversation, right?

Probably not. If you remember, “Par Avion” translated to “Airmail” and referred to Claire’s bird-brained (pun!) scheme to attach a letter to one of the migrating birds on the Island. This week, we’ve got “Expose”, with directly translates to the word “Exposed”. With this in mind, I immediately thought of the “Good Morning America” preview clip that aired a few weeks back, featuring (I kid you not), Nikki on a stripper pole. Check it out:

Looks pretty “exposed” to me.

However, much like “hors d'oeuvre”, “je ne sais quoi”, and “french fries”, “Expose” is an example of a word that doesn’t need translation, as it has taken on an English meaning all on its own. So, rather than hitting up freetranslation.com, I hit up dictionary.com and found the following definition of “Expose”:

“a public exposure or revelation, as of something discreditable; a formal recital or exposition of facts; exposure, or revelation, of something which some one wished to keep concealed.”

Now we’re talking. AT this point, it’s almost impossible to start breaking down the deeper meaning without knowing what this episode is about, so we need to jump into the episode description here before we come back to the Deeper Meaning.


Episode Description: Hurley begins to suspect that Sawyer may be involved in an island mystery surrounding two fellow survivors, and Sun learns the truth about her past kidnapping attempt by The Others. Guest starring are Kiele Sanchez as Nikki, Rodrigo Santoro as Paulo, William Mapother as Ethan Rom, Ian Somerhalder as Boone, Maggie Grace as Shannon, Daniel Roebuck as Dr. Artz, Billy Dee Williams as Mr. LaShade and Jacob Witkin as Howard L. Zukerman.


Episode Breakdown: This is the long dreaded by some, long awaited by others, Nikki and Paulo-centric episode of “Lost”. Those who dread it do so because of their season-long hatred of annoying Paulo and hot-but-worthless Nikki, who are viewed as taking up screen time from our original beloved Survivors and not serving much of a purpose. They also were victim of the worst character introductions of any show in the history of television. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t even think any character on the show has uttered either of their names yet, have they? They just appeared out of nowhere and the characters on the show acted as though they’d been there all along… it was sloppy.

On the other hand, some (like me) are almost giddy with excitement for this episode after hearing quotes from Cuse and Lindelof about how this episode will “answer a big mythological question” and perhaps contain the “game changing event” that we’ve been hearing about since the spring season started. One (again, like me) could argue that the appearance of Cooper last week was pretty “game changing” – but depending on what the explanation behind his appearance is, it may or may not be as huge as we’re making it out to be. If that’s the case, this episode might contain an even more jaw-dropping moment. In fact, I actually tempered my excitement for last week’s episode because I had this creeping suspicion that this week would be even bigger… even though it’s centered around the Beach, not the Barracks, and the JV Survivors instead of the Varsity Team.

Why? Well, when I hear the term “mythological question” being thrown around, I start thinking about episodes like “Walkabout”, “Orientation”, and “Flashes Before Your Eyes” – you know, the kind of episodes that contain those “big questions” about the origin and power of the Island, the effect its having on our Survivors, and what it means for the past and future storylines we’ve seen on the show. In other words, the stuff that fuels the fire for our Lost obsessiveness and brings out the inner nerd in all of us.

But… how could this possibly tie to Nikki and Paulo? I’ll get there…

First, let’s breakdown the description…

Hurley begins to suspect that Sawyer may be involved in an Island mystery involving two fellow survivors. Since this is a Nikki and Paulo episode that would have to mean they are the “two fellow survivors”, right? If so, Hurley’s suspicions are clearly WRONG unless Sawyer was totally lying four weeks ago when he said “who they hell are you?” to them. It sure sounded legit to me, but hey – he’s the con man. Still, if Nikki and Paulo are as important as the show’s producers have hinted they are, I would bet that they are actually involved in some sort of Island mystery, and Sawyer’s just getting lumped in with them due to his sketchy past on the Island.

The bigger question is what is this new mystery that Hurley is trying to uncover? If he assumes that Sawyer is involved, one would have to think it involved stealing things or keeping secrets in exchange for monetary gain. I went back and re-watched the episode preview to look for any hints, but unfortunately, there weren’t any – other than the glimpses of diamonds which may or may not have been from during a flashback. However, what I did see was a big hint towards the episode title.



Although this screen shot doesn’t quite show it, trust me when I say the title of the booklet Hurley is reading ends in an e with a tilde above it… like in the word “Expose”. What does it mean? Other than the fact that there were more random books, magazines, and scripts on Flight 815 than in most libraries, I’m not sure – it probably won’t be any more of a plot point than the “Bad Twin” transcript that Hurley read last season (are the producers of Lost planning another spin-off book this summer?) but it’s clearly one of the many references that the episode title “Expose” has in this episode. The far deeper meaning lies in the rest of the episode description.

The second deals with Sun finally finding out the truth behind her failed kidnapping attempt last season. I’m almost tempted to launch into my “the writers take too long to answer questions” speech I’ve given a few times over recent weeks, but I’ll refrain here. Yes, this is a storyline that most viewers have probably long forgotten about, but I think there’s a reason the answer couldn’t have come sooner (much like Sayid and the cable on the beach). For those who forget, here’s a refresher.

Midway through Season Two (during the Sawyer-centric episode “The Long Con”), Charlie pretended to kidnap Sun as part of a “long con” by Sawyer to reclaim possession of the guns stored inside the Hatch since his departure at the end of Season One on the Raft. Our Survivors immediately suspected the Others of committing the crime, but then began to suspect Ana-Lucia who was trying to recruit people for her “army” (PS – remember that storyline that was almost instantly dropped?) of doing it in an attempt to get people afraid, angry, and ready to fight. At the end of the episode, we learn that Charlie took part in the con not to gain access to the Virgin Mary Statues of Heroin (as we had suspected), but rather to make Locke look foolish for indirectly allowing Sawyer to get the guns back – as payback for Locke ratting him out to Claire (and punching his face in) during “Fire + Water”.



So here’s my question – this happened a long time ago, and no one has made any mention of it. I don’t really see Sawyer or Charlie admitting to this and risking an ass-kicking from Jin or exile from their fellow Survivors, so how in the world is Sun going to find out the truth?

Enter Nikki and Paulo. All the sudden, I think I understand the purpose of introducing these characters – it’s to answer questions from the past on the Island that otherwise wouldn’t get answered. While it seems like we’ll get a brief bit of “pre-Island” flashbacks for them (unless Nikki stumbles upon the “Stripper Pole Station” on the Island), I’d bet that the majority of the flashbacks are on-Island, similar to “The Other 48 Days” or “Maternity Leave”. Think about it like this – using new, ancillary characters is a great way to see different perspectives of past actions… such as Sun’s kidnapping. Look at the guest stars for this episode – Ethan, Shannon, Boone, and Artz (among others, who must be flashbackers).

If we’re talking about Ethan being around, we’re talking about flashbacks going back as far as early Season One. It’s almost like in Back to the Future (I know, I need to stop comparing Lost to Back to the Future) where Marty would see an alternate perspective on something he already did through time travel. Nikki and Paulo serve the same function. Imagine seeing Ethan’s actions or Shannon and Boone’s deaths from a different point of view? Maybe Nikki and Paulo were friends with Artz and we’ll get to see someone actually mourn his death? It’s actually a clever way to “flesh out” past storylines and reveal more to the audience than we got from the original scene and perspective.

For that matter, suppose Nikki and Paulo were in the area when Sun’s kidnapping went down, or when Sawyer and Charlie were discussing it. They would be the ones who could “expose” the truth to Sun (Deeper Meaning alert! Go back and read the definition of “expose” and tell me that doesn’t perfectly apply here!).

In fact, this is where I bet our answers to “mythological questions” come into play. I’m betting there is something that the audience, in addition to the main Survivors “missed” the first time around that could dramatically shift our understanding of one of these past events. Nikki and Paulo’s flashbacks serve to give us this “other perspective”.

The writers know that we don’t care about them as characters, and that there isn’t really room for them on the show, but introduced them for this specific purpose. We all foolishly thought they were just adding these “new” characters to get fresh storylines – but actually the opposite is true… they were introducing them to better explain past storylines!

But I digress. Back to the preview…

Sun finding out about her kidnapping also explains the other scene in the preview, featuring Sun slapping Sawyer (since he was responsible for the kidnapping in the end), as well as her comment about “if you tell Jin, you’ll have to dig another grave”, insinuating that Jin would literally murder Sawyer if he found out the truth.

What’s that? ANOTHER grave, you say Sun?



So who is Sawyer digging that first grave for? Has Charlie’s luck finally run out? Did Colleen’s decaying body wash ashore? Since historically characters die during their flashback episodes, Nikki and Paulo are our most likely candidates. Again, if you look closely at the episode preview it becomes pretty clear which contestant is behind Grave #1…





If you ask me, it’s pretty suspicious that the episode preview would give away such a huge plot point – even for the ABC promo department that has a terrible track record for these things. That gives me a bit of hope for that the hotter of the two survives, and Nikki lives to strip another day. Maybe this is some sort of Nikki dream sequence (it is shown in weird black and white in the preview), or Desmond “flash” to the potential future that he changes? It’s out there, but I have hope. Something doesn’t sit right with me having Nikki’s death broadcast in the preview… unless both Nikki and Paulo are going to die, and his death is supposed to be the “surprise” of the episode, a la “Two for the Road”? I’m not sure. But it definitely looks like we’re about to have our second Survivor death of the season!

Not to sound cruel, but if my earlier suspicions are correct, and the only reason that Nikki and Paulo “exist” on the show is to give these tangential views of the past and “expose” past mysteries, then their deaths make perfect sense.

It’s a beautiful day, so I’m going to wrap this up with one of the craziest theories ever that I cannot take credit for – but thought I would share it with you. I’ll preface it by saying I don’t think it’s true, but if it was, it would be absolutely insane and definitely be the “mythological answer” we would be looking for. Courtesy of the former-DMB message boards at ufck…

“What if the reason that Nikki and Paulo are suddenly getting screen time, and Rose and Bernard are not is that Desmond went back in time and altered some event – and now, in this “new future” Nikki and Paulo survived the crash of Flight 815 INSTEAD of Rose and Bernard?”

When I read that, it blew my mind away. Once I calmed down and collected my scattered brain pieces, logic got the best of me and dismissed the theory. There are a number of reasons why it wouldn’t work (plus I still don’t believe in the “time travel” storyline) – but you have to admit, this would be unbelievably awesome and would not only leave the audience blown away, but explain the crappy writing to introduce Nikki and Paulo, and the missing Rose and Bernard thus far this season.

Even so, I’m still feeling really good things about this episode. It’s kinda weird. In the first two seasons of Lost, this would be the part of the season where the episodes would start to drag and spin their wheels, and we would justify it by saying “they’re just waiting for the season finale for the big action and reveals”. But this season, we got the crappy wheel-spinning episodes out of the way early, and are now on a roll with non-stop awesome ones (note: this usually would totally jinx us, and guarantees five weeks of awful episodes to come – but looking at our current plotlines on the show, I really don’t see it happening!). The storylines are firing on all cylinders, moving forward, and are insanely entertaining.

I have to hand it to the ABC Promo folks on this one. Remember all winter when they claimed “Lost delivers like no other show on TV”? Well, at least right now it’s looking like they were absolutely right.

Get pumped. I know I am.


(PS - just a few more days to Email me if you want to run the Blog for a post or two while I'm in Europe in April. Remember, the deadline is April 1st. Email me at controltheblog@hotmail.com if you want to be in the running. It's like winning the lottery... only without any financial gain!)

"The Man From Tallahassee" Analysis!

I remember back to the Season One finale, when it ended with Locke and Jack peering down the Hatch, but not revealing what was actually inside of it. I remember thinking, "Wow, we're really on the threshold here of defining what this series is actually going to be about - it's no wonder that they didn't want to actually show what was inside, since it could potentially disenfranchise a huge portion of the audience." You see, up until that point, Lost could have been about whatever you wanted it to be about. There theories that it was a "religious" show about redemption with people living in Purgatory, a "land of the lost" show with Dinosaurs lurking in the background, a "government conspiracy" show about people who were actually test subjects in crazy experiments, or any number of other theories that you could make strong arguments for. The main thing was, Season One of Lost was everything to everyone. The writers were careful to hint at things without ever fully showing their hand - which I think is part of why the show became so popular. In Season Two, we began to finally start seeing what the show was really about, introducing the Others and the Dharma Initiative as the underlying backbone of the Island mystery - but the writers carefully remained pretty vague about what was really causing all the crazy stuff that happened on the Island. Throughout the season, you could chalk the strange appearances and coincidences on the Island up to anything from fate to a magic Smoke Monster, and pretty much anything else in between.

Where am I going with this rant? Well, the ending of this episode potentially marked one of those moments where we finally get a reveal that knocks a lot of theories out of contention and further reveals what this crazy show called "Lost" is really all about. The appearance of Locke's Dad (Anthony Cooper) at the end of the episode could mean that all the visions we've seen thus far are manifestations of Smokey, wishes of people on the Island coming true, or simply evidence at the unbelievable power and reach of the Others. I don’t know how to put this, but it's kinda a big deal.

But there is a lot to discuss about "The Man from Tallahassee" besides the potential show-shifting final scene, so let's start at the beginning. It's a very good place to start. When you read, you begin with A-B-C… so I present to you, my analysis of this episode in alphabetical order:


Alex. Something tells me that Alex is going to play a pretty critical role as the show goes on. She's always been a bit of a "rebel" within the Others, but could also get away with it by playing the "I'm Ben's daughter" card whenever someone questioned her. We've seen it work to help out Jack, Sawyer, Kate, and Juliet in the past, and I don’t see any reason to think it will stop in the future. To add fuel to her rebellious fire, this week she learned from Sayid that her mother is actually alive. You could argue that Alex has no reason to trust Sayid (he's a foreigner!), but she seems like she's already built up a good amount of distrust for her fellow Others (Ben even comments that she kinda hates him), so I'm thinking she believes it.

What does this mean? To Alex, this means that her "dad" has been lying to her for her entire life, which should make her start to question (if she wasn't doing so already) everything else that Ben has told her about her past and even the ongoings on the Island. At the very least, I would expect her to try and sneak in some more conversations with Sayid to get more information from him. Taking it a step farther, she could potentially help our Survivors escape the Barracks, leaving with them to get an alternate perspective on Island life and what's really going on. If you want to get really crazy, how about Alex being the person who brings the Survivors and Others "together" by exposing Ben's lies to the rest of the Others and revealing the truths about the Island to our Survivors? I've always thought that the easiest way to get the two groups unified (which has to eventually happen right? We can’t keep this “split screen time” act forever) was to introduce a common enemy to them (The "Experiment Rejects" for example) - but it might be just as easy to unite them with the goal of getting off the Island, now that they're all pretty much trapped there.




Ben. Which brings us to Ben. One of his many fantastically interesting things Ben revealed this episode was that the sub keeps up the illusion that people can come and go as they please. The key word there of course being "illusion", as if the people can't really use it. We've already learned that Juliet was promised a short trip to the Island and then was forced to stay - but I assumed that she was the exception and not the rule. When you factor in Ben's other line about being "one of the few that was actually born on the Island", you start to view the majority of these Others as a group of people who were brought to the Island for various reasons - and then found themselves unable to leave. Over time, they start to buy into the mission (either voluntarily or through brainwashing) and eventually willingly stay there, going so far as to defend it with their lives. I wonder if, given the chance to leave, how many would actually take it.

It also makes you wonder who else besides Ben is a "native" to the Island, because it would seem that they would be the ones who would be the "higher ups" that have the power to actually use the sub and leave the Island, such as Alpert and Ethan - who we've seen on both the Island and in the "real world". I would wager these are the people that actually know the full story – know what’s going on on the Island and understand the importance of keeping it secret. Well, these people and John Locke of course.



Remember that Ben made a comment to Locke that he “doesn’t understand why, but (Locke) has a communion with the Island”. It’s something I’ve recently been calling “Team Island”, thinking that Locke was “working” for the Island to prevent people from leaving and attack the Others. Now I’m somewhat re-thinking it, because based on Ben’s comments he’s also a member of “Team Island”, and I think all the “native Others” are as well. The way Ben talked to Locke, it was almost as if he understood that Locke shared this spiritual connection with the Island, but didn’t understand how an “outsider” could have gained access to it. This connection seems to give the person some sort of “special powers” or enlightenment. Locke is a newbie to this power, and doesn’t understand the “why” behind it as Ben does – but he’s definitely experiencing the “how”. We’ll touch on the “Magic Box” later, but potentially only those who enter this “communion” with the Island gain access to its powers.

The important thing is, thanks to Locke, Ben got out of an impossible predicament. As he said, if he didn’t let Jack and Juliet go, he would be seen as a liar, and would lose the respect of the Others. If he did let them go, not only would the Submarine be gone forever, but he would be viewed as “helping an inferior person” in escaping from the Island – also losing the respect of his people. Thanks to John Locke, he got “an out” which allows him to keep face with the Others, securing his position of power among them.


CFL. As for CFL, this episode confirmed for me that she is NOT a part of the Others. The scene with a teary eyed-CFL seeing Alex for the first time from the shadows? That’s a sign that she hasn’t seen Alex in 16 years – and you have to think that if she was an Other, she would have had the chance to do so… it’s not like the Others have multiple cities around the Island (or do they?! I’m just kidding, I don’t think they do…) However, still open are theories that she entered some sort of “pact” with the Others, is working with ulterior motives, or is lying about her knowledge about the Island – but as for being an Other, that theory is blown up like an Other Submarine.




Jack. What about Jack? Is he an Other now? No – it turns out that with all the theories we had about why Jack was playing nice with the Others, the simplest answer was the correct one. He was playing nice with the Others in order to get a one-way ticket off the Island. However, he retained his “hero” status by confiding in Kate that although he was going to leave the Island, he was going to form a search party and come back to rescue everyone else. Ever-logical Jack realized his freedom was the best chance that EVERYONE had for actually getting off the Island, and he was ready to take it. Unfortunately, along came John Locke to destroy that plan. Two seasons ago, Jack told us we were going to have a “Locke problem”, and boy do we ever have one now.

The big question is – what now? Ben seemingly was going to let Jack go (although it certainly is debatable if this really would have happened), but now that the Sub is gone, does Ben let Jack return to the beach with Sayid and Kate? Or does he keep him captive. I think the answer to this hinges on the question of how much Jack actually knows. I’m not going to lie, when Jack started into his “the kids are safe” speech with Kate in the gameroom, I immediately thought “Oh great, he’s brainwashed like Cindy” because the two speeches sounded so similar… and both were so void of any real information. However, I think it’s safe to assume that Jack was kept in the dark on the majority of “secrets” of the Others – finding out only as much as was absolutely needed for him to spend a few days at the Barracks – and therefore could theoretically be released with the other Survivors. I mean, EVENTUALLY Jack has to return to the beach to have verbal spars with Sawyer and have awkward moments with Claire, right?



But who’s to say (what’s impossible) that Kate, Sayid, and Locke would even be released? If you remember, Ben’s quote was “I’ll let your friends go as soon as you leave this Island.” We’ve seen in the past that Ben, while sneaky and conniving, seems to be a man of his word. But with Jack not leaving the Island, he doesn’t technically have to release the Search Party. But again, I feel like the writers (and the audience) have had enough of the “Survivors kept prisoner by the Others” storylines, so I would expect a conditional release of Jack, Kate, and Sayid. What about Locke? Well, if he’s a member of “Team Island”, that puts him in the inner circle of the Others, and I think he would stay. It certainly gives him the “greater purpose” he’s been looking for since he arrived at he Island, and Ben seems awfully eager to find out how Locke gained such favor with the Island so quickly. Plus, if Jack got his hands on Locke, he would literally kill him for blowing up the Submarine.




Juliet. On the other hand, Juliet seems to be in the opposite boat. She’s pretty much demonstrated that she hates the Others, is tired of their antics, and just wants to go home. I find it hard to believe she would fall back into the role of a mindless Other following Ben after all she’s been through. Also, how could we have the Jack and Juliet potential romance blossom if the two are separated? No way – TV writers love geometric love stories (love triangles, rhombusi, pentagons – things like that). By introducing Juliet to the Jack / Kate / Sawyer mix, it guarantees that they can string along the inevitable Jack and Kate romance for a few more seasons. My money is on Juliet being dishonorably discharged from the Others and leaving with Jack, Kate, and Sayid.


Locke. I would have never expected John Locke to deliver a comedic line on “Lost”, but he surprised me this episode with his “You aren’t going to start talking about the Magic Box again, are you?” line to Ben. But this was just one of many insanely interesting conversations between the two characters. Based on Ben’s conversations, it seems that John Locke somehow got “instant communion” with the Island once Flight 815 crashed – something that apparently takes years to achieve for outsiders (if ever?) – something that only “native Others” seem to have had in the past. But why? What made John Locke so special? As we saw in his flashbacks, he definitely had the crappiest life up until the plane crash, which might mean the Island just took pity on him – or saw him as a weak personality looking for purpose in life that could easily be convinced to perform the Island deeds.

It almost seems like the Island used to be BFFs with Ben, but has ditched him for the “new guy in town” John Locke. Remember how Locke mentioned to Ben, “you’re in the wheelchair and I’m not”? This screams “the Island likes me better than you now”. But why? Well, also recall that Locke called Ben a hypocrite for using electricity and guns, whereas Locke is embracing the “au natural” route of Island life. Hunting. Gathering. Living in underground hatches. You know, the usual stuff.

How about this for your crazy theory of the week? Ben and his Native Other cohorts lived in total communion with the Island for centuries, and thus received its favor in terms of protection (Smokey), wishes being granted, and power. The Island liked them because they lived simple lives and ate, drank, and were merry. But then, along came the Dharma Initiative, and introduced our Others to things like electricity, guns, and Dharma beer, among other vices (a very Native Americans being polluted by the White Man sort of theory). Suddenly these Others were no longer living the way that the Island wanted, and it was pissed. It crashed Flight 815 to get some new blood on the Island that could take over, deeming Locke the leader of the group and zapping him with instant communion. Locke doesn’t fully understand it, but realizes that he has this power and omniscience over things happening on the Island. The Island is almost telling him what to do and then making it happen – which explains his destructive actions against the Others and anything that could provide escape from the Island. The Island is pissed at the Others and wants them gone… but it also wants to ensure that our Survivors stick around and re-settle the Island. Aaron becomes the first sign of the “next generation”, along with baby Sunjin (explaining why she could suddenly conceive – the Island needs babies!).

Absolutely crazy? Yes. But if this is the case, then Ben understands that his communion with the Island is slipping, whereas Locke’s seems as strong as ever – making him NEED Locke to keep control over the Others. There was an article in the Los Angeles Times this week which mentioned that Locke (and Locke’s Dad) wouldn’t be appearing on the show again until near the season finale (boo!). While we should take this with a grain of salt (you can’t trust the liberal media), it might also open the door for an insane reveal near the end of the season, as our Survivors again encounter the Others, only to find John Locke their new leader. Tell me that wouldn’t make for great TV!




Locke's Dad. Speaking of great TV, it seems that the folks at Lost have learned their lesson from the Season One finale, where they opened the Hatch but didn’t show us what was inside, leading to riots in three US cities and hunger strikes by thousands of Lost fans worldwide (one assumes). Thankfully, this episode showed us what was behind door #1 at the end, what “the Magic Box” created, what John Locke apparently wished for – none other than a bound and gagged Anthony Cooper, his father. We’re through the looking glass, people.



What does it all mean? Well to be honest with you, I haven’t decided yet. You might find it hard to believe, but typically when I start writing each post, I have no idea where it’s going to take me or what theories will spring up in my head as I write (for example, that crazy one above? No idea where that came from). This is one of those cases. I could easily see Locke’s Dad being a product of the Island granting wishes, Smokey, the power of the Others, or just another example of crazy coincidence / fate. So I’m just going to argue each point and see what sounds the best to me in the end. Kids – this is not a recommended method of “proper writing” – don’t try this at home…

Anthony Cooper is another crazy example of coincidence and fate on the Island. It’s definitely the “cleanest” of the explanations, albeit the least fun. The detectives in the hospital told Locke that his father “disappeared to Mexico” shortly after throwing him out the window, and then didn’t know where he went from there. It’s possible he decided to charter a boat on a trip to the South Pacific (far away from the long arm of the law) and ended up crashing on the Island. Hey, it happened to CFL and Desmond, right? What are the odds of that? Not great. What are the odds that the Others would find him and keep him captive for just this moment, knowing his relationship with Locke? Even not greater. But if you are one of those “I hate science fiction stuff and want everything on Lost to be explained very logically”, this is a good theory for you. This would also be the theory you would want to apply to Eko’s plane, or Jack and Claire ending up on the same plane, and all the crisscrossing characters in flashbacks.

Anthony Cooper is a product of the Others’ power and reach around the world. This is actually a better theory for those “realists” out there than the first – because it takes a lot of the “coincidence” out of everthing… but it also means that the Others are almost Dharma-like in their power and influence around the world, able to kidnap someone and bring them to the Island within the course of a few days (I guess technically they could have taken as long as 80 days) just in case they ever needed them to be a pawn in a psychological game with someone on the Island. Or maybe it’s just like Survivor where the Others brought a family member from each of our castaways to the Island just in case they ever needed leverage over them. This would also mean that the Others constructed a fake plane (with fake corpses!) for Eko, set loose a black horse for Kate, and had Charlie’s guitar conveniently hanging in the trees for him to find. It works… except that we’re supposed to believe that the Others are NOT Dharma (note: in a recent Podcast, Damon and Carlton confirmed that Patchy was telling the truth – the Others are NOT Dharma, but wiped them out in a “purge”)… and how would a group of Islanders gain this sort of power? It’s a pretty big hole if you ask me (that’s what he said?).

Anthony Cooper is a manifestation of Smokey. You’ll notice in the first two theories above I didn’t reference Jack’s Dad, Hurley’s Dave, Boone’s Shannon, or Shannon’s Walt. It’s dangerous to group every weird occurrence together on the Island and try to find a unifying explanation for all of them, because it doesn’t have to be that way. For example, I have always chalked up Hurley’s Dave to Hurley being crazy – not a product of anything on the Island. Hurley was having visions of his imaginary friend long before he arrived on the Island, so why should we think his visions on the Island are any different? Likewise, I would easily chalk Jack’s Dad up to a “dealing with the death of a parent” traumatic hallucination and nothing more. Walt seemed to always have special powers, even the ability to “appear somewhere that he wasn’t supposed to be” as Ms. Klugh said, so Shannon seeing him isn’t necessarily tied to Smokey. Even Boone’s Shannon, that Locke asked “is that what the Island showed you?” could just as easily be tied to the drug-laced goo that Locke smeared on this open wound rather than a manifestation of Smokey.

So when we talk about Smokey, we have to be very careful to throw out these examples and focus on the hard evidence. In my mind, this really just leaves Eko’s visions of Yemi as the only hard evidence of Smokey taking on the form of another person. At least, until this episode. In my Instant Reactions, this was the first thing that sprung to mind. Remember that the only two characters that have really had a “face to face” encounter with Smokey are Eko and Locke – and in Eko’s encounter we saw Smokey “scanning his memory for images from his past”. It’s easily rationalized that Smokey would later take on the form of these images (Yemi for Eko, Anthony Cooper for Locke) in order to achieve some goal.

But what is the goal? Well, remember that Eko and Locke both survived their encounters with Smokey, whereas the Pilot did not – so there must have been something special about them. They were both religious, they both were unafraid, something. Perhaps Smokey intended for them to both be a part of “Team Island”, but needed to “test them” to ensure that their intentions were true and they were “worthy” of gaining access to this great power. Smokey appeared as Yemi to test Eko, to try and get him to repent for his sinful past – and Eko was unwilling to do so, resulting in his demise. Maybe Smokey is now appearing as Locke’s Dad in order to test Locke to see if he forgives him, or takes out revenge on him (you can’t forget that Eko told Locke, “you’re next” – maybe he’s the next one to be tested?)

Also, remember those weird red flowers that were around Yemi when he appeared to Smokey (that some have theorized are always around whenever Smokey appears)? Well, check out the flowers that appeared with Cooper in the flashback:



The problem of course is that Yemi appeared and disappeared, was seemingly visible only to Eko, and was in total control. Cooper appears to be very physical, very tied up, and totally out of control (although this could all be part of Smokey’s act to see how Locke reacts). It also raises a lot of questions about the relationship between Smokey and the Others that I can’t even begin to wrap my head around. Are they working together? Do the Others know that Cooper is actually Smokey? You could make this theory work if you wanted to, but the details would require a lot of explanation down the road.

Anthony Cooper is a product of the Island granting wishes. Which brings us to the last theory, the most out there, and potentially the most game-changing. Although Ben was clearly speaking in metaphor when he told Locke to imagine a “Magic Box” (since he worked a Box Factory, Ben probably thought this was a concept he could relate to), the underlying message was that the Island can grant the wishes of the worthy.

Here’s where you have to ask yourself – is Lost a show about a Time Traveling Scotsman and an Island that grants wishes, or is it a show about people finding redemption through dream sequences and hallucinations that are encouraged by a super-powerful organization on the Island? There’s a big difference there.

While I was never a big believer in the “time travel” theories with Desmond, somehow I’m finding myself buying into this theory about the Island making dreams come true. I know the show is rooted in science, and it couldn’t possibly explain this – but it would be the lynchpin that holds this show together and explains soooo much. This could be that “secret” that I’ve referenced that the Others are clearly willing to die in order to protect. This would explain why it’s so important to keep the Island a secret. Can you imagine this power falling into the wrong hands? Speaking of the wrong hands, this could explain why the Others only want the “worthy” Survivors to join them. How is Ben able to get the Others to follow his orders? Because he’s the magic man that has a communion with the Island, and he’s dangling the carrot in front of them that they could have this power as well.

I know, I know – it’s crazy talk. But after typing out each of the other possibilities above, it’s inexplicably the one that makes the most sense. There are a lot of holes with this theory of course – like it’s scientifically impossible, or why wouldn’t Locke wish for a scantily clad Helen, or why Ben couldn’t just wish his tumor away, etc. But if you believe that Ben and the Others have slowly been falling out of favor with the Island, it would seem to fill in a lot of them.

I can just see the creators never offering a formal explanation about how any of this is possible, and hinting at all the different alternate explanations that adhere to science – but having the “true believers” like Locke simply believing that the Island is magic. Heck, the fraudulent book “The Secret” has been hawking the notion of “believing in something makes it come true” and has been featured on Oprah twice - which is basically the same theory. If all those millions of people who mindlessly follow anything Oprah says believe it, why shouldn’t we believe a similar concept on Lost?

As I said in the beginning, I’m not 100% sold on any of these explanations, which makes me beyond excited to find out the truth… but for now, feel free to mock me for coming down on the side of “Island Magic”. I know I would.


Oz. An anonymous poster echoed my thoughts about this below, but it was something my friends and I discussed via Email earlier this week as well, so I wanted to throw it out there for everyone to chew on… I don’t think there is a "Jacob".

Instead, I think that Jacob is closer to the Wizard in the Wizard of Oz (another Wizard of Oz reference? Come on!) - that being an imaginary all-powerful figurehead that keeps people in line (an Island god?), but doesn't exist in the flesh and bone. The more we see about the Others, the more convinced I am that Jacob either was one of the original Others, who discovered this “communion” with the Island, or is a fairy-tale figure that is used to convince non-Native Others about the power of the Island.

Throughout all Ben’s conversations, he never mentioned fearing Jacob – just that he was afraid of losing power… as if he was the one who was ultimately in charge of all the Others. If Jacob existed, shouldn’t he have been saying stuff like “Jacob is going to kill me for letting Jack escape” or “Jacob is going to be very upset that I’ve lost the faith of my people” – but he wasn’t.

Just something to think about…


Submarine. Lastly, I wanted to address some of the questioning about the submarine that I read in the Comments to the Instant Reactions – sorry to tell you, but it was the submarine that blew up. If you watch the episode closely, you can see the sub still sitting there in the background right before it blows up. Locke didn’t move it and then swim back to the dock (even though he was wet – maybe he slipped and fell when getting off the sub?) – the submarine is gone. However, that doesn’t mean that the Others are now all stranded on the Island either – remember that fancy ocean liner they took from Alcatraz to the Main Island? That still exists, along with Desmond’s sailboat. Maybe the submarine was needed to “escape” the electromagnetic pull of the Island back in the day, but now – post purple sky – I would think that either of these two remaining vessels would provide a way to get back to the real world without having to follow any specific bearing (like Michael and Walt).



Okay. I’m exhausted. Quick update on the “Control the Blog” Contest and I’m out of here:

I’ve received a lot of interest, and there are some definite front runners. I think I’ll take the advice of many of you and split up duties by episode, giving multiple people the chance to write. I’ve also gotten some tips on how to setup more of a “message board” structure for the Comments section, which would make it easier to navigate, read, and respond – which I think would be awesome. Due to my lack of technical know-how, I’m relying on FOBs to help make this happen, but it’s something to look for in the future that I think is very exciting for the Blog. If anyone has any other suggestions or wants to throw their name in the running to Control the Blog, shoot me an Email at controltheblog@hotmail.com . I’m still not sure how the winners will be selected (again, suggestions for this are also welcome), but I figure I’ve got another week to figure that out.

"The Man from Tallahassee" Instant Reactions!

Brian's One Word Review: Boggled.

You know, up until the last ten minutes of the episode, I was thinking to myself "huh, this is a surprisingly thin episode." Sure, there was plenty of great action and plot development, but nothing that made you think too hard or over-analyze for the first forty minutes... then Ben started his "Magic Box" talk, and then the episode ended with Locke's Dad tied up in a room - leaving my mind totally boggled (note: WTF was a close second for the "three letter review" of the episode).

So what does it all mean? Well, here's what I'll be pondering tomorrow...

1. The Others. Very few are actually native to the Island. Most seem to be coerced into coming to the Island under the pretense of being able to leave... but it's just a sham. It seems that Ben keeps them there until they become "believers" and don't want to leave - via brainwashing? Does that make Ben one of a dying breed of decendents of the people who made the four-toed statue? Did they die out due to infertility?
2. The Barracks. Something about this doesn't add up for me. If we assume the Barracks were created by Dharma, and the Others are NOT Dharma, then where did the Others use to live? Did you see the walls of Ben's house featuring pictures of Alex growing up? Clearly the Others have had the technology to take and print photographs for quite some time - so they must have had a decent little civilization pre-Dharma, right?
3. The Magic Box. "Imagine if I told you there was a box, and when you opened the box, whatever you wished was inside." Jigga what? At first I was thinking this was some sort of symbolism for "the Island will give you whatever you want" - not be taken literally... then Locke's dad appeared. Up until now, Smokey was the number one thing on "Lost" that couldn't be explained logically using pseudo-science... but now this "Magic Box" takes the cake. This can't be real, can it? Or is this what is used to entice people to come to (and stay on) the Island? Some magic power to tie into the mind and make wishes come true? Are they really just at Disney World?
4. Locke's Dad. Has he always been there? So he was the "man from Tallahassee" that Ben summoned from Alpert while Locke was hiding in the closet, right? Was this just an illusion? Did he somehow "appear" via Magic Box powers? Does this mean that Jack's dad might also really be on the Island? As crazy as it sounds, if the Island does make "wishes come true", it would go a long way in explaining the freaky coincidence stuff we've seen so far with Jack's Dad, Eko's Plane (and Yemi), Kate's Horse, etc. All the stuff that we previously chalked up to Smokey... so does that make Smokey the Magic Box? Smokey the Magic Dragon? He scans you, finds your wishes and desires, and then makes them come true if you're "worthy"? Think about it - he scanned Locke a while ago - "creating" his Father on the Island, who the Others then kidnapped, not knowing what else to do with him. I'll keep working on this theory, but I think it has the most logic behind it so far.
5. Locke. Ben pretty much came out and said it - Locke is Team Island. Although Ben doesn't know why, Locke is taking up the causes of the Island, making him the enemy of both the Others and the Survivors. Another sad Locke flashback to make us feel bad for him, when we really should be viewing him as public enemy number one.

Just like Bob Lawblaw, that was quite a mouthful. Sorry for the rambling, but I wanted to get the instant reactions out in raw form before I start second-guessing myself. All in all, it was a great episode - but let's be honest, without that ending it would have just been a solid episode. In the end my dropped jaw hadn't returned to its normal closed position when the preview for next week aired... which dropped it even farther. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First things first. I'll try to make some sense of this episode in the next few days.

Comment.

PS - remember to let me know if you want to take over my Blog (controltheblog@hotmail.com).

Lost - "The Man from Tallahassee"

Before we get started this week, there is some serious Blog news that we need to address…

First the good news. I'm finally making my long awaited return to Europe, which I should have taken last year for the World Cup. However, due to all of my friends being lame (and not having the plentiful vacation days that I have), it never happened. Thankfully, this year, it's happening in a big way with a two week European Extravaganza taking me through Edinburgh, York, Bath, London, Paris, Munich, Salzburg, and the happiest place on Earth - Augsburg, Germany.

Why do you care? Well, besides the fact that FOBs (Friends of the Blog) located in any of these fantastic cities need to start sending me Emails offering free places to stay and recommended non-touristy hotspots, it brings us to the bad news.

The trip is happening April 13 - April 29th… right in the middle of our current "nonstop" spring season of Lost. Since I don't intend to spend my trip watching TV or writing about TV (I wouldn't have the means, even if I wanted to), it means I'll be unable to write a Full Analysis of Episode 16, and will be unable to write Previews, Instant Reactions, or Full Analyses of Episodes 17, and 18. That's where you come in.

Since so much of the Blog is about readers commenting and discussing episodes on their own in the comments section, I definitely want that to continue in my absence. However, I think it would only be fair to take it one step further…

Someone is going to get to fully take over Lost and Gone Forever in my absence. Welcome to the first ever "Control the Blog" contest.

Think I'm an idiot and you could write better (and more quickly) about each episode? Want to have thousands of people each day read your crazy thoughts and theories for a while? I'll give some trustworthy individual the ID and Password to access the Blog and post their own episode previews and recaps. You don't have to do it in the same format as I do (although doing it like that would keep it nice and consistent…), but it would allow readers to continue obsessing and over-analyzing even when I'm gone. (Note: this can also serve as a contingency plan in case I ever die.) It's a big responsibility, but also a great opportunity.

If you're interested in taking over, shoot me an Email to controltheblog@hotmail.com (yes, I even setup a special Email address for this contest!) telling me why you want it. Nothing too fancy, just why you would be awesome. If I get a lot of responses, maybe we'll have some sort of judging contest or something. The other thing you should address is why I should trust you. Since technically whoever takes over could effectively destroy the Blog in a matter of minutes, it's kinda scary. I'm not sure how to limit the risk here - but if any computer savvy people out there think of anything, let me know.

If no one wants to assume this god-like power, then that's fine too. I can always post "shell" entries for each episode before I leave, and you'll just have to comment under the appropriate entry before and after each episode. It could get confusing, but it would be better than nothing.
So there you go. This could either turn into a horrible Blog experiment or a super successful annual event. We'll see.

Remember, Email me at controltheblog@hotmail.com if you're interested. We'll need to make a final decision on all of this before I leave, so I'll set a deadline of April 1st for any entries. That gives you about two weeks to decide if you're up for it.

But enough about me, let's get to the task at hand...


Episode Title: The Man From Tallahassee


Brian's Deeper Meaning Guess: Like every week, I started this week’s “deeper meaning guess” reading up on the city of Tallahassee, the state capital of Florida. Unfortunately, while very informative (the word “Tallahassee" is Muskogean for "old town” and it’s the home of Richard Simmons!) – it gave little insight to anything relative to the current state of the Island or characters on the show.

Instead, this looks to be another week where the episode title comes from something said inside the episode (similar to “Not In Portland”). More specifically, I’d bet the quote comes from inside the flashback. Why?

Well, who could possibly be from Tallahassee on the Island? If we’re to believe that most of the Others, sans Juliet (who’s from Miami), have lived on the Island for their entire lives, we can pretty much rule them out. Looking at the Survivors featured in this episode (Sayid, Kate, Locke, Jack), based on flashbacks we’ve already seen none hail from the Orange State. So who does that leave?

Take a look at the guest stars listed below. The one that should immediately jump out at you is Richard Alpert, aka – the guy who recruited Juliet to join “Mittelos” somewhere “not quite in Portland” in the first episode of the Spring Season. His reappearance in the episode means one of two things – either he’s on the Island, and now that we’re inside the Barracks, we’ll run into him… or that he once again appears in a flashback. While the former seems much more likely, the latter offers tantalizing possibilities about Locke’s knowledge about and role on the Island pre-crash…



…which brings us to this week’s Locke-centric flashback. “The Man from Tallahassee” promises the long-awaited answer to the question of “how did John Locke lose his legs?” Once again, it’s somewhat ironic that this is a question that the fans have been begging for since Season One – and yet now that we’re about to find out, this is one of the least fascinating parts of the show for me. Sure, I’m curious, but with a number of far more interesting stories happening on the Island at this point, learning how Locke became paralyzed is merely a side-story. The far more intriguing possibility for the episode is that Richard Alpert appears in Locke’s flashback.

Think about it. Although up until this point, we’ve had plenty of characters cross paths in their pre-Island lives, there have only been two that involved non-Flight 815 Survivors (Desmond / Jack / Charlie, and Kelvin / Sayid), and neither are “Others”. But the appearance of an Other like Alpert in Locke’s flashback would seemingly hint that there was some sort of greater plan in place for at least some of our Survivors, at the very least helping to explain the vast amount of information the Others have about each of our Survivors, and making the “conspiracy theory” geeks start freaking out.

Unfortunately, that would fly in the face of the facts that we’ve already learned about the crash of Flight 815. The Others were surprised by it. They had to gather information about the Survivors. The crash itself was caused by Desmond following Kelvin out of the Swan Hatch and racing back to enter the Numbers just in time. In the end, while it’s still possible that Alpert appears in Locke’s flashback (since we’ve already seen him in Miami, Tallahassee is only a few hours away), I wouldn’t bet on his appearance holding any greater meaning for Locke’s place on the Island. I think smart money is still on him simply appearing in the Barracks.

But where does that leave us? Like I said, I’m anticipating the episode title to be revealed in a fashion very similar to “Not In Portland” – a throwaway line that might hint at a key scene from the flashback, but nothing that we should be gathering any huge deeper meaning from.

Basically, something Lost creators use to torment me and my “Deeper Meaning” section. Jerks.


Episode Description: Ben tries to talk Locke out of his destructive plan by offering him some island secrets. Meanwhile, Kate's reunion with Jack does not go off as planned when she discovers he has made a deal with the Others. Guest starring are M.C. Gainey as Mr. Friendly/Tom, Tania Raymonde as Alex, Nestor Carbonell as Richard Alpert, Mira Furlan as Danielle Rousseau, Kevin Tighe as Anthony Cooper, Patrick J. Adams as Peter Talbot, Barbara Baehler as Mrs. Talbot, Don Nahaku as Detective Reed, Marlene Forte as Detective Mason, Stephen Bishop as William Kincaid, Cleo King as government worker and Brian Goodman as Ryan Pryce.


Episode Breakdown: I’ll just say it – this episode has an insane amount of potential. Between the last three episodes, this week, and next week (it’s scary, but there are rumblings that next week’s Nikki and Paulo-centric episode will shockingly be one of those “change your opinion about everything” episodes and will make us all feel terrible for hating those characters for so long) we might just be in the best stretch of Lost episodes since the first few episodes of Season One.

This week, we have the long awaited reunion of John Locke and Ben (who was Henry Gale the last time the two talked). Ironically, this time Ben is in a wheelchair (the trigger for Locke’s flashbacks, anyone?) If you remember, Ben was the person who told Locke that “I came for you”, as if he was “chosen” and then proceeded to lie about the repercussions of not pushing the button. Looking back on this conversation now, the scene brings up some pretty interesting questions.



For one, it’s pretty clear that Ben was not “sent for Locke”, and that Locke is not someone that is on Jacob’s list. However, as I said last week, he does seem to be the one remaining Survivor without a questionable past – in fact, he’s consistently been the one that was used, abused, and taken advantage of. Maybe this is what makes him “unworthy” of gaining admittance to Otherville – they not only want “good people” spiritually, but also emotionally – and it’s clear from Locke’s past that he has some serious emotional baggage due to the rough go he’s had with life.

What’s not as clear is why Ben seemed to be setting up Locke (and the rest of our Survivors) to stop pushing the button and implode the Hatch. Remember, Ben told Locke that he didn’t push the button and nothing happened – that it was all a big experiment. This (along with the trip to the Pearl) planted the seed of doubt in Locke’s mind about his number-pushing mission. The really weird thing is that we learned earlier this season that the Others (Ben included) didn’t know what would happen when the 108 clock expired. When the sky went purple, it knocked out their communication – seemingly catching them off guard and negatively affecting them. So why did Ben want this to happen?



The only explanation I can think of is that while the Others had no idea what pushing the button actually did (which would be surprising, when you think about how much they do know about the Island and the people on it), they knew that it was a product of Dharma experiments, which they were opposed to. However, the ever-cautious Others didn’t want to risk their own skin in finding out what happened when the button wasn’t pressed – so they decided to send Ben to convince our Survivors to do it on their own. Risky, but it did all work out in the end.

Which brings us back to John confronting the person who rocked his faith in the Island and his importance there… and kinda almost killed him. This is one pissed off John Locke. The preview showed Locke with a gun to Ben’s head demanding answers about the Island. The episode description indicates there’s some bartering going on – with Ben offering up some of these “Island Secrets” Locke so desperately wants in exchange for Locke calling off his “destructive plan”.

What is this “destructive plan”? Based on the last few episodes, smart money is on Locke using the C-4 that he swiped from the Flame to blow up something tied to communications at the Barracks, or the ship / submarine that people could theoretically use to come and go off the Island. This would fit in with Locke’s recent rampage of destroying anything that could provide escape off the Island or allow others to reach the Island, as he continues his apparent mission to stay on the Island forever.

The worrisome part here is that the bloody ABC preview also showed an image of John Locke standing in front of an explosion, which would seem to indicate that Locke carries out his “destructive plan” after all. I really hope this doesn’t mean that the audience is cheated out of finding out some solid information about the Island due to Locke’s wacky Island obsession – if so, I’m going to be pretty furious at his character. Let’s hope for Locke just being extra shady and making Ben tell him all this information… then blowing stuff up anyways.



Two weeks ago we learned that the Others have “lived on the Island a long time”, much longer than Dharma – so logically you should assume that they have a lot greater knowledge about things innate to the Island… maybe things like Smokey, Funky Time, the Whispers, etc. That really raises the bar for the excitement level for the Locke and Ben confrontation, doesn’t it?

The second main storyline of the episode surrounds the Jack and Kate reunion, which clearly doesn’t go off as planned. As we rationalized last week, Jack seems to be “playing nice” with the Others in an attempt to gather information that could eventually be used to help his fellow Survivors. Kate entering the fray puts Jack in a difficult situation. If he shows his loyalty towards Kate, it blows his cover and could get both of them thrown back into captivity. If he keeps up his act with the Others, it will crush Kate’s fragile heart and potentially get her re-captured or killed… and that, my friends, is good TV.

There will clearly be plenty of excitement, tension, and drama – along with something for the “Kate Hearts Jack 4-EVA” fans out there. It will be interesting to see how far Jack is willing to take this act… or how far he can take it without getting caught. If this was “24”, the Others would wisely make Jack shoot Kate to prove his allegiance… but since this isn’t, I doubt things will escalate that high. Still, here’s hoping for some insight towards Jack plan… or the revelation that my assumption was wrong and Jack is actually just out for himself and getting off the Island (not likely – but it would be pretty jaw-dropping and would seriously shakeup the show!)

Who is curiously missing from the Episode Description? Sayid and CFL. It’s pretty easy to see how Locke and Kate spend the episode, but what about the other two members of the Search Party? Since Alex is listed as a guest star this episode, I would bank on CFL spending a good bit of the episode watching her daughter from afar… afraid to actually approach her – but just observing her and being all sad. As for Sayid, being the most logical one of the group, I’d look for him to try and gather as much information as possible while at the Barracks – information about the Others, the Island, and searching for access to the tunnel system that is their ticket out of the Barracks once Jack is rescued.

That only leaves one more thing… the flashback.

I would be a terrible Blogger if I didn’t harbor some sort of guess as to the cause of John Locke’s paralysis. Noting the guest starring characters, Anthony Cooper once again is in the episode – Locke’s sketchy biological father (who previously has used him to get a kidney, indirectly ruined his potential marriage, and dragged him into a con) is making a reappearance. Who wants to bet that he is in some way responsible for Locke’s loss of his legs? A con gone wrong? A former associate looking for revenge? Running over Locke with a car? Who knows, but what better way to increase our sympathy for Locke and add another example to the “every Survivor has a terrible father” column than to have his father once again hose him? Meanwhile, on the Island we’ll see the stark contrast between “poor helpless pre-Island Locke” with the headstrong, plotting, potentially evil Island Locke. Don’t let him trick you into feeling sympathetic!



That’s all for this week. Something tells me we’re going to have an insane amount of analysis to do after this episode… I better rest up.

"Par Avion" Analysis

After three solid weeks of Lost in a row, with next week looking to potentially be one of the all-time great episodes, I think a lot of people are forgetting the frustration we all felt with the first six episodes of the Season. If you ask me, life is pretty good right now for Lost fans. Without further ado, here is the slightly delayed analysis of this past week…

Claire. As I’ve always said, Claire is one of my least favorite characters on the show. Now that baby Aaron has been born and doesn’t seem to be of any interest to the Others, she doesn’t really have any engaging storylines going on. She seemed like a totally expendable character. Then this episode happened, and you could argue she’s one of the central characters to the show. Why?

She is Jack’s pseudo-sister. The writers couldn’t kill her before this is revealed, could they? I suppose you have to debate which would be the more interesting storyline – dead Claire forcing other Survivors to raise Aaron or Jack and Claire having a heartfelt reunion on the Island. I have to think that the writers would opt for the later. As I said before, the only way this “reveal” would actually happen is if the Others were to disclose this information to Jack or Claire – but that really doesn’t seem to far-fetched anymore, given the knowledge that they seem to have about each Survivor.

The good news is, while it looks like Claire will be sticking around, at least her character is getting more interesting after this week’s flashback. As I said in my “Instant Reactions”, I interpreted the last scene of her flashback as a tearful apology / confession at her comatosed mother’s bedside – which makes Claire yet another one of our Survivors with a sketchy past – the kind of past that would make you “unworthy” of making Jacob’s List.

Some have questioned how I arrived at this conclusion. Well, if you combine what Claire said at the end of her flashback to her mother (“I’m sorry I said I hated you. Wished you weren’t my mother. Wished you were dead. It’s all my fault. The accident. Everything.”) with the Cop’s questioning of her earlier in the flashback (which indicated that it was Claire’s car that swerved and hit the truck – at a high speed – not vice versa), it paints the following picture:

Angsty Claire is driving with her mom as the passenger. The two start to argue about any number of teenage issues where she and her mom don’t see eye to eye. Claire gets irrational and goes on her “I hate you, I wish you were dead” rant. Either intentionally or unintentionally (because she’s so worked up) she starts to speed and loses control of the car. Bam.



Did Claire kill her mother? No. Technically, she’s not even dead yet. But Claire is keeping her alive using machines out of guilt (remember Jack’s Dad’s speech about the difference between guilt and hope?), because if she lets her die – then she in fact does become a “murderer”.

But either way, it adds Claire (one of the last holdouts!) to the list of (main character) Survivors with seriously sketchy or murderous pasts. In fact, the only character left who we haven’t seen with a morally destructive past is John Locke… and I get the feeling that could come into play with this week’s episode.

The other really intriguing thing about Claire is that she seems to be kryptonite for Charlie. Think about it – every time that Desmond has saved Charlie’s life, we have found out that he was going to die because of Claire. How long will it take for Charlie to put two and two together and realize the connection? Forcing him to choose between love and life is a pretty meaty storyline for his character (the kind he definitely needs). While each of Desmond’s visions so far have had some logical incongruities (why did he need to prevent Jin and Claire from catching the first bird? Wouldn’t that have saved Charlie too?), I’m excited to see if the trend of Claire’s involvement in each potential death continues. Again, it’s something that makes not only Charlie, but also Claire, a much more interesting character.




Family. As for Christian Shephard, he continues to be the character who has crossed paths with the most Survivors (Ana-Lucia, Jack, Claire, Sawyer). It also looks like he attempted to live a double life for quite some time – with one family in Australia, and one in Los Angeles. Talk about racking up the frequent flyer miles! Suddenly it all makes sense why Dr. Shephard, after having his life in LA fall apart and his son rat him out for performing surgery drunk, would go on a drinking binge in Australia and attempt to reconnect with his “other family”.

Some crazy people have suggested that Christian Shephard may in fact be the “Jacob” that is in control of the Others, and that the crash of Flight 815 was an elaborate scheme to get both of his kids on the Island with him. I know it seems like a neat way to tie everything together in a nice little package, but the number of facts that seemingly disprove this theory far outweigh any theories that could make it work… plus it would be a little too close to the Irina Derevko storyline on Alias.



Christian Shephard is dead. Numerous doctors would have examined his body in Australia (including Jack, who identified him in the morgue). It’s hard to imagine Christian leading a double life in Australia and LA while still being a successful surgeon, let along a THIRD life as leader of the Others. No, I think we’ll meet this “Jacob” at some point this season – but when we do, if it’s Christian Shephard, we’re going to need an entire episode of nothing but explanations about why and how this could be possible – and I don’t see that happening. Let this theory go.


CFL. However, feel free to jump onboard the “CFL is an Other” bandwagon, because after this episode, you’ve got more solid evidence that would support this theory. It was pretty convenient that CFL interrupted Patchy right as he was about to out John Locke’s paralysis. But if you think about it, if CFL was an Other, why would she care that Sayid and Kate learned about Locke’s paralysis? What harm would that bring to their cause? Reveal that they know a whole lot about everyone? Make them believe that the Island really is magic? Start questioning the motives of John Locke?



I’m not sold on it. On the other hand, a theory that might make more sense is that John Locke and CFL are both members of “Team Island”, working to sabotage any escape plans of the Survivors and take down the Others. It still has holes (like, why would CFL not go to the Flame last week?), but if you look at it from this angle, it would explain why she acted to protect Locke’s secret this week. She knows more about the Island than she is willing to let on, but isn’t an Other. She’s received “enlightenment” and survival skills from the Island just like Locke. Her random appearances to our Survivors have all been part of a larger plan, set in action by the Island / Smokey, to use our Survivors to finally get rid of those pesky “Others”. It’s yet another (debatable but flawed) theory for you to chew on.

But my thought? CFL is still just on “Team Crazy”. I think the writers are intentionally throwing these red herrings out to make us question the motives of CFL, but at the same time, they’re also giving us scenes that logically explain her actions, if we would just take them for face value and forget the other things she has said and done. Last week, it was the “I have survived this long by avoiding the Others”. This week, it was “I’m not showing any emotion because I know Alex isn’t going to know me” – which, by the way, is great foreshadowing for a potential Kate and Jack reunion where Jack doesn’t know or doesn’t react to Kate’s arrival with tears of joys and a hug-fest.

Maybe I’ll be proven wrong down the road, but for now, I still think CFL isn’t Dharma or Other or Team Island – I think she’s just crazy.


Patchy. Oh Patchy, we hardly knew thee – yet you gave us more insight about the Island and the Others over the course of your brief scenes than any other character on the show has in the past three seasons… and for that, you’ll definitely be missed. He went out the way he would have wanted, protecting the secrets of the Others the best way that he was able. He thanked Locke for giving him his release, as it kept him from being held responsible for the Search Party arriving at the Barracks or indirectly giving them any assistance. The Others are not only willing, but quite happy to die for their cause, and Patchy was given the chance to do it this week.



But before he died, he did give us some more tantalizing clues. For one, he confirmed that it was indeed the “electromagnetic pulse” from the Swan Hatch implosion that knocked out the Others’ communication. He also explained that since then, the homing beacon no longer functioned, which meant that if the Others used the submarine to leave the Island, they would not be able to return – and clearly these wacky cult members think they’ve found paradise and are not willing to take the risk of leaving and not being able to get back.

Initially, I thought this might explain why Ben needed Jack to perform his surgery, why he couldn’t leave the Island and have it performed in the real world – but then I recalled that the kidnapping of Jack, Kate, and Sawyer took place BEFORE the electromagnetic pulse – at a time when the Others still could have been coming and going to the real world as they pleased. So unless they could see the future (in which case, why not go and get the surgery done like three months ago?), it doesn’t help explain this mystery.

Patchy also demonstrated the Other’s uncanny knowledge about each of our Survivors (note that he didn’t say anything about CFL though… she must be an Other! Oh wait, I already went through that…) including pre-Island knowledge about Locke’s paralysis. Even though their knowledge continues to be things that could easily be obtained through medical records, police reports, and other easily obtainable information – but there’s still that nagging thought that they have some sort of “mind-reading powers”. It would explain some of the experiments being performed on the Island, their interest in Walt, and the whispers we’ve heard in the jungle. Also, obtaining the information they have about each of our Survivors would be possible if they were some super-powerful organization (Hanso), but if we learned last week that they are NOT associated with Dharma, where would this “ancient Island civilization” gain this information? For that matter, how did the Others come and go from the Island pre-Dharma, if the submarine was indeed theirs? How could they have recruited Patchy roughly 20 years ago (he said was 24 when he was “recruited” – I would say he looks about 45 or 50, right?) if they didn’t have means of coming and going to the Island?

It doesn’t add up. It’s funny that it seems the more we learn about the Others, the more puzzling they become. With each passing week, another theory that could have potentially explained them seems to find new holes… and there aren’t a lot of new theories springing up that tie everything together. That either means the writers are doing a great job, and are much smarter than we are – or we’ve gotten some misinformation along the way that is throwing us off. Either way, I’m extremely hopeful that next week’s episode brings us closer to the explanation that we’ve all been waiting for.

Lastly, Patchy again referenced “Jacob’s List” – not to be confused with Ms. Klugh’s list of Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and Hurley – but rather the “original list” that determined who would be kidnapped and assimilated to the Others’ culture, and who would not be. It seems like the ones that weren’t on the list are the ones who have sketchy pasts, huge emotional baggage, and major issues that make them “unworthy” of the utopian bliss that the Island provides. It also would explain why our Survivors are not on the list – since these are the same people that we learn each week via flashback have some sketchy pasts (as we learned with Claire this week). Ironically, the audience views the Survivors as the “good guys”, and the Others as the “bad guys”. But technically, if what Patchy is saying is true – it’s the exact opposite. Our Survivors, even though we feel the most emotional attachment to, are the “bad guys”. We’re giving them all the benefit of the doubt because we believe that they can find redemption and overcome their past sins – but if you didn’t buy into this spiritual line of forgiveness thinking, like the Others – it makes perfect sense that they wouldn’t want our Survivors “polluting” their perfect world.

I remember a long time ago – maybe early Season Two? – I said that the best Series Ending I could imagine would be to find out that the Others were the good guys all along, and that our Survivors basically hosed them and ruined paradise. In my mind, it would be a delicious surprise ending that would really make the audience think about the nature of good and evil, and how important perspective is in deciding which is which… but it’s probably a little too heady and a “downer” for the masses. Still, Patchy’s comments give the theory some legs.


Security System. Speaking of mysterious things about the Others, this week we finally encountered the “security system” that surrounds their Barracks (which look to be the same “neighborhood” looking place that we saw in the first scene of the season). It’s hard to say what technically happened to Patchy when he was pushed between the pillars, but it seemed to be some sort of electrocution. The weird thing is that he passed through it before the force started making him foam at the mouth and his ears bleed, yet our Survivors could climb over it, land in the same area as he was “zapped”, and be fine. What gives? Was this just an opportunity to show Kate straddle and climb up a tree (which was unbelievably hot, PS), or is there some sort of “technical” explanation – where passing through the plane subjected you to its power “shot you” regardless of where you went next. Our Survivors, climbing over the plane, never got “shot”, and could therefore walk freely where Patchy met his demise.



Clearly this sort of technology is quite advanced (a development of the Dharma Initiative scientists, for sure), but it’s odd that it was so easily bypassed by our Search Party. You would have to think it would be full of cameras too, right? Watching the perimeter and detecting anyone who came into a close proximity to it? Yet our Search Party seemingly bypassed it and arrived at the Barracks without much incident. Strange.

In fact, when you look at Sayid’s electrical map, it shows a tunnel system that goes under the Security System, which is clearly how the Others come and go from the Barracks (and probably Sayid’s number one escape strategy once they “rescue” Jack). So when you figure that you can easily go over or under the Security System, it loses some of its thunder, doesn’t it? It’s almost as if it was designed as a way to keep very simple-minded people or animals from getting through it – anyone with smarts could easily bypass it.



In my mind, this would indicate that when Dharma built the perimeter, they either thought that the Others were not too smart – and what amounts to a big electric fence would keep them at bay… or that the fence isn’t intended to keep the Others out. Once again, I think the design of the Security System points towards Dharma building it to keep “Island Savages” out – experiment rejects who walk around the Island barefoot and drag teddy bears in a noose. This was always one of my favorite theories about the Island that has lost a lot of momentum since Season Three started, but I think the Security System once again gives some evidence that there just might be another group on the Island – high on brawn, low on brain – that is the real purpose of the Security System. If you ask me, this would provide a very easy way to have our Survivors “merge” with the Others by having a common enemy. I guess just keep it in the back of your mind for now, since there definitely isn’t enough evidence to support it… and there’s always the chance that the Security System had to be simple enough for the Search Party to pass in order for the Jack Rescue to continue and we’re all just over thinking it.


Locke. I’ve really been on the fence with Locke these past two weeks. In my Instant Reactions, I always think he’s a bad guy – but then once I have time to rationalize the episode, I start to shift back to thinking he’s just a misguided guy. Well, after this episode, I think it’s safe to say that Locke clearly has different motives than the rest of the Search Party, and our Survivors in general. They want to rescue Jack and eventually get off the Island. Locke wants to understand the Island and stay there forever. Does that make him a “bad guy”? From the perspective of our Survivors, absolutely.

Does this mean that he intentionally blew up the Flame Hatch by entering 77? I think it’s important to think about what we missed from that episode. Clearly, Locke had time to wander around the station on his own (when he stole the C4), so it’s safe to assume that there was more to the Marvin Candle message on the computer than simply “If you are under attack from hostiles, enter 77”. Perhaps the next message was “station will self-destruct in ten minutes”. But regardless of what entering 77 actually accomplished, it definitely feels like Locke was responsible for the explosion in some way. The Flame Station represented a way to communicate with the outside world and potentially get off the Island – and this is something that goes against Locke’s goals.

While last week I was willing to forgive his actions as being ignorant about the repercussions, this episode we found that his excuse to Sayid when questioned was “if I knew there was C4 in the basement, I wouldn’t have done it” – yet then find out that not only did he know about the C4, but swiped some. Locke knew exactly what he was doing – and I think our “Locke Problem” is going to come to a head in the next few episodes here. If he really is on “Team Island”, it will be very obvious once he spends some time at the Barracks… which should be next week!




Barracks. Speaking of the Barracks, did they look like some type of summer camp to anyone else? If you look at the background, we have Others standing around with pool sticks, riding bikes and having a good time. It definitely gives the impression of the Barracks being a sort of “utopia” where everyone is happy and having a good time. You don’t see Others’ toiling in fields, worrying about Smokey or our Survivors, or guarding their Barracks with guns. It’s definitely a side to the Others that we didn’t see on Alcatraz, and would seem to indicate that once you succumb to their way of thinking, life is pretty good. Maybe we just happened to catch them during “recreation hours”, or are only looking at one area of the Barracks dedicated to “fun”, but the Others sure do seem to be loving life on the Island...




Jack. And that brings us to Jack, who seems to be fully participating in the fun that the Barracks provide. The episode ended with a beautifully shot scene of Jack running towards the Search Party, only to have him make a cut and catch a football at the last minute, revealing he’s happily tossing the football with Tom (who, by the way, had potentially the worst throwing motion I’ve ever seen – clearly he’s not a member of the Others’ intramural football team) leaving the audience sitting with their jaws dropped in shock. Great, great, scene. So what’s up?



Well, I think you can narrow it down to one of four possibilities, each with varying degrees of likelihood:

1. Jack is Brainwashed. They subjected Jack to the a “Rave Room” just like Crazy Carl, and now he’s a card carrying Other, worshipping Jacob and planting a happy seed with Juliet. It’s an easy answer, but it’s not likely. In Island time, we’re only looking at four or five days passing since we last saw Jack, which doesn’t seem like a long enough time to break him down and rebuild him with crazy brainwashing techniques – especially for someone as stubborn and headstrong as Jack. If you think about it, it’s not hard to imagine Crazy Carl had been subjected to those techniques for many days or even weeks – and still wasn’t changed. It’s not likely that it could have changed Jack so fast.
2. Jack is Drugged. They subjected Jack to the same “Happy Drugs” that they gave to Claire to make her a willing participant in the Others’ babynapping hijinx. It would explain the quick turnaround, and the dumb grin that Jack had while tossing the football – but the preview for next week seems to show a Jack that is clear of mind, not a loopy Jack like we saw from Claire when injected with the drugs. Still, it’s an easy explanation that could still set the stage for the heartbreaking “I don’t know you” scene between Jack and Kate, and a Jack who is reluctant to cooperate with the Search Party.
3. Jack is Making the Best of What’s Around (yes, this – and the last time I wrote it – were intentional DMB references). If you go along with the “Jack has given up on life on the Island” line of thinking, it makes sense. He thinks that Kate has chosen Sawyer over him, and that he has nothing left on the Island worth fighting for. He’s basically given up, and just wants to get off the Island and go home. He’s tired of being the leader, fighting the good fight, and trying to rescue everyone. He’s just looking out for himself, and figures the best way to get off the Island is by playing nice with the Others in hopes that they hold up their end of the bargain and take him back to the rest of the world. It would be a pretty large character shift for Jack, and leave our Survivors with a large “void” in terms of leadership, but keep in mind that Jack was originally supposed to die in the Pilot episode anyways. What better way to “kill him” now than to send him back to the real world, turning his back on the other Survivors? Pretty shocking and powerful TV if you ask me. But I think the most likely scenario is…
4. Jack is Playing the Others. He’s acting like he’s given up and joined them and is doing exactly what he’s supposed to be doing – but he’s really just gathering information and plotting his eventual escape. Really the only problem with this scenario is that the Others seem way too smart to fall for this sort of scheme. Remember the “long con” that Ben played on Sawyer? Even if Jack gets in line and says all the right things, I still don’t see the Others giving him a very long leash to wander around their Barracks. However, this would set up a great scene of our Rescue Party finally reaching Jack, and Jack having to tell them (Kate in particular) that he doesn’t want to be rescued and doesn’t care about them. The emotional impact of the scene would be pretty huge and heartbreaking, and would keep Jack in the role as “strong leader” on the Island. It would also set the stage for the eventual rescue for all of our Survivors, as Jack should figure out what needs to be done in order to get off the Island within the next few episodes. It’s my best guess as to the way the writers will take the storyline.
   

"Par Avion" Instant Reactions!

Brian's One Word Review: Progress.

When you break it down, this was a really simple episode - we had the Claire / Charlie / Desmond storyline, and we had the Search Party get over the security perimeter to the barracks... yet it was a very entertaining episode because both storylines resulted in some progress. We weren't just spinning our wheels for an episode, waiting for next week's big reveals (as I had feared). Instead, we had our Search Party kill Patchy, get over the security perimeter, and Claire learn about Charlie's death warrant courtesy of Desmond. Nothing terribly earth shattering, but we definitely set the stage for next week very nicely.

What do we need to discuss?

• Claire and Jack are brother and sister! But they'll never find out... unless the Others tell them in one of their "I know everything about you" reveals to the characters.
• Claire is a murderer! She clearly was playing the "angst-ridden teen" card, telling her mom that she hated her and wished she was dead... but took it a step farther by crashing her car into an oncoming truck. So we can cross her off our list of "Survivors who haven't killed someone else", which explains why she wouldn't have made the Others' "list". Are any of the Survivors still "clean", or are they all murderers?
• The Others are currently just as trapped as our Survivors. They've lost communications, and now that the homing beacon is out, they can't leave the Island on their submarine - or else they would never be able to get back to the Island... which is clearly something that they would never want.
• The Others know all! Patchy knew full names, just like the other Others. If you assume that he truly was isolated from the other Others at the Flame Hatch, this would either mean that dossiers of each Survivor were distributed to each Other, or they have some mind-reading powers.
• The Others are a freaky cult! They worship a "magnificent one" who isn't Ben - that's gotta be Jacob, right? They talk in terms of being "worthy" or "not worthy" to make "the list" - which is apparently your ticket to enlightenment and Otherville.
• The Others ride bikes and play futbol americano! While they might not know about the Brady Bunch, the fact that they toss the pigskin would seem to indicate American ties. Who Dey!
• Did Locke intentionally kill Patchy to conceal his past? Why did he steal the C-4? What did the preview episode for next week look like he was blowing up something else? It's almost as if he knows what's coming... kinda like the Others seem to know stuff. Is the Island giving him a cheat sheet in exchange for doing its bidding? Are we all overanalyzing this Locke stuff too much? Is he good? Is he evil?

Looks like we'll find out next week! The big reunion between Jack and Kate! Locke meets the Others! CFL meets Alex! Sayid meets Tom! (I don't know why that last one fits, but they seem to be the two remaining characters).

Lastly, I would be remiss if I didn't give a shotout to the publication of Friend of the Blog (FOB) Scott "The Reverend" Demange on irreverent sports-website Deadspin this week with his NCAA Tourney write-ups on Wright State (Wrong School) and Xavier University (FU XU). Anyone who can work in a reference to Skyline chili on a sports website deserves a shout out. Good work, FOB Scott.

http://deadspin.com/sports/college-basketball/ncaa-pants-party-byu-vs-xavier-243358.php

http://deadspin.com/sports/college-basketball/ncaa-pants-party-pittsburgh-vs-wright-state-243368.php

Lost - "Par Avion"

(Short and sweet this week – like life in “Two Step” – because Mom, it’s my birthday – like in “What Would You Say”. Enjoy!)

Episode Title: Par Avion


Brian's Deeper Meaning Guess: Ah, the circle of life. Once of the first foreign languages we had to translate as obsessive viewers of Lost was the French radio transmission from the end of the Pilot episode. Since then, we’ve learned about Korean, Egyptian Hieroglyphics, Chinese Symbols, and Russian in one episode or another – which brings us back to this episode and French.

“Par Avion” is French for “By Air” or “By Airplane” (French scholars, help me out – I rely on freetranslation.com), a simple but surprisingly deep episode title when you consider the context of the show. I mean really, without traveling “by airplane”, where would any of our characters be physically or emotionally? The show we know and love wouldn’t even exist. But what’s that got to do with this particular episode? Focus, Brian, focus!

Given that this episode is Claire-centric, the episode title becomes a little more puzzling. For one – why is the episode title in French? The Claire we know and love (and by love, I mean “tolerate, but would be okay if she died on the show”) seemingly was born and bred in the decidedly non-French speaking continent of Australia. So why not simply title this episode “By Airplane”? Or “By Flydinger”, as the Australians would say? Is it a way for the show’s creators to make it more fancy sounding, thus appealing to a richer demographic? Maybe… but I think we’re more likely due for a French Connection (famous old movie pun intended) this episode.



With last week featuring Sayid working as a chef in Paris, I have to think the writers are more creative than to feature a Claire flashback from when she was “studying abroad in France” – but that doesn’t rule out Claire spending some time in any of the other 32 French speaking countries of the world.

Or, you could look at the title from the other perspective, with the episode featuring someone from France (or a French speaking country) visiting Claire in Australia (being brought “by airplane”, perhaps?) More on the flashbacks later – because I think it gets clearer when you read the Episode Description.

But what about the “By Air” or “By Airplane” part on the Island? I have to admit, it’s pretty hot and tempting to imagine that being a reference to the arrival of Penny to the Island, but it doesn’t feel like the story is ready for that bombshell at this point, does it? While for the first few episodes of the season, I was begging for it – now I’m much more interested in the Others, the rescue of Jack, and an understanding of their nature. The story seems to be barreling towards resolution, and the introduction of Penny at this point would jolt it right off track. Plus, you can’t have Penny show up in a non-Desmond flashback episode, could you?

What about just some random airplane coming to the Island? Well, in a way that’s already been done too – we had Yemi’s Beechcraft just a season ago. You can’t have people constantly crashing into the Island over the course of three months. With that sort of crash-rate, the Island would be crawling with all sorts of random people, which clearly is not the case.

The only thing remaining is someone or something going “by air” FROM the Island. Which ties in nicely with…


Episode Description: Charlie exhibits peculiar behavior when Claire has an idea that could get everyone rescued; tensions mount between Sayid and Locke as they continue their journey to rescue Jack. Guest starring are John Terry as Christian Shephard, M.C. Gainey as Mr. Friendly/Tom, Mira Furlan as Danielle Rousseau, Andrew Divoff as Mikhail, Gabrielle Fitzpatrick as Lindsey, Julian Barnes as Dr. Woodruff, Rhett Biles as Officer Barnes, Danan Pere as ER doctor, Anne Elizabeth Logan as head nurse and John Medlen as man at crash site.


Episode Breakdown: This is one of the more straightforward episode descriptions of the spring season. There’s really only two major concepts:

First, we have Charlie exhibiting peculiar behavior when Claire has an idea that could get everyone rescued. Why would Charlie be opposed to getting rescued? Is he becoming Locke-like in his desire to remain on the Island, where he is free from his former drug addiction and Claire has no other potential guys to hook up with, thus increasing his odds? It’s a thought – but the real answer is going to be much simpler.

Desmond is going to tell Charlie that participating in Claire’s plan to escape will result in him dying. Charlie, who broke out of his funk two weeks ago with Hurley in the Van, still isn’t likely to be participating in risky actions on the Island, just in case. All it would take is a simple warning from Desmond for Charlie to stay a hundred feet away from Claire – which coincidentally will provide some great dramatic and romantic tension between the two former lovers, a very smart writing choice.

As for Claire having an idea of getting everyone rescued – it’s about time! How long have we been complaining about our Survivors being so complacent on the Island that it doesn’t even seem like they’re trying to get off of it anymore? It doesn’t seem like anyone has attempted an escape since the Raft at the end of Season One! So what is Claire’s new, brilliant idea that is going to get everyone rescued?

How much do you want to bet it involves doing something “By Air”?

We’ve seen that “By Water” didn’t really work for Michael, Walt, Sawyer, and Jin – so “By Air” seems like the next most logical choice. The only problem is – how in the world are our Survivors going to escape by air? They clearly lack the technology to manufacture a flying machine – and even repairing the Beechcraft or Hot Air Balloon is an impossible mission with their lack of fuel.

My next inclination would be some sort of kite-structure, but didn’t we just see that storyline three weeks ago in Jack’s flashback? Again, it would be too much of a rehash… and I really don’t know how flying a kite could rescue everyone.

So what’s left? What else flies besides planes, balloons, and kites? All I can think of is “birds” – but we all know how noticeably absent birds have been on the Island thus far (with the exception of the giant, freaky “Hurleybird”, of course). Still, this idea seems to be the most logical, the one that most fits with Claire’s easy-going personality, and the only one that has a chance in hell of working.

Hypothetically, if Claire were to find a nest of birds (or the Others’ Bird Sanctuary hidden somewhere on the Island), it would be possible to attach some note to them in hopes that they would someday find their way back to the rest of the world, where someone could potentially see a bird with a note, catch them, read the note, and rescue everyone.

Granted, there are a LOT of holes in that plan. Starting with, how are you going to catch a bird? They can fly and people can’t – it’s nearly impossible. Even if you do, what are you going to put on the note? “We’re stuck on an Island in the middle of nowhere – come get us”? That doesn’t help. Who’s to say the birds will even leave the Island? Or that someone on the mainland will also possess the cat-like reflexes to catch a bird, read a note, and put a plan in action? Maybe creating fuel for the Hot Air Balloon would be the easier plan…

The second main concept involves tensions mounting between Sayid and Locke, probably as a direct result of last week’s explosive ending. It’s clear that Sayid blames Locke for the loss of a good amount of Dharma Data (“What have you done, John?”) and will likely start questioning the motives of Locke in their quest to rescue Jack. Is he really in it to save Jack? Or (more likely), is he in it to discover more about the Island and try and find another “purpose” there with the Others? Locke may have been able to trick Jack into going along with his “greater mission” Number pushing inside the Swan Hatch – but something tells me that Sayid isn’t going to fall for a similar story. God (Allah) bless Sayid and his questioning of those around him. Here’s hoping he keeps up the logic, which keeps the answers coming for we, the viewer!

That brings us to the guest stars – which, this week, is probably the most intriguing part of the episode description. Why? Two words:

Christian Shephard. That should immediately raise a red flag for the Lost theorists among us. Remember last season’s “Two for the Road”, where we saw Ana-Lucia accompany Jack’s Dad on a trip to Australia where he drunkenly knocked on some lady’s door and demanded to see his daughter? Remember again that this is a Claire flashback episode. Do the math.



I’ll wait for you.

Get there faster.

Bingo. Factor in that the never-to-be-trusted ABC promo hints that “an unknown connection between two Survivors will be revealed” and I think it’s almost too obvious. Claire and Jack are brother and illegitimate sister. People have been speculating about this since last season, and it looks like it’s going to end up being true.



I’m actually not a big fan of this development. Sure, the interconnectivity of all the Survivors is entertaining in a “we’re all connected” sort of way – but to have a brother and sister who don’t know about each other end up as two of the forty-two Survivors of a plane crash feels a little too cheesy, soap opera-y… or Star Wars-y. Something about it doesn’t sit right with me. But the good news is, short of the Others coming out and telling Jack or Claire about it (since they seem to know everything about everyone on the Island anyways), there is almost no way the two characters will ever put this together. That means we’ll be spared the sappy reunion, telling childhood tales, and comparing “How Dad Ruined My Life” stories.

But when you factor in this little nugget of detail, the “By Air” storyline in the flashback gains another wrinkle. Can’t you just picture a young Claire asking her mother who her father is and learning that he came “par avion” to Australia long ago, but then disappeared out of her life? We’ll have a young Claire growing up dreaming about her mystery father who quickly flew in and out of her life via airplane – giving us ample opportunity for airplane symbolism and Oceanic Air symbols in the background. Sounds good to me.

The other thing that sounds good to me? This episode looks to bring the search party right up to the Others’ doorstep, since we see that Tom is listed as a guest star. Next week figures to be the big reunion / clash of Sayid, Locke, Kate, Jack, Juliet, Ben, and the Others – which I have to admit, makes me more excited than anything that has happened on any other television show this season.



…and thus is the power of Lost. Is this week’s episode going to be a “Blow You Away” episode like last week? Probably not. But it does look to keep the momentum of the main storyline going, setting us up for what promises to be an insanely huge episode next week.

Apprécier!

"Enter 77" Analysis!

Something tells me this is going to be a long one (that’s what she said).

It’s amazing how with Lost, a single episode like “Enter 77” can drastically change so many of our assumptions of things that not only occurred in this season, but also in past seasons. It really makes me excited (and sad, of course) for the day that the series wraps up, and we’ll be able to go back and re-watch all the episodes in a new light, hitting ourselves on the head and proclaiming “of course! Now it all makes sense! How did we miss that?!” At least that’s my hope. My worst fear (besides clowns living under my bed) is that the exact opposite will be true – that upon learning more answers, we’ll go back and watch episodes thinking “well that doesn’t make any sense” and have to come up with illogical, intricate explanations to rationalize the actions and make them fit into the story.

But for now, I’m still riding on the optimistic high of the last episode. Let’s get analyzing…


CFL. Right off the bat, the episode started with two very strange things. First was CFL, making her claim that “I have never seen this place before.” Again, like so many of you, I just find it very hard to believe that CFL, living on this Island for 16 years, going so far as making maps of it, would have never stumbled upon a Dharma Farma in the middle of the Island. I know for a lot of people, this just adds evidence to the “CFL is really an Other” argument – but strangely, no part of me believes that argument. It’s possible that I’m totally wrong, but there seems to be a lot more evidence that she is NOT an Other than she IS an Other, and is lying about it.



Think back to last season’s “Maternity Leave”, where she helped a drugged up Claire escape from the Ethan and the Others, who clearly wanted her. If CFL is really an Other, why would she have done this? To keep up her charade with our Survivors? No – Claire was drugged and it took a lot for her even to remember that CFL was involved. After all the trouble that the Others went to in order to capture Claire, it doesn’t make sense that they would give it up in order to keep CFL as a “mole” among the Survivors – especially because it was probably just as likely that Claire would never even remember her involvement in the escape.

Instead, I look to CFL’s other comment as the writers’ explanation for how CFL could have lived on the Island for 16 years without stumbling upon the Flame Station - “I have survived this long on the Island by avoiding confrontations like this.” This statement allows me to suspend my disbelief about her lack of knowledge about the Island. It paints the picture of CFL as a crazy, skittish, scared woman who kinda went off the deep end after killing her crew and having her baby kidnapped. She built a bunker, (probably tapped into one of the Other’s underground power lines in order to provide the electricity), and kept to herself. She set traps to catch anyone who came into “her territory”, but didn’t actively journey outside of it – thus, her hermit-like existence kept her from ever discovering the Dharma Farma.

Does it make total sense? No. Is CFL lying about stuff to our Survivors? Likely. Is she an Other? I’m still saying no. The good news is that we should finally get an answer to this question in the next few episodes, as the search party makes their way to Otherland.


Compass. The other thing that made no sense to me was the compass that Sayid was using to follow a north route across the Island. In the first season, didn’t we establish that compasses didn’t work on the Island due to the “unique magnetic anomalies” there? If memory serves, Sayid’s compass always pointed North, didn’t it? If the compass is now working, it means one of two things:

1. The magnetic mojo was localized to the area just around the Swan Hatch, and once you are outside this area, magnetism returns to normal and compasses work as advertised.
2. The Implosion of the Swan Hatch destroyed this magnetic anomaly, and now compasses work anywhere on the Island.

Either way, with compasses now working, and Sayid and Sawyer having different maps of the Island, you kinda get the feeling that the whole Island is going to start opening up, and our Survivors are going to finish exploring the yet-undiscovered regions of it. Now that we’ve seen the final Dharma Station, and assuming we get to Otherland in the next few episodes, it’s excitingly possible that we’ll have seen all major areas of the Island by the end of the season!

Two more things before we get to the meat of the episode…


Cats. A lot of people seem to be questioning the cats that were seen in the episode, with people theorizing everything from Patchy’s cat being the same cat that Sayid saw in his flashback to the cat on the Island being another manifestation of Smokey.

I think it’s much simpler. Take a look at the two cats side by side:

Clearly, they are two different cats (check out the difference in fur coloring on the nose, and the general texture of the body hair), so I think you can rule out the cats being the same. Patchy had named the cat Nadia, which indicates that the cat has been with him for a while, and not just some temporary manifestation of something from Sayid’s past (like Kate’s horse) that our Survivors were now seeing.

The sad irony of course is that the name Nadia is not only the name of famous gymnast Nadia Comaneci – but also Sayid’s former flame, who he refused to torture, spent years trying to track down, and allegedly is now dead (based on Sayid’s comments to CFL last season).

As for the deeper meaning behind the cat in the episode? Symbolism. From the flashbacks, we learned that Sayid was spared torture (or possibly death) because one of his former victims did not want Sayid to suffer the same way that she (and her cat) did. By having Patchy with a cat on the Island, it triggered the memory (the way a good flashback episode should!) and helped remind Sayid of his actions, explaining why he isn’t going to kill or torture Patchy for information on the Others.

(Of course, this is a stark contrast to Sayid’s previous acts of torture on the Island thus far. He didn’t seem to have a problem with torturing Sawyer or Ben to get information from them… but I suppose that’s because he didn’t see a cat to remind him that he shouldn’t be doing those things. So it turns out cats can be a positive influence in your life!)


Sawyer. The other little thing I liked about this episode, which was easy to overlook, was that Sawyer continued to be pining for Kate. Last episode, we saw him come back from his “guy’s outing” and look for her to share his takes (and some beers) and rekindle their relationship. This episode, we seem him worried about her and missing her – and that’s what we in the business call “emotional continuity” between episodes – something that is often missing on Lost due to its sheer number of characters and storylines that it juggles week in and week out. Sawyer finally seems ready to move into relationship-ville with Kate, after resisting it for so long... but too bad Kate is moving (emotionally and quite literally) closer to Jack at the same time.



Okay, enough fluff. Time for the main course.


Patchy. Although his real name is Mikhail Bakunin (or is it?!). But from here on out, he’ll be referred to as the much easier to type “Patchy”, which also gives a teddy-bear like feeling to this seeming hardened Russian comrade.

I should also point out that there was a real life Mikhail Bakunin, who didn’t have a patch.

He lived in the 1800s and is considered one of the founding fathers of anarchism, famous for spreading propaganda, encouraging rebellion, and bringing down “the man”. He also denied the concept of free will (Juliet’s speech in the season premiere, anyone?), and spent some time in the Soviet Army.

Why do we care? Aside from the fun similarities and symbolism we can pull out from the real-life Bakunin, it’s another example of an Other taking on the identity of someone else – just like Ben was “Henry Gale”. Sure, it’s possible that Mikhail is the Russian equivalent to “John” and Bakunin is the equivalent to “Smith”, but if not - it raises the question (I almost wrote “begs the question” there, but thanks to FOB Alec, I now know how to use that phrase properly!) – why do the Others feel the need to come up with fake names in the first place? More on this later.

Probably the biggest question that needs to be answered before analyzing this episode is, “Can we trust what Patchy told us? Or, as CFL warned us long ago – do Others just lie and lie?”

Let’s look at precisely what Patchy told us:

1. He spent time in Afghanistan with the Soviet Army
2. After the Cold War ended, he answered a newspaper add to “save the world”
3. He joined the Dharma Initiative and came to the Island 11 years ago
4. The purpose of the Flame Station was to communicate with the outside world.
5. The Dharmites died in a foolish attack (or “Purge”) of “the Hostiles”
6. Patchy is the last remaining Dharmite because he didn’t get involved in the Purge and made a truce with the Hostiles, where he would remain inside the Dharma Farma Valley.
7. The Hostiles were not interested in the satellite dish because it hadn’t functioned for years.
8. The Hostiles were on the Island for a long time before the Dharma Initiative ever arrived.

Then, at the end of the episode, he claims he was never a member of Dharma, but that everything else he said was true.

Okay – so if that is the case, we would eliminate Statement #6, and take all the rest for fact. But should we?

The answer is yes.

While it is possible that Patchy is an Other, and lying about everything to Sayid – I think the writers did everything they could to eliminate that possibility. Think about it. You’re a writer on Lost – how are you ever going to convey any real information about the Others to the audience, when the audience has been trained to assume everything they see or hear from an Other is a lie? Even if you wanted to finally give some answers, the Internet Lost Fans would immediately question the validity of those answers, assuming they were just more lies. So what do you do?

First, you announce in a national magazine (Entertainment Weekly) that “the connection between the Others and Dharma gets revealed in Episode 11”. Then, you have the character flat out say “Okay, I lied about one part – but the rest of it is all true.” In my mind, that’s the best you can do to address the skeptics who don’t trust that we were actually given real answers. So, based on that, we can analyze the following statements:

1. Patchy spent time in Afghanistan with the Soviet Army. If this statement isn’t true, and Patchy has lived on the Island his entire life, then why would Patchy be so “Russian” compared to the seeming bland-European-American culture of the rest of the Others? Doesn’t add up for me, so I’m saying it’s true – which means Patchy was “recruited” and brought to the Island. If he’s not Dharma, he wasn’t recruited as Kelvin was (which would have indicated some sort of “post-military” preference in Dharma employees) – but was probably brought in similar to how Juliet was brought in. Individually recruited and enticed to come to the Island.
2. After the Cold War ended, he answered a newspaper add to “save the world”. You might throw this statement out as being a part of the “being a member of Dharma” lie – but it’s also possible that Patchy was recruited differently than Juliet – that the Others (under the guise of some corporation a la Mittelos) placed advertisements in the real world and held a formal interview process to determine who was “worthy” of coming to their Island home. But why? Juliet was brought in for her baby-making knowledge to address a very real issue for the Others. But Patchy? I’ve got a theory (that it’s a demon), more on that later…
3. He joined the Dharma Initiative and came to the Island 11 years ago. Do we throw out the “joined the Dharma Initiative” part and keep the “came to the Island 11 years ago” part? I think so. You’ll see why in a minute…
4. The purpose of the Flame Station was to communicate with the outside world. Agreed. It’s got a big satellite dish. Duh.
5. The Dharmites died in a foolish attack (or “Purge”) of “the Hostiles”. Patchy’s pro-Other agenda is already creeping through here, calling the Purge “foolish” – since clearly the Others won that battle.
6. Patchy is the last remaining Dharmite because he didn’t get involved in the Purge and made a truce with the Hostiles, where he would remain inside the Dharma Farma Valley. Falsch!
7. The Hostiles were not interested in the satellite dish because it hadn’t functioned for years. Perhaps a half truth. Maybe the satellite dish didn’t work, but the Others did have some way to communicate with the outside world… at least they did until the Hatch Implosion.
8. The Hostiles were on the Island for a long time before the Dharma Initiative ever arrived. Reaffirmation of the long history of the Island, furthering the mystery of the four-toed statue.

So what does this all mean? It’s time to start writing a history of the Island. The big assumption that we have to make before we start is that The Others = The Hostiles. Although I’m tempted to throw out my old “Experiment Rejects” being a third group on the Island of crazy animalistic people (whose feet we saw last season dragging a creepy teddy bear), and them being the actual “Hostiles”, I’ll refrain. While really tempting, there just isn’t enough evidence to back it at this point, at least not compared to the sheer number of connections we’ve seen among all the Others on the Island that would indicate they’re all the same group (Patchy --> Ms. Klugh --> Tom --> Ben --> Juliet --> Ethan, etc.) – and they’re the only other group on the Island.

What we are left with is the following story…

Lost Island has existed for a really, really long time, and it’s been inhabited this really, really long time by a civilization we now term “the Others”. Somewhere around 1975, the Dharma Initiative discovered the Island and decided to setup shop there and conduct their experiments in an effort to change the values of the Valenzetti Equation and save the world. Since we’ve seen that they did some substantial construction on the Island (building all their stations, laying electrical and communications infrastructures in place) it’s safe to assume that they were aware of the indigenous people to the Island (aka “the Others”). Likewise, it’s safe to assume that the Others were watching this construction and invasion of their Island with a quiet fear and disgust. It almost feels like a Native American Indian vs. Colonial American situation, where the Others represent the Indians and Dharma represents Cowboys.

Since Dharma was aware of these strange, potentially dangerous people, they took the necessary precautions - setting up freaky electric “fences” around their barracks, hiding their stations as much as possible, and putting procedures in place should attacks ever happen – such as the video with Candle providing instructions for the Flame if it ever comes under attack. But surprisingly, for a while, it seems that the two groups co-existed peacefully on the Island. We know that Dharma was actively recruiting and sending fresh workers to the Island as late as 1991 (since we saw Kelvin was in the Gulf War before he was on the Island).

But then - for some unknown reason, since Dharma had been on the Island for nearly 20 years without major incident - in the early 1990’s, Dharma decided to finally wipe out those pesky Others. What they didn’t count on was the Others, when provoked, can prove to be quite the powerful enemy (remember Ethan kicking all sorts of ass in the rain during Season One? Or Ben dominating Sawyer in his cage earlier this season?) Potentially, the Others even decided that they would need more “recruits” to finish the battle, and brought in more outsiders who had “battle experience” – like Patchy!

After the battle was over, the Others pretty much gutted all the Stations or used them for their own purposes – except for the Swan Station. Why? Well, it’s clear that they were aware of this Station, because they could have viewed it from the Pearl – but maybe they didn’t know where precisely it was – or how to get inside of it (remember all the work it took Locke to crack that infernal Hatch?). There’s also the possibility that the Others knew that Dharma protocol called for entering the Numbers every 108 minutes to prevent some sort of disaster, but didn’t want to waste their time doing it, and thought it was best to leave it to some poor Dharma schmuck. Either way, this would indicate that Kelvin was actually the last Dharmite on the Island.

The food drops? Well, as we learned in the Lost Experience, those were setup to continue in perpetuity – so it wouldn’t matter if there were no Dharmites left, or if communication with the rest of the world was lost – they’d still keep coming, as we saw last season.

So the Others continued living their peaceful hippie-religious-cult existence for the next ten years – until Flight 815 crashed, which brings us back to the present.

It makes sense to me. The biggest hole I can find in this theory is that the Others clearly have images of Alvar Hanso and Tom Degroot in their brainwashing video that Crazy Carl was subjected to in the Rave Room. Why would those be included if the Others weren’t Dharma? Perhaps images of the enemy as a reminder of their past battle? Warnings about what happens if you don’t repent and lead an Other-approved life? I’m not sure. In my mind, this still remains either a pretty compelling argument that the Others are former Dharmites, or a product of a prop guy including some fun “easter eggs” in the brainwashing video without thinking through the consequences from a storyline perspective.


Flame. As for the Flame station itself, we learned that it indeed was the central communications hub of the Island with wires running underground to each of the other stations on the Island. Unbelievably, nearly two years after Sayid encounted the weird cable on the beach, we finally learned what it was – an underwater beacon that guides the submarine (which was originally used by Dharma, but has since been taken over by the Others), and would explain how the Others could come and go from the Island in relative secrecy. It almost gives you hope that the writers really do know what they’re doing, and maybe we (I) shouldn’t second guess them so much. The beach cable is a prime example of something I would view as a mystery that was referenced so long ago that most viewers have long since forgotten about it – so we should have gotten answers about it sooner.

Sayid needed to find the cable back in Season One to lead him to CFL (and explain how she had electicial power for her bunker). But we couldn’t have gotten answers about it until we got to the Flame Hatch, and we couldn’t get to the Flame Hatch until our Survivors went on a trip to the Otherland, and they wouldn’t go on that journey until Jack was captured by the Others – which really couldn’t have happened any sooner than the middle of Season Two. Maybe we are getting answers as soon as possible, but we just don’t realize it because we can’t see the big picture. Pretty exciting if you ask me.

We have now visited all 6 Hatches – The Arrow, The Staff, The Hydra, The Swan, The Flame, The Pearl. We’ve also destroyed 2 of them (The Swan and the Flame), seemingly permanently left one of them (The Hydra), and have seen 2 of them basically have nothing inside them (The Arrow and the Staff). I know the writers said that Season Two was about the Hatch, and Season Three was about the Others – but until now, I didn’t really feel like the Hatch story was complete since there were still outstanding Stations. Finally, I think we can somewhat complete the chapter on these Stations, and shift our focus to Otherland.

My big question about the Flame is – who planted the explosives, and what set them off? The first question is – did entering “77” actually set them off? Although Candle referenced the command in relation to “hostiles” attacking the Station – why would there be such a long delay between when the command is entered and when the explosions actually happen? Also – would it even make sense for Dharma to plant them in the first place? Okay, your Communications Station is under attack by the enemy – why would you blow it up? Wouldn’t that prevent the other Dharmites from re-claiming it via battle, and then signaling for more help / rescue?

But likewise, why would the Others plant the C-4? If they wanted to destroy the Station, they could have done it a long time ago. Unless the planting of the C-4 is a more recent development, something that the Others added in case our Survivors ever stumbled upon the Station. At least there is motive there – the Others not wanting our Survivors to contact the outside world, which might bring new Dharmites or some other group that would again invade their Island. Clearly, the Others enjoy their secret Island escape, and while they probably enjoyed a lot of the perks that the Dharma Stations gave them (satellite TV, cameras to monitor other Stations, sweet records), they would be all too willing to blow them up rather than risk their very way of life.

Which means… that entering 77 didn’t actually make the Flame explode. Think back to the episode – when Locke sat down at the computer, he looked up and there was a camera with a blinking red light – he was being watched, probably from the Pearl. The Others knew that the station had been compromised, and probably sent some command to set off the explosives and destroy it. But remember, the Others aren’t the malicious murderous people that we think they are – so they politely wait until everyone leaves the building, and then – BOOM.

What did entering 77 originally do, back in the Dharma Days? Probably send some sort of distress signal to the other Stations / mainland that help was needed. I guess it’s not important at this point, since it’s now blown up. But what is important is…


Locke. Once again, we see that Locke is a slave to a computer prompting him to enter numeric commands. Man, I bet he was an uber-video game nerd pre-Island, don’t you think? I know that in my initial reactions to the episode, I saw his actions as those of someone who wanted to stay on the Island forever and was intentionally destroying the Flame. But based on my thinking above, this isn’t the case. Maybe his intentions were good (thinking it would send a distress signal), maybe his intentions were bad (thinking it would destroy the Flame) – but either way, it’s really not his fault that the Station blew up.

I would still blame him for being totally weird and hanging out in a back room playing chess on the computer instead of reading those Dharma Training Manuals in the basement, but I don’t see his intentions as being malicious at this point.

(PS – as for how digital video was playing on such an old computer, or why you had to beat a game of chess in order to access any of the communication commands? No logical explanation for either of those, so I’ll chalk them up to “willing suspension of disbelief for storytelling purposes”.)


Ms. Klugh. How ironic. A character that seemed to be very important last season finally shows her face this season, and is immediately killed. Why? Well, it looks to be a product of Lost being a television show, dealing with real actors who have other responsibilities. I’ve read that Ms. Klugh was killed because the actress who plays her was busy with other projects, and needed to be “released” from work on Lost. I’ve also read that she was supposed to be killed earlier in the season, during “The Glass Ballerina” – but that the Other death was shifted to “Colleen” due to the fact that the writers also had to prematurely kill Eko (since the actor who portrays him also requested to be written off the show earlier than the show’s creators had intended). In an effort to not kill two African-American characters off the show over the course of three weeks, which I’m sure some crazy bleeding heart liberals would deem to be a sign of ABC being “racist”, Ms. Klugh received a temporary pardon… only to be killed as soon as possible down the road – which happened to be this episode.

It does raise the bigger question of – what is so important that it’s worth dying for? The Others are pretty hell-bent on keeping our Survivors away from their camp, or getting any information about them. Why?

In my mind, if you are the Others, you either want to kill our Survivors, kick them off your Island, or have them join you. Instead, they seem to want to keep them in the dark about the truth – but not hurt them or have them escape the Island. What would be the harm of Sayid, Kate, and Locke stumbling upon their camp and being immediately captured and thrown into a cell a la Jack? Is preventing this from happening worth dying for?

This leads me to believe that there is some greater secret to the Island that the Others are willing to die to protect. Time travel, Smokey, the Fountain of Youth – something that is so precious that the Others merely serve as guardians for it, willing to die rather than let any “outsider” find the truth and potentially spread it to the outside world. But they are also unfortunately guided by some religious principles that prevents them from simply wiping out these outsiders.

Needless to say, I’m quite anxious to see what this grand secret actually is. I get the feeling that once we find out (smart money is on this being revealed in the Season Finale, right?), our views of the Island, the Others, and the show in general will be rocked – and the plot line for the remaining seasons will no longer be about exploring the Island or understanding what is going on – but rather a battle to keep this secret. I don’t know if that means Others vs. Survivors, Others and Survivors vs. Penny and Island Invaders, Others vs. Survivors vs. Dharma, or some other wacky combination, but you get the feeling that there is going to be a confrontation – and it’s all going to revolve around this “secret”.

Russian. Lastly, we come to the translation Russian dialogue and documents from this episode. In the past, Lost has forced me to learn about Egyptian Hieroglyphics and advanced scientific theories. But luckily, my friend and co-worker Zabe majored in Russian in college (and is somehow applying this knowledge to a job in the field of banking? Weird) and hooked me up with some rough translations, which I’ve supplemented with additional translations found at Lostpedia.

First, the more straightforward of the two – the dialogue between Ms. Klugh and Patchy, pre-shootout:

Ms. Klugh: “Mikhail. Mikhail! You know what to do.”

Patchy: “We still have another way”

Ms. Klugh: “We cannot risk it. You know the conditions.”

Patchy: “There is another way.”

Ms. Klugh: “They captured us. We will not let them to get into the territory. You know what to do. That's an order.”

Patchy: “We still have another way!”

Ms. Klugh: “Just do it, Mikhail.”

Patchy: “Forgive me.”

This is exactly what I assumed the dialogue meant, so not a whole lot of surprises there. But it’s just another example of the Others being willing to die to protect their “secret”.

As for the manuscript that was on the desk inside the Hatch, it’s a little trickier – mainly because we can only see the second half of each line, making it hard to understand the greater meaning of the document. But here’s what was visible:

...there were losses/casualties in this country and one should
…by force, and if necessary, after full social
…(someone) alienated/antagonized Andrea. Nadji wasn't
…Afghan resistance, however he was excellent
…he was an influential second cousin
…inspected one of the north-west
…specialist helping
... Mujahideen used against Soviet
… fundamentalist. Just like all radicals of that time, Nadij
... at his madrasah believed that they are holding back the West and
... preparing the way for Allah, so that he could erase the infidels from the face of the Earth, whereas Andrey believed that the fall of Afghanistan will become an impulse for a new worldwide revolution
... "The Pakistanis arrived today", Nadji reported with a strong accent
... We knew that the ISI would be involved. And you
... say this?" Andrey knew that
... "I thought that you

The writing in red seems to say:

“My name is also Andrey.” And “I have forgotten so much about Afghanistan.”

So what does it all mean?

Well, it clearly seems like Patchy is reading this document and making notes (in red) on it. The document itself is some type of description of the Soviet battles in Afghanistan, maybe even some sort of letters from someone involved in those battles. At any rate, Patchy seems to be reading them and remembering his past involvement in the conflict. It also has hints of the anarchy of Bakunin interspersed – heck, maybe it’s even a document written by Bakunin!

Huge clue that gives us some greater understanding of the mysteries of Lost? No.

Another example of Lost’s blatant “pro-communism” agenda? Probably not.

Something the creators threw in the episode to give us another thing to over-analyze, obsess about, keep us busy and prevent us from going outside and exercising or being social? Likely.

Well this guy isn’t going to fall into their trap! It’s a beautiful day and I’ve already spent three hours analyzing this episode. I’m not going to waste any more time on this Communist document. In your face, Lost!

"Enter 77" Instant Reactions!

Brian's Expletive-Laden Review: Kick Ass.

Thank God the Lost that we know and love is finally back. There's a lot to think about after this excellent episode.

Where to begin?

1. The Others are not Dharma. In fact, they wiped out Dharma and took over their stations. It seems that the Others are more the direct decendents of the same folks who made the Four Toed Foot Statue... but this begs the question - if our theory about the Others not being able to make babies is true - how is this possible? Is this infertility a recent occurence due to centuries of inbreeding?
2. Solid flashback. Even if it didn't contain some huge reveal about Sayid or the Island, it was intense, well-done, and fit with the theme of the episode. Very nice.
3. Hello and Goodbye Ms. Klugh. It's kinda funny - the writers said that the actress who played Ms. Klugh had such a busy schedule that they weren't able to get her back for earlier episodes this season. They finally get her back... and immediately kill her. Now she can get back to whatever other projects she was working on.
4. Speaking of which, although the Others seem to adhere to an eye for an eye mentality with crime, they are also willing to die to protect their secrets. We saw it on Alcatraz, and now we saw it with Ms. Klugh. What's this huge secret?
5. John Locke once again hoses our Survivors. He's acting weird, spending all his time inside the Flame Station playing chess on a computer, and then indirectly leads to it blowing up... just like he led to the Swan Station blowing up. I'm telling you, John Locke wants to become an Other and stay on the Island forever.

Geek out with your wacky theories and proclaim your rekindled love for Lost below!

Lost - "Enter 77"

Episode Title: “Enter 77”


Brian's Deeper Meaning Guess: Remember two weeks ago when I over-hyped the episode “Stranger in a Strange Land” and was left feeling pretty disappointed? And then last week I intentionally under-hyped “Tricia Tanaka is Dead” and was left feeling very satisfied by the episode? Based on that, in order to maximize my enjoyment of this week’s episode, “Enter 77”, the logical thing to do would be to lower my expectations and not go in with any hopes of grand reveals and shocking twists, right?

Wrong. This is the episode I’ve had circled on my Lost calendar (if I actually had a Lost calendar… or any calendar for that matter) since before the second half of this season started. More than the Desmond “flashback”, more than the return of Cindy, this episode is the one that I was giddy with excitement about.

Why?

Well, remember that Lost cover spread in Entertainment Weekly a few weeks back, before the spring season began? In it, Carlton Cuse said "the connection between the Others and Dharma gets revealed in episode 11. We will be visiting another Dharma station soon. But the map becomes less important, because when they visit this new station, they'll be getting some new information that helps them understand where the Dharma people lived and where their stations are."

Finally! Although we’ve gotten hints about the connection between our current Others and the Dharma Initiative (mostly through Juliet’s “that was a long time ago” comment), we still don’t know if our Others are former Dharma Scientists, the offspring and decedents of the original pre-Dharma inhabitants of the Island, or just a group of hippie cult members who bought up the Island for cheap after Dharma had left it, giving up on their goal of changing the Numbers of the Valenzetti Equation. Why do we even care about this?

Because understanding who the Others are will be a huge insight into their motives, their goals, and their purpose on the Island. Learning their true nature (something I personally have been waiting patiently for going on ten episodes to find out) could potentially change everything. Should our Survivors be fearful of them, or should they join forces with them? Do they really hold the key to escaping the Island, or are they as much victims as our Survivors? How much about the Island do they really know (read: Smokey, Funky Time)?

While I know it’s foolish to think we’re actually going to get answers to all these questions, if we can get some idea of who these Others really are, it becomes much easier to hypothesize about the answers without just blindly guessing.

Exciting.

What else? Well, we’ve also been told that Sayid is going to be the character who finally starts asking the questions that we, as fans, have been wanting to know and dying for someone to ask. Remember how frustrated we were with the quality and quantity of questions that Jack, Kate, and Sawyer posed to the Others? Well Sayid is the one who would ask the right questions (“What is the Smoke Monster?” rather than “Where is Juliet?”).

Since this is a Sayid-centric show, it seems logical to think that he’ll be the central focus of this show – and if he’s as logical and level-headed as the writers have led us to believe, he’ll be pounding Patchy with his unique blend of torture interrogation, like only he (and Jack Bauer) can. Besides finding the connection between the Others and Dharma, who knows what sort of information this questioning could reveal?

Very exciting.

Again, I hate to over-hype this episode, but if you absolutely hated the last two episodes for their lack of progression of the huge underlying mysteries of the show, I think this is going to be the episode for you. If your faith in Lost is waning, this is the episode to either restore your faith or lose you forever. Because with as much potential as this episode holds to be one of those “fundamental shifts in the understanding of the Island” episodes (like Season Two’s “Orientation”), if it doesn’t deliver – I don’t know what episode other upcoming episode will.

But what about “Enter 77”? After all, this is the “Deeper Meaning” portion of the Blog and I haven’t even referenced it yet. Why?

Because I think it’s way too simple.

Looking at this episode title two weeks ago, I had no clue. Any research on the Number 77 yielded some minor results about the numerological meaning of 77 (which actually is “wise counsel, body as temple, mystical powers in action, purity in mind, body and spirit, Master Mystic, loving detachment, holy emptiness, turning away from the masses and towards Spirit, Presence, conscious union with God, mystical marriage, electricity of Awakening, universal intelligence.”), but aside from some stretched relations to the Buddhist beliefs of Dharma, it wasn’t a lot to go on.

Then thankfully, the preview for this week’s episode enlightened me. For those who forget it, watch it again:



If you listen closely, at the end of the preview, when Locke is at the computer taking “action whose consequences no one can see coming”, Dr. Marvin Candle’s voice-over clearly says “Manual Override achieved. For Mainland Communication, enter 38…”

“Enter 38”, eh? Who wants to bet that “Enter 77” is another possible command that the computer?

The way that the preview words Locke’s actions, it leads one to think he’s going to do something that has serious consequences for all of our Survivors (yes, I know you can never trust ABC Promos – but the voiceover guy’s voice sounds so important… I’m helpless in its power!). Since we hear that “38” is communication with the mainland – something that would hugely affect all of our Survivors in a very positive way due to its implication of rescue – I’m going to go in the exact opposite direction.

That’s right, I’m thinking that this episode once again shifts John Locke’s motives to that of a man who is blinded by his desire to understand and remain on the Island at all costs. You know, the same kind of person who would knock out someone trying to triangulate a radio signal (Sayid), indirectly cause the death of someone due to a blind focus on getting inside a Hatch (Boone), or break a computer, even if it means it could be the end of the world. Remember at the end of Season One, Jack says “if we get inside that Hatch, we’re going to have a Locke problem.” I think that problem is finally coming to fruition.

So what is “77” going to be? It really could be anything – from disabling the communications with the mainland to sending out a distress signal that could be picked up by the wrong people (Others, Savages, Smokey). I’m really not sure where the storyline is headed at this point, but I have to think that Locke’s actions on the computer are going to be a major part of why it heads in that direction. I think we’re going to see that Locke has the opportunity to potentially save everyone “38”, but instead chooses “77” – and that the consequences of this choice are so monumental that the choice of this simplistic episode title is more powerful than any other this season.

(See what I mean about over-hyping the episode? If “77” simply starts a chess game, expect a one-word review of this episode that is an expletive…)


Episode Description: Locke, Sayid and Kate investigate a strange structure and its mysterious inhabitant. Meanwhile, Sawyer competes in a ping-pong competition to get back his belongings. Guest starring are Mira Furlan as Danielle Rousseau, Rodrigo Santoro as Paulo, Kiele Sanchez as Nikki, April Grace as Ms. Klugh, Andrew Divoff as Mikhail Bakunin, Francois Chau as Dr. Marvin Candle, Shaun Toub as Sami, Anne Bedian as Amira, Taiarii Marshall as waiter and Eyad Elbitar as Arabic man.


Episode Breakdown: The first non-Lost Moment episode of the spring season! We’re finally in the dark about an episode before it airs, with only our wits to save us!

First off, you’ll notice I began including the “guest starring” portion of the episode description. Why? Well, last week, it gave clued me in on who this “Tricia Tanaka” actually was, and this week it’s even juicier. Since it’s on ABC’s official website, I don’t really consider it a spoiler – although it does give some very intriguing clues about who might be showing up in the episode. Reading through the list of gues stars, some are clearly more exciting than others. Of course I’m talking about Nikki and Paulo! Yes! I cannot get enough of those still nameless characters and their crazy hijinx!

Ah, jokes are funny. But seriously…


Klugh. How about Ms. Klugh? Remember her? Until the start of this season, she seemed to be one of the more “higher ups” of the Others, leading the interrogation of Micahel during “Three Minutes”, threatening Walt to send him back to “the room”, but then only appearing briefly in “Live Together, Die Alone” before being noticeably absent for the first nine episodes of this season. Given that we were on Alcatraz, crawling with all sorts of Others, it seemed odd that she never showed her face.



So what brings her around now? The curious thing is that this episode seems to focus on Kate, Sayid, Locke, and CFL infiltrating Patchy’s Farm, with a side of Sawyer-Hurley-Charlie comedy on the beach for good measure. I’m not getting the impression that we’ll see Jack, Juliet, Ben, Tom, or any of the other Others (yep – still fun to say) this week. If anything, I would expect Ms. Klugh to show up back at the Others “Main Camp”.

Since Patchy seems to be a bit of a loner, the only thing I can think of is that she appears in an end-of-episode twist, a la CFL last week. If that is the case, it must mean that Kate and Co. end up getting information that puts them on the path to the Others, and they encounter her along the way… and if they are this successful, that means they must get quite a bit of information out of Patchy.


Patchy. So who is this guy? Well, apparently his real name is Mikhail Bakunin – but the question is, will we continue to call him Patchy post-episode, a la CFL, or will he begin going by his real name, a la “Ben”? Early returns say “Patchy” is here to stay because both his first and last name seem quite difficult to spell.

We got our first glimpse of Patchy during “The Cost of Living”, as a creepy face in one of the monitors who quickly turned off the camera once he realized he was being watched – it was quite creepy. Even creepier, remember that the Tailers found a stray glass eye in the Arrow Hatch, and since Patchy is the first and only one-eyed man we’ve seen on the Island, logic would tell you that it belongs to him. Back to the question at hand – who is this guy? (And is this Friend of the Blog Heather's back in the picture?)



Well, from the brief glimpse we got of Patchy on the Pearl video screen, it was clear that he was wearing a Dharma Jump Suit – although I don’t believe you could decipher which “specific logo” was in the midle of the Dharma Logo. Luckily, by the process of elimination, we can rule all the hatches except one. If you recall, there were six hatches visible on the Blast Door Map from Season Two’s “Lockdown”:

• The Swan – Desmond’s Hatch, now imploded.
• The Staff – The Medical Hatch, now abandoned.
• The Hydra – Jack’s Former Prison on Alcatraz, now abandoned.
• The Pearl – Home of the video monitor showing Patchy, recently abandoned.
• The Arrow – Former Hideout of the Tailers, containing a glass eye, abandoned.

That leaves the Flame as the only remaining Hatch – and the only logical residence for Patchy.

Yes, it’s pretty funny that I (along with a lot of people on the Internet) still refer to each of the Dharma stations as “Hatches”, even though the Swan Station is really the only one that has had a “hatch” – the rest have all had doors, like normal buildings. But this brings up an interesting point. All the rest of the “Stations” are very much “cave-like” – they’re enclosed, dark, isolated quarters. Based on what we’ve seen from Patchy’s current residence, it’s more like an outside farm.

Something doesn’t add up.

Dharma Farma. We’ve theorized that the Swan Station received their supplies via Periodic Ration Drops, occurring during lockdowns of their quarters. However, based on the fact that Patchy seems to be playing Old MacDonald, it would reason that he’s getting his food from working the land. Why the disconnect? Doesn’t it seem like having cows and other animals roaming around would make them easy prey for the numerous predators on the Island, such as Polar Bears, Smokey, or the most dangerous predator of all - Man?

Everything about Patchy seems to indicate that he’s some sort of loner, living on his own, not receiving any sort of assistance from the outside world, as the Swan Station did. However, we have seen that he is wearing a Dharma Jump Suit. Could he be some former Dharmite who has since “quit” his duty and is now on his own? Or is he more of a scavenger who simply picked up some “free clothes” off of a Dharma Employee who had died? It’s not likely – since it seems that he has a computer – with the same sort of Dr. Marvin Candle message outlining his mission – as the other stations – so is the Flame Hatch really just a farm?



Or could it be that the farm is merely a cover for a secret hidden underneath? Remember back to the quote from Cuse about “the map becomes less important, because when they visit this new station, they'll be getting some new information that helps them understand where the Dharma people lived and where their stations are”? That would seem to indicate that the Flame Station holds a great deal of information about all the other stations… and perhaps maps leading to each.

My gut feeling is actually that the Flame Station has some sort of underground tunnel system that would lead to each of the other main stations (aside from maybe the Swan – which seemed to be isolated for purposes of their experiment). This would effectively eliminate the need for the map from the Blast Door (because our Survivors could just walk from station to station), lead them to Jack and the Others (since it’s likely some path of the tunnel system would eventually lead them there), bring about a run-in with Ms. Klugh (who is also using the tunnels to travel around the Island), and even make the naming convention of the station logical (flame = torch to be able to navigate the tunnels).

The only question remains – what is the purpose of this station? If the Swan performed psychological / magnetic experiments, the Staff performed medical experiments, the Hydra performed animal experiments, the Pearl performed observatory experiments, and the Arrow performed archery experiments (I kid), what is the function of the Flame?


Chess. Well, another clue may be in the visual we saw on the screen of the computer during the preview – a game of chess. Instantly my mind raced to “War Games”, the Matthew Broderick classic where a game of tic-tac-toe prevents World War III. But the other thing I thought of is how isolated a game of chess vs. a computer could be. It’s a classic game that would never really get old, keeps the mind sharp, and could potentially last hours – the perfect sort of game for someone who is totally isolated and bored out of their mind on the Dharma Farma.

It would make sense to me if life at this station was also one of solitude. If they were tasked with guarding the entrance to the underground tunnels – but otherwise living a simple life on a far outpost of the underground web of tunnels.




Ping Pong. Speaking of games, I almost forgot about the second sentence of the episode description! Sawyer competing in a game of ping pong to get his stuff back? Really? The same kickass Sawyer that we’ve learned is unable to show love and will steal from anyone, even an asthmatic needing medicine? This guy is going to compete in a friendly game of table tennis instead of just beating people up in order to retrieve his things? Man, that one night with Kate must have really changed him – because this seems pretty out of character.

However, it will probably offer the “comedic scenes” of the episode to break up the sheer intensity that is sure to take place during the majority of the scenes involving Sayid, Kate, Locke, CFL, and Patchy.



So there you have it – this definitely wasn’t my best Blog ever, but I was in a bit of a rush tonight, so it’ll have to do. I really am excited for this episode, and fully expect tons of fresh material to analyze and theorize about come Thursday morning. Hopefully it lives up to expectations. If not, you have no one to blame but yourself… and by “yourself”, I mean “me” for over-hyping it.

Happy Losting!

"Tricia Tanaka is Dead" Analysis!

Finally back from Montana! Good to see that the Blog is still in one piece, and all the booze is still in my liquor cabinet. Without further ado, here is a mix of my “Instant Reactions” and “Analysis” of “Tricia Tanaka is Dead”…

Brian’s One Word Review: Happy.

It’s funny – after last week’s debacle of an episode that left most viewers (myself included) disappointed about the lack of plot development, along comes this week’s episode – one that centered around fixing an old van found in the jungle - and it totally worked. I’m sure there are some people out there who were just as angry – if not angrier – after this episode as they were last week. “Tricia Tanaka is Dead” featured very little in the way of plot development concerning any of the main mysteries of the Island. If you watch Lost solely for reveals about the deep mythology they’ve established, you were likely hugely disappointed in this episode. But in fairness, if you only watch the show for storylines about Dharma / Hanso / and the potential “funky time” of the Island, you probably hated Season One too, since we didn’t even really learn about them until early Season Two.

So why did this week make me happy whereas last week left me disappointed? Quite simply, this episode didn’t offer any pretense about being about something bigger than it was. From the start, you knew this episode was going to center around Hurley and the junked Van, and it told that story very well. Last week hinted at much grander plots (Cindy, the kids, the “laws” of the Others’ society), but the story failed because they were unwilling to actually tell the story of any of these points. This week felt like a throwback to Season One, very similar to Hurley building a golf course in an attempt to raise the spirits of his fellow Survivors, with a simple self-contained storyline with little bits of greater plot development interspersed.

What made me happy?

Locke, Sayid, and Kate. I think I verbally said “thank you” when Kate came back and Locke and Sayid immediately began drilling her with questions. In a way, the two minute scene between the three of them on the beach was more satisfying than any scene involving Kate, Sawyer, or Jack when they were actually among the Others – because they were asking the questions we as viewers have been asking, and analyzing what the answers mean in the grand scheme of things. I can’t tell you how excited this makes me for the next few weeks of episodes (since we’re due for a Sayid flashback next week, and a Locke flashback in three weeks) assuming these two maintain the same level of logic in looking for answers.

The overall theme of the episode. If you think about it, Hurley’s right – a lot of really crappy things have happened to our Survivors lately. Honestly, this season has been very “heavy” with Survivors dying, Survivors being held prisoner, and Survivors in a state of panic over these mysterious “Others”. This episode was all about hope, and raising the spirits (before more heavy episodes which I think are right around the corner). While the flashbacks didn’t really contribute a lot in terms of character development, but they tied in nicely with the theme, and served as a way to verbally reinforce the underlying theme of the Island action.

The “buddy adventure”. Sure, the whole sub-plot about finding a Van in the jungle seemed a little out of place – but it offered the opportunity for a fantastic “guy’s episode” that bonded the characters, gave them plenty of opportunities for hilarious interactions, and a simple mission, that when completed, left them all happy and their spirits changed for it. I absolutely loved the ending scene, where Jin and Charlie return to the main camp excited about the “adventure” they just had, and can’t wait to share it with the women in their lives because it showed that the action in the episode actually had an impact on them, and changed them for the better. Even better was that Sawyer was in the same boat (no pun intended… well, maybe just a little one), ready to get over his foolish arguments with Kate and excitedly tell her the stories about the getting the Van to run – but she was gone… the love rhombus continues…

The re-introduction of CFL. What do you know? In a shocking display of logic and problem-solving skills, Kate proved that she’s more than just a pretty face (and smoking body) by putting together what she learned about CFL and Alex over the course of the past two seasons – and sought her out as an ally in her quest to rescue Jack. Again – it’s another example of the characters acting “smart”, acting like real people would be acting if they were in this situation – and I loved it.


Part of me wants to take the episode for what it was – a simple story that isn’t supposed to be over-analyzed and debated like so many other episodes of Lost. It’s clear that this was supposed to be a “fun” episode that sets the stage for some heavy duty stuff to go down in the next few weeks – the sunshine before the storm, if you will.

But we all know I can’t resist, so I’ll semi-over-analyze (just plan “analyze”?) a few things that intrigued me – such as…

Curses. Since Charlie and Hurley faced their fears and “won”, does that mean that Charlie actually won’t die, and Hurley will no longer be under the curse of the Numbers? Well, I doubt that this will put Charlie in the clear. From a storytelling perspective, I think it’s much more interesting to continue the Desmond-Charlie interaction and see how Charlie reacts to potentially dangerous situations that arise with the knowledge that he could die at any moment. As for the Numbers, I’m kinda of the opinion that their “power” has been diminishing ever since the Hatch imploded, based on the lack of their presence in episodes ever since.

I think what this episode showed was that you have to make your own luck, and not live your life in fear of some “curses” that might be over you. Even if they still exist, this episode showed that they shouldn’t prevent you from living your life. Hopefully, this will prevent us from having Charlie complaining about his impending death in every scene he’s in, and will get Hurley back to the jolly fattie we know and love.

Roger Work Man. Who was this guy? Should we take Sawyer’s logical explanation that he was simply a “Dharma Janitor”, and “Work Man” was his title, rather than his name? If you notice – the name seemed to be handwritten on his jacket, not embroidered or sewn on like the Dharma Logo. This would seem to indicate that there were a number of “generic” uniforms created that could be used interchangeably among various members of the Dharma community. If Roger really was simply a “Work Man”, it makes sense that he didn’t get a fancy personalized Dharma suit.

But who was Roger? The Dharma logo on his suit is from the Swan Hatch, which puts him in the same plot thread as Desmond, Kelvin, and Radzinski – people who were tasked with inputting the Numbers to prevent the world from coming to an end. Since we know he’s not any of those three characters, he must have existed pre-Radzinski – which is an era I imagine as the “glory days” of the Dharma Initiative – when the Hatches were new, the experiments were just beginning, Dharma employees on the Island were plentiful, and “work men” such as Roger served as simple “assistants” to the scientists actually carrying out the experiments on the Island.

“Work Men” such as Roger would go on beer runs for the scientists, take out their garbage, pick up their dry cleaning – whatever they needed to be done. They were doing important work, and couldn’t be bothered with such menial tasks. It seems that Roger was in the middle of carrying away some “recycling” (which would fit in nicely with the hippie ideals Dharma surely had), and was carrying large quantities of beer – either to provide to the Hatch workers, or to take back to the “work men” barracks, where he and his buddies could booze the night away and complain about “those fancy Dharma Scientists who think they know everything and don’t tip us enough” – when he met his unfortunate demise.

Which brings up a whole new set of questions – how did Roger die? If he did exist during the Dharma Glory Days, why didn’t someone come and recover his body? If you recall, Roger still had his seatbelt on (which, according to billboards on the highway, should have saved his life). Also, while the Van was on its side, it didn’t seem to have any huge structural damage that you would expect to see if he had hit something. Who Killed Roger Work Man? (Wow – how much better of a title would that have been for this episode – I could have frantically analyzed the similarities between Toon Town and Lost!)

Partly because I have no other answers, all signs point to Smokey. Smokey is the only thing I can imagine that could pick up, shake up, and roll the Van without totally destroying it. What if Roger was driving through the “dark territory” of the Island where Smokey roamed, a part of the Island that everyone else was afraid of entering? If he was attacked inside, it’s logical that no one would ever come looking for him – they were afraid of that area for good reason. Heck, maybe all the beer was in the Van in order to give Roger some “liquid confidence” to make it through the dangerous journey (also, all the more reason to send a “work man” on the trip, rather than an important Dharma scientist).

Roads. Aside from Roger, probably the biggest piece of information we gained from the Van was the map that Sawyer found among the beer and garbage. If you look closely at the map, it seems to show a topographic map showing a road going from a high point (that seems to have a hand-drawn “civilization” with a Dharma logo next to it), down a series of cutbacks, down to a location off screen shot of the map. This provides more evidence of Roger existing during the Dharma Glory Days, where they probably had a much stronger Island infrastructure.

But it also reminded me of a very important point – remember the radio tower on the Island, used to transmit CFL’s crazy message during Season One? We still haven’t seen that radio tower on the Island, but it would make sense that it would be located at the highest point on the Island. It would also stand to reason that there would be some other buildings constructed around this tower to keep all the Dharma workers centralized. I’m thinking that the map shows the location of the “Dharma Civilization” – and it’s located at the highest point of the Island. This would help explain why our Survivors haven’t stumbled across it yet in their journeys.

The real question is – is the Dharma Civilization the same thing as the Others Civilization? I guess it all depends on the relationship between Dharma and the Others (which we’re supposed to learn next episode!) Theoretically, if the Others do live in the former Dharma buildings, we might just be a few episodes away from a reveal of one of the major undiscovered areas of the Island. Even more intriguing – if this is the case, Sawyer is basically holding a map that would lead right to this location… and Jack! (The only problem of course is that the “rescue party” consisting of Kate, Sayid, and Locke seem to have already left – but you never know, they might also get captured – and the map might once again prove critical.)


Shambala. One last thing about the Van – I know a number of Commenters were already all over this in my absence, but the song that began playing when the Van started was “Shambala” by Three Dog Night. Besides being a rocking song that perfectly fit the mood the episode (and did you notice how it was carried over into the score for the touching reunion scenes on the beach – very well done), the song is about Shambala - a legendary, mythical city - kind of like a Buddhist Camelot. It represents the ideal of secular enlightenment, a view that all aspects of civilization - family, commerce, education, science, the arts, and religion - can be full of an innate sacredness. It’s not really a physical place, but rather a spiritual place that can only be achieved by those who have achieved a state of spiritual enlightenment.

It’s pretty obvious to see the tie-ins to Lost, and even makes one to wonder if the Island represents a sort of “Shambala”, a place that only “enlightened” ones were allowed to live. If nothing else, it’s a cool little Easter Egg in the episode.


Like I said earlier, I think the vast majority of the episode was intended for pure entertainment and didn’t need over-analyzing. But as the episode winded down, the mood shifted, and with the shift came something that definitely needs addressing.

CFL. While I think we’re all super-excited about the return of CFL, with it comes some serious questions about her prior stories and motives. Let’s revisit her story so far:

CFL was on a science expedition (where her team was allegedly studying “time” – but that line was cut from the original script), with her husband Robert, and was pregnant. When their ship picked up a signal broadcasting the Numbers, they came towards the Island to investigate and crashed when a storm hit. After a few weeks on the Island, her team became “sick”, and CFL killed them all out of fear that if they ever did get off the Island, this “sickness” would spread to the rest of the world.

She soon gave birth to a daughter, Alexandra. But a week after her birth, she saw a black pillar of smoke, and Alex was kidnapped by the Others. At some point, she changed the message at the radio tower from the Numbers to her own distress signal (picked up by Charlie in the Pilot episode), but claims that the tower is still under control of the Others. She seems to have extensive maps of the Island, but claims to have never seen the Others, only having “heard their whispers”. She helped Claire escape from the Others, and caught Ben in one of her traps – warning Sayid that “he’ll lie for a very long time”.

After reading that, I hope you’re thinking the same thing I am – CFL’s story doesn’t add up. Immediately, the following three questions jump out at me:

1. How could she have changed the message at the radio tower if it’s under control of the Others?
2. How has she lived 16 years on the Island without seeing the Others, when clearly they have a full-fledged civilization “with backyards”? Especially since her maps seem to indicate that she’s explored the Island quite extensively?
3. If she’s never seen (and thus, never interacted with) an Other, how does she know that Ben will “lie” when she catches him?

Something is not adding up.

At first, I was inclined to think she was an Other “mole”, merely acting like a Crazy French Lady much like Ben was acting like a stranded balloonist – but she really does seem like she hasn’t seen Alex for quite some time. When she first captured Sayid in Season One, the first thing she asked him (multiple times) was “where is Alex?”, thinking that he was one of the Others, and would have answers. Also, Alex has yet to mention her mother, and doesn’t seem to know that she exists – so I think it’s safe to say that CFL is not an Other.

On the other hand, if the Others know that she exists, why didn’t they kidnap and brainwash or kill her? Clearly, they must not think she poses any threat to them or she would have been taken care of long ago – it’s almost as if they are coexisting on the Island without either side taking notice of the other – which seems totally out of place for both sides.

Maybe, since the Others really aren’t heartless killers, and have no reason to kill her, they haven’t – but due to her craziness, they have no reason to try and integrate her into their society. Maybe the Others use Smokey as a “security system” (CFL’s words, in fact) to keep her away from their neighborhoods with backyards (and Alex). It does seem like the Others aren’t seen unless they want to be seen, and are willing to quickly abandon places (the Staff Hatch) or setup decoys (the huts where Michael was held) for the sake of anonymity and secrecy.

At the end of the day, I get the feeling that CFL has lied to our Survivors. She clearly knows more about this Island and the Others than she is letting on, but doesn’t know everything, and is just as “lost” as they are in some aspects of the Island. But why would she lie to our Survivors? Well, at the end of the day, I get the feeling that we’ll just chalk it up to CFL being not right in the head. I don’t think there’s anything malicious in her actions thus far, she’s just crazy (obviously, or else we would just call her FL).

It’s going to be very interesting to see how the next few episodes play out. We could be in store for a heartfelt reunion between CFL and Alex, CFL going crazy on Ben for kidnapping her in the first place, or Alex coming to grips with who she actually is and what that means in regards to her place in the Others society.

I’m excited for it.