Monday, February 02, 2009

Lost - "The Little Prince"

Episode Title: "The Little Prince"


Brian’s Deeper Meaning Guess: Unlike the first three episodes of the season, which featured either really obvious episode titles (“Because You Left”) or ones that were impossible to figure out beforehand (“Jughead”), this week brings us one that requires a little bit of research and thinking. Apparently, “The Little Prince” is the name of a pretty famous children’s book published in 1943 by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. At first I thought I could just quickly read a summary of this book and find some easy references to the current storylines and characters on Lost – but what I found is that “The Little Prince” is one trippy and symbolism heavy little book. Seriously, try to read the Wikipedia entry and not be totally confused by it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Prince

Here’s the storyline in a nutshell:

The narrator, an airplane pilot, crashes in the Sahara desert. There he meets the little prince, a very serious little blond boy from a small planet that he took great care of - preventing any bad seeds from growing and making sure it was never overrun by baobab trees. One day, a rose sprouted on the planet and the little prince fell in love with it. But when he caught the rose in a lie one day, he decided that he could not trust her anymore and set out to explore other planets and cure his loneliness.

While journeying, the little prince passes by neighboring asteroids and encounters the strange, narrow-minded world of grown-ups, meeting a king, a vain man, a drunkard, a businessman, a lamplighter, and a geographer, all of whom live alone and are overly consumed by their chosen occupations. He learns from the geographer that flowers do not last forever, and he begins to miss the rose he has left behind.

At the geographer's suggestion, the little prince visits Earth, landing in the middle of the desert and meeting a snake who speaks in riddles and hints darkly that its lethal poison can send the little prince back to the heavens if he so wishes. The little prince ignores the offer and continues his explorations, eventually finding a rose garden, which surprises and depresses him—his rose had told him that she was the only one of her kind.

The prince befriends a fox, who teaches him that the important things in life are visible only to the heart, that his time away from the rose makes the rose more special to him, and that love makes a person responsible for the beings that one loves. The little prince realizes that, even though there are many roses, his love for his rose makes her unique and that he is therefore responsible for her.

Eventually, the narrator and the prince set off to find a well, feeding their hearts as much as their bodies, and the two share a moment of bliss as they agree that too many people do not see what is truly important in life. The little prince's mind, however, is fixed on returning to his rose, and agrees to let the snake bite him. The narrator takes comfort when he cannot find the prince's body the next day and is confident that the prince has returned to his asteroid. The narrator is also comforted by the stars, in which he now hears the tinkling of his friend's laughter, concluding by showing a drawing of the desert landscape where he met the prince, asking us that if we are ever in the area let him know the little prince has returned.

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Pretty dense for a children’s book, right?

There are a number of things we can pull out of this story and apply to Lost. When I first saw the episode title, before I even knew it was a book, I thought of Aaron. He’s the closest character in appearance to a “little prince” on the show – and I think the symbolism from the book easily applies to him. Here we have a person from a small planet (born on the Island), who leaves it but then longs for the love he left behind (Claire?). In addition, considering that there is a chance that Aaron is some sort of “chosen one” on the Island, the “prince” moniker would fit.

But the more I thought about it, the more I like to think the real “little prince” on Lost is John Locke.

Here we have a character who leaves “his planet” (the Island) to visit a number of “grown-ups” that he views as narrow-minded or foolish for leaving the Island in the first place (the Oceanic Six). Locke longs to return to his love left behind (the Island), but finds that the only way to do this is to die, which is exactly what Alpert (the Snake) told him last episode!

Plus, the overall themes of the book seem to fall in line with Locke’s point of view. The most important things in life aren’t always able to be seen with the eyes (the whole science vs. faith argument we’ve seen between him and Jack from the start) and loving something means that you are responsible it (putting the Island ahead of yourself to take care of and protect it).

Deep enough for me!


Episode Description: Kate discovers that someone knows the secret of Aaron's true parental lineage. Meanwhile, the dramatic shifts through time are placing the lives of the remaining island survivors in extreme peril.

Guest Stars: Rebecca Mader as Charlotte Lewis, Susan Duerden as Carole Littleton, Tom Irwin as Dan Norton, William Blanchett as Aaron, Emerson Brooks as Tony, Stephanie Niznik as Dr. Evelyn Ariza, Melissa Farman as young Frenchwoman, Guillaume Dabinpons as Frenchman #1, Marc Menard as Frenchman #2, Bruno Bruni as Frenchman #3 and Ane Tranetzki as bellman.

Guest Star Breakdown: Isn’t it weird that Charlotte is listed as a guest star, whereas Faraday and Miles are not? Could this mean that she is going to die sooner rather than later, making her a “guest star” this season as opposed to a “regular star”? Just a thought.

The other two familiar guest stars are Carole Littleton – better known as Claire’s Mom or Aaron’s Grandma – and Dan Norton – better known as “that lawyer guy who wanted a blood sample from Kate and Aaron in the season premiere.” Up first is Carole. While reading over the Lostpedia entry on her character, it reminded me of one very curious point – she was in a coma before Oceanic 815 left Sydney in September 2004 – gone to the point where Christian Shephard, a medical professional, recommended to Claire that she pull the plug on her and let her die. Yet, she was alive and well at Christian Shephard’s funeral in July 2005, less than one year later. I know that people miraculously snap out of comas from time to time, but this seemed like a pretty convenient (and the only way) for Jack to realize that he was related to Claire.


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Now, it appears as though Carole is back to drive another plot. Although we all assumed that either Ben or Widmore were behind the lawyers showing up on Kate’s doorstep, there’s a chance it’s really Carole Littleton hiring them in an effort to claim her grandson. Of course, this would mean that someone else would have tipped her off about Aaron’s true identity, since I can’t come up with any reasonable way that she could have put it all together on her own. But wouldn’t that be EXACTLY how someone like Benjamin Linus would do it? Rather than have questions raised as to why he is asking about Aaron, or who Aaron is, find a pawn (Carole), feed them a little anonymous information, and let it play out exactly according to plan. Smart.

You’ll notice the majority of remaining guest stars are different types of French people – and of course, when you think of French people on Lost, most people instantly go to the Crazy French Lady (CFL), who some people also call “Rousseau” for some unknown reason. From the episode preview, it’s pretty clear that our Survivors are going to skip to 2004 this week (more on that later), but is it possible that our Survivors are also going to “skip” back to around 1988 in this episode and encounter CFL and her crew?

To refresh our memories, CFL claims that she was part of a six-person science expedition that crashed on the Island in 1988. Allegedly, after putting a distress signal on the radio tower, her crew came in contact with the Others which made them “sick”, forcing CFL to kill them all. There are still tons of huge question marks surrounding CFL. For one, she claimed to have never seen the Others, only hearing them whispering – which is funny since our Survivors barely made it a month on the Island before having numerous confrontations with them. We’ve also seen no signs of anyone else developing this “sickness”, even though there were a few storylines surrounding vaccines and quarantines on the Island. CFL also rationalized killing her comrades by saying “I had no choice. They were already lost. What would have happened if we were rescued? I couldn't let that happen. I won't.”, even though we’ve seen no issues with any other characters coming and going to the Island (aside from the ruined lives and massive depressions).

On any other show, I’d be tempted to chalk this up to “storylines that got dropped” – but it would seem odd for Lost to have a character who said and did so many things that contradicted so many other storylines on the show. And as I’ve mentioned in prior analyses, we might just have to chalk these inconsistencies up to the fact that CFL is, well, crazy.

But maybe we’ll find out for sure this week.

Even if CFL is crazy, I have to think the writers would give us a chance to learn the real story – and what better way to do it than having our Survivors skip back in time to when CFL and crew first arrived on the Island? If that is the case, then the “Young Frenchwoman” in the guest list may be none other than CFL herself:

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Admittedly, they seem to have different colored hair and eyes, but this was 16 years ago – so we can cut them a little slack with the casting. The character in the preview also looks a bit “bigger” than CFL – but if she’s pregnant that could easily explain the extra weight... or the fact that CFL has probably been eating nuts and berries for the past 16 years to survive, which is probably a pretty good diet for weight loss.


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It’s just too exciting of a potential storyline to pass up, isn’t it? With CFL dead, this might be our last chance to learn her story, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

One last note: Is it just coincidence that the skips we’ve seen coincide with periods of time that strangers arrived on the Island? So far, we’ve seen 1954 (when the US military arrived), the 1990’s (when Yemi’s plane arrived), and 2004 (when Oceanic 815 arrived). If they also skip back to 1988 (when CFL’s crew arrived), maybe there is something about “foreign visitors” that ties into the skipping phenomenon… or maybe that’s the only way to provide a frame of reference to the viewer as to when the Skipping Survivors are – or it just makes it more exciting than them just skipping around and observing how much the surrounding plants have grown.


Episode Breakdown: I think we’ve already discussed Kate discovering that someone knows the secret of Aaron's true parental lineage with our Carole Littleton discussion, but I’ll mention again that this seems to be the perfect way to drive Kate to actually want to return to the Island with Jack… and maybe the only way. Clearly she still hates John Locke, I can’t imagine she would be friendly to Ben, and Jack broke her heart. Although she’s friendly with Sayid, Hurley, and Sun – one is a self-loathing assassin, one is a crazy person, and one reminds her that she sorta was responsible for her husband being killed in their escape from the Island. Not a lot of strong relationships to tie Kate to the group.

Meanwhile, back on the Island (which is the far more interesting storyline for me); the dramatic shifts through time are placing the lives of the remaining island survivors in extreme peril. The key word here? SURVIVORS. Does this mean the Charlotte Nosebleed is spreading to the rest of our Skipping Survivors? Or is this simply a reference to the odds that they won’t be able to sweet talk their way out of confrontations with the Others for long, which may lead to a flaming arrow through the heart? Or could it be a reference to the Back to the Future “you can’t run into yourself when you time travel or else you’ll cease to exist” danger that is present once they skip to 2004?

They’re all legitimate theories, but based on this shot from the preview, I’m going to lean towards the last option. It looks like Juliet, Charlotte (who isn’t dead yet, apparently), and Faraday (among others) are using a canoe to paddle away from the Island. All seem well enough to be paddling (read: not facedown on the ground with blood pouring out of their noses). But where are they headed? I think there are two choices:

1. If you remember during “The Lie”, Juliet wanted to take the raft and head to a shipping lane, which Daniel immediately disagreed with, saying he needed to calculate a new bearing, and that in order to do that, he needed to determine where they are in time. This reminds us that it’s still really important what bearing you use to enter or leave the Island, but also seems to hint that there is a mathematical formula to figure it out, once you determine the current date – interesting.

Luckily for them, if they skip to a time period and run into their fellow Survivors from Oceanic Flight 815, they’ll know precisely when they are – which would allow them to hop on board a canoe and paddle off the Island… sure, they’ll be a few months in time behind where they are supposed to be, but it would be an easy “out” to their current situation.


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2. They are heading to Alcatraz / The Hydra / The Secondary Island / Did We Ever Decide on an Official Name For It?

There are numerous reasons to head there, even if it isn’t out of fear of running into yourself. There could be supplies there, or it could just be a safe haven that the Others didn’t frequent until after the Dharma years – which would keep our Skipping Survivors safe for a while – maybe until they can determine how to stop the skipping.

This sounds like the more logical option – but I’m guessing they run into some sort of obstacle that sends them back to the Island in the end. Let’s face it, that’s where the action is, that’s where the Orchid is, and that’s where they need to be if they’re going to find any resolution to their current predicament.

Which reminds me – where the hell are Rose and Bernard, and whatever random Survivors are left with them during all this? Just laying low in the jungle each time they skip? Are they already dead? A reference to these characters this week would be nice!

Finally, let’s refresh our memories about what happened during the timeframe that we appear to be revisiting this week – Monday, November 1st, 2004 (courtesy of Lostpedia’s amazing timeline!):

  • Locke and Boone find the Beechcraft.
  • Boone speaks to Bernard and the other tailies via the radio in the Beechcraft just before the plane crashes to the ground.
  • Ana Lucia believes Boone is one of the Others and shuts off the radio.
  • Eko breaks his silence to comfort Ana Lucia.
  • Locke carries Boone back to the caves, tells Jack that Boone fell off a cliff, then goes to bang on the Hatch in despair.
  • Desmond contemplates suicide and discovers Penelope's letter inside his Our Mutual Friend. He hears Locke banging on the Hatch and he shines a light up the shaft to investigate. The light inspires Locke, and Desmond realises the outside world hasn't been destroyed (by the system failure).


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  • Jin's failure to score a putt on the golf course causes him to break down about the lack of communication and his unfortunate luck on the Island to a baffled Hurley and Michael.
  • Jack fails to save Boone's life, and realizes Locke lied about the cause of Boone's injuries.
  • Claire gives birth to Aaron.

Final thought – remember how Damon and Carlton told us that although Claire wouldn’t be a series regular in Season Five, we would “see her”. This might be the only time that happens, and ironically it might just be re-acting a scene we already know from a different camera angle:

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Happy Losting!

http://facethewoods.com/lost/index.php?topic=374.0

41 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps on there canoe trip they will come across the dharma shark (depending on which time zone they are in of course).

I've been thinking that perhaps the Island never moved (bloop). Because an island isn't just a floating land mass, it is essentially attached to one tectonic plate or grown from volcanoe activity over a period of time. And if indeed it did move such a large mass of land when it reappears would create chaos and distruction in tsumanmi form to some other place in the world.

So what if using Faraday's idea that he would need to find a new heading and Ms. Hawking's event windows (and of course Brian's Analysis). That the island never moves per say but rather the access (perception, door, window, bearing or heading, even the available time of access, whatever you want to call it) to the island does.

BTW Brian great juxtaposition on Hawking/Abaddon. Add to the whole white/black, light/darkness, Adam and Eve's stones.

TheycallmeVic said...

Ahh Brian, great surprise, I wasn't expecting this yet.

Did CFL's crew arrive in 1996 or 1988? You have both dates on there.

I've always thought the casting on Lost has been really good, this confirms that again. CFL's daughter has a strong resemblance to young CFL.

Anonymous said...

I think that maybe Jack is behind the DNA testing for Kate and Aaron. He might be doing it because he is Aaron's living relative and knows that Kate is not. He may also be doing it to cause Kate to want to go back to the island. He also might just want to get her attention or to blackmail her into reuniting with him...

Awesome analysis again, Brian. I would never understand this show and all it's nuances if it weren't for your blog!

Anonymous said...

we call her Rousseau cause its her name.. simple no ?

Brian said...

VictorC - good call. This is why I should take my wife up on her offer to proofread these things before I post them. But I'm usually so excited to get them up, I can't wait that long.

Thanks!

Brian said...

PS - oh, Anonymous, you are clearly new around here. The running joke is that I continue to call Rousseau "CFL" after all these years since I didn't trust myself to spell "Rousseau" correctly when the character first appeared in Season One.

The irony of course is that I over-analyze ever detail of this show and will write thousands of words about the most minor thing... but still don't take the time to write out "Rousseau".

The Rush Blog said...

"Clearly she still hates John Locke, I can’t imagine she would be friendly to Ben, and Jack broke her heart."


I would say that both Jack and Kate broke each other's hearts.

And it's about time Carole Littleton learned about the existence of her grandson. I'm still pissed at the Oceanic Six for keeping Aaron away from her, in the first place.

Rebecca said...

I think Carole is behind the lawyer's after the DNA from Kate & Aaron. She may have thought of it on her own - q&a from the press pointing out there was no record of Kate being pregnant when she got on the plane, the resemblance of Aaron to Claire as a baby (sometimes you can just tell - esp if you're family). If she was already questioning it, someone (Ben/Widmore/one of their people) passing along information could definitely get her to take action.

It makes sense that 'young french woman' is CFL and we'll find out more of her story. C&L said that even though she was dead we would learn more about her. Here's a thought - what if our skippers are somehow part of the 'sickness' storyline. The same way that Locke meeting Alpert led to Alpert seeing Locke as a baby, our skippers meeting CFL & her crew could lead to something in CFL's storyline that we already know.

When I saw Little Prince I immediately thought of Aaron but your comparison of Locke & the prince in the story makes sense too. We'll see!

I'm glad the time skippers aren't just noting how the plants have grown. ;)

Anonymous said...

Rebecca, Good thought on the Sickness. If they do encounter the crew,and people like Charlotte are showing the illness.... Hmmm...

Another thought... what makes this group unique that they jump, but apparently the french crew and the their past selves don't?
What's the tie with Juliet who is an other. If others are recruited from outside the island, there has to be a reason for this.

But.. this could also be the reason the smoking plane was still smoking in 2001(or whenver). Could it be that the plane actually skipped in time too since it had entered the island at that specific time?

Brian said...

Rebecca - I was totally going to bring up that point as well, but somehow got sidetracked in my post and never came back around to it.

I think it would be pretty jaw-dropping (and depressing) if we found out that our Skipping Survivors caused the "sickness" that made CFL kill her crew.

There are two big points working against the theory though - for one, we haven't seen any evidence that our Survivors' conversations appear as "whispers" to anyone yet, even though they have now interacted with a bunch of different people in at least three different time periods.

The other is that if you look at the transcript of the whispers (on Lostpedia), none of them sound like conversations our Survivors would have. Instead, they sound like conversations all-knowing Others would have, commenting about strangers to the Island, etc.

Still - it's a good thought - thanks for bringing it up!

Anonymous said...

'm gonna go ahead and predict that The Survivors on the island specifically LOCKE AND SAWYER will have the ability to see themselves walking around the island in 2004. Mainly because the way in which they are traveling through time is in no way similar to how Desmond/Minkowski/Etc... have been jumping through time in that the Survivors are leaping to points in time before they were born, in the bodies of themselves in 2005.

...With that said, as much as I'm dying to see something like this, as I go into my brain for episodes from Seasons 1 and 2 and I can't seem to recall a single incident that may have been caused by a Survivor jumping through time. I cant seem to think of any scenes either in which a current day LOCKE or SAWYER would fit into.

... Wow it just dawned on me that the survivors would only be jumping back a month or two at most to get back to Season 1... somehow it feels like 5 years ago..

Anyway, if nothing else there will be a ton of Sawyer attempting to warn Kate of getting on the helicopter, until finally realizing he can't... Of course this will probably also be our mandatory "Dr Artz/Shannon/Boone Returns" episode of the season... And maybe just maybe a LOCKE/BOONE reunion.

Anonymous said...

hobbes: We did see a huge ripple of water spreading outward as the island moved. Intriguingly, the big tsunami that hit Southeast Asia was December 26, 2004, whereas on the show the island moved on December 30, 2004.

However, perhaps when the island moves it just swaps places with the water it's replacing, minimizing any shockwaves in the water.

It seems that destroying the Swan hatch made the island visible, or at least that seems to be the general consensus. Therefore, the island definitely moved. Why would Jacob have told Locke that it would be moved if that isn't what was meant? Besides, we didn't see off-island people talking about figuring out the bearing, it was about where it went.

Anonymous said...

I have a few questions about the island moving. You mentioned that is the island moves in space it would make it harder to find. That's true but at the same time it can also make it easier to find. Think about it. If the island all of a sudden appears on a commercial shipping route wouldn't people be aware of it? I also think the island has to be along the equator in order to keep it's temperature and plant life. It would be ridiculous if the island appears in Antarctica.

Last week's episode made me think a lot about Widmore and one thing that came into mind was, how did he know the Oceanic 815 was in the island? I guess it can be said that He was John Locke in 1954 and therefore, remembered him in 2004. That's 50 years! Can you actually remember someone you saw for one day for 50 years? I can't even remember people I met last week.

If the skipping survivors are going to Alcatraz wouldn't that make it possible for Juliet to run into herself?

One last thing. I have been thinking about Sarah, Jack's ex-wife. She always seemed shady to me. I think she is an other or is working for the others. I don't have concrete evidence at this point, but I have a gut feeling about it.

Allan

Anonymous said...

i really really like the allusion to the children's book called The Little Prince.

i actually read this as a kid (and was the Fox in a stage production of it in high school) so i'm familiar with the story.

something tells me that the whole aspect of the story (whether it be Aaron or Locke or both) will fit perfectly with what you've said.

god bless you, Brian. :)

Anonymous said...

Ok here is a rambling thought. And I really hope no one takes this the wrong way.

What if the 70 hours to Event Window determined by Ms.Hawking is a point in which the O6 can be "time aligned" with the other Survivors + Juliette. For the simplest possibility I can think of, is that:

a) They, the “O-6”, need to be at the very least in sync with a time skip of the time hopping “bunny” Survivors. Otherwise if they return at a different time, then they might never be in the proper/same alignment or tune, or "time-matched frequency". And then suddenly the whole damned record is scratched all to hell.
As Faraday put it (something likes it anyway) that we are on a record player that is skipping. So try to imagine that the needle (or our own personal needle, or consciousness) is on a point on the record that we perceive as the "present" and it is skipping on the ridges or wave-lines of the record that is currently playing.
b) Let’s face it, the Survivors are pretty messed up people themselves. So good or bad, imagine how quickly the record would get scratched with them all time hopping or needle jumping all over the record.


For the more difficult possibility I can think of:

So let’s put some of this together. Maybe it makes sense that you would have to be pretty “Enlightened” to control this power; might even get “hostile” trying to keep it. I’m Not saying me! But perhaps some “Other” people we know.
Perhaps on occasion you might need to nudge someone or “correct” their path, set them on the right “course”. As in, when suddenly, their needle starts “skipping” all over the place and they want to mess things up; ill-willed or not. I might even get you to “help me.” YOU MUST protect the record from getting (too) scratched.

Perhaps that’s what having a “Constant” is about. A source, to help you stay focused when you happen to stand too close to an electromagnetic field so intense it jumps your needle from some place to another or maybe more appropriate, from some-when to another. I bet it would seem like you didn’t have a “Fair Day” then eh?!.. But here it is, an even bigger energy field so powerful, it can even collect or attract the very remains of your soul, that last bit (or bioelectric sum remains) of energy that is the You, which is released when you die. Makes me think, that if there ever were a field of such “Magnus” proportions that it could actually collect that last little bit of you. Then might it not also collect the energy of some pretty negative people as well. All that negativity or darkness could manifest itself in such “monstrous” ways. But don’t worry (Juliet epsecially) there is also the collection of the positive or the light that has manifested itself here too.

So it is, if someone gets “Lost”, it is with a Constant they will then able to make the “whispers” and “flashes” go away, to re-align their needle, their consciousness to the now. Otherwise they’ll get “sick”. Otherwise they will probably be very confused, might even do “crazy” things to hurt themselves from such a shock to the system. After all, it must get pretty nauseating, skipping away from the track (or from one verse of the song to another) in comparison to the rest of the record /universe; even just a little bit. You might get dizzy, give you the wuzzy’s or worse, a nose bleed, fall down a hill face first…. Anywho, most likely a ride that will kill ya!


Wow! So now we have realized that a scratched record is bad mojo for universal harmony. Hmmm I wonder if we could know if the record ever gets a scratch, a hole or maybe even just completely shattered?
WHAT’s that “Valenzetti”? You say you figured that out already. And that you’ve reduced the core values for our total and universal annihilation to six variables and you want to call them 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, (and the final ball a) 42. Hmmm interesting…. I wonder where else we’ve seen… “Oh“ say --- "6"… other … hmm I don’t know… lost my train of thought ;) (no pun intended). At any rate we should TRY to enlighten ourselves to the problem further. Maybe create some sort of “Initiative”. Well at any rate someone really needs to get all those wild variables back together somewhere with all the other “Surviving” variables like 2, 3,7,and 9… oh don’t forget my favorite 25, mmm 25.

Anonymous said...

Come on. This is a comment section, leave the analysis to Brian.

Anonymous said...

Who says we can't contribute to the analysis?

I wanted to share some notes from DarkUFO's blog:

Cindy and all the stewardesses and pilots on 815 had WWII-era wings, which apparently were only given to pilots in WWII. Of course, setting up flight 815 would require knowledge that it would be crashing on the island first... which may be another time loop, though it is hard to say.

The flight attendant who let Hurley on 815 is striking similar to Butcher Jill, and checked with someone named Hunter before letting him on.

Anonymous said...

it is interesting how we never questioned Carole Littleton being in a coma last time we saw her before she confronted Jack. As Brian indicates, Dr Crhistian Shepard wrote her off for dead at the time. What happened? Another medical miracle????

Also, yeah...I also recall C&L vowing to share CFL's story one day. Perhaps that day is tomorrow night!

Anonymous said...

Hi – always grateful and love your work Brian:

- Re ‘The Prince’ – usually the title has a double (or more) meaning therefore it won’t just be about Aaron or Locke don't you think?

-Still think Skipping Survivors seeing themselves or interacting with the survivors in 2004 will explain why Locke was so cool and wise then Mr Dumbo the next.

-Didn’t ‘The Lie’ tell us that Sun has something to do with or was the one that has organised the DNA test on Kate (or she’s manipulated it)?

-Re possible younger CFL - Surely Lost Producers know about coloured contact lenses and they wouldn’t slip up when they know that viewers of the show analysis every tiny thing in each set.

- Maybe Dharma did put a sickness out in the island as a defence mechanism and this affected CFL team and why Hatch had quarantine on it. Perhaps Skipping Survivors are canoeing to Hydra(?) to get away from sickness. Be good to get this sickness business clarified at last though won't it.

Anonymous said...

Important questions regarding Faraday: When did Theresa get the time travel bug? And did he really "run off to America" and left her to die or was that a cover for the Freightor expedition, and he just has been stuck on the island?

Anonymous said...

Another point, raised by EW's Jeff Jensen, is whether we can trust Faraday's word about "What happened, happened." What if he is just saying that because he doesn't want the survivors to try changing anything, because things actually can be changed, but he knows that some changes may have bigger consequences than others and have to be controlled somehow.

Gerbs said...

I must say, I've been reading this blog for roughly its entire duration, so I'm a big fan. However, I think I have to stop reading, because it's becoming more like spoilers! Brian, you used to flirt with several "theories". Some of them were way off, but others were dead on. The common theme was attention to detail. As this show winds up, towards it's climax, I'm discovering you're more right than wrong. Ergo, I'm going to just watch the episodes, and TRY to stay away from the blog! Thanks for the mind blowing responses, and good luck with future posts!

Anonymous said...

The "What happened, happened"-thing bothers me as well. Faraday used it to prevent Sawyer from calling out Des, argueing that they didn't met in the original time. But it worked fine when Faraday called him out, although they didn't meet in original time either (or maybe they did).

Anonymous said...

before Faraday called out Desmond, he referenced his journal for some reason. Does anyone have thoughts on what he was looking for or what significance this was??

Anonymous said...

when Ellie commented to Faraday that "....you're a real Romeo", Faraday says something derogetory like "....you should only know". I wonder what this means. Also, I doubt that Faraday simply ditched his old gal friend at Oxford when she got the "bug".....I agree it had something to do with the freightor or his attempt to save her.

Smaelb said...

interesting and recent interview of Darlton on season 5

http://www.craveonline.com/articles/scifi/04652845/lost_damon_lindelof_and_carlton_cuse_interview.html

BlackRob said...

in the episode "The Constant" Faraday wrote something in his journal to the affect of "If anything happens, Desmond Hume is my constant" I assume that this is what he referenced before knocking on the hatch door

Joyce Saenz Harris said...

The other day I was watching a LOST Season 1 rerun of "Deus Ex Machina," the episode where Locke and Boone discover Yemi's crashed Beechcraft and Boone climbs up to explore the airplane. He finds a radio and tries to make a mayday call.

This time I had the captioning on, and I was reminded that what Boone heard on the plane's transmitter was not, apparently, Bernard from the Tailies camp after all. When Boone identified himself as a survivor of Oceanic 815, a man's voice, sounding confused, said: "There were no survivors of Oceanic 815."

Does this mean that Boone was speaking to someone off-island? Someone from a time period later in 2004, after the fake 815 wreckage was discovered in the Sunda Trench?

I think we were seeing a little time blip right there, and it was our first hint that the world believed all of the 815 passengers to be dead.

Anonymous said...

Joyce, Odd, I've never had the captions on, but I've seen that scene several time, and what I heard was "We're the suvivors of 815".

Steve said...

I like input from everyone! Hobbes is the Loaf of Bread time theory guy from back in season 3! Keep up the ideas. The more ananysis we get, the more likely a bell will go off and we'll figure it out.

As for this being spoilers. These are educated guessed by obsessed fans. A spoiler is a privy or sharing of privileged information. or facts.. cheating.
Brian doesn't cheat.. most of the fun for me is NOT cheating and trying to figure out where the show is going.

Say you were watching 6th sense for the first time. You knew NOTHING about the movie. However, about half way through, you had a hunch that he was dead.You didn't know, you made an educated guess. This actually kind of makes you feel good.. "I KNEW IT!" You probably do that in movies all the time(I know I do).
But that's not a spoiler!
Looking it up or being told before hand is a spoiler.

However, I can your concern, everyone is different.

But I want to make a plea to Brian! Please keep up the good work, these arenot spoilers! These are insights and shared discussions to solve the mystery! It's almost more fun than the show itself.

Anonymous said...

aww, thanks for remembering Steve. Faraday's record player was a lot easier to visualize than a loaf of bread. (LOL - at myself).

I've been reading Brian's Phenominal blog since John found the Swan Hatch door map and have been addicted to his weekly writings ever since. B - You still got it man! Your analysis's rock and amaze. Nothing ever ruined for me, simply more intrigued by all the intelligent ideas. Although I am sorry to fellow commenters for sounding frustrated on the idea baby Charlie is somehow his own mothers father. And nobody likes a complainer so I guess it goes back to the whole if you don't have something nice to say... move past it and read the next comment.

Happy Losting everyone.

Steve said...

Hobbes, we've been addicted since the same time. It was the swan hatch door map that led me to this blog, and I've been here ever since.

Speaking of the door map, I'm disapointed with where they went with that. No one seemed to care much. Other than the ?, they seem to have forgotten it. I wonder how placed like the tempest, looking glass, hydra and orchid fit in? Still a lot of good info on that map that haven't been followed up on. In my opinion, the show is now even better than what I feel was the peak in season 2. I hope they follow up on some of those hints.. and yes, some were in LATIN.

HA! Latin! The language of the enlightened! I was starting to think that latin came out of nowhere in season 5.

Steve said...

My last point about the door map is this. I have SOME faith in this show that the mythology was written far enough in advance, and are detailed enough to keep things consistant. I know that my hope could be 'lost' on this one as some things have probably been added or changed since that time almost 3 years go. But on a show like this, you have to believe there is still something to it.

But I do like the Latin tie in.

Joyce Saenz Harris said...

Anonymous, re hearing "We're the survivors of 815" vs "There were no survivors": Yeah, that's what most people think they hear, is someone saying, "We're the survivors." But it's a pretty rushed sentence, heard over a lot of ambient noise. I was stunned to see the "no survivors" caption, so I went back and re-viewed the scene. No mistake, that's what the caption says -- and if you listen closely, you can hear that's what is said, too. Check it out next time you watch "Deus Ex Machina," if you have captioning!

Anonymous said...

hey Rob....yes, that is what is written in Faraday's journal but why would he reference this at that point in the episode? It was already eastablished to him that Desmond is his constant and no rationale for him to again seek this reference (i think).

Anonymous said...

Joyce: but don't we hear Boone's voice in "The Other 48 Days" over their radio? ABC probably has an outside company do all captioning/transcripting who just go off what they hear in the show itself.

Joyce Saenz Harris said...

Nick: I haven't seen "The Other 48 Days" recently, but I believe you are right re Bernard hearing Boone's voice. I would have to watch the ep with the captioning on to be sure of exactly what is said in that scene. But the "Deus Ex Machina" scene's caption does say, "There were no survivors of 815." And (like so much else on LOST) that makes no sense, does it? Yet the first thing I thought when I read the caption was: "OMG! This scene was even spookier than I thought it was!"

Anonymous said...

JIN!

Joyce Saenz Harris said...

OMG, this season just gets more fascinating by the week...

Mike said...

Question, which could have a simple explanation that i missed, the rosseau appears to arrive on the island pregnant already - isnt her baby the girl who gets shot last season cant recall her name who is a child of ben and rosseau? If this is the case why is she pregnant when she arrives?

Joyce Saenz Harris said...

Mike: Alex (the girl who was shot by the mercenary Keamy) was Ben's adopted daughter. Danielle Rousseau was Alex's birth mother, but Ben was not her birth father. Ben and the Others probably snatched the baby from Danielle, just as they took Walt and the Tailie kids from Oceanic 815. When they took pregnant Claire, the Others really just wanted baby Aaron.

I believe Danielle said at one time that her husband's name was Robert, and that was Robert we saw last night, bringing water for Danielle to give to Jin.