Lost - "LaFleur"

Episode Title: “LaFleur”

 

Brian’s Deeper Meaning Guess: Some anonymous commenter (tangent - seriously guys, how hard is it to make up some name when you post comments to better identify yourselves?) has been eagerly awaiting this one for over two weeks, so I’ll do my best to make it good.

 

Since there are a number of new characters this week only described by their first name in the episode preview, there’s always the chance that “LaFleur” will simply be the last name for one of them. LaFleur sounds like a good name for some type of security guard to me… but that’s probably because the mall cop in the movie “Mallrats” named La Fors, which is pretty close. But where’s the fun or deeper meaning in that?

 

On the other hand, if you do a quick translation of “La Fleur”, you’ll find that it is French for “The Flower” – which provides us with a little more to chew on. Given that they used the French translation of “The Flower” instead of Spanish (LaFlor), German (DieBlume), or Russian (Цветок), initially I was thinking this might have something to do with CFL or her crew – but assuming the two timelines on the show are going to be the 1970’s (before CFL arrived on the Island) and 2008 (after CFL is dead), that seemed like a dead end (pun!)

 

The next logical assumption is that “The Flower” will be referring to a female character on the show, which leaves us with a number of potential candidates. But I don’t really see Kate, Sun, or Juliet being called a flower since they’ve all proved to be pretty tough ladies over the seasons. Who does that leave? How about this mysterious individual with a sack over her head?

 

It looks like she is in pretty bad shape, with one strange man holding her while another points a gun at her head. Lucky for her, Sawyer is nearby with his trusty shotgun – and apparently makes quick work of both of them, saving her and revealing her true identity. Note – these are all my assumptions based on the episode preview, summarized in the following screen shots:

 

So who does Sawyer end up saving? Based on his reaction in that last screen shot, it seems like is shocked and recognizes the person, which narrows down the list of potentials quite significantly. Again my first thought was Kate (a lot of my thoughts are about Kate, let’s be honest) because from the hair seems similar… but that theory was busted by the following screen shot, which clearly shows Kate wearing a different shirt in the scene where she reunites with Sawyer (again, assumption on my part based on the preview).

 

Since Sawyer is in the 1970’s, that means the female must be an Other or a Dharma, right? Unfortunately, since we’ve yet to really significantly “get to know” any Female Others to the point where Sawyer would instantly recognize them, they also seem to be eliminated. The two guys attacking her, on the other hand, are great candidates to be Others.

  

It almost looks like Mystery Girl was having a picnic before being captured, which may mean she is a Dharmite on a peaceful afternoon stroll before being accosted by two Others, still distrustful of these new “Dharmites” crawling all over their Island. Like Jin, if Sawyer is working for Dharma in the 1970’s (which he is, according to the jumpsuit he's sporting in the screen shot below), she could be almost ANY female Dharma from the era – since he probably has had the time to get to know most of them during his time in the 1970’s.

 

So who is it? I really have no idea, but I’ll give you my best guess in a bit – but to wrap up the “Deeper Meaning Guess” portion of the Blog, let me just summarize it as “LaFleur” = “The Flower” = “Mystery Dharma Girl”… or maybe it is just a reference to The Orchid Station.

 

Guest Stars: Nestor Carbonell as Richard Alpert, Doug Hutchison as Horace Goodspeed, Reiko Aylesworth as Amy, Christopher Jaymes as doctor, Kevin Rankin as Jerry, Patrick Fischler as Phil, Molly McGivern as Rosie, Carla Buscaglia as Heather and John Skinner as Other #1.

 

Guest Star Breakdown: Does our Flower reside among the guest stars for this episode? There are three “new” females listed – Amy, Rosie, and Heather. Is “Rosie” a play on words for “Rose”… like the Flower? Maybe, but it could just as easily be one of the other two or none of the above. There really isn’t anything to go on here, other than the fact that Reiko Aylesworth, aka “Michelle Dessler From 24” is finally showing up this week as “Amy” – which I believe is supposed to be a recurring role, based on the information we got over the summer. If so, it’s a very welcome addition to the cast.

 

The only two familiar characters this week are Richard Alpert and Horace Goodspeed. Again, if our Skipping Survivors have become Dharma, the inclusion of Horace Goodspeed makes perfect sense. It’s actually the inclusion of Alpert that is more interesting. Since Horace Goodspeed (along with most of Dharma) died in the Purge before Oceanic 815 crashed on the Island, it really isn’t a big deal to have our Survivors interacting with them in the 1970’s.

 

However, any Alpert interaction with our Survivors would suddenly raise a TON of questions about the prior four seasons of Lost, since it would indicate that when our Survivors crashed on the Island in 2004, Alpert (and the Others) already knew some of them from the 1970’s…

 

(Note: initially I was thinking this detail might have been what separated the “chosen ones” that the Others took from those that the Others left alone – but that doesn’t make much sense. Even though Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and Hurley appeared on Michael’s “list” at the end of Season Two, that seemed to be more for saving Ben’s life than anything else… and it doesn’t account for the Tailers that were taken. There are just as many characters to disprove this theory than there are to prove it – if not more.)

 

Still, the mind boggles thinking about what the repercussions of these interactions might be. Would Alpert instruct the Others to leave Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, and Jin alone in 2004 to ensure they end up in the future… er, the past? Or would Alpert know that attacking them would be useless since “whatever happened, happened”, and obviously they end up living on the Island long enough to skip back to the past?

 

Like I said, it boggles!

 

Episode Description: Sawyer perpetuates a lie with some of the other island survivors in order to protect themselves from mistakes of the past.

 

Episode Breakdown: Even though it’s only one sentence, this episode description is pretty intriguing because it seems to fly in the face of “whatever happened, happened.” How could Sawyer protect the Survivors from mistakes of the past? Wouldn’t they have either been a part of them, or not a part of them? It seems like they choosing one path or another would have an impact on the future. Shouldn’t the universe course correct and eventually reach the only possible outcome even if our Survivors attempted to avoid it?

 

I’m having trouble reconciling the theory of “whatever happened, happened” from Faraday with the “universe has a way of course correcting itself” from Ms. Hawking. Based on Faraday’s theory, it’s impossible to change anything in the past (unless you’re “special” like Desmond). But based on Ms. Hawking, you could temporarily change the past – but eventually it’s going to catch up with you to make things happen the way they were supposed to be (like Charlie dying).

 

Either way, it seems like there’s no such thing as free will for our Survivors in the 1970’s, does it? Whatever they did is already going to be known to the Others who were on the Island back then and still alive today, isn’t it? Maybe I’m overthinking it, and truthfully, there’s a chance that any one of our Survivors could die each episode – but part of me is thinking that we already know what the overall outcome of our Survivors’ actions in the 1970’s are going to be… since we already know what the Island was like in 2004.

 

But we digress and over-analyze to a fault.

 

What is this “mistake of the past” anyways? What did Dharma screw up that might drag our Survivors down with them? Is it tied to The Incident? The Purge? And how could our Survivors “lying” help them avoid it? I’m happy to say that I have no idea, and I think the episode preview is intentionally vague to keep us from spoiling the surprise for ourselves.

 

Note: this is me internally rectifying the “don’t over-predict the episode ahead of time to ruin the surprise” with “provide the people with what they want”. I’m compromising by quitting while I’m ahead right here by simply saying “I have no idea, but I can’t wait to find out.”

 

Oh – what about the Mystery “Flower” Girl? Well, I can’t quite work out all the details in my head, but in thinking about what Dharma Female could have a profound impact on the storyline, one person immediately came to mind.  

 

“The Flower” is Annie, Ben’s former Dharma girlfriend.

 

Although we don’t have specific dates (on Lostpedia, at least), Ben apparently was born in the early 1960’s, which would mean he could be anywhere from 10-20 years old in the 1970’s, where our Survivors are currently residing. Since Annie was roughly the same age, it would put her as a teen in those years as well – which kinda looks like the age of our Mystery Dharma Girl. Here’s what I’m thinking – Annie and Ben were supposed to have a romantic picnic out in the Jungle, but Ben didn’t show up for some reason (maybe he was off discussing strategy with Alpert). Along come some Others who attack our fair Annie, and were it not for our Survivors, might have killed her.

 

In a huge case of irony, were our Survivors not there – had they not done the altruistic thing and saved this stranger from the Others, Annie would have been killed, Ben would have blamed the Others for this, and probably never would have sided with them to help carry out the Purge. So indirectly, our Survivors now have the deaths of all of Dharma on their consciences.

 

Or if you want to get even wackier, maybe Annie was supposed to die at this encounter, and our Survivors have temporarily prevented it from happening (using Ms. Hawking’s theory that you can temporarily postpone the inevitable). I don’t really know how this would fit into the overall storyline, but I’ve always thought that the event that turned Ben from sweet-nerd-kid into coldhearted-Purgey-man involved Annie dying.

 

The writers have told us that she would be an important character to the overall storyline of Lost, and I can’t think of a better time for that story to be told than right now, when our Survivors are living through it – as opposed to waiting until later and telling it through flashbacks.

 

So there’s my forced guess, based on shaky facts and my hopes for the greater storyline. But with as little information we have, it’s the best I’ve got for this week. See, I told you these things were going to get worse as we get closer to the conclusion of Lost!

 

Happy Losting!

 

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