Monday, March 02, 2009

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?


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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:


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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).


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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.


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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!

 

http://facethewoods.com/lost/index.php?topic=400.0  

33 comments:

Anonymous said...

The women who is about to be killed is Reiko Aylesworth's character, Amy.

Brian said...

Could be - the Michelle Dessler hair would match.

TheycallmeVic said...

Great work Brian, especially with such little information.
When I saw that Alpert is going to be in this episode I thought it would be with Locke and the people that are in the present, but him being in the past is much more interesting.

Anonymous said...

Time Travel 101

World First Time Machine - Time Paradox 1/2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7AupwRJrgM&feature=related



World First Time Machine - Time Paradox 2/2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS1-SZ2L81k&feature=related



Ok I found these on youtube, fairly pedestrian levels for understanding time travel dynamics. Some might enjoy theme but to be fair it's pretty geeky. I was thinking it might help reason out some of the "if it happened" ... blahblahblah

hmm? Vic, interesting, intially I thought Alpert would be in the past but now you have me wondering if your initial assumption is right and it's in the present via a scene with Locke/Ben.

Anonymous said...

sawyer appears to know the woman very well. how would he know the Amy character

Anonymous said...

I've been reading this blog for a long time but have never posted before. It's a great blog that really enriches my Lost experience!

Could the "mystery woman" be Claire?

Anonymous said...

She seems to big a little too tall for Claire. Interesting thought though.

Anonymous said...

sorry - She seems to be a little too tall for Claire.

;)

Anonymous said...

sorry - She seems to be a little too tall for Claire.

;)

Anonymous said...

Cassidy?

Kate and Cassidy knew each other before Kate met Sawyer. When Kate went to deliver Sawyer's message in 2004, perhaps she told Cassidy that Sawyer was on the island and perhaps she came along on the Ajira flight and was zapped along too. (lots of maybes I grant you)

Anonymous said...

Not sure who the mystery woman is, but i don't think it's Kate, and it's definitely not Claire (due to the voice).

I think Juliet will take up the alias "Annie", since it was once mentioned how much Juliet looked like her. Juliet WAS Annie. She will try to get close to Ben to effect whatever plan they decide on.

I don't think the Sawyer/Kate reunion will happen until the last moments of the episode. :(

Eric said...

I'm not sure that our time travelers are prevented from dying even though they are alive in the future. If it is 1975 (say), Sawyer exists somewhere in the United States as a youth. That Sawyer is sure to survive, as he has to live to become the Sawyer we know who travels back in time. The Sawyer from 2005 who travels back to 1975 can die without repercussions because he has already (in his experience of time) done everything he needs to do in the future, as that future is is past. No? So I wouldn't count on any of them staying safe.

Anonymous said...

Definitely not Claire, in my opinion as she was 'opted out' for this season, I believe.

Meanwhile, LaFleur is the name on the patch of Sawyer's Dharma suit. It says "LaFleur Head of Security". So I am guessing that the title indicates that the episode is a reflection (or 'centric') of Sawyer.

We also went a little wacky with the Richard Alpert analysis. I think that Richard Alpert will show up with the 2008 folks instead of the Dharma group. Maybe he reveals himself to Locke or Ben. Who knows, but if he does revealed to the Dharma group it would be wild. I'll give you that.

It's going to be interesting...

TheycallmeVic said...

Hobbes, very interesting links you posted.

I have to say though, I don't believe in that parallel universes theory at all. And I do believe in free will, not fate. It's the only thing I don't like about time travel in LOST, that it's based on fate, but at least they stick with it really well.

Personally, as a God fearing person, I don't think He will ever allow us to time travel. But everybody doesn't have the same beliefs, and thus why we have so many time travel theories out there.

Anyways, sorry, I'm kinda getting off point here.

Dave DeAndrea said...

Okay.. this is kind of out of left field, but could the mystery woman be Penny? (I don't know if she's listed in the credits for this episode). I keep thinking that Ben somehow stowed her away on the plane... which would be cause for Desmond to return. But I can't remember if Sawyer ever met Penny (since he recognizes the mystery girl).

Anonymous said...

Jesada (or anyone)

who is Cassidy? I don't remember that name.
Kyla

Anonymous said...

the gal shown is clearly someone Sawyer knows. that rules out Penny as it does Anie too. I assumed it was Kate, but if she was ruled out from evidence that has been provided and noted, my guess is that the gal is Cassidy. A bit confusing given how out of context her arrival to the island would be and how she got there too. A second guess, as others have also suggested, could be Claire, speaking of which, they have to somehow resolve her story line one of these days. We never even saw her die last season.

Anonymous said...

VictorC,

Free will vs. predestination is an age-old dispute even among Christians! It's all in how you interpret certain verses in the Bible. That's partly what makes Lost so appealing. At least to me!

TheycallmeVic said...

Anonymous @ 4:28, agreed.

For those who don't know who Cassidy is: http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Cassidy

Cassidy or Claire are both great guesses as to who the woman is, and you'd expect Sawyer to react the same way towards both.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Brian (from anonymous commenter who hasn't got any imagination to think up a cool name (like Sawyers Optician (love it!)) and doesn't like their own name) - you did a great job on LaFleur.

Anon at 9.35am love the Juliet is Annie theory. Probably doesn't work as you saw Ben & Annie as children together - but I still love it.

Surely it's not Cassidy which would be a bit stoopid. I'm hoping and looking forward to seeing Reiko again on the small screen.

PS Brian If DMB plays at Glastonbury Festival this year (they're playing with Springsteen at Hyde Park) I'll actually create a blog and posts some pics and vids especially for you.

Phew having become un-anonymous and now talking about a blog is all a bit much in one day.....

Renee' said...

What if it's....Libby?!

Brian said...

I didn't see the preview so maybe it's easier to tell in the video as opposed to the screen shot, but is it possible that Sawyer only looks surprised because of the timing of the screen shot, and really he doesn't know the person and is just in the middle of saying something... I don't know, emphatic?

Anonymous said...

Renee, I had the exact same thought when I saw the preview last week, that the mystery girl is Libby. I would love some closure on that one, too!

Anonymous said...

Maybe the girl is Penny. Sawyer has seen the picture of her with Desmond, right?

Anonymous said...

Its not Penny.. and its devinitively not Libby ! they have bigger.... u know ? man toys !?

Anonymous said...

Lisa - as for Penny....unlikely Sawyer would remember so clearly a picture he's seen some time ago, don't you think?

Anonymous said...

Sawyer's mom?

Gibbo said...

How do we know that this mystery person is someone that Sawyer already knows?

It could be someone that we (the audience don't know. But maybe Sawyer has spent the last 3 years getting jiggy with an unknown Dharma worker (Charlotte's mum maybe) and then we see him reacting to seeing her as if he knows her, because he does.

That sounds really simple in my head but reading back to myself it's a bit jibberish. I hope you understand.

Anonymous said...

if Kyle is correct and the female character in question is played by the actres Reiko Aylesworth, she's never been on any LOST episode before.

Anonymous said...

if this is a Sawyer"centric" episode tonight, what is it we're looking to learn related to our friend James?
-who is the gal the promos lead us to believe has Sawyer surprised to see on the Island?
-will Kate and Sawyer reunite in tonights episode?

JoséVC said...

It's Libby!

Anonymous said...

I'm gonna also say that The Mystery Flower Girl is Claire.
The last Claire episode we had was "Par Avion" which was a French title, and so is La Fleur.
Also, the woman Sawyer reveals doesn't necessarily have to be The Mystery Flower Girl.
I feel like that would be too obvious.
I think it is possible that Claire will come back soon, if not this episode.

What do you all think?

sparkthejay said...

I have to say that Lost is making less and less sense every episode. The writers keep adding these storylines that are backed up by nothing. It seems like none of the characters are really aware or care about how bizarre of a situation they are in. Why does John Locke need to die in order for the Oceanic 6 to come back to the island? Why do they need to come back to the island to save the others? Why do none of the characters ask any questions? I mean, we havn't even really gotten a clear answer on what The Others were dong on the island, and Juliet is one of them. Why dosn't she tell them in detail who exactly The Others are, what they were doing on the island, and all the details that she knows about the island. Why don't the rest of them try to get more answers from her. Who are the Dharma initiative? Its obvious that they are doing research and stuff, but I just find it really strange how Sawyer and people don't just ask them wtf is going on? It seems like none of the characters care about getting answers anymore. This show is pissing me off. Anyways, if you missed tonights episode, check it out online here...

http://watchloststreaming.com/season-5-episode-8-lafleur/


...and try to see if my rant makes any sense to you.