Lost - "Confirmed Dead"

Episode Title: “Confirmed Dead”

Brian's Deeper Meaning Guess: Before we get to the deeper meaning guess, we have some catching up to do. You see, in the haste and excitement of the season premiere of Lost last week, I totally forgot to post about the conclusion to the Lost Find815 ARG that started about a month ago (coincidentally, this is the same ARG that was hinted at by the Oceanic commercial during “Eli Stone” last week – what a waste of watching that show for an hour!). At any rate, last week, while we were all counting down the minutes and seconds until Lost returned, a funny thing happened at the end of the ARG – they came upon the wreckage of Oceanic Flight 815.

For those too lazy (or smart?) to waste your time playing through the ARG, here’s exactly what happened at the conclusion:



Granted, that doesn’t give a whole lot of details about the wreckage – but instead provided some brief images that seemed to be enough to convince our fearless crew of the Christiane I that the Oceanic and all its passengers had succumbed to a watery fate.



Why do I mention this now? Because I think it’s the far more intriguing choice of “deeper meaning” to this week’s episode title. Remember, both Anthony Cooper and Naomi have made reference to the fact that all on-board of Oceanic Flight 815 were presumed dead once the wreckage was found at the bottom of the ocean. Naomi provided even more details that seem to corroborate the ARG storyline, mentioning that Flight 815 was found in a four mile ocean trench, using cameras and robots to survey the wreckage. Hmmm – sounds an awful lot like the video posted above, doesn’t it?

So what does this mean?

For me, it really ramps up the whole “conspiracy” aspect of Lost – an aspect which, up until now, one could largely dismiss due to lack of evidence. Yes, the plane crashed and the Island is freaky – but as we learned at the end of Season Two, the crash was an accident, not a pre-meditated act by some ultra-powerful organization. So how do you explain the “fake” plane full of “fake” bodies at the bottom of the ocean? Even if they didn’t plan it, clearly SOMEONE wanted to hide the truth after it happened, and I think finding out who or what that someone is will introduce the chief antagonist for the remaining seasons of Lost.

Think about it – whoever went to the trouble of planting a fake crash site clearly wouldn’t want that hoax to be uncovered. They clearly wouldn’t want our Survivors getting back to the “real world”, blabbering about the Island, and exposing the truth. For me, this premise goes a long way in explaining the current state of the “Oceanic Six”.

What I’m predicting is a “battle” of sorts – maybe not a full fledged “guns and grenades” war, but some struggle of power between our Survivors, the Others, and the Freightors. One side (Team Rescue) wants to get off the Island. One side (Team Island) wants to keep the Island to themselves and keep it secret. One side (Team Freightors) wants to overtake the Island and keep it secret (or possibly turn it into an amusement park). Clearly, if you wanted to keep an Island secret, you need to keep people from scanning the ocean for a wrecked airplane – thus the fake wreckage!

As you can see, the goals of each side are in direct opposition with those of the other two. The really interesting part is that by having three participants in this battle, it opens the door for a number of different alliances, Alias-esque double-crosses, and overall distrust among all parties.

Using this as a background, it’s not much of a stretch to picture an end-game where Jack, Kate, Hurley, and three other Survivors somehow wind up finding a way to secure a one way ticket off the Island. It’s actually quite similar to Jack working out a way to get off the Island by performing surgery on Ben – only this time, the only thing they have to do in return is adhere to a well-crafted script that corroborates (is that the second time I’ve used that word in this post? I think that makes three total times I’ve ever used that word in my life!) the fake crash of Oceanic Flight 815. That means saying that there was no Island, no other Survivors, and no Dharma / Hanso Foundation / whoever the heck the Freightors are! Meanwhile, representatives from all parties involved are searching for clues, information, and help – ranging from the Island Spirit in the form of Charlie / Jack’s Dad to the uber-freaky Abaddon, and our Oceanic Six are stuck in the middle, slowly going crazy as their sub-conscious eats away at them with the guilt of leaving everyone else behind.

We’ll see how this theory holds up over the next few weeks, but right now it seems to be the best “catch all” theory I can come up with. The funny thing is, I’m getting way ahead of myself and this episode probably won’t delve into any of this stuff – instead, it will focus on introducing Team Freightor… that, and possibly confirming the existence of the fake plane crash… and with it, the fake confirmed dead on board.

Like I said, a reference to the fake plane crash would be the far more intriguing meaning behind “Confirmed Dead”. But it’s not the only option. The far more likely (and boring) option would be that the Freightors (some possibly still operating under the assumption that Naomi is alive and well and “gathering firewood”) come to the Island to try and save her… only to confirm that she is already dead. Sure, this might lead the Freightors to flip out and start accusing / attacking our Survivors, but it still wouldn’t be as cool as a tie-in to the findings of the Lost ARG, would it?

I think this seems like the best opportunity to finally address some of the “you are all dead” comments we heard in passing last season, giving the topic sufficient attention to make our Survivors ask themselves the big questions we’ve been asking for a while (“Who would fake a plane crash? Why? Are we all really dead?”)

Here’s hoping.


ABC Description: The survivors begin to question the intentions of their supposed rescuers when four strangers arrive on the island. Guest starring are Ken Leung as Miles, Jeremy Davies as Daniel Faraday, Rebecca Mader as Charlotte, Jeff Fahey as Frank Lapidus, Mira Furlan as Danielle Rousseau, Tania Raymonde as Alex, Blake Bashoff as Karl, Marsha Thomason as Naomi, Lance Reddick as Matthew Abaddon, Jill Kuramoto as female anchor, Necar Zadegan as translator, Azure McCall as Mrs. Gardner and Kanayo Chiemelu as African/Tunisian man.


Episode Breakdown. Wow, not a whole lot to go on this week... but that’s honestly just the way I like it – much less chance of the episode description totally ruining the episode this way! All we have to work with is one short sentence which basically confirms what we’ve all known was coming since last season’s finale. But we’ll see what’s in there to breakdown…


Guests. Once again, by simply looking at who is included in the episode, you can start to piece together where the story is likely to go. The first thing that jumped out at me is the inclusion of both Naomi and Abaddon again this week. Assuming that Naomi is definitely “confirmed dead”, if she’s appearing, it would seem to confirm the “Freightor-centrality” of the episode. But since she is dead in the present, she’s ruled out from being the central flashback character of the episode. Instead, I’m guessing that this week’s episode will unfold similar to “The Other 48 Days”, where we learn bits and pieces about all the Freightors – possibly through the form of individual flashbacks for each character, or possibly through vignettes of their travel to the Island together.

The inclusion of Abaddon is also particularly revealing. If he is included in an episode centered on the Freightors, it would seem to indicate that he is actually one of them. Based on his conversations with Hurley last week, he has no idea what happened to the Freightors, and basically asked Hurley if they were dead or alive. This puts an even more intriguing spin on the Oceanic Six storyline. If they didn’t come back with the Freightors, who did they come back with? Were they really just sent out on a floating airplane wing in the middle of the ocean and have someone happen upon them by chance? I’m beginning to think they aren’t so innocent after all, and somehow totally screwed over their fellow Survivors, the Others, and the Freightors with their escape. It’s no wonder that they have this intense feeling of guilt and are so concerned about each other spilling the truth – they might be directly or indirectly responsible for the death of any number of the other people on the Island, making the Oceanic Six the true “bad guys” when you look at the big picture. (Hey, my original idea for the series conclusion to Lost – with our Survivors turning out to be the real “bad guys” - might come true after all!)

But what about Abaddon? His inclusion in the episode pretty much confirms the flashbacks will go back to before the Freightor set sail in the Pacific. But where did it come from? Check out some of the other guest stars…

Conveniently, a number of the guests this week are native Hawaiians. For example, Jill Kuramoto (who plays “female anchor”) is actually a Hawaiian news anchor.



Azure McCall is Hawaii’s “preeminent jazz singer”. Could it be that the series will finally pay homage to its “home base” by having scenes set in Hawaii, rather than having Hawaii stand in for some other locale on planet earth? It seems logical that a Freightor sent out to find the Island would leave from a Hawaiian base, so I think there’s a good chance.

Finally, we meet the other three Freightors referenced in the title. Last week we got our first glimpse of Daniel “I can’t say that rescuing your people is our primary objective” Faraday. This week, we meet Miles (who, if you’re like me, you’ll recognize but not be able to place where you know him from – the answer is “he was Uncle Junior’s mental institution friend / bitch on Sopranos”), Charlotte, and Frank "I look eerily similar to Jacob" Lapidus.








Freightors. And that really brings us the big question of this episode – who are these Freightors and what do they want? Well, let’s go back and review what we actually know.

According to Naomi, she was part of a rescue team hired by Penelope Widmore to find Desmond. However, this proved to be inaccurate based on last season’s “Not Penny’s Boat” finale. This makes it even more puzzling that Naomi was in fact carrying around a picture of Penny and Desmond… a picture that you could argue was only in the possession of Penny and/or Desmond.

According to Naomi, they were just given a set of coordinates in the middle of the ocean and her helicopter went crazy when flying over the Island. This story seems pretty accurate, especially after we saw Farday’s helicopter acting erratically while flying over the Island at the conclusion of last week’s episode. The unique electromagnetic properties of the Island seem to be alive and well post-Hatch Implosion.

Based on the high tech equipment Naomi was carrying (a third generation iPhone) and her obvious military-esque training (talking in multiple languages upon crashing on the Island, surviving a knife to the back), it’s clear that the Freightors mean business. They’re on a very specific mission, with very specific instructions, and were probably individually selected to go on this mission for very specific reasons. But what are those reasons?

Well, back at the end of last season, I thought through the most likely scenarios – and in looking back, not a lot has changed since then. Here’s what I originally mused:

I think the easiest answer is that Naomi’s Crew are Dharma, coming back for some serious revenge on the Others that killed their brethren on the Island years ago. But there are two big holes with that theory – one that Dharma has continued making the Periodic Ration Drops on the Island, so clearly they know fully well where it is, and wouldn’t need Jack’s phone call to track the coordinates. Two, it doesn’t explain why Naomi would have a picture of Penny and Desmond among her belongings.

The next easiest answer is that she is working for some sort of “rival organization”, looking to pick up where Dharma’s research left off on the Island in hopes of succeeding where they failed (perhaps in hopes of saving the world after all). Based on some assumptions from “Bad Twin”, Dharma has close ties to Penny’s father’s organization, Widmore Corporation. It’s reasonable to think that this rival organization would have tried to dig up as much information as possible about the Island from Widmore (assuming that Dharma no longer exists) – and in doing so, just might have come across Penny / Desmond’s friend Donovan, who just might have mentioned that Desmond once crazily talked about being stranded on a mysterious Island (during his flashback / time travel episode earlier this season). The rival organization carries the picture of Desmond (stolen or copied from Penny), knowing that if they can find him, they can probably find the Island.

It’s a stretch, but it’s the best we’ve got at this point.

I know there is always the “easy way out” answer that Penny is a rich heiress, and wouldn’t actually know Naomi or personally be on the boat searching for Desmond. Although her reaction seemed to indicate total surprise, as if she didn’t have any sort of rescue team out looking for Desmond – this doesn’t make much sense either. Based on last season’s finale, if Penny had people sitting in the Arctic constantly monitoring for electromagnetic anomalies, she most certainly would start combing the ocean for that anomaly once it happened. Heck, you could even hypothesize that this crew was sent by Charles Widmore, not Penny, in a race to find Desmond first as part of some massive scheme to keep Desmond away from his daughter. But that seems a little out there.


So nine months later, is there anything to add? Actually yes – one potentially very important thing: The Maxwell Group.



This is another entity introduced through the Find815 ARG, and we don’t know a lot about them. They have a website that even the best of the Internet nerds have yet to crack (http://www.the-maxwell-group.com/ ), they are a division of Widmore Corporation, they funded the search for the Black Rock which turned up the fake Oceanic crash, and their employees seem to know a lot about EVERYONE.

For me, all these pieces seem to fit in rather nicely with the second option from my original analysis – that the Freightors are actually working for a “rival organization” to Dharma – and that organization is none other than the Maxwell Group. We’ve had bits and pieces of information from various mediums that connect the Black Rock to Magnus Hanso to the Hanso Foundation to the Dharma Initiative to Widmore Corporation to the Maxwell Group back to the Black Rock. They all seem to be fairly interconnected, and rich and powerful enough to pull off something like a fake plane crash.

The biggest question, as I mentioned originally, was why the Freightors would need to find the Island, since Dharma should know precisely where the Island is – and in fact made a food drop there as recently as two months earlier. The only explanation I can think of is that somewhere along the way there was a “split” in this organization (perhaps coinciding with Mittelwerk forcing Hanso out of power – an event documented in “The Bad Twin”). Hanso refused to give up the information about the Island, and had already prepaid some trustworthy outside organization to continue the ration drops in perpetuity. Widmore / Maxwell, learning of the potential and power of the Island, began their search for it. Through Widmore, it’s easy to get to Penny Widmore, which would explain Naomi’s picture of Desmond, his time traveling adventure noted by Donovan, and then piecing together that he vanished during a sailing expedition around the world. By following the general route of that course, they could have stumbled upon the Island without even knowing it.

Is it convoluted and way out there? Absolutely. Is it the best that I’ve got right now. Yep. So we’ll go with that for now, and let this week prove otherwise.

The other fun possibility if this storyline holds true is that now Penny knows that Desmond is alive and that some ship (and some girl named Naomi) are claiming to be rescuing Desmond in her name. This could open the door for a huge confrontation between Penny and her father to find the truth, and set her out on her own mission for the Island – but we’ll leave that theory for another day. First, let’s first see how far off we are on this first step.


I’ve got high hopes for this episode, and really think it will serve as the impetus for the remaining episodes of the season. I’ve also cautiously optimistic that this blasted writer’s strike will end this Saturday, and we’ll be able to squeeze out four more episodes of Lost in May to help wrap up the story arc of the season – but only time will tell.

(Fun Fact: This would also conveniently put Lost on a month and a half hiatus to coincide perfectly with my upcoming nuptials. Thank you, writer’s strike!)

Happy Lost-ing!

Message Board Comments: http://facethewoods.com/lost/index.php?topic=244.0

"The Beginning of the End" Analysis!

The first thing I do when I sit down to write an episode analysis is pull up a previous one I wrote and basically type over it – it helps to make sure there is some consistency in format, and that I’m not missing anything or repeating myself from my earlier writings. For this post, I pulled up my episode of analysis of Season Three, Episode One – “A Tale of Two Cities”.

Guess what my review was?

UNDERWHELMED. (http://lost-and-gone-forever.blogspot.com/2006/10/lost-glass-ballerina-and-tale-of-two.html )

I had totally forgotten how disappointed (and not surprised) I was by the first episode of Season Three – at least compared to how fantastic the Season One and Two openers were. By comparison, the Season Four premier was better – but still not up to the level of One or Two.

The good news is that even though Season Three started slow, it ended with what I would argue were the best stretch of episodes that Lost has ever had. So I have faith that this means our current season has the potential to be even better. After all, even the best shows need to reset their seasons each year – to start laying the ground work for the upcoming episodes.

Enough reminiscing. On to the analyzing…


Beginning. Was I the only disappointed with the opening scene of the season? Fruit? Even if it was exploding due to a car driving through it, it lacked the artistic flair of the Lost-esque opening eye / wakeup scene of Seasons One through Three. It’s a stupid little thing, but I thought a pretty cool creative, symbolic moment of consistency throughout the series. I guess the good news is that it immediately answered our question of if this was a Flashback or a Flashforward, and immediately brought up the pseudo-spoiler that I accidentally read a few weeks back:


The Oceanic Six. Truth be told, I had no idea what that giant number 6 that kept popping up in the previews meant – but then I saw where one magazine referred to the phrase “The Oceanic Six” and immediately my mind clicked. It was clear from the end of last season that Jack was pretty well known among the public for his actions (being referred to as “two times a hero”), which meant that the public must have known about his survival of the Oceanic Flight 815 plane crash. But what we didn’t know was if he was the only one. Now we do – there are (or were?) six of them.



Before we get too far into this, let me first state that based on the wording, characters like Ben, Juliet, and Desmond would NOT be a part of this group… and not only for semantic reasons. Think about this – characters like Juliet and Desmond have been missing from the “real world” for years prior to the Oceanic crash, and even if people were looking for them – it wouldn’t have drawn large national attention. Therefore, their return to the “real world” may be big news to their immediate families and friends, but for the most part no one else would care. This means that their return wouldn’t require any elaborate explanation for where they had been or what happened to them, or any need to “cover up” anything.

Not so with the Oceanic Six.

International passenger airplane crashes are kinda a big deal, especially those that lead to huge search parties and temporary shut-down of airlines – which is exactly what happened with Oceanic 815. The names and faces of the people who were on the crash were likely splashed all over media around the world, which means it would be pretty difficult for any of those individuals to show up back in the “real world” without causing a stir.

Enter the Oceanic Six.

At least as far as the media is concerned, only six members of the flight survived. From what we’ve seen and heard, they were basically treated like early-Driveshaft-era rock stars, being hounded for autographs, receiving “Golden Tickets” for free flights around the world, and potentially given a boatload of money for their trouble (see: Kate’s fancy car last season). This could also help explain how a pre-crash fugitive like Kate could end up walking around without fear of arrest. For me, it’s entirely plausible that after all the “trauma” she and the other Oceanic Six have been through, she would have a pretty easy time explaining her situation to a jury of her peers (abusive father-in-law) who would exonerate her of the crimes. Or – she might just have the best lawyer that money can buy (courtesy of Oceanic Airlines) working her case, exploiting the system.

But who are the Oceanic Six?

Well, we know we’ve got Hurley, Jack, and Kate. That means we have room for three more. I went back and looked at my pre-episode analysis of who had the best shot of getting off the Island, and there are (conveniently) only three members left on my original list who were actually on Oceanic Flight 815: Claire, Sun, and Jin.

The interesting thing about knowing that Jack, Kate, and Hurley are part of the Oceanic Six is that it means that both members of Team Island and Team Rescue make it off the Island – which means their current separation is somewhat temporary, and doesn’t lead to the ultimate decision of who makes it off and who doesn’t. That isn’t overly surprising considering that if nothing else – it’s pretty clear that some very serious and bad stuff goes down between now and leaving the Island, and that everything isn’t neatly resolved when those Six do leave the Island.

So is this to say that Claire, Sun, and Jin are the other three members? Of course not. It’s very easy to think of scenarios that feature Claire and Aaron staying on the Island (after all, remember how important Aaron was supposed to be to the overall mythology of the Island back in Season One?), or to see Jin dying in battle (which he came very close to doing in the Season Three finale) – but I think Sun is the only lock for one important reason: if she doesn’t get off the Island in the next six months, she is going to die – and I really don’t see that happening.

So for now, let’s leave the Oceanic Four as Sun, Kate, Jack, and Hurley – with some open slots available for other characters down the road. We’ve got other things to discuss…


Ana-Lucia. Bet you didn’t see her name coming, did you? Dead for over a season, the mention of her name during Hurley’s investigation brings up one other point about the Oceanic Six – they are not talking about the Island, their experience on the Island, or any other Survivors.

For me, this smacks of some conspiracy theory, where the Oceanic Six cut a deal with their rescuers and agreed to never talk about the Island or anything that happened there in exchange for a return to the “real world”. You’ll note that Big Mike only asks Hurley if he met Ana-Lucia before they boarded the plane, or on the plane – not during the three plus months that he was on the Island.

Which actually makes perfect sense.



We’ve seen that there are some pretty rich and powerful people making sure that everyone though Oceanic Flight 815 crashed to the bottom of the ocean. We’ve also seen how the Others will stop at nothing at keeping the Island secret, hidden from the rest of the world. It stands to reason that whoever the Freightors are, they don’t intend to turn Lost Island into a Jurassic Park, but rather want to continue the experiments / exploit the unique properties of the Island, which are probably best kept secret from the rest of the world.

That means that the “official story” behind the rescue of the Oceanic Six doesn’t involve a helicopter landing on an Island – but more likely a passing ship finding them floating in the ocean on a piece of airplane wreckage or a makeshift raft. This would allow everyone else to assume that the other members of the flight died in the crash, that the plane is at the bottom of the ocean, and there is no magical Island full of Smoke Monsters and unique magnetic properties. In fact, this might even be documented on the chalkboard behind Hurley in the mental institution. Check it out:




Hurley. On to the flashforward. The one comment that I haven’t had much luck in wrapping my head around was Hurley’s “I’m sorry I went with Locke. I should have stayed with you” to Jack in the flashforward. Think about the implications of that phrase. From everything we know, Team Island is the “right” team to be on, since they are focused on staying on the Island. Hurley went to Team Island, but apologizes for this action. In my mind, there are a few scenarios possible:

1. Team Rescue has an opportunity to “defeat the enemy” or “rescue everyone” or something equally good – but is unable to do so because of their lack of members. If Hurley (and maybe a few other Survivors) had went with Jack, they could have turned the tide.

2. Somehow the members of Team Island find or put themselves in a position of needing rescue from Team Rescue (how fitting!), and this causes some death / loss / chance of clean rescue for everyone else, and Hurley feels bad about it.

3. It’s just a literary technique to tie the flashforward to the on-Island action by having Hurley reference a scene that just happened.

Heck, maybe it’s some combination of the three. For me, this just further goes to indicate that we are nowhere close to anyone actually getting off the Island, and some very bad stuff happens between now and then – and the separation of our Survivors into these two teams somehow exacerbates the situation.

However, the rest of Hurley’s flashforward illuminated a lot about the mindset of his fellow Oceanic Sixers. Eventually, they’ll all feel guilty about what happened, and have their conscience / hallucinations / Jacob start telling them that they need to go back to the Island. There are also a few clues in the flashforward that lead us to the conclusion that the other Survivors are very much alive, and very much in need of help back on Lost Island.

1. Charlie’s hand – first “Not Penny’s Boat”, now this? Someone buy this guy a notepad! During Hurley’s hallucination in the interrogation room, Charlie’s hand contains another written message – “THEY NEED YOU”.



2. When Abbadon (freaky black dude) visits Hurley and offers him a loony bin upgrade, he cryptically asks “Are they still alive?” This would seem to indicate that he isn’t so much a part of Oceanic Airlines (also he couldn’t produce a business card from Oceanic), but rather from some other organization concerned with finding the Island / the other Survivors / the Freightors / the Others (the options are endless!)

Does this mean that whatever “bad stuff” happens on the Island, at the end of the day, the Island returns to its cloaked status, and no one else is able to find it? If so, this would even lend more evidence to the possibility that there is some sort of battle raging on the Island for control of it, and members of both parties of this battle are looking for confirmation or information about what the Oceanic Six know.

3. Charlie’s slap-tastic message of “They need you, Hugo.” on the grounds of the mental institution. Okay, it’s pretty much a repeat of his hand-written message above, but it gives me a nice segue to discuss Charlie.


Charlie. Was he real? No. Was he a figment of Hurley’s imagination, just like Dave (who was conveniently a focus of the one hour recap show that aired before the season premiere)? Maybe. But remember that it was another member of the mental institution that pointed out someone was staring at Hurley. I suppose this person could have also only existed in Hurley’s mind, or shouldn’t be trusted since he’s, you know, crazy – but it seemed to me that this was the writers’ way of stating that Charlie was able to be seen (at least temporarily) by more than one person. There’s only one place that we’ve seen multiple Lost characters seeing images of people who are dead / not really there – on Lost Island.



Think about the similarities between some of the other out of place “images” we’ve seen on Lost.

- Both Eko and Jack have seen images dead family members (Yemi and Christian).
- Both Kate and Sawyer saw the same black horse in the jungle (which may or may not have been real).
- Both Sayid and Shannon saw freaky backwards talking Walt.
- Locke has had all sorts of visions, ranging from Walt to Jacob to Boone.
- Ben saw his dead mother, giving him instruction.

A lot of people contribute these to Smokey or Jacob (in my previous writings, I’ve used the term “Island Spirit” as a catch-all for whatever Jacob is – and Smokey may be the same entity or some “bodyguard” for this entity) – but who is to say that the power of the Island Spirit is limited to the Island? Is it possible that it can still cause our Oceanic Six to be having images, even after they are off the Island?

If so, Charlie’s plea of Hurley to “help them” is the Island looking for help… calling out to the only people in the world who know the Island exists and exactly what is going on there – the Oceanic Six. Based on confident “we’re never going back” Jack in this flashforward, he hasn’t started having these images yet… although based on the “we have to go back Kate!” Jack of the Season Three finale, it’s likely they started coming. So if Hurley saw Charlie, I wonder who Jack would start seeing?


Christian Shepherd. Bam. Remember how everyone noted that Jack referenced his dead dad as if he was very much alive while stealing pills from the Hospital in his flashforward? Well, what if Jack really was just “upstairs” in the Hospital and seemingly saw his dead dad sitting there and talking to him. In Jack’s drunk state, it would be very easy to blend the images that haunt him with reality, leading to the scene that caused so much discussion at the end of last season. Maybe Christian is writing “THEY NEED YOU” on medical pads and showing them to Jack in his dreams. It would make a whole lot of sense - especially since we’ve already seen that an image of Christian Shepherd already exists on the Island.

Before I get to the Christianity of this episode, I really do need to address the last “Missing Pieces” that came out earlier this week. Check it out, and prepare to flip out:



…and with that, the Christian Shepherd debate will undoubtedly rage on for another season. It’s like the Lost writers do this just to torment me.

Let’s keep in mind that the most logical explanation of the story of Christian Shepherd is as follows:

- He DIED in Australia. There was an autopsy that confirmed it.

- Oceanic refused to let Jack board his body onto the plane due to regulations. Instead, they boarded his empty casket to appease Jack, who needed to arrive in Los Angeles with something to bury (this explains the empty casket Jack found in the jungle).

- Jack saw images of his father with white tennis shoes (like a doctor would wear) and a suit (like he probably wore in the casket) – a hybrid of the two lasting images of his father in Jack’s head.

- The images could be caused by Jack’s subconscious, or by the Island Spirit.


If anything, this Missing Piece tells me that there is more than Vincent than meets the eye (he’s a Transformer?) and that the Island Spirit has the ability to directly communicate with him. Heck, maybe it can communicate with all animals, which might help explain some of those wacky Dharma animal experiments.

The other really interesting thing? In the clip, he says “he has work to do”, which is almost the exact same thing that Island Spirit Walt told Locke when he was laying in the Dharma Ditch dying. What does this mean? For one – it might mean that the Island has now brought both Locke and Jack back to life with its healing powers (again, we’re reminded that Jack landed far away from the other Survivors of the crash, in the middle of the jungle). For another, it might mean that the Island is picking and choosing how it interacts with our Survivors based on what it needs.

If you argue that the Island wants our Survivors to survive and help start fresh / re-populate it / overthrow Ben (based on Alpert’s comments about Ben’s obsession with baby-making, Ben’s ash “cage” around Jacob’s house), it would need Jack to survive the crash to apply his medical knowledge to save people, and to apply his leadership skills to keep everyone from killing themselves in the first few days post-crash. It would then need Locke to survive Ben’s shot to the stomach to help protect it against the Freightors. You can see how even though Locke and Jack are basically enemies and opposites on the Island, the Island Spirit needed both of them to get to where we are right now.

Back to Christian Shepherd. As I correctly predicted in the episode preview, he appeared in Jacob’s cabin – which still doesn’t make sense to me. However, he’s still wearing the same shoes and suit as every other time we’ve seen him.



We then see an eye appear in front of the window, startling Hurley.



I really wish this eye looked like Locke, because it would make so much sense to have John Locke chilling in the cabin, talking to Jacob (currently in the form of Christian Shepherd), getting instructions on what to do.

Unfortunately, it looks like the same eye that appeared in the window during “The Man Behind the Curtain”. For me, that doesn’t look like the eye of any character we’ve met on the show. You can see the hints of a mustache beginning at bottom, and perhaps the indication of longer dark hair around the edges. The eye also doesn’t match the look of any current characters that I can see.

This leaves us with the puzzling scenario where the mustached Jacob is sitting and having a conversation with… himself, in the form of Christian Shepherd. It doesn’t make much sense, unless you argue that Christian is really Smokey, and Jacob is a separate entity from Smokey – or that there are two different forms of Smokey, one light (and good) and one dark (and bad) and they are both at play on the Island.

For us, it’s best to just leave this one alone for now. Anything we could conclude would just be unfounded speculation at this point – but we’ll keep this scene in mind for the future.

Two more quick points, and I’ll wrap it up!


Ben. Isn’t it ironic that Locke willing allowed Ben to join Team Island, when Ben shot and attempted to kill him only a few days prior? Especially if the Island Spirit really has anointed Locke as the new chosen one, you would think it would have instructed Locke to keep Ben away – unless it views him as someone who genuinely wants to protect the Island, and it will take whatever numbers it can get to do so.



It’s also strange that Locke chose to go to the Barracks, instead of attempting to find “the Temple” where the remaining Others went at the end of last season. Part of me is afraid we won’t be seeing those remaining Others for quite some time – which saddens me since there is still so much to learn about them. But it really looks like the story is heading away from them and towards the Freightors in the first part of this season (which is convenient, since Richard Alpert probably wouldn’t have been able to be on the show anyways since he’s on a failing CBS show).


Naomi. Why did Naomi lie to her fellow Freightor about her injury? Was she giving some code to them when she said “tell my sister I love her?” Is she really concerned about getting our Survivors rescued? Or is she afraid that a distress signal would cause the Freightors to abandon their mission out of fear of succumbing to the same fate on the Island?

It’s a mystery.



It’s also a mystery why they are continuing to parachute drop on the Island instead of sending in a boat or landing a helicopter on one of the many open fields on the Island. Could it be that the Island is still “protecting” itself with some sort of magnetic shield that prevents mechanical engines from getting too close (if you remember, this was one of the early favorite arguments for the crash of Oceanic Flight 815)?

I’m not sure – but that’s a discussion for my next post, since next week’s Freightor-centric episode should have a ton of answers.

Until then – happy Losting!

Official “The Beginning of the End” Analysis Message Board Post: http://facethewoods.com/lost/index.php?topic=237.0

"The Beginning of the End" Instant Reactions!

Brian's Two Word Review: Surprisingly fair.

I went into this preparing to be absolutely blown away... but I wasn't. It's kinda ironic - for most of the third season, the flashbacks were the weak part of the show - with the on-Island action being where we really wanted to spend our time. Yet this week, I found myself longing for more flashforward action... in part because the on-Island action felt surprisingly filler-like for a series with only 47 episodes left.

What do I mean? Think about where we left the show at the end of the third season. Jack called Naomi's boat and Naomi was "killed" by Locke. What happened in the fourth season premiere? Kate called Naomi's boat and Naomi officially died. In reality, the only true on-Island plot that was furthered was the reconnection of the Survivors, followed by the split into Team Island and Team Rescue. Even Charlie's death was surprisingly ignored by most everyone except Hurley and Claire. Also, the dialogue felt a little bit off. Some of the Rose / Bernard / Naomi lines felt a tad cheesy, and a little un-Lost-like.

Still, there were plenty of intriguing tidbits in the episode worthy of discussion at work tomorrow morning:

Oceanic 6. This is the phrase I read in some blasted TV magazine that ruined the surprise of the giant number "6" in the season preview clip - because as soon as I read those two words together, it made perfect sense to me: only six people made it off the Island alive. We've seen Jack, Kate, and Hurley - which leaves room for three more. My money would still be on some combination of the pregnant ladies and the star-crossed lovers (Sun / Jin, Claire, Desmond) occupying the other three spots - but I'll get into that during my in-depth review.

Oceanic 31. (Is that how many Survivors are left besides those six?) Based on the episode, this is the far bigger question - what the heck happened to everyone else? It seems like they are very much alive, and possibly very much in need of rescue since we've now seen both Jack and Hurley reference "going back" and feeling guilty for what happened when they escaped the Island. Have the Freightors taken over the Island and turned them into slaves - a la Dharma using the Island originals for wacky experiments? Did the Oceanic 6 somehow have a hand in all this? They all seem very guilty - and very afraid of each other spilling the truth about what happened.

Naomi. Seriously? She's got a knife halfway through her back and can crawl off into the jungle without any of the 30 people around her noticing, make a fake trail, then climb a tree to attack Kate - but then die after a few seconds of talking? Not good, Lost writers - not good.

Rescue. How ironic. The episode ended with a Freightor stating "we're here to rescue you." Yet we know from the season preview that the same Freightor will be saying "we can't say that rescuing you is our primary objective" in the very near future. Something's fishy... and if I was picking sides, I'd go with Team Island.

Eye. So who was the eye inside Jacob's cabin? It was pretty clear that it was an image of Jack Shepherd in Jacob's chair, and that the eye was an entirely separate entity. Nominees include Locke (who was right in the area, possibly hanging out in the cabin with Jacob and scheming) or the same eye from last season - which would be Jacob (meaning that Jacob and Christian were hanging out in the cabin).

At the very least, it's clear that Jacob is quite real. Heck, Hurley even thinks the Oceanic 6 are still being "haunted" by him, calling them to come back and rescue the Island.

Okay - that's enough mindless rambling for now. Full analysis soon!

http://facethewoods.com/lost/index.php?topic=232.0

Lost - "The Beginning of the End"

Man, I hope I still remember how to do these things after over eight months off. Forgive any rust!

Episode Title: “The Beginning of the End”

Brian's Deeper Meaning Guess: It’s about damn time.

Sure, I’m sure that other people in the history of mankind have used the phrase “the beginning of the end” before, but I have to think I was the first to use it when referring to Lost. In fact, I was referring to episodes of Lost as “the beginning of the end” back on March 1st, 2005 (in regards to the “Numbers” episode, since it was the last main character to receive a flashback – Hurley – and featured some huge explosions in the preview – which I assumed meant we were leading up to the big Others / Survivors showdown… hey, I was only two years premature on that prediction). I would later use the same phrase in reference to last season’s episode “The Brig”, and referring to the announcement about the planned end date for Lost in 2010. All this before, the line was actually uttered on the show during “Through the Looking Glass”!

So it’s only fitting that the phrase finally becomes an episode title of its own, as some of Ben’s final, foreboding words of Season Three, “I’m telling you Jack, making that call is the beginning of the end.”

But is there actually any “deeper meaning” behind it? Unlike so many episode titles, I don’t feel like this is a reference to any sort of book (1950’s “The Beginning of the End” by Harekrushna Mahtab about politics in India), movie (1957’s “The Beginning of the End” featured huge killer grasshoppers attacking Chicago), or song (H.I.M., Nine Inch Nails, and Guster all have songs with the title with equally somber lyrics) – but a simple reference to our current place in the storyline of Lost, and the state of current life on the Island.

On the storytelling side, it’s the beginning of the end, because we’re just starting to see the “end chapters” of the Lost saga through flashforwards. We already know that Kate and Jack make it off the Island alive – but what about the rest of our Survivors? As we start to make our way through the fourth season, it will quickly become evident who made it off the Island and who didn’t. I’m sure it won’t answer all the questions, but it will begin to paint the picture about the end-game of Lost.

On the Island side, it’s the beginning of the end, because everything is pointing to Ben being absolutely correct in his warning about Naomi’s people – that they are bad news for the Island and everyone on it. While we know that they don’t kill “every living thing on the Island” since Jack and Kate make it off the Island alive, based on the tortured state of Jack in the flashforward, they weren’t simply a rescue mission sent to find the Survivors of Oceanic Flight 815… some bad stuff clearly goes down between Jack making that call and Jack getting off the Island – and we’re about to find out what.

But in the end, I think it’s the overall meaning of the episode title that hits me the most. This is the beginning of the end of Lost (tear). It’s now clear that during the first three seasons, the Lost writers were treading very gently when it came to progressing the storyline – not sure how long they would have to stretch it out for, not wanting to wrap up the story too soon and be forced to add seasons that felt “tacked on”. This resulted in some of the lamer episodes each season, with boring character flashbacks, slow on-Island action, and a sense that some episodes were simply a filler to kill time before the story could move on. I’m hopeful that now that there is a set ending for Lost, the writers can start wrapping up storylines without fear of running out of ideas. I’d like to think that they always had an ending for Lost in mind, knowing exactly what was going to happen, and exactly how many episodes it would require to tell that story. The “ending” of Lost, if you will.

Now that we’re starting the stretch of the final 48 episodes, it marks the beginning of that ending.



ABC Description: So this is a pretty strange week for the standard episode description from ABC – because they actually released two separate episode previews, each with different information – but neither feeling like it is actually describing the episode, but rather being an advertisement for the series in general. Here was the first one released:

With only 48 original episodes left until the final episode airs in 2010, this season truly is the beginning of the end with the promise of rescue at hand. Jack has radioed a freighter stationed somewhere off the island. But when it's disclosed that Charlie's dying warning was that these people may not be who they say they are, the castaways are split as to what to do. Jack is convinced that the freighter people are there to rescue them, while Locke is not. A division occurs among the survivors. Who is on the freighter? What was the significance of the flash-forward showing Jack and Kate off the island at some point in the future? What will the consequences be when the characters once again encounter Michael, who seemingly escaped the island after murdering two of the survivors? These are some of the questions "Lost" will explore during the action-packed fourth season. The band of friends, family, enemies and strangers must continue to work together against the cruel weather and harsh terrain if they want to stay alive. But as they have discovered during their 90-plus days on the island, danger and mystery loom behind every corner, and those they thought could be trusted may turn against them. Even heroes have secrets.

(Did they really just write “even heroes have secrets”? Apparently they enlisted some help of a third grader to come up with that tag-line. Yikes.)

There are a few bits of information that we can pull out of that wordy paragraph that might actually happen in this episode – such as Charlie’s warning being passed along to the Survivors via Desmond (probably occurring at the mid-point of the episode, if I was guessing) and the division of the Survivors once that warning is received – but I don’t think we’re going to find out who is actually on the freighter this week. I don’t think we’re going to run into Michael this week (unless it’s during the final scene of the episode). I certainly don’t think we’re going to find out the significance of Jack and Kate’s flashforward this week. So let’s look to the second episode preview to be released, which feels a little more like a normal one:

In the season premiere episode, "The Beginning of the End," feeling that their rescue is close at hand, the survivors don't know whether to believe Charlie's final message that the people claiming to liberate them are not who they seem to be. The band of friends, family, enemies and strangers must continue to work together against the cruel weather and harsh terrain if they want to stay alive. But as they have discovered during their 90-plus days on the island, danger and mystery loom behind every corner, and those they thought could be trusted may turn against them. Even heroes have secrets. "Lost" stars Naveen Andrews as Sayid, Henry Ian Cusick as Desmond, Emilie de Ravin as Claire, Michael Emerson as Ben, Matthew Fox as Jack, Jorge Garcia as Hurley, Josh Holloway as Sawyer, Daniel Dae Kim as Jin, Yunjin Kim as Sun, Evangeline Lilly as Kate, Elizabeth Mitchell as Juliet, Terry O'Quinn as Locke and Harold Perrineau as Michael. Guest starring are Mira Furlan as Danielle Rousseau, Sam Anderson as Bernard, L. Scott Caldwell as Rose, Tania Raymonde as Alex, Blake Bashoff as Karl, Marsha Thomason as Naomi, Michael Cudlitz as Mike Walton, Lance Reddick as Matthew Abbadon, Grisel Toledo as orderly, Steven Neumeier as Lewis, Billy Ray Gallion as Randy, Jeremy Davies as Daniel Faraday and John Terry as Christian Shephard.

Now that’s a little easier to breakdown, even if does include the “even heroes have secrets” line again. Let’s get to it!


Episode Breakdown: Right away, it’s clear where a number of storylines and characters are going to go as the fourth season starts. We’re going to have Desmond racing back from the Looking Glass with Charlie’s dying warning message about Naomi’s boat contrasting with the celebration that will be happening around Jack and Co, who think they’ve just found their ticket home. We’ll have Ben continue to warn our Survivors about the danger of the Freightors (my current nickname for the Freighter People). We’ll probably have Jack radio Hurley with the good news, which will result in an equally jubilant time on the Beach… and then Desmond will show up and ruin the party… resulting in a very opposite radio transmission back to Jack. Suddenly, there will be questions about who to trust (Ben / Dead Charlie / Locke or Jack / Naomi / Freightors) and divisions will begin to be formed as people pick sides in the debate.

So how will the parties break up? Well, it’s pretty clear how some are going to go… and you can make some educated guesses based on storytelling 101 for some others:

Team Rescue

• Jack – obviously, he’s totally obsessed with and leading the rescue.
• Juliet – she went “all in” with Jack on his scheme to get off the Island on the sub. This will be no different.
• Sun – she is seen in the episode preview stating “I can’t believe I’m actually going to have my baby in a hospital”.
• Jin – will clearly follow Sun into the dark, just like a Death Cab song.
• Claire & Aaron – the first two to get off the Island, here’s hoping it leads to either the exit of the character of Claire from the show, or the introduction to some type of interesting storyline for her with the Freightors.
• Hurley – seen saying “when we get rescued and I go back, I’m going to be free” – also made the speech in last season’s episode “Greatest Hits” about being tired of trekking and explosions – he seems ready to take his chances to get off the Island, now curse-free… or is he?
  

Team Island

• Locke – aside from Ben, the person who would do the most to stay on the Island no matter what.
• Ben – willing to lie, cheat, kill, and deal to protect the Island.
• Sawyer – when Kate asks what he’s doing in the episode preview, he says he’s “survivin’” – which seems to indicate he believes Ben and thinks the best odds for survival are fighting the Freightors.
• Kate – the surprise, since we know she gets off the Island – but I still see her siding with Sawyer after he gives his “Survivin;” speech to her. This will also create the dramatic romantic tension between Kate / Sawyer / Jack / Juliet that the ladies (and me) love.
• Sayid – while he seems logical enough to not trust Ben, he’s also wise enough to analyze the situation before throwing all his faith behind the words of Naomi. In the preview, he’s shown tossing a Sawyer a gun, as if they’re both getting ready to defend. As a cautious skeptic, he’ll start out on Team Locke for sure.
• Rose – the Island is her ticket to being footloose and cancer-free… she stays.
• Bernard – what’s he going to do, go back to being the Principal on “Growing Pains”? Nah, he sticks by his lady on the Island, like he promised back in Season Two.
• Desmond – Charlie used his last dying moments to warn about “Not Penny’s Boat” – no way Desmond overlooks that, even though he’d do anything to get back to his precious Penny.

So as you can see, there will probably be a fairly clear division between the two teams. I do enjoy that once again we have the recurring theme of Jack vs. Locke coming back up again (what is this, the fourth time?) and there is a nice breakup of fan-favorite characters on each side. Based on Jack’s flash-forward last season (and my season one series finale predictions), joining Team Locke is probably the correct answer… but again, based on Jack’s future – it doesn’t look like it’s the side that is going to win.

But I’m getting ahead of myself – based on the lack of guest starring appearances by Freightors this episode, it probably won’t be until next week that we start to learn who is right and who is wrong… but that’s okay because there are still some quite interesting guest stars this week…

Flashes. While we always touched upon the centricity of episodes, we now must include the question of where the flashes will take place – in the past, in the future, new takes on previous on-Island action, or trippy alternate reality flashes, Desmond-style.

This week it’s pretty clear to be a Hurley-centric episode. Featured guest stars include Grisel Toledo, who played the nurse in the mental institution in the Hurley-centric “Dave” episode from Season Two. Likewise, we’ve got the return of Randy Nations, who has thus far worked as Hurley’s boss at Mr. Cluck’s Chicken Shack and Locke’s boss at Hurley’s Box Factory.



Based on these guests, it’s looking like a flashback is the most likely scenario, but it’s not without holes. For one (and I’ll get to this in more depth later), I think Hurley is an excellent candidate to get off the Island, so letting the audience know he makes it off right off the bat isn’t revealing too much. For two, the timelines of Randy and the nurse don’t really mesh – all the mental institution stuff came well before any of his Randy interactions. I think it’s much more likely that we see a flashforward situation where Hurley ends up back in the mental institution and Randy comes to visit him.

Lastly, and maybe this is just a pipe dream on my part – but unless we’re talking Libby, there really isn’t anything else in Hurley’s past that I especially care about – and without Libby being listed as a guest, I don’t think that’s where we’re going. The season premiere episodes usually have featured pretty solid off-Island storylines (Season Three probably being the weakest), and the only way I see that happening with Hurley is going the flash-forward route.


Newbies. But Hurley’s former contacts aren’t the only intriguing part of the guest stars listed for this episode. While I still think the mass arrival of the Freightors isn’t until next week, we do get at least one of them this week – Jeremy Davies as Daniel Faraday, seen in the preview telling Jack (quite eerily) that he “can’t say rescuing people is their primary objective”. Is he the scout sent before the cavalry comes next week? Or is the cavalry already there, but just scattered about the Island? There is the possibility that the other new characters “Mike Walton” and “Lewis” could also be Freightors – but I’ve got nothing to back that up.






Old Favorites. I saved the best guest stars for last. First up, I find it very interesting that Naomi is still listed, even though she was last seen face down with a knife in her back courtesy of John Locke. Is it possible she is still alive? Or, can someone earn a guest starring shout out for simply lying on the ground in the background of shots? If she is alive, here’s hoping it’s one of those “I’m dying” moments where she can only get out a few cryptic words before leaving this mortal coil – anything else would feel like the writers cheated Locke going crazy killer at the end of last season for the sake of protecting the Island, don’t you think?

We also have Michael Cudlitz, aka "Big Mike" from Ana-Lucia's flashbacks in Season Two featured. Truth be told, I didn't even remember this guy and assumed he was just another Freightor (thanks to GeZus for pointing it out on the Message Board), but this would seem to indicate that Hurley's in Los Angeles, and maybe in a run in with the cops? Maybe the future isn't so bright for Hurley after all! More evidence for the post-Island curse!



And finally we have our good friend Christian Shepherd… who, if you look closely, was actually featured in the preview clip for this episode. To me, it looks like he’s sitting in a chair that looks an awful lot like Jacob’s (and inside Jacob’s house too!), which has me thinking it’s some sort of Island image courtesy of Smokey / the Spirit of the Island. He wouldn’t really fit into a Hurley flashback (or flashforward), and we’ve gotten confirmation that he is indeed dead (and not some mastermind behind everything happening on the Island) – but this remains the biggest mystery in the episode preview to me. Why would Jack be seeing images of his father during a Hurley-centric episode? Why would Hurley be seeing images of Jack’s dad, who he didn’t even know? Neither one seems to add up. I guess this is why we watch the shows.


Preview Clip. Phew. 2800 words so far and I am just now getting to the episode preview that I promised a breakdown of over a month ago? Yikes – I’m getting wordier in my old age. Although I’ve already talked about a number of things in the preview, let’s walk through a few particulars piece by piece, because there are some potentially quite revealing things contained within:



Wow - you really should watch that once a day to get jacked up for the season premiere. I still get chills!




Wasn’t it like a day’s hike from the beach to the radio tower? Sawyer ended Season Three on the beach. Ben ended Season Three at the radio tower. How are the two suddenly face to gun like this? How much time elapses in this first episode? Did Sawyer drive Hurley’s van to the radio tower? Something seems off here.





Well, maybe I answered my earlier question – here we see Hurley peering through some broken glass (of what looks to be Jacob’s cabin) and seeing Christian Shepherd sitting inside – but again, what sense does this make? What’s the connection? Wouldn’t Hurley just think “Oh, there’s a creepy weird guy in a chair” – wasting the fact that it’s Jack’s dead dad?



What the heck are these things? Random island fruit being used for target practice? A Freightor helicopter landing and disrupting all the supplies the Survivors had so delicately stacked in a pile on the Island? No idea. Why include this in the preview? There has to be some deeper meaning here.



Patchy’s cow! It appears as though Desmond is standing in the foreground, which doesn’t make much sense since he should be headed from the ocean back to the beach with Charlie’s warning. Perhaps a later scene in the episode involves Desmond heading to rendezvous with a Freightor helicopter seen landing in the distance, which leads him past the Flame hatch?



A strange skull – maybe a polar bear? We also see an image of the Hydra station on a staff during the preview, which might indicate a trip back to Alcatraz is in order. If that was really the animal testing area, it makes sense there might be a bone yard of earlier test subjects – but again, why head out to Alcatraz? Is Team Island heading there for supplies? To hide from the Freightors? Intrigue!



Charlie. He’s alive! Heather’s Brain rejoices! Just kidding… as you can see Hurley in the foreground, this is absolutely some sort of Island image / hallucination (a la Dave) / dream of Hurley, who is the main character of this episode. Still, it’ll be good to see Charlie again since my opinion of his character has gone from “hate” to “fondly remember” after his extremely solid performances in the final two episodes of last season.



Six. That’s not one of our Lost numbers (which, as you recall, have basically disappeared from the show over the past season – ever since the Swan Hatch imploded), although it does indicate how many seasons that Lost will last. Initially, I was thinking it was some number tied to the Freightors, who are really the only “new entity” introduced to the Island, that could potentially bring some sort of numeric symbol / mojo with them, or be the name of their ship or the name of their crew…

…but then I stumbled upon a few quotes in various non-spoiler locations like TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly which (at least for me) totally gave it away. For the sake of keeping the Blog spoiler free, I won’t go into it here – but I will tell you that my original musings were waaaaaaaaay off and that it actually is a pretty big plot point, so it deserved a place in the preview clip.

Two more things to discuss…


Flashforwards. So we know that Jack and Kate make it off the Island, based on their flashforward finale of Season Three. But what about everyone else? Time to rank the odds of each character making it off the Island!

1. Jack – clearly, we already saw him off the Island all bearded and angsty.
2. Kate – ditto here, saw her all dolled up – proving once again that for a truly attractive female, makeup just ruins them.
3. Claire – if I had it my way, Claire would board a helicopter in these first two episodes, and we would never see her again. You have to assume it’s going to be women and children off the Island first, right? Well, with Aaron, Claire has got both covered. Now, this isn’t to say that she simply escapes the Island to fall into the clutches of the evil Freightors – but either way, she’s getting off the Island.
4. Sun – see rule above – pregnant women probably get preference over the non-pregnant when it comes to seats on the helicopter.
5. Jin – although it seems like Jin is a good candidate to die in some sort of Island battle, I think the better storyline is how the Island took a marriage that was falling apart and somehow made Sun and Jin fall in love and conceive a child. One of the few happy endings I’m okay with for Lost.
6. Desmond – he has to reunite with Penny, right? His selfless act in the Hatch implosion was basically the reason rescue is possible, and he did it all for a chance at love. Also, the writers have already had two perfect opportunities to kill him off, and passed on both (the hatch implosion and sacrificing himself for Charlie).
7. Hurley – as I mentioned earlier, I think Hurley is a pretty good candidate to make it off the Island. He’s a fan favorite, not really a bad guy (unlike most of his fellow Survivors), and might have finally shaken the curse of the Numbers – since they seem to have disappeared from the show. Although it would be ironic if Hurley was just as miserable post-Island as Jack, meaning he traded in once curse (the Numbers) for another (not living in paradise).
8. Juliet – I go back and forth on Juliet. She’s got the whole sister storyline to get back to on the mainland, and has been actively doing everything she can to get off the Island for the past few months. She seems smart enough to figure out a way off, and tough enough to handle herself in any battle skirmishes that might break out. Also, she didn’t do anything wrong pre-Island (putting her in the same boat as Hurley), and has done a lot of time on the Island, making her pretty deserving in the grand karmic scheme of things.

But after that, I’m not really feeling any of the other main characters making it off:

Sawyer – while there’s always the chance that he gets off the Island, marries Kate, and they have their cell-love-child baby together, he seems like a much better option to die heroically, protecting Kate. After all, the Island has allowed him to tie up all his personal loose ends in the killing of Anthony Cooper.

Sayid – he’s really got nothing waiting for him off the Island, and was all too willing to give up his life to get everyone else off the Island last season. I could see him dying to save some other Survivors, especially since with his military background, he’s going to be front and center in any potential battles.

Locke – he would rather die than leave the Island, but I actually don’t see John Locke dying. It seems that getting to the Island was Locke’s purpose in life, and now that he’s there, he’s got meaning and found happiness. With all the terrible stuff that happened to Locke pre-Island, he seems pretty deserving of a long and happy life on the Island.

Ben – unless Jack forcibly removes him from the Island as a way to punish him for his crimes, or the Others excommunicate him for his lies, Ben’s sticking with the Island. Actually, I think forcibly taking him off the Island makes for a better story (and gives us the body in the casket from the season finale) – but no part of Ben would ever voluntarily want to leave the Island.

Rose and Bernard – going off the Island might mean that Rose dies, and that’s not a chance that either of them are willing to take. They could very easily join in the Others crazy cult and live out their lives on the Island quite happily.

I think that’s it. We’ve got some minor characters left (Krazy Karl and Alex will probably get off and learn about MTV and emo music, CFL is sticking to the Island, etc.) but that should take care of the big players. Oh, except for one last guy:

Michael. So what’s his story? The easiest explanation would be that he ran into the Freightors on his way to the shipping route per Ben’s coordinates – but there are a few issues with that. Namely, it seems as though the Freightors are specifically sent to find the Island, since they have fancy equipment, a picture of Desmond and Penny, etc. It’s more likely their mission originated with the Hatch Implosion at the end of season two, and it took until now to actually arrive at the Island.

Another option is that Michael ran into the same problem as Desmond, not being able to actually get away from the Island, feeling like it’s a giant snow globe – but that would mean Walt is with him (in the present), and that’s impossible due to Walt’s aging being out of synch with the show’s timeline.

A third option is that Michael encountered another boat (not the Freightors), and being unaware of the potential rescue from the Freightors, is on his way back with some random fishing boat / merchant vessel to try and save whoever he can. This option would work because he could theoretically “send Walt back to the mainland” with another boat, but come back for the Survivors in a smaller boat / secondary boat. It would also introduce Michael as a potential hero, if our Survivors find themselves in peril after the Freightors arrive. Suddenly Michael and random boat people could serve as the Deus Ex Machina to sweep in unexpectedly and save the day.

(If you want to really get crazy – for those following the Find815 ARG – how about if Michael runs into the Christiane I and shows up on the Island with our buddy Sam Thomas? Talk about a beautiful payoff to the ARG!)

However it happened, I’m looking for Michael to have a little bit of redemption on the Island, and then eventually make his way back home with Walt – if only to have the flashforwards showing Walt older, proving that the writers were geniuses all along and knew exactly what they were doing in casting a child for a show whose timeline moves so slowly.




Start. I think that brings me to my last thought – how Season Four is actually going to start. If you remember, Season One started with Jack opening his eyes, Season Two started with Desmond opening his eyes, and Season Three started with Juliet waking up. Each season started with a new character (Jack being new to us at the time), and each season introduced a new setting that seemed totally foreign at the time. So what will Season Four bring?

Based on the trend, we’re due to have it start with a Freightor, possibly waking up on their fancy pants boat and picking up Jack’s radio message that we heard at the end of last season. At least now we know that when Lost starts and looks unlike anything we’ve ever seen on the show before, it’s not that we’re on the wrong TV channel and we start freaking out – like I did during the Season Two opening.

One last thing – here’s the schedule for this week:

Wednesday at 9:00 pm – “Through the Looking Glass” Enhanced!

What does this mean? Well, ABC is re-airing the two hour Season Three finale with bonus features included on the screen - with information about the episode scrolling on the bottom of the screen – it’s probably a good way to help remind people about where we left the storyline and explain backstory items the less obsessed among us probably forgot years ago (I’m going to guess it’s kinda like reading the commentary for the episode). Here’s the official press release:

Get ready for the Season Four premiere of "Lost" with a special presentation of the Season Three two-hour finale, "Through the Looking Glass," enhanced with on-screen facts and back story about one of the most talked about dramas on television. Whether you already watched the amazing conclusion of "Lost" last season or this is your first time viewing it, the special enhanced "Lost" catches viewers up on the story of the Oceanic 815 survivors in a way you've never experienced before. Be there for the enhanced "Lost" Season Three finale, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 30 at 9:00 p.m., ET/PT on ABC.

The enhanced version of "Lost" will include text on the lower third of the screen and will "let viewers in" on clues in the show, as well as give back story to catch new viewers up for Season Four.


Thursday at 8:00 pm – “Lost: Past, Present & Future”

Another year, another recap show – for those keeping track at home, this makes the EIGTH clip show Lost has had. That’s like a clip show once every eight episodes! Are people really that stupid, or is Lost really that hard to follow? Here’s the official ABC writeup of that as well:

ABC once again invites new and avid “Lost” viewers to take another look at one of the most talked about and critically acclaimed shows. “LOST: Past, Present & Future” will explore the series in a way that will bring new viewers up to date -- but which current viewers will also find illuminating – in anticipation of the fourth season premiere episode. The special will take an in-depth look at the mysteries of both the island and its inhabitants and recap the secrets that have been revealed, as well as those that remain unanswered. “LOST: Past, Present & Future” airs THURSDAY, JANUARY 31 (8:00-9:00 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network.

When Oceanic Flight 815 crashed on an island in the middle of the Pacific, each survivor was given a choice to live together or die alone. Thrown together in this mysterious place, they have struggled to overcome shadows from their past in order to survive and answer the questions that plague their new lives on the island. Where are they? Is rescue on its way? What else is on this island? In “LOST: Past, Present & Future,” relive their story of survival to prepare for the shocking season four premiere that will change everything.


Thursday at 9:00 pm – “The Beginning of the End”

Apparently there is a new episode of Lost airing. I guess I’ll watch it, since “Grey’s Anatomy” isn’t on….


Don’t forget to utilize the Message Board for the more in-depth comments! Here’s the official link for this post:

http://facethewoods.com/lost/index.php?board=25.0


I think that's it. If I missed anything, let me know. I still can't believe Lost is coming back. It's been so long that I'm almost waiting for something to happen to derail it, like the writers deciding they can't air it due to some clause in their contract or the power going out Thursday night preventing me from seeing it. But I really cannot wait. Fresh Lost is mere days away!

God, it’s good to be back.

Lost: Missing Pieces - "Jack Meet Ethan. Ethan? Jack." (and bonus ARG ramblings!)

Quite a bit to say to get through today, so let's jump right in...

First off, the 10th of 13 Mobisodes is finally up on ABC.com, featuring the first meeting of Jack and Ethan: http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/missingpieces/index?pn=index

Thoughts:

- Ethan producing the suitcase full of medicine helps explain how Jack always seemed to have a decent amount of medical supplies during the first season, pre-Hatch. Nice way to help add some realism to the situation after the fact. But the more intriguing thing here is that the Others clearly wanted our Survivors to survive (so it's not just a clever name) - so much so that they are giving them medical supplies. Why? Because they offered hope - fresh life in the form of new babies, and the potential to increase their ranks - something that they couldn't do on their own due to all the Other woman dying during childbirth.

- Ethan (and we can assume all the Others) love Jack from the start - because he's focused on building a stable society there, rather than just worrying about getting off the Island. He's thinking "long term", which is precisely what the Others want. Ethan even mentions that Jack is "smart" for focusing on life on the Island... too bad this is going to all go terribly awry for the Others and Jack in about two and a half seasons or seventy Island days...

- Ethan had a wife, and she died during childbirth. It helps to humanize someone who we originally (circa mid-season one) was a superhuman killing machine.



More than anything, this mobisode helps to explain why the Others didn't take out our Survivors right from the start. They watched them, they learned about them, and they had hope for what they could be. It was only later that they began to realize some of the "threat" that they posed due to their free thinking and obsession with Island escape.


On to the ARG...

The newest "game" is up at http://www.find815.com - nothing tricky, but rewarding us with two videos and some very subtle but important facts:

1. The Christiane I is NOT Naomi's boat. It's not the freighter sitting 80 miles offshore of Lost Island. When the first video opens, there's a full shot of the Christiane I - with no helicopter anywhere on it.

2. The timeline of the ARG is now approaching Christmas time (per Sam's comment), which conveniently is just about the time on the Island - all the sudden the ARG has caught up to the start of Season Four in terms of the series timeline. To me, this makes it all the more likely that there will be some sort of interaction with the current storyline on Lost, and Talbot's mission is more than just faking some wreckage (again, if we are to believe Naomi - the wreckage has already been found at current time of the ARG).

3. Talbot is working for "the syndicate", which turns out to be "The Maxwell Group", which now features the subtitle: a division of Widmore Industries". It's all coming together! East Ocean Trade Group --> The Hanso Foundation --> Widmore Industries --> The Maxwell Group? Or, maybe they're all arms of one super-powerful conglomerate that would have the power to be behind all the wacky mysteries of who faked the plane crash, who kidnapped Anthony Cooper, who's looking for the Island, and who has the money and power to fund the activity of the Others!


16 days people. Keep breathing - we're almost there...

Trippy Developments in the Lost ARG!

I'm not sure how many of you are playing along with the new Lost ARG, or how many are simply waiting for me to tell you what the end story ends up being - but there were some pretty interesting developments so far this week...

1. The introduction of Oscar Talbot. He (conveniently) has the same last name as Peter Talbot, of "The Man From Tallahassee" fame, is on the Christiane I with Sam, and seems to know a little too much about everyone and everything going on.



My early hunch was that he was clearly a member of Dharma, sent on the ship to help "cover up" the crash, or even possibly on the boat that Naomi came from, a few miles away from Lost Island!

But then The Other Brian (TOB) had an even more genius idea on the message boards (see why you should read them?) - since this Lost ARG is taking place immediately after the crash (Septemberish 2004), but Naomi arrived in current Lost time (Decemberish 2004), it's possible that the point of Talbot's expedition on the ship is to "discover" the wreckage, proving that everyone on Flight 815 died, and to get people to stop searching for it - limiting the risk of them finding the Island.

Genius. Timewise, it fits together great. It also eliminates the pesky need to actually have Sam, Talbot, etc. appear on Lost during Season Four by not actually having them on Naomi's ship.

2. Funky Time. During the most recent video of Sam on the Christiane I, he is seen messing with his radio and picking up a broadcast of Amelia Earhart... that sounds like it is from the day she disappeared - which was in 1937.

It's eerily similar to the old sounding radio broadcast that Hurley picked up on the beach during Lost Season One, and another hint that even if time is progressing at a normal speed on the Island, the weird magnetic properties of the Island may cause radio signals to bounce around forever in the area.

3. Clues. Leave it to Lost to come up with clues that return exactly zero search results except those talking about the ARG. In the latest chapter, we received a "secret code" of "423 Cheyenne Walk" and "020 7946 0893" - which seem to indicate an address and telephone number. 020 is the International Telephone Code for the greater London area, which makes me think this might be some sort of reference to Penny. But there's one other thing...

The other clue? The words "Daniel Faraday", which actually did return a search result - the actor Jeremy Davies, who will apparently be playing a character by that name during the upcoming season of Lost!



A quick review of the chill-inducing Season Four trailer shows that he was the one who said "Rescuring your people... I can't really say it's our primary objective".



Whoa!

Now I don't know that these clues necessarily indicate a link between the ARG and Season Four of Lost, or if they're just tantalizing clues towards the upcoming season without any connection to the ARG - but if they are, it sure does strengthen the "Sam is on Naomi's Boat" argument - in addition to "Penny has something to do with this boat".

The best part of it all? We're not even halfway done with this ARG. Lost will be back before we know it!

Discuss...

http://facethewoods.com/lost/index.php?topic=210.0

Lost: Missing Pieces - "Tropical Depression"

Well, with find815.com currently down, I suppose now is as good a time as any to check in on the latest Missing Piece of Lost (isn't it funny how these seem to pale in comparison to the new ARG now?)...

http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/missingpieces/index?pn=index

This week, it's more of Arzt, this time coming clean about his past. Who needs a flashback when we've got heart to hearts like this? Things we learned:

1. Arzt had no idea about "monsoon season". He was just making things up to try and expedite the launch of the raft. (Note: this is a very clever way for the writers to cover up the fact that this predicted monsoon never came.)

2. Arzt was a typical science nerd - chasing internet girls to Australia, lying about his looks, and spending his days on Lost Island catching bugs instead of putting the moves on Kate / Shannon / Sawyer.

3. Arzt felt sorry for himself. But as Michael quickly reminds him, everyone wishes they weren't on the Island, and everyone had freaky coincidences that led them there. Tough love, Arzty!

That's all for this week. I don't know about you, but I feel totally satisfied with the Arzt story at this point, and don't feel the need to see him in any future Missing Pieces. How about you?


(Fun Fact: you want to know something kinda sick? When I first went to find815.com tonight and saw the error page, I instantly assumed it was some part of the game and started scanning the page for information. This ARG stuff is getting out of hand!)

New Year, New Lost ARG!

Well, this came out of nowhere.

Yesterday, Oceanic Airlines re-opened for business (http://www.flyoceanicair.com/), promising to take me places I've only imagined in my dreams (a place where I can watch the final 48 episodes of Lost right now while sitting in a pool of Skyline Chili?)

Their website features a video that is spliced with images that say FIND815.COM, and a video of a new character in the Lost universe named Sam:



He tells us that Oceanic Airlines officially gave up their search for downed Flight 815 (even though they allegedly performed the "biggest search in history"), and declared the 324 passengers onboard as deceased. But that doesn't sit well for our boy Sammy, who was in love with Sonya, a flight attendant on Oceanic 815. Visiting http://www.find815.com brings you into his world, and starts us down the path of the next ARG (Alternate Reality Game / Distraction for the Lost Uber-Nerds of the World).

I won't give too much away here so that you can enjoy it for yourself, but the first two puzzles to solve are pretty easy (but I will mention that the trick to the first one is that you have to zoom in a LOT before it will let you click on anything in the picture - that should save you ten minutes of frustration that I encountered when starting).



But here's the really exciting part - it looks like this ARG will only be lasting five weeks... which will pretty much coincide with the start of the fourth season of Lost... and by the looks of things, my early inclination is that this ARG is going to explain who the NPBers are (Not Penny's Boaters).

Are they members of the Maxwell Group? Who is the Maxwell Group? How do I get into their website?! So many questions. A few intriguing points from the story so far...

• James Clerk Maxwell published a series of equations on magnetism back in 1861, creatively titled "Maxwell's Equations". Is it possible this Maxwell Group has been brought to the Island out of a desire to study the "unique magnetic properties" there?
• Naomi and Anthony Cooper mentioned that the wreckage from Flight 815 had actually been found, and that the bodies of all the passengers were there as well. So does that mean this ARG takes place in the days immediately after the crash (September 2004), and the wreckage is actually found sometime before Naomi / Cooper's arrivals on the Island (December 2004)? How would someone actually stumble upon this wreckage after the search party is called off?
• Where is the money and power for this conspiracy coming from? To be able to fake a plane crash (with bodies!) would require an insane amount of resources - and what would be the purpose? To protect the Island from outsiders? Would Dharma still be protecting it even after the purge? Is Oceanic Airlines now in cahoots with Dharma (agreeing to call off the search party), or just an innocent party accidentally involved?
• Sam is able to get some pretty good summary information about a lot of Survivors, and he's just some average guy. I guess we shouldn't be surprised that the Others were able to get their full life biographies, since one can assume they would have a lot more resources than Sam at their fingertips.
• Sam's room looks an awful lot like Jack's flash-forward room - full of maps and notes of the Pacific Ocean.

According to the website, the next chapter of the ARG starts up in 26 hours. Until then, discuss... and if you're going to discuss, remember that we've got a sweet Message Board setup for more in-depth discussions. I've created a post specifically for this ARG here: http://facethewoods.com/lost/index.php?topic=210.0

(Fun fact - due to the wacky proxy rules for my workplace internet, I can get to the Blog - but not the comments section, which means that any mid-day thoughts will be posted / questions addressed on the Message Board only. Another added perk to use it!)

Lost: Missing Pieces - "Buried Secrets"

http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/missingpieces/index?pn=index

Another week, another mediocre mobisode. Nothing wrong with it, but nothing exciting about it either. Just two quick notes on this one:

• There was always a bit of chemistry between Sun and Michael, but up until now the only explanation we had for it was Michael stumbling upon Sun topless. "Buried Secrets" shows that they also shared at least one other intimate moment, and maybe Jin had better reason for attacking Mikey in Season One other than the fact that he wore Sun's Father's watch.
• Seriously, can they get Vincent on a leash? I know it's just a plot device to have characters run into each other in the jungle, but how many times has Michael gone after a runaway Vincent? I think Harold Perrineau's audition for the role of Michael must have consisted of yelling "Vincent!" or "Walt!" repeatedly, since those are about 50% of his lines on the show.

...and that's it. Nothing brain-busting this week. Luckily, we have much more exciting things to discuss...

Lost: Missing Pieces - "Room 23" and "Arzt and Crafts"

Christmas Bonus! (Or, Brian is finally playing catch-up on the Lost Mobisodes!)

If you visit http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/missingpieces/index?pn=index, you'll find not one - but TWO newish mobisodes to check out. Here are my thoughts...

Room 23

Remember a few weeks ago, when I wondered if Walt truly had any sort of special power, or if it was merely the Island acting on Walt's behalf, which then appeared as though Walt was the special one? Well, with this mobisode, I think it's pretty safe to say that my musings was totally wrong, as this episode seems to prove that Walt, at the very least, has some power over birds (maybe he is the equivalent of the "Heart" guy on Captain Planet?).

"Room 23" also served to clear up a few plot points, and muddy a few more. We learned that the Others kept Walt on Alcatraz Island, rather than the main Island (so there really was NO CHANCE of Michael or any of the rest of our Survivors finding him). But more than that, they kept him in Room 23, which somewhat changes my interpretation of the purpose of the room.
Previously, we had seen Room 23 (lovingly referred by me as "The Rave Room") used as a mind-bending, brain-washing, soul-stealing room where Krazy Karl was subjected to glaring techno music and rapid-fire subliminal images about loving Jacob and not being enslaved by time and space. My assumption was that this room was used to "break people", to turn them into mindless followers of Ben / Jacob and the ways of the Others, rather than being an individual who would question the way things worked. However, we have heard that Walt was being subjected to "tests", rather than simply brainwashed into being an Other. I guess it's always possible that Walt was held in multiple rooms over the course of his time with the Others - but it's more likely that Room 23 served as a multi-purpose room for any "secret" Other activities - testing "special" children, brainwashing rebels, and hosting Other holiday functions.

On the other hand, who is to say that the ultimate purpose of the Others wasn't to transform Walt into a card carrying member of their crazy cult, just like Zack and Emma, who seemed a little to calm and content for my liking during their brief appearance in early Season Three.

At any rate, it's pretty clear that Walt's powers freaked everyone out. If the Others had previously performed tests on children to see if they were "special", then Walt was the most special of them all. This helps explain why they would actually agree to let him go even though he proved to have powers - he was almost "too special" for their liking. Too powerful, too dangerous, and too freaking weird.

On a side note, this mobisode got me thinking - are we ever going to see Walt on the Island again? Even though Michael is coming back, I think the answer here is a pretty big "no way". Instead, I think the Lost creators were actually pretty genius in dealing with the character. They knew that in casting a child, he would age much faster than he should on the Island.

Luckily, they knew that portions of the series would "flash forward" to the future eventually, which would be PERFECT for the actor - who would look exactly like he should for a child a few years in the future. Will Walt appear on the show again? Absolutely - but just in the future / present of the flash forward.




Arzt and Crafts

Well, I suppose all good things must come to an end sometime (but don't burn the day away).

After a string of absolutely fantastic Lost mobisodes, along comes "Arzt and Crafts" - which is nice, but doesn't really give us much to ponder like the past few clips. It's nice to see Arzt again, and the clip hints at some of the struggles Sun had in keeping her English-speaking away from Jin, but nothing about this clip changes our perception of anything that has happened on Lost. Arzt (and we can assume other Survivors) did question the leadership credentials of Jack, just like Sun and Jin (and we can assume other Survivors) did question the relationship between Boone and Shannon.



This one definitely felt like a deleted scene from a DVD - totally unnecessary, and totally worthy of being cut from the final product.

...and I'm back caught up! Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Chill-Inducing Lost Season Four Trailer!

Whoa.

I know I'm one behind on my "Lost: Missing Pieces", but this can't wait. You know that "Season Four Trailer" I posted below? Well it just got blown away by this new 1:46 second preview that gives us more glimpses into the new season than we could have ever hoped for.

I'll update with my thoughts and theories tonight - but I couldn't resist posting this up this morning. I've watched it about five times, and each time I get chills and keep thinking "Lost is going to end up being the greatest story that has ever been told." Maybe they're right - absence does make the heart grow fonder!



Whoa.

"The First Five Minutes" of "Cloverfield"!

I have to admit, I've been pretty excited for this movie for quite some time. For one, it's got our good friend JJ Abrams associated with it - which gives it the potential for Lost / Alias Season 1-3 Greatness. For another thing, for the longest time, it was simply an untitled movie - just referred to as 01-18-08, which is the release date (in my opinion, it would have been infinitely cooler to just release it without a title - how ballsy would that have been?!)

Sure, there's a chance that it ends up being Godzilla meets Blair Witch, and is just another lame movie about NYC getting destroyed (how about we pick on another city once in a while? Topeka, Kansas - you're next!) - but you can't deny the overall atmosphere that is created by the various clips that have leaked out through the previews. It's not like a movie - it's like you're living through the experience. With each additional clip I see, I find myself sitting on the edge of my seat, and ending feeling kinda weird - like I was somehow affected by it.

At any rate, I digress. Something that they call "the first five minutes" of the movie are now out on the Internet - which is pretty misleading because it's more like "a five minute montage of portions of the first twenty minutes of the movie" - but whatever. It will give you an idea of how awesome this movie just might be.

Enjoy!

Lost Season Four Preview!

Finally! The season four trailer that's being previewed before "The Golden Compass" has finally made its way to YouTube... and in turn, to the ol' Blog!



All sorts of puzzling shots are presented in the clip in a rapid-fire fashion to make you think "wait a minute, did I just see that?" Such as...

• Sawyer with a gun to Ben's head.
• Some sort of freaky skeleton animal head with big honkin' teeth.
• Some sort of cow-like animal standing in a field.
• The number 6 - front and center - just like what flashed in earlier previews.
• Clean-cut Charlie!

As always, chances are these small snippets are meant to be misleading - just like the average Lost preview on ABC - but it's still fun to pore over. Discuss!

Lost: Missing Pieces - "Operation: Sleeper"

Another week, another somewhat solid Lost Mobisode, albeit not as revealing as the past two weeks. Juliet's back this week, with a heart to heart with Jack in their beach love shack:

http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/missingpieces/index?pn=index

"Operation: Sleeper" fills us in on how Juliet finally revealed her true intentions to Jack, which places it during "The Brig", Lost-timeline-wise. If you remember, during the end of the episode, Juliet asks Jack if they can reveal their plan to Kate, but Jack tells her "not yet".

The most intriguing part of the Mobisode for me is that Juliet mentions that Ben was responsible for blowing up the submarine. Jack immediately calls her out on the comment, saying that Ben was in a wheelchair, and Locke actually blew it up - to which Juliet replies "did he?"

Once again, there are hints that Locke is simply a puppet completing the wishes of the Island, and at least Juliet seems to think that Ben has some link to the Island - meaning in the end, Ben was indirectly responsible for Locke's actions.

It's pretty heady, and I'm not sure that I buy it, especially given Ben's lack of seeing Jacob during the confrontation at the old shack. But the fact that Juliet still believes it just helps to explain why Ben had (the key word here being HAD) such power over the Others. They saw him as having some sort of powerful connection with the Island - and with that connection came the ability to have things always work out in his favor.

It will be interesting to see how Ben reacts to the recent loss of power in the upcoming fourth season - he truly will be an outsider to all parties. Our Survivors hate him. The Others have lost respect for him. Yet, he might be the most knowledgable person on the Island - the one most able to help get our Survivors off the Island... and the one most able to "protect" the Island from outsiders.

He's the wild card and the key... and he's still creepy as hell!

Lost: Missing Pieces - "The Deal"

Whoa - back to back weeks with great Lost mobisodes! It almost makes up for the fact that it's been seven months without a new episode of Lost... almost...

http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/missingpieces/index?pn=index

So what was great? Well, this little mobisode actually chronologically marks Juliet's Lost debut! It's also the first time we've seen Michael since he was sailing off in the finale of Season Two with Walt.

Things to ponder:

1. Juliet repeats the comments we've heard from others about Walt being "special". We've seen hints of this "special-ness" over the years, but the more I think about it, the more I'm wondering - is Walt actually special? Or is it the Island that is special, and Walt is merely a member of Team Island, similar to John Locke? As we saw in the Season Three finale, the Island seemingly took on the form of Walt... and perhaps all the times "Walt appeared where he wasn't supposed to be" were simply similar manifestations of the Island. Heck, maybe the Island likes Walt, and therefore has been responsible for the seeming "granting" of his wishes while on the Island.

If you really wanted to get crazy, you could go so far to say that the Island inspired Ben to get caught by our Survivors as part of a master scheme to get Walt off the Island!

On the other hand, it seems as though Juliet actually buys in that Walt does have some innate special power, explaining her desire for Michael to take him away from the Island as soon as possible. However, since Juliet isn't really a true Island "believer" herself, this might make sense.

2. The other item we're reminded of in "The Deal" is Juliet's "deal" with Ben concerning her sister Rachel. Although the true details of the story could be debated (since Ben is a dirty liar and can't be trusted), allegedly he cured Rachel of her cancer in exchange for Juliet staying on the Island until she solves the mystery of the barren ladies (wasn't that a Sherlock Holmes story?).



(Brian's take? Ben simply faked the medical documents claiming that Rachel had cancer. The easiest way to cure cancer is simply to pretend that they have it in the first place! Juliet was gullible for falling for it.)

3. Lastly, we have a bit of somber foreshadowing, as Juliet mentions to Michael that she would do anything to save her sister, and he should do the same for Walt. Hello killing of Ana-Lucia and Libby.

That's all for this week. Keep up the good work mobisoders (mobsters?).