"This Place is Death" Analysis!

Lots of analyzing to get to this week, so there's no time for an introspective, witty introductory paragraph. We need to get down to business!

 

Smokey. Out of nowhere Smokey made a surprise guest appearance this episode and revealed how integral he was to the CFL storyline. Remember how afraid I was that we wouldn't be able to get proper resolution to the CFL storyline due to the impending skip in time for Jin? I never imagined he could simply skip a few months into the future to give us a neat summary of the CFL Saga! This week, we learned the following details:

• Smokey killed Nadine.
• Smokey grabbed and pulled Montand into a hole in the ground (similar to what it attempted to do to Locke in Season One).
• Once underground, Montand called out to his fellow Frenchmen to come help him.
• CFL is the only one who did not follow, on Jin's insistence.
• After this incident, Robert knew that Smokey was "not a monster, but a security system for the temple".
• CFL shot and killed Lacombe and Brennan.
• Robert tried to shoot and kill CFL, but she had removed the firing PIN.
• CFL shot and killed Robert.

 

When you think about it, this pretty much wraps up the CFL storyline. Aside from seeing Alex being born and "stolen", we've seen the major events of her life on the Island. While there are still questions surrounding her experience on the Island, they are questions that can easily be answered through the experiences of other characters on Lost. Although we don't know what "The Sickness" is yet, we now know it resulted from an encounter with Smokey. We saw that CFL had no choice but to kill her French Mates - because if she didn't, they would kill her. And we can assume that because she spent the next 16 years paranoid, afraid of Smokey, and all alone on the Island, she went crazy. With less than thirty episodes of Lost yet, I would wager this is the last we see of CFL.

 

So what did we learn from her story?

 

It's curious that Smokey killed Nadine, but grabbed and dragged Montand into a cerberus vent. Initially, you would think that Smokey would have either killed them all, or killed none of them - but instead, he was selective about who lived and who died. It makes you wonder if Smokey is really the one who determines who is "worthy" and who is not - and things like "Jacob's List" are created based on Smokey scanning people and learning about them (a la Eko in Season Three). Or perhaps - Smokey's initial instinct is to "kill" anything that intrudes on his Island, and only later calms down once he has a chance to learn if they present any harm or not. Remember, Nadine's death is pretty similar to what happened to the Pilot when Flight 815 crashed on the Island. Eaten up, spit out, and left on the top of a tree. It would also help explain why Smokey has been fairly non-existent in the past few seasons, while he was almost a weekly fixture in Season One. Back then, he was still learning about our Survivors, afraid of them, weeding out those who were not "worthy" - but once that was done, he left them alone, knowing that they were either destined to be there, or wouldn't bring about harm to the Island.

 

Back in Season One, when we spent hours a day trying to figure out what exactly Smokey was (using pseudo-science), the best answer anyone could come up with was that he was a cloud of nanobots. Someone on the Blog recommended that to learn more about nanobots, we read the Michael Crichton book "Prey" (since reading is for nerds, I instead listened to the book on CD). I won't get into all the details of the story - but pieces of the cloud of nanobots had the ability to "inhabit" a person in a sort of symbiotic / parasitic relationship, where they could control their thoughts and actions. Seeing "The Sickness" this week, it was the first thing I thought of.

  

Although it's possible that Smokey dragged the members of CFL's crew underground and held an informative Q&A session about the Island, what he was, and why there was nothing to be afraid of, I think it's more likely that there is some degree of brainwashing / body-inhabiting going on. Smokey pulled Montand down, then used him to lure the other members of the crew down. Once there, Smokey "infected" them, turning them into Others / mindless zombies / soldiers for the Island / something else like that. Only CFL was "different", she since refused to go down (or couldn't fit down that hole since she was so pregnant - zing!). Could this be the same sort of "transformation" that we saw in characters like Cindy who seemed to suddenly become brainwashed Others overnight? Or is that a product of Krazy Karl's (RIP) Rave Room? Either way, it's becoming a little more clear how the Others seem to get people to be willing to die in order to protect the Island.

 

The nice thing is that this provides a pretty logical explanation to what "The Sickness" is (in CFL's eyes), and it has nothing to do with the 4-8-15-16-23-42 Injections that Ethan was giving to Claire, or cold-sweat hallucinations, or bleeding from the nose - which explains why we didn't see any of our Survivors come down with the symptoms in the three months they spent on the Island, even though CFL's crew became infected within the same period of time. It's not a product of shoddy writing and an abandoned storyline after all! In fact, this could be the explanation of what happened to Locke when he came face-to-face with Smokey in Season One, and how he gained such a deep respect and understanding of the Island. He's got a little bit of Smokey inside of him!

 

The one confusing piece to this puzzle is why Robert would be trying to kill CFL. It seems that she should have been either deemed "not worthy" - in which case, Smokey could have swooped in and killed her like Nadine - or she would have been deemed "worthy" - in which case Smokey would drag her underground to turn her into another happy member of the Others. But had she not pulled the firing pin from Robert's gun, he would have killed her. This may indicate that an encounter with Smokey might have some unintended side effects - aggression, urge to kill your love, ED, etc. I'm not sure if we'll ever get a firm answer to this last question - but on the whole, I'm pretty damn satisfied with the CFL storyline resolution we got in this episode.

  

The Temple. The other shocking reveal this week was our first glimpse at what might have been "The Temple". If you recall, over the last two seasons the Temple has been referenced a few times. Ben called it "a sanctuary and the last safe place on this Island" when the Others were hiding from Keamy and the Soldiers. If Smokey's Lair is underneath it, that makes total sense since you would have a built-in defense system there that could seriously mess up anyone that attempted to infiltrate its boundaries. This would seem to indicate that there is some type of mutual understanding / copasetic relationship between the Others and Smokey, where they would be able to go to the Temple without fear of Smokey attacking them. We know that Ben had the ability to "summon" Smokey, but up until this point it seems like the Others are just as afraid of him as anyone else (see: Juliet in Season Three). Perhaps you can chalk that up to Juliet still being an "outsider", which may also explain why she is skipping through time in the first place - as opposed to Alpert and the Others - but we really haven't seen any other Other / Smokey interactions thus far, have we?

 

If you operate under the assumption that only Others are immune from Smokey's wrath (because they are "chosen ones" in his eyes), it would explain why, when Karl asked if our Survivors could go with them to the Temple for sanctuary, Ben refused to allow it and said "it's not for them." It also must be somewhat of a top-secret place, even among the Others, since although Ben and Alpert talked freely about it - younger Others like Krazy Karl and Alex had never heard of it.

 

But for such a powerful and special place, it sure doesn't look like the Others have done a lot of upkeep on the place. It kinda looked like only two walls remained, mostly overtaken by Jungle. Maybe it's just the fact that Smokey lives underneath that makes it so special / important, rather than the building itself. Because if it looked like this in 1988, I can't imagine how shoddy it looked in 2005 when the Others went there for protection. I hope they brought their tents and supplies!

 

We should note that this could all be a gross misassumption (is that a word?) on our part, and the crumbling ruin on top of Smokey’s Lair is not “The Temple” that we have heard referenced thus far in the series. But when you factor in Ben’s assertion that it’s the safest place in the Island, it seems logical that sitting behind a wall of badass Smokey fits the bill.

 

Charlotte. Just as I didn’t expect to see Smokey or the Temple this episode, you’ll remember that even though this week’s episode was titled “This Place is Death”, I didn’t really think that Charlotte would die this week. But yet again, I was wrong (where are those people who complain I ruin episodes for them with my guesses now? I’m 0 for 3 this week so far!) But before she died, she gave us a LOT of information to digest…

• Charlotte began to demonstrate the same symptoms as Desmond and Minkowski, her mind jumping around through her life.
• She confirmed that she grew up on the Island (but doesn’t say if she was actually BORN there or not).
• She mentions the Dharma Initiative, which confirms her family was Dharma, and not Others.
• She left with her mother, who then tried to convince her that the Island didn’t really exist.
• She spent her life searching for the Island… and her father.
• Faraday visited young Charlotte and told her to leave the Island and never come back or she would die.
• Charlotte told Locke to look for a well if the Orchid doesn’t exist.
• She warns Jin “don’t bring her back. This place is death.”

 

Seriously, we learned more about Charlotte in those two minutes than we did in the prior fifteen episodes that she was in. Theories abound about who Charlotte’s parents are, ranging from Pierre Chang (no) to Ben and Annie (maybe). But let’s not forget that Charlotte left the Island with her mother, and one would assume she stayed with her mother once she returned to the “real world”. According to Ben last season (when he was trying to prove to our Survivors what a danger Charlotte was), her parents were David and Jeannette. I would think if Ben was lying about this information, Charlotte would have instantly protested as a way to prove that Ben didn’t know who she was, and that she meant no harm to them. Jeannette does not equal Annie. It’s a fun thought, but based on the facts we have right now, I’m not on board yet.

 

The good news is that we should find out who Charlotte’s parents are within a matter of episodes, since we still need to see the scene of Faraday running into young Charlotte, warning her to leave the Island and never come back – and eventually proceeding to the Orchid to explain this season’s opening scene (more on this later).

 

How did she know about the well? I’m guessing that the well existed when Charlotte was a kid on the Island – heck, maybe even she discovered it playing in the Jungle someday – and once reported back to Dharma, which kicked off the construction of the Orchid as a way to harness the power there (so I’m thinking it went rope in the ground, which led to people digging in that spot in the first place, then well, then Orchid).

 

Did the manner in which Charlotte eventually died (skipping around through her past memories) confirm that the symptoms she experienced are the same as Desmond and Minkowski? Does that mean having a Constant could save our Skipping Survivors?

 

I don’t think so.

 

The fundamental difference between Desmond/Minkowski and our Skipping Survivors is that our Skipping Survivors are actually, physically jumping around in time. Desmond/Minkowski were physically firmly existing in the present, and only their minds were jumping around in time. Even though towards the end, Charlotte started experiencing similar symptoms, I think the cause of those symptoms was the physical skips in time – and even if she had a Constant, it wouldn’t have helped. So while a Constant could stop the mind from becoming “unstuck” (which saved Desmond), it wouldn’t have stop our Survivors from skipping (which killed Charlotte) – especially since, if you remember – the Constant had to exist in the time where the mind existed as well as the time where the body existed… and have significance to the person. With as many times as the Skipping Survivors have been to, it’s safe to say that it would be IMPOSSIBLE for each of them to find someone that meets these criteria… plus, from a storytelling perspective, it’s been done.

 

The moral of the story is – I don’t think Constants have any bearing on our Skipping Survivors, even if the symptoms are similar.

 

At the end of the day, many are asking “so what was the point of Charlotte?” Initially, it doesn’t feel like her character had a lot of impact on any of the major storylines on Lost, making many question if her original purpose was lost due to the writers’ strike last season (the show’s creators did mention that she probably would have gotten more backstory last season if they had more episodes to work with). But I don’t think so.

 

I think that Charlotte’s purpose on the show was always to die.

 

Faraday. This week, I started thinking about what the “big bad” of this season was going to end up being. In the first season, we had the impending danger of the Others coming – which drove the suspense and action of the storyline leading up to the season finale. In the second season, we had the Swan Hatch and Michael’s treachery. In the third season, we had the Looking Glass and contacting Naomi’s people. In the fourth season, we had the Freightors. But the more I think about the fifth season, the harder it is pinpoint what the “danger” is going to be that builds up towards the finale. It seems like the skipping in time has to be resolved fairly soon – or else all our Survivors are going to die like Charlotte. Likewise, it seems like the Oceanic Six (at least some of them) are going to be back on the Island within an episode or two as well. So what’s going to be the storyline that drives the second half of this season?

 

Faraday.

 

What if Charlotte’s death sets Daniel Faraday off the deep end? He becomes desperate and obsessed with finding a way to save her. This would explain why he would visit her as a youth and attempt to change the future – even though he knows it is not possible… unless of course, it is possible. We all seem to accept that Desmond has the ability to change the future thanks to his exposure to the “unique magnetic properties” of the Island. Well, why couldn’t Faraday similarly expose himself to similar powers to make himself just as special as Desmond?

 

What if that scene of Faraday that kicked off the season was the start of him attempting to expose himself to the high levels of “unique magnetic properties” on the Island so that he would gain the same abilities as Desmond, allowing him to somehow save Charlotte? Although I just rationalized that none of our Skipping Survivors need Constants, last year we saw that Faraday had written down “if anything goes wrong, Desmond will be my Constant”, which seems to indicate that he will be in the same boat as Desmond at some point in time. If Desmond got his powers by imploding the Swan Hatch, why couldn’t Faraday gain his powers by imploding the Orchid Station – which might be what he was about to do in the scene that opened Season Five.

 

How is this going to drive the storyline? Well, as I’ve mentioned before (but up to this point I was always applying the theory to Desmond), changing the past might accidentally bring about the destruction of the world, the shattering of the space-time continuum, and the end of existence as we know it. Faraday is thinking that he is saving the girl he loves, but in reality, he’s risking bringing about the end of the world. Remember that whatever happened, happened. If Faraday is able to make that no longer be true, it’s going to be bad news for everyone. That sets up a second half of the season where our reunited Survivors have a new mission – stopping Faraday from ending existence (in addition to figuring out the mysteries of the Island, tangling with the Others, etc).

 

We’ve always had good vs. evil, light vs. dark on Lost. Under this scenario, we could have Desmond vs. Faraday – both able to change time, one who is attempting to do it, one who is working to stop it. I think it could work – and it would help explain why it is so critical that the Oceanic Six return to the Island… they have to stop Faraday at all costs.

 

Yeah – it’s a wacky theory, but I think it works in many ways. Let’s remember that as this episode ended, Faraday was all on his own with Dead Charlotte. There’s no one there to talk reason with him. He could easily come up with this insane theory in his head and have no one normal there to tell him how crazy it is. Of course, for any of this to happen, our Survivors would have to be in the past, which brings up another big question from the episode.

 

Time. Since when Ben turned the FDW, it was accompanied by a bright light that skipped all our Survivors in time (and space?), it’s reasonable to think that when Locke righted the FDW and it was accompanied by a bright light, it would have skipped all our Survivors again. The question is – with the FDW now back on its axis, does the skipping stop? I think there are two possibilities:

 

1. The Skipping Stops. In this scenario, our Survivors are “stuck” in 1980 or earlier. Why this timeframe? Because we know that at some point, Faraday is inside the Orchid while it is being built, and visits a young Charlotte on the Island. This isn’t to say that the Survivors couldn’t be all the way back in the 1800’s or earlier, but eventually, they will have to exist in the timeline that we saw in the opening scene of the season.

 

This raises the question – would they continue to age, or would they stay the same age until they “catch up” to their proper time? If they do not age, we might have an explanation for why Alpert doesn’t age – because he’s from some future timeline and just got sent way back in the past when someone turned the FDW. It also would allow our Survivors to live a full life on the Island (or more) waiting for 2005 to come, when they would start aging again.

 

If this were true, in order to survive on the Island, I think our Survivors would have to become Others or Dharma (once Dharma arrives) – which could be a cool way for the audience to learn more about these groups. But this theory also has some holes – like what happens in 2004 when Oceanic Flight 815 crashes? They couldn’t just rejoin the Survivors yet, but also couldn’t risk running into them. So would they be sequestered off somewhere to wait from 2004 until 2005, when the Oceanic Six leave? Also, if this were the case, wouldn’t the Others raise some questions when they see characters like Sawyer, Jin, and Juliet on the Island – like “wait a minute, you look just like these other people who have been here for years and mysteriously never aged!”

 

Basically, this is the “fun but complicated” theory – like that hot girl full of wacky emotional issues and baggage. Then there is the other option:

 

2. The Skipping Continues. If the skipping continues, then our Survivors are still in big time trouble. Eventually, they are all going to suffer the same fate as Charlotte unless someone can figure out how to make it stop – and if Locke “fixing” the FDW didn’t do it, then I’m guessing nothing on the Island can actually make it stop, and we’re somehow relying on the Oceanic Six to return and make everything better (logically, how this would help, I have no idea!)

 

But under this scenario, it offers a simple conclusion to the open storylines. At some point, Faraday is in 1980, talks to Charlotte, visits the Orchid, etc. Later, our Survivors skip to 2008, which happens to coincide with when the Oceanic Six return to the Island, the skipping stops, and everyone is happy.

 

It works – but definitely isn’t as sexy as the first option, in my mind. It’s a good option to take home to mom and marry, but not as much fun.

 

Wrap-Up Thoughts. Okay, once again I’ve rambled on far too long and still have a number of things to mention, so we’ll do it quick and dirty:

• Huge irony that Jin gave the ring to Locke as a way to prove that he was dead, but Ben turns it around and uses it to prove that he is alive. Jin is going to be pissed at Benjamin Linus when he returns to the Island.
• We’ve now had Ghost Claire tell Kate “don’t bring him back”, and Creepy Charlotte tell Jin “don’t bring her back.” We all assume the first one meant Aaron, so should we assume that the second one means Ji-Yeon? Or Sun? What is going to happen if they come back to the Island?
• Christian Shephard definitely appears to be the “new Jacob” for Locke. Since he came to the Island dead and became the spiritual advisor for the leader of the Others, does that mean that Locke will come back to the Island dead and become the spiritual advisor for the new leader of the Others (Walt / Aaron / Jack / Ben)?

• I’ve posed this question before – but did Ben intentionally break the FDW when he turned it? Is this just another example of him outsmarting Locke and finding a way for him to “need” to come back to the Island (bringing the Oceanic Six)? You could argue that he talked Locke into turning the FDW for him, possibly because he knew what the results would be. He went from being a leader on the outs to being a leader who could save the Island by bringing the Oceanic Six back. But how could he possibly know what was going to happen?
• When Ben blew up on Jack and Sun in the van, he mentioned “how much he’s done to protect them and their friends”. Have they really been in danger all this time, with Ben (and Sayid) working behind the scenes to protect them? Or is this an example of Ben saying the right thing at the right time to gain sympathy and ensure he doesn’t get killed? Hopefully we’ll learn more about this in the next few episodes as we learn what happened when Locke left the Island.
• At the end of “The Lie”, Ms. Hawking (who is now confirmed to be Faraday’s Mom) said that if Ben couldn’t bring all the members of the Oceanic Six back within 70 hours, then “God help us all”. This week, Ben tells her that Jack and Sun are the best he could do, and she says “all right, let’s get started.” Huh? How could something go from “we need everyone or God help us all” to “Eh, two out of six ain’t bad. Let’s do it.” I’m guessing there are going to be repercussions if not all the members of the Oceanic Six are included (like people will die or things get more complicated). We also still don’t know how Desmond fits into all this – even though I would argue he’s the most important person to go back to the Island so that we can have the battle of “Specials” that can change the past.
• Oh – and for everyone complaining about Desmond not freaking out and recognizing Ms. Hawking as the person from “Flashes Before Your Eyes”, give it time. I would expect that recognition to come early in next week’s episode. He only saw Ms. Hawking in the last minute of the episode, so there wasn’t a ton of time for him to freak out… but I would expect it’s on the way!

 

Okay – enough about me, what about you? Let’s discuss.

Go!

 

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"This Place is Death" Instant Reactions!

Brian's Three Word Review: Full Speed Ahead.

Wow. In what may be my favorite episode of this season (so far), we got a LOT of information - but better than that, it seems like someone put their foot on the throttle in terms of the storytelling. Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would get a Cliff's Notes version of CFL's story, Locke finding and turning the FDW, Charlotte dying, and Desmond and members of the Oceanic Six reuniting at Ms. Hawking's church... ALL IN THE SAME EPISODE. I loved it. No parts of the story dragged (like last week), and there were a number of scenes that had me grinning ear to ear (although some of this is due to the University of Dayton's HUGE win over the hated Xavier Musketeers tonight - Go Flyers!). Here is what we need to discuss:

• Charlotte is dead. This just goes to show, you don't need a flashback or character-centric episode to get the full story of a character on Lost. All it takes is a two-minute dialogue from the character that explains everything they know. No secrets held back, no double meanings, no mysterious phrases. Just the facts. If every character on the show would do this, you could wrap up Lost in about three episodes. So what did we learn?
• Charlotte did "grow up" on the Island. At some point, Faraday is going to skip back to her childhood and warn her to leave the Island and never come back... but we all know she doesn't listen to him. Heck, maybe Faraday also told her mother about this, which is why she lied and told Charlotte she just imagined that the Island existed. I'm guessing this is the going to take place during the skip that we saw to start the season - with Faraday undercover inside the Orchid... but is the skipping going to continue?
• With Locke turning the FDW - or, more accurately, putting it back on its axis - will that stop the skipping? Will there be one final skip? It's a tricky situation, because when we last saw our Skipping Suvivors, they were somewhere pre-1980, since the Orchid station didn't exist. If this is the last skip, they would be able to wait for Dharma to come to the Island, and we could see Faraday meet young Charlotte and complete the "prophecy" of Charlotte.
• But the problem is, this would mean they are about 25 years too early to meet back up with the Oceanic Six. Will they spend 25 years on the Island, waiting to catch up to their proper timeline? If so, I'm guessing they won't age during this time. Or, will there still be skipping? If so, our Skipping Survivors aren't really safe yet - which would actually make some sense since Faraday said his mother would be able to save them... not Locke putting the FDW back on its axis.
• The TEMPLE! Wow - I did not see that coming. Apparently, it's the "lair" for Smokey, which makes it interesting that this is the place Ben told his people to go as "the last safe place on the Island". Although, if Smokey is standing guard there, maybe it makes sense, as long as you agree with his way of thinking...
• SMOKEY! Wow - so I guess CFL wasn't lying at all. Although her lack of recognition of Jin in Seaosns 1-4 seems even crazier now, it looks like her people did get a "Sickness", which is a brainwash to seemingly become a card-carrying Other. After their encounter with Smokey, The Frenchies knew precisely what he was, were totally calm about it... and totally trying to kill CFL since she didn't have the same beliefs. Remember Krazy Karl's Rave Room and how seemingly brainwashed Cindy seemed to be? Maybe this is how it all ties together. Maybe Smokey possesses them, maybe he just drags them into a room where they get brainwashed, but he gets them to become card carrying members of his cult. Very interesting stuff.
• Christian Shephard. I love, love, LOVED that he says "say hello to my son" and Locke replies "who's your son?" We forget, but a lot of the characters on Lost don't understand the connections that we as an audience know. Ladies and gentlemen, start the debate about if Christian Shephard is the new Jacob (a ghost-like being) or the reincarnated body of Christian Shephard himself. I'm leaning towards the former (since he couldn't help Locke get up), but I think both are on the table right now.

Okay, I think those are the major points. Let's discuss!

http://facethewoods.com/lost/index.php?topic=383.0

Lost - "This Place is Death"

Episode Title: “This Place Is Death”

 

Brian’s Deeper Meaning Guess: Welcome to the most depressing, creepy episode title of Lost ever (although "The Glass Ballerina" is a close second). But what does it mean? Pop quiz time! Who remembers the episode preview that aired immediately after the season premiere a few weeks back?

 

 

It turns out, for the second time this season, we have already seen a character uttering the episode title in a preview for the episode (the first being “Because You Left”). In this case, we have a seriously creepy, almost demonically possessed looking Charlotte uttering “this place is death!” Note that she isn't gushing blood from the nose when she says this, but instead looks like a zombie. Is this the second stage of the Nosebleed sickness? Is this some "dream sequence" that Faraday has, similar to Locke's encounter with Horace Goodspeed last season? Tough to say, but odds are it's going to be pretty creepy, and give me nightmares for days to come.

 

It seems pretty obvious that the "place" she is referring to is the Island - which is pretty ironic since thus far in the series, the Island has seemed to represent LIFE.

 

From Richard Alpert (who seemingly has eternal life) to our Survivors becoming more "healthy" once they crashed there (Locke gaining the ability to walk, Rose being cured of cancer, Jin being able to make babies, etc), it's often seemed that Locke was correct in saying "This Island is a place where miracles happen." But we've also seen the so-called “Island Spirit” deciding when people live or die. It wouldn't let Michael die in a car crash, but would allow him to die in the Freighter explosion. Conversely, it seems to have found a way for Jin to survive the same explosion. This might tie back to the overall question of how the Island determines who is "worthy" (those who made Jacob's list) vs. those who are deemed "outsiders" that need to die. It makes you wonder if the Nosebleeds could also be tied to this concept. Although Faraday's current theory is that it's all tied to the amount of time spent on the Island, which is why it's affecting Charlotte, Miles, and Juliet - what if the Island is just slowly killing the people who aren't supposed to be there, while those who are destined to be there (our Survivors) are simply annoyingly skipping around in time?

 

It's possible, but I tend to think this episode title is a little more direct. While I hope that someday we do get a better explanation about what makes someone "worthy", which would explain what makes the Island "death" for one, but "life" for another, I'm thinking this week's episode title seems to be directly tied to the skipping in time. That's the current "problem" on the Island, and the one that is putting lives in danger. It also seems that this is the storyline that the Skipping Survivors are attempting to resolve this week by visiting the Orchid. Unless they are successful, it will turn the Island from a place of "life" for them to a place of "death".

 

The title also makes me wonder if this week finally brings about an actual death due to the skipping, with the most likely candidate being Charlotte.

 

She's probably the most expendable character out of the three currently suffering from Nosebleeds (we need Miles to explain the weird ghost stuff on the Island, we need Juliet for the "love rhombus" with Sawyer, Jack, and Kate) - and even though we've never learned her backstory, it seems like we could get a pretty quick resolution to it through a scene or two once our Skipping Survivors end up in the 1970's - which I assume is coming, based on Faraday being there when the Orchid was being constructed. In my mind, Charlotte's death can serve a lot of function - lighting a fire under Faraday to start taking some serious action instead of giving wishy-washy answers whenever someone asks about what is happening. Heck, the audience could even get a touching scene of Faraday running into a child Charlotte to put a poignant "bow" on their storyline together.

 

It’s just a thought. In the end, I don't think Charlotte dies this week simply because her character hasn't seemed to serve a lot of purpose yet, and she provides an easy way to get an eventual flashback that shows what happened twenty or thirty years ago on the Island. But it would be the ultimate irony if she spent her entire life searching for the Island, viewing it as a paradise that would give her life peace… only to arrive and have it end up killing her.

 

That’s a way easier deeper meaning than last week!

 

Episode Description: Locke takes on the burden to stop the island's increasingly violent shifts through time. Meanwhile, Ben hits a roadblock in his attempt to reunite the Oceanic 6 and bring them back to the island.

 

Guest Stars: Rebecca Mader as Charlotte Lewis, John Terry as Christian Shephard, Fionnula Flanagan as Eloise Hawking, William Blanchett as Aaron, June Kyoko Lu as Mrs. Paik, Melissa Farman as young Frenchwoman, Guillaume Dabinpons as Frenchman #1, Marc Menard as Frenchman #2, Bruno Bruni as Frenchman #3 and Jaymie Kim as Ji Yeon.

 

Guest Star Breakdown: Now we're talking. One of my criticisms of last week's episode was that the Off-Island storyline just wasn't as strong as the On-Island storyline - but with the inclusion of Ms. Hawking this week, I'm already more excited for the Oceanic Six stuff! The real question is if she will appear as part of Ben's storyline (telling him how to get back to the Island), or part of Desmond's storyline (how to "save" the Skipping Survivors) - or both! Either way, she seems to be a character capable of providing the audience with some information about what is happening on the Island and why – which is exactly the sort of information that everyone is waiting for.  

 

We also have the Non-Crazy French People, continuing their storyline with Jin. As I mentioned last time, I’m hoping they’re around as long as possible to try and get as much information from our time with them about the Sickness, to try and see if it’s legit, or just some crazy lie that CFL made up. By the looks of this scene from the episode preview, it seems that we can already prove that she was lying about never coming in contact with the Others, only “hearing them whisper”, unless someone else is trying to blow them up in the Jungle (I suppose it could also be leftover traps from the US Military in 1954).

 

This episode will also mark the first appearance of a three year old Ji-Yeon. Does this mean Sun is going to drag her along with to the Island? If Ben is telling the truth, and once they get back to the Island they will never come back, you would think that Sun would drag Ji-Yeon along to complete the happy family with Jin back on the Island. But I think Ji-Yeon is exempt from those that need to return to the Island since she has never set foot there... and therefore might not even be invited to tag along. We’ve already got Aaron and Walt (who needs to come back at some point this season, right?) as potentially supernatural, “chosen ones”. I think adding a third child to the mix seems a little “Lost: The New Class” for me. Instead, here’s hoping that we simply get a scene of Sun talking to Ji-Yeon and Mrs. Paik (watching her while Sun is away), explaining why she is going to be gone for a little longer than planned… long enough to take a quick trip to the Island to retrieve her husband.

 

Lastly, there’s Christian Shephard. Although it’s possible he appears as an image to Jack, as we saw last season, I think it’s more likely he makes a reappearance on the Island to Locke…  

 

Episode Breakdown: The episode preview indicates that Locke (not Faraday) takes it upon himself to stop the Island’s deadly skipping. I’m guessing he receives a visit from Christian Shephard who gives him the long-awaited details of exactly what he needs to do and how he needs to do it, explaining how to turn the FDW and why he needs to die in order to get the Oceanic Six back to the Island.

 

With this in mind, the episode preview also seems to feature Locke being lowered down a well (with a FDWish blue glow at the bottom). But at the end of last week’s episode, our Skipping Survivors were in 1988 – many years after the Orchid Station was constructed (and we know it was still around in 2004). It seems like we’re due for another skip this week before the episode ends, and that means we’re not going to get as much time with CFL as we were hoping for. This would mean we’re going farther back than we’ve seen thus far (pre-1970’s!) which could be pretty exciting. If the tradition holds that each skip coincides with a time that “outsiders” came to the Island, this could mean we’re going to see something awesome like the Black Rock arrive on the Island! I’m also curious to see if the FDW was always there, or if originally there was just a well that dropped off into a blue nothingness… and Locke will simply “fall” into it and end up off the Island without any FDW involvement. Or has the FDW always been there, and Locke will land in front of it, knowing what to do thanks to information received from Christian? Either way, exciting stuff!

 

The second sentence of the sparse episode preview indicates that Ben hits a roadblock in his attempt to reunite the Oceanic Six. We’ve already had the roadblocks of Hurley being arrested and Sayid almost being killed – so what’s next? Based on how last week ended, the biggest obstacle right now appears to be Sun, who has Aaron, a gun, and a wicked score to settle with the Oceanic Six. Or it might be Kate, who seemingly flat out refuses to go along with anything that Ben says. But really, there are hundreds of potential obstacles for Ben in his question to return to the Island. The odds are stacked against them and the clock is ticking.

 

At the end of “The Lie”, an unconscious Sayid was placed under the care of Jack and Hurley was arrested. The next morning, Ms. Hawking told Ben that he had 70 hours. Last week, Jack told Sayid that he was out for 42 hours after being hit with the tranquilizer darts. That means we have roughly one day until the Oceanic Six need to leave to reach the Island at the precise moment. With so little time left, whatever obstacle that Ben faces must be pretty short-lived. If I was a betting man, I’d say we have a maximum of two episodes left until everyone reunites on the Island… and I can’t wait.

 

Short and sweet this week!

 

Happy Losting!

 

http://facethewoods.com/lost/index.php?topic=381.0

"The Little Prince" Analysis!

After some pretty brain-intensive weeks of analyses to kick off this season of Lost, this week looks to be a welcome respite. There's still plenty to analyze, but the subject matters are a lot more straight-forward than some of the uber-heady concepts we've been dealing with thus far (like time travel, destiny, string theories vs. infinite loops, and chicken vs. the egg discussions) - which honestly, is a little refreshing. My brain could use a little break so I can get back to killing it with beer without having huge negative repercussions for the Blog. Let's do it!

  

 

November 1, 2004. The episode started with our Skipping Survivors visiting a period of time that we have already seen once - November 1st, 2004. We saw from a distance Locke banging on the Swan Hatch (which definitely gave me chills to see and hear again, as it's one of the most powerful single scenes that Lost has ever produced), and Sawyer stumbling upon Kate helping Claire give birth to Aaron… before quickly skipping to the next time period jump. The question is - was this a missed opportunity from a storyline perspective by not giving our Skipping Survivors the chance to interact with themselves? Or was this intentional, since any of these types of interactions would open a whole new can of worms and ridiculous theories on the Internet that the Lost writers didn't want to deal with? I suppose there is always the chance that our Survivors will skip back to the Fall of 2004 again - giving them the chance to run into themselves or learn previously unknown secrets about their fellow Survivors, but something tells me that the writers understood that time travel is a tricky concept to deal with, especially on a show like Lost where people are going to over-analyze everything and look for definitive, pseudo-scientific answers. So while the inner-Lost-geek inside of all of us would have loved to see that 2005 Locke was actually pretending to be 2004 Locke when he gave some cryptic speech to the Survivors, proving that the writers of Lost have been planning this exact storyline all along… maybe it's for the better that we only got a taste, since it keeps the repercussions and confusions to a minimum. With everything else we have going on, maybe it's all for the best.

 

(The one curious thing I'll note about the brief time spent on November 1, 2004 is that Locke seemed to know that he needed to stay away from himself. Later, he kept questioning Sawyer about who he saw - maybe afraid that he had run into himself? Did Locke know that it was a cosmic no-no to run into yourself because he saw Back to the Future back in the day? Or was the Island somehow "telling" him that it would be a bad idea subconsciously? Or was it just to make things convenient and avoid the can of worms referenced above?)

  

 

Sometime After January 2005. At any rate, before we knew it our Survivors had skipped to a new time period - but when? Based on their camp being somewhat run-down it had to be after January 2005 when the skipping started. I think the biggest clue is the inclusion of the Outriggers with the Ajira Airways water bottle. For those who don’t remember, Ajira Airways first briefly appeared in some of the Lost off-season videos that popped up on the Internet, and even has its own website: http:www.ajiraairways.com/ - it seemed like it would be involved with the failed Lost ARG over the summer, but quickly died when budgetary reasons ended the ARG in the fall. Most people (myself included) theorized that Ajira Airways would be the new Oceanic Airlines - it would be the vessel responsible for bringing the Oceanic Six back to the Island. If this is true, then I think the best guess is that this skip took place in 2008, close to "present time" for the Oceanic Six.

 

As a lot of people have mentioned, odds are we are going to eventually see the Outrigger chase scene from the perspective of the mysterious people in the back boat, since it seems like the most logical way to reveal to the audience who they were and why they were shooting on our Survivors. The thing is, unless our Skipping Survivors skip back to the exact same time period and place, we could never see that scene from their perspective again. Instead, the only way we'd see it is from the perspective of some other characters. Since we have yet to spend any substantial time with the Others (keep in mind the two we know the best - Ben and Juliet - are neither "true Others", but post-Dharma residents on the Island), it seems unlikely that we would have the storyline shift to their perspective in the foreseeable future. That only leaves Oceanic Six - or some other new characters introduced through their storyline - as the only possible options to get the audience back to that scene again. Since the Oceanic Six are not skipping through time (at least not yet), I'm guessing it puts this scene at 2008 or later.

 

Backriggers. So who are those shady people in the back Outrigger (which I will term "Backriggers" from here on out)? And why were they shooting at our Skipping Survivors? As I rambled in my Instant Reactions, thanks to the potential for time jumps on Lost, it literally could be anyone. Let's weigh the options, one at a time:

 

1. It's the Skipping Survivors themselves. I don't know why, but some people seem to be huge fans of this theory, since initially it appears to be the biggest "shock" reveal imaginable. They reason that at some point, our Survivors will skip back to the beach just a few moments later in time than when they were originally there and see themselves leaving on the Outrigger. For some unknown reason, they chase after themselves and shoot after themselves, even though they should know that they can't change the past, won't catch them, all their bullets will miss, and it will result in Juliet shooting one of them before they quickly jump to the next time period.

 

See why it doesn't make any sense?

 

2. It's the Oceanic Six. Again, this has a similar feeling of providing a big "shock reveal" but is a bit more logical than the first option. Here, we could argue that the Oceanic Six land on Alcatraz (in a Ajira Airways plane), and then take the Outriggers over to the main Island. While searching for the Skipping Survivors in the jungle, they realize someone is taking one of the Outriggers. They must not think it is our Survivors (or else why shoot at them instead of yelling out to them?) and chase after them. Maybe Widmore has followed the Oceanic Six to the Island they think it's him or his men taking the Outrigger to do something evil. The story has some logic behind it while keeping the same shocking impact of having Juliet shoot (and possibly kill) one of the Oceanic Six without even realizing it.

 

It's the best of both worlds.

 

3. It's someone totally different. This could be the Others, Widmore's Men, or some new group of rogue Ajira Airways employees who stumble upon the Island. The only real "truth" is that at some point this group of people picked up an Ajira Airways water bottle. I would also argue that they actually came from a larger vessel that is nearby (such as a plane sitting on Alcatraz or a boat sitting off-shore), since there is no way those two little Outriggers could make such a long journey on their own. It would be easy to come up with some type of storyline for them, but it lacks a lot of emotional punch. Bad guys shooting at our Survivors? That's to be expected. Juliet shooting and killing one of them? No big deal.

 

So it's possible, but it's not that much fun.

 

But because I'm crazy, I'm going to throw out a fourth theory that is probably a stretch, but it came to mind, so I'll write it down...

 

4. It's the Oceanic Six, and they know exactly what they are doing. The difference here is that the Oceanic Six realize it is the Skipping Survivors that have taken the Outrigger… and they are shooting at them anyways. In this scenario, it would mean that our Skipping Survivors screwed up something big time between 2005 and 2008, and they are attempting to stop them from doing so. But they should know that this is a futile effort, since you can't change the past, right? Maybe not. Not if they have "The Wild Card" with them - Desmond. Although they haven't really specifically told us how Desmond is "special", we've already seen that he has the ability to have his past consciousness relay information to his current consciousness. In my mind, that's already one way of changing the past - who is to say that he wouldn't also be able to literally change the future by changing the past? Although Locke couldn't shoot Widmore when he was running away, maybe Desmond would be able to shoot our Skipping Survivors since he is special. This would introduce an impossible situation where Desmond was forced to shoot and kill one of his former friends (my vote would be he was aiming for Locke), but he struggles with a head vs. heart situation where he knows he needs to do it to save the world, but can't bring himself to actually do it… thus, the bullets would all be missing. Just to add some additional emotional drama on the situation, Juliet turns around and fires a bullet on the Backriggers, not knowing who they are - and hits / kills Penny Widmore, who is along for the ride.

 

  

Like I said, probably a little too insane of a scenario - but it's a way that everything could unfold in a very shocking way.

 

Jin. Speaking of shocking, this week confirmed that Jin is actually alive and well, and apparently has unknowingly been skipping around in time on a piece of Freighter debris for the past few days. Before we discuss, I thought I'd go back and review my analysis from last season's finale… which still seems pretty much spot-on. So rather than re-invent the wheel, I'm going to copy and paste it and then we can discuss:

 

Immediately after the episode, I was pretty certain that Jin also died this episode – all the foreshadowing was there for a tragic death (forgiving Sun for cheating on him, being a “hero” by staying with Michael until the last minute, promising Sun he would get her off the Island, narrowly missing rescue)… but without getting firm visual evidence, the writers seemed to leave the door cracked slightly open – leaving the slim possibility for Jin to have survived, no matter how improbable.

 

First, the obvious reasons why Jin died - he was last seen on the deck of the Freighter right before it exploded and the shots of the explosion and aftermath didn’t feature a visible Jin. Given the rushed filming and finishing of the season finale, we could chalk this up to quick and dirty CGI – but the writers were also careful to include the scene of Jack and Sayid scouring the water from the helicopter looking for Jin (and other survivors) of the explosion only to conclude that there were none. If Jin isn’t really dead, the writers definitely wanted us to think he was.

 

The second logical explanation? When the Island “moved”, the nearest vessel to it was Faraday’s Zodiac Raft. (Keep in mind that there were at least a few minutes between the Freighter exploding and the Island disappearing. Since the explosion of the Freighter was visible on the Island, Faraday surely would have seen it on the Zodiac Raft, and likely would have turned around and headed back towards the Island. Given the quick trip back and forth, it’s logical to think he was pretty close to the Island when it “moved”.) The helicopter was somewhere between the Freighter wreckage and the Island, and assuming that Jin was somehow alive, he would have been floating closer to the Freighter wreckage than the Island.

 

So a best-case scenario for proximity to the Island would be Wreckage --> Jin --> Helicopter --> Zodiac Raft --> Island. Since the raft seemed to be “sucked in” with the move (since Frank’s Helicopter didn’t see it after the Island disappeared, and the Oceanic Six didn’t stumble upon it while floating in the ocean before being picked up by Penny), but the helicopter didn’t, logic would tell you that the chopper was outside the “suck radius”. Since Jin was even farther away from the Island than the helicopter, he would be way outside this radius, ensuring he wouldn’t be sucked in with it. Even if he survived the blast, but didn’t get sucked in, he would be left floating in the water for days without food / water / toilet. Given that Penny’s Searcher came upon the Oceanic Six, but not Jin – even if he had survived the blast, he sure didn’t get rescued.

  

On the other hand, there is only one argument you can make for Jin being alive. Since we don’t know much about the science behind the suck, you could argue that the suck encompassed a much larger area of the water around the Island, but none of the sky around it. This would allow it to suck in everything from nearby the Freighter wreckage (including Jin’s mangled body), but not the helicopter. Given the “healing power” of the Island, Jin could have somehow awoken in the water and swam to the shore perfectly fine, unsure how he survived the blast in the first place. It’s a stretch – but so is the fact that our Survivors all lived through a plane crash on the Island in the first place without so much as a scratch. If the Island doesn’t want you to die, you just don’t die – and maybe with all Jin’s heroics, it deemed he was worth saving.

In the end, Jin’s fate all comes down to what you think is the better storyline going forward – because based on his fate, Sun’s storyline (and the storyline of Widmore and Ben racing to find the Island) goes in two very different directions.

 

First, let’s assume Jin is dead (the logical choice!). This would give deeper meaning to Sun’s mourning at the tombstone and angry confrontation with her father – she blames him (along with Jack or Ben, most likely) for Jin’s death, and she is more than pissed about it. This would mean her encounter with Widmore where she talks about “mutual interests” indicates that she’s decided to side with him in the “race for the Island”, since she now hates Team BenJack.

 

Sun joining forces with Widmore and becoming a possible “bad guy” (depending on your point of view) would be a great twist for her – and would further the character development we’ve seen from Sun over the years. She’s gone from a meek submissive woman (a “glass ballerina”) to a bitch-slapping, hostile takeover-ing, strong-minded woman who gets what she wants no matter what the cost. If she wanted Team BenJack to pay for what happened to her Jin, the best way to punish them would be to deny them the one thing that they want the most… returning to the Island.

 

On the other side, if Jin is somehow magically alive and on the Island, the story takes a totally different twist. It would instead feature John Locke (aka Jeremy Bentham) visiting Sun post-Island, informing her that Jin actually survived the explosion and ended up “moving” with the Island, where he is alive and well… but dealing with the “very bad things” happening there. Once she finds out, she becomes determined to find the Island – and since she is unaware that Ben is alive and off the Island, goes after the only person that she thinks could help her – Charles Widmore. After all, he’s the one that found it once, why wouldn’t he be able to work the same magic and find it again? From here, the story could get very interesting as Team BenJack confront Sun to try and convince her to work with them to find the Island, even though she hates them with every fiber of her being. Sun could then totally go Alias on us and secretly double-cross Widmore to get information out of him while secretly relaying it to Team BenJack. In this scenario, Sun becomes the “hero” and could end up being the key to finding the Island… and gets a sappy reunion with Jin.

  

So with two pretty solid storylines available, which way will the writers go?

 

For me, the first scenario is far more intriguing, and actually sets up some “sides” and conflicting interests / moral ambiguities in the search for the Island, rather than it being “Team Widmore vs. Team BenJack” in a more traditional battle of “Good vs. Evil”. Although the second scenario would allow for the tearful reunion of Sun and Jin (who admittedly didn’t get a very fitting death given his character’s importance to the show), and provide the motivation for Sun to join Team BenJack’s mission to return to the Island, I still prefer Scenario One (sorry Jin lovers). Then again, I’m also the guy who thought Ben was going to be the one in the coffin since the end of last season, and we all saw how right I ended up being about that one…

  

 

Re-reading it, I think most of it still holds up pretty well, except for now we have even more evidence. Yes, it's possible that the suck radius included more water than air, and Jin has been floating on debris and skipping around in time for the past few days. We've also got another reason why the Island kept Jin alive, since it's a way to get Sun to return to the Island and restore order to the world. Logic aside, Jin being alive does seem to move a lot of storylines moving forward, so I guess it makes sense - although I still would have preferred he stay dead. I'm curious to see if the writers ever even attempt to explain how he is alive, or if it's left for us to wonder and hypothesize about the "magic of the Island" making it happen.

 

Sun. What about Sun? It's funny, but it turns out that it seems that the most likely scenario is a combination of the two possible scenarios I described last summer. We have Sun hating not only Ben and Jack, but also Kate - blaming them for Jin's death, and seemingly working with Widmore to take them out. She's receiving secret documents about their whereabouts, weapons, and has already basically "stolen" Aaron away from Kate though some trickeration. However, instead of Locke telling Sun that Jin is alive, it seems that Ben is going to spill the secret in next week's episode. Will she believe Ben? Will this cause her to switch sides and work the Ben to return to the Island? Or will this just give her more reasons to work with Widmore to get to the Island first? Or would she go Alias on Widmore and try to double-cross him in the battle for the Island? We should get more of a feel next week, based on her reactions to Ben's shocking revelation.

 

Spoilers. I suppose I should address some of the comments about this Sun and Ben interaction from my Instant Reactions. Some folks have requested that I not reference the episode previews in the Blog, since not everyone watches them and likes to be 100% surprised. Unfortunately, I think this is an example of "you can't please all the people all the time." I really wish I could do two separate Blogs, one that takes into account ONLY what we have seen on the current episode, and one that takes into account both what we have seen in the episode AND whatever previews they showed for the upcoming episode, but I don’t have the time for that (admittedly, I barely have time for this one Blog!). As I've mentioned in my past, this Blog has a slightly unfair USA-centricity about it, where the next episode's preview airs immediately after the current episode. Even if I turned my TV off right away, there's no chance I could avoid not seeing it on commercials on TV during other programs. While this isn't a problem for those watching the episodes online, or out of the country, it's a big problem for me.

 

The problem, if you haven't noticed over the years, is that I write in a very stream-of-consciousness style. I don't sit down and plan what I'm going to Blog about. My fingers start going and my mind thinks of stuff… and if the episode preview scenes are in my mind, I'm going to reference them because they affect my analysis of the current episode. I know that it's a fine line, since I try to run the site as 100% spoiler free, which is a reason that people like the Blog - but if some people consider the episode previews as "spoilers", then I guess I'm only running a 95% spoiler free site. But I think it's the best I can do, sorry.

 

Back to the analyzing...

 

Non-Crazy French People. It's nice to know that CFL wasn't always the whacked out anti-social girl that we met in Season One. In fact, in 1988 she was super friendly and comforting to one very confused Jin. So what happened between 1988 and 2004 to make her go from NFL (Normal French Lady) to CFL (Crazy French Lady)? With all the frequent skipping around, I'm afraid we won't get to see many details about what exactly happened to her crew - CFL seems pretty normal, and the radio tower is still broadcasting the Numbers. I just can't imagine our Survivors will stay in this time period for long enough to see her crew find the Black Rock, change the radio tower, and encounter the Others - which allegedly is what them get "sick". I hope I'm wrong - because unlike the avoidance of the Survivors running into themselves, there really is no good reason to not show the audience what happened from a storyline perspective… unless, as some have reasoned - CFL's stories don’t match up or seem to make any sense compared to everything else we know on the Island. Perhaps they were a product of abandoned storylines (like "The Sickness" or "Never seeing the Others, only hearing them even though they have camps all over the Island") - but I still think they could show us the truth and chalk it up to CFL being crazy. I want to know!

 

I also assume that Jin will reunite with the Skipping Survivors at some point - based on the Skipping Survivors finding the wreckage from CFL's Vessel on the beach, they can't be that far away from where the French Raft washed up on shore. A Skipping Survivors and Non-Crazy French People encounter on the beach would be pretty amazing, I would think. Heck, maybe seeing our Skipping Survivors suddenly vanish before their eyes with the next skip would make the Non-Crazy French People think that they are "going crazy". Or maybe we'll get lucky and the next skip in time will be to like 1990 and we can revisit CFL and Friends. My fingers are crossed.

 

PS - are we ever going to see Rose, Bernard, and Vincent again? I understand that they would be dragging down some of the "action" right now since they're older and slower, but I'm still curious as to what they are up to and how they are dealing with all these time skips!

 

Also, I know I haven’t really discussed this at all yet this season, but we are also owed an explanation as to what is happening to the members of Oceanic Flight 815 who were on Jacob’s list – Cindy, Zack, and Emma. Are they skipping through time as well? Did they go to the Temple, where they received some “shielding” from the effects of the skipping? Or did they go through some sort of “Other Naturalization Process” which puts them in the same boat as the other Others – immune to the effects?

 

There was a great thought from Don in the Comments Section about this topic:

 

Remember back in "...And Found" when Jin and Eko hid in the jungle while a group of very savage-looking others walked by. Several of them were children and one -- presumably Zach -- was carrying a mutilated teddy bear.

 

But then remember in "Stranger in a Strange Land" when Cindy came by to see Jack and Zach and Emma -- and Zach's teddy bear -- were all fine.

 

This never made any sense to me. Why did was Zach's teddy bear so damaged already? Did they give him a new one later? Did they give him a fake one then to make him seem more savage? etc.

 

But now with our survivors skipping through time (presumably along with the tail-section survivors like Cindy, Zach, and Emma) is it possible that we were seeing a Zach and Emma from the future flashing back? If so, it seems like they're in for a hard time between then and now.

 

Is this possible? If so, it might be the one solid "See, they've had it planned all along." moment we've all been waiting for.

 

I like that A LOT. Nice work FOB Don!

 

Nosebleeds. Okay, this Blog is getting surprisingly long for not having that much to analyze, so let’s hit the last big discussion point… this episode confirmed that it's not just Charlotte who is in danger - it's everyone. According to Faraday’s musings, it's somehow based on how much time you have spent on the Island (and where is he coming up with all this stuff anyways? Even with all his wacky experiments at Oxford, his knowledge about the inner-workings of the Island seem to indicate he’s spent some time there in the past – or was taught a lot about it from his mother). This revelation opens up a few questions and thoughts:

• These Nosebleeds seem to be different than those that affected Desmond, Minkowski, and Theresa since we have shown no signs of Charlotte thinking she was in a different period of her life (i.e. – becoming “unstuck in time”)
• Is there a direct correlation to how long someone has spent on the Island and when they begin to be affected by the Nosebleeds? Juliet first arrived on the Island in September 2001, meaning she’s been there for roughly three and a half years. Everyone (myself included) is betting that the baby crying at the start of the season must be Miles, which would confirm that he has been on the Island before as well. Does this mean he spent about three and a half years on the Island as well? Does this mean Charlottes spent a lot more time than that on the Island in her youth? Or just a little more? It all depends on the formula, I suppose.
• Who is affected by the Nosebleeds and who isn’t? Obviously Ben spent thirty years on the Island without seeming to have any nasal problems, so what is the overall cause?

 

Initially, my big explanation for the Nosebleeds was that if you come and go to the Island on different bearings, you would be affected by it. This seemed to work for Desmond, Minkowski, and Charlotte, as one assumes that they were unaware of how they initially entered or left the Island and accidentally existed or came back on a different bearing. But that seems to be thrown out the window with the inclusion of Juliet in the mix. Remember, she came to the Island only once – on a very specific bearing with Ethan and the Others – and has never left.

 

Keeping this in mind, the Nosebleeds seem to be a direct result of the skipping through time. Which means that there really is a sense of urgency to stop the skipping – or else our Survivors are going to start dropping like flies. I anxiously await Faraday’s explanation as to what is actually causing this to happen. It seems like there is an easily acceptable explanation waiting for us along the lines of “your mind can’t handle existing in different times and the longer someone has spent on the Island with its funky time, the less grounded in time it is.” I don’t know how much sense it really makes, but I’m thinking it’s about all we’re going to get.

 

In the end, there seem to be two forces at play – deadly Nosebleeds that are caused by skipping around through time on the Island, and deadly Unstuck-in-Time-ness that are caused by having your consciousness (not your physical body) skipping around through time. The cure for Unstuck-in-Time-ness is a Constant. The cure for Nosebleeds is to stop the skipping – which seems to be exactly what our Survivors aim to do in heading to the Orchid.

 

Wrap Up Thoughts. We’ve now had two Oceanic Six “obstacles” that seemed to exist merely for the sake of eating up time. First, Hurley was arrested – which seemed to throw a HUGE wrench in the 70 hour timeline to return to the Island – but now we find out, he’ll just be released tomorrow morning. Then, we have Kate and Jack thinking that Claire’s Mom knew the truth about Aaron – but it turned out that was either an elaborate red herring setup by Ben, or a crazy coincidence, and Ben was behind the request for the blood tests all along, in a ploy to get Kate “running”. Just further proof that we need the Oceanic Six either involved in good off-Island storylines (involving Ms. Hawking, Abaddon, or the science / rules of how they are going to return to the Island), or back ON the Island as soon as possible. Thus far, we’ve had two other storylines for them – and both were somewhat filler.

  

One last note - the name on the side of Ben's van, "Canton Rainier" is an anagram for "reincarnation". If there is any doubt about Locke coming back to live in some fashion once they return to the Island, this should throw that out the window.

 

http://facethewoods.com/lost/index.php?topic=380.0  

"The Little Prince" Instant Reactions!

Brian's One Word Review: Average.

In some ways, my biggest fear came true - with as awesome as the on-Island storyline currently is, it makes the off-Island storyline with the Oceanic Six just seem kinda boring in comparison... and that was the problem with this week for me. Too much time spent with the Oceanic Six and not enough time with our Skipping Survivors. And even when there were really cool concepts in the episode (such as running into themselves from 2004 or running into CFL's crew), there wasn't enough of it to make me consider this episode "awesome". Instead, it was a good setup episode for the upcoming episodes, but not one that there is a ton of stuff to freak out and over-analyze. But there were still a few huge bombshells:

• JIN IS ALIVE! So apparently he has been floating around the water (nearby the Island), pretty much unconcscious to the skipping in time he's been doing since the Freighter blew up. Initially, it feels a little cheap to have Jin survive the explosion, since logic tells us there was no way he would have survived, but I guess we can chalk it up to the whole "the Island won't let you die until your work is done." And what could it possibly need Jin for?
• How about luring Sun back to the Island. Next week's preview makes it clear that Ben lets the cat out of the bag that Jin is alive, thus giving her a reason to go back to the Island. If we assume that the Oceanic Six need to go back to the Island to make everything right in the world, it's reasonable to think that the Island would keep Jin alive to ensure that Sun has a reason to go back.
• Of course, this raises the question of how Ben knows that Jin is alive and on the Island. I guess the easiest answer is "Locke visited him and told him" when he was on his Jeremy Bentham mission to convince the Oceanic Six to come back to the Island. This means that Locke must run into Jin before going to the Orchid, right? Although the scenes from next week made it look like they'll be at the Orchid in next week's episode!
• CFL ran into Jin in 1988 - so why didn't she recognize him when they ran into each other in 2004? Because she went crazy? Or because they never really had much direct interaction? I quick look at Lostpedia's article on CFL only references Jin once - when he, Bernard, and Sayid set off the trap for the Others - and I can't remember many direct conversations between the two. But seriously, there were only like 40 Survivors, and only two were Korean - so Jin should have stood out to CFL, right?
• Ajira Airlines finally makes its official appearance on Lost in the form of a water bottle. But my question is, where did those boats come from? A larger boat? An airplane? Unless the Island really did move in space (putting it closer to civilization), I don't really see those two boats being able to make the journey to the Island. And why would they be attacking our Skipping Survivors? And who were they? With all this time-jumping stuff in play, there are TONS of options here - ranging from people who were following the Freighter explosion to the Oceanic Six once they return to the Island to future versions of our Skipping Survivors - who would be literally shooting on themselves (notice how none of the shots were hitting them? That seemed strange). But why? Many questions to ponder here.
• This week pretty much confirmed that Miles WAS the baby from the season premiere, since Faraday hinted that he had spent some time on the Island before. So Charlotte has spent the most time (at least a few years), followed by Miles (again, years), then Juliet (who has been there for quite some time herself). Is this why Desmond got the same nosebleed when he left the Island? Because he had been there so long? Again, this seems to prove that the bearing you come and go to the Island on is extremely important, and I think the Others know it.
• So Claire's mom turned out to be a red herring (maybe - or just something to distract Kate while Sun steals Aaron), and I don't really see how any of "The Little Prince" stuff tied into this episode. Pretty sneaky, Lost.
• Okay, that's all I've got for now. Discuss!

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Lost - "The Little Prince"

Episode Title: "The Little Prince"

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

Here’s the storyline in a nutshell:

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

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

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

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

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

Pretty dense for a children’s book, right?

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

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

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

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

Deep enough for me!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Losting!

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