The Variable

We start off with Farraday telling Jack that his mother - Eloise - was wrong...they don't belong back there at all. Bummer - all the effort and motivation of the last two seasons...and they don't belong there???

We go to the Orchid, where Daniel interacts with Pierre. We have seen a brief clip of Farraday here before in an earlier episode, and now understand the fuller meaning. He begs Pierre to evacuate the island, because the energy released at the Swan will be 30,000 times more powerful than the energy at the Orchid. He reveals to Pierre that he is from the future, and that Myles - is his son!

In a flashback, we see Eloise taking Daniel out for lunch after graduation. After revealing to her that the man who gave him a grant is 'some industrialist...Charles Widmore', she gives him his gift - a journal. She gives him the very journal that he will keep all his time-travel, etc., notes in.

We cut to Daniel crying at the sight of Oceanic 815 at the bottom of the ocean. He is then, overwrought, visited by none other than Charles Widmore. This scene could have been cheesy, but - the actor playing Daniel Farraday did it quite well. He is also distrought over what happened to his assistant Teresa, (also his girlfriend) who was incapacitated by the experiment he was testing (which we saw back in The Constant). Apparently, Daniel has gone through the experiment to some extent as well. Charles tells him that going to the island with his team will heal his mind.

We see a very touching moment with Farraday talking to a very young Charlotte. Charlotte had earlier alluded to this scenario. There was a little fadichah when the writers did not match up Charlotte's age as told by Ben with the year in which she appears here. But - none the worse for wear. Farraday scares the living daylights out of her and begs her to leave with her mother.

Another eerily touching moment when Farraday talks to his mother Eloise, and agrees to go on Widmore's mission when she confirms that going to the island will make her proud of him.

I won't go into the casuality issues, i.e. - this is our present, any one of us can die. But suffice it to say - major implications for how the show will progress.

We later hear from Farraday that he spent so much time focusing on the constants, that he forgot about the variables - human choice. He reveals that his plan - which will eliminate the future where Oceanic 815 crashes - is to detonate a hydrogen bomb at the Swan. The bomb would be Jughead.

Penny's ttalk with Eloise was interesting. She admits that she does not know what is going to happen next. Join the club, Elli!

Penny is fine. Desmond is recvovering. The rest of the blogging world must be going crazy - everyone has been suspecting that Ben had killed Penny, and maybe Desmond and Charlie too. Yet it all worked out.

Now - we see Eloise and Charles! We find out that Charles is Daniel's father. That means that Daniel and Penny are at least step-siblings. Question is - who is Penny's mother? Who is the outsider that Charles Widore had a child with?

Daniel walks down into the Hostiles' camp and speaks with Richard...and is shot by his own mother! With his dying breath, he says to her - 'you knew!' Eloise was aware, during Daniel's entire life, that it was his destiny to be killed...by her!!! The conversation earlier between the two when she says that she would be proud of him for going to the island takes on a whole new darkness...

Some Like It Hoth

This episode begins with Myles as a child first being able to use his 'sixth sense' of contacting the deceased. We get to see his mother, who we only saw briefly with her husband 'Pierre Chang'.

We then see him try to talk to the man who was seemingly shot in the head, and given to him to transport by Radzinsky. We later learn that this guy's dental filling went through his head - pulled, no doubt, by the magnetism at the Swan!

Jump to a later point in Myles' life - he's at the bedside of his mother, who is ill with cancer and seems to be treated with radiation and chemo. He presses her to reveal to him why he is the way he is, and who his father is.

She lets him know that his father is dead. So - how did Pierre Chang/whatever his real name is die? When he asks about his father's body, his mother replies that it is somewhere he can never go. So - we know he died on the island!

We learn the reason why the titles is - Some Like It Hoth...Hurley is writing the script for The Empire Strikes Back. For those who aren't familiar with the details, the film starts out on the ice planet of Hoth! Later, while talking to Myles about his daddy-issues, he says "That was Luke's attitude too...in empire, when Luke found out that Vader was his father, instead of putting his saber away and talking about it, he overreacted and got his hand cut off. I mean they worked it out eventually, but at what cost? Another death star was destroyed, Boba Fett got eaten by the sarlac, and we got the ewoks. It all could have been avoided if they would have just you know, communicated . And let's face it, the Ewoks suck, dude." Except for the fact that I like the Ewoks (yub-nub), brilliant!

We see Miles backstory, including him wrestling with whether or not to reveal to a grieving father that he couldn't actually communicate with his son, which he had previously claimed to, beceause the son was cremated and there was no body.

Kate...Oh Lord on High, please incur your wrath on the writers of Lost for butchering her character. Kate just can't stop blabbing to anyone who will listen about anything and everything. She thinks she's acting in the best interest of everyone involved, but to be Shakesperean - she's fortune's fool. She speaks with Roger (Workman) and tries to comfort him, but ends up raising his suspicion, and really screws everything up. For everyone. KATE!!!

We see Naomi recruiting Myles for the mission. Interesting that she says his purpose for being on the team - they are looking for a man who may be difficult to locate, and - there are a number of people on the island who are dead, and this man is responsible for them being dead, so therefore they needed him to communicate with the deceased. She could be referring to the DI members, killed by Ben in the purge, and she would have received this information from Widmore.

We get to see Hurley and Myles at the Swan site when the numbers are put on the hatch...4,8,15,16,23,42. Surprisingly, Myles says 'what hatch?' - it appears that not all the characters are in sync with each other.

Key moment - Ilana, the tall guy, and a few others pick up Myles and tell him to pass on going to the island with Charles Widmore. They won't pay him a dime, but offer him the knowledge of who he is, who his father is...and Myles turns them down.

Who are they???

The end of the episode - Myles and his unassuming father pick up some Dharma scientists coming in on the sub from the Dharma facility in Ann Arbor. Among them....none other than Farraday! So - he has been firmly entrenched in Dharma research for these past years.

Dead is Dead - (post was stuck in drafts)

We start the episode meeting a middle-aged Charles Widmore. Charles confronts Richard about the fact that he brought Ben Linus to the Temple (not Temple Beth Israel, mind you). Richard replies that the island chooses who it chooses.

Widmore then goes to speak to Ben. It is obvious that Ben has memories from before he was brought into the Temple. He talks about how he doesn't want to go back to his father. However - it is clear that he is not the same little kid. Widmore instructs him that just because he goes and lives among 'them', doesn't mean he can't be one of 'us'.

Then we cut to Ben waking up and seeing Locke, seemingly shocked. He seems genuinely surprised, though as we know - nothing with Ben is genuine. He claims to have known it all along. Ben reveals that his morivation for going back to the main island was to be judged for what he had done (breaking the rules by coming back out of exile). Later, we see Ben telling Locke that he killed him once he had revealed necessary information. He had to then kill him to ensure that the Oceanic 6 would all come back, in the best interest of the island. Locke will now help Ben be judged, by Smokey. Just a note on Ben and Locke...although Ben killed Caesar (see below), it definitely seems like Ben and Locke have switched roles. Locke is more dominant, Ben more submissive.

Ben then offers to help Ilana and the tall guy (whose name I can't remember) move their crate. They turn down his offer, but when asked what's in it, they say - just some stuff we've got to get moved. What the heck do they need to move? There's definitely much more here...just don't know what it is.

We cut back to Ben and Ethan going to kill Danielle and her baby. Ben lets her live, and takes the baby...could this be a sign of morality in Ben? It is obviously an indication that Ben is willing to disobey orders. He tells her that everytime she hears whispers, she'd better run the other way. So - now we know that the whispers are indicative of the 'Others/hostiles' being around.

Back to the present...and Ben pulls Caesar's own gun on him and kills him. Wow. No negotiation, no remorse. Love Linus. What a great juxtaposition then, that the next scene is Ben fighting Widmore for the right to raise Alex.

A key moment is then revealed (maybe) when Sun shows Linus the photo of the Oceanic 6 in the Dharma Initiative photo from 1977. Locke claims not to have known that they were in the DI. If true, this throws the whole show for a loop, and gets into all kind of science jargon about alternate timelines, and destinies...i.e. headaches (Elad, just for you: I hate the department of temporal investigations!). If he's lying, then...who knows?

Ben heads down through the Temple through a secret door in his house. More hieroglyphs. He then appears to release a valve or vent = see last episode's write-up.

Ben then goes to see off Charles Widmore, who is being exiled. It is reveale that Charles is being exiled because he broke the rules, left the island, and had a child with an 'outsider' woman (obviously, the child is Penny). They then debate as to whether it was Widmore or the island who wanted Alex dead. Widmore says that one day he will have to come face to face with the fact that Alex will have to die, or he will be banished. It was partially a self-fulfilling prophecy, as we know, since it was Widmore who sent the commando team (inlcuding Keamy) to come and take Ben. When they couldn't, Keamy shot and killed Alex.

Ben reveals to Sun that dead is dead - "and the fact that John Locke is walking around this island - scares the living hell out of me." So - Locke lied earlier to John. What is the deal with Locke?

Locke tells Ben that he knows how to summon Smokey. How the heck does he know how to do this? This is kinda like Locke was reborn as a knew upgraded version, much how in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the wizard Gandalf the Grey is killed, and then reborn as an upgraded 2.0 version of himself as Gandalf the White. Is this Locke the White? How does he know that they need to go beneath the Temple and not into it?

Ben tells Sun to apologize for him to Desmond Hume if she ever sees him...is this what I have been predicting and dreading for so long? Does Linus kill Penny in order to exact revenge on her father, Charles Widmore?????? Ben hesitates when he sees Charlie, just long enough for Desmond to give him (yet another) good pummeling. New Lost drinking game - everytime Ben gets hit in the face, you drink a shot.

When Frank goes to confront Ilana and the others as to why they've got guns and are now 'in charge', Ilana asks him "what lies in the shadow of the statue?" He doesn't know, and they knock him out. Ilana says to the tall guy - get everyone else, we're going, and he's coming with us. Ok...so - what did she mean with "what lies in the shadow of the statue?" Lies as in 'is located' or lies as in 'doesn't tell the truth'? I.e. in the presence of the statue (whatever the heck that represents), what bears false witness? Obviously, we have Ben Linus, but he's more of a who rather than a what. Little confused here.

Lastly - we have Ben getting judged - by Smokey and an apparition of Alex! He is allowed to live, but he has to follow everything Locke says. This just goes to show how connected Locke is with the island. Interesting note - when Locke is shown all of the images from his past by Smokey - I would surmise that this is what we are seeing when we see the flashbacks/forwards. In other words - since episode 1, we have just accepted the flashbacks/forwards as an element of the show, and not tried to figure out what they really are...they are an examination by Smokey of what the individual does in the past or future that relates to their present circumstance.

Can't wait for next week!

Whatever Happened, Happened

So “Whatever Happened, Happened”...Interesting episode. Most of the ‘interesting’ came in the second half of the episode. The ending was superb…we finally learn that it was not a writing erro - when Ben said that he was born on the island. Whatever the methods, Ben will be 'reborn'in the Temple, where Richard takes him. Richard says to Kate and Sawyer that Ben ‘would not remember any of this’.

So – Ben gets rehabilitated. Somehow, he eventually makes his way back to the Dharma Initiative. He goes there with the instructions from Richard as to how to kill the DI'ers. Yet - his father seemed to have trusted - or at least not doubted him - in the van ride they took right before Ben unleashed the poison gas.

On Top of Ol' Smokey

It would seem that we now know a lot more about Smokey. From seeing Smokey try to pull Locke into one of it's vents, as well as Rousseau's team, and now we know that it will 'reprogram' Ben, we understand the nature of Smokey as a defense mechanism. Smokey 'reprograms' you. So - we now know why certain people were on the lists, and certain people weren't. They were candidates for reprogramming. We don't yet know much about what the reporgramming pre-requirements are, but the question then begs itself: who has been 'reprogrammed'? Has Juliet, as one of the Others?

Juliet claimed to Kate that the Others didn't know exactly what Smokey was, just that it did not like the sound barrier/security fence. Hmmm...do they really not know (could be that this was a Ben Linus/Richard/Jacob secret) could it be that Juliet was lying?

There are theories all over the net that clues (in Lost Xbox game, those interactive in-between-seasons-online-spiels, and even on the map Radzinski painted on the hatch door) is that Smokey is referred to as 'Cerebrus', and the vents through which it moves are called 'Cerebrus Vents', or CV. Hence, there are a couple of places on the map that are listed as CV I, CVII, etc.

Kate

I am really getting annoyed with Kate. If there is an opportunity for her to screw something up, she’ll do it. I really liked how Sawyer put everything in perspective by saying “whoever this kid turns out to be in twenty five years, it’s still wrong to let a kid die.”

I was not surprised that Kate spilled the beans to both Cassidy and Mrs. Benton. I was annoyed, but not surprised. If the show has a theme of dealing with your issues, Kate is the one major character who has yet to do so. She is always running from something. Here, she was ‘running’ from the plan that she and the others committed to.

Jack has dealt with his issues of needing to fix everything. That's a welcome respite and development. Kate said ‘she didn’t like the new Jack’. Well, this is the new and improved Jack. By refusing to treat Ben, he affirms that his need to fix has its limits.

In the conversation between Myles and Hurley (a bit trite, but still neat, no?), we hear the reference to Back to the Future.

Something that many people who have seen BTTF think at some point is – ‘if I had access to the DeLorean, would I go back in time and kill Hitler, et al, before he had a chance to do anything? Well, here, Jack says yes.

I loved the shot of Hurley trying to see if his hand was disapearing, a la Marty McFly.

And it’s not that he is doing something for personal benefit…He’s not getting Gray’s Sports Almanac and betting on results like Biff Tannen. He’s simply not willing to be an active and willing participant in saving someone he knew would grow up to be a tyrant.

Questions

Where does the poison gas Ben uses in the purge come from? Did it belong originally to the army unit stationed on the island in the 1950s and experimenting with Jughead?

What happened to the army unit? At least now we know how Goodwin got that army knife that Ana Lucia identified as an older style army knife right before she and Goodwin fought (to his death).

Next Week

In the preview for next week’s episode, we see Ben Linus with his gun drawn, walking up a dock. That is no doubt how he will kill Penny. However, I think that the show/writers are too smart for the story to play out exactly as how everyone surmises and extrapolates.

He's Our You

Wow - what a great episode...we start off with Sayid killing the chicken that his brother couldn't.

Kudos to the Lost Casting Director for hiring Sterling Beaumon to play the young Ben Linus. What a spot-on portrayal of Ben as a 12-year old. He had the character that Michael Emerson created exactly right.

Shooting Ben – he’s obviously going to be ok…he will heal from the gunshot wound, just like Locke did. But still cool to see him get shot, even though I did cringe at the sight of the shooting of a 12-year-old! On top of that, I think it shows a real impetus for his character being so aggressive and untrustworthy…Sayid, who he thought was a ‘hostile’ shoots him…the one person he trusted when he thought he couldn’t trust anyone, the person he turns to after “Roger Workman” rips into him, doesn’t only betray his trust, but tries to kill him! Also – if he does heal, this could be the first time that Ben realizes that the island has special power.

I wonder how much Sawyer/Juliet/Jin/etc know about the overall island/secrets/etc., i.e. – what is Smokey? What is the nature of the island? Who are the hostiles? Yadda yadda…I want to see more of Sun and Frank. Did you catch that there was a silhouette of Claire in the background as Christian Shepard was speaking to them? I would really like to get more information on Claire…and maybe see a Claire-Kate confrontation.

My good friend Elad let me know that Oldhan was played (marvelously) by E.B. Farnum from Deadwood (didn't get to watch before making aliyah). What a chilling performance...he definitely comes from the 'less is more' school of acting, but that made it all the more chilling.

Note to Mr. Sayid Jarrah...when a woman orders a ribeye - bloody, don't ask her if she is a professional.

Can't wait for next week!

Namaste

The episode begins aboard Ajira flight 316. After the flash of light, it suddenly becomes daytime. Why does time change? We know that they are still in 2007, so conceivably they simply moved breifly in time. Yet - this still throws a curveball.

The plane stalls, and dives toward the island. Frank and his co-pilot spot a runway. Could this be the runway that the Others had Sawyer and Juliet help them build when they were captives in season 3? Ben may have known that the plane would crash and they would need a runway, therefore (in the past) he ordered its construction.

Frank, Sun, and Ben are not flashed away with Jack, Kate, and Hurley. Why? We do not yet know. Not knowing much about Frank's past, it is hard to nail down a commmon denominator.

Later in the episode, we see Jin go to the Flame in order to figure out where the plane crashed (not knowing it crashed in 2007). There he meets with the Dharma worker staffing the Flame - none other than Radzinsky. We have seen him before! Well, rather, we have seen him as a splatter on the cieling. He was the one who Kelvin said (to Desmond, while they were in the Swan) 'blew his brains out'. So - why does Radzinsky commit suicide, assuming that Kelvin was telling the truth? I think it's safe to say that we will see more Kelvin.

We get to see the baby that is born to Amy. AND - it's none other than Ethan! Note: Ethan is not killed in 'the purge'. Why?? The main possible theory is that Amy was in fact leaving the DI to join the hostiles! When we first saw her, she was hooded, and her husband was shot and killed by two hostiles. Was this because Amy's husband caught her trying to make an escape and the two hostiles then killed him? Was she being hooded to go back to the hostiles' camp? This would give some explanation as to why Ethan and Amy wouldn't be around the Dharma camp for the purge. I think we'll see some more of Amy. The actress who plays her is best known as Michelle Dessler in '24'.

Great to see the 70's like kibbutz-life. Wonderful to see Sun hit Ben in the head with the oar. She is not the same woman who crashed on the island. She used Ben in order to get information as to where the canoe is and where 'New Otherton' is. And - when she and Jack were walking on the dock, and saw Smokey...I half expected Jason Vorhees to pop out of the water and grab them.

Some people have claimed to have seen a silhoutte move in the background while Christian Shepard is talking to Frank and Sun. You can almost see something in the background when he says "I'm sorry, but you have a long journey ahead of you." Some people think it's Claire. Could be. What I think is more interesting is that when they were outside the cabin, the light flicked on, as though a switch were turned on. Yet when they walk in with Shepard, the place is dark and it's obvious that the cabin has been abandoned and has no power.

Overall, a great episode.

La Fleur

Overall thoughts

I was really thrilled to see this Sawyer-centric episode. It really – finally, after so many years – made his character so much deeper. He is capable of ‘evolving’. For more than four years, he’s been a somewhat witty red-neck, who had a shady past.

It was really awesome to see the Juliet-Sawyer relationship develop, and I CANNOT WAIT to see the Jack-Kate-Sawyer triangle develop into a Jack-Kate-Sawyer-Juliet rectangle!! In all, this was just a great, old-fashioned LOST episode...lots of plot progression and lots of emotion (wasn't it great to see Juliet succesfully deliver a baby?). Great episode.

The Statue
The episode begain with a shot of the sealed well, and then Myles, Juliet, Sawyer, and Jin look and see the statue...

Back in the season finale of season 2, when Michael (on orders from Bea Klugh) coerces Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley to go to the Others' camp, Sayid, Jin, and Sun take the sailboat around the island to try to save their friends. On the way, they spot the remnants of a large stone statue. All that is left is a foot. Sayid says something to the effect of - "I don't know what troubles me more...the fact that most of the statue is gone, or that the foot only has four toes."

So, in Le Fleur we got to see more of the statue. We only get to see its back side, but we can learn some pretty significant things from it. First, we can clearly see that it is wearing a loincloth, is not wearing a shirt, and it appears to have pointed ears. My guess is that it is an Egyptian-style statue.

Let's look at some clues to incorporate the Egyptian theories.

• Hieroglyphics - when the clock in the Swan was allowed to drop below 0, hieroglyphics appear.
• Eyeliner - since the appearance of Richard Alpert, many people have commented on the fact that he wears eyeliner. And tonight, we even heard Sawyer say what we’ve all been thinking…that Richard wears eyeliner. In ancient Egypt, both aristocratic men and women wore eyeliner.
• Cross - the looped ankh cross we saw was also a symbol associated with the Egyptian god Horace, and stood for life and fertility.
  

Another theory is that the statue might be Richard. I think he somehow predates everything else on the island…Dharma, etc. We know that the statue has four toes...will we see Richard in flip-flops this season??

I do have a seperate theory that Richard and the hostiles were survivors from The Black Rock, but - we'll see.

The baby
So, Amy and Horace's baby...this is presumably about 1977 (the year I was born!!) - the Losties get transported back to 74 when they first run into Amy being captured by the hostiles. Three years later would be '77. The 'real-time' (before the time-jumping started) on Lost is about 2005, so the baby boy would be about 28. Who could it be? By a process of elimination: not Daniel Farraday (his mother is Elise), not Myles (assuming that he is the son of Pierre Chang)...could it be Carl??? Carl may be too young, but...maybe.

Korean
I think it is safe to assume that Jin taught Charlotte Korean...question is, why doesn't she remember that when she meets Jin again?

Disappearing act
Why does Charlotte disappear? It might be that they go to a point where Charlotte already exists, as a young girl. This might be a bit heavy a la Back to the Future, but - it might just be that you cannot meet yourself.

Adam and Eve
Ok, so we still haven't seen Bernard and Rose. Apparently there is no sign of them for three years. I for one am starting to get concerned. I think it is inevitable...they must have been injured in the attack by the hostiles, and they made their way back to the cave. They are 'Adam and Eve' - the two bodies discovered by the Losties in the first season.

Lost for a Lifetime

So - I have been watching Lost since the second week of the series. I missed the first episode when it originally aired back in 2004, but - my father called and asked me if I saw it. Luckily, the second week they replayed the series premiere before the second episode.

I love this show...I just don't know of any other show that is so intellectually challenging as Lost. This show is the reason for watercooler talk.

So - after just watching a great episode - La Fleur - I decided that I needed an outlet for all my speculation, thoughts, insights, and theories. I hope you enjoy the blog!