This is one of my favorite episodes of Lost. We get a little better look into Jack's issues with his father. Charlie and Claire get kidnapped by a Super Other. Sawyer gets the Island's news from a 6 year old and Locke begins his bond with Boone. This episode just totally opens up the story. And even though it was really fast paced, I didn't make too many connections. But the ones I did make are awesome!
Obviously, this isn't the first time we are watching Lost. So, we can kind of sit back and see that pretty much all of the characters have daddy issues. I'm just going to call this Lost Axiom #4 - Everybody has daddy issues. (I must thank my friend again for that awesome phrase "Lost Axiom") I could do a psycho analysis on Jack and his daddy, but to me, it is so obvious. They all have daddy issues. From Locke and Kate to Walt and Sun. Even Ben has them. It's a requirement of the island.
I am going to analyze Jack and his guilt just a little bit. His guilt of not believing Claire drives him this episode to look for her. His flashback is all about the guilt of the patient dying due to his father's drunk mistakes in the operation. Jack was fine with letting the drunk operation slide until he hears that the patient was pregnant. That really changes everything for him. I just think this is kind of funny since he is on island dealing with pregnant Claire and then the turning point for him in his flashback is that the patient was pregnant. It really makes me feel like these flashbacks are not random. They are really feeling something on island that pertains to their flashback. And on island, Jack seems like he confuses Ethan with his father when he says "..not again." I don't know if this means that when Jack was knocked out by Ethan he was having the flashback at that point or that Jack was just knocked out so hard that he was just that confused. The Others are really good fighters.
I have been trying to figure out how MIB has been controlling Locke. I think that this episode gives us the answer. Locke is saying that he is going with his gut. MIB has the ability to impersonate people, maybe he can also give people feelings and lead them where he wants them. I am still under the impression that Locke met with "Jacob's brother" at some point (especially after last week) but I also think that Locke's gut feeling that leads him to the hatch is kind of MIB'd doing. I am really sad that I can't see Locke under any other light but MIB's light. I thought it was going to be so awesome to see Island Loving Locke, but I do not think he is there yet. He is just being conned by MIB right now.
I had a light bulb go off in my head during the scene with Charlie and Jack at the end of the episode. Charlie is near death, hanging in a tree. Jack and Kate cut him down. Jack beats on Charlie's chest for a while until he comes to (and also in a similar way he beats on the woman's chest in the flashback). It reminded me of Season 6 when Charlie nearly dies on the plane and Jack saves him. I kind of believe that these two things are the same event. They are so similar. It could be that Charlie comes to this point in the flash sideways. When Charlie says "...I was supposed to die," to Jack, maybe he was referring to this time in Season 1. Maybe Charlie felt that he was meant to die at that point. Charlie spends the rest of his time on island averting death until The Looking Glass.
I made a few other little connections in this episode. The scene with Sawyer and Sayid made me feel like even though Sawyer was angry about Sayid torturing him, he kept his signal fire going because they have a special connection with each other since they are candidates. Boone's talk of red shirts with Locke makes me feel like they were foreshadowing his death - just little things. It dropped huge clues into the Others, infertility, Walt's specialness, Hurley's unluckiness, the Hatch. A huge leap into the future with this episode.
I think it is really funny that the biggest connections I make come from characters that the story isn't primarily focused on. To me, Lost is a very character driven story with mystery in the background . This episode was amazing.
