Through The Magnifying Glass: ReWatching Lost Week #5

Going into this week, I had this hope that this week would bring a little relief in the information to be processed solely based on the fact that we were given one less episode to cover.  Obviously, I was overlooking the fact that all three of the episodes were thick with island mythology and character development!  Our episodes this week, #17-19 of Season 1 (…..In Translation, Numbers, and Deus Ex Machina), reminded us of the distance between Sun and Jin while we sit remembering the “time” distance between them now in Season 5, explained the start of the “Numbers” and how it has made some wonder if they are, in fact, Hurley’s “compass” making a connecting loop with him between the 1970’s and the early 2000’s, and laid the foundation for understanding John Locke’s hardships before his disability of paralyzation had anything to do with him.  I think it’s time for me to just accept the fact that long articles and lots of information are my destiny and that some things are just meant to be.  See you on the other side!

Our first episode this week, “…In Translation”, was considered to be Jin-centric, although I just see it as a Sun AND Jin-centric episode seen through Jin’s eyes.  It basically shows their marriage, as seen in “House of the Rising Sun”, from Jin’s perspective and his role in the Paik family business.  To me, though, this episode was more about the on-island, present day stuff, instead of finding connections in the flashback.  That being said, the flashback reminded me of desk boxes and watches–two of my favorite subjects, and completely defined who Jin is, especially when we witness the conversation between him and his father.  We also see in this flashback, that it wasn’t Jin’s father that became the “daddy issue”, but rather it was Jin being embarrassed of him because of his fisherman status.  Jin later apologizes to his father about this, leaving his protection of, and ways in which he protected Sun from the truth of her father the only things weighing on his conscious when he came to the island.  With that, I’m sure he felt the ends justified the means and that he acted for the “greater good”.

On the island, we see the first raft bonfire, which seemed to foreshadow what was to come with the completed raft on the night Walt is taken.  The ironic bit would be that this time, John lies to cover for Walt in saying that “they’re not alone on the island” and it was the “others” that did it, which is exactly how it will play out in days to come.   Jin becomes suspicious of Sun’s involvement with Michael, which knowing about Sun’s affair with Jae Lee made that whole scene mean so much more than just having a jealous, controlling husband, and later learns that she has been able to speak English the whole time they’ve been on the island.  Overall, though, I felt the on-island stuff with Sun seemed to mirror the flashbacks of Jin in that they were both lying to protect the other from being hurt and, ultimately, trying to walk away from the marriage that was blessed by Jacob.

In other happenings on the island, John informs Shannon that “everyone gets a new life on this island” and we see Walt and John having a heart-to-heart over a game of backgammon.  This conversation foreshadows the next two in this block by stating that Hurley was “good for it” in owing Walt $83,000 for backgammon losses and that John’s dad was “not cool”.  It’s also revealed at this time that it was Walt who destroyed the raft and he did it because he doesn’t want to move again.  Both Walt and John agreed that they like the island and life on it.

“Numbers”, the 18th episode of Season 1, is the first episode to start defining the “Numbers” that have played such a monumental role in the mythology of Lost.  If you’re a true Lost fan, you’ve had at least one occassion of playing these numbers in the lottery or hoping to find them all as your lucky numbers in a fortune cookie.  As we learn the story of how Hurley comes in contact with the numbers and how that “walkabout” led him to Australia, we also learn that the numbers have made Hurley worth $156 million, and an share holder in such things as oranges in Florida, a box company in Tustin (presumably John’s employer), and a sneaker factory in Canada–which has burned down and killed 8 people.  Above all, though, it was when I got past the “numbers” aspect that I started to realize what this episode brought to the picnic table.

Hurley is on a quest to prove that the numbers are cursed.  It isn’t until he finds Danielle and hears her agree with him that he feels the release from this burden he’s carried around since winning the lottery.  There has been some speculation about further involvement in this series of events, based on the numbers broadcast heard on the Ajira flight in “316″, that Hurley may have been the one to record those numbers when he flashes back in time on the island to the late 70’s.  The numbers then become to Hurley what the compass is to John Locke in that a loop is created to keep the endless cycle going.  Another aspect that I picked up on was the ‘bad luck’ that Hurley continues to experience after receiving his winnings.  As the media is conducting their interview, Hurley places his arm around Grandpa Tito and says he’s going to give his grandfather, “the rest he deserves” after providing for the family all of his life.  It’s at this moment that Tito has a heart attack and dies.  Was it Hurley’s doing?  It was also Hurley’s idea for the blindfold that caused his mother to break her ankle.

On the island, John is building a cradle for Claire and finds out it’s her birthday.  He mentions that it’s supposed to be good luck for a mother and baby to have birthdays close to each other.  She tells him that she hadn’t planned on keeping the baby and that she still didn’t remember life after the crash of Oceanic 815.  At the end of the episode, John is mystified to see a light come on in the hatch.  Both of these scenes together within minutes of each other seemed to foreshadow the episodes to come with Claire having her baby and John opening the hatch on the same night.

The most important aspect of this episode, in my opinion, wasn’t the content, but the title and the implication of it on Lost as a whole.  The Book of Numbers is the 4th book of the Old Testament and documents the journey of God’s people out of Egypt, led by Moses.  It’s hard not to notice the parallels in the stories, and associations that could be noted within the story of this episode, as well as the show.  As this group finds themselves a community of its own, Moses and Aaron organize the masses into tribes to better oversee the jobs of all involved, during which a census is taken of all the people.  As their 40 year journey comes to an end, this group has to prepare to cross the River Jordan and leave Egypt for their “Promise Land”.  Although there are many interpretations of this book in the Bible, I would recommend any Lost fan brush up on their biblical knowledge before Season 6.  This book in particular might hold significance to how this show could end.

The last episode this week was “Deus Ex Machina”, which I’m sure to butcher the title of in this week’s podcast.  The title of the episode is a term used for a plot twist in which someone or something shows up “out of the blue” to help with a particular difficulty or hurdle they’re trying to overcome.  One deus ex machina of note is plot reversals ascribed to dreams – so called “dream seasons”, or, in at least one case, an entire “dream series”, where the author of a series discards already-written matter from the timeline by saying that it was all a character’s dream.  Of all the types of this occurence, this one might be the most feared possibility for the ending of this show.  Let’s hope the writers weren’t trying to foreshadow this type of ending by giving us this as a title.

In this episode, we learn about John’s biological mother and father.  Emily Locke is a schizophrenic who tells John he was immaculately conceived, and Anthony Cooper is a manipulative con man that ends up luring John to give him one of his kidneys.  On the island, John and Boone are struggling to find a way into the hatch, having their trebuchet smash right in front of their eyes upon impact with the window.  John’s ability to use his legs is quickly diminishing and Boone is forced to be the one that climbs up into the Beechcraft, leading to his fatal injuries later.  But the best part of this episode for me was seeing Jack harassing Sawyer during his “doctor’s appointment” just to get a little payback for the one-liners and nicknames they’ve all had to endure.

There are little things about this episode that could be really dug into, but I like the idea of taking this one episode at face value.  There were a lot of mentions of things that were or were not “meant to be”, but I’m not convinced that we are not to see anything more than a “destiny” theme being reinforced throughout.  The dream that Locke had depicting a bloody Boone and a fur-coat-wearing mom didn’t offer much more than what was seen during the scene.  Anything else, like Theresa, was explained away within a few minutes.  What’s most interesting about seeing this episode is that I feel like we’re almost rewatching Season 5–which used references to Season 1–which reminds me of Season 5–which……….Are we destined to be in a Lost paradox until the start of Season 6?  Is this foreshadowing at its best and eluding to objects like the numbers and the compass?  One thing is for sure, the one connection with mythology that I managed to make, that also became a slap-in-the-face awakening about my addiction to the show, was that John tore out his IV–”IV” meaning 4.  Sad, huh?  Good thing we have a place like Lostaholics that helps us all deal with our addiction while feeding that monster that we love.

Make sure to catch our Lostaholics ReWatching Lost podcast on Sunday nights at 9pm Eastern time on www.talkshoe.com.  If you’re unable to make it, it will be available Monday afternoon as a free download from Talkshoe and iTunes, and also found on the LPN (Lost Podcasting Network), which is a great place to go to find all sorts of interesting conversations about Lost.

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Lostaholics ReWatch: Shame, Blame and Games

…In Translation

We learn more about Jin’s life before coming to the island. He had gone to Sun’s father to ask permission to marry her. This was a point of honor. We see this same ritual  played out by Sayid with Boone. However since Sayid doesn’t respect Boone, it is explained that it is only out of courtesy. Honor and shame are covered in this episode. Mr. Paik insults Jin by asking why he should hand his daughter over to a man who would so easily sell his dreams. “Because she is my dream.” Before their wedding reception Jin tells her they will have to postpone their honeymoon so that Jin can prove to Paik that he is committed to him and his training. In ‘Deus Ex Machina’ a show of commitment will later be required of Locke as well. His commitment will unfortunately be in the form of human sacrifice.The shame that Jin has from his flashback’s is almost as ugly. He unwittingly found himself working as Paik’s enforcer. In order to spare Han’s life, he beat him senseless in front of his child. Unlike so many other characters in the series, Jin was not deterred from his ugly mission simply because a child was present.  At the beginning of Jin’s first visit, he removes his shoes upon entering Han’s home, as a sign of respect. The second time when he beats him, he doesn’t bother. Later when Michael confronts Jin about the burning of the raft, Jin lets him think that he did it, even taunting him. As Michael starts to beat him he taunts him. This is just like when Sawyer egged Sayid into punishing him for something he didn’t do. Just as in that case, Jin was punishing himself for something else he had done that had gone unpunished.

New life and starting over were also strong themes in this show. Michael tried to get  Walt excited about starting again in New York City. This unfortunately led to Walt’s sabotage of the raft. Michael mistakenly blamed Jin for this. Later he tells Walt, “We all have setbacks…That’s just life. We’ll start over.” When Boone tries to sabotage Shannon’s budding relationship, Sayid tries to distance himself from her. Enraged she goes looking for Boone, and finds Locke instead. Locke encourages her to keep seeing Sayid and ignore Beoone. “Everyone gets a new life on this island Shannon. Maybe it’s time you start yours.” First of all, if this had been said by anyone else I wouldn’t question it’s sincerity. However, rather than being helpful, I suspect that Locke is being an agent of chaos here. Also I can’t help wonder if his invitation for her to start her new life, is an invitation to start it in the afterlife. I smell a rat. Maybe it’s the one he’s cleaning to eat. Ok, first of all gross. Secondly I have to bring up the fact that we got a lot of rat references in seasons 4 & 5. Widmore accused Ben of sneaking into his bedroom like a rat. We had Eloise the rat. And then Widmore told the Others that he caught Kate and Jack crouched in the bushes like rats. Those are the ones that I can remember off the top of my head. The references were getting noticable to a lot of us. Sun begs Jin to start fresh with her. “I want to go back the beginning. Can’t we …just start all over? Though Jin refuses her request, we see that he too had longed for that back home in South Korea. “In a good world she would hate him, not me.” His father replied that “It is a good world”. Shannon declared that she was going to have her new life. It appeared that Sun was too, as she let her swimsuit cover fly and set herself free in the baptismal waters of the ocean.

The theme of black and white was fairly obvious in this episode. We see the return of the white flower as the symbol of Jin’s love for Sun. In the beat down scene, Jin is wearing a black suit and tie with a white shirt. The assassin is wearing a white suit and black shirt.Also the theme of starting over works well with my ongoing question of a reset for season 6.

Interesting to note:

1)The Sharpe’ puppy that Jin takes, becomes Sun’s dog. Also Hurley appears on the tv that the little girl is watching.

Numbers

In this episode we learn the back story of Hurley’s curse. He believes he was cursed when he ‘used’ the numbers on a lottery ticket. It won him millions of dollars, but spelled disaster and death for those around him. He believes that it is in fact what caused Oceanic 815 to crash. One of Hurley’s ongoing themes is the process of learning that he can make his own luck. I think this also could be compared to the other ongoing theme on Lost, of choices. You make your own choices and you shouldn’t blame the temptations, or circumstances around you. At least that’s the connection that I saw when Mrs. Toomey said, “You make your own luck, Mr. Reyes. Don’t blame it on the damn numbers. You’re lookin’ for an excuse that don’t exist.” We watch Michael and Jin’s progress on the raft as they are making their own luck in trying to get off the island.

Lenny gave me chills as he finally stopped number chanting long enough to ominously warn Hurley that, “You’ve opened the box… It doesn’t stop.” The fact that he and Sam Toomey discovered the ‘numbers’ while posted at a “listening” station, reminded me of ‘Special’ when Locke said, “You can’t hear everything Boone. The sooner you learn that the better.” What are the writers trying to tell us about listening? Does the will of the island of the island have a ‘voice’ that only some people can hear? If so is it the voice of Jacob or his Nemesis?

The interaction between Lock and Claire was intriguing. His interest in her amnesia was suspicious. He rarely seeks out and takes a personal interest in the other survivors. When he does there seems to usually be an angle for him. So why was he so interested in whether or not Claire was remembering something? Was he trying to protect the ‘Others’? Or was he simply trying to learn something about ‘his’ people. But what I liked best was his building project. It seemed to be metaphorical for the show as a whole. That has been my favorite part of the rewatch. I love it when the writers drop something on us that seem to spell out the whole show in general, only we couldn’t see it. Through every scene with Locke, Claire expressed her confusion about what it was that he was building. He never answered her, he just kept on with the construction. She was the viewer, he was the writers. She thought he was building a trap, to kill something. When he turned it over it was revealed to be a cradle, to hold her unborn child. See that’s what I love about this show. One simple turn of the story and the show reveals what was there all along. That can be applied to the show as a whole. The pieces have been there the entire time, we just aren’t looking at it from the right angle. I also like the comparison of death vs. life. She thinks it’s a trap but it’s really a cradle. It seems that a lot of what’s happened on the island in the 5 seasons has been a test. Has it been testing to prepare their hearts and minds for the battle to come? Or has it simply been to test whether Jacob was right or not? Only season 6 will tell.

Lenny mentioned the box. I’ve heard a lot of talk about the island’s “magic box” providing things for people just when they need it or want it. A lot of times this is really more in the form of a temptational torment. Hurley starts losing weight – a pallet of food drops from the sky. Charlie faces sobriety and a plane full of heroine drops from the sky. The list literally goes on and on. In this episode Hurley mans up and goes trekking across the island facing certain peril, because he is in search of answers. This is significant in the fact that he is the only easy going character on the show until we later meet Bernard in season 2. “I just go along with it…Now I want some friggin’ answers.” He didn’t get want he asked for, but he got what he needed. Rousseau agreed that the numbers must be cursed. He just needed somebody to truly understand and agree with him. I guess we all need that once in a while. Hurley surprises everyone by bringing back the battery that no one thought he could. Ask and ye shall receive.

Interesting to note:

1)Mary Jo the lotto girl is Sawyer’s mark from ‘Outlaws’. She is played by Brittany Perrineau, wife of Harold who plays Michael.

2)Why does Rousseau live in ‘dark territory’? After what we learned about what happened to her team in dark territory during season 5, why would she build her home there?

3)During Hurley’s accounting meeting we see a lot of easter eggs: the orange futures(oranges show up a lot in the show-Locke’s orange peel, orange juice to drug Juliet, Jack uses it for his alcoholic drinks occasionally, and then of course the word futures could be a play on the time theme); he now appears to ‘own’ Locke’s box company and is Randy’s boss? Just when did Randy boss around Locke and Hurley? Maybe Randy started working at the box company after the meteorite blew up Mr. Cluck’s. I had forgotten that Hurley’s factory fire killed 8. He shoulders the guilt of the highest death count on the show. 8 in the factory fire, 8 on the deck collapse, Libby because he didn’t bring a blanket, Grandpa Tito, the priest, Tricia Tanaka, D.I. van victim, perhaps the suicide jumper during this meeting, and then all those 815 crash victims. You can argue how many of those deaths are attributable to Hurley or his actions, but the point is,  he blames himself.

4)One has to wonder why the LAPD would dare to arrest Hurley after his speeding away from the convenience store in season 4. He had already received a sizable settlement from them in this episode for false arrest. I would think the police commissioner would want to avoid another similar situation. They would know that he could afford a really good lawyer. Lucky for them Hurley was a glutton for punishment.

5)Sam Toomey’s record of bad luck seems reminiscent of Faraday’s journal. Toomey’s is of bad luck. Faraday’s is of solutions. A mirror?

Deus Ex Machina

“What’s that?”

“A game. It’s my favorite game actually. I used to play it with my brother. It’s called Mousetrap.”

“How do you play?”

“Well you start with all these parts off the board and then one by one you build the trap. Shoe, bucket, tub. Piece by piece it all comes together. And then you wait till your opponent lands here on the old cheese wheel. And then if you set it up just right, you spring the trap.”

So much to say about this scene, where to begin… Locke works in a place that specializes in games. This man has been shown to love games all through the series. The fact that when we last saw him in season 5, he had been completely replicated by the master manipulator of the show, is making us all question just how far back does that connection go. TimeIsRelative must be having a field day with this episode, considering her focus on John Locke.  Could the mention of the cheese wheel be a hint at the frozen donkey wheel? Could the mention of Locke’s brother be a foreshadow of Jacob and his Nemesis playing games with the Losties’ lives? I think that is certain, especially since we never heard any other mention of Locke’s brother. Mousetrap is a metaphor for the long con. Conning is a theme that is revisited by every major character on the show. They are either doing it, or it’s being done to them, somewhere along the way. Then again, it is likely that it’s happening to all of them on island, in the sense that they are being manipulated. Whether that’s by Ben, Jacob, or his Nemesis has yet to be determined. But somebody is definitely turning the screws behind the scenes. This is one of the first episodes during the rewatch that I am finally seeing a less confidant Locke. In saying that I am also saying that this is a version of Locke that I see more as himself. What I mean by that is Locke’s behavior has been suspicious from the first episode. Given what we know, about a battle between two wills over the island inhabitants, Locke’s motivations have been suspect from the beginning. Who is guiding him? Someone sure is. The man that was tormented by Anthony Cooper and Randy Nations, could not be the strong and sure man that acts with perfect instincts on chaos island. Even Boone is suspect of him when he says, “One minute you’re quoting Nietzsche the next minute you’re an engineer.” What did Locke mean as he stomped around saying, “This was supposed to work!” ? Was he told that? Little by little (piece by piece) his legs begin to fail him. The island is taking away the mobility that it had restored in him. Locke sees this as a test. “All that’s happening now is our faith is being tested, our commitment…”

On the subject of games, Lock is not the only islander involved with games. Jack in an out of character moment, decides to give Sawyer a dose of his own medicine, by playing mind games on him. When giving him an exam to determine the reason for his splitting headaches, he torments him with unnecessarily embarrassing questions. Then he lets him sweat it out while he allows him to think that his diagnosis is dire. I liked season 1 Jack much better. After Kate thanked him, Jack replied, “I didn’t do it for him.” He was implying that he had helped Sawyer for Kate’s sake. He also operated on Ben for Kate’s sake in season 3. When she asked him to operate on Ben once more for her sake in season 5, he refused. He had done that all he was going to.

Maybe the red color on the file containing the information about Locke’s biological father should have been a red flag to him.Even the investigator warned him, “This stuff isn’t meant to be, even though it may feel that way. But this probably won’t have a  happy ending.” So much of what happened was premeditated. Emily admitted later that it was all Cooper’s idea. After Cooper entered the room where Locke was waiting, he sauntered over to the liquor setup to get them each a drink. He dipped into an open bucket of ice to fill the glasses. I point this out because you can see by the scalloped design of the glass bucket that it has no lid. An ice bucket with no lid is completely impractical. It would melt the ice. That would indicate one of two things. Either he had his staff refill the bucket frequently, or he was expecting John. Of course it was the latter. Through his home decor, Anthony Cooper conveyed the idea that he was an adventurer and hunter. Was that his true personality, or is that what John’s psych profile indicated he would respond to? It’s certainly been done in other episodes to him. We might also take note that Cooper’s home was protected by a large gate and guarded. Was this also premeditated because he predicted that Locke would turn into his own little stalker after he betrayed him so brutally? Or was this simply done to defend himself from all the people he has conned over time? One thing I am especially intrigued by is an exchange they have about hunting. Cooper asks, “Do you hunt?” “No, no.” replied Locke. Locke had never hunted before this. So what does that mean? Was Locke’s obsession with becoming the great hunter born out of some drive to prove something to Cooper? His worth? Or does the hunter theme point more toward Nemesis? Or is it a coincidence? Do not confuse coincidence with fate. When it comes to this show, I don’t believe in coincidence. The on island con was in full swing during this episode as well. Locke had explained to Boone that the island had changed him, it had made him whole. This line awakens my reset theory. Was he speaking as the formerly paralyzed John Locke, or as the formerly non-corporeal Nemesis? Now Locke’s legs were giving out one by one. Each time he would end up on the ground he would find a new clue. Each was perfectly orchestrated to be discovered by Locke at just the right moment. Locke was made to feel that they were there for a reason. As Cooper said, “These doves fly a lot faster than you think. So you have to really lead em. ” I don’t know that Locke is that fast of a dove. He seems to be a pretty easy mark. We will also see him easily conned by a cop named Eddie. Ironically this is the same name of the guard who guiltily kept Locke from questioning Cooper about his betrayal. Some force on the island has led Locke through most of the series, on and off. It was at full court press in this episode. The dreams were there, even going as far to incorporate Boone’s knowledge to help convince both of them to do it’s bidding. “You were part of a design.” Locke was led along through the whole series. “Everything breaks if you apply the right force.” “It was only a dream but it was the most real thing I’ve ever experienced” Emily said, “He said it was the only way you’d give it to him. It had to be your idea.” “And if you set it up just right, you spring the trap.”

Of course ultimately Boone is sent to his eventual demise by climbing into that Nigerian plane. But in the meantime, he discovers a whole new plane-load of heroine for the island to tempt Charlie with. Ask and ye shall receive. We also here the muffled voice of Bernard saying “We’re the survivors of Oceanic 815.” But I noticed something that I never had before, during the plane collapse. I apologize if this has been discussed by the community already. I haven’t had a lot of access to season 1 podcasts, so I’m not sure. As the plane flips there is a noticeable cloud of gray ‘dust’. Is it Smokey? I can’t say. But it wasn’t brown, which the dirt should have been. It was gray. Suddenly Locke has the ability to walk and manages to carry Boone back to the caves. He lies to Jack that he fell off a cliff, accidentally. As Jack asks him to tell him more, he realizes that Locke has disappeared. We see in his flashback that after the surgery he woke up abandoned and betrayed. That was how he felt now. Locke is bleeding as he pounds at the gate for Cooper to answer him, just as he is, as he pounds on the hatch and demands that the island answer him. “I’ve done everything you wanted me to do, so why did you do this to me?!?!?” And the hatch light goes on…

Interesting to note:

1)During Locke’s dream there is a sound of glass shattering. It seems unexplained. Could it be a memory of the shattering sound as Locke rocketed through the glass of Anthony Cooper’s 8th story apartment window?

2)Cooper said that Emily had told him that she wasn’t going to have the baby, then she “drops off the face of the planet”. When she turns up again she’s asking for money telling him she put him up for adoption. This is sort of a mixed up retelling of both Claire’s story and Kate’s story. Claire didn’t want to have the baby, then she got some money, then she dropped off the face of the planet, then she abandoned her baby. Kate got a baby, reappeared on the face of the planet, got some money, gave the baby away, and then dropped of the face of the planet again.

3)Can someone please explain to me what the wardrobe department was trying to accomplish with Cooper’s hunting attire? Seriously? He looked like a cartoon.

4)Locke told Boone that normally clothing would completely decompose in 2 years. Huh? When Kate and Jack found ‘Adam and Eve’, he said it would take 40-50 years for that level of decomposition to happen. Is this some blatant, but unnecessary lie on Locke’s part? What are they trying to tell us?

5)Cooper stated that “I’m an old man, and it’s a long list.” If that is a veiled reference to Jacob’s list, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that Cooper’s probably not on it.

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Lostaholics ReWatch: Magical Anomalies

Hearts and Minds

Magic and anomalies play a recurring theme in this block of episodes. Locke tells Boone a story about Michelangelo and how his father never understood “the divinity in his son”. This theme will also be revisited in the next episode “Special”. It’s also been a question series wide in terms of how special and fated are our group of castaways. Boone also defends to Locke that Shannon is “smart and special in a lot of ways!” The island’s magnetic anomalies are hinted at when Sayid shows Jack the discrepancies from the compass.

Secrets and truth are always a part of every episode of Lost. Kate catches Sun laughing at a joke she made and realizes that Sun can in fact understand English. Sun admits that only she and Michael know and please not to tell. Locke lies about Boone hunting, to hide that he has actually drugged and kidnapped him.

The mythology of the show was well represented in this episode. When Hurley confronts Boone about his and Locke’s failure to bring back any more boar for the camp to eat, he states “This isn’t a game.” Games have been a series long theme. However in light of season five it seems that it may hint to more of the root of what’s really going on. Jacob and his Nemesis seem to be playing a game over mankind on the island. After Boone confronts Sayid with hostility over his growing friendship with Shannon, the phrase “You know where to find me” is uttered. This mirrors what Jacob said to Nemesis when he told Jacob that he was going to find a loophole so that he could kill him. I couldn’t help but question the exchange that followed between Locke and Boone. Locke admonished Boone from angering Sayid, “We don’t want to make an enemy of him. We’re gonna want him on our side.” I’m not sure what Locke meant by this. Before season 5 I would have just said that it was smart to keep a formidable opponent like Sayid on your side. But in light of season 5’s fake Locke, his ability to manipulate, and the eerie questions of who was leading Locke all along, and whether or not these same occurrences might be revisited or reset, I have trouble making sense of this statement. It makes me suspicious. Even Kate is not able to trust Locke as she suggests to Jack that it’s a lie about the boar disappearing. She thinks that the boar is just thinning out and that Locke is saving the meat for himself. I immediately noticed that Locke was mixing a mystery paste “for later”, as he told Boone. Why was Locke mixing it so early in the episode? Did he know he would need it? Did he remember from a deja vu? When Boone insists that they tell the others about the hatch door that they found, Locke responds “They’re not ready. They won’t understand it.” Even now this makes no sense to me. The best that I can tell is that Locke was being selfish and wanted to keep this experience, this destiny all to himself. However if we are talking in the abstract, there are many things about the island that the survivors won’t understand yet. There are many mysteries of the island that they are not ready for. When Boone says he’s going to tell Shannon their secret, Locke knock’s him out. “…it’s time for you to let go of some things, because it’s what’s best for you. And I promise you’re gonna thank me for this later… You’ll be able to cut yourself free once you have the proper motivations.” That could be said of most all of the experiences that the survivors have over the course of the series. It speaks to their experiences that lead to their own redemptions as well. It even foreshadows the boar experiences that Sawyer will have in “Outlaws”. The paste that Locke was mysteriously mixing far earlier in the episode is what he spreads on Boone’s open head wound. He lies to Boone about it being something to guard against infection for his wound. In fact it was a drug that sent Boone on an hallucinatory trip. In Boone’s flashback he visits the Sydney police station to swear out a complaint against Shannon’s apparently abusive boyfriend Brian. This is one of the first of many names to be repeatedly used by many different characters in Lost. Brian is also the name of Walt’s stepfather that we will meet in “Special”. The officer that Boone meets with has a conspicuously different colored pair of eyes. One is brown and one green. Eye color was a theme that eluded me on my original watch through. It wasn’t until I started joining in with the Lost community at large, that I learned about it. I did notice this cop’s eyes the first time, but I just thought it was a physical anomaly that this actor had. Locke’s strange island knowledge is hinted at again when he states that “There’s nothing to make” of Rousseau’s maps. And again when he gives Sayid his compass because he doesn’t need it anymore. When Locke is discussing the lack of boar he says, ” They’re smart animals and smart animals adapt quickly when a new predator is introduced into their environment.” One has to wonder if our islanders will adapt as well in season 6 when they finally learn who or what they are really up against. The producers have been quoted as saying that there was one line in season one that was secretly more important than the rest to the final outcome of the series. Many fans have speculated that it was Charlies statement to Jack that, “No offense mate, but if there was one person on this island that I would put my absolute faith in to save us all, it would be John Locke.” And as to the question of who Locke is, Boone tells Shannon, “He’s the only one here that has a clue to what’s going on!” By the end of the episode Locke tells Boone that he gave him an experience that Locke believed was vital to his survival on this island. This is an ironic statement given that Boone will only survive for 6 more episodes past this one. Spoiler, sorry. When Boone asked Locke about the experience not being real, Locke answered “It was only as real as you made it. ” These are the kinds of moments in the show that fuel Karen Mauro of “Karen’s Lost Notebook” blog and “The ODI” podcast. She has many intriguing theories involving perspective, dream states, and the idea that island experiences as a whole may not be real, but what the survivors need to go through to evolve in character. As Boone admitted to Locke that he felt relieved to be free of his obligation to Shannon, Locke said “Yes. Time to let go. Follow me.” And off they marched into darkness. It’s interesting to note that from this point on Boone’s free will seems to be gone and he follows Locke blindly, to his death.

Interesting to note:

1) Why do the banyan trees repel Smokey?

Special

Magic and special abilities are what this episode is all about. Walt’s knife throwing tutorial has long been a source of speculation for the fans. Locke instructs him, “Picture it in your minds eye… See it … Visualize the path.” Then curiously, Vincent whimpers. Walt says, “It was weird. I actually saw it. In my min or something like it was real.” Locke replies, “Who’s to say it wasn’t?” This is our first indication that Walt may possess the power to will things into happening. When talking about Boone, I have to say that rather than ability, he is more the epitome of inability. Once again Boone shows his ineptness as he tackles a menacing Michael that is threatening Locke with a knife. Boone tackles Michael and holds the knife over Micheal. Boone is so bad at this that Michael manages to punch Boone from underneath and throw Boone off of him. That should have been impossible from Boone’s position of strength. Boone is so stupid. I apologize to all the Boone fans out there but come on. Locke tells Michael that “We’re not back in the real world. As long as we’re here on this island I think that Walt should be allowed to realize his full potential.” It’s frustrating that the writers have left us hanging so long on Walt’s ’specialness’. We still have one more season for it to happen. Even though I have long since heard the fan outcry for a fruition to all the allusions to Walt having some special destiny or power, I had forgotten how strong that theme was until rewatching “Special”. It’s not an exaggeration. They wanted us to believe that Walt was different. They wanted us to believe Aaron was different. And they wanted us to believe Locke was different too. Here’s hoping they don’t let us down on any of those counts. During a flashback, Walt is seen staring at Vincent too intently not to make something of it. This brings a lot of things to mind for me. It is reminiscent of the way he intently studies the Flash comic with the polar bear, only later to encounter one, as if he conjured it. It also reminds me of an ARG site about these incredible golden retrievers that could communicate telepathically. And on that note it has an obvious connection to the story that Locke will tell Kate and Sawyer about a mysterious golden retriever in “Outlaws”. Among other things, this dog stared intently with Locke’s ‘mother’ until she began to cry, as if something had occurred between them.

Many truths are revealed in this episode. As Michael’s flashbacks unfold, it is heartbreaking to realize how strong his love and devotion was for Walt, only to have him ripped away. It really is a huge theme about how much our characters have been trampled on by fate or other people. So many of the flashback characters have garnered my hate, even on the rewatch. Michael’s flashbacks also show us that he was unselfish in his love for Walt. He let Susan and Brian continue to have high standing in Walt’s memory. He could have told Walt the truth about how Susan kept them apart, even blocking him from Michael’s correspondence. He could have been truthful about how Brian was abandoning Walt after he helped Susan to steal him away from Michael. But Michael took the high road and let Walt’s love for them remain. The fact was that Brian was terrified of Walt. “When Walt’s around things just happen. He’s different somehow.” Michael manages to stick it to Brian anyway, by lying to  Walt that Brian said he could have his dog Vincent. Also I can’t help but notice the parallel between Susan’s collecting and keeping Walt’s letters from him just as Widmore kept Penny’s letters from her.

There are many intersting aspects to the overall mythology in this episode. Michael tells Walt about his artwork and that he taught himself ‘perspective’. “You know what that is? Perspective?” This is interesting dialogue considering all the episodes that have begun with the image of an eye opening, as if to say that this episode would be told from that character’s point of view. Also the subject of perspective came heavily into play during season 5 when so many continuity errors came up. As fans cried foul, some wondered if it was a clue that we were seeing events from different viewpoints and therefore the facts were inconsistent.  Although I remember that Claire had a diary, I had totally missed the segment about her dream, the first watch through. Charlie reports to the others that she was having a recurring dream about the Black Rock. “I try to get away but it won’t let me.” Episode “316″ was the episode that really got me jump-started into community interaction. That was the episode that introduced the notion that our Losties could serve as ‘proxies’ for other islanders. I also began to realize that these roles could have been played out on other ill-fated vessels that found there way to the island. Rousseau’s raft had 6 members on it, the same number as the Oceanic 6. On that raft was a musician, and a pregnant woman. On the Black Rock there was at least one dead person (the known final resting place of Magnus Hanso-according to the blast door map)and prisoners. The Nigerian plane had a dead man, Yemi. There could be many more matches that we are unaware of. The producers put forth the idea of reincarnation, both in their podcast as well as the show in the form of the anagram ‘Canton-Ranier’. Late in the season, “The ODI” podcast reported at least 4 times during season 5, that they had dubbed a different character’s voice over the wrong character’s lines: Charlotte’s voice was heard instead as Teresa spoke to Dan; Another deeper voice was heard as Locke spoke to Ben (Nemesis?); During Roger and Kate’s heated exchange at the swing set, Jack’s voice can be heard instead of Roger’s, as he asks, “You want to help Kate?”; and the one clip I can say that I agree with, because I heard it, is when Dan is walking toward the sonic fence and Jack is talking to Kate though she is not looking at him. Jack speaks and Sawyer’s voice can be heard. When Kate asks if Daniel knows what he’s doing Jack/Sawyer replies, “I sure hope so. There’s no turning back now.” That one is indisputable. To me all of this together, points to a reincarnation theory. Is it possible that all of our Losties have been on this island before. Is it possible that that they have lived this over and over. Maybe they play different roles in different iterations. Obviously Claire and Rousseau were not the same person, but it’s an interesting theory none-the-less. Nadia’s note said that she and Sayid would meet in the next life if not this one. Desmond says ’see ya in another life brother’. Nemesis said it always ends the same. Jacob replied it only ends once, anything before that is just progress. I’m surprised to just now hear about the dubbing switch-a-roo, now that I’m catching up on the ODI podcasts. This just goes to show us that we should pay attention to Locke when he said in this episode, “You can’t hear everything Boone. The sooner you learn that the better.”

Interesting to Note:

1) The continuation of “Walt! Walt!”

2) Susan says the crib Michael wanted would cost  3 months rent. Though not one of the famed numbers, 3 does recur a lot in the show and seems to have religious connotations.

3)Michael is the first of many to be struck down by the infamous gold Pontiac.

4)As Michael studies the desk box of letters that Walt’s nanny has just given him, we see that the ceiling over Michael is octagon shaped. This likely was not caught by viewers on the first watch, since the Dharma Initiative had not been introduced in the show yet.

Homecoming

The truth eludes Claire in this episode as she struggles with amnesia. As Jin and Sun discuss Claire’s health upon return to the caves, they share a dramatic look between each other, as if to foreshadow their upcoming storyline about their infertility as a couple. Claire remembers nothing about what happened to her. As Charlie talks to her he chooses his words carefully  when he says that Ethan is the ‘bad guy’. During Charlie’s flashback we watch him case the home of Lucy, his intended mark. He spots an antique cigarette case that belonged to Winston Churchill. Lucy states that, “Dad collects all sorts of rubbish from the great leaders of the empire.” I couldn’t help wondering if this was a nod to the eventual theme of leaders on the island. Of course after season 5 we will recognize the additional reference to Winston Churchill that James made when he compared his leadership style to his. But my favorite part of this scene happened just before Charlie discovered the cigarette case. He asked Lucy where her Dad was, and she replied “Buying some paper company up in Slough.” I laughed so hard because this was a nod to one of my favorite shows. The original British version of “The Office” was about the Werner Hogg paper company in Slough, England. Too funny. I also wondered if the father’s band name was another nod to the ever present theme of religion in the form of “The Protestant Reformation”. And of course in the continuing theme of ‘choice’, Charlie is faced with temptation and fails, when he steals the cigarette case. When Sayid was discussing his volunteer band of sentries to guard the perimeter, he was less than enthusiastic when the ever inept Boone also wanted to be a sentry. Locke chimed in, “Absolutely. We’re counting on you Boone.” I have to wonder if Locke or someone else, was scheming in there because they needed Boone to fail so that Ethan could infiltrate and chaos would ensue. And of course he falls asleep on duty. Shocker! Then just to drive the point home he trips on nothing. Ugh. Six more episodes until “Do No Harm”. Did I type that out loud? Oh well… Anyway, as I was saying, Boone’s slam-bang job allowed ‘Scott’ to be beaten to death by Ethan. Lucy’s words still haunted Charlie. She told him that “You’ll never take care of anyone.” It wasn’t until Charlie’s eventual death, two seasons later that he would finally feel otherwise.

There were many examples of the ongoing mythology in this episode as well. Claire screams “Who are you people?!?” in her amnesiac state. Desmond had a similar panic when he did not recognize Sayid or Frank. This could have an interesting tie-in to the reincarnation theory. Is it possible that these characters could have momentary resets where their roles where about to switch and they wouldn’t know the people that their past selves had known? In Charlie’s flashback he says to his drug supplier/friend, “Carpe Diem”. They go out of their way to point out to us that this is Latin. Why? Did they want to remind us upon rewatching that this is Latin, ‘the language of the enlightened’, as well as the ‘Others’? Could Charlie have been an Other in one of the iterations? When Charlie is blathering on to Jin as they hike through the jungle, he talks about how nice Jin and Sun’s ignorant bliss must be. They are not engaging in the chaos around them due to their language barrier. This sounds much like Rose and Bernard’s decision to pull themselves out of the game that the Losties are perpetually finding themselves playing. As Jack, Locke and the rest try to agree on a strategy to combat Ethan’s future attacks, Jin and Sun discuss it as well. Jin blames the other survivors “because of what they have done.” In another example of the light and dark theme, Claire asks  “Why would you keep me in the dark Charlie? I’m already in the dark?” In the climactic scene of Ethan’s capture, fate seemingly took the gun from Jack’s hands to place it in Charlie’s. I was so mad that he killed Ethan just as they were beginning to discuss questioning him. But I suppose Charlie had a point that he never would have told him anything. I guess, Ben and Ms. Clugh would teach us that later.

Interesting to Note:

1)”Annyong” seems to be Charlie’s attempt at Korean. This is the second time I have noticed this. Hurley also tried to speak Korean to Jin when he was trying to get Jin to share the fish.

2)Ethan’s bolo is the first of the antiquated weapons that we see.

3)Charlie’s copier model number is “C815″, an obvious nod to the numbers.

4)How did a man like Locke become such an expert on handling knives and guns?

5)The comedic scenes of Charlie trying to do the copier demo was filmed at various tilts to emulate Charlies mounting withdrawal.

Outlaws

Magical anomalies abound in this episode. When Sawyer chases the posessed boar into the jungle, we get our first listen to the whispers. We can very clearly hear “It’ll come back around.” After Sawyer is awakened from his Daddy-turned-boar nightmare, he starts to go after a rustling in the jungle that must be the boar. It’s Locke. Now this is at least the 4th time I can think of that Locke (true Locke or otherwise) has appeared when we were expecting some other mystical creature on the island. I don’t care what Ecko says, this can’t be coincidense. Locke tells Kate and Sawyer the story of the mystical golden retriever(Vincent?) that seemed to communicate with Locke’s mother wordlessley and disappeared just as mysteriously as it appeared, once the need for him was gone. It’s interesting to note that Locke’s sister died when she fell from the monkey bars. In season 3, Jack has a flashback where he is stalking Sarah, his soon to be ex-wife. In the deleted scenes from this episode, “A Tale of Two Cities”, as he watches from afar, one of her students falls from the monkey bars, after he performs the  Heimlich maneuver, bringing her back to life, she criptically tells Jack “Don’t trust her.” This little girl was also reported to have appeared in on set photos that were circulating on the internet at the time, suggesting that Jack was having visions of her in his Hydra cell. All this is remeniscent of Charlotte Malkin who seemed to have messages to share with Ecko from the other side after she returned to life.

A lot of harsh truths are revealed in this episode. During Sawyer’s flashback we the see the first heartbreaking glimpse of his childhood as his mother makes him hide under the bed from his enraged father, hoping he will believe that little James is still at his grandparents house. Once the screams are silenced by the thundering gunshot, James watches in horror from under the bed as his father’s boots walk into his room. He sits down and then shoots himself. All this is played out with just the boots in view. This is one of many recurring ’shoe’ themes in the show.When Hibbs cons Sawyer into killing a man that he believes to be the original Sawyer, they make reference to the ‘Tampa Job’. As of season 5 we still don’t know what the job was about, but it was enough to make Sawyer want to kill Hibbs. After the ‘Sydney Job’, if I were Hibbs, I’d pray that Sawyer never leaves ‘crap-hole’ island. Charlie and Sawyer are both going through similar feelings of guilt as they deal with what they’ve done. Charlie murdered Ethan, a man that has kidnapped and murdered and would surely do so again. Sawyer is still reeling from the fact that he was conned into killing an innocent man. This goes a long way toward explaining why he was so into self-loathing during “Confidence Man”. Perhaps he was so eager to let himself be tortured because he felt he needed to be punished. The gun dealer told him, “You look a man in the eye and you point a gun at him, you find who you really are…” We learn a lot of truths about both Kate and Sawyer during their game of “I Never”. Kate has been married. And they have both killed someone. On a personal note I must admit that sadly I too… have never been to Disneyland. Sniff. What did you think I was going to say?!?! Geez people? Sawyer once again revisits the theme of choice when Duckett tells him “Only two choices…” and Sawyer replies “go with the hot.” The flashback where we learn that Sawyer and Christian have met is riveting from beginning to end. “It’s fate. Some people are just supposed to suffer.” He suggests that they are already in hell just as Anthony Cooper will, later on in the series. He muses that his son “is a good man, maybe a great one. ” He talks about how simple it would be to fix this all with a phone call. I can’t help but think that he’s not supposed to make that phone call though. Ultimately what this conversation does is convince Sawyer to go through with the murder he was waffling about. I couldn’t help wonder if that maybe by that point in the time line, Christian was actually already dead and that maybe this was Nemesis causing chaos, conning Sawyer into making the wrong choice. It’s absolutely possible. We know that Jacob did jobs off island. Why not Nemesis? Of course this all ends tragically as Sawyer learns that he has killed the wrong man. Duckett’s dying words to him are the haunting, “It’ll come back around.” Eventually Sawyer breaks free from his haunting when he makes the right choice, when faced with the boar, and he puts his gun down. In that moment he did what Christian Shepherd was apparently never able to do, according to Jack. He took responsibility. He chose. Jack said about his dad, “It’s just something my father used to say so he could go through life knowing people hated him. Instead of taking responsibility for it. He just put it on fate, said he was made that way. ” But just to make us go back to hating Sawyer again, the writers have Sawyer keep the revelation about Sawyer knowing Christian and what he revealed to himself. More secrets.

Interesting to Note:

1)Hurley is afraid that Ethan will rise from the dead while he and Charlie are trying to bury him. At the time this was funny. Now, post season 5, we are looking at resurection with a lot more seriousness. Note Colleen was burned Viking style. Nemesis burned Jacob, as if to ensure that he couldn’t return.

2)Brittany Perrineau played the female mark in Sawyer’s flashback. She will later play that same character in a Hurley flashback as the girl in the lotto show. As you might guess from her name, she is the wife of Harold Perrineau that plays ‘Michael’.

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Lostaholics ReWatch: Through The Magnifying Glass Week #4

With each passing week of the rewatch, I’m starting to wonder if some of the things we’re noticing were actually supposed to be caught when going back to watch again.  There are common themes that are apparent through all of the episodes in this block, including secrets, lies, numbers, and dreams, and storylines that carry well into the our most recent season of Lost.  This week, we watched episodes 13-16, Hearts and Minds, Special, Homecoming, and Outlaws.  We are given a look at the lives of Boone and Shannon, Walt and Michael, Charlie, and Sawyer, while at the same time, getting present-day series of events that are further explained by seeing these flashbacks.

In Hearts and Minds, we learn how Shannon has worked to manipulate Boone into giving her money that should have come to her when her father died.  She also manages to play with his emotions and feelings for her, having slept with him the night before boarding the Oceanic flight.  On the island, Locke seems to pick up on Boone’s feelings for Shannon and decides to give him a test of faith in himself to prove that he could let go of Shannon.  In this cruel test, John creates a hallucinagenic paste that makes Boone have a vision of the smoke monster attacking and killing his step-sister, but what was odd was that Boone had never come into contact with the monster prior to this and yet his mind was able to tell him all about the happenings this beast could cause.  Does this mean that John was able to call the beast?  Or did Boone just get “judged” like we saw with Ben?

There were other things I noticed during this episode that held significance, in my opinion, to key events that would play out in later seasons.  One of these things is that Kate tells Sun she would have been headed for Bali after leaving Australia, but she was detoured (by the marshall).  Bali is where Naomi said the wreckage of the Oceanic Flight 815 was found and that the world figured there were no survivors based on the number of bodies found there.  There was also the mention of feet swelling when Sayid gave Shannon a pair of shoes.  If you combine this “symptom” with others, especially Hurley’s digestive issues this episode, it could be inferred that we’re dealing with a form of “jet lag” or disruption of circadian rhythm (bodyclock).  I believe this is just another nod in the direction that time is different on the island.  But the biggest thing, for me, was seeing John perched on the beach just staring out at the ocean.  This reminded me so much of Jacob that I now wonder if there is some sort of connection this early in the show to John and the two that have inhabited this island for centuries.

In “Special”, we get a glimpse into the live of Michael and Walt.  We see how Walt was taken out of Michael’s life by Susan because of a job overseas, and then how unforeseen circumstances kept Michael away for years after that.  As Susan suddenly becomes sick and dies, Michael is given custody out of the blue by Brian Porter, the man who adopted Walt and was married to Susan.  The highlight of seeing this episode again, for me, was being reminded of the mysticism that surrounds Walt and the implications of the word, “special”.

On the island, Walt and John’s friendship is continuing to develop until Michael lets his jealousy take hold and ends the contact between the two.  Just before this happens, John is teaching Walt how to throw knives and tells him to “picture it in his mind’s eye” and to “visualize the path” it would take to hitting the tree.  When Walt did this, he hit the spot on the tree with no problems, and shocking Boone with his ability to complete the task.  When Michael comes into the jungle and sees this, things get heated and Boone acts as “protector” to Locke, making me think of the scene when Daniel Faraday was shot by his mother when she was protecting Richard.  I also can’t watch this episode and then write this article without mention the box that holds Michael’s letters to Walt.  As he stands under the octagon/frozen donkey wheel ceiling, the governess gives him a box that contains the letters he has sent to Walt over the years, including the penguin with a sunburn joke.  I’m more and more convinced that this is the type of box that was made at the box company John worked for and Hurley owned.  I also think that it is this type of box that Ben has inside the satchel he carries along with him.

During Michael’s flashbacks, a few things occured to me.  This is the first episode where we are given a visual of someone being hit by a car, which unfortunately for some characters, is a reoccuring theme.  What is the significance of being hit by a car and being brought to the island?  If Michael wouldn’t have been hit, Walt may not have stayed in Australia and neither would have been on that plane.  The list of characters affected this way, either directly or indirectly, is phenomenal!  Claire, John Locke (Emily Locke), Anthony Cooper, Edmund Burke and Juliet, Nadia, and Sarah are just a few……we also know that Christian’s patient that died on the operating table was in a car accident and Shannon’s dad was killed in the same accident that injured Sarah.  If Jacob hates technology, are the car accidents the work of his enemy?

“Homecoming” is a Charlie-centric episode that shows us how Charlie copes after the break-up of Driveshaft.  In this flashback, Charlie is trying to establish a relationship with a woman in a bar in order to steal from her to pay for his drug addiction.  On the island, Claire has returned to camp, not knowing who anyone is or how she came to be on the island.  With her memory completely lost, Charlie has to start all over again in winning her trust, which is accomplish by the end of this hour.  Contradicting the events of present day, Lucy Heatherton does not wind up trusting Charlie at the end of the flashback when she learns that he not only has a drug addiction, but that he also stole from her father by taking the cigarette case that belonged to Winston Churchill.

The major points in this episode that I feel are relevant in having seen through Season 5 mostly came as one-line mentions in dialog.  Claire’s memory problem after leaving Ethan reminded me of what Richard told Kate would happen after he took young Ben to the Temple, and also what happened to Charlie when he was revived by Jack when Ethan hung him in a tree.  Another line was when Charlie said “Carpe Diem” and explained to his cohort that it was Latin.  We learn in Season 5 that Latin is the language of the Others.  We also learn that Lucy Heatherton lives in the same area as Penny Widmore and has graduated from Oxford University. Daniel Faraday also graduated from Oxford, which we saw in The Variable.  It would be a neat character connection if we found out that they were there at the same time.  But the biggest thing, to me, was when it was noted that Lucy’s dad was in a band called, The Protestant Reformation.  Historically speaking, this was the movement to break away from the Catholic Church and the beginning of Protestant denominations.  The Reformation is generally deemed to have begun on October 31, 1517, in Wittenberg, Saxony (in present-day Germany). There, Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the All Saints’ Church, which served as a notice board for university-related announcements. These were points for debate that criticized the Church and the Pope. The most controversial points centered on the practice of selling indulgences and the Church’s policy on purgatory.  When looking at the definition of “purgatory” and the interpretations of it throughout history, it was stated, “[People in Purgatory]Thus cleansed of all sin and made perfect, they wait in Earthly paradise before ascending to Heaven. Thus, ironically, all Satan’s attempts to destroy and damn humanity did was ensure humanity’s salvation.”  Sounds a little bit like what we believe to be happening between Jacob and his enemy, with our Losties caught in the middle.

Our final episode this week, “Outlaws”, is Sawyer-centric, and deals with Sawyer’s demons on and off the island.  We are shown the night that his parents died, which had me almost choked up to watch even though I knew exactly how events were going to play out, and the night that he killed Frank Duckett thinking he was the root of evil that led to his parents’ deaths.  On the island, Sawyer is “haunted” by a boar that seems to only want to pick on him.  As Sawyer hunts the boar that keeps bullying him, he bonds with Kate through the drinking game, “I Never”.  In this game, they both admit to having killed a man in their past.  In this episode, Sawyer becomes the second of our characters to hear the whispers in the jungle, including Frank Duckett saying, “It’ll come back around”.  These were the last words he said before he died the night that Sawyer shot him and realized he was not the man responsible for his parents’ deaths.

While in Australia, we are reminded of the fact that Sawyer met Christian Shepard, presumably hours before his death, in a bar in Sydney.  Christian asked him to buy him a drink since he had misplaced his wallet–the same wallet that was found on his nightstand table next to his bed in the hotel.  Later, at the end of the episode, while talking to Jack in the jungle, he is reminded of his meeting with Christian when Jack mentions “fate” and saying, “that’s why the Red Sox will never win the World Series.”  Sawyer manages to piece the two together and realizes that Jack is the son of the man in the bar that day, but doesn’t reveal to him that they had met.

There are other things happening on the island that are significant to where the story is going.  One is the death of Ethan and the fact that Charlie is burying him (nothing stays buried long on the island) and the second in the birth of the raft that Michael intends to build in hopes of getting off the island.  Claire also tells Charlie about a dream she had, but says it was more like memories.  This line reminded me of Desmond waking up and telling Penny that what he had just had wasn’t a dream, it was a memory.

Next week, our episodes to watch are:  “…In Translation”, “Numbers”, and “Deus Ex Machina”.  You can also follow the rewatch by listening to our hiatus podcast, Lostaholics Rewatching Lost, on Talkshoe, Sunday evenings at 9pm Eastern Time.  The podcast is a lot of fun and collaborates the efforts of other podcasters in the community to get a full look at these episodes through “Season 5 Eyes”, as Curt Yanko from the Black Rock Podcast says.  If you’re not available to listen live, you can always download the show from Talkshoe, or find it on iTunes as a free download.

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Lostaholics Rewatch: TIR is Rewatching Lost #4

Season One:  Episodes 13 – 16

Welcome back to Re-Watch Week Number Four!  This week we will be reviewing Hearts and Minds, Special, Homecoming, and Outlaws.  In the past I spent the first part of the articles reviewing the entire four episodes from Locke’s perspective with a follow-up section on my critique of his behavior and actions.  As John Locke’s character has grown to be in many of the scenes within the episodes, the recap section has been a bit daunting to say the least! Therefore, starting this week, in order to provide a better way of analyzing ‘the great white hunter’, I will be giving you my speculations and observations of his character as we walk through the episodes.  And as always I’ll add any personal observations of the overall episodes at the end.  So… let’s get to it!

Looking at Locke:
These four episodes take place over days 24 through 31 on the island.   By the start of Hearts and Minds, it has been eight days since John Locke and Boone discovered the metallic hatch underneath the vegetation of the jungle.  Despite stealing the axe a few days ago from the Losties’ camp, very little has been done to unearth or uncover the hatch itself. Boone continues to follow Locke’s advice and lies to everyone that he and John are out hunting daily.  After a confrontation between Boone and Sayid over Shannon, Locke reprimands Boone en route back to the hatch, telling him to put aside his differences with Sayid because he’s very competent and they don’t want to make an enemy out of him but rather want him on ‘their side’.  When Boone reports that the people at the camp are starting to wonder what it is that they are doing since they do not return with any meat, Locke shrugs it off, telling Boone that the others have plenty of fruit and fish and that what they are doing is far more important.  The hatch, he points out, is their priority.  I find this conversation between Boone and Locke to be extremely important as far as mythology.  To me, any talk or conversation that uses terms like the word ’sides’ points to Season Five’s The Incident with the major scene between Jacob and the Man in Black.  We now know that there are two distinct and different sides existing on this island.  We know that John Locke encountered the Smoke Monster in Walkabout and since that time has behaved in a very creepy all-knowing type of way that can only be explained by supernatural intervention.  And we also know that the Smoke Monster is clearly defined to be part of one of these two sides on the island.  Can we not conclude that John Locke has been chosen to be a part of that same team?  One thing is for certain, he is the only survivor on this island that has knowingly chosen ‘a side’ and has attempted up to this point to either lure people to it or create conflict outside of it.   And to have ‘a side’ infers that there is a counter or opposite side.  Based on how Jack Shepherd did not follow Locke’s advice and submit to fate and continue to chase after his father, I believe Jack is someone we can say with certainty is currently on the ‘opposite side’.   I’ll be able to show evidence of this later in the article.  Finally, I need to say something about John Locke prioritizing the hatch above providing sustenance to his fellow survivors.  He was the one who took ownership as ‘the hunter’ and it was a roll he gladly took on with gusto.  Just ask Charlie Pace, boar bait boy.  But since finding the hatch, John has dropped that title like a bad habit.  And instead of taking the time to teach someone else how to do it or squeezing in a kill now or then just to keep everyone at bay, John simply walks away from his responsibility.  He is not emotionally connected to the community of survivors on the island.  They are simply pawns to be used or sacrificed for his purposes.

Later that day, we see Boone and Locke sitting near the hatch and we learn that the reason why there has been little progress unearthing the metallic structure is because Locke is pulling a Michelangelo, or so he says.  As he stirs a concoction that he tells Boone is ‘for later’, John waxes eloquent on a story about Michelangelo, the Statue of David, and four months of staring at marble.  When Boone fears that he will have to stare at the hatch just as long while Lockelangelo works it all out in his mind, we see Locke smile one of his knowing smiles.  This scene makes me think back to the first three episodes of Locke sitting on the beach staring out into the ocean.  He sat there and waited for something to happen instead of getting up and joining the others in gathering food, water, and shelter.  He’s doing the exact same thing here.  Except this time, we can see that he’s getting a bit frustrated at all of this waiting.  He wants to get that hatch open NOW and he’s going to try to use a shortcut:  Boone.  And how he’s going to do it I believe is a key to how he himself has managed to be so knowledgeable about the island and about those around him.  He’s going to drug Boone to illicit dreams and visions that may tell him what he needs to do.  I believe that is how John Locke has been getting his information up to this point.  All those weird times when John showed up at the right place at the right time, forecasting rain, saving people off cliffs, etc were given to him via dreams and visions.  So why would he need to drug Boone if he gets his own honey-do-list? Well, what if ‘his side’ doesn’t want the hatch to be opened (either now or never) and is no longer communicating to him via visions and dreams?  Would you not, if you were as desperate as John Locke is of finding his destiny, consider using your sidekick? So he puts together the necessary ingredients, stirs slowly, and waits for the opportunity to clobber Boone the Boy Wonder over the head.

Once Locke knocks Boone unconscious, trusses him up like a rodeo calf, puts the psychotropic paste on his wound, throws a knife into the ground just out of reach, and says ‘Buh-bye’, Locke walks away from Boone and the hatch and heads toward the beach.  It is here that he runs into Sayid trying to orienteer with a needle floating on a cork.  When Sayid asks John what he is doing out this far in the jungle, Locke lies easily telling Sayid that he was hunting until Boone gave him the day off.  He then offers his compass which Sayid accepts gratefully.  Until Sayid realizes that the compass is defective due to a significant magnetic anomaly.  There are two things here, I’d like to mention.  The first is about the actual compass itself.  It is NOT the same one that Locke had on his vest for all of the time leading up to this scene.  [I've inserted screen captures of this episode to show the two different compasses.]  Up till now, Locke has been wearing a silver steel compass on his vest.  In every episode, in every scene, it is the exact same silver steel compass.   But in this scene, it is gold.  Where did this different compass come from? The second thing I’d like to comment on is about its defective quality.  How could it have gotten this way?  We know up to this point in LOST that there are two major electromagnetic sources on the island.  One is under the Swan Station and one is under the Orchid.  Sayid noticed that the compass was not pointing to true magnetic north when he compared it to the needle-on-a-cork compass he made earlier that day.  So this gold compass had to have come in contact with one of these underground stations or some other magnetic anomaly.  Something else to note:  After Locke gives Sayid his compass he decides to get rid of his hunting vest, because from that point on, you will not see Locke wearing it again.

Anyway… after leaving Sayid to his own work, we next see Locke sitting by the shoreline staring out to sea like he used to in the earlier episodes.  He is completely at peace and one would never know that he had knowingly assaulted, tied up, and drugged the Boy Wonder earlier that day.  Jack comes up to him and makes conversation about seeing ships in the ocean, being patient, Boone and about hunting boar.  Ladies and gentlemen, if this scene doesn’t give you the heebie-jeebies because of its similarity to the scene with Jacob and the Man in Black in The Incident, I don’t know what will.  It’s in the imagery.  It’s in the conversation of ships just out there on the ocean like the Black Rock.  It’s in the talk of being patient.  It’s in the bottle of water Jack offers to Locke like Jacob offers the fish.  It’s in the denial of the offer of the bottle by Locke like the MIB does with the fish.  And it’s in the talk of humanity by Locke that we are nothing but predators that sounds like the MIB.  It is simply THE biggest mirror image in Lost.  And to me, my friends, it solidifies my stance that John Locke is of the dark side and Jack Shepherd is of the light.  The two of them are the modern day representatives of both sides of the island.  One believes in hope and change and the other believes in fate.  If you want a goose-bump reaction, I seriously recommend watching these two scenes back to back!

That night, Boone returns to camp and tries to kill Locke thinking he was responsible for his sister’s death.  When he realizes that Shannon is not dead and that the events he experienced were in a dream, Boone is relieved.  He is relieved because he no longer is under Shannon’s spell.  Unfortunately for him, however, he now is completely under Locke’s.  It is the only way to explain how Boone could forgive Locke for his behavior and follow him back into the jungle that evening with nothing more from John than, “follow me”.  Oh, and isn’t it ironic that Locke tells Boone that he ‘gave him this experience because it was vital to his survival on the island’ and in little more than two weeks Boone is tragically killed?  Seems to me that the experience had the opposite effect, wouldn’t you say?

We next see John Locke teaching Walt how to throw knives in the episode Special.  John gets ensnarled in the tense situation growing between Michael and Walt.  I’m not going to get into the dynamics of Locke, Walt and Michael’s relationship until next week when we discuss … In Translation.  Let’s just say that I’m glad Michael didn’t take Locke’s suggestions that he should stop treating Walt like a child and start allowing him to reach his full potential.  Never good to take advice from a creepy never-been-married bald dude with a god complex whose closest friend was a 1-900 dial-a-chick!

A few nights later, while out pretty deep in the jungle doing whatever it is Locke and Boone do outside of staring at the hatch, they come upon Claire.  They rush her back to the caves but are not truthful about where they found her.  After dropping her off with Jack the doctor, Boone attempts to find out from Locke just what he thinks happened to Claire.  When Boone nervously asks Locke whether he thinks Ethan is still lurking around the camp, Locke responds with a creepy, “I sure hope not.”  Personally, I think that this ties to my argument last week about Locke interfering with Jack’s attempt to catch up with Ethan.  For some reason unknown to us, Locke does not want Ethan to be captured or returned back to the camp.  Since we know that Locke is extremely self-motivated, I’m sure that whatever it is, it doesn’t shed him in a positive light.  This comment is also a very good litmus test proving that John Locke is definitely NOT the hunter and superhero he projects himself to be.  A superhero would want the bad guy to come back to the camp, simply so the superhero could save the day and capture him.

The next day, after Ethan warns Charlie that he will kill someone every day until they return Claire to him, Jack is back on the “let’s go track Ethan” bandwagon.  And again, Locke balks.  He tells Jack that he needs to start playing defense and that he’s got a better plan than just moving everyone to the caves.  Jack agrees, although he says that if Ethan does what he says he’s going to do there will be blood on their hands.  So the group sets up 4 traps of garbage on trip wires in the tree line, light fires at 20 yard intervals, and have rotating shifts of volunteers for sentry duty.  And when Boone himself volunteers for a shift, although Sayid is a bit leery knowing Boone’s track record, Locke agrees wholeheartedly. “Absolutely, we’re counting on you Boone!”  Later that night, we see Boone fall asleep. He wakes up the next morning with the crashing of one of the garbage traps nearby and lunges off the beach and into the tree line.  He finds himself at the center of moving and crashing noises in the jungle.  Unable to locate the origin of the sounds, he makes a run toward the jungle only to trip and fall flat on his face.  Vincent appears and begins to lick his face just as Locke and Sayid arrive as backup.  They immediately assume that Boone and Vincent were the cause of the tripwire until a scream pierces the morning air, coming from the beach.  Scott is found brutally murdered lying in the sand.  His neck, both his arms, and all of the bones in his fingers are broken. Locke tells everyone that Ethan must have come in via the water.  Sounds good, right?  Hardly. First off, since Scott was found lying on the beach near the shoreline, one has to assume that both he and Boone were on sentry duty at the same time.  Where were the rotating shifts that Sayid spoke so highly of?  Here we have one sentry that falls asleep and another that is brutally murdered and none of the other sentries notice anything wrong or periodically check on each other?  Secondly, why would Locke place an incompetent fool like Boone on the line when he knows that Boone is already exhausted from the night before when he found Claire wandering deep in the heart of the jungle? Thirdly, if the only way Ethan can inflict all those injuries without Scott screaming is to break his neck first, why go through the hassle of then breaking his arms and then all his fingers? And how does one go about breaking someone’s arms when they are already dead?  Fourthly, how is it possible that Vincent tripped the alarm and made all that noise that Boone heard crashing through the jungle? I think that it was either a diversion or Ethan as he escaped up the beach and into the tree line that set it off.  Now, Locke may be right that Ethan came in from the water.  But everything else screams to me of Locke making sure that Ethan had a method of escape should he decide to attack the camp.  And I totally believe that Locke is to blame for this fiasco since it was his plan.  He’s the one ‘with blood on his hands’.

After burying Scott, Jack again attempts to convince Locke that he needs to track down Ethan and stop this once and for all.  And, of course, Locke refuses.  Even when Jack shows Locke the stash of four 9 mm’s, John does not go after Ethan.  So they plan a trap using Claire as bait.  This time they are successful in capturing Ethan, but the plan turns sour when Charlie shows up and uses one of their guns to shoot Ethan four times in the chest.  The reason why I say “one of their guns” is because it is possible that Charlie did not use the 9 mm that we saw get knocked out of Jack’s hand as he tackled Ethan.  For you see, there is someone at the gunfight without a gun.  And his name is John Locke.  He is holding his weapon of choice, a hunting knife.  Yes, I know it’s crazy.  But perhaps John Locke placed his gun somewhere where it could be found so that Charlie would find it AND use it.  We have seen over and over again how Locke refused either directly or indirectly to capture or track Ethan Rom.  And with Jack insisting on some action and with the guns as a stronger weapon for offense, perhaps he realized he needed to make sure Ethan COULDN’T talk if he was captured.  One thing of note I found rather funny.  The camera pans to the five Losties as they crouch or hide in the trees around Claire.  And all are wet and clean from the pouring rain. Except for John Locke, who thought it necessary to attempt camouflage.  His face is covered in mud like an Army ranger on reconnaissance mission. What a dork.

Finally, a few days later in Outlaws, John comes upon Sawyer and Kate’s disarrayed camp. He explains that he was way out there in the jungle looking for salvage from the crash when he picked up their trail and thought he’d come by and say ‘howdy’.  When Kate tells him that the camp is messed up because of a boar and that Sawyer believes that the animal has a vendetta against him, Locke tells an interesting story of his childhood.  Kate and Sawyer are looking at each other and thinking the same thought: CREEPY.  That is until he gets to the punch line. His mother believed that this beautiful, playful, obedient golden retriever was her dead daughter Jeannie, coming back to tell her that the accident that caused her death wasn’t her mother’s fault.  Sawyer looks like he gets hit by a two by four after Locke finishes the story and smiles at him.  For the immediate inference of his story is that the boar is hardly an obedient, warm, fuzzy dog.  It’s an ugly, thieving animal that has torn and ripped up most of his belongings and peed on his shirt. Therefore, to Sawyer, the boar must be dead Frank Duckett coming back to tell him that IT IS HIS FAULT! So later that day, when Sawyer comes upon the boar, we expect him to shoot it dead.  But after staring at it for several seconds, Sawyer chooses not to do it.  Killing the boar would be for revenge.  And that is the same reason why he killed Frank Duckett in Sydney. He decides to break the cycle in his life.  To accept what he did and to try not to live like that angry, vengeful, manipulative person he once was.  And John Locke’s attempt to lure James Ford to his ’side’ is denied, just like it was with Jack Shepherd.

My quick list of observations:

1. At the start of Hearts and Minds, there is a very interesting conversation between Sayid and Boone over Shannon.  With his jealousy piqued, Boone orders Sayid to stay away from his sister.  Sayid, however, remains impassive to the threatening tone.  As the confrontation is interrupted by John Locke, Boone turns away with a scowl and a “See you later” comment.  Sayid smiles and says simply, “You know where to find me.”  It is VERY similar to the tone and dialogue between Jacob and the Man in Black on the beach in The Incident.
2. I found it interesting that at the very moment in Boone’s dream when he confesses to Shannon about the hatch and what he and Locke have been up to is exactly when the Smoke Monster attacks and kills Shannon.  And from that moment forward, he never again talks about telling Shannon the truth.
3. In Special, Michael goes through his letters he wrote to Walt all those years ago.  They were kept in one of those boxes we all seem to find throughout the show.  So far that makes two boxes I’ve seen, one here and one last week that belonged to Claire.
4. We know that Walt has the ability to make things that he pictures in his mind’s eye come true.  We saw this with the hunting knife toss with Locke and Boone.  If that’s what he did with Hurley during their game with backgammon and what he did with the bird at his home in Sydney, could it be possible that he did it with the polar bear, too?  When he was angry at Brian for ignoring him while reading the bird book, suddenly the same bird appears and makes a run at the family inside their living room.  It was stopped by the heavy leaded window.  Now we see Walt angry at his dad who threw his comic book, turned to the page with the polar bear, into the fire.  Moments later, Walt is chased by a polar bear.  Coincidence?  I think not.
5. Ethan the Ultimate Fighting Champion.  For his size and weight the man is a brute to be sure.  He can drag two people into the jungle with no more than footprints and a dropped finger bandage or two.  He can whirl a sling so fast that people can’t figure out where it’s coming from.  He can lift a guy like Charlie four inches off the ground with his bare hand.  He enjoys the rain and can break a man’s neck, arms and fingers without anyone noticing.  Who IS this guy?  And is it possible that like Locke, who seems to have been ‘altered’ by Smoky, Ethan Rom has been ‘altered’, too.  And that Ethan was on some sort of Smoky Steroids? He WAS among Richard’s group as well as DHARMA, so it’s possible that he knows more about Smoky than we give him credit for.
6. Watches, watches, who’s got watches?  We’re down to FIVE : Charlie, Sayid, Sun, Jin, and Rose.  John Locke’s watch mysteriously disappeared in the Homecoming episode during the Jack and Ethan ‘punchfest’.   Gone forever… kind of like his hunting vest.

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Lostaholics ReWatch: TIR is ReWatching Lost #3

Season One: Episodes 9 - 12

Here we are again fans with Re-Watch Week Number Three and we’re already at the half way point with the first season! As always I’ll be focusing the majority of my weekly article studying the character of John Locke with a follow-up section of my personal observations. Let’s go!

Looking at Locke:
These four episodes take place over days 12 through 22 on the island. Locke has now found another “hunter” in Ethan who is apparently has “experience” and is able to track wild rabbits and rodents in the jungle at night. They return to camp not with a fresh kill or two but with luggage containing Hawaiian shirts and a golf bag. As they prepare to go back into the jungle to “hunt”, Walt tries to sneak away from Michael in an attempt to join the hunting party. Although Walt is enamored with the hunter image of John Locke, his father certainly is not, and Michael quickly cancels Walt’s plan. Locke says nothing during the exchange and gives Walt an “oh well” look as he turns to leave. The next day, as the Losties are enjoying their new 2-hole 3 par golf course, Walt uses the opportunity to seek out John Locke, who is alone throwing his long knife into a large tree. And John, in defiance of common sense and knowing Michael would not approve, hands Walt his long, sharp weapon. Two nights later, John Locke appears in Claire Littleton’s nightmare. He is sitting at a table that has the exact same items belonging to the psychic that she visited several times prior to her flight to Los Angeles. The same lamp, cloth on the table, cards, and crystals. In her dream, as Locke flips one of the Tarot cards, we hear the sound of a metal against metal, like a knife being unsheathed. We also notice that when Locke raises his head to answer Claire’s question about her missing baby, he has one black eye and one white. His words are: “You know what’s happening. It was your responsibility but you gave him away, Claire. Everyone pays the price now.” The next day, as Sayid rushes into the caves after returning from his visit with Danielle Rousseau, we see Locke in the shadows of the caves. Sayid, passing right by Locke and ignoring his presence, heads straight for Jack and Kate. He collapses in exhaustion but declares that he “had to come back” to tell them that “we are not alone”. Locke remains in the shadows, arms crossed with a scowl on his face. As the crisis escalates with the knowledge that Ethan Rom is not only a passenger of Flight 815 but also on his way to intercept Claire and Charlie, Locke remains calm. He joins Jack in the race to the beach to thwart Ethan’s attempt to do harm to Claire. And while Jack is breathing hard, anxious, and a bit reckless in combing the jungle, John appears almost serene. He tries to get Jack to calm down, be quiet, and return to the caves to collect a search party. When Jack refuses and sets off alone into the jungle, Locke goes back to the caves. In a very methodical fashion, John takes his time to put on his vest, tie a cloth around his wrist, grab two knives, and fill a few water bottles. He anticipates Kate wanting to join his party and accepts the help of Boone, a surprising choice for Locke to make considering Boone’s achievement record. When Michael volunteers to be a part of the rescue mission, Locke dismisses his help by saying that more people would slow them down. And when Michael tells Locke he’ll put a party together of his own, Locke tells him to go south, in the opposite direction of his own group. Kate, Boone, and Locke head into the jungle and eventually find Jack wandering around in a circle and unable to find Ethan’s tracks. Locke again attempts to get Jack to go back to the caves and let him “be the hunter”. Jack refuses to stop searching, and the party of four heads out into the jungle. Locke creates more tension between himself and Jack when he insists they stop to rest, even though he appears to be hardly out of breath. Finally, they come across Charlie’s finger bands and realize their friend is leaving the dirty bits for them to follow. When the tracks they are following seem to split into two paths, Jack wants to continue to follow the white bandages, while Locke insists his path is the correct one. Despite Locke’s attempt at them sticking together and going on his trail, Jack and Kate break off from the group and continue to follow the trail left by the abandoned finger bands. Boone partners with Locke and the two of them exchange employment history as they follow John’s “gut” through the jungle. It appears that they are taking a casual stroll up the valley, lightly chatting as they make their way up the mountain terrain. They certainly don’t seem to be concerned about Claire and Charlie. Locke soon stops their progress to tell Boone that it will rain in a minute give or take a few seconds, and that Boone should turn around and head back. It is a masterfully played manipulation, for Boone refuses to leave Locke’s side. The rain falls exactly as predicted and Boone is convinced that Locke is more than just a regional collection supervisor for a box company. They continue to trek up mountainous terrain for hours until the sun sets and they are left with following the “trail” by flashlight. By this time, Boone is starting to get a bit tired of following Locke around like a puppy and suggests that they both head back to camp. When Locke asks Boone, “Don’t you feel it?”, the young man has reached the end of his patience and tells John that he’s going to follow the red strips home. Locke shows him the flashlight and tosses it to him telling him that he needs it more than he does. It, of course, lands directly with a k-thunk sound on top of the hatch. Boone is shocked and perplexed by their discovery and wants to know what this steel structure is beneath the surface of the vegetation. Locke, again, calm and unemotional, tells Boone, “That’s what we’re going to find out.” The hatch was discovered on the evening of day 16 on the island. By day 22, Boone and Locke have made very little progress in discovering what exactly they found despite leaving the camp at first light and returning as the sun sets. Shannon is getting inquisitive and Boone resorts in lying that he and John are searching for Claire instead of telling her the truth. Apparently Locke wants to keep their treasure a secret and has Boone steal the camp’s axe in order to make better progress as well as take a very long skirting path to lose any potential curiosity seekers. The two of them are now removed from the routines of the camp. John Locke has recruited another person into his solitary and separate lifestyle.

If you’ve read any of my previous articles, you know that I’ve taken the position that John Locke gained “knowledge” of some sort during his encounter with the Smoke Monster in Tabula Rasa. I am not convinced that he is completely under the spell of Smoky or the Man in Black, but I do believe that some part of John Locke is being manipulated by them. I don’t know how they are doing it but I strongly believe that John is getting this information via dreams or visions. I find it interesting, therefore, that the person Ethan Rom decides to encounter upon entering into the Losties camp is John Locke. First of all, we know that Ethan was raised within the DHARMA Initiative as well as The Others, who he eventually ended up living with. As a boy he participated in the kidnapping of Danielle Rousseau’s baby, Alex, with Ben Linus. And many years before the crash of Oceanic 815, Ethan was present after the crash of the drug smugglers’ plane on the island. John Locke himself was shot by Ethan when he attempted to climb up the cliff face to investigate the plane during one of the time-travel skips that occurred while the frozen donkey wheel was off track. Therefore, it begs the question of whether Ethan Rom REMEMBERED John Locke as the time-traveler from his past and whether he chose to befriend John Locke purposefully. Because Locke is a solitary man by habit and is not part of the community, it would be less of a risk to connect with Locke since Ethan probably wouldn’t be seen as a new face to a man who doesn’t know most of the people anyway. We can also make some assumptions about Ethan, too. Something changed in his life from being just a DHARMA child to being an Other. He was involved in some ruthless schemes as a boy and he is close to Ben Linus, who knows how to call the Smoke Monster. He also knows about all the DHARMA stations and their locations on the island. Could John Locke’s run in with the Smoke Monster not only allow him to have knowledge about the island but also allow John to befriend someone like Ethan Rom and provide interference for Ethan when he attempts his abduction? I know this sounds strange, but if you look at how many times Locke tries to delay, mislead, and confuse the attempts by Jack to catch up with Ethan, Claire, and Charlie, one has to question his motives! Let’s look back at the events, shall we? First he gets Jack to stop shouting out Claire and Charlie’s names when they come upon Claire’s bag in the jungle. Then he wants to go back to the caves and organize a search party not long after. When Jack refuses and Locke goes back to the caves, does he organize search parties? No. Quite the opposite. Except for Kate, who was going to go anyway, and Boone who offers, he actually tries to get anyone who tries to help into heading in the other direction. Certainly not one who is focused on the welfare of an abducted pregnant mother-to-be. And let’s not mention the fact that he himself refused to let Charlie out of his sight during House of the Rising Sun, yet lets the “only trained physician on the island” to go wandering around the jungle alone! When is little group catches up with Jack, who has been running around in circles because he can’t track, we’re aware that time is of the essence. Yet, John Locke again attempts to get Jack to stop going after Claire and Charlie. This time he tries to intimidate Jack with Ethan’s skill as a hunter and stroke Jack’s ego by telling him he doesn’t want anything to happen to him. “Go back, be the doctor. Let me be the hunter”, Locke says to Jack with a smile. Except that Jack’s not buying it for a moment. “Can we go now?” Jack quips. And Locke sighs as another attempt to stop the rescue is thwarted. Finally, Locke makes one more valiant attempt to divert Jack from his mission to find Claire by saying that there are now two trails and that they should all stick together and follow his lead. Again, Jack refuses and continues on what we now know to be the right path. So, given all these attempts, what can we conclude by John Locke’s behavior? If he wanted to just go off with Boone and find “it”, he could have. Kate did a fine job finding Ethan all by herself. But he was obviously trying to delay or prevent Jack from stopping Claire’s abduction. WHY??? I have only one guess: That there might have been some “agreement” between Ethan and Locke and the Smoke Monster. Sort of like, you help me with Claire and I’ll help you find your purpose kind of an agreement. I know that sounds nuts but maybe it was made via a dream or vision. Maybe John Locke saw what was going to happen via a vision and just did what he could to ensure that it went the way it was shown to him. One of the reasons I feel this way is because of the rain and John knowing EXACTLY when it would rain. He set up the dialogue with Boone for quite a while before stopping on that mountainside. He looked up, saw the cloud formations, knew the time he had to get Boone to commit to his plan BY CHOICE, and Voila’ rain. And when that happened, he knew he could get Boone to go anywhere with him. Boone now sees him as some sort of island guru. Exactly the kind of guy a hungry for adventure kid like Boone is looking for. So… I think that the vision or dream showed him that Boone had to choose to come with him. Just like it told him to get in the way of Claire’s rescue. I also believe that in some way John Locke was NOT surprised when his flashlight hit the steel of the hatch. He did not have the perplexed look of someone who has just discovered a bizarre structure under the vegetation of a remote island. Watch how Boone tries to get his mind around what is going on. He attempts to rationalize that it is wreckage from part of the plane. But as Locke thwacks the steel with the handle of his knife he just can’t figure out what is going on. And when Boone asks Locke just that question, Locke has a gleam in his eyes and an almost imperceptible smile. “That’s what we’re going to find out”, he replies with confidence. Too much confidence, don’t you think?

Something else that’s been bothering me about John Locke. How is it that a guy who has spent the better part of four years in a wheelchair paralyzed from the waist down can be in such spectacular condition? I don’t care what kind of rehab they had at the hospital and how amazing Matthew Abaddon encouraged him to get well so he could go on his walkabout, NO ONE could be his age in that kind of physical condition after coming out of paralysis. We know that his waking up on the island and wiggling his toes was a miracle. But every time I see John Locke run like the wind, I am reminded of just how supernatural this miracle really is. When Jacob touches him below Anthony Cooper’s shattered window, he revives him but he doesn’t completely heal him. John has to deal with four years of living in a wheelchair. Yet when he lands on this island, he is not only cured of the paralysis that Jacob did not heal but also of any loss of decay and musculature in the meantime. He’s like Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man. He’s better than he was. Better. Stronger. Faster. And creepy. Just ask Hurley.

My quick list of observations:
1. Solitary. When I first watched this episode a long time ago, I immediately associated it with Sayid. Since it was a Sayid-centric episode, I believed that the title meant to show Sayid as a solitary man. But after watching it again, I have to admit that there are more ways of looking at it. Danielle Rousseau lived her life for sixteen years and chose to continue to live her live in solitary conditions. Locke continues to be a rogue solitary man, never being part of the group in any way. He LIKES being solitary. Sawyer decides NOT to be the solitary man he wanted to be after a few weeks on the island; he decides to “make an effort” and joins the community at the golf course. And Sayid chose NOT to be solitary, either. He tells Danielle, “I know what it’s like to hold on to someone… The more I hold on, the more I pull away from the people around me. The only way off this place is with their help.”
2. Raised by Another. Again, I thought it was about Claire being warned about not letting Aaron be raised by another. But it could also apply to Ethan Rom. Was he not raised by Others?
3. We know that until the golf course was designed by Hurley, the Losties were in the midst of fulfilling many of the Man In Black’s prophesies of the human condition. Hurley himself tells Jack that the “the usual” is going on, “people yelling at each other over nothing”. He talks about people being stressed out, tense, and angry. Even with the golf course, Hurley knows the importance of “laying down the law” by creating a census. He says to Jack: “Someone is punched, stabbed, or something every other day here!” Notice that all the attempts outside of survival to create calmness and a sense of order has been by Hurley. Hurley also has a good ‘creep’ radar! He had a good read on Ethan from Ontario and certainly one on John Locke. He couldn’t wait to get away from either one of them! Just more observances of Hurley’s ‘Jacobean’ personality.
4. Richard Malkin the Psychic. He mentions that he saw “a blurry thing” in Claire’s first visit and that he couldn’t continue the reading. He also admits later that “blurry is bad”. Could blurry be something like a black swirling smoke that has images of people inside it and that can smash cockpits and fell trees? Hmmmm.
5. Interesting that John Locke is in Claire’s dream sitting with Richard Malkin’s psychic things: the lamp, the cards, the crystals, etc. Is that meant to convey that John Locke has psychic abilities? He certainly does have some amazing abilities to be at the exact place at the exact time! Can you say ‘rain in a minute, give or take a few seconds’!
6. The Whispers. They first show up in Solitary with Sayid running back to the caves. These whispers have still been unexplained. By the way, Lostpedia has documented their conversation in this scene: “Just let him get out of here.” “He’s seen too much already.” “What if he tells?” “Could just speak to him.” “No.” Interesting and still confusing. Any ideas???
7. Charlie and Claire in the jungle when Claire gets her ‘stress-induced’ contractions. Could those have been induced by whatever Ethan injected into her? Also, I found it funny that Charlie starts counting “One sugar plum fairy, two sugar plum fairies…” when he has a watch on his arm. Why would you use an approximate method of counting contractions when you have a watch available?
8. For those who were tracking the little boxes we see on people’s desks and stuff off island, Claire had a little box of some sort in her room in Australia.
9. Charlie after CPR is uncommunicative at the caves. When Jack pleads with him to tell him anything that he remembers, he utters: “That’s all THEY wanted. All THEY wanted was Claire.” Who is THEY? Did someone help Ethan get Charlie in that noose and drag them away? If so, who?
10. Watches, watches, who’s got watches. The watch count is now down to six. Charlie, Rose, Sun, Sayid and Locke continue to wear watches. Jin has exchanged is lovely Rolex for the steel handcuff.

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