. He bites. Hard. 
Missing Pieces - "The Little Prince"
My apologies for the lateness of this, first of all. I've had a fairly hectic week, and what's more, I haven't been able to sleep too well since seeing Hurley in a prison jumpsuit. More on that later, though - let's get to the good stuff.
Once again, big stuff first. Jin's alive! After being rescued by Rousseau, of all people! Crazy, right? That was a pretty nasty explosion that he somehow managed to escape from, so I'm looking forward to seeing how he managed that. There was a short period of time between the freighter exploding and the island moving, so assuming he survived the explosion, he theoretically had time to get himself back inside the radius of the island's time-bubble. And not only did he manage to get off the freighter unharmed, apparently he's been jumping around in time with the rest of the left-behind Losties, as well. Did he somehow swim inside the radius of the island's time-bubble, or is the island just keeping him alive because it isn't done with him yet? (Maybe that's why Christian Shepherd only appeared on the freighter to Michael, and not Jin.) I'm going with a little of both of those theories, because as the cliffhanger told us, Danielle Rousseau and her crew of Frenchies found the guy floating along in what must be around 1988 or so. Jin got a pretty raw deal, if you think about it. Not only does he find himself rescued by a bunch of people he's going to have a hell of a time communicating with, but he also had the misfortune to wake up back in the '80s. Ew. Relax, Jin. Don't do it.
Other things Jin shouldn't do - get on any more boats. Both of the ones he's stepped on over the course of his time on the island have been blown to smithereens. Doesn't seem to have much luck with airplanes, either. Or taxicabs, for that matter. That random jerk back in Korea still owes him a new phone AND a stuffed panda.
Not only did we get to see the young Rousseau at the end of the episode, and not only did we hear the numbers being broadcasted over the radio her team had, but we also managed a quick peek at Montand, Rousseau's fellow expeditionist who somehow loses an arm at some point in his adventures on the island. Remember Rousseau telling us about that way back in Season 1? You think maybe young Charles Widmore's crew of hand-chopping maniacs were the people who did that to him? Not only that, but Montand was also carrying a violin case. If my theory of little Charlie Hume (Desmond's son) growing up to be the musician that programs the musical keypad in the Looking Glass station was too crazy for you, well, then maybe it was Montand instead. In other news, who was the blonde cutie in the back of Rousseau's group? Wow.
Back to basics for a minute. What of the storyline with Claire's mother? Did you buy it? It's a classic LOST misdirection technique, but the only hole I can find in it is how she wouldn't know who Aaron is. Aaron's one of the Oceanic 6, and they're all famous the world over. Surely his name would've gotten out by now, right? Anyway, as holey as it may or may not have been, it set up one of the biggest reveals of the episode - Mr. Norton is Ben's private lawyer. Of course he is! He's dealing with ALL the Flight 815-related legal hooha, probably in an attempt to keep everything quiet as possible, and also maybe even to stay one step ahead of Charles Widmore. If you haven't noticed, Widmore's been trying like the dickens to get his hands on at least one of the 815ers, especially Sun and Sayid.
Boy, this time sickness might be more than what we've cracked it up to be, huh? I kinda understand how Miles and Juliet are getting the nosebleeds (excessive and constant exposure to these time jumps seem to have just as much of an effect on people as not having a Constant), but man, Charlotte's really getting the worst of it, isn't she? I explained it last week, but to put it bluntly, I think the actions being put forward by Faraday's team are causing Charlotte to become, well... erased. Faraday's deeds might be righting the course of the island and its timeline, but for Charlotte? Not so much. I'm thinking that somewhere along the line, we've seen actions being taken that very well might have prevented her parents from ever meeting. I don't know how, where, or who, but I'm betting dollars to Dharmalars that we've seen it happen right in front of our eyes. Is she going to have to be some sort of sacrifice to the island?
On the lighter side, Hurley in a prison jumpsuit looked like any or all of the following - the mascot of the Syracuse Orangemen, a citrusy version of Violet Beauregard, or someone in this commercial. Take your pick. Speaking of Hurley's short scene in this episode, anyone notice the prisoner coming in the door behind him that looked a hell of a lot like his invisible friend Dave? I don't think it was actually Hurley's abusive imaginary friend, being that a guard opened the door for him, but it was a nice little Easter egg anyway. Prison guards don't usually open the door for imaginary friends.
So who the hell were the people in the other canoe that started shooting at Locke's group? The Others? Well, I guess it could've been, but check this out - maybe it was the Oceanic 6. Locke's crew did find all that stuff on the beach at their camp, and among it all was a water bottle from Ajira Airways. I don't know if anyone out there had been paying attention to all the promotional weirdness that happened over the summer, but apparently, Ajira Airways is now very much a part of the LOST universe. Check it all out here. Anyway, what I think happened is the O6 crew landed on the island via Ajira Airways (remember the runway being built back on the Hydra Island by the work crew that Kate and Sawyer were once a part of?), took the outrigger canoes to the main island (remember Karl paddling one of them out to warn the Losties of Ben's crew making an early appearance to kidnap all the women?), and then split. When they came back to camp to find one of their canoes being stolen, they gave chase, and what's more, they started shooting. Juliet started shooting back, if you remember, and she actually hit someone. I'm just dying to know who it was. Maybe it was really the EVIL version of the Oceanic 6, and they all have goatees.
I'd mentioned previously that I hoped LOST wouldn't be venturing too far into 'Back To The Future'-type scenarios where people would be running into themselves or people they knew in the past, and judging from Sawyer's encounter with the past-Kate delivering Aaron from Claire out in the jungle, I'm not sure what to think. Sure, he saw her there, but could he have said anything if he'd wanted to? What's more, where the hell were Jin and Charlie in that scene? If you remember, both those guys were present when Aaron was born. It took place in the episode "Do No Harm" back in Season 1. Hell, maybe it was just selective editing, but my theory is this - you only get to see people in the past that have something to do with what happens to you in the future. Sawyer had no knowledge of Charlie and Jin's presence in that scene, right? What's more, he didn't NEED to know they were there, either. Kate, on the other hand, was apparently something else entirely. The island must've realized that Sawyer needed to see her deliver Aaron from Claire at that particular moment, so see her he did.
Speaking of that fateful night, it was the same one that Boone died on, and also when Desmond turned on the spotlight in the Swan to find out who the hell was banging on the hatch door upstairs. Coincidence? Probably not. This is the island we're talking about, after all. Seeing the hatch light off in the distance when Locke led his crew past it was just CREEPY.
Ben's carpet cleaning van has the names 'CANTON-RAINIER' on it. Mix 'em up, what do you get? "REINCARNATION." Speaks well for Locke's dead ass lying in the back of it, doesn't it?
Speaking of Locke, what's he going to do when he gets to the Orchid? Turn the frozen donkey wheel back to reset it? Will that stop the time jumps? Maybe that ties into why Mrs. Hawking told Ben he only had 70 hours to get himself and the O6 back to the island. I'm guess that at the end of those 70 hours is when Locke turns the wheel again, thereby re-hiding the island from the outside world. To bring in another donkey wheel theory into the mix, I'm alright with the concept of the polar bear turning the frozen donkey wheel (what a weird-ass sentence), but if that is the case, I think it was the Dharma Initiative fucking around with the wheel before they really knew what it was there for. How could they have known what it was without trying it? And who's to say that the island didn't start skipping around once the bear did turn it, and furthermore, who's to say that someone like Widmore didn't have to turn it again to make it stop? Maybe that's how he got booted from the island. I doubt his expulsion was that accidental and silly, but we'll see. However, it would explain what the hell that polar bear was doing out in the middle of the Tunisian desert. Same thing happened to Ben when he turned the wheel, remember?
"That's my lawyer" is yet another Ben-ism for the books, isn't it? It will sit comfortably alongside "You guys got any milk?" and "You know those crackers are fifteen years old." With his prowess for one-liners, Ben should drop all this megalomaniacal stuff and try his hand at stand-up comedy.
I think I've found a rhyme and reason to the island's time-skipping. It only happens after someone accomplishes something that needs to be done. Think about it - Daniel tells Desmond to find his mother. FLASH. Sawyer sees Kate and realizes how much she means to him. FLASH. Locke finds Alpert at his camp and gives him the compass. FLASH. The island is depending on these things being done so that its future timeline will be course-corrected, and it needs to put these people in the right time and place so that they will happen. This theory ties in with the season's theme of bringing the O6 back to the island so they can do what they were supposed to do all along instead of leaving. Mission fulfillment, as it were. All this theologic explanation of the island 'course correcting' itself so that time will play out as its 'supposed' to is nice, but I'm more of the mind that those changes can only take place if people bring them into existence. Maybe it's just the atheist in me saying that, but still - it has its logic. God can only exist if people believe in him, right? In any case, now that we've deduced that the flashes are signs that something has been achieved, it's going to be interesting trying to figure out what exactly that something was.
To jump away from the story being told for a moment, what of Libby's place in all this? I remain convinced that Libby's backstory will reveal itself to be intertwined with that of Faraday's. If he's going around making women crazy, then Libby very well could have been one of his "victims". Remember her creepy appearance at Santa Rosa Mental Hospital with Hurley?
I'm sure most of you are familiar with the book "The Little Prince" that this episode takes its name from, but did you catch all the hidden references to it? First off, the narrator of the story is a plane crash survivor who encounters a young, blonde-haired child who has left his home asteroid to learn more about the universe. However, once he has done so, he realizes that he cannot survive away from that asteroid and realizes that he needs to return to it. Aaron's young, blonde, and desperately needing to go back where he came from, isn't he? Additionally, the boat that Rousseau came to the island on was apparently named "Besixdouze" (see that painted on the can that Locke kicks over?), and translated from French, that reads "B612". B612 happens to be the name of the asteroid that the Little Prince came from. As various other LOST analyzers on the internets have pointed out, while it's enjoyable to make these kinds of connections between LOST and previous works of literature, I'm not entirely sure that they actually MEAN too much. In other words, I don't think a reasonable explanation for what the hell the smoke monster is is going to be found in any of the books that the writers have been referencing over the years. Thematic ties, sure, but answers? I doubt it. The creators of LOST have never been that obvious about anything, and personally, I'm quite happy about that.
Sun's got a gun! Remember the scene in the oft-maligned movie "Godfather III" where Al Neri receives his firearm in a candy box, too?
Line of the night goes, of course, to Sawyer - "Thank you, Lord!" "I take that back!"
Notes for next week - how does Ben know that Jin is alive, and how exactly the hell is he going to prove it to Sun to get her back to the island? Well, check this out. Maybe Ben has known about Jin washing up on the island for years. He had to have spent some time with Rousseau's team at some point, right? He did steal her baby Alex, too, if you remember. Anyway, as for how he's going to prove it to her, my money is on Ben having some record of Jin being alive and on the island way back in 1988 after being rescued by Rousseau. A photograph, a letter, fishing equipment... something like that.
I guess that's about it for this week. Again, I apologize for the lateness, but pretend you time-traveled back to Thursday morning and just finished reading all of this then. There. Isn't that better?
Once again, big stuff first. Jin's alive! After being rescued by Rousseau, of all people! Crazy, right? That was a pretty nasty explosion that he somehow managed to escape from, so I'm looking forward to seeing how he managed that. There was a short period of time between the freighter exploding and the island moving, so assuming he survived the explosion, he theoretically had time to get himself back inside the radius of the island's time-bubble. And not only did he manage to get off the freighter unharmed, apparently he's been jumping around in time with the rest of the left-behind Losties, as well. Did he somehow swim inside the radius of the island's time-bubble, or is the island just keeping him alive because it isn't done with him yet? (Maybe that's why Christian Shepherd only appeared on the freighter to Michael, and not Jin.) I'm going with a little of both of those theories, because as the cliffhanger told us, Danielle Rousseau and her crew of Frenchies found the guy floating along in what must be around 1988 or so. Jin got a pretty raw deal, if you think about it. Not only does he find himself rescued by a bunch of people he's going to have a hell of a time communicating with, but he also had the misfortune to wake up back in the '80s. Ew. Relax, Jin. Don't do it.
Other things Jin shouldn't do - get on any more boats. Both of the ones he's stepped on over the course of his time on the island have been blown to smithereens. Doesn't seem to have much luck with airplanes, either. Or taxicabs, for that matter. That random jerk back in Korea still owes him a new phone AND a stuffed panda.
Not only did we get to see the young Rousseau at the end of the episode, and not only did we hear the numbers being broadcasted over the radio her team had, but we also managed a quick peek at Montand, Rousseau's fellow expeditionist who somehow loses an arm at some point in his adventures on the island. Remember Rousseau telling us about that way back in Season 1? You think maybe young Charles Widmore's crew of hand-chopping maniacs were the people who did that to him? Not only that, but Montand was also carrying a violin case. If my theory of little Charlie Hume (Desmond's son) growing up to be the musician that programs the musical keypad in the Looking Glass station was too crazy for you, well, then maybe it was Montand instead. In other news, who was the blonde cutie in the back of Rousseau's group? Wow.
Back to basics for a minute. What of the storyline with Claire's mother? Did you buy it? It's a classic LOST misdirection technique, but the only hole I can find in it is how she wouldn't know who Aaron is. Aaron's one of the Oceanic 6, and they're all famous the world over. Surely his name would've gotten out by now, right? Anyway, as holey as it may or may not have been, it set up one of the biggest reveals of the episode - Mr. Norton is Ben's private lawyer. Of course he is! He's dealing with ALL the Flight 815-related legal hooha, probably in an attempt to keep everything quiet as possible, and also maybe even to stay one step ahead of Charles Widmore. If you haven't noticed, Widmore's been trying like the dickens to get his hands on at least one of the 815ers, especially Sun and Sayid.
Boy, this time sickness might be more than what we've cracked it up to be, huh? I kinda understand how Miles and Juliet are getting the nosebleeds (excessive and constant exposure to these time jumps seem to have just as much of an effect on people as not having a Constant), but man, Charlotte's really getting the worst of it, isn't she? I explained it last week, but to put it bluntly, I think the actions being put forward by Faraday's team are causing Charlotte to become, well... erased. Faraday's deeds might be righting the course of the island and its timeline, but for Charlotte? Not so much. I'm thinking that somewhere along the line, we've seen actions being taken that very well might have prevented her parents from ever meeting. I don't know how, where, or who, but I'm betting dollars to Dharmalars that we've seen it happen right in front of our eyes. Is she going to have to be some sort of sacrifice to the island?
On the lighter side, Hurley in a prison jumpsuit looked like any or all of the following - the mascot of the Syracuse Orangemen, a citrusy version of Violet Beauregard, or someone in this commercial. Take your pick. Speaking of Hurley's short scene in this episode, anyone notice the prisoner coming in the door behind him that looked a hell of a lot like his invisible friend Dave? I don't think it was actually Hurley's abusive imaginary friend, being that a guard opened the door for him, but it was a nice little Easter egg anyway. Prison guards don't usually open the door for imaginary friends.
So who the hell were the people in the other canoe that started shooting at Locke's group? The Others? Well, I guess it could've been, but check this out - maybe it was the Oceanic 6. Locke's crew did find all that stuff on the beach at their camp, and among it all was a water bottle from Ajira Airways. I don't know if anyone out there had been paying attention to all the promotional weirdness that happened over the summer, but apparently, Ajira Airways is now very much a part of the LOST universe. Check it all out here. Anyway, what I think happened is the O6 crew landed on the island via Ajira Airways (remember the runway being built back on the Hydra Island by the work crew that Kate and Sawyer were once a part of?), took the outrigger canoes to the main island (remember Karl paddling one of them out to warn the Losties of Ben's crew making an early appearance to kidnap all the women?), and then split. When they came back to camp to find one of their canoes being stolen, they gave chase, and what's more, they started shooting. Juliet started shooting back, if you remember, and she actually hit someone. I'm just dying to know who it was. Maybe it was really the EVIL version of the Oceanic 6, and they all have goatees.
I'd mentioned previously that I hoped LOST wouldn't be venturing too far into 'Back To The Future'-type scenarios where people would be running into themselves or people they knew in the past, and judging from Sawyer's encounter with the past-Kate delivering Aaron from Claire out in the jungle, I'm not sure what to think. Sure, he saw her there, but could he have said anything if he'd wanted to? What's more, where the hell were Jin and Charlie in that scene? If you remember, both those guys were present when Aaron was born. It took place in the episode "Do No Harm" back in Season 1. Hell, maybe it was just selective editing, but my theory is this - you only get to see people in the past that have something to do with what happens to you in the future. Sawyer had no knowledge of Charlie and Jin's presence in that scene, right? What's more, he didn't NEED to know they were there, either. Kate, on the other hand, was apparently something else entirely. The island must've realized that Sawyer needed to see her deliver Aaron from Claire at that particular moment, so see her he did.
Speaking of that fateful night, it was the same one that Boone died on, and also when Desmond turned on the spotlight in the Swan to find out who the hell was banging on the hatch door upstairs. Coincidence? Probably not. This is the island we're talking about, after all. Seeing the hatch light off in the distance when Locke led his crew past it was just CREEPY.
Ben's carpet cleaning van has the names 'CANTON-RAINIER' on it. Mix 'em up, what do you get? "REINCARNATION." Speaks well for Locke's dead ass lying in the back of it, doesn't it?
Speaking of Locke, what's he going to do when he gets to the Orchid? Turn the frozen donkey wheel back to reset it? Will that stop the time jumps? Maybe that ties into why Mrs. Hawking told Ben he only had 70 hours to get himself and the O6 back to the island. I'm guess that at the end of those 70 hours is when Locke turns the wheel again, thereby re-hiding the island from the outside world. To bring in another donkey wheel theory into the mix, I'm alright with the concept of the polar bear turning the frozen donkey wheel (what a weird-ass sentence), but if that is the case, I think it was the Dharma Initiative fucking around with the wheel before they really knew what it was there for. How could they have known what it was without trying it? And who's to say that the island didn't start skipping around once the bear did turn it, and furthermore, who's to say that someone like Widmore didn't have to turn it again to make it stop? Maybe that's how he got booted from the island. I doubt his expulsion was that accidental and silly, but we'll see. However, it would explain what the hell that polar bear was doing out in the middle of the Tunisian desert. Same thing happened to Ben when he turned the wheel, remember?
"That's my lawyer" is yet another Ben-ism for the books, isn't it? It will sit comfortably alongside "You guys got any milk?" and "You know those crackers are fifteen years old." With his prowess for one-liners, Ben should drop all this megalomaniacal stuff and try his hand at stand-up comedy.
I think I've found a rhyme and reason to the island's time-skipping. It only happens after someone accomplishes something that needs to be done. Think about it - Daniel tells Desmond to find his mother. FLASH. Sawyer sees Kate and realizes how much she means to him. FLASH. Locke finds Alpert at his camp and gives him the compass. FLASH. The island is depending on these things being done so that its future timeline will be course-corrected, and it needs to put these people in the right time and place so that they will happen. This theory ties in with the season's theme of bringing the O6 back to the island so they can do what they were supposed to do all along instead of leaving. Mission fulfillment, as it were. All this theologic explanation of the island 'course correcting' itself so that time will play out as its 'supposed' to is nice, but I'm more of the mind that those changes can only take place if people bring them into existence. Maybe it's just the atheist in me saying that, but still - it has its logic. God can only exist if people believe in him, right? In any case, now that we've deduced that the flashes are signs that something has been achieved, it's going to be interesting trying to figure out what exactly that something was.
To jump away from the story being told for a moment, what of Libby's place in all this? I remain convinced that Libby's backstory will reveal itself to be intertwined with that of Faraday's. If he's going around making women crazy, then Libby very well could have been one of his "victims". Remember her creepy appearance at Santa Rosa Mental Hospital with Hurley?
I'm sure most of you are familiar with the book "The Little Prince" that this episode takes its name from, but did you catch all the hidden references to it? First off, the narrator of the story is a plane crash survivor who encounters a young, blonde-haired child who has left his home asteroid to learn more about the universe. However, once he has done so, he realizes that he cannot survive away from that asteroid and realizes that he needs to return to it. Aaron's young, blonde, and desperately needing to go back where he came from, isn't he? Additionally, the boat that Rousseau came to the island on was apparently named "Besixdouze" (see that painted on the can that Locke kicks over?), and translated from French, that reads "B612". B612 happens to be the name of the asteroid that the Little Prince came from. As various other LOST analyzers on the internets have pointed out, while it's enjoyable to make these kinds of connections between LOST and previous works of literature, I'm not entirely sure that they actually MEAN too much. In other words, I don't think a reasonable explanation for what the hell the smoke monster is is going to be found in any of the books that the writers have been referencing over the years. Thematic ties, sure, but answers? I doubt it. The creators of LOST have never been that obvious about anything, and personally, I'm quite happy about that.
Sun's got a gun! Remember the scene in the oft-maligned movie "Godfather III" where Al Neri receives his firearm in a candy box, too?
Line of the night goes, of course, to Sawyer - "Thank you, Lord!" "I take that back!"
Notes for next week - how does Ben know that Jin is alive, and how exactly the hell is he going to prove it to Sun to get her back to the island? Well, check this out. Maybe Ben has known about Jin washing up on the island for years. He had to have spent some time with Rousseau's team at some point, right? He did steal her baby Alex, too, if you remember. Anyway, as for how he's going to prove it to her, my money is on Ben having some record of Jin being alive and on the island way back in 1988 after being rescued by Rousseau. A photograph, a letter, fishing equipment... something like that.
I guess that's about it for this week. Again, I apologize for the lateness, but pretend you time-traveled back to Thursday morning and just finished reading all of this then. There. Isn't that better?
Labels: LOST
posted by Yummsh at 1:42 PM - Permalink
10 Comments:
So after my initial read through, the part that sticks out in my mind is Aaron being delivered "from" Claire. It made me laugh because I have never heard a birth described in such a manner. Have you seen the Entertainment Weekly article? I saw part of it on CNN.com. I think you're definitely correct in the direction you're going with your thoughts. I'll hopefully post more after another reading.
It's weird you should comment on my choice of words there, because as I was writing them, I pondered whether it was appropriate. It felt right to me and still does, but perhaps I'm wrong. Hey, I'm male. I have limited knowledge of such things. ;)
Is the EW article on their site? I'll have to check it out. Feel free to comment again or drop me a mail with more thoughts. They're always welcome...
Hey, I posted that at 8:15. Cool.
Okay, that's a lot of theories. I have read one that The Little Price doesn't refer to Aaron, but to Locke. Seeing as the boy from the story left his home, only to realize that he had to get back because he didn't like the grown ups he encountered, but to get back home, he had to die and leave his body behind. I think that theory makes sense.
I do think it's possible that the people shooting at Sawyer and friends were the return losties. Though why they'd shoot without knowing who they were shooting at, I don't know, but maybe they had met up with the other survivors, including Rose and Bernard, and they told them about the flaming arrow attack and that they thought the other losties were dead.
I didn't get a good luck at the guy in the scene with Hurley, but I'll watch again and try. That would sure be one interesting development.
This show makes my brain hurt.
Oh, that was my favorite line, too. :D:D
Yes, that Locke theory makes a lot of sense, and it ties into what I was saying about the literary references on this show. Thematically, that theory fits. Well done.
I believe the article was also on the Entertainment Weekly site. Did you get a chance to look at it? As for the usage of your words, no, I don't believe that's correct. Only because deliver from has a negative connotation. Like deliver from evil. Usually it's the person assisting the mother who helps to deliver the child. Like Kate helped deliver Aaron. No from Claire. Does that make sense? I'm rambling. It's hard to keep track of what I write on my blackberry. Hopefully you got my jist.
Which article are you referring to?
I guess it's a semantics issue, but your explanation sounds correct. I just think of it as Kate delivering Aaron from Claire's body, is all. As if "delivering" is another word for "retrieving" or something. I dunno.
CNN had part of an article that's in EW and on their site about Lost. Had some info I hadn't read before but I don't read up on Lost much. It could be old for all I know...
I can't take credit for the theory, I just thought it sounded good when I read it.
Every time I watch this show, I do come up with my own theories, though I don't often share them, because they're really out there sometimes, but the problem with that is if you're right about something, and you didn't tell anyone, then no one believes you when you say, 'Hey, I thought that was it!" So, from now on I'm going to share all my theories, even if they make no sense. :D:D
I know what you mean. I called Miles as being Marvin Candle's son last season, and all I got for it in return was being called a racist just because they were both Asian. Of course this season, when the identity of Miles is fairly obvious, everyone's jumping on that theory like it was theirs all along. Bunch of fakers.
I'll have the new recap up soon. Thanks for posting.
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