. He bites. Hard. 
Missing Pieces - "This Place Is Death"
I really have to hand it to this week's episode, if only for the name alone. "This Place Is Death." Cool, right? Yes, very much so. We got Rousseau killing her husband Robert, Smokey tearing poor Montand limb from limb, our first look at the mysterious Temple, the lovely Charlotte biting the big one, Ben bitch-slapping the Oceanic 6, and Christ Figure Locke (now with kung-fu grip!) descending down the rabbit hole to do who knows what with Christian Shepherd's ghost. Fun! Let's take it from the top for a closer look.
It was strictly by chance that I caught the Season 1 episode "Solitary" on G4 a few hours before watching the new episode, and if you haven't seen that little gem in a while, I highly recommend going back and checking it out. Not only does it provide the history of the path Danielle Rousseau took to save herself from her own crew, but it also has her speaking a variety of different languages while trying to rouse Sayid. I'm certainly no trained linguist, but the first thing that popped into my mind as she rattled off various versions of "Wake up, Sayid!" was whether or not one of the languages she was using was Latin, the official language of the Others. I know there was French, Spanish, and maybe even some Portugese in there, but if I'm right, that would be an incredible 4-season crossover. I realize that Rousseau has claimed that in her 16 years on the island, she's never seen anyone else there at all. Well, while that may be true (although I doubt it), she is certainly quite privy to the mysterious whispering voices that may be of the various time-traveling entities making their way around the island. Additionally, it would put one more nail in the obnoxious "They're making all this up as they go along!" nonsense that plagues far too many message boards out there. Obnoxious messageboard denizens, you know who you are.
To get away from my harebrained theories and step a little closer to what we actually saw Rousseau go through this week, let's start with the fate of the strapping young Frenchman Montand. I've wondered how exactly he managed to lose his arm for quite a while now, and to actually get to see how and when it happened was a real treat for me. I'd theorized that it was the work of the young Widmore's maniacal hand-chopping crew, but in reality (or what passes for it on the island, anyway) it was the handiwork of a rather vengeful Smokey as it tried to pull Montand into one of its many lairs. It really was a cool sequence, and it is with great pride and satisfaction that I cross it off my lengthy LOST wishlist of things that I've been dying to see.
Speaking of that sequence, let's take a closer look. As the fate of Montand was determined as Smokey pulled him into the crack of the Temple wall (more on that place in a minute), we saw that Jin might have played a key part in not only getting his arm ripped off, but also in saving Rousseau's life, sanity, and the fate of the then-unborn Alex. Rousseau had every intention of going in after her crew as they ventured down into Smokey's lair to retrieve the mewling Montand, but Jin convinced her not to, and it was a good thing he did. If she had, not only would Alex probably have never been born, but Rousseau herself might have been subjected to whatever twisted fate awaited her crew as they made their way down into the creepy crack in the wall. You don't really think that was Montand calling for help down there, do you? Of course it wasn't, and with that, we got our requisite Smokey clue that comes standard with every viewing of that lovable cloud of death. See, Damon and Carlton have repeatedly stated in the official LOST podcasts that every time we see Smokey, we learn something new about it, and this episode was no exception. We learned not only that one of Smokey's main priorities seems to be guarding the Temple, but also that it has the ability to either mimic someone's voice or to actually inhibit their body and make them do or say whatever it chooses. Crazy LOST freaks like me know that it has long been theorized that many appearances of various characters on the island have actually been Smokey in disguise (Walt, Yemi, and perhaps even Christian Shepherd), so maybe our foggy friend was actually inhabiting Montand's doomed body and using his voice to lure Rousseau and her crew down into that hole for dessert. Assuming that's true, it comes as no surprise that the crew was quick to make their way down there. Robert's call of "no one gets left behind" made sure of that. However, as I stated before, it's a good thing Jin was there to convince Rousseau to think of her baby first (I love seeing Jin in overprotective Daddy mode, don't you?) and not make the trip down into the hole. Knowing that both Rousseau and Alex are very much alive on the island in 2004 (or were, anyway), it can be deduced that Jin had ALWAYS been around back then in 1988 to have the effect on those characters' timelines that he did. Faraday's theories about the time-skips are correct - there is only one past, and there is only one future. There is no version of that fateful day on the island in 1988 where Jin wasn't around to save Rousseau and Alex. If there were, the women wouldn't be alive in the future, and they never would have had any interaction with the 815ers in the first place. Got all that? Me neither.
Now, what of this 'sickness' that Rousseau tells Sayid about back in 'Solitary'? I'd previously thought that it was the time sickness that affects such characters as Minkowski and Charlotte, but now, I'm not so sure. I'm more of the mind now that interacting with Smokey in the ways that they did made them insane (for lack of a better word), and it is for this reason that Rousseau found the need to kill her entire crew. "You are not Robert!" she yelled at her doomed lover shortly before she unloaded both barrels on him as Jin looked on, and being that he took a shot at her the first chance he got (or at least tried to, not knowing that Danielle had removed the firing pin on his rifle, the same one that Sayid stole and attempted to use on her in 'Solitary'), I'm fairly certain that he wasn't exactly in his right mind. His plea to her to put her gun down in the name of their future together as well as their unborn child was nice, but his attempt at shooting her dead shortly afterward? Not so much. There was something clearly wrong with Robert in that scene, and my guess at it is either my aforementioned theory of 'Smokey makes you wacko' or maybe they were really dead all along and then reincarnated by Smokey. Hell, Yemi made an appearance on the island long after he had kicked the bucket, right? Remember what he said to Eko shortly before Smokey pounded him into a fine powder? "You speak to me as if I am your brother." Interesting. Hell, maybe ALL the Others have been possessed by Smokey this entire time. We've never gotten a reason why they seem to be so super-strong, have we? Ethan Rom was a bad muthafucka before Charlie's bullets came into the picture. Had Juliet been previously possessed before switching sides? Does that explain the 'branding' she got from the Others after she attempted to help Jack in the Hydra station? Maybe you're out of Smokey's glee club once you turn tail. Hmmm...
Geez, will I ever shut up about Rousseau and Smokey? Yes. Yes, I will. Well, maybe. For now anyway. Let's move on to the Temple, or at least what we got to see of it. Being that the wall we saw was practically covered in hieroglyphs that strongly resembled those on the columns in the donkey wheel room, the secret door in Ben's back room, and the counters on the clock in the Swan station after it passed zero, I'm waging a guess that all those things are intertwined. I don't think that what we saw was the ENTIRE Temple (if it was, that's lame), but it was certainly some sort of outer wall or remnant thereof. Robert told us on the beach that Smokey wasn't a monster, but more of a security system to guard the Temple, as well. (Interesting point, that - did the two of them chat it up over coffee or something?) Remember the blast door map in the Swan station? Well, if you do, you'll also recall the various points on it labeled 'CV' (confirmed later by the producers to mean 'Cerberus vents') and I'm guessing that the crack in the Temple wall that Smokey pulled Montand into was one of those. Kinda like the one that he almost pulled Locke into way back in Season 1 before Kate and Jack dropped a dynamite bomb into it to set him free. Speaking of which, remember what Locke said to Kate and Jack when that happened? 'Let me go, I'll be alright'? Was that also an instance of Smokey attempting to speak through someone?
There I go talking about Smokey again, though. Let's give ourselves a rest for a moment and touch on a few smaller things like the jubilant man-hug between Sawyer and Jin when the two finally meet back up again. Hurray! I love a bad-ass 'The Long Con'-era Sawyer just as much as everyone else does, but when he drops the facade for a moment and shows a little appreciation and love for his fellow castaways, I simply love him all the more. It's also a testament to Sawyer's growth and character arc to see him so distraught when Locke's descent into the well is broken up by a time flash, leaving him there standing above it with the rope still in hand. His instant attempt to dig his newfound friend out of his predicament was great, albeit pointless. That's gotta be 40 feet of solid rock, James!
One more bone to pick with Smokey before I move on - how DARE you kill Nadine, the smoking hot blonde French woman on Rousseau's crew before we got the opportunity to see her in a few different outfits? Not cool, big guy. Not cool at all.
Speaking of the well, I've got a doozy of a theory/speculation about it, but again, we'll get to that in a minute. For now, though, I have to give the line of the night to John Locke. When Sawyer asks him if he'd prefer to be lowered down the well rather than climbing down himself, his response of "Now where would the fun in that be?" was some CLASSIC John Locke self-involvement. I was surprised he didn't look around for something to blow up before he started down. To his credit, though, he did underline it with that great smirky grin of his, so you know he was taking just as much piss out of himself as he was out of Sawyer. Having Terry O'Quinn on my television every week playing such a unique, unprecedented character like John Locke is nothing less than a gift.
Now that we've had a bit of fun talking about the island, what of the Oceanic 6 back in LA? I have to say that my weekly "Line of the night" contest very nearly went to Mr. Benjamin Linus for his broad-brushed bitch-slap of Sun and Jack when they couldn't stop arguing over who was to going to kill him first. Attaboy, Ben. You do and you do and you do, and what do you get for it? Tied up in a gun locker, beat up six ways to Sunday, and then on top of all that, made to drive in the sheer hell that is LA traffic. Besides all that, though, Ben came through on his promise to prove to Sun that Jin was indeed still alive, and it came in the form of Jin's wedding ring. Jin gave it to Locke before he climbed down the well, and although Locke promised Jin that he wouldn't try and convince Sun (and the baby he still knows as being unborn, very much unlike the rest of us) to come back to the island, Locke slipped through the loophole he left for himself in that promise and made Ben do it instead. Not sure if that would be considered a cheat or not, but it certainly wouldn't be the first time Locke had taken a shortcut to get him where he needed to be. Just ask Anthony Cooper.
The endgame of the Oceanic 6 seemed closer than ever this week, what with their rendezvous with Mrs. Hawking at her lab/church. Nice little meeting of science and faith in that place, isn't there? Anyway, Ben's plan to get the band back together hit a snag when Kate & Sayid decided they were getting too old for this shit like their name was Danny Glover. What's more, Kate took Aaron with her and Hurley's still in the joint, so the O6 is now more along the lines of a skimpy little O2. (Well, three if you count the stiff in the back of Ben's van.) Luckily, Hawking didn't seem to be too disturbed by that fact, and told Ben that Jack and Sun were just going to have to do for now. So let's get started, shall we? But wait! Who else should show up at the church but Desmond, living up to his promise to find Faraday's mother. Ben looked a little shaken when Desmond asked if they were all here to find Mama Faraday, but why? I guess it all depends on whether Ben knew that Eloise was his mom in the first place. If he didn't know, then it might have meant that Eloise had been keeping something from him all along, something Ben doesn't take very kindly to. Pile Daniel's strong connection to Charles Widmore right up on top of that, and I'd say maybe that's why he didn't seem too bothered by telling her that he had only managed to round up 3 members of the Oceanic 6. Certainly a different attitude than the one he had a few weeks ago when Eloise was stressing the importance of the 70-hour time limit he had. Could this mean a future alliance between Ben and the Oceanic 6?
Alright, some quick weirdness about the well. Remember when I proposed that there was some odd time loop going on involving the compass that Richard and Locke can't seem to stop passing between them? Well, turns out there may be something similar going on with the well that leads down to the time wheel room. When it first appears to Locke and his crew shortly before he falls down in it and breaks his leg, the time period that the group was in was pre-Dharma Initiative. How do we know that? Well, mainly Because the Orchid station wasn't there yet and the well was the only way to access the time wheel. However, when the time flash happened while Locke was hanging in space halfway down the well, it sent him and his group back to a point when the well hadn't been built yet. Fine, but what of the rope that was now left sticking out of the ground? You know, the one that Sawyer had been holding on to? Well, here's where it gets tricky. I'm thinking the only reason the well got built in the first place was because someone came along and found that rope sticking out of the ground. Wouldn't you want to dig up something like that just to see what was on the other end of it? Hell, maybe that's what led to the discovery of the time wheel in the first place. It's basically a paradox, and I'm happy that time loop conundrums like this one are being kept in the background of the show and not exploited for attention or plot points. It keeps them much more interesting to analyze, and what's more, it keeps them from turning into ripoffs of 'Back To The Future'.
Anyone notice that the voice saying the numbers over Montand's radio sounded a hell of a lot like Hurley?
What of the column of black smoke that Jin saw way over on the other side of the island when he stopped for a drink of water? We know that the smoke means the Others are coming to steal your children (according to Rousseau, anyway), so I'm betting that Jin's sighting of it took place right around the time that Alex was taken by Ben.
Locke and Christian, Christian and Locke. So who the hell was it that we saw down at the bottom of the well? I realize that we saw the person we've come to know as Christian, but um... Christian Shepherd is dead. So could it have been Jacob instead? Sure, I guess so - being that Jacob is probably the spirit of the island, I'd say it's safe to assume that Jacob could appear in pretty much whatever form it chooses. However, here's another theory. What if it was a reincarnated Locke? If you listened to this week's official LOST podcast with Damon and Carlton, they fielded a fan question about Christian. In it, a viewer asked whether or not Christian's dead body on Flight 815 had anything to do with the plane making it to the island. In other words, maybe Locke isn't the only one that has been (or will be) resurrected over the course of the season. In response, Damon hinted that in the next episode, we might get a little insight into this issue. From what I can pull from all that is maybe Locke is being resurrected as Christian, and that's why we've been seeing him 'alive' on the island for so long. Could the iteration of Christian we saw in 'This Place Is Death' have been a reincarnated John Locke stepping into view and advising his counterpart on what to do next?
Alternatively, perhaps in the future of the island's timeline, Christian Shepherd's body was part of the required guestlist on the island (along with all the other Losties that are still alive) so that Jacob would have a vessel to inhabit. Perhaps that's why Christian's body wasn't in the coffin when Jack found it, and maybe it's also why we got such an unexpected cameo in the mobisode entitled 'So It Begins'. Once he acquired that body, Jacob/Christian would, um, 'shepherd' the goings-on of the island so that John Locke would eventually become its new leader, a path that was undoubtedly thrown askew when the Oceanic 6 left far before their dance cards were filled, and perhaps more importantly, when Ben turned the wheel instead of Locke. After all, as we heard from Christian/Jacob/Whoever down in the well, he wanted LOCKE to turn the time wheel and in effect move the island, NOT Ben. It doesn't matter now, what with Locke finally arriving at his destiny by turning the wheel and getting word from Jacob himself not to take any more of Ben Linus' shit no matter how pretty the wrapping paper is. I don't know about you, but I'm going to be keeping my eyes firmly peeled on Episode 507, "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" coming up in a few weeks. Should be quite a hoot.
Which brings us to the dearly departed Charlotte. Oh, Charlotte... I miss her jeans already. Just in time for Valentine's Day, too. Charlotte hadn't exactly been having the time of her life on the island, was she? Not really at all, what with her nose running like a faucet every time the island decided to do the time warp again and scramble the poor girl's brains in the process. It's really too bad, too, seeming she grew up on the island and all. Not only that, but her father might still very well be there. Or is he? 'Charlotte' is the female version of 'Charles', you know. Hmm. Anyway, not only did her final moments on the island seem eerily similar to whatever brand of sickness Faraday's female friend Theresa back in England had, but she also seemed to have a pre-death vision of Daniel himself coming to her as a child and warning her never to come back to the island if she wanted to stay alive. What was all that about? Well, here's my idea - upon realizing that Charlotte was on the verge of death, Daniel got the idea in his head to go back in time and scare the young Charlotte into never coming back so that she wouldn't die. Nice sentiment and all, but doesn't that go against Faraday's theory that changing the future of the island is impossible? The future will turn out as its supposed to no matter what happens (Charlie will attest to that), and sure enough, the island course-corrected the passage of time to overlook Daniel's warnings and bring Charlotte back to the island no matter what. Anyway, the reason that Charlotte never remembered her meeting with Faraday in her past is because in theory, it hadn't happened yet. Daniel only got the idea to do it while kneeling next to her as she lay dying in the present/future, and as soon as he had that idea, Charlotte remembered it. The same thing happened to Desmond when he woke up in bed and retroactively remembered Faraday forcing a meeting with him at the Swan station. It doesn't seem as if Daniel is taking his own lessons very much to heart, does it? He knew that an exception to his rules lie in his future pal Desmond, but why didn't he realize that about Charlotte? Affairs of the heart don't often work that way, no matter how much he may have wanted them to.
In closing, my apologies go out to Bob Dylan and Manfred Mann for this, but it really must be said...
Come all without, come all within
You'll not see nothing like the Mighty Jin
Come all without, come all within
You'll not see nothing like the Mighty Jin
Everybody's building ships and boats
Some are building monuments, others are jotting down notes
Everybody's in despair, every girl and boy
But when Jin The Korean gets here
Everybody's gonna jump for joy
Come all without, come all within
You'll not see nothing like the Mighty Jin
See you next week!
It was strictly by chance that I caught the Season 1 episode "Solitary" on G4 a few hours before watching the new episode, and if you haven't seen that little gem in a while, I highly recommend going back and checking it out. Not only does it provide the history of the path Danielle Rousseau took to save herself from her own crew, but it also has her speaking a variety of different languages while trying to rouse Sayid. I'm certainly no trained linguist, but the first thing that popped into my mind as she rattled off various versions of "Wake up, Sayid!" was whether or not one of the languages she was using was Latin, the official language of the Others. I know there was French, Spanish, and maybe even some Portugese in there, but if I'm right, that would be an incredible 4-season crossover. I realize that Rousseau has claimed that in her 16 years on the island, she's never seen anyone else there at all. Well, while that may be true (although I doubt it), she is certainly quite privy to the mysterious whispering voices that may be of the various time-traveling entities making their way around the island. Additionally, it would put one more nail in the obnoxious "They're making all this up as they go along!" nonsense that plagues far too many message boards out there. Obnoxious messageboard denizens, you know who you are.
To get away from my harebrained theories and step a little closer to what we actually saw Rousseau go through this week, let's start with the fate of the strapping young Frenchman Montand. I've wondered how exactly he managed to lose his arm for quite a while now, and to actually get to see how and when it happened was a real treat for me. I'd theorized that it was the work of the young Widmore's maniacal hand-chopping crew, but in reality (or what passes for it on the island, anyway) it was the handiwork of a rather vengeful Smokey as it tried to pull Montand into one of its many lairs. It really was a cool sequence, and it is with great pride and satisfaction that I cross it off my lengthy LOST wishlist of things that I've been dying to see.
Speaking of that sequence, let's take a closer look. As the fate of Montand was determined as Smokey pulled him into the crack of the Temple wall (more on that place in a minute), we saw that Jin might have played a key part in not only getting his arm ripped off, but also in saving Rousseau's life, sanity, and the fate of the then-unborn Alex. Rousseau had every intention of going in after her crew as they ventured down into Smokey's lair to retrieve the mewling Montand, but Jin convinced her not to, and it was a good thing he did. If she had, not only would Alex probably have never been born, but Rousseau herself might have been subjected to whatever twisted fate awaited her crew as they made their way down into the creepy crack in the wall. You don't really think that was Montand calling for help down there, do you? Of course it wasn't, and with that, we got our requisite Smokey clue that comes standard with every viewing of that lovable cloud of death. See, Damon and Carlton have repeatedly stated in the official LOST podcasts that every time we see Smokey, we learn something new about it, and this episode was no exception. We learned not only that one of Smokey's main priorities seems to be guarding the Temple, but also that it has the ability to either mimic someone's voice or to actually inhibit their body and make them do or say whatever it chooses. Crazy LOST freaks like me know that it has long been theorized that many appearances of various characters on the island have actually been Smokey in disguise (Walt, Yemi, and perhaps even Christian Shepherd), so maybe our foggy friend was actually inhabiting Montand's doomed body and using his voice to lure Rousseau and her crew down into that hole for dessert. Assuming that's true, it comes as no surprise that the crew was quick to make their way down there. Robert's call of "no one gets left behind" made sure of that. However, as I stated before, it's a good thing Jin was there to convince Rousseau to think of her baby first (I love seeing Jin in overprotective Daddy mode, don't you?) and not make the trip down into the hole. Knowing that both Rousseau and Alex are very much alive on the island in 2004 (or were, anyway), it can be deduced that Jin had ALWAYS been around back then in 1988 to have the effect on those characters' timelines that he did. Faraday's theories about the time-skips are correct - there is only one past, and there is only one future. There is no version of that fateful day on the island in 1988 where Jin wasn't around to save Rousseau and Alex. If there were, the women wouldn't be alive in the future, and they never would have had any interaction with the 815ers in the first place. Got all that? Me neither.
Now, what of this 'sickness' that Rousseau tells Sayid about back in 'Solitary'? I'd previously thought that it was the time sickness that affects such characters as Minkowski and Charlotte, but now, I'm not so sure. I'm more of the mind now that interacting with Smokey in the ways that they did made them insane (for lack of a better word), and it is for this reason that Rousseau found the need to kill her entire crew. "You are not Robert!" she yelled at her doomed lover shortly before she unloaded both barrels on him as Jin looked on, and being that he took a shot at her the first chance he got (or at least tried to, not knowing that Danielle had removed the firing pin on his rifle, the same one that Sayid stole and attempted to use on her in 'Solitary'), I'm fairly certain that he wasn't exactly in his right mind. His plea to her to put her gun down in the name of their future together as well as their unborn child was nice, but his attempt at shooting her dead shortly afterward? Not so much. There was something clearly wrong with Robert in that scene, and my guess at it is either my aforementioned theory of 'Smokey makes you wacko' or maybe they were really dead all along and then reincarnated by Smokey. Hell, Yemi made an appearance on the island long after he had kicked the bucket, right? Remember what he said to Eko shortly before Smokey pounded him into a fine powder? "You speak to me as if I am your brother." Interesting. Hell, maybe ALL the Others have been possessed by Smokey this entire time. We've never gotten a reason why they seem to be so super-strong, have we? Ethan Rom was a bad muthafucka before Charlie's bullets came into the picture. Had Juliet been previously possessed before switching sides? Does that explain the 'branding' she got from the Others after she attempted to help Jack in the Hydra station? Maybe you're out of Smokey's glee club once you turn tail. Hmmm...
Geez, will I ever shut up about Rousseau and Smokey? Yes. Yes, I will. Well, maybe. For now anyway. Let's move on to the Temple, or at least what we got to see of it. Being that the wall we saw was practically covered in hieroglyphs that strongly resembled those on the columns in the donkey wheel room, the secret door in Ben's back room, and the counters on the clock in the Swan station after it passed zero, I'm waging a guess that all those things are intertwined. I don't think that what we saw was the ENTIRE Temple (if it was, that's lame), but it was certainly some sort of outer wall or remnant thereof. Robert told us on the beach that Smokey wasn't a monster, but more of a security system to guard the Temple, as well. (Interesting point, that - did the two of them chat it up over coffee or something?) Remember the blast door map in the Swan station? Well, if you do, you'll also recall the various points on it labeled 'CV' (confirmed later by the producers to mean 'Cerberus vents') and I'm guessing that the crack in the Temple wall that Smokey pulled Montand into was one of those. Kinda like the one that he almost pulled Locke into way back in Season 1 before Kate and Jack dropped a dynamite bomb into it to set him free. Speaking of which, remember what Locke said to Kate and Jack when that happened? 'Let me go, I'll be alright'? Was that also an instance of Smokey attempting to speak through someone?
There I go talking about Smokey again, though. Let's give ourselves a rest for a moment and touch on a few smaller things like the jubilant man-hug between Sawyer and Jin when the two finally meet back up again. Hurray! I love a bad-ass 'The Long Con'-era Sawyer just as much as everyone else does, but when he drops the facade for a moment and shows a little appreciation and love for his fellow castaways, I simply love him all the more. It's also a testament to Sawyer's growth and character arc to see him so distraught when Locke's descent into the well is broken up by a time flash, leaving him there standing above it with the rope still in hand. His instant attempt to dig his newfound friend out of his predicament was great, albeit pointless. That's gotta be 40 feet of solid rock, James!
One more bone to pick with Smokey before I move on - how DARE you kill Nadine, the smoking hot blonde French woman on Rousseau's crew before we got the opportunity to see her in a few different outfits? Not cool, big guy. Not cool at all.
Speaking of the well, I've got a doozy of a theory/speculation about it, but again, we'll get to that in a minute. For now, though, I have to give the line of the night to John Locke. When Sawyer asks him if he'd prefer to be lowered down the well rather than climbing down himself, his response of "Now where would the fun in that be?" was some CLASSIC John Locke self-involvement. I was surprised he didn't look around for something to blow up before he started down. To his credit, though, he did underline it with that great smirky grin of his, so you know he was taking just as much piss out of himself as he was out of Sawyer. Having Terry O'Quinn on my television every week playing such a unique, unprecedented character like John Locke is nothing less than a gift.
Now that we've had a bit of fun talking about the island, what of the Oceanic 6 back in LA? I have to say that my weekly "Line of the night" contest very nearly went to Mr. Benjamin Linus for his broad-brushed bitch-slap of Sun and Jack when they couldn't stop arguing over who was to going to kill him first. Attaboy, Ben. You do and you do and you do, and what do you get for it? Tied up in a gun locker, beat up six ways to Sunday, and then on top of all that, made to drive in the sheer hell that is LA traffic. Besides all that, though, Ben came through on his promise to prove to Sun that Jin was indeed still alive, and it came in the form of Jin's wedding ring. Jin gave it to Locke before he climbed down the well, and although Locke promised Jin that he wouldn't try and convince Sun (and the baby he still knows as being unborn, very much unlike the rest of us) to come back to the island, Locke slipped through the loophole he left for himself in that promise and made Ben do it instead. Not sure if that would be considered a cheat or not, but it certainly wouldn't be the first time Locke had taken a shortcut to get him where he needed to be. Just ask Anthony Cooper.
The endgame of the Oceanic 6 seemed closer than ever this week, what with their rendezvous with Mrs. Hawking at her lab/church. Nice little meeting of science and faith in that place, isn't there? Anyway, Ben's plan to get the band back together hit a snag when Kate & Sayid decided they were getting too old for this shit like their name was Danny Glover. What's more, Kate took Aaron with her and Hurley's still in the joint, so the O6 is now more along the lines of a skimpy little O2. (Well, three if you count the stiff in the back of Ben's van.) Luckily, Hawking didn't seem to be too disturbed by that fact, and told Ben that Jack and Sun were just going to have to do for now. So let's get started, shall we? But wait! Who else should show up at the church but Desmond, living up to his promise to find Faraday's mother. Ben looked a little shaken when Desmond asked if they were all here to find Mama Faraday, but why? I guess it all depends on whether Ben knew that Eloise was his mom in the first place. If he didn't know, then it might have meant that Eloise had been keeping something from him all along, something Ben doesn't take very kindly to. Pile Daniel's strong connection to Charles Widmore right up on top of that, and I'd say maybe that's why he didn't seem too bothered by telling her that he had only managed to round up 3 members of the Oceanic 6. Certainly a different attitude than the one he had a few weeks ago when Eloise was stressing the importance of the 70-hour time limit he had. Could this mean a future alliance between Ben and the Oceanic 6?
Alright, some quick weirdness about the well. Remember when I proposed that there was some odd time loop going on involving the compass that Richard and Locke can't seem to stop passing between them? Well, turns out there may be something similar going on with the well that leads down to the time wheel room. When it first appears to Locke and his crew shortly before he falls down in it and breaks his leg, the time period that the group was in was pre-Dharma Initiative. How do we know that? Well, mainly Because the Orchid station wasn't there yet and the well was the only way to access the time wheel. However, when the time flash happened while Locke was hanging in space halfway down the well, it sent him and his group back to a point when the well hadn't been built yet. Fine, but what of the rope that was now left sticking out of the ground? You know, the one that Sawyer had been holding on to? Well, here's where it gets tricky. I'm thinking the only reason the well got built in the first place was because someone came along and found that rope sticking out of the ground. Wouldn't you want to dig up something like that just to see what was on the other end of it? Hell, maybe that's what led to the discovery of the time wheel in the first place. It's basically a paradox, and I'm happy that time loop conundrums like this one are being kept in the background of the show and not exploited for attention or plot points. It keeps them much more interesting to analyze, and what's more, it keeps them from turning into ripoffs of 'Back To The Future'.
Anyone notice that the voice saying the numbers over Montand's radio sounded a hell of a lot like Hurley?
What of the column of black smoke that Jin saw way over on the other side of the island when he stopped for a drink of water? We know that the smoke means the Others are coming to steal your children (according to Rousseau, anyway), so I'm betting that Jin's sighting of it took place right around the time that Alex was taken by Ben.
Locke and Christian, Christian and Locke. So who the hell was it that we saw down at the bottom of the well? I realize that we saw the person we've come to know as Christian, but um... Christian Shepherd is dead. So could it have been Jacob instead? Sure, I guess so - being that Jacob is probably the spirit of the island, I'd say it's safe to assume that Jacob could appear in pretty much whatever form it chooses. However, here's another theory. What if it was a reincarnated Locke? If you listened to this week's official LOST podcast with Damon and Carlton, they fielded a fan question about Christian. In it, a viewer asked whether or not Christian's dead body on Flight 815 had anything to do with the plane making it to the island. In other words, maybe Locke isn't the only one that has been (or will be) resurrected over the course of the season. In response, Damon hinted that in the next episode, we might get a little insight into this issue. From what I can pull from all that is maybe Locke is being resurrected as Christian, and that's why we've been seeing him 'alive' on the island for so long. Could the iteration of Christian we saw in 'This Place Is Death' have been a reincarnated John Locke stepping into view and advising his counterpart on what to do next?
Alternatively, perhaps in the future of the island's timeline, Christian Shepherd's body was part of the required guestlist on the island (along with all the other Losties that are still alive) so that Jacob would have a vessel to inhabit. Perhaps that's why Christian's body wasn't in the coffin when Jack found it, and maybe it's also why we got such an unexpected cameo in the mobisode entitled 'So It Begins'. Once he acquired that body, Jacob/Christian would, um, 'shepherd' the goings-on of the island so that John Locke would eventually become its new leader, a path that was undoubtedly thrown askew when the Oceanic 6 left far before their dance cards were filled, and perhaps more importantly, when Ben turned the wheel instead of Locke. After all, as we heard from Christian/Jacob/Whoever down in the well, he wanted LOCKE to turn the time wheel and in effect move the island, NOT Ben. It doesn't matter now, what with Locke finally arriving at his destiny by turning the wheel and getting word from Jacob himself not to take any more of Ben Linus' shit no matter how pretty the wrapping paper is. I don't know about you, but I'm going to be keeping my eyes firmly peeled on Episode 507, "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" coming up in a few weeks. Should be quite a hoot.
Which brings us to the dearly departed Charlotte. Oh, Charlotte... I miss her jeans already. Just in time for Valentine's Day, too. Charlotte hadn't exactly been having the time of her life on the island, was she? Not really at all, what with her nose running like a faucet every time the island decided to do the time warp again and scramble the poor girl's brains in the process. It's really too bad, too, seeming she grew up on the island and all. Not only that, but her father might still very well be there. Or is he? 'Charlotte' is the female version of 'Charles', you know. Hmm. Anyway, not only did her final moments on the island seem eerily similar to whatever brand of sickness Faraday's female friend Theresa back in England had, but she also seemed to have a pre-death vision of Daniel himself coming to her as a child and warning her never to come back to the island if she wanted to stay alive. What was all that about? Well, here's my idea - upon realizing that Charlotte was on the verge of death, Daniel got the idea in his head to go back in time and scare the young Charlotte into never coming back so that she wouldn't die. Nice sentiment and all, but doesn't that go against Faraday's theory that changing the future of the island is impossible? The future will turn out as its supposed to no matter what happens (Charlie will attest to that), and sure enough, the island course-corrected the passage of time to overlook Daniel's warnings and bring Charlotte back to the island no matter what. Anyway, the reason that Charlotte never remembered her meeting with Faraday in her past is because in theory, it hadn't happened yet. Daniel only got the idea to do it while kneeling next to her as she lay dying in the present/future, and as soon as he had that idea, Charlotte remembered it. The same thing happened to Desmond when he woke up in bed and retroactively remembered Faraday forcing a meeting with him at the Swan station. It doesn't seem as if Daniel is taking his own lessons very much to heart, does it? He knew that an exception to his rules lie in his future pal Desmond, but why didn't he realize that about Charlotte? Affairs of the heart don't often work that way, no matter how much he may have wanted them to.
In closing, my apologies go out to Bob Dylan and Manfred Mann for this, but it really must be said...
Come all without, come all within
You'll not see nothing like the Mighty Jin
Come all without, come all within
You'll not see nothing like the Mighty Jin
Everybody's building ships and boats
Some are building monuments, others are jotting down notes
Everybody's in despair, every girl and boy
But when Jin The Korean gets here
Everybody's gonna jump for joy
Come all without, come all within
You'll not see nothing like the Mighty Jin
See you next week!
posted by Yummsh at 2:27 AM - Permalink
4 Comments:
I went back and watched the show again, and that does sound like Hurley on the radio. Do you remember if Hurley ever called the numbers out on the radio? Or could this be from a future event?
Also, I can't remember, but maybe you can... Did Rousseau ever meet Jin in the future? And if she did, did it seem like she might have recognized him?
That was one wicked fall that Locke took. I wonder if the broken leg he got during that contributed to his death. He could have incurred an infection or something... I mean the bone was poking out and it wasn't exactly clean down in the wheel house.
And what I can't understand is Locke putting the wheel back on it's axis is what stops the time jumping, or if Locke being the one to leave the Island does it, or they have to get everyone back to the Island before the jumping stops. I figure that Locke probably came out about three years after the time the others were rescued, and that's why it's taken this long for them to start having things happen to them. The seem to have lived in relative peace for most of those three years, and I bet it was when Locke started trying to gather them up that things started going awry.
You obviously have a better memory for this than I, but when did we see, or know about that arm before this. You intimated that we knew something about it, but I must admit my memory fails me. Which is why I don't make too many suppositions about this show. I can't remember every little detail so that I know if it will come back up later.
So, Smokey guards the Temple? Is it just me, or did it kind of look like a giant panther when it was dragging that guy through the woods? I agree that that was probably the remnant of an out building, or part of a wall that it disappeared under. I'm trying to recall all the times we've seen Smokey, and what we've learned about it each time we've seen it. I know the camera like flashes mean something, though what I couldn't say, and I'm not really sure what else we've learned. Damn my memory! Though I will ask... If it guards the Temple, then why did it attack people on the beach, since I don't think that was anywhere near the Temple, since the Losties would have found it. I can't wait to find out.
Now, I wonder if Daniel will try another way to keep Charlotte from coming back to the Island, or if she does, couldn't he then find a way to get a note to himself to make himself Charlotte's constant? Or can one person only have one constant? Did Locke get a nosebleed? The other's got there's in the order in which they would have been on the Island the longest, starting with Charlotte, then Miles, then Juliette, and then Sawyer. Why wouldn't Locke have gotten one? And if Miles received his after Charlotte, does that mean he's not what's his names son? Or does it just mean that she's older, and was on the Island first... as an Other, not a Dharma brat?
Ben is definitely my top favorite bad guy of all time. The best bad guys always have a bit of good in them. Ben does what he needs to do, and doesn't (usually) let emotion rule. I don't blame Ben for being the one to move the Island. If I remember correctly, Locke told Ben that Jacob (or Christian) said to move the Island, he didn't say he told 'me' to move the island, so Ben would have assumed that since the Island had been working to help Locke, and had allowed him to get sick, that he was no longer in the Island's good graces and was there for being told to leave. After all, he knew what would happen once the Island was moved.
Ben did not look too happy when Desmond revealed that he was there to find Faraday's mother. I don't think he was aware of that connection.
Okay, I think I've exhausted my list of things that came to me. I'll be sure to let you know if anything else pops out to me.
Oh, I did want to tell you this. Someone I know thinks that it's possible that Eloise is Ellie, and that she and Charles Widmore were brother and sister and that Daniel, being Eloise's child, (which was confirmed last week) could be Penny's cousin. Just another connection that might be out there. What do ya think?
Alright, from the top -
The numbers on the radio were being transmitted from the radio tower, if you remember. Rousseau replaced them with her distress message after she killed her crew. If that is Hurley saying the numbers, he's going to have to have recorded them sometime in the past, well before Rousseau even arrived. It's a shot in the dark based on some pretty iffy information, but if it is him on that recording, that will be pretty damn cool.
Rousseau meeting Jin? As far as I know, they haven't had a real face-to-face meeting aside from being vaguely in the same place at the same time. Remember the episode where she and Jack showed the Losties how they were going to blow them up at the end of Season 3? I think the two of them were in the same place then, but again, no heart-to-heart there, either. Additionally, Rousseau's more than a little nuts, and Jin wouldn't have remembered their 1988 meeting at that point anyway. Their meeting was only in his future at that point.
As far as how Locke died, I think Sayid had something to do with it. I might be way off, but in the Season 4 finale when Sayid visits Hurley in the mental hospital, he says something about how Locke's death was made to look like a suicide. I don't know why, but something about that set off a red flag in my mind. You're correct that his broken leg is going to be a factor wherever he's going, though - in fact, how ironic would it be if he's in a wheelchair again after finally getting off the island?
That's a good point about the three-year timespan being relatively calm for the O6, and I hadn't considered that fact. As for what stops the timeskips, I'm thinking they'll cease now that Locke turned the wheel, but who knows. The real question is what's going to happen to Sawyer's crew. Will they be stuck in a certain time that isn't their own?
Montand losing an arm was first mentioned by Rousseau back in the Season 1 finale. I don't know why, but it always seemed like such a weird little detail in her story, and it's always stuck in my brain. It's become somewhat of a fan favorite, as well, and Damon & Carlton mention it in the podcasts from time to time. Do you listen to the weekly audio & video podcasts? You should subscribe to them through iTunes. They're free, as well. Great stuff. Damon & Carlton are always hilarious and interesting to listen to.
Smokey does indeed guard the Temple. Robert says as much right before Rousseau shoots him. It's been a rule of Damon and Carlton's since the show's inception that something always be revealed about Smokey every time we see him. For example, when Juliet and Kate are chased through the jungle at night by Smokey after being ousted from the Others' village, we learned that Smokey 'scans' people to some capacity. Do you read Lostpedia.com? That site is basically the Bible of the show, and chances are if you have a question about it, Lostpedia will have an answer. An excellent resource to draw upon when you have some time to kill.
As for why it attacked Rousseau's crew, think about it - they weren't on the beach, were they? They were well into the jungle en route to the radio tower. They were obviously pretty close to the Temple at that point, judging by how short of a distance Smokey had to drag Montand to get there. Or to that outer wall we saw, at least.
The Daniel/Charlotte issue is still kinda iffy to me, but as for as Locke, I think the reason he didn't get a nosebleed is because the Island is watching over him. Why have his legs healed so quickly and so many times? How did he survive that gunshot from Ben? Locke's the Chosen One, as far as I'm concerned. As far as the nosebleeds are concerned, you're correct in saying that the people who have been there for the longest overall amount of time get them first. I don't think Miles was on the island for very long. He said himself that he's from Encino. If he grew up on an island, you'd think he'd remember it.
I totally agree - Ben is awesome, and Michael Emerson even moreso. Just incredible acting week after week. I would need to watch 'Cabin Fever' again to confirm this, but I think Jacob DID tell Locke to move the island. Ben just conned him out of it, if I remember correctly. In fact, Jacob/Christian confirmed that he told Locke to do it in this week's episode. That's why I mentioned it in my recap. Ben obviously had ulterior motives when he decided to take on this task himself, but what they are remains to be seen.
Oh yeah, Eloise Hawking is definitely Ellie from Alpert's camp on the island. Gotta be. No question about it. That's why Faraday said she looked so familiar when she was taking him out to see the Jughead bomb. As for her relation to Charles Widmore, I have no idea, but it's an interesting theory.
Do you post on any messageboards about LOST? You should come visit avclub.com on Wednesday nights after the show. A guy named Noel Murray does a great write-up every week, and the comments are always interesting and fun. I post over there as Yummsh, so drop by and give me a shout if you can. Hope to see you there.
I know that Jin wouldn't have recognized Rousseau, but I thought maybe she'd given him a look like he looked familiar, if they'd ever talked, or been near each other. The director could have told the actress to look at him a certain way that was subtle, but that would make sense after this revelation.
I'll obviously have to re watch a lot of the episodes. I totally don't remember Sayid saying that about Locke/Bentham.
The reason I wondered about what stops the flashes, is that in the season premier, we say Daniel down in the Orchid when it was being built, as it were. So, either they get stuck in that time period, or the flashes continue.
I don't watch the pod casts, but maybe I should. Thanks for letting me know about when the arm was mentioned.
About Smokey, I was thinking more about why he attacked the Losties, not Rousseau and crew. I understand why them, but the plane crash victims were on the beach when they first saw evidence of him, and it doesn't seem that they were anywhere near the Temple. Also, I forgot to mention this, but the column of smoke that Jin saw was coming from Rousseau's camp, not from the Others. She hadn't had the baby yet, so they wouldn't have been coming for her.
I don't visit any Lost forums or websites. I did once try to at TV.com, but more often than not there was more bickering then talk of the show. I only talk about the show with two people, aside from friends. You, and the Recapper at TWoP. Though I may check out that place you mentioned. As long as the bickering doesn't get out of control. Nothing is worse than having to read through pages of comments to find something that's actually about the show, and not about what someone doesn't like about what another poster said.
I'll have to re watch that episode where Christian tells Locke to move the Island. I don't remember the exact wording.
Until next time.
I don't think Rousseau has ever recognized Jin, and that's something people discuss on Lost boards all the time now. Something must've happened to make her forget. Additionally, she's kinda nuts, too.
Sayid did mention Locke's death at the end of Season 4 when he came to pick up Hurley at the mental hospital. There was something mentioned about how it was made to look like a suicide, but the idea that he was somehow involved in it could be total bunk. Just something I'm trying to work out in my head. Hell, it could've been Ben who killed him, for all I know. He does seem rather desperate to get back to the island.
Yeah, I'm betting we don't find out why Daniel was down in the Orchid for a while yet, but I think you're onto something there.
You should definitely come check out avclub.com tonight after the show. Noel usually posts his recaps about an hour after it airs. Don't worry, it's nothing like TWOP. The comments stay very much on-topic about 95% of the time, and it's easy to ignore the rare instances where it gets off-track.
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