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Note: This blog is counting down to the premiere of LOST's final season on Feb. 2 by spending the month leading up to it racing through every one of the previous 103 episodes. We're looking specifically at Christian/religious themes, other important or interesting concepts, literary references, and the theory that it's largely been about a game in which someone has won, and someone has... LOST. To follow us from the start, click here.

This all happened before!

Such is Desmond's epiphany on a London street corner after crossing paths with one Charlie Hieronymus Pace. Or, at least Desmond's body is there in the past, on that corner, but his mind, his consciousness and future memories, have somehow joined him there. Suddenly he knows that it's about to rain. It does. And we have to wonder about the way Dharma studied meteorology (among other subjects), the way Locke knew when it would rain and the way Walt either could make it stop or knew when it would stop.

This is the disc where it becomes impossible to deny any longer that LOST - if it is a game - is a game played with a clock, and that time element will henceforth be extremely important. The way it appears to work is that all of time - past, present, and future - occur simultaneously. Minor variations are possible within each, but the universe still course-corrects to make sure the major, important events happen. In other words...

"Ya gonna die, Chollie."

LOST Season Three, Disc Two: We're a Team

Episodes: 3.5 THE COST OF LIVING (Eko-centric); 3.6 I DO (Kate-centric); 3.7 NOT IN PORTLAND (Juliet-centric); 3.8 FLASHES BEFORE YOUR EYES (Desmond-centric)

Things That Stuck Out

Big Island

First on-island shot is of Eko's closed eye. He's asleep, and has been for a couple days, according to Hurley, recovering from the hatch implosion and polar bear attack. "Can you hear me?" asks Sayid (there's that auditory theme again; my stupid "taste" motif from last writeup is a dead end). Once Sayid, Hurley, and Charlie leave, Eko wakes up, and is scared to find "Yemi" in his tent telling him it is TIME to confess, to be judged.

Locke has figured how they might find Jack, Kate, and Sawyer. He and Desmond suspect - with good reason - that the computers in the hatches can be used for communication. The one in the Swan may be gone, but there's one in the Pearl. When Locke learns from Charlie that Eko, before running off, was mumbling something about his brother, it occurs to him they're all going to the same location.

As Eko makes his way to the Beechcraft / Question Mark / Pearl Station, Smokey tracks him through the woods nearly the whole way. At one point, Eko even has a vision of himself attacking himself with a sword, and of little Daniel the altar boy from Yemi's church telling him to confess (translation: Eko's his own worst enemy because he will admit no wrong).

Locke is a different leader than Jack, and Hurley comments on it. Locke invites anyone who wants to come along to join them on the journey to the Pearl. So, hey, Nikki and Paulo sign up! Great...

Locke knows Eko saw Smokey, and asks him about it. "I saw it once you know. I saw a very bright light. It was beautiful." That's not what Eko saw... This is, however, the first time Locke has spoken specifically of the day he saw Smokey without lying about it since he told Jack he had "looked into the eye of the island." Locke returns Yemi's cross necklace to Eko, which he found previously when he tracked Eko to Polar Bear Lair.

Yemi's body is not in the plane. Locke explains that Eko did burn the plane, so the body could have burned up, but we already know from Christian's empty coffin that it's more likely the body's being rented out at the moment...

Okay, we give Nikki something to do. She gets to contribute a clue. She heard Marv Wickmund in the Pearl video use the plural word "projects," so the monitors in that station must be for watching more than just the Swan. Even Locke says he suddenly feels stupid. Yay. Score one for Nikki. Meanwhile, Paulo flushes the toilet. Says it still works. Seems like a joke that didn't work, or a throw-away line. But we find out the point behind this later this season.

Patchy! Sayid is able to get one of the monitors to show another station. Shortly, into the frame steps Mikhail! Arrgh, Mateys! Freaked me out big time in the original airing. He stares into the camera before switching it off.

Ghost Yemi asks Eko if he is ready [to be judged]. Yes, he is. Eko gives a speech that sounds pretty good to our postmodern ears - I did the best with the life I was given, I can not be sorry for killing a man to save my brother's life, etc, etc. No repentance. "I ask for NO forgiveness, for I have not sinned. I have only done what I needed to do to survive... I am proud of this." Wrong answer. Poor Eko. And here's where it gets really creepy - "Yemi" says, "YOU SPEAK TO ME AS IF I WERE YOUR BROTHER." Uh-oh. That's not Yemi... and Eko summarily has the sin smushed out of him by Smokey. With his last words he tells John something we can't hear, but which Locke tells the group was, "We're next." The very last image Mr. Eko ever sees is of his younger self, his arm around his brother, walking into the distance tossing a white soccer ball in his free hand.

Locke inherits Eko's cross necklace and Jesus stick, and intends to bury Eko there in the jungle. The beach folk, he says, have endured too many funerals, and they don't need to see Eko looking like that. On the hike back to get some shovels, Sayid asks what killed Eko. Locke is forthcoming:

Locke: Folks back at the beach call it the Monster. I don't really have a name for it. But you don't believe in monsters.
Sayid: I believe in what I can see. (Okay, not gonna argue with Sayid, but does this sound like the words of a Muslim to you?) But obviously you have [seen]. So why don't you tell me what you think it is.
Locke: Might be what brought us here.
Sayid: So you believe that this monster decided that Eko was meant to die.
Locke: I believe Eko died for a reason. I just don't know what it is yet.

Desmond comes to the beach to ask Charlie and Hurley to come with him. Leads them to Locke and Sayid, who inform them that Eko is dead. "The island killed him." Locke tells Charlie he knows very well what that means, but that the folks on the beach don't need to be worrying about what's in the jungle. Hurley notices Desmond seems to be tripping a little bit. Des races off. Gets to the beach just in time to swim out and save Claire.

Charlie is still STUPIDLY jealous. Come on, man. But he has a bottle of MacCutcheon scotch! So drink up, Des!

"You don't want to know what happened to me when I turned that key! You don't want to know!" Well, here it is anyway:

• Countdown clock ticks down to nothing
• Red heiroglyphs, system failure
• Electromagnetism
• Key turns, "I love you Penny"
• Several quick flashes from Desmond's life, mostly on-island
• Calm. Eye opens.
• Des is lying in what looks like blood, but it's red paint. He'd fallen off a ladder while painting (and drinking). Penny gets ice for his head. And then...

...He realizes he's in his flat, and Penny is living there with him. Basically, he's experiencing either his past or an alternate reality with the consciousness and memories of his at-the-time-of-the-implosion self.

He's off to get a job from Penny's father, so he'll respect him. She believes he will. But if not, "it's not the end of the world." This gets Des's ear. "What did you say?" Before she can answer, he hears the beeping sound from the hatch timer -- but it's merely the microwave. He's starting to wonder if he dreamed this whole push-the-button, save-the-world thing. Tells Penny he's just had a deja-vu. But then he encounters a delivery man who has a parcel for 815. The rest of this tale is told under "Off-Island" below.

Desmond finally explains to Charlie that when he turned the key, his life flashed before his eyes. "But when I was back in the jungle, those flashes didn't stop." He wasn't saving Claire - he was saving Charlie, from the lightning and the drowning. He foresaw him drowning trying to save Claire (since Charlie can't swim, but his love would have pushed him to go after her). "I can't stop it forever."

Hyrda Island

Jack asks Ben if it hurts. Ben's surprised. Does what hurt? Jack informs him he knows about the tumor, and that it's gonna kill Ben. The thing that's got my undies twisted is Ben really does seem surprised, even asking Juliet out of earshot of Jack why she showed him Ben's X-rays? "I didn't tell him they were yours." What I'm thinking that I never stopped to ponder the first time around is that Juliet set this whole thing up (I'm a little slow sometimes). Ben is telling the truth about the big plan they had to break Jack, involving Juliet looking like Sarah, slowing turning Jack's brain to mush to where he would want to help Ben. I don't think Juliet liked that. She planted the X-rays where Jack would see them, she created the "Ben's bad, please do the surgery, but kill him on the table" video, etc. She's a bit of a mastermind herself, and how bloody sexist of me for not figuring this the first time.

Just as we're about to hear what happens at an Others funeral, Juliet comes up to talk to Jack. So all we hear is Ben saying, "As we prepare to send Colleen on her way, I'd like to take a moment to..." Do you think he just says some nice words? Or does he pray, or perform some other rite in some religious way? Colleen's pyre is set aflame and afloat to Brenda Lee's "I Wonder." Jack even looks around as if to say, "Where the crud did that come from?"

Sawyer's grumpy with the knowledge he's been given that there's nowhere to run to, baby, nowhere to hide. But he's keeping this from Kate so she won't abandon hope.

As Kate and Sawyer haul runway rocks, alarms sound that there has been a compound breach. Alex runs in picking off Others with a slingshot, and telling Kate and Sawyer to get up and come with her. Pickett pulls a gun on her, which stops it. Alex demands to know where Karl is, what they did to him, and wants to talk to Ben (doesn't call him Dad, but that could simply be because the writers don't want us knowing that relationship just yet). As Alex is being hauled away, she warns Kate not to believe anything they say. "They're gonna kill your boyfriend, just like they killed mine."

Juliet informs Pickett he's going to have less than two weeks to get the project completed, and she then asks Kate (again, Others always say "please') to put on a hood so that she can accompany her in an effort to keep Pickett from killing Sawyer. In Kate's visit to Jack, he wants to know if they hurt her. They haven't, but the question makes her cry, because she knows they've hurt Sawyer, and she starts telling Jack he has to do the operation, and then tells Jack they're gonna kill Sawyer. Jack's not happy with being manipulated. Disappointed with Kate for believing that they're gonna let them all go if Kate can talk Jack into doing the operation. Kate asks please, Jack says we're done here.

Pickett tells Sawyer he better say whatever he has to say to Kate tonight. Kate can't accept this. Climbs out of her cage, breaks the lock off Sawyer's cage, tries to get him to escape with her. But he knows something she doesn't - there is no escape from Alcatraz. So, now that she's in his cage with nothing else to do, might as well get it on, right? [rolls eyes]. But as it turns out, their tryst works the opposite of the way it does in horror movies and the way it did with Ana-Lucia. They actually get to stay alive. Ben leaves Jack's cell door conveniently open so that Jack will get out to the hallway and find the room with the monitors, where he will see Kate lovin on Sawyer, which will make him agree to do the surgery as long as Ben gives him his word. But here's where Jack makes his mistake. He makes Ben promise to, "get me off this island." To which Ben says, "Done." Since Jack doesn't know he's on Hydra island, all Ben is on the hook for is moving him back to the big island.

The minute the surgery begins, Pickett's off to kill Sawyer, mostly because he wants revenge for Sun having killed his wife Colleen. During surgery, Jack makes a cut in Ben's kidney sack, giving him an hour to live if Jack doesn't fix it. He uses this to get control of a walkie-talkie. This is the only thing that could have saved Sawyer, as Tom calls Pickett just before he can shoot James. Jack tells Kate he's bought her an hour head start, and she needs to run. When she's safe, the all-clear will be for her to tell him the story he told her the day they crashed and she stitched him up.

Turns out Jack screaming to Kate to run was just the distraction Sawyer needed to get the drop on Pickett. Kate follows suit, and disarms the guy holding her. They lock Pickett in the cage, make a break for it - but not before Sawyer gives him a jolt of electricity from the bear feeding machine. Back in the operating room, Juliet dispatches someone to get Kate and Sawyer back, and if he has to, kill them. Then she explains to Jack why his brilliant plan won't work, and breaks the news that they're on a separate island. Oops.

So Jack's next idea, while Juliet is trying to present a "peaceful resolution," is to tell Tom that Juliet asked him to kill Ben on the operating table. Tom sends her out, but then Ben wakes up and asks for her. After Juliet and Ben talk privately, she immediately asks Jack to go back in and finish the surgery, which he will do because she's going to go help his friends escape.

Alex helps Kate and Sawyer hide during their escape (she has a dug-out). She's also got a boat she'll let them use if they help her rescue Karl.

Welcome to Room 23

• Fast-tempo music blares loudly
• Images of flowers with text: "Plant a good seed and you will joyfully gather fruit."
• Lines and squares dividing into multicolored rectangles
• Images of coins and CDs, old stove, pipes, compass, with text: "Everything changes."
• Something that looks like a gameboard, similar to Chinese Checkers?
• Images of single open eyes
• A Buddha?
• A black and white drawing
• Karl is hooked up to an IV, and wears neon-rimmed glasses that keep his eyes wide open
• A full moon.
• Insects with text: "We are the causes of our own suffering."
• Stairs with overlay: "God loves you as he loved Jacob."
• "Think about your life."
• Fireworks
• Some dude with goggles on looking stoned

How Clockwork Orange can you get? Every time you want to tempt yourself into thinking the Others just MIGHT be the good guys the way they keep saying they are, you come across something as disturbing as this. Programmed morality. Behavior control through torture. Subliminal messages. That said, one of the subtle points LOST might be making is that all societies do this in one way or another. And the members of Society A, when confronted with the programs of Society B, invariably find them mean, full of propaganda, and involving teaching methods Society A would never utilize. In any case, the big clue we can take from this scene is the "God loves you as he loved Jacob" line. Pickett has told Tom on this disc that "Shephard wasn't even on Jacob's list." Both are big clues that Jacob is a real person, someone we'll eventually meet, someone supposedly loved of God who has some sort of decision-making role among the Others.

Pickett won't give up the chase on Sawyer and Kate, even when Juliet tells him what's going on. He says, "I know Ben would rather die than let them go!" Really? Seriously? I wasn't buying that one. Pickett has his gun on them at the boat, but Juliet saves the day by shooting him. Alex has to stay though. The only way Ben will let Karl live is if Alex is there when Ben wakes up from surgery.

Jack gets the tumor, but nicks an artery. This time on accident. When Kate - over the walkie - tells him the all-clear story about the girl he fixed, it helps him get through the surgery. Afterwards, he makes Kate promise never to come back for him. Ever.

Jack insists on knowing what Ben & Juliet discussed that made her change her mind. She gets real specific with how long she's been there -- 3 years, 2 months, and 28 days. The math puts her arriving there less than a week ahead of 9/11, sometime around 9/5/01. Ben promised her she could finally go home. Mighty nice, since she's been there over 6 times longer than she bargained for with Richard.

Off-Island

Eko as a child stole food for his hungry younger brother. When a nun caught him, she forced him to confess, basically saying motives do not matter - there is right, and there is wrong. Eko can not accept this. When told sternly to "Ask God for forgiveness!" and "Confess!" he turns away.

We flashback to immediately after Yemi's plane took off. The militia brings "Father Eko" straight back to Yemi's village church. He picks up Yemi's bible, finds inside a picture of them as kids. He tells Amina, who works at the clinic, and her son Daniel, the church altar boy, that Father Yemi was called away. He will be replacing Yemi. Amina informs him that Yemi was due to go to London shortly to continue his studies. Eko decides he will replace Yemi there as well, which is how he begins his priestly journeys.

Amina warns Eko not to cross the drug lords who take 80% of the vaccines delivered by the Red Cross. Says that before Yemi, the church never got to keep 20%. Eko reminds her of him - "a good man." Eko can't leave it alone, though, and tries to sell all the vaccine before a) the drug lords can get it, b) he leaves the country for London.

Eko's face as he faces the crucifix trying to pray shows some kind of resistance. He is simply unable to humble himself before God. He is interrupted by Emeka, the drug lord who found out he was trying to sell all the vaccine. They are about to cut off Eko's hands, when Eko goes all EKO on them and slaughters them, saying, "You do not know who who I am!" He comes out the door of the church bloody, and everyone sees what he has done.

Eko killing those men did result in the clinic getting to keep 100% of the vaccine. That's good. But he desecrated the church Yemi built, which now must close, and the bad men will just be replaced by other bad men. That's bad. Amina tells him he owes his brother one church, and he owes God for every life he has taken, so he should go to London and repent.

Remember when Kate told Sawyer she had been married, but it didn't last very long? And remember when she told Sun she had taken a pregnancy test before? And where Marshall Mars told Sydney airport security the story of how she was always calling him on phone with her sob stories? Here's where we see what that was all about. The episode being titled "I Do" is obviously about wedding vows, but the verb "did" is also a recurring them with Kate-centric episodes (What Kate Did, I Do, What Kate Does (in sequential order, even)). She enters her hotel room where we find out she has bought a wedding dress. Her fiance, Kevin (who kinda looks Ethan-ish, but that's neither here nor there), is a cop, and they play the "am I gonna have to break down the door and arrest you, Ma'am" game. We learn that Kate is nervous about the wedding (doesn't really want to try her dress on), and that she's using another alias - Monica.

"Monica" shops for groceries for taco night. Domesticity looks hot on her, but it's so obviously itchy and uncomfortable, like wool in summer. She has to force herself to put it on each day, and dreads it. But she's willing to do it because a) she does love Kevin, b) she's truly hopeful that she can stop running and start fresh. She calls Mars from a pay phone saying she doesn't want to run anymore. He clues in, asking "What's his name?" He agrees he'll stop chasing if she can just stay put. He's so confident that can't happen that to him there's no risk in the deal. She ultimately decides she can no longer walk this path after almost getting pregnant, and being gifted with airline tickets (Oceanic, no less) to Costa Rica, when she knows she'd never be able to legally get a passport to leave the country. So she tells Kevin the truth, drugs him so that he won't have to answer too many questions, and goes on the run. Again.

Juliet is caring for her sister, Rachel (note: another name from the Genesis-Exodus story - Rachel was Jacob's true love. She was mother to Joseph... and Benjamin, who she died birthing (also note that I do know she is not Ben Linus's mom)), a cancer patient, whom she - a fertility doctor - is trying to help conceive. They're keeping this a secret from Juliet's ex-husband, who is also her boss.

Juliet's living in Miami, the same place Kate was living as Monica in her short-lived marriage. This is a good time to note that between the Kate-centric "I Do" and the Juliet-centric "Not in Portland" was a 13-week hiatus in Season Three. Remember that? Season Three was basically served up in two slices so that we wouldn't have to tolerate re-runs and mini-breaks during the season. They gave us the 6-week Hyrda Island cluster to start the season, went away for 13 weeks, and then came back with "Not in Portland." This isn't important at all - just a trip down memory lane - other than that I might use it as an excuse if this write-up appears more disjointed than usual.

Juliet works for "Miami Central University" and has high security lab clearance. As she enters, she gets a confirmation call about her 2:00 meeting the next day with "Dr. Alpert" (Richard!) from "Mittelos Bioscience." And here we come to the episode from which there can be no more doubting that there is SOME kind of time element to this crazy show, whether it be time travel, time loops, reboots, synchronicity, parallel universes, SOMETHING. Why? Not only are we introduced to ageless Richard (though we don't know that about him yet), but Mittelos - the pretend company the Others use to recruit Juliet to the island - is an anagram for LOST TIME. Edmund suggests that Juliet's work on Rachel, which he has found out about, could be seen from either of two perspectives: genius, or unethical/criminal. He suggests the difference is determined by how much he is allowed to be a collaborator in the study.

Meet Richard Alpert

• Mittelos BioScience is in "Oregon, just outside of Portland"
• He's using a slide show. Seems outdated even for knowing this takes place probably in 2001. They had PowerPoint then.
• He has cheesy pics (he even admits as much) of the facility and grinning people. Pretty clearly fake. "Our people really are this happy."
• "Privately funded means freedom." (Interesting definition of freedom)
• The area is "just awesome" for hiking, biking, and river running.
• Juliet successfully impregnated a male mouse (I knew something was screwy with that Mickey character and his high voice)
• In another slide, Juliet sees what looks like a womb belonging to someone in their 70s. Richard informs her the woman's only 26. Slowly we learn that nobody's been able to conceive on the island.
• Juliet would have complete freedom and money to study what happened to this woman.
• Juliet is "special" (joins Walt and Locke in this regard).
• Richard wants Juliet to lead a team of researchers. Oops. He said the wrong word. She thinks she's a follower, not a leader.
• She says Edmund would never allow her to go anyway, and jokes that "it would take him getting hit by a bus" to permit it. Wanna guess what happens?

Juliet comes home from her interview to find out Rachel is pregnant. She tells Ed the news, he steps into the street, and... catches a bus. Unmistakable sign for Juliet. At the morgue, Ethan and Richard visit her. Richard says if she'll just give them six months, she can be back before her sister even gives birth (she can't believe he knows about this). This is one deal struck by the Others that was NOT honored.

Charles Widmore reviews Desmond's resume. Des has no military experience (yet), and the Widmore-sponsored solo race around the world hasn't happened yet. Widmore offers him a job, but it's Penny that Desmond wants. Widmore puts him in his place by saying he's not even worth one swallow of Admiral MacCutcheon's whiskey. How could he possibly be worthy of a great man's daughter? Sadly, this works on Desmond. He's shaken.

Desmond Meets Mrs. Hawking
(We don't know this is her name yet, or that she's Faraday's mother, has been on the island, or is an associate of Widmore)

• She suggests a ring befitting his price range
• He says he'll take it, she says no, you won't
• "This is wrong, you don't buy the ring, you have second thoughts, you walk out the door."
• She even knows his name. "Well I know your name as well as I know that you don't ask Penny to marry you. In fact you break her heart."
• That, in turn, is what drives him "in a few short years" to enter the sailing race...
• ...which is what brings him to the island for three years until he turns the fail-safe key.
• "If you don't do these things, every single one of us is dead." (Hey, but no pressure, man).
• She can see he's going to be difficult, so she invites him outside for chestnuts and a demonstration. One her sweater she wears an ouroboros, symbol of, among other things, cyclicality.

What Desmond wants badly to believe is that he's gotten a second chance at life - an opportunity to do things differently this time, and thereby create a different outcome. Who of us hasn't wished we could go back and do something over in an "if I knew then what I know now" kinda way. What Mrs. Hawking and the show try to prove is that not only is this impossible, it would be devastating. What has happened in the flow of time and events is what had to happen. Altering it would be bad.

Hawking had pointed out a man with red shoes, who summarily is crushed by a scaffold. Desmond realizes she knew that was going to happen. Naturally, his question is why she didn't use her powers for good! That is, try to stop it! Do something! Be the hero! Her take: It wouldn't matter. This is where she explains course-correction. She'd only be putting off the inevitable. It was the man's path to die soon, just as it is Desmond's path to go to the island. Then she hits him with this whopper: "You don't do it because you choose to Desmond, you do it because you're supposed to!" And with that, the Free Will theme that has thus far been prevalent this season (mostly via Juliet) is set up for a showdown with its old opponent destiny/determinism. Are these the sides in the great battle / game of the LOST universe, the ones squaring off in the war Ben and Widmore think is coming? Or is it Faith and Reason? Salvation and Damnation? Good and Evil? All of them? What's the difference between them anyway? Where's the anomaly? What separates the sides, even allows there to be an opposite to fate, reason, nothingness? What gives us the nerve to assume we have a choice? Hope. Hope is the difference. And Hope Desmond still has.

Des tells her no, he can choose whatever he wants. Her eyes say, sure, okay, you CAN, but in the end, your path is still going to be your path, and something's gonna get you walking it, one way or another. But then she tells him this: "Pushing the button is the only truly great thing you'll do in your life." So maybe Mrs. Hawking and her universe don't know and ordain everything after all. Because we know Desmond DOES marry Penny. We know they have Little Charlie. So even if she's mostly right, somewhere, somehow, there are out-clauses, exceptions to the rule.

On his way to propose to Penny, Des passes a military recruitment center, and this is how he ends up joining the Royal Scots. Then, meeting up with Penny, he realizes that getting their photo made (she had to pay for it) is the point at which he originally realized he couldn't go through with marrying her. And he has to break her heart all over again, even though she stings him with, "don't you dare re-write history" and "have the decency to admit that you're doing this because you're a coward," though she knows not the weight of what she says. He throws the ring into the river. It sinks. To have to live your greatest heartache all over again, the second time knowing all it cost you, what could be worse?

That evening, Desmond goes back to the pub to drink his sorrow away, but THIS is the night he thought he was remembering earlier, the soccer game comeback, the cricket bat, etc. "I'm not crazy! I can still change things!" And you might say he does, though not in the way he intends. He warns the bartender to duck. He does. Something got changed. Des takes the cricket bat to the noggin instead. So the question is, how was the future different (i.e. the butterfly effect) from that minor change? It's at this point that Desmond regains post-Swan-implosion consciousness, completely naked, and finds he has the ability to see glimpses of the future. He finds his photo of Penny, pleads (to God? The Island?) to get one more chance to go back and do it right THIS time. He can't possibly know what we know - that he's already been placed on the path back to her.

• Paths Crossing Off-Island: Ethan says hello to Juliet in the hallway of her apartment building; Richard interviews Juliet; Desmond comes across Charlie as a street musician outside the Widmore building. If this happened previously - and we already know so many of these instances have occurred - then this time it's different. Desmond's future memories intrude upon his past, and he starts freaking out on poor Charlie.
• Appearances of the Numbers: 4 boys born to Kate's mother-in-law Suzanne; 23 is the room Karl is being held in. We can also assume it's "the room" Miss Klugh spoke of to Walt; 815 is the address a delivery guy near Desmond is headed to; Desmond's clock reads 1:08 (108).
• Deaths: a Nigerian woman, at random, by a drug lord to whom Eko did not yield; Emeka and 2 henchmen, by Eko, inside Yemi's church; Eko, turned into jelly by the Smoke Monster; Pickett, shot by Juliet, one of his own people; Edmund, Juliet's ex, by big ol' bus; the Man with Red Shoes pointed out by Mrs. Hawking, by a scaffold falling on him.

Themes Established or Revisited

1. Confession / Repentance / Penitence. This is Redemption Island, Second-Chance Atoll. But you have to come to realize you done wrong. You can't just pull a Homer Simpson and say, "I don't think anything I've ever done is wrong." Why would you even think you could? Eko's even told other characters previously that penitence is the key to forgiveness. But apparently that's just not for him.
2. Fear (again). Locke asks Eko what he's so afraid of ... Kate recounts the story about Fear that Jack told her on their first day on the island. It actually helps Jack complete the surgery on Ben, and makes Kate cry as she remembers all Jack has done for her ... Charlie calls Desmond a coward ... Penny calls Desmond a coward for dumping her.
3. Trust (again). Jack: You don't trust me anymore? Juliet: I trust you just fine. True, too, because this is when she entrusts Jack with her plot to get rid of Ben, by showing him the video with her cue cards.
4. Hope (again). Just like in parts of season one, this comes up as something too valuable to lose. Sawyer tries to protect Kate from losing it despite having lost some himself.
   "You think I believe you people? You think I trust you? That I'm gonna just do the surgery, and hope that you let me go?!" -- Jack.
5. Saving Lives. Jack agrees to save Ben's life ... Kate works to save Sawyer's life ... Eko saved Yemi's life ... Desmond saves Claire from drowning to save Charlie's life.
6. Spinning record (again). Juliet has a turntable in her off-island apartment. We get a close-up.

The Game

"We had such a wonderful plan to break you, Jack. Wear you down until you were convinced we weren't your enemies. Get you to trust us." -- Ben, to Jack. Okay, it's never completely safe to assume anything Ben says is true or a lie. But I believe him here. What he wanted was to trick Jack into slowly "wanting to want" to do his surgery. But that has been taken away from him now that Jack knows he needs it (and again, I think this was Juliet's doing. The player got played). "My wonderful plan got shot to sunshine," says Ben, when Jack saw his X-rays. Which we can be 99% sure Ben did not intend from how he asked Juliet about that happening. That said, it is true that all of the kidnapping and Hydra Island holding cells and trickeration is as Jack says: "You brought me here because you want me to save your life." Same ultimate goal. All Juliet did was spare Jack the mental torture he would have received via Ben's plan, and got Jack to trust her so he might help her out by getting rid of Ben during surgery.

Eko's final memory is of him and Yemi, hands around each other, tossing up a soccer ball, walking away.

"No, Sawyer. We're a team!" -- Kate, who doesn't want to leave Sawyer alone with Pickett, fearing he'll kill him. "Lord knows I wouldn't wanna break up the team!" -- Pickett.

"Well, see ya on the other side." -- Ben, before going under for surgery.

"You think this is a bluff? I will let him die!" -- Jack, to Juliet and Tom.

"Look, there's two ways this plays out... and we will win prizes..." -- Edmund, to Juliet.

"Don't get mad at me just because you were dumb enough to fall for the old Wookie Prisoner gag." -- Sawyer, to Aldo, after Kate's gambit to get inside Room 23 worked.

"Trades are comin' up." -- Sawyer, to Kate. He means tradewinds, probably, as they have to get in the boat to get to the other island, but it's an interesting phrasing.

A soccer game on TV in the pub. "Greybridge come back from 2 goals down in the final minute to win. It's a bloody miracle!" Not only that, but after the game the bartender's gonna get whacked with a cricket bat! But... it doesn't happen. The details are... different. Donovan says, "There's no such thing as time travel, Des."

Desmond: Sorry I tried to strangle ya, alright?
Charlie: Fair play, mate. Sorry I called you a coward.

Black-and-white: Ghost Yemi sparks a lighter against the inner darkness of Eko's hut; the Others wear white, probably ceremonially. Ben even brings Jack a white outfit so he can attend Colleen's funeral (note: they don't bury their dead on land, apparently, but at sea, Viking funeral style. Any connection to how weird things happen to corpses on the islands, ala reanimation?); Eko's priestly garb and collar; Kate's white wedding dress + her husband's black tux; you know, sometimes I'm quite dumb. The LOST logo that appears after the first scene of each show is also white-on-black.

Religious References

Nun: Confess that you have stolen.
Eko: Yemi was hungry.
Nun: That is not an excuse. You have sinned Eko.
It's the textbook case of the basic assumptions of right and wrong that every ethics, religion, or psychology 101 class covers. Is there only black and white, or are there grey areas? Can a man steal medicine he can not afford if his wife would die without it? Which would be the greater sin to allow to happen? If you wander into the grey, can you still be forgiven? Biblically, and in LOST, the answer would appear to be yes - if you are repentant. This is Eko's Achilles' heel, and always has been - the inability to think he did anything wrong or to feel as if he has anything to confess.

Eko washes his hands with holy water (to "wash away my sins"), despite Daniel's protests that this is not the way.

Ben: Do you believe in God, Jack?
Jack: Do you?
Ben: Two days after I found out I had a fatal tumor on my spine, a spinal surgeon fell out of the sky. If that's not proof of God, I don't know what is.
This is similar to Locke's lines not to mistake coincidence for fate, or vice versa. Ben may be either mistaking fate for God, or fate is his god.

Juliet (to Jack): I know you feel like you don't have a choice, but you do. Free will is all we've really got, right?
Not only is free will a big theme with Juliet, it's big with the Others, who are almost beholden to a rule that things MUST be a person's own idea, and with the show overall.

Daniel: Are you a bad man? My mom says you're a bad man.
Eko: Only God knows.
(So, since Smokey is the one who ends up making the determination at the end of the episode, can we infer that he is "God," or perhaps a messenger / judge who represents God?)

At Eko's final showdown, he starts to recite Psalm 23. Interesting that he only gets to the "paths of righteousness" when he is attacked and squashed into goo. Did Eko pursue too much of his own righteousness rather than God's righteousness?

Mysteries or Questions Since Solved

• Who is the man with the eyepatch seen through the Pearl monitor? Where is his station? Was his the glass eye found in the Arrow?
• What was said in Ben and Juliet's private conversation during Ben's surgery? Is it important? If it wasn't, why not let us hear it? Was there more to it than just promising Juliet she could finally go home?
• Why would Juliet kill one of her own people just to help Kate and Sawyer escape? She wants to get home badly enough to take a life? Or is her shooting of Pickett sacrificial to save Sawyer's life?
• If Desmond foresaw Claire drowning, how come the universe doesn't course correct to cause THAT to happen some other way? I mean, in his vision, we know Charlie drowned trying to save Claire, but does that not mean Claire never made it back to shore, either? (Unless Desmond did see Claire dying as well, and then Claire died in Season Four, as has been theorized by some (when Sawyer found her under a collapsed house, and Miles began looking at her funny, and she ran off with Ghost Christian)).
• Is Jacob a real person?

Mysteries or Questions Still Needing Answers

• It appears to be part of Smokey's job to "judge." We know this because Ghost Yemi, who is almost certainly a manifestation of Smokey, tells Eko it is time to be judged, and because in Season Five Ben goes to be judged by the same. But does this explain how some characters escape Smokey's wrath? Why didn't it crush Eko the first time they met (because Charlie was there?))? Why does Locke think it was beautiful, and saw a bright light (Eko says that is not what he saw)? Does this indicate one saw a vision of heaven and the other hell? How does this all relate to Smokey's role as a "security system"? Is the Smoke Monster an angel, "the shadow of death," a god, any/all of the above?
• Does Smokey truly possess dead bodies? Hasn't it appeared in forms other than persons or animals who have died or been dead on the island?
• How does Ben get a cancerous tumor so aggressive that it could be inoperable in one more week on an island that heals everyone else of diseases, including cancer?
• At Eko's funeral, Locke says, "I'd like to think you died for a reason, Mr. Eko. Just hope it's not too long before we find out what the heck it might be." So... have we ever found out? Was there purpose in Eko's death? I'm drawing a blank. I mean, a second later Locke spies the message on the Jesus stick that says "Lift up your eyes and look north. John 3:05," but surely it didn't take Eko's death for him to get this clue. Goodness, Locke found the stick and could just as easily - for the story's purposes - have seen that inscription back when he and Charlie were saving Eko from the polar bear.
• What is Jacob?

Add to the LOST Library:

• "I Wonder," by Brenda Lee. This plays at Colleen's funeral.
• To Kill a Mockingbird (the film, not the book). Juliet refers to her videotape of cue cards detailing how Jack can help her get rid of Ben as this classic film. But instead of being about killing a bird (which it isn't anyway), it's about killing a Ben.
• "Slowly," by Ann-Margret. Plays as Kate walks down the hallway of a hotel. Kate's always been a runner, but she did try for a while to slow it down best she could.
• Burke, Edmund. Juliet's husband shares the name of yet another philosopher. Didn't catch him in the rotation first time through the series. He's apparently remembered for his opposition to the French Revolution (mildly interesting, since episode one of this season was "A Tale of Two Cities"), and for "being the philosophical founder of modern conservatism." This brings our count to at least 5 philosophers - Locke, Rousseau, Hume, Burke, Bentham. And to think some people think the show's not about figuring out the meaning of life...
• A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking. A guard, Aldo, is reading this outside Room 23 where Karl is being held. The subtitle is "From the Big Bang to Black Holes." The book is noted for making concepts of quantum physics accessible to the layperson. Kinda like LOST.
• "Building a Mystery," by Sarah McLachlan. Des listens to this in his flash-sideways living with Penny as he gets dressed. When I used this song in my intro a few Mileposts back I never realized it was actually in the show at one point.
• "Wonderwall," by Oasis. Charlie sings and plays this on the street corner outside Widmore's building when he crosses paths with Desmond. Includes the line: "Maybe you're gonna be the one that saves me."

Excellent Lines

Humorous

"I'll tell you how he knew. That guy? Sees the future, dude." -- Hurley.

"I don't buy this precognitive rubbish. If the Bearded Wonder could predict the future he wouldn't have ended up here, would he?" -- Charlie.

"Are all your songs about drinking and fighting and girls with one leg?" -- Hurley to the two Brits.

Desmond: We were on an island!
Charlie: We are on an island, mate, this is England... This is why we don't do drugs.

More Meaningful (and double-meaningful)

Ghost Yemi [to Eko]: You know where to find me.
Hurley [to Charlie & Sayid]: You guys smell smoke?
Okay, in between these lines we cut from inside Eko's tent to outside it, and Eko's hut is on fire, but that's definitely how the lines fall, and it's no accident. We're meant to connect the dots that Ghost Yemi = Smokey.

"If you'd like to join us, it's a free island." -- Locke, to Hurley et. al. Another instance of free will becoming a bigger theme this season.

Desmond: Well that's quite a coincidence [the plane and the Pearl being in the same spot].
Locke: Don't mistake coincidence for fate.
Locke's a believer again. Previously, he had been told not to mistake fate for coincidence. Now he's reversing that. Problem is, if fate and coincidence both exist, how to know when you're dealing with one and not the other? Can't simply come down to faith or perspective, can it?

"My life don't need savin'!" -- Sawyer.

"Me! A baby? I can't do this!" -- Kate, to Kevin, when she leaves him. Someday taking care of a baby will suit her, just not yet.

Ben [prepping to be operated upon]: Whatever happens, everything will be very different won't it?
Jack: No doubt about it.
Reminds me of Dream Jin telling Hurley everything's going to change.

"Whatever you think I am, I'm not." -- Juliet, to Richard, ending their meeting. Ben used these exact words when he was being held prisoner in the Swan.

"Run the same test 10 times you'll get 10 different outcomes. It's what makes life so wonderfully chaotic." -- Desmond's scientist friend Donovan, to a student. Paradox: can we have both chaos and order at once? I believe LOST is suggesting yes, that there's basically chaos in cause, order in effect. That is, the ways and means things come together and interact can be random and chaotic, but the overall macro-level result is still predetermined and constant.

"Penny's father berates you for not being a great man, and voila, you've dreamed a future where you push a button to save the world." -- Donovan, to Des. Frankly, both we and Desmond were hoping for a little more imagination from someone who is both best friend and physicist. Fortunately, just then the jukebox in the bar starts playing "Make Your Own Kind of Music."

"Let's celebrate that fate has spared you a miserable experiences under the employ of Widmore Industries!" -- Penny, to Desmond.

Characterization

Juliet's cue card video states that Ben is a liar, very dangerous, that he deserves to die, and that some of them would like to get out from under his leadership - all things we know to be proved true, so there's no reason not to go along with Juliet.

"When I first met you, Monica, I was struck by your honesty and devotion to Kevin." -- Preacher at Kate's wedding. If there's two things we know about Kate, it's that she lies and can't remain devoted or tied to anything.

Kate admits she loves Sawyer by kissing him when he asks if she meant it the day she said she loved him when Pickett was beating him.

Juliet describes herself to Jack as very good at just following orders, i.e. she's not a leader, something she expresses in her flashback.

Penny loves Desmond because he's a good man, and that's hard to come by. Very sadly, he doesn't accept this as a good enough reason to be worthy of her love.

Opening & Closing

3.5 Open - Smashing open a padlock. It's young Eko and Yemi. Eko has stolen food, and tells his hungry brother it is okay to eat it.
3.6 Open - Back of a woman's head, walking down a hotel hallway, carrying a shopping bag. Ann-Margret's "Slowly" is playing. It's Kate.
3.7 Open - Gorgeous sunset, final colors fading. Juliet sits center screen with her back to camera, looking out to sea. She looks sad.
3.8 Open - Desmond's on a walk, looks deep in thought.

3.5 Close - Locke closes Eko's eyes. Informs the group, "He said, we're next."
3.6 Close - For the first time in her life, Kate CAN'T run, even though Jack is screaming at her through a walkie that she absolutely has to.
3.7 Close - Juliet tells Jack that Ben promised she could finally go home. Cries. Goes down the steps and leaves.
3.8 Close - Extreme close-up on Desmond's troubled face: "I'm sorry because, no matter what I try to do... you're gonna die, Charlie."

Probably Unimportant, But I've Always Wondered...

Simply bothersome. With the gorgeous backdrop of a sunny London day, and the Thames and Big Ben RIGHT in front of them, Desmond and Penny pose for their infamous picture not in front of that, but in front of a photographer's backdrop of a marina scene. Just wrong.