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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.

Welcome to the wonderful world of not knowing what the hell's going on.

Kate says this great line to Juliet, and we experience a brief feeling of thankyouverymuch. We've reached the point where it's near impossible to discern what's going on, since every Other we encounter seems to have a straight story, a double-cross story, a hidden motive, and a reason to stab someone in the back.

Here's my best effort to sort it all out.

LOST Season Three, Disc Four: A Thing for Mind Games

Episodes: 3.13 THE MAN FROM TALLAHASSEE (Locke-centric); 3.14 EXPOSE (Nikki & Paulo-centric); 3.15 LEFT BEHIND (Kate-centric); 3.16 ONE OF US (Juliet-centric)

Things That Stuck Out

Island

We pick up where we left off last disc - with Sayid, Locke, Kate, and Danielle in the bushes outside New Otherton. Juliet joins the game, catches a pass, tells Jack something will be happening tomorrow. Locke sees Ben in a wheelchair, shaking Jack's hand. Everyone's really confused.

Kate sneaks into Jack's house while he plays piano. When he sees her, his reaction scares her. "Get out of here right now! Kate they're watching me!" She's caught, and so is Sayid. But they refuse to give up Locke, who has abandoned them anyway to sneak on over to Ben's house.

Ben hears someone in his room. Turns on the light to see Locke holding a gun at him. He's not looking for Jack; he's looking for the submarine. Locke hereby becomes almost as much of a godsend for Ben as Jack falling out of the sky. Ben - as he later tells Locke - was in a spot, not wanting to let either Juliet or Jack off the island. He was bound by his word, but would be seen as weak by his people. Locke solves that problem with his C-4, even though what Ben told him is that destroying the sub would be detrimental because it would give Ben's people no hope of being able to leave the island if they wished. But that's a deal Ben was willing to make. Alex even tells Locke that Ben just scammed him - made him think this was his own idea. Locke wasn't really buying it, he just says he'll keep that fact in mind for later.

When Tom and Richard come to Ben's room, Locke takes Alex hostage and hides in the closet. Locke requests Richard bring him "The Man from Tallahassee." This is at least the third time Tallahassee has come up on this show (Kate was going to run there; Sawyer experienced drug culture there). We find by the end of the episode that Ben is referring to Locke's dad. He has primed John for this by telling him about "the magic box" on the island that will cause whatever you wish for to appear. It's my belief that there is no magic box, that the Others have had Cooper for a long time. We know how Richard tracked Locke his whole life. We find out from the feds that Cooper went to Mexico after pushing Locke out the window, and after that "just disappeared." I think they knew all along that someday Locke would make it to the island - they knew it was his destiny - and that once he was there, he would have to confront, even kill, his father to be initiated and to prove worthy to lead, just as Ben had had to do with his own father.

When Alex goes to retrieve Locke's pack from Sayid (since it has Locke's C-4 in it), Sayid recognizes her because of her resemblance to Rousseau. Says she looks like her mom. Alex has been told her mom is dead. "I'm sure that's what they told you," says Sayid, who gets a rifle butt to the stomach for that from his guard.

Jack visits a captured Kate in the game room. Tom warns him the room is bugged. Jack lets Kate know that the kids and people who were taken are all "safe." Kate didn't think Jack meant it when he told her not to come back for him. Jack tells her he is leaving the next day. He wishes she had not come back for him, but he WILL come back for her.

Ben asks Locke how instantaneous his healing was. Did it start the moment he crashed? Yes. Locke realizes that Ben isn't recovering so fast. In fact, "how'd you get sick in the first place?"

Ben informs Locke that he was born on the island. We have seen, though, that he wasn't. So, is this a lie? It could be - Ben also references that he's been there longer than almost anyone else among his people, so that may be his story for them to give him more of an authoritative presence among them. It may be his view that he never existed or mattered before he came there, so that he was "re-born" there, became who he is today there. Or it may be that after Sayid shoots him in 1977 and Richard takes him to the temple - warning that Ben will forever be different from that point - that young Ben was changed and came to believe he had always been there, been part of the island.

Most everyone else, Ben says, was in some way recruited to join the Others. We only know of Juliet's story in this regard. And that Richard predates all of them. Everyone else - anyone's guess.

Ben gives Jack his word that, "I'll let your friends go just as soon as you've left the island." Thing is, Ben knows Jack won't be leaving the island because he knows what Locke's gone to do to the sub.

Locke is focused on how he can't walk, rather than how he fell eight stories and survived. His physical therapist tells him, "I don't want to hear about what you can't do," a phrase that will become Locke's mantra.

Big reveal: Ben believes Locke doesn't want to leave the island not because of being cripple or having a destiny, but because he is afraid of his father. The Man from Tallahassee is Anthony Cooper, and John opens the door, and sees him there, captive.

Kate attacks Juliet who is coming to bring her a sandwich. We learn that Juliet - we already knew this from how she punched out Jack - can take care of herself. She ducks Kate's swing and flips Kate onto the ground. She's not happy with being attacked while bringing food.

Locke comes to say good-bye to Kate. He also stops to actually JUDGE her before he goes off with the Others. Kate wonders if Locke is brainwashed. Locke says he doesn't want to go home, and that Jack won't be leaving either - he's going to have to stay behind too. Locke made a case for Kate being a "good person. Reliable, smart, honest. And then they told me who you were and what you had done. Forgiveness isn't one of their strong suits." The hypocrisy is unbelievable. Ben gassed his father, wiped out Dharma. He leads the Others, and will even demand that Locke kills his father. Kate kills her father, goes on the run, can't be invited along or even forgiven. What is it with this weird and Oedipal show?

Hurley plays a trick on Sawyer to try to make him nicer - makes him believe everyone will be voting whether or not to banish Sawyer and force him to move a half-mile down the beach, where he would have to fend for himself. His own little sociological experiment, and his own little con.

Kate sees the others packing up to leave, and putting on gas masks. They throw a gas canister into her game room as well. She passes out. When she wakes up, she is handcuffed to Juliet in the jungle. By the end of the disc we find out this was all a ploy of Ben to infiltrate the 815ers, but Juliet gives Kate a story of being left behind and ostracized from her people. Kate's not ready to trust her: "You say 'they' like you didn't lock me in a cage and watch me break rocks all day."

It starts raining at night, and Juliet and Kate have a fistfight. Juliet says she hopes Kate is not going back for Jack, because she was there when Jack told her not to come back the first time, and Kate ruined his chance to get off the island. Kate dislocates Juliet's shoulder. In the middle of the fight, Smokey shows up, corners them inside a tree, appears to take bright flashy photos in Juliet's face, then retreats. "Are we safe?" asks Juliet. She honestly seems to have no idea what the monster is, and was very surprised by it. Kate can't believe that could be possible. Juliet is not happy about how much her shoulder hurts, or that if it weren't for Kate, she would be on her way home right now. Kate retorts that Jack didn't want her to come back so he could protect her. Wrong! says Juliet. Smacks Kate with the knowledge that Jack witnessed her fling with Sawyer over the monitors. "He saw you. You and Sawyer. The reason Jack told you not to come back wasn't because he didn't want you to get hurt. It was because you broke his heart." Ow! Then they get into a good old fashioned wizzing contest over who knows more about Jack. Juliet with her well-read dossier knowledge smacks Kate down again. Then, the monster shows up a second time. That's when we get this awesome sequence:

They run to the edge of the sonic fence.
Kate won't let them go through because she's seen what it did to Mikhail.
Juliet insists it's off; Kate does not believe her.
Juliet whips out a key, unlocks their handcuffs (you had that key the whole time, blondie?)
Juliet goes to the pylon, keys in 1623 on the box, lifts the lid.
The light is turned to green.
Tells Kate she's going to want to be on that side.
Kate covers her head, runs, half-expecting to get fried.
With Kate on the inside, Juliet turns the knob, light changes to red.
Smokey attacks - was coming straight for Juliet - but can not penetrate the sonic barrier. Seems to actually hurt it. Retreats
"Alright, we don't know what it is but we know that it doesn't like our fence."
"You had a key?!" I don't buy Juliet's cover story that she chained herself to Kate on purpose to make Kate think they were in it together and maybe she wouldn't get left behind again.

When Juliet and Kate go back for Sayid and Jack, Kate explains to Jack that the Others all left "because of me." "Even Juliet," he asks? Jack decides that it's time for them to go back. Sayid has a real problem with Juliet coming. Jack says she gets to because, "they left her behind, too."

Kate asks Jack about his week with the Others. He says that because of the deal he'd made, he just kept his head down, did he was supposed to, and didn't ask any questions. Meanwhile, Sayid questions Juliet about what the Others are doing on the island. Whey they are, "terrorizing us, making lists, kidnapping children" (he doesn't realize these things are not all mutually inclusive, something her eyes say but know they can't explain yet). First thing he wants to know is who Juliet is. Her answer: "If I told you who I was, if I told you everything that I know, you'd kill me." Jack says that Sayid can wait for her answers, that Juliet is under his protection.

Claire's not feeling quite herself. She gets sick. We find out later that the Others implanted something in her when they had her in captivity, and Ben had them "activate" it just before the Others packed up and skipped town. It was a way of giving Juliet a way to play the hero upon arriving to camp - give her a problem to fix, and thereby earn trust.

As Sawyer goes to get Claire some aspirin, he is the first to see Jack return. But he can't exhale until he sees Kate is back, too. Lots of hugs all around... until Sawyer sees Juliet has come along as well.

When Claire gets sick, Juliet explains that Claire was given a medication - by Juliet - to keep Claire alive in the last stages of her pregnancy. For some reason, she explains, the women on the island can't have babies. The body treats the fetus as a foreign invader. This of course doesn't bode well for Sun, assuming she did get pregnant on-island. Juliet's story is that Claire - even though she didn't conceive on island - had symptoms similar to everyone who had. She was their control case. Juliet had developed a serum that Ethan was injecting (he would get his supplies dropped off at a tree with a symbol that looks a bit like a basketball). All was going great until they found out he wasn't on the plane. But how does this jive with what Alex said about how Claire was going to be killed, her baby cut out of her? Juliet insists the kidnapping was never part of the plan, and swears that Claire would have died without the injections. Now, she says, Claire is going into withdrawal. Much of this has to be a lie, because of what Ben reveals about having activated the implant in Claire.

Jack brings Juliet some supplies to get her started. She can live amongst them. One thing he brings is a tarp. Have you ever known an airliner to happen to have so many tarps? They're everywhere! Juliet wonders why she never has to explain herself to Jack. He says it's because he saw her eyes when Locke blew up the sub. He knows she wants off that island just as bad as he does. "That makes you one of us."

Ben's plan was to see Juliet a week after she infiltrated the 815ers camp. Will it work out that way?

Off-Island

Locke is being interviewed about disability benefits. When asked if his parents are living, he says he was raised in foster care. The interviewer presses - "Have you ever considered seeking out your biological parents?" He doesn't see how that's relevant. He has also stopped going to therapy, so she temporarily suspends his disability. Because this is about depression, not paralysis. Another tease. But the real story is coming...

Locke is visited by Peter Talbot, who Locke only lets in because the kid asks, "How many kidneys do you have?" Peter's mom is being scammed by Anthony Cooper, who is now going by the name Adam Seward (anagram? Same Dad War?). All he knows is that Locke donated this man a kidney. Locke LIES, says it was an anonymous donation. (Okay, this is cool. I came up with the Adam Seward anagram on my own on a hunch. But in checking it out, I found an even better one someone else had already noticed: "Anthony Cooper, Adam Seward = Sawyer, a Con Man, a Poor Dad").

Locke finds Cooper and fiance in a flower shop, and confronts his father with what he learned from Peter. Demands the con be called off, or he'll rat him out. Cooper says okay. But then Peter turns up dead. Which has Locke showing up at Cooper's apartment. He waits until Locke is in front of the window... and charges. And at long last we learn how John Locke ended up in a wheelchair in 2000.

Kate's car broke down in Iowa. She gets it towed to a facility where Cassidy is pulling the cheap necklace con Sawyer taught her. Problem is, the mark ain't buying, and threatens to call the cops. Kate bails her out by saying those look real, and buys one. This is a couple months after Kate killed Wayne, and she wants to talk to her mom, ask her why she gave her up. Diane was hoping Kate was there to say she was sorry for killing the man her mom loved. This is how it is with Kate - she only sees what's good for others through her eyes. Even the line she uses, "Someone I love, someone who's supposed to care about me, betrayed me." Her mother could use the exact same line.

The whole reason Cassidy wants to help Kate is because of Sawyer - one of us deserves something good. She spills chili on Diane to get her to use the bathroom. That's when Kate talks to her. Diane is a woman of her word. Says if she ever sees Kate again, the first thing she will do is yell for help (which we already know happens).

Kate is the one who convinced Cassidy to call the cops on the guy who conned her, knocked her up, and who Cassidy still loves, even though Kate will never forgive her mom for calling the cops on her.

The island isn't the only place where people get better. Rachel tells Juliet her cancer is gone. We know that Kate's mom will beat cancer as well, and that Claire's mom will awake from a coma. Charley's brother Liam beat drug addiction, and Hurley's parents mended a marriage.

Inside the facility for Herarat Aviation, Juliet meets with Richard and Ethan. Herarat is an anagram for "Earhart," as in Amelia. Did Amelia's flight get lost on LOST island? Some liked to speculate that Adam & Eve might have been Amelia and her navigatior Fred Noonan. The logo for Herarat is a backwards swoosh, like a Nike symbol. See notes on "winged victory" below.

Richard hands Juliet orange juice mixed with tranquilizer. The trip can be "kind of intense" (always seems to be a rough ride, even a crash situation, to get to the island). Richard calls the island "special" - a term we've mostly heard applied to people. And he says Juliet has a gift, since she created life where life was not supposed to be. "You'll see things there you never imagined." Juliet even had to be strapped in on the sub because Ethan tells her "the last leg is always a little bumpy."

We learn that Juliet, in the six months she promised to give, has been unable to do anything about the pregnancy problems on the island. A woman named Sabine - who chose to take the risk - has just died. Ethan seems disappointed in Juliet, Goodwin seems encouraging. While I'm mentioning those two and how they were in the operating room with her, how dumb was it of Ben to send two of his best medical people to scout out the crash sites? Why not send a couple of spares instead of these crucial guys? Not what we'd expect from a master tactician. Anyway, Juliet believes the womb/birth problem occurs at conception, so there's really nothing she can do about that except test her hypothesis off-island. Ben tells her that's out of the question. Okay, then it's another stalemate, so she asks to go home. He tells here there is nothing to go back to as her sister's cancer has come back. Shows her a file containing her chart, says he got it from Mikhail. Ben gives Juliet the choice of going home, seeing Rachel through her final days... OR she can stay there and continue her work, and if she does, Ben will cure her cancer! Juliet's of course skeptical, but Ben says that in her six months she should have seen enough to know what is possible. In fact, Jacob has promised to take care of Rachel's cancer personally (did he make one of those off-island "reach out and touch someone" visits?). The whole thing sounds like a ploy by Ben. How easy would it be to tell someone their sister is dying... unless they cooperate, and once they do, voila, hey look, your sister got better! Ben also tells Juliet she should believe this because she's looked at all of the Others and never seen a hint of cancer on that island. So there must be something about the place or Jacob that keeps it away. Which is yet another reason it's a real humdinger when she informs Ben he's got an aggressive tumor. She never says the word cancer, though. He does. Which tells her somehow he knew he had it.

Juliet and Goodwin were lovers shortly before he was killed. Even though he was married. She discovers the cancer in Ben's X-rays (developed by Karl, apparently that's his job), and informs him just as he is finishing Carrie for the book club. Juliet is ticked, because if Ben/Jacob can really cure cancer, and if people on the island CAN get it, they why does Ben have it? And if he has it, then how can she be sure her sister was cured when Ben promised two-and-a-half years earlier. She starts going bonkers that Ben lied to her. But he says he gave his word (which he does usually keep), and so the day of the crash, he takes her to the Flame, where Richard has a camera on Rachel and her son Julian on a park in Miami.

A fresh look at what happened in Juliet's flashback on 9/22/04 when she played Downtown and burned her muffins. Ben and Juliet go to visit Mikhail.

According to Mikhail, there were 324 people on board 815 including passengers and crew.

• Paths Crossing Off-Island: As Locke eats his TV dinner, he watches Expose, the show in which Nikki guest stars (we don't see her, though); Nikki & Paulo experience a Boone & Shannon argument in the airport; Kate meets Cassidy, Sawyer's former mark, protege, and mother of his child.
• Appearances of the Numbers: 8 stories is how many Locke fell; 8 hours of paralysis caused by a Medusa spider bite; 4 times Juliet's shoulder has been dislocated; 1623 is the code for the sonic fence.
• Deaths: Howie the producer of Expose, by poison; Nikki & Paulo by being buried alive; Sabine, an Other who was pregnant, on Juliet's operating table

Themes Established or Revisited

1. Identity. Sayid thinks perhaps Jack does not want to be rescued. "That is not him. That is NOT Jack," says Kate. Throughout the disc, we are uneasy about who people are. can Juliet be trusted joining the 815ers? When is Ben lying, when is Ben telling the truth?
2. Specialness (again). Peter Talbot tells Locke that his mom thought Adam had something "special" (does Cooper know how to fake the specialness? Or is that how he does what he does?) ... Richard tells Juliet the place they're going is "special."
3. Discerning Truths, Half-Truths, and Lies. There are so many double-crosses, schemes, and backstabs going on that it gives a real headache to anyone who wants to uncover the true story, including the audience. As Kate says, "Welcome to the wonderful world of not knowing what the hell's going on."
4. Trust (again). The 815ers have a big pow-wow discussing whether they should trust Juliet. Sawyer would like to know why Jack is fighting all of them and sticking up for her. Jack says the fact he trusts her should be enough. No way, man. I don't buy that, and neither does Sayid. Just then, Claire starts bleeding from her nose and passes out. Juliet to the rescue! She tells Kate she knows what is wrong with Claire... because she did it to her. She goes to a marked tree, and finds a hidden medical container. Sayid and Sawyer track her and question her, but she turns the tables on them with knowing what she knows about each of them, and saying how dare they become the morality police ... Charlie wants to know how Jack can trust Juliet to treat Claire.
   Kate: You trust these people? They're liars.
   Jack: I trust them because you told me to, Kate, when you asked me to save Sawyer's life.
   (And anyway, Kate has lied, by my count, more often on this show than anyone. Even at times there was no benefit to it (like telling Sun she was on her way to Bali before she knew Sun spoke English).
5. Boxes (again). "What if I told you that somewhere on this island there's a very large box, and whatever you imagined, whatever you wanted to be in it, when you opened that box, there it would be." -- Ben.
   "You're not gonna start talking about the magic box again, are you?" -- Locke.
6. Sight (again). "Are you ready to see?" -- Ben, to Locke
7. Forgiveness (again). Locke tells Kate that the Others don't forgive very well. Kate will never forgive her mother for turning her in.
8. Fixing (again). Hurley tells Sawyer he may yet be able to "fix" the situation, sway the vote to not get banished from the beach society.
9. Change. Sawyer tells Hurley, "I'm ready to do it. Make amends. Change the vote." He doesn't want to be banished, so he says he'll change. In many ways, he already has.
10. Leadership. This was Hurley's motivation behind his con of Sawyer.
    Sawyer: What if I don't want to be the leader.
    Hurley: Yeah, well, I don't think Jack wanted it either. Sucks for you, dude.
11. Time (again). Any time Mittelos is part of the story, there's a time element. Richard even tells her to "please take your time" saying goodbye to Rachel.
    "How much time do you think they need?" -- Juliet to Jack, pointing out that it might take a while for either Kate or Sayid to trust her.
    
    "You're gonna be amazed at how time flies once you're there." -- Richard, to Juliet.
    
    Juliet: We don't have time for this.
    Sawyer: We cleared our schedules. We got all the time in the world.
    
    Ben: We have some time. It's important.

The Game

When Locke confronts Cooper, he demands the con be called off because "it's not fair!" Locke believes it is way out of bounds to make people think of you as family and leave their life in ruins.

Kate is held in the game room of the others. They have a pool table, foosball, pinball and several board games.

Locke is angry because Ben "is cheating. You and your people." Echoes how he was angry at Cooper for not playing "fair," and how he told Mikhail computers don't cheat, only people do. Locke then goes on to join the themes of game play and religion when he calls Ben a "Pharisee," noting that it hypocritical for someone who gets to live on this amazing island to come and go as they please, communicate with the outside world, use guns, have running water and electricity, and more.

Ben admits that he didn't want to let Jack go, but he couldn't kill him because "that would be cheating, because my people heard me make a promise and to break my word, that would be the end of me too."

Kate is messing around with the backgammon set as she is held in the game room.

Close-up of games of pool in progress in the smoke-filled bar where Kate and Cassidy share drinks and stories, and make a plan.

"Ben has a thing for mind games." -- Juliet, answering Kate's question of why someone would handcuff them together and drag them into the jungle.

"You tricked me into being decent? That's gotta be the lamest con in the history of cons!" -- Sawyer, to Hurley. Hurley said he did it because Sawyer is the defacto leader with Jack, Locke, Kate, and Sayid gone. So he needs to care for these people.

Black-and-white: The piano keys Jack is playing in Tom's barracks house; Ben ate all the dark meat, leaving Locke to eat the white meat from his chicken; shot of a white picket fence against the dark night; backgammon pieces Kate plays with; fly crawls on Kate's uneaten white bread;

Religious References

"You seem to have some communion with this island John, and that makes you very, very important." -- Ben

Kate chose her alias "Lucy" because it's a saint's name. She memorized them all in Sunday school. So what about other aliases she's used, Annie, Monica, and Maggie? Yes. St. Anne was the mother of Mary and is the patron saint of - among other things - women in labor. Monica is the patron saint of marriage and abuse victims. Lucy is the patron saint of blindness (failing to see). There are several St. Margarets. Little known fact -- Anne (from 'Hannah'), the mother of Mary, is the one who experienced the "Immaculate Conception" when she became pregnant with Mary who, Catholic tradition teaches, was born free from Original Sin (allowing her to be chosen as the vessel for Christ).

"Why don't we just skip the part where you two pretend to be righteous?" -- Juliet, to Sawyer and Sayid.

Mysteries or Questions Since Solved

• What are the things Juliet says she knows and has done that would make Sayid want to kill her?
• How did Anthony Cooper end up on the island?
• Where did the Others go when they packed up and left the barracks?
• Is Juliet keeping to the plan as Ben's evil spy, or has she left them behind and truly joined the Losties?

Mysteries or Questions Still Needing Answers

• Why is Ben's refrigerator full of Dharma products? Where do they keep coming from? Why does Dharma continue to ship food if Ben & the Hostiles wiped them out? Don't the realize nobody is doing their projects?
• Why does Ben say he was born on the island?

Add to the LOST Library:

• Winged Victory. In the episode of Expose Locke watches, and on which we can hear the dialog, one of the characters points out that another characters is hiding behind this. The statue resides at the Louvre, and is also called Nike (yes, as in the inspiration for the shoe company). It's also another reference to wings, similar to those Kate found belonging to the pilot, and those that will appear on Jacob's tapestry. The backwards Nike swoosh of Herarat aviation may also be related.
• "Downtown," by Petula Clark (again). Juliet listens to this on the radio as she drives to Mittelos and says goodbye to her sister for (she thinks) six months.

Excellent Lines

Humorous

"Unfortunately we don't have a code for 'there's a man in my closet with a gun to my daughter's head.' Although we obviously should." -- Ben.

"You know how for 3 days, 10 hours, and 15 minutes I'm not allowed to use nicknames? Well you sir, Hugo, are rotund, annoying, and ruining my view." -- Sawyer.

"I ain't gonna get the Korean vote." -- Sawyer, to himself, as he tries to fish alongside Jin and Sun.

"Just for today, they can eat boar, laugh, and forget that they're totally screwed. And you did that for 'em, dude." -- Hurley, who might be the real leader behind the leaders.

"Well if it ain't Three Men and a Baby. I counted Hugo twice." -- Sawyer to Hurley and Charlie, who is holding Aaron.

Hurley doesn't remember Juliet being on the dock, "when you put bags over our heads. Then you shocked us." She explains: "I had the day off."
Funny, puts Hurley more at ease, but also suggests there was nothing personal about it. It was work, business to the Others.

More Meaningful (and double-meaningful)

"Tell me John, did it hurt?" -- Ben. Locke thinks Ben is referring to breaking his back falling five stories. But of course that hurt. Ben is asking if it hurt to have his own father do this to him. Ben completely and very quickly turns Locke by telling him he knows his whole life story, by promising to show him everything about the island, and by putting the idea of a magic box in his head, and out of it producing Locke's father. Great magic tricks, which Locke buys as such so strongly that he turns his back on his friends and joins the Others.

"But you John, you've already made that full commitment and now you have a choice. Because if you stop and you think, I can show you things. Things I know you want to see very badly." -- Ben.

Ben: You've been here 80 days John, I've been here my entire life. So how is it you think you know this island better than I do?
Locke: Because you're in the wheelchair, and I'm not.
The tables have indeed turned a bit, and it's our first glimpse of how the island/Jacob or whomever probably decided it was time for Ben's leadership to end (perhaps this is how and why he got cancer) and Locke's to begin (perhaps this is partly to explain for the crash of 815).

"I'm not a liar, Juliet." -- Ben, plain as can be, after showing Juliet the footage of her sister and son.

Jack warns Juliet that if her treatment on Claire doesn't work, if something happens, "I'm not gonna be able to protect you anymore. You'll be on your own." She replies, "I'm already on my own, Jack." Does this indicate she has made a decision that she's not going to live up to Ben's plan, and she has severed herself from the Others for good? I believe so.

"They're good people, and they're willing to give you the benefit of the doubt." -- Jack, to Juliet. This is the opposite of what the Others had apparently decided about the 815ers being good people. And Others are NOT willing to give people the benefit of the doubt.

"Eventually they're gonna need some answers." -- Jack, speaking for his fellow castaways, as well as the audience.

Characterization

Check out Locke. As often as he's been at odds with Jack, he's also his staunchest defender. He tells Kate to calm down. "It's Jack. The first time I saw him he was risking his life pulling people out of airplane wreckage. If he's shaking hands with the Others I'm sure he has a good reason." They've got enough of a history and Locke knows enough of Jack's leadership to grant him trust.

Then again, check out this about Locke - it was one thing when he conked Sayid to prevent them triangulating the signal. It was another thing when he blew up the Flame station, destroying all the communications equipment. Now it's yet another thing blowing up the sub so Jack and Juliet can't leave EVEN THOUGH Ben has told him the sub won't be able to return with the underwater beacon malfunctioning! So what does this tell us about Locke? We know he has his own reasons for never wanting to leave the island. His paralysis may return. He thinks the island is special. He thinks he has found his destiny. But the question is: nothing says he would have to leave if they got rescued. He could have run, hid, stayed. I just think he doesn't want to stay alone, because how much fun would that be? Locke, here gets too close to Voldemortian for my tastes. Voldemort wants to live forever, continuing to explore and know the mysteries, to love his own specialness, to rule. But he has no desire to destroy everyone in his path. Letting people die, or letting people leave the island, leaves you no subjects for your kingdom. Locke has moved beyond deciding what is best for himself into deciding what is best for everyone. Even if you are SURE you know you're right, it's in the enforcement of your beliefs that you become dangerous - a mistake religions have made several times throughout history.

Ben has several masks on the walls of his bedroom. Suggests that he is a man of many faces.

When Juliet and Kate go back for Sayid and Jack, Kate explains to Jack that the Others all left "because of me." She's finally accepting some blame, some culpability for something. Big step. She apologizes.

Juliet thought she would never fit in with the people she was going to join at Mittelos Bioscience.

Opening & Closing

3.13 Open - Black-and-white application form, filled out by someone from Tustin, CA - John Locke.
3.14 Open - Nikki running frantically through the jungle and burying something.
3.15 Open - Camera pans from L to R in close-up: pool table, pool cue, pool balls, Kate.
3.16 Open - Open valley before sunset. Our 4 travelers appear over a hill, making their way back to the beach.

3.13 Close - Locke sees Cooper held in Ben's dungeon. "Dad?"
3.14 Close - Hurley and Sawyer finish burying Nikki and Paulo, alive. Final shot is of their graves.
3.15 Close - "They left her behind, too." Shot from behind as Jack and Juliet, followed by Kate and Sayid, head out of New Otherton.
3.16 Close - Juliet looks out on her new camp mates, ties up her tarp... tightens the knot.

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

It's bugged me since the moment the episode aired. Locke climbs aboard the sub dry. When Locke is found on the docks just before the sub explodes, he is dripping, sopping wet from head to toe. Why? How? Did he slip coming out and fall in the water? Was he doing something important - other than planting C-4 - that we aren't yet privy to but still are being given a clue? There's just no good reason for it that I can see, but the show doesn't try to hide it - that man's wet, where he went in dry. Nobody seems to know why. Even the episode page on Lostpedia contains a parenthetical about it in the plot summary, but nothing about it possibly being a continuity error or anything else. There was one other time in the series that a "special" character showed up unnecessarily sopping wet - when Shannon saw one of her visions of backwards-talking Walt. Is there a connection? Walt's backwards talk said not to push the button - the button is bad. But we think we know that pushing the button was good - it really did have a purpose. So was Walt's warning an oversight? Was Walt mistaken? Or did he have a reason for wanting the hatch to implode so that other events the branched off of that (like Desmond's flash powers) could start occurring? I hope someday to learn what each of these things involving wet characters were all about.

Just to let you know - I did check to see if we get ANY glimpse of Jacob sitting on the bench when Locke falls from Cooper's window. In one shot there is a small part of a bench visible in the frame, but not of a person.

Special Section: Expose

This episode just doesn't fit with the rest of the show as we're examining it. We learn almost nothing. In Season Three, LOST was stalling before it knew how much time it had to tell its tale, and at this point it stopped to play with itself a bit, experiment. Nobody likes Nikki and Paulo, they were bad actors, bad people, and bad characters, and their story doesn't matter. That LOST wanted to interrupt us to try something Hitchcockian is a bit of an insult. So yes, I watched it, and yes, I found a very few minor things worth discussing. But I'm not including it above with the legitimate material.

The episode also serves as a vehicle to get some killed-off characters (Shannon, Boone, Arzt, Ethan) more air time, and give another (quite lame) perspective on the first couple months on the island, including the crash, Boone stealing the water, the lagoon where Kate and Sawyer had their swim, and Jack's "Every Man for Himself vs. Live Together Die Alone" speech, etc. The concept of "Live Together Die Alone" applies specificially to Nikki and Paulo, who could not live together because they were constantly worried about hiding the diamonds, which were valueless anyway. We learn Nikki and Paulo were the first ones to locate the Beechcraft and the Pearl. The idiots don't even question what a big hatch in the ground is doing there.

As the episode opened, Nikki is running hard, and quicky buries something shallow. Then she runs to the beach, where she tries to tell Sawyer and Hurley something, but they can't figure out what. She's telling them she's just "paralyzed." In other words, let me be for 8 hours and I'll be fine. But they think she said, "Paulo lies." Which the hook is that this is also a true statement.

Nikki guest stars on Expose, a show which Hurley loves. She's killed off, but not before she gets to use her lame catch phrase, "Razzle dazzle." Tells her producer-lover, "I'm just a guest star, and we all know what happens to guest stars."

We get to see the crash site scene all over again. Gary Troup sucked into the turbine from a better angle.

Paulo is hiding in the Pearl bathroom storing the diamonds in the toilet tank (they're in a Russian doll - a decent image of what it's like to peel back the layers of LOST) when Ben and Juliet enter and watch the monitors. Juliet thinks Jack is cute. Asks how Ben's going to get him to do the surgery. "I find out what he's emotionally invested in, and I exploit it." Juliet assumes they'll have to kidnap all three of Jack, Kate, and Sawyer. Ben says no, we get them to come to us by using Michael. This must be right before Ben gets himself caught. Paulo's a real bunghole for never sharing any of this with the camp. But he does steal a walkie-talkie... which he hides.

Charlie comes clean to Sun that he is the one who kidnapped her. But she slaps Sawyer for being the one who had the idea. Says she won't tell Jin or they would be digging another grave.

Sawyer found Nikki's hidden diamonds. But even the man who hoards stuff knows they have no value here. Gives them up.

Games: Hurley and Sawyer continue to play ping-pong, mostly because Sawyer can't understand how he keeps losing to Hugo.

Literary Reference: Animal Farm. "The pigs are walking," screams Arzt.

Probably Unimportant, But...: Locke tells Paulo "Winter's coming. Tide'll be coming up the beach." At the time I thought this was a clue - that it meant something. Now I just think it's a writer error. Yes, it's December on the island. But as they are in the Southern Hemisphere (Nikki even has the line: "It's not Jurassic Park, Paulo, it's the South Pacific"), winter is NOT coming, summer is. Does this mean that Locke - Mr. In-Touch-with-the-Island-and-the-Weather - has just given us a big clue? Maybe the island is NOT in the south Pacific? Eh, maybe. More likely, as I said -- error.

There truly are bad people among our 815ers. Those who value what is completely stupid to value. Question: Why did Jacob/the Island leave these two alive? He/it let so many others just die in the plane crash - why not them?

Excellent Lines:

"Crime scene? There a forensics hatch I don't know about?" -- Sawyer

Hurley: Do you know anything? Can you use your psychic powers?
Desmond: Doesn't worth like that. I only see flashes.
Hurley: No offense, dude, but as far as superpowers go, yours is kinda lame.

Paulo: I was afraid of losing you. Yet another way to have LOST.

"Monster." -- Jin and several others who think this is how Nikki and Paulo died. It may be true - at least in her case. The producers were once asked which of several animal appearances on the island were real, and which were instances of Smokey. Regarding the spiders they said, "Monster." It does fit with how Hurley describes the way Locke said "You're next" after the monster killed Eko, and Nikki and Paulo were present.

http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Official_Lost_Podcast/March_21,_2008
A questioner asks them to comment on "monster forms"; whether certain things are human, apparition, animal, dead, etc.
Ben's mother Emily = "Apparition."
Sawyer's wild boar = "Animal."
Medusa Spider = "Monster."
Hurley bird = "Oh, I'm not gonna comment on that."
Dave = "Figment of imagination slash apparition."
Yemi = "Monster."
Mikhail's cat Nadia = "Animal. And coincidence."
Walt = "Walt the person is a person. But there are apparitions of Walt that may not be Walt, and also monster-related."
Boone in Locke's dream = "Dream."
Jack = Damon: "Heh. Jack is an apparition. That's gonna be the big twist at the end of this season. He's not only in the future, but he's not real." Carlton: "No, no. He's making a joke!" Damon: "Yes."
Kate's horse (and Yemi and Christian Shepherd)= Damon: "We have this, this is actually a funny story. We have this board in the um, in the, in the room. With all the actors in the writers room. With all the actors who are on the show. All of the Oceanic 815ers. But then, all of the sort of recurs, like Penny Widmore, and Charles Widmore and..." Carlton: "We have their headshots. So we can keep track of who we have on the show." Damon: "And Matthew Abaddon and... yeah, so everybody. They go onto a door that says "deceased"; once they die, we move them over there. And then there's the door that says "undead". And on the undead door there's only three pictures. One of them is Christian Shephard, and one of them is Yemi. And the other one is..." Carlton: "Kate's horse. Just a picture of a horse. So Kate's horse is undead."