blogs

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.

You might catch something you missed the second time around.

There's not much I like about crazy dogmatic dictator Locke right now, but the above quote is one of the few bits of wisdom he's speaking these days (and it makes me feel better about what I'm doing here, especially after I keep getting silly links sent to me like this one). Quite telling that Ben doesn't buy into the same philosophy, turning his nose up at being handed something he's already read. Perhaps Ben believes he's such a super genius that nothing could possibly have slipped past him. The rest of us? There's not a great work of art, music, literature, film or television that's caught our eye or ear which we won't visit multiple times. Watching this show this quickly and this closely a second time has drained me, but I'm the richer for it.

Here's some of the things I caught...

LOST Season Four, Disc Two: How am I Supposed to Win This Thing?

Episodes: 4.4 EGGTOWN (Kate-centric); 4.5 THE CONSTANT (Desmond-centric); 4.6 THE OTHER WOMAN (Juliet-centric); 4.7 JI YEON (Sun-centric)

Things That Stuck Out

If there's one minor thing that's bothering me about Season Four so far, it's that I'm finding a lot of things "too simple." And by this I don't mean island mysteries or anything, I mean plot devices. Lapidus landed a helicopter safely when no one else can arrive in anything but a twisted wreck? Why? Because we need a helicopter. Ben didn't tell anyone about his "man on the boat" two episodes earlier? Why not? Just because? What, he wasn't desperate enough yet? Hurley doesn't tell Locke what he knows about the Cabin, because...? In the real world people talk about weird stuff they see, especially when they know someone else is looking for it. Sawyer wants to know why they can't threaten to shoot Ben in the foot so they can interrogate a dangerous man. Locke says "because then we'd have to carry him." Really? That's why? Just drag the dude. Kate's prosecutor objects to Jack as a witness. The judge simply overrules. Because? Because the story needs him to. Kate insists that Aaron will NOT be "used" as a courtroom prop to generate sympathy even though her lawyer advises it because he has to make the case about character and thinks it's her only shot. Well, okay then, we can make it work without Aaron, because we have to. Kate gets off scott-free because... ? Because she brought Aaron back with her and Jack gave the performance of his life on the witness stand about what a nice lady she is? And her mom suddenly has a change of heart? These are Deus ex Machina type easy answers that I'm only willing to tolerate because I want to believe they are just helping us wade through some necessary details to get to the good stuff.

Island

"Eggtown" starts with a character making eggs (Locke makes breakfast for Ben, who, last we saw at the end of the previous disc, was living it up as an evil assassin, so it's weird to see him all bloodied and imprisoned below his own house two minutes of screen time later). And instantly we're right back where we started in Season Two. Ben's locked in a room with a face that looks like hamburger, Locke's bringing him food and reading materials, Ben's not giving any answers, and Locke's throwing stuff in the hallway, and Ben's smiling back in his cell. I believe these recurrences are more than just a clever literary conceit, and suggest that time keeps looping back on itself... at least until some anomaly changes the fabric.

Locke suggests the book he brings Ben will "help him past the time," but why would Ben need that when his favorite "pasttime" is mocking Locke, something he's about to do with precision yet again? First, the two of them play a little word game with all sorts of interesting "possessive" pronouns. Sometimes they're so similar these two who would be kings of the island and of everyone on it. Just listen to them prattle on:

• Ben: From MY own bookshelf.
• Locke: I wanted you under MY own roof (this house was Ben's just days ago)
• Ben: Where are you keeping YOUR other prisoner?
• Ben: You don't want to SHARE.
• Locke: I was hoping you would SHARE.

This little dance past, Ben pounds John with body blows of his failure, all the trails he's followed to dead ends in his search for meaning and destiny. He can't find the cabin, can't find Jacob, keeps asking Ben for help as if he should expect it... Ben is right to laugh at him.

Sun no longer wants to live in America. Having a baby - as is a theme on this show - "changes everything." She wants to raise her child in Korea.

Locke won't let Kate talk to Miles, and says he doesn't run a democracy. When she accuses him of being a dictator, his response is creepy and shows how socially retarded the man is: "If I were a dictator I'd just shoot you and go about my day." Oh, but dinner's at 6. Dude... Okay, you know who Locke is and who he wants to be right now? He's back at the commune he used to live in, and instead of Mike and Jan, it's him leading it. He rescued all these people, gave them a place to live, will feed them. But they have to live by his rules, no questions asked, no boat rocking. It's cultish.

Miles makes a deal with Kate -- for one minute of Ben's time, he will tell Kate everything he knows about her. But he doesn't want to be let go. He's where he wants to be.

Sun: What if Locke's right? What if these people are here to hurt us?
Jack: Locke has no idea what he's doing.
For guys who the show has set up as representative of major belief systems and social institutions, both of these guys sure are full of flaws (which is probably the point). Neither one stops for long - if it all - to actually consider anything the other believes, usually because they don't like how the other goes about it (not a logical reason). Here, any responsible leader would help Sun think through her line of questioning, and present the reason he feels this is not the case, and what that's based on.

Just love that Sawyer loves the Dharma wine-in-a-box.

Over backgammon, Locke asks Sawyer if he thinks Locke knows what he's doing. Sawyer doesn't care if he does or doesn't. He's there to save his skin, and as for the rest of them, they're sheep. As for Kate, though, Sawyer asks for and gets John's word he won't do anything to her.

Ben knows who Miles is, and who he works for. Miles will report that Ben is dead if Ben pays him the rather specific sum of $3.2 million dollars. Miles also knows plenty well who Kate is, and as such, he recommends to her she stay right there on the island.

Locke demands of Kate to know what Miles wanted. Kate tells him... and he banishes her from his kingdom anyway. Which sets up such a calming and clever line for Sawyer to tell her he "unbanish"es her.

There are only three cards in the memory game Charlotte helps Daniel play, but he can only get 2 out of 3 after whatever time limit they had set ticks down. He's way off on the third one. She says this is actually progress for him.

All day and nobody answers the phone on the boat. Something's wrong. Juliet urges Charlotte to dial the "only in emergencies" number. What Regina tells her indicates that even though the helicopter took off more than 24 hours ago with Frank, Desmond, and Sayid, it still has not arrived.

Locke tries a different approach with Miles. Re-introduces himself by stepping into his best "Ben" persona and saying, "I'm responsible for the well-being of this island." Sticks a live grenade in Miles' mouth, on which he must bite down to avoid blowing up. Nice and subtle way to teach someone to keep their mouth shut.

Lapidus has taped instructions in the chopper, telling him to follow a bearing of 40 miles North 305 - the same heading Eko's Jesus Stick gave Locke. He flies straight into a thunderhead where things get rough. Desmond starts to have memory flashes of time sickness. He pops out of a memory only to not remember where he is or who Sayid is... he uncrumples his picture of him and Penny, but this doesn't seem to help. Keamy wants to know how long he's been disoriented - seems like he's seen these symptoms before.

Juliet's got Charlotte figured - she not worried or amazed enough at the fact it's taken 24 hours for the chopper to get to the boat 40 miles away. She and Daniel know something they're not sharing. Likewise, once on the freighter, Sayid would like to know how it is they took off at dusk and landed in the middle of the day.

"Your perception of how long your friends have been gone? It's not necessarily how long they've actually BEEN gone." -- Daniel Faraday. This is where we learn that if Frank didn't stay on the bearings exactly, there could be side effects. Is this what's happening to Desmond?

The freighter last ported in Fiji.

Desmond is taken to sick bay, where he meets fellow time-sickness guy Minkowski, and Ray, the doctor, who gives Minkowski a shot and shines a light into Desmond's eyes, causing another flash.

Frank lets Sayid use his phone. He calls Jack on the beach. Their conversation can happen in real time, but their travel can not? He informs the group what happened to Desmond. This is what Faraday feared as "side effects," and he asks if Desmond was recently exposed to radiation or electromagnetism. Uh, yeah he was!

When Faraday calls to talk to Desmond, he asks what year it is. Des thinks it's 1996 (during which time he was in the army in Scotland). Good thing he happened to be in Britain, because Faraday wants 1996 Desmond to get on a train bound for Oxford, to visit 1996 Faraday. There, we see that the settings Desmond had were correct - Eloise the rat, after being bombarded with the right setting from the machine, knows how to run the maze before she's even been taught how.

The circle goes round and round. How does Desmond know what to tell Faraday to set his instruments to as he studies time theory? Because future Faraday told him. How has future Faraday figured out stuff about time travel and end up discover the right settings? Because past Desmond told him. Brain still intact?

During a brief moment when neither Minkowski nor Desmond is time-tripping, Sayid says Desmond's name. Minkowski can't believe it. As the ship's communications office, he was under strict orders never to answer the calls that would keep coming through from one Penelope Widmore looking for Desmond. As Sayid and Desmond unstrap Minkowski, they look up to see the door has been unlocked. "Looks like you guys have a friend on this boat..."

Minkowski got sick because he and Brandon - who is now in a body bag - wanted to see the island. Tried to take the ship's small boat toward it. Exposure to the island or whatever radioactive/electromagnetic force field is around it is what unhinged their consciousnesses.

On the boat, the date is Christmas Eve, 2004. What's weird about the ship's calendar, though, are four days - October 20-23 - that don't have Xs on them. Do these suggest days spent in port rather than at sea? That would mean the science team (and Michael) would have come on during that time? But I don't think that can fit Michael's timeline.

Jack and Juliet can't find Daniel and Charlotte. Jin saw them walk off into the jungle. When asked why he didn't say anything, he replies he thought - from things Jack said - they were friends. "Aren't they?" asks Sun. Where Locke's predisposed opinions make him a too-ingracious host, Jack's likewise make him a too trusting one. Dan and Charlotte have gone off to accomplish their mission - disarm the Tempest station, where poisonous gas is produced and kept.

Juliet, while tracking Charlotte and Daniel at night in the rain, hears the whispers. She's a bit put out by that, which is a pretty good sign the whispers don't come from the Others. If they do, she likely never had reason to know about them. When she turns around, there's Harper, staring at her. Harper is there to deliver a message from Ben, who knows that the two freighter folk are off to the Tempest. He got that part right. But he thinks they intend to disperse the gas, which would cause everyone on the island to die. That's not actually their mission. What's not clear is: how did Ben sneak a message to Harper, and why can't Harper go stop them herself? Can't she and her magically-appearing Othes kinfolk do a better job of it than Juliet? Both of these questions occur to Juliet, and Harper's answers are, for me, unsatisfactory and boring. "Because Ben wants you to go," and "Ben is exactly where he wants to be" (only thing cool about that is it's exactly what Miles told Kate about himself, kinda like pieces that have been moved into striking position). Jack sees and talks to Harper, too, so we know she wasn't just a ghost, though she sure vanishes as well as one.

Charlotte and Daniel come across Kate, who tells them Miles is being treated "fine." They tell her the sat phone ran out of juice and so they're hunting for the spare batteries from their packs that got thrown from the chopper. Nice try, but Kate sees the green power light sticking out of Daniel's pocket. Kate takes a look in Daniel's back, asks what the gas mask is for... and Charlotte conks her with her gun.

Jack and Juliet find Kate as she comes-to. As Jack tends to her, Juliet mysteriously disappears. She ends up reaching the Tempest shortly after Daniel and Charlotte.

Claire thinks she might have more luck talking to Miles than Locke has. After all, he killed Naomi, Ben shot Charlotte, and now Locke is holding Miles hostage. Maybe her feminine wiles would be less intimidating toward finding out why there's no rescue happening.

Ben - who is reading Valis again anyway, even after turning his nose up (which might have been just a ploy to get under Locke's skin) - seems a little put out by being served rabbit to eat (we know he loves the bunnies). It gives him a chance for a great line, too: "This didn't have a number on it, did it?" Funny, and probably means those white, numbered bunnies aren't 100% organic...

Ben knows Locke so well it's just sad. He says he knows that as a leader it must be hard - people are questioning everything, second-guessing you, and pretty soon you have an insurrection or revolution (Locke has just been questioned by Claire). Ben says they'll be so mad to find out he has a plan. Meanwhile, he, Ben, well, he always has a plan, and he'd just love to show John how they can work together against their common enemy, the guy who sent the freighter. Here's the sad thing: Locke DOES have a plan. He accomplished it in getting to the barracks, and the rest of it involves laying low. But even he doesn't believe his own plan anymore, even though there's nothing wrong with it. Too many times the leaders on this island - Locke, Ben, Jack, Sayid, Sawyer - have acted too quickly or not taken their time or just been patient. So Locke SHOULD just shut Ben's cell door and go up and spend some quality time with his people with no agenda other than getting to know them. But of course this is not going to happen, nor is it what Ben intended Locke to do. Locke always does just what Ben wanted him to do.

Ben tells John, "If my people still wanted me they would have stormed this camp long ago." True? Or a lie? Only things we know is they did all seem happy about Locke, but also that Harper is definitely still getting and sending messages from and for Ben.

Ben Throws Locke a Bone

• Promises him no tricks - they don't even have to leave the living room
• Tells him which picture to look behind
• Tells him the combination to the safe
• There's nothing in the safe but a videotape that says "Red Sox" ("I taped over the game")
• Plays the video - there's a man getting out of the back seat of a car
• "This is Charles Widmore... whose boat is parked off shore" (True and true)
• "This is the man that's been trying to find the island" (True (though he's not the only one))
• Locke asks how Widmore knows about the island. "I don't know - but he does." (LIE)
• Ben says that 5,000 people went to see the Virgin Mary's face in a piece of mold in Florida. How many more would come to the island that caused this man to survive a plane crash and walk again?
• "Charles Widmore wants to exploit this island." (True? Lie? I go with lie. I'm not clear on Widmore's motives other than to vanquish Ben and be the king again himself, but I don't think it's exploitation. He'd view the general populace as unworthy to set foot there).
• "He'll do everything in his power to possess it." (True)
• Video shows "one of my people who had the misfortune to get caught" (true? lie?) blindfolded, gagged, and beaten by Widmore.
• Widmore looks up and seems to notice the cameraperson just before the screen goes to static.

What did we learn? The video itself wouldn't mean much AT ALL to Locke - or anyone - without Ben's narrative. No one even gets killed by this supposedly bad, evil man. Seeing may be believing, but it's hearing WITH seeing that gets you to believe what people want you to believe - Propaganda 101.

Ben hands Locke his "Charles Widmore file" now that Locke is predisposed to believe everything that's in it. Locke wants just one more thing - the identity of the spy on the boat. Ben agrees, telling Locke he may want to sit down for this one.

Daniel looks very sad to see Juliet hold the gun on him in the Tempest. They're not there to release the gas, but render it inert. Charlotte and Juliet fight while he works at the computer. "Look me in the eye and tell me that Benjamin Linus wouldn't use this gas to kill everyone on this island! We know he's used it before." As the tanks depressurize and the chemical weaponry is disabled, Juliet realizes she was a pawn who was given a false mission. Stopping these two would not have saved everyone, it might have killed everyone. And that's a good thing, right? Well, not if all this did was make it safe for Keamy's team of flipped out mercs to come ashore and kill everyone with guns instead of gas. Bit of a Catch-22.

Juliet tries to warn Jack off, because "Ben thinks that I'm his, and he knows how I feel about you." Jack's not scared, he plants a big smooch on her.

Frank brings Sayid and Desmond some food, but it's hardly what they were expecting - cans of lima beans. They are told there is "an issue" with the ship's kitchen. And outside the door, Regina is "reading" her book upside-down and showing sickness symptoms.

Sayid and Desmond explain they didn't bust out of sick bay - the doors was open, and they assumed Lapidus had done it. No way, he says.

Sun wonders if Juliet might have been lying to her about the fate of pregnant women. After all, she feels fine, and Claire and her baby are fine. There's no rescue, no report from Sayid and Desmond after three days, and she goes to ask Daniel if they're going to be rescued, to which all he can say is that's not his call. She tells Jin they are going to make for Locke's camp. Juliet's so desperate to stop them that she tells Jin his wife is sick. When that doesn't work, she actually tells him that Sun had an affair, and worried that the baby might not be his. Oh no she didn't! Oh yes she did. She takes a punch to the jaw for it, too. But truth - glad to see - did win out and helped people grow, and make good decisions. By the end of the episode, Jin has forgiven Sun, Sun has forgiven Juliet, and Sun and Jin have come clean and decided not to go to the barracks.

A note advising them to "not trust the Captain" is slipped under Sayid and Desmond's door. Ben's mysterious spy? The one who let them out of their room previously? Yep. And we get a very cool reveal that this is Michael, going by the name Kevin Johnson. They all have to pretend not to know each other now (though I don't think Des and Michael ever met previously; they've probably just heard tell of each other).

Sayid and Des hear a sound on board the ship that Sayid judges is "not mechanical." So what's causing it? Is someone trying to tap out code to them?

Sayid and Desmond Meet Captain Gault

• The saboteur has not only messed with the communications room, but with the engines
• Nobody makes any attempt to save Regina from suicide because the Captain doesn't want to lose any more crew than he already has
• There's a weird case of "cabin fever" he suspects is due to proximity to the island
• He tells them straight up it's Charles Widmore's boat. "Oh yeah - you know him," he says to Desmond.
• The visual aid (that really doesn't show, do, or prove ANYTHING - just like Ben's film - this is Propaganda 102) of the supposed 815 black box is pulled out of a safe and shown to Des and Sayid
• With the visual aid on the desk, Gault tells his story. Whether he believes what he says about Ben or has just been programmed to believe it is immaterial. He admits that the 815 crash site was a fake, but asks: what kind of resources would one have to have to fake such a thing? Where does one find 324 dead bodies? These are the reasons we need to find Benjamin Linus. The hole in your logic Captain, is that Charles Widmore has the same if not more resources, and the same desire to keep anyone ELSE from finding the island, so the motives and opportunities are the same. The only difference we know of is someone warned us not to trust you. And the only thing about that is, the person who warned us is working for Ben. So we're no further along than we were in our search for who the good/bad guys are -- and I continue to suspect we'll never get an obvious answer to that, and that this is part of the point of the show.

Off-Island / Flashbacks / Flashforwards

Fraud, assault on a federal officer, arson, grand theft auto, assault with a deadly weapon, grand larceny, first-degree murder -- this is the laundry list of charges against Kate. The law has chased her forever, and has her dead to rights on this... and she gets out of it with zero jail time (other than what she served pending trial)? Look, I love the show, but I didn't like this the first time and I don't like it now, and not because I don't feel justice has been served. I feel like the story is cheating. They could have made someone else one of the Oceanic Six instead.

During Jack's testimony he says they crashed on an island in the South Pacific. How is this being reconciled with where the wreckage was found? I'm drawing a blank.

Jack's doing a killer job making Kate look great, but his lies make her so uncomfortable she shifts in her seat and ultimately stands up and asks him to stop. That's okay, hon. Somehow, you'll STILL manage to get off scot-free!

Kate's mom didn't die. In fact, she's the star witness against her daughter. But she has requested a meeting. She needs an oxygen tube to breathe, and is in a wheelchair. She would like to see her grandson. Kate has no intention of letting his happen. To her, you don't get to still act like you're family after you sell me down the river. But for Diane, her feelings about Kate changed when she thought she had died. They've also appeared to have changed a bit with her hope that Jack's testimony was true - that her daughter is "a hero." And now too she has a baby, well, that changes everything, as we've been told. Kate will not make a deal - even to be free - to let her mom see Aaron. If you really don't want to testify against me mom, "then don't."

When Diane won't testify - citing medical reasons - the DA offers another deal, but Kate won't take it. The final deal: time served plus 10 years probation and an agreement Kate does not leave California.

Jack tells Kate he lied when he said he didn't love her anymore. She has hope in her eyes, asks if he wants to follow her home. He'd rather go for coffee. She knows this is because he doesn't want to see Aaron. Until he does, there's no relationship there.

Desmond's brain has flashed him into a time where he was in the Royal Scots, and it's time for morning inspection. He flashes out of this memory, and back in. Tells his friend Billy some really crazy truths about what's happening. It's like LOST has made a case for what's going on any time a friend has a deja vu, or something inexplicable happens. Billy asks if there was anyone he recognized. No... except Penny, in the photo. And we start to see the key that will unlock this puzzle - something CONSTANT to hold your mind steady through all the flashes, the one about whom it can be said, "It's always been you."

Desmond called Penny from the army, confused, asking to see her. She refuses, and tells him not to call again. Does this add up with what we know about the note she gave him before she left, how crushed she was that she thought he didn't write (her dad intercepted his post), and how she would later track him down? But she doesn't like that he called?

"Each time your consciousness jumps it gets harder and harder to jump back." Basically, the flashes are more random, faster, and eventually the person dies. We see plenty of this is Season Five with bloody noses and all. A person can only be saved if their consciousness can attach to a constant.

"I think Eloise's brain short-circuited. The jumps between the present and the future - she had no anchor. Something familiar in both times." Variables are random and chaotic. Every equation needs stability. We discussed this several postings ago regarding the paradox of how chaos and order - free will and determinism - can simultaneously co-exist.

MARCH 22, 1845 - the Black Rock set sail from Portsmouth England on a trading mission to Siam. There is one known artifact - first mate Magnus Hanso's journal, which was among the artifacts of pirates on L'ile Sainte Marie (an island off the coast of Madagascar) in 1852. The journal's contents have never been made public. Charles Widmore buys it for 380,000 pounds in 1996. Question: Is it the Black Rock we see arriving to the island in the Season Five scene where Jacob and the Man in Black talk? If so, I guess we know the relative year in which that dialog took place.

Desmond visits Penny so he'll have her new phone number. He knows things are over, promises he won't call her for 8 years, not until Dec. 24, 2004. Christmas Eve. When the call is finally made, Penny tells us she's been searching for Desmond for the past 3 years, she's done research on the island, and when she spoke to Charlie, that's when she knew she wasn't crazy. He says he's always loved her (through all the space and time between them), and they promise to find each other. Possibly the BEST. EPISODE. EVER. Desmond is healed - from time travel sickness, from cowardice, and now from regret.

Juliet's been on the island a week, and is having a hard time adjusting. Apparently Harper Stanhope (one intriguing anagram of her name is "Pharaoh Serpent") is the Others staff therapist. One of the credentials in Harper's office has a Hanso foundation symbol on it. Juliet feels an ironic isolation and loneliness from being the celebrity center of attention. Without saying it, Harper's tone and looks seem to suggest, well chick, let's see how you feel tomorrow when nobody much cares about you anymore and they bring in the next big thing. So what she does suggest to Juliet is that she's a delusional narcissist who only feels like "all EYES are on you." She has reason to be jealous of Juliet, who will end up having an affair with her husband Goodwin.

When Juliet got her house, Ben was waiting on the steps with flowers. She was floored by the niceness of the place for somewhere she'd be staying only six months. "We want you to feel at HOME," Ben says.

Juliet meets Goodwin when he was trying to do first aid on a chemical burn on his arm which he sustained at the Tempest. He tries to cover up what it is by saying he works at the power station and leaned on a transformer. She treats him.

When Goodwin suggests that Harper might be able to help Juliet with some issues, she says Harper doesn't like her, and she gets the feeling Harper is mean and spiteful. So of course, she's his wife. Youch! Good start you're off to on the island, Juliet.

Creepy and Unsettling! Juliet is trying to show Ben results of her research - that the problem occurse in the second trimester when the immune system turns on the fetus and white blood cell count drops, and this only happens to women who conceive on-island - but he just stares at her like a horny teenager. Dude, at LEAST listen to the lady tell you the science scoop. Unless that WAS your pet project, and now it's been abandoned to make her the same. When Goodwin drops by with an extra sandwich for Juliet, Ben grows suspicious.

Juliet's next meeting with Harper is rather creepy as well. Harper starts by asking what Juliet thinks of Ben. She has probably been told to ask this. She then gradually traps Juliet into admitting she slept with Goodwin. Harper doesn't want blood or an apology as much as she insists Juliet listen to her - she doesn't want Goodwin to get hurt. Juliet says she would never hurt him. Nope - not talking about you. Talking about Ben. Harper knows Ben wants Juliet, she knows Ben is jealous, she knows Ben is extreme. If someone else gets to have Juliet, woe to that person.

Goodwin wants to tell everyone about him and Juliet, who have been together for a year. She doesn't think Ben would like that. "What's Ben gonna do?" he asks. Very next shot is of 815 breaking up over the island and Goodwin being dispatched by Ben to the tail section... (well, at least now we know why Ben didn't mind sacrificing one of his better scientific minds and important Others).

Sometime during the first month after 815 crashed, Ben has Juliet over for dinner. She agreed to come because she thought it was a party, only to find out it's a date. He's cooked a ham and everything. He thanks her for being kind to Zach and Emma (the kids who were taken from the Tailies' camp). She doesn't know what to say when they ask about their mother. Ben just says they'll eventually stop asking. Ew.

Juliet wonders the same thing we were wondering about Goodwin at the time -- after the Others already kidnapped everyone on The List from the Tailies' camp, why didn't Goodwin just slink back home? Why does he have to stay undercover? At hearing his name, Ben slices the name a bit meaner. Ben's answer does echo something he said in an earlier episode -- Goodwin was making a case for Ana-Lucia. He twists this knife into making it sound like Goodwin's in love with Ana so he can gauge Juliet's reaction.

On the same day Juliet informs Ben that Jack is a spinal surgeon and can help him, he takes her to see dead Goodwin's body. She's visibly shaken, and wonders why he would bring her out there. "What, instead of his WIFE?!" Now she knows he knows. And he gets his best 10-year-old tantrum worked up. "Why? You're asking me why? After everything I've done to get you here, after everything I've done to keep you here, how can you possibly not understand? YOU'RE MINE!"

We're thrown a curveball with the Sun/Jin off-island scenes. Remember at the time we knew there had been an Oceanic Six, we just couldn't be certain who all of them were. We knew Jack, Kate, Hurley and Sayid at this point - leaving two more if you don't count Aaron, one more if you do, and we didn't know which way to go with that. So it's at this point the producers gave us this episode where it APPEARS Jin is racing to the hospital as Sun gives birth, especially because she keeps calling out for him in her labor pains. But alas, it was a trick -- Jin's panda-buying escapades and race to the hospital were a flashBACK (he was buying the panda on behalf of Mr. Paik as a gift to the grandchild of the Chinese ambassador to South Korea), while Sun's giving birth to Ji Yeon was a flashFORWARD. Shortly after she's born, Hurley visits Sun to see the baby and visit Jin's grave marker (though he's not buried there).

Just before Sun goes into labor her TV was on, and Expose was airing.

Jin's tombstone reveals that he was born in 1974 (Sun in 1980), and his date of death is listed as the day of the crash - 9/22/04, giving us yet another early indication that the O6 (now known to be Jack, Kate, Sun, Hurley, Sayid, and Aaron) have lied about their story.

• Appearances of the Numbers: 15 years is the deal Kate's lawyer thinks he can cut with the DA, where she might be out for the last 8 of it; 8 people survived the 815 crash, according to the O6 lie, which Jack tells the courtroom; 4 years Diane's doctors have been telling her she has six months to live (meaning this has happened 8 times); 4 years of jail time is the DA's offer after Diane won't testify; 4 minutes Desmond's unit has to get to the yard; 2.342 is the setting Desmond is supposed to tell '96 Faraday to set the device to; 2342 is the lot number of the Black Rock journal; 423 Cheyne Walk is Penny's new address, given to Desmond by Charles Widmore, who no longer fears that Penny would ever consider marrying this coward; 8 years from now, says Des to Penny, he needs to call her; 15 minutes Locke will be back to collect Ben's dishes and laundry.
• Deaths: Eloise the rat and Minkowski, both from time travel sickness and not having a Constant; Regina, wears heavy chains and throws herself over the side of the freighter; we see Jin's tombstone, and know that Sun mourns him, but we don't see him die, or know for sure that he is dead.

Themes Established or Revisited

1. Ownership / possession. Locke and Ben both vie for title deed to the island, and apparently Widmore wants to claim it too ... Kate has taken over as Aaron's guardian.
   
2. Time.
   "I thought it would help you pass the time." -- Locke
   
   "Here we are, just like old times." -- Ben
   
   "Time's up. I said time's up!" -- Kate
   
   "Time. Okay tell me." -- Charlotte
   
   Long time, no see." -- Harper to Juliet in the jungle. Combines the concept of sight/seeing/eyes with time.
   
   "Now's the time to do it!" -- Jack, to Juliet.
   
   "I wish we could do this all the time." -- Goodwin
   
   "They'll stop asking in time." -- Ben
   
   "Take as much time as you need." Freaky Ben, two seconds after exploding in anger, saying this calmly as Juliet stands over dead Goodwin.
   
3. Trust. Kate doesn't trust Sawyer, even though she stayed at the barracks ... Sawyer realizes what a currency Trust is on the island right now, which he explains to Kate as to why he couldn't back her when Locke was yelling at her: "No sense him not trusting both of us."
   
   "You gotta trust me when I tell you this - I am trying to help you." Frank, to Sayid.
   
   "I'm not crazy, Penny, you have to believe me, you have to... trust me." -- Desmond.
   
   Ben: Give me some semblance of freedom and I give you my word, I will...
   Locke: See, there's the problem. I don't trust your word.
   
   "Don't trust the Captain." -- the message slipped under the door to Sayid and Desmond.
   
4. Existentialism. "Who am I?" is a big theme with Kate right now. She asks Miles, "Do you know who I am?" ... she seems thrown for a loop when her attorney wants to make the case about "who you are" ... She gets uncomfortable when Jack perjures himself to say what an amazing person she is ... She herself still does not know who she is, or even how that's defined ... Miles asks Ben, "Do you know who I am?"
   
5. Lies. We hear Jack take his oath to tell the truth in court, though he has a fabricated story all memorized ... Jack also lies in telling the court that he doesn't love Kate anymore ... Miles offers to lie to his employer and say Ben's already dead for a load of cash ... Goodwin lies about the source of the burn on his arm ... Charlotte lies to Kate about what they're doing in the jungle.
   
   "You know Jack, I've heard you say that story so many times, I'm starting to think you believe it." -- Kate
   
   Sun: Why would Juliet lie?
   Kate: Force of habit?
   
6. Change. As much as we've heard about change, there appears to be one thing you can't change. "Maybe this is changing the future," Desmond suggests. "You can't change the future," Faraday dismisses, a belief he will hold to ("whatever happened, happened") right to the place in Season Five where he gets killed by his own mother.
   "It all changed... when I thought you were dead." -- Kate's mom.
   
   "If at any time you change your mind..." -- Kate, to Jack.
   
   "I know it's too late to change things." -- 1996 Desmond to Penny. I haven't figured out how, but the fact that "late"-ness keeps cropping up here and there is going to be important.
   
7. Fixing. Juliet is something of a kindred spirit to Jack. She hates losing her patients to the fertility disease, yes, but she might be crying more for her inability to "fix" what she was brought here to fix.

The Game

"How am I supposed to win this thing?" -- Duncan, Kate's lawyer.

Sawyer challenges Locke to a game of backgammon.

Charlotte helps Daniel play a memory game. Apparently, he looks at cards, she counts off a particular amount of time, and then he tries to remember what he saw.

"No use having rules if there's no punishment for breaking them." -- Locke

"Kate, it's alright, they're on our side." -- Juliet

"These people came here to wage war against Ben. And Ben's gonna win, Jack." -- Juliet

Sawyer and Hurley play horseshoes. Sawyer gets a leaner, but Hurley - who comments that his luck is improving - gets a ringer.

Black-and-white: the backgammon pieces Locke and Sawyer use to set up the board; stones in the Zen garden Juliet rakes in Harper's office; the stuffed panda(s) Jin buys as a baby gift.

Religious References

Hurley chooses to watch Xanadu instead of "Satan's Doom."

"God knows where Juliet is." -- Kate

Bernard tells Jin about karma - about how what you put out there comes back to you. My objection isn't with the concept of karma. My objection is with Bernard's conclusion that as he's talking about putting out good vibes, and they catch a fish at that moment, he concludes, "we must be the good guys, huh?" The problem with that type of thinking is that it suggests good things only happen to good people, and bad things only happen to bad people. And I can't get down with that as the message of religion in general, Christianity in particular, or of the show and world of LOST.

Mysteries or Questions Since Solved

• Who does Miles - and the rest of his team - work for? Why has this person put so much time and money into finding the island and Ben?
• Is there any sigificance to the specific 3.2 million dollar figure Miles quotes to Ben? Or is it nothing more than an indication for Ben's sake that Miles knows exactly what Ben can get his hands on?
• What is up with Daniel's memory issues, and where do they come from?
• Why doesn't Jack want to see Aaron?
• Who sabotaged all the radio equipment on the freighter two days ago, such that since then they've had no communication with the mainland?
• What special mission did Keamy send Frank to fly?
• Is Jin really dead? Why does his tombstone say he died in the crash when we know perfectly welll he didn't?

Mysteries or Questions Still Needing Answers

• Is the time-travel sickness the same "sickness" from Seasons One and Two? Or was that one just a ruse to the characters and a red herring to us?
• What happened to the Black Rock after it set sail in 1845? What secrets does the journal contain? Why have they never been made public? How did it fall into the hands of pirates, or get off the island in the first place? It's being sold by Torvard Hanson and is Lot 2342. Why did Widmore buy it (we can assume we know the answer to that last one)?
• Michael's spent much time on the island; why doesn't he have any sickness being back in proximity to it?

Add to the LOST Library:

• Valis, by Philip K. Dick. Locke slides this off of Ben's bookshelf, and brings it to Ben, who he has imprisoned below the house. "Already read it," Ben complains. According to Wikipedia, the book is "a 1981 science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick. The title is an acronym for Vast Active Living Intelligence System, Dick's gnostic vision of one aspect of God."
• The Invention of Morel, by Adolfo Bioy Casares. Sawyer reads this book while his new roommate Hurley watches movies. From Wikipedia: "Fans of the video game Myst [which I referenced at the close of Milepost 18] believe this novel is one of its sources of inspiration, while the plot of the episode "Dave" from the television program Lost mirrors one of fugitive's theories — that he is in a psychiatric hospital dreaming he is on an island." Also relevant because of the plot, in which a fugitive hides on a deserted island.
• Xanadu. 1980 musical starring Olivia Newton-John. The title is based on Coleridge's poem Kubla Khan: "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree." The "dome" concept perks up my ears a bit there. Hurley's alternative viewing choice to Xanada is something called "Satan's Doom."
• "She's Got You," by Patsy Cline. Kate listens to this after Locke angrily sends her back to her house. Patsy has been heavily associated with Kate, but once with Claire when Christian was playing it as he went to visit his daughter. Here, Claire comes into the room as Kate is listening to the song, which includes the line, "I've got your memory, or has it got me? I really don't know, but I know it won't let me be."
• The Survivors of the Chancellor, by Jules Verne. Regina reads this - upside-down - as she sits guard outside sick bay where Desmond and Sayid are being held. It's about the final voyage of a British sailing ship in which the story is told through a journal. Sound familiar?

Excellent Lines

Humorous

"You just totally Scooby-Doo'd me, didn't you?" -- Hurley, to Kate, when it took her one question to trick him into revealing where Miles was.

"Maybe we should try a number other than the boat, like... 911?" -- Juliet, to Jack, when he is getting a busy signal through the sat phone.

Faraday: Uh, who are you calling?
Desmond: I'm calling my bloody constant.

Jack: You people had therapists?
Juliet: It's very stressful being an Other, Jack.
(Funny, but also cool, because Jack then says Harper seemed "kind of HOSTILE for a therapist")

More Meaningful (and double-meaningful)

"You're more LOST than you ever were." -- Ben, mocking Locke. The words hit their target. Locke is one of the only characters I know of in all of literature and TV who is repeatedly capable of coming so far only to have gone nowhere.

"Oh, can you get Aaron for me?" -- Claire, to Kate. Um, sure... how 'bout I hold him for the next three years?

"Do not treat me like I'm one of them. Like I don't know who you are, and what you can do." -- Miles, acting very UN-sheep-like, with Ben. This sounds like a dialog between superhero and supervillain - if we could actually tell which one was which.

"I don't need to know why you did what you did, Kate." -- He's referring specifically to letting Miles in to talk to Ben, but it plays to the overarching theme in the Kate story of "What Kate Did" and how Jack - Locke's foil - likewise didn't need to know what she did. But where for Jack that meant Kate could stay, and was safe to have around even though she was really dangerous, for Locke it means Kate must be banished, and is dangerous to have around even though she's quite safe.

"If the numbers don't convince me Desmond, I need you to tell me that you know about Eloise!" -- This being Faraday's rat, named after Mrs. Hawking, his mother

Desmond: Maybe you just forgot?
Faraday: Yeah, right, how would that happen.
So... Faraday's memory was once so photographic that he made jokes about it's perfection... only to have stuff start going wrong with it later.

"It not hard to understand why they might think we're hostile." -- Claire, to Locke. Second time this episode that term's been used.

"All Charlie said was whose boat it isn't. Don't you want to know whose boat it is?" -- Claire, to Locke.

Juliet: They're children. Do they really belong here?
Ben: They're on the list. Who are we to question who's on the list and who's not?

"In the time they've been here they've talked about a lot of things - and none involved rescuing us." -- Kate. This is what the beach crew is coming to realize... but they still don't want to join Locke's group because they don't like HIM. Foolish humans. We so often forego truth and safety for personal reasons. Along those same lines, I have a big problem with Bernard telling Jin that going with Jack was "the right thing to do" even for someone who never intends to leave the island for the sole reason that "Locke's a murderer." First, I would tell Bernard - who I love, but he's off here, just as we explored above in his theories about karma - that two wrongs don't make a right. Going with someone is not necessarily a right choice just because it means NOT following someone else. Secondly, Jack killed Locke! The only thing that stopped him was an unloaded gun. Jack had also just promised to kill Tom, and Ben. To me, there's not much difference there when you had every intent.

Sun: I thought I had LOST you!
Jin: You will never lose me.

Characterization

"She's the very definition of a flight risk." -- Kate's prosecutor. Amen, sister.

Sawyer has got Kate completely dead to rights. Locke banishes her, she crawls in bed with him. The next morning, she gets ticked at his honesty that he's glad she's not pregnant, she says she's leaving, going back to the beach. He says don't make it about that, you don't want to be pregnant either. Then he says he's not gonna fret about this, because in a week she'll just find some reason to get ticked at Jack and she'll be right back to Sawyer. This gets him a backhanded slap... for being 100% right.

Juliet was once big on negative effects needing to be assigned blame, even if that means faulting herself as a failure. So no wonder after 3 years of not being able to do anything about the fertility issues she is a changed woman in many ways.

Jack points out that Juliet gets to know all the secrets of his past from reading his file. She says trust her, he wouldn't want to read her file.

Juliet describes Ben to Harper as "smart, intense, challenging, really good to me."

Kate confides to Jack why she stayed at the barracks - to see if she could determine whether the freighter people know about her. But... would she have stayed after finding out had Locke not banished her and Sawyer angered her?

Jin and Sun have changed much since they came to the island - they gently and compromisingly discuss what to name their child around a fire at night. Jin thinks it will be a girl, and they should name her Ji Yeon. Sun would prefer not to count her chicks before they hatch, and wait - for obvious reasons - until they get rescued. When he finds out about her affair, it appears as if all his changes might be for naught, as if he will - like so many other characters we've already seen - regress full-circle back to the meanie-bo-beanie he was. But no. He clears his head doing some fishing with Bernard, and then makes up with her. I do like how he forgives her; I don't especially love how he accepts that her affair was his fault. But he's come so far and they're about to become so separated by time and space and apparently death that we can overlook that.

Opening & Closing

4.4 Open - Eye-opening! (It's been a while). It's Locke's eye. He's in a hospital bed. But for once, he's fine. He's just grabbed a nap in the bed Ben had been using while he recovered from surgery.
4.5 Open - Desmond, on Frank's helicopter, looks at his photo of Penny.
4.6 Open - Juliet makes lines in the sand in a Zen Garden, just below a black rock and a white rock.
4.7 Open - Long shot of the camera slowly approaching the freigter at night. Lapidus walks across the deck with a bag tucked under his arm.

4.4 Close - "Hi, Mommy!" ... "Hi, Aaron."
4.5 Close - Faraday studies his journal on the beach. Stops on the page that reads, "If anything goes wrong, Desmond Hume will be my constant."
4.6 Close - "See you guys at dinner," says Ben, as he walks with some fresh linens to a house as Sawyer and Hurley stare in disbelief at him being let out.
4.7 Close - Sun cries at Jin's "grave."

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

During her dinner date with Ben, Juliet says it would be risky for Goodwin to stay undercover after they've already lost Ethan. But by the timeline of days, Goodwin I believe actually died a day or two before Ethan. Probably doesn't matter though. Maybe the Others just found out about Ethan being shot before they found out Goodwin had gotten skewered.