The Moth Chase

Season 6, Episode 1 (parts 1 and 2)

Dear Kathryn,

Seriously, how many times do I have to watch Juliet die?!  I’m glad my previous theory held, though – if a nuke goes off, no one in the vicinity survives, so there’s no difference between Juliet and all the rest present at the detonation. So here’s my new Juliet theory: her “let’s get coffee. We can go Dutch” was so reminiscent of Charlotte’s “I can’t have chocolate before dinner” that I am convinced we’ll see old Jules again.  And I’m guessing it’s going to happen back in the real world.  When Miles hears her, “it’s worked,” I had to wonder what trans-temporal, trans-spatial information she has about the way things really are now.  You can’t get coffee on the island – she’s going to make an appearance back home!

So let’s hit the fun returns…Boone and the awkward explanation for Shannon’s absence (seriously, that actress didn’t want to come back? What’s up with that??  Even Boone reappeared and he’s got a great gig running on The Vampire Diaries!).  We also have Claire in the taxi with Kate. And how wonderful to see Charlie again, even if he was doing his heroin in the bathroom, necessitating the return of hero-Jack to save him.  Is it just me, or was Charlie’s, “I was supposed to die” pretty ominous and overly fraught with meaning?  Between that, Rose’s dramatic “Looks like we made it” which reminds us that at that moment she is dying of cancer, Desmond’s appearance and disappearance, and Jack’s obvious disorientation and neck bleeding, I got the feeling that whatever arc of time they’ve managed to create or resume back in the real world with the safe landing of Oceanic 815 is not as good as it might appear at first glance.  Oh, and let’s not forget that in this safe-landing story arc, we see our beloved island buried like Atlantis – the lost, pre-historical island made famous by Plato’s dialogues.

And if we follow this line of thinking – that things just aren’t right back in the real world – I’m left to wonder once again what the nuclear explosion really accomplished.  Recall that Miles asked last season if the detonation would be the aversion of The Incident, or The Incident itself.  The return of the hatch, I think, makes it possible that the detonation was in fact The Incident, and the thing that re-created the safe landing of 815 might relate more to Jacob’s death than the detonation.  There’s a stream of unease running through each narrative: all those weird signs on the plane I’ve already mentioned, and then of course the disruptions on the island related to Jacob’s death.  Surely the dirty water in the temple connects to that?  If Jacob is the connection between the real world and the island, then surely his death impacts both.

So with regards to that temple:  What fun to see the flight attendant who we remember was kidnapped from Ana Lucia’s gang by The Others.  Apparently she’s integrated into their clan now?  And what extreme fun to finally witness a real resurrection.  We’ve had so many moments when we think someone’s back from the dead – Christian, Claire, Locke’s dad, and certainly, Locke himself.  But Sayid is a special case.  For the first time the coming-back-to-life isn’t hidden somewhere, but we actually get to see it. But why does Jacob need Sayid saved? I couldn’t help but notice the cruciform positioning of his body as they lifted him out of the water, and the way it not only foretold his resurrection, but also harkened back to his cruciform position that time he was tortured in the woods, pinned to a tree (can you get any more cruciform than that?).  We’ve had so many Christ-tropes in this show – I guess it’s finally Sayid’s turn!  When the episode closed on his words, “what happened?” I couldn’t help but think – “Sayid, don’t you know by now? Whatever happened is what happened!”

We also finally have confirmation on the rumours we’ve all been considering – that the man in black is the smoke monster.  And the clan of The Others is terrified of him!  I was captivated by their colony.  The temple of course mimicked ancient ziggurats.  And in so doing, it mimicked the architectural style to which the Biblical Tower of Babel is often related.  That story relates the myth of an ancient people prior to ethnic and linguistic division – a primordial people who will spread over the earth as different ethno-linguistic groups.  Those Others were by far the most racially (and linguistically) diverse group of folks we’ve encountered on the island so far (even more diverse than previous depictions of The Others).  And so I wondered if that imagery was drawing us back into some sort of dawn-of-time, pre-historic, birth of the nations kind of narrative.  This would certainly explain or relate to all the different religious and philosophical traditions we’ve seen depicted on the island over the last 5 seasons!

Ok, I have to mention – did you notice that the book Hurley found in the cave was a French copy of Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling?  Kierkegaard’s book title references the Biblical verse, Philippians 2:12, “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling”.  We’ve noted before themes of belief and the requirement for leaps of faith by characters in Lost.  Fear and Trembling is, of course, where Kierkegaard introduces his character, the Knight of Faith; the figure in Western philosophy who epitomizes that leap.  And so I love that our friends picked up that book just as they were about to take their own leap of faith to find mystical healing for Sayid.

Ok, I’ll stop – leaving so so much for you to talk about: Ben’s lying and team switching; John’s development; Kate’s escape; Hugo stepping into a leadership position; Jin and Sun now finally being in the same time and place; the death of Jacob’s bodyguards and the implications of the ashes; the fact that in the new arc, Christian’s body never made it onto the plane; and what it means that the man in black in John’s body wants to “go home”!

Moth Chase friends, we can’t get it all.  Please help us out – what did you think?

ox,
Natalie

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Dear N,

Thanks for getting us started! So much to say and so many new mysteries to ponder. I want to start with the one thing the episode gave us for sure: the identification between the Man in Black and the smoke monster and the awareness on the part of the Others at the Temple and of Richard that this Man in Black is their nemesis in some way. Like you, I was struck by the diversity of the Temple dwellers and definitely caught resonances of a lost civilization compiled of a hodge-podge of ancient philosophies, rituals, and practices preserved over many, many years and protected to a degree from the incursions of history and time. The real question for me is, what is the relationship between these Temple folks, who are clearly the Others too, and the Others who camp out in Dharmaville and prowl the jungle led by Ben? Do they ever come together? Do they think of themselves as one people? Was Ben the leader of the Temple dwellers too, or are they autonomous in some way? We have reason to think that perhaps Ben and his whole crew are a renegade off-shoot of the Temple dwellers, or perhaps, to use ancient/biblical distinctions, the Temple dwellers are a priestly cast set apart from the interactions with the world that lead to corruption, or at least confusion. Because let’s note, Ben doesn’t seem to know much about this Temple and he certainly seems to know nothing about the Man in Black, whom Richard and the Temple dwellers both seem aware of and fear. Richard takes Ben to the Temple to be healed when he is a boy and Ben goes to the Temple to be judged – but let’s note that Ben never makes it to the actual Temple. The smoke monster confronts him in the tunnels under the outer walls. And what is up with the relationship between the smoke monster and Ben? Ben treats the smoke monster as a kind of demi-god: now that we know that the smoke monster is one incarnation for the Man in Black, it makes me wonder how it is Ben got swindled into dealing with him and why Ben doesn’t seem to know about the counter-force to Jacob’s power. Maybe Ben and his people were exiled from the Temple years ago – i.e. there was an actual rift of some kind and while they think they are preserving the original traditions they are cut off from the source of their people’s wisdom, etc. represented by the Temple. Or maybe they are the group that is supposed to live “in the world” – outside the Temple, protecting it from invaders. But in their distance they have wandered from the traditions that are alive in the Temple, and fall into relationships with the Man in Black and his proxies, mistaking them for Jacob. If either of these is even somewhat true, I really want to know what that means about Richard. And what did the MiB mean when he referred to Richard’s “chains” – a metaphor for his enslavement to Jacob, or an actual time when Richard was a prisoner?

Unlike you, I’m not so sure I trust Sayid’s resurrection. Yes, I was the cruciform position and the echoes to his earlier torture. But I kept thinking of Ben’s words to Sun: dead is dead. You can’t come back from that. The fact that the Temple dwellers seem to agree and are shocked to see Sayid rise again, really got my suspicions going. Isn’t there some part of you that wonders if the MiB isn’t using Sayid’s death as a proxy too? We know the MiB can appear as anyone who has arrived dead or died on the island – Christian, Locke, Alex (when she confronts Ben after the smoke monster leaves). In that latter case, he appeared as Locke, then the smoke monster, then Alex again. Then again we have no reason to think he can be in two places at once and it seems like a big loophole if he can suddenly just pop up in the Temple, but the fact that Jacob is so insistent that Sayid not die, made me wonder if there won’t be some nefarious consequence to his death.

But let’s get to the real mystery of the episode: the parallel universes. I like your theory that it was Jacob’s death, not the bomb, not the Incident, that led to our characters being back on that plane, and clearly whatever happened caused the island versions of themselves to move through time and we know that these movements through time represent some sort of misalignment of the island. Or maybe,since they appear to have flashed to the time they were always trying to get back to, this flash is a strange re-alignment of the island – an undoing of the time-wrinkles that have been screwing things up and keeping our characters from one another. And at one and the same time, did they go back in time three years in the real world (to the time when there plane was first flying to LAX) and are now living out an alternative past to their current present? You are so right that not all is well in normal-ville. While Jack does not seem to have any memory of his alternative island life, he does experience intense fear/premonitions as the plane hurtles through turbulence and he has that weird deja vu with Desmond. And Desmond?!! What in the world is he doing on that plane and where does he go?! That was perhaps the biggest mystery to me – and what made me suspect that we aren’t in the simple past at all. This isn’t what would have happened, but is either a “do-over” that is in some latent way still affected by all that already happened on the island over the last three years. Or is what would have happened if the island was no more – like, for instance, buried under the sea! In which case, Desmond was never there and his appearance on the plane is just coincidence. I did like seeing all our characters interacting with each other, repeating relationships and connections we saw on the island. But I kind of hope they explain what is going on with this parallel universe or resolve it pretty soon, cause I’m not sure I want the split narratives to last all season.

There is still so much more to say, but I am going to save it for other weeks and other mysteries. I will end with echoing Natalie’s request – help us out, dear readers. What did we miss? What should we be thinking about? What did you think?

let the games begin!
K

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Season 6, Episode 3: What Kate Does

Dear Natalie,

I know the episode is called “What Katie Does” (a throw back to the episode “What Katie Did” – was that all the way back in season 1?!) and I will get to the Kate, Claire (Ethan!) story in a moment. But I want to start at the Temple with Sayid’s resurrection, or, if you believe Dogan and Lennon, his infection. It should be pretty clear by now that I am putting most of my explanatory eggs in this basket – figuring out the whole relationship between dark and light, good and evil, Jacob and the Man in Black seems the key to the rest. Which force is which and what power do they really have? I am totally open to the idea that the lines between good and evil aren’t as neatly drawn as they sometimes appear – in fact, I’m all for that. I am also open to the idea that what seems good might be evil and vice versa. But the heart of the island mystery does seem to revolve around this cosmic struggle and I want to get to the bottom of it!

This episode helped advance our knowledge, at least a little bit. Or, in good Lost fashion, it at least gave us small pieces of the puzzle that we can try to fit together. Like the fact that once Sayid comes back to life (or seems to come back to life?), the Temple Dwellers get mighty suspicious and subject him to diagnosis that looks an awful lot like torture. They tell him he passes the test and then admit to each other that they are lying. They are convinced that he is infected, but as they tell Jack later after the poison pill wrangling, by “infected” they mean “claimed.” It can’t be a coincidence that they use the same word for Sayid’s supposed infection that Rousseau used to describe what happened to her people, especially since we are about to meet her re-incarnation in the infected Claire at the end of the episode. Infected, apparently, does not mean possessed, if we think of whatever is happening to not-Locke as a kind of possession. I have not gotten the impression that Sayid is another vessel for the Man in Black, at least not in the same way. But the fact that Rousseau’s infections began after her people get dragged to the Temple by the Smoke Monster seems to suggest that whatever this infection is, it has to do with the MIB and the general creeping darkness he has so far represented. I have to admit, while I want to know more, I like this language of being “claimed.” To my ears it suggests that there might be a way to refuse or shake off the claim, where possessed is a bit more thorough-going. Granted, Dagon and Lennon don’t think Sayid stands much of a chance fighting the growing darkness inside him, hence the poison pill, but one could presumably renounce a claim.

And I have to get a bit theological/philosophical at this point too. Remember that the big argument between Jacob and the MIB has to do with the fundamental corruption of the human person and the capacity for free will. If the MIB is someone responsible for this claim of darkness, it would fit with the kind of cosmic wager the two seemed to be having over whether or not humans can choose the good on their own. It is also interesting that if whatever is infecting Sayid (if we can trust the Temple Dwellers to begin with) is the same thing that infected Rousseau’s people, that the clearest manifestation we saw of it was when Rousseau’s husband tried to lull her into a truce only to try and shoot her. In other words, this darkness is primarily directed at other people – it is the very manifestation of fighting, killing, backstabbing, and destruction that the MIB claims is true of all people and that Jacob wants to resist. I have to wonder if somehow the whole season isn’t going to revolve around this basic axis: can our characters choose grace for each other, instead of suspicion and self-interest?

Not fully understanding how this whole infection/claim thing works, I am not sure just who it is Jin encountered in the figure of Claire at the end of the episode. Is she dead? was she dead? Is she fully given over to infection? If she is supposed to be a Rousseau figure, does that mean Rousseau was deluded all along and it wasn’t her companions but herself who was infected?

We were prepped for the return of the wild, bereft mother figure by the presence of Claire in the Alterna-Universe. There is so much to say there: about her relationship with Kate, her impending decision about what to do with Aaron, about the surprising and fantastic return of Dr. Ethan Goodspeed!! I am going to leave this to you, or to each of our future musings if you don’t want to go there either.

I want to close with two last observations: 1) Sawyer’s speech to Kate on the dock was one of the most emotionally honest of the entire series for me and I think a lot will hinge on how he continues to deal with his very real, palpable grief. 2) the theme of leadership was brought to the fore in a totally new way, with Miles explicitly suggesting there is “a leadership position” that presumably only one person can fill at a time, and that Hugo (!) has currently filled it. Except that Jack pretty much still seemed like the leader…

I can’t wait to hear what you thought…

xoxo,

K

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Hey Kathryn,

Well I whole-heartedly agree with your comparisons between Claire and Rousseau; affirmed not only by the way Claire looks and her gun-toting appearance, but also by the reappearance of wild traps in the woods that Kate and Jin’s overly-chatty tour guides admit are no longer Danielle’s (um, did you also have a problem taking Mac from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia seriously in that role?).  And of course, there’s the connection between Danielle’s and Claire’s island pregnancies and safe-island deliveries. We are reminded of this as we get to watch Claire’s almost-labour back in the non-island world facilitated by the fabulously creepy Ethan (I have no idea what to make of that – if the alternate universe has island dwellers filling normal roles back in this world, how long can it be before we get to see the lovely Juliet again?!).  When he claims that he doesn’t want to stick her with needles, we remembered how he once did, but that he did so in order to inoculate her and keep her safe and, in so doing, sort of become her friend.  So I’m left wondering how pregnancy relates to the infection – sure, non-preggers folks get it too (Danielle’s friends, as you note, and now Sayid).  But as we’ve seen the only two island mothers catch the disease (Sun escapes before delivery), I have to wonder if there’s some play on ancient Greek tropes of women’s sexuality and childbirth blurring the boundaries between the natural and spiritual realms going on here.

I too am intrigued by this battle between encountering others with grace or malice and how it will play out in Sayid…especially knowing that he’s got whatever Danielle and Claire had/have (and how do the temple dwellers know that Claire is Jack’s sister?).  Certainly we saw Danielle’s ruthlessness, especially in her early relationship with Sayid.  But we also saw her begin to form alliances with the flight 815 folks, help them out, warn them about the black smoke monster, and eventually spend some time working with them to get her daughter back, who she then dies trying to rescue from the fake-Dharma folks.  With Danielle, then, the infection makes her totally badass and able to survive on her own in somewhat ruthless ways.  But it doesn’t make her incapable of relationships and forming bonds with others.  And so perhaps the current assessment of Sayid’s condition is not quite right – perhaps the Others only think the infection animalizes a human because they refused to treat Danielle as anything other than an animal?

We might also note, then, that if the infection makes its host totally badass and ruthless, that’s exactly what happened to Sun after she left the island and gave birth, as we’ve noted in numerous previous posts…so I’m wondering also if there’s some connection there too?

What I was left wondering with Sayid, though, was why he would need to take the poison pill willingly for it to work?  Why would Dogan and Lennon go through the rigmarole of having Jack give it to him rather than slip it to him themselves?  And how did the torture diagnose the disease?

I loved Sayid’s confusion about the torture – for him, they couldn’t possibly be seeking information with it because they weren’t trying to get him to say anything.  Little did he know, they were gathering information with it, just as he always attempted to do with his own torture practices; it just wasn’t the kind of information one speaks.  It’s interesting to me to note, then, that we’ve never really seen Sayid’s torture of others produce truth.  It’s always simply forced people to say whatever he wanted to hear…which makes me wonder if this torture-diagnosis has also produced whatever Dogan and Lennon were expecting to find, or if it brought forth something accurate.

At the very least we know that Sayid is not a zombie – I did love that line!

Oh, and I also loved Miles continuing to ask Sayid questions about his ‘death’ – was there a white light…did you see family?  Sayid only remembering being shot and nothing after continues to puzzle Miles in a way that we don’t yet understand, but I’m curious to know.

And finally, a few things I’m excited to watch develop: I was intrigued by Dogan’s use of language to separate himself from those he leads and wonder where that’s going; now we know that Kate can find Claire on the island (the reason she came back), what will happen when she finds her?; and we’ve long wondered what it is that Aaron is going to do or how he is going to be significant…I feel an answer to that one coming kind of soon!

ox,
Natalie

PS: I do love your title for this week’s post – a lovely play on the creed that I’m sure our high-liturgy friends will enjoy!

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Episode 4: The Substitute

Hey Kathryn,

Ok, so we got a little movement on what those numbers mean tonight!  That’s one of the big mysteries for me.  Sure, we don’t know how Jacob ‘plays’ with them or what his own logic is behind them, but we do know now that each one on the hatch…and played by Hugo in the lottery…and which get punched into the catastrophe-barring computer program corresponds to one of our Oceanic friends.  And given how often these numbers appear on their own in the show (as house numbers, flight 8-15, in random stories, etc…) is anyone else feeling like me and wanting to go back through the first 5 seasons for a second look of where they appear and if, when appearing, they correspond to the folks’ names written on the wall: 4-Locke; 8:Reyes; 15:Ford; 16:Jarrah; 23:Shephard; 42:Kwon. I loved that Jin and Sun (continuing their brilliant Lord of the Flies Samneric way of being) were together!  And I was especially intrigued that the numbers didn’t correspond to the Oceanic 6, but mixed that up a little (ha, Kate didn’t get one!).  But what are we to make of 175:Costas; 27:Kalen; 90:Troop and others…including a Frank (Lapides?).  Oof, we rewound and rewatched so many times but couldn’t come up with much more here…any thoughts, K?  Did you notice something I missed?

So each person on that wall stands as a “candidate” – one who Jacob follows to see if they might take his place as the island’s protector.  Locke is out and, it seems, Sawyer will be too.  Flock’s (fake+Locke) explanation that Jacob has continually guided our friends to the island throughout their lifetime, undermining their free will in hidden, almost malignant ways intrigued me.  This could explain how the numeral sequence makes it out into the real world – how Hurley finds it and plays it, for example, but also in all the ways it appears in slightly unnoticeable moments.

Real Locke took the show tonight, though – it was lovely to have Helen’s return (in her “Peace and Karma” t-shirt…why not just make it say Namaste?!).  Did you notice that she mentioned Locke’s father as a wedding guest, though?  Does that mean we’re to think that Locke’s back was broken in some way other than attempted murder by dear old dad?  An old question resurfaced for me here – if we say ‘whatever happened, happened,’ then what constitutes a happening?  Can a broken spine count, but not the way the spine gets broken? And as my friend Thunder pointed out to me tonight, if that spine gets fixed, does it matter how either?  Island healing or Jack’s offer of surgery – if it’s just the spine itself (the bodily aspect) that matters…then can the events around that happening shift depending on context?  And if so, then how will Boone die?  How will we lose Charlie again?

Furthermore, when it comes to the difference between Locke and Flocke – what are we to do with the obvious continuities between the two? Despite whatever possession or inhabitation or particular form of infection Flocke is under, he bears his own memories still and he bears his own dispositions (“you can’t tell me what to do”).  So where is Lost locating the endurance of identity?  This is a resurrection with a new body, not the endurance of the old body or even the soul…but a new creation out of the pattern of the old…and in a face that can no longer be changed (fascinating!).

Ok, so the rocks situation was interesting.  Flocke tossing the white rock (presumably Jacob’s rock) into the water as an “inside joke”…what was that about?  If felt more ominous than playful.  If Jacob and the MiB have had some balance going on in the way the island is run, does this literal tipping of the scales shift the atmosphere to pure chaos?  And on that note, who was that creepy kid running through the woods?  And why is Richard so exceptionally freaked out?

Ok, I’m leaving so much out for you – Ben’s hilariously poignant eulogy for John; Elena’s description of Richard as one Locke might recruit as a candidate; Ben’s lie re: who killed Jacob; Sawyer’s recognition that Locke is not the real Locke because he isn’t scared; Hurley’s real world success; the Of Mice and Men reference, and so, so much more!

And I’ll leave you with this link to the lyrics of the song that Sawyer was listening to while drunk in Dharmaville – seriously, they do cover every detail! It’s stuff like this that makes me realize nothing happens by accident in this show! “I’m the runaway son of a nuclear a-bomb…Baby detonate for me” – what a perfect song to help work through Juliet’s a-bomb detonation death!  And it leaves me wondering what this forgotten boy is searching for, searching to destroy?

xoxo,
Natalie

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Dear Natalie,

What a satisfying episode! It felt like we were really getting somewhere, even if we still have a long way to go. We know Jacob has been sending lists to the Others, and presumably those lists are transcribed from the names on his cave ceiling. We know what the names are supposed to mean – or at least what Jacob thinks they mean: they are lists of people who are candidates to take his place as “protector” of the island. One interesting question that was not answer is why does Jacob need a substitute? Does the MIB need one too? Did Jacob foresee his own death? Was he originally a substitute for someone else? And given that he doesn’t age and has been on the island for at least several centuries, what’s the rush to find a replacement? I was really struck by Flock’s comment to James that he knows what it is to be trapped but that at one time he was a man. That seems to imply that he is no longer a man (same for Jacob?) and that he is trapped on the island against his will, caught up in some cosmic game (the rules of which are somehow binding, even though it takes the freaky ghost boy in tattered clothes to remind him of one of them: you can’t kill him, whoever “him” is).

But I am getting ahead of myself. I also loved seeing alterna-Locke, still wheelchair bound, but at least in a loving relationship (presumably reconciled to his father, as you say), still frustrated, still constrained, but so much better prepared to deal. I agree with your and Thunder’s musings about what constitutes a happening in the idea that whatever happened happened. Perhaps it is something primarily physical, the effect not the cause being important. I thought of the conundrum in a pretty common sense way, the way we often mean when we play “what if” games. What if I weren’t in a wheelchair? What if I hadn’t one the lottery? What if I had fallen in love with someone else? It is a good philosophical check to think: if no matter what I did I would end up in a wheelchair, would that change the way I responded to it? As you say, this kind of fatalism, however, assumes that there are some events that are “bigger” or more important than others and these are the ones that we cannot change – they are the well-worn grooves of destiny and character down which our lives flow, regardless of what stream, river, or tributary gets them started. You are absolutely right that as far a scientific understanding of the space-time continuum and cause and effect, this is not the way it would work  – there would be no “bigger” or “lesser” events, just a series that is either unfolding or broken and diverted into a new series. But if you think of the chain as a closed system, one can still imagine the chain breaking, spliting off in a different series, and then ending up in the same place. I think there is thinking about this in parallel worlds theory, where certain salient features would remain from one world to the next, but they would only appear significant by their repetition, not by anything inherent in them.

I am totally out of my depth here, so I will return to the simpler terms of destiny, miracle, and free choice that are constants in the Lost universe! We see this theme explicitly discussed by Locke and Helen – is it destiny that he met Jack Shepherd, a spinal surgeon, or is it just coincidence. But it is also the bedrock of the whole cosmic struggle between Jacob and the MIB. The MIB accuses Jacob of tinkering and manipulating the free will of his candidates, drawing them against any conscious choice to the island. In turn, he promises knowledge and freedom. I couldn’t help but hear the echoes of the Serpent promising Eve knowledge like the gods if she only disobeyed the arbitrary injunction against eating the fruit from one tree. The Eve and Serpent story has been discussed theologically and philosophically exactly along those lines – especially during the Enlightenment. The only reason God gives for commanding Adam and Eve not to eat that particular fruit is that they will become like gods themselves. Which, if the name of the game is casting off the shackles of arbitrary domination and seizing/creating one’s own destiny, is a pretty stupid and petty reason. In fact, one might say, with the Serpent, that Eve was doing the moral thing – the autonomous, brave thing to find out for herself, to make her own destiny. And the Serpent then – like the MIB – is not the “bad guy” but the agent of liberation. Sure, he has a pretty bleak view of humanity, but at least he thinks highly enough of their self-determination to let them go at it without moral or legal constraints. Then again, he seems to need Sawyer to get off the island, and that seems to be his big motivation, so how much should we trust him, especially since he thinks all of humanity will fight and kill each other anyway?

The Serpent in the garden isn’t the only biblical character that is alluded to in respect to the MIB. Ben also describes him as turning into a “pillar of black smoke.” This is an accurate description of the Smoke Monster, but it also echoes with resonances of the pillar of smoke as the shape God takes to lead the Israelites in the wilderness after their escape from Egypt. In this parallel, the MIB is compared to God (and remember Flocke was already compared to Moses at the end of the last episode), albeit a dark pillar. Like many commentators have pointed out, it is unclear if Jacob is all good and the MIB is all bad. But I kind of think it will come down to the big question of the series: faith. When is it better to trust to a higher power, an authority you don’t fully understand but you hope/believe knows best, and when is it better to struggle against this fate, this arbitrary rule, and insist on one’s own autonomous self-creation? Notice that this is the one thing that unites Flock and Locke: the phrase “don’t tell me what I can’t do” – which is pretty much a rallying cry against arbitrary constraints.

We haven’t even talked about how what we learned tonight fits into what has been going on at the Temple and with infected Sayid. Is Sayid’s infection proof that he is no longer a candidate? And why was Kate’s name on the list in the Ankh if her name was not on the cave ceiling? Moth Chase readers, help us out! Theories, observations, analysis we missed or didn’t get to?

Let the whirlwind keep speaking!
K

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Episode 5 – The Lighthouse

You Have What It Takes

Dear Natalie,

The pattern of alternating between mind-blowing big revelations episodes and slow and steady fill in the plot episodes continues. After last week’s dynamo, we have a slight reprieve from big mysteries solved and a more steadfast exposition of character, namely Jack’s character. I don’t mean to slight the revelations we are given – Jacob has been watching the candidates (others too?) from a special lighthouse chamber using a kind of magic mirror set-up; Claire and Kate are headed for a standoff, with Claire well in league with Flock/MIB, plus we’ve seen she knows how to wield an ax and sew up a nasty set of leg wounds (watch out Kate); and we know that Jack has been chosen for something particularly special – perhaps he’s top of Jacob’s list; there is someone headed to the island that Jacob wants to come (perhaps the “they” he referred to when he said “their coming” just before Flocke kicked his dying body into the fire?); and “someone bad” is headed for the Temple (um, any votes for our favorite shape-shifting Esau?). Not too bad as far as mysteries elucidated and/or made more mysterious.

But the real action was with Jack, both island Jack and Alterna-Jack. Perhaps the most interesting twist was the revelation that Alterna-Jack is a father (any significance that his son, David, also bears a strong biblical name, the chosen king of Israel and the beginning of the lineage for the long-awaited Messiah?). I was surprised at how surprised I was to see him in the father role, perhaps because he has always seemed so lousy at intimate relationships, or perhaps because, like Island-Jack, I’ve secretly thought he would make a terrible father. I can’t say his parenting skills were any too impressive to begin with, but like a lot of things in Alterna-world (Locke getting a second chance at love; Kate getting to escape; Claire getting to choose to keep Aaron), he is given a chance to right the wrongs of his own father and break the cycle of judgment and alienation. We’ve talked a lot about the theme of dysfunctional parent/child relationships in this show, and that theme was on full display this episode. We haven’t seen a lot of forgiveness or repair to these broken relationships, and there was something so satisfying, and moving, about seeing Jack get to choose a path against the one he knew himself, and seeing his son accept his love.

I’ve started to wonder if this isn’t one of the lynch pins tying various themes and motifs together: the reparation of the child/parent relationship as the key to grace/inner peace/redemption/salvation, what have you. Not only are there a lot of literal parent/child relationships to repair (and one of the key signs of trouble in paradise is the problem with reproduction itself), but the whole debate between Jacob and the MIB about free will, destiny, and repetition of past evils is about this in a more metaphorical way. On one hand, the MIB clearly believes, or wants to convince others, that Jacob is a paternalistic, negligent father figure who dictates from on high but doesn’t really love anyone. On the other hand, Jacob allowing Jack to break his mirrors and giving him space to try and work out what is going on could be seen as a remarkable kind of “parenting” – allowing for free will even in the midst of trying to guide a child toward best actions/decisions. Even the question of accepting or defying fate could be seen as a question of accepting or denying a kind of (parental?) authority. I found it totally fascinating that Jacob used the same parental affirmation toward Jack – you’ve got what it takes – that his own father denied him and that he was able to offer his son in the parallel universe of the flash-sideways. This whole tangle of themes is something I want to think more about, especially as we watch the unhinging of Claire’s mind in the grief and despair of her own sundered parent/child relationship.

In the interest of reigning in this post before it goes on far too long, I’ll leave a discussion of Claire to you, if you want to pick it up. I will just end by asking two questions: why/how does Claire know so surely that Locke is not Locke, but her “friend?” If Flocke just appeared in Claire’s tent, where is Sawyer?

xoxo,

K

————

Hey Kathryn,

Ok, so diving right into it, apparently Jack had his appendix out in Alterna-world when he was 7 or 8 years old (rather than when he was 30-something on the island, surgery done by Juliet).  This is an interesting wrinkle on what we’ve seen previously in the vein of ‘whatever happened, happened’.  Usually events that had to happen happened around the same time that they had to happen.  Opening up the possibility that things that have to happen could actually happen at any moment takes me back, then, to wondering exactly what puts Locke in the wheelchair in the Alterna-world.  We all thought last week about the possibility that his father – now invited to the wedding – might have had nothing to do with his injury.  But we didn’t think about the possibility that Locke may have spent much more of his life in the chair than we initially thought.  This temporal difference between events will certainly be something to track, I think.

And of course, I’m also left wondering, then, who David’s mother is?  Was Jack married?  And why is Jack in the Alterna-world surprised by his appendix scar which, presumably is a part of his life narrative now.  He’s not confused about having a kid…why be confused about the scar?  I love these little incongruencies that let us know something’s not right in this supposedly redeemed world.

Did you, like me, really want to see who was at degree 108?  Sure, Jack wanted his own moment, but couldn’t they have given us that little piece of info first?  I’m still wondering if it’s Kate, but maybe the answer will be even more shocking than that…Aaron, perhaps?  Or even Ben (ok, probably not that one, but oof, wouldn’t that be fun?!).  While somewhat clichéd, I found Jack smashing the mirror to be quite satisfying and even a little powerful.  He pieces things together so quickly – I mean, really, he’s fully bought into the magic of the island if his first thought is that some mythical guy has used this magical mirror to watch their lives in the real world rather than thinking, “what the hell is this mirror and how come I can see my house in it?”.  That’s some fast, abstract and mystical reasoning he didn’t have in season 1!

The moment was also so beautifully reminiscent of the Lacanian mirror phase.  In this psychoanalytic theory, the child encounters itself in an unfragmented way, as a whole, by seeing itself in a mirror.  It is a crucial step in coming to self-awareness for Lacan.  But it’s also fraught because the child experiences this awareness of wholeness as a threat on its selfhood because that image of wholeness reveals the potential for the fragmentation of identity.  And this is exactly what Jack is dealing with in this episode – traces of his other self from the other narrative erupting into his present (in bodily ways).  And he has a classic Jack reaction: rather than integrate himself within himself, he smashes the alternative image, the image he finds threatening for some primordial, but not entirely rational, reason.  What the symbolism is for the competing worlds in which he lives, though, I’m not sure yet.

So all I really have to say about Claire is that I’m surprised by how much I don’t pity her…I really felt something for Danielle, but I don’t for Claire.  Kate saved Aaron after Claire just toodled off into the woods, so her motherly aggression towards Kate actually just pisses me off.  I did, however, love watching Jin move through trusting Claire and then losing that trust.  And I too am curious about why Claire recognizes Locke as her friend, rather than Locke – I went back and forth throughout the episode on whether or not I thought she was ‘infected,’ whatever that means?!  But with that closing, I was certain that whatever infected might be, she’s it.

We also got the reminder of Adam and Eve in the caves – a mystery yet to be solved, but a promise that it will be!  And we were reminded that Jack found the caves following the ghost of his dad.  And we saw Shannon’s asthma inhaler.  All these clues are sure to get developed in the next few episodes – perhaps with a return of ghost Shannon and a final answer to who those skeletons belong to?  Oh, and did you notice that McCutcheon whiskey is still kicking around in Alterna-world on Jack’s mother’s bar?  And Samurai guy is also in Alterna-world…curious!

And finally, did David’s musical genius remind you at all of Daniel Faraday – also a piano genius in his day?  Obviously I’m not saying that Daniel is Jack’s son in some strange temporal-wrinkle.  But I’m wondering if there is a symbolic connection there?

Oh Kathryn, there’s so much more to say – I’m feeling like we need a separate post to even begin to get at the bigger-picture here!

ox,
Natalie

**************

Episode 6

Hey Kathryn,

Yeah, ok – um, where to start?!  Two quick recaps?  In Alterna-world we’ve got Sayid’s lover/wife Nadia married to his brother, Omar, but still in love with Sayid.  Omar owes money to the guy who Widmore once sent to the island to kill Ben Linus (along with the data-collecting crew of Miles, Daniel and Charlotte).  Sayid kills that guy and his cronies and finds Jin, unable to speak English, locked in his freezer.  And throughout this narrative, Sayid wrestles with an old question for him in this show: what kind of a man is Sayid?  Is he reformed (i.e. he won’t kill the bad guys) or is he still corrupt (i.e. he will kill the bad guys)?  Of course, when he does end up killing the bad guys, we’re left wondering what that actually proved because he does it for love in the end.

Ok, on the island – holy crap!  Dogan sends Sayid to kill Flocke but it turns out to be a trick.  Flocke convinces Sayid over to his side and gets him to kill Dogan and Lenon, thus allowing Smokie to enter the temple grounds.  Everyone in the temple gets killed by Smokie (in a great spin on the Old Testament story of the Passover – you’ve got till sundown – title of the episode – to decide whether to obey and live or disobey and be killed).  Again, we’re facing the question attached to Sayid’s deeds – what kind of a man is he?  Dogan tells us that the scale has tipped in Sayid’s heart from good to evil and it seems that Sayid goes on to prove him right.  But again his actions have been for love (Flocke promises him he can have the one who died in his arms back – of course, we the audience are left wondering if he’s going to get Nadia or Shannon for his promised reward!).

In both cases, we can judge Sayid’s actions as either evil or good – murder vs. love – and the only way to tell the difference would really be to have a sense of the absolute truth of the situation…which we of course don’t have access to.  But on the island, it seems in the end it will come down to whether Smokie is truly the evil incarnate or not.  Sayid’s actions are feeding a larger narrative, the outcome of which we don’t yet know and, therefore, the outcome of which we cannot yet judge.

And what the what with Elena, Lapides, Sun and Ben bursting in last minute to attempt to save the day with a hidey-hole safe-spot in a wall and Miles casually telling Sun Jin is around somewhere!

The episode ends with Sayid, Claire (and tag-along Kate who better watch out for crazy Claire) bursting out of the temple (in which the brilliantly creepy music of Claire’s Catch a Falling Star song is hovering over the wreckage of bodies and, oh did you notice, a set of three burning crosses?!) to join Flocke and his posse of bearded badass looking men.  That shot felt a far cry from Locke as Moses leading his people across the desert, sorry – beach.  I wondered if all those beards were supposed to evoke common images of Christ and his disciples or if they were just supposed to look thuggish…any thoughts?

Some fun little connection moments – besides Jin and Widmore’s henchman, that is: Sayid and Jack pass each other in the hall at the hospital; and despite Dogan’s sad story about never getting to see his son again, we can remember that in Alterna-world the two are together (at Jack’s kid’s piano recital).

So I’ve defended the last few episodes that lots of folks have complained were just too boring and slow moving, but I gotta say, I wasn’t that keen on this one!  Too much, way too much happened!  It felt crammed and overwhelming to me and just way too filled up with moments of, “ha ha, we’ve stuck this guy here who you once knew and here’s another guy you know in a freezer and something to do with a baseball and try to figure all that out suckers!”  I’m used to Lost feeling intellectually stimulating with its twists and turns.  But this just felt like twists for the sake of turns.  And I was frankly disappointed.

So I’m really curious to hear what you thought!  Did you enjoy this one?  Are you seeing connections that I’m just missing?  Help me out Kathryn (and our mothchase friends)…what am I not getting?

ox,
Natalie

——

Dear Natalie,

I am with you on the overwhelming amount that happened in this episode. I really liked it, however, but only because I am holding out hope that all these details will be sorted out somehow and in a way, the more we can cram into each episode the more hope we have of getting to the bottom of all the many mysteries. Though, you are totally right that we are also getting overloaded with new mysteries, and that is none too helpful! There are two big hinges for me that once revealed I hope will make sense of most of this madness: 1) what is the relationship between the island and the real world? We’ve learned that in their flashbacks our beloved islanders were being called to the island by Jacob, establishing one kind of literal connection. The big mystery now is what is the relationship between these two parallel worlds. Will they ever converge and how? 2) what are the forces that govern this island – or as you say more succinctly, is the MIB/Smokey/Flocke evil incarnate?

I don’t have a metaphysical answer to the first question – some explanation of the space/time continuum that makes these parallel worlds possible. But it does seem like this whole season has suggested one less metaphysical and more existential answer – the relation between the two worlds is the character of our characters. That is to say, in many of the episodes this season we’ve seen our characters struggling with the fundamental questions of who they are: does Jack have what it takes? Is Kate a runner? is Locke defined by his limitations and fears? and in last night’s episode – what kind of man is Sayid? Each of our characters has been plagued by fundamental questions of their integrity and central motivations and slowly but surely we have been working through each one, watching these struggles play out on parallel stages – the island and the alterna-world. And what we’ve seen time and again is that for better or for worse, our characters pretty much play it the same on both stages. That isn’t to say that nothing changes. We’ve seen things work out for the better in the alterna-world: Jack makes a breakthrough with his son, Kate gets to stand by Claire, Sayid is repenting for his torturous past, Locke embraces his limits and finds real love. But they are all still driven by the central character-defining question of their lives (do you have what it takes? what kind of man are you? “don’t tell me what I can’t do!”). I am intrigued by this and its relation to the whole free will/destiny debate. To what degree is character destiny for Lost? And if character is something that to some degree is chosen, in the midst of and against all the other pressures exerted on you by other people (especially, as we’ve noted, by parents on children), is it fair to say that our characters are choosing their fates even while experiencing that choice as something happening to them from outside forces?

Of course, a huge part of whatever the answer to that question might be has to do with the second big hinge question: who or what are the forces that are governing this island? And perhaps more importantly, do they really govern the island? Can our characters resist or not? We aren’t learning that much more about Jacob (expect that he kept MIB at bay and his death ushers in a new panic and chaos), so let’s stick with Flocke/MIB. I agree completely – we’ve got a definite passover/angel of death thing going on when Smokey rushes through the temple, killing everything in site. That allusion was driven home for me when Kate was hanging by her fingernails looking up into the eye of the smoke storm. Did you see those flashes of light? And the kind of amazed look on Kate’s face when the monster had passed and she turned to face Claire? Maybe I am making it up, but it seemed like there was more than just fear in her face, but something like awe or amazement – like she had just seen something sublime. I know this might sound crazy, but it made me think of Moses and God passing by him in a cloud of smoke because Moses couldn’t handle seeing God’s face. Though as you say, the Moses allusions of season 5 don’t seem to apply to Flocke anymore. If anything, he is now cast in the role of God/God’s angel of death. Or, of Satan. Remember how when Sayid died in the Temple pool and they carried him out of the water he was hanging in a cruciform shape? Did you catch the same christ overtones when he and Flocke were talking and Flocke offered him anything in the world he wanted? Did it remind you of Satan tempting Christ in the desert? Except unlike Christ, Sayid takes the bait. And then, as you already pointed out, that creepy rendition of “Catch a Falling Star” was playing as Flocke leads his people (and a wary Kate) out of the Temple. At first I thought having Claire sing snatches of that song was just to establish a parallel with Kate (that is the same song Kate sings to Aaron when they are off the island). But when it showed up again at such a crucial moment, it took on a whole different meaning to me. All I could think about was how Satan is described as a falling star in the book of Revelation. So that means we’ve got Flocke/Smokey/MIB increasingly being associated with evil/Satan/destructive forces – but also hints that call this characterization into question (like maybe he is God, not Satan, and just a God who is lest squeamish about killing off the disobedient than we often like to imagine).

One thing I did love about this episode was the baseball on Dogan’s desk. We all know how important objects are in Lost – there are not misplaced books, no accidental ornaments, certainly not when they are carefully focused on for more than one episode. In this case, we’ve seen Dogan fondling that baseball for several episodes and I’ve wondered if it had some kind of secret power. I really loved that the power it had was a connection to the life he left behind and the son he gave up everything to save. In that sense, the baseball was a holy object, but in a way deeply connected to the choices Dogan had made and the man he was trying to be. Which brings us all back to the character discussion and on that loop I will stop.

You are so right to point out the mysteries we still have to deal with: what is Jin doing in the freezer? Will Jin and Sun find each other on the island? Why did Kate get singled out to get stuck with Locke and a raving mad Claire? What in the world was up with Ilena, Ben, and Lapides? I guess I’m hoping we’ll get another packed episode next week that will actually advance these stories and keep adding pieces to the puzzle that is supposed to solve all the mysteries (or, at least some of them!).

And by the looks of it, we are getting back to Ben next week, which should make you very happy!
xoxo,

Kathryn

***************

Episode 7

Hey Kathryn,

So after I complained a bit about last week’s episode, I actually watched it a second time and really enjoyed it.  So I think this is how this season is going to go – we expect answers, and we keep getting more questions but, in essence, that’s what Lost is…why should the last season be any different?  But tonight I got to have a Ben centered episode, and as you know, I love Ben!  So even with the twists and turns and slight slowness, I really enjoyed this one!

First things first: we have another storyline of redemption in the Alterna-world.  This time, Ben saves Alex, from a potential disaster of his own creation.  But where was Danielle?  And how are Danielle and Alex living not only off the island, but also in LA?! Shouldn’t they be in France?  And why would Danielle, who seemed to be fairly successful in her own pre-island life, be working two jobs just to make rent?  And just how much of these back stories is the show going to fill in for us?

What I loved about Ben’s Alterna-world story (besides the return of Dr. Arzt) was the way it (somewhat heavy-handedly) gave us two insights about two of our characters. Ben’s description of Napoleon’s loss of power being even more significant than his experience of exile of course was describing his own island character – a fact affirmed for us in his amazing speech to Elena near the end of the episode.  And in the teacher-lounge, when John notes to Ben that when the man in charge stops caring about those in his care, it’s time for a change, it seemed he was talking as much about the shift in power from Jacob to Smokie/Flocke as he was about the pervy principal.

In both narratives, Ben resists Locke’s temptation of him – he doesn’t usurp the power from either the principle or to rule the island.  Elena’s acceptance of him was touching – both to us the viewers and, evidently to Ben as well.  As he rejoined the group on the beach as one of them, and then the slow-mo started rolling with music overtop while some old friends appeared around the beach’s bend, we were whisked back to that motif used so many times to end episodes in the first season and give us a sense of hope that all would be ok.

Of course, all is not ok – we didn’t end on that vision of hope and community and reconciliation, but instead closed out with Widmore’s sub approaching the island.  And thank God for it!  It’s about time we resumed our old pre-Jaco/MIB narrative of good vs. evil…we’ve got some old, less-than-mystical questions to get answered with regards to those two.

And did it strike anyone else as slightly ominous that Miles sat twirling those diamonds in his fingers as the group united on the beach?  Between that moment and Ben reminding us of his previous 3.2million dollar bribe, I was forced to recollect that the sweet, comedic-relief Miles we now know and love used to be able to be sold to the highest bidder.  Just by hanging on the ghostly sidelines, Miles has proved immensely helpful at crucial moments in the last few weeks.  As Widmore approaches, I have to wonder if he’ll purchase our friend Miles over to his (perhaps?) dark side?

Ok, Jack and Richard’s showdown was perhaps my favourite part of the episode – I love the Jack of faith so much more than the cynical, whiny baby Jack of control.  As they sat in the Black Rock across from that dynamite stick, I returned to the love I had for Dr. Shepherd in the first season.  But seeing as I’ve already gone on for so long, I’ll leave that scene to you to discuss.  They certainly made it seem as if Richard came over on the Black Rock…but I’m not sure I fully buy it yet – thoughts?

ox,
Natalie

—-

Dear N,

I am right there with you – I really liked this week’s episode and I am even enjoying the somewhat predictable pattern that is developing: focus on one character and get to the bottom of what really drives them, both on the island and in the the Alterna-world. I especially loved that we got to see Ben and Horace reunited, itself already a real step toward redemption, since in the island world, Ben was responsible for his father’s and all the other Dharma deaths. It was also the first mention of the island in the Alterna-world, and I’ve got to think that is pretty significant. I read somewhere that eventually these parallel tracks would intersect and we would leave the flash side-ways behind. Perhaps Horace’s musings about what life would have been like if the Linus men hadn’t left the island was the start of this merger.

Though his basic musing – think how different our lives would have been! – had a poignancy that he and Alterna-Ben could not appreciate. In the parallel universe, Ben faces the same test of power that he faced on the island and he refuses it. When substitute teacher Locke makes the argument to Dr. Linus that when a leader stops caring for his people it is time for a change, yes, I heard echoes of island Locke’s own behavior. But it was also a temptation that island Ben faced himself. We don’t know the whole story of how he managed to banish Widmore, but we do know that he became disillusioned with Widmore’s leadership and led a coup that ended with him in power. A power that motivated and corrupted him, right down to his daughter’s death. His refusal of that power in Alterna-world, even though on a smaller scale, was beautiful to see, and mirrored Ben’s most honest confession to date and change of heart on the island. Like you, I loved the scene when Ilena accepted him and he rejoined the beach crew, willing, finally it seems, to surrender his power and regain his faith.

That was probably the theme I loved most in this episode, a perennial theme for Lost -  how to have faith? When is it warranted, even when it flies against one’s sense of self-protection or self-interest? Ben clearly wrestled with this and when he accepts Ilena’s acceptance (something like forgiveness?), he is, in a sense, reaccepting his faith in Jacob, even though he betrayed and killed him. Richard, of course, was the other man tested by a dark night of the soul. I agree, all signs point to him having arrived on the Black Rock. It is hard to figure exactly why he would have been in chains on a slave ship, but that is my guess. His speech to Jack was not so different than the speech Ben made to Jacob just before he killed him: these are both men who have devoted their entire lives (and in Richard’s case, that is really saying something) to serving a man who promised them purpose, a plan, answers. And then he dies. As Emily commented on your post already, there is a definite parallel here with Jesus and his disciples. I’m not saying Jacob is going to mirror Jesus in any hard and fast way – the parallel, at least for now, is more around this topic of faith. What does it mean to have faith in something that appears to be a lie, to fall to pieces, to turn out horribly wrong? How does one keep believing in the stories of a man who died when you thought he never could?

It was absolutely wonderful to see Jack, the great skeptic of the series so far, stand in for this kind of believing, even though he has never met Jacob (as far as he remembers) and has no direct contact with him. Signs are definitely pointing to Jack as the successful candidate, but I’m not making any predictions now.

I do bet we’re going to get a Jin and Sun episode soon, especially since Ilena confessed the whole candidate scenario to Sun. Here’s hoping there is a reunion in there somewhere (especially since I have no idea where Jin is now!).

Speaking of candidates, when Jack asks Richard where he’s been and Richard says “you wouldn’t believe me” Jack answers “try me.” To which Richard replies “not yet.” Did you get that fun play on trying and testing – perhaps weighing the candidates?

And yes, yes, yes, bring on Widmore and some answers to that mystery. Why exactly can’t Ben and Widmore kill each other – that is the question for me. Or maybe all that has changed now that Jacob is dead?

Keep the comments coming, dear readers. As ABC likes to remind us every day – only nine episodes left!

Kathryn

*********************

Dear Moth Chase friends,

Kathryn is away this week, so I’ll be covering Lost by myself.  Please do chime in with your comments so I’ve got someone to chat with!  I always tend to enjoy Sawyer centered episodes, and this one really did it for me, pairing him with Miles (another favourite!) in the real world as the boys in blue of the LAPD.  Our LA story began with a familiar scene: Sawyer playing an old money-in-the-suitcase con after bedding an attractive lady.  And I got to thinking I was perhaps tired of this old routine, when we encountered another narrative of real world redemption. It seems as with Ben and Jack and Kate and Sayid, James too faced a pivotal moment in life and this time chose the right path – we know in his previous life, he chose the life of being a criminal…apparently in this one, he chose the path of upholding the law.  But as with our other characters, just as the immoral path contained hints of goodness, so too the moral path contains hints of the bad and once again, Sawyer is plagued by Sawyer and the need to avenge his parents’ deaths.

The truly great part of this episode, though, was the return of Charlotte – and as a blind date set-up by Miles for James.  The two hit it off superbly until she inadvertently gets caught rummaging through his drawers, he kicks her out, and she refuses to forgive him.  This episode was littered with throwbacks for old fans, though, as in the process of this break-up, we also got to see Sawyer’s copy of Watership Down from season 1, a glimpse of Charlie’s brother in the LAPD precinct…hopefully a foreshadowing of old Charlie’s own return some time soon, the code word for police rescue being LaFleur, James’ fake name from his time with the Dharma crew, and James looking mournfully at Kate’s old dress in the Dharma cages, left there after the two had knocked boots.  And of course the episode closed with Sawyer catching a runaway Kate, grinning as he recognized her from her escape – aided by him – in the airport the week prior.

What the narrative in the real world reminded us, in a way that was crucial for what happens on the island, is that Sawyer is an excellent liar and perfectly capable of charming his way into whatever he needs, even if that means pitting folks to whom he seems loyal against each other.  And so after Tina Fey lookalike Zoe captures him at the Ajira crash site (and if we continue to follow the idea that names matter in this show – then surely Zoe, the Greek word for life, is an indication that this spectacled brunette will show up again), James promises to deliver Flocke to Widmore in exchange for safe passage off the island for him and his friends.  At the same time, he tells the truth to Flocke, not out of loyalty, but out of the desire to create a diversion as Widmore and Flocke battle it out.  The plan, then, is that Sawyer and Kate will get away on the sub.

I guess we can imagine Sawyer will be loyal to Kate, but I’m actually more intrigued by the fact that the only other figure he’s really bonded with on this island is Miles…and I wonder how that connects to their relationship in the real world?  Of course, they had their time together in Dharmaville, but there seems to be some sort of a bond there that goes further than that – and I think we’re going to see more on this front.

We should also note that Widmore is prepping for Locke’s coming and seems to know how to set up the barriers across which the smoke monster can’t travel.  I am very very curious to see what the connection, then, between Widmore and Smokie is!

Besides the Widmore narrative, we also had some development in the Kate/Claire story, although nothing beyond what we all probably expected.  Claire flips out and tries to kill Kate only to ask forgiveness later…and my expectation is that she’ll flip out again at some point.  But why didn’t Sayid step in to help?

And what was particularly interesting to me was the parallel Locke drew between his own upbringing with a crazy mother and the crazy mother Aaron is about to inherit.  I’ve long wondered what Aaron’s return will look like and how he will become important in the grand scheme of things.  And we’ve commented on this blog before about the Moses imagery surrounding Flocke – in the Old Testament, Moses and Aaron are brothers whose co-labour leads to the liberation of the Israelites from captivity in Egypt.  The resonance of this bond is only enforced by Locke’s childhood stories and we should remember the bond that Locke and Aaron formed early in Aaron’s life.  Where this story is going, I don’t know, but I do think that the writers have been planning it for a long time!

Ok, so how have I missed the play on words with “the Locke Monster” before?!  Lots of commentators on this show, ourselves included, have noted the significance of all things Scottish symbolically and for driving plots along – Desmond, of course, is Scottish, as is the fake whiskey, McCutcheon, to mention a couple.  And now we’ve got a playful reference to the Loch Ness monster…a creature for whom we have no solid proof of existence, but which guides the stuff of legend and folklore the world over.

So, I can hardly contain my excitement that next week’s episode will be about Richard – finally, after much hinting at his backstory, we’re going to get it…and I can’t wait!!

xoxo,
Natalie

**************

Dear Moth Chase readers,

My Lord, where to start?! While I wasn’t crazy about the Tenerife, 1867 storyline, I absolutely *loved* seeing how Richard’s background had led to where he finds himself ‘today’ (in a loose sense of the term)!  Of course, we figured out a long time ago that he had made it over on the Black Rock, that he’d made some sort of deal with Jacob to gain eternal life, that he served as some sort of intermediary between Jacob and the island’s various inhabitants, and that the battle between Jacob and the MiB has something to do with the nature of humanity.  But the details of all these themes enjoyed their filling out immensely!

We still don’t know definitively whether it’s Jacob or the MiB who is truly evil – and I personally love that we don’t know!  But after tonight, I’m leaning on old Smokie as the darker half.  It’s certainly been true that we haven’t been able to trust everything from Jacob’s mouth, but the things that Jacob and MiB agree on don’t do the latter any favours.  We know definitively from both their admittance that the MiB believes humanity is inherently sinful and that Jacob seeks constantly to prove him wrong on this fact.  And with the smashing of the bottle at the end of the episode, it did seem that the MiB wants to release some sort of evil on the world…an evil perhaps perpetuated by his own escape from the island.  And of course, we have Isabella’s word that the MiB’s eyes are evil; that he is the devil; that if he leaves the island, as Hurley translates, “we’ll all go to Hell”.  And oh what an ominous view of Flocke eavesdropping on that moment!

So given that, I’m inclined to believe Jacob’s insistence that the islanders are not dead or in Hell and to disbelieve the MiB’s attempt to convince them of their death.  Because if you want to come up with one sure definition of the devil, it would be that he tricks humanity into its worst form of existence – he tricks humanity into death.

I loved the moment when Jacob dunked Richard in the water three times while Richard shouted, “I want to live!”.  It’s the complete opposite of the MiB’s scheming attempts.  The scene was so baptismal and, when paired with the two sharing the wine on the log, seemed connected also to Eucharistic imagery.  This imagery was heightened by the fact that Richard was reading the Gospel of Luke, chapter 4 earlier in the episode, which is the gospel that ends with Christ’s disciples recognizing him as the messiah by them sharing together in a form of the Eucharistic meal.

Incidentally, the passage Richard was reading was the first Bible passage I ever preached on, and it’s about the idea that a prophet will be rejected by his own – that the message of the truth can only be heard by strangers…that God’s work is done among the foreign, not among the expected.  This seems to parallel Jacob’s own forays into the real world to gather his followers and bring them back to the island.

The Biblical passage cited is also the one in Luke that immediately follows Jesus’ tempting by Satan in the desert.  The devil offers him riches, power and life if he will turn his back on his mission.  And as this story closes, Jesus is Baptized in the water, and saved from the devil’s clutches.  Again, in the context of this episode, that narrative fits with the idea that he has escaped the MiB to be dunked by Jacob on the beach – to inaugurate his mission as intermediary between Jacob and the people, just as Jesus does in the gospel – to become the intermediary between God and the world.

What I’m left pondering still is the role of bodies in the battle between Jacob and the MiB.  The MiB says that Jacob stole his body – stole his humanity (very interesting – so humanity is attached to bodiliness?  It seems then that it’s the loss of that body that binds the MiB to the island?).  And now the MiB has stolen John’s body?  But where has the body that we know as the MiB’s gone?  And where did he get that one in the first place?  Does this mean that whichever one is chosen as the candidate will not simply replace Jacob in their own self, but will have to die so that Jacob can have their body?

I’ve received a comment here before that I’m too hung up on this body thing – but I’d argue the contrary: we tend to miss how important bodies are for existence, and Lost is, in fact, reminding us that they are crucial – that even gods and devils and angels and demons require them to get done what they want done.

I also enjoyed, but don’t yet know what it means, how the MiB told Richard to kill Jacob before he speaks – the precise advice that Sayid received from Jacob’s emissary when he went to kill Flocke.  For a moment I wondered if the lines between Jacob and the MiB were not so neatly drawn as them representing two distinct identities – perhaps instead they were two faces of the same divinity, able to blur into each other and trade places.  This could account for why it’s never completely certain which is good and which is evil – because in the end we need to trust the word of one against the other (ah, that theme of trust in Lost I’ve discussed so many times before!).  But in the end I suppose that had more to do with these rules we don’t yet know but have had only glimpses of.  But why speech? Why does speaking make it too late?  Is it because speaking is the way we connect to each other?  Speaking somehow overcomes the power of violence because it humanizes the other?  Or is it because speaking enables control of the other?  I’m curious to find out!

And boy do I miss having Kathryn as my conversation partner here…I know she’d have something great to say!  Just to have you in the loop, dear readers, Kathryn will be away from the Moth Chase for the next little while as she gave birth to a beautiful baby boy last week.  Congratulations, Kathryn!

xoxo,
Natalie

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Yey Desmond!  Oh, how many of us hoped the hope that it would be him hidden in Widmore’s sub?  Even all beaten and drugged, it was great to see Mr. Hume again but what, I wonder, will his role be? And how will it be connected to Widmore?  Outside of this great reveal, this episode felt like one of the slower ones, making me realize that the show has us in a funny pattern.  At this point, we know if we’ve just had a great episode, the following week will dip a little.  It seems that they’re trying to avoid having an unrelenting build in excitement to the final episodes, and I actually think this pattern works.  But let’s look at what we did learn.

To be honest, I had a tough time following what happened on the island.  I feel like there should be some symbolism to Sun losing her English, but I can’t quite figure out what it is.  It looks like she and Jin might reunite next week, so I wonder if they’re trying to reverse their original situation on the island – Jin’s English has gotten amazing; it’s almost unaccented at this point.  Perhaps we’ll see some significance in him now holding the power to speak.  We’ve commented a lot on this blog about the significance of language in Lost…or at least, we’ve puzzled a lot about the significance of language on Lost (most recently, with the instructions not to let Flocke speak), and I wonder now how the Kwon’s alternating English skills will play into this big picture.

We also had Flocke proclaim that the war we’ve been long awaiting has finally come to the island.  We always thought that war was going to be between Widmore and Ben, but Ben really has stepped down this season and it’s actually starting to look like he and Charles might end up joining forces against an evil greater than both of them put together.  The calmly revealed but incredibly poignant other moments with Flocke, then, included his statement that he needs all the candidates to leave with him if he’s going to get off the island and Widmore’s proclamation that if Flocke gets of the island, everything good will be destroyed.  The former intrigues because it affirms this idea that Jacob’s death isn’t definitive; that if someone takes his place or, rather, if he is able to assume another person into his place, this battle between good and evil will continue indefinitely.  On that note, I think I’m starting to get some clarity on the MiB’s statement from last week that Jacob stole his body.  I don’t think Jacob stole “his” body, but rather, Jacob stole the body that the MiB wanted to use to get off the island.  In other words, I don’t think we’re waiting to see if Jack or the Kwons or whoever is going to take over Jacob’s job.  I think we’re waiting to see which one of them Jacob’s spirit (like, his version of the smoke monster) will take on, much in the same way Smokie has taken on Locke.  It won’t just be a passing of the baton, but rather I think it will be an actual fusing of the two into one.  And when it comes to Widmore’s concern, I find myself still struggling to figure out who to trust.  So now Widmore is good again? That’s a tough pill to swallow.  Perhaps in the end what we’ll find is that it requires a mix of good and bad to keep true evil at bay…that could perhaps be an interesting spin on an old morality tale.

So back in the real world we got the Kwon’s new story – in which Jin and Sun aren’t married, but are lovers and she is pregnant, presumably with his child (erasing their prior fertility problems).  So it seems that Jin isn’t working for Sun’s dad to get her hand in marriage, but rather he is just a regular employee with whom she has fallen in love.  And for that, Sun’s dad tries to have him killed by Keamy.  Here we had our first real Alterna-world colliding of narratives, as Jin’s flowed into what we already knew about Sayid.  My hunch is that we’ll get Kate’s story next week and will experience a similar flow into Sawyer’s narrative where we see him catch her at the end.

So we get to see that Keamy didn’t really die, but Jin works an intense and sort of prophetic injury on Mikhail – who we remember as the island’s eye-patched hermit.  With Jin’s gunshot, we got to see how Mikhail would lose that eye in an alterna-plot…whatever happened, happened, I guess.

It seems relevant, though, that the guy who worked for Widmore on the island (Keamy) is causing so many problems in alterna-world.  And I’m still not sure if we’re supposed to see Alterna-world as some sort of redeemed place. After last night (especially after seeing a pregnant Sun get shot), I wonder if Alterna-world is what the world looks like if the evil of the island is unleashed. It’s a world without Jacob’s interference.  Maybe it’s a world of the MiB’s creation?  And if so, it doesn’t seem as bad as everyone fears.  Which again throws into doubt whether or not the battle on the island is so dire as it seems.

I’ve long wondered if Desmond is the key holding it all together.  His return certainly begins to point us in that direction.  Like I already said, what what what is he going to do? I can’t wait to find out!!

Posted by Natalie.

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As soon as Widmore mentioned his musician son I started hoping for Daniel!  Sure, I was with everyone else loving that we were going to get a Desmond centered episode – but all that faded for me at the mere chance of Daniel’s return.  I always thought his little skinny-tie outfit looked out of place on the island, but all of a sudden it made sense for his Alterna world, avant garde musician existence.  But we’ll get back to him in a minute.

While I usually get pretty tired of soppy love plots pretty fast, I tend to find myself more able to enjoy them with Lost.  It’s an old theme for the show – what makes us love someone? Why do we feel immediate connections to some and not to others?  But it hasn’t ever received the focused attention it did last night.  Certainly the relationship between Desmond and Penny, and the one between Daniel and Charlotte have both had mystical overtones to them.  Desmond chases Penny across time as she chases him across space.  Daniel loves Charlotte based on a memory that hasn’t happened yet.  But Charlie and Claire’s relationship (if that is the blonde he described last night) always seemed a bit more natural, less supernatural.  Last night all three got caught up together, becoming the keys that began to unravel the reality of Alterna-world.  The bond each man felt to these women, real or imagined, felt more real than reality, triggering other deeply buried memories of another existence.

What was particularly interesting about this to me was that each man trusted these experiences enough not only to start tracking them for himself, but also enough to share them with the others – and in some startling ways!  Charlie forces a recreation of his old “not Penny’s boat” moment for Desmond, risking both their lives to wake them up.  Daniel finds a knowledge of quantum physics embedded in his psyche that convinces him he’s set of a nuclear bomb and distorted time (really?!) and then he goes telling Desmond this crazy theory!  Well, crazy to most folks – we of course know it’s true.  And we close with Desmond asking for the passenger manifesto, presumably to track everyone down and create the same shock waves of recognition for them too.

These are not contemplative men, thinking their way carefully through the insanity of these new experiences.  They are reactionaries, leaping to action based on something quite crazy.  Sure, they’re right – but I’m amazed that they don’t have some sort of second thought about it all.

I like the story – it’s fun.  But on the other hand, I’m a little dubious of a plotline that relies so heavily on the feeling of romantic love – even or, perhaps especially, cosmic romantic soulmate love – as the linchpin of existence.  Not to put a buzzkill on the smoochiness, but that just seems a little corny and a little far-fetched to me.

But perhaps that’s because I just think the idea of a soul-mate is pretty corny to begin with.  So while I struggle with it on Lost, there is a way that it also intrigues me.  These soul-mates aren’t so much mystical connections as they are a hidden awareness of a relationship existing throughout time of which the lover is not conscious.  In other words, Lost fills in the work of creating a relationship to the notion of a soul mate.  Deep connections are felt to others not because ‘it was meant to be’ but because it once was, because that relational work has already been done.  The freshness of new love is infused with long-standing, developed love.  I guess I kind of like that idea because it’s deploying the language and imagery of soul mates while simultaneously undercutting it.

So, a few things we should mention – in Alterna-world Daniel has been raised by both parents and enjoys his career in music as his mother has not pushed him to live in service of the island as a physicist.  But, strangely, Eloise does seem to know about the island – and she still seems to have knowledge and control over those who are attached to it.  So even in Alterna-world we’ve got the island’s magical influence!  And Eloise remains this type of meta character – living beyond the rules that apply to everyone else (cue some reflection on her relationship to Jacob and MiB).  But whether or not Widmore knows what’s going on in this world, I’m not sure?  He and Desmond are good buddies in Alterna-world.  And I, for one, was pretty happy to see Desmond finally get that glass of McCutcheon.  But I was also haunted both by Eloise’s awareness that Des had gotten what he always wanted most: Widmore’s approval – not Penny’s love – and her repetition of the chilling line, “what happened, happened”.  Pair that with the continual insistence in Alterna world that “none of this matters” (Charlie) and “none of it’s real” (Desmond, ironically speaking the truth), and you’ve got a pretty heady episode in terms of questions like what is real and what is existence?

I’m left wondering what it means that Desmond finally meets Penny at the stadium steps where he originally met Jack (but where he also had a heartbreaking conversation in the parking lot with Penny).  And why did he faint when he shook her hand?  What is Widmore wanting him to do on the island and why is he so weirdly compliant now?  And finally, oof, Sayid sure is back!  What happened elsewhere to wake him up too?

I just want to close by mentioning that last night’s episode really rocked my world, and I think it gave us a hint of what’s to come.  This wasn’t an ‘answer all our little questions’ episode.  This was an episode that focused on the characters, their connections, and the spinning of a great story.  And it was deeply satisfying.  However this whole thing wraps up, I think it’s going to be in this vein – good, deep, satisfying storytelling – and not in the vein so many want: explanation of all the mystery.    At the moment, I think that’s good – but check back in with me after the final episode!  I might not be so enlightened as I think!

Preview for next week: will Libby come back too??  Eee, I hope so!!  I can’t wait for our Hugo-centered episode!!

Posted by Natalie

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How Do You Break the Ice with a Smoke Monster?

Good question, Hurley!  How do you break the ice with a smoke monster?  Well, I guess it depends on who you are.  If you’re Hugo, you make deals and offer promises of a truce.  If you’re Desmond, you blindly trust him (maybe), only to find yourself tossed down a well (ok, but once again I’m left wondering if Flocke speaks the truth – because to me it does seem that Widmore cares more about power than he does answers or even the island…and what is the deal with the fact that there are multiple wells?).  And, most surprisingly, if you’re Desmond in Alterna-world, you introduce yourself to Locke at least by running him over with your car.

I feel like we’re getting glimpses of how Alterna-world and the island connect, but they’re not totally clear yet.  Desmond has figured out the connection, but he’s not letting us in on it.  We have the lovely story of love being the bond, the glue between the worlds.  And it was wonderful to see Hurley and Libby finally get their date last night.  But there’s more to it than that.  Just as Locke knocks Desmond down on the island, Desmond ends up knocking Locke down in the Alterna-world.  But why did Desmond do that?  I can see that he’s trying to bring together the people who were connected on the island in an effort to make the truth surface (although it’s not entirely clear what his motive is for wanting that truth to surface).  But even if he had some flash of the fact that Flocke tried to kill him on the island, why would killing Locke in the real world remedy that?  What’s the reason for running him down?  I believe there is one, I just can’t quite figure it out.

Libby brought up an interesting point for us tonight.  So far we’ve been following people in Alterna-world who were on the original flight 815 and its Alterna-world version.  We’ve also encountered folks who had spent time on the island, but didn’t get there on flight 815.  But Libby, I think, is the first person from the original flight 815 we’ve encountered who wasn’t on the Alterna-815…although her mental connection to Hugo begins when the new flight occurs.  And she doesn’t just see the alternative island life.  She also has access – through her supposed insanity – to the real real world existence too; the one in which Hurley and her were in the group home together.  I remember that episode, I think in season 4, where the camera panned past Hurley in the group home to rest on a brunette Libby in the background.  I don’t know why, but that image captivated me more than most of the other Easter eggs hidden throughout – seeing it pay off last night was very satisfying.

But I am left wondering why Libby wasn’t on the new Oceanic flight.  Is it simply because she’s not a candidate?  I don’t think that’s it, because we’ve had other folks from the tail end (like the flight attendant) on the flight too.  Is it perhaps because Libby died on the island, but died as an innocent and therefore, unlike Michael, is not bound to the island…except in her own mind?  That’s my theory for now.  If it’s right, it would explain why Hurley can’t talk to her on the island.

Which leaves me wondering if we’re going to see Elena again, or if her death released her from the island.  I find it difficult to imagine that we would lose her so quickly, but then again, that’s Lost sometimes.

For all the theological musings we and others have going about Lost, I noticed a couple of quickly successive mentions of God last night that together produced something interesting.  Elena blew herself up immediately after saying something along the lines of “God help us if it [Smokie] ever leaves this island” and only seconds later, in the next scene, Flocke refers to the island as a “God-forsaken rock”.  Some have wondered if the island is heaven or hell or some location of divine existence or a battle ground for gods…but these two statements together indicate an absence of the Divine from the island.  Team Jacob and Team Smokie frame that absence in different ways, of course. For Team Jacob, God is the helper in the world that exists outside the island.  God is the one who can bring aid to unleashed evil, but is impotent to do anything for the evil on the island.  For team Smokie, God’s absence is simple abandonment, forsakenness.  I’m not sure what to read into this yet, or even if it’s something into which I could read…but it’s at least curious.

And now for a few round-up comments.  It was nice to see Jack willing to follow Hugo – Jack coming into his own purpose through a form of penitence for Juliet’s death has been one of the lovelier arcs of this season for me.  With Desmond as the key that links the worlds, now, I feel the need to track down any hints he gives us – last night it was his Mr. Cluck’s order that caught me, #42.  #42 on Jacob’s list was Kwon and, I’m hoping, it offers us a hint that the final, most lovely love that will be reunited will be there’s!  So Dr. Chang is now working in a museum’s paleontology wing?  Is he not a theoretical astrophysicist in this world? Is he even Miles’ dad?  Does he work with Charlotte?  Or was that just a fun little Lost game to have him introduce Hugo?  And when Lapides hung around, so many of us wondered why – what meaning was he going to take on?  Besides serving as Sun’s sidekick, it’s still not clear to me, but I feel like it has to be something!  We’re running out of chances to find out what, though.  Oh, and I guess we got a definitive answer on what those voices are – a little anti-climactic seeing as I think that’s what we’d all assumed anyway, but still nice to have it affirmed…at least now we’re certain they’re not Jacob or Smokie, but are actually lost souls.  Speaking of which, who is that kid and why is he soooo creepy?

And perhaps most chilling, Ben’s question: if that’s what the island does when it’s done with Elena, what’s gonna happen when it’s done with all our friends?

I loved the preview of next week with the eerie background music from that even eerier boat scene from Willy Wonka with Gene Wilder taking the kids through that terrifying tunnel: “The fires of hell are blowing…the danger must be growing, for the rowers keep on rowing and they’re certainly not showing any signs that they are slowing”.  In Willy Wonka, that music bridges their entry into the depths of the mystical chocolate factory.  What will it bridge for our Lost friends?

Posted by Natalie

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The Last Recruit
He Really Does Look Like He Stepped Out of a Burt Reynolds Movie

Finally.  Oh my goodness, finally!  They really made us wait for that Kwon reunion and, sure, we have the impending possibility of immediate death hovering all around it between Zoe and her goons and my initial fear that their ears were going to start bleeding as they ran through the sonic fence, but oh my goodness, finally!  Of all the types of work that have had to be done on this show for people to find their loves (Daniel and Desmond traveling through time; Penny traveling across space; Charlie dying and rising and, I fear, possibly dying again) Jin and Sun have done the most emotional work.  And for that, to me they are the most realistic.  I was haunted by Sun’s scream when she had to watch the tanker with Jin on it blow up.  I thought it was one of the most raw acting moments in Lost ever and I believed it deeply.  The way they looked at each other last night was similar, but of course much more lovely.  It’s a loving look of familiarity, comfort and stability; a look that, like the biblical Zachariah’s encounter with his son’s unbelievable birth, loosens the tongue again to speak (and note, the boat on which they all escaped bore the name of that Zachariah’s wife, Elizabeth…just saying).  For any complaining about silly romance I’ve done in this space, that complaint doesn’t stick to these two.  This isn’t romance; it really is love, and I love them for it.  But ok, back to the daring acts of bravery, faith and the scary ledge upon which we’ve been left.

Was anyone else surprised how willing Flocke was to give Jack all the information right away?  It’s a real turn around from season 1 when a core frustration was how unwilling people were to tell each other what they were up to.  The core statement in their relationship last night though seemed to me to be Flocke’s depiction of Locke as “stupid enough to believe he was here for a reason,” because that’s precisely the conclusion Jack ends up coming to about himself.  And in so doing, he not only further convinced me that he’s going to be the chosen one, but he also put himself in a position to save our friends who followed Sawyer into an overly-cocky escape attempt.  As a side note, someone wrote on facebook yesterday that they wondered if the May 23^rd finale of the show indicated that person #23 (Jack) was the chosen one…I know the producers jockeyed to get the 23^rd because they really wanted that date.  We’ve all assumed that’s simply because it’s fun to end on any one of the numbers.  But what if there’s more to it than that?

I’m also continuing to wonder what this power of speech is that Flocke possesses.  Some – Dogan, Claire – seem convinced by it.  If you let him speak to you, he can control you.  And Jack’s return strangely affirms that hypothesis.  But it’s also true that Flocke spoke to Sawyer, Kate, Claire (the biggest believer!) and others…and they still ran.  And so I’m curious to know exactly how this power works?

The real connection between Alterna-world and the island last night was Jack and Claire finally connecting over their sibling relationship, not that much came of that in either storyline, but perhaps it will in the weeks to come.  Desmond’s fairy godmother routine is actually getting quite cute and amusing to me (even if I got petrified that he was going to push a pregnant Claire down the stairs…thank goodness he was able to pursue other means of memory jogging with her!).  But we’ve also got the lives of all our characters beginning to converge in much more significant ways than fun cameos.  There was Elana, alive and well serving as Jack’s lawyer.  But we also had Sawyer and Kate continue their flirtation under arrest, and her begin her possible blackmail of him.  We’ve got Jack about to operate on John.  And of course, we had Sun recognize John as she was wheeled into the hospital, so we can assume her near death experience triggered the memories for her in a way that won’t now require Desmond’s intervention.  And we had Sayid getting caught for his misadventures, just as we had to face further misadventures back on the island.

Which also has me wondering, did Sayid really kill Desmond in the well?  I tend to think not, but I’m guessing they’ll keep us guessing on that one for a while.  Last night brought up an old question for me again, who is it that Locke has promised to Sayid?  The obvious answer is that the woman he loves is Nadia.  But there’s still a big part of me that thinks it’s going to be a surprise with Shannon’s return, not least of all because Shannon died on the island and therefore is more likely able to be produced by Locke.  It’s certainly interesting though that all our characters who remain uncomplicated in the good/evil debate have a ‘one true love’ they’re seeking, but Sayid – the one who we’re still not sure where he stands on that continuum – is potentially negotiating two loves.  I wonder if that’s intentional?  Well, everything’s intentional on this show, so I wonder what that intentionality means?

Finally – as Sawyer tripped Sayid up with the garden hose my friend Thunder commented how ready he would be to watch that buddy cop show with Miles and Sawyer we’ve all been hoping for…come on Lost producers, don’t you want to try your hand at action/comedy?  I really do promise to tune in for at least the first season!

So next week’s preview and the ominous line, “he doesn’t need you, Kate” – ever since we saw old Austin didn’t have a number we’ve wondered what her fate will be.  Is Kate going to get off-ed next week?  What do you think, Moth Chase friends?  And more importantly, what have I missed?  What did you think of this episode?

xoxo,
Natalie

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Hello Natalie,

I am jumping in from the land of baby craziness to join the conversation. With so few episodes left, I just can’t help trying to chime in now and again, even if it took me all day today to watch the episode!

But it was worth it as we try to piece the puzzle together. Like you, I took great satisfaction watching Sun and Jin reunite. I got goosebumps as they saw each other across the beach! The show has taken an interesting turn the last few weeks, suggesting that destiny – the theme they have been exploring all along – might, in fact, be love. Or better, that love is destiny. It is love that triggers most of our characters so far (Hurley, Daniel, Desmond, Charlie). We don’t know yet if Desmond’s efforts with Claire or Jack or Locke have done any good – he has brought people together, but we haven’t seen them have a revelation yet. It is interesting to me that Desmond brought Jack and Claire together, instead of bringing Claire to Charlie or Jack to Kate. Given the plot of sibling reunion on the island, I wonder what we are to make of that, especially if Claire is Charlie’s trigger. Can a trigger work one way and not the other? It is also interesting to ponder Sawyer’s position. You are right that Sayid has two possible loves, but so does Sawyer. Is Kate his trigger – and if so, why didn’t their meeting again do anything for them? Or is it Juliet? I would so LOVE to see Juliet come back, even for one episode. But maybe love won’t be the trigger for everyone. Maybe these story lines will just keep intertwining in Alterna-world until everyone is together again and then the universes will collide.  I guess that is still what I want to know the most – what is this Alterna-world?

That, and who will take Jacob’s place? I agree that Jack is shaping up as a nice candidate, but so is Desmond, given his Jacob like role in Alterna-world. Though it is also hard to see him being eternally separated from Penny, where Jack is already a loner. But what, then, is the special purpose Desmond is supposed to serve in Widmore’s plot? Also, if Sayid didn’t kill Desmond – and I agree, I doubt he did – does that make him no longer evil? Can he, like Hurely suggests, come back from the dark side?

Final unconnected thought: did you notice how Jack and Sawyer switched places? At the end of season 3 it was Jack leading a renegade attempt to leave the island at all costs and Sawyer jumping from the escape vessel for the greater good. Is Sawyer doomed to repeat Jack’s fate or is he, in fact, destined to leave the island after all?

OK, so I know that this post was basically just a lot of questions and not many theories or hypotheses. I will try to do better next time, but for now, it is just good to be back in the chase!

xoxo,

K

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There is no Sayid

I had to wonder if that phrase had double meaning – both that Sayid had died, and that perhaps he had been long gone anyway.  Either way, it seemed that the real Sayid was definitvely back last night as he gave his life for his friends, a moment almost erased for me as it was way overshadowed by Jin and Sun’s tragic end.  We’ve had a number of references to Season 3’s “Through the Looking Glass” this season, but this felt by far the most obvious.  An underwater situation with a bomb, but this time we’re left with 3 dead out of loyalty and love, not just 1.  And we had a reverse of “There’s No Place Like Home” as a bomb threatening to blow up a boat forces Jin to decide whether or not leave Sun as she was forced to leave him in a similar situation.  Jin of course stays.  If there sad good-byes didn’t already get me – which they did – it was our friends on the beach mourning that really brought me down.  We’ve had so many deaths on this island – many of which have been very sad.  But even Charlie’s death didn’t come close to last night – both for me as viewer and for the characters themselves.  All three, Kate, Hurley and Jack, simply sob on the beach, and I was reminded how much these guys have been through together.

We don’t often think about the level of trauma these characters have been put through – most people would have snapped by now (perhaps we can explain Sayid’s weird behaviour in a much more psychological way rather than by spiritual possession!).  And the community bonding such devastation creates is immeasurable.  Lost spends so much time showing folks jockeying for power and falling in love all over again, it often forgets to show the depth of friendship that also would develop in an unbelievable situation like this.  That moment on the beach last night as each grieved was one of the more powerful moments of the whole show for me, as it finally showed that love is more than romantic; that deep love comes in many forms, one of the greatest of which is both self-sacrificial and communal and is created simply through time together and shared experiences, no matter what those experiences may be.

Oh, didn’t we all know that Jack was right about the bomb!  It was so painful to watch the smugness on Sawyer’s face as he thought he had done right.  There has been much commentary on how Jack has become the man of faith on the show, but in a playful sense, he’s also become a man of reason.  Jack used to act without thinking, running off to play hero instinctively without considering the consequences.  By opening up his faith, he’s learned to slow down his reaction time and really think things through more.  And it’s paid off, even if folks won’t listen to him now.  Sawyer and Jack have always traded back and forth on this characteristic – in season 5 in Dharmaville, Sawyer makes a point of telling Jack to imitate his way of slowing down and thinking things through.  And then Jack’s actions lead to Juliet’s death.  But here in season 6, we’ve got a reverse, as Sawyer’s acts impulsively, leading to the death of three friends.  I’m glad he got knocked out, because I don’t think we were ready to see what his reaction to his actions will be.

Jack’s hypothesis – that Flocke tried to get them to kill each other (because he couldn’t kill them himself) – is confirmed then when we see Flocke figure out that they aren’t all dead.  Obviously something should have happened in response to all their deaths that would have been a signal to Flocke – but what?  What didn’t happen that would let Flocke know for certain that they were all gone?

Back in Alterna-world we had a bunch of lovely connections again – Jack giving Claire the Apollo bar from the candy machine in the same way Jacob had given it to him; Jin passing Locke in the hall with flowers only seconds after we had lost him on the island; Jack starting to twig at how weird it is that he’s encountering everyone from his flight when he realizes that his new sister was also there; Bernard being the dentist for Locke’s surgery and then getting all weird when Jack questions him (did Bernard seem weird to anyone else?).  But besides allowing Jack and Claire to appear in a mirror together, playing further with one of the key images of this season, I’m not sure what that music box is all about.  Anyone?

But perhaps the most important things that happened in Alterna-world relate to finally learning how Locke is in the wheelchair – his dad didn’t incapacitate him; he incapacitated his dad – and hearing him outright refuse to be a “candidate”.  The previews for next week indicate that Locke’s creepy backgammon game from season 1 really was a set-up for the whole series, as Jacob and the MiB return, but perhaps in different bodily forms.  MiB has claimed his vessel, Flocke.  Will Jacob take his next week?

xoxo,
Natalie

***********************

We’re Very Near the End, Hugo

So I didn’t get to comment on last week’s episode – thank you Kathryn for jumping in as I experience technical troubles!  Perhaps I’m just getting sentimental, but even with all the interesting theological stuff going on and my hero Allison Janney at the helm, I just wasn’t crazy about last week’s episode.  But I do love these ones that are packed with our favourite characters – especially when they bring the return of my favourite, Ben!  On the island we had some not-so-gentle reminders of how Ben’s ambitious choosing of the island over his daughter led to Alex’s death: first, her unmarked grave and second, Ben’s ruthless execution of Widmore (note: the execution was for the failed purpose of disallowing him to save his daughter, not out of cold-blooded revenge – interesting).  And in Alterna-world we had the redeemed version of Ben’s story as his failures (note his despondence at having a doctorate but teaching in a high school) are what lead him to be a true father figure to Alex.

My goodness, Danielle looks different with a little lip gloss eh!?  But as this pseudo-family gathered around a meal together, we encountered reconciliation and healing on numerous levels – indeed, on levels too deep for Ben to even recognize in a cognitive way.  As he shed a tear, I finally started to understand why an addled Faraday cried at the fake wreckage of Oceanic 815 on the news back in season 3 or 4…it’s an emotional recognition, a deep sub-conscious recognition of an existence that remains out of reach.  And it makes an interesting statement about identity and selfhood.  In the Lost world, people might not know themselves (all their multiple selves), but they can intuit them.  There are, in this narrative, depths of one’s self that are only accessed through intuition and emotion, not intellection – and I think that rings true in our world too.

Speaking of Ben’s doctorate and recognition – I found it interesting that Locke gave him the desired recognition of his title in the hospital room; a recognition that others overlooked.  This happens just as Ben on the island re-partners (in a tenuous way) with Flocke, and so I wonder if we’re supposed to see the two as connected.

And speaking of reconciled families – we had Jack, his son and Claire all breakfasting together – another reconciliation around a meal.  But why the mysterious call that Christian’s body had been found?  Did they just want to tie up that loose end, or is something more going to happen there?

And while I’m tossing out random questions, what was with Jack’s mysterious bleeding in Alterna-world at the beginning of the episode? Are we to connect it to his acceptance of the island-guardian role at the end of the episode?  And speaking of that, apparently on the island both water and wine are sacred if the right words are uttered over them.  Sure, we might be playing with lots of spiritual themes, but when it comes down to the hocus pocus magic, it seems that Lost wants to stick with it’s core Christian symbols.  So does this mean that with Jack taking over Team Jacob and Ben joining with Team MiB that we’re coming up on a Jack-Ben showdown?  And will Desmond get caught in the middle – needing to choose whether his destiny is to save or to damn the island and, by extension, all human existence?

One more random question: is Richard dead?  Did Smokie take him out?  He got thumped, for sure, but I’m not sure if that means he’s actually deceased.

What really intrigued me about this episode though was the amount of morally questionable behavior in Alterna-world that ended up leading to good.  First we have Desmond beating the crap out of everybody in a way that allows violence to be redemptive – or to at least reveal the truth…a questionable proposition at best.  And then we have him bribing Ana Lucia (what fun to see her again, even if she “isn’t ready”!) to get him, Sayid and Kate out of their transport to jail and on their way to a party.  Really, is Lost going to end with a party in a museum at which everyone will show up?  Desmond is taking Hugo, Kate and Sayid.  Faraday and Widmore, Eloise and Penny are all slated to be there.  Miles is on his way, potentially with Sawyer in tow.  Charlotte and Dr. Chang work there.  And while Jack, Claire, David and David’s mystery mother are going to meet up at David’s concert, I can’t help but wonder if the concert and the party are the same thing (Desmond did say they were headed to a concert, but we know from previous episodes that he intends to hook it up with Penny at the museum).  Granted, I’m kind of a fashion junkie, but if a show that’s had all its characters in jeans and brandless t-shirts for all 6 seasons is going to wind up at a black-tie affair…well, I’m pretty jazzed about that!

And finally, after all the wondering about why Kate’s name was crossed off Jacob’s list, was anyone else a little disappointed in the reason?  I’ve said it before, and am likely to say it again, but for all the ways that Lost is pretty enlightened, it really fails at its feminism.  Kate got crossed off because she became a mother?!  Really?!  First, why didn’t that disqualify the Kwons?  And second, didn’t Jacob remember that he and his handful of a brother were raised by a single mother on a deserted island with no support network AND that this single mother also single-handedly kept the island safe from a village of bad guys?!?  True, Allison Janney is crazy badass.  But, despite my usual dislike of her, so is Kate…she could totally handle the job!  And to be fair, Jacob let her back in if she wanted it.  But it was a little anti-climactic, and we all knew Jack was going to grab the reins anyway, so it sort of seemed like a half-hearted attempt at a failed affirmative action.

I love you Lost, but sometimes when it comes to the women, you really f*ck things up!

xoxo,
Natalie

—-

Dear Natalie,

Jumping in again – I just can’t avoid it when we are so close to the end. And even though there is a lot left to learn, this episode went a long way to clarify mysteries. When Jacob reconstituted his body out of the ashes in the bag Hurley had pilfered and promised to tell Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hugo everything they needed to know, I was expecting a bit longer scene of exposition than the very pointed explanation he gave. What, didn’t even one of our characters have a question about what exactly this light is that they are supposed to be protecting? Or how exactly Jacob was responsible for creating the smoke monster? Or what it means to protect the light? Maybe they were all too shell-shocked from the trauma of losing Jin and Sun and Sayid. I do hope they get a bit more curious in the finale so we can clear up a few more mysteries.

Like, what exactly are the rules that bind the Man in Black to Jacob/Jacob’s successor and how does Desmond potentially change all that? Once Jack drank the holy water – a sort of baptismal communion – and became like Jacob, I presume that the MiB can’t kill him. He could try to get Ben to do it, but it appears he has a new plan: destroying the island entirely. If Ben isn’t faking him out, it appears he has re-discovered his love for power and revenge and joined forces with the MiB. As you point out, that might easily make him MiB’s pawn in a showdown with Jack. But the one thing MiB promises Ben is that he can have the island to himself, which will be a pretty empty promise if the island is destroyed. Does Ben just want an-all-over cosmic revenge against the suffering and misfortunes he feels he has been forced to bear? Is his guilt driving him to nihilistic ends? Also, do you remember the scene between Widmore and Ben in Widmore’s bedroom back in season 4? Widmore reminds Ben that he can’t kill him – it is as though they are bound by the same rules as Jacob and MiB. Except it turns out that 1) they both claim to work for or in the name of Jacob and 2) Ben can actually kill Widmore. Is this just a slip in logic? Am I missing something? Or does it mean something significant?

Perhaps the most interesting thing to me was the suggestion that once Desmond gets the whole gang together at the museum concert (and yes, I am sure they are the same event) something significant is going to happen. Are they all going to suddenly remember the truth? Wake up – like the image of the eye opening that has started so many episodes, this one included? What happens then? What exactly is the relationship between Alterna-world and the island and will we finally find out? Is there any chance that Desmond’s importance lies more in what he is doing in Alterna-world than whatever electromagnetic fail-safe mechanism he is supposed to provide on the island? Perhaps this is the one thing Flocke can’t reckon on – some action in Alterna-world that will have consequences for his plan.

One final thought: I loved the momentousness of the moment of Jack’s transformation being marked by Sawyer’s attempt at sarcasm, and then his own realization that this was not the moment. It was just pitch-perfect emotionally for me.

I sort of can’t believe we are very near the end. I can’t believe we will both be out of town for the finale, but I absolutely can’t wait to watch as soon as I can and join you here for a final discussion. Answers or no answers, I’m not sure I’m ready to say goodbye.

xoxo,
K