Lighthouse

I thought this was a pretty solid episode. Again, they are slowly giving us answers and twice as many questions. I was not as frustrated about the pace as I was 2 weeks ago because once this is over, it’s over. But it did feel like they spent a lot of time with long, sweeping views, forest sounds and facial expressions. But I am still very much digging the show.

Summary

This episode was Jack centered, focusing on him on and off the island. On the island he was guided by Jacob to go to the Lighthouse. Off the island he has in an uncomfortable relationship with his son David, whom never existed in the previous flashback. It seems that even though each Lostie is experiencing conflict in their life, their life as a whole is better in this updated version. Jack was able to connect with his son and begin to repair the distance that he was not able to repair with his father. Also in the episode we get see Claire who is now nutty as a fruitcake. Either she has been consumed by the illness or her isolated existence on the island made her crazy and paranoid. I think it’s the sickness. I read a great connection between her experience on the island and Jack Torrance’s character in The Shining, who goes crazy due to his isolation in the hotel and possessed by an evil spirit. He also kills Dick Halloran with an axe the same way Claire killed Justin. The chilling part of this episode was the end when SM Locke is revealed as Claire’s friend. Great scene. The minor players on the show – Sayid, Jin and Hurley didn’t provide much answers and were merely there as props for the main characters.

Connections

Jack has an appendix scar his mom explains is due to a surgery when he was 7 or 8. We know that on the island, Juliet performed surgery on his appendix. Jack goes to St. Mary’s Academy to pick up his son David. I think the name of the academy may be a connection between the Virgin Mary and Immaculate Conception. Kid comes out of no where with no mother. We can assume that he and his wife had the child together and later divorced instead of the other timeline in which he returns from the island and she is now pregnant from her new husband. Or maybe the mother is someone else entirely. The name David is also from the bible and he was shepherd and a musician. David is reading the Anointed Alice. The Anointed Alice provides annotations throughout the texts of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There. The annotations help explain the inside jokes and mathematical and linguistic puzzles that fill the stories. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking glass are heavy themes in Lost. I think the use of this book is kind of a tease to us trying to figure out the inner workings and answers about Lost. The MacCutcheon Whiskey is on the bar at his mom’s house. Jack refuses the drink, further indication that he is not the alcoholic he was in the flash forward. At the piano performance, the sign entering reads, “Welcome All Candidates”. David is playing Fantaisie-Impromtu by Chopin which is the same song that Daniel Faraday played when he was young. The Dogen speaks to Jack and tells him that it is difficult to watch and not be able to help. A parallel may be that on the island, The Dogen is trying to help without giving any direct answers. The Dogen says that David is gifted. This is similar to the believe that Walt was special. Jack’s relationship with his son mirrors that of Michael and Walt in that Michael had an estranged relationship with his son as well. Christian Shepherd told Jack that he “didn’t have what it takes.” Jack spent his life trying to prove his dad wrong. He doesn’t want to make the same mistake with his son. Jacob twists this message given to Hurley to say that Jack “has what it takes.” This prompts Jack to follow Hurley since the comment was so tied to his childhood. Jack is on the island for redemption, which is also a common theme.

The familiar theme of games is brought out as Miles and Hurley play tic-tac-toe. Of course there is no winner (they should have learned that from War Games!). Maybe the parallel is that there will be no winner between Jacob and SM Locke. Dogen says in a Japanese, “You're lucky that I have to protect you. Otherwise I'd have cut your head off." The lighthouse has 4 mirrors. Jacob asks Hurley to turn the dial to 108. 108 has the name Wallace to it. Austen (Kate) is number is 51 and not crossed out. It’s the reverse of Ford’s (Sawyer) 15 which could indicate how much they mirror one another. The dial is similar to the frozen donkey wheel that lead Ben off the island. The scenes in the mirror are of the church at Sawyer’s parents funeral, the temple where Jin and Sun got married and Jack’s house.

More numbers:
Rousseau - 20
Faraday – 101
Friendly – 109
Linus – 117


Questions

Adam and Eve – Who are they? I wasn’t following what Hurley was asking about time travel. Jack had determined that one of the skeletons was a man and the other a woman. There was also a black and white stone in the pocket of one of the skeletons. That brings us back to the cave with the stone, good vs evil. If the skeletons are 2 of the Losties, which two? Are they important at all? I have more theories if they were both male, but them being male and female stumps me. I also remember them wearing the Dharma uniform.

Jacob and SM Locke – It seems that they are both recruiting. SM Locke and Ilena said that Jacob was identifying candidates to protect the island. SM Locke seems to be recruiting people as well, first gaining Claire’s trust and then Sawyer’s. Claire said that her father and then her friend had told her that the Others had Aaron. We know this was done to manipulate Claire and turn her against the Others. Claire does not seem to see her father and SM Locke as the same entity. I was thinking that they all see SM Locke in different ways depending on who they are. Does Claire see him as The Man in Black or as Locke? Sawyer seemed to know instantly that he was not the true Locke, so perhaps Claire can that as well. Also Jin saw him as Locke.

Conclusion

We should be learning about either Jin/Sun or Sayid in the next episode. I want them to close the loop with Sayid because he seems to be in a sort of a haze. I also hope that Jin and Sun have a better life this time around in the alternate timeline. There are a lot of spoilers about cast members that are coming back. I think Shannon’s inhaler was just a way to bring her character back into the for front of our minds. It just seemed like the reference was random. But ok Lost. I will allow it. Loving it and still enjoying the ride. Take care and until next week, c-ya!

(Oh! There was this silly video on blacknerdcomedy.com about LOST and Hereos being racist against Black people. I laughed out loud on some parts when I watched so click the link to view. Go to there.)

The Substitute

Hello all. Yes, a fairly early blog this sunny morning in Southern California. Sorry to my Northwest and Eastern friends but it is a gorgeous day today. Maybe it’s the weather or the fact that we got a really good episode of LOST last night. I am thinking it is a little of both. I have about 3 pages of notes so let’s get to it.

Summary

This episode was Locke 2005 and SM Locke focused. I know there is so much story to tell but was a little bit disappointed they didn’t further the Claire storyline. However they more than made up for it in what they revealed. Or what we can theorize they revealed. I love it how I have read everyone’s excitement about the numbers on the boards last night. And after talking to L.M., fine it’s important. But I won’t be fully satisfied until they tell me why the person received a specific number. I am also interested in the 3 options for being on the island. 1) Do nothing and see how it all plays out. That could mean people die or are like Rose and Bernard, living their own life. 2) Accept the position as the new Jacob and protector of the island. Is that like Richard, Ilana and the Temple folks? They protect the island from outsiders? 3) Get off the island. Is that like Desmond, Michael and Walt? Why would Jacob need to recruit more people to protect the island? Was Richard really a candidate to just protect the island or was he a candidate to replace Jacob? What determines which it is? Does Jacob need a replacement? I can see I am getting into questions so let’s skip these until later.

Connections

Randy Nations is back. He was Hurley boss at the Chicken Shack and then later at the box company Locke worked at in the original timeline. He remained the same which was a jerk to Locke in both timelines. Helen and Locke are now in a successful relationship. She is wearing a Peace and Karma shirt. Helen left Locke originally because of his obsession to have a relationship with his father. He was later being duped by Sawyer aka Anthony Cooper into giving him money and later body parts. Helen gave up on Locke, refused his proposal and died while Locke was on the island of a brain aneurysm. The temp agency worker was the fortune teller in the original timeline that Hurley went to with his father. She saw the numbers and pulled the death card from the tarot. Locke meets Rose who is now working for Hurley in his company. Sawyer is listening to Search and Destroy by Iggy Pop and The Stooges. Lyrics, “I'm a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm. I'm a runaway son of a nuclear A-bomb. I am the world's forgotten boy, the one who searches and destroys.” SM Locke and Locke 2005 both say “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!”

Questions

The Numbers – Okay another piece of the puzzle. The numbers previously were the lotto numbers that Hurley used to win the lottery. There were the coordinates Rousseau’s team followed which lead them to the island. They were printed on the blast door. They had to be entered into the computer every 108 minutes or the hatch would blow. There were the case numbers for Kate’s trial. There are other instances of some or all of the numbers showing up in Lost. There are also the mathematical equation for the Valenzetti Equation which predicts the end of the world. But I am not going to go into that because most of it is found in the Lost Experience and not on the actual show. It was touched a little in one of the orientation videos, but not enough to talk about. Now we are told that those specific numbers are associated with the Losties in some way. The numbers are as follows:

4 – Locke

8 – Reyes

15 – Ford

16 – Jarrah

23 – Shephard

42 – Kwon

Others on the wall, Farraday – 70, Littleton – 313. There were many others but none that I could clearly make out of the screenshot that were of importance, mainly extras on the show. We don’t know in what way the numbers are associated with the Losties. Why is Locke 4 and Reyes 8? Why is it their last name? There are many Reyes’ in the world, why Hurley? It was hypothesized that all the names are male. Kwon could be Jin and Littleton could be Aaron and not Claire. Where was Kate? Could she be 108 or some other random number? I’m glass half full person…too many questions still about the numbers to declare this a true answer to anything.

SM Locke – What is his real motivation? I don’t believe that what he told Sawyer was exactly accurate. I think the cave belonged to SM Locke. The manic scribbling on the walls was more the work of a madman. A man struggling to get off the island. The tools were crude. Jacob’s place was much more serene. He had weavings and hieroglyphics, not scribbles on a wall. I think SM Locke was trying to break Jacob’s code as to why those people were brought to the island and ultimately how he could get off. The title of the episode was The Substitute. I think when he told Sawyer that Jacob was looking for candidates for the island, that may be true, but SM Locke is trying to find a substitute for him on the island as well. Good vs. evil, yin & yang, both of them need to be replaced. The boy said he was breaking the rules and that he could not kill Jacob. I think there must be balance. In a way, they both are recruiting. And if SM Locke gets off the island, he has been there for centuries, what time does he go back to? What does he go back to? Does he exist in a 2010 world off the island?

The Boy -

Option 1: My first guess was the boy was Jacob. It would be a very simple and straight forward explanation. But then I started thinking why would he appear as a boy? He appeared as himself to Hurley. But that could be due to Hurley always seeing dead people as they were when they were alive. So if it was Jacob, could SM Locke be seeing him as he was before he was a candidate on the island? Perhaps when they were first brought there before they became enemies?

Option 2: Could it be someone special in SM Locke’s past? He said that he knew what it was like to lose someone he once loved. Could it have been a brother or a son? There are dad issues all over the place on the island. It was obviously someone he recognized.

Option 3: The boy was SM Locke. Light hair can change darker as a child grows and the boy could be a reflection of him. Is that why he was shocked that Sawyer could see him because it was a manifestation of himself? SM Locke would represent different things to different people so could it have been his subconscious manifesting himself?

Locke 2005 – How did he become paralyzed? Helen suggested they just elope and she would invite her parents and he should bring his dad. So Locke’s dad is not the one who threw Locke out of a window? I don’t think he would be so forgiving if he had. Locke seems better adjusted in this new life. Sure things still happen to him, but he has the love of a good woman and a job as a substitute teacher in which he can use his intellectual mind and teach people. It seems his life is better off the island. Even Rose seemed to have learned to live with her cancer. Jack was drinking less. Hurley is optimistic, wealthy and happy. Life in general seems better for them.

Theory: Calling my shot – I believe that 2005 is life if they had not been touched by Jacob. Darlton has said that 2005 is significant and not merely an alternate timeline. I thought was a result of the blast, but now I am not so sure. I think that if Jacob had not touched/manipulated these people to ultimately get to the island, this is what their lives would be. If I am wrong, I’m wrong. But that’s my theory. It may be that SM Locke does win at the end and the alternate timeline becomes the real one.

Conclusion

I am loving the fact that some of you are commenting after the blog. Please share your thoughts, feelings, questions, anything! I was up late last night posting in the forums but I would much rather hear from you…my peeps! You all have some interesting theories out there and I want to hear them. Not from you J.Y.! You seem to guess right and spoil the whole damn thing! J Be safe and until next week, c-ya!

What Kate Does

Summary

I got nothin’. Hint…if it takes me more than 24 hours to write a blog…its because I am Lost. Or frustrated. Or both! This time, I was a little bugged by a filler episode so soon into the season. I know they can’t all be hits out of the park, but I needed something. And this left me with a “so what?” feeling.

This episode focused on Kate on and off the island. Darlton feels it’s a form of blasphemy to say on the island and then the alternate reality. So I will refer to LA 2004 and on the island. Also I have a time line correction from last week. LA is 2004 and on the island is 2007. Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 (Remember Ben showing Jack the video?). So I always use that as my guide. I just had to say that I loved, loved, loved Sawyer's scenes. He was great and I really believe he loved Juliet with all his heart but lost her due to his indecision. He realized it too late.

Connections

As a filler episode, this was all about the connections.

The title of the episode is “What Kate Does”. She chases, she runs, she takes care of everyone. That is what she did on the island and off. Kate helps Claire in LA as she did when she was on the island. She follows Sawyer again in an attempt to bring him back into the fold. I’m not sure if she has some sort of a crying epiphany at the end and just stops and realizes how it never works out quite right, despite her best efforts. Kate finds the stuffed whale in Claire’s luggage and it’s the same one that Aaron had in the flash forward. Kate is wanted for murder so we can assume she committed the same crime as before. Ethan Rom, now going by his birth name Goodspeed, is still an OB and is helping Claire. I laughed when he said he didn’t want to stick her with needles, which is exactly what he did on the island. Why he went by Rom on the island and now off it's Goodspeed is interesting? I am not sure if its because his prents are now more a part of his life. I read that there was a baseball on the desk in the temple and a baseball has 108 stitches. In the show Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the commander always had a baseball on his desk and used it as a metaphor to explain the nature of linear time to the inhabitants of the wormhole, who experienced time all at once. Their were black rocks/stones in a bowl on the desk. The date on Claire's sonogram was 1 month before the crash the first time around.

Questions

Timeline - Okay..there were people on a plane heading from Australia to LA. The plane crashes on a hidden island. 2 people from the plane crash leave by boat. You can get on and off the island by submarine. Due to a threat, the island is moved and some people get off the island. Everyone else on the island is transported back to 1977. 3 years pass. People off the island want to go back and return. Part of the plane lands in 2007, the other back in 1977. Explosion happens and the 1977 people make it back to 2007. These people want off the island. We want to know if there was a reason why they were brought to the island (if it was intentional), what is the island about, and how to go home.

We are then shown people on a plane heading from Australia to LA. They are similar to the people on the island that crashed. What do we want to know about them? What are they trying to show us about them? If we were just watching a show about the people in LA 2007, what are we seeing? It's not history, it’s the present. Perhaps the point is to show how people on the plane, perfect strangers, become intertwined in each other’s lives. Will the LA 2007 version become more important than what’s going on on the island? Will they grow to rely on each other as they did on the island? The key is there…I just can’t see it.

Juliet – I want to go back to Miles saying that her last words were, “It worked.” Its really too soon to get anything from that. But if they 2 timelines are both equally valid, then perhaps what she sees as their true existence in LA 2007? Wouldn’t it be a kick in the pants if Juliet shows up in Sawyer’s life? Maybe Juliet saw that happening.

The Temple – I am so done with the Temple people. I want the Losties to get the heck away from there. All of them. It is bringing it down for me. We have already had years of one word answers and ominous looks. Over it! Not that I want all answers, but the evasiveness has gotten old. What is the leader Dogen’s relationship with Jacob? What is it with SM Locke? Why does he remain on the island and what is his purpose? Are they the good guys like Ilana’s team was supposed to be?

Sayid/Claire – What is the sickness? Is it the same thing that Rousseau’s team had? I saw some interesting parallels between Rousseau and Claire. Both came to the island pregnant and had children on the island. Both had their children taken away. Aldo commented that the traps were like Rousseau’s but that she had been dead for years. Claire may have been living in the wild on her own like Rousseau. Sayid was the closest Lostie to Rousseau seeing how she tortured him for days. How does shocking, poking with a hot stick and poison affect the sickness? If they want Sayid dead, why not just shoot him? How do he get infected with the sickness? Why some and not all?

Conclusion

If you would like to comment on the blog, as 2 of you did last week, please do so. I welcome the feedback and different ways to view each episode. I would also suggest you listen to the Lost podcasts by Darlton each week. They are really funny and help to understand the episode a little better. Their podcast can be found by clicking the following link: Official Podcast. Next week has got to be a good one. I am looking forward to it and getting some answers. So until then, take care. C-ya!

LA X Part I and II

**Okay, I am a little rusty. I forgot how much research and information goes into understanding the world of LOST. But I make this pledge that blogs will come out before sundown the day after the show. :)

Welcome one and all to the Final Season on Lost. I welcome all of you to the My Lost Chance - Lost blog. As in past seasons, we will discuss Lost each week and dig as far as we can into the mystery of what is going on. At the bottom of this page, there is a message board (that no one currently uses!). Feel free to post any thoughts, questions or ideas or simply email me for further discussion. This blog is a group effort and I will always give credit to those that uncover a piece of the puzzle. PLEASE, please, please no spoilers! We only have 16 weeks left, 15 after last night (May 23, a Sunday, is the last episode of Lost). So why rush it? I want to thank R&S G for opening up their home for the Lost season premiere party. It was a lot of fun. Our haphazard Lost Taboo was a hoot! We may have a mid-season party and definitely a season finale party, details to come as we get closer. So as I say every week…on with the show!

Summary

After watching the opening sequence of the show and making it to the first commercial break, I said out loud, “I have no idea.” I was leaning more towards WTF?!? More questions and absolutely no answers. On Lost we at first had flashbacks and present time telling us about the characters and their story. Then the series evolved into flash forwards and the present time. Next, they introduced the past. Now we have 2 timelines (hereafter known as Flash Sideways). One in 2005 and the other 2010. I think if we can all agree that LA X, which is the title of this episode, means LA as in LA in 2005 and the X is time on the island in 2010. I read somewhere that it was 2007, but that can't be correct. They were off the island for 3 years while some were in LA and the Losties on the island in 1977, but it was 3 years for them to assimilate into that environment. They crashed in 2005 and where there to just after Christmas (Desmond called Penny from the freighter). So when the flashing occurred it was 2005/2006. That puts us at 2009 and perhaps a little into 2010 like it is now. I would have to go back and re-watch Faraday episodes to see if he ever accounted for a split in the time line continuum creating two different outcomes. In 2005, we are still missing Walt, Michael, Shannon and the coffin. I am assuming that the Tailies are there but not shown. I guess we could guess the same about Walt and Michael since Claire was shown in the cab. The plane never crashes and the island is underwater. We will talk about that some more under Questions.

On the island in the present time, Juliet dies after having tons of metal land on her and the Smoke Monster Locke (hereafter known as SM Locke) shows his true self. Props to R.S. for guessing that the anti-Jacob was really the smoke monster. I thought he was definitely an apparition – like Ecko’s brother Simi, but after Ben released the monster to go after the men that killed his daughter I thought they were separate entities. I stand corrected. Typically we as the fans can see some things that the Losties can't. I think now more than in any other season, we are as Lost as they are.

Connections

Jimmy Kimmel is by far the most powerful Lost fan. He had executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse (hereafter known as Darlton) on the night of the premiere. He asked for a response of either Coincidence or Intentional to a few questions. Shannon not being on the flight=not a coincidence. Michael and Walt not being on the flight=fate. Jack being the nervous one on the flight instead of Rose the first time around=intentional. Jack drinking one less bottle of vodka on the flight=intentional. They also said it was a vegetarian lasagna being served to Kate=intentional…but I think they were kidding on that one.

Juliet hits Jughead 8 times with a rock before it goes off. We see the shark swimming around the underwater island and the swing set near the underwater barracks. Desmond was reading “Haroun and the Sea of Stories” by Salmon Rushdie. It’s a children’s story told in the form of a fable about a man who loses his ability to tell a story. The theme is what is the importance of telling a story if it’s not true. Could be a comparison to Lost regarding showing an alternate reality if its not true. Fear and Trembling was the book on the French corpse at the entrance of the Temple. It’s a book about a European woman going to work for a Japanese company and the humiliation and obstacles she faced being there as she examined two very different ways of life. I think its important that it was found at the entrance of the Temple, because the inhabitants live a different way of life. The leader not wanting to talk English because of the way “it tastes on my mouth”. The plane crash survivors seem to have assimilated into the lives of the people at the Temple.

Ben (after being shot by Sayid) was healed in the Temple and now Sayid is being healed there (after being shot by Ben's father) as well. The flash sideways shows the Losties meeting and interacting like it was fated, but in a different way now. Neil Frogurt and Dr. Katz were on the plane and later played a small part on the island. I was wrong when I said at the party Neil was an Other. He was a Lostie that was killed by a flaming arrow. Charlie almost dies in the lavatory by asphyxiation like he almost died while swimming. He says he is supposed to die. Like Desmond said he was when he kept preventing it from happening.

Questions

Why is the island underwater? – What happened on the timeline to make the island now underwater? Obviously it had been there a while based on the plant life hanging off the statue. Was it moved and it resulted in the coordinates moving it underwater by mistake? Was there an electromagnetic accident that resulted in it being submerged? What happened to its inhabitants? Dharma existed based on the barracks so was it result of the original incident?

How is Desmond on the plane? – How did the shift in time change things that had occurred before the plane crash? Did the explosion change everything that happened after 1977 and not just up to the plane crash as Jack had intended? If the island is underwater, than Desmond could not have been shipwrecked on it so the bigger question is not the absence of the plane crash but what happened in 1977 after the explosion.

It worked. – That was Juliet’s last words to Sawyer. Or was it? Was that what she was going to say or is that what she wanted to say once she was dead and learned something else? What worked exactly? Does she have some sort of knowledge now that she is on the other side? She was in the hole and didn’t know if it was still the past or present, just that Sawyer was alive. She said she wanted him to have never been stuck on the island so did she see the alternate reality? I believe that they were supposed to be on the plane and go through everything they went through. The blast was supposed to get them back to 2010, not 2005. I believe Jack’s atom bomb was “the incident” and they are creating the timeline as it was meant to be. But I am not sure that's what she meant.

Who is Sayid? – So Sayid is alive. Or is he? Is he really back from the dead or is it Jacob? Why was it so important for him to be in the water? Was it Jacob’s death that caused the water to darken? Is it Jacob’s turn to manipulate the inhabitants? Why is Sayid’s life so important to them all? (Spoiler!!! So another point from Jimmy Kimmel. He asked if Sayid was Jacob. Further, if he was Jacob, in future promos, why was he being burned? They said, “Well…I think your theory will become more evolved in the coming weeks.” I take that to mean that Said is not Jacob. But he is not Sayid either).

Smoke Monster Locke - The bullet bounced off him when he was shot by one of the “good guys.” So he cannot be killed by typical means. He cannot cross over the grey ash his one weakness. What was Richard to him? Why and where did he take him? Why does he want to get off the island? Jacob and Richard were able to leave, why couldn’t he? What is his ultimate purpose? What is the loophole, how did he pull it off?

Who are They? – A major question that must be answered by the end of this whole thing. Who are the They Jacob was referring to? If Ilena’s crew are the good guys, who are the bad? What are they fighting for? Who are they trying to keep out of the Temple and why? I think we have weeks before we get to see a clearer picture.

Conclusion

So instead of us getting answers we got more questions. OR are these additional questions leading us to the answers. I can honestly say I am as LOST as I was when they took Walt off the boat. Everything else has been pretty cool twists and turns, but I can’t see clearly at all where this is all heading. But I am going to sit back and enjoy the ride. They have created what seems like an insurmountable task of wrapping this all up in a way that makes sense. More power to them if they can pull it off.

Thanks for being here and take care. Until next week….c-ya!