LT91: Passing the Time

WAITING IS THE HARDEST PART

It’s a Thursday evening and it seems LOST should be on. That probably explains the reason for my post tonight. Some the thoughts may be as random as the Whispers, but I got to get lost…


PROGRAMMING NOTE

Next week in Central Standard Time, LOST will air at 7 p.m. a repeat of last week’s part 1 of “No Place Like Home”. It is said to include some extra footage. This is followed by the two-hour finale beginning at 8 p.m.

Don’t miss it!


TICKETS

Ever notice how many survivors had their plane tickets given to them?

Sawyer – Australian police
Claire – psychic
Kate – US Marshall
Sayid – US military
John – travel agency
Jin and Sun – business class by Paik Industries
Michael – David, the adoptive father of Walt


WHISPERS

When Hurley finds the cabin with Ben and Locke, the whispers are heard saying:

Man: "Come to me, I need you. You're an alchemist and uh..." Woman: "I need-" Man (Sounds like Christian Shephard): "Sarah, Is somebody coming?"Woman: "They must be coming, you-"Man: "Hush! One of these-"(Shushing- shhh, shht!) Woman: "Richard!"Man: "Come with us."Woman: "Here's the recipe."Man: "Oh thank you, I thought I'd lost-"

TEASER

In a week, we learn who is in that coffin that Jack visits.


Enjoy,
KC

LT90: If Only We Had A Pair of Ruby Slippers

ACE OF SPADES

Notice the T-shirt that Hurley is wearing reads, “Ace of Spades”. In some areas it is also known as "The Death Card." During the Vietnam War, US soldiers would litter the jungle with this card or leave one on a dead body. They believe the enemy soldiers were frightened off by its meaning. The popular called company would ship crates of this single card to the battlefield.

It also is used in Robert Louis Stevenson’s book, “The Suicide Club”, where if a member drew the Ace of Spades from a deck, they had to submit to be killed.

It is featured in Lord of the Flies book.


CAN THE ISLAND REALLY MOVE?

According to one physicist it is possible. There are a couple of ways and both seem to use electromagnetism which the island has plenty of it seems. Quantum teleportation is the most likely avenue towards successful island hopping. Scientist have successfully teleported objects and to date the record is 600 miles.


FARADAY’S BOOK

Too bad Arnzt isn’t still around to read Faraday’s book and help the survivors with some important information. It appears Daniel knew about the second protocol and about the Orchid hatch. Someone has been here before!


WHAT WE LEARN FROM NATURE

Anthuriums are the flowers that John is to look for inside the Orchid hatch and find the elevator switch. It seems these plants are found in only tropical regions. And these plants are hermaphrodite which means they contain female and male part reproductive flowers. And certain varieties will only grow in proximity to an ant colony. In Daniel’s notebook with the Orchid logo there is a drawing of ant above it.

This reminds me of a post I read recently about the Numbers. It was suggested that 4 represents the number of daughter eggs require for meiosis. And 23 is the number of chromosomes in human DNA. I’m just saying that fertility is one of reproduction and cloning is another. Hmmm…


CRAZIEST THEORY OF THE WEEK: THE BATON THEORY

Recall Ben’s nifty baton thing he used to defend himself in the desert? And he then asks John to hold to it in the last episode?

Well, guess where we FIRST saw the baton? If you said Season 1, Episode 1, Scene 1…you would be correct:

Some people are thinking that in the future Jack finds his way back to the island and this baton thing could possibly be the key to getting back.
Otherwise why would Ben have "passed the baton" to Locke? Why would he care if the Freighters took it?

Also, notice that the Pilot episode's opening scene could have been Jack coming back to the island and that the point where Jack pivots around on the beach and sees/hears nothing. He then spins around again and sees the crash site is the transition back to the present.

Oh my!


PREGNANCY CHALLENGES

In the last LOST TIDBITS we talked about how Kate is going to have to do some explaining about the timing of events and her blond son.

But we also mentioned that Sun may have a bigger challenge. I was curious to the timing of Jin’s death via the Oceanic cover story and so I re-watched the episode. Sun clearly states that Jin never made it off the plane. So, again…when and with whom did Sun get pregnant? The couple was not obviously getting along right before Flight 815 since Sun was prepared to walk out on him at the airport. They did have six hours on the flight, but one of the two was not able to produce a child (it was Jin, but everyone put the blame on Sun for family reasons). So, Jin is NOT one of the eight who survived and leaves us with a bigger mystery for Sun’s child.

And while on the subject, how does Aaron eat now? He is about 1 month old, if that, and needs milk. Considering the lack of babies on this island, I’m guessing we are fresh out of Dharma Formula. Does anyone remember Frank climbing the hill and running into a cow? How nice of the island to provide. And how lucky that cow was able to defend herself against polar bears and Smokey!


BEST THEORY OF THE WEEK – THE BIBLE

Readers of TIDBITS know that I favor a religious explanation to the happenings on LOST island and so I won’t spell it out again, but instead share a few new observations:

-The New Testament begins with the Christian Resurrection. Christian Shepherd resurrection. If you haven’t seen the Missing Pieces episode entitled, “And So It Begin”, it is a must watch.

-John the Baptist is mistakenly identified as the Son of God, but we learn he is later the prophet for Christ. John Locke seems to have that same mistaken identity perhaps. And like his Bible counter-part, both were claimed (incorrectly) to be a product of an immaculate conception.

-Revelations says the end times will be followed by a New Heaven and a New Earth. Othersville was called “New Otherton” last week.

-Revelations says the end of the world begins with “a door…opened in the sky”. The plane flew through the door.

-The two stones found in the Adam and Eve cave are known as Urim and Thummim to the ancient Israelites for divination. Urim and Thummim are the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. In Revelations, God declares he is the Alpha and Omega – the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet (in which the New Testament was written).

-Claire tells of discovering she was pregnant soon after her home test. The words she uses as she stammers a bit are, “it was six…sixty-six seconds after”. Yeah, 666 which Revelation says is the sign of the beast.

-The current Grand Master of the Priory (the group pledged to protect the blood line of Jesus) is Thomas Plantard de Saint Claire. The Plantard family name is attached to possible Anti-Christ candidates. The family crest contains two bears (bears?) guarding a gate (gate/door?) surrounded by those fancy “fleur de lis” – supposedly a reference to the Tree of Life from the Garden of Eden. The translation of the family name, Plantard, means “branch”.

And oh yeah, Claire is the mother of Aaron and the daddy and ex-boyfriend is Thomas.

Thomas Plantard de Saint Claire???

Enjoy,
KC

LT89: No Place Like Home

Since this is a three-hour, two-part finale we will hold our analysis until the full episode is revealed, but we sure seem to be getting a lot of answers lately!

ISLANDS

The official Oceanic story says the six survivors lived on an island name “Membata” which is located near the island nation of Indonesia. The island name in the native language means “doubt” or “uncertainty”.

By the way, the official cover story concludes the survivors were lost for 108 days. According to sources, this portion of the latest episode was Day 100.

PREGNANCY STORY

We all realize the challenge for writers to keep all the facts straight. But with Kate’s pregnancy they don’t get a free pass because they were focused on it by having a reporter ask her about the timing of her pregnancy.

What some picked up then would be Sun’s pregnancy story which any doctor would pinpoint the time as after or near the flight crash date. The problem with that is that everyone close to Sun and Jin would know he is sterile (ok, at least their doctor knows which probably means daddy knows). Plus, if he died on impact, Jin wouldn’t be the father. He could be one of the two who didn’t make it but survived a short time. Otherwise, it means the official Oceanic story would have to suggest that the father of her baby is one of the male Oceanic 6/8. Either that or she had “mile high” experience with a flight attendant.

OTHERSVILLE

As viewers we come up with some substitute names for people and places we observe on the show including the housing complex where the Others lived. Producers have referred to this place as “New Otherton”. Sawyer used the same term to describe the place now in the show. It seems that places with “New” are usually named after an established city with the same suffix: New York, New London, etc. So does this mean that Otherton is the name of a prior established “city”?

WHITE LIES

When Sun arrives at the Freighter to see Michael standing there she asks how he got to New York City. He lies by saying he took Ben’s boat, stumbled upon an island with, you know, people. He then sells his boat for a ferry ride and so on. Michael’s explanation of events to Sayid and Desmond along with other timelines implies this is a lie. Why?

And did you catch how similar Michael’s lie was to the official Oceanic cover story? Coincidence? I think not!

MUSIC TO MY EARS

Two weeks in a row Geronimo Jackson has shown up. First on John Locke’s school locker and last week an album of the artist was spotted near the DJ’s table at Hurley’s surprise party:

And sharp eyes picked up that Hurley arrived home to the party and carried in a bag of Mr. Clutch Chicken Shack food.

HELIOGRAPH

The mirror used to signal someone is called a heliograph or signaling mirror. They were common for military purposes and are still found in survival kits. The proper use of the device is usually printed on the non-reflective side.

The portion of the signal from Ben we could observe said “seize”. We can assume this means Ben was signaling the Others at the Temple and were being instructed to seize someone or something. You might think that meant Kate and Jack but Ben wouldn’t know about their whereabouts, so it most likely meant The Orchid hatch.

WEDDING BELLS

Did you catch that Sayid was sporting a wedding ban which implies he married Nadia prior to the surprise party? The couple must not have waited long after being reunited. I suppose Nadia saw the news of the Oceanic Six and went to see him, but it seems a bit odd how she just shows back up in his life. Of course, I say that knowing that someone is going to have her killed and it makes me wonder of all these events weren’t staged in order to get Sayid in the emotional place “they” wanted him.

HEADING OF 305

A little research reveals the first time this number was offered…it was on Locke’s Jesus stick:

It almost seems like this was instructions to John with the reference to going north at a heading of 305 degrees. The Bible verse this appears to mention reads:

"Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."

In the context of the passage, this refers to baptism. In context of the show, who can really know what it means?

NUMBERS

This one is date, but worthy of mentioning: Juliet used 8 stitches to sew Jack back up.

The two boys at Hurley’s party were wearing jerseys with the numbers 23 and 42 on them.

15 presents were on the table at Hurley’s party. 16 guests had party hats on. 4 palm trees on the lanai (thank goodness for HGTV for now I know what a lanai is), and there were 8 helium balloons tied near the pool.

On the Camaro that Hurley’s father fixed up we saw the numbers on the odometer. Some of those numbers were visible on the tripometer portion which was not present in the 1970-72 model of this car. We must assume Cheech replaced it when fixing up the car.

RESCUE PHOTO

Hurley is wearing the shirt he had on while with Locke and John at the Orchid hatch.

Jack is wearing a different shirt with long sleeves. Sayid is all wet while no one else is wet above the waist.

Sun and Aaron are not visible.

ON DECK

We take a break this week as Grey’s Anatomy gets a two-hour season finale. Then LOST returns for the two-hour time slot beginning at 8 CST.

LOST TIDBITS should have another mid-week edition in order to ponder these questions:

On the Island

What is Ben's plan?
Whom was Ben communicating to with the mirror and what did he say?
Why were the Others wearing their "disguises"?
How did Daniel know about the "Secondary Protocol"?
We've seen that travel between the island and freighter takes longer than it should (the rocket test, Sayid and Desmond's trip via helicopter). Why does this not appear to have happened as Sayid and later Daniel travel between the island and freighter in the Zodiac?

On the freighter

Who planted the explosives and why?
What is the trigger for their detonation?
What is causing the interference on the freighter's fathometer?

After the rescue

Why didn't Sam Austen come to see Kate?
What plans, if any, does Sun have for her father's company?
Who was the second of the two people Sun claims is responsible for Jin's death?
What kind of settlement did Sun receive from the airline that she is able to purchase enough of Paik Industries to now control the company?

On the rescue plane

Who is the person traveling with the Oceanic Six?!!! (You can click any image to get a larger view, by the way).

Enjoy,

KC