LT220: Death Becomes Them

LOCKE’S FATHER

It is a thought that the reason everyone was so intent on burying the Hostiles is that it may be one way to avoid “zombies”. Christian never got below ground and he walks among the living for example. For some reason this takes me to Danielle and Alex’s burials for they seemed rushed for some reason even back then. If this reason is on the spot then Locke’s father is still a candidate for zombie. That could be intriguing.


TERRIBLE THINGS

Locke warned the Oceanic 6 that bad things happened on the island after they left. We must assume he is referring to the time shifts. In reality after a few days of mind-numbing, nose-bleeding, headache-producing days of confusion, then next three years drifted along quite nicely for everyone. Oh, there had that occasional Richard Alpert visit, but for the most part, life was a bed of roses.

Then hear comes back Locke with his not-so-merry band of Oceanic 6 thinking they are going to save the day. Instead the come upon a pretty content Jin who is cruising around in a new VW van and cranking the tunes. Sawyer’s found the love of his life and even Miles seems to be settling in nicely. Talk about culture shock of Jack. Not only will our resident doctor find happiness, but Sawyer is in the sheriff in this town.

This is likely to create another rift between our man of science and our man if faith. Jack had better be careful this time, for Locke has some powerful friends this time.


JULIET

A few weeks back I am hammering on Juliet and her uppity sort of haughty attitude. Now it seems everyone is happy with her relationship with Sawyer. Now let us examine this from another perspective: Ben’s vantage point. Young Ben arrives shortly and it does not take long to figure out who is with whom at any age. When Ben grows older, he has this knowledge.

Recall how Ben has a crush on her. He kills her boyfriends he is so obsessed with her. A plan begins to hatch on Ben’s twisted mind. He gets an idea on how to keep Sawyer from his Juliet. All he has to do is push someone else towards Sawyer – like Kate. We know from the end of last episode that Sawyer’s memory of what Kate looks like is no longer a problem. I sense a catfight.

Which makes one wonder what other tidbits of past knowledge Ben has been using to his advantage?


RULES OF TIME TRAVEL

We need to have “the talk”. Yep, time you and I sit down and talk about that issue that every person dreads: time travel rules. Let us use Sawyer as our example to discuss this delicate topic.

Sawyer is born in 1969 in Jasper, Alabama.

Sawyer celebrates his 35th birth year by crashing on to this strange island.

He is time warped back to 1974. We now have two Sawyer’s in the world. A 5-year old version hiding under the bed in Alabama and a 35-year old version who is hitting on the local auto mechanic.

In 30 years, James Sawyer Ford LaFleur will celebrate his 65th birth year by going out to the beach and welcoming his younger self to the island.

(For a side note, I tried to come up with an Other who was 65-years old that could be the future Sawyer welcoming party. The only candidates I came up with were Jacob, Christian and Anthony Cooper. The last choice being a common thread in this post! Hmmm…)

To make matters even more interesting, for his 95th birth year, the elderly Sawyer will join his 65-year old version to stroll back to the beach to welcome the third replica.

Now some have pointed out that only one version might actually time flash. This leaves us with just the one version on the island with one exception: for 108 days, there would still be multiple versions.

Another counter argument is that the Dharma version does not make it past the purge…ever.

Another counter argument is that Oceanic 815 will not crash again. Off island is 2007 so we do not have a little Sawyer running around. When the island catches up to 2004, there is no second Sawyer to get on board the plane. This breaks Daniel’s rules of time travel.

All this takes me back to a theory long ago that stated that the minute Oceanic 815 flew into the Twilight Zone two planes existed. One went down on the island and other plane went down in the Sundra Trench.

“But hold on a minute, Mr. Theorist. Frank says the pilot was different so this was just a fake job, a hoax, a lie!” Maybe not. Recall that we just supposed that there would not be another Sawyer to get on board…or another Jack or Kate or US Marshall…or any other passenger who crashed in September 2004. This is why no one recognizes the bodies found at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. It never happened the way we see it from the island’s point of view.

The big problem we have is that six survivors plus a handful more did leave the island. Eventually, the writers have to chase one paradox or another.

Let’s sum this up: by the time 65 year old Sawyer is 95, 35 year old Sawyer has already become the Sawyer that ends up being 65 year old Sawyer.So, unless there was another time skip in which 65 year old Sawyer went backwards for his second time, there could be no 3rd Sawyer. There would only be 2 Sawyers up until the point when 35 year old Sawyer begins time traveling. Unless you're saying that 65 year old Sawyer time travels at the same time 35 year old Sawyer does. But then there would be an infinite number of Sawyers. Which is impossible. Got all that?


ONE MORE THOUGHT ON TIME TRAVEL

Consider a few other anomalies the show has sprinkled into the plot. Take the pregnancy thing. Do you recall the time when Juliet examined that ultrasound result during her job interview? Someone said that the uterus was that of a 70-year old woman. That is an anomaly. Until you consider how people can keep their present age but jump around in time. What if Kate gets pregnant next week (or already is in that “Don’t-ask-me-about-Aaron” moment) and then time flashes in a way that she is suddenly 70 years old?


ANOTHER MIND TEASER

John Locke is crawling down the well when a time flashes rises up from beneath him and zaps him into another time zone. The rope breaks and half is left in Sawyer’s hand in order to keep the rule intact that what you hold you get to bring with you. The other half is in John’s hands so he gets to keep it.

However, if both had let go of the rope a second prior to the flash, we would have no rope. No matter what we would have solid ground where the well once stood. Here is the teaser: why isn’t John buried alive?

Why did the upper six feet or so of ground fill in, but the lower six feet of the well shaft remain a well? You can argue that the Hot Wheel Room was always there (or at least in both timeframes). You could suggest the well comes later. Yet, John is clearly at the bottom of some partial shaft before he rounds the corner.
This might suggest that depending where you are in space, might dictate where you are in time. Consider that the next time flash (when John turns the wheel) actually moves John to the desert while the ones above ground stay where they are standing and thankful a full-grown tree did not sprout right where one of them is/was standing!

Do recall when the well returned, Sawyer jumped right into solid ground again – this suggests not the same timeframe when John climbed down but an even later time when the well was filled…leaving me wonder if the whole Wheel Room isn’t filled with dirt by that time.


THE PURGE

Here is one last theory: the problem with pregnancies began with the Purge. I like it. Some curse that Richard and Jacob places on the Dharma group for breaking the truce.

I can see it now: Jacob appears as a fiery bush and says, “You did not follow my simple rules for the truce. Therefore, you must leave this Garden of Eden. I curse you and guarantee the eventual end of your group my making childbirth impossible. To ensure you never return, I will place an angel with a flaming black and smoky sword in the Garden, lest you return to the fountain of youth in order to drink from it and live forever like Richard. I am Light. And Light is Time.”

Hey, that is not bad if you think about it!


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LT219: You Don't Bring Me Flowers Anymore

THE FLOWER

LaFleur means flower in French, but it seems Sawyer had a reputation for being a hard boss to work for. As Reader Michael points out when the guards noticed Horace drunk at the fence they were very intimidated by having to wake Sawyer from his sleep. This could be because that is how one gets to be head of security in Dharmaville. I do hope the show gives a bit more explanation of how they went completely from “not being Dharma material” to being in charge of all the guns.


T-SHIRT

While we are thinking of the opening scene…was that the Pearl station with all those monitors? Ok, forget the TV’s and focus on that girl the one was dancing with.

It’s hard not to look at that shirt, but it is OK to look closer. See anything? Yep, that is a Geronimo Jackson t-shirt. Hey, eyes up here, mister!


THE STATUE

Reader Aunt J-ha wonders if we will see more of the four-toed statue. She thinks it appeared to be a woman in that quick shot. Click on this picture to see a larger version:

I see a skirt and long hair, so maybe Aunt J-ha is on to something.

My research says this could be the Egyptian god, Horus.

Besides the name play on Horus to Horace (Goodspeed) it has the skirt, the pointy ears, somewhat long hair, holding something in its hands and gee that symbol looks familiar…sort of like Paul’s necklace.

The symbol for Horus is a falcon like seen on the Swan Hatch’s Countdown Clock. And Horus was said to have been raised on a floating island.


OR HOW ABOUT HORACE SMITH?

This passage was penned by Horace Smith:

In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,

Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws

The only shadow that the Desert knows.

"I am great Ozymandias," saith the stone,

"The King of kings: this mighty city shows

The wonders of my hand."

The city's gone!

Naught but the leg remaining to disclose

The sight of that forgotten Babylon.

We wonder, and some hunter may express

Wonder like ours, when through the wilderness

Where London stood, holding the wolf in chase,

He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess

What wonderful, but unrecorded, race

Once dwelt in that annihilated place.

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The author was describing Ramses II. Just to bring things full circle, the name, Ozymandias, will be uttered in the movie being released on Friday called “Watchmen” (see earlier post on this book/movie). Hmm…


ANKH

The symbol being held in the picture above is the same as the necklace that Paul wore. It stands for “eternal life”. It also can mean the key of life, but a key to what? Often in time past, mirrors were fashioned into this shape to represent some sort of window into the afterlife.

One researcher claims the symbol is associated with an ancient cattle culture. Frank, the pilot, did see a cow when he first landed his helicopter on the island.

And let’s not leave Paul out of this. If he is wearing an “afterlife” symbol doesn’t that sort of associate him with immortal Richard more than Dharma. Sure, Dharma also was research life extension, but that isn’t quite the same thing. Could this mean Paul was a spy but then feel in love and Richard needed the body to show his followers what happens to traitors?


RICHARD’S APPEARANCE

Reader Ben says it drives him crazy how Richard’s appearance is inconsistent. Lately we see him well-groomed, but when he met young Ben (around the time the last episode is on) we see him with long and stringy hair.

Others have notice Richard’s use of eyeliner.

In this past episode Sawyer refers to Richard as the “guy with the eyeliner”.

Did you know that ancient Egyptian men and woman word eyeliner? The theory is that it helped to keep the sun’s glare out of their eyes.


LOOKS CAN BE DECEIVING

I’m referring to Horace Goodspeed now. He seemed a bit dull to be a leader of a commune, let alone an entire community. But looks can be deceiving. For example, what if he has a dark side like every other leader seems to have? What if he setup Paul and Annie to go out on that picnic and arranged him to be killed?

Let’s not forget that Horace happened to be driving by the woods outside of Portland right when Ben was being born. And of course, no father of the year awards for a guy who misses his child’s birth.


DOES LOST NEED TO HIRE A CONTINUITY ADVISOR?

Imagine trying to keep this stuff straight! We have thousands of fans contributing in a collective fashion and the staff is probably down to a handful of permanent writers and a green alien (see Dharma Special Access video). Anyway, here is what I’m getting at:

Cute kid, but she looks about 3 years old and yet Charlotte’s birth year is 1979. This event was to have happened around 1974. She either lied about her age (oh there is a shock!) or time is stranger than we realize or LOST needs some help keeping things straight.

Speaking of continuity, how did Sawyer know Richard met John Locke in a flashback when he wasn’t present?

And where on the island are Rose and Bernard and the other Survivors?


MOVING PIECES

Was it me or were just as confused as to which island they were on? Was Annie’s delivery on Hydra or the main island? Ok, I’m 95% sure it was the main island so why no doctors around? Didn’t someone say she was supposed to go to the main island last Tuesday?

Tell I’m goofing something up here, please!


IN THE YEAR 1974

…Watergate is in full bloom
…Stephen King writes “Carrie”, the book club book Juliet will suggest in 2004
…Ali beats Foreman in the “Rumble in the Jungle”
…Researcher writes about mental obedience in the ”Milgram Report”
…Lucy the skeleton head is found linking us for the first time to a prior species


IN THE YEAR 1977

…Star Wars premiers
…the Apple II computer is introduced and seen in the Swan Hatch
…BBC begins a series about scientists starting a commune and turns out to be a hoax
…Senate hearings begin concerning mind control techniques by military black ops

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Be honest...how many thought they were re-running the prior week's episode at the beginning of this show? Did you notice how things were different? For starters, there was no Christian in the Hot Dharma Wheel Room. Was John the only one to "see" him or was the time period changing on us?

I like the throw away line about the polar bears getting out of their cages.

Oh, and the nickname "Plato" that Sawyer threw out.

Did the Hostiles who attacked Annie and Paul look to be a little ragged again? Are the Hostiles a well organized military unit or not?

Again, honesty...did you see Annie pull out those ear plugs before passing through the sonic fence? If that is all it took, then Kate was wasting a lot of energy climbing over it in previous episodes (notice I didn't say is past time, because it was future time...oh never mind!).

I'm not sure why I feel that the events on LOST are somehow connected to T.O. being dropped by the Cowboys one day after the LaFleur episode. Now if New Orleans picks up his contract, don't say I didn't tell you so!

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LT218: LaFleur Initial Thoughts

That was one of the best episodes in a long time!

IN THE YEAR 1974

So John stops the record from skipping and the song is 1974 so to speak. Very clever transition on how Jin and everyone earn their Dharma jumpsuits. They have not explained how they missed the submarine in two weeks other than by implying that the longer they put it off the easier it became to just stay put.


HEADACHES

One of my favorite transitions was having Sawyer wake up on the couch after going through the sonic fence. Then Sawyer watches Horace wake up on the couch by the end of the episode - both complaining about headaches. That led nicely into the "is three years long enough". I was hollering, "The Dharma van is going to pull up any minute!".


RANDOM THOUGHTS

So dead people can't pass through the flashes - poor Charlotte. Good thing or she would have seen herself as a little child.

Does this mean that Annie and Horace's child can't be Daniel? This seems true for several reasons, but I'm focusing on the fact that one shouldn't be able to see themselves twice.

Did Jin have a cell phone to call Sawyer? Maybe there is some outpost with phone service but if it is outside the fence, the Hostiles should have tore it down.

Lest we forget...the statute returns!

If Dharma is here and funded by Hanso...and if Widmore Industries is attached to this building effort as we suspect, then couldn't Widmore just trot back to the island anytime? Remember he said Ben tricked him, so that implies that Widmore will be on the island when Ben is...so 1990-ish. Let me sort this out.


THE TRUCE

It seems the truce is back on again. At least in 1974. What causes the truce to be broken? Will that be related to the statue being blown to pieces?

And this leads me to a whole line of thought on the line of rulers - both Dharma and Hostiles. Any ideas on the this? Dharma has Horace and then who? I'll work on this.


IN THE YEAR 1997

By my math, Ben has until 1992 before the Purge.

My guess is then that next week a new shipment of Dharma recruits show up and Ben is on board...at age 10 or 12. Add on 18 years and then Ben gases his father and the Dharma...so the truce is broken around that time.

This ties into the line of leadership, so again...it was a late showing in Iowa due to some basketball game, so let me blame the hour for not thinking this through. Besides, this is just initial thoughts.


CONCLUSION

This will go down as one of the best all time episodes for LOST. Helpful and yet intriuging. How is Kate going to react to the Sawyer-Juliet thing? How is Sun going to react to a husband who once worked for mean Widmore that is now working for Dharma?

And let's be open about this...the record must skip one more time to get them all back to the right song or there is going to be some major rifts in the time-space continuum.


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LT217: Visual Aids

EGYPT

Hurley was doing some arts and craft at the Santa Rosa Mental Hospital when John/Jeremy came to visit him. Here is a snapshot of his painting:

The Egypt theme just keeps coming up again and again. The Sphinx is said to have guarded the entrance to an ancient city. In order to enter the city the Sphinx would ask a riddle. That riddle, according to Greek legend, was: “Which creature in the morning goes on four legs, at mid-day on two, and in the evening upon three, and the more legs it has, the weaker it be?”

The Sphinx was used as a symbol for the US Army Military Intelligence back in 1923 and retained until 1962.

With a mix of military and ancient Egypt, the writers keep pointing us back to a couple of popular themes. What do you think it could mean? Personally, I keep thinking of the Underworld.


REAL LIFE STRANGER THAN FICTION

It seems a story of a slave ship made the news last November. It seems that a ship crashed off the shore of Africa sometime in the 1800’s. The identity of the wreckage remained a secret until a letter was discovered. This letter provided the location of the wreck and other pieces of identification. One such piece of info was the sale of two dolls with glass eyes.

Talk about life imitating art!

The survivors of the wreck were rescued and taken to a nearby island where they were forced to work for a year to repay their rescuers. This letter went on to describe how the descendents now make up some 30,000 inhabitants of the island today. The document described how a list was made which would make it possible then to identify the ancestors of this wreck. To date, the list has not been found.

Dolls. Glass eyes. Slave ship. A list. All too spooky. The letter also led to the discovery of the ship since it provided its location to a landmark: two miles east of something called the Black Rock. Hmmm…

You can read the whole story here: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-slaveship29-2008nov29,0,6910253.story


DANIELS DRAWING

Recall a post or two back we saw Caesar retrieving a drawing from the Hydra Station filing cabinet. It was a match to the drawing in Daniel’s book. Well, we go one step further with this observation:

It seems Radzinsky’s glow-in-the-dark map is a match to Daniel’s drawing. Would it be wild if Daniel turns out to be Radzinsky? But he killed himself, so maybe not. Could we say they at least knew each other?

Speaking of Daniel…when he speaks, why doesn’t he have a British accent like mom?


BERNARD

I’m not sure what to make of this picture that is floating around:

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Enjoy,

KC

LT216: Plotting a Course

COURSE CORRECTION

From the time Ms. Hawking told Desmond about course corrections it has provided the writers with some wiggle room in the storyline. Most viewers of LOST would probably agree that a course correction must have very little impact on past, present and future events. But what if that window of opportunity was a bit wider open then we give it credit? And what might be the implications?

No one seems better at emergency landings than Frank Lapidus, the pilot of Ajira Flight 316. When he came out to see all the island survivors on his flight to Guam, well, you want to bet he didn’t go back to the cockpit and make a “course correction”. I mean literal and figuratively. This then turned a crash or even a continued flight into a controlled crash landing. Will this change the future so drastically that Ben’s future vision will be shattered?

Frank might have steered the plane into the proper heading and kept many passengers alive. The shot of the plane we got shows the wing was still intact.




SUICIDE VERSUS MURDER

There seems to be something important about Ben killing John instead of John committing suicide. Some religions feel that suicide is a mortal sin – not sure how this plays in, but the Island does seem to make some distinctions about these things.

I was re-watching Season 3 where John is asked to kill his father, Anthony Cooper. I find that how sequence extremely strange. If it had remained that Ben was using the events to embarrass Locke, fine. And when Ben and Company pack up to move to the Temple he tells John not to come with until he kills his father. It seems as if Ben was pretty sure John couldn’t do it. This would plant a seed of doubt in Locke’s mind and make him an ineffective challenge for Leader.

Richard then saunters up to Locke and hands him a folder about Sawyer and says, “He’ll kill your father for you and we can move past this challenge of Ben’s and get you to your rightful place.” I don’t know about you, but this behavior by Richard would seem to be a crime in most states by practically putting the Black Rock chains in Sawyer’s hands.

When Richard and Locke part ways it is made very clear that John needs to deal with his father issue before he can lead. Huh? I have struggled for months with this concept. What group in their right mind would condone death?

As we learn, John didn’t actually do the deed but was an accomplice. Technicality might be important just as John didn’t kill himself directly.

Now consider the Island’s view of suicide. It won’t “let” John commit suicide. It won’t “let” Michael commit suicide by car ramming or handgun. But both are allowed to die, just not by suicide.


HYDRA ISLAND

Does it seem odd that the Aijira passengers have found an abandoned station? If Kate, Jack, Hurley…and Jin…are back in say 1988 when Dharma is full swing, then wouldn’t every station be bristling with activity?

Or could the Ajira Passengers have been zapped to a different timeframe since they passed through the Wall of Time that borders the island(s)? Oh, that reminds me of another point – do you think both islands move? Michael, a reader of TIDBITS, suggests that island could be of the same land mass underwater with a depression that makes them appear to be two separate islands. Good one!

It would be interesting if Ajira Passengers are in 2007 and Jack and Company are in 1988. Then when Frank and possibly Sun hit the shores of Mysterious Island, well, Sun will run into a much younger Jin.


AARON

Many theories are circulating that Aaron, being related to Jack, is sort of a comparison to Aaron and Moses in the Bible. It was said that Moses was uncomfortable speaking to large crowds, so Aaron was the mouthpiece. Eko even repeated this story for us around the time he was baptizing Aaron. While Jack may not strike someone as shy, he did need to be constantly prodded into giving some speech of hope.

Speaking of Aaron…where do you think he is? The popular candidate is Claire’s mother since she is in town. Does this mean that Kate would have to explain the truth because what person would accept a young child at the hotel door. “Sorry, I don’t have time to explain, but have a kid. I’ll be by to pick him up in about 30 years.” Probably not.

The second leading candidate, and my pick, is Cassidy. Remember the secret phone call that Kate was giving? Jack walks into the house and she tries to fake him out. If you have been in that situation…correction…when you were in that situation (HA), you get rattled. You lie, but it may not be very convincing. What does tend to happen is a partial truth – the real facts are hidden in the lie. I point this out because Kate says some lady from the PTA called. The truth is a woman was on the phone, while the lie was the reason for the call. Cassidy fits since Sawyer asked Kate to contact her as he whispered in her ear before jumping out of the helicopter.

In case you forget, Kate and Cassidy have met before and worked a scam on the US Marshall. Kate wanted to see mom and the plan was for Cassidy to dress like her and approach the house where Kate’ mother lived. This would tell them if the Marshalls had the place scoped out or not. They sure did as the Kate-look-alike proved. By the way, Cassidy’s claim to the Marshalls for being there was to sell Bibles door to door. May, I love this show!


RESEARCH PROJECT

It’s fun to blog about LOST but sometimes you just have to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. Remember the Longitude and Latitude Board in the Lamppost Station?

It seems the numbers are backwards. The longitude figures are shown as latitude and visa versa. Latitude values only go up to 90 degrees where the North and South Poles are. When those get switched around and plugged into Goggle maps we get these points:

The two balloons without a letter are LAX and Guam International Airport.

Why were these numbers reversed? Should we be looking in a rear view mirror at things when trying to locate a moving island?

Balloons D and F were the ones with lights lit up next to them.

Either the prop guys got this wrong it was meant to remind me of a movie named “Journey to the Far Side of the Sun”. In this movie there is to be an opposite and mirrored Earth on the exact opposite side of the Sun, so we never observe each other. On the other Earth everything is in reverse. The original title of the movie was “Doppelganger”. Hmmm…

This leads me to Walt and Kate’s phone call…is the other Earth calling? If we did discover a mirrored planet, wouldn’t we call them aliens?


RESEARCH PROJECT II

I’m currently working on another project using all the maps. My purpose is to see if the recent episodes match-up to the landmarks and time it takes to reasonably travel between points. My very early research says that the place where Danielle’s team is dragged to is not where the Temple is supposed to be! More information as I gather it.

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