Cabin Fever

Cabin fever? I've got LOST fever! This episode was so jam-packed, I have to warn, this may be lengthy.

Locke-centric, the flashback showed Locke from several stages of his pre island life: birth, age 5, age 16, and during rehab after Cooper pushed him out the window. The dominant themes in the FB (as well as in Locke's island scenes) were being chosen, and what kind of man he is.

Born prematurely, under the duress of his sixteen year old mother being hit by a car, in 1956, John's chances were not good. Indeed, the nurse later reports he had all sorts of infections and complications, and he fought through them. He is a fighter.

After Emily Locke makes it clear she can't fulfill the duties of a mother and runs screaming from the room, Mrs. Locke sees someone gazing in through the glass. It is revealed to be none other than Richard Alpert (yay)! She seems both to know him (although she claims not to) and to be surprised to see him. As fascinating as Alpert following Locke from birth is, the idea that he goes back even futher with his family is quite intriguing, to say the least.

Alpert shows up again in Locke's life when he is five, claiming to be interested in John for the school for "extremely special" people that he runs. He notices a picture John drew, which looks very much like Smokey attacking someone. He then administers a test of sorts, showing John several items: a baseball mitt, a vial with some sort of grayish material, a compass, a "Mystery Tales" comic book, a knife, and an old book entitled "Book of Laws". He asks young John which of the objects belongs to him...already.

It's not clear to me if the first two objects he picks up (vial and compass) are choices or whether he's considering them and then rejecting them. Either way, he then appears to consider the Book of Laws, which appears to make Richard happy, but then goes instead for the knife, which makes Richard look disappointed and angry. He tells John the knife isn't his, grabs the objects, and storms out.

He tries to contact John again when he's sixteen through Mittelos Laboratories, with his teacher giving him a brochure and telling John Mittelos is interested in him. John complains that science camp is why he gets stuffed into lockers. His teacher tells him he needs to be true to who he is.

This idea of who he's supposed to be is reinforced by injured Locke's encounter with Abaddon (?!?), who tells him to go on a walkabout to find out who he is.

Who is he? The scene with his teacher shows a new element of Locke. We've always thought of him as the man of faith, not science. Did he turn his back on his true talent? What of the scene with Richard's objects? Is he not supposed to be a hunter? And what would the Book of Laws have made him? Has Alpert or who he represents been waiting a long time for Locke to realize his true destiny?

Who does Richard represent? I assume the island, but then who does Abaddon represent? I have until now assumed he worked for Widmore. Why would Widmore want to influence Locke? Is it possible both factions knew he was key to the island, and both wanted to get him there, hoping they could then manipulate him to their own ends? What will Locke "owe" Abaddon?

I guess Alpert and Abaddon succeeded, although the latter seems to have the most direct role in getting him to the island: Locke's pursuit of the walkabout led to him being on Flight 815. Alpert also gave John help at a key moment on the island, when he gave him Sawyer's file in "The Brig". But John has not held true to his lab boy self, and he has obviously gone for knives in a big way. So why is he still the chosen one?

It would be easy to say the teacher was just wrong. Certainly, in the past, John's familiar outburst, "Don't tell me what I can't do!", has been vindicated. Richard's reaction to the test, however, reinforced the idea that he wasn't being true to himself. And yet, on the island, he has now apparently arrived as the knife-wielding, meat-bringing chosen one.

Which leads us to the scenes with Locke, Hurley and Ben on the way to Jacob's cabin.

These scenes seem to cement the idea that power is transitioning from Ben to Locke. Ben says, "I used to have dreams," after Locke reveals how he knows how to locate the cabin. More interesting is when Ben congratulates Locke on manipulating Hurley, and Locke denies doing so, saying, "I'm not you." Ben replies, intriguingly, "You're certainly not." What does that mean?

Of course the visit to the cabin is the culmination of all these events, where Locke is definitively told he is "chosen". By Christian. With Claire. In Jacob's cabin. I don't think I'm alone in saying, "WTF!?!"

Let's start with Christian.

First off, what is he wearing? No suit with gym shoes? Evene when Hurley saw him in the cabin he was wearing his usual garb. When did he switch to Others-chic? More importantly, what does it mean? And why was he shimmery, Jacob-style, when Hurley saw him, but not now?

But it's what he said that's more important than his outfit. He claims to speak on Jacob's behalf, and he apparently knows a lot about what's going on. He knows where Aaron "should" be, he knows Locke has been chosen, and he knows what they have to do.

I have long wondered whether Christian had a previous connection to the island, or whether his image is just being used by the island, since his corpse crashed there. The appearance to Hurley was one thing, but this was not equivocal. He appeared to be corporeal, he spoke, identified himself as Christian, all to someone who had no way of knowing who he was. This wasn't Dave appearing to Hurley, the horse appearing to Kate, or even Christian appearing to Jack and Claire. Now that he's clearly appearing to people who did not know him before, I can't help but think the real, living Christian had some connection to the island.

So why does he need to speak for Jacob? Where is Jacob? Was Jacob trapped and now he's not? And what's Claire doing? Why doesn't she seem to care about Aaron? Is she dead? (BTW, hats off to Emilie de Ravin, who did an incredible job seeming spooky while looking radiantly beautiful.)

Well, I'm going to leave it for now, so as not to explode my head (and I haven't even gotten to Horace or the Kahana, or really delved into the cabin). But I'll leave you with my favorite line of the night: Hurley with a serious look on his face, saying, "Yeah, I'm pretty much OK with you going in alone too." HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Anyway, let's try to figure this out before Thursday, shall we?

Namaste

Something Nice Back Home

I love the ride that is LOST. This week's episode has been labelled filler by some, but I disagree. I think "SNBH" has many key points of interest, underlying the fact that it was just a damn good hour of TV.

Of course, it answered the question, "Is Danielle really dead," in the affirmative. Contrary to the reasoning that we were promised a Rouseau backstory, therefore she can't be dead, she seems quite indisputably to be so. Of course we know death on this show doesn't prevent characters from reappearing, but a Danielle-centric episode does seem out of the question now. I'm going to reserve judgment on this development for the time being.

As far as the flash forward goes, it was a good episode for Jaters, at least until the end. Beyond that we filled in some gaps.

We know that between the trial and the events of "Through the Looking Glass", Jack and Kate did try to make a go of it. One can only assume Jack's jealous outburst at the end is the reason for Kate's reluctance to see him in "TTLG".

We also saw Jack's daddy issues front and center, in his desperate plea, "Am I really good at this?" This sub-plot also provided an Alice in Wonderland reference, when Jack was reading to Aaron.

But more interesting about the FF was the conversation with Hurley and the appearance of Christian Shephard. Obviously, Charlie has appeared to Hurley several times since the events of "The Beginning of the End". And he seems to be working in concert with Christian. But more on that in a minute.

There was a "No Smoking" sign in the cell where Hurley saw the vision of Charley in "TBOTE". After Jack saw Christian, he explained his actions by saying the smoke detector was malfunctioning. These would seem to be references to the smoke monster, and would seem to lend credence to the theory that Smokey is behind the "manifestations", a theory to which I have always been lukewarm.

But I'm not sure that it matters. Smokey and the manifestations/apparitions are both acting on behalf of the island, or may even be "limbs" of the island, and that connection is probably the important thing. But it does remind me that Locke saw something different once. Maybe it's only the Smoke Monster when it's in revenge mode (or recon mode). Questions about parallels to Christian and/or Hindu trinities also reemerge.

But back to Christian. He's becoming more and more significant. To recap recent appearances, we saw him sitting in Jacob's cabin during Hurley's encounter in "TBOTE", and for those of us who watched the mobisodes, we saw him instruct Vincent to wake up Jack, saying, "He's got work to do." This would have taken place immediately before the first scene in the pilot episode.

So the question is, are ghost-Christian and ghost-Charlie at all themselves? Or are they just Smokey appearing to individuals in the most persuasive form? Christian refers to Jack as "my son" in the mobisode; what does Vincent care? Is this a clue?

But the biggest OMG moment for me was when Claire woke up to see Christian holding Aaron. This was a spooky scene, but it also I think provides an alternative to Claire dying. I for one never expected anything like that, so her death was the only way I could reconcile Aaron being with Kate. Now I can see another possibility, obviously.

Not that I have any idea why Christian took Claire and not Aaron, or why Claire let him. I would guess he's taking her to Jacob, but I don't know why.

More importantly, what does this have to do with the "raised by another" thread? Charlie's message to Jack is, "You're not supposed to raise him, Jack." But Kate is? The island seems responsible for separating Aaron and Claire. Why?

I suspect we'll learn more about this next week, and I can't wait. Before then I'll try to get a part two out, but until then let's hash!