Meet Dan Majerle

Lostaways-

If you don't get why the title of this blog is funny, or how it relates to the title of this week's episode of LOST (Meet Kevin Johnson), you're probably a girl...or a dude I'm not interested in getting to know. Sorry.

So we've got until April 24th for the next new episode, with only five more left to this strike-shortened season. Booo! But, the writers did leave us with some pretty interesting developments on the island and finally answered some big questions regarding Michael, Walt, Tom's sexual preference, and whether or not the "island" has "powers" off the island.

First off, the time-line of the show is in need of some clarification. In terms of Michael and Tom's encounter in Manhattan, it seems to have been during that month or so (in island time) between when Ben sent Mike and Walt on their merry way and when Tom was shot by Sawyer on the beach at the end of last season. Tom is not back from the dead, and Walt does look 8 years older and a little chubby.

Michael apparently told Walt how it was that he managed to free the two of them (think:trigger happy) and this understandably made Walt freak out and not want to be around his dad. Think about it: the kid never knew his dad, his mom died and Mike shows up to take him to NYC where along the way they crash on a creepy island and Walt is kidnapped and "Studied" by Ben and the Gang. His dad he barely knows then tells him the reason they are busted out is because he shot two chicks in the thorax (or abdomen or something). But, on the other hand, your dad just got you two rescued so some gratitude might be in order. Either way, the kid's pissed at daddio and daddio is on blues-street.

Once again Mamma Cass's sweet pipes find their way in to an episode of LOST, this time in the form of her song "It's Getting Better" which Michael listens to as he is barreling in to a dumpster, and then later when he's about to press the "Execute" (same as the hatch) button on Ben's make-shift (and fake) bomb. He also sees Libby twice, once in the hospital room and once on the freighter. This is the island's way of communicating to Michael's guilty conscience. Just like Eko saw Yemi, Kate saw the black stallion (who was her re-incarnated dad), and Jack saw his father, the island uses the guilty consciences of our castaways to seemingly rehabilitate them for future purposes. Now whether those purposes are for their own good or simply for the good of the island, that is left to be seen. What is interesting is that the island works in the hearts and minds of people who are no longer on the island. This we did not know for sure before. Whatever this power the island (or Jacob) possesses is impressive and far-reaching and apparently not limited to being physically there.

So Tom comes to pay a visit to Michael and recruits him on a make-up-for-past-sins mission to sabotage the freighter from ever reaching its port of entry: the island. Ben, in some typically bizarre showmanship of just how benevolent he can be, psyches out Mike by making him think that he'd have to commit suicide and kill all the Boat People by detonating a bomb in the engine room. But once again, Ben insists that he is one of the "good guys." I'm starting to wonder if we're being led down the path of how creepy Ben can be to blind us from the fact that he may actually be a "good" guy. Now granted he's weird and has even killed to get his way, but the bigger picture of the story arch of this show may include his own redemption....or he'll kamikaze himself in to a dumpster while listening to "California Dreaming" by the Mammas and the Pappas.

The island is powerful enough that it can prevent someone from dying until their "work" is done. Tom even taunts Mike to go and try and "off" himself, and when Mike takes him up on it, the pistol misfires. Michael has a son who hates him, a conscience heavier than OJ's, he's just survived by what all accounts was a traumatic experience on a psychotic island, he can't tell anyone who he is, he's being stalked by chubby gay dudes who punch like a grizzly bear...and now he's not even able to call it a day and shoot his brains out with some dignity? Bummer, bro.

When Michael wakes up in the hospital after attempting his vehicular suicide, he is in a room next to an old man who I think looks like Alvar Hanso (the founder of DHARMA). More on that theory next time, but it would make sense that either DHARMA or the Others had something to do with how easy it was for Michael to stay in a hospital and leave without any identification or explanation.

The next time Mike tries to kill himself is with a gun he purchased by bartering with the watch Jin had given him on the island. That watch seems to be evil too. On the island Mike almost got killed originally by Jin for wearing it. That watch is the reason Jin and Sun are on the island. Now it is used to buy a weapon to commit suicide with. Perhaps the bad karma surrounding the watch is due to its original owner...Mr. Paik. The island knows he is in on things too with Charles Widmore and has therefore cursed the time-telling device. Kind of makes sense, right?

On the boat, Sayid does not trust Michael nor is he impressed with his allegiance with Ben and the Others so he drags Mike in front of the ominous Capt. Gault and rats out his former friend. We're left hanging with how that will all play out, but things get more complicated as I sort them out in my mind because we have to remember a few things to make sense of Sayid's actions and where the story-line might possibly go. Michael told (via note) Sayid and Dez not to trust the captain, but he was doing it on Ben's instructions and based on the evidence Tom presented Mike in that hotel room regarding Widmore's evil plan to kill all the island dwellers. We also know Sayid in the future is hunting down what appears to be the Boat People's bosses or higher-ups. I think eventually Sayid will come to regret his decision to take sides with the captain, and that Michael was right to warn about trusting him. The scene where Michael is shocked to find his crew-mates with semi-automatic weapons was priceless, but a good indicator of what ultimate intentions Widmore (and his Captain Gault) have in mind for the island people.

Switching gears to wrap up here...the plot has thickened yet again between Ben and his daughter Alex. Seemingly with good intentions (something his daughter should have known better than to trust) Ben gives a map to the Temple station (which was mentioned late last season as the place the Others were headed) and tells Alex, Rousseau, and even dopey Karl to roll out in order to avoid the blow-back that may be coming if the Boat People attack and get their hands on Ben's "daughter." Along the way they stop for a drink of water and two of them end up with bullets in their chests. The question then becomes was it Ben's jealousy of losing his daughter's love that drove him to have some of the Others shoot the pair, or was it Boat People? If you remember, Frank took some of the people on an "errand" which we never learned more about. Could the errand have been to come and grab a few more people for questioning, or to find Ben himself, or perhaps they already knew about his daughter and were looking for her? I'm gonna go with Boat People being responsible, but it certainly is not out of the realm of possibility that Ben would pull a stunt like this....sickie.

Thoughts, theories, and pontifications:

-The Island is using some defense mechanism to mess with the minds of the crew members which in turn is "calling" them to come to the island knowing full well that this will kill them (either through the type of brain meltdown that Minkowski had, or through their own suicide because the Island exposes them to the same inner demons as it has to the likes of Eko). I'd also love to think that Walt is somehow involved with this. Maybe the Others use special people like him to mess with their enemy's mind?

-The "innocent people" on the freighter will include CS Lewis, Faraday, and Frank (maybe even Miles). Now whether they actually survive or not, and whether Ben is telling the truth and really cares about being benevolent or not remains to be seen....but I do like the four new-comers this season and at least three of them seem to have pure motives.

-The coffin from the end of last season is Michael or Walt's. This would explain why no one came to the funeral (because no one knows they are off the island) and why the funeral parlor was in an all-black neighborhood. I wonder if Obama's pastor did the eulogy?


So that's it from me for now folks. Sorry this one took a little longer to put together, but we've got a few weeks now to mull over the info we've got. April 24th things get rolling again and I'm looking forward to finding out more about how the Oceanic Six got off now that we know who they are. Don't miss JL's Pants too much this next month, and please post more comments and theories as the mood strikes you.

Sincerely,

Karl's Punctured Nalgene Bottle

Frustrated

I just was set to post a lengthy and entertaining expose on the most recent LOST episode, Meet Kevin Johnson...and I ally erased it. I'm frustrated and sweaty and tired so you'll have to wait a couple days until I can work up the energy and excitement level to re-do it. Sorry. Try this on for size till then.

Korean name

Lostaways-



Sun bears a child, Jin buys a panda (and apparently "the farm"), Michael passes a note (not the "Do you like me? Check Y or N" kind that I use to send some lucky girl's way in 5th grade), and we finally meet the mysterious Captain of Widmore's ship The Kahana: Captain Gault.


Michael makes his return and is finally back on the LOST scene. Dude's changed his name to match that of the starting point guard of the NBA's Phoenix Suns (circa 1993), Kevin Johnson, and appears deathly afraid that Sayid will spill the proverbial (lima) beans in front of the ship's doctor. Desmond never would have met Mike/K.J. so he's got no reaction, but must be upset to find cockroaches and the remnants of splattered brain-guts on the wall of his new crib. But as far as Michael is concerned, we can now assume that he is: the saboteur that the captain spoke of, the one who left the door open for Desmond, Sayid and Minkowski to get to the communications room two weeks ago, and the one who passed a note reading "Dont trust the captain" to the boys while in the sick-bay.




Speaking of the infamous captain, we first meet him as Regina, the shell-shocked broad who we find reading a book upside down, wraps steel chains around her chest and banzai's her way to victory (victory = Davey Jones' Locker) off the side of the freighter in what appears to be a trance. Capt Gault tells the crew to not save her as Sayid and Desmond look on with "WTF?" expressions on their sun-seared faces. Life on the ship appears and sounds treacherous at best and suicidal at worst. The captain is not to be trusted (or so Michael says), and the doctor warns "He's a straighter-shooter, but don't piss him off."


So with that in mind we consider what he has to say about Oceanic 815's black-box, Widmore's role in everything, and his assertion that Ben is responsible for the cover up (not Widmore, like I thought) and for putting 300 dead bodies on the floor of the Indian Ocean. All in an Other's-day work, right? I thought this was HUGE (if it's to be "trusted") that Ben was behind the airplane and the dead bodies. We're now talking about an operation that is exponentially larger than we previously thought. It's not just a rag-tag band of Others, but would need to either be a massive conglomerate of Others who are out in the real world working around the clock to pull off such a feat....or Jacob used his powers to put it there. (Remember the "whatever you wish for...there it would be" talk Ben gave Locke last season?)


My favorite theory on Michael is that he was given specific coordinates by Ben at the end of season two and those coordinates (which were different than Faraday's to Frank) pushed Michael and Walt back in time and when they were back in time, Ben jumped back as well and stole Walt again and has been holding him hostage again until Michael sabotages the boat enough so that they can't find Ben.


Sun and Jin's story was a heart-warming, but ultimately gut-wrenching, tale of love, infidelity, forgiveness and (so far as we know in Jin's case) death. The grave stone that Jin and a still-portly Hurley visited showed that the world thinks Jin died on Sept.22nd 2004. This is no shocker because we already know that there is some "lie" that the Oceanic Six is living. I think that Jin is dead and not simply back on the island. My reasoning goes like this: Sun is a passionate, out-spoken Korean woman who is dealing with the guilt of having cheated on her husband when we see her last on present island time in this episode. Whatever happens later to cause the six of them to lie about what happened on the island must include Jin's death because of all the members in the Oceanic Six, Sun would be far-and-away the most likely NOT to keep a secret if there were any chance her hubby (who, by they way, speaks fluent English in real life and is doing a horrendous job of pretending to speak only a little of it) was still alive. The way she is crying at the cemetery, combined with the fact that Jin made a point to say something to the effect of "I'll protect you no matter what it takes" leads me to postulate that Jin will make a tough decision to get his wife off the island once he finds out (which we presume he already did last week thanks to Juliet) that his beloved Sun will perish if kept on the island.


Ladies and gentlemen of the jury...the prosecution rests its case.


I've got a lot more to say about the captain and the boat and those theories, but I wasn't too hot-to-trot on this episode and feel that after next week's, I'll have plenty more to fill in regarding such matters.


I've got one more interesting nugget of literary tie-in's. I was re-reading the Trial of Socrates this week (yes, I'm the kind of loser who reads things like that for fun...but it will pay off when I'm either on Jeopardy or asked to be Governor of Illinois), and I couldn't shake the idea that Ben is in a position much like Socrates was while on trial (figuratively speaking of course). Hear me out, all you Grecian philosophy scholars. Socrates was surrounded by men (who, by the way, he often referred to "others") that he considered to be his enemies, but only because they were not enlightened to the truths that he himself had discovered and now possessed. Then there was another group of people who hated Socrates who were not only un-enlightened, but were evil and devious in their attempts to arrest, question, and eventually execute Socrates. On Socrates' "side" were his hand-picked followers who studied at his feet and treated him almost saintly.


Sound familiar? Socrates was actually "right" in defending his view of the world and of philosophy (i.e. his mission or purpose in life), but was only understood and appreciated by those who also had caught his vision. There were then the masses who he considered his enemy only in that they failed to see or understand what he was trying to do. Finally, a group that sought, for selfish and commerical and political reasons to silence a man they all agreed was a menace to society.


Maybe, just maybe, we are looking at Ben from the wrong perspective. He's creepier than all get out, and has undoubtedly done something ethically questionable things...but maybe when he says "We're the good guys, John" he really means it. This, of course, could simply be from his demented perspective, and objective truth (including right/wrong, light/darkness) certainly does exist in our world and in LOST's world...but it's something interesting to consider.



That's all for now. My theories are that this show will continue to be the best ever made by humans and that this Thursday night will be an episode to remember. (I also predict that I will be speaking to many of you about how incredible this week's episode was after it airs via text and or personal phone call, especially if you're an attractive member of the fairer sex.)



God's speed,

JL's Pants

A few links to tide you over

This first one was Doc Jensen's pre-show posting, and this second one is the post-show re-cap by Entertainment Weekly's resident LOST expert. I should have my thoughts up this weekend. Enjoy.

The OTHER('s) Woman

Lostaways-

This week's blog might be a shorter one due to the fact that this week's episode was a lamer one. It wasn't a terrible episode, and although finally my Charles Widmore (and soon to be Paik Industries) connection with the island theory was vindicated, I still found myself wanting more out of a Juliet backstory.

I want to begin with a brief re-cap of some important events and noteworthy tidbits from this episode, The Other Woman, and then spend most of the rest of our time going through a theory that involves Juliet's last name (Burke).

The first thing we saw this week was Juliet drawing what appeared to be a wave in the sand of a coffee table miniature sandbox. The symbol for the new station we discovered this week, The Tempest, is also a wave. The tsunami that is presumably about to happen on December 26th, 2004 also will involve waves incidentally. Large waves emote the feeling of helplessness, of being tossed around by forces bigger than you and out of your control. Juliet's whole life, and truly many of the lives of other people on this island, could be described as such. David "Desmond" Hume was a trailblazer in the concept of Fatalism and Determinism.

Juliet is in a psychiatrist's office and that shrink turns out to be Harper Stanhope (anangram = "an other perhaps"). Lostpedia had this to say about the name Harper: "Harper' might be related to the Greek mythological 'Harpy'. A Harpy is a disgusting, vicious monster, with a woman's face and body and the wings and claws of a bird. It acts as a minister of divine vengeance. The word is often used hyperbolically to refer to an strident, demanding woman, especially a wife." Harper is indeed the wife of someone, and that someone is very important to past episodes of the show: Goodwin. As you remember from seasons 2 and 3, Goodwin infiltrated the tail section, was discovered (and killed) by Ana Lucia, and we also knew that Juliet and Goodwin had been an item from Juliet's second back-story last season. That episode was called "One of Us." We eventually learn in The Other Woman that Ben sent Goodwin on purpose to the tail section because, as Juliet claims, he "knew this would happen."

Back in Current Island Time (CIT), Faraday and CS Lewis sneak off in to the jungle and Jack leads a search party after them. I did appreciate the suspense that was built up as to whether or not Faraday and Lewis were actually trying to help or harm the island dwellers. Obviously the jury is still out on the Boat People's ulterior motives, but for now we know they weren't trying to gas the place, but wanted to make things safe (for the time being).

Juliet bumps in to her old pal Harper who relays a message from Ben (who apparently is "exactly where he wants to be") that Juliet is to track the Boat People Duo down and kill them both. The whispering made a comeback this week, and Harper also turns out to be Houdini by disappearing before Jack and Juliet's very eyes. Did anyone else find it strange that Juliet was unphased by Harper's rapid appearance and disappearance? Jack didn't even ask Juliet where the woman standing in front of him in the rain seconds earlier darted off to. Perhaps the way that certain (or maybe all) members of the Others can move so rapidly and stealthily is due to time travel as well??? The whispering thing could be the echo of their time-shifting ways.

Moving on, Ben is obsessed to the highest degree with Ms. Burke, and has been going to extreme lengths to bring her there and keep her there. Harper, before confronting Juliet about the affair she's having with Harper's husband, makes the snide comment "Of course he likes you; you look just like her." The her is, in my estimation, Annie, the old flame of Ben from his childhood (and probably his young adult life). You see (theory about to be dropped like its warm....warm to hot) Ben is obsessed with Juliet for a few different reasons. One is that she is attractive and happens to look similar to his old love, Annie. (You can see Annie's portrait on Ben's wall in the episode when Juliet walks in for the two-person "dinner party" at Ben's house.) The second reason he is keen on Juliet is that she is a fertility doctor who can potentially solve the mystery as to why pregnant women on the island die. If Juliet can fix this, Ben can go back in time and save Annie who he got pregnant at some point earlier in island time, which killed Annie and made Ben even crazier. Perhaps this is even what drove him to partake in the first "Purge" that we witnessed last season.

On the other side of the island, Ben and Locke are locked in a battle of wits and wills yet again. Finally Ben is willing to reveal that Charles Widmore is the man behind the Boat People. The tape he shows Locke (and his pants) is one of Widmore beating up one of Ben's lackey's, but before the tape runs out, Widmore looks up at the camera man (whoever he or she is). Either he was surprised by the fact that someone was filming him, or he was looking at the camera because he knew it was there and was sending a menacing glare Ben's way. But more on Widmore next week.

Like I said, I want to keep this short(er), so let me quickly explain my larger theory about Juliet's name (Burke) and how it applies to the theme of the show and what is going on on the island.

Edmund Burke was a Scottish member of parliament who was a great supporter of the American revolution, even though he was still an English citizen, a high-ranking one at that. Along with the thinking and writings of John Locke, our national forefathers took on the British monarch and defeated them for our independence. It was assumed at the time that King George and the Brits were far too powerful for the colonialists, and men like Burke who voiced their support for the rebels in America were put in a compromising position between the side they belonged to and the side they wished they could be a part of. Edmund Burke, however, never went to America nor moved there after they gained their independence.

Juliet is the go-between on the island. She is sympathetic to the cause of freedom (from the island) that the Lostaways are fighting for. Among the Lostaways there is a tension that exists (i.e The Jack Pack vs. Locke's Litter) similiar to the tensions that existed among our Founding Fathers. Who do we trust? Who do we ally ourselves with (i.e. France = Rosseau)? Juliet wants to be on the Lostaways side, specifically Jack's, but seems to be unable to escape the clutches of her own former people, The Others (specifically Ben). Juliet continues to go on these missions for Ben and even warns Jack of her own fatalistic prediction (Ben will win) of how things will play out on the island in the near future.

This idea of Juliet supporting "revolution" like her namesake (Edmund Burke) did 240 years ago also plays in to the relationship between Harper and Juliet. Stanhope is Harper's last name, and the name Stanhope is almost certainly a reference to Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl Stanhope a british Statesman and scientist. He wrote a scathing reply to philosopher Edmund Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution. Harper is loyal to, but scared of, Ben. All subjects to a tyrannical monarch usually are.

Juliet is the Other Woman throughout her life. Caught in between Goodwin and his wife Harper. Caught in between Jack and his true love Kate. Caught between Ben and his obsession over a dead chick named Annie. Caught in between her now-dead ex-husband in that scene from last season in her lab where her hubby and some new research assistant are making time on one of the desks before Juliet's cell phone breaks up the hanky-panky. She's got enough issues from in her past that she can accurately warn Jack, "You dont want to see my file."

Thoughts, theories, comments:

-Only one this week: read this synopsis of the Shakespeare play The Tempest and see just how similar it is to the story of LOST.

"Ji Yeon" is the title of this week's new episode, and in it: Juliet is forced to reveal some startling news to Jin when Sun threatens to move to Locke’s camp. Meanwhile, Sayid and Desmond begin to get an idea of the freighter crew’s mission when they meet the ship’s Captain.

It's not easy being an Other...

Love,

Ben's Uncomfortable Stare

Your weekly "fix"

A nice little re-cap to hold you over until my own thoughts are ready for consumption.

This week's preview

Check out Doc Jensen's preview over at Entertainment Weekly's website. It's a good one. Enjoy the episode tonight and be prepared for a LOST-blog tomorrow.

I'm your "Constant"

Lostaways-

In a word...."Wow"

Now it's unnecessary and redundant for me to come up each week with new ways to describe how much I like this show, so let me just say that this weeks' episode, The Constant, was better than all of the previous episodes of all other shows in television history combined. There's Shakespeare, Rembrandt, and now Damon Lindelof (creator and co-executive producer of LOST).

We begin with a chipper Desmond on the helicopter en route to the freighter our four new Boat People promise they've come from. Said freighter is called Kahana, which according to a Hawaiian Dictionary means "n. Cutting, drawing of a line; turning point." But, as luck would have it, when Frank the pilot followed Faraday's instructions from last week to fly on the set bearing "no matter what happens" (in order to find the boat again) the three were forced to fly through an electromagnetic cloud that apparently had something to do with sending Dez back in time to the year Michael Jordan won the first of his second three-peats in Chicago, 1996.

Other great things about 1996: The Verve Pipe's smash single The Freshmen, the movie Cable Guy, Seinfeld was still on the air, I was in shape, and the Republican candidate beat Bill Clinton to become our 43rd President....is what I would say if the GOP had had any sense about them and hadn't nominated the biggest turkey of a candidate (not named John Kerry...remember that loser?) simply because Senator Dole was the safe play for a timid Party who cared more about the fact that he had "paid his dues" in the Senate for more than three decades than the fact that he was unlikely the best choice or even electable. Sound familiar?

But I digress.

Desmond, we already know, has the capability to travel back in time (see: "Flash Forward" episode from last year when he went back in time and re-lived his mistake in not marrying Penny). We also knew that the guy can hop forward (if only briefly and sporadically) to see Charlie's future and ultimate death. But then there seems to be something else going on in this episode that has accelerated the process. From the time he takes off on the helicopter till the time he lands on the freighter, something changes. When he arrives on the ship, and is put into the sick-bay with the only person creepier than Ben (Minkowski), we learn new information that others have similar time-travel powers as Desmond's. In fact, someone else has already died from its "side effects" (as Faraday describes them to Jack back on the island). We also learn that it is Desmond's consciousness, not his physical body, that travels in time. The common thing that all three of the characters who have time-traveled share is that each has tried to either leave or come to the island in a boat. Desmond on his yacht, and Minkowski and his friend Brandon on the ship's tender (small boat).

Desmond called the island a "bloody snow globe" at the end of season two when he was on his Jack-like bender (before eventually turning the key in the hatch). Perhaps he wasn't just speaking out of his rear when he said this. Maybe there is a literal line or outline around the island that if you physically cross it, you are no longer the same (or in the same time). Taking it even further, perhaps you have to be on a boat, up close and personal, when you cross it for the effects to take hold (which would explain why no one else on the copter seems to have been affected yet, and why the Others use a submarine to go back and forth from the island).

Getting back to 1996 time, Desmond is told (back in 2004) by Faraday to go and find him at Oxford College in England (university where CS Lewis taught for a while) and relay vital information regarding his time-travel experiments with a rat named Eloise. Dez finds out that he will need a "Constant" to avoid having his brain melt and decides upon Penny. He then heads to find Mr Windmore to locate Penny. In what will likely turn out to be a critically important scene, Dez confronts Charles Windmore who is busy buying the personal journal of the Black Rock's first-mate, Tovard Hanso. They talk things over in the Men's room where Windmore appears to be less disgusted with Dez than he usually is and even offers his daughter's address to him.

The last time they met was in Windmore's ofice where he told Dez that he wasn't worth the whiskey in his glass. This time Windmore seems to be much more willing to talk and even help our Scottish friend. I believe that this (among many other clues) points conclusively to Windmore being "in" on everything that is going on with the Boat People (Abbadon, Naomi, Faraday, etc.). Windmore, I believe, will be found out to be the person responsible for directing the ship that found Oceanic 815 to the Sunda Trench (but will have sent them there ostensibly to look for the Black Rock). Basically, Windmore and whoever else he's working with used the cover of looking for the Black Rock to send people out to where they had planted a fake Oceanic 815 wreckage so the world would stop looking for the survivors and the Boat People could secretly use the information that Windmore knew his own daughter was collecting to find Desmond to locate the island without her (and the rest of the world) even knowing about it. I mean, why else would there be a "Bat-phone" line on the boat (according to Minkowski) that was a direct line to Penny?

Moving forward back to the freighter ship in 2004, Dez, Sayid, and Minkowski decide to make a break for the control room and call Penny (his Constant). The door to the sick bay is open and Minkowski says "You must have a friend on the boat." This, could very likely be Michael and/or Walt. He would also then be the one who destroyed the equipment earlier because he is Ben's "man on the boat". But more on that next week.

So Daniel Faraday is as important a character in this episode as Desmond. He sends Dez to Oxford to help him, and at the end of the episode he is looking at his notebook where it says that if anything goes wrong, "Hume will be my constant." It shouldn't be any surprise to you when I say that the sole purpose for the Boat People coming to the island is NOT simply to get Ben. Faraday is a time-traveler too and has something else going on, or you could say, he's there for ulterior motives. I think back to the episode where we were introduced to each of the four helicopter people, and it begins with Faraday watching tv as the news of the Oceanic wreckage is first being broadcasted and he starts to cry. He isnt sure why he is crying. Add that to the fact that when he was testing the rat at Oxford, Desmond asked him what he wore for protection from the radiation over his head and he just kind of snickered. Faraday, we will later see, did the testing on himself after Eloise and is now hoping to use Desmond (someone he knew he would eventually see on the island) as his constant to accomplish whatever this ulterior motive is. (We might find out next week from the looks of the preview that shows Faraday and Charlotte donning Haz-mat suits.)

The end of the episode was nicely done with Dez calling Penny when he said he would on Christmas Eve and the two re-connecting their Odyssey-like love. Penny looked to be wearing a wedding ring (think: Helen Hunt's character in Castaway) and will probably break poor Desmond's heart when we find out she married some loser. But, I'll give her the fact that she's been working hard to find him and kept the same number all that time.

There's been some confusion about the time-line of Dez-Penny events so let me briefly clear things up:

-The earliest meeting of the two is when Desmond bails on his first love (Ruth) at the alter and goes to the monastery where he is promptly fired and introduced to Penny whose father SENT her to pick up wine.
-Desmond breaking up with Penny is the next back story we know of the two
-He then joins the military and we see that part of things played out in this last episode
-The next time the two are together is at the football stadium in LA as he is about to run the steps and meet Jack
-Desmond then leaves on the race and ends up on the island and Penny begins her search. Somehow she knows what to be looking for. Perhaps we will see another time-travel from someone on the island (maybe even Dez again) where Penny is told about what to look for (electromagnetic anomaly's). Because as of right now, we have no idea how else Penny would know to have those chess-playing scientists from the end of seasons two looking for electromagnetic pulses.


Needless to say, I'm looking forward to "The Other Woman" this Thursday. Juliet receives an unwelcome visit from someone from her past and is given orders to track down Charlotte and Faraday in order to stop them from completing their mission -- by any means necessary. Meanwhile, Ben offers Locke an enticing deal

Gosh, what a show! Anyway, that's my attempt to re-cap this week's episode, and here are some thoughts and theories:

-December 26th, 2004 is when the Tsunami hit the Indian Ocean and wreaked such devastating havoc on that part of the world. This will be two days after Desmond called Penny on the boat. It will have a huge impact on the island, the castaways, and the Boat People. Maybe there was another Tsunami earlier in the island's history (which put the Black Rock ship in the jungle and eroded the rest of the four-toed statue Sayid saw at the end of season two)

-Juliet will have a dream like Locke and Eko have had and someone (maybe her dead ex-husband) will tell her to stop Faraday/Charlotte as the preview from next week alludes to.

-Ben had told Michael to follow a bearing of 325 when he let he and Walt go, but Faraday has Frank the Pilot follow a 305 bearing. John 3:5 is the verse Eko had on his stick that told Locke to "look North". Ben gave Michael bum directions hoping that he and Walt would find the boat and then become his "inside man" who he could then blackmail to make Michael sabotage the equipment.

-If Minkowski is right when he said "It's going to happen to all of us", then more people will become time-travelers and Kate's could be Aaron, Jack's could be Kate, etc.


Alright, I'm donzo for now. Post your comments and questions. See you in the Funny Papers.

Love,
Faraday's Ponytail ('96 version)