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