The Little Prince That Could (Time Travel)

LOSTaways-

I feel like I just did one of these, but I suppose that the show does air fairly regularly now. This week's episode, The Little Prince, is a direct allusion to the French children's book of the same name. In that story, a man is stranded in the Sahara desert with a little alien prince who has crash-landed on earth. There is a lot of interesting LOST-related themes and story-lines, but I don't like French things so although I've read through it, I'll allow you to click that link above and read the Wikipedia summary on your own. Freedom Fries!

I'm gonna keep this post shorter than most, and might end up being all over the place in my thoughts, so bear with me.

Right off the bat, I have to point out that the carpet cleaning van Ben is driving around Locke's dead body in had a name on the side of it that when you re-arrange the letters it spells "Reincarnation." I'm not saying, I'm just saying. I think that is pretty cool and yet another sign that that moron from the Daily Herald couldn't be more wrong about this show and how interesting it is.

Also, Aijira Airways, the airline corporation based out of India that Juliet identifies from their symbol on the water bottle found in the wittled-out canoe, has a website that is up and running now for you to peruse. Something interesting that yours truly found on Ajira's site while neglecting homework, friends, family, and bathing this week was here on the page that allows you to print out a fake boarding pass. If you were to investigate each of the four corners of the ticket you would find the same hieroglyphics that were revealed in the Hatch when the 108 minutes counted down during season two. Those have been translated to represent the concept of "Underworld" or "Hades". Along with that, the Smokey Monster has been called "Cerebus" which was the guard-dog of the Underworld, or Hades. 'Lot going on...

So the focus of the off-island, present-day action is on Kate and Aaron. Kate goes to confront the lawyer who represents Ben (we find out). Ben obviously was trying to make Kate uncomfortable and more susceptible to being talked in to bolting back to the island if she felt Aaron and her were being threatened. Ben knows how to manipulate people like I know how to spend unnecessary amounts of money on Cubs paraphernalia. We saw Kate and Jack sharing a moment on Penny's boat right after they were picked up from the helicopter crash. This is the moment when Kate decided (and Jack agreed) that she should claim to be the mother of Aaron. I loved how later in the episode we saw, of all moments, Kate helping Claire give birth in season one.

Kate even said to Claire something to the effect of "This will be all of ours' baby." I couldn't help but think back to another story-line from season one with the psychic that originally told Claire to never let anyone else raise the baby, but then arranged for Claire to travel to L.A. to give the baby up for adoption. Then there was the moment last year when Claire visited Kate and told her never to bring "him" back. I'm not really heading anywhere in particular here, but all these things flooded back in to my mind during this week's episode. It seems like the island is either sending mixed messages about Aaron (and who can raise him), or that there is more than one entity/group trying to confuse whoever has Aaron in their custody from knowing exactly what to do.

To wrap up present-day events, Sayind avoids another attack (from Widmore's people...I think), Jack and Kate reunite and follow Ben's lawyer to a hotel room where Claire's mom just "happens" to be in town using the same legal counsel as old creepy eyes himself, and Hurley uses his one phone call from jail to tell Jack less than nothing and hang up before he can be filled in how dumb his actions have been as of late. I doubt they let you eat ranch off of potentially poisonous leafs in prison, Hugo. Don't get too excited.

Sun's been hired to kill Ben by Widmore, but (and we'll see much more of this next week it looks like from the previews) she isn't aware of the big Rosseau's stomach-sized bombshell: Jin "Udders" Korean Last-name is alive and sort of well!!! Huzzah! I have to be honest and say that I had sort of hoped Jin was gone for good. It would make Sun so much more mysterious and angry and really make for some good drama later in the season. But oh well. I'll get the tissues for the tear-filled Jin-Sun reunion (with Hurley doing a behemoth cannon-ball in the background) ready now.

Alright, let's get to the interesting stuff back on the island...

Locke and the Gang decide to head for the Orchid so that he can push a wheel and go back to get Jack and his gang. Charlotte and Miles and eventually Juliet all start showing signs of morning island sickness. Faraday says it might have to do with exposure to the island. We're assuming Charlotte is from the island originally, and the fact that Daniel says this to Miles is foreshadowing to my theory that Miles was the Asian baby in the crib at the beginning of this season will come to glorious fruition. I'm actually starting to think that Charlotte might not be the daughter of Ben's GF Annie, but will be the daughter of Ellie, the sassy 1950's Brit from last week's episode. Or maybe Ms. Hawking? If Daniel's mom ends up not being Ms. Hawking, then for sure she is Charlotte's. Or both? Maybe a Princess Leia/Luke Skywalker twist?

The island skips a few times and by the time Locke and the Gang get to the beach, they find canoes with bottles of water from the Ajira Airways, but the Zodiac boat is gonzo. Locke, now in his single-minded element, suggests they "borrow" the canoe and get their move (the island) on. While they are paddling, some mysterious group in the other canoe opens up fire on the time-jumpers. Before they can find out who it is, time shifts again and now it's night and storming. They head for shore and find the wreckage from a ship...which ends up belonging to the crazy French skirt herself: Danielle Rousseau! My girl.

But before all that, let me quickly just say that I loved the scene where Locke and the Gang jump time to the night Boone died, Claire gave birth, and Locke sobbed like me at the Ronald Reagan museum in Simi Valley, CA this past summer. Locke doesn't want/need to go back to see himself in that desperate moment when he called out for the island to give him some hope (maybe even "change" too). He got to this point by suffering through the low moments. I appreciate his character and the personal development he's gone through on this island. He has, for better or worse, resigned himself to the fate the island has in store for him.

Okay, so Rousseau...Wow. I've been waiting since season one to get more info on this chick. I would HIGHLY recommend that you read the link I put on her name just now. There are maps and back-stories and tidbits that you likely have forgotten since Season One. Hers is a remarkably interesting and strange story. The LOST writers have confirmed that we are going to learn this season what made her team go nuts. Here is a page on some theories regarding her and her story.

All the time-jumping stuff can get confusing because the easily asked question should be: "If this was what is supposed to happen, why does Rousseau not remember Jin in the future when Oceanic 815 crashes?" Also, there is some confusion regarding how Jin can be time-jumping as well. It seems to me that he must have jumped off the boat as it was blowing up (or was thrown from it without dying) and that he was in the "radius" Faraday talked about in the Season Five opener. But then what happened to the Freighter? Both the Oceanic Six on the copter, and Sawyer/Juliet on the beach, saw the boat no more when the island moved. How could that be? The boat obviously had to have traveled with the island because Jin traveled with the island...but why couldn't Sawyer/Juliet see it from the beach?

Don't feel bad if you get this stuff muddled in your head, but also don't give up on it yet either. Answers are coming.

Thoughts/theories:

-Claire's mom is connected deeper than we know to Ben/Others/Widmore/Jacob/something. I also think it's safe to say now that Jack's dad, along with Claire's mom, is deeper connected. That might be the link for Christian Shepard to the Others or the Island: Carole Littleton. Hurley said "Australia is the key to the whole game" while playing Risk with Locke and Sawyer in Othersville last season. It seems that there is something more important about Australia than other places. So Christian Shepard's connection to the island likely came from Australia. His daughter. Her mother. That crabby aunt of Claire's who chewed the lush doctor out when he visited in Season Three.

-If you want a great LOST-related piece of popular culture to dig in to, check out the 1956 sci-fi film Forbidden Planet. I caught it on TCM around Christmas time this year (and Netflix has it..I checked), and it is based on Shakespeare's The Tempest. Both the movie and the famous play are cited by LOST writers as being heavily influential on their show. The movie version is slightly different and obviously updated to fit a science-fiction tale. Basically, a group of people go to live on a planet, they aren't heard from for many years, and a team is dispatched find out what happened. When the team arrives, they meet one of the scientists sent and his only daughter who are the sole inhabitants of the planet Altair. Long story short, the scientist (named Morbius) used a mind-bending machine that the planet's previous alien inhabitants had created and left behind and now with his mind-power increased, his sub-conscious is attacking anyone who gets near his daughter or the planet in general in the form of a nearly-invisible monster (Smokey?). He has unknowingly created a security system that is responsible for the deaths of people who he even thinks are bad or evil or have the wrong reasons for being on Altair. Rent it. Or buy it. And watch it.

-I think Locke is turning that wheel this next week and will be sent somewhere crazy in the world and will assume the fake identity of Jeremy Bentham to elude Widmore's goons en route to heading back to L.A. to convince Jack's Posse to make a reunion tour of the island. That might all be fairly obvious, but I figured I'd say it anyway.

-Sun will come back to the right side of the force fairly quickly and easily. I might be wrong, and I hope I am and she stays bad for a while longer, because this whole mini story-arc with her being "tough" and "mysterious" will have been the lamest thing since Nikki and Paulo getting spider-bites in the jungle.

-This week's episode felt like more of a build-up for next week's than anything, so I'll stop here, but as always, send your thought/theories to me or please post them under the comments section for all to share and partake in.

God's Speed,

Locke's Nurse Boone