Namaste! Not the greeting, but the title of the newest LOST episode. I realize I never posted my thoughts on "LaFleur", so I will incorporate some of the things I had prepared for that episode with this one. For further reading on LaFleur, read this Entertainment Weekly wrap-up by Doc Jensen.
I have to say that I actually liked having a week off from LOST. This season's been tremendous thus far and I appreciated the chance to collect my thoughts and prepare for the second-half push that began this past Wednesday night. Namaste was a very solid return for the show and both revealed some very important tidbits of information and foreshadowed what might be on the Dharma-dominated horizon for those who made it back to 1977-Island time.
I must pause here and note that this week's upcoming episode, He's Our You, will feature a character named "Oldham". Chad, I knew you had secrets, but this is too much.
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Since we learned this week that the second batch of plane-crashers (Sun, Ben, Lapidus, etc.) have been separated both by the distance between the bigger and smaller island, but by at least 30 years (if not many more), I will separate my thoughts between 1977 time and PSI (Present Island Time).
1977-
We left of in LaFleur with Sawyer seeing Jack/Hurley/Kate on a grassy meadow, and this week we hear the first words and awkward glances exchanged between the reunited LOSTies. As Sawyer explains that those who were left behind have joined the Dharma Initiative, Jin, upon learning that Sun is on a plane potentially nearby, bolts for the Flame station (the place we last saw in flames thanks to Locke back in Season Three's episode "Enter 7
7"). As for Sawyer and the other three, James plans to (and eventually does) bring them in as supposed new Dharma recruits who have just arrived on the infamous submarine.When Jin goes to the Flame, we meet a character named Radzinksky. Hopefully you recognized both that name and the of the Swan station that he was building when Jin busted in the door. Radzinsky was the name we heard in Season Two during the episode that filled us in on what Desmond had been doing for those three years he was on the island. If you remember, Desmond was hanging out in the hatch with a man named Kelvin (who also happened to be the CIA officer that forced Sayid to become a r back in the first Gulf War). Desmond saw a stain on the ceiling of the hatch and found a map on the blast door (the same one Locke eventually found and used to go on his island crusade in Season Three), and Kelvin filled him in that both the map and stain belonged to a man named Radzinsky who had blown his own brains out before Desmond crashed on the island.
I realize that is a lot to recall and take in, but for those LOST sickies out there, just hearing the name Radzinsky was the equivalent of receiving one of those "Taste Bailouts" that delicious Domino's Pizza is offering during every single stinking commercial break of the NCCA March Madness Tournament.
Radzinsky was building a of the Swan station that he would one day blow his brains out in. Talk about fate...
Getting back to Jin's purpose in coming to the Flame, he insists that Radzinsky find out if a plane has crashed recently. After no news came in about a plane, a motion sensor was triggered and Jin ran out to find not a "hostile", but Sayid in a Fresh Prince of Bel-Air-like purple shirt/blouse trouncing through the underbrush. Having to keep the charade up, Jin acted like he didn't know Sayid and put him in to a locked room until Sawyer could be located and brought in on the situation.
Sawyer has now officially emerged as the "leader" of those who got left behind in 1977. He has fully transformed from selfish con-man to a....well....not-as-selfish con-man? I mean he still is conning an entire island full of people abou this name and the reason he, Juliet, Jin, Faraday, and Miles are even there in the first place. He conned his way in to a high official position of security in the Dharma Initiative. The whole lot of them have been living just as big of a lie as the Oceanic Six were back in the real world. I love that dichotomy in the story-telling of this show. Both groups had to lie, while another group had to die. Or something like that.
Sawyer tells Jack that he was a bad leader because he reacted to instead of thought through situations as they arose. James references Winston Churchill, the legendary British leader during World War II, who became a great leader only after committing many blunders earlier in his life and career. Sawyer's story is somewhat similar. (So far.)
So Jack, Hurley, and Kate elude tough questions and get through the Processing Station and assigned to their new duties. Jack being given the task of "workman" due to his low scores on an aptitude test was priceless. But it is interesting to note that Jack does not really seem all too worried about his lot. I mean he did eventually go to Sawyer and they had their verbal jab-fest about who was the better leader, but Jack isn't his usual worried self since deciding to go back to the island. The tension will be building though between Jack-Kate-Sawyer-Juliet and I can't wait for it.
Faraday is referenced, although not seen, in this episode. Jack asks if Daniel is still there, and Sawyer responds, "Not anymore." Now this obviously means that he is , which I don't think is the case, or that he has left the island on a submarine (perhaps to go back to the real world and figure out a way to "fix" things), or that he is insane and is not mentally "there." My money is on the third option. I bet Faraday has lot his marbles, what with all the things on his mind pertaining to Charlotte Staples, the woman back in England whose brain he fried, and the fashion stress of having to wear a tie that would be too skinny for Olive Oil to pull off.
The final important information from this week's episode was the scene where a creepy little kid brought a creepy little sandwich (with no mustard...what is that dope thinking with no mustard) to Sayid in his creepy little cell. Of course that creepy little kid would grow up one day to be a creepy little bug-eyed man known affectionately as Benry Gale Linus.
Prediction: Sayid tries to kill adolescent Ben.
Present Island Time-
Okay, so first of all, the scene with Lapidus putting the plane down on the Hydra Station island's runway was very cool and well done. I liked how they Incorporated the runway from Season Three that Sawyer and Kate were forced to work on back when they lived in Polar Bear cages and made whoopee like their ship was going down. One wonders whether the Others had Sawyer and Kate building that runway because they knew some day that second plane would crash there with Ben (their leader) on it....along with the fact that Ben knew right away where the outrigger canoes would be, it seems like it was all pre-planned that this would happen.
After the crash, Caesar decides to play the role of leader and dismisses Lapidus' suggestion that the survivors stay on the beach until they can figure out a plan. It was very reminiscent of Season One where different factions disagreed about where the LOSTaways should set up shop. Jack wanted to move inland and find water/shelter, while others, including Sayid, wanted to stay on the beach in hopes of attracting a rescue plane or ship. The people this time agreed with Caesar and decided to move towards what we know to be the Hydra station, scenes we have already seen in previous episodes (Life and of Jeremy Bentham).
Ben starts to creep away from the group as they have this argument, and Sun follows him (and Lapidus follows them both). Sun confronts Ben and they decide to head back to the mail island. Lapidus warns against this decision, and eventually Sun heeds this advice and whacks Ben upside the head something fierce. But before he got his bell rung, Ben said something interesting to Frank the Pilot: "A captain's first responsibility is to his passengers...but I also have people I am responsible for." He then started to give Frank directions as how to get to Othersville eventually, which seemed a nice gesture and very un-Ben-like. But Sun smacks his brains with a paddle and she and Lapidus get off to the main island.
Once there they discover that Othersville has been decimated. The town didn't look just over-grown and old, but destroyed, almost like a went off (or a Smokey Monster went "ape" on the occupants of Othersville). Speaking of Smokey, Sun and Frank heard some initial rumblings from him in the trees as they approached from the dock when their boat landed. It then went away and a minute later those infamous whispers could be heard and Christian Shepard emerged from the Processing Center that has been used many times throughout this show to house imprisoned characters. Was Christian Shepard really there or was it the Black Smoke manifesting itself (like it did as Yemi to Eko is Season Three)?
Jack's not-so-deceased dad helps Sun to learn that her husband is back in 1977 and that she and Frank (and perhaps the others back on the smaller island) have a "long journey" ahead of them.
Thoughts/Theories:
-Frank and his co-pilot on Aijira 316 hear "the numbers" being broadcasted as they are on their way to crashing the plane on the runway. The voice seems to be American. How bitter-sweet would it be if the voice heard was Hurley's?
-You might have noticed that when Frank/Sun/Christian are in the broken-down version of the Processing Center there is a woman standing in the background in one of the shots. No one has yet confirmed if that was an editing error or was supposed to be another spirit-like character that will later be revealed. Perhaps Claire, who was last seen chilling with Christian in Jacob's cabin?
-Two songs were heard in this episode. The first was one that I have had on my iPod for a long time and couldn't believe they used it. "Ride Captain Ride" by the band Blues Image is being played when Sawyer pulls up to have Jack-Kate-Hurley processed and it contains the lyrics "Ride captain ride upon your mystery ship/ Be amazed at the friends you have here on your trip". I'm not sure how much parsing I need to do for you with those suggestive lyrics as to how they might pertain to this show. Island = Mystery Ship. Friends = LOSTaways (who amazingly are scattered throughout time and then re-discovered when you least expect it). The other song is an original number by the creators/writers of LOST called "Dharma Lady" which was playing during the bbq Dharma was hosting for its newly processed recruits when Sawyer pulled up with Sayid in his VW bus. I'll let you take a look at the lyrics and artwork for the album yourself, but please do note that this was all put together just for a show on ABC. Appreciate the work and thought put in to something like this and hold off on all the "I could never create something 1/100th as creative as this show, but I'll complain about how the only reason they put things like this song in it is to make money and drag the show on forever" comments. ;)
-Ben was once visited by Sayid in a cell when they thought his name was Henry Gale back in Season Two, and now Ben is visiting Sayid in a cell of his own. Nice symmetry.
-Why was Radzinsky so worried about a hostile seeing his of the Swan? Did they have some agreement as part of the truce that Dharma wouldn't build any more? Had the Dharma people found the nuke Jughead somehow and decided to harness its power for the benefit of their research and didn't want the Hostiles to know about this?
-If Ethan was born on the island to that chick from 24 that Horace Goodspeed is married to, how did he survive the Purge and why would he then work with Ben and the Hostiles who had killed his family and friends?
Okay kiddies...that's all I got for now. Next week I'm gonna share some insight on a famous movie that deals with the mythical city of Shangri-La that I recently saw on TCM at like 1am on a Tuesday night. I will dissect some parallels between it and the island. Look forward to that.
Thanks for reading and please post any comments or questions here on the blog.
Namaste,
JL's Pants
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