I believe it was co-creator Damon Lindelof who originally said there are no aliens or time travel on Lost. Now that we've seen several instances of the latter, Damon has revealed that time travel was always in the DNA of the show. Given the title of last night's episode, I have to wonder if his next big revelation will be that Lost also contains extra-terrestrials in its genes.
The Little Prince refers to the classic French novel of the same name by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry about an alien child who falls to Earth. The title character hails from a small planet that humans have dubbed Asteroid B-612. One day, the Little Prince finds himself in the neighborhood of six other asteroids (including one called 325...hmmm). He meets their respective residents, one of whom suggests that the Little Prince visit Earth. There, he encounters the narrator, whose airplane has crashed (hmmm...) in the same desert as the Little Prince.
There are many thematic parallels to Lost, particularly the problem of narrow-mindedness inevitably breeding mistake, a point the book makes many times. We learn, for example, that the Little Prince's home planet was first sighted from Earth by a Turkish astronomer. Unfortunately, when the astronomer presented his finding to the International Astronomical Congress in Europe, he was ignored because of prejudice against his Turkish garb.
Asteroid B-612 remained unrecognized until the astronomer resubmitted his discovery wearing European clothes.
Another great illustration of this problem of limited perspective is the desert flower whom the Little Prince questions shortly after falling to Earth. Because the flower knows only the vast wasteland of the desert and has seen only a single caravan of people in her entire life, she erroneously reports that the planet is sparsely populated.
I expect Ben will face a similar dilemma coaxing the Oceanic 6 back to the Island. All of them understandably mistrust him because of how he behaved there before. A few have personal reasons for mistrusting him even more. Kate knows that Ben exposed her lie about Aaron; Sayid may have discovered that Ben tricked him into killing people who weren't responsible for Nadia's death; and Sun probably learned that Ben was responsible for blowing up the freighter, which she believes killed Jin. They will have a hard time looking beyond their experiences to see the necessity of what Ben now preaches.
Even more fundamentally, I believe such a mistake born of bias drives the mythology of the show. As I've suggested in posts like Extinction or Evolution and An Anti-Christmas Carol, the Dharma scientists may have misunderstood the Valenzetti Equation's prediction of our extinction. They erroneously assumed it could only come from some disaster -- e.g. nuclear fire, chemical and biological warfare, conventional warfare, pandemic, over-population, etc. They ignored the possibility that the Valenzetti might actually predict humanity's extinction by evolution into a whole new species.
We've seen many such mistakes of perspective depicted or referenced on the show. Why do you suppose the Others wore fake beards and pretended to be so primitive? A main reason was presumably so the crash survivors would underestimate them. Another great example is Locke's misjudgment concerning the importance -- or lack thereof -- of pushing the Swan button. Then there's the Flash and Green Lantern comic Walt was reading back in Season 1. In addition to polar bears, the story involves two superheroes who misinterpret an extra-terrestrial's actions as hostile.
And that brings me back to the speculation that started this post. Aliens. I've always suspected they were part of the backstory, notwithstanding Damon's denial. I figured that seemingly magical aspects of the Island like the Cerberus monster and the Frozen Donkey Wheel must be relics of their arbitrarily advanced technology. But I always assumed the aliens themselves were long dead, extinguished in some ancient calamity perhaps involving the volcano. Now I find myself mulling the possibility that Jacob is an extra-terrestrial using Aaron as his host.
After all, what was Claire's preferred lullaby for Little Prince Aaron? Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket...never let it fade away. In the spirit of Herb Caen, here are some three-dot thoughts on The Little Prince:
I THINK WE SHOULD SAY HE'S MINE. I've been looking forward to an explanation of why Kate decided to claim Aaron was her son. But something about the explanation seemed superficial and unsatisfying to me. I would have preferred that they spin Kate's initial interest as selfish -- i.e., Aaron was her ticket to staying out of prison -- then depicted her growing to love him...Are Kate and Jack supposed to be together? It's unclear but the show does seem to be setting up parallel pairings of opposites -- i.e., Dr. Jack with Kate, and Dr. Juliet with Sawyer...Kate should have known something was up the minute Sun promised to give Aaron candy from the mini-bar -- no Korean mom would waste money on the mini-bar...No surprise Sun has been keeping tabs on Ben and Jack, the two men she probably holds most responsible for Jin's death.
IT'S LIKE REALLY BAD JET LAG. As Juliet notes, jet lag isn't known to cause hemorrhaging. Still, the inability to sleep can quite literally be torture -- sleep deprivation is used worldwide as an interrogation method. Just how long has it been since the "Lefties" (thanks to Fierro for that one) slept?...I love the way Juliet seems uniquely able to handle Sawyer and keep him in check. Her calm but blunt demeanor and Mona Lisa smile brings to mind this Slate article I read recently about how to handle children when they deliberately push your buttons...Faraday's hypothesis that the bleeding is a function of how long one has been on the Island tends to support the speculation that Charlotte and Miles were both born there -- or at least lived there as children. That, in turn, raises the likelihood that baby we saw with Dr. Chang was one of those two, probably Miles...
BEN IS ON OUR SIDE. Like I said above, trusting Ben again will be a bitter pill for the Oceanic 6 to swallow, doubly so for some of them...One curious thing is how quickly Jack has been to convert to the cult of Linus. It may have something to do with Ben helping him get off prescription painkillers. In that regard, the dynamic parallels Locke helping Charlie kick heroin back in Season 1...Hurley says he's safe in L.A. County lock-up. But if you believe the ghost of Ana Lucia -- as I do -- the last place Hurley should be right now is in police custody...Who keeps trying to tranquilize Sayid? My guess would be Charles Widmore. But why not just kill him? Maybe Widmore needs Sayid alive, but I wonder if the former recognizes that killing the latter would violate the rules of the game. Then again, if Widmore were behind the attacks, Sayid wouldn't bother asking who was. Maybe it's the Economist?
IT WAS JUST A LIGHT. The light, as Locke explains, is from the night when he banged on the Swan hatch, despondent over Boone's death. It's telling that Locke isn't even tempted to revisit himself on that night. When Sawyer asks him why he didn't go back and save himself a world of pain, Locke answers that this pain made him who he is. Interestingly, Sawyer himself makes exactly the same decision when observing Kate help Claire give birth to Aaron. Sawyer's rationale that "what's done is done" complements Locke's well -- both are expressions of the show's underlying fatalism...To clarify, since there seems to be some confusion, there's no rule of time travel that prohibits you from meeting yourself. The catch is that, if it didn't happen, it didn't happen. If you don't remember meeting some future version of yourself, then you won't. The big exception is Desmond, who can make "new" memories by changing the past...
THAT'S MY LAWYER. Just how many people of interest on the show does Dan Norton represent? I wonder what miracle Ben performed for Norton to merit such obvious gratitude...It struck me as contrived that Nortion just happens also to represent Claire's mom, who just happens to be in town collecting a judgment against Oceanic. I think that scene would have worked just as well if the person Norton visited in the hotel were some mysterious figure we'd never met...The name on the side of Ben's van reads CANTON-RAINIER, which is obviously an anagram for reincarnation. It doesn't take a genius to realize this is probably a hint about what they're supposed to do with Locke's corpse...Funny how Ben doesn't even bother denying that he was the one trying to take Aaron. Is this something Ben did to drive Kate back to the Island, or is it a sign Aaron isn't supposed to return with them?
DOES ANYBODY SPEAK FRENCH? My first thought when the outrigger canoe jumped (very convenient, btw, that it went with our Lefties through time) into the storm was that it might be the one that caused Danielle's shipwreck. I was ecstatic when we got confirmation in the form of wreckage with French words. Finally, we get to see the story of Rousseau's ill-fated science expedition! I've been dying since Season 1 to know how Montand lost his arm. I was worried when Danielle died that the tale might never get told, though I suppose they could have done so through flashbacks of someone observed the expedition...The moment I saw that body floating on the debris, I knew it was Jin and that he was alive. But that raises a potential wrinkle. Why didn't Rousseau remember Jin when they met again following the crash of Oceanic 815? Was she just that far gone? Or is this a sign that Desmond has changed things somehow?
The Little Prince refers to the classic French novel of the same name by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry about an alien child who falls to Earth. The title character hails from a small planet that humans have dubbed Asteroid B-612. One day, the Little Prince finds himself in the neighborhood of six other asteroids (including one called 325...hmmm). He meets their respective residents, one of whom suggests that the Little Prince visit Earth. There, he encounters the narrator, whose airplane has crashed (hmmm...) in the same desert as the Little Prince.
There are many thematic parallels to Lost, particularly the problem of narrow-mindedness inevitably breeding mistake, a point the book makes many times. We learn, for example, that the Little Prince's home planet was first sighted from Earth by a Turkish astronomer. Unfortunately, when the astronomer presented his finding to the International Astronomical Congress in Europe, he was ignored because of prejudice against his Turkish garb.
Asteroid B-612 remained unrecognized until the astronomer resubmitted his discovery wearing European clothes.
Another great illustration of this problem of limited perspective is the desert flower whom the Little Prince questions shortly after falling to Earth. Because the flower knows only the vast wasteland of the desert and has seen only a single caravan of people in her entire life, she erroneously reports that the planet is sparsely populated.
I expect Ben will face a similar dilemma coaxing the Oceanic 6 back to the Island. All of them understandably mistrust him because of how he behaved there before. A few have personal reasons for mistrusting him even more. Kate knows that Ben exposed her lie about Aaron; Sayid may have discovered that Ben tricked him into killing people who weren't responsible for Nadia's death; and Sun probably learned that Ben was responsible for blowing up the freighter, which she believes killed Jin. They will have a hard time looking beyond their experiences to see the necessity of what Ben now preaches.
Even more fundamentally, I believe such a mistake born of bias drives the mythology of the show. As I've suggested in posts like Extinction or Evolution and An Anti-Christmas Carol, the Dharma scientists may have misunderstood the Valenzetti Equation's prediction of our extinction. They erroneously assumed it could only come from some disaster -- e.g. nuclear fire, chemical and biological warfare, conventional warfare, pandemic, over-population, etc. They ignored the possibility that the Valenzetti might actually predict humanity's extinction by evolution into a whole new species.
We've seen many such mistakes of perspective depicted or referenced on the show. Why do you suppose the Others wore fake beards and pretended to be so primitive? A main reason was presumably so the crash survivors would underestimate them. Another great example is Locke's misjudgment concerning the importance -- or lack thereof -- of pushing the Swan button. Then there's the Flash and Green Lantern comic Walt was reading back in Season 1. In addition to polar bears, the story involves two superheroes who misinterpret an extra-terrestrial's actions as hostile.
And that brings me back to the speculation that started this post. Aliens. I've always suspected they were part of the backstory, notwithstanding Damon's denial. I figured that seemingly magical aspects of the Island like the Cerberus monster and the Frozen Donkey Wheel must be relics of their arbitrarily advanced technology. But I always assumed the aliens themselves were long dead, extinguished in some ancient calamity perhaps involving the volcano. Now I find myself mulling the possibility that Jacob is an extra-terrestrial using Aaron as his host.
After all, what was Claire's preferred lullaby for Little Prince Aaron? Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket...never let it fade away. In the spirit of Herb Caen, here are some three-dot thoughts on The Little Prince:
I THINK WE SHOULD SAY HE'S MINE. I've been looking forward to an explanation of why Kate decided to claim Aaron was her son. But something about the explanation seemed superficial and unsatisfying to me. I would have preferred that they spin Kate's initial interest as selfish -- i.e., Aaron was her ticket to staying out of prison -- then depicted her growing to love him...Are Kate and Jack supposed to be together? It's unclear but the show does seem to be setting up parallel pairings of opposites -- i.e., Dr. Jack with Kate, and Dr. Juliet with Sawyer...Kate should have known something was up the minute Sun promised to give Aaron candy from the mini-bar -- no Korean mom would waste money on the mini-bar...No surprise Sun has been keeping tabs on Ben and Jack, the two men she probably holds most responsible for Jin's death.
IT'S LIKE REALLY BAD JET LAG. As Juliet notes, jet lag isn't known to cause hemorrhaging. Still, the inability to sleep can quite literally be torture -- sleep deprivation is used worldwide as an interrogation method. Just how long has it been since the "Lefties" (thanks to Fierro for that one) slept?...I love the way Juliet seems uniquely able to handle Sawyer and keep him in check. Her calm but blunt demeanor and Mona Lisa smile brings to mind this Slate article I read recently about how to handle children when they deliberately push your buttons...Faraday's hypothesis that the bleeding is a function of how long one has been on the Island tends to support the speculation that Charlotte and Miles were both born there -- or at least lived there as children. That, in turn, raises the likelihood that baby we saw with Dr. Chang was one of those two, probably Miles...
BEN IS ON OUR SIDE. Like I said above, trusting Ben again will be a bitter pill for the Oceanic 6 to swallow, doubly so for some of them...One curious thing is how quickly Jack has been to convert to the cult of Linus. It may have something to do with Ben helping him get off prescription painkillers. In that regard, the dynamic parallels Locke helping Charlie kick heroin back in Season 1...Hurley says he's safe in L.A. County lock-up. But if you believe the ghost of Ana Lucia -- as I do -- the last place Hurley should be right now is in police custody...Who keeps trying to tranquilize Sayid? My guess would be Charles Widmore. But why not just kill him? Maybe Widmore needs Sayid alive, but I wonder if the former recognizes that killing the latter would violate the rules of the game. Then again, if Widmore were behind the attacks, Sayid wouldn't bother asking who was. Maybe it's the Economist?
IT WAS JUST A LIGHT. The light, as Locke explains, is from the night when he banged on the Swan hatch, despondent over Boone's death. It's telling that Locke isn't even tempted to revisit himself on that night. When Sawyer asks him why he didn't go back and save himself a world of pain, Locke answers that this pain made him who he is. Interestingly, Sawyer himself makes exactly the same decision when observing Kate help Claire give birth to Aaron. Sawyer's rationale that "what's done is done" complements Locke's well -- both are expressions of the show's underlying fatalism...To clarify, since there seems to be some confusion, there's no rule of time travel that prohibits you from meeting yourself. The catch is that, if it didn't happen, it didn't happen. If you don't remember meeting some future version of yourself, then you won't. The big exception is Desmond, who can make "new" memories by changing the past...
THAT'S MY LAWYER. Just how many people of interest on the show does Dan Norton represent? I wonder what miracle Ben performed for Norton to merit such obvious gratitude...It struck me as contrived that Nortion just happens also to represent Claire's mom, who just happens to be in town collecting a judgment against Oceanic. I think that scene would have worked just as well if the person Norton visited in the hotel were some mysterious figure we'd never met...The name on the side of Ben's van reads CANTON-RAINIER, which is obviously an anagram for reincarnation. It doesn't take a genius to realize this is probably a hint about what they're supposed to do with Locke's corpse...Funny how Ben doesn't even bother denying that he was the one trying to take Aaron. Is this something Ben did to drive Kate back to the Island, or is it a sign Aaron isn't supposed to return with them?
DOES ANYBODY SPEAK FRENCH? My first thought when the outrigger canoe jumped (very convenient, btw, that it went with our Lefties through time) into the storm was that it might be the one that caused Danielle's shipwreck. I was ecstatic when we got confirmation in the form of wreckage with French words. Finally, we get to see the story of Rousseau's ill-fated science expedition! I've been dying since Season 1 to know how Montand lost his arm. I was worried when Danielle died that the tale might never get told, though I suppose they could have done so through flashbacks of someone observed the expedition...The moment I saw that body floating on the debris, I knew it was Jin and that he was alive. But that raises a potential wrinkle. Why didn't Rousseau remember Jin when they met again following the crash of Oceanic 815? Was she just that far gone? Or is this a sign that Desmond has changed things somehow?
54 comments:
Good episode. Ben was up to his old manipulitive ways. His chess pieces are moving nicely into position.
Seeing that Jin was alive was great. It surprised me that he was "in the radius" as Daniel put it. The blast must have thrown him just far enough. His face when Danielle introduced herself was awesome.
There may have been another clue to a as-yet-undisclosed relationship between Daniel and Charlotte. At one point when he was asking her if she was feeling better she said "You don't have to baby me." May mean nothing, but it caught my ear.
I apologize for the length of the next part. After seeing the episode I realize that it does not have any specific relevance, but it is interesting nonetheless. Skip it if you like.
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Before watching the latest episode, I did a little research on the title "The Little Prince". There is a book published in 1943 of the same name. Here are some highlights from Wikipedia along with my commentary:
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In The Little Prince talks about being marooned in a damaged aircraft.
--Obvious
The essence of the book is contained in the famous lines uttered by the fox to the Little Prince: "One cannot see well except with the heart, the essential is invisible to the eyes".
--Some things are only seen by some on the island (e.g. Locke) and back in the real world (e.g. Hurley).
The Prince asks the narrator to draw a sheep. He tries a few sheep drawings, which the Prince rejects. Finally he draws a box, which he explains has the sheep inside. The Prince says "That's perfect".
--Reminds me of Ben's magic box.
The Lamplighter who lives on an asteroid which rotates once a minute. Long ago, he was charged with the task of lighting the lamp at night and extinguishing it in the morning. At that point, the asteroid revolved at a reasonable rate, and he had time to rest. As time went on, the rotation sped up. Refusing to turn his back on his work, he now lights and extinguishes the lamp once a minute, getting no rest.
--Reminds me of the Swan station with the key sequence entry.
Chapter 16 begins: "So then the seventh planet was the Earth". On the Earth, he starts out in the desert and meets a snake that claims to have the power to return him to his home planet.
--Reminds me of the snake-like Ben telling the O6 that he can get them back to where they need to be – but at what cost?
Just HOW do you get blood out of a tie?
Forgot to click the email follow-up button. Sorry for the superfluous post.
• To no surprise, Jin’s alive and is experiencing the shifts in time. His English has definitely gotten better. How surprised was he when he heard Rousseau's (sp?) name?
• Now I’m about to make my head hurt. Will Jin be around long enough to make an impression on Rousseau now AND will she remember Jin years later? Or is she too far gone in looneyville to recognize him?
• Miles is now experiencing nose bleeds. Is this/will this be the fate of all of our traveling ppl? Or could Miles and Charlotte be more attached to the island, then we know about? Will we find in 2010 that most, if not all, of our LOSTies have significant attachment, ie products of someone who’se been on the island?
• The island hopping flashes. I think whatever ‘when’ they flash to, it will turn out to be pretty significant in the overall story. What would have happened if Sawyer burst through when Claire and Kate were delivering Aaron? Or was the scene necessary to reinforce Sawyer’s love for Kate or the bond between Aaron and Kate?
• Good red herring with Claire’s Mom and the Lawyer. Like him or not, Ben is one sneaky character. Ben totally played Kate – and Jack for that matter. He knows the weakness of folks and exploits them to get what he desires. And yes, when everything is said and done, I do believe that Ben is on the side of good…
• Notice the tension between Sayid and Ben? I’m thinking two trains of thoughts … a) Ben had Sayid kill someone ‘innocent,’ or b) Sayid found out that Ben had something to do with Nadia’s death. If the second is true, you would think Sayid would have killed Ben, right? I think Sayid knows he ‘can’t.’ He knows more about ‘the rules of the game,’ then we think.
• Definitely NOT feeling the whole Kate and Aaron situation. Can’t put my finger on it. Is it because the actress doesn’t move me or I’m just not buying the whole Kate being maternal situation? Notice how quickly she got back into the ‘Jack protect me’ mode? Musta have been the lack of a beard…
• These ppl that’s attacking Sayid and are set up to go after the other Oceanic 6 – Ben’s doing or Widmore folks?
That's all I got now. So looking forward to the review and various comments from folks...
Hated the episode. The whole Kate/Aaron lawyer thing was a 20 minute time waister. That scene could of been shot in 5 minutes letting us know (which most of us did) that Ben was behind this.
I really don't care about the people off the island (though I know we have to "watch" that) I'm more concerned with the people on the Island and what is happening to them. The people off the island are very, very boring...nothing "wows" me on their scenes. Well except Hurley throwing the Hot Pocket and Ben because I think he's a fine actor.
NetProphet here.
Canton-Rainier (from Ben's van) = REINCARNATION
NetProphet again.
Almost forgot. At the end of the Little Prince, the Prince makes a deal with the snake to "go home". This is accomplished by having the snake bite him. He tells the narrator of the book not to worry, even though it will appear as if he is dead. I believe the Prince's body disappears mysteriously shortly afterward...
I keep having trouble convincing people, when they ask if Sawyer or Locke will run into themselves, that they can't because they didn't. We know that Slaughterhouse-Five has been an influence on Lost, so I don't think it's unfair to say that the writers' take on time travel is closer to a Tralfamadorian, or deterministic, model than anything. Tralfamadorians know that time is fixed, and basically, to them, all of existence is just like a sculpture, since they have the ability to see back and forth in the fourth dimension. It's like looking at a picture.
So when you ask if something you know didn't happen can happen, it's a bit like asking if the tree at one side of a painting could be in the same place as the cloud on the other side. You know it's not, so it's a silly question to ask.
Like big, though, I think that details could possibly be changed. Sticking with that painting analogy, perhaps the tree could be either a maple or an elm, or maybe the cloud could be either a cirrus or a cumulus, but they're still staying right where they are. So it is with time. Things happened the way they happened, and aside from incidentals, they can't happen any other way.
So, though he feels he made the decision himself, Sawyer could not have made himself known to Kate and Claire as Aaron was being born, precisely because it never happened in the first place.
I loved the on-island stuff. We pretty much got confirmation that Miles was Chang/Candle/Hallowax's kid, right? That's what Daniel was talking about, right? Also, who did the canoes belong to? Did anybody else experience a moment of panic, thinking that the Island Six would be stuck adrift in the ocean without the canoe after they time-jumped?
Crazy Theory that's not true: What if Rousseau's ship didn't crash 16 years ago, but crashed in 2004, but was within the radius of the Frozen Donkey Wheel?
This time travel thing is starting to take on a Quantum Leap kind of feel to me... it seems that they only jump time after something significant happens... John gets shot, Alpert gives John the compass, John gives Alpert the compass, Sawyer sees Claire give birth, etc.
I wonder if there's some sort of sequence of events that fate requires the Losties to endure... meaning that they're not really jumping randomly at all.
I do think it's cool how on island flashbacks are being replaced by time travel... it's like watching the flashback unfold in second person, rather than third.
Is Miles the best character or what! I love his lines!
So how is all this time stuff working? Does future Richard Alpert now remember meeting Locke in the 1950's? Do they not remember it if they're not the ones time jumping? Is that why Faraday has to keep his journal to remind himself of where he's been? Didn't Faraday ask Miles last night if he was sure about not having been on the island longer? Why wouldn't he remember?
Jin is alive!
I was just catching up on the discussion here. . .very thought provoking.
If Faraday hadn't told them they were time jumping, how long would it have taken the rest of them to figure out that's what was happening?
That will be Jin's problem, no? There's no one to explain to him about the skipping record. Unless Rousseau's crew knew more than we thought.
His only clue at the moment is that Danielle Rousseau to him is a much older woman.
I thought it was a very good episode for one containing the Jack/Kate saga. Although I think the last tenish minutes really brought the episode down. Here is my reasoning:
Jin being alive...I like Jin, I always assumed he was alive, but I didn't want him to be. One of my issues with LOST has always been that characters rarely die and go away, I just don't want to see LOST go the route of Heroes with fan favorite characters.
The Rousseau reveal took way too long. As soon as the island hoppers rowed onto the beach and said "Oh look, a fresh wreckage", I said "Oh this is how they will tell Rousseau's story, cool. And then it felt like it took a friggin eternity to say "Hey surprise it's Rousseau even though it's been obvious for the last 5 minutes".
But hey I'm nitpicking! A good episode, no Jughead though but thank God they still had on island events.
What if all of the whispers and stuff from the last few years is actually people jumping around somehow, just out of sight?
I have a feeling that we'll see some Back to the Future II type scene, from a different angle. Someone will jump in time and try to talk to an 815'er.
What if all of these sudden appearances of characters on the island are those people jumping? Like, how does Walt appear to someone out of the blue and then disappear? Maybe it's along these lines...
What if the scene of Goodspeed replaying himself in front of Locke is a "record skipping" as mentioned earlier in the season?
I am simply loving the mindgasms I get every week. Further, this is the first place I read on Thursdays!
I think there can be some play with the "It can't happen" thing, but as Fargus said, it may just involve the clouds changing in the painting. Sawyer pounded on the Swan's tree entrance before Faraday, yet Desmond heard the pounding for 20 minutes, I think he said, likely getting into his containment suit. But that scene with Sawyer looking at Kate & Claire was a nice reveal, that Sawyer DID believe Faraday.
I have been tired of Kate for three years now, but I know she is there for a certain viewing audience, or so ABC might think. And I don't know that the build-up of Ben's manipulation involving the lawyer and Rousseau was too drawn out (perhaps the latter). Those of us who post here are die-hards, I know many people who watch an episode and are left confused, never mind able to recall characters mentioned in the first season (before she died, I wonder how many casual watchers even remembered Danielle as being part of that French expedition).
I've wondered about who remembers what from the time jumps. The only one who really is aware of the purple light is Desmond, who does carry a memory. So I don't think Ethan recalls Locke by the Beechcraft at all, though at the same time, he should recall shooting some kind of intruder. And what of the shooters in the other boat last night? Now, it could be stated that Ethan might recall shooting a surviver of the crash of the drug plane, there was a body thrown clear, but what then of the boat chase last night?
I had bad reception last night, anyone know what they came across in the jungle? At first I thought Jacob's cabin, until I saw Locke's reaction. Was it part of the Ruins?
Looking fwd to everyone's future comments following Big's post.
What they came across in the jungle? You mean the beam of light!? It was the HATCH light!
Machramm-- LOVE THAT QUOTE "Don't Baby Me". I can now continue to blindly subscribe to my theory that Charlotte is Daniel's DAUGHTER.
Wayne, JLes is right. I think Miles even asked Locke what it was and he told him. Lock at one point banged on the hatch with a rock (I think) and then someone inside (Desmond) evidently heard it and turned on a light which cast a beam of light high into the dark jungle sky.
When I first saw it I wasn't sure what it was either. It looked like a beam of light, but I didn't make the connection until Locke explained it.
Forthcoming transcripts will surely clear up an lingering doubt.
Great thought about tying in Charlotte's line "don't baby me" to Daniel being her dad. Yes, his love for Charlotte definitely doesn't seem necessarily romantic. Funny how Charlotte seems all better now.
Does Aaron kind of look like Sawyer when he was little and heard his dad murder his mom?
Hey, JLes and Machramm, I picked up on the Hatch dialogue, but I connected it with being the same night of Aaron's birth, yet forgetting Sawyer never told Locke what he saw. Comcast was screwy last night, all I knew was that they had avoided something, for the briefest of moments I saw what I thought was a thin grey column in the shadows, and the Hatch light explains it. What IS interesting is how (relatively) close Kate & Claire were to the Hatch and, by extension, the Beechcraft. I've often thought, why doesn't anybody ever write EVERYTHING down, instead of keeping secrets. Well, Faraday HAS kept everything about the DI down, but as we saw more of last night, he just aint talking.
I have a question for everyone...
I'm slightly confused by a certain series of events. I thought (based 100% on the LOST Swan-scene re-creation action figure set...you know, the one where you can turn the light on?) that Kate was with Locke when they saw the Hatch light go on. According to the action figures (hah, are they "in canon"?) Kate, Hurley, Jack and Locke were all there.
Annnnd, I could have sworn that Aaron was born BEFORE that Hatch light went on.....not at the same time or after.
Am I totally off base here? Or did I just totally blow the lid on a major inconsistency. Hopefully somebody can let me know before I'm forced to go back and re-watch the entirety of Season 1
Aaron was born around the same time Boone died, which was right before the hatch light was flipped on (and only Locke was there to see it...From what I recall).
Has anyone checked out the Ajira Airways website?
http://www.ajiraairways.com./home
Pretty cool. Not sure if it has anything insightful. I love how they post as one of the city/temp. combinations -- Tustin, CA. Yes, I realize that's where Locke is from.
Way too much Kate for me. I know it's necessary to watch, but it gets so old. Or maybe it's just the character/actress that is getting old to me. I only like her around so I can watch Sawyer swoon over someone.
Otherwise I thought it was pretty good. But, I agree, took way too long to get to Rousseau reveal when we already knew what was going on. A lot of filler in this one...or at least if felt like it.
JLes, my nieces bought me the Hatch last Christmas. I thought it was more a re-creation of the scene where the Hatch door is blown off, and Hurley freaks and leaves when he sees the Numbers on the side, yet he is standing right there as Locke is looking down, like at the ending of the first season. But the light DOES go on after Locke whines over causing Boone's death, wanting some kind of sign.
They still needed to get Arzt to help them w/ the dynamite at the Black Rock, without looking at the timeline on Lostpedia, I'd say at least 3-4 days had passed between events.
They still needed to get Arzt to help them w/ the dynamite at the Black Rock, without looking at the timeline on Lostpedia, I'd say at least 3-4 days had passed between events.
Oops. Big, you can cut my duplicate comment and this one, whenever you see it.
Hello All!!
Okay, just a thought but when the crew finds the water bottle from another airline some suspected that they may have bounced briefly into the future and that the people that were chasing them was the O6. Question, if that was the Jack and crew why would they randomly start shooting at the boat? And it also seems as though Juliet shot one of them.
**Saudi**
Speaking of Ajira... Remembering back to when Sawyer and Kate were locked up. Wasn't there some sort of chain-gang working on something that resembles a runway? Perhaps that is how Ajira gets on the island. They land there.
JIN! AHH! :D
i'm glad that we're with Rousseau's group... although there will very likely be a time jump, hopefully we'll be able to get a better idea about this mysterious sickness that no one seems to get.
perhaps the "sickness" is the nosebleed epidemic that everyone is getting.
it sounds like everyone who's guessing Miles is Pierre Chang's baby might actually be onto something. (ahahaha i was never quite sure about that theory)
one thing that really confuses me:
Remember when Locke kicked over a piece of metal asking "Does anyone speak French?" Well, what it said on there was "BÉSIXDOUZE" or B-SIX-TWELVE
that's their little allusion to The Little Prince, astéroïde B612 is where the Little Prince lives... what I'm wondering is does this have any signifigance at all or is it just the writer's way of justifying the name "The Little Prince" ?
The Little Prince is buried in that metalic box that has the BESIXDOUZE on it. Turns out it's actually the Artist Formerly Known as Prince. Now THAT would be cool.
That translation for the frenchies box alluding to the asteroid from the "Little Prince" book was a good catch. I was glad to see that this episode didn't totally focus on the cast in LA, there were some truly great moments on the island. Sawyer has been one of the more dynamic characters as the show has progressed, and last night when he was frozen in place watching Kate and Claire was one of my favorite moments with his character.
I never read the book, but from reading the wiki page on 'The Little Prince', I came up with more connection with Lockes character than any others (namely Aaron).
Lost has never been scared to show us a dead body to ensure that a character is truly dead. So last nights Jin reveal wasn't a huge surprise, but a very welcome plot development none the less. I think that Locke/Bentham visited basically everyone in the US after leaving, but we aren't sure if he visits Sun (and tells him Jin is alive). So I would venture to guess that this is how Ben avoids getting gunned down by Sun.
And oh yeah, Penny is so going to die ;)
-nordak-
I thought this was a very good episode and even better post. I loved the whole little price book and how it ties into everything...we gotta meet this Jacob guy he has some explaining to do... In total agreement with JLes about the Farday/Charlotte deal
Also the episode confirmed something I posted about last week and 2 Scott's above have somewhat touched on...
The LOST folk (Locke and Co.) are in a time loop and everything is happening somewhat simultaneously - it was mentioned that significant things happen each time they jump in time and that much is true. This also is evident pre-donkey wheel time warp...
Before many major turn of events in the earlier seasons there is whispers, ppl used to rumor that the others had power etc. I am pretty convinced that these are evidence of the time warp happening at the same time, however the ppl in the past do not see the purple light it comes to them in the form of "whispers"
It seems that the group chooses to get involved when they can (Locke, Faraday, etc.) but perhaps cannot at other times because of course correction - those events happened for a reason and cannot change and happen another way. Also, in agreement with Scott, these events seem predestined and they will warp at the major events...
I was thinking about how Montand "lost his arm" as well as Pierre Chang. What if for whatever reason a property of the island during time disruptions causes the crazy blood pooling in appendages that Boone experienced during "Do No Harm"? That would mean that Jack killed Boone by not trying to fix him.
-x
Good post and comments so far! I thought that I commented yesterday when I first read through, but I guess not.
I was wondering that myself Ellipsis, about the title. The show wasn't Aaron-centric really, but the shot of him sitting at the table in the hotel room with all the room service food did make him look special. But I assumed what you said about the boat's name.
I used to be open to aliens on this show a while ago, but now that it's gotten so complicated I don't know for sure if I would like that. Although, if TPTB somehow attrubute the 4-Toed species to aliens I guess that would be OK.
Thanks for posting the illustrations from the book Big, mine doesn't have those and I only have the 1974 movie as a reference. Guess I'll be taking a trip to B&N this weekend to check it out.
I'm surprised you went the root of the Little Prince book, when most LOST Theorists are connecting the title to the books of Narnia and Prince Caspian.
According to Lostpedia (my LOST Bible ;) ) Boone was injured in the Beechcraft plunge around day 41. Locke took him back to the caves for treatment, then returned alone to the hatch. He banged on it and a light came on. ("Deus Ex Machina")
The next episode, still around day 41, was when Claire's baby was born sometime later that night I think ("Do No Harm"). So the sequence of the time-traveling Losties witnessing these events was essentially correct.
Good post, as always, Big. I still hold with my theory that, whoever you are in your real identity, its a cross between Faraday and Richard Alpert. I've always assumed that a past advance civilazation was on the Island, even before the thought of volcanic extinction came into play. Never mind the donkey wheel or the ruins, its that damn comic. I read it when it came out, and when you watch the episodes from S1, it seems as if Jacob "sees" through Locke, watching Walt, maybe catching the alien in the comic. Remember what Walt tells Michael (back to your thoughts on narrow-mindedness)? He couldn't read Spanish, but he could still look at the art. Perfect for Jacob, but then Walt's ability freaked gim and the Others out. Maybe Aaron always was the intended choice, but Jacob thought it might be good to have Walt as a back-up, I dunno.
I thought the episode was great in that we got insight into so many different characters, on-Island and off. And I suppose the reason for using Ajira, aside from the Island perhaps being closer to the Indian Airlines flight routes, would be to show future jumps like last episode, the water bottle in the boat.
"no Korean mom would waste money on the mini-bar."
I definitely know what you're talking about there.
Well Neaux, TPTB pretty much took us there by naming the French boat after the Little Prince's asteroid.
Going by duration of time on the island makes it easier to keep track of the bloody noses, for sure. Doesn't explain it still but...it helps to line up the victims.
If Sayid is necessary for saving the island, the island just might not let Widmore kill him anyway. So, sleepy-darts are allowed, heheh.
To save me from having to rifle through Lostpedia for a 1/2 hour to find it, could someone please tell me when Rousseau and Jin came face to face? Or how she knows him? Thanks ever-so! :-x
Capcom, even if the had met, I really think she was fairly insane to recall anything from sixteen years ago. Depends on how long before the next flash, I suppose, but I lean towards everyone forgetting what happened once the next flash hits. Only Desmond shield his eyes from the effect, only Desmond has a memory. I wonder if Jin has been on that beach through each flash.
capcom: skimming over danielle's profile on lostpedia, the only mention of Jin's name (after 2004) is around the season 3 finale when Jin stays behind to shoot at the others. i'm probably going to have to watch these episodes, there isn't a real concrete answer on the site.
I wonder two things about Danielle & Jin's meeting and why she didn't recognize him in the future:
1) Would she have woken up like Desmond with a new memory of meeting Jin in the present if she was alive?
OR
2) Is the fact that she & all her crew-mates are dead the only reason she was able to meet Jin?
I can't determine if Daniel's statement that the past can't be changed is true or it's just that he wants to prevent people from trying it.
-J
I am not at all certain that they aren't changing events. I know that the writers have alluded to great classics like Slaughterhouse 5, but that doesn't mean that they will fully subscribe to each or any or all of the theories of time travel that they have used as "guides". So really we don't KNOW if they can alter events or wake up with new memories. I believe that if Rousseau were still alive she WOULD in fact wake up with a new memory.
About Reincarnation - THAT is interesting. But at what point does it end? Who does it begin with and end with? A lot of people have died. Is it conceivable that all dead characters can be brought back? I hope not because that's too convenient - too neat. And I don't want Lost to end too neatly. But if CERTAIN important or key characters can be - like Locke. Like Christian Shepherd.
Nice work with The Little Prince. I'd be looking Alpert's way for that. And I am thinking more and more that Charlotte is Danny's Girl. Will be interesting to get the truth. Yep, Miles is a Hallochang. Explains his "powers".
But my big thing is the flashes effecting memories and in essence the future. There will be others who wake up with "memories". Desmond isn't going to be the only one. I'm sure of it.
One more thing. How are Ji Yeon, Charlie, and Aaron going to be okay if Penny gets killed, Kate goes back, and Sun goes back? Lindelof and Cuse have HAD to have thought that out.
Oh, and we now have an explanation for "tall Walt".
Thanks friends for the Jin/Danielle info. I was trying to figure out where he might have seen her to remember her, but it could be that he only heard of the main Losties talking a lot about her. He certainly must have heard that Danielle tried to take Aaron, that some crazy French chick was shooting at them, and maybe also that Hurley got a battery from her too.
I'm not too crazy about reincarnation becoming a focus either, 80spro. But then again, I'm not crazy about all the talking dead people either. For instance, how could AnaL have a patrol car? Was the patrol car dead too? :o)
BTW, I got the shivers this ep when Sawyer was watching Kate and Claire, and it made me think that maybe the whispers are the time-skippers whispering in the jungle and watching the Losties doing things, trying to talk to each other without upsetting the time balance. :-o Probably not, but it still gave me goosebumps to think about it at that time.
hi bm - nice write up once again
if memory serves it was david fury who said there was no aliens/time travel on the show
cheers
BlackLotus
Capcom, ever since we saw the "Lefties" start to jump all over the place, my good friend said right off that the whispers from seasons past was ALL the various ways the Island was trippin'. So yeah, the Lefties are in the the jungle whispering, and somewhere in the space/time continuum they are hearing themselves. Like I said, totally explains "Tall Walt." Oh, and the horse.
Re; the whispers. I've read the transcripts off and on, I recall one that made it seem like Nikki and Paolo were talking, thought this was after their death. I think it was the episode in which Hurley finds Jacob's cabin. I don't concentrate on the whispers much, as they seem to be sort of theatrical (Michael hears the whispers right before the freighter blows up?), but right now it seems as if the whispers are from everyone on the Island (Oceanic 815s, Others, even Hostiles) talking as the Island skips. It might work both ways, the Left Behinds hearing themselves, as well. With the way the writers do all this stuff with ARGs and comic con videos, reading the transcripts might be something to do for added insight. In the case I mentioned, I came away from it thinking that Nikki and Paolo had found Jacob's cabin, as they had the Pearl, and just ignored it. If the whispers are due to the skipping going back to S1, some of that dialogue might fill in the gaps they've not been able to put in the show proper. An example being Taller Walt, as 80sPro suggests.
Capcom, I misread your question. But, adding to the replies, Jin might recognize her name if nothing else, because, before learning English, one of the first things he'd likely have picked up on was learning people's names for recognition. So that matches with the episode with Jin, Bernard, and Sayid, as she was there, in the background, but even looking as she did in 1988, Jin likely recognized her by name as much as anything else.
Enjoying the posts.
In the sequel, The Little Prince Returns the shipwrecked narrator encounters the Little Prince on a Island.
Very good points Wayne and 80sPro. :-)
Wow, Styx, that is interesting, I din't even know that there is a sequel.
Blogger lost2010 said...
"If Faraday hadn't told them they were time jumping, how long would it have taken the rest of them to figure out that's what was happening? That will be Jin's problem, no? There's no one to explain to him about the skipping record. Unless Rousseau's crew knew more than we thought. His only clue at the moment is that Danielle Rousseau to him is a much older woman."
I think Jin can tell something is screwy by the fact that day and night each last a few minutes at a time.
Scott Webster said...
"What if the scene of Goodspeed replaying himself in front of Locke is a "record skipping" as mentioned earlier in the season?"
Not sure about that, since he mentioned to Locke that he had been dead for 12 years.
@3D good call. Add that to NetProphet's mention of Boone's nanny falling up falling down the stairs and that BOTH scenes were in Locke's dreams, maybe Jacob was fine-tuning Locke's unconscious with the way the Island moves, in that it vibrates (skips) at a different frequency to avoid detection, and now its simple vibrating (record-skipping) differently since the turning of the wheel.
At Black Lotus's suggestion, I rechecked the quote about no aliens or time travel being on Lost. It was indeed made by Damon in an interview with SciFiWire. Interestingly, however, he never expressly denies the possibility of aliens, though many interpreted the reference to "space ships" as that:
As the show progresses, [Damon Lindelof] added, it won't venture too far into science fiction as its mysteries unfold. "We're still trying to be... firmly ensconced in the world of science fact," he said in an interview. "I don't think we've shown anything on the show yet that has no rational explanation in the real world that we all function within. We certainly hint at psychic phenomena, happenstance and... things being in a place where they probably shouldn't be. But nothing is flat-out impossible. There are no spaceships. There isn't any time travel."
"There isn't any time travel". . .yet.
Reading this post made me think of something. If the outrigger travels through time with the Lefties because they're touching it (one of the characters said that's how it works), what would happen if they were touching a person - Rousseau, for instance - during a flash? It's probably not important, but it makes me curious.
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