NEVER FEAR, I WILL MAKE A NEW POT OF COFFEE: If there is one constant throughout the years of Lost, it is that a Lockecentric episode is always better than a Jack- or Katecentric episode. And after years of watching horrid, gut-wrenching things happen to Locke, it was a relief to see a universe -- whatever the heck universe alt.lax might be -- in which his life is a smidgeon less miserable. (Best moment in that regard: the rueful chuckle when the sprinklers went off.)
Plenty to talk about, but despite all the mythology plotline advancement,* it's a relatively little thing that struck me the most: if the change in the Locke family dynamic is as it was reported, then how exactly does the chair figure into things?
*I agree with Our Friend Alan that the end-of-series clarity we've started to get on the mythology has demythologized the mythology. (When Dorothy finds out that the Wizard is just a guy behind a curtain -- well, that kind of takes some of the wind out of the Wizard's sails, no?) Nothing to be done about it, and I'm not complaining, but it does make the cave drawings somewhat less of an OMG reveal than an oh, this is how they're finessing this issue.
All hail Terry O'Quinn, man of faith, in the comments.
Another outstanding episode for TO'Q. I imagine the chair explanation in timeline LA X will be another reveal later this season, mirroring the reveal early in Season 1, but that it'll be something totally mundane.
ReplyDeleteAlso? Best. Eulogy. Evir. Really, a touching and honest moment from Ben Linus. (And? Best. High school European History teacher. Evir.)
Was I the only one who thought the cave exposition was a little too expositiony? Did we really need Josh Holloway to fill in the first names for each last name?
Jacob has a thing with numbers? C'mon!
ReplyDeleteAC ya beat me on the eulegy. Lapidus--weirdest funeral ever-- was awesome- he Hurley'd it.
Smokey-cam was cool. Now we cant tell FLocke what he cant do either.
Was there a better person to make that walk with FLlocke than Sawyer? Best exchange:
where's the boy?
what boy?
Of course.
Terry OQuinn rocks.
Greatest Eugoogly Evir. And I did love SMOKEYcam. But, yeah, *why* were they on Jacob's list (and who else is on that wall?), and which Shephard was it?
ReplyDeleteSo, the numbers were just the list of people that Jacob wanted to bring to the island? Interesting. And if the list is looking for Jin instead of Sun, that would make sense since a Jacob replacement would have to be male. Which makes you wonder where Kate's part in all of this is...
ReplyDeleteAlso, did anyone else notice the fact that Helen said that she wanted to invite Locke's dad to the wedding? Didn't he push him out of a window, or are we going to find out that's not what happened in this reality? That confused me a bit.
Speaking of Helen, Mr Liekl and I both cheered when she came through the front door. Also when Rose was running the temp agency. And how/why is Ben a teacher at this school? His personality totally fits though.
Another cheer for the eulogy, very much enjoyed the moment, along with the "baWUH?" faces on the rest of people there.
Callie - the point about inviting Locke's dad to the wedding was what I was (obliquely) referring to in my point about the Locke family dynamic. Interesting, no?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure we know that the Kwon on the wall must be Jin. In fact, part of me thinks that it's going to come down to Sun and Jin at the end, and that there will be some mystery about just which one of them Jacob had in mind (and just what sort of sacrifices the couple will need to make for one of them to become a nearly immortal protector of the island).
ReplyDeleteI agree with pretty much everything else said above. T O'Q is just amazing in this role.
Also, I'm interested in where the Anakin Sawyer storyline goes.
Oops, that "Guest" was me, posting from the new love of my life, a brand new MacBook Pro! :)
ReplyDeleteMy initial thought is that the Kwon on Jacob's stalker checklist is Ji Yeon rather than Sun or Jin.
ReplyDeleteInteresting! (Can someone remind me -- where's Ji Yeon supposed to be "now"?)
ReplyDeleteMaybe the Kwon isn't Jin or Sun, but the baby Kwon growing in Sun's belly.
ReplyDeleteI had the same thought that Andrew did.
ReplyDeleteThis all, of course, leaves me wondering just what all those other people are doing on the island. Were they collateral damage who just ahppened to be on the same plane as Hurley, Sawyer, () Shepherd, () Kwon, Locke and Sayid? What of Kate, Claire, Charlie, Boone, Rose, etc? They may not be candidates, but the early flashbacks and the current flashsidewayses still have those people all connected to the 6 candidates.
ReplyDeleteAlso, what do we make of the number 6 in all this - if I remember correctly, in some Asian cultures (and there's a lot of Eastern influence in the temple mythology and the like) , the number 6 isn't a good number - it's "incomplete." We have Hurley's 6 numbers, the 6 candidates from the plane, the Oceanic 6 (not the same 6)...
Anyway, great episode.
Kate and Claire are still significant, because Jacob touched them previously, as he did with Sun- maybe something about expectant mothers?
ReplyDeleteThe more I think about this episode, the more I think that this is an episode that's going to seem like a bit of a red herring further down the line, because the "answers" about the list and the numbers come from Smokey. And we know that Smokey has an agenda. When we get Jacob's side of this (presumably from Lennon, Dogan and Richard), that's going to cast Smokey's information (and mis-information) in a different light.
ReplyDeleteDid Charles Widmore convert from following Jacob to following Smokey? Or was his banishment from the Island related to more mundane intra-Other disputes?
Are these Rules that Jacob and Smokey talking about similar, a super-set or the same rules that Ben and Widmore referred to when Ben visited Widmore in London?
How long have the Five of the Oceanic Six + Lapidus, Ilana and Ben been back on the Island? A couple of days (not accounting for time travel to 1977 and back)? If the timeline in the original universe applies off the Island, too, then Ji Yeon would still be with his grandmother. Or does island exists in a bubble of space-time and the outside world is in the mirror universe caused by the bomb?
Lostpedia says that there's a possibility that some of those -- e.g., Charlie, Rose -- are on the ceiling, I assume based on screen grabs.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, my vague recollection was that the stated reason for Charles Widmore's banishment was that he had fathered a child (whom I think we're meant to believe is Penny) off-island, presumably with a non-Other. I don't think it had to do with the Jacob/Smokey dispute.
ReplyDeleteI definitely recall seeing a Pace (as in Charlie) while watching that scene. I'm sure Lostpedia has the full list of legible names by now.
ReplyDeleteI want a spin-off detective show with sideways Locke and sideways Linus as school teachers by day, private dicks by night.
ReplyDeleteWorking title, "Wheels and Coffee"
A co-worker had a flash today - the Kwon on the cave wall must be referring to Jin. All of the other candidates traveled back in time, either after the frozen donkey wheel, or after they disappeared off the Ajira flight. Sun conspicuously didn't flash back; her not being a candidate could explain that.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to know which Shephard it was -- there were two on 815.
ReplyDeleteJi Yeon is with Sun's mother.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad someone else is thinking like me. :)
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that all of the numbers in the cave are associated with men, albeit Kwon being M or F...I'm going with Jin. I mean Kate was touched my Jacob and she's not on the wall...not that we know of anyway.
ReplyDeleteThere could be more than two Shephards on 815--Christian, Jack, Claire & Aaron--depending on how far you want to take the family line business.
ReplyDeleteBut Kate went back 30 years and is also not a Candidate.
ReplyDelete