Lost: Down the Hatch – Let’s get ready to rumble

Chris Kirkman

“LaFleur” Recap and Analysis …

Previously, on Lost: Sawyer slaps Daniel around like a little girl to make him talk about what’s going down with the island. Daniel equates it to a record on a turntable, skipping – except imagine that turntable is hurtling through spacetime, popping in and out of this dimension’s timestream and they’re all on the record, being slung around like ragdolls, and don’t even get him started on bunnies, and … Sawyer thinks about slapping him again. Sawyer and the gang are jumping about, getting nosebleeds and such, until, sadly, Charlotte has her last nosebleed. Locke suggests they go back to the Orchid so everyone can return, even Kate. “Don’t you want her to come back?” Locke asks Sawyer. Well, not particularly, says I. Locke drops down the well, is engulfed in the white light of another jump, and Sawyer is left holding a rope that goes to nowhere.

This week, on Lost: Oh, lordy. It was about this same time last year that we were treated with a full episode of Juliet’s lovely countenance. And you all know what that means …

So, yeah. This week, we find out that after Locke turns the Great Wheel and everything gets all white, Sawyer, Juliet, Miles, Daniel and Jin all settle into a final time, 1974. After some wacky Dharma-related hijinx, Sawyer and Jin end up working for Dharma as security officers and Juliet becomes a mechanic, until Sawyer pulls her away from her duties to deliver the baby of Dharma’s leader, Horace – the same guy that brought Ben to the island and appeared to Locke to tell him where to find the map to Jacob’s cabin. Got all that? Oh, and most importantly, during all this time, Sawyer and Juliet have fallen in love and are shacking up together.

Sigh. I’ll have what he’s having.

Everything is just peachy keen until Jin calls Sawyer one morning and they meet out near the bluff and Jack and Hurley jump out of Jin’s Dharma bus. Oh yeah, and Kate. That’s when Sawyer’s eyes kinda bugged out and I went “oh, crap” and braced myself for the heartache I just know is coming Juliet’s way.

You can cue the thonk!

I absolutely love episodes like this. Not only do we get three years’ worth of history in around 48 minutes, we feel as though we actually lived it with the characters. We see the evolution of a love affair between Juliet and Sawyer back in 1974, and by the time we get to 1977, it just makes sense. A wonderful job by the Lost team all the way around.

Surprisingly, I don’t have a complicated science-related problem to break down for everyone this week, but we do have some nifty new revelations to go over. But first, can I just say …

KATE AUSTEN MUST BE STOPPED
That’s right, I said it. Kate is back in town and ready to stir up some trouble, folks. She doesn’t have an island baby to worry about no mo’, and she stepped out of the temporal flux and right into the same love triangle she left behind three years ago. Except this time, it’s a love quadrangle, and things have the potential to get messy. No longer can she just cry on Jack’s shoulder one minute and be in bed with Sawyer the next. Oh, no, she’s got an Other woman to contend with – a woman, by the way, who doesn’t hesitate to shoot people. A woman that knows how to sneak around the jungle like a ninja and who can make your heart explode with an iron glare. This is a steel magnolia you’re about to be messing with, Miss Austen, and I personally hope she slaps the freckles off your cheeks.

I found this in an old hope chest that had a Dharma logo embossed on it. Had I been old enough at the time of the main event, and had I known about it, I would definitely have put money down on The Blonde Bomber.

STAND LIKE AN EGYPTIAN
So … within the first two minutes of the episode, we had a classic Lost mystery moment – we got to see the back of the giant statue. You know, the one that was, at one time, attached to the four-toed foot that Sayid and Co. saw way back in the finale for season two?

You know, this one!

Anyway, three seasons later, we finally got a brief glimpse of what was on the other end of that broken foot. As soon as I saw it, it was instantly familiar. Anyone who has ever seen any Egyptian sculptures – heck, anyone who’s ever seen Stargate, for crying out loud – would think it fairly familiar, as well. Thus, when the episode was over, I started doing a little research into Egyptian gods to find out who might be the Colossus of the Island.

Ever since we saw that foot back in season two, I just got this gut feeling that it might be a statue of Horus. Horus was the god of the sky, but he was also the protector of ancient Egypt. Horus is always depicted as having the body of a man, with the head of a hawk. One interesting thing to note about Horus is that, according to Egyptian legend, he lost an eye in a battle for Egypt with Seth, another Egyptian god. That same season, we got to see the interior of the Arrow station when the Tailies took some of the original survivors over. Inside, they found a box with a few items within, most notably a glass eye. Many Egyptian temples have been dedicated to Horus, and there’s a safe bet that almost all of you have seen the eye of Horus online or in a piece of jewelry or art, at one point.

The Eye of Horus.

In some ways, the god Horus has clicked on many other levels throughout the seasons, as well. Horace Goodspeed, who we see once again in this episode, shares a similar-sounding name as Horus. Paul, the man who was killed by the Others in this episode, wore an amulet around his neck. The amulet was an ankh, which symbolized life and immortality to the Egyptians. Only a select few gods were depicted carrying an ankh, and Horus is one of them.

One other Egyptian god that always fit for me, especially now after seeing the back of the statue, is Anubis – the god of the dead. Anubis always appears in Egyptian art and sculpture as a man with a jackal’s head. He is, possibly, the most recognizable figure in Egyptian legend. He, too, is usually depicted carrying an ankh.

Now, looking more closely at the statue, it’s hard to say that Horus or Anubis is depicted. The arms and body are fine for fitting with these two, as are the objects in the hands, which could be ankhs and staffs. What’s troublesome in matching up these two with the statue, however, is the head. The head of the statue has a small “bowl” at the top, and what appears to be backward-swept, small ears. Anubis is always depicted with tall, Jackal ears, and Horus doesn’t have ears, at all. Thus, I had to dig deeper.

Figure 1. shows a statue of Horus. The platform or “bowl” on top of the head matches that on the statue, but there are no ears.

Figure 2. shows a statue of Anubis. Tall, regal, carrying an ankh – these match the statue on the island. However, the tall ears are problematic. Anubis is never depicted with his ears low, so that knocks a hole in that theory.

Figure 3. shows the Egyptian god Tawaret. Tawaret has been depicted in many ways, but the most common is that of an antropomorphic mix of creatures – the head of a hippopotamus with the arms and legs of a lion, the back and tail of a crocodile, and the breasts and stomach of a woman. Now, obviously this statue doesn’t have the back and tail of a croc, but as you can see from the statue, the “bowl” and the ears match perfectly. Tawaret is also almost always depicted holding the structure that looks like a ribbon, which the Island statue seems to be doing, as well. Most importantly for all of this, though, is that Tawaret was the goddess of protecting women during pregnancy and childbirth.. Right there we have a significant tie to the Island – somewhere during its history, women who were impregnated there and chose to have their babies, died during childbirth. We know that the statue as it existed when Sawyer and Co. saw it no longer exists in modern times, and we also know that the birth problem has been a modern problem for the Others. Now, whether it has anything to do with the destruction of this statue is unknown and unlikely, but it does seem as though this ancient statue might be closely linked with current Island happenings.

WHAT’S WITH ALL THESE DHARMA LOGOS?
Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t seem to grasp the Dharma classification structure. I know that the story has rolled out with select Dharma station and logo reveals so as to not give away all the major plot points, but we now have more Dharma logos than we have verified stations.

Case in point, Sawyer and Jin’s “Deputy Star” Dharma logos, which you can see here:

Now, way back when (season two, in particular) the only Dharma logo we had seen up to that point was that for the Swan (with the exception of the brief logo on the tail of the Dharma shark, which I won’t get into right now) and, briefly, that for the Caduceus and the Arrow. We assumed that there were more stations, and we were correct in that assumption.

Now, as the seasons have progressed, more and more variation in Dharma logos have cropped up. There seems to be a generic Dharma logo – one with simply the word “Dharma” on a black background – as well as the new security star, to denote general-purpose workers on the island. Now, what bothers me is that Ben’s dad, Roger, wore a jumper with the Swan logo on it, despite the fact that he was just a worker.

Now, granted, he could have been assigned to the Swan as a general worker and this is his insignia. However, later on in “The Man Behind the Curtain,” Ben is seen in a Dharma jumper with no logo on the breast.

Even more intriguing about this “Deputy Star” is that Horace wears the logo of The Arrow – the station on the Island that is researching ways to keep the compound safe from the hostiles. However, it seems like most of the grunt workers for that station wear the “Deputy Star.” Perhaps the Arrow is like a military compound and those with “Deputy Stars” simply belong to a police force that helps protect within the general populace.

At any rate, I just found it intriguing that so many Dharma logos have popped up in the past couple of seasons and I thought I’d rant. Carry on.

TEMPORAL SHENANIGANS
It just wouldn’t be a complete post without at least some mention of time travel and the various problems that surround it. The fact that Sawyer, Juliet, Miles, Daniel and Jin seem to be playing fast and loose with events in the past only make it that much more tempting to cover some action points. Let’s take a look at those:

Today’s recipe is inspired by the coming firestorm that I know is brewing. Forget the battle between light and dark for the fate of the Island, forget the gargantuan struggle for the humanity within each individual whose destiny is tied to that place. All of that pales in comparison to the epic catfight that’s about to go down. Yes, this one out there is for all the ladies that have ever had a Kate saunter up to their man and start purring like an alley cat. The Homewrecker 2 ounces Melon Liqueur (Midori or similar) 2 ounces Tequila 1 ounces Jagermeister 2 ounces Cranberry Juice Toss everything into the ring, I mean shaker, and toss it around until it’s good and irritated. Get some ice because someone’s bound to need it for an eye. Put everything in a cocktail glass and let it cool down for a bit. Sip half of it, just taking it all in, then shoot the remainder. Repeat until you’re ready to pull somebody’s hair.

1) First of all, it’s important to note that Daniel has stated the prevalent temporal theory amongst the powers-that-be in the Lost universe – predestination theory. Daniel states in the episode, mostly in response to the shooting of two “hostiles” by Sawyer and Juliet – that “whatever has happened has happened.” As we’ve discussed before in “Jughead” and a few other analyses, that’s considered part of the Novikov self-consistency principle. Basically, it means that since Sawyer and such have traveled from the future to the past, whatever they choose to do there has already been a full part of the natural progression within their own timeline. They cannot change any actions already taken because they are “locked” within that history of things. It remains to be seen, however, if this principle holds true with all of the survivors. Right now, it’s unfolding nicely, but we still have a lot of season left before we can lock things down, tight.

2) Dan keeps repeating that he won’t do that, obviously in relation to the revelation Charlotte gave him about Daniel talking to her when she was young. In this episode, Daniel spies a young, red-headed girl that might be Charlotte. Daniel has two choices – he either talks to her and tells her everything she remembered in the future, or he ignores her and tries to change the past. Daniel’s insistence earlier in the season, as well as with what we’ve seen of the self-consistency principle, generally points toward him telling her. However, if he doesn’t, then there’s a good chance that Dan, Sawyer and everyone else can manipulate the past in some frightening ways – frightening, at least, for those in the current timeline that will experience a “temporal rewrite.” Don’t worry, it’s painless. You won’t remember a thing.

3) The issue of Jacob is still out there, floating around. All we know is that Horace had the location and plans for Jacob’s cabin in his pocket when he died, and he appeared to Locke to let him know how to find it down in a pit filled with decaying bodies. The fact that Jacob hasn’t been more clearly identified up to this point only solidifies my suspicion that he is from another time – or, perhaps, he is someone who has become dislodged in time, much like how the Island has been skipping time. Jacob could turn out to be someone very close, or someone on the periphery. I’ll be interested to see how that all goes down.

4) Do all of you remember when Horace appeared to Locke last season and told Locke how he could find Jacob’s cabin? Horace appeared to John in a sort of “time loop” where he seemed to repeat the same actions over and over. As a result, this happened:

Is it mere coincidence that Horace appeared with a nose bleed, or does it signify some sort of temporal jumping or “phase state” like that of Christian Shephard, etc.? The one thing to bear in mind with this observation is that Horace’s last gasp during The Purge found him on a park bench with a major nosebleed from the nerve gas.

Does the gas have anything to do with the temporal flux disintegration of brain tissue? Or is it just a by-product of the gas on a normal scale? Is it all just a manner of Lost writers being fond of bleeding noses? We may never know.

I think that about wraps it up, for now. I’m sorry I don’t have more for all of you, but my eternal pining for Juliet has kept me up later than expected, and I’m starting to see double. I know I had more I wanted to discuss, but, for now, I’ll just make a note of anything between now and the next column. In the meantime, keep those thinking caps on, and if you have an epiphany, drop me a line and tell me something good.

Namaste.

Chris Kirkman is a graphic designer/photographer/journalist/geek extraordinaire with way too many Bruce Campbell movies in his library. Michael Emerson, Lost’s Benjamin Linus, called Kirkman’s recaps “one of the smartest articles I’ve ever read about what goes on on our show.” Kirkman is still hoping that Lost will end when Bob Newhart wakes up next to Suzanne Pleshette, complaining of a strange, strange dream. You can contact him at ckirkman@hobotrashcan.com.