Lost: Down the Hatch – Lost in Translation

Chris Kirkman

“The Package” Recap and Analysis …

Previously, on Lost: AlternaJin forgot to mention his briefcase full of money on the customs form and was detained at LA X, Richard got a message from his dead wife that the Man in Black must be stopped and Flocke sent Sawyer on a little recon mission to Hydra Island, where James brokered a double deal with ol’ Chuck Widmore.

This week, on Lost: At Camp Black Hat, somebody is spying on MIB’s team with night vision goggles. Sawyer offers Kate some fake cocoa, and crazy Claire sits around doing whatever it is that crazy Claire does. MIB sits down and offers Jin some advice on his hurt leg, and slides in a little bit about the caves that he showed Sawyer. MIB doesn’t know if the cave names mean Jin or Sun, but regardless he wants to leave with both of them, and he’s working on getting Sun back together with her hubby.

Back in LA X, AlternaJin and AlternaSun are still in trouble with customs. Jin is finally released, but the customs officer is sorry to inform him that they’re gonna have to hold onto the 25 grand that the Korean brought with him. Jin doesn’t notice the Disney Cruises pamphlet sticking out of the customs officer’s pants pocket, and so he grabs Sun and hightails it out of there.

At their hotel, the desk clerk mistakenly assumes that Jin and Sun will be staying in the same room, but we soon learn that the alternapair are not married in LA X, and can’t share a room because it’s not proper.

Upstairs, Jin wants to deliver Mr. Paik’s wristwatch to the restaurant like he was asked, but Sun is feeling sassy and seduces him with some playful unbuttoning banter.

“Should I button this one?” “No, definitely not that one …” Attaboy, Jin! Forget about the wristwatch, you’ve got a different package to deliver tonight.

And the next morning …

By the look on Sun’s face, I’d say she was satisfied with the delivery. Also, by the look of their bed, the set designers shop at Target. Seriously, that duvet is called “Perch” and it’s $79.99 for a king.

Sun rolls over, all Smiley McSmilerson, and tells Jin that they should just run away together – she has some money, and her dad doesn’t need to know. This AlternaSun is spunky! Jin jumps out of bed and says, “This was your plan all along?” Sun just says, “Aw, come back to bed – that’s just what we call pillow talk, baby.”

There’s a knock on the door, and Jin does the old “hide in the bathroom” trick that many a guy has used at least once in his life. Sun opens the door and smarmy Keamy is there, wanting to know where his promised goodies are at. He invites himself in.

Sun hopes that Keamy is just looking for the watch, so she hands it over. Keamy just smiles, and wants to know where his 25 grand is hiding. Keamy’s little lackey, Omar, comes in and Keamy notices two champagn flutes next to the bed. He tells Omar to check the bathroom and find Kwon. Looks like Keamy’s done the old hide-in-the-bathroom trick a time or two, as well. Sun pleads with Keamy in Korean, so Keamy sends Omar out to fetch Mikhail, who happens to be well-versed in over six million languages – Korean, one of them. In the meantime, Keamy urges the two love-birds to get dressed.

After Mikhail gets there and fulfills his protocol function, Keamy finds out that the money’s been seized by customs. He tells Sun and Jin that that’s not his problem, and he wants the money. Sun brokers a deal, telling Keamy that she has an account and that she can get him his money if she can get to the bank. Keamy sends her off with Mikhail and decides to take Jin to the restaurant for collateral.

At the bank, Sun finds that her account has been closed – by her father. She wants to know why her father would close the account, and Mikhail just stares at her like a dumb broad and says “Why do you think?” Wow, Mr. Paik sure is a slimy bastard, setting Jin up for certain doom just for shagging his daughter.

Back at the restaurant, Omar puts a booboo on Jin’s nogging, which Keamy cleans up before duct-taping Jin’s mouth shut. Since Jin can’t speak English, Keamy channels his inner Blofeld and proceeds to spill the beans about his whole nefarious plan to pop Jin because, as any good lackey knows, you keep the hands off the bossman’s daughter. Farmers, too.

You are one creepy bastard, Gabriel … but you make good eggs!

Jin thanks Keamy because he thinks the psychopathic asshole is being nice, and Keamy locks the Korean up in the meat locker. Pretty soon, we hear Sayid’s voice outside, yadda yadda yadda boom boom yadda boom, and the bad guy’s are ex-parrots. Jin bangs on the door until Sayid bursts in with his gat, and takes the tape off the Asian’s mouth. Sayid can’t understand what the hell he’s saying since he doesn’t speak Korean, so he starts to leave. Then Jin uses the one word he apparently picked up during multi-ethnic prisoner week at the office – “escape” – as he motions toward a box cutter sitting on the shelf. Sayid puts it in Jin’s hands and walks away, wishing Kwon good luck. Jin gets to work cutting his thumbs off.

Mikhail shows up at the restaurant with Sun and his spidey sense starts tingling, so he draws his nine. Turning the corner into the kitchen, the droid notices all the bodies on the floor, especially Keamy, who seems to still be breathing. He asks who did this to him, and Keamy tells him that whoever did it is right behind Mikhail, and throws in an idiot, just for good measure, as a gun is pointed at the back of the Russian’s head. Mikhail wants to know who killed everyone and Jin pretty much tells him to shut his filthy mouth and drop the weapon. Jin instructs Sun to back up, and warns Mikhail that he’ll kill him. Mikhail doesn’t believe him, of course, and so they wrestle and Jin wrecks Mikhails face and grabs a gun and proceeds to shoot Mikhail’s eyeball out.

Oh, the quantum entanglement is strong with this one.

Jin is relieved until he notices that Sun is not happy since she has blood pouring out of her from a ricochet. He scoops her up in his arms and carries her off for help. Sun slumps in his arms, and tells him she’s pregnant. End flash-sideways. Wait, what?? Bastards.

Back at Camp Black Hat, MIB informs Sayid that he’s going out into the Jungle of Mystery to get Sun. Sayid remarks that he can no longer feel anything – no anger, no happiness, no pain. MIB tells him that may be for the best, and then tromps off in a suitably Lockian fashion.

Jin sees MIB’s departure as a sign that he needs to get the hell out of dodge, himself, and packs up. Sawyer sees Jin and reminds Kwon that the grifter has a plan, and a deal with Widmore. None of that matters to Jin because he’s just going to find his wife. Seriously, Jin and Sun need to just start screaming each other’s names and they’ll be the next annoying Michaels trying to find their Walts.

Anywho, Jin and Sawyer squabble for a few seconds until Jin gets cut off mid-sentence by a dart in the chest, which takes him down in about .2 seconds. That is some hellacious tranquilizer. Pretty soon, all of Camp Black Hat are dropping like flies, and it’s not long before Widmore’s Geek Squad comes out of the brush and grab Jin.

A boob and a boob, sizing up the Asian situation.

Back at the Beach, Team Jacob are discussing their next move, while Miles and Lapidus play cards. Ilana says Richard is the man with the plan, but Ben says that he’d bet good money they’ll never see him again. Ilana is sure that Hurley will track him down. Miles remarks that unless Alpert is covered in bacon grease, he doubts Hurley can track anything. Ilana says that Jacob wouldn’t lie, and that, for now, they wait. Sun isn’t too pleased with that response and she angrily drives her hunting knife into the homemade bamboo table. Easy there, tiger lily.

Jack follows Sun after she stomps off, and finds her in her vegetable garden that she planted way back in season one. They reminisce about when she first planted the garden – seems like 100 years ago – and Jack starts in about his precious Lighthouse and all the names around the wheel. You know, Jack, if you knew you were going to obsess about the damn Lighthouse, maybe you shouldn’t have Hulked out and smashed it to pieces. Moron. Anyway, Sun doesn’t care about all that crap, she just wants Jack to remove his obstinate ass form her presence. He does.

After Jack leaves, Sun is visited by a second – MIB, in the form of Locke. He tells Sun that Jin is at his camp and that he’ll take her to him if she’ll only trust in him. Sun doesn’t believe him, of course. MIB assures Sun that he would never force her to do something against her will, and extends his hand to her, reminding her that Jin is waiting. She hesitates, seemingly thinking about the decision, before turning and tearing ass through the underbrush with MIB now hot on her trail.

She runs for a good little while until a tree jumps out at her and knocks her on her butt.

Those wily Island trees, you gotta watch out for them jumping out of nowhere all the time

Despite the fact that she was being chased when she was knocked out, Ben is the one to find her, not MIB. He wants to know what happened, but Sun keeps spouting out things in Korean, so he doesn’t understand … until she says Locke.

Cut to MIB, back at Camp Black Hat. There are unconscious bodies strewn everywhere, and he comes across Sayid and pulls the tranq dart from his chest. He shakes the Iraqi awake, wanting to know what happened. They were attacked, says Sayid. Brilliant response, dude. MIB is not happy, especially because he notices that Jin is missing.

Jin wakes up in a strange dentist’s chair, in a strange room. There are speakers all over the place, rivets on the walls. Jin bangs on the door, but no answer. He walks over to a power box and flips a switch, and is buffeted by blackness, then loud sounds and a projector, displaying familiar – to us, anyway – images of words and fish and mannequins and protractors and keyboards. Jin decides he’s had enough, and heads over to the wall to shut down the Pink Floyd show.

Everything changes. Yup, just like slide projectors and the proposed plot lines for Lost

Soon, Jin is not alone. The Tina Fey-lookalike Zoe has entered the room, and she has some papers. She remarks how super weird that was, and explains that this is Room 23, a place where the Dharma Initiative did experiments in subliminal messages. She figures Jin knows all about the Dharma Initiative. We soon find out why, after she tasers his ass.

You see, Zoe has some copies of Dharma maps that were used to identify pockets of electromagnetism, and she says that they were drawn up and signed by a man named Jin Su Kwon. Jin realizes that he now has Hand, so he insists that Zoe take him to their leader – Charles Widmore. She remarks that it’s good timing, because he wants to talk to Jin, as well.

Back at Camp Black Hat, MIB informs Sayid that they’re headed out on a mission. When Sayid leaves, MIB asks crazy Claire if she’s okay. She saunters over and asks MIB about the names on the cave wall – is her name up there? Nope, says MIB. Claire mentions that since her name isn’t up there that MIB won’t really need her. But he does, he does, and he takes her hand and soothes her mad Aussie heart by telling her that there’s plenty of room on the plane for all of them.

Crazy Claire laments that if she gets back home that Aaron will no longer know her because Kate has been raising him. Claire asks if Kate’s name is on the wall, and MIB tells her that it isn’t, not anymore. But he needs Kate, because her freckled butt can help him get the other three over on Team Jacob onto the plane. After that, he says, whatever happens … happens. Booyah, best line of subtly-brilliant dialogue in the whole episode.

“So … are you saying that whatever happens, happens because you believe that we may somehow quantumly influence an alternate timeline, or did you mean to infer that the future is unwritten for us and we control our own destiny through the confluence of our past actions and our present? I think I’ll go make another squirrel baby, now.”

MIB is about to head out on his mission, when Sawyer stops him for some chit chat. He wants to know what’s happening, and MIB says he and Sayid are heading out to Hydra Island. Sawyer wants to know why MIB doesn’t just change into a puff of smoke and fly out over the water, to which MIB retorts that if he could do that, then does Sawyer really think that he’d still be on this Island? “Of course not, that’d be ridiculous,” Sawyer quips, echoing the sentiments of thousands of Lost fans.

Anywho, MIB informs Sawyer that Widmore took one of his people, so he’s going to get him back, and he and Sayid stoically stomp off into the Jungle of Mystery, with Sawyer left to brood on his own.

Back on the beach, Jack is treating Sun’s head injury and Ben is still trying to convince everyone that he didn’t bonk her pretty Asian head. Jack surmises that after Sun’s tussle with a tree, she can no longer speak English even though she can understand it when it’s spoken to her.

“She hits her head and forgets English? And we’re supposed to buy that?” asks Miles.

“… asks the man who communes with the dead,” quips Lapidus. Nice one, buddy.

Jack, doing his doctor thing, figures that Sun is suffering aphasia – a condition caused by trauma that affects the language center of her brain. Uh huh. Why is it that in a show filled with a time-traveling Island and a psychopathic, sentient puff of smoke I have such a hard time suspending disbelief long enough to think that Sun could just bonk her head and suffer from aphasia? More on that later.

For now, Ilana is happy – because Richard is back. He wastes no time in telling all of them that it’s time to pack their bags, they’re leaving.

On Hydra Island, Locke has landed his outrigger, and he walks up the beach toward the sonic beacons that the Geek Squad set out. It’s not long before someone’s shooting at his Nikes, and the aforementioned Geek Squad tumbles out of the brush with guns brandished. MIB puts up his hands and says he comes in peace. The Geek Squad march him down the beach, on the other side of the sonic beacons, until he is face to face with ol’ Chuck Widmore.

MIB and Chuck have a heart to heart. Chuck wants to know if MIB knows who he is. MIB affirms that he does. MIB wants to know the same of Widmore. Widmore says that he’s obviously not John Locke and everything else he knows is a combination of myth, ghost stories and strange noises in the jungle. MIB knows that Chuck is privy to more, judging by the pylons up and down the beach. Chuck wants to know why MIB has come, and MIB informs Chuck that he has one of his people in custody. Chuck plays dumb.

“Hmmm, nice pylons. You have to worry about Sleestak with these much?”

MIB stares down Chuck for a good while and then says: “A wise man once said that war was coming to this Island. I think it just got here.” Oooooooooooooooooh snap.

Back on the beach, Jack wants to know where they’re headed. Richard asks Ben where Locke was headed and he tells Alpert that he was headed to Hydra Island. Richard reminds everyone that Hydra Island is where Lapidus landed the Ajira plane. If that plane is how MIB plans to get off the Island, says Richard, then they’re all gonna go over there and blow it to hell. This does not sit well with Sun.

Trust me on this one, people – don’t piss off an Asian woman.

On Hydra Island, Widmore confronts Zoe and wants to know what she was thinking, taking Jin so soon. She explains that he was leaving camp and they needed to stop him. Widmore says she should have waited, and Zoe tells him that he should have put a mercenary in charge instead of a geophysicist. Ummm, bad idea, lady. Last time a merc was in charge, he shot an innocent girl and got his team eaten by a cloud of angry smoke.

Jin walks in, and Widmore instructs Zoe to go to the sub, get the package and take it to the infirmary. She does. Widmore apologizes to Jin for abducting him and hands him a camera that he procured from the Ajira plane. It’s Sun’s, and there are pictures of Ji Yeon clowning around with a Sharpei. Jin gets weepy. Widmore explains that he, too, has a daughter, and he knows what it’s like to be kept a part. Then Chuck tells Jin that if that thing – MIB – got off the Island, it’d be lights out for Ji Yeon and Penny and all the daughters of the world. He needs to stop MIB at all costs. Jin wants to know how.

Widmore tells Jin that it’s time he saw The Package. Easy there, big fella, we just met.

It’s night back on the Beach, and Sun has made a fire. Jack comes up and starts up with one of his hospital stories. He tells her of a guy who banged his head and got aphasia and was all frustrated until one of the nurses mentioned that just because he couldn’t speak didn’t mean he couldn’t write. With his unnecessary allegory complete, Jack hands Sun a pad and pen, and asks her if she can give it a try. She writes “yes,” in English.

Jack tells her he went back out to her garden to see if MIB was there, and he wasn’t, but he did find something else – a single tomato, who was too stubborn to die. I guess Sun is supposed to be a tomato in this scenario. Or something.

Jack probes a bit and wants to know what Locke wanted with Sun. She writes that he wanted her to come with him because he has Jin. Jack asks why she didn’t follow Locke, and Sun tells him that he didn’t trust him. “Do you trust me?” asks Jack.

Jack tells Sun that if she goes with them to the Ajira plane, he promises to find Jin and reunite them. Then he holds his hand out like Locke did in the garden, all symbolic-like. She takes it. Awwww.

Back at Camp Black Hat, Sawyer sits down with Freckles and jaws about the whole situation being almost over because surely Chuck Widmore blew Locke and Sayid right out of the water. It’s about that time when MIB comes strolling out of the Jungle of Mystery and leaves Sawyer’s mouth hanging.

Sawyer confronts MIB and asks him if he somehow lost Jin and Sayid on the trip back. MIB tells James that Sawyer mentioned something being protected in a locked room on the sub. Well, MIB says, he doesn’t like secrets.

On Hydra Island, at the sub dock, Sayid rises slowly out of the water like a Navy SEAL, or the Iraqi equivalent. Up on the sub, Zoe and the tubby one – otherwise known as the only ones from Widmore’s Geek Squad that are paid to say lines – are dragging someone from the hatch. Sayid glides over to the edge of the dock and waits for them to bring the figure down. They’re struggling, and it looks as though whomever they’re wrangling has been drugged or is in bad shape, especially judging from the bandages on his arms. They pull him from the sub and manage to drop him on the deck, dangling his head over the edge. That’s about the time that Sayid comes face to face with The Package.

Son of a bitch – it’s Desmond! Hot damn.

The geeks ramble on about giving him too much sedative, and pull him off the deck, saying: “Let’s go, Mr. Hume.” Desmond struggles to his feet, and Sayid, safe and at home again in the cool, dark waters, watches the Scotsman be marched down the wooden planks toward who knows what destiny.

Cue the THONK!

And so Desmond returned to the Island, drugged and disoriented, an unwitting pawn in the great battle between white, black and grey. In other words, an awesome ending to a mid-season segue into the great war that the Man in Black has declared on Widmore and his gang of Geeks. Quite a few of the fans have declared this episode a bit weak, a filler of sorts, but I just believe that the writers have covered a lot of secreted ground in the past nine episodes, and are readying us for a gangbuster finish.

The recap to this episode covers much of the analysis to “The Package,” but we still have a few things to discuss in further detail. So, without further ado, let’s get down to brass tacks.

ROOM 23
The room where the Geek Squad were holding Jin is revealed as Room 23. Room 23 was first and last seen in the episode “Not in Portland,” which also first introduced us to lovely Juliet’s past and how she was lured to the Island by Richard and Mittelos Bioscience. They brought her over to work on that whole baby-making thing, something that has been sorta shelved since the whole time-traveling Island and MIB/Jacob shenanigans.

It seems to me like we may have been reminded of Room 23 for a reason – there’s been no mention of it, nor the subliminal brainwashing that was behind it, since season three. There were quite a few subliminal messages of note while Karl was tied up. Let’s take a pictorial stroll through those instances and see what we see.

As you may or may not recall, Kate and Sawyer were being held captive on Hydra Island, and Alex sought their help in freeing her boyfriend Karl. Alex noted that Karl was being held against his will inside a Dharma bunker and that Kate and Sawyer could get off the island with her in her boat if they could rescue Karl.

Room 23 was being guarded by Mac from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Take a gander what he was reading, foreshadowing what was to come, even back in season three.

Sawyer, Kate and Alex – after subduing Mac – enter the bunker and Room 23, and are inundated with loud music and a projector, displaying subliminal messages, like this one.

They find Karl strapped to a strange dentist’s chair, getting the full Clockwork Orange treatment.

Karl has an intravenous feed, obviously being drugged with all sorts of sedatives and, possibly, hallucinogens. I’m sure whatever cocktail it was, it wasn’t approved by the FDA.

On the screen were some very interesting subliminal – and not-so-subliminal – messages.

The question, of course, is what does it all mean?

The first thing I’d like to point out is that Karl is tied to the chair and fed a nice, seductive cocktail intravenously. So what? I can here you say. Well, if you’ll recall at the end of “The Package,” the Geek Squad drag Desmond off the sub and he’s very, very groggy. Tubby asks Zoe how much she gave him, and she responds that it was obviously too much but that she needed him to sleep through the trip. At any rate, Desmond looks as though he’s had an intravenous feed, very much like Karl’s when he was subjected to some brainwashing techniques. Here, take a look.

It’s on his right arm. Yes, Karl was fed drugs through his left. Whatever.

Do I believe that part of Desmond’s arrival Orientation may have taken place in Room 23? I’m not sure, I just point these things out so you can roll them around in your brains. Just bear in mind that Karl was kept there against his will because the current leader of the Others didn’t want him messing with his daughter, Alex. Ol’ Chuck Widmore has never really cared for Desmond messing around with his daughter Penny. Put that in your pipe and smoke it a bit.

For this week’s episode-inspired drink recipe, I had to actually draw on events from three seasons ago. The main hobo, Joel Murphy, asked if I had a drink recipe for “The Lackluster Episode,” but I can do you one better. For any of you who were disappointed in this week’s episode and would rather forget it, here’s an old favorite that might help. THE MIND ERASER 1 part Vodka 1 part Kahlua 1 part Club Soda Some bartenders will layer the drink with vodka first, then Kahlua, then club soda on top in a rocks glass, over ice. Let me give you a word of advice: Don’t get that fancy. Chill your alcohol first, then pour it all in a rocks glass, sans ice. You’re not gonna need the ice, anyway – the point is to drink it fast, through a straw. Trust me, after three or four of these, you’ll be lucky to remember your name, much less this week’s episode. Cheers!

At any rate, even without the connections among Room 23, Desmond and Karl, I find that subliminal messages interesting, considering Zoe told Jin that Room 23 was an experiment in subliminal messages by the Dharma Initiative. Did the Others subjugate Dharma’s work after they killed them off? Did they add their own messages for the purpose of making sure that loyal little soldiers were created to serve Jacob? If we weren’t shown a slide with Jacob’s name, I would just dismiss the whole thing as a method to break down dissidents, but with Jacob’s good name involved things get a bit more sticky. This one slide opens up a whole can of worms.

First, the presentation could have been altered by the Others as a way to use Dharma research and technology to their advantage, capturing anyone who may come to the Island and brainwashing those people into submission. That would be the easiest and cleanest course of events as related to the timeline of the Island.

A much messier and far more interesting theory could be that Jacob was either known about by the Dharma Initiative from the very beginning, or that Jacob could be a construct of the Dharma Initiative – part of their observational experiments. The participants on the Island were subjected to Room 23 and convinced that they were a part of an alternate reality where time travel, smoke monsters and the all-mighty Jacob existed. Many of the participants believe that they are part of the same reality, and are acting this out as part of the grand experiment. Granted, that’s a really far-fetched theory and probably very far from the truth, but again, I’m just here to talk about cool shit and plant seeds in your brain. And remember – plant a good seed and you will joyfully gather fruit! Go forth and bring me peaches.

THE RANDOM BITS
Yes, I know it’s a bit early to get to the random bits, but I told you there’s not a whole lot to analyze this week. Maybe I missed something. If that’s the case, leave a comment and let’s chat. In the meantime, the random bits are still pretty good.

Why does Widmore and his Geek Squad so desperately need Desmond there? Because if you’re dealing with a man/entity that has to deal in certainties – constants, to use a more accurate term – the best thing you could possibly do is introduce a Variable.

The fact that Team Black Hat was captured by the Geek Squad using tranq darts is very telling. It’s likely that they’re good guys. Otherwise, just shoot up everybody, like Keamy and his thugs. I still believe that Keamy – although sent there to get Ben at great cost – sorta went rogue and blew off the mission protocol because he’s a psychopathic bastard. Of course, the Geek Squad could have used tranq darts because they’re all geeks, and therefore not accustomed to gunning down innocents. This team is very similar to Faraday and his group that wanted to help the survivors, and so chose to stop the poison gas and help at any cost with no loss of life. Keamy, on the other hand, was sent to take out the Others and capture Ben, who Widmore likely knew was in the service of MIB at that point. Hence, the extreme prejudice.

I am particularly tickled that every time someone talks to MIB now, it’s as if they’re just chatting with cooky old John Locke instead of an ages-old, murderous puff of smoke. Particularly Sawyer. Until MIB changes from Locke into Ol’ Smokey right in front of his eyes, he’s content with believing that the man in front of him used to sell boxes for a living. The only one who has enough sense to run their crazy legs off at the site of the man is Sun.

I mentioned earlier that I find a hard time suspending disbelief about Sun forgetting English. However, it sparked a theory. Sun forgetting English may have been a ploy by MIB. Perhaps MIB knows that Jin is the real candidate, and wants Sun to be able to talk to him without anyone else understanding. In regards to her understanding English, she is the perfect “spy” to listen in on things and tell Jin what’s going on without anyone else listening in. There has to be a plan in this, somewhere, unless this is just a soap opera technique to add some drama to the proceedings. It’s just odd that she was so closely chased by MIB and then left alone beneath the tree for Ben to find. I don’t know if MIB could have done something to Sun to keep her from communicating freely, but it’s a thought.

So Kate’s name isn’t on the wall, after all. Then, why the hell is her name not scratched out on the Lighthouse wheel? Someone mentioned a theory awhile back about the cave wall being MIB’s scratching post, and the Lighthouse being Jacob’s, and the two lists may have converged, but not fully matched. I’m sorry that I’ve forgotten who said that, but if you’re reading, fess up. It was a good one. It would certainly explain the discrepancy other than a post-production error, and the fact that MIB mentions it in this episode would lead me to believe that it is meant to reward very observant fans. I sure hope that’s the case and not just the Lost team covering their butts.

There were a lot of boobs in this episode.

That about wraps it up for this week. I may have missed some minor details, or failed to delve deep into a favorite topic. If that’s the case, let me know. In the meantime, keep thinking those thoughts, and if you have an epiphany, 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.