"Happy 100th Episode - 5.14"

This week we watch helplessly as Dan’s life is revealed to be a dizzying circle of destiny that he has little control over. His mother (and missing father) guide his brilliant mind toward their own goals of saving…what, the island? The world? The Universe? Whatever, it’s the “God help us all” destruction that TPTB have been hinting at since Season 2. Who knew that Daniel Faraday was the center of all of this, we thought that it was Desmond?! We also watch Dan propel himself into a spiral of logic concerning what could happen if the energy pocket under the Swan location never gets compromised by the excavation, sending the 815ers on a new course that they never dreamed could exist, i.e., getting the Big Do-Over.

So many questions are aroused by Dan’s startling new mission (which is actually his mother’s mission?), that you hardly know where to begin. The obvious being the contradictions between what he said previously about changing the past, and what he said to Jack and Kate about people being the variables in the equation of life. People are always the variables! Didn't Calvin once tell Hobbes the tiger that the world would be a perfect place if it wasn’t for all the people in it? Somehow, Dan had forgotten to include these variables in his calculations concerning the island’s energetic timewarp problems. I guess that we can give him some slack for forgetting, since he did have those memory problems and had to catch up on his theories in double-time after he arrived on the island, verified by how we’ve seen him frantically shuffling through his notes every time something offbeat happens. BTW, Dan’s reading his notes on the Scale Factor (a theory on relative expansion of the universe) as he's preparing to speak to Chang below the Orchid, which I’ll do some research on for a Lost Science post.

The next question to ponder is for Jack and Kate. That is, do they really want to change their future course so that they never crash on the island? Certainly for those who died that might be a better outcome, although perhaps they would die somehow soon anyway, as per universal course-correction. But do Jack and Kate really want to create a world in which they never meet or have the chance for redemption? One where all the interactions between the other Losties never happened and where the sick people aren't healed? Juliet and James might have something to say about that, they seem to want things to stay just the way they are now and I don't blame them. Another thing to consider about this is, what will happen when the future changes…they don’t belong in 1977 in their 2007 bodies, will they get sucked into some kind of vortex and get spit back out into their proper place in time? That’s gotta hurt. Or maybe they'll just stay put and never exist where they did later. And one more question about course-correction: how do you know which is the correction and which is the way it was supposed to be? Maybe Charlie was supposed to almost die three times.

Then we are compelled to question the heck out of Eloise’s actions. At first I didn’t see it, but she seemed to be in a painful spot at each critical turn of Dan’s life, guiding her gentle talented son towards something that was necessary but (at the end) fatal for him. Eloise is played by the same actress in the piano scene and on the island. How long after she shot and met older Dan, was she in the parlor steering Danny to his life spent "studying relativistic physics"? Did she suddenly know when she walked into the parlor that she had shot her own son in the past, the way that Desmond suddenly “knew” that Dan had given him a new memory? It sounded like that, the way that Dan accused her of knowing what was going to happen in his last breath. She and Widmore may have both known where Dan was going in life, but perhaps Eloise alone knew that she shot Dan in another time loop. Let’s hope that he gets carried to the temple like Bennie did, but I don’t have much hope for that. Anyway, you know that she was always proud of him and his special gifts, but maybe she should have taken some of Miles’ advice and told him that before it was too late.

The next probing question is why Dr.Chang didn’t believe Dan at all about his time travel. I mean, if you’re studying time travel, you might think that someone from the future where it’s become possible, might travel back to talk to you about it for some reason, most likely to give you some advice. But I suppose we can assume that somehow Chang warms up to the idea, due to the video that he made in his bungalow that he sent to the DIs at ComicCom last summer.

A few other thoughts I had were:
* Des, don’t you know that saying you’ll never leave someone will make it happen?!
* Why would Eloise say that it was Dan’s fault that Des was shot? Wasn’t it more Widmore’s fault because of sending Ben on a vengeance spree?
* I thought that Eloise was going to steal Charlie while Penny was visiting Des!
* Won’t blowing the island up with an H-bomb ruin everyone’s future as well, via either death or severe radiation burns?!
* Was Widmore in LA due to Ben’s threat against Penny?
* Jack falls back into his comfort zone of resolving conflict and fixing things, hoo-rah!
* Dammitt Kate, you and your guns you got Dan killed!
* Why did Dan need a gun to talk to his mother, so she couldn’t talk him into her way of doing things again or because of how trigger-happy she was in 1954?
* Why does Richard seem to have memory problems like Dan when it comes to recalling people that he’s met on the island before?!

* Will little Charlie not be born if time gets reset?

* I knew that Teresa was his girlfriend as well as his assistant, how could she resist?!
* Funniest line: “I just got shot by a physicist!” -- as if physicists aren’t supposed to shoot people. X-D

A great episode for a great milestone! Thanks to TPTB for giving us 100 fascinating hours of TV fun, new friends, stimulating mental gymnastics, and intellectual frustration.

"Little Big Miles - 5.13"

Probably everyone would agree that it was great to see a Miles origins episode, and we now know that his story fits in with all the DHARMA drama this season. It was worth the wait to have TPTB insert it here, and his backstory was a lot more than I expected that we would get about our favorite ghostbuster.

I also really like the trusting relationship that has evolved between James and Miles in DI-ville. The two most belligerent guys of the island "intruders" have formed their own circle of trust, that helps the FBs manage to keep their profiles low and their phony story going. That is, until Mr. Nosy got his hands on the fence tape. Well, I guess that he was just doing the job that he was hired to do.

OK a picture is worth a thousand words so, 'nuff said here. Whew. I really just can't believe that Kate and Juliet didn't try to think up a better cover story than, "...uh, um, I'm sorry Roger, um, uh..."

TPTB have drawn us farther into the DI machine with every S5 episode and that's fine with me. I have been dying to know more about the DI since the TLE ARG days, and although we're getting it in the usual bits and pieces Lost is known for, it's great. Miles rolls with whatever game is necessary, to keep up the FB charade. He's good with every contingency plan that arises and is adept at staying under the radar. But chaos theory will win out as the security tape incident shows, and Hurley in all his dopey innocence is bound to let every dang cat out of the bag if he's not careful! It's also interesting that the two guys who can converse with the dead (albeit in different ways for different reasons) keep ending up together. I know, that's the way that TPTB are writing it, but it's still neat. Their banter has filled the gap where Sawyer's ritual sardonic repartee used to be, now that he's all serious security man and has the fate of the FBs on his shoulders.

Ken Leung in Miles' punk version looked so young, his voice even sounded more innocent and less marred by years of pent up feelings as the angry young dude with a 'tude. Maybe he was just being gentle with his mother, but Leung did a great job in this scene. We got some juicy details about his parents' past too, although it's not like we didn't already have enough time to mull over and guess all that info, which is the one bad thing about this show's structure...they give us fragments of hints to things, and then give us too much time to guess what's going to happen.

Is Bram a part of the group that we were supposed to fly to the island with on flight 316? I guess we'll never know what our part might have been with the reconstituted DI. Lost2010 at TLC thinks that Bram is part of the DI kids that got ejected off of the island along with Miles and Charlotte. I really like that idea and it fits with Charlotte's story, i.e., searching all her life for signs of her past and returning to the island. Perhaps these DI offspring have been on the same lifelong quest as hers, and ultimately Miles', but in a much more aggressive way. Are they backed by Alvar Hanso? Let's not even mention Hans from the last ARG, he's dead to most of us now.

Again, well done Mr. Leung and Lost writers, the scene of Miles watching his baby self with his dad gets me ferklempt every time I watch it. Especially when Chang charges out of the house after the phone call and says, "Miles I need you," and Miles squeaks out, "You do???" Great scene. Viewing Miles' recruitment by Naomi was an interesting and unexpected addition to the episode. I wonder if Charlotte got some kind of skills test. Did Naomi test Michael's deck swabbing skills as well before he got hired? :o)

We are privy to more of the secret station construction this week also, and it makes you wonder exactly how much TPTB really spend on this show. Seriously, take a good look at all the equipment and structures at both the sites! Just incredible, even if some of it is CGI, and we fans really appreciate it. Koreambear at EyeMSick and I noticed in the captions that someone carrying the bodybag mentioned something about Jimmy Hoffa...was that a hint from TPTB that Mr. Fillinghead is going to be buried in one of the cement pylons or cornerstones of the Orchid building to hide him? :-)

And then we have Mr. Faraday without his tie. I honestly thought he'd have it on till the end of the show, but he wears the DI jumpsuit very well. As disappointed as I was that the DeGroots didn't pop out of the sub, seeing Dan climb out and looking as if he has his wits about him again made up for it.

Now a little comment about Mr.Chang. I've mentioned here before that I've worked with many wild and woolly scientists during my lab career and Chang has many of the typical characteristics of the most annoying ones. Daniel is on one end of the scientific personality continuum, and Chang is on the other. There are guys like Chang who are so smart that they can't possible tolerate dealing with peons who don't have the brain power that they have, because we're like ants to them. They also think that everyone else's work and particular discipline is inferior to theirs, and to say that they have a superiority God-complex would be selling them short. Then you go to one of those company picnics where everyone's family shows up and there this idiot guy is with his family acting like Chang did with baby Miles, and you say to yourself, "This is the pompous ass that I work for????" So whether they realize it or not, TPTB really did a good job of portraying a certain type of scientist that's a jerk on the outside and the doting dad on the inside. This guy really does exist in life, not just in the DI.

Home Sweet Home - 5.12"

This week on "Legend Of The Seeker", Charles Widmore rides into camp on horseback looking very medieval. I like that look for Charles, it looks as good on him as it did once on Richard, but I wonder where Richard's medieval shirt and long hair went, he seems to have remained in his modern purple shirt and short hair for some time now, even though when we first saw him with Bennie he was sporting the long hair and embroidered shirt. Does it mean anything?

Charles' lesson to Ben about insider anarchy was actually a huge part of the hippie "revolution" back in the 60s-70s. Overthrowing from within was the message of the "New Left", as illustrated in Abby Hoffman's S.D.S. propaganda publication "Steal This Book". It's also woven into the "V For Vendetta" story. As Koreambear mentioned on EyeMSick, I also wonder if Amy was one of these double-agent plants in DI-ville, which could be how Ethan became an Other so young. Or was it just a case of an angry young man growing into an angry older man?

It's annoying when Locke gets so smug when things are going easy for him. His hubris might be for a different reason this time around, since he's Zombie John now after all, but we'll see if he turns into a puddle again when the going gets tough. I'm getting very confused about how Ben says that he does and doesn't know what was going to happen with Locke coming alive. But I'm beginning to wonder if he uses the ploy of innocence that the Emperor Claudius used in ancient Rome ("I, Claudius" by Robert Graves) i.e., playing up your disabilities on the dumb side to make people think that you're less of a threat than you really are. Otherwise I don't see the gain in letting Sun think that he had no idea that John would come back to life. The way that Ben turns people against each other is also a form of insider anarchy. But to me the best line of the night was Ben saying, "Well, I just didn't have time to talk you back into hanging yourself!" P.S....is that a stuffed Hurleybird in Ben's office? :-D

All the temple scenes in this episode were very satisfying to me, I've been looking forward to it for a long time. And our intrepid Bendiana Jones dives into scouting out the lower chambers looking for his judgement. The psychological implications of Ben needing to come back to be judged for letting Alex die was reflected in the look on his face the moment she was killed. The encounter between Ben and Smokey-Alex was incredible TV viewing. ::coughEMMY!cough:: I'm guessing that Alex wasn't supposed to die, hence, why Ben was judged for it. Luckily, he truly was sorry for his mistake, unlike Eko, and Smokey grants reprieve. BTW, look closely at the temple pics above and below...both show Smokey coming from the stepped grate. Let's study the rest of the hieroglyphics to see what else can be interpreted literally!

One question about Smokey though: why can he slither through the grate holes, but not through the trunks and roots of the banyan trees to get at people? Okay, two questions: what does draining a sinkhole have to do with summoning Smokey? Please explain soon, Damelton!

I also found the judgement scene to be extremely satisfying as well. Up to now we've only seen this happening from the outside as onlookers, squinting at the images flashing around the judged person in the jungle. Now we get to see it from the inside, as the defendant being judged, and that was a very dramatic effect.

It was interesting how Widmore predicted Ben's eventual banishment. It could have been just a macho version of a parting shot, but Wid seemed to have a bead on Ben's personality from the beginning, illustrated in their continual clashes over protocol, etc.

I was very happy that Ben didn't shoot any members of Our Mutual Family! Let's hear it for bulletproof groceries, and the power of mothers and children on Ben's psyche. Then, Daddy to the rescue!

I really don't like Ilana (as a person, not a character), and I can't say that I'm sorry that we probably won't be seeing Caesar anymore. Because, dead is dead, right? Hmph, who put them in charge?! But for now I'm guessing that Ilana is most likely a part of Widmore's second-wave assault and that mega-trunk is filled with their artillery. But would the Others and the DI both have used riddles? Or had Radzinsky gone over to the Dark Side by the time he was stuck with Kelvin in his beloved Swan? That would be the kind of twist that TPTB would throw at us, but we'll have to wait and see as usual. And by the way, was that Ben's desk that Caesar pulled the hidden sawed-off shotgun out from under?! Not so corporate John, and you're still not seeing more than what's only before yours eyes.

"Lies, Truths, And The New Jack - 5.11"

Well this episode was very involved and I still haven't digested it sufficiently to discuss it easily. We went down so many different roads here, light and heavy, and they all require a lot of thought. Aside from the usual comic relief that TPTB give us weekly, a lot of major disturbances happened, and not just in time and space.

For one thing (back to the poor kid getting shot) what the hay, what's up with Ben's gunshot wound being on the opposite side this week that it was on last week?! I couldn't help yelling at the TV as soon as I saw it, it was so obvious! Vozzek69 at DarkUFO has a theory (purposeful mindgames from the island), but I'm not sure I can go with it. There's got to be something up here though, because surely the costume department would notice that they had to have two separate bloody jackets, with two different holes in them in different places. You'd think that someone in the crew would have noticed it. To be continued, I guess. It was touching to see Roger come to his senses as a Dad finally, but older Ben makes it sound as if he didn't keep that up too well, before he gives Roger his complementary can of poison gas with his can of beer.

It seems that TPTB wanted to depressurize our brains a bit instead of making us wait for Daniel to come back onto the scene, so we get the Time Warp discussion with Hurley and Miles. And we deserved it. :-) Well we did! It's not too much different from what most have guessed, but I wanted to hear it from TPTB's mouths only, because no matter what things that we can guess, it all boils down to how they are going to make it work in their story. So I'm very thankful that they relieved some of the speculation that we'll have to do about that...for a while.

You know that this whole trip has just sprung Jack's last good nerve, and he's got nowhere left to go but around to the other side, and that would be the side of Faith one would hope. And um, nobody liked the old wino you, Jack.

But before he gets his act together completely, there's a new Jackface in town, ya'll best get used to it! And he's not going to let anyone push him into being a hero this time around. This episode is the first one where Jack actually refers to the Island as an entity in itself! Locke would be proud. It was a baby step, but it was a step nonetheless.

And on top of finding out that Jack can probably be partly accused of turning Bennie into Zombie Ben, it was also his fault that Kate lost track of Aaron! Don't think that she didn't hold that against him too!

This was such a frightening scene and it lasted a long time, the way that time seems to stop when it happens in real life. Such a tense scene, and all of E.L.'s work this episode was very good. I didn't much care for the scenes with Cassidy (what kind of morals did she expect from a Conman, and one that she conned people with herself?). But at least Kate had someone to be friends with finally, and thinking back to her giggly phone conversation that Jack walked in on that scene gets more meaning. He's probably thinking, "Why does she have a friend, I don't have one?!", heheh.

Just because we were together, it doesn't mean that we're together Freckles. Ouch. James really has matured, good. I hope that he and Juliet do stay together, but mostly because I find fickle characters that keep changing their minds very boring.

We didn't need shaving!!! Er, saving. Obviously, because we see again that Jack's hair hasn't grown back since Juliet shaved it off on the beach. Hmmm. But more importantly, what about that saving stuff, what do they need to be saved from if everything turned out hunkydorey for them in DI-ville? There must be something looming down the road a piece.

Welcome back chump! I can't help but think that most of Ben's reaction to seeing Locke was another one of those quick scenes before the show's over to make you think that one thing is happening, and then it turns out to be something else altogether in the next episode. So I'm not going to think too much about this one yet. And the next pic is for Wayne...

KLAATU BARADA NIKTO!!!!

"Natural Born Kiddo - 5.10"

This episode was very uncomfortable viewing, to me. I don't enjoy the violent storylines in the show and prefer Lost with philosophical and adventurous tones, without killings every ten minutes. That's just me. So this episode left me feeling like how the kid in the picture looks.

Little Bennie has formed a fascination with the Hostiles since we last saw him. This time we see (by how helpful he is with the sandwiches!) that he really could have been a help to his dad being useful and worthy of love if he was only given a chance -- something that Sayid obviously didn't intuit at the end of show when he had to go and KILL HIM!!! Sheesh. But by the time we see Bennie here, the seeds of self-loathing and shame have taken their toll on his psyche and he's becoming the master schemer that he'll be as an adult. Or...was Bennie a congenital killer like little Sayid is supposed to be?

The conversation between Ben and Sayid at the construction site reminded me of Kill Bill 2, where Bill tells Beatrix that she's a natural born killer herself, and that she can't have a normal life no matter how hard she tries. Earlier, Sayid seemed to think that Ben had used him as his own personal killing machine, but as Ben points out to Sayid he was very eager to hop onto the killing train on his own, and now it's over. So Ben more or less tells him to go get a life, if he has one, while Ben pretends to giddily traipse back to the lovely life that he doesn't have either. The Pot calling the Kettle black? I think so.

You have to feel sorry for Horace this week, he was in a very bad spot. It's like in those cartoons when the character has a devil (Radzinsky) on one shoulder, and an angel (James) on the other, each trying to sway the decision-making process of the poor confused soul. Horace sticks with procedure though and takes Sayid for some psychedelic discipline and the funniest scenes of the episode. Sayid must have been cracking up for how scary Oldham's torturous practices weren't..."ooooh, yer gonna make me trip my brains out for answers, wow!" Heheh. I guess that we're supposed to assume that Oldham would bring out the tongue-pliers if the drugs didn't work.

And I'm going to place a small bet right now that Radzinsky actually died after he nagged Kelvin past his one last good nerve, some particularly lonely night in the Swan. Perhaps Kelvin didn't pull the trigger, but I can imagine him egging Radz on very strongly in order to put them both out of Mr.Poopiepants' misery. There's always a hot-headed Widmore and a naggy Radzinsky in very bunch.

Not much to say about Kate and Juliet yet, until we see how the new prisoner situation might unravel their cover story. If the con gets crazy, James and Juliet might not have much time to play house anyway. But Kate can't say that Sawyer didn't ask her to play house first, back when he was still Sawyer. See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya, Kate.

The Sheriff has got a lot to ponder from here on out. Hurley should not cause him any problems, unless he makes one of his famous slips of the lip. Juliet's got his back, and so far Jack is willingly playing along with his Sheriff role even if only to allow James to trip himself up so then Jack gets to laugh at him. Kate's good at lying, but how long will her patience last if James doesn't come running back as quickly as she wants? And the rest of the Left Behinders apparently don't exist anymore, so they aren't going to be a problem. But I reckon that the Sheriff is learning that it's lonely at the top.

"That's The Way They Became The Dharma Bunch - 5.09"

An unexpected vacation kept me from posting on this great episode in a timely manner, but I guess I'll still put down some thoughts anyway FWIW. I loved the opening shot in the cockpit of 316, during the crash. And I will now make the type of comment that I usually don't make in my blogs...FRANK IS TOTALLY HOT!!!!! Ahem. I like pilots. And yes, I'm going to see the retro-showing of "Top Gun" at my theater next month, up in the front row. I hope that it's in 3D. :-)

Back to Lost; who doesn't think that Jin is feeling great in his new security job?! He gets to do the kind of work that he probably would have preferred to do for Mr. Paik (if he absolutely had to work for him), that is, be a benevolent gangster. This kind of work he gets to do in DHARMA-ville with a flourish. I love how TPTB wrote the dialogue between Jin, the captured Sayid, and James to keep their facade going in front of the DIs. It was all very savvy and Sayid's war-seasoned reply about whether or not he was a Hostile was pure Sayid.

It really pains me to have to relive the 1970s again in the show. The 70s were not kind to me on the whole (bad marriage, scary divorce) but I did meet some wonderful people who made sure that I came out of it OK. Too bad I couldn't have escaped to DHARMA-ville, which we got to see much more of this episode. I worried that there would be more than just side glances between Kate and James on the porch there. And as noted everywhere in the Lost-o-sphere, Jack getting vocational placement as janitor was priceless. Like James would probably say, "Payback's a b#tch," but he most likely did it to keep loose-canon-Jack on the sidelines where he might not cause too much trouble.

Concerning time paradoxes, I just put my brain in sleep-mode for that area of the story. There were some serious activities there that would surely cause a few moments in time to be rearranged, especially Juliet playing hot-potato with baby-Ethan after she found out who he was, considering the fact that he was the one who recruited her. Oops, too late, my brain just exploded again!

James' little speech to Jack was long time coming. Even though Christian tried to say the same thing to Jack at times, it didn't take because he said it in the wrong ways. James laid it out logically and succinctly. Hopefully Jack will heed the advice this time, but I have a feeling that the Jack is going to hit the fan soon enough.

Frank as the responsible pilot, has his work cut out for him in the middle of this second motley wreck he's crash-landed onto with this island. But like pilots say, any landing that you can walk away from is a good landing. It's really too bad that he wasn't on 815, because having him in charge (surely a pilot would rank over a surgeon in the castaway-leader qualifications!) would have saved us all a lot of Jack-face. And Dedjezter (at TLC) and I were right, Ben did take off alone after the crash to pursue his own interests, we just didn't know it yet when we saw him in the infirmary, thanks to Sun playing Whack-A-Ben with him!

"A (Very) Little Humor"

This comic in the Sunday Funnies made me think of Lost. My additions aren't very funny, but you can probably sympathize with what I was thinking. So far I just can't get my head to understand the contradictions of what TPTB have told us about living through time more than once. It's like, "now you see it, now you don't" but with Lost it's, "now you can change it, now you can't." Don't they realize what they've done to our brains?! I'm sure they do, and I'm sure they are having a lot of fun with it. But I hope that they have mercy on us and give us a little more insight into their rules of time and space before the hiatus for Season 6. :o)

http://comics.com/f_minus/

"Introducing, James - 5.08"

How do you know that you spend too much time thinking about Lost? Well for one, you have a dream that TPTB have chosen some fans to be in the show and you are one of them. You are given the script the night before shooting and are expected to have your lines memorized by the next day. Some of your scenes will be in the water, and you are just glad that you don't have to wear a bathing suit, but some of your clothes will be burned in another scene with a fire. All of a sudden "reality" turns into fantasy and while you are doing scenes with Jeremy Davies, time starts skipping all over the place. You find his mother, who happens to be Nina from Fringe(!). You escape out of a window while being chased by a train, and then all kinds of other weird things happen that are just too goofy. Then you wake up and want to go back to sleep to finish the dream! :-o

So obviously, I really enjoyed this episode! First, I was so blown away by how Sawyer has totally evolved into a person who has done a 180' turn in his life, and most importantly doesn't hate himself anymore. His transformation is fascinating to me, because I've always believed that a person can improve or change if they only want to. And Sawyer the bad-ass, has turned into James the fine upstanding citizen because he wanted to, while still retaining his sense of humor and fun (life doesn't have to be boring just because he's nice now!). The only question is, will he be strong enough to maintain his shiny new self after Katherina the Shrew (thank you Shakespeare) gets her claws into him again?

The other subject of note in this episode was the few seconds worth of the island's giant statue during one of the flashes. I won't delve into that here, as talk of Egyptian deities has been burning up the Lost blogs since Wednesday night. But I have to say that all this brings to mind the research of Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian ethnologist and adventurer who sailed the Atlantic in a papyrus boat (two if you count the first try that wasn't successful) to see if it would have been at all possible for Egyptians to sail to the New World from Morocco, with their limited technology. He and his crew proved that it was.

And wouldn't you know, Morocco just happens to be very near one of the Vile Vortices of Africa that we suspect might be involved in the travel from Tunisia to the island, and vice versa. Could that be how Egyptians, of all peoples, managed to make it to our island? Did one of their boats run into an unfortunate vortex that swept them through a cosmic corridor to a moving island? I've had a long-time crush on Thor (and oddly, he died on the same day my dad died) and I will be very excited if TPTB have chosen to include his amazing work in the plethora of world history that they have woven into the show. He is from Norway after all, just like Hanso. http://www.kon-tiki.no/Ny/Dok_eng/e_start.html

One thing that I will mention about Old Four Toes is that the peeps at DarkUFO seem to have found the most similar deity (Taweret) that actually has a cake on its head like Four Toes does! I have to admit, when I was looking through the list of Egyptian gods, I skipped over the ones with alligator heads and did not see this one. As a former technician in a research lab, I should have known better than to pass over any possible data!

"Fate Vs. Probabilty - 5.07"

Leave it to Lost to make us wonder what kind of memory loss you'd have if you died and came back to life in a different place. Apparently you'd remember dying, but you'd have a heck of a time figuring out how you ended up on a beach in a strange suit that you didn't own. And you'd really love juicy tropical fruit. And speaking of the living dead, are we supposed to think that Christian came back to life too, and is not just an apparition? He did seem to take off his shoes as well.

** It was very satisfying to see so much of Widmore (especially at the FDW exit!) and to have him be so chatty. But why did he wait so long to help Locke? It seems like everyone in Locke's life likes to make him suffer first before they help him.

** Are we supposed to think that Widmore is confused about the time travel concerning when he first met Locke? He's lived on the island in the days before the DI, knows the FDW effects, and knows enough about the supposed portals or vortices to know about "exits", and yet he still thinks, "...that's incredible" that so little time as passed since he met Locke? Also, I'd like to know how Widmore and the islanders protected the island "peacefully" while they're killing US Army soldiers, etc.

** Oh, and the "Because you are" answer to Locke about why he's special was totally lame and I'm calling shenanigans on TPTB!

** It was so fantastic to see Abaddon too! Did he get to ask Locke for that favor he was owed? Alas, he's gone too soon.

** Why is it that whenever Locke gets foothold on his purpose or destiny, he always forgets his manners and etiquette and starts ordering people around?! Not very nice John, maybe that's why people are mean to you, because you are mean to them. Mr. Abaddon was just trying to do his job.

** Since Sayid said that he was manipulated by Ben, does that mean that he thinks/knows that Ben killed Nadya?

** I have no idea why Ben saved Locke just to kill him, or why he went berserk when Locke mentioned Mrs.Hawking. Just...so...confused... And really John, is that rathole the best room that you could get with the money that Widmore gave you? :-o

** Oh Kate, you incredible pompous ass. "Haha, charade you are!" Look at how far you've come, you still think that you're better than everyone else and can presume to know everything about people that you have no interest in whatsoever. The evil eye to you Kate. Or better yet, I'll give you the treatment that a certain celebutard blogger gives his photos.

** Is Helen really dead? Probably, but I don't know what to believe on this show anymore. I really did like what Abaddon said at the grave site though. I've always been confused about destiny, predestination, what's meant to be, etc.

** Like Jay said at his blog, that was some amazing Jack-face (about 100 of 'em in a row!) when he and Locke were talking about his father. Yes Jack, it's highly probable that you will outdo Lon Chaney, Man Of A Thousand Faces, when you are upset!

** What was the drawing of the Imaginary Space and Time doing in the Hydra? Is it Dan's or did he copy that page into his notebook? Wow. http://capcomslost.blogspot.com/2008/02/footnotes-for-future-405.html

** Was that red hair in the preview?????? :-o

** Good bye Mr. Abaddon, you seemed like a very cool guy. Hope that we see you in another life, or time, soon.

"Deja Vu All Over Again - 5.06"

This was an excruciating week for me in many ways, so I haven't got much of a response to this episode. I had to watch it three times before things finally began to sink in, and I haven't even had the interest to read other recaps yet. What struck me at first viewing though, was how last week's ending was repeated in part of this week's beginning. And this week's opening scene was repeated at the end of this episode. Hmm. Are we supposed to take something from that? Dual worlds? Multiple universes? I dunno.

** Interesting development, this off-island DI station called the Lamp Post. I half expected Ms.Hawking to plug in a DI orientation video! Did the Hostiles take over all the global DI stations?

** The spiral staircase that they descended brought to mind the famous mysterious staircase at Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe. I know, sometimes a staircase is just a staircase. But it's a great story full of mystic and religious symbolism, and a mysterious piece of handiwork. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loretto_Chapel

** Of course it was great to see more of the calculation room and the pendulum. Who watching didn't think that Des was either going to get clocked by the pendulum, or kick it? I hope that we find out how it works to set up the coordinates on the flipping wall chart.

** So, L.A. has an abnormal energy pocket as well? Who knew? That must be why Hollywood is so crazy. There is one off the CA coast according to the Vortices theory maps. And who could this "clever fellow" be? Alvar? Daniel? And does Dan's chalkboard match up at all with Mrs.H's? It's worth checking out. And what did she mean by "all the coordinates"? Maybe it's all the flights that go near the entire circumference of the energy area around the island. And what does it mean that the results will be unpredictable if they all don't go back, that they won't land in the correct time? Or someone will die? More "bad things", I guess.

** Interesting that Des gave Jack almost the same instructions about Mrs.H, as Sayid gave to Hurley about Ben.

** I wonder if Locke had to kill himself off-island because both Lockes could not be on the island at the same time. Maybe he just had to play dead-man-flying in lieu of CS. But when Jack was putting the shoes on Locke, it made me think that it was like Dorothy putting the ruby slippers back on the dead witch's feet, and I half expected Locke's feet to shrivel up like hers did! :o)

** Scoutpost on TLC had a good thought about the Thomas story that Ben told: "Perhaps that was the purpose of Ben's "Doubting Thomas" speech in the church. Maybe Jack will encounter a resurrected/reincarnated Locke and have to believe even though it doesn't make scientific sense." Sounds good. It's also interesting that the Bible verse about Thomas being faithful and protective of Jesus comes from within the story of the raising of Lazarus. Hmm. (John, ch.11)

** Jack's grandfather encounter went over my head, if there was anything there to be gleaned from that whole scenario. The only thing that made me sit up was the freaky bunny with the Richard Alpert eyes!

** I'm not even going to talk about Kate and how she acted. :-p

** It's great that Frankie was the pilot, and how fun was that to hear his voice first before seeing him?!

** Finally, I hope that Sawyer has learned his lesson and totally ignores Kate when they are reunited. Now that she's not "together" with Jack, guess who she's going to go run to? Dangitt, I didn't want to talk about her!

"Death And Ruins - 5.05"

As much as this episode jumped around, I found it very satisfying. Not in terms of answering enough questions, or not adding any more, but just in how full it was of tantalizing scenes and activities! But some of the points that stuck with me are:

** If Sun shot Ben, would the Island make the gun misfire a-la Michael's attempts? Either Ben has no fear of her pulling the trigger for that reason (so he can be as snarcastic as he likes), OR, Ben has fallen out of favor (and usefulness) with the Island and he is very afraid that she will shoot him (and his sarcasm comes from that fear). I'm not quite sure what to think about where Ben may stand within the Island's graces at this point, now that he's made so many misjudgements along the way.

** It was great getting to learn more about the B612s of course, so thanks very much to TPTB for living up to their promise of giving us Danielle's backstory! Who knew that they had been to the ruins/Temple?! So sad that they lost a war with Smokey and disappeared down one of his vents though. Why was Montand so casually asking for help after his arm was ripped off?! "Hey help! And by the way, could you send down a cappuccino?" It was nice of his colleagues to look for him down the hole, but what happened to them all?? Did they look into the eye of the Island like Locke did? Maybe Robert shot Danielle for the same reason that Locke shot Naomi, because she would have ultimately, and sanely, worked against the island's wishes.

** Seeing Jin as the wise islander with the B612s was very interesting. For so long he had to rely on the guidance of everyone else, but here he was almost in a leader role for them.

** Some time-skips come quickly and some take longer. It would be weird if it happened every 4,8,15,16,23,42,and 108 minutes, which would kind of connect it to the Swan venting protocol. I doubt if it does though.

** It worries me that Locke keeps saying that Sun wasn't supposed to leave the island. If she was meant to stay, does that mean that she and JiYeon were meant to die? Because they would have if she had not left.

** "So, you speak any other languages?" "Just Klingon." X-D

** In the first few seasons, we were told that the island was a good and healing place. Now we are told that it is death? I'm confused...again.

** I wonder if we'll see little Charlotte saying something to Mr.Dan in the past in a time-skip about not having chocolate before dinner, that would connect the past and the future? And, totally freak Dan out. I'm sorry that Charlotte died, and sorry if we don't get to see Mader in the show any more, she played the part very well.

** The scene where the well closed up and Sawyer is left holding the rope was incredible. Obviously the FDW surface hole was not natural, which begs the question: Why did someone dig an easy access well to the FDW, if the power source is so volatile and dangerous to humans? Wouldn't that be a bit like leaving the lid off of the Chernobyl chimney after it blew and was spewing out radiation?

** It never ceases to amaze me how Locke can be so brave and so cowardly at the same time, and Terry O'Q is such an amazing actor in portraying all the mental nuances of emotions that run through Locke's head.

** Does Dan know that his mother lives in a church spending her time working on the mechanics of the Islands movements? Can't wait to find out.

** It looked as if the FDW did rotate some when Locke made the adjustment, was that the moment that Locke gets bounced off the island? I suppose so, since CS was practically saying good-bye.

Update: Jo commented on her first article about this ep that we should probably be studying up on Charthage and Hannibal, which is a very good idea. Charlotte's babbling might not have been just all filler dialogue to show how crazy she was until she died. :-o

http://jopinionated.blogspot.com/

"What's Done Is Done - 5.04"

What a fun episode! Sawyer is just really working out to be an incredible character this season since TPTB have put him in the forefront of the adventures of the LB-6 (that is, the LBs without Rose and the rest). He's more trusting with people (especially with Juliet), not afraid of facing his feelings, and very different from the "new sheriff in town" attitude that he had before his life altering experiences on the island. And just when he opens his heart to someone, Kate has to rip it out. I hope that he gets close to Juliet by the time Kate comes back, and therefore won't care about her anymore when she does. Juliet's calming effect on Sawyer will hopefully lead towards that happening. Having said that:

** Here's how I would have written this line for Kate; "I've always been with you...ahem, except when I was with Sawyer." Boo, Kate, boooooo. We know better and so does Jack.
** Very interesting that TPTB have Kate coming up with the idea to lie for Aaron's sake.
** Heheh, Sun gets a "candygram" without the landshark! Who sent her the info and the chocolate handgun, I wonder?
** Again, how is it that Dan doesn't know how to explain what's going on with the mega-jet-lag? Is he having some memory problems again?
** It's a good trick that Ben is pulling to harass the O-6 into fleeing The World and go back to the island. A bad trick by TPTB for letting us think that it was Mrs. Littleton that was harassing Kate for a minute. :-p
** Would the zodiak really still be on the beach when they got there? I wouldn't think so.
** Hurley looks too cute in the orange jumpsuit.
** The Swan lightbeam, neat-o!! But why would Locke be afraid of going there, because he didn't want to risk seeing himself? Desmond could have just had the back porch light on.
** Yes, Jack "needed a change", from the crusty smelly loser junky look he was sporting there for a while.
** Does Miles not remember being on the island before (assuming that he was) because of the mega-jet-lag? Or for other mysteriously complicated reasons of his past.
** I like how quickly the LB-6 has come together to work as a team, at least in this episode. Nothing like getting shot at in a canoe to get the teamwork going!
** "I can fix this, Kate." RUNNNNN KATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
** Wow, it's soooo sweet to finally get some French connection time with the B612 (Besixdouze) and hopefully we'll get to spend some time with them and Jin (hoo-yeah!) next week. BTW, the look on Jin's face was great.
** I suppose that we are all wondering if Jin is time-skipping with the LBs. And if he is, that is really going to freak out the B612ers...and him.
** No Sun. Just no. Give up on the vengeance, it will come to no good. Maybe Sayid will roundhouse kick the gun out of her hands before she can kill anyone. Well, if Ben gets shot and killed, won't that put a crimp in the plans! :-o