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Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Lost 4x04: Eggtown

So apparently all it will take for Kate to settle down and stay in one place is stealing Aaron from Claire.

Obviously more to that story. Questions abound, thanks to that ending (though it did provide one answer: I think it is safe to assume that Aaron is the “he” Kate had to get home to at the end of the Season 3 finale). Is Claire dead? Is she stuck on the island, based on whatever terms allowed only six survivors to leave, and she gave Aaron to Kate to get him off the island? We know Desmond saw her and Aaron boarding a helicopter, and we know his visions are always more or less correct, but we also now know that helicopter rides off the island don’t always translate to a safe and speedy rescue. My best guess at this point is that Claire and Aaron take a copter to the freighter, and something happens to Claire at that point.

Kate’s flash forward this week is the first one that shows a character moving forward after getting off the island. After watching Kate in flashback after flashback struggling to get her mother’s acceptance for her actions while running from the law, she finally gets a resolution of sorts and is exonerated of her crimes. Her quick acceptance of the “stay in the state” clause shows that this is a different Kate, one who is capable and willing to finally stop running. The flash forward also gave us a glimpse of the lie the Oceanic 6 are telling: that they crashed in the water, that only eight people survived the crash, that Kate did much of what Jack really did: administered first aid, found water and shelter, etc. (it’s unclear if this lie was created specifically with Kate’s trial in mind, or is part of the larger story created by whomever rescued them and forced them to conceal the truth). It’s no wonder that Beardo-Jack is as distraught as he is in the season three finale, and that good-hearted Hurley cracks under the pressure of the lie before him.

On the island, we got to see Locke go from creepy to uber creepy, making thinly and not-so-thinly veiled threats, passing judgments and affirming that his non-democratic word is law. The scene with Miles was pretty hardcore, but I bet the grenade Locke shoved into Miles’ ever-open maw wasn’t live: Locke wouldn’t want to run the risk of Miles blowing up before talking to him.

We also saw a return of the backgammon game. Ever since Locke and Walt’s tournaments in the first season, backgammon has been suggested as a metaphor for the overarching plot of the show: two opposing sides "Two players. Two sides. One is light, one is dark,” battling for control over the island. Speculation on the two combatants waging this “island backgammon game” range from Jacob vs. Alvar Hanso, Ben vs. Charles Widmore, Dharma vs. the Others, any combination thereof and countless others. It’s no coincidence that the game reappeared in an episode that confirmed that the Freighties are looking Ben because a specific (assumedly powerful) individual is after him, and that Ben is very much aware of his adversary. It can be convincingly argued that Ben (and by extension Locke/Jacob/the Others) represent one side of the greater backgammon game and that whomever is ultimately responsible for sending the Freighties after Ben represents the other side (last week’s flash forward also suggests this game is being waged off the island and for some time to come, as well). It’s also worth noting that during Sawyer and Locke’s game, Sawyer had the white pieces, meaning Locke had the dark ones (I’m pretty sure when Locke played Walt, he had the white pieces).

Highlight
Sawyer, calling Kate out on her bullshit, saying she’ll come running back once Jack does something else to piss her off. Slap him all you want; the man has a point.

Did You Notice?
After speaking to (and having his head messed up by) a captive Ben, Locke makes a mess of Ben’s breakfast in frustration, just like in Season Two’s Maternity Leave

The book Locke brought Ben was VALIS by Philip K. Dick. I’ve never read it, but I understand it’s a pretty messed up book, even by Dick’s standards.

The music Kate was listening to in Claire’s house was Patsy Cline, which she listens to in almost all of her flashbacks, often right before she runs away again.

Questions
Eggtown? Where’d that title come from? The eggs Locke made Ben at the beginning, and Miles’ egg shaped grenade breakfast at the end? Some kind of philosophical chicken/egg theme? Is that the name of the Dharma barracks/New Otherton?

Is Kate really not pregnant, or was she lying to provoke Sawyer and give her a reason to leave again? How would she know for sure, one way or the other?


Where does Kate raising Aaron fit into the psychic’s predictions for Claire? In Raised By Another, back in season one, the psychic Claire visited in her flashback made it very clear that Aaron must be raised by Claire, going so far as to dupe Claire into meeting with potential adoptive parents in LA so that she’d be on Oceanic Flight 815. The implication was that the psychic knew the plane would crash, thus forcing Claire to raise Aaron as her own. With this episode, we have to wonder, was Kate’s adoption of Aaron something the psychic was trying to facilitate or prevent?

Why did Miles specifically ask for 3.2 million? Ben obviously recognizes there is some significance to that specific amount.

What were Daniel and Charlotte doing with the cards? Testing his memory (remember how Daniel didn’t know why he was so upset over the discovery of 815)? Or testing some kind of clairvoyant power (it reminded me Bill Murray using a psychic test to hit on women in Ghostbusters)? Was it part of the “work” they stayed on the island to do?

Why doesn’t Future Jack want to see Aaron? Did he and/or Kate do something to Claire in order to get rescued, and Aaron reminds him of that, or does Aaron just remind him that others (possibly including Claire) got left behind/killed in the course of their rescue? Does Future Jack know that Aaron is his nephew?

Was Miles talking to ghosts before Kate walked in? His position and posture was similar to when he was ghostbusting the grandson’s room during his flashback. I read online a scene from last episode’s script that had been cut for time, in which Sayid, Kate and Miles came upon the sonic fence. While Kate and Sayid discussed a way to get over/through it, it was suggested that Miles spoke to some kind of ghost and told Kate and Sayid the fence was off, and then crossed it, injury-free.

1 comment:

  1. Anyone else wonder if Dan Faraday is named after a Faraday Cage?
    Maybe time will tell...

    -S

    ReplyDelete

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