Lost Season 5 Episode Report Card

Remember Lost?

Yeah, I think I got to this post too late. Originally, I had planned, shortly after the season wrapped up, to do a brief episode-by-episode review and assign a grade to each episode, similar to what I did last year.

But I never really got energized to do it (which is why you're reading this at the beginning of July and not the end of May) and now that I think about, I don't have a lot of things to say about each episode, and even less desire to arbitrarily assign a grade to each one.

So instead I think I'll just post a few brief (well, brief by my standards...) comments for each episode and leave it at that.


Because You Left: The premiere looked in on the entire cast, but I appreciated that the focus was firmly on the time-jumping Losties on the island, answering early on what happened when Ben moved the island in the season four finale. I'm sure some viewers felt confused or alienated by the huge emphasis on time travel from the outset of the season, but I loved it.


The Lie: Not a bad episode, but not one I love as much as some fans. I will almost always be more interested in events on island than off, and this was very much an off-island episode (and a little too "Weekend at Bernie's" for my taste, though several parts of it were genuinely funny, especially Hurley summarizing the first four seasons to his mom and flinging his Hot Pocket at Ben).


Jughead: One of my favorites from this season, showcasing two of my favorite characters, Desmond and Daniel. And, in retrospect, this episode really laid the foundation for the entire season: time traveling, Jughead, Ellie, integration into the island's history by the main characters.


The Little Prince: My least favorite episode of the season. The on-island story easily outshines yet another lackluster Kate story off-island. The best part of the episode is finding out Jin's alive and hanging out in the past with Rousseau, but all of that is paid off in the next episode.


This Place Is Death: Another favorite that managed to effectively cram a lot of story into one episode, highlighted by Jin's adventures with young Rousseau and Charlotte's sad death scene.


316: The first Jack episode I've liked in a long time (other than the season three finale, and that became interesting only in retrospect), I also enjoyed the uniquely (for Lost) straightforward narrative structure, focusing solely on Jack during a 36 hour window of time. The final scenes on the plane, including Jack finally reading Locke's suicide note and the reveal of Frank as the pilot of Flight 316, were especially good.


The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham: I don't love this episode as much as everyone else, nor, really, as much I want to. I just can't get over some of the continuity glitches it causes enough to fully embrace it as one of the show's classics. The two biggest bones to pick, for me, are:

1. The fact that NO ONE is told about Locke's Bentham identity on screen nor given a reason to use it in this episode, yet in the season four finale, everyone is using it and going out of their way to make sure it's used exclusively.
2. It appears that Locke's suicide occurs shortly after he encounters Jack in the hospital, at a point in which Jack isn't obsessively trying to get back to the island and his beard is under control, which would suggest that Ben (or the authorities) sat on Locke's body for at least a month before crazed Beardo Jack read Bentham's obituary,which doesn't seem likely.

It's possible these inconsistencies (and more) might be addressed in a future episode, but with only sixteen left, it seems more and more likely that this episode is all the Bentham story we're going to get, and that leaves me troubled.

Of course, the real reason everyone was using the Bentham name so aggressively in the season four finale was because the producers were trying to keep the reveal of Locke in the coffin as shocking as possible, but Lost is usually better at covering for those kinds of for-the-sake-of-drama moments, and I expected as much in this episode. Which has led some Lost fans to coin the term "Bentham" to describe a reveal on the show that doesn't quite match the level of intensity of the question it's answering, especially in cases where said revelation makes it clear the mystery was played up simply for the sake of drama (other "Benthams", for example, include the revelation of what Sawyer told Kate on the helicopter before he dived out and why Kate told Jack to never mention Aaron again before schtupping him and boarding flight 316).


LaFleur: Probably my favorite episode of the season, I really enjoyed this traditionally structured episode that bounced back and forth between Sawyer and the Losties life in the 70s Dharma Initiative and how they got there.


Namaste: The first of three episodes that tend to blur together a bit, as the returning Oceanic 4 are integrated into Sawyer's Dharma con, leading to the unraveling of said con.


He's Our You: A standout for the ending alone, in which Sayid shoots Harry Potter Ben. Easily one of the most "Holy crap, did they really just do that?" endings of the entire series.


Whatever Happened, Happened: This was surprisingly good for a Kate episode. While most of the revelations in this episode were more Benthams (specifically, what Sawyer asked her to do before leaving the helicopter (why, exactly, did she have to keep that from Jack except that the plot demanded it?) and why she was so weird the night before leaving on flight 316 (I get that she was devastated by leaving Aaron, but her dialogue with Jack in "316" suggested something more mysterious/sinister happened than "I gave him for his own good")) the scene in which Kate tearfully says goodbye to Aaron was one of Evangeline Lily's greatest performance on the show, and terribly moving.


Dead Is Dead: Good, evil, or both, Ben is ridiculously fun to watch, so his episodes always shine, and this was no exception. Between the Ben/Locke interaction, flashbacks that filled in and revealed crucial bits of island history, the culmination of Ben's vendetta against Widmore via Penny, and more Smokey, this episode is another highlight of the season (even if the finale's revelation that it wasn't really Locke screwing with Ben's head in this episode takes a little something away from it).


Some Like It Hoth: Somewhat more that a token "funny" episode, with the long-delayed look at Miles' past, yet still not as character driven or mythologically-heavy as other episodes this season. An entertaining romp sprinkled with some deep dramatic moments, particularly Hurley watching his numbers getting stamped into the hatch door and Miles watching his dad interact with his younger self at the end.


The Variable: Billed as a counterpoint to season four's seminal "The Constant", it fails to hit the emotional highs of that episode. Still, the ultimately tragic examination of Faraday's past helps it stand out. Much of this episode's impact on the series as whole will depend on the outcome of the finale's cliffhanger: whether whatever happened, happened, or if Faraday was right in this episode about the variables being able to change things (or, if Faraday was conning Jack all along with his talk of variables).


Follow The Leader: A standard penultimate episode that ramps up the action and moves everyone into place for the big finale.


The Incident: Easily one of the most maddening cliffhangers in Lost history ("how the hell will they survive an atomic blast!?! Did history change!?! Jacob's dead!?! What's the deal with NotLocke!?!"), the season five finale had much in common with the similarly-maddening season one finale: both took place entirely on or around the island and both resolved their central plot (blow open the hatch, blow up Jughead) without revealing the consequences of those actions (What's in the hatch? Was time altered?).

Lost 5x16-17: The Incident

......

Whew.

That was dense, intense, satisfying and infuriating.

Where to begin? Finales on this show are always difficult to unpack: they cram in so much, resolving the season past and setting up the season to come. This one, being the final season finale (next year's will be a SERIES finale, natch) did a whole lot of both.

So Jacob isn't Jack, or Locke, or any other temporally-displaced Lostie trying to do right, as many theorized and some hoped. Turns out he's just a dude, seemingly ageless like Richard, locked in some kind of struggle with a nameless, hairy other, weaving the threads of a tapestry like he does the lives of the Losties. In flashbacks, Jacob visited almost all the Losties in some capacity, bestowing a gift to each of them (Kate's lunchbox, a pen to little Sawyer, life to an injured Locke), at the very least making a point to physically touch them all. Jacob wasn't what was expected, but his story remains curious and compelling. It seems likely, despite his death, that he will take the front seat of the narrative next season after driving from the back seat for so long.

In 1977, Mad Jack got his bomb, Richard removed the Others from the messy situation, and Sayid got (fatally?) shot on the way to the Swan. All the time-tossed Losties converge there, all on board (though for some, reluctantly) with Jack's crazy "kill 'em all and let destiny sort it out" plan, and a good old fashioned shootout occurs. Like the season one finale, with the hatch blown open to show nothing but a gaping maw of darkness within, this season ends with its biggest question unanswered: did whatever happened, happen, or was Juliet's desperate deathbed detonation of Jughead's guts a variable that has drastically changed the future? (Personally, I think "The Incident" showed us just that: the incident. Begun when Radzinsky's drill struck the pocket of energy and capped off by Jughead, what happened, happened, and the resulting flash of light and burst of energy will hurtle the Losties into 2007. After all, as Jacob said on his deathbed, "they are coming.")

Back in 2007, Ilana opened her silver crate and it turned out Locke's been dead since last season's finale. Didn't see that coming (though Dr. Bitz uncannily pegged that Locke's body was inside the crate). Apparently the confident and smiley Locke (or perhaps that's 'cocky and smirky' Locke) striding through the jungle this season has actually been a manifestation of Locke, some other entity taken his form in order to exploit a "loophole" in the rules governing (protecting?) Jacob. Presumably, this Locke-usurping entity is the hairy man in black seen with Jacob observing the arrival of a sailing ship (the Black Rock?) while sitting in the shadow of the statue. Assuming everything Locke has done since arriving on the island has been orchestrated by this anti-Jacob (and that Jacob is a benevolent being in tune with the island's needs), Locke has been recast as an unknowing chump, helping give rise to a dark force while all the while believing he was communing with the island and fulfilling a grand destiny. Which, more so than Juliet's fate or the dangling question of the timeline's state, is the most unsettling and nagging idea to come out the finale.


Favorite Bits:
The look on Sawyer's face at the end of the first hour, as he, Juliet and Kate were blocking the road.


Jack and Sawyer's rumble in the jungle. That felt good.

Miles finally pointing out the notion that maybe everything Jack's doing is exactly what's always happened.

As asinine as I still think Jack's whole "blow up the H-bomb" plan was, the shootout at the end, with all the Losties coming together to fight off Dharma, was pretty cool. Plus, weaselly Phil+rebar=awesome. Felt bad for the Dharma guys who were just doing their job and got shot though.


Tidbits of Note:
Jacob's loom calls to mind images of the Norse Norns and the Greek Fates, beings who manipulated the length, weaving and use of thread as a metaphor for mortal life.


It's probably safe to assume the ship sailing by the island, observed by Jacob and that other guy in the cold open, was the Black Rock.

EVERYTHING about Jacob in that scene was white: his clothes, the tapestry, the sand on the beach, whereas his companion was clothed in black. If that's not an indication of good/evil, it's at least pointing out a dichotomy between the two.


For those that don't remember their bible stories, Jacob is the son of Isaac (who was once almost sacrificed by his father, Abraham). Esau is Jacob's twin brother, and was in line for the birthright of their father. Jacob tricked his father into giving it to Jacob instead (mainly by pretending to be hairy) which pissed off Esau for awhile. Jacob then went on to wrestle God and thus be renamed "Israel" before fathering Joseph, who eventually got a multicolored coat, turned Mormon, and moved to Egypt. Which is why all the Hebrews were slaves there when Charlton Heston showed up.

The lunch box young Kate tried to steal and Jacob later bought for her was the one she and her childhood friend Tom buried in their time capsule (along with the toy plane), shortly before Kate inadvertently killed Tom while attempting to visit her mom. I assume the boy aiding her theft was Tom.

Depending on how you want to look out, Jacob is either inadvertently responsible for Nadia's death or for saving Sayid from sharing her fate.

I'm 98% confident that Rose and Bernard are the "Adam and Eve" skeletons found in the cave back in season one.


Richard referred to Eloise as "our leader" suggesting, perhaps, that she is the solo leader at that time and that Widmore is waiting in the wings. Perhaps he ascends when she leaves the island for whatever reason.

The surgery Jack was performing was the infamous "five seconds" surgery he told Kate about back in the pilot episode, when she was stitching him up.

Jack and Jacob shared an Apollo candy bar, the preferred candy bar of the Dharma Initiative.

While waiting for Locke to fall, Jacob was reading Flannery O'Connor's "Everything That Rises Must Converge." It's a short story collection, but I know little about it beyond that. That title sure is suggestive, though.


The Dharma house Jack and Sayid entered from the tunnels was, presumably, Horace's. When Sayid was shot, he was wearing Horace's jumpsuit. If Sayid died/dies, does this mean that perhaps it's HIS body seen in the pit back in season three, from which Locke found the map to Jacob's cabin?

Jacob's cabin still had the dog picture in it, but all the other weird stuff (jars of liquids) was gone. It was also significantly less creepy in the daylight.

The knife holding the piece of tapestry to the wall appeared to be the same knife Jacob used to prepare his fish in the cold open.

Ben telling Locke he was a Pisces was, of course, a lie. Ben's birthday is December 19th, and Pisces are sometime in the early spring (Feb-March).

Sun found Charlie's Drive Shaft ring in Aaron's abandoned crib. Charlie left it there before leaving for the Looking Glass station in the season three finale.


Juliet dusted off Jack's old "live together, die alone" chestnut.

Presumably, the injury Dr. Chang received while stuff was flying around explains his prosthetic arm in the Orientation videos.

The sight and sound of Juliet, wrapped in chains, getting pulled into the drill hole looked and sounded a lot like Smokey, when he wraps himself around a victim and drags that victim away.

Jacob seemed to give each of the Losites something (though not necessarily something physical, such as Locke's life). At the very least, he touched each of them.

We saw Jacob visit most of the Losties before the crash of flight 815. However, he visited Hurley and Sayid AFTER that crash. Did ever visit them pre-crash?

Ilana asked for "Ricardus"; Richard responded to the "what lies in the shadow of the statue" riddle with a phrase in Latin. The Internet tells me it translates to: "he who will protect/save us all."

Juliet hit the bomb 8 times before it exploded.

Questions:
So: did they change things, or was the detonation of the bomb the "incident?"

What's the deal with Jacob and anti-Jacob? To what rules are they beholden? Of what loophole did Not Locke take advantage? What is the source of their conflict? Is this the conflict for which Ben, Widmore and Ms. Hawking have been preparing?

What are the extent of Jacob's powers? Why doesn't he age? Why does he need Richard to interface with the Others? How does he leave the island?

Is resurrected Locke anti-Jacob in Locke's form? Is anti-Jacob Smokey? Is he Christian? If so, where'd Christian's body go? Has Locke been inadvertently working with anti-Jacob since day one? Was Jacob ever in that cabin? Who broke the line of ash around the cabin?

If Not Locke is anti-Jacob, why did he need Richard to show him where Jacob was? Why did he bring all the Others along? Was it all just to sell the con he's pulling on Ben?

Is Jacob good or bad? Are we supposed to be happy or upset that he's dead (well, I think we're SUPPOSED to be upset, but should we be)?

If that was the Black Rock at the beginning, then how did it get so far inland?

We got a pretty good look at the statue: was that Sobek (with the head of crocodile), or Tawaret, the fertility goddess?


Are the Losties special because Jacob visited/touched them, or did Jacob visit them because he knew they were special?

Why was Ilana all bandaged up in that hospital? Why did Jacob need her help?

What "candidacy" were Bram and Ilana talking about? Could Frank be a candidate for what?

Assuming most of the Losties survive the detonation of the H-bomb, does Sayid make it?

Is Juliet dead?

Next week:
No new Lost until 2010, but I may have another long-winded Lost post or two up my sleeve before then.

Lost 5x15: Follow the Leader

Following in the tradition of seasonal penultimate episodes before it, "Follow the Leader" led everyone towards the finale. Aptly titled, following the leader was major trope of the episode: Jack led the Others on a mission to blow up Jughead and change the future; Locke regained his leadership of the Others and caused Richard some consternation by taking them on a pilgrimage to Jacob; Radzinsky usurped Horace's leadership of the Dharma Initiative while interrogating Sawyer; and finally, Dr. Chang led the women and children off the island.

Of all the twists and turns this episode took, two things stuck out. First, both Jack and Kate are being a bit shortsighted in their debate over the merits of using an H-bomb to change the future. Kate seemingly doesn't want to erase the good times (her time with Sawyer and Jack, raising Aaron) at the expense of everyone who died in the 815 crash and thereafter, while Jack is once again determined to fix things and save those people, at the expense of the personal growth of the survivors (everyone WOULD be a lot more miserable if 815 hadn't crashed, and Ji Yeon wouldn't have ever been born, but more people would be alive...Charlie would still be a heroin addict, but he'd be alive) as well as the lives of every Dharma person on the island in 1977 who will likely die when Jughead detonates. But Jack isn't trying to fix their lives, apparently they're an acceptable sacrifice (for the record, I'm siding with Kate, mainly because, in my experience, blowing up hydrogen bombs isn't usually the best solution).

Secondly, there is the implication, suggested by his conversation with Ben, that perhaps Richard, in the end, is no better than Ben when it comes to stewardship of Jacob and the island. For most of the season, as Richard's role as an "advisor" has come to light, the impression has been that Richard has been waiting for Locke. From Widmore and Ellie to Ben and now Locke, he's done his job waiting for the "chosen one", Locke, to appear. Couple that with the fact that he actively assisted Locke in ousting Ben (further implying Locke's "specialness"), and it's disconcerting that Locke's been the Others' leader for less than a day and Richard is already questioning Locke's leadership to the man he helped Locke usurp. Why was Locke so special, why was Richard waiting so long for him, if Richard simply expected him to maintain Ben's status quo (of course, another option is that Richard was merely testing Ben to see how fully subserviant he was to Locke's leadership)?


There's still plenty unknown, especially about Jacob, his relationship to the Others, and theirs to the island, and Richard himself, so it remains tough to make any concrete judgments. For now, the implication that Richard, enigmatic and unaging, might be just as human and disconnected from the will of the island as Ben, especially when compared to the new Locke, is unsettling.

Favorite Bits:
Hurley's attempts to convince Dr. Chang he isn't from the future, particularly the look on Jin's face when Hurley says the Korean War isn't real.


The smiles Locke gives Ben throughout the episode, as he's clearly enjoying the role reversal. In fact, I enjoyed Ben as much in this episode, acting bent to Locke's will, as much I do when he's seemingly in control and manipulating the hell out of people.

The small moment when Miles realized the reason his mom hated his dad all those years was because his dad had to act like a jerk in order to get them to safety.

Tidbits of Note:
The title of the episode could also be an allusion to "Peter Pan," both the book/play (in which "follow the leader" is a game played in Neverland) and the Disney film (in which "Follow the Leader" is one of the trademark, catchy Disney songs). Lost has similarly invoked classic children's stories in its last two finales: seasons three's "Through the Looking Glass" and season four's "There's No Place Like Home." And the island is a lot like Neverland.

It seems likely that Ellie is pregnant: Widmore is seen with his hand on her belly at one point, and is concerned about her "condition." If she is, and she's pregnant with Daniel, it would make him the youngest of the Freighter Four, which doesn't seem quite right. But there it is.

The journal Eloise gave Daniel in the restaurant as a graduation present last episode is the same one he's been carrying around with him.

According to Ben, Richard is an advisor of sorts to whomever is leading the Others; that certainly fits with what we've seen so far, with Richard answering to the Others' leader while also being somewhat outside their authority.

If Richard saw Jack, Kate and Hurley die in 1977, then he must have either known they were going to time travel at some point or been really confused when the Others created their files on the Losties and they contained numerous people Richard knew in the 70s.

This episode presented the flip side of the scene in "Because You Left," when Richard emerged from the jungle to help Locke and give him the compass.


Hurley was worried about being asked who the President was and having his cover blown by not knowing back in "Namaste."

Dharmaville was apparently built over a central terminus of "the tunnels." Does Dharma know that? Is that why the Others move there after the Purge?

There's definitely a part of me that thinks it would have been nice for Sawyer and Juliet's story to end with them sailing off into the sunset together, to live a life of ease after investing in Microsoft and betting on the '78 Cowboys.

The sub departing the island was very obviously CG (and I'm usually terrible at noticing things like that).


Ben apparently killed Locke because he knew/suspected he'd become a problem. Add that to the list of Ben's explanations for killing Locke.

Locke interacts with Ben with the tone of a corporate manage talking to an employee: "thank you for bringing that to my attention," "you're a valued part of this team," etc. It reminded me of their chat in Ben's old office on Hydra Island in "Dead Is Dead."

Questions:
Is there any significance to Richard's ship-in-a-bottle (is it a replica of the Black Rock?) or is it just an indicator of his character: that he's patient and even-tempered?


How true is Richard's assertion that he watched everyone in the 70s die? Will they die, will he just think they died, or does he know they didn't but has to pretend they did for some reason?

Has Ben truly never seen Jacob? Has Richard? What is Richard's relationship with Jacob, and why was he so insistent on stalling Locke from meeting him?


Does Locke really want to kill Jacob, or is he just effing with Ben? Has Locke learned that killing Jacob is the only way to help him? If he does want to kill him, why? Is Jacob acting in opposition to the will of the island?

I wonder how Sawyer, Juliet and Kate are going to get off the sub next week while it continues to evacuate the women and children.

Next week:
Jack's off his meds! And he's got a really, really big bomb!

Lost 5x14: The Variable

A title like "The Variable" suggests a relationship to "The Constant," Lost's classic season four episode which elaborated on the nature of time travel on Lost, concluding with the emotionally stunning long-distance reunion of Desmond and Penny. This episode shares themes with that one, but, Daniel's crushing, fatalistic death aside, it lacks the emotional punch of "The Constant." This is most likely due to its placement in the season as a whole: while "The Constant" aired early in season four, as the mystery of the freighter and its intentions was still unfolding, this episode falls near the end of this season. Thus it must spend time servicing the plot as it ramps up for the conclusion, shattering, once and for all, Sawyer and company's idyllic Dharma existence while counting down to the ominous Incident that threatens all life on the island. Which isn't to say there wasn't plenty to like about "The Variable"; just that it wasn't the stark counterpoint to "The Constant", structurally or emotionally, that it was touted to be.

Daniel's new found belief to the contrary, it still seems that whatever happened, happened. By trying to change the future, Daniel brought himself to the place he was always destined to end up: dead at his mother's hand. What are the chances that his spiel to Jack about preventing the Incident and keeping their plane from crashing will lead to Jack performing the very actions that cause the Incident in the first place? Perhaps this was Daniel's intention from the start: to con Jack with a spiel about free will and changing the future in order to ensure he performs his written role in upcoming events.

Despite his apparent death, Daniel's story doesn't seem to be quite over. There's still the question of why he was so moved by the discovery of Flight 815. It's been theorized that at some point in his experiments he consciousness-traveled to a time in which he learned the fates of those individuals, then forgot the details but remembered the emotion when he saw the news footage, but some confirmation of that theory or an alternative explanation is in order. His time in Ann Arbor in the seventies is also cause for question: if is stance on free will vs. fate as changed, what happened there that leads him to believe that "variables" could account for changing the timeline? What led him to make the connection between Ellie, a gun-toting woman vaguely familiar to him in 1954, and his mother? Finally, there is the matter of his journal: where did that info come from, particularly the specifics of events in the seventies: he knew when Chang was going to arrive at the Orchid, and he knew, after consulting his journal, that Chang was Miles' father. Is that information a time loop, in which Eloise retrieves his journal after his death in 1977, then feeds that info to him as he gets older, so that he has it when he arrives in the 70s so Eloise can get it? Or did he get that info while testing his time travel experiments on himself? Either way, it seems that, like many characters on Lost, Daniel's story won't end with his death.


Favorite Bits:
Daniel's direct and straightforward answer to Dr. Chang about how Daniel knows what's going to happen. Simply telling Dr. Chang the truth, that he's from the future, is, perhaps, the most directly-answered question on Lost, ever.


Ms. Hawking's reaction to Penny believing Ben was her son.

Tidbits of Note:
Theresa, the woman Daniel's with at graduation, is the woman Desmond visited in "Jughead."


4 hours 'til the Incident.

The code to the sonic fence, if I remember it correctly, was 14171. Make of that what you will.

Sawyer's nicknames are back; I particularly enjoyed "HG Wells."

When a decision needs to be made, Sawyer asks the group to vote; Jack usually just told everyone what to do.

I think Daniel changed jumpsuits at some point: when he arrived on the sub, he was wearing the black Swan jumpsuit, but when he went out to the jungle with Jack and Kate, he was wearing a gray jumpsuit with a generic Dharma logo on it.

While visiting Daniel, Widmore picked up an issue of Wired. JJ Abrams is the guest editor of this month's issue.

Widmore admitted to faking the Flight 815 wreckage. Unless he was lying. But I don't really see why he would have, at that point.


Now we know why, despite his apparent memory problems off the island, Daniel seemed so with it on the island: it was healing him. It also explains the memory card game he was playing with Charlotte last season: he was testing to see how healed he was.

Young Charlotte tells Daniel that she's not allowed to have chocolate before dinner, which were adult Charlotte's last words to Daniel before she died.


Anyone else get worried when Penny left little Charlie in the care of some random nurse? If I were her, after everything that's happened, I wouldn't let the little goober out of my sight.

So Daniel is Widmore's son, making his constant his brother-in-law. Some theorized that relationship after "Jughead" earlier in the season, but with no real evidence since then, that revelation was fairly surprising.

Questions:
What was it exactly about learning that Jack, Kate and Hurley had come back in time that spurred Daniel into action? Why does he think his mother lied about it being Jack's destiny to go back to the island?


For that matter, we still don't know WHY Eloise wanted the Oceanic Six to go back, or why it would be so catastrophic if they didn't. Was she merely trying to make sure things happened the way they were supposed to, as she'd spent her life doing to her son? Why does she so fervently believe in the "what happened, happened" doctrine, to the extent that she knowingly sends her son to his death at her hands? Who else is ready for an Eloise Hawking flashback?

Daniel's intentions seem conflicted: he tells Miles he's just trying to make sure Chang does what he's supposed to do, yet at the same time, he's trying to change things. Is Chang just a fail safe, in case he's wrong? Does he need Chang to evacuate everyone because Dan's planning on blowing up an H-bomb? What DOES Chang do, that he's supposed to do? Evacuate the island? Is that why young Charlotte and Miles leave?

Why did Radzinsky and his good squad arrive at the motor pool when they did? Weren't they supposed to be working at the Swan? They said they were coming from Chang's house-what brought them there?

Shouldn't Sawyer and Juliet (as well as most of the compound) hear the explosion Jack caused?

Why does Ms. Hawking no longer know what's going to happen? Is it because her knowledge of the future came from Daniel's journal, so she only knows what he knew up to his death?

Did Richard recognize Daniel when he walked into camp, having met and interacted with him 20 years earlier?

In addition to all the Daniel-related questions above, there is also the matter of last summer's comic-con video, in which Dr. Chang, clearly aware of time travel and certain future events, films a video warning people about the Purge. The voice of the cameraman sounds an awful lot like Daniel, and one point, Chang says something to LaFleur off camera. Baby Miles is also referenced, and heard crying. So when did Daniel film that video? Did it happen off screen during this episode? Did Chang somehow come to believe Daniel? Or does Daniel survive being shot by his mother, and go back to Dharma to make the video? Or was the video on the whole more promo than canon, unlike the previous comic-con Orchid video, which synched up nicely with the events of last season's finale?

Is Daniel truly dead? Did he really believe that "variables" could change the future, or was he still trying to keep history on track from the beginning?

Next week:
"Follow the Leader" has Jack presumably trying to pick up where Daniel left off while we check in with Locke and the rest of 2007. Oh, and Sayid is back!

Lost 5x13: Some Like it Hoth

Any episode following the theologically and mythologically heavy "Dead Is Dead" was likely to suffer a bit of a let down, but "Some Like It Hot" managed to keep up the pace while striking a more lighthearted tone.

Miles was due a flashback episode since the writer's strike cut his introductory season short. Like many reveals of late, the fact that he was born on the island and that Dr. Chang is his father are, after months of fan speculation, less revelations and more confirmations. It was nice to have his "talk to dead people" ability explicitly confirmed, if not explained, along with some details as to how it works and what its limitations are. The scene with his momentary abduction by one of Ilana's Hydra Island cohorts was, perhaps, the most suggestive scene in the episode. Ilana and her crew, it would seem, either work for Ben (as they're similarly anti-Widmore) or represent a heretofore unknown third faction in the war for the island. Perhaps a reborn Dharma Initiative (as suggested by last summer's ARG's recruitment drive)?

On the island, Hurley continued to be a great foil for snarky Miles, just as he was for the now-reformed Sawyer (though the Star Wars fan in me is compelled to point out that Hurley's conclusions regarding Empire were a bit off, though I'll give him a pass since he was trying to make a point to Miles). Hurley definitely doesn't seem to be buying what Miles is selling regarding the "whatever happened, happened" approach to time travel, as he suggested carpooling to help stop global warming and seems determined to write an improved Empire Strikes Back script. After his visit to the under-construction Swan station, might Hurley get some other ideas about things he wants to try changing? If so, it'll be interesting to see how his attempts to make those changes cause things to happen the way they did.

Meanwhile, the threads of the Losties Dharma existence are slowly unraveling. Miles couldn't erase the tape, Kate stupidly attempted to comfort Roger, Jack vouched for her, linking them together, and Sawyer, of course, knocked out Phil. One has to wonder, with that punch, if Sawyer gave up on preserving their story and has settled on damage control, on delaying the inevitable as long as possible. Because short of killing Phil and covering it up, it's hard to see how Sawyer will get out of this with their cover intact.


Favorite Bits:
Hurley telling Miles how he can talk to, and play chess with, dead people too.

Hurley's visit to the under-construction Swan, and his realization of what it was.


Tidbits of Note:
The microwave in the apartment Mrs. Chang was checking out in the beginning read "3:16."

Young Miles found the dead guy in apartment 4

More bunnies: the key to that apartment was hidden in a bunny.

Miles was reading a Sports Illustrated with a cover story about Tommy Lasorda joining the Dodgers.


Sawyer needed Miles to erase the tape from camera 4

The Swan is presumably being secretly built on Hostile territory.

The chalkboard Jack was erasing had some Egyptian stuff on it.


Miles' "audition" seems to suggest that Tom got the paperwork regarding the faked 815 (that he showed Michael in "Meet Kevin Johnson") via the death of an operative of Widmore's named Felix.

Now we know why Miles asked Ben for exactly 3.2 million back in "Eggtown": its double what Widmore was paying him. Now we have to wonder about the significance of 1.6 million: that amount also seems awfully specific. 1.6, of course, if one of the numbers. 3.2 is one of the numbers, backwards.

The person who accosted Miles in the van was Bram. He was seen with Ilana, carrying a gun, when she knocked out Frank in "Dead is Dead," and asked Miles the same question in the van that Ilana posed to Frank.


Miles' island birth explains why he started having nosebleeds after Charlotte but before everyone else when the island was skipping through time.

Baby Miles and Daniel's return suggests that the Dharma events of the season premiere are fast approaching.

Questions:
How and why did Dr. Chang part ways with his wife and infant Miles?

What happened to the body brought to Chang after he examined? And why did that examination lead to him needing to see Radzinsky at the Swan?

Why is the Valenzetti Equation (Hurley's numbers) being used as the serial number for the hatch door?

For whom are Ilana and Bram working? Ben? Another faction? A resurrected, modern day Dharma Initiative?

Juliet said in "Whatever Happened, Happened" that the sub wasn't due back for a few months. Is it safe to assume the general Dharma population isn't aware of the scientist delivery, of which Daniel was a part?

So what has Daniel been up to in the three years since last we saw him? When did he leave the island?

Still curious where Sayid is at.

Next Week:
No new episode tonight; instead, another Lost clip show...sorry, "special." A week after that, Lost's 100th, Faraday-centric, episode.