LOST Revisited, Season 5, Episode 6: “316” (Feb 19)
And then, we cut to “46 hours earlier”. First, we can make that with Hurley’s numbers (4+42). Also, that’s one less than 47, the number that appears in all of JJ Abrams’ work. By the way, his Alias frequently started episodes like this ,with a sudden cut to the past to start explaining the predicament. In the past, White Oracle leads the assembled Lostaways underground, to a room with a Dharma logo, this one showcasing a lamp post. Both Mrs. Don and I made the same connection to the lamp post that people see when entering Narnia. As has come up before, Narnia is a mysterious land that can’t be accessed through conventional means, which Lost loves. (It’s also been referenced through the character of Charlotte Staples (C.S.) Lewis.) It leads to the crazy room from the season premiere.
White Oracle uses this as her cue to give the Lostaways and viewers an information dump. Man, if she’d been on the show from the beginning, everything would have been answered in three episodes. Dharma built this room to find the Island, using an equation that predicts where it’s going to be. That’s right, the Island moves through space as well as time. Well, that explains why it’s so hard to find. And clearly it has a fairly wide radius, since Jin got caught in the movement from out on the freighter. That explains why Michael’s raft was able to get back to the Island – it moved with it.
The room is built on a pocket of electromagnetic energy, which connects it to the Island, and other electromagnetic hot zones. Presumably, that Antarctic monitoring station at the end of Season Two was another one of them. Now, this answers a lot of questions, but raises several more. How often does the Island move? How far? Anyway, now that it’s moving though time as well as space, it’s harder than ever to access.
Desmond doesn’t care for this one bit. He’s really not into the idea of going back, and he’s still a little bitter with White Oracle for messing with his life. She tells Desmond that the Island isn’t done with him yet, which are exactly the words that Zeke used with Michael last season.
Ajira Airways has a flight from LA to Guam, and you may remember seeing water bottles from Ajira aboard the outrigger a couple of episodes back. They have to recreate the circumstances of the original flight as much as possible. Then poor Jack gets another task. White Oracle takes him aside to give him Locke’s suicide note, which is deeply upsetting to me. As White Oracle explains, Locke’s body has to stand in for Christian’s, so he’ll need something that belonged to Jack’s dad. I have to reference the Pre-Game again, because one of the things that came up was the idea that Locke may become the new Jacob. If Christian is Jacob now, and Locke’s standing in for him…
Back in the church, we’re reminded that Benry is a religious man. Remember the old days when it seemed like the Others were just a religious cult? I really like his story about Thomas the Apostle, and how he’s know for his moment of doubt rather than his courage. “We’re all convinced, sooner or later” is a great line, by the way. (Coincidence that White Oracle repeated Tom the Other’s words shortly before a discussion of Thomas the Apostle? I don’t know anymore.) Benry heads off to tie up a loose end, which has me very worried for Penny.
Jack’s at a bar, which certainly helps him recreate the circumstances of Flight 815. He gets a call that takes him to a nursing home. Of course, there’s a rabbit in the magic show. Lost is full of bunnies! Anyway, Jack’s Grandpa Ray apparently has a habit of trying to sneak away. Grandpa Ray, by the way, also played Dewey Cox’s father in Walk Hard. He’s got a pair of Christian’s shoes, and I think we all know where that’s going.
At night, Kate gets into Jack’s house, and she seems pretty liquored up to me. Aaron’s gone, and she refuses to say where he is or what she did with him. Seriously, what could Kate even have done with him? Unless she gave him to her mother, she doesn’t have any other support network. Nonetheless, they still get to the loving. In the morning, Jack’s bursting with afterglow, and Kate seems a little, I don’t know, cold? Jack doesn’t tell the truth about the shoes, but he does mention that Christian was put in the coffin wearing tennis shows. I can’t come up with the reference right now, but I am 99% certain that we saw Christian in tennis shoes at some point on the Island. And then Kate asks the big question about the shows, “Why hold onto something that makes you feel sad?” The way Jack looks at her makes it clear that he’s asking that same question right now, only Kate is the thing that makes him sad.
Man, Benry looks like he took a serious beating. What’s weird is that he seems more natural that way. He spent 2 ½ seasons with bruises and open wounds, and I hardly recognize him without them. He sends Jack to the butcher shop to get Locke’s body. Once there, Jack swaps out the shoes and puts Locke’s note in the coffin. Huh. Somebody’s feeling a bit guilty, I think.
At the Ajira Airways counter, Jack’s checking in with the body. He uses the “Jeremy Bentham” name, which means Locke must have been using some pretty good ID. It’s pretty funny that the clerk seems legitimately curious about why Jack is bringing a body to Guam, and Jack is trying to make his answers as boring as possible. Poor clerk never gets any excitement. I assume the man who offers Jack his condolences will be important, because he’s on the plane later.
Jack looks over to see Sayid in handcuffs being transported by a Federal agent. So, Sayid is Kate’s proxy! The agent, by the way, is Zuleikha Robinson, who I will always remember as Yves Adele Harlow on The Lone Gunmen. On that show, she used a variety of aliases, all of which were an anagram of “Lee Harvey Oswald”. So yeah, she’ll fit in just fine here.
Hurley’s waiting, too. He’s reading a Spanish comic book like on the original flight. This one is Y: The Last Man. That series was written by Lost writer Brian K. Vaughan, by the way. Hurley bought 78 seats, so as to keep people off of the doomed flight. (I tried and tried, but I can’t make ‘78’ out of Hurley’s numbers.) You have to love Hurley. But really, what the heck is in the guitar case? Actually, it looks more like a cello case. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong on that. One of my viewing group suggested that he filled it with snacks, and I can totally picture that. If that’s the case, that’s pretty funny.
So we’ve got Jack, Kate, Sun, Hurley, Sayid, and Benry on the plane. That’s pretty good in terms of assembling everybody. (But what about Walt? Although I guess he doesn’t live in LA anymore and they didn’t have time to get him.) The flight attendant gives Jack the note back. Man, that is one suicide note that demands to be read! Benry is unconcerned about all the poor saps in the rear. Boy, everybody is just a pawn to him, aren’t they? Jack and Kate are really awkward, and then we get a really great surprise. The pilot is none other than Frank! On the one hand, I’m glad he landed on his feet. On the other, well, he can’t be happy about seeing who’s on the plane. “We’re not going to Guam, are we?”
Later in the flight, Benry is reading James Joyce’s Ulysses, and since it’s one of the most complicated books ever, I’m not going to be able to find the parallels to Lost at 1 in the morning. I’m sure that they are there, and will work on it soon. Also, Benry makes a joke about his mother teaching him to read, which is great. Remember how Benry’s mother died in childbirth? That’s just an awesomely casual lie on his part, to talk about his mother. Benry finally persuades Jack to read Locke’s note, and if this doesn’t break your heart, you’re dead inside.
“Jack—
I wish you had believed me.”
Wow. That’s a man who has lost hope. I think Locke really viewed suicide as a last resort to get everybody back together – not as a temporary thing that the Island would fix for him. It looks like we’ll find out more next week, but I don’t believe this was a small thing for Locke. He chose to die in the hopes that it would save the Island. And as everybody figured out by now, the first part of the note is what Jack is holding at the beginning of the episode.
And then, the sky goes white and we catch up with the opening scene. This time, it goes farther and they discuss the crash. Or rather, the lack of a crash. Nobody remembers a crash, and there’s no wreckage to be found. Were they pulled out of the plane when the Island jumped through time? And if so, who was pulled?
This mystery pales next to the final big reveal, though. The old Dharma van, clean and new, pulls up and a man with a gun steps out. It’s Jin! In a Dharma uniform! How did that happen?
OK, if the van is new, that could put this in the late 70’s, so it matches up with Faraday’s appearance in Dr. Marvin Candle’s scene at the beginning of the season. But with the time jumps getting more and more frequent, I can’t figure out how they remained in a time period long enough to get jobs. Man, I can’t wait for next week. Is it next week now?
Again, I don’t like to get into the previews, but it looks like next week is all Locke, all the time. One scene shows him talking to the woman escorting Sayid and talking about how he remembers dying. Does this mean Locke is alive again once they’re back to the Island? I am holding on to that glimmer of hope to get me through the next seven days – how about you?
