Now that’s how they celebrate Valentine’s Day on Lost Island! Lovers shooting each other, betrayal, and creepy dudes lusting over dead girls.
Actually, if Jack’s “one hundred days” statement is correct, this episode takes place on New Year’s Day, 2005. Remember back when we were young?
Hey, Sayid’s one of the Oceanic Six! I almost said “good for him”, but I don’t think I mean that. When you can say that a professional torturer’s life has taken a dark turn, you know it’s gotten ugly out there.
So, they ran the enhanced version of last week’s episode, with pop-up facts. They confirmed that the thus far unseen Minkowski is named after Hermann Minkowski, the German scientist who came up with the concept of spacetime. I wonder if that will prove to be pertinent tonight. Like, say, in 31 minutes…
All right, our first piece of information is Naomi’s bracelet, engraved with “N, I’ll always be with you. R.G.” If you’re like me, you’ve spent several hours desperately trying to think of an R.G. Is it Rosie Grier? That phrasing is a little creepy, too. “I’ll always be with you.” That almost sounds like a threat, you know?
All right, we jump into our flash-forward, where Sayid seems to be doing better than his fellow survivors. That’s a beautiful golf course! Now, the Italian guy who buddies up to him just seems friendly until Sayid drops the “Oceanic Six” bomb. Clearly, he knows that at least one of the Six wants him dead. This post-island life is getting weirder and weirder.
When we meet Elsa, she gives us a lot of information that just seems weird now. Her boss is an economist? Who pretends to be an economist? I’ll admit, I got totally sucked in. I was suspicious of her boss, but I thought Elsa was going to end up an innocent victim, which meant that Sayid had gone to the dark side. The jury’s still out on that, but at least I feel better that she wasn’t innocent.
I’m glad they brought up Naomi’s picture of Desmond and Penny. I thought that had been forgotten from last season, and it does tend to complicate things. I have to say, the Fantastic Foursome are very well-prepared. They clearly knew Desmond’s on the island, and I can’t figure out how anybody could possibly have that information. On this show, it’s a bad sign whenever anybody has a lot of information. It almost always means they’re evil.
Interesting that Locke and Hurley each think the cabin is in a different place. I was willing to accept that Hurley got lost or bilocated, but there’s no way Locke got turned around. That cabin actually moves. Here’s where they suckered me again, because I thought Locke was coming unhinged just a little. I’ve been afraid that he’s been relying on Jacob (or perhaps Tall Walt), but the rest of the episode makes it pretty clear that Locke still knows what he’s doing.
Good strategy on Jack’s part to send Kate along on the hostage negotiation. Sure, Kate’s loyalties tend to shift based on who’s going to pay her the most attention, but Jack’s reasoning was sound. And, in fact, he was remarkably upfront with her about it. I sort of feel like Jack’s not trying to compete with Sawyer anymore – he knows that, ultimately, Sawyer is going to be Kate’s choice. He’s sort of defeated, but he’s rolling with it. Poor Jack.
Have I mentioned how much I like Danny? This show needed a twitchy nerd. A Krumholtz, if you will. Now, I feel like he had some idea of what the results of his little beacon test were going to be. I mean, it’s not like there’s much else you can prove by launching a digital watch out of a bazooka. Benry is their stated objective, but these scientists were chosen for a reason. I’m really interested to see what Miles is up to. A guy who can talk to the dead is going to have a field day on Lost Island. Where do you even begin? Also interesting that Frank doesn’t want Danny talking to Minkowski. Is he protecting Danny, or is he protecting Minkowski? Does he not trust one or the other? These freighter people need to take some trust falls or something.
I totally bought it when they found Hurley tied up in the closet. They actually got me to doubt Locke! I feel so dirty. When Hurley mentions Walt, Sayid has kind of a strong reaction. Remember Shannon telling him that she saw Walt in the jungle? He didn’t believe her then, but now that’s two Walt sightings. You can bet Sayid’s going to be getting to the bottom of this. Now that I think about it, Ghost Walt basically led Shannon to her death, and he was responsible for saving Locke. The island works on a pretty strict pass/fail system, doesn’t it?
Ready to have your mind blown? Lost Island exists 31 minutes in the past. Now, their satellite phones work correctly, so this time paradox doesn’t affect transmissions, but it does affect physical objects. First off, remember Mittelos Bioscience, and its anagram “Lost Time”? Benry knows full well about the time issues! That guy knows everything! Second, in two weeks we’ve definitively established that light, time, and geography don’t work correctly on the island. That’s just too perfect. It’s almost like the island is a living thing, and it has evolved the perfect defense system. Jack and Hurley both refer to the island as such in their flash-forwards. Or else, the island is wholly man-made, and is mankind’s single greatest scientific achievement. Everything about this island is set up to prevent people from getting there.
Is anybody surprised that Benry has a secret passage in his house? Why do you suppose a man who’s never left the island since childhood would have a room full of business clothing, luggage, currency of many lands, and a passport? You know, Benry doesn’t lie often. He withholds information, of course, but most of the things he says are technically true. But when that dude lies, he lies big. Benry’s been skipping out all along, and I’ll bet he has transportation other than the submarine. The Others would notice if their submarine went missing. It should be interesting to go back to the episode where Locke blows up the submarine, knowing (or at least believing) that Benry actually has other transportation.
Nice plan on Locke’s part. I totally bought it, and so did Kate and Sayid. I would think it might be risky to have your plan hinge on Hurley’s ability to fool people, but he pulled it off. There are several nice scenes here. I really liked Kate and Sawyer’s interaction, and Sawyer is right. Kate’s better off on the island. Or at least that’s a logical supposition. She seems better off than the rest of the Oceanic Six, and now I wonder why she’s not in jail. Sure, after what she survived, a jury would probably look a little more kindly on her blowing up her abusive father. But maybe she took somebody else’s name. The world might think she’s Libby, or one of the others who died on the island. I think we’ll find out next week, as the preview show Kate and the paparazzi.
We don’t really see a resolution to the scene with Locke, Sawyer, and Benry. I think maybe Benry let them in on some of his secrets, but we can’t be sure. Locke’s quiet refusal to give him iced tea made me laugh, though. They foreshadow the ending, when Sayid says “The day I start trusting him (Benry) is the day I lose my soul.”
In the flash-forward, we’ve got all kinds of crazy. I was not expecting Elsa to shoot him, I’ll tell you that much. She says, over the phone, that he won’t give up his employer. Once again, these people know that somebody is after them, but they don’t know who. And then, poor Elsa becomes the third woman on this show shot to death after sex.
So, Elsa’s got the same bracelet as Naomi. I’m assuming that her boss is R.G. Now, I can’t think of an R.G. on this show, but at least one ‘R’ springs to mind. Remember Roget the psychic who put Clare on the plane and warned her about her baby? He doesn’t have a last name that we know. Sure, it’s a stretch, but nobody’s a throwaway on this series.
When confronted by Desmond, Frank won’t say whether he knows Penny. Is it possible she knows about the freighter, but not Naomi and the Fantastic Foursome? In her conversation with Charlie, she made it clear that she didn’t know Naomi, but everything else is speculation.
Is anybody surprised that Kate stayed with Sawyer. I’m telling you, her loyalties lie with whoever’s paying attention. It’s interesting that Danny and Charlotte don’t want to leave with Frank – these two really have some scientific study to get to. Why would a scientist leave that island? There’s crazy stuff there! Danny’s insistence that Frank follow the same heading is interesting, and probably warranted. There’s a time vortex! Take the wrong way out, and you could end up in the age of dinosaurs!
And the big reveal at the end: Sayid’s boss is none other than Benry! Benry is assigning him people to kill, and he claims it’s to keep his friends safe. You guys, some very bad stuff is going to happen. I think they messed with his voice before the reveal, because he sounded a little like Christian at first – Benry’s not usually that deep. It appears that these two really are doing bad things for a good purpose, and I can’t wait to see how they got there.
And now, the part of my week that only exists to fill time before the next episode of Lost begins. Anybody want to guess at the remaining two members of the Oceanic Six? In terms of major characters, I have to think they’re Sawyer and Locke. But if those two left the island, something REALLY bad happened. I am made up of equal parts excitement and dread.
