Follow along! The episode guide for “Cabin Fever” is in Finding Lost — Season 4, pp. 141-154.Awesome Locke flashback, and it also contains many of the seeds for S5, bringing in Richard Alpert as a far more significant character, and tying together a storyline that will come later.
Fun things I noticed:
• When Emily leans down to put on the record at the very beginning, you can see her stomach. That girl is NOT 6 months pregnant. But then again, if they can pass off that Kate was 6 months pregnant when the plane crashed, I guess this could pass, too, in the fantasy pregnancy world of Lost. ;) In this wonderful world women don’t look pregnant until their 8th month, and two hours after the baby is born they’re skipping through the sand wearing skinny pants. Ah, bliss.
• I LOVE the scene where everyone is arguing about who is following whom (and Hurley’s, “Oh this is AWESOME” retort) but when they separate from Sawyer’s group, Ben specifically said, “Follow me.” So I have to go with Hurley and Locke on this one.
• Horace has the same hair from “Man Behind the Curtain” and not that longer, bigger version he has in S5. I wonder why they went so huge in the later season?
• Did anyone else watch Journeyman and become as upset as I did when they cancelled it? Young John played Dan’s son on the show.
• “Destiny, John, is a fickle BITCH” is still one of my all-time fave taglines for the show.
• Ben and Hurley sharing the AstroBar is still an awesome, awesome scene. It made me remember Annie handing Ben the Astro Bar and I wonder now if he sits on that log and takes a bite and it reminds him of his childhood and everything he’s lost?
Things that have new meaning:
• Ben says, “I used to have dreams.” Could they have stopped after he was taken to the Temple?
• When would Horace and “the Missus” (who we would now presume is Amy, and not Olivia as previously thought) have had time to head out to the cabin? Here he comes off as more of an underling, but in season 5 he’s running the whole show.
• Richard Alpert looking at baby Locke in the incubator and smiling makes SO much more sense now that we know Locke told him in 1954 to seek him out in 1956. I LOVE continuity like this!!
• RA says to young John, “What belongs to you already.” Since he’s already seen John walking around in 1954, that question makes more sense. He saw him with the compass, he mentioned the beach, and he had a knife in his pants, so one would presume that young John chose correctly. However, he also mentioned Jacob, so I’m thinking the Book of Laws would be something that would belong to Jacobites (and remember Eko telling John that the Old Testament is the Book of Law, and handing it to him? Technically that already belongs to him). But the knife still seems like the right choice to me. This is one thing I DO expect to have explained in S6.
• So… who WAS in charge when they wiped out the DI? Ben says it wasn’t him. Eloise and Widmore would have already left the island at that point (it would have been in 1992). Was Alpert in charge temporarily until he could find a real leader?
• Abaddon says he experienced a miracle. What was it?
• Abaddon tells John that when they run into each other next, John will owe him one. They run into each other next when Abaddon is ferrying John around. What does John owe him, and does Abaddon ever ask for the repayment? Now I sort of wish we’d seen Abaddon saying, “You owe me one.”
• If Christian is a manifestation of the Man in Black, that moment of John Locke saying he’s here because he was chosen and the MiB smiling seems even more sinister, like he’s patting the head of a silly toddler and saying, “Oh… you are… RIGHT. YES. Carrots ARE candy. You go right ahead and eat those candy carrots. (snicker)” It’s almost as if the MiB needs to inhabit the body of a true disciple, and they discover JL really is that disciple here.
**Just a quick note that next week is the end of Season 4, so make sure you've got your copies of season 5 of Finding Lost before we begin the Season 5 rewatch (and get your S5 copies on DVD!) ;)
30 comments:
Nikki, we already knew that you had a way with words, but in reading your chapter on “Cabin Fever”, a couple of your eloquent phrases had me laughing out loud. Regarding Emily Locke: "...his birth mother had the maternal instinct of a popsicle stick..." Regarding Dr. Ray: "...had the bedside manner of a poisonous toad.” I could not have said it any better myself!
And regarding Hurley sharing the chocolate bar with Ben (you called it an Astro Bar, but I’m pretty sure it was an Apollo Bar): I never considered how that might bring a wave of nostalgia crashing over Ben. And I thought, “Poor Ben.” Isn’t it sort of amazing how sympathetic we all feel towards Ben? On the other hand, his life has been pretty tragic, and the writers have presented enough of his backstory so that the audience can really feel some sympathy for the character. Great writing!
I have a couple other observations about Miss Emily. Because it was 1956, once it became known that she’d gotten pregnant outside of marriage, there would’ve been a scandal, whatever good reputation she had would’ve been shredded, and she would’ve been labeled a “bad girl”. Standards are hugely different now, and teenage, unwed pregnancy hardly even merits a comment anymore. (Even though it still ruins young people’s lives.) But in my book, Emily was indeed a bad girl because of the way she disrespected her mother and so lightly said, “You can’t stop me.” I’m on the verge of a rant here, so I’d better just stop.
Keamy sure is MEAN! I can’t be sure, but my theory is that he was probably potty trained at gunpoint. Keamy sure is TALL! I never noticed before, but Sayid was looking way up when Keamy was in his face demanding to know how many people were on the Island, and later I saw that Captain Gault was looking way up too!
This episode repeatedly buried the needle on the Freaky Weird-O-Meter. I’m just sayin’.
Even though the flashbacks were all about Locke, the episode belonged to Ben. He got to say so much non-verbally with those awesome, knowing looks of his. (And, of course, the famous “fickle bitch” line.)
And we learned that Locke already knew how to say, “Don’t tell me what I can’t do” in high school. Earlier, I sort of got the idea that the nurse who introduced Locke to his hated wheelchair might have been the person who taught Locke this mantra. Now I’m wondering if this was baby Locke’s first complete sentence. “No-no, Johnny. Mustn’t touch.” “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!"
@ Marebabe: Keamy sure is MEAN! I can’t be sure, but my theory is that he was probably potty trained at gunpoint.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! His mom held a gun to his father's head, and said that she'd kill him if Keamy didn't potty. When l'il Martin refused, his mom said, "Tell your daddy goodbye," and shot him. LOL
The argument at the beginning between Locke, Hurley, and Ben was astronomically funny. And I've always found Claire really hot, but in the scene where she's lounging in the cabin, she looks twice as good! I don't know what it is (maybe I have a thing for ghosts) :P
Yesterday my friend & I took a joke way too far and it became a new Lost theory.
I said that I think Richard Alpert & Matthew Abbadon are cut from the same cloth (i.e., Matthew is a magic immortal, too), and my friend also added Mikhail Bakunin to that mix, since it took so many tries to kill him.
So we "hypothesized" that the 3 of them were once seafaring pirates (hence, eye patch), and it was their ship that Jacob saw. I can totally see Abbadon, Mikhail, & RA being pirates (after all, if Johnny Depp has taught us anything, it's that pirates look good in eyeliner).
MIKHAIL: Yaaar, thar be an island of the starboard bow, says I!
RICHARD: To the boats, me hearties! Yo ho!
@Question Mark: Allow me to congratulate you on a wickedly awesome Lost theory! Works for me. (Tell the truth, you celebrate "Talk Like a Pirate Day" every year, don't you?)
@Nikki: Who was in charge when the Purge took place. I said in an earlier post it would be Widmore. We see Widmore leave using the Pala dock. He would not have had access to it if the DI were intact. So they had to be defunct (Purged) by that point. So Widmore would have left after the Purge. Does that work?
@Nikki: Abaddon says he experienced a miracle. What was it?
I think what Abaddon experienced was free will. Ben says somewhere in this episode that he was sorry to have lost Alex and to have gotten cancer. But that was his destiny, and he followed it. BUt Abaddon says he began his walkabout convinced he was one thing, and he "came back another." There are 2 ways to read this. One is as a pun on "an other", as if this was his initiation into the Others. Or alternativley, he came back a different person, echoing the previous episode reading of Alice in Wonderland: "If I am not the smae, then who am I?" John says to Abaddon: "I'm a cripple." as a protest, the hand of destiny that can't change things. But Abaddon replies: "Is that what you are, Mr. Locke?" As if to say, tyou can be more than what you are destined, if you open your mind. But what does Locke do on the island, he finds his destiny. In other words, he fails. To bad he didn't get a chance to go on the walkabout. Maybe he'd really have been different.
@Nikki via Fred-plus Alex definitely looks older than just 3 or 4, so Whidmore had to have left after '92.
Nikki you talked about the scene with the Apollo Bar. This is one of my favorite scenes. Hurley is so nice, I don't think anyone else would have shared with big, bad, Ben!
Love the scene with Horace too! The last thing he says is, "Godspeed, John". Is'nt his last name Goodspeed?-ha! He helps John to find Jacob, but is he? Or is he really helping him to find "Flock"?
"We're gonna make a pit stop"
Punny, John!
Little blonde haired John is a cutie!
The look on Ben's face when he realizes it's Horace John is looking for, it's like he's saying, "Whhaaat?" in his head!
Thru this whole season, with Sayid and Des on the freighter, I keep wondering, why do they think it will be safer on the freighter? That place is scary! And wont Keemy notice if a bunch of castaways are suddenly on board? I think I'd rather stay on the island, on the beach, in the warm sun, soaking up the rays and swimming all day! I do like that the captain turns out to be a stand-up guy. Is his Aussie accent real?
Teenage Locke likes 'boxing"-ha! You'll be 'boxing' every day for a living some day!
word verif-womine-woman wolverine?
It's very interesting that Horace says, "You gotta find me, and when you do you'll find him (meaning Jacob)"
Could it be that Horace is speaking as Jacob's nemesis by which he means find HIM and in turn they'll find Jacob together.
This is another episode that is so much fun to watch knowing what we know after season five. Alpert's visits to young Locke are wonderful to watch knowing what we know from season five.
Little John Locke -- so cute! He had such a sad look on his face when Richard put all the items back in his bag and walked away.
Nikki: I have always liked the Apollo Bar scene with Hurley and Ben -- I love the look on both their faces! Like you however, watching it this time I thought about Annie giving young Ben the candy bar and I felt really sad.
Also, via Fred and Crazyinlost: in "Dead Is Dead" The Others are definately living in the barricks when Whitmore is forced from the island, we see Ben pushing Alex on the creepy DI swingset in the DI playground -- it is definately post purge. So Whitmore would have been in charge when the purge happened. It is possible that it was Whitmore's idea all along and Ben was just their inside man.
Nikki: You are so right about the lost fantasy pregnancy world (not to mention the fantasy baby world); However, it is not unheard of for a young pregnant girl to hide her pregnancy from her friends and family for not just six months but the entire pregnancy -- that dress Emily was wearing though is definately not the right kind of outfit to hide a pregnancy.
@Question Mark: I've never laughed so hard as when I read your discription of Keamy's potty training.
"Tell your daddy goodbye." Bang! HaHaHaHaHaHa
Locke: "What? What do you mean, you've been following him?"
Hurley: "I'm not even in front."
ROFL
crazyinlost you're right about the captain being a good guy but they never explain the note warning Sayid and Des about him. A casualty of the writer's strike most likely.
@Nikki: "If Christian is a manifestation of the Man in Black, that moment of John Locke saying he’s here because he was chosen and the MiB smiling seems even more sinister."
How right. And I thought how clever of Ben to wait outside. Just after Ben tells John, that he got Hurley to join them like it was his idea, Ben pulls the same trick on John. Ben had no intention of going into the cabin. I think he knew what was going to be inside. And he did not want to meet the Man in Black. This way Ben could continue to manipulate John, while letting John believe he was acting according to the will of the island or Jacob.
You can almost tell how John was manipulated. Christian asks him you need only ask one question. And it is John who asks it, "How do I save the island." The perfect con. John really thinks he is saving the island, all the while he is being led into the Man in Black's loophole that will lead to his death. (Perhaps Jacob is really using John guillible nature to his own advantage to really save the island).
Keamey says he will torch the island once he gets Ben. I am beginning to think maybe he didn't mean to use the gas at the Tempest. Perhaps he meant to use Jughead (which at this point we knew nothing about). Of course, Keamey would know about Jughead, if he worked for Widmore, as Widmore would know about it, and probably know where it was located. This seems to make more sense in light of Keamey using the workd, "torch." But what then of the island? Would Jacob really survive such an explosion? Or even the Man in Black? Was it Widmore's desire to rid the island of borth these individuals as well as all the Others? It seems a radical plan for Widmore. Really more like an end-of-days type plan, than anything sensible.
@Nikki 'When Emily leans down to put on the record at the very beginning, you can see her stomach. That girl is NOT 6 months pregnant.'
I am a high school teacher and I had heard of teenagers concealing their pregnancies and never believed it until I witnessed it for myself.Years ago, I taught a 15 year old girl who was complaining about backache one day (she had just been playing netball)- i told her to stop moaning and get on with the lesson. The very next day she gave birth to an almost full term baby! I swear this girl did not look pregnant - although the school uniform consisted of a loose shirt. It's a while since I saw this ep. but wasn't Emily wearing a fifties style belt that cinched in her waist? Anyway, my point is that some girls really don't look pregnant even when they are - I've heard a theory that when they are in denial their body actually doesn't respond in the usual way, but not sure how true this is.
Great episode,I love how we see one of the losties as a teenager for once instead of a young child and the casting is just brilliant in these flashbacks.
On the items Locke picked when Richard came to see him, maybe we've been looking at it the wrong way. Maybe he did pick the right things but Richard didn't want him to, remember only a few years a go a random man walked into his camp and said he was the leader, may be he was hoping all along that he wouldn't turn out to be the leader. As we see later on that despite 'failing' the test thay are still trying to reach out to hiim- science camp and Abaddon's idea of a walkabout.
Talking of the walkabout, I know this isn't really connected but way back in season 1 when Locke was taking on the phone to Helen about going on the walkabout, I've always wondered why that flashback was shown before the ones when Locke was in a relationship with eh real Helen. Iwt would have had so much more impact if we spent the entire episoide thinking he had got back with Helen and then realising it wasn't.
On ben's 'Destiny is a fickle bitch' line, when i first saw this epsisode I wonderted if Ben was actually talking literally and 'destiny' is acatually a person well, a woman, who is somehow an incarnation of the smoke monster or something.I'm not sure though anymore about that theory,as we have the Man in black.
@The Question Mark.....
Have you watched the extras on S5 box set yet....the one " A day in the life of Richard Alpert " ?...cos he wears eyelash concealer !!!!!..his eyelashes are so god damn black they ahve to try and make they look lighter !!!!...bloody weird if you ask me ;-)
I can't wait for school to be over so I can catch back up with you
When would Horace and “the Missus” (who we would now presume is Amy, and not Olivia as previously thought) have had time to head out to the cabin? Here he comes off as more of an underling, but in season 5 he’s running the whole show.
Clearly you've never worked in a scientific organization. The bosses are the only ones who actually can take vacations. :)
Gosh, I love Lapidus. He's really a good guy, though unfortunately not to the extent that he'd crash the helicopter in the ocean, thus sacrificing himself, rather than take Keamy & Co back to the island to kill everyone. (Nice of him to drop that sat phone for the Losties, though.)
I was thinking of Widmore claiming Ben killed Alex himself. Did the island somehow manipulate her death in revenge for something Ben did, and they both know it?
This is a great episode – great story line, great acting.
“I’m sorry those things happened to you” line from the guidance counselor is almost exactly the same thing Jacob said to John when Cooper pushed him out the window.
Mallowmars. HA. I love all of Hurley’s lines in this episode. Love your “character sketches” too, Nikki.
My absolute favorite line – Destiny, John, is a fickle bitch. I still think that may be the series finale title. Or at least an episode title. I may get a t-shirt made. Ben’s total feeling of defeat continues well into S5, and even though he does quite a bit on the outside world to move things along, he feels ultimately defeated when JL seems to rise from the dead. This guy just won’t die! But I am getting ahead of myself. I cannot wait to get S5 DVD’s, hopefully next week. I already have my S5 Finding Lost!
I remember the first time we heard “move the island”. I was like?!?!?!? Talk about game changing!
You'll be 'boxing' every day for a living some day!
*rimshot* Ha! I love it.
Yeah, I'm really starting to like the "Wimdore ordered the Purge" theory. And of course, regardless of who ordered it, I remain curious as to what triggered it after years of (relatively) peaceful coexistence.
@studiorose-I remembered something from "Dead is Dead" and so I went back to check it out. Widmore wanted 'the baby' killed from the get go. When Widmore is leaving the island, Ben tells Chuckie, "you're the one that wanted her (Alex) dead, not the island", where Chuckie responds, "I hope you're right, Benjamin, because if you're not, and it's the island that wants her dead, she'll be dead." I'm not sure where I'm going with this. Maybe Widmore used this moment as an excuse to have Alex killed, or maybe, for some unknown reason that makes no sense to us, the island really DID want Alex dead, to be used later on to manipulate Ben. Just food for thought.
This was another mind-blowing episode for me! WTF is Richard doing at John's birth? And Jacob wants them to do what to the island?!
@crazy - 'We're gonna make a pit stop'. HA!!! Nice catch!
@marebabe & questionmark - Loved your Keamy potty training theories!! But Keamy is so well-played - I love the way the actor talks thru his teeth, makes him seem much more a heartless s.o.b! I could see him giving puppies swimming lessons just for fun.
Guess we've all heard stories about teenagers giving birth in the school bathroom then dumping the babies when no one knew they were even pregnant. So as AliBags sez it can happen, but they could have made Emily just a tad bit less skinny looking!!
It's funny how John's foster mom let some strange man in the house just because he claimed to represent a special school. She must have been pretty desperate to get rid of Johnny. Can you imagine that happening nowadays? Why did Richard have to be so mean to John? Made me sad.
@QuestionMark: HAHAHAHA! I love the Pirate theory. (total aside, I have my Facebook account set to Pirate and it makes me giggle every time I log on.)
Is it just me, or does that nurse at the hospital look familiar? (She's probably in something, but I'm too lazy right now to go look it up)
Why does Keamy aske Sayid where everybody is? Sayid's been on the boat, so he wouldn't know.
I always feel so bad for little John, because he knows he messed up, but doesn't know how or why :( and that smoke monster drawing is just CREEPY!!!!!
I liked the captain. Have always wondered why they built up the dun dun dun beware.... thing. I guess it was just a minor Bentham.
I wonder what would have happened to Locke if he had gone to the "science camp" when he was a teenager. Would he have ended up as leader of the Others instead of Ben? Would he have ended up on the side of Jacob instead of impersonated by the MiB? Was Richard trying to prevent that from happening?
Ben and John really sound an awful lot alike.
CAN Christian speak on Jacob's behalf?!?!
Creepy Claire! Creepy Claire!
"He wants us to move the Island." Say WHAT?! Gotta love Lost
I think the thing that had me intrigued the most over the course of this season the first time I watched it, was trying to figure out how the O6 all got back together and off the Island. I mean, right now Kate, Jack and Sun are on the beach, Aaron's off in the jungle with Sawyer, Sayid was on the freighter, but is now ferrying people off the Island and Hurley's wandering through the jungle with Locke and Ben.
Alpert showing up to ask Locke to choose an item that he already owns closely mirrors the way that the Dalai Lama is selected. The prospective Dalai Lama (typically a child) is shown an array of items. The belief is that, since the Dalai Lama is thought to be reincarnated, the prospective Dalai Lama will know what object to pick because he is really the spirit of the original Dalai Lama.
I wonder if there's a connection? Or if the correlation between the two event means anything about Locke, or Richard even?
I only did a quick scan of the comments but I agree with Fred and Crazyinlost. Widmore was definitely exiled after the purge, so if he was in charge until he was exiled, he would have been the one who gave the orders for the purge. After all, it doesn't make sense that Richard, Ben and Alex would be living in Dharmaville together until after the purge. And Alex did look about 5 or more.
I think it makes the most sense that John was supposed to pick the compass since that is what Locke gave Richard in 1954 and then told Richard to find him. The compass was the only thing Richard knew for certain was Locke's imo. The other objects may have had some significance to John or the island, but I don't think John was expected to claim them as his personal property.
@Sonshine Music:"I think the thing that had me intrigued the most over the course of this season the first time I watched it, was trying to figure out how the O6 all got back together and off the Island."
That is one of the reasons why the season 4 finale is so awesome. For most of the season we know who gets off the island, but they are so scattered we don't know how it's going to happen. I enjoyed watching how the writers moved everyone to their rightful places by the end of the finale.
Just want to mention that I was reading about the "time loop theory" in Nikki's book (just before the Cabin Fever chapter) and while I wouldn't be surprised if the writers have something different in mind, I hope the final season of Lost is able to pull together as many details as Jason has been able to while providing a grand unifying, satisfying finale to the show.
Just a few things :
Did anybody notice the teddy bear at 0:41 as Emily locke is dancing around to "Everyday" ? It's on the RHS of the frame atop a window seat or a toy box as she dances across the room. Didn't Zack and Emma, of the Tail Section have a similar bear ?
plus :
the poster behind Abbadon + Locke in the rehab centre :
" GET BACK IN THE GAME "
-- Dougie.
A great episode, indeed... I'm so glad that teenage Locke wasn't played by Terry O'Quinn in a really bad wig.
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Verification word: chormur — The murmur in the audience between songs at the school chorus' concert.
"He wants us to move the Island." On one hand this was a huge wow that, as you said in the book, Nikki, propels the rest of the season, but on the other hand it surprised me a bit since I kinda thought that the Island had been constantly shifting through time and space all along. Apparently the time-distortion of the bubble around the Island was enough to keep it hidden in place for anyone who didn't know an exact bearing to keep once in the right spot, although the whole plotting-pendulum apparatus at the Lamp Post station sorta confused me since it seemed to reinforce my earlier beliefs. To echo another great line from the show, "We're gonna have to watch that again."
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Verification word: aphyla — items belonging to no particular taxonomic category (This might be an actual word!)
@Blam-"... I'm so glad that teenage Locke wasn't played by Terry O'Quinn in a really bad wig."
LOL! Everytime I think of that I cant stop from chuckling. That's quite the visual image. hahahah
word verif-boonving-what Boon has 2 of now that he's dead!
Horace has the same hair from “Man Behind the Curtain” and not that longer, bigger version he has in S5. I wonder why they went so huge in the later season?
Probably because Horace in S5 was 15 years younger than he was at the time of his death.
When Ben pointed out how Locke manipulated Hurley, the latter replied that he was not like Ben. Actually . . . Locke and Ben were a lot similar than Locke would have liked to belief. And like Ben, he was capable of murder. And both ended up getting manipulated by the likes of the MIB.
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