Season 4 Recap

Season 4 was the first full season where the producers knew exactly how many episodes they had left, and knew how they could allow the show to unfold perfectly over 48 more episodes. And, as such, it was a lot tighter than any season before it. The title of the season 4 opener, “The Beginning of the End,” was absolutely perfect, since it really is the beginning of the rest of the series. Season 4 is the one where we see the brilliant episode “The Constant,” that contains in it the notions of consciousness-travelling, and the immense amount of importance Daniel will have in the series. Within that episode were SO many elements integral to the rest of the series: time travel; death by time travel; manipulating the future by doing something in the past; contact with the outside world; and love conquering all. In the equally brilliant “The Shape of Things to Come” we see the other side of the wormhole that will be located at the Frozen Donkey Wheel when Ben flies through it and into Tunisia. We see the war between Widmore and Ben that will only escalate in season 5. In “Cabin Fever,” Richard Alpert steps up as an important figure, and the mega-questions raised in that episode will be illuminated in season 5. The finale left us breathless, with the castaways hanging in the balance, and all of us desperate for season 5 (and having to wait 8 months for it!!)

Just looking at season 4 on its own, however, the big thing that happened was the flashforward. For the first three seasons we could see their lives now as a culmination of what we would later piece together in their flashbacks. Each flashback gave us more understanding of why the characters acted the way they did, and even the most villainous character (yes, I’m lookin’ at you, Ben) could garner sympathy from us just by us seeing what they’d gone through in their early lives. But in season 4, we know what’s going to happen to everyone in the future: Jack’s going to end up with Kate and then go off the rails; Kate’s going to raise Aaron as her son; Hurley will make it off the island but will be constantly visited by the island dead; Sayid will become a hitman working at Ben’s behest; Ben will vow his revenge against Widmore; and Sun will mourn the loss of her husband while returning to Korea to take revenge on her father for how he’s treated her and Jin, and will give birth to a baby that she will raise in Jin’s memory.

What an amazing story device this was! Season 4 showed audiences what a brilliant writing team was attached to Lost. In season 1 these were mysterious characters whose actions weren’t always clear, until we saw their backstories. Now the writers have decided they’ve got this idea to get them off the island, but they also know that in season 5 they’re going to plant us three years in the future. They don’t have time to cover off what will happen to the castaways off-island for those three years in season 5, and they have to cover that now. BUT they want to end the season with the Oceanic 6 actually being rescued. What to do? Cover off those three years using flashforwards. It’s a solution that was both risky and genius, and it paid off. By the end of this season we are able to put together what happened after the island moved, who got off the island, and what happened to them when they did. We’re given just enough information that by season 5 they’ll be able to jump ahead with everything and not have to fill in the blanks for us.

But what about those who didn’t leave the island? We’ve got Claire going AWOL and leaving Aaron in a move that still has Lost fans scratching their heads. Locke finds the cabin and his instructions to move the island, but Ben takes them over. Locke’s leadership has been a difficult one, yet at the same time, he’s the one who was right. He told Jack that the freighter folk were there to kill them. He told Jack that he would move the island, and he did. He told Jack they were going to have to lie, and they do. Everything he predicted has come true.

Ben moves into center stage in this season as the ambiguous villain of the series, and Widmore becomes something other than just Penny’s dad and Desmond’s nemesis when we find out he sent a freighter of people to the island. We meet all 4 of the freighter folk this season, and all of them are still around by next season, with Miles, Charlotte and Dan becoming essential characters. Michael redeems himself by helping delay the bomb long enough to get the helicopter off the boat.

This was also the season where people’s belief systems began changing. Sawyer’s “every man for himself” mantra disappeared as he began worrying about other people first, and becoming part of the team. That will only grow in season 5, when he’ll become head of security of a group of people. Jack went from Mr. “Locke-is-a-stupidhead-and-there’s-no-way-I’m-ever-returning-to-this-godforsaken-place-I-hate-Locke-I-hate-hate-hate-him” to the guy trying to lure everyone else back to the island. Ben went from the confident leader to the man who’s realized John Locke is usurping him, a belief that will only grow stronger in season 5 until he kills the very man he used to worship.

Season 4 was a pivotal turning point, a glorious turn in an already near-perfect series that sent us toward the even more extraordinary season 5. (Can you tell I like this show?) As we move on to season 5 with season 6 coming to us in just over a month, the excitement is building. I can’t wait.

Can you believe that we’re already moving on to season 5?! Where did the rewatch go? For some fun, here are the season 4 bloopers. There are some classics in here.



And for the one person left who I haven’t foisted this video upon, go and check out this fantastic trailer for season 6 that was compiled by one of our very own! Of all of the prep videos for season 6, this one is officially my fave:

4.13/14 There's No Place Like Home, Parts 2 & 3

Follow along! The GARGANTUAN episode guide for “There’s No Place Like Home, Parts 2 & 3” is in Finding Lost — Season 4, pp. 170-195.

I remember when I first watched this finale. I thought it was amazing. Not season 3 finale amazing, but amazing nonetheless. Now, going back to rewatch it after season 5, I love it even more than I did the first few times I saw it. What great stuff we have here!

Fun things I noticed:
• With “Enter 77” so fresh in my mind, I noticed the C-4 set-up on the boat is very much the same as the one in the Flame station. Is it possible Widmore is the one who rigged the Flame many years ago the same way he’s now insisting on them rigging the freighter?
• Seriously. DO NOT try to attack this badass Iraqi. Watching Sayid kick Keamy’s ass in this episode was as much fun as watching Jin go after Mikhail in season 3. I’d love to see the two of them pitted together in a steel cage match: “Jinja versus the Wacky Iraqi!” Ooh, Vince McMahon could make a mint, I tells ya.
• Walt asks Hurley why they didn’t come to see him. Obvious answer: Because you CHANGED YOUR NAME and were in hiding. Even if we’d WANTED to find you, there’s no way we could, Dude.
• SUCH a fantastic scene between Locke and Jack. So amazing. Note to Patrick or anyone making those videos: Parse together the scene where Locke pulls Jack up off the cliff in season 1 and Jack hangs on Locke’s every word, then the big “Do you really think this is all an accident?” scene from the finale, then one of the great Destiny vs. Free Will arguments that Jack and Locke have in season 2, then the showdown in this episode, then Jack pulling the trigger against Locke’s head, and then Jack talking to Locke’s corpse as he changes his shows in “316.” Let’s string ‘em all together. I’m DYING to see one more scene with these two… with Locke as the Man in Black facing off against Jack, the guy who now has faith.
• Rose: I’m gonna keep my eye on your, Shorty. Ha!
• You know, I’ve never been in a plane crash, but *I* would be nervous around that open helicopter doorway, and yet everyone seems extremely calm to be taking off in a helicopter. Strange, since the last time they were in a flying apparatus it was hurtling toward the earth.
• Oops: Didn’t notice this for my book (dammit) but when Sawyer leans in to kiss Kate, he tilts his head to the left. When the camera moves behind his head, it’s tilted to the right. And then back to the left when shown from behind Kate’s head.
• Sayid tells Hurley, “They say it was suicide,” referring to Locke. Who’s “they”?
• Honestly… I’ll never forgive Jin for staying with Michael. What kind of husband/father DOES that, just abandons his wife and child to the deck of the freighter to be a good buddy to Michael? I understand the symbolism (everything comes around… this was the guy who he’d punched because of a watch and who caused him to wear a handcuff for weeks and now they’re all good and all that) but it’s just… ridiculous. Desmond wastes no time in racing off, and Penny’s not actually STANDING ON THE DECK the way Sun is.
• In Season 3 Desmond uses CPR to save Claire, and now Claire’s brother saves him.
• “Gouge Away” by The Pixies. I’ve had my issues with Jack, but I adore his taste in music.

Things that have new meaning:
• I STILL don’t buy that Bentham crap that was strung out throughout this episode. I’ve ranted too much about that so far, though, and don’t really want to go on about it again. But after “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham,” where he barely even mentioned the name, and when he did he never insisted on anyone calling him that, I doubt they’d all be calling him Bentham in this episode. Thank goodness for Hurley asking Sayid why he’s calling him that…
• Ben thanks Richard for helping him, and Richard says flatly, “My pleasure.” But his tone would indicate it’s anything but. His immense doubts about Ben are already in place, and his sights are set on Locke.
• Did you notice the liquid nitrogen tank that Michael’s pulling has the date “1977” on it? Interesting that it’s got THAT year of all years on it as the UN registry date.
• Miles knows all about Charlotte: since we now know he’s right, is this proof that he has been talking to the Dharma Initiative dead? How would he know that?
• Locke and Ben go down into the Orchid station: The level that they descend to, where Locke watches the video and Ben blows it all up, do we assume that’s the same long pathway that we see still under construction at the beginning of season 5? They do a sonogram of the wall and find the FDW, and yet Ben goes down a long tunnel, then descends down a staircase and finds the FDW… yet in “Because You Left,” the construction worker says the FDW is 15-16 feet inside the rock wall, not a hundred meters away. Is it possible they were digging in a different spot?
• Here’s another question: If the people were evacuated in 1977 in “The Incident,” then who stayed behind to finish the construction on the Orchid?
• Ben’s apology to Locke seems sincere, and even bigger than it should have at this point. Is it possible Ben can already see into the future and knows what he’s going to do to Locke later?
• There’s definitely some significance to that kerosene lamp. It’s like it’s a way of bringing Jacob’s spirit into a place.
• I remember at the time wondering why they didn’t just leave Aaron with Desmond and Penny (stable couple who would take care of him and get him to civilization much quicker, and would keep him away from the glaring media spotlight and make it so Kate doesn’t have to create a big story) but in “The Lie” we’ll see that she’s already immensely connected to Kate shortly after getting onto Penny’s boat.
• Pretty much everything Jack tells Ben that Locke told him… Locke never actually told him.
• In this final scene we get the proof that Jack talked to Locke a full month before seeing him in the coffin, yet Locke killed himself only a few days after talking to him. I find it strange that the corpse didn’t decompose at all. Something’s up with that.

And that completes season 4!!! We're almost there, everyone! Make sure you pick up the season 5 disks this week, on DVD or blu-ray, and you can get a copy of my season 5 book here. More words on this season than any other one previous to it!!! You can't go wrong. :)

Tune in tomorrow for my rundown of season 4!

4.12 There's No Place Like Home, Part 1

Follow along! The episode guide for “There’s No Place Like Home, Part 1” is in Finding Lost — Season 4, pp. 159-170.

The beginning of the three-part ender, where we see what really happened when the Oceanic 6 first returned to civilization. So much to love in this episode!

Fun things I noticed:
• I ♥♥♥ Carmen Reyes. That scene of her running to hug Hurley and then Sayid is just… sigh. I ♥ her.
• This episode once again raised the question about Sayid’s parents: Are they dead? Or are they just hard-hearted? Kate seems completely alone at the airport, while Sayid is enveloped by the Reyes family, but no one shows up for him, either. We know what a hard person his father was, but what about his mother?
• Does anyone else find it strange that Juliet knew all about the Looking-Glass station – even though Mikhail and everyone else were surprised to discover it existed – but she didn’t know about the Orchid? Maybe it’s the toppermost of the top-secret places on the island.
• Sawyer: “You don’t get to die alone.” That still makes me laugh out loud.
• There’s a LOT more on the DVD than was shown in the original TV version of the episode: we see new questions from the reporters, Sayid is asked a question, Jack’s father is brought up by another one. I’m surprised in all the extra footage there’s no reaction shot of Sun’s parents when she leans forward and speaks English for the first time. You’d think they both would have fallen out of their chairs in shock.
• Why didn’t a doctor ever notice that Sun had conceived the baby post-crash? An ultrasound can usually figure out the date of conception to the exact day, give or take a day or two. You don’t think they would have noticed that the baby had been conceived a month and a half AFTER her husband had supposedly died?
• I still remember being on the edge of my seat in that final week between this ep and the finale: we know the O6 will be leaving together, yet at the end of this episode Kate and Sayid are with the Others, Hurley’s with Locke, Sun and Aaron are on the freighter with Desmond, Jack is with Sawyer, and Ben has been taken by Keamy. How will they EVER get back together to get off the island?! ;)

Things that have new meaning:
• I love the disgust with which Ben tells Hurley those crackers are 15 years old. In light of S5, those crackers are still a mystery. Is it possible they’re actually not old at all, but somehow time-jumped? Wouldn’t you love it if at the beginning of S6 they’re all back in 2007 and Miles says to Hurley, “You’re the one who wanted to rewrite Empire” and Hurley says, “Dude, that was THIRTY YEARS AGO. Let it go.”
• Who could Ben have been communicating with? Jacob doesn’t seem to be an option anymore in light of S5. Could it have been Richard? Someone suggested on my site that he could have been communicating with an earlier version of himself (and then when I posted that suggestion over on DocArzt, I was told that was one of the stupidest things ever suggested in the Lostverse… but I’m not sure it should be dismissed so summarily).
• There’s Alpert in ratty clothes again! I forgot we saw him dressed like that in this episode. By S5, he’s completely well put-together (always in a dress shirt with the sleeves up) but here he’s not. In case you weren’t watching Lost at the time, the reason Alpert suddenly begins showing up at the end of S4 rather than being a large part of the entire season is because he’d moved over to another series, Cane, which was on CBS, and CBS refused to let him do guest spots for ABC. Then Cane was cancelled and he was free to come back. Whew.
• What if the Temple allows you to see the future? Is it possible that when Ben was taken there and “lost his innocence” as a boy, that it allowed him to see across time, and so that’s how he always knows what’s going to happen? That’s why Alex’s death might have been a surprise to him (it wasn’t in what he’d seen) and why he could march right up to Keamy and know he’ll be just fine.

4.11 Cabin Fever

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!) ;)

4.10 Something Nice Back Home

Follow along! The episode guide for “Something Nice Back Home” is in Finding Lost — Season 4, pp. 121-131.

Another great episode (season 4, for the most part, was simply fantastic). This contains the not-so-big mystery about what Kate had been doing behind Jack’s back that we discover in S5 (which I’m still baffled about), and the beginning of Jack’s downfall.

Fun things I noticed:
• Presumably it wasn’t just Sun who got the big Oceanic settlement, but all of them. So why is Jack working all these crazy hours when he’s probably a millionaire? We can probably assume Sun got twice what the others got (she would have received compensation for Jin as well as herself) but the others would have walked away with a lot of money. I’m assuming it’s just Jack’s nature: no matter how much money he’s got, he’ll still be trying to fix things.
• There’s a strange juxtaposition of Jack asking Kate to marry him right after Hurley tells him they’re living in Heaven… it’s almost as if he’s testing the theory. He sits outside the mental institution, staring at where Charlie visits Hurley, and then he offers her a ring, as if her saying “yes” might actually uphold what Hurley’s saying. Is he already starting to listen to the big guy?
• Sawyer finds Aaron in a tree, in the same spot where Danielle always put her trap dolls. Is Aaron a trap in some way? By grabbing him out of that tree, is the trap that eventually, down the road, it’ll bring them back to the island?

Things that have new meaning:
• Again, something I pointed out at the time, but notice that Jack takes the battery out of the smoke detector, so when “Smokey” appears in the form of Christian, it can’t be detected. (And I also pointed out how unlikely that a large hospital would have a tiny smoke detector and not a state-of-the-art fire prevention system, but let’s ignore that for now.)
• And… again. One more time I’ll say it: I don’t understand why Kate lied to Jack. Here she says that Sawyer wouldn’t have wanted her to tell him the truth… why? Why would Sawyer have expected her to lie? That makes zero sense. Just tell him the woman’s name is Cassidy (not Noreen) and that she was actually Sawyer’s lover and they have a child together. Would that make Jack jealous? Perhaps, but maybe knowing there was another woman out there with one significant tie to Sawyer might have made things better, not worse.

4.09 The Shape of Things to Come

Follow along! The episode guide for “The Shape of Things to Come” is in Finding Lost — Season 4, pp. 107-117.

Amazing, amazing episode… this one is up there with “The Constant” as tops for season 4. This is the first time we see the big rivalry between Ben and Widmore, and it’s a signal for the shape of things to come in season 5.

Fun things I noticed:
• Widmore is staying in the penthouse suite, and Tom was staying at the penthouse suite at the Hotel Earle. Something about being on top, I guess…
• Oh that ENDING!!! It never fails to send chills down my spine.

Things that have new meaning:
• In “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” Locke lands in the desert and Widmore has cameras everywhere, and the Bedouin eventually arrive via car. In this one there are no cameras, and yet the Bedouin arrive immediately, on horse. Was the site already being monitored somehow? Why did it take longer for them to arrive for Locke?
• So is Ben lying about Ishmael? Did he really kill Nadia or did Ben just use that image to recruit Sayid?
• I pointed this out in S4, but notice the line when Miles is sitting at the kitchen table and Claire wanders in saying “I’m OK, I’ll live.” Miles glances at her and says, “I wouldn’t be too sure of that.” Is that an indication that he knows she’s not quite alive? What does he mean by that?
• Let’s look at that final scene again:

BEN: Wake up, Charles.
[Charles Widmore pulls on a bedside lamp.]
WIDMORE: I wondered when you were gonna show up. I see you've been getting more sun.
BEN: Iraq is lovely this time of year. When did you start sleeping with a bottle of scotch by the bed?
WIDMORE: When the nightmares started.
[Widmore pulls back the covers and pours himself a glass of MacCutcheon.]
WIDMORE: Have you come here to kill me, Benjamin?
[Widmore sips the whiskey.]
BEN: We both know I can't do that.
WIDMORE: Then why are you here?
BEN: I'm here, Charles, because you murdered my daughter.
WIDMORE: Don't stand there, looking at me with those horrible eyes of yours and lay the blame for the death of that poor girl on me, when we both know very well I didn't murder her at all, Benjamin. You did.
BEN: No, that's not true.
WIDMORE: Yes, Benjamin, it is. You creep into my bedroom in the dead of night--like a rat--and have the audacity to pretend that you're the victim?
[Widmore leans forward.]
WIDMORE: I know who you are, boy. What you are. I know that everything you have you took from me. So... Once again I ask you: Why are you here?
BEN: I'm here, Charles, to tell you that I'm going to kill your daughter. Penelope, is it? And once she's gone... once she's dead... then you'll understand how I feel. And you'll wish you hadn't changed the rules.
[Widmore shifts in his bed.]
WIDMORE: You'll never find her.
[Ben turns to leave.]
WIDMORE: That island's mine, Benjamin. It always was. It will be again.
BEN: (Turning) But you'll never find it.
WIDMORE: Then I suppose the hunt is on for both of us.
BEN: I suppose it is. Sleep tight, Charles.
[Ben leaves, pulling the door shut behind him.]

• There’s just SO much there for S5. Widmore says I know WHAT you are, as if he’s referring to Ben becoming some sort of “thing” after visiting the Temple. He refers to him as “boy” and we think of 40-year-old Widmore visiting young Ben in the tent. He tells Ben that he’s responsible for the death of his own daughter and in “Dead Is Dead,” Ben takes that responsibility. Ben says he’s going to kill Penny and that leads to him confronting her on the dock. SO much of season 5 is sparked by what happens in this scene. Which means this might be the most perfectly titled episode of Lost yet.

4.08 Meet Kevin Johnson

Follow along! The episode guide for “Meet Kevin Johnson” is in Finding Lost — Season 4, pp. 94-103.

I said it in my book and it bears repeating: while all of the characters have found themselves pushed to the limits, no one has been abused more than Michael. His time on the island was hell, spent trying to get his son to listen to him, and when they FINALLY bonded the kid was taken from him, forcing Michael to become a monster he could never forgive. Now the poor guy has hit an all-time low and the island won’t even let him off himself. Worst life ever. I know a lot of fans hated Michael for what he did, but I could just never bring myself to feel hatred for the poor guy. I can’t help but think of younger Michael, so in love with his baby son and having him taken away from him. The guy never recovered from that blow, he’d never done anything terrible in his life to that point, and he’s had nothing but misery ever since.

Fun things I noticed:
• I’ve always been annoyed by that scene at the beginning where the Lost writers reveal a ton o’ freakin’ obvious: The freighter folk are here for Ben. Yeah, we knew that. Oh yeah? Well.. my man on the boat is MICHAEL. Um, yeah. Figured that out, too. You mean the Michael who shot and killed two people and then put us all in danger and left us, THAT MICHAEL? Yes, Sawyer, thank you for narrating for the viewers at home who’d fallen asleep during season 2. Sheesh.
• I still wonder if the timing is off on this? Michael’s mom says he was gone for over 2 months, which means if they disappeared September 22, let’s assume he got back around Dec 1. When he visits her the Christmas decorations are up already, so it must be mid-December or slightly earlier. But if he returned on December 1 he somehow lost Walt, fell into a depression and moved to the brink of suicide (exceedingly fast, since it would normally take a much longer time for that to happen), got into a car accident, was all banged up, HEALED, and got back to his mother’s, ALL… in just over a week. Then he goes to get the gun, can’t kill himself, sees the thing on Oceanic on the news, is on the freighter instantly and next to the island, all within another week.
• I love how Tom asks him if he’s got the time… after he’d just pawned the watch. Did Tom maybe go to the pawn shop and reclaim it?
• I know I mentioned earlier that I only saw one helicopter on the freighter and someone else said no, in this episode you clearly see two… but I still only see one. But there are definitely two copter pads in this ep.
• In case you weren’t watching S4 when it first aired, it was after this episode that the show went on hiatus due to the Writer’s Strike.
• Did anyone else notice that on the DVDs, there are 3 eps on the first disk, 4 on each of the next two and 3 on the last one, which is exactly how we've been watching them?? That was completely by coincidence!

Things that have new meaning:
• Now that we know Rousseau will be dead by the end of this episode, and having so recently watched her first encounter with Sayid in “Solitary,” I’m more saddened by the fact that we never really got any reunion scenes between her and Alex. Yes, there was the touching one where she touches Alex’s face and they realize they’re mother and daughter, but back at Chez Ben they’re just acting nonchalant and hanging out, not acting like this is a recently life-changing experience (much like Hurley and Claire are back to life as usual about 12 hours after finding out Charlie was dead).
• Seeing Rousseau die at the end of this episode is more sad now that we’ve seen the younger version of her come to the island and we know how lovely she was before she went mad. :(

4.07 Ji Yeon

Follow along! The episode guide for “Ji Yeon” is in Finding Lost — Season 4, pp. 86-94.

The end of this episode makes me cry more than Charlie’s death. There’s only one scene in the entire series that possibly makes me cry more than this scene, and that’s when Kate says goodbye to Aaron in S5. But when Sun, Ji Yeon, and Hurley go to see “Jin” in the cemetery, I’m crying the moment she opens the door and Hurley is standing there.

Fun things I noticed:
• I just don’t get why Jin says he’s going to follow his wife to the other side of the island. He’s NEVER been that complacent before, and he MUST have understood what Juliet said to him when she said your wife is sick. Don’t tell me on that island that he draws a complete blank on the words “wife,” “sick” and “danger” yet somehow he understands “affair”? I don’t think so. So if he knew she was sick and could die on the other side of the island, why follow her over there?
• I still think the delivery doctor when Ji Yeon was accidentally hired. I think he put in an application at “Obstacle Burger” and somehow ended up hired as an obstetrician. Seriously, this guy is awful. One minute he’s saying, ‘No, see, we gave you an epidural and therefore we MUST give you a c-section” (because NO woman has ever given birth vaginally with an epidural) and not 10 seconds later the baby is crowning? First babies don’t typically shoot down the birth canal that fast, and it had to have been partly engaged in the birth canal while he was ready to give up. If the guy really does have a doctorate, he must have gotten it at clown college. I really dislike this scene.
• Hurley taking one look at Ji Yeon and saying “She’s awesome” is one of my favourite lines in the entire series.

Things that have new meaning:
• I keep thinking that if Juliet had let Sun and Jin go to the other side of the island, they would still be together. But then I realize no, Sun would probably be dead because she wouldn’t have made it to the helicopter. So Juliet actually did the right thing here.
• It’s interesting that Sun has a superstition about naming a baby before it’s born… what about etching someone’s name on a tombstone before they’re dead?

4.06 The Other Woman

Follow along! The episode guide for “The Other Woman” is in Finding Lost — Season 4, pp. 74-82.

Still a misguided and shoehorned-in episode a season later, “The Other Woman” feels like some spec script that someone sent that had NOTHING to do with the rest of the series and they thought “hey, let’s run with it!” This late in the game, there wasn’t a lot of time for a throwaway episode, but this was it. Juliet’s flashback didn’t reveal very much about her character. The whole “You are MINE” thing with Ben never really finds fruition later. There seems to have been zero indication from anything we know later about Widmore that he’d ever warned Daniel and Charlotte of the Tempest about to blow. We could assume it just came from Daniel's journal, but even then, why wait until the last minute? It makes no sense they would have just sat there for as long as they did, playing memory games on the beach or doing experiments in a clearing, if it really was about to go up. We never hear anything about the station later. Maybe season 6 will make this some crucial and pivotal episode in retrospect. But I doubt it.

Fun things I noticed:
• When Juliet cleans up, she has curly hair, but on the island, it’s straight, whereas Kate is the opposite (straight off-island, curly on). It’s like the island is Juliet’s own personal flatiron.
• Ben: “Did that rabbit have a number on it?” HAHA!
• “You’re asking me hhhhhhhwhy?!”

Things that have new meaning:
• Knowing that Charlotte grew up on the island, I wonder if her mom might have mentioned the Hostiles to her. If you watch the scene where she clocks Kate from that perspective, you could see why she wouldn’t have a lot of trust for Kate.
• I said this in my S5 book, but the “you look just like her” comment from the psychiatrist is probably a reference to his mother, but I wonder if it could be a reference to 1977-era Juliet. (In which case, she looks EXACTLY like her.) Juliet was the one who took care of Ben after he was shot, nursing him and then handing him over to the very people who took him to the Temple and gave him his island salvation. Could it have meant Juliet?
• Ben says to Locke that he doesn’t know how Widmore could possibly have known about the island. Liar.
• The fight between Juliet and Charlotte seems to be completely forgotten when they’re time-jumping in season 5 and tromping through the jungle together.
• That kiss between Juliet and Jack goes nowhere. Item #42 in this episode that has no significance for later eps.

4.05 The Constant

Follow along! The episode guide for “The Constant” is in Finding Lost — Season 4, pp. 60-69.

Oh this episode is glorious. GLORIOUS. One of the best hours of television ever. I cannot say enough about my love for this episode… THIS is the one that really changed everything for Lost. Before this, time travel was just a distant myth: now it was a reality. Before this, Desmond just seemed like a side character who was very nice to look at, but now he took on extreme importance in the overall scheme of things. From Daniel Faraday’s crazy Oxford experiments to his journal to Widmore buying the Black Rock ledger, this episode had hints of so much that was to come in the next two seasons.

Fun things I noticed:
• Argh, I totally missed this one in my numbers round-up in my book, but just as the soldiers are doing crunches and the sergeant asks Desmond if he has anything to share, the other guy counting the crunches counts, “fifteen… sixteen” and then Desmond flashes away. Interestingly, when they flash back, the guy is on 21, so he was gone for about 5 seconds even though a lot of time lapses in 2004.
• It’s so crazy that Daniel has this page in his journal:



Crazy because I’ve had that EXACT note in my journal since season 2!!! ;)


Things that have new meaning:
• The first sighting of Daniel’s journal. That book will lead to Desmond’s salvation in this episode, and Daniel’s demise in this episode’s sister, “The Variable.”
• It’s interesting that when Des tells Dan that he knows about Eloise, Daniel immediately assumes the rat, and not his mother. Haha!
• When Dan is talking about the importance of a constant, he points to the board and says it’s covered in variables, but he flips his hand as if to say they’re unimportant. And yet in “The Variable” he’s completely changed his mind and realizes that the variables are what allows people to follow their own choices and not succumb to destiny.
• Widmore says, “It’s not me who hates you” and the insinuation is it’s Penny, but there’s also the sense that it’s someone bigger… like Jacob or the man in black.
• Keamy has the giant angel tattoo on his arm, and I remember talking about that in S4, like he’s some sort of avenging angel, but putting this episode into the Paradise Lost context (which I would argue will be the overarching text of Season 6 we will compare it to; I’ve already begun reviewing the poem) Keamy could be one of Lucifer’s angels who has come down to reclaim the territory he believes is his. That would put Widmore in the role of Lucifer. So who is God?

4.04 Eggtown

Follow along! The episode guide for “Eggtown” is in Finding Lost — Season 4, pp. 43-49.

A good episode at the time that, in retrospect, is mired down by inconsistencies, but it’s still fun if you can overlook all of those. Kate cleans up real nice, and we find out she’s Aaron’s new mommy.

Fun things I noticed:
• You know, it’s always driven me NUTS that Claire and Hurley seem to have mourned Charlie for about 30 minutes and now, two days after finding out he’s dead, Hurley’s back to joking and watching Xanadu, and Claire’s making coffee and giggling and worrying about Aaron. Wow. Glad to see the little Mancunian made such an impact on you guys.
• Miles leaning in to Kate and using mock suspense to say, “What did you DO?!” is still hilarious to me. I love that guy.
• The biggest lie that Jack tells on the stand? That he never grilled Kate about anything on the island. Like WHATever.
• I really push this book in my S4 book, but Sawyer is reading The Invention of Morel and it’s a fantastic little book. Read it if you ever have the chance. I highly recommend it. Awesome book.
• What does Miles mean when he tells Ben he’ll take care of Charlotte? Would he really kill her?
• Oh, Diane Austen. The sympathy I do NOT have for you is so vast. The worst thing about the doctors telling you that you have six months to live for the past 4 years is that it HASN’T COME TRUE.

Things that have new meaning:
• John Locke says if Ben rereads Valis he might catch something he missed the first time, and that quote could pretty much be the mantra of our entire rewatch! :)
• Now we know Miles was asking Ben for exactly double what Widmore paid him to be on that freighter.
• We also now know why Charlotte was quizzing Dan with the playing cards and doing the memory game with him after seeing “The Variable.”
• The call to the freighter prepares us for the awesomeness of what’s going to happen in “The Constant.”

4.03 The Economist

Follow along! The episode guide for “The Economist” is in Finding Lost — Season 4, pp. 35-43.

Here’s where we see Sayid sell his soul, as he puts it, to Ben Linus by becoming his hitman. This episode takes on an entire new meaning for me after having seen season 5’s “He’s Our You”; knowing that Sayid will shoot Ben as a kid makes me wonder if Ben remembers him doing it, and that the slow disintegration of Sayid’s soul is Ben’s punishment for it.

Fun things I noticed:
• Frank says that Dan does this sort of experimenting on the boat all the time; do we ever actually see Dan on the boat before their arrival? We see Naomi, Frank, and Miles, but I don’t believe we ever flash back to Dan or Charlotte being on there.
• I never thought of this before, but Sayid must speak German; the writers have said the only time they’ll include subtitles is when the other person in the scene understands the language (that’s why they show the subtitles when Sun and Jin are talking together, because they understand each other, but when just one of them is speaking to Hurley or someone who doesn’t speak Korean, there aren’t any subtitles). So because they show us what Elsa is saying, Sayid must understand her.

Things that have new meaning:
• Seeing the abandoned houses in season 4 makes me wonder whose house it will become in season 5, circa 1977. The house where they find Hurley appears to be Juliet’s house from S3. But since they all look so much alike, I could be completely wrong on that.
• Watching the seasons so close to one another makes me see the scene of Rousseau holding the gun to Sayid differently; it’s strange to see her doing that when in seasons 1 and 2 he was the only person she trusted from that camp, and he earned that trust. Now she’s betraying his.
• Kate: How long do you think we could play house? Sawyer: Why don’t we find out? Me: You WILL find out, but it’ll be with Juliet.
• Sayid insists on bringing Naomi home, but now I see that as somewhat sad, since her corpse will simply be blown up in a few days.
• Ben says “Need I remind you of the last time you thought with your heart instead of your gun?” Sayid says that’s when he recruited him. But Ben recruited him when he killed that man – with a gun – as revenge for Nadia’s death. Wasn’t he thinking with his gun then? And it’s interesting that in 1977 he’ll think with his head and gun when shooting Ben… NOT with his heart. It’s almost like Ben is trying to turn him into the very person who COULD shoot him as a child, as if he needs Sayid to instigate everything that was going to happen to bring him to the Temple. Hm… I never really thought of it that way. Could Ben be turning Sayid into a monster because he NEEDS him to shoot him in 1977 so he’ll end up at the Temple and become one of the Others?

4.02 Confirmed Dead

Follow along! The episode guide for “Confirmed Dead” is in Finding Lost — Season 4, pp. 18-27.

We’re introduced to the four freighter folk in this episode, and it’s weird to think that two of them – Charlotte and Dan – are already dead, and the other two are alive, albeit in two different time periods. Now in retrospect we know that everyone but Frank had already been on the island in one way or the other (Dan, as far as we know, was at least there in utero).

Fun things I noticed:
• I still wonder if Locke’s missing kidney was somehow orchestrated by the island… in other words, things were put in place to have the kidney removed so he could survive the gunshot. I guess this is destiny?
• Again, many people have pointed to the changing frames on the staircase, and it can’t be a simple prop error. The camera focuses on the frames and we see them closely, and then he mounts the stairs. He comes back down, looks toward the frames, and they’re all brass rather than wooden like they were earlier. Why? Did the timeline change somehow when he spoke to the ghost? Did the ghost change? Did Grandma spend her time reframing all the pictures while Miles was upstairs? There must be some significance to this, but something tells me we’ll never know.
• The way Ben jolts his head and says, “Karl…” in that way makes me laugh EVERY TIME.
• Just a reminder for anyone who hasn’t read my S5 book: The 1979 that Ben mentions as Charlotte’s birth date was a huge error at the time, and they hadn’t actually worked through that she would be in the DI in 1974 as a two-year-old. Oops.
• Does it seem strange that if Ben knew all along that the freighter was coming and Michael was sending him messages that he didn’t seem at all concerned about it in season 3? We never see him accepting transmissions off the island or concerning himself with the impending doom. You’d think he would have been mobilizing his troops. I guess the only indicator in S3 that he knew they were coming is that he was shipping his people over to the Temple to keep them safe. Clearly that must have been in anticipation of SOMETHING.

Things that have new meaning:
• Oh Dan… seeing his first real scene (aside from the three words he utters at the end of the previous episode) simply made me sad, knowing how this story ends. Dan, get back on that chopper!! :(
• Now that we know Charlotte was born on the island and was part of the DI, her smile at finding the Hydra station symbol on that collar makes a lot more sense (along with her joy when she lands in the water). We also know Tunisia plays an important role with Widmore and Ben, and so we could probably assume one of the Hydra polar bears were sent through the wormhole (did they have to turn the Frozen Donkey Wheel?) as an experiment. The question is: What happened to the island when the wheel was turned THAT time?
• It’s odd in retrospect to see Naomi arguing with Abaddon that the people he puts in front of her are the wrong people for the job, when we later see in “Some Like It Hoth” that she’s the very person who recruited Miles. If he was so wrong for the job and she didn’t want to babysit him, why was she so happy when he took the job then?

4.01 The Beginning of the End

Follow along! The episode guide for “The Beginning of the End” is in Finding Lost — Season 4, pp. 7-18.

I’ve rewatched season 4 so recently that I was already saying the lines in this premiere before they happened. The arrival of the freighter folk, the split in the camps… this really is the beginning of the end.

Fun things I noticed:
• In “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” there was an awesome moment in the penultimate episode of season 6, where Willow is all black-eyed and veiny and telling Buffy, “I’m the slayer now” and she’s about to zap Buffy into another dimension, when all of a sudden she’s zapped across the room. The camera turns and zooms in on Giles, who says, “I’d like to test that theory.” I thought those were the greatest 6 words of any television series ever. And then, in this episode, Hurley yells, “I’m one of the Oceanic 6!” and I’d found a new six words that I adored. What a GREAT line.
• I can’t remember if I included this in the final edit on my book or if I took it out (I kept waffling) but that scene between Rose, Claire, and Sun is SO forced it feels like a deleted scene. I still can’t figure out why it’s in the show. From Sun saying she can’t believe she’s going to give birth in a hospital and Claire doing that forced, “OH THANKS!” and Sun going, “Oh no!” and LOLing to Rose telling Claire to give her man some extra lovin’ and Claire doing that forced, “ROSE!” and them all LOLing, I think I’m going to gag every time I watch it. Ugh.
• When Hurley gets closer to Jacob’s cabin the wildlife sounds change and it sounds like he’s near some swamp or bayou. And it’s super creepy.
• Hurley screams louder when he sees John Locke than he does when he sees the eye in the window. Ha!!
• I still don’t get why Rose is so happy about the rescue. It’s like the events of “S.O.S.” never happened.

Things that have new meaning:
• I still find the Hurley cannonball scene one of the most glorious and devastating moments of the series. Never again will we see utter happiness followed by utter desolation. This will be the happiest we ever see Hurley, and he’ll never find that sort of happiness again. (Come on, Season 6… make our Hurley happy again…)
• Watching the Abaddon scene again in the context of what we’ve seen in S5 changes it completely. I now look at him as Widmore’s right-hand man, the one who will ferry Locke around and eventually be gunned down by Ben; the man who first sent Locke on his journey to the island.
• I remember first watching this episode and being a little confused about why Sayid is SO hostile… and of course now rewatching it right on the heels of season 3, it’s a little more obvious.
• Charlie says, “They need you.” Abaddon says, “Are they still alive?” And in retrospect, it’s still not clear who “they” are: The people they left behind? The Others? The freighter folk? The Dharma Initiative circa 1977?
• In “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham,” I nitpicked in my S5 book about the title card that says, “Santa Rosa, CA” before showing Hurley in the mental institution. In earlier episodes, it seems Santa Rosa is just the name of the mental institution, and not its location, and that would make sense that it’s just outside L.A. so Hurley’s parents could visit him and Jack could drop by “on his way back home from a consult.” But when the card says it’s in Santa Rosa, CA, that’s over 7 hours away from L.A. I think the actual production card was wrong.
• Now we know what Hurley means when he says to Jack that he’s afraid he’s going tell. It was Jack who orchestrated the lie, and Hurley who wouldn’t go along with it at first.
• Jack: “We’re never going back.” Me: “Oh, you are going waaaaaaay back.”

Outlaws Whisper Transcript

Here's the transcript that was accidentally cut from Finding Lost (all the other whisper transcripts are in there); this goes with the Outlaws rewatch.

The first moment where Sawyer hears whispering is when he first chases the boar into the jungle:

(Sawyer breathing)
There goes another poking his head in here (could be ‘There goes somebody’)
Yeah, let’s see what he’s doing
Let’s
Let me decide
Come back
Wait
I see another one
(Frank Duckett’s voice) It’ll come back around
------
Oh my god there’s a guy out there
Dennis (?) find out what’s going on
Did he see us?
Maybe
Open it
Did you see what direction he went?
Right through those trees
Go and get him
There is an explanation (resolution?) and I bet you haven’t thought of it
What is it?
He’s been in a plane crash
Are you sure?
I know what it’s like for a plane to crash
Complain, complain, complain
I want to get closer
I know what you said, but he’s looking around
What if he shoots us or something
------
There may be something, but it may be slack (?)
Let’s go
Has he seen us? (Alarms go off)
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry (faint . . . could be echo from alarm)
Intruder, Intruder
Hide against the bushes
Open the door
I know what it’s like for a plane to crash
Complain, complain, complain
I know what you said, but . . .

Later, Sawyer faces the boar and holds the gun up to it, and he hears the whispering again:

How could you say that, I knew he was American
It was a large group
(Frank Duckett’s voice) It’ll come back around
Now listen
Here’s what we should do
Nothing
It’s not the one
He’s coming up on the gate
------
How could you say that, I knew he was American
Hey listen, come on let’s go
Go and see what he’s doing
Duetch negg or Joice leg (perhaps another language or reversed)
Like it’s your choice
He’s coming up on the gate
My guess is to shoot the pig (or ‘Guess he’ll shoot the pig’)
Yes
My hand (or head) is free
------
How could you even say that, I knew he was an American
Hey listen, come on let’s go
Go and see what he’s doing
He’s coming up on the gate
My guess is to shoot the pig . . .
Okay

1.16 Outlaws

Follow along! The episode guide to “Outlaws” is in Finding Lost, pp. 101-105.

This was an episode about guilt coming back to bite them: Sawyer’s guilt for killing Duckett; Charlie’s guilt for killing Ethan; Locke’s mother’s guilt for not watching Jeannie; Sayid’s guilt for being part of a firing squad… and even a moment of guilt from Kate when she’s playing I Never and admits to killing a man.

Fun things I noticed:
• This is one of the only times we ever see Sayid truly enjoying himself… mocking Sawyer. I love it.
• This is a NOT-so-fun thing I noticed… the whisper transcript to Outlaws was not in my Finding Lost book. I checked my old file folder, and sure enough I had the sidebar all written up… but then I’d forgotten to paste it into the master file I handed to my publisher, and no one seemed to notice. Stupid, stupid me… I can paste it here if anyone is interested. Just let me know.

Things that have new meaning:
• I wonder if there’s any significance to the fact that we’ve never see Sawyer’s dad’s face? We only see his boots. Could that factor in later?
• Hibbs telling Sawyer he’s not the killing type is interesting: He’s killed Duckett, Cooper, Tom… yet each time he feels sad about it.
• That photo of Duckett in his file makes it look like he’s wearing Dharma clothing.
• Hurley always has the throwaway lines, but then they end up being prescient. Now he’s talking about Ethan rising from the dead and chasing them like a zombie. Not far off from other things that have happened on the island…
• Kate refers to “carte blanche,” which is French… like “LaFleur.”
• We now know just how brief that marriage of hers was from I Do, and that was actually painful for her to leave him.
• John says, “Well… that would be silly” when Kate suggests the dog was Jeannie, but does he actually believe that? I don’t think his mother is the only one who believes the dog might have been Jeannie.
• Later, in Cabin Fever, we see that Locke’s sister was Melissa. And the mother clearly wasn’t off the rails yet. I’m thinking either Jeannie was out of the house in that scene, or that was a different foster family. Maybe they turfed him once he didn’t prove his specialness.
• That soccer game playing in the bar where Sawyer meets Christian made me think of the one in Flashes Before Your Eyes (but obviously it’s not the same one, since that one was in 1996).

1.15 Homecoming

Follow along! The episode guide for “Homecoming” is in Finding Lost, pp. 94-98.

Chah-lie’s second flashback is a heartbreaker… this one speaks to the heart of what Charlie is all about. All his life he’s been told he can’t take care of anyone, when all he seems to DO is take care of everyone. He threw his sobriety away to help Liam, he made him what he was, and now he’s trying to save Claire. But it always ends badly when Charlie manages to screw up somehow. I LOVED his character in this ep. That photocopier scene is yet another comedy classic from Dominic Monaghan. And the scene of him at the dinner table explaining that there’s been a problem with royalties while finally admitting to Lucy’s father (and himself) that DriveShaft is over, is very poignant.

Fun things I noticed:
• I remember at the time wondering that if the last memory she had was the plane, is it possible she died in the crash and we’ve always been looking at ghost Claire? Pregnant ghost Claire? Hm… people have always theorized that Claire may be dead at one point or another, and considering her recent disappearance…
• Someone asked in a previous episode why I didn’t point out Ethan’s superhuman strength. I talked at length about it in my book and I’m trying not to repeat what I said in the book here, but that’s definitely something that all of the Others possess – even Juliet lays a smackdown on Kate in Left Behind that is superhuman.
• Jin and Sun once again refer to the survivors as “others” followed immediately by a scene where Claire does the same thing.
• I still love the little in-joke about Ricky Gervais’s The Office, when Lucy says her dad’s buying a paper company in Slough. Teehee!!
• I still love how Sayid looks at Boone hesitantly when Boone steps up to volunteer as sentry (and the fatherly way Locke says he believes in him…)
• As I explain in my book, it’s actually Steve who dies… Scott is standing right there at the funeral.
• I think this might be the only time we see a flashback that cuts right back to a character (without a whoosh) making some reaction to what they just remembered. Charlie’s face is CLASSIC.
• I STILL can’t figure out why it took a full minute for most of the people with guns to make it over to Claire. If she was never in any danger, why does Jack go mano-a-mano with Ethan without anyone rushing in to help?
• I think I said this in my book, but Penny also lived in Knightsbridge, like Lucy. However, what I didn’t notice earlier was when Charlie’s standing on the doorstep, it looks like the country behind him. Correct me if I’m wrong, anyone reading from London, but isn’t Knightsbridge that area right around Harrod’s, and all of it is city blocks?

Things that have new meaning:
• Charlie deems Ethan the bad guy: even from the beginning, people are either good or bad, and that’s the only way they’re characterized. Yet in the season 2 finale, Ben defines the Others as the good guys.
• When we later see Ethan – as a hardworking doctor who was sent on a mission by Ben – his creepiness and threats in this episode seem a little baffling. Were the writers simply still trying to figure out what to do with the Others?
• Locke and Jack argue about whether to tell everyone or not. Jack’s reactionary, Locke says let’s stop and think for a bit. This conversation mirrors the one Sawyer has with Jack at the end of “Namaste,” where he tells him that Jack’s reactionary leadership led to the deaths of many people, but instead Sawyer thinks things through first.
• Jack puts his hand affectionately on Claire’s shoulder as he leads her away… almost in a brotherly sort of way…

1.14 Special

Follow along! The episode guide for “Special” is in Finding Lost, pp. 87-91.

Special. It’s a word that’s now been applied to many people on the island, but most often, John Locke. Walt was the first special person on the island that we knew about – he can make things happen just by picturing it. Locke figures out his talent instantly, which is a little strange, and then hones it to show Walt how he can use his abilities. Now in light of season 5 most of this episode seems standalone because the Walt storyline is that one giant thing they’ve sort of just dropped, and it seemed to be building up to something extremely important. But then the writers got stuck in the practical problem of an actor growing up too quickly when the little character was supposed to stay the same. But I really REALLY hope that Walt is somehow addressed in season 6.

Fun things I noticed:
• Michael hasn’t yet perfected his “Waaaaaaaaaaalt!!” cry. Go here to find out how it’s SUPPOSED to be done. Heh...heh...
• When Locke tells Walt to picture the spot where the knife will go in, Walt looks at it, and then Vincent turns his head and looks at the tree. It’s as if the dog in this scene is psychically helping Walt out.
• Baby Walt still makes me melt.
• Susan = EVIL. She says they’re not married and therefore Michael has no right to the child. In what universe?! They’re common law, for goodness’ sake, and if he’d decided to fight it he would have. I found the gender reversal in this episode really interesting; if Michael had been the breadwinner, he would have moved the family to Amsterdam. But instead it’s Susan, and she won’t drag Michael’s ass along for the ride. She clearly had her eyes on Brian already. I know Michael’s one of those characters who’s not a favourite with a lot of fans, but I’ve always had a soft spot for him. Taking a child away from his father is just unforgiveable to me.
• The Bonneville of Death!!!
• Charlie’s scene with Claire’s diary is still a comedy classic.
• Re: the unopened letters... Susan = EVIL!!!
• You know, I think Brian’s a special kind of shitty for abandoning his grieving son, and letting him meet his father and new guardian completely alone, with NO ONE there to help him through the transition process. I asked in my book why Walt doesn’t call Brian “Dad,” but now I watch it and think, “Why the hell would he?”
• I’ve always believed Michael does Walt a huge disservice by suggesting Brian wanted to keep him and now Michael’s taking him against his will. Way to make the kid resent you right out of the gate, and make him spend the rest of his life thinking he drew the short straw.
• When Michael says to Walt, “I’m right behind you,” I remember at the time thinking for the first time that a major character was about to be killed.
• I still think that polar bear is horrific CGI.

Things that have new meaning:
• Locke discovers Walt’s specialness, and Michael threatens to kill him. And then... Walt is kidnapped by the Others. Presumably, they, too, sensed Walt’s specialness, and when they took him away to Room 23, they probably gave the same test to him that they did to John Locke – putting the objects in front of him – to find out if maybe he was meant to be their leader. And if you have no idea what I’m talking about... check out the mobisode, “Room 23” on the season 4 DVD. (Or look in the Season 4 Finding Lost book, page 136, for a synopsis.) But now, with Locke appearing to be inhabited by some evil spirit at the end of season 5, one wonders if he could have had anything to do with Walt’s kidnapping...
• At the time I assumed Claire’s comment in her diary, “I HATE HIM,” referred to Thomas. But could it refer to Christian? Or could it be prescient? She mentions the Black Rock in her diary... how is she seeing the future? How could she know things on the island that she hasn’t seen yet? Is it possible there’s a reason she was with Christian in season 4? What role will she play in season 6?

1.13 Hearts and Minds

Follow along! The episode guide to “Hearts and Minds” is in Finding Lost, pp. 81-85.

Aside from being the flashback for the “Dumb” half of “Dumb and Dumberer,” this is the episode where Locke goes completely frakkin’ nuts. I still remember watching this one and thinking, “Uh... what the HELL is he doing?” (I still loved him, though...) It’s also our first hint that Locke was actually the guy who clocked Sayid in the back of the head. Locke has a purpose, but at this stage in his spiritual journey, he’s already learning to hurt people in order to get ahead.

Fun things I noticed:
• I’ve often talked about Sayid’s active b.s. detector, and how he can usually see through the crap that brainwashes everyone else, but he’s definitely not yet on his game in season 1. First, he falls for Locke’s trick in “Confidence Man” by making him think Sawyer’s the guy who hit him, and now he seems surprised when Kate suggests that maybe Locke’s not actually hunting boar for them anymore.
• I’ve always laughed at how Hurley complains that Jin is holding a grudge. Watch that scene again where Jin tries to offer him sea urchin, and Hurley doesn’t decline, he flat-out refuses, then makes fun of him and then laughs his ass off at the poor guy. Remember that Jin was embarrassed by what his father did for a living, and now he’s actually doing the same thing, which is a necessity, but it must cause a pang of guilt for him. So for Hurley to laugh at him must have been very painful. I probably would have avoided the big guy, too, if he’d treated me like that and I didn’t understand anything else he was saying.
• It’s still so weird to me to see Jack and Locke having a normal, joking conversation.
• I mentioned in “Whatever the Case May Be” (which is the episode that precedes this) that Jack is an absolute dick and it comes out of nowhere. And once again, he’s very sweet to Kate in this episode, giving her the guava seeds. Definitely chalking it up to the changing writers.
• Shannon asks if by hatch he means door, and Boone says, “That’s what a hatch IS” but throughout season 2 (and right through to season 5 when Hurley says it in “Some Like It Hoth”) they refer to the actual station/bunker as the hatch.
• That crazy Batman-esque music that plays while Shannon and Boone run from the smoke monster is something we never hear again.
• Boone doesn’t actually see Smokey, and yet his sounds and presence are exactly the same, and you even catch a glimpse of the smoke as it’s uprooting a tree. Strange that a hallucination could be so accurate. Why did the island want Boone to see this particular thing?

Things that have new meaning:
• Seeing that hatch gives me CHILLS now that I know what it’ll be. It’s so weird to watch it now and know that Desmond is in there. What never ceases to baffle me is that in all that time they NEVER found the back door.
• Locke was full of his weird stories in season 1. In scenes like the Michelangelo’s father story (or the Norman Croucher story in “Walkabout”) I’m starting to look at him as if he IS the Man in Black, as someone suggested a few episodes ago. What if when he looked into the eye of the island he was momentarily possessed by the Man in Black, and then when he saw the monster as just that – a monster – he turned back into John Locke? OK, I’m being a little sarcastic now, but season 1 Locke is a lot like season 5 Locke, whereas the Locke in seasons 2, 3, and 4 is very different. Again, this could have been part of the growing pains, since Locke is definitely the most complex character on the island, and the writers were probably trying to figure out exactly which direction to take him in.
• Notice that Locke is making his concoction already and saying it’s for later... as if he can see the future.
• Wow, that Sydney marina looks a LOT like the one in L.A. where Ben visits Penny. Nyar nyar...
• John Locke hands Sayid the compass and tells him that he doesn’t need it anymore. Oddly, that’s exactly the instrument he needs – and gets – from Richard Alpert.
• Sayid’s story about the magnetic pull has always resonated with me, and was in the back of my head in season 5. Obviously we’ll find out the magnetic pull he can sense is the one from the Swan station, and it’s thrown off the accuracy of the compass. However, in season 5 when Locke returns to the island in “Follow the Leader,” he asks Alpert if he still has the compass. Alpert says yes, it’s a little rusty, but it still works perfectly well. Why does it work perfectly well? Shouldn’t it also be skewed? Is it possible that the Alpert compass is actually designed to be used specifically on the island, so the N is on a different spot?
• Locke is staring at the water the same way Jacob stares at it at the beginning of “The Incident.” Jack asks jokingly, “Any ships?” and at the beginning of “The Incident,” that’s exactly what Jacob is watching. Locke says no, but he’s patient. Jacob was patient, too, and no doubt sat on that beach waiting for decades for a new group of people to show up.
• Charlie says, “If there’s one person I put my absolute faith in who will save us all, it would be John Locke.” As I wrote in my season 5 book, the answer to the question, “What lies in the shadow of the statue” is “He who will save us all.” So... is Charlie’s comment a very early suggestion that that person is, in fact, John Locke?

1.12 Whatever the Case May Be

Follow along! The episode guide for “Whatever the Case May Be” is in Finding Lost, pp. 75-79.

Season 1 established the standout characters by how many flashbacks they got – we’re only on episode 12 and we’ve already had 2 flashbacks for both Kate and Jack. I’ve never been a huge fan of this episode, even though it has a lot of great stuff in it, simply because of the way Jack and Sawyer treat Kate. It makes my skin crawl every time. Both of them take the case from her as if they’re somehow above her, chastising her like she’s some stupid child who needs discipline. Yet both of their actions speak loudly about their characters – Sawyer takes the case first because he thinks there might be something in it for him, secondly because he can use it to flirt with Kate (she keeps coming back for it, and he likes that) and thirdly because it gives him the upper hand in their “relationship,” or so he thinks. Jack, on the other hand, is a complete dick. He accuses her of lying and withholding information (like he’s not?!), and the moment she first tells him they have a problem he turns to her and shoots back, “WE have a problem, or YOU have a problem?” I’m sorry, Doc, but who the hell crapped in your corn flakes this morning? A day ago you were out in the jungle with Kate as the two of you chopped down Charlie, and the two of you were victorious in bringing him back to life. And now you’re biting her head off? One of the only problems with season 1 is that the writers were different on every episode, and there wasn’t that cohesiveness that was there now. One writer would write Jack as being annoyed with Kate’s mere presence, but in the next episode they’re chatting like equals. Next episode she’s hot for him, and then suddenly he’s all angry at her again.

Fun things I noticed:
• Sawyer asks Kate if she’s the navel-gazing, no-fun mopey type. I love his subtle reference to Jack here.
• Why is Sayid still referring to Claire as “the pregnant woman” when they’ve been on the island for 2 or 3 weeks? You’d think the one person who has been kidnapped might be a name everyone would know by now.
• Oh, Sayid. I love you. LOVE YOU. I love his character, I love his development through five seasons, I think Naveen is a brilliant actor... but I will never, ever understand his attraction to Bitchy von Ditz. It watered down his love for Nadia and made me lose a little respect for him. It was like when I found out David Boreanaz was married to an Irish screenwriter when he started on Buffy, and then became famous and dumped her and married a Playboy bunny. Sigh. The light of these people just kinda dims in my eyes.
• I’ve never understood why Shannon didn’t just say “Finding Nemo,” rather than going on about the fish movie.

Things that have new meaning:
• Sawyer tells Michael he better start looking for a runway. Did anyone else yell out, “hey, they’re building one over on the Hydra island!”
• Locke says, “The easiest way isn’t always the best.” Talk about understatement of the century, coming from that guy.
• I’d said that in the beginning of season 1 it’s hard for me to reconcile soft, sweet Rose with angry get-off-my-lawn Rose of the season 5 finale, but you can see the nice bridge here. She’s full of tough love, pushing Charlie to get off his ass, but the next minute holding his head while praying with him. I’ve always adored that scene between the two of them.
• Sawyer’s line, “Physics, my ass,” has a COMPLETELY different meaning in season 5!! Isn’t it weird that the one guy who had a basic understanding of physics (insofar as how it impacted construction) is gone by the time anyone needs it? Poor Michael...
• I’d forgotten that the writers played with our expectations of “what Kate did” throughout the first two seasons the way they did with Locke’s paralysis. By this episode fans thought she’d shot the guys in the bank robbery and that’s why she was being hauled in. Or maybe it was the guy she “killed”... (we know now that she didn’t kill Tom, but put him in the position of being killed).
• The line, “There’s a fine line between denial and faith” is a very important line for the rest of the series; Jack is a man of science, but when he sees the island disappear at the end of season 3, he insists that it didn’t, even though he just saw it happen. If there was ever a captain of denial...
• The end of this episode is beautiful (see, I really do think there’s a lot to love about this episode, even if overall it’s not one of my faves) with the way Kate plays with that airplane. It shows how her idealized childhood is still playing a role in her present. If you really want to see this scene used well, check out the “childhood” trailer for season 6, if you haven’t already.
• Kate looks at the toy plane with a lot of sadness in her face (and we know how why that is) which reminded me of her comment in "316," when she sees Christian's shoes in Jack's house and asks him why he holds onto something that makes him so sad. You'd think she of all people would already know the answer to that question.