Season Two: Episodes 3 – 6

Welcome back to Re-Watch Week Number Eight! This week we will be reviewing Season Two’s Orientation, Everybody Hates Hugo, … and Found, and Abandoned. As always, I’m focusing my attention on John Locke and noting anything else that piques my curiosity or interest.

Looking at Locke:

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                                                  Hey Lostaholics!

Get ready to go back to school!  Student Enrollment at LU Begins on September 22! 

PROSEPECTIVE STUDENTS

A world of knowledge awaits you here at LOST University! As a student at LOST University, you will have the opportunity to dig deeper into the themes and mysteries of LOST, while at the same time exploring fascinating topics and subjects that relate to the world you live in.

Enrollment for the first semester of LOST University will be open to all students beginning September 22, 2009. At that time, you will take a placement exam and be given a Student ID, as well as be able to watch your LOST University introductory class, LOST 101. Semester 1 begins on December 8, 2009.

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The small world of the castaways gets bigger in this week’s block of episodes. We meet Desmond and a whole boatload of Others. We get to know Rousseau a little better. And as we see the “Udders” of Jin’s warning, we get our first glimpse of the Tailies. And we finally get into my favorite set location, the hatch. It was a lot harder for me to weave a central thread through all of the hours in this week’s block. Week #7 had a whopping 5 hours of Lost goodness. And since it was the first season’s finale as well as season 2’s loaded premiere, I will give a quick story overview and then dive into all the mythology and any reset tie-ins I can come up with for each episode. So join me as I take a look at Exodus Part 1, Exodus Part 2, Man Of Science, Man Of Faith, and Adrift.

Exodus Part 1

Rousseau cons the camp into believing the Others are coming for Aaron. She creates that diversion and chaos so that she can kidnap him herself and then trade him for her own daughter, Alex. She takes a group to the Black Rock, which we discover is actually a tall sailing ship, mysteriously marooned 2 miles inland. There, the group of Losties retrieve dynamite. Dr. Arzt dies during this endeavor. The islanders exchange goodbyes with the raft volunteers. The raft launches amidst joyful shouts of the castaways.

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Season One: Episodes 23 & 24

Season Two: Episodes 1 & 2

Welcome back to Re-Watch Week Number Seven! This week we will be reviewing Season One’s two-part finale, Exodus Part I and II, and Season Two’s first two episodes, Man of Science, Man of Faith and Adrift. As always, I’m focusing my attention on John Locke and noting anything else that piques my curiosity or interest

Looking at Locke:

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This week I am continuing my practice of trying to find a common element or thread in the block of episodes as a whole. Some weeks that is easier said than done. For Nancy’s podcast they always try to find the central theme of any given show. It’s hard enough to do that for an individual episode, without adding 2-3 more into the mix. The theme I have zoned in on this week is ‘Holding On’. This is also known as ‘not letting go’. That phrase of course always brings Jack to mind and he is well represented below. I will also be pointing out the mythology aspects as well as other points of interest. So enjoy my thoughts on week 6 of the Lost Rewatch.

Do No Harm

Holding On

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With the end of Season 1 in our sights, this week’s episode block began the build up that will take us into Season 2.  Watching “Do No Harm”, “The Greater Good”, and “Born To Run” wasn’t as eventful for me in the note-taking department as some of the other weeks have been, but everything shown was key in telling the story through to the end.  With Boone’s death and Aaron’s birth, I’ve started to realize why the writers have taken such effort to humanize Shannon and make us trust Kate.  It’s truly amazing that after 5 years of watching this show and knowing all the ins and outs of it, I’m still able to see things I had never seen before and understand concepts that I just couldn’t wrap my mind around at the time.

In “Do No Harm”, a Jack-centric episode showing flashbacks to Jack’s wedding to Sarah, we see how “commitment makes [Jack] tick” and that he’s “not good at letting go” as he tries to save Boone’s life on the island with limited medical supplies.  We also know from later episodes that this whole explanation into Jack as a person affects his marriage and divorce, as well.  We also see how Jack seems to be taking some sort of lessons from John, having that “don’t tell me what I can’t do” attitude.  As Jack tries one last ditch effort of saving Boone’s life, he prepares to amputate Boone’s leg, but is stopped when Boone tells him that he is letting him “off the hook”–a line spoken twice before in the history of the show.  The first time we heard this line, Rose sat on the beach with Jack and told him that he didn’t need to keep his promise of staying with her and that she was letting him off the hook.  This episode becomes the second with that particular line, leaving the Season 2 premiere the next, with Sarah saying it to him when she’s on the operating table prior to surgery.  The promise he made her at that time was that she would dance at her own wedding.

This episode has a huge yin/yang feel to it as we lose one life to be replaced by another with the birth of Aaron.  Kate, the new island midwife, has just delivered the son that she will eventually come to raise off island after rescue.  Before the intense labor begins, Sawyer offers her some fish when she walks by on the beach.  To me, this was a mirror image on two levels.  First, after the crash of Oceanic 815, Aaron was inactive making Claire worry.  It wasn’t until Jin gave her fish to eat that Aaron finally came “alive” inside her belly.  Sawyer offering her fish this time made me wonder if her turning it down was due to her memory of the fish making Aaron active.  There is also the mirroring of Jacob sitting on the beach eating his fish with a leaf plate and offering it to his enemy, who coincidentally turned it down, much like Claire did in this episode.

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Going into this week, I had this hope that this week would bring a little relief in the information to be processed solely based on the fact that we were given one less episode to cover.  Obviously, I was overlooking the fact that all three of the episodes were thick with island mythology and character development!  Our episodes this week, #17-19 of Season 1 (…..In Translation, Numbers, and Deus Ex Machina), reminded us of the distance between Sun and Jin while we sit remembering the “time” distance between them now in Season 5, explained the start of the “Numbers” and how it has made some wonder if they are, in fact, Hurley’s “compass” making a connecting loop with him between the 1970’s and the early 2000’s, and laid the foundation for understanding John Locke’s hardships before his disability of paralyzation had anything to do with him.  I think it’s time for me to just accept the fact that long articles and lots of information are my destiny and that some things are just meant to be.  See you on the other side!

Our first episode this week, “…In Translation”, was considered to be Jin-centric, although I just see it as a Sun AND Jin-centric episode seen through Jin’s eyes.  It basically shows their marriage, as seen in “House of the Rising Sun”, from Jin’s perspective and his role in the Paik family business.  To me, though, this episode was more about the on-island, present day stuff, instead of finding connections in the flashback.  That being said, the flashback reminded me of desk boxes and watches–two of my favorite subjects, and completely defined who Jin is, especially when we witness the conversation between him and his father.  We also see in this flashback, that it wasn’t Jin’s father that became the “daddy issue”, but rather it was Jin being embarrassed of him because of his fisherman status.  Jin later apologizes to his father about this, leaving his protection of, and ways in which he protected Sun from the truth of her father the only things weighing on his conscious when he came to the island.  With that, I’m sure he felt the ends justified the means and that he acted for the “greater good”.

On the island, we see the first raft bonfire, which seemed to foreshadow what was to come with the completed raft on the night Walt is taken.  The ironic bit would be that this time, John lies to cover for Walt in saying that “they’re not alone on the island” and it was the “others” that did it, which is exactly how it will play out in days to come.   Jin becomes suspicious of Sun’s involvement with Michael, which knowing about Sun’s affair with Jae Lee made that whole scene mean so much more than just having a jealous, controlling husband, and later learns that she has been able to speak English the whole time they’ve been on the island.  Overall, though, I felt the on-island stuff with Sun seemed to mirror the flashbacks of Jin in that they were both lying to protect the other from being hurt and, ultimately, trying to walk away from the marriage that was blessed by Jacob.

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With the end of Season 1 in our sights, this week’s episode block began the build up that will take us into Season 2.  Watching “Do No Harm”, “The Greater Good”, and “Born To Run” wasn’t as eventful for me in the note-taking department as some of the other weeks have been, but everything shown was key in telling the story through to the end.  With Boone’s death and Aaron’s birth, I’ve started to realize why the writers have taken such effort to humanize Shannon and make us trust Kate.  It’s truly amazing that after 5 years of watching this show and knowing all the ins and outs of it, I’m still able to see things I had never seen before and understand concepts that I just couldn’t wrap my mind around at the time.

In “Do No Harm”, a Jack-centric episode showing flashbacks to Jack’s wedding to Sarah, we see how “commitment makes [Jack] tick” and that he’s “not good at letting go” as he tries to save Boone’s life on the island with limited medical supplies.  We also know from later episodes that this whole explanation into Jack as a person affects his marriage and divorce, as well.  We also see how Jack seems to be taking some sort of lessons from John, having that “don’t tell me what I can’t do” attitude.  As Jack tries one last ditch effort of saving Boone’s life, he prepares to amputate Boone’s leg, but is stopped when Boone tells him that he is letting him “off the hook”–a line spoken twice before in the history of the show.  The first time we heard this line, Rose sat on the beach with Jack and told him that he didn’t need to keep his promise of staying with her and that she was letting him off the hook.  This episode becomes the second with that particular line, leaving the Season 2 premiere the next, with Sarah saying it to him when she’s on the operating table prior to surgery.  The promise he made her at that time was that she would dance at her own wedding.

This episode has a huge yin/yang feel to it as we lose one life to be replaced by another with the birth of Aaron.  Kate, the new island midwife, has just delivered the son that she will eventually come to raise off island after rescue.  Before the intense labor begins, Sawyer offers her some fish when she walks by on the beach.  To me, this was a mirror image on two levels.  First, after the crash of Oceanic 815, Aaron was inactive making Claire worry.  It wasn’t until Jin gave her fish to eat that Aaron finally came “alive” inside her belly.  Sawyer offering her fish this time made me wonder if her turning it down was due to her memory of the fish making Aaron active.  There is also the mirroring of Jacob sitting on the beach eating his fish with a leaf plate and offering it to his enemy, who coincidentally turned it down, much like Claire did in this episode.

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Going into this week, I had this hope that this week would bring a little relief in the information to be processed solely based on the fact that we were given one less episode to cover.  Obviously, I was overlooking the fact that all three of the episodes were thick with island mythology and character development!  Our episodes this week, #17-19 of Season 1 (…..In Translation, Numbers, and Deus Ex Machina), reminded us of the distance between Sun and Jin while we sit remembering the “time” distance between them now in Season 5, explained the start of the “Numbers” and how it has made some wonder if they are, in fact, Hurley’s “compass” making a connecting loop with him between the 1970’s and the early 2000’s, and laid the foundation for understanding John Locke’s hardships before his disability of paralyzation had anything to do with him.  I think it’s time for me to just accept the fact that long articles and lots of information are my destiny and that some things are just meant to be.  See you on the other side!

Our first episode this week, “…In Translation”, was considered to be Jin-centric, although I just see it as a Sun AND Jin-centric episode seen through Jin’s eyes.  It basically shows their marriage, as seen in “House of the Rising Sun”, from Jin’s perspective and his role in the Paik family business.  To me, though, this episode was more about the on-island, present day stuff, instead of finding connections in the flashback.  That being said, the flashback reminded me of desk boxes and watches–two of my favorite subjects, and completely defined who Jin is, especially when we witness the conversation between him and his father.  We also see in this flashback, that it wasn’t Jin’s father that became the “daddy issue”, but rather it was Jin being embarrassed of him because of his fisherman status.  Jin later apologizes to his father about this, leaving his protection of, and ways in which he protected Sun from the truth of her father the only things weighing on his conscious when he came to the island.  With that, I’m sure he felt the ends justified the means and that he acted for the “greater good”.

On the island, we see the first raft bonfire, which seemed to foreshadow what was to come with the completed raft on the night Walt is taken.  The ironic bit would be that this time, John lies to cover for Walt in saying that “they’re not alone on the island” and it was the “others” that did it, which is exactly how it will play out in days to come.   Jin becomes suspicious of Sun’s involvement with Michael, which knowing about Sun’s affair with Jae Lee made that whole scene mean so much more than just having a jealous, controlling husband, and later learns that she has been able to speak English the whole time they’ve been on the island.  Overall, though, I felt the on-island stuff with Sun seemed to mirror the flashbacks of Jin in that they were both lying to protect the other from being hurt and, ultimately, trying to walk away from the marriage that was blessed by Jacob.

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…In Translation

We learn more about Jin’s life before coming to the island. He had gone to Sun’s father to ask permission to marry her. This was a point of honor. We see this same ritual  played out by Sayid with Boone. However since Sayid doesn’t respect Boone, it is explained that it is only out of courtesy. Honor and shame are covered in this episode. Mr. Paik insults Jin by asking why he should hand his daughter over to a man who would so easily sell his dreams. “Because she is my dream.” Before their wedding reception Jin tells her they will have to postpone their honeymoon so that Jin can prove to Paik that he is committed to him and his training. In ‘Deus Ex Machina’ a show of commitment will later be required of Locke as well. His commitment will unfortunately be in the form of human sacrifice.The shame that Jin has from his flashback’s is almost as ugly. He unwittingly found himself working as Paik’s enforcer. In order to spare Han’s life, he beat him senseless in front of his child. Unlike so many other characters in the series, Jin was not deterred from his ugly mission simply because a child was present.  At the beginning of Jin’s first visit, he removes his shoes upon entering Han’s home, as a sign of respect. The second time when he beats him, he doesn’t bother. Later when Michael confronts Jin about the burning of the raft, Jin lets him think that he did it, even taunting him. As Michael starts to beat him he taunts him. This is just like when Sawyer egged Sayid into punishing him for something he didn’t do. Just as in that case, Jin was punishing himself for something else he had done that had gone unpunished.

New life and starting over were also strong themes in this show. Michael tried to get  Walt excited about starting again in New York City. This unfortunately led to Walt’s sabotage of the raft. Michael mistakenly blamed Jin for this. Later he tells Walt, “We all have setbacks…That’s just life. We’ll start over.” When Boone tries to sabotage Shannon’s budding relationship, Sayid tries to distance himself from her. Enraged she goes looking for Boone, and finds Locke instead. Locke encourages her to keep seeing Sayid and ignore Beoone. “Everyone gets a new life on this island Shannon. Maybe it’s time you start yours.” First of all, if this had been said by anyone else I wouldn’t question it’s sincerity. However, rather than being helpful, I suspect that Locke is being an agent of chaos here. Also I can’t help wonder if his invitation for her to start her new life, is an invitation to start it in the afterlife. I smell a rat. Maybe it’s the one he’s cleaning to eat. Ok, first of all gross. Secondly I have to bring up the fact that we got a lot of rat references in seasons 4 & 5. Widmore accused Ben of sneaking into his bedroom like a rat. We had Eloise the rat. And then Widmore told the Others that he caught Kate and Jack crouched in the bushes like rats. Those are the ones that I can remember off the top of my head. The references were getting noticable to a lot of us. Sun begs Jin to start fresh with her. “I want to go back the beginning. Can’t we …just start all over? Though Jin refuses her request, we see that he too had longed for that back home in South Korea. “In a good world she would hate him, not me.” His father replied that “It is a good world”. Shannon declared that she was going to have her new life. It appeared that Sun was too, as she let her swimsuit cover fly and set herself free in the baptismal waters of the ocean.

The theme of black and white was fairly obvious in this episode. We see the return of the white flower as the symbol of Jin’s love for Sun. In the beat down scene, Jin is wearing a black suit and tie with a white shirt. The assassin is wearing a white suit and black shirt.Also the theme of starting over works well with my ongoing question of a reset for season 6.

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Hearts and Minds

Magic and anomalies play a recurring theme in this block of episodes. Locke tells Boone a story about Michelangelo and how his father never understood “the divinity in his son”. This theme will also be revisited in the next episode “Special”. It’s also been a question series wide in terms of how special and fated are our group of castaways. Boone also defends to Locke that Shannon is “smart and special in a lot of ways!” The island’s magnetic anomalies are hinted at when Sayid shows Jack the discrepancies from the compass.

Secrets and truth are always a part of every episode of Lost. Kate catches Sun laughing at a joke she made and realizes that Sun can in fact understand English. Sun admits that only she and Michael know and please not to tell. Locke lies about Boone hunting, to hide that he has actually drugged and kidnapped him.

The mythology of the show was well represented in this episode. When Hurley confronts Boone about his and Locke’s failure to bring back any more boar for the camp to eat, he states “This isn’t a game.” Games have been a series long theme. However in light of season five it seems that it may hint to more of the root of what’s really going on. Jacob and his Nemesis seem to be playing a game over mankind on the island. After Boone confronts Sayid with hostility over his growing friendship with Shannon, the phrase “You know where to find me” is uttered. This mirrors what Jacob said to Nemesis when he told Jacob that he was going to find a loophole so that he could kill him. I couldn’t help but question the exchange that followed between Locke and Boone. Locke admonished Boone from angering Sayid, “We don’t want to make an enemy of him. We’re gonna want him on our side.” I’m not sure what Locke meant by this. Before season 5 I would have just said that it was smart to keep a formidable opponent like Sayid on your side. But in light of season 5’s fake Locke, his ability to manipulate, and the eerie questions of who was leading Locke all along, and whether or not these same occurrences might be revisited or reset, I have trouble making sense of this statement. It makes me suspicious. Even Kate is not able to trust Locke as she suggests to Jack that it’s a lie about the boar disappearing. She thinks that the boar is just thinning out and that Locke is saving the meat for himself. I immediately noticed that Locke was mixing a mystery paste “for later”, as he told Boone. Why was Locke mixing it so early in the episode? Did he know he would need it? Did he remember from a deja vu? When Boone insists that they tell the others about the hatch door that they found, Locke responds “They’re not ready. They won’t understand it.” Even now this makes no sense to me. The best that I can tell is that Locke was being selfish and wanted to keep this experience, this destiny all to himself. However if we are talking in the abstract, there are many things about the island that the survivors won’t understand yet. There are many mysteries of the island that they are not ready for. When Boone says he’s going to tell Shannon their secret, Locke knock’s him out. “…it’s time for you to let go of some things, because it’s what’s best for you. And I promise you’re gonna thank me for this later… You’ll be able to cut yourself free once you have the proper motivations.” That could be said of most all of the experiences that the survivors have over the course of the series. It speaks to their experiences that lead to their own redemptions as well. It even foreshadows the boar experiences that Sawyer will have in “Outlaws”. The paste that Locke was mysteriously mixing far earlier in the episode is what he spreads on Boone’s open head wound. He lies to Boone about it being something to guard against infection for his wound. In fact it was a drug that sent Boone on an hallucinatory trip. In Boone’s flashback he visits the Sydney police station to swear out a complaint against Shannon’s apparently abusive boyfriend Brian. This is one of the first of many names to be repeatedly used by many different characters in Lost. Brian is also the name of Walt’s stepfather that we will meet in “Special”. The officer that Boone meets with has a conspicuously different colored pair of eyes. One is brown and one green. Eye color was a theme that eluded me on my original watch through. It wasn’t until I started joining in with the Lost community at large, that I learned about it. I did notice this cop’s eyes the first time, but I just thought it was a physical anomaly that this actor had. Locke’s strange island knowledge is hinted at again when he states that “There’s nothing to make” of Rousseau’s maps. And again when he gives Sayid his compass because he doesn’t need it anymore. When Locke is discussing the lack of boar he says, ” They’re smart animals and smart animals adapt quickly when a new predator is introduced into their environment.” One has to wonder if our islanders will adapt as well in season 6 when they finally learn who or what they are really up against. The producers have been quoted as saying that there was one line in season one that was secretly more important than the rest to the final outcome of the series. Many fans have speculated that it was Charlies statement to Jack that, “No offense mate, but if there was one person on this island that I would put my absolute faith in to save us all, it would be John Locke.” And as to the question of who Locke is, Boone tells Shannon, “He’s the only one here that has a clue to what’s going on!” By the end of the episode Locke tells Boone that he gave him an experience that Locke believed was vital to his survival on this island. This is an ironic statement given that Boone will only survive for 6 more episodes past this one. Spoiler, sorry. When Boone asked Locke about the experience not being real, Locke answered “It was only as real as you made it. ” These are the kinds of moments in the show that fuel Karen Mauro of “Karen’s Lost Notebook” blog and “The ODI” podcast. She has many intriguing theories involving perspective, dream states, and the idea that island experiences as a whole may not be real, but what the survivors need to go through to evolve in character. As Boone admitted to Locke that he felt relieved to be free of his obligation to Shannon, Locke said “Yes. Time to let go. Follow me.” And off they marched into darkness. It’s interesting to note that from this point on Boone’s free will seems to be gone and he follows Locke blindly, to his death.

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With each passing week of the rewatch, I’m starting to wonder if some of the things we’re noticing were actually supposed to be caught when going back to watch again.  There are common themes that are apparent through all of the episodes in this block, including secrets, lies, numbers, and dreams, and storylines that carry well into the our most recent season of Lost.  This week, we watched episodes 13-16, Hearts and Minds, Special, Homecoming, and Outlaws.  We are given a look at the lives of Boone and Shannon, Walt and Michael, Charlie, and Sawyer, while at the same time, getting present-day series of events that are further explained by seeing these flashbacks.

In Hearts and Minds, we learn how Shannon has worked to manipulate Boone into giving her money that should have come to her when her father died.  She also manages to play with his emotions and feelings for her, having slept with him the night before boarding the Oceanic flight.  On the island, Locke seems to pick up on Boone’s feelings for Shannon and decides to give him a test of faith in himself to prove that he could let go of Shannon.  In this cruel test, John creates a hallucinagenic paste that makes Boone have a vision of the smoke monster attacking and killing his step-sister, but what was odd was that Boone had never come into contact with the monster prior to this and yet his mind was able to tell him all about the happenings this beast could cause.  Does this mean that John was able to call the beast?  Or did Boone just get “judged” like we saw with Ben?

There were other things I noticed during this episode that held significance, in my opinion, to key events that would play out in later seasons.  One of these things is that Kate tells Sun she would have been headed for Bali after leaving Australia, but she was detoured (by the marshall).  Bali is where Naomi said the wreckage of the Oceanic Flight 815 was found and that the world figured there were no survivors based on the number of bodies found there.  There was also the mention of feet swelling when Sayid gave Shannon a pair of shoes.  If you combine this “symptom” with others, especially Hurley’s digestive issues this episode, it could be inferred that we’re dealing with a form of “jet lag” or disruption of circadian rhythm (bodyclock).  I believe this is just another nod in the direction that time is different on the island.  But the biggest thing, for me, was seeing John perched on the beach just staring out at the ocean.  This reminded me so much of Jacob that I now wonder if there is some sort of connection this early in the show to John and the two that have inhabited this island for centuries.

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Season One:  Episodes 13 – 16

Welcome back to Re-Watch Week Number Four!  This week we will be reviewing Hearts and Minds, Special, Homecoming, and Outlaws.  In the past I spent the first part of the articles reviewing the entire four episodes from Locke’s perspective with a follow-up section on my critique of his behavior and actions.  As John Locke’s character has grown to be in many of the scenes within the episodes, the recap section has been a bit daunting to say the least! Therefore, starting this week, in order to provide a better way of analyzing ‘the great white hunter’, I will be giving you my speculations and observations of his character as we walk through the episodes.  And as always I’ll add any personal observations of the overall episodes at the end.  So… let’s get to it!

Looking at Locke:
These four episodes take place over days 24 through 31 on the island.   By the start of Hearts and Minds, it has been eight days since John Locke and Boone discovered the metallic hatch underneath the vegetation of the jungle.  Despite stealing the axe a few days ago from the Losties’ camp, very little has been done to unearth or uncover the hatch itself. Boone continues to follow Locke’s advice and lies to everyone that he and John are out hunting daily.  After a confrontation between Boone and Sayid over Shannon, Locke reprimands Boone en route back to the hatch, telling him to put aside his differences with Sayid because he’s very competent and they don’t want to make an enemy out of him but rather want him on ‘their side’.  When Boone reports that the people at the camp are starting to wonder what it is that they are doing since they do not return with any meat, Locke shrugs it off, telling Boone that the others have plenty of fruit and fish and that what they are doing is far more important.  The hatch, he points out, is their priority.  I find this conversation between Boone and Locke to be extremely important as far as mythology.  To me, any talk or conversation that uses terms like the word ’sides’ points to Season Five’s The Incident with the major scene between Jacob and the Man in Black.  We now know that there are two distinct and different sides existing on this island.  We know that John Locke encountered the Smoke Monster in Walkabout and since that time has behaved in a very creepy all-knowing type of way that can only be explained by supernatural intervention.  And we also know that the Smoke Monster is clearly defined to be part of one of these two sides on the island.  Can we not conclude that John Locke has been chosen to be a part of that same team?  One thing is for certain, he is the only survivor on this island that has knowingly chosen ‘a side’ and has attempted up to this point to either lure people to it or create conflict outside of it.   And to have ‘a side’ infers that there is a counter or opposite side.  Based on how Jack Shepherd did not follow Locke’s advice and submit to fate and continue to chase after his father, I believe Jack is someone we can say with certainty is currently on the ‘opposite side’.   I’ll be able to show evidence of this later in the article.  Finally, I need to say something about John Locke prioritizing the hatch above providing sustenance to his fellow survivors.  He was the one who took ownership as ‘the hunter’ and it was a roll he gladly took on with gusto.  Just ask Charlie Pace, boar bait boy.  But since finding the hatch, John has dropped that title like a bad habit.  And instead of taking the time to teach someone else how to do it or squeezing in a kill now or then just to keep everyone at bay, John simply walks away from his responsibility.  He is not emotionally connected to the community of survivors on the island.  They are simply pawns to be used or sacrificed for his purposes.

Later that day, we see Boone and Locke sitting near the hatch and we learn that the reason why there has been little progress unearthing the metallic structure is because Locke is pulling a Michelangelo, or so he says.  As he stirs a concoction that he tells Boone is ‘for later’, John waxes eloquent on a story about Michelangelo, the Statue of David, and four months of staring at marble.  When Boone fears that he will have to stare at the hatch just as long while Lockelangelo works it all out in his mind, we see Locke smile one of his knowing smiles.  This scene makes me think back to the first three episodes of Locke sitting on the beach staring out into the ocean.  He sat there and waited for something to happen instead of getting up and joining the others in gathering food, water, and shelter.  He’s doing the exact same thing here.  Except this time, we can see that he’s getting a bit frustrated at all of this waiting.  He wants to get that hatch open NOW and he’s going to try to use a shortcut:  Boone.  And how he’s going to do it I believe is a key to how he himself has managed to be so knowledgeable about the island and about those around him.  He’s going to drug Boone to illicit dreams and visions that may tell him what he needs to do.  I believe that is how John Locke has been getting his information up to this point.  All those weird times when John showed up at the right place at the right time, forecasting rain, saving people off cliffs, etc were given to him via dreams and visions.  So why would he need to drug Boone if he gets his own honey-do-list? Well, what if ‘his side’ doesn’t want the hatch to be opened (either now or never) and is no longer communicating to him via visions and dreams?  Would you not, if you were as desperate as John Locke is of finding his destiny, consider using your sidekick? So he puts together the necessary ingredients, stirs slowly, and waits for the opportunity to clobber Boone the Boy Wonder over the head.

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Season One: Episodes 9 – 12

Here we are again fans with Re-Watch Week Number Three and we’re already at the half way point with the first season! As always I’ll be focusing the majority of my weekly article studying the character of John Locke with a follow-up section of my personal observations. Let’s go!

Looking at Locke:
These four episodes take place over days 12 through 22 on the island. Locke has now found another “hunter” in Ethan who is apparently has “experience” and is able to track wild rabbits and rodents in the jungle at night. They return to camp not with a fresh kill or two but with luggage containing Hawaiian shirts and a golf bag. As they prepare to go back into the jungle to “hunt”, Walt tries to sneak away from Michael in an attempt to join the hunting party. Although Walt is enamored with the hunter image of John Locke, his father certainly is not, and Michael quickly cancels Walt’s plan. Locke says nothing during the exchange and gives Walt an “oh well” look as he turns to leave. The next day, as the Losties are enjoying their new 2-hole 3 par golf course, Walt uses the opportunity to seek out John Locke, who is alone throwing his long knife into a large tree. And John, in defiance of common sense and knowing Michael would not approve, hands Walt his long, sharp weapon. Two nights later, John Locke appears in Claire Littleton’s nightmare. He is sitting at a table that has the exact same items belonging to the psychic that she visited several times prior to her flight to Los Angeles. The same lamp, cloth on the table, cards, and crystals. In her dream, as Locke flips one of the Tarot cards, we hear the sound of a metal against metal, like a knife being unsheathed. We also notice that when Locke raises his head to answer Claire’s question about her missing baby, he has one black eye and one white. His words are: “You know what’s happening. It was your responsibility but you gave him away, Claire. Everyone pays the price now.” The next day, as Sayid rushes into the caves after returning from his visit with Danielle Rousseau, we see Locke in the shadows of the caves. Sayid, passing right by Locke and ignoring his presence, heads straight for Jack and Kate. He collapses in exhaustion but declares that he “had to come back” to tell them that “we are not alone”. Locke remains in the shadows, arms crossed with a scowl on his face. As the crisis escalates with the knowledge that Ethan Rom is not only a passenger of Flight 815 but also on his way to intercept Claire and Charlie, Locke remains calm. He joins Jack in the race to the beach to thwart Ethan’s attempt to do harm to Claire. And while Jack is breathing hard, anxious, and a bit reckless in combing the jungle, John appears almost serene. He tries to get Jack to calm down, be quiet, and return to the caves to collect a search party. When Jack refuses and sets off alone into the jungle, Locke goes back to the caves. In a very methodical fashion, John takes his time to put on his vest, tie a cloth around his wrist, grab two knives, and fill a few water bottles. He anticipates Kate wanting to join his party and accepts the help of Boone, a surprising choice for Locke to make considering Boone’s achievement record. When Michael volunteers to be a part of the rescue mission, Locke dismisses his help by saying that more people would slow them down. And when Michael tells Locke he’ll put a party together of his own, Locke tells him to go south, in the opposite direction of his own group. Kate, Boone, and Locke head into the jungle and eventually find Jack wandering around in a circle and unable to find Ethan’s tracks. Locke again attempts to get Jack to go back to the caves and let him “be the hunter”. Jack refuses to stop searching, and the party of four heads out into the jungle. Locke creates more tension between himself and Jack when he insists they stop to rest, even though he appears to be hardly out of breath. Finally, they come across Charlie’s finger bands and realize their friend is leaving the dirty bits for them to follow. When the tracks they are following seem to split into two paths, Jack wants to continue to follow the white bandages, while Locke insists his path is the correct one. Despite Locke’s attempt at them sticking together and going on his trail, Jack and Kate break off from the group and continue to follow the trail left by the abandoned finger bands. Boone partners with Locke and the two of them exchange employment history as they follow John’s “gut” through the jungle. It appears that they are taking a casual stroll up the valley, lightly chatting as they make their way up the mountain terrain. They certainly don’t seem to be concerned about Claire and Charlie. Locke soon stops their progress to tell Boone that it will rain in a minute give or take a few seconds, and that Boone should turn around and head back. It is a masterfully played manipulation, for Boone refuses to leave Locke’s side. The rain falls exactly as predicted and Boone is convinced that Locke is more than just a regional collection supervisor for a box company. They continue to trek up mountainous terrain for hours until the sun sets and they are left with following the “trail” by flashlight. By this time, Boone is starting to get a bit tired of following Locke around like a puppy and suggests that they both head back to camp. When Locke asks Boone, “Don’t you feel it?”, the young man has reached the end of his patience and tells John that he’s going to follow the red strips home. Locke shows him the flashlight and tosses it to him telling him that he needs it more than he does. It, of course, lands directly with a k-thunk sound on top of the hatch. Boone is shocked and perplexed by their discovery and wants to know what this steel structure is beneath the surface of the vegetation. Locke, again, calm and unemotional, tells Boone, “That’s what we’re going to find out.” The hatch was discovered on the evening of day 16 on the island. By day 22, Boone and Locke have made very little progress in discovering what exactly they found despite leaving the camp at first light and returning as the sun sets. Shannon is getting inquisitive and Boone resorts in lying that he and John are searching for Claire instead of telling her the truth. Apparently Locke wants to keep their treasure a secret and has Boone steal the camp’s axe in order to make better progress as well as take a very long skirting path to lose any potential curiosity seekers. The two of them are now removed from the routines of the camp. John Locke has recruited another person into his solitary and separate lifestyle.

If you’ve read any of my previous articles, you know that I’ve taken the position that John Locke gained “knowledge” of some sort during his encounter with the Smoke Monster in Tabula Rasa. I am not convinced that he is completely under the spell of Smoky or the Man in Black, but I do believe that some part of John Locke is being manipulated by them. I don’t know how they are doing it but I strongly believe that John is getting this information via dreams or visions. I find it interesting, therefore, that the person Ethan Rom decides to encounter upon entering into the Losties camp is John Locke. First of all, we know that Ethan was raised within the DHARMA Initiative as well as The Others, who he eventually ended up living with. As a boy he participated in the kidnapping of Danielle Rousseau’s baby, Alex, with Ben Linus. And many years before the crash of Oceanic 815, Ethan was present after the crash of the drug smugglers’ plane on the island. John Locke himself was shot by Ethan when he attempted to climb up the cliff face to investigate the plane during one of the time-travel skips that occurred while the frozen donkey wheel was off track. Therefore, it begs the question of whether Ethan Rom REMEMBERED John Locke as the time-traveler from his past and whether he chose to befriend John Locke purposefully. Because Locke is a solitary man by habit and is not part of the community, it would be less of a risk to connect with Locke since Ethan probably wouldn’t be seen as a new face to a man who doesn’t know most of the people anyway. We can also make some assumptions about Ethan, too. Something changed in his life from being just a DHARMA child to being an Other. He was involved in some ruthless schemes as a boy and he is close to Ben Linus, who knows how to call the Smoke Monster. He also knows about all the DHARMA stations and their locations on the island. Could John Locke’s run in with the Smoke Monster not only allow him to have knowledge about the island but also allow John to befriend someone like Ethan Rom and provide interference for Ethan when he attempts his abduction? I know this sounds strange, but if you look at how many times Locke tries to delay, mislead, and confuse the attempts by Jack to catch up with Ethan, Claire, and Charlie, one has to question his motives! Let’s look back at the events, shall we? First he gets Jack to stop shouting out Claire and Charlie’s names when they come upon Claire’s bag in the jungle. Then he wants to go back to the caves and organize a search party not long after. When Jack refuses and Locke goes back to the caves, does he organize search parties? No. Quite the opposite. Except for Kate, who was going to go anyway, and Boone who offers, he actually tries to get anyone who tries to help into heading in the other direction. Certainly not one who is focused on the welfare of an abducted pregnant mother-to-be. And let’s not mention the fact that he himself refused to let Charlie out of his sight during House of the Rising Sun, yet lets the “only trained physician on the island” to go wandering around the jungle alone! When is little group catches up with Jack, who has been running around in circles because he can’t track, we’re aware that time is of the essence. Yet, John Locke again attempts to get Jack to stop going after Claire and Charlie. This time he tries to intimidate Jack with Ethan’s skill as a hunter and stroke Jack’s ego by telling him he doesn’t want anything to happen to him. “Go back, be the doctor. Let me be the hunter”, Locke says to Jack with a smile. Except that Jack’s not buying it for a moment. “Can we go now?” Jack quips. And Locke sighs as another attempt to stop the rescue is thwarted. Finally, Locke makes one more valiant attempt to divert Jack from his mission to find Claire by saying that there are now two trails and that they should all stick together and follow his lead. Again, Jack refuses and continues on what we now know to be the right path. So, given all these attempts, what can we conclude by John Locke’s behavior? If he wanted to just go off with Boone and find “it”, he could have. Kate did a fine job finding Ethan all by herself. But he was obviously trying to delay or prevent Jack from stopping Claire’s abduction. WHY??? I have only one guess: That there might have been some “agreement” between Ethan and Locke and the Smoke Monster. Sort of like, you help me with Claire and I’ll help you find your purpose kind of an agreement. I know that sounds nuts but maybe it was made via a dream or vision. Maybe John Locke saw what was going to happen via a vision and just did what he could to ensure that it went the way it was shown to him. One of the reasons I feel this way is because of the rain and John knowing EXACTLY when it would rain. He set up the dialogue with Boone for quite a while before stopping on that mountainside. He looked up, saw the cloud formations, knew the time he had to get Boone to commit to his plan BY CHOICE, and Voila’ rain. And when that happened, he knew he could get Boone to go anywhere with him. Boone now sees him as some sort of island guru. Exactly the kind of guy a hungry for adventure kid like Boone is looking for. So… I think that the vision or dream showed him that Boone had to choose to come with him. Just like it told him to get in the way of Claire’s rescue. I also believe that in some way John Locke was NOT surprised when his flashlight hit the steel of the hatch. He did not have the perplexed look of someone who has just discovered a bizarre structure under the vegetation of a remote island. Watch how Boone tries to get his mind around what is going on. He attempts to rationalize that it is wreckage from part of the plane. But as Locke thwacks the steel with the handle of his knife he just can’t figure out what is going on. And when Boone asks Locke just that question, Locke has a gleam in his eyes and an almost imperceptible smile. “That’s what we’re going to find out”, he replies with confidence. Too much confidence, don’t you think?

Something else that’s been bothering me about John Locke. How is it that a guy who has spent the better part of four years in a wheelchair paralyzed from the waist down can be in such spectacular condition? I don’t care what kind of rehab they had at the hospital and how amazing Matthew Abaddon encouraged him to get well so he could go on his walkabout, NO ONE could be his age in that kind of physical condition after coming out of paralysis. We know that his waking up on the island and wiggling his toes was a miracle. But every time I see John Locke run like the wind, I am reminded of just how supernatural this miracle really is. When Jacob touches him below Anthony Cooper’s shattered window, he revives him but he doesn’t completely heal him. John has to deal with four years of living in a wheelchair. Yet when he lands on this island, he is not only cured of the paralysis that Jacob did not heal but also of any loss of decay and musculature in the meantime. He’s like Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man. He’s better than he was. Better. Stronger. Faster. And creepy. Just ask Hurley.

My quick list of observations:
1. Solitary. When I first watched this episode a long time ago, I immediately associated it with Sayid. Since it was a Sayid-centric episode, I believed that the title meant to show Sayid as a solitary man. But after watching it again, I have to admit that there are more ways of looking at it. Danielle Rousseau lived her life for sixteen years and chose to continue to live her live in solitary conditions. Locke continues to be a rogue solitary man, never being part of the group in any way. He LIKES being solitary. Sawyer decides NOT to be the solitary man he wanted to be after a few weeks on the island; he decides to “make an effort” and joins the community at the golf course. And Sayid chose NOT to be solitary, either. He tells Danielle, “I know what it’s like to hold on to someone… The more I hold on, the more I pull away from the people around me. The only way off this place is with their help.”
2. Raised by Another. Again, I thought it was about Claire being warned about not letting Aaron be raised by another. But it could also apply to Ethan Rom. Was he not raised by Others?
3. We know that until the golf course was designed by Hurley, the Losties were in the midst of fulfilling many of the Man In Black’s prophesies of the human condition. Hurley himself tells Jack that the “the usual” is going on, “people yelling at each other over nothing”. He talks about people being stressed out, tense, and angry. Even with the golf course, Hurley knows the importance of “laying down the law” by creating a census. He says to Jack: “Someone is punched, stabbed, or something every other day here!” Notice that all the attempts outside of survival to create calmness and a sense of order has been by Hurley. Hurley also has a good ‘creep’ radar! He had a good read on Ethan from Ontario and certainly one on John Locke. He couldn’t wait to get away from either one of them! Just more observances of Hurley’s ‘Jacobean’ personality.
4. Richard Malkin the Psychic. He mentions that he saw “a blurry thing” in Claire’s first visit and that he couldn’t continue the reading. He also admits later that “blurry is bad”. Could blurry be something like a black swirling smoke that has images of people inside it and that can smash cockpits and fell trees? Hmmmm.
5. Interesting that John Locke is in Claire’s dream sitting with Richard Malkin’s psychic things: the lamp, the cards, the crystals, etc. Is that meant to convey that John Locke has psychic abilities? He certainly does have some amazing abilities to be at the exact place at the exact time! Can you say ‘rain in a minute, give or take a few seconds’!
6. The Whispers. They first show up in Solitary with Sayid running back to the caves. These whispers have still been unexplained. By the way, Lostpedia has documented their conversation in this scene: “Just let him get out of here.” “He’s seen too much already.” “What if he tells?” “Could just speak to him.” “No.” Interesting and still confusing. Any ideas???
7. Charlie and Claire in the jungle when Claire gets her ‘stress-induced’ contractions. Could those have been induced by whatever Ethan injected into her? Also, I found it funny that Charlie starts counting “One sugar plum fairy, two sugar plum fairies…” when he has a watch on his arm. Why would you use an approximate method of counting contractions when you have a watch available?
8. For those who were tracking the little boxes we see on people’s desks and stuff off island, Claire had a little box of some sort in her room in Australia.
9. Charlie after CPR is uncommunicative at the caves. When Jack pleads with him to tell him anything that he remembers, he utters: “That’s all THEY wanted. All THEY wanted was Claire.” Who is THEY? Did someone help Ethan get Charlie in that noose and drag them away? If so, who?
10. Watches, watches, who’s got watches. The watch count is now down to six. Charlie, Rose, Sun, Sayid and Locke continue to wear watches. Jin has exchanged is lovely Rolex for the steel handcuff.

Go to Source

This week’s assignment consisted of Season 1’s episodes 9-12:  Solitary, Raised By Another, All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues, and Whatever The Case May.  We are given our first introduction to Danielle Rousseau and Ethan Rom, and then given the notion that there are “others” on the island to further the mystery engulfed in the storyline.  The flashback stories show a look into the past of Sayid, Claire, Jack, and Kate, and all deal with one or more themes of lost loves, regrets, and deaths of people close to them.  Overall, these episodes were great to watch again and I thought they fit together great in their 4-episode block this week.  And of course……there were things I managed to find when viewing through the magnifying glass….

In Solitary, Sayid has left the Oceanic survivors to explore the island.  He finds a cable and follows it inland, eventually getting caught in one of Danielle’s traps.  When I saw the trip wire to this trap, I instantly thought of the island, circa 1954, when our time-traveling Losties met the younger versions of Eloise Hawking and Charles Widmore.  The island was boobie-trapped with land mines that were set off using trip wires.  There was also the fact that Danielle spoke so many languages when asking Sayid where Alex was.  Besides the fact that she knew all of those languages, she also remembered them after 16 years of not speaking all of them.  Granted, she was only asking a question of “where is Alex?”, but I found it peculiar that she was able to do it.  The biggest puzzle to me, though, when it comes to Danielle, was the fact that she didn’t believe Sayid about the plane crashing to the island.  In the Season 3 opener, we see how Juliet and her book club are sitting in her home, when all of a sudden an earthquake-type event begins, shaking her home and its contents violently.  Everyone runs outside and witnesses the plane breaking into two pieces in the sky.  The noise is unbelievable and would have woken Rip Van Winkle himself, had he also been on the island.  Why is it that Danielle missed this event entirely?

There were some other things that jumped out at me during this episode.  For one, John Locke is hunting with Ethan, when there was a time, when the Beechcraft crashed to the island, that John was THE hunted and Ethan was the hunter.  John is pretty memorable in his looks, but does Ethan remember shooting him?  John also had more moments where he seemed odd to me.  For example, Jack complained about the hypochondriac in their group, and Hurley commented that they all needed something to do to get their minds off of their situation.  Just as Hurley says, “There’s nothing to do!”, John enters with some things for Hurley to go through, one of which is a bag of golf clubs.  It is then that Hurley gets the idea to make the golf course that everyone ends up enjoying.

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