reading is FUNdamental.

New characters. Births. Deaths. Time travel. Dharma Merlot. Beards (or lack thereof).

All can be found in tonight’s episode, “La Fleur,” but what people should really want to talk about is ….

Fourtoedfull

THE STATUE!

Yeah, the rest of the episode was pretty good. But… THE STATUE!

It’s about time we got a Sawyer episode and this was a doozy. Sawyer – LOST’s Mr. Worf. Sawyer – con man again. Sawyer – creator of pithy sayings. Sawyer – romantic? A+ to Sawyer for using his knowledge of the Black Rock as a cover story. Although, Sawyer says “he didn’t go for it.” really? Having SEX IN A POLAR BEAR CAGE seemed like “going for it” to me.

Our next important question – How did Amy have the baby? And WHO IS THE BABY? Since this is Lost and there are seemingly no MacGuffins, it must be something right? Early Internet speculation is leaning toward Ethan. At least we know it’s not Ben or Locke. And, show of hands, who went “Uh oh” when they saw a pregnant Dharma chick on the island?

If you’re Juliet, do you really hide your doctoring skills for three years, before emerging from underneath one of the VW buses to deliver the Mystery Baby? I was expecting Juliet to ask for 2004 medical supplies and have the 1974 doctor look at her blindly. As a Juliet > Kate viewer, it was also nice to see Juliet all cleaned up for once (although there’s a lot to be said for dirty jungle Juliet in her skimpy tank top).

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – you can never have too much Richard Alpert. He takes everything in stride and never seems to get flustered. Maybe that’s what happens when you are hundreds of years old.

Many great lines tonight. Two of the best – “Thanks anyway, Plato.” and “You are not Dharma people.”

Thumbs up to Jin’s improved English. Won’t Sun be surprised next episode (not next week, hope you caught that) with his mad skills? And will the Jin/Sun reunion bring viewers to tears the way that Desmond/Penelope did last year?

Faraday + Young Charlotte = Creepy to no end.

There was one person noticeably absent from the Dharma compound in this week’s episode. Young Ben Linus. Expect to see him sooner rather than later, I’m guessing.

The ankh necklace is a great plot point that we likely will be seeing again.

Was the “circle cam” a sly wink to That ’70s Show, given that everyone was now in the 1970s?

Next week, as mentioned above, no show. Guess even Jacob can’t fight the first AMERICAN IDOL results show. In two weeks, a reunion that everyone probably did not want to happen.

Posted by Mark Coale

1 COMMENT

  1. Bonus points for bit-casting another creepy Lynch alumnus on LOST! Anybody else recognize the frightened guy from Winky’s Diner in Mulholland Drive?

    And yeah, I’m kinda hoping Sawyer poops on Kate & Jack both and Does Not Pass Go directly back to Juliet. Somebody on this damn show deserves a happy ending, and I’m thinking it’s the those two– they’re honestly the closest to completely redeemed.

    Hm. Four toes and distinctly Egyptian. The pose was familiar, too; reminded me of a particular statue of Horus… Of course with all the time-bending I’m certain it’s someone we know (or have known, or will know) but I just can’t shake that first impression. Have to dig through some old photos and see if I can find it.

  2. Another great Sawyer-ism was when he referred to Richard as “the guy with the eyeliner,” since his eye makeup is a defining feature for many fans. (For me, of course, it’s that he was on the live-action Tick show…)

    And you gotta talk about how we saw more of DHARMA-leader Horace in this episode. When he appeared to Locke in a dream/hallucination last season, Horace was pushing down trees; here he was blowing some up. And Locke found the map to Jacob’s cabin on Horace’s dead body; so how does Horace come to fit into the whole Jacob thing?

    Also, just as a storytelling thing, I loved the Juliet-agrees-to-stay-for-two-weeks-then-cut-to-a-“Three Years Later”-title-card transition. But I’m like that, I guess…

    Another great episode. Without Jack and Kate, I’ll note…

  3. Consider also that after the Losties get down flashing away from “whenever” to “1974,” the statue has apparently gone away, since they don’t see it anymore. (I know they didn’t really look for it, but I’m taking their not-looking as evidence that it wasn’t there no more.)

  4. @Ali Kokmen: “Richard as ‘the guy with the eyeliner,’ since his eye makeup is a defining feature for many fans. ”

    That’s not makeup, Nestor Carbonell just has very thick eyelashes – he apparently gets that question all the time, according to a recent interview. The “eyeliner” line was a joke referring to that misconception.

    @DQ: “I thought we saw Ben’s birth… did I remember wrong?”

    Nope, you’re right. Ben was born off-island. Amy’s kid is someone else – we don’t know who yet.

  5. @Jim– Thanks for point out the homonym. Feel like a ‘tard for not noticing before.

    Amy & Goodspeed’s kid is probably Annie– and since the next episode is ‘Nameste’ I’m betting we’re going to start getting hints on what happened to Ben to turn him from a run-of-the-mill snotnose to a mass-murderin’ man o’ mystery.

  6. Ok that Sawyer thing bothered me. Him calling Richard the guy with eyeliner. He saw Richard from the window at quite a distance. He claimed to have just landed on the island and not know who Richard was. Horace should have asked what the hell Sawyer meant. How would Sawyer know what his thick eyelashes looked like to make such a comment before he met him? It was just a funny line for comedy’s sake but it made no sense and was kind of a blatant mistake on the writer’s part.

  7. Anybody else recognize the frightened guy from Winky’s Diner in Mulholland Drive?

    I did!

    Incidently, that scene in Mulholland Drive (voted somewhere as the scariest scene ever) was never explained. The scene had no arc.

    But yeah, that actor will always be the guy from Winky’s.

  8. I’m enjoying the whole time twisting turmoil on LOST. I really like the introduction of new characters and what they represent to the whole story as well as how well the writers have perfectly progressed the core characters. All one has to do is watch a random episode of the the first season and realize just how far the story has come and how well it’s been done.

    Great stuff.

    Beau Smith
    The Flying Fist Ranch

  9. @gene phillips- When they saw the back of the full statue I think the group had momentarily flashed back farther than any other time, maybe hundreds of years. Maybe to the time of the mysterious group who attacked them on the beach with flaming arrows.

    After Locke reset the wheel & they jumped again, they did not see it because it was gone from sight. Sayid & Jin saw only the foot remaining of a large statue at the end of Season 3. I’m sure the destruction of the statue is going to be revealed.

  10. That 4-toed statue looks to be holding Ankh’s in its mitts. Ankh is Egyptian for “eternal life.”

    Sawyer is so good at cons that I think he conned himself into believing he didn’t love Kate no more. That is…until she showed up again. Great episode.

    ALSO —

    Anybody else think that Ben murderized Penny when he called Jack from the marina, all beat up and bloodied, a few episodes ago? Didn’t he have “one last thing to do” before splitting back to the island? Didn’t he vow to kill Widmore’s daughter?

  11. @Hal Shipman:

    Really? Cool to know that Nestor Carbonell looks that way natually. He’s certainly got a certain look, and I guess it makes sense that it’s largely nature.

    @Hal Shipman:

    I don’t think that that scene is necessarily a mistake on the writers’ part. Yes, Horace should’ve wondered how Sawyer could describe Richard if he supposedly was only seeing him for the first time. But that’s the point. Sawyer showing Horace that he knows more about Richard than Horace thinks he should know about Richard is how Sawyer convinces Horace to let him talk to Richard. That’s not necessarily a writer’s mistake. (And, heck, we can imagine that all the “how did you know about Richard’s eyes?” questions took place off-screen at some point…)

  12. Amy’s child was a BOY.

    It’s ’74, and the original Losties got wrecked in 2004 so the character would be a male of about 30. That is, if he spent ALL his time in his own time…

  13. Observations and theories from Lost fans at the Washington Post:

    Faraday’s theories about time travel are wrong. Perhaps the past can be changed.

    Sawyer’s beard changes color and fullness during the show.

    The statue resembles Anubis.

    An early (1869) expert on the meaning of the ankh was Thomas Inman, who suggested that it was a fertility symbol.

    Amy’s child might be Boone.

    SRS

  14. Saw a great theory this morning.

    The statue is the egyptian goddess of childbirth and when the statue was destroyed, that’s when the babies stopped being born on the island.

  15. OK, so in 1974, babies can be born safely on the island. So whatever messed things up hasn’t happened yet.

    My theory: Juliet ends up doing something/developing something that results in the problem. It seems fitting that she’d be the one to cause the very problem that ended up bringing her to the island in the first place.

    @Steven Stahl’s theory:
    Amy’s baby can’t be Boone. He wasn’t old enough.

    Say, wouldn’t JACK or SAWYER be about the right age to be Amy’s baby?

  16. “Faraday’s theories about time travel are wrong. Perhaps the past can be changed.”

    I’ve long thought that Faraday was an “unreliable narrator.”

    I can’t imagine it being Jack, given that we’re so tied into the Christian Shephard stuff.

  17. Oh yeah and forgot to mention my favorite thing about this episode: Josh Holloway’s uncanny ability to act with his EYES alone. That last scene where he saw Kate was incredible.

  18. They appear in 1974, but Amy gives birth 3 years later in 1977, so her kid would be 27 when the series starts.

    How old is Ben? How old was he when he arrived on the island? How old was he when he gassed the Dharmites? In other words, when do those events take place?

    Just throwing some numbers around, let’s say Ben is about 50, arrives on the island at 10 and kills the Dharmites at 25. So he’s born about 1955, arrives on the island in 1965 and becomes a mass murderer in 1980, only a few years away.

    I assume the community is small enough that everyone knows each other, so Sawyer/Juliet/Miles must know Ben is there. No one else know what Ben did? Also wouldn’t Ben remember Juliet & Sawyer from when he was young? Maybe he did and kept it to himself? Maybe that when he first fell for Juliet?

    When are Locke, Ben and the others, the present?

  19. Isn’t Bast also an Egyptian goddess of fertility? In any case, the Egyptian connections seem to be slowly revealing themselves…Horace/Horus, the hieroglyphs at the Swan station, the ankh…Dammit, where’s Carter Hall when you need him?

  20. I agree about Josh Holloway, his acting is miles above some of his more accomplished(career wise) cast mates.

    I’m not sure “Faraday’s theories” are only his. The idea that fate can not be changed has been a central theme to many episodes of Lost. Desmond spent most of season 3 wrestling with that very issue. The fact that ALL of the Oceanic 6 ended up on Ajira 316 seems to bear this out. Whatever is supposed to happen will happen.

    @Matt, Ben killed the Dharmites in 1992 during the great purge.

  21. Bast is described variously as the goddess of the sun, of war, of sensual pleasure, and of truth & justice.

    SRS

  22. @Matt Lehman- Ben doesn’t remember Sawyer & Juliet from his childhood because it hasn’t been shown that they had interacted in the 70’s yet.

    My guess is that when & if that interaction is shown, there will be a cut to present day Ben getting that far-off look in his eye as these new memories of Sawyer & co. develop in his mind. It would be interesting to see how Ben could use these newly developed memories in his interactions with Locke, Sun, & the rest of the Airija survivors. He would know what had happened to them & where they were in time & use that information to manipulate everyone else he is with.

    Desmond did not remember his interaction with Faraday in the past until Faraday went back in time. Desmond told Penny that he just remembered this new memory although it was like it had always been there.

  23. In regards to Ben’s age, I seem to remember Jack reading Ben’s medical records as being those of a 38-39 year old man back when Jack was kidnapped to remove Ben’s spinal tumor. Granted, that means Ben was 27-28 in the 1992 Purge & a bit of a visual stretch for the actor, but okay.

    If that was in 2004, that means Ben was born in ’65-66. That makes sense as he was 10-11 when he and his father came to the island, bringing it up to ’76-’77 when Sawyer is around. My guess is that Ben is a fairly new arrival when Jack, Kate, and Hurley show up next episode.

  24. But where are Bernard and wife? They were time-hopping too!

    And what will happen when the two ghost-whisperers meet?

  25. Something that no one is talking about… did anyone else realize that Locke, Ben, (likely Sun), and Lapidus are NOT in the same time period as the other Losties. The plane landed on the Hydra Station from Season 3…Caesar remarked to Locke that he saw Hurley vanish from the plane…what’s to say that Jack, Sayid(since we saw him captured by Dharma in the teaser for next week), Kate and Hurley all went back to Dharma time 1977…while everyone else is stuck in the present. Remember that episode where Sawyer and the other people stuck on the island saw those canoes and stuff from Ajira Airlines, and then were shot at by people on Canoes…I don’t see a Sun/Jin reunion anytime soon

  26. The little squared-off ears of the statue (as well as the flat crown of Lower Egypt) lead me to suspect that it’s “Set,” and not Anubis or Bast, or Isis.

    He was the sibling of Osiris, Isis and Nephthys who in the Ennead cosmogeny of Egypt murdered Osiris. He’s sort of the arch-villain of Egyptian mythology.

    The nice thing about Egyptian mythology is that over the course of 3000 years it constantly evolved; you can pretty much make any claim about the religion, and chances are at some point they probably believed it. (For example, during the Amarna period, the ankh was a gift from The Aten that sort of represented the seed of life; other times it meant balance or harmony, or judgment.)

  27. I thought Amy looked a lot like a young Eloise Hawking, which would make the baby Daniel, but I’m not really up on all the genealogy of the show. Do we know how old he is? Who is father is?

    I thought seeing the statue meant that they had traveled back thousands of years, and that the remaining foot was merely what was left after so long.

  28. I believe the reason why sun,ben,locke, are in the present time is because they were on the island in 1977. In order for the island to course correct those three could not travel back to 1977 or they would run the risk of meeting themselves (younger versions).