The beginning of the episode plays with us a little. We see Sayid nervously approaching a house, we see Nadia answer the door, we think about The Substitute, Locke going home to his loving wife. But no, Sayid isn’t visiting his wife, or his fiancee, or his girlfriend. He’s visiting his brother and Nadia – husband and wife. It’s not even his brothers emergence that causes this realisation, it’s their children calling Sayid “Uncle”. They’ve been together long enough to have two kids, and clearly Sayid still has feelings for her. Painful.

At this moment I was wondering why Sayid was in Australia, and still feeling like he was possibly a hitman. We joked at the time that he and his brother might both be hitmen given the shady almost cruel vibes that his brother gives off (and the “dry-cleaning” mention, cleaning is a sinister profession). But i think we have a clear picture of Sayid’s brother from the childhood chicken killing scene from some time ago. The rest of this episode makes it clear that Sayid and his brother are two different kinds of men.

The most important part of this episode, in my opinion, is Dogan talking about the scale. This is fascinating. He’s suggesting that every person sits somewhere on this scale between good and evil. Now obviously everyone is inclined towards some kind of moral behaviour (just as everyone is either slightly more optimistic, or slightly more pessimistic), but the idea that there’s some kind of discernible, definitive way of measuring this (with a red hot piece of metal, electric shocks and some dust, no less) boggles the mind. It makes me think of alignments in Dungeons and Dragons. I think it’s key to understanding a lot of the mysteries in Lost.

We have two powerful men in this storyline, Jacob and the Man In Black. We’ve seen them portrayed as light and dark, and we’ve had the MIB referred to as pure evil. We’ve also seen both of them manipulate people. We now know that there’s some kind of alignment scale that is pivotal, and we know that Jacob has been manipulating people’s lives for his own purpose.

I’ve spoken previously about the Night Watch tetralogy by Sergei Lukyanenko. To quote wikipedia:

“The story revolves around a confrontation between two opposing supernatural groups (known as “Others”): the Night Watch, an organisation dedicated to policing the actions of the Dark Others—and the Day Watch, which polices the actions of the Light Others.”

In these stories a “truce” exists between the two factions, keeping balance. If one side acts outside the truce (i.e uses their powers for their own purposes) they effectively give permission to the other side to commit an act with the same kind of magnitude. An early example in the stories is one character influencing a drug dealer to give up his “dark” ways. If caught, he risks allowing the other side to influence someone to find their dark path.

When humans become “others”, the two factions aren’t allowed to directly recruit them, they must find their own path, but a situation that arises in the story is the notion that one side can influence a person subtly, by changing other things.

This notion doesn’t seem too dissimilar to occurrences in Lost. The Man In Black finds a loophole to kill Jacob. He influences another character, and causes that character to murder Jacob. It’s made entirely clear to us during the scene that Ben is killing Jacob out of his own free will. Jacob even makes sure that it’s Ben’s choice. Something that can’t be said of Sayid’s attempt to stab Fake-Locke in this episode. But we’ll get to that later.

Free will is the key, getting humans (and especially the candidates) to deviate and pick one side or the other.

Anyway, continuing with the episode.

Dogan realised that Sayid, a candidate, was straying towards the negative (because of some kind of influence, but more probably because of his obscure resurrection). He decides that Sayid should be eliminated instead of risking… something, something he might do? Something he might not do?

This is the second time Dogan tries to kill Sayid, but this time it’s a bit more direct. He doesn’t go through with it because he has a moment of clarity. He sees the baseball and decides to spare Sayid. Now, we have to wonder if this is because he remembers what the baseball means to him, or because he knows what will happen if he (directly) kills Sayid. We’ll touch on that some more later.

This next scene is also fascinating. Fake-Locke and Claire are standing at the edge of the ash ring (which we know keeps smokey at bay), he’s telling her to go inside. She asks why he can’t do it and he explains that he can’t. Why not? Why not ask Claire to kick the ashes away? There’s more to it than that. She says “If i go in there, i need to know that you’ll do what you said, i want my son back”. He replies “i always do what i say”, and i believe him. I believe he intends to get Aaron (wonder why she didn’t refer to him by name…) back to her. Perhaps Aaron IS this “Wallace” that’s coming to the island? The fathers name could well be Wallace.

I really got the feeling from Fake-Locke here that he doesn’t particularly want to go in there and hurt people, he just accepts that it has to happen. I think his intention is to collect followers, not punish innocents.

I love Sayid’s utter confusion at being exiled, then finding out that he wasn’t even resurrected by the temple others. He has no idea what’s going on. Nor do we Sayid, nor do we.

Dogan and Claires exchange reveals that Dogan would be killed if he left the temple. Claire suggests that he sends someone that “you know who” won’t kill. Dogan immediately wants to send Hurley or Jack, but upon discovering they’re no longer in the temple – decides to send Sayid. I don’t think this is primarily an attempt to get Sayid killed. Why give him the old dagger? Which, by the way, looks to be a Roman Pugio (so we’re talking 1st Centure AD). Trust me, this dagger is relevant. I think he’s sending Sayid because, resurrected or not, Sayid is a candidate. He knows that Fake-Locke can’t kill candidates.

Thing is, it’s not Sayid’s free choice to kill him. Dogan has convinced him to do it. I don’t think this is going to do it.

Having difficulty finding anything to comment on in the Sayid flash-sideways. It’s interesting, and entertaining, but so far they’re not adding anything to the plot.

Back on the island Sayid bumps into Kate, who appears to be going back into the temple. Didn’t she say that she wasn’t going to the temple? I loved Miles explaining that he wanted to go after Sawyer. Reminding us that they were close. Spent three years together and apparently did become good friends. I enjoyed their dynamic even though we didn’t see much of it – he probably ended up being closer to Sawyer than any of our original Losties did, even Kate.

So, Sayid does as instructed and stabs Fake-Locke (after he’s spoken, which according to Dogan is too late). Love, love, love Terry O’Quinn as Fake-Locke. He’s so convincing.

Fake-Locke is a manipulator. I don’t believe him when he says that Dogan sent Sayid to his death. But i said that already. I believe that because Sayid is already inclined towards the evil side of things, he’s very easy for Fake-Locke to manipulate. It’s not that i believe Fake-Locke is actually especially evil (which is where things get complicated), but for the simple reason that someone who is off balance, is always easier to push over. If you get my meaning.

Sayid is no fool. He knows Fake-Locke is trying to talk him into something, but what he wasn’t prepared for is the offer. Anything he wanted. A go at the magic box that gives you whatever you want. Fake-Locke offers him the chance to see Nadia again, and it’s pretty obvious that Sayid is going to take him up on that. What does he have to lose? He already believes that he’s evil, he told us that at the end of season five! Dogan just pushed him over the edge.

So, Fake-Locke is saying that he can give Sayid the thing he wishes for most – Nadia, and of course we cut straight to the flash-sideways where he does indeed see Nadia. It’s almost like the flash-sideways were created by one of those evil movie genies, giving you what you asked for, but not in the way you wanted. You can see Nadia again, but she’s married to your brother. Oooh, nasty.

Sayid tells the temple others that there’s a man in the jungle. Again they’re telling us that Fake-Locke IS a man. He also says something very interesting. Jacob is dead now, and the temple others don’t have to stay there any more. He said the same thing to Bram etc in the statue foot. Is he just suggesting that their responsibilities have ended, or is it more sinister – like they were being held “captive” in the temple. Enthralled, indentured, whatever. He tells them that if they leave the temple they can join “the man” and leave the island, but if they don’t leave they’ll be killed. Dogan looks like he’s fairly sure things are not going to go his way.

Kate and Claire, we were sitting watching this scene going “nooooo”, Emilie de Ravin does a VERY good job of being evil. That facial expression is terrifying. Kate refers to “raising” Aaron. Reminding us of Claire being told that no one else could “raise” Aaron, “raised by another” etc. Sounds bad. We know that Claire said she’d kill Kate if this was true.

Loved seeing Omar and Keamey in the flash-sideways. But i love seeing Kevin Durand in things, seemed like a really decent guy when i was doing Robin Hood, huge in real life too – and i’m 6′2. But back to Lost. Interesting to see them back in the flash-sideways. Don’t know if this is just fan service, or if there’s a decent reason for it. No idea why they’re doing organised crime now instead of being mercenaries. Just another Lost co-incidence. But as much of a co-incidence as finding Jin. Whaaaat? Did Jin deliver the watch to them? Did they ambush him? Were they working for one of Jin’s company’s competitors who didn’t want Jin “sealing the deal” with the gift?

Okay, so, i’m eating humble pie. I would’ve bet a lot of money that Dogan was a WWII officer. But he worked in a bank. Could i have been more wrong? He explains that he drank too much, and got into an accident (another car accident?) with his son – who was very badly injured. Someone comes to him and offers him a deal – i’ll save your son, but you can never see him again, in exchange you’ll come to the island and get a new job. This is a very selfless act, perhaps something that would tip your “scale” over into the positive. We find out in a few moments that it was Dogan keeping Fake-Locke out, perhaps Dogan being very far over on the positive side of things kept Fake-Locke at bay, perhaps this is why he didn’t kill Sayid when he had the chance. Perhaps seeing the baseball reminded him of the sacrifice he made, and that he couldn’t risk his alignment by killing Sayid.

Dogan realises that Sayid has made a similar deal with Fake-Locke. It’s worth noting that although he says that the man who visited him with his son was Jacob, we don’t know for sure that it was the Jacob we know. It could have been the man in black. Infact, the man in black could even be called Jacob, he could be Jacobs servant (remember the image we saw on a wall? the smoke and the egyptian god?) – or perhaps the man in black could even BE Jacob, a la Fight Club.

I have to wonder why Sayid throws Dogan in the water. He’s fought Dogan before and lost, why risk a physical struggle with him when you’ve got a big knife? Perhaps he was told to kill Dogan with the water. Perhaps Dogan will come back to life because of it, and the dark water will bring him back wrong, a la Sayid? There’s MUCH more to be revealed about that water, and water in general.

I was sure that Miles would die, i’m glad he didn’t, i like Miles. I also like Frank and Ben, and they’re both acting like they know a lot more now about what’s going on. Maybe Illana filled them in a little during the walk over? Interesting that Illana referred to Ben as Linus. They love surnames. She knows about candidates. She knows his name is crossed off.

Love this scene with Ben and Sayid. I’ve been a big fan of Ben since we first met him – i used to enthuse “he’s the good guy, you’ll see” and i still think we’ll see him do something amazing before the end of the series. I like that he’s genuinely trying to save Sayid here, and it makes me more sure that Illana must have explained what’s going on. He’s really trying to help Sayid, but then when he sees Sayid’s reaction he backs off in fear. He knows Sayid has shifted, gone wrong. But i’m not sure if this is some kind of “claiming” like Dogan said, or if Sayid has just accepted his fate.

Hated the eerie “catch a falling star” playing while Sayid, Clair and Kate walked through the temple. Why is it playing? Is it Claire’s voice? Why did Smokey let Kate survive it?

My real question is why did all the temple others decide to follow Locke? Is it fear? Respect? Or does this go back to what i said before about the non-candidates being easily swayed? I talked before about whats-her-name the air hostess acting like she was never really a normal off-island person.

Fake-Locke’s staring at Kate when she walks out is interesting. Like he’s trying to gauge what she’ll do. Whether she’s one of “them” or not. Remember, her name WAS on the wheel.

Couldn’t help wondering where Sawyer was in this scene. With Jin?

Good episode.

It interested me that this episode started with a reminder of scenes from the flash-sideways. This wasn’t the case in the previous two episodes. This inferred to me that the flash-sideways scenes would be of more importance than the on-island stuff. In the first episode of the season we saw that Jack seems to know that something is up with his situation. We also saw the cut on his neck, something I’m certain will mean more to us later (I personally feel like the end of the season will involve this injury). So I was keen to see how his flash-sideways plot would go in this episode, perhaps we’d get some more indication that he knows something isn’t right.

We also get a reminder of the conversation between Dogan and Jack, where Dogan points out that the “claiming” or “darkness” happened to his sister, and again I must point out that we need to know how Dogan knows Claire is his sister. Either he knew this from observation (the lighthouse?), or someone told him (Jacob? or, my personal opinion, Christian?). Either way it’s yet more proof that these people know a lot about our “candidates”.

Last episode we saw a drunk Sawyer in dirty clothes (and the infamous brown stained underwear that everyone seems to be talking about, but I didn’t even notice) – this episode opens with a shirtless Jack? Are the powers that be trying to sway our female audience over to Jack, or just pointing out that they’re very different kinds of men? I’m not being entirely serious here, but we HAVE been constantly reminded throughout Lost, of the differences between Sawyer and Jack. We’ve seen this culminate in arguments and fist fights on a few occasions and I’d bet we’ve not seen the last of it. A long conflict between two men of opposing characteristics? Remind you of anything? Yeah.

Jacks mothers opening line of dialogue – “Have they found him yet?”. No, no they haven’t. Christians body has a habit of disappearing, doesn’t it? I’m sure a lot of people forgot (despite me constantly harping on about it), but Jack never did find his body on the island. Personally I think that’s because Christian is walking around on the island, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see. At this point I wouldn’t have been surprised if they showed us his coffin sitting at the bottom of the sea, on the sunken island. Whatever HAS happened to the coffin, it’s no coincidence that it didn’t show up.

Quite important that Jack notices the appendix scar. Did this Jack really have his appendix out when he was 7? We know when our Jack had his appendix out.. Okay, so according to wikipedia Jack was born in 1967 or 1970, not sure where this is sourced from but lets assume it’s true. The island sank at some point after, or during the 70’s (we see the Dharma camp), my own assumption is that the incident / jughead sank the island – but I’ve talked about that before so I’ll skip over that for now. The incident occurs in 1977 as we know, when Jack would’ve been… 7 years old. The island sinking has affected a lot of things. One of them appears to be Jacks appendix. Now whether this is because, say, Jacob prevented his appendix rupturing in 1977 in the original timeline – but after the island sank he didn’t do this (or didn’t NEED to do this), or simply because of chaos theory (the island sinking counts as a pretty big butterfly flapping it’s wings, who knows what would change), who knows. But the point I’m making here is that Jacks appendix probably was removed AFTER the island sank.

Okay, we’re only 2.5 minutes into the episode at this point, so it turns out that I definitely like this episode.

I wasn’t really excited or surprised at Jack having a son. Lots of things have changed, we know that. It’s not a big leap of faith to see that Jack has a kid.

Jacob pops up for Hugo again, sitting staring at the now-murky water. I had to wonder where Miles was in this scene. They’ve just talked about being hungry, but now it’s only Hurley going to the kitchen? Seems a bit weird. Maybe Hurley is resuming his role as chef, and preparing a meal for Miles? I don’t think it has any significance, just seemed weird.

Jorge Garcia and Mark Pellegrino have a great dynamic. I really enjoy their scenes. Jorge did a great job in this scene, despite it being short and simple. He looks confused, scared, paranoid. You can’t tell yet if he fully believes he’s seeing Jacob. Sure – Jacobs instructions led them to the temple and got Sayid “resurrected”, but I think he’s still a bit shellshocked and not quite sure what to believe. Jacob tells Hurley to get a pen, he’s got instructions to depart. Will they take the form of a list I wonder! I love the Hurley is becoming vitally important, I’ve long said that he’s end up being the key to it all.

The Annotated Alice book is a nice shout out to the fifth episode of season 5 – The White Rabbit (and not the only reference we see in the episode). This is a tense scene which does a good job of showing us what their relationship is probably like. David fobs of Jacks question about the music, something every teenager has done (and I half expected it to end up being Driveshaft). He mentions only seeing Jack once a month (so we’re thinking divorce at this point), and he rolls his eyes when Jack has to take the phone call. I’m sure having a surgeon as a father means that Jack was called away a lot while David grew up, possibly even leading to the divorce.

Jack didn’t seem too comfortable around Sayid, he apparently didn’t even go back to talk to him after seeing Dogan. He’s obviously struggling with this idea, and is possibly even buying the idea that Sayid might be “evil” or something along those lines.

Jacob appearing to Hurley and telling him how to get rid of Dogan was interesting. If Dogan is one of Jacobs followers then why does Jacob have this kind of negative attitude about the situation. He’s trying to get Dogan to leave him alone, why not tell Hurley something that might get Dogan to help him? Here’s a thought – when Hurley told Dogan that Jacob had died, everyone rushed to seal the place up. We assumed this was because they’d think fake-Locke/Smokey was coming. But what if they were trying to keep the Jacob apparition OUT. Since the body is dead, his spirit was free to move around? I’m not saying I believe this, but just a thought.

Dogan is pretty shocked when Hurley mentions being a candidate. I guess he assumes that candidates shouldn’t know they’re candidates. His Japanese translates as: “You’re lucky that I have to protect you. Otherwise I’d have cut your head off”. I say again that I’m convinced Dogan is a WWII officer. Events later shake my theory a bit, but I’m still sticking to it.

I love Jacobs smile when Hurley asks if he has any idea how to get Jack to go along. Jacob is a master manipulator, that’s for sure.

Jacks reaction to “you have what it takes” seems extreme. We find out later that this relates to his father. Jack wants to speak to Jacob, find out how he knew about this. I think he suspects that Jacob knows something about his father.

I didn’t enjoy these scenes with Jin and Claire. I can’t decide what’s happened here. Has Claire really been claimed, or has she just gone a bit wrong in the head from three years on the island looking for her son? Haven’t we been through all of this before with a certain someone else? Really important point here though. Jin asks how she’s sure that the others have her baby. She replies that “first my father told me, then my friend told me”. I’m convinced that smokey and Christian are separate entities, this may help confirm it. But we’ll see.

Hurley and Jack find Shannons asthma inhaler. Foreshadowing of her appearance? Or just a convenient excuse to bring us back into the cave and remind us of two things. Firstly, Adam and Eve. Secondly, Christians missing body.

We find out that Claire got the same tests as Sayid, before “escaping”. Justin comments that she’s not remembering things properly. Well we can see that she was branded, so the incorrect part of the story is her escaping. I guess they just let her go. I’m wondering now if perhaps Rousseau went through this same experience. That might be why she ended up torturing Sayid when she captured him, simply because she had been through it herself and wanted to find out something.

The exchange between Dogan and Jack in the flash-sideways bothered me. Why is Dogan here? Did he leave the island in the 70’s, or did he never get there? If he never got there then he’s not a WWII officer, which ruins my theory. If he left then… well… we’ve learned nothing from him being there. His conversation seems a bit awkward, maybe he’s there specifically to talk to Jack, rather than this being a coincidence.

The lighthouse, what can we say about the light house. Pretty sure we see a pagoda or Japanese temple as it’s turning. Dogan? Then some kind of church tower. We see a lot of names, but the three we’re pointed to SHEPARD, FORD and SAYID are written in capitals, and seem much darker. Almost like someone else wrote them.

The fact that the mirror is showing them his childhood home infers that the lighthouse is used to watch the candidates. Make sure if they’re on the right path? Cross them off if they’re not? We have no idea who 108 is, I can’t even remember the name. But it’s not someone we know – or, if it is, it’s not someone we know by name.

Love, absolutely love Hurley getting angry with Jacob. It’s about time someone shouted at him! Hurley clicks that it was important for Jack to see the mirror, realise that he’s part of a bigger picture, get some FAITH. We get a little teaser for the next episode, that someone “bad” is heading to the temple. We assume this is Fake-Locke, but we have no ideas of his intention, and whether or not he’s actually bad.

The ending is sinister for two reasons. Firstly, Claire telling us that she’ll kill Kate if she’s raising Aaron – perhaps she remembers being told that no one else can raise him. Secondly finding out that Fake-Locke is Claire’s “friend”. How long has he been keeping her company. He certainly wasn’t in Locke’s body then, so how does she know who he is? How is she seeing him right now? Who does she think he is?

All in all, a great episode, which gave us a LOT to think about.

“For it is believed that one can really give away one’s life to another person, or to a creature or even to a tree, by the favor of the gods;– and thus to transfer one’s life is expressed by the term migawari ni tatsu, “to act as a substitute.”

I went into this episode with a couple of thoughts. I was pretty sure it’d be Locke centric, the preview showed a conversation between Locke and Randy Nations, if memory serves. I also knew the title – “The Substitute”. This made me think about the conversation between Eloise Hawking and Jack in the Lamp Post station. She explained to Jack that they needed to take Locke’s body with them, as a “proxy” for Christian’s body. “Proxy” and “substitute” – it wasn’t too big a leap of faith to assume that the episode would tackle something to do with Locke’s body on the Ajira flight. That was about as far as my thoughts for this episode went.

We spend a good amount of this episode accompanying divergent timeline Locke. We see his suburban home – living the “American Dream” by the look of it.

This leads me to something I personally thought was very interesting. Stubborn as always, Locke tries to wheelie off his broken wheelchair lift, instead of calling for help. Not sure I blame him personally. He ends up sprawled on the grass, his wheelchair folded beside him to add insult to injury. His body language says “well that sucked, but I will persevere” and then the sprinklers click on. I swear his reaction here is one of good humour. He seems to be laughing at the situation! Especially while talking to Helen (nice to see her alive!). Other people have mentioned to me that he seems upset, hurt, but I really didn’t see it that way. To see him finding amusement in the situation made me think that this is a happier Locke, a Locke that is less angry at his situation. Less stubborn, but still trying to look after himself.

We find out that John and Helen are getting married, and appear to be very much in love. Helens comments about “destiny” are very reflective of the Locke we know. What ARE the chances of him running into a spinal surgeon? Well, fairly good in Lost!

She mentions his father here, this is a funny little rabbithole to climb down. If he and his father are on good terms, then perhaps his father isn’t a con man, perhaps he never got pushed out of the window. So why’s he in a wheelchair, and are Sawyers parents still alive?

We see Smokey zooming around the island, appearing to manifest himself as Locke to pick up a machete and cut Richard down. Richard is quite the contrast to Ben, looking quite surprised at his hurt, abused state. We’re used to seeing a bloodied up Ben Linus. But Richard is usually looking handsome and well dressed. Does this count as proof that Locke is definitely inhabited by Smokey? I’d say so, we’re not going to see CGI morphing between Locke and Smokey anytime soon.

Turns out that the divergent timeline hasn’t done anything to make Randy Nations any less of a “douche”. He comments on Locke’s Australia-tan and tortures him for a while instead of straight out asking where Locke was. Thing is, I would’ve liked an answer to this question myself. In our timeline Locke was turned away, but the walkabout company bought him an early flight home. But in this timeline things seem a bit different. Locke says “why don’t we just call it my vacation week” – inferring he was away for a week. If he intended to go on walkabout it’s safe to say that he went to the tour company as soon as he arrived in Australia. Assuming they turned him away then, he’d still have the rest of the week to kill. Randy comments on his tan – I doubt you’d be getting much of a tan if you few straight back home, and I doubt he’d have been sitting at home all that time. So did this Locke stay in Australia? If i’m right about this version of Locke being less stubborn he may well not have got quite as angry in the tour place, and may not have been bought an early flight home. So I say again, what did he do with the week? Why didn’t he just go to the conference? Maybe he went to see Isaac the healer.

“Richard, I’m sorry I hit you in the throat and dragged you off the beach”. Now there’s a hell of a line. The dialogue between Richard and “Locke” was very interesting. Let me break something down.. Richard told actual-Locke that he had to die. He told him this because fake-Locke told him to say it. So does that mean that fake-Locke manipulated Ben into killing Locke (a candidate) so he could take on Locke’s body and use it to manipulate Richard into letting he and Ben near Jacob and manipulate Ben into killing Jacob? If this is the case then MY GOD fake-locke has game.

Add Richard to the list of people who seem to know who fake-Locke actually is, a list which does not include us. People think that fake-Locke is the Man In Black, and also Smokey. I think the latter is definitely true, and the former is probably true – but till we find out for sure I’m not placing money on anything. Richard and fake-Locke have a history, seems that fake-Locke has tried to recruit him before! He plays the “Jacob didn’t tell you anything” card, I guess now Richard knows what Ben was going through.

Then the boy appears. The sound you can hear at this point is thousands of people rewinding their Tivos. What’s with the Jesus stance and the bloody hands? Why does fake-Locke look so disturbed by this? Isn’t he supposed to know what’s happening?! I mean, sure, you see a kid standing in a beam of light with bloody hands, you’re going to be taken aback – but if you happen to be a dude who can turn into smoke, shouldn’t you be a bit less shocked?

The kid’s gone before Richard see’s him, but I doubt Richard would’ve had a clue anyway. I’m not sure if the kid turning up is why fake-Locke decides to let Richard go, or if he was going to do that anyway.

Illana knows what’s going on. I bet. She’s got a close relationship to Jacob, we’ve seen him come to her and ask for help. I think she leads this… “force” that were trying to protect him. She takes his ashes, we know ashes have significance. Maybe she’s going to try to bring him back, or maybe she’s going to use them against Jacob’s enemy.

If I was fake-Locke, and I was recruiting, I think I’d go for Sawyer first. “This isn’t your house… You just lived here for a while”. Reminds me of divergent timeline Locke’s conversation with divergent timeline Jack about his fathers body not being his father. His reaction to Sawyers accusation of “not being Locke” was interesting too. He doesn’t say he’s not Locke, perhaps because Locke IS still part of him?

Nice to see that Hurley still has his yellow Hummer. Also nice that he’s lucky enough not to get it scratched by Locke’s lift. I love happy Hugo. Then again I think he’s fantastic in every part of this show, and I’m sure he’s the key to the whole mystery. The way he interacts with John here is almost on par with Jacob visiting the candidates.

Illana points out that she knows who Jin is. How does she know that? Maybe Ben told her, maybe Jacob told her, maybe she’s researched all the “candidates”. Burying Locke is a good idea. But I’ve talked about burying too many times.

The kid appears again, great, as if we haven’t been creeped out enough already! fake-Locke is surprised that Sawyer can see him. Lets talk about that. Hurley can see people that other people can’t. They’re either in his imagination, or they’re dead. Perhaps this is also true here. fake-Locke assumes this boy is a manifestation of the dead, but as soon as he finds out that Sawyer can see him he realises the kid is real – hence the chase.

“You know the rules, you can’t kill him”. Seems obvious that he’s talking about Sawyer here. Sawyer is a candidate, you can’t kill candidates. As I mentioned previously it seems that fake-Locke had to work pretty hard to get Ben to kill Locke (a candidate) so perhaps the kid is just reminding fake-Locke that he can’t simply do away with Sawyer himself.

I want to talk about something here, a series of books close to my heart. Written by a Russian author called Sergei Lukyanenko they follow the struggle between two sides – light and dark, who have sworn to uphold a balance between them. The members of these two sides are abnormal humans with certain abilities. Whenever a new person of this kind is “tapped” he is unaligned, somewhere between the two sides. Neither side is allowed to directly force the person to join, but instead can try to guide them to find their own path – select their own side.

This scene reminded me of the books. We’re talking about two sides, who have rules, and are portrayed as light and dark. Perhaps Jacob and Man In Black have spent all this time maintaining balance, influencing people to join their respective sides. Jacob kept bringing people to the island to try to tip the balance into his favour, but Man In Black thought the whole thing was a waste of time. He’s sick of it, he just wants to end it all. He’s playing dirty now, killing people. Perhaps this kid is just reminding fake-Locke that, if he wants to do something, the most he can do is influence Sawyer, not just kill him. Or maybe not.

A great moment here is fake-Locke screaming John-Locke’s catchphrase. “Don’t tell me what I can’t do”. Is some of Locke still in there? Perhaps fake-Locke just has enough of John’s personality and memory absorbed that it felt like the right thing to say.

Rose gives a little speech about getting over her cancer depression. Living her life. Didn’t she just get back from seeing the Australian healer? Probably not!

I like hearing fake-Locke say that he used to be a man. I believe this. But I’m not sure if he’s talking about Locke’s experience, or from his own. Either could be the case.

Mr Eko’s church appeared again. I miss Eko. How would things be different if he was still in the show? I’m sure they had big plans for him.

I think Ben is telling the truth when he says he thinks Locke was a better man than him, and that he’s sorry for the murder. I do honestly believe he means it.

John talks about there being no such thing as a miracle. Maybe my previous idea about the faith healer wasn’t so far off the mark. Maybe he went to see the healer and had a bad experience.

I’m not sure about this scene with fake-Locke and Sawyer on the ladders. If fake-Locke wanted Sawyer dead he could have just let him fall. Maybe he IS recruiting, or tying to influence Sawyer. The white and black stones on the scales are fun. I don’t understand using the ceiling as a place to write.. But then again, I have enough time getting cogent thoughts down on a piece of paper.

John as a substitute teacher, delightful. Ben as a teacher, wondrous. This moment really bothered me though. Seeing Johns face when he refers to himself as a “substitute”, and the cut straight to fake-Locke’s smug face. Uh oh.

Jacob had a “thing for numbers” but apparently not for names – Shepherd’s name on the wall. But doesn’t specifically say “Jack”. Same with “Kwon”. He does imply that it DOES mean Jack, but didn’t Mr Friendly say that Jack wasn’t on Jacob’s list? fake-Locke points out that Jacob really did manipulate all of the candidates, manipulated them on key points in their lives. We all assumed this, and apparently it was true.

Sawyer listens to fake-Locke suggest that Jacob manipulated him, pushed him to the island, but seems happy to accept fake-Lockes suggestion that they leave – without worry. Silly.

I’m not going to say that What Kate Does was a bad episode. I’m certainly not going to say the word “filler”. I’m sure other people will point that finger, but it’s too late in the game for the writers to be throwing filler content together. This is a significant episode. Significant because the whole point of Lost is the character progression. There are a few answers in this episode too – though they probably won’t occur to us until we appreciate the connected questions.

It’s a Kate episode, and they never sit well with the fans. I’m not sure what I think of her – she’s a useful literary vehicle, if a bit of a one-trick-pony. She’s got tracking skills whenever we don’t have Locke around to make use of his. She’s a potential love interest to our two strong male characters. She causes contention with strong female characters. Like I said, she’s a useful tool.

But we never really engage with her story, we’ve had heart wrenching moments. Horrible insinuations about her past. Emotional turmoil, guilt, romance, all of those things – and we still don’t really like her, who knows why. Regardless, her story is important – and this episode tells us more of it.

Another important point is that this episode gives us some more Claire content. Something people were desperate to see. I think once we have a bit more information about whether or not the divergent timeline (see my previous entry for my opinions) will connect in any way to “our” losties – then people may care more about the “landies” (I just made that up). But people wanted Claire, and they’re giving us Claire. We also got a bit of fan-service in this episode, seeing Doc Arzt freaking out in front of the taxi.

“What’s up with Sayid’s resurrection” is the question on everyone’s lips, I’m sure. Certainly seems to be the question Dogan wants answers to. With his “tests”. Blowing powder over Sayid’s belly (or ashes, perhaps). Little bit of Rousseau-esque torture – as if Sayid hasn’t been tortured enough. Dogan seems convinced that whatever has happened to Sayid is baaad. He tells us that Sayid has been claimed – very congruent with my previous comments regarding the French team.

I think “claiming” is what happens to dead bodies. This is an entirely separate process to “appearing as someone else” (Fake-Locke, for example). Claimed people are actual bodies – reanimated. This is why bodies have to be buried on the island. Rousseau’s people were claimed, this is why they went wrong and why they left dead bodies when she shot them. I think Jacks father has been claimed (hence his body never turning up), and *drumroll* I think Claire was claimed after she died in the house explosion (seemed a little too convenient that she survived that.. didn’t it?). Part of me believes that “claiming” is souls of island inhabitants taking over dead bodies, and this is why babies die on the island – souls trying to inhabit bodies that aren’t ready for them. Like I said though, only part of me believes that.

Dogan wants Sayid dead, either because he doesn’t want the “infection” to spread, or because he doesn’t want an enemy in his camp. It may be too late in the “game” to take risks. He can’t afford to let Jack die, because Jack is on the list.

A few thoughts:

Aldo – They went to a lot of effort to make us dislike this guy, and get excited when he died.

Justin – I like Justin, his little puppy-dog expressions every time Aldo shot him down. Another character who could’ve really cleared up some things for us if they hadn’t killed him off.

Kate’s Taxi – Uhh, hasn’t she been on the run long enough to realise that she should be changing vehicles if the police are hot on her trail?

Sayid the zombie – An obvious shout out to the official lost podcast.

Claires birthing – Kate presence helps solidify the idea that a lot of things are still working the way they’re “supposed to”. He’s called “aaron” again. Of course! It’s a good name! It’s MY name.

Doctor Goodspeed – Fascinating! But not surprising. He was Goodspeed before he was “Rom”. There’s a good chance that he was taken off the island in the 70’s timeline, but brought back after the Swan was built. Then kidnapped by the others and turned into Ethan Rom. So in the divergent timeline, he couldn’t go back because the island sank. So now he’s here, doing what he does. Good on him, I was never comfortable with his death.

Sawyers ring – Amazing acting by Josh. Love the character development here, he really was in love with Juliet. I’m hoping for a divergent timeline reunion.

Dogan’s baseball – Interesting. This was a very intentional moment. Initially I thought Dogan to be a “samurai” type character, on the island for a long time, blah blah. Now i’m thinking he’s a WWII Officer. Baseball and typewriter would be the right era for him (perhaps someone gave him the baseball, someone he valued – even an enemy). He could well dislike English because he was fighting a war against the west. He’s obviously an experienced leader of men. So yeah, my shout is WWII Officer.

Dogan and Claire – He explains that the claiming has already happened to Jack’s sister (Claire). How does he know? Does Jacks Father (or whatever is inhabiting his body) visit the temple, did he bring Claire?

Feral Claire – They made a point of comparing the traps to Rousseau, but that she had been dead “for years”. going back to the soul-occupancy point from earlier – could Rousseau have taken over her body? Hmm. Not sure about that.

Anyway, a good episode – better on the rewatch than it was originally, like so many Lost episodes. Looking forward to seeing the next episode tonight!

Watching Lost is a wonderful experience, and although the mysteries, mythology and relationships aren’t for everyone – it’s worth seeing just to experience the incredible storytelling.

Anyway, seeing as i’ll be watching episode 3 tonight, i thought i’d just copy and paste my “brain dump” for episodes 1 and 2. I’ll write a detailed post about episode 3 after i’ve watched it.

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That ep gave us a lot to think about, quite a lot of curtain drawing back, but not much Wizard of Oz behind it.

The first big reveal is that there’s a new timeline in which 815 doesn’t crash, and obviously events differ as soon as it passes the “crash moment”. But there are a couple of noticeable differences that set it apart from OUR 815.

The first being the fact that Desmond is on the plane.

The second, unless i’m going insane, is that Hurley is happy and believes himself to be the luckiest man in the world. I’m pretty sure he’s just coming back from being knocked back by the wife of the guy who gave him the numbers. Not giving him the sympathetic ear, the understand, that we know he wanted. Plus, I’m guessing someone who says that nothing ever bad happens to them wouldn’t have that mindset if their mansion had burned down, or their chicken franchise had been hit by a meteor. So I’m guessing those things haven’t happened in this timeline. But it’s understandable that things relating to the numbers might change if the timeline has changed.. We’ll get to that later.

Anyway, the next reveal we have is that in the divergent timeline we see that the island is underwater, which would’ve really got the Atlantis-theorists going giddy if it wasn’t for the inclusion of the Dharma huts, and the Dharma branded shark. Which means that the island submerged at some point after the 70’s, fairly congruent with the idea of a hydrogen bomb going off in 70’s…

Then we see that OUR losties are still on the island, but have moved back to the “present”. The hatch is back, albeit destroyed.

We get Sawyers “IT HASNT WORKED” hissyfit, then Juliets posthumous “oh but it has” rebuttal.

In my opinion, she’s right:

The point of the hydrogen bomb was to disperse the electromagnetic energy and change the past in such a way that it couldn’t course correct. If the electromagnetic energy is dispersed, the hatch doesn’t need to be built, Desmond can’t be there pushing the button, so he won’t fail, and 815 won’t crash.

They’ve basically committed a grandfather paradox by going back in time and stopping themselves crashing.

Grandfather paradoxes are exactly that, paradoxes, they can’t exist in a simple way, you can’t go back and change your own past.

So how does the universe cope with the idea that the person who’s changing reality won’t exist?

It forks.

So the losties HAVE to still exist, in their own timeline, because otherwise our new losties couldn’t land at LAX.

I still don’t really know why the island would end up underwater, but maybe that’s just what would happen after a subterranean h-bomb detonation.

Okay, to progress:

Hurley DOES see dead people, fair enough, no idea why, but we also have no idea why miles can hear them, it’s just something that seems to have happened.

One of my theories is solidified, you see Montands body in the temple, but not the bodies of the other French people. I was initially convinced they were dead and possessed, but that was before we learned that smokey doesn’t need to possess the corpses, he just takes their visage.

So, if he had been doing that, they wouldn’t have had bodies when Danielle killed them. So perhaps they WERE still humans, just… converted somehow. There seems to be some “truth” that converts/recruits people to the cause, we meet the stewardess from the plane again in the temple. She doesn’t seem bothered at all by Jack and co turning up, she acts as if they’re from another life or something: “oh, they were on the plane with me”, as if she doesn’t think of herself as one of them anymore (which she may not be).

The whole water resurrection thing I can’t interpret yet, the “water of life”, “fountain of youth” idea has been floated before, to explain Richards immortality, but i’m not sure what i think about that.

I imagine that Sayid coming back to life of his own accord is either because of “course correction” or (my preferred explanation) because of Jacob touching him in the past. We’ve been shown Jacob touching certain people in their past, and we were shown a scene that very much appeared to be Jacob resurrecting Locke (after being thrown out of a building) by touching him on the shoulder.

We’ve also, going way back to the beginning, seen proof that fake-locke IS Smokey – “i’m sorry you had to see me like that”. We’ve also seen proof that the ashes protect against smokey (so the cabin encirclement was either to keep him out, or keep him in). We’ve seen that smokey killed those people without judging them – his normal modus operandi. Perhaps because they were “soldiers” or followers of jacob, he didn’t need to judge their free will. We also saw that shooting him didn’t seem to have an effect, he was fine when he reappeared, so we need to wonder here why jacob died. Was it because he was killed by someone who did so out of pure free will (Ben), or was it because he was in his original body? I don’t really believe the latter.

Okay, to proceed. His exchange with Richard is FASCINATING. “Nice to see you out of those chains”. My original Richard theory, way back, was that he was a slave from Egypt, being carried on the Black Rock. Richard being “in chains” is fairly congruent with that notion. I’m not talking ancient Egypt, just that Egypt was (if i understand correctly) used a lot in the slave trade, and he particularly looks like he could pass for Egyptian in a pinch.

We know that the man in black was wandering around when the Black Rock arrived, so if the last time he saw Richard was when Richard was in chains, it must’ve been after that point. So I assume richard was on that ship. But after that, some event must have occurred that either took the man in black out of the loop (imprisoning him perhaps), or forcing him to remain in smoke form (where he can’t exactly interact with people).

Either way, this is the first conversation he’s had with Richard in a long time (at least 50 years), which is troubling. Richard hasn’t been hiding, and we know the smoke monster was wandering around in the 70s. Like i said, troubling.

We also get to see that there’s definitely a conflict of sorts between the temple-others, and the man in black. They have counter measures (the firework alert, and the ashes) ready to go. So why does Jacobs death suddenly mean that they’re a target? Was Jacob protecting them? hiding them? Or did the RULES of the conflict forbid the man in black from hurting Jacobs followers. Rules which are made irrelevant after jacob dies. We know that the others made a truce with Dharma, perhaps that isn’t the first truce they’ve been involved in…

I think I’ve covered everything save for the events in the divergent timeline – which i don’t think are important yet.

I also haven’t mentioned my utter frustration at Sawyer for not taking Juliets body to the temple.

The issue started when my macbook pro would just power off after about ten minutes running from battery. I figured the problem was a dead cell in the battery and decided i’d need to buy a replacement in the not too distant future.

A few days later i noticed a slight swelling in the battery which had caused one of the corners of the casing to come unglued. Couple of days after that it had spread to the other side, and was now about 2mm of swelling.

Obviously something had to be done, so i called up Apple. The laptop is well out of warrantee at 2 years old, but this issue just wasn’t right. The telephone support guy explained that they had no policy for the 17″ macbook pro battery (though, apparently if it had been a 15″ they’d have replaced the battery – it got recalled or something). I argued with him a bit. Of course i understand that batteries have finite lifespans, i’m fine with having to replace dying batteries and with MTBF in general – but it’s a different story when the things are inflating dangerously from chemical reactions!

Telephone support guy explained that as far as Apple were concerned the 17″ macbook pro battery was safe, and because of that they wouldn’t replace it. So i got him to agree that if mine DID explode/catch fire apple would be entirely responsible. I felt bad though and didn’t ask for the guys name.

Anyway, i bought a new battery (for £100, sadly) and things were fine. But after about 10 days i noticed that the battery (which was sitting on my desk) was a good bit bigger than it had been when i pulled it out of the laptop!