LOST in C. S. Lewis

Devoted reader (and fellow LOST nerd) Smamse brought up an interesting parallel between the story of Aslan and the White Witch in the Chronicles of Narnia (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe), and the events as they played out in the premiere. Specifically he thought it was interesting that Jacob seemed to offer himself up to be killed, much like Aslan did to the White Witch. Clearly there are differences and I don't necessarily endorse the parallel (I think it was more him pointing out a possible allusion being made by the writers as opposed to a direct comparison of the two stories), but bringing that up got me thinking about C. S. Lewis and the possible influence he might have had on the writers of this show (naming Charlotte after him might be indicative of that influence *Charlotte Staples Lewis - Clive Staples Lewis*).

The island does feel very Narnian-esque in some ways: the disconnect between it and the rest of the world (parallel dimensions), the way that time seems to act differently than it does everywhere else, the way that people sort of teleport onto/into it via a portal (or bearing) of some kind, and even the way that a force seems to "bring" them to it (the children being "summoned" to Narnia vs. the others being "brought" by Jacob to the island). Now I'm not trying to argue that the show's connection to the Narnia Chronicles is anything more than a friendly wink and a nod, but it's still certainly a possibility that Lewis was a major influence on some of the show's broader themes.

With that in mind I came across this link from Dr. McGrath's blog (returning the shout out! *seriously though, you should check out his blog if you're into anything religion related - Christianity I would say more specifically - or LOST/sci-fi*, he always has cool links and interesting conversations breaking out). It's actually a link to another LOST blog done by a "DocArtz" (why he would choose the most hated character this side of Nikki and Paulo is incredibly baffling to me, maybe he was being ironic). My personal issues with his name aside, I found this to be an interesting look at the Smoke Monster's take on John Locke at the end of "LAX Part 2". I thought this might be of particular interest to Smamse as I know that he is a fan of a somewhat lesser known Lewis' book, The Great Divorce.

Here's the link, followed by the corresponding text, followed by some more of my wonderfully insightful commentary. Go and visit his site if you're interested in reading more of what DocArtz has to say (his blog might not be as good as the one we run over here, but only hearing one voice on a particular subject is never a good idea *even when that voice is as inerrant as mine*).

The season premiere’s most intriguing bit of dialogue is the exchange between Ben and MonsterLocke, following Jacob’s murder and the slaughter of Ilana’s team. The absurdity of the setting (inside of the four-toed statue) and the somber tone of the discussion create a mood of fantasy and postmodernist dissonance—Waiting for Godot meets Alice in Wonderland. Locke the Smoke Monster tells Ben about the pathetic nature of John Locke’s life and death. His heartbreaking comment about John’s confusion in his final moments makes it seem that this man-monster has nothing but contempt for the “irreparably broken” man. But then he defends Locke: “He was the only one of them that didn’t want to leave. The only one, who realized how pitiful the life he’d left behind actually was.” Now we are in C.S. Lewis /Flannery O’Connor territory. The Smoke Monster’s depiction of the island’s significance illustrates the Christian ideal of the afterlife and man’s reluctance to leave behind worldly attachments. John embraces the mystical, spiritual life and rejects the comforts of his life back home. He readily engages in the work of the soul when others refuse to “let go” as Rose instructs Jack to do on the plane in the alternate universe/flash sideways world.

This Post is courtesy SCS over at http://www.TheSanatorium.com

In particular, this conversation recalls Lewis’s The Great Divorce, a slim fable-like novella published in 1945. The term “divorce” refers to the great chasm that exists between heaven and hell according to many Christian theologians. In the preface, Lewis claims that “if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell” (8). But it is not so much the dualism of monotheism that makes this story comparable to the recent musings found in Lost. Though we know that the island is not purgatory or any kind of afterlife, the tone of the dialogue between the residents of heaven and those of hell/purgatory is identical to not only the Smoke Monster’s monologue, but also to Jacob and “Esau’s” discussion in “The Incident.” Consider a conversation from The Great Divorce between a “spirit” of heaven and an unsuspecting resident of Hell. The spirit is trying to explain to this man where he has been dwelling for so long. “Where do you imagine you’ve been?” asks Dick, the heavenly spirit. “Ah I see,” replies the ghost, “You mean that the grey town…with its field for indefinite progress, is, in a sense, Heaven, if only we have eyes to see it?” The spirit replies, in no uncertain terms, that it is, in fact, Hell, “though if you don’t go back you may call it Purgatory” (36). Maybe the Smoke Monster will be equally revealing about the island’s identity (and that of his own) in forthcoming episodes.



More of this author’s work can be found at lostandlit.wordpress.com and http://www.thesanatorium.com/

I've never been convinced (and I'm still not) that Smoky is in fact the evil force in this story (after all, in Genesis, Biblical Jacob did steal his brother Esau's birth-right and deceive his father *who, by the way, was Isaac, the almost sacrificed son of Abraham, the story of which is the focus of Soren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling, which was the book that Hurley found on the dead Frenchman in the premiere; see it's all coming together now!*), though I admit that the evidence is not in his favor at the moment (but we know that, much like Henry Gale, LOST is a show that does not hesitate to deceive the viewer intentionally, "he will lie. For a very long time he will lie. But he IS one of them." - Danielle Rousseau; only providing the true clues to those who are willing to dig up the grave and check for ID). I don't know if the Smoke Monster is the evil force that the majority seem to view him as or if perhaps there is something more going on, but either way I'm always very interested to hear the opinions of people who venture off the beaten path.

All that being said, I haven't actually read the book (The Great Divorce not The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which I've read 10 to 15 times) and so I would be interested to hear Smamse's take on this, given that he in fact has. Others feel free to chime in if you'd like (I'd particularly like to hear from Dr. McGrath, him being a Biblical scholar of some repute). Even those out there who haven't read The Chronicles of Narnia probably still have some idea of what they're about from the recently released Disney movies - or check out the wikipedia page, I'm sure it will fill you in nicely - so jump right in. Find more information on The Great Divorce here if you're interested. If anybody noticed/notices any further C. S. Lewis allusions in the show please make mention in the comments.


I love me some Lewis and I love me some LOST.

Discussion Corner: Apos Q and A

I am calling this “Apos: Q and A.” Maybe this will become a weekly segment, or not, depending on whether or not Apos cooperates. Regardless, Steven brought up some interesting points in his response to my “What Kate Does” post and so I thought I would just make a whole new post out of them. Here’s Steven’s (Apos) comment (italics) followed by my response (bold).


Seeing as I got a shout out in this post I'll take the initiative to be the first [comment]. I've been speculating and theory crafting on several issues. One of which you jumped on too, I'm pretty convinced that Richard came to the island on the Black Rock.

I also think the Claire issue needs to be looked at much more closely. She is said to be "infected" now, does this mean that the stories we received from Rousseau about her husband and crew were in fact inaccurate? Could it be that Rousseau was the one that was "infected" and in her craze killed all of her crew members. I'd say its a good guess. I also think something of Claire's condition has to be directly linked with the fact that she is no longer with/taking care of Aaron. I say this of course because of the several clues we've received throughout the series stating that 1.) "You must raise the child" and 2.) the numerous visions to Kate that shes not suppose to raise Aaron. I'd also like to point out the obvious similarities between Claire and Rousseau: Claire looks like Rousseau, Claire is placing traps and seems bewildered, and of course we can't forget the fact that both were separated from their children.

As for the Dogen comment, the possible reasoning for the poison reaching his "heart" could be that many ancient civilizations such as the Chinese and Japanese believed the mind was an essence of the heart (life force), not the brain. I also question the whole Ben never being the same issue, because if being healed by the Spring had some negative effects why would Dogen so willingly plunge his hand into the water. Yet again, I think that there was definitely something about Ben's revitalization that caused him to be as ruthless and cutthroat as he is.

There's plenty of other crap I've thought of and would like to discuss, but its getting late and honestly I can't keep all my thoughts straight in this tiny little box, so we'll continue this later. (P.s. the island is actually Atlantis - am I being serious? Who knows).


I think most LOST theorists agree at this point that Richard came on the Black Rock, though most theories I've seen have him as the captain of the ship (implicit racism perhaps at work), but in light of the chains comment by Smoky it might very well be that he was one of the slaves. I think we will find out much more about Richard and his relationship with Jacob and Smoky in the weeks to come.

You make some interesting points about Claire. You bring up some parallels with Rousseau that I hadn't thought about (specifically about them both being separated from their children *though under somewhat different circumstances*). I’m not sure if that parallel is important or not, but I will keep an eye on it for future episodes. As to Rousseau perhaps being the one infected I would have to disagree. If you remember the episode in question (“This Place is Death”), the other members of her expedition crew follow the Frenchman into the hole, but Jin stops her from going in saying, “you don’t follow.” Later we see her in a faceoff with her baby’s daddy (Robert) and he talks her into lowering her gun before he pulls the trigger. If she were the one infected I doubt that she would be persuaded to lower her weapon, and the fact that he pulls the trigger tells me that obviously he has changed if he is willing to kill his own child and wife/baby’s momma (that’s not something normal people do). Also, Dogen says that the infection changes everything you once were, but on several occasions we saw Rousseau, even years later, profoundly impacted by the loss of her daughter (something I don’t think we would see from an infected person). The physical similarities between Claire and Rousseau could be explained by the simple fact that they both have been living alone in a jungle (one would expect them to get a bit dirty), and that both were/are a little bit insane (maybe as a result of both losing children, like you said). As for the trap making, it’s not hard to imagine that Claire would use similar traps, after all she has been living alone on the island now for several years and would undoubtedly have come across many of Rousseau’s traps that she had setup all over the island while still alive.

About Aaron; I too have questions about his role in all this. It has certainly been hinted at that he is an important character in the larger story that LOST is trying to tell, but I almost wonder if the writers of the show have decided to go in a different direction and left Aaron somewhat out of it. We were led to believe that the psychic who told Claire to raise the child was a fraud (he admitted as much himself to Mr. Eko in episode 21 of season 2, “?”). That doesn’t necessarily mean that he is actually a fraud (he could have been lying to Mr. Eko so that he would drop the investigation), or that what he told her isn’t significant; they definitely made it seem like he had some knowledge of the future, and he had no clear motive to lie to her (even refusing to take her money/buying her a plane ticket). I don’t think we ever had a vision to Kate saying she shouldn’t raise the child (if you can recall specifics I will go back and look it up), we had a vision to JACK saying that he shouldn’t raise the child, and we had Claire appearing to Kate telling her, “don’t you dare bring him back, (presumably meaning to the island)”. It just seems to me that Aaron has become less and less of a factor as the show has gone on. He may very well come back into play in a major way, but it wouldn’t particularly surprise me if he doesn’t.

I wasn’t trying to argue that Dogen didn’t know that the brain is responsible for personality and not the heart, as some ancient civilizations believed. My point was more a question of whether Dogen meant to imply that the ‘infection’ was spiritual and not physical. Is it actually affecting the heart (in a spiritual sense, aka the soul or life-force) or is it affecting the brain (heart here used metaphorically to mean the personality aspect of the brain). That’s all I meant by it.

On the issue of Ben, I guess what I was unwittingly implying was the he had somehow been healed by the smoke monster (which now thinking about it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense). My idea was that if the smoke monster “claimed” him as he did Sayid, then it would explain his dramatic change in personality (changing everything he once was, as it were). But we now know that there’s no way that Richard would enlist the smoke monster for help, so that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I guess the spring healing him is the only logical alternative, but I don’t know why that would take away his innocence. Thinking about this has brought to mind an interesting point though, if Ben is working for Jacob, and Jacob and the smoke monster are enemies, why would the smoke monster allow itself to be “summoned” by Ben to kill off Keamy’s soldiers? He told Smoky (who we thought was Locke at the time) back in season 5 that he only knew how to “summon” the monster, he didn’t actually know where it “lived”. Why would Smoky allow himself to be summoned by a pawn of Jacob? Unless maybe he was somehow being forced to do so… interesting. I’ll have to think more about this.

I don’t think the island is Atlantis (since Atlantis was a city and the island clearly has no cities on it), though it might be from another planet and/or dimension.

"The Substitute" Sneak Peeks

So there are a couple of clips up previewing next week's episode. I had postulated that the title might reference Jack "substituting" for Sayid, but now I'm not so sure. The obvious connection to the title is John Locke being "the substitute" for Christian Shephard's body on the return trip to the island. From the clips below it is clear that the upcoming episode is Locke/Smoky-centric (color me excited!). Of course it's entirely possible that the writers have chosen this title to have a double meaning and that both interpretations (or neither) are correct. Anyway, here are the clips.





Tell me that second clip hasn't majorly peeked your interest? "The most important question in the world"!? That really raises the stakes doesn't it? Tuesday can't come soon enough.

Episode 1, Part 2: "LAX"

LAX Part 2

Thus begins part 2 of my as it happens, up to the minute, blogging extravaganza of the LOST season 6 premiere; the FINAL season! To my devoted following of zero readers I want to thank you for reminding me each day why I put in the time. You inspire me, and in turn I hope that one day I can inspire you!

Just to do a quick recap for those of you not familiar with my elaborate nomenclature, the “reset” timeline I am affectionately referring to as the “Juliet Is Still Alive Somewhere” timeline or JISAS,
in reference to the fact that my beloved Dr. Juliet Burke is somewhere still alive in this timeline (as the events on the island presumably never occurred). The “failure to reset” timeline I am calling the “Back To The Future” timeline or BTTF, an obvious reference to the successful sci-fi franchise of movies starring Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly and the incomparable Christopher Lloyd as the zany but brilliant Dr. Emmett Brown. Now that we have that cleared up, on to the show!

LAX Part 2 opens back on the island (having left us on a plane landing in Los Angeles back in part 1). Sayid is somehow managing to hang on to life despite having been shot over a week ago (not literally), he might kill kids but he’s one tough son of a bitch. Just in these first 5 minutes we already know what the big question of the episode is going to be, “What’s in the guitar case?” If I had to guess I would say it’s probably a banjo, because we all know there’s nothing funnier than a banjo in a guitar case, am I right? Of course I’m right. Anyway, Sawyer is off to bury Juliet and has no interest in receiving any help from Kate (another nail in the coffin of that love triangle?) and enlisting the aid of Miles instead (though one must wonder if he is after his special “ability” more so than his grave digging prowess). I’ll just quickly say about Miles that I pretty much liked him from the get-go, he provided a nice sarcastic counterbalance to the cerebral Daniel Faraday and gave us some much needed relief from all the high tension drama of season 4. I don’t feel like his character has ever really been given the full LOST treatment (I believe he only had one solo episode, that being Season 5: Episode 13 “Some Like it Hoth”; if he had another I’m sure my legion of zero fans will point out my mistake soon enough), and though he was used rather sparingly in season 5, his conversations with Hurley were not to be missed. Continuing with the episode breakdown it seems that Sawyer aint following nobody any more, I know this because he literally just said, “I aint following nobody.” Double negative aside, I like this new devil-may-care Sawyer, he has nothing to lose and that makes him interesting. I never liked the Kate-Sawyer romance, it always felt shallow to me, bad girl falls for the bad boy; I’m hoping the writers are finally closing the book on that unfortunate chapter (and so far this season all indications seem to be pointing in that direction).

And we’re back in Los Angeles, the city of angels and, ironically enough, also the den of Satan. Jack’s being paged by the airline, which as anyone who travels knows, is NEVER a good thing. In this particular case it’s doubly bad, the airline has not only failed to transport the body of his deceased father (one Christian Shephard, a very important figure if you’ll recall) but have somehow lost it entirely. Granted this is a new timeline and so we may very well be operating under a new set of rules, but as LOST diehards we know that a missing body is never as simple as misfiled paperwork. We’ll have to keep a close eye on that (and by we I mean me since nobody else cares).

On the island… Hurley, Kate, Jin, and Jack venture into the mysterious underground hole that goes under the temple walls. Hurley comes across the body of a dead Frenchman who apparently died while reading a book. A quick pause of the DVR reveals that the book in question is written by the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. I think it is worth noting tha, I have found, it’s often these seemingly innocuous hints that yield the most fruit (says I to myself). Though the title of the book is partially obscured by Hurley’s considerable thumbage, we can make out the middle word “et” and most of the last word which looks like “Tremblement.” Because we know that this is the French version it doesn’t take much of a leap to assume that we are looking at Kierkegaard’s book, “Fear and Trembling.” A quick inquiry into the contents of this book yields some interesting results. Apparently the book deals with an examination of the story of Abraham and Isaac from Genesis 22 (which for the uninitiated is the story of Abraham being asked by God to sacrifice his son Isaac. Abraham is about to follow through with the sacrifice when God stops him and explains that it was all just a test of his faith), Kierkegaard looks specifically at whether or not otherwise unethical behavior might be considered ethical if in service to God, as is the case here (human sacrifice being in every other instance an immoral act but seen as acceptable in the story of Abraham because it was demanded of him by God). Are we bound to serve God absolutely? Even beyond that which could be considered ethical? I would be willing to wager that these themes will emerge at some point in this final season of LOST. It’s also perhaps worth noting (as it supports an earlier statement that I made in part 1, and this being my blog I will of course only point out information that supports my theories and none that conflicts with them) that Kierkegaard dealt heavily with subjects relating to the emotional impact of making difficult life choices (if you’ll recall my postulation that choice will be a major theme in season 6 as it has been in seasons 1-5). Anyway, enough about Kierkegaard and how right I always am. The Frenchman in the tunnel is of course the one-armed man from Jin and Rousseau’s run in with Smoky (Season 5: Episode 5, “This Place is Death”). The whispering can only mean one thing, the others are teleporting around again; I am very much looking forward to the explanation on that one, I don’t even have a viable theory at this point. I would love to see the two others tasked with hauling Hurley in, maybe that can teleport other people as well. We finally see the temple that has been talked about for years, but only briefly. It’s an impressive set piece, I look forward to seeing how they use it.

Back in LA… Kate and her shadow, U. S. Marshal Edward Mars, are debating the merits of an unscheduled bathroom break. Of course as veteran viewers we (me, myself, and I) know damn well that Kate has no interest in such trivial matters as waste expulsion, no she’s hatching an escape plan. I found this scene oddly unsettling, to quote the classic coming of age tale “Not Another Teen Movie,” “girl go pee-pee not something me want to see-see.” Watching Kate sitting on a toilet while a man asks her, “are you done yet,” to which she responds, “not yet” or “I’m not finished,” evokes certain images that I can honestly say, as hot as Kate is, I would rather not see, even in my mind’s eye. Scatological pleasantries aside, Kate once again successfully escapes the custody of the oft-thwarted Marshal Mars (what you thought she was going to spend half of season six in prison?). Who’s waiting for her in the elevator? Well Sawyer of course, and he’s just as brash, arrogant, and quick witted as we remember from season 1. It’s a testament to Josh Holloway that he can convincingly transition from the carefree cock of the walk in one scene to a broken and devastated wreck in the next; these Sawyers might as well be different people considering how far apart they are in almost every respect.

On the island… as I predicted earlier (since nobody will read this I suppose I can congratulate myself with impunity), Sawyer uses Miles talents to reveal what would have been Juliet’s “very important” last words (“it worked”). And important they were. To get an in depth look at my take on the subject just head back up to my post on LAX Part 1 where I outlined in detail what I felt was the significance of these words and why Juliet meant to say them. I won’t rehash it all here, but I will say that I think this is probably a portent of things to come. I believe that for this season to satisfy fans and accomplish the ambitious feat of giving such a fantastic show the ending it deserves, there is going to have to be, at some point, an overlap in the JISAS and BTTF timelines. I simply can’t imagine the writers allowing the show to end with two separate timelines going on simultaneously; it’s far too ambiguous and would probably fail to satisfy anyone, casual or diehard. If you accept that premise (as all of the zero people that make up this blog's readership do), then it must follow that something has to happen that brings these alternate timelines back into alignment, and for that to happen I would think that the heroes of our story will have to at some point become aware of the fact that these alternate timelines exist. How that’s going to happen I can’t yet say but if my theory about Juliet is correct (not to mention the heavy hinting going on regarding JISAS Jack somehow retaining memories from a life on the island), then it might be possible that these characters will in some way be able to inhabit the consciousness of their alternate timeline counterparts. All of this is highly speculative at this early stage, but I think it’s worth considering as the show goes on. ANYWAY… we’re back at the temple now, Jack, Kate, Jin, and Hurley are being interrogated by Ujio (Hiroyuki Senada) from “The Last Samurai” with “Deadwood’s” Sol Star (John Hawkes) translating, referred to here as Dogen and Lennon respectively. Japanese is just a badass language is it not? “Why yes it is friend, I whole heartedly agree.” “Ah, well thank you for being such an agreeable chap.” “Cheers.” “Cheers.” “Best be getting back to this blog business before my readers get upset!” “Hip-hip, cheerio then.” We get another glimpse of Cindy the stewardess, God only knows what kind of crazy trip she’s been on over the past few years, perhaps we’ll find out (though I wouldn’t bank on it). Dogen orders our heroes summarily executed, but thankfully Hurley is there to save the day. Inside the guitar case is a giant wooden “Ankh,” which is an Egyptian hieroglyphic that represents eternal life (though probably more popularly known to our readership as the necessary reagent for conjuring the Shaman specific reincarnation ability in the popular MMORPG World of Warcraft). Inside the shattered shell of this hollow wooden object is a piece of paper. We can only assume that this paper lists the names of each of the party’s members and gives instructions to keep them alive (an inference I have made based on the combination of each member reciting their name and the subsequent cryptic explanation by Lennon that the paper said simply, “if your friend there dies, we’re all in a lot of trouble.”) This obviously raises the question of Jacob’s prescience. He gave Hurley a guitar case in Los Angeles that contained within it a piece of paper giving instructions about a situation that had yet to occur. This seems pretty compelling evidence that Jacob has some knowledge of the future, or at the very least has enough knowledge of the people on the island to accurately predict their future behavior based on his observations of antecedent causes. I imagine we will find out which it is soon enough.

After some nonsense with Jin and Sun (her pretending not to speak English again), we are back in the temple, but this time in a room that appears to house a massive hot spring of some sort. Lennon expresses alarm at the fact that the water isn’t clear like it should be; no further explanation is given. Dogen cuts his hand and submerges it in the water, when he draws it back out the wound is still clearly visible. A couple things here. First, the people whom we have to assume are the caretakers of this temple, or at least seem to be in charge, are surprised and perplexed by the color of the water, which signals to me that it’s something they’ve never encountered before, hence Lennon asking, “what happened?” If that’s true then it means that something unique has happened on the island recently. Jacob dying would be the obvious answer. My guess is that this spring must get its properties from Jacob directly, or something similar. Second, clearly Dogen expected some kind of healing to take place when he put his hand in the water, an expectation that was not met. This would make sense if the healing properties of the spring are somehow tied to Jacob’s life force (we know Jacob can himself heal people, as he healed Locke after falling 8-stories to his death, and we know that Richard claims that Jacob made him the way he is; seemingly eternal). That being said, if Jacob knew that his death would adversely impact the healing power of the spring why would he send Hurley to the temple in the first place? Perhaps the well retains some of Jacob’s life force and thus some of his healing power, though significantly weakened. Let’s watch more! I can’t even speculate as to the origin of the hourglass timer, clearly it marks the amount of time it takes underwater for healing to occur, but how it works or why it exists I obviously have no idea (feel free to suggest some ideas, oh wait, that’s right, there’s nobody here but me). Aside from Sayid dying (riiiiight, I don’t think any of us are buying Sayid being dead), we learned that Dogen has some serious martial arts training, and that Jack still has a habit of performing CPR on dead bodies (hey, it worked for Charlie).

Meanwhile in Los Angeles… Kate is escaping from the airport (I can’t believe they’ve given Frogurt more face time in this episode than Smoky McGee, such a waste of talent), and making it look surprisingly easy, at first anyway. As an aside to Kate, if you’re trying not to be seen it’s probably best to avoid making direct eye-contact with the enemy, just a thought. Kate jumps into a taxi driven by the Puppet Master from Heroes (I don’t know if he retains his powers since LOST is on a completely different network) and we get our first glimpse of Claire since we last saw her in the cabin with Christian way back in season 4 (Episode 11, “Cabin Fever”).

CUT TO:
INT. TEMPLE SPRING – DAY
Sawyer is dragged in unconscious while Miles blabbers on about rocks or something, it’s not important. Hurley talks with Dogen, Lennon translates (I have to agree with Dogen, Japanese just sounds better). Hurley tells them that Jacob is dead, news that clearly shocks and upsets Dogen greatly, sending him into a frenzy of barking orders and preparing defenses (including prodigious use of grey sand). I am going to speculate based on the reaction here (i.e., the immediate laying down of vast amount of grey sand) that Jacob was somehow protecting the temple from Smoky, and now that he is dead Dogen fears some kind of an attack. Go to love the “Him? Him who?” Cut to Smoky dragging a dead body. Pretty excellent.

Back at the statue Smoky McGee appears to have his hands full (literally in this case) taking care of the mess he just made with lumberjack and his boys. Terry O’Quinn again just dominates it, he’s barely on screen for the entire episode and in 5 minutes he blows everybody else away. “You’re the monster.” “Let’s not resort to name calling.” Classic. I really can’t wait to find out what’s going on with Smoky, I can’t tell if he’s a good guy, a bad guy, or something in between. He gave those men a chance to leave peacefully and only killed them after they fired upon him, but in season 5 he also appeared to Ben as his dead daughter and tricked him into killing Jacob, a twisted act of manipulation if there ever was one (though we don’t know what Jacob did to a provoke his wrath), and he also might have mentioned something about “taking care of” the Ajira passengers back in season 5, but I’m willing to overlook that. I guess time will tell, I very much hope that we get to see considerably more of Smoky in the weeks to come, I can’t handle these 5 minute teasers of awesomeness and then get nothing for huge stretches, here’s an idea for the writers, cut out Frogurt completely and just use that extra time for Smoky, simple. This conversation with Ben, while patently awesome, also confirms some things that most of us already suspected. Namely that Smoky completely inherits the memories of his, shall we say… victims? I’m not going to lie, I was a huge John Locke fan, and so to hear Smoky bad mouth him doesn’t sit particularly well with me, but he does it in such a badass way (using the lighting to excellent effect), that I really can’t fault him for it (plus he throws in a backhanded compliment there at the end, so at least that’s something). His answer to Ben’s final question, “What do you want?” will undoubtedly be the talk of the blogospheres (is that singular or plural? Well I guess since nobody is going to read this it really doesn’t matter) this week. “I want to go home.” I guess this means that Smoky has been thrown out of his home, presumably by Jacob, which might be why he killed him (maybe it was the only way he could get past the defenses that blocked him from his home). The obvious question is “well where is home?” To which the obvious answer would be “the temple.” Of course I don’t know if that is in fact the correct answer, but given the sudden panic set off at the temple by the news of Jacob’s death, it’s hard to imagine where else he could be meaning. It’s also possible that Smoky isn’t from the island, though I don’t think this is the correct interpretations, it is certainly a legitimate possibility. Given the supernatural and/or alien like properties of both Jacob and Smoky, it is not unreasonable to assume that they are not of this earth at all, perhaps the island itself is a broken chunk of another planet or perhaps another dimension (a theory I believe postulated by the mirror matter moon folks), and maybe Smoky wants to return to said planet or dimension. Why Jacob would be standing in his way were that the case I don’t rightly know. Anyway, 100 theories could probably be generated given the limited information available, so I will cease speculation for the time being so that I can get to the end of this damn blog post.

Here comes the Sayid resurrection, I’m calling it right now. Hmm, Miles can’t hear Sayid. I wonder what that means. And, shit, just when I was convinced the writers were finally putting the kybosh on the Kate-Sawyer debacle it rears its ugly head again, Juliet’s body is still warm! Let the man grieve in peace!

Jack and Locke, back together, we fans (meaning me and the zero or so people who will read this blog) have been waiting for this reunion for quite a long time, though I don’t think many of us saw it happening like this. I have to say I am pleasantly surprised. I always liked the old Locke and it’s good to see him and Jack forgetting (quite literally in this case) old grudges and talking like friends. I’m intrigued by the possibility of a JISAS Locke-Jack friendship. I could even see a situation where somehow JISAS Locke and Jack team up to stop BTTF Smoky from accomplishing some nefarious plot (and Locke finding redemption in the process). That would be a pretty sweet ending, though part of me is hoping for Smoky to succeed in whatever thing he is trying to achieve.

And right on cue, here’s Smoky emerging from the Statue, cool as a cucumber. It’s interesting that Richard yells, “don’t shoot him!” I wonder if he fears angering Smoky. Okay, now this finish was epic. “It’s good to see you out of those chains.” SAY WHAT!!! Richard is scared shitless of this guy. The throat shot was pretty solid too. Smoky might be disappointed in all of them, but I’m disappointed with the writers for depriving me of my fair share of Smoky McGee screen time, this guy’s a monster (literally and figuratively), he walks past Locke’s body as if it isn’t even there. I genuinely can’t wait to see where this is going. LOST you’ve done it to me again!

Oh, and Sayid’s alive – BAM called that! You have to wonder though if it’s really Sayid, with so many people being possessed around here, who’s to say.

Well that’s it for LAX Part 2. The season premiere is in the books. I managed to cut that post down from 4,500 words to 4,000, its progress anyway. Critiques, comments, questions, ideas, whatever, let me know. Otherwise I’ll just create a bunch of user accounts and comment on my own blog so it looks like I have readers. Is it pathetic? You bet your ass it is.