the blast door map

written by: the sarn & kyle pennington. who the hell is kyle pennington? he wrote and directed one short film. now he works on lost. pardon me while i go track down kyle with my tonya harding lead pipe of jealousy.

directed by: paul edwards. he hasn't directed an episode since claire's 'par avion' last season.

1. alpert
2. horace
3. abaddon & mittelos
   
4. claire
5. jacob
   
6. headings
7. preboomer

1. alpert.



hrm. alpert's presence at locke's birth kind of rubs me the wrong way for two reasons: convenience and logic. i'll talk about the logistics in #3. i understand it as a plot point, and as part of building the larger arc of locke's character going into the final act of this story, but the rapid execution here feels tacked on, much like ben's affection for juliet was conveniently tacked in in her flashback so as to drive the events of the episode.

while i'm not crazy about the execution - we needed earlier clues that locke has been loosely pursued by dharma/the others/the hostiles/whoever since the moment of his birth - but let's talk about what it means.



alpert's test is reminiscent of the test given to children when searching for the reincarnation of the dalai lama. so, who are the hostiles (or is it actually dharma at this point? very confusing.) searching for, and what role is this 'special' person supposed to play? what is the significance of each object? why does alpert get so disappointed when locke chooses the knife? it's in keeping with locke's character is that he's never able to accept who he is - he insists that he is a hunter, not a farmer, even while being unable to kill a traitor in 'further instructions,' and he vehemently rejects science camp! it's not until dharma or widmore or whoever come up with the idea of playing into who he thinks he is, that they get him in place to arrive on the island.

the objects:

• comic book - brings to mind the spanish comic book hurley had in the series pilot.
• knife - inextricably linked with locke's iconic knife throwing entrances.
  
• compass - tracking, direction, headings, bearings, all big themes/elements on the show.
• sand - probably directly from the island, to determine a child's innate connection with the physical place.
  
• book of laws - probably an important choice for someone being groomed to rule over a society.
  
• baseball glove - yeah, no one's gonna pick the glove, except maybe jack.
  

it brings to mind the 'tests' that mrs. klugh told michael they were giving to walt. were they testing walt for the same thing? and why was it decided that walt needed to be taken off the island? did they discover that walt was the antithesis of whatever it is they were looking for?

2. horace and his wife were present at ben's birth outside of portland oregon, and it's horace who reappears in locke's dream - why?



we're being reminded of the 'heralds,' who just happen to be present when these 'special' children are born. will we get a similar flashback at walt's birth, where we discover that he was also born 3 months premature, and that alpert, or someone of his ilk was also present?

and what is the significance of being born premature? are there other factors that make you a candidate to be 'jacob's go-to guy?' horace's arrival at ben's birth (ben was born 2 months premature) seems to be more accidental, but i suppose it could be retconned to make the coincidence look more deliberate - as though outside forces have been watching and waiting for 'the one' for a long time.

3. abbadon and mittelos. another reason i wasn't as wildly crazy about this episode as some of my friends was that the more i think about certain details of the alpert/abaddon/mittelos appearances in the flashbacks, the more i find myself asking hundreds of questions that only seem to confuse the plot rather than clarify it. how do these appearances gel with what we know to be happening in the bigger timeline? who is on what side at these various points? and which side, widmore or hostiles, is trying to get locke to the island from infancy? let's break it down:

• may 30, 1956: locke is born 3 months premature - richard alpert is present.
  
• 1960: locke fails richard alpert's 'test.'
  
• 1960: ben linus is born near portland. horace and olivia goodspeed are present.
• 1972: mittelos laboratories attempts to recruit locke to their science camp near portland.
• 1970's: ben, following the vision of his mother, meets richard alpert, outside the dharma camp.
  
• december 19, 1992: ben, with the assistance of the 'hostiles' purges dharma from the island.
• 2000: abaddon is locke's physical therapist, urges him to go on a walkabout.
  
• 2001: juliet is recruited by mittelos bioscience

i'm just going to unload all of my questions at once here - at the time locke is born, is alpert part of dharma? and in 1956, is dharma owned by widmore? if alpert isn't part of dharma, is he part of mittelos bioscience (then called mittelos laboratories)? but then are mittelos and dharma two entirely separate institutions? or is mittelos an off-island proxy for dharma, as we can assume from events in 'not in portland?' if mittelos has always been part of dharma since the 70's shouldn't it be pretty easy for widmore to infiltrate island business, since it's still operating and able to recruit juliet? if alpert is one of the 'hostiles,' is mittelos then a separate institution owned by the hostiles? are the hostiles so well equipped?

by 1972, when mittelos (an anagram for 'lost time,' if you missed that the first time we encountered mittelos bioscience last year) failed to recruit locke, did they then decide to annoint an on-island child (ben) as the 'chosen one?'



we know that abaddon is widmore's man. at least, he's widmore's man in the flashforward/back events we've seen this season. abaddon appeared twice before: harassing hurley to find out if 'they' were 'still alive,' and in a flashback hiring naomi and briefing her on her mission. so what is he doing lightly pushing locke to go on a walkabout in 2000?

the only think i can think is that widmore knows the 'proper' course of events. he acts like mrs. hawking, nudging people towards their destinies. perhaps it's destiny that locke is going to be the 'savior' of the island to unseat ben, but it's the timing that remains in question - so widmore has abaddon track him down and give him the push he needs in order to get his various chess pieces in the proper places.

i think the episode works great as a stand alone, which is why many found it quite satisfying (the candy bar scene alone rose it above many other episodes this season), but the deeper logic behind using alpert, mittelos, and abaddon seems to push the idea of a unified theory of lost further into the distance.



one question that i think was incidentally answered with some definition is that widmore is in fact part of, or owner of, or at least affiliated with dharma. keamy pulls out the binder with the 'secondary protocol,' and it clearly has a dharma logo on it, the same logo as was on ben's parks when he appeared in the desert in 'the shape of things to come.'

4. claire.



damon and carlton promised us in the mother's day podcast that we would be seeing claire again before the end of the season. hopefully he strange couple of shots will not be all that we get. is claire dead? if so, how will the jack/claire half-sibling revelation play out? will claire's ghost tell him herself? however it shakes down, it must be sufficiently creepy as to freak jack out enough to not want to go near aaron for several years.

is it possible that claire actually died when the house blew up with her in it? - she was ridiculously unscathed after that explosion, but acted more or less like her normal self afterwards - it's not until we see her in the cabin that she looks smug and out of character.

it depends on what the rules of manifestation are - it's also possible that everything locke saw in the cabin was an illusion, and the real claire is off somewhere else being manipulated by dad to do whatever it is that jacob needs doing.

5. and here we are, about to get part 1 of the season finale, and we know essentially nothing more about jacob than we knew at the end of last season. this means that next season will probably be about jacob, which could mean it's really about the hostiles, giving us a full season of four toed statues, temples, and underground smoke monster mechanics and physics explanations. here's how i predict the seasons will break down:

• season 1: the arrival
• season 2: the hatch
• season 3: the others
• season 4: the freighter
• season 5: the hostiles
  
• season 6: the departure/return

so yeah. the last moments of this season's finale, dubbed 'the frozen donkey wheel,' is purportedly not a major game changer, but more of a traditional action based cliffhanger ending. which is fine - it falls in line with what this season has been about: changing the rules. we had three seasons of disorienting season openings and game-changing finales. season 4 broke the tradition of the disorienting opener, so it follows that the finale would go out with a similar break in structural tradition. i'm just hoping that they're saving somthing big to go out wth at the end of season 5, and of course, the grand finale.

6. headings. a major revelation of the freighter plot in this episode was the shifting time differential - earlier in the season, the island was ahead of the freighter, but now it seems that the island is actually ahead. but the differential is probably governed by the heading one uses to approach and leave the island. a perfectly straight heading results in minimal distortion - like the 31 minute missile delay from farraday's early experiment. but ray's body would have been floating in the water with no precise directional heading at all, so by the time it reaches the beach, the distortion would be much larger, in this case actually putting the body in the future.

it's a fascinating idea.. i just hope that the writers can use it wisely without opening up a giant can of exploding spring-worms that'll never ever get back in that can.



is that an mp3 player, or what?

7. preboomer. 'he wants us to move the island.' great preboomer, just great. i'll put money that it means move the island in time, not geography, and it will involve using the orchid station.