Uncharted Island

In case you didn’t watch Good Morning America this morning, like me because my son watches Noggin, you can watch the video on TV Crunch.

I was a little disappointed. When they promoted the “alternate endings” last night, I expected more than 5 more seconds of video. The only difference is the reveal of the identity of the man in the coffin, Jeremy Bentham.

I don’t see Jack calling himself “neither” friend nor family to either of the alternate bodies, considering how he left both of them the day they left the island.

So now is as good a time as any to apologize for using “Keamy” and “the captain” interchangeably. I didn’t realize that the guy Keamy shot was the captain. Oh, and the internet ate my first draft of this post up to the first commercial break, so I may have left some things out that I thought I said when I tried to retype it all… Rawr.

The return of the Oceanic 6 is a flash forward. Hmm. Aaron is an awfully good baby, sitting there quietly in the cargo hold of that rickety old plane.

I’m all teary-eyed. Watching them walk off the plane to their families… And no one there to greet Kate or Sayid.

So Keamy’s headed to the Orchid. I wish I’d paid more attention to that TLE orientation video for the Orchid. Daniel knows about Keamy’s secondary protocol, but Charlotte does not. And Daniel knows that they need to get off the island, or they will be torched along with everyone else. How can he torch the island from the Orchid? I have no idea, but I’m sure some of the diehard TLE people already know. But FINALLY some REAL tie-in with TLE!

Sawyer just called the barracks New Otherton. Yes!

“Hold up! You don’t get to die alone.”

Press conference. Membata, in the lesser Sunta islands. Day 108 brought them a life raft which allowed them to get to the island of Sumba. Kate’s baby, which she gave birth to on the island. Eight people left after floating on the cushions. Jin never made it off the plane. Aaron is a little over five weeks, which would’ve made her six months present at the time of the crash.

And Nadia was outside waiting for Sayid! I want the screen cap of them standing together by the police car.

Ben says that the Orchid is a greenhouse. And it’s possible to move the island from there. Moving the island is dangerous and unpredictable, a last resort.

Hurley’s happily noshing on 15 year old DHARMA Saltines. Ben’s communicating with some of the Others with a mirror.

Daniel is taking Sun, Jin, Aaron, and some Redshirts on the raft. I’m confused. I guess that’s the point. They can’t make it back to the freighter like that. But the raft can’t capsize or anything, because Sun and Aaron have to survive.

That’s an awful lot of stairs for a pregnant woman to climb at Paik Industries. Mr. Paik was berating his businessmen about a corporate takeover… and Sun was the one who bought controlling interest! Booyah! Take that, Daddy! That was awfully smart of her, using five banks to buy the shares.

Hurley’s driving his old clunker, with a bag of chicken from Mr. Cluck’s. There’s a coconut on the floor. And whispers in the mansion. It’s a surprise birthday party. Although why they thought an island theme would be appropriate, I’ll never know.

Sayid and Nadia look awfully happy together. “Interesting choice of theme.” Great minds think alike, Sayid.

Hurley’s dad fixed the car after Oceanic 815 crashed. 48151.6 on the odometer, with 234.2 on the trip odomoter. Doh.

Keamy’s team is already at the Orchid. Oh snap.

Oh this can’t be good. The raft DOES get to the freighter… which means that Jin and the Redshirts are probably going to die, along with whoever else comes back on the second raft.

Michael got the engine working. And found himself face to face with Sun and Jin. Yikes.

Frank dropped the phone so Jack could find him, but they cuffed him to the copter so he couldn’t run off the the jungle.

Jack’s finally delivering his father’s eulogy. It’s a bittersweet memorial service for his mom; her husband is still dead, but her son is not. “I’ve had a lot of practice.”

“I believe I’m the reason he was in Australia when he died.” OH MY GOD! Claire’s mom woke up out of her coma! And this is how Jack found out the truth about Claire being his half-sister. Talk about getting blindsided.

And we got a quick summary of how Michael got back to New York with Walt.

…And that’s a whole lot of C4.

Richard Alpert and his merry band of Others seem to have Kate and Sayid surrounded.

“How many times do I have to tell you, John? I always have a plan.” Plans don’t work so well when you get knocked unconscious… although I suppose Ben has a plan for that, too.

That is an evil, evil place to leave the end of the episode.

Jack’s not looking so hot. Hey doc, you got a bit of sweat… all over there.

Those were some pretty little red panties. And… a Millennium Falcon? “Yankees bludgeon Red Sox in Series Sweep.” My baseball history is a bit off, but I’m sure someone else already knows the exact date by now.

Is that… Juliet’s voice from the shower? They always try to do that “husky voice” thing to mask an identity until we see the person’s face. Whoa wait… Kate? And they’re… smooching?

Oh my. This is not a happy day for Skaters.

Jack’s reading to Aaron. Aww! Nice moon and stars mobile above that big boy toddler bed. (My son is almost three and still in his crib.) I’ll need a closer look at the screencaps later because I was typing; did Aaron look

Jack’s referring to his dad in the past tense. He was a good storyteller. So hopefully that will put those “Christian is still alive” theories to rest that cropped up when Jack went all crazy back in the first flash-forward where he went off on the Chief of Surgery about seeing if his father was drunker than he was.

What did Jack change his mind about? Kate is so glad he changed his mind. She’s so glad he’s here. And… a nice little panty shot for the hot-blooded males out there.

Miles heard some ghosts. Danielle and Karl’s ghosts. He found their bodies. Dammit. Danielle really is dead. No flashback. Poor Claire… she looked like she was going to be sick.
I give her credit for not throwing up all over the place. A few months on this weird island still wouldn’t prepare me for the sight of an unexpected shallow grave containing the decomposing bodies of people I’d talked to a few days ago.

Juliet has a great solution for not being able to trust Dan and Charlotte. Give Jin a gun and tell him to shoot them in the leg if they try to run. Because he will.

Sawyer’s funny, warning Miles off of Claire. Restraining order! LOL! “What are you, her big brother?” He was all protective about Hurley last week, and now it’s Claire.

It would really suck needing to have surgery on the beach. And Jack wants to be conscious to watch the surgery and talk Juliet through it? And he wants Kate to be there with them, holding the mirror. Yikes.

Whoa. Jack just saw his dad walking through the lobby. And Dr. Stillman from Santa Rosa called him about Hurley’s refusal to take his meds. Oh dear.

Hurley’s convinced they’re all dead and never got off the island. The voice of some fans with a theory! Ah, that’s what he changed his mind about… Kate. Or not Kate, but Aaron. Because that’s why he didn’t want to go see Kate for more than just coffee. After the trial. So this flash forward takes place sometime between “Eggtown” but before “Through the Looking Glass.”

Hurley was happy until he saw Charlie. And apparently Charlie keeps visiting him and sitting with him on the bench. Charlie knew that Jack would be stopping by, and gave him a message. “You’re not supposed to raise him, Jack.” Oh dear. “You think he means Aaron?” I hope he doesn’t mean it as a warning against necromancy and his father… who will apparently be paying him a visit soon. Because Charlie said he would.

Dan wants to go in first, to “make sure it’s safe.” Was that code? Or was he all nervous like that because, like Sun and Jin said, he likes her?

Frank Lapidus! “Keamy’s coming back, and if he sees you, he’s going to kill ya.”

The birds were very helpful, deciding to start chirping just when Aaron started to fuss. The Island at work! And Frank really does have the best interest of the castaways at heart.

“So it looks like I’m going to be your nurse.” “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

That was a weird angle for that shot into Jack’s car window. Waiting for Charlie? And he’s worried about if he’s “good at this,” being a dad. And… he just proposed. He’s got a ring. It’s pretty! I’m guessing that’s platinum, not white gold, since the Oceanic 6 are loaded. And Kate said yes.

Will we find out what goes wrong before the end of this episode? I mean, something has to go wrong for Jack to hit the bottle and call Kate to meet him in a secluded place instead of just talking to her at home.

I knew she understood them. I knew she did. She’s an anthropologist. I didn’t need to see her smile when Sun and Jin were talking about her to know.

That was a tense surgery scene.

What’s that beeping? “St. Sebastian Neurosurgery Group.” It’s the smoke detector. I hate when that happens. It’s always in the middle of the night!

And… Christian’s kicking back on a black leather couch in the lobby. Who is that woman, Erica? Thanks to my husband! Jericho. She was Hawkins’ wife. And she just wrote him a scrip for clonazepam. That Klonopin is good stuff for anxiety, and sleep.

Kate was on the phone with Maureen, one of the moms from the park. Huh. This from the woman who said she doesn’t do taco night.

Hey, uh, Jack… chasing two of those pills with a beer can really mess you up. I guess this is the beginning of the end for his happiness.

WHOA! Was NOT expecting Claire to wake up and see Christian holding Aaron! “Dad?” Yeah, now Claire sees dead people. She just doesn’t know he’s dead… just that he’s not supposed to be there.

Bernard’s pretty handy to have in a makeshift operating room, even if he’d only ever performed dental surgery.

Uncomfortable girl talk. Juliet’s telling Kate about how Jack kissed her… and that she doesn’t think he meant it for her, but to prove that he doesn’t love Kate. Sigh.

And Jack was awake to hear it.

Jack is trashed on the couch. He’s paranoid and suspcious about why Kate stayed out late. “I’m going to ask you to trust me.” Sorry, Kate, but what kind of an answer is that? What are you hiding?

“I was doing something for him. For Sawyer.”

Sawyer chose to stay. Sawyer chose to stay on the island, and Jack chose to come back with Kate to save her. Sawyer doesn’t die. (Phew!) At least not before the Oceanic 6 leave.

“Your son? You’re not even related to him!” Does Jack know, then, that Christian was Claire’s father, too? Oh… Aaron heard him. And was clutching a stuffed Shamu toy.

Miles told Sawyer that Claire walked off with someone she called Dad.

That is just a weird picture… dirty, scruffy Sawyer with a gun on his back, in the middle of the jungle, holding Aaron in a blanket.

The preview for next week… Was that Ben’s dad talking to Locke? Or someone else who was gassed in the Purge?

I finished watching the Season 3 DVD set today. (Aww, Charlie!) I had a realization about Jack.

Jack tells Kate, in the flash forward, that they weren’t supposed to get off the island, that they have to go back. Kate disagreed, and she drove away.

Jack was wrong.

Kate was supposed to get off the island. She’s not supposed to go back. She found her salvation off the island. She has someone to go home to. She’s stopped running.

Jack, on the other hand - the island was his salvation. That’s why he has to go back.

I’ve been thinking about it since the third season ended, and now that we’re less than a month away from the start of season four, I still don’t have any real notion.

Jack is completely obsessed with getting back to the island in the flash forward. Considering how badly he’s wanted to get off the island, so much that he went along with Ben’s wishes, it’s hard to understand why he wants so badly to go back.

My first thought was that he wants to go back for the people who got left behind when he got off the island. He was poring over maps enough to try and triangulate a position for a rescue mission. But his conversation with Kate negates that line of thinking. He was flying Oceanic flights every weekend, hoping to crash land again. He wasn’t trying to rescue anyone; he wanted to go back and stay there.

Even guilt about anything he’s done the island so far - or anything he will be doing in upcoming episodes before he leaves - doesn’t seem to be a good enough reason to want to go back to the island. He’s already punishing himself.

What would returning to the island do for him? Did he lose a part of himself when he left? Is the island like the Hotel California, where you can check out but never leave? Does Jack finally become a spiritual man, only when he discovered that his purpose was back on the island he left?

It should be interesting to follow Jack’s personal journey through the last three seasons.

It drove me crazy that we never got to know who was in that coffin. We never got a really clear shot of the obituary that Jack ripped out of the newspaper. Well, that’s not entirely true. Some clever folks with TiVo and hi-def grabbed some screencaps to try and make sense of it all. But the props and editing folks were on the ball, and made it difficult to draw any real conclusions.

Facts revealed to the casual LOST viewer:

• No one showed up to the funeral except for Jack, who said he was neither friend nor family.
• The coffin looked small.

From the first part, we know it cannot be Claire or Christian in the coffin. (I know, Christian is supposed to be dead. But there are those who think he’s not.) Because Jack talks to Kate after the funeral, we know it’s not her either. From the second part, it’s not likely to be Hurley. We’re looking at the coffin’s occupant being either a child, someone really short, or someone who ends up as an amputee. Because of the [remote] possibility of an amputation, this really doesn’t rule anyone out.

We get a little bit more information dangled in front of us from an insider who leaked the text of the obituary, which admittedly may be a hoax.

What did we learn from this, the devout fans who scour the internet for this type of thing? (Assuming this information is legitimate, of course.)

• John Lantham, the alias of the dead guy, is from New York.
• He is survived by a teenage son.
• He appeared to have hung himself.
• He is a man.

The only concrete evidence this gives us is that the coffin is not occupied by a woman. A lot of people jumped to the conclusion that it’s most likely Ben, because he’s short and would be an obvious choice for having no friends to attend his funeral. Who would be his teenage son, though? I find it unlikely that he’d let Karl masquerade as his son if they both ended up off the island.

Other people think it may be Sawyer, but I think Sawyer is the “he” that Kate has to get back to.

I think the dead guy in the coffin is Michael. Assuming he and Walt didn’t perish in the open sea, he probably wouldn’t want to use his real name and draw attention to the fact that he was supposed to be dead in a plane crash. There would be far too many questions that he just doesn’t have the answer for. Let’s not forget that he murdered a few people in cold blood. It would be far harder for any of his fellow survivors to identify him if they should ever get rescued. Although it wouldn’t appear that any of them would want to attach themselves to the plane crash anyway, and certainly not to anything that happened on the island. They’ve all done things they’re not proud of.

Michael wouldn’t have many friends from the island because of his killings and because he betrayed them to the Others in order to leave with Walt. He has a teenage son that wouldn’t have to be contrived. And he’d likely have a lot of issues that could drive him to suicide - perhaps guilty feelings, perhaps estrangement from his son.

If I were a betting woman, my money would be on Michael. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Apparently the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Jack’s father, Christian Shepard, was a raging alcoholic. Jack, in his post-island future, guzzles liquor and pops stolen pain pills like candy. And let’s not forget that he almost jumped off a bridge - and not even into water, it looked like concrete down below. He was certainly ready to die.

On the island, we know that Jack has made contact with Naomi’s boat. We don’t know who is on that boat, their motivations, what their instructions are… we don’t know what’s going to happen. The crash survivors believe they are going to be rescued. With three seasons to go, we know it can’t be as simple as that. Something bad is going to go down.

How many more of our survivors are going to die before anyone leaves the island? Charlie is the latest casualty, and Jack doesn’t even know about that yet. Although he admitted it was a suicide mission from the beginning. Could survivor’s guilt be enough to push Jack to this bleak future?

Or maybe the rescue that Jack longed for so much turned out to be like Hurley’s lottery winnings. Maybe what he thought was going to be such a good thing only led to negative consequences for the people around him. We don’t know who was in that coffin, but we know that Jack considered himself neither friend nor family. And yet he felt compelled to make an appearance. How many other funerals had he been to recently?

Whatever has happened, Kate doesn’t seem to have been affected by it. Is it because Jack was the leader, and therefore feels responsible for everything that happened? Is it because of the call he made that both Ben and Locke told him not to make? Maybe there’s going to be more blood on his hands than we know.

One thing is for sure, we’re going to have another three intense seasons to find out what happens in between the on-island “now” and the off-island future.

Damon and Carlton have been messing with viewers for quite a while about the issue of time. And this apparent “flash forward” only complicates matters even worse.

If all of those scenes with ugly-bearded Jack are supposed to take place after he gets off the island, we’re left with a few important questions. For one thing, who was in that coffin? But I’m going to have a separate blog entry on that. Also, what happened to Jack after the on-island events we’ve seen to turn him into a pill-popping bridge jumper? That’s another blog entry as well. For another thing, why does Jack talk about his father like his father is still alive?

The Christian Shepard issue has been long debated. Some fans want to believe that Christian is still alive because his coffin was empty when Jack found it in the jungle. I don’t think that. But even so, could Jack’s father be alive in this future scenario? I very much want to believe that time travel is not an issue here. But perhaps there is some alternate timeline in which Christian survived. It’s a possibility I don’t necessarily like, but I won’t write it off just yet.

More than likely, Jack talks about Christian as if he’s alive because he’s hopped up on pain pills and booze. His reaction when the pharmacist picked up the phone to call his father’s office was consistent with knowing he’d be caught in the lie. It’s possible that Jack is messed up enough to truly believe his father is alive at times, and other times just lie about it.

But another wrench in the works is the golden pass that allows Jack and Kate to fly free for life. After Flight 815 crashed, Oceanic Airlines ceased operations. But as we saw in the first flash forward, Jack was flying first class on an Oceanic flight. This again begs the question concerning alternate timelines. Could Desmond really have changed things in the past so that Oceanic never went out of business? So that Christian was still alive?

This may be the thing that we all obsess the most over as we wait impatiently for season four to start in 2008.

So Jack’s moving - into Sawyer’s old bear cage.  Juliet’s taking his old cell.  There was a woman he passed in the hallway on the way out… Was she the jewelry store woman from Desmond’s “flashback” last week?  The temptation is strong to go check out the fan forums right now, to see what everyone else thinks, but I’m trying to stay disciplined so I don’t become swayed before viewing the episode in its entirety.  And she’s “the sherriff?” 

Attractive Asian Woman from the promos helps Jack fly his kite on a beach - a much more pleasant beach with cold beers where people don’t get randomly attacked and abducted.  And she’s showing a lot of breast.  I didn’t quite catch her name - and even if I did, I’m sure I wouldn’t spell it properly.

Karl seems to have absorbed a bit of his brainwashing, quoting “God loves you as he loved Jacob,” to Sawyer.  But he’s also quite helpful, answering questions for the freshly escaped Sawyer and Kate. For the record, the Others only work on Alcatraz.  “Projects.”  The Others do live on the original plane crash island.  And Karl has a backyard, where he and Alex named a constellation “the teddy bear.”  Aww, how sweet.

Isabel.  No, not the jewelry store woman. Just a vague resemblance in passing.  And she knows that Jack is lying about Juliet asking him to kill Ben.  Did Juliet already confess the truth?  Or was she in on it?

Cindy, the kids, everyone who was taken… they’re all there on Alcatraz.  The kids want to know how Ana-Lucia is.  I don’t think they’d like how that conversation went.  Oh, and the boy has his teddy bear back - after Jin and Mr. Eko saw it being toted through the jungle way back when.

I’m very curious as to the reason why the Others will kill Karl if he goes back “home” to find Alex.  We’ve got twenty minutes left; I wonder if that answer is forthcoming this week.  I hope it is.

Jack and Alex have a heart-to-heart.  I’m thinking that he’s going to go fix Ben’s infection so he’ll recover and tell Isabel not to kill Juliet for killing Pickett.

Ethan was their surgeon.  That makes sense, considering what we saw in “Maternity Leave.”

It was hard to tell because Attractive Asian Woman was whispering and my furnace came on during the scene.  I think she said that her Gift - I heard the capital - was that she sees people and marks them.  That’s what her tattooing is.  And that, apparently, is what Jack’s tattoos are - the mark of what he is.  I will be looking up exactly what she said he is, because I caught none of her words after “leader” except for “angry.” So Jack got marked - and quite a beat down for it.

And Juliet got marked - I guess branded would be more specific.  Ouch.  Better that than executed, I suppose.  At least it’s on her back, and not like the scarlet letter or something.

Juliet just confirmed that Ben considers their little village from the book club flashback “home.”  Thinking back, Ben promised he would take Jack off the island, that he would take him home.  But they were on Alcatraz when he said that - unbeknownst to Jack - so going back to the village now would fulfill the letter of Ben’s promise, if not the spirit in which Jack understood it.

I can’t wait to see where this goes.

Sawyer. My personal favorite.  Honestly, how many [heterosexual] women don’t love the bad boys? He’s got that slow, sexy drawl.  He always has a snappy comeback, or at least a funny nickname for people.  He’s done some really despicable things, but he has the capacity for good. He loves his daughter.  He loves Kate.  He wears dorky glasses because he loves reading. 

Desmond. He was a bit of a mystery for an entire season, until we got the biggest flashback ever.  He has a real hang-up about honor, which is what drove him to compete in the boat race around the world that ended with his shipwreck on the island instead of staying home to fight for Penny.  He’s got a gorgeous accent, brutha.  He has a stuffed bunny.  (Aww!)  He was courageous enough to risk his own life to save Locke and the others by turning the fail-safe key.  And like Wesley and Buttercup in The Princess Bride, what Desmond and Penny have is true love; the Dread Pirate Roberts couldn’t keep Wesley away forever, and this island can’t keep Desmond away forever.  I hope.

Jack. Doctors are often sought-after in the dating pool, although only Kate seemed to be remotely interested in him on the island.  A natural leader, he’s strong in body, mind, and spirit.  And check out those tattoos, if you’re into that.  He’s very adept, whether at sharpshooting or performing miraculous surgery on otherwise inoperable injuries.  I’d definitely want him nearby if I were stranded on an island; you never know when you may need some stitches or a makeshift blood transfusion or something.  If you can get past his cocky attitude, he’s generally a pretty good guy.

Sayid.  Ignoring the fact that he’s tortured a number of people, Sayid is one of the good guys, too.  And quite attractive.  Even the shallow blonde Shannon fell for him on the island, though had she reported him as a potential terrorist in Sydney.  (If she only knew!)  Sayid seems to be thinking more clearly than anyone else on the island, including the beach’s generally accepted leader Jack.  He was the one who figured out that Michael was acting shady, and it wasn’t his fault that Michael’s betrayal succeeded anyway.

Jin. Ignoring the fact that he was one of the heavies for Mr. Paik of Paik Heavy Industry, well, you also have to ignore his nature of needing to control his wife.  He does love Sun very much, and all of the terrible things he’s done have been for her.  Who cares if he’s the son of a village fisherman?  If he could get over that nasty temper of his, he’d be quite a catch.