"I'm Starting to Think John Locke is Gonna Be Trouble. "

So we've come to another finale. Unlike last year, it's a two-parter rather than a three-parter, but Follow the Leader functioned much as the first part would, with a multi-centric story that gets all the players into their proper places for the big showdowns. The main groups are John and the gang in the future and Jack and the gang in the past, but there are also the small factions that include Sawyer and Hurley. Four distinct groups, all of them trying to decide who to follow.

I predicted we'd get plenty of Richard, Eloise and Charles in this episode. We certainly got a fair amount, especially of Richard; if anybody could be considered the centric character, it was him. One might argue that the scenes of Jack and Kate in the Others' camp function as flashbacks for Future Richard. Of course, he's more of an observer than a participant in both times, but I still found it fascinating to get so much of him at once. What I've really been gunning for with Richard is a flashback that takes us back a couple hundred years or so, but I'm making no complaints about what we got.

Richard seemed much more prominent in the future storyline. In the past, he was just bemusedly going along with Eloise's plan, even though I don't think he especially approved. I wonder if he will end up trying to stop her. As usual, he was wonderfully understated; my favorite of his '77 lines was "This man walked into camp and put a gun to my head, and Eloise... reacted." Yes, that's one word for it... In 2007, he was much more central to the action, and I was quite amused by his utter bewilderment from the moment John arrived. I always think of Richard as a guy who knows exactly what's going on, but clearly he was completely befuddled here. Granted, he was also confused in Jughead, but this was even more pronounced. And just like in Jughead, we saw a scene that seemed to point to Richard being mysteriously all-knowing, when actually it merely was the result of John's orchestrations.

When he turned up in Because You Left, it certainly seemed to me that he knew what he was doing. He didn't seem surprised to see John, and he was there to guide him along his proper path. Except that Richard didn't know what he was saying. And he couldn't have given John any more explanation than he did because all he was doing was following a script. I have to give him credit for his composure under such short notice and strange circumstances, but it's a tad disillusioning to realize that so many of the Others' expectations of John originate with John himself. Maybe Richard is starting to put two and two together, to realize that John is just a guy who happened to be caught up in a weird time-space anomaly that allowed him to be a master manipulator. Except John is still special. How else could he have known how to find Richard, or exactly when they would need to arrive at the beechcraft? But Richard immediately sensed something off about John, and when the President of the John Locke Fan Club looks about ready to relinquish his position, well, that's disconcerting. If Richard doesn't trust John, it seems likely that we shouldn't either. It seems he's not entirely the same person.

I love the fact that Richard was building a ship in a bottle, and that he was wearing glasses at the time, too. It was odd seeing him with those spectacles. If Richard's got time for such painstaking leisure activities, it would seem that the Others have been enjoying a fairly peaceful existence lately. John stomping into camp with a boar on his back... Well, even if he is the rightful leader, it spells major change, which is most likely unwelcome at this point. And speaking of unwelcome, how about "I remember these people. I remember meeting them very clearly, because... I watched them all die." Um... What?? So things are looking pretty bleak for our time-jumping castaway friends. Is Richard telling the truth? Could he be telling what he thinks is the truth, but something else actually happened? If they're really going to detonate the bomb, it seems like it would kill everybody on the Island, and probably destroy the Island too - including Eloise, Charles, Ben, Horace, Ethan, Radzinsky, Roger and Richard, unless he's impervious to that sort of damage. All of those people survive well into the future - unless they do succeed in detonating the bomb, and it changes things. But if they're changing the past just by being there, Richard shouldn't remember them, should he? Ugh... I'm so confused! But I sure hope that we're not about to see Jack, Kate, Hurley and Jin get blown to smithereens.

The previews seem to be indicating that Sawyer and Kate end up back on the Island, and I would assume that Juliet does too, unless it comes down to some sort of ultimatum where Sawyer has to decide to sail off into the sunset with Juliet or go save the day with Kate. While I want to see Sawyer in hero mode, I'd hate for him to ditch Juliet; I'm guessing all three of them will end up back on the Island. How inconvenient, though, for Kate to show up. That look on Juliet's face when Kate arrived... And I love how Sawyer's eyes just flicked ever so slightly upwards to indicate his annoyance that this was going to be more complicated than he'd thought. I also liked his Back to the Future II-esque plans to amass a fortune based on future knowledge. Not a bad idea! I wonder, though, if that might have something to do with Widmore's riches? Though I can't imagine Daniel cluttering up his journal with that kind of information. I wonder if we're going to get any kind of a glimpse of his time in Ann Arbor in this episode. I know we're finding out how Hurley got on the plane, which suggests a Hurley-centric episode, but perhaps it will be multi-centric. Frankly, Hurley seems an odd choice for the focal point of the finale when at this point, he's barely involved in what's going on.

Far too little of Hurley in Follow the Leader, but he earned the biggest belly laugh LOST has given me in a while with that interrogation from Dr. Chang. Good call from the doc; his previous interaction with Hurley must've tipped him off that this isn't a guy too skilled at skullduggery. But gosh, Hurley, you're 30 years old. How hard is it to subtract 30 from 77? And after being so worried about what would happen if somebody asked who was president, maybe you should have researched that matter - and don't even get me started on the Korean War... (I loved Jin's reaction to that one.) Anyway, something tells me Hurley didn't ace too many history tests. Or math. But we really needed that almost purely comical moment in the middle of such an intense, action-packed episode. I also liked Hurley's objection to the idea of heading off into the jungle without rescuing Sawyer and Juliet and his empathy for Miles as they witnessed Dr. Chang's forceful evacuation of his family. That was just as powerful as Miles seeing his father reading to him when he was an infant, and now that they are in full acknowledgement of their relationship to each other, that should make for a very interesting dynamic.

I did feel sorry for Eloise in this episode. In a way, it was Ana Lucia all over again, only even worse this time since she realized that she'd killed her own son. Almost as soon as she'd done it, she wished she hadn't. Look before you shoot, Ellie! Charles, meanwhile, seemed fairly clueless; it seems like they've got joint leadership but Ellie is really the one in charge. Interesting that Charles, like Richard, recognized Daniel at once, though he couldn't put his finger on why. From that one scene in which they shared an obscured conversation, it seemed that Ellie might have been pregnant; what other "condition" would Charles have been referring to, especially when he later put his hand to her abdomen? But that really does make Daniel exceedingly young. I guess I can buy it since he's such a super-genius, but I certainly would have figured him for older than 30. It also makes me wonder if Ellie leaves because she is unable to give birth on the Island, because the baby problems start after the Incident. But how would she know until it was too late? Would Daniel have mentioned something about that in his journal?

Jack and Sawyer both took awful beatings here. Cavalry Charles knocked Jack around before Ellie clued him in that it would probably be a good idea to listen to him, and Radzinsky just went psycho on Sawyer - though I noticed that even he seemed taken aback by Phil's solution of beating up Juliet to get Sawyer to talk. Radzinsky's caused trouble before, but he really messed things up this time. I liked that Horace at least tried to stop him, though his efforts were fairly feeble. I'm not sure what Horace could have done at that point, though, to maintain control. I was relieved when I re-watched The Variable and realized that Hurley wasn't inside with Sawyer when Radzinsky charged in; I figured that he would probably turn up at some point with a daring rescue attempt. Though that didn't end up happening, I wonder if Team Sawyer and Team Hurley will reunite tonight.

I say Team Hurley, but Miles really is the one who seems to be in charge of that little group. There were all sorts of authority figures running around and replacing each other. Chang took charge of evacuating the Island. Sawyer lost his leadership, and Radzinsky took over for Horace. Charles and Ellie debated whether to follow Daniel's instructions; Sayid followed Jack, while Kate didn't. John came busting back into the Other encampment declaring himself leader, while Richard and Ben contemplated undermining him. Oh, and unseen Jacob, potentially the grandest leader of them all, now has to watch his back, since John's on his way to kill him. If he even exists.

If Richard's surprise at John's behavior was curious, Ben's incredulity at the end of the episode was absolutely jarring. Of course, there's always the question of whether his reactions are genuine, but they sure seemed real to me. When John admitted that he'd simply manipulated Sun and had no real intention of reuniting her with Jin, I could see Ben thinking, "Wow! You're a lot more like me than I thought!" And when John announced his intention to kill Jacob... Well, whatever Ben was expecting, it wasn't that. He looked utterly floored. So what's John up to? There is the possibility that John does not believe that Jacob actually is real. His only experience with Jacob was hearing him whisper, "Help me," and he suspected that was only Ben messing around with him. So maybe by "kill" Jacob, he means kill the idea of Jacob, though since presumably only Richard and Ben have any idea of where Jacob is located, it seems like it would be hard to conclusively prove to the rest that he doesn't exist just because he isn't at the cabin. There's also the possibility that he's lying to Ben, perhaps to test his loyalty. But if he really believes Jacob is real (and I'm inclined to think he is), what is his motivation? Does he want to kill Jacob so he will now be top dog? Or so the Others will no longer be forced to take orders from this mysterious man in the mountains? Or because Jacob wants him to? It seems like Jacob is trapped in a strange state of semi-existence; maybe by killing him, John would actually be freeing him. At any rate, the Man Behind the Curtain parallels were quite apparent here. Richard wasn't any more anxious to take John to see Jacob than Ben was. Yes, John was being a twerp again, though not a whiny, temper-tantrum throwing twerp. A calm I'm-in-charge-now-so-you-have-to-do-what-I-tell-you-to twerp. But what is it about his asking to go see Jacob that makes Richard and Ben so nervous? (I also loved Ben's heavy-emphasis-on-the-wh "What?" when Locke accused him of never having seen Jacob...)

Jack is reminding me more and more of season two Locke. Season two ended with Locke, surrounded by the ruins of his brilliant idea, confessing shakily, "I was wrong." What happens if Jack is wrong? Sayid, who evidently has just been wandering around in the jungle for the past couple of days, is willing to help Jack because he feels he has nothing to lose and everything to gain. If the plan works, Nadia's alive, and Sayid and Ben never meet. If the plan fails, his miserable life is over. But it's not that simple for Kate. For one thing, if time resets itself so that their plane lands safely in L.A., she's got a lifetime in a federal penitentiary ahead of her; without the sympathy generated by Jack's testimony and her mother's change of heart, I can't see her getting off. More immediately than that, though, it seems she's thinking about all that she and her newfound friends have been through and not wanting to simply erase all that and to return to a life in which none of them meet. Not to mention the fact that Daniel's plan sounds completely nuts and I don't think she's at all convinced it will work. Jack, meanwhile, isn't willing to think of the good that has come out of their experience. He believes he's come back for a purpose, and what greater purpose than to save the lives of everyone on that plane? That's hundreds of people who would be alive again if the plane crash could be made not to happen. Of course, he doesn't seem all that worried about the people on the Island now; if he saves the Oceanic 815 passengers but blows up half the Dharma Initiative and all of the Others, isn't it all a bit of a wash?

I wonder if we will get to see Young Ben again tonight, and Roger. That strikes me as somewhat likely, since whatever the case may be, I suspect we'll be done with the seventies after tonight. And maybe, just maybe, we'll get some hint of Annie in there somewhere too. (Could be that she and her parent(s) hopped aboard the sub, and after it was well out of sight Ben found out and was devastated. That's a nice non-lethal possibility. Though if Sawyer, Kate and Juliet end up back on the Island, does that mean the rest of the sub passengers to too?) I also am anxious to see what has become of Bernard and Rose, and I sure hope it has nothing to do with a pair of opposite-colored stones sitting in a cave. It seems that we may finally see Jacob tonight, too, and maybe Christian since they appear to be tightly linked. Or maybe Christian is Jacob, or rather Jacob has been making use of Christian's body since he washed up on the Island. I suspect that we won't see Claire, Walt or the Humes, but I'd certainly be glad to be wrong about that. Unless the finale lands Desmond or Penny in mortal danger. And I'm still gunning for Liam to turn up in a Hurley flashback, for them to share a pleasant afternoon of reminisces and for Liam to give Hurley an old guitar of Charlie's. I wonder, too, if Hurley might also catch a glimpse of Jacob tonight, since he's the only other character we know of who seems to have a special connection with him. I assume they'll wind up in the jungle, and maybe Hurley will come upon the cabin again and Jacob will give him some inkling of what he ought to be doing. Might we see the Hurley bird again too?

We've been promised a wedding tonight. Up until The Variable, I figured the most likely candidates were Sawyer and Juliet. But it looks like they wind up back on the Island, and with everyone in imminent danger of being obliterated, it seems like a really lousy time to get married. Besides, who would perform the ceremony? So I'm leaning away from Sawyer and Juliet now, unless we're getting flash-forwards again. Or unless Sawyer and Juliet did get married at some point in the last three years and no one bothered to tell us. They're not wearing wedding rings, but they'd be hard to come by on the Island anyway; maybe they didn't bother with the ornamentation. So I think if we see a Sawyer-Juliet wedding, it will be a flashback. Who else could it be? Maybe Rose and Bernard. If this episode focused on them as well, I'd be thrilled; it could flash back to their wedding, maybe revealing something unusual there, and then let us know what the heck they've been doing for three years. Or, if Desmond and Penny turn out to be in this episode (I don't see how they could get to the Island so quickly, but we could see them en route, and then see them just vanish if Jack successfully alters time), we flash back to their wedding. I'm having a hard time picturing a really revelatory wedding scenario, unless it takes place in the future, or at least future in relation to 1977. I don't know for certain if Charles or Eloise ever married, though I imagine Eloise must have since she and Daniel have different last names. A glimpse of a wedding involving either would probably be eye-opening. Or we could jump way into the future and see a wedding between Ji Yeon and Aaron, or possibly Charlie. It's an awfully open-ended clue, as we have no idea when or where the wedding takes place or who is involved.

I don't see how Daniel's plan can work as he laid it out. Quite apart from the fact that it seems crazy, I can't imagine how the show will proceed if its characters are completely scattered and mostly unaware of each other's existence. If the plan works the way he intends, perhaps Richard will still be on the Island in 2004, but it seems like he'll have the place to himself, and watching ageless Alpert construct ships in a bottle for hours doesn't make for riveting television. For ages, Doc Jensen has been postulating that season six will mirror season one - that we'll see Oceanic 815 crash again, and the survivors will start again from scratch, but some of the details will be different. Much as I'd love to see Charlie again, I'm not sure how this would work. What could happen that would change the 2004 present enough to have different passengers on the plane but still have Desmond fail to push that button at exactly the right time? Might we see Kelvin again and discover that he, too, was operating on long-held information - that Radzinsky, maybe, tipped him off, and that Kelvin ripped his suit deliberately and left at just the moment when he did so Desmond would follow him so the plane would crash? Or maybe the rebooting idea will fail altogether but somehow the castaways will get zapped back to 2007 at the end of the episode. There are so many possibilities...

There's also the matter of which characters will be leaving us in this episode. Assuming the two characters alluded to are not Daniel and Caesar, we've still got at least one major death coming. How major depends on how major you consider Daniel to be; Damon said one major and one semi-major. If Daniel's only semi-major, then Caesar's certainly off the table. Besides, we don't really know that Ben killed him. Major, then, would probably be restricted to Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, Sayid, Jin, Juliet, Desmond, John, Sun or Ben. Am I forgetting anyone? Arzt died in the season one finale. Desmond and Eko looked like goners in season two's, but Kelvin's was the only death we witnessed aside from the nameless Other. Season three's was a bloodbath, with about 15 deaths, the most significant of which was Charlie's. Season four's deprived us of Michael, along with a bunch of mercenaries and freighter red-shirts. Jin seemed likely to be dead, too, and John was in the coffin, but neither of those lasted. Anyway, Damon's hint aside, from past history, I think we can count on losing at least someone. After all the trouble they've been through, I don't think it will be Jin or Sun. They wouldn't dare kill off Hurley; we'd be lost without his comic relief, and if the furor over Charlie was intense, I think Hurley would inspire twice as much fury. After all, there are quite a few people who couldn't stand Charlie, but I've never heard those kind of complaints about the Island's teddy bear. Sayid's turned into such a basketcase lately that I might have to pin him as the most likely guy. It's hard to know what to do with him anymore. If not him, then I'm probably most worried about Kate or Juliet. Or maybe Ben will make some sort of grand sacrificial gesture in the future and thus finally prove himself "one of the good guys". Hey, it could happen... Not likely, but slightly possible, and if he could redeem himself it would almost be worth losing him. I'm also really worried about Rose and Bernard, and Jorge's evasive response to Whoopi's agitated question about them on The View just now did little to reassure me, but I must think positive.

Michael Emerson, on the same show, promised "cataclysmic conclusions". Oh, and new characters, which is intriguing. He said to expect lots of surprises, and he said there will be casualties. Oh, and Jorge said he doesn't want the series to end with a dream or a reboot. Is he trying to throw us off the scent? Of course, ending season six with a reboot isn't quite the same as ending season five with a reboot, but the consequences would be similar. Only if it happened now, we'd get to see what happens next. We'd better not end with an abrupt Sopranos-style fade to black, that's for sure. I suspect that no matter what the ending is, some will love it and some will hate it. I hope I'll be in the former category. And I wish Tinseltown would air the series finale there so we could see it in all its theatrical glory. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's hoping for one doozy of an episode that doesn't leave me too depressed but give me plenty to contemplate over the next eight months.

I Can Make Time (Time in a Bottle, Jim Croce)

When I realized that the fifth season of LOST was going to be both very concerned with the notion of time and rooted in the seventies, I found myself really hoping that the show would incorporate Jim Croce's Time in a Bottle at some point, especially in a scene focusing on Daniel Faraday. With only one episode to go in the season, that seems unlikely now, so I figured I'd have to match Dan and Croce up myself. This reflection has him confiding in Charlotte at an unspecified point in time prior to the events of the fifth season.

I Can Make Time

"But I can make time," I told Mother,
"For passions I long to pursue.
There's no need for dismay. I'm convinced I can conjure a way
To indulge me and you."

I wished I could play my piano.
I yearned for romance sometimes too.
But it doesn't pay to be Dan Faraday.
My gray matter's coming unglued.

When you smile at me, I want to find time
For music and a woman who'll treat me kindly.
I've lived in isolation, though, forgetting dreams of long ago.
Remind me.

My mind has been addled by physics,
Experiments' damage accrued.
My spirit endures, and while I'm in the presence of yours,
All my hopes are renewed.

When you smile at me, I want to find time
For music and a woman who'll treat me kindly.
I've lived in isolation, though, forgetting dreams of long ago.
Remind me.

Season One Soundtrack Review

If you're only going to buy one LOST soundtrack, this is the one to get.

Your Vanishing Hut (Vanishing Breed, Michael Martin Murphey)

I've had Island scientist Daniel on the brain since last week's episode of LOST, which focused on him, and tonight's episode had me reminiscing about the beginning of the season again. In this song, to the tune of Michael Martin Murphey's Vanishing Breed, Daniel tries to explain to Sawyer why their lodgings have disappeared and what to expect from this point on.

Your Vanishing Hut

We have no time. There's a bit of a climb
That I need you to let me take.
Come if you want; no talking along the way.
Sorry you're shirtless, but I must avert this
Disaster for all our sakes.
We're dislodged in time, and that's not okay.

Don't make me say this again.
Where's not the question. It's when.

Listen, I'm a quantum physicist, and it's hard to define
Theories this complex for what I suspect's a middling mind.
Just like a record skipping, it seems we're stuck in a rut,
And that's how I explain your vanishing hut.

No way of knowing which way we'll be going
The next time we disappear.
Will it be the future or the past?
Whenever we leap to, the cost will be steep
If we do not shift gears,
'Cause we're dislodged in time, and that's not okay.

Though we can't change our history,
I might have found the key to break free.

Listen, I'm a quantum physicist, and it's hard to define
Theories this complex for what I suspect's a middling mind.
Just like a record skipping, it seems we're stuck in a rut.
That's how I explain your vanishing hut.
That's how I explain your vanishing hut.

Vanishing Breed

My Mother Was Armed (Brothers in Arms, Mark Knopfler)

With The Variable, LOST has now reached the 100-episode mark, and what a momentous episode it was. Eccentric physicist Daniel Faraday finally got the limelight to himself, but it wasn't such a pleasant experience for him. Here are some thoughts I have running through his head in the last moments of the episode, to the tune of Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms.

My Mother Was Armed

So here's the fulfillment of my grand destiny.
All my life, she pretended to care about me.
Upon my return here to send out the alarm,
She knew I would be burned here. My mother was armed.

The advance toward destruction began as a child.
My dreams were worth nothing; they were dashed and reviled.
"Because you are gifted," she said as she smeared on the smarm.
She guided and grifted. My mother was armed.

In the slowly seeping stain that started with her gun,
Will she see the pain of her disillusioned son?

Who am I to rebel and to want to know why?
If I've done my job well, then it's worth it to die.
But her message in my journal is no longer a balm.
How brutal to learn that my mother was armed!

"I Can Make Time." "If Only You Could."

The 100th episode of a series is something of a landmark event, so I expected big things out of The Variable, especially after reading Damon Lindelof saying it was probably his favorite episode of the season and calling it comparable to The Constant. I figured the two would be related just judging from the title, and once Whatever Happened, Happened came and went without Daniel Faraday, I figured The Variable would be the one to thrust him back into the limelight. I assumed, too, that Desmond would be heavily involved. I figured that would mean more Desmond-Daniel interaction, probably in Daniel flashbacks. I'm rather sad that we didn't get to see them together at all. But the episode still managed to establish an even deeper connection between them.

After Jughead, I had a strong hunch that tough young Other Ellie was Eloise Hawking, which would explain why she looked so familiar to Daniel and further entrench her in the goings-on of the Island. (Obviously it came as a shock to the gang, though. "Your mother is an Other?" Love it!) Because we knew that Charles and Ellie were on the Island together, around the same age and both in some degree of authority, it wasn't much of a stretch to imagine them getting together, resulting in the birth of either Penny or Daniel. Or both? What if Daniel and Penny were twins? But Ben said that Charles had a daughter with an outsider, so that would seem to account for Penny. It doesn't explain where little Daniel was in 1977; surely he was alive at that point? He couldn't have been teaching at Oxford at the age of 19, could he? And why is Daniel's last name Faraday? Is Hawking a married name, or is Faraday? At any rate, the revelation that Charles was Daniel's father didn't really shock me. I wonder, though, why he didn't reveal himself as such to Daniel? Did he and Eloise have an agreement? Giving Daniel the grant seemed like a way of looking after him - though in retrospect it seems more like the opposite, driving him in a direction that he knew would kill him (assuming the conclusion of the episode is as dire as it seems).

Is Daniel dead, or about to die? That's perhaps the biggest question the episode leaves us with, though the answer seems a foregone conclusion. There's the foreshadowing of Daniel telling Jack any one of them could die, of Ms Hawking's sadness throughout the episode but especially in Daniel's childhood, of the devastating conversation between her and Charles outside the hospital. According to the transcript, Charles said "He was my son, too." I don't remember the past tense being there; if it was, definitely another tip-off. Plus, there's the fact that the previews show Jack rifling through Daniel's notebook Why would he need to do that if Daniel was alive?

Then again, while the wound seemed fatal and Daniel seemed in his death throes (with shades of Alex's dying torment as her "father" failed to save her), there've been near-misses before. John in The Man Behind the Curtain, Jin in There's No Place Like Home, Ben in He's Our You... They all seemed done for and pulled through. (Though to be honest, I didn't really believe any of them were dead, especially John and Ben, and they've pretty much got me convinced with Daniel.) If Daniel is among the Hostiles and he is, as Miracle Max might say, only "mostly dead," surely they can bring him back from the brink, and given his urgency and strange message, they might just want to. And maybe Jack and Kate had Daniel's journal, and when they heard the gunshot they ran for it. Believing him dead, they consulted his writings for clues for their next move. Doesn't necessarily mean he was dead.

Nonetheless, while I'm hoping the show will prove me wrong, I'm pretty sure this is the end of the line for poor Daniel. Somehow, I think Ms Hawking will end up with Daniel's journal, and she will read it and use it to manipulate the events of the next 30 years. The journal ends, presumably, with Daniel finding out that Jack, Hurley and Kate have returned to the Island, which is why Hawking is now navigating uncharted territory. But Daniel says Jack wasn't supposed to go back. Jack's return sent him into a panic. I'm not entirely clear on the connection yet, on what made Daniel so sure Jack's return was the wrong thing; like Frank, I tend to find that half the stuff he says goes "way over my head". But obviously he was troubled - not, however, because he had any inkling of his own impending doom.

At first, I thought that Eloise had shot him specifically because she knew what his presence meant, something like Ben killing John when he mentioned Eloise. But now I don't think so. She was just trying to protect Richard. Did she need to be so aggressive, though? Richard appeared almost totally unconcerned. I don't think he truly believed for a minute that Daniel (who had amusingly asked Jack for a gun "for beginners") was going to pull the trigger. I'm also not certain it would have damaged him. If Richard is, as he appears to be, immortal, or at least possessing extraordinary longevity, can he still be killed by violent means? An Elf, for instance, can be killed in battle... Eloise, after living with Richard for upwards of 20 years, must know there is something unusual about him. But maybe she just doesn't want to take any chances. Maybe her reasons were justified, but she and Charles are both pretty quick to dispense death, and I don't find that very admirable. I wonder what would have happened if Daniel had arrives at the Others' camp without a gun. Would he have been shot on sight, or would he have fared better? Also, would Eloise have recognized him as Richard did if she'd seen his face first, and would that have made her more likely to attack or less?

Part of me simply despises Ms Hawking after this episode. She's always been supremely creepy and obviously manipulative, and now we see that she was not only using Desmond as a marionette, she was carefully setting her son on a course that she knew would make him miserable and unhealthy and, presumably, get him killed. All the poor guy wanted to do was be a concert pianist, and she had to mold him into a mad scientist deeply damaged by his experiments. And Charles was in on this, though from a distance. Daniel was right that she was very rude to Theresa, though this struck me as fairly typical possessive mother behavior. I could almost see Marie on Everybody Loves Raymond doing that. Actually, I was most forcefully reminded of Willard; I don't think Daniel and Eloise's relationship was quite as dysfunctional as that, but it certainly was a strange mix of affection and loathing, and I think I've decided that naming the rats Eloise was not a tribute but a passive-aggressive way of lashing out at this woman who made his life so difficult. I don't know if Jeremy Davies will get any Emmy recognition, but this episode could give him a shot at it, especially those anguished last couple of minutes. What a devastating realization...

And yet I found myself feeling sorry for Eloise as well. Because I do believe that she did genuinely love her son, and that sometimes the realization of what she was doing to him crushed her, though mostly she sealed herself off from such emotions so that she could calmly orchestrate what she was certain was the necessary sequence of events. No wonder she always comes across as so icy. I had to laugh at her horrified "Good lord, no!" when Penny asked if she was Ben Linus's mother; she really can't stand Ben, can she? And yet they are, in many ways, so similar... Maybe that's one reason she detests him so much. Observing him, she's forced to face her own true nature. But if Daniel had to return to the Island to stop a cataclysmic disaster, is she really evil for ensuring that it happened? What were her alternatives? From what she told Desmond the first time we saw her, I got the impression that not just the Island, but the whole world was at risk from the Island's anomalies. If it's Kill the Physicist, Save the World, can we forgive her for sending her son to his death? This begs the same sorts of questions posed by The City on the Edge of Forever, arguably the best episode in the original Star Trek series, with Eloise in relation to Daniel occupying a similar role to Kirk in relation to Edith. That's not to say that I think his death was essential, just his knowledge and his plan. Makes me wish she'd written, "When you meet me in the 50s, tell me not to shoot you in the 70s" or something like that in his diary.

I also felt sorry for Charles, even though he flat-out admitted he was the one who planted the fake Oceanic 815 on the bottom of the ocean, an elaborate operation that might well have included mass murder, though perhaps mass grave-robbing would have done the trick. I thought there was some measure of tenderness in his meeting with Daniel, and I also wouldn't be surprised if Daniel was the only member of the special team recruited directly by Widmore. I think he went to see him mostly because he wanted to actually meet his son before he died. He was treating him in a pretty paternal manner, and he seemed to have some depth of feeling about him in that last scene as well. I also felt sorry for him that he had so alienated himself from Penny that he was within a few hundred feet of her and wouldn't attempt to see her, though more than three years had passed since their last meeting. He must have been dying to go in there and talk to her, not to mention meet his grandson, but he was probably right that she would have reacted badly, especially since it was her association with Charles that led to Desmond getting shot.

I was so immensely relieved to see Ben fail to kill Desmond, Penny or Charlie in Dead Is Dead that I let myself believe Desmond was out of the woods. Surely, I thought, he couldn't have been injured too badly if he could turn around and pummel Ben. Mightn't he have been merely knocked down, with the bullet landing in the groceries and never reaching him? But this episode found him in a dire situation, making me fret over his fate all over again. Interestingly, both Ben and Eloise have now expressed regret for what happened to Desmond (and I love Eloise's wistful observation that Charlie has Desmond's hair). I think they mean it. What's more, I got the sense that Charles was glad Desmond had survived. I suspect that if Desmond could ever bring himself to forgive him, Charles might just share his whiskey with Desmond now; the disdain was necessary to drive Desmond to the Island, but I'm guessing Charles has a deeper respect for his son-in-law than most of their previous interactions have intimated. I think there will be more revelations to come about Charles and Eloise in Follow the Leader.

I wonder if Desmond or Penny will ever discover that Penny and Daniel are siblings? I love the idea of that connection, especially of Daniel and Desmond being, in a sense, brothers, so much that I'll give Daniel a pass for almost getting his sister killed. How could he know that would happen? Also, while I'm pretty sure Daniel and Penny are half-siblings, I'm intrigued by the parallelism of the scenes between Charles and Daniel and Eloise and Penny. A father meets his son, and a mother meets her daughter, both parents masking affection in a guise of distant, mild interest? If the twin theory were true, all the greater the tragedy for Daniel, Desmond and Penny...

The Constant is one of the most uplifting episodes in LOST history, while The Variable is one of the most depressing - though it does contain a gleeful Desmond and Penny reunion after some very tense moments wondering whether he was going to survive the episode. I went into the episode worried about both Daniel and Desmond, and when I saw Desmond's peril, I couldn't help but wonder whether Daniel would be able to survive if Desmond died. I loved the nickname Twitchy; the jittery scientist burst back onto the Island still acting as though he'd recently gulped down a couple pots of coffee, and I wondered if he'd lose his grip on reality altogether without his constant to anchor him. Not that Desmond was too easily accessible at this point...

While I don't see where a meeting between Daniel and Desmond would have fit into the episode, it would have been nice for Hurley and Daniel to have some sort of snippet of conversation. He was, after all, the last major character who Hurley had not yet met, but they weren't even properly introduced, and Hurley's query about "Fonzie times" was more directed at Sawyer than Daniel. In fact, Hurley almost might as well have not been in this episode at all, though I did like the fact that he echoed my thoughts regarding Phil, even if they weren't very useful thoughts. What happened to "I'm gonna think," Sawyer? I guess there wasn't time for that, but he sure got himself into a mess. ("What am I supposed to say, 'My fist slipped'?" Ha!) Maybe Hurley can talk Radzinsky down...

Does Sawyer realize what thin ice he's on with Juliet? Did he see the way her eyes flashed when he called Kate "Freckles" and notice that the nickname was what prompted Juliet to divulge the number? I think we may be settling into a groove at last with Sawyer + Juliet and Jack + Kate - and I liked the parallelism of Sawyer asking Juliet, "You still got my back?" just as Jack asked Kate "Are you with me?" in The Little Prince - but I don't know if the drama there is quite over yet. By the way, where is Roger? I doubt we've seen the last of him. Maybe he'll go complicate Jack's life while Sawyer's dealing with Stu. Now would be a good time for Dr. Chang to take Daniel's advice and save the day. (Was I the only one who found all that talk of containment and evacuation eerily resonant in light of the swine flu? They've got electromagnetism to worry about, we've got a supervirus... Though it seems like the panic level has abated somewhat, and maybe we won't be needing to raid Desmond's hatch closet after all.) Funnily enough, Chang's reaction to Daniel regarding the "I'm from the future" comment was about the same as Daniel's reaction to Desmond. Unfortunately, Daniel didn't have the evidence to back him up, especially with Miles being so uncooperative. I wonder if he will switch gears once he realizes the gravity of the situation. I suspect, though, that Miles would be sending Dr. Chang to his death, in a reversal of this episode's situation. I hate the idea of them reconciling only for Miles to have to do that...

Almost the first time we saw Daniel, he was bawling his eyes out and didn't really know why. He's always struck me as a very emotionally open sort of person; he's not too skilled when it comes to human interaction, but he wears his heart on his sleeve. He's also a lousy liar, inspiring annoyance in professional con artists Miles and Sawyer with his ill-advised honesty. Unfortunately, his emotions tend to swing toward the negative end of the spectrum, usually panic, paranoia and grief. I was getting exhausted just watching him in this episode as he zoomed around all aflutter trying to stop impending disaster and rarely taking the time to explain anything. He reminded me of Hermione on a couple of occasions when she gets one of her brain bursts and, after a string of half-sentences, runs out of the Great Hall, leaving Ron and Harry staring after her in befuddlement.

The scene with Charlotte was heart-breaking. He was just so desperately sad, which little Charlotte picked up on; I found their interaction very sweet, and it seemed more like empathy than fear emanating from her. Certainly the warning would have been unnerving, but I thought he delivered it with great gentleness. He didn't say that if she came back she would die. Did he deliberately not say that, hoping to come off as less scary than she said he was? Or was the direness of the encounter amplified in her memory? John never really said to Jack that everyone on the Island would die if he didn't return either; he just said they needed his help. So maybe both of them were unintentionally exaggerating. It's sadly touching that the last thing Charlotte said before she died was a reference to her first conversation with Daniel...

Of course, the scene in Daniel's childhood was quite a downer too. So many of his character traits were present - highly intelligent, sensitive, polite - but he was not a basketcase. Not only was his mother depriving him of the pleasure of his true passion, she was steering him into a field that would have severe psychological consequences for him. I felt so sorry for him when he opened the door to Widmore and, upon not recognizing him, just assumed that they knew each other but he couldn't remember him. Charles had many opportunities to take pot-shots at Daniel there, but aside from his quip about why he was confiding in him about the fake plane and his reminder of the real reason Daniel left Oxford, both quickly followed up by statements of encouragement, Charles left his disdain at the door. He's heaped enough misery upon Desmond; I'd hate to see Daniel have to put up with his tongue-lashing too. This episode also explains how it is that Daniel doesn't remember meeting Desmond. He doesn't remember because he forgets everything. Frankly, I'm surprised he's only got the one notebook; maybe he just saves that one for the really important stuff.

Anyway, in many ways, The Variable was every bit as emotional as The Constant, with panic and grief prevailing instead of confusion and contentment. We only got to see Daniel happy for the briefest of moments at a time before unpleasantness intervened. It was like a Greek tragedy, and thank goodness Desmond was all right, because I couldn't have taken any more bad vibes in one episode - though at least it didn't leave me feeling as hollow as The Shape of Things to Come. (I did feel uneasy, however, about Penny leaving Charlie with that nurse; this is a show on which children get kidnapped, and if I were Penny I might be a little less trusting.) Mainly it left me wanting to throw my arms around Daniel, to give this poor ill-used soul a great big bear hug and assure him he is loved. And to shield him from Eloise as Harry shielded Molly from Voldemort. Daniel, why couldn't you have been wearing a bulletproof vest like Charlotte was when she landed on the Island?

I don't know just what to make of Daniel's idea of undoing the sequence of events leading to the crash. That sounds like a massive paradox to me. But if it actually does work the way he figures it should, does that mean the last season is going to take place almost entirely off the Island? That would be too weird... Doc Jensen has been saying for a while that he thinks season six will begin the same way as season one, but that the particulars of the Flight 815 crash will be different. For instance, several passengers will be missing, and Christian will be alive. It'll start from scratch and be slightly different this time around. That would be interesting too, though it seems like it would also be excessively repetitive. One thing's for sure; this is our last cliff-hanger finale coming up next week, so we're in for a doozy. (I also was noticing that in every finale thus far, we've seen characters drinking alcohol. Ana Lucia, Desmond, Jack, Juliet. Is this a hint as to what we should be doing as we watch these finales?)

I'm guessing that Follow the Leader will be fairly mythology heavy, offering flashbacks that will give us more insight into Charles, Eloise and Richard. Which would be fascinating. But I'm more interested in The Incident, which we've known about since season two. Talk about an oppressive title! Of course I want to see what goes down there, and how the castaways are going to avoid getting blown up and whether the course of history really can be changed. I'm also quite interested in the flashback because TV Guide implied that it would be Hurley-centric. That would be somewhat unusual, both since we've basically had a Hurley episode already this season and since only season two and three had a finale focused on one particular character. But I'm really keen to know what made Hurley decide to board that plane.

And where did Hurley get the guitar? My wild, hopeful guess: Liam. I would so love for us to see Liam and Hurley get together. After all, Jack's cover story seems to have left that possibility open; Hurley could at least give Liam an altered account of Charlie's exploits on the Island, emphasizing his strength of character. He wouldn't even have to change that much; Charlie really did drown, as Jack said, and though it was a week and a half, rather than "a few weeks," before they left, that was still plenty of time for Hurley to have gotten to known him. Then again, maybe Hurley would wind up spilling the beans to Liam like Kate did to Cassidy and Mrs. Littleton. I wish that Hurley could give Liam the ring, but I don't see how he could've gotten his hands on it. He wouldn't have taken it when he thought Charlie was still alive, and as soon as he found out he was dead, he high-tailed it off the beach. I suppose the ring is still sitting in Aaron's crib. But who knows? We may still see it again. (I wonder whether anyone will ever find the message Claire attached to that bird in season three? I was thinking that might blow their cover, but I just went over to Lostpedia and read it, and I guess it's generic enough that it doesn't really contradict their story...)

I'm not sure The Variable is my favorite episode of the season as The Constant was. I think that's a toss-up between Jughead and, curiously enough, LaFleur; Sawyer episodes usually aren't that high up in the ranking for me, but I really loved that one. And of course, there are still two episodes to go. But the more I contemplate this episode, the more I like it, even as it makes me terribly sad. Daniel, you will be sorely missed.

Dan In My Dream (Dance Little Jean, Jimmy Ibbotson)

There's been entirely too little Desmond in season five of LOST. I'm hoping the next episode rectifies that a bit. In the meantime, here's a little something, to the tune of Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's Dance Little Jean, reflecting on his appearance earlier in the season.

Dan in My Dream

I joined a boat race for my honor,
And I never thought that I would be marooned,
But then a storm sidetracked me,
And Kelvin kept me helplessly entombed.
So I was praying for some answers,
And I swore that if I ever could depart,
I would never think again about the Island
That I loathed with all my heart.

Then my depression turned to panic.
I heard somebody pounding on my door.
When I cocked my gun and greeted him,
It seemed to me that I'd seen him before.
But as he rushed to spill his secrets, Pen,
I couldn't comprehend what he could mean.
Then he told me that I had to meet
His mother, and I woke from the dream.

Well, it was Dan in my dream, but I don't know how.
What made me forget that moment until now?
Dan in my dream, a strange memory.
Oh, why can't that blasted Island just be done with me?

I don't want to go to Oxford.
We've been careful to avoid your father's net.
What if listening to Dan leads us right to him
And amplifies his threat?
But I owe my life to Faraday,
So even though this may be a mistake,
I will do just what he said to
For faith and fate and friends I can't forsake.

Yeah, I saw Dan in my dream, but I don't know how.
What made me forget that moment until now?
Dan in my dream, a strange memory.
Oh, why can't that blasted Island just be done with me?
Tell me, why can't that blasted Island just be done with me?

Dance Little Jean

"It All Could've Been Avoided If They'd Just, You Know, Communicated..."

After all the heaviness of Dead Is Dead, Some Like It Hoth felt like a bit of a reprieve. Yes, there were corpses and impending electromagnetic disasters to deal with, but in some way this was season five's Tricia Tanaka is Dead. Male bonding with Hurley in the Dharma van (which happens to have a body in it). Father-son reconciliation. Fun 70s music. Miles' back story was darker than Hurley's, but it brought him to the same basic place - an opportunity to reconcile with the father who abandoned him. I was so glad that Hurley gave his dad a second chance, and it was especially touching to hear him talk about him here, acknowledging what he gave up to return to the Island. Hurley left his parents, while Miles has a chance to reclaim his.

Dr. Chang came across as really cranky, but threatening Hurley with the LOST equivalent of Bantha poo-doo was more silly than threatening. (And I loved how Hurley insisted he liked working in the kitchen!) Chang's got a lot on his mind; he knows things are going sour, and they're about to get worse. They're meddlin' with things that ought not be meddled with. I don't think his wife told Miles the whole story, but then she probably didn't know the whole story either. At least we were able to see that Chang was a devoted dad. I presume he gave his wife and son the boot because he was trying to save their lives. It looks like Miles and his father might just have the chance to get to know each other a bit now after all.

Hurley was just lovely in this episode. He really knows how to get under Miles' skin, but never in a malicious way. I thought their chatter throughout their excursion was a hoot, and Hurley continued to demonstrate what a nice guy he is. Making sandwiches for the Orchid folks. Carpooling to be earth-friendly. Worrying his sandwiches might be unsafe to eat. Trying to help Miles reconnect with his dad. Oh, and of course, wanting to save George Lucas the headache of working out The Empire Strikes Back for himself.

Yes, Star Wars played an even larger role here than I expected, with all the buddy banter presumably the inspiration for the Some Like It Hot part of the title. In this season, The Little Prince was the only other episode whose title wasn't lifted directly from dialogue or obvious plot points. Hoth is not a pleasant planet, and I wondered if we might be in for some nastiness involving polar bears or sub-zero temperatures, but in retrospect the title feels purely playful. The idea of sending that script to George Lucas is so absurd and simultaneously sweet - and I wonder what other improvements Hurley had in store? You know, you'd think a guy who lets Chewy swoop in and nab Han's glory would have a little more time for the Ewoks. Frankly, I was sure Hurley, such a teddy bear himself, would side with me on this issue. So while his Luke-Darth-inspired pep talk was fantastic, I think I died inside a little inside when he so thoroughly dismissed my beloved Ewoks. Hmph. (Also, if his version of Empire ends with Luke and Darth in bear hug, I doubt Lucas would be too grateful - way to truncate the trilogy, Hurley!)

I wonder if we're going to hear more about Hurley's "I see dead people" stuff now. It doesn't seem he's done it since returning to the Island - but does that have something to do with why he can see Jacob? Or was it just indicative of him cracking up back at the hospital? Miles' abilities seem almost more like Fringe than Ghost Whisperer. It would seem he's not communicating so much as extracting, taking a trip into the personal Pensieve of each victim he discovers. I was sure he was faking it when he talked to the man who'd lost his son, and I was hoping he'd give the money back; doing so was the decent thing to do, but I hadn't expected him to turn the act into an opportunity to lecture a bereaved father over perceived negligence. The poor dads on this show never seem to get a break. Still, Miles had a point.

Five-year-old Miles was adorable, and I felt so sorry for the poor kid. I loved, though, that as he was embarking upon a life littered with Sixth Sense-style trauma, he lifted up a statue of a white rabbit to retrieve the apartment key. Down the rabbit hole we go! As if Alice in Wonderland weren't enough, I think I got a whiff of Peter Pan via Spielberg with his super-pierced young adult get-up, which reminded me forcefully of rebellious Lost Boy Rufio from Hook, a movie that, as much as anything, is about father issues that are resolved through a trip to a mysterious island.

My focus was most definitely on Miles and Hurley in this episode, so the rest of the characters faded somewhat into the background for me. Jack and Kate probably would've been better off not talking to Roger. Ben's absence is a major problem that's really going to blow up in their faces now that Mr. Linus knows he's disappeared. The "he ran away when my back was turned" argument is awfully weak. And the security tape Phil saw is just a hair shy of disaster. How are they supposed to keep him quiet? Everything looks like it's about to blow up in the castaways' faces; it seems it's time for an escape strategy. I don't Horace is too wise to the situation yet, but I doubt he'll be in the dark for long.

I wonder if we're going to find our way back to Ilana and Bram in The Variable. The flashback would seem to indicate that Bram is working against Widmore rather than for him, which makes it seem as though he and Ilana might actually have come to the Island on Ben's orders. (Incidentally, I'm mildly befuddled by the notion of a fish taco and trying to remember if LOST mentioned them before; I recall being bemused by a reference to them somewhere before...) I want to know what that's all about, of course, but I'm much more interested in Daniel, who has finally popped up again, looking considerably healthier than last time, albeit wearing an ominous black jumper. Just from the title, The Variable sounds very much like a bookend to The Constant, and TV Guide seems to confirm that Daniel will be heavily involved, so that's something to be excited about. Another Daniel-Desmond team-up is almost guaranteed to be a frontrunner for favorite episode of the season.

Of course, we have to wait until next week for that, which as I understand it will be the 100th episode. That seems significant, but since there's some kind of special on tonight, maybe they're counting that as number 100. The recap fests haven't really been anything to cheer about so far, but I get the impression that there will be a little more to this one. Here's hoping. Till then, I shall be sitting in my cozy living room, dreaming up scathing retorts about my favorite Endor residents...

The Thinker (The Tinker, John Reynolds)

I've really missed Daniel, my favorite season-four addition to the cast, in these last few episodes of LOST, so I'm very much looking forward to the next episode, in which he seems likely to play a central role. He's a reflection by him, addressing a just-departed Desmond, to the tune of the Irish Rovers' The Tinker, inspired by the episode The Constant.

The Thinker

'Tis a thinker I am, a pondering man
Accustomed to sounding bizarre,
Always dodging defeat while the Oxford elite
Sit and sully my name in the bar.

Though I shrug off the sneers I've received from my peers
When they should have been doling out praise,
I am stung by each slight, so I keep out of sight,
Seeking proof in a rat and a maze.

So thank you for showing that I'm not a liar,
That my theories are really true,
That I've not been misled by these thoughts in my head.
For your validation, thank you.

Though I'm hardly insane, I'll admit that the brain
Underneath all my scraggly hair
Has been jolted and jarred and repeatedly scarred
By the tests that I run in my lair.

So thank you for showing that I'm not a liar,
That my theories are really true,
That I've not been misled by these thoughts in my head.
For your validation, thank you.

You restored my resolve when you entered my life,
Bringing meaning to all that I've done.
Though you're already leaving, our fates are entwined,
And our kinship has only begun.

When you're settled in time, leave some room in your mind
To remember our meeting here, please.
I intend to depend on your being my friend
If I end up like Eloise.

So thank you for showing that I'm not a liar,
That my theories are really true,
That I've not been misled by these thoughts in my head.
For your validation, thank you.

So thank you for showing that I'm not a liar,
That my theories are really true,
That I've not been misled by these thoughts in my head.
For your validation, thank you.

The Tinker

"You Just Make Friends Everywhere You Go, Don't Ya?"

Dead Is Dead was another fantastic Ben episode, and probably his least depressing one yet. Oh, some of it was a downer, but most of the really unpleasant stuff harkened back to The Shape of Things to Come. I find it very interesting that Ben willingly sought out the Smoke Monster. Of course, I suppose he figured he'd have to contend with Smokey at some point, and it would be better to do it as much on his own terms as possible. Still, it seems a bit unlike Ben to walk into such a life-threatening situation. Which just goes to show what a big load he needed to get off his chest. Ben was genuinely sorry.

I never really blamed Ben for Alex's death because I thought, and I figured he also thought, that once Keamy had him, he'd just go ahead and kill Alex anyway, along with John and everybody else huddled in the house. Maybe I'm being too hard on Keamy, but he just seemed like a killing machine. Ben certainly didn't want Keamy to kill Alex; he was trying to use psychology on him like he does on everybody else, and he made a fatal error in judgment. Yes, he could have tried delivering himself to the mercenaries. I would've liked to see some sort of heroic daughter-saving gesture from him, and maybe it would have worked. But I'm not convinced. If the castaways hadn't delayed in passing on the cryptic warning that Keamy was coming, might Ben have had time to summon Smokey before he got there? Or would he have feared that the wild, unpredictable Monster would prove just as dangerous to Alex as to the mercenaries?

Anyway, while I don't hold Ben truly responsible for his daughter's death, I don't hold Charles responsible either. Is it possible that he gave Keamy direct orders to abduct Alex? Maybe. But the fact that Alex was Ben's daughter was the only thing that kept her alive when Karl and Danielle got shot. Keamy's blood lust was such that all he wanted to do was eradicate anyone who came in his path, but he saw her as his bargaining chip. His mission was to extract Ben; Charles wasn't forcing him, from thousands of miles away, to leave a trail of destruction in his wake. By sending Keamy there, Charles bears a bit of the blame. By failing to surrender himself, Ben bears a bit of the blame. But Keamy was the main culprit, and Ben already had his revenge on him, getting Michael and who-knows-who-else killed in the process.

Ben felt guilty about Alex's death from the beginning. He told Locke he had his daughter's blood all over his hands. But he also blamed Charles. And he blamed Charles more than he blamed himself. I think that maybe it wasn't until he came face to face with Penny and almost pulled the trigger that he truly realized how useless it was to go on blaming his old nemesis. I thought that scene was beautifully done. I knew it was coming from the moment Charles sent Desmond to L.A. And I was worried. I knew the confrontation had to occur; they wouldn't just let something like that drop. But I hoped Ben would be thwarted in his efforts, and even more than that, I hoped he would change his mind. Well, he was certainly thwarted. But even if Desmond hadn't come rushing at him and beaten him to a pulp, I don't think he was going to shoot. He had lowered his gun. Seeing Charlie had awakened his humanity.

I love the fact that the name of the boat was Our Mutual Friend. At first, I thought Ben was referring to Penny by that name, and I chuckled at the appropriateness, but then I realized he was referring to the boat. If Jughead revealed the name already, I'd forgotten... I am a little surprised that Charles didn't go to L.A. himself; if Ms Hawking had a way back to the Island, wouldn't he think that Ben would track her down? Or why didn't he at least say to Desmond, "Hey! Watch out for Ben!"? If there was even a chance Ben would be in the city at the same time as his daughter, I would think he would want to stop anything from happening. In that respect, if Penny had died, he probably should have felt as guilty about it as Ben did about Alex. I still don't know what was gained by Desmond going to L.A. Doesn't seem to have served any purpose at all, except to nearly get his wife killed. And if Charles and Eloise are on the same team, then what are their plans for the castaways, and how do they differ from Ben's plans? Whose are worse?

How devious of them to break up the big showdown with a scene from the present in which Ben says to Sun, "Tell Desmond Hume I'm sorry." There was such an ominous finality about that request. It fit in with Ben's remorseful tone, but more importantly, it implied that he had succeeded in his personal vendetta (though I did breathe a small sigh of relief, since it also implied that Desmond was all right). When they returned to the scene at the dock, Penny's fate seemed sealed. So what a relief to see how it actually played out! What it reminded me of more than anything else was Sawyer's very first flashback. Sawyer had been about to con that couple out of massive amounts of money, and the only thing that stopped him from doing it was seeing their young son and realizing that he didn't want to risk ruining this kid's life the way the original Sawyer had done to him.

Maybe Ben saw a little of himself in Charlie; having grown up without a mother, perhaps he didn't want to put Penny's son through that. But more likely, he was thinking about his encounter with Danielle, how Charles would have had him kill her, and kill the baby too had he known there was one. The sight of the child snapped him back to his senses. Killing Penny would not be a victory against Charles; it would just mean sinking further into depravity. Ben's done a lot of awful things, but he has a conscience. Thankfully, it showed itself in this episode. I was surprised to see that Ben was the one who kidnapped Alex, in part because Danielle didn't seem to recognize him in that capacity when she caught him in season two. But then, she didn't recognize Jin either. But kidnapping Alex seemed a lot less sinister when he was saving her life. Of course, one might argue that he could have simply left Alex with Danielle and walked away, but the fact remains that he had orders to kill and he didn't follow them. And if Charles wanted to try killing off Danielle again, she'd be a lot harder to track down without a baby in tow. (Ironically, Danielle did end up being a threat to the Others; she led Jack to the explosives and helped him pull off the plan that wiped out ten Others on the beach and ultimately brought the mercenaries to the Island. But I'd rather not think about that just now...)

At the time of Alex's kidnapping, Ethan must have been about 11 years old. This was before the Purge, but he was already hanging around with the Hostiles. Did he go back and forth like Ben did, or did he live in the jungle full-time? And what about Alex? It would seem like she would've had to stay in the jungle, but Ben couldn't have stayed away from Dharma for such long stretches of time, could he? For the first four years of her life, was she perhaps raised by Richard as well as Ben? He certainly seemed to be close to her in their brief scene together, a sort of favorite uncle figure. I'm glad we got that one blissful childhood moment showing that there was a time when Alex thought Ben was a very good dad indeed. Interesting that two of Ben's happiest moments occurred at that swing set. I was also surprised that Charles left the Island by submarine. I'd gotten the impression he left the same way Ben and John did. Alex looked about six to me, and the Others seemed comfortably settled in the Dharma buildings, which suggests that the Purge was Charles's idea, or perhaps Richard's, as I originally thought. I think I'm leaning towards Charles now. Richard seems to avoid violence unless he deems it absolutely necessary, whereas Charles doesn't appear too concerned about hurting people.

It would appear that Charles had a foothold in "the real world" for some time, though I don't know how he was able to come and go so freely without use of the submarine, which he only would have had for the last couple of years. Surely he couldn't have built up his empire that quickly? The scene between Flashes Before Your Eyes happened in 1996 at the latest, four years after the Purge; he seemed much too well-established as a business tycoon to have only gotten started in 1992. In any case, he must have had limited contact with Penny for many of those years. Did she ever live on the Island herself, or was she conceived in England when Charles was off gallavanting? And who was her mother? Also, if Charles was so desperate to get back to the Island, why didn't he just get on the Kahana himself and chopper down with the science team?

I was really looking forward to seeing Smokey in this episode, but I was equally excited at the prospect of more Ben-John scenes. John acted about the way I expected him to in this episode: calm, curious, amused. I liked his slightly put-out, "I was just hoping for an apology"; honestly, Ben, was that so much to ask? The explanation Ben gave for why he talked John down and then killed him makes a fair amount of sense, but according to Smokey, Ben's been planning to murder John yet again, and this time the reason can't be so noble. If noble's the right word for it; he was probably more concerned about getting back to the Island himself than getting the others back. In John's presence, Ben appeared to be happy that John was walking and talking again, but he told Sun he wasn't pleased at all. I love that when he uttered the big preview line - "What's about to come out of that jungle is something I can't control" - what came out of the jungle was John Locke. Ha! Maybe Ben won't have such an easy time manipulating him anymore. In any event, John's presence seems to have complicated things...

Ben claims to have had no idea that the castaways were in the Dharma Initiative. If he's telling the truth, that suggests that his memory wipe in the Temple was fairly extensive and that Sawyer, Jack, Hurley, Jin, Kate, Juliet and Miles will have left before little Ben gets back from his holiday with the Hostiles. Of course, it's entirely possible that he's lying. Speaking of the Temple, how did John know how to get there? Did his Spidey senses just start tingling? Also, the Temple is where Ben told Alex, Danielle and Karl to go, and where he told Richard and the gang to go before that. As John and Ben are leaving, might they encounter some Others? Richard might really be a big help right now.

I was a little surprised that we didn't really get any insight into exactly what happened to Ben in the Temple when he was a kid. When he awoke and spoke to Charles, he didn't seem evil; he just didn't want to go back to his father. He wouldn't have felt badly about taking the keys anymore because he didn't remember taking them, and that's a shame because pre-Temple Ben and remorseful Roger might just have been inspired to resolve their issues. I suppose when Ben gets back Roger will take a stab at it but Ben won't be as responsive as he might previously have been. Anyway, I would've liked to know more about what Ben experienced there, but maybe we'll see some of that in an episode to come. I did love the adult Ben Temple scene, though. It was so spooky, the way Smokey slowly seeped out of the floor, surrounding Ben before facing him directly. It was terrifying but oddly beautiful, especially when it silently slipped away. Off course, Ben didn't get off scot-free. For a moment, I thought there might be an affectionate moment of reconciliation between Ben and Alex, but of course it wasn't really Alex, it was just the most fitting form for Smokey to take. A cruel apparition, but certainly appropriate. Ben's life was spared, but he's on thin ice. So is he going to follow John now like a good little boy, or is he going to throw caution to the wind? He'd be a fool to ignore that threat, and now that he's got a new lease on life, here's hoping he'll turn over a new leaf.

His behavior toward Caesar was baffling and frustrating. What exactly was he trying to accomplish there? Make the guy totally suspicious of John, compel him to confront John about leaving, then shoot him to stop him from getting in the way of their trip to Big Island. What was the point? And gosh, if that's what Ben does to guys who have his back... Well, we couldn't have him emerge from this episode entirely smelling like roses, could we? Was he hoping that Caesar would kill John, but changed tactics when John insisted on joining him on his excursion? I don't know, but I wish he'd quit sowing seeds of discord; he seems to have left the 316 survivors in quite a mess. Frank never should have gone with Sun; he should've taken Ben back to the crash site with him and resumed his role as leader. Because things would be a lot better with Frank in charge instead of Caesar and Ilana. She definitely seems to know more than she's telling. What was all that shadow of the statue business about? Is she working for Widmore? And did Caesar survive that surprise attack, or was his "friend" Ben the Brutus to his Julius Caesar?

Ben still has a deeply dangerous streak, but he and John make a formidable team, so I hope their alliance survives. I don't suppose the two of them and Sun will be in any hurry to go back to Alcatraz, so it looks like we've got further fragmenting. I don't have any idea how John's supposed to get Sun back to the 70s, or Jin to the present, and I suspect he doesn't either; now would be a good time for a helpful tip or two from Christian or Richard. I'm guessing that won't happen next week. The previews seem to indicate we'll be back in the thick of things in Dharmaville. I love the title Some Like It Hoth because it reminds me of The Empire Strikes Back; I somehow doubt, however, that we're going to be seeing frozen Tauntauns. It's probably a quote from Sawyer or Hurley; Sawyer seems to be the big Star Wars buff, but Hurley's pretty up on pop culture too. Next week could focus on him, perhaps, letting us know how he ended up on that plane, among other things. I think I might be leaning towards Miles, though; he's only had one flashback so far, and he had to share the episode with Daniel, Charlotte, Frank and Naomi. Miles is due. Maybe we'll find out whether he really was born on the Island and get to see his odd talents in action. Are we going to see Sayid again, and what will be the fallout from Kate and Sawyer taking Ben to the Hostile hospital? I'm looking forward to it, especially if we get a whole lot of witty banter between Miles and Hurley again, but I think Dead Is Dead will be a tough act to follow, and I think the Emmys might just come calling for Michael Emerson again this year.

Waiting With Hurley to See If My Hand Disappears...

Not a peep out of Daniel in Whatever Happened, Happened. Sigh. But we sure found out a lot about Kate, and most of it cast her in a more sympathetic light than she's been in for a while. I pretty much figured that Sawyer's whisper to Kate on the chopper was about Clementine, so it wasn't a huge surprise to me to see her show up on Cassidy's doorstep, but that little reunion was nice nonetheless, even though Cassidy is exceedingly bitter. I thought her analysis of Sawyer's helicopter heroics was pretty harsh, though it does seem as though there was some truth to it. Sawyer didn't exactly deny it, did he? But I'm glad Kate and Cassidy kept in contact; Kate really needed a friend she could confide in, and she was able to get to know Clementine and report back to Sawyer with news of his daughter. I think New Sawyer would probably be a great dad; it's a shame he's probably not going to get that chance with Clementine.

It was sweet to hear Kate singing Catch a Falling Star to Aaron, knowing what the song meant to Claire. Fellow professional liar Cassidy could see right through Kate's lie about Aaron being her son; makes you wonder who else might have been suspicious. The woman in the grocery store looked a lot like Claire, which freaked out an already panicked Kate. That was a scary scene, since I figured that one of the following had happened to Aaron: Kate had left him with someone (presumably Cassidy or Mrs. Littleton) or someone had abducted him. It was starting to look like the abduction theory would win out. Dropping Aaron with his grandmother seems like a good idea, though that was an awful lot to dump in the poor woman's lap at once. "You have a grandson! And your daughter might be alive, so even though you don't know each other at all, you get to take care of him while I go look for her. Did I mention I have no idea how I'm getting back?"

Finding Claire is going to be awfully complicated now that Kate and Claire are three decades apart from each other. I suppose the search won't start in earnest until next season. But I'm glad that's why she went back. It seems so much nobler than simply wanting to return to Sawyer since Jack broke her heart. Still, Sawyer isn't exactly off the table. He claimed he was only helping her with Ben for Juliet's sake, which reminded me of Jack sticking up for Sawyer in the season three finale because he loved Kate. I think Sawyer was telling the truth about his motivations, mostly, but he also couldn't stand to leave Kate alone and in danger. It was pretty foolish of her not to accept Juliet's offer of help. Considerate, probably, but still not too bright. But in this episode, I think for the first time since season three, Sawyer called Kate "Freckles," and that can't be a good sign for the longevity of his current relationship...

So why was Kate so determined to save Ben? Was she, like Hurley, considering all of the staggering time-space continuum consequences? No, I don't think she was. I think that she, like Juliet, couldn't bear to stand by and let a kid die, even if that kid was Ben, and I think her conversations with Roger made her feel all the more sympathetic. Because Roger was ever so much more likable in this episode. Yes, he was veering laughably close to hitting on Kate; can you imagine those two as a couple? But the point is that we saw him actually carrying on a civil conversation with somebody, and we saw him deeply remorseful for the mistakes he had made as a father that drove Ben to break Sayid out of jail and try to join the Hostiles. I tend not to think of Roger as being terribly bright, but he really hit the nail on the head with figuring out what happened to Ben. It made me wish that Jack had just burst in there and saved Ben's life again. If he'd done that, maybe the future would have changed, but for the better; maybe Ben and Roger would have healed the rift between them and Ben would stop being so desperate to leave and would have developed into a much more grounded person. Roger and young Ben both seem ready to make amends at this point.

But now it seems that history is indeed repeating itself. Richard seemed reluctant to take Ben and turn him into a Hostile. The loss of innocence he spoke of must be the first step in creating the Ben we all know. With such a dramatic change in demeanor, it didn't surprise me that much to hear that a loss of memory would be involved, though to what extent? Will he only forget the shooting, or will he forget everything that happened to him in the first twelve years of his life? Maybe, for instance, he honestly believes that he was born on the Island. What if, by the time Ben returns to the Dharma Initiative, the castaways have moved elsewhere? Maybe he has no memory of their interaction at all, and they actually were the strangers to him that they seemed to be in season two. I think that him remembering them in the future would set up all sorts of interesting possibilities, but I suppose it would be simpler if he just forgot the whole thing, or rather had his memory modified to exclude certain people and events. What about Annie? In 2004, he knew that the doll she gave him was a birthday present. Did he remember the circumstances under which he received it?

I'm excited about the prospect of another Ben-centric episode next. The previews certainly seem to imply that we're getting one. I presume that we'll see what befalls little Ben in the Temple, perhaps as a flashback from modern-day Ben; maybe we'll see the 1977-era Hostiles but not the castaways, though I'd think we might see him return to the village, since we know that has to happen. Might we see some familiar faces among the Hostiles? Mr. Friendly, perhaps, for one? Richard mentioned Charles and Ellie, who presumably is Eloise Hawking. Both of them are evidently in positions of authority. What if Charles' exile occurs at this point, as a result of what Richard does to save Ben? Could that be possible? And knowing he can't get back at Richard, who seems to be immortal and indestructible, Charles instead sets his sights on Ben? And where does Penny fit into all this? She must have been born by now; I figure she must have been at least in her early twenties when she and Desmond met, and that was in the early 90s. Is she on the Island?

Speaking of Penny, I imagine we'll also find out how the big show-down with Ben went down. Of course, I'm hoping that Ben came calling but before he could do any damage, Desmond beat him up and sent him packing. That may be overly optimistic, however. Here's hoping it's not. Ben episodes are always fascinating, and with the promise of Smokey, I think we're going to get a hearty helping of mythology with Dead Is Dead. I'm guessing the title refers to John, but it could also refer to Ben, I suppose; what if Ben isn't healed but resurrected in that Temple, making him and John even more alike? Or maybe we'll finally get a little insight into Christian. At any rate, I'm guessing that once John finds out Ben's got a date with Smokey, he's going to be too intent to see that confrontation to get in the way. I suspect that he'll insist on tagging along with Ben for the big trial, though I'm not sure how much he'll actually be able to see. Could this be curtains for Ben Linus? After all the scrambling to save his life in the past, will he get pulverized in the future?

There was a lot of pretty heavy stuff happening in this episode, so I'm glad that we got the moments of levity with Miles and Hurley. I love how Hurley was raising all of the objections to the time travel premise that we have been. The reference to Back to the Future was the perfect way to kick things off. The debate was a great way for the writers to lighten the atmosphere while admitting, "Yeah, we know this is a lot to swallow..." And Hurley presented some pretty convincing arguments for their being able to change the future, though by the end of the episode, I was leaning towards Miles' camp. I see now that the season finale is called The Incident, which is interesting, since that seems to have been the event that necessitated the pushing of the button in the Swan hatch. The season three and season four finales had a lot of parallels; I'm guessing season two and season five will as well. But we've still got several episodes to go before that happens. In the meantime, any chance of seeing Rose, Bernard, Vincent or Daniel again? And is Jacob going to finally show up, or will we have to wait until season six for him to make an appearance? The questions are still piling up, but for the moment, I'm content with the promise of more Smokey...

The Once and Future Ben

I wrote this poem today in response to a poetry month writing prompt. Of course, knowing LOST was on in a few hours, I had my favorite show on the brain. Tonight's episode seems to have answered a question or two about Ben, but the mysteries are only beginning to be unraveled. How much did Ben know about what was about to happen when he hopped the plane back to the Island? Did he realize what he'd been pruning Sayid to do? We shall see...

The Once and Future Ben

A broken man with malice in his heart
Sits calmly in his seat and reads a book
That hints at epic journeys. But a look
Into his eyes does not reveal the part
That he will shortly play. Does he suspect
The doom that he has brought upon the lad
He loves and loathes, the boy whose bitter dad
Was caustic in his efforts to connect?
"Whatever happened, happened," so they say.
Then does the man recall the treachery
That, for another, still is yet to be?
Or did his past unfold another way?
Did bloodied Ben facilitate a crime
Defining the direction of his youth,
Or, when we are presented with the truth,
Will we discover that the course of time
Is not so fixed as many would insist?
A child is shot by one consumed with wrath.
Perhaps this sets him on the villain's path;
Perhaps he simply ceases to exist.

"A 12-Year-Old Ben Linus Brought Me a Chicken Salad Sandwich. How Do You Think I'm Doing?"

I was hoping the title He's Our You would have some great mythological significance, something to do with Christian or John or Jacob or even Ben. Its use was more mundane than that, introducing a character who doesn't seem that likely to pop up again. Oldham carried himself in a really creepy manner, but when it came down to it, his interrogation wasn't actually all that brutal. He just strapped Sayid to a tree and let the truth serum do its work. Sawyer didn't seem to be getting any visceral satisfaction from seeing the roles reversed from his own interrogation early in season one. Part of his discomfort was fear that Sayid would reveal something damaging, but there was sympathy there too, and I was relieved to see him trying to help Sayid in various ways throughout the episode despite the misleading trailer. The whole interrogation scene started out so frightening, I was surprised to see it end on such a comical note. Sayid told the truth, and what good did it do Horace's crew? To the uninitiated, Sayid's story sounds just plain ridiculous - though there's still the matter of his knowledge of the hatches, which could prove problematic.

How exactly does Sayid know he's from the future? Nobody told him. I guess he knows enough about the Island to have deduced it, and maybe his experience with Desmond planted the nugget of the possibility of time travel in his mind. Ben only introduced himself by first name, but Sayid seemed to know immediately that he was Ben Linus. There wasn't much to dislike about 12-year-old Ben. He was soft-spoken and kind, and we learned that Roger was an even bigger jerk than he seemed in The Man Behind the Curtain. I knew he was verbally abusive, but I thought maybe that was as far as it went. Apparently knocking Ben around wasn't so uncommon; it was clear from the way Ben froze in the doorway upon seeing his father that he was downright scared of Roger. Of course, there was an ulterior motive behind Ben's compassion toward Sayid, but he came right out and said what it was, and can you really blame him for wanting to leave? I wonder, though, if Annie might have already been gone at this point, or if Ben was so miserable in every other aspect of his DHARMA life that he was willing to leave his best friend. Either way, I can't think of Ben and Annie without thinking of Snape and Lily. Maybe that's one reason I keep holding out hope for Ben...

Sayid flashbacks (or flash-forwards) have a degree of intensity and despair beyond those of just about any character. Each one reveals more dark deeds and often makes him more difficult to defend. This one certainly did. I have a tendency to think of him as a very conflicted character who is deeply disturbed when he resorts to violence and wants to atone for it; didn't his work with Build Our World seem a bit reminiscent of Eko building Yemi's church? Of course, that opening scene was so similar to the scene in The 23rd Psalm that it was hard not to look for Eko echoes throughout the episode. It wasn't clear at first which boy was Sayid; I think we were supposed to think it was the older boy, the one who got queasy about the thought of killing a chicken. That's what we wanted to believe of him - that he viewed killing with revulsion. But like Eko, Sayid strode right in and unflinchingly did the job to spare his brother the trauma. Like Eko, he was praised for it. Though this was not entirely a comparable situation - killing a chicken for dinner isn't the same as murdering a headmaster - both end with a man suggesting that a violent streak is an admirable trait.

Sayid's father did not come across as a very nice guy, so I wondered if seeing Roger interact with Ben had an especially strong impact on him. I thought that Sayid might see both fathers as driving forces behind their sons' behavior, and that maybe he could change the course of Ben's life by helping him to escape from DHARMA. Though I wasn't sure how he was going to manage that without an in with the Hostiles, I preferred it to the eerily likely idea of him trying to nip Ben in the bud by killing him. Penance or revenge? That seemed to be the fundamental debate at play here. Could Sayid admit his mistakes and be the bigger man? One of the most disturbing moments in the episode, I think, came when he killed the last guy on Ben's list, and he actually seemed bitterly disappointed that his days as a hit man were over. I guess it gave him a sense of purpose. But the chilling feeling I got from most of his violent post-Island encounters was that he actually relished this job, at least in the moment. If Further Instructions showed that John is not a killer (with the troubling, desperation-induced exception of Naomi), He's Our You demonstrated that Sayid is. It was his least sympathetic flashback yet. I also wonder if it may be his last...

So Sayid really was on the plane independently of everyone else, and not because he wanted to return to the Island. He actually requested a later flight to avoid returning. There's still a possibility Ilana knew more than she was telling; for instance, how did she even know to arrest him in the first place? But Hurley didn't find out about the flight from Sayid. I imagine that's a story for a future flashback. I wonder if Sayid is now going to try to join the Hostiles or if he'll just strike out on his own and hope he doesn't run into anybody. At this point, I think he'd better watch his back for Smokey. The big question here, of course, is whether Sayid actually killed Ben. Frankly, I can't believe he succeeded. John looked pretty hopeless lying in that ditch in season three, too, but he made it out. The repercussions of Ben dying as a 12-year-old would just be staggering. It would completely change the castaways' experience. It would be rife with paradoxes. So I have to think that Ben will survive somehow. Maybe Richard will step in at this point and lend a hand before returning an embittered Ben to his people. In The Economist, Sayid snapped at Ben, "What do you know of friendship?" and Ben answered, "I know it's no use having friends you can't trust." Could he have been referring back to this very incident? I could certainly see how attempted murder by a guy who seemed like a friend could shatter your faith in humanity.

We didn't learn too much about the other DHARMA folks this time around, but I'm still finding Radzinsky's paranoia strangely endearing. Sawyer actually owes him one, since Sayid was about two seconds away from blowing his cover and it was only Radzinsky's exasperated interruption that cut him off. I had to laugh when Horace came into Sayid's cell, because Dad had just been saying how Horace kinda creeped him out, and I was defending him, and then he pulled out a pair of pliers. "Aw, man," I grumbled, halfway to admitting defeat, when I remembered Sayid's handcuffs. Suddenly Horace seemed pretty harmless again. He wasn't too keen on executing Sayid; Amy and Radzinsky had to pressure him into a vote. But he did seem prepared to carry out the sentence, or have somebody else carry it out, anyway. Just how does DHARMA handle those things? Has it ever happened before? Given the fact that the Truce is still in place, I'm thinking no. I suspect he'll feel a little relieved when he finds out Sayid has escaped.

I love that Hurley gets to be a DHARMA Chef. Kate and Jack just get stuck in jobs where they can be easily supervised; Hurley gets to do something he actually enjoys. He could have been a little more sensitive about Kate and Jack's feelings when discussing the Sawyer / Juliet development, but I guess he was so startled by Kate's cluelessness that his surprise overrode his empathy. Juliet and Kate continue to circle each other with pasted-on smiles; I can't imagine it will be long until the claws come out. First they were fighting over Jack, now it's Sawyer. I think Juliet's line about playing house was more pointedly about Kate breaking her and Sawyer up, and Sawyer changed the direction of the conversation. Obviously, she's worried. She may have even more reason to worry if Kate ever gets back to saying why she came back. It was funny to see Jack so laid-back. He seemed more bemused than bitter about his conversation with Sawyer. Maybe the new Jack doesn't mind taking a back seat so much. Perhaps he's glad to catch a break for a change and let somebody else do the worrying. Poor Jin really got the short end of the stick, though I'm relieved he just got knocked out; there was a horrified second there when I thought Sayid might actually kill him.

He's Our You was my least favorite episode so far this season, but I don't despise it as I do The Shape of Things to Come. It raises all sorts of intriguing questions, most pressing of which is whether Sayid just changed the future or set it in motion. And if the wound was fatal, should he actually be commended for killing Ben, even though he was just a kid at the time? The line from the season premiere about killing Hitler seems pretty apt here. With a title like Whatever Happened, Happened, you can bet that the next episode is going to address these issues, though probably not as much as we'd like. I hope it puts us back in touch with Daniel. I also hope it's a little more cheerful than this one was, but I'm not holding my breath...

I'm Gonna Read (I Want to Live, John Denver)

I really enjoyed Namaste, the most recent episode of LOST, which reunited Sawyer and his pals with Jack, Hurley and Kate. Of course, the situation is much more complicated than Sawyer would have imagined three years earlier, or than Jack had anticipated. It will be interesting to see how these two work together in the episodes to come, but for now, Sawyer's got the upper hand. This reflection, to the tune of John Denver's I Want to Live, has Sawyer giving Jack his little end-of-the-episode talking-to, and then I imagine him muttering the bridge and last verse to himself after Jack leaves, admitting to himself that at this point, he's not all that thrilled that his long-lost friends have finally shown up....

I'm Gonna Read

There are leaders forged in crisis, and they dive into the fray.
There are leaders who ignore the risks ahead.
There are leaders who are pensive, leaders who delay
To be sure their fortunes won't get worse and their friends don't wind up dead.

I'm gonna read. I'm gonna drink.
I'm gonna plan. I'm gonna think.
I'm gonna prove I'm fit to lead.
I'm gonna think. I'm gonna read.

Did you know that Winston Churchill read a novel every night?
Have you heard he said it helped him think things through?
Would it kill you to say "thank you" for the stunt I pulled today?
Just go get some sleep. I'll spring Sayid by doin' what I do.

I'm gonna read. I'm gonna drink.
I'm gonna plan. I'm gonna think.
I'm gonna prove I'm fit to lead.
I'm gonna think. I'm gonna read.

We're the warden and the whisperer, the savior and the sire.
We're the motley crew who you guys left behind.
You're the doctor and the hugger and the half-forgotten one,
And you took so long to make it back, you've put us in a bind.

We've been waiting here with DHARMA, layin' low and blending in.
We've been waiting in a place that feels like home.
No more lean-tos. No more campfires. No more livin' off the land.
If you're gonna mess that up, Jack, then I wish you hadn't come.

I'm gonna read. I'm gonna drink. I'm gonna plan. I'm gonna think.
I'm gonna prove I'm fit to lead. I'm gonna think. I'm gonna read.
I'm gonna read. I'm gonna drink. I'm gonna plan. I'm gonna think.
I'm gonna prove I'm fit to lead. I'm gonna think.
I'm gonna read. I'm gonna drink. I'm gonna plan. I'm gonna think.
I'm gonna prove I'm fit to lead. I'm gonna think.
I'm gonna read. I'm gonna drink. I'm gonna plan. I'm gonna think.
I'm gonna prove I'm fit to lead. I'm gonna think. I'm gonna read.
I'm gonna read.
I'm gonna read.

I Want to Live