Alan K. Henderson's Weblog

(Episode: Something Nice Back Home. Spoilers Ahead.)

So, Smokey's attack didn't take that many casualties, if it was deadly at all - why did it leave survivors?

The chopper capacity is four, the commandos number five, so Lapidus took two trips to get Keamy's team from the ship and will take two to get them back. Which two or three will stay behind during the first trip, and will their wait be eventful?

The old saying that doctors make the worst patients definitely applies to Jack. Perhaps the I've-got-to-be-in-control-of-every-situation mindset is common to surgeons. The appendectomy is successful, but Rose raises an important question: why didn't the island's healing properties keep Jack's appendix healthy? We've seen this conundrum before - Ben's spinal tumor.

What are Jack and Ben doing wrong? Jack remains close-minded about the hints of paranormal/sci-fi activity on and off the island, but Ben knows better than that. Ben appears to be resisting the island's direction in another way, however, by setting his own agenda rather than taking the island's leadership.

What is so special about Charlotte? Each of the others has some sort of unique talent - Lapidus is a pilot (and knows too much about Flight 815), Naomi was a trained commando, Faraday experiments with time travel, Miles communes with the dead (and is probably there to "interrogate" the island's dead witnesses about the Purge and perhaps other matters - like knowledge of the island's location, something Widmore wants dearly). Charlotte assisted with dismantling the chem warfare apparatus, but dammit Jim, she's an anthropologist, not a chemist. What is her mission?

And does the fact that she speaks Korean suggest a connection with Mr. Paik? Here's a fun speculation: she is infiltrating Widmore's organization for Paik. That would provide an avenue to explain how Jin comes to start working for his old boss once again.

If all the "ghost" sightings are all manifestations of the mysterious island intelligence (Miles' contact with the dead is genuine, and is purely "audible" and not visual), why does it come in the form of Christian Shepard to both Jack and Claire? "Cuz the elder Dr. Shepard is the father of both - duh." But almost all of the other "ghosts" are people who actually set foot on the island at one time. Almost. The exceptions are Hurley's island encounter with Dave, and Ben's vision of his mom before the Purge.

The Island has some sort of mission for Hurley and Jack after their rescue. The island appears to be trying to protect Claire. Last week she called Sawyer "Charlie" when he pulled her out of the wreckage - did a vision of Charlie direct her to a part of the house where she would be safe from the rocket attack? Why would the island come in the form of Charlie on one occasion and Christian on another? (If they are actually two different entities, they are working together - Jack's conversation with Hurley at the sanitarium confirms this.) And why does it want to separate Claire and Aaron?

(When Sawyer yelled for Claire at the end of the episode, did everyone else think of Michael's repeated cries for Walt?)

Here's something worth noting about the drug that Jack gets his associate to prescribe for him: "Clonazepam is however, one of the most commonly abused prescription drugs." We know from last year's season finale that he will eventually progress to oxycodone, he will be separated from Kate by then, and that someone watching over Kate would not want her meeting with him...

Update: I completely missed a key plot development in the episode Ji Yeon - the Jin-and-panda sequence was a flashback, not a flash-forward. (Hat tip to Bill at Thinklings for cluing me in.) The odd thing is, this doesn't eliminate the possibility that Jin could leave the island while presumed dead and start working for Paik again; weirder stuff has happened on this show. Come to think of it, if that were to come about he probably wouldn't be going back to Korea where all sorts of people would recognize him.

Then there's the possibility of Jin staying on the island to work for Mr. Paik...

Labels: Lost, Television