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Thursday, February 25, 2010

 
Lost - Mirror, Mirror

(Episode: Lighthouse. Spoilers ahead.)

This is episode 108 - the sum of the six Hurley numbers.

In the fractured timeline, Jack has a teenage son, David - and an abdominal scar that puzzles him for some reason. Jack picks him up for visitation (remember, Jack is divorced). Jack leaves the boy alone for a while to help his mom find his Dad's will (which happens to mention Claire Littleton, a name unknown to both), and returns to find David gone.

At the wife's house Jack discovers through David's answering machine that he's enrolled at a music conservatory. He goes, listens in on David's piano recital. Later the two talk; David didn't want his dad to know he'd taken up piano again because he was afraid of his father seeing him fail. Jack's dad had always been overly critical with his son, telling him he didn't have what it takes; Jack assured David he would not carry on that tradition.

In this timeline, the Japanese leader of the Others has a son at the conservatory.

In the island timeline, Jack admits to Sayid that the pill he was instructed to administer was poison. Meanwhile, Hurley has a mission, to bring Jack on a journey. He goes off by himself and is almost thwarted by Dogen. Jacob (unseen to Dogen) tells Hurley to say he's a candidate. Dogen walks away cranky, muttering something in Japanese.

Hurley had taken off by himself, believing that Jack would never agree to the trek. But Jacob insists. Hurley approaches Jack, who initially resists, but Hurley says Jacob told him to say that he has what it takes. Jack knows what that means, and agrees.

On their way they see Kate. Jack invites her, but she declines, and Hurley is relieved because he wants to follow Jacob's instructions to the letter - which mention nobody other than him and Jack.

They find a lighthouse. At the top is a set of four mirrors and a wheel to position the array. Hurley's notes from Jacob says to swing it to 108 degrees. Jack sees that every degree setting is marked with a name; most are crossed out, a few are not. They are the same names that Sawyer saw last week - but there are notable differences, listed here. One such different is the inclusion of the name Austen, which is number 51. It's not a Hurley number, but since Kate's birth dad is military and that number has rather famous military significance...

Number 108 is the name Wallace; in this image you'll see that the name is crossed out.

As the mirrors turn, Jack sees reflections of inland locations. I recall seeing a Japanese pagoda. Jack then notices the names - and sees his at 23 degrees. He tells Hurley to turn it there - and Jack sees the house of his boyhood in the mirror. Jack surmises that they've been being watched from the island. In a fit of age, Jack smashes the mirrors.

As Jack broods alone, Jacob shows up. He's not disturbed by the destruction of the mirror. He says the true mission was to give Jack a hint about his importance to the island. He also needed to get the two as far away from the temple as possible, because a villain is about to arrive...

Meanwhile, Claire has shot Jin's assailants, and takes her old pal to her camp. She's been living in the jungle for three years, with a "friend." She later captures the black Other, named Justin; he had either survived the gunshot, or faked getting show when she fired on him

She interrogates Justin about Aaron's whereabouts, wielding a long-handled hatchet. Jin interrupts, says Kate had been raising the baby, who is three by now. She's got her answer, so she kills Justin with a single axe blow to the stomach. (That kind of wound would be a slow death by bleeding.)

Jin later says he lied, that he didn't want Justin to die, that Jin had seen Aaron at the temple. Claire is pleased, because she would "have to kill" Kate if she'd been raising him.

Shortly, Jin sees a familiar face arrive in the little camp. Locke? Claire says, "This is not John, this is my friend."

Jacob and the Man in Black have both been keeping track of "candidates." Here's a theory: the lighthouse ain't Jacob's. One thing we know about MIB is that he's trapped on the island. Jacob (before death) could travel to the outside world. He doesn't need the magical mirror to see off-island - but MIB does.

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