May 9, 2008

Cabin Fever

Throughout Lost, we've seen John Locke overcome odds and display "special" traits. In "Cabin Fever," we get to see his birth and the circumstances surrounding his early life.

Locke, the Chosen One
From the start of Locke's life, he's had to overcome odds. He was born prematurely when his 16 year old mother was hit by a car and rushed to the hospital. A few years later, we see him in high school getting picked on and locked in a locker. Lastly we see a flashback of him soon after being paralyzed doing some rehabilitation exercises. Throughout his life, the odds were stacked against him, but he always overcame them. From having numerous illnesses soon after birth and being the youngest premature baby to survive in that hospital, Locke's life started his days of letting people know not to tell him what he can't do.

Locke's mom, Emily, shares the same name as Ben's mother. Emily was 16 at the time of his birth and made the decision to give Locke up for adoption, having never held him. She was apparently seeing Locke's dad, Anthony Cooper, who was much older than her at the time.

Deja Vu
Locke, Hurley and Ben are searching for Jacob's cabin, but none of them seem to know where its located, especially since Ben was following Hurley, who wasn't even in the lead. They make camp for the night and Locke has another of his island visions. Man, this guy meets alot of people in his dreams. This time its Horace Goodspeed of the Dharma Initiative.

Horace is chopping down trees to build a cabin (Locke later guesses that he built Jacob's place). The scene is weird because Horace does the same thing over and over again. At first I thought it was a mistake that they had used the same shot of the tree falling, but Horace was just on a loop. He told Locke to find him and he'd find Jacob. Locke then knew that he had to go back to the Dharma Pit.

When Locke awoke, he had his plan. Ben knew what had happened and commented that he used to have dreams too. Why is Ben losing his connection to the island and why is Locke's connection gaining strength?

Haven't We Met Before?
Richard Alpert, the ageless other, shows up a couple of times in Locke's early life. First he's at the hospital when Locke's still in an incubator. Then he visits Locke at his home when he's a young child. Lastly, he or someone else from Mittlos Bioscience brings a brochure to Locke's school to try to get him to come to a science camp.

So why is Richard so interested in Locke? How did he know about him when he was just born? Is he traveling in time from a future island point to try to rectify some situation? Also, with their meeting when he was a boy, wouldn't Locke remember Richard? The test he gave him would have likely stuck in his memory. Richard also notices a drawing young Locke has done. It's of a pillar of smoke and a man laid out next to it. Is Locke having visions of Smokey or has his conscience traveled through time like Desmond?

Locke also meets up with one Matthew Abadon, who is working as an orderly but says he's not just an orderly, when he's in the hospital after being paralyzed. Abadon tells Locke not to give up, anything's possible. Locke says that he doesn't believe in miracles and Abadon says that he should, that one happened to him. He tells him that he needs to go on a walk about (As we saw in Locke's first flashback, this was the reason he went to Australia). This is before Locke became a man of faith. Abadon tell him that he went on his walk about thinking he was one thing and came back another. He leaves Locke by telling him that he'll listen to what he said and when they run into each other again, he'll owe him one.

So technically Abadon is responsible for getting Locke to the island. Is this what he meant by Locke owing him one? Does he have the ability to see the future or can he time travel as well? When will they meet again? I can't wait to see what Locke owes Abadon. I don't fell that this was just a throw away line. Abadon wants something from him, and he'll get it.

This is Only a Test
In Locke's flashback, Richard gives Locke a test by showing him some items (baseball glove, vile of sand, Book of Laws, a compass, Mystery Tales comic book, and a knife). Richard asks Locke to pick out which of these things belong to him already. Locke picks the sand, compass and lastly the knife. Apparently the knife was the wrong choice as Richard seemed to get angry and said that the knife didn't belong to him. He leaves and says that Locke isn't ready for their school. So was he not ready for the island then? Did Locke have to experience things and get his faith before he was chosen to come to the island.

The comic book was a story about a "Hidden Land." Is this book about the island? How does it fit into the overall mystery of the show? This whole test was difficult to evaluate. He didn't ask which items you like or want. He asked which ones already belong to you.

So Who's Decision was the Purge?
When Ben, Hurley and Locke go to the Dharma Initiative pit, Ben said that it wasn't him who killed all those people. Hurley asks if it was the Others and Ben says yes, but it wasn't his decision. He says that it was their leaders' decision and that he wasn't always the guy in charge. So who was the leader then? Richard? Who made the decision to purge the D.I. (as Horace calls it)? From what we've seen in Ben's flashback, he met Richard, but he couldn't join the Others for a while. Then the Others helped him gas the rest of the Dharma Initiative. There's definitely more to this flashback and hopefully we get the information soon.

Calling Commando
Keamy was nuts in this episode. He is officially the most hated person ever on the show, and not just because he killed Alex in front of Ben. He makes it back to the freighter and finds out that Michael ratted him out to Ben. His attempts to shoot Michael don't work as his gun is broken. Remember, the island won't let Michael die yet.

Keamy then shows who's really in charge on the boat and starts to implement the secondary protocol. No one is real sure what this mission is, but it involves Ben and the Orchid Station (as the binder had the Orchid logo on it). Keamy said that Ben would be going there. He also wants to know how many people are on the island and where they are located. Sayid doesn't reveal this info to him and makes a plan of his own to get back to the island. But he has to go alone because Desmond isn't going back to that place after being stuck there for 3 years.


Keamy loads up bombs and has what looks to be a detonating device strapped to his arm. He takes no prisoners as he kills the captain, who was trying to stop him. Keamy is bad news for our Losties, and he is the one that the island is trying to stop.

Bad News Doc
We see the freighter doctor alive and well in this episode, until one of Keamy's men fills him in on the Morse Code message he received about the doctor showing up on the island dead. A few moments later, and Keamy slashes his throat to get Frank to fly them back to the island. Well, there's one question answered...sort of. We now see how the doctor died, but we still don't know how his body washed on the shore a few days before.

Jack, AKA Wolverine
Jack had his appendix out just last episode, but now he's up walking around and disobeying Juliette's orders to stay in his tent. They hear Frank's chopper and as it passes overhead, Frank drops his bag to them containing his satellite phone. In all of Jack's wisdom, he decides that they must want them to follow the chopper. Umm...I don't think they want you to follow them Jack. Run the other way, brother.

Finally, The Cabin
We finally got to the scenes that everyone had been waiting for with Locke going in the cabin. Ben and Hurley stayed on the outside as Ben felt like his time was over, and Hurley simply didn't want to go inside. We got a heartfelt moment between the two when they split Hurley's Apollo bar.

Locke goes in looking for Jacob and gets Christian Sheppard and his daughter, Claire. Christian asks Locke if he knows why he's there. Locke says its because he was chosen to be and Christian says that's right. Christian offers no other answers and tells Locke that there's no time for all his questions. He also says not to let anyone else know that Claire was there. Christian, who says he can speak on Jacob's behalf, tells Locke to ask the important question. Locke asks, "How do I save the island?" Locke comes out of the cabin and tells Ben and Hurley what he was told to do, move the island.

First, the island moves?!? One does not simply walk into Mordor and one cannot simply move an island. How does one go about moving an island exactly? Did Christian give Locke this information? Is there a wheelhouse somewhere that you can steer it? Does it move physically or does it move through time? Many have speculated that the island moves, but now that we've gotten confirmation, I don't know where this will go now. And from the previews of next week's episode, it looks like Keamy's men still made it there.

Then there's the whole weirdness surrounding Claire. Is she dead? Possessed by island spirits? She's obviously not A.OK. She had a weird vibe going and seemed to be out of it. I don't think this is the real Claire that we've seen throughout Lost. Locke was mostly taken aback by the fact that Aaron wasn't with her. Christian said that the baby's where he's supposed to be and that's not here (the cabin). So the baby's supposed to be with Sawyer?

Man, this was one of the most blow-your-mind scenes on Lost so far. I'm clueless to where this is going but I am loving every minute of it.

Next on Lost: There's No Place Like Home (Part 1)

*Photos from Lost-Media.com and losteastereggs.blogspot.com

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