316

I loved "316." This is the kind of episode we've been waiting for, for a few years now. We learned more about the island's history and about DHARMA, while drumming up so many new questions for the audience to ponder.

They're Back
Well, that didn't take long. I'm glad that they didn't drag out getting the Oceanic 6 back to the island. When the episode's opening scenes started with Jack on the island (great visuals paralleling the Pilot episode in season 1, by the way, with focusing on Jack's eye, then a full shot of him in a suit in the jungle), I thought it would be a dream sequence, and that they weren't really back.

We soon learn that at least three of the Oceanic 6 got back when Jack finds Hurley and Kate in the lagoon. Great, great opening to an awesome episode of Lost. Season 5 is delivering so many answers and so much information. I've been saying it for a while, but Lost is in high gear.

The Lamp Post
With Desmond, Sun and Jack in tow, Ben leads the group to Eloise Hawking (Faraday's mom). She leads to the group to the Lamp Post, an off island DHARMA station first used to find the island. There was so much information in this scene alone: from the U.S. Army photo of the island taken in 1954 to the equations and pendulum to Hawking's speech about someone clever creating the station (her son Daniel Faraday perhaps?).

The goal is not finding out where the island is, but find out where its going to be. Wow. We've long had a hunch that the island was moving around the globe (with the Nigerian plane, Black Rock, Danielle's crew all coming from different parts of the globe and ending up on the island), but finally its confirmed.

Hawking sounded a lot like Locke when she talked to Jack about getting back to the island. The "leap of faith" comment must have been hard for him to take. That's what he fought so hard with Locke about for all their time on the island.

Hawking sets them up to fly Ajira Airlines Flight 316 to Guam. She said that it has to be that flight, and they have to recreate as much of Flight 815 as they can for it to work. Big leap of faith coming for Dr. Sheppard.

You Guys are Crazy
Desmond was having no part of the returning to the island business. He couldn't' believe that's what they were meeting with Ms. Hawking about. Desmond delivered his message from Faraday and then hightailed it out of there. Hawking tried to stop him and told him that the island wasn't finished with him (what else does the island need him for?). Desmond then vaguely let everyone else know that he'd run into Ms. Hawking before and told Jack not to do what she says.

Why is it that on Lost none of the characters reveal crucial information to each other? Desmond talked about seeing Hawking before like he had just run into her a McDonald's or something. I would have been all "wait a minute. I saw you in the past and you could predict the future and stuff." It seems like he would have been a little more weirded out at seeing her again and would have asked more questions of her or at least told her that he could have changed the past.

Aaron
A major question raided in "316" is what happened to Aaron. Kate showed up at Jack's place minus the little goober and told him she'd go back to the island with him, as long as he never asked about Aaron. OK. Seems like a major thing to agree to. Sure, I'll never ask you what you did with my nephew. Strange that Jack just went right along with it.

So the question becomes, what did Kate do with him and why was she so freaked out about it? My feeling is that Claire (island vision/ghost/smokey?) came to see Kate again and told her that she had to go back, but under no circumstances should she bring Aaron. So who has Aaron then? My guess is that Kate brought him to Claire's mom. She was likely still in Los Angeles, as we saw in "The Little Prince," and Kate spilled the beans about Aaron being her grandson. What other explanation is there? Could Kate have killed him? No way. Did ghostly Claire take him? Possible.

Did Ben Join Fight Club?
Ben leaves Jack at the church and says he has some loose ends to tie up. Next time we see Ben, he's all bloody and beaten up calling Jack from a pay phone at a marina! Ben gets Jack to pick up Locke's body to bring to the airport, since he's in no shape to do it himself. So what was this loose end that Ben needed to tie up? Perhaps it involved the wife of Desmond Hume, Penny. It makes sense, since Ben was at a marina and Desmond & Penny's sail boat would be docked there. The question becomes is Penny alive? Ben was pretty beat up, so maybe Desmond was able to fight him off, but I have my worries about the Hume family. Ben doesn't give up until he gets what he wants.

Oceanic 5 + Locke
Ms. Hawking told Jack that they had to recreate Flight 815 as close as possible. Locke and his coffin would serve as the replacement for Jack's dad, as long as Jack gave him something that belonged to his dad. One visit to granddad at the nursing home and Jack has a pair of his dad's shoes (another answer came when Jack revealed that he'd put a pair of white tennis shoes on his dad's body since he didn't want to go out a buy a new pair of shoes, so that's why island Christian has white shoes on with his suit).

At the airport, Jack is having a discussion with the ticket gate about the coffin he's trying to transport, just as he did prior to Flight 815. Jack sees that Kate (some fans think Kate is pregnant, filling Claire spot on the flight) has made it to the airport, as has Sun. But to their surprise Sayid is being transported in handcuffs onto the plane (filling Kate's role from Flight 815?). Last we saw Sayid, he was storming off and threatened both Ben & Jack to never come near him again. What changed his mind?

Cut to the waiting area and Hurley is reading a Spanish comic of Y: The Last Man (remember it was Hurley's Spanish comic that Walt ended up reading on the island) and he has a guitar case with him (filling in for Charlie?). Who told Hurley about this flight and convinced him to go back to the island? It was funny when Hurley said that he'd bought all the seats. He clearly thinks they're going to crash agian and doesn't want to see any innocent people killed or stranded on the island. But who were the other people that did make in on the plane or does it even matter? There was a guy with them in first class and a whole bunch of people in the back the plane.

Leave it to Lost to give us the information we thought we wanted, only to leave us with more questions. You wanted to know who gets back to the island, we'll now you know who was on the plane, but we won't tell you why or how they got there. I'm not sure about Sayid, but I'd bet that ghost Charlie told Hurley about Flight 316 and convinced him to go back. Why else would he be bringing a guitar?

The Island
It doesn't look like the plance crashed on the island this time. We saw the "time travel" flash of light and next thing we know Jack's laying in the jungle. He finds Hurley and Kate, and neither of them remember a crash either. Sayid, Sun, Ben or anyone else from the plane are no where to be found.

Next thing we know, a brand new DHARMA van pulls up. When I saw a guy get out, my first thought was that it was Horace Goodspeed, but turns out it was only Jin ... Wait! Jin's part of the DHARMA Initiative? What year is this?

From last week's "This Place is Death," it looked like Locke had stopped the island from jumping around in time. The island seems to have stopped during a time when DHARMA was thriving on the island (late 70s?). Looks like Jin and the other time traveling group have settled into a role on the island as part of DHARMA. This would explain the season 5 opening scene with Faraday and Charlotte telling him that he told her not to come back to the island when she was little.

This also explains what happened to Jack and company. Instead of crashing, the island's time traveling engergy, grabbed them from the plane and brought them to the island's current resting state (sometime during DHARMA). It should be a fun conversation when Jin and Sawyer's group try to explain what's been happening to Jack and Kate's bunch. But with this being Lost, they probably won't even discuss anything that's happened on the island or off it.

Other Tidbits
Interesting conversation Ben had with Jack about Doubting Thomas, as Jack seems to be the island's own Doubting Thomas. But Ben did say that eventually, everyone believes and Jack has come around since being off the island.

Ben gave a curious line to Jack on the plane. Jack asked, how he could read and Ben replied, "Because my mom taught me." Now, he may have just been making a joke, but fans know that his mom couldn't have taught him because she died during childbirth.

It was fun seeing Frank Lapidus again. After he saw who was on the plane with Jack, his line about "we're not going to Guam?" was classic. I wonder if he ends up back on the island too.


Throughout the episode, Jack avoids reading Locke's suicide note. He tries to give it back to Locke by putting it in the coffin, but the airline gives it back to him. When he finally decides to read it, it simply says, " Jack, I wish you had believed me. JL" So does Locke blame Jack for his death? This seemed to be Jack's fear, but I'm not sure. I think this is Locke way of saying, I told you so. You should have listened to me in the first place, but we're fixing it now.

We know that Jack, Kate and Hurley made it to the island during the DHARMA times, but what happened to the others? Did Ben, Sun, Sayid and Locke's body get back at the same point in time or did they get sucked into a different time (like the future? Remember the scene with the canoes from "The Little Prince?" There was an Ajira water bottle in one of the boats). Did they even get back? Were they split up? I'm especially interested to see what happened to Locke's body and if he's still dead on the island.

Next on Lost: "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham"

*Photos from Lost-Media.com