Mar 5, 2009

LaFleur

We've reached the half-way point of Lost season 5, so I guess it's time to step back and take a breather. This week's episode "LaFleur" didn't knock us over with craziness we come to expect this season (besides that shot of one infamous statue) ... well, as uncrazy as getting stuck in the DHARMA '70s could be, but it was still an episode that delivered the goods.

Now it's time to step back and take a look at the chess board that Lost has laid out for us, as we have two weeks until the next episode.

The StatueThe last flash before Locke turns the donkey wheel takes the group back to an ancient time on the island, a time when the four-toed statue was whole. WOW! This is what Lost fans have been waiting for. So what did you think? Do you think the statue delivered? There's been many theories on who/what the statue would be, anything from Locke to Sawyer to Richard to Jacob. But it appears to be some sort of Egyptian god.

I won't even pretend to know much about ancient Egypt, but we've seen a number of hieroglyphics on the island and it's been alluded to that the island has a long history. Many fans have speculated that the statue is Anubis, a god of the afterlife who guards the underworld. Makes sense in the grand scheme of Lost. Now the question is will we see the statue again? With the way the plot is unfolding, I doubt it, but you never know with this show.

Locke Did It
After Locke turns the wheel, the island quits skipping, and the record is turning again. This leaves the group in the DHARMA '70s, 1974 to be exact. This explains a few scenes we've already seen: Faraday at the building of the Orchid in "Because You Left" and Jin finding Jack, Kate and Hugo in "316."

The Truce
Sawyer and company come across Amy being harassed by a couple hostiles (The Others). They've killed her husband and put a bag over her head. Sawyer saves her, with help from Juliette's dead aim, but Amy freaks out because the DHARMA people hace a truce with the hostiles. Since they killed the two men, they'd have to bury the bodies and carry her dead husband back to the barracks. Why did the hostiles draw first blood? If there's such a strong truce between the groups, why were they harassing Amy and killing her husband?

Amy was suspicious of Sawyer's group from the start, and she tricked them into walking through the sonic fence. When Sawyer awakes he tells Horace Goodspeed, the apparent leader of on-island DHARMA, the tale of them looking for the Black Rock and being shipwrecked on the island. He tells him his name is James LaFleur, but Horace wants them to leave on the sub in the morning. Horace tells Sawyer that he isn't DHARMA material. Ouch. Does Horace know that they are lying or did he just sense that Sawyer wasn't a good person?

The Ageless One
Richard Alpert visits the DHARMA compound wanting to find out why the truce was broken. Sawyer is granted the chance to speak to him and what a conversation the two have. Richard has seen some weird stuff in his days on the island, but this time traveling group keeps popping up in his life. Sawyer asks him if they buried the Jughead bomb and immediately has Richard's undivided attention. He then drops the bombshell on him about Locke walking into his camp and then disappearing. They then make a deal so that Richard can bring Paul's body back to his camp to prove the truce is still on.

This buys the group more time on the island. Horace tells them they get two more weeks to look for their crew (ie, wait for Locke to come back). Juliette's ready to leave though since she's been trying to get off the island for years now. Sawyer convinces her to stay for two more weeks while they wait for Locke to return. As Juliette points out, why is Sawyer so convinced that Locke's coming back? As far as they know, he succeeded in saving them. The flashes stop as did the nosebleeds and headaches.

The LaFleurs
Two weeks turned into three years, and the group is entrenched in DHARMA life. Sawyer is head of security (as the intimidating LaFleur, as his security workers were scared to wake him at 3 a.m. when Horace was drunk and playing with dynamite), Miles and Jin work for the security team as well and Juliette is a mechanic. No word on Faraday's role. As a matter of fact we see everyone else in 1977 except him. Hmm. What should we make of that?

It soon becomes obvious that Sawyer and Juliette have grown fond of each other. When Amy (now Horace's wife) goes into labor early and needs a c-section, Sawyer gets Juliette. She is still fearful that the child and mother will die trying to give birth on the island, but Sawyer tells her that she'll do great. He even points out that whatever problem caused those deaths probably didn't happen yet. So what does that problem turn out to be? Fans speculated it had something to do with the radiation from Jughead, but that bomb has been on the island for more than 20 years at this point.

Juliette succeeds in delivering a healthy baby boy (no clue on what they named the boy, any guesses? Jacob? Cesear? Desmond? Ethan?). So was Sawyer correct in saying that the baby problem didn't start yet? If so, then why were all the deliveries done on the mainland? Was this just a precaution?

Later than day, Sawyer picks a flower (LaFleur) and brings it to Juliette, who is making a romantic dinner for the two of them. They are a couple and seem to be living happily ever after. Until...

The Phone Call
Jin, who is now speaking perfect English apparently, calls Sawyer and tells him the good news of finding Jack, Kate and Hurley. Uh oh. Right after Sawyer told Horace that speech about not even remembering what Kate looked like. Talk about great timing. He meets up with Jin's DHARMA van of 815ers instead of having him bring them to the barracks. Was Sawyer being cautious with them so their story about being shipwrecked from three years earlier wouldn't get unraveled or did he not want Juliette to know that Kate (or Jack) was back?

There's going to be major ramifications from Kate, Jack and Hurley coming back, especially with them wearing clothes from 2007. Sawyer and the rest of the group have established nice lives for themselves, but they still go out looking for Locke or anyone else on a regular bases (as per Sawyer and Jin's conversation about searching the grid areas). Did Sawyer really want the others to come back to the island or was he going through the motions for the sake of his friends, like Jin who wants to make sure Sun is OK?

The episode ends here, so we didn't get to see the happy reunion and the mind-blowing revelation that Sawyer's about to give them about living the past three years in the 1970s (oh, by the way, we're in 1977 right now).

Other Tidbits
We learned that Charlotte's body stayed behind in the period that she died, when the rest of the group flashed to another time. Daniel is really shaken up when they find him, and he's telling himself that he isn't going to tell her (meaning he won't be the scary man who tells her not to come back to the island). All that seems to change when he spots a young Charlotte running around the DHARMA barracks. With all that Daniel says about not being able to change what happened, is he planting the seeds on trying to change the past by not wanting to tell Charlotte anything, or will he try everything in his power to convince her not to come back?

Anyone find it weird that Ben said Charlotte was born in 1979, but she was a little girl on the island in 1974. Another of Ben's lies or was 1979 when Charlotte was brought to England?

Horace is married to Amy in this episode, but it was implied, or so we thought, that he was with Olivia in "The Man Behind the Curtain," when Ben was born and when he was brought to the island. So what happened to her? Was she not his wife or did something happened to her since then?

Paul's necklace that Amy keeps, and ultimate leads to Horace's drunken, dynamite throwing night, is an ankh, which is the Egyptian symbol for eternal life (or key of life) and fertility. Yet another Egyptian tie on Lost.

With the timeline of them being in 1974, it would seem that there's a young Ben Linus walking around DHARMA. But wouldn't this be close to the same time that Ben met up with Richard? When does Richard start to grow out his hair?

One odd thing that I noticed was that the eye chart on the wall behind Amy in the infirmary has the letter F on top, instead of the traditional E. Other letters include B, C, P, T, E, O, etc. Do these letter spell out anything?

Everyone catch the Geronimo Jackson shirt?:

I'm sure there's a lot more to discuss, but with two weeks before the next episode, we'll have plenty of time to analyze the first half of the season.

Next on Lost: "Namaste" on March 18

*Photos from GetLostPodcastMedia.com & lost-media.com

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