Lost Rewatch: Week 20

This week in the Rewatch, we reach the first episodes that I recapped on this very blog way back at the start of season 4. Yes, I know, I'm late to the game of recapping, but I enjoyed reading everyone else's recaps over the first few years. I just decided to throw my hand in the pot after starting this "sports" themed blog. Season 4 is also the strike shortened season of Lost, so the story starts to gain speed toward the second half of the season as the Lost writers started eliminating unnecessary story elements.

Onto this week's episodes (you can check out my original recaps in the bullet with one of my favorite Lost blog's LongLiveLocke).

Confirmed Dead (Zap2It Recap)

• Gulf Coast Offense's original recap. LongLiveLocke's original recap.
• Flashback focuses on the freighter group. In each of their flashbacks, they learn of the found "wreckage of Flight 815."
  
• Faraday is crying when he sees Flight 815, but doesn't know why. This is the confusing thing about time travel. His present consciousness doesn't know anything about the 815 survivors, but he was them in the past (his future). You think your head hurts thinking about this now, wait until season 5.
• Why do the picture frames change after Miles returns from upstairs in his flashback?
• Charlotte is in Tunisia, I'm guessing at the spot where the frozen donkey wheel dumps people/objects out. When did Widmore start monitoring this area? Was it after the polar bear was discovered? When was this polar bear transported to Tunisia? How long have its remains been there?
• Miles confirms Jack and Kate's story when he talks to Naomi's dead body. Why weren't they more freaked out by this?
  
• What was Ben doing off the island? When and where was the photo of him taken?
  

The Economist (Zap2It Recap)

• Gulf Coast Offense's original recap. LongLiveLocke's original recap.
• Flashforward focuses on Sayid and it's revealed that he's working for Ben.
  
• Who is the economist? Ben provided Sayid with a list of people to kill (under the assumption that these people could harm his friends). But from the looks of things the people are either close to Widmore or just people Ben had killed off so Ben could manipulate Sayid. I wouldn't be surprised if Elsa's economist was Ben himself.
• What does the inscription on Naomi's bracelet mean (N, I'll always be with you. R.G.)? Elsa has a similar bracelet in the flashforward, but the producers have said since this episode that sometimes a bracelet is just a bracelet (meaning that Lost fans over analyze everything).
• Jacob's cabin has moved and isn't where Locke thought it would be, but the gray ash is still on the ground. I'll ask the question once again, what's up with this cabin?
• We assumed that time worked differently on the island than off it, but Daniel's experiment confirmed it. The two clocks were off by 31 minutes and 18 seconds, which Daniel says is not good. Is this because the island is constantly moving or is there something else causing the time flux?
• What was Ben doing off the island? Sayid finds his secret room with currency from around the world and IDs using aliases. I guess running the Others is like being a CEO.

Eggtown (Zap2It Recap)

• Gulf Coast Offense's original recap. LongLiveLocke's original recap.
• Flashforward focuses on Kate's trial. Jack testifies on her behalf (recounting the lie they all agreed to about the crash) and ultimately she agrees to a deal since her mom won't take the stand against her.
• Kate's mom was supposed to only have 6 months to live, but she's been alive for 4 years since. Wonder if there's another force at work here (Jacob?).
• Ben and Locke's conversation and their subsequent reactions (Locke's frustration and Ben's smile) is reminiscent of their talk in the Hatch in "Maternity Leave."
• Miles knows how powerful Ben really is and demands $3.2 millions from him. There's a lot more to the Ben Linus story. How would he be capable of getting $3.2 million? How powerful is he really? Who's providing this kind of funding?
• At the end of the episode, it's revealed that Kate is raising Aaron. According to Claire's psychic (who later admitted to Eko that he was a fraud), only Claire could raise him. What are the consequences of Kate raising him as her own?