Spoiler alert: Just stop now if you haven’t seen Wednesday’s episode, “Lighthouse.”
Don't smudge it! (ABC photo)
I know, I’ve been neglecting my day-after analyses for “Lost.” But come on, I moved into a new place last weekend and I’ve had zero free time. But better late than never, and I have a spare minute now, so let’s get right to the five things that jumped out at me from Wednesday’s episode:
1. What’s up with the lighthouse? How has no one seen it before? Hurley told Jack he hadn’t found it because he hadn’t been looking for it. Ooooh, that sounds deep. So does that mean only “candidates” can see it, kinda like Jacob’s cabin? And how about the parallels between Jacob’s lighthouse and Smokey’s cave — light vs. darkness and all? Both are tracking candidates names, but there may be two lists — Kate’s name was written at the lighthouse, but not seen in the cave. Hmmm. So is she a candidate, but Smokey doesn’t know it? And now that we know what the numbers correspond to, what do they mean? (That is so “Lost” — one answer leads to a dozen more questions.)
2. Claire is bats–t crazy. Her paranoia is understandable. Her brutally chopping the Other was perhaps even justifiable. But her animal-skull baby was full-on whacked. In such an awesome way. She seems crazy in a way that Rousseau never was. And only a crazy person would settle for hair that looked that bad. So how does her “infection” work anyway? Her storyline really threw me for a loop. It’s hard to think of sweet little Claire as a predatory survivalist working with an evil force.
3. The flash-sideways are awesome. Much like the Season 1 flashbacks, the parallel timeline is fascinating, full of little Easter eggs (I read somewhere Locke’s mean boss last week was the same guy who was Hurley’s mean boss at the chicken place in Season 1) and symbolism and what-if scenarios (if Jacob and the Island had never touched their lives). We know they’ll all meet up again at some point, but how? And it’s interesting to see how without Jacob, everyone’s life is just a little bit better. Are we sure he’s the good guy? Jack’s storyline with his son, David (geez, another symbolically rich Biblical name), got better and better as the episode went on, and when Jack ended up watching “the candidates” performing and Dogen was there, I just had to shake my head and smile. It really is a deft balancing act. So who do you think David’s mother is? I’m hoping it’s Sarah (Julie Bowen, remember?) or someone we’ve never even seen; making the mom Juliet or Ana Lucia or something would be too much of a stretch.
4. Who’s coming? Someone’s coming to the island. Who’s left? Charles Widmore? Desmond? (Dammit, we’d better see Desmond again!) Or is it the mysterious Wallace, whose name was at 108 degrees? If we’re assuming Jacob’s a good guy, then we have to assume whoever’s coming is good too. How trippy would it be if it turned out the evil Widmore was a good guy all along? There’s speculation that Wallace is Walt, but I don’t think so. Those were all last names on the compass, not first names. And Walt isn’t really a nickname for Wallace anyway.
5. Jack still has a knack for messing everything up. So you discover a mysterious mirror that shows you a vision of the house you grew up in, and it might be the answer to all your questions about this crazy island and really, explain your entire life. So what do you do? Smash it, of course. Geez, Jack, what were you thinking? I get that he was lashing out in frustration and helplessness at realizing his entire life had been manipulated by Jacob (or someone), but dude, see the forest through the trees and get a little grasp of the bigger picture.
There are a million other little thoughts I had, like how Jacob seems to represent Destiny while Smokey/Fake Locke is more Free Will, and how Hurley and Miles’ tic-tac-toe game symbolized the eternal stalemate between Jacob and Smokey, and the “Alice in Wonderland” parallels (looking glass, white rabbit statue, etc.), and Hurley’s general hilariousness and ridiculous arm directions, and the fact that Parallel Universe Jack couldn’t remember his appendectomy scar (from Season 4), but his mom told him he got it when he was 7, which would have been about Jack’s age in 1977 when the Island blew up, which begs the question, did the scars from one timeline jump to the other? Oh, and the mysterious numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42 equal 108.
BOOM. My head just blew up. OK, discuss amongst yourselves, I’ll try to post timelier thoughts next week.
