Confused about Lost? Watch the video below. It explains everything.

(Actually, it doesn’t. Cats can’t carry backpacks, and although I’m sure that they can carry out a long con – I’ve been the mark of a many a feline long con myself – I’m also sure that they couldn’t detonate a nuclear bomb or figure out the physics of time travel. Well, maybe Ceiling Cat could, but still.)

(Also, what cat would give a shit about Walt? “The kid’s gone? Whatever. Where’s my kibble?”)

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Still. LOLst!

source

Do I need to say ‘SPOILER ALERT’ if I begin this post with the words oh my god I cried and cried and cried?

Because, I did. I cried. And then I cried some more. And then I sobbed outright, and my husband said to me this morning, ‘so, I heard you crying. Did they all die?’ And I said…

SPOILER ALERT…

‘No. I mean, yes. They were all dead at the end. But not, like, they all died dead. More like, everyone dies dead.’

Right?

That was my understanding of the strange, fascinating, gut-wrenching ending. They were all dead – well, Jack said so and his father, Christian Shephard, confirmed it – and the Sideways world was a kind of purgatory or bardo world or reincarnative space where souls go before they move on to… somewhere. The island world was real, the drama that played out there was real – real, as in real primary life real, although Christian Shephard insisted to Jack at the end that ‘this’, the sideways-purgatory-bardo world was also really real, which is why I wondered if there was some kind of reincarnative aspect, on which more below – and the sideways world was a world beyond or after or beyond-after that world. (I also think that it was, at the very end, Jack’s beyond-after world specifically. More on this, too, below.)

After it ended, I saw some immediate griping on the Internet. It wasn’t supposed to be purgatory! They didn’t say what the Island was! WAAAAALT! Which, whatever. I liked it. I loved it. Any questions that I had that didn’t get answered were of the niggling variety that don’t bear upon the central plotline. Which was, as I saw it, the adventure of a group of people on a mystical island that turns out to be a saving-the-world kind of adventure, but more importantly, a saving-the-soul kind of redemptive adventure. Why the women on the island couldn’t bear children doesn’t really matter in that larger picture, although I would argue that that question – and most others – have their answers in the larger general narrative (Jacob made up rules, as we know from Across The Sea and from this last episode – Jack to Hurley: “that’s how Jacob played it. We can do it our own way” – as his Mother did, and these were often arbitrary, and it seems reasonable given the fact that real mother got her brains bashed in by his adoptive mother and by his general pissiness that he’d make a rule that no Island women could give birth. This also explains why the Others took children and saw them as ‘special’ – they couldn’t have any of their own.)

So here’s how I saw it. Feel free to disagree, but know that I’m right.

1) The sideways world was a purgatory slash bardo world slash reincarnative timeline – pick whichever gateway to the afterlife speaks to your spirituality. The key thing to notice, though, I think, was that that world as it plays out in the last few minutes of the show is Jack’s world. It’s Jack’s gateway to the afterlife because, at the end, it’s Jack’s story. It’s Jack’s death. Which could be one explanation as to why Daniel and Charlotte and Walt and Richard Alpert and Ji Yeon and whomever else weren’t there: they weren’t central to Jack’s core community. (Another answer – not necessarily exclusive from the one that I just gave – is that those other folk weren’t there because they hadn’t come far enough along in their respective redemptions. When Daniel’s creepy mom asks Desmond if Daniel’s ‘going too,’ Desmond says ‘not with me.’ So.)

ANYWAY. As Jack’s father said, the ‘now’ of that endgame – of Jack’s endgame – is an eternal now; the people in the congregation died before Jack and after Jack, and Jack’s communion (boy, these terms are loaded, aren’t they?) with him is a communion that takes place when he is ready, and their communions with him and the rest of their core communities take place when they are ready and all those communions take place whenever, out of time. (Socrates: the soul takes flight to the world that is eternal…) (oh god… must… not… cry.. again…)

2) The Island world is/was real. Jack’s death there is real (and they couldn’t have made it more gut-punchy if they’d tried. Nice move on the dog, Lindelhuse. It’s like you wanted me to sob my guts out). He did save the world. That plane flying overhead was the Lapidus-piloted Ajira flight, taking Kate and Sawyer and Miles and Richard to safety. Hurley and Ben did stay on to protect the Island for the rest of their lives (Hurley to Ben, outside the church: “you were a great number two.”) Presumably, more Dharma intitiatives and Widmore corporations and the like would have come, were still to come, to plumb the Island for its secrets and its treasure (‘they always come, it’s always the same’) and to be fought off by Hurley and Ben and whomever replaced Hurley and Ben and so on. This means, of course, that the Losties didn’t die on the original plane crash. That was real, their Jacob-led quest was real, it was all real. That’s why they mattered so much to each other, why they needed each other in the end – they’d lived out, as Jack’s dad said, ‘the most important time’ of their lives together.

3) That said, I did wonder, at about 4am this morning, whether they mightn’t have died in the blast at the end of Season 5. I don’t think that works, though, for a number of reasons that I’m too lazy to explore right now.

4) Sure, we didn’t get to see Walt, but who cares? The kid was psychic or something, but so were Hurley and Miles. Walt and his dad got off the Island; his dad came back, got stuck there as a ghost, yadda yadda. And I don’t want to hear bitching about the stone foot/statue of Tawaret. I thought that got cleared up in Across the Sea, when circa-500 BC Smoke Mother (she was a smoke monster too, right?) explained to her boys that people had always come to the island, and that it was always the same, they tried to destroy it, etc, etc. Some ancient Egyptians were among them. Case closed. The producers have been insisting for forever that this show was about the characters more than the mysteries, and I thought that with this finale they really sold that. I wanted to see Charlie and Claire reunited. I wanted Jack to let go. I wanted Ben’s redemption. That shit mattered. The big toes didn’t.

5) One question that I don’t think got answered, although I have some ideas, is what the deal on the Smoke Monster was. Was the monster created when the original MiB was tossed into the Big Glowy Waterfall Of Awesome, or was there another monster (Mother, as I’ve hypothesized before) before him? Is the smoke a product of corrupt souls coming in contact with the light? Why didn’t Jack or Desmond become a Smoky? (The answer to that question, I think, is that the answer to the previous question is yes: tormented or corrupt souls corrupt the light or are corrupted further by the light.) What I think is clear, though, is that Jack’s plan to kill Smoky was the same as Smoky’s plan to kill the Island: turn off the light. So he did, thinking – I think – that once Smoky was killed (made mortal by the dying of the light), things would be okay. Which he was only partly right about: turning out the light allowed him to kill Smoky, but it also nearly killed everything else, so he had to go turn it on again – and it had to be him, someone willing to make a pure sacrifice for the Island, rather than Desmond, who made it clear that he just wanted to get back to the afterlife (“none of this matters, brotha!”) who might have become a smoke monster if he’d been the one to – god, I can’t believe that I’m going to go here – turn on the heartlight.

6) And that’s what the Island was, I think: the heart – the hearth – of the world. I don’t know that this is really speculative, since they – Jacob, his Mother – talked about it so much, but still. What that ‘light’ means, though – is it goodness? is it life? is it the realm of the Forms, per Socrates’ explanation in Plato’s Republic, which gives shape and meaning to everything in the ‘visible’ realm of the lived world? – is left open, and that’s good, I think. If they’d had Jacob give a monologue on what, exactly, the light is, we’d all have rolled our eyes right back in our heads. Isn’t it more fun – more interesting – to come up with our own answers? (I personally like my own theory that Across the Sea was a nod to the idea that Mother was a wink to Vesta, the Roman goddess of the hearth, and protector of the light.)

7) Why I cried. God, I cried, and I’m still parsing my feelings to figure why the gut-wrenching sobs. Mamas and babies and dead dads and the idea of a coherent afterlife are a part of that, but hell: why did a TV show have me curled up in the fetal position, weeping uncontrollably? I’m still thinking about that.

I might write more about this, after I read what the rest of the Internet has to say. I might not. Either way, know this: I will miss Lost. I will miss Lost some lots.

Will you?

For a full and fully awesome recap of the episode check MamaPop later today – Tracey will be working her usual Lost magic. You’ll probably cry again, so bring tissue.

POSTSCRIPT: This guy, writing here, gives a pretty kick-ass explanation as to why it was so profoundly moving, and also works in the term ‘Leibnizian,’ which makes me a little weak in the knees –

I view the show’s cosmology as reflecting the existence of all possible universes and we get to see, and live with, a few of them.  That includes the universe where they all die in the initial crash, the universe where they all die in the hydrogen bomb explosion, the universe where the hydrogen bomb creates an alternative reality, the universe where there really is a miraculously surviving “Oceanic Six,” the universe where the main island narrative happens, the universe where it is all a dream of Jack’s, and bits of others as well.  This Leibnizian move “explains” the show’s numerous unanswered questions, such as those about the lottery numbers and many more.  It was possible, so it happened, toss in the anthropic principles as well.

The most striking moment of the final episode was when Locke tells Jack, quite sincerely, that he does not in fact have a son.  The question remains how the different universes fit together or interact and in some manner it seems they do.  The final episode is extremely effective in bringing out the dreamy and speculative tones of many of the previous episodes.

Most of all I viewed the ending as tragic.  It was not mainly about any particular account of the metaphysics of the island.  It was about how few couples had the chance to actually live together, love together, and stay together.  The perfect reunions of the couples in the “we’re all dead” scenario only drove this point home.  I found this contrast moving.

Yes! Ditto! Me too! EAT IT, HATERS.

The video embedded below is required viewing if you are a parent and you love Lost. So, that means you. Watch, or be consumed by the Smoke Monster…

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(Lost ends forever tomorrow WHAAAAAAAAH!)

Regarding last week’s episode of Lost, which carries us into the LAST REGULAR HOUR-LONG PRE-FINALE EPISODE tonight (*fans self*): I don’t even know. My mind was blown. To PIECES, it was blown. So, yeah. I’m not the person to come to if you’re looking for theories. Theories, I do not have them.

Questions, however, I have. Also some statements of confusion and assertions of opinion, etc:

1.) Why are all the Internets all het up about that episode sucking? It DID NOT SUCK. Sure, it was confusing at times, and yes, it did raise a lot of questions at a time when we really want more answers, but COME ON. This is Lost, people. If you’re not confused, you’re watching it wrong. Why should that change now?

2.) That said, I don’t think that most of the questions raised by that episode – who is Mother? where did she come from? why does she hate people? why does she steal babies? – need answers. I mean, really, can’t we just say this: 1) the protector of the Island, and an enigma, 2) somewhere before Time, or from some other mother whose head got bashed in by some other guardian, 3) because “they come, they do bad things, it’s always the same’ etc., 3) she just does, because, seriously, have you not been watching this show? ALL THE BABIES GET STOLEN. Because the Islands wimmins cannot has the babies themselves. So the other babies get stolen. That’s just what happens.

3.) This, however, IS a good question: was Mother herself a Smoke Monster, or is the Man in Black the first and only?

4.) And whaddup with the Other Mother, who kept appearing as a ghost? MiB has been implying to the Losties that he and only he appears as ghosts, but that clearly wasn’t him appearing to his pre-monster self, so. Obviously there’s some ghostly business going on on the Island that has nothing to do with him. SPOOKY.

5.) I’ve been saying all along that Jacob is kind of a douche. Now we know that he started out as a whiney mama’s boy, which explains a lot.

6.) So, the Other Mother spoke Latin, which means, maybe, that her people were ancient Roman? Here’s a thought that I had (when I said that I had no theories, I lied): are she and her lost twins meant to remind us of the Vestal virgin, Rhea Silvia, who did the nasty with the god, Mars, and her famous twins Romulus and Remus (you know, the ones who were raised by wolves, founded Rome, etc). There’s obviously no direct correlation – Jacob and the Boy in Black weren’t raised by a she-wolf (unless you take Mother’s crazy as sort of lupine) and their real mother was named Claudia and they didn’t go on to found Rome – but maybe there’s a nod there that we should be paying attention to. The goddess Vesta (the goddess of the mother of Romulus and Remus) was the goddess of the hearth – of the heart-light of the world, literally and figuratively. Ovid had it that Vesta was the Earth herself, and that she held the sacred fire of life at her core; Rome was understood to be one all-encompassing sacrificial Vestal ground, upon which offerings to Vesta were delivered by fire in the form of – WAIT FOR IT – smoke. And Vesta – nod to the obvious here – was a virgin, unable to bear her own children. I don’t know: Vesta – Mother/Earth, Rome – Island, twins – twins?

I think that I just blew my own mind.

… and attacked the Lost production team, it would be so many light years beyond awesome that you could probably launch yourself into an alternate parallel universe just thinking about it.

(Don’t try that at home, though. At least, not without supervision of a physicist and maybe also a Time Lord.)

This is just so much win that words fail me, seriously.

And by Kenny, I mean…

(Spoilers!)

(Seriously!)

(If you haven’t watched it yet – and if you haven’t, what is wrong with you? – really, take it from me, YOU DO NOT WANT TO SEE THE END OF THAT SENTENCE.)

(You really, really don’t.)

(I’m not joking.)

(For really reals I’m not.)

(Don’t slam the door behind you on your way out.)

(I didn’t mean that passive-aggressively. Just, you know.)

(Are we alone now, everyone-else-who-was-sensible-enough-to-watch-Lost-last-night?)

(*DEEP BREATH*)

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… and by Kenny, I mean… oh god…  (*gulp*)… Lapidus and Sayid and – oh, dear lord – Sun and Jin. Okay, so maybe Lapidus didn’t die – we didn’t actually see it, although him getting knocked out by a huge metal door in a sinking submarine with no of rescue pretty much says it all – but still. One almost doesn’t care one or another because Sayid! Sun! And Jin!

Sayid’s death, of course, was in some ways a good death, given that he’d been a sort of evil zombie-henchman to Fake Locke and his death turned that around. (And? Can I say? The Muslim character martyring himself by blowing himself up? BOLD MOVE, Lost. BOLD MOVE.) Still, he was awesome, and it was kind of gut-punchy to see him go.

Sun and Jin? UGH. Just, ugh. That was heart-wrenching. Like, Leo and Kate on the Titanic while Celine Dion warbles in the background gut-wrenching. “I will never leave you, Sun!” AAAGH. That said, was I the only one wondering why neither of them mentioned their daughter (I’m not the only one, I know, but let’s just ask it) – why Sun didn’t say, when she was imploring him to go, “FOR OUR BABY, JIN!” I suppose that that meaning was implied by her obvious agony – maybe – but it seems to me that if she was thinking that, that if she really wanted Jin to leave and go to their child, that she would have pulled that out as an argument to get him to go. Having said that… I suppose that it’s reasonable to expect that she wouldn’t have really wanted him to go – who really wants to die alone? – and that her ambivalence might have been enough to keep her from playing the kid card. That, and it wouldn’t have been nearly such a poetic ending for them.

For what it’s worth, I’m not saying that abandoning one’s spouse to a solitary death is what a good parent would have done (me being no authority on good parents), I’m just saying that if it were me, I’d have been losing my mind about WHAT ABOUT MY BABIES?!?!? – not to mention, I’d have probably not wanted my husband to die – and I’m pretty sure I’d have kicked him in the groin to get him moving. If, of course, my legs weren’t pinned under submarine detritus. There’s that.

Other items of note:

1) I guess I was wrong about that whole Flocke-isn’t-really-totally-bad thing, among other things. He seems pretty bad from the vantage point of oh hey he murdered half the cast.

2) I don’t blame Sawyer for one minute for pulling those wires. The last time he listened to Jack, Juliet got blowed up. That said, I think that we can now expect Sawyer to be all the more tortured and to probably die self-sacrificially in atonement for his doubt. At which point he better get his own cop show.

3) Do we really think that it was Widmore who left the explosives in the plane (which, as we saw, really was wired to explode)? In which case, did he really want everyone killed? Why? I suppose that it could have been Richard and Ben and Miles (who were last seen heading off to blow up the plane), but they had that old-timey Black Rock dynamite, not fancy wired Al Qaeda bombs with timers.

4) Why were Widmore’s cronies not guarding the sub?

5) Only three episodes to go. Hold me.

So. There’s a new episode of Lost tonight, which is both good news and bad news. Good, because, duh: LOMGST! Bad, because duh: LOMGST is almost over!

I actually don’t mind so much that we had a bit of a break between episodes – my brain was starting to get really hurty, and the breather was welcome. I feel refreshed enough to face tonight’s episode, The Candidate, without fear of my brain shorting out. That said, some mental brain-push-ups (brain-ups?) might help get things good and limber for this evening’s mind-screwage.

Some thoughts, borrowed mostly entirely from last weeks’ reflections, which I think are worth revisiting in advance of tonight’s episode:

1) So, that last scene in the last episode? Where Jack and Fake Locke and some random extras got bombed by some Widmore bomb and then Fake Locke dragged Jack away and was all – dun DUN dun! – “you’re with me now”? I think that – wait for it – Jack died there, from the bomb blast. That’s why the sound and everything went all wonky. And it’s why Fake Locke said what he did – Jack’s with him because Jack died and he brought him back, just as he did with Claire and (if you believe what Sayid told Desmond in the well) (Desmond!) Sayid. So, yeah. That’s what I think happened. That’s how Jack became the ‘Last Recruit’. Whether he stays that way or comes back from the dark side “like Anakin,” I don’t know (although my guess is yes.) Crazy?

2) Does Fake Locke really represent the dark side? I’m not so sure. I keep saying this, I know, but really: I’ll be surprised and kinda disappointed if he turns out to be simply bad. Especially since Jacob really is kind of douchey. He can’t be the sum of good on the island. Nuh-uh.

3) I’m still attached – all the more attached, since it seems that Real Locke might die – AGAIN – in the alternate reality – to the idea that Locke has died way to many times for us to take it as given that Fake Locke only just jumped into him when his Ben-murdered body arrived on the island (speaking of which – should we be reconsidering why Ben murdered him in light of Fake Locke’s machinations? Whose pawn is Ben, anyway?) By my count, Locke might have/should have died – what? – at least 4 times. When his dad shoved him out the window, when the Hatch blew up with him in it, when Ben shot him in the pit of Dharma bodies, and when Ben murdered him off-island, right? What’s up with that, and how does it bear on how we understand Fake Locke?

4) My guess on who Jack’s wife is in the sideways reality: Juliet. It HAS to be. (Will we find out tonight? WILL WE? PLEASE LOST GODS MAKE IT SO.)

5) I’m seeing some speculation on the interwebs that the apple Sawyer was brandishing around Kate in the cop shop in the sideways reality was a tip-off that he and Kate are going to turn out to be Adam and Eve, those two skeletons from way back and that made an appearance a few episodes ago. I really, really hope not. Sawyer and Juliet 4-EVAH!

6) When Fake Locke told Jack, in the last episode, that what/who Jack saw when he saw his dad was him, did you believe him? I kinda didn’t. Or at least, not entirely. It seemed like there was more to the story. And when Claire, later, asked Jack if F/Locke had tole him that, and kinda smirked, I took that as confirmation that I was maybe right to not believe him. At least not totally. Or something.

7) Are we ever going to find out where baby Aaron fits into the Island picture? If he does at all, which he should, right? I mean, ‘raised by another’ and all: that was important once upon a time. Is it still?

If you’re interested, there’s a sort of spoiler-y remark made in this interview with Evangeline Lilly. Not, ruin-the-whole-show spoiler-y, but spoiler-y nonetheless (I think that it pertains to next week’s episode), so if you like surprises, don’t click through. If, however, you don’t mind the odd little spoiler and are interested in what it looks like when a cast member totally slips up, and, also, recommends hair products, you can read the interview here.

In case you needed more reasons to love Jorge “Hurley From Lost” Garcia – which, face it, you don’t – here’s a pretty damn good one: his tutorial in the best way to eat cupcakes.

(Emilia watched as I scrolled down the page through the photos of the cupcake and hollered, “THAT’S THE BESTEST CUPCAKE EVER MOMMY DO YOU KNOW THAT GUY?” Mommy wishes, baby. Mommy wishes.)

(Yeah. Jorge Garcia has a blog, and it’s kind of awesome. He bakes bread and stuff. Watch out, Pioneer Woman.)

I’ve had nothing to say about Lost for the last two weeks because, seriously. It’s frying my brain. FRYING MY BRAIN. I sit down to formulate questions and theories and quippy one-liners and there’s this little electrical fizzle as the wires in my head short out and so I just go, ah, f*ck it, and wander off to write Desmond fanfic.

Which, speaking of… remember that time I was all PLEASE GODS BRING US A SAWYER/MILES COP SHOW? AND CALL IT SAWYERSKY AND HATCH?

Well…

Yes. THAT. Please, Gods, make THAT happen.

My (very scattershot) theories/thoughts/brainfarts about this week:

1) That last scene? Where Jack and Fake Locke and random extras got bombed by some Widmore bomb and then Fake Locke dragged Jack away and was all – dun DUN dun! – “you’re with me now”? I think that Jack died there – from the bomb blast. That’s why the sound and everything went all wonky. And it’s why Fake Locke said what he did – Jack’s with him because Jack died and he brought him back, just as he did with Claire and (if you believe what Sayid told Desmond in the well) (Desmond!) Sayid. So, yeah. That’s what I think happened. That’s how Jack became the ‘Last Recruit’. Whether he stays that way or comes back from the dark side “like Anakin,” I don’t know (although my guess is yes.)

2) DOES Fake Locke represent the dark side? I’m not so sure. I keep saying this, I know, but really: I’ll be surprised and kinda disappointed if he turns out to be simply bad. Especially since Jacob really is kind of douchey. He can’t be the sum of good on the island. Nuh-uh.

3) I’m still attached – all the more attached, since it seems that Real Locke might die – AGAIN – in the alternate reality – that Locke has died way to many times for us to take it as read that Fake Locke only just jumped into him when his Ben-murdered body arrived on the island (speaking of which – should we be reconsidering why Ben murdered him in light of Fake Locke’s machinations? Whose pawn is Ben, anyway?) By my count, Locke might have/should have died – what? – at least 4 times. When his dad shoved him out the window, when the Hatch blew up with him in it, when Ben shot him in the pit of Dharma bodies, and when Ben murdered him off-island, right? What’s up with that, and how does it bear on how we understand Fake Locke?

4) Would somebody please blow up that Tina Fey chick who works for Widmore? PLEASE?

5) Jack’s wife in sideways reality (and mother of his son): Juliet. It HAS to be.

6) I’m seeing some speculation on the interwebs that the apple Sawyer was brandishing around Kate in the cop shop in the sideways reality was a tip-off that he and Kate are going to turn out to be Adam and Eve, those two skeletons from way back and that made an appearance a few episodes ago. I really, really hope not. Sawyer and Juliet 4-EVAH!

7) When Fake Locke told Jack that what/who Jack saw when he saw his dad was him, did you believe him? I kinda didn’t. And when Claire, later, asked Jack if F/Locke had tole him that, and kinda smirked, I took that as confirmation that I was maybe right to not believe him. At least not totally. Or something.

8) I’m diggin’ Jack these days. Especially Jack in the sideways world, with his adorable kid. If he has to choose to not have that life, I am going to be a little bit gutted.

9) Are we ever going to find out where baby Aaron fits into the Island picture? If he does at all, which he should, right? I mean, ‘raised by another’ and all: that was important once upon a time. Is it still?

10) Desmond can follow me into an elevator anytime, I’m just sayin’.

That’s all I got. BRAIN KER-SIZZLE.

(If you have written your own Desmond or Sawyer fanfic, please to share.)

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Really, Lost? The Package? How is one supposed to not snicker every time one sees that title? Or am I the only Lost fan out here with the sensibilities of a twelve year old boy?

I’m not a big fan of Sun and Jin. I mean, I have nothing against Sun and Jin – they’re certainly very pretty to look at – but I’ve just never been all that interested in their storyline. One season of Sawyer and Juliet, and I was devastated when they were torn apart. One episode of Richard and his doomed wife, and I was a sobbing mess by the end of the hour. But six seasons of Sun and Jin and I maybe got a little chokey when Jin was looking at pictures of his little girl, but, really, beyond that? Meh.

I think that it has something to do with Jin. Sun’s gorgeous and fiery and really kinda kick-ass, but Jin? He’s only ever seemed a misogynist asshole (early on, when he was all ‘button your shirt, woman’) or a bit of a wuss and/or perpetual sidekick, and this week’s episode did nothing to change that. Was it just me who thought that it seemed that it was really Sun who was in charge in Sideways World? And who noticed that she didn’t return his ‘I love you’? And who wondered if the baby she was carrying was even his?

Eh, whatever. The episode brought back Desmond, so I was happy.

Other thoughts:

1) ‘The Package,’ I think, refers not only to Desmond, but to Sun and Jin, who we will (I bet) discover are a ‘package’ deal when it comes to Jacobean candidacy.

2) Sun lost her ability to speak English: was that really because of the bump to her head, or did Smocke work some Island mojo on her when she was passed out? I’m not buying that whole aphasia thing. Because, didn’t Locke lose his voice – or rather, the Island take his voice away - a few seasons back, when he was struggling with that whole ‘man of faith’ thing? I’m too lazy to go search Lostpedia – anyone else remember this?

3) Whaddup with that tomato? “Somebody forgot to tell it that it was supposed to die.” Huh. Wasn’t Sun told at some point that she was supposed to die? Like, because she was pregnant? I’m laying my bets now that that statement was more important than the tomato. Does it refer to Sun avoiding the death that was predicted with her pregnancy? Or does it suggest that the Sideways timeline – in which Sun seems to be facing near-certain death – is the way things are ‘supposed’ to be?

4) Richard Alpert seems filled with renewed purpose – but does it strike anyone else as odd that he’d all of a sudden know what to do, when just one episode ago he was insisting that he had no idea what to do, that Jacob hadn’t told him, stupid Jacob? Did Ghost Wife give him the new instructions on getting to Hydra Island and destroying the plane? And if so, was it really Ghost Wife – or was it maybe Smocke, in the form of Ghost Wife? After all, I have my doubts that Smocke needs the plane to leave the Island. What we do know about what needs to happen for him to be ‘freed’ is that all the candidates need to be killed. Maybe he’d want the plane destroyed, like, say, with all the candidates on it…

5) Charles Widmore used to be at war with Ben, who was on the side of Jacob. Now he’s at war with Smocke. Where do Ben and Jacob fit into that conflict? Remember a couple of seasons ago, when Ben responded to the death of Alex by going to Widmore and threatening to go after Penny? Wasn’t there some reference to the two of them (Ben and Widmore) not being able to kill each other? Like, you know, how Jacob and MIB/Smocke couldn’t kill each other directly? DISCUSS.

6) Sawyer NOM NOM NOM.

7) Desmond NOM NOM NOM.

8) I am finding Jack less and less irritating. Kate, however, has the power to irritate even when she’s only onscreen for thirty seconds. Is it wrong for me to say that I hope Crazy Claire does kill her?

9) That was terrible. I take that back. I hope that Crazy Claire just smacks her around a bit.

10) Work on ‘Everything That I Needed To Know About Parenting I Learned From Lost’ continues apace. Lessons from this week: don’t get shot in the gut when you’re pregnant.

Leave your thoughts/ideas/defenses of Kate in the comments!