Enlightened, my ass!

Because You Lied Part 2

The Lie

Sun is the only character who refrains from speaking at all during the initial debate over The Lie. She agrees to the lie by nodding silently. The quietest person in the room will often prove to be the most dangerous. In the Season Four finale, which depicts the immediate chronological aftermath of this scene, Sun also keeps her thoughts to herself. Her companions do not suspect a thing from harmless Mrs. Kwon, but the cold blood of Paik still flows in her veins. Sun, it would seem, agreed to participate in The Lie, as part of her own desire to deceive and betray her partners. Sun’s knowledge of their lie gives her leverage, which she can use at any time to influence the other members of the O6. She has no quarrel with Sayid or Hurley, of course, and her attention focuses squarely on Jack and Kate. During her pre-island life, Sun successfully concealed a double life. Within her marriage, she maintained the veneer of a faithful wife for Jin’s benefit, while she was unfaithful outside of it. Sun now utilizes those same skills in the present time for a different purpose. The outward image of calmness conceals that same screaming, anguished expression from the helicopter, just below the surface.

And Stay Away from the Cops...

Hurley gradually has transformed into a more prominent character as the series has progressed. For the second straight season, an episode focuses on Hurley before any other character. Hugo serves as both the moral and emotional center for the opening scene that formulates The Lie. The other members of the O6 fail to convince him that The Lie will help protect the people left behind on the island, but he eventually agrees for a different reason. Jack asks: "You think any one's gonna believe that, believe any of it? They're gonna think you're crazy." When Sayid refuses to join him, Hurley submits under the burden of popular vote. Hugo has no hidden agendas here, other than his two most powerful driving forces, his conscience and his loyalty to his friends. Even though none of those friends reciprocate the same loyalty, he still agrees to go along with them. He judges that the emotional weight of lying would eat him from within, but the feeling of being all alone in the world would be even more damaging.

The theme of Hurley's insanity has evolved through each season. The episodes Dave and The Beginning of the End both suggested that immense survivor guilt caused his mind to break away from reality. The Lie adds a slightly different perspective on the source of his madness, which emphasizes his loneliness. Two scenes with David and Carmen Reyes highlight how the lie itself created a gaping chasm between Hurley and his parents. By nature, Hurley is incapable of deceiving his loved ones successfully, as both of them see right through him. The way his friends forced him to lie created a rift between them as well. Hurley found himself without a single person in the world, with whom he could act like himself and be perfectly honest. As a solution, he imagined himself new friends, the ghosts of people who died on the island. It is no mistake that Ana-Lucia visits him at a moment when he feels alone, unable to talk to Sayid. In a remarkably sad way, Charlie, Mr. Eko, and Ana-Lucia became his only true friends left. Given the choice between insanity and loneliness, Hurley chooses insanity.

How funny was it to watch Ana Lucia telling Hurley not to get arrested? One of Hurley's main character flaws is his self-doubt. He needs to establish a believe in himself. The apparent ghosts of Charlie, Eko, and Ana Lucia might be trying to guide him in the right direction, but he doubts them because of who he is, and where he's been; a wacky island and a mental institution. When he finally opens up to his mother, he spills everything out in one big rambling blur of seemingly impossible events. Yet his mother believes him. She admits she doesn't fully understand, but she's close enough to Hugo to know that he's telling the truth. This helps Hurley get over the lie. Unfortunately for the master plan, this further influences his decision to disobey Ben, defy Ana Lucia, and be arrested by the cops anyway.

The Blame Game

Kate, on the run again, considered seeking refuge with Jack for a few seconds. Then she remembered his nasty beard and jumpiness and thought better of that plan. Luckily, Sun calls just as Kate is contemplating her next move. They decide to reunite in LA, and what a reunion it was. Can somebody say awkward? So many things were weird with Sun during this rendezvous. First, she shows Kate a baby picture of Ji Yeon, even though her daughter should be nearly three years old by this point in time. Then she seems to be going down the path of blaming Kate for Jin's death. Sun goes on to insinuate that Kate needs to "take care of" the lawyers who are snooping around, ending with "Wouldn't you do anything you had to in order to keep Aaron?" The whole exchange had a very threatening, ominous vibe. Which made it even funnier when Sun completely switched gears at the end of the scene and asked, "So, how's Jack?" and the look on Kate’s face, a picture says a thousand words.

No Country for Old Ben

Sometime during his jaunts to the real world, Ben took in a movie or two. He hides his mystery bag in the air vent, No Country for Old Men-style, either to keep it from enemies or to keep it from Jack. When telling Jack to go home for a few hours, he reminds him: "If there's anything in this life you want, pack it in there because you're never coming back". Does this mean once Jack goes back to the island he's staying there forever? Not necessarily. We've heard references to 'another life' so many times, it's hard to brush over Ben's interesting use of the phrase 'this life'. I'm more inclined to think that once they've gone back, the timeline they're currently in might completely cease to exist (which would be extremely convenient for Hurley the serial-killer). If Jack ever gets off the island again after that, it'll be in an entirely different life. Let me remind you we're traveling through time now so not many things should sound kooky at this point. Also notice how Ben changed the subject when Jack asked, "He is dead, isn't he?"

It is also worth asking just how many contacts Ben still maintains in the outside world, if there even is an outside world (hmmm... did I just say that?). Not only was Jill sitting there waiting for Ben, she knew exactly what he had in the van and why he had it. I also thought it was pretty cool to see Ben defend Jack when Jill made snide remarks toward his addiction to pills. Although everyone has always been a pawn in Ben's giant chess game, he realizes they've been through a lot of crap together. Maybe he's got a heart after all.

Thank God for Flaming Arrows

The flaming arrows were a welcome relief from the irritating dialogue and lame attempt at some sort of comedy. And once again the writers spent the lives of another batch of red shirts while the cool kids all got away. Presumably these are more others toting the standard issue WWII rifles we've seen in seasons past. They've got zero tolerance for outsiders and Ethan's patience for explanation. Locke showing up to save Sawyer and Juliet was sweet, and his knife throwing skills are still as solid as ever. That they would've chopped Juliet's arm off wasn't even a question. But the fact that they didn't recognize Juliet indicated they must have jumped to a time period before she arrived on the island.

Ms. Hawkings, a Pendulum, and Some Very Serious High-Level Mathematics

Using a Foucault pendulum, a ton of hard-core equations and a handy-dandy computer program (run on an old school Apple, just like the one in the Swan hatch), Hawking was clearly trying to determine how the O6 could return to the Island, where they'd have to make their attempt, and how long they had to do so. We know the answer to the last part: seventy hours. When Hawking meets Ben in the church and tells him this bit of news, he flips out, unsure of whether or not he'll be able to round up the O6 in that time considering what Hurley had just pulled. "God help us all". It appears that disrupting the historic course of the island has sent things spinning toward an impending, disastrous end. As Hawkings tells Ben in the big revealing scene: "Seventy hours is what you've got". If we assume this season ends with the O6 returning to the island, then the entire story arc of our season will fit into less than three days. Three off-island days, that is. Who knows how much time that translates to in Sawyer/Juliet/Locke hours. But if Jack's group fails to get back in time, Hawkings "Every single one of us will be dead" prophecy seems like it will be fulfilled. Doesn't this finally put Ben on the good guy team? If not what does?

The Last Two Seasons

This opener paves the way for what should be the coolest two seasons ever. The story has evolved so that Eko, Charlie, Libby, Shannon, Boone ... or even Joanna the drowned girl that Jack couldn’t save, can show up at any time. I look forward to these fun moments, like when Ana Lucia bent down to peer into Hurley's car. I look forward to LOST finally unraveling many of its best and oldest mysteries.

Time travel is a hard pill for most viewers to swallow, which is why the writers and producers could only hint at it for the first few seasons. In S4 we only saw mental evidence of it, and only this season do we finally see full-blown physical time traveling of the people, places, and things on the island. Well I think it's an awesome angle, and the way they slow-played us with it was even better still. It was truly the best way to do it. With the time travel cat finally out of the bag, the larger pieces of the LOST puzzle can start falling into place, and more importantly, staying there. As the show rolled on and the weirdness kept coming, a time anomaly became one of the only ways to explain the circulatory and repetitiveness of the story arc. It certainly doesn't explain all of the shows mysteries, not by a long shot, but it definitely lays the groundwork for the final two seasons.