No Place Like Home Part 1 ... part 2

Sawyer came bumbling in carrying baby Aaron and for the first time ever on LOST, Sawyer looked like complete crap. He looked exhausted, pained, and totally despondent over the loss of Claire. In many ways, he exhibited some very Jack-like traits in that scene. For his whole life Sawyer has only had to look out for one person – himself. Now he’s unselfishly tasked himself with watching over blonds and babies. He’s also just now realizing that it’s a lot harder than it looks. He follows Jack into the jungle for what initially seem to be Han Solo-ish reasons, not wanting to give Jack all of the hero points. But in reality, we can all agree that Sawyer truly cares about Claire and Hurley. The survivors have been on the island long enough to develop some very strong bonds, but Sawyer’s feelings go beyond simple companionship. Remember back to last season when Hurley gave him a crash course on how to be a leader and a friend. At this point, Sawyer feels responsible for his friends.

In the span of a couple lines, Sawyer quoted the concept of "déjà vu" and likened Jack to a "broken record". With the show taking on a "we've done this before feeling", this only supports my theory that Sawyer really did recognize Room 23 last year when he helped save Karl. Given how reincarnation and eternal-recurrence theories gained considerable traction last week with Richard Alpert's Dalai Lama test of John Locke, hearing "déjà vu" and "broken record" in a sequence that deliberately echoed another scene in a previous episode well, it's enough to make you wonder if LOST was trying to tell us something. Or maybe it was just playing with us. Maybe LOST is a lot like the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz, duping people into thinking his city is made of glittering emerald by making them wear dazzling, green-tinted glasses. In truth, his city was made of plain old white marble. I dug the Jack-Sawyer tension. Sawyer rubbing it in Jack's face about how Locke was right concerning the freighter people, how good was that? And how about Jack striking back by accusing the rogue of running away (gotta give Jack a point there)? But I dug it even more when these two put the sniping aside, found common ground, and played Superman and Batman together; in this case, saving Hurley from mad Island mystics Ben and Locke. I've always been a sucker for the rivals-who-become-allies arc in any kind of story. Rushing off to help Jack, Sawyer quipped, "You don't get to die alone!". Another great line in a great scene.



Sun's hostile takeover of Paik Industries was one of the evening's most surprising developments. We learned that flash forward Sun leveraged her settlement from Oceanic Airlines to buy a controlling interest in her father’s company. Her motivation: getting his respect, and possibly revenge. She held him responsible for Jin's death and for putting both of them on the plane. Depending on how you interpret her lines, she seemed to imply he deliberately conspired to kill them, as if he knew the plane was going to crash. She also said that Paik was one of two people she holds responsible for Jin's current corporal status, whatever that might be. Did she mean Paik was/is in cahoots with someone else? Maybe Charles Widmore? Who is the other person? I'm guessing Jack from the way she spoke to him on the plane. Maybe there is a choice to be made as to who goes Jin or someone else and Jack doesn't pick Jin. Or maybe some other decision Jack makes causes Jin to get left behind. Either way, that must be one freaking huge settlement they all got from Oceanic for her to be able to buy a controlling part of a multi billion dollar company. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that Sun is receiving additional financial support from other sources, like Ben, or even Hurley. Heck, maybe the Orchid isn't hiding a time machine like everyone thinks. Maybe the dirty little secret of Dharma was that it was actually a secret gold-mining operation, and the Orchid was where the finished bricks were stored. The Oceanic 6 found the gold, took it, and are now drawing upon it to rebuild their lives and settle old scores with their enemies.

One thing I'm fairly sure of is Jin is not dead. Sun doesn’t believe him to be dead, refuses to believe he is dead, and/or "knows he’s alive" the same way Rose knew Bernard was. Sun’s going to try and find the island and get back to her husband. To do this, she’s going to use her dad’s evil empire, and we’re going to see it all happen next season. This is purely my own speculation, but I make it from the nonchalant way in which she grieved Jin, coupled with the fact that the O6 "have to go back!" to the island. I’m guessing that Sun might be the only one of the O6 (aside from Aaron) who never even needed convincing of this. The Orchid Station and Paik Heavy Industries logos are rather similar. Both have a tripartite structure in the center that winds out into a spiral. It'd be interesting to learn if some of the equipment used down in the Orchid Station was made in Korea.



"Jesus Christ is not a weapon." This was the line, from Hurley's mother, just as he was about to club her and his surprise party guests with a gold-plated Jesus figurine. "Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this?" Hurley muttered to himself over and over again, evidencing an aspect of psychological ambivalence: the divided self. But what was up with the blinged-up Jesus? It conjured memories of the heroin-stuffed Virgin Mary idols, themselves complex allusions to Marx's idea that religion is the opiate of the masses. Maybe it's a clue or a marker, pointing to the possibility that the Island throbs with life-after-death resurrection power. Or maybe it means nothing.



Ben sees a pile of rocks, pauses strangely, and stares at it for a moment. Only afterward does he kneel and move the rocks aside to reveal a Dharma box. When he opens it, it contains three very distinct items; one for each of them. Hurley gets tossed the crackers, Locke grabs the binoculars. Ben gets exactly what he wants too; a signal mirror. And oh look, there happens to be someone, presumably Alpert and his group, on the hilltop all ready to be signaled. How very convenient, right? Right! Why? Because if you need something, the island provides. The island always provides, especially when time travel is involved. What if I were to tell you guys that somewhere on this island there was a box and whatever you imagined, whatever you wanted to be in it when you opened that box, there it would be. All that and crackers too!. That was very nice of Ben, don’t you think?



Ben, Hurley, and Locke arrived at the Orchid and Ben confessed that he happened to know exactly why Charles Widmore wants possession of the Island. Theory: Orchid time machine = key to eternal life? Last episode we watched John Locke receive Jacob’s orders (or did we?). This episode we watched Ben once again yank the baton from John’s hands and run with it. At this point each needs the other for specific goals, yet neither one of them is revealing the entire truth. Ben tells Locke "That’s none of your business John.", and I’m pretty sure Locke hasn’t yet told everything that happened inside of Jacob’s cabin either. No one is being "entirely truthful" here. "I haven't been entirely truthful.", Ben said. Then came Locke's retort, "When have you ever been entirely truthful?" , which was followed by no response from Ben. Was Ben just ignoring Locke, or did his silence speak volumes? This is the fundamental question about Ben, isn't it? Why he does do what he do's? Is he some kind of Machiavellian Ben Kenobi ruthlessly molding his Luke Skywalker for a showdown with a phantom menace that Locke was destined to fight? We can only watch and wait.

Part 3 later