What are you gonna do? Splash me?

WHAT KATE DID



Jin and Sun wake up after a night where it is quite possibly their child was conceived. In contrast Sayid digs Shannon’s grave. Hurley comes out of his tent and gives Jin and Sun a thumbs up.



Sawyer, through his delirium, tells Jack he loves Kate.



Kate sees a black horse (Smokie?) in the jungle.



In the flashbacks, Kate deals with her drunk stepfather, Wayne. …And boom goes the dynamite. Ok, actually it was the gas stove, but you get the idea. Later in the episode it is revealed that Wayne was really her father, not her stepfather as she had believed.



I still don’t understand exactly what happened when it seemed Sawyer woke up and spoke to Kate in Wayne’s voice asking Kate why she killed him. Was he possessed? Did Kate imagine it? Kate begins to think she is going crazy.



Jin finally gets the handcuff off of his wrist.



Jack finds Kate in the jungle and asks her about why she left the hatch and what happened to Sawyer. Kate angrily apologizes and tells him “I’m sorry I’m not as good as you.“ Kate then kisses Jack and has an odd reaction about it. It was more than just a “What did I do?” reaction, at least that’s how I felt about it. Did she “see” something like Walt did when he touched Locke back in season 1?



Sayid thinks that Walt was a ghost when he saw him right before Shannon was shot.



The horse Kate saw on the island is also in her flashback. In fact it was the horse that caused the Marshall to crash the car and allow Kate to escape. I kept looking for a DHARMA symbol on it but sadly, none was to be found.



Eko shows Locke the film splice he found inside the Arrow station. He goes on to tell Locke about the Book of Law as well as the story of Josiah and the Old Testament. Is that story and the Book of Law related to the test that Richard Alpert gave to a young John Locke at the end of season 4? If so then was The Book of Law the object Locke was supposed to claim as what already belonged to him?



In the recruitment office where Kate goes to see her father, Sayid is on the television.

Kate explains to a semiconscious Sawyer why she did what she did to Wayne. She couldn’t say “why I killed you” though.



Eko tells Locke to not mistake coincidence for fate. Will we ever see who cut out the splice of film and why?



Sawyer and Kate see the horse in the jungle and Kate says that she does know the horse.



Michael gets a message from Walt on the hatch computer. There was some speculation as to if that was Walt communicating with Michael or not. TPTB have said that it was indeed Walt but they also said, cryptically may I add, it may not have been Walt actually sitting at another computer doing the typing.

On the commentary on the DVD set, it is said sort of tongue in cheek that LOST has always had control over time and space, especially in the flashbacks. Also mentioned is there is a secret in the Sawyer/Wayne bit they are saving for later. Eko is called the anti Locke in that the two characters are supposed to be exact opposites.

This episode has the distinction of being my favorite Kate centric episode.



THE 23 PSALM

Ok, we get it, Mr. Eko is a bad ass Mo’ Fo’.



When Charlie is taking Eko to the Nigerian plane, Charlie tells Eko that it was his brother that got him addicted to heroine. He also states of himself, “I was a good person.”.



Locke teaches Michael how to shoot a gun which ultimately ends up costing Libby and Ana Lucia their lives. Notice that the ranch dressing label is misspelled as DHARAMA ranch dressing.



Smokey makes his biggest appearance to date. This time it scans Eko and apparently he is approved, left slide, or I don’t know.



Did Yemi’s plane crash into the island or did the island crash into the plane?



TPTB state that the reason the smoke monster did not harm Eko was because he did not show fear towards it.



After Eko burns the plane with his brothers body inside, Charlie and he begin to recite the 23 Psalm. The writers accidentally wrote the Psalm incorrectly but then thought that it sounded “right” seeing that Eko was never really a proper priest. Although when Charlie asks Eko if he was a priest Eko tells him that he is.



Now if you want my theory, which of course you do or why else would you be reading this is as follows. The first time Eko confronts the smoke monster, the monster is only there to gather information. Sort of a recon mission. We know that Ben and perhaps some of the rest of the others can control the monster, or at least partially can. The smoke monster takes the info back and the others realize they have been misled and that Eko is really not a priest and should be looked at as a physical threat. Therefore later on he has to be dealt with. At least that’s what I think! But I’m just one lonely guy sitting around looking at some Virgin Mary Statues listening to the little voices whispering in my ear. Oh wait, never mind, that’s Charlie.

Great plan Moonbeam, after that can we sing Kumbaya and do trust falls?

THE OTHER 48 DAYS




The taillies story is told through a series of clips and flashbacks. Some say that right after the plane crashes you can hear the smoke monster. I disagree and say that it is just some of the sounds of the plane crashing. Check it out for yourself if you feel so inclined.

The first thing I noticed is how similar Jack and Mr. Eko are dressed the day of the crash.



Like Jack, Ana resuscitates a passenger, the little girl Emma, who is not breathing, on the beach.



The scene of the taillies crashing looks like what a bunch of people would be doing in a plane crash. This part looks “right” as compared to the group we already knew on the other side of the island. Nobody running to the scene from inside the jungle, except for Goodwin, but we know why that is and Bernard, who is literally up a tree. Nobody seemed to end up as far away as Jack did.



Also like Jack, Libby had to set a broken leg on the beach after the crash.



Bernard didn’t seem to have as much faith in finding Rose alive as Rose did in finding Bernard alive.

Cindy, the stewardess, claims that the rescue won’t find them because they were flying in the wrong direction for two hours. The pilot told Jack that they were flying in the wrong direction for six hours. Is this a continuity error or was Cindy mistaken? Or was she lying?



Apparently Goodwin was better at getting a list together than Ethan. Speaking of the lists, why did they make them? They were supposed to be lists of the “good people” but will we ever get a definitive answer of why the others only wanted them? And what did they have planned for those that were not considered "good".



TPTB wanted us to believe Nathan was an other, they even made his name similar to Ethan who we knew was an other. He also says he is from Canada, just like Ethan was.



Between Goodwin and Ethan it seems Goodwin was just a touch nicer than Ethan.



He even says: “we’re not savages”, but then he does kill Nathan in rather brutal fashion.



The hatch they find, The Arrow, has “Quarantine” printed on the inside of the door like the Swan did. It didn’t seem Goodwin knew about the arrow station. Or it was just a good acting job on his part?



I think if Ana had given Goodwin more time he would have been able to explain more and it may have made a little more sense. Or maybe not. Goodwin says that Nathan wasn’t a good person and that was why he killed him.



Eko was supposed to be taken on the first night to weaken the taillies. Ana was not one of the good people since she wasn’t on any of the lists.



On day 41, Ana finally allows herself to cry and Eko allows himself to talk again. Eko imposed a fast from speaking as a way to pay pennance for killing the two others on the first night after the crash. It lasted for 40 days like the fast Jesus made when he was alone in the desert.

The rest of their story we know.



COLLISION



Ana was a cop (but not on the east side of Chicago) in her life before the island and she had an itchy trigger finger. “No duh!” - Shannon



Eko and Locke have their classic introduction to each other. Interesting to note that we literally have another example of the “black and white” theme that runs in the show.



Jack seems to be a little bit jealous of the way Kate takes care of Sawyer.



Ana tells Sayid her story and we see why Ana was not considered to be one of the "good people".



Ana also had her own pregnancy issues before coming to the island.



An interesting choice of words when Kate tells Sawyer that he is “home”.



Another classic LOST musical montage shows us the reunion of the survivors. Michael with Vincent, Rose with Bernard,



and Sun with Jin.



Matthew Fox turns the emotions very well. Going from grief at seeing Sayid carrying the lifeless body of Shannon.



To a mix of anger and pity as he sees Ana Lucia for the first time after the crash. Note that Jack is wearing white and Ana is wearing black when they meet in the jungle.



Now, there is one other thing in this episode that at first seems to be nothing but looking deeper into it, there may just be something there to uncover.

Inside the hatch, Locke is seen working on a crossword puzzle. They even make sure that we get to see close-ups of it. The clue he is seen working on is for 42 down “Enkidu’s friend”. Also the word “African” can clearly be seen, this of course happens right before Eko comes into the hatch. Eko is from Nigeria which just happens to be in Africa.

Locke writes in “Gilgamesh” as the answer. Look closely as it appears that if the answer is in fact Gilgamesh, then he has a lot of other across answers wrong.



However if you change the across answers as follows, "Ghare" to "Share", "sIend" to "sCend", "acoLns" to "acoRns", "imGtative" to imItative, "laA" to "laP", "isMskeet" to "isTskeet", "Epers to "Upers", "aSids" to "aRids", "pagHr" to "pagEr"; you get 'Scripture' as the answer to 42 down. So, why did the writers change the crossword puzzle to specifically allow for the word Gilgamesh to be included in the shows cannon fodder?

If you replace the sequence "Gilgamesh - black square - Ate" with "Sprig - black square - Acetate", and render 'Me...Acurgy' as 'Metallurgy' and 'Spir...Led' as 'Spiraled', all of the adjoining answers appear to make sense. Try it for yourself and see.

So what does all that mean you may ask. Read on:



The "Epic of Gilgamesh" is based on an ancient story from Sumer; the standard version is written in Babylonian. It is about the plight of a god-like man, Gilgamesh (the king of Uruk), who befriends Enkidu, a man who grew up alone in the wilderness and who initially persuades Gilgamesh to be a better, less tyrannical ruler. Gilgamesh and Enkidu's adventures include slaying the ogre Humbaba in order to claim his stores of timber. The goddess Ishtar attempts to seduce Gilgamesh, but he rejects her, enraging the gods, who send the Bull of Heaven to punish him. Gilgamesh and Enkidu slay the bull, but when Enkidu taunts the gods about this, they decree his death. Gilgamesh mourns his friend at length, then travels in search of his ancestor, Uta-napishtim, who possesses the secret of immortality. Although he finds Uta-napishtim, the gods refuse to grant him immortality, and he becomes a governor of the Sumerian underworld, known as the House of Dust. The epic is considered to be the oldest literary work in existence, and refers to a great flood, a boat and a bird sent to search for land, resembling the story of Noah's ark and the Flood in the Bible.

So what does all that mean?



The story centers around a man's search for immortality, or failing that, eternal youth. Richard Alpert appears to not age, and the Hanso Foundation is known for attempting to prolong the human lifespan through the Life Extension Project.

Now let all that sink is for a little, will ya.

I'm sure you got a load you need to drop in, don't you Jethro?

…AND FOUND

In Jin’s flashback his views of himself, love, and what a man and a husband is supposed to be and what they are supposed to do are brought to the forefront. He is embarrassed to be the son of a fisherman and he could never allow himself to be taken care of a woman with money. Oh, irony, thou art cruel.




Libby tells Michael she knows about being scared and having trust issues. That foreshadows and even further past than we have seen from her.




Eko tells Jin that the others don’t leave tracks. They later find Goodwin’s dead body. When the Others walk by in procession a child follows dragging a teddy bear. This is also seen in Peter Pan when the Lost Boys are captured by Native Americans.

Outside of the hotel, Jin is told by the man with the child that needed to go to the bathroom that Jin is a “good man”.




Locke tells Sun that he found what he was searching for by not looking. This is similar to a Zen Buddhist koan that states "To find something, stop looking for it."

Kate shows that she does have some feelings for Sawyer as she frantically searches through the letters in the bottle that washed ashore from the raft. She tells Sun that “they” never got to say goodbye.



In the beginning of the episode, Jin’s roommate tells him the color of love is orange. At the end of the flashback Jin sees a woman in an orange dress. His distraction from where he is going leads him to bump into Sun. For the second time the title of the episode is a popular phrase beginning with the word “Lost”. Both times the episodes were Sun and Jin flashbacks.

In the past, both Jin and Sun were figuratively "lost", in the sense that they were both searching for something important (love and a better life, respectively). When they both walked away from the thing that may have given it to them (Jae Lee and the job at the hotel), they ended up meeting each other. In much the same way, both became particularly "lost" in this episode. Sun believes Jin to be dead, and has lost her only "remaining" connection to him in the form of her ring; Jin is in the company of strangers, and goes to search for Michael. Jin perseveres in his search and ends up finding Michael, and advises him to search for Walt later; Sun gives up on Jin and digs up the message bottle, but finds her ring again. Naturally, Sun's wedding ring represents her relationship with Jin and the hope that he lived, which is directly opposed to the hopelessness inherent to the "message bottle". When she loses her ring and buries the bottle, she believes Jin to be dead, but finds it again and unearths the bottle, just as she will find Jin.



ABANDONED

Shannon sees Walt again and Sayid thinks it was a dream.




Charlie becomes a little bossy towards Claire as to how she should take care of the baby.




Jack appears in the emergency room that connects Jack to the death of Shannon’s father. Therefore Jack is also responsible for her situation after his death.



When Shannon tells Vincent to find Walt, he takes her to Boone’s grave. Even Vincent knew Shannon was going to die.



Locke swaddled Aaron, and told Claire that "babies like the feeling of being constricted. It's not until we are older that we develop the desire to be free." Interesting comment. Later, Locke finds out Charlie has a Virgin Mary statue stashed away. Locke also knows what is inside the statue.



Boone shows up at Shannon father’s funeral and he tells her that death sucks.

Speaking of Shannon, Rose told Hurley: "Poor thing, it can't be easy losing the one person you love on the Island." She said this even though her husband was missing and Hurley presumed him to be dead further proof that Rose did indeed know Bernard was alive. The same exchange between Rose and Hurley can be seen as foreshadowing the death of Libby, the one person on the island that Hurley loves.



Ana Lucia tells Michael the taillies story, one that we will see more in depth later.




So, yeah, Shannon’s stepmother (Boone’s mother) was a hardcore bitch.

Cindy, the airline stewardess, mysteriously disappears while they are carrying Sawyer up a hill. It is suggested that Cindy was also working for the others ( possibly she wasn’t so much as taken by the others as she returned to them on her own) and was on the plane as a plant knowing the plane was supposed to crash and the others knew it. What is more important to ask is during Charlie’s flashbacks we see Cindy follow Charlie to the front of the plane right before it crashes. How did she end up in the back of the plane with the taillies? Not sure if I buy all of that but it does explain how quickly and quietly Cindy seems to disappear.



On the flight, she gives a highly potent rum to Jack, which Jack mixes in with his yellow drink. She smiles at him and notes that it is highly illegal. At the time of consumption, Jack begins to feel the turbulence. In many ways, this is reminiscent of the time Richard Alpert told Juliet that the highly potent drink is necessary. He says that the ride would be "very rough" or bumpy, if she wasn't strapped into the sub as well. Kate is also seen to be drinking some orange 'juice' on the flight as seen in the early flashbacks. Kate left her Handcuffs in the jungle and was not seen in the opening wreckage scene. This indicates that she, like Jack, woke up in the jungle. Apart from Bernard of the tail-section group, they are the only two we can deduce regained consciousness in the jungle. They were also the only two seen drinking before the crash. In The Other Woman, Juliet mentions to Ben they 'have everybody from the list'. Cindy was still with the tailies then. All of that ran on way longer than it should.

When the whispers return an entire group of survivors hears them this time.



Shannon and Sayid share a brief and bittersweet moment before the whispers kick in and ghost Walt shows up one more time. He finally believed her …




… Right before she is shot dead by Ana Lucia. But before Ana Lucia shoots Shannon, the whispers say "dying sucks." Also notice that it started to rain when Shannon was about to be killed.

Shannon, in both her past and present, is very needy, but determined to succeed on her own. While Boone and Sabrina's lack of belief in her was more metaphorical (they didn't think she could live on her own), Sayid's was quite literal (he did not believe she had seen Walt). While her family's lack of faith brought nothing but abandonment and more neediness to Shannon, Sayid ends up in love with her, promising never to leave her. Sayid built a hut to share with Shannon. He told her he carried a gun because "he has someone to protect", referring to her.

Around the 35 minute mark of the episode, can you hear Michael whisper "F@#k Me!" as they carry Sawyer up the hill like I do?