LOST: Confirmed Dead
It’s been a long, long time, but now I’m back blogging LOST. (My apologies for missing the season 4 premier—and thanks to Scudworth for providing a recap in my absence. My vocation got in the way of my avocation, which happens now and then.) Spoilers and speculation based on tonight’s episode, “Confirmed Dead,” after the jump below.
Links and Miscellanea
- We got an official podcast, but probably due to the ongoing WGA strike, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof did not participate. (Cuse, a WGA negotiator, has explicitly stated that he won’t work for the show in any capacity until the strike is over.) Instead, we had a video podcast with co-executive producer (IMDb lists her as a “line producer”) Jean Higgins. It’s a behind-the-scenes featurette on the making of Hurley’s hallucination in the LAPD’s interrogation room. In case you missed it, written on Charlie’s hand just before the glass breaks and the water comes flooding into the room are the words “THEY NEED YOU.” Also, during the filming, Higgins (acting as ad hoc director of the scene), tells Charlie’s stunt double that he’s “a ghost,” clearing up some of the metaphysics of last week’s episode. Next week, we get a video podcast with the costume designer. No, the WGA strike cannot end soon enough. (Then again, maybe it has already? If it has, I hope we’re not past the drop dead date for new episodes this season. I can dream, right? I don’t trust Eisner, though, so I’m not holding my breath.)
- It’s worth checking out the “Missing Pieces” mobisodes” at ABC.com. These little post-hoc deleted scenes were originally meant to be broadcast by phone, but were released one at a time online before season 4 started. The last one is particularly interesting in light of recent episodes.
- You may also want to check out the Find815.com ARG. Much like the “Lost Experience” ARG, I didn’t find it all that compelling, but maybe you will.
- According to Jorge Garcia, the body in Jacob’s chair in episode 4.1 was indeed Christian Shepard, but as originally filmed it was Hurley. (Garcia admits this may have been misdirection by the show’s creators.)
- Here’s an interview from Wired magazine with LOST writer Brian K. Vaughan, who recently released the final volume of his comic book, Y:The Last Man. I highly recommend Y, by the way, especially for people who like post-apocalyptic stories about a guy and his monkey being chased across the country by one-breasted feminist extremist biker women.
- The man who robbed Josh Hollaway in 2005 has been convicted and will be serving 30 years.
- Lost won the ratings battle for its season 4 premier against strike-weakened network competition.
- Here’s an article on the philosophy of LOST from the libertarians at Reason Magazine.
- This feature at TV Squad breaks down the Jack and Locke factions for us.
- Marvel Comics is running some LOST tie-ins in their comic books. This sort of cross-promotion makes sense.
- A band calling themselves “Previously On Lost” will be doing musical recaps of the episodes. You can check out their MySpace page here.
- Here’s a TV Guide—er, guide—to this season’s new characters and actors.
- Finally, check out this Sawyer Nickname Generator. Me, I’m Huckleberry Pinhead. Thanks, James.
Observations and Speculations
- What I like about season 4 so far is that it has a very noticeable kinetic energy. You can tell we’re going somewhere, even if we don’t yet know where. It’s still the case that every new fact raises even more new questions, but no one can say that these episodes are slow.
- In episode 4.2, we are introduced to four new characters, Daniel Faraday, Miles Straume, Charlotte Lewis, Frank Lapidus, described respectively by Naomi as “a headcase, a ghost buster, an anthropologist and a drunk.” We get a little piece of information on each of them through the flashbacks.
- We first meet Daniel Faraday in his home in Essex, Massachusetts, watching footage of the submerged (fake) wreck of Oceanic 815 on the television. He’s disturbed by the news, but when the woman who is presumably his wife asks him why, he says, “I don’t know. Wiki notes that during casting, this character was named “Russell Faraday,” an alias used by the main villain in Stephen King’s The Stand, which would have been one of many nods to King by LOST’s creators. Essex is a small New England town in northern Massachusetts not too far from the New Hampshire town where I first attended grade school. It was known in colonial times as a shipbuilding center. Dan may be my favorite of the new characters. He’s a physicist, sort of, but doesn’t like to be pigeonholed.
- Miles Straume is the ghostbuster. In fact, “Ghostbusters” was my exact thought when I saw him climbing the stairs to the dead boys bedroom with a modified vacuum cleaner. Miles is dangerous, unstable, and unscrupulous. He’s also going to be a lot of fun to watch. I suspect that the location of his flashback is somehow related to the location of the funeral that Jack attended in the flashforward in the season 3 finale. I don’t have any real evidence of this, it’s just a hunch. Incidentally, that rocky beach where we first meet Miles is the same location where Desmond accidentally killed Kelvin.
- Charlotte Lewis seems to be an anthropologist, with possibly some paleontology background as well. We first meet her in Tunisia at the site of a dig that’s discovered a DHARMA polar bear from the Hydra Station. As you will recall, the Hydra Station was the zoological station located on the smaller island, where Sawyer, Jack and Kate were kept at the first of season 3. In fact, Sawyer was probably a resident of this bear’s cage and chewed on some fish biscuits that were originally intended for this creature. Clearly something funky is going on with the island’s relationship in time and location with the outside world. We knew that already, though, didn’t we? By the way, the name Charlotte Lewis is probably another Lewis Carroll reference (think of the Through the Looking Glass and white rabbit references from seasons 1 and 3) [EDIT: A commenter at another forum points out that Charlotte's name—Ben says her full name is Charlotte Staples Lewis— is a reference to C.S. (Clive Staples) Lewis.] Charlotte has a connection to Flight 815 and DHARMA that predates the flashback. Like the other people in her group, she doesn’t believe that Oceanic Flight 815 was ever really found.
- Frank Lapidus was a pilot for Oceanic Airlines and we meet him in The Bahamas, where he probably flies for tourists. He’s throwing toy jets into fish tanks in a ponderous way. In fact, he was supposed to be the pilot on Flight 815. We know better than to assume this is a coincidence. Frank also flies helicopters. He’s not a bad detective, either, though he’s not very discrete. Frank lets Oceanic Airlines (and us LOST viewers) know that he knows that someone took the trouble of sinking a bunch of decomposed bodies in a trench off of Indonesia to make the world think that everyone on Oceanic Flight 815 is dead. But those corpses don’t belong to the people who were on the plane. Wiki tells us that Lapidus is a Jewish family name meaning “torches” or “candles.” Hopefully, Frank will shed some light on the island’s mysteries for us.
- When we first see Locke in this episode, he’s back to strong, confident Locke, eyes closed and facing the rain, communing with the island and leading through intuition. He’s regained his prescience about the weather. This is the Locke I like best. I know Locke’s become a very divisive figure, but I’ve always liked him, and I’m not going to let Hurley’s future regrets change my opinion of him just yet.
- Does Jacob’s shack appear in different locations on the island? Hurley seemed to think it was in a different location than Locke. Is it fair to say that Locke is receiving instructions directly from Jacob now? Is that why he felt the need to take a detour to Jacob’s ghost shack?
- Sawyer’s nicknames are coming back, suggesting that he’s starting to get over the trauma that he experienced when he fulfilled his vendetta against the real Sawyer. “Colonel Kurtz” was one of my favorite. (That’s an Apocalypse Now and Heart of Darkness reference, of course, and it’s extremely appropriate.)
- As many commenters have noted already, Taller Walt is a nifty plot device and a convenient way to bring the actor Malcolm David Kelley back into the cast.
- Sayid and Juliet’s conversation on the beach was one of the highlights of the episode for me. “Because Ben’s a liar, and he’s trying to scare us. That’s what Ben does.” Unless he’s telling the truth. Thanks, Juliet.
- So I’m just going to throw out a theory on the freighter people now: they were sent by DHARMA (or DHARMA’s successors) to take out Ben and recapture the island from the natives. The gas masks found by Jack and Kate suggest that they don’t mind wiping out everyone on the island if they have to, so long as they accomplish their mission. The photo of Ben that Miles waived around looked an awful lot like Ben circa the coup against his fellow DHARMA-ites.
- One thing I’ve noticed about Jack: he never bluffs.
- That appears to be a steer that Frank sees at the top of the ridge (those aren’t utters underneath) and its wearing a cowbell. We’ve also seen domesticated chickens on the island. It’s anyone’s guess who the steer belongs to.
- Yeah, the guy who sent Naomi and the rest on their mission is the same guy who visits Hurley in the mental hospital after he gets back to the mainland. We don’t know who he is, but I’m betting he doesn’t work for Oceanic Airlines like he told Hurley.
- As usual, no matter what the situation, Ben seems to have the upperhand. Also as usual, his advantages have to do with his intelligence, both in wit and information. He knows everything about the helicopter people, and claims to have a mole on the freighter. He also claims not to know what the Smoke Monster is, but I think he’s a lying liar when he says that. Unless he’s telling the truth.
I didn’t catch a whole lot of easter eggs in this episode, but if you know of any, please feel free to post them in the comments section below. (Don’t worry, I’ve finally broken down and ordered an HDTV and just received confirmation that it’s been shipped. With any luck, those easter eggs will be a lot easier to spot soon.)
Posted on February 8, 2008, in Television and tagged Lost. Bookmark the permalink. 46 Comments.
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Who do you think is Ben’s mole on the freighter? Anyone we haven’t seen since, oh the final episode of season two? You know, someone who killed Ana Lucia and Hurley’s girlfriend (can’t remember her name now), and then shot himself in the shoulder…
I liked this episode. I’ve never agreed with Locke’s rather extremist methods. Did he really have to throw the knife in Naomi’s back in order to convince Jack’s group to follow him? No he didn’t. She wasn’t actually a threat. Not in her position as she was, injured and with no weapon on her. The fact that he murdered (because that’s what it is when you kill an unarmed individual with a knife in the back) her really really turns me off to him.
Also, I really like these four new characters. I think they’re wonderful, and apparently we’ll be seeing them for some time (though for how long is of course unknown, the way the body count rises on this island).
And it’s funny really, about Locke. Here you have Ben shooting him and leaving him for dead, truly the bad guy in the story, and Locke attempts to kill an unarmed woman instead of the man who tried to take his life? This man, Locke, is unhinged. I mean, just a day later, after Ben tries to kill Charlotte, Locke now says, “Oops, my bad. Let me finally kill Ben.” only to be taken for a ride again by Ben. Take him out already! He’s so thoroughly messed with your mind, Locke. But we know Locke is a man easily gullible. Look at how easily his father took him for rides. And I’m not talking about rides to the park.
I don’t know if the writers are intending this, but Locke is turning out to be a very weak character in my view. He is turning into Ben. And I don’t think he realizes this.
Favorite part of the episode: when Miles said, “How stupid do you think we…” and then Sayid and Juliet shoot at them, then Jack comes over and asks, “I don’t know, how stupid are you?” It was one of those awesome moments.
This was a great episode and I’m glad you’re back in business, Greg. I love these recaps. And I agree, I like the energy of these episodes.
I don’t think the Mole is Michael. I don’t remember Ben giving him any kind of instruction before he left and I can’t imagine Michael being the kind of person that would follow it anyway. I imagine it’s someone we haven’t met yet. Where is Jin/Sun and Bernard/Rose by the way?
Bernard/Rose are with Locke. They just don’t have many lines.
My favorite scenes were Sayid/Juliet. Those two should get together and have crafty children.
Also, I think Jack’s character’s been completely rehabilitated now. He’s awesome again. Locke is awesome, but totally crazy. I love it.
I am loving this season. The first episode was a little slow, but this one had plenty of “WTF?” moments that reminded me of why I love this show in the first place. I was also pleasantly surprised by how much I like the new characters; ever since the randomly introduced hotties a couple seasons ago, I’ve been wary.
Somebody else mentioned that Michael might be the mole on the boat – I like that idea.
Easter eggs? Hmmm, I called the Oceanic Air hotline, 888-548-0034, that the Lawnmower Man saw on his TV. It works!
What if Ben is lying about the mole? What if it is another mind game to sow doubt and confusion into the freighter? But, he did know an awful lot about them…
What about Penny? Where is she? Where is Des?
If you recall the Flashback last night, Naomi was the leader of the expedition…apparently. And, her death was probably a good thing for the island.
I think the polar bear in Tunisia strongly hints about time travel…teleportation, etc…
Bernard/Rose are with Locke.
They are? Even though Rose said “I’m not going anywhere with that man?” in the first episode?
Sorry, you’re right. I must have hallucinated them in the crowd.
Bernard and Rose are in the Jack faction, likely at the beach. Desmond is also part of the Jack faction.
Bernard and Rose chose to stay with Jack. They are on the beach at their usual camp.
… so did I see them on the beach, then, I wonder? I could have sworn I saw them somewhere.
#6
yes, I agree with this time travel/teleportation theory and if true, couldn’t Ben be the “mole”?
Maybe he knows the time travel secrets and he can go back and forth in time?
Did anyone catch or remember what Daniel Farraday said while they were walking through the jungle…something to the effect of how everything looks ??
(wish I would have recorded the show).
Dan said that the light is strange on the island–it doesn’t scatter.
Charlotte Lewis is probably another Lewis Carroll reference
Probably a C.S. Lewis reference. Ben said her name is Charlotte Staples Lewis. C.S. Lewis = Clive Staples Lewis.
It’s anyone’s guess who the steer belongs to.
Before Locke blew up the communications station Mikhail was at, they saw a cow there. And that hamburger Juliet brought Jack had to come from something. (Just some related observations.)
Oh, and my nickname is “Math Boy.” I echo, “Thanks, James.”
No one else thinks that Locke is whacked?
btw, I’m pretty sure it’s Faraday, as in Michael Faraday, who was a pioneer in the field of electromagnetism. Quoth the Wiki:
I thought Mikhail had a cow/steer at the Flame station.
Ben said Charlotte’s full name was Charlotte Staples Lewis as in C.S. Lewis.
Great recap. I was disappointed to see that BTD went to a forum format and was afraid you had stopped doing these recaps. Glad you found a new home here.
Dang, Heather beat me on both counts. Sorry I’m too slow.
The only reason Locke “needed” to kill Naomi is that Taller Walt told him to.
My nickname is Hawking.
I liked this one a lot more. Some really interesting characters and the writing/dialogue seemed to be more solid.
I did have questions about motivations of certain characters. One in particular was Claire exhorting Locke to “talk it over” when he was ready to kill Ben. Umm, this guys has spent months trying to take your baby from you. He did have you kidnapped and sedated by the way with your beloved Charlie left for dead in a tree. Doesn’t ring true.
As far as Rose and Bernard – they are probably on the beach. Wherever they are I hope they stay there. They are incredibly dull. Des, on the other hand, needs to be more involved.
Good to see Sawyer back to normal.
Good show overall!
Oh yeah! I loved that moment, laughed out loud
This is good good stuff.
i like how they’re anticipating the re-incorporation of post-pubertal walt by inserting that “taller” comment.
OK what I kept fixating on is how Dan Faraday has an OED on his coffee table. A physicist? An OED? Also- is this Eliot from ET?
great episode- more mysteries and less drama!
Dan,
Didn’t this 2nd episode just show us that Naomi is by no means “defenseless” whether she is armed or not. Her sole purpose there was to do the fighting for the freighter people. It seems to me that taking her out was a VERY good strategy from the Locke/Ben perspective.
What I want to know is what is going on in the Others’ camp? Pretty much all of their leaders left them and never came back.
Ben is a time bandit. He travelled through time to alter the past and future. In the future, he is found out and a team is sent to track him down. Quite possibly he screwed up the world’s weather, polar axis, etc. messing with things he shouldn’t in time. Hence, the reference to the light not scattering, polar bear carcasses in Tunisia, etc.
The mystery guy who visited Hurley in the hospital is in charge of assembling a team to go back in time and stop Ben. At the moment they don’t seem qualified to do anything, They seem very amateur. Freaking out as the helicopter is crashing, revealing there was a code. revealing there are 4 of them, putting the gun in your pants where it can be seen, admitting your mission isn’t to rescue them, making a weird comment about the light, finding the box of stuff that fell out of the helicopter and saying I wasn’t in charge of packing.
As for finding the plane, it’s obviously a fake put there so people will quit looking for the real one. However, the screwed up by forgetting to put a wedding ring on the captain’s finger and his buddy noticed it. Also remember the tail section broke off, the cockpit and pilot ended up in the jungle, etc. This decoy plane was intact.
Ben doesn’t have anybody on the boat. The reason he knows all about them is that he’s time traveled and researched them.
The mystery guy in the hospital asked Hurley if they’re still alive. I think he was referring to his team, not the plane crash victims.
Did you notice how Daniel seemed in awe when he asked, “Are you Jack?” I think in the final episode of the 7th season, Jack will save the day (heck – the future and the planet for that matter) and forever after he will be hailed as a hero. (terminator type of theme) Hence, Daniel from the future meets this idol he’s learned about in school and revered his whole life and he turns out to be just a scruffy guy in the jungle. Also consider the Biblical reference to Daniel being thrown into the lions’ den.
Miles the Ghost Whisperer – Why did he give her a refund? Could the grandson but the short person in the coffin in the black funeral home???
“Miles the Ghost Whisperer – Why did he give her a refund?”
I think it was because he got the windfall when he took the grandson’s drug money stash and was feeling generous.
What surprised me is that Matthew Abaddon in the future is no sure whether the rest of them are still alive or not. This could be due to two reasons: either nobody told him now many people Naomi & co. found or there was supposed to be some sort of mass killing/death which may or may not have gone through.
“I think it was because he got the windfall when he took the grandson’s drug money stash and was feeling generous.”
He didn’t take it. He put it back in the wall!
Niki, I went back and watched it, and he put the drugs back, but pocketed the cash.
He pocketed the cash.
Was it just me, or did the picture in Miss Gardner’s house not look a lot like Eko as a child?
Never mind. I just got a better look and it doesn’t look that much like him. I do wonder, however, why they gave two close-ups of that picture.
He gave 1/2 the money back, because i think they are trying to set up that, even though he is a hustler, he is at least a conflicted one who still has a heart.
Big questions that I am interested in this season:
– time travel? From what we know of Ben, his strength comes from research and using information to manipulate. There have been times when he has been genuinely surprised (his cancer, etc…)
– where did Walt and Michael go? They may not be part of the Oceanic Six…and, if they are, how are they going to explain it?
– do we know now the secret/lie that Jack and Hurley are talking about in the flash forwards, that the real airliner is not at the bottom of the ocean…
Clearly Milo and the rest are not surprised that they are alive…
Any guesses on the next Oceanic Six revelation???? My money is on Sayid.
I read on the internets that Miles Straume is a play on “maelstrom” (and, in fact, until I read this recap I thought his last name was Strom).
I also read that Abaddon means “destruction” in Biblical Hebrew and it comes from a root word meaning “lost.”
I think Ben may be able to travel through time, but another real possibility is that he has psychic ability. I think this could explain his uncanny ability to focus in on people’s weaknesses.
I think there’s a lot of psychics, or people with latent psychic abilities of one kind or another, on the island. Hurley and Walt, for example.
Great to have your LOST blogging back, Greg. You always add an element here or there that I don’t find anywhere else.
Claire is one character who is amazingly weird. The whole “take Charlie back” bit last year made no sense. I hope that they explain that. However watching someone get cold blooded murdered in front of you would be shocking for most people. So I can understand her comment to Locke.
BTW – Eisner’s been out of Disney for quite some time.
When the Ghost Buster entered the bedroom, there was a poster on the wall with a prominant number 15 on it.
Hmm. I wonder if the numbers will ever make a reappearance in any significant way?
I would argue that if you don’t want to see someone get murdered in cold blood, then you wouldn’t follow a man into the jungle whom you saw huck a knife into a woman’s back just hours earlier.
“BTW – Eisner’s been out of Disney for quite some time.”
Yeah, I know. But the linked article quoted Eisner as saying the strike is over.
Story on NPR this morning is that the strike will be over Monday. That they finally reached an agreement (and as expected, just before the Oscars).
Of course the alternative was stay back and be “rescued” by someone your boyfriend died warning you about.