Wading in the Velvet Sea

I don’t mean to come off as if I didn’t like the episode. I did. But I was looking forward to a big “WHOA” of a show, something that would drop a huge piece into the jigsaw puzzle. While this episode did fill in a few pieces, I also realized that the show’s continually expanding the size of the puzzle. If Season 1 was a 100-piece puzzle, this is one of those 1,000 piece, double-sided, “We’re not even going to give you a picture of what the hell you’re trying to put together” puzzles. And lest I start sounding exactly like Chris Martin with all this puzzle talk, on with the instareview.

Locke, Stock, and The Black Rock

C’mon, when you read the name of the episode, “The Brig”, you knew the Black Rock would make an appearance, right? It’s the only ship left that Locke hasn’t blown up. Which in a way is ironic, since it would be the easiest to destroy. It’s already loaded with unstable dynamite. Locke could pass gas within 200 yard and blow up the Black Rock. And yet, there it stands. Amazing.

In addition, I’m sure only three people were fooled into thinking it was actually Ben that Locke had captured. If they hadn’t shown the first scene, with Anthony screaming like a Girl Scout who just lost her stash of cookies as Locke read Sawyer’s file, they could have built a teeny bit of tension out of the journey. But no way that’s Ben, after seeing that scene. Locke’s been shown to be systematically unable to get anywhere near a step ahead of Ben. I’m not buying that suddenly Locke turns into the main character from “Splinter Cell” and gets the drop on ol’ Ben, cane withstanding.

As for the reveal of Anthony as “The Real Sawyer”, well, it just didn’t do it for me. The scene as a whole? Absolutely. Great stuff on both actors’ parts, great direction, and a suitably nasty death. But as a mindblowing reveal, this was no, “Luke, I’m your father.” It was more, “Ah, I was right. That, um, that never happens. Not sure what to do here. Do I high five myself? Cuz like, I’m the only one here right now. If a theory’s correct in the woods and no one’s there to hear it, does it make a sound?”

More intriguing to me is Cooper’s theory on the Island. For a while, all his, “You think this is an ISLAND?” jibber jabber was grating, because I was thinking, “Cut the Lostanese and tell me what you think it is! Alternate dimension? Theme park? Snow globe? Cuz Desmond already claimed ‘snow globe’, you con artist turned plagiarist!”

Well, turns out, he’s pretty sure in hell. Since “hell”, for Anthony Cooper, is waking up after an accident and seeing the son he thought died on Oceanic 815.

Bloody Hell

I don’t want to give any credence, per say, to the theory that they are in hell, since 1) I hate hate hate that theory, 2) He’s a goddamn con artist, and 3) why the hell would the Dharma Initiative try to save the world from HELL of all places, but forget all that and let’s talk about just WHY he thinks he’s dead, and more importantly, why he thinks Locke is dead.

So, Anthony Cooper’s driving along a highway, in Tallahassee, and gets slammed from behind while going seventy miles an hour. He hits the divider, crashes, and the last thing he remembers is a paramedic smiling at him before the world goes black. The next thing he remembers is waking up in the steel room that we saw him in at the end of “The Man From Tallahassee”.

That’s what we know from him, and I think it’s safe to assume that’s all factually correct. But we also know one more thing. We know that at the time of the crash, he knew of the Oceanic 815 crash, knew the wreckage had been found, and knew that everyone was dead. This is important.

It’s important because it’s more than likely that the magic box is a ginormous lie.

Here’s how I propose they’ll retcon this in the future, given what we know and one key scene from tonight’s episode involving Richard Alpert’s unexpected help.

Oceanic 815 crashes on the island. Ben et al go into crisis management mode, with infiltration by Goodwin and Ethan, recon by Mikhail and Richard, all directed by Ben. As they collect data on the survivors, Ben locks on, pun intended, to John Locke, the potential Malcolm to his MacBeth, the one destined to overthrow him. Ben volunteers to infiltrate the Lostaways to get at Locke, to find out why he can be healed, without having to bring him in contact with the Others. This plan fails, and before the sky went purple, Ben orders Alpert to run Anthony Cooper off the road, much in the way that he ordered Richard to take out Juliet’s ex-husband. By bringing Anthony to the Island, he’ll always have a wild-card to neutralize John. Thing is, there’s a schism in the Others. Juliet’s part of that schism (I think we can assume her desire to kill Ben in surgery was legit, now), and we learn tonight that Richard is part of that schism, as well. Richard leaks the info of Sawyer’s connection to Anthony as a way to insert Locke as the leader of those who deem the island “special” and not just a place to keep fetuses alive against all odds.

In short, there is no magic box. There may be MAGIC on the island, but Locke did not summon Anthony Cooper to the island through sheer force of will. He was brought by Ben as a pawn in a larger game. The chess metaphor’s an interesting one, actually, since Ben’s been moving all the pieces towards another raid on the island. The place the Others are moving towards it the last move before checkmate. Thing is, he didn’t count on Richard’s interference. And now, Locke’s in charge of the board.

And he’s looking from above as both sides set to take each other out, leaving himself to claim leadership over those that survive.

Tale of the Tape

Since that’s where we’re going, right? War! Uh! What is it good for? (Um, killing Charlie, maybe?)

What Locke did in giving Sawyer the audio recording was nothing short of ensuring that the “peaceful” raid of the Lostaway pregnant women will turn into an absolute bloodbath. And while Locke may be unable to kill Anthony himself, he’s pretty much willing to wash his hands, Pontius Pilate-style, of anyone else who may die in his pursuit of true communion with the Island. The Lostaways will hear the recording, know the date of attack, and be waiting. Oh sure, they won’t wipe out the Others, but they’ll take a few down, for sure. It’s not exactly a moral plan, but then again, neither is unleashing “National Bingo Night” on an unsuspecting public. Locke and ABC, glass houses, you get the picture.

Locke may not be looking to outright supplant Ben, but as mentioned earlier, more than a few people within the Others would be plenty happy if they did. The notion of forging his own path, independent of either The Lostaways or The Others, is worth noting, but sooner or later, what Locke will crave is community, in addition to communion. We’ve seen it in numerous flashbacks, we’ve seen it in his relationship initially with the Lostaways….he’s a man not averse to solitude so long as it leads him to a healthy place within society. Maybe not the Upper East Side of Manhattan type of society, but say, maybe, an illegal hash farm in California, for instance.

In giving Sawyer the audiotape of Juliet’s message to Ben, he’s leveling the playing fields for the Lostaways. Not out of sympathy for them, but in order to ensure that as many people are left dead when all is said and done. Both sides, as it stands now, prevent Locke from achieving his purpose: to find out the true nature of the Island and be at one with it. The Lostaways all want to leave the Island, and Ben won’t let anyone give Locke any real answers. The only way for Locke to truly achieve his goal is to in essence weed out those who stand in his way. The upcoming raid just might do that for him. And if many people he once stood beside die for him to achieve that, well, that’s just what the Island would want anyways.

(Here's the irony: the obsessive need to belong to and maintain community? Sounds a lot like Ben, eh?)

Hello, I'm a Mac (And I'm a Sayid)

Course, the world that the Lostaways want to return to may not asking be a world that they want to visit.

In an act so smart I can’t believe a Lostaway did it, nevermind four of them, Hurley, Charlie, Jin, and Desmond decide the only person they can trust with the existence of Naomi is Sayid. I had to pause the DVR for a second, as I got light-headed from the rationale behind that decision. (Whereas I paused the TV to smack myself in the head once Kate went into, “I’ve got a secret I will tell, I will tell, I will tell” at the end of the episode.) Thank you, Sayid! Man of reason! Has his head on relatively straight! Good job, boys! Dharma smoothies for you all.

What we learned from Naomi: Oceanic 815 was found, entirely, off the coast of Bali, with all the people inside. So we know it wasn’t half a ship, or that it was simply assumed that everyone died: an intact ship, 4 miles down below the ocean floor, filled with bodies.

That’s one heckuva expensive prop, Others Corp. Nicely done.

Now, as far as Naomi’s loyalty, I’m still siding with her as an Other, given all the weirdness of last week, her interaction with Mikhail, and yes, that crazy, crazy phone. Yes, her phone. Her prototype iPhone. A phone that Sayid, so recently a high-ranking military official, had never seen before. As to why he’s never seen it before, well, I think we can assume it’s because as far as he’s lived, it’s not been invented yet.

Note I say, quite purposefully, “as far as he’s lived”, not “as far as he knows”. We know Naomi’s story describes a ship found off the coast of Bali, four miles deep. That’s really, really deep. So deep that I have a hard time believing that the wreck was found in so short a time. Toss in the fact that the pilot in the first episode insisted that “they are looking for us in the wrong place”, and you have the far more likely scenario that the wreckage was discovered long after three months dating from late September, 2004.

Which means that, as far as Sayid’s concerned, Naomi’s from the future. And she’s got a future phone to prove it.

Let’s go back, for a second, since we’ve got Sayid, we’ve got Hurley, we’ve got a transmitter, and we’ve got a space-time continuum issue at hand, and go back to “The Long Con, an episode that, at the end, featured Sayid and Hurley tuning a radio into a military station playing Glenn Miller’s “Moonlight Sonata”. Here’s the dialogue:

Sayid: Radio waves at this frequency bounce off the ionosphere. They can travel thousands of miles. It could be coming from anywhere.

Hurley: Or, anytime. (beat) Just kidding, dude.

Just sorta tossed in there in Season 2, but clearly something that the writers had in mind from the get-go. Once the sky went purple, I figure, time stopped being so 1-1 between the Island and the Real World. It stands to reason that we as viewers cannot accurately say exactly when Penelope’s crew “discovered” the Island in relation to Desmond turning the key, nor can we accurately say that it took Naomi two weeks to reach the Island after the key was turned. As far as people on the Island go? Yes, those days line up nicely, but as far as the outside world…well, let’s just say the rest of the world’s moved on in the meantime. Moved on enough to have iPhones, which means that the real world is at least two years ahead of Island time, maybe more.

Buy why dwell? After all, according to Room 23, “only fools are enslaved by time and space”.

***

That’s it for this week’s instareview. As usual, there was a whole host of issues not addressed in this week’s edition, such as, “WTF does Juliet think Jack should tell Kate?” and “Is Locke The Jesus Of Hell?” and "Boy, that Pillar Looked an Awful Lot Like It Was Made By the People That Made the Four-Toed Statue, Don'tcha Think?" and “Does Any Actress Have a More Random, Frustrating Work Schedule Than the One Who Plays Cindy, the Stewardess?”

I’ll leave those and other topics for this weekend’s podcast. As per usual, don’t forget to visit my “Lost” home for all reviews, podcasts, and links. And don’t forget to leave your comments below! Only three more episodes until a very, very long break. You don’t want to miss any of it.