If you need me, I'll be in the food court

(Do not read until after you have watched the
season six episode of Lost entitled What Kate Does.
Written and published on February 10, 2010.)

Jin: Who do you care about Kate?
Answer: Claire!

Setting traps, running around in the wild, losing
her baby - it's confirmed - Claire is the New Rousseau!
But what is this heart of darkness? And interesting
that Kate "taking away" Aaron could have caused this
madness in Claire, in the same way that Ben taking
Alex did to Rousseau. What on earth will
Claire do to Kate when they meet up? Is Claire
as obsessed with finding her child as Rousseau was?

Claire wasn't on the Others' original list and
neither was Sayid. This may be why the Others think
they are infected with darkness. Sawyer was on the
original list, therefore they need to protect him,
get him back to the temple. Last night you heard
Aldo Other say that Jin MAY be on the list.
That's because the name Kwon is on the list -
but they are not certain which one - Sun or
Jin or perhaps their baby.

When Rousseau kidnapped Sayid in season one,
she also tortured him via electrocution and
asked "WHAT are you," not who. So is the
infection the same thing as the sickness
that Danielle believe took hold of her team
after they disappeared into the cleft of the
Temple wall? She thinks the Smoke Monster
somehow changed them. And like The Sickness,
The Infection can spread from person to person.
That would mean that Jacob is not the one
"wearing" Sayid after all. (I am reminded of
Stephen King's The Stand with all this talk of
infection spreading - some people getting it.
The writers of Lost keep a copy of The Stand
with them in the writers room at all times.)

And is this infection how Ben is able to summon
the Smoke Monster? When he was taken to the spring,
his heart was claimed by darkness, just like Rousseau's
people were, and now Claire & Sayid?

In season three, the Others did not bury people
the Losties killed. (Remember the beach-side funeral
that Jack and Juliet attended.) They did water burials.
And in season five, the Others got real upset over a
breach in the truce and had to dig up the guys Sawyer
and Juliet shot (to save Amy.) Maybe the reason
for that is because if you leave a dead body sitting
around on the island, it could get claimed by this
darkness. (If that is the case, why not buried Juliet?
I think it's interesting that Juliet and Jacob died
around the same time - not IN the same
time, but AT the same time in the shows narrative -
end of the season five finale. That and Jacob not
visiting her off island like our Losties and Ilana
remains a big point of interest to me. Jacob visited
everyone else seen in flashback in that
episode - The Incident, parts one and two.)

All this talk of darkness has me thinking about
Star Wars too, and going over to the dark side.
Also, watching the enhanced verison of last week's
premiere, Juliet dying tragically in Sawyer's arms,
reminded me of Romeo and Juliet where that Juliet
dies in her lover's arms.

Our new Other leader Dogan was playing with a
baseball. Do you know how many double stitches
are in a baseball? 108. Seriously.

By the way, Dogan's sidekick is named Lennon,
complete with the John Lennon style glasses. Nice.

The date on the ultrasound picture was 10/22/2004,
exactly one month after the 'original' 815 flight.
I don't know the significance of this, but it's Lost so
it could mean something or nothing - either way it is k-o-o-l.

The hospital listed on the bottom of Aaron's ultrasound
is Angel of Mercy. Perhaps that is a hint that this is not
about feuding brothers or Gods, but about the conflicting
roles of the Angel of Mercy (Jacob) and the Angel
of Death (Man In Black). That would make them on the
same team, but with conflicting roles, neither all good
or all bad. And perhaps the Man In Black also got this
infection, this darkness years ago when he was in his
human form. And somehow this infection, this darkness
never touched Jacob.

It's been made clear that Smokey has been using Jacob's
Cabin for a long time, but thinking about the chain of
events that created is mind-blowing:
When Ben brings Locke to the cabin and Locke hears Jacob
say "help me" - that was actually Smokey setting into motion
a chain of events that would lead up to Locke dying so MIB
could have a loophole. Christian and Claire were both
seen in the cabin as well so this would mean people claimed by
this infection are allied somehow with Smokey / MIB.

Will we see the guy who was going to be Aaron's adoptive
father? And if so,who will he be?

Kate used the alias Joan Hart last night. That name is a
reference to the TV show Sabrina the Teenage Witch. That
show co-starred the actress Beth Broderick who plays Kate's
mother, Diane Janssen, on Lost. Kate has used that alias
before. (How did flash-sideways Kate know her way around LA?
Yes, most people have heard of Brentwood, but how did she know
it's not far from where she picked up Claire? Unless the
flash-sideways Kate has lived in LA for like, uh, three years...
And is flash-sideways Kate innocent? Methinks no, not in the
Law & Order sense.)

Ethan was Ethan Rom on the island. But at Angel of Mercy
hospital he introduced himself as Dr. Goodspeed, Horace's son,
as if he'd never been on the island. I loved the contrast
between this Ethan and Claire. In this flash-sideways,
he said: I don't want to have to stick you with needles
if I don't have to. And I found this remark he made
interesting: I have a feeling that Aaron is going to be
a handful.

I'm loving the parallels to season one:
-Hour three of season one ("Tabula Rasa") is Kate-centric.
Hour three of season six is Kate-centric.
-Hour four of season one ("Walkabout") is Locke-centric.
Hour four of season six is named "The Substitute," judging
from that title and the preview, it has to be Locke-centric.
-Season one opens with a two hour pilot, and we see our Losties
on the plane and the direct aftermath of the crash. Season six
opens with a two hour episode with us seeing the Losties on a
plane headed for LAX and what happens just after they exit the
plane: Kate escapes, Christian's coffin is missing, etc.

The sound used in transitions between what's taking place
on the island and in the flash-sideways is different from
the sounds used to cut to the flashbacks and flash-forwards.
With the flashbacks and flash-forwards it was a "whooshing"
sound. With the flash-sideways it sounds more mechanical
like an airplane or that tick, tick we hear when the smoke
monster is coming. It is intentional to distinguish the
difference between the flash-sideways and the flash-forward/back.

It also reminded me of the season four episode, The Constant,
which was the very first episode where there were no "whooshing"
sounds. That was the Desmond-centric episode were his consciousness
was traveling between 1996 and 2004 (within the context of
the shows present time narrative.) A similar thing has to be
happening to our Losties right now - and Juliet knew it. There
are moments in these first three hours were our flash-sideways
Losties seem to know it too. When Jack looks in the mirror on
the plane, when he kinda recognizes Desmond, when Kate is trying
to getaway in the cab and sees Jack on his cell phone, when
Clarie shouts out Aaron's name in the hospital and Kate gives
her a look of recognition.


Interesting that Dogan had to have a proxy, have Jack give the
pill to Sayid, have Jack poison /kill Sayid. Is this another
example of the rules? Flock had to have Ben kill Jacob.
Ben cannot kill Widmore and vice versa. I love that Jack's way
to redemption and wiping the blood off his hands is to kill his
friend, Sayid. How very.

Finally, in the enhanced re-airing of season six, hour two
last night, one of the bubbles said that the flash-sideways
"presents what would have happened if 815 never crashed."
If, if, if...

- J