I’m So Very Lost (Lost: Season 4 Episode 12: Cabin Fever)

Oh, Losties. Did we get a good one last night, or what?! I have to start with an introductory paragraph about…well, me. During the entire show, every time something big would happen I’d say, “How in the world am I going to recap this?” I must have said it ten times. I have to admit it’s a little daunting. This was an episode chock-full of murky Lost goodness. I doubt I’ll be able to get ever detail and little tidbit the writer’s threw in but that’s never stopped me before. Let’s see what we can do…

flashBack

A young girl dressed in a poodle skirt and spreading on some bright red lipstick is confronted by her mother about leaving the house. The girl is completely rude to her mom and when her mother says, “He’s twice your age!” speaking of her date, the girl retorts, “What? Are you jealous?” She then runs out of the house and yells, “I love him!”

She never makes it to this lover boy because she is immediately hit by a passing car (did I mention it was raining?! Always with the rain!). We see her in the hospital where she tells the nurse that she’s six months pregnant. She delivers the baby, a preemie and is not allowed to touch him. As they wheel him out she says, “His name is John.”

YES! You can thank me for asking for this every week. JOHN LOCKE. (And seriously, besides Michael, I think John might have the saddest backstory and this week doesn’t help any.)

We’re back to the hospital and the teenage mother & her mother are watching John in the incubator. The nurse is going to let her hold him for the first time. She begins to cry and runs out of the room. The new grandmother tries to light up a smoke and asks “So, who do I talk to about adoption?” Nice family.

Just then, the nurse sees a man staring in the window. She asks, “Is that the father?” The grandmother looks and says, “I’ve never seen that man before.”

But guess what? I HAVE. It was none other than sexy-eyes himself, Richard Alpert. Does the man ever age?! (read: time warp, time travel, time loop!)

Now we jump to Locke’s adoptive family and his younger years. He can’t be more than seven and he’s setting up a backgammon (!) game. His (foster?) sister tells him he’s stupid, but his (foster?) mother comes in with…Richard, who is from a special school. He wants to interview John to see if he’s qualified for the school.

He pulls out several items from a canvas messenger bag (did this seem out of place/time?); a baseball glove, a glass vial of sand, a comic book, a compass, a knife and a big very cool old book titled, “Book of Laws”. He asks John, “Which of these belong to you?” John replies, “That I can have?” Richard shakes his head, he wants John to pick the things that ALREADY belong to him. John seems to understand. He picks the sand, the compass and the knife. When he picks the knife, Richard is upset, “Are you sure?” John is. Richard says, “Well, it’s not.” He grabs the rest of the stuff and leaves without an explanation.

(Oh, I have a bunch to say about this! Later, later. Let’s get to High School…)

John is in High School now. He’s the geeky kid that gets locked in the, uhm, lockers. His equally geeky science teacher brings him to the nurses’ station to have a heart to heart. He tells John that he may not want to be the guy behind the beakers and chemicals, but that’s who he is. And then shows him a brochure for a Science Camp run by Mittelos Laboratories and Richard Alpert. The Science Camp wants John to attend. He tells John he can’t be a superhero. John looks at his teacher and says, “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!”

(Oh my lord. The Island is looking for John!)

Now, we’re jumping way into the past/present and see John in physical therapy after his accident attack by his dad. He’s being pushed in a wheelchair by a very dark skinned orderly with an equally dark and rich voice. When they don’t show the orderly’s face, I know we have a problem.

The man is encouraging Locke that he is more than just a cripple and miracles do happen. He then tells Locke about a “walkabout”. He persuades Locke to “find himself” on this walkabout and “when you see me again, you’ll owe me.”

Did I mention the identity of this man? It’s ol’ Matthew Abbadon. The “Oceanic attorney” that visited Hurley? The organizer of Naomi’s team to the Island? Yeah, that Matthew Abbadon.

Let’s take a break and talk about this…

1. Richard Alpert is timeless. I’ve read a few theories about the time warps and time traveling. This makes perfect sense when seeing Richard. He has been the same age every time we see him–“present” time when the Losties arrive, when Ben was a child, when Ben kills Dharma and when Locke is a child. Maybe present-day-Richard is traveling back through John’s life to get him to the Island as soon as possible.

2. Time travel also make sense when you think about the visit to John as a child. Richard was holding several items that were in fact The-Island-John’s. Richard wanted to see if John-the-child understood this. Perhaps when you’ve time traveled in the future, your former younger self knows it—because in fact, there is no younger or older self. It’s just YOU in different times/ages/planes.

3. The early theories of Dharma (or someone) getting our specific Losties on the plane is looking feasible again. Matthew Abbadon obviously talked John into the walkabout which got him to Australia. (Oh, Australia…) Matthew Abbadon seems to have some kind of Hereoes thing going on where he can speak and people do what he say without question.

I think that’s it for now. Let’s get to the freighter.

Freighter Freaks

Sayid wakes up Desmond because the helicopter is on its way. Keamy and his crew diesembark. They call the doc because of their injured man who “was attacked by a smoke monster and had it’s guts ripped out.” Keamy (who totally reminds me of Back to the Future’s Biff…seriously, what is up with his mouth?) calls for the captain and is freaking out because he realizes someone on the boat sold him out to Ben. He is irate that Ben was knew everything about him. The captain blames Michael, who is now handcuffed inside the boat. Keamy kicks the heck out of Michael and tries to shoot him. But as we’ve seen before, guns are useless on Michael. (ACK!)

Keamy grabs the captain’s key to the safe. He opens the safe to reveal…what’s the word?…the 2nd tier plans from Whidmore. The captain doesn’t think he’s allowed to do this. Keamy could care less. He tells the captain he’s going back to the Island to torch it.

Keamy is then suited up to wear a weird beeping thingie on his very ripped up arm. When the captain confronts him with a gun, Keamy shoots & kills him. (There was some conversation here, but it was basically just the captain trying to be noble. Seemed inconsequential to me.) Lapidus also pulls the noble card and says he won’t fly the heli until…

KEAMEY SLITS THE DOCTORS THROAT and THROWS HIM OVERBOARD

to prove to the pilot that he is serious. Hmmm…where have we seen this before? I don’t know, about TWO DAYS ago on The Island. I feel like time is speeding up! Wasn’t it only about 30 minutes off at first? Now, it seems to be hours off.

Oh, but before this, the Captain helps Sayid commandeer a lifeboat type craft (“the Zodiac”) to take to The Island. Sayid still thinks everyone needs to be off The Island to live. Whatever.

Oh, oh, and one more mini-scene. Lapidus helps Michael up after his beat-down from Keamy. He asks Michael why he didn’t tell him about being a Survivor. Uh, because it’s crazy…I wasn’t supposed to…you’re a bad guy…I’m going to die…the usual. That was weird for me.

I don’t know. The whole freighter thing seemed crazy. Keamy is just vengeful and ready to annihilate Ben. The whole boat seems to be heading towards a frenzy. I understand why the Oceanic Six got out on a helicopter and NOT the boat. I don’t think that freighter is going to last much longer. (Poor Desmond.)

The Island
Jack & Juliet have a silly doctor-patient conversation. Then they hear the helicopter. Everyone runs to the edge of the beach. They watch the heli fly over their heads and see something drop from it (and hit Claire’s old tent…). It’s Lapidus’ sat phone wrapped in a vest. Jack picks it up and says, “I think they want us to follow them.”

I just don’t really care about Jack. Just wake me up when he and the other Oceanic Six get on the helicopter.

Now. Onto the FREAKIEST part of the night. I saved this for last…

Locke, Hurley Hugo & Ben (aka The Three Crazies)

Our cabin-searchers are still wandering in the jungle. They get into a little who’s-on-first about where the cabin is and who’s the leader. They decide to camp for the night and after they are all bedded down, suddenly John wakes up to the sound of someone felling trees.

He walks closer to the sound and sees a man with a Dharma worksuit on chopping down trees. The man calls himself Horace and is not remotely surprised to see Locke. He tells him that he’s just taking a break from the DI (Dharma Inititave) and making a little cabin for him “and the Mrs.”

When Horace turns around again his nose is bleeding (hello, Desmond & Minkowski). He tells Locke he’s been dead for 12 years and that Locke needs to find him to find who he’s looking for. Then Locke wakes up again (oh, with the tight shot of his eye!).

Ben is staring at him and says, “I used to have dreams, too.” Locke wakes Hugo up and the three of them begin walking. Hugo asks where they are going. Locke asks him if he wonders where all the Dharma people went to. (Ben begins to roll his enormous eyes.) Soon they arrive at the mass grave of dead Dharma-ites. Hugo says, “What happened to them?” and best line of the night, Locke motions to Ben and retorts, “He did.”

Locke begins searching through the bodies until he finds Horace, who’s name tag also reads mathematician. (And if you remember is the same man who helped Ben’s mom when she died, brought Ben & Ben’s dad to the Island and was married to Ben’s elementary school teacher…just food for thought…) Inside his pocket is a map to yes, a cabin.

They follow the map and discover the cabin. Ben and Hugo refuse to enter. Ben gets all weird-o about how his destiny has changed and The Island doesn’t want him anymore, blah blah. Whatever, Ben.

So, Locke, the fearless one, walks into the cabin alone. And sees, sitting in the dark, a very chipper Christian Shepherd. No surprise here. The surprise however, is as they continue to trade veiled comments Locke looks around and sees CLAIRE SITTING IN THE SHADOWS, surprisingly happy (maybe even high, she was so happy) and seemingly in the know. When Locke asks about Aaron, Christian says, “The baby is where he should be.” (Sidenote: Is Claire dead? Because she was just too freakin’ weird to be normal. She seemed very black- smoke-all-knowing-The-Island-ish.)

Their conversation basically consisted of Christian getting Locke to ask the right question which was, “How do I protect the Island?”

When Locke returns to Hugo & Ben (who share a candy bar while waiting for Locke), he tells them that “He wants us to move The Island.”

BLACK SCREEN. THE END.

OK. Are you completely freaked out? I mean, that was seriously too much to process!

1. What in the blue blazes is Christian doing speaking for Jacob? Not to mention WHO IS JACOB? Not to mention WHY IS CLAIRE with Christian? Not to mention WHY IS SHE UNCONCERNED FOR AARON? Oh my gosh, what if she CHOOSES to stay on The Island and Kate takes Aaron because she thinks Claire is crazy?

2. What is Ben’s stupid thing about not being in tune with the Island anymore? Is this more of his manipulation? We’ve all seen his future…hmmm…is it his future?

3. MOVE THE ISLAND? OH MY LORD. I just have no speculation about that. Move it physically? Through time and space?

Questions Answered
1. Uhm…
2. Maybe….
3. We kinda know where Claire is?

New Questions
(besides the 3 million I already listed…)
1. What were the significance of the items that Richard showed child-John?
2. Why has Richard/The Island been watching Locke since he was born?

Random Theory
The Island is the best and worst of fate…people who were dead are no longer dead, time travel, space travel and immortality are all possible and probable. Apparently, The Island has a mission and will do (and can do) whatever is necessary to make that happen. So, yeah, maybe Christian Shepherd and Claire are dead but they still need them to “do” something for The Island, so here they are.

In Conclusion.
Please, are you kidding me? I can’t even comprehend everything that happened last night. If there was some magical hidden meanings, the plain old story-line had me bamboozled. I loved every second. What were your revelations? What did I miss?

(hey, if you get too lost, we can keep talking about it all week at ohamanda.com)