Before we delve into last night’s “Lost” episode, “Namaste,” I want to bring up important notes and questions from the previous episode.
We’ve been wondering since the second season what the Four-Toed Statue was and why it was unfinished. However, the episode “LaFleur” revealed that FTS was, at one point, a full-blown figure standing way tall. So now I’m wondering: where is the rest of it now?
And for those of you geography-illiterate like me, I finally looked up the exact location of Tunisia. It is country a little bigger than Florida’s panhandle that is wedged between Algeria and Libya in Northern Africa and butts out into the Mediterranean Sea. On the other side of Libya is Egypt, which may explain the hieroglyphics and ankhs we’ve seen all over the island. But the burning question remains: how and why is the island linked to Tunisia through the Frozen Donkey Wheel?
For a final bit of trivia, I looked up the meaning of the word “Ajira,” the name of the airline the Oceanic 6 took to return to the island. According to Webster’s, the word means “island” in Hindi. But suggestbabynames.com claims the Hindu name translates to “a winner.” Take it as you may. And for those who are wondering, “Oceanic” simply means “relating to the ocean.”
Now onto season five’s ninth episode.
First things first: Lapidus is the MAN. Last season, after Faraday asked him where the helicopter had crashed, he said, “Crash? The hell kind of pilot d’you think I am? I put her down safe and sound right over there.” Amen, Frank. Twice now you have navigated through the “electrical storm” that surrounds the island and twice you have safely landed your vessel. But the safe landing this time was no doubt facilitated by the mysterious landing strip.
Which brings me to a very important theory that has popped up. Doc Jensen over at EW suggested recently that everything on the island has been setting the O6 up for this sequence of events. He mentioned it in his post before episode nine, and I didn’t believe him. But after seeing the landing strip in “Namaste,” I’m becoming more convinced that a certain bug-eyed creeper is pulling the strings because he knows what the future holds. I’d like to suggest that Ben has Desmond’s Disease, in which he sees flashes of events that WILL happen in the future and if he changes them — as in turning the Frozen Donkey Wheel rather than Locke — they just flash again with the same outcome but with a different way to get there. Thanks Doc J for the inspiration. What do readers think of this possible theory?
In another direction, how come Sun didn’t make it to the 1977 main island with Sayid, Kate, Jack, and Hurlz? Locke promised Jin he wouldn’t bring Sun back, but Jack, of course, did not make that promise and so she returned. Is Locke’s will so powerful that its very energy prevented Sun from returning to the dangerous time and place of the island? Or perhaps Locke’s energy alone is not powerful enough, but his conflation with the island gives him powers as strong as the island’s? Did that make sense? Who cares? The show rarely does so I don’t have to either.
Another thing that didn’t make sense in last night’s episode was Jack’s name on the sub manifest. Juliet had to rush in with the “updated” list of recruits which included the O6 so they could keep their cover. But before she got there, Jack was already called up by Dr. Pierre Chang for processing and confirmed as a new recruit whose aptitude tests were already in Chang’s files. Although I do recognize that the rest of his file was missing, I find it interesting that his name was on the list to be processed before Juliet had the chance to add it. I feel this might end up being another example of the island or Ben setting up everything for this sequence of events.
To keep things semi-short, I’m going to wrap up by just sharing my personal favorite moments from last night:
* Reappearance of Christian.
* Sun hitting Ben upside the head (of course I love any moment in which Ben gets injured).
* Hurley’s “Uh…what?” comment, which echoes the feelings of every “Lost” viewer.
* Ethan as Horace and Amy’s baby.
* Little Ben serving Sayid a sandwich in jail (a reversal of Sayid visiting Henry Gale in the hatch’s armory in season two).
See ya in another week, brotha.
