Howdy Folks!! holy crap on a Dharma Apollo bar, this episode was FANTASTIC and it makes up for the "mehfest" we had last week. It had so many easter eggs and nods for geeks like myself that I didn't even know where to start when writing this beast up. Great flashbacks as we got more info about Locke and how he really fits into the island, but i am curious as to why we're not getting flashbacks from anybody who stayed on the island. Perhaps that what the finale will be or perhaps how next season will play out?  We'll have to wait and see. But let's get down to business cos we got A LOT of ground to cover!  (AND AS ALWAYS, HUUUUUUUUGE THANK YOU TO LOSTCUBIT AND DARK UFO FOR SCREENCAPS!! GREAT STUFF AS ALWAYS, FOLKS!)

THINGS I NOTICED ABOUT LOST

- Buddy Holly- sombody on the LOST team has some great taste in classic music. Emily Locke (who we met in season 1 in her older, more crazier self) was listening to the track, "Closer" by Holly.  If you remember, Holly was killed in 1959, in a plane wreck...wait, plane wreck!

- Emily Locke- we haven't seen Emily since season 1 where she helped Anthony Cooper con Locke out of his precious kidney. As my buddy Jake pointed out, both Locke and Ben have mothers with the same name: Emily. Both Locke and Ben were premies too...like me actually.......weird. 

- Scoreboard says: Island- 2, Guns pointed at Michael- 0- The island came to Michael's rescue AGAIN tonight as Keamy's gun jammed.  If you remember back to "Meet Kevin Johnson," Michael tried to shoot himself in the head, but the gun jammed, just like Keamy's. Michael needs to send the island a thank you card. But seriously, the island must still have plans for Michael if it's not willing to let him die at this point.

- Gotta love the whole motiff that LOST has of tying guys up in cuffs to pipes in small rooms. Michael was the newest victim tonight, following Locke and Ben who were cuffed in a small room in seasons 2 and 3, respectively. 

- Horace Goodspeed returns!! Horace returned in the form of a dream to Locke; and did anybody else notice how the dream seemed was almost like a broken record, repeating itself over and over? Odd.  Last time we saw Horace was towards the end of season 3 in "The Man Behind the Curtain" where Linus assisted in the Purge of the Dharma Intiative. 

That'll ruin your weekend.

Horace was the only body that Ben had the decency to close the eyes on. In a NUTTY geek revealtion, we found out that Horace built Jacob's cabin as a means of getting away from Dharma.  Yet, there has to be more to the puzzle than just a getaway spot. how/why does  Jacob inhabit the cabin?!?!?!?  Also, did you notice that he's credited as a Mathematician?  LOST sure does love its scientists and math fantatics as we've gotten several name references and so forth. But why would Dharma employ a mathematician?

Or, could Horace be Jacob?!?!

Compare the two:

Horace

Jacob

The two have similiar hair and forehead structures, at least from what I can tell. Could it be?!! This is just food for thought, btw. I have no factual info on this.

- Good vs. Evil- I don't know about you folks, but I got a huge sense of a struggle going on for John Locke.  In the beginning, Richard Alpert sees Locke as a child and then later as a young man, etc.  How did Alpert known from the VERY BEGINNING that Locke was destined for whatever purpose?  And let's not forget that we've seen Alpert before. He's one of hte original Others on the island and he DOES NOT APPEAR TO AGE.

The first time we saw him was with a young Benjamin Linus and then as an adult with Ben and the Others.

and here he is showing up when Locke is a baby and then a young kid.

Now, it's obvious that Alpert wanted Locke to come with him right away, but Locke just wasn't ready for it.  We also saw an appearance from Matthew Abaddon.

You'll remember that we saw him earlier in the season when he approached Hurley in the mental hospital in the future, asking him if "they were still alive" to which Hurley freaked out. 

We also saw that he was working for Charles Widmore as he gave orders to Naomi and justified the selections they made for their crew to the island. 

I am curious about his talk with Locke though.  It's been assumed/believed that he's working for Widmore and therefore, probably a bad guy. However, why would he encourage Locke to head to the island in the first place?  What does he know about Locke that makes him want to mess with Lockes head and persuade him to go on the Walkabout, putting him on that plane, a plane that will crash?  How does he know this?  More damn questions!  I did like how he said that John would "owe him one," probably referring to Locke regaining his ability to walk. 

- The items- now, Alpert placed some items in front of young Locke. They were: a baseball glove, a knife, a compass, a book called "Book of Law," a vial of ash and/or sand, and a comic book.  Now, the compass and knife have obvious Locke relations as they're what Locke uses as a hunter, etc; the vial of ash or sand could represent the island or the ash surrounding Jacob's cabin; I don't have a clue in hell about the glove, maybe an allusion to Jack and his love of baseball?, but I have a blurb about the comic book. Notice the caption: "WHAT WAS THE SECRET OF THE MYSTERIOUS HIDDEN LAND!" Sound familiar?  

In season 1, Walt was seen reading a comic book (which was actually Hurley's comic) that had a polar bear AND a drawing of land encased in a large bubble, which has obvious allusions to the island. The comic also had nods to the polar bear, which is another part of the LOST mythos. Here are some screencaps of it:

Now, onto the BOOK OF LAW.

Now, the book really resembles what is known as the Kitab-i-Aqdas, which is the central book of the Bahai faith.  It details not only rules and laws, but discusses people, ideas, etc, regarding their faith.  During the LJ chat last night, somebody posted a link to what the book looks like on the inside:

Could this be related to the religion and faith of the Others on the island???  It's obvious what Alpert was doing. He wanted Locke to pick something that 'once belonged to him,' maybe implying that John is the reincarnation of somebody from the island. If Locke picked the right thing, possibly the book, in my opinion, this would prove John has a connection to the island and would probably be brought back.  however, John wasn't ready yet and chose the knife over the book; he chose a weapon over laws and rules and John wasn't ready to join the Others yet, and thus, Alpert left. I did like what Ben said though about the Others and their past:

1. He did not order the Purge, therefore implying that Jacob or even Richard did
2. His time as the leader is over, perhaps making way for John.  Think about Richard trying to recruit John from an early age and think about how in season 3 John was really revered during his time with the Others as they thought he was somebody special. We'll have to wait and see.

- "Don't tell me what I can't do!"- looks like Locke has been saying that since he was a wee lad!

- Geronimo!! YOu folks catch the ever fast Geronimo Jackson poster/pic in Locke's locker?

If you remember, Hurley and Charlie were listening to Geronimo Jackson in the Hatch in season 2.  Sayid comes across the two listening to it and adds, "This music is incredibly depressing."  Also, the undercover cop that Locke picked up, Eddie, was wearing a Geronimo Jackson shirt.  What we're wondering is: who is in the picture behind it; the old guy? What's the deal with that?

UPDATE: DArk UFO readers tracked it down: it's a pic of Sir Richard Burton

He's known for being a great explorer, visiting Africa, Asia, and he spoke roughly 29 languges. He also worked for the Eastern India Trading Company and wrote several books on exploration. He's also credited with writing the first translation of "Arbian Nights." Interesting; so young Locke admired explorers and whatnot.

- and speaking of Cabin inhabitants: Dr. Christian Shepard make another cameo tonight, this time with Claire hanging out with him!!

Let's not forget though that Hurley spotted him in Jacob's cabin earlier this season.

Why is the island using him as a voice to John? Why doesn't Jacob speak for himself?  And what was UP with Claire looking like she was doped up? Did you notice the slight grin she gave when Locke asked how he could save the island; the shit is that! She even says, "i'm with him." Is she already dead?!? How can she be hanging out in Jacob's moving cabin with Christian?!?!  This also raises questions about Aaron as Papa Shepard said that Aaron was right where he was "supposed to be and it's not here." With Sawyer? With Kate and Jack? Didn't the psychic tell Claire she was the only one who could raise Aaron for good?!?!? So many questions!

- oh and MOVE THE ISLAND. What. The Hell, Dude??  I'm curious to see how this works out.

-  Backgammon- Locke's love of Backgammon was shown to go back to childhood.  You'll remember that Walt and Locke played backgammon in season 1.

Early in season 4, Sawyer challenged Locke to a game before spilling the bean's about Kate's plan to talk to Miles.  This brings up more ideas about games, rules, light side vs. dark side notions, etc, etc, that seem to show up in LOST, most recently between Widmore and Linus.

- Smokey!- and Young John also drew what looked a lot like to be the smoke monster.

How would Locke know how to draw the smoke monster? Maybe because he's been on the island before in a past life? Just an idea there.

- Secondary Protocol- Did you notice that there was a huge DHARMA page in the Secondary Protocol book that Keamy took out of the case?  The symbol on the page is that of the Orchid, which matches the symbol that was seen on Ben's coat in the future, in his episode a few weeks back.

Keamy made the comment that Widmore would "know" where Ben and his people would be hiding because he's a "smart man."  Could he be referring to The Temple?  And even if he is or isn't, how does Widmore know? My guess is that he's been on the island before and has been trying to return there for a while. He even bought an old diary from the captain of the Black Rock ship, another Hanso, in the hopes of trying to find its location again.

- Also, this protocol looks like it includes what we LOST geeks decided is a pulse triggered detonator (or an XM Radio. hahahha).

This way, if Keamy is killed, it will blow up, probably killing many people around him.  This is why he couldn't be shot on the boat as it would have blown part of it up.

- The school that Locke went to was known as Cowin Heights (the city) and the mascot, the Knights.

There is in fact an actual person named Dr. Gowin Knight, who helped invent magnetized steel in the mid 18th century; this magnetized steel helped in the creation of the compass, which we've seen with Locke before, including in this episode. 

A fellow LOSTie tracked this down:

But yeah, it's another dropped name dealing with magnetism and science. Somebody in the LOST group of writers REALLY knows their scientists!

- Mittelos Science returns!!  John's counselor/principal? told John that Dr. Richard Alpert had invited John to a science camp run by Mitellos Science.

We've seen this company before as it was the group that recruited Juliet for skills.

And she was recruited by, you guessed it: Richard!

The name of the company "Mittelos" is actually an anagram for "lost time" just as the funeral parlor name in the season 3 finale was an anagram for "Flash Forward."

- I'm also not sure what to make of the item that Frank dropped down to the LOSTies camp; and it was a direct hit on their kitchen; nice shot, Frank!  It does look like it's a tracking device leading the group somewhere, but where exactly?  It's obvious that Frank doesn't want them killed and he doesn't agree with Keamy's murderous intentions, so maybe he's leading them somewhere else? Somewhere safe? Let's hope.

- The doctor! The doctor on the ship is ali- wait, nope, he's dead.  However, let's get the order of event down:

1. in the island in the morning, the doctor's body washes on shore
2. what appears to be at night, the doctor is killed

so, how could that mesh well?  We know that the island appears to be about 30 minutes behind everybody else, but could a body wash several miles to the island in 30 minutes? And how does this time issue work?!!

- and who else just LOVED that scene at the end between Hurley and Ben?

I just loved it purely because it shows a decent, humane act of generosity from Hurley to Ben; Ben, despite his actions and whatnot, is still shown compassion in a rough time by Hurley. It's yet ANOTHER reason Hurley is awesome. 

EDIT!- I don't know how I could forget to mention this, but I'm thinking that the boat that Sayid is now using will be the way that the Oceanic 6 will make it off the island.  I'm thinking that they will fit the 6 on the boat and tell the rest of the group they'll send help and they'll have the best intentions to do so, but they just won't be able to for some reason.

THE NUMBERS (4 8 15 16 23 42)

- Only one instance of the Numbers I noticed tonight: Abaddon reminds us that Locke fell 8 stories to the ground below.

and HOLY CRAP, I THINK WE'RE DONE.

In other LOST news, seasons 5-6 will both get an extra hour of showtime to make up for time lost..heheh LOST...during the strike. Score!

and i think that just about does it. As always, feel free to leave your comments, feedback, theories, etc, etc, etc.

'till next time true believers.