Rebecca Mader Interview - Did they ask your question?

Thanks to my good friend The ODI who as we mentioned yesterday was able to secure the audio to the Rebecca Mader interview. Did they ask you question?

Note: There are some minor spoilers.

Source: WTKS

Episode 4.05 - The Constant - Ratings

Thanks to UNAI from SL-LOST.COM for creating these graphics for us here at DarkUFO. Ratings were down last night which is probably a result of the poorly received Eggtown last week.

(Click to Enlarge)

Networks
1. Fox: 17% (11,2)
2. CBS: 12% (7,6)
3. ABC: 9% (5,7)
4. NBC: 7% (4,2)
5. The CW: 2% (1,6)


Adults 18-49
Fox: 7.2 rating/18 share
CBS: 3.3/9
ABC: 3.2/8
NBC: 2.5/6
CW: 0.6/2

08:00
'American Idol' (Fox): 25.910.000 y 22%
'Survivor' (CBS): 13.120.000 y 11%
'Lost' (ABC): 5.180.000 y 6% (R)
'The Office' (NBC): 4.090.000 y 5% (R)
'Smallville' (The CW): 1.800.000 y 3% (R)

09:00
'Don't Forget the Lyrics' (Fox): 14.560.000 y 12%
'Lost' (ABC): 12.850.000 y 12%
'CSI' (CBS): 11.600.000 y 12% (R)
'Celebrity Apprentice' (NBC): 7.620.000 y 8%
'Reaper' (The CW): 1.530.000 y 2%

Send your Questions to Elizabeth Mitchell

Thanks to Precious and Sarah for the following.Kristin Veitch's from E!Online will be interviewing Elizabeth Mitchell tomorrow.

You can email your questions directly to Kristin here.

96 Tears by Jeff Jensen

Here is Jeff Jensen's recap of The Constant.

In a romantically moving episode, Desmond's 1996 consciousness takes over his mind now, but his connection with Penelope saves him

Is there a doctor in the house? I mean a real one? Because I need one. Yep, folks, I have the flu — the really nasty kind. The kind that sent me to the hospital on Wednesday. Ick! The last thing my doctor wants is for me to stay up into the wee hours of the morning. I need rest! So here's what we're going to do: I'm going to outline some talking points for your message-board discussion. Then, next week, I'll post more thoughts on the episode in my Thursday Doc Jensen column. Thanks for being gracious, kids.

''Unstuck in time''
That phrase, cited in last night's episode, comes from Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5, in which Billy Pilgrim finds himself toggling between time periods of his life, including a trip to an alien planet. In the process, Pilgrim nearly loses his mind. It's a good touchstone for Desmond David Hume, who began tripping the time fantastic after Frank Lapidus flew his chopper into an ominous (electromagnetic?) thunderhead, part of an offshore ring of weird-science weather that seems to encircle the Island. This is my interpretation of what went down: Desmond's Island-present consciousness was displaced by his Island-past consciousness. Then, that 1996 mind toggled back and forth through the entire episode while Island consciousness remained MIA until the end of the show. Am I getting this right? If I weren't so amazingly sick in the head right now, I'd be more confident. I'm counting on you to help a brother out here.

The anti-love boat
We finally got to go aboard the freighter last night. Turns out it's not exactly a Carnival cruise ship. Sayid and Desmond were greeted by two creepy-tough deckhands, whose smug smiles were about as cryptic as the Mona Lisa's. What secrets do these two hold? After being thrown into sick bay, Desmond met a man strapped to a bed and also suffering from the time-warp blues. His name was George Minkowski — we've heard his voice on the satellite phone since the season premiere — and he shares the same last name as Hermann Minkowski, an egghead physicist who introduced the fourth dimension of time into standard 3-D models of reality to create ''Minkowski space-time.'' One last thing about the freighter: It appears Ben's spy (my bet: Michael) recently sabotaged the communication systems. No wonder everyone's a little paranoid. What do you think the freighter's true agenda is?

1996
Desmond's flashbacks took place in 1996. We finally got a peek into his military days, and I don't think we've seen the last of that story; we still don't know how he wound up in military prison. After receiving some cryptic instructions from Daniel Faraday, Desmond sought out the Island-past version of the quirky freighter physicist. Their encounter had a Marty McFly-Doc Brown meet-cute vibe to it. Faraday, we learned, is obsessed with time travel, and with Desmond's help, he was able to fine-tune his consciousness-transfer/time-travel device. One unfortunate side effect: death by brain aneurism. Oxford-era Faraday told Desmond that in order to keep sane amid this uncontrollable quantum leaping, he needed to tether himself emotionally to something that bridges the past and present — a constant. Desmond, natch, picked Penelope, giving the episode an unabashed romantic vibe that had my wife in tears. If I hadn't been experiencing a profound state of physical ickiness, I might have been squirting tears instead of coughing up phlegm.

Upon finishing that last sentence, I passed out for 30 minutes — kinda like the way Minkowski collapsed whenever he flashed. Poor Minkowski: He went the way of Faraday's lab rat, Eloise, and died from a killer nosebleed. And I was looking forward to the Fisher Stevens experiment, too.

The Black Rock ledger
Continuing Lost's renewed interest in everyone's favorite beached slave ship in season 4, Desmond sought out Penelope's father, Charles Widmore, in order to learn her whereabouts. He found Widmore at an auction house, bidding on the ledger to the Black Rock. Why was Widmore so interested in the ledger? I don't think it's a simple matter of treasure hunting. I think Widmore thinks the ledger includes info on the Island's location. He wants either to find it or to prevent others from doing so. Another theory: Buying the ledger was designed to create the appearance of being interested in searching for the Black Rock. I wonder if he was setting that salvage vessel up to find the (faux) wreckage of Oceanic 815. Yes, I am saying that Widmore is one of the main puppet-master villains of Lost; he has traded off of forbidden knowledge of the future to build his wealth. In other words, he's Biff from Back to the Future 2.

''The constant''
The show ended with an emotional climax as Desmond made good on his promise to Penny to call her on Christmas Eve, 2004. (I guess that means next week's installment will be the very special Christmas episode of Lost. Also, isn't there supposed to be a tsunami occurring in the Lostverse about this time?) Yet as I watched Des and Pen declare their love for each other, I couldn't help wondering if we're being set up for a tragic finale. Wouldn't it stink if, in the end, just as Des and Pen were about to reunite, he suddenly collapsed from a killer nosebleed?

Okay, that's all I got in me, so I'm off to bed. Some other burning questions: What's up with Faraday's own spotty memory of his Desmond encounter? And what do you think his note about making Desmond his own constant meant? Post away!

Source: EW

Things I Noticed - The Constant by Vozzek69

Alright, the way I see it we’ve got two possibilities here. The first, and most likely, is that we’ve just been handed one of the failsafe keys to unlocking the overall mysteries of LOST. Then again, the possibility always exists that the writers are playing sick, twisted mind games with us. But this late in the game? Not a chance. I think for once we got solid answers. Things I Noticed:

I am your Density!

It’s hard to notice stuff when your jaw’s lying on the floor, but this episode was really that good. Watching Desmond’s consciousness catapult back and forth across eight years of his life should’ve been confusing… it should’ve been way too crazy to follow, way too far out to make much sense to people. Yet when you think about it, the writers of LOST have been gently herding (Shepharding?) us along, building us up, preparing us for this exact moment for over three years now. All of the answers weren’t just thrust upon us simultaneously in one season (cough… Heroes!… cough…) as if we, the audience, were a bunch of eager simpletons impatiently banging the table for immediate answers before switching over to 24. No – the writers and producers of LOST really took their time telling this story. They told it with great sets, beautiful scenery, incredible writing, and deep characterization. And this is why it so totally rocks the balls off any other television show.

That said, I’m not going to go into the metaphysics of inter-dimensional time travel, wormholes, or any of the technical crap we might’ve seen on Danny’s blackboard. Everyone else can do that. I’d get the science part wrong anyway, and discussing the theory itself is much more interesting. I’m also not gonna point out the ultra-cool painting and origins of the Black Rock (which I loved by the way), how Penny’s dad needs to buy the ledger in order to track it to the island, or the really great scene between Desmond and Penny that was a much-welcomed relief from all the Sawyer/Kate/Jack stuff. You all saw the episode, you all noticed it too.


Good night, future-boy!

The Lawnmower man is one hell of a pilot. I barely hold my heading over the Long Island sound on a clear day but Frank’s laser-locked onto 305 through towering thunderclouds culminating in a nasty time storm. But it’s not the storm; it’s the dusk-to-day landing wigs Sayid out. Looks like 31 minutes is out the window here. When Sayid finally does get the chance to speak with Jack, they’re speaking live but about a day apart (island time). It seems the definitive answer is that time does move slower on the island than in the real world. But is there a day-to-day (relative) difference? My gut instinct is no. I tend to think that no matter how long they spent on the island, they would’ve arrived back to the freighter at about the same time they left. Watch the crewmember’s reaction after Frank exits the chopper: “What are you doing back?” – almost as if the chopper team had just departed. Which makes sense, because looking for a black island against a black ocean (which was when the Naomi’s team showed up) would be a lot less sensible than launching such a mission in the light of day.

In either event, Desmond goes Marty McFly, and that’s the real story. This time we get to see a reverse trip as a very confused past Desmond is launched into his future situation. The “only the consciousness goes” part was extremely clever, but even more revealing. If examined closely and open-mindedly, this one phenomenon can decode almost every inexplicable part of the show. More on that in a minute.

The biggest shock to me was how innocuous the freighter turned out to be. The crewmembers weren’t bristling with guns, nor were they even overly hostile. In fact, there seemed to be a complete lack of discipline or direction on the ship. My opinion of Minkowski turned from evil overlord to strapped-down radio operator in the blink of an introduction. I saw no chain of command. You’d think if someone from (drumroll…) The Island had made their way back to the ship, there would be some kind of serious interrogation. Instead there was a perfunctory examination of Desmond’s pupils and a general dismissive feeling overall. Even Lapidus seemed to get into it, tossing an obligatory Baghdad reference along with the satellite phone to Sayid.


One point twenty-one gigawatts!!!

Desmond and Elouise aren’t the only ones trapped in a time fart. Daniel himself is skipping around, as foreshadowed by doc Ray’s exclamation that “Faraday can’t even help himself!” Later on we learn that excessive radiation (or electromagnetism, how convenient) lends to the problem, of which zap-happy Daniel has no shortage. Eventually we see that he’s even got an entry in his own log referring to Desmond as his constant, which means that up until he came to the island he was still searching for that one thing or person (wonder where he got that idea from?) to ground him. He found that thing upon meeting Desmond the morning the chopper took off, and was pretty sure that would be the end of his ‘problem’… but upon playing cards with Charlotte that night he still hadn’t made any progress. Perhaps the act of helping Desmond reach his own constant, Penny, will finally ‘unstick’ Danny once and for all.

Also skipping through his lifetime is Mikowski, who’s virtually an expert by the time they find him. I found his “I was just on a Ferris wheel” line interesting, because like everything else in LOST a Ferris wheel goes round and round and always comes full circle. Mikowski threatens the same thing will happen to his crewmates when they “go back to that island”.

And you know who else got a nasty case of the jump-through-life crazies? Rousseau’s entire crew. This could very well be the ‘sickness’ she referred to so early on in season one. Look at how bat-shit nuts Desmond went in the chopper – now imagine Danielle’s entire crew acting like that while she’s trying to “shhh!” them as the smoke monster stalks the jungle and the Others pick off whomever they feel are on Santa’s list. Kinda puts a new spin on that whole scenario.

While we’re at it, let’s think back to Juliet’s arrival by sub. Was it coincidence they knocked her out for the trip through the time barrier? Or by relieving her of her consciousness as she passed through did they save her from any of Daniel’s so called ‘side effects’? As Ethan said, it’s a hell of a ride. Totally Jauntish, if that’s the case, but then again I’m a firm believer you can draw a Stephen King reference to your morning stool if you looked hard enough.

But hey, let’s lock a really misshapen piece of the puzzle into place: Hurley’s friend Leonard. Could it be that he time-skipped his way into the mental institution after being stationed a little too close to the island? Imagine him living pieces of his life over and over again, in loops that get geometrically (Daniel’s wording, not mine) smaller. Now picture those loops getting smaller and smaller… until all that’s left is a tiny 10 or 15-second flash of time he has to relive over and over again: the radio transmission. The numbers. 4,8,15,16,23,42… hiccup!... 4,8,15,16,23,42. Wow, shoot me now.

And finally, let’s consider what a genius intellect with a rational approach would do with the near-infinite knowledge gained by such looping trips through time. Is Ben the ultimate product of the island’s abilities? Instead of being stuck like Dan’s mouse or quantum-leaping around at random, is it possible Ben was taught how to harness, control, and utilize these gifts? If so, are all his well-laid plans merely nothing but him molding and shaping future events the way Desmond did to prevent Charlie’s death a few times?


Yeah, well history is going to change!

This brings me to my own personal conclusion: LOST history has got to be alterable. Because if it weren’t, Ben (and now Locke) wouldn’t be going through all this trouble to finally get the event scenario correct. If whatever happens is truly going to happen anyway, regardless of what is done to prevent it (course correction), then wouldn’t Ben just grab some a box of Dharma wine and go fishing? I mean why bother, right? If the future can’t be changed, just what the hell is Ben doing?

I’m going against Ms. Hawking here, and maintaining that things CAN change. The very nature of her meeting with Desmond seems to prove this. Why’s she trying to convince him so adamantly that he’s got to dump Penny and head on over to the Swan hatch? According to her own course correction theory, wouldn’t the button still get pushed by someone else? But her insistence and general pissy attitude make me think she’s worried. Look looked hella-worried, and to me that translates into one thing: Desmond can mess things up. In a way, he’s not a constant at all – Desmond is a wild card.

Why don’t you make like a tree… and get outta here!

Dan’s reference to his mouse being ‘stuck’ this episode was extremely important. Desmond and Mikowski might’ve been stuck too (well, maybe not anymore), but the one person who’s really, really stuck is Jacob. His creepy “help me…” was an otherworldly call from beyond (Time? Space? Does it matter?) with his cabin representing the epicenter of some sort of temporal disaster that stranded him where he is now. Remember his magically re-constructing lantern? “Time is broken here” – Lara Croft.

Tearing a single page out of Dan’s book we now see mention of three events: A, B, and C. I’m willing to bet that two of those events pertain to both times Desmond failed to push the button; once at the crash of 815, and once when he turned the failsafe key. The third event we don’t know about or it hasn’t happened yet (the end event?)

I believe each event triggered an alternate timeline, and is responsible for the ‘rebirth’ of everyone involved (physical and spiritual healing included). This is hinted at multiple times throughout the show with “See you in another life”. But now, when we begin to factor the time hiccups into the equation, we’re not only looking at concurrent timelines. We must now also consider timelines where someone’s consciousness (and only their consciousness – that part’s important) is derived from their past or even their future. From the beginning, the producers have hinted that where flight 815 crashed wasn’t nearly as important as when it crashed.

Taking this into consideration, what if the plane crashed before September 22nd 2004? We’ve seen time differentials of 31 seconds and even a whole day now – who’s to say it couldn’t span a week or more? As we saw with Desmond, the consciousness is transferred but the body stays the same. So what if (and get ready to be totally creeped out here…) what if the plane crashed during a period in time when Christian Shephard was still alive?

What if the only place his consciousness had to go was into his current body, tucked neatly away in the coffin that turned up empty on impact? Could this explain why Jack kept seeing him? Could this explain why Jacob looked like him for that brief instant, yet still looks like an embalmed corpse? Yikes.


I guess you guys weren’t ready for that, yet… but your kids are gonna love it.

Okay, listen - I’m 99.9% sure I don’t subscribe to the Christian-corpse-consciousness theory I just hammered out. It’s 4am and I’m getting pretty loopy. Looking at it again, it kinda sucks. It was just something that occurred to me that needed to get thrown out there, because I can’t see any other logical reason for Hurley seeing Jack’s dad in that chair – especially since Hurley has never seen Jack’s dad before (unless it was in a time loop, and I’m not taking that ride again just now).

But it sure would pave the way for the LOST zombie season.

Episode 4.05 - The Constant - Video Podcast

The Lost Prediction League - Week 5

Quite a few new points were handed out this episode but masjdmirag is still in first place.

Points awarded this episode

Will we see Charles Widmore again in Season 4 - 10 Points
Yes - EPISODE 5 (851 People Predicted this correctly)

In what episode will Desmond has his next "Flash" - 30 Points
Yes - EPISODE 5 (72 People Predicated this correctly)

In what episode will we first see The Black Rock? - 30 Points
Yes - EPISODE 5 (58 People Predicted this correctly)

We also had another death in this episode making it 4 so far (Elsa, Golf Man, Naomi, Minkowski). This already puts 181 people out of the running for points here and the 142 of you who picked 4 deaths for the season better hope that everyone stays fit and healthy :)

Download full table

What did you think of "The Constant"?

Episode Chat Tonight

For anyone who watches the episode whilst being online we will have our chat enabled for you to discuss with other fans watching live. The servers seemed to hold up last week and I think we peeked at around 200 users online simultaneously. The chat will also stay online after the episode so that you can discuss the show with others and it will stay online all week.

Chat Room

Note: The Chat is largely unmoderated so beware of trolls. You can mute users that you find offensive.

Post your questions to Rebecca Mader

My good friend The ODI who has been doing a series of radio interviews on behalf of DarkUFO and his site has just informed me that the radio station will be doing an interview with Rebecca Mader on Friday and they have asked us both if our readers would like to submit questions that they may be able to use during the interview.

So feel free to leave your questions in the comments and who knows if they will use your questions.

The ODI and myself will have first access to the audio of this interview when it's available online.

Lockdown - Lost Convention UK - Adetokumboh McCormack added to guest list

Update: 27th Feb 2008 11:15 It's just been announced that François Chau who plays Dr. Marvin Candle / Dr. Mark Wickmund will also be appearing.
Update: 27th Feb 2008 10:00 Frederic Lehne who played the Marshall has also been added to the guest list.

Thanks to Ellie from http://www.lostie.net for letting us know that the UK Lockdown event has announced another guest.

It now includes Yemi, Eko's brother, played by Adetokumboh McCormack.

http://www.massiveevents.co.uk/lockdown/

Guest now confirmed for the event are: Henry Ian Cusick, Andrew Divoff, Adetokumboh McCormack and Frederic Lehne.

We will be holding live blogging from the event on our Live Lost page.If you are attending and would like to join our team of Live Blogger please send me an email.

Official Revised ABC Lost Schedule

Episode 5: Feb. 28
Episode 6: March 6
Episode 7: March 13
Episode 8: March 20
............
BREAK
............
Episode 9: April 24
Episode 10: May 1
Episode 11: May 8
Episode 12: May 15
Episode 13: May 22 (Season Finale)

Source: ABC

Kristen update on Lost Scheduling

Thanks to Iceman815 for this little update from Kristin regarding Lost Scheduling.

Even though episode seven is said to make a more logical endpoint for the pod, ABC wants Betty, Grey's and Lost to return all at once on Apr. 24, so they may be bumping episode eight back from Apr. 17 to its original airdate of Mar. 20. Good news for our greedy Lost-lovin' selves, yes? Meanwhile, for more Lostie goodness, check the Spoiler Section.

Source: E!Online

The Lost Fantasy League: Week 4 Update

Update: 10:30 GMT I've fixed the problem with the spreadsheet that showed this weeks points incorrectly, although the total points and ranks was correct. The new spreadsheet can be found here to download.

Another week, another episode of Lost, and another Fantasy Update. It's hard to believe that we're already done with the fourth week of competition. Where does the time go?

This week Kate fans can do their happy dance, but not as jubilantly as Sayid or Hurley fans were able to. While Kate finished out in the triple digits, the episode as a whole only managed 220 points, our lowest overall score for an episode this season. While the points spread may have been a little light, points were dished out during most of "Eggtown"'s big scenes, including the flashforwards, the almost-sex scene and the stunning revelation that closed the episode (stunning for us cool spoiler-free people at least!). :-)

Maybe it was the low score, or maybe I'm finally getting to be an expert at spotting those tricky points scenarios, but there were no important points rulings this week. We did make some adjustments for last week's episode. Between this adjustment and this week's points, we have a new points leader! Be sure to check that, the video and the rest of the info out whilst finding out how "Eggtown" treated your Fantasy roster.

Also, be sure to celebrate, mope, question and merely chat in the comment section. We're also always open for business to help you out with your questions by emailing us at LFLquestions@gmail.com.

“Eggtown” (in 547 words or less)
Locke makes Ben breakfast in cell, using the last of the eggs and a sprinkle of “you shot me three days ago” love but Ben just wants to mindf**k. Good to know that some things never change.

Kate and Claire are living up the cozy porch-front lifestyle with their Mainstays DHARMA coffee mugs, idle chit-chat flirting with the boys next door.

Sun and Jin contemplate where they will live after they get rescued. Evidently, Sun wants to raise her baby (erm, make that their baby) back in the home country she was desperate to flee only three months ago.

Basically the split in the Lostie camp has made everybody insufferably boring. At least for now.

Kate asks John if she can talk to Miles, but the Führer says “Nein!” Power is his shiny new toy and he doesn’t want to share with anyone. Kate promptly tricks Hurley into giving away Miles’ location. Poor Hugo- he needs to defect from both camps and find a nice little DHARMA station of his own. Kate talks to Miles, who wants a minute of time with Ben. He’s either a masochist or into the whole bondage thing because he says that being tied up in New Otherton is exactly where he wants to be.

A lot of other boring stuff happens- Jack can’t make the phone work, Sun questions why Kate stayed with Locke if he’s wrong to hide, and Kate has baby issues.

That night, Kate shows up at Sawyer and Hurley’s place. Sawyer offers her boxed wine (what a guy!) but she wants to use him. No, not in the sex points kind of way- she wants him to help her setup a meeting between Ben and Miles. Sawyer plays along and tricks Locke into running down to the boathouse to check on Miles when Kate is really waiting with the ghostbuster outside the house. They break in; Miles offers to tell his people Ben is dead in exchange for $3.2 million; a nonverbal understanding exists between them; Kate and Miles get caught by a really ticked off Locke.

Kate is banished from New Otherton but gets to spend the night with Sawyer first. She leads him on only to block him when the time is right. Kate, you are officially a tease and as a member of the male population, I curse you and your teasing kind. You wore those sexy panties and didn’t even put them to good use. Damn you Kate (but thank you wardrobe department!).

Daniel can’t remember the three cards in front of him. Charlotte, clearly a Meat Loaf fan, tells him that two out of three ain’t bad. Jack makes them call the emergency number to the freighter. They ask about Sayid and Desmond but they haven’t gotten there yet- after a whole day. Suspicious.

In the flashforwards, Kate is on trial for all the things she did before the crash. Jack is the crappiest character witness ever and Kate’s mom is willing to sabotage the trial in exchange for a meeting with her grandson. Whoa, wait- Kate’s got a kid? Yup! Bigger shock is that it’s not really her kid. It’s Aaron. You know, Claire’s baby that wasn’t supposed to be raised by another? Can you say “huh?” I knew you could!

For what might be the first time in the short history of the Lost Fantasy League, there are no important points rulings this week! "Eggtown" was the easiest episode of Lost I have had to score to date, which was great. Of course, this probably means that the rest of the episodes this season will be insufferably difficult. :-P

While there are no important points rulings for this episode, we do have a pair of points corrections to make for last week's episode, "The Economist." First of all, we are going to give Karl appearance points for "The Economist" even though we initially thought he was not present. Loyal screencapper Dharmageddon managed to find the following two images that prove Karl was in the episode (sort of).

In the picture on the left from 4x02, "Confirmed Dead," you can see exactly what Karl is wearing. Note the shirt, the backpack and the stick he is carrying around with him. While these may seem like trivialities, they are important when it comes to comparing this picture to the next one. In the picture on the right from 4x03, "The Economist," you can see an extra wearing the same shirt and backpack (with the same stick no less) as Karl. Evidently the show runners did not feel it was necessary to have actor Blake Bashoff suit up for this episode and had an extra appear in the background as Karl to help fill out the small band of wanderers following Locke to Jacob's cabin. Maybe they didn't want to pay Blake or maybe they needed to use an extra so to keep his episode count down to retain his "Guest Star" label. Either way, this is proof enough that this is Karl, so we are giving him points for appearing in the episode.

Thanks to Lost-Media.com for taking these screencaps that helped prove Karl's presence in "The Economist." You site helped a few people out! Also, thanks go out to Lost-Media for all the pictures I have been using for Fantasy Updates sine the beginning.

Okay, our second points correction needs no picture to go with it. We all saw Sayid laying ing bed with Elsa, heavily implying a sexual romp. I had mentioned in the video that we gave Sayid sex points but had not actually put that data into our scoring system. This has been corrected and you Sayid fans have an extra 15 point from it. If you also had Karl on you team, you got a 20 point boost for last week's episode.

Group 1-
KATE (+100): Attendance (+5); Episode Centricity (+25); Has a Flashforward (+20); Kisses Sawyer in two separate scenes (2 x 20 = +40); Injures Someone- Slaps Sawyer (-5); Last Line in Episode (+5); Last On Screen (+10)
JACK (+50): Attendance (+5); Appears in Kate's Flashforward (+25); Uses the Numbers- Says 815 while testifying at Kate's trial (+20)
LOCKE (+35): Attendance (+5); First On Screen (+15); Has an Eye Close-Up (+5); First Line in Episode (+10)
SAWYER (+35): Attendance (+5); Kisses Kate in two separate scenes (2 x 20 = +40); Gets Hurt- Kate slaps him (-10)
BEN (+5): Attendance (+5)

Group 2-
HURLEY (+5): Attendance (+5)
JULIET (+5): Attendance (+5)
DESMOND (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
MICHAEL (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
SAYID (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)

Group 3-
CLAIRE (+30): Attendance (+5); Visits a DHARMA Location- The Barracks (+5); Kisses Aaron (+20)
JIN (+5): Attendance (+5)
SUN (+5): Attendance (+5)
JACOB (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
ROUSSEAU (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)

Group 4-
ALEX (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
BERNARD (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
KARL (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
ROSE (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
WALT (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)

Group 5-
AARON (+65): Attendance (+5); Visits a DHARMA Location- The Barracks (+5); Kissed by Claire (+20); Appears in Kate's Flashforward (+25); Last Person On Screen (+10)
CINDY (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
MARVIN CANDLE (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
PENNY (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
RICHARD (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)

Group 6-
ETHAN (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
LIBBY (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
MS. HAWKING (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
RACHEL (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
WIDMORE (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)

Group 7-
CHRISTIAN (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
KELVIN (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
KEVIN CALISS (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
MR. PAIK (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
NADIA (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)

Congratulations to our two Fantasy Geniuses of the Week! Both ended up with 185 points this week. Here they are and their teams:

Dontlistentoanythingisay: Kate, Hurley, Claire, Karl, Aaron, Rachel, Nadia

Erinbow: Kate, Juliet, Claire, Alex, Aaron, Charles Widmore, Christian Shephard

This is Erinbow's second time as Fantasy Genius of the Week this season! She was one of our Week 2 Geniuses. Dontlistentoanythignisay greatly benefited from this points boost, as it shot them to first place overall in the standings! Way to pick your team!

Scoring Chart

Character Groups

Table Toppers

Celebrities



View Full Table HERE
Download the Excel Version

As we now head towards yet another hiatus (albeit a shorter one) that will leave the Lost addicts of the world crying out for more, we are faced with the Week 5 episode entitled "The Constant."

I have no idea what the title refers to, but I think it might have something to do with math. Seeing as it's been five years since my last math class, I don't know how many kinds of constants exist, so I just picked a random image. :-P

From the US trailers, it looks like we'll be seeing a lot of Desmond and Sayid this episode. Since Sayid has already had his moment of glory this year, perhaps it's Desmond's turn to have an episode? No matter how it turns out, it looks like we're going to find out why the helicopter didn't reach the freighter after a whole day had passed. Does it have anything to do with Daniel's little time experiment? Perhaps.

Be sure to check out "The Constant" and be sure to also check out how the episode affected your scores next Monday on the Lost Fantasy Update!

S4Ep4 - "Eggtown": Well We're Living Here in an Eggtown by Erika

Here is this week's recap from Erika Olson (aka "e") from LongLiveLocke.com .

... and it's hard to choke a grenade down. (Just ask Miles.)

There have been two times since Lost premiered when I have gotten chills at the end of an episode. The first was in "Deus Ex Machina," when Locke ran back to the hatch (as Boone was dying) and started banging and crying "WHYYYYY?!?!!?" on the little window, and then all of a sudden the light came on. The second was at the end of "Eggtown," when Kate's "son" was revealed to be Aaron. I did not see that one coming! I'm enjoying my spoiler-free status more and more with each episode (although some of my other spoiler-free friends did call the ending--they're way more clever than I am).

From what I can tell on the message boards, this was a love-it-or-hate-it episode, and I am happy to report that I am on the "loved it" side. Which is amazing when you consider that it was mostly about Kate. The Kate Hate Train has therefore not pulled out of its station this season--yet.

I'm going to get the Island events out of the way first this time around, as the majority of things to theorize over happened in the flashbacks. And for those of you who are new to my write-ups, if you roll your mouse over the pictures, you can see their captions.


I BREAK THE YOLKS, MAKE A SMILEY FACE

The episode kicked off with Locke making what looked like a damn good breakfast for Ben. In my opinion, all that was missing was a nicely brewed cup of Earl Grey. But alas, Ben was ungrateful and not only refused to eat, but also scoffed at the book Locke had chosen to bring him to help pass the time. Further, he then got under Locke's skin by saying just the right things to drive The Bald One crazy--picking at his insecurities about being the group's new leader. Talk about déjà vu (which Ben noted as well)... when Locke left Ben and then smashed the tray against the wall in frustration, it was just like when he threw silverware and plates in anger back in the hatch (in "Maternity Leave") when Ben was initially being held prisoner. Don't let him get to you, Locke!

And what should we make of the book that Locke picked to give his prisoner? It was VALIS by Philip K. Dick. You can click the link in the previous sentence if you want more details about its plot, but here's Amazon.com's description: "a fool's search for God, who turns out to be a virus, a joke, and a mental hologram transmitted from an orbiting satellite." I immediately wondered if there were parallels we were supposed to draw with Locke's search for Jacob. The other thing of interest about the book is that there is a child, Sophia, in the story who is supposed to be "the messiah incarnate." Considering that baby Aaron has been thrust back into the spotlight in this episode, I thought that perhaps that was a hint as well. More on Aaron later, though. If nothing else, after reading about Philip K. Dick, I think I would like his books. Score another point for Lost encouraging people to read...

One last comment on this scene... didn't you love Locke's shout-out to all of us rewind/slo mo/freeze-frame-crazy fans: "You might catch something you missed the second time around." Ain't that the truth.



NOW THAT I'M HERE, NOW THAT YOU'RE HERE

Wasn't it hilarious to see all the Losties settling into their new digs in the Barracks? I need one of those Dharma mugs that Kate had on the porch ASAP. When Kate came over to visit Sawyer, I seriously almost peed my pants when Hurley popped in Xanadu, as it is one of my all-time favorite movies. Yes, it is awful, but it is so awful that it is also AWESOME. It just so happens, God's honest truth, that I am going to see Xanadu on Broadway in a few weeks. You can bet that I will write up the experience on According to e afterward. But for now, what you need to know is that Xanadu is about Greek muses who get transported from another time and dimension to southern California, circa 1980, via a "portal" of sorts that exists on a nearby mural (don't ask). One of the muses, Kira (Olivia Newton-John), falls in love with this studly artist dude, Sonny, but their love is not meant to be, as Zeus (her father) wants her back where she belongs. There is also a lot of rollerskating and singing, a random cartoon scene, and Gene Kelly. Yeah, I said it! GENE KELLY.

Just as Cuse and Lindelof drew comparisons between the Island and Narnia, Oz and Wonderland in their 2/18 podcast, I believe Xanadu was meant to be an additional hint about what's going on overall with the Island. Shout-out to one of my readers who speculated that perhaps Ben's secret room contains a portal off the Island, just like the wardrobe transports the children to Narnia in the C.S. Lewis series. Maybe Hurley's choice of Xanadu, with its focus on a portal between worlds, was meant to be similar clue to the real purpose of Ben's secret room. Overall, Xanadu is yet another story specifically mentioned during the show that is connected to the real world, but that also has a supernatural element. Not to mention a rockin' soundtrack--ELO forever, baby! There's even a song called... are you ready? "Suspended in Time." BAM!

Xanadu is also the title of a famous poem about a tropical paradise. But that's not quite as interesting as the movie.

But let's not let my enthusiasm for Xanadu overshadow what was by far the funniest moment of the night, which took place while the theme song from the movie was playing in the background... Sawyer pulling out the Wine In A Box for his lady love. I was dying.



CAUGHT IN THE ACT

Despite Locke's warnings, Kate follows through with her plan to visit Miles. (One quick side note--I'm not so sure that Locke was all bloody because he just killed a chicken. But I don't even want to think about what else the blood could be from.) Kate succeeds in getting precious time alone with Miles... and all she cares about is whether or not the freighter peeps know what she had done back in the real world? That seemed kind of lame to me, but I guess if she was really struggling with the decision to either stay on the Island or leave, she would want to know if Sawyer's prediction (that she would be hauled off to jail upon her return) had any merit.

There were tons of other strange things that went on during the scenes with Miles. For example, why did he say that he was "exactly where he wanted to be"? Some assume that Miles is Ben's mole, and is fine with being held prisoner because he's getting to learn more about Locke, Ben's new nemesis. Others believe that Miles is happy with his situation because he is still in fact trying to capture Ben, and now he's at least closer in proximity to The Sneaky One than he was before. I'm not sure what to make of his comment, personally.

Next was the bizarre Miles/Ben confrontation, during which Miles said he would tell his employer that Ben was dead if Ben gave him $3.2 million. What?

So, do we believe that Miles is just purely in it for the money, and will convince his employer that Benry is six feet under in exchange for the millions? Right now, this is the way I'm leaning, for two reasons: 1) We saw in Miles' flashback how he just wanted to find the drug money during his ghostbusting of the grandson. Money is a major motivator for him, and he's not necessarily the most ethical of people. So I don't think it's a stretch to believe that he will do what's best for himself. If he can convince his employer that Ben is dead, he'll probably still get paid for the Island mission, in addition to getting $3.2 million from Ben. 2) We know that Ben is still around in the future and is still fighting the good fight against "the bad guys," with Sayid's help. So perhaps Miles succeeds in convincing everyone that Ben is dead. That would explain why Elsa's group couldn't figure out who Sayid was working for--they truly believed that Ben had been killed.

Others fans think, as I mentioned earlier, that Miles is Ben's mole, and that the conversation they had was in code. I agree that this is at least a possibility. "$3.2 million" is a pretty weird number, and it could have meant something specific to Ben, who then covered by saying "Why not $3.3 or $3.4?" Never underestimate the trickery of Ben! Miles also then told Kate everything that he knew about her, and that he got the information from files his team pulled together on everyone on the Flight 815 manifest. Who else is known for gathering information on people? Ben. So there is a chance that Miles has been working with Ben all along and that only he knows the information about all the Lostaways, whereas the rest of the freighter crew does not.

Also remember that Ben claimed to know who Miles' employer was, which could either be interpreted to mean that Ben knows Abaddon, or knows the overall organization for which Abaddon works. Or it could've been a complete lie.

The question that still remains, however, is why Miles was chosen for the mission in the first place. Whoever his employer is must know something about the properties of the Island and figured that Miles' special abilities would be needed. But they must not have realized what a sketchball Miles is and how he would throw the mission for his own benefit if he got the chance.

One last thing we can glean from this scene is that Ben is indeed an international man of mystery---yeah, baby! Miles made it clear that, unlike the Lostaways, he knew all about Ben's background, and what Ben "can do." There's no way Miles would be asking for that much money if he didn't think Ben could get his hands on it. And at the end, sure enough, Ben caved and said he would need a week to get the funds in order. I guess that means Ben's pretty sure he can bust out of his cell in the near future...


THERE'S ANOTHER NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN. Y'ALL BEST GET USED TO IT.

I pledged last week that I would stop doubting my man Locke. So I'm not going to... but I can't lie and say it's been easy after this latest installment of madness. While Locke claimed to Kate that he was running something in between a democracy and dictatorship, it sure seems like he's leaning more toward the latter. As always, however, a deep insecurity belies Locke's tough-guy exterior. He let Ben's mocking words get to him at the beginning of the episode, he appeared to be overly concerned with what Sawyer and others thought about his leadership abilities, and he was completely duped by Sawyer shortly thereafter because at his core, Locke's still pretty naive (it's clear that Locke never caught on to the fact that Sawyer was helping Kate the whole time).

While I don't agree with Locke's "iron fist" mentality and don't like that he banished Kate from Othersville, you can bet good money that I was thrilled when he gave the smack-down to Miles. Even though it was a little too over-the-top for my taste (a live grenade in someone's mouth!?!), at least it happened to Miles, right? He looked pretty freaked out--maybe it will scare the ghostbusting abilities right out of him!

I am not doubting Locke anymore, though. It's pretty clear from all of the flash-forwards to date that everyone who left the Island is either miserable, or is involved in a huge cover-up that is wearing on them. So even if Locke does end up causing something unfortunate to happen in the near future, as I keep dreading, it's only because the others didn't listen to his warnings in the first place.


SUSPICIOUS MINDS

Sun is starting to realize that Locke may be right, too. After a strange scene with Jin where she talks about where to raise her baby (rather than their baby, as Jin points out), she begins to question the intentions of the freighter team. Did you catch that guilty look down at the ground that Daniel had when Jack said, "They can make arrangements to get all of us off this Island." D'oh! Sun follows up with asking why Kate would stay with Locke, if Locke were in fact as crazy as Jack claims him to be.

The fact that the group is getting restless helps motivate Jack and Juliet to push Charlotte to call the emergency number they have for the freighter. It's extremely strange that no one's been answering on the main line, isn't it? (Charlotte specifically said, "Minkowski's not answering.") Charlotte agrees to put the call on speakerphone, and we learn that the helicopter has not arrived at the freighter, even though it left the previous night. Frank said they didn't have much fuel left... so what in the heck is going on? Some think that the helicopter's delay has to do with the time differential that Daniel noticed... and so what should normally be a twenty-minute flight to the freighter may end up being a significantly longer trip.

Others swear that Regina must be lying and that the team has in fact made it back to the freighter. If the crew on the ship is up to no good, they would know that Daniel and Charlotte would understand what is going on, whereas Jack and the others would freak out that they'd either been stranded, or that the helicopter went down and killed Sayid and Desmond. Others think that Frank might be Ben's mole, and has taken Sayid and Desmond to another location where they'll be safe. I would love if that turned out to be the case--Frank is the last person I would've suspected.


SO IF YOU DON'T MIND ME SAYIN', I CAN SEE YOU'RE OUT OF ACES

Speaking of the mysterious helicopter team, what was up with that weird scene between Daniel and Charlotte where he was trying to either guess or remember three playing cards she had turned face down? At first I thought that we had received some insight into Daniel's head case-ness... that he had some sort of bizarre memory issue and that Charlotte was trying to do exercises with him to help him. I figured that he had originally seen the three cards, and then she turned them over and then he had to repeat back what he had just seen. After all, his namesake, the scientist Michael Faraday, had memory issues brought on by a battle with mental illness. And Charlotte looked sympathetic and sad for Daniel when he couldn't get all three right. She tried to cheer him up by saying that he had "made progress."

But upon watching the scene again, Charlotte also clearly says "time," like they were supposed to wait a certain amount of time before Daniel made his guess. Now, that could still fit with my original theory. Maybe he has some sort of memory problem where after a specific period of time elapses, he has recall issues. Or similarly, maybe Charlotte didn't want him to take several minutes to try to remember what he saw.

Other ideas are that he never saw the cards in the first place, and was trying to use some sort of psychic power to guess what the correct cards were. Yet another possibility is that the original cards she turned over actually switched to new cards because of some weird property on the Island. Or maybe the cards switched because Daniel willed them to switch? Remember back in Season One where Hurley commented that Walt ALWAYS rolled sixes when they played backgammon? Perhaps Daniel is also "special" like Walt and can somehow cause the cards to change?

All I know is that even though that scene was a short one, it was important. Finally, did you catch that one of the cards was the Queen of Diamonds? Or, a Red Queen. Like in Alice in Wonderland...


WHY GO HOME? WHY GO HOME?

Back in Othersville, Kate walks in on Sawyer reading The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares, which is about (ironically enough) a fugitive hiding out on a deserted island somewhere in the South Pacific. Kate tells Sawyer that she is definitely not pregnant, and that Locke has banished her from the Barracks. Sawyer's like, "Um, do you honestly think that I can't take Baldy? I'm insulted!" For reasons unknown, Kate still chooses to leave. How many of you fear that we witnessed the last time Kate and Sawyer ever see each other? I do. And I, for the record, never even cared about who Kate "chose," because both Jack and Sawyer are way too good for her, in my opinion. But I still think she's crazy to leave the Island of her own will, now that she knows she won't die from a pregnancy, and that she is still deemed a fugitive to the outside world. I hope and pray that they give us a better reason for her leaving the Island than, "Locke told her to go away."

Some think that there is a possibility that Kate is lying to Sawyer about not being pregnant, and after testing him to see what his reaction would be, she realized that she did need to leave the Island because he didn't want a child. But since she never mentioned having more than one child in the flash-forwards, and since we know that the child she did have in the future was not hers biologically, I don't think she was lying to Sawyer.

OK, that wraps up everything that came to pass on the Island in this episode. Oops, I thought of one last thing...if you were thinking that "Eggtown" referred to the fact that Locke cooked Ben the last two eggs for breakfast (as I did), you may be interested in another interpretation of the episode's title. You can read the full story behind the term here, but in short, it is used to describe "a deal with undesirable outcomes in either case." Fitting, no?


OH WHAT A TANGLED WEB WE WEAVE

Right away in Kate's first flash-forward, we got confirmation that she is indeed one of the Oceanic Six. Many had wondered if, since her meeting with Jack was on the down-low in the Season Three finale, she had escaped the Island but wanted to avoid being captured for her past crimes, so therefore it was not made known that she was one of the famous survivors. Now we know that what actually happened is that she was indeed put on trial, in spite of her new notoriety. The fact that she was charged, however, wasn't what was interesting. The details we learned through seeing her trial were.

The first shocker was that Clean-Shaven Jack was called as a character witness. The second shocker was what he said:
- There were originally eight survivors of the crash (implying that two died)
- Kate took care of everyone while they struggled to survive on an island in the South Pacific.
- He no longer is in love with her.

All of these statements are worth analyzing a bit...

Eight Original Survivors: There is definitely a reason that the Oceanic Six have been told to say that two people who initially had survived the crash ended up dying. Those two people must have been responsible for doing or knowing something that the other six couldn't have done or known on their own--either in order to survive or in order to be rescued. I personally have no idea who the two survivors in question might be.

One theory is that since we now know that Aaron made it off the Island and that Claire seemingly didn't, and that there may be too many witnesses who knew that Kate was not eight months pregnant when she got on Flight 815, maybe they said that Claire died after giving birth to Aaron, and so therefore the rest of the world knows that Aaron is not Kate's biological son. But if that were the case, would Kate's mom still want to see the baby so badly? I would hope that she still would, but others think that it is clear that everyone thinks that Kate is Aaron's birth mother.


An Island in the South Pacific: I think this may just be a writing goof, but since it's my job to report what's been said out there on the message boards, I should point out that some people have noted the inconsistency between the news report about the Flight 815 wreckage that we saw in the season premiere (which said that the plane was found in the Indian Ocean), and Jack's statement (which said that they were in the South Pacific). The theory is that Jack screwed up what he was supposed to say and that someone's going to latch onto it and start unraveling the mystery, leading to the situation that causes Jack to become so distraught in the future. I didn't think twice about this discrepancy, but if you have any other theories, let me know.

Jack No Longer Loves Kate: While he later told her that he didn't mean it when he said "Not anymore," what really is confusing is why the lawyer would ask Jack about his feelings for Kate in the first place. To me, this means that the story that was concocted for the O6 specifically mentioned something about Jack and Kate being romantically involved. Otherwise, why would a lawyer bring that up if she wasn't positive that it had already been substantiated that Jack was at one point in love with Kate? Granted, all of the trial scenes were absolute crap in the sense that they would never happen in real life (ask a lawyer to explain this to you, all of the lawyers on the message boards are upset!), but I'm positive that this line of questioning was there for a purpose.

Some people think that the world at large believes that Aaron is Jack's baby. Seeing as how the kid has blond hair and both Jack and Kate have dark hair, that seems like a stretch. Also, why would Jack be brought as a character witness if he doesn't even display the good character to want to see his own kid? All I know is that the lawyer asked him about his love for Kate for a reason, and it has something to do with the made-up story that the O6 told to the media when they returned home. (But this theory does make me wonder who Kate is claiming the father to be...)

One last comment on this particular trial scene... why did Kate cut Jack off? He was doing a good job making her out to be the hero, and she's never had major issues with bending the truth in the past. Can she perhaps not bear it when it's Jack who's lying for her?


I'M A BITCH, I'M A LOVER, I'M A CHILD, I'M A MOTHER

In another unexpected scene, Kate's sickly mother comes to talk with her, and says that she does not want to testify against her. It is the first time they've spoken or seen each other since Kate visited her mother in the hospital, only to have the policed summoned. But, ah, the power of grandchildren. Kate's mom is desperate to see this latest member of Austin clan, but Kate will not hear of it.

The big question is: WHY? Is Kate still that angry at her mother, especially when her mom was the key to Kate avoiding a jail sentence, or is there a specific reason she doesn't want Mrs. Austin to lay eyes on Aaron?

On another note, many fans are assuming that this sentence from Kate's mom is a clue about the overall timeline: "I've had six months to live for the past four years." I didn't read too much into that statement... I think it was just meant to help us understand her mother's motivations for wanting to finally make peace and move forward. But once again, if you have reason to think otherwise, by all means, clue the rest of us in!


LOVE ME, LOVE MY BAY-BEE

Kate going on and on about her son in this episode reminded me of Claire going on and on about her "bay-bee" all the time in Seasons One, Two and Three. At least the two women have that in common. So much so that Kate will not hang out with Jack in the future unless he comes to visit Aaron. Jack doesn't seem up for that just yet. Chalk up another "Say What?" moment...

Why would Jack want to avoid visiting Aaron? The possible answers hint at why Kate even has Aaron in the first place.

Theories include:
- Claire was killed in the escape from the Island and Jack feels so guilty about it that he can't bring himself to see Aaron.
- Aaron was forcefully taken from Claire and Jack can't bear to reminded of it.
- Claire is either dead or still on the Island, but either way, Aaron reminds Jack of his own time on the Island, which he wants to forget. Kind of like how he was so adamant to Hurley that they would never go back and stormed off once Hurley mentioned it.
- Jack found out that Aaron is his nephew (remember, Christian Shephard was a mack daddy and fathered Claire, too) and seeing him would bring back bad memories of Zombie Dad, and/or intensify any feelings of guilt over whatever happened to Claire.
- Aaron has special powers that freak the hell out of Jack. (On that note, how many of you thought the baby was going to be either an alien or a little wizard or have a strange appearance? I did.)

I also was bracing myself to see a 15-year-old, or something weird like that, because of the possible time differential on the Island. This was when I had been thinking that the baby was obviously Sawyer's. This show makes me love being wrong.


ABSENCE DOES NOT MAKE THE HEART GROW FONDER

There was a lot that drove me crazy (in a good way) in this episode, but one of the things I'm now wondering about the most is what happened to make Jack and Kate go from friendly, out-in-the-open meetings and talks of rendezvousing for coffee to the strained state their relationship was in during the final scene of "Through the Looking Glass?" At that point in time (which many believe to be April 2007, based on the newspaper clip Jack had), Kate had told Jack not to call her anymore, and when he finally did reach her, they had to meet late at night in the middle of nowhere outside the airport. Something must have caused a rift between the time of Kate's trial (which I'll speculate on in a second) and Jack's "WE HAVE TO GO BACK!" plea.

Perhaps shortly after Kate's trial, Jack started being haunted by visions, as Hurley had been? Perhaps others of The Six had been killed after slipping from the agreed-upon story? All that is clear is that Kate didn't want to go back to the Island at either point in time in the future. She agreed, without hesitation, to a 10-year probation where she needed to remain in-state. In her airport scene with Jack last season, she mentioned that "he" was going to wonder where she was. There seems to be some level of agreement among viewers that the "he" is indeed Aaron. Off-Island Kate is the exact opposite of On-Island Kate: she wants to stay put.


GUYS, WHEN ARE WE?

Not only do we now know that Kate's son is none other than Aaron, but we also know that Aaron's old enough to talk and sleep in a bed rather than in a crib. Lostpedia reports that according to the script, Aaron is two years old. I have consulted my baby expert, DY, and she concurs with this assessment. Aaron is believed to have been born on November 1, 2004. We know that right now on the Island, it is around Christmas Day 2004. If Aaron is now 2 years old, that would put the current time of Kate's flash-forward to be around November of 2006. That leaves less than six months for her relationship with Jack to fall apart (not to mention for Jack to descend into drug-addicted madness and grow a huge-ass beard).

Someone commented to me that they had heard that the producers said that the April 2007 date on the newspaper Jack had in "Through the Looking Glass" was a mistake... but I have not seen that anywhere. If someone actually has PROOF that the April 2007 date on the newspaper clipping in the Season Three finale was a production error, please post it. Otherwise, I'm going to continue to assume that that date is correct.

Back to when Kate's trial is... I know that the judicial system is slow and everything, but doesn't it seem strange that her trial wouldn't get underway until nearly two years had past since she returned from the Island? And that she would still be that famous at that point in time? We all know celebrity is fleeting! It makes me think that the Oceanic Six returned home much later than we may have previously assumed. Meaning, if it's near the end of 2004 on the Island right now, they're probably not being taken directly home from the freighter. It's possible that another whole year may pass where the chosen six are re-programmed or something--where they're offered a financial deal and given a story to memorize and whatnot. At the time of Kate's trial, Jack seems to have no problem reciting the lie, whereas Kate says (paraphrasing): "I've heard you tell that story so many times, I'm beginning to think you believe it." She doesn't appear to be comfortable with the front they're putting up.

Another possibility is that, because time on the Island may be passing more slowly than it does elsewhere, the three months the Lostaways have been gone may in fact be much longer. I don't really know how that would affect Aaron's age and growth, and I don't even want to think about it because it's so confusing!



NOW LET ME BLOW YA MIND

So... many... questions... left! But for whatever reason, the multitude of questions raised in "Eggtown" didn't depress me like they did with "The Economist." Yes, it was freaky as hell when Kate said "Aaron," and it's depressing to think that Claire might have kicked the bucket. I was never a big fan of Claire (because of the whole "bay-bee" thing I mentioned earlier), but it's a little too dark for my taste to have the mother of a newborn baby killed on this show. I hope that's not what happened. So until we know for sure what went down, I will try to think positively and will focus my attention on everything else I've already discussed, as well as these remaining issues:

The Aaron Cover-Up Story
If the rest of the world thinks Aaron is Kate's biological son, then one of three things must have happened:
1) Assuming that there's no time difference on the Island and that the age Kate claims Aaron to be (which they haven't officially told us yet) is actually the age he is, there were either no witnesses to the fact that Kate was not eight months pregnant on the flight, or "they" got rid of all the witnesses who would've known this. There were also people who knew that Claire was pregnant on the flight who may have been able to put two and two together, and therefore those witnesses would've had to have been silenced. Because someone should've been able to figure out that if Kate wasn't eight months pregnant on September 22, 2004, there's no way she could have come back from the Island with a newborn.
2) As mentioned above, perhaps time moved more slowly on the Island. The Six would've been clued in that it's much later in time than they thought it was, and therefore Kate could easily pretend that Aaron was hers, as she didn't have to be pregnant (or at least not showing that she was pregnant) during the flight in order to come back home with a baby, if she was gone for significantly longer than nine months.
3) Kate could just be lying about Aaron's age. Like I said above, even though Lostpedia listed the boy as two years old, on the show Kate never mentioned his actual age (and even if she did, we couldn't trust that that is his real age until we are able to more confidently piece together the overall timeline).


Desmond's Vision
The whole reason Charlie accepted his suicide mission was because Desmond said he had a vision of Claire and Aaron getting into a helicopter and leaving the Island. Since Des hasn't given us reason to distrust him, I believe that we will see this scene unfold. Which may mean that whatever causes Kate to end up with Aaron happens after they're off the Island but before they return home. Or Des was lying and we're going to find out that he's a total prick.


Devil Baby Possibilities
One of the trippiest Lost episodes to date was "Raised by Another," in which Claire finds out that some bad stuff would go down if she was not the one to raise her child:

MALKIN (psychic): It is crucial that you, yourself, raise this child.
CLAIRE: You mean with Thomas? Is he..
MALKIN: The father of this child will play no part in it's life, nor yours.
CLAIRE: So what exactly are you saying?
MALKIN: This child parented by anyone else, anyone other than you -- danger surrounds this baby. . .
CLAIRE: Danger?
MALKIN: Your nature, your spirit, your goodness, must be an influence in the development of this child.
CLAIRE: If Thomas and I don't get back together I'm putting this baby up for adoption. I just wanted to find out what would give the baby the happiest life.
MALKIN: There is no happy life -- not for this child, not without you.
CLAIRE: I don't. . .
MALKIN: It can't be another. You mustn't allow another to raise your baby.
CLAIRE: Okay, great. Thanks for taking my 200.
MALKIN: Oh, no look, take it. Ms. Littleton; I am begging you just to consider...
CLAIRE: I can't raise this child by myself.
MALKIN: You have to listen to me.
CLAIRE: Thanks for your time, and my money back.
MALKIN: Ms. Littleton, please. The baby needs your protection. Ms. Littleton, please.

Now we know that, at least for some period of time, if not for the rest of his life, Kate is raising Aaron. I am really scared that this kid is going to unleash some demonic powers on the world at any moment!


Does Aaron count as a member of the Oceanic Six?
They didn't exactly spell it out for us. If there is something weird going on with time and if "the story" is that Kate got pregnant with Aaron and delivered him all while on the Island, then he wouldn't count as a Flight 815 passenger. And even if it was known that he was adopted by Kate after his birth mother died, Aaron still wasn't on the flight manifest and wasn't born at the time of the crash. We ALL KNOW how cheap the airlines are... do you really think they're going to pay a settlement out to someone who hadn't even purchased a full-fare ticket?

Hee hee, I kid, I kid. There are arguments for both sides of this issue. Many people think it's extremely obvious that Aaron should be counted as one of The Six because, although he wasn't born yet, he was alive in the womb during the crash... and then suffered the hardship of spending his first few months of life on a deserted island. I can see The Powers That Be over at CBS getting all sorts of bad ideas now. Survivor: Newborns vs. Toddlers!


The Rest of The Six
Depending on how Aaron is counted, there are either one or two remaining members of The Six to be revealed. I had always assumed that Sun would get off because of her pregnancy. Now I'm not so sure. There has been absolutely no rhyme nor reason for the first four confirmed members of the group, so I have stuck to my oath made a few weeks ago to not try to figure it out.


I Need a Bushy Eyebrow Fix!
Why the hell haven't they shown Ageless Richard, Cindy, all of the kids and all of the other Others over at the Temple yet? I think we're supposed to forget about them so that when they do show up it will be a big surprise. But who can forget about those ridiculously long eyelashes?


No More Food?
Locke mentioned that he had used up the last two eggs. Then he claimed to have killed a chicken (which would seem foolhardy if there were no more eggs). All of this made me think about the food drop we saw in the past. I believe those food drops were linked to the Countdown Clock O' Doom in the original hatch, which was one of many things Locke blew up. So are they now running out of food? But even more importantly, wouldn't the group who was performing the food drops have realized that something had gone wrong on the Island? Could the organization behind the freighter team have been involved in the food drops before? Or were the drops something that Ben had arranged through some of his contacts off of the Island?

Whew, that's it. See what happens when I like an episode? The length of the write-up increases exponentially.



BEST LINES OF THE EPISODE

Kate: You got blood.
Locke: I just... killed a chicken.


Hurley: No, I moved him to the boat house--[pause]--You just totally Scooby-Dooed me, didn't you?
Kate: Sorry.


[Jack grimaces at another busy signal]
Juliet: Maybe we should try a number other than the boat... like 911?



Sawyer: I know it's in a box, but... pretty damn good wine! I tested it.



Sawyer: She talked to that guy... Bruce Lee from the freighter.



PARTY ALL THE TIME

I hosted a party at my place ("The Hatch") for "Eggtown." If you'd like to see just how crazy I am, click here for the pictures.

Until next week,
- e

Competition : Predict the rest of the season (*Closed*)

Update: 3rd MarchWith some spoilers starting to come through, this competition is now closed. Good luck to everyone who entered.

Thanks to Joseph for the idea of running a little competition for DarkUFO readers.

It's very simple, all you need to do is to predict the centricity of Episode 9-13 (the unfilmed episodes) along with if it is a Flashback or Flashforward. The first person to guess/predict correctly will win a $20 Amazon voucher. As soon as we get confirmed spoilers in the competition will close, so make sure you get your predications in sooner rather than later. Only 1 entry per person and only entries in the comments section to this post will be counted.

DO NOT POST SPOILERS IN HERE.

Here are my picks.

Episode 9 - Daniel (Flashback)
Episode 10 - Charlotte (Flashback)
Episode 11 - Ben (Flashforward)
Episode 12 - Sawyer (Flashback)
Episode 13 - Jack (Flashforward)

Citizen Kate by Luhks

The fourth episode of Lost’s Season Four arrives with one of the most puzzling titles to date in the series, Eggtown. Like almost every Lost episode title, Eggtown refers to a number of different things: the eggs in Ben’s breakfast, the Easter eggs to which Locke alludes, the possibility of Kate’s pregnancy, and even an obscure antiquated term used in bargaining. While the title invokes all of these ideas to varying degrees, the title’s most interesting application is to the classic riddle:

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Which of these two things is the cause and which is the effect? If every effect in the universe has a cause, then what was the ultimate cause that came before all of those causes? This paradox of causality has persisted throughout history, for everyone from Aristotle to Stephen Hawking. (If you don’t enjoy these types of riddles, then Locke shows us perhaps the only way to escape this endless puzzle: simply eat all of the eggs and kill the chicken.)

Now that four episodes of this new season have aired, Season Four has developed its own unique style. The secret of this format lies in the old riddle of the chicken and the egg: this episode reveals the image of the eggs, but never shows us the chicken that produced them. In this story, effects precede causes. Each of the four flash-forward episodes presented us with a series of eggs, but the chickens that caused them remain conveniently off-screen. Through the Looking Glass showed Jack’s downward spiral, but failed to reveal the identity of the man whose death triggered it. In Hurley's flashes, he expressed regret for his decision to follow Locke, but he remained unable to speak about the disaster that caused it. Sayid’s episode concluded with the mention of some similar tragedy, one so horrible that it persuaded him to sell his soul to his enemy. Finally, Kate’s tale now includes the startling revelation that she will live off the island as the adoptive mother of Claire’s son Aaron, without leaving much indication as to why. In each case, the audience is free to speculate about what causes could have possibly produced these effects. Examining these eggs, though, does little to help us visualize the chickens that produced them.


One particular scene in Eggtown, which focuses on newcomer Daniel Faraday, offers perhaps an even better metaphor for the new format: memory loss. Daniel can remember the faces of two out of the three playing cards, but he guesses the third card incorrectly. The results of Charlotte’s test now place Daniel’s introductory scenes in a new light: Daniel might know something important about the island, and be unable to remember it. This revelation also explains why Miles needed to remind him about the meaning of Naomi’s last words: he simply forgot. In many ways, Daniel, as a man incapable of remembering the recent past, may become the antithesis of Desmond, the man capable of remembering the near future. The flash-forward scenes of Season Four, by leaving a large span of time concealed, place the viewer in a predicament similar to ones faced by Desmond or Daniel: we have access to two out of the three parts of the story, but we can only guess the third. Expect next week's epsiode, The Constant, to explore this idea in greater depth.


(Antero-grade amnesia, loss of short-term memory, also serves as the focus of the remarkable 2000 feature film, Memento, from director Christopher Nolan. I highly recommend this film to anyone who has not seen it. Not only does it hold plenty of significance for interpreting Lost, but it is also an exceptional work on its own, and my favorite movie of this decade. Memento is another inventive, nonlinear story that explores many of the same motifs as Lost: time, mirroring, revenge, and identity. Essentially, the film presents a series of flashbacks in reverse order, which allows the audience to experience a state of imperfect memory. As Leonard Shelby, the film’s main character, explains: “With my condition, you don’t know anything. You feel angry, guilty, and you don’t know why. You could do something terrible and not have the faintest idea ten minutes later.” Faraday appears to suffer from a narrower or less severe variety of memory loss than Leonard Shelby. Daniel’s memory problems will open up a number of new storytelling possibilities, but Daniel’s story should also take the concept into its own, unique direction.)


In addition to the innovations of Season Four, Eggtown also included a traditional, Season-One-style, Lost story, centering around Kate Austen. The episode brought about a conclusion of sorts to a story arc that was introduced in Lost’s very first character-centric episode, Tabula Rasa. The central theme of Kate’s fugitive storyline has always been the difference between freedom and imprisonment. Since the murder of her father, Kate spent her entire life running away from prisons, both actual and symbolic. Seemingly, the island offered Kate a chance to be free. Even that initial Kate episode, though, suggested that her newfound freedom was merely an illusion.

KATE: In case you hadn't noticed, I did get away.
MARSHAL: You don't look free to me. (Tabula Rasa)

What does it mean to be free? The most basic definition of freedom is the absence of physical constraints: things like handcuffs, prison cells, or threat of physical harm. Sawyer, for instance, regards his current position on the island as a state of freedom. He can do whatever he wants to do, whenever he wants to do it, without many consequences. In Eggtown as well as in The Economist, Sawyer presents Kate with the chance to share in his independent lifestyle. He offers her an escape from the outside threats to her liberty, as well as comfort and security: “If you think there’s anything waiting for you back home other than handcuffs, you really don’t know how the world works. Look around us, Freckles. We’ve got roofs over our heads. Electricity, showers, beds.” Sawyer’s concept of freedom, although not without its merits, can be measured in terms of physical objects. To a lesser extent, Miles, an echo of Sawyer, also voices this same perspective: “If I were you, I would stay right here.”


If you adopt the same concept of freedom as Sawyer and Miles, then Kate’s decision to leave the island seems foolish. Despite what you might hear about Kate from a number of the show's fans, though, she is not stupid. Kate does know how the world works, and she understands that she faces an unpleasant ordeal back home. Even with this knowledge, she still chooses to go back. Freedom remains her objective, but she holds a different definition of the word than the one that Sawyer presented. Paradoxically, how can Kate’s choice to face trial be regarded as an expression of freedom? One possible answer to this question comes from Rousseau – not our Danielle, the noble savage herself, but her namesake, the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau. Among other things, Rousseau’s work argued a concept of moral freedom, which is characterized not by physical license, but by obedience to duty.

"Freedom is obedience to the law which one has laid down for oneself." - Jean Jacques Rousseau

In Eggtown, Kate’s interactions with Sawyer play the deciding role in exposing her ultimate concept of freedom. Sawyer treats the prospect of raising a child as the worst thing in the world. In Sawyer’s present view, a child presents an obstacle to freedom, no differently than any other obstacle. He sees parenthood as a prison, one which would hinder his ability to do what he desires. Not long ago, in the episode I Do, Kate expressed that exact same reaction: “I almost had a baby. Me, a baby! I can't do this!” By observing Sawyer’s response to her possible pregnancy, Kate sees a reflection of what she herself used to be. Instead of agreeing with him, Kate finds the source of her disagreement with his worldview. Kate does not see moral duty necessarily as a bad thing.


Even though Kate’s actions often show a dubious morality, she still possesses a strong sense of right and wrong. Kate’s powerful conscience continued to torment her relentlessly. In many ways, Marshal Edward Mars, a recurring character in Kate’s story, served as the representation of that conscience. Obsessed with bringing Kate to justice, the Marshal hunted Kate down all over the globe. Long after his death, Kate’s conscience finished his work for him, and brought her back home to be put on trial. The opening shot of Eggtown’s first flash-forward scene blurs the background intentionally, so that the man out-of-focus (Kate’s lawyer) bears a striking resemblance to the deceased Marshal. The lawyer also vocalizes Kate’s conscience in this scene, as he tells her, “Yes, [there is a back-door], but you’re going through the front door with your head held high.” Kate’s story suggests that she could not find true freedom by running and hiding, but only by standing firm in the face of threats. In order to be free, you need to risk your own liberty. Kate chose to face the responsibility to herself and to her son, the duty to put an end to that chapter of her life.

One of the most persistent criticisms against Kate has always been that she will not hesitate to use any of the other adults in her life to serve her own interests. On the island, she successively manipulates Hurley, Sawyer, Locke, Miles, and Ben in a plot to uncover information useful only to herself. By contrast, the flash-forward scenes stress Kate’s steadfast unwillingness to use her new son Aaron in the same way. First, Kate rejects her attorney’s reasonable advice to use the child to gain the jury’s sympathy. Her lawyer still tries to use her son in a roundabout way, but Kate cuts off the examination right before Jack begins to testify about Aaron. Kate’s mother even offers to sabotage the case, requesting only to see her grandson in return, but Kate refuses to utilize him even in that small way. In her final exchange with Jack, she once again makes her position clear: she values Aaron’s well-being above all else, including her own interests.


Whether or not you respect Kate’s overall morals, one cannot help but admire her newfound maturity in this instance. One of the most frequently discussed questions among Lost fans has always been: whom will Kate choose? The general consensus always seemed to be that she needed to decide between Jack and Sawyer. Few people ever would have expected that eventually Kate would select Baby Aaron as the one guy she loves more than any other. Her story still leaves open the potential for future romantic involvement with both men, but only on the condition that her partner shares those priorities. For different reasons, neither Jack nor Sawyer feels willing to make that kind of commitment to both Kate and the child. At the conclusion of the episode, Kate has found the freedom that eluded her for so long, both in the physical sense, and in Rousseau’s notion of moral freedom: Kate adheres to the moral laws that she has defined for herself.



In addition to Kate’s story, Eggtown includes another curious exploration of the notions of freedom and imprisonment, through the interplay of Locke and Ben. In the opening scene, Ben once again shows that Locke’s physical power over his body pales in comparison to his mental control over Locke’s mind. Ben alludes to his previous imprisonment in the Swan armory (the same man in a different place), but it is also important to note that Ben now resides in the same location in which Locke found Cooper (a different man in the same place). Even though Miles is in chains, he too appears to exercise more freedom than his keeper, as he tells us that he is ‘exactly where he wants to be.’

In one of Locke’s first flashback scenes of the Season One episode Walkabout, Locke stated that “Patience […] is the hallmark of a leader”. If that maxim holds true, then Locke has a long way to evolve before he can become a great leader. Right now, his impatience is his downfall (just as it was with the hatch in Season Two). In this episode, he responds to the constant undercutting of his authority, not by adapting to the psychological game, but by resorting to physical bullying. Locke has not yet reached the point where he will ‘shoot people in the head and continue on with his day,’ but his treatment of Miles suggests that he might not be very far from it. Hurley’s flash-forward scenes created a sense of impending doom about the destiny of John’s new flock, and now Kate’s flash-forward suggests that Claire may be the one to suffer the same fate as Boone.


It seems more possible than ever that Locke’s story will end in tragedy and not triumph: he’s more lost than he’s ever been. For now, though, Kate’s story offers us hope that at least some Lost characters eventually may find what they’ve been seeking.