Lostwatch: Ships That Pass in the Night
SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, grab the gun stashed in your box of chocolates and watch last night's Lost.
With "The Little Prince," you can tell how much Lost has been affected, for the better, by the decision to set a series end date. For much of the series, every episode, no matter what the focus, would emphasize a particular character (in flashback or flash-forward) to give the episode a narrative thread and an emotional core. This episode didn't really have that. I suppose it was nominally Kate-centric, but really her arc wasn't much more significant than any others. (At this point, I don't really know whether to blame Evangeline Lilly or the writers for Kate's lack of emotional impact—what did this episode say about her, except to confirm that she really is attached to Aaron?—but I'm just glad they didn't spend an inordinate amount of time on it.)
Compared with Lost episodes from last season—even compared with last week's "Jughead," which focused on Daniel Faraday—this episode didn't really have a center: there was a little of this and a little of that, half Island, half L.A. And yet despite that—and despite the fact that, at this point, I'm not half as interested in the Oceanic 6 as the Island folk—there was so much story going on (because, with less than two seasons left, there has to be) that it almost didn't matter.
I mean, good God: Jin! Alive! And not in the way that we probably always expected he'd turn up alive, but rescued by... Rousseau's freaking French science boat! Miles—probably Marvin Candle's baby! (Right? What else could the nosebleed have implied?) Season 5 characters coming across season 1 characters! (Dare we hope to see Boone and Shannon?) Time-travel nosebleeds for everybody! Oh, yeah, and: the beach abandoned, and what's this? Signs of yet another plane crash?
Back in L.A., meanwhile, the major shock was that there wasn't one: that is, to borrow a phrase from Lost Discussion Group, for once the Reverse Occam's Razor rule of Lost did not apply. The simplest explanation actually was true, and it really was Ben who sent the lawyer after Aaron. And Sun really is, apparently, out to pop a cap into Ben. (Hasn't she reached the level where she can hire people to do the job for her, like her dad would have?) One open question—so who did send the goons after Sayid? (Who, incidentally, should get to fight with his bare hands in every episode.) Was there an obvious answer I'm just missing? Is it—by Reverse Reverse Occam's Razor—also Ben?
But what I'll be puzzling over most in this episode is the Island, and all those damn boats. The (octagonal, a la Dharma/Buddhist) boat of the French crew, who pick up Jin: if he's separated in the past with them, what possibly becomes of him? (Incidentally, very glad we're getting more of their backstory, which I'd doubted we'd ever see.)
And those long boats on shore at the abandoned camp. This is interesting, since it suggests another, yet unknown, group reaching the Island at a point when the camp existed. (Perhaps in the "future"—that is, at a point after the escape of the Oceanic Six?) Who are these people, why are they shooting, and what is their connection to Ajira Airways? Those of you who delved into the Ajira website, which appeared before the start of season 5, are welcome to weigh in here, because I've got nothin'.
On to the hail of bullets:
* In earlier discussions, some of you said you'd be disappointed if it turned out Miles was the Dharma baby, because there's a little too much everyone's-related-to-everyone going on here. Do you still feel that way?
* So if Jin was picked up by Rousseau and Co., and Locke's group has come upon their wreckage, does that mean that Jin—floating about in wreckage on the water—has been bouncing around in time in tandem with them, all this time? Will he get picked up by the Locke group on the way to the Orchid? Will Locke and company do something (at the Orchid, perhaps) that precipitates the "sickness" that claims the rest of Rousseau's group?
* For that matter, what was the sickness? From what I recall, it involved people somehow going "mad," which sounds more like Desmond's unsticking-in-time (and, maybe, whatever Faraday has or once had) than Island Nosebleed Syndrome.
* Miles and Sawyer are now neck and neck in the snarky/sarcastic remark sweeepstakes.
* I don't have a season one set of DVDs handy, so can anyone tell me: were we seeing the original Claire birth scene from "Do No Harm," or did it look as if the scene were re-created for this episode?
* "42 Panorama Crest"? Wouldn't the Oceanic 6 ask their real estate agents to avoid addresses involving the Numbers?
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1
So looks like I was right after all about the topic of the episode (french crew).
It seems pretty clear to me Ben is playing EVERYBODY. He is the master manipulator. He is after Sayid to make sure he was coralled, he was after Kate's baby to draw her into the group to back to the island, he manipulated Jack into convincing Kate to come with the backdrop of the fear over Aaron.
Also, I'm not sure I understand the frustration over Miles probably being Chang's baby.. The whole reason Miles was chosen was because he had already been on the island before. I'm sure we'll find out it wasn't just coincidence later and there was a reason he was specifically included in the freighter group.
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2
The child actor that plays Aaron is horrible!! I don't buy the relationship between Kate and Aaron at all. It's so forced. Kate was never a kid person and now the writers act like if she talks about how much she loves Aaron a lot, we'll all magically believe it.
And I totally agree about the Oceanic Six, they're just not as interesting as the people on the island. I guess it's because there are still so many mysteries surrounding Farraday, Charlotte and Miles. Speaking of Charlotte, I was convinced she was going to die.
I'm horrible at determining these things but I think it's possible that Jin somehow made it to shore and was affected by the time flashes just like the others. Though it is weird that all the other survivors have just disappeared..
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3
Is it possible that Charlotte is the baby we saw with Marvin Candle? The baby in the season premiere had pretty light-colored hair, and it would make sense that Marvin Candle and his wife would have to adopt/take a baby that is not theirs because of whatever it is about the island that prevents women from carrying pregnancies to term.
Also, if "temporal displacement" occurs in proportion to one's amount of time on the island, and if Charlotte was actually a baby on the island, she has been exposed the longest, and then Miles for whatever reason, then Juliet ? Having Miles be the son of Marvin Candle just seems to be too obvious....
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4
OH! and if Marvin Candle is Korean, it would explain why Charlotte speaks Korean ...
I can't believe I forgot about mentioning that... -
5
Charlotte's faculty with the Korean language is intriguing, but Baby Candle doesn't look her at all:
http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1455-5.html
Keep in mind that what we diehards consider "obvious" isn't obvious to the majority of viewers, even in this penultimate season. I mean, they had to make Rousseau introduce herself with her full name to bang home the point.
I like the idea of Jin, floating on a shard of freighter wreckage inside the bubble radius, bouncing through time while unconscious. He should have experienced all the same flashes that "moved" Sawyer, Locke, et al.
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6
"were we seeing the original Claire birth scene" - I too would like to know. When I was watching that scene I thought to myself did that have the foresight to shoot that from a different angle way back then? If they did, I give the writers two big thumbs up for doing so. This show keeps amazing me more and more.
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7
I watched the original birth scene in "Do No Harm." I think it's the same footage. But considering that Charlie and Jin were also watching the birth, I'm not exactly sure if the angles were foresight, or just convenient coincidence. And if Rousseau truly was French, why did the actress that played her at a mature age, Mira Furlan, not sound French at all? And I wonder if Sawyer et. al. will ever confront their past (or future) selves on the island.
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8
"Miles—probably Marvin Candle's baby! (Right? What else could the nosebleed have implied?)"
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I'm confused here, why does this mean Miles is Candle's baby? I took it as the nosebleeds that Charlotte and now Miles and at the end Juliet had was because they don't have a constant. Remember from last season, we found out that Desmond is Faraday's constant, which he met in the first episode (or was it the second) to constantize himself. I'm guessing that Locke's is either the island or Richard Alpert and Sawyer's is Kate whom he saw during this episode. -
9
"Miles—probably Marvin Candle's baby! (Right? What else could the nosebleed have implied?)"
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I'm confused here, why does this mean Miles is Candle's baby? I took it as the nosebleeds that Charlotte and now Miles and at the end Juliet had was because they don't have a constant. Remember from last season, we found out that Desmond is Faraday's constant, which he met in the first episode (or was it the second) to constantize himself. I'm guessing that Locke's is either the island or Richard Alpert and Sawyer's is Kate whom he saw during this episode. -
10
So I guess Jin was thrown by the explosion into the blast radius?
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The helicopter wasn't grabbed when the island moved and it seems like it would have been closer to the island then tossed off freighter Jin.
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My first thought was Jin wondered into the island's perimeter after the island started to move or something and is flopping around in a different time stream then Sawyer, Locke and co. I'll have to watch again and see if there is evidence that supports or contradicts that idea.
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When Sun was left alone with the kid I screamed "SPOOKY NINJA!" and everyone in my house looked at me funny.
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Kind of disappointed in the Charlotte recovering so quickly to hiking form. That felt a little cheap to me. Lost should be better then a "this character is totally dead, psyche!" sort of play at this level.
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I feel like all the action is on island. I "know" that at some point they are all going to get back to the island, and I'm just not that interested in watching Ben do his manipulations to get them there. Hoping for a Desmond run in or something to make the off island stuff more engaging. -
11
90% sure that was all original footage from the season one ep, intercut with season-five Sawyer.
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12
@ Jengod and James
The scene of Claire giving birth was brand new footage. I know for a fact that Charlie was also there. And I am pretty sure Jin was there as well. Plus, although Kate hasn't aged as much as Walt, watching reruns of Season 1 anyone would notice that she does look a little different(some of that has to do with an improvement in Lilly acting ability).
Overall, I disliked that scene because it suggested that the crash survivors could travel to a time where they were already present on the island. So the same soul and/or mind exists twice at the same moment. That means there is a possibility of running into their past or future selves. It makes sense that they could travel to a time where they existed off island because The Island is a special/separate entity.
For a show that has strict rules about time-travel that's something that the producers shouldn't even flirt with. Then again, I have enough patience to wait and see how it is explained.
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13
The long boats were the most interesting part of the episode for me since they seemed to indicate that the time-jumpers can move to the future as well as the past. I'm curious what timeline they're on though; did they jump to a point in the island's future independent of them time-hopping all over the place, or did the events that brought the boats there depend on their time-jumping activities?
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On a side note, did it bother anyone else that their long boat/canoe conveniently time-jumped with them? Did I miss a Faraday explanation that would cover this? -
14
Ugh, the Season 4 real world filler continues. Let's see how few sentences I can sum up the episode in:
Miles is indeed Candle's kid; he left the Island before he was three years old.
Charlotte was well older than that when she left.
Ben was indeed behind the Aaron lawyer scare.
Jin is alive, and in the time period where Rousseau's team landed.
Someone will get to The Island in the future, after flying Ajira airlines.Let's hope they leave the real world soon, only Ben & Sayid's time there has been worth anything.
And in regards to Miles' parentage: I was against it at first; this all is getting a bit incestuous, that every major moment in The Island's history is caused by the same batch of 23 people. (Even more so if Widmore is also Daniel's dad.) But it could just be that with Mader's departure/reduced time, they needed someone to be born there of the current cast, to hammer home that the baby pox hasn't always been around.
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15
Re: the long boats... let me throw out another thought to chew on that just occurred to me.
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They are long boats.
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What I mean is, they are not emergency inflatable rafts, of the sort that someone might float on after a plane crash. They are not--I think, unless someone was very handy--hand-hewn canoes someone might have carved or lashed together on an island. And I don't think (not that I'm a maritime expert) that they are lifeboats from a ship that sank. They appear to be well-crafted boats that would have been built in civilization. And yet someone on the was drinking out of an airline water bottle.
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In other words, the kind of boats that someone might have taken if they *intended* to row somewhere. Not if they washed up by accident. On the other hand--again, I say this as a boating layman--they don't seem like boats you'd take on a long-haul trip.
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All of which is to say: what does the *kind* of boats tells us about the nature of the people who brought them to the Island? And does it tell us anything about where the Island is (if we think that it is moving in space as well as time)? -
16
I'm almost positive that was old footage. Charlie and Jin were there, but off to the side (at one point when Claire was screaming, Charlie started to go to her but Jin shook his head and stopped him).
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The water bottle completely ruins this, but my first thought was that the long boats were from the Black Rock ship. Wouldn't an old sailboat carry a couple smaller crafts? And no one actually rowed to the island, the longboats were with the ship when the island "appeared" underneath it. -
17
@tenderfeet
In the season premiere Faraday (or maybe Juliet) mentioned that whatever is with them when they time jump goes with them. It's a convenient "rule" but one that the producers had to make in order to avoid everyone time traveling in the nude (see: Terminator).
@Tom Shaw
Incestuous? Do you mean incredulous? I think Boone and Shannon will be the only (and one more than was necessary) case of incest we will get on this show.
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18
@Beerbaron
Ah, that's right. Charlie and Jin did go off to the side. I forgot about that. But still, there was something about the scene that made it seem new. I wonder if Emilie de Ravin gets paid if they use archival footage.
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19
@James- I think I have to disagree to some extent about the benefits of the end-date. I agree, they desparately needed an end date, I just wish it had been a bit further out. Where I disagree with you is that I much preferred character-centric episodes. Having every episode's "flashs" focus on pretty much all of the characters takes away some of the character-driven aspects of the story to me, because a lot of the character development is taken away. We've learned about their characters in the past, but I'd like some "future" character development as well. Everything this season seems hurried (and to some extent, last season as well). The O6 would be much more interesting to me if we just has one episode on each character (or maybe two characters), focusing on how they got to that meeting on the pier - why they had to get back - just like how a lot of the flashbacks focused on why the characters were on the plane. (For example, we keep hearing about Locke's meetings with them off-island, but why do we never see those meetings?) If there was an over-arching "power" that got everyone on that same plane, wouldn't that power still be in effect to get the O6 back? The meeting at the pier could have served the same purpose as everyone getting to the airport in Sydney before. Everything about the O6 just seems hurried and "too convenient", if that makes sense. I feel there has been a bit of a creative cop-out this season, just to focus so much on the time-travel plot.
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Re: the long boats. Those looked to me like the same type of boat Kate and Sawyer used to get off the Hydra Isalnd.
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I know Kate takes a lot hits from this group, but I found her scene with Jack on the Searcher to be one of the more touching scenes in awhile that didn't involve Desmond and Penny. -
20
Wow. So, it looks like Sun is not actually a spooky ninja, which definitely makes me a little more bored with her storyline thus far - but JIN IS ALIVE!!!!! I had been pretty sure that Jin is alive, and that he would be drifting toward the island, because I had rewatched the episode where the doctor from the freighter got his throat slit and washed up on their beach. That indicated that there was a current (or whatever) flowing from the freighter to the island, which Jin would naturally have been be caught up in. And it looks like Ben does know this, and that that is how he is gonna get Sun on board with the plan, which I definitely like.
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Is anyone else getting a very Wolfram & Hart vibe from this lawyer dude? Also, were they saying that they were going to get Hurley released pretty easily? That was a nice switcharoo with Claire's mom - when she showed up, my mind was blown because I had been so sure it was Ben. But then, ha ha, neat trick, it was Ben all along.
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So it seems pretty definite that Myles was on the island as a baby, and that Pierre is his dad. Interesting development, I'm assuming that Myles was around for the Incident and that's what triggered his weird psychic abilities. Could he be experiencing a sort of "unstuckness" himself? Like, instead of talking to dead people or just "being psychic", is it that he can unstick his consciousness in time at will because of this exposure to whatever happened during the Incident?
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So, how come the gun Juliet took from the soldiers, the compass Locke took from Richard, the longboat they were riding in, and the bullet in Locke's leg all went with them when everything else flashed away? Is it that they can take whatever they have contact with at the moment of the flash with them? If so, what if Locke had grabbed hold of Ethan when he jumped - would Ethan have been pulled along too?
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@chriskw: I loved the scene where Sawyer saw Kate and Claire. It was so well-played. I don't think that its really a time travel paradox to have Sawyer on the island at the same time that Past Sawyer is on the island any more than it is a paradox to have them on the island with Past Versions of people they will later meet. I see it as much more of a 12 Monkeys vision of time travel than a Back to the Future vision of time travel, which fits in with the "rules of the universe don't allow changes" that we've been hearing so far. -
21
@antilles - I have a hunch that later on in the season, we'll have an episode devoted to "Bentham", a la Meet Kevin Johnston or the Other 48 Days.
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@James, et al re: longboats. Just because there's a water bottle on the boat, doesn't mean the people who built the boats were the ones who came on Ajira.
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@tenderfeet - yes, I was fully expecting/hoping that after the flash on the longboat, they'd wind up in the water. Oh well.
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It may just be me, but all the Sawyer "slip-ups" about Kate are starting to get heavy-handed. "She's gone... they're gone." "Don't you want them to come back? Don't you want *her* to come back?" It's a bit much.
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My roommates and I all cheered when the floating body was revealed to be Jin. Like, really, really loudly.
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Is anyone else curious about Rose & Bernard? I hope they're OK... -
22
I saw this on Lostpedia, and it made me think of Ben's refusal to answer Jack when Jack said, "He's dead, isn't he": the name on the side of Ben's van, "Canton Rainier" is an anagram of "reincarnation."
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@Matt- I would love to see a Bentham-centric episode, but it wouldn't change the fact that, for me, the whole O6 thing seems a little forced. -
23
About the end date - Its definitely changed things. For one thing, the focus of the viewership seems to have shifted - I've heard several folks this season say things like "that scene just wasn't important in the grand scheme" and "that scene didn't add anything to what we already knew about x, y, and z." So, rather than enjoying episodes and scenes as we did in the past (character-based storylines with small, gradual reveals of information), everything is now apparantly supposed to directly play into the endgame, or whatever. On the show end, there's a lot more action and less focus on characters - the glass half full approach says that we've already gotten to know these characters and their history and motivations and interconnections, so now its time to get busy with the action, the answers, and the endgame. The glass is half empty approach says that the character development (which could certainly have been elaborated with many of the O6, particularly Kate and Sun) may be being rushed at the expense of the needs of the plot.
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I do like having the end in sight. I'm definitely of the opinion that the end-time is a good thing, because I have been seriously worried about the potential for X-Files-itis with this show, and this is assurance that it won't happen. I don't know what the endgame is, but I'll trust that the writers know what's coming, and what its going to take to get there. I don't really mind having the focus on the plot and action, but there was something really magical about the slow pace of the earlier seasons where we were getting to know the characters and the island so gradually that each episode was a work of art in character study. -
24
@doba0821: "And if Rousseau truly was French, why did the actress that played her at a mature age, Mira Furlan, not sound French at all?"
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She sounded plenty French to me - she wasn't around a lot, but I do remember her having a pretty strong accent. -
25
@chris.. Emilie should get paid for being on-screen.. if a commercial with a piece of music is played more than once, the composer will get royalties everytime the commercial is played on TV, so I'm sure the same is true for actors..
Re; Long boats.. these initially reminded me of Alex and Carl rowing from the smaller island.. I think it belongs to the Others. AND How do we know this was in the future??? The Ajira bottle could have been from the other "incident" which could have been an earlier plane crash before Oceanic.
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