5:13 Some Like It Hoth, 5:14 The Variable, 5:15 Follow the Leader

5:13 Some Like It Hoth


In which Miles hears dead people, and Hurley becomes a screenwriter!

-When Miles gives his fake reading to Mr. Gray he holds his hands with the palms up - the same way the psychic Richard Malkin holds Claire's hands in season 1.

-We know now why Miles asked Ben for 3.2 million dollars - it's double the amount Widmore was paying him. Greedy greedy, Miles.

-The taco shop where Miles grabs some food before being abducted by Bram is named La Vida (Life) Tacos.

-After seeing the finale is seems pretty clear that Bram and Ilana are both on Team Jacob, and are Others.

-It's such a sweet moment when Miles sees his dad reading to him as a baby, and then when Dr. Chang says "Miles, I need you," and Miles says "You do?" Miles does have a soft side after all.

Best lines:

JACK: Her [Kate's] heart was in the right place.

SAWYER: Yeah, well, where was her head?

---

HURLEY: And let's face it. The Ewoks sucked, dude.

5:14 The Variable


The symbol of this whole season could be the one introduced in this episode: the metronome. Measuring the passage of time is obviously a big deal, and Daniel is the expert.

-One thing that kind of bugs me is how everyone within one family will have different last names just to throw us off. Charles Widmore, Eloise Hawking and Daniel Faraday? Why didn't Daniel get his father OR his mother's last name? Did Eloise just make up a name for him?

-Daniel says he tested things on himself first before Theresa, and while he's in bad shape he's not nearly as incapacitated as she is. It makes me wonder if someone intentionally got Theresa out of the way to let Daniel focus on his work. I wouldn't put anything past Eloise or Widmore at this point.

-We find out once and for all that Widmore is the one who planted the fake plane.

-We also find out why Daniel and Charlotte were running memory tests on the Island - Widmore had told Daniel that the Island would heal his mind.

-Sawyer says "yahoos" again! I might start referring to season 5 as "the yahoo season."

-I crack up when Sawyer calls Daniel "H.G. Wells". HAHAHA!

-I still can't believe Penny so readily leaves little Charlie with a nurse in the waiting room. After what just happened to them I wouldn't let that kid out of my sight!

-With the end of this episode we're back to the overarching question: Can free will change destiny?

Best lines:
HURLEY: You guys were in 1954? Like... Fonzie times?

5:15 Follow the Leader


-What does Richard mean when he says he "watched them all die"? Did he see the nuclear bomb going off?

-The scene between Kate and Jack where they discuss whether or not they should change their future is heart wrenching. Interesting that Kate is on Locke's side for this one - believing that they needed to have those experiences, even if they were painful, because there was good in them too.

-HILARIOUS that Hurley gets busted by Dr. Chang for not knowing who the President is, since that's what he was worried about at the beginning of their DI adventure.

-Interesting that fake Locke insists "I am the leader now." Why is it so important that he is the leader? So he can get access to Jacob? Can Jacob only be killed by one of his own?

-Richard explains about Eloise and Widmore to Jack and says "love can be complicated." You're preaching to the choir on that one, Alpert.

-Locke refers to himself in the 3rd person - which makes a lot more sense now that we know that he really is talking about someone else.

-Once again, the writers make Kate be the complication. When she got on that sub all I could think was "Awwww crap!"

-Question: If they were successful in detonating the bomb, in theory everyone on the Island would be killed. So how is Eloise going to be around in the future, and Dr. Chang, Richard, and Widmore too for that matter? That really would change things.

-Mirror image: Another exodus scene, complete with that amazing soundtrack. And even cooler this time with Ben's words resonated in my mind that Locke marched up to Jacob "as if he was Moses."

Best lines:

BEN: This must be quite the out-of-body experience.

LOCKE: Something like that.

----

MILES: Dr. Chang? What are you doing here?

DR. CHANG: I could ask you the same question.

HURLEY: But we asked you first.

4:1 The Beginning of the End, 4:2 Confirmed Dead, 4:3 The Economist, 4:4 Eggtown

4:1 The Beginning of the End


Go here to see my original post on this one.

-The entirety of Jack's psychological well-being can be measured by his beard. We know he's still doing OK (even though he has started drinking) at the start of this episode because he's still beardless.

-The big reveal of this premiere was Hurley yelling "I'm one of the Oceanic Six!" How many nerdy discussions were inspired by that sentence? (I know I contributed to at least a few!)

-When Hurley is being questioned at the police station the officer asks him "You want to know a funny coincidence?" and then tells Hurley about his connection to Ana Lucia. I'm thinking after being on the Island Of Funny Coincidences for 4 months you'd be kind of sick of hearing about them.

-"No Smoking" is painted on the wall of the holding room Hurley is in, predicting that something related to the smoke monster is about to happen, and sure enough, Hurley has a vision of Charlie. On Charlie's hand instead of "Not Penny's Boat" it says "They Need You."

-Again, it's obvious in retrospect that Ben knows the freighter is not there to rescue them, but at the time it was a huge mystery. And it's not our fault - when has Ben ever actually told the truth?

-I can't figure out why Kate is so excited to be rescued; doesn't she realize she's going to jail? Maybe she's decided prison is better than the Island. For that matter, why does Rose seem so happy about it? She's already said she will never leave the Island.

-Mr. Abaddon = uber creepy. It is fun to watch his scene knowing so much more about him now, especially the fact that he is the one who puts the idea in Locke's head to go on a walkabout, which brought him to the Island.

-Hurley hears whispers in the jungle as Jacob's cabin appears. Those pesky whispers - I hope we'll find out what causes them. I wonder why Hurley is able to find the cabin so easily, and why the cabin seems to follow him.

-Right before Hurley flees the cabin we see a close-up of an eye.

I think we all assumed it was Jacob's. But now it's fairly certain that Jacob was not the one in the cabin at all. Ilana says it was being used by someone else. And Jacob has blue eyes. Was it Esau/the man in black? I don't know, to me it kind of looks like Mikhail, but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

-Charlie tells Hurley "I am dead, but I'm also here." Is he referring to alternate timelines?

-It still shocks me when Jack holds that gun to Locke's head and pulls the trigger. WOW.

-There's another "No Smoking" sign in the basketball court where Jack pays Hurley a visit. It seems like poor Hurley is being haunted by Smokey constantly, which would explain his constant visions of dead people - and as Jacob explains in season 5, it makes him special.

4:2 Confirmed Dead

It was so fun getting to know the freighter crew all over again. THIS is how you introduce new characters!

-We still don't know who Daniel's caretaker is, and I'm guessing there's a reason we don't see her face. I have no idea what that reason is, but there you go.

-When Miles comes down the staircase the photos on the wall have all changed since he went up. It could be a production error, but I don't think so since the camera hovers on that wall for a couple of seconds. It has to be intentional. Is this evidence of alternate timelines already showing up?

-After seeing season 5, it's clear that Miles got his gift of communicating with the dead because he was born on the Island.

-If they had left Naomi's body on the Island, unburied, would she have been taken over instead of Locke?

4:3 The Economist


Enter Sayid, international man of mystery! He's such a ladykiller. Literally. (Ba-dum, ching!)

-Naomi's bracelet is signed "R.G." Does anyone think we'll ever find out who R.G. is?

-It drives me CRAZY when Sawyer orders an "expresso." It's "eSpresso" Mr. International!!!

-I've said it before, but why was Naomi looking for Desmond? Why would Widmore want to find him?

-Daniel's experiment is the first concrete evidence that time is different on the Island. Thank you, science.

-Ben's fake ID in his secret room says that his name is Dean Moriarty. He got the name from one of the protagonists of Jack Kerouac's On The Road.

-Sayid says of Ben "The day I start trusting him is the day I will have sold my soul." A very chilling line, since we know that Sayid does end up working for Ben.

-The first clue that Sayid is working for Ben was when he said he was working from a list. I didn't pick up on that the first time, but now it seems obvious.

-Ben's voice is way too easy to identify, even when they try to disguise it. Which is part of what makes Michael Emerson so awesome.

-Still unanswered: Who are the "them" Ben is sending Sayid after? Are they all Team Widmore?

Best lines:

SAYID: The last time you encountered him [Locke] you put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. That's not good diplomacy.

4:4 Eggtown


-I love the way Locke chops the melon in half. You can tell he's never watched the Food Network.

-Locke gives Ben a copy of Philip K. Dick's Valis and tells him "You might catch something you missed the second time around." (Very appropriate for a LOST rewatch!)

-When Locke throws his plate at the "concrete" wall outside of where Ben is being held, the wall bounces. Oops!

-Kate's judge is named Arthur Galzethron, which I was sure was an anagram of some sort, but I haven't been able to come up with anything good. On a forum someone said it's "Learn through Artz" - but that guy was an idiot.

-Jack is a REALLY good liar.

-Kate's lawyer, Shawn Doyle, will always be the Big Love guy to me. Although he was also on the movie Frequency, which I saw ages ago and don't really remember. Apparently it has some parallels to LOST, including time travel, and Shawn Doyle's character is named Jack Shepard.

-I crack up a little bit when Kate tells Sawyer she wants to break Ben out of his cell, because of the way she says it: "I wanna bust him out." It sounds very hillbilly.

-Miles asks Ben for 3.2 million dollars, which we now know is double the amount Widmore was paying him to be on the freighter. And 16 and 32 are both Numbers.

-Claire seems to have completely forgotten about Charlie already. I know she can't mope around forever, but one episode or two would have been nice!

-As Kate enters the court house a bearded man yells something unintelligible at her. It turns out if you play the audio backwards he is yelling "We hate you!"

-I remember getting on the forums and dissecting the coffee mug Kate drinks out of on the porch, which has some writing on the bottom. After all our careful research we found out the truth - it was a mug from Walmart. So I guess the moral of the story is that even the Dharma Initiative can't resist their super low prices.

-I don't understand why Kate is so against her mother seeing Aaron (other than the fact that her mom is just a huge d-bag.) Is she afraid her mom will realize that Aaron isn't really Kate's?

-Kate's pregnancy scare kind of bugs me. Sawyer says "What would we do with a baby?" and Kate's mad at him for not wanting to have a baby with her, but they don't even mention that it would be a bad thing because IT WOULD KILL HER to have a baby on the Island. The whole subplot is misdirection, leading us to think Kate's child is Sawyer's, but I didn't find it very convincing.

-I love love love the ending of this episode. Watching it the first time, just before Kate picks Aaron up and says his name I gasped out loud "No way, is that Aaron?!" That little boy looks JUST like Claire too. Excellent casting.

Best lines:

LOCKE: You may think this is a democracy, Kate, because of the way Jack ran things, but this is not a democracy.

KATE: Well, I guess that makes it a dictatorship.

LOCKE: If I was a dictator, I would just shoot you, and go about my day. Dinner's at six if you're hungry.