LOST Conspiracy Theory Friday!

Hey folks,

Sorry I'm late with the LOST post this week. Filling in for me is guest blogger My Buddy Joe with a long-winded rambling post. Enjoy!



I guess the standard spoiler alert disclaimer isn’t necessary, because if you haven’t watched by now, you’re not really a fan and could care less about this post. Also, I’m a little more long-winded than EDub, so this may be a print-and-read-in-the-head post.

This week’s episode is entitled “316”, a reference to the Bible passage John 3:16, which according to Godipedia (actual site!) is “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (Not, as claimed by Family Guy, “And the Lord said, Go Sox.”) So who is God? Jacob? Christian Shepard? Who is the son? Locke? Jack? Ben? As usual, many questions, no answers.

The episode opens with Jack lying face up in the jungle (obvious homage to the series open). After regaining consciousness, Jack realizes that he is back on the island. Dude, you’ve been killing yourself to get back there. Couldn’t we get a Tiger Woods fist pump or something? Or at least a smile? Jack hears shouting in the distance and immediately runs to investigate, because if the island has taught him anything, shouting ALWAYS leads to good times. Oh shit! Hurley’s drowning! (Which is physiologically impossible given his body mass index. Dude is like 30% fat. He’ll float in anything.) Jack, without checking to see if he will bash his head on any shallow rocks, dives in and saves Hurley. Oh shit! There’s Kate! She looks dead! Oh, no, she’s only taking five, because she wakes immediately after Jack’s asks if she can hear him. Don’t check her vitals or anything, Doc.

Flash back 46 hours later!! Eloise Hawking (aka Faraday’s mother, aka The Old Lady Who Wouldn’t Let Desmond Buy Penny an Engagement Ring, Thus Ruining His Life by Sending Him on Some Crazy Boat Race Around the World) takes the Oceanic Two featuring Ben & Dez down a creepy staircase to the Dharma Lamp Post station. (How many of these things are there? If I go into my basement is there going to be a Dharma Alligator station for monitoring all the amphibious life in Florida and performing weird experiments on them?) Hawking starts explaining about this uber-complicated formula (which I’m pretty sure is the square root of sin2(x) + cos2(x)) that enabled Dharma scientists for figure out where the island was supposed to be, and that they have 36 hours to jump on a flight to Guam, because the island will be in between there and LA. Jack and Sun are on board, but Desmond throws a conniption and storms out of the Lamp Post like a 14-year-old girl whose daddy refused to drive her to the mall. Nobody seems to care. Before Jack leaves, he has a private word with Hawking, in which she tells him that he must bring something of his father’s with him on the flight. Is Hawking also a voodoo priestess? WTF is going on? Sun still has Jin’s wedding ring, so she’s all set, but what about Ben? Shouldn’t he need something borrowed or something blue as well?

The next day, the producers decide to introduce a completely unnecessary character as a means of Jack finding his father’s shoes. Why couldn’t he have found them in the back of his closet? And why is Jack forcing his grandpa to live in the Springfield Retirement Castle? (EDub met my grandpa, and I think he would agree with me that the old man would not have stood for shenanigans like that.) Jack goes back to his surprisingly nice condo (which I guess is why he has to drive that POS) and finds Kate passed out on his bed. Kate is apparently distraught over losing Aaron (to whom??) and has ridiculously amazing angry sex with Jack (deleted scenes). The next morning Jack tries to make her breakfast but Kate would rather do the Walk of Shame. Jack then gets a call from Ben, who looks like spent the previous night hurling racial epithets at residents of Watts. Jack has to pick up John Locke’s body at the butcher shop, where in a moment of inspiration, Jack puts his Dad’s shoes on Locke. Is Christian Shepard the Wicked Witch of the East? Will his charcoal slippers get everyone back to the island? Turns out Locke wrote a suicide note addressed to Jack, which Jack derisively refuses to read, claiming that he has heard everything Locke had to say.

Time to get on the plane! The flight attendant gives Jack the third degree about the coffin, because planes flying from LA to Guam are constantly under threat of terrorist hijacking and Jack fits the profile. Some dude in line offers his condolences. Dead man walking! Unnamed characters don’t talk to main characters and ever live to tell about it. Oh hey, there’s Kate, who hasn’t changed her clothes since last night’s humpapalooza. Hurley is waiting as well, holding a Spanish comic book (shades of Walt?) and a guitar case (shades of Charlie?). Hurley has also bought 78 empty seats, probably because he knows they are doomed and doesn’t want to drag down 78 innocent people with him. See, Hurley’s a nice guy like that. Ben (“What’s going to happen to them?” “Who cares?”) on the other hand, is a first class dick. Looks like the Federales have finally brought down Sayid, who is being escorted by The New Ana-Lucia.

Ok, so we’ve got 5 of the Oceanic 6 (where the hell is Aaron) loaded on the plane when Ben shows up right as the plane door is about to close, one arm in a sling. How come Ben kicks ass better than Jackie Chan sometimes, but other times acts like the biggest pussy in the history of mankind? Hurley almost has an aneurysm at the sight of Ben, but Jack calms him down by whispering sweet nothings in his ear. The plane takes off, and who is piloting this flying deathtrap? Old friend Frank Lapidus, who has the line of the night – “We’re not going to Guam, are we?” Jack tries making small talk with Ben, who is busy reading Ulysses, by James Joyce. For those who don’t know, Ulysses (the Greek guy) spent 10 years trying to get home from the Trojan War, encountering various obstacles along the way, including at least 2 shipwrecks on different islands. Ulysses (the book) is a supposed “classic” which was written in barely intelligible English by an alcoholic Irishman. Jack finally reads Locke’s suicide note, which plainly states, “Jack – I wish you had believed. JL” Locke is obviously trying to channel his namesake… or his alter-ego Bentham’s namesake… or Desmond’s namesake… or Rousseau’s namesake. Oh man, turbulence! Here we go….

Back on the island!! The writers only wrote 40 minutes of action for a 44 minute show, so we had to watch a Rocky II-esque repeat of the first 4 minutes of the episode. Ok, cool, Hurley and Kate are fine, but where are Sun, Sayid, and Ben? We’ll have to wait to find out, because the Dharma Initiative Welcome Van pulls up… and Jin gets out!!! Was Jin the inspiration for Roger Workman? What year are they in? When Locke jammed the spinning wheel back into place, did he lock them into time? Is this why Faraday was in the construction of the Orchid station in Episode 1? What happened to everyone sitting in coach? Did they end up on the other island with the polar bear cages? Is this island only for first-class passengers? Why the hell is this recap so damn long? Can EDub come back next week with the shorter recap please?