(click here for Part One)
So, after watching last week's finale again, after Amanda got home on Saturday, I've got a few new theories, I think. We'll get to those at the bottom. Picking up where we left off ...
22. Hurley was visited in the institution by Walt, who may or may not have made his grandmother drive him from Brooklyn to Santa Rosa to do so. I once asked my grandmother to buy me the Guns N Roses "Appetite for Destruction" tape when I was 11. She said no. Yet Walt was able to persuade his grandmother to take him almost 3,000 miles to visit somebody that she's never even met, who lives in a mental health facility? Man, that kid IS special!
23. While visiting Hurley, Walt complains that nobody visited him after they got home. Quit crying, kid. Did you visit any of them? I mean, they were all on the news when they got home, right? He does tell Hurley that Jeremy Bentham visited him, though, and asks Hurley why they're all lying about what happened. (Is it just me, or wasn't it Locke's idea in the first place for them to lie??) Hurley tells him they're lying to protect everyone who didn't make it back.
24. "Like my dad?" asks Walt, who seems to have been heartbreakingly waiting for three years for Michael to get home. What Walt doesn't know is that Michael, who, despite repeated attempts to end his own life, was seemingly being kept alive by The Island until he redeemed himself, and redemption, it seems, is immediately followed by a visit from Christian Shephard.
25. Michael did a few bad things before he left The Island with Walt, including turning Jack, Sawyer and Kate over to Ben and The Others, as well as unforgivably overemoting in just about every episode he was in for the entire second season, screaming "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLTTT!!!!" every chance he got. Seriously, he used that like punctuation. Oh, and one of the other bad things he did was to shoot Libby in the stomach, and right after she had done a load of sheets and towels in the hatch's laundry room. Not cool, man.
26. Libby seemed to take a bit of a shine to Hurley, who, in turn, also took a bit of a shine to her as well. Strangely enough, though, she also showed up in one of Hurley's flashbacks, when he was in the institution. He had that imaginary friend, Dave, and when the doctor was showing him that the picture he took of Hurley and Dave really only had Hurley in it, the camera panned over and showed a very creepy and dishevelled Libby, who also seemed to be a patient in the same facility. I'd love to get some more background on that one day.
27. Libby also met Desmond in a coffee shop years ago, randomly, when he asked her for some change because he didn't have enough money for his coffee. They got to talking, after she bought him the coffee, and as it turns out, he was planning to enter a boat race, and Libby just happened to have a boat she didn't need! So, to recap, Desmond asked her for some change for his coffee, because he didn't have enough money, and, naturally, she bought him a coffee and gave him a boat. I've seen it happen hundreds of times.
28. Desmond needed this boat so he could enter Mr. Widmore's "Great Race Around the World Designed to Maroon My Daughter's Douchebag Boyfriend on a Remote Island, Never to Be Heard From Again." I'm sure it sounded promising in the brochure.
29. Mr. Widmore was trying to get rid of Desmond because he didn't think he was good enough for his daughter, Penny, who then spent the next 3 years or so obsessively searching for him, most likely using her father's money to do so. Nice one, jackass.
30. Let's get back to Libby for a sec. So, not everybody saw this, but when they replayed the first part of the finale, before airing the 2-hour episode, they added one extra question into the press conference of the Oceanic 6, after they returned to civilization. What was asked was whether there were any other survivors of the crash, to which Jack responded that there were three other survivors of the plane crash, but that they all died after reaching the island. He named Libby, Charlie, and Boone as those survivors. To me, that is just too random (especially with the inclusion of Boone) to not have some meaning, or be explained at some point why they chose to name those three.
31. Boone hasn't even been seen (other than in one of Locke's hallucinations) since the first season, when he died helping Locke uncover the hatch. And it is worth noting that he slept with his sister, Shannon. She was pretty smoking hot, but it was still a strange thing to do.
32. Charlie was also named as one of those survivors, which doesn't seem to make any sense either, aside from the fact that he died heroically trying to save everyone's life. His connection to Claire is fairly obvious to anyone who ever saw the show in the first 3 seasons. And if you're reading this, and you never saw the first 3 seasons, then stop reading and go Netflix them this minute.
33. Claire, as we all know, is the real mother of Aaron, who is being raised (and passed off as her own) by Kate. Claire came to visit Kate in a dream sequence in the season finale, when she told Kate to never bring Aaron back to The Island. It was creepy, to say the least.
34. Kate and Sawyer have always had an on again, off again kind of thing. They're like Ross and Rachel from Friends, only if Ross and Rachel were both criminals with a history of murder. They even had sex in a polar bear cage while in captivity (but really, who hasn't had sex in a polar bear cage while in captivity?). Kate was busted by Jack a few weeks ago, doing some favor for Sawyer, about a year or so after they left The Island (possibly checking on Sawyer's daughter?). This may have been what Sawyer whispered to Kate before kissing her (take THAT, Jack!) and jumping out of the helicopter, heroically sacrificing himself so the rest of the people wouldn't throw Hurley overboard when the chopper was losing fuel.
35. After jumping out of the chopper, a fully-clothed Sawyer started his mile or so swim back to The Island, where he emerged shirtless (??) from the water, and happened upon Juliet sitting on the beach, drinking some Dharma Rum, watching the smoke from the freighter explosion. Hmm... No Jack, no Ben, no Kate. Dharma Rum. Bow-chicka-bow-bow. Somebody's going to be getting busy in the Burger King bathroom.
36. Switching gears, we saw Sun confront her father, Mr. Paik of Paik Automotive (like Bob Vance of Vance Refrigeration), having used her settlement from Oceanic to orchestrate a takeover of his company. She apparently used five banks in the deal, which could be a misdirection pointing toward the settlements received by Jack, Kate, Sayid and Hurley. I don't imagine that her settlement from Oceanic was large enough on its own to buy a controlling share of Paik Automotive. Amanda thinks maybe Hurley helped her out with his lotto winnings. That's possible also.
37. But she blames her father as one of the two people responsible for the death of her husband, Jin. Jin got out of the engine room a little too late and missed his chopper ride, standing on the deck of the ship while Sun (in an absolutely terrific acting display, all joking aside) went completely bat-shit as the chopper flew away. Seriously, that was heartwrenching. And also, upon my second viewing, it was also interesting how she kept screaming "WE HAVE TO GO BACK!!", echoing Jack screaming "WE HAVE TO GO BACK!!" to Kate in the flash-forward at the airport. Speaking of Jack...
38. Sun also blames Jack for Jin's death, or so he seems to think. But is Jack really the other person she blames? We'll talk more about that later.
39. Jack and Locke. These guys are like the Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton of the crash survivors. The bad guy is really Ben Linus (or Widmore, or who knows what the hell is really going on), who we will feature in this analogy as our John McCain. Anyway, instead of banding together against the real evil party, they attack, attack, attack each other every chance they get, until finally their bitterness infects the entire "Party" and they splinter off into two groups, never to be allies again. Though, it does seem that 3 years into the future, they will be briefly reunited, but that doesn't really fit into my analogy. Or does it ... ?? No, probably not.
40. Locke, after being pushed out of an eighth-story window by his loving father, was in physical therapy in a rehab facility when he was visited by Matthew Abbadon, who was posing as an orderly, and suggested to Locke that he travel to Australia to go on a Walkabout. Locke, skeptical as always, noted that he was in a wheelchair and couldn't walk anywhere. Abbadon left him in the elevator alone, as the doors were closing, and said "when we meet each other again, you'll owe me one." Weird.
41. Abbadon also visited Hurley in the Santa Rosa facility, after he returned from The Island, posing as a lawyer for Oceanic Airlines, asking him something like, "Are there still people alive on The Island?" or something like that, before Hurley freaked out and Abbadon left before anyone could talk to him. Weird.
42. Abbadon ALSO is the one who hired Naomi (Locke's favorite knife-throwing target) to lead the helicopter mission, with Faraday, Charlotte, Lapidis, and Miles, who were all hand-picked by him to go on this mission. And he may or may not work for Widmore, and he may or may not represent the interests of The Island. Weird.
43. Charlotte and Faraday have been with the beach camp (Jack's group) for pretty much the whole time since their chopper landed on The Island. Faraday has a little crush on Charlotte (that must be why he never took off his tie for like 3 weeks), which she knows about and appears not to care. He tried to get her to come with him when he was ferrying people back to the freighter, and she opted to stay on The Island, because she's still looking for where she was born. Huh?
44. "If anything goes wrong, Desmond Hume is my constant."
45. "See you in another life, brutha."
46. After the Oceanic 6 shove off from The Searcher in their raft, Lapidis stays on board with Penny, Desmond, and Penny's small army of Portuguese sailors. They should have all been wearing matching outfits like Team Zissou, that would have made my day.
47. Truthfully, I have absolutely no idea why I connected Lapidis to Locke and numbered it "47." I'm sorry. I can't think of a single reason why this would have made sense to me at the time. I might have just been on overload, though. This does get a bit confusing.
48. But since we're back to Locke, can we discuss why he was visited by the ageless wonder Richard Alpert (he's like Dick Clark, this guy!) as a baby, as a little boy, and as a high school student (via his science teacher pimping out his Mittelos "science camp")?? Obviously Richard has always known of Locke's destiny, though 6-year old Locke really wanted that rusty old knife, and Richard sure didn't like that one bit. I would also like to reiterate what I said a few weeks ago, which is that the drawing of the smoke monster by a young John Locke is one of the weirdest things I've seen on this show. It might be weirder than the smoke monster himself.
49. John Locke is now the leader of The Others. The King is dead, long live the King! I was going to go with "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss," but made the switch at the last minute. I think either would have gotten the job done, though. Locke's going to struggle in this role, and I think it's going to make Ben's actions over the past 3 years look a bit more sympathetic.
50. Locke will also have to deal with Sawyer and Juliet, in one way or another. His first rule should be a strict 8:00 p.m. curfew for these two, because they're totally going to be doing it every chance they get. They're like a couple of horny teenagers who've found their parents stash of Dharma Rum.
51. Locke and Ben. Starcrossed lovers, except, not lovers. Both born 3 months premature (which is conspicuously when the women on The Island die during pregnancy), both have mothers named Emily, both know how to do that thing with their eyes where they look really crazy. These two are like Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, or Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston. Sure, they spent a lot of time fighting and making each other completely miserable. But in the end, they need each other, and the sooner Bobby and Whitney realize that, the better off we'll all be.
That's it. Finito.
Now, there are a few things I didn't get into in this Island flow-chart expository thing I've wasted everybody's time with.
First of all, John Locke changes his name to Jeremy Bentham. Something unforseeable has to happen to make everyone who already knew him as John Locke call him by his new name. Like, I mentioned to my buddy Will the other day when we were talking about this, if Will decided to change his name to George Miller, I'd still call him Will. Something's gonna go down, and it's going to be big.
Second, according to Miles, Charlotte has been trying for so long to get "back" to The Island. What could that mean? Some have speculated that she was with Dharma before the purge, and she's clearly not an "Other". We never saw what happened to Ben's little friend Annie, though I don't think she is Annie. But could she be Annie's sister? Or daughter?? The best part of that scene was when Charlotte asked Miles "What do you mean?" and he said "Yeah, what DO I mean??" and just walked away with a smirk. Well played, sir.
Third, and I know I've been saying this for a few months now, but I will say now I think I might have been wrong. I'm going to reverse course and say that I no longer think Jin is dead. I thought he was going to die all season, because I didn't think that Sun could (or more to the point, would) keep up the facade that they were the only survivors if he were still alive on The Island. But now, after seeing her completely freak out as that chopper pulled away, she clearly thinks he IS dead. Which makes me think he is alive, and that maybe he jumped off the ship and was able to swim away before it exploded. Unlikely, sure, but come on. People die and come back all the time on TV, especially on this show.
Fourth, and this is the one that's been giving me headaches for the past few days, is, who is the other person that Sun blames for Jin's death? And what are the "common interests" she was referring to when she approached Widmore in London.
Jack told Ben that Sun blames him for Jin's death (I guess because he wouldn't let Kate go after him when they jumped on the chopper). But I think that's just his own guilt talking. I think the person she really blames is Desmond, because Desmond and Jin were both in that engine room with the bomb, and all she knows is that Desmond got out and Jin didn't. She doesn't know that Jin tried to stay to diffuse the bomb, and even if she did, it would probably offer little consolation.
As far as the "common interests" she mentioned to Widmore are concerned, she also said "As you know, we're not the only people that left The Island." At first I thought she was referring to Ben, and was telling him that because she knew that Widmore had been after Ben for so many years. Then I changed my mind and thought she was referring to Desmond, because Widmore was probably still looking for Desmond and Penny. And while that may be true, I don't think that's what she meant, either.
That scene seemed to take place in the same three-years-in-the-future time frame as the rest of the flash-forwards did in that episode, because she was on the phone talking to her daughter, who was born about 6 months after they got off The Island, so it would have to be far enough into the future for her daughter to be able to talk to her mother on the phone, even for a short conversation. In that time frame, three years into the future, we know that Jack and Kate (and Walt) were all visited by Jeremy Bentham, and we know that Sayid and Hurley have some knowledge of Bentham, because Sayid came to get Hurley after Bentham was killed.
So, presumably, Bentham was visiting everyone from The Island, to try to get them all to go back, going so far as to tell Jack that some very bad things had happened after they left. But we never saw or heard any mention of him from Sun like we did from the rest of them. I'm guessing if he visited the rest of them, he visited her as well, and probably told her some of the same things. And I'm guessing that she didn't like what she heard, which may have involved Keamy's death (and Locke's failure to prevent it) setting off the explosion on the ship. And knowing what she does about Widmore, I think Sun went to him to avenge Jin's death by giving him information about Jeremy Bentham, leading to Widmore finding and killing Bentham (making it look like suicide, like Sayid said). So, what I'm saying is, I think Sun, who is clearly a different woman than she was before crashing on The Island, went to Widmore to turn over what she knew about Bentham.
Don't ask me to explain it any further than that, because I can't. It's just a hunch. And since my hunches are usually fairly wrong, don't put any stock in it.
