Lostwatch: Rumors of My Death Were Exaggerated

The resurrection of Mikhail caught me off guard. Why I don't know. I keep expecting to someday find Jack's dad alive and possibly being "him". It seems that either a good person/bad person thing is at play here or maybe it is when and where you got "sick" at play.....or a little of both. Perhaps the others have been there long enough that the island's powers begin having an overly positive effect that becomes negative whereas those who have just arrived can still benefit from it. Maybe if you have been there long enough, you can't really die. Just because we have not seen the other dead Others doesn't mean anything. Does it?

Let's get parachute lady out of that flight suit and see what kind of eye candy we will be dealing with.

Did I hear Locke asking Sawyer to kill someone for him in the preview? His dad?

BTW, my compliments to the chef.

I'm guessing it's Locke's dad (which would make it fitting that he ask Sawyer to do the deed), but it seemed like they edited the clips to make you think he meant Ben.

According to lostpedia, she said "I am not alone" in Portuguese when Mikhail said she was thanking them.

I'm so glad Mrs. Tuned-In is on board with my admittedly "out-there" theory regarding Charlie. Again last night, I saw a lot to suggest Charlie was evil:
- The desire to take her to Jack (which probably would have killed her, due to the transit)
- His protesting too much about Mikhail.
- His immediate ID of Mikhail as "the guy who shot Sayid" and died in the sonic fence even though Charlie WASN'T THERE!
- Desmond's eerie foretelling that by his count, Charlie had killed more Others than they've killed of Charlies.
- The fact that Charlie was telling Jin not to run after Mikhail when Mikhail had the satellite phone.

I still think we see Charlie end up as an Other.

As for other plot twists - was Juliet's message in the tape recorder a hint that Kate might be pregnant?

Chad,

It would be a faily easy assumption on Charile's part that an island with a limited population would only have a single one-eyed Russian. Still, I like your theory.

Kate preggers? I guess they were treated to a show of her and Saywer doing the deed with supersperm, so it would be easy for them to suspect she might be and want to check it out.

Convincing Kate to get checked wouldn't be all that hard. Hey Kate, I saw you and Sawyer going at it in the cage, men have supersperm on the island, pregnant women die, I'm an OB/GYN, let me check you for safety's sake. Trust me.

Chaddogg, Mrs TI made the same point about Charlie knowing so much about Mikhail, but you also have to consider that Hurley apparently knew the same story. The Desmond line really struck me, though--they clearly meant it to read as significant.

Keith, your point about how Juliet could get Kate's "sample" reminded me of something I never got around to blogging about: how the Others' subterfuges always involve lies mixed with significant, plot-advancing elements of truth. Juliet's story about the dead women is apparently true, and the signs are that she is actually caring enough to want to help Sun. On the other hand, she's had no problem lying to Kate and probably will again. When Ben was captured, he fed his captors a lot of lines, but he also gave us the--apparently totally true, and significant--revelation that there is a "Him" who is his ultimate boss.

Speaking of Him, I believe the episode after next is called "The Man Behind the Curtain." Just to continue the Henry Gale / Oz theme.

Charlie as an Other? But he was on the plane when it crashed and he shot Ethan (apparantly a big taboo among the Others, but considering the island's amazing healing factor I'm not sure why it would matter). I don't see how he could be an Other.

Old Left-Eye did say that the parachutest was going to die if her lung wasn't aerated (or whatever he did to her). Perhaps severe wounds can kill before the healing factor kicks in, but after death healing begins? So does this mean that all the buried Losties are literaly turning over in their graves?

And what to make of the parchutests's claim that Flight 815 was found with every on board dead?

Gerry,

The Charlie as an Other theory goes back to Season 1, when Charlie and Claire got kidnapped by Ethan. Basically, the theory goes that Charlie has not been "Charlie" anymore since that kidnapping and his "hanging"...instead, he's been brainwashed/killed/replaced in some way and is now working for the Others. It's also possible that Charlie became an Other/switched sides earlier than this (making Ethan's kidnapping of two people more easy).

This makes Charlie's actions since the kidnapping be "evil" - helping Sawyer steal the guns to weaken the tribe, kidnapping Sun in such a convincing manner, walking with Aaron into the water (in some bizarre Others inspired cult ritual, or just in revolution/reaction to the Others brainwashing), and becoming so close to the one pregnant woman on the flight - Claire - in order to monitor her and the baby (including getting Aaron the "serum" at one point for Claire). Charlie was the person that activated the "implant" on Claire to get her sick when Juliet arrived (he was closest to Claire) to facilitate her infiltration of the tribe. Charlie also shot Ethan, in a move eerily similar to Mikhail's shooting of Ms. Klu a couple weeks back.

As for the Flight 815 reveal at the end, it too might fit into the Charlie is evil theory, in a manner detailed over at EW.com in their show recap - basically, what if the "good Charlie" from the plane was replaced in this quantum physics line of time on the island with an "evil, Other-controlled" Charlie at some point? Similarly, in the "real world," Flight 815 crashed and all perished, but what if what actually happened was the Flight was diverted into the Island's other dimension, where many survived?

Basically, this is the "the Island is an alternate universe, mysteriously linked to the world we know" theory. It would also fit with pregnant women dying - in the "real" world, pregnancy is meant to bring life, on the Island, it brings death. In the "real" world, many of these injuries would kill or cause infection or Locke couldn't walk or Jin was shooting blanks or Rose had cancer...on the Island's alternate universe, people stay (or get) healthy. In the real world, something like the hatch computer is a psychological experiment, but on the Island's alternate universe, you really are "saving" the world by pressing the button and typing the numbers.

The Island is, in many ways, the manifestation of lots of fears and paradoxes from the real world. The thought that our dead father (Jack) could appear and help guide us to safety (the caves); the idea that a figment from our past (Kate's horse) could reappear; the wish that we could exact revenge on one who wronged us (Locke with his dad) being granted....the list goes on.

This show is on a roll right now...all those people who abandoned it left at the wrong time.

Personally, I thought the episode was barely above filler, aside from the parachutist's info about Flight 815.

And scratch the judgment angle: Occam's Razor suggests that the island's powers only heal. Once you're dead, the island will not bring you back.

But the ending: now that brings up the speculation. Keeping with the once you're dead, you stay dead theme:
1) It simply suggests that Dharma has the money and power to stage-crash a 747 to prevent search crews from finding their little lab island, after 815 accidentally crashed, or:
2) Flight 815 was always intended to crash - Dharma intentionally programmed their navigation system to send them to the island and had the replacement crashed 747 waiting.

Now option 2 has two branches of its own:
2a) Dharma and the Others are allied. Between surgeons, pregnant women, fertile women, and children, 815 sure has enough lab experiments for Ben and Company to work with. Problem is, all the evidence points to:
2b) Dharma and the Others are not allied. If this is the case (see below), why would Dharma do this? Just to send distractions (the Losties are ahead on kills, as pointed out in this very episode) to Ben's group?

*It has seemed clear to me, ever since the Lost Experience, that the history is this:
The Hanso foundation (named after the Hanseatic League, a European trading company that spread order, civilization, and knowledge during the middle ages) succeeded back in the 70s or 80s at somehow changing the Valenzetti Equation. Problem is, there are side effects. Bad side effects (e.g. The pregnancy bug and children issues). So what was originally a splinter group of Dharma, the Others, broke away & set up shop on the island to work on a Cure (For The Cure), the irony being that The Others' original rejection of "The Ends Justify The Means" has now turned into them following that mantra just as much as Dharma did. Which explains their ruthlessness: they truly believe (and in fact, is probably the case) that they are saving the lives of everyone that will die to the Dharma Solution. Hopefully the Ben episode coming up will answer some of these questions.

Tom Shaw,

I'm a little too fuzzy to recollect it right now, but besides the speculation about a Dharma/Others split, hasn't there by now been a direct reference on the show to some past tension or schism in Dharma and/or the Others? Then of course there's the video reference in Enter 77 to incursions by "hostiles," which we'd have to assume dates back to, what, 1980 or so?

The staged-crash idea raiises the question of where they'd get bodies. Or were there bodies? The parachutist's (Naomi's?) wording was intriguing: "There were no survivors." Not "Everyone was dead." But that may just be semantics.

And seriously, I don't actually think the Island resurrects corpses. I just want it to, because I want to see Nikki claw her way out of the sand.

Tom said, "2) Flight 815 was always intended to crash - Dharma intentionally programmed their navigation system to send them to the island and had the replacement crashed 747 waiting."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the flight was way off of their route to avoid a storm. I don't think any programming of the navigation system was needed. Could Dharma have to power to control weather outside of the island's confines?

I could have sworn that one of the web sites mentions that 815 was testing a new Hanso-related autopilot, but I cannot find a source, sorry.

Earlier this season, Mikhail originally claimed to be the sole Dharma that survived the fight with "the Hostiles" (The Others?). If all he lied about was which side he was on, then you have your conflict history (this would also fit in to the usual "truth with one or two critical lies" the show likes to do).

And if 2b) is the case, then there is an interesting reveal possible: One of the Losties isn't a Lostie, but he isn't an Other either: he's a Hanso.