Lost Rewatch Week #13: Three Minutes, Live Together Die Alone, A Tale of Two Cities & The Glass Ballerina

Charlie's Angels, Island Version

Welcome to this week's giant installment of the Lost Rewatch! Because the Season 2 finale is two hours long, we are going to tackle the equivalent of 5 episodes below. This has taken me far longer to watch, compile and complete than any post in my Lost history, so without further ado - let's start building a runway...to the past.

In addition to the fact that Season 2 finale shared many similarities with the Season 5 finale, I obviously loved how Season 3 opened - we meet Juliet for the first time. It is going to be equally entertaining and heartbreaking to watch her journey all over again.

The Breakfast Club

Everyone has their list of Lost questions that they hope will be addressed by the end of S6. I have but one infuriatingly lingering inquiry for Damon and J.J. (who co-wrote A Tale of Two Cities): what the F happened and what was said at the breakfast on the beach between Ben and Kate?

One minute, Ben tells Kate that "the next two weeks are going to be very unpleasant" and the next...she reappears at the polar bear cages with bruised and bloodied wrists from what must have been quite a struggle in the handcuffs he made her put on.

By the way, I never put two and two together before this, but I was surprised to learn that despite her injuries, it appears that Kate did partake of the food that Ben offered. How do I know? After they kiss, Sawyer tells her that she tastes like strawberries. Take a look at the bowl on the breakfast table.

A Cold Day in Hell

In Live Together, Die Alone, Desmond gives a speech that is meant to either derail us completely (like Dave's "none of this is real" statement to Hurley in Dave) or will wind up having been a major clue:

"This is it. This is all there is left, this ocean and this place here. We are stuck in a bloody snow globe. There's no outside world, there's no escape."

Frequent readers, please excuse my repetitive nature, but I am going to repurpose some my thoughts about the possible location of the island...

These have been just a few of the many cold weather references on Lost:

• Desmond's snowman joke

• Frozen Donkey Wheel beneath Orchid Station

• Hurley's igloo drawing (though Jorge said it was his idea and not related, I choose to not believe him) 

• Michael's penguin joke 

• Penny's remote listening station 

• Polar bears (on the island, in the comic, as kids' toys)

• Walt's Watchmen-eque comic

And I've often also wondered about Mikhail, as he hails from Russia and we never found out exactly how and why he arrived on the island. He was not leftover from Dharma and he certainly was not a contemporary Other.

Perhaps we will discover at the end of S6 that the island is indeed located in a snow globe of sorts; an enormous, enclosed research biodome housed in frozen locale, being monitored in the same style as philosopher Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon prison design. [sidenote: at Comic-Con 08, Darlton confirmed that one of the reasons they chose to use the name Bentham was the Panopticon.]

A few things to keep in mind with this theory...

1. I realize how far-fetched it is; speculation = the name of the game 
2. The only way to explain how different modes of transportation are able to break through this 'bubble' via water and air is by using Faraday's coordinates; the ones that Ben gave Michael and Walt on the boat, that Lapidus piloted the helicopter through, etc. 
3. No, I do not have an explanation as to why the island's time traveling 'exit' point is Tunisia. 

Come Sail Away


We haven't seen Desmond's sailboat since the Others commandeered it in beginning of S3. 

Will it be used again, and what did the Others do with it? [sidenote: I'm aware that Ben later told Sayid he used it to get off the island but we all know that Liar Pants turned the Frozen Donkey Wheel to enter Tunisia.]


Crossing Paths

Libby pays for Desmond's coffee at the airport...and then gives him her deceased husband's boat. Because that's normal.

Foreshadowing Dialogue

Three Minutes

Ms. Klugh, to Michael: "Did Walt ever appear in a place that he wasn't supposed to be? You say he was halfway around the world - did you see him?"

Walt: "They make me take tests. They're not who they say they are; they're pretending."

Sayid: "I believe a father would do anything for his son."

Live Together, Die Alone

Eko, to Locke: "Do not tell me what I can do."

Penny, to Desmond: "With enough money and determination, you can find anyone."

Locke: "The world's still here." Desmond: "I wouldn't be so sure about that."

Locke, to Desmond: "Tomorrow we're going to see what happens when that button doesn't get pushed."

Locke: "I looked down the barrel of a gun and I believed." (3x, by my count; being thrown out of the window by his father, dragged down a hole by Smokey and shot/left for dead in a ditch by Ben)

Desmond, to Locke: "I think I crashed your plane."

Desmond: "You've killed us all." Locke: "No, I just saved us all."

Desmond, to Locke: "You saved my life so that I could save yours. I'll see you in another life, brother."

Locke: "I was wrong."

Ben: "We got more than we bargained for when Walt joined us."

Ben, to Michael: "Once you leave, you'll never be able to get back here."

Michael: "Who are you people?" Ben: "We're the good guys."

A Tale of Two Cities

Juliet: "Here I am thinking that free will actually exists..."

Tom, to Kate: "You're not my type."

Ben, to Kate: "Why Sawyer?"

Kate: "You don't know me." Ben: "Of course I don't."

Juliet, to Jack: "It doesn't matter who we were; it only matters who we were." [sidenote: that line resulted in goosebumps as I considered how S5 ended]

Sarah, to Jack: "It doesn't matter who he is, it just matters who you're not."[sidenote: ouch]

The Glass Ballerina

Sun, about Jin: "He knows I betrayed him."

Colleen, to Sun: "I know you're not a killer. We are not the enemy. But if you shoot me, that's exactly what we'll become."

Ben, to Jack: "I want you to change your perspective."

Ben, to Jack: "I will take you home."

Lost Book Club

I am and always will be a proud Literature major. When people ask why I am so drawn to this show, one of the main reasons I give is the integration of literary references and classics. I totally appreciate that a television show encourages its audience to research and read in order to glean more insight into the series. I challenge you to name a more well-read and intelligent team than those behind the scenes of our favorite show.

This particular batch of episodes featured two instances of Charles Dickens, an episode title (A Tale of Two Cities) and his last novel (Our Mutual Friend), as well as Stephen King's Carrie (Juliet's book club selection).

Everyone loves the Penny and Desmond relationship for different reasons, but to me the most romantic moment on Lost occurred when Desmond realized that Penny had snuck a letter to him in Our Mutual Friend. The fact of the matter is that she knew what that book meant to him and exactly what he needed to hear at the moment in his life when he turned to that book. I can't emphasize enough just how much that kind of sentiment would mean to me personally, and that moment stands out far more than any kiss or reunion thus far on Lost.

So of course when the official Lost Auction begins next year, I will be bidding on Penny's letter without a doubt (see photo of actual letter above).

And although I loathe to think about her in that final scene and condition, Juliet wound up looking like Carrie after the Prom (when she was bloodied at the bottom of the Swan shaft). Sigh.

Parallels

When Jack first sees Desmond down in the Swan hatch and recognizes him from their off-island stadium run converstation, he says "you?" When Jack swims out to the mysterious sailboat on the island and opens the cabin, an inebriated Desmond says "you?"

In the opening moment of Season 2, we have no idea who we're looking at or where he is. We soon discover that it is Desmond, down in the Swan Hatch on the island.

In the opening moment of Season 3, we have no idea who we're looking at or where she is. We soon discover that it is Juliet, in her New Otherton house on the island.

Project Runway

In 2004, Ben had the Others building a runway...that was complete and airplane-ready in 1974.

Please help me wrap my mind around this, logistically.

Significant Moments/Firsts

Sayid spots the four toed statue (Jacob's Crib, Tawaret Toes) while sailing with Jin and Sun.

Claire kisses Charlie for the first time.

We find out who is on Ben's list: Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley. Ms. Klugh gives it to Michael before releasing him to return to his friends.

Juliet calls Sawyer by his given name (James) before Kate does; at that point, Kate doesn't even know that he has a different name. Score one for blondie.

Fake Henry Gale finally reveals his name to be Benjamin Linus. He also lies and says that he has lived on the island for his entire life.

The Others prove that they do have contact with the outside world; Juliet reads from Jack's complete history file and Ben shows Jack footage of his beloved Red Sox winning the World Series in 2004.

The Sound and the Fury

There was unusual music accompanying the infamous Breakfast on the Beach scene between Ben and Kate in A Tale of Two Cities. It sounded...Star Wars-esque and not at all like Giacchino.

In the empty aquarium tank where Ben was holding Jack captive, there were whale and/or dolphin sounds filtering through. I suppose that they were an indication that there was water above the tank, but it doesn't seem likely that whales and dolphins inhabited that area. Echoes of animals past, like The Whispers from previous island inhabitants in the jungle?

But my favorite strange sound from this batch of episodes occurred in The Glass Ballerina. Right as Ben expresses disapproval that Jack refuses to shake hands, our friend Smokey makes an audible appearance. Ben turns his head to the side as if to acknowledge his protective watchdog of a monster.

Tempted by the Fruit of Another

If Jacob or Mystery Man/Not Locke represents temptation, one could argue that they temporarily inhabited Vincent when the dog brought a heroin statue to Charlie...while he was building the church.


Trick in a Box


Bear with me as I revisit one of my many Lost obsessions - mystery cases and magic boxes!

In Live Together, Die Alone, Charles Widmore presents Desmond with two boxes, one of which contains unopened letters to Penny that he intercepted (just as Walt's mom prevented her son from his father's letters):

"One of these boxes contains your past. The other, your future. Go ahead, open it."

Think about Widmore's history on and with the island, and the ramifications of that statement with regard to what we've witnessed and are about to.

Previous cases and boxes of note include:

• The Arrow Station box with the glass eye and Bible w/Orientation Film splices
• Ben's magic island box containing Anthony Cooper
• Ben's mystery box from the hotel room vent
• Black Box from Flight 815
  
• Christian Shephard's coffin
• Hurley owned box company
  
• Ilana's crate containing Locke
  
• Kate's time capsule
• Locke's coffin
• Locke's job at the box company
• Marshal's case containing guns & Kate's toy airplane
  

True Blood


We see Pickett take a vial of Michael's blood, and Jack and Kate wake up to discover that theirs had been taken as well. What, if anything, did Ben and the Others then do with that blood?

What's fascinating to me is that after taking Michael's blood, Ms. Klugh asked him if Walt was his biological son. We know from future episodes that the Hydra has some functional medical equipment, and it seems that perhaps they had a DNA sequencer as well. [sidenote: my better half is a forensic scientist, so I try to at least accurately name the equipment!]

What if, after seasons of enduring "Waaaalt!" - it turns out that Walt isn't Michael's son after all? Destiny is a fickle bitch...

Ben

When Desmond turned the failsafe key and imploded the Swan, causing the loud noise and the sky to turn purple...the look on Ben's face as he stands over his captured survivors is one of sheer anger rather than confusion or fear.

I wonder if he thought that someone had discovered the Frozen Donkey Wheel and turned it (which has a similar side effect of bright flashing light)...

Ben also seemed to know what was happening when the 'earthquake' hit in New Otherton; he looked UP immediately, which is not exactly where I look after one occurs here in California.

Obviously Ethan was a man of all trades; doctor, kidnapper, plumber. So why would Ben send one of his most useful Others on such a dangerous mission, to infiltrate the Flight 815 survivors on the beach?

We know exactly why he sent Goodwin to do the same with the tail section survivors (because he had an affair with Juliet), so we have to ponder what Ethan did to get on Ben's sh*t list.

Also...given that Ben had such strong feelings for Juliet, his reaction to Jack's threat to kill her was surprising: "Okay. Have her open the door and she dies anyway." Was he calling Jack's bluff? It seems that when he later lost Alex to Keamy, it wasn't the first time he'd gambled with the life of someone he loved.

How is it that Ben did not know about Desmond's sailboat? It was tethered to a section of the island for three years. The man seemed to have blinders for all things Desmond, which makes me ponder whether that relates to the rules not applying to Desmond...

Desmond

Keeping Des' flashes through time in mind, that the rules don't apply to him and that he is "uniquely and miraculously special"...

It didn't strike me as particularly noteworthy the first time around, but the three items that Desmond possessed when he was imprisoned are the only three items he also brought on his trip around the world and thus ended up on the island with: the photo with Penny, his copy of  Dickens' Our Mutual Friend and a pocket watch.

Given Des' relationship with TIME, that watch takes on new significance. In addition, consider what the prison sergeant's response was when Des said that the book would be the last thing he'd read before he died: "nice idea, as long as you know WHEN you're going to die."

Random question: who were the other people in yellow hazmat suits working with Kelvin Inman when they recovered Desmond after he washed ashore on the island? At that point in time (2001-2004), Ben would have been observing their actions in the Swan so it seems unlikely that Kelvin and his mates were Others...

[sidenote: it has always bothered me that Mr. Know-It-All Ben had intel on just about everyone on the island, yet never figured out or cared that a man he was monitoring for years had a direct connection to the daughter of his enemy, Charles Widmore.]

When Faraday knocked on the Swan door during a time shift back to the early 2000's (Because You Left) and Des answered...it must have occurred when Inman was out doing whatever it was that he did when he left the hatch (we know that he was still alive at that point because Des donned a hazmat suit while talking with Faraday, still under the impression that he could get infected outside of the hatch).

The Incident

When Desmond asked what was behind the cemented-in wall in the Swan, this was Inman's response:

"Electromagnetism, geologically unique. The incident...there was a leak. So now the charge builds up and every time we push the button, it discharges it before it gets too big."

I don't think we need further proof that The Incident happened, and that Jack & co. caused it in 1977.

Inman then asked Desmond, "do you have the courage to take your finger out of the dam and blow the whole thing up instead?" My first thought was - Jack sure did.

Jack

Prior to 2004, Jack was pure stalker and rage-aholic.

Let's hope that both the island and the incident have changed him for good.

Jacob & NotLocke

As I watched Desmond lose the battle with the storm that marooned him on the island, it crossed my mind that perhaps Jacob was sitting on the beach watching him in the same way that he was awaiting the arrival of the Black Rock in the S5 finale.

It isn't out of the realm of possibility that Jacob has been responsible for the all of the unconventional island arrivals: the Black Rock, Yemi's yellow plane, Rousseau's research team raft, the real Henry Gale's hot air balloon, Flight 815, etc.

For those on board with one of these gentlemen taking over Christian Shephard's body upon his arrival on the island...I suppose it was them on the intercom speaking as Daddy Dearest when Jack was being held captive in the Hydra tank.

Libby

I'm not sure if this is a continuity error, hint of an alternate reality or clue about her true identity, but...after leaving the Santa Rosa Mental Institution as a patient, Libby met Desmond. She told him that her husband had passed away a month earlier. Yet Darlton have gone on record to say that she was in Santa Rosa for losing her marbles in grief for her husband, which would mean that her stay there was unusually brief.

This discrepancy further fuels my theory that Libby worked undercover for Widmore, and that she was embedded at Santa Rosa for psychological surveillance of Hurley. It is not mere coincidence that she provides the boat for Desmond to enter Widmore's race.
 
Michael

Eko's cautionary story is interesting, in that Michael did see Libby again in ghost form (in the hospital after his failed suicide car wreck and right before he blew up the freighter)...

"The boy confessed to me that he had beaten his dog to death with a shovel. He said that the dog had bitten his baby sister on the cheek and he needed to protect her. He wanted to know whether he would go to hell for this. I told him that God would understand; that he would be forgiven as long as he was sorry. But the boy did not care about forgiveness; he was only afraid that if he did go to hell, that dog would be there waiting for him."

The Others

The new generation of post-Dharma Others are well choreographed. When Tom had the Others light their torches while negotiating for the release of Kate, it was quite orchestrated.

Obviously aware of Ben's affections for her, the Other women were openly disdainful and jealous of Juliet. The look on Colleen's face alone speaks volumes.

How is it that the Others were unaware of Sun's pregnancy? Tom shot at her on the sailboat, so it seems she was of less interest to them than Claire (and special Aaron).

Penny's Remote Listening Station

Just an observation - the interior of the listening station where Mathias and Henrik were posted resembles the inside of a fuselage.

The biggest 'what the?' moment for me in the S2 finale was a word that I missed the first time around. When Mathias calls Penny, he says "we missed it, AGAIN."

So...assuming that they'd only been stationed there for a maximum of three years (the amount of time that Desmond had been 'missing'), what electromagnetic anomaly appeared on their monitor before? Could it have been the result of Juliet's Jughead detonation; could their monitor have picked up the moment that we're about to see immediately AFTER the incident?

Radzinsky

Inman points out the blood stain on the hatch ceiling that used to be Radzinsky.

He allegedly took his own life, and I would assume it was out of guilt for contributing to The Incident (remember that he was the one who spliced apart the Swan Orientation Film...perhaps for the same reason). Or could it be that Inman just couldn't stand that level of neurosis after all of those years and decided to shut his hatch mate up for good?

When Kate grabbed one of the Dharma notebooks from inside a Pearl Station pneumatic tube, did you notice that someone had observed Stuart Radzinsky ("S.R. moves ping pong table again")? That is a true indication of time; those tubes have been out in that field for a very long time.

Sawyer

I distinctly remember starting to like Sawyer a hell of a lot more at the end of S2, which coincides with more frequent hints of his humanity and vulnerability.

Case in point...when he attempts to bond with Jack by admitting that he slept with Ana Lucia.

So much for a 'meet cute.' When Juliet first meets Sawyer in 2004 on Hydra Island, she tasers him. But I do love the amused look on her face when she approaches him on the runway construction site (primarily because we rarely see her smile again on the island until S5, in LaFleur).

Alas, he then goes and plants one on Freckles. Shades of 1977 and The Glance That Led To The Incident.
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Phew and wow. I loved having the opportunity to experience the end of S2 and the beginning of S3 again and explore it with YOU. So thank you for sticking with me during the Rewatch, and for reading this beast of a post.

I am heading out of town tomorrow, but it is doubtful that I will be catching up with the next batch of episodes until next week; I don't think I'll ever be able to watch Lost on a plane. :)

Enjoy the long weekend!

-Jo