Confirmed Confused

New characters, new motivations, new questions, new answers, new revelations.

It is hard to believe, but it appears Lost is no longer about Oceanic 815.

Flashback or Flash-Forward?
As I watched the off-island vignettes about our helicopter folks, I was viewing them through a flash-forward lense. I was assuming the Season-4-will-be-flash-forward rule was the law of the land. Once I saw Frank Lapidus drop the toy airplane into a fish tank, exuding regret and guilt for not being the pilot on that fateful day, I decided that it was not a flash-forward. I believe that the Charlotte/Miles/Daniel/Frank vignettes happened before they got on that helicopter...if that makes sense. (To be honest, the whole Lost timeline sure can make a girl confused.)

Profile: Matthew Abbadon
What we learned: He is the messenger for whatever organization is behind this freighter/helicopter rescue mission. He organized the individuals who were on the helicopter and recruited Naomi to lead the charge. He chose each person for a “reason”: a physicist, an archaeologist, a medium and a pilot.

Things that make you go Hmmm:
When Naomi calmly asked “What if we find survivors of Oceanic 815?”, Matthew responded “There are no survivors of Oceanic 815.” There are a few ways to interpret this statement. First, we could take it face-value that Matthew believes (for some reason or another) that there really are NO survivors of 815. But this is Lost, people. Never take things at face value. I believe he made that statement as a firm reminder to Naomi of the “story” they are supposed to be selling to the world: that there were no survivors of the crash. So why do they need to sell this story? Not sure.

Matthew’s statement that everyone was chosen to be on the helicopter for a specific reason was eerily familiar to the theory that everyone on 815 was there for a “specific reason,” too. Those who believe in that theory usually fall into Locke’s Men of Faith camp, not Jack’s Men of Science Camp. But Matthew’s statement turns that theory upside down: if Matthew played a role in selecting the members of the helicopter team, does that mean he maybe, could have, possible selected the passengers on 815? Never say never.

Going back to Matthew’s visit to the Santa Rosa Hospital last week to see Hurley, this episode almost certainly changes the whole meaning of that scene. When Matthew asked Hurley “Are they still alive?”, I think he was asking about his helicopter crew, not the 815 people.

Connections to lookout for:
I’m not sure where to even begin with how this guy could fit into the mythology of Lost. It is tempting to believe that he is playing a huge role, but I remind you, for example, that we used to think Mr. Friendly was the end-all, be-all of the Others…but we were wrong. Could it be that Matthew is simply “the face” of the Others? We’ve seen people in this role multiple times on this show – Ethan was sent out by Ben to do recruiting, Mr. Friendly was bearded and dirty for his duties as “scary jungle man”, and Jin lived his life delivering messages for his father-in-law. I think it would be a safe bet to assume that Matthew is not the beginning and the end when it comes to whoever is financing and planning this Ben-napping.

Profile: Daniel Faraday
What we learned: Daniel claims to be a physicist who in Essex, Massachusetts. A quick search for information about Essex reveals that the town, located on Cape Ann, just 30 miles north of Boston, has historically been known as the oldest continuously operating shipbuilding area of the United States, boasting over 4,000 two-masted vessels.

Things that make you go Hmmm:
Why was Daniel so upset about the TV coverage regarding the discovery of Oceanic 815?
Combine Daniel’s gun with the gas masks that Jack and Kate found…and Dan doesn’t look like he’s all that friendly. Are they here to give Ben a taste of his own medicine?

Connections to look out for:
Our only Massachusetts connection on the show so far is that Sun’s mister (is that what you call the male equivalent of a mistress??), Jae Lee, went to Harvard, so be on the lookout for that.

Interesting that Essex is a town that builds ships – we’ve seen a few ships during the last 3 seasons of our little show.

Profile: Charlotte Staples Lewis
What we learned: Thanks to Ben, we know a whole lot about this woman. She was born on July 2, 1979 in Essex, England to parents David and Jeannette. She was raised in Brownsgrove and has two younger sisters. She did her undergraduate studies in Kent and received a PhD in cultural anthropology from Oxford. Looks like Ben is still creating binders of people’s lives (which is just creepy! Sidebar: I wonder if my life binder would include my 3rd Place Nebraska State Chess Tournament Win when I was in 4th grade…). We also learned that Charlotte is a pretty bad liar.

Things that make you go Hmmm:
When Charlotte uncovered the collar bearing the Hydra Station symbol, I sent Charlie the following text:

“Holy sweet mother god almighty CRAP bejeez unreal glory be my gosh in
heaven.”

Since that statement really doesn’t bring much to the table, let’s look at the facts. There is a skeleton of a polar bear in Tunisia with a Hydra collar. Obvious questions: “What?” “Huh?” “How?” “Are you kidding me?” I’ll address each of these questions individually:

“What?” : Obviously you didn’t hear me the first time. Charlotte found a skeleton of a polar bear in Tunisia with a Hydra collar.

“Huh?” : Like you, I do not think it makes sense.

“How?” : We know from the Orchid training video that the Orchid station was conducting some sort of animal experiments. There are many rumors out there that the The Orchid conducts time travel or teleportation experiments, which means the polar bear may have been accidentally transported to Tunisia. The Orchid may borrow the animals from Hydra to conduct such experiments, which explains the Hydra logo.

“Are you kidding me?” : Yeah, I’m just joking.

But seriously. When Charlotte found the skeleton and the collar, her body language and smile made it very clear that she knew exactly what she was looking at. She recognized the DHARMA logo and seemed to be less than bewildered that a polar bear could find its way to the middle of the Sahara Desert. What does all of this mean? Well, Charlotte knows about DHARMA. This is pretty big.

Connections to look out for:
We’ve had a lot of flashbacks in England, so I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict that Charlotte will have some connection with one of these Brits: Charlie, Nadia, Penelope Widmore, Charles Widmore, Liam, Brother Campbell, Ruth, Lucy Heatherton, or Ms. Hawking.

And, in case you were wondering…:
If you are like one of the readers of this blog, you are asking yourself “did Mr. Eko grow up in Tunisia?” No, my friend. Mr. Eko grew up in Nigeria. Africa, you see, has 46 countries if you include Madagascar, and 53 countries if you include all the island groups.

I’m assuming you all know that Tunisia is a country on the very north coast of Africa, situated on the Mediterranean coast. Approximately 40% of the country is covered by the Sahara Desert. The remainder of the country is very fertile and was known as the “bread basket” of the Roman Empire.

Nigeria, on the other hand, is located in West Africa and lies on the Gulf of Guinea (part of the Atlantic Ocean). Nigeria is the most populated country in Africa and the eighth most populous country in the world (140 million).

This is what you get for skipping world geography in college.

And now back our regularly scheduled program.

Profile: Miles “If you tell them my last name, I will cut off your fingers” Straume
What we learned: Miles is a medium living in Inglewood, CA, which is a suburb of LA. For $100, he will eliminate the ghosts from your house. He is called to the home of the lovely Mrs. Gardner to exorcise her grandson’s ghost. Miles charges her $200 because her grandson was murdered. He goes up to the grandson’s room, turns on what looks like a Dust Buster, and appears to be communicating with the ghost. According to my google search, the Dust Buster makes and spreads cold air and is a common device that real-life ghostbusters use to flush spirits out of their hiding places. After saying “You can leave once you tell me where it is,” there is a clatter on the book shelf across the room. When Miles moves the book shelf and opens the vent, he finds a stash of money (LOTS of money) and drugs.

Things that make you go Hmmm:
Are there really mediums-for-hire out there in the world? How bizarre! If anyone knows a medium or has hired a medium, I’d love to learn more about it.

Why did the grandson have a stash of money and drugs? And more importantly, how did Miles know about it?

Miles’ weird facial hair has GOT to go.

Connections to lookout for:
When I think of drugs and lots-and-lots of money on Lost, I think of three huge connections:

Drugs: Charlie and Mr. Eko. Did the grandson’s drugs originate in Nigeria with Mr. Eko? Did he sell drugs to Charlie and Liam? Did he meet either of these characters at some point?

Lots-and-lots-of money: Hurley. Did the grandson know Hurley? Steal from Hurley? Inherit from Hurley?

Frank Lapidus
What we learned: On that fateful September day, Frank Lapidus was supposed to fly the plane, a scene that reminded me of Gary Sinise in Apollo 13. Instead of going down with this plane, Frank (for some reason) did not get on the plane and has lived a life of guilt and depression ever since. Watching Frank drop the toy plane into the fish tank was just heart-wrenching. The poor guy must be blaming himself. As he watched news reports on the discovery of Oceanic 815, he was immediately drawn to the swollen fingers of the so-called pilot. He knew Seth Norris (the guy from Felicity) very well – so well, in fact, that he recognized that the body on TV did not have a wedding ring on. What did he do? Why, he called the NTSB, of course! And instead of talking to the staff assistant, he went straight to the manager. And then to President Andrew Shepherd.

…I’m kidding, but I really love that movie and think it would be awesome if Michael Douglas had a cameo as President Shepherd in an upcoming episode.

Another sad-but-true moment was when Frank admitted to studying/memorizing the entire manifest of Flight 815, easily recognizing that Juliet was not on the plane. How pathetic. You really feel for the guy. But whoah...Miles did not take that news well. Where did he get the photo of Ben, by the way?

Things that make you go Hmmm:
Frank was hanging out in the Bahamas at some tiki shack. What was he doing in the Bahamas? How long had he been there?

The wreckage of 815 is obviously a hoax. A "find" of Oceanic 815 kills all investigations. This brings us back to the question that is plaguing the whole show: who in the world is behind this whole scheme?

In the meeting between Matthew and Naomi, Frank is described as a drunk. And, gosh, he sure looks similar to our resident drunk, Christian Shepherd…

Except for the Others submarine, every single mode of transportation that has attempted to reach the island has crashed or malfunctioned in some sort of way. So, how on God’s Green Earth did Frank land the helicopter on the island?

Connections to lookout for:
I’m wondering if Frank and Christian Shepherd knowing each other somehow. Not only do they sort of look alike, they seem to share similar, shall we say, “hobbies.”

Another OMG Moment I need to briefly address: Hurley & the Cabin
In a conversation I had with Charlie on Tuesday of this week, I told him that I thought it was a “huge deal” that Hurley could see Jacob’s cabin. This was confirmed during the episode last night – did everyone see Ben’s wide-eyed look at Hurley when Hurley claimed to see/know about the cabin? We’ll have to watch carefully as this develops over the next several episodes.

You’ve got questions…we’ve got answers.
Believe it or not, we got a lot of answers last night.

Q: Who are the freighter people? A: It is a group of 5 helicopter people, plus a small contingent on the freighter that includes Minkowski and Regina (the woman who answered the phone), among others. Naomi is the varsity team captain.

Q: Why is the freighter here? A: To get Ben Linus.

Q: What is the monster? A: “I don’t know.” – Ben

Q: Can Miles really talk to ghosts? A: Yes, he was able to determine that Locke did kill Naomi.

But, in true lost style, we also got a whole host of new questions.

Q: Why do they want Ben?
Q: How the heck does Ben have a guy on the boat? And who is it? (See below for a few possible answers.)
Q: Why didn’t Frank get on the plane?
Q: How is that Hurley can see Jacob’s cabin?
Q: Who planted a dummy plane crash at the bottom of the Sundra Trench?
Q: Whose bodies are inside the fake plane crash?
Q: Does Naomi’s team really know what they are doing on the island, or do they only have part of the story?

Who is Ben’s guy on the boat?
We know from the way he phrased the statement that Ben’s “guy on the boat” is likely male. Here are a few ideas to get your brains moving:

Ben's man on the boat is Kelvin. The Others found Kelvin, who was not dead, on the rocks after his altercation with Desmond. Kelvin then began to work for Ben. Kelvin being the man on the boat would explain why Naomi knew about Desmond and had his photo, as the boat is not Penny's.

Ben's man on the boat is Michael. Ben required this as part of their agreement to let them off the island.

Ben's man on the boat is Minkowski. He was not there when Miles had called him, possibly informing Ben on the members of the "team."

Ben's man on the boat is Annie, his childhood friend.

Ben’s man on the boat is Mikhail. As several times before, he may not have died from the grenade. He also proved before that he has the skills to do background checks on people, just as he did for all the passengers of Flight 815.

How much more abuse can Ben take?
Oh, my friend, he can take a whole lot more. That guy is just creepy as all heck. He has, once again, survived a brutal beating -- the third "big" beating by my count (Sayid had a shot in season 2, Jack had a shot in season 3, and now Sawyer in season 4). For being a scrawny, mouse-looking man, he sure can put up with a lot. Although I know they couldn't kill off Ben in this episode, Locke looked like he wanted to kill him. Is Ben going to die this season? Is Ben the guy in the coffin? Oh, to know the answers to the questions that keep me up at night.

And finally, the Fantastic Four has arrived?
The helicopter team pays homage to the main characters of the Fantastic Four. The FF characters are a scientist (Daniel), a young hothead (Miles), a test pilot (Frank) and a young woman (Charlotte).

Coincidence? Absoutely, positively not.

Summary Statement
Awesome episode. I was blown away.

See you next week!
Namaste,
-Maggie