LOST REBOOT
Recap: Episodes 9-12 (Days 12-22)
Sayid’s life is placed in grave danger after he stumbles upon the source of the mysterious French transmission. Sayid is captured by the crazy French woman. He tries to befriend her, but she tortures him thinking he is part of the Others on the island.
Meanwhile, Hurley has a ridiculous plan to make life on the island a little more civilized - so people don’t go crazy. Hurley finds a golf bag in the wreckage and he decides to create an island golf course. Claire has disturbing nightmares that her baby is in danger might be coming true to threaten her life and the life of her unborn child. A survey of the passenger list reveals that one person in camp, Ethan Rom, was not on the plane.
Survivors wonder why Charlie and the pregnant Claire have been abducted - and by whom - and a search party ventures into the treacherous jungle to try to find and rescue the missing duo. Meanwhile, inner-demons about his father resurface for Jack while Boone and Locke discover another island mystery, The Hatch.
Kate fights over possession of a newly discovered locked metal briefcase belonging to the Marshal. Meanwhile, Sayid having escaped Rousseau’s nest with documents asks a reluctant Shannon to translate notes he took from the French woman.An abnormal rising tide threatens to engulf the fuselage and the entire beach encampment.
Science:
Kate and Jack stumble upon Charlie hanging lifeless from tree. When he is taken down, it appears his face is black and blue; he is not breathing, no heart beat but no apparent broken neck.
In the absence of fracture and dislocation, occlusion of blood vessels becomes the major cause of death, rather than asphyxiation. Obstruction of venous drainage of the brain via occlusion of the internal jugular veins leads to cerebral edema and then cerebral ischemia. The face will typically become engorged and turn blue through lack of oxygen).
Compromise of the cerebral blood flow may occur by obstruction of the carotid arteries, even though their obstruction requires far more force than the obstruction of jugular veins, since they are seated deeper and they contain blood in much higher pressure compared to the jugular veins. Where death has occurred through carotid artery obstruction or cervical fracture, the face will typically be pale in color. Many reports and pictures exist of actual short-drop hangings that seem to show that the person died quickly, while others indicate a slow and agonizing death by strangulation.
When cerebral circulation is severely compromised by any mechanism, arterial or venous, death occurs over four or more minutes from cerebral hypoxia, although the heart may continue to beat for some period after the brain can no longer be resuscitated. The time of death in such cases is a matter of convention. In judicial hangings, death is pronounced at cardiac arrest, which may occur at times from several minutes up to 15 minutes or longer after hanging. During suspension, once the prisoner has lapsed into unconsciousness, rippling movements of the body and limbs may occur for some time which are usually attributed to nervous and muscular reflexes.
As for the search time lapse of more than 15 minutes, and the lack of response from Charlie during initial CPR, it is almost certain that Charlie was killed by strangulation by hanging caused by Ethan.
Improbabilities:
Ethan carrying off a fighting Charlie and a pregnant Claire through the jungle. In all the tracking dialog, there is no mention of anything but three distinct tracks - - - Claire, Charlie and Ethan. One man could not have captured and carried two grown adults across the jungle terrain.
Mysteries:
Ethan Rom: the camp survivor who was not on the plane. We would learn that he is part of The Others, a group of people living on another part of the island in a science compound. Why Ethan was planted in the survivor’s camp would be revealed as a means of spying by the Other’s leader, Ben. Why the Others wanted pregnant Claire was that
The Sickness: Rousseau warns Sayid to watch his group carefully, referencing to the signs of infection which turned her shipwrecked science team. We will learn that her science team, including her husband, were dragged into the Temple by Smokey and transformed into sinister beings in the bodies of the men. Rousseau killed them all in order to save herself and her child, Alex.
The massive waves and high tides sweeping across the beach to take away the plane crash debris: Prior to the tide, Kate is staring off into the ocean hoping that the island “would sink.” This dramatic, abnormal change is the result of the Island “moving” as it did when Locke turned the Frozen Donkey Wheel.
Why Claire was taken: we will come to learn that The Others have had trouble with their women coming to term on the Island. The idea that the Island “kills” babies in the womb was inferred by the “infection.” But this story arc does not have significance in The End.
Themes:
Taste One’s Own Medicine: Sayid the torturer has role reversal when he is captured by the French woman, Rousseau. Jack also has a role reversal when he has to become a leader like his father and making the hard calls.
Religion: In a bonding moment with Rose and Charlie, Rose believes her husband will return to her. She states that there is “a fine line between denial and faith.” Rose begins the first open prayer of the series, in which she thanks the lord for bringing them together.
The Power of Suggestion: Locke has used the power of suggestion to make the castaways use their own free will and individual choices to go down his manipulative pathways. Other characters are manipulating people in order to get some form of private or personal gain (Kate, Sawyer).
Clues:
Kate’s flashback robbery sequence and shooting up the crew all in order to get into safety deposit box 815 to retrieve a toy airplane seems extreme. But it is such a strong memory of Kate, and the results of crashing down her life (“it was from the man I loved - - - the man I killed” admission to Jack), that the Island in some respects “re-created” that trauma with the plane crash.
Rousseau’s warnings to Sayid about watching your people as a sign of the “sickness” which is the death and/or transformation by the smoke monster will come true. It is ironic that Sayid, who should have been a strong messenger of the warnings, would in the Island end, would give in and turn into the darkness.
Charlie’s discussion with Rose that the smoke monster hasn’t been seen in two weeks doesn’t mean it won’t get hungry is a clue about the nature of the Island and its native spirits. As theorized, the smoke monsters may “feed” on human emotions, as the castaways are put into highly dangerous situations or suddenly forced to re-live strong emotional moments in their lives. The question is whether a smoke being has to inhabit a body in order to get the full rush of human emotions.
Discussion:
Kate’s wish that the island would “sink” coincides with the Island movement, which may be related to a turn of the Frozen Donkey Wheel (by Ben on a trip to Tunisia?) The movement of the Island was an explanation of why the 815 wreckage was “found” thousands of miles off course. However, that wreckage contained “bodies” in an intact wreck site, which was not possible if the Island crash was true. Some theorized at the time of original episodes that the misplaced wreck was proof that all the passengers died in the original crash and their “survival” was Island manifestation.
When Claire is having her nightmares, her first vision has Locke in it. We have theorized that Locke is actually MIB who may be controlling people’s actions. Can a shape shifting smoke monster manipulate people’s dreams? When Jack tries to calm Claire down after the attack, with an odd consoling speech about “the crash, no rescue, this place ---feels very real.” Is this Jack’s first realization that the Island is playing tricks on his own mental psyche? Or it is a repressed acknowledgement that the Island is not reality.
Claire has an epiphany moment. The psychic reader, who we know is a fraud being paid by the Others, changes his story when Claire returns after declining an adoption to say she must go to LA for an arranged adoption on Flight 815. Claire remembers that his first words that she has to raise her baby herself in order to protect it. But then she realizes that the psychic “knew” about Flight 815, the crash and the Island.
When Claire and Charlie are taken, during the search Locke and Jack are rushing through the jungle until Locke stops quickly and off their path, in the underbrush, finds Claire’s back pack. How Locke could find or sense this object is beyond normal. Jack continues the search, but Locke leaves for the caves. He returns with Kate and Boone to find Jack having gone around in circles. They break up into two tracking teams because Kate, as a child, went deer tracking with her father as a child. Locke and Boone continue on their path set by Locke which leads to the Hatch. Kate and Jack go off on their own and find Charlie’s body.
As stated above, Charlie died from hanging from the tree. Kate held Charlie’s hand tightly as Jack did frantic and angry CPR. When she told him to stop, he did but could not come to grasp of losing another patient, so he tried again begging Charlie to breathe. Kate again took Charlie’s hand, and then a miracle happened: Charlie came back to life. This hand holding and rebirth of Charlie could be symbolic. Before Jack found Charlie, he heard screams that Kate did not. Jack rushed ahead up a rooty cliff, only to fall past Kate. When he landed hard on the ground, he was beaten up by Ethan who warned him to stop following him or “one of them would die.” Kate was no where to be found or heard during that encounter, which is quite strange. When Kate returned, the search continued. Kate found the third finger patch, Jack forged ahead in that direction to find a lifeless Charlie. Just as Locke found “clues” to direct survivors along a certain path, Kate did the same thing to Jack in that scene. The question is whether Kate transferred the Island’s “life force” in dead Charlie in order to revive him?
It is possible that Locke and Kate “planned” to split up, in an almost childlike adventure game of hide and seek in plain sight. If both were smoke monsters in disguise, they would playing tricks on each other (with Boone and Jack as pawns). Locke could have created the Charlie situation in order to evoke a strong emotional response. Kate could have created the Hatch in order to get Locke’s curiosity and game plan mind spinning out of control.
Magical/Supernatural/Elements:
Locke basically creating rain on the Island by telling Boone in advance of the shower. Then, Locke basked in the rain like it was something utterly new sensation.
The whispers in the jungle will be revealed near the end as lost human souls that are still trapped on the Island, such as Michael. Why these souls continue to inhabit the island without a physical manifestation is not clear. Unless Jacob or MIB or the Island refused to release their souls to “move on” or they failed in their tests in their journey of afterlife redemption, they remain in limbo.
Last lines in episodes:
EP 9:
WALT: [shaking his head] Can you teach me how to do that?
[Locke hands Walt the knife.]
[We see Sayid walking through the jungle. Sound of wind, birds wings, whispering voices.]
EP 10:
CHARLIE: Ethan, where's Jack?
[Ethan just stares at them. Claire looks terrified.]
EP 11:
LOCKE: That's what we're going to find out.
[They start "digging."]
EP 12:
SHANNON: [singing] La mer. Qu'on voit danser le long des golfes clairs. A des reflets d'argent. La mer. Des reflets changeants. Sous la pluie. La mer. Qu'on voit danser le long des golfes clairs...
[Boone stares at Sayid and Shannon from behind a tree with a weird look on his face. Jack walks by Kate and looks at her. Kate just stares at her toy airplane.]
New Ideas/Tests of Theories:
Locke continues to be an “observer” of the other characters. He has put them down paths to create emotional and dangerous situations. He was the first person to be seen with Ethan in the jungle. He was the one to set Kate and Jack on the path to Charlie during the search. But what is really strange in this series of episodes, that after Charlie returns to camp, no one is concerned with finding Claire, including Charlie. Later on in the show during its original run, commentators were frustrated with the collective cast not asking the right questions or communicating with other to share important information. Is this the event/time period where the survivors “give up” and begin to surrender to the Island and their fates?
The idea that the Island inhabitants, the smoke monster clan, are tricksters and shape shifters like Satan in the Garden of Eden in filtrating a group of human souls is one context to try to explain the show’s premise. Considering there is an continuing theme of “enemies among us” throughout the series, it is a plausible diversion from the initial run where we all thought that all the survivors were human beings trapped on supernatural island.
