Who knew we really all wanted a Sawyer-Miles police procedural?

The flash-sideways made us take a look at a different path that Sawyer could have taken.  There was not much different about our favorite redneck except that fact that he is a police detective here instead of a con man, partnered up with Miles.

I would watch Sawyer and Miles as LAPD Detectives.  It just sounds awesome.

Meanwhile, Island Sawyer is paddling the boat over to Hydra Island, by request of Locke, for recon.  And lo and behold, there was Charles Widmore.  setting up sonic pylons like those that surround the barracks.  Plus, the remainder of the survivors of Ajira 316 are all dead.

Sawyer worked out a deal with Widmore to bring Locke to him so he could kill him.  On the other hand, Sawyer is setting John up as well.  His plan is to let the two of them kill each other while he and Kate escape on the submarine.

By the way, there is a locked room on the submarine that they trotted Sawyer past that obviously contained something important.

This episode also included Claire jumping Kate and trying to stab her to death.  Locke stopped Claire from succeeding, but the entire situation shook Kate.  Locke told Kate a story about his own mother, who was crazy, in order to point out that Aaron now had a crazy mother, and to imply that Kate needed to be aware of that.

Recon was more of a set up episode on the Island, though Sawyer-Miles detective show would be a hit.

Again, the flash-sideways has given us a chance for these characters that we have loved for so long to take one of their flaws and improve upon it.

This week it is Benjamin Linus, the consummate villain of LOST.  However, Ben Linus has been reduced from leader to beaten down lackey.

And int he flash-sideways, Dr.Linus was given a chance to redo the biggest mistake in his entire life, figuratively.  Dr. Linus discovered from his student Alex Rousseau (yep, that Alex) that the principal of the school was having an illicit affair with the nurse, Linus found evidence and intended on blackmailing him to resign as principal and recommend Dr. Linus for the job.

Substitute teacher John Locke suggested that Linus should be principal because he cared about the school and the students more than the administrators did.  Linus was attracted to the power and moved forward with the plan.  We know Ben has always desired power and he would do practically anything for it.

However, the principal had a ace up his sleeve. When Ben approached him with the blackmail, the principal said that if he went through with this, he would torch a recommendation to Yale that Alex Rousseau had asked him to write.

Alex had already expressed to Ben how much she needed to get into Yale and she worried that she would never make it because of money.  She needed a recommendation from a former Yale graduate.  She made this seem like life and death for her.

So here Ben was again.  He could push forward with his own plan to hold on to his power at the figurative cost of Alex’s life or he could give up his power and save her life.

This was just like the literal Alex and Keemy situation where Ben had chosen to hold on to his power, leading to Alex’s execution.  It is a brilliant juxtaposition by the LOST writers to be able to place Ben back in that situation again.

Of course, Dr. Linus chooses the better path than Ben Linus did, and Alex gets her recommendation.

Meanwhile on the Island, we have two people facing internal crises.  Ben is being forced to dig his own grave by Ilana, who found out that Ben was the actual person to have murdered Jacob.  The second person was Richard, who was looking for a chance to die and he was enlisting the help of Jack.

Ben was approached by Locke and he offered Ben control of the Island after Locke and his group departed.  Richard ran into Hurley and Jack and led them to the Black Rock and away from the Temple, where everybody was dead.

Ben took off into the jungle after a gun (told to him by Locke) with Ilana in pursuit.  Richard brought Jack inside the Black Rock and pulled out a stick of dynamite.  Richard said he was unable to kill himself but he needed Jack to do it.

Ben got to the gun and got the drop on Ilana, but he did not shoot her.  He only wanted to explain.  Jack agreed and lit the dynamite, sitting down next to Richard.

Ben explained about how he had made the decision to choose the Island over Alex and how much he regretted that, but how Jacob didn’t even care.  Ben said he was so angry.  He had sacrificed everything only to be tossed aside.  Jack told Richard that he knew that dynamite wouldn’t explode because Jack was important and had been brought here for a reason.  So Jack was willing to sit there and let it blow up. believing that it would not.

Ben told Ilana he just wanted to go to Locke because he was the only one who would have him. Ilana said that she would have Ben.   Jack closed his eyes and the dynamite fizzled out.  Jack snarkily said, “You wanna try another stick.”

The performances in this episode were out of this world.  The scene between Ben and Ilana is one of the best of the series, and Richard’s off-balance behavior was the best we have seen Nestor Carbonell as the never aging Other.

And the fantastic episode ended with another reunion scene of Jack, Hurley and Richard arriving on the beach and having everyone happy to see them.  Ben stood back out of the way, still the outsider with more to prove.

And then there was a sub with Charles Widmore approaching the Island.

The Others meet their end at Sundown.

The infected Sayid delivered them a message from Locke.  Come and join him, leave the Island or die.

This was after Sayid attempted to stab Locke in the chest with a dagger given to him by Dogen.  Locke reacted very calmly to the assassination attempt, simply explaining to Sayid that Dogen had sent Sayid here intending on Locke killing him.  Locke, instead, made a deal with everyone’s favorite Iraqi.

Sayid delivered the message and promptly found Dogen.  After a few minutes of learning about Dogen’s deal with Jacob, Sayid grabbed him and drowned him in the same pond that they “saved” Sayid in.  Follow this up with a quick slash of Lennon’s throat, and Sayid had completely gone evil.  The look Sayid gave Ben a few minutes later told the story remarkably well.

Thankfully, Ilana, Frank, Sun and Ben arrived just in time to rescue Miles.  Kate went to find Claire, but she realized that Claire is a bit nutso.  It was not before Kate had told Claire that she had Aaron and had raised him for the last three years.  Kate walked out with Sayid and Claire to Locke’s people, which turned an eye from the old Smokie.

The Temple was devastated by the Smoke Monster and the bodies were scattered everywhere.

The flash-sideways were okay this episode, focusing on Sayid and his attempt to be a good man.  Sayid’s plight was echoed both in the flash-sideways and the Island, and in both instances, Sayid failed in his attempt.  I would guess that we get more Sayid in flash-sideways since he found Jin bound and gagged in the freezer after he dispatched Keemy and his foolish men.  Sayid is clearly the biggest kick ass character on this show.

I have really enjoyed the flash-sideways parts of the first five episodes.  They feel kind of like the old Marvel Comics series What If?  Alternate timelines that play out a story in the fashion if something else happened than what did happen.

While I have enjoyed Locke as a substitute teacher, Jack as a father and Kate still running, they do not feel as if there is a reason for them to be done here.  Although I suppose you could say that each flash-sideways is dealing with some core issue at the heart of the character.  Jack dealt with his own father issues iby dealing with his son.  Locke had to work through the paralysis and how it affected him as a man.  Kate hasn’t yet stopped running, but I expect that will be focused on at some point .  Claire had to come to the understanding that she did not want to give up Aaron. In this manner, these characters are facing some of their biggest personal problems in this alternate world that is familiar, yet somehow off.

We know they feel off because Jack did not remember having his appendix removed.  His mother told him that it happened when he was 7 or 8, but we know Juliet removed it on the Island.  This Jack knew that the childhood surgery did not feel right, but he accepted it because he was not ready yet to understand everything that was happening.

I have to say that I have enjoyed Dylan Minnette as David Shephard.  Dylan has since this been the lead character in Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why, and he has been in several movies such as Don’t Breathe, Goosebumps, and Prisoners.  He’s a great young actor who did well here.

On the Island, Jacob gave Hurley instructions on bringing Jack to the Lighthouse.  Jack asked how they hadn’t seen this structure before and Hurley said “maybe we weren’t looking for it.”  That feels like a perfect explanation for this.  We know they are both candidates..maybe only candidates can see this.  Perhaps the lighthouse is out of time- as we know the Island is and there is a certain moment that it can be found, with precise instructions- like Jacob gave to Hurley.

The wheel inside with the mirrors that let you watch places on the mainland was a cool idea and having these different people corresponding to the degrees on the wheel was another epic use of those numbers.  Jack showed he was still the old hothead as he smashed the mirrors to bits when Jacob would not show up.

In the end, Jacob talked to Hurley and told him that he wanted Jack to understand how important he was and, most importantly, he had to get Jack and Hurley away from the Temple because something bad was coming.  Smokie, most likely.

Then there is Claire.  Claire is coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs right now.  Too many days alone on the Island being corrupted by the Smoke Monster would turn anyone into a raving loon and Jin realized that he was in serious trouble as Claire was wielding that axe.  The axe to the gut of the Other was shocking from Claire, without a doubt.  One wonders what she had done during these three years… as crazy squirrel baby may indicate.  Claire’s claim that she was not alone was very creepy as well.  She said she was with her father, Christian, who we saw take her in the first place.. and her “friend”.  At the episode’s end, we meet the friend.  John Locke walked into her tent, Jin called him John.  Claire said, Jin, that’s not John, that’s my friend.  She obviously means the Man in Black/ Smokie.

Claire’s threat to Kate at the end about killing her if she had taken Aaron was just full of crazy train.  I wonder if this is the future for Sayid as well, if Claire had been “infected” as Dogen had said.

We now have an answer about what a “candidate” was.

According to John “Smokie” Locke, Jacob would bring people to the Island whom he considered candidates to take over the job of Island protector, a job which Jacob has now.  Locke took Sawyer to a cave on the side of a cliff where Jacob had scrawled names all over the wall, most of which were scratched out.

That is…except for six of them.  Each one had a number beside it.  Yes, they were the numbers.  Locke said Jacob had a thing for numbers.  The names included 4 Locke, 8 Reyes, 15 Ford, 16 Jarrah, 23 Shephard, 42 Kwon.  There were many other names on the wall but they were all scratched out.  “Locke” went ahead and scratched Locke out as well.

Locke was trying to convince Sawyer to forsake the Island and join him in getting off the Island.  Sawyer agreed to join him.

I like the connection to the numbers. I do not think this is the final explanation of them.  I believe the Valenzetti Equation, an equation to determine the end of the world, is the main idea behind the numbers.  Still, it is fun to think about how the numbers are continued to be used.  We got flashbacks to the Incident when Jacob approached each candidate in their younger years.  For some reason, Kate, who was also touched by Jacob, was not shown on the wall. I guess they ran out of numbers.

On the trip to the cave, Smokie was approached by a young blonde boy.  Locke chased him but fell on his face.  The boy stood over him and told him to remember that he cannot kill him.  I am assuming that this means that the Smoke Monster cannot kill any of the candidates and that is why he needs others to do it.

It was also said that Smokie could no longer take on a different face, indicating that his appearances as Christian, Yemi, Alex were now finished, probably with the death of Jacob.  That means we will be getting John Locke or the Smoke Monster for the remainder of the series.

Ben, Frank, Sun and Ilana buried the body of the real John Locke. Ben’s words were touching and felt sincere.  Ending the eulogy with the “I’m sorry I murdered you” was weird, but surprisingly touching.  Sun’s look was great as was Frank’s response about this being the strangest funeral he’s ever been to.

One has to wonder how many people Jacob brought to the Island in search of a replacement for Island protector.  How many lives were lost because they did not measure up to the job.  In this case, Smokie is not that far off.  He says he just wants to leave the Island, and that does not seem unreasonable.  I wonder if he would retain the ability to change into a pillar of smoke off Island.

By the way, it was great to see Helen again this episode.  She and Locke are truly a great couple and have the chance to be happy.  Seeing Ben as the history teacher was funny.

Time is flying as the show LOST winds down to its final.  In “What Kate Does”, a toss back to the “What Kate Did” title from season 2, we get the return of Claire Littleton to prominence in the series.

First, we see her in the flash-sideways, where she was in the cab that Kate hijacked to escaped the airport.  After dumping her off, Kate found Claire’s bag full of baby stuff and felt bad so she returned to the scene of the crime to find Claire.

Kate took her to the people who were going to adopt the baby only to find that couple had split up and the wife was in no condition to be considering adopting a baby.  Claire started having contractions and Kate rushed her to the hospital.  We see Dr. Goodspeed (Ethan) there and he said Claire could have the baby, but she wants to hold off.

Claire and Kate bond over lying to the police and that was really about it for the flash-sideways.

On Island, I don’t understand why the Others do not just tell Jack and his group the truth.  Why do they have to mask it in lies and mysteries?  Everything could have been avoided if they just had told them the truth.  Instead of seeing them as captures, the could see them as friends who are protecting them as candidates. That idea is still to come.

This episode Dogen tortures Sayid to see if he has been “infected” and when he finds out, he wants Jack to give Sayid a pill, but he was mysterious and secretive about it.  He wouldn’t tell Jack what was in it, and … well, he just tortured Sayid.  I have no idea why Jack wouldn’t trust him.  Jack did not give Sayid the pill, and in fact, took it himself.  Dogen desperately made Jack spit it out and admitted that the pill was poison.

Dogen tells Jack that Sayid has been “claimed” and that they have seen it before…from Claire.

At this point we see Claire saving Jin from the Others by shooting Aldo (dumb ass who responds with anger, what do you expect) and the other guy who was a decent guy.  Claire appeared to have taken the place of Rousseau as wild Island woman, even going as far as setting several traps like Rousseau used to do.

Claire has returned big time to the show after being absent since she disappeared in season 4. At this point, she does not seem to be a great mother type for Aaron, but we’ll see where this goes.

Josh Holloway wins the best scenes of the episode as he sat on the dock and blamed himself for Juliet’s death.  He remembered talking Juliet out of leaving on the sub and he knew that if he had not done that, she would still be alive.  James has shown a remarkable growth over the years of the show, but he seemed as if he might be regressing back into Sawyer.

The final season kicked off with a two-part episode “LA X” which seems to have started to show us two completely different realities.  The original reality we known on the Island, and a reality where the Island is on the bottom of the ocean and Oceanic 815 landed in LA.  Kind of.

The thing is… there are things about this Oceanic 815 that is wrong.  Desmond is there, sitting and talking to Jack.  Desmond was not on the original 815 flight.  There is no sign of Shannon Littleton and her brother Boone indicated that he failed to break up her relationship.  Did Shannon stay in Australia?  Jack had a cut on his neck from out of nowhere.  Hurley claimed to be the luckiest man in the world.

What is going on?

We did get a really neat meeting of Jack and John in the airport.  The flight had lost John’s case of knives and Jack’s father’s body and the pair of them bonded over the airline’s incompetence.   Jack offered John his card and told him he was a spinal surgeon and told John he should come in for a consult.  When John said his injury was irreversible, Jack told him, “nothing is irreversible.”

Kate escaped from Mars AGAIN… and jumped in a cab with Claire, and, by gunpoint, told the taxi cab driver to go.

In the other reality, the group who had detonated Jughead in 1977, were back in the present time on the Island.  Most of them were near the Swan site, which had been built and exploded just as it always had been.  This supports my assumption that the Jughead explosion was the actual “Incident” that the Dharma people had talked about.  None of them seemed to have any sort of radiation poisoning and were the same way they were in 1977.  That meant that Sayid was still dying with a gunshot wound in his gut and Juliet actually was still alive at the bottom of the pit.

I was a little sad that they kept Juliet alive only to have her die in Sawyer’s arms.  Juliet’s final words were confusing, and Miles, later on, did not help when he told Sawyer that the words that she wanted to tell him was “It worked.”  Unfortunately, she could not tell that to him as she passed away.

Hurley received a visit from the ghost Jacob, who just died an hour ago.  Jacob told Hurley to take Sayid to the Temple and they would save him.  He told Hurley that Jin could lead him to the Temple, the place with the hole in the wall that he saw with the French team.

This means we are finally arriving at the Temple, that Ben mentioned way back in season 4.  Inside, we come across two new Others whose names are not mentioned.  They are quite ready to kill them even after stewardess Cindy told them that they were all on the plane.  Hurley spoke up and took charge of the situation, telling them that Jacob sent him.  He also opened the guitar case that Hurley had been hauling around (and through time, as he said) to reveal an ankh that contained a piece of paper (a Jacob list?).

After not killing them, they take Sayid to a pool of water, but it is not clear any more.  They put Sayid in the water and drown him despite Jack and Hurley and Kate yelling at them.  When they bring Sayid out, he is dead.  And we know on LOST that dead is dead.

Until it isn’t.  Sayid comes alive at the end of the episode.

The other big reveal here… John Locke, who manipulated Ben into killing Jacob, was the Smoke Monster, who created massive chaos by murdering a group of the Ajira passengers in front of Ben.  Ben couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

Locke left the foot and confronted Richard, knocking him out after saying he was glad to see him out of the chains.  Richard finally knew who Locke was.  Locke threw the unconscious Richard over his shoulder and started walking off.

LOST season five was a lot of fun. I know there were some people who had dropped out of the series by now from frustration or impatience, and I find that to be a shame, because there are some tremendous episodes in season five.  I also loved the time travel element in the series.  It really brings everything together

So here is the review of season five…

Best Episode:  “The Incident”  The season finale really threw the action into overdrive as Jack and his merry band went to drop a nuclear weapon down the Swan hole in an attempt to blow up the electromagnetic anomaly that would lead to the crashing of Oceanic 815 in the future.   Great action, character development and drama.  Runner-Up:  The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham.

Best Flashback:  Jacob is everywhere, The Incident.  Jacob had inserted himself in our main characters’ lives and we see him all over the place.  Makes one wonder how he can get off the Island so easily.  Runner-Up:  Desmond beats the hell out of Ben, Dead is Dead

Best Performance:  Josh Holloway, The Incident.  Sawyer’s desperate attempt to hold on to Juliet and not let her slip from his grasp is one of the singularly most emotional moment of the year and Josh knocked it out of the park.  He was very consistent all season long as well.  Runner-Up:  Michael Emerson, Dead is Dead.

Biggest Jerk:  Stuart Radzinsky.  One of the Dharma Initiative who you really wanted to punch in the face.  How does Kelvin Inman last as long as he did pushing the button in the Swan Station with this guy?  Big time a-hole.  Runner-Up:  Roger Linus

Best Death:  Jeremy Bentham, The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham.  Aka John Locke. We saw how John wound up in that coffin and it was just horrific.  Damn you, Ben.  To see John Locke at the lowest point of his life was terrible, only to end up strangled by a person he thought was there to help him.  Runner-Up:  Charlotte

Biggest Surprise:  John Locke is dead… still, The Incident.  We all thought that John Locke had returned from the dead when they brought his body back to the Island.  Nope.  Dead is dead.  The other passengers on Ajira 316, who have some connection to the Island, brought a box with them and dumped out the corpse of John Locke.  Meanwhile, the other John Locke is inside the statue’s foot.  Shocker. Runner-Up:  Ben strangles John Locke.

Funniest Moment:  Hurley and Miles debate time travel.  This is just the most fun debate on the season.  Miles tries to get Hurley to understand, but instead Hurley stumps Miles.  Runner-Up:  Dr. Chang catches Hurley, “Ok, dude, we’re from the future.”

Best Moment:  Sawyer holds on to Juliet.  The relationship between James and Juliet was a highlight of the season, so when James desperately tried to keep her from falling down the Swan station hole, you saw the fear in James’s face.  And Juliet struggles free from his grasp to prevent him from falling in as well.  Beautifully tragic moment. Runner-Up:  Sayid shoots little Ben.

Most character development:  Sawyer/James LaFleur.  Or whatever you want to call him.  Sawyer is a totally different person from season four.  He is a straight forward good man who goes out of his way to help people.  LaFleur is night and day from the Sawyer we used to know.  Runner-Up:  Jack Shepherd.

Best New Character:  Iyana.  This was a choice that feels like a runner-up choice instead because there is no real new character.  A lot of characters who we have heard about or seen that were expanded upon (Jacob, Horace, Radzinsky, Roger) but none of them are new characters.  Iyana is fairly annoying but she fits the bill.  Runner-Up:  Phil.

One more season to go….

After several years of hearing his name, we finally get to meet Jacob.  And he dies.

I have a feeling that we’ll still be seeing Jacob as the story moves along.

We find out that the John Locke who has been running around the Island is not the John Locke who was strangled by Ben and who was always demanding that people not tell him what he couldn’t do.  Dead is dead after all.

We meet the Man in Black, who within the first few minutes of the episode admits to wanting to kill Jacob and that he was looking for a “loophole” to do it.  Apparently, the Man in Black has been looking for that loophole for a long time, since the statue of Taweret was in one piece during the scene we meet them in.

That statue of Taweret was important in another way. Turns out that Jacob’s home is found inside the foot of the statue.  Richard led John right up to the entrance, even though he did not want to.  Ben came along, despite Richard not wanting that to happen either.  Locke had told Ben earlier that Ben would be the one to kill Jacob.  That must have been the loophole.  We had heard about how there were rules with Ben and Charles Widmore and being unable to kill each other was one of them.  The Man in Black and Jacob must have the same deal.

In flashbacks, we saw Jacob inserting himself in the life of several of the Oceanic 815 survivors over the years.  He was at the funeral of James Ford’s parents.  He stopped Kate from shoplifting a lunch case.  Jacob was outside the surgery that Jack performed where he counted to five for the first time.  He was outside the jail when Hurley was released after being arrested for murder.  Jacob was there when John was thrown out of the 8th story window by his father.  He was at Jin and Sun’s wedding.  Jacob was everywhere.

In fact, the Man in Black implied that Jacob had brought the boat that they saw in that opening scene.  How Jacob was supposed to have “brought” them there and why… is still a question.

Since we just met Jacob, it was shocking when Ben buried that knife in his chest several times, and then Locke kicked him into the fire.

Back in 1977, we had a rush to the Swan site where Jack planned on dropping the bomb and changing the future.  I wrote in the last review how I believe that the bomb WAS the incident, and, in this episode, Miles put in words the same idea as I had.  I saw nothing here that changed that concept for me.

I have to say though, some of the motivations of the group were questionable.  Juliet changed from “we have to stop Jack” to “we have to let Jack do this” without really much explanation.  Juliet’s questions over Sawyer’s feelings for her got old. He had shown her everything she should have needed.  She was too upset over “looks” he may have made at Kate.

Kate, Sawyer both changed their opinions on what was going to happen.  The final action scene was exceptional.  The best scene of the episode, however, was the Sawyer and Juliet scene where Sawyer desperately tried to keep Juliet from falling down the hole in the electromagnetic Swan site.  Tears.  Tears everywhere.

Of course, Juliet did not die from the fall.  She used a stone to detonate Jughead beside her.

And the screen went white.

There is a lot of stuff going on here.

I am even more convinced that the detonation of Jughead is the actual “incident” referred to in the orientation video of the Swan and is what always happened.  This is the reason why Eloise Hawkins was so insistent that all of the members of the Oceanic 6 had to go back to the Island and when she said “Lord, help us all” when the idea of not the entire group returning was raised.

Without Jack, Kate, and Sayid, they never would have taken Jughead out of its underground tunnel and the electromagnetic disruption at the Swan would have destroyed the Island.  When she had said that she did not know what was going to happen (this was to Penny in the hospital during The Variable, I believe), Hawkins did not know yet whom was going to be on that Ajira 316 flight and she did not know how that might affect what had happened.

While Eloise’s motives in 1977 was to save her son from being shot, Ms. Hawkins’ motive was to make sure the timeline played out just like it was supposed to play out.  Destiny.

What happened, happened.

There was a fun scene with Hurley and Dr. Chang, who quizzed Hugo about events that a 1977 man would have known and, just like Hugo had worried about, the identity of the President of the United States was an important question.  This scene included Chang realizing that Miles was, indeed, his son and he was convinced to start an evacuation.  I would have liked to have more with Chang and Miles, but there was a lot to do in this episode.  Miles was able to see Chang putting his mom and his baby self on the sub.  Chang was yelling at his wife and Hurley wondered why he was doing that.  Miles understood that she wouldn’t have left other wise.  This gave Miles a better understanding of his father’s choice to sacrifice his love in order for them to be safe.  Miles’ smile told the truth that he understood what had happened.

In the present, John Locke had ingratiated himself into the leadership position of the Others, to the chagrin of Ben and the uncertainty of Richard.  John was doing things that no other leader of the Others had tried to do.  He came out to the entire group and invited them along with a trip to see Jacob.  John had pressured Richard to take him to see Jacob and forced his hand by telling the people what he was doing.  You could almost see Ben impressed with John’s manipulations.

However, John is not all honesty and forthrightness.  He had told Sun that Jacob would be able to tell them how to get Jin and their people back, but he did not care.  He later told Ben that he was going to see Jacob in order to kill him.

Where is Hurley when you need a “wait…what?”?

We get some background on Daniel Faraday in “The Variable” and we get an exceptional performance from Jeremy Davies as all Hell is breaking loose at New Otherton.

Faraday returned and immediately started stirring the pot.  He told Pierre Chang that he needed to evacuate the Island and that he was from the future.  He told Jack and the others that they did not belong here.  He came up with a wild plan involving Jughead.  Then he walked right into the “Hostiles” camp demanding to see Eloise.

Who then shot him.

Mother shooting son to death is one thing, but then you realize that Eloise Hawkins pushed Daniel to follow the mathematics/science path of learning instead of piano playing as he had wanted.  He encouraged him to go to take up an offer from Widmore to go to the Island.  She did all this knowing that this path would lead to Daniel being killed by her own hand.

Thanks, ma.

Daniel came back with a theory that humans were the Variable in the whole “Whatever happened, happened” idea and that he was going to try and fix things by using Jughead to blow up the electromagnetic pocket of energy at the Swan.  Faraday told Jack and Kate that, he believed that if he would do this, that the Hatch would never be created and that Oceanic 815 would never have crashed.

In other words, he was trying to change history.

However, I am not certain that he really believed that.  I think it is completely plausible that the reason he wants to detonate Jughead at the Swan site is that the bomb going off was always what happened and would be referred to as the “incident” from then on.

If he really believed that this would work, why did he go to the young Charlotte and tell her to make sure she and her mommy left the Island?  Just covering his bases?  Or is it more than that.  Older Charlotte was dying, she told Daniel that he spoke to her in the 70s.  Couldn’t he have proven that the past could be changed in just that manner, by not speaking to Charlotte?  It seems easier to accept that then trying to detonate an A-bomb.

I am still under the belief that Jughead was always the “incident” referred to in the Swan orientation tape and everything just happened that way.

Meanwhile, the crew of our future fighters were feeling the collapse of their little world tightening on them.

Everything is building toward another huge season finale.

“Some Like It Hoth” is another episode that many people found weaker and unnecessary, but that I liked quite a bit.

It is a lighter episode featuring a Miles back story and the pairing of Miles with Hurley.  Hurley episodes may not tie directly into the bigger story going on, but that does not mean that they are not rousingly entertaining.

This episode conformed that Miles is the adult son version of Pierre Chang, aka Dr. Marvin Candle from the orientation videos.  Miles believed that his father never cared about him and that he dumped him and his mother when he was just a child. This is true, but, with some of the evidence shown in this episode (specifically Pierre reading to little baby Miles), it would not be out of the question that Pierre sent his family away because he had knowledge of what was going to happen and wanted them safe.

Any time Miles and Hurley were together in the Dharma van, the dialogue really popped and the connection was obvious.  Yes, Miles was yet another character with daddy issues, but that does not mean that he is not a worthwhile character.

I really enjoyed the banter between Miles and Hurley when they were comparing notes about talking to dead people.  Hurley claiming that Miles is just jealous because Hurley’s power was batter than is was a hoot.

Then there was the fact that Pierre Chang was really enjoying his conversation with Hurley even though he was desperately trying to keep his composure.  Those very slight smiles Pierre had showed how much he was enjoying Hurley.  I mean… everybody loves Hurley.

Hurley’s constant allusions to the Star Wars universe was also fun.  Comparing Miles to Luke Skywalker and Pierre to Vader actually does work somewhat.  The idea that Hurley wanted to re-write The Empire Strikes Back is very funny.  Ewoks suck, dude.

Hurley is so wise.

The scene where Pierre comes out and see Miles and said, “Miles, I need you” and Miles responded with “You do?” was emotionally strong.  You could hear in those two words how much Miles needed to hear those words from his father. Yes, Pierre did not mean them in that context, but it peeled back a layer on Miles and showed just how much getting to know his father could mean to him.

And then, there was Daniel Faraday back on the sub.  I was thinking that he was the person who designed the Lamppost in LA.  Chang said the sub had scientists back from Ann Arbor, which was where the DaGroots were from  makes one wonder if Faraday was at the heart of a lot of the research for the Dharma Initiative.

Things are going to get hairy moving forward.