No new episode next week.
1. Flash-sideways:
* Jack:
i. Jack reviews John Locke’s injury at the hospital. That passing reference to Locke's obliterated dural sac was a nod to the classic moment in the pilot when Jack recounted his most harrowing moment as a young doctor. He had to repair a dural sac and seized with fear. His father told him to count to 10. Jack recounted this story when he talked Kate through stitching up his side wound after the 815 crash.
ii. Upon entering the office building where Ilana’s office was a sign read "Visitors must sign in". Both Claire and Desmond signed it, and later Jack but not David. Perhaps this is indicative of our Losties being nothing more than visitors to this timeline.
iii. Jack peers into the operating room mirror and sees Locke's face, and as viewers we're flashed back to the spinal operation he did on Ben at the Hydra station. This is where Ben cryptically told Jack "See you on the other side", something that made little sense at the time. Now however, Jack is on the other side. Maybe this scenario is what triggers his own magic memory moment.
* Desmond: Much like Flocke, he is manipulating Losties toward a specific end. Both resort to violence to get what they want. And both are hard to resist if you allow them to start talking to you.
* Kate: At the Police Station she claimed to be innocent. Maybe she is innocent in the flash-sideways world?
* Sawyer: Eating an apple when he sat down to talk with Kate. The apple was the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden that Eve gave to Adam. Sawyer asked Kate if she wanted an apple. She didn't take it but was it a clue on who will be the Adam & Eve on the island? Just about everyone in this scene wears black. Sawyer, Kate, the police, the detectives... even the hat Kate puts on as Sawyer runs off to catch Sayid is black.
2. Flocke:
* Flocke sent Sawyer off to retrieve the sailboat so Flocke’s camp could sail over to Hydra Island. So off he went with Kate, splintering from the rest of the group. This was a mirror of what happened at the end of Season 2, as Hurley, Jack, Kate, and Sawyer went off to confront The Others, and Sayid, Sun, and Jin took the sailboat to try and meet up with them.
· Admitted to appearing as Christian Shepherd on the island (to help Jack find water).
3. Sailboat: The Elizabeth: the sailboat Libby gave to Desmond for his solo trip around the world.
4. On-Island Jack:
* Jack and Flocke talking by torchlight at night, yet when they went back to camp it was daylight.
* 2 creepy scenes: 1) Jack saying: "If that thing wants us to leave, maybe it's afraid of what happens if we stay?" and 2) Claire saying to Jack "You decided the moment you let him talk to you, like the rest of us. Whether you like it or not, you're with him now."
* From Season 3's finale, only now instead of Jack yelling after Kate, "We have to go back!" Kate is now yelling at Sawyer about Jack..."We have to go back!"
· The beach explosions: I didn’t hear this but other people describe the scene as follows… “First, when Jack hits the ground, sounds like he just fell into water...you can hear a splash. Then you hear a bunch of muffled voices, sounds like chaos. Then a woman’s voice (sounds like Kate), scream "noooooo". Then it sounds like Jack's voice says "Kate"....and then you hear a woman say "Sawyer".” Is this something we haven't seen yet or just the whisperers getting excited as they tend to do? Flocke stands motionless as Hell breaks out all around him. Creepy.
* Sawyer demands that Jack leave “his” boat. What Sawyer doesn't realize is that the off-island world isn't all that it's cracked up to be... something Jack learned first-hand a few seasons back, while Sawyer was stuck in the Dharma Initiative.
5. Widmore:
· Widmore orders that the Losties be taken prisoner. Warning: Star Wars reference coming… Did Widmore just pull an Emperor Palpatine? Emperor Palpatine initially acts as a man who has good intentions and loyalty, but look out, he is actually Darth Sidious! And what did Emperor Palpatine want to do? Set in motion a war to weaken the Senate and Jedi's so he could take control.....hmmm sounds familiar. As Ben and Flocke have said, Widmore just wants control of the Island.
· But now, why does he want the Candidates (minus Sayid)? As bait to lure Flocke there since Flocke needs them to leave? Does Widmore want to kill our Losties...just as he gave the green light to when he sent the freighter?
· Interesting Theory! Flocke and Widmore are actually collaborators in a conspiracy to manipulate (and ultimately destroy) the castaways in order to achieve mutually advantageous goals. We know that Flocke wants to leave The Island. What might Widmore want in this scenario? Maybe Widmore wants to replace Flocke as the new Smokey. Maybe Widmore is driven by a fear of death; becoming a black cloud of all-powerful disembodied consciousness is his ticket to eternal life.
6. Sayid:
* Sayid's problem is that he allows other people to define him — and then buys into it. His father, his country, the United States military, Ben, Dogen, and Flocke — they've all told Sayid that he's a killer, and he's accepted their judgment. Desmond's challenge to Sayid: Decide for yourself who you are and what you want to be. Maybe Sayid accepted Desmond's challenge and decided that who he wants to be is the man Nadia fell in love with — the man who chose not to be her killer; the man who sacrificed his own safety so that she could be free. He made a choice to be that man once. Maybe at the well, Sayid made the choice to be that man again?
* Desmond says "What will you tell her?" Perhaps the only thing Sayid cares about (if he is starting to feel things again) is what Nadia thinks of him, both on and off the island. In the flash-sideways world he packs his things telling Nadia he has to leave forever, Nadia says “what did you do?”
7. Kate theory: She has always been on the lamb or running from something. This show is about redemption so maybe it’s Kate who replaces Jacob… in a job that can last… centuries?
8. Claire: Claire tells Jack that a person who lets Flocke speak to them is automatically committed to his side. Later, she is convinced by Kate that she still has a choice and switches sides after 3 years???
9. The previews from the end of the episode: "HIS SOUL HAD GONE MAD - BEING ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS.” This line is from Heart of Darkness, the book that Apocalypse Now was based on. In the book, as Kurtz dies he says “the horrors…” also mentioned in the previews.
10. Questioning Ghost Jacob’s motives: When Hurley got lost in the jungle and stumbled upon Jacob's cabin and peeked in the window and saw Ghost Christian in a rocking chair. Then an eyeball popped into the frame and glared right back at him and scared the hell out of Hurley. Assuming that Jacob's cabin didn't belong to Jacob at all, but was instead a prison for Smokey, I wonder if Smokey literally got into Hurley's head in that moment and has been messing with him ever since.
Consider Ghost Jacob. In the season premiere, he instructed Hurley to take Sayid to The Temple for healing. How did that turn out? Sayid came back to life and helped Flocke. In ''Lighthouse,'' Ghost Jacob instructed Hurley to take Jack to the lighthouse by evoking his father's memory. (''You have what it takes.'') How did that turn out? The experience left Jack convinced that Jacob was a perverted voyeur who had been spying on him since childhood and further convinced him that The Island was not a place where he'd find healing for his brokenness. Putting Jack in such a place helps Flocke’s cause because it sets Jack up for one of Flocke’s bargains. What do you want most in the world, Jack? Reconciliation with someone you love? Your father, perhaps? Because I can do that. We haven't heard Flocke verbally make that pitch yet, but judging from what we've seen in the Sideways world, it looks like Sideways Jack lives in a world where his father issues have been resolved via an increasingly healthy relationship with his son.
11. Smokey is the embodiment of fear theory: When Jack told Flocke he didn't have any idea what he was, Flocke offered a cryptic reply: ''Sure you do.'' Was Flocke hinting at the secret to his true identity and nature, and that if Jack recognized him as he truly was, he would realize that he's known him quite well for a very long time. Flash back to Jack's ''count to five'' story about fear management in the pilot episode. Maybe Flocke is an embodiment of fear. Many characters have been referring to Flocke as “that thing” lately (See: Ilana, Richard, Widmore.) Of course, The Thing is a title belonging to two great science fiction films, the 1951 Howard Hawks original and the 1982 John Carpenter remake, about an alien life form marooned on Earth. Both were allegories about xenophobia and demonization.
12. Stephen King: His new book Under the Dome is set a few years into the future. A character mentions watching a sequel to the show LOST. It is called "The Hunted Ones."