If we could turn from Locke’s past for a moment:
Why were Nigerian drug smugglers flying over the South Pacific? Were they taking government money to someone they introduced themselves to on the Internet?
Seriously, what’s the deal? Nigeria is about as far away as you can get from that island, and that plane didn’t look big enough to make such a flight without several refuelings.
Sorry if this has been mentioned before, but does anyone else think that there’s some special significance to the fact that Sawyer’s glasses were half-black frame, half-clear/light/white? Or am I just seeing patterns (the Go stones, the “Adam and Eve” stones that Jack found) that I want to see?
My WAG: they symbolize that Sawyer is a true “neutral” (despite his bad-boy posturing), and will be forced to make a terrible choice at some point. But that’s just me.
Man, I love this show.
Nah – he just said (to the tour guy):
“My condition isn’t an issue. I’ve lived with it for 4 years, and it’s never kept me from doing anything.”
Me, too. I thought exactly the same thing.
I don’t know what it was, but this episode just seemed different from all the others. I can’t put my finger on it, but the pace or the backstory/present ratio just seemed off.
Anyway, we now know what Locke’s “daddy issues” are. Notice he calls Boone “son” at one point… Locke sure seems like a Christ figure in this episode. Virgin birth reference, and he’s sent on a quest that he doesn’t fully understand, only to find himslef back at his “god” to plead for some insight. Then the light.
I think this episode just confused things more for me rather than offering any explanations.
Why did Boone say “Theresa fell up the stairs. Theresa fell down the stairs”?
Flowers.
I’ve heard the phrase “fell up the stairs” to indicate a high degree of drunkenness.
I don’t know how, when Locke set Boone down in the cave and Jack asked him what happened, he kept himself from saying “He was in another plane crash.”
I re-watched the episode last night and noticed something interesting. When Locke first met his father, he poured a drink for Locke and for himself.
Then, mere moments after giving Locke his glass, he encouraged him to drink up.
However, we never saw the father himself take a drink.
Was he perhaps seeking confirmation that Locke had healthy kidneys? Maybe if Locke had refused the drink, saying “sorry, I have weak kidneys” it would have saved him the whole ordeal?
I agree. It sure seems the writers are setting him up as a Christ figure. Locke complains to the hatch, “Haven’t I done everything you’ve asked!” (paraphrased)
It reminded me of the Gethsemane scene in Jesus Christ Superstar:
Here’s a total WAG:
This episode tells us that Locke never hunted before meeting his father. Then that father betrays him in an unimaginably cruel way and bars him from his presence.
What’s to say that didn’t drive Locke at least temporarily over the border? He devotes himself to learning all sorts of hunting/stalking skills FOR THE PURPOSE of getting close enough to his father to confront him and exact revenge of some sort. Like, oh…how about using one of those knives he got fond of to ‘take back’ his kidney? Ouch! :eek:
It would be sorta poetic, that.
Anyway, not sure of the timing and all, but after the catharsis of his revenge, sanity may have gradually asserted itself, and Locke would feel more and more guilty over having (mostly likely) killed his father.
This brings on his paralysis as a psychologically induced self-punishment – neatly taking away his tainted hunting skills – and explaining why another psychological shock could take the paralysis away.
Of course, this all can be ruled out by some comment in the next show…
Nice. The Black and White thing is getting interesting.
I have to start paying more attention. I didn’t catch this or the aisles 8 and 15 bit tills someone here mentioned it. :smack:
Alright, help me sort this out. I have a memory of Jack’s family being in New England, but then a buddy of mine mentioned he thought that Jack’s tantrum at the airport in Sydney included a statement about “meeting a hearse at the airport in LA in X number of hours.”
If he lived in Boston, surely the coffin would just be transfered to another plane headed to Boston instead of being loaded on a hearse. Is my memory of Jack’s tantrum just wrong, it has been a long time ago.
-rainy
Good point. I don’t know. That’s a head-scratcher.
Jack definitely said that the hearse would be in LA. I have no memory of Jack actually being from New England–I think he and his family all lived in LA, they just happened to be Sox fans.
The map on the plane indicates they were actually flying over the Sahara, which means one of two things: either they were teleported to the Island, or the Island itself can shift in space and/or time. If I recall my reading of Bermuda Triangle mythology, there’s an idea that the Triangle was just one of about a dozen so-called devil’s vortices where Weird Shit happened. So perhaps Abrams is taking the idea of devil’s vortices and casting them as portals to an otherplace where the Island (which I think is a sentient being, a weird combination of Krakoa from Giant-Size X-Men #1 and The Authority’s Carrier) resides.
I don’t know that Jack’s dad was particularly a Sox fan, either: he spoke about how they’ll “never” win the Series in that smug, condescending, Yankees-fan sort of way. Jack might be a Sox fan, though. He is one of the good guys, after all. 
You do have a point. I don’t think Jack’s quite … vehement enough for a Sox fan, though. 
Maybe the season finale will reveal that it was the Red Sox winning the series that created a vortex in the time-space continuum in the first place.
You’d be surprised – some of us … er, them :smack: … are extremely high-functioning.
Little Nemo: You mean it didn’t really?