Sorry to keep butting in - but do you all think the scene with Kate and Jack at the airport comes before or after the scene where Jack finds out about her running errands for Sawyer and says she’s not even related to Aaron? It should be obvious, but to me it’s not.
[QUOTE=well he’s back]
Sorry to keep butting in - but do you all think the scene with Kate and Jack at the airport comes before or after the scene where Jack finds out about her running errands for Sawyer and says she’s not even related to Aaron? It should be obvious, but to me it’s not.
[/QUOTE]
Definitely after. He was a complete mess by then. What we saw just now was the start of how he went from the guy we saw at the beginning of the episode to the suicidal guy we saw in that episode.
[QUOTE=Gfactor]
Definitely after. He was a complete mess by then. What we saw just now was the start of how he went from the guy we saw at the beginning of the episode to the suicidal guy we saw in that episode.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I would say it was after. It would say of all the events we’ve seen on island and off, flashbacks and flash forwards, that scene is the most recent on the timeline.
[QUOTE=Gfactor]
Definitely after. He was a complete mess by then. What we saw just now was the start of how he went from the guy we saw at the beginning of the episode to the suicidal guy we saw in that episode.
[/QUOTE]
Yep, Kate gets him a razor as a hint to shave and he tosses it aside. He’s growing the beard.
[QUOTE=Flander]
Yep, Kate gets him a razor as a hint to shave and he tosses it aside. He’s growing the beard.
[/QUOTE]
Plus, he hasn’t figured out that they “have to go back.” Yet.
[QUOTE=well he’s back]
I think he meant “Add that to the list of weird things about this island.”
[/QUOTE]
No, no, no, she meant submit the question to this thread. 
[QUOTE=Gfactor]
[mod hat on]
That’s a good point. If someone had reported the post instead of complaining about it in the thread, a mod could have edited the post and posted a quick note about being careful to spoiler comments like that. Now that we have a discussion about whether its a spoiler or not. . . not so much. Let me do what I can here:
-
**John Mace ** goes to a lot of trouble to set up these threads and make the spoiler rules clear. Please try to honor them, even if the bit you are going to mention is well-known among the cognoscenti.
-
The thing to do about an unspoilered spoiler is to alert a moderator.
[/mod hat off]
[/QUOTE]
I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a spoiler based on John Mace’s rules. I heard what he posted on an ABC promo teaser. One of those “four more episodes!” kinda things.
[QUOTE=anamnesis]
Also regarding middleman’s comments about the “smoke” theory … I also found this to be one of the more intriguing bits in the episode, but I have a technical observation to share. Yeah, I know technical goofs are almost necessarily overlooked in film and TV because it’s nigh impossible to ensure all technical details are accurate, but I have something of a background in electrical contracting and based on experience, it’s fairly reasonable to assume that a place as swanky and posh as the the office building where Jack had his practice would most certainly not have battery-operated detectors. Modern fire systems are all hard-wired into an independently-powered loop that home runs back to a system panel, both for the sake of making an alarm incidence simple to locate within the building, as well as ensuring that all those devices never need batteries. My thinking is there was no beep and this entity was just screwing with Jack’s head. I think you’ll find that there’s something of an auditory motif with most appearances of this thing, whether it’s chirps in the jungle or beeps in a professional building. Call it over-analyzing if you like, but I think it’s a sound theory, pun intended. 
[/QUOTE]
My house has hard wired smoke detectors which are tied to my security system. Each one has a back up 9V battery in it for power outages. When they go out, they emit an erratic beep much like the one in the episode.
[QUOTE=middleman]
My house has hard wired smoke detectors which are tied to my security system. Each one has a back up 9V battery in it for power outages. When they go out, they emit an erratic beep much like the one in the episode.
[/QUOTE]
Hardwired or not, yours are still consumer grade devices because they aren’t designed for commercial application. I’ve serviced thousands of hardwired detectors at hotels and other buildings throughout Chicago … commercial grade detectors with no batteries. They are quite common, and are often wired into a separate power circuit with its own backup. Who wants to replace hundreds of detector batteries in a building every time they all need to be swapped out? Particularly those in inaccessible places i.e. above or behind ductwork, on high ceilings, or perhaps in an atrium or other open space that is several stories high? Answer: nobody does. That’s why they don’t rely on 9V batteries. Even Jack had to grab a chair to stand on, and the detector he saw wasn’t in what I’d call an hard-to-reach area. Like I was saying, it’s really just a nitpick of a technical gaff.
Yay. I finally get to bring something up before anyone else!
intimidating glare at anyone who might be typing the same observation simultaneously
Jack saw (or thought he saw) his dad twice in this episode, and he was standing in basically the same place both times (the lobby hallway of his practice) and the same woman walks up behind him and snaps him out of it both times (the woman who wrote him the prescription).
The first was immediately after the shower scene (and if I remember correctly, he was clean-shaven, not sure what that means about what he did or did not do with the razor that Kate hands him in the bathroom). It is daytime, he’s escorting a patient out, and he catches what looks like his Dad walking away. Que the (rather cute) doctor with the short hair. “Jack…”
The second time was at night with the smoke detector. Que the hot doc. “Jack…”
The first dad sighting takes place prior to his visit to Hurley. So his visit to Hurley does not necessarily trigger the sightings of his Dad.
Rather a mediocre episode all round. The season has been pretty dull all over, but this one was particularly pointless. How far a once great show has fallen.
[QUOTE=ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies]
Yay. I finally get to bring something up before anyone else!
intimidating glare at anyone who might be typing the same observation simultaneously
Jack saw (or thought he saw) his dad twice in this episode, and he was standing in basically the same place both times (the lobby hallway of his practice) and the same woman walks up behind him and snaps him out of it both times (the woman who wrote him the prescription).
The first was immediately after the shower scene (and if I remember correctly, he was clean-shaven, not sure what that means about what he did or did not do with the razor that Kate hands him in the bathroom). It is daytime, he’s escorting a patient out, and he catches what looks like his Dad walking away. Que the (rather cute) doctor with the short hair. “Jack…”
The second time was at night with the smoke detector. Que the hot doc. “Jack…”
The first dad sighting takes place prior to his visit to Hurley. So his visit to Hurley does not necessarily trigger the sightings of his Dad.
[/QUOTE]
And of course Claire sees Dad in the jungle and presumably wanders off after him.
But why did she leave the baby?
Interesting that right after Hurley tells Jack he’s in heaven, “Aren’t you happy, Jack? Don’t you have everything you want?”, Jack’s life starts falling apart.
Absolutely have no idea why Jack is so upset about Kate doing a favor for Sawyer.
[QUOTE=running piglet cheese]
Absolutely have no idea why Jack is so upset about Kate doing a favor for Sawyer.
[/QUOTE]
My first guess was that it was doing something somewhat above the law. Maybe a con, maybe a hit.
No, more likely it’s because he thinks she’s in love with Sawyer and basically stuck with Jack because she wanted to get off the island. Jack has always felt she was drawn to Sawyer so Jack feels he was second choice. Her doing something for Sawyer when he should be “out of sight out of mind” just reminds him of that.
[QUOTE=Peter Morris]
Rather a mediocre episode all round. The season has been pretty dull all over, but this one was particularly pointless. How far a once great show has fallen.
[/QUOTE]
I agree about the episode, but I definitely disagree about the season. I would say that this is quite close to season 1 in quality. The only section at all that I would rate poorly is the run of the second half of season two and the start of 3.
And for the episode I’d say it’s forgivable to have a mediocre one, as it looks like they’re getting people positioned for the big finale in a few episodes.
[QUOTE=tanstaafl]
Was the “power station” really a power station? Weren’t they there to prevent the gas from being released? I (somehow) had the impression that it was really a chemical plant of some kind disguised as a power station.
[/QUOTE]
Juliet told Jack that the Tempest was a power station. However, we didn’t see anything that looked like power generating equipment there. In the next episode, Kate told Sun that Juliet had lied about the Tempest being a power station. Dan and Charlotte’s comments would seem to prove it.
If you think about it, this could totally change our understanding of the slaughter of the DHARMA guys. The Others didn’t build any of those stations, DHARMA did. It would seem that DHARMA was planning to gas the Others, but the Others struck first, capturing the poison gas and using it against the DHARMA people. It almost makes it seem like the Others acted in self-defense.
I think that Jack learns that Claire is his half-sister, and is upset to find out that his dad cheated on his mom. At first, he didn’t want to see Aaron because Aaron reminded Jack of his father’s infidelity. He seems to have gotten over this, but he apparently can’t stand the thought that Kate still has feelings for Sawyer, even if Sawyer is (as far as Jack knows) still on the island and out of their lives. I expect that Kate breaks off the engagement at some point in the near future, and this starts Jack on his downward spiral of booze, pills, and not shaving.
Ah, OK then. Still, it might be that she was making plans to meet Sawyer somewhere. She seemed to be quite friendly with the person on the phone, but the name she gave was someone Jack had never heard of. Still, it seems like Sawyer has developed feelings for Claire, so it might turn out that the favor has something to do with Aaron.
Why did Charlotte go with Sun, Jin and Faraday to the Medical Station? Faraday said he knew what the surgical instruments were, and she never said a word. Seems silly to give them yet another opportunity to do something underhanded-- especially since Charlotte appears to be the most devious of the freighter people.
Seems like a hokey plot device to have her caught understanding Korean.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
Why did Charlotte go with Sun, Jin and Faraday to the Medical Station? Faraday said he knew what the surgical instruments were, and she never said a word. Seems silly to give them yet another opportunity to do something underhanded-- especially since Charlotte appears to be the most devious of the freighter people.
Seems like a hokey plot device to have her caught understanding Korean.
[/QUOTE]
Probably. But on the other hand, would you want to stay behind on the beach, surrounded by 40 people who think you might be preparing to kill them all, while your only friend wanders away into the jungle? Hell no, I’m sticking with my buddy, even if I can’t do anything useful.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
Why did Charlotte go with Sun, Jin and Faraday to the Medical Station? Faraday said he knew what the surgical instruments were, and she never said a word. Seems silly to give them yet another opportunity to do something underhanded-- especially since Charlotte appears to be the most devious of the freighter people.
Seems like a hokey plot device to have her caught understanding Korean.
[/QUOTE]
In one of my posts up thread, I quote my wife as being in agreement with you.
However, the more I think about it, it is forgivable as the development could have just as easily happened on the beach. With 44 minutes, you gotta be efficient with your scenes.
I would not be surprised to learn that in a first draft, the scene was on the beach.