WHY?!? | SEASON ONE | SEASON TWO | SEASON THREE

New picture on the side there’s by Tom, who came round to join us for the end of season three (not the beginning of season three, no, no company for that pain. I was all alone…), at my commission: after the end of Season Three I asked for a picture of my brain, on fire and bleeding from the ears. And crying. And wearing Hairy Jack, Doctor of Beard’s weirdy new beardy beard. And he did an awesome job, thank you.

SEASON FOUR!
episode one | episode two | episode three | episode four | episode five | episode six | episode seven | episode eight | episode nine | episode ten | episode eleven
| episode twelve/thirteen/fourteen: the three part finale

And again, here are those other seasons, in case anyone’s out there..
SEASON ONE | SEASON TWO | SEASON THREE

SEASON FOUR, EPISODE ONE: THE BEGINNING OF THE END
Wheeeeeeeee! what a happy title!

What happens in this episode
Coming back in the immediate aftermath of the events of Season Three finale. Literally, in our case. Well, given ten minutes or so to stop crying the hot tears of frustration and confusion that the finale had caused, have a stiff cup of tea, and pull my socks up.

So on the mountain people danced jubilantly about, with the news that people were coming to take them home. And down on the beach, Hurley talked about how, all this time, all he’d wanted was to do a great big cannonball in the ocean. And he didn’t mean ‘do a toilet’, either. He meant the dive kind. And then he did, clad in red t-shirt, running in slow motion down the beach, reminding everyone just how much like Baywatch this show really isn’t.

Desmond arrived back without Charlie, and tried to warn the assembled Losts on the beach, who weren’t quite clear on why or how what they were being warned against. About. Off. For. GAH!

So while the Beach Losts went to meet up with the Mountain Losts, Naomi, the bad actress from Las Vegas and the hottie from the heliflopper with locke’s Knife in her tumkin, went missing from the geographical where she fell at the end of Season 3, presumed written-out-irrevocably-with-the-exception-of-flashbacks (a terminal condition).
Kate found her later, and she managed to croak out one more message to the boat before croaking full stop.

On their walk, Hurley, in shock from hearing about Charlie, saw Jacob’s cottage and, in nightmarish flashes, Jacob. Meeting up with the mountain Losts, Hurley tells Claire that Charlie is dead, and it’s all tearful. He also gives an emotional speech that demonstrates brilliantly why Hurley is well loved for his comic touch.

Pointing out that Charlie’s last act was to try and get them not to trust the people on the boat, the Losts split into two groups: John Locke wants to take people to the Barracks, the Otherurbia with the rec room and the sporting equipment, which sounds like a jolly plan – and Jack wants to stay and wait for the ‘rescue’ team. Which is sounding worse and worse by the second. Thinks everyone. Since it’s only him and Kate that are on team Jack.

Flashes of either the back OR the forward variety
Were mainly of Hurley, though I think it’s going to be more of a mix from now on.

After seeing something he doesn’t like in a grocery shop, Hurley is caught after a car chase, and taken away by the police, all the while shouting “I’m one of the Oceanic SIX!” which is a sentence that makes no sense to us yet, although I sense that’s a sentence I could potentially tack on to the end of most things from now on.

Next thing we know, and after an interrogation by a police officer who says he knew Ana Lucia Deadlady, Hurley is placed in a mental home. Cedric Daniels from The Wire comes visit him, claiming to be an attorney from Oceanic, and asks if “they” are still alive. Then Charlie comes to visit him, you know, dead Charlie, who tells him “they” need him. Jack comes to visit – looking weirdly gaunt, by the way – and they shoot some hoops while tossing out portentous and mysterious sentences that frankly make me want to submerge my head of confusion in a bucket of tomato soup. Heinz.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) “I’m sorry I went with Locke. I should have stayed with you” said Hurley to Jack.
2) “They” – that’s a thing. “They”.
3) The Oceanic Six is a thing.
4) Mikail hasn’t reappeared yet. But he will.
5) What happened to Frogurt? I need to know.
6) It’s funny, I didn’t think that this had a singalongable themetune, but after 70 something episodes, I discover it does. Or at least it does if you count shouting “LOOOOOOOST!” in a deep mysterious tuneless tone along with the appearance of it onscreen.
7) Since killing Locke’s dad, Sawyer’s lost his moral compass. He should check his moral bumbag, because that is the place that moral hikers keep their important moral geolocation equipment.
8) Americans call a bumbag a fannypack and find the British name for it ludicrous, as bum means something else entirely. The British find the term fanny pack ludicrous,what with fanny being a word for vagina.
I’m sorry to go all sub-Seinfeld observational comedian for a second, and promise not to continue in this vein (“Facebook, eh?! What is UP with that?!?”) I just thought it warranted a mention.

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SEASON FOUR, EPISODE TWO: CONFIRMED DEAD

What happens in this episode
Basically, we meet the new people: the “rescue” team from the boat.

Daniel
Who we see in flashback hearing the news about the 815 crash – watching, in fact, the footage of the plane on the sea bed, and crying, though he doesn’t know why.
Arriving on the island and the first to meet Lostkins (Jack and Kate), he’s chaotic of brain and funny of phrase and I like him very much as a character. I therefore expect him to be dead within three episodes.

One thing, though: he’s got a bag full of gas masks and what looks a lot like poison canisters. This is very remeniscent of the Purge of the Dharma Bods, and makes me worried.

Miles
In flashback, we learn that he’s some kind of psychic. And a real one, too, it seems, though not perhaps the nicest one in the world. He’s not The Mentalist. But then, the one in the mentalist isn’t really a psychic. Is that a spoiler? I think it’s probably too late to worry about spoilers now, isn’t it?
Anyway – when we find him on the island, he’s gruff and grumpy.

Charlotte
Is a solipsistic British scientist of the most irritating kind. I like her.
We see her in flashback digging up Dharma-badged things and Polar Bear skulls at the Pyramids.

The Dude
Didn’t catch his name, but he claims to be the pilot who should have been flying Oceanic 815 the day it crashed.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) They say they’re here for Benjamin Linus, who YOU might know as Henry Gale, Darth Other, or Stary McStareFace.
2) Locke has a bullet hole straight through his middle.
3) Also, he can tip his head to the sky, eyes closed, and know when the storm will pass. Locke can forecast weather With His FACE.
4) Ben-Henry-Darth Other has an undercover other on the frighter.
5) The man who organised the rescue team is Cedric from the Wire: or rather, he’s the one who visited Hurley in the future in the last episode. Man, this fractured time-structure is going to be the death of grammar.
6) They’re there for another purge? Are they planning to kill everyone and start over like the Others did a few years previously?
7) Ben-Henry-Darth Other and Locke both acknowledged when Hurley said he had seen a cabin, although he backed off it quickly.

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SEASON FOUR, EPISODE THREE: THE ECONOMIST

What happens in this episode

The Lostinsons were split in two
And now they’re sudivided more
I’d try to list the groups for you
But that would mean my being sure

Of who was what and who was where
and with whom they all are.
And frankly I cannot go there.
Or not without a car.

To drive me round in circles
trying to work out what’s gwan on.
and while I will soon workle
out this stuff, the day I do is not this one.

Still some have gone to beachcamp
and Locke’s in Otherburbia
And Jack and Kate are being damp
and soggy and in love (a bit)

Although not saying so, of course
the Kate goes off to hang with Locke
a unicorn’s a kind of horse.
(sorry, my rhyme-brain’s kind of focked)

Now: Sayid’s gone on heliflopper
off to see this fabled boat
and you might fear he’d come a cropper
but that’s a worry far remote

COS

Somewhere in the future, Sayid is a spy.
Which suggests a careers officer or similiar advice.
‘casue he’s good at things like subtefuge and making people die.
And good at being many things, apart from being nice.

He’s hanging out in Berlin, which is lovely in the spring
It’s got good clubs and nice museums and a panda in the zoo
He schmoozes with a German lass and then he infitrates her ring.
He wants to kill her boss, but then she tries to kill HIM too.

It turns out that he works for Ben, a-killing people on a list
we find out this and nothing else. I think the writers are all pissed.
One thing though: he too calls himself “One of the Oceanic Six”
So that makes three we know for sure, though what it means? We still know nix.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) That Sayid is, someday, somewhere, going to be in the employ of Ben, killing people at his behest.
2) There’s some weird time anomoly surrounding the island. Daniel got someone to fire a thing at the island, and it arrived about half an hour after it should have done, having disappeared somewhere in a time/spaceflap in the meantime. Oh brilliant. Science. Anyone reading this might be about to find out how completely brilliant I am at anything “Science”. If you are lucky, there will also be some mathematics for me to spungle.
3) I just made up the word spungle. No word that already exists in the English language is capable of covering how bad I am at these things.

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SEASON FOUR, EPISODE FOUR: EGGTOWN

What happens in this episode
So, up in Otherburbia are Sawyer, Hurley, Claire and Aaron, Locke and Kate. Ben-Darth-Henry Other is bneing kept prisoner in the basement, Miles the grumpy psychic is being kept somewhere else.

Kate wants to know what Miles knows about her – Miles says he’ll tell her, but only if he can get a minute alone with Ben-Darth-Henry. With with a manouvre very neatly crafted, Kate outfoxes Locke and takes Miles to see Captain Otherpants. Miles is basically unhelpful to us as audience at this point, saying things like “You know why I’m here. You know who sent me”, and then demands 3.2 million dollars to stay quiet about having found him.

“You went to all this trouble to BRIBE me?” says Ben-Darth-Henry
“Actually, it’s technically extortion, but ok, yes” says Miles.

And we learn no more. Kate learns that the world knows she’s bad, however. And then Locke finds her having broken his rules. And banishes her from Otherburbia.
To celebrate this, she goes and jumps Sawyers stubbly bones. Again. After discovering she’s not pregnant, he is happy – she slaps him, and buggers off back to the beach, and Jack.

On the beach, they’re having trouble reaching the ship, and we discover that Daniel Scientist has the memory of a plastic spoon.

Flashes of either the back OR the forward variety
In the future (I don’t know if we’re going to see the past again at this point) Kate is in court. For what? For MOIDAH, that’s what!

Yes, it seems that even though she went through a plane crash and all of those things, she’s still expected to atone for her father’s explodification. They call Jack as a witness and he tells them about what an excellent and lovely person she is, having helped save six of the eight survivors. “Do you LOVE her” asks the lawyer for the prosecution, usefully. “Not any more” says Jack.

After her mother refuses to tesify against her she gets let off, and goes home to her baby (that Jack doesn’t want to see). We assume that it’s going to be a baby concieved on the island, and therefore is either going to have a nice square jaw and dark hair and try and hand out antibiotics to her, or it’s going to have a terrible mid-90s Jon Bon Jovi shag and stubble. Or something. Or this.

Or perhaps this:

Because she’s a right slapper that Kate. She’ll sleep with anyone if they’ve got enough daddy issues.

But then she picks him up to cuddle him – he’s about two, I reckon – and then she refers to herself as mummy and then calls him Aaron. Which, frankly, shows a singular lack of imagination, if she can’t be arsed to think of a name for her baby that isn’t already taken by Claire’s baby. It’s like that year when everyone started christening their baby girls Kylie and their baby boys Jason and

OMG, MAYBE that IS Claire’s baby!!!!1!!

Things I learnt while watching this episode
– People have periods on the island! Hey! wait! If spermcounts are five times higher, are periods five times heavier? Are ALL bodily functions five times greater?
– I like the character of Miles. I am a bit disappointed with the fact that the next time we see him he might have one less head.
– The story the “Oceanic Six” are going with is that there were only eight that initially survived the crash (into the water) but two died.
– The ones who went off on the heliflopper? Sayid, Desmond, Dead Naomi and The Dude? They never arrived on the boat.
– Aaron’s a very common name, isn’t it? Oh no, wait, we sorted that out already.

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SEASON FOUR, EPISODE FIVE: THE CONSTANT

What happens in this episode
Right, you know what? I’m just going to pile straight through this episode all in one go as I understand it and not worry about whether I’m making the requsite amount of sense because
a) Since you’ll all have seen this already you’ll remember clearly enough what happened, because it’s such an important episode and
b) If you haven’t seen it you’re not going to make head or tail of it no matter how clearly I explain it and
c) I don’t see why I should exercise restraint in the ‘not making sense department, since that doesn’t seem to be something the writers are overly concerned with.

SO

On the heliflopper leaving the island, Desmond has a funny turn and suddenly finds himself in a barracks in 1996. After a brief shouting at by one of those men the army employs to shout at people, Desmond is pinged back into the heliflopper, but now doesn’t remember why he’s there, who anyone is or what’s going on. He mentally scoots back to the army barracks, and then to the helimacopter again, before you can say “I’m so confused I want to cry”.

Once they’ve landed on the ship, where there are some people that you wouldn’t want to meet down an alleyway on a dark night while wearing trousers made of money, Desmond freaks out, or rather refreaks out, or possibly freaksouter, and is taken to the sick bay, where there’s another guy who seems to be suffering the same affliction. And also nosebleeds.

They speak to Daniel Scientist on Island Island, who tells him the only course of action is that when he’s next in 1996, to go to Oxford, find the younger Daniel Scientist. give him some numbers that he needs to set his gizmogadgwidget to. He does that. The younger Daniel therefore learns how to flip rats through time, and tells Desmond that the only way to stop this happening is to find himself a “constant” – something he can refer to in both Desmond time locations, which will somehow ground the two and make it all better again. Desmond, of course, thinks of Penny.

Then he speaks to Penny in 1996, about whether she thinks that handsome new turk leading the labour party will be able to lead the party to victory, and whether The Great Escape really is that much worse than Parklife, and how she should buy shares in Wagamamas and gets her phone number so that when he flicks back to 2004, he can ring her on it.

Meanwhile in the communications room, the guy that seemed to have the same time/brain/flip-flop issues as Des is flipping faster and faster back to wherever it is he’s flipping, until it all gets too much and his brain explodes and he nosebleeds to death all over the floor. Here is a bunny:

He rings Penny, they say they love each other, and it’s lovely, and by the time he’s off the phone he remembers everything thats happened, knows who Sayid is, who everyone is, and is all better.

Back on the island, meanwhile, Daniel Scientist has a note in his journal saying “If anthing goes wrong, Desmond Hume is MY constant”, so hopefully we can look forward to them having the same love-filled conversation some time in the near future.

So, time travel, then. Back and forth between fixed points with a constant that can make you better unless your brain explodes and you nosebleed to death all over the floor first.

Flashes of either the back OR the forward variety
A ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
The fact that I even HAVE this section pre-labelled in my pre-formatted episode template is just brilliant. BRILLIANT. A ha ha ha ha ha </hysteria>

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) You can’t change the future. Daniel Farraday said. But Desmond has, many times, right?
2) As part of his trip back, we got to go and see Alan Dale Jim Robinson off Neighbours. He was buying the journal of the captain of the Black Rock. You know, the ship in the jungle where the boom-boom sticks are kept.
3) The spy on the ship – we don’t know who that is – did helpful little things like unlocking doors for them, etc
4) Two days before this, the radio equipment was all sabotaged. Two days before this in 2004, I mean. I can’t believe I’m having to explain that. Oh god, I’m doomed to die a big nosebleedy death. ALL OVER THE FLOOR.
5) There is a time anomaly that surrounds the island that means time passes on the island at a different rate than off it.
6) The Great Escape is, arguably, a much better album than Parklife.

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SEASON FOUR, EPISODE SIX: THE OTHER WOMAN

NB: Just saying, but after that last one, this episode wasn’t very good. In comparison, I mean.

What happens in this episode
Snotty British Anthropologist Charlotte and Ditsy Daniel Scientist Bloke have disappeared from the beach. And gone, according to an Other who’s had a good deal of plastic surgery who appears to Juliet in the woods, to the Island’s power station to release poisonous gas that was used during the purge and killed Dharma the last time around.

But that turns out not to be the case. Actually, they are trying to disarm the gas (does gas have arms?) so that Ben wouldn’t be able to use it instead.

Oh, and Juliet and Jack had a big fat snog.

In Otherburbia
Charles Widmore, father of Penny, detester of Desmond and, most importantly, Alan Dale Jim Robinson of Neighbours, is the bad man who wants Ben and/or the island.

And what does he want it for? He wants to exploit it for evil capitalist reasons involving tourism and such.

Really?!
That’s IT?
You know, if that really is it – if that weaksauce, floppy-willied tree-hugging mooncuppy they-paved-paradise-and-put-up-a-parking-lot excuse for a explanation is really the reason behind all of this, I’m going to be very very disappointed.

Anyway, it was enough for Locke, who, after this information, is just letting Ben live freely in Otherburbia.

Flashes of either the back OR the forward variety
Back! We went back – and not in a “And the characters went with us” kind of way. We went back and discovered that the Other Who’d Had Work Done was actually Juliet’s Other Therapist, and the wife of the late Goodwin Other.

She was also Juliet’s love rival, because in a storyline development that would have have the writers of Dallas shaking their heads and going “Nah, we can’t do that, that’s just taking the piss”, Juliet was having an affair with her therapist’s husband, which her boss, Ben-Darth-Henery was well aware of. Ben loves her, and considers her ‘his’.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that Others have mandated therapy sessions. The moment when Tom Other As Juliet says, “It is stressful being an Other”. And I just love them for Tom’s line “You don’t like her now, bvut in a couple of weeks she’ll have you weeping about your daddy”.
2) Ben can get a message to Juliet whenever he wants. And he wants to, because he wants the people from the boat dead.

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SEASON FOUR, EPISODE SEVEN: JI YEON

What happens in this episode
Sun and Jin lose patience with the fact that Jack’s happy rescue crew aren’t doing very much rescuing, and decide to go and live with Locke instead.

Juliet, on the basis that she is concerned for Sun’s wellbeing and need to get off the island in order to keep the baby alive, tries to get them to stay. When reasoning with Sun doesn’t work, she tries reasoning with Jin, and when that fails, Juliet tells Jin that Sun slept with someone else.

There is some soul searching and fishing (with Bernard) for Jin, and then he forgives her. The end.

On the motherfrakking boat
Sayid and Desmond recieve a note telling them not to trust the captain.

Then they meet the Captain. He seems like a trustworthy fella. Nah, not really, he seems like a murderous crudmagnet.

They do, however, on being taken to their new bedroom, and finding it to have a pool of blood on the floor and an attractive fan of brain matter at head height on the wall, meet the janitor, Kevin Johnson. Otherwise known as the former Lostinson, turncoat and murderer, Michael.

Flashes of either the back OR the forward variety
Sun is giving birth, either in a hospital in Korea, or in a hospital in Los Angeles where all the doctors, nurses and fellow patients happen to be Korean. Look, I’m not taking anything for granted anymore, ok?

She has the baby, after the requisite amount of grunting and squeaking and ‘Uuuuunnggggggggggggh!’ noises.

At the same time, we see Jin running around trying to buy a cuddly panda and get to a maternity ward.

But by the end of it, we realise it’s not at the same time at all. It’s at a different time. He’s in the past, taking a cuddly toy as an errand for Sun’s dad. And in Sun’s flash, she’s in the future. And Jin isn’t there. Hurley comes to say hello to the baby, and together they go to a graveyard and introduce the baby to Jin. Who is dead. The date of death is the date of flight 815’s crash.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) If Jin’s date of death is the day of the plane crash, is that because the official date has to be that (regardless of when they actually died on the island) because they’re conspiring to pretend the stuff on the island didn’t happen?
2) Who are the six, then? Sun, Hurley, Jack, Kate, Sayid…
3) Jin’s going to die? Really? *Lower lip wobbles*
4) Where has everyone else gone? The rest of the Lost Family Lostinsons? Where are they?

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SEASON FOUR, EPISODE EIGHT: MEETING KEVIN JOHNSON

What happens in this episode
We get to see what happened during Michael’s month away from the island, or however long it was, after Sayid and Desmond corner him and demand to know what’s going on, and why he’s on this ship. “I’m on this ship to die” says Michael.

Flashes of either the back OR the forward variety
Michael went home – back to New York, where, apparently, he couldn’t take the guilt of having killed Libby and Ana Lucia, and told Walt about it, who refused to speak to him again.

Walt tried several times to kill himself, but couldn’t succeed, because, as Tom “Captain Birdseye” Other explained to him, it wasn’t his time – he still has work to do. So, after explaining that it was Charles Widmore who put the plane at the bottom of the ocean, hundreds of bodies dug up in order to have the right number of pretend passengers, buying a 747 and all of that stuff – Michael was told that he had to go and kill a boat full of people to stop Widmore getting his filthy mitts on the island.

Michael dithers about this, but after seeing some of the crew practicing with machine guns, he undithers and sets up the bomb he was given … which doesn’t go off. Instead, he’s called to the radio room where Ben-Henry-Darth Other tells him that he’s just proved what a cold hearted killer he is, that he would do away with the innocent people on the boat as well as the guilty ones. Unlike Ben himself, of course, who is a much nicer person. Instead he will just sabotage the radio room and the engines and await further instructions.

Back on the motherfrakking boat
Back to the now, Sayid is distinctly unimpressed with this tale, drags Michael straight to the captain, and dobs him in.

Back on the island
Ben convinvces The Frog of Doom that she has to take her daughter (his adopted daugher) Alex and her boyfriend Karl to “The Temple” for safety. They’re on the way there when Karl and the Frog of Doom get snipered and shuffle off their respective mortal coils.

Well well, well. She was right all along.
The udders WERE comming.
And she DID dahhhhh.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) We haven’t seen the smoke monster in a while.
2) I’m not complaining.

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SEASON FOUR, EPISODE NINE: THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME

What happens in this episode
A lot.

So, the Frog of Doom and Karl the Practically-Anonymous Boyfriend were killed not by the others after all, but by some of the boat people, who have arrived on the island for purposes of both shenannigans, and mayhem. Also: other business.

They take Alex, who trips an alarm that rings a phone in Otherburbia, rudely interrupting Hurley, Sawyer and Locke’s game of Risk, but, perhaps more crucially, telling Ben that they are coming.

Sawyer rounds up some of the Lostinsons that are with them in Otherburbia – ones that, I cannot deny, I had not noticed until now – and finds Claire under an exploded house. She seems ok. They all blockade themselves up in Ben’s house, until one of the boat people – Mr Keamy, he says – arrives with Alex, and orders Ben out of the house.

Ben tries to negotiate, to the point of pretending not to care about Alex and almost daring Mr Keamy to shoot her, on the basis that he doesn’t care. Mr Keamy shoots her. Ben cares. Deeply. It is heartbreaking – although, as ever, that feeling is dulled by the fact that he’s a flint-hearted psychopath, and basically batshit insane with eyes like a Mr Potatohead (the special flint-hearted psychopath collectors edition).

He runs downstairs to a secret room, and summons the cocking smoke monster.

Once the way is clear of Boat people with big guns, chased off by the smoke monster as they are; the troupe leave toward the woods. Sawyer, Claire and Miles head off toward the beach, Locke, Ben and Hurley to find Jacob’s cabin.

Flashes of either the back OR the forward variety
Ben in the future. In the Sahara Desert of the future. Ben wakes up, kills a couple of locals and steals their horse. He travels to Tunisia. And then to Iraq, where he finds Sayid at his wife’s funeral and shows him a picture of the person who killed her.

This leads to Sayid killing that guy and, consequently, hooking up with Ben in a game of ‘KILL THEM ALL’ (it is a good game, and simple one, involving making people dead until they are mostly or all dead, and some of them are alive enough to make the remaining players dead, and the losing team are the ones who are the deadest, and the winners are declared when the ones who are not dead announce they have stopped making people dead and are not only still alive but consider themselves almost certain to stay that way. Until the next round of the game. They play it a LOT on Island Island).

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) I really shouldn’t have spoken so soon on the smoke monster thing.
2) I am sorry for that now.

Oh, also 3) During the game of risk, Hurley says “Australia is the key to the game”. Is it me, or is that probably a MAJOR IMPORTANT LOST CLUE?

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SEASON FOUR, EPISODE TEN: SOMETHING NICE BACK HOME

What happens in this episode
Still trying to get through the jungle to wherever they’re going, Claire, Miles and Sawyer, find Carl and the Frog of Doom (prematurely croaked and badly buried, poor things). In turn they’re almost found themselves by Mr Keamy and his band of evildoers, but manage to escape death by hiding in a bush.

Bushes. They’re brilliant like that. I can sit here and think of at least a dozen occasions over the last four seasons where gruesome death or a nasty surprise has been avoided by snuggling into the twiggy bosom of some low-growing jungle friend. It is like it says in Mr Eko’s favourite, Psalm 23 “And lo, though I walk through the Valley of Death, I shall fear no evil, for there are like bushes and things and if push comes to shove, I can hide in one of those, innit? Sorry: innit, LORD.”

At the end of the episode, Claire, who has been complaining of headaches since a house exploded on her, diasppears. Jack’s Dad, Dr Jacksdad (and her dad, actually, so Tim Gunn – who plays him, obvs – might want to see about getting that name changed) comes to her in the middle of the night holding Aaron … Miles says she just walked off into the forest with Dr Jacksdad after that. But not with Aaron. Sawyer finds Aaron lying in a tree. And he’s fine. Of COURSE he’s fine! It’s not like this is an island with wild polar bears and boars and… Oh, hang on! It IS! (Though where they’ve gone I’ve no idea).

On the beach
Jack has a touch of appendicitis, and Juliet makes it go away.

After that, once the oporation is over Juliet – sorry, I’m going to have to do this like a teenage girl, because that’s how it feels… Juliet’s all like “Look, Kate, yeah, I know I like, like him and stuff, and the other day he like totally kissed me and I kinda liked it and he was all smooching on me, but, like, I think it’s because he likes you and not me and I don’t care anyway because I’m like totally over it. Like, What EVER…”

Flashes of either the back OR the forward variety
There is a point at which Kate and Jack are happy. They’re together, and they’re happy, sometime in the future. Briefly. They get engaged and they’re raising Aaron together. But then, it all starts to go wrong.

Jack goes to see Hurley, who says he’s not on his medication anymore, and that Charlie pays him regular visits, and wished to tell him that he “Is not meant to raise him”. Meaning, we assume, Aaron.

They have an argument over whether Kate has been doing favours for Sawyer (who “chose to stay on the island”), and Jack sees visions of his dad, Dr Jacksdad, and seems to be drinking and taking prescription drugs an increasing amount. He does not as yet, however, have a godawful chin-cardigan.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) That snotty British anthropologist lady, who I very much like, speaks fluent Korean and has promised to get Sun off the island in the helichopper.
2) Which reminds me: Desmond’s vision that led to Charlie sacrificing himself was Claire getting onto a helichopper. What’s up with that then?
3) This is important – the doctor from the ship was washed up on the shore by the beach camp. Daniel Scientist sent a message in morse code asking what happened to the doctor. They morsed back: “What do you mean? The doctor’s fine”

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SEASON FOUR, EPISODE ELEVEN: CABIN FEVER

What happens in this episode
More preparations for the coming of the whatever is coming, mainly, so I will stick to the VERY IMPORTANT THINGS, as I was too eating-dinnery to type.. Locke, Hurley and Ben try and find Jacob’s cottage, and then do.

On the beach, Jack’s getting better. That really is the sum of things, apart from Kate, Juliet and Jack all looking at each other a little soppily/sadly/spoonfaced.

On the boat, The Dude, pilot of the helichopper, initially refuses to take Mr Keamy back to the island, saying he wasn’t contracted for this.

Meanwhile, one of the crew spoke to the Doctor, saying they’d just got a weird message from Island Island asking what had happened to the Doctor. “But I’m the doctor” said the Doctor – who had his throat slit a couple of minutes later, before being pushed into the ocean (and washing up on the shore of Island Island… the day before, or a couple of days before. *le sigh*)

Back to the island
After shooting the captain, The bad boat people, headed by Mr Keamy, are headed back to the Island to, in his words, torch it. Frank “The Dude” Heliflopper-Pilot isn’t happy about this. He gets his own back by throwing a pack out of the helichopper as it passes over the beach camp. And it contains a tracking phone – so they can follow the bad men (not that they know they are bad)

Meanwhile, Sayid is on his way back to the Island in a speed boat.

And at the cabin…
Dr Jacksdad, or “Christian Shpeherd” as some know him – jesus christ (pun intended) I’ve just noticed what a sledgehammer of a name that is – is speaking to John on behalf of Jacob. Claire is also in the cabin. Just hanging out.

And what instruction does he give him?
They have to move the island.

Yes.
You ‘eard.

Meanwhile, the sight of Ben-Henry-Darth Other and Hurley sharing a chocolate bar outside the cottage might be one of my favourite moments all day. It’s really touching that Ben has taken to Hurley. He’s like an Other from another mother.

Oh, god, I’m going to have to use THAT one, again…

Flashes of either the back OR the forward variety
We get to see more evidence of John Locke’s miserable life. Him as a very premature baby (like Ben, like others, ripped untimely from his mothers’ womb, etc), being tapped up for special school by Richard Other who hasn’t aged a day in however many years this is.

And we get to see his miserable life post-spine-smooshing. When he was being pushed round the hospital by an orderly (Cedric from the Wire. WAIT! Who IS he in all this?!) and, more unfortunate than all of that, the fake hair he was made to hair at that point in his life.

It looks, my friend Amy and I have just decided over IM (ah, remote watching parties, you can’t beat them) that it looks like someone has covered his head with an uneven coating of Spray Cheez and then dipped him in ginger pubes like an enormous breadstick.

[NB: Tellywonk does not endorse the dipping of breadsticks in pubic hair]

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) They’re going to move the island.
2) Move.
3) The island.
4) Yup.
5) Move the Island.

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SEASON FOUR, EPISODE TWELVE, THIRTEEN, FOURTEEN: THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

What happens in these episodes
Well.
What DOESN’T happen in these episodes, frankly.

Imagine everything you thought could possibly happen after all the rest of that stuff, with some extra added stuff thrown in for the hell of it.

So. Basically … no, wait, here is a picture of a bunny in advance. To keep up going in the darkness of the coming days. And by darkness I mean ‘cluelessness’ and by days I mean ‘post’.

The Evil Boat People, led by Mr Keamy the Trigger happy Mr Keamy, are returning to the island to, to quote the man, ‘torch it’.

Luckily, the place they have to visit to do that happens to be the exact same place that Locke, Ben and Hurley need to go to in order to move the island.

Yep. Moving the island. Let’s not forget what the solution to the problem is, people: it’s moving the island.

Anyway, so in order to move the island, they had to go to the Orchid station. In order to torch the island? Orchid station. And the Beach Camp Lostinsons (who still think that it must have been Sayid or Desmond to throw the tracking device to them from the hellichopper) are following the signal in the hope of leaving the island to … wait for it …

So once the “Move the Island” gang finally get to the Orchid station, The “Burn the Island” squadron are already there, and the “Leave the Island” Coilition are still on their way. Oh, and there’s also the “Off the Island” set, who are already on the freighter, having discovered that there’s a whole room full of C4 in the hold somewhere. Well, of course there is. How, at this point, could there not be? So that’s going on on the ship, and Desmond, Sun, Aaron and Jin are already on the ship.

Back at the Orchid Station, since the “Torch the Island” squad have come because Mr Widmore wants Ben, Ben gives Locke some brief instructions on what he’ll need to do once inside the building, and walks out to meet the Squad. Ok, and basically this is what happens from there on out:

Ben: “Hello chaps I am Ben-Henry-Darth-Other and I am the person you are looking for, please clonk me on the head for your gun butt or something and take me away from the entrance to this unassuming looking building”
Mr Keamy: “OK”
*clonk*
Ben: “Ow”
Mr Keamy: “SORRY.”

BY THE HELIFLOPPER, IN A FIELD
Jack: “Hello Mr Hellichopper Dude are you ok you seem to be handcuffed to a helichopper!”
The Dude: “Ys.”
Jack: “Well I am going that way to find Locke even though I am bleeding from the tummy hole where Juliet pulled my appendizzle out”
The Dude: “Ok”

IN THE ORCHID HOUSE
Jack: “Hello Locke”
Locke: “You shouldn’t leave it is stupid”
Jack: “Your mom is stupid. We are leaving.”
Locke: “Ok bye”
Ben: “Hello I have escaped from the Keamy and his evil men with help from Kate and all of the Others and Sawyer a bit as well in a scene that I couldn’t remember the correct point in the timeline for, but anyway that is what happened. Did you tell Jack that we are moving the island?”
Locke: “Kinda”
Ben: “Doesn’t he want to stay? Because it is hella cool”
Locke: “No.”
Ben: “ok.”
Jack: “Bye I’m going to the boat”
Ben: “Bye.”
Locke: “Bye.”
Jack: “ok bye.”

ON THE BOAT
Desmond: “I cannot see what sets this bomb off.”
Michael: “Maybe if we freeze this bomb with liquid nitrogen it will not go off.”
Jin: “Something in Korean.”
Michael: “Obviously, Jin, but I ran out last Tuesday”

ORCHID STATION
Locke: “I don’t understand what’s going on”
Ben: “Watch this video”
Locke: “This video is about time travelling bunny rabbits. And besides, you are doing the opposite of everything he is saying in this video.”
Ben: “Exactly John. Exactly.”
Frog of Doom: “We are all gong to daaaaahhhh”
Ben: “Hey, you’re not in this scene”
Frog of Doom: “Oh”
Ben: “And you’re dead.”
Frog of Doom: “Oh.”

ON THE HELIFLOPPER
Sawyer: “Well, Doolittle, we got off the island”
Jack: “Yes”
Sawyer: “Hey, McGyver, why are we flying funny?”
The Dude: “Because we are leaking fuel and the helichopper is too heavy and needs to be lighter”
Hurley: “Don’t look at me”
Sawyer: “No one looked at you, we all appreciate it’s a thyroid issue, Carpetmaster”
Hurley: “That one doesn’t even make sense”
Sawyer: “I appreciate that. Bye Freckles”
Kate: “Crikey, you like jumped out of the helichopper!”
Sawyer: “inaudible-use-of-nickname”

ORCHID STATION
Locke: “Hey Ben, the elevator that we got down to this station thing that we have to be in to move the island: it’s coming down again with someone else in it”
Ben: “Oh poo.”
Mr Keamy: “OMG I AM MR KEAMY AND I AM REALLY EVIL AND STUBBLY”
Locke: “Hey Mr Keamy let’s talk this out, yeah?”
Mr Keamy: “YEAH NO I DON’T WANT TO BECAUSE I AM EVIL AND STUBBLY AND I HAVE TO GET BEN AND IF I CAN’T HAVE BEN THEN YOU CAN’T KILL ME BECAUSE IF YOU DO AND MY HEART STOPS THEN THIS HEART MONITOR ON MY ARM WILL SEND A SIGNAL TO THE BOMB ON THE BOAT AND ALL THOSE INNOCENT PEOPLE WILL DIE AND I DON’T CARE”
Steve: “That’s completely ludicrous. As a plot device, I mean.”
Mr Keamy: “GET OUT OF HERE, SCOTT, THIS IS NONE OF YOUR CONCERN”
Ben: “You killed my daughter! I am stabbing you! Stab! Stab!”
Mr Keamy: “OMG YOU R STABBIN ME”
Ben: “Yes. And now you are dead”
Mr Keamy: “OMG”

ON THE BOAT
Michael: “That bomby light has just gone red and I am running out of liquid nitrogen. you must save yourselves”
Desmond: “ok”
Jin: “something in Korean”
Michael: “Your MOM something in Korean!…”
Jin: “bye”
Michael: “ok bye”

KABLOOOOOOOEY

Sun: “It would have been better if we could have got Jin off that boat before it blew up”
The dude: “Yeah I guess oh well, lets go back to the island oh no where has the island gone?”
Hurley: “Locke moved it.”
Jack: “No he didn’t that isn’t possible are you stupid?”
Hurley: “Whatevs”

TEN MINUTES EARLIER
Ben: “Right. Whoever moves the island has to leave the island and not come back. So I will go and do that and now you are the king of the Others”
Locke: “ok”
Ben: “I am turning a big wheel and making really stupid pushing faces and SHAZAM now I am in the Sahara”
Sahara: “Oh hai Ben”

Richard: “Hello Locke, you are our king now, would you like some Oil of Olay I’ve got loads.”
Locke: “Wicked thanks.”
Richard: “Also I’ve got some eyeliner”
Locke: “I see that.”

HALF AN HOUR LATER
The Dude: “Oh look there is a boat we can get on.”
Desmond: “Penny!”
Penny: “Desmond!”
Desmond: “PENNY!”
Penny: “DESMOND!”
Desmond: “Penny!”
Penny: “Desmond!”
Desmond: “Penny!”
Penny: “Desmond!”
Desmond: “PENNY!”
Penny: “DESMOND!”
Desmond: “Penny!”
Penny: “Desmond!”
*kissy noises*
The Dude: “I sicked a bit”
Jack: “Stop having fun, everyone, we have to think of a big lie to tell the world”
Hurley: “Dude. When did you stop being cool?”
Desmond: “Penny!”
Penny: “Desmond!”

THE END.

IN THE FUTURE
There has been a man called Jeremy Bentham visiting all the surviving Lostinsons, and telling them things that they don’t want to hear, like the fact that they have to go back to the island.

But this seems unlikely. Kate has Aaron, and the ghost of Claire has appeared to her telling her she mustn’t DARE take him back to the island. Sun has her daughter, and her own business things to pursue. Hurley is insane and in the mental facility having conversations with all manner of dead people. Sajid is busy killing people for Ben, and Jack is fucked up eight ways from Sunday.

But this Jeremy Bentham bloke wants them all to be together again, and back on the island. And why? Because apparently thinkgs went very wrong after they left.

And who IS this Jeremy Bentham? Well, he’s the one in the coffin that Jack went to see at the end of Season Three. And who IS that?

It’s John Locke.
And he’s dead.
And he has to go back to the island with the bunch of them too.
Oh, and Ben’s here to help the whole process along.
Or to “help”.

Which it will be is as yet unclear.

Things I learnt while watching this episode
1) WAAAAAAAAAALT! Wow. That kid went through a growth spurt. Even though they managed to use him, which was nice
2) Ben-Henry-DarthOther is considerably more fun now than he was.
3) I have to wonder how much of this stuff is going to come back, and how much is just thrown in to be annoying and brain-melty.
4) How many things is it going to take before Jack finally believes there might, just maybe, be something
5) I noticed it a few appearances ago, but forgot to mention it: Alan Dale: he’s not even pretending to be British anymore, is he?
6) Quite a lot of other stuff.
7) Honestly, my brain is feeling hot.

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