Lost Season 6, Episode 3 -- What Kate Does

The 9 February episode of Lost had two major themes -- the burden of leadership, and an exploration of running away from or toward difficult situations. The themes were echoed both in the 2007 Island time track, and the "Flash-Sideways" world of 2004 Los Angeles.

In L.A., Kate hijacks the cab driven by Heroes' Puppet Master(1), with Claire as passenger. They barely get out of the airport and away from all sorts of security. Kate spies Jack standing out on the sidewalk outside the terminal, and they exchange glances and wonder to themselves where they have seen each other before. In his dash out of the airport, the cabbie almost hits Doc Arzt, who has dropped his luggage everywhere and takes forever to pick up. With a threat of Kate's handgun, the Puppet Master takes off again, hauling away some of Doc Arzt's carry-on under the front bumper.

Eventually, the Puppet Master flees the vehicle in traffic, leaving Kate to take the wheel. Weirdly enough I had a flashback to the first episode I ever saw of Magnum, P.I., in 1981, where that character had to take over a first-generation Honda Civic smaller than a riding lawn mower that had been abandoned in traffic by Noah Beery Jr. from The Rockford Files. This must be TV Cliche #2,123, Character Flees Car in Traffic and Lead Character Must Take the Wheel. I don't know why I have these flashbacks, considering I've never taken mind altering drugs in my life.

Kate dumps Claire out at the curb and takes the pregnant gal's possessions. Kate speeds off, eventually ending up at a car repair garage, where a rugged, teasing mechanic lets our Favorite Fugitive remove her cuffs. He suggests using a punch press. (2) While there Kate digs through Claire's things, only to find a picture of her holding her big belly and stuff for baby. Kate has a twinge of guilt and goes back for the preggers Australian, who is now sullenly waiting for the bus. Claire tells her that weirdly enough, the adoptive couple never came to the airport to pick her up.

On Craphole Island in 2007, Sawyer waves a handgun around, demanding he be let out of the temple. Reluctantly, the Temple Others part and let him leave. The rest of the crew, including a dazed Sayid, watch him head out a heavy wooden gate.

Hurley wants to know if Sayid is a zombie, to which he says no. Sayid thanks Jack for "saving his life," unaware of how he came back from the dead. But now it seems Hurley is acting more like the leader of the castaways, and Jack is kind of a slacker along for the ride.

Sayid faces new weird, rough treatment by the Temple Others. Dogen, the Japanese leader, has him brought into a room. He throws some Magic Dust all over Sayid and puts alligator clamps on what looks like Sayid's nipples and his stomach area and then sends a jolt of electricity through the guy. The torturer gets tortured. Sayid cries out, demanding to know why Dogen's doing this, but the leader sez nothing, except that the process is a "test" (uh, right). Dogen picks up a hot poker from a fire and and puts it to Sayid's torso, while the latter screams in agony.

"You have passed the test," Lennon translates Dogen as saying. Later Lennon asks Dogen if he's lying, and the leader says yes, that's exactly what he just did.

In 2004, Kate takes Claire to the wonderfully wealthy city of Brentwood, where she is to meet with Aaron's adoptive parents. However, mom-to-be (3) is weeping and and apologizing 10 ways to Sunday, because her husband left her, and adoption is now out of the question. Then TV Cliche #1,613 occurs, Very Pregnant Woman Goes Into Loud, Painful Labor and Grabs Her Belly. Kate hurries Claire back to the cab and off to the hospital -- does this happen to be the one where Christian and Jack Shephard worked?

In the ER they meet -- Dr. Ethan Goodspeed??!! Yes, the villainous other, known as Ethan Rom and The First Cousin of Tom Cruise, Actor, here is the physician who comes to Claire's aid. With that surname, it's obvious that Ethan is DHARMA Horace's son and did not spend his teen and adult years with the Others.

Claire is 36 weeks into the 40-week pregnancy and was dilated 3 millimeters. There is a scary moment at one point when it seems the baby's heart stops, and Claire cries out "Is Aaron okay?" This is surprising, because she had no name for him or even knew yet that he was a he. But somehow that name just came to her, Claire says later. The loss of heartbeat on the fetal monitor was because the boy moved around in the womb.

At one point, a plainclothes policewoman comes in with another officer to Claire's room. She asks her about Kate, and Claire says she does not know where she went. The police leave, and Kate gives her thanks for the favor. Claire wants to know why the fuzz are on her trail, and Kate says, "Would you believe me if I told you I was innocent?" Kate ends the conversation with the suggestion that she should keep Aaron and raise him herself.

Back on the Island, the 2007 Kate convinces the Temple Others to let her go out and track down Sawyer. Jin and two Others, a blabby guy named Justin, and Mac from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Rob McElhenny), go out into the jungle with them.

Mac or, more appropriately, Aldo, stridently reminds Kate that he was the guard she knocked out during her escape from captivity in Season 3. Aldo keeps telling Justin to shut up, as that guy has a tendency to spill Other secrets -- like that the Ajira jet carrying Sun did indeed land on the other island.

When they reach a branch in Sawyer's trail, Kate announces that he made a "false trail" to throw them off, and directs everyone to the correct one. Aldo then stops Kate from walking into a tripwire attached to a big net of big rocks, that he claims was left over from Danielle Rousseau. Kate, seeing an opportunity, sets the snare off anyway, taking out Aldo, and getting his gun. Jin knocks Justin out and takes his rifle.

Kate stomps off away from Jin to find Sawyer, and he continues decides to go on and try to find the passengers from the Ajira flight. Kate goes right to Sawyer, and for the second episode in a row, we see Dharmaville, but obviously not under the sea anymore.

Kate finds Sawyer inside the house he had shared with Juliet, breaking up the floorboards in the bedroom. He pulls out a box and removes a piece of black cloth, and tears come to his eyes.

Later down at the dock, where usually the submarine was parked before Locke came along, Sawyer and Kate have a heart to heart. He is still grieving over her and can't get over her, thus the lingering in Dharmaville. Sawyer reveals that Juliet was his truest love and what he had hidden under the floorboards -- an engagement ring. After emoting on the strains and challenges of love, he stands up and throws the ring into the lake by the dock. This also happens to be a TV Cliche, #338 -- Emotionally Upset Character Throws Formerly Valuable Item With Sentimental Value Into Body of Water.

He ran away in this episode, and Kate ran too, but toward him, driven by love and compassion (that same compassion that made her go back to Claire in '04). She can see clearly that his heart still belongs to the dead girl, and all she can do is be a sympathetic ear.

Back at the temple, Dogen mixes up some Secret Ingredients, making a fluorescent green paste that he inserts into a capsule. This is also Jack's night for what at first appear to be Dumb Questions, as he asks Dogen "What's that?" as he at one point he is tossing a baseball at his desk, which also has a retro typewriter. "A baseball," the Mystic Leader of the Temple Others says.

Dogen is holding the capsule for Sayid. Dogen tells Jack that he must get Sayid to take the pill, or else the infection in Sayid's body will spread completely, and he will die. He says that someone Sayid trusts must get him to take the capsule in order for it to work.

Jack asks Dogen why he always has someone translating for him all the time, when it's obvious his English is fluent. Dogen says that speaking his native tongue puts distance between him and his followers, and it is easier to make unpleasant decisions and orders to his followers, if it appears it is not coming directly from his mouth. It is one of the difficult things about leadership, which must have struck home hard with Jack. During all his attempts to oversee all the castaways, through Other abductions, off the Island, back on the Island, back to 1977 and now in 2007, the good doctor's leadership record is spotty at best.

Jack takes the pill to Sayid, telling him what Dogen said. Sayid says he trusts Jack, and if he says to take the capsule, he will.

Later, Jack returns to Dogen, again demanding to know what is in the pill. He adds that he didn't give Sayid the medicine. Jack abruptly swallows the capsule, and Lennon and Dogen whack Jack's shoulders and do haphazard Heimlichs to get the pill out of him, proof that there is something nasty in there.

Jack again asks "What's that?" after Dogen pours him a cup of green tea. "It's tea," says Dogen. These moments are getting so Zen. When is a baseball not a baseball, and a cup of tea not a cup of tea?

Dogen finally confesses that the pill was poison, and that Sayid did not pass the test at all. He needed to take it, because the infection in him isn't biological, it is a "darkness" that takes over certain people on the Island and completely changes them once it reaches their heart. (4) Dogen tells Jack that already his sister -- Claire -- has been completely swallowed by this horrifying darkness.

Back in the jungle, Jin stops take a drink, and in TV Cliche #738, Character Leaves His Weapon Unattended While in An Awkward Position, is accosted at gunpoint by an extremely pissed Aldo, who now twice has been knocked unconscious by Kate, and sidekick Justin. Jin tries to run away and runs into another snare, a bear trap that bites onto his ankle!

Shots ring out, and Jin gapes in surprise as Pissy Aldo and Blabby Justin drop to the ground, dead as doornails. He turns and sees...

...Claire, with tousled hair, glowering face and rifle at the ready, now appearing as Rousseau the 2nd. Dramatic Michael Giacchino music, fade to black, then that familiar thudding noise and white LOST. End.

(1) David H. Lawrence XVII -- Heroes' Puppet Master -- has actually commented here on this blog and said he likes it. That's the second time someone from showbiz contacted me directly. The other was back in 2001 when I had a Harry Potter fan site, and a stuntman who doubled for Lord Voldemort in the first movie thanked me for putting his biography on the site, simply wanting a correction on his birthdate It is possible that Lawrence's cabbie will be back in another episode, as his cab is still in Kate's hands, but it's also possible she'll find another car to throw the police off her trail.

(2) In looking at SpoilerFix, the mechanic is probably named Melky, who is listed in a casting call description as a "dangerous looking guy that can be surprisingly calm [and] (r)uns a seedy chop shop and not someone to be messed with has handled many dicey situations and is not thrown by anything."

(3) The SpoilerFix blog has another casting call for "Jenny: Female, early 30s, any ethnicity. Yuppie, sweet, happy and well off. Never had any problems until she receives heart-breaking news that tears her world apart." This may be the woman who was supposed to adopt Aaron.

(4) A "darkness" was shown to infect everyone except Rousseau in the Season 5 time jumps. The "spiritual" disease made them descend to the most insane and evil levels. Is Clare really infected? It won't be answered until further episodes.

Fringe - Season 2 - Episode 14

Fringe again finds me a watching a product of Bad Robot, J.J. Abrams' production company, and a show he created with other heavyweights Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who wrote the two recent live-action Transformers movies.

Fringe in many ways is reminiscent of The X-Files, what with the FBI, an overall conspiracy (struggle between parallel universes, as opposed to aliens and human collaborators vs. good humans) and "monster of the week" stand-alone shows. Abrams and company have even thrown in TV sets on occasion showing footage from The Mulder and Scully Show.

"Jacksonville" is the last episode of Fringe till 1 April 2010, because FOX wants to run some silly looking reincarnation show called Past Lives. This episode gets its title from the location of a research facility where Denethor, Steward of Gondor (John Noble) -- er, Walter Bishop, Scientific Genius -- and Mr. Spock/William Bell injected kids with a drug called cortexiphan to see if they could look into the parallel universe. The only one who could detect it was Olive -- and our current heroine, FBI Special Agent Olivia Dunham!

A great opening scene, with some clues that the maroon brick building holding an architectural firm isn't in our New York City. First, they spell the borough "Manhatan," which is not a continuity error. Then Prez from The Wire (Jim True-Frost, playing architect Ted Pratchett) gets some "real" coffee from a coworker. (A bit sad that True-Frost didn't get to meet up with Lance Reddick, who was another cop of distinction on The Wire and is now Olivia's supervisor on Fringe.)

A clue that coffee is a valuable commodity in this universe, I said to my friend, Cross-Eyed Julie, who said no, considering the cheap coffee they serve in a lot offices, but I maintained that we were in the other New York. Another clue is that this firm just happened to have the Defense Department contract (or one of the contracts) to build a "new" Pentagon (!).

And sure enough, there's an earthquake, and suddenly Prez has three arms and three legs, a beam poking through his shoulder, and later, as seen in his torso, what looks like the face from his double from our New York.

Olivia, Peter and Walter seem to instantly appear in the Big Apple from their base in Boston; I've always wondered about this quick travel thing; a flight from Boston to New York would take an hour if there are no delays, but still, this show sometimes stretches reality when it comes to their travels.

When the crew first looks at the crooked and cracked-up building, Walter notes that they are seeing a merger of two structures from the two universes. Inside it gets gory, as they find more mergers of the corpse kind, people with freaked out, terrified faces with all kinds of random body parts sticking out from places where they normally don't belong.

Prez is the only survivor. Walter questions him -- what year is it, who's the president of the U.S. and what buildings were destroyed on 9/11? Prez says, 2010, Obama and the White House and the Pentagon. Bingo! He's a survivor from Over There, where the twin towers of the World Trade Center still stand tall! We know from Season 1 that those things are true, and a new White House was being built, so there is also a new Pentagon underway. Prez was also married in Bizarro-Earth, where he was a bachelor on Our Earth.

Later at Walter's lab, he has Astrid start going through the artifacts shipped over from the Manhattan (with two Ts, 'cause it's our NYC borough). She is grossed out at Prez's merged body, a surprise, considering all the worms, parasites, germs, etc., she has seen in the laboratory.

So Astrid starts to rummage around in the inanimate stuff. She finds a silver dollar with Nixon on it, which causes Astrid to have an "ugh" moment. Reminiscent of Allan Moore's Watchmen, where Nixon was honored by the USA and was in his fourth term as of 1985. The discovery of an odd little double-decker car causes Walter to have an "a-ha!" moment.

He digs back through his old files, finding a picture of a car merged with the statue of John Harvard, founder of the university bearing his name. Harvard the school thought MIT had pulled some weird prank on them, but Walter tells the team that Mr. Spock and he successfully sent a Chevy Monte Carlo to Bizarro-Earth, and another car came back to ours. That vehicle is the one in the files, a 1986 sedan with a CD player, which wasn't an option on any automobile in Our Earth back then.

Walter came up with a theory -- when one object goes to the other universe, another must go back to the other in order to maintain the balance between the two. This means, he adds, that another building will disappear from Manhattan very soon and reappear in Manhatan in Bizarro-Earth. To know which building it is, he insists they go down to Jacksonville, Florida, to the facility where Little Olive and 30 other kids were guinea pigs for Massive Dynamic. Returning there could get Olivia's power restored to detect objects from Bizarro-Earth that have crossed over to Our Earth.

In the snap of a finger, the team is at a building that looks like a redressed Vancouver daycare center with a dead palm tree out in front. Inside there's almost no dust in the place, considering it's been shut down for 30 years. Walter tries to get Olivia to try and pick out the Bizarro-Earth toy that has been placed among a pile of other ones. I figured it was this really ugly looking doll, as I asked myself, could Our Earth really produce such a hideous looking thing?

And whaddaya know, it was the doll, which Olivia selected after Walter shoots her up with cortexiphan and she has a dream sequence thing, where she meets her younger self, played by cute-as-a-button Ada Parker.

Olivia chastises Walter for experimenting on her and the other kids, and he does say he is sorry. He is not the same Walter Bishop he was. That guy was a ruthless researcher who sought results at all costs, no matter what happened to anyone and how much money it cost. That was the guy who traveled to Bizarro-Earth and abducted the double of his son, Peter, after he died as a small boy, and replaced him with Bizarro-Peter -- our current team member, who doesn't have a clue about his true identity.

Walter realizes it's fear that triggers Olivia's power to detect Bizarro-Earth items, but she is so good at channeling that emotion into her work and her anger, that she no longer can see the items.

The FBI and emergency services from Our New York are trying to track down the building that is destined to go to Bizarro-Manhatan. Massive Dynamic staff is also on hand for scientific assistance. Walter, Olivia and Peter arrive, where Broyles has a frantic team set up. Walter suggests locating buildings that have the same mass as the architectural building that came to Our New York.

Meanwhile, Olivia begins to feel fear when she gets close to Peter and realizes that she gets that way about being intimate with anyone. She goes out driving and gets A Feeling that she is near the structure that will make the quantum leap. She lets Peter and Walter know that it will have a glow to it.

Among the canyons of Manhattan, it is the Brayson Place Hotel that is all aglow, and it is evacuated just in time before it just vanishes into the ether, leaving a gaping hole in its place. Olivia saves the day, of course!

In a conspiracy theory "official" explanation, news services report that the Brayson was the target of an "unscheduled controlled demolition," which to me recalled one of the biggest World Trade Center 9/11 explanations. Many 9/11 truthers and conspiracy theorists maintain that the towers were knocked down not by jets, buth with carefully placed and detonated explosives.

At episode's end, Olivia goes over to Peter and Walter's place to take the younger guy out, but she hesitates when she sees a glow around him. Now she knows that he's from Bizarro-Earth! Walter pleads with her not to divulge this secret, and we are done till spring.

With the arrival of crocuses and little leaves on the trees, the circumstances of Peter's entry into Our Earth should be revealed in the episode to be shown in April. Appropriately, it's called "Peter."

----

In my previous post, and the first in this occasional blog where I write about TV shows I watch, I believe I actually got a comment from David Lawrence XVII, an actor probably best known for playing Eric Doyle the "Puppet Master," a villain in Season 3 of Heroes who could control anyone as if they were marionettes. He thanked me for trying to get his name right in my Lost recap, which I have fixed to have his name just right.

Lawrence's stage name is a joking salute to the fact that he was the 17th David Lawrence to register with the Screen Actors Guild. You will see him again in upcoming episodes of Lost, as he is currently driving a cab with the fugitive Kate, who hijacked the vehicle holding, Claire, freshly arrived from Australia.

Lost Season 6 Debut -Tracks of Time

I admit, I am a mild Lostie, as I am a mild Trekker. I had been waiting eagerly for the sixth and final season of Lost to begin, and last night it did, with three hours of ABC prime time to kick it off.

Because this is a season premiere, and the last run of Lost to boot, the first two episodes were filled with alumni, many of whom are dead or missing. Previous seasons have used flashbacks, flash-fowards and time travel, and now, with Season 6, it appears plots will follow two time tracks, either or both of which was triggered after Juliet whacked Jughead the hydrogen bomb, and it went off.

In one, set in 2004, Oceanic Flight 815 successfully landed in L.A., with some character encounters still occurring. In the second, it is 2007, and the 1977 DHARMA time travelers have jumped into that time-frame, where a rumble is about to begin between good and evil.

Lost has been notable for grabby first scenes in its season debuts, such as in Season 3, when the Others seemed like a bunch of suburbanites in the jungle, with their book club and comfy bungalows, and then a jet breaks up and falls from the sky. In this episode, Flight 815 experiences some uneasy turbulence as it flies over the Pacific -- which is exactly the point where the Island has been submerged by the bomb blast! In a CGI panorama, temple ruins, Dharmaville houses and swingset are quickly shown, as if we are following the rapid swim of a great fish. It is confirmed the Island is under the sea, as a shark swims by the four-toed remains of the Tawaret statue.

In timeline #1, 2004, characters' paths are still crossing. Kate Austen escapes Marshal Mars by saying she has to go to the bathroom. After she's unable to undo her handcuffs with a disassembled pen she stole from Jack, she surprise attacks Mars in the restroom and runs off with his jacket and gun. She gets into an elevator, where Sawyer is casually hanging out. And earlier on the jet, they had flirted with each other.

Eventually Kate exits the LAX terminal, runs into Frogurt and commandeers a taxi, driven by the Puppet Master from Heroes (David Lawrence XVII). Claire Littleton is her fellow backseat passenger!

Doc Arzt shows up on the jet, happy to tell the passengers around Hugo Reyes that he's the owner of Mr. Cluck's Chicken Shack and is flying coach like everyone else. Arzt gets Hurley to do his Australian accent from the fast food chain's commercials (which were shown by the show creators at San Diego Comic Con last summer). Hurley is also a very lucky, very confident man in this time track.

Desmond Hume is also on the plane, something that didn't happen in the original timeline. Jack Shephard and he have a chat, and Jack tries to remember if he met the Scotsman before then when he calls him "brother." There is also a book moment, which Lindelof and Cuse have done throughout the show's run, by offering parallels or clues to the program's themes by throwing in a novel or philosophical work. Desmond is reading Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories, a children's book of fantasy tales. And Desmond disappears from the jet after that!

Jack also gets an assurance from Rose that the turbulence the jet hit as it passed over the submerged island is nothing to worry about. She tells him he can let go of the arms of his seat after that white knuckle moment. Jack goes into the restroom and looks at a little cut on his neck. Where did that come from?

Cindy Chandler, the flight attendant who slips Jack a little bottle of vodka, gave him two bottles in the pilot episode. Matt Parkman from Heroes -- well, Greg Gruenberg as the pilot -- is seen but not heard after the turbulence. There are several changes like this from Season 1 in the 2004 timeline, such as Desmond being on Flight 815.

In another example, Charlie Pace almost chokes to death in the bathroom in a suicide attempt by swallowing a small bag of heroin, but Jack rescues him by yanking the bag out, instead the dramatic "traching" that I was expecting. As a result, Charlie is arrested and is taken off the plane. For Jack it's damned if you do, damned if you don't, because Charlie was angry about him saving his life.

Jin Kwon also ends up in custody because he is carrying a massive amount of cash, probably part of his attempt to flee from his corrupt father-in-law and his company, Paik Heavy Industries. The Customs guy says things might go easier of Sun or Jin spoke English. Jin is led away, and a woman Customs agent asked Sun speaks English. She stands there, deliberating carefully, "No English," Sun finally says. Does she know the language or not? Did she not have her secret lover in this timeline, along with his English lessons?

Oceanic also screwed up big time and never loaded Christian Shephard's casket on the jet in Sydney, and the airline has no idea where it is. Jack meets John Locke in the baggage claim office at LAX, because the latter's knife collection suitcase also has been lost. John is also still in a wheelchair, so it's not really certain if he was telling Boone Carlyle the truth that he went on the 10-day walkabout. While Boone and John chat, Frogurt sleeps away while wearing an eye mask.

And Boone didn't have his stepsister, Shannon Rutherford, with him, either, failing to get her out of the bad relationship in Australia. In a kind of reference to Season 1, Boone tells John that he'd be happy to stay with him in case of an emergency. The two had a kind of a father and son relationship in their outings to the jungle in that season, the rich boy learning how to rough it from a man trying to reinvent himself after much tragedy.

When John and Jack meet up in the baggage office, Jack give him his business card and offers a free consultation on spinal surgery. They also bond about Oceanic losing their possessions, especially the lost body! John seems quite relaxed, as if Australia did help heal him more.

In time track #2, in 2007, all the time travelers who had worked at DHARMA in 1977 have landed around the ruins of the Swan station. Kate is up in a tree! She has to work fast to right herself and not fall. The Ajira passengers, Sun Kwon, Frank Lapidus, Richard Alpert are still all at the beach, as shown in Season 5 finale.

The Swan ruins specifically were the ones caused by not pushing the button at the end of Season 2, and Desmond set off the station's fail-safe system. Juliet Burke is down in the pit where she was 30 years earlier, and she is fatally injured. Jack, Sawyer, Miles Straume and Kate start to dig through the wreckage to get to her. Sawyer can barely restrain himself from throttling Jack, who he blames for their landing back on the Island at the point they started, and for Juliet's precarious situation.

Also on death's doorstep is Sayid Jarrah, who was gut shot in last season's finale and is losing a lot of blood. Hurley is with him. A ghost form of Jacob appears to Hurley and tells him an "old friend" killed him, and to take Sayid to the temple if he wants him to live.

Inside the building under Taweret's foot, Smokey-Locke orders Ben to go outside and get Richard, because he wants to talk to him. Yes, the Man in Black is Smokey, a creature who can take human form, as when he appeared as Ben's daughter, Mr. Eko's brother, and possibly Jack's father.

In a spectacular counterattack against four rifle-toting Jacob bodyguards, Smokey resists bullets like Superman and quickly dispatches the men, including Bram, who tries to protect himself by standing in a ring of powder that creates a kind of force field against the creature. The monster simply knocks him out of his protective circle by smashing the ceiling above him. Bram falls and gets impaled on a big chunk of rock.

The protective powder previously was shown as the ring of ash around Jacob's cabin, and explains why it was put there -- it can repel Smokey if properly used. When Smokey-Locke returns to human form and tells Ben that he was sorry he had to see him like that, all I could think of was Bill Bixby as Bruce Banner, saying, "You wouldn't like it when I'm angry."

Ben goes out to tell Richard that John wants to see him, until the ageless man yanks him across the beach to see Locke's corpse. Ben looks as stunned and helpless as John has in previous seasons when someone out-maneuvered or took advantage of him.

In the episode's most wrenching scene, Sawyer has his last moments with Juliet as she dies, and he laboriously buries her body, along with Miles' help. Sawyer attacks him in grief-y rage, demanding he do his Ghost Whisperer thing and find out what Juliet wanted to tell him. The answer to Sawyer from Juliet is, "It worked," I guess meaning setting off that H-bomb.

After the Juliet sendoff, they go looking for the temple. Hurley insists on taking the guitar case, resulting in a sarcastic "Kumbaya" joke by Sawyer. Hurley counters that there is no guitar inside there, and he does need it for their trip.

As they go into the tunnels below the wall around the temple, some Others dressed in a cross between hippie and Arabian Nights garb point rifles at them and drag them them into the temple square.

Also in the the cave, there is a second book moment. Hurley finds the body of the French guy, Montand, who was dragged down into the tunnel by Smokey in Season 5, losing his arm. The Frenchman had Soren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling in his pack.

The Others (Other Others? Temple Others?) take the gang to the leader, played by actor Hiroyuki Sanada, a Japanese guy who speaks no English and is translated by his right-hand man, Sol Star from Deadwood (John Hawkes, playing a bearded, bespectacled hippie type called, appropriately, Lennon). At first, Sanada -- whose character name wasn't given -- orders them all to be shot, until Hurley tells him that Jacob sent them. (UPDATE -- apparently Sanada's character name is Dogen.) He presents the guitar case to Sanada and Lennon, and finally we see what is inside there.

And another of those weird what the hell scenes or moments of Lost, the Temple Others open the case and take out a big wooden ankh, an ancient Egyptian symbol of life. Sanada cracks it open and takes out a rolled-up note. Lennon orders everyone to say his or her name, everything seems to check out, and they take Sayid into the temple. When Hurley asks what the note says, Lennon replies that it indicates that everyone's going to be seriously screwed if Sayid can't be revived.

Cindy the flight attendant and the two kids who were abducted in Season 1 also show up with refreshments.

The temple itself seems like a cross between Aztec and ancient Egyptian, with hieroglyphics all over the walls. Inside, Sanada first tests the waters by slicing his hand and putting into a large pool in the center. He then turns over a jumbo-size hourglass while his men push Sayid into the pool. Perhaps these are healing waters. Even as Sayid wakes up under water and struggles for air, the men won't let him up as long as the hourglass' sands run through. Rifles get turned on the gang when they try to intervene. Finally they bring Sayid up when the time is up, and he's dead. Jack can't revive him, no matter how much CPR is given.

Finally Hurley calls out Sanada on his language abilities -- Lennon was not translating -- and he admits he can speak English, but hates the way it sounds upon his tongue.

Inside Jacob's old Taweret Foot House, Smokey-Locke tells Ben that John Locke was the only person who really never wanted to leave the Island because it was only place he felt at home. He can relate, as he also wants to go home. He adds that John's last thoughts as Ben strangled him in Season 5 were "I don't understand."

S-Locke emerges, stunning everyone with the doppelganger effect of corpse and living version of the same guy. S-Locke tells Richard he looks good "out of those chains," a what-the-heck-does-that-mean line. He attacks Richard severely, knocks him out and throws him over his shoulder like a blanket. S-Locke says he's going to the temple, and though rifles are aimed at him, no one dares to intervene.

Back at the temple, Jack is brooding over Sayid's death. A panic breaks out because Sayid has bought the farm. The Others get ready, because they know Smokey is coming. They ready rifles and spread the magic ash everywhere around the temple in a mass bedlam.

There is a gasp and and a shout inside the temple as depressed Jack still sits there, the only one from 1977 who still hasn't discarded his DHARMA coveralls. Jack turns and looks.

Sayid is sitting up and asks, "What ... happened?"

What's next?

1. What will happen in the taxi with Kate and Claire?

2. What will happen when S-Locke arrives at the temple with Richard?

3. Will John and Jack meet again in 2004? What other character paths will cross in this time track?

4. Is Sayid resurrected, or has Jacob taken over the former Iraqi soldier's body?

5. What is the relationship between the 2004 and 2007 timelines? Will they ever cross or affect each other?