Dharma Secret’s LOST-n-Found: A Blog Dedicated to the T.V. Show Lost

EW.com’s Christine Fenno on “Further Instructions”

They tease us a lot ’cause they got us on the spot!

Welcome back, Locke and Hurley and Eko. Also, of course, Desmond (nekkid!). And, for that matter, most of the Lost characters who didn’t end season 2 on a pier or a boat. In episode 3 of season 3, we got the barest beginnings of an explanation of what happened to Station 3, a.k.a. the Swan, after the turn of the fail-safe key. Now I’m anxious (as anxious as a mute being wheeled through an airport by a ghost!) to learn how Locke, Eko, and Desmond survived the detonation that turned the Hatch into a crater. Who can say if we’ll ever see the bottom of said crater, but I look forward to a flashback that shows the electromagnetic implosion itself. I just really need (a) closure on the question of how our boys physically got out and (b) more naked Desmond.

The episode, titled ‘’Further Instructions'’ (which refers to Eko’s suggestion that Locke attempt the rescue of Kate, Sawyer, and Jack), had false starts, but I enjoyed the trippy places the writers took us. Which is not to say I didn’t pull my hair out. Even with no sign of wily Benjamin Linus (if that is indeed his name!) — but perhaps befitting an episode with a marijuana-based backstory — I am getting more paranoid: Did the Jesus Stick fall on Locke, or was it thrown? Did the rain just suddenly end while Locke was driving, or can the mysterious hitchhiker change the weather? Did we simply never notice those two hotties among the Oceanic 815 extras before, or does the island make people sexier? Good thing I like having my mind messed with.

Locke definitely set out to mess with his mind. The episode opened on him in a jungle clearing, flat on his back, in a shot reminiscent of the opening of the pilot episode, when Jack first came to, moments after the plane crash. Right away we learned that Locke had inexplicably lost his voice but, happily, not his ability to walk. When Eko’s scripture stick dropped from the sky (with an Old Testament verse stating, ‘’Lift up your eyes and look north'’), Locke marched off to build…a sweat lodge?

In one of the false starts mentioned earlier, Locke roped Charlie into guarding his sweat lodge, which he built on Eko’s church site. While Terry O’Quinn played charades with gusto, the miming nevertheless came off as pretty silly, and Charlie’s bitchy act fell flat. (A timid truce between the two took hold by episode’s end, though the motivation for Charlie’s reversion to tagalong mode was hazy.)

The episode found its groove not long after Locke ate his poi and gazed into his campfire, sweating himself into a trance. Soon…Boone! Seeing Ian Somerhalder made me downright nostalgic for the simpler days of season 1. Boone’s steering Locke’s groovy-queasy vision, while asking him to guess which castaway needed his help, was the most Twilight Zone moment I can recall in the series to date. And I mean that in a good way — I love me some Rod Serling! That said, dreamland (or in this case, sweaty-trance-land) is not frequently visited on Lost, accustomed as we are to the flashback device. Frankly, I hope we don’t find ourselves there too often. As it is, we’ve got so many cryptic incidents to clear up in the ‘’real world,'’ on and off the island.

For example, the polar-bears-in-the-tropics mystery is now officially revived, although we sure didn’t get very far with it (at least not much past Tom’s previous reference to ‘’the bears'’). But encountering the polar bear deep inside a cave full of human skeletons, one wearing a Dharma-logo T-shirt, gave me the creepy-crawlies. At some point after the Hatch meltdown, poor Eko apparently got dragged there by the bear.

Meanwhile, Locke’s outdoorsy flashbacks were tricky for me to place, chronology-wise. Was there a clear indication that this farm phase in his life occurred post-Helen? Saying grace, he did refer to his anger problem as if it were fairly recent, and to ‘’family'’ with fresh bitterness. I thought featuring Twin Peaks alum Chris Mulkey as a wacky-tobacky farmer was brilliant. He and Virginia Morris, who played Jan, pulled the rug out from under Locke, causing him to panic at the prospect of losing his precarious, hard-won sense of belonging. While I’m not convinced that what we needed most was to see another occasion where someone Locke trusted turned out to be using him, the standoff in the woods with Eddie (who targeted Locke for being ‘’amenable for coercion'’) was the episode’s strongest moment. For numbers watchers who might have missed it: Eddie’s sheriff ID was 84023.

By the way, anyone who’s worried about the attractiveness of the remaining beach-bound Losties — what with Jack, Sawyer, and Kate doing time in Others State Prison — rest easy. New cast members Kiele Sanchez and Rodrigo Santoro (as Nikki and Paulo) abruptly showed up, evidently to bring sexy back. Based on the matter-of-fact way Locke addressed them, I presume they’re legit and not Ethan-like spies. Theorize away about whether they’re a couple, or a couple-to-be!

I will credit this episode with shoring up one of my most deeply held Lost theories: Hurley can do no wrong. I just don’t see it happening. He can lend me his tie-dye shirt and ask why I didn’t implode ('’You’re not going to, like, turn into the Hulk, or something…?'’) anytime. He makes me smile. Desmond skipping stones in the sunset made me smile too — I hoped he might sing a tune from Godspell, looking all Jesus-as-happy-hippie in that moment. Also, it’s fun that he might be clairvoyant now. And that he runs around naked.

What did you think? Did Eko wake up and speak to Locke, or was it a hallucination? Did Locke shoot Eddie in the back after all? Is it any clearer what a polar bear is doing on the island? And who will lend Desmond some pants?

Comments(0)

Further Instructions:
Locke, Desmond, and Eko all survive the destruction of the Swan Hatch.
Somehow Desmond has lost his clothes.
Kick Ass, Great White Hunter Locke is back.
The Swan Hatch has imploded.
Locke was once a Hippie.
Charlie uses what appears to be the parachute from the food drop as a canopy for the community pantry.
Polar Bears like dark meat.
Polar Bears also like to play with Tonka Trucks.
Hurly has made it back to the camp.
Desmond somehow knows the future.
Paulo (Rodrigo Santoro) and Nikki (Kiele Sanchez) make their LOST debut.

Click here to return to main blog:

Comments(0)

Well, A lot of Questions arose from the latest episode “Further Instructions” in particular, how did Desmond know about Locke’s speech before he gave it. Many people, including myself, believe that Desmond could have some sort of psychic abilities, but that is not what I am thinking happened.

Now, I have long been in opposition to time warp and wormhole theories for the sole reason, that they would completely thrust the show into the realm of scifi. However, after watching “Further Instructions”, I cannot deny that episode could have been our first glimps of a time warp.

When Desmond activated the fail safe, he was right on ground zero. If the hatch imploded, then how did he get out? I think that perhaps, the failsafe triggered a time warp, that sent Desmond, Locke, and Eko into the future. Because Desmond was at the fail safe, he was sent a few hours further into the future than Locke and Eko. This could be how Desmond knew about Locke’s speech.

Desmond, could still have been tethered to the current time line, so like a stretched rubberband, at a certain point, Desmond was pulled back into the current timeline.

Click here to return to main blog:

Comments(0)

From EW.com:

Oh, for the days when the Tailies first appeared on Lost and I would think to myself, ‘’Wow, that’s a lot of new characters to keep track of.'’ Or maybe I said it out loud; I don’t remember. If many of those castaways hadn’t been killed (RIP, Nathan, Cindy, Libby, and Ana), I wouldn’t have room in my brain to give a Smokey’s snarl about Juliet, Carl, Colleen, Danny, and Ben. This season it’s raining Others, but for the love of Kelvin, what are they all doing?

We’re definitely filling up on 31 flavors of who, when what we really need is more why. There’s the forced labor at the construction site, Alex hiding in the bushes to ask about Carl, and Ben’s voyeur routine inside the Hydra. And why haven’t we seen the Other called Ms. Klugh since last year? Did she free Hurley and fall off the pier?

Of course, I don’t crave answers only about the O’s. Why does Sayid, an experienced soldier, make remarkably boneheaded plans for signal fires and stakeouts and the like — then top it off by taking a pregnant woman on a nocturnal trek through the jungle? When did that become a smart idea? With every fiber of his tank top, our brooding alpha male obviously wants revenge more than he wants to save the day. I’m holding out for a hero, but I’m casting my hopes elsewhere — perhaps Hurley will step up. Or Locke. Or Rose. (It could happen. She’s magicky.)

This episode, ‘’The Glass Ballerina,'’ belonged to Sun and her flashbacks. As a privileged little girl, she had no problem telling big lies. (She blamed the housekeeper for breaking that figurine even after her father warned her the maid would be fired as a result.) Perhaps cultivating a skill at deception gave her a sense of power in a stifling environment. I wonder if Sun went forth in life burying guilt or simply not experiencing very much of it. It was the beautiful opening shot of the ballerina falling to the floor that gave me the saddest insight into Sun’s life: A dancer, like anyone, needs freedom of movement. But the glass ballerina is frozen, manipulated by an artist into one perfect position — destined to be nothing but a pretty object whose only possibility of change is to be shattered. (Cue the shattering.)

The big Sun revelation is her baby daddy’s identity. A prior flashback already told us Jin (unbeknownst to him) was the sterile one in the marriage, and now, a new flashback of Sun in bed with Jae Lee leads us to conclude her baby is Jae’s. Yunjin Kim was fantastic in the scene where Sun’s father finds her in her lover’s bed and brusquely departs to settle the matter in his own manipulative, murderous way. I’d love to know whether Jae did actually jump (from room 1516, did you notice?) and whether Sun blames Jin for Jae’s death, despite Jin’s last-minute display of mercy. Or did she follow Jin to the hotel and trigger the suicide by rejecting Jae, whose dead hand was clutching the pearls he had bought for Sun?

Aboard Desmond’s sailboat, Sun’s burgeoning self-confidence resulted in violence below deck when she was confronted by the militant Other named Colleen (Danny’s apparent paramour). Before taking a bullet to the gut, she startled Sun by calling her by her full name and claiming there were five Others on board, adding, ‘’We are not the enemy.'’ Sun, unconvinced, shot her anyway. Jin and Sayid raced toward the sound of gunfire, which may fall under that previously mentioned category of boneheaded behavior (but I’m not a soldier). And, recalling the season 1 finale when all hell broke loose on the raft, Jin dove into the ocean and swam himself silly, this time looking for his wife. Their dog-paddly reunion was sweet, but once they got onshore, I caught a moment when Jin’s touch seemed to upset Sun more than comfort her.

The lives of the three captives remained miserably oppressive. Kate and Sawyer were marched to a construction site (are the Others really building something, or was it another day in the neighborhood of make-believe?) to dig up and haul rocks. On impulse, or to provoke their guards, Sawyer flouted a ‘’no physical contact'’ rule by passionately kissing Kate. Unfortunately it didn’t seem to cheer Kate up or advance their relationship; it only caused the stun-gun-happy Others to go ballistic. Still, being near Kate seems to intoxicate Sawyer lately. When she asked how she was expected to work wearing a dress, Sawyer forgot himself and silently agreed with Danny’s lecherous reply, ‘’You can take it off if you want,'’ until Kate’s withering gaze caused him to muster an uppity, hilarious ‘’How dare you!'’

Unlike last week, this episode saved Ben-related shockers for the final minutes. Jack’s silent treatment toward Juliet prompted Ben to formally introduce himself to Jack, presumably to get him talking. ‘’My name is Benjamin Linus,'’ he calmly stated. He also claimed to have lived on the island his whole life. And in an effort to prove he was in contact with the outside world, Ben played Jack footage of the Red Sox’s World Series win on videotape. Finally, Ben made a promise: ‘’You cooperate with us, and I will take you home.'’ Jack is no Dorothy, so that bait might not work, but he’s in a shaky place emotionally. Oh, and naturally, Ben wouldn’t define ‘’cooperation.'’

A speculation: I suspect the Others are primarily interested in one of their three captives. It could be that the prisoner in isolation, Jack, is not their ultimate prize and that the men are pawns. Here’s to my friend Holly for tipping me to her supersinister theory: It’s possible that Ben’s ‘’two weeks'’ comment in the season premiere, over breakfast with Kate, is an indication that the Others know her ovulation cycle and want to inseminate her, perhaps with a mini-Ben! Kidnapping Aaron didn’t work out; the new plan may involve impregnating our feisty but healthy fugitive.

What do you think? Why would the Others drive a wedge between the captives by isolating Jack and strengthening the bond between Kate and Sawyer? Is Ben being truthful about his identity? Is Alex a rebel Other, or is she setting a trap? And will Jack betray his friends for another look at ESPN?

Click here to return to main blog:

Comments(0)

So the episode opened with, what else but a glass ballerina! It then fell, went Ka-booey and broke. We then saw a little Korean girl get startled and run towards her piano to play a tune or two. Mr. Paik came in, scolded her, but Sun, the little Korean girl, blamed it on the maid. The father asked once again, and Sun said it was the maid.

What the glass ballerina represented was the vulnerbility of Sun. Her fragile heart and mind. She wants to be good, she wants to be perfect but she has minor screw ups. It also represents that Sun is, and was, a pathological liar. Shes been lying since she was a little girl and so this kinda contradicts her episode last season titled, “The Whole Truth.”

But, enough about metaphors, the episode also provided quite a handful of answers, and, of course, another handful of questions. For starters, Jae and Sun did in fact sleep together. To make matters worse, Mr. Paik, Suns dad, walked in and caught them. What confused me was when Jae Lee called Mr. Paik, “Sir.” Now, if I remember correctly, last season it was Suns mother who urged and pleaded with Sun to behave and be good so Jae will find her attractive. It was Suns mother who complimented Jae and made sure everything went great. Now, heres where the confusion comes in, if Mr. Paik is a higher socialite, why was Sun trying to win over the affection of Sun and not the other way around? Those of higher class must be priased, therefore it should of been Jae who was kissing Suns ass and visiting her.

Now, with an answer comes a question. Are the Others all one giant love orgy? When Collen caught Ben and Juliet talking she got jealous, then, later outside, Collen and Pickett shared a little intimate scene. This is beginning to look like Big Love.

Answer: Sun and Jins last name. Im unsure of the spelling but it goes a little something like this: Wakone.

Question: It was revealed that Jins job was to kill Jae. Not because he knew that he slept with Sun but because Mr. Paik said he “shamed” the family honor. At first Jin didn’t want to but when Mr. Paik told him it wasn’t an option Jin did what he had to. He went to the hotel and beat up Jae, telling him to flee the country and never return, not even make contact. “You don’t exist.” Jin left the room and went down to his car. When he got into his car Jae came slamming down into the hood, dead. Now, was it suicide or other forces of which we were not shown.
Answer: Bens full name! Benjamin Lynos. And he said he’s lived on the island he’s whole life. He mentioned the date the plane crashed, Sept. 22, 2004. And that it was now 69 days later. Bush was re-elected, Red Soxs won the World Series. Jack didn’t believe him so Ben showed Jack the game. Which also answered, for definite, that there is an outside world. Also, a keen observation. When Ben entered the room in the final scene, the soup that Juliet had left him in the beginning of the episode still went untouched.

Question: Collen mentioned to Sun, after revealing her last name, that if Sun were to shot they will in fact be enemies. That, as mentioned before, they are not enemies. Sun, of course shot her and then escaped the boat. The boat was than taken by Tom. The question is, if they are so damn good why not just come out with it and stop hiding it.

Answer: The fact that the Others had no clue about Desmonds boat leads me to believe that Kelvin didn’t work for the Others! Cause if he did he would of surely told them about the boat. So…

Question: How did he end up on the island. He, being Kelvin
Other highlights of the episode includes, Kate seeing Alex! Alex mentioning Karl! Alex mentioning the dress is hers and!!!!!!!! SAWYER KISSING KATE! Woo! Also, the main plot for the Others was capturing that boat. Making sure the Losties couldn’t use it to escape from the island.

Overall I give the episode a 9 out of 10. Few clips of Jack boosted the rating so… YAY NO JACK! But, im still feeling sad that Locke, Eko and Desmond are missing, although previews for next week show they’re coming! Woohoo bring it on!

Now for the theories:

Alex mentioning to Kate if she has seen Karl and that Karl wasn’t suppse to be locked up lead me to believe that Karl is, as I thought, not an other. Or perhaps he is a “almost-converted-into-other” Other. Just how Alex is one. More easily labeled, rebels!

If Jack does cooperate, just as Michael did, he will be set free. So, where does this coordinate lead to? Im itching wherever it does, whether its freedom or hell, once there the Losties will try and help the rest. My theory is, Kate chooses Sawyer and so Jack is set free, after cooperating. Once there, his episodes will involve him, maybe with Michael?, trying to save the others from the outside world.

So now, drop a comment or two and lets make this into a discussion.

Click here to return to main blog:

Comments(0)