You Didn't Declare This

Quick Hits

• One more bit on the flash-sideways. Not knowing quite what to make of it at the time, I mentioned the abundance of red flowers/plants scattered throughout the Temple grounds in the season premiere. I’m still not quite sure what to make of them, but red is prevalent in tonight’s episode.
  
  Sun’s vegetable garden on the Island:

  

  Those red plantlike patterns on the pillows certainly stood out to me, not to mention the red lamps sitting bedside.

  

  Anyone got some ideas?

• Smokey tells Kate, whilst trying to win her over, that he needs all of the candidates together in order to get off the Island. Sounds like an ideal way to kill off all of the birds/candidates with one stone. So, rather than their presence being required to enable his escape, this may be just his way of getting them all together to kill at once.

  It’s also noteworthy that Smokey tells Sun that he’d never make her do anything against her will. I’m not sure that’s simple generosity and courteousness he’s displaying there, agreed? Much like Jack needed to choose to accept his role as a Jacob candidate willingly, those aligned with Esau have to make a similar choice.

• Smokey also tells Kate she’s not a candidate, although I think I caught him saying her name was “no longer” on the cave wall (as if it once was). As we’ve discussed in the past, the cave seems as if it might be a decoy to lead Smokey down the wrong trail; the Lighthouse serving as the true repository and status of the candidates over the years.
• Smokey does some damage control with Claire in telling her that, while she’s not a candidate, he wants her with him all the same when they make their “escape” on Ajira 316. Moments like that make me lean toward Smokey playing for the dark side.
• We’ve not yet determined which Kwon is our candidate yet, but could tonight’s flash-sideways have dropped a hint? At the front desk checking into the hotel, both Sun and Jin make it a point to emphasize their last names: Sun Paik and Jin-soo Kwon. Am I reading too much into that?
• Zoe (revealing herself to be a geophysicist) shows Jin a map he himself crafted back in the swinging 70’s of the Dharma Initiative, on which three areas have been highlighted in red as the pockets of electromagnetic energy on the Island.

  

  Help me out here; I know we’ve got The Swan and The Orchid as two of the three — have we glimpsed a third, or is that yet to be revealed? I’m thinking the latter, but my brain’s a bit fuzzy at this time of night.

• Mikhail makes a triumphant return, albeit with a much nicer set of teeth.

  

  I always enjoyed the one-eyed Ukrainian’s appearances, and his brief return is a likely indication we’ll be seeing some more of the bit players of Lost’s past in this final season. Speaking of course correcting, as I did earlier, it seems the universe has ordained Mikhail to have only one eye regardless of his timeline.

  

• Smokey apparently can’t travel over water in smoke form (although perhaps he just means he can’t travel outside the invisible boundary keeping him on the Island), and the sonic pylons appear to be as effective as ever in holding him at bay.

  

  Is it just me, though, or did Locke/Smokey appear to be walking right toward the fenceline before he was intercepted by Widmore’s soldiers? Was he going to / able to cross it?

• A line of Smokey’s reveals he somehow gained knowledge of Locke’s doings while off-Island, repeating something Widmore told John shortly after he picked him up in the middle of the Tunisian desert (after Locke turned the frozen donkey wheel beneath The Orchid). “A wise man once said war was coming to this island.” We’ve seen Smokey “scan” a number of castaways over the years, one of the first was Locke in season 1. How, though, did Smokey obtain Locke’s memories from off-Island? Locke was killed off-Island so does this mean Smokey nabbed the memory from Widmore? I’m probably spending too much time on this point.
  
  One other item related to the Widmore/Smokey encounter on the beach is Widmore’s apparent frustration at the timing of the monster’s appearance on Hydra Island, referencing a “timetable” they’re on. We could take this several ways: he has to get back to the mainland to see who gets voted off American Idol or perhaps he has some knowledge of events to come or perhaps he paid a visit to Ms. Hawking at the Lamp Post and determined the Island’s going to jump someplace they don’t wanna be soon (underwater, maybe?).
• Jin finally gets a look at his daughter, Ji Yeon, vis a vis Sun’s digital camera (that Widmore somehow came into possession of).

  

  Some good stuff from Daniel Dae Kim here. I think the acting’s been pretty exceptional this season.

  

• DARTZ
• Jack certainly seems to be settling into his newfound role as candidate, convincing Sun to have some faith and join him on the white side of the fight.

  

  The battle continues.

  

• I’ve got nothing much to say about the “package,” other than it’s good to see Desmond back. I assume, based on the preview for next week’s episode relying heavily on bagpipes, that we’ll get a Scot-centric storyline.

  

  Odd that Widmore referred to Des in such a way, don’t you think? I’d take the connotation of “package” to be a container or vessel of some sort. Is Desmond some sort of metaphorical bomb or weapon that Widmore wants to set off?

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