Let's get to it: Season 5, Episodes 4 and 5

I started this blog as a place for all my fellow LOST addicts to gather and bounce theories and ideas off each other. The basic premise is exactly as the blog name sounds: I'll start a list of Things We Learned From LOST Last Night (along with some commentary) and everyone else can add their two cents; whether that's adding to the list, proving me wrong, or injecting a new theory.

So without further ado...

Episode 4 - The Little Prince

To be honest, I found this episode to be disappointing. First off, it has such a promising name... The Little Prince is a weird book, and I figured there'd be some interesting stuff here as a result. But no. Here's all we learned:

1. Jin is alive. Meh, that has been suspected all along. He was on the deck of the Kahana when it blew up, and explosion originated from the other side of the ship, below decks. Odds were good he'd survived.

2. The more time one has spent on the Island, the quicker the time jumps kill them. Charlotte leads in that department, then it's Miles, Juliet, and then the 815-ers.

One boring development, one fairly interesting development. Not a lot to show for a 42-minute show where there are 6.4 million loose ends to tie up and only about 25 episodes to do it in.

Last night's episode was better.

Episode 5 - This Place is Death

Much more interesting than Episode 4.

1. We learned that Charlotte spent some time on the Island as a child, as her parents were part of the infamous Dharma Initiative. We don't know whether she was born there or not, but she left the Island forever with her mother at an undetermined age. After this explanation, she dies. This is somewhat disappointing, as we'd been wondering what her story was since she was introduced in the second episode of Season 4, Confirmed Dead. Now we know the backstory and she ceases to be relevant. Meh.

2. Faraday at some point travels back in time to Charlotte's childhood and tries to warn her to never come back to the Island. This despite his claim that you can't change the timeline in Because You Left. It appears Faraday has some way of time traveling other than the Island's time jumps; he is in the Orchid at the time of Dr. Pierre Chang (1970's?), and seems to be the cameraman in a video Dr. Change records later on.

3. We see what happens to Rousseau. Sayid is initially suspicious of Danielle's claim that her crew became sick and she was forced to kill them, but Jin witnesses important parts of the storyline and it appears she is telling the truth. This introduces three new aspects of Smokey we hadn't known before:

• He can apparently alter people in a creepy and unclear way. Danielle's husband, Robert, was not an apparition like Yemi was when he appeared to Eko, as Danielle's bullets killed him and the other "altered" members of her crew. Yet Robert was definitely changed, as he convinced Rousseau to let her guard down and then attempted to kill her.
  
• After Smokey dragged one of the Frenchies down one of his holes, we heard plaintive yells for help coming from said hold. We've never seen that before. Either a.) Smokey really let the dude go, meaning Frenchie would yell for help and lure the others down there as well, or b.) he had already altered the guy and was using him like a puppet, or c.) he had created a Yemi-like apparition and was using that as bait. Regardless, it was a very unsettling moment and shows what lengths Smokey can and will go to to achieve his (generally vague) aims. Speaking of aims...
• Smokey specifically guards the Temple, in addition to filling his role as generic Island protector. What function the Temple serves, I have no idea.
  

(Just a random rant: I find it highly improbable that a human could retain a hold on another person's arm with enough strength to tear the arm from the body. I mean, come on... your fingers would slip way before it got to that point.)

4. The Temple the Others use is covered in what look like Egyptian hieroglyphics, much like the ones we saw in the Swan after Desmond and Locke decide to not enter the Numbers.

5. Locke was definitely supposed to turn the Frozen Donkey Wheel, not Ben, at least according to Christian. (I'll get to Christian in a minute) The Wheel is off its axis for some reason. Is this why the Island is skipping?

6. Ms. Eloise Hawking is definitely Faraday's mother, despite the fact that she has an English accent and he does not. Theory confirmed.

7. While Ms. Hawking is insistent that Ben gather every one of the Losties who got off the island, when Ben returns with only Jack and Sun, she doesn't seem that perturbed. "Well, let's get started"? That's it?

That's all I could come up with. Again, let me know what stuff I'm missing.