Notes on LOST 4.1

4.1 (link to notes on 4.2)

First thing… Jack’s got a growing “I’m gonna’ kill ‘im” list.  Ben, Tom, and now John.  Bottom line, for a guy who’s about to get nearly all his people rescued, Jack’s one pissed-off dude.

Kate can't find John's trail.  I guess he's learned the Other's trick of "vanishing into thin air".  John is also clearly healed of his wounds in this episode.

When Ben tells Danielle to take Alex and run somewhere, he really does seem to fear for his daughter’s life (or, wait… that’s DANIELLE’S daughter).  Even so, I’m still not convinced that Jack calling the freighter doesn’t serve some grander purpose of Ben’s.  He could actually be concerned about Alex… or he could be putting on a performance like the one he showed us as Henry Gale.  I think the jury is still out on the question.

Right when he gets to the beach, Desmond tells those who greet him that Naomi wasn’t who she said she was.  Of course, Sayid didn’t believe her from the start.  Why didn’t he follow his gut and discourage Jack from calling rescue with a liar’s phone?

Juliet seems genuinely surprised that Naomi was lying.  Interesting.

What’s Ben’s agenda for letting Naomi sneak off, by the way? If he thinks she’s the enemy, why would he allow that?

Jack doesn’t trust Ben with anyone else but him, but he lets Ben go with John without any protest?

Jack makes a good point.  Naomi’s injured.  Why’s she got the presence of mind to make a fake trail and the strength to climb a tree???
And when Kate doesn’t insist that she go with Jack to track Naomi… that doesn’t seem… odd to him?

Sawyer’s surprisingly “leader-like” in this episode.  At the end of season three it seemed he was going to a dark place with killing Cooper and Tom and all.  But the pre-killing-Cooper Sawyer seemed to be with us, minus the nicknames of course (well… he was cutting down on those anyway before the incident with Cooper).  He’s remarkably concerned about Hurley… and he calls him “Hugo” even though Hurley is a nickname that Hurley actually approves of.  And yet… when the camp splits, Sawyer goes with John and tells Kate that he’s making this choice for the same reason he ever chooses anything… to survive.  But this strikes me as Sawyer doing a bit of hiding from Kate… and running from her as well.

Hurley’s success in taking charge with the van pushes through to him being more assertive than we’ve seen him in the past.  By the end of the show, we still don’t know if this turned out to be a good thing or not.

Hurley’s visitor from Oceanic seems to indicate (narrative-wise) that the airline’s part in whatever conspiracy is driving the plot of the show is not entirely accidental.  Unless, of course, he wasn’t REALLY from Oceanic.  His question, “Are they still alive?” could apply to just about anyone not of the Oceanic 6.  Are “they” the same “they” Charlie is talking about when he tells Hurley, “They need you”? It’s impossible to tell, but it does seem as though Hurley’s visitor may be referring to Naomi’s people while Charlie is referring to Jack’s people, or even to Claire and Aaron specifically.

The whispers accompany Hurley finding Jacob’s cabin.  Interesting.

Ben seemed to know that Kate would find Naomi and he knew Kate had the phone.  He says he “owed Jack one” by not telling him about it, but does that really account for why he’d allow Naomi and the phone to be reunited? Seems he must have a deeper angle than that.  John would surely not have allowed Naomi to talk on the phone, so why would Ben let it happen if they are of the same mind on the subject?

Naomi’s claim to be working for the past three days to rescue the crash survivors seems credible.  Even though she’s not really with Penny, she does seem to believe that her actions were in the best interest of Jack and his people.  More credence is given to this notion when, in speaking to her own people for the final time, she uses her last bit of strength to paint Jack and his people in the most positive light.  (Of course, John later claims that she only did this to ensure that her people would come.)  She apologizes to “George” and asks him to tell her sister she loves her.

Christian Shepherd appears to be in the rocking chair of the cabin.  “Jacob’s chair” is empty.  The eye Hurley sees appears to be that of a man with more hair than John has.  I suspect it was Jacob.  I also suspect John was in the cabin as well.

John asks Hurley (John also calls him Hugo) how he got separated and why he was scared… but he seems to know the answer to both of those questions.  Then he plants in Hurley’s mind the notion that Charlie will have died for nothing if they don’t convince Jack he shouldn’t have called the boat.

The rest of the camp seems to be upset with John because of the things that Jack told them about John’s rampage of destruction.  Even Rose no longer trusts John, in spite of the fact that Rose kind of sabotaged her husband's efforts to get her rescued (because she knew the island had healed her of cancer).

They must have planned to rendezvous at the cockpit.  Or else they just knew that Jack and his group would pass that way somehow.   It’s the only way to explain how they all ended up at one place.  Perhaps John had special knowledge of where’d they’d be.

Charlie isn’t like Dave.  Another patient could see Charlie.  It’s not uncommon in stories for mental patients to have a “sixth sense”.  In fact, that’s often what landed them in mental institutions.  This suggests that Charlie is a traditional-style ghost.  Of course, that said… Hurley does dismiss Charlie by counting to five, Jack-style.  So… still, no definite answers.

I’d think that Desmond would have said more about Charlie’s warning to Jack… and it seems as though he, too, would have gone with John.  What’s his reasoning for staying with Jack? Does he still hold out hope that the boat will lead somehow to a reunion with Penny? Can he just not bring himself to trust "Boxman" again after the incident in the Swan? We still don’t know what his visions REALLY said… the ones he told Charlie about.

Juliet stays with Jack.  Interesting.

Hurley never misses a basket.  Also interesting.

Now, later Hurley expresses regret for not staying with Jack.  But he can’t mean that he thought Jack took the right course of action.  Their situation testifies to the fact that Jack did the wrong thing.  But, apparently John didn’t make the right decision either.  Certainly there’s a big question as to how Hurley was rescued with Jack when he hadn’t GONE with Jack.  The real reason Hurley wishes he’d gone with Jack is a complete mystery.   It doesn’t indicate, though, really, who Hurley thought was right or wrong in the split itself.