Lost 4.11: Cabin Fever

Well, my long-awaited John Locke episode wasn't quite what I had in mind, but on the other hand, it certainly was very, um... John Locke, wasn't it? Eye close-ups! Dream sequences! Flashbacks where he has hair! Wait... flashbacks? Yes, for the first time in a while, we got nothing from the future at all, and what's more, we saw John at various ages in his life. I'm not sure we've seen that since Charlie jumped in the pool and watched his dad carve up dolls' heads on Christmas morning. Anyway, I've still got my fingers crossed that we see what happens to John in the near future in the three-part finale that starts next week, but until then, I guess I'll just have to make due with little John starring in remade scenes from 'Pulp Fiction'. Don't choose the gold watch, John! Do you have any idea where it's been? Eeeeew! Let's get Lost after the jump...

BRING ME THE HEAD OF JOHN THE PENCHEN LAMA - 'Cabin Fever' went out of its way to show us how similar (and possibly related?) John Locke and Benjamin Linus are, so we may as well start there. If you hadn't fully pieced it all together in your head yet, here's a short list of their similarities. Ben and John...

- were both born prematurely.
- both have mothers named Emily.
- were never held by their mothers after being born.
- are the only two people on the show that we've seen being born.
- were both named by their mothers shortly before they exited their lives forever.
- were both approached at an early age by Richard Alpert after he recognized their potential. However, Ben's discovery was a little more accidental, and I'm not entirely sure that Alpert is happy with seeing how Ben has turned out.
- are both recipients of Mother's Day episodes. Remember "The Man Behind The Curtain", Ben's flashback episode and our first glimpse of Jacob? Yeah, that aired on May 9, 2007. Hi, Mom!

Wow! They're kinda similar for two men who are constantly trying to one-up each other, huh? Sibling rivalry, maybe? Maybe. There is speculation to be found stating the fact that both their mothers are named Emily is no coincidence, and the two may be estranged half-brothers. I'm not sure that I believe that, though, as it doesn't exactly fit as snugly into the timeline as this theory's propagators may want it to, but alas, it's still interesting. I'm sure there are many religious and mythological comparisons to be made that involve two brothers vying for the same shadowy bit of glory, but I'm far too dumb to make them. Any help would be appreciated.

Speaking of Ben and Locke, the two were practically at each other's throats for the entire episode. I believe that this episode (along with "The Shape of Things To Come") is the first in a line that will systematically remove Ben from power. I've said for quite a while now (if only to myself) that Lost is, among many other things, the story of Ben's downfall. It started when we found him trapped in the jungle, continued as we watched outwit, outplay, and outlast every person he encountered down in the hatch, and now that storyline is on its final descending arc. Yes, we will most likely see him do battle with Widmore before all is told, but let's face it - Ben is on his way out, and Locke is on his way in. Whether Locke will rise to the occasion remains to be seen, but it's going to be interesting to watch a transfer of power like this one. The old guard doesn't really seem to want to let go, and the new blood isn't fully convinced that they have what it takes to accept it.

So the test! The one given to John by Richard Alpert when Locke was a boy! A screening process similar to the one given to potential Dalai Lamas, it's the first real proof we've been given that John Locke is essentially the Chosen One. Or one in a long line of Chosen Ones, anyway. Historically, this kind of test is basically performed in order to confirm that the person being chosen as the next religious leader is in fact a reincarnated version of a previous religious leader, so what place does it have in Lost? Well, pretty much the same, I'd guess. I think we've all figured out by now that Richard Alpert is one of the original island natives, or at least one of such a degree that he's been trusted to perform such tests and choose such leaders. However, John didn't do so well on the test (he picked the knife out of what was offered to him, telling Alpert that he still thought he was a hunter, and therefore not ready to accept his destiny as leader), and John didn't see him again until, well... wait, has he seen him since? I know he might've remembered his name when his high school guidance counselor told him about the science camp in Portland(!) that he really ought to apply for, but an actual meeting face-to-face? I don't think so. All in good time, I'm sure...

The peek into Locke's teenage years was short, but there were references and Easter eggs abound. Geronimo Jackson and Sir Richard Burton on the inside of his locker. Mittelos Bioscience checking in to see if he was ready for his destiny yet. John maintaining his self-induced warrior facade and insisting that he wasn't the smarty-pants science type. "Don't tell me what I can't do!" John, look - we know you're a fighter, and we know you're a survivor, but a warrior? It's just not meant to be, Mr. Miracle Baby. We saw that John still wasn't ready to realize who he truly was and what his place in life was, so maybe it was a good idea to keep it short. Some fine acting from the younger guys this time around, too. Young Locke looked a hell of a lot like River Phoenix, didn't he?

Locke's boyhood and adolescence weren't the only parts of his life re-visited, though, as The Creepiest Man Alive Matthew Abbadon also made an appearance this week. He showed up as an orderly in the hospital Locke wound up in after being pushed out of an 8-story window by his father. We can only begin to ascend once we've hit rock bottom, and Abbadon took that knowledge and made yet another ploy to get Locke into his rightful place on the island. Abbadon told him that he really ought to take a walkabout in Australia, and FINALLY we learn who it was that sent John on that fateful path that eventually landed him where he is now. Abbadon's suggestions towards John weren't exactly as subtle as their predecessors, either - instead of a flyer for a science camp, Locke nearly got pushed down some stairs in his wheelchair as a challenge to get himself back on track and headed towards his destiny. And what of those last words from Abbadon before the elevator doors closed? "When we meet again, you'll owe me one?" That just can't be good. CAN'T.

BOAT PEOPLE - Okay, first of all, let me apologize for being a dumbass. Last week, I made some comment about how I thought Keamy was the captain of the ship. Very obviously, he's not, and that simple fact makes me a dumbass. He may as well be now, though, what with all the brute force he's using to control nearly everyone on the ship, but does he get to wear the white shorts and kneesocks like Captain Stubing? Hell no. Sorry about that. May Smokey absolve me of my sins.

Anyway, it wasn't all about Locke this week, though, as Sayid, Desmond, Michael, and the rest of the wackos out on the freighter put in some appearances, too. I have to say right off the bat that Keamy is a FANTASTIC villain (a fantastic villain that probably has The Sickness, no less), the likes of which we really haven't seen on this show at all. He's not sly and manipulating like Ben is - he's just a physically dominating, overtly scary bad-ass that does NOT want to be F'ed with. Period. He's not so much of a bad-ass that Sayid won't stand up to him when the situation arises, though, but you probably already knew that. Sayid's gonna give the stinkeye to St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, for chrissakes. My man. Anyway, what does Keamy do when he finds out Michael gave him up to Ben? Walks into his cabin, pins him to the floor, and straight up PULLS THE TRIGGER on him in a direct reflection of Alex's grisly death two weeks ago. For a primetime show, that takes some cajones, and I'm pleased as punch we got to see it. Michael's still protected by the spirits of the island that still want him alive no matter what, though, and Keamy's gun jams. Unfortunately for Michael, a jammed gun still hurts like hell when someone bashes you in the face with it.

Anyone catch the tiny little Star Wars reference out on deck? Frank Lapidus tells Keamy that "Mayhew is dead" (presumably the guy that got torn apart by Smokey out on the island), and the actor's name that played Chewbacca in Star Wars is Peter Mayhew. I'm not sure how I know that. Go ask all the girls that won't talk to me. Maybe they know.

You know, even though we're not supposed to trust the captain, I'm actually kinda liking him. He takes Sayid and Desmond aside and offers to hide them onboard the freighter for a while until things cool down, but Sayid ain't having it. Sayid? Hide? Are you kidding me? Mortals hide. Sayid does not. Instead, he tells the captain to lend them their little boat so they can start ferrying his people off the island and onto the freighter. By the looks of how many machine guns and RPGs Keamy is loading onto the chopper, I don't think he's planning a tea party for when he gets back. Sayid wants people off the island before the shit gets too thick, and the captain agrees. He tells Sayid and Des to meet him behind the shipping container in ten minutes, and the boat will be theirs. Sayid's down, but Des? Not so much. He says that he spent 3 years on that island, and he ain't going back. I'm not sure how I feel about that, actually. I love ya, Des, but there are women and children out there. You've got a boat, and you've got a heading that actually leads somewhere, so why the hell not? Well, anyway, Sayid accepts his wussing out and sets off for the island.

Did you hear the Morse Code signal coming in over one of the military guys' satellite phones as the Captain was talking to Sayid and Desmond? Cool, huh? I'm fairly certain the doctor heard it, too.

Keamy faces off with the captain and takes him below decks. He snags the second of two keys from around his neck, opens a file cabinet with them, and pulls out a red file folder. From that red folder, he pulls a notebook with a freakin' DHARMA logo on it. Awesome. "Secondary protocol," says Keamy. "It's what Ben's going to do if things get too hectic." Right. We didn't get too good a look at it, but I think that DHARMA logo was that of the Orchid station, as it looked a lot like whatever station's insignia was emblazoned on Ben's parka a few weeks ago in "The Shape of Things To Come", Ben's all-singing, all-dancing electric light parade of globetrotting ass-kickery.

As the military guys are packing their weapons and stuff onto the helicopter, one of them tells Doc Ray about that message, and how weird it must be to hear that your body has just washed up dead on a beach somewhere. While this conversation is going on, Keamy's talking to Lapidus about when they're leaving for the island. "We're not," says Frank. "I was hired for a search-and-rescue, not Apocalypse Now." Keamy's not happy, and to show his discontent, he slits Doc Ray's throat and throws him overboard. "Does that change anything, Frank?" Well, yeah Keamy, it does, but not in the way you think. Anyway, Frank still refuses, and here's where the shit gets thick.

The Captain's not too happy about having his authority usurped like that, so he pulls Keamy's own gun on him right there on deck. Keamy's not exactly overwhelmed with fear, though. In a cutscene we saw below deck just moments before, Keamy was having some sort of electronic device strapped to his arm and around his body. NO idea what it was, but maybe some sort of heart monitor like the one Sawyer "got" back in Season 3? Only reason I say so is because when the Captain pulls a gun on him topside, his reply is an ominous one - "I don't think you want to do that." In saying so, he extends his arms out and shows the Captain what's been placed there. The Captain turns his head to what's left of the crew and asks them what's on his arm, and BLAM! Keamy takes a gun from the 7,000 or so he's got lying in a duffel bag at his feet and shoots the Captain dead. Frank, um, changes his mind and gets ready to leave for the island.

Frank's not out of this yet, though! As they're getting ready to leave, he wraps his sat phone up in a canvas bag. As the chopper approaches the island in a looooong wide shot that is WAY too reminiscent of the napalm scene from "Apocalypse Now" for its own good, he chucks it out the door of the helicopter. Oh, look whose tent it just crushed! Could it be... Claire's?

CLAIRE AND HER WAYWARD SON - I really tried to make that title work better, but I just couldn't. Sorry. Anyway, what the hell is up with Claire these days? First she's surviving rocket attacks with barely a scratch on her, next she's turning up in the creepy cabin with Jack's dad... Oh, that's her dad, too, isn't it? "I'm with him?" What's that supposed to mean? Alright, enough - look, Claire's dead. There is NO other reason she should've been in that cabin with Christian Shepherd. NONE. Did you notice how much more confident and relaxed she looked sitting there? I have to say that it was probably the best bit of acting we've seen from Emilie since she's been on this show, and it was what? 4 seconds long? Well done. That had to be the most unusual death scene I've ever seen.

She HAS to be dead. She just has to be. There's no way she could've survived that rocket attack, and even if she did, why the hell would she abandon Aaron in the jungle afterward? Nah, here's how I think it went down - she died in the RPG attack. However, because the Island needs Aaron to be raised by Claire in order for him to grow up and become the next leader of the place after Locke passes it on, the Island kept her spirit alive in physical form to fool everyone and, in effect, keep Aaron on the island. Think about it - what's the first thing everyone's going to do when they find out that Aaron's mom is dead? Try like hell to get Aaron off the island, right? Right, but that's not what the Island wants, and from what we've seen so far, the Island gets what the Island wants. It's just the way it is. By keeping Claire "alive" like this, it leaves the choice of what to do about Aaron in her hands. If "she" (i.e. the island posessing her makeshift body) decides to stay on the island when everyone else is getting rescued, well, that's her decision to make in everyone else's eyes. But it's not really her decision anymore, is it? It's the island's choice now. Aaron stays, and... hey wait. Aaron didn't stay, did he? He's one of the Oceanic Six, and now, instead of being raised by Claire, he's being raised by... uh-oh.

HOUSE OF PAIN - So... the cabin. Hurley, Ben, and Locke spent pretty much the entire episode looking for it, and as is per usual on Lost, the voyage getting there was almost as good as the end result. Did you love the musical cue that took us to commercial right as Locke called out Ben for being responsible for the wholesale slaughter of the Dharma Initiative, or what? OMINOUS! It's funny, though, because if you think about it, that's not really the truth of the matter, is it? Ben played a part in it, yeah, but it's not like he pulled the pin on all those gas grenades that killed them, did he? Ben reminded Hurley that he hasn't always been the leader of the Others, so who was it before him? Richard Alpert? Jacob himself? I know we saw the passing of the torch when Ben first met Richard, but see, I think Alpert's more of an executive liaison to the spirits/elders of the island than anything else. He does the talking and a good part of the recruiting, but leader? I'm not sure.

Ben showed a lot of uncharacteristic fear in his travels to the cabin with Locke and Hurley, and even a moment or two of vulnerability. VERY unlike Ben, as we all know, but was it for real? Ben's a step ahead of everyone and everything on this island, as we've seen for the past two seasons or so, but I'm not entirely sure he's as ready to pass the keys to the place over to John as he claims. More importantly, let's get to Locke's old-school Lost dream sequence where he sees Horace Goodspeed chopping down that tree over and over again. Residual-style haunting, anyone? Of course. Well, turns out that Horace was the original builder of the cabin, having erected it as a vacation spot for he and his wife when saving the world with the DI got to be too much. Well, okay, but what's that got to do with anything? Well, in the dream sequence, he tells Locke that in order to find the cabin, he's got to find him, Horace Goodspeed. Locke knows where to go to do that, too, so Horace bids him farewell. "Godspeed!" says Goodspeed. Heh.

To the mass graves! It's here that Locke tells Hurley of Ben's past sins, but it's also where he starts digging around in the messy pile below and finds a blueprint of the cabin and its surroundings in the pocket of Horace's Dharma jumpsuit. The Three Stooges follow the blueprint to where John thinks the cabin would be, and bang! There it is. Ben's not exactly jumping at the chance to go in, though, and I think you know how Hurley feels. Locke's ready to do this, so off he goes. Christian Shepherd's sitting there in Jacob's chair wearing Jacob's clothes, and... what? Christian's now a sales rep for the island, too? Well, it makes sense, actually. Remember what I said earlier about how the island is keeping Claire "alive" for its own intents and purposes? Well, I think it's kinda the same thing with Christian - the island is maintaining his spirit, too, and I think it might be in order to keep Jack on course towards what HE needs to do to further the existence of the island. Destiny can be a fickle bitch, indeed. Bottom line, I think the cabin is the place on the island where the living can talk to the dead. I cannot WAIT until Miles gets there.

So Locke and Christian have their pow-wow, Claire drops in for a few, and the meeting breaks for lunch. "So what's the deal?" asks Ben. Locke just looks at him. "We need to move the island," says Locke.

Oh. Okay.

MISSING PIECES -

I LOVED the sharing of the candy bar between Hurley and Ben. Not only does it say that Hurley is probably the nicest guy that's probably ever stepped foot on the island, but it also humanizes Ben a little. I'm liking that path they're taking with his character, but I have to say that the whole scene could've been improved dramatically if the two of them had broken into the Kit-Kat "Gimme A Break" song as they ate. Maybe they even could've done Andy's version. Gimme a break, gimme a break! Break me off a piece of that... Chryler car! Claude Van Damme! Fancy Feast!

Oh, Jack. "I think we should follow it"? If you only KNEW how many bad decisions you constantly insist on making...

More evidence of Claire being dead - Christian told John that "it would probably be a good idea if he didn't tell anyone that you saw her here." Um, yeah. Ben would figure that one out in a heartbeat. Seems to me that if you're in the cabin when someone else gets there, um... you're dead. Seems to be the way it is. Although, remember back in the season 4 premiere when Hurley first found the cabin, he saw Locke's head poking out of the window as Hurley tried to poke his in? What was that about?

Horace had the logo from the Arrow station on his Dharma jumpsuit, and right under his name, it said that he's a mathematician. So, does that mean the abandoned, empty Arrow station was once the facility for examining The Numbers? We never really saw anything in there besides an old Bible with an excised portion of the Swan Orientation film in it and someone's glass eye (probably Mikail's), and no one we've seen besides the Tailies has really done anything in there, so who knows? 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42, 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42, 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42, 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42...

Did Locke really pull a Ben on Hurley when he made him think as if his idea to stay with the group was his own? I'm not sure, but Ben sure thought so. He looked rather stunned when he realized what Locke was doing by offering him a chance to leave, and when you think about it, we've seen Ben perform the same brand of reverse psychology time and time again. Offer your enemy the perfect out of any situation you put them in, and chances run high that they won't take it. I honestly can't tell if Ben is truly afraid and subservient to John's destiny as he's putting on. If he's not, then he's playing it right into Locke's desperate need for acceptance, but if he really is realizing that his days here are numbered, then I'm eager to see how Ben plans to pass the torch and simultaneously avoid the dozens of big scary guys out on the boat that want him roasting on a spit. "I used to have dreams..." The suspense is terrific. I hope it lasts.

Line of the night - "Mallomars." Indeed.

Young Locke's drawing of Smokey was rather ominous, wasn't it? Why wasn't it up on the refrigerator in the kitchen? I also liked the slight undertones of the smoke monster's signature theme that played as we saw it.

So who is it going to be that teaches Keamy and his crew of meatheads a thing or two? Sayid? The Others currently hiding out at the temple? I'm hoping for the latter in a completely kick-ass retread of the Stormtroopers vs. the Ewoks. As led by Sayid. That would rock my socks. "Not bad for a little fuzzball..."

They need to MOVE the island?! Um... how? Through space? Time? Rent a Ryder van? Start saving empty boxes, everyone!

Alright, I'm out. Sorry this took so long, but this weekend was a bear. "Speed Racer" just HAD to go and kick my ass six ways to Sunday, and it's been nothing but running around trying to find my shoes ever since. Do yourself a favor and check it out. Monkeys are always funny. ALWAYS.

Namaste,

-littlebigmouth.