Official "LaFleur" Instant Reactions Comments!

[brian]

So, we really should start paying attention to the Lost repeats with the information popping up at the bottom of the screen. There was a surprisingly decent amount of info revealed during "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" repeat this week!

- Caesar and Ilana were in "Ben's Office" at the Hydra Station (which apparently is the name for the whole Island).

- The video camera in Tunisia was NOT there when Ben landed there, but was there when Locke did.

[Stef]

I *loved* this episode!

Brian, I was wondering about who that baby boy is, too. But for now I'll imagine that he was killed in the purge. (Sad)

And where is adolescent Ben? By doing the math, 1974 - 1977, he should already be at the Dharma barracks, right???


(This is about the preview, so don't read if you dont' want to know -- but I still don't get why people believe Sun stayed in 2007/8. From what I saw in the preview, couldn't she also be in 1977? Did they show something specific that makes it look like she stayed present-day? Is it just that Lapidus went off with some woman in a boat? I guess I can't figure out why Sun wouldn't time travel like the rest of them.)


(Note, sorry if this is blog-hogging, but I did write a *book* over on my own post about this one tonight. If you're interested: http://sterfanie.blogspot.com/2009/03/lost-la-fleur.html)

[Shaqtus]

Good analysis, although I do believe this episode can be completely over analyzed.

A few questions off the top of my head:

It seems that Phil and Scott(i think) are terrified of Sawyer. What did he do to earn this respect?
Where are they going with Amy? Obviously she will play an integral role in the Dharma story.
What triggered the "I can't give birth syndrome?" (Jughead radiation?)
Did the Jughead go off, or did they actually bury it? (I think the writers intentionally avoided a response from Alpert in his interaction with Sawyer)

Re-watching now

[Shaqtus]

Also,

What happened to Olivia Goodspeed, Horace's original wife (who was in the car with Horace when Roger Linus was flagging down cars because his wife was dying)?

Horace was someone of power within the D.I., but he is noted as a Mathematician.
We know a few things about Horace. Firstly, he built Jacob's cabin. Next, we know he showed up in Locke's dream 12 years after his death. Was Locke's dream of Horace (which was eerily real) similar to when Desmond woke up when Faraday met him in the past? Is that why Locke is special, because people from the past visit him and he has these dreams in "real time" on the island? Are Locke's dreams really things that happened in the past? Did Horace understand the island as Faraday did, because of his mathematical background?

Continuing with the dreams analysis: Could it be that many of the different people on the island are from different time periods and have dreams of the future/past or both? For example; it seems that Walt has dreams about the future (where people will be out to hurt Locke on the island). Desmond at times has dreamed about the future AND past. John dreams about the past. Could all of the ridiculously real dreams that people have not be dreams after all? Could it be the past/future characters are trying to change things but end up coming across as dreams or hallucinations?

I could be just rambling...any feedback?

[flinchn]

OK so I was right about the camera.  Yeah, its the minor things in life that make it worth living...

I always watch the popup reruns, because they indeed have nuggets of clarification, but not answers per se.

The thing that's got me wondering after this ep. is Widmore.  Is he the Others' leader at this point?  Why does Alpert always act as the leader?  Does it mean anything that by the time the Losties first encountered the Others that Ben had relegated him to the background somewhat (Sending Tom to make contact/negotiate terms) with seemingly separate agendas?

It's getting so that the history and political intrigue of the Others, the coming 'war' and the nature of Jacob as capo de tutti capi is more fascinating to me than the Losties' character stories past/present or future, or even the island's properties.  How far I've come since Sayid followed a wire into the jungle and first heard the whispers!  I guess this is a symptom of a richly written show with something for everybody.

That said, I like the introduction of the Juliet/Kate/Sawyer triangle - it was predictable but now it has some history to make it more believable.  

Musings -

- All the separated Losties have now gone through 3 time since they've seen each other, albeit during completely different timeframes.  Except Locke. (and Ben, who has a slightly smaller window since he jumped a few months ahead when he turned the wheel)

- It seems from the previews that Sun is not with Lepidus, and is in the same time as the rest of the 6, ahem, 5.


Not much this week, you are right - most of it was character development.

[xyourmomx]

Uhh... Keep in mind.  We only know that the 'not having babies on the island' applied to the Others.  I could be wrong, but I remember no mention of anything relating to the DHARMA people not being able too.

Alpert recruited Juliet, she was always an other, not a DHARMA-ite... 

So maybe it is something specific with the others...

Who knows if Sun would have died... we just assumed.

[flinchn]

Also,

What happened to Olivia Goodspeed, Horace's original wife (who was in the car with Horace when Roger Linus was flagging down cars because his wife was dying)?

Horace was someone of power within the D.I., but he is noted as a Mathematician.
We know a few things about Horace. Firstly, he built Jacob's cabin. Next, we know he showed up in Locke's dream 12 years after his death. Was Locke's dream of Horace (which was eerily real) similar to when Desmond woke up when Faraday met him in the past? Is that why Locke is special, because people from the past visit him and he has these dreams in "real time" on the island? Are Locke's dreams really things that happened in the past? Did Horace understand the island as Faraday did, because of his mathematical background?

Continuing with the dreams analysis: Could it be that many of the different people on the island are from different time periods and have dreams of the future/past or both? For example; it seems that Walt has dreams about the future (where people will be out to hurt Locke on the island). Desmond at times has dreamed about the future AND past. John dreams about the past. Could all of the ridiculously real dreams that people have not be dreams after all? Could it be the past/future characters are trying to change things but end up coming across as dreams or hallucinations?

I could be just rambling...any feedback?

I'm not sure we "know" Horace built Jacob's cabin, at least literally.  We know Jacob can use things from the island's past (such as dead people) for his own illustrative purposes.  What IS interesting is that the Others wanted the body of the dead Dharma guy.  Perhaps they are able to resurrect those that die on the island to populate their ranks?  Maybe these are the automatons of evil and murder like Ethan or the French crew OR, gasp, Alpert. (but that doesn't explain the ghosts like Christian who may not be able to interact with solid objects)  I know - way out there, but it's late.  

[brian]

Again, just to clarify why Sun is in 2008 instead of 1977...

In the previews, Sun is scene with Ben.
We can assume that the skipping has stopped (for now).
We know that Ben is in the same time period as Locke, which is 2008 (since the Hydra Station is built and abandoned, the boats that our Skipping Survivors saw with Ajira water bottles, where their camp was already built and abandoned).
Therefore, Sun is in 2008.

Also - just makes for a Losty twist, where lovers are separated by 30 years

[Katie Kat]

Okay, I *LOVED* this episode!  Like you said Brian, FINALLY we got back to some real writing about the characters that reconnected us with the heart of the show.

Onward - I was thinking about when Horace visits Locke in the future.  It makes more sense now that he must have been skipping.  He "knew" Locke and knew he would be at that place at that time, he hadn't aged, his nose was bleeding, and he kept repeating the scene (like he was stuck in a time skip).  Locke, on the other hand, was in his correct timeline, so he didn't skip.  I think this goes along with the cool theory about the numbers (in the Theories section!).

I was surprised how happy I was that Sawyer and Juliet ended up together.  I knew from the very start that it was most likely what would happen, but I found myself positively GIDDY about it when it was finally proven!  I just never really felt like Kate and Sawyer were solid, but Juliet is someone he met and fell for at a time and in a place where he wasn't a con man (well, I guess he was conning the Dharma Initiative!), and it seemed genuine.  But then, this morning, I thought "Oh no... what if Juliet is actually "bad" and she's just setting him up?"  That bummed me out.  Oh, and I did shed a little tear when Kate showed up.  Sawyer's face was just so amazing.  His character has arguably grown the most on this show and I LOVE it! 

If showing that statue from the back for 3 seconds is going to be Darlton's explanation of the Four-Toed Statue, I'm gonna be pissed!   

Maybe they needed dead Dharma guy's body as a sacrifice to Smokey!

I think we can safely assume that Jughead never exploded, otherwise the Island would be obliterated!  I also think we can assume Richard is from the future because he never ages and he is sort of all-knowing and seems to be "in charge" in every instance.

A question:  has the Island ALWAYS been moving?  Even back in the Four-Toed People days? 

LOVED IT!

[Keebah]

Again, just to clarify why Sun is in 2008 instead of 1977...

In the previews, Sun is scene with Ben.
We can assume that the skipping has stopped (for now).
We know that Ben is in the same time period as Locke, which is 2008 (since the Hydra Station is built and abandoned, the boats that our Skipping Survivors saw with Ajira water bottles, where their camp was already built and abandoned).
Therefore, Sun is in 2008.

Also - just makes for a Losty twist, where lovers are separated by 30 years

Isn't Frank Lupidis (sp?) with Sun, Ben and Locke as well?  I thought that in "Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" we learned that the pilot (Frank) and a lady passenger (Sun) took the outrigger and headed off for the main island.

Also, we didn't get an explanation for the white flash that brought down Ajira 316.  Presumably, Sawyer, Juliet, Miles, and Faraday would have seen/experienced it, but we never witness them doing so.  Of course, it seemed to have happened at night when they were all asleep, so maybe they snored right through it.  Not to mention the fact that we still don't know why the flash occurred...unless Daniel Farady, as a Dharma engineer building the Orchid in 1974, set it off on purpose using the wheel!!!  Wouldn't that be crazy?

[Keebah]

More musings:

I don’t think this relates directly to “LeFleur,” but I wanted to discuss this here because of the statute we glimpsed last night.  So we know the statute of the four-toed person existed in 1974, but not in 2004.  In 2004, all that’s left is the foot.  I’m going to assume that the statue was destroyed rather than naturally eroded as 30 years doesn’t seem like a long enough period of time for a stone statue of that size to be whittled away.

This raises an important question: how did the statue get destroyed?  My guess is that it was destroyed during the war that Charles Widmore keeps talking about.  However, I don’t think this war takes place between 2004 and 2008; it couldn’t since the statue was already destroyed at that time.  Rather, I think the war that Charles discusses with Locke in Tunisia is a war that happened in the mid to late 1970’s.  Hopefully the following will make sense:

We know that in 1974 the Others and the Dharmites had a truce, but it was tenuous at best.  Others were assaulting Dharma people and through the interference of our survivors, Others were being killed and buried in the jungle.  There’s a tension between the two groups and it seems that either side is quick to jump to conclusions about their foe.  We see this with Alpert’s visit to the barracks and as well in the episode preview last night in which the Dharmites capture Sayid and label him a spy.  Things seem ripe for a battle.

We know Charles is on the island in 1974 because he isn’t expelled until Ben comes along and teams up with the Others for the Purge.  I’m thinking a war between the Others and Dharma erupts some time after 1974 (hell, maybe Charles caused the war), Charles and the Others are losing this battle, and ultimately Alpert recruits Ben for a sneaky, underhanded way of winning the war: the Purge.  After all, why conduct the Purge if the treaty was maintained after the events of “Le Fleur”?  Something had to have happened to upset the treaty and my money is on Charles’ war.

So, Charles Widmore seems to think that if Locke returns to the island he’ll be in a position to do something about this war, possibly preventing it.  Why?  Maybe the war and its aftermath paved the way for the events that lead to Charles’ exile and ultimate expulsion from the island (like raising Ben to hero status and overthrowing Charles as leader of the Others).  Maybe his way back to the island is by changing the events of the past. 

Going a few steps further, this would support the theory that Eloise and Charles are adversaries.  Eloise believes that what happens, happens.  No matter what you do, the universe will course correct and keep things in line.  Maybe Charles believes another theory, that if you change the past, you change the future.  This might explain his funding for Farady’s research.  Charles isn’t trying to find the island so that he can get back to it in present time - he’s trying to change the factors in time and space that lead to his departure from the island in the first place and change the past. 

For all we know, once his freighter mercs took over the island, maybe they were supposed to go to the Orchid and turn the wheel in the opposite direction.  After all, we know it turns clockwise.  Ever wonder what happens if you turn it counterclockwise?

[xyourmomx]

Keebah

There was a flash in between them seeing the statue and them ending up in 1974.

The statue era was the same one where the well disappeared and the rope was in the ground and then Locke turned the wheel which caused one last flash that sent them to 1974 where the statue is (most likely) already destroyed.

Also... the color of the statue looked different, that'd be a sign of age...  and more than 30 years.

[Keebah]

Keebah

There was a flash in between them seeing the statue and them ending up in 1974.

The statue era was the same one where the well disappeared and the rope was in the ground and then Locke turned the wheel which caused one last flash that sent them to 1974 where the statue is (most likely) already destroyed.

Also... the color of the statue looked different, that'd be a sign of age...  and more than 30 years.

Good point.  Guess it's too early for me to be theorizing 

[Cursednumbers]

Hi first post here,glad i stumbled on this site,it makes my lost watched oh so more enjoyable . I been doin a little thinking and i just wanted to comment on Rose and Bernard and the statue. i always thought that it would be a great twist if Adam and Eve in the cave turned out to be them,and the statue was the resting place for the Jughead bomb,they didnt want to move it so they instead built the statue around it. Perhaps the incident was something to do with the bomb and that eventually ends up in the swan  ? Love the site and love the show keep it up

[Jabbadoo]

And Juliette, as usual was acting weird in the first part of the episode, she obviously still knows more than she is giving up. When she was talking to Faraday when asking him about Charlotte, it was almost as if she was shushing him from saying too much.