Lost – Recon

Last night’s episode was short on revelations, and amply endowed with the trademarked Lost clues/hints/references that probably go nowhere in the long term but which we worry over incessantly and make us hungrier for answers that ultimately won’t matter much. Let’s rack ‘em up.

1)    Who are all those dead people on Hydra island? Were there really that many people on the Ajira flight? (Certainly didn’t look that way to me, but maybe they were all huddled in the back of the plane). More importantly, how did they all die? And how long was Tina Fey’s evil doppelganger hanging out, covered in grime, waiting for someone to show up?

2)    Who is Smokey’s crazy mother? It seems like he and Jacob have been around for a seriously long time, so she has to have been around a looong time ago. My guess now is that Smokey is Grendel. Which would make Jacob…Beowulf? Oh yeah. Mystery solved.

James Ford's highly symbolic reading list; Tina Fey's evil doppelganger

3)    Listen, I know that last item was funny ha-ha, but seriously: this show is now so full of probably meaningless literary references, it’s really not that out of place.  My favorite in recent episodes was Chaim Potok’s The Chosen, which I am nearly certain was picked just for its title and not for any overt connection with Orthodox Judaism. “Recon” gave us a return of James Ford’s love for Watership Down (and Kate subsequently eating a rabbit on the island, DUN DUN DUN), but even more suggestively, Watership Down is stacked on top of a copy of A Wrinkle in Time and a book called Lancelot by Walker Percy. A Wrinkle in Time is an obvious and quite nice shout out to all the time traveling shenanigans this show has indulged in, and if the free will vs. predestination theory of Lost gets any traction, the final showdown of L’Engle’s book speaks quite clearly to what side you should be on. I’ve never read Lancelot, but Wikipedia was quite helpful. Apparently, the plot involves a lawyer who murders his wife after discovering that he’s not the father of one of their children. Hmm, familiar… All of which is to say, Lost’s referential narrative technique tends to be a lot of smoke and not much fire, where all of these shout outs lead you down analytical garden paths and may not ultimately speak to much more than “look how these things are similar!”

4)    I think Michael Landon’s performance in Little House on the Prairie deserves its own item on the list, don’t you?

5)    Who or what is locked inside the padlocked cabin on the submarine? My money’s on Desmond, but that’s largely because I really wish Desmond were playing a bigger role in this season to date. If it were Desmond, at least he has some sea-faring experience, which might help with item number six…

6)    How, how, could it be any easier for Sawyer to pilot a submarine than an airplane? I suppose at least the sub’s in good working order and doesn’t require a maintenance team to get it up and running, but The Hunt for Red October has led me to believe that submarine maneuvers can be quite tricky. I’m now having visions of the submarine sailing into a New England port, with Sawyer perched looking out of the hatch on top, musing on moving to Montana. It’ll be a beautiful series finale.