Some Like It Hoth.....

Where do I begin? I have so many thoughts rushing through my mind right now that even I'm confused by the chaos that it has created!

Some Like It Hoth surpassed my expectations on many levels. Team Darlton have set the bar rather high and I hope they can maintain that altitude throughout the rest of the season. It doesn't matter if they don't though, because I'd watch no matter what. I've invested too much of my life in LOST to give up now and, like your battered retirement investments, it will come back stronger than ever. How's that for total faith?


I'm going to try a different layout of how I review this episode. Usually I recap and jump back and forth, like the episode, but I want to see if my thoughts make more sense the way.


MILES'S FLASHBACKS

As soon as I saw the woman trying to rent the apartment, I realized it was Miles' mother. Seeing Lara, it wasn't that much of a leap for confirmation that Pierre Chang was Miles' father. We were supposed to learn that Miles and his mother were now going it alone in the world and that around the age of sevenish (?) Miles' gift was beginning to emerge, much to his torment.

We then see a much older Miles, with enough piercings to sink a battleship, visit his mother. He certainly looked like a rebel and, judging from the tone of his voice, he and his mother haven't exactly been on the best of terms. Miles learns that his father kicked them out when he was an infant and his mother tells him that his father never really cared about them at all. Oh yeah, and he's dead and buried in a place you can never go.

We next see an even older Miles as he speaks with a grieving father about his son. Miles tries to explain that he can't talk to a cremated body, but the Mr. Gray doesn't hear that. "You ad said anytime, anywhere..." So, Miles charges him extra, holds the man's hands and scams him. We know it's a scam. As he's leaving Mr. Gray's place Naomi introduces herself and, very cleverly, offers Miles a job.

She takes him to an empty restaurant where there's a body and tells Miles to talk to the poor guy. His name is Felix and he was delivering papers, photos, etc. to Widmore. Photos of empty graves, an invoice for an old plane. Miles didn't say how he died, but I'm sure we can figure it out. Naomi tells him that her team needs his abilities. There's this island, and on this island is a very bad man who killed a whole bunch of people. They need Miles to talk to the dead people and get their help to capture this man.

"Much as hunting down a mass murderer sounds really sage, ah, I'm gonna have to pass."

"My employer is willing to pay you $1.6 million"

"When do we leave?"

Later, as Miles is having a snack of a fish taco (I'd never heard of a fish taco until now) a van pulls up beside him and some guy says: "Hi Miles"

Now, I'm not sure about you, but my parents always told me never to talk to strangers, even strangers who know my name. But what does Miles do? Yeah, he stops long enough to be grabbed and dragged into the van and introduced to Bram. And where have we seen him before? You got it, on the beach at Hydra Island. Bram attempts to persuade Miles not to board the freighter and go to the island, offers to tell him everything about himself and his father, how he got his gift and even teasing him, and us, with the riddle of "What lies in the shadow of the statue?" Since Miles is totally clueless, much like Frank was, Bram tells him he's not ready to go to the island and tosses Miles out of the van.

There's a lot of speculation about Bram and Illana and their gang. Some people were thinking that they are working for Widmore, but I don't think so. Why would Chuckie have his own people talk his employees out of working for him? And he doesn't work for Ben, because Ben would have recognized him on the plane and on the beach.

Here's what I think. Bram and Illana work for Eloise Hawking and I also think that she had been evicted from the island. Either by Chuckie or Ben, it doesn't matter, because the fact remains that she is not on the island and hasn't been there for some time. Her absence from the 1977 camp was glaringly obvious, and even more pointed when Chuckie is exiled some years later. Perhaps she chose to leave in order to conduct important research, but I'm not banking on that. I think she had a falling out with Charles and left years ago, and her involvement in the Lamp Post comes from meeting her grown up son in the past.

Just before Miles leaves to board the freighter he returns to see Mr. Gray to return his money and apologize. He lied about talking to his son. When asked why he came back Miles told him it wasn't fair to Mr. Gray's son. "If you wanted your son to know that you loved him, why didn't you tell him when he was alive?" Now that's an excellent question, Miles.

ON THE ISLAND HAPPENINGS:
Kate and Sawyer, uhm, LaFleur, return from handing little Ben over to the Hostiles to be healed. Sawyer calls Miles on the walkie and tells him to accidentally erase a certain security tape, oddly enough it's number four. In Asian cultures the number four is associated with death. As Miles is about to erase the tape he is interrupted by Horace, who has an urgent package for LaFleur to deliver. Unfortunately LaFleur is not reachable, so Horace must bring Miles into the "circle of trust" and have him deliver an urgent package to Radzinsky in sector 324, which is where the Swan is being built. It is also in the middle of Hostile territory.

Miles drives to where Horace tells him to and is almost shot by Radzinsky. I dislike that man even more than before, which is difficult considering I despised him when he kept voting to kill everyone (the gorgeous Sayid, namely). Speaking of Hostile! The package turns out to be a body bag, which is quickly filled and loaded into the back of the powder blue Dharma van and Miles sent on his way back to Dharmaville.

Since we know a little bit about Miles, we know that he just can't not ask questions. And, when answers are not forth coming from the living, he turns to the dead for an explanation. Poor dude didn't even know what hit him but considering he was thinking about a girl, I'm hoping he went with a happy thought. From this we know that there was no foul play, but Dharma is involved in covering up his death. Electromagnetism pulled his filling out of it's socket through poor Alvarez's brain. It was an accident. Radzinsky said he fell into a ditch.

"The ditch had a gun?" Too flipping funny Miles!

Back at Dharmaville, Horace is on the horn with Pierre Chang, who wants the body brought to the Orchid for examination. And Miles is off again on his delivery mission, only this time, Hurley has hitched a ride. He has lunch for the work crew that must also be delivered.

"We can car pool. It'll help with global warming, which hasn't happened yet. Maybe we can prevent it." Gotta love Hurley. I'd like to say right now, that pairing Miles and Hurley as sparring partners was a stroke of brilliance. These two play off each other so well. Miles is no Charlie, but this relationship is so much different.

Hurley soon smells something amiss and makes Miles stop so he can check on his sandwiches, worried that his famous garlic mayo has gone bad.
Hurley-Dude, there's a body bag back here, with a body in it."
Miles-"That traditionally what you put in a body bag."
So, Miles and Hurley chitchat about what happened to Alvarez and Hurley asks the $64,000 question. "How does a filling get blown through someones brain?" Miles swears Hurley to secrecy and off they go again. At the Orchid they meet Pierre Chang, who freaks over Hurley's presence and threatens him with a transfer to the Hydra to scoop Polar Bear poop.

Dr. Chang disappears and then returns, getting Miles and Hurley to give him a lift to an unknown location and during the ride Hurley asks Chang questions designed so that Miles can learn some information about his father. He even goes so far as to suggest a little get together over beer! Suddenly Chang tells Miles to stop, he gets out and goes to a wall of jungle vines, opens a gate and gets back into the van. Inside is the site where the Swan is being built, and it's here that Hurley realizes exactly what it is being built.

They leave Chang at the Swan and head home to Dharmaville. On the way they talk about the differences between their powers and Hurley tries to convince Miles to forge a relationship with his father, but Miles refuses. "Maybe he'll let you hold baby you, or you could change your own diaper" must have struck a chord, because we later see Miles watching Pierre holding his son and reading to him a story about Polar Bears! Miles tears up and turns away, but is diverted when Chang calls out to him. He needs a ride to the dock to collect a package. When Miles asks if there are new recruits, he is told the sub is bringing in some scientists from Ann Arbor.

Roger returns from the Staff station with the supplies Juliet had sent him to get and, upon seeing the empty hospital bed, assumes his boy has passed away. Juliet couldn't think fast enough and so leads him to believe that Ben has been abducted and so he storms off the report it to security. We next see Roger sitting on the swing having a beer or two. Kate has a good heart, but she really should think these things through. She tried to comfort Roger and assure him that everything will be okay, but he wasn't too receptive. In fact, her actions made him wonder and he voiced his suspicions to Jack later on.

The new Jack really rocks. He's just doing his job and keeping a low profile, but something tells me that'll change soon. He stood calmly while Roger cast aspersions on Kate, then very gently planted the seed of doubt.
"I think, Roger, that you've had a hell of a day, and that its giving you a very good excuse to go out and get drunk. maybe that's put some crazy ideas into your head......"
Jack then did something I wasn't expecting. He went to Sawyer and gave him the lowdown.

Speaking of Sawyer, poor dude can't catch a break.
"Did you ever have one of those days when you're the Dutch boy with his finger......." Yeah, it's gets even better, my friend. Phil proves just how creepy he is by bringing that un-erased tape to Sawyer and get's punched out for his trouble.
"I figured that after three years of working together, I'd give you the benefit of the doubt........" Cue total unconsciousness and Sawyer drops him.

Miles delivers Chang to the dock and helps the groggy passengers with their luggage. As he is helping with a suitcase a new arrival pops his head out of the sub. It's a somewhat more lucid Daniel!

STAR WARS
I thought I would address the massive Star Wars references separately. Thirty years ago Star Wars premiered to mediocre reviews and box office billions. Kids know a good story when they see it. I know that JJ Abrams is a massive Star Wars fanatic. I saw the first movie eleven times and the next two several times as well, but I've seen every installment of Star Trek so many times I could almost recite them from memory. I didn't clue in to the fact that Hurley was writing the Empire Strikes Back until he told Miles, but I couldn't stop laughing and, after some thought, realized that's exactly what I would do.
"It's furry. Furry fist. I need spell check." He told Miles.

A Few Things:

Did Pierre Chang really just toss his wife a child out, or did he send them away for their won safety? Could he have sworn her to secrecy, the truth never to be told even upon death?

Does Dharma really think the Hostiles don't know that they are building the Swan station in their territory and thus breaking the agreement?

Felix was delivering photos of empty graves and a requisition for an old airplane to Widmore when he was killed. Did Ben have him killed and try to turn the evidence against Widmore (as Gualt had told Desmond and Sayid on the Kahana)?

Who does Bram work for?

What was the original purpose of the Swan and how long has Dharma known about the electromagnetism?

Something is bothering me. When Chang disappeared into the Orchid and then came back, Miles asked him what happened to the body, to which He replied: "What body?" I've almost convinced myself that there are two, possibly more, Pierre Changs running around the island. Maybe the result of an experiment gone awry? While he retains all the memories of the original Pierre, such as his life with his wife and child, education, etc, he doesn't have the recent day ti day, hour to hour memories. I'm not sure if this makes sense, and I haven't even begun to work out the logistics of it all, so I'm positive there are more holes in this idea than there are in Swiss cheese.

Next week we get a clip show about the O6, but from their prospective. Could be interesting, however I don't think we'll learn anything earth shattering. Then, on schedule is The Variable, and judging by the preview things are about to go pear shaped for our beloved Losties.

Until next week.

Namaste and good luck

Arcticroses