spicedogs | Walk Like an Egyptian—LOST: Episode 5X08 (LaFleur) (Reply)

The Statue

The End of Time Travel
Time traveling, at least for now, ended with episode 5X08: LaFleur. As we learned in the last episode, Locke entered the well, fell down during a new time skipping incident, and, consequently, broke his femur. He managed to get up and move the donkey wheel, and thus restabilizing the island and stopping it from continuously skipping through time.

Locke Descends the Well

Meanwhile, Sawyer, who was holding the rope that Locke used to descend the well, found himself holding the rope that was attached to a covered-up ground.

The Well Is Gone.

They (Juliet, Jin, Sawyer, Daniel, and Miles) found themselves in prehistoric past and were able to see the back of the intact statue with four toes (shown as the first picture in this post). This statue was first seen by Sayid during the last episode of Season 2, and by then, only part of one foot was still up (more about this later).

The Four-Toed Statue

Locke does one final push on the donkey wheel, and the island is stabilized for good. The well seems to reappear, but it has no hole.

What Good Is a Well If It Has a Closed-Up Bottom?

Our time travelers are now permanently in a new time. When they are is soon discovered as they stumble upon hostiles who killed a DHAMA Initiative (DI) worker and were on the mist of killing his wife. Sawyer and Juliet kill the hostiles, thus saving the woman from her husband’s fate. Juliet announces that the DI suit the man was wearing was from 1970—1980 era. Later we learn that they are in 1974.

The Reinvention
These past 4 years, I watched LOST reinvent itself every new season. No season was like the other. “Total surprise” was its motto. With this episode, I found out that LOST is not the only one to reinvent itself. James Ford, AKA Sawyer, the cunning conman, reinvented himself as well.

When Sawyer and his buddies (Daniel, Juliet, Jin, and Miles) found themselves, due to the island’s continuous time travelling, in 1974, smack in the middle of the DHARMA Initiative (DI) days, they were at a loss as to how to explain who they really were. Never mind that they just saved one of the DI’s from being murdered, the time travelers were viewed with suspicion and Sawyer had to come up with a lie to explain their sudden appearance in their world. The best lie that he could come up with was about being on a shipwreck on the way to Tahiti. Sawyer was able to lie with a poker face because, as he himself said, “I’m a professional. I used to lie for a living.” Horace (more about him later), who seems to be the leader of the DI personnel, bought the lie and was about to deport the time travelers back to Tahiti via the submarine. But the arrival of Richard Alpert, the leader of the hostiles, created a sudden panic. Apparently, hostiles and DIs had a truce and someone (we don’t know who) broke that truce.

Richard Alpert

Sawyer cunningly confronted Richard and gave him enough information to continue the truce and to earn him and his friends room, board, and jobs on the compound.

Sawyer, who, during the early days of LOST, was a despised character, is now a respected leader (head of the security department of DI), and, through the fans’ eyes, a lovable character. His continuous on and off pairing with Kate was not well received by many of the fans. However, his pairing with Juliet is highly accepted.

Sawyer and Juliet

(Unfortunately, I think that the Kate–Sawyer (known on the Internet as Skate) will continue now that Kate is back on the island. Unfortunately, I predict that there will be lots of repercussions for this pairing. For one, Ben was once in love with Juliet and he does not seem to be the forgiving type. I speculate that Sawyer’s love affair with Juliet was the catalyst for Ben caging him with Kate during the early episodes of season 3. There was no rhyme or reason for those episodes. But now, knowing that Sawyer and Juliet were together, and knowing that Ben was part of the DI during the time that time, it’s quite possible that Ben remembered Sawyer when he saw him in 2004.

Back to the Story
To continue the truce, Sawyer exchanged Paul’s dead body with Richard Alpert Why Richard needed Paul’s body is a mystery that I hope will be revealed later. Amy, Paul’s wife and the woman saved from imminent death by the time travelers, at one point, before his body was given to the hostiles, she saved his Ankh necklace (Egyptian symbol for eternal life—more about this later). Why did Paul wear an Ankh necklace? What is its significance and was that necklace something the reason that they were attacked by the hostiles in the first place?

The Ankh Necklace

Three years have passed and eventually, Horace married Amy and begot a son. If it weren’t for Juliet, his son would not have made it. He was breech and, despite Juliet’s fear that no birth conceived on the island ever made it to term, this boy made it. Perhaps, the infertility curse was placed on those who killed off the DI people. I hope that the mystery will be revealed at some point.

It was at this point in time that the Oceanic 6 who boarded Ajira Airline’s flight 316, crashed on the island. Sawyer received the call from Jin. For some reason, he chose not to share that fact with his lover. Was he expecting to reignite his love with Kate? Apparently, yes. Gosh, I hope that we don’t have the triangle (Kate, Jack, Sawyer), or the quadrangle (Kate, Jack, Sawyer, Juliet), or the pentagon (Kate, Jack, Sawyer, Juliet, Ben). I’m so sick of them. Let by gones, be bygones. Just keep this show off the soap scripts and keep it what it was meant to be: a great sci-fi story.

The Need for the Oceanic 6
I’m beginning to think that the Oceanic 6 were needed to come back because they were catalyst in forming the history of the island.

Jack, Kate, and Hugo (Hurley)

The big question is whether they are in an eternal loop. How will they ever reconcile the rules that we heard from Daniel that what happened cannot be changed, or the fact that Mrs. Hawkins told Desmond that everything is predestined to happen, and if you try to change anything, time will course correct it? Does this mean that something was done in the past and the Oceanic 6 are there to course correct it? On the other hand, as the boy who Juliet helped bring to the outside world, would not have made it without her, makes me think that this boy will be an important character in the island story. Could he be Ethan, Goodwin, or someone whom we have yet to see his significance in the story? Perhaps Ben, knowing that one day Juliet will be time traveling, brought her over on the guise that she was to answer their infertility problem. However, maybe her presence was really needed to bring this important person to life.

LOST and Egyptian Mythology—More about It Now
According to speculations on the Internet, the prehistoric statue seems to be that of Anubis, the God of Darkness, in Egyptian mythology. Egyptian hieroglyphics are continuously

Comparing the Statue to Anubis

referenced in LOST. Our first encounter with hieroglyphics was in episode 2X23–24: Live Together, Die Alone during the final countdown of the timer. We found out that if the button is not pushed, the glyphs (which spell out DEATH or according to the producers of LOST, who during a ComicCon meeting, explained that the glyph stands for Underworld). Our second encounter was when Ben entered a door to retrieve the Smoke Monster. Our third encounter was when the Smoke Monster pulled Montand into its cave, which was located at the Temple. Is LOST really about death and are the characters really dead? This theory was denied by the producers numerous times. But they are known not to really tell the truth as the story is unveiling. I am curiously awaiting my answer to these questions.

As mentioned earlier, the Ankh necklace is an Egyptian symbol for eternal life. Was Paul wearing it hoping he’d have eternal life? Surely, Richard Alpert, AKA Mr. Eyeliner, seems to have eternal life. He’s been present in every time period our time travelers went through and he never seemed to have aged. What’s up with that?

A number of characters seem to be nods to the Egyptian God Horus:

Richard Alpert (RA) who seems to have a lot of eye make up (the actor—Nestor Carbonell—claims that it’s his natural look, and perhaps he was chosen to play this character because of that). If you look closely, his initials are RA and the symbol for RA is the eye of Horus, and Richard looks as if he has a lot of eyeliner one and he is of dark complexion like Horus.
The Symbol for RA
Horace (for his name)
Locke (for the scar below his eye)
Jacob (for his dark and mysterious ways)
Are They Nods to Anubis?

Time On and Off Island
Time on the island stabilized itself and three years on the island was equivalent to 3 years off the island, except off-island time is 2007, on-island time is 1974. Interestingly, while the island was skipping, what seemed 4 days for Locke, it was 17 years for Widmore. Why only the Oceanic survivors were time skipping is a total mystery. Will that ever be explained in the course of this show? I doubt it. If they do, that will be icing on the cake.

Screencaptures by ESBaker and are located for the public here: http://picasaweb.google.com/spicedogs

Art work by ESBaker