5x06 Pre-Thoughts

A lot of people seem to be talking about the voice on the radio reading the numbers (that Rousseau’s team hears), and speculating that it is Hurley or Jack or any number of people. Others claim that it was just a voice, that it doesn’t necessarily belong to anyone we know.

And some of have ridiculed this view, saying things along the lines of “This is LOST! Everything has to be connected!” I say balderdash. Now I have no idea who was reading the numbers. Perhaps it was someone we know, and it does have great meaning--I am making no specific claim about this issue. However, the idea that EVERYTHING is connected is preposterous. It would be impossible to map out the entire show, no matter how brilliant or creative its writers are, in such a way as to make every single detail meaningful.

Additionally, there is a precedent for things that seem meaningful to only be vague connections, not crucial ones. Remember the bracelet Naomi was wearing from “RG”, and how Sayid notes it in “The Economist”, then Elsa has a similar one in the future? The producers confirmed that they were not related; it was just two women who happened to wear a bracelet, and that in and of itself was a connection for Sayid.

I have no problem with people watching the show and coming up with theories to connect every little thing. Some of them will doubtlessly be right. I do have a problem with people acting as if others are fools for not signing on with every pet theory they are peddling.

Did the Monster infect Locke in some way when he encountered it in “Walkabout”? The obvious answer is no, as it later attempted to pull him down a hole, similar to what happened to Montand, in “Exodus”. Nonetheless, it is an interesting idea to consider. Ultimately, though, I believe that Locke was transformed when Abaddon’s idea of a walkabout germinated in his head, and his behavior since then is a natural consequence of him adopting Abaddon’s ideas about going on a walkabout and finding out who you really are.

I would like to retract my statement that “This Place is Death” is the greatest LOST episode of all-time. It is just too difficult to compare a regular mid-season episode to the hyperactivity of a two-hour finale. I think all of the finales were great, and “Through the Looking Glass” was the best, and that makes it the best episode of all-time. “This Place is Death” has overtaken “The Man Behind the Curtain” as the top regular episode.

Others have noted that it happened to be Jin, one of just two married 815 survivors with wives on the island at some point (Bernard being the other), who ends up with the couple of Robert and Danielle. They have banter about whether the baby is a boy or a girl which mirrors what Jin and Sun did at one point, except in the French case the man thinks it’s a boy while Jin thinks it’s a girl. Of course, they both ended up with girls.

Robert does indeed attempt to shoot Danielle, which lends credence to the default position that something in him really did change when he and the others attempted to rescue Montand. The fundamental question is: Did the Monster simply infect them, or did it actually take over their bodies in some way like it did with Yemi? It seems as if the Monster can take its shape-shifting to more impressive levels when it has a corpse to work with (Yemi, Christian)? What could it do with a live body?