In an episode that brought back both the frozen donkey wheel and the smoke monster, it was inevitable that the big Lost ball of string would start to unravel to give us glimpses that confirmed previous suspicions. As we've been guessing all season, Ms. Hawking is indeed Faraday's mum. We'd always suspected Charlotte lived on the island before; now we know. And then there's the great callback to all of future-Rousseau's recollections of what happened to her crew (who succumbed to the great smoky dragon!). While there were all sorts of "big things" happening (and Hawking's words taking us out, "Alright, let's begin, shall we," suggest even more to come), it's the subtle things instead that had me nodding my head.

Like Charlotte's references to growing up on the island, including the line that inspired the title of this piece ("turn it up ... I love Geronimo Jackson!"). I was hoping the Dharma Initiative house band would come up again, and here it is, but not much else is revealed. Remember, we first heard the band down in the hatch when Hurley put the record on, and since then the band has shown up in connection with Locke's backstory a couple times (as a poster in his locker at school, on a t-shirt worn by the undercover cop at the commune). The band's probably just mythology filler, but I do hope more information is given about the band's significance to the Dharma Initiative.

Meanwhile, Jin's opening storyline with the French scientists was like a better adaptation of the Scott Smith horror The Ruins. After, of course, Montad loses his arm to the smoke monster! Or from our perspective, after the Smoke Monster ripped Montad's body off his arm. The monster is referred to again as a "security system," which is what both the Others and Rousseau called it at different times in past episodes. The concept of the monster as a security system actually vibes well with the theory of it being a visualization of The Great Smoky Dragon, which again is John Wheeler's take on The Copenhagen Interpretation (product of Bohr's debate with Einstein over the existence of uncertainty in any system). The Smoke Monster, it would seem, is a construct that battles the elements/participants who would try and change events that are meant to happen. Call it destiny/fate's security system.

EW's Doc Jensen brought that to our attention a few weeks ago, and this week the big nerdy tangent involves Igor Novikov's self-consistency principle and an obscure paper he co-wrote called "The Jinn of the Time Machine: Non-Trivial Self Consistent Solutions." Jinn? That's a term from the Koran that describes "a race of spirits that can appear suddenly and unexpectedly," and it's used in the paper to illustrate how something like a compass can exist without having an original owner/creator. Add The New Time Travelers (a collection from which the article appears) to required reading.

So much more to discuss, like Ben's role in all of it. I'll leave it instead with Jacob/Christian's take on Ben and whatever comes out of his mouth: "Since when did listening to him get you anywhere worth a damn."

Previously: 'Jughead' is the bomb (Episode 5.03)

drake lelane
curator of the music/soundtrack blog thus spake drake

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