Long Live Locke.: S2Ep3: Orientation (Locke's third flashback)

My dear and sympathetic friends -
I need to begin this message with an apology. I do not anticipate this is going to be a very good write-up, because The Man has got me extremely down,and I am feeling sorry for myself and depressed. Therefore, if any of youcan think of a way that I can make a living writing Lost recaps rather than working for The Man, I would be all ears. Enough of my sob story.

So I finally broke down and bought "Make Your Own Kind of Music" (aka: Desmond's Hatch Song) from iTunes last night. It is quite the catchy tune,I must say.

One quick thing before we get going on Orientation:

DHARMA LOGO
The Dharma swan logo that's in the hatch is actually different from the one that was on the shark. The shark just had a straight line through the inner circle on the logo, leading me and many others to believe that the shark is controlled by, or part of another experiment from, another station of the experiment somewhere else on the island.

Now on to Orientation.

HELEN / LOCKE'S FLASHBACKS
Cue the music, cue the Buckingham Fountain shooting a jet of water up into the air... "Love and marriage, love and marriage.... "

How YOU doin', Peg Bundy? It's good to see you again! I was pleasantly surprised at Peg's turn as Helen, Locke's love interest. Of course Helen was also the name of Locke's s@x phone operator "girlfriend" in his original flashback, and since I'm assuming the Helen from this episode didn't devolve into that, something ends up going sour in their relationship but Locke still pines for her, and therefore asks the phone woman to take on the name of Helen. Other people assume that the same accident that causes Locke to be paralyzed will kill Helen, but of course that is all speculation. Her purpose in this episode was help us see that clearly, in his past, Locke was NOT a Man of Faith.

God help me if I ever see the actor who plays Locke's kidney-stealing father, because I don't think I will be able to separate real life from TV, and I will beat him down.

MORE ON DESMOND
So we now know that Desmond WAS on his race around the world and crashed onto the island. He was not a part of the original experiment team, but was brought into the hatch by Kelvin, who was randomly wandering around the island when Desmond arrived. What happened to Kelvin's original partner? Anywhooo, Kelvin somehow convinced Desmond that they needed to press the button in the hatch every 108 minutes. Kelvin ends up dying, but we do not know how.

I am glad that they just straight up addressed the whole issue of "what if this is just all a mind game?" by having Jack ask Desmond if he ever thought that this was all just an elaborate experiment on HIM or on human behavior, and Desmond answering, "every single day."

I am confused as to why neither Jack nor Desmond made a bigger deal out of the fact that they MET EACH OTHER BEFORE, and NOW THEY ARE BOTH ON THE ISLE O'CRAZINESS. I mean, shouldn't that have resulted in a stronger reaction from both of them?

Some people thought the woman with Desmond in his pic in the hatch was Jack's wife. I don't think it was because Jack had no reaction when he saw it. Plus it didn't look like her, duh. Jack freaking out to Desmond asking what happened to "that girl" once again signals to me that she is now dead.

THE TURN OF THE SCREW
This book was briefly shown as they were searching for the film canister. In brief summary, in this story, the reader of the story is left to figure out on his or her own if the main character is delusional, or if they are actually seeing ghosts. Guess what movie was loosely based on this book? Oh, that would be "THE OTHERS."

THE THIRD POLICEMAN
This book was also briefly shown. The book itself is crazy, so who knows what it could be a hint to for the show itself... there are complete threads devoted to this topic, so if you are interested you should investigate and report back to me.

THE DHARMA INITIATIVE
First off, that movie was hilarious. Second, we better all be scared if some hippies from U of M are behind the whole experiment, because you KNOW those peeps are freaks (yours truly being the obvious exception - ha)! Here are some important things to note from the movie:
- The tape was 3 of 6, meaning that perhaps the other tapes exist somewhere that explain more about the project.
- The initiative was started in 1970. The date at the end of the film was 1980.
- BF Skinner was mentioned as an inspiration. He is famous for the "Skinner Box" - an experiment in which animals would receive food if they performed certain functions. There was a device in the box recording their actions to collect data. Sounds very similar to the hatch itself, no?
- One thing that concerns me a tad is that basically EVERYTHING going on thus far on the island could be explained by this experiment, from what they mentioned it encompassed in the film: meteorology, psychology, parapsychology, zoology, electromagnetism, and utopian social (... film jumps at this point)
- Alvar Hanso was the creepy dude (Reminiscent of The Cigarette Smoking Man/Cancer Man from The X Files, I dare say) standing in the building that they zoomed in on, who provided the financial backing. I am SURE he will appear again in the series somehow.
- They allude to at least 2 other stations for the experiment on the island, as this is station 3. They also say that this station, The Swan, was focused on the special electromagnetic force existing on that part of the island.
- Participants in the research stay in the station for 540 days. There seems to be no significance to this number thus far except that it is 5 x 108.
- People have said that possibly the narrator was Korean and therefore could be linked to Sun's father?
- At the end, in his signoff, he says Namaste, which people found odd. This is a Hindu phrase that roughly means: 'The God in me greets the God in you. The Spirit in me meets the same Spirit in you.' Look at all this stuff we learn from this show!!!

THE BLONDE MYSTERY WOMAN
Shout out to K-gibbs (aka Nerdy G) for letting me know that someone sent in some screen captures to a radio station that show that the woman in the Orientation video looks very much like the Others' blonde woman who threw the bomb-thing onto the raft. I tried to compare myself but it wasn't that clear. The Orientation video was taken 25 years ago, so that would be odd if they were the same person unless time warps are involved, which I still think is possible.

THE CON MAN GETS CONNED
It is lame that Sawyer and crew fell for Ana Lucia's trick. I am seriously thinking that Kate is not so bad anymore. You know it took a lot for me to write that.

SAYID = AWESOME, PART 1
The supporting evidence:
LOCKE: Can you fix it?
SAYID: This man, who ever he was, replaced the motherboard. The power transformer is blown.
LOCKE: Don't you need to know why?
SAYID: All I need to know is that the timer is counting down to something, and that this computer needs to be repaired. I'm sure you'll tell me why once I've done so.
Case closed.
Once again. Sayid = Awesome. I seriously think he's the only sane one left on the island at this point.

THE LAME BUTTON STANDOFF AT THE END
Yes, we all realize that they were trying to make a point by focusing on the importance of the INITIAL decision to push the button or not in order to further evolve the Locke vs. Jack tension, but seriously, is there anyone who WOULD NOT have just pushed the button in order to buy themselves 108 more minutes to think it through more clearly? The boarders feel that this was done to represent "whether they consciously decide to go mad" or not, because surely if they give in to pushing the button, they are resigning themselves to eventual madness. Others pointed out, correctly I feel, that the "leap of faith" on Jack's part would've been to NOT push the button. Of course Jack was going to push it, because he's the Good Doctor and cannot possibly knowingly endanger everyone else. So had he NOT pushed it, that would've been more of a stretch for him.

Everyone was annoyed that they pushed it.

But fear not, I don't think they are going to make the rest of the series about Button Shifts.
And remember, Hurley was going to let Locke enter in the wrong number at the end. He's that convinced of the numbers' evil-ness.

SAYID = AWESOME, PART DEUX
The supporting evidence:
During the Button Showdown
LOCKE: You do it, Jack.
JACK: What?
LOCKE: You have to do it.
JACK: You do it yourself, John.
LOCKE: You saw the film, Jack. This is a two person job, at least.
SAYID: This argument is irrelevant.
Case closed.
I repeat, Sayid = Awesome.

BEST LINES OF THE EPISODE
LOCKE at group therapy session: You want your damned 30 dollars back? I want my kidney back!

HELEN: ... I like bald guys.
LOCKE: I'm not bald.
HELEN: I can wait.

HURLEY: Dude, I've got to say, I didn't think we were going to get through the night. And I wasn't even here for that baby stealing part.
SAYID: I can assure you it was very exciting.
HURLEY: It's about time things are finally returning to normalness.
[Kate comes running onto the beach.]
KATE: SAYID!!!!!!
HURLEY: Ah, Crap.

And of course, the best line of the night was the shout-out to end all shout-outs to all the obsessive Tivo-dependent boarders...:
LOCKE (after video ends): We're going to need to watch that again.

PREVIEWS
Hurley's flashback...
Jin speaking English? I feel that must be a trick or a dream sequence... we shall soon see.

WEB SITES OF INTEREST
The Montauk Project (shout-out again to K-gibbs/Nerdy G)
For true conspiracy theorists, this page (scroll down, DON'T click on the top of the page links that reference Lost) discusses the supposed Montauk Project, a continuation of the Philadelphia Experiment. There are tons of similarities to Lost (possible time travel, electromagnetic experimentation, etc.) and it was quite interesting.

http://www.mygeekyplace.net/montauk_project.html

Dharma Video:
http://thedharmainitiative.org/orientation

Alvar Hanso Foundation:
http://www.thehansofoundation.org/activeproject.html

Til next week,
- e