Let the (Mind) Games Begin...

Hello my dear friends -

The wait is over. After more months than I care to mention, Lost is back tomorrow night with two new episodes to kick off Season Five. As those of you who have read my last few posts and/or connected with me on Facebook know, the premiere just so happens to fall on my birthday -- hence the party hats to the left.

Amazingly, I'm still spoiler-free... except for watching the inescapable previews that have been running for a while now on ABC. (That rhymed.) While I had intended to share my thoughts on those clips in advance of the new season, I have since realized that I'd just end up covering the same information again in my upcoming episode recaps. So what I thought I would do instead for this last post before the premiere is talk about five of the biggest overarching mysteries that remain in the series.

I'm not going with the obvious ones (Where is the Island? What is Smokey? What is the Four-Toed Foot statue?) because they've been analyzed and theorized to death already. Instead, I'm choosing to remind you of five questions you may have forgotten you had:

1) Who were Adam and Eve, and what's up with those black and white stones?

"Adam" and "Eve" are the nicknames Locke gave to the skeletons Jack and Kate found in a cave in Season One. These skeletons have never been seen or mentioned since. Do you really think there isn't going to be some sort of twist that involves their identities?

Assuming that a little space-time bending will come to pass, I'm still going with Jack being the male, as it looked like (though it's not certain) he kept the pouch of black and white stones from the remains. Meaning that -- unless we see him pass them off -- the stones are more likely to be on his person than anyone else's in the future. I used to think that the female would be Kate, but now I think that Juliet is also in the running. Other guesses are Sun and Jin, Rose and Bernard, Desmond and Penny, the DHARMA initiative founders, Gerald and Karen DeGroot, or (of course) a couple we haven't met yet. Don't ask me how Jin could come back from the dead or why Penny would ever be on the Island -- I'm just naming off the major couples, OK?

However, if Lost's rules of time travel don't end up allowing for living people to see or coexist with their own 50-year-old skeletons, then the DeGroots become my top guess. There's also a small part of me that doesn't think the writers would let The Mad Doctor (Jack, for you newbies to my site) meet such an undistinguished end, which also ups the chances that Adam and Eve are either the DeGroots or characters that haven't been introduced to date.

Wait! I just thought of another possibility... what if the skeletons are somehow Nikki and Paulo? That would be like the ultimate episode of Punk'd (the Lost writers being Ashton Kutcher and the audience being the unsuspecting Justin Timberlake), and therefore we'd probably be treated to another tongue-in-cheek Nikki and Paulo flashback in order to understand the significance of the black and white stones. You heard it here first!


2) How did Montand lose his arm?

I'm pretty sure there's a good percentage of you who are reading this right now and thinking, "It's more like, 'how did e lose her mind?' Adam and Eve? And now Montand?"

That's right, folks... I said Montand. The rest of you may care about the numbers or the Frozen Donkey Wheel or the whereabouts and inhabitants of Jacob's cabin, but I want to know about Crazy French Chick/Danielle's armless friend, dammit!

In the first part of the Season One finale when a subset of the Lostaways gathered dynamite (RIP, Dr. Artz) from The Black Rock, Rousseau said, "This is where Montand lost his arm." So I can only figure that if we are shown exactly what happened to Montand, we'll learn more about Danielle's past in the process.

Things I'd love to know about Danielle and her crew include:
1) What was "the sickness" everyone on her team became infected with? Was it what we now recognize as the effects of becoming "unstuck in time" à la Minkowski and Desmond? Or was there something else that did them in? Or did Rousseau make the whole thing up because she killed them all because she was the "sick" one?

2) Did Danielle truly never encounter any of the Others in her sixteen years on the Island, as she claimed to Sayid when she first trapped him in Season One? I ask this because there are a lot of inconsistencies in what she's told various 815ers over the four seasons. Methinks she DID mingle with the DHARMA peeps and/or the Others back in the day (I could actually see her hitting it off quite well with Patchy) and they had some sort of falling out that left her alone and Alex in Ben's possession.


3) Is Aaron the Spawn of Satan?

When "Raised by Another" first aired, tons of people on the message boards were all riled up because they thought that lil' Turniphead was meant to be the Antichrist. The psychic dude that Claire visited did go on and on about how all of these terrible things would come to pass if she didn't stick with her bay-bee for the long haul. Now that Claire is chillin' with Zombie Dad in Jacob's cabin and Kate is acting as a mother to Aaron off of the Island, is the whole of humanity in peril? Is something about this young boy inherently evil or what? Thankfully, the kid they have playing Aaron in the flash-forwards doesn't look like he's straight outta The Omen or else I just might have to stop watching the show. You may think I'm bluffing, but I've said several times that I have no tolerance for evil-freaky children and I mean it.

For now let's assume that I am not forced to abandon our beloved show. What are the biggest questions surrounding Aaron as we head into Season Five?

1) I'll be curious to see if there are any weird things that beginning happening when he's around... like birds dropping dead or rain stopping and starting on his command or polar bears appearing in his presence. He might be "special," just like Walt.

2) Is he "supposed" to go back to the Island with the rest of the Oceanic Six, or not? Because right now we're getting mixed signals. The psychic first said that Claire had to raise Aaron. But when he gave her the tickets for Flight 815, he told her that a "nice couple in LA" were waiting to adopt him, and that they were "not strangers." Some now wonder if that was his weird way of alluding to Kate and Jack, who would eventually end up with Aaron in Los Angeles (for a while, at least). I, for one, still think that the comment about the LA couple was just a random remark and that the psychic put Claire on the flight because he foresaw that it would go down and she'd be forced to raise her son.

Claire was indeed very attached to her bay-bee once he was born... making it all the more strange that she'd go on to abandon him simply because Zombie Dad beckoned her into the jungle (unless, that is, she left because she's actually dead). Apparition Claire then visits Kate off-Island and says "Don't you DARE bring him back," and Dead Charlie tells Jack (through Hurley) that he shouldn't be involved in the boy's life. To me, it seems as though there are two forces, communicating through a bunch of ghosts, that are fighting about where and with whom Aaron should reside, and it's damn confusing.

3) If Aaron DOES end up being raised however in the hell he's supposed to be raised, will we at least find out what havoc he would've wreaked on the world had another scenario transpired? 'Cause I've got this crazy Apocalyptic vision in my head and if that wasn't what was going to go down then I hope someone goes back and tells that psychic that he's kind of a drama queen. On a related note, when is someone fully "raised?" If Kate's had Aaron for at least three years and wasn't supposed to, how much does that count in the whole scheme of things? I've got to stop thinking about this now.

Crap, there's one more thing: when Desmond was seeing flashes of the future, he claimed to have watched Claire and Aaron board a helicopter and leave the Island. We all know that's not what happened. So was Desmond seeing something in the future future? Is Kate going to bring Aaron back to the Island and then he'll eventually leave again with Claire? Did Desmond confuse his long-haired leading ladies? Or was he just fibbing to Charlie in the hopes that the idea of rescue for Claire and Turniphead would be enough to motivate Darth Hoodie to sacrifice himself in the Looking Glass station?

4) What face cream has Ageless Richard been using?

He of the Bushy Eyebrows and Long Eyelashes has sported different hairstyles over the decades, but, as proven by Ben and Locke's flashbacks, he hasn't aged since at least the 1950s.

We know that Richard is an Other... or what the DHARMA Initiative would refer to as a "Hostile." The Others seem to have been on the Island since before DHARMA arrived; with the help of Ben, they eventually came to overthrow those pesky scientists in a slaughter termed The Purge. As the years passed, Richard had also been watching -- and sometimes visiting -- Locke, and now seems content that ol' baldy is taking what would seem to be his rightful place as the Others' new leader.

From a conversation he had with Locke, we know that Richard wasn't too interested in Ben's attempts to save pregnant women on the Island. The Others as a whole ARE interested, however, in protecting their home, snatching "good people," and watching Jack freak out in a cage when the opportunity presents itself. I have a feeling we're going to learn a lot more about their background in Season Five, so here are some questions I hope we get answers to during the next few months:

1) Why are the Others seemingly ageless -- or is it only Richard who's so lucky? After all, we haven't gotten proof of anyone else's agelessness but his. Long Live Locke reader JhP wrote me this fall with a theory on this issue, based on the 1973 novel by René Barjavel entitled The Immortals (or Le Grand Secret in its native French). Since this book is now pretty hard to locate (I found a used copy on Amazon), I'll summarize the part that might have had a hand in inspiring Richard's story line on Lost, as Executive Producer Damon Lindelof stated during Season One that he spent some time in France (where this book was extremely popular). This is just a theory, but if you still don't want to read about it, skip to #2 below.

For those of you still with me... in The Immortals, a scientist creates a serum that provides for everlasting life, but as soon as he realizes the consequences of his discovery, he tells a few of the world's most powerful leaders and they come up with the idea to send anyone who's taken the serum (or become "infected" by those who have) to a secret island in order to avoid overpopulating the world (their children are born immortal as well). The people are essentially frozen at the age they were when the virus takes effect, or only grow to be teenagers if they're born on the island. However, in the book, no one can leave the Island because they'd infect others with immortality... which doesn't really jibe with how Ageless Richard has been seen off of Lost's Island. But I do think that the whole "immortality serum" and "international conspiracy" aspects of the book may still be relevant to the show.

Another thing to consider is that this same author, Barjavel, also wrote a novel called The Ice People in which scientists discover the ruins of a 900,000-year-old civilization along with two people living in suspended animation in an underground hatch. If that weren't enough proof of the possible influence of Barjavel on the show, if you read his Wikipedia entry, you'll see that in 1943 he wrote "the first novel to present the famous paradox of time travel: if one goes backwards in time and kills one of his ancestors before he had children, the traveler cannot exist and therefore cannot kill the ancestor."

Innnnteresting.


2) Who, if anyone, besides Ben came over to the Others' side from DHARMA? Or was Ben the sole DHARMA survivor of the Purge? Speaking of the Purge, what happened to Ben's childhood crush, Annie?

3) Who was the leader of the Others up until December 2004: Ben, Jacob, Richard or someone else? Ben told Jack that he "made the decision to kill over forty people in a single day," but then told Hurley that the overall Purge was not his idea. Ben has also said that no one besides him has ever seen Jacob, even though the rest of the Others seem to somewhat worship the cranky cabin-dwelling spirit thingy.

4) Who helps the Others off of the Island -- where do they get all of their money and resources? And why are some people like Charles Widmore, the as-of-yet-unknown "economist," and possibly Abaddon working against them? Is everyone fighting for control of the Island, or is something more going on?


5) How did "Jeremy Bentham," aka my man Locke, end up in a casket?

It still pains me to think about those final seconds of Season Four when the camera panned back to show that the man whose death Jack had been lamenting was none other than his old nemesis, John Locke.

Some think that because of clues provided in the Comic-Con 2007 Orchid Station video, Bentham is actually a clone, or another "instance," if you will, of the guy we've come to know and love on the Island. Meaning that the "real" Locke isn't actually dead but rather still fighting the good fight back in the jungle. I'm not too sure I buy that theory, however, because if that were the case, why would Ben tell Jack that they had to bring Bentham back to the Island with them? If Original Locke is still there, surely no one would want two Lockes running around, would they? And if Bentham didn't come back to life when he was returned to the Island AND Original Locke was still there... then what would be the point of bringing Bentham back?

Further, if Bentham was a clone of sorts, then I don't think any of the Oceanic Six were in on the secret. Near the end of "There's No Place Like Home," Hurley asked, "And why are you calling him 'Bentham'? His name is ---" before being shushed.

Finally, I just really, really, really hate the idea of clones becoming a part of the Lost story. Clones are right up there with "evil twins" for me. As in, any mystery that's explained by evil twins or clones usually seems like a total cop-out. So perhaps I'm dismissing the clone theory because I simply dread that it could be proven correct. Until it is, I'll continue to assume that the Orchid Video was meant to introduce the time-shifting abilities of the Island, and nothing more.

So what do I think happened to Locke, then? In a nutshell, I think this situation is exactly what it appears to be. Locke took on an alias of "Jeremy Bentham" after he had to leave the Island because of the "very bad things" that transpired once the O6 left. Since he doesn't have the super-spy skillz of Sayid (or the lovely, long-flowing locks, for that matter), he screws up and gets himself killed, but only after he's had conversations with Walt, Jack, Kate, and possibly Hurley. Although Ben has supposedly been banished from the Island after turning the Frozen Donkey Wheel, he must know of a way to get back into its good graces and figures he'll take Dead Locke along for the ride. The only reason Ben would do this is because he's confident that Locke will come back to life (in some form) once reunited with the Island -- and that he'll play a critical role in setting things right.

(For the record, I do think time travel is involved in all of this, but I'll write more about that topic in the new episode recaps. And yes, I am OK with characters coming back to life and traveling through time, but not with clones or evil twins. Don't try to understand what goes on in my brain, people!)

Of course ten million other questions remain, but we'll have ample opportunity to discuss those in the coming months, now won't we?

In the meantime, ENJOY the two new episodes, and wish me luck in finishing posts for both "Because You Left" and "The Lie" before the 28th.

And if you haven't already, you better wish me a "Happy Birthday," because I'm needy like that!

- e

No, You May NOT Borrow My Season Four DVDs

Hello my dear friends -

I don't think I have to tell you that the premiere of Season Five is now just a week away. Tonight, ABC will replay the entire three-part Season Four finale, "There's No Place Like Home," beginning at 8 PM ET. If you still don't feel completely back up to speed after that, my recaps should do the trick: they're here (for the first hour) and here (for the second and third hours).

Today, however, I wanted to post about a surprise I received last month. Despite the fact that my husband and I had agreed to not buy each other holiday gifts, one day near the end of December he called from work and revealed that a present was indeed on its way to me, and that he felt like he better tell me what it was in advance so that I'd be sure to be home when it was delivered.

After I threw a five-minute-long hissy fit about him making me look bad (not to mention feel guilty) because I stuck to our no-gifts decision, he said, "Check your email and you'll understand."

As it turns out, a good friend of ours who works for Disney (huge, HUGE shout-out to CH!) had received word of a private employee event at which the executive producers and some of the writing team from Lost would be signing Season Four DVDs (for those of you not familiar with the ways of Corporate America/The Man, Disney owns ABC). He knew he'd never be able to live with himself or look me in the eye ever again if he didn't go (I made that part up but hope it's true), and so he went, took pictures and secured a signed DVD set and a snazzy Season Four t-shirt for me.

Below are the shots my husband had forwarded to reveal what my gift was. Needless to say, I was beside myself with excitement in addition to being completely surprised -- that's certainly the kind of news that you just don't see coming. But can you believe that our friend didn't get even one picture of himself with any of the Lost peeps?!?! Or perhaps he did, but feared my reaction and level of jealousy and therefore decided not to include them in his message. Yeah, I'm sure that's it.

Above: the Lost Season Four DVD set in the foreground and Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof (aka: Darlton) in the background. How artsy!

The next several pictures are of the writing and script team. So as to not repeat myself again and again in the captions for every picture, just know that at the table, from left to right, were: Carlton Cuse, Damon Lindelof, Eddy Kitsis, Brian K. Vaughan, Elizabeth Sarnoff, Kyle Pennington and Gregg Nations. (The links go to their respective Lostpedia pages, which detail the work they've each done on the show.)






Here's Damon writing, "Dear e, you are truly the biggest nerd I know, and I know a lot of them. Congratulations."


Yay, Carlton's a fellow lefty!


Eventually, the DVDs arrived safely in Chicago and I had a lot of fun trying to make out the signatures. You can take a guess yourself for each disc and then hold your mouse over the pictures to see if you were right.





Wouldn't you agree that Pennington wins for Most Illegible Autograph? Writing sideways on the disc was an extra-special touch.

Carlton definitely claims the Clearest Signature award, but overall I'm pretty sure that the whole crew used to be doctors in their past lives. (The cat's out of the bag in the picture below... Damon did not write a personal note about my nerdiness on the front of the set. But I'm sure if he knew who the discs were for, he would have... right?)


Rest assured that I wouldn't dare risk ruining any of the signatures and/or getting any of the discs stuck in my laptop or DVD player -- I bought a "normal" Season Four collection that I've used to watch the bonus features and replay a few episodes.

Next Wednesday night, my triumphant Lost trifecta will be complete: a set visit (with "Ben" and "Locke" encounters, to boot), a signed DVD set from my writing heroes, and a season premiere on my birthday. Do you think I should be worried that the Lost gods will punish me for all this bragging and cause my satellite feed to fail on the 21st?

If that happens, no matter where you are, you'll hear my screams.

But before the big event is upon us, be sure to check back with me here on LLL one more time -- I still intend to post my thoughts on the Season Five previews. And yes, besides having seen those clips, I've remained spoiler-free. On that note, if you're not aware of this already, be forewarned that tons of entertainment writers have seen Lost's next two episodes, so there are currently varying levels of Season Five details all over the Internet. This Saturday there will be an event in NYC where parts of the premiere will be shown, so I'm going to be extra cautious about avoiding spoilers come this weekend. If you also want to be surprised by what you see on the 21st (and after such a long wait, who wouldn't?), I advise you to do the same.

Until next time,
- e

LOST on Oahu

Hello my dear friends -

As Season Five is now less than a month away (!!!), I realized I better get my act together and write about the rest of my time on Oahu. I still intend to post some thoughts on the bevy of S5 previews that have been released over the past few weeks... and I have yet another jealousy-inducing surprise to throw down before January 21... but for now, let's revisit my fateful day on The Island, shall we?

After our incredible run-ins with Michael Emerson (Ben) and Terry O'Quinn (Locke), my husband and I still had eight hours left on Oahu with Jeff from Kos Tours! Needless to say, we made the most of it...


IF YOU WERE A TREE, WHAT KIND OF TREE WOULD YOU BE?
THE KIND THAT WAS IN LOST, OF COURSE.

In selecting the pictures for this recap, I realized very quickly that a shot of, say, the tree under which Kate and "the man she loved... the man she killed!" buried a time capsule lunchbox isn't all that interesting. It is, in fact, just a nice picture of a tree that happened to be in an episode of Lost.

Exhibit A - The tree as seen in the show:


Exhibit B - The tree as it looks now:


Wait a second... under the tree... is that the infamous black horse that Kate has run into both off and on the Island? Do I now have to post ALL of my hundreds of pictures from Oahu in order to allow fellow Lost fanatics to thoroughly inspect them for clues? No, no... I refuse to tempt anyone with that painful exercise. I'll stick to posting only the most recognizable locations we visited and tell myself that the horse under Kate's tree was just a coincidence. As was the black SWAN we saw swimming in a pond near the temple used in a few key Sun and Jin flashbacks. As was the boar that chased us through the jungle...

Just kidding -- no boar knocked us into the mud and left creepy whispers in his wake. He's still out there -- continuing to torment Sawyer, I'm sure.

Moving on...

I neglected to mention in my last post that as my husband and I made our way on foot through downtown Honolulu in order to find that day's Lost set, we passed a building that I instantly recognized (and that has since been discussed in a similar capacity in the Season Four DVD extras):



I'm sure you remember it, too, as it's the site of Desmond and Faraday's first encounter.



And where the Drive Shaft Duo decided to move forward with their record contract.



And the background for the still-to-be-figured-out picture of Brother Campbell and the freaky Ms. Hawking.



As well as the spot where the fateful meeting of De-monked Desmond and Penny went down!


Yes, both the exterior and interior of St. Andrew's Priory have been used in a lot of episodes over the years. And here's a random fact for you -- Dog the Bounty Hunter's office is just a few blocks away. Who knew?

Before I continue on to show pictures from outside the center of Honolulu, I should mention that there are tons of spots downtown that have been used in the show time and time again, just like the Priory. But it was kind of pointless to take pictures of them because -- well, take "Penny's house," for example. It looks drastically different now -- with nary a prop or camera in sight -- than it did in "The Constant." So I'll spare you those shots and the long explanations that would have to go along with them.


OUT OF THE CITY

After my husband and I recovered from the shock of chatting up Mr. O'Quinn and had taken in a few of the other sites downtown, we rejoined our guide Jeff, climbed back into the Hummer and headed to Byodo-In Temple.


The temple is behind Sun and Jin in the screencap above, and it looks exactly the same now. Which is to say that it's still absolutely gorgeous. Below is the gazebo featured in that same episode, "House of the Rising Sun."




It's no longer draped in streamers and party lights, but it remains a charming little spot, don't you agree?

We really enjoyed walking around the grounds -- the peaceful atmosphere helped us to fully calm down from the morning's excitement. But we couldn't rest for very long, because next came The Ranch.


OH, YEAH. THIS IS THE ISLAND.



Kualoa Ranch, where the vast majority of Lost's jungle scenes are shot, is privately-owned land. Thankfully, Kos Tours has been granted a permit for access. I can't tell you how thrilling -- and also a bit spooky -- it was to have the run of this incredible area. No one else was around. I kept expecting Smokey to whomp us at any moment.

But he didn't, and therefore I was able to get my nerd on and reenact several particularly memorable scenes from seasons past. I started with the infamous climb up the hill (from the pilot episode), where Shannon finally translates Danielle's ominous transmission.



No signal for me, either.


If you've watched the DVD extras, you're aware of how the effects team is able to enhance the appearance of every location using CGI and other tricks. Greens become greener, mountains slightly shift position, shrubbery appears, trees disappear... you'll see some of the subtle differences between the real locations and how they look in the show throughout the rest of this post.

But there is one area that looks pretty much exactly as it did on screen... Who can forget "the first, and hopefully last Island Open"?



Guess what? Hurley's still there!



After some faux golf, I made my husband act like Goodwin on the logs where the infamous Other and Ana Lucia grew increasingly agitated before finally coming to blows.




Don't worry, I didn't impale my husband with a stick after our little scuffle.

Jeff and I then chilled for a bit at the site of the Jack and Ben Season Three Finale Showdown, aka The Place Where Bet Gets His Ass Kicked. Yes, the same logs are still there.





In retrospect, this probably wasn't the most romantic spot for my husband and I to pose, huh?



Perhaps the most fun we had all day was when Jeff recreated Hurley and Charlie's downhill Dharma Van joy ride for us in the Hummer. I wish I would've taken a video as we bumped along -- it was hilarious.





Interestingly enough, the area where Hurley did donuts at the bottom of the hill after he and Charlie realized that they were still alive was filmed in a different location a little further down the dirt road, still on the ranch. Rest assured that Jeff took us for a spin in that area, too.


SINISTER SPOTS

No visit to Kualoa Ranch would be complete without stopping by The Tempest! Once a World War II bunker and now home to a small movie museum, The Tempest didn't look quite as foreboding as it did in "The Other Woman."





And you know I made my husband reenact the Jack/Juliet ("Jacket") kiss!





That's right, folks... you can go INSIDE of The Tempest, because it's back to being a movie museum, hence the stuff on the walls. Alas, Faraday and Charlotte are long gone.

One place I didn't like visiting was the Skeleton Pit... the very spot where Ben shot Locke and left him for dead, thereby causing me to lose five years off of my life. It's all filled in now, but you can still see its outline in the grass.






TO THE BEACH(ES)!

If you ever visit Oahu and are interested in taking the Kos Tour of Lost filming locations, know that -- with the exception of St. Andrew's Priory and Byodo-In Temple -- all of the spots I've included pictures of above are covered in their five-hour tour (and a subset are in the two-hour tour if you're pressed for time). Since my husband and I booked a private ride around the island, we saw a combination of sites from the five-hour itinerary and the full-day "Circle Island" tour, which is made up of a completely separate group of Lostorific places outside of Kualoa Ranch.

One of those stops is where the ill-fated drug plane perched from a cliff...


... Or did it?

Below is what the area really looks like. Jeff said that during filming of Locke and Boone's scenes with the plane, the parking lot was covered with greenery to make it look like the jungle floor, and the plane was only a matter of a few feet above the ground. All hail the power of special effects!


The plane now rests, along with a ton of Oceanic 815 wreckage (I do believe that's one of the huge engines under the tarp), inside of a gated area near a small airfield. All of the suitcases and other random debris from the crash site are piled up in this spot, too -- it's really bizarre.



I've never felt any love for the Others, but if you keep arguing that maybe they're just "misunderstood," then perhaps you would've enjoyed our quick stop in New Otherton (aka "the Barracks"), which serves as a camp for children when Ben's not around.




I turned back shortly after this shot was taken -- it was too creepy!

What was not nearly as creepy was making our way across slippery rocks to the "Survivor's Beach" -- the location where all of the beach camp scenes have been shot.



Jeff told us that just three days earlier, Sawyer's tent was in clear view, but it had been moved by the time we got there. As you can see from the picture below, the beach itself doesn't have anything on it. The set pieces are in a woody spot to the left (out of frame), behind a taped-off area that's guarded by a security officer.


It was incredibly surreal to see all of the makeshift shelters used by the Lostaways -- I kept expecting Vincent to run out from one of the tents! (This one might be worth clicking to enlarge...)



Next, my husband and I attempted to reenact the scene where Kate and Sawyer return from their fun-filled stay in cages on the secret neighboring island. I think we look even more exhausted than they did, don't you?





Last up was the place where it all began... the site of the Oceanic 815 crash. Before visiting Oahu, I had always figured that the crash beach and the camp beach would be one in the same, but they're actually nowhere near each other.

At the end of the crash beach, a very recognizable tree stands proudly...



Thankfully, no zombies were spotted while we were there.

The crash site is literally right off of a paved highway (not a major highway, but still), so I can't lie and say that it was easy to picture the 815 wreckage strewn all over the place -- it wasn't. The sandy beach was significantly smaller than I had imagined it would be, and it's obviously heavily CGI'd for the show. However, Jeff was pretty sure he knew exactly where Locke had chosen to sit during the pilot episode. Therefore, I of course had to take a moment of silence and meditate there myself!




ALL'S WELL THAT BEGINS AND ENDS WELL

It had been a long, productive visit to The Island. We climbed back in the Hummer -- a little sweaty, a little sandy, and with more than a few rocks in our shoes, but I don't think I need to tell you that our day trip to Oahu couldn't have been any better. Not only did we actually run into an episode shoot and get a chance to talk with the man, the myth, the legend behind my favorite character, but we also covered the entire island and visited countless locations from the past four seasons. A big thanks once again to everyone at Kos Tours for the great experience and memories!


After ten or so hours together, Jeff returned us to the airport and we said our goodbyes. As my husband and I headed into the terminal and shot one last glance back at the big yellow Hummer, our fearless guide rolled down the window and shouted with all his might,

"LONG... LIVE... LOCKE!!!"

It was the perfect ending to a perfect day.

- e