S6E4 - The Lighthouse

You know, as long as I’ve been recapping, I don’t think I’ve ever done one in honor of the numbers themselves. This season, and in this episode especially, we’re learning a little bit more about the numbers and what they might mean.

4 – Locke
Okay, so Locke doesn’t show up until the very end and it’s actually Fake Locke on top of that, but whoa did it clarify some things for me. First off, Claire is in fact a bit off her rocker. Too bad. I was really hoping the others were wrong and she’d just “gone all Rousseau” after three years of living on her own, but alas, she’s a full-fledged citizen of Crazy Town, population 3. That includes Claire, her “dad”, and her “friend”. I once thought that the Man In Black/Smoke Monster might have posed as her dad to trick her into joining the others or whatever. Now, I’m not so sure. She seemed to refer to them as two distinct people. And also, I remember now that last year, Christian appeared to Sun in one of the wrecked Dharma shacks. That was at the same time that (who we know now as) Fake Locke was kicking it with Ben. We also know based on Ilana’s comment about Jacob’s enemy that he is “stuck” now that he’s assumed Locke’s image, so that seems to indicate Fake Locke and Ghost Christian are not one and the same.

8 – Reyes
Of course this goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. Any Hurley-heavy episode (no pun or offense intended) is hilarious, and this one did not disappoint. First, his excuse for roaming around the temple was great. “You know, I’m a fan of temples, history, Indiana Jones stuff.” Then he accuses Jacob of making him “lie to a samurai.” His attempt to get Jack to come with him was also quite amusing. “Act cool, wait ten seconds, then follow me.” Not to mention him walking through the jungle, trying to discreetly read his arm the entire trip. One thing I found interesting was his insistence that Kate couldn’t come. “She’s not invited,” he said. I wonder if he said that just because Jacob only mentioned bringing Jack along, or if Jacob specifically said they’d meet, but she couldn’t come with them. Again, that brings up the question of why didn’t Kate make the candidate list? Surely there’s a reason besides the fact the writers only had six numbers to choose from. Afterwards was another hilarious Hurley comment, “Sorry for wrecking your game with Kate.” Fast forward to the end after Jack smashes the lighthouse mirrors and Jacob confesses to Hurley that he had to get them as far away from the temple as he could because “someone bad” is coming to the temple. Ooooooooh!

15 – Ford
No Sawyer in this episode, but I do kind of wonder where he is. Last time we saw him he was hanging with Fake Locke so what gives? Is he waiting just outside of Claire’s makeshift hut? Or did Fake Locke leave him in that cave, claiming he had to run a quick errand, then went all smokey and traveled halfway across the island at the speed of evil? Whatever, just curious.

16 – Jarrah
Sayid was in this episode, but only briefly when he wondered allowed to Jack why everyone was watching him. Jack kind of puts it out there that they think he’s infected, though he fails to mention it’s an “evil” infection. Needless to say, now that we know a bit more of what’s happened to Claire, I’m a little worried for our favorite ex-torture specialist.

23 – Shephard
So, in the alternate timeline, Jack’s a dad! Again, you’ve gotta wonder how an island blowing up when you weren’t even in your tweens yet (I’ll spare you the time-travel math lesson) could alter your life so much that you wind up fathering a child. This is similar to Locke’s alternate life where he’s still with Helen and presumably has an okay relationship with his dad. Will these altered courses in life be explained? It seems too complicated to show flashbacks of their flashsideways, but surely we’ll get something, even if it’s just Eloise Hawking drawing something on a chalkboard. I also wonder if Jack’s baby momma is Sarah, his ex-wife from the reality we know. They seemed to purposefully leave that a mystery and maybe it’s no big secret, but still curious. Wouldn’t it be crazy if it was Ana Lucia or Libby something? Anyway, he actually seems to be a decent father who just wants to be a part of his son’s life. Definitely not overbearing like his own father was when he was young. A touching alternative life which so far seems to be going pretty well compared to reality “A”. The two significant things from his what-if were the discovery of his half-sister Claire, which could potentially put them in contact on a future flashsideways, and the chance meeting with none other than Dogen (the temple leader dude).

42 – Kwon
Man is Jin over his head. I was hopeful about Claire at first. She helped him out of the trap and was clearly distrustful of the others, can’t blame her there. He passes out and wakes up in her shanty where he discovers she’s been rocking pieced-together animal remains in an old cradle. If that doesn’t poor about a gallon of ick juice on what was otherwise a potentially friendly reunion, I don’t know what would. He wisely lays back down when she returns with the other named Justin who tries to convince Jin that they both need to escape. Jin doesn’t trust him and again, can’t blame him, but you can tell he’s already doubting the sanity of his old friend. Claire obviously thinks the others took her baby and even though Jin tells “the truth”, she still winds up giving Justin the axe, literally. Of course then Jin backpedals and says he was lying to try to save the man’s life and that yes, the others do in fact have Aaron and he would take her to the temple where they are keeping him. I didn’t quite get why he lied about lying. Did he think she’d kill him too if she knew the truth? Maybe. And especially after she said point blank that she’d kill Kate if that were true. Of course I would have pointed out to Claire that she was the one who up and abandoned Aaron so someone had to take care of him… but maybe after three years of wilderness survival with no one but two kind-of-dead people to keep her company and not to mention after she just sharpened her axe and murdered someone in cold blood… maybe that’s not the best time to remind her of that.

108 – ?
The final big reveal is in the lighthouse, itself. Jacob says it needs to be oriented to 108 degrees in order to help someone find the island. And once we get there, we see that there are names associated with every degree. My first question would be, does that mean there was at some point 360 potential candidates? And the immediate second question, who is 108? Of course, it could have all been an elaborate ruse to show Jack that he and his friends were being observed for a long time. Jacob indicated as much. But there is obviously a person (or persons?) associated with that number. Two interesting notes. First off, 108 is all of the candidate numbers added together. Also, it is the exact minute-intervals that Desmond had to push the button while in the hatch. So, my two theories are that either all candidates from the alternate reality need to find the island (thus 108 would represent them all)… or that 108 represents Desmond, who surely we have not seen the last of. If anything, he would want to find the island (Ben, specifically) to avenge the attempted murder of his baby momma. Busted mirrors or not, if I were Jack or Hurley, the first thing I would have done once I realized people’s names were etched on the degree markers would be to see who was written next to 108. Come on people, you’re killing me…

Thoughts? Theories?