LOST: Xanadu or Satan's Doom?

Okay. Just gotta get this out of the way...

Woo-OW! XANADU!

*deep breath*

Moving on...

Locke wakes up and does breakfast. Kinda reminiscent of Desmond in the Hatch and Juliet in the Village.

Locke: These are the last two eggs.

What does that mean? Eggs that need to be broken to make an omelette? Eggs that can be, or have been, fertilized to grow and be born as babies? Eggs, as in... siblings?

Locke pulls down VALIS from Ben's bookshelf as breakfast reading. Philip K. Dick. I don't think I've read that one, but I think it's one of the paranoid autobiographical ones (altho, which ones aren't, right?). Dick's stuff is often focused on a MATRIX like false surface of a world covering up a sinister, controlling, structure, or machinery that ultimately directs everything and everyone. Will hafta check my shelves for it and give it a read soon.

Locke: You might catch something you missed the second time around.

The writers just love being all meta and clever, no?

I wonder who makes Dharma's coffee mugs. The same company that made the ones in the police department in USUAL SUSPECTS?

* CRAZY IDEA *
Would Jack's dad have been on the manifest as a passenger? Even tho he was, y'know, in a coffin? Could he be one of the Oceanic Six? Who knew that he had died in Sydney? Wasn't the arrangement to get his body and coffin on the plane last minute, secured as Jack checked in at the airport?
* CRAZY IDEA *

Ahhh... "The Trial of Kate Austen." Good, we need to know how she gets to live freely when she gets off the island, instead of thrown in jail for the murder of her abusive jerkass father.

Locke: I just killed a chicken.

He says that to Kate when he answers his front door and she points out that he has blood on his hands. Blood on his hands. Chicken. Last two eggs.

Locke: If I was a dictator, I would just shoot you, and go about my day.

Good of him to clear that up.

Hurley: You just totally Scooby-Doo'd me, didn't you?

Heh. I'm not sure if that's truly a Scooby Doo move, is it? Suckering someone into giving information by pretending that you already know? Still, funny.

Later, Sawyer: If Hugo knows, everybody knows.

Kate: You are not using my son.

Okay. Kirsten mentioned a theory, something I hadn't thought of at all, that Kate's reference in last season's finale to someone she had to get back to (presumably at home), was to a child (and not to the obvious red herring Sawyer). But, whose child? That is, who's the father? Perhaps she had a kid before the island? Hidden/left behind in one of her past lives/identities.

Or... It could be Aaron. Although, that would take some 'splainin, no?

Lawyer Duncan: The defense calls Dr. Jack Shepard to the witness stand.

Jack: Only eight of us survived the crash... She tried to save the other two, but...

Okay. So we get to hear the Oceanic Six cover story! Or at least, part of it. So, eight crawl or swim from the wreckage, Kate responsible for saving them. Nice yarn spinning to turn the federal fugitive into a castaway hero. Pretty clever. Calculated to change her mother's mind and influence her testimony regarding the murder of her father?

Two of the eight die. Must be a reason for those two to have been alive for part of the time. Or maybe just details to make the story richer, more believable?

Meanwhile, back at the frat house...

Hurley: XANADU or SATAN'S DOOM?

Ha, now there's another line that's talking about the show on a meta-level. Fun. And hey, XANADU! So great hearing that music playing somewhere beside my head for once. Gotta look up/for SATAN'S DOOM. * Later. Couldn't find an imdb listing for SATAN'S DOOM. Must've misheard Hurley, eh? S'funny how the two titles (at least as I heard them) sound very similar. Paradise or hell. Not germane to anything going on w the Island, right?

Umm... everyone else heard it, too, right?

What is Sawyer reading? A Penguin Classic, no? Looks like the same design/series of a copy of LOLITA I have. Hrmmm...

And to complete the seduction suite...

Sawyer: I know it's in a box, but it's pretty damn good wine.

As he breaks out some Dharma box-o-wine for himself and Kate. He's a sad romantic, but he's no dummy.

Sawyer: So, at least be woman enough to tell me you want to use me for something.
Kate: I want to use you for something.

Fair nuff. It's good that we can talk like this, no?

Dammit, I wish that Hurley hadn't shut off XANADU in the background. It was so cheezily perfect.

Sawyer works the con on Locke with Kate, but in such a way that only Kate takes a fall. Not a bad plan. And why? To get Miles some alone time with Ben.

Sawyer: I think they're saying "baa!"

Chickent and sheep. Nice. Old John Locke, he had a farm, E-I-E-I-O. The con works. Locke gets suckered into looking over there while Kate takes Miles over here to get his minute w Ben.

Miles: Three point two million dollars.

Disappointingly silly and predictable (if you buy into the development they've given Miles so far). I know he was set up to be a sleazeball, but I really don't want to believe it. So, I'm gonna keepin on hoping that he's making this offer as some kind of code, to get a message to Ben, or maybe because the spirits of the dead on the island have spoken to him and told him things that he hasn't or won't share with others, at least, not yet, and this extortion gambit is something more than what it appears to be on the surface.

He'd "take care of" Charlotte? He's certainly taken advantage of people, but killed people? I dunno. That doesn't quite feel right. Maybe a tragic accidental/necessary/dutiful/righteous/crime of passion homicide? Like the Losties all seem to have racked up.

Miles: Do not treat me like one of them, like I don't know what you can do.

How much does Ben know about Miles? Does his man on the boat know anything about the four rescuers' histories/abilities. Does Ben know that Miles talks to the dead? Maybe Ben and the Others tried to recruit him in the past?

Miles: If I were you, I'd stay right here on the island. Who knows? Maybe you didn't survive the crash.

That pretty much explains the Sawyer option. Perhaps that's the seed of the cover story that the Six have to put together in order for them to leave the island without disturbing the security and secrets of the island and those they must ultimately leave behind.

Funny, when Locke shows up in the girls' cabin, Claire's and Kate's, it suddenly feels very GILLIGAN'S ISLAND. Like the Skipper dropping in on Ginger and Mary Ann, y'know? Funny.

Ayep. Kate's baby is Aaron. So, she returns to the real world as Aaron's mother. Given Aaron's apparent age, and blowing off any possible accelerated aging blah-de-blah, the trial must have happened years after the crash. So... How long were they on the island before they were finally "rescued?" Does AAron live on the island for over a year before being taken to the real world? Desmond's vision had Claire and Aaron getting on a helicopter. How different is the passage of time on the island vs. the outside world? C.S. Lewis. Daniel's rocket test. The chopper carrying Sayid and Desmond...?

So, Aaron's not one of the Oceanic Six. He wasn't on the manifest.

Sad. There's no reason to think that Claire would stay on the island and yet let Aaron leave, right? Well, unless it was for Aaron's sake. Maybe Claire couldn't leave the island and live (like Locke, Ben, and Rose?) but if Aaron stayed on the island, it would be too dangerous for him, or would provide a lame life for a 21st century child. Or something.

So, maybe Claire's alive on the Island, left behind. Maybe she stays because Charlie still "lives" there?

Jack has trouble with the idea of being in the same room with Aaron. That seems unlikely, if there's nothing wrong or strange about Aaron. Claire's freaked out fortune teller knew that her baby had to be born on the Island, safely away from some malevolent influence in the real/outside world, or perhaps for the world to be safe from the child. Hrmm... Damien, anyone? Or Billy Mumy in the TWILIGHT ZONE "It's A Wonderful Life?"

So, Jack has an inkling of a Wrongness w Aaron. Kate, the adoptive mother, sees only the child (that I'm guessing she could never have).

Pilot Jeff Fahey knows every name on the manifest, but Miles says that they only looked up Kate after getting her name from their phone call to the freighter. So, Jeff's there by chance? Or as part of a secondary objective or contingency plan. They weren't looking for Oceanic 815, but they knew that it was a possibility they'd find it, because, hey, they (maybe I should be capitalizing "They?") knew enough to fake the submerged plane and the bodies found by the remote subs, right?

What's going on there at the beach w Daniel and Charlotte? Seems like they're testing Daniel's abilities somehow. His memory? Is he, like, MEMENTO'd? I think Naomi called him the "headcase" in her summup, right? He does seem to forget things, right from the get-go, like the "tell my sister I love her" code. Or, is he supposed to be telepathic/extra sensorily talented? "Reading" the cards, or Charlotte's knowledge of the cards. Seems like maybe his abilities are failing, or unreliable now. Due to the island? Due to lack of some meds or the like that he usually takes?

* BIG PICTURE *
I'm working under the assumption that everyone ends up on the island for a reason, either by fate/luck or design (which latter might be a subset of the former). Those possibilities might also be divided into the plans of the island and the plans of the cartel (aka Widmore, Dr. Shepard, Sr., Paik heavy industries, and such),.

So, are we seeing what the Island needed Kate for? To take the baby Aaron and raise him in the outside world? And what *is* Aaron? In the bible, (how) is he related to Jacob, Ben, and Esau? Anyone else thinking, perhaps, DEMON SEED? Aaron as a vessel for the Island to walk like a man? Or perhaps for Jacob to leave the island and return to the outside world? Aaron IS still the only baby to be born on the island and live, right? That makes him very special.
* BIG PICTURE *

Keep on keepin on~