Hey everyone! Should we LOST? I think we should.

Previously, On LOST: Oceanic 815 crashed don't you know, right on a big old island of mysterious doings. Now the survivors are in contention with the factions already on the island, and the smoke monster (who shall be referred to in this contract as The Party of the First Part, or The Adversary), and the ghosts, and so forth. But what's happened recently is that now there's a boat, which we will call a freighter, and it is parked right offshore of the island, and the intentions of its crew and passengers seem murky AF (As Frank), but trending more toward murder-y than rescue-y. This means that the different on-island factions, once defined by enmity, are starting to seem like one warily unified faction, at least in relation to the interlopers, and that is interesting and fun, at least if you are me. Also there is strong evidence that the island's relationship to normal earth space-time is looser than that of most of islands. Finally, there's a time displaced Scotsman among the islanders; he travelled to the freighter, where he just in the very last episode got himself un-time-displaced, via a masterfully tear-jerking phone call, so that's fun.

Anyway: Murder. It's a-comin'. But not yet.

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O B S E R V A T I O N

The last episode, The Constant, was such a masterpiece that I think the writers decided we (or maybe they) needed a breather. The next few episodes are going to be a lot of table-setting and water-treading and reminders of things we already know but may have forgotten before things get extremely weird and gnarly. They're OK as episodes, I guess; they just don't feature a new puzzle every ten seconds. This sort of pace change is sort of welcome on a binge watch, especially when it doesn't last half a season—I'm looking at you, Season 3. As a result of the lowered story mindfreak density levels, I think we'll burn through three episodes in one installment. Just like old times!

Episode 6: THE OTHER WOMAN (Juliet): This one is about how Goodwin (prominently featured in the Tailie episode) carried on relationship with Juliet, until Ben Linus, who is revealed as a real incel creepoid here, left him in a position where he was likely to be killed by the Tailies, which he eventually was. It's worth noting that this is how we learn definitively, two seasons after the episode aired, what the plan for the Tailies was: Infiltrate, capture the people on the "list," whatever that means, and then leave—except Goodwin never got his "leave" order.

Anyway, Goodwin and Juliet's relationship was a tryst, because Goodwin's wife Harper is the Linus faction's (and therefore Juliet's) psychiatrist, which makes it a tryst with a twist. Ben is sweet on Juliet in his grotesque possessive way (there is a horrifically squirmy failed one-sided attempt at a dinner date), and while Harper hates Juliet for the betrayal of the affair, mostly she's terrified by the danger that "Ben's girl's" involvement with Goodwin means for his chances of staying alive. This fear is ultimately justified; Ben, who has been pretending that he's going to let Juliet return to her life in a year, takes Juliet out to see Goodwin's impaled corpse, and lets her know that she's stuck on the island indefinitely, because, as he says "you're mine." It's all very ugly and—unlike almost all the other stuff Ben does—it's entirely without some sort of interpretable justification, so it represents a moral event horizon, albeit one that is rarely if ever explored again. Harper hints that Ben's desire for Juliet makes sense because Juliet "looks just like her" but who "her" is is and "her" fate (she's not around not) is never revealed, so we're left to assume that it's his childhood friend—and untalented carver of wooden dolls—Annie. But none of this is ever explored again, either, so shrug emoji.

Present day island time. Harper appears to Juliet in ways that are pretty damn Adversary-ial, and leads her (and Jack Of Course) to stammery jittery physicist Daniel Faraday and rather ruthless (she bonks a returning-from-Dharma-barracks Kate on the head) aristocratic archeologist Charlotte Lewis, who have snuck off on a side quest to the Station That Actually Gasses Everyone to Death. I'd say the STAGED is the most obvious hint to date that Dharma's mission wasn't ever as altruistic as it claimed. Anyway, when Faraday parachuted in in episode 1 of this season, his pack had a gas mask in it, which seemed pretty goldang sus to our heroes at that time ... and also at this time.

Harper leads Juliet to believe that Charladay are on a mission to release the gas, but nope, they're on a mission to disable it, which they do after a lot of T-Minus-Whatever-Seconds shenanigans. So ... Harper was lying. Interesting, but never really explored. Also, for those of us who were wondering how Ben gassed the entire Dharma initiative, the STAGED is how. We could ask how a mere Dharma janitor was able to pull this off, especially remotely from a Dharma van atop a hill (it's never explored) but Ben is very resourceful and cunning so I'm willing to take that one as read.

At the end, Juliet expresses her concern for Jack, because she is sweet on Jack now, and that means Ben will kill him. Jack Of Course kisses her and is all "he knows where to find me." This must be more about Jack's desire to defy Ben than about his attraction to Juliet, because this long-budding romance, having finally bloomed, is effectively over forevermore from this very moment, and as far as I remember will never be explored again. Are you sensing a theme?

End of Episode 6.

Episode 7: JI YEON (Sun & Jin): This one is about how Sun needs to get off the island before her pregnancy kills her, which we already knew. She's decided (with good cause) that she doesn't trust the people on the boat, and so decides to join Locke and Co. back at the Dharma barracks. Juliet, who wants to keep Sun from moving out of potential rescue range, snitches on Sun to disrupt this plan, letting Jin know that Sun cheated on Jin, and therefore Jin might not be so much a baby daddy as an interested third party.

Juliet's gambit works, insofar as the Kwons stay on the beach. Jin stalks off to go fishing, and we're led to believe he's abandoned Sun over the betrayal, but nope: He was just taking a moment, understandably enough, during which (with an assist from fellow married dude Bernard) he recognizes that the man he was before is at fault for pushing Sun away. He forgives Sun; Sun reassures him that the baby is his. They reconcile, their love all the stronger for it. It's very lovely.

Meanwhile, on the freighter, things are going badly: more people are succumbing to time sickness, Frank is conscripted by turbo-psycho Keamy and his heavily-armed goons (introduced last episode) to helicopter them to the island, the kitchen is out of everything but lima beans, and somebody is banging on the pipes again and again, prompting Desmond to ask:

Sayid and Desmond finally meet with the ship's captain, name of Gault. There's been a lot of premonitory talk about this guy for the last couple episodes, leading us to expect a real bad-ass monster type, but he's just a bloke, and a fairly decent one at that. Gault informs them that this freighter they are on is Charles Widmore's boat, prompting Desmond to ask:

Let's cut Caption Obvious some slack, though. He's had a long day—it started in the 1990s. Gault claims that Ben Linus, not Charles Widmore, put the fake Oceanic wreckage at the bottom of the ocean. Is this true? Time will tell! (So will I!)

Later Desmond and Sayid meet a deckhand named Kevin Johnson, who is none other than their former friend and traitor, Michael Dawson. Michael gives them the "please don't tattle" eyes, and they play along ... for now.

Meanwhile, the flash-forward establishes that Sun made it off the island (completing the tally of the Oceanic Six—if you're keeping score, it's Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sayid, Aaron, and Sun) and that Jin did not. The show makes Jin's exclusion a sort of bait-and-switch reveal by intercutting a flash-forward wherein Sun gives birth to a daughter (named Ji Yeon per the episode title and Jin's wishes) and a flash-back wherein Jin rushes to the hospital with a gift for a baby. We're led to believe he's racing to be at Sun's side, but nope: This is before the island. He's delivering the gift as a show of respect to a potential business partner of Jin's mob boss/automotive CEO employer/father-in-law.

I've read some who see this as a narrative cheat, but I think it's fairly deft story management. I especially like the ambiguity they were able to build in the previous story work, leaving us to wonder if we already knew about five of the Oceanic 6 or only four—does Aaron count?—and if it's five, then how could both Kwons be included? But we get our answer. Back in the flash forward, Hurley (very sweetly) shows up after the birth to visit Sun and meet the baby, and he and Sun visit ... Jin's grave.

Ruh-roh. Looks like bad times coming for Jin.

End of Episode 7.

Episode 8: MEET KEVIN JOHNSON (Michael): This is a sad (and unfortunately sort of sloppy) episode wherein we learn what Michael has been up to all this time. Michael, if you recall, was last seen in Season 2 rescuing Ben Linus from the Oceanics in order to get his son Walt back from the Others—murdering Tailies Libby and Ana Lucia in the process—and if this sentence makes sense to you, you may just be a Lost-neck.

The bulk of this episode is a flashback that is being told on the freighter by "Kevin Johnson" to an understandably curious Sayid and Desmond. Michael, back in New York and unable to handle the burden of his guilt, eventually confessed his traitorous and murderous actions, unfairly unburdening himself upon his 10-year-old son, Walt. This revelation has further estranged the already rocky relationship of this father and son, which leaves Walt being raised by his grandmother (a tough situation made especially tough because Harold Perrineau has said he sees this as a betrayal by the showrunners of both himself as an actor and Michael as a character), and leaves Michael suicidal and alone—except for Libby, who keeps appearing to him. (Is this her ghost? Is it Michael's conscience? Is it The Adversary? Worth speculating about!)

In his first suicide attempt, Michael drives his car at about 70 miles an hour into a shipping container, which leaves him not dead but badly injured in the hospital for ... exactly one scene. Literally the next scene he is perfectly fine, knocking on his mother's door in a failed attempt to see Walt. (Not sure what to make of this. Is the island healing him? Are we meant to believe a lot of time passed during the cut? Is the show just being lazy and dismissive with a character toward whom it has been habitually lazy and dismissive? I guess it's the first one and the last one, maybe also the middle one. I bet there was a commercial break in there to keep viewers from noticing, and without it, it's pretty jarring.)

Michael's second suicide attempt is by firearm (he pawns the watch Jin gave him back in the day in order to get the gun). This attempt is interrupted by Ben's former lieutenant, Tom Friendly (RIP), the man who kidnapped Walt in the first place and recently met his demise from Sawyer in retribution for that crime. Flashback Tom explains to Michael that The Island won't let him die, and invites him to test the claim with more suicide attempts. Michael does this, and dadgum if Tom isn't right. Tom also tells Michael about the freighter, and the danger its mission poses to all of the friends Michael feels he abandoned. Tom claims that it was Charles Widmore, not Ben Linus, who put the fake Oceanic wreckage at the bottom of the ocean, which proves his ruthlessness. Is this true? Time will tell! (So will I!)

The appeal to his friends—and the desire to complete whatever work is needed for "The Island" to allow him to die—is enough to recruit Michael as a saboteur on the freighter. We get some flashbacks of Michael interacting with various members of the freighter crew before he gets down to his mission, which it turns out is setting off a big old bomb. He steels himself to the task—he even ignores ghost/Adversary Libby, who appears out of nowhere to warn him not to do it—and then pushes the button.

Except the bomb's a fake—cartoon gag flag and everything. Later, Ben manages to call the freighter asking for Michael, and I have to say the radio operator passes along the call with a surprisingly low level of suspicion for what is supposed to be a top-secret mission. Ben and tells Michael that the ruse was necessary to prove to Michael that he, Ben, is a good guy, in contrast to Widmore. Ben then tells Michael that Michael can consider himself "one of the good guys"—a callback to Ben's chilling line to Michael at the end of Season 2. From there we know the rest. Michael has been sabotaging the boat, and opening doors etc. to help Sayid and Desmond. Michael informs the two that "I came here to die."

Sayid isn't having it. He strongarms Michael to Captain Gault and turns him in.

Meanwhile, back at the Dharma barracks, Ben Linus has been spending the last few episodes doing what a Ben Linus does—worming his way from a position of no influence to a position of great influence using nothing but his words and his ability to perceive the weaknesses of others. He's used his knowledge of what's happening (and Locke's relative lack of knowledge and his insecurity about that lack) in order to position himself as Locke's consigliore, and get himself out of the lockup and installed in one of the Dharma houses.

Most significantly this episode, Ben secretly sends his adopted/kidnapped Alex away to the Jacobian temple, which he says may be the only safe place left on the island. He sends Rousseau (mother) and Karl (boyfriend) with her for protection. On the way, these three stop for water, and with little fanfare or warning Karl is shot and killed by gunfire from an unseen source. Damn. RIP Karl.

Rousseau tells Alex she loves her very much, and the two get ready to run. They've barely stood before Rousseau is shot and killed. Damn. RIP Rousseau. Widmore's killers have arrived.

Trying to save herself, Alex screams that she is the daughter of the man she knows they've come to retrieve—Ben Linus.

End of Episode 8.

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B E L I E F

Like I said at the start of this entry, these three episodes parcel out the buried backstory at a mercifully slower clip than we've grown accustomed to. What I've got is mostly marginal stuff and confirmations of things previously guessed. But all the same let's Observe and Believe.

1) The List. Ben tells Juliet, who is rather understandably concerned that the organization to which she belongs has taken to abducting children (the two Oceanic 815 Tail Section Moppets), that they were on Jacob's list. We've heard about these lists before, but these lists aren't ever really going to be a thing. A very long time from now, we'll learn that Jacob actually does have a list—it's a list of candidates to replace him as island protector—but we'll also learn that it is quite impossible for Ben to have received any lists from Jacob, since Ben has never received anything from Jacob but silence. So I'll just state my belief here and now that all the overheard hints about "Jacob's Lists" are Ben lying to justify whatever it is he sees necessary to his goals and desires. The Tail Section Moppets weren't on a list; they are children and the Jacobians on the island can't have children, and it's just that simple. I believe Ben has been given a very dim understanding from The Adversary that Jacob has a list, which he uses to convince his people to perform dastardly deeds.

P.S.: I saw Tail Section Moppets play Alpine Valley in 1994. They were great.

2) Who Is Harper? What's the deal with present-day Harper? She tells Juliet she's come on Ben's behalf, but we never see how or when Ben would have set this meeting up. She appears out of nowhere (during some ghost whispers no less) and disappears out of nowhere, which is classic Adversary behavior, but The Adversary only appears in the guise of people who have died, and Juliet doesn't seem surprised in the way you would if you were seeing a ghost, and if she knows about The Adversary's ability to manifest this way (which I doubt), she probably wouldn't do It's bidding. Either way, Harper or "Harper" pretty clearly want Juliet to kill Faraday and Charlotte before they complete their mission, so ...

3) Let's look at that mission. I believe we can piece it together now. The idea is to send Keamy and his unit to kill, if not everyone, then at least whoever they feel needs killing in order to secure Ben Linus. However, Widmore knows very well that Ben has a gas-everybody option—the STAGED—and knows how to use it, so he sent Naomi to disable it before sending in the soldiers. Unfortunately, Naomi was injured in her arrival, then killed, then killed again, so the rest of her team—Faraday and Charlotte and Miles, oh my—were sent in to find out what had happened to her, and to finish her mission if they needed to. Which they did, and now the extraction/murder force have arrived.

Whoever Harper was, she was trying to prevent the gas from being turned off. I believe it was The Adversary (tie goes to the ghost whispers), but it makes sense either way. Ben would obviously want to keep the ability to gas everyone. The Adversary's intentions here would be murkier, because I believe Its Plan A does involve Widmore's mercenaries coming to the island and doing what they do, but I think It's also in favor of keeping the option to gas everyone as part of Its general anti-humanity position. Speaking of that ...

4) An immune response. I'd never picked up on it before, but Juliet tells Ben that the island seems to be triggering an immune response in pregnant women, which treats the infant as a sickness. I believe this is a very neat explanation for the mystery of terminal pregnancies on the island, in that it fits very nicely with the fact that the island does heal people, and we've had evidence that The Adversary does control this to some degree. I believe that the cause goes something like: The Adversary, who hates it when people come to the island, has always wanted to use the island's healing to prevent new births, and, apparently after humans set off a nuclear device in the heart of the island, The Island permitted it. That's the story that fits, and that's all the story we're going to gits—when it comes to terminal pregnancy, anyway. (I saw Terminal Pregnancy play Alpine in 1994. They were great.)

5) Who staged the fake Oceanic? Ben claims it was Widmore, as proof of Widmore's ruthlessness and desire to exploit the island. Widmore claims it was Ben, as proof of Ben's ruthlessness and desire to exploit the island. And they are both extremely ruthless and they are both perfectly willing to exploit the island. I guess we'll never know. Nah, I'm kidding, it was Widmore. He'll confess as much in some future episode. In truth, Ben is making the more likely claim, if only because Flashback Tom presents a lot of evidence and Widmore's proxy Captain Gault presents a black box from fake Oceanic that we never hear and never comes up again. All this business serves as decent circumstantial evidence for my belief that both of these men are in the thrall of The Adversary, and both of them have been told that they are Jacob's chosen island protector, which makes both of them feel entitled to be as ruthless and exploitative as they want, or at least as ruthless and exploitative as The Adversary wants them to be. We'll have more direct evidence of this by and by. (I saw Jacob's Chosen Island Protectors play Alpine Valley in 1994, they were great.)

6) Flashback Tom. Tom Friendly's off-island visit to Michael is our second best evidence that, contra his claims, Ben could still get people on and off the island after the sky turned purple, aka after Desmond activated the failsafe. Our first best evidence is that immediately after that event, Ben gave Michael a bearing off the island, and Michael got off the island. So Ben was lying about that, although it's possible that the submarine was no longer the best method. Hooray for logic!

7) The temple. I've mentioned it many times, but this is the first direct reference to a little-seen but important island location: The Jacobian Temple. Here we learn that Ben knows about it but most of his team doesn't. These are hints that serve as the evidence for my tenuous (but unfalsified) belief that 1) The Temple is one of the secret places of the island (like the lighthouse, the cabin, and the cave) that can only be found when The Adversary or The Island (or Jacob) wills it, and 2) that Ben, while aware of the Temple, and afforded certain deference and recognition as a leader by Richard for reasons I'll speculate about some other time, is still viewed by the old guard Jacobians—the Temple Jacobians—as an outsider, and his recruits even more so. From the perspective of Temple Jacobians, I think it's possible that there's not much perceived difference between the Oceanic survivors and the people that we spent Seasons 1-2 calling "The Others." To a Temple Jacobian, both are recent interlopers.

8) Appearance of Libby. This makes the 2nd appearance (I think) of an island-type manifestation of a person we know to be dead. Perhaps this is just a ghost of the real Libby, consistent with what I believe Charlie's appearance to Hurley to have been. But Michael isn't sensitive to spiritual manifestation in the same way that Hurley or Miles have been shown to be, and "Libby's" manifestation on the ship is attended by whispers, which to me suggests The Adversary. There are more examples coming, and I'll be speculating them at length in the future—maybe at great length. For now, I want to note this as further evidence for my belief that the spiritual influence of The Island and probably The Adversary extends far past the physical boundary of the island itself, which leads to some very interesting potential conclusions of what exactly it might mean when we eventually learn that The Adversary wants more than anything to leave the island.

9) Thoughts about Michael. No speculation about buried mythology, just my belief that it's a real bummer that they couldn't do any better for Michael and Walt than this. There was a lot of potential there, and what's happening feels more like tying off a loose end without giving it too much more thought. I guess it's nice to get Harold Perrineau another few paychecks, but this is sort of slapdash and weird, and I don't love it. Michael will be back again one last time after this story arc, and while his contribution will be far shorter, I believe it will be a much more impactful one, and much better integrated into the important parts of the mystery. So that's nice, even if it's not enough.

10) Thoughts about Rousseau. This was the first real shocking death we've had in a while. Charlie's, while sad, had been telegraphed for the whole season. Eko's was hugely disappointing but might have been considered shocking if you aren't aware of the Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje's unhappiness with the production.

Rousseau, on the other hand, has been on hand since Episode 1 (her voice is on the recording that prompts the famous closing line "guys, where are we?"), and her quest for her kidnapped daughter has been simmering in the background ever since. Now it's been summarily cut short, in a way that, at least for me upon first watch, really had an impact. I believe the show's creators may have already planned a satisfying conclusion to this tertiary family drama, but even if not, they will eventually arrive at one, but for now this was a big moment that does an able job of raising the stakes, heightening the tension, and preparing us for the shape of things to come.

A character who has survived an awful lot has just stopped surviving. (Also Karl.) She won't be the last.

L O S T

Next Time: Shit Gets Real

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A.R. Moxon is the author of the novel The Revisionaries, and the essay collection Very Fine People, which are available in most of the usual places, and some of the unusual places. You can get his books right here for example. He is also co-writer of Sugar Maple, a musical fiction podcast from Osiris Media which goes in your ears. He is what space smells like.