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NOTE: This week’s episode’s recap was written by Hobotrashcan’s Joel Murphy instead of Chris Kirkman, which can be read here.

“Recon” Analysis by Chris Kirkman

So, AlterniSawyer gets to play LaFleur in real life. Huh. That’s a neat twist. I think that it only strengthens the quantum loop/string entanglement theme that I’ve been spouting off about forever. This turned out to be a really fun episode that took a look at what would happen if Sawyer had chosen to get his revenge through the side of good rather than outlandish selfishness.

Moving onto analysis, there’s not a ton of concrete theory to latch onto from this episode, but I have a few tidbits rolling around in the ol’ noggin. Let’s get to it, shall we?

BLOWING SMOKE
MIB mentions to Sawyer that he had to do what a smoke monster has to do and killed the Temple Others because it’s kill or be killed, and that he doesn’t want to be killed. In the sub, Sawyer says that he could walk MIB right over to Widmore so he could kill him. They’re setting up sonic pulse beacons, like those in the jungle, that we know can damage Ol’ Smokey. And you can bet that whatever is behind those locked doors is something really special for MIB. All of this equals that MIB can be killed and Widmore has the know-how and the technology to do it. The question is – what’s the correct formula to take him down?

This all relates to the powers that MIB has in his different forms. Obviously, if he’s in human form he can do whatever Locke could do – fistfights, gunfights, etc. He’s also apparently impervious to harm from normal weaponry, if Sayid’s dagger is any indication. There has been speculation that hearing MIB’s voice before death makes it impossible for the bearer of a weapon to defeat him, but we don’t know that for certain. As Ol’ Smokey, he is very powerful, able to traverse great distances, toss people around like rag dolls and generally create a real mess. However, we also know that in his smoke form, MIB is susceptible to the soundwaves since we’ve seen him turned back by the sonic fence in season three. He’s also apparently susceptible to the special ash that Jacob’s followers tote around.

I’m still not fully convinced it was the sonic fence that sent Ol’ Smokey packing. It was probably just our beautiful, badass Juliet.

The sonic fences are an interesting point to come back to, if only for the sole reason of comparing that with the theory that MIB’s voice has power of some sort to render his attackers powerless. Both forms of attack and defense have to do with sound. Ol’ Smokey is also particularly loud when he’s tear-assing around the jungles and temples, spreading that rickety cricket and battle horn whenever he’s about to attack. It will be interesting to see how the sonic fence comes into play with MIB. Can they harm him when he is in human form? Can anything really harm him when he’s in human form? Perhaps that’s part of the limitations he has as a humanoid – he gains near-invulnerability, but at the sake of true killing power. As Ol’ Smokey, he can kick the crap out of multiple hostiles, acting out his own Ali-like Rumble in the Jungle, but he can seemingly be trapped, wrangled and possibly destroyed by the power of the sonic beacons.

FROM DADDY ISSUES TO MOMMY ISSUES
So let’s talk about MIB’s sob story about his mother, as told to Kate. He seemed to get real choked up about his mommy, which is a very different theme than among the Oceanic set. Most of them have daddy issues, which leads me to believe that this generation of “candidates” drawn to the Island may have been drawn there because they would be susceptible to coercion by two powerful, fatherly figures. On the flip side of that, it’s interesting to note that no mother was able to bear a child on the Island after the Incident until Claire and Sun arrived. Sun and Kate could both be candidates and have become strong motherly figures in the list. Could this be a part of the cycle of the Island? We all know it needs balance, and for the Island to seek out mothers to take the place of the fathers so that the next generation could have mommy issues like MIB and, possibly, Jacob seems to make some sense.

Another aspect of MIB’s tale of motherly woe comes from some of the speculations as to his true origins. Last season, we talked a bit about the Egyptian mythology that goes hand in hand with the Statue and the hieroglyphs. I and many others have tied MIB with the Egyptian gods of Set and Anubis, both of which have some real heavy-duty mommy issues. In some myths, Set actually tore himself from his mother’s womb and was a general badass and pain ever since that day. Set pretty much cemented his reputation as a wild and crazy god throughout all his stories, even poking out his nemesis Horus’s eye because Horus ripped his balls off. Oh, and it just so happens that Set could turn into things, like a bull who tried to impregnate his sister-in-law. Those Egyptians had to be smoking something out in the desert, let me tell you. Total pun intended.

And then there’s Anubis. This guy’s parentage is so screwed up, most scholars and Egyptologists can’t even agree who his real mommy and daddy are. Chances are his mom was Nephthys who generally whored around quite a bit, pretending to be her sister and sleeping with her sibling’s man while she wasn’t looking. This resulted in the birth of the bastard Anubis, whom she never really claimed as her own. Now that would be enough to give anybody some mommy issues.

There are many tales of mommy dearests throughout history and mythology, but unfortunately I don’t have time to dissect 10,000 years of mythical accounts, so if any of you have an inside line to an ancient Joan Crawford, leave a message and we’ll all genuflect at your awesomeness and speculate endlessly for the next couple of weeks.

THE RANDOM BITS
Who really killed the remaining Ajira survivors? Was it MIB or was it Widmore and his goons? We may never know, but it’s obvious that the powers behind the show want us to keep guessing as to both adversaries’ intentions until the very end.

Is it just me, or would anyone else just go “aw shucks” at MIB’s charming grin and decide to take the short bus to Crazytown with Sayid and Claire? Terry O’Quinn is burning up the scenes, and he makes it so easy for us to like and, inevitably, trust him and his morally-ambiguous smoking man. This is the best Locke has been in quite awhile, and it’s not even Locke!

Sawyer makes one helluva good double agent. I’m eager to see on which side of the toast he’s placed his butter.

Lessee … Watership Down, A Wrinkle in Time, and Lancelot. Yep, that looks like Sawyer’s reading list, alright.

How in the world did Kate manage to run as long as she did before she got on that plane if she managed to get caught so much? I mean, she’s back in LA X running again, and she manages to get captured by Sawyer in the span of about two weeks. Wouldn’t she have gotten the heck out of Dodge while she still could? What’s in LA X that she would need to stick around for? It can’t be just for Claire – she’s hunting clues of some sort. Is AlterniKate really innocent and she’s acting out the Fugitive, looking for her one-armed man?

Why is AlterniSawyer such a bad liar? I mean, he can sniff out liars pretty well, but he’s caught almost immediately in a lie by Miles. Is it because he now has a conscience and can only take his lies and cons so far?

Hey, girl … you’re looking pretty good when you’re not bleeding from your eyeballs and muttering about your mum denying you chocolate before bedtime.

On Island Prime, Charlotte’s quest was to find the Island because she grew up there and had been looking for it ever since. Obviously, she’s still an archeologist and probably grew up on the Island, just as Ben did. Is she still looking for the Island? Does her search into AlterniSawyer’s past point toward a connection that may play out toward the end, drawing both of them toward the Island again? I feel as though many of the principles and quite a few of the secondary characters are still on paths that might lead them to a choice at the end of the series – something that was discussed at length in Hobo Radio 116: Going Ben Linus on Your Hatch – namely that the series might end similar to Quantum Leap, with everyone having a choice whether to choose to keep leaping or not. The circumstances and situation may differ than just boarding Oceanic 815 as in the Island Prime timeline, but there will still be choices that lead the characters inexorably toward a binding fate, a quantum entanglement with each other and with the Island itself.

And that about wraps it up for me this week. My apologies for having to rely on the main Hobo, Joel Murphy, to carry the brunt of this week’s article, but prior engagements – along with a pretty lady and some beer – just had to take precedence. I promise to be back next week with a full column’s worth of snarky ramblings that will make your eyes cross. Until then, keep thinking those good thoughts and if you have an epiphany, tell me something good.

Namaste.

Related posts:

1. “LaFleur” Recap & Analysis by Chris Kirkman
2. When The Man Comes Around: “Sundown” Recap & Analysis by Chris Kirkman
3. The X Factor – LOST 6.01/6.02 Analysis by Chris Kirkman