Ok, so tonight’ s episode answered a lot of questions while only posing a few. Isn’t that a change from the past? First, the alternate world was all about Jack this time. Jack is trying to find his Dad’s body and come closer to his son, David, which was out of nowhere, but really he is still searching for who he is. I’m just going to run through things in the show in the order they appeared and add my thoughts to that moment. Jack notices an appendix scar, which we know Juliet removed on the island. His Mom says it was removed when he was 7 or 8 years old. Christian wanted to take it out himself but wasn’t allowed, same as Jack on the island. The introduction of Jack having a son, David, is really throwing me. I can’t quite figure what this balances with on the island. David plays the piano like frickin Beethoven and he didn’t even know. I have a sneaking suspicion that we might see Daniel Faraday come in as David’s piano teacher, which is so exciting to me.

I am starting to think this alternate world with the sideways flash might be showing us a world where Jacob had never come into their lives and touched each one of them. It goes back much further than the date of the crash now. He obviously had a longer relationship with Sarah and had a child, even though the marriage might not have lasted. We know from last week that John Locke in this world has a good relationship with his father, because they talked about inviting him to the wedding. So, it still seems like a Utopia and that this would be a much better world, but we may start seeing that change after a bit, I’m not sure.

Jack picks up a book that David is reading, the second half of Alice in Wonderland: Through the Looking Glass. The book, however, just says Annotations of Alice. So, this is very interesting. In the story of Alice and the Looking Glass, she goes back into this world, but doesn’t remember being there the first time. She has to play a game of chess against the queen and win to go home, this is also symbolizing Alice fully growing up and finding who she is. Well, Jack is trying to do that very thing. Let me make one more point before I tie it all together. The pilot episode, John Locke is on the beach playing backgammon and Walt comes up and asks what the game is about. He goes on to say it is a game of good verses evil, one light side, and one dark side. I am paraphrasing of course. This would directly reference to all of the symbolism with black and white. Jacob and MiB, the black and white stones in the cave, etc. There was also a reference made by Jack about the Alice book where he said, you always liked me to tell you about Kitty and Snow Drop, before David interrupts. These are the names of black and white cats which were the offspring of Alice’s cat Dina from the first story. So, Jack is Alice in this alternate world. This is now the second time around and he shows the scars from another life, the appendix scar, but doesn’t remember any of it. Also, if he is to be the candidate for Jacob, he too, will be thrust into this giant game of backgammon on the island.

On the island this episode, it seems that Hugo has assumed the role of leader at the temple, although I don’t know how long that will last. Jacob shows up to give Hugo a bunch of directions for getting to the lighthouse with Jack. It is only to bring Jack to the lighthouse, which is a symbol of him searching for himself on the island. The lighthouse does look like the temple though, which makes me think exactly what Jack says, “how have we never seen this” and Hugo goes and says the most philisophical thing yet, “I guess we weren’t looking for it.” So now that Jack is on this journey of self discovery with Hugo as a guide, he is seeking the lighthouse and there it is. They pass the caves they used to live in and trek through familiar ground to get there and Hugo makes an interesting, and plausible idea when they go in the caves. He sees “Adam and Eve” the two skeletons discovered there, one male and one female, judging by the hip size from Jack, and he says, what if we time travelled to the dinosaur age and die there and now we are here and this is us? I am paraphrasing again. This brings up the ever looming paradox of the entire show. The questions of did they prevent the incident, or cause it? The ol’ who came first, the chicken or the egg question. This is going to play in to the show big time, I’m sure. I had forgotten about Adam and Eve and I’m sure the writers had already figured who they were before they were even laid there.

Hugo and Jack climb to the top of the lighthouse to discover a wheel with numbers and names on it. Many names crossed out, just like the cave. This has got to be Jacob’s spot and the cave was actually MiB/Locke’s cave in the first place. There are much more legible names this time. Kwon, Ford, Jarrah and Shephard are spotted again, as well as some new names: 120- Rodriguez, 20-Rousseau, 117-Linus all crossed out and, finally, 51-Austen! not crossed out. This comes back to the game of backgammon. The main rule of backgammon is to move all your checkers into your own “home” board and then bear them off. The first player to bear off all of their checkers wins the game. So, in reference to MiB saying he “just wants to go home” last week, this is him trying to win the game. He has to bring all of his pieces with him to leave the board/island. Jacob may be trying to do the same thing since he did say, “it can only end once, anything before that is just progress.” The mirror in the lighthouse, although practical in it’s time and useful for Jacob to spy, may have also served as another reference to the Alice story and this was Jack looking through at his home and where he wants to ultimately go.

Claire is running amok in the jungle as the new Rousseau, killing off the Others and moving from spot to spot searching for her baby being ape-shit crazy. She helps Jin out of a jam and kills a man. Funny thing she says is, “if there’s one thing on this island that will kill you, it’s infection.” Funny because people at the temple think she and Sayid are infected. We discover that she has been talking to her Dad, Christian, and her friend, which turns out to be Locke. Only she says,” that’s not John, that’s my friend.” After Jin takes back his statement that Kate took Aaron and says Aaron is at the temple, they make plans to go there together. Jacob says later that someone bad is coming to the temple, it is Claire and this other form of Locke. Next week is going to be awesome. I have run myself dry spitting out all of these theories and would love some feedback. Until next week…

I give Lighthouse 5 “backgammon boards” out of 5

by Angela Davis