EPISODE 303: "FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS"

S3E3 (303): FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS
Air Date: October 18, 2006 (originally scheduled for Oct. 11)

Official ABC pre-air summary:
“The fates of Locke, Eko and Desmond are revealed after the implosion of the hatch, while Hurley returns to the beach camp to tell the tale of what happened when he, Jack, Kate and Sawyer encountered “The Others.””

Note: While the phrase “further instructions” does not appear in any of the Orientation Films, nor does appear in this episode, it occurs to me that after viewing each film and this episode we are left with the impression that the Dharma initiates and the survivors are also left awaiting “further instructions.”

Episode Re-cap:

This episode of Lost begins with the familiar opening of an eye. This time it is that of John Locke who finds himself disorientated and injured and lying on his back in the jungle. John cannot talk and evidently Desmond has had his clothes knocked off by the implosion. Eko’s Jesus stick falls out of the trees at John’s feet. John makes his way to the beach, tears his tent apart and builds a sweat lodge at the site of Eko’s church so that he can “talk to the island.”

Flashback
Locke is driving down Highway 36 in rural northern California when he stops to pick up a hitchhiker. He is stopped by the police and when questioned says he has guns and groceries in the back of his van. When the policeman finds that all the guns are legal he allows John to leave. The hitchhiker, Eddie, lies to the cop to ingratiate himself to Locke.

Inside the sweat lodge Locke takes drugs and begins his internal adventure. He is soon met by his spiritual guide who appears in the guise of Boone. He tells John that he was “the sacrifice the island demanded” and that John needs to “bring the family back together.” Their journey begins when Boone tells John that he must get back into the wheelchair. Boone then wheels John through an airport (with obvious Oceanic logos) and tells him “someone here is in danger.” The camera then pans to Charlie, Claire and Aaron in line for airline tickets. Hurley, the gate agent in this dream sequence, is entering the numbers into a computer terminal. Jin and Sun are standing in line with Sayid while Desmond walks by in a pilot’s uniform with three flight attendants. Kate and Sawyer, looking every bit the couple, are in security line as is Jack, who is alone. Ben is the security guard.
Boone tells Locke that “they’ve got him” and that he needs to “clean up his own mess.” Locke is scared from his trance by the face of an angry growling polar bear in the fire.

Charlie follows Locke into the jungle when he tells him he is going to find and save Mr. Eko. Locke is hunting Polar bear…

Flashback
John returns to his commune with Eddie, the hitchhiker, and shows him their sweat lodge and the layout. Locke tells Eddie that they are a commune of hunters and farmers and the sweat lodge is to help determine which you might be.

John and Charlie find a hole where the Swan hatch used to be and John tells Charlie that it was an implosion (see image above.) They come across the active kill (dead boar) of the polar bear and are chased by the bear. Locke panics and throws his knife and sees that it has ended up in Hurley’s canteen. Hurley tells Locke and Charlie about the capture of Kate, Jack and Sawyer.

Flashback
John and Eddie become closer and Eddie questions Locke about the large greenhouse and all the fertilizer going into it. Eddie asks John if he can be involved in whatever it is they are going to blow up. Locke and Charlie find the polar bears warren. John enters the cave armed with a torch, a lighter, his knife and an aerosol can of hair spray. Inside he finds a toy truck and the bones of a body wearing a Dharma t-shirt.

Hurley meets a naked Desmond in the jungle and gives him a tie-die t-shirt.

Flashback
Mike and Jan, the leaders of the commune are in a panic. Their greenhouse full of marihuana is in jeopardy when they find out that Eddie is a member of the Humboldt County Sheriffs Department. John tells Mike and Jan that he can fix the problem.

Inside the cave Locke rescues Mr. Eko when he lights the hair spray and spews it point-blank at the bear. He drags an unconscious Eko from the cave.

While Desmond and Hurley are walking back to the survivor’s beach Desmond tells Hurley that “Locke is going after them” because he “said so in his speech.” When Hurley questions Desmond he says that he was confused.

Flashback
Locke takes Eddie out into the woods hunting and confronts him about being a policeman. John gets the drop on him but cannot kill him. Eddie says that John is no murderer and walks away from him.

An unconscious Mr. Eko tells Locke that he can still protect and save the missing survivors. In the final scene Locke gives a speech about rescuing their friends and Hurley understands that something strange happened to Desmond during the electromagnetic anomaly.

Observations:

1) Desmond foretold the future when he told Hurley about Locke’s speech before it happened. Desmond knew that John would make a speech and he also knew the content of that speech.

2) Mr. Eko tapped into Locke’s past when he told him he was a hunter. He either read Locke’s mind or saw the events of the past, all in a state of unconsciousness.

3) Locke is driving on Highway 36 in rural northern California near Eureka and the license plate number of his truck is 5Q49938. Note: This area was prominent in the Lost ARG tie-in book “Bad Twin.” The characters find themselves in or near Luna, California.

4) Boone has become Locke’s Spiritual Guide as predicted earlier. (In the Lost Greek mythology theory (see link below) Boone fills the role of Cedalion, the young guide of Orion. John Locke represents Orion, the hunter.)

5) Eddie is wearing a Geronimo Jackson “Magna Charta” t-shirt and tells Mike that it belonged to his father. Mike tells Eddie that his father had great taste in music. It seems that the producers and writers want Geronimo Jackson front and center and they do not want the viewers to forget this band. But why?

6) Eddie is Edward F. Coburn, Employee # 84023 and works for the Humboldt County Sherriff Department. (From file taken off the Internet by Jan.)

7) It has been reported that Eddie's eye color changes. We are told that they are blue at the beginning of the episode and brown at the end. We have not been able to confirm this yet.

8) The dead body in the cave is wearing a Pearl Hatch Dharma Initiative t-shirt.

9) The airport scene in which Boone pushes Locke in his wheelchair is an allegory for the current status of the survivors on the island. Consider: Charlie and Claire are together and caring for Aaron. Charlie is clean (and sober) and Claire and Aaron look vital, happy and healthy. Sun and Jin are standing in line waiting and Boone tells Locke that Sayid will take care of them. Hurley as the gate attendant is the message bearer and is waiting to deliver it. Desmond is, as Boone says, only thinking of himself. (Personally I think he is thinking of much more. Does one Penelope equal three flight attendants?) Kate and Sawyer, looking very much a couple, are trapped in the security line together. Jack is being scanned (monitored) by Ben and is in line alone. Mr. Eko’s stick is bloody and Eko is not in the airport, which indicates that he is missing and in trouble. And John Locke once again needs his wheelchair because he has been rendered a cripple (mute). This was a very clever manipulation of scene and plot to reveal to the viewers more information concerning the recent status of the survivors.

10) Locke believes that the island is an entity that can both reason and communicate. His internal cerebral walkabout in the sweat lodge was done only to accomplish communication with the island. And the island responded! In the fire as John comes out of his trance he is frightened by the growling image of a polar bear telling him the exact nature of Eko’s trouble.

11) We can assume that there are probably many more wild animals running around the jungle. The bear cage in which Sawyer is being kept obviously contained more than one bear and there are many empty cages at the Hydra Station.

12) Why did Locke pick the site of Mr. Eko’s church to build his sweat lodge? You would think that Eko would probably not be too happy about that but if you consider that this location was a spiritual place for Eko then it all makes sense. Communicating with the island and being linked to Eko was exactly what Locke was trying to accomplish.

13) The dream / trance sequence that Boone takes John through is just that; a dream sequence. It is not, in my opinion, a flash-forward to the future.

14) The Swan Hatch appears to have been completely destroyed. An overhead shot of it shows that it imploded; all that is left is a very large crater. (see image above)

15) Charlie says, “I’ve heard trees are great conversationalists.” This may be a veiled reference to his role in “The Lord of the Rings”, where his character, Merry, talks to the living trees known as Ents.

16) Our first view of Desmond in the jungle reveals that he is naked. In many movies and books depicting time travel, the traveler sometimes arrives sans clothes. This could explain why his clothing is gone and why he knows that Locke is going to make a speech.

The Questions:

1) Why do so many episodes of Lost begin with the opening of an eye? This is a great scene device and very creative but I have often wondered if there was a deeper meaning. Since the eye is the world’s portal to the mind I presume that it may have something to do with mind control or psychological manipulation.

2) How did John know that he could “talk to the island?” There was no threat of failure in Locke’s mind when he began his odyssey to communicate with the island. What made him so sure that he could accomplish this task? And how did he even know he could?

3) What happened between the time Helen left Locke and his showing up in northern California? And how did he get involved with the marihuana growers in the commune? At first it seemed a bit odd but it makes sense if you consider that John had to make a transition somehow from home inspector to hunter.

4) What did Boone mean when he told John that they needed to “get the family back together?” In what way are the survivors related? By blood? By circumstance? By status?

5) I totally understand what Boone meant when he told John to “clean up his own mess.” But he also said “they’ve got him!” Who had Eko? It looked to me like it was a polar bear but is the bear connected to another group (or entity) on the island? Curiouser and curiouser!

6) Locke finds a toy dump truck in the polar bear cave. Who did this toy belong to?

7) Locke also finds a dead human body wearing a Pearl Hatch t-shirt in the polar bear cave. Who was this person? Could this be one of the Pearl Hatch observers? He obviously was in the cave before the bear was, as the bear did not eat his decomposed body. The skeleton implies that members of the Dharma Initiative fell prey to their own experiments.

8) How did Desmond know that John was going to make a speech? And how did he know the content of that speech? Did he move forward through time during the electromagnetic anomaly? Did he see the future when he was unconscious? Did the island communicate with Desmond too? Hurley asks Desmond if he is going to “Hulk out on me” and thinks that a transformation of some type has occurred. Did Desmond’s proximity to the fail safe and implosion change him internally in some way?

9) Did the island cure Charlie like it did with Locke and Rose? He is obviously clean and sober but we never saw his painful recovery from his addiction. While he acted a bit strange for a while we never saw the physical changes that take place during withdrawal from heroin.

10) If the Hydra Station (where Jack is being held) was a facility that housed sharks and dolphins where are the Dharma dolphins? We’ve seen at least one Dharma shark but no dolphins yet. Later in the series, perhaps?

Bonus Section:

Benjamin Linus
(A.K.A. Henry Gale, A.K.A. Fake Henry Gale, A.K.A. Ben)

Although Benjamin Linus was not in this episode there is a great deal of information concerning him that I wanted to talk about. The information below is what I have gathered so far.

History of the names Benjamin and Linus:

The name Benjamin comes to us from the Hebrew name Binyamin and means “son of the right hand.” Being at the “right hand” of the father was to be favored or exalted or high-ranking. Benjamin was the youngest son of the patriarch Jacob and his wife Rachel and was sold into slavery by his brothers. In the Middle Ages it was often given to sons whose mothers had died in childbirth. After several decades of disuse it came back into great popularity in the 1970’s.

In Greek legend Linus was the son of the god Apollo. Linus is said to be the innovator of melody and rhythm; he was the music teacher of Orpheus, Herakles (Heracles), and Iphikles (Iphicles); during one of the lessons, Linus struck Herakles as punishment for his inattention and the youthful Herakles flew into a rage and beat Linus to death with a chair. The second pope, predecessor to St. Peter, and close friend to the Apostle Paul was St. Linus. His father's name was Herculanus and his feast is celebrated on 23 September.

A word about Benjamin Linus:

Benjamin Linus then is the favored one or at the “right hand” of the father and in very close proximity to those in power. In the Lost lore or mythology the father is most likely Alvar Hanso but may also be an unknown entity. Benjamin then may be second only to Hanso himself (or with the recent changes in leadership at the Hanso Foundation the father here could also refer to Thomas Werner Mittelwerk.) I think it interesting that the name Benjamin came back into popularity during the 70’s when the Dharma Initiative was being developed. This would fall into place with then-current naming patterns. That Herakles beat Linus to death is interesting and you have to wonder which individual on the island might be associated with, or portrayed as, Herakles. That Pope Linus’ feast is celebrated on the 23rd of September then is not surprising but could be a simple coincidence. However, as I’ve said before, there are NO coincidences.

Possible insights to the identity of Benjamin Linus:

* In Greek legend Linus was the son of the god Apollo. (As discussed above) Who then corresponds to Apollo in the Lost mythology?
(For an intelligent overview of possible links between Greek Mythology and the Lost characters see this website: Lost Dogon "Lost")

* Linus is a complete alias and a lie and may be a reference to the Peanuts character Linus van Pelt. In the comic strip, Linus is known for his exceptional intellect, and he acts as the strip's theorist and theologian, often quoting from the Bible.

* The second pope, supposed predecessor to St. Peter and close friend to the Apostle Paul, was St. Linus. His father's name was Herculanus and his feast is celebrated on 23 September.

* Linus was also a notable character mentioned in the second epistle to Timothy, written by Paul of Tarsus: “Do thy diligence to come before winter. Eubulus greeteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren.” (2nd Timothy 4:21). He may be the same individual as St. Linus.

*Benjamin is “Him,” the actual leader of the Others, or at the very least a high-ranking member. If this is true, he was referring to himself when he said his boss was not a very forgiving man! It is obvious that he holds some power. Both Ethan Rom and Goodwin did not hesitate when he ordered them to the crash sites.

*He is a psychologist or psychiatrist for the Others. Or a remnant of the Vik Institute, which escaped the fire in Iceland. (Lost Experience ARG)

*Ben was one of the doctors from the Staff Hatch (medical) from the episode "Maternity Leave".

* He is illustrated in the picture from http://hole3.thehansofoundation.org/ also from the Lost Experience Alternate Reality Game during the summer of 2006.

* Benjamin is Radzinsky. This idea is hard to wrap my head around but others think that it supports the theory that Ben already knew about the Lockdown procedures. Radzinsky is said to have created the Blast Door Map, even with the black light inactivated. But if this is true then Kelvin lied to Desmond about Radzinsky’s death. I find this particular theory highly improbable.

*Ben is familiar with details of the Swan's function and location, because he is familiar with all of the DHARMA initiative stations on the island. After all, he is a lifelong resident of the island!

*Ben was the original moderator of the book club. Based on the conversation and tone surrounding the choice of Stephen King's book for the book club in “A Tale of Two Cities” and who the hosts of that session are. “Ben wouldn’t read this on the toilet!” Adam said, implying that Ben used to pick the works discussed at the book club meetings. This sounds like a falling out between Ben and Juliet.

*Ben is married to or involved with Juliet. She's playing “Downtown” (a song of loneliness) on the CD player when we meet her, absentmindedly baking muffins, and asserting her own book choices. Ben's comment “I guess I'm out of the book club” has the tone of a recent breakup. This is supported by Ben’s comment to Juliet, “you never made soup for me,” after she made soup for Jack.

*He is not “Him,” but simply second-in-command. This notion is supported by the Biblical reference that Benjamin was the brother of Joseph (of the amazing Technicolor dream coat). He was the only brother of the twelve who shared the same mother and father as Joseph, and thus was Jacob's favorite. But then we’d have to ask who and where is Joseph?

* Colleen appeared to be annoyed to find Ben and Juliet talking together when she came to report about the sailboat. This indicates that Juliet may have been in a relationship with Ben and that Colleen may now be involved with Ben.

* Ben could be named for the rat from the Michael Jackson song of the same name. He sure looks mousey to me!

Probable Activities of Benjamin Linus:

* Ben is the puppet master and monitors everything that occurs on the island. That he is the puppet master has a very low probability in my mind but it is confirmed that he is monitoring many places on the island. Puppet master – highly improbably. Monitoring the island – confirmed.

* He was a member of the group that discovered, interrogated, killed and buried the real Henry Gale. No doubt in my mind.

* Ben knew the location of the survivor’s beach camp and the location of the balloon crash. He drew a map from one location to the other, even though he had been injured and unconscious when taken from Rousseau’s trap to the Hatch. Very plausible.

* He lied to Locke about coming for him. Highly probable.

* He intentionally revealed the blast door map to Locke by turning on the black light while in the computer room. This may have been his way of thanking Locke for trusting him. Or, conversely, he did this to lead Locke to the Pearl, which would destroy his faith in the importance of inputting the numbers. Unlikely. Locke viewing the blast door map was an accident.

* He had intimate knowledge of the Lockdown procedure and may have even helped to perpetuate or initiate the magnetic implosion and release at the end of season two. Possible.

* During the lockdown, while alone with the computer, Ben contacted the others to tell them of his capture and may have even initiated the supply drop. As evidence, Ms. Klugh later tells Michael that she knows "one of our people has been captured.” Possible.

* Ben wants another incident to occur; this is why he told Locke that nothing at all happens if the button is not pushed. He does not seem surprised or frightened when the discharge occurs during “Live Together, Die Alone”. Perhaps, he too is seeking a way off the island. Highly probable.

* Ben may have been kept as a prisoner similar to the way that Jack is currently being imprisoned. This could be why he says to Juliet, "You never made me soup." He may have been on the island prior to the Dharma Initiative but I find it highly unlikely that an outsider would become the leader of the Others. Improbable. The “soup” quote may mean they had a relationship of some type. Improbable.