Let's Face It, Ewoks Suck - 5x13: "Some Like It Hoth"

If it's not one thing...
I finally had a chance, for the first time in several weeks, to post my initial reaction to last night's episode, "Some Like It Hoth," right after it was over - but no, my internet service was out until 6am this morning. So anyways, here it is now. Enjoy!

Oh man, oh man, oh man - I LOVED this episode!

Now, maybe it's true that I say that after every episode of LOST, but this one really stood out. I literally laughed, literally clapped, literally cheered, literally yelled, "Whaaaaa???" and almost literally cried. What more could you ask for? There was mythology, an excellent character focus (and on a character I've been dying to know about for so long now, which made it even better), mystery, comedy, emotional moments... In some ways this was all over the place (for me, at least, as you can see) - I remember remarking at one point, "Wow, that's dark," and then laughed out loud in the very next scene. I can't say that happens very often. Overall, in its own LOST way, I'd say this was a funny episode, but obviously it had many points of levity as well.
Here are my initial thoughts on a really fun episode, in no particular order.

Hurley writing The Empire Strikes Back "with a few changes." This is the epitome of Hurley. I thought at first that he was just writing some Star Wars fan fiction, but he was seriously writing his own version of Episode V to send to George Lucas in 1977 so they could avoid Ewoks. He was writing a version where Luke and his father Anakin/Darth Vader talk things out instead of fighting. Just classic. And before Hurley mentions that he's changing the story, I sincerely thought that the writers might actually, by the end of LOST, have Hurley end up writing Empire, that he would actually successfully get it to George Lucas and have him make it. How fun would that be? But I love the way the writers took it instead - much more entertaining and meaningful. A perfect fit for the father-son theme of Miles's back (and current) story.
By the way, if you're not a Star Wars fan, the title of tonight's episode is a Star Wars reference. Hoth is the setting for much of The Empire Strikes Back, the second of the original Star Wars trilogy of films. It may also be a reference to the classic Marilyn Monroe/Jack Lemmon/Tony Curtis comedy "Some Like It Hot," which is easily one of the best movies ever made, but I didn't see any cross-dressing in tonight's episode, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's not what they were going for with the title.

Faraday returns as a scientist from Ann Arbor - which means he's deep in the DI; he was working at their home base! The Dharma Initiative is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at the University of Michigan, so there's a good chance that he went there and worked with the DeGroots themselves. Which must mean that Faraday had at least a hand in developing the station. Which means that we saw him in the Orchid in the Season 5 premiere sometime before 1977. Just something else I can't wait to see (and I hope they show!).

What's with the lame story Juliet and Kate told Roger Linus about where Ben is - someone just came in when they weren't watching and took him? And then Juliet says something to Kate like, "Okay, here we go..."? Is this some sort of plot? Is Juliet trying to start something? But what? I thought maybe she wants him to think the Hostiles snuck in and took him, which would explain why he is with them now, but wouldn't there have been a "14J" code announced? I can't quite figure that scene out.

Miles's story is so touching to me. Maybe it was the relaxing beverage I'm having, but I got genuinely choked up when he was watching his father read to his baby self. (A book about polar bears no less. Polar bears made a comeback this episode: the book Dr. Chang was reading to baby Miles, and the Dr.'s threat to make Hurley shovel polar bear poop as a punishment for talking about the dead body exchange.) But for him to think of his father as having basically abandoned him and his mother for his entire life, and then to see with his own eyes that it wasn't true at all - wow. And great job by Ken Leung - did you see his body language as he walked over to take a peek inside his parents' house? He was walking like a nervous child. It was subtle but effective.
There is something else that is interesting about the timing of all of this, though. If you saw the video that was shown at last summer's Comic-Con, where Pierre Chang reveals his real name and warns whoever the video is meant for that they need to reconstitute the Dharma Initiative to try to stop the Purge, a baby is crying in the background, and Chang tells someone to get the baby out of the room. We can safely assume that the baby is indeed Miles, which means that Chang made the video not too long after 1977. We also know that the Swan orientation video was copyrighted 1980 or 1981, so that places the Purge as happening between 1977 and 1980/81. It's coming...
The scene with Miles watching his father read to him as a baby also shows that being in the same place as your past or future self will NOT rip a hole in the space-time continuum, Back to the Future-style. This should put to rest a lot of speculation that has been going on all season among LOST fans.

What was with the dead body being brought to the Orchid, anyway?

What in the world is Sawyer going to do with a knocked out, tied up Phil? Blame it on the Hostiles? But how satisfying was it to see Phil get punched in the face? He's had it coming for at least three episodes now...

Ancient Egyptian, Middle Egyptian and another category: the three things that were written on the Dharma schoolhouse chalkboard before Jack erased it. There were also hieroglyphics.

The Swan being built! The Orchid being built! The guy who had his cavity shoot through his brain must have been from the Swan and its special electromagnetic properties. But I thought for sure that the Swan was built before the Orchid. Obviously we know now that they were built simultaneously now. Does that mean that they are connected? Is this a hint about the Swan's original purpose? Is this a clue about what's behind the hastily-made concrete wall in the Swan? I never cease to be fascinated by the stations and the DI.

"What lies in the shadow of the statue?"
This is one of those "Riddle of the Sphinx" puzzles, I know it. I teach the Sphinx riddle to my 6th graders in our mythology unit, and it goes something like this: What has four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs at night? (I will only answer people who comment on the blog asking for the answer.) This smacks of a question with a simple, "why didn't I think of that?" answer. Well, my initial guess would be "darkness." But they're never that easy. How about "nothing"? Nothing would grow in the shadow without sunlight. Hmm...something that lies, like lying on the ground, or telling lies? Anything that wants to stay cool would lie in the shadow. Who or what would tell lies in a shadow? Maybe the statue is a symbol for something else, much like the parts of the Sphinx riddle are symbolic (there's a hint for you).
Maybe it's much more literal - what is in the statue's shadow on the island? Is there another hatch door on the ground?
Or maybe it's all meaningless. It's just some bizarre code that "someone" came up with that has no real, good answer. It's just meant to see if you're in on...whatever they're all in on.

Alright, enough already - who are these "what lies in the shadow of the statue" van people? Who are Ilana and Brahm working for? I still maintain (you'll read this in my recaps for the last few episodes, which I am just about finished with) that they are the new DI. They are the reconstituted Dharma. The popular choice is that they are working for Widmore, which I get, but even tonight, Brahm said that Widmore was the "wrong team." And when Miles asks him what team they are on, Brahm says, "the team that is going to win." What? Stop speaking in riddles, you tool! Are they a new generation of Ben people? Are they aligned with one of our Losties, who is sending them from the future to go back and change what we're seeing in the present? (Did that just make sense?) I'm wondering if that might be the next step for the writers: to bring the future into the story.
Whaddya think?

That's what stuck with me tonight. What did you all think?