• The book that Hurley digs up from the detritus of the beach camp is Fyodor Dostoevsky “Notes from the Underground,” or as it’s sometimes translated, “Letters from the Underworld” (!).

The Underground Man as portrayed by Dostoevsky significantly resembles Walker Percy’s character of Lancelot in some respects. Lancelot should be familiar to you all from that novel’s multiple appearances on the show. (I discussed Lancelot at some length HERE). The choice of this particular book at this particular time is significant for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that “Notes from Underground” was a considerable inspiration to Jean Paul Sartre and is widely considered to be the first “Existential” novel.

I’ve been discussing Existentialism and that philosophy’s relation to Lost since the beginning of my Rewatch Columns. If you’d like to get a hit of my insanity you can click HERE, HERE, HERE, or HERE, for starters.

• One of the more fascinating points that the Underground Man makes in “Notes” has to do with free will – a subject that Lost has been batting around like a kitten for as long as it’s been headed toward a final destination. Destoyevsky’s narrator observes that if you tell a person what they will do, or how they will/should act, the act of telling them what is “right” will cause them to consciously do what is wrong in order to prove that he is able to exercise his own will. That description so perfectly sums up Jack that it’s a little scary, and it also serves as a potential philosophical justification for Jacob’s policy of minimal interference. To escape determinism, Doestoyevsky writes, a man will intentionally go mad. And what is it that we see Hurley essentially do tonight? He begins to share the “delusion” of a person who’s committed herself in a mental health institute.

• Notes from the Underground also concerns itself with the idea of Utopia – another subject that Lost has subtextually and thematically been circling and underlining for at least four seasons. The Underground Man who narrates the novel talks about the impossibility of Utopia, about man’s love for building things without gaining a finished product from it, and about our innate dissatisfaction – if humanity were presented with perfection there would not be anything left for humanity to do. Our free will, in other words, demands that we destroy Utopia so as to preserve our free will.

• Is that Ilana’s bag o’ Jacob-ash that Hurley finds? Or are they the black and white backgammon pieces from Locke’s old board? I swear I hear clicking as Hurley’s opening it, but since it was in with Ilana’s things, I’m assuming that its ash.

• Desmond goes to Hurley first in his efforts to “awaken” the Oceanic castaways. Notice how much like Jacob he is as he shows up just to give Hurley a nudge in the right direction, staying to watch but pointedly not interfering. Walker Percy’s Lancelot isn’t the only Knight gallivanting around in this episode.

• Desmond has order # 42 when he visits Hurley at Mr. Cluck’s. Spooky Numbers! Also, hey, the guy working behind the counter is Samm Levine of Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared, Inglorious Basterds, and Club Dread fame.

• Sayid’s brought Desmond back and strung him up against a tree, which answers any lingering questions I had last week about whether Sayid was showing mercy in approaching Desmond. Anti-Locke seems disturbed by him (check out Terry O’Quinn’s face when he asks Desmond if he knows who he is – it’s something close to amazement), and with some arguable justification. Our favorite Scot has a peculiar unflappability about him – a kind of “It’s time to look death in the face and say ‘whatever, man!’” aura about him. It’s as though he’s fascinated by everything now – a hallmark of the Absurd man, a concept I talked about in the column for Dr. Linus. I’ll be talking more about this just a little further down.

Ben: “Kinda makes you think, doesn’t it.”
Jack: “What’s that?”
Ben: “Ilana. There she was, hand-picked by Jacob, trained to come and protect you “Candidates”….No sooner does she tell you who you are then she blows up. The Island was done with her. Makes me wonder what’s going to happen when it’s done with us.”

• That’s a great exchange – one that reminds us again of the idea that “the Island” itself remains a character in the narrative’s final episodes. Is the Island sentient, ala Solaris? Is it “just” an Island, which has been mythologized? Is it a symbol for the Gnostic conception of an “Ultimate God”?

• I was correct in my speculation that the dynamite in the Black Rock would be used to destroy Hanso’s sailing vessel, but incorrect in theorizing that there would be anything beneath it. We did, however, visit another Hatch-like place tonight. More on this below.

Hurley: “Michael. He’s one of the people who come back and yell at me after they die.”

• Hurley and Miles have a chat about Hurley’s visions o’ the dead, and again we’re left wondering about the ghosts we’ve seen on the Island. Whose agenda are they serving? By following Michael’s advice, Hurley and Company are delivered straight to Anti-Locke, which is exactly what the Man in Black seems to want. Is Michael’s sole goal to escape the Island? Is it to help his former friends? Is he really Michael at all?

Dr. Jellyfish: “She has issues with reality.”

• Clearly. Is this why Libby ended up in the Institution back in Season 2? Had she experienced a similar breakdown in reality to what we see and hear about in this episode? That’s one option. I’d also previously suggested that she might have voluntarily committed herself following the death of her husband.

• I love that Hurley lays out $100 Grand in order to get in and see Libby at the Santa Rosa facility, and then learns that she’s voluntarily committed herself. Dr. I-Was-A-Jellyfish-In-The-X-Men-Movie (aka Bruce Davison, a solid character actor) conveniently forgot to mention that little fact before Hugo cut him a check.

• In this “universe,” Leonard isn’t the one playing Connect 4. And since Hurley was apparently never a patient at Santa Rosa in the off-Island universe, he presumably never learned the Numbers from Leonard. Speaking of universes, of potential “Quantum Worlds” and “alternate realities; In the Rewatch Column for Confirmed Dead, I wrote the following:

“Once time-travel was revealed to be an aspect of this show I thought that it might explain Miles’ ghost-whispering powers. Maybe, I thought, he’s hearing/seeing past echoes of people’s lives. He’s not so much “talking” to them as he’s “reading” their pasts and, if I’m recalling things correctly, Miles will eventually (sort of) explain his ability in this way. Miles’ encounter with the ‘ghost’ in this scene throws me for a bit of a loop, though. The ‘ghost’ physically moves a book – implying that there’s an actual presence of some kind in the room with him. Still, that doesn’t mean that this presence isn’t also a kind of “past echo.” It’s also possible that Miles is seeing things on a kind of quantum level; that he’s interacting not with the dead, but with potential versions of people from different quantum universes who have lived more-or-less the same lives, but with differing details. There’s scientific support for the idea of “many worlds,” and one of the things that’s so interesting to me about the notion of many worlds is how close the belief in the concept can come to some forms of religious belief.

As described in that last linked article, quantum physics is both scientific and spiritual, a combination that seems like the perfect fit for a show like Lost. We know the show is interested in quantum physics, we’ve seen that the Island seems to sit (figuratively, and perhaps literally) at what could be described as the center of time and space. And we know that the materials released for this year’s comic con have hinted at the possibility of the many-worlds theory playing a part in the show’s final season.

Just when I’m about to roll my eyes at myself over all this theorizing, the show provides us with what may be a solid bit of evidence for the applicability of the many-worlds theory to Lost. It shows us some picture frames.

Notice that the show makes a point of showing us the picture frames on the wall of the grandmothers home two separate times – once as Miles is going up to the grandson’s room, and once after he’s come back down. Notice that the frames on the wall change significantly between scenes, but that the centrally-featured photograph (one that looks remarkably like Eko as a child) remains the same. Practically-speaking, the prop department would have had to have switched out all of the initial frames, then replaced the original pictures, for each scene. This could be a complete coincidence/accident related to the shooting schedule. But the practical realities of dressing the set make coincidence and accident unlikely. Here is the wall in both scenes for comparison:

Weird, right? If a production error isn’t to blame, then there’s a reason behind the changing of these photographs. One reason: Miles went up the stairs in one quantum world and came down again in another, only-slightly-different quantum world.”

• I think that the above speculation suddenly makes a lot of potential sense, given what we’re learning in this season.

• Notice that the chalkboard drawing that pops up here in this episode is intriguely similar to the drawing that hung in the background of Hurley and Abaddon’s visitation scene during the Season 4 episode “The Beginning of the End,” but that the former is in color while the latter was in black and white:


(The Beginning of the End)


(Everybody Loves Hugo)

• And notice what’s changed. First, there’s what looks like a giant Pac-Man (!…?) in the lower-left corner, swallowing a butterfly/moth – shades of the Man in Black swallowing up “choice”/”struggle” (as symbolized by the Moth) in his attempt to leave the Island? Notice also the Crocodile – the Egyptian god Ammit was known as the Devourer of Souls, and would rise up from the deep in order to swallow the souls/hearts of people who’d been weighed on the “scales of justice” and had been found wanting.

Desmond: “There’s nothing special about me, brother. This Island has it in for all of us.”
Anti-Locke: “Yes it does.”

• Another fascinating Island-centric line. Desmond’s comment makes the Island sound ominous indeed, but I suspect that it’s not truly as spooky as it sounds. In fact, I think you can argue that Life itself arguably “has it in for all of us.” After all, Life is as unpredictable as the Island. People like Ilana die every day, for no apparent “purpose.” Death also has it in for each of us. Neither Life nor Death can arguably be said to be “good” or “evil.”

• As Locke leads Desmond to another well – one that I don’t think we’ve seen before – another of the Island’s Lost Boys makes an appearance. This is not the same boy that’s previously appeared to Anti-Locke. This one has dark hair, just like the Man in Black is shown to have in his “real” form. Can we assume, then, that this was a vision of the Man in Black as a boy?

• And notice that Desmond can see this kid – something that not everyone can do. Even more interesting: Anti-Locke doesn’t seem surprised by this the way that he’s surprised by Sawyer’s ability to do so.

• Notice also that this particular young boy is smiling. Is this meant to suggest that he wants the Man in Black to be doing what he’s doing? Because the Man in Black seems upset to see him? Or is it just meant to be eerie (because it totally is)?

• Richard gets more and more interesting as the show hurtles toward its conclusion. I like how snippy he is in this scene. And I really like the way in which he and Ben come to a kind of partial reconciliation through Hurley’s actions. It’s going to be fun to watch those two interact again.

• Hurley pretends that he’s talking to Jacob in order to get Richard to jump on-board his plan (such as it is). That underlines for us all of the times where characters have claimed that “Jacob” told them to do something, and further highlights the manipulative-priests aspect of the Others. How often have Ben or Richard’s claims about Jacob’s authority been bluffs? A lot, I’d say, seeing as how Richard explicitly states that “Jacob isn’t telling us what to do because Jacob never tells us what to do.”

• Also interesting: Richard again claims that “everything” is over if the Man in Black leaves. Once again there’s no further explanation. One reason for this: Lost’s writers are continuing their Grand Frustrating Tradition of never just telling us what’s going on. Another reason: Richard doesn’t actually know what’s going to happen if the MiB leaves, he just knows that it’s supposed to be bad. Does anyone really know what the end-result of Anti-Locke’s escape will be? Widmore seems to, but his words have arguably been pretty vague as well.

• The splintering of “Jacob’s” group results in two distinct groups – Richard, Ben and Miles head off to grab explosives from Dharmaville in an attempt to destroy the Ajira plane, while Jack, Sun, Frank and Hurley decide to go and talk to Anti-Locke, putting their faith in Hurley. This split promises to yield some great scenes in the near future, as Widmore’s sworn Island enemy and his former Island advisor prepare to converge on Hydra Island.

• Jack decides to go with Hurley, and with that decision I’m more confident that they’re doing what they’re “supposed” to do. The question is, should they do what they’re “supposed” to do? Or should they refuse, like Richard, Ben and Miles? What’s the right decision? Circling back to free will again for a minute, and back to “Notes from the Underground,” you can argue that we’re watching Dostoevsky’s words in action. Hurley’s claimed to know what the ‘right’ thing to do is, and Richard, Ben and Miles decide that they’re going to do something else. It’s an expression of their will, and if Hurley IS correct, it’s an illustration of how being told what’s “right” will propel some folks to do what’s “wrong” (those two words being entirely subjective here).

STILL MORE LOVE AFTER THE PAGE BREAK!