It seems almost too obvious now that the Lost island is, in one way or another, the Egyptian underworld. In the latest episode we get two big clues that would point us in this direction. But before I get in to that there were many, many more points that were interesting. This episode quickly puts us into the Dharma storyline as a truce is broken and Sawyer's group is taken into Dharma custody. As with many Lost episodes it starts by putting us in an undisclosed time and place. We learn that it's the mid-seventies and Dharma is in full effect. Horace, who is one of the leaders of Dharma on the island, is drunk and blowing up dynamite out near the sonic fence. It's because of this that we meet LaFleur, the head of Dharma security, who is actually Sawyer...So Sawyer conned his way in to a management position within Dharma? Apparently so. After Locke's turning of the donkey wheel, Sawyer, Juliet, Jin, Miles and Faraday all jump to the nineteen seventies where they end up shooting two of Alpert's people. The Others had killed Paul, a Dharma member who was out on a picnic, and were taking his wife prisoner. Sawyer and Juliet kill the two men and Amy, Paul's wife, says that they have to bury the bodies before someone learns that the truce has been broken.
The Truce
My guess here is that the truce was an agreement between Alpert and the Dharma folks which allowed Dharma limited reign over certain parts of the island (ie where the hatches were built). We know from previous episodes that Alpert's people have killed U.S. Military forces in the fifties so why didn't the same thing happen to Dharma? It must have something to do with Dharma's backers, either the DeGroots or Hanso. If either were on good terms with Alpert or were acting in some kind of common interest, perhaps the Others then thought it was worth allowing them to live on the island. Perhaps Hanso, like Widmore, was exiled from the island and is trying to get back. We know from the auction scene in The Constant, that the Hanso family was in possession of the ledger of the First Mate on the Black Rock. Widmore buy the ledger at auction from Tovard Hanso... Does the ledger contain information on the island? Probably, but it's unlikely that there is enough there to get anyone from the real world to the island. It's an interesting piece of ephemera though.Sawyer and his group are taken back to the barracks after Amy stuns them with the sonic fence. Horace meets Sawyer, who is said to be the captain of the boat which stranded them on the island. Horace is told that the boat is a salvage vessel that was looking for the wreck of the Black Rock, when asked if he'd ever heard of it - Horace says no (it's possible he's telling the truth, but three years later we see him wandering around in the dark with dynamite from the Black Rock so at some point he became pretty familiar with the boat and it's location). Sawyer says his name is LaFleur and he needs to keep looking for the rest of his crew. Horace tells Sawyer that only members of the Dharma Initiative are allowed to stay on the island and there is a submarine leaving for Tahiti that everyone will be put on. Sawyer meets back up with Juliet and the others when Faraday notices a red headed girl running around the compound. We know this is Charlotte and at some point she and Faraday meet and he tells her never to return to the island. Shortly after we see Charlotte the sirens begin to sound and everyone heads inside to grab rifles and wait for the intruders.
Richard Alpert emerges and Horace goes out to meet him. Alpert knows that two of his men have been killed and demands answers. Sawyer leaves the safety of the house and tell Horace he'll explain things to Richard. Sawyer introduces himself as a castaway and convinces Alpert that he isn't a member of Dharma by telling him that he knows about Locke showing up twenty years earlier and asking if the Others buried Jughead. Alpert buys Sawyer's explanation but says that his people still need to see a sign of good faith if the truce is to be respected. Aplert's price? Paul's body... an odd request now, but later events may shed some light.
The Four-toed Statue
Amy, Paul's wife, agrees to relinquish the body because she knows Paul would want to protect Dharma. Before Paul is packed up for Alpert, Amy takes the necklace from Paul's neck... it's an ankh. Seems a little out of place really. Why would a Dharma member wear an Egyptian symbol of eternal life? Whatever his reasons, it didn't work out too well for him... at least that's how it seems. We assume Alpert takes Paul's body back to his people, but we really don't know why... The ankh isn't the only symbol of importance that shows up in this episode. Before Locke sends Sawyer to 1974 we are treated to our first glimpse of the four-toed statue in all of it's glory. It seems to be a gigantic Colossus-sized stone statue of an Egyptian deity. We only see the statue from the back, but it seems to be Horus or Anubis. Both have animal heads and are always depicted with an ankh in their hand, and you can see in the brief shot of the statue that it does have something in it's right hand. So what if this is a giant Egyptian statue, what's that mean for the overarching mythology of the island? Well, a statue that size isn't something that folks would build just anywhere... and being a statue of Anubis or Horus has importance as well. Both seem to indicate that the builders of the statue thought the island was a place of great importance. The Egyptian symbolism would lead us to believe that this was some sort of underworld. After all, Anthony Cooper was pretty convinced he was in hell when he was on the island... maybe he isn't too far off.I don't think the island is literally hell, or the underworld. But it does have characteristics that would hint it is a place where bad people go to have bad things happen to them. I'm sure there is more to it, after all if the Dharma folks in the seventies weren't able to determine that they were in hell, how would the Egyptians have gotten it right? Can't wait to learn more about this part of the island's past.
Namaste
This episode ends with Jin calling Sawyer to tell him that Jack, Kate and Hurley are been found. The final scene is Sawyer meeting Jin on the shore of the island and we see Jack, Kate and Hurley exit the Dharma van. The arrival of even more Losties in the seventies will surely cause a problem given the kind of resistance Horace had to letting Sawyer's group stay for even a few extra days. I think the Jack and the others will be welcomed in to Dharma as new recruits. Here is why, we know that the submarine is leaving the island for Tahiti a day or so after the events in LaFleur. Presumably it isn't returning empty since this is a scheduled trip. I think the sub is going to pick up new Dharma recruits at a rendezvous point in Tahiti and then bring them back to the island, where they will enlisted sort of like what we saw in The Man Behind the Curtain with Ben and his dad. I would think that Dharma already knows the names and details of their recruits so how is it that Jack, Kate and Hurley will sneak into the recruitment group? If people on 316 made a point of not recognizing Locke certain someone on the sub would notice three new recruits cut in line... right? We'll have to wait and see.Lost is off for a week so I'll be making a hiatus post in lieu of an episode next week. Stay tuned for theories covering the second half of season five.