The Little Prince

   The fourth episode of Lost's fifth season was titled The Little Prince and was, for the most part, a Kate episode. Kate's story usually isn't that interesting to me and this wasn't really all that different. I was a little intrigued by the mysterious party who wants to take Aaron away, but it wasn't all that interesting to me. What I did like about this episode though is the introduction of Ajira Airlines into the mix at an unknown period of time on the island. My favorite moment was the "rescue" of Jin by Rousseau's shipwrecked crew. The next few episodes will be great if we stay in the current time period.

    I don't have a whole lot to say about the off-island events in this episode. The best part of the Oceanic Six storyline this week was the double fake out involving Claire's mother. We're lead to believe that Carol Littleton is after Aaron but once Jack confronts her we find out that she doesn't know who Aaron is and it must be Sun or Ben who are behind the lawsuit. Finding out that it was Ben after all was kind of a let down, I don't see how having Ben sic lawyers on Kate would get her to sign on to go back to the island. Wouldn't she rather just go back to her happy life with Aaron in her big house? She didn't seem to happy with Ben at the dock and hopefully it'll take more than Jack giving a speech to convince her to return. Sun wasn't happy with with Ben either and it's likely that Ben's leverage over her will turn out to be proof of Jin's well being. If she knows Jin is still on the island would she be willing to give up on whatever plans she has with Widmore to drop everything and go back to the island? Keep in mind that there is only 70 or so hours to get back to the island and Sun's kid is in Seoul...

    Meanwhile on the island we catch back up with Locke and the group right where the events in Jughead left off. We find out that they're running around on the island about two or three months in the past, we see Kate deliver Aaron and the light from the hatch. After a quick flash everyone reached the beach camp which is in disorder and the zodiac raft is gone. There are, however, two new boats on the shore, both of which are outriggers. The last time we saw an outrigger it belonged to Karl, could these be part of the Others' fleet? Sawyer finds a water bottle in one of the boats with a label on it.

Ajira

    The label on the water bottle says Ajira and has some Hindi characters on it. Juliet is familiar with Ajira and says that it's an airline based in India that flies globally. Could Ajira be the airline that the Oceanic Six take to get back to the island? It seems like a coincidence that they return to the island by being in a second plane crash, but with less than three days to get back there wouldn't be time to charter a boat and make it to the middle of the South Pacific. If this is the case, it'd mean that Locke and the others have flashed forward about three years (roughly to the present time just after the events at the dock in Los Angeles.

    I think the outriggers may have been the means to get the Oceanic Six from one side of the island to the other. Perhaps they crashed near the barracks or the Pala ferry or another location under the control of Alpert and the Others. Alpert told Locke that he needed to bring the Oceanic Six back to the island, so if they suddenly show up then Alpert would probably be willing to help them get back to their beach camp by providing them with boats. This doesn't really explain why the beach camp is deserted when Locke arrives. It's possible that the Oceanic Six and the other Losties then decided to try and leave the island again. This would probably be bad news to Ben and/or Alpert who might send an outrigger of Others after Locke, Sawyer, Juliet, etc when they start rowing out to sea.

Does anybody speak French?

    After another flash saves Locke's group from the pursuing outrigger, they come ashore to find wreckage on the beach. It seems to be wreckage from Rousseau's boat, which would put Locke's group back in 1988. Which would be a couple years before the purge and shortly before the birth of Alex. This is interesting for a couple of reasons, it means that Dharma is still in full effect... but Rousseau's group won't know that, at least not if she was telling the truth to Sayid about never seeing anyone on the island. This seems to be a less than airtight alibi though since she's already run in to Jin, who she knows wasn't on her boat. Jin was found at sea though so it's likely she wasn't too literal when talking to Sayid. We know that Montand, in Rousseau's party, loses his arm at some point on the island and if we never see any of the others there are really only two explanations. Either he loses it at the hands of one of the Frenchies or the island takes it. It's possible that he gets shot by one of Rousseau's people and the arm is amputated but the way Rousseau spoke about Montand's arm it sounded more like it was a turning point. Something along the lines of 'After Montand lost his arm, things were never the same.' Which is why I think his arm was either the first victim of "the sickness" or ripped off by the smoke monster. The latter sounds so much cooler.

    Rousseau didn't really elaborate on how the other members of her group met their demise, other than saying the got the sickness or she killed them... or both. I'm hoping that at least one of the party members gets snatched up by the Others like what happened to Cindy in season two. We haven't seen any French Others before though so that isn't something that would be a shocking reveal. I'm betting the smoke monster eats a couple and then Rousseau shoots the others.

   I don't really see how Jin fits in to all of this though, if he survives along with Rousseau then surely she'd remember him 16 years later, so he must run away or disappear in a flash. If this is the case it'll have to be after the bulk of her story is told... perhaps he flashes away just before she pulls the trigger on him. No matter what happens I can't wait to see it unfold.