LOST Kassicast Season 5: Episode 5 “This Place is Death” RECAP

Ok all, so I thought this episode was really good- closed some loose ends, opened some others and had some really good character development. We didn’t get to see much of the Oceanic 6 last night- but we got enough of them- and I was happy with the amount of time my TV stayed on the island.

Jin’s Alive?
We start at the Marina. Ben’s really running into trouble with the Oceanic 6. Jack is really the only one who’s on board with going back to the Island. We see Sun, sitting watching from afar, when she gets a call from back home. Sun tells her mother she’ll be back tomorrow and tells Ji Yeon that she’s got a new friend for her- from America. Strange! So, was she thinking about taking away both Kate and Aaron or just stealing Aaron?? What’s up with that?

Sun walks up to the group on the pier while Kate and Ben are arguing. She tells Kate to move and tells Ben that she blames him for Jin dying. Ben shoots out “Jin’s still alive, and I can prove it.” My question is- How does he know?!

Ben says he can take her to someone in LA who can show her proof. Kate freaks out when she hears about returning to the Island and takes off. Sayid wants no part of what’s going on and threatens Ben and Jack about contacting him again. He’s gotten really grumpy lately.

While they were supposed to arrive wherever within 30 min, and it’s been longer, Sun is getting impatient. Ben says, in his monotone voice, that he didn’t account for the traffic. Jack apologizes to Sun for leaving Jin behind, and Sun thinks he’s trying to get her not to shoot Ben. Jack says he’ll kill Ben himself if Ben’s lying. Ben freaks out a little and gives a nice little speech about what he had done to keep Jack and the others safe and if they’re going to kill him, do it now. Obviously they don’t and the car drives on.

Faraday’s Mother…
The trio arrives at a chapel in their van labeled Canton-Rainer (anagram for “reincarnation”) and Ben gives Sun Jin’s wedding ring, which he says Locke gave him. Sun believes him and is ready to go back.

But, Hey, Look- it’s Desmond! (let’s hope he didn’t bring Penny with him- as Ben would be happy about killing her) “You’re looking for Faraday’s mother too?” We get an interesting reaction from Ben, who didn’t seem to know that Eloise Hawking is Faraday’s mother… And, here I thought Ben knew everything…

They go inside the chapel and there’s Eloise Hawking who berates Ben for not bringing ‘all of them’. He says it’s all he could get on short notice and she says “I suppose this will have to do for now. Let’s get started” Started? With what, prey tell? She’s scares me more than a little.

Jin Ne Saia Quoi
Jin discovers he’s in 1988.. odd revolution. He’s worried about Sun- trying to communicate that he needs to go find his camp, asking one French guy if he’s seen a helicopter. The French guy scoffs “First a boat, then a helicopter. Next thing you know he’ll be talking about a submarine” (no he wont- Locke blew that up. Rousseau & Co agree to go to his camp, after they find the radio tower from which they can send out Danielle’s ominous broadcast.

Along the way, ‘Nadine’ disappears. At that moment they hear Smokie! While smokie is freaky- I’m oh so happy he’s back. A dead Nadine falls from the sky, and Jin yells “RUN!”. Rude Blonde Frenchie comes face to face with Smokie and is drug into a whole in an odd cave type building. The team bands together to try to pull him out and end up pulling off his arm while he get’s drug underground. They here “help me” yada yada- which I think was totally a set up and the team decide to go after him. Jin tells Danielle she has to stay behind because of the baby, and then he flashes away. (BTW- Side note- we’re watching this- and the exact time Smokie shows up we hear a beeping, just like in the hatch. We assume it’s coming from the back speaker and has something to do with the show… After Jin flashes and we still hear the beeping- Rick goes to check it out. Then we start hearing the warning signal- from the time running out in the hatch. We, of course are confused- trying to figure out if we’ve just been watching LOST WAAAY too much. But, as it turns out- Rick has a LOST timer application on the dashboard of his Mac- and it had counted down from 108 minutes. LOL- really- what is the chance that something like that would happen while we’re watching the show. It was great!)

After the flash- Jin is standing amidst the ruins of the monster’s ‘lair’ and sees the decomposing arm of the blond guy, gets some water from a leaf, and makes his way to the beach. He wonders upon the French camp and finds Danielle’s music box and… oh yeah- two of the frenchies shot dead. He wonders to Danielle and her husband, Robert who both have guns pointed at each other. She’s saying that he’s not Robert, he’s sick. He tries to explain, I’m worried about you and our baby, it’s not a monster, it’s a security system guarding the temple. For a moment, she touches her pregnant belly and appears to thaw a bit, but when he pulls the trigger on his gun and misfires, she shoots him dead.

young Danielle quickly whirls on Jin and aims. "You disappeared! You're sick too; you're a carrier," she shrieks. Just as she's about to make the newly alive Jin not so, Jin runs through the jungle. There's a flash and...

Reunion
So Jin has another gun pointed at him, but this time it's Sawyer's! Hooray! It's reunion time, and for a brief second, things are happy. Daniel surmises that he was blown within the radius. Jin has a lot of questions obviously. In his excitement, he lapses into Korean and asks someone to translate. Everyone assumes he means Miles — "He's Korean; I'm from Encino," Miles snarks — but he’s talking to charlotte- I guess we’re supposed to remember she speaks Korean- but I forgot.

Jin wants to know how Locke is sure that Sun made it off the island. Locke non-explains that he just knows and that she never should have left.

It's then that we learn that Charlotte also speaks Klingon, a funny. The flashes are happening faster now. Two in a row and Charlotte collapses again. She tells Jin, in Korean, not to let them bring her back, no matter what. Why's that, Charlotte? "This place is death," she cries. We'll contemplate the possibly wide-ranging implications of that statement later, but for now, let's hear what else Charlotte has to say. Because she has a lot to say.

Charlotte’s Past Life
Charlotte is talking like a little kid, much like Faraday's former squeeze back in Oxford. "Why can't Daddy come with us?" she non-sequiturs. To wit: "You know what my mum would say about me marrying an American." "I know more about ancient Carthage than Hannibal himself." "Turn it up, I love Geronimo Jackson." HA- more Geronimo Jackson.

Another flash (I'm losing track of them in the narrative now, but there were a lot), and the group decides to leave Charlotte behind; Daniel stays with her. But, before they part ways, they realize that they don't know when they are, thus the Orchid might not yet even exist. "Look for the well; you'll find it at the well," says Charlotte, in a helpful moment of odd clarity.

Charlotte unleashes a monologue that answers almost all of the questions we've ever had about her character. She's remembering things. It turns out she grew up on the island as part of the Dharma Initiative, but left with her mum, who tried to get young Charlotte to forget it ever existed. "That's why I became an anthropologist, to find this island again," she exposits. "That's what I've been searching for my whole life." "Why are you telling me this?" Daniel asks, and you expect her response to be something like "Because I'm dying" or "Because I love you." But no, when she was little, a scary, crazy man told her she had to leave the island and to never ever come back — or else she'd die. "Daniel, I think that man was you," (Rick really did call this one- I was thinking alpert? Ben? Mr. Chang? Nope- Rick says “Faraday”) she says. Well, there ya go- Really didn’t see that one coming!
Daniel tells her that he told Desmond to go find his mother, who will help them. But before Charlotte can get her mind around this really weird revelation, she's gone again. "I'm not allowed to have chocolate before dinner," she squeaks. And then she appears to die.

Below the ground
After what appears to be a very brief hike, Locke, Jin, Juliet, Miles and Sawyer find the Orchid. "What are the odds that we'd end up here at the same time as this thing?" Juliet says. Ha! Guess what? There's a flash, and then it disappears. "You just had to say something," Sawyer grumbles. But that's OK, they find the well to which Charlotte referred.

"How did Charlotte know this is here?" asks Miles: Locke is going in. As he says curt goodbyes, Jin — who knows a thing or two about not descending into dark, island-based pits this week — threatens to cut the rope. "This island is bad," he says. He doesn't want his wife and daughter to return. Locke promises not to contact Sun, but says that she might find him. "You tell her I'm dead. You buried me. Take the ring," he says. Fair enough! So down he goes, but — uh oh — there's another flash, and when Juliet, Jin, Sawyer and Miles come to, the rope that formerly went down the well now ends at solid ground. "We can't help him," Juliet says gravely.

Christian… or Jacob…
Meanwhile, underground, Locke has fallen to the bottom of the now-sealed-in well, in the dark, and has broken his legs- it’s always the legs with him- at this point I think I’d be wishing I still didn’t have feeling in my legs. Just as things look really grim, Christian arrives. "I'm here to help you the rest of the way," he reports. Christian scolds John for not following his instructions: He told Locke that he had to move the island, not Ben. When John explains that Ben said he had to stay behind and lead his people, Christian gives this enlightening reply: "Since when did listening to him get you anywhere worth a damn?"

But there's good news! Christian tells him he just has to give the ol' donkey wheel a little shove, that it has slipped off its axis (will this also stop the flashes?), and then see Eloise Hawking in Los Angeles, who will tell him how exactly to get himself — and all the others — back to the island. He also confirms Richard's mandate that he's going to have to die in the process. So maybe that's not exactly good news.

"Can you help me up?" Locke asks. "No, sorry, I can't," Christian replies. As the wheel turns and the screen fades to white, Christian says, "Good luck, John... say hello to my son." "Who's your son?" Locke asks, but there's the flash to end all flashes.