This episode had flashbacks rather than flash forwards. It makes sense to me because we'd never met these characters before and we needed to have some background information. All of the flashbacks take place just before they are sent on their recovery mission.
First off there is a physicist, Daniel Farraday, who seems to be a very nervous, eccentric type who doesn't want to be limited by job classification. When we first see him, he's in front of the TV watching news footage of the discovery of Oceanic flight 815's wreckage at the bottom of the sea. He's weeping...and he doesn't know why. He is the first person out of the "rescue" helicopter--he's shoved out, actually, and the first one discovered by the castaways--Jack and Kate specifically.
Jack notices right off that Daniel's carrying a gun and that he seems very nervous and evasive. Jack is further dismayed when they come across a box thrown from the helicopter and there's a gas mask in it. "What's this for?" he asks Farraday who hems and haws and finally says, "I'm not in charge of packing." Uh-huh--and Jack is definitely getting bad vibes from this "rescue".
TB recognized Farraday's last name. Michael Farraday is or was a physicist, too, and invented the Farraday cage. The Farraday cage is used to block electronic signals. I understand enough of that concept to realize that it could refer to the protective shield around The Island.
As Farraday was hedging about the real mission of the freighter, his satellite phone picks up a signal from another of the helicopter crew, Miles Sturm (sp?).
Miles, it turns out, is a ghost whisperer, pretty anti-social, and a thief. His back story showed him going to an older woman's house to help her with a haunting spirit--that of her grandson, a drug dealer murdered and still hanging around. Why? Grandma has to hand over $200 to find out and to have Miles help her grandson cross over. He's got a machine that looks like it's right out of Ghost Busters and he does communicate with the murdered young man--and finds the kid's drug stash and a big wad of cash. He pockets the cash but puts the drugs back in the wall. He "generously" refunds Grandma half her fee but doesn't bother to mention that there was drugs and money hidden in the boy's room.
It crossed my mind that having a ghost whisperer would have lots of advantages for whoever is funding the mission. If it's Dharma, this guy could communicate with the murdered souls of the original community--obliterated by Ben and the other Native Others. He also could probably communicate with the mysterious Jacob as well as any of the remaining castaways who've died since the crash. When Jack, Kate and Farraday come upon him, however, the only thing he is interested in is Naomi's body. Until he's able to communicate with her spirit, he still believes she was murdered by Jack and his group.
Meanwhile, Locke and his merry band are off on their trek to safety. First Locke wants to detour to Jacob's cabin. Hurley slips up and says, "isn't it that way?" or something to that effect. Both Ben and Locke give Hurley this look, one of dismay or shock or something--so Hurley also knows about Jacob and the cabin? They exchange looks after Hurley fumbles and finally says oh, I thought you meant the airplane cabin.
Then we're introduced to Charlotte S. Lewis (C.S. Lewis allusion!), a very enthusiastic archeaologist who bribes her way into a dig (in Tunisia) and is most delighted to discover the skeleton of a polar bear (in Africa, in a desert!) and a Dharma collar. Aha, now how did that happen? Parallel or time travel? And was she there? She knew to look for the collar!
Charlotte's chute lands her in a tree high over a lake or other body of water. She cuts herself free, falls into the water and surfaces. She is totally happy to be where she is and then looks up to see Locke and his group staring at her. When she tells them she risked her life to save them, she's really shocked and offended when Locke replies that they don't want to be found. Further, they take her sat phone, tie it to Vincent the dog's collar, and sends him off in another direction. She is now their hostage of sorts.
Ben's been making a general pain in the ass of himself. Apparently he enjoys getting beaten because he's provoked several people now into using him as a punching bag both last season and now. Suddenly, he makes a move and grabs a gun from someone and shoots Charlotte. At first everyone thinks she's dead but then we realize she's wearing a bullet proof vest. Lucky Charlotte...I sort of suspect, though, that the vest is a ruse and maybe she has some real power she's not telling us about yet.
The last freighter character we're introduced to is Frank Lapidus, the helicopter pilot. When we first meet him, he's on an island in the Bahamas watching footage of the 815 wreckage. There's no way that a bloated body would be shown the way it was, TV just doesn't do that. I get it though that Lapidus needed to see the pilot's hands in order to dramatically call and announce that the body isn't that of the pilot. The real Seth Norris would have been wearing his wedding ring, no doubt about it, Lapidus swears. The other surprise is that it turns out Lapidus should have been piloting the plane that day and that he knew the manifest name by name. Hmmm.
This capture came from DarkUFO. It's a capture from the pilot episode of Lost, way back when, and you see the hands of the pilot as he hands the transceiver to Jack. He's most definitely wearing a ring. So if the body isn't Norris' then whose is it and why the cover up? Why wasn't Lapidus flying the plane that day?
Lapidus landed the helicopter safely and yet somehow he is hurt and wandering around. He's unconscious when Miles, Farraday, Jack, Sayid, Juliet and Kate find him. Sayid and Juliet joined the group soon after they found Miles and it's a good thing because they brought guns and disarmed the two freighter guys. Juliet treats the cut on Lapidus' head and gives him her name...and he realizes right off she was not on the plane. Miles becomes very excited and shows her Ben's picture--that's who they are really after, that was the primary mission--get Ben.
Why? The more I think about it, the more I think the freighter people were sent by pissed off Dharma-ites who might realize what Ben did to their people.
Meanwhile, back at Locke's group, Ben is about to be executed by several (Sawyer, Locke) who have become totally fed up with his shenanigans...except Ben saves himself by revealing he has a spy on the ship! To prove it, he provides almost all of Charlotte's life history.
And so it ended on that note, way too soon again.
Who could the spy be? Could it be Michael? At the end of season 2, Ben gave betrayer Michael a set of coordinates to follow. Could it have been to the freighter? Maybe it was all prearranged, more that Michael had to do for Ben in order to free himself and his son from the island. Maybe that's too obvious, though. Maybe the spy is someone else.
There's more analysis of the episode on Dark's website as well as a lot of very informative points those viewers noticed that I probably didn't. Click
here and scroll down to find the recaps. They're very insightful and informative!
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