Ahhhh...Kevin Spacey (aka Henry Gale) at his best...

Did anyone else think that the woman who Locke was checking the house for in his flashback (before he saw his father in the car) looked like Nadia (I think that's her name - the female Sayid liked)?

scandal , that WAS Nadia. My friend just told me 10 minutes after I posted this.

Awesome episode. Not that i'm all revved up for more, I imagine we won't get a new episode for another month LOL. Bastards

^typo - "not" should be "now"

Great recap, EdHill. My favorite part was when you said you were on freeze frame looking for clues...you were not alone, my friend. Now I don't feel quite as stupid. I've been looking at that weird writing and all I could really make out was "CV I, highly unlikely." I feel this may push me over the edge, like the guy from "A Beautiful Mind."

All in all, I thought this episode rocked. Between the writing, the mysterious food drop, and the ending, I was on the edge of my seat. And now this Nadia thing. Very cool.

damn fine episode... lots of holy shit moments... me likey!

I agree with EdHill on pretty much all opinions. The castaways shouldn't tolerate Sawyer's bullshit - although they do need to be careful how they deal with him. They can't create a chink in their civility and social structure just to discipline the one person with a warlord complex.

Henry Gale is an Other. His story about the doors coming up is nonsense. And he was totally faking that fall. Who is so weak they could fall off a chair and pass out?!

I have no way to study what was on the wall, and I appreciate the spoilers.

So glad Sayid dug up the grave. How could it end there? Let's get with the real interrogation! Screw Locke's promises. Henry Gale has a date with the night.

Oh, we still don't know how Locke wound up in the wheelchair. I'm betting either the wiseguys worked him over or he got drunk and drove into a tree.

Great recap- I always appreciate a slammin last sentence.

Total gasm to see that door all lit up. And the Henry Gale moment was great too-- who buried him I wonder? the others? another person in the balloon?

Jack also got a lot less annoying this ep, close to the former hottie in the suit from season one. that guy can walk like no other.

whoa, EDHILL you are the best..
but u derailed me by posting a link to the scammer who scammed the Nigerian scammers, LMAO...now back to ur recap...

Funny to see the drivers license, for at one time I had the earlier-style Minnesota drivers license. They ALMOST got it perfect. The font on the top(MINNESOTA DRIVERS LICENSE) is slightly off.

We have newer style licenses now. That map, regardless of countles decodings on the web still confuses me.

I also think henry did something a little extra while entering the numbers...he didn't even need Locke to repreat them, even AFTER he was knocked out. hmmm...but maybe that's trivial point.

Here is the "cleaner" map in English...

http://www.thetailsection.com/uploaded_images/cleanwall-707484.jpg

Locke's backstory is so painfully sad and pathetic. Too bad he wasn't watching it with us or he'd have thought twice about promising to protect the creepy otherman.

There's no way an actual person (read; non-other) could have recited those numbers once, fallen down, passed out, got back up and managed to get them entered exactly.

I was on the floor in front of my tv for 10 minutes looking at the happy glow fun map. Finally, a tv show made for TIVO/DVR people. They KNEW we were gonna pause and rewind a jillion times!

I didn't catch Nadia! That is very cool!

Great recap as usual EdHill. Thanks for the Nigerian scammer scammer link.

This was an awesome episode—the end was so creepy! And yeah, I didn't really recognize Nadia's face, but her voice was unmistakable. Also it was funny to see the Oceanic plane fly overhead when Locke brought the money to the hotel by LAX.

OMG i think i just got a huge great idea from just reading the fact that it was Helen that noticed Locke's father was dead. I then connected the rest of the dots myself. helen was in on it too. Do we have a time frame of how long they were together. She approached him at therapy, she wanted him to stay away from his father and she calmly handled strange mobsters in her own home. And when she caught locke with his father it was all part of the plan so she couldn't accept his proposal. When Locke and cooper are at the bar and he says he needed to knock himself off because he got into a retirment con situation that just made me think about his past...... Locke's dad..... same man who conned Sawyer's family and caused all that trouble? Im pretty sure these are all valid points but correct me if anything disproves me, Im just a first time poster

Great recap, EdHill, and thanks again for all the research. Especially the musical and scammer website.
I just have one thing to nitpik: I think you will find Locke was hiding the ring in a cloth napkin and not a hankerchief.
These people love to tie everyone together, don't they? (ie, Locke and Nadia). This episode was way too good for tv.

Apparently.. when Locke is at the seedy motel.. and that plane flies overhead.. it has a Dharma symbol on it's tail.

http://s134005998.onlinehome.us/forums/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=353

Now THAT is mighty interesting.

Oh.. I dunno if Henry is faking it.. BUT when he did fall.. I clearly saw him hit his head.
He could've just did it for show.. but I don't think he did... even if he is an Other.

Well, if a plane flew over a motel that low, the motel would no longer exist, as it would have been put out of business. The scale of the plane, and its position practically right over Locke's head, is ludicrous.

Good episode tho'. ABC and the producers have finally gotten back on track with giving us good episodes, but tragically, they've killed the show with so many reruns. It's almost as if they didn't appreciate the series themselves, so many of us have started cooling off to the show as well.

You're right, EdHill, a serialized show that carries so much information and clues from one episode to another should not be broken up (disrupted really), as badly as the network has done this season.

Good recap.

Actually the logo on the plane's tail isn't the Dharma logo, it's the Oceanic Air logo:
http://www.oceanic-air.com

Also did we all notice that the mysterious bald guy who pops up next week is HARRY GOLDENBLATT from Sex and the City? Haha.

Here's another shot of the writing on the door:

http://lost.cubit.net/pics/2x17/blastDoorMap.jpg

You did a great job with the recap, Ed Hill.

Great recap...!! Geez I have to watch this episode again (thank God for TiVo) because I totally missed the Nadia connection..!!

Locke didn't tell Gale the correct numbers. He told him 4 8 15 16 23 42. 42 not 32! And Gale specifically asked about the last number again because HE knew it was wrong.

Lost is back. Back to good.

EdHill thank you for the recap. Please, no more Kat, make her do Desperate Housewives instead. Your talent is wasted on that crummy show. And thanks for the great links. Kat never goes to this much trouble or into such detail. Kat, don't be offended, but EdHill is simply superior.
Lost was great! I still wonder how Locke ended up in the wheelchair, but I guess we'll have to wait. For weeks I have wondered if Locke's father was the one who conned Sawyer's family. Now, even more than ever. I didn't think about Helen and his dad conning Locke together. If so, she is a great actress but it does make you wonder. And yes! that was Nadia. WOW. I can't wait to watch this episode again! So much to decipher.
Is Lost a repeat next week?

nocable #23
Unless I misunderstand what you're saying, those are the real numbers. 4 8 15 16 23 42.

If you haven't seen this site it always has the answer to the question of if lost is a repeat.

Is Lost a repeat?

addison1356- Very interesting theory! Even more plausible after our lessons on long cons where a man and woman do it together.

I like that.

Fantastic recap, EdHill! Great show, too. Thanks for the "drawing analysis". And thanks to whomever pointed out Nadia - I totally didn't get that watching the show! My son was almost convinced that Henry was OK, so when the show ended he just kept repeating in a daze "Henry Gale is dead?" This show just has that effect on people. And OMG - I can't believe you didn't mention Kate saying "Should I get a ruler?" during the poker game! I just about fell on the floor, and then had to avoid explaining to my son what it meant.

#27 I totally agree, the ruler comment was the best comedy in the show and it was sort of surprising to have it come from Kate.

Great recap for an awesome episode, I wasted more time than I'm willing to admit looking at map translations yesterday.

I thought that was Nadia, but I wasn't sure.

Interesting theory about Locke Sr. and Helen.

Did anyone else notice the number on the safe deposit box- 1516?

saying the plane flying over locke's hotel has the dharma logo on its tail is like me saying OMG OMG OMG look at this picture of tina turner i found!!!

http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/nm/20060331/2006_03_31t095955_362x450_us_britain_usa_rice.jpg?x=277&y=345&sig=2tvwYn8PpBG_lyxZIvgZmw--

It's always great to read a recap here after watching the show... to get those hilarious little references (my favorite was the Pat Benatar video). Keep up the good work, guys!

BTW, if anyone is curiuos... I did a superimposition job of the hatch map over Rousseau's map. It's far from perfect, even with a bit of skewing... my belief is that neither map is to good scale at all, and is likely there for relative arrangements only.

Definitely a lot of interesting points to be made from the new map--including:

1) The inference to "the cure is worse than the disease" (Desmond & Aaron, who have both gotten injected, appear to be the only ones symptomatic).

2) The idea that Magnus Hanso (likely Alvar) is dead and buried at The Black Rock.

3) Cerberus may be the name of the project of "the security system", but that it went horribly wrong. Cerberus from Greek mythology is the name of the 3 headed hound/beast that guarded the gates to Hades and kept people from returning to their previous lives. One time, it was tricked by Orpheus through music (is this where Danielle's lyrics of La Mer come in?) and Cerberus was ultimately killed by Hercules, who was pure of heart (is this where Echo's ability to face Smokie without fear come in?)

4) Bottom right--"Ursus maritimus" is the scientific species name of the polar bear. Extreme climate change & gene therapy, eh???

5) At 11:00, one of the hatches is scribbed out. Was this from "the incident" also?

6) What are all the references to "the intranet" all about?

7) My suspicion is that the dotted line hatches on the right are either "under construction", or underwater hatches. This makes sense with their geographic locale to one side, and also the fact that one of them is called "The Pearl" station (is this where the DHARMA shark comes in--marine research?)

Woops, here's the link.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f278/ceciliaxchen/islandmap2ndattempt.jpg

"Jack of course falls for it and the boys start to play."

I don't think Jack fell for anything. He scammed the scammer. Challenged Sawyer's manhood, knew he'd be expected to prove himself, and took him for all his meds.

Pandora- your 7th theory is VERY interesing. now that would be a whole new cool level.

Does anyone know if there's a mythological/ astrological/ anythinglogical basis for the different names of the stations?

I know it was simply for plot, but why would Locke try to crawl under the steel door when it apparently takes 10 seconds to get to the other side through the duct work? Douchebag.

Awesome recap! Thanks for getting it posted so quickly!

When I saw the hatch door, I let out an audible gasp, my husband was so confused. So of course I tried to TiVo it and analyze. Silly me, better nerds than I had already done that!

This was one of the best of the season! (Episodes and recap.)

Edhilll you are the man, I agree with everyone else that you should take over the recaps. You do the research and have the jokes that crack my ass up. When you said "if you can fit your whole palm over your face then you have cancer" I laughed so hard people were looking at me funny at work! Brought me back to the good ole days of elementary school! hahaha

Where the hell did the food come from? If a plane flew overhead to drop it dont you think that someone would hear it?

5 things that happened

1. Nadia showed up
2. They found the balloon and grave
3. Doors closed in hatch revealing map
4. Food was dropped
5. The real Gale has been found.

am I missing something? Did I include something that I shouldnt have? ANyone?

Soxfan....thanks for the link. I've used it before and was not sure how quickly it was updated.
don't you think the survivors would have noticed a plane flying overhead and dropping a care package? I'm glad the food question was answered but now just something else to ponder.

#36 Tracy-- I had Tivo also, so instantly knew it was a map of the hatches, but I gotta tell ya... me (and many fellow internet nerds ;)) squinted at the darn thing until 3AM, and only got about 10% of it translated with any certainty. The next morning, we all found out that the original version of the map (producer's high res version) had been leaked out to the press, and there was a whole magazine article that had done a lot of the translation! Well, took a lot of the fun out of it, though it probably saved our eyes. Also, the mag had mistranslated some of the phrases and not completed everything, so once we got the original high res version, it was corrected. The best version to date I think is with Sledgeweb's site (though I may be a bit biased since I'm staff there now):
http://lost.cubit.net/pics/2x17/blastDoorMapOverlay.jpg

You can see the original unwritten over high res version here:
http://home.comcast.net/~towhateverend/LostWall.jpg

Thanks #34 Leah. What a good point on a mythology theme to all the stations. So far, I've seen mostly talk about the station names in regards to star constellations (which in themselves do relate to mythology also, such as Caduceus = Hermes' staff; Hermes both a Greek God & a constellation).

A suggestion I've seen is that The Flame (maybe the station that has the energy source on the island??) = Prometheus. Aphrodite was born inside a shell, maybe that's the pearl? Someone suggested Pandora for The Pearl, not quite sure where that reference comes in yet. Pericles also has a Greek root shared with that of the word Pearl.

Swans come into mythology of many cultures quite often. They frequently mean "rebirth"... such as the new life that the lostaways get on the island; or "see you in the next life" (Desmond & Nadia quotes from past season).

Pandora- those are good suggestions-- esp the pearl one. isnt' there a myth where zeus turns himself into a swan to cheat on his wife? maybe something to do with tricksters.....

ah i wonder i wonder

Leah - ooh yeah, Leda and the swan:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leda_%28mythology%29

#35 -- Thank you. I was beginning to think I was the only one wondering why the heck Locke didn't just crawl thru the vents in the first place!! Also, the hatch designers had a pretty big brain fart if they went to the trouble of installing this huge blast door system but you can easily escape thru the vents. That's the oldest trick in the book!

Regarding the map spoiler -- how do we know Desmond drew the map? How would he know where the other hatches were? Wasn't he supposedly locked inside the hatch? At least that's what I always thought...

The only thing that makes a good Lost episode better is an EdHill recap!! Even with good material to work with Kat's recaps are lackluster at best

CB, I think Nadia wasn't one of the 5 things. It wasn't obvious enough. I think the blast door was one and then the map was one.

In general, I think a lot of people are getting too into conspiracy theories. I don't think that every person from the characters backgrounds was somehow in on it. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Personally, I think it's just all one big psychology experiment that was dreamed up but then since it is unethical and illegal they needed to get outside funding and do it in secrecy. I think that's why they take the kids, especially the babies. There are all kinds of psych experiments that can never be done about human development because it basically means torturing a human from birth. But who knows, I could be wrong!

My DVR keeps cutting out the last 5-10 minutes of lost. Is this show running over and hour?

Food drop theory:

1. It was intended for Desmond, or whoever's hangin at the hatch. Of course, the quarantine warning on the hatch door would counter this. How would you get the food in a quarnatined area?

2. It was intended for the inhabitants to keep them alive, courtesy of Dharma. But it doesn't seem that much.

So we have a bit too much food for 1 person(Desmond), and seemingly not enough food for all of the crash survivors.

And what do we see in the previews? Sawyer getting irritiable when the food is looted. Who died and made you boss?

Leah: That's a clever suggestion.. and thanks for the link m_ruv.

The issue with Zeus is that he seduced MANY women in the guise of many different animals... bears, bulls, horses, etc. just to name a few. :) But I still like how you tied in trickery to that.... there's a million and one ways you can go with the symbolism of names, I think.

Want to see what's on the map on the door?
Caution: may be spoilers.
Go here:
http://lost.cubit.net/pics/2x17/blastDoorMapOverlay.jpg

Well this episode is not the one that contains any spoilers. The episode that spoiled everything was aired two episodes ago when we first met this fako-Henry-Gale-other-dude. It was at the moment that they introduced this guy that the secrets of the island were revealed to me. Isn't it obvious to everyone at this point that the island is all about gene mutation, and that they have created a Paul Rubens (aka PeeWee Herman)/Kevin Spacey hybrid? The only question now is if there are other celebrity hybrids on the island. Personally I'm hoping for a Charlize Theron/Pamela Anderson hybrid, genetically predisposed to experience severe skin irritation when wearing any clothing at all. Now THAT would be cool.

#30- Ya just couldn't have said something like #20 did.. simply said that no.. it wasn't dharma, it was the oceanic symbol on the plane.. nope.. you had to make yourself feel better by making other people seem stupid.
Good job there buddy.. hope it gave you that few mins of supremacy you desperately crave.

Anywho.. as for my mistake.. woops :P

one of the divisions said posible zoological zone...explains horses, polar bears, sharks with dharma labels....omgah i had like an hour long multiple tvgasms..thats still ongoing ho shit

I'm just wondering when/if we find out that Henry Gale (the real, dead one pictured on the drivers license) is also a part of the back story. Do any of the other characters have a Minnesota past?

Did anyone else notice the number 8 and 15 on Henry Gale's ID?

ugh that map gives me chills reading it...its suuuuccchhhhh a spoiler...it peices soooo much together and i don't care what ppl say...there is a master plan to all of this..the writers aren't just piling things up...all of the intertwining is getting too intracite to be purely coincidental....the writers don't get enuf credit and the use of this map is total and complete p[roof of this fact.... i'm excited to see more of the sites...especially the zoological one...well all of them...i'm guessing the show will be over when they answer that big question mark in the middle lol....fatalities=5 chills...and then all the square roots the first 3 numbers.....the numbers were all over this map...

i believe that it is Desmund who did the map because theres a line on the map that says distance does not meet 108 do not attempt...could be totaly off base thogh...what do you guys think

Thank you Edhill. Great recap.

Since the text on the hatch door says "Minimal activity during lockdown and during restocking proceedures." (I assume thats referring to the supply drop) And why the lights switch to emergency lights only. If Gale is an Other, he would have anticipated this occuring if this is on sone type of timer,or schedule.
Did anyone catch which hatch is highlighted in the lighter color? As is it supposed to be anywhere near where the supplies dropped?
My question is, why would they have to have minimal activity during restocking? And if Desmond was Quarantined in the hatch, who is picking up the supplies? They obviously had the flashing lights attached to notify someone outside of a hatch.

When Helen first saw Lockes dad, she asked "Are you him?" Where have we heard that before? lol

CapoSTAT...thanks for the translated map. I was going to go crazy trying to decipher it.

And by the way, just where the hell is Desmond? I hope he shows up again...he's hot.

EdHill, the tailies' hatch is called the Arrow, not the Spear.

Great recap!

for a second i actually thought the flashing light was going to be desmond doing a distress signal or something.

Maybe the island is cloaked so it can't be ever be found by the rest of the world but when it goes into "emergency mode" it becomes visible for short period of time so that the supply plane locate the drop zone.

I think the record Locke was playing has something to do with it, don't you? At first I thought the modem sounds were coming from the record but then he shut it off...

Pandora said in message #31: "One time, it was tricked by Orpheus through music (is this where Danielle's lyrics of La Mer come in?)"

I think it was the record ! It breaks through somehow and triggers something.

EdHill, thanks for that link to the Nigerian scam site. Haven't laughed that hard since your last recap.

I've been loving these updates. You know Henry Gale can't be up to any good since he tried to kill Dr. Gordon and wife and kid on Saw. That makes me a little suspicious; though I thought he was dead...hmmm.

so, if there isn't enough food dropped for the 'lostees' and way too much for desmond (who couldn't have gotten there anyway), maybe its for 'the others'?

Why go through all the trouble of planting "Henry Gale" inside their camp and giving him a verifiable backstory without making sure the body at the camp fits? I am assuming the wife of Henry Gale was captured by the 'Others' and thats how they came up with the plan.

Kinda weak.

ED HILL- i hope that KAT is on vacation FOREVER, cause you are so much better than she is at recapping! You pick so much more stuff up and your research is so much more AWESOMER! No offence to Kat, i am sure she is a nifty human being-BUT ED HILL'S RECAPS ROCK! Kat would have never made the funny, like you did last week, regarding NO Trumpeters in Korean parks.

#46-ANTF-yeah, it runs over. It's not over an hour long; it just starts a bit late. I am still in the dark ages with the old VCR, but i program mine to record till 11, just in case.

#1- RE: Spacey. I was thinking the same thing about old Henry Gale. That guy is channeling him BIGTIME. It's pretty cool.

WOW It was a good one. My first time posting here... Where is the recap for this week?? Its like waiting for the next epasode of lost! Just a thought but did anyone put the thougth together that the button is bad and AKA: Henry G didnt push it because of it?? We all know what Walt said....

For what it's worth, "Save yourself from Hell" were the last words uttered by the Captain in Event Horizon. However, because he said them in Latin and the recording was poor they were initially mistranslated as "Save me".

I have no idea if that is connected to Lost in any way, but it might be a clue of some sort.