My goodness, EdHIll, you got that recap up so fast! I'm ashamed of you, though- wanting money for blogging. And here I thought you did it just for the love of television. So disappointing.
By the way, thank you for the research you do on the net. I am far too lazy to go looking for this stuff.
I thought this episode was kind of slow. Not bad but just not great. I wouldn't mind an episode like this if it came in the middle of two new episodes but when we had to wait this long, it was a bit of a let down. I agree that Henry, as one of the Others, told the balloon story because he knew there was one. The guy's behavior just doesn't ring true for someone who really doesn't know what's going on. He's too slick and creepy. As for Sun peeing on a plastic stick in camp, I'm assuming they have set up some kind of private area for "waste extraction" already. I just think it would have made more sense to go there but then we wouldn't have had any Hurley this episode, would we? And how about the producers find something else to do with Hurley besides scenes that show why he's still fat?
Oh well, at least it was a new episode and your recap was enjoyable. Thanks.

But still, I can’t imagine the others would concoct such a crazy story about a huge balloon without having one to plant as evidence. Right?

Just because there is a balloon on the island doesn't mean its "henry gale's"

The others could just be making up the story....

My favorite part was the charlie-gun-fake-out!

I agree with the article on the drop in ratings.

I too stopped watching (moved on to veronica mars) with all the reruns.

I liked Charlie's line when he asked Ana Lucia- "were you looking at my bum?"

Sawyer reading Judy Blume with his dorky glasses on?- TOTALLY HOT!

and Sun and Jin's love story still makes me cry. Call me impressionable, but I don't think that she slept with the other dude. I think it really was a miracle (or strange coincidence) just like bunkers, polar bears, and swirling fog.

What up with the hypocrisy of Jack advising Sun to tell the truth and yet he doesn't tell Kate about Henry Gale (who is WAY creepy). I think that he set them up for an ambush, b/c he knew the balloon was there already.

I thought this episode was good—when it seems slow you know they'll throw in something extra creepy at the end. Henry Gale really freaks me out. The actor playing him is fantastic, whoever he is. I also think they're doing a good job of making Ana Lucia more interesting and likable as time passes. She's not as one-note with the whole YEAH I'm Ana Lucia and I'm ANGRY thing as she used to be. Jack on the other hand sucks. He's so whiny at this point that I wish they had just killed him off in the pilot like they originally planned.

Maybe one of you die-hard Lost fans can clear something up for me. I thought Hurley distributed all of the food in the hatch to all of the beach survivors in that show in the first season. The reason was because there was only enough food left for four months, so why not let everyone have one really great day pigging out on chocolate and peanut butter and whatever else he distributed that day, rather than rationing everything out over the four months. Didn't that happen? Obviously, Hurley saved some stuff for himself, but what gets me is all the food still in the hatch. And the fact that only Locke and Jack can eat that food. Did I miss something huge?

If the island can heal Locke's legs, surely it can wake up Jin's sperm. Or maybe Sun just did the nasty with the English teaching guy.

Henry is the best thing going right now...fascinatingly creepy.

How much time has elapsed on the island since the crash? HTF did Rose know it was Saturday? Hows come there's so many secret stashes on the island that keep everything clean and dry?
If Sun hasn't been with anyone but Jin does that make her baby Jebus II? Donde esta casa de pee pee? Hows come Korea looks so much like Honolulu? Does anyone but me remember when you only got re-runs during the summer?

Wow, that article is just not accurate at all. The last three episodes of Lost have all pulled in 16 million-plus viewers, not 12 million. Maybe it's 12 million if you average it with the repeats, but I can't point to a single first run this season that scored that low.

Re; Charlie's fake-out with the gun...

Ugh. All I could think with this was, "Wow. Charlie has become the new mindless, obnoxious, me-too, follower prick." The old follower, obnoxious, me-too, follower prick was, of course, Boone, who started out interesting and multi-dimensional, then devolved into a waste of my TV viewing time.

Charlie is just clinging to Sayid and Sawyer like Boone did to Locke. Does this mean Charlie will be offed like Boone was? We can only hope.

EdHill- can you please please please do all Lost recaps from now on?

"She runs into Hurley, eating candy from his fatty fatty food stash"

So funny!

I'm as sick of the reruns as anyone else, but they don't have any more than any other show ... 24 is the exception, obviously, but they start in January, which means 7 straight months of nothing. Should Lost switch to that kind of schedule? I like having 24 one right after the other now, but damn, I hate that long-ass wait.

Am I the only one who sees Hurley as the true hero here? Buy selflessly eating all the junk food, forcing everyone else to eat healthy, nutritious vittles, he's helping extend their lives until they are rescued.
Eat up, Hurley, and thank you for taking one for the team.

Here's data to address the topic of declining ratings. I queried my database for new eps and excluded the recap specials. If # of viewers is blank, I simply don't have data for that ep.

It looks like ABC had a great opportunity to keep new viewers at the beginning of this season, but the audience slowly dropped off to the same level as season one.

Date  Ep # Viewers (million)
09/22/2004 01-001 18.7
09/29/2004 01-002 17.0
10/06/2004 01-003 16.5
10/13/2004 01-004 18.2
10/20/2004 01-005 16.8
10/27/2004 01-006 16.8
11/03/2004 01-007 18.7
11/10/2004 01-008
11/17/2004 01-009
12/01/2004 01-010 17.1
12/08/2004 01-011 18.9
01/05/2005 01-012 21.6
01/12/2005 01-013 20.8
01/19/2005 01-014 19.7
02/09/2005 01-015 19.5
02/16/2005 01-016
02/23/2005 01-017 19.5
03/02/2005 01-018 18.9
03/30/2005 01-019 17.8
04/06/2005 01-020 17.1
05/04/2005 01-021 17.2
05/11/2005 01-022 17.1
05/18/2005 01-023 18.6
05/25/2005 01-024 20.7
09/21/2005 02-001 23.5
09/28/2005 02-002 23.2
10/05/2005 02-003 22.4
10/12/2005 02-004 21.7
10/19/2005 02-005 21.4
11/09/2005 02-006 20.0
11/16/2005 02-007 21.9
11/23/2005 02-008 19.3
11/30/2005 02-009 21.5
01/11/2006 02-010 20.6
01/18/2006 02-011 19.1
01/25/2006 02-012 19.1
02/08/2006 02-013 18.7
02/15/2006 02-014 18.2
03/01/2006 02-015 16.4

Ed -- you got excited I am sure; but it is Sun's garden, not Jin's. She=Sun and He=Jin. Sun had the quote of the week (although it was in Korean) -- what a slap in Jin's face -- when she told him she wanted to trap a fisherman's son into marrying her. Ouch.

Mr. Gale is definitely an Other. I don't know why they'd concoct a plan that would eventually require him to be traded for their own (or could have gotten him killed had Sayid finished what he started); but I think we'll see that he is working with someone on the island. Too many questions with this line of thought and it doesn't fully work; but I will try not to think of these possibilities since they haven't happened and the writers don't want us questioning that much. (It is just like Zeke having Kate as a hostage a few weeks ago -- what'd have happened to her had Jack and them turned around like Zeke first asked of them? Would Zeke keep Kate for shits and giggles or would she have sheepishly returned to camp later and told nobody that her little plan had backfired?)

Lost ratings are dropping for a reason. I understand the whole 23 episodes a season thing; but come on . . . they can surely work out a better system. As big as a fan as I am, I am getting very sick of it (the series). After this week's episode, I even found myself saying "who cares" to about 3/4ths of what I just saw. Whoopie -- Sun is pregnant! At the rate of each current season, she won't start showing for 3 years. I just don't care about this and I am also sick of the whole miraculous birth scenerio. Locke's mother; Claire's boyfried was caught off guard; and now Sun. Has Rousseau said anything about Alex? Kate's "father" was in Korea when she was conceived so she is probably actually a miraculous birth too. This story has already been done once (unless Sun lied; but who really cares about that either because Jin won't be able to confront her English teacher).

I am afraid that Lost is going to lose it. You can't keep stretching and I am getting tired of being tagged along. Also, would Sawyer really have a new book every episode? Locke needs to work through his issues -- it isn't your hatch, idiot -- and share your cereal. What an asshole tactic he had when he confronted Jack about Ana-Lucia. Don't suggest it or ask permission for it AFTER you have already done it. TELL him you did it, don't ask for advice about it. Locke is such a prick.

Lastly, you gave Henry Gale kudos for asking questions about the hatch's food and computers. Who's to say Locke and Jack don't want to ask more about them; but who is there to ask?!? Let's not forget the one person with any hatch-intelligence ran off onto this little island and has never been seen again.

Wow, thanks for spoiling those of us who watch the show but not the scenes for the following episode, jerk.

I was really ready to give up on this show. It hasn't been great this year, and having a pregnancy test on the plane was really the last straw for me. (I would have preferred it if they made one out of coconuts and seaweed.) Then the subtitles at one point said "You're husband" and I really went crazy. But the ending to this episode was great and is making me hang in – classic Lost. Next week should be good!

#16 - uh, everyone I know who watches the show watches the coming attractions also. If you don't watch them, don't read the recaps. Anything that's been shown on TV is fair game for coverage in these columns.

Rosebud was his sled, Darth Vader is Luke's father, and the Vice President killed Laura Palmer.

thank you edhill. recap was superior to kat's in every way. It was timely, informative, and funny. The research is appreciated. I have no problems with Kat the person, just the recapper.

OK, OK, so we suffer from Lostus Interruptus from time to time. Annoying but not fatal. I mean, I'm assuming we all have lives here. I think the writers just write the show on the fly and every once in a while they need extra time for episodes. Maybe not. I do appreciate the recaps, though, what with all the twists and turns, it helps me get back on track.

Henry IS an other. Must be, regardless of the peek at a balloon in the trees during the previews.

Oh, SNAP! Sun an adulterer? And Jin a wife beater? There go all my dreams about the two most beautiful human beings on Earth being perfect!

Once again I'll ask: Where do they get the power for the hatch? And if it's a generator, howcum you can't hear it some? And, where do they get the fuel to run the thing 24 hours a day for years? I won't even ask about where the hell they got a pregnancy test or even why Sawyer would have saved the freakin' thing. That one goes beyond ridiculous.

Well I spend my workdays, when not here, at the Lost boards, so here are a few answers:

Food: the best we can figure out is that hurley passed out the Ready to Eat food and what people requested I guess, what he didn't hoard or didn't want he left there

Time on Island: I think Jack mentioned 60 days

Widmore Pregancy Test: you wouldn't know this unless on teh boards, in the episode with charlie and his band he walks by a sign that says Widmore construction, but on the episode it was unclear, so the writers came out and told everyone that the name "widmore" was significant, maybe michael worked there, but it is the same brand of preg. test claire used in season 1

Why don't the beach peolpe storm the hatch, i have no idea, I think Henry was trying to ask some of those questions for us.

Yeah talking about next week's scene is fair game. If it's broadcast, it's fair.

I am (though not very) curious by Kate's pregnancy test story. I wonder if it has anything to do with her testy declaration that her drunk father (who she didnt know was her father) never touched her.

Can someone who knows about life in Korea (or life in Hawaii, as plethLaura pointed out something that had been bugging me but i coudn't put my finger on) please explain that hilarious sign? good eye ed hill- i would never have noticed that.

#16 if you don't like it you can just SUCK IT!

Hey, EdHill, legend says Rosebud was Hearst's lover's (Mary Pickford) vajayjay!

No kidding, why are the beach dwellers content to let Jack and Locke enjoy the cereal/showers?

Loved the Charlie gun-fake out, definitely the highlight of the show.

Flight 815 was a full flight on a jumbo jet ... That means there were likely 3-400 people on board. While it's not a certainty, there is at least some likelihood that at least one woman on board had a pregnancy test with them.

It's amazing how quickly people turn on a show ... 65 (42 and 23) people survived a crash of an airplane that ripped the tail section off before it smacked into the ground and you're complaining about pregnancy tests? Jeebus!

Actually, there WAS some sex in "Are you there God?, It's me,Margaret". If you consider OMG-I-just-found-out-what-touching-myself-is... sex.

And...it's baby daddy. Gotta get the ebonics right ;)

http://baby-daddy.urbanup.com/56863

Oh, EdHill... you rock.

I've kind of followed Michael Emerson's career (Henry Gale) over the years b/c I found him fascinating.

He's alllllways plays the creepy guy who ends up killing the girl/child/kitten, so I'm convinced that he's an "other."

Check out IMDB - he's played Lindsay's stalker on "The Practice," the guy from "Saw," the creepy killer from "Law & Order: SVU," the creepy killer from "L&O: Criminal Intent," and the creepy serial killer guy from "Captain Lou's worst nightmare boogyman episode vii."

The 'no trumpets' sign means no horn honking. I saw the same sign in Beijing a few years ago, and similarly thought, "huh, no trumpets!" until I figured it out.

Good recap. I'm still waiting for someone on the island to just call a meeting so they can hash out all the weird stuff they know and start figuring it out. As it is, they don't really seem to care.

Ed Hill....you da man! Please continue to do the recaps, you're so frickin funny!
I love Lost and look forward to every episode. The reruns annoy the crap out of me but, I'm not going to quit watching the show or start badmouthing it, like some viewers!Cut them some slack....it can't be easy to write this show quickly and still keep it good. One request would be to show reruns of the current season only please! I can watch Season 1 at any time, thanks to the dvds. And Henry Gale is CREEPY..most definately an Other!

Just for the record, Marion Davies was Hearst's lover, not Mary Pickford.

Don't the "Others" really like stealing kids for some reason? That could explain Sun's pregnancy--a set up for another abduction/encounter with the "Others."

I guess I don't mind the reruns from season 1, since I missed the first season.
It is the new episodes and the fact that the survivors encounter so many interesting things, but go about their merry way without being affected by them, or discussing them together.

I read the transcripts of all the WHISPERS from the Others throughout both seasons. Now thats creepy!

How will the writers bring in Maury Povich to tell Jin "You are not the Father of this baby!"?

Can I too save a bunch of money on my car insurance?

Did anyone notice that the voice at the end of the preview for next week sounded like Desmond's?

#34---question for you
Where did you read the transcripts of the whispers? I would love to check them out. oh, and right on cbecker...
I was going to mention that in my previous post. mary pickford??????? WTF

The thing about the re-runs from last season: look at the ones they are choosing to show us again. They all have a specific relevance to what it going on now. Some of these connections didn't exist last season when these episodes aired so I think they are carefully selecting episodes with scenes that tie with what we are currently seeing on the series. I am tired of the reruns; but I think a lot of people are missing the connections the show's writers are giving us with these chosen episodes. A lot of puzzle pieces are being put together with these old episodes (granted I have already connected a lot of these points but I think they are doing it for the benefit of more casual viewers [my older brother -- ahem] who are complaining about reruns instead of seeing similar plot situations and elements).

Isnt anyone else wondering why CHarlie had a gun? I mean, obviously he got it from Sawyer right? Doesnt that tie him to the attack on Sun? Is this the prelude to Jin finding out that CHarlie attacked her. Ana Lucia looked at him kind of funny like "Where the hell did you get a gun?"

I agree that this ep was a little slow after being on a break. I was excited for there to be some sort of break through. Looks like next ep is going to be full of new things and yes it did sound like Desmond.

Looks like Henry figures out how to get out of the vault since Locke made it hard to get in but not hard to get out...

So are we to assume that the clock runs out? WHen the doors come down you can hear the beeping of the clock running out.

#37 I assume it is okay to post the link here. If not, sure I will hear about it.
http://lostlinks.net/whispers.htm

If the island can make Locke walk, it can make Jin's boys swim.

Love the recap, but dude, could you please use spellcheck? It won't get rid of the homophones (there/their/they're), but it could help.

re: pregnancy tests on the plane/island -- I agree it's weird, but it's not impossible. I myself have traveled with the remaining two of a three-pack (was going on vacation, wanted to know if late period was merely late, or meant I should maybe not have so many mojitos for about the next 9 months). If my luggage were found, well ... ta da.

April: Desmond's voice, yes! Where the hell's he been all this time? Watching on a monitor, 20 floors below sea level?

Charlie having a gun doesn't link him to Sun's attack -- nobody knows that there is a connection between the two.

That being said, though, WHY WOULD Charlie have a gun? That is a good question and I was waiting for Ana to ask him how he got one. Sawyer is in charge of those guns and why would he give one to Charlie of all people unless there is something more going on? Ana-Lucia was so much as accused of assaulting Sun to scare people into believing in the Others but I would think she would be smart enough to put the two together sooner or later. Maybe she "never makes the same mistake twice" because she is too stupid to get ANYTHING . . . we'll see. In truth, Charlie should NOT have had a gun if they were in fact under Sawyer's watchful guise. Perhaps Sawyer doesn't even know that Charlie-Boy kept a gun for himself since he probably didn't know how many guns there were to start with. Maybe there will be a blow-up at camp between the two when Sayid returns to camp and tries to give a mystery gun back to Sawyer who has nothing missing out of his inventory. Lack of trust issues might form between our con man and the hobbit -- and I doubt that confrontation would be very low-key.

But hey . . . they can't place the name Henry Gale or a hot-air balloon, so this might be stretching it too.

EDHill you rock...and thanks TWilliams and hardly@work for the insights ... btw was it me or when they show the scene from Annalucia-Sayid camp , she is sleeping and Sayid is
leching at her ? May b I feel it bcoz, the first movie I saw of Naveen Andrews was "kamasutra"

kgibnme....Desmond has been moonlighting as a German Intelligence agent, "investigating" a hot espionage broker named Colette. He is probably about to get into some serious deep shit with Jack Bauer, and will sincerely wish he is back in the hatch!!

do you think there's any significance to the fact that the map was written on the brothers karamoz page? i havent read it.

also you think with all of locke's literary knowledge he'd know henry gale's name was fishy

Ummm.....I know its been a while for new episodes but, Charlie and Sawyer ARE in cahoots. Sawyer does know that Charlie beat up sun, and Charlie was the one who followed Locke (or Jack?) into the woods while they were moving the guns to the new hiding space. All of this was on the "Long Con" episode.

They've been on the island for over four months now, haven't they? In that case, Sun would just be starting her second trimester and would definitly be showing signs of pregnancy IF she had slept with Jae Lee. Also, had she been pregnant when the plane crashed, she probably would have miscarried. There is a reason that pregnant women aren't allowed on theme park rides, you know.
Call me crazy but I honestly believe Sun when she says she didn't sleep with another man though the look she made when Jin was hugging her makes me believe she did *something*, I don't think it was sleeping around.

Apple_Candy, they've only been on the island 60 days.

StarrFish -- I think you must have misread why I typed earlier, or if not, are you getting at something different? I don't think anybody is denying that Charlie and Sawyer are in cahoots together; Charlie having the gun is the question. Did Sawyer give it to him; and if so, why? Wouldn't that raise some questions around camp because the camp is under the impression that Sawyer did this all on his own? Or is Sawyer even aware that Charlie has one? The sneaky "recovering" addict might have kept one out for himself without Sawyer knowing . . . now that'd be interesting once Sawyer found out about it.

Apple_Candy, as for a possible Sun miscarriage, remember that Claire didn't miscarry after the "crash." What kind of crash was this again? I, also, do not want to think Sun lied about having an affair so this baby must either belong to Jin, the island or the black smoke. :)

Leah -- the significance of the map being on a page from the Brothers Karamazov? Locke gave that book to Creepy Man during the previous episode and some sites have offered some significance of the book itself. I, sadly, haven't read Dostoevsky (Tolstoy was my Russian author of choice in college) so I can offer no help on it.

My bad, I thought they've been on the island a lot longer than that.
Fetuses are at their most vulnerable at the beginning stage of pregnancy. They're a tiny little mass that can disperse at any moment. Women can miscarry just working out too hard or taking a tumble down the stairs, so it seems really difficult to believe that Sun was pregnant when the plane crashed and didn't miscarry. Claire's baby was almost at the end of term, so it's a lot stronger and can survive things that a tiny 60 day old fetus can't.

Yes I did misread- sorry. You were asking those questions from the "Lost-er" point of view.
Maybe those questions will arise after it's clicked in, so to speak, with the other folks. After their minds aren't preoccupied with finding that balloon.

Somehow I don't think Charlie has the balls to try to double cross Sawyer. Sawyer probably knows all about it. (I hope for Charlie's sake he does).

I thought for sure this episode would be titled "Got Milk?" but anyway, hilarious recap. and just so you won't be dissapointed Edhill:
In the scene where Sawyer finds Bernard and Jin on the beach, what Jin hears as Jibrish spoken by the other two (a cinematic technique used to illustrate that Jin does not understand English) is actually English, only with the sound reversed. What the two are really saying is as follows:

Bernard: "Well... well how do you know?"
Sawyer: "Oh, I got my sources".
Bernard: "Well, aren't you gonna tell him that?"
Sawyer: "Not my place".
Bernard: "You should tell him".
Sawyer: "Hell no. Let Sunshine tell him

Ok, my question is this:

When Ana Lucia was done with Henry, she looked at Jack kinda funny and Jack said something like "Hey, I didn't say anything." To which Ana replied "No sweat, Jack." or some such.

Did I miss something? What was that about?

Ok, actually I have 2 questions lol.

The 2nd is for USNRNPage, these transcripts of WHISPERS....are these actually able to be heard in the actual episodes?

Web_Bandit Ana Lucia gave Jack that look becasue she wanted to know why the hell he didnt tell her about HEnry being down there. He was just responding by telling her the truth, that he didnt tell anyone. Later though she learns that CHarlie also knows, along with Ecko and Sayid, so she feels like JAck has lied to her.

shout out to usnrnPage...thanks for the great link. Wow, those whispers tell us a lot and bring up even more questions. FREAKY

CB: Thanks! That certainly makes sense. Can't believe I couldnt figure that out. Hrmph!

SO...does Henry Gale remind anyone else of Kevin Spacey? In like a SE7EN kind of role?

Their line delivery and facial expressions are SO similar...