Lost: Are the Seventy Hours Over Yet?

Last week Charlotte collapsed while hemorrhaging from her nose.  Our story on the Island continues from there as Daniel Faraday and Juliet try to revive her while Sawyer sneers in the distance and Locke’s pissed he didn’t get an answer from Richard before the last time jump.  Anyway, Charlotte’s fine, well, as fine as a character with no purpose can be.  Locke says they need to head for the Orchid Station and they head for the beach to get the Zodiac raft to save some walking time across the Island.  Along the way, Miles gets a nosebleed and is concerned, and now I’m not concerned about my weak nasal passages but that’s between me and my doctor, thank you.  But before I can spell epistaxis, they jump to the night of Boone’s death-remembered by Desmond shining a light up from the Hatch as Locke pounded on the door and by the birth of Aaron, assisted by Kate who was playing the part of Jack’s nurse.  Sawyer watches Aaron’s birth and is moved by his affections for and loss of Kate, but he does not say anything to them.  They jump again and head for the beach.

At the beach, they find their old camp destroyed and deserted, with no signs of Rose or Bernard (remember them?), but with a new canoe of sorts containing a bottle from Ajira Airlines.  They are at some point in the future beyond when they started jumping.  After Faraday explains to Juliet that he thinks the “sickness” with Charlotte is related to her time on the Island, Juliet gets a little nosebleed.  Uh oh.

They get in the canoe and start paddling out to sea.  Juliet puts on her psychologist hat and asks Sawyer what he saw that night in the jungle.  He starts to talk about Kate as they continue to paddle, but before they can get around the Great Horn of Craphole Island, someone starts shooting at them.  The unknown vessel is getting closer and the Island Crew Team makes haste.  Sawyer prays for a jump, gets his wish, and then is upset he didn’t ask for 1,000 more wishes because they landed in the middle of a rough storm.  They land on the shore and find the wreckage from a French vessel.  Are they where I think they are?  They don’t stay to find out.

In the morning, we see a rescue raft filled with French folks.  As they drift, they spot a body floating in the water and they pull the body into their raft.  On the beach we see it is Jin, dehydrated, sunburnt, but still hot, oh and alive.  And who is tending to Jin?  Why it’s a young, pregnant French woman named Danielle Rousseau.

That was the interesting story on the Island.  Here’s the stale toast from the mainland, three years in the future: Kate and Aaron are in a hotel room with Sun before Kate heads off to a meeting.  Sun stays to watch Aaron and open a file of photos of Ben and a box of chocolates with a gun hidden inside.  (Anyone looking to get me a Valentine’s Day gift?)  Kate meets with the lawyer who’s trying to get proof that Kate is not Aaron’s mother; he won’t help her and says she will lose custody of the child.  Kate freaks out but stakes out the lawyer’s office to see where he will go to meet with his client later that day.  Meanwhile, Jack thinks Kate is the next target of Sayid’s mystery assassin, and he goes to warn her.

Jack joins the stakeout and they follow, I’m sorry “tail,” the lawyer to a motel where Claire’s mother is staying.  They naturally assume she knows about Aaron and is fighting for custody.  Jack confronts her but she has no clue who Aaron is; she’s in town to collect the final settlement from Oceanic Air as Claire’s next of kin.  Thankfully Jack covers and he and Kate head off.

Speaking of cover, the lawyer was undercover working for Ben.  I assume Ben’s plan was to force Kate back on the run so she’d get on Jack’s radar.  We learn this as Ben and Sayid, still having soiled bed linens between them, meet the lawyer to see if he can get Hurley out of county lockup.  He can because the Los Angeles criminal system is a joke . . . er, or so I’ve heard!

In the end, Ben, Jack, Sayid, Kate, and Locke’s non-decaying corpse (just like his alter ego, Jeremy Bentham!) convene that night at a dock slip, where Kate realizes Ben was behind the plan to take Aaron; apparently, just the sight of Ben is enough to tell her this.  Sun pulls up, with Aaron in the back seat, and pulls a gun on Ben.  Don’t worry, she won’t shoot him, at the very least because the Island needs Ben alive to get the Oceanic Six back.

A slow week, once again, and I think it’s because there was too much focus on the Oceanic Six unrelated to advancing the mythology and storyline of the Island, and frankly, isn’t that the only reason why we’ve kept watching this show after five years?

Season 5, Episode 4: The Little Prince (originally aired February 4, 2009)

For another take on this episode, check out Wherein a Bunch of Stuff Happens by Robin Reed.

For more on Lost, click here.

Wednesdays, 9/8c on ABC

Photographs courtesy of ABC