Pictured: First Ellie, now an almost exact same promo shot of young Rousseau. Looks like she doesn't change her clothes much over the next sixteen years. Gross.Another great episode in a brilliant season of suspense and craziness. This episode in particular is a long time coming, with us finally learning a little more about Rousseau and the science team. Furthermore, we see the temple - which we can probably say with confidence is "the temple" we believed to be a DHARMA station that Ben mentioned (and where the Others are now supposedly).
Beginning with Rousseau and the team - connecting the dots was incredibly exciting, and also learning more about "the sickness" Rousseau kept mentioning... not a sickness with physical symptoms like many of us believed... but an infection in the style of horror movies. Very freaky. When we first see Rousseau and Robert standing off, I think we all thought "oh dear, Danielle really WAS crazy, and killed them all in paranoia". But then when she lowered the gun, Robert tried to kill her. And not just her - he was willing to kill off his own unborn children! Did the "infection" come from the Monster? Was the Monster controlling Robert? Is it really just a security system guarding the temple? Did Montand get "the sickness" while in the temple and spread it? Or all three get it at once? Why would that make Robert want to kill a pregnant woman? It's all absolutely insane, and looking forward to hearing your theories. But things do now make sense - such as why Rousseau was trapped in the radio tower by Brennan (as per her distress signal) - Brennan turned evil thanks to the sickness. The one thing that doesn't add up though is in Season 1 episode "Solitary" where Rousseau said about the Others, "it was them. They were the carriers". It opens up an alternative theory that Robert and co weren't actually sick, they were just turned by the Others (to the point of murdering your wife and kid though?!). Or, the Others did give them this "sickness" thing rather than the Monster. Many, many possible confusing explanations out there... but awesome nevertheless!
Now turning the attention to the old architecture featured in this episode. The temple itself - the house of the Monster? If the temple is in the Dark Territory, that would make sense. But the blast door map referencing a number of Cerberus Vent points - which I had always assumed were where the Monster came from... so either there are multiple temples or the blast door map CV points mean something else. Speaking of the temple though, much love to DocArzt and friends who have a translation screencap of those hieroglyphs here! Nothing stands out as amazingly revelationy though, I'm afraid.
Next up is the Orchid and well. I'm glad Sawyer pointed out how going into the Orchid and experiencing a flash could be deadly, and it was good to see it happen on the well (still confused about the whole raft thing not vanishing last week). It was cool to see the white flash come FROM the well though - again pushing the importance of that wheel room being the center of energy on the Island. Hopefully, Locke putting the wheel back on track will correct things on the Island... as I don't think the guys can take many more! (Though we sure can... otherwise we won't see more of the science crew!)
Finally, discussing our dear Losties... who have effectively fallen on the backburner from our minds this week. Sympathy to Charlotte, who could be Annie? Her dying words are about chocolate... and when we first meet Annie in Ben's flashback she's offering him an Apollo bar. It's a stretch of a theory, but one might think Charlotte's mom would make her change her name after they left (though this theory doesn't work when Charlotte is much younger than Ben). Last and I mean last - Ms Hawking, Faraday's mom. Well done to everyone who predicted it. But how does she know how to find the Island? And will she in next's week's ep pull a Joop and suddenly explain every detail about what the Island is? Hmm, the likelihood of that on this show....
