EggTown Blues

Hey brother,

Lost-ophiles, I continue to be amazed with the show, even when the episodes are weak, they stay strong. Lost provided us with more questions, answers, and room for theories and discussion. So, here goes.
SPOILERS below for those who have not seen the latest episode.

Let's start with the obvious question, why is the episode called Eggtown? Is it because Locke made the last two eggs for Benjamin Linus? Is it because eggs are ova, and the episode was about Kate's pregnancy or lack thereof, and/or Kate's child or lack thereof? Or is it because eggs are a cultural and religious icon to symbolize birth and life (think Easter)? Imagine and egg town... a whole town full of life. Not that hard to imagine, I guess. But, sounds a little bit like Lost to have so many legitimate theories. So, who is the egg? Is it Kate getting a second chance at living a normal life, thanks to her lawyer (go lawyers), her mother (who birthed her and tried to reform their relationship because of Jack's testimony,) and Jack's testimony. Jack came off as an honest likeable witness, even though he was lying through his teeth (presumably), and thus he basically saved her life. Maybe, the egg was Aaron, who is one of the few Island babies that we know of (Alex is also an Island baby, if I remember correctly). And the episode was about the Aaron surprise, as Claire, who spawned the egg from eggtown had to share motherhood with Kate, but we'll get to that later. On an island, where women can't have children, eggs come at a premium.

Of course, some other egg related thoughts include the fragile nature of eggs, as in "walking on eggshells." The entire Locke town is dependant on a leader who doesn't have confidence in his own leadership. Of course, the egg is part of the chicken and the egg conundrum, which is a thought about origins and paradoxes, but this episode did not seem to be about paradoxes, at least not more than other Lost episodes. Instead, I prefer to think of the egg town as in how someone eggs a house on Halloween or someone has egg on their face. Locke certainly has egg on his face as he is duped by Linus, by Miles, by Kate, and of course, by Sawyer. The whole town is led by an egghead who doesn't have confidence in himself and is rapidly losing control over his people... well, until his magnificent grenade trick with Miles. Yep, he put the egg on someone else's face. Very nice contrast to the Linus treatment in the beginning of the episode. Enjoy your breakfast.

Of course, the most obvious question from the episode is why Kate is walking around with Claire's baby, Aaron, and pretending it's hers? Of course, it's still possible that the baby is a different baby Aaron named after Claire's baby boy, but we will ignore that possibility because it infuriates me. Various potential answers...

1) Claire lost Aaron in a card game/backgammon game. And then for fun, she goes around yelling, "I've abandoned my boy! I've abandoned my child!" (Yep, that's your Oscar winner people. You have to deal with it.)
2) Claire dies between now and then. Even if that's the case, she could still have been one of the Oceanic 6 or at least, the 8 who "survived" the plane crash.
3) Claire is stuck on the Island, and Kate adopts the kid because someone has to take care of him. Jack, who is Aaron's half-uncle (by blood) does not want the responsibility. Although an interesting side plot may arise if some paparazzo does a paternity test on the kid, thinking Jack is the father.

But, if Claire is stuck on the Island (despite Desmond's vision of her getting on chopper with Aaron), then why did Kate jump at the chance at never leaving the state again? Why is Jack lying under oath about the death of all of his fellow islanders (assuming they are alive)? These people are really locking themselves tight into this story of no survivors.

The most obvious answer to these question has to do with the Abaddon, Linus feud... whereby someone made them make promises and tell lies (and/or had Sayid kill) to protect the others on the Island.

If so, why the ruse about two other people surviving the crash? The likely scenario at this point is that two bodies were found along with the Oceanic 6, and it was apparent that the 2 did not die in a plane crash.

Does Aaron count as one of the Oceanic 6? I have no idea.
Did we answer the question from the end of last season, when Kate said in the flashforward, "he's gonna be wondering where I am." Is that Aaron? Again, I have no idea.

What about the card game between Faraday and Staples Lewis, you ask... Well, the words they used, indicated that these people were playing a memory game, which demonstrated Faraday's progress. 2 out of 3 though, is that progress? Since neither of them appears to have a particular memory problem, then the answer that makes the most sense within the Lost universe, which we know has some sort of time distortion... is that Faraday is seeing things in advance like Desmond, and now is trying to improve his future memory. To rephrase, Faraday is having these visions about the future and trying to maintain the future in his memory. If that's true, then, is 2 out of 3 really progress? Desmond remembers whole elaborate Charlie deaths. I guess, it's still progress.

Speaking of progress. The last of the NBA trades was the most interesting. Wally Sczerbiak and Ben Wallace and Delonte West (becoming solid) and Joe Smith (still solid) for an erratic Drew Gooden, and a good perimeter defender, slasher in Larry Hughes. The point of the trade by Cleveland is two-fold, make LeBron happy by continued management activeness or activity, and also to maximize LeBron in certain unique ways. Wally is an excellent outside shooter, but a bit slow, which hurts particularly on the defensive end. But, on offense, the chances are that the Cavs will have LeBron drive, have the defenders fall in to guard him, and then kick out to Wally, or if they are less wise, then they do not double team LeBron when he drives and watch as he physically beats the other team down.

But, as for the defense, if Ben Wallace is anywhere nearly as good as he was in Detroit, then their defense should take care of itself because he can cover a lot of ground. If their defense suffers, well... then, Boston, Detroit, or maybe Orlando will have to find a way to win the conference. If it does work, then we just gave the best player in basketball more tools to win the championship. He has some tough competition in the Lakers, who were a very good team before getting another very good player for almost nothing and now are a legitimate championship contender. He has some very tough competition in Dallas, who acquired Jason Kidd for one or two chances at a title. He has even tougher competition in Phoenix who sacrificed a very good player for one or two very good chances at the title. Shaq appears fit, and if he was Shaq of 2 years ago, it's tough not to imagine them as the favorites. Except that they all face the toughest competition of San Antonio and Tim Duncan. Manu has somehow improved and is now consistently playing at an all star level and is even averaging over 30 minutes a game, and Tony Parker's quickness will continue to be a boon to this versatile team. Thus, Duncan, still has to be the favorite in that very difficult west. The West even has Houston with Yao and McGrady who have won 11 in a row, as they round into proper form; Denver, with two incredible scorers in Melo and AI with an incredible interior defense centered on Camby; Deron Williams or Chris Paul's team (who respectively have won about 16 of 19 and have the best record in the west). Yeah, the west battles are going to be tough, as they even struggle to make the playoffs against a Golden State team that is intent on returning to the playoffs.

Speaking of the playoffs and AI, and not speaking of politics (where McCain was unabashedly smeared by the New York Times for what appears to me to be his former staffer's concern about the potential, yes, potential appearance of impropriety because he was hanging out with a pretty lobbyist... ridiculous) the Oscars, (other than Juno, American Gangsters, Depp's performance in Edward Scissorhands 2: The Revenge, and Bale's performance in 3:10 to Yuma, I have no vested interest in these candidates). So, as usual, I will speak to something I rewatched this weekend.

AMC, American Movie Classics replayed the movie, The Matrix, which was the ultimate of the Terminator type movies because it superbly deals with so many subject matters. Most obviously, the movie was a special effects masterpiece, with its dramatic fight sequences and morphing techniques from Terminator 2, and of course, bullet-time. Seriously impressive and fun to look at, in the computer sequences, and even the elaborate, stylish cape-like black long coats were magnificent in the various fight sequences. Great care was taken to making the movie beautiful as well as appropriately drab for contrast. I'll point out that the sound and the music were excellent and appropriate at all times. Then, once you are watching the movie, you realize that the movie itself is a lot of fun, with plenty of action sequences, a primitive love story, and a legitimately interesting plotline.

But, those things are obvious, then we get a little less obvious and we deal with many of the same themes dealt with in Terminator 2 about man vs. machine, the present vs. the future, what is life, what is reality, is there a destiny, do machines factor into evolution, (can one John Connor or one Thomas Anderson actually save the world from machines)... etc. Then, we have directly addressed and less obvious religious, philosophical, artistic, psychological, and econo-socio-political references and homages and melds all of these into the modern technological culture. People sometimes complain about the 2nd and 3rd of the series, which are not nearly up to par, though they deal with interesting subject matters, but in a less crafty and less entertaining manner. Additionally, people complain about the acting, as Keanu Reeves, who almost exclusively makes great movies, and Trinity give wooden performances. But, I disagree, I feel that Neo was perfect for the role with his constant look of shock actually appropriate for the character.

But, back to the imagery: let's see, he is the savior of all mankind whose burden is to bring people the truth. They call him Neo, which in scrabulous or boggle, you would know is One, as the One, the savior. His friends are Trinity, as in the three pronged, one god theory proposed by various Christian doctrines. (Morpheus is the Greek god of dreams.)
In order to bring the truth, he must have complete faith in himself and in his vision for the future. We have a John the Baptist character who has been heralding his arrival. Of course, we have an oracle, a prophet, like the one's the Greek's visited, the liaison to the gods. The Greek gods had to physically overtake the cruel Titans before they could run the world in a more just manner. These characters were fighting for a place called Zion (a Judaic reference, hence the term zionists), the one place that survived the human armageddon. The people in the system are the enemy before they come to believe what he believes. Because, "if you are not one of us, you are on of them." Oh and Cypher even acts as a Judas figure, though his last supper of steak and wine is with the Romanesque bad guys. I'll get to the bad guy soon enough. The references to Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism with references to enlightenment and rebirth are also evident.

Of course, the Matrix, is an anthem to rebellion, so, much like Star Wars, the good guys have to fight the system. The thing that might make the movie legendary is that the bad guy, Agent Smith has a panache about him. He is a fed, he wears a business suit, and sun glasses. He even wears a tie clip to keep his tie from getting ruffled. No, he's not Darth Vader, but his monotone, and ability to fit into the modern world and boss around cops and frighten Neo with his gestapo tactics is part of the process of bringing old time magical evil into the 20th century or maybe even the 21st century. The guy is a white collar criminal, a computer hacker, technically, a program of some sort, but he dresses like a white collar criminal and fights with mystical toughness when he is not giving highly thoughtful diatribes about the human existence and Dennis Milleresque rants about what is wrong with our culture and our odor.

Of course, the movie is a study of lunacy because the way they describe the nature of reality as a hammer beating in his head is not what normal people think (or at least I hope they don't). It is important to remember that the world is not real, since there is no spoon. There is no anything, and we all live in a dream world and in this world, if you take the proper pills you could fly, and if you take the wrong pills you get fried. In the non-dream world, any one of us could be some very important super hero neo-Jesus. Maybe it's not just a harmless dream, or a facile movie, but a testament the unification of lunacy and rebellion. But, even so, it is very entertaining.

I only touched on a few random religious thoughts and film references, and I left out hundreds of other ideas, explored thoroughly throughout the movie. Frankly, The Matrix and Lost should be classes our children study in school, but not like classes about other TV shows and movies. These are advanced courses because although you can appreciate the movie on any level, like Shakespeare, the more you know, the more you can understand, appreciate, and discuss this art.

Of course, if LeBron (King James) wins himself a championship this year, all of this is moot because it becomes clear that he is The One. Either way, he seems like a good egg.

Stay tuned for the next episode of...
Papa Bear