"Further Instructions" (Season 3, Episode 3)

Good episode. It had the feel of a first season show. Characters traipsing through the jungle. A lot of action. Boone's back. A polar bear shows up. I loved Locke's vision quest and seeing the characters in roles other than their traditional ones. The perfect family of Charlie, Claire, and baby Aaron. Sun bossing Jin around. Sawyer and Kate as a couple. Jack being frisked by airport security guard Ben. Captain Desmond and his bevy of flight attendants. Hurley the ticket agent. This show was also the halfway point of the first six episodes before the loooong holiday break. Three more weeks then nothing until late January 2007. Enjoy them while you can.

Best Line: As I expected last week, it was Hurley to a naked Desmond: "So, like, the hatch blew off your underwear?"

Did You Notice?

• The opening scenes with Locke were very similar to how the very first episode began with Jack. The close-up on an eye; a character disoriented on his back in the jungle, and a disturbance in the surrounding grass (although this time it wasn't Vincent the dog but a naked Desmond).
  
• When Locke examined Mr. Eko's Jesus stick it was carved with "Lift up your eyes and look north" which is the beginning of what God told Abram in Genesis 13:14: "Lift up your eyes and look north, south, east and west. For all the land that you see I give to you and your descendants forever. I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so numerous that you can't count them all. Get up and walk up and down the land, for I have given it to you." Interesting since Locke is so in tune with the island. There were also two other biblical references carved into the stick: John 3:05 (which deals with baptism - Eko baptised Claire's baby) and Acts 7:12 ("But when Jacob heard that there was corn in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first." Yet another father reference?).
  
• I wonder if the paste Locke made and ate for his vision quest was the same concoction he had put on Boone's head wound in the episode where Boone thought Shannon had been killed by the monster?
  
• Interesting that Locke built the sweat lodge inside of the frame of Eko's church.
  
• The creature that leapt out of the fire in Locke's vision quest was the polar bear he would later face.
  
• Eddie the cop's t-shirt featured the band Geronimo Jackson. This was the same band whose album Charlie and Hurley had found in the hatch while reviewing the record collection last season.
  
• Was it a coincidence that three of Locke's farm family (Bobby, Mike, and Jan) had the same names as members of the Brady Bunch? Was it all that marijuana that made them so happy all the time?
  
• One of the farmers was named Adam - same name as Shannon's dad and one of the Others in Juliet's book club.
  
• Whose toy dump truck was in the polar bear's lair? And who was the skeleton in the Dharma t-shirt?
  
• When Locke and Eddie went out hunting, I was reminded of the season one episode when Locke's dad and he went out hunting, only with the roles reversed.
  
• Paulo (the Brazilian man) and Nicky (the lady in red) are two new survivors who will be appearing off and on in future episodes.
• Whoa, Desmond can see the immediate future? I guess in addition to blowing off his underwear, the hatch implosion gave him this new gift.
  

The Numbers - 4 8 15 16 23 42 (and sometimes 108)

• 4, 8, 15, and 16 can be seen carved into Mr. Eko's Jesus stick.
  
• In Locke's vision quest, we see Hurley the ticket agent enter 4, 8, and 15 into his computer.
  
• The "new" Numbers (2 and 6 so far) appeared again. There was a "2" by the escalator Locke crawled up in his vision quest and Eddie the cop was at the farm for 6 weeks.
  

Previews

Back to the human petting zoo. Looks like Sawyer is in for all kinds of hurt next week. Beaten by Ben, strapped to a table (not unlike the alien in Hurley's comic book, I might point out), then injected by an Other that looks like a male Sigourney Weaver. I think Ben may want Jack to do that favor he said he would ask for in exchange for taking him home.