"Something Nice Back Home" (Season 4, Episode 10)

On Thanksgiving Day of 1982, I woke up with an appendicitis. Missing out on Mom's turkey dinner seemed pretty bad, but compared to what Jack went through in last night's show, maybe not so much. My operation was pretty uneventful, other than the out-of-body experience, but that's a story for another day. On to the show. Last week's show was all about action and intrigue. Tonight's was all about emotions and characters.

Best Line

• "Yeah, I getcha." Miles' response to Sawyer threatening him with a boot to his face unless he says "I getcha."
  

Did You Notice?

• The show opens as it often has with a close-up of an eye.
• Is Rose right that Jack's sudden medical emergency coincides with him trying to leave the island? His pain did seem to peak instantly after he vowed to get everyone off the island.
  
• Is it significant that Jack had a shaved chest in the future? In Season 2, when Jack came out of the Swan station's shower, he had a hairy chest. Also, Juliet had to shave him in preparation for the appendectomy. Hair today, gone tomorrow? And where was his appendectomy scar? Mine is still visible 23 years later and my operation wasn't performed in a hut on an island.
• Besides the writers love for "Star Wars", was the toy Millennium Falcon included because Han Solo claimed it made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs, which is not a measurement of time but of distance? Are they implying that what we presume is time-travel is in fact travel instead over a great distance?
  
• Based on the score of the Red Sox World Series game shown in the newspaper, it is apparently late summer 2007 when these flash forwards take place. We know it's after Kate's trial and presumably before the events of last season's finale when a distraught Jack desperately wanted to get back to the island. This time frame would make Aaron almost three years old.
  
• Aaron's mobile of the planets may have been shown to remind us that there is more to the universe than just Earth.
• Jack is reading from "Alice in Wonderland", specifically Chapter 2 where Alice has found herself in a strange new world.
• I believe Claire's comment to Sawyer that she was seeing things refers to a scene cut from last week's episode when she saw Charlie.
• Why were Rousseau and Karl buried? So no one would find the bodies?
• Why is Sawyer suddenly so protective of Claire and baby Aaron?
  
• Jack's associate at the hospital wants him to look at an x-ray of an L4 vertebrae, which is also the same place on Ben's spine where his tumor was located.
• Dr. Stillman at Hurley's hospital bears a striking similarity to his other doctor, Dr. Brooks, who was seen in the episode "Dave", right down to the glasses and sweater.
  
• Interesting that Hurley believes that the Oceanic Six are all dead and in heaven. Is it possible that the surprise in this season's finale is that they die while escaping the island? Although the producers early on dismissed the theory of the islanders being in Purgatory, could it be possible that they were telling the truth at the time and that now Jack, Kate, Hurley, Aaron, and Sun (no longer islanders) don't survive? I purposely leave Sayid out of this theory because his interaction with Ben makes me think he, if not the others, is alive and well in the future.
• Charlie's message to Jack, "You're not supposed to raise him", mirrors the warning the psychic gave a pregnant Claire that her as-yet-unborn child should not be raised by another.
• Apparently, the smoke monster only chased off Keamy and the other freighter mercenaries last week.
• Looks like Jin won't hesitate to fall back on his enforcer ways to ensure Sun and his baby leave the island.
  
• In case you missed it, Juliet reminds Jack that Bernard is a dentist, making him a logical choice to assist in a medical procedure.
• Bernard's comment to Jack that he could be dreaming about something nice back home reflects (at least initially) the future Jack shares with Kate. Does this call into play the question of whether Jack's future is real or a figment of his imagination?
• Although the sign above the front desk indicated that Jack was back working at St. Sebastian's Hospital, the setting had much more of an upscale private practice appearance as opposed to the more traditional city hospital look it has had in past episodes.
  
• Was Jack's dad (white shoes and all) a manifestation of the smoke monster, explaining why his appearance occurred moments after the smoke detector went off?
  
• I think Kate's promise to Sawyer was that she would check on his illegitimate daughter, Clementine.
• So Sawyer chose to stay on the island. He had previously stated he had nothing to go back to. Was everyone given a choice to go or stay?
• I got the impression that when Jack pointed out to Kate that she was not even related to Aaron that there was the unspoken comment that Jack was, as if he had found out about his and Claire's family connection at some point.
• I loved that Kate seemed to have picked up Sawyer's habit of using nicknames when she called Aaron "Sweet Pea".
• Where has Claire gone with her dad (or what appears to be her dad)? Is he bringing her to Jacob?
  

The Numbers - 2 3 4 5 6 8 10 15 16 23 42 108

• Jack comments that his incision will be 2 inches lower than where Juliet is shaving him.
• Jack's appointment with his patient, Miss Berenberg, is at 5 a.m.
• Jack's associate has an x-ray of an L4 she wants him to examine.
  
• Kate mentions on the phone that Jack is not never home before 8.
• Jack points out that the nanny only works until 4 and he came home at 6.
  

Previews - Next week's "Cabin Fever" gives us a look back to John Locke's childhood as well as yet another appearance by Jack's dad, Christian Shephard; the never aging Richard Alpert; the
mysterious Matthew Abaddon; and Horace Goodspeed. If you didn't recognize him in the previews, he was the long-haired man with the ax that tells Locke he's been dead for 12 years. Horace is also the same man who brought young Ben and his father to the island and who was later killed by Ben when the village was gassed. Some people (including my co-workers Marilyn and Brian) wonder if he may be Jacob. He's got the hair for it. Plus, with a title like "Cabin Fever", you know the mystery man may show up. Also, TV Guide reports that "in a flashback scene that perhaps represents the narrative device's greatest leap in time so far on the series, we'll bear witness to a historic event that has significant repercussions on 'present-day' events on the island." Wow. This is building up to what could be one of the best episodes of the season.