"The Little Prince" (Season 5, Episode 4)

Tonight's episode shares its title with a novel by Antoine de Saint Exupery, who was not only a French author but also an aviator. In July 1944, he flew out of an airbase to collect intelligence on German troop movements and was never seen again. He and his plane mysteriously disappeared. His story of "The Little Prince" concerns the title character, an alien boy stranded in the Sahara Desert who misses his life on his home asteroid. He also travels to six other asteroids and encounters one person on each one (The Oceanic 6?). It is also a story of love and loneliness, sadness and solitude.

Best Line

• "Hurray. Everything's back to normal." My favorite of Miles many sarcastic comments.
  

Did You Notice?

• So it was Kate's idea to raise Aaron as her son.
• Kate's statement to Jack, "I've always been with you", was very powerful.
  
• Is life like a box of chocolates when there's a gun hidden in the bottom?
• The last name of the female doctor who speaks to Jack is Ariza. I Googled the name and the most hits refer to Trevor Ariza, a small forward for the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team. Maybe the writers are fans?
• Are the tranquilizer gun-wielding assassins who keep attacking Sayid on Widmore's payroll?
  
• I loved the moments when the current characters on the island witnessed moments from the past - Locke and the light at the hatch, Sawyer seeing Kate deliver Aaron.
• I now have no doubt that Miles is the baby that Candle/Wickmund/Halliwax/Chang was holding in this season's opening. This would explain his susceptibility to the time travel illness. He's been on the island for more than just the past two weeks.
• The water bottle is from Ajira Airlines, whose website I mentioned in past entries. Is this perhaps how the Oceanic 6 get back to the island?
• Could the occupants of the other outrigger be the Oceanic 6? Or even Locke, Sawyer, and the rest having jumped from the future to this moment to try and stop themselves from corrupting the time line?
• As soon as I saw Claire's mother in the "previously on", I was certain she was lawyer Norton's client, trying to get custody of Ben. I was fooled.
• Was it coincidence that Locke and his group were in the midst of a downpour while a storm moved in on Jack and Kate in Los Angeles?
  
• The name on Ben's carpet cleaning van read Canton-Rainier, which is an anagram of reincarnation. Appropriate since this was the vehicle where Locke's body was originally kept before being put on ice at the butcher shop.
• The container amidst the beach wreckage read "BESIXDOUZE". Douze is French for the number 12. In other words, B612, which was also the name of the Little Prince's asteroid home.
  
• As soon as Locke saw the container with the French writing and they cut to the raft of people, I knew we were seeing Rousseau's team when they first got shipwrecked. I was not, however, expecting the floating body to be Jin! Anyone wondering how Jin could have survived the freighter's explosion, remember that the island will not let you die until it's ready to let you die.
• The inflatable raft that held Rousseau's team was the same octagonal shape as the Dharma logos.
  
• Rough translation of Rousseau's team's conversation on the raft:

"I have said we would follow (untranslatable) of those damned numbers."
"It's not my fault, Robert. Breman was to keep the sonar."
"But I did, Montand. I have (untranslatable)."
"The instruments have no function."
"A man at sea!"
"What? I thought that was all!"
"Correct! It is not us. Who is it?"

• The elder Rousseau had previously explained that her team went mad and she had to kill them. Could their madness be the result of the current time shifts?
  

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

• Kate said it would take more than 2 nights for her to get used to a normal bed.
  
• Kate suggested she tell everyone she was 6 months pregnant when she was arrested.
• Sawyer points out that Charlotte has been out of 10 minutes.
• Jack notes that Sawyer was unconscious for 42 hours and had the equivalent of 3 doses of horse tranquilizers in his system.
  
• Kate's home address is 42 Panorama Crest.
• Ben says to meet at Slip 23 at the marina.
• Miles says he's came to the island 2 weeks ago.
  
• Juliet says Claire gave birth 2 months ago.
• One of Rousseau's team on the beach has a device announcing "4, 8, 15, 16".
  

Previews - On next week's "This Place is Death", will Kate be convinced to return to the island? Will Sun shoot Ben? What is Locke doing descending into what looks like a well?