"Lighthouse" (Season 6, Episode 5)

Another good episode! Not as good as Locke's last week but certainly better than Kate's. And like Kate's, this episode could be viewed as a companion to a season 1 episode, in this case "White Rabbit". In that one, Jack struggled with daddy issues as well, but here he is in the role of father.

Best Line

• "And I just lied to a samurai." Hurley to Jacob.
  

Did You Notice? - 2004 Parallel Time Line

• The photo of Jack with his parents has his dad in a white suit, his mom in a black dress, and between them, Jack is in a tux (black and white). The black/white theme continues.
• On the island, Juliet removed Jack's appendix whereas in this time line, it was done when Jack was a boy. But why was Jack surprised to see the scar?
• Jack's son is named David, a common name in the Lost universe. It was also the name of Hurley's dad, Hurley's friend at the sanitarium who later appeared on the island, Desmond's middle name, and Libby's husband.
• Jack mentions the Red Sox to David, a baseball team repeatedly referenced in past seasons.
• David has the book, The Annotated Alice. Jack was reading Alice in Wonderland to Aaron when he and Kate were together after the Oceanic Six returned to Los Angeles. Lewis Carroll's books were also the inspiration for the title of the Season 1 episode "White Rabbit" and the Looking Glass Station, which featured a white rabbit in the Dharma logo.
• Jack's comment to David about "Kitty" and "Snowdrop" were Alice's (recurring theme alert!) black and white cats from Through the Looking Glass.
• Could David have been listening to Driveshaft when he told Jack it was a band his father wouldn't have heard of?
• Among the liquor bottles when Margo Shephard pours herself a drink is a red-labeled bottle of MacCutcheon whiskey, the preferred drink of Charles Widmore and Locke's dad, Anthony Cooper.
• I get the impression that this time line's Jack has not taken up excessive drinking. However, his mother's relief at Jack not drinking is that perhaps Christian still had.
• Since Claire is named in Christian's will, are we to believe that he still had the affair in Australian resulting in Claire's conception? Because Christian was dead when the time line reset, could his past not change?
• We are conspicuously not told the name of David's mother, presumably Jack's ex-wife. Is it Sarah as in the original time line or is the actress too busy being the mom on "Modern Family"? You may remember Jack "met" Sarah in the emergency room when she had been involved in a car accident. Jack choose to save her over the other victim, who turned out to be Shannon's father, Adam Rutherford, who died. Will we find out in this time line, Jack instead saved Adam? And if so, what did this mean to Shannon's life? It was recently announced that the actress Maggie Grace has agreed to return to the show so perhaps we'll find out. If David's mother is not Sarah, then could we perhaps see Juliet in this role? And was she out of town because she was visiting her sister or applying for a job in Portland?
• The stone rabbit hiding the house key to David's mother's house is similar to one seen also hiding a key to the apartment of the dead man that young Miles "talks" to in his flashback last season. Rabbits are another recurring theme. Whether mentioned in an episode title, featured in a Dharma logo, or used in time travel experiments, these animals have been referenced throughout the past five seasons.
• This season's theme of characters in front of a mirror (or should I say looking glass?) continues with Jack in front of the mirror in David's bedroom.
• The sheet music in David's room and what he plays for his audition is Chopin's "Fantasie-Impromptu". The popular song "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" uses the melody from this composition. This is the same musical piece that young Daniel Faraday was practicing last season in his flashback.
  
• Inside the Williams Conservatory, a sign reads "Welcome All Candidates".
• Did you get the impression that Dogen (like Desmond in the season premiere) was in this time line for a reason and knew of what has happened in the original time line?
• Dogen tells Jack his son has "a gift" not unlike Walt and young Locke being told they were "special".
• Jack's confession to David that Christian once told him "you don't have what it takes" connects back to the earlier scene on the island when Jack is told by Hurley that "Jacob says you have what it takes."
  

Did You Notice? - 2007 Island Time Line

• Although the characters have had literal (and essentially figurative) reflection in the 2004 time line, we also see island Jack contemplating his reflection in the temple's - for lack of a better term - reflecting pool and again in the lighthouse mirrors.
• Is it significant that Miles and Hurley continually tied when playing tic-tac-toe?
• Apparently Jacob has visited the temple before because he knows where the kitchen is.
• I liked Hurley's comparison of Jacob to Obi-Wan Kenobi, who after his death in Star Wars appeared in ghostly form to Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi to provide guidance.
• Jin regaining consciousness in Claire's makeshift hut reminded me of Sayid coming to in Rousseau's abode.
• How true is Claire's statement that "the one thing that will kill you is infection."
  
• Claire has jungle fever and I'm not talking about the Spike Lee kind. She's got dynamite (possibly from the Black Rock?) , does to Justin the Other what Jack Nicholson did to Scatman Crothers in The Shining, and don't get me started on that creepy baby facsimile she created. I'm just hoping that skull didn't come from Vincent the dog!
• I was thrilled to see the return of the skeletons from Season 1. Although I don't think they'll turn out to be Jack and Hurley as Hurley proposes osince Jack had first identified them as one male and one female. Is this the fate of Rose and Bernard who were last seen "retired" and living in the jungle?
• I liked Jack's question of why none of them had seen the lighthouse before this. The island works in strange and mysterious ways, Jack.
• Justin the Other tries to remind Claire that after she was tested, she apparently didn't escape the temple as she thinks she did. Was she released or bodily removed instead?
  
• The images Jack sees in the lighthouse mirror are the pagoda where Sun and Jin were married, the church where young James Ford attended his parents funeral, and Jack's childhood home. The first two scenes coincide with Jacob's appearances at these events, however, he saw Jack at the hospital. Could Jacob have first visited Christian Shephard as a candidate? Since only last names are written on the lighthouse wheel, this could be. It also appears as if the Shephard name was bolder as if written a second time.
• Did anyone else think of the practice of placing ashes on the forehead for Ash Wednesday when Jacob pointed out to Hurley that he had ink on his forehead?
  

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

• Jack's mother says he was 7 or 8 when he had his appendix removed.
• Jin asks Claire if she has been in the jungle for 3 years.
• Hurley asks Jack to wait 10 seconds while planning to leave the temple for their jungle trip.
• The street address number of David's mother's house is 233.
• The lighthouse has 4 mirrors.
  
• Hurley has to set the lighthouse wheel to 108 degrees.
• Jack wants Hurley to set it to 23 degrees.
• Tonight's episode coincidentally (?) was the 108th produced hour of "Lost".
  

Numbers and Names (I felt I needed to separately note the inscriptions on the lighthouse wheel.)

• 108 Wallace - Is this the someone that Jacob said is coming to the island?
  
• 51 Austen - More than likely Kate and her last name was not crossed out nor were 15 Ford (James), 16 Jarrah (Sayid), and 23 Shephard.
  
• Notable names: 20 Rousseau (as in crazy French lady), 58 Burke (Juliet), 101 Faraday, 104 Lewis (Charlotte?), 109 Friendly (as in Tom the Other), 117 Linus (Ben), 124 Dawson (Michael?)
  
• Other names (in case yours is listed, faithful readers): 17 Barnes, 19 Nyugen, 21 McHenry, 24 Kluxen, 25 Asher, 33 Novak (Mike and Marilyn, is there something you're not telling me?), 34 Grimaldi, 107 Hanson (not Hanso), 111 Klein, 112 Horton, 115 Bargas, 119 Almeida (24's Tony again?), 122 Moorehead
  

Once again, this episode will be rerun next week as the enhanced version at 8 p.m. ET. I am not so much intrigued by what is said about a scene (since I have found that I blogged about it the week before!) but what scenes have no comments whatsoever. For instance, this week, no pop-ups regarding the boy in the jungle. Can't give anything away just yet, I'm guessing.

Next week's new episode is titled "Sundown". Is there a double meaning here? Is Sun the female shown falling in the brief previews (Sun down)? I also saw Dogen forcing Sayid on the ground of the temple and another scene of Sayid in the jungle with a big knife. In two weeks, the episode "Dr. Linus" airs, which should make the European history teachers who read my blog happy (you know who you are!).

I have also read on-line that mid-season we will discover what the island actually is. The clue given (sort-of SPOILER ALERT!) is that it is a four-letter word with no A or E. My immediate thought was SHIP. If my alien theory is correct, then perhaps a spaceship. Of course, I just hope the producers answer the most pressing question of all: Whatever happened to Jack's chest hair conspicuously missing again in this episode?