Lost Returns With A Bang, But Don't Trust John Locke

As if making up for last week's dismal episode, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindeloff wrote a pip of an outing for last night. Titled "Press 7 7", the show featured the discovery of "eyepatch man", seen in one of the final episodes from last season. He turns out to be Mikhail Bakunin, who claims, at first, to be the last member of the Dharma Initiative, living under a truce with the "Hostiles" who inhabited the island long before the arrival of Dharma.

Bakunin, who suggestively bears the name of the founding philosopher of anarchism, later says he is lying, but only about being with Dharma. I seems clear that Bakunin's "Hostiles" are those known to us as the "Others". Subsequently, it develops that also hiding in Bakunin's Flame Station is the Other known as Mrs. Klugh, who we previously met as the Other officer in charge of sending Hurley back to the beach with a message and turning Walt over to Michael after he obeyed her directive to kill Ana Lucia and bring Jack, Kate and Sawyer to the Others.

I turns out she speaks fluent Russian and urges Bakunin to kill her, and probably himself. He shoots her in the heart, but is overpowered before he can shoot himself. Are the Others an outpost of Soviet era Russia?

As for John Locke, in this episode he manages to blow up the Flame Station and its contents. All through the episode the writers seem to be laying out a subtext of Locke's untrustworthiness. He is late to cock his pistol when he is supposed to be "covering" Sayid; he stops Kate from immediately intervening to protect Sayid; when Mikhail fights with Sayid and Kate Locke doesn't appear to help until the fight is over; he leaves off guarding Mikhail to go play computer chess and to discover what will happen when he wins a game against the computer, allowing Mikhail to free himself. Let us not forget that this is the man who imploded the Swan hatch and set off the "purple sky" event.

All through this episode Locke is portrayed as a man with his own agenda. The Island cured his paralysis. He loves the Island and seems to be wanting to protect it's secrets from our, and the Losties, view. On the other hand, it is Locke who deciphered Mr. Eko's staff as directing him to go to 305 degrees on the compass to discover the Flame Station. Is he our guide or is he manipulating us to follow his unspoken plan for us.

In case you, dear reader, are not yet addicted to Lost, you will note the total identification of your humble servant with the show's characters. It is a symptom of Lost disease. As further evidence of the total immersion of viewers in the world of the series, take a look at this blog. Here, the day after the show airs, crucial screen captures are published along with translations of the written and spoken Russian in this episode. Incredible and, as Locke says in this episode, uniquely wonderful.