''Lost'': Cheating Time

All About

Lost

Get the latest photos, news, and more

Three small things about the freighter before we get to the big fourth thing:

Is there any special significance to Captain Gault's name? Glad you asked! Just so happens that there's a John Galt in Atlas Shrugged, written by Lost-cited author Ayn Rand. In Shrugged, Galt is a mystery man who has invented a powerful new source of energy and has vanished off the face of the earth. Turns out he and some other ''captains of industry'' (Wikipedia's phrasing) have formed a secret society in Colorado. I'm not a Rand guy; never read the book. I'm certain that connections could be made here to Dharma and the Others, Ben and Widmore. Feel free to e-mail me your dissertation on the book's significance to Lost and I'll send you a Doc Jensen ''No Prize.''

Late addition: I just woke up from a nap after submitting this recap to my editor and received an e-mail from reader Tom, who points out that Captain Gault is also the name of a maritime adventure hero created by writer William Hope Hodgson. According to Wikipedia, Captain Gault is a ''captain for hire'' who is ''highly placed in a secret society....In general, he reveals himself to have surprising reservoirs of specialized knowledge. Where he got all this knowledge is generally not revealed; we get only these tantalizing hints at the character's past.'' Says Tom, ''This last sentence seems to sum up all of Lost, doesn't it?'' Nice catch, dude! And this gives me a chance to make a connection I've always wanted to make: Hodgson also wrote stories about a spectral investigator named Carnacki (think: Miles Straum?), who lived at 472 Cheyne Walk, in London — just down the street from where Penelope Widmore lives!

What was the book that the troubled Regina was ''reading'' upside down? It was Survivors of the Chancellor, by Jules Verne, an 1875 novel of psychological suspense about — get this — the castaways of a grounded ship who start killing themselves from madness and despair. Interestingly enough, the books that Verne published before and after Survivors of the Chancellor have some powerful Lost resonances: Mysterious Island (also 1875) is, of course, considered an essential text, but then there's Michael Strogoff (1876), about a spy on a mission named...Michael. His lady love? A woman who shares the name of Sayid's Iraqi sweetheart, Nadia.

Why did Regina kill herself? Because she was inconsolable over the death of her lover — the late, Locke-knifed Brit Naomi. Remember the inscription on her bracelet? ''N, I'll always be with you, R.G.'' Yep: I'm thinking Regina is ''R.G.''

And now, for that big fourth thing:

Hey — don't I know you from someplace? Oh, yeah! You're the guy who sold out my friends and killed those two Tailie girls just to get your weirdo psychic son back! I loved this scene. Doc Freighter was showing Sayid and Desmond to their bug-infested quarters when he summoned freighter janitor Kevin Johnson to scrub that brain paint off the wall. (Shades of Radzinsky, Kelvin's former partner in the Hatch and originator of the blast-door map, who blew his brains out and left some stain on the Swan's ceiling.) Pushing his mop bucket down the hall, K.J. emerged from the shadows and revealed himself to be Michael, looking both meeker and buffer than we last saw him at the end of season 2, sailing away from the Island with Walt. He and Sayid shared a tense moment (Pleasepleaseplease don't bust me!) — and that was that for this episode. The promos for next week's episode promise a major download of Michael intel.

Two things:

1. Despite my theories explaining Michael's return in yesterday's Doc Jensen column, I've become quite taken by the suggestion offered by several readers that actor Harold Perrineau isn't playing Michael but rather a grown-up version of Walt. I gotta tell you I really dig that idea.

2. I know many of you felt that Michael's return was anticlimactic, the surprise spoiled by ABC's promos and Perrineau's presence in the credits in recent weeks. Yesterday's Doc Jensen column addressed those complaints, but in an ironic turn of events, my coverage of those complaints wound up functioning as a spoiler for those of you who weren't aware of Perrineau's return. My apologies for my role in ruining the surprise; I should have been more careful.

The Oceanic 6 is set. Right? Right?
Sun's flash-forward fake-out seemed to close out the first act of Lost's future-time story line: identifying the members of the Oceanic 6, the celebrity miracle survivors of Oceanic 815. To recap, they are Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sayid, Aaron, and Sun. Now, I know what some of you are saying: Aaron can't be a member of the Oceanic 6 because he wasn't born prior to the crash and therefore was not technically an Oceanic 815 passenger. To which I say, Please. Don't be so literal. In the Lost world, the Oceanic 6 is clearly a media-coined term, pinned on these six souls by some clever headline writer or newscaster. And being in the business, I can tell you that tiny little facts like Aaron's non-passenger status would never, ever get in the way of a easy, catchy piece of phrasing. We journalists are exactly that lazy. So let's call it: The Oceanic 6 is settled. Now, let's move on to the next act of their story, which I'm betting will cover two big points: the backstory behind Jack's downward spiral into boozy, grizzly-bearded, we-gotta-go-back-to-the-Island mania, and more context for Ben and Sayid's secret war with their list of mysterious off-Island foes.

Well, my deadline has come — and gone. So I turn the space over to you. What did you think of ''Ji-Yeon''? Did you like it as much as I did? Gimme your Michael and Jin theories, Lost nation! Go!