Lost: Cabin Fever... More Thoughts
I'm back... as many of you know, I was in dial-up hell at my parents' place until Friday afternoon, and I posted my review of Cabin Fever, checked in a couple of times, but let you guys do the talking. Then I got home, ready to jump on with my handy dandy high-speed... and there was NO signal. Turns out Bell had sent someone out to our house to "install high speed" (said the work order I found stuffed in our mailbox hours after I'd called Bell and sat there for 30 minutes while the technician could find nothing wrong with my line) where we already HAD high speed. But, as Bell does, they just played around with the phone lines a bit and screwed up a line that had previously been working just fine, thank you very much. (Weird thing: The phone lines are in the backyard, and we have a locked fence they'd have to go through to get to it. How did they get there??) Anyway, they said the issue would be resolved in 48 hours, and by 56 hours we called them back, and they said don't worry, we have a technician coming around tomorrow to your house to check it from the inside at 5. From the inside? And you didn't think to call us to set up this appointment?

I'd switch to Rogers, but I think they're the seventh level of Hell. Bell's only the fifth.

Anyway, the guy fixed us and we're back online as of today. Why couldn't they have done this on the Meet Kevin Johnson episode, where I didn't have much to say? I have had a chance to watch the episode again, and I have a LOT to talk about, but you guys have been covering many of my thoughts brilliantly in the comments section. So, I wanted to talk about a couple of things and post some theories and just extend our discussion of this amazing episode. I can't stop thinking about it.

First of all, let's talk about Emily. There's been some discussion about Locke's mother having the same name as Ben's, and as I said in the comments section of my post on Cabin Fever, when the episode opened and the mother was yelling at her daughter Emily, I thought it was Ben's mother. Here's a pic of the actress playing John's mom, and you can see an incredible resemblance between her and Swoozie Kurtz, the actress who played Locke's mom in Deus Ex Machina. (Yay, casting! Great job...)Locke's granny is a real piece of work, attempting to light a cigarette near her preemie grandson in an incubator while asking how they can set up the adoption papers, and we see early on that Emily is a selfish brat, something that doesn't change even in her later years.

But I can't help but keep thinking of the fact that her name is the same as Ben's mother, and in this episode, where we go right back to Locke's childhood, we see his early years were similar to Ben's, too. What is the meaning of that? Do I think they're the same women? No, but what if John and Ben are representative of two paths a life could take? Each one is what the other could have been had he chosen a different path. That said, their paths have been quite similar so far:

Both have mothers named Emily. Both Emilys have red hair.
Both boys are born prematurely.
As John is being wheeled away from his mother, she yells for them to call him John; as Ben's mother dies, her last words are to call him Ben. (Interesting that both mothers are insistent on naming their boys something, like it was predestined and meant to be.)
Neither one is raised by his mother.
There is a link to the island surrounding both their births; Horace Goodspeed shows up moments after Ben is born... Richard Alpert comes to see John a couple of weeks after Locke is born.
Ben is raised by a nasty father; Locke by a nasty foster parent.
Both are visited by Richard Alpert early in their lives.
Ben comes to the island through his father (and when his father is given the job of "Work Man," it's obvious Horace wasn't convincing Roger to come, but just wanted Ben there and needed to convince Roger to make that happen) where Locke comes there through a plane crash after earlier attempts to get him to the island a little less bumpily fall through.
Horace is a huge influence on Ben; John is visited by Horace and directed to Jacob's cabin through him.
Ben follows an image of his mother into the jungle and meets Richard Alpert; Locke chases his mother through a parking lot, which leads him to Cooper, and ultimately the island.
Both men blame their fathers for destroying their lives.
Both men kill their fathers.
Both believe the island has spoken to them and that the island is something bigger than just a physical place.
Both have uttered the phrase, "Don't tell me what I can't do!"
Both have been in wheelchairs.
Both survived something that could have killed them.
Both have heard Jacob's voice and seen him.
Both have been "chosen" by the island.

What does it all mean? There's a lot of talk that Christian is the original Adam of the island... could Locke and Ben be the Cain and Abel?

One thing I thought the moment I watched the scene of Locke in high school: they certainly found a young actor who looks a LOT like a younger Kevin Tighe, the actor who plays Locke's father, Anthony Cooper. I have a picture of a young Tighe when he was a heartthrob (for reals) in his Emergency days in my first Finding Lost book, so the moment I saw the actor I couldn't believe the resemblance. Here's a pic of Tighe (he's the guy on the top) in those days... there's definitely a resemblance. Of course, this episode raised the question of whether or not Alpert might have been the baby's father. Either way, I think Granny Locke knew who Alpert was, and there was no love lost between them. (Was anyone else reminded of Mamma Petrelli on Heroes?? That's totally who I thought of when they showed Emily's mom. It made me wonder if the Others and the DI have generations of people who have been leading up to this moment.)

Another theory running around these days is who Abaddon is. I watched the scene with him again today and I was struck by a line I somehow completely missed both times I watched it on Thursday (the first time my daughter ran in, and I thought Lost was probably inappropriate for a 3-year-old so I paused it to take her to bed; the second time my stepmum walked in and I didn't want to spoil the show for her) but Abaddon asks Locke if he believes in miracles, and when Locke says no, Abaddon says one happened to him. What could he be talking about? Many fans are speculating that Abaddon is actually a grown-up Walt who is time travelling. While I love that idea -- just think, the miracle could be him getting off the island or something happening to Walt that we don't know about yet -- I don't see any resemblance between the two at all. Reddick has darker skin; longer, gaunt facial features, and Kelley has a wider face and wider nose. It just isn't believable to me on a physical level. On a plot-level, that would be pretty cool. It's interesting to note, as some other people have already, that as Abaddon is wheeling Locke down the hall, he calls him "Mr. Locke" the whole time, just like Walt always did. Also, it's an awesome idea that somehow Walt grows up and then comes up with the idea to time travel back to help some of the people get off the island. It makes Abaddon's enigmatic line to Hurley, "Are they still alive?" even more mysterious.

A few other things that interested me in the comments or on other boards in the last day or so:

• Someone in my comments suggested Keamy is wearing a heart rate monitor that would blow up the island should he die. Interesting. I thought it was a direct bomb trigger, but I like this idea more.
• Another reminded us of that note that Sayid and Desmond got a few episodes ago that said, “Don’t trust the captain.” Yet Sayid’s jumped into a boat and is heading off, helped by the captain. Should he have done that, or is he falling for something?
• (I was just scrolling through the comments and saw that KeepingAwake did a list of some similarities between Ben and Locke, and I somehow missed it… great minds think alike!!)
• A few of you have pointed out that Aleister Crowley wrote The Book of the Law and Richard’s Book of Laws could be a reference to that. In The Book of the Law, it’s about Crowley’s wife Rose, who invokes the Egyptian god Horus. Since we’ve got a Rose on the island, and Horace was one of the Others, it’s an interesting connection. But despite having similar titles, it’s not the same title. I think it might be an ancient text that belongs to the original tribe on the island… the one that built the big statue that we will apparently NEVER find out about. Sheesh.
• A couple of people asked about the Dharma logo on the front of the booklet that Keamy was reading. As I watched the episode, I thought, “Hmm, Dharma logo. Looks like the Orchid.” And then, didn’t actually write that down. Type, Nik, TYPE. Anyway, it’s the logo for the Orchid station, which would suggest it IS the time travelling place we all think it is. Keamy says all the people on the island could escape to one place, so it would stand to reason that’s the place he thinks they’re headed to.
• The comic book that Richard shows to Locke is a real comic, and not one made for the show. I saw on one posting board, someone said it’s in the comics price guide at $115. I wonder if any fan has posted images from it yet?

What else am I missing?