Lost, Season 3, Episode 17, “Catch-22” (4/18/07)

Desmond: Meet Brother Brotha. Desmond’s past included a wedding to a woman named Ruth that he skipped out on in order to follow an urge the he was supposed to be doing something else. This feeling came about when Desmond, in a drunken incident, is helped up in the street by a monk when the monk extended his hand and said, “Can I help you brother?” Desmond retreats to the monastery where he becomes a monk (after a time-unspecified vow of silence). He soon has to confront the marriage he bailed out on, and while talking to Ruth realizes he shouldn’t be a monk either. He gets pissed (drunk), and the monk (Brother Campbell) at the monastery tells Desmond that God has bigger plans for him, and the monastery is not where he needs to be. Funny scene: when Brother Campbell is upset that Desmond broke into the monastery’s wine stash (Moriah Vineyard….named after Mount Moriah, the mountain that Abraham took his son Isaac to sacrifice as per God’s wishes) to get loaded, he says “We’ve taken a vow of charity” (implying that the wine is not for the monks but for sale), so Desmond, in an act of charity, slides the bottle across the table to him! Ha ha! When Desmond returns the robe, the monk asks him to help load a truck with wine so that it can be taken by a buyer, who just happens to be Penny Widmore, so it’s here that Desmond first meets her. Penny is taking the wine to Carlysle (sp?), presumably for her Dad (OR maybe it’ll show up later on the island…?), and the monk says to her “tell your father thanks for the donation”, so Charles Widmore has a connection to the monastery, and by complete coincidence it’s here that Desmond becomes involved with Penny. Or is it coincidence? On the island, Desmond has a vision that he, Jin, Hurley and Charlie are in the jungle looking for a parachutist, and Charlie takes an arrow from one of Rousseau’s traps to the throat, killing him. When Des recruits the guys to go with him on this search, he’s vague about why he needs them to go, but they agree, and right before discovering the parachutist, as Charlie trips the hidden wire that sets off the trap, Des pushes him out of the way and saves him. When they cut down the parachutist, it is not Penny, as Des had hoped, but some other woman (Naomi), who knows Desmond’s name. Sent by Penny, perhaps? Desmond is convinced that he’s being tested by God, the same way that Abraham was tested by God in the Bible’s mythology when he was to sacrifice his son Isaac. Desmond’s ‘catch-22’: he saves Charlie because Des is good and decent, but it would mean that Des loses Penny to the “course correction”. (See Misc below, #3) Of course, the parachutist may have always been the woman we see (Naomi), but in Des’ mind, he was expecting Penny.

Charlie: **tick tock tick tock** Those sounds you hear are the seconds ticking off of ole Charlie Pace’s life. Desmond once again had a vision of Charlie dying, only this time Des led Charlie toward that fateful meeting. Des again saves Charlie’s life, but not before Charlie realized that Des had seen him die in his latest vision. Charlie’s guitar accompaniment while Jin told the spooky campfire story was great. And his argument with Hurley as to which superhero, the Flash or Superman, would win in a footrace was a scream!!

Hurley: Continues to show himself as much smarter and more confident than he was when Oceanic 815 crashed. His sense that Desmond was recruiting him, Jin and Charlie for a jungle mission forced him to challenge Des on why they had to go. Des tells Hurley about the vision, but holds back on telling him about Charlie’s role in the vision. Hurley’s funniest line was when Des first approached him to find out where the cable was, and Hurley, acting as though he doesn’t know anything about the cable, says to Des “Did you eat those mushrooms Jack warned us about?” ha ha!

Jin: This man loves camping and roasting marshmallows. Jin was hilarious around the campfire when he was holding the flashlight under his chin and telling the scary story…in Korean!! Ha ha!

Sawyer: Gets jumped by Kate after she sees Jack and Juliet eating together. But, no complaints from Sawyer! Funny when he called her Freckles, and she asks him about the “no nickname” lockdown he was under. He tells her since she wasn’t around for that bet, she’s exempt. Ha ha! And, when Sawyer gives her the “mix tape” that turns out to be Phil Collins Greatest Hits, he tells her “If Bernard asks, I don’t know anything about it.” Ha ha! He obviously took the tape from Bernard, but at least this confirms that Bernard is still on the island despite the fact that we haven’t seen him or Rose in quite some time. Sawyer also finds something he’s better at than Jack: ping pong.

Jack: Jack and Juliet continue their friendship back in camp, with them spending meals and free time together. When Jack is approached by Des to get the first aid kit for the trip to the jungle that Jack doesn’t know about, Des says he needs it because he sprained his ankle. Jack asks if he should take a look at it, but Des says no thanks as he has experience with twisted ankles. Jack smiles and says “oh, right”, remembering that it was Des who helped Jack back in the States when Jack twisted his ankle running in the stadium, and Desmond, then a stranger to Jack and also running in the stadium, helps Jack with his turned ankle.

Kate: Still feeling abandoned by Jack now that he is sticking close to Juliet. Kind of a bummer to see such a strong woman becoming such a mess in the man department.

Ruth: Have to mention one funny thing she said when Desmond revealed that a monk held out his hand to the drunken him, and he just knew he had to go with him. Ruth’s reply was something like “good thing a shepherd didn’t find you or you’d have left me for sheep”. Ha ha! (Interesting note: a Sheppard did find Desmond…Jack Sheppard)

Misc:
1. Catch-22: novel by Joseph Heller from 1961. The term “catch-22” is used to describe a no-win situation, and was coined from this novel. This book is awesome, though I’m sure most of you have read it since it is considered to be one of the greatest novels of the 20th Century. It’s told from the viewpoint of several different people, and employs the use of flashbacks for many of its scenes. And where have we seen that plot device used before??? Hmmmmm? I’m asking you….
2. The items found in the backpack of the parachutist included a book called Ardil-22. Ardil is Portuguese for “catch”, so it’s the Portuguese language version of Catch-22. You’ll remember that at the end of Season 2, when Penny Widmore and those other guys, all of whom are at some other location, find the island on radar because of Des imploding the hatch and the guys were speaking Portuguese. Just remember: in island time, it’s only been a couple of weeks since that incident.
3. On the desk in the monk’s office, when Desmond was returning the robe, was a picture of Brother Campbell and a gray haired lady. That lady is the same lady/psychic that sold Desmond the wedding ring in the last Desmond flashback episode (“Flashes Before Your Eyes”), and told him that there was a plan for him, but would not elaborate. She also told him that if he tried to change anything in his visions, it wouldn’t matter because the universe is “self correcting”, so the vision would eventually come true. With that in mind, see number 4 below….
4. Desmond assumed that the woman-parachutist would be Penny, and maybe it was…up until Desmond prevented Charlie from dying (for the 4th time) when he saved him from Rousseau’s trap. However, I’m wondering if when Desmond saved Charlie, it caused the universe to “self correct” as the psychic implied (in the Desmond-centric ep “Flashes Before Your Eyes”), and the woman parachutist was no longer Penny but this other woman, Naomi. (Portuguese origin perhaps since she had the Portuguese version of Catch-22?) Now, we never know if Desmond actually saw Penny in the vision, or if he just assumed the parachutist would be her. In any event, the psychic lady said that if something were supposed to happen, it would, and even if the present was changed to alter the vision’s outcome, the “something” would eventually happen. For example, even though Des keeps saving Charlie, he tells him, essentially, that it (death) will find Charlie at the point that Des doesn’t step in to prevent it.
5. Names: Ruth (Des’ ex-fiancé) carries a Biblical name. Another name from the Bible is Naomi (the parachutist).
6. Numbers: The bottles of Moriah Vineyards wine that the monks bottle sells for 108 quid, and they bottled 108 cases. 108 also shows up in a Sawyer joke, when he challenges Jack to ping-pong and says they have to play every 108 minutes or the island will blow up. Ha ha!
7. Funny! Des, Hurley, Jin and Charlie whistling the “Colonel Bogey March” as they were walking on the beach on the way to the jungle.
8. Writers nod to the Lost fans? I think the fans of Lost had a little shout-out from the writers/producers when Desmond said: “I saw a sequence of events, things that are going to happen … it’s like I saw a, uh, jigsaw puzzle, only I didn’t have the picture on the box, so I don’t know how the pieces fit exactly.” Lost is also like a jigsaw puzzle, and we don’t have the picture on the box either.
9. The helicopter: It couldn’t have flown from a mainland, right? That would’ve been too far I think. Was it a helicopter at all? If so, could it have taken off from a ship? And what prevented it from landing on the island? With the compasses working now, I’m of the mindset that the magnetic anomaly was disabled or destroyed. But maybe not….mabye it was attacked by a heli-SMonster...
10. Pictures of Penny and Des: Now there are two copies of this picture on the island. The parachutist (Naomi) must’ve been sent by Penny. So, where is Penny? In the cockpit of the helicopter at the bottom of Lost Island Bay?

Just Thinkin’ Out Loud:
1. Mikhail’s demise at the pylon fence still has me wondering if maybe the pylon fence did not kill him, and he instead was able to con Locke and the gang about his death. Maybe he was able to inject some of that Medusa spider venom into his body without them knowing so it would appear that he was dead? Or maybe the island brings him back. I just don’t think we’ve seen the last of him.
2. Christian Sheppard: could he also be on the island somewhere? Yes, Jack ID’d his body before the plane flight, but the body was not in the coffin when Jack found it in the jungle.


Comments? Ideas? I’m waiting to hear from you…….

Until next week,

Namasté…


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