One Cannot See Well Except With the Heart: The Little Prince on "Lost"

Whoa. I knew he would be back... but I didn't think it would be this quickly.

I'm speaking of course of this week's episode of Lost ("The Little Prince"), written by Brian K. Vaughan and Melinda Hsu Taylor, which featured the return of a VERY familiar face, along with a certain face that wasn't quite familiar but belonged to a pivotal character nonetheless.

While it lacked the whiplash-inducing plot twists of last week's episode ("Jughead"), this was another solid episode that advanced the ongoing story of the Oceanic Six, revealed some answers to some nagging mysteries this season, and raised the stakes for the castaways currently shifting through time. All this and nosebleeds, possible connections to the past, and carpet vans with cool anagrams. (It wouldn't be Lost, otherwise, now would it?)

Without further ado, let's discuss "The Little Prince."

Jin. Everyone is bound to be talking about the reappearance of the much-missed Jin, who managed to survive the explosion aboard the Kahana at the end of Season Four and has been drifting through time (and the ocean) unconscious on a door from the wreckage. As soon as we saw a body being pulled in from the ocean, I began to hope that it was actually Jin, especially as we were deliberately not shown his face. And sure enough it was Jin who managed to survive the explosion aboard the freighter. How? Likely the same way that Michael survived several suicide and murder attempts: because the island has a purpose for Jin and he is not destined to die yet.

Which makes Sun's rage-fueled vendetta against Ben all the more tragic for the lengths she's going as her husband isn't dead, just stuck on the cursed island. Given the number of main cast members that have gotten killed on the series to date, I'm glad that Jin isn't just another fatality figure but obviously has real purpose in Damon and Carlton's endgame plans. And that makes me very happy indeed. Still who sent the package to Sun? Widmore, perhaps?

Rousseau. Likewise, I'm thrilled that we'll get to see the backstory of Danielle Rousseau unfold, even though the adult Rousseau is pushing daisies with Karl in the future. As soon as the shipwrecked crew began speaking in French, I knew we'd finally get to meet the young Danielle Rousseau and sure enough we do. Even more surprising: her version of what happened to her when she arrived on the island seems to check out. Yep, she's very pregnant, there's Montand and Robert, and the numbers are playing over and over on the radio tower's frequency. Which makes me very worried then for Jin and the others as Rousseau claimed that her team became infected with The Sickness soon after they shipwrecked on the island. And now that she's crossed paths with Jin (and likely Locke and the others), it definitely seems like their Sickness is the same thing that's affecting Charlotte. Could they start jumping through time with the castaways?

The Sickness. Speaking of poor Charlotte, it seems she's not the only one who is coming down with the hemorrhaging that seems to follow their time jumps with alarmingly greater frequency. Both Miles and Juliet seem affected by the jumps and are beginning to have nosebleeds, the first symptom. There is an direct relationship between exposure to the island and severity of symptoms. We know that Juliet has been on the island for several years and Charlotte was born there, so the Sickness seems to more strongly affect those who have been exposed to the island. If that's the case, however, I'm not sure then how/why the French crew would then be affected, unless they are Others or previously had exposure to the island. And, as we know, Danielle Rousseau is not an Other, which could explain why she was unaffected by The Sickness. Hmmm...

Miles. Preternaturally gifted Miles, however, IS affected as much as Juliet. Which means that he's spent time on the island, even if he doesn't recall it. The simple explanation is then that, like Charlotte, he was born on the island and spent part of his childhood there. We know very little about Miles, his background, or his parentage. The obvious answer is that he was the small child we saw in "Because You Left" with Marvin Candle. Which would likely make Candle Miles' father... and which would definitely make Miles a far more pivotal character than he's been so far as well as explain the source of his ability. It would be very interesting indeed if Miles was the offspring of Candle, especially as we know that Faraday will cross paths with him at some point in the future (as seen, again, in "Because You Left").

Paradox. One troubling thing, however: the fact that Jin meets a young Danielle Rousseau. When he meets Crazy French Lady, she doesn't know who he is and certainly hasn't seen him before, so hasn't Jin altered the past by interacting with her? The only explanation I can give as to why it doesn't affect the timeline is that Rousseau is dead in the future. Unlike the Faraday/Desmond conversation, it didn't produce a realized "memory" in Rousseau's consciousness in the future, because she doesn't have a consciousness there: she's dead. Thoughts?

Ajira. This episode marked the first in-series reference to the mysterious India-based Ajira Airways (who sponsored our box lunches back at the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour), seen via a branded water bottle that Juliet recognizes at the destroyed camp. Given that the scene in which the castaways discover the paddle boats and the Ajira water bottle takes place sometime in the future, can we assume that either another plane has crashed and survivors washed up on the beach (and taken over their camp)? Or that Ajira--which means "island" in Hindi--is somehow a means to travel to the island directly? The Ajira website promises $87 adventure routes, where passengers will be taken to secret and random locations for an adventure. Could that destination be the island itself? Are people being ferried there for a specific purpose? And were those same people the ones firing at the castaways? Curious.

The shaft of light. Loved that Locke knew exactly when they had traveled to (all the way back to Season One, in fact) and that he knew what was happening right then: he had pounded on the hatch's door after Boone's death until the light came on and shot up into the heavens. At the time, he thought it was a sign but it was just Desmond looking to see what was going on outside. When Sawyer asks Locke why he didn't go back there and tell himself not to do the things he did, Locke says that he wouldn't do that: those experiences, doubts, and tragedies shaped who he is today. Likewise, Sawyer finds himself paralyzed when he comes upon Kate assisting Claire's labor in the jungle. He's so close that he can reach out and touch Kate but he can't bring himself to. Thankfully, he doesn't or he would screw up the entire space-time continuum. (Still the sense of desperation and longing as he tells Juliet what he saw was heartbreaking.)

The Little Prince. On the most surface level, the episode's title can refer to Aaron, who seems to be the source of a lot of conflict between the castaways. However, the title also refers to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's 1943 novel "Le Petit Prince," significant in the story for several reasons. First off, Locke discovers the wreckage of the French's crew's ship and turns over a canister with the word "Besixdouze" on it. "Besixdouze," likely the vessel's name, can literally be translated to "B612" in English. What's B612? Well, that's the name of the asteroid that the hero of Saint-Exupéry's novel lives on.

Even more significant: in the novel, after the Prince arrives on Earth, he is dying of thirst in the desert. Approaching death, he bids farewell to the narrator and tells him that, while it may look as though he has died, he's not dead but his body was too heavy to carry back to his planet. If that's not a direct reference to the dead John Locke/Jeremy Bentham, I don't know what is. We know that Locke had to die in order to bring the Oceanic Six back to the island but Ben knows that Locke isn't truly dead. In fact, it's likely that he'll come back to life once his body is returned to the island. Hmmm, rather like Christian Shephard, in fact.

The Van. Likewise, the carpet cleaning van where Locke's body was stored (before it was transferred to Jill the Butcher for safe keeping) had the name Canton-Rainier Carpet Cleaning on the side. Canton-Rainier is, of course, a simple anagram for Reincarnation. But will Locke be reincarnated? Or resurrected? That remains to be seen but I credit Team Darlton for yet another clever anagram pointing the way to some essential clues.

Ben. Loved the reveal that Ben was behind Agostini & Norton's harassment of poor Kate about Aaron's parentage and that Claire's mother didn't know about Aaron's existence. I knew that Ben was stirring things up to make Kate run and put her in orbit of Jack and the others from the start (and I'm glad that it wasn't Sun behind it, after all) and I thought it was a fantastic reveal to have Ben say so matter-of-factly that Norton was his lawyer.

Also perfect: that Kate realizes all of it within seconds of seeing Ben. Thought Evangeline Lilly did a brilliant job of segueing from shock to anger to terror within a few frames. To Ben, they are all pawns in his game and he'll push them wherever he needs to on the board. Next up: springing Hurley from prison in order to reunite the Six. But I can't help but wonder: why send those goons after Sayid not once, but twice? Did Ben want to incapacitate him long enough to get the others together? Did he know that Sayid was going to double-cross him because of the "dirty linen" between them? But why send them after Kate next? Odd. Or is the person orchestrating these attacks the same one who sent Sun the gun? Could Widmore be stepping up his offensive against Ben? Discuss.

Best line of the evening: "Thank you, Lord! I take that back!" - Sawyer (Tied with: "Time travel's a bitch," also from Sawyer)

Next week on Lost ("This Place is Death"), Locke attempts to stop the castaways' violent jumps through time by returning to the Orchid Station; Ben's plan to reunite the Oceanic Six and bring them back to the island hits a bit of a snag in the form of Sun.