Lost - "Confirmed Dead"

Better late than never, right? Computer problems and a new video game addiction have gotten in the way of me getting the latest episode recap written up, but here it is. And with the laptop back in action once again, I should be able to handle this week's episode Thursday night immediately after watching it. I didn't watch the episode live this time, and my home theater pc automatically skips commercials, so I missed any easter eggs they might have had during the breaks. I'd appreciate it if anyone who could them would let me know. Now, on with the show. Spoilers follow: Bruce called me during one of the breaks to say that the episode title should have been "Questions." You don't get more right than that! We got a few tidbits of information, and the classic Lost reveal at the end, but the rest of the time was spent giving us our quota of new questions to fuel speculation. This week we met the "rescuers." It turns out they're a very interesting group, and about the least likely team to be assembled for any king of rescue operation. Daniel Faraday is a physicist , Miles Straume a spiritualist (man of science and man of faith?), Charlotte Lewis an archaeologist, and Frank Lapidus a pilot. This is the team Naomi called in from the freighter to "rescue" the survivors of Oceanic 815. But, as always, things run deeper and more sinister than that. Naomi, in fact, worked for a man named Matthew Abaddon, who we saw last week trying to pass himself off as a lawyer for Ocean 815 in Hurley's flash-forwards. He is the one who assembled the team. Additional flashbacks reveal that the wreckage of Oceanic 815 has been found in the Sunda Trench off the coast of Bali. All passengers and crew are confirmed dead, and the plane clearly lies too deep to be salvaged. The discovery of the plane makes Daniel cry inexplicably; even he cannot explain why it upsets him. Frank has a different reaction. After seeing the pictures taken of the wreckage, he calls the NTSB to tell them they have misidentified the pilot because of his missing wedding ring. Frank knew the pilot personally, and he himself was actually supposed to be flying the plane. Charlotte's connection seems to be not with the plane but with DHARMA. She is shown at a dig site in Tunisa, where the bones of a polar bear have been unearthed. She forces her way in and digs around a bit to expose a leather collar with the DHARMA Hydra base logo. Seems she's hunting evidence of DHARMA. Miles doesn't, at this point anyway, have a direct connection to the island. We just see him go into a house and talk to some invisible listener, presumably the ghost of a murdered drug dealer. At the listener's prompting, he takes some hidden drug money. I suspect he's being set up to be another person who could conceivably see and hear Jacob. Abaddon also tells Naomi that there were no survivors of 815, repeating himself with such emphasis that he must know either that there are survivors or that the plane wreckage has been faked. It seemed to me that "no survivors" was as much an order for Naomi as anything. Daniel, Charlotte, and Miles come to the island when they have to bail out of the rescue helicopter after it's hit by lightening. Frank stays in the pilot's seat to try and wrestle the beast to the ground. This results in all four being widely scattered across the island, and being picked up by different groups. Jack and Kate find Daniel first, and let him use Naomi's phone to call back to the ship. He speaks in private for a little while, then they use the phone to track the GPS units each team member wears. Miles they find on the rocky coast, and he's not nearly so trusting, pulling a gun on Jack immediately. Turns out Naomi used a code to warn them that she'd been attacked. He and Daniel, who is similarly armed, take Jack and Kate to seek Charlotte, but find Vincent the dog wearing her beacon instead. Charlotte has been found by Locke's party, and he doesn't trust her in the slightest. And he doesn't want to be found. After Sayid and crew hook back up with Jack and Kate, they go find Frank and discover that he did not crash the chopper, he set her down nice and gentle in perfect working order. They will be able to fly off the island. There's a catch, though, as Frank reveals he has the passenger manifest for Oceanic 815 memorized (possibly because he feels guilty for the loss of the plane, as he was supposed to be the pilot), and Juliet is not on it. They reveal they're not here for the survivors; they have come for Benjamin Linus. Ben, meanwhile, reveals he knows exactly who these rescuers really are, rattling off their full names and everything. He knows they're after him (and we guessed it because they brought gas masks, either to give Ben a taste of his own medicine or to protect them from him giving them what he gave DHARMA). Furthermore, he reveals he knows all of this because he has a man on their boat! I really shouldn't be surprised at the vast resources Ben has managed to subvert to his own purposes, but I always am. I can't wait to find out more. Even better, next week they promise to reveal another member of the Oceanic 6, the only six who returned from the island.  At this point, it seems like they will have to have made up some story of how the six of them managed to survive the crash that left the plane off the coast of Bali.  We'll find out eventually.  Until next week, see you in another life, brother.