"The Little Prince" Thoughts and Theories

Wednesday's episode of LOST, "The Little Prince" was very good.  The first half of the episode was slow, but the rest of the show more than made up for it.

The characters on the island are flashed to November 1, 2004.  They see the hatch light on the night that Boone died, and Sawyer witnesses Kate helping Claire give birth to Aaron.  These scenes were cool for long time fans of the show, and emotionally important to Sawyer's character, but they didn't really seem to further the story.

They then flash to sometime in 2005 or beyond, which is the future for them.  The survivor's camp is back, but it is deserted, and two canoes are located on the beach.  A water bottle for Ajira Airlines is found in one of them.  Is this the airline that the Oceanic 6 use to get back to the island?  

Sawyer, Locke, Juliet, Dan, Miles, and Charlotte take one of the canoes and, while heading around the island to the Orchid station, are attacked by pursuers in the other canoe.  We do not see who these people are, but we do see that Juliet shoots one of them.  So who are these people?  Are they the Oceanic 6, and if so, why are they shooting at the time travelers and who did Juliet shoot?  Only time will tell.

Meanwhile, off the island, Kate faces the possiblity of loosing Aaron.  Most of the Oceanic 6 and Ben, with the exception of Hurley, are reunited by the end of the episode.  Throughout the episode, Sun and her gun seem dead set on confronting Ben.  I have a theory on this: in a scene that we will see in a future episode, off-island Locke tells Sun that Ben is the reason why the freighter exploded, apparently killing Jin.  That is why she is so set on killing Ben.

And speaking of Jin, he is not dead!  The episode's big ending reveal featured a young 1988 Danielle Rousseau and her French science expedition team finding Jin adrift in the ocean and landing on the island.  Poor Jin must be so confused!  He doesn't speak French, barely speaks English, and now he appears to be in the past!  It looks like fans will finally get Rousseau's long awaited backstory in next week's episode!



And something else I noticed:

- "Canton Rainer," the name on the side of Ben's van, is an anagram for "reincarnation."  -- I think this is probably forshadowing what will happen to Locke once his body is returned to the island, much in the same way that the body of Jack's dad was apparently reincarnated, or at the very least, resurrected.  

A promo for next week's episode "This Place is Death" can be found here.