We’ll get to some exciting Easter Eggs from last night’s episode of Lost, appropriately titled “Eggtown,” soon enough. But first, can we talk about this season for a bit? Lost has always been fond of the big reveal at the end, the shocking final twist that leaves your mouth agape. But this season, the creators seem to be relying on that device as a crutch. For three straight episodes, they’ve ended with a jaw-dropping cliffhanger.
If these episodes weren’t actually good, I could say the writers just wanted to end with a big finish to make you think the hour that preceded it was better than it actually was. The problem is, this season of Lost is actually very, very good, even without these shocking final twists. The new cast is great, the plot is moving in an interesting and different direction, it’s all very exciting. My point is this: Lost doesn’t need these big shocking twists, and by overusing them, audiences are just going to be that much more disappointed when an episode ends without one.
Enough of my ramblings, on with the eggs, and I thought I’d start by observing what the heck “Eggtown” even means.
First, there’s a children’s book turned into a movie called The Easter Egg Adventure about a place called Egg Town where animals live in harmony until a nasty group of roosters come in and steal all their Easter eggs. Perhaps the title of this episode is a meta Easter egg about Easter eggs.
That book plays into the idea of female fertility, and this entire episode is about Kate thinking she’s pregnant. Remember, the Others were kidnapping the pregnant women (their own version of stealing the eggs) and doing their own fertility studies, so maybe the Island is Eggtown, as in, Ovarytown.
There’s also the Great Depression-era slang term “egg town” referring to a horrible deal someone makes. This comes from the notion that accepting an egg in a trade is stupid, because eggs go bad easily and are plentiful. Plenty of deals are made in this episode (Kate and Miles, Ben and Miles, Kate and the D.A.). Is the title suggesting all these deals are bad?
#2 Six of Clubs
The playing card on the picture of the bicycle in Aaron’s room at the end was a six of clubs, which just so happens to be one of the three cards Daniel and Charlotte were using for…what the hell was that?
Does Daniel have severe short-term memory loss? Or was the game a psychic one, and he wasn’t shown the cards before calling them out? I’m not going to pretend to have the answer, but what I do know is that Jeremy Davies is a brilliant actor who is adding a lot to this portrayal. I desperately want to know more about Daniel Faraday, and to see more of him, because there’s a whole lot going on there.
#3 Patsy Cline
Once again, in this episode, we discovered that Kate loves Patsy Cline. In her first season flashback, “Tabula Rasa,” Cline’s “Leaving on My Mind” is heard as the Australian farmer gives her a ride in his car. In season 2’s “What Kate Did” and season 3’s “Left Behind,” Kate hears Cline’s “Walkin’ After Midnight,” either on a record player in the Swan station or as the tow truck picks her up.
And in last night’s episode, Kate is listening to “I’ve Got Your Picture” in Claire’s house when John Locke storms in to banish her. Lost is very fond of musical cues (Desmond has “Make Your Own Kind of Music,” Juliet has “Downtown”) and so once again, Kate gets her Patsy Cline fix.
#4 Reading Materials
Lost loves to use the books the characters read to drop in nice little Easter eggs. Locke gives Ben a copy of VALIS by Phillip K. Dick, a science fiction novel about a God-like artificial intelligence. Ben had already read it, so perhaps the Dharma Initiative was interested in far more than animal behavior and electromagnetism.
Sawyer spends the whole episode reading a book called The Invention of Morel, all about a fugitive who hides out on a tropical island. Sound familiar? A quick side note: for a Southern con man, Sawyer is perhaps the most literate person on this island. While everyone else does their own thing, he’s almost always reading a new book.
#5 $3.2 Million
Much like Ben, I wondered why Miles wanted exactly $3.2 million. This brought me back to something that’s been bugging me since the beginning: the Numbers.
Since 4, 8, and 16 are three of the Numbers, I always assumed powers of 2 were important. I also questioned why 32 wasn’t one of the Numbers, but 23 (with the numbers inverted) was.
As such, I assume $3.2 million has to do with the number 32, and that exponential powers of 2 are somehow important to Lost. Maybe it ties into the popular idea of twinning. Dualities are big on Lost, going back to the black and white stones in the cave (don’t think I haven’t forgotten about THOSE, Lost writers).
Then the fact that 23 and 32 have their numbers inverted would feed into the chirality’s aspect, in which things are mirror images of one another. I’ve yet to settle on a master theory about what twinning and chirality’s have to do with everything, but I’m firmly aboard the bandwagon that these two concepts are key to unlocking Lost’s secrets.
-John Kubicek, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Images courtesy of ABC)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
John watches nearly every show on TV, but he specializes in sci-fi/fantasy like The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural and True Blood. However, he can also be found writing about everything from Survivor and Glee to One Tree Hill and Smallville.
