It’s like reading Monarch Notes before you read the actual book: you know all about the author’s personal history, the influences in his life, the literature to which he was exposed, the constraints of his society, and then you go ahead and read the fiction, superimposing, intellectualizing all you’ve learned. It’s what I do before watching a new episode of LOST. I brief myself, reviewing Entertainment Weekly, like the total Lost nerd that I am. I read up on Room 23, remind myself about the brainwashing, but then I’m overwhelmed and can’t go on. There’s too much speculation. I need to see it all, fresh, for myself. So here I go… real time:

This is going to sound totally racist, but this Asian chick looks just like Sun. Yup, it’s me. Racist. That’s Miles’s mama, and at such an early age, he’s having death visions, he’s putting his hand against doors (door number 4 to be exact) like they show you to do in "Fire Alert" videos where they promise you a free hamburger meal if you present your teacher with a written fire escape plan.

Sawyer, after just dropping young Ben off with Richard Alpert, intercoms Miles, asking him to erase the video footage he might have on them helping young Ben escape. He says, "Camera 4, erase camera 4." Coincidence? Please. Nothing on Lost is a coincidence.  Sawyer sends Kate back, and then we see Miles lie to Horace, covering for "LeFleur." Grid 334 is mentioned. "Bring it back to me, no questions asked," Horace tells Miles. "Circle of Trust" gets thrown around as if it’s a Robert DeNiro "Meet The Parents" "Screw The Fockers" flick. Then we see a dude on a stretcher with a bullet through his head. Don’t ask questions. "Your job is to do what I tell you to do." And dude, I’m guessing that dude with the construction hat, who’s just dumped a body in Miles’s trunk is Lapedis. Phil BEGS to differ and tells me I’m psycho. I’m fine with this accusation. I’d rather take the chance in guessing and be wrong.

Door number 7. Miles grabs a key from beneath… what else, a stone… bunny. Miles has a chin piercing and an upsidedown number 1 on the back of his Christmas plaid hoodie. He’s at his mother’s bedside, with an eyebrow piercing, too, asking "I need you to tell me why I am this way… And I need to know why you won’t tell me about my father." He’s dead. He’s never cared about us. Your father kicked us out when you were just a baby. He didn’t want anything to do with us. So the less you knew, the better… your dad has been dead a long time…" Where’s his body? Miles wants to know. I can’t help but think of Charlotte. How she said her mummy said they had to go without daddy. They had to leave and never come back, just, as it sounds, happened to Miles.

Now, Miles is stopped by Horace. Miles hasn’t had a chance to eject the tape of James and Kate saving Ben. Shocker. Surely Horace or some "other" will see the tape.

I KNOW this is going to sound crazy. But I can’t help but think… MILES is SUN & JIN’S BABY BOY. Maybe, just maybe, Sun runs into Jin, after she’s given birth… wait. Didn’t she give birth to a girl? Let’s pretend though… it’s fun. What if, Sun runs into Jin, and Jin wants to save Sun and the baby from death and things worse than death, so he "banishes" them, insisting he wants nothing to do with them. And Sun has believed Jin has been dead… and she tells her son, "His body is somewhere you’ll never go, never find." I’d love to believe this, but I think Sun had a girl. I think we’re supposed to believe it’s Mr. Bunsen Burner’s kid… the Asian dude who’s always holding the bunnies in the Dharma instructional videos. Damn!

Oh, the irony. Of COURSE they make the fat dude the chef. "Alverez digging for some chick name Andrea," Miles tells Hurley. Then he mentions some pain in a molar. And Hurley admits… wait for it… "Your secret is safe with me. I know you can talk to dead people. Want to know how? ‘Cause I can talk to ’em too." He of course means CHARLIE, or the people who visit him. He doesn’t realize Miles can talk to actual corpses. 

Next, we see Miles talking to Mr. Gray, looking to locate his son Evan, wanting to know if Evan knew if he loved him. "It will cost extra," Miles says. Of course he does. Then Naomi shows up on the scene, playing the money card, alluding that her employer wants to pay for his services.

Then we see Roger Linus, Ben’s dad, sipping a brewsky on a children’s play set, hanging out on the swings, being sarcastic, missing his "shot son," thanking Kate for her pep-talk. And Kate tries to ease his mind, trying to help. But Roger is suspicious, telling Kate to mind her own business.

Miles admits to Hurley that he can’t play chess with dead people, but he can hear them. I’m pretty amazed at how many blue little vans these dude’s have got.

"How do you feel about polar bear feces?" Hell, it’s a question we all want answered. Then, oh… the irony! Professor Muppet Beaker Bunsen asks Hurley if he cares to WEIGH polar bear feces, calls the experiments there "ridiculous." Hurley tells Miles the dude’s a douche, to which Miles responds, in a classic line, "That’s douche is my dad." Awesome. There goes my racist Jin/Sun fantasy. I’ve suspected, much earlier, that the douche sired senor "I Hear Dead People."

Ugh, now we’re back with Naomi, testing Miles, chucking him a bankroll, asking Miles for info on Felix, the corpse, whom Miles tells Naomi is on his way to to deliver info to Widmore: purchase orders for unoccupied graves, for an airplane… (Hmm, to fake a plane crash? Damn, I always assumed it was BEN, not Widmore, who staged the fake crash). Then Naomi adds this zinger: "I’m leading an expedition to an island, with a man on that island who’ll be very hard to find. This island has a NUMBER OF DECEASED INDIVIDUALS RESIDING ON IT. As this man is the one responsible for their being deceased, we believe they’ll can supply invaluable information as to his whereabouts." 

"Third day I was here, I was standing in line behind my mother," Miles says. Oh me, oh my. Kinda makes you want to spend every night, every day, cuddling up beside past episodes of LOST, doesn’t it?

Hey Miles, a dude says, driving a van. Offering him a fish taco, telling him about a chartered boat. Then mention of "the shadow of the statue." "You’ll know who you are Miles, and most of all, you’ll know about your father." Miles says he doesn’t care; he just wants the cash. Miles asks to double the money.

Miles never knew his father, not until now. "My father never cared about me, and nothing I can do will ever change that." And Hurley admits he wants to write "Empire Strikes Back" before Lucas does. This is very Peggy Sue Got Married, when Peggy Sue tries to hand her honey Charlie the lyrics to a Beatles song, hoping to kick-start his career.

"I know who took the kid," Phil tells Sawyer, tempting him with a copy of the security tape, "you did." James punches him out, like the brute we know and masturbate to. 

Mr. Gray/Grey… I see you’re wearing a wedding ring. A watch. That you have a son, but I must admit, among the airing of your dirty laundry, that you ought to have "told your son you loved him while he was alive." Oh, go ahead, foreshadow as you will. And to add insult to injury, why not flash to a scene where Hurley quotes Star Wars and discusses his own relationship with his papa. "It all could have been avoided if they’d just communicated. Let’s face it; Ewoks suck, dude." True words never spoken.

Then we see Senor Candle reading ME AND MY POLAR BEAR to baby boy Miles. "I need you," he tells him. "Scientists from Ann Arbor," he says. "Let’s get to the dock." Miles pulls Daniel Faraday out of the submarine. And Daniel delivers an ominous "Hey Miles, long time no see."

A YEAR AGO: Proposals, Photo Update