5.09 - Namaste

Title’s significance: “Namaste” is the salutation used in the Dharma videos and at Orientation. It means “I humble myself to you,” though a variant that may be appropriate for this show is “I acknowledge the universal spirit within you.”

Recap: In 1977, Sawyer’s jarred to see Kate back on the island, but he has a hard time explaining that the island time-traveled back to the Dharma days. After learning that Sun is on the island, he takes off for The Flame while Sawyer tries to come up with a story for Jack, Kate, and Hurley, and Juliet worries that Kate’s presence is going to change things. Radzinsky reports that there’s no plane. Sawyer slips the new arrivals into the submarine manifest, and Jin pursues a Hostile – it’s Sayid. At orientation, Jack meets Pierre Chang and gets assigned to janitorial duty, while Sawyer brings Sayid back to the barracks for imprisonment. Sawyer revels in the role reversal with Jack, and Sayid gets a meal brought to him... by a young Ben Linus.

The episode technically begins with a flashback to the crash of Ajira 316; Frank miraculously lands the plane on the Hydra island. In 2007, Frank tries to rally the 316ers, but Ben scampers off into the jungle as Caesar tries to take a leadership role. Frank and Sun stop Ben from leaving the Hydra island – by clubbing him with an oar – and take a longboat to the main island. When they dock, Frank and Sun find New Otherton in disrepair; inside one of the houses, Christian beckons them on and reveals that Jin and the others are in 1977 – “You have a bit of a journey ahead of you.”

Thoughts: “Namaste” was a little better than “LaFleur” because it focuses a lot on getting a problem resolved, but there are so many characters involved that it’s tough to get bored for very long (“LaFleur” spent too long with one set of characters without really building any suspense along the way). One thing I really love here – credit writers Paul Zbyszewski and Brian K. Vaughan for this – is almost every island role is reversed here: Sawyer is leading Jack, Kate is now second fiddle to Juliet, Jin speaks better English than everyone, Sayid is imprisoned with Ben visiting him, and Hurley... well, Hurley’s still the same ole “Kong” we know and love. Some things, I guess, never change, and thank Jacob for that.

Favorite moment: The scene with Christian, Sun, and Frank in the barracks has a great sense of atmosphere developed in a relatively short amount of time.

Characters introduced (in order):

• RADZINSKY, paranoid Dharma jerk
• BRAM, 316er

What we learned:

• Radzinsky was a member of The Dharma Initiative.
• Radzinsky designed The Swan.
• The Swan is one of the newest Dharma stations, being built at least after 1977.
• Horace and Amy name their son Ethan.

Questions:

• What is the function of the runway?
• Why wasn’t Sun transported back to 1977?
• It’s been three years – where’s Daniel?
• Who’s president in 1977?
• Why does Ben really want to get to the main island?

Things that are going to be important in Season Six:

• No real mythological import is given to this episode.