Myles: Given the tendency towards numbers, it is understandable that people Lost as a mathematical equation. It was never just that the story Lindelof and Cuse were telling had to be thematically compelling or emotionally impactful: It had to “fit together” based on all the clues and details we’ve seen over the course of the show’s seasons.

Emboldened by the approaching end of the series, Season 4 is the first in which I would argue that the show’s writers actively show us the equations. They are complex equations, mind you, but the introduction of new variables of time and space is striking. They want us to start doing the math in our heads, so much so that the show even finds time for Locke to play the orientation video for the Orchid Station. We have more information than ever about the island and its secrets, and there comes a point where you have to start solving problems before they overwhelm you.

And yet, watching “There’s No Place Like Home” made me realize again how bad certain segments of the show’s audience were able to put two and two together. Granted, that’s probably not the person reading a review of the show in 2024, but I still remember it years later Lost ended the “Normalos” – as you described them in your essay on Lost‘s spoiler culture in the book, right after Emily’s essay on this episode, Noel — kept talking about the polar bears being one of the show’s unsolved mysteries. And yet here you have a case of Lindelof and Cuse laying the math right in front of us: polar bears + cages with training equipment designed to make them pull levers + island-moving wheel in a frozen cave + polar bear skeleton in the same desert where we know Ben ends up = the polar bears were brought to the island specifically to move the island in case of an emergency.