Some Like It Hoth

Some Like It Hoth
Season	5
Episode number	13
Airdate(s)	April 15, 2009
Flashback	Miles
Writer	Melinda Hsu Taylor & Greggory Nations
Director	Jack Bender
Guests	Tim deZarn - Trevor Patrick Fischler - Phil Jon Gries - Roger Linus Brad William Henke - Bram Doug Hutchison - Horace Goodspeed Eric Lange - Stuart Radzinsky Dean Norris - Howard Gray Marsha Thomason - Naomi Dorrit
Co-stars	Simon Elbling - Glenn Cody Gomes - Worker Linda Rose Herman - Evelyn Lance Ho - Young Miles Straume Leslie Ishii - Lara Chang
Uncredited	François Chau - Pierre Chang
Transcript	Some Like It Hoth transcript

"Some Like It Hoth" was the thirteenth episode of Season 5 of Lost and the ninety-ninth produced hour of the series as a whole. It was originally broadcast on April 15, 2009. Suspicions about a possible breach intensify after Ben is taken from the infirmary, and a reluctant Miles is forced to work with Hurley when he's asked to deliver an important package to a top DHARMA official. Flashbacks focus on Miles searching for answers about his father, working as a spiritualist and his joining to the freighter crew.

Synopsis

Flashback

Young Miles stands over Mr. Vonner's corpse.

A woman, Lara, is looking for an apartment with the landlord. She tells the landlord that her husband is "out of the picture," though she has a little boy, Miles. The landlord at first objects to Miles because the neighbors dislike noise, but Lara assures him that Miles is quiet. She gives Miles a quarter for the vending machine. Miles reaches the vending machine, and appears to hear something, causing him to walk toward apartment 4. Taking a hidden key from underneath a stone rabbit, he opens the door and looks inside. Several apartments down, Lara hears her son calling for her, and rushes to apartment 4 where her son is, and finds him inside, standing over a man's corpse. Miles claims to hear the corpse talking. Lara backs away, concern and astonishment warring on her face.

A sick Lara speaks to Miles.

Several years later, a heavily pierced Miles visits his mother, who is staying in an apartment with a caregiver. His mother is extremely sick and bedridden, and is losing her hair. While his mother is happy to see him, she asks why he's come to visit her, and he replies that he wants answers, mostly about his father. She replies that his father kicked them out when Miles was just a baby, and forced them to leave. She tells Miles that his father has been dead for a very long time.

Naomi introduces herself to Miles.

Some time later, an adult Miles speaks with Howard Gray, who wants Miles to use his powers to contact his son, who died in a car accident, and make sure that the son knew that Gray loved him. Miles is apprehensive when he discovers that the son has been cremated, and asks for a larger sum of money, which Gray readily gives. Miles then appears to contact the spirit of the son, and assures Gray that the son was aware of his love. Gray thanks Miles, and Miles leaves.After leaving, Miles is approached by Naomi Dorrit, who invites Miles to come with her to a restaurant to hear a business offer. Miles readily agree.

Miles communicates with the spirit of Felix.

Naomi takes Miles to the kitchen of a restaurant, and shows him the body of Felix, telling Miles to use his ability to determine details about Felix. Miles is able to tell the man's name, as well as the fact that he was attempting to deliver cemetery photos of empty graves and a purchase order for an old airplane to Charles Widmore, both of which involved the fake wreckage of Flight 815. Miles leaves, at first not interested and scared. Naomi offers Miles $1.6 million to come to the Island on the Kahana, to which Miles agrees instantly.

Bram calls out Miles' name.

Soon afterward, Miles orders a fish taco from a sidewalk vendor. As he walks down the street, eating it, a van pulls up. Bram is in the passenger side, and he greets Miles. When Miles asks who Bram is, he is suddenly grabbed by several masked men and forced into the van. Bram attempts to persuade Miles not to go to the Island, determining he is not ready by asking Miles "what lies in the shadow of the statue?" to which Miles does not know the answer. Bram offers Miles answers about his ability and his father, but Miles doesn't care; he instead wants $3.2 million dollars, twice the amount offered to him by Naomi. Bram refuses to pay, however, and dumps Miles out of the van. Bram tells Miles he is "playing for the wrong team." When asked by Miles what team Bram is on, he replies that he's on "the team that's going to win."

Later, Miles visits Howard Gray, and returns to him the money which he had been paid. When asked why he is doing so, Miles reveals that he lied to Gray; he had been unable to make contact with Gray's son. The incredulous Gray asks why Miles couldn't have just continued the lie, and Miles responds that it wouldn't have been fair to the son, to whom the father should have professed his love before the son's death. Miles then leaves.

On the Island

Horace hands Miles his package to Radzinsky.

Kate and Sawyer return from dropping off young Ben to Richard, and Sawyer contacts Miles at the Security office to erase the surveillance tape. Miles pops out the tape, but before he can erase it, Horace arrives with a package, asking after LaFleur. Miles tells him that he's tried to contact LaFleur on the radio, but he's out of contact. Horace gives Miles a package to bring to Radzinsky, and to get a package in return, "no questions asked". Horace tells Miles that he's letting him in the circle of trust.

Miles drives to the location Horace specified, and delivers the package, which turns out to be a body bag. Radzinsky puts a body in it, and tells him to transport it to Horace. Miles, curious as to why a person who apparently fell in a ditch had a head wound, unzips the body bag and uses his ability to find out what really happened. He learns that the dead man, Alverez, had a filling which ripped from his mouth and exited through his brain.

Jack confronts a drunken Roger.

Roger discovers that Ben is missing from the hospital. Juliet lies about not knowing the reason for his disappearance. Kate later attempts to comfort Roger, arousing his suspicions. Roger has some beer, and goes to the classroom, discovering that Jack is covering his work for him, assuming Roger would want the time off because Ben was injured. Roger brushes off Jack's help, confronting him about Kate's interference saying he's going to report it to Horace or Porter. Jack defends Kate, then goes to Juliet and Sawyer's house to inform them of Roger's suspicions. Sawyer arrives home, tired from trekking around the jungle, and is confronted by Phil, who has the tape Miles failed to erase. Sawyer punches Phil, knocking him out, and tells Juliet to get some rope.

Hurley and Miles discuss the differences between their powers.

Horace, after a consultation with Dr. Pierre Chang, tells Miles to bring the body to the Orchid. Miles walks back to his van to complete the assignment, but finds Hurley loading coolers of food for the Orchid construction team into the vehicle. After he insists they carpool, they set off, only to have Hurley notice an unpleasant odor. Concerned his food was contaminated, Hurley discovers the body. Confronted, Miles tells him what really happened to the body. To his bewilderment, Hurley completely accepts Miles' story, noting he also talks with the dead, and sometimes plays chess with them. Miles says that isn't how it works, at which point Hurley responds that Miles admitted to his ability.

The Swan's construction site.

Dr. Chang isn't happy that Miles brought Hurley along, and less happy that Hurley knew about the body. He threatens Hurley with polar bear dung cleaning duty on Hydra Island if he talks, but Hurley is happy working in the kitchens and agrees to keep the secret. While privately talking to Hurley about the attitude of Dr. Chang, Miles confesses to Hurley that Chang is his father. Dr. Chang wants to hitch a ride back to Radzinsky, and Miles and Hurley take him there, where a fake jungle wall masks the construction of The Swan. Along the way, Hurley keeps dropping hints about the relationship between Miles and Pierre, which upsets Miles.

Miles looks at his baby-self and his father's bonding time.

On the way back, Miles and Hurley get into another disagreement. Miles steals Hurley's notebook, in which he has written the script for The Empire Strikes Back with a few changes. Hurley notes that it's 1977, and Star Wars was just released. He figured he was doing George Lucas a favor by writing the sequel. Hurley also tells Miles about his own troubled relationship with his father, and how he forgave him. He suggests Miles try to gain a relationship with his own father.

"Long time no see"

At night, Miles sees his mother, father, and his 3-month-old self in a window, with his Father lovingly reading him a story in a armchair. After Dr. Chang gets a phone call and gets up from the chair, Miles attempts to walk away. Dr. Chang comes out and asks Miles to take him to the dock to get a new group of scientists, and in a emotional voice Miles accepts.

Miles goes to the dock where the submarine has arrived with a team of scientists from Ann Arbor, and Miles is surprised to find out that Daniel Faraday is one of them.

Trivia

General

• This is the first time one of the Kahana crew members is given a centric episode of their own.
• The lesson Jack erased from the classroom board was about Ancient Egypt and hieroglyphs.
• There's a poster in the classroom that reads "Arts & Crafts"
• 4 is considered a bad luck number in Japan, Korea and China, as it is a homonym for the word "death" in Japanese, Korean and Chinese. It is the number of the room where Miles found the dead man. This is also the number of the tape that Miles was asked to erase.
• You can read the word "Vida" in the Taco's shop, which means "Life".
• This episode could also be interpreted as "Some Like I, Thoth" as in the Egyptian god, Thoth.

Production notes

• Ben, Desmond, Jin, Locke, Sayid, and Sun do not appear in this episode.
• Daniel appears again for the first time since LaFleur, ending a four-episode absence.

Bloopers and continuity errors

• The periodic table on the wall in the Schoolhouse contained elements not yet discovered in 1977.
• Miles closes the hatchback of the van when Chang tells him to wait at the Orchid. In the next scene, it's open again.
• In one shot, Elmer is seen behind Kate. In the next shot which faces the opposite direction, he is seen behind Roger.
• When Kate is sharing a beer with Roger Linus, the pop top is the new style instead of a 1970s-era pull-tab.
• The Lisa computer in the security station was not in production until early 1983.
• In "The Economist" Miles said that he first met Naomi on the boat, while in this episode she is seen recruiting him prior to the expedition.
• When Jack is doing Roger's work, Jack's name and position is not on his Dharma jumpsuit. When he is in the home of Sawyer and Juliet, his name and position is present on his jumpsuit.
• Miles mentions meeting his mother while waiting "on line" at the mess hall - likely a result of actor Ken Leung's New York roots. Having been raised on the west coast, Miles would more likely have used the phrase "in line."
• A workman is shown stamping the numbers into the hatch lid. Previously, the numbers on the lid were raised and stamped numbers on the curved side of the column.

  

  Numbers on the hatch in Season 1.

• The workman who stamps the numbers onto the lid lifts it by himself, but in Exodus, Part 2, Jack and Locke can barely lift the lid together.
• On the way to the construction site, the van passes by a backhoe which bears modern Case CE decals which did not exist in 1977.

Recurring themes

• 3:16 appears on the microwave in Miles' home as a boy. (The Numbers)
• The landlord tells Miles' mom that the apartment is a steal at $400. (The Numbers)
• Miles' father abandons Miles and his mother. (Parent issues)
• Pierre Chang is Miles' father. (Character connections)
• Horace sends Miles on a mission to Grid 334. (The Numbers)
• Miles and Hurley witness workman hammering the Numbers into the Swan hatch. (The Numbers)
• Miles has 15 piercings in his ears and face in a flashback. (The Numbers)
• Miles' black hair has a white stripe running through it when he visits his ailing mother. (Black and white)
• Alverez had the filling in tooth ripped from mouth and it shot up through his head, killing him. (Life and death) (Missing body parts)
• Miles discovers a man who died alone from a heart attack in room number 4. (The Numbers) (Isolation)
• Miles finds a key to Mr. Vonner's apartment under a rabbit statue. (Animals)
• 8 is written inside the ear of the rabbit statue. (The Numbers)
• LaFleur asks Miles to delete the video from camera 4. (The Numbers) (Deceptions and Cons)
• A man wants Miles to talk to his dead son fearing he died without ever knowing his father loved him. (Life and death) (Parent Issues)
• Russell Gray was a football player who was killed by a drunk driver. (Games) (Car accidents)
• Hurley's notebook. (Black and white)
• Pierre is reading a polar bear book to Miles. (Animals)
• Naomi tells Miles her employer will pay him "1.6" million dollars. (The Numbers)
• DHARMA is building the Swan in the Others' territory and hiding it, in direct violation of the truce. (Deceptions and Cons) (Secrets)
• The Sports Illustrated cover reads "After 23 years...NEW BOSS IN L.A." (The Numbers)
• Sawyer tries to protect his con by knocking Phil out and tying him up after Phil found the tape of Kate and him giving Ben to Richard Alpert. (Deceptions and cons) (Imprisonment)
• Hurley mentions Darth Vader cutting off Luke's hand in The Empire Strikes Back. (Parent Issues) (Missing body parts)
• Miles finds his father after never knowing him as he was growing up. (Parent Issues) (Redemption)
• Bram fails to persuade Miles to join their team. (Character connections)
• There is a painting of horses over the bed of Miles' mother when he visits her. (Animals)
• Miles calls Sawyer "Jim" (as does Horace), Naomi "Sweetheart," Hurley "Dimwit" and Daniel "Dan." Hurley calls Pierre Chang "Douche." Sawyer calls Jack "Doc." Phil calls Sawyer "Boss." (Nicknames)

• Ben's father has a drinking problem like Jack. (Character Connections)
• 3/16/85 is the date on the check written by Lara. (The Numbers)
• 316 is the check number of Lara's check. (The Numbers)
• 8 is the number below the peg where Miles returns the DHARMA van key. (The Numbers)

Storyline analysis

• Ben's dad becomes suspicious of Kate. (Rivalries)
• Hurley helps Miles by telling him his secret and giving him advice. (Relationships)
• Bram is part of a team who opposes Charles Widmore. (Rivalries)
• Phil finds out about Sawyer taking Ben. (Rivalries)

Cultural references

• Some Like It Hot: The episode title is also a reference to this movie. In the movie, the two main characters are a comedic duo and witness a mob murder - The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. This is similar to Miles and Hurley's situation when they become aware of the death of Alvarez. In the movie, the two main characters disguise themselves to avoid retribution from the mob after witnessing the murder just as Miles and Hurley continue to conceal their true identities from the DHARMA Initiative to protect themselves. (Movies and TV)
• "It Never Rains in Southern California": This song by Albert Hammond is playing when Hurley and Miles are driving to the Orchid station. (Music)
• "Love Will Keep Us Together": This song by Captain & Tennille is playing on the trip to the Orchid station as well. (Music)
• Miles Davis: Miles' mother is a fan of this legendary jazz trumpeter and names Miles after him. (Music)
• Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope: Hurley mentions that this movie has just come out when Miles reads his notebook. A New Hope was released on May 25, 1977. (Movies and TV)
• Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back: The episode title is a reference to this movie and Hurley is writing the script for it. (Movies and TV)
• Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi: There are several references to events in this movie in Hurley's conversation with Miles after they return from the Swan Station (The destruction of the Death Star, Boba Fett being eaten by the Sarlacc and of course, Ewoks). (Movies and TV)
• Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates is a novel by American author Mary Mapes Dodge, first published in 1865. The novel takes place in the Netherlands. Sawyer refers to this tale when he asks if Juliet ever felt like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike. (Books)
• Sports Illustrated: In the opening scene Miles is reading the March 14th, 1977 issue of this magazine. (Books)
• Hieroglyphs: One of the lines of hieroglyphs on the chalkboard translates as "Writing of the words of God". (Religion and ideologies)
• Global warming: Hurley suggests he and Miles carpool to the Orchid to "help stop global warming". (Science)
• Hook: Miles' spiky hair with a white line through it resembles Rufio, the leader of the Lost Boys. (Movies and TV)
• John 3:16: The numbers on the microwave display at the beginning of the episode could be a reference to the Bible verse John 3:16, seen by some as the 'Gospel in a nutshell' because it is considered a summary of some of the most central doctrines of traditional Christianity. It reads: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Literary techniques

• Alvarez died while working in the construction of the Swan. (Redshirt)
• Miles' mother told him he could never go where his father's body was, yet years later Naomi recruited him to go there. (Irony)
• You can see a red light when Miles is in recruiting situations: in the restaurant with Naomi and in the van with Bram. (Symbolism)
• Sawyer tells Miles that he "owes him one," when he can destroy the tape. In "Cabin Fever" Matthew Abaddon told Locke that he'll "owe him one," if he takes a walkabout. (Regularly spoken phrases)
  • However, Horace distracts Miles by sending him to retrieve Alverez's body, which allows Phil to capture the tape who'll later try to blackmail Sawyer. (Irony)
• Horace tells Miles that he and Sawyer are in the "circle of trust," while they're trying to destroy the tape of sending Ben away. (Irony)
• Roger Linus tells Juliet that he's going to Security to help find Ben when it was Sawyer, the head of Security, who helped send Ben away. (Irony)
• Miles drives Pierre to the dock and meets Daniel just coming out of the submarine. (Cliffhanger)

Episode references

• The numbers are seen being embossed into the side of the Swan hatch. ("Numbers")
• Hurley tells Miles that Pierre Chang "Is the dude who was in all those videos". ("Orientation"), ("Live Together, Die Alone, Part 1"), ("The Cost of Living"), ("Enter 77"), ("There's No Place Like Home, Part 2")
• Miles finds a key under a statue of a white rabbit marked with the number 8. ("Every Man for Himself")
• Hurley says that his father left when he was 10 years old. ("Tricia Tanaka Is Dead")
• Naomi recruits Miles for the freighter. ("Confirmed Dead")
• Miles asks Bram for $3.2 million to not go onto the freighter. ("Eggtown")
• Miles reveals that the dead man Naomi brought him to was attempting to bring photos of empty graves and a purchase order for an old airplane to Charles Widmore (relating to the faked wreckage of Flight 815). ("Meet Kevin Johnson")
• Hurley mentions playing chess with the dead (i.e. Mr. Eko). ("There's No Place Like Home, Part 2")
• Pierre tells Miles and Hurley that he likes country music, which explains why he listened to Shotgun Willie. ("Because You Left")
• 3:16 appears on the microwave at the beginning of the episode, possibly foreshadowing Ajira Airways Flight 316. ("316")
• Roger references Kate giving blood to Ben. ("Whatever Happened, Happened")
• Roger is bringing supplies back from the Staff. ("Whatever Happened, Happened")
• Bram asks Miles the same question Ilana later asked Frank. ("Dead Is Dead")

Unanswered questions

Unanswered questions
Do not answer the questions here. Keep the questions open-ended and neutral: do not suggest an answer. More details...

For fan theories about these unanswered questions, see: Some Like It Hoth/Theories

• Who does Bram and his crew work for?
  • How do they know about the Island?
  • What "teams" is Bram refering to?
• Why and when did Daniel Faraday leave the Island?
  • Where did he go?
  • Why did he return?
• What is the origin or reason for Miles' ability?
• Why is Alvarez's death being covered up?
  • Why did Chang want his corpse brought to the Orchid?
• How did Felix die?
• Why (and how) did Lara and Miles leave the Island?
  • Why did Pierre Chang not come with them?
• Why did The DHARMA Initiative choose to build The Swan Station in Hostile territory?

External links

Press Release [1]