Dr. Egon Spengler: I’m worried, Ray. It’s getting crowded in there and all my data points to something big on the horizon.

Winston Zeddemore: What do you mean, “big”?

Dr. Egon Spengler: Well, let’s say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area. Based on this morning’s sample, it would be a Twinkie… thirty-five feet long, weighing approximately six hundred pounds.

Winston Zeddemore: That’s a big Twinkie.

While watching last night’s ep of Lost, I was reminded of the time a friend of mine and I made a bet that we could live an entire day amongst ourselves and interacting with the world in our usual way, but saying nothing but quotes from Star Trek, Fletch, and Star Wars. Since that was sort of how we interacted with the world back then anyway, it was an easy bet for us to win. Manure spreader jack-knifed up on the Santa Ana; whew! You should see my shoes.

Like the Tom Hanks movie Castaway and the Beechen/Bello graphic novel Dugout which both have dual-meaning titles (Hanks’ castaway character had been “cast away” from society, while the prison-baseball book had the guys in the dugout actually digging out of jail), last night’s Lost ep “Recon” underscores the dual nature of the narrative. Overtly, the Locke-Dressed Monster sends Sawyer on a recon mission to Hydra Island, while “the best liar I ever met” pulls out his confidence man bag of tricks and re-cons nearly everyone he talks to.

Betsy Warren and Steve Higgins both independently told me of their dimensional theories: that the Lost world we know is the world as massaged by Jacob, and that the Dimension X of Season Six isn’t a world in which Jughead goes off or some sort of wish-fulfillment universe for our merry band. Both say it’s the world in which the Locke-Dressed Monster’s view is ascendant. I dunno about you, but I find that one pretty compelling.

Lost has always addressed as one of its main themes the nature of identity. Whether in an overt way, as Sawyer’s “real” name being James Ford or Hurley’s being Hugo Reyes, or in a more subtle manner, as when Boone tells everyone he’s a lifeguard when trying to revive Rose in the pilot but later tells Jack he’s a businessman, roles and duplicates and opposites are a main function of character.