As any LOST fan is aware (hey, remember LOST?), the show is replete with philosophical references. But even though the philosophical references often have nothing to do with anything when you think about it, has the phenomenon that is LOST eclipsed the original philosophers in question? Self-described “wack-ademic and a designerd” Raynor Ganan conducted an informal little test: He did Google Image searches for “John Locke” and “Jeremy Bentham,” both names assigned to Terry O’Quinn‘s bald-headed fella at various points in the series, and graphed the number of faces he saw for each result out of the first 100 faces displayed.

As you can see from the above charts, LOST‘s John Locke beat out real John Locke, 57% to 34%; real Jeremy Bentham beat LOST Jeremy Bentham 69% to 27%. I’m a little surprised even by that, though. The “Jeremy Bentham” bit on LOST was, IMO, a kind of unnecessary plot twist-setup that occurred in the middle of the series and was subsequently dropped, and wasn’t really the identifier with which we primarily associated O’Quinn’s character; still, that was good enough for 27 Google results.

When else has pop culture hijacked high culture?

(The Ragbag via Urlesque Tumblr)

What follows is a recap of LOST Season 6, Episode 16: “What They Died For.” Lots of spoilers ensue.

Check out the guest blogger’s LOST-themed blog at thelostloophole.blogspot.com for daily LOST-related updates.

Well, my fellow LOST fans, we’ve arrived at the final destination. With the conclusion of last night’s episode there is only two and a half hours of LOST left to be viewed. It’s hard to believe that after six seasons of mysteries, cliff hangers, love quadrangles, and next-morning-water-cooler-chatter it’s all about to end. But let’s dry our tears and enjoy a recap of the penultimate episode of LOST.

Last night’s episode, “What They Died For,” brought LOST fans the last few reluctant steps to the edge of the LOST cliff. It was an action packed episode, so let’s jump right into the off-island action.

Apparently, noted frightening person Marilyn Manson is as obsessed with LOST as the rest of us: Yesterday, he posted a painting he made of LOST protagonist/antagonist John Locke to his Facebook page. Or is it Flocke?

In a note accompanying the painting, Manson writes “Locke, a painting I did for Twiggy’s obsession,” referring to his bassist Twiggy Ramirez. So not only is Manson as likely to be riveted and inevitably disappointed by the final two episodes of the series as we are: His crew is as well. Expect very, very bad things to happen if it all turns out to be a dream.

Larger pic after the jump:

What follows is a recap of LOST Season 6, Episode 13: “The Last Recruit.” Lots of spoilers ensue.

With only four episodes left until the Season Finale on May 23^rd, LOST gave viewers another fast-paced episode last night. “The Last Recruit” brought us up to speed on the lives of all of the LOSTies, both on and off island. There’s so much to recap – so let’s not waste any time!

What follows is a recap of LOST Season 6, Episode 10: “The Package.” Lots of spoilers ensue.

Check out the guest blogger’s LOST-themed blog at thelostloophole.blogspot.com for daily LOST-related updates.

LOST was back in full swing last night, with the tenth episode of the final season.  ”The Package” centered on Sun and Jin in off-island action, and caught viewers up with scenes from almost every island Lostie.

Let’s start with last night’s flash-sideways:

What follows is a recap of LOST Season 6, Episode 8: “Recon.” Lots of spoilers ensue.

Check out the guest blogger’s LOST-themed blog at thelostloophole.blogspot.com for daily LOST-related updates.

It’s been three long weeks since we last saw James “Sawyer” Ford, and he made his return in a big way this week. Both on-island and off-island action centered on everyone’s favorite bad boy during “Recon,” the eighth episode in the final season of LOST. Let’s begin with the off-island action.

Many loyal LOST viewers aren’t fans of the new flash-sideways action this season. But tonight’s episode proved that the flash-sideways can be just as exciting and mind-bending as the on-island action:

What follows is a recap of LOST Season 6, Episode 4: “The Substitute.” Lots of spoilers ensue.

It is episodes like last night’s — “The Substitute” — that have secured LOST as a cult classic and kept viewers coming back season after season despite the unending stream of questions.

I began the episode hoping that it would pick up where last week’s left off, that we’d see a disheveled Claire staring Jin down the barrel of her gun, but that is nowhere near where we began this episode. By the first commercial break, I didn’t even care that this was clearly going to be a Claire-less episode.

Let’s talk about the amazing portions of John Locke’s off-island life we saw last night: