It's almost time

LOST returns in almost exactly two months, so I figured I'd brush up on my LOST knowledge by watching random (hopefully important) episodes from the previous five seasons.

Today: Pilot - Part 1

-Right off the bat, Jack is drunk. He does pretty well for himself, considering. Saves several lives.

-I am not convinced Jack fell from the plane. His location when he wakes up is a good distance from the beach, and he's in the middle of a bunch of trees.

-Locke helps Jack lift part of the plane off a dude. Interesting that the first time they meet, they're helping each other save a life. The relationship generally goes south from there.

-Jack saves Rose's life by giving her CPR. How ironic would it be for her to die minutes after being cured of her cancer thanks to the Island's healing properties?

-Kate is rubbing her wrists the very first time we see her. Big ol' clue.

-Kate seems more scared and vulnerable at this point (sewing up Jack) than any other time in the series.

-The first time we get a solo shot of Sawyer, he's smoking. Did he quit later? I don't remember him smoking at all. I guess being forced to go cold turkey over a few weeks thanks to no cigarettes would explain that.

-Kate says Jack doesn't seem afraid at all. Jack tells her the story of his first spinal surgery, where he messes it up and gives himself five seconds to be scared, then fixes the problem. I think maybe he's so calm because he's wasted. :)

-It's intriguing how tertiary Jack has become, considering he was the guy of the first couple seasons.

-Jack tells Kate "You're not running now," after she says she would probably run away if faced with the spinal surgery crisis Jack told her about. Impactful.

-Awww, Walt is little.

-Smokey is tearing around in the jungle 20 minutes in, even before the first commercial break. And we still don't know exactly what he is.

-There's a shot of everyone reacting to Smokey and the director manages to get only major characters in the shot, but made it look random. Nice.

-The very first flashback of the series is 21 minutes in, immediately after the first commercial break.

-Cindy, the flight attendant turned Other, gives Jack more booze on the flight.

-The pilot gets beaten to death (or whatever) by Smokey. Why? Far as I remember, Smokey doesn't kill anyone for a long time after the crash. Was the pilot judged and found so unrepentant he was irredeemable? Was he somehow a threat to the safety of the Island?

That's it. I'll get Pilot - Part 2 up sometime next week.

LOST on Egyptian Culture

Alright, so I've had the hunch for the longest time, that Egyptian culture plays a big part in the storyline of LOST. In this interview from Alison Haislip of Attack of the Show she busts out the 'ole 'Word Association' trick. Of course, Damon Lindelof and Carton Cuse, are not ones to be easily fooled. Plus the fact that she flat out told them I'm wanting you to spill some beans didn't help. Anyways, we find something interesting about Egypt in that section of the video. Check it out.



Now, I do realize this was all done a few hours before the show, and that 'tapestry' may have just been about the tapestry that Jacob created. I like to think though, that with the hesitation and 'hmmm's, that Egypt has more to do with what is upcoming with LOST. It took them a second to make a decision on what word to associate exactly with Egypt in other words. Once again, I need to make time to do some research on this Egyptian stuff and how it can be associated with the LOST story.

Another thing were the comments on fathers. The man we saw in the beginning of the finale talking to Jacob, was he perhaps his son or vice versa? We know that Jack and his father have problems, Ben and his, John has problems with his as well, Hurley is another one, Charlie had problems trying to be the father of Claire's son, Ben with his daughter, and those are just some of the main ones. This I think is another large clue as to what may be coming.

The Incident, Parts 1 and 2

Well, the writers of Lost cooked up another great season finale, as is their wont.

To start us off, how major a paradigm shift was the revelation that Jacob is who Jacob is? On Tuesday, he was a shadowy figure on the fringe (haha) of the show that we know little to nothing about, someone that we scour screencaps for a glimpse of, someone probably trapped in the cabin, someone Ben had never seen. 

And now? He's a world-traveling, never-aging, healing-with-a-touch Cool Guy. 

Who saw that coming? Not me.

Long list of What We Learned today:

1. Jacob is corporeal. He eats, he touches, he can be stabbed and killed.

2. Jacob is free to roam about the world. 

3. Jacob has a nemesis, and we meet him. This nemesis cannot kill Jacob as of the late 1800's, though he desperately wants to.

4. The statue looks more like Sobek, another Egyptian deity, thanks to the crocodile head. 

Sobek (also called Sebek, Sochet, Sobk, Sobki, Soknopais, and in Greek,Suchos) was the deification of crocodiles, as crocodiles were deeply feared in the nation so dependent on the Nile River. Egyptians who worked or travelled on the Nile hoped that if they prayed to Sobek, the crocodile god, he would protect them from being attacked by crocodiles.^[1] The god Sobek, which was depicted as a crocodile or a man with the head of a crocodile was a powerful and frightening deity; in some Egyptian creation myths, it was Sobek who first came out of the waters of chaos to create the world.^[1] As a creator god, he was occasionally linked with the sun god Ra.^[1]

5. Jacob visited Sawyer, Sayid, Locke, Hurley, Kate, Jack, Sun and Jin at different stages in their lives and touched them. In Locke's case, Jacob's touch seemed to restore John to life. 

6. Rose and Bernard are fine, and living alone. They've become pretty laissez-faire in the last three years, and Vincent is with them.

7. Roger shoots Sayid, justice for Sayid shooting Ben.

8. Juliet is convinced to help Jack after realizing Sawyer loves Kate. This lends actual plot relevance to the whole stupid love square, so good work, writers.

9. Jack actually goes through with Faraday's plan to blow up the ocean-ahem-the Island, and restore the timeline. Whether the plan actually works or not we won't know for a while.

10. We see how Chang injured and lost his arm.

11. Sun finds Charlie's family "DS" ring in Aaron's crib. 

12. Locke convinces Ben to kill Jacob by telling him how wronged Ben has been. It was then that I became sure that this Locke was not Locke.

13. Locke's body is in the crate Ilana and Bram have.

14. Ilana and Bram, while unknown to Richard, are apparently followers of Jacob.

15. Richard Alpert responded to the question of "What lies in the shadow of the statue?" with "Ille qui nos omnes servabit" - “He who will protect/save us all.”

16. Ben stabs Jacob after essentially being told he was meaningless. "What about you?" is probably the harshest thing you could say to Ben at this point. 

17. If you want to get technical, Locke/Nemesis is the one who actually pushed Jacob into the fire. 

So much to tackle here. Just one note to end this post: 

The show has increased in scope every season. 

In Season 1, it's all about a small section of the Island. Then we move out to the fact that there are Others on the Island, and explore more. Then we discover the Hydra. And from there, the conflict between DHARMA and the Others on-Island, and then the conflict between Ben and Widmore off-Island.

And now all of that seems like the arguing of children compared to this conflict between Jacob and his Nemesis (some have taken to calling him Esau). The struggle between gods about the fate of man? For us, doesn't get much more epic than that. 

Theories tomorrow.

WIRED and LOST

Alright, so the other writers here have pretty much covered all of my theories as to what may come in the season finale. They just somehow found time to write it out before I did. Now the only thing I really have to input is this puzzle from last month's issue of WIRED Magazine. In case you're not a subscriber(like you should be), J.J. Abrams Co-edited this issue, and it was an amazing issue. About half-way through the issue, we find this little puzzle(Click for full-size):





If you take the first page of numbers, transfer them directly to their alphabetical counterparts(a=1, d=4, z=26, etc.), you get:

QAVPHFTKRRJNGGERVGEFXOLMAH

Plug that into a Vigenere Cipher, using the keyword WIREDMAGAZINE, and you get this:

USELETTERSBACKWARDSFROMEND

I came up with the keyword WIREDMAGAZINE because it has that at the bottom of the page after the page number. That's not like that anywhere else in the magazine. Now though, I'm stumped... The numbers on the next page obviously go over 26, the last letter in the English alphabet. I have yet to try wrapping and continuously counting them(27=a, 30=d, 52=z, etc.), I just haven't had a ton of time to mess around with this thing(School, grumble).

Why do I want to figure this out so bad? It obviously has a connection to LOST with the Lotto ticket on top. J.J. Abrams Co-edited this issue, and has a great article in it, which is also a puzzle in itself. Also, if you recall a few episodes back there was a WIRED magazine present. From August 2003, which has an article in it about the cure for cancer on page 108, which is as we know the total of the 'numbers'. This may not give anything as to what is to come tonight, or in the future, but so much is linking the two together that it would be awesome to figure it all out anyways. Also, at 'The End' of this issue, there is a piece of artwork, check it:



Remember, this show is a lot about Science vs. Faith. I wish I could have broken this before the finale tonight! Haha! I may be trying to see something here that isn't, but knowing J.J., WIRED, and LOST, I really don't think I am.

And that's my two cents I guess. I'm missing the finale right now, which is why this article has no real structure and is kinda' mumbo jumbo'd. So I'm going to wrap this up by asking you all one more time, to see if you can solve this puzzle. After the finale tonight of course. I think if we do crack it, we'll no doubt be rewarded in a fairly big way.

Season Finale Spectacular!

So tonight is the two-hour season 5 finale for Lost. Titled "The Incident," this should be a good look at what Chang was talking about in the Swan orientation film so long ago.

I'm going to tackle the ideas posted by the other blog authors, then go into what I think will go down.

-Amy's theory that someone will get super powers - "Will Jack be Island Radioactive Man?" is interesting, but the incident where Desmond turns the key is not exactly equivalent to a nuclear bomb going off. I actually think the bomb is largely inert after all these years... the leak caused the nuclear aspect of the bomb to fizzle, but the initial triggering explosion may still happen. Large enough to destroy the Dharma compound, but not Island-destroying.

I also have a feeling Smokey will make an appearance, something dramatic, like sucking up the hydrogen bomb blast or something. Or maybe eating Locke or Jack, seeing as they're both setting themselves up for some major island controversy. Mmmm Smokey food.

I like it. Smokey seems to act as the Island's protector and Judger of Souls. As we don't know the limits or extent of his technology, swallowing a hydrogen bomb blast certainly makes sense.

Also, I think maybe Sun and Frank might make everything right in the island before John has a chance to blow up the bomb, thus making everything course corrected. Aaaaand scene.

Sun and Frank... apparently following Christian's instructions, and as we don't know where Christian's allegiance lies, their actions are a mystery. 

I'm not on board with John's theory that Jacob doesn't exist. Locke has heard him speak ("Help me"), and Hurley saw him when he stumbled upon the cabin. Shoot, we've even seen him. Check it out:

If Jacob turns out to be nonexistent, it will be a major betrayal of trust by the writers, and I don't think they'll do that to us so late in the game. 

Here's what I think:

I think Jacob is a prisoner of Richard and subsequently, every leader the Others have had for a long time. Locke, being in tune with the Island (and therefore Jacob), knows this, and knows the only way to free him is to kill him. 

I'm still a proponent of "what happened, happened," so I don't think he'll succeed. I don't think Jack will succeed in setting off the bomb, unless the only effect is causing The Incident by releasing the electromagnetic energy through the explosion. 

Everything will tie together in the end, and we'll start seeing some of the tying tonight. 

Along those same lines, the show will not end with Flight 815 landing safely in Los Angeles. This would be a larger viewer betrayal than even making Jacob nonexistent... it'd be on par with what Life on Mars did. Everything we've seen in six seasons never happened? The character development, the storyline, the mysteries... none of it matters? J.J. Abrams is far too smart to go down that route. 

Here's to an awesome season finale!

John's LOST finale prediction - are you watching?

OK, so first off: here's to what I may call the finest season of LOST. Period. No season has done more than Season 5 to answer so many of the questions that we all had in the last ___ years. It also reminds me of why I love this show so much: the writing.

It astounds me that nearly all the questions I refer to as "biggies" have come answered (or partially, at least), in a way that progresses the story of the survivors while not being merely an addendum of the mythology. Sure the mythology of the island, et al. is cool, but without a gripping story with characters to care about, there's not much there.

Boo. Ya.

So without further adieu, my thoughts on the finale.

I think Jacob is non-existent (eek!). And John knows it. It could be some sort of cover up drawn up by Ben and Richard (one of my favorite characters in the show) to keep control over The Others. I'm not sure why, except that John's idea to "kill" Jacob means that he's going to show everyone that they've been duped by Ben and Richard. However, I don't think that Richard's participation in it would be nearly as sinister as Ben's; I think he would have a good reason for it, as he seems to be quite in tune with the island--though not to John's apparent closeness.

Other than that, I have no idea what will happen with the sub, besides that maybe something goes awry (vague, I know) and they need to head back. All I know is that something big will happen, as Brandon mentioned, involving Sun, Lipidus, John, Jack, Smokey, and the Island, which will make for some interesting theories until Season 6. The Final Season.

Bummer.

But, at least it'll be good. Happy watching!

Theories on the season finale

Oh, Lost. Believe it or not, I have been following along with the season, just not writing on this blog.

And the conclusion I've come to is we're in for yet another excruciating cliff-hanger at season's end. I have a feeling it'll be like season 2 when Desmond goes to turn the key, ending in a flash of light (or the flash of a hydrogen bomb in this case). Who's going to end up with super powers this time? Will Jack be Island Radioactive Man? That's totally what his ego needs - a little saving experience. I think that's the main reason Jack wants to blow up the hydrogen bomb - so he has something to do and his journey back to the island won't be for nothing. I see his savior complex coming back in a big way.

I also have a feeling Smokey will make an appearance, something dramatic, like sucking up the hydrogen bomb blast or something. Or maybe eating Locke or Jack, seeing as they're both setting themselves up for some major island controversy. Mmmm Smokey food.

Also, I think maybe Sun and Frank might make everything right in the island before John has a chance to blow up the bomb, thus making everything course corrected. Aaaaand scene.

Thoughts on "Follow the Leader"

The Locke-Ben-Alpert relationship is really interesting to me right now. Something is clearly off with Locke, and Alpert's attitude around him only confirms my suspicions. Alpert was acting wary and almost jumpy when dealing with Locke... my current idea is that Locke is being controlled by Smokey. There is evidence for and against this, but the longer it's apparent that Locke is not exactly himself, the more I like it.

Two literary references I pulled from the final minutes of last night's episode. The first is from the book of Exodus in the Old Testament. Moses has freed the Israelites from the Egyptians and they are now in the wilderness. In chapter 19, Moses prepares the people to meet God.

And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount.

And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.

Very similar to the idea of Locke taking the Others to meet Jacob. It's important to note that the Children of Israel never actually meet God, as they are intimidated and would rather not deal with that experience.

Then Locke discloses his plan to kill Jacob. This is very similar to a major plot point in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. You are familiar with the first book in the trilogy, The Golden Compass. I read all three books a couple summers ago, and they are essentially a thinly-disguised rant against the Catholic church, and to a lesser extent, organized religion in general.

In the final book, our young protagonists kill "The Authority" (the god of their universe), by freeing him from the prison The Authority's right-hand man had placed him in a long time ago.

Jacob's "help me" to Locke. The circle of ash around Jacob's cabin. Locke's assertion that Ben has never actually seen Jacob. It all works.... Locke is going to the cabin to kill Jacob, thereby freeing him. Big time stuff is about to go down.

The undercurrent of Ben still wanting to kill Locke, but fully aware that Smokey will destroy him if he tries (not just kill, destroy) puts Ben in a tough spot. If Richard supports Ben's plotting, that may give Ben a sense that the Island approves, but in the end, Smokey supports Locke, and Smokey is the true power on the Island. Smokey has been on-Island for centuries or even millennia... I doubt anyone has any kind of control over him.

Shaping up for an intense season finale.

Follow the Leader

What struck me most about last night's episode was how lost and confused Alpert and Ben seemed at times. These two seemed the most confident and competent of anyone on the show, and now that's shot. On to the learning:

1. Daniel is dead dead. No taking him to the temple for saving.

2. Jack is sold on Daniel's theory of "blow up the Island and everything reverts back to the original timeline."

3. Richard says he watched Jack, Kate, Hugo, etc. die in 1977 (or somewhere after that point).

4. Locke gave Alpert the first aid kit and instructions on what to tell time-skipping Locke.

So not a whole lot of questions answered, but a few new ones have been posed. Good ol' Lost.

Theories on "The Variable"

Here are some of the better theories on Wednesday's episode from Lostpedia.org. 

On Daniel's age:

Daniel would have to have been born by 1977. He was a professor at Oxford in 1996, which would be impossible at less than the age of 19. This raises a question as to why he didn't have a nosebleed before Miles earlier in the season, however. it's possible the writers have mixed up their own time line again, as they did with Charlotte.

• While I agree with this, Daniel says he's the youngest doctor to ever graduate from oxford, so who knows how young. If he was already as much of a genius as he seemed as a kid, he could've gone to college at 12 or 13, and been a doctor by 20 or 21.

-On the Comic-Con video

Provided that Daniel's prediction about the massive energy discharge about to pass from the Orchid Station to the site of the Swan Station is correct (which will become known as "the Incident"), then the video Dr. Chang recorded must have been taped shortly after the Incident. The Incident would prove that Daniel Faraday really was from the future and already knew that such an event was going to happen. Somehow Dr. Chang will find out more about the time period from which Daniel originates (including information about the current president and the internet) though of course not from Daniel himself.

Most importantly, Pierre Chang will learn of the Purge, and seeing how Daniel was unable to change the past, Dr. Chang will figure that his future cannot be changed either. Therefore he makes this video to be shown after the Purge has already occurred, Pierre himself is dead (and missing an arm somehow) and the DHARMA Initiative is inactive. However, he makes sure that the video is not played until 2008 because that is after Daniel's time loop with the past has ended.

More:

The Dharma Booth Video was filmed after Daniel was shot and after the Incident. Based on Sawyer comments in 1977, it seems Daniel has been off the Island for awhile. When Daniel returns to the Island, baby Miles is a few months old. Daniel doesn't die from the gunshot because Young Eloise takes him to the Temple to be healed like Ben. While Daniel's in a coma or passed out, the Incident takes place. Baby Charlotte left the Island before the Incident but not baby Miles. The Incident is what gives Miles his psychic ability and causes Dr. Chang's arm to be amputated. The video was filmed shortly after the Incident. In the video, Daniel's voice is heard behind the camera, baby Miles is heard crying in the background and Dr. Chang clasps his hand/arm as if in pain.

-On Eloise's seeming ability to see into the future:

Eloise can't see into the future. She got her information from Daniel, Jack, Kate, Sayid and anyone else who flashed to the 70's and came into contact with her. They tell her everything. In her scene with Penny in 2007, she said she doesn't know what's coming next and it's the first time she doesn't know what's coming in a really long time. The reason is, that they can only tell her what happens between the time they meet in 1977 and the time she sends them back to the island in 2007.

I like that last one. Makes sense. Your thoughts? 

Significance of Daniel's death

To start off, you need to realize that Eloise is fully aware that she is the reason her son is dead. She might not understand it right away (ie. in 1977), but by the time Daniel is an adult, she has to know what will happen.

Yet she sends Daniel to the Island (in 2005) anyway. She is the reason he accepted Widmore's offer, and this is what she is talking about when she angrily tells Widmore that he knows nothing of sacrifice.

The question is why does she do it? He's her son!

There are two options here, in my opinion.

A.) The "course correction" theorem is inviolable. She knows she kills Daniel, and also knows she can do nothing to stop his death. She must simply live with the consequences.

B.) Daniel has gone rogue, and is disregarding the laws of time travel. Hawking's role in The Constant seems to be one of a Time Cop of sorts. She exists to stop Desmond from changing the timeline by proposing to Penny, among other things. If Daniel is now working to change the timeline, then it is her duty to stop him, and the way she does that is by convincing him to return to the Island and his certain doom (at her hand).

Tragic.

It also lends more meaning to Eloise writing "I will love you no matter what" (paraphrased) in the journal she gives Daniel.

Of course, if Daniel survives being shot in the back, then none of this is valid. But I'm 99% certain that he's gone.

The Variable

This episode was packed with stuff, I suppose to make up for that lame clip show last week. Let's get into it:

1. First of all, The Return of Faraday was a trap. Writers had Miles overreact a bit to make it seem amazing that Daniel was getting off the sub, when really, it was no big deal. We didn't know where he was, but Miles and everyone else did.

2. Lots of Daniel information here. Obviously, the big reveal is that Widmore is Daniel's father (probably). While Eloise's slap at the pronouncement indicates it's not that clean-cut, I'm taking the statement at face value for now. My guess is that Penny is Widmore's daughter with another woman (a mainlander), making Daniel and Penny half-siblings.

3. Daniel is entirely unaware that Widmore is his father. I wonder who he thinks his dad is.... All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues.

4. Widmore personally recruits Daniel to go to the Island. The main reason is to help Widmore gain control of said Island, and the secondary reason is that the Island will heal Faraday. It explains the scene with Charlotte and Daniel and the memory cards last season, and explains why Faraday has gotten progressively more lucid.

5. The nature of Faraday's illness is explained. He retains some level of base knowledge; he knows who he is and know his mother. He knows he used to be brilliant, and knows he's forgotten things. But he is unable to remember specific information from his past, and anything new he learns will be forgotten by the next day.

6. This is the result of the experiment he ran on himself at Oxford, presumably the same experiment he ran on Eloise the rate and Theresa, his lab assistant. If you remember, the experiment with Eloise (that Desmond witnessed) was transferring the rat's future consciousness into the present animal. The rat then successfully navigated a maze that Daniel would not teach it for another five minutes. The rat died as a result of this expirement, and we assume the same experiment put Theresa the lab assistant in a coma.

7. Daniel believes his mother was wrong in sending the 316-ers back to the Island. We're not sure why.

8. The Incident Chang referred to in different Dharma orientation videos was the result of Dharma workers drilling into the ground at the Swan site and releasing a ton of energy. Daniel confronts Chang not to prevent the Incident from happening, but to make Pierre worried enough to send the women and children away. This is presumably how Charlotte and her mother get off the Island and maybe how Chang is separated from his wife and Miles.

9. Faraday is currently on a mission to try and "change things", even though he previously believed he could not. I think Charlotte is the catalyst for this. He believes that if he stops the construction of the Swan, then Charlotte will never return to the Island, and she will survive. This ignores Hawking's "course correction" speech to Desmond in The Constant, in which she teaches that the universe will fix any attempts at changing the timeline. Daniel may prevent Charlotte from returning to the Island, but then she might die in a car crash around the same time anyway.

10. Daniel is shot (and killed?) by a young Eloise Hawking in 1977, as he threatens to shoot Alpert. I will get into this in my analysis post.

Good episode. Seems like the writers are ramping up for a great season finale in four or five episodes.

Commentary and theories on "Some Like it Hoth"

-Faraday. Like I mentioned earlier, it seems that Miles is astonished to see him. Last we saw Daniel, it was within hours of Sawyer snowing Dharma into thinking he and the other Left-Behinds were legit. Daniel is distraught over Charlotte's death. Next thing we know, it's 1977 and Sawyer is telling Jack that Daniel is "not with us anymore."

So here are my theories:

1. Faraday somehow managed to sneak off the Island without anyone in Dharma noticing, get back to the mainland and get recruited into Dharma as a scientist working out of Ann Arbor, Michigan.

2. OR 2008 Faraday died in 1974-ish, and his consciousness was transferred to 1977 Faraday, leading him to want to return to the Island, and therefore seek out Dharma.

We've seen consciousness be transferred through time and space before, both in "The Constant", with Desmond and Eloise, the rat.

Or 2008 Desmond just went on a trip and came back, and Miles is overreacting. Trap by the writers.

Of course, we've seen Daniel in the Orchid, dressed a construction worker, hiding from Pierre. This could indicate he's with Dharma as a scientist, but not allowed to see the Orchid or Swan, so he has to infiltrate the sites.

-Miles shows his human decency for the second time by refunding the money of the dad of the dead football player. He did a similar thing when Ghostbusting the room of that grandma the first time we see him.

-What the heck does Pierre want with a dead body at the Orchid?

-Hurley writing The Empire Strikes Back is awesome.

-How dumb is Phil? "Have you told anyone else about this?" Any time ANYONE asks you this question, watch out for a gun to the head or punch to the face. Or crowbar to the back of your head. Sheesh.

And what are they going to do with Phil? Either they keep him locked in a closet forever, kill him, or bring him in on their secret.

-Miles was recruited to help find Ben, but never exactly gets to do that. Kinda weird.

Some Like it Hoth

On to the learning:

1. Pierre Chang is definitely Miles' dad. This has been the speculation since Miles was introduced (go go racism?), and now it's confirmed.

2. Hence, Miles was born on-Island and left it at a very early age. Either that or Pierre left.

3. Miles' powers are explained. He doesn't hold conversations with the dead, he is only able to glean impressions and feelings off a body (not ashes) as to who the person was. (I assume he'd have an equally difficult time reading someone who'd been eaten by a lion.)

4. Dharma is currently building the Swan and Orchid stations (1977).

5. Bram tries to convince Miles to not accept Widmore's offer. That allies him with Ben, right? Making him an Other? So is Ilana an Other?

6. Pierre really does care for lil' Miles. Why Miles never knew him growing up is a mystery. The Purge doesn't happen until 1992, and Miles was 15 then.

7. One can get very, very close to one's past self while time-traveling and there do not seem to be any negative effects.

8. Faraday is not dead. Miles seems very surprised to see him, indicating that Daniel has not merely been on an extended trip to the mainland.

Some Like it Hoth - Questions

Since I'm an author on here, I figure I need to make some contribution. So for all those anticipating tonight, some questions that I'm pondering.

Some Questions to Ponder Tonight

1.) What is Miles' role in the Lostie's "destinies?" Is it a coincidence that a man who talks to dead people lands on an island where dead people randomly appear?

2.) In 1977, does Pierre Chang already know "the truth?"

3.) Where is Faraday? Is he still alive, is he planning something? Has he gone all "Anakin Skywalker" in a misguided quest to prevent the death of his love, Charlotte?

4.) "Some Like it Hoth?" Let me guess: The Empire finds the Island, only after Admiral Ozzel (in a mistake that costs him his life) brings the fleet out of lightspeed too early, alerting the DHARMA of their presence in time to raise their shields, putting the Imperials in the position of having to wage a costly ground battle with AT-AT Walkers.-- (OR maybe they just talk about Star Wars for a few minutes and make a metaphor poignant enough to give the episode its name. Whatever.)

Let's hope we get some answers tonight. (And if we know Lost, likely more questions.)

Smokey stuff, cont'd

-Does anyone else thing Ilana and her followers are being controlled by Smokey, just like Rousseau's crew? "What lies in the shadow of the statue?" sounds like a question to see who is under Smokey's control and who is not.

-The painting in the underground room at the Temple showed what I think is Anubis summoning Smokey. Anubis is the jackal-headed Egyptian god associated with death and the afterlife. One of his jobs is to weigh the hearts of men to see if they are worthy of continuing to the afterlife, as depicted here:

The hearts are weighed against a feather. If your heart is lighter, than you are good to go.

Now, the question is... was Smokey created by the Egyptians, or was he merely worshiped/used by them? It seems that the Island, at one time, was home to Egyptians... either they crashed there or the Island was very close to Egypt at some point in its history and was actually part of the kingdom.

Question for Monday

What appeal does being leader of the Others hold? I understand that for Locke it means being special and having a purpose in life, but what is so attractive about it to Widmore or Ben?

Widmore, especially, didn't find everything he wished for on the Island; he went off and got a wife and started a family.

You don't get a nice car or more money or anything. Your decisions are always subject to Jacob (Alpert), and you spend most of your time doing what he says. It's not like you can be promoted to the new "Jacob" one day, is it?

John's Late-in-the-Week Post: "Dead is Dead"

Ok, Losities.

"Dead is Dead" was awesome. Do doubt one of my favorite LOST episodes eva.

So this week's post is a bit different.

Here's a potential convo Ben and Charles, who in the following script will be known as Widmore.

Because it's his last name.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Ben: (sitting in the shadow of "the statue") So, uh, Charles..

Widmore: Yes, boy?

Ben: Why were you so mad that Richard allowed the island to save me?

Widmore: Oh Ben, I don't--

Ben: --Seriously, that really sucked, old man. Did you want me to die? My father basically left me for dead...at least emotionally.

Widmore: Listen, Ben, all I want to do is finish carving this blasted statue so I can get on my merry way and be judged by the island. I don't have time to hear the daddy-son issues of your soft underbelly.

Ben: (widdling a piece of wood) I mean, I just thought you might--you know--learn to love me the way I know and you know the island does. The island loves me, Charles. I guess that's why I feel so attached to it. I kind of attach myself to anyone that shows interest in me. Honestly, I don't know what I would do if I found a smart, doctor-like blonde with a penchant for delivering babies....ooh, that would be nice. Oh, and check out this book that washed up on shore.

(Hands Widmroe a copy of The Dark Tower)

Widmore: Stephen King? Please. Canterbury Tales only, boy.

Ben: So why are you carving this gigantic statute? And what is judgment?

Widmore: Dear Dummy, This statue has been erected since before 1965 and is more than 20 feet tall. It is a near impossibility that I, or someone like me, erected it. It most likely came from aliens, since it is the only science fiction subject yet to be established in the mythology of our island. Signed, The Guy Who Just Can't Seem To Rid Himself Of You.

Ben: And the judgment?

Widmore: The island is mad because I've been carving "Charles + Ruth" in trees all over the place. Apparently there is some destruction of chattel and property statute that prohibits such defacement. What a load.

Ben: Rats.

Widmore: Well, I guess I'm going to hop in the sub, jet-set around the U.S. for a while, skip on over to Jolly Ole' for a bit, then have a baby with someone who is not one of us. See ya round, Boy.

Ben: Don't worry, if you're ever banished for breaking so many rules, I won't gloat. But I will consider killing your future daughter as revenge for your hand in the killing of my daughter. But it will probably be my own fault that she dies anyway.

But I don't think in judgment Inchoate Offenses are really considered. I might be up the proverbial creek without a paddle.

Widmore: Bummer.

Ben: Yeah.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OK, so I'm not sure where all that came from, but a couple of unanswerables so far: What is the statue? What happened in its shadow? How does Smokey know exactly what is in the minds of those it judges? And why did Widmore try so hard to find the island (and says himself to have failed), if he "understood" so much that what the island wants cannot be changed? He makes reference of that to Ben just before his banishment and is yet driven completely.

Also, if anyone doesn't know yet, I did not see James in the scene when Claire has Aaron in Season One.

Alas.

A treatise on ye olde "smoke monster"

Last night's episode made me think about the smoke monster a bit, and here's what I came up with:

Smokey manifests in four separate ways, at my counting:

1. As smoke.

2. Taking the form of a person. See: "Walt" appearing to Shannon, "Yemi" appearing to Eko, "Alex" appearing to Ben. In these situations, Smokey makes little to no effort to mimic the individual; he takes on the form to evoke an emotional response in the person he's working with.

3. Altering people, ie. Rousseau's group. Also potentially with Ilana and the 316-ers following her.

4. A theory, but Smokey may be able to use dead bodies to engage in face-to-face conversation. Christian is the main reason for my theory... we have no idea what he is, and "puppet of Smokey" makes as much sense as anything else. This form differs from number 3 in that Smokey works harder at passing himself off as the person he's masquerading as. Either that, or the person retains a level of their own personality and control? This is getting creepy.

Now, assuming my last theory is correct, does Locke fit here? The writers are doing their darndest to make us think it's a possibility, anyway. Locke leaves Ben before Smokey arrives and then returns after Smokey is gone, Ben calls Smokey and Locke comes out of the jungle, etc. Locke also questions Ben about his choice to move the Others to the barracks, and knows as much about the temple as Ben does. In general he's not acting like your typical pre-death Locke.

Last night's episode also solidifies the Island's endorsement of Locke as Ben's replacement (insofar as Smokey speaks for Jacob). "I know you're already planning on trying to kill John again," Smokey says. "I recommend against it." In this case, why allow Ben to live? If he is no longer the leader of the Others, and he's a threat to the current leader, what purpose does he serve?

The scene also solidified Smokey's role as judge. He judged Eko for Eko's past sins, found him unrepentant, and killed him. He judged Ben for Alex's death, found Ben sincerely repentant, and spared him.

This ties nicely into the Anubis theories, but I'll save that for tomorrow.

Dead is Dead

I enjoyed the Ben/Locke interaction last night. I hope we get more of it in the coming weeks.

Here's what the LOST writers gave us:

1. Charles from last week's episode is Widmore.

2. Ben is the one who took Alex. I guess that makes sense, but I never put it together. Also, Widmore ordered Ben to kill Rousseau (and assumed he'd kill Alex?).

3. "When you hear whispers, run." That was interesting.

4. Widmore was booted from the Island for having a separate life off of it. This also explains that...

5. Penny was born off-Island.

6. Desmond is the one who beat Ben up on the docks.

7. Ben was unable to go through with killing Penny after seeing lil' Charlie, and thus Penny, Charlie and Desmond are most likely still alive.

8. Christian told Sun to wait for Locke if she wanted to find Jin.

9 We learn how Ben summons the Monster.

Posts to come.

Theories on Whatever Happened, Happened

-Time travel clarification based on what Miles said: if you're traipsing about in your past (ie. you left 2008 to go to 1977), you have no guarantee of surviving. This is your present self in 1973, and since you never existed past 2008, you can die without negatively affecting the timeline.

However, people who are in the time they're supposed to be in (ie. lil' Jack in 1977 or lil' Ben in 1977) cannot die unless the original timeline has them dying at that moment, anyway. You can't kill JFK, Jr. as a time traveler unless you get him from the grassy knoll.

Clear?

- I'm intrigued by almost everything in the scene with Alpert. First off, Ben will be changed forever, and be an Other from that time on. His innocence will be lost. Is this part of the process of becoming an Other? Did Juliet do this? Widmore? Ethan? It does seem like the one defining characteristic of an Other is undying loyalty to the Island and the willingness to do just about anything to protect it (though Juliet sort of defies that stereotype).

Also, one of the Others mentions the fact that "Ellie" and "Charles" won't like Alpert taking Ben. Charles has to be Widmore, right? And could Ellie be Ms. Hawking? Her first name is Eloise.

And then there's the fact that Sawyer basically goads the Others with the fact that they don't want war any more than Dharma does. The Others live in an uneasy peace with Dharma for almost 20 years... and then in 1992, the Purge takes place. What changed between 1977 and then?

-Do you think Locke is ticked at Ben? Ben was honestly surprised to see Locke alive... he can't pull off a "I killed you so you could get back, it was the only way" argument. Or at least, if he does, I hope Locke isn't so gulliable as to believe it.

-It turns out that Ben's dad really is a good guy at heart. He just allows his grief for his wife and the bad situation he's in control how he acts towards his son. That said, Ben still kills him in cold blood in 1992. If Roger had some kind of change of heart after Ben's shooting, is it possible that he tries to reconcile with Ben, but New Ben won't have any of it?

-Jack refuses to save Ben, thereby causing Ben to become who he is in 2004. I think this is just another object lesson on Whatever Happened, Happened. Acting won't change the timeline. Not acting won't change the timeline.

-Someone on Lostpedia made an interesting observation comparing the kings of the Old Testament to the leaders of the Others:

A good comparison for Alpert might be in the Old Testament, where the prophet Samuel picked the first couple of kings of Israel (Saul and David), but had no real power himself. Does, then, Charles = Saul (the rejected/banished king), Ben = David (the one who fully vanquishes his people's enemies), and John = Solomon (king of the "golden age")?

Interesting theory.

That's all I've got. As always, your thoughts welcome.

Whatever Happened, Happened

To get started, my favorite part of this episode is when the writers used Miles and Hurley to take out their frustrations on the (apparently) stupid LOST fanbase.

DEAR LOST VIEWERS: WHAT HAPPENED, HAPPENED. PLEASE WRAP YOUR HEADS AROUND THIS VERY SIMPLE VERSION OF TIME TRAVEL WE HAVE CHOSEN TO USE ON OUR SHOW. YOUR OVERLORDS THANK YOU.

Good times. Without futher ado, here is what we learned from LOST last night:

1. Kate told Cassidy everything. I'd forgotten that she and Kate were tight, but remember how Kate helped her out after Sawyer left Cassidy and Cassidy was trying to make a living conning people? Well, she did. And then Cassidy helped Kate get in touch with Kate's mother. They are tight.

2. The reason Kate returned to the Island was to find Claire, whose status of "living or not living?" is not exactly clear. But good luck with that, Kate. Oh, and Aaron is with his grandma. Why Kate couldn't just tell Jack that, I dunno.

3. Jack didn't return to the Island to save the left-behinds, but instead came back for his own, more selfish, reasons.

4. We learn for sure what Sawyer whispered to Kate in the helicopter, but come on, we already knew it was about Clementine.

5. Ben is taken by Alpert to go through a process that will change Ben forever.

6. My theory as to why Ben messes with the 815-ers is temporarily out. If lil' Ben will lose all memory of "this" (the shooting?), then he won't remember it was Sayid who shot him. I suppose later on he could find out the truth, but it doesn't seem good.

Theories to come.

LOST as an 80's TV show

I don't have speakers here at work, so I'm not quite sure what the music here is like.

Enjoy!

John's Late-in-the-Week Post: "He's Our You"

So my wife has begun watching LOST again from the beginning, as she missed a few episodes that were vital in leading us to where we are now.

(No need to panic; I've seen every single episode).

Currently, she's nearing the middle of Season One, and Claire's (bring her back, Christian!) about to have her baby (Kate you dimwit! Only Claire is supposed to raise Aaron!). I'm looking forward to the episode when she actually does have it, as I'm excited to see whether James "I used to call myself Sawyer to fool people; now I call myself LaFleur to fool people" Ford is visible at all as an Easter egg.

I'll keep you posted.

But watching the episode "Confidence Man" leads me to rescind some of the character changing that I've seen James go through.

The example I'm considering:
In "Confidence Man," Sawyer is taken by Jack and Sayid as they "inquire"about the inhalers James supposedly has stashed away (no one ever asks for them, and he never says that he has them). Their inquiry includes hitting him over the head, tying him to a tree, and shoving bamboo slivers under his finger nails to get him to talk. In a word: torture.

Of course, James is innocent, though allows Jack and Sayid to do this partly to lead others away from who he really is.

(In a darker "revelation" I had, I feel James in this episode is a lot like The Joker from The Dark Knight in that he also seems to be allowing his own torture to ruin the hero complexis of Jack (Batman) and Sayid (Harvey Dent). Remember that The Joker was mostly interested in seeing how far he could push Batman and Harvey Dent. Dent was the only that broke (think Sayid). I know--I'm a nerd.)

This brings me "He's Our You." James leads Sayid to the Dharma "psychopath," where the roles are reversed, to allow his to give Sayid a magic sugar cube in order for him to talk. In a word, I call this sort of interrogotory: torture.

And yet, James allows it to happen. Why? To keep people believing that he is someone other than himself.

And though he seems to have changed, and I believe he has, some unwanted characteristics will be much harder to overcome.

But to do that, he did the right thing; he stayed on the island.

Theories on He's Our You

It's interesting... the episode title seems to indicate that the pivotal moment this week should be when Oldham drugs Sayid, right? This Oldham guy is set up to be one scary dude, but all he does is put LSD or something onto a sugar cube and force feed it to Sayid.

I mean, sure, there's something about Oldham that creeps me out... part of it is that he lives in a teepee in the middle of the jungle. Do the Others not bother him? Are they afraid of him? Do they respect him?

But when we boil it down, the drugging scene was meaningless. Sayid told them the truth and Horace and the others didn't believe it. Sure, they (especially Radzinsky) were freaked out that he knew about the Dharma stations, especially the Swan, but other than that, no harm done. They just figured they'd given him too much of the drug and decided to kill him, just like they wanted to in the first place.

And we find out how Illana captured Sayid and who she is. My only question here is: how did the family of golfer guy find out Sayid did it?

But on to the meat of the episode. I've been saying since last week that Sayid was thinking about killing lil' Ben. There are two main points here:

1. Either the timeline is all shot to kingdom come, or lil' Ben isn't really dead. That's what it comes down to. Note that Sayid did not stop to check for a pulse or make extra sure lil' Ben was dead by shooting a few more rounds into the body, so I'm leaning towards "lil' Ben will be saved by Richard and/or healed by the Island powers" right now. It makes the most sense and we don't have to deal with the aftermath of the timeline falling apart.

2. Sayid shoots Ben because he believes lil' Ben will grow up to be a manipulating, lying, evil man, responsible for a lot of the suffering he and the other 815-ers have gone through. He probably suspects Adult Ben had Nadia killed in order to turn Sayid into his personal assassin.

Now here's where it gets fun. Adult Ben makes life hard for Sayid and the other 815-ers (including probably having Nadia killed) because Sayid shot him when he was 12.

And Sayid shot lil' Ben because Adult Ben made Sayid's life hard from 2004-2007.

The whole thing is a time-travel revenge circle.

See why I hate time travel? Ugh.

This is also the basis for the conversation Ben and Sayid have in the Dominican Republic. Ben believes Sayid to be a stone-cold killer, because Sayid shot him, an unarmed boy who had just helped him escape from Dharma, in cold blood.

This theory contradicts another theory floating around: that people don't develop memories of "altered timeline events" until they happen. For example, Desmond never met Faraday (outside the Swan during the jumping phase) until the Island disappeared and the time skipping began. This makes no sense to me in light of Faraday's "one timeline" theory, so I'm going with the idea that Adult Ben already knows Sayid, Jack, Kate, Hurley, etc. in 2004, and knows Juliet before he recruits her in 2001. He doesn't suddenly develop memories in 2008 of knowing them as a child in 1977 when this is all "happening" along some parallel timeline. Does that make sense? I need to draw a chart.

Other stuff: lil' Ben is probably responsible for the burning van. He was waiting outside the holding area and sprang into action the moment Phil was gone.

And the writers were worried we wouldn't feel bad watching lil' Ben get shot, so they included a "remember how his dad is an abusive jerk?" scene. Oh Uncle Rico, where did you go wrong?

What will Sayid do now? He's alone in the jungle in 1977. I doubt the Others will let him join them, and Dharma sure as heck want him dead now.

Good episode.

He's Our You

Things we learned from last night's episode:

1. Sawyer really, really likes his life with Dharma. He's all hooked up with Juliet, he has a position of some power, it's a fairly comfortable existence, etc. He likes it so much, he won't risk losing it to help a fellow 815-er. That said, I wonder if he'd react the same way if it was Kate or Hurley locked up and suspected to be a Hostile.

2. We see who Illana is and how she captured Sayid. See where sexual promiscuity gets you?

3. We meet Oldham.

4. Oh, and Sayid decides to kill lil' Ben.

As always, let me know if I missed anything. Theories up next.

Namaste re-re-revisited (Tired of talking about this episode yet?)

Since John Gagnon's posting on the blog now, I'm somewhat rethinking my comic relief role...I'll let you know what happens there.

In the meantime, I have some questions that weren't answered in the three posts about Namaste so far:

Number A: Can Ben not meet himself in the past? Is that why he didn't time jump?

Number B: Why didn't Sun time jump? Because someone from the Oceanic Six needed to fix the island and not time jump? Is this really the first time Sun learns about Christian?

Another one: Why did the Others build the runway? So when planes are about to crash on the island, they'll land semi-safely (sorry redshirt copilot) and they'll have more people to choose from? Or to land their own planes for supplies and transport? I thought the only way off the island was the sub - although, Ben could have been lying. He probably was.

Juliet almost gets Kate hosed - does anyone else think that's a great moment? Is it all part of Juliet's plan? Or just to show Kate who's in charge and how much power Juliet has?

Theories on Namaste

-I think the big question I had after watching this last episode is this: when are Ben, Sun, Lapidus, etc.? The show labels the time as "30 years earlier," which would put them at 2007. However, Sun and Lapidus end up in what look like Dharma barracks.

Now, we know the Others lived in the Dharma barracks for an unspecified amount of time, and when they moved in, they removed all traces of Dharma. They are there from at least 2001 (when Juliet is recruited) to 2005 (when they abandon them after the mercenaries land on-Island).

The Purge occurred in 1992 (Horace Goodspeed tells John he's been dead for 12 years in 2004), so that means there is a time period of about nine years where Dharma is gone, and we're not sure if the Others have taken over their compound or not.

This puts Sun somewhere between 1992 and 2001.

Unless, of course, this isn't the barracks, and is instead a part of the Dharma Initiative that was never used by the Others. We don't know for sure that the Processing area and the living quarters are in the same place. It doesn't seem to me that the barracks are so close to the ocean, and Sun and Frank only walked a few feet before finding the Processing building.

-Did anyone else notice, during the scene with Christian, that there was a few seconds where the camera centered on an open door with smoke coming in? It jumped out at me because the focus was not any of the characters, and the smoke didn't seem like Smokey smoke... it was more like there was a campfire outside and the wind was blowing smoke from that in.

-To echo John's sentiments: where is Faraday? The way Sawyer said he'd left was a bit ambiguous. Is he insane? Did he leave the Island somehow? Is he off living with the Others?

-I think Sawyer's moved past the "con" phase of his relationship with Dharma and is now firmly entrenched in an "identifying with them" phase. Count how many times he uses the phrase "my people." That's going to be a problem.

-I mentioned to my wife while watching that Christian is much more specific about what he wants to get done than Jacob is. Whether Christian IS Jacob for all intents and purposes is another discussion, but I am leaning more and more towards the idea that they are competing forces on the Island. Jacob has his lists, which have an unknown purpose. Christian tells Locke to move the Island (though to be fair he didn't tell him how). I get the feeling he'll tell Sun exactly what she needs to do if she wants to find Jin.

-There is good reason to believe that Ben manipulated Sun into going to the Processing center. Remember, every time he appears vulnerable or beaten, he comes out on top somehow. This guy seems to be the king of the Xanatos Gambit.

-I believe that in 1977, young Ben is tight with Alpert and the Others. When he asks Sayid if he is a Hostile, what he's really saying is, "because I don't recognize you." In a related tangent, if we believe Faraday's "one timeline and one timeline only" theory, this means Ben knows Sayid when they "meet" for the first time in the Swan in Season 2. It also means he knows Sawyer, Juliet, Jack, etc., which adds layers upon layers to the previous seasons. How did he have such large files on people like Jack and Kate when they'd only been on-Island for relatively short period of time? I believe it is because he'd been working on them for years beforehand.

-To beat a dead horse, I believe if you're going to get into time travel as a writer, the only feasible way to do it without screwing up or going crazy is by using Faraday's "one timeline" theory. As long as LOST stays here, we'll be good. As Gagnon said, the first five episodes of this season were overwhelming enough, and we're using the simplest form of time travel theory there is.

And to conclude, boy do I not care about the Jack/Juliet/Sawyer/Kate love square. Just pair off and do your thing. I don't need 10 more episodes of furtive looks and hurt, tortured expressions. Ugh.

"Namaste" revisited

OK, so I'm going a bit ga-ga over the last couple of episodes, merely because it is producing more and more story, and less time travel craziness. Don't get me wrong, I dig the time travel mythology of the show, but it had been a bit overwhelming the first five episodes or so.

And does anyone just love Sawyer---er, LeFleur---right now? From season one to now, I can't think of anyone that has had such a change in arc than James Ford. And he's probably pulling the biggest and coolest con of his life.

One thing that I'm not sure of (among many) after Wednesday's episode:

Is Faraday gone from Dharma, or is he just out of his mind (hence James' indication that he isn't here anymore)? Either way, I'm curious to see what has become of Daniel. His "aptitude test" would probably be off the charts, and remember that he was seen in a mine that Chang was inspecting in "Because You Left." So I'm not sure what Faraday has up his sleeve.

Cue Twilight Zone music.

That was my biggest question. Lots more to come as I stir theories in my mind.

Namaste

DO NOT CARE ABOUT RELATIONSHIP ANGST

Okay, with that out of the way, here's what we learned from Namaste.

1. Radzinsky is an overbearing, arrogant jerk, and a hothead. While Kelvin claims Radzinsky committed suicide, I lean towards believing Kelvin offed him after an extended period of being stuck with him in the Swan.

2. Ben is already on-Island. This sort of bugs me, because if he has been on the Island for a while, why aren't Sawyer, Juliet, etc. more freaked out?

3. Ethan is the son of Amy and Horace.

4. Faraday is no longer with Dharma.

5. Ilana and Caesar did not know each other before the flight.

6. Dharma on-Island does not communicate with Dharma off-Island in regards to recruiting. The Islanders check the passengers' names against the sub manifest, but that's it.

In my opinion, meh. I still feel like the writers are dragging their feet.

Theory to come later.

The Numbers

No new LOST episode last week (boooo), hence no new posts her for a few days. Since I can't think of anything new to discuss, I'm going to tackle The Numbers today.

For a quick rundown of every time they are brought up, see the Lostpedia article.

From the same article:

It has been revealed in The Lost Experience that these six numbers are the core values of the Valenzetti Equation, a mathematical formula designed to predict the end of humanity. The numbers in actuality are said to represent human and environmental factors in the equation (given numerical form), though their precise meaning is uncertain. One purpose of the DHARMA Initiative was to change the factors leading to humanity's demise, which will be indicated by an alteration in at least one of the human/environmental factors - i.e. the numbers. However, in all its years of research, the Initiative failed to reach its goal. Despite much research and manipulation of the equation's values, the end result was always the numbers.

If anyone can translate what that all means, I'd be appreciative.

Bottom line, The Numbers are the highest-profile, least-explained mystery in the show. It seems that Hurley's entire character is based on The Numbers. The Swan hatch (and subsequently all of Season 2) was based around The Numbers.

And then the Swan blew up, and it seems they disappeared.

Sure, random numbers show up from time to time, but that just seems like the writers messing with us.

To cap off the frustration-fest, here is a long quote from Damon Lindelof (one of the LOST producers):

There are some questions that are very engaging and interesting, and then there are other questions that we have no interest whatsoever in answering. We call it the midi-chlorian debate, because at a certain point, explaining something mystical demystifies it. To try and have a character come and say, "Here is what the numbers mean," actually makes every usage of the numbers up to that point less interesting.

You can actually watch Star Wars now, and when Obi-Wan talks about the Force to Luke for the first time, it loses its luster because the Force has been explained as, sort of, little biological agents that are in your blood stream. So you go, "Oh, I liked Obi-Wan's version a lot better." Which in the case of our show is, "The numbers are bad luck, they keep popping up in Hurley's life, they appear on the island." ... But if you're watching the show for a detailed explanation of what the numbers mean—and I'm not saying you won't see more of them—then you will be disappointed by the end of season six.

Well. I wish the producers would give us a list of mysteries they aren't going to bother explaining so I can stop worrying about them.

And the problem with the mitochlorian thing, Damon, is that it is terrible. Lucas didn't make fans mad merely because he explained the Force, he made them mad because the explanation was totally lame.

Foreshadowing of your own future? :)

Theories, comments and questions on "LaFleur"

Good ol' LOST. Just when you think they'll start answering questions you've had for years, they switch focus and start creating even more puzzles.

*I'm talking, of course, about the four-toed statue mystery. The Left-Behinds get skipped to a time when said statue is standing tall, in all its glory, and then three seconds later they're in 1974 and it's gone. My wife's initial reaction to seeing it was that it was Anubis, Egyptian god of the afterlife.

However, a Lostpedia contributor posted this picture to support his/her theory that it is in fact Taweret, another Egyptian goddess.


Here is what the Wikipedia has to say on Taweret:

Consequently, Taweret became seen, very early in Egyptian history, as a deity of protection in pregnancy and childbirth. Pregnant women wore amulets with her name or likeness to protect their pregnancies.

Pregnancy, eh? This theory seems very likely, given the focus of the episode and the ongoing theme of pregnancy for the show.

*Next we have Sawyer, back to his old conman ways. I realized that it's been a while since we've seen him try to manipulate anyone. Seems like he's gone entire seasons just reacting to other people and trying to get what he wanted through aggression and sarcasm. In a weird way, it was kinda nice to see him work his trickery on Horace.

*For those who don't remember, Horace shows up a few times in LOST prior to this. He is the friend of Ben's dad who gets Roger the work on the Island in the first place. In short, he's the reason Ben is on the Island. He also shows up in the episode "Cabin Fever" in one of Locke's dreams. It's an interesting encounter.

*Where the heck are Rose, Bernard, and the other redshirts? You'd think with Sawyer, Jin, etc. looking for them for three years they'd have found them. Different time skip, somehow? I haven't seen a satisfactory explanation for this.

*Where is Faraday? The rest of the Left-Behinds seem to have assimilated well into the Dharma culture. And speaking of Faraday, it's highly unlikely the red-haired girl he saw was Charlotte. The math doesn't add up.

*If there was a truce, why did the two Others kill Paul and appear to be ready to off Amy? My guess is that the couple was "trespassing" on a part of the Island they weren't allowed on. Maybe the deal is that if you trespass you are killed, and killing Others in retaliation was against the rules.

*Along those same lines, why did Richard want Paul's body? Does it have anything to do with the ankh he wore? And why did Amy accept this so quietly? Does she know something?

*Why does Richard portray himself as a regular dude to Horace, but appear as a stereotypical "hostile" to young Ben?

*Ben is either on the Island already in 1977, or very close to arriving. As a Lostpedia writer put it:

Ben Linus is stated to have been born in the early 1960's. Sterling Beaumon, the actor who portray's Ben as a child is 13, so it's safe to assume that's the age Ben is at the time he arrives on the Island. Going by this, he is already there, or, if he had been born in 1964, he has yet to arrive, but will very shortly. I'm going with this, as it would make a great episode seeing how Sawyer and the gang respond.

*Remember when we first meet Juliet, and Harper tells her that Juliet "looks just like 'her'"? What if Juliet looks just like Juliet?

*And finally, something a lot of people seem to be misunderstanding: THE TIMELINE IS FIXED. As Faraday says, what happened, happened. So Juliet saving Amy's baby did not change anything. Sawyer becoming a fairly high-up in Dharma did not change anything. Saving Amy from being killed did not change anything. They did these things the first time through the timeline, and any "changes" they made are already manifest in the 2004-2008 timeline. The Left-Behinds were always part of Dharma from 1974-1977.

*What does the Star logo on Jin and Sawyer's jumpsuits indicate? Security of some sort?

And that's all I've got. I still see this episode as a filler; all it answers, really, is "how did the Left-Behinds get into Dharma and how long were they there before Jack, etc. returned?"

LaFleur

I still feel like the writers are dragging their feet right now, but we did learn some interesting stuff in last night's episode.

1. The "women who get pregnant on the Island die" issue was not present in 1977 or whenever Amy gives birth. This further lends evidence to the idea that this problem did not show up until around 2002, (or three to four years before 815 crashes) when Ben recruited Juliet.

2. The four-toed foot was once an entire statue, and it looked kinda like Anubis, the jackal-headed god of the afterlife in Egyptian mythology. This Egyptian theme is furthered by the fact that Paul wore an ankh, which Amy kept after he died.

3. We learn how the Left-Behinds managed to infiltrate Dharma.

4. We learn that the sonic fence cannot keep the Others out. Of course, we could have inferred that from the episode "The Man Behind the Curtain," where young Ben is in the middle of a "Hostile" attack and there's apparently a real chance the fighting could reach the school.

5. We further established that while Alpert is special in some ways, he doesn't know everything, as he doesn't recognize Alpert.

6. We learned that you can get through the fence (as a non-Other) if you are wearing special earbuds, and that Dharma definitely built it.

7. And we know for sure that Locke fixed the time-skipping issue (apparently) caused by Ben.

I miss anything?

Reality subtext as applied to LOST

The website tvtropes.org discusses a concept called "reality subtext," which essentially means real-life events cause certain things to happen on-screen. An actress becomes pregnant, so the show has her character become pregnant (Samantha Stevens in Bewitched), have her take a leave of absence (Sculley in the X-Files), attempt to hide the baby bump (Angela in The Office), or use a combination of any of the three (Benson in Law and Order: SVU).

The point is, writing angles can be entirely changed by stuff like this. In LOST, the actor who played Eko, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, requested to be let off the show after the death of his parents.

Bottom line, that means the smoke monster killed Eko because of the reality subtext, not because of to any planned storyline from the writers. (I always knew the "he refused to repent so he died" explanation seemed off...)

Maybe this was already obvious to everyone else, but the concept kinda cracks my perception of what I thought the show was. I believed the writers had a fairly intricate vision of where they were going, and their job was to keep the train on the tracks, so to speak.

Of course, I knew about the Nikki and Paulo thing, but I never made the connection that we could see more of that. The writers made a mistake, the viewers hated the two, that was that.

But now... now I know. Shoot, major plot lines could be entirely dismantled by one hissy fit thrown by a star. And the writers have enough to deal with as it is, seeing that they have around 25 more episodes to resolve this whole thing and the 23,000 loose ends that are dangling in the breeze like the cherries in Amy's car James.

This discovery, combined with my recent realization that nothing is answered in J.J. Abrams' Cloverfield (good movie nonetheless) is making me very worried that the LOST experience will end badly.

Conversation on "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham"

Brandon: so like I said, better episode than I thought it would be.

Amy: Mmm hmm

Brandon: big question of the day: why did Ben kill Locke?

Amy: And the teaser wasn't as revealing as I thought it was

No kidding

Why didn't he let Locke kill himself?

I have two theories in that way:

Brandon: something vital changed

Amy: Either Ben wanted to know what he knew and then found out he knew too much (how cliche) and therefore killed him

Or something with him being able to come back to life means he can't kill himself...

Why did Ben look so angry at the time, though?

Did he find out later that he actually needed Locke to get back on the island?

And he's like, "Crap. I killed him. Oh well, I guess I'll just steal his body with this van I have..."

Brandon: ok one thing at a time

Amy: Ha ha ha

Sorry

Brandon: Option A: Possible. The only thing that changed was that Locke revealed he knew of Hawking.

Amy: But why would that upset him so much?

Brandon: you think Ben looks angry as he kills Ben? Or is it just the extreme focus needed to strangle someone to death?

Amy: I think he looks at least a little angry

Brandon: we'll get back to that

Amy: Kay

Brandon: Your Option B: No, because I don't think Ben expected Locke to resurrect.

Amy: Huh

Brandon: He says "I'm really going to miss you, John."

Amy: Hence the Thomas story to Jack

Brandon: why say that if he anticipates seeing him again on the Island in like a day?

Amy: That's true

Brandon: ooh but I forgot about the Doubting Thomas stuff.

Amy: Yup

I think it was a story about himself

Brandon: Maybe Ben is just the writers' vehicle for setting it up... he doesn't know about it himself.

a good possibility

Amy: Right

Brandon: and re: why bring Locke back to the Island...

Amy: He found out something later that changed his mind - I'm guessing Eloise talked to him

Brandon: the prevailing thought right now is that Ben killed Locke after Locke revealed he knew about Hawking either because A.) Ben did not know about Hawking before that moment, and once he knew she was the key to getting back he had no use for Locke OR B.) Locke was not supposed to know about Hawking, and once it is revealed that he did, Ben had to kill him, as a rival for control of the Island.

Amy: Huh

Brandon: also: Ben then decides to use Locke's body as the "Christian" on the flight, HOWEVER there's a good possibility he doesn't know that Christian was raised somehow into some vague sense of living. He's never seen him.

Amy: Ah

That's true

That makes sense

Brandon: so I'm guessing he'll be shocked when he wakes up from his plane-crash injury coma and sees John staring at him.

Amy: No kidding

Talk about nightmare coming true

But if Locke is a proxy for Christian, why did he resurrect rather than come into the sense of being that Christian is?

Brandon: Locke is a chosen Island protector like Richard, Christian, not.

also: Ben says once you turn the wheel you can't ever go back. He and Locke do go back... but end up on the Hydra island. Does the Hyrda not count, or is Ben lying (again)?

Amy: But why can Christian come back as a ghost or whatever?

Or the island changed its mind

?

It would kind of make sense that the Hydra kind of doesn't count -

Brandon: no idea why Christian was raised like he was. Maybe the Island can do freaky stuff with bodies that are dead upon arrival.

but the Hyrda moves with the main Island.

Amy: And is considered part of the island by Dharma, at least

Brandon: but they aren't Island

Amy: That's true

Brandon: and as my latest poll discusses, who is the good guy here? Widmore, or Ben? Each of them are excellent at at least playing the good guy, even when you know their body of work doesn't point to that being the case.

Amy: I think they both have agendas and do what it takes to get it done, whether being good or bad goes with it at the time or not

Brandon: right, so if you're Locke, who do you want to help? Whose agenda more closely mirrors your own?

Amy: Do we know what their agendas are?

I think they both want control of the island

Brandon: ok but to what end?

Amy: Widmore wants to commercialize it, I think, and just have sheer power of the island

I think Ben has more respect for the island and keeping it safe, but he likes the power, too

Brandon: so you go with Ben?

Amy: I'm going to say yes, even though he's super manipulative and we see his true colors, which are a bit freaky

Brandon: also, he kills Abbadon, which GRR

but I guess we found out all we needed to? He works for Widmore. He wanted to get Locke on the Island. The end.

Amy: Ha ha - because he was answering questions?

Pretty much - that seemed like his purpose

Brandon: so Widmore wants Locke on the Island, Ben doesn't.

doesn't that make Widmore the one to follow if you're John?

Amy: I though Widmore just doesn't want Locke to die

Brandon: well, he gets Abbadon to send Locke on the Walkabout, remember?

and he says something about helping Locke convince the others to go back, Locke included.

Amy: The walkabout thing is true - but how does Locke know Widmore is telling the truth this time?

Brandon: he doesn't

but he fixes his leg and gives him the means to go anywhere in the world

Amy: Yup

I guess what it comes down to is: do you stick with the person who wants the best for the island or the person who will get you there?

Brandon: turns out, Locke kinda waffled between both and ended up back there anyway. :)

Amy: Yup

Lucky for him

I felt bad for him again - I haven't felt that for awhile

Brandon: when he's all despondent before he tries to off himself?

Amy: Mmm hmm

Brandon: Mandi and I disagree on that one.

Amy: And how he's just trying to do what's best for everyone

But no one will listen to him

Brandon: is he sad because he feels like he's failed and decides to just end it all? Or is he just at the end of his rope (haha) and decides to follow Richard's advice because he feels like there's nothing else to do?

Amy: Yeah - I think he's trying to fulfill what Richard tells him, but I also think he's truly despondent

Brandon: fair enough

and then there's Walt

Amy: Random

Doesn't feel like he's part of the story anymore

Brandon: I know

all that time spent where the Others kidnapped him, and now no one cares if he lives or dies.

Amy: Nope

Brandon: did we talk about this already? About how Walt is special, but not like the Others thought he was?

Amy: I don't think so

Brandon: I think that's a big thing. The Others in Season 2 or whenever find out that Walt is special.

so they kidnap him, thinking maybe he should be their leader?

then later it shows them all being COMPLETELY FREAKED OUT by the kid, which means they had no idea what he could do.

and he was definitely not what they hoped he was.

Amy: Which makes me laugh

Nope

Brandon: exactly

so this brings up the question: what is the deal with Walt?

Amy: Which is ironic, considering it was kind of the island that wanted him

Brandon: was it, though? Did Jacob want him or did Ben or Richard do it on his won?

own

Amy: I dunno - does Locke know something everyone else doesn't, or did he really just want to visit Walt?

Somebody's going to have to take over when Locke or Ben dies

Brandon: yep

Amy: Which makes me want to ask why Alpert isn't in charge all the time

Brandon: Walt just represents all of the thousands of loose ends the writers now have 1.5 seasons to tie up.

Amy: Yup

Brandon: Maybe Alpert isn't special (beyond his ability to remain 28)

Amy: Ha ha - yeah, that's nothing

Brandon: Mandi and I have commented more than once that his function is much like an old noble in a kingdom where the new prince is in charge, but doesn't know what he's doing.

the noble acts in an advisory role as much as he can, because he knows how to take care of the kingdom, but the power all resides with the spoiled new kid.

Amy: Why does he continue to do it?

Because he's not royalty?

That seems dumb because he's ageless

Brandon: *shrug

Jacob has not deemed him to be the leader, so he can't be the leader.

but he is loyal to the Island

so he stays

Amy: He is the one who is always talking about destiny and not trying to change it - maybe his old age has helped him realize his place and to be find with it

Brandon: right

of course, then we go back to the idea that Jacob is a prisoner.

Amy: Of Alpert?

Brandon: his "help me" and the theory that the volcanic ash around his cabin makes a cage of some sort.

of someone. Usually theorized to be Ben.

Amy: But then Ben says the island is displeased with him and he has to leave - that doesn't free him?

Brandon: maybe it did. We haven't seen or heard anything about Jacob since.

Amy: Again - I think it's pointless to have so much power and yet allow yourself to be confined

Brandon: allow himself?

1. We don't know what power Jacob has.

2. We don't even know who or what Jacob is.

Amy: That's true

Brandon: one last thing

Penny

Amy: Kay

Brandon: so Widmore says he was the leader of the Island for more than three decades

say 1954-1992

he's what... 50-something?

Amy: Okay

Yeah

Penny was born on-island

Brandon: 50 when he gets off Island, 70 or so now

yeah, bottom line, Penny was either born on Island

OR

adopted, like Alex.

Amy: She's not his?

Yup

Huh

Brandon: also, if you look at Penny with a "she was born on-Island" lens, she appears to know more than she lets on.

Amy: Yes - she found the island, after all

And is pretty against Desmond having anything to do with it

Brandon: exactly

Amy: Makes sense

So she's like Charlotte

Except not wanting to really find the island again

Brandon: possibly

anything else?

Amy: I don't think so

Brandon: ok