Brian's Three Word Review: Leap of Faith.
I have to admit, for the first half of this episode, I was thinking "this is a tad ridiculous". Everything that Ms. Hawking said just begged for analysis - but the more I thought about what she was saying, trying to find logical / science explanations for it, the more absurd it sounded. Trying to recreate the crash? Giving something that belonged to Christian Shephard to Locke? It was crazy! I spent most of the episode thinking, "you know what, I'm going to give Lost the benefit of the doubt because the writers have yet to let me down - no matter how illogical this sounds to me." I was willing to take a leap of faith and see where they were going with the story.
Leave it to Lost to totally win me over by the end of the episode.
It turns out all of the stuff that Ms. Hawking said might have had some truth to it... but it seems like in reality, Ajira Airways Flight 316 might have just passed over the Island when a "flash" happened, causing the members of the Oceanic Six... er "Five" to "skip" - suddenly disappearing from the plane and ending up on the Island... and as illogical as that sounds (try to prove that with science!), somehow I'm a thousand times more comfortable with this explanation than if the plane had crashed on the Island to bring our Oceanic Five back to the Island.
So here are the questions:
- Where is Aaron? Based on Kate's crying and promising Jack to never ask about him, my immediate thought was "Oh God, she killed him" - but that seems too crazy, even for Lost. Does this mean that Aaron isn't considered one of the Oceanic Six since he was simply an unborn child inside Claire during Flight 815? Or would his character just get in the way of the storyline, and leaving him off is simply a matter of convenience? For that matter, there's no Walt or Ji-Yeon on the Island as well. We're still due for some resolution to the Walt storyline, right?
- Speaking of me thinking the worst possible thought, when Ben showed up beaten up and bloody after "taking care of some loose ends", I have this terrible fear that he "took care" of Penny Widmore, fulfilling his promise to Widmore that he would kill his daughter as payback for Keamy killing Alex. The broken arm could have resulted from a fight with Desmond. With Desmond not on Ajira 316, this could provide a good excuse for Desmond to hunt down Ben and return to the Island... for revenge.
- Yes, I was disappointed that Desmond didn't question Ms. Hawking any more. She is some future-seeing mystic who he finds out has a connection to the Island and all he does is yell at her for costing a few years of his life before storming off? How about asking some questions about how this is all possible? But props to Desmond for calling everyone out for how crazy this all sounds.
- So who skipped off the plane and who didn't? It's safe to assume that Dead Locke, Sun, and Sayid would skip (since they are no different than our other Skipping Survivors). But what about Ben? The true "Others" haven't been skipping, but transplants like Juliet have. Which group will Ben fall under?
- It looks like when Ben turned the FDW, the Skipping Survivors went back pre-1980... who knows how far - but have been on the Island long enough to BECOME MEMBERS OF THE DHARMA INITIATIVE! Hello explanation for Faraday in the Orchid! Hello way for the writers to finally give us our long overdue look at the Dharma Initiative from the inside! But this means that all our characters are effectively "living in the past" right now. Is the skipping done? Are they eventually going to meet up with themselves in 2003? Do they need to worry about surviving the Purge?
- At first, I was thinking "shouldn't someone have recognized the Survivors immediately in 2003 since they have been on the Island since 1980?" But then I realized the only person who survived the Dharma Initiative is Ben... could this somehow be the key to his ability to always be one step ahead of everyone? I need to think about this...
- Who built the Lamp Post Dharma Station? If Widmore knew about the location of the Lamp Post, why couldn't he have just used it in his "race for the Island" with Ben? If the Island is constantly moving (I assume in space), how were the Periodic Ration Drops possible? How did the Others come and go from the Island in their submarine? So much to think about.
- Who were the two new characters sitting in First Class with the Oceanic Five? It looks like one was taking the place of the Warden with the fugitive Sayid (taking the place of Kate), but what about the other guy? His talking to Jack in the airport was a little too obvious and convenient for him not to be in on this somehow. I'd expect both to end up on the Island, although based on the rules we've seen for the skipping so far, I don't know how this is possible unless both were already on the Island in the past at some point, right?
What initially seemed like a straightforward - almost rushed - episode to just get the Oceanic Five back on the Island actually opens the door for us to question A LOT of what we've seen and thought about the past few seasons.
For those who complain about discussion of the next episode preview, stop reading here! For everyone who watched it, a few more points. Don't say I didn't warn you!
- It looks like the Female Warden accompanying Sayid DOES end up on the Island, and is seen talking to a very much alive John Locke.
- It looked like Widmore was actually working WITH Locke to get him back to the Island. Again, this doesn't mesh with the Ben / Widmore rivalry and race for the Island, does it? Unless it's like "whoever can win over Locke can get back to the Island" and Ben won?
- Was that Ben kneeling down in front of Locke before he hung himself? Creepy suicide worshipping? That's kinda messed up, even for Benjamin Linus.
Okay - Top Chef calls. I'll get cracking on the analysis tomorrow. Fow now, discuss!
101 comments:
Wow, there was so much to digest in this episode. I lovedddd the beginning scene with Jack just like season one. I loved the everything about the airport scene and Jin working with the Dharma initiative!
Jack: How can you read?
Ben: My mother taught me.
LOL.
I do not think the preview of the next episode showing the warden talking to Locke means that was on the island. It is more likely that Locke knew that Sayid would not go easily so had him arrested and talked to the "warden" before he killed himself. She is the one that brought Sayid on the plane, unwillingly.
I noticed the same thing about Locke and Ben in the previews. Ben is suck a liar.
My thought about Aaron is that Kate gave him to Claire's mom (who just happened to be in LA). What about Sun's baby? She's just going to leave her? Why didn't anyone ask about an exit strategy from the island for future reference? Especially Sun - how can she and Jin leave the island to get back to their child? I can't imagine someone not asking this. I had the same thought about Ben/Penny - OMG if he did go through w/it.
so yeah, i accidentally skipped the preview and i am enjoying the ignorance. and i have confirmed my theory of reading the previews piecemeal. i had no idea the bad ass pilot was in this episode. one of the three highlights, along with the opening and with jin. this is crazy. fantastic episode. cant get my thoughts straight right now.
We do know that Ben lies about just about everything. Mrs Hawking even said when asked if he was lying...'probably'. He lied about not knowing locke killed himself. The guy is completely untrustworthy and no word from his mouth can ever be trusted. Sayid was right.
Interesting thought of two bens coexisting. If he 'flashed' back to the island in the Dharma days, watch out if they get close to one another.
I'm as lost as I've ever been. Confusion really sets in! Look, the ajira water bottle shows up well in the future. How did it get there? Maybe The plane DID crash, but our 5.. or at least 3 of them, flashed to the past, where the plane, and possibly the rest. Could be in the proper time. I suspsect that Ben maybe in the future vs the past with the remains of the airline. Again, we saw the bottle in the future, and I do not believe it was sitting there for 25 years either.
My biggest question is who convinced Sayid, Kate and Hurley to go back to the island. My guess is Charles Widmore. It certainly wasn't Ben! So that would mean that Widmore is taking care of Aaron? It's possible.
I'm not willing to say that Penny is dead. Yes, Desmond kicked his butt, and may have left him for dead or overboard. But the question is, did he get to Penny first? Or did Desmond save her. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that they may have been expecting Ben(tip from Widmore), or maybe even Widmores men themselves... Ben did say he was 'sidtracked' which could indicate he never made it where he intended. Then again, if Ben kills Penny, then everything can fall into place. Why Widmore wanted Desmond away from his daughter! Could he be in his own Faraday trap of trying to save his daughter that he already knows her future? Maybe... just maybe.. that's why he wanted Desmond gone, to go to the island, so that he can become that exception that can save his daughter? OK, that may not make sense. I'm starting to sound like Hawking with the craziness!
Brian, I'm right there with you, I'm going to need some time to think about all of this.
Goog night all!
I've always thought Ben was a lying snake in the grass, but could sometimes give him the benefit of the doubt because maybe he can see the bigger picture... but now I think he's just pure evil. He didn't care about the other passengers on the plane, and I think he killed Penny tonight. I was really pulling for Desmond and Penny to be happily sappily in love on the last episode throwing everything in her dad's face. But it makes sense with the story for Des to have a reason to come back to the island, revenge on Ben, since the island isn't done with him yet.
ok, 2 issues/discrepancies:
1. If the O6 could just "flash onto the island because they're flying over it, why couldn't they have "flashed" out of the helicoptor in the same way when Ben turned the FDW the first time?
2. If the O6 just flashed into the PAST, then how did the canoes and the Ajira Airways water bottle end up in the FUTURE (i.e., post beer-drinking at the survivors' camp)? Maybe the Ajira Airways bottle wasn't from the O6, but rather from DESMOND, who will soon return to the island on ANOTHER Ajira Airways flight seeking his revenge against Ben.
@Steve - I like your theory that the Ajira plane crashed in present time thus why the water bottles. To take it one step further, is everything repeating (i.e Flight 815 survivors are now the Others and the new flight survivors are the Lostees)?
what a great episode! i loved how it started by echoing the first scene of the first episode, with jack in the forest surrounded by bamboo. i wonder if there's more to this than just a clever wink by the writers...
ok, a handful of questions that I'm going to have to chew on:
- did sun, sayid and ben make it back to the island too, but more importantly, to the same time period? i'm guessing no, at least not for sun. i can't see sun and jinn being reunited so quickly and so easily.
- ms. hawking told desmond that the island wasn't done with him. assuming that he returns to the island, what could possibly make him do that? (revenge on ben for killing penny, or maybe trying to change the past because he's one of the few people who can do that?)
- what was the real purpose of locke's note to jack? on the surface, it seemed like locke was basically saying "i told you so." but i can't help but wondering if there's more to it than that. especially considering how the letter almost 'made' jack read it.
bad bad baddddd.. they going directly in a wall...very disappointed... no science in that at all.. its just fiction like other tv show
Ben's lies are really getting out of hand, the first part of what he said about "doubting Thomas" was a complete fabrication, the Bible doesn't mention that at all.
I don't think Ben killed Penny, simply because Desmond can't hurt Ben like that. We all saw how Ben can fight when he was in Tunisia.
Brian, amazing job again with your predictions, you're a genius man.
To try and aswer some of your questions in #7:
The island IS constantly moving, but Ms. Hawking said it is moving in time. The Lamp Post explains how they traveled to and from the island in the submarine, since they could determine exactly when and where it would be, and then use the right heading. Same thing for the food drops.
The guy sitting behind Jack looked extremely familiar to me. But I think that's just because both actors were together in the movie Vantage Point. It was interesting the way Jack looked at him, like he remembered him from somewhere.
And that definitely sounded like Ben in front of suicidal Locke, which is crazy.
so Jack certainly finally sounded alot like Locke while talking to Kate
I'm on board with the idea that Ben killed/tried to kill Penny tonight. Now that I think about it, didn't it look like the payphone he was calling Jack from was at a marina? Yikes.
ACTUALLY VICTORC!
I dont know what Bible you're reading but that DEFINITELY IS in the bible and is a fairly famous story... and a quick search reveals
that the story....Is actually in The Book of.... you guessed it; JOHN.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubting_Thomas
coupla things...
a) i'm not sure they are in the 80s dharma time... i want to wait for sure. it's possible jin cleaned up the van & put on a clean suit.
b) i think that was ben HELPING john kill himself, not just a bystander
Kate is going to be pregnant with Jack's baby after that night of romance !!!!!!!
RobRose, I said the first part of what Ben said was false. The second part about him was true.
I agree with you on Jack though, it certainly seemed like he was hoping on board the faith side.
Just have to say...
Jack's Grandad/shoe story = worse than Nikki and Paulo.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john%2011:16-11:16&version=9
Sorry Victor...
that happened to, haha ALSO in John
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john%2011:16-11:16&version=9
Sorry Victor but,...
that happened too. ALSO In John
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john%2011:16-11:16&version=9
I can't believe no one is mentioning that Locke is essentially Jesus and Jack is "doubting Thomas" and it wasn't until Jack believed in Locke that he was able to go back to the island.
The Thomas story is true. An interesting side note is that Thomas (a.k.a. Didymus) means twin.
Also, my bet is on Sayid hurting Ben in such a way. He has been the only one so far capable. Ben surely used whatever time he had left to make sure Sayid, Kate, and Hurley were on that plane. He never gives up.
Brian,
When you get a chance, please revisit Juliet's trial and the judge lady Isabel. Lets see if we can tie it in to all this secret society mistery...
I don't think the episode was "rushed"... I think they deliberately left some stuff out to extend the story. Why Hurley, Kate, and Sayid went with, and what Ben did. Those are all going to take a while to explain, but it was only left out this episode so it can be revealed later. I was expecting this episode to have a lot more content, honestly...
So... what's up with Mrs. Hawking? Someone's going to have to remind me how Desmond got on the island in the first place, because I thought that he only saw Mrs. Hawking in a crazy dream after the hatch blew. If he did see her at other times, that might explain why he wasn't "Holycrapwhat?!" when he finds out she's real.
Never posted before but I enjoy the blog. Does anyone have any thoughts on why Hurley was carrying a guitar case? Charlie immediately comes to mind. Particularly since Hawking said the Ajira flight had to be as close as possible to the original flight.
Frank cracked me up, so calm about it.
Also love that the lamp post was how they found the island and that narnia was by lantern waste.
I can't seem to figure out a reason why the Female Warden would be bringing Sayid to Guam. Maybe she was in cahoots with Ben. Anyone have any other ideas?
Thanks for the heads up about the content regarding the preview Brian!
Awesome episode...
Writers gonna have a rough time tying all these times together but it's gonna be exciting.
Can't wait for locke story. And what do you think will happen when christian will get his shoes back?
Did you notice? When Kates talk to Jack about the shoes ,he says: "Those are for... my father's".
Say what you will about the content of this episode and LOST in general, but "316", to me, was very imaginative story telling. (C&L wrote it, right?). The opening scene was brilliant...and the Mrs Hawking scene was very dramatic.
A few questions/comments (excuse that some were sighted here already).
1. KATE: last we saw Kate, she was 100% against going back to the island. It would seem that somehow Ben leveraged Aron to get her to change her mind...but this will be difficult for writers to explain....at least in any plausible way. What did Kate do with Aron? I thought also (like another poster here mentioned) that she left him with his biological grandmother. I thought her asking Jack to never ask her what she did with him was a decent enough writting device to keep us in suspense on this question but what about when some of the other O6 friends ask her?
2. BEN: Did Ben kill Penny? I strongly think not. Even for LOST, that would be a bit out of the box. Penny is such an embraced character by viewers and very doubtful that they'd write for Ben to carry out his threat in this case (IMO). How did Ben get bloody? Clearly, the writers want us to think it had to do with Penny (ie; the payphone outside the marina), but even if so, hard to believe he killed her.
DESMOND: disapointing that his reaction was written so weak with Mrs Hawking. Real letdown here. But so far as "the island is not done with you yet"....yeah, i think somehow, he'll return to seek revenge or something.
WHIDMORE: as mentioned here already, if he knows Mrs Hawking's address, why wouldn't he just go there and find out where the island is? how will they explain this? I do think we'll learn that Whidmore and Hawking were married btw.
HURLEY: would seem that Charlie re-visited Hurley asking him to go back to save his friends. that would seem to be the only or at least best explanation for the guitar case Hurley was carrying.
SAYID: all of a sudden, Sayid is cuffed by a marshall? why did he remain silent after seeing the other O6 folks on-board the plane? it would seem that Ben manipulated this somehow but should be interesting to see it explained.
One question, the most important question EVER: Where's Vincent? Here boy? Here Vincent Vincent. He has a role in all this yet...
it looks more like a violin case to me.
Maybe a mandolin case?
Did anyone notice that Locke had beard stubble? He was clean shaven when we first saw him in the casket. Which means he's already starting to come back to life?
Speaking of Thomas meaning 'Twin', do you remember when all the rage was talk about Clones, twins, etc? Seems like a long time ago.
A great example how we can get off base. But I'm not ruling out a twin issue somewhere down the road.
lol, I do have to say, that line about Thomas' courageousness in John 11:16 is one I've read right through and never acknowledged.
I still have to find the transcript of what Ben said though, because unless I remember it wrong, he said some things about Thomas the Bible makes no mention of.
Anonymous at 12:40 is right too. They're equating Locke to Jesus (being tested in the island, sacrificing himself for others, will resurrect, etc.) and Jack to Thomas, who just needed some evidence to believe.
Hurley had the guitar to simulate Charlie. Sayid was in handcuffs because of Kate(but wouldn't putting Kate in handcuffs be a better option).
Someone spoke with them, it was NOT ben, and it couldn't have been Locke. Whatever was said convinced Sayid Kate and Hurley who were all pissed at Ben being on the plane.
Who was it? It HAD to be Widmore.
I am not 100% sold that Penny is dead. Ben said he had loose ends, then he calls from a marina pay phone saying that he was 'sidetracked'. He's beaten badly, and is sopping wet. Sidetracked seems to indicate that he didn't make it to his desitnation.. or that he had to deal with someone else in the way before Penny. That could be widmores men or just Desmond.
We have very little evidence here beyond Penny being the loose end end.
Brian, great work as usualy. You hit some, you missed some. To those that call your site a spoiler, it's no more of a spoiler than any of us Lost geeks who try to predict what's going to happen.
For me, solving what's going on and coming up with logical theories is most of the fun. It challenges us to thing.. shoot, after 'this place is death' I learned a lot about ancient carthage! This show leads me into learning all sorts of things. Introducing new literature and even non-fiction books.
Anyone see any significance to Ullysses.. that Ben was reading? I think it's time for Wikipedia to see if I can see any connection.
I am a little surprised no one on that Ajira flight said, "Look, it's all of the (adults of the) Oceanic 6 together again! Why?" They are supposed to be celebrities now, especially in LA. One was just in the news for a triple homicide.
anon@9:17...
Good call! If he was clean-shaven before (and I think you're right) then that is definitely odd!
Ben was reading Ulysses by James Joyce. There is a part of the book names Penelope. The book is hard to figure out from Wikipedia.. it doesn't seem to have a central plot, but many stories.
There is a section called Penelope.
Ulysses is the latin eqivilent for the greek odesseus. Penelope is the wife of Ulysses/Odesseus, who keeps her suitors at bay in his long absence and so is eventually rejoined with him.
Wow.. I don't know if that matches the book at all, but that sure as heck sounds like Penny waiting for Desmond doesn't it? And being that he apparenly just attempted to kill her?
That's my connection.. Though the book by Joyce appears to reference names as story titles from the Ulysses and Odyssey stories, I'm don't know how much the characters paralell the stories associated wit the names... but still.
KATE IS PREGNANT
I wasn’t as disappointed with Desmond’s reaction as everyone else seems to be. First, if you re-watch that scene, he definitely has a surprised look on his face when he firsts see’s Mrs. Hawking (his eyes are bugged out). However, I think, at this point, Desmond was able to put everything together in his own head pretty quickly. With all he’s been through with “The Constant” stuff (and being able to wrap his head around it) and with his experiences with Faraday (and the subsequent trek he’s been on to Find Hawking) I just think that Desmond figured out enough of what was going on in his head after the first surprised reaction and just thought “I’ve had enough of this, I don’t want answers, I just want out”. That was my impression anyway…
Also, I was thinking the whole explanation she was giving came off a bit cheesy but I didn’t mind it. I kind of like that even the seemingly omnipotent like Hawking don’t have everything quite figured out. The island is still special and the ‘recreating the conditions of the flight’ was less hokey writing than it was Eloise Hawking trying to cover her bases, albeit superstitiously.
And lastly, Hawking was talking about the very smart man who figured out the pendulum. I’m assuming that’s Chang, is it possible it is someone else??
Was Ben joking when he said his mom taught him to read? Because his mom died when he was born, right?
Observation #1 - Jin was in the sea after the boat exploded. He was caught up with the others remaining on the island, skipping through time.
Observation #2 - The Helicopter that held the Oceanic 6 was flying FROM the boat TO the island, and, was therefore between the Island and the Boat when the Island disappeared.
Observation #3 - The Raft holding the Research team was also between the Island and the Boat. They were part of those who remained on the Island
QUESTION #1 - With Jin in the sea (further away from the island) remaining behind, and with the Raft in the sea remaining behind, Why didn't the Oceanic 6 stay behind when they were in the helicopter, obviously much closer to the island than Jin?
Question #2 - Was it because they were in the air and not "attached to the land/sea"?
Question #3 - If this be true, how do we reconcile that flying over the island in an airplane at an altitude much higher than the helicopter should explain how the Oceanic 5 returned to the island?
I think Ben had Sayid assassinate someone in Guam and then told authorities. Then they extradited him to Guam to pay for his crimes. its just a though of how he could be on the flight. Also it's for sure a guitar that Hugo has and not a violin or anything else....duh
I agree, Kate must be pregnant. Maybe Ken sold her to get pregnant before going back to island, therefor the baby can be born on the island and she can have her own baby. Additionally, this recreates the Flight 815 where claire was pregnant. and Aaron doesn't return, because then it would be 7 returning to the island and not 6.
clearly meant Ben, not Ken. just a typo.
I thought it was awesome starting out the same way the first epi did and finding out that Kate & Hurley made it back to the island. I thought Kate had a crazed look on her face and wondered if she killed Aaron. I'm hoping she left him with someone she thought she could trust but it was set up by Ben so that he's on the plane and she doesn't know it. I want to see a Claire & Aaron reunion and find out why he's special. I'm also hoping Walt was on the plane somehow, we definitely need more about his storyline. I hope Ben didn't follow through on killing Penny, I hadn't even thought of that. When I saw him I thought he may have escaped an attack from Sayid. I loved this episode, so much information. Next week's episode looks even better!
I'm super pumped that next week's episode is heavy on my man Locke. Looks to be a great one!
KCW, they're two completely different occurrences.
When the island moved, there was a ripple in the water that must have gone all the way to the freighter, taking Jin and the Zodiac with it.
But the helicopter wasn't directly on top of the island.
The Ajira aiplane was flying right over the island when one of the flashes occurred, at least that's what we think happened.
My guess is that the electromagnetism release from the island goes straight up (remember when Locke was going down into the well, the flash was going straight up, from the ground), high enough to pull a plane down as it happened with the Oceanic Airlines plane.
Man you guys are tearing Ben up!
He lies, so what....if anything, to me it just shows that theres probably even MORE to this whole deal, than maybe even Widmore or Hawkings know...maybe Ben is even deeper in with Jacob than the rest of them?
On a side note to that, when he repied 'who cares' about if the rest of the people on the plane were going to die....well, I have a feeling he knew what was going to happen exactly (flash onto the island instead of crashing plane).
first time poster ...
Ben could just have been joking around ...
But didn't his mother pass away while giving birth to him? So who did he mean by "my mother taught me." Shouldn't that have been his father?
A nagging question I have is simply what other folks experience when they are in the presence of people (ie; O6 on the airplane) that "skip". Do the "skippers" just dissapear and if so, what memory do the others present hold? Anyone have any theories or ideas on how this can be explained? I wonder how C&L would explain this!
As for the celebrity status of the O6 and them not being recognized....i think that can be easily explained. Essentially, especially in LA, they had their
15 minutes of fame and are now basically off the medias and publics radar. Going to an airport and boarding an airplane is not much exposure and something I don't have problems giving "poetic license" by way of a pass to our LOST writters to.
The first half would have been better if Hawking acted it straight instead of mystical. Lots of particle physics nowadays deals with probabilities instead of tangible realities. I treat predicting the island's location like predicting the weather. From past observations and careful measurement, I can tell you with near certainty what the weather will be in thirty seconds even though its a complex system. If there are no major changes to my west (if things are the same), I can tell you what the weather will be an hour from now. It's like that. They weren't guaranteed to get on the island, but if they replicated the circumstances with as few changes as possible, they were much more likely to land on the island. Jack already sort of tried it by flying back and forth, but the circumstances weren't close enough to trigger the event (because enough survivors weren't there and they weren't flying over the island).
Becca, Ben was lying. He's always lying, he's a compulsive liar.
Hawkings explenation doesn't make sense.
She said that the island was always moving, which is 'why they weren't rescued'.
She said that a window would open for a certain period of time. That there was an equation that would determine where the island would be in a certain place in time. I assumed that this meant you could predict where the island could be at any given moment in island time.
However, I think it's just that the island is in Dharma time???
So my theory is: People who SHOULD have been on the island skipped to the same time as the others who were on the island at the time of the skip. However, NEW arrivals land in present time. Ouch, my head hurts.
But my problem with her statements has to do with the freighter people. Sure. They were only there for days, but they had to come in at a certain berring. It wasn't a fly over, it was a fly through. We saw what it was like to fly in and out of the island last season. How the heck does that match up with the island being at a certain space? Maybe the freighter knew when to be there, and was there when the island appeared... What's her name in the helicopter could have been hovering over the spot when the island appeared. Somehow, there as communictation via satellite phone.
My other question is, if the o5 have returned, and were to leave again, would they be in 1975 or 2005? or some random time?
Anonymous 11:01 is "sure" that Hurley has a guitar not anything else. I agree that it's a guitar case because of its size, but it hasn't been opened so we can't be sure of what's in it yet. Maybe it's full of hot pockets.
Anonymous 11:01 is "sure" that Hurley has a guitar not anything else. I agree that it's a guitar case because of its size, but it hasn't been opened so we can't be sure of what's in it yet. Maybe it's full of hot pockets. I believe your "duh" was premature.
"
Jack: How can you read?
Ben: My mother taught me.
LOL.
"
The real humor in that is Ben's mother has been dead since his birth. Is LOL appropriate? Maybe not, but I'll still 'lol'!
Don't just trust the Ulysses entry on Wikipedia... read it!!! It's about a Leopold Bloom and a day he spends wandering around Dublin. It's definitely got a specific plot... though it is tough.
I don't understand how the island could be moving all the time and the people on it not know that. The stars woiuld be different, the clouds would suddenly be different, the sun would be at a different angle every day.
I've been afraid of this before, but this episode seemed to risk the proverbial shark jump. I'm sure they'll pull it together, but it was a bit hard for me to take.
Re: Ben's beating
My first thought was how he had said they have no idea what he's done to protect them, etc. So it made me think that was an instance of Ben "protecting" them and not killing anyone we are fond of.
Re: Twins
Maybe twins refers to when our survivors overlap themselves in time?
Re: Reactions
I think with all the craziness they have been through and secrets some of them still keep, I am not surprised that they don't ask questions anymore. Not to mention shock and realization that they indeed must be there and the pieces are falling into place. Perhaps a sense of resignation and just see what plays out.
-kas
Let's not forget that Ben said, after he turned the FDW last seeason, that whoever turns it, can't come back. I found out that C&L floated that Ben's statement of never coming back could be either him stating some sort of "law of physics" or a rule. Laws are certain but rules can be broken...for a price (punishment).
Ceasar and Illana. Duh. It's not "who," but "why?"
just to let people know, I'm from Guam and there is no such flight as LA to GUAM. lol. LA-TOKYO-GUAM or LA-HONOLULU-GUAM.
JP - have you ever flown on Ajira Airways though?
haha no. continental, northwest, JAL, PAL. Ajira only flys to Saipan.
@Gracie
Perhaps Hurley can microwave those Hot Pockets at the Orchid, as long as he sets the shift correctly. :)
i wonder if it will be explained how all the others apparently freely went to and from the island (ie; Richard Albert, Ben, Mr Friendly, etc).
JP, the flight 316 goes from LA to Guam via Honolulu. Lapidus said so! :)
My immediate thought is did the flash of light on board flight 316 implicate our survivors back on the island? Meaning did Jack & Co. encounter a version of Jin? It didn't seem as though he would have transferred in time and warped into a DHARMA van. The other option is it only influenced the 06...for some unexplained reason.
Anonymous at 2:59 AM - I get your comparison of the lantern in Lost with the lantern in Narnia. Both were at the gateway between worlds. But, I don't understand what you meant by Narnia "lantern waste." Could you please explain?
VictorC - I always enjoy your comments.
Dharma Mayonnaise - I love your handle.
Now on to a totally ridiculous thought... perhaps Aaron is in the guitar case. Just kidding.
The whole explanation about the energy fields that run through the earth... I saw a show on that a while back. They talked about the Bermuda Triangle and other places on Earth and said that they exhibit black hole-like properties. I'm not trying to say anything here other than last night's epi reminded me of that.
If the plane didn't crash and the 05 were flashed back to the island, that would seriously freak out the other passengers on the plane. Can you say, RAPTURE?
Great work, as usual Brian! ...and everyone. Truly. This is an awesome blog community.
Randy
anon @ 9:49
Not a verion of Jin. Maybe I spent too much time in my youth thinking about time travel...
But this is how it works.
- Locke fixes the FDW and warps off the island.
- The fix left the 'skipping' losties in Dharma times..
- Time has passed.. some of them have joined up with Dharma.. at least Jin and Faraday that we've seen so far. Some may be 'others' we don't know yet.
- Jin is following orders when he sees is friends in the lagoon.
My question is why these guys entered this time period instead of the present time like the frieghters. My guess is that since thse guys should not have left the island, they picked up in time where their friends were. Now, Ben wasn't supposed to come back, so who knows what time frame he'll be in.
I was thinking, could Walt and perhaps Desmond be on the plane, but not in first class? It seems like they purposely didn't show the rest of the passengers.
Also, maybe Hurley was told that by bringing something of Charlie's along, Charlie would come back alive?
I don't know. The whole avoidance of the Hurley/Kate/Sayid stories seemed strange to me.
Pretty good episode though.
In narnia, the place where the lamp post is is called lantern waste or the duchy of lantern waste.
Oh my god... I just realized this. Ben even lied when Jack asked him "how can you read?" It was a funny, flippant answer, true for most of us, but not for him! His mother died when he was born, so his mother didn't teach him.
I can't wait until he finally dies on the program.
KCW:
It's actually fairly simple. Presumably the FDW affects things within a sphere--you'll recall that Faraday realizing that they were within the radius. A sphere radiating from the FDW would be a dome, which would by definition include more water and land than air, and the amount of air included decreases the further they are from the FDW, but the sphere would be at its highest point directly over the FDW.
Hector: You do Ben too much credit. He's never lied beneficently--only for his own gain. And recall that Christian Shephard told Locke to never listen to Ben. Why would there be any reason for the others in the plane to flash onto the island? Maybe the plane did crash, but the O6 were saved by the skip.
Steve: The island has to be "somewhere" all the time. The island obviously exists at all times. The island is moving around in space, but its better to predict a future location than try to identify its current location. However, the people on the island are skipping to various points along the island's timeline.
Isabella: If you were Widmore trying to convince other people to come along, would you want them telling one of Ben's current allies and faux-confidant, Jack? Also, I noticed that Ben wasn't particularly surprised that all of them had showed up. I suspect he had an encounter with the people convincing the others.
One of my favourite episodes ever. I thought it was excellent writing.
I wonder where Sun ended up, do you think they will have a re-union next episode?
Ben was shown beat'n up cause his attempt to kill Penny was foiled somehow. Why else would they realistically show him in that sort of shape...broken arm and all?
Randy, LOL at your rapture comment.
If that Ajira plane didn't crash they'll be thinking God favors celebrities.
Someone made the point that it seems like no one recognized them at the airport, and this is true, I think the writers missed it. I mean that employee at the airport counter helping Jack didn't seem to notice who he was at all.
It still might be the O6 returning if Ben IS Aaron...
My wild speculation, based on a random clue that I'm definitely over reaching on, right here -
Much like flight 316 recreated the environment conducive to finding the island, so too did flight 815.
Yeah people, I'm saying that flight 815 was the 2nd flight event to "discover" the island, not the first, and 316 was the third. Some people on 815 needed to return to the island for a reason we don't yet know.
What's the clue? It all comes down to the shoes. The producers mentioned a clue in the very beginning of the pilot episode - go back and watch for the shoes. This is the tenuous connection that brings it together.
So what happened to the people that needed to return to the island?
They were the ones taken by the Others.
Victor -- probably agreed that the writers may have missed anyone recognizing the O5 group at the airport or inflight. it would have been a nice, subtle detail if they were recognized by at least some folks.
however, some time has passed since their "15 minutes" of fame has passed and especially in LA, it could be explained that our survivors fell off the medias and publics radar.
as for Hurley not being recognized (who's face was covering the news a few days earlier for possibly killing someone), that may be tougher to explain.
rutkowskilives, that's an interesting theory.
But here's a caveat to it:
In the outside world (with normal time), flight 316 happened after 815, not before.
And if flight 316 flew over the island like we think it did, then it never even crashed in it.
If it did crash in it, then this gets even more interesting. In the real world it was the third flight to crash on the island, but it could also be the first...
I'm guessing you're counting Yemmi's plane to be the first, right? Well, what if the time our survivors are in right now happened before Yemmi's plane crashed?
That would make it the first, if not, it's the second.
I'm not really following you with the shoes, I'm gonna have to go watch the pilot episode again.
Anonymous @ 12:11, I live in Miami and I've seen some celebs who've been out of the spotlight for a while, but I still try to go and say hi and ask to take a pic with them (I'm like 0 for 4 in that).
With that said, I've also seen that at times people don't really bother them as much, so you may have a point.
Hey Victor, good responses to my theory. Let me see if I can explain a little better.
If we consider things in a timeline, this is how it would work -
Event 1 - initial flight, ship, Yemi's plane, Henry Gale, the Black Rock, the French boat, whatever, "finds" the island. An unknown to this point character (actually, I have a guess who this is, but I won't mention it until later) interacts in some meaningful way with the island, leaves the island, and then needs to return.
Event 2 - This character (or multiple characters), needing to return to the island, is now aboard flight 815, simulating as many conditions as possible as found in the first event, and maybe even has the mission of ensuring certain new people are also on this flight - Locke, Sawyer, Claire, Jack (Ben said he needed a surgeon and the island gave him a surgeon, Locke told Jack they were on the island for a reason), etc. With their mission complete, they are "abducted" by the Others, or simply blend in and don't reveal their mission, or are unable for some reason to reveal their mission. Remember, the Others were very specific in their targeting and had a clear idea of who was "good." Jack et al interact with the island in various ways, and leave.
Event 3 - Jack et al need to return to the island, and to do so, recreate as many of the conditions as possible from event 2 to stimulate a return. Along the way, they pick up some new island recruits (the woman with Sayid, some of the other people, the guy from the movie Traitor).
I thnik from this point we can expect that the new island recruits may at some point attempt to instigate an event 4, and we find that this cycle of coming, going, and returning with more has been a characteristic of life with the island.
As for the shoes... watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byN6qX7MmDI until the 2:07 mark. Kinda weird to see that there, huh? That we just learned is one of the old tennis shoes Jack put on his Dad's corpse. We've had other notable shoe appearances - the four toed statue (a reach, but maybe), the most recent episode, and when Hawking first meets Desmond. But the essential thing here is Jack put his shoes on his dad's corpse, and then put his dad's shoes on Locke's corpse.
So now let's rework the theory...
Event 1 - CHRISTIAN SHEPHERD "finds" the island, interacts with it in some meaningful way, and leaves.
Event 2 - Christian must return to the island, and through his actions encourages others that the island needs (think of his connections to Sawyer, Claire, Jack, etc.) to board flight 815, recreating as many elements from how he left event 1 as he can. Christian does so as a cadaver (possibly, in proxy for another from event 1), and is reanimated immediately upon his return to the island.
Event 3 - Jack and co must return to the island, and to do so, establish as many similarities to event 2 as possible, and bring in some new recruits. Locke goes in proxy for Christain Shepherd's body, but with Christian's shoes, and is immediately reanimated upon return to the island (this is what I expect will happen next week). I expect the inevitable new characters will likewise leave the island at some point, and need to return for an Event 4. We'll come to find out that the story of Lost is a history of coming and going to the island.
There's a lot more of this I could flesh out, but this is a fuller explanation to what I think is happening than I hinted at before.
Boom tho.
Rut-
Pretty interesting theory, but I don't know how much shoes play a part, I'm guessing Vincent is more of a central character than shoes. I'd like to learn more about how they learned you have to reproduce these things? and what works and what doesn't.
That's a very interesting theory rutkowskilives, and great catch with the shoes in the pilot.
When I was watching 316 I remembered how Christian was always wearing white shoes with that suit of his.
But here's what I'm wondering now.
We've seen Christian with those white shoes almost every time I believe, so why is he not wearing them at the time flight 815 crashed?
He was wearing them later on when he appeared to Jack in the woods (my memory's foggy on season one but I believe he appeared to Jack in the pilot, if not it was early in the season), when we all thought it was a hallucination.
And Ms. Hawking wearing them must have surely just been a coincidence, or was it...
Boom tho! lol
Man, you guys need to seriously stop with these great theories, I'm slacking too much at work.
Actually, no, don't stop, lol.
Victor, Boom tho comes from the great Rod Benson. If you're not familiar with his work, you should spend a little time with him. I've got a hunch you'd be a fan (if you're not already, and heck, it's not like there's a reason anyone wouldn't be a Rod Benson fan).
One more part of my theory I forgot to mention - if anyone was a dead body during event 1, it was Jacob.
I can't claim this idea, it actually came from my sister, but I think it's worth thinking about. There seem to be several references to Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum. Of course, the most obvious is the pendulum itself, but there is also the secret society, and, I think the most interesting one, pushing computer buttons! Actually, what is most interesting is that at the end of the book it's not really clear if the whole mystery and secret society stuff was real or a figment of the main character's imagination.
Thanks again Brian!
One thing that is particularly bugging me, is that it seems obvious that the survivors who were left on island moved back to the c. 1980's when Locke turned the FDW. This is how, as you say, Jin/Dan are around long enough to become members of the DI.
However doesn't that imply that the skipping stopped when Locke left? So how could a "skip" explain why the the Oceanic 5 suddenly leave the Aija Airways flight and end up back on the island? Unfortunately I think it renders that neat explanation unlikely. Perhaps it was more that whenever the O5 arrived back on the island they would arrive back 25 years in the past, not that they happened to past over the island when a skip was occuring.
Hope that makes sense!
P.S. Is it now obvious that Locke will be the new Jacob, since he is replacing Christian Shepherd from the first flight? Just a thought...
I'd say the new spanish character was there to recreate Ana Lucia's interaction with Jack.
Also the skipping light and sound, may actually be explained by saying those are actually the symptons of the island moving to a new location I.E. underneith the plane.... AHHH FUCK IT,
I DON'T FUCKIN KNOW.
hey Rob -- don't feel bad. neither do any of us!! :)
One key lesson from this episode - guys if you want to get lucky get rid of the beard. :-)
rutkowskilives, yeah I'm familiar with Boom tho. I also like Benson's blog on Ball Don't Lie.
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