What I did have a more persistent problem with is the fact that the writers only have a few hours of story time left, with a little bit of story to tell and a whole lot of mysteries to answer. Island pregnancies, psychics dead daughter coming to life, Ben and Widmore unable to kill each other, Christian appearing off island, the whole culty religious thing we saw with the Others over the death of Picket’s wife, and the mark on Juliets back. Why did The Others have to disguise themselves as a primitive tribe, what was special about Walt, what was the deal with the dead birds? The list can go on and on, but I’m sure we will not see many answers to these.
In the last couple of episodes, we have been given some answers, but at times the answers have been incomplete, or lead to more questions. Is Smokey his brother or not? The body still exists, so he wasn’t consumed by the monster, was their mother an instance of smokie? How else does she fill in the well and raze the village to the ground. Who installed the donkey wheel? We almost got that answer, but dearest mummy botched that one for them.

In the last few hours of the show, it seems a bad idea to start teasing with the answers. It’s like kids will be home in 20 minutes, time to quit the foreplay and just get on with it.

I’m sure a good portion of these answers will be told, either specifically, or in a general way. I just finished reading The Third Policeman and without wanting to spoil it for anyone, regarding the book, the author wrote that when the story is taken out of the context of reality (i.e. its all a dream or whatever) you can alter the laws of physics and everything else as much as you want. I hope this isn’t a part of the mechanism for providing answers (i.e. it just is because we are all in Vincents dream).

I thought Adam and Eve was a let down….we knew it was 2 humans, that was never in doubt, what we really wanted to know was who, and I think a lot of us were hoping for some loopy time traveling where 2 of our losties ended us as Adam and Eve only to be discovered by their future selves. Alas it was not to be, and it was MiB and his mom who we only just met. Heck, why not go for total mediocrity and make it two of the people in the village that got burnt down, it would only make for slightly less relevance.

Also, who is left to give any answers? Jacob is gone, Ben and Richard, who at one point we would have given our right arms to have answers from, seem to know nothing about the whole story (a repeating theme it seems). BTW, I think Ben is totally conning Flocke and is still a good guy.

Interesting that Jack, the man who seems to fail at everything, is Jacobs replacement. In the scene with Jacob around the campfire when he asked who would replace him and Jack takes the job, I half expected everyone to groan with mutters of “there goes the island”. Of course, it still could turn out that Flocke is in the right and Jacob/Jack is in the wrong.

Either way, I think it will be heck of a finale, and I’m sure there will be plenty of questions, and I’m hoping the final answer is going to be something that makes us go back and re-watch with enlightened eyes. Given that the full pilot was show the night prior to the finale, I think the final answer will give it new meaning.

At various points throughout the show, there have been numerous dead bodies and with it, a strong urge to bury the dead. Consider even when Rousseau and Karl were shot by Mercenaries, they took the time to bury the bodies, and it’s not like their arrival was going to be a secret for long. in LaFleur, when Sawyer and Juliet killed the others attacking Amy, they had to bury the bodies in accordance with The Truce. Now this might be a way to hide the killings, but it also may mean that any dead bodies must be buried. After The Purge, the bodies were put in a shallow grave, but not covered.

Christian Shepherd’s body, like John Lockes body was on its way to be buried, we have no confirmation that Alex was buried. Yemi’s body wasn’t buried when the plane crashed although Eko burned the plane but Yemi’s body was mysteriously missing. Sayid technically did die and was not buried. Claire, if she did die wasn’t buried either.

So far it seems all of these bodies have been taken over or manipulated by the Smoke Monster/the Man In Black. My thinking is that when bodies are not buried, they are available for claiming by the Man In Black / Smokey, hence the need to ensure that any dead bodies are not left above ground to provide a shell for the MIB to manipulate. Yemi, Locke, Christian (probably) and maybe Claire have been affected by Smokey / MIB to some degree. Incidentally, this could also be a theory for Adam and Eve. One dark, one light, one for the Mib and one for Jacob for the next iteration. I also seem to recall that someone made the comment that the dead on the island tend not to stay dead or some similar phrase.

Numbers Up

Throughout the show, the numbers have been one of the most intriguing mysteries of all. The writers have said a couple of times that there might never be an explanation for the numbers.
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. – Damon Lindelhof

Within the show, the numbers have been a consistent factor all along and while I am willing to concede absolutely that many occurrences of them is just pure coincidence (like the soccer shirts at the airport and hotel rooms), I think there absolutely is some need to explain their meaning. I think it goes beyond coincidence that the same numbers that were imprinted on the hatch end up being broadcast from the island for decades and were entered into the computer for so long. Why not just have the swan operator press the enter key every 108 minutes, why enter anything at all? Why even bother imprinting the numbers on the hatch if there is no relevance? It’s like writing the show so that every character is called Mike. It’s either relevant to the purpose they are there or just bloody stupid if you put it down to coincidence. With the last couple of weeks we have seen an introduction of the numbers again assigned to people and even angles on the lighthouse mirror so hopefully we will get the complete answer to the numbers.

The Loophole

So, it seems that Jacob and the Man In Black have been playing the same game over and over and this time the MIB finally found a way to kill Jacob. He asks Jacob if he has any idea what he had to go through which raises the interesting question of how long has MIB been manipulating the game? It seems smokey may have been on to John when they first encountered each other in Walkabout which was the fourth episode. John saw something beautiful, perhaps it was his own spiritual reflection, or perhaps it was smokey showing Locke what he needed to see (a common theme in Lost). One quality MIB needed was Locke’s desire to stay on the Island if he was to go off Island, die and bring everyone back. I’m sure there were other rules regarding who who could kill Jacob and how and why. Obviously, MIB couldn’t just kill Ben and then impersonate him as the leader of the others, get an audience with Jacob and then kill him especially since Ben had never had an audience with Jacob so how could he? The MIB had to promote John Locke up to the level of leader in such a way that he would be allowed to see Jacob, along with the requirement that Locke be that special someone who was the right kind of person to lead the Others and be so in tune with the Island that he would get to see Jacob. If this is the case, then it allows one to re-watch Lost with fresh eyes, spotting the places where Locke, and the Others were manipulated along, where Locke was encouraged forwards to the point where he would find his own destiny on the Island, but then meet the needs of returning to the Island dead so the MIB could then assume his identity and role and then manipulate Ben into wanting to kill Jacob. Perhaps MIB has been masquerading as Jacob for the purpose of ignoring Ben to prime the pump so to speak since we know someone else was using Jacobs cabin and he only showed himself to Locke to set the ball rolling.
I think we need to learn a little more about the rules in order to start drawing up what the MIB needed to do in order to create the loophole and how he did it. What would be mind blowing is if along with MIB manipulating the whole show we found out that Jacob had been manipulating the whole show so he could defeat the MIBs plans. After all, in the lighthouse, Jack was outraged that Jacob had been watching him and setting this up his whole life. Perhaps they both have been manipulating the viewers for the whole show. Perhaps Jack is Jacobs hope the same way Locke was MIBs hope, after all Jack versus Locke has been another common thread.

Random Mysteries

Here’s some random mysteries that I keep thinking about and will hopefully get answered.

• Why broadcast the numbers/enter them into the computer, whats the relevance?
• What’s with the psychic who advised Claire
• Why were all those tubes from the Dharma observation station being dumped in the middle of nowhere
• Why can’t women get pregnant?
• What happened to Anne? (Darlton claimed she and the volcano were important)
• What was the deal with Jin taking that watch to LA?
• I’m sure there’s more to Cindy than we know
• Will we see a Libby backstory?

Even as we start to draw down the show in the final season, we still keep getting fresh mysteries, such as who is Jacks ex-wife in the alternative timeline?

Back to the Beginning

Interestingly, we seem to be redoing the first season again. Many of the issues are cropping back up, Shannon’s inhaler, the caves, Adam and Eve, treks into the jungle with Jack and Hurley. Also, the central character for the episode that we see flash sideways for mirrors the season 1 order with Kate, Locke and Jack and Sun is next in both Season 6 and Season 1. It should be interesting the week after since that was a Charlie centric episode. One of the biggest earliest questions was “What is the smoke monster?”, after all it was introduced in the first episode. Darlton commented that we wouldn’t find out till the very last episode. I thought, like many others, he was joking but it seems that this is indeed the case since the MIB (along with Jacob) seems to be final mystery that encapsulates all others and probably will only be answered in the finale.

The parallels with Season 1 casts fuel on to the fire that the whole thing will end with a reset and start at the beginning, but that would seem a rather cruel and clumsy way to end it. Perhaps we see the start of the next iteration with the next group of Losties arriving at the Island. It would certainly open the door to another season or two or more likely, a spin off without having requiring the original actors or writers.

I don’t plan on doing blow by blow recaps since there are plenty around the web and I don’t have time so consider this some general thoughts over the last two episodes, LA X parts 1 and 2 and What Kate Does. I have some concerns over this whole alternate timeline/sideways flash. Incidentally, note how when transitioning between the main and alternate timeline we have a sucking jet engine sound as opposed to the sucking whoosh sound we had with the flashbacks for the first few seasons. The alternate time, and I’m not sure that is what it is, but let’s stick with that for now, has the losties landing in LAX and the island underwater. To me, that says that the bomb never went off and as a result, ‘the incident’ was the unhindered drilling at the swan hatch that probably ended up causing the Island to sink. In the main timeline, the losties on flight 815 crashed, fought the others, went back in time and blew up the swan hatch before the incident. Miles commented in “The Incident” whether anyone had thought that setting the bomb off caused the events of their future (the swan being built and their plane crashing). This solution not only makes sense, but is paradox free, and yet the writers in their pod cast last week said that the island sinking was because the bomb went off which is quite annoying.

So far, we have seen in the alternative timeline how things are similar, but different in small and subtle ways. I’m a proponent of Whatever Happened, Happened as opposed to the idea that the losties can change their future (and therefore their past). Once you open the door for alternate timelines you open the door for multiple timelines. Furthermore, the additional timeline would have always existed regardless of the actions of the losties on the Island so it really doesn’t make sense as to why we are seeing this particular timeline. There are probably timelines where 815 crashed on take off and Jack is a drug addicted rock star, Locke is a marathon runner and Charlie became a priest. Why show us this timeline? I think the answer lies in the fact that our losties in this timeline have some kind of link of conciousness to the main timeline as we see them have bouts of recognition and familiarity with the main time line. In LA X, I thought the writers were just messing with us in the initial scenes were we see Jack on 815 looking disoriented. However, What Kate Does, they make those links stronger. The name Aaron just pops into Claires head, Kate and Jack have a moment of recognition as she drives off in the taxi, and the friendship of Claire and Kate probably made it that much easier for Kate to be more sympathetic to Claire to go and help her. I therefore think that the writers will somehow pull these two timelines together somehow and the introduction of the new timeline is not accidental and arbitrary.

It is also worth noting that there might only be a single timeline and the start of LA X is where the ‘main’ timeline is leading to. If you ignore the ‘main’ timeline on the island, we are seeing the end of lost, i.e. what happens to the 815′ers if they never crash. It could be that the final episodes show us how the main timeline leads up to the start of the LA X ‘alternate’ timeline. This is possible if you consider that the island moves through time, although it mostly seems to move back in time which I think is relevant. If the losties start moving back in time as soon as they crash on the Island, the Island isolates them from the rest of the world as they pass back in time, therefore there won’t be two Jacks in the timeline because alternate Jack is travelling on a plane on October 22nd 2004 while main timeline Jack is shifting slowly back in time on an Island which will never cross paths with main timeline Jack. Perhaps that is how the island avoids detection, it moves through time and only stays in places where it knows there is nobody looking if you go for the idea of being able to see all time at once.

Anyway, I give the writers a 50/50 chance of pulling this all together in a sensible way. The fact that they already introduced a paradox regarding the bomb going off and sinking the island and the cherry picking of alternative universes is a bad sign though. Of course, we could be mis-interpreting this completely and the alternative story is very relevant to the main story and will merge seamlessly.

For a while there, I forgot it was a Kate centric story which usually means it blows, it’s not actually the Kate centric story that blows, it’s just that more screen time reminds us of how Kate is like the flame that Sawyer and Jack both fly close to. After 6 seasons, I’m sure there is going to be some allegory to how Kate is the axle that keeps the Jack and Sawyer wheels on the same track without which they would both fly off in different directions. However, after 6 seasons it’s hard to imagine that either of them would be interested in someone who changes her mind more often than her underwear (it’s an island people, there isn’t a lot of underwear).

WKD also introduced a few new mysteries, what did Kate do? She tells the garage mechanic she was wanted for murder, then tells Claire she’s innocent, which I might actually believe. It seems that so far, people in this timeline are much nicer. The interaction between Locke and Boone, and Locke and Jack was enjoyable to watch, even hinting there there is a mutual respect of each others beliefs in science and faith and even that they both have a healthy dose of each. Kate might even be innocent of all charges, Hugo thinks he’s lucky, and while Sawyer may not be squeaky clean, I think he’s in a much better place morally. I think Sawyer gave Hugo a genuine warning as opposed to the warning that was the opening moves of a con like he did in “Every Man For Himself”. Charlie is the only one who it seems is not better off, even to the point that in the alternate timeline, he is still destined for death by suffocation. The motto for Season 6 is Destiny Found, is this their destiny? Is all this about getting them to the point where the can continue onwards?

I was also very surprised that there actually was a family that Claire was supposed to meet. I suspected that the psychic knew the flight would go down and Claire would have no choice but to raise the baby instead of it being raised by another. Why else would he be so specific about the flight? Of course, this is the alternative timeline and he may have actually arranged someone to adopt Aaron since the plane wouldn’t be crashing. Unfortunately, I think “It’s an alternative timeline” is going to be the new scapegoat for any weird changes or unanswered questions. We still have to address the issue of ‘fake’ psychic Richard Malkin and his daughter Charlotte coming back to life screaming about John Locke.

Here’s a thought, the idea is that around October 22nd 2004, the timelines split or separated which introduced changes in the timelines. Let’s go back to the old mystery of the changing photographs and their frames in Mrs Gardner’s house when Miles comes to do his ghostbusting bit. That took place around the time the wreckage was supposedly found which could put it around a month after the crash. Perhaps these changes are a result of the same event that caused the splitting timelines on 22nd October 2004, we just didn’t realize it at the time.

It seems Locke gets back in on the action next week, and he might be up for manipulating Sawyer. I’m hoping that the story arc doesn’t have Sawyer end up the way he came onto the island. Prior to the crash, Sawyer had been manipulated into killing Frank Duckett by Hibbs who took advantage of the tragedy in his life. I’m hoping fake Locke doesn’t use the same mechanims to manipulate Sawyer into doing something stupid.

Still lots of mysteries to go, with new ones being added, and in true Lost fashion, most answered mysteries result in the addition of new ones.

Man, this video takes me back to choir and orchestra when I was at school.

(updated : Switched youtube link since the original was removed because of Fox claiming the copyright (even though you can get the episode online for free). The link (like many) now only has the music which is slightly different from the video version).

If you would like to see the extended trailer, you can see it here

I’m hoping at least some of the finale is going to be Hurley being a game changer. Between the guitar case he carries round, plus the fact that he ends up on flight 316 after getting out of jail and swearing he isn’t going back to the island (as Ben wanted), I’m curious as to how he ended up on the flight (and who told him to bring the guitar /item). I’m wondering if this is the 3rd party at play again like they were with Miles. They promised Hurley freedom from the numbers like they promised Miles info about his father. I’m hoping some of the finale will deal with this.

Oh, and I agree with Erica, Phil is so very dead, and causal paradoxes are abound since Lock told Richard to tell him to do things, which he knew to do because Richard (and thus Locke) told him to. Ditto with the compass. Where did it come from originally. I hope we get some idea of how this is resolved, especially since it was noted that the compass was rusty when Richard gave it back to Locke, but we can assume that back in 1954 (and even when wounded Locke gets it) it is not rusty.

Here’s a thought on Jacob. Twin Peaks has been noted as an inspiration for Lost, and in Twin Peaks, the killer is first seen on screen as Bob, a long haired disheveled character. However, Bob is not real, Bob is a mask for someone else, the real actual physical killer. He just appears to victims as Bob. The character of Bob was also a way for the Twin Peaks writers to show the killer in a far more menacing way, to not only make him more dangerous, but also to hide the actual killer and also to throw the audience off. They would be looking for Bob as an actual person in Twin Peaks when Bob is really a figment of your imagination. The character of Bob was played by Frank Silva who at the time was a set dresser on the show, and who also worked as a prop master.

When Jacob briefly appeared in The Man Behind The Curtain, he was played by Rob Kyker who is a prop master on Lost. Also note, he appears in the Ace of Cakes LOST episode and introduces himself by name to one of Ace’s gang. My point being, is that using a prop guy might be giving props to Twin Peaks, but I’m not sure we’ll be seeing Rob Kyker playing Jacob through the last season. I’m wondering if the nod is more than that, that Jacob is more a figment of our imagination, a personification of the Island. Perhaps, like Bob, Jacob is a mask behind which someone we know lies, just like Bob hid Laura Palmers killer in Twin Peaks. Either that, or Locke really will kill him off, even though I think Locke’s intent to kill Jacob is more of a help , not hinder kind. Something along the lines of Locke freeing Jacob by killing him so he can…be free and come back as someone else or something like that.

I’m really wondering where this season finale will leave us at the end. Previous finales have given the clue about what the next season is about. Will we end up in 1977, 2007, will the incident happen, and will things change, or will whatever happened happen? I’m hoping we don’t end up with ’something changing’, like Kate has short blond hair or something to indicate that something changed, and we spend the hiatus wondering if anything did change, and if so how much.

I’m in the Whatever Happened Happened camp simply because it’s what the writers have told us all season, and it explains everything logically so far. If things can change in the past, then they have already done so immeasurably. The smallest event will cause changes that ripple through time and completely change the future and negate 5 seasons of Lost. To say otherwise is just putting great big holes in the plot because you can always make the case that any event in the past would have completely changed things.

Something I just thought about as I write this, I wonder if Miles is The Variable? Perhaps his psychic ability isn’t psychic at all, he can just tune in to different points in time, almost like time flashes at will, and oriented around one person. The reason I mention this is because we know for sure one thing that has changed in Lost, when Miles went to see Mrs Gardner and the pictures and their frames changed in Confirmed Dead. If whatever happened, happened, then it would take a whole new theory to reconcile the picture changes.

I’ve also grabbed some screenshots of the scene which you can see below :

0:16 Jack Greets Hurley Clean Shaven

0:36 Jack misses shot, says ‘H’

0:48 Thinking about growing a beard (Misses shot, big thud)

0:57 You’d look weird with a beard dude, that’s H-O

1:04 What are you really doing here jack?

1:11 Just checking on you (in the same shot as the previous image)

1:17 Jack listens to Hurley accuse jack of seeing if her was going to tell

1:26 You’re up

2:08 Water under the bridge.

2:11 I don’t think we did the right thing

2:15 Jack brushes off Hurley

2:18 We’re never going back

Going back to the first :

0:16 Back to the first shot for comparison

Now, comparing the first and last shots, it’s pretty evident that Jack grew a beard from the start to finish of this scene, and it started when he talked about growing his beard.The question is whether it was intentional, or whether it was just a continuity error. There are a couple of reasons I find it difficult to believe that it is continuity.

The beard grows sequentially in the order it is seen in separate shots, typically continuity involves objects moving for example from one hand to another and then back again as new shots are interleaved with shots from a different day. It is not impossible, but it would be a coincidence that the beard was growing in the order it was shot. Unless they filmed the scene sequentially throughout the day and Jacks beard continued to grow. The final shot shows sun light streaming through the window in the same direction and shape as it did when Jack entered (not shown in this clip). This could be explained by using common sense and filming the wide shots of Jack entering and leaving together so the sunlight would be in the same place.
On the other hand, I am sure actors have their make up touched up between shots and it would be pretty hard not to notice Mathew Fox was getting a little bristly.
Assuming that this is intentional, what could it mean? One simple explanation is the passage of time. While they played some basketball, time passed at a much faster rate causing Jack to start growing his beard. Who knows how or why, but this is lost. Hurley conveniently already has his beard, or whatever it is that lives under his chin, so the same effect could not be seen, although interestingly enough, there doesn’t appear to be any continuity issues with his beard, or anywhere else in the scene.
Another wild (and off the wall) possibility, and this is not backed by anything other than a beard that grows quickly, is that maybe this isn’t the real Jack. I hesitate to claim it is smokey since smokey hasn’t been seen off-island, and always seems to be the first idea that people leap to when something odd happens off-island, but if something was channeling Jack, and it got the idea of growing a beard, it might start to manifest one as part of it’s appearance. It could be some weird part of the story that we haven’t seen yet, like Jack died in the 815 crash but lives on because the aliens will it or whatever.

Credit for spotting this has to go to Mrs. Gibson who actually spotted it when we watched it, which is the main reason I can never get away with anything. The eyes are always watching. Always.

Any time Ben has been portrayed as a master of evil, it is usually misdirection, misrepresentation or just Michael Emerson’s wonderfully creepy acting, but the writers never seem to give Ben a break, they. Case in point, when Jack and Company are making their way to the radio tower in the season 3 finale, we are led to believe that Ben has had the shooters on the beach killed when they were not. Ben still got pummeled by Jack and then dragged around on a leash; Jack was never shamed for his actions of beating a man twice his age that had enough compassion not to shoot the people who had just killed a number of his own people.? The writers have done enough to ensure that we think Ben is evil that no matter what actions he takes that viewers remember those actions that enforce that view, and ignore the actions that don’t. If Ben really was evil, wouldn’t he have shot the Losties on the beach for real?

Ben’s lot is not a good one based on what we know. From his mother dying at birth to being blamed for it by his alcoholic father every year on his birthday Ben grew up to become the man who would purge the island of Dharma and become the leader of The Others through some plot line we haven’t yet seen. Ben takes his role seriously and dedicates the next 20 years to protecting the island, at least as far as we know.

He does so using a certain degree of foresight which many (including myself) believe comes from having been through all this before a number of times, or at the very least, by reading ahead in the book so to speak by passing forwards and backwards through time. Other possibilities are that Jacob guides him on these matters which would explain why Ben has been somewhat lost in the last few off-island episodes. No example of Ben’s foresight could be clearer than the last episode (Namaste) in which Ajira Flight 316 crash lands on the runway built back in Season 3 by Kate and Sawyer among others. After the crash landing, Ben heads off to find the 3 boats that were exactly where Ben said they would be, all neatly covered and camouflaged from the casual observer. Bear in mind, that Ben had been off the Island for 3 years, and yet he still knows where the boats are?

With that in mind, we get to Ben’s issue of being secretive and manipulative which many take to be deceptive and evidence of mischief. For most of the show, Ben has had a clue as to what must be done, and also how things are to get done. He has given us a number of clues as to how complex his life is and how many balls he has to juggle in order to keep the train on the track so to speak. For this reason, I think he treats the details as a triviality. It’s like a train that goes from A to B. No matter how much the passengers will it, the train will never end up somewhere else, and it won’t take a detour through points C and D. No matter how many times you ride it, it is always the same, and it is pointless indulging in the passengers desires to go somewhere else or go via a different route, or telling the passengers and having to explain time and again why.
So let’s look at some of Ben’s biggest sins from the first 4 1/2 seasons.

As my wife reminds me, the writers in a pod cast or in a captioned episode have said that Ben is a bad guy, but to the viewers he is the bad guy. I wouldn’t expect the writers to confess right out that he’s really the good guy but they are tricking you into thinking he is the bad guy. They will continue to portray him the way the series does. I’m hoping the good/bad Ben arguments keep going to the end. Also the captioned episodes are not that official since Darlton and Co. admitted they are not directly responsible for the captions so it isn’t altogether canon.

The Purge – Looking up the meaning of the word, it generally means, to get rid of bad stuff. While we are meant to believe that the Dharma initiative is some kind of peaceful commune, I think we’ve seen a few hints that they are not as benevolent as their ideology might seem. We know for one thing that they were deliberately looking for the island as per Mrs. Hawking in episode ‘316′. They were also all too willing to clash with the indigenous hostiles in order to stay on the island, and they knew enough to build the sonic fence to keep Smokey out (wouldn’t they also have some idea of what Smokey is?). We also saw Horace criticize Sawyer for not being “Dharma Material” which is why they were being shipped off in the sub which seems both unwelcoming and elitist. It seems that at the very least, the everyday Dharma-bot might have feel-good intentions but those behind the initiative have more insidious goals in mind. I think this is one possible reason behind the purge.

Shooting Locke – Yes, Ben shot Locke in The Man Behind The Curtain, he also probably knew he would survive it give the healing powers of the Island. If he really wanted Locke dead, he could have shot him in the head. How can Ben have the foresight to build a runway 3 years earlier but not know that Locke won’t die despite knowing about his mad healing skills and the fact that he had only one kidney. As for motive, he shot Locke in order to find out what Jacob had said after which he left him to heal. The shot was likely more a way of immobilizing Locke so he could interrogate him.

Strangling Locke – I also believe that Ben had to kill Locke in order to make the whole process work. Christianity wouldn’t be what it is if Jesus had just decided to go string himself up with electrical cord in some crappy New York apartment. However, Ben did seem to be waiting to extract some piece of information from him getting busy like an illegal immigrant in Rob Schneider’s shower. Interesting since we had almost the same interaction in The Man Behind the Curtain when Ben shot Locke to find out what Jacob had said to him.
After setting up the Locke suicide scene, and cleaning up, a wistful Ben says he will miss John, and I think he genuinely means it in some sense. I think he knows Locke will come back to life, perhaps coming back a wiser, bolder leader and Ben will miss the everyday John who was full of wonder of the Island. Perhaps Locke will now have to start acting like Ben does, beholden to the island and trapped on a train ride where every curve is known before hand and unavoidable, the same ride Ben has suffered on for the last 2 decades. We have already seen Locke share some knowledge with his new castaways and we know it has elicited more questions and some suspicion. Perhaps John will have to learn to go with the flow and don’t let anyone know.

Benry – When Ben was captured, he did indeed lie about who he was and how he got there. However, there is no real evidence that they had anything to do with harming the real Henry Gale, and the others probably even buried him. Ben was lying to protect who he was, again, in order to avoid having to answer questions. However, the eerie conversations Ben had with Jack and Locke about ambushing the other losties as they went looking for his balloon was eerie, and definitely caused Ben to start racking up the evil points with the viewers.

Ana Lucia and Libby – As part of rescuing Ben, Michael intentionally killed Ana Lucia and accidentally killed Libby. This wasn’t part of the plan, and Ben has always tried to go for more peaceful, non-violent options. Ben made this clear to Michael when Michael was on the freighter and Ben told him that they didn’t kill innocent people not only reaffirming Ben’s good guy status, but also rubbing Michaels nose in his own murderous ways.

Kidnapping Losties- The others have taken a number of people from the Losties overall, and while this is initially played as a scary, violent and harmful act to make us revolt against and fear the others, we learn later that for the most part, those that were taken are just fine and happy with where they are. It’s either a severe case of Stockholm Syndrome or they have a really good reason for staying there. Additionally, they must have been told something that would keep them there and not give the game up. How come the stewardess and the others immediately get sucked up into playing the part of an other by not telling anyone anything, but obviously having some idea of what is going on.

Given the way the series has gone, with repeating story and time lines, I’m wondering if there were people on flight 815 that were on the island before and ‘got off’ like the Oceanic 6 did, only to return, and the others ‘taking’ people was really a case of the others coming back and picking them up. Would we see Jack and Jin sneaking in to the new Losties camp to bring back Sun and Frank had they not already left to go find Jin?
Perhaps Ben’s apparently ‘good’ actions only stem from the fact that his hand is stayed by Fate. In the Season 3 finale at the beach, perhaps the reason he didn’t shoot any of shooters, was because he knew they had parts to play in the future (i.e. in the past), even though he might have wanted to shoot them.
In summary, Ben is a victim in almost every sense of the word. We start with his mother’s death to having a lousy father who is bitter and abusive any chance he has. When he tries to break out and join the Others, he has to wait, and when they give him the chance, at least as far as he thinks Sayid is being honest, he gets shot. Unfortunately, the only doctor on the island that can save him won’t (yeah, wrong again Jack!), and so he is carted off to the others where he is changed forever, and made one of the Others. While the next part of Ben’s life has to be divulged, we know he is enslaved to the Island, bound to the ‘fickle bitch’ of fate, while dodging bullets, being tortured, and doing everything he can to make sure everything runs on time, only to be cast aside and banished when the Island finds a new protector in John Locke.

The Life And Death of Jeremy Bentham covered Locke’s travels off-island as he tried to get the Oceanic 6 back to the island.? While it was fun to watch, it was really just filling in the blanks as to what he did off Island, and pouring more fuel on the fire of working out whether it is Widmore or Ben who is the evil genius behind it all.? Of course we got to see Locke struggle with finding his way and watching him helplessly be carried and wheeled around by Abaddon as he fruitlessly attempts to talk the O6 into going back to the Island. The conversations had the usualy Lost quality to it in that the characters always managed to not say the most obvious thing or ask the most obvious question. I’m thinking that Ben needed some information from Locke before he could die and/or that Locke could not come back to the Island if he died by his own hand.

LaFleur shows what happened on-Island in the 3 years the O6 and Locke were gone. Sucks to be Locke since he seems to have lost 3 years of his life (I wonder whether that explains some of the anti-aging effects on the Island). We start with our survivors helping Locke in to the well before another flash throws them way back in time (we assume) and we catch a glimpse of what we now assume is the 4 toed statue.? While others online have debated exactly which Egyptian figure it us, I’m just going with an Egyptian figure which is appropriate given that the episode and the who series has number of Egyptian references.? Sawyer made comment on Richards eyeliner, a character who has some strongly egyptian features about him, and the ancient Egyptians were noted for their use of eyeliner as both men and women were in the habit of wearing it. There were a couple of Ankh references in this episode which is the Egyptian symbol for eternal life (Richard?) .One was carried by the 4 toed statue and also Amy’s husband Paul had one around his neck. Hieroglyphics have also made a number of appearances in lost, from the Symbols on the hatch timer to symbols carved in the temple and in Bens secret door.

Our band of survivors come across Amy who seems to have run afoul of some Hostiles who killed her husband and are about to give her the same fate. Daniel reminds us (conveniently) that whatever happened has already happened, and we can’t change anything. At this point, one of two things will happen. Either they will attempt rescue, fail and Amy will die as she always has in the past, or Sawyer and Co will be successful meaning that they have always gone back in the past and rescued her. Given the way the season is shaping up, the writers have so far avoided any paradoxes? like characters walking in on themselves or others in the past that we have seen when we know that it never happened like that. Given that the writers claim this was all planned ahead, it would be cool if there had been a reference to current events in the past, like Hurley bumping into future Sawyer, exchanging pleasantries? as they passed each other. We could then see the exchange from the other perspective from the future Sawyer. It would have at least cemented the idea that what happened has already happened since a lot of people are wondering about changes in the past, or whether it has always been this way (i,.e. Rousseau has always met Jin when they first landed).

I enjoyed seeing Sawyer talking to Alpert with the tables turned and Alpert seeming Lost in the conversation as we have been for a number of seasons. Makes you wonder whether Ben keeps looping round and doing it all again, same as Sawyer is in this case which would explain how he manages to know everything. Like the time John Locke walked in to the camp in Jughead and started informing Alpert of what is going on, I couldn’t help but feel that he was all rather new at this. We are used to seeing others with more information, and more secretive about what they know, but in these two instances, it almost seems like they are totally new to the Island and it’s mysteries. He certainly seemed surprised at the idea that John was from the future, which you wouldn’t be if you had spent the last god knows how many years on a time travelling island. Maybe the “incident” which hasn’t happened yet is what starts the time travel on the island, we know Pierre Chang and Dharma had not uncovered the Donkey Wheel yet so perhaps that aspect of the Island had not been awakened yet.

Namaste, for me was the real set up for the rest of the season. While it mostly consisted of Sawyer working to get Jack, Kate and Hurley into the Dharma Initiative which in itself was uninteresting. What was intersting was the change in Sawyer and Jack. While new Sawyer gave Jack a dressing down, Jack, the newly minted Janator In Chief took it all in his stride, relieved at not having to worry about anything or ‘react’ to the days events. He stood there in his overalls, hands firmly in pockets as Sawyer decimated his legacy.

I wasn’t quite sure what Sawyers glance at Sayid was about as he left him in his cell for the night. I almost took it as a ‘tables are turned, how do you like it now’ type of look to his torturer of old. If so, it’s seems that Sawyer has slipped back in to his old ways a little between this and his attitude with Jack. However it is worth noting that Sawyer was perfectly cordial when Jack arrived, and only slipped when Old Jack came out asking for answers.

Jacks Dad made a rather creepy appearance along with smokie which I think seems to add weight to the idea that smokie==Jacks Dad == agent of Jacob .I’m going with the theory that they were in the processing center that was off the dock (we saw it when young Ben came on the Island), which is a way away from new Otherton, although lostpedia claims that the Harbor and the Warf were a “short walking distance” to the barracks. Also of interest is how Ben knows, 3 years later that there are 3 outriggers hidden away on the beach. The guy is a genius, I can’t wait to see how he knows it all.

We start with our fab 4 (Des, Sun, Jack Ben) in the church and lo and behold, Daniels mother is Mrs Hawking who ushers them through the basements to a new Dharma post called the Lampost. Again, the writers getting rather obvious with us with the Narnia references. Of interest is the US military B&W photo that was taken nearly fifty years to the date of the 815 crash. Given the circumstances of the 815 crash, this is possibly coincidence unless you believe in the destiny factor.

One question is why Dharma was looking for the island in the first place? Obviously this goes back way beyond 1970s Dharma, all the way back to Elvar Hanso and the Black Rock.

Des brought up the subject of Mrs Hawking being responsible for him wasting 4 years of his life which was interesting. Why would he blame her? He seemingly didn’t meet her until Flashes Before Your Eyes when he turned the fail safe key. At that point, he was already on the Island. If he had gone to buy to the ring and some crazy irish woman behind the counter started talking about how important being on the island was, he wouldn’t know what she was talking about, never mind taking it as encouragement to go to the Island. Therefore, how can he blame her for ending up on the Island?

Jack’s faith has never come easy, and in this episode he transforms from skeptic to believer. The fact that he is in the room at all means he has some small inkling of faith, either that, or he is just there because of what John said would happen to the others left on the Island. Either way, he is there, and sarcastically retorts “We just get on a plane and hope it works?”, which of course implies he is willing to get on the plane. When Jack is taken to the Principle Hawkings office, she gives him the suicide note, and tells him he needs to re-create the conditions of the 815 flight, and use Jack as a proxy for his father. At this, Jack objects, which to me, shows a parallel with the Saint Thomas story. Thomas the Apostle believed so much that he was willing to travel to Judea with Jesus, even if it meant his death, but after the resurrection, he didn’t quite believe in the resurrection without proof. In the same way, Jack believes so much that he is willing to partner with Ben to get everyone together, and get them on a plane which will crash, possibly causing their deaths, and the possible deaths of everyone else on the plane, but he isn’t willing to believe that he needs to put a pair of his dads shoes on Locke. Like Thomas, he believes but not to the point where he might look foolish. If a Jesus look-alike walked in to church, I doubt even the most faithful would accept him as authentic without proof. Jack is told he has to take another leap of faith, at which point we cut to Ben, possibly saying a quick prayer and lighting a candle for Alex before he makes his excuses and has to go tie up some loose ends. The afforementioned act made me conclude he was going to take care of Penny as revenge for Alex’s death. That might put a crimp in my Ben is a good guy argument, but as is often the case, when Ben has been made to be a monster, and punished accordingly, we are usually shown he has not been the monster we thought he was.

Was it me, or did this episode have a lot of blue (moon) lighting from the side of the actors? Principle Hawkings office had blue light, and then Jacks apartment had blue light. It just seemed a little heavy handed and I wondered whether it was another case of the writers being heavy handed with themes again. Like most people I was annoyed by the Kate scene. Aaron disappears, Kate turns up at Jacks apartment agreeing to go back to the Island after one more last night in the Jack Sack, threatening that if he wants her to go to the Island, Jack can’t ever ask where his nephew is.Usually this isn’t a problem since our losties have spent 5 seasons not asking the most obvious of questions. However, my thoughts are, did Claires mum call the Attorney and start asking who Aaron was and then confront Kate about it? Was Aaron taken away legally, and the ultimatum was that either Aaron or Kate goes back to the Island on the flight? The kicker being that Aaron is tucked away at the back of the plane unbeknownst to Kate?

When we get to Jacks Grandpappy, I was sure he was going to invite him along for the ride, and was almost disappointed when he didn’t (or did he?) Grandpappy Shepherd would have been a good proxy for a father for Jack. Also one key thing to note is that he commented on Kate “The one with the freckles”. A lot of people are wondering whether Kate’s freckles are appearing and disappearing based on events (like the picture frames in the Miles house call) and like the items in the hatch. For those keeping count, it would seem that in the real world, Kate has her freckles back. I’m sure we’ll be seeing the guy at the front of the check-in line offer Jack condolences, and sitting with our losties again. It’ll be interesting to see who is behind him, if anyone.

So, to wrap up, they get on a plane, and are apparently sucked out of the plane over the Island. This raises another issue. Jack ‘landed’ in the middle of the jungle, a la the pilot episode. This again raises the question of how Jack landed in the jungle since falling out of the sky usually has harsh consequences no matter how spongy that Hawaian grass appears. Here we know he might have been plucked out of the air to return to the Island. However, what about the pilot episode? How did he get there? Was he plucked out of the air that time too because the Island was looking for him (and possibly others). Of course, the plane crashed, but it wasn’t meant to, but it does seem like it was meant to fly near/over the island as it was in the vicinity. Perhaps Jack and others were meant to go to the Island, and thanks to Desmond, the plane was accidentally brought down.

I’m starting to believe that this whole story arc is about Jack, and not Locke. Jack usually is on the wrong side of things, most decisions he makes are wrong, what he believes is often wrong, just look at the denial when the island disappeared only to later decide that they need to lie. He’s hit rock bottom, and now he is a believer. He’s coming back to the Island as a believer and ready to do whatever it takes. Locke on the other hand seems to still be getting the bait and switch and being a useful tool as people pander to his need to be special while getting things from him. Yeah, sure John, you’re special, now give me that kidney, or go sacrifice yourself for the island, because without that sacrifice, we can’t get Jack back again, and this time we feel like he’s going to get it right. Let’s look at his conversation with Kate, he is fully bought into it, he has seen the resurrection with his own eyes and is no longer the doubting Thomas. Kate, still grounded in reality, still thinks nothing of the fact that they are all on the same plane and going back to the Island, and why not, all they had to do was buy a ticket. Perhaps Jack has seen and understands the Herculean effort that it took to get them there all on the same flight which makes him such a believer, and since Ben is probably the most responsible for it, highlights how under appreciated he is for making the miracles happen.

Heading back to the start of the episode with waking up on the Island, I definitely thought it was a fake out, and Jack would wake up in the real world, sweaty and disappointed. Shame on me for not having faith. However, it is what makes the show so cool and in that theme, we should start out another episode with the losties claiming “So that’s what smokey is and why those numbers are used, wow, I never thought that is how Claire would end up, and who would believe the reasoning behind all the strange ‘coincidences’ between us all weren’t really coincidences”. It would then switch back to “present day”, and then not be addresses till the very final episode over a year from now.

Ah, this is probably one of the best shows ever, even better than Twin Peaks season 1, and for the same reasons. I just hope they keep raising as many questions as they answer right until the last episode of the series.

The writers nearly delivered the back story for Rousseau, along with some excellent close up action with smokey. I love the clicking and mechanical noises as it dragged them along like reeling in fish (literally and audibly), and the slow, deliberate clicking as it reached around Montands arm before snapping it off.

Some people have commented that it sounded like Hurley reading the numbers on the radio the French camp had. While I don’t think it is, it would be an excellent twist at the end, and would tie in with the notion that it was Charlie that set the musical security keypad, i.e. they were both instruments in their own doom. The numbers that Hurley read were picked up by Leonard, causing him to go? to a mental hospital that Hurley ended up in, only to? pick up the numbers from Leonard, and then after using them to win the lottery, ending up on the Island, with the numbers, and then ultimately recording the original broadcast.? This show has shown several times it it going in circles so it isn’t out of the question.

Did anyone else get the idea that Montand was similar Sawyer not only visually, but he has the same sarcastic tone. Also, since Rousseau was pregnant, that makes her an ideal substitute for Claire.

Also, since the speed at which you get a nose bleed is relative to the time you have spent on the Island, I think we can assume that since Daniel has not been blighted with Crimson boogers, he hasn’t spent that much time on the Island…yet. This would make it seem like Daniel only goes into the past in the guture, so all the gallavanting around, scaring young Charlotte and bumping elbows with the good doctor Chang would seem to take place after Charlotte’s death, which probably promted all the time travel in the first place. This would also make sense with Charlotte only just remembering that Daniel was the scary guy from her childhood. Only at the point of her death does he resolve to go back and save her if possible. Alternatively, warning her was an accident based on the notion that they end up in the Dharma time period which was purely random and only caused by some incident (i.e. locke turning the wheel at a certain point in time). Until that event happened, they were only going to be in dharma time for a few minutes and now they are stuck there, therefore Daniel has time to go warn Charlotte. (Yes, this is with the hindsight that they end up in the Dharma period as covered in 316). However, that just added on to the theory.

We still have to deal with the fact that 3 years has passed off Island, while on island, I think, only a few days have passed. Of course, when you are time travelling, it’s hard to keep track, and now they are 30 years in the past, does it really matter, except that Kate might have slipped into Sawyers old ‘Older Woman’ category.

Am I the only one that thought Christian was a little pissy at Locke, and less than concerned for the fact that Locke was about to give his life for the Island? Something seems up with that.

Anyways, just some thoughts on that episode which I haven’t been able to get written up.