SO... Who Is the Last Member of the Oceanic Six?
I've wavered on this one for the past few episodes, and now that the 7th episode has aired -- and Damon and Carlton had said we'd know all 7 of them by the time the ep was finished -- it's still unclear who the Oceanic Six are. Someone posted to say that the list had been confirmed by producers on another site, but when I went to check it out, it appeared to just be speculation from a "source," and not the actual producers.

Five of them are clear: Kate, Jack, Hurley, Sayid, and Sun. But who is the sixth? Here is a list of possible candidates, and my thoughts on each one.

Aaron:
This one is the resounding frontrunner right now. I've been reluctant to accept him as the sixth member, as have a lot of fans. Other fans are rolling their eyes right now and saying, "Why the hell couldn't he be? It's as obvious as the letters you are typing right now..." He was shown in a flashforward; he was definitely on the island; it just stands to reason that he's one of the Six. I was a holdout on this theory, and after "Ji Yeon" aired, a couple of posters came closer to convincing me than I had been previously, namely Eric, who said that if the term "Oceanic Six" is a media construct, they would have given that name to the six people who were rescued from the island, whether or not they were on the plane.

But here's why I'm resisting this option: the events in "Eggtown" would suggest otherwise. First, in the scene with Kate and her lawyer, when the lawyer suggests they bring Aaron to the stand, and "tell people what you did" (i.e. presumably rescuing Aaron and keeping her as her own son), she goes ballistic, saying no no no, don't bring my son into this. But if he were one of the Oceanic Six, wouldn't his face have been splashed all over the papers, and the great feat of heroism would be obvious already? I've put forward that idea already, and one reader posted a comment, saying that if the rescue happened 2 years earlier, he would have been a baby when it happened. Now that he's 2 and a half, presumably, since Jack goes nuts in April 2007 and in the Kate flashforward he's still holding it together (the kid looks 4, but we'll chalk that one up to poor casting), he looks different, and Kate wants to keep his face out of the papers. Fair enough, but the actual reason why the lawyer wants him there -- to let the jury know what Kate did -- seems moot if the story would have been made public to explain why she came back with a kid.

But more importantly, as I've said on the comments board, the math simply doesn't add up. Here is Jack's false statement on the witness stand:

JACK: Only eight of us survived the crash. We landed in the water. I was hurt, pretty badly. In fact, if it weren't for her, I would have never made it to the shore. She took care of me. She took care of all of us. She--she gave us first aid, water, found food, made shelter. She tried to save the other two, but they didn't--

And then he's cut off. Eight survived the crash. Then another one was born. One assumes a survivor is Claire, and she has the baby on the island. Now we're up to nine. "The other two" didn't survive, by the sounds of what he's saying. Now we're down to seven. And the rescuees total... six. What happened to the other one? Did the writers not think that one through? Doesn't seem possible, considering how careful they are with EVERYTHING these days. A quick look at the plane's manifest would show that Aaron wasn't on the plane, so he can't be counted among the 8 people who Jack claims survived the crash.

SO... the only way Kate's adamant refusal to put Aaron in the spotlight and Jack's math make sense is if there are six survivors OTHER than Aaron, and they smuggled him on board the helicopter and kept him hidden from the media and prying public. If he is one of the Six, then Jack's statement on the stand would have been obviously false for a jury.

Michael:
Because Michael was revealed to be alive and well (one assumes, though there's some speculation that he's actually a grown-up Walt), some have suggested he's automatically the sixth, because he was revealed in the episode. That's a bit of a stretch, considering by episode 7 we've also seen every other person on the island still alive, so couldn't it be any of them? This is in keeping with the theory that Michael's the guy in the coffin, and the reason why Jack's so distraught in 2007, etc. However, if he IS the guy in the coffin, and was one of the Oceanic Six, then his death wouldn't have been some footnote at the back of the paper, it would have been HUGE news. One of the Oceanic Six hanged himself? That's big.

Of course, if Michael isn't actually the guy in the coffin, then he very well could be the sixth member. But we haven't seen him in a flashforward in that case, and the same could be said for every other survivor on the island right now.

Ben:
We've seen Ben's passports and money; we know he's getting off the island somehow, and we've seen him in Sayid's flashforward. He could have gotten the files on every person on board that plane to find out which person was a loner with no family, then had a passport made to make himself that person, and boom, he's one of the Six. But Ben is just too mysterious to me, and if he really did have anything to do with that crash, why would he want his mug splashed on the front of every newspaper in the world? The fact he's hidden away in a dark room when Sayid comes to see him at the end of "The Economist," and he's made Sayid his hitman, makes me think Ben will stay behind the scenes, and not put himself out there for the world to see.

Jin:
Some have speculated that Jin actually DID get rescued with the others and made it back, only to die naturally or at the hands of Paik. But if that were the case, his tombstone would have had a date on it after the rescue, and instead it's posted as the date of the crash, so I don't think this one's even a question: He's not one of the Six.


Did I miss anyone? I think these are the biggies right now. Maybe Darlton were wrong when they said we'd know by episode 7, and there's still someone else to be seen in the future on another episode. But if we have seen all of them, then I'm betting the sixth really is Aaron, and the writers screwed up on "Eggtown." I'd be shocked that they screwed up, so I'm not committing to it yet, but it makes the most sense of any of them.

Doesn't mean I have to like it.

So who do you think is the sixth?