So, as always, I will be posting my early thoughts on the episodes following each week's new installment. I encourage all posts except spoilers. If I occasionally speculate on something that I think might happen, whether I'm right or wrong please don't post any spoilers. People expect a spoiler-free forum to discuss, and I hate them myself. Your discussion of the episodes is my highlight of the week (after the episode itself, of course) and I can't wait to start it all up again! I'll be on here frequently on Thursdays following the evening's new ep, and look for my weekly columns on DocArzt's site.
Lost: 5.01 “Because You Left”
I have to write up two episodes tonight, so I’ll leave the lead-ins very short and focus on the points in the episodes. Next week I’ll have a much longer opening to each episode. “Because You Left” touches on every character and what happened to them after we last saw them (with the exception of poor Lapidus, who apparently isn’t deemed important anymore).Highlights:
• Written by Darlton.
• Hurley to Sayid: “You know, maybe if you ate more comfort food, you wouldn’t have to go around shooting people.”
• Hurley: “I need a cool code name.”
• Sayid flipping the guy onto his back into the dishwasher. SO awesome. I’m totally going to use that if anyone breaks into my home.
• “Son of a....[white light, blinding noise, time travel]...bitch.”
• Sawyer saying he’s the ghost of Christmas Future.
• Miles: “That chick likes me.”
• Faraday and Desmond together again. I loved it!
Biggest “GASP!” Moments:
• Widmore giving Sun the verbal smackdown about not giving him enough respect.
• The dude getting flipped into the dishwasher! That elicited the biggest gasp outta me.
• “You’re gonna have to die, John.” Um... I’m sorry, WHAT?!
Hurley’s Numbers:
The clock at the beginning said 8:15. When the construction worker hands Chang a sonogram of the cave, the frozen donkey wheel is located between 15 and 16 feet in.
Did You Notice?:
• This is the second season premiere in a row that is titled after a line Ben says.
• The opening of the episode was the same as the opening of seasons 2 and 3 – record playing a song from a few decades ago, in a place with people we don’t recognize immediately.
• The opening sequence was hinted at by the video that Darlton showed at the Comic-Con this past summer. We saw Marvin Candle filming a movie saying they were going to die and talking about his baby, and you could clearly hear Daniel behind the camera. I believe he’s gone back in time to find exactly this energy that Candle is coveting. If he goes back in time to procure it, it allows him to be time travelling in the present. Perhaps the energy gave him the idea for the coordinates that he told Desmond to give him in the 90s... so confusing, but so fun.
• The song Candle puts on is Shotgun Willie by Willie Nelson. Lyrics are:
Shotgun Willie sits around in his underwear
Bitin' a bullet, pullin' out all of his hair
Shotgun Willie has got all of his family there
You can't make a record if you ain't got nothin' to say
You can't make a record if you ain't got nothin' to say
You can't play music if you don't know nothin' to play
Well, John T. (Fours) was workin' with the Klu Klux Klan
The six foot five John T was a hell of a man
Made a lot of money sellin' sheets on the family plan
• The record skips before Nelson sings “you ain’t got nothing to say.”
• Marvin Candle is a complete dick all the time on the sets of these orientation films. What’s his problem?
• Marvin Candle is not his real name (as we discovered in the video at ComicCon); one of the workers calls him Dr. Chang.
• Originally the top of the Orchid station looked like it was going to be rather state-of-the-art. Compared to the decrepit wooden shell of a place we saw at the end of last season, this building looked like it was the beginning of something big on the island.
• Time really has no meaning on the show anymore. The only time we have a true flashback is the beginning, and we hear that sound of air rushing that signals we’re moving to a flashforward or flashback. The Oceanic 6 story is told in the future, the island is told in the past (and further past, and future), and the show treats the stories like they’re all happening simultaneously.
• Frogurt is on the raft with Daniel. (We saw him being a jerk to Hurley in one of the mobisodes that appeared before season 4.) Here’s hoping we have a snark showdown between him and Miles.
• In case you’re wondering why Sawyer doesn’t know Daniel, he was in New Otherton when Daniel was around, and didn’t actually meet him in season 4.
• The ceiling of Kate’s bedroom has the crossbeams like the ceiling in Walt’s stepfather’s house and the ceiling of Paik’s house when Sun was a child and broke the glass ballerina.
• Sawyer asks Daniel for his shirt, even though Daniel is probably 40 pounds lighter than he is, as if this is his way of asserting his superiority over Daniel.
• Daniel mentions the island is skipping like a record, just like the record begins skipping at the beginning of the episode.
• When the Beechcraft is coming down on the island, it’s being trailed by black smoke, which is obviously the engine conking out, but it also looked a little bit like Old Smokey.
• When Widmore and Sun are in the holding cell, the clock reads 9:22. That’s the date of the original Oceanic crash.
• Daniel seemed far less jittery and more lucid in this episode than ever before. It’s like the island became unstuck in time like he’s been, and now he feels more confident and at home. Suddenly he’s talking about the Dharma Initiative and what he knows and he remembers everything. This is the guy who couldn’t remember three playing cards moments after seeing them.
• Richard Alpert seemed to take Daniel’s place, knowing exactly how things were moving, talking really quickly but not making much sense, handing John a “constant” in the form of the compass and telling him he won’t recognize him in the past, the same way Daniel told Desmond to mention “Eloise.”
• Richard hands Locke the same compass that he put in front of him when Locke was 5 years old in “Cabin Fever.”
• Daniel insists to Sawyer that there are rules to time travel, just as Chang insisted at the beginning of the episode that there are strict rules that cannot be broken when it comes to harnessing time. Daniel’s clearly learned from him.
• Charlotte’s nose is bleeding like Minkowski’s and Desmond’s did before Minkowski died and Desmond almost did.
• Desmond asks, “Are you him?” which is the first thing he asks Locke in “Man of Science, Man of Faith.”
• We didn’t see Lapidus in this episode. He’s pretty much the only character we don’t see.
So Many Questions...
• What is Chang’s backstory? How did he know about the energy on the island? Why does everyone show him so much respect?
• Did Daniel travel back in time to the island? He looks like present-day Daniel, not younger Daniel like the one we saw in “The Constant.”
• How does the island move and the camp not exist? Why doesn’t the island exist in the present? (i.e. when Ben moved the island, it disappeared physically, yet Daniel suggests it’s moving temporally... if it’s moving through time, wouldn’t it still also exist in all the other times?)
• Why did the Others disappear and leave Locke alone? When Sawyer and company travel through time, they travel together and don’t break apart, but the Others don’t stay with Locke. Are they living in a different time than regular people? Is that why Richard never ages?
• Why were Rose and Bernard separated, but Juliet and Sawyer stayed together? Did it have anything to do with Rose’s cancer? Notice both she and Locke were separated from others when it happened, and both had been healed by the island.
• Where do all the people in the raft disappear to when Daniel joins the others on the island? Did he just ditch them in the jungle?
• Who are the people from Agostini and Norton? Who sent them and wanted blood samples from Kate and Aaron? Widmore? Jack? Ben?
• Why did Locke go back to the time where the Beechcraft crashed onto the island? Is there a reason?
• Daniel says you’re not supposed to meet people in the past you didn’t meet before. So did Locke break the rules by meeting Ethan? Was the gunshot wound retribution for him breaking those rules?
• Does Sun want Ben dead because he’s the other person she blames for Jin’s death?
• Why is Sayid no longer working for Ben? He warns Hurley against him.
• Who were the men waiting for Sayid in his safe house? Why was he able to keep fighting so hard despite all the tranquilizer darts in him?
• Does the island jump way into the future at one point? Locke enters their camp and there were heavy cobwebs all over everything.
• How did Richard Alpert know what was going to happen next? Is he actually some sort of manifestation of the island and not a person at all?
• Is Locke going to kill himself??
• Did the people in the Swan station hear Sawyer banging on the door even if they didn’t open it?
• Why is Charlotte’s nose bleeding and no one else’s is? Will they all start having these effects and she’s the first to get it?
• What did Daniel see in his journal? That Desmond was his constant?
• Will the island jumping in time be a way for us to see some deceased characters? Will Rousseau’s story, for example, be told when the characters encounter her in the past?
Lost: 5.02 “The Lie”
It’s the Creepy Clock Lady!The moment we flashed to that room with the giant pendulum swinging I said to my husband, “That’s Mrs. Hawking!” But I didn’t realize she was going to be in cahoots with Ben. I thought she was going to be Daniel Faraday’s mother, and that this was the woman Desmond was on his way to Oxford to meet up with (wouldn’t THAT be an interesting meeting!) But now the comment she made in “Flashes Before Your Eyes” echoes again, when she tells Desmond that “we” will all die. Does she mean the Others? There’s this network of people Ben is working with to get back to the island, and she’s heading up the team, it appears. I can’t wait to see more of her.
Highlights:
• Hurley saying the island disappeared with a “bloop.”
• “Welcome back, Dr. Wizard.” “I think it’s MISTER Wizard.” “Shut up.”
• The t-shirt Hurley picks out at the variety store.
• Watching Neil writhe in pain. Does that make me a bad person? It was just so bleedin’ funny.
• Mrs Reyes: “Why is there a dead Pakistani on my couch?!”
• Sun sweetly telling Kate that she doesn’t blame her. And then saying, “So... how’s Jack?”
• Hurley telling his mom that Sayid is a good man, but also has a double life where he does crazy ninja moves and spy stuff.
• Hurley’s truth being WAY crazier than the lie, and the look on his mom’s face as he told it. It’s the look I get from non-Lost fans when I start talking about the show. (I feel your pain, Hurley.) But the best part of this scene was that Hurley loves his ma so much he can’t lie to her, and she loves him so much she believes him.
• Hurley throwing the Hot Pocket at Ben. HAHAHA!!
• “I’m a murderer, I killed 4 people. Three people. However many people are dead, I killed them all!”
• The way Locke slumps out of the jungle and then formally says hello to Sawyer and Juliet. “James. Juliet. Nice to see ya.”
Biggest “GASP!” Moments:
• Hurley telling Sayid that someday he’ll need his help and won’t get it. Whoa, dude.
• Ana Lucia... the weird thing is, the moment we saw her torso as it got out of the car, I totally thought it was going to be her.
• “Libby says hi.” Ouch. That was SUCH a painful thing to say.
• Sun was the person Kate was going to see. I was so convinced it was going to be Cassidy (but maybe she’s too busy being Matt Saracen’s mom right now).
• Frogurt getting a fire dart in the chest. Not only did it literally make me gasp, but it was like an homage to Nikki and Paulo: they were super annoying and it took 13 episodes to get rid of them. Frogurt? Just a few scenes. AWESOME.
• Hurley being the only person strong enough to stand up to Ben and finding a quick way to get away from him.
• Ben is in cahoots with the creepy clock lady, Mrs. Hawking.
Hurley’s Numbers:
Ben pulls number 342 at the butcher shop.
Did You Notice?:
• I ended the previous episode by saying we don’t see Lapidus and then, voila, Lapidus. And his entire role is to carry a couple of beers up to the cabin where they’re chatting and to say he’ll go along with anything. Is he being written off the show? You’d think he’d be an important link to the island and an easy target for Widmore.
• The beer he was carrying had a skull and crossbones on it and was called Jekyll Island Red Ale.• In this episode that whooshing sound returns between scenes, maybe because the island is definitely in the past and the Oceanic 6 are definitely in the future.
• Hurley’s face changes subtly when Jack says people will think he’s crazy. Jack seemed to know the exact button to push, and pushed it.
• Wouldn’t Bernard know how to start fire without any matches? He was part of the tail section, who had nothing and somehow survived for 48 days without it.
• Ben storing things in the vent of the hotel room was very No Country for Old Men of him.
• Ben doesn’t answer Jack when he asks if Locke is really dead.
• Papa Reyes is watching Expose, that show Nikki starred in.
• Casa Reyes has the tackiest decor ever. I LOVE it.
• When Ben tells Jill to cut Jack some slack, it just might be the first time we’ve ever seen him defend Jack in any way.
• Charlotte is forgetting things the same way Daniel was.
• Miles doesn’t just talk to human ghosts, but animal ones, since he found the boar probably by sensing him, and the boar somehow “told” him that he had been dead 3 hours.
• Hurley looks like he’s lost a LOT of weight. When he was looking out the window and asking his dad if the cops were on a stakeout, he looked considerably smaller in that polo shirt. They’re going to have to put padding on the guy soon if he keeps this up.
• Hurley manages to sum up the entire series in about 30 seconds... THAT is a feat in itself.
• The woman Ben meets with is the woman who lectures Desmond on course correction in “Flashes Before Your Eyes,” explaining that you can’t go back to change the past, something that echoed in the previous episode with Dr. Chang and Daniel both insisting on the same rule.
So Many Questions...
• This flashforward would take place in December 2007/January 2008. Was gas 3.22 in the US at that time?
• Why isn’t Aaron sitting in a car seat? He’s too little for just a booster.
• What exactly was Ben storing in that vent? He handles it very carefully when putting it into his suitcase. Is it a travel-sized Frozen Donkey Wheel?
• Okay, “Ana Lucia” tells Hurley to take Sayid to someone he trusts, and he takes him to... his DAD? The man who abandoned him when he was a child and only came back when he thought he was a millionaire? The guy who was happily living high on the hog while his son was missing and presumed dead, and is now living happily high on the hog while his son is wasting away in a mental institution? THAT guy? Sigh...
• Who is the woman working in the butcher shop? An Other that is off-island? Why is Ben working with her? Why would she know about Locke?
• Why isn’t the island jumping around in time anymore?
• Why has Sun come to see Kate? Was it really just to tell her she didn’t blame her, or is this part of her quest to find Ben? Find Kate first, then find Jack, and he’ll be with Ben.
• What did Sawyer step on? He’s run around in that jungle barefoot countless times, and now he steps on something? Is it so his character can go into septic shock in the next few episodes and Juliet will valiantly save him and that will be a new ship? Hmm...
• What is Mrs. Hawking doing to try to find the island? Was that Time’s Pendulum swinging in the room?
• Why does she give Ben 70 hours? What will happen if they don’t make it back?
Oops: Ben blows out the match twice at the end of the episode.
UPDATE: My DocArzt column just went live here.
103 comments:
WOW!!! CRAZY PREMIERES!
--We know what the Arrow station was for! Defense?
--As for why the others didn't move and Richard won't recognize Locke, I really believe that since they are native to the island, they move with it (in time), or rather they stay in the same time frame. While the survivors are affected by the island moving. So obviously Locke disappeared to the past, and got shot by Ethan while the natives were still there, to them Locke is the one who disappeared!
--Locke entered the cobweb-filled plane, not the camp. And it did seemed a far into the future, just as they were long in the past (early century) when the British guys held Sawyer and Juliet at gunpoint...
And who was throwing those fiery arrows in EP02, I'm pretty sure it wasn't the Brits?
As for why the others didn't move and Richard won't recognize Locke, I really believe that since they are native to the island, they move with it (in time), or rather they stay in the same time frame.
I agree with this! I think that Faraday's explanation time skipping like on a record is right on. I think that the island itself is on a time loop, like one song on a record. But when it ends, it starts over at the beginning. The Losties (or non-natives of any kind) can skip around within that "song." And maybe what Ben did by pressing the button (by keeping Desmond or someone else pressing the button?) was keeping the non-natives on the same loop as the Island and the natives.
Daniel says you’re not supposed to meet people in the past you didn’t meet before. So did Locke break the rules by meeting Ethan? Was the gunshot wound retribution for him breaking those rules?
Remember how Locke lost the use of his legs when he and Boone found the plane? His getting shot by Ethan is reminiscent of that. I think that might be connected to him getting shot at that place, when he goes back with Boone in a different time the injury comes back to him (a link between time/space). Does that make any sense?
It obvious why Sayid could keep fighting after he got hit by the darts - he's ninja/secret agent!
Why would Jacob have Ben move the island if it was going to kill all of them? Did he know this would be the result? Was it another of Ben's lies (only he went in the cabin after it seemed Locke was the new "favorite").
I hated the whole time travel idea as it's very tired. But at least they can't go back and change the past - "let's go back so we never got on 815 and everyone will be OK!". Still, I hope the "time-jumping" doesn't last all season.
Hey guys! I'm so happy for LOST to be back! It's been far too long!
Season 5 is looking very promising, and I'm fairly certain that this will be the most confusing season yet (but that's the FUN part). I think it was very cool to have the island be jumping through various points in time, and not just the past. I also believe that EVERYTHING on the show (except for the opening with Candle) is happening at the same time. Like I said, confusing, but so entertaining.
I'm interested in seeing why Charlotte's nose is bleeding. Will she suffer from a head seizure type thing like Minkowski?
What happens if the survivors meet themselves in the past? Would that cause some sort of time paradox? Or is it like the whole "Terminator" style of time-travel, where Desmond goes to Oxford because Daniel tells him to, and then he meets Daniel for the first time (last season)? The future cannot exist without the past, and vice versa.
Why do the Dharam Initiative members use flaming arrows? Didn't they have guns to combat the Hostiles?
-As for Sawyer stepping on something, didn't something similar happen to him in Season 3 when he and Kate are walking back to the beach after escaping the smaller island? I remember him stepping on something, so could this be significant to that?
-I'll type more later probably, but let me just say that I am very excited for Ben to stage a jailbreak for Hurley. Gonna be SWEET! This and "The Shield" are absolutely my two favorite shows of all time, and with one gone, I'm so enthralled and excited to see how this baby ends in the next two years!
I'll repeat what my neice texted me right after it was all over...."What. the. frig." LOL
It's going to take me DAYS to absorb all this. What DIDN'T help was that my boyfriend made it home in time to watch it (he's not as addicted but does follow it)...and this is what I had to deal with the ENTIRE time..."what just happened? where are they now? who's that? who are those people? why did that happen? How did Sun get off the island? How did Desmond get off the island? (he didn't rewatch S4)...and EVERY other question that we ALL were probably thinking came out of his mouth. Do you even know the restraint I had to show from yelling "SHUT UP!!!!" Instead, I kept saying quietly, "I don't know. I don't know. I don't KNOW. I'm watching it at the same time as you, I don't KNOW."
Can't wait to rewatch it hopefully ALONE! LOL!!!
Ugh, anyway, I LOVED the episodes. And as someone already started to do, there are SO many things to connect to the past. It's like we've been given puzzle pieces that fit with older pieces but together have created more puzzles!
And I just asked my collegue who teaches physics if he watched and he did so we'll have to discuss at lunch. But the one thing he did say quickly was "real physics? gone...no longer applies to the show." LOL
lol...Nikki you wrote "Paik giving Sun the verbal smackdown..." But it was Widmore. Maybe you need some sleep.
Hello, everyone. I've not been this excited since... well, since I saw the second season of Life on Mars (original BBC show, of course) on sale for 20 bucks at K-Mart. Over the last week I've watched all 4 previous season in preparation for the season 5 premiere, and I'm glad I did.
Some thoughts and responses to the multitude of questions raised by these episodes (and just for the record, I loved the premiere):
- Where do all the people in the raft disappear to when Daniel joins the others on the island? Did he just ditch them in the jungle?
If you look closely when you see Daniel still on the raft when he says "We must have been inside the radius", the person he's sitting next to is Frogurt (thank the Great Pumpkin he's gone), so I assume the rest of the red-shirts on the raft make it back with him and Daniel. (also, notice how many red-shirts there were still on the island when they first got back to camp? Many more than you see in the final ep of S4. GO RED-SHIRTS!)
- Does Sun want Ben dead because he’s the other person she blames for Jin’s death?
I thought it was Jack she blamed, but as you say in your second ep comments, Nik, "Sun sweetly telling Kate that she doesn’t blame her. And then saying, “So... how’s Jack?” I think, after watching Sun and interpreting her expression as barely surpressed malevolence, that she blames Kate.
- Wouldn’t Bernard know how to start fire without any matches?
Minor point, but he's the only one that actually does achieve a flame in the ep. He blows it out, sure, but after many hours he lit that effer, if only for a second.
- Okay, “Ana Lucia” tells Hurley to take Sayid to someone he trusts, and he takes him to... his DAD?
No, he goes to his mum's house. His dad just happens to be living there now after a really long separation (Carmen has needs, after all). All boys run for their mother in times of trouble. Trust me, I know.
- Why isn’t the island jumping around in time anymore?
We don't know that it isn't. In fact, I'm pretty sure that it isn't. We've only seen 2 episodes, remember. It's easy to get carried away with speculation and theories, but you always have to remember that we've only been given the slightest glimpse of a sliver of the entire series. I expect more jumps. Maybe many more.
Another point - who the hell were the cammo dudes that threatened Sawyer and Juliette that Locked knifed? They were in khaki, they looked like soldiers. Who the hell were they? My girlfriend speculated twice on them, that one was Widmore (before he lost the island), then she changed her mind and said it might be Charlotte's dad. I don't agree, but it was an interesting theory, nonetheless. What say all of you? I don't subscribe, but I'd be interested in your responses, goodly NikatNite readers.
PS. Oh yeah, @tsavonglah, I meant to point that out, too. Oops! Wrong evil dude, Nik. :)
@Annonymous
Remember how Locke lost the use of his legs when he and Boone found the plane? His getting shot by Ethan is reminiscent of that. I think that might be connected to him getting shot at that place, when he goes back with Boone in a different time the injury comes back to him (a link between time/space). Does that make any sense?
It makes sense, but I don't think that it's the case. What I think it happened is that, just as for Desmond, the rules don't apply to the Natives (Richard, Ethan et al.) So they can 'interact' with different timshifting individuals (i.e. Locke).
But what I don't get is how Jones (the Brit army guy) can interact with Sawyer and Juliet and then be killed by Locke! That would be breaking the rules unless either of them were Natives?
I'll have to see more and think more!
@Brandon
Why do the Dharam Initiative members use flaming arrows? Didn't they have guns to combat the Hostiles?
I think it was either the Natives/Hostiles or another older group. Right after they escape, the Brit soldiers catch Sawyer and Juliet and their equipment (i.e. guns and uniforms) seem older, as in before Dharma's time.
First of all, belated congrats on the Doc Arzt posting :) Also, I am constantly impressed and amazed how you could blog with so much detail shortly after the shows. Nikki is da Man LOL
Wow, there was so much going on I don't know where to start!
Favorite moments of both shows:
- just seeing the Oceanic 6 cross paths so often does the heart good, 70 hours in Lost time to get back to the island could mean a few episodes or the entire season! LOL
- Hurley keeping it light, favorite joke was the comfort food one with Sayid!
- Kickass Sun, how far she's come baby! All I can say is Jin BETTER BE ALIVE, THAT REUNION IS OWED TO US!
- I am so glad that Kate's promise to Sun to get Jin was dealt with, I was always bothered that not only Jack forced them to get on the copter but Kate had something to do with it too (even though I guess it wasn't her fault)
- Jack seeing his "comeuppance" and that Locke was right (so far) all along...weren't we all waiting for his high and mighty ass to be smacked? LOL
- speaking of getting smarmy ass kicked, Frogurt, you bombastic idiot LOL
- Juliet and Sawyer, powercouple??? Seems they had a lot more chemistry than I thought
- seeing Desmond come out of the hatch WTF??? :)
- seeing our old friends Ethan and Ana Lucia...boy that Ethan must set a record for post death appearances!
Questions:
Boy you covered them Nikki!
I do have a few silly nitpicks
- When the Oceanic 6 were on the raft, I assume they didn't have anything like water with them...would they not have gotten dehydrated after 6 hours in the heat, especially poor Aaron?
- this island travel thing confuses the hell out of me how some people can remember and some people cannot remember after the flash...hurts my brain...Locke and Daniel both broke Daniel's rule of meeting Ethan and Desmond when they weren't supposed to...I still don't really get that, especially after Daniel gave Sawyer that lecture at the hatch
- if the future course corrects, what does it matter about the Oceanic 6 getting back or not, won't the future end up to be the same anyways? What is the rush?
- if Daniel supposedly loves Charlotte so much, why is he so cavalier about her nosebleed when he knows that it could be deadly???
- if the island jumps back in time, will we get to see our beloved characters who died, Boone, Shannon, Mr. Eko? Or is it for the same weird reason some people show up and others don't? More interestingly, will the characters see former versions of themselves (now that would be REALLY bizarre)
- Is John Locke really dead? Most think he'll be resurrected obviously on the island, but it seems Alpert knows this already
- I thought Jack lost his privileges at the hospital with his binging and boozing, he just strolls casually into the hospital and treats Sayid without anyone noticing?
LOVE LOVE LOVE LOST, I am so glad it is back. We were all sad during the hiatus, Nikki, Because You Left. It's No Lie! :)
Great double-ep premiere. I just wanted it to keep going!
What I don't get (well, one of the things I don't get) is after Faraday talks to Desmond in the past, telling him to go to Oxford, we see Des waking up three years after the "rescue" with that memory. Why would he remember it for the first time then? Why not when he was on the original rescue boat with Penny & the Oceanic 6?
oh! my other question: why did Sun show Kate a baby picture of Ji Yeon? She would be much older three-years post rescue.
I really enjoyed the first couple of Lost books, Nikki, and finally started following your blog just recently. But I'm sure it's an even better experience reading your posts week-by-week and getting to join in the discussion.
Very long post ahead!
My favorite lines:
Locke: "What does [the compass] do?" // Richard: "It points North, John."
Sawyer calling Charlotte "Ginger". A gimme, I know, but still funny... (I confess to not getting why Neil is "Frogurt", though. Does he just seem like a frozen-yogurt-eating yuppie?)
Ana Lucia: "Oh yeah... Libby says Hi." I think I literally laughed out loud. I get why you called this "a painful thing to say", Nikki, and it could be, but I don't think it was meant or taken that way. Hurley is clearly coming to terms with these visitations, taking them seriously, and I think he finds the message heartwarming.
Sayid to Hurley: "Whatever Ben says, do the opposite." And it took them how long to figure this out? 8^) (The trick to Ben, actually, is that -- like the Devil -- he tells you the truth when it suits his grander plan, and anytime he's trying to manipulate you through lies he throws in enough truth to make it believable.)
Hurley to unconscious Sayid, when he takes his cash: "I promise to pay you back, dude." This is perfectly funny on its own, but a real character reinforcement given that we've seen Hurley swear not to help Sayid when he needs it, and then immediately transition to him racing to find some way to save Sayid's life. (You don't promise to pay back a mortal enemy for taking cash to buy a change of clothes that will help you both evade capture, or, then again, if you're Hurley, maybe you do.)
Three Years Earlier:
I found this card, as we moved back to the "now" of the island, interesting. We know, if we remember, that the latest we've gone in the flash-forwards, to the point of Ben telling Jack get the band back together, is about three years after the rescue of the Oceanic Six. And I did both hope and assume that we'd travel back to right after their rescue on the island, keeping our POV timeline consistent rather than jumping ahead there for some reason. But I chuckled that it was necessary that the narrative cut from Ben turning the Frozen Donkey Wheel to the action on the surface rather than follow Ben out into Tunisia, because there it wouldn't have been three years earlier anymore; Sayid had already married and just lost Nadia.
So it looks like we have a pair of baseline POV timeframes.
The on-island one is what it always was, now up to mid 2005 since at Christian's funeral Jack mentioned that he'd been writing the eulogy in Australia ten months ago -- and this will likely progress episode by episode the same way it always has, though the situation is so dire I imagine we'll be picking up the baseline island story the minute after the previous episode ends much more often than picking up a few days after, as might have been the case in the past. And of course that timeframe is now based on the characters' biological or perceptual passage of time; it's not Day X on the beach and so forth.
Of course, the on-island POV could easily end up skipping ahead if a status quo settles in for good or ill -- seems it would be the latter -- and the producers want the island survivors' perceptual timeframe to match that of the off-islanders when and if the off-islanders return; we could skip months or more of dire existence, say, between Locke's departure and his return with the Oceanic Six-Plus as the corpse of Jeremy Bentham.
The off-island baseline is where we spent the bulk of the premiere episodes, with Jack and Ben planning to go back, Hurley getting arrested, Sayid just revived by Jack, Kate on the lam from the blood test, Sun having met Kate after seeing Widmore, and Desmond heading to Oxford, hopefully with Penny's support and companionship so that he doesn't renege on his promise never to leave her again. While all this is three years after the rescue, sometime in 2008 and thus in the future of the on-island narrative -- our only main narrative before the bifurcation that occurred with the rescue -- it's still in the past of the real world, albeit the recent past, and so there's some room for the show to flash forward ever so slightly to tease us with fragments of the Oceanic Six's future progress or lack thereof in returning to the island, while still not venturing to our actual calendar future, not that setting scenes later in 2009 really sets up factual conflicts with the real world that would disturb the contextual believability of the story, especially if the scenes take place on the island. (I should mention that I'm known for my run-on sentences.)
Flashes back if not forward are still apparently in store, like the cold open with Dr. Chang Halliwax Candle last night, but now that there are two main narrative threads in two separate time periods, not just different storylines running on different parts of the island as in previous seasons, it would behoove Darlton and friends not to cram too many time periods into a single episode, for the sake of narrative strength and any remaining viewers who get turned off by that stuff. And it's possible that we'll get more backstory through time-shifting on the island, as you mentioned, Nikki; I'm with you on the continued curiosity about Danielle's party, although I never warmed to her character and found the quick, brutal loss of Alex much more shocking.
Other stuff that made me think:
Perhaps the first shock for me was Ben asking Jack if Locke had told him the bad things that ensued on the island, and when Jack says no Ben replying, "Then I guess we'll never know what happened." I suppose that Ben isn't expecting Locke to be revived on the island, then, or that if he is he either won't be able to recall or will become an enigmatic Voice of the Island like Christian. As you pointed out, Nikki, much later in the premiere Jack asks Ben if Locke is really dead and we don't get an answer, although it's possible that this is less because the answer is complicated than because Ben, or the show, is being dramatic.
I confess that my first thoughts on why the Others didn't shift in time with Locke, while the survivors and science team all moved together, were farther afield than they had to be. The answer probably lies in their ties to the island as natives or something similar, as others have commented. But I noticed that the only things that traveled with the survivors were what they were in contact with, and when Faraday said that the beach shelters hadn't been built yet I wondered if Richard and friends had themselves been built. We've seen Others bleed and die, of course, but it's possible that those were only recruits and not founding robotic Others, and it's also possible that they're akin to Cylon skinjobs yet somehow not quite organic enough to be time-tossed the way the human survivors were; these are the kind of almost surely irrelevant suppositions on which Lost can send you.
When Miles said he'd go find food I figured he'd be guided by ghosts of people, but the answer was more obvious and quite funny when he matter-of-factly stated how long the boar had been dead. This made me wonder whether we've ever seen evidence of animals not mortally wounded being healed by the island, and from there revisit the debate of whether the island has blanket healing powers that only get cut off when one falls from its graces or whether every act of healing or lack thereof is some kind of conscious decision by its guiding forces. I also had to question why, other than Kate's horse -- which was a manifestation and not a ghost of something that died on the island -- we haven't to my memory seen any animals in post-death ambulation the way we have people like Christian; it sure would've been cool to see Claire petting the polar bear when Locke saw her and Christian in the cabin.
I don't know for sure why the island has stopped jumping around in time, Nikki -- if it indeed has, as opposed to just slowing. There are rules of three in comedy and storytelling in general, though, and it's an elegantly odd number. I figure the island took a hop, a skip, and a jump to get where it is, but the magnitude of the swings it took through time each shift don't necessarily match up with those descriptions.
WOW!!!!
WOO HOO! LOST IS BACK!
While watching the episode...
I think it's to convinient that Ben didn't answer the "Is he dead?" question to Jack and they refrenced Nikki and Paulo kind of twice.
What if Locke isn't really dead, but bitten by one of the spiders? and Ben keeps him in that state (having someone look after his body, etc)?
Just a thought... as soon as Expose' came on I screamed "Spiders! Commercial break! Spiders!"
Maybe?
Great episode though! I totes knew that the Arrow had another purpose! :) Sooo glad this show is back! Great commentary on it, Nikki!!!
--Lauren
My friend Mac and I couldn't help but compare Sayid's "dishwasher kill" with the amazing rope-bound, two-legged neck-snapping from Season 3 (or, the "scissorkill", as I've been known to call it). Mac was more on the fence than I, but despite instantly high marks for brutality and creativity (creatality? brutivity?), I still have to give the advantage to the scissorkill as our favorite Iraqi's finest ninja move to date.
Benny & Brandon -- I think it was the Others, living up to their name as the Hostiles, shooting the flaming arrows, not Dharma.
Anonymous -- That's a great point about the gunshot wound Locke receives from Ethan (last night) echoing sympathetically when Locke and Boone find the plane in Locke's personal past and the future of that geographic location (Season 1). I'm not sure whether this reinforces or disproves the theories about events on the island always happening at the same time; maybe it does both.
thanks for these recaps, Nikki. I thought my head was going to implode by watching these two episodes last night. I find it very difficult to "digest" the time-travel on this show. ugh. I'll keep watching though, even if I don't understand what the heck is going on!
about the theory that locke is not dead as posted by theothers108 above: I thought that too! the look on Ben's face when Jack asked him 'hmmm isn't he dead?'... and then, to take the casket to a butcher shop of all places, to keep his body cold maybe?
Whew! It's only 9 a.m. and I already have about 3000 words in posts that I have to respond to. Yay!!
I always go to bed thinking, "Okay, I think I covered most of it," and then the next morning see the first comment that says, "so who were throwing those fiery darts?" Duh... I forget to ask the obvious questions.
Benny: I think those guys who capture Juliet and Sawyer in the jungle are the ones who'd shot the darts, and they were Dharma (you could tell by the jumpsuits). I couldn't make out the I Ching symbols but I'm assuming they were there. The nametags were the same. Were they the same ones lobbing the arrows? Well, since the Arrow station was used for defense, maybe it was called that because they defend the island using... arrows?
TIME QUESTION FOR MY PHYSICS READERS: So here is the gist: Locke moves, the Others are gone. They seem to move differently. I suggest after seeing last night's episodes that Richard isn't exactly human, but is an extension of the island, one of its many mouthpieces, which is why he doesn't age. He was probably killed decades (centuries?) ago, and therefore is preserved the age he died, just like Christian Shephard. So... what is moving in time? Just the survivors? Daniel made it sound like the island itself was unstuck in time, and therefore everyone on it has to move with it. So if the Others are actually part of the island itself, wouldn't they also be moving with it? Why would they be staying in one time zone if the actual ISLAND isn't?
(It's these questions that literally keep me awake until 2 in the morning after a Lost ep.)
Anonymous: I'm intrigued by your explanation, but still confused... (see question above). So the island is playing one song, and the natives are along for the ride, but the non-natives are somehow jumping around within that song, like Groundhog Day, playing out events? Is it because they're not endemic to the island the way the Others are?
The only thing that hurts this theory is the fact that the island literally disappeared, which means IT is moving in time, and not just the people on it. So why are the survivors moving differently than the island and the natives?
Tim Alan: Yes, you're right, they've added that caveat in the same way the genie says to Aladdin that he can't wish for more wishes. The obvious solution has to be eliminated in some way.
Brandon: Yes, I think it'll be like "The Constant." Maybe when Sawyer was banging on the door Desmond didn't open it because, quite simply, he wasn't "meant" to do it. So something in him told him not to do it. But yes, going back in time and seeing yourself would be a bit of a conundrum, but maybe somehow this whole process has an internal "course corrector" that prevents that from happening.
Jazzygirl: Boyfriend = BANNED. ;) I've had those experiences before, and I feel your pain!! I should make a note here that my husband HATES watching the shows with me, because I occasionally (ok, more than occasionally) jump it back to hear it one more time so I can write it down on the first viewing and it drives him nuts. So I try to limit how many times I do that, which makes the second viewing a necessity.
Fan-freaking-tastic! Absolutely amazing start to Season 5 - I am really glad that they got the "sneak peek" scenes out of the way early so that we could concentrate on ... having our minds warped.
And so it goes ... here are some things that jumped out at me:
1) Dr. Chang acts with what seems to be sure foreknowledge of what they have found behind the wall. He doesn't blink an eye at what is obviously a man-made device showing up on the scan. But - how does he gain this knowledge? We suspect from the Comic-Con video that he meets Faraday. But when? As he departs the Orchid construction site, he bumps into Faraday - who clearly hides his face from Chang. Faraday doesn't want Chang to recognize him -they've already met!
2) Sayid fighting the assassins at the motel (which looks like the same location they shot Locke's rendezvous with Cooper back-in-the-day) - he seems to have superhuman strength to resist those darts, especially if they are anything like the ones we see the Others use on Jack/Kate/Sawyer, etc. This reminds me of Ethan's superhuman ninja abilities ... and Ben's fighting skills. AND, when Sayid pushes the assassin onto the dishwasher knives, the guy kicks at Sayid's legs ... and we see that Sayid's right leg appears to have an aluminum shaft! Whoa, dude! When did THAT happen?
3) Who sent the lawyers to Kate's? Someone who wants her on the run for their own purposes. I think it was Sun - it's too coincidental that she is in L.A. "on business" and contacts Kate, asking her "ARE you alright?" Sun is now acting with devious calm.
4) I agree with Anonymous that Locke's leg wound is twinned with his previous (oops, I mean LATER) injury at the Beechcraft crash site. Like Alpert says, "What goes around comes around". But, if Ethan has met Locke (shotgun introduction) ... he will remember him later, when he insinuates himself into the 815 survivor camp. More rewatching to come!
5) There are RULES. I realize that Faraday's emphasis on this helps us (and the survivors) through the time jumps .... but it gets repeated a LOT. And yet, Ben pointed out that someone (presumably Widmore) "changed The Rules". Since Faraday and Desmond have now met in each others' past ... why doesn't Desmond recognize Faraday when WE first see them meet? Is this a simple ripple that will be course-corrected? And, why is Desmond "ultra-special"? I think this is a big key to the puzzle, somehow. Walt is special. Locke is special. Aaron is special. Desmond is ULTRA special?
6) Speaking of which, Faraday's memory started improving after he met Desmond and realized that he was his Constant. He has been acting with increasing confidence since that time ... and now he is the Man with The Plan. He even LOOKS different. After Desmond met him at Oxford and Faraday subsequently experimented with consciousness-shifting ... did he visit the island THEN, too?
7) I had been wondering about the seeming group off-island that was influencing the paths of our beloved Losties. I've speculated that Abbadon and Mrs. Hawking were somehow connected. Now, we see Ben checking in with this network. Is Richard a part of this group as well? And, how are the Dead People involved? We've watched individuals see/meet dead characters ... but Anna Lucia's comment to Hurley is the first time I can recall one "illusion" referencing another. "Libby says hi." Wow. W-O-W.
8) Hurley's remark to Sayid that someday he will need his help but "won't get it" is reminiscent of Sayid remarking that the "day (he) works for Benjamin Linus" is the day that he will have sold his soul. Be careful what you promise yourself...
9) Ben's package. We assume that Ben's conversation in the butcher shop refers to Locke's coffin (and it may). What if it also refers to whatever is in that package. "Keep (it/him) safe". Clearly, it's key to the return to the island.
10) Rewatching prior episodes has proven to be a rich source of new meaning thus far. Given the Season 5 start, it may now be MANDATORY to get the fullest sense of what is going on. Locke's leg wound, Sawyer's foot puncture ... what ELSE is happening (again)? And why?
Bonus: "Shotgun Willie" (1973) was the first of Willie Nelson's 'Outlaw' country records. He had broken away from the narrow confines of the Nashville country music scene and set out to do record music that he felt was truer to country's roots and his own muse. He .. changed the rules.
Unbelievable start to the season. Encore!
tsavonglah: For the record, I TOTALLY wrote Widmore there. I had no idea what happened, until I went into my log records and discovered that Paik had hacked into my computer and put his own name there!! This is totally true. Would I lie? ;)
Okay, you're right. I need sleep.
batcabbage: I never get tired of your screen name. :) Oh, I wasn't suggesting that Daniel threw the redshirts overboard (if you look at my did you notice section, I say that Frogurt was there in the raft with him). I just couldn't figure out why they didn't accompany him to join the others.
Hmm... I'm still not sure she blames Kate. I think she's not a huge FAN of Kate, and wants her to feel the pain of what she did (which is why she chooses the words she did -- "you made your choice") but I heard her words as, "No, I don't blame you. So... how's the guy I DO blame?" But since we see her talking to Widmore and saying she wants to kill Ben, I think she figures if she goes to Kate (and sprinkles a little pain there first), then she'll find Jack (whom she'll screw over in some colossal way that might actually be a wee bit fun to watch), and with Jack will be Ben.
As for the Bernard starting a fire thing, I typed that while watching the ep, and forgot to go back to delete it after he DID start the fire. Maybe I'll do that now. But that said, I think he would have started a fire a bit quicker than he did. If it took the tail section 8 hours to start a fire every time they needed one, their hands would have been bleeding and raw and they would have starved to death. You'd think after 48 days he would have been an expert, starting the flame in mere minutes.
You're right: Hurley does go to his mom's house. But he doesn't look surprised when his dad opens the door, nor does he say, "Is mom home?" I think he still trusts both parents, which is because Hurley has a big heart and forgives easily (See: Jarrah, Sayid).
I also think the island will continue jumping: My question was simply, why didn't it jump in this episode (all of my questions are presumed to be for that episode only). It jumped every 5 minutes up until then, and then... stopped. Why?
And again, I think those guys were Dharma, from the Dharma Arrow station.
Benny: Interesting theories on the Brit soldier guys. It would be interesting if they pre-dated Dharma and Dharma just sort of took their fashion sense when making their jumpsuits (LOL!) But maybe you're right. What if there was a civilization there BEFORE Dharma and Dharma basically just overtook them and then took their ideas for stations, etc. Maybe they were actually built by this previous civilization.
Speaking of previous civilizations, how many people were really hoping Radzinsky was going to answer the door of the Swan station??
Roland! Good to see you. :) Good question about the course correction. I'm thinking the island's temporal issues could course correct certain people who were never meant to be there. Maybe Charlotte could die and that's course correcting her coming to the island in the first place or something. (That's just an example, not something I think will happen necessarily... especially since, of all people, I think she really was there before.) What if Charlotte and Daniel both existed on the island at another time and were meant to be there at that time and not now? The island could kill them both to make up for it.
Yeah, I thought Jack being in the hospital was weird, too. Maybe he knew of a ward where no one goes or something. :) Or he still has some friends "on the inside."
Crissy dahling: I wonder if by going back it sparks the memory, even though it "always happened," the memory of it is dormant? So, in The Constant, Desmond and Daniel have no memory of each other, but afterwards, they look at each other knowingly, full of the memories of what happened between them in 1996 (and only then does Daniel go to his journal to see the note he'd jotted about Desmond). Similarly, that memory of Desmond's will only flash to him now, and not before? Just a thought.
I wondered the same thing about the baby pic! Maybe that baby was under contract to make 2 appearances on the show. HA! Actually, I'm wondering if it's something deeper and there's a reason they won't show an older Ji Yeon. Last season in the finale, she talks to her on the phone but we don't see her at all. It seems a little suspicious they're hiding her like that.
Re: the Jekyll Island Red Ale:
There is an island off the coast of GA called Jekyll Island. I've vacationed there.
Here is a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jekyll_Island
There was a brewery on the Island in the 1730's.
The Island was originally populated by Native Americans, then controlled by Spain, then France, then Spain again and finally the British. Then became part of the United States.
It's now a protected Island in that development is severely restricted in order to protect the naturally occurring ecosystem and wildlife.
I don't pretend to completely get why, if the Island moved in time (and probably space as well), the survivors are moving out of sync with the presumed-native Others and the island itself, Nikki.
But I think the point is exactly, that: They're out of sync. It don't mean the island ain't moving (or didn't move, past tense) too, just that it's a bumpier ride for the visitors; perhaps they're the ones still skipping while the island has settled -- and the more I think about it this way, the less it feels like there's no satisfying explanation. When something is moved, any parts that are fastened to it, as the natives might be spiritually (for lack of a better word), goes with it wholly, but something only tenuously attached to it will be jostled, like keys on a chain or boxes in a moving van; the survivors are the boxes and the Others are the shelving or rivets or whatever.
I think that Richard, et al. are in harmony with the island while the visitors are discordant. When you're resonating with the frequency of the island, whether you can only do so by birthright or it's something that can be learned, perhaps then you're able to project yourself along those waves, either wholly or in a resonant wave or echo, and perhaps that's how seemingly ageless Others like Richard have shown up off-island in the past. I'm just spitballing with that, though, and I apologize for cloyingly prolonging the song analogy you and Anonymous used (the harmony thing came up for me independent of that). Music is awfully tied to physics, y'know.
Blam: Welcome to the blog, and I'm glad you've enjoyed the books!
Oh, I LOVED that remark about the compass. Can't believe I forgot to write that one down (I was probably busily typing the bit about it being the same compass as years earlier). That was so funny.
As for "Frogurt": In the episode, S.O.S., Bernard is trying to round up troops who will help him make the SOS sign in the sand. He says to Hurley to round up people, and says, "Oh, and get Frogurt, the guy who owns the frozen yogurt company." Hurley says, "You mean Neil?" Some fans commented to Darlton that we never actually see Frogurt, so they put him into one of the mobisodes that aired before season 4, and he was annoying and rude. So when I saw him here I thought, Oh CRAP, they're doing the Nikki and Paulo thing again. And then... they killed him. Wheeee!
You're probably right about the Libby says Hi bit, and I don't think AL meant any harm by it, but in the midst of Hurley's mental breakdown and all of this stressful stuff happening, I felt like it was the last thing he needed. ;)
I LOVED that Hurley promised to pay back an unconscious Sayid. How much do I love Hurley? I don't have enough words. :)
I think the shift away from obvious flashbacks and flashforwards is definitely on purpose. Just as the island is moving through time, the writers now expect us to know what is the future, past, etc. without any visual or aural clues, and it's like it's all happening at the same time (just like in Slaughterhouse-Five, a book they evoke on the show all the time).
Lauren: :::shudder::: I'd hate to think Locke's in some kind of Nikki-like stasis, but maybe you're absolutely right!
joshua: And the funny thing about both kills is that Hurley is standing there for both of them. Remember his reaction to the first one? He wouldn't cross Sayid for all the lottery tickets in the world. I'm sure this second one has him just as creeped out. :)
humanebean: Dr. Chang. Really good point. In the Comic-Con video you can tell there's something between Daniel and Chang. Did Daniel go back in time and inform Chang of what will happen? Are both of them time travellers? Is Chang evil (I'd believe it) and he's the bad guy trying to get to this energy before Daniel? Did Daniel do something to prevent that from happening?? I can't wait to get a Daniel-centric episode. :)
Aluminum leg?! How did I miss that?? I'll have to go back and find it.
Ooh, good idea about Sun and the blood samples. Someone had mentioned on my blog when that clip originally went up that it might have been Jack as a way to scare her back to the island, and that would be pretty devious, too. But the Sun thing definitely is a possibility!
Re: The Rules, and Widmore changing the rules. That's exactly what I speculated in my book: that maybe Ben's been travelling through time, and has seen this scene with Alex play out before (or he's been with Alex at some point in the future) and knows that Widmore changed the rules. If that's the case, how will the island course correct to make up for Alex's death? Could Aaron's birth have been the event that Alex's death was correcting?
Re: Faraday's confidence: I agree he's shown a lot more confidence, but he was still jittery and had that trademark way of talking right up to the end, and now he's very calm and laid-back, as if Jeremy Davies is consciously trying to change the character.
10) I wonder if Sayid's leg and Sawyer's foot puncture have any relation to the fact Daniel's foot is missing in the cast photo?
Awesome note on Willie! :)
KeepingAwake: Oh, I know lots about Jekyll Island. There's a long-time family friend who goes there every year with her husband to a cottage. Apparently this year the weather is lousy. ;) I was pleasantly surprised to see the name of the lager, which is why I posted the pic of it. :)
Blam: Excellent explanation, thanks! I think you're on to something. If the natives are part of the island, then, like grooves in a record, they stay part of it. But the non-natives are more like the record needle, bouncing around and not staying attached to it. Is that sort of what you're saying? I like it!
• How does the island move and the camp not exist? Why doesn’t the island exist in the present? (i.e. when Ben moved the island, it disappeared physically, yet Daniel suggests it’s moving temporally... if it’s moving through time, wouldn’t it still also exist in all the other times?)
My understanding is that Ben moved the island to a new spacial location in the present. The people on the island became unhinged in time and are bouncing back to the past and the present, much like Desmond's consciousness was in "The Constant."
• Why did the Others disappear and leave Locke alone? When Sawyer and company travel through time, they travel together and don’t break apart, but the Others don’t stay with Locke. Are they living in a different time than regular people? Is that why Richard never ages?
Maybe because the Others have been there on the island longer?
• Why were Rose and Bernard separated, but Juliet and Sawyer stayed together? Did it have anything to do with Rose’s cancer? Notice both she and Locke were separated from others when it happened, and both had been healed by the island.
Rose and Bernard weren't together when the event happened, but whent hey saw camp disappear, they became concerned for each other.
• Where do all the people in the raft disappear to when Daniel joins the others on the island? Did he just ditch them in the jungle?
They stayed on the beach with Rose, Bernard, Frogurt, and the other extras.
• Daniel says you’re not supposed to meet people in the past you didn’t meet before. So did Locke break the rules by meeting Ethan? Was the gunshot wound retribution for him breaking those rules?
What's Daniel saying is that if it didn't happen, then it won't happen. Since Desmond never met Sawyer before the plane crash, he won't meet Sawyer when he was banging on the hatch (although it is somewhat arrogant of him to assume that's the case, but I digress). Anyway, we don't know anything that contradicts Ethan meeting Locke.
• Does Sun want Ben dead because he’s the other person she blames for Jin’s death?
How does Sun know Ben is responsible for the freighter blowing up? Well, assuming that's why he wants her dead. The only people that know that are Ben and Locke. She couldn't have known this at the time she had that conversation with her father unless Locke got off the island earlier than we think.
• How did Richard Alpert know what was going to happen next? Is he actually some sort of manifestation of the island and not a person at all?
Alpert know what was going to happen next because sometime in his past and Locke's future, they will meet again and Locke will tell him what happened.
• Did the people in the Swan station hear Sawyer banging on the door even if they didn’t open it?
Desmond's comment of banging for twenty minutes would indicate this.
• Why is Charlotte’s nose bleeding and no one else’s is? Will they all start having these effects and she’s the first to get it?
Remember, Minkowski's buddy died before Minkowski did, so I think it's safe to say Charlotte is just the first to experience symptoms.
• Will the island jumping in time be a way for us to see some deceased characters? Will Rousseau’s story, for example, be told when the characters encounter her in the past?
I'd bet on it!
• The moment we flashed to that room with the giant pendulum swinging I said to my husband, “That’s Mrs. Hawking!” But I didn’t realize she was going to be in cahoots with Ben. I thought she was going to be Daniel Faraday’s mother, and that this was the woman Desmond was on his way to Oxford to meet up with (wouldn’t THAT be an interesting meeting!) But now the comment she made in “Flashes Before Your Eyes” echoes again, when she tells Desmond that “we” will all die. Does she mean the Others? There’s this network of people Ben is working with to get back to the island, and she’s heading up the team, it appears. I can’t wait to see more of her.
I said the same thing. Also, can't she still be Faraday's mother too? Especially on this show.
• Okay, “Ana Lucia” tells Hurley to take Sayid to someone he trusts, and he takes him to... his DAD? The man who abandoned him when he was a child and only came back when he thought he was a millionaire? The guy who was happily living high on the hog while his son was missing and presumed dead, and is now living happily high on the hog while his son is wasting away in a mental institution? THAT guy? Sigh...
They made up, sorta. And this is Hurley we're talking about.
Brian: By "the present" do you mean the present-day of the Oceanic 6, where they're now trying to get back to the island? Interesting theory! And in that case, those who are non-native to the island are having a rougher time of things because the time travel is forcing them to jump back and forth, rather than just forth, and the Others are just existing in a more linear sense, meeting them along the way. I wonder why Daniel's having a rough go of it, too, though... he was once on the island, and has time travelled a lot.
What contradicts Ethan meeting Locke is that Locke doesn't know Ethan when he first sees him in season 1, and vice versa. If Locke is technically going back in time, does that mean he should have had a memory of this guy in 2004?
How does Sun know Ben is responsible for the freighter blowing up?
IS Ben responsible for the freighter blowing up? It was Widmore who sent Keamy, who set up the C4. Ben killed Keamy, forcing the bomb to go off, but it was Widmore who put everything in place for that to happen. I don't think Sun knows the specifics -- that Ben killed Keamy -- but she knows the generalities. And when she appears to be in cahoots with Widmore, I'm thinking it's to eventually bring him down. And maybe "Jeremy Bentham" really did visit her and tell her what happened, though I'm not sure what his motivation would have been to do so.
I never said Hawking can't still be Faraday's mother. In fact, I really do believe she still is.
Man, was I the ONLY one who thought it was EXTREMELY effed up when at the end of Hurley's little "delusion" with Ana Lucia, she says to him, "Oh, and Libby says hi."?
That was just too entirely WRONG, which might be why I liked it.
Nikki, great post, and it's so good to have LOST back. I got my mom watching it with me now, and we had a series marathon about a month before and WOW...I had forgotten how much stuff I missed or just never never noticed before, which actually helped with the viewing of the Season 5 opener...although....
....you mentioned that Locke was at the camp and speculated that the island might have traveled in to the future at that point...but I thought he had found the cabin again....and was that a skeleton we saw there??
Crap. Gotta go. The sky's going white again and I smell a time--
*BLOOP*
> TIME QUESTION FOR MY PHYSICS READERS: So here is the gist: Locke moves, the Others are gone. They seem to move differently. I suggest after seeing last night's episodes that Richard isn't exactly human, but is an extension of the island, one of its many mouthpieces, which is why he doesn't age. He was probably killed decades (centuries?) ago, and therefore is preserved the age he died, just like Christian Shephard. So... what is moving in time? Just the survivors? Daniel made it sound like the island itself was unstuck in time, and therefore everyone on it has to move with it. So if the Others are actually part of the island itself, wouldn't they also be moving with it? Why would they be staying in one time zone if the actual ISLAND isn't?
Daniel said that the island MAY be moving through time, or the survivors/science team may be. I think it is the latter case myself.
Adam and Eve: Obviously the evidence is thin, but my hunch is that Adam and Eve are Locke and Charlotte. After all, they are the two characters who have been presented as "coming home."
Widmore/Sun: I agree with your last remark, Nikki; I also think that Sun thinks Widmore is the other person responsible. But she also wants to know where the island is, in case Jin is still alive somehow. So she's playing Widmore.
Losties/Natives Jumping: I know this is out in left field, but recall that Faraday asked in the Constant whether Desmond had experienced an electromagnetic event. It could be that given their proximity to the hatch, the losties have a greater proclivity to time jumping than the natives, who were not near, and who may otherwise have properties that render them immune from jumping.
Rule changing: Perhaps Widmore changed to rules to allow someone in his race to find the island. This is why Ben thought Alex wouldn't be killed, and why Desmond is special. But again, this is a long shot.
I'd really like to know who the other person Sun blames for Jin's death. From the episode it sounds like Ben, since she says she wants to kill him. But I really wonder, especially since last season Jack says at the funeral home that Sun "blames me for..." I personally theorize that she is working for Ben and is playing Charles Widmore...
Brian:
I'm no physics expert, but I noticed that the island moved to another time but the camp didn't follow. The camp was put on the island after a said event, this being the crash, so it couldn't follow them all to the new place in this "displaced" time (and technically, the survivors wouldn't have followed either, but i digress....)
So maybe the "others" showed up on the island AFTER the crash? Or maybe I should say, the others showed up IN THAT FORM on the island after the crash??
Hmmmmm?
so maybe the baby that dr chang is feeding is miles..........he said something to charlotte about how long it took people to find them before
Here's a quick theory about the Rules.
Could it be that by the Rules Ben, Chang and Daniel talk about are the same. The Rules of time/time-travel and that because Widmore changed them, interactions with past persons (Desmond, Army guys, and more?) is now possible? Just as killing Alex was possible?
Again, not a gospel, just a theoretical thought. This would suggest Widmore's powers are greater than we were meant to understand.
As for the aluminum leg: I took snapshots of the frames and its just a result of two different elements moving fast during the sequence. First we see the adversary's reflective shoe as he kicks Sayid, followed by Sayid's sock visible when his leg is elevated. I don't think there's anything there... but then again.
I'll go with no leg until proven wrong.
If you go on different archives/websites and look at the DHARMA uniforms and the new guys, the name tags are different (although still similar).
@Don
The camp didn't move to the PAST because it wasn't build yet. It makes me think that only counscious being present during the turning of the wheel can time jump and not constructions. Ethan was still in the past when Locke was shot, and he was actually dead when the Hatch exploded, so he wouldn't actually be affected by the electromagnetism/time jumping.
A few more thoughts...
I'm sorry if this posts twice, by the way -- it didn't seem to take the first time, and I ened up adding a lot before trying again.
Niki: "I wonder why Daniel's having a rough go of it, too, though... he was once on the island, and has time travelled a lot."
I'm not sure that Daniel was once on the island... yet. 8^)
That is, his trips to the past, such as his appearance under the Swan in the flashback with Chang last night, are still in the future for the Daniel who arrived on the island with Charlotte and Miles.
He may have succeeded in brief time travel in his lab, or just been exposed to temporal energy there in experimenting with his rabbits, and that's why he's had the memory problems. He wouldn't necessarily have immunity to, or harmony with, the time shifting until he time-traveled "properly" using the island's methods.
Niki: "What contradicts Ethan meeting Locke is that Locke doesn't know Ethan when he first sees him in season 1, and vice versa. If Locke is technically going back in time, does that mean he should have had a memory of this guy in 2004?"
Locke wouldn't remember Ethan on the beach in Season One because he hadn't met him in last night's scene yet. I mean, the Ethan who met 2004 Locke on the beach had met 2005 Locke back in Year Gunshot [pre-10/2004, at least], but 2004 Locke hadn't met Ethan yet, and he wouldn't until he was 2005 Locke and traveled back to Year Gunshot.
Ethan may well have recognized Locke on the beach after infiltrating the camp, and been surprised to see him but also have figured out something was up, depending on how much he knew about the island's time funkiness.
Ben wouldn't have known that Ethan had met Locke when he sent Ethan to join the fuselage survivors, or even who Locke was at that point, though Ethan had likely reported that he shot some guy who then disappeared at the time that happened.
It's arguable that Richard would've known who Locke was, if Ethan had given a really good description in Year Gunshot, but if the Native Others aren't in some fashion existing in all times with pan-temporal awareness the way some suspect then it's possible that Richard didn't know Locke was anything special yet either, and hadn't even yet tested young Locke.
The Richard who tested young Locke fiftyish years ago, if he wasn't doing so presciently due to knowledge of the future, might in fact be older than or at least basically the same age as the Richard who approached Locke at the Others' camp with the files on Sawyer. And I don't mean the same age because he's immortal, just to be clear, I mean that he went back and tested Locke around the time Locke joined the Others' camp, because he only would around that time have had occasion to see if Locke could replace Ben.
After hanging out at the camp, Ethan could well then have reported to Ben that one of the survivors was this bald dude whom he shot years ago and who then disappeared, which if not to Ethan would certainly have meant something to Ben, perhaps even being the first inkling to Ben and his confidant Richard that Locke was special, along with the realization that the island had healed Locke's legs once Ben did his research on the castaways, although on that point I've never been convinced that Locke could walk on the island just because he had a special destiny. Only then would Richard travel back to test young Locke, if you believe strictly that he moves freely in time and wasn't prescient about Locke.
You can think of it in terms of aging. There's no reason the slightly younger Locke of ten months ago would remember something that happened to an older Locke ten months down the road, even if that older Locke was briefly transported to a time before ten months ago.
Everyone has his or her own personal timeline, which for most people is in lockstep with the linear time in which we live, and -- excepting accidents that lead to stuff like what happened to Desmond --their perception only goes forwards, like their biological clocks.
This is waaaaay too addictive.
Was the "three years ago" tag the first time the show has given us a definitive time-stamp on events? If not, I can't immediately think of any other time its been used.
If the compass Richard gave Locke is meant to be Locke's constant, then does that mean that Sawyer, Juliet, et al will similarily need a constant or else develop "time travel sickness"?
Amusingly, shortly after Richard asserted to Locke that the compass points north, when Locke looked at it, it didn't seem to be pointing north. Of course, it's well established that compasses don't really work on the island. I just thought it was funny.
I think the Others might be more...embedded, maybe, in the island, so that they move in time with it, rather than on top of it, like Locke and the remaining Losties. So if the island goes back in time ten years, they disappear (from Locke's perspective) because they go back to where they were ten years ago...maybe?
Ha, Nikki, I said the same thing to my wife: that Ms. Hawking was Daniel's mom. I suppose she still could be. AND I made the same crack about No Country For Old Men when Ben opened the vent. Great minds, right? ;)
I'd guess maybe the island has stopped skipping in time because its like a top: turning the wheel wound it up, but as the energy slowly dissipates, it slows and eventually stops. The question, then, is whether or not it's stopped entirely, or if it's just slower (greater time passing before the next "spin.").
Nkki -- I just misspelled your name, twice, quoting you. Sorry!
Blam, welcome to the board, we have a great group here.
And for the misspelling Nikki is going to punish you, Dharma Initiative style *wink*
Was the "three years ago" tag the first time the show has given us a definitive time-stamp on events? If not, I can't immediately think of any other time its been used.
If the compass Richard gave Locke is meant to be Locke's constant, then does that mean that Sawyer, Juliet, et al will similarily need a constant or else develop "time travel sickness"?
Amusingly, shortly after Richard asserted to Locke that the compass points north, when Locke looked at it, it didn't seem to be pointing north. Of course, it's well established that compasses don't really work on the island. I just thought it was funny.
I think the Others might be more...embedded, maybe, in the island, so that they move in time with it, rather than on top of it, like Locke and the remaining Losties. So if the island goes back in time ten years, they disappear (from Locke's perspective) because they go back to where they were ten years ago...maybe?
Ha, Nikki, I said the same thing to my wife: that Ms. Hawking was Daniel's mom. I suppose she still could be. AND I made the same crack about No Country For Old Men when Ben opened the vent. Great minds, right? ;)
I'd guess maybe the island has stopped skipping in time because its like a top: turning the wheel wound it up, but as the energy slowly dissipates, it slows and eventually stops. The question, then, is whether or not it's stopped entirely, or if it's just slower (greater time passing before the next "spin.").
Ugh, sorry for the double post...stupid blogger...grumble grumble...
Blam: Your comment just made my head hurt... in a good way. I agree with most of the things you've said.
I wonder about the timing of Daniel's time travel. (Wow. That sentence was more complicated than it should have been.) I keep thinking back to the season 4 episode, "Confirmed Dead," in which we first see Daniel in Massachussetts with a caregiver, and he's crying while watching news about the crash. She asks what's wrong and why he's crying, and he says he doesn't know. I think he's done so much time traveling at that point that his memory is shot, but he still has residual memories of things. I think at that moment he knew the plane crash was significant, that he already knew the people on the plane because he'd met them in the future, that he'd already been to the island, etc.
Again, it comes back to Slaughterhouse-Five. If you read that book, it might put a different spin on things. In the book, the main character, Billy, is unstuck in time, meaning he lives his life non-chronologically, jumping from one period in his life to another. At one point he's on a plane that crashes into a mountain and everyone but him dies, and he never does anything to stop it because he figures you can't change anything just because you go back in time. But he exists at all those moments in his life. In other words, even if he's at the 42-year-old part of his life, someone along the time line he is still 23 and living a different part of his life. So in this sense, Daniel is in his 30s, but he's also in his 20s, he's a teenager, he's a professor at Oxford, he's on the island, he's with his caregiver... all at the same time.
There are 2 ways of looking at it, and the episode feeds into both. One, that these things always happened and always will happen (hence Richard already knowing Locke was going to appear with a gunshot in his leg) and that these things happen in the past, triggering a new memory in the future (hence Desmond suddenly having the urge to go to Oxford). In the case of Lost, it could be both.
I've loved your comments today. But sadly, as Roland said, you are now banned for misspelling my name.
Ah, kidding. See, I'm like Hurley. I forgive quickly. :)
Teebore: Good to see you! We've had one other time stamp, and that was in the finale last year. After the rescue by Penelope, we saw a time stamp that read, "One week later" and it was the O6 getting onto the raft.
Great minds indeed!!
Good theory on the temporary (or permanent) halt to the time travelling. Or maybe the island is controlling things somehow, it sent people to the places it needed to send them to, and now it just needs things to play out. :)
Don: Your bloop made me laugh out loud. You know, I think I'll do that now. If the boss comes over and says, "Could you explain why this was done like this? I think you've made a mistake," I'll just go, "Oh no, what is that light? Bloop!" and then turn back to my desk and keep working.
I'll probably last about another week there. ;)
Nikki: When I say "present", I mean anytime after Ben turning the FDW. If the island moved in 2004 to a new locale, it (should) still be there in 2007.
Some more thoughts on time travel: here's a nother theory as to why the the Others don't seem to be affected. As someone said, the Swan exploding may have dosed the survivors with electromagnetic radiation, which Daniel says can trigger time-travel like "side effects." There are five holes here, namely: Sawyer (who was with the Others at the time), Juliet (who WAS an Other), Miles, Charlotte, and Daniel (who weren't even on the island). Now I have a theory as to why they might have been affected. All five of them were surrounded by people who were AFFECTED by the Swan explosion, and perhaps they served as lightning rods to the time shifting effect. Locke alone might not have been enough to affect Richard and the other Others.
As to Charlotte, I'm not sure she's experiencing the same sickness as Desmond and Minkowski. First, since they are time traveling as a group, they would serve as each other's constants, so everyone had at least something familiar in each new time. Also, she exhibited a new symptom: memory loss, which neither Desmond nor Minkowski had (Desmond didn't recognize Sayid because from his 199X perspective, they haven't met yet). Curiously, there is another character who has memory loss symtoms: Daniel!
Brian, I really like your idea of the Swan's energy acting like a grease that prevents the island from "gripping" the Losties when it moves in time.
I think its perfectly reasonable to believe that the irradiated Losties created a bubble that extended that protection to Sawyer, Juliet, etc. But weren't Sawyer, Juliet, Miles and Charlotte alone at the hatch during one of the time shifts? Meaning, there were no Losties to protect them from moving with the island?
Perhaps their time with the Losties granted them enough protection, whereas Locke's residual energy wasn't enough to "coat" all the Others he was with?
I'm now wondering why Daniel wanted to find a man-made structure as soon as he reached the beach? My first thought was that it would somehow offer protection from the time-skipping, but maybe he just needed something physically rooted to the island to use a point of reference as the time changed?
Nikki: "I've loved your comments today. But sadly, as Roland said, you are now banned for misspelling my name."
*sob*
I... It was just a typo! And I spelled it right like a dozen times before that!
Don't I at least get a motorboat and a bearing?
I have a question: When Sun and Widmore talk, Sun says that they both want to Kill Ben Linus...But wasn't it established(or at least implied) that Ben and Widmore can't kill each other ? And based on the fact that Widmore didn't have Ben killed by Keemey(sp ?), I guess I sorta assumed(dangerous, I know) that Widmore and Ben needed each other alive. Did anyone else think that ?
I'll be back soon after a momentary absence (keep talking!) I have to go to court. Hey, what could I do? The guy was dissing Lost. He HAD to be killed.
Wow, a lot of discussion going on. THe only real surprise was Neil's death, which was untimely and insane. He was clearly a new character that would have added to the overall story, but by cutting his life short, we'll never know what he could have offered to the show.
And the acting was incredible. For those who want more from this amazing talent, you should go here:
http://www.spike.com/video/got-milk-commercial/2423866
He's a comedic genius as well!!!
I think it's very possible that Daniel is unstuck in time as you say, N-i-k-k-i.
And I know that S5 is a touchstone for the creators. For sure Locke and the other castaways are jumping through time physically, though. Whether Daniel is "simply" having his consciousness expand to all points in spacetime where/when he's existed in the fashion of the native Others, and whether he was on the island before we see him on the island in the show's island-present... I'm not sure that's been established yet, even tentatively to the point where we're supposed to grasp that as the likeliest scenario.
I gotta get some other stuff done and incidentally not burn out my first day here.
Great post, Nik, and I'm really enjoying reading all the discussion going on here.
What a truly fantastic season premiere! I love that this season wll focus on a lot of time travel, I'm so intrigued by the Richard/Locke conversation and what is to happen with Faraday. His character has a lot more layers than I had originally thought, and I'm so excited to find out more.
The baby picture Sun showed Kate, I definately think there was a reason for that. Ji Yeon would be a toddler, so why she would show a newborn picture is extremely bizarre, but must be significant in some way.
Speaking of children, perhaps the emphasis on Chang's baby on the island was for a reason as well. Was his baby born on the island? If so, does that make him special too? A lot of people have made theories that Miles is related to Chang, and I never really believed it, but he certainly is special, with his creepy ghost-listening ability. (On another note, isn't it super unhealthy for him to serve boar that died of natural causes? What if it died of some sort of disease? I guess on an island you resort to drastic measures! :P)
I LOVE HURLEY! Garcia's acting was fantastic, as usual. I was in tears in the scene with his mother, and laughing my head off at the moment with the pizza pop. It was both funny and heart-breaking at the end when he ran out of the house to confess. Characters like him make a show like Lost even better.
Maybe I'm mistaken, but in the moment where the Brit soldier was threatening Juliet, did he say: "..Or I'll cut off your OTHER hand?" Other hand? What did he mean by that?
I am thrilled at the possibility of Ms. Hawking being related to Faraday. But I'm also curious as to why she's working with Ben?
There's still so much more for us to learn about Ben's character and experiences on the island, and hopefully Daniel, Sawyer and co.'s time travel will be a tool to show all of that!
Can't wait until next week!!
Other hand? What did he mean by that?
He clarified that statement a few lines later...he was going to cut off ONE hand, no matter what, to show how serious he was. If she didn't answer his questions, then he'd cut off the OTHER hand.
@Teebore
"when Locke looked at it, it didn't seem to be pointing north"
Even if compasses were to work on the island, we don't know where north is. So to say that the compass "didn't seem to be pointing north" is a bit off. For all we know the island's magnetism (or this compass) is adjusted and it was actually pointing north.
But as you said, we are aware that compass don't work too well on the island and this direction in which the compass point may have no significance whatsoever.
Great recaps and analysis, Nikki! I can't believe I fell asleep at the end of Episode 2. (I LOST to jetlag).
Re: Past-present... I haven't read through everyone's posts here, but I was just thinking -- there was all this emphasis on Faraday's exhortation to Sawyer not to bang on the door of the hatch. He kept saying over and over again that things can't change, nothing in the string of what has happened can ever be changed, or turned back. Operating on this belief, then, Faraday, when he looks in his book, must have noted that he actually met Desmond on the island before. And that he went into the Orchid and saw the wall behind which the FDW was concealed. And the reason that Ben has all that info on the Lostees when they arrive is because he's met them before -- in time past -- which we are seeing now in Season 5. So Locke meeting Ethan, etc. has already happened once although for Ethan and Locke it's the first time. It's not quite history repeating itself, but history happening again for the first time? So this means that everything that will happen on the island in this season has already happened. Fate cannot be changed.
Uh oh, I think Nikki has gone all Vigilante Sun on us! Everyone off the island! BLOOP!
Also... did anyone else think Charlotte looked really, really fricking scary with that blood coming out of her nose? And then she smiles? Exorcist anyone?
And re: Desmond -- doesn't Daniel tell him that he's very special? Is that why even though he's not physically on the island, he still appears on the island? Jack, Kate, Hurley, etc. are apparently no longer physically connected with the island (unless we see them in the past in future episodes) so they are corporeally absent in the scenes from the past. But then what's so special about Des that he's corporeally present in the past on the island even though he's on a boat off the coast of England?
Boy, oh boy, this is more fun than playing ping-pong in the Dharma Rec Hall.
I've always been impressed by how dialogue on the show is written (and delivered) with precise ambiguity. (I'm an oxymoron at heart). Reviewing certain lines of dialogue often yields additional meaning. For instance:
At the Hoffs/Drawlar Funeral Parlor, when Jack tells Ben, "they're not my friends anymore". Ben replies, "Now, that's the spirit". When I first heard this, I took it for a typically caustic Ben reply. On second listening, Ben seems to be acknowledging that Jack has the RIGHT attitude of detachment necessary to get things done. Similarly, I first thought Ben's line, "It happened because you left, Jack" was accusatory and manipulative. Upon review, Ben seems almost sympathetic - an attitude we will see again when Ben tells Jill to "cut (Jack) some slack" at the butcher shop.
In the same scene, Ben recounts for Jack how, at the Orchid Station, he had told Locke "I'm sorry for making your life so miserable, John". At the time, I took it as Ben's apology for all that he had put Locke through up until that moment. Listening to it again, it's almost as though Ben is apologizing for how much trouble what he is ABOUT to do will cause.
On second viewing of "Because You Left", some other questions jumped out at me:
1) The second lawyer on Kate's doorstep could not possibly look MORE antagonistic. He is practically sneering at her.
2) When Faraday has his space/time explanation slapped out of him by Sawyer, Juliet evinces not the least bit of surprise. I mean, she's one cool customer ... but this? She seems to get it right away.
3) We've been used to seeing the Others respond quickly (and negatively) to intruders. But, when Ethan spies Locke by the Beechcraft plane, he is instantly ... well, hostile. "WRONG answer!" But, is he going to shoot him again after he says "Goodbye, John Locke" ... or is he waiting for him to disappear again?
4) Sun is calling someone as she descends the airport escalator. Is she already trying to reach Kate? If not, who is she calling? And, why do airline personnel and major airport security "only do what (Widmore) tells them to"? Does he own the airline? We know he is monstrously powerful but how does this apply here?
5) When Richard tends to Locke's gunshot, he tells him that the O6 are "already home". Not only does this place the encounter in time (theoretically) but I couldn't help but contrast that with his greeting to Locke after his arrival from the Orchid Station. "Welcome home, John".
6) Faraday tells Desmond that "the rules don't apply to you ... you're uniquely and miraculously special". WHY don't the rules apply to him and how does Faraday know this?
@Benny ... you know, you may be right about the lack of evidence for Sayid's prosthetic leg. I ran it by twice on HD DVR last night and was sure of it, but can't confirm it from the HD streaming online at ABC.com. Still, the closeup on his leg as the attacker lashes out, and the awkward way the leg snaps back reinforces my original suggestion. I'll hold out hope that this can be confirmed later.
Nikki - re: Alex's death ... I've been thinking about that a lot and keep coming back to Widmore's accusatory reply to Ben: "I didn't kill her, Benjamin, YOU did." Perhaps it was actually something BEN did that changed the rules? (although, of course, he would see it differently) We've seen that Richard and presumably Jacob have grown dissatisfied with Ben's actions (and focus on fertility issues, for one thing) ... might Ben's sending Goodwin on what amounted to a suicide mission (out of his own jealousy) have 'broken the rules'?
I'll just come out and say it (it's probably been said before, no pun intended): Not for the first time, I find myself thinking, "All this has happened before and will happen again.... Wait! Wrong series!"
@The Chapati Kid
Faraday suggests that whoever is in the hatch hasn't met Sawyer yet and thus cannot interact with him. He then realizes that he has met Desmond and hopes that HE will be able to interact.
Part of my understanding is that the first historical meeting creates a link so that at any point in time afterwards, those two individuals can interact since they have memories of each other, regardless of their physical 'out-of-syncness' in time.
But then what's so special about Des that he's corporeally present in the past on the island even though he's on a boat off the coast of England?
He's not in both places at the same time. Daniel must have correctly hoped that they were in a shift during Des' 3-year stint (2001-2004) in the Swan. Knowing that they had met in the past (1996), he hoped to create a new memory in Des' head.
When he wakes up on the boat, it's post rescue, possibly the Oceanic 6 present, circa 2008.
The only thing that hurts this theory is the fact that the island literally disappeared, which means IT is moving in time, and not just the people on it. So why are the survivors moving differently than the island and the natives?
Could it have disappeared the way the bunny, in the Dharma video, disappeared? It only appeared to be gone for a few seconds, but the people in the helicopter couldn't wait around for it to show up?
Anonymous: Hmm... so the bloop was followed by a blip? :) Interesting theory!
CK: YOU'RE BACK! So good to hear from you. I hope the jetlag wears off soon! xox
humanebean: Good point on Juliet not being surprised by the slap. Maybe she's still a little drunk from the Dharma whisky she'd been drinking on the beach? haha!
Nikki - that was Dharma RUM, young lady! And, just to clarify - what struck me was how nonplussed Juliet was by Faraday's explanation. She even repeats something like, "So, the island is moving in time?" in the same tone of voice as she would ask, "Are we out of Dharma Tuna Fish?". I've always wondered how much she knows about the Island's possibilities.
During one of her flashbacks, where she is begging Ben to let her go home since her initial 6 months were up, Ben talks her into staying by promising her that JACOB will cure her sister's cancer - and says something like "unless you have reason not to trust HIM now". What would Juliet possibly know about Jacob and his abilities after 6 months on the island?? Then, there is that whole theory out there that she is somehow also Ben's "Annie" from his youth. I don't buy that but wonder what else we don't know about her - she certainly has ninja skills and is a crack shot with a pistol.
What does she know about the island's potential time travel that would fail to surprise her now?
humanebean: I was going to say rum and then I said whisky. Rum... whisky... I couldn't remember which, because I was high.
@ Brian D
• Did the people in the Swan station hear Sawyer banging on the door even if they didn’t open it?
Desmond's comment of banging for twenty minutes would indicate this.
I was rewatching and when Daniel comes back to the camp, they say he'd been gone for two hours. By the time we see him knock on the door, he could have been doing so for a dozen minutes.
Or, of course, because Desmond is special, he had heard Sawyer's knocks as well.
I don't think we can really pin point which it is yet.
@humanebean
On bringing Annie in... I've been thinking for a little while now if Rousseau couldn't be Annie, with a different name. She looks older but it could have been living in the jungle that's done it or simply bad aging. And all the craziness would have to be explained of course. Then it would be evidence as to why both Ben and her strongly believe Alex to be their daughter, because she is... just floating out there.
About whether Desmond heard Sawyer knocking...I thought he did, and it just took him awhile to get suited up to open the door, and by the time he opened it, Farrady was there.
Also, now that we know Locke bounces in time and sees the beechcraft crash, it explains his vision of it when he first arrives on the Island and he and Boone find it. I think if something happens to a character in the future, like Locke time-jumping back to the beechcraft crash and then jumping forward again, that memory becomes a part of him. It happens at the same point on the timeline as the night Locke has the dream. Am I explaining that ok?
It'd also explain why Desmond wakes up three years later with a new memory of meeting Daniel. The two things (Desmond on the boat with Penny and Desmond in the hatch) happen simultaneously, just at different points in time. Because it won't change anything ("on the street") between the two points in time, only at the very end of the timeline (the current present for the Oceanic 6 and Desmond), it is following the rules and is allowed.
(I commented twice above, about the record as time theory above, under anonymous, I hadn't signed in yet!)
"when she tells Desmond that “we” will all die. Does she mean the Others? "
The producers explained in a podcast that "we" means everyone on earth.
Baby picture...
I'm not sure that there is anything behind it. Sun's expression is emotional in that she hasn't seen Kate in a while and shows her a baby picture. It could be that she didn't have anything past that of that she just didn't get to it.
It could also be something else, a hidden reason. But I'm not going so far yet.
Nikki... when you said they talked to each other on the phone and kept it secret. I'm wondering if we were explicitly told it was Sun or if it was Cassidy, as Kate tries to explain to Jack. After three years it makes sense to believe Kate has mentioned Jack to her.
Did I miss a name drop?
Also they burned the plane. So this was after it fell down and before they burned it. I wonder what will happen if the characters move to a time when they were on the island, and meet themselves? But they can't since they never did, so it can't happen...if that makes sense.
We know that Kelvin Inman's story is different once the island goes all record-skippy, since it's Desmond who opens the door, and he's wearing his suit and mask. In the timeline we've been seeing all along, Desmond goes out only once in the suit, and that is to spy on Inman, who instantly demonstrates that no suit is needed.
It is unlikely that Inman is in there, since Desmond asks if Daniel is "my replacement." But surely if Inman is alive in there, and if ONE replacement shows up, it'd be a replacement for Inman.
So now the question is: If Inman's not around, and if Desmond didn't kill him in the way we saw, how did Desmond get from castaway to button-pusher??
Good point!
And even if Desmond did kill Kelvin and would be wearing the suit for the knocker's sake...
This would mean that Daniel is knocking at a point between the crash (day of Kelvin's death) and the opening of the hatch... so during season 1.
One could think that it's even earlier than that, maybe before Desmond contemplated suicide?
Or as it is suggested in the previous post... the timeline surrounding Desmond's life has been altered somehow.
Anonymous: Come out, come out! Tell us your name, oh wise one! :)
Very good point. When does everyone think this takes place? On the one hand, Des is in the suit, which he never donned and was always trapped in the hatch. If Inman had been there, he would have answered the door. So he must have been out doing his "recon" and Des was alone. But didn't Inman say there was only one suit? (I'd have to go back and check for sure.)
Inman died the day of the crash, but the hatch hadn't been tampered with, and the survivors presumably weren't there yet. So when exactly did this occur?
My name is lefty. :)
The other thing regarding that scene is that Daniel seems rather confident/hopeful that Desmond would be in there. But all he *seems* to know is that the hatch has not yet imploded. But this could be decades before the crash. So why is it even worth the risk to Daniel to bang and see if it's Desmond--the Special One--who answers? Does Daniel have a way of knowing/guessing WHEN he is that others don't know of?
You know, about that death-by-dishwasher: I forgot to mention it struck me as a little strange that all the utensils had been loaded business-end up in the first place. Because who loads a dishwasher all bachelor-backwards like that, anyway? Not only is it dangerous (well, obviously), but it's also highly unsanitary to pluck the clean implements out by the blades/tines/et cetera. Unless, of course, Sayid loads them that way on purpose, laying a clever trap for any potential life-or-death galley grappling...
@Joshua,
Well, I usually load my utensils business-end up, since I feel they get cleaner that way, and all the dirty stuff is going to be on the tines/blades/whatnot. I carefully extract them below their business ends when clean.
However, one could question why such sharp knives were in that dishwasher in the first place. While I will wash butterknives and whatnot in the dishwasher, one should never use the dishwasher to clean the kind of larger, more sophisticated kitchen knives on display in Sayid's dishwasher, as the process subtly damages the higher-quality knives. ;)
Only when discussing Lost could the thread end up talking about dishwashing habits. :)
@Joshua/Teebore
There were sharp utensils blades up in the dishwasher exactly for the purpose they served...
a great TV death in a fight scene, and they served it great!
@lefty
I can only assume that Daniel was hoping Desmond was in. Unless he has a way of knowing approximately when he is. Remember that he needed precise instruments and to know exactly when he was to calculate a safe bearing!
Hey, I noticed earlier but forgot to put up:
When Hurley is talking to Ana Lucia, she tells him (and means it):
"do NOT get arrested"
Unfortunately to escape Ben, Hurley goes and does just that, getting arrested on purpose. That may hurt Ben, but it seems it hurts Hurley in whatever work he has to do.
Great opener!!!! I think the name of the Jeckyl beer is a reference to Sun. Not quite sure about her anymore. She laid it on Kate.
Am I the only person who noticed something funky with Sayid's leg during the kitchen fight just before the dishwasher knife impalement...? The guy kicked Sayid's right leg and it looked to me (bear in mind I'm watching an internet download that is difficult to freeze frame) like Sayid's lower right leg was an artificial 'pegleg' kinda thing... It even seemed like there was an odd mechanical "sproinging" sound at the time.. Anyone with a clearer copy maybe can take a look..?
pt...
I LOVE that we're discussing how we load our dishwashers, and it's actually relevant to the show. To be honest, I thought the same thing. I always load my utensils handle-side down (as they dry, any leftover food or bacteria will run down to the bottom, so you want the handle down there, not the part that goes in your mouth) but always put knives pointy-end down, because I don't want to gouge my hands as I put them away. Chef's knives don't fit down there because they're too long, so I either wash them myself or they lie lengthwise on the top rack.
And I'm really particular about this. When other people come over and begin loading the dishwasher to help, I'm one of those anal people who turns them all around. I know, I know...
And yes, humanebean posted above that Sayid appeared to have an aluminum leg. So I went downstairs and watched it frame by frame and his leg certainly flies back straight, as if he couldn't bend it. But when he was walking, it was definitely bending. I don't think it was an aluminum leg; I think he has very skinny ankles. :) But the leg certainly does ping out, so there's a chance I'm wrong and the scene was showing us something was up with that leg!
@PT
You're not the first one to bring it up, several others have made the remark. I personally don't believe it to be a prosthetic, though I have gone through the scene frameset by frameset and have no evidence for either case (too fast/blurry).
As for the sound, if I understand correctly which one you mean, I think it's a shoe slipping off the floor, as you can hear the sound again shortly after when the assailant's other leg slips.
P.S. Throughout the entire ep 02, everywhere Sayid goes there is no distinct shot of uncovered legs (coincidence or cover-up?) The only suggestion that it would be a real leg is when he is being carried (twice) and his pants contour the legs, but this would be Mr Andrews' leg, it doesn't rule out the character himself having a prosthetic.
Aaaaagghhh! 81 comments! I can't wait to read all these (after your write up of episodes 1&2 of course Nikki:) I have to avoid your latest post until late Sunday night when the two episodes have been aired here in London! I can see all this juicy text and it is all just a blur as I do my utmost to avoid taking any of it in;) I can't wait...I need my lost fix!!!!
Whew! Finally got through all the comments. One thing that struck me was what one person wrote:
humanebean said...
4) Sun is calling someone as she descends the airport escalator. Is she already trying to reach Kate? If not, who is she calling? And, why do airline personnel and major airport security "only do what (Widmore) tells them to"? Does he own the airline? We know he is monstrously powerful but how does this apply here?
Couldn''t this answer the question that it was Widmore who set up the fake 815 plane being found and not Ben (since both have said the other is responsible) because "the only do what he tells them" which could include getting him an empty plane to stage the crash?
On the subject of Widmore and the airline -- I think those suspicions are dead on. For a while now, I've been harboring the theory that Widmore actually owns Oceanic, but all the details are so wildly speculative that I've just kept it to myself. However, in the spirit of a brand new season's worth of abstract reasoning, let's pick apart my logic together:
Say you're a megalomaniacal multibillionaire who has a private obsession with locating a 'lost' island that cannot be pinpointed using any conventional means -- you have a general geographic area but nothing more concrete or specific than that. Among other details, you know from your exhaustive research that said island periodically emits powerful electromagnetic pulses that at least confound if not outright fry most navigational instruments (a major contributor to your difficulty in locating it) and would certainly endanger any craft (and crew, naturally) unfortunate enough to enter its sphere of influence, particularly one with equipment as sensitive as an airplane's onboard gear.
Now let's assume that you also possess a certain moral ambiguity that allows you to view the loss of human lives as acceptable collateral damage, regardless of scale, so long as it serves to further your obsessive search.
So you buy yourself an airline. You scale it to specialize in flights that crisscross the same aforementioned 'general geographic area' that you believe your secret island occupies. You even go so far as to hire mostly pilots that have combat experience in the hope that this will give them an additional edge, if and when something happens. And you sit back and wait.
Then, when one finally crashes, you just follow the trail of smoke.
Oh, and make sure there are no survivors -- either that, or ensure somehow that the ones who do survive keep their mouths shut. And, of course, try not to rend the fabric of spacetime and unravel our very existence in the process.
Which would kinda wreck all your grand aspirations of boundless profit and world domination, I guess.
If the Camp is gone, why isn't Daniel's raft?
Nikki: "Rum... whisky... I couldn't remember which, because I was high."
Ha!
"B-E-E-R spells 'whiskey'..."
Fudge? Anyone? No? (Judy Blume's American, and so is Fudge, hence the 'e', you Canadians.)
Margosita: "The two things ... happen simultaneously, just at different points in time."
I think you're right, but that just sounds so frakked up.
Anonymous: "If the Camp is gone, why isn't Daniel's raft?"
My explanation would be that while the camp hadn't been built yet, and was made by the castaways from island materials that are "now" back in the hatch or as part of the trees they came from, the raft had been fabricated before this point in time.
You might say that then the raft should be back on the freighter, wherever it is then, but perhaps since the raft was inside the island-shift radius that's not possible.
Or it's a mistake.
Real quick post: I haven't had time to read ALL these responses yet. I work both my jobs on Thurs and Fridays so my time is limited. So I apologize if this link has been posted before...but I had to show you guys just in case it hasn't. My niece told me about it and again, haven't had time to read all of it, but the theory is awesome..as is the DIAGRAM of the timelines. Check it out!
http://www.wbcn.com/pages/3705989.php?contentType=4&contentId=3396360
I can't wait to read the whole thing. What I found most facinating was the idea that the plane crashed on the island but was shifted back to 1996 island time...which would be BEFORE Locke got pushed out the window and BEFORE Rose got cancer...so they weren't really cured...they just hadn't come down with their respective ailments yet. It debunks the island's healing powers. Hmmm....
Hi - I'm new. I have only just recently discovered Lost ( I know, where have I BEEN?)I have already read all Nikki's books.
This is a bit off topic, but I read somewhere on the net today, can't remember where, that the whispers could be the time travelling Losties. I looked at some transcripts of the whispers and I'm sure this is the case.It's the out of place Losties watching events in the past and not being able to interfere because of the rules.
This is a VERY cleverly written and planned program - you can already see from the first 2 episodes of this series that we will have to revisit pretty much everything that has happened so far. It's so exciting!
Margosita: "The two things ... happen simultaneously, just at different points in time."
Well, since simultaenously means "at the same time," you just said two things happen at the same time, at different points in time. Okay, this is just me being anal.
I think a simpler explanation is Faraday met Desmond in 200X, but he didn't remember it until 2007 due to his special flashback powers. I mean, who you remember what some random guy said to you a few years ago, especially considering it made no sense at the time?
Another thing I wanted to point out: Daniel was right about something would stop Desmond and Sawyer from meeting. Ironically, that thing turned out to be Daniel's himself!
Jazzy: Funny you should post that; my new season 4 book has an entire chapter on Jason's time travel theory. I interviewed him and go through the main points of his theory. :)
Anonymous: I've thought for some time that the whispers are time travellers who are sort of caught between times. Maybe they are zipping around like the people we see now, but they can't be seen -- only heard -- by the others who are on the island.
Brian: I think what Margosita is saying is what I was saying above. Picture a time spectrum, along which are all the dates you have been living. The Vonnegut theory is that you exist simultaneously in all those times on the spectrum. That's what Margosita meant by simultaneously, but at different times. (I think? Sorry, I don't mean to speak for Margosita.) It's a great theory and one that could play into the whispers that Anonymous was talking about.
interesting anagrams for Agostini and Norton=Not adoring on saint, SAINT Donor Gain Not
Nikki, that's awesome!! What are the odds I'd find it right before I get your book? Fate..or free will? Heh heh. :-p
There is a great picture on that site of the different timelines that I "think" supports what you just posted about existing in different times but at the same "time". LOL
One thing I have always been curious about, since last season...does Walt have to go back? He seemed to be pretty important to the island. I hope they don't just forget about him.
I agree with what Joshua said about Widmore owning Oceanic Airlines. I've suspected this for a while, too. I came to this conclusion because if Oceanic Airlines was unaffiliated with Widmore, they would have realized that the plane on the bottom of the ocean was a fake. They would have known every detail of the plane and the people who were supposed to be on it. And when they sent cameras down, they would have realized that it wasn't flight 815 and blown the whistle.
The only way that the coverup with the fake plane would work is if Widmore (assuming he's the one who planted the fake plane) is associated with or owns Oceanic. And so no one from Oceanic will reveal that the plane at the bottom of the ocean is fake, because Widmore is Oceanic.
Hey Nikki,
Yay, it's finally here. I don't know if this was mentioned in somebody else's post, but there are too many to read, so I'll add it in my own. does anybody else notice the computer at the end, in the room with the pendulum? It's not a current computer, in fact it looks similar to the one that was in the hatch. Not sure if this means anything, but most things do mean something on this show, so I thought I would mention it. I had to rewatch the episode to understand what the hell was going on, and I still feel a little fuzzy on the details. I am eagerly waiting for my Season 4 book (thanks again Nikki!!)and will read it from cover to cover once it's here.
Did anyone else pick up on the "Wizard of OZ" references in these episodes? Of course we have been getting them all along but they just jumped out to me this time...The "Rainbow" restaurant, Sawyer and MIles referring to Faraday as "wizard". Wasn't that TOTO on the first shirt on the rack of rainbow-colors shirts Hurly was looking through? There were rainbow colored lights or something behind Ben and Jack at the hotel or wherever they were.
Also I totally thought that Miles was the baby in the opening with Dr. Chang.
Are you my long-LOST-sister-I-didn't-know-about? :D It's so wonderful to read your LOST recaps and thoughts, and I LOVE that YOU loved seeing Desmond and Faraday together again, even if somewhat cryptically and all-too-briefly. They my boooooyz, yo! SO hoping for more interaction in future episodes - what do you think? :D
All the best
Karen
Hello Lost-lovers,
New on this site but I've read all the comments and would like to offer some of my own - well perhaps they are questions. But first, thanks Nikki!
So glad this show is back!
Re: Desmond and Daniel meeting "in the past" so they are "allowed" to meet "again" at the Hatch backdoor...I can't remember details about their meeting on the Island in season 4. I remember the phone conversation and that they are both near the helicopter at the same time but I don't remember a thing about Daniel and Desmond saying hello or speaking to each other. Do either of them seem to recognize the other?
In reading the comments about Locke/Richard and the compass, I can't remember which objects child-Locke chooses as belonging to him, other than the knife being "wrong".
Regarding the island physically moving, what is the significance of the Dharma polar bear collar found by Charlotte in the desert?
And speaking of the desert, how did Ben get to Tunisia? His satisfaction at learning he has "landed" there in October 2005 (6-8 months after the 815 crash) must be meaningful - can anyone shed light?
Re: Hurley taking Sayid to someone he can trust and his Dad not quite fitting the bill - he DOES ask where Mom is (and to me it sounds like Mom is who he came to see) and Cheech tells him she is shopping.
Re: Sun becoming "evil" or seeking revenge, my opinion is that she genuinely forgives Kate but not Jack. And I think she is playing Widmore, who is the second person she blames for Jin's death. I would also like to know who she's on the phone to - I don't think it's Kate because (I think) she's flying from London to LA at the time and when she calls Kate, they meet a half hour later.
As for Ben, Rousseau and Alex, I'm pretty convinced that Rousseau gave birth to Alex and Ben did what he said - "stole her from a crazy lady".
Oh, and if the flaming arrow shooters are the same people as the three Brits who are so vicious to Sawyer and Juliet, could they be
the "sick" people from the research boat that Rousseau arrived with?
Thanks in advance. Yay Lost!
@Wendy:
Daniel and Des met on the island at the helicopter, when Juliet came back with Des and Jack, Dan and Frank were there waiting. They also met in the past in 1996, when Des was unstuck in time.
That was my perspective, being that both had met in the past and could remember each other. (Des' comment hints at that) Sawyer and Des never met before the crash, so they couldn't meet before then (at the hatch door), this would create two instances where they had met...
Objects: John picks the compass, the vial of granules and the knife. He leaves the Book of Laws, the comic book and a baseball glove.
Desert: we don't the know the significance of the polar bear yet, except that Charlotte seems excited at the discovery and it having a DHARMA collar.
Ben got to the desert after turning the wheel (moving the island). This can be confirmed from the parka, the condensation and the fresh arm wound he suffered when he fell into the cave.
October 05 is 13 months after the crash (Sept 04) and roughly 10 after the rescue.
I think that the arrows come from the natives of that time period. There's no info yet on who/when it is. As for the "sickness", I think it might be a hoax for those living in the swan or/and a protection from the hostiles due to the lack of communication from the Swan to the rest of DHARMA.
Hopefully we'll have some answers in the coming episodes.
Hello to all the rest of you Lost fans! I discovered this show through a friend a couple of years ago, but this is the first season where I was caught up enough to actually watch it on tv. Yeah!
My sister and I watch it together and now we're getting my parents hooked. mwa ha ha
It is so fantastic to rewatch the earlier episodes, especially now with season 5 and all the time craziness.
It's also great to find a site like this to share all these insane thoughts with other people. It's a great site Nikki! Thanks!
Just a couple of things that I would like to comment on...
1. Juliet is affected by the time jumping the same way as Sawyer and the rest because she is not an Other. She was brought onto the island more recently and has been wanting to leave ever since.
2. Has everybody forgotten that Ben has sworn to kill Penny?! And now she is on her way with Des to civilization where Ben can find her! I was screaming to myself... No! Stay out in the middle of nowhere! Don't get killed!
3. I would just like to point out the complete role reversal that Jack and Sawyer have gone through. In the very first episode Jack is running around saving everybody and Sawyer is manipulating people to his own ends.
In season 5, episode 2 Sawyer is running around saving everybody (looooved him when the fiery darts appeared) and is the one that is turning into the leader that the island people....(can this be so?) trust. Meanwhile Jack is manipulating people to try to meet his own ends. I love it.
Such craziness!
Why doesn’t the island exist in the present?
If you look at Mrs. Hawking's computer screen at the end of The Lie, it looks like she is tracking several different locations. In that case the island is likely both moving through time and space. Perhaps that is how seemingly out-of-place items such as the Beechcraft and Black Rock came to be there... But if that's the case, why are the mapped locations only in the oceans?? I guess it wouldn't be an island anymore if it suddenly appeared in the middle of Nebraska.
I am telling you - they are their own parents - that's why they can't have children any more. ;)
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