Tuesday, February 2, 2010

TWO OF US RIDING NOWHERE: Before I say word one about Lost, I have to warn you: We're at a point in this show where you can't write about it or discuss it without spoilers. If good television unfolds like a novel, this show is more Harry Potter than All the King's Men -- a series of novels intended to be treated as separate units with their own beginnings, middles, and ends while spanning a greater unified arc. To the series so far -- The Island; The Hatch; The Others; The Wrinkle in Time; we add -- here's where the spoilers start, since giving this volume a name will reveal its premise --

The Discontinuity.

Despite my annoyance at the show's frequent willingness to introduce us to an entirely new set of characters (hi, Sol Starr) who have been on the island all this time -- this time to a bunch of Others only one of whom we've seen before -- I have an acceptable level of interest in the doings at both Craphole Orthodox and Craphole Reform. It took me an awful lot of time to connect Not-Locke with his past on the show, but in retrospect, it gives a new sparkle to some of last year's scenes. I very much liked the scene of not-Locke shot, perhaps, as a thematically-appropriate nod to Apocalypse Now, with not-Locke-as-Colonel-Kurtz moving his face in and out of the shadow in the ruins, a groveling servant at his feet. And I am very much digging the Hurley who is assertive and taking charge while Sawyer broods, Jack dissolves into guilt, and Kate mothers. One question, though: How did they get the van and all its equipment to come with them? Also: how much trial and error did it take the temple crew to figure out the precise magical drowning time?

However intrigued I am by the tropical version of events (and Juliet's foot in both), it's the LA story that has me hooked. Juliet's "it worked" was really unnecessary (for us, not for Sawyer & company) because of the pleasant conundrum we received on the plane: what was Desmond doing there? Be he hallucination, discontinuity, or interloper -- an unstuck man sent to rejoin two strands of events that shouldn't have diverged -- his being there proved to a certainty that nothing didn't happen. The plane scenes also worked so well at showing us that the world in which the plane doesn't crash is not paradise (at least for the half-dozen characters who don't die in the crash, at the hands of the Others, because of fellow-passengers' suspicion, when buried alive, in the clutches of the smoke monster, in a freak antique dynamite explosion, in a hail of flaming arrows, drowned by a self-detonating one-eyed Russian, or crushed underneath a falling plane after surviving a fall in a plane) -- that we didn't need not-Locke's speech about it (which, as I said, I liked anyway).

And I'm a sucker for reunions. Boone, Cindy, Arzt, Aaron Burr, Charlie Hobbit, Marshall Whatshisname. I've rarely been so happy to see so many irritating people, and I wonder if we're going to see any of them again. But it made me think of who was missing. We know that Michael won't be back (at least Harold Perrineau said he wouldn't), and I don't know why Shannon wasn't there, but I would have expected to see the tailies -- Ana Lucia (who we saw at the end of Season 5), Mr. Eko, and Libby. Since there's some question about whether Libby actually was on the plane, I look forward to finding out if I'm just making too much out of nothing.

Nothing is irreversible.

Incidentally, I did not read any comments before writing this, and I haven't watched (and won't watch) the next-ons.

97 comments:

  1. I think we're going to need that first ruling.

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  2. Carmichael Harold11:01 PM

    Yeah, what Isaac said.

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  3. Tentatively, not dead.  We need a name for The Dude Who Looks Like John Lennon In His Later Period.  Um, wow.

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  4. calliekl11:05 PM

    I haven't been this confused in ages, but I'm totally psyched about it. Lordie I love this show.

    Is it just me, or does Sawyer have some shiny new caps on? I always thought his smile was blinding, but he's kind of channeling Ross right now.

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  5. But he was pronounced dead by a physician *and* a metaphysician!

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  6. Is it me, or is "a new mysterious clique" exactly what this show didn't need going into the home stretch?

    I'm reserving judgment.  I loved parts of it, but the Temple clan annoyed me.

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  7. calliekl, I thought the exact same thing about Sawyer/Ross.
    I think less, "I saw ___ coming a mile away" and more "And what the hell was ___?" But all in a good way.

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  8. Devin McCullen11:12 PM

    OK, I still don't know what the hell is going on.  Couple of random thoughts:

    I understand why, but Boone looked so different it distracted me.

    Is their budget so tight that they couldn't show Claire on the plane?  It was a nice surprise, but you knew somebody was going to be in the cab with Kate.

    Speaking of Kate, while the love triangle bores me, I'm going to be pissed if at the end one Kate winds up with Jack and the other one with Sawyer.

    Damn, the scene with Jack & Locke was good.

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  9. The big questions in my mind now:

    1.  When are Sun/Ben/Lapidus/NotLocke?
    2.  When are the rest of the Oceanic Six?
    3.  Which of the realities is "real?"  The one in which 815 crashes on the Island, or the one in which it doesn't?
    4.  What was the deal with the long SFX sequence out of the initial 815 sequence?

    That said, we got a lot of answers tonight on the Smoke Monster front (though not without raising a hell of a lot of questions).

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  10. Details I want to make sure I record:
    The Temple stuff is happening at the same time as Jacob's killing -- 2007.
    Desmond is on the plane!

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  11. First thought is that Jacob is now Sayid.

    I have no idea what the LA stuff means.

    Good to see Cindi and Claire and Charlie.

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  12. And the tailie kids!

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  13. Oh, and a college lit class would mark this up all over the place for excessive symbolism--"Christian Shepherd" leads a group of people who've made mistakes and want redemption to an Island on "Flight 316," and through being dunked in water, one can defy death?  A little on the nose, isn't it?

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  14. 1 & 2.  All in 2007.  Because they saw the flare.  Am I missing something?
    3.  Equally real to those who are experiencing them.
    4.  To show us (a) that there is a reality in 2004 in which the island has been submerged, and (b) the Dharma shark.

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  15. Devin McCullen11:18 PM

    For now, I'm just going with Jack saw Desmond on the plane, since they took pains to have him vanish.

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  16. Desmond didn't interact with anyone else, come to think of it, nor did anyone else see him.

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  17. Remind me -- why 2007 not early 2008?  (Didn't Des talk with Penny on Christmas Eve 2007 in The Constant?  Remind me - is temple stuff not after all that?)

    Definitely agree on 3:  The detonation created a new timeline, but didn't destroy the timeline that the characters were in.  ("What happened" both "happened" and "didn't happen.")

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  18. Matt, here's my take on the time issue -- all three plotlines (LAX, Essau/Ben/Richard at the foot of the statue, and Kate/Sawyer/Jack/Hurley/etc.) are all taking place at the SAME TIME.  Only the LAX plotline is in a parallel timeline.

    Juliet detonates the bomb and we see a "sliding doors" effect.  In one reality, the bomb "resets" the timeline and everyone lands in LAX safely.  In the other reality, Sayid is being revived at the Temple at the same time Essau is beating up Richard.  I don't know if the episode was in "real time" -- that each sequence is occurring at the same time as the others -- but it certainly comes close.  And I don't think it's the case that one reality is more real than another.

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  19. Marnie11:26 PM

    Was it just me or when Sayid talks at the end was it someone else's voice?  I played  the "killing/saving" Sayid scene three times to try to figure out the significance of the abacus and what the hell they were doing. I replayed the ending 3 times to try to figure out the voice.  I finished the episode texting my brother (who has yet to watch it) that I was sad this episode was ending and jealous he had yet to start it. 

    Also just thinking of it but didn't they flash to dead Locke right after the newly alive Sayid? Seems they are over focusing on death/rebirth.

    Both Terry Quinn and the actor who plays Sawyer blew me away.  

    Lot of new characters and new questions for a show that is ending...

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  20. What would The Constant have to do with it?  The phone call was Christmas 2004 -- she had been looking for him for three years at that point.  And I'm pretty sure the Ajira flight was 2007.

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  21. I agree that he sounded different. That and the way it was filmed make me believe it is not Sayid waking up, but Jacob.

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  22. Marnie11:32 PM

    He kinda sounded Australian so my first thought was Charlie. But it makes much more sense for him to be Jacob.

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  23. Maybe string theory will turn out to be the answer....

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  24. Polling Data (42 entries):

    35/42 said the H-Bomb scheme caused The Incident.  (I'm going to argue that the other 7 of us were correct.)
    Benjamin: 8 say good guy, 6 say bad guy, 28 think it'll be unresolved.
    33/42 say the Humes will end happily, 33/42 say the Kwons will.  Only two of you said neither will.
    74% say Kate chooses herself.  76% think Jack will end up, among other things, as a huge douchebag.
    Ben and Sayid show up the most on the dead pool.  (We'll need a verdict on that second one.)  More math to come.

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  25. Sol Star<span> </span>

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  26. @Russ, because there were 3 years between when the Oceanic 6 arrived home (in 04) and when Jack started agitating to go back to the island.

    And because the season finale with "we have to go back!" was in 2007.

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  27. Andrew11:44 PM

    2007 because Through the Looking Glass aired in 2007 (and we learned that was a flash forward to the then-present.) 

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  28. Andrew11:45 PM

    But it's unsure whether Rose and Bernard wouldn't have seen Des if they weren't otherwise sleeping. Ambiguity! 

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  29. Only 76%?  I'm shocked that Jack being a dbag didn't get 100%.

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  30. Andrew11:47 PM

    LAX is happening back in 2004 -- the same day of the original plane crash. But Ben/Richard/Esau at the foot and Hurley/Jack/Kate and the Others at the Temple are happening at the same time (the group at the foot saw the rocket that the group at the Temple sent into the air.)

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  31. Jordan11:49 PM

    The first thing I thought when I saw Desmond was that he's playing the role to Jack that Farraday's mom played to him.  I'm sticking with that for now.

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  32. Andrew11:49 PM

    <span>
    <p>It's been a while since we've seen them paired together, but Terry O'Quinn really brings out better performances from Matthew Fox (scene at the baggage office). Also Emerson and O'Quinn. 
    </p></span>

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  33. Darlton speak to EW's Doc Jensen.  Yeah, you'll want to read all about what they're calling "flash-sideways narratives".

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  34. Thank you both.  I was indeed confusing 2004 and 2007.  FBOFW, I didn't rewatch any of the eps leading up to this, which puts me behind a bit.

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  35. In which case, pace Isaac, I will indeed be the world champion extrapolator!  :)

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  36. I agree that Sayid is no longer Sayid, but likely Jacob finding the same loop hole as NotLocke. Though we see Sayid's body move from where he was lying "dead," whereas Locke's body was in the box the entire time.
    Yes, Matt, the symbolism was heavy handed: As they took Sayid out of the no-longer-clear baptismal water and carried him up the steps he was displayed in an upside down cross (arms out stretched and all). And, of course, NotLocke said he just wants to get home (how very fallen angel of him).
    I agree with Russ about the introduction of the temple people this late in the game. Really, new characters? And here I was enjoying seeing some of the old, previously dead, alive and landing in LAX.

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  37. christy in nyc11:56 PM

    Oh man, I'd love it if Jacob wakes up in Sayid's body. At least then we'd stand a good chance of Naveen being conscious during slightly more of any given episode. Man, that guy has been laid up a lot in the past season or so.

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  38. Anonymous12:28 AM

    I'm so confused... but damn, that's good TV.

    Did I miss seeing Shannon somewhere? Boone says she didn't want to get out of the relationship - does that mean in this reality she's not on the plane?

    And they walked through the whole plane several times, but I didn't see any of the tailies that we know - Ana Lucia, Libby, Mr. Eko...

    DAMN!

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  39. Watchman12:31 AM

    WAAALT!

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  40. Watchman12:31 AM

    WAAALT!

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  41. What to make of Jack Prime's apparent recognition of Desmond on the plane?  Gratuitous, or a suggestion that at some level Jack has transcended the time-branching and retains a bit of the other timeline in his subconscious?

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  42. Didn't Jack previously meet Desmond off island - while jogging?  Could that be the memory Jack has?  Also, no Walt, but also no Michael.  Or Vincent...

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  43. A reiteration of the fact that Jack has an awfully good memory for guys he meets in stadia at night.  Jack met Desmond before either encountered Craphole Island.

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  44. Jordan12:52 AM

    They'd met previously, when Desmond was training at the stadium...unless that past did not happen, in which case, I'm back to my theory above.

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  45. Maybe that's what they were referencing.  That seems more plausible than a cross-reality memory.

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  46. Adam C.1:00 AM

    Why?  Wasn't the established timeline that Jack had met Des several years before Flight 815, when Des was training for the boat race and Jack was, um, immersing himself in the L.A. douchiness scene?  (Hence Jack's recognition of Des when they finally got into the hatch in Season 2...)

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  47. Adam C.1:03 AM

    I believe Boone expressly said Shannon had decided to stay in Sydney, in the bad relationship.  So no, not on the plane (although I don't recall whether Maggie Grace was among those actors who were asked back for guest shots this season).

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  48. Ramar1:07 AM

    But if there's no Swan then there's no button which means that there's no reason for Eloise to convince Desmond not to marry Penny which means that Desmond won't need to win a boat race for love which means there's no reason for Desmond to train which means there's no reason for Desmond to be in the stadium to meet Jack which means I'm going to bed now.

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  49. Adam C.1:10 AM

    But not new characters, really -- for the most part (other than Dude Who Doesn't Like the Way English Tastes on His Tongue and Sol Star/Dustin Powers), this is the group that many here were wondering about in Season 4 (5?) when we were asking where Flight Attendant Cindy, the two kids, and all of the rest of the Others went (Answer:  to the Temple).

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  50. I remember reading an interview with the producers a couple months ago that Maggie Grace was invited back for this episode but chose not to return because it would conflict with her *movie* career.

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  51. Patrick5:36 AM

    Isaac- I love your series of novels comparison, but I think you're missing the 4th book.  The Kahana? The Escape?  Something for the time between when the freighter arrived and before the Oceanic 6 left, which feels separate from The Wrinkle in Time, which started with Ben and the donkey wheel as the 6 where in the helicopter.

    And Frogurt!  Nice to see you without the flaming arrow sticking out of your chest!

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  52. Carmichael Harold7:42 AM

    I loved that it was an episode that I went into having no idea what would happen, and finished watching and still have little idea what's going to happen in the next episode.  

    My current (tired and uneducated) thought is that the conversation between Jacob and the Man in Black in the beginning of The Incident ("they come, the fight. . . it always ends the same", "it only ends once, everything else is progress") is referring to many alternate timelines of the same people doing the same thing, rather than a discussion of what has happened throughout history in one timeline, and the goal of Jacob is to get the Losties to choose to stay on the Island eventually. 

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  53. But, as Ramar says, the boat race is also contingent on other stuff that wouldn't necessarily have happened.  (I'm not being firm on that point:  I suspect the point of the new timeline is going to be that fate pushes us toward certain outcomes, so while a lot is different, some things will be similar or parallel.

    On Des, I thought they were going for something more than "hey, didn't we meet for, like, a minute several years ago?"  But maybe not.   

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  54. calliekl8:06 AM

    I see Desmond as the Constant for the new timeline. Or Jack's constant. Or it has something to do with that.

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  55. calliekl8:13 AM

    One more part I liked was the interaction with Richard and NotLocke- "Nice to see you without your chains". Mr. Liekl thinks that maybe Richard was the original Other and came in on the Black Rock. Which I think has been agreed was probably the ship offshore that Jacob and the Man in Black saw from the beach, correct?


    And Ramar has made my head explode.

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  56. Adam C.8:41 AM

    I'm not sure I agree fully with the scope of Ramar's concept, although I grok the logic behind it.  I'll wait to see whether and in what context Penny and/or Daddy Widmore turn up in the 815-never-crashed timeline. 

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  57. If everyone's right that Sayid's body is now inhabited by Jacob, we'll mark him as dead for pool purposes.

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  58. Let's take a step back: why did Eloise want Desmond to go on the boat?  Because he he doesn't keep pressing the button the Island will ... "every single one of us is dead" is what she said, but one has to wonder if it was really motivated by, say, "she and Widmore will never be able to find it again."

    Argh.  Whatever happened, happened.  I don't know.

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  59. Adam C.11:27 AM

    Interestingly, IMDb refers to John Hawkes character as "Lennon."

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  60. Adam C.11:30 AM

    Re: Richard Alpert, my thoughts exactly. 

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  61. Question: in our alt-2007 storyline caused by Jughead's explosion in which Desmond still implodes the hatch and Oceanic 815 presumably doesn't crash, how did the tailies get to the island and the Temple?

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  62. Jennifer12:23 PM

    Well, at least all the people who were all, "Where are Cindy and the kids?" got an answer.

    Also, Esau = smoke monster. Badass!

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  63. Here's what I'm wondering about the Sayid-could-now-be-Jacob scenario:

    When Ben was shot by Sayid, Kate et al brought him to Richard, who said they could save him by bringing him to the temple, but - Ben would never be the same afterwards. I'm assuming that what they did to save Sayid is the same thing they did to Ben.  So if Jacob is now in Sayid... what exactly happened to Ben back then?  I don't think Ben was ever technically dead, so it's a different scenario, but still - how was Ben forever changed by his Temple experience?  Perhaps Jacob deemed him unworthy to inhabit?

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  64. The thing is, *I* may think Jack is a dbag, but I don't think the writers do. I think the writers think he's a flawed, conflicted hero, and that they're going to work to prove that (or redeem him) by the end of the season.

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  65. <p><span><span>As one of the people who watches the show mainly for the characters and their personal stories (which is not to say that I don't enjoy twisting my brain in knots about the rest of it) the most moving moment of last night’s show was when NotLocke said that what Locke was thinking when he died was, “I don’t understand.”<span>  </span>That he died sad and confused.<span>  </span>After watching Locke’s long, twisting journey, the fact that he really did die that way, in a seedy hotel room strangled by Ben, is just unbelievably sad.</span></span></p>

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  66. Andrew1:02 PM

    We don't yet know what's going to be in the alt 2007 timeline-- we're in 2007 in the original timeline where 815 crashed on the island, but only in 2004 in timeline X where the Grunberg lands Oceanic 815 successfully at LAX. The 2007 with the imploded hatch follows the original timeline (the 5 previous seasons) where the Incident happens and the Swan is built, and the Oceanic plane crashes bringing our main survivors as well as Cindy and the kids to the Island. In timeline X, the island seems to be undersea after the Dharma Barracks/New Otherton were built and with the Dharma shark swimming around. 

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  67. Maggie1:03 PM

    I totally agree with you.  I thought Terry O'Quinn played the heck out of both parts - the menacing not-Locke and the wistful, resigned Locke on flight 815. 

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  68. Patrick1:07 PM

    I think you're mixing up your universes.  We see two: one where jughead went off, prevented the incident, the plane never crashes and the island is at the bottom of the ocean.  In the other, the on island stuff with the temple and the tailies, everything we've been watching in seasons 1-5 happened as we saw them, with jughead's only seeming effect being throwing our lostaways forward from 1977 to 2007(?  I get the "present" year mixed up).  If Desmond has imploded the hatch, we're in a universe where Oceanic 815 crashed.

    Back to the island being at the bottom of the ocean in the no crash universe (and fandom could really use intuitive names for the two): I know the common assumption is that jughead sunk the island, but I feel like that's not quite right.  I'm getting visions of the end of season 4, when we saw the island seemingly sink into the ocean: we know now that really what happened was it went skipping through time, but really, it was the people on the island, not the island itself that skipped through time.  And the island itself was there three years later for Ajira 316 to crash on it.  So why'd we see it "sink" when the Oceanic 6 were in the helicopter?

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  69. It's the whole "the water is cloudy" thing, though: I'd assume the water has healing properties while Jacob is alive and corporeal -- but carries some kind of connection to Jacob, but once he lost his host body the water could no longer heal Sayid.

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  70. bella wilfer1:12 PM

    I agree with Sue and Maggie - I love seeing O'Quinn play NotLocke, but it breaks my heart a bit to think that actual Locke is really dead.  While at times he played the villain, Locke overall was indeed a sad and troubled man, and learning that his end was just like most of his existence is tragic. 

    However - I would LOVE to see the Locke/Jack relationship in the LA timeline played out - Jack operates on Locke and gives him his legs back?? Jack operates on Locke and fails?? So many cool options.  And agree that O'Quinn brings out the best in Fox.  That airport scene was chillingly great. 

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  71. Marsha1:14 PM

    I think Terry O'Quinn's performance throughout this entire series goes into the books as one of the great character portrayals of all time. The variety of ways he's had to play Locke, and having them all make sense... just fantastic work.

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  72. Marsha1:14 PM

    Yes, but we still don't know "WHY" Cindy and the kids got taken to the temple.

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  73. Carmichael Harold1:38 PM

    I agree about the anticipation of Jack/Locke's NoCrash relationship.  Of course, I worry that Jack will operate on Locke and accidentally steal his other kidney, causing Jack to become a depressed drunk with a shaggy beard and Locke to become a kidneyless parapalegic who hates sons as well as fathers.

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  74. piledhighanddeep2:01 PM

    Carltedon Cuse and Damon Lindelof were on Jimmy Kimmel Live last night, and they discounted the theory that Sayid is now Jacob.  However, they allowed that something strange was going on with Sayid that would evolve over the next couple of episodes. 

    Can't wait; this is such good television.

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  75. isaac_spaceman2:23 PM

    We've never seen Esau/Smokey/not-Locke possess somebody -- we've only seen him transform himself so that he looks like Locke (and maybe like Christian Shepherd).  And he wasn't dead when he did it.  So we've seen nothing to suggest that Jacob, who presumably follows the same rules, could just put himself into Sayid's body. 

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  76. Another question: in 2004 v2.0, can Sun no longer speak English or is she lying about it to airport security?

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  77. isaac_spaceman3:45 PM

    In the LAX version of events, Eloise is dead, at the bottom of the ocean with Widmar and the island.  She can't tell Desmond to get on the boat.  And with no Widmar, Penny (who presumably was born pre-explosion) is free to marry Desmond, who, I agree, then wouldn't be trying to race around the world.  

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  78. calliekl3:52 PM

    Lying, imo.

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  79. Except that the universe is self-correcting, so, who knows?

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  80. tortoiseshelly4:34 PM

    I'm kind of with Matt & Emily in thinking they are heavily hanging their hat on religious symbology with goings on at the island. Even still, I have a ton of questions. If you assume Jacob as the Christlike figure, then:

    1) Like Sue, I wonder what they mean when they say if Ben is healed he will no longer be "innocent" (which I think is how Richard phrased it). And how was young Ben healed - in the water or directly by Jacob. Did Jacob have the power, while alive, to heal people by touch? And by Jacob not fighting Ben, are we to assume that Jacob gave his life willingly - dying to save others?

    2) Look at the conversation Sayid had with Hurley about where he would be going when he died. Sayid talked about his sins, his torturing people, and how he wasn't sure it was going to be a nice place he would be going to. After Jacob died, the water at the Temple was no longer clear. I think when Sayid is placed in the water, he is actually (again with direct analogy to Christ and forgiveness of sinners and salvation) being "washed in the blood of the Lamb" and having his sins forgiven and being made whole/pure again. I think they reinforce that with the way Sayid is posed coming out of the water.

    So, I guess I'm saying I don't think Sayid is Jacob. I do thinks it's possible that Ben and Sayid are akin to angelic figures - one a fallen angel (Ben) and the other a defender of the temple/survivors (Sayid). Though, if they are going down that path, we're being set up for watching Armageddon on the island. In which case, are we really looking at parallel time on Earth or time as a spiritual v. physical construction? Am I making any sense? My head hurts.

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  81. Adam C.4:46 PM

    Put another way, spectral Jacob's discussion with Hugo seemed to suggest that there was some urgency to getting Sayid to the Temple -- was that because of Sayid's condition, or Jacob's?

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  82. Adam C.4:57 PM

    Isaac's assessment may be right, but it depends on the idea that Eloise and Charles were on the island when it sunk.  We don't know when the island sunk, though, only that it is underwater by 2004 (and that it looks not to be a particularly recent condition).

    Refresh my memory on this, too:  I remember that Charlotte's mom took her off the island, and Miles' mom did the same, pre-Jughead-Go-Boom.  But didn't Eloise also leave the island to raise Daniel? (We know that in the original timeline, Charles Widmore was not exiled/Ben did not usurp leadership until a few years after the Purge, so probably mid-1990s.  But I'm fairly sure that Eloise was already gone by then - she didn't leave with Charles, at least.)

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  83. Oh, totally lying.  I think even her first word response, "No," was made to seem like she almost erred by answering in English to a question asked in English, which she corrected by adding "...English."  I thought she clearly understood.

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  84. Adam C.5:00 PM

    Co-sign to Patrick, as indicated in a reply comment upthread.  We know only that the island is underwater in 2004, but not when it sunk.

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  85. Adam C.5:01 PM

    They were on the list!  They were good!

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  86. Adam C.5:02 PM

    Particularly since he didn't know he was playing NotLocke until pretty late in Season 5.

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  87. Adam C.5:04 PM

    Yes, lying.

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  88. Carmichael Harold5:36 PM

    Adam C., wasn't Eloise on the Island when Jughead-Go-Boom?  I know she killed Faraday right beforehand and led Jack down to the tunnels under Othersville, but don't remember if she skedaddled immediately thereafter.

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  89. Carmichael Harold5:50 PM

    tortoiseshelly, I agree about the religious symbolism, but for whatever reason the past few days I've been thinking of it as Jacob being more like a Godlike figure and the MiB as a Satan analogue.  In particular, maybe the Island is like the Garden of Eden, with Jacob setting rules and hoping people follow them to stay on the Island, while the MiB is the snake actively trying to tempt people off of the Island.  Maybe that pool is meant to be a choice, and when one goes in it they bind themselves to the Island.  

    Jacob's goal may be to get people to choose to stay and not leave, and perhaps the thrust of this season will be the Losties deciding that they aren't on the Island due to an accident (season 1) or to save their friends (season 4/5), but because that's where they want/need to be (and the alternate 2004 timeline may be a way to get them to understand this, as they get to live their lives after clearly forsaking the Island by setting events in motion to sink it).  Neither Ben nor Sayid chose to go into the pool, so while they may be bound to the Island,  I don't think they count in Jacob/MiB's game.   Hmm. . .in re-reading this, I'm not sure it is all that coherent (and I'm clearly babbling), but I'll try and come back to flesh it out more later.

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  90. Marsha7:29 PM

    Absolutely lying.

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  91. Doesn't Cindy seem like kind of a bitch, though?

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  92. isaac_spaceman9:09 PM

    Can't think of a reason why Jughead would change Sun and Jin's relationship (and he's still a dick to her on the plane).  Hurley's change -- he's lucky, not unlucky -- can be explained by the notion that the sinking of the island meant that the guy at his asylum never learned the numbers, so Hurley never learned them either (although this creates a new problem -- how would Hurley have known the numbers to play the lotto?).  As described above, Desmond being on the plane can be explained by the absence of Eloise and Widmore to drive him there.  Shannon's absence, I guess, is a problem -- maybe Widmore was the one funding Maggie Grace's contract.  Anyway, my point is that there isn't any ready reason why Jughead would prevent Sun from hating her husband and learning English. 

    And she has a motive to lie, too -- maybe she doesn't want Jin to know, but maybe she also wants him to get arrested so that it's easier for her to get away.

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  93. Sure, but they don't even seem to have basic cable in the Temple, let alone HD.  I'd be cranky too.

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  94. Adam C.9:21 PM

    You're totally right, CH -- completely slipped my mind. She was pregnant too - that was why Richard sent her away when Jack and Sayid went to grab the core from Jughead.

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  95. Side note:  I'm having trouble finding the new comments, what with some of them being buried in the middle of the thread.  Sigh.

    Yes, I thought that Sun clearly understood English at the airport.

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  96. Hurley was always lucky, it was the people around him, his loved ones and co-workers who were the victims of the Numbers curse

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  97. lisased3:09 PM

    My 12 years of Catholic school (ugh) also made me think of God vs. Satan and a long observation of free will.

    Wikipedia has the temple leader's name as Dogen. When he first walked out of the temple, I could have sworn he was Pierre Chang.

    Also? I spent quite a bit of time wondering if Jack (and the other survivors) had retained memory of the island while on the plane in 2004. I kept waiting for someone to nudge him and whisper, "Hey! It worked!"

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