Lost Season 6 - RE: LA X

Here we go LOST fans! Five years on and and I hope you're STOKED.

Anticipation thread here for speculative/spoilering: The island wanted LOST SEASON SIX THREAD to happen

This thread is for ongoing viewing pleasure rather than spoiler posting. I think anything broadcast is fair game so us Britishers and Irishers will have to put up with a couple of days of spoilers/download it/wait until it's on Sky before reading. I'll be downloading asap as waiting three or four days is unthinkable.

http://www.odoe.net/jackfaces/images/runjack_sm.gif

What will be do when it's all over? ;_;

be do?

we do

do be do be do

Will be setting this to download before I dress or wash tomorrow morning. Btw uk/irelanders might care that the s5 finale is on sky plus anytime all week.

don't know which site to use anymore

WHAT ABOUT PREVIEWS FOR THE NEXT EPISODE ARE THOSE SPOILERS

(just getting it out of the way)

Why is it on Friday night in the UK? Is this a one-off or is it Friday every week? Bastards.

Ummm this appears to be on surftehchann31 already?!

False alarm, recap. Carry on.

this recap sucks balls.

when have they not sucked balls?

the Season x in 8:15 minutes things are all you need

"they changed the past, but these recaps still suck balls..."

The Reduced Shakespeare Company's Lost in 10 minutes

When it's over, you'll watch Carnivale.

After the first opening seconds, "this story begins on Sept. 22, 2004, in Sydney Australia, when 324 people boarded a plane to Los Angeles", I had such an absolutely furious YOU MOTHERFUCKERS moment before I put together that duh it's just a recap. I felt dumb, but whew, kinda.

haha kinda cracking up at the idea of the season premiere being MORE RECAP like they just rebooted the whole thing and are retelling ti

season 6 premier is actually just going to be season 1 premier backwards

4 hours 3 minutes

^^Would totally watch just to see Frackles tear out Jack's stitches and that one dude get spit out of a jet engine.

xp

Abc has sum spoilish footage on. But really its just one more bead of sweat in th wizards sleeve.I made room on th couch if anyone is alone tonite

I dunno what I'm gonna do tonite cuz IIIII don't have a TV

sup frackles

frackles frackles frackles

I dunno what I'm gonna do tonite cuz IIIII don't have a TV

Psst:
http://www.channelsurfing.net/watch-abc.html

"I made room on th couch if anyone is alone tonite"

i'll be alone! maria is going to watch at frrenzzzz house tonight. but yer couch is too far away.

Psst:

O hai

4 8 15 16 23 42 F R A C K L E S 4 8 15 16 23 42

MERE MINUTES

!!!!!!!!!!

i am like a child waiting for the santa tbh

I have had my dinner, I am in my jammies, and I am about to have my bottle (of beer).

fracklin out

don't u wish it were DHARMA BEER?

xp

er dhrama beer

like this one?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/IMG_1686.jpg

(my daughter made me some labels for xmas a couple of years ago)

son of a

oh frackles

"This is what happens when 324 strangers stop being polite, and start being real.' REAL WORLD ISLAND SEASON ONE

"...a strange couple..."

because...they're...Korean...?

God, clip shows are the worsestest

yeah guys your countdown was an hour early

son of a...

I keep thinking about how annoying Ben's voice is as the narrator for this clip show, but...I can't think of another Lostie that would be less annoying. Let's face it, these cats were not made out for narrating clip shows

they should get herzog to do this obv

cheech

Whoopi Goldberg

circle gets the square

tracey morgan

Man, Sun is such a babe

^^^ this

http://i45.tinypic.com/23wp4p3.jpg

daaaaaaang

http://images.askmen.com/photos/yunjin-kim/84033.jpg

she is hot. but no one thinks her head is disproportionately lol huge?

that picture is actually scaring me now

like this one? - lol. nice!

OK, I am now temp-banning myself from this thread b/c I can't watch the premier until laet tonight :(

hey guys i just figured out how locke regained the ability to walk

you know how jacob's enemy is able to possess dead people right

well, when the oceanic plane first crashed, he possessed locke's LEGS, which were dead. just like revolver ocelot's arm in metal gear solid 2.

dinosaurs!!!

it was all just a screensaver

So far the part where Sawyer surfs down that Ultrasaurus tail has been my fav S6 moment

FROGURT!

See, if Ben had actually watched the footage he was narrating, he wouldn't be nearly as surprised.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

L O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O S T ! !
L O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O S T ! !

       L O S T
      L  O  S  T
     L   O   S   T
    L    O    S    T
   L     O     S     T
  L      O      S      T
 L       O       S       T
L        O        S       T

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

lost

SMOKEY YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LO_o-_-o_OST

lOST ost

TRACK-LISTING

1) "SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES"

http://i46.tinypic.com/k1b5ld.gif
http://i46.tinypic.com/2mrb5g1.jpg
http://i49.tinypic.com/35ivodx.gif
http://i49.tinypic.com/fcr6mq.jpg

2) "THIEVES IN THE TEMPLE"

3) (I just can't-a-belive-ah) The letters in the word LOST are arranged alphabetically (!!!)

so why is desmond on the plane?

that mcdonalds coffee ad has my cousin in it for like 2 seconds. she is the girl on the bus that says "good morning."

an estranged couple

what happened?

what happened?

http://www.nerve.com/CS/blogs/theremoteisland/2009/03/sayid.jpg

wahaaat happent

سعيد حسّان جراح ‎ Sa‘īd Ḥassān Jarrāḥ
سعيد حسّان جراح ‎ Sa‘īd Ḥassān Jarrāḥ
سعيد حسّان جراح ‎ Sa‘īd Ḥassān Jarrāḥ
سعيد حسّان جراح ‎ Sa‘īd Ḥassān Jarrāḥ
سعيد حسّان جراح ‎ Sa‘īd Ḥassān Jarrāḥ
سعيد حسّان جراح ‎ Sa‘īd Ḥassān Jarrāh

does sayid have desmond's accent now

http://www.vinyl45lp.com/items/english-beat-whappen.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SHRFhfeLgY

well, when the oceanic plane first crashed, he possessed locke's LEGS, which were dead. just like revolver ocelot's arm in metal gear solid 2.

so confused. I can't believe I have to suffer like you schlubs. shoulda held out one more season.

so are we really gonna do a new thread for every single episode? or just rename the thread?

also i dig the new sound fx for the flash.... paralleluniversing... whatever it is.

Surprisingly unclear about where they're going with this season though, usually within the first 2 hours of the season there's a pretty good indication of the direction they're going in. I guess on the island we'll see this battle play out b/w Evil Locke and the remaining Others, though what's up with the other reality... and how did Juliet know??

That japanese guy is my new favorite character.

My question is, why does the alternate timeline where 815 landed safely even matter? They can't be following it just for prurient interest.

so Jacob is inside Sayid now right

they had to drown him so he had a dead body to jump into like the black tunic guy did Locke

Really wondering about that. I'm like 99% sure, but that confused-as-shit expression and the "Wtf wuz that?" line are keeping me in doubt.

Also the (pretty slight) possibility that Sayid is possessed by Evil Locke/Smokey like too many dead people on the island... but nahhh.

Plus Miles had that wtf? expression on his face when he was leaning over Sayid's body. Don't know what that means.

Probably meant "I don't hear him...he ain't dead."

so are we really gonna do a new thread for every single episode? or just rename the thread?

also i dig the new sound fx for the flash.... paralleluniversing... whatever it is.

Surprisingly unclear about where they're going with this season though, usually within the first 2 hours of the season there's a pretty good indication of the direction they're going in. I guess on the island we'll see this battle play out b/w Evil Locke and the remaining Others, though what's up with the other reality... and how did Juliet know??

― Nhex, Tuesday, February 2, 2010 11:14 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

pretty sure this is the thread for the whole season, just the brilliant subject line happens to refer to the first episode

i'm glad there's not a strong indication of where this is going, i'm kinda hoping by the end of the season there'll have been a whole lot of shit going down that you can't even begin to predict

I feel like that'd be kind of a shit way for Sayid to peace out, too. A character like that dies for real...? That deserves more than three minutes of contemplation, before he rises from the dead while being piloted by some touchy-feely sort-of-immortal island spirit.

I dunno I was satisfied when Sayid died. And then I thought it was a great ending to have him come back to life. I dont really think it's jacob though, but if it is we'll see.

x-post: kinda happened to Locke though

"Don't worry about your buddy, I got his soul parked in a safe spot while I use the body. He's in the spot Don Blake goes to when he's not being Thor...in fact they're probably playing gin rummy now."

Also, if Jacob is now Sayid, then who the FUCK is Christian? Dude's been calling intermittently calling himself Jacob for a while, hasn't he? Or am I misremembering?

I feel like there's an inconsistency with the temple and the smoke monster and the fact that these temple guys are now trying to keep the smoke monster out. I can't quite pinpoint it though, but didn't the smoke monster used to reside at the temple as some kind of security system? You'd think it'd be on pretty good terms with all these guys.

i'm kind of confused about those guys in general. have any of them, flight attendant aside, ever been seen onscreen before?

I don't think so, this is a new crew.

With Deadwood Sol!

No. I just assumed they're like temple guardians or something.

Christian always said he wasn't Jacob, but he "worked" for him or something like that... of course since he always talked to Locke, I think he was just Smokey all along. Interesting that Smokey started piling up the dead acolytes and removed the stick from Bram's head - probably gonna posess 'em later?

The security system thing was an invention of Danielle's, I think? and she could've been wrong/misinterpreting Smokey possession of her crewmates. My theory - it hung around the temple at the time but couldn't get in - assuming that's where he wants to go, of course. Also that was in 1987 or whenabouts.

The people at the temple are mostly new actors (hey John Hawkes! yay!) but they're the same group of Others since the start, since Richard had them moved there in 2004 when the island blipped. Even a bunch of the random kidnapped children were there.

that one guy that took Kate's first choice at Taxi.. he's been on screen before right. Even if he was just one of the plane survivors that chilled in the background?

Yeah, the smoke monster has definitely had a weird non-antagonistic relationship with the others though. Like when Ben had it kill Keamy's men in season 4. It's hard to tell what they knew about smokey or what they thought they knew and were wrong about. But at this point it seems like they're definitely protecting themselves from it.

x-post yeah that was frogurt. He got killed in the beginning of season 5 by the flaming arrows. I think he also had season one screen time, but don't remember him.

he's like a poor man's buscemi.

Thanks for clarifying Frogurt for me.

I always wanted Fake Locke to be the good guy and Jacob was somehow the bad guy (probably because I thought the show would be cooler that way). Now it seems that Fake Locke is obviously a bad guy, or rather some monster trying to "find his way home" regardless of who he hurts. Too bad

that's not a big enough regret for me to think the series won't end cool

any idea who the cab driver was that was driving Claire and who Kate held at gunpoint? looks familiar, but it's possible I've just seen him in some other tv show or movie rather than in Lost

Frogurt is also the dude from this classic Got Milk? commercial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLSsswr6z9Y

haha

the templars being dressed in ratty earthtones might be a retcon to explain why the captured kids in season 2 were later seen in rags... before we learned the ben/alpert others didn't really dress like that

Not just the kids, but many Other appearances in different time period (though particularly the 70s and 80s). for a while I suspected it was a changeover when Ben took over the camp, but then Ellie and Richard looked well-dressed in the 50s and 70s. It's been incredibly inconsistent though (see Richard in Ben's first flashback episode in season 3 vs. last year's finale).

I feel like there's an inconsistency with the temple and the smoke monster and the fact that these temple guys are now trying to keep the smoke monster out. I can't quite pinpoint it though, but didn't the smoke monster used to reside at the temple as some kind of security system? You'd think it'd be on pretty good terms with all these guys.

didn't ben go to the temple to atone and meet smokey (when he became alex?). hmm.

so... the island is ruled by john lennon and steve aoki and people are zombies but also living in a parallel universe? hmm. also was the 1st ep not shit? i actually said out loud 'omg would you just die already?' to juliet at one point.

People required a Sawyer/Juliet ending that was a little more sentimental. Also, it set up the opportunity for Miles to find out "it worked."

they didn't have to waste 42 min on that!

crossing fingers for a GHOSTOFF b/w Miles and Hurley. that would be rad.

loved how miles seemed a bit put off when hurley was all 'hey man if you wanna talk sometime...' to deadsayid!

so was that the list, in the ankh?

Oh how I laughed when the guitar case opened to reveal a big comedy prop ankh

i liked how bram went out. smokey's smaaaaaaart

Some random thoughts:

What does it mean to be the "leader"? Ben became the leader by lying, then Christian/Smokey convinced Locke he was the leader, and then Fake Locke/Smokey was the "leader". But Alpert, Widmore, and Hawking all clearly believed in the concept of their being a leader, and Hawking seemed like she was authentically the leader during the 1977 pre-incident days. In the original storyline, Widmore was once the leader, but that seemingly never happened in the new timeline because the island was sunk, probably with Hawking on it.

Clearly, Desmond and other key players on the alternate oceanic flight (The Oceanic Six, including Aaron, and probably also Desmond, and maybe Stewardess lady, possibly Claire). I kinda think Charlie and Boone and most of the other random folks on the plane are not going to play into the story much. But the rest of them have stuff to do, and I think it's possible that Christian's coffin fell out of the plane during the turbulence.

Sun and Jin are on the island at the same time now, so they will be reuniting soon.

Not convinced that Sayid is Jacob now, but it's possible. He seemed very Sayid to me when he woke up. At the very least he will have some new power. Jacob wouldn't go through all that trouble for nothing.

I think the temple guys were always there, and I think Ben has been there plenty of times. (Ben had never been to Smokey's lair, though. Fake Locke took him there for the first time, and then disappeared, and then manifested as Alex, etc.) He was brought back to life there, and he was thought to be the leader by everyone. I think as a kid he learned how the leader does business, and took the opportunity to lie his way into being the leader.

Clearly Alpert was once a slave or a prisoner on the ship.

Smokey is trapped on the island and wants to go to his home, but where might that be if it's not the island?

"there being a leader", rather

i liked how bram went out. smokey's smaaaaaaart

Yeah, that was nice. MIB can't touch Jacob, so Jacob's ashes become the circles of ash that stop MIB. (Even though they've been used before they're collected, I'm sure Ilana's going to be collecting them in a bit.)

My head hurts a lot w/r/t alternate timeline 1977-2004 after reading this interview

Clearly Alpert was once a slave or a prisoner on the ship.

A theory on Lostpedia was that MIB saying 'nice to see you out of those chains' he was referring not only to his having arrived in chains on the Black Rock but also having been a slave of Jacob's for years, which I thought was awesome.

Smokey is trapped on the island and wants to go to his home, but where might that be if it's not the island? - if it is outer space, somebody is going to get punched.

OH MY GOD IF THIS SHOW ABOUT A MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, A MAGIC SMOKE MONSTER, IMMORTAL GUYS AND MYSTERIOUS TIME-SPACE ANOMALIES GOES SCI-FI, I'LL, I'LL...

see, though, alien involvement is where I draw the line, dammit!

srsly tho, "it came from outer space" would be as much as a deus ex machina copout as the snowglobe theoury, omg it's all in HURLEY'S MIND, etc. Not that I think they'll go there, but I guess they coooooouuuld...

I loved these eps, tho. The PseudoLocke/Alpert/Ben stuff, especially, was a HUGE payoff imo. Echoing the sentiments of others, I'm a bit wary of the parallel timelines, but they pulled flash-forward & time-skipping devices off well enough that I'm not that worried about it. Someone else mentioned this, but yeah there seemed to be a serious Apocalypse Now nod going down b/w Locke in The Foot & the temple o doom.

good episodes i thought

glad to see the new others

yeah that was frogurt. He got killed in the beginning of season 5 by the flaming arrows. I think he also had season one screen time, but don't remember him.

I think he was just mentioned in SSN 1. He 1st appeared in one of those webisodes, needling Hurley about Libby.

Re: Smoke Locke's home. Could be he wants to escape the island and go back to the mainland (Egypt? Tunisia?) In which case the island all along may have been a prison colony for an evil spirit, with Jacob as jailer.

He left Ben behind, right? Which means another SSN of prisoner Ben cracking jokes.

I figure when we get an Alpert-centric episode we'll find out that the Asian Temple guy is also ageless & was on that boat we saw, (or came even earlier.)

Re: Smoke Locke's home. Could be he wants to escape the island and go back to the mainland (Egypt? Tunisia?) In which case the island all along may have been a prison colony for an evil spirit, with Jacob as jailer.

I like this theory. The Egyptians, with their mysteriously advanced maths & such were able to utilize some channel of electromagnetic power/timespace manipulation thingamajig to send the Smokey entity into a vacuum, which Jacob was responsible for guarding, acting as or in accordance with whatever deity is represented by the statue..

Guys all this talk about Smokey possessing people and this -- they had to drown him so he had a dead body to jump into like the black tunic guy did Locke -- ignores the fact that Locke's body is currently lying on the beach, unpossessed by anybody. I don't think he possesses any bodies, he just somehow "scans" people like he did with Eko, and can then impersonate them, or someone important from their lives, later.

..Except their were rips in the envelope that allowed occasional passers by to stumble upon or, alternatively, be purposely drawn to the island. Of those, certain individuals were granted preferential status by Jacob & taken on as his accomplices. Alpert & possibly Asian shaman are two of those & Ben conned his way past Widmore into such a position, tho he was either just lying consistently to protect the grift or was unknowingly working for Smokey the whole time. OK I'm done (for now).

ugh, typos. whatevs. it's early.

I wonder if there's something significant about Sayid that made him the one to save. Maybe Jacob needs a body to ump into & Sayid's is the most available. But perhaps it has something to do w/ causalty: Sayid shot by Roger Linus in retaliation for shooting Ben--who was taken to the Temple, lost his innocence & grew up to kill Jacob.

GUYS THE ISLAND IS UNDERWATER

and i still haven't received an answer why desmond is on the plane?

I wonder if the Aquahotties are still there.

Even if they're not "officially" still there, Hurley could prob kick it with em.

didn't ben go to the temple to atone and meet smokey (when he became alex?). hmm.

he didn't go all the way in, he fell in that hole under the wall that they had to sneak around with Sayid's body

Locke's body is currently lying on the beach, unpossessed by anybody

well that's true. but for black tunic guy's plan to work it seemed like he needed Locke's body to actually be on the plane

and i still haven't received an answer why desmond is on the plane?

― sir ilx-a-lot (cutty), Wednesday, February 3, 2010 6:47 AM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah this was weird. also shannon was not on the plane, and she was supposed to be.

so claire is dead, right?

To be fair when Shannon wasn't on the plane my first thought was just "they couldn't get the actress back".

Seeing Arzt was weird, he seems to have aged a lot.

btw lols at john lennon and steve aoki

for black tunic guy's plan to work it seemed like he needed Locke's body to actually be on the plane

Right, because he needed Ben et al to believe Locke had come back to life. But he's not physically possessing Locke, he's just appearing as Locke.

That doesn't mean Jacob isn't in Sayid's body, but I don't think it's the case. I don't think either of these guys actually take over other people's bodies.

and i still haven't received an answer why desmond is on the plane?

― sir ilx-a-lot (cutty), Wednesday, February 3, 2010 6:47 AM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah this was weird. also shannon was not on the plane, and she was supposed to be.

so claire is dead, right?

― congratulations (n/a), Wednesday, February 3, 2010 8:19 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

the things that were different on the plane i think are pretty key and important -- i wonder if Charlie having a completely different haircut is meant to be one of the big differences or if they were just feeling lazy about continuity since they knew it didn't have to be a mirror image. also Hurley is lucky instead of unlucky, so at least some of their lives before getting on the plane are different here.

I wonder if the Sun that landed at LAX really doesn't know English? If so, that's a pretty key difference as well. Also loved how Mr. Federal Marshall gets his briefcase head wound anyway thanks to Kate. And Sawyer warning Hurley about possibly being conned.

oh right, that too -- i felt like they were trying to say Sun doesn't speak English but I guess it's still ambiguous enough

the things that were different on the plane i think are pretty key and important -- i wonder if Charlie having a completely different haircut is meant to be one of the big differences or if they were just feeling lazy about continuity since they knew it didn't have to be a mirror image. also Hurley is lucky instead of unlucky, so at least some of their lives before getting on the plane are different here.

― PLIES! PLIES! PLIES! PLIES! PLIES! (some dude), Wednesday, February 3, 2010 9:31 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i thought they were hinting that locke would be able to walk, too, but clearly that didnt happen

oh and obviously shannon not being on the plane

Why was Jack's neck bleeding btw?

aids

Assuming it was Jughead that knocked the Island out of orbit & into the water, does that mean that everyone there in 1977 (Ben, Eloise, Widmore, Alpert, Dharma folk not on the sub) are dead and anyone who came to the Island post-77 (Rousseau, Kelvin, Juliet, most of the modern Others) are alive on the mainland?

Does Sun not speak English, or was she pretending to not speak English in hopes that Jin would get arrested, since she wants to get out of the relationship?

because the latter was my interpretation

Why was Jack's neck bleeding btw?

― JimD, Wednesday, February 3, 2010 9:39 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

so they have something to connect the preceding events to when shown later on, a la the rip in Ben's coat

ooh good point n/a

I thought what n/a thought re: Sun and Jin

Does Sun not speak English, or was she pretending to not speak English in hopes that Jin would get arrested, since she wants to get out of the relationship?

wasn't Sun supposed to leave Jin in australia and then decided not to at the last minute and boarded the plane to america with him? I may be misremembering this.

well since it's an ALTERNATE UNIVERSE, who knows?

I'm mainly curious if they're going to keep these 2 parallel threads -- the group on the plane landing in LA, and the group still on the island -- going for most of the season until they merge and make some kind of sense, like the flash forwards in season 4, or if this will just be something they use to disorient people for the first few episodes.

I realized I had read way too many comic books when they went back to Kate on the island and my wife was all "whaaaaaaaaat I am so confused" and I was all "oh awesome, they created a parallel universe!!!!"

yeah I found myself having to explain the concept of parallel universes to my girlfriend

lol women don't understand alternate realities

Luckily my wife is a nerd like me, so we both got it pretty quickly.

they're like "ooooh i have to go shooooopping, i don't have tiiiiiime to learn about string theory"

so uh smoke monster is basically agent smith then?

"I just died ten minutes ago." "oh, bummer dude."

(this woman immediately understood the parallel timelines...)

congratulations on yr new penis

]any idea who the cab driver was that was driving Claire and who Kate held at gunpoint? looks familiar, but it's possible I've just seen him in some other tv show or movie rather than in Lost

― Nhex, Tuesday, February 2, 2010 11:49 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

pretty sure he is the puppet-master guy on heroes

you guys caught a ton of stuff I totally missed :O

did they mention why boone's sis wasn't on the plane?

boone was like, "i went to australia to get her out of a bad relationship... but she didnt want to get out" or something

then why was she on it the first time?

because it's a PARALLEL UNIVERSE whoooooooooo

basically there's no point in wondering anything about the alternate timeline at this point because the fact that it's an alternate timeline means they can do whatever b.s. they want.

i.e. couldn't book actress

should've just had Desmond play her in a blonde wig

would have made sense to call boone "brother"

i'm assuming in this timeline charles widmore doesn't exist off-island. and so penny doesn't exist, so desmond never meets her, never goes on his boat race and for whatever reason is now on a flight from sydney to LA.

btw how did kate end up in a tree while everyone else was exactly where they were when the bomb went off?

But Widmore had a family off-island--one of the reasons he was banished. I have to figure Penny was born before 1977. If Des & Penny did meet in the alt-timeline, there'd be no a-hole father making him feel unworthy.

kate was hiding in a tree when the bomb went off

Yeah, I assumed that the split into parallel realities would occur at the moment of turbulence. But that appears not to be the case.

oh this is useful: http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Differences_between_flashsideways_timeline_and_original_timeline

Flashsideways timeline: Charlie goes to the restroom apparently to kill himself by choking on a bag of heroin.

Why do they think this was a suicide attempt, instead of him just trying to bring the drugs in by swallowing them?

Because Charlie tells Jack "I was supposed to die."

I think something weird is going on with Desmond; not only did he sort of magically appear on the flight when he was nowhere near it the first time, but he didn't appear to be one of the passengers who disembarked; they gave some screen time to all of the other main characters when they got off the plane and he was nowhere to be seen.

Perhaps instead of just bouncing around in his own personal timeline, he is bouncing between the parallel universes, and not just mentally but physically?

Because Charlie tells Jack "I was supposed to die."

― Hoisin Murphy (jaymc), Wednesday, February 3, 2010 10:51 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I just interpreted this as like a general fate statement, like "I deserve to die"

xpost there's always something weird going on with desmond. he could've been a figment of jack's imagination as well - memories leaking through time or something.

I think that statement was meant to be interpreted a lot of different ways since the viewer has no idea if Jack and Charlie are aware of what's going on or if there's a plan or fate or something that they're supposed to be following on the plane. (xpost)

man it is going to be a bitch for all these lostpedia contributors to start adding "flashsideways" entries to all the character pages.

Basically who kills themselves by trying to choke on a baggie of drugs in an airplane bathroom?

a junkie?

you'd sort of think that anyone with a bag of heroin who was trying to kill themselves would just open the bag of heroin and swallow it, ging out with an OD rather than by choking

Original timeline: In custody for the murder of her stepfather. Flashsideways timeline: In custody for the murder of her stepfather's apprentice.

what? I must have missed this seemingly important detail

huh I don't remember that either

i would like to state that the grand tradition of terrible cgi on lost was carried on by the underwater island thing. also, wtf at the music they used?

x-post Kate killed Mickey Mouse.

I dunno, maybe it has to do w/ that America's Most Wanted video on Kate that they played at ComicCon. I didn't pay attention, but there were supposedly differences in the story of her crimes.

i would like to state that the grand tradition of terrible cgi on lost was carried on by the underwater island thing. also, wtf at the music they used?

― rhea perlman is "horrible" (jjjusten), Wednesday, February 3, 2010 12:06 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah everyone who i watched it with burst out laughing at those terrible cgi fish

it's kind of too bad that Juliet is doing that terrible "V" remake, I was kind of hoping the interminable Kate/Jack/Sawyer merry-go-round was done

btw who will help me bankroll a Hurley/Miles spin-off series

ghost cops fighting crimes!

the Kate/Jack/Sawyer/Juliet musical chairs game was worse imo (xpost)

the comic con vid is definitely the source of that detail about kate killing her dad v her dad's employee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQXuiCge-wI

i think a lot of the duller moments of the premiere will be a lot more interesting in hindsight after we've seen more of the season.

I had a total BUMMERZ moment when Rose started talking to Jack and I was all "wait, she's goingto die of cancer now, isn't she ;_;"

yeah as an episode in and of itself it was kind of a dud imo, but the details that they'll be mining will definitely make it more interesting

haha my wife said the same thing about Rose

Maybe Rose doesn't have cancer in the flash-sideways!

yeah everyone who i watched it with burst out laughing at those terrible cgi fish

my wife and I lolled at that too

I was too busy going "oh snap, the island is underwater" to lol at fish

I oh, snapped at the underwater dharmaville swing set and then also lolled

I think I was kind of like, "get that fake-ass fish out the way so I can see that foot"

it kind of reminded of a letterman top 10 intro

Yeah, I assumed that the split into parallel realities would occur at the moment of turbulence. But that appears not to be the case.

It looks like the new timeline's created in 1977 with the Jughead explosion. So there's years of alternate history leading to the 2004 we saw in this ep. The character dynamics are largely the same even if the details are different at this point, but that may change as the two lines converge somehow. We know that the history of the island in the alt-timeline is mostly the same, ie the statue is built and destroyed, Dharma comes to the island, etc. So some event happens between 1977 and 2004 to sink the island.

it kind of reminded of a letterman top 10 intro

― bnw, Wednesday, February 3, 2010 11:56 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ha ha otm

We know that the history of the island in the alt-timeline is mostly the same, ie the statue is built and destroyed, Dharma comes to the island, etc.

No, the statue had already been built and destroyed and Dharma had already come to the island when the Incident happened. No reason to assume it didn't sink then.

Ah, that's true. We were shown nothing on the sunken island to date it post-Incident/1977.

yeah i think the bomb going off propelled the 77-ers to their proper timeline (2007, with Ajira Airways, Jacob, Ben etc.), while creating an entirely new timeline where the island sank and they never crashed.

I didn't hear one fuckin frackles

there was a blondie though

gonna be pretty ;_: if this season is frackles-free

I hope they make some bold fashion choices for ben this season

I am thinking that the reason that Juliet knows that it worked is that she became unstuck in universes due to being right near the blast.

Damn lotta posts to catch up on the last 12 hours!

A theory on Lostpedia was that MIB saying 'nice to see you out of those chains' he was referring not only to his having arrived in chains on the Black Rock but also having been a slave of Jacob's for years, which I thought was awesome.

Why was Jack's neck bleeding btw?

― JimD, Wednesday, February 3, 2010 9:39 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

so they have something to connect the preceding events to when shown later on, a la the rip in Ben's coat

lol women don't understand alternate realities

Thanks for the call above on Puppet Master guy from Heroes being the cab driver that Kate sticks up - it indeed was David H. Lawrence.

And the Desmond thing is definitely interesting, since he has been untethered to time, perhaps he will also be untethered to the shifting realities..

btw who will help me bankroll a Hurley/Miles spin-off series

The Shannon thing I'm pretty sure they said she didn't accept their offer to come back - that's the only reason she was written off the plane.

And for Juliet... so she should be totally alive and cool in the alternate universe, so she'll probably pop up again some point this season. Maybe you're right and that's how she figured it out right before she died.

they writers may try to be cute and reconcile the two time lines as one--

the current 2004 lost people all become friends, jack operates on locke, sawyer bangs kate, hurley becomes mayor of LA, and somehow they decide to go back to the island in 2007... when they wake up in the aftermath of the bomb going off.

wtf, one of my Facebook friends just wrote "I don't have a TV at home, what is 'Lost'?" as her status

so, my (prob wrong) thought on the nice to see you out of those chains thing re: alpert - the only character we've seen in chains (and that locke has seen in chains) on lost is Anthony Cooper (lockes dad, the real sawyer)

from lostapedia:

Acting on knowledge obtained from a file given to him by Richard Alpert, Locke carried Cooper to the Black Rock and then lured Sawyer there to kill him, claiming that the man he was holding captive was Ben. After Locke locked Sawyer and Cooper in the Brig together, Cooper told Sawyer about how he came to the island, corroborated Naomi's claim that Flight 815 was found with no survivors, and shared his belief that the island is actually Hell. Cooper then inadvertently revealed his past connection to Sawyer, who handed him the letter he wrote to the original Sawyer as a child, demanding that he read it. When Cooper mocked Sawyer and tore up his letter, Sawyer strangled him to death with a chain. ("The Brig")

so its possible that alpert gets to inhabit memories/peeps as well?

I didn't hear one fuckin frackles

― super sexy psycho fantasy world (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Wednesday, February 3, 2010 1:05 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

imo it was super disappointing that they didn't let Sawyer pop up with a familiar nickname for one of the 'strangers' he met in the airport, but maybe they were afraid that would send the wrong message about him being aware of everything.

xp: I'd maybe buy that if the Locke in question who made the comment was actually Locke

well hes part locke, or at least has access to his memories - ie the whole telling ben what his last thoughts were

I also enjoyed the return of the slow motion walking while violins play part of lost

it was long as hell and I don't even remember what part it was, only that it happened

brother

wtf, one of my Facebook friends just wrote "I don't have a TV at home, what is 'Lost'?" as her status

gtfo

the other thing that makes me think the fake locke chains comment is more than just "oh hai you were on that ship" is that the look on alperts face is much more "oh shit/oh wait you know about that" shock than i'd expect otherwise, unless he somehow is too dense to have figured out who fake locke is at that point which is doubtful

I just thought it was general undisguised terror on Alpert's part.

maybe. idk there seemed to be an element of oh snap spit-take about it. my idea is def far fetched tho (although not much more so than them somehow getting cooper on the island or 90% of the other shit, so who knows)

I agree with mr. PIES! PIES! PIES! PIES! PIES! I think people go a little overboard with the interpretation of this show sometimes.

slow start but was enjoying this by the end. got the eps from hotfile/rapidshare, worked like a charm :)

sawyer was hard to watch in this. he just sucks when he's actively angry. also gaaaah @ "you got it, blondie"

smokey and temple stuff all pretty cool.

Smokey has gone back to being terrifying

yeah them setting up the Sawyer angry vendetta blaming Jack re: Juliet was terrible, really hope they don't work that angle the whole season

It's a very natural vendetta to set up, though. They've spent pretty much the entire series in competition with each other and have never really been best buds, so it would be very odd and wholly out-of-character for Sawyer to be all "I know your shenanigans just got my wife killed but it's okay because you meant well."

unless he somehow is too dense to have figured out who fake locke is at that point which is doubtful

It may be that while he knows MIB he has no clue that MIB imitates the dead of the island?

(meanwhile Kate being all "I feel your pain" on the outside while on the inside she's all "WOO-HOO I HAVE BOTH OF MY FUCKTOYS BACK" is also v in-character, so while I'm not looking forward to another round of pussy-go-round it sort of seems inevitable at this point)

Not one of those alternate reality guys bothered to grow a goatee? Come On!

(meanwhile Kate being all "I feel your pain" on the outside while on the inside she's all "WOO-HOO I HAVE BOTH OF MY FUCKTOYS BACK" is also v in-character, so while I'm not looking forward to another round of pussy-go-round it sort of seems inevitable at this point)

^^^ this. I read an interview with Lindelhof and Cuse where they talk about the Sawyer/Jack/Kate triangle being back this season, and that it was something fans wanted to see -- what fans are they hearing from that wanted this? Twilight teens?

more important frogurt trivia: he is also "roach" (the mute helpful kid) in people under the stairs.

http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Nicknames

the Sawyer entry here is kind of incredible

what fans are they hearing from that wanted this? Twilight teens?

TWoPpers

Yuck

most disgusting savages iirc

Many people as well as various inanimate objects: Son of a bitch

what did Juliet say before she said she had something to tell him? Was it "would you like to get a cup of tea?" -- i.e. was she flashing forward to when she meets Sawyer in un-crash time?

also I'd like to see an animated gif of Juliet falling down the hole

was she flashing forward to when she meets Sawyer in un-crash time?

Oooh, hadn't thought of that.

no walt/michael on the flight has throttled my hopes of a walt and smokey psychic combat throwdown,
but seeing Sol has raised hopes for Ian McShane/Deadwood superreunion.

good catch lostpedia, i missed this:

Flashsideways timeline: Sun & Jin are not married. Sun is called Ms. Paik, not Mrs. Kwon, by the customs officer at LAX. Neither Jin or Sun are wearing wedding rings.

oh hey

http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/02/02/lost-premiere-damon-carlton/

was that posted? sorry if it was

I think the plane trip we saw is the end result of what is going to happen in this Jacob/MIB post hatch explosion life that Sawyer et al landed in. Smokey wants to go home- maybe his struggle with Jacob (in Sayid?)- will cause the real reset, send the island under water somehow, allow the 815 flight to off without a hitch. With a lot more clever LOST tricks I am not capable of writing...

Isn't it interesting that locke's knives and jack's dad's coffin- two tangible objects that were of significant use on the island- were the two things missing from the flight?

All of the island events we saw last night are in 2007, though; the plane trip is (presumably) in 2004.

No, 2004. That's when Desmond blew up the hatch, right?

Or yes, I guess the hatch would still have looked like wreckage in 2007.

Yeah, everything on the island was same time frame. Ben definitely killed Jacob in 2007, and then Jacob appears to Hurley and says "I died 10 minutes ago."

The parallel timeline aspect of the show this season is going to keep me awake at night, but I welcome the challenge.

hi maria last night i got a gif animator to make a bram/smokey gif
in the meantime here is juliet falling down the hole as requested you sadist
http://i50.tinypic.com/16lbk3s.gif

good because they only showed that THREE TIMES last night (between recap episode, recap at beginning of new episode, then within new episode)

Yeah, I get that they're in 2007, I think this season will be about accomplishing something that propels them back to 2004 as if the island never existed.

Xp interesting about the Paik/ring observations!

bloody kissing is the worst

good because they only showed that THREE TIMES last night (between recap episode, recap at beginning of new episode, then within new episode)

― congratulations (n/a), Wednesday, February 3, 2010 3:25 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

im sort of hoping they open every show with it

haha replaces the LOST title card

so i think we're supposed to get that their lives were connected to the island long before oceanic 815 right?

kind of hoping still-crippled alt.locke is somehow going to save everyone from evil.bad.fake.locke.

yeah but that's nothing new? their lives being connected.

was she flashing forward to when she meets Sawyer in un-crash time?

Yeah, that and her posthumous 'it worked' were indications that she was briefly aware of the fact that an alternate timeline had been created.

but didn't Miles establish when explaining his power to Hurley that he just has access to a dead person's final living thoughts, not actual communications from beyond?

Yeah, but her conversation with Sawyer showed that she had awareness of it while living, hence Miles was able to pick it up, being some of her last thoughts. (Reminds me of MIB's last-thoughts-of-Locke monologue)

Apropos of nothing these posters are really nice!

oh ok...i think i was distracted or something during her death scene so i didn't really catch that

There were a bunch of little exchanges I had to replay. The fact that the post-implosion Swan set looks so different now totally threw me, too, so I didn't realize everybody was in 2007 for a while.

It's weird that the Dharma van travelled with everybody, too.

Someone must have been touvhing the van.. The same reason clothes can timetravel

________

Finefinemusic might be right that there isn't an alternative universe thing going on but rather another reset happens later this season. Anything is possible.

That reminds me. Tonight's episode of Fringe is supposed to have universes colliding. I really like that show a lot.

Oh yeah, one more thing. This thread has given me some hope since when I posted yesterday that Black Tunic Guy/Fake Locke may still have a chance at being the good guy. He might be the key to resetting everything and sinking the island (if there isn't alt universes). He found a loophole but killing Jacob isn't the only thing he has to do...

BTW, I was thinking Miles was sort of like "who would want to talk to the dead (my gift is a pain in the ass)" when Hurley said "visit me anytime".

lots of jabber about the dharma shark in the underwater shot implying that the island sank later than 1977 btw

brb, starting a band called Dharma Shark

will be shocked if there is not already a band named dharma shark

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Dharma+Shark%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

there isn't one that Google knows about, at least not on the 1st page

Someone must have been touvhing the van.. The same reason clothes can timetravel

Oh right, I'd forgotten about the rope Sawyer was holding when Locke went down the well to turn the wheel.

it would be kind of awesome if only men's clothes could time-travel

quick dan snail mail yourself a copy of this thread and dont open the envelope and you will have eternal rights to the Dharma Shark empire

speaking of Fringe, I was thinking how it's weird the special effects in Fringe are so good while the effects in Lost are so cheesy. I guess maybe they aren't using much CGI in Fringe, maybe more old-school effects instead?

i think Lost blows their budget on huge cast/Hawaii/etc.

Yeah, I think Fox nets like $250K an ep.

Ok, $22525.

Dammit. Anyways ...

Fringe either won something or was nominated for it's special effects

oh like an award for television shows? interesting

lots of jabber about the dharma shark in the underwater shot implying that the island sank later than 1977 btw
--rhea perlman is "horrible" (jjjusten)

IMO to continue my idea from upthread perhaps the bomb Juliet hit didn't go off but all the losties experienced a time jump- sending them to 2007 to fight for Jacob. The ultimate end of this war is that the island sinks.. hence the Dharma shark. I think the 2004 flight is a post-war flashforward, not that I know how exactly they'll end up back in Sydney.. but I do think linearly, the flight is the last thing to happen in one timeline.

Is it Tuesday yet? :(

Pretty sure the Dharma zoology program was already running in 1977, so don't see why the dharma shark means that the island didn't blow up in 1977, but that would be one very old shark in that case. I just assumed it was an easter egg.

I think the 2004 flight is a post-war flashforward, not that I know how exactly they'll end up back in Sydney.. but I do think linearly, the flight is the last thing to happen in one timeline.

That's how I see it too. Guess that makes the alt scenes flashbackforwardsideways?

I think you guys might be overthinking it... well, I don't think the Dharma shark thing is meant to reveal anything. Hitting the bomb worked, creating an alternate timeline with a sunken island, but it didn't destroy the existing one (where the Hatch was built, 815 crashed, etc) so the crew returned to the 2007 of that timeline. Hopefully Sun and Jin meet sooner than later! They're inevitably gonna merge the two universes somehow. (I bet they all have to choose which universe they want to save.) For now, I'm really enjoying the ride that we're getting with alt-2004... 2004-X.

yeah it was nice to see the old, sweet hapless John Locke back on the plane

If it turns out Palin won in alt timeline, blow that timeline up, too.

I think we've got the alt history covered here

it was really sweet seeing terry oquinn reprise his role as early-Lost locke.

cuse/lindelof interviews are always so boring because they can't tell us anything we don't already know.

season 6 = the it's a wonderful life season

Quite enjoyed this though I thought they wasted too much time padding out stuff everyone knew already, and had to bludgeon a few bits, "OH JUST IN CASE YOU ARE DUMB FAKE LOCKE IS THE SMOKE MONSTER, OKAY??? LETS HAVE HIM SAY SOMETHING THAT TELLS US THIS AGAIN."

Yeah, that was nice. MIB can't touch Jacob, so Jacob's ashes become the circles of ash that stop MIB

This doesn't make any sense, didn't the temple people say something about spreading ashes when they shot the flare etc? So clearly it's not Jacob's ashes as they had only just found out he was dead. Plus the cabin was surrounded by ashes and Jacob was alive at that point. It's obviously ashes of another kind or just any old ash.

WTF is up with Kate btw, literally 2 mins after Sayid has died and she is washing Sawyer's face with a big fucking beaming smile. Do they even realise what a vile human being they have written?

The alternate timeline thing is sort of weird...definitely think they're stressing the differences in people's lives, eg Hurley being lucky etc, Shannon not being on the flight. I think behind this the implication is that the bomb plan was for the best. Directly after Sawyer goes mental and is threatening to kill Jack (after one of the times he does this) it cuts back to the flight and the air hostess saying to Jack "some people just don't know how to say thanks."

Was there any significance in Smokey/Locke cutting off a piece of the rug or tapestry thing in the room where Jacon died? I just thought the size and shape of the piece he cut off to wipe the knife on was almost exactly the same as the piece of rug the shadow of the statue dudes found in the cabin...

wondering if Sayid is now like Richard and will live without ageing. but presumably he went thru a totally different process to young Ben. maybe Sayid has now "gained" innocence (ha, undeservedly if so...altho he did help build that school in Dominica or whatever). also where is Nadiacat?

also lolz at Kate climbing the tree to hide from the bomb

Sayid being a new immortal makes a lot of sense to me, given that he has nothing to go back home to in the original timeline.

My guess is Sayid is alive and well (for whatever reason) but the dudes in the temple are going to go bananas and not know why and think he's Smokey.

There were so many times over the last 2 seasons that I was sure Sayid was going to be killed off, and now he appears to be integral in some way to the advancement of the show its final season. Good work, writers.

I don't think Sayid has ever been 'important' in the grand scheme of things but they know how popular the character is and how useful he can be in terms of having a guy like that in play and would never really take him out the action

Was it established that Richard Alpert was a regular human at some point? The "glad to see you out of chains" thing sounds like he was a fugitive on their alien ship. (so he's the alien version of Kate?)

MIB -- can't remember, was it established that his name is Esau, or am I hallucinating that?

We just called him that (other internet places did too) because he's Jacob's evil "brother."

re chains i think richard was just a skate punk before his hippy phase

ah ok
xp

Essau's (or whatever his name) not being able to touch Jacob doesn't seem to hold water. He could heave a rock at him! It's probably some weird alien restraining order. "Loophole" implies some legalese to squirm around.

can't remember who broke the ash circle around the cabin but didn't this allow Jacob to escape from it (to protect himself from Esau, he formed the circle) and then Esau to use it instead (as implied by Ilana)? it seems like Smokey can manipulate objects but the ash circles can only be broken by humans (whether accidentally or not).

it's never been clear who broke that circle iirc?

enjoyed this but really have no fkn clue what's gwan on now. sort of preferred the non-island stuff because it's relatively uncomplicated. but at this point i've forgotten who all those people with richard were, when smoke-locke happened, etc. terrible, i know.

love the new Other leader "i despise the taste of your language on my tongue"

they must all be thinking 'can't believe we have to work with this dick'

btw i'm really hoping ian mcshane shows up somehow this season, seeing how they've used every other deadwood actor. he'd make a good slave owner in a richard alpert flashback

Was it established that Richard Alpert was a regular human at some point? The "glad to see you out of chains" thing sounds like he was a fugitive on their alien ship.

Sounded to me like, "I remember when you showed up on that slave ship called the Black Rock."

new other leader is gonna turn out to be one of those Hansos right?

guys: should i bother watching seasons 2.5-5 to catch up or what? i'm watching the premiere right now and it makes zero sense

I explained it the other day to someone else who stopped watching in the second season like this: In season 2, Lost was still just a cuddly little baby of a show. Now it's a grown adult will all manner of neuroses and ailments that needs constant attention.

you're not helping

like basically should i just read wiki and catch up, or are the other seasons worth it

like what is all this talk of 1977???

I ended up watching the very first and last episodes of battlestar galactica and nothing else, and if the finale is anything like battlestar galactica, you might be content not having to watch anything in between. (i.e. the finale might very well ruin every other episode)

are the other seasons worth it

3 is essentially worthless, but the leadup to the finale and the finale itself were great.
4 and 5 were a lot of fun, but definitely the point where the show fully embraced crazy.
s2 is wonderful.

i personally think seasons 4 and 5 are totally worth watching and probably wouldn't translate well to playing catchup with recaps or whatever...the places they take the story can be pretty ridiculous on paper but i think are more often than not told pretty entertainingly.

lol that might help. i'm considering starting buying the box sets since they're pretty cheap now, it's all time skipping anyways

For all the complaining about season 3, I miss the pace of people just hangin' out on the island, having little adventures.

If you're looking to catch up hastily, you can treat the little adventures episodes like extras, though. Basically what you want to make sure you see in S3 are the Desmond-centric episodes and then the final three.

Darlton have stated that the underwater shots give us evidence that New Otherton was in existence when the island sank--so post-purge, not 1977.

oh i didn't think of that but you're right

But The Barracks (aka New Otherton) were built sometime in the early 1970's, so that doesn't make sense.

Yeah, New Otherton was originally Dharmatown.

S3 had some awful awful stuff at the start, but after about halfway it got its bearings back. I'm a hopeless fan though, so I guess I gotta say - do it all gbx! I don't really see the point of jumping on this point without having seen the last two seasons.

Got no problem with the little adventure episodes myself, but a lot of those depended on the strength of the melodrama in the flashback, which it seems a lot of people seem to dislike as it takes away from the island plots, but it's always been a backbone of the show.

hurley flashbacks were always pretty solid.

hey i'm watching this kimmel interview with the creator guys -- smokey and esau are not the same dude?

so i just read the synopsis of season three....was that the one with the gap in it? i think that's where i fell off. anyway, the synopsis was breathless and barely sensical, but i think if i jump in with 4 i'll be all set

id watch 3 as well, i dont hate it as much as other peeps seem to. plus introduces juliet and her story which is kind of important

so yeah basically suck it up and dig in, pal

being half in on Lost seems kind of pointless imo

Srsly, you have to watch at least the last three episodes of S3 even if you feel caught up. They're some of the best of the entire Lost run.

theres no reason to skip stuff to catch up unless you really want to wait week to week for new episodes which sucks balls

you can not miss the underwater station cuties, you just don't want to

There were so many times over the last 2 seasons that I was sure Sayid was going to be killed off, and now he appears to be integral in some way to the advancement of the show its final season. Good work, writers.

― Johnny Fever, Wednesday, February 3, 2010 7:32 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I don't think Sayid has ever been 'important' in the grand scheme of things but they know how popular the character is and how useful he can be in terms of having a guy like that in play and would never really take him out the action

― rhea perlman posts as "harbl" (some dude), Wednesday, February 3, 2010 7:37 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

he is also one of the few characters left who is not completely and utterly contemptible

enjoyed this but really have no fkn clue what's gwan on now. sort of preferred the non-island stuff because it's relatively uncomplicated. but at this point i've forgotten who all those people with richard were, when smoke-locke happened, etc. terrible, i know.

― the highest per-vote vag so far (history mayne), Wednesday, February 3, 2010 7:51 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is otm, sometimes i feel like i missed a season somewhere

Kinda wish they'd gone all-in though, just once, and shown him really doing his original line of work, and not just being remorseful and weepy about it years later. But this is ABC and not HBO, so whatcha gonna do.

xpost re sayid

this is otm, sometimes i feel like i missed a season somewhere

― max, Wednesday, February 3, 2010 8:16 PM (3 minutes ago)

Comics nerds who are watching Lost may recognize this feeling from reading Grant Morrison. Ultracompression, "pay attention and connect the dots or get the fuck out"

he is also one of the few characters left who is not completely and utterly contemptible

eh he's a fucking ham too

yeah but what are hams for if not sci-fi shows

I had a conversation with a friend today where he was complaining about how everything was so slow and obviously spelled out that it was annoying. He didn't quite believe me when I tried to explain that people DO need stuff to help catch up, it's not that obvious to everyone... so I'm not too surprised a few people on this thread - even dedicated watchers - still don't totally get or remember what's going on.

id watch 3 as well, i dont hate it as much as other peeps seem to. plus introduces juliet and her story which is kind of important

Just skip the episode w/Jack and Bai Ling that explains his stupid tattoos...that one was so bad that I stopped watching the show for a long time after that.

You weren't the only one.

You know it's bad when the producers actually use that episode to pitch the network execs "see? this is what you'll get if we don't get an end date for this show! this crap!" and it works.

^ haha, I never knew!

It's actually kinda fun if you watch it knowing that.

this is otm, sometimes i feel like i missed a season somewhere

― max, Wednesday, February 3, 2010 8:16 PM (3 minutes ago)

Comics nerds who are watching Lost may recognize this feeling from reading Grant Morrison. Ultracompression, "pay attention and connect the dots or get the fuck out"

― the end times are coming, but they're just the beginning (WmC), Wednesday, February 3, 2010 8:22 PM (44 minutes ago) Bookmark

I really, really want this show to wrap up in hardcore Morrisonian fashion. Just go next-level bizarro meta on us here, L O S T. I'm down.

WE'RE ALL L O S T

watching season 4 and I think I'm catching up?

“God bless the survivors of Oceanic 815, because they’re so self-centered, they thought the only effect [of detonating the bomb] was going to be that their plane never crashes.” But they don’t stop to think, “If we do this in 1977, what else is going to affected by this?”

kind of love how much the writers acknowledge that their heroes are completely dumb and selfish.

Haha me too! Especially w/respect to Kate who it seems has become more openly assholish over the past couple of seasons, they've been pretty explicit that so much of what she does is out of pure self-interest.

Scarlett O'Hara in a little gray t-shirt.

watching season 4 and I think I'm catching up?

the funny thing is that s4 takes a lot of twists and turns to basically end up at the finale of s3

srsly though dude final ep of s3 is one of the best. I wouldn't skip that one.

lol @ hurley yelling DUDE when the temple guy breaks the aunk

xp It is pretty awesome, though knowing the twist probably takes a little away from that. Probably my favorite finale, though. I think of the pregnancy stuff that popped up in S3, including Juliet's origin, might be important. And obviously the introduction of the cabin/Jacob. Just watch it, man!

srsly, must-see s3 episodes: the Desmond, Juliet, and Ben episodes + the final three eps.

does anyone else find that whenever they reload this page it takes them straight to pictures of semi naked sun?

that's because that post is the first one hidden behind the "show all messages" cut

oh okay

I was torn between laughing and crying when the music suddenly went all jaunty and we had a little zoomy underwater tour around Nu-Otherton. Out of all the stuff on Lost, that totally freaked me out.

Enjoyed:
- Fake Locke's FACE OF EVIL right after he tells Ben he wants to go home. He gets gradually more evil looking as the conversation proceeds and then there's a bonus GRRR shot at the end as well!
- Fake Locke's summary (judging??) of Locke.
- Cindy & the kids!
- Jack needing a pen on the plane
- Alterna-timeline on plane gradually getting a bit more interesting (noticed the Ms Paik thing, etc).
- I imagined the smokemonster doing a little giggle when he worked out how to get Bram out of the circle of ash. Hehe, another loophole!
- Glad Juliet's gone, although "I've something important to tell you" "..." was cringey.

Scratching my head over:
- No WAAALT and Michael on the plane?
- Does Ben really not have a clue wtf is going on, as he seems to?

I'm assuming the temple day spa was meant to be healing water and the guy cutting his hand was to test it.
Have to say I'm glad everyone on the island is back in the same time.

Yeah, gotta say... even though he's been so good every season, to the point where it's kinda taken for granted now, Terry O'Quinn is pretty awesome in these episodes, the variation between Smokey-Locke and Locke-X is great and so well-played and effective in both cases.

Lol, just reading the interview with Lindelof/Cuse linked upthread.

"When our characters posited the “What if?” scenario, they neglected to think about what the other effects of potentially changing time might be and we’re embracing those things."

Yeah. They neglected to think about quite a lot of things, or ever query anything (tbf, Mrs Hawking did tell Jack not to think about how ridiculous anything was) or ask any pertinent questions, or share valuable information throughout all 5 seasons, because THAT'S NOT IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW.

probably my favorite scene in the episode was a pretty small bit, but was so emotionally jarring that it just really grabbed me, and i don't think i've ever seen anything exactly like it before: after sawyer finishes burying juliet and badgers miles to tell her what her last thoughts were, and miles is evasive, sawyer's dropping miles into the fresh dirt and rubbing his face in the grave was very startling to me. a real emotionally "wow" moment. iirc.

If you read interviews with "darlton" they're constantly on about it being a "character driven" show and it's "all about the characters". But this is bollocks, it's the least character driven of any serial tv show in this era.

Do any of you even care about the characters? Sure we have our favourites but they're mostly just impulsive idiots running around wildly.

The plot rules all with lost, agree with people saying it feels like we've missed a season. Not cos it's confusing, more cos it's hard to care about a lot of the cast.

Eg Jin and Sun....who could possibly care?

i do. but i'm a girl who doesn't get alternate realities.

But this is bollocks, it's the least character driven of any serial tv show in this era.

seriously, as someone who sat through four seasons of Smallville and 2 1/2 seasons of Heroes, I completely disagree.

You're right that plot is far more key to LOST than character but I do think the characters are a huge part of the show's appeal. the show started out as character-study first and foremost - things like the monster and the polar bear felt tangential compared to the character backstories: why Locke was in a wheelchair, why Kate was a fugitive, why Sawyer was such a dick. we take this stuff for granted now, mainly because the plot mysteries got more interesting than the character mysteries, but they were a pretty big reason why I started watching LOST in the first place.

and i think even now the writers take pains to make sure that characters always have a good reason in doing what they do, no matter how misguided or dumb (the only time i thought this didn't work AT ALL was Juliet's about-face re: Sawyer and Kate at the end of season 5) and that well-loved characters get a proper resolution when they die.

I'd say LOST's best moments are when they manage to get the balance just right, which is why "The Constant" is everyone's favourite episode - it's a stupidly, unabashedly romantic episode that also moved the plot forwards big time.

^absolutely otm. This show's backbone has been the flashback structure, unabashedly sentimental and melodramatic. I care a hell of a lot about the characters, even Jack! The pure, unyielding, unforgiving REGRET that this show is soaked in has always been a major draw for me along with the mysteries.

yeah it's a very character-driven show, it's just successful to wildly varying degrees at how convincing it is at letting the characters drive the plot. i don't think i ever would've got sucked in w/o characters like Hurley, Ben, Sawyer, Sayid, Desmond, etc.

don't know why no Michael/Walt on the plane is any more head-scratching than no Shannon, or Desmond being there...obviously lots of things are different, and if there was any scene they'd avoid having the 17-year-old Walt actor play, it's a reenactment of the pilot w/ 12-year-old Walt.

Loved the new episodes.
Best moment, Charlie's first words on the plane: "Am I alive?..."

Fake Locke's FACE OF EVIL right after he tells Ben he wants to go home. He gets gradually more evil looking as the conversation proceeds and then there's a bonus GRRR shot at the end as well!

yah with those pointy ears he looked like THE DEVIL imo.

so rite
-c. 1600 there were these two guys, jacob and that guy from deadwood.
-then a ship landed.
-alpert was on the ship?
-cut to: the 1950s
-the US army come along. then the dharma initiative?
-ben, son of a dharma guy, meets with alpert, an immortal
-in a fit of pique he kills lots of people
-in 2004 when oceanic 815 crashes, you have ben + ex-dharma bros? and also alpert and his guys?
-and from a certain point in time mr widmore, ex-US army guy, has been trying to find/take control of the island
-ben is against this
-in 2007 that arab guy from 'three kings' lands with locke's body and... uh... this is where i really lose it.

time to hit lostpedia.

oh and

-there are also these temple guys + danny mcbride's brother from eastbound and down/farrell's ex-ci in miami vice... they for some reason took some of the 815-ers, but not the rest. they are part of team alpert?

mr widmore, ex-US army guy, has been trying to find/take control of the island

Widmore was the leader of the Others prior to Ben, not an army guy.

The Others have a habit of taking the clothes/weapons/homes/identities of the groups they've displaced - they did this for the US army in the 50s and Dharma after the 80s. I think Ben is the only Dharma guy to turn to the Others, and kills the rest of them in the Purge (late 80s in theory).

hm. i just watched a recap, and i guess it's when they bring in the *donkey wheel that can move the island* that i nod out. that and the time travel. and the whole thing of jack-kate-hurley-sayid getting zapped off the plane when everyone else on the plane lands on the island, kind of thing. bit arbitrary.

Yeah I thought Widmore was an army guy too, but according to Lostpedia he just stole the uniform.

I think there's always been a tension between character-focus and plot-focus in Lost. We were drowning in character-building for the first three seasons, and it wasn't until they introduced the flash-forwards as a device that the plot really started gaining the upper hand. Like, finally we could stop dwelling on increasingly extraneous character information like Sawyer's daughter or Jack's fucking tattoos and instead watch the characters react solely to new situations.

I think S3 jaded me to a lot of what was good about seasons 1 and 2, because after a certain point it was like "Okay, you've created your sandbox, let's start playing in it already."

it's the least character driven of any serial tv show in this era.

http://www.anderewelten.de/images/Jack%20Bauer%20II.jpg

re. characters... it as "good" characters, but everything is so fucked up you can't really call it character-driven. in alias, you had this whole complicated story going on but it was easy to watch it w.out really caring about the fibonacci code or whatever it was. also lost has about twenty impt characters at any one time so.

Re: All the joking earlier about women not "getting" parallel universes.

Obv. this isn't really a gender thing. I'm seeing TV writers (Male & Female) expressing anger over this two timelines concept, and it seems to boil down to "I'm too stupid to even bother attempting to think about this idea, so therefore it's too complicated for the audience." They said the same thing about the time travel stuff last SSN.

It seems that some people feel upset that they were tricked into watching a SF show when they thought it was something else.

There seems to be a real resistance to science fiction amongst TV and movie critics. I can't count how many reviews I've read of fairly straightforward SF movies where the idiot critic decided the plot was too complicated.

I can understand criticism of Lost along the lines of "time travel and alternate realities have been done to death already" but not of "this is too hard to follow."

For an annoying example of a show going out of way to make sure the audience "gets it", there's Flash Forward where everytime a character or events from more than ten minutes ago is mentioned, you see a flashback filling you in on it.

You know it's bad when the producers actually use that episode to pitch the network execs "see? this is what you'll get if we don't get an end date for this show! this crap!" and it works.

Ha ha I had no idea!

one problem is that it can't address the ridic paradoxes thrown up by time travel.

and when we have a sitch where some people on a plane are sucked back in time, and others aren't, we're in bad "the island wanted it to happen" territory.

i like sci-fi, but not final-five era BSG.

n e way, i think in the past there has been muttering about how the valenzetti equation etc. are meant to prevent THE END OF THE WORLD. so that jack-attack et al tampering with the past has fucked things up, and so the world is going to end unless they go back one last time. or s.thing.

re: "the island wanted it to happen" territory

gotta remember that LOST isn't just overtly sci-fi but overtly religious/supernatural at the same time - it's concerned with duality most of all. you know, "man of science, man of faith", fate/destiny vs free will, black vs white, us vs Others...

skins vs shirts

I'm not saying everything on Lost makes perfect sense, but people getting all brain-fizzled over tried-and-true concepts like alternate realities and time-travel is like if every time a cop show had a plot where the FBI and the local police had a dispute over jurisdiction and critics were all, "OMG what is this bureaucratic mumbo jumbo? How are we supposed to follow the inner workings of the justice system?"

To confuse things further about whether Sun & Jin married in the alt-timeline. The producers admitted that they fucked up from the beginning by giving Sun Jin's last name, since Korean women do not adopt their husbands' last names. Maybe in the alt-time line Lost hired more culturally sensitive fact checkers.

that would be ... confusing.

I think Ben is the only Dharma guy to turn to the Others, and kills the rest of them in the Purge (late 80s in theory).

think there was one real Dharma guy left after the Purge, Kelvin was locked down in the Swan before Desmond got there

I'd like to know who was watching this show about a magical island for four years and didn't realize they were essentially watching a fantasy-based genre show.

im with nrq, theres messing-with-factual-reality and then theres it-was-all-a-dream-deus-ex-machina-type sins against narrative

tired of the s3 panning. the second half was good and the last few superb - gbx you must watch them for cryin out loud

the more i think about it the more i realize how much better this show would have been as 5 or 6 12-episode seasons

not that i dont love the show with all my heart and soul

but im feeling a little bit abused at this point

Maybe in the alt-time line Lost hired more culturally sensitive fact checkers.

they're still going to get it loliciously rong when doing Des in England.

maybe he's a Rangers fan now

I'd like to know who was watching this show about a magical island for four years and didn't realize they were essentially watching a fantasy-based genre show.

naw dog, i was signed up for whatever, but in the makers' claims to have got it all figured out are not borne (sp? born?) out by the show as it unfolds. i don't really feel much is added to the show, quality-wise, by having the island move through space. i wish it was like a big novel where they publish it section-by-section but then can, ahem, go back, and tighten it up.

i don't care about stuff like jack meets bai ling. makes more sense to me than jacob being killed by -- not the smoke monster-as-locke, but by ben, because uhhh. and then jacob can actually come back to lyfe and tell hurley if he leaves it about 90mins, because hey what the fuck it's only a gunshot wound right?, he can go resuscitate sayid, but maybe sayid is now jacob, and sayid is now vitally impt... n e way this is kind of "and then he"-style storytelling.

jacob is just a ghost, altho it does beg the question what could he do alive that he can't now do dead - apart from catch fish and work the loom thingy

xpost i think they did the island moving in space/time thing because it was a convenient way of filling in the island's backstory - the dharma stuff, the origin of the Others, also Ben/Miles/Daniel/Charlotte/Widmore's stories...

okay not entirely sure why the O6 needed to be rescued at all, but i think the three-year gap and separation created some good developments wrt the character dynamics (though maybe these are the parts that everyone hates) - Jack being just that little bit more fucked up, Sawyer/Juliet, Hurley embracing the crazy, Jin now speaking fluent English, Desmond/Penny/Baby Charlie, Sayid working for Ben...

i'm going to give the Jacob/Smokey/Locke thing a bit of time - they introduced all of this in the last episode, so it's not even close to being completely fleshed out or explained yet...

(also you're nrq? haha sorry i just realised...)

makes more sense to me than jacob being killed by -- not the smoke monster-as-locke, but by ben, because uhhh.

How does Ben killing Jacob rather than Flocke not make sense? If Smokey could kill Jacob himself he had several thousand years to do it in. It would have been a lot worse if Flocke just killed Jacob.

I'm not saying everything on Lost makes perfect sense, but people getting all brain-fizzled over tried-and-true concepts like alternate realities and time-travel is like if every time a cop show had a plot where the FBI and the local police had a dispute over jurisdiction and critics were all, "OMG what is this bureaucratic mumbo jumbo? How are we supposed to follow the inner workings of the justice system?"

― President Keyes, Thursday, February 4, 2010 7:18 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Well, I think the thing you're overlooking is that Lost is as much a mystery as anything else, and instead of having episodic mysteries or one big mystery, they keep so many different plates spinning at once that I think sometimes it does become overkill and the audience has a right to cry foul. I think the flash forwards were introduced, and then resolved, pretty gracefully, and that great episodes like The Constant really helped people get on board with the time travel stuff. But the alternate reality/flashsideways stuff is a whole new and deliberately disorienting beast, and while I think it's too soon for any critic to say this is too much, it all depends on how they deal with it in the next few episodes, I can still totally see this being the development that turns everyone into Austin Powers going "oh no I've gone cross-eyed."

my mind was not blown but i have faith that the writers won't fuck this up

yeah reading that brief interview with them on EW was re-assuring.

"they keep so many different plates spinning at once that I think sometimes it does become overkill"

well, this is exactly what makes Lost so unique :)
It was like this since the first episode and the writers have been able to resolve effectively many twists and turns. After all, we watch the show mostly to be all-amazed: generally, Lindelhof & Cuse are able to get away with it.

Lindelof, even.

hey guys, it's happened, I am completely disinterested in speculation about the plot now! it only took five seasons.

think u mean uninterested brah

he's completely nonplussed

yeah probably

you guys just don't know about my relationship with the screenwriters

Well, I think the thing you're overlooking is that Lost is as much a mystery as anything else, and instead of having episodic mysteries or one big mystery, they keep so many different plates spinning at once that I think sometimes it does become overkill and the audience has a right to cry foul.

True. But I object to storytelling devices (especially common ones that have been around for centuries) being rejected out-of-hand, before the critic even knows where the writers are going with them, as too complicated for the dumb-ass TV viewership. I mean FFS, there's another network show (Fringe) already using an alternate universe plotline.

I don't think it's the mere existence of an alternative universe plotline so much as it being introduced in addition to the already intricate web of time travel, flashbacks, flash forwards, immortals, walking dead and so on when they've only got one season here to wrap it up. I have faith in the writers too, but I sympathize with people that are clutching their heads a bit after that premiere.

Lost seems to be vaguely organically building these things, at least. I can't think of any major plot questions that haven't rolled into the next thing (why polar bears? Dharma likes animal experiments. why in the desert? frozen donkey wheel explains it, etc.). It's not like the damn X-Files where we have eight explanations for Mulder's sister's whereabouts and no one even cares about the main backstory because it's so contrived. They've been dropping hints about the Temple for a long time, and now it's getting introduced with a mix of old and new characters. Not shabby.

why in the desert? frozen donkey wheel explains it

lol -- not being snide coz im obviously a committed viewer -- but lol

http://cache-08.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/13242/2010/01/800x600_lostway31.jpg

Time travel pretty much has to lead to parallel universe shit by definition, unless you use the "it's impossible to change the future by changing things in the past" loophole, which no one really does.

I think we are seeing a possible universe rather than a parallel one per se. It could actually be a nice pay-off for viewers even if it's just "proving" to us that their destiny was to all come together/to Jacob). Considering what Cuselof said about Heroes and alt futures they can't go down that route so the big mystery now is whether/how the two realities we're seeing will converge or relate.

it would be classic if the stories never converged and half of the show was just following a random bunch of people in LA, short cuts-style. but SOMETHING TELLS ME that isn't going to happen.

would kind of lol if they were showing us "what really happened" after the whole island situation gets cleared up in those asides as opposed to a parallel universe

idk about this 'the bomb went off = Shannon never got on the plane' thing tho

I think we are seeing a possible universe rather than a parallel one per se.

I don't understand the distinction here.

possible = could've happened but hasn't
parallel = is also happening

but i'm taking it back anyway

Comics nerds who are watching Lost may recognize this feeling from reading Grant Morrison. Ultracompression, "pay attention and connect the dots or get the fuck out"

― the end times are coming, but they're just the beginning (WmC), Wednesday, February 3, 2010 8:22 PM (44 minutes ago) Bookmark

I really, really want this show to wrap up in hardcore Morrisonian fashion. Just go next-level bizarro meta on us here, L O S T. I'm down.

― SNEEZED GOING DOWN STEPS, PAIN WHEN PUTTING SOCKS ON (Deric W. Haircare), Wednesday, February 3, 2010 10:51 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

oh god no... for all its messiness, the lost dudes know how to tell stories about 1000x better than GM

idk about this 'the bomb went off = Shannon never got on the plane' thing tho

― mdskltr (blueski), Thursday, February 4, 2010 3:46 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

i reckon it'll pan out. if the actress wasn't available, they wouldn't have made a thing of it -- could ahve shown stock footage of her on the plane or whatever. they certainly wouldn't have dialogue explaining it, i hope n e way. so far they haven't left the airport but maybe it'll be like the 1985 sections of back to the future 2 out there.

that said, i find it hard to keep all this complicated mythology/backstory stuff in my head, but i enjoy cruisin' along with it anyway and then reading more hardcore fans' takes on it and all the references i missed

possible = could've happened but hasn't
parallel = is also happening

but i'm taking it back anyway

― mdskltr (blueski), Thursday, February 4, 2010 9:50 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

theoretically every possible universe exists as a parallel universe so the distinction seems moot to me

so far they haven't left the airport but maybe it'll be like the 1985 sections of back to the future 2 out there.

― the highest per-vote vag so far (history mayne), Thursday, February 4, 2010 10:52 AM (34 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

that would be rad. "ok bye dudes" *jack hops on hoverboard*

i reckon it'll pan out. if the actress wasn't available, they wouldn't have made a thing of it -- could ahve shown stock footage of her on the plane or whatever. they certainly wouldn't have dialogue explaining it, i hope n e way. so far they haven't left the airport but maybe it'll be like the 1985 sections of back to the future 2 out there.

I think they're actually using this to set the stage for Boone's character to go in a totally different direction; most of his time on the island was defined in contrast to his sister and that tension is part of what pushed him into becoming Locke's disciple. How different would that dynamic have been without Shannon's needling?

i would go with the idea of them not being able to leave LAX but it just reminds me of The Terminal rather than The Prisoner so nein danke

Also could we see Locke's Dad again?

idk about this 'the bomb went off = Shannon never got on the plane' thing tho

What about the "the bomb went off = Hurley is the luckiest man alive" thing?

on the Kimmel interview Damon and Carlton said something along the lines of "we hope to have Shannon back on later" -- no idea where they are in the production of the final episodes but maybe they're still trying to get her on and haven't yet?

Apologies if this was posted somewhere upthread, but Newsweek showed some employees who'd never seen the show and solicited commentary. Kind of funny...

http://www.newsweek.com/id/40211#?l=1785302026&t=64735611001

lol at dude who was all "ISLANDS DON'T DISAPPEAR"

ha!

"White animals? What animal is white? This doesn't make any sense. I'm from New York, I've never seen a white animal... maybe some cats..."

idk about this 'the bomb went off = Shannon never got on the plane' thing tho

What about the "the bomb went off = Hurley is the luckiest man alive" thing?

All this is "Sound of Thunder" type unintended consequences of tampering with the past.

Maybe, since the island sank, Mikhail never went there--instead he shacked up w/ Shannon in Australia and threatened Boone with a grenade when he went to take her home.

Best theory about Shannon's absence yet!

Yeah, I'd be bothered by Shannon not being on the plane if it were the only pre-turbulence difference between the original 815 flight and the alt-flight. But there are other differences, too.

like Charlie's hair. and Jack's hair.

And Sawyer's hair!

i reckon it'll pan out. if the actress wasn't available, they wouldn't have made a thing of it -- could ahve shown stock footage of her on the plane or whatever. they certainly wouldn't have dialogue explaining it, i hope n e way. so far they haven't left the airport but maybe it'll be like the 1985 sections of back to the future 2 out there.

I think they're actually using this to set the stage for Boone's character to go in a totally different direction; most of his time on the island was defined in contrast to his sister and that tension is part of what pushed him into becoming Locke's disciple. How different would that dynamic have been without Shannon's needling?

― PIES! PIES! PIES! PIES! PIES! (HI DERE), Thursday, February 4, 2010 10:54 AM (55 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

according to lostpedia the actress who plays shannon wasnt available

sigh

yes I KNOW she wasn't available, I can actually read

I'm talking about a possible narrative coice I they may have had to make because the actress who played Shannon wasn't available

wtf is wrong with my typing ability

Too many pies.

imo they could easily have just not shown her rather than draw attention to her absence. i mean, did they show nikki and paolo? it's all part of the mystery i guess.

Nikki and Paolo were actually buried alive in Australia in this timeline

some real nerds work at newsweek huh

more like nerdsweek

more like nerdswork

at newsweek in max's o

Interesting theory that objects (or people?) used on the island are missing from the alt-timeline 815ers (Jack's pen, Locke's knives, Christian) or never made it onto the plane somehow. If so, I predict that Sawyer's note will be missing. (Also, maybe that's why Shannon didn't get on the plane.)

big reveal of season 6 is they find a pen

For what's worth, Jack's pen was stolen by Kate on the plane. But the theory can still work for the coffin and the knives.

one of those pens where if you turn it 180 the polar bear's clothes disappear.

he "lost" his clothes

.(Also, maybe that's why Shannon didn't get on the plane.)

lol

Boone is missing a Shannon

kind of frustrated that this episode made me remember that sayid and shannon were "in love"

SO WHY DID YOU HAVE TO REMIND THE REST OF US?!

totally forgot about all that

this episode made me remember that 'the hurt locker' star evangeline lilly is quite a striking lady.

yeah she's never looked better than when beating up ed mars in the toilet

kinda lol, mostly true

lol is he really called ed mars? that's a character in 'the big sleep'.

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/lostpedia/images/thumb/7/73/6x01_SmokeyGoHome.jpg/180px-6x01_SmokeyGoHome.jpg

btw can I say how flat-out AWESOME it is to see Terry O'Quinn back in terrifying "Stepfather" mode again?

animated gif or it didnt happen

so are there 4 concurrent Lockes now?

MIB locke
smokey locke
corpse locke
wheelchair locke
?

that actually is animated.

don't think he's ever made that face in the show before. THE RANGE.

MIB locke

men in black locke?

There are 3 Lockes. There is the corpse on the beach, the smoke monster impersonating him and the dude in the parallel timeline who never went to the island.

altho wheelchair Locke is in 2004

if Smokey usually emanates from the temple, how does that square with UnLocke's ability to become it? 2 concurrent smokemonsters?

the kimmel interview suggests man in black and smokey are different dudes.

"i'm sorry you had to see me like that" tho

maybe smokey and MIB/Essau tag teamed?

What about the "the bomb went off = Hurley is the luckiest man alive" thing?

i can't really remember but could be something to do with the numbers??
weren't they transmitted over radio because they were written on the hatch because they are the equations to save the world because the horse said it would be so
maybe if the bomb went off somehow hurley didn't use those numbers to play the lottery? gah i can't remember any more... who cares?

loved the premiere tho. i'm along for the ride!

i'm slightly disappointed with the alternate universe plot. it always bugs me when these concepts are used on such a macroscopic scale.
if an alternate universe is created every time someone changes their mind then there are an infinity of universes created every second - somehow the idea that reality forks around some
central event just seems an over-simplification verging on complete misunderstanding.

still i have faith the writers will do something fun with it - i'm hoping that they are not in fact alternate realities and some crazy time jumping shit will explain it :D

loved the contrast between the new reality similar to the earlier seasons of the show (a set of characters with their lives overlapping) and the totally batshit insane indiana jones antics on the island. bravo

I think Hurley being unlucky is due to Widmore/Linus machinations to get him to the island perhaps? and with the bomb going off, no one's doing that anymore?

Hurley is somehow aligned with a certain string of events in both realities, with those events being chaotic/negative in the 815er one (lottery winner, insane, numbers line up with island numbers, horrible misfortune) and chaotic/positive in the "fixed" timeline (still wins lottery, luckiest guy, seems to have his shit together).

No matter what happens with Hurley, his love for fried chicken will always be.

"What did you do to become so successful?"

"I won the lottery"

Am looking forward to Hurley's epic legal battle with the Charles Widmore-owned Outback franchise.

good catch lostpedia, i missed this:

Flashsideways timeline: Sun & Jin are not married. Sun is called Ms. Paik, not Mrs. Kwon, by the customs officer at LAX. Neither Jin or Sun are wearing wedding rings.

― jergins, Wednesday, February 3, 2010 1:44 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Totally caught this, *kisses own bicep*

Traveling under different names cuz they're hiding from her father? So they can have a new life?
(Sorry if someone suggested that already--had to wait a day to see this and I read through the whole thread pretty quickly)

To confuse things further about whether Sun & Jin married in the alt-timeline. The producers admitted that they fucked up from the beginning by giving Sun Jin's last name, since Korean women do not adopt their husbands' last names. Maybe in the alt-time line Lost hired more culturally sensitive fact checkers.

― President Keyes, Thursday, February 4, 2010 6:32 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Haaaa

Those people at Newsweek go a long way towards explaining the state of journalism in America. Blue shirt dude was so punchable I almost broke my screen.

how many times did you punch the screen?

unlocke does say "sorry you had to see me like that" which kinda suggests him and smokey are the exact same dude. also not sure if smokey coming from the temple is in any way a fact as such. and even if it is who says he didn't come from there and travel to the statue, he did enter via the door!

Yeah what threw me off was that UnLocke disappeared and then smokey entered from outside and I'm kinda wondering what UnLocke's word is worth on that one--more manipulation or I dunno what. He seemed surprised in last season's finale when Ben told him what went down between him in his meeting w/ smokey under the temple.

I sort of assumed that was MIB just acting shocked to fool them as he was believed to be Locke. Just cos appearing as Alex seems to be his modus operandi. what is weird tho is how ben was able to summon smokey before too...

I think it was in his interest back then for Ben to think that he, as Island Leader, was a guy to follow, rather than some crazy smoke monster. Now the cat's out of the bag.

(Maybe part of what makes all these Locke-exits-smokey-enters scenes happen is that they're saving the expensive MIB-turns-into-smokey CGI shots for later in the season.)

Looks as if he's been trapped by some sort of Jacob mojo and has to come when the others call, hangs out in the basement of the Temple Others, etc. Now the only thing he has to worry about is circles of ash and how the heck to get off the island. Was MIB once a person, who became sort of a living electromagnetic field? Bullets dent when they hit him.

Loved Montand's copy of Kierkegaard

Long post alert...

I agree that it's pretty bullshit to describe Lost as primarily character-driven. OK, their stories were interesting in Seasons 1 and 2 but as mentioned above, on the whole they're pretty one-dimensional and/or impulsive. The better characters are those that kind of admit this - Hurley, Sawyer, etc.

As an example, much as I love Sayid he's mainly great because he's had a gruesome backstory and can do neckbreakdancing. The only thing I know about his character is that he loves Nadia, he's good with electronics and at one point cared about thinking strategically about their situation on the island, and that sometimes he's sorry for what he's done (although still might carry on doing it). So if I think about him in other situations, where these factors aren't relevant as motivations, I don't really know anything about him. Also him and Shannon was plain weird.

Jack basically has no character apart from being confused/conflicted quite a lot of the time, and only "develops" when he does a 180-degree change of heart about the island. I don't really care about his daddy issues. Same with Kate, she's never really shown any interest in finding out how they travelled through time or anything. I'm not saying they don't have touching moments in their backstories, or that their actions can't be explained, I just think there's a lack of proper self-examination with them. In some ways I guess I like that Jack's the lead male despite having no exciting characteristics, but everything he does just annoys me.

That said, I'm sure the writers aren't unaware of this, as they led us up the garden path a bit with Locke and then showed quite clearly that he was "nothing special". I hated him as a character around season 3, when he was just acting on blind faith, but now he's come the distance I like what they did with him. (Or maybe... he was Smokey all along!)

I don't mind that much about all this, as I care a lot more about the story than watching a character-study. I think the parallel time line thing was a pretty smart answer to the question of whether they were going to reset or not. And is kind of par for the course with any time-travel stuff. I'm actually wondering whether this season will end up with more parallel timelines, as the characters are driven to take desperate measures to reset everything in each one. (This would be pretty unsatisfying, though).

I can suspend my disbelief happily with time travel storylines, and to start off with I appreciated that they were taking a clear stance on "whatever happened, happened" as this simplifies an already overcomplicated plot quite significantly (as opposed to having multiple possible future changes with every tiny action they do in the past).
What I don't like is that it all kind of falls down with a few sub-Dr-Who deus ex machina crap pivotal moments, particularly the disappearing off the plane into different timelines thing. As mentioned upthread, the show suffers from trying to be all things to all people and ending up in a bit of a mess.

I think in the S5 finale, when Miles is all "ermm... you guys didn't consider that the bomb might be what causes your plane-crash timeline to happen?" is pretty significant - no-one does really consider that, although everything else so far that they've tinkered with has turned out to be "whatever happened, happened". The only different here is that you're throwing a bigger rock into the stream of time, to use Faraday's analogy. What counts as big enough?

Anyway... in conclusion, the above mentioned facts have led me to believe that I enjoyed the first eps of s6 and have high hopes for this season!

Jack basically has no character apart from being confused/conflicted quite a lot of the time, and only "develops" when he does a 180-degree change of heart about the island. I don't really care about his daddy issues

IOW, because you don't care about the biggest factor that drives Jack's character, he doesn't have much of one.

True, I guess, but I'm not sure that his daddy issues can be said to drive everything. And if they do, well, that's a great example of a one-dimensional character right there.

Backpedalling a bit, maybe, but Jack does have some anti-hero characteristics which could be interesting in the situations he's put in. I think the show has given a lot of time to flashbacks etc that just add nothing to his character (tattoo episode as a classic eg) or have him make others act on impulse/ doesn't worry about thinking through the full implications of what he does, so I kind of get the impression that there's nothing there to "get".

I always saw Jack's character a being antiheroic in that his 'heroic' or 'saving' actions are unconsciously self-serving. Of course this isn't lost on us, the audience, or the characters - Sawyer beats him up in S5 finale because he sees Jack is willing to jeopardize everyone to avoid some painful emotions. This would have worked better as a character arc if Jack had had some sort of growth over time, but he's exactly the same at the end of S5 as he is in S1, he's just outwardly calmer and more resigned.

Agreed, and the S5 finale example is classic imo, because it's almost psychopathic - Jack didn't understand or really try to understand what he was doing when bombing the island even though it's probably the biggest jeopardy you can put people in! Just "oh Faraday seemed to think this would work, I'm the leader so let's give it a try". Yes sheer desperation was a motivator, or belief that the island would sort it all out, but I still don't really buy whether Jack believes that, or what he believes, really.

I hadn't thought of Jack as a psychopath, but you're right, he's really close! I was trying to get something out of his 'nothing's irreversible' comment to Locke in the alt, I'm not sure if the writers are telegraphing that he's exactly the same, or that he's changed somewhat in the alt. You could take that comment either way.

I have to say though that setting him up as the hero in the pilot, only to have the audience and characters realize that he may be insanely self-absorbed or deluded, is a pretty neat idea. I know they have to 'redeem' him in some way, but we're kinda running out of time here ...

This is why Kate and Jack belong together! They're both psychopaths with tunnel vision! Seriously. I think the endgame will have these ideas heavily in mind. Whether the characters will be effectively redeemed... not so sure about that. (Or if the writers even want to.)

The "Nothing's irreversible" line struck me as a geniunely hopeful, compassionate moment - as opposed to his constant need to be everybody's savior in the original timeline - I think Jack was supposed to be genuinely changed in that world.

Maybe the missing coffin telegraphs the absence of daddy issues/tormented selfloathing in the altJack.

Hmm, not a bad observation!

I don't think Kate is psycho. She is certainly sociopathic, though; it is very interesting contrasting her as escaped fugitive to her as island heroine; almost as if the island allowed her to finally integrate into a society.

I just think it gave her an opportunity to run away from something every half hour.

Hmm, not a bad observation!

Thanks! ... which makes me wonder what the missing knives signifies, if anything?

I just think it gave her an opportunity to run away from something every half hour.

Eh, not really; remember, she's the one who integrated back into society and had a normal life after they were rescued.

(also, when they got back Jack walked out on her, not her on him)

xpost I like the potential significance of the missing items!

Tbf also a lot of my dislike for Jack's character is due to the fact that he was the 'eyes of the viewer' to start off with yet seemed to stand in the way of us getting any answers, by not asking the right questions or whatever. Which is a dumb reason admittedly.

Kate's kind of a weird one, I'm not sure what to think about her. She couldn't settle down to taco tuesday or w/evs when she was on the run (pre-crash) yet seemed to take to being a mother and playing house with Jack and really didn't want to go back to the island - doing it for what appears to be a proper, moral reason (to find Claire iirc).

so maybe she has changed/grown up, is what I mean.

Jack's character arc is very similar to Locke's in that they both start out very convinced in what they know and the island then throws body blow after body blow after body blow at them to show them how absolutely, 100% wrong they are. Both are total control freaks who are attempting to sieze control of their own destinies, but the more they try to do so, the more the rug gets pulled out from underneath them and options get taken away, leading them both to decisions that are increasingly arbitrary and erratic. The apotheosis of this for Locke is his death; we'll see what is in store for Jack this season but starting off with accidentally killing your main rival's wife isn't a good harbinger.

Wouldn't you say that Locke was trying to cede control, though? As in, he wanted to be told what to do?

"Don't tell me what I can or can't do!" I'm not sure he wanted to be a puppet, though it was indeed his fate - up until the very end he did believe everything he was doing was his own choice, even if it was basically the orders of "Jacob", he believed in the "island".

^^^ basically my opinion; the fact that he was taking orders doesn't negate the fact that he chose to take orders and felt like he was gaining agency and control with that decision

Def. plays into the choice/destiny themes of the initial Jacob/MIB convo

Kinda paradoxical, yeah - feeling like you're taking control by taking orders

I guess I'm overthinking this - Locke's main topic for seasons was 'this is what I/we/Jack are meant to do', of course

Yeah, Locke's character arc is defined by his ongoing struggle to figure out how where he belonged and what he was supposed to be doing. He finally thought he found that in Jacob and the island, only to have Ben take it away from him.

Ben's got a similar thing going on here, too; you could look at his character arc as basically being the guy who consistently makes exactly the wrong decision and slowly becomes a bitter, twisted man because of it.

I like Arntz's Frank Grimesean character arc.

is christian also mib/smokey? because we saw christian off island once, in season four, when jack briefly returned to being a successful normal doctor. though maybe jack was hallucinating ala hurley, which would fit neatly with his subsequent drug abuse.

re the absence of christian's body in the new timeline, there's still the fact that jack scheduled the funeral services two hours after his flight was scheduled to land, which suggests a guy who's desperate to get something off his back. though maybe in the alt timeline jack's less addled with daddy issues and more just struggling with plain ol grief.

has anyone given thought to the significance of john's successful completion of his walkabout? for a guy who thought the walkabout was going to completely turn his life around, john seemed pretty... ordinary. i don't mean ordinary by john locke standards, i mean he behaved like someone who had just had a rather pleasant vacation. that + the absence of knives suggests that maybe john doesn't struggle with self identity and destiny in this universe? hell, the island's underwater, presumably he doesn't have any business there.

has anyone given thought to the significance of john's successful completion of his walkabout?

He was lying about going on the walkabout. Remember that if he's gone, he never would have been back at the airport to get on that flight.

touche

dude seems pretty mellow for a guy who got kicked off a walkabout. not liking the idea of new locke who lies about his vacations.

Ben's got a similar thing going on here, too; you could look at his character arc as basically being the guy who consistently makes exactly the wrong decision and slowly becomes a bitter, twisted man because of it.

I love the fact that despite his world and reason to live crumbling around him he still feels compelled to lie constantly

I wonder what the limits are to MIB's acquisition of memories. He knows what the person he's imitating thought, and the scene with Eko makes me think he can 'scan' people, but what prevents him from knowing, say, what Dogen knows?

Speaking of Dogen (from Lostpedia): 'Dogen is a very important Zen Buddhism master from the 1200s who is often quoted in Soto Zen works today. He has a preference for Japanese even though most of his contemporaries used Chinese. He built a temple. Like other Zen monks, he's received 'Dharma transmission.' This Dogan/Dogen is the same guy from 1250 Japan and has been on the island since then.'

jack scheduled the funeral services two hours after his flight was scheduled to land

probably the dumbest thing any character has done in the show ever. well done jack didn't think random kate decision could be topped.

the absence of knives suggests that maybe john doesn't struggle with self identity and destiny in this universe?

I thought the alt-timeline Locke seemed much less like angry, flashback Locke and more like SSN 1 island mystic Locke. Perhaps he found peace in some way (and found a handicapped walkabout to go on that started a couple weeks earlier.)

Wheelabout

yeah interested to know how Locke was actually able to do the walkabout

also re Smokey coming into the statue room presumably via the front door...surely Richard and co. outside would've seen this?

yeah interested to know how Locke was actually able to do the walkabout

http://blog.wasteindustrysite.com/the_heap/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/large_atv.jpg

I thought that "nothing is irreversible" line, while telling us something contrasting about alt-Jack, was also a meaningful line about the episode as a whole and everything we had seen in the last two hours. Interesting that immediately afterward, Sayid seemed to rise from the dead. But it's also a strangely apt thing for his character to be saying after landing in LAX, instead of, you know, crashing.

I thought Locke's "they didn't lose your dad They only lost his body" was another significant line. Four major characters have recently died, including the guy speaking the line. Maybe it only foreshadows this sayid business. Maybe something more.

re Smokey coming into the statue room presumably via the front door...surely Richard and co. outside would've seen this?

Er, eh? Smokey = fakelocke. He didn't come in through the front door, he was already in there.

well it came into the room. perhaps it materialised in the corridor or perhaps it came from the temple where it was said to have 'lived' iirc.

or out of the ground sure

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-1qzelSWpE

watched e01 and e02 last night :D

on the audio podcast D & C said Man in Locke is definitely the Smoke Monster.

spoiler alert: this whole things about a time traveling Vanagon that speeds across the folds of the universe delivering refreshing beer, chains for pulling things out of bad places, and delivering suspiciously excellent traction in a muddy, leafy tropical environment.

Stuff I got out of the latest D&C podcast (haven't finished it):

The alt-reality isn't alternative to anything, or rather it's just as legit as the island reality. At some point the two lines will converge. Locke is lying about having gone on the walkabout. Due to the island being sunk/bomb resetting in the alt, many changes in the narrative occur but the archetypes of the characters haven't changed (D makes a 'nature vs nurture' argument).

UK peoples*: Come subscribe to the free Lost Initiative video podcast that I help produce for Sky1?

Auto-iTunes-opening link:

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=205867313

*(US peoples are welcome too, of course, but we're 3 days after the US airdate here...)

Started listening to the D/C podcast - man they are just SO cheesy in their pretending to be hypotethical viewers. Does anyone just transcribe these things?

Lostpedia occasionally does podcast transcriptions here. I'd check back in a couple days.

thx dood

"That's what happens when you read Kierkegaard. You risk losing your arm."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAGdJqaa3ag

SEX IN CAGES!

http://www.movieline.com/2010/02/lost-premiere-hows-that-flash-sideways-working-out-for-our-castaways.php?page=all

Okay just watched the first couple. Awesome. Now to read the entire thread before trying to crystallise thoughts.

I had figured Locke was lying about the walkabout until I read this thread and everyone assumed he had somehow done it. The implication to me was that although others had changed (Hurley lucky etc) Locke was still that old fantasist dreamer/loser. Who couldn't even use the power in his own legs for christ's sake, absolute waster.

Of course Locke was lying about the Walkabout! It's a pride thing with him. Boone didn't know he couldn't walk.

I don't think Sayid is any more "vitally important" than Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, Jin, Sun and anyone else that Jacob touched up in the last episode of S5. They've all got their parts to play, they were all on the list, it's just that Sayid was the only one whose life was in danger.

I reckon that's real Sayid there - it's possible that's exactly what the Temple Others thought was going to happen, apart from the water colour thing. Maybe it was Jacob's enemy that revived him, but it doesn't seem to be a Locke thing (mostly because Jacob's enemy is parading round as Locke/Smokey on the other side of the Island at exactly the same time.

Also lol @ Sayid being saved by the same thing that saved Ben after Sayid tried to kill him. When Richard took young Ben to the temple he warned that he'd never be the same, the same thing might be the case with Sayid. I really like the idea of Sayid and Ben somehow being THE SAME. They've been working up to a really bitter, angry face-off between those two characters for the last couple of seasons, I really hope we get to see it.

also Hurley is lucky instead of unlucky, so at least some of their lives before getting on the plane are different here.

If the alternate world island is underwater then there is nothing to transmit the numbers to that asylum dude, and no way for him to give them to Hurley. He won the lottery using just any numbers, presumably?

and i still haven't received an answer why desmond is on the plane?

Young Widmore would have been on the Island when the bomb blew/it sunk/whatever. So Desmond's life would have turned out completely differently - no Penny for one thing, and he'd never have ended up on the Island. He and Jack didn't recognise one another from the stadium either - not immediately in the way they did in the Hatch in S2. Don't think we'll find out what happened to Widmore etc until alternate timeline Faraday turns up, as he surely will do?

Flashsideways timeline: Sun & Jin are not married. Sun is called Ms. Paik, not Mrs. Kwon, by the customs officer at LAX. Neither Jin or Sun are wearing wedding rings.

This makes me think that in the alternate timeline the events where Jacob went round touching them up didn't actually happen. I'm wondering whether alternate Locke ever fell out of a building or something else happened altogether. Also where are Locke's knives? It's possible they all lost something on the plane?

Also, really hoping for an episode where Sawyer actually does con Hurley out of several million dollars.

As far as well-drawn characters go - Ben > Desmond > Hurley > Sawyer > Locke > Sayid > Jack > Kate > Jin >>>>>> Sun.

It really annoyed me that Sun just left her baby behind and doesn't appear to care.

If you put Jin forward a few notches a Ben back a few, that is basically my ranking of favorite characters on the show, too.

I loved how Sayid broke open the toilet door on the plane, he's a badass in any reality. I've been wondering whether Richard not being in 'chains' any more means he's no longer immortal now Jacob is dead but I doubt that's what flocke meant.

and i still haven't received an answer why desmond is on the plane?

imo he's time-travelling.

Also, really hoping for an episode where Sawyer actually does con Hurley out of several million dollars.

hahaha yes.

Don't think we'll find out what happened to Widmore etc until alternate timeline Faraday turns up, as he surely will do?

I hope alt timeline Faraday exists! But if the island did blow up, I'm assuming he was never born - Eloise was pregnant with him in 1977, wasn't she?

And it's possible that Penny exists off-island, and that she did meet Desmond eventually, but without Charles Widmore around, Des probably never went on his boat race, and so never met Jack at the stadium, and that's also prob why he was on the plane.

they made des's appearance deliberately eerie. i can't remember the mechanics of hamster time-travel, but that basically.

Desmond's on the plane because he just won a third boat race and is flying home to his beautiful wife, imo

they made des's appearance deliberately eerie. i can't remember the mechanics of hamster time-travel, but that basically.

Yeah, I didn't twig until now that Desmond just vanished from the plane, Jack got back from saving Charlie or whatever and asked Rose what happened to him and she didn't seem to know.

Nah you're right that they deliberately made his appearance seem weird but i think the explanation was prob more mundane - he didn't disappear, he just went back to his original seat. he did say he switched seats because the guy next to him was snoring or something like that. they even showed the sunken island bit right after he appeared, just to drive the point home that this was a different timeline altogether.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kxcoheDVev1qzpwi0o1_500.jpg

loooool

huh so are we to expect that each of the people on the ankh list are going to do something specific and course changing that will explain why they were on the list in the first place? because we've seen a lot of lists over the course of lost, which generally didn't amount to much other than "the others are very sinister and want all of your babies."

last episode is Jack back in the barracks looking through Ben's personal library and finding a leatherbound edition of The Big Book Of Lost Lists

is the ankh list going to be the same list as the list in the first series somehow? seems pretty lost thing to happen.

Weird that Asian Pirate Dude didn't seem to know who any of them were. Maybe he's been working completely independently of Ben Linus all this time. Actually I wouldn't be surprised if they hadn't ever let Ben inside the temple, since his healing at least.

that would be hard to explain to ben, given that he's not supposed to know about how the temple healed him.

i can't remember the mechanics of hamster time-travel

this always bugged me:

hamster sits in the maze
hamster does not know how to run maze
hamster is zapped by daniels machine
hamster's consciousness travels to future when hamster has been taught how to run maze
hamster successfully runs maze
hamster's brain explodes

when is the hamster taught to run the maze?

the others are probably the most inconsistent thing about the show
i know they moved into new otherton after they killed all the dharma guys
but my brain just can't fathom how the same group of people that enjoy muffins + book club at juliet's house also live in this wacko temple throwing ash everywhere to hold back the ancient egyptian death god

Maybe because the Temple Others never lived in the barracks in the first place? These guys look like they'd been there a lot longer than the people who were brought over on the sub to sort out security and medicine and fertility shit. Maybe several hundred years longer.

expect this lil dude to be making a few cameos

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/6869/itisamystery.png

how did the flight attendant end up at the temple, though??

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/6869/itisamystery.png

She and a couple of the kids were taken by the Others IIRC?

She is in cahoots!

If island is underwater as a result of events in 1977, Sawyer is the only one Jacob could have visited with.

Elaborate?

In the SSN 5 finale, Sawyer's Jacob visit was the only one that happened prior to 1977. So if (big if, I know) Jacob died on the Island in 1977, then the other visits didn't happen--or happened at different times.

Ah, right. We still don't know exactly when the island sank in the flash-sideways timeline; if the island went down in '77, when the bomb went off, or if the bomb started a chain of events that later on sank the island. (I'm also a bit confused as to how a hydrogen bomb detonation would cause an island to sink rather than just blow chunks of it around. OTOH hey it's an island that can teleport through space-time....)

x-post I have a feeling that the Others who lived in the Dharma barracks were the more recently recruited ones--like Cindy and Juliet--and those at the Temple had been around a lot longer. The nu-Others were sent to the Temple in SSN 3 so that's why we see Cindy there now. Not sure if Ben was the leader of the Temple Others too. Richard probably floats between groups. He wasn't around the Barracks during the cage-sex era.

Jacob specifically told Hurley to get on the plane, so I'm sure he thought through the ramifications.

just remembered that it's been three years since the Oceanic 6 left on the chopper and everyone else went time-travelling, so who knows what the Others (alpert people/barracks people/temple people) have been up to in the meantime?

but my brain just can't fathom how the same group of people that enjoy muffins + book club at juliet's house also live in this wacko temple throwing ash everywhere to hold back the ancient egyptian death god

but they *are* the same people. these were the same guys who dressed like hippies while terrorising airplane crash victims, and speak latin, and had some weird new-agey funeral ritual. also throwing ash around to ward off the smokemonster just seems like the DIY equivalent to turning on a smokey-repelling security fence imo.

I really get the feeling that Ben's takeover of the group was what led to all the modernization/adoption of suburban lifestyles and so on, and it's mostly his weird obsession with the pregnancy thing that led to a lot of it. Few of them really seemed to care, and the New Age/hippie stuff seemed more like their default mode.

Also lol @ Sayid being saved by the same thing that saved Ben after Sayid tried to kill him.

Thanks Keyes! That is what I meant- Sawyer's parents died around 73-75 iirc, he made a comment to jack about how he couldve gone back or whatever.

I still think plane ride is flash forward & that jack is going to get that neck wound fighting for the others against smokey before being zapped back to 2004..

Next ep is called "What Kate Does" - a ref to "What Kate Did" in Season 2 (itself a ref to the book "What Katy did").

least appealing episode title ever tbh. i wish they would do more ft. character names in the title tho. only Kate has had this privilege iirc altho Sun and Locke have been referenced in ep titles via crappy puns.

Future episodes:

DEStiny Calls
The Times They Are A-ChanJIN
WALTabout
The CLAIREvoyant
The EKOnomist
Flashes before your MILES
The BENginning of the BENd

Here Comes the SUN

glad you guys took my bait

oh i forgot they did Hugo too (Everybody Hates Hugo)

PAOLO Can You Go?

THE MAN IN BLACK to the Future

titles to the first dozenish (i think) episodes of this season are floating around the internet. wikipedia has some. i won't list them because some are fairly suggestive, but i will say there's another sun pun involved.

reading this thread while catching up on season 4 is like ~being~ desmond

You should read the Season 4 thread!

why would you..

Flash SAYID-ways
Ex-ROSE-ay

why would you..

i mean who reads the season 6 thread of a show while they're still watching season 4?? what fresh hell is THAT

yes and i am echoing your sentiment

i am watching the season finale of season four.....RIGHT NOW