Faraday said that they could not change fate.  Charlie is supposed to die.  Mrs Hawkins explained course correction.  Their destiny called from the island.  Their destiny will still have it’s way.  Kate will keep running.  Sawyer keeps conning.  But Not-Locke put it best when he said to Ben that the survivors don’t even realize how pitiful their lives are back home.  Guess we are seeing that.  Will like to see how this destiny fixes itself.

I think we are dealing with two time lines running parallel to each other.  Jack did change history but I think that the two time lines are going to intersect at some point.  Thus proving Faraday’s theory that you cannot change your destiny.

1.  You could see right away that the plane ride was different.  The stewardess only handed Jack one bottle of vodka and in the original she handed him two.  Boone was without Shannon.  Claire must have changed her mind about adopting Aaron.  Charlie didn’t run past Jack to the bathroom. The cops didn’t take Kate, they took Charlie.  (and btw, YEAH CHARLIE!!!).  But these things would not have been different because Jack / Juliet set the bomb off.  And the island was underwater which Jack could not have changed with the bomb.

2.  Desmond.  Where are thou Desmond?  What was that all about? But omg he looked good!

3.  I need to screen cap but I swear that was a Dharma shark.  Graphics were pretty bad though.  And the foot was there so history wasn’t completely changed.

4.  Kate’s eye opens.  And she’s in a tree.  Cool!

5.  So at first I was pretty upset that they just didn’t leave Juliet where we last saw her.  Then I remembered an interview with Elizabeth Mitchell where she stated she came back as Juliet because her role was pivotal to the season.  She tells Miles that “it worked.”  Of course no one will think to question him further on this but this is a huge clue to what is going on with the alter-universe of their lives that we are seeing.  She also talks to Sawyer about going for coffee, dutch.  Was she traveling to the other time line?  Is she in some state like Faraday had Eloise (the rat)?  Traveling back and forth in her mind?

6.  So back on the plane Hurley tells Sawyer that “nothing bad” ever happens to him.  Back with the original Hurley only bad things happened.  He thought he was cursed!

7.  Like Ben, I also want to know why Jacob didn’t fight back?  Unless he knows that like the survivors back on the plane, you cannot change your destiny so he gives in to it.  Plus, can he possibly take over Sayid’s body?  Is that why he wanted Sayid at the temple so badly?  Is Sayid now Jacob?  Oooo, Locke versus Sayid?  Show down!

8.  I wasn’t sure if it was on purpose, but I remember in the Pilot Boone really wants to get a pen to help save Rose.  When Jack is trying to save Charlie on the plane he asks for a pen.  I found it amusing.

9.  So with Rose back home is she now going to die of cancer?

10.  Why did the Dharma van travel forward in time but nothing else tangible did?

11.  Wow, Jack is really going to be screwed up in his head with all these people dying on his watch.  We’ll have angry Sawyer, depressed Jack and not-Locke.  What a trio!

12.  Now we know why Locke was the only one old Smokey didn’t kill.  He looked inside and what Smokey saw was what he wanted.  He needed to keep Locke alive to take over his body.

13.  Did you notice Not-Locke sitting in the old rocking chair?  Just like the old rocking chair in the cabin.

14.  So where did Desmond disappear to on the plane?

15.  Sayid told us not to mistake coincidence for fate.  It’s no coincidence that Christian Shepherd’s body isn’t on that plane.

16.  Remember last season when Hurley told Sayid that he was going to have a time that he needed help and that he wouldn’t help him?  Guess he changed his mind because twice Hurley literally saved his life.

17.  And was Hurley hilarious tonight or what?

18.  Kate heard the whispers in the temple.  Then we see the Others in the temple.  Not sure I know what the significance of the whispers in the jungle were if it’s just these people.  I’m hoping there is more explanation to come.

19.  I’m worried about Hurley running around in that red shirt.  There was a problem in the past with people wearing red and then dying.

20.  I like how they “baptized” Sayid in the temple.  I think the Japanese guy knew exactly what they were doing in the water.  He knew that Sayid wasn’t going to die.  And we know from the past that bodies left out and not buried seem to be resurrected.

21.  Another question – who is this Japanese dude?  Will be interested to hear his story.

22.  Locke broke the circle of ash around Jacob’s shack last season.  Guess he must have let Not-Locke in at that moment.  I will have to come back o the significance of the ash.  Also, the guy in the temple was OK until he stepped out of the ash.

23.  Claire either was on the plane or lives in LA.  She was in the cab with Kate.

24.  Jack also had a pivitol line to Locke, “nothing’s irreversable.”  Interesting.

25.  Why didn’t Richard want them to shoot Locke?    Looks like Richard knows Not-Locke from way back.  I’m thinking Black Rock history?

26.  Is Terry O’Quinn the best actor ever?  He really gets to exercise his acting chops this season!  I love it!

27.  Where is Vincent?

28.  The bullet hit Non-Locke but seemed to bend (didn’t go straight through him).  What exactly is this guy?

29.  My hope is that this is the last of the Saywer and Kate love affair (with his grief over Juliet).

30.  On a limb here – MAYBE the plane didn’t crash because the circumstances weren’t right.  Last season they had to recreate the flight as close to the original in order to crash on the island again.  If Jack’s dad’s body wasn’t on the plane then maybe they couldn’t crash?

I have to go back and watch again.  Come back in a few days for more thoughts and screencaps!  Welcome back, looks like we’ve hit the ground running.

I’m glad to see that ABC is having some fun with this last season of Lost.  Check out the two promo pictures below.  Any guesses what the subtle changes mean?

While the positions of most of the characters remain the same, there are some minor differences.  Miles and Claire switch sides which moves Hurley one seat in, then Ben and Sun swap places.

Is there something special about these five characters who move while the others remain in the same places?  Why does Sun move away from her husband in the second photo?  Are these legitimate questions or are the producers throwing us another red herring?

Hi Friends!  I can’t believe Season Five is over.  It’s like when a relative (one that you like) comes to visit and at some point you are ready to get your house back but in another way you are sad to see them go.  I was thrilled to see the season play out and there wasn’t even one episode that I was disappointed with but I was also very sad for it to end, especially knowing we only have one season left!  Argh!  What will our new obsession be?

So for me I want to start with the Sawyer / Juliet scene at the hatch.  H-E-A-R-T-B-R-E-A-K-I-N-G.  I don’t cry for very many shows and that scene did it for me.  But I keep thinking of what our softened up 1977 Sawyer is going to become after this event.  Look out folks, you aint see nothing yet!  The sheriff is back in town and he’s got one hell of a chip on his shoulder!
  Ugh, the heartbreak!
  Way to go Juliet!  Push through the pain!

1.  So we know Jacob likes to weave rugs.  If anyone can read what is on this one that would be super cool and appreciated.  But the rug is always the same in the end, right, it’s just a rug.  Anything he learns in the making of the next one or does different is progress.  Just like what he says about people coming to the island.
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2.  Did Jacob catch a red herring?  The significance of that would be huge!  Or, it was just be amusing.
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3.  Black and white shirts.  How fitting.
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4.  Thank goodness Dan was so detailed regarding the bomb.  Maybe he had some sort of inkling that he may not be the one to do it or he knows how bad his memory is so that is why he was so very detailed.
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5.  Locke wants to kill the rest of the passengers from the Ajira flight, I assume.  He tells Richard that once they are done with Jacob that they need to “deal with them.”  How interesting.  Perhaps he knows that Ilana and the others are there to help Jacob.  I don’t like the new Locke anymore.

6. Frank being a “candidate” must have something to do with how Jacob will take form and speak to them after his death.  Ultimately, it’s going to be either Miles or Hurley, I think, that does the talking for him.  Heck, Hurley may even be able to get a game of chess going.

7.  It makes sense that Smokey, the man in black, and undead Locke are all the same entity.  Smokey came to Ben and told him he had to do whatever Locke told him.  duh!  Like killing Jacob.  Smokey was *reading* everyone on the island as it/he needed to find the right person that it/he could manipulate.  No wonder it didn’t kill Locke!  It wanted him for later use.

8.  Jacob didn’t kill Nadia, he actually saved Sayid from being killed.  He made Sayid pause before crossing and thus he didn’t get hit by the car that ran the red light.
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9.  Vincent!  Unfortunately, I’m sure that this will be the last time we’ll see this dog.  No back story. No more showing up when there’s trouble.  Unless… Jacob chooses Vincent to be his vessel around the island now that he’s dad.  That would be cool.
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10.  This is the last of Rose and Bernard, too.  But, I love that they found a loophole of their own.  They don’t play the game anymore, they just live.  They’ve embraced the island and it is what it is for them.  I would venture to say that they are the “Adam and Eve” that were found in the cave back oh so many seasons ago.  Too bad Sawyer and Juliet couldn’t have found the same Garden of Eden for themselves.
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11. The circle of Ash was broken from around Jacob’s cabin.  If memory serves, it was Locke that bent down and picked up some of the ash.  Perhaps that is when it was broken?

12.  Ilana’s eye opening.  It also kind of reminds me of Michael from the Halloween movies.  Eeeek!
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13.  Ilana didn’t just go back to the island to help Jacob.  She also made a little pit stop and nabbed Sayid to bring him back with her.  That is why I don’t think that Sayid will die from the gunshot nor will he did from the bomb.  Jacob needs him there for some purpose.

14.  Here is the part of the rug (I assume) that Jacob made at some point which Ilana knows already what it means.  I am hoping that we see some back story next year on their relationship.  Maybe she’s really old like Richard.
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15.  It’s interesting that they’re carrying around the big old cargo crate like it’s the Arc of the Covenant.  Did they really have to pick such a huge friggin’ box that took four guys to carry around the island?    I guess the writer’s couldn’t have used such blatant biblical imagery if they would have thrown him in a body bag or a knapsack.
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16.  Maybe it’s not the content of the book Jacob is reading that is important, but more about the author, “lead readers—whom she sees as, for the most part, spiritually lost in the modern, secular world—back toward the path of redemption.”
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17.  I miss Charlie!
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18.  Sun finding this ring makes me think back to when she (ironically) found her wedding ring in the sand.  How unlikely was that?  Perhaps some *divine* intervention helped her out there?

19.  The scene at the funeral of Sawyer’s parents, there is the sound of a large bird right before Jacob shows up.  Then, as he leaves you can hear the sound of a bird again (like a crow perhaps).  Could that be how Jacob gets around?  Remember the bird on the island that we thought sounded like it said “Hurley?  I keep thinking back to The Stand and in the book Randall Flagg gets around this way – he takes the shape of a bird.  Only, he’s the bad guy in that book and I like to think that Jacob is the good guy.

20.  I’m not liking that is was Jack’s dad that taught him about counting to five.  One of the most meaningful and life changing events and we find out that it was his dad who told him to do it.  Doesn’t seem as moving knowing this.  Oh, and Sawyer wanted just “five” minutes with Jack.  Lucky number I guess.

21.  Everyone that Jacob “touched” (except for Sun and Locke) were on the list of people that Jacob wanted from the survivors.  And, they are “coming” back from the past.  He somehow prepared them for this moment in the touches I think.

22.  The Sawyer and Jack fight was 5 seasons coming.  Glad they finally got that out of their systems … I hope.

23.  My bets are on Hurley for taking over as the leader of the Losties.  He was an indirect leader before (back on the beach Hurley had a subtle way of getting people to do things) and I can see him doing it again.  The war is coming between the black and white, the good and evil on the island and it doesn’t get much better than Hurley.  Plus, he’ll be able to talk to Jacob and what to do next.

24.  I loved the scene in the cab with Jacob and Hurley.  Someone to calmly tell him that he’s not crazy and getting to talk to those he lost is a blessing.  But I don’t believe that him coming back to the island was a choice.  Jacob knew once Hurley saw that guitar that he would go back (remember that Charlie told him that the people back on the island needed him).
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25.  The fact that Mrs Hawking and Jacob both were working to get the Losties on the plane and back to the island tells me that she is actually a “good” guy.

26.  Creepy Locke.  Nice shadowing on the face – black and white / light and dark.
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27.  Marvin Candle had a gimpy arm in the Dharma videos.  We see that during the *incident* that his arm gets trapped and Miles helps to free him.  So…. wouldn’t that mean that this event *has* happened before?  How likely is it that another event was the cause of hurting his arm? Like Miles said, Jack is creating the exact event that he thought he was preventing.  Free will be damned, this was meant to happen.
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28.   What if Jacob decides to take over the Locke body from the plane?  Locke versus Locke?  Like the old Spy versus Spy cartoons!
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29.  Jacob tells Ben that he has a choice – either to do what Locke asks or leave.  Kind of like he told Hurley he had a choice.  I don’t think Ben had much choice and Jacob knew it.  But Jacob won’t be dead in the spiritual sense.  Maybe he’ll even become one of the “whispers.”

30.  I think once Ben realizes next season that Jacob wasn’t the bad guy he’s going to have some big regrets.  Ben has been trusting and believing in Jacob for a very long time.  I’m sure he still cares about him in a sense too.

31.   If I were an actress and I knew I was going to be killed off of a show, I would ask for the exact death Juliet had.  That was amazing.  And she is an amazing actress.  Oh, and in the context of the show, I guess the island wasn’t done with her or she would have been so dead at the end of that fall.

32.  THE greatest season ender…. ever.
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33.   So where do we go from here?  It’s safe to say the Losties aren’t dead.  Matthew Fox did an interview after the finale and admitted that they weren’t dead.  But, from knowing this show there is no way that they will just suddenly appear back in regular time.  There will be a cool and interesting way that they are brought back.  Maybe they will be a big troop of Locke’s.  lol  Maybe they will be the whispers.  Maybe they will inhabit all the dead bodies around the island.

34.  Desmond had a small roll this season but truly I think Des is the one and only person who can truly be a variable in all of this.  Des is special.  Once he shows up then all bets are off.  Maybe ultimately Des will become the new Jacob in the end.

35.  Sayid will be alive.  He has to be.  Jacob saved him for a reason.

36.  Which side of the war will Richard chose?

37.  What does Locke need with all of the Others?  He told him that they would need rest to be ready for what he had prepared for them.  Which is what?

38.  We still don’t know what was in the box that Ben was hiding from Jack when he was in the hotel room.

39.  Walt *saw* Locke, in a suit, running from lots of people trying to kill him.  Will Locke rise again in Jack’s dad’s shoes?

40.  Will Walt return to the island?

41.  How will Claire come back into play?  Aaron is surely coming back as well.  Will Desmond’s vision of them leaving the island on a helicopter come true?

Wow. Now *THAT* is how you do a season finale.

So bittersweet.  Two hours of amazing tv but now the season is over for another 9 months.

1.  Why the big fancy metal box to carry around Locke’s dead body?  Whatever / Whoever has taken over Locke apparently doesn’t need the corpse to take his form.  Unless there is a twin out there of Locke.  I hate that it’s not Locke though.  I thought this guy had finally found his mojo but turns out he’s the man in black.

2.  I can’t help to think again to Stephen King and the bad guy he has running around (Randal Flagg, Walter, whatever you want to call him).  I’m thinking it’s the same “bad guy” concept that has a hold of Locke’s body and I also think it’s the same guy from the opening scene that wants to kill Jacob.

3.  We are back to our black and white theme.  Very first scene, Jacob has on white, the other guy has on black.

4.  I really want to stew on my thoughts of that opening scene.  If you’ve seen the 80’s movie “Clash of the Titans” then you’ll remember the scenes where the “gods” were moving the people around.  It almost reminds me of the opening scene.  It’s like Jacob brings people to the island out of some “power” he has.  I think maybe he is hoping that on one of the boats / planes that crashes someone will kill him and end the seemingly endless loop of events.  According to the man in black, they come, they fight but it always ends the same.

5.  Jacob seems like such a kind man.  He goes to each one of our Losties at an important moment of their life and is so gentle.  Except with Locke he actually brings him back to life after he falls out of the tree.  But, Jacob goes to each of the survivors which surely means there is a larger purpose for them.  And when they crash on the island Jacob makes the list of who he wants from the survivors.

6.  Jacob must want Sawyer to finish the letter.  He gives him a pen.

7.  Should Jack really be carrying the inner part of the bomb around on his back?

8.  I think that Richard is suspicious of the *new* Locke.  He keeps staring at him (or so Locke keeps pointing out) and even says he’s different.  But Jack tells Richard that he shouldn’t give up on Locke so I think that Richard might be second guessing his suspicions.

9.  So Eloise is their leader.  Richard says so when he makes Jack and Sayid go ahead of him through the Dharma houses.

10.  I’m not clear on what Frank might be a “candidate” for according to Ilana.  Guess we’ll have to wait until next year to see.  Maybe a new *body* for Jacob to inhabit?

11.   Hurley is a rock star in that van.  How many times can he be a hero driving that thing into dangerous situations.

12.  I love Rose and Bernard.  I truly hope that they leave those two exactly where they are.  Give someone some happiness people!!!

13.  “It’s always something with you people.”  I agree with Rose.  They can’t just sit still and live a calm life, they are always shooting at someone.  But I guess it would make for one boring show if they didn’t.

14.  Ilana has her face wrapped and all we see is her eye.  We haven’t had an eye opening for awhile.  When Jacob comes to her in the hospital she obviously knows him.  What must he ask for her help with?  I’m thinking it’s to stop the man in black from whatever evil he’s spreading.  Maybe she is one of the good guys.

15.  AND, if Jacob wasn’t the one in the cabin then there are some people on the island who have been talking to the evil / black spirit on the island.  And, Claire was in the cabin so she is somehow involved with him.

16.  Book that Jacob is reading, Flannery O’Conner “Everything That Rises Must Converge.”

17.   The first time that Ben took Locke to the cabin the man in the black shirt is the one who asked Locke to help him.  I don’t think that Jacob was there at all.  And I think Richard knew that.

18.  I was sad when Sun found Charlie’s ring in the baby cradle.  Made me miss Charlie for one and for another I missed the old, more simple days of the show.  Charlie gave his life so that Claire and Aaron can leave the island and I still think that we will see that happen.

19.  Maybe Jacob going to all the important events was like Dan going to Charlotte as a little girl.  He’s trying to subtly influence their behavior and thus change the course of events and therefore breaking the loop.

20.  I think it’s cute that Jacob is the little old lady who lived in a shoe.

21.  I thought that it was going to be Jacob that actually put the woman back together during Jack’s surgery.  Such a poignant moment in his life that I’m glad Jacob didn’t heal her.  But, we can see that both Jack and Jacob like Apollo bars.  I’m not clear yet on what his role was in that scene.

22.  Sawyer is 100% right, a man does what he does because he wants something.  But, I don’t think that Jack is trying to change the future because of Kate alone.  I think it’s all of his regrets collectively that he wants to change.

23.  The Jack and Sawyer fist fight was five seasons coming.  I think they needed to have it out once and for all.

24.  Juliette learned early about being in love but not being with that person that you love.  The scene with her as a little girl was a wee bit cheesy though.

25.  Jacob wanted Hurley to have Charlie’s guitar.  But I love that out of everyone, he only straight talks Hurley.  And he also reassures Hurley that he’s not crazy but rather that he’s blessed because he has the ability to talk to his dead friends.

26.  Sayid will live.  Killing of Juliet (as I thought she would be) was the sacrifice for the season.  They can’t also take him away from us.  They just can’t!

27.  I don’t think that the man in Locke has the capability of killing Jacob.  Having Ben do it is the loop hole he had been looking for.  But I’m also not convinced that Jacob didn’t want to die.  He doesn’t do anything to make Ben feel better about not seeing him all those years.

28.  Notice the black and white shadows on Locke and Jacob’s faces in Jacob’s foot/house?  Ben doesn’t have the shadows but the two of them do.  Will have to screen cap.

29.  Yeah Miles!  Finally pointing out what we’ve been thinking.  That the Losties are actually causing the event that they think they are preventing.

30.  So the scene at the Swan construction site was crazy intense, once the bomb actually went off that is.  Like when Locke first let the numbers run out and all the metal started coming.  Miles saving his dad.  And of course the Juliet in the tunnel scene.  OMG, heart wrenching!  I was very teary eyed in that scene.  You can also believe that Locke is not going to take losing her well.  If he was bad before then he’s going to be totally off the charts now.  I can see him blaming Kate and Jack for her death since he seems to think that they had a very happy life until they came back.

31.  Yes, Juliet waking up at the bottom of the tunnel was unrealistic but if the island wasn’t done with her then it makes sense that she lived in order to set the bomb off.

32.  Anyone able to translate what Richard says lies in the shadow of the statue?

34.  I really hate that it’s not *our* Locke running around the island.

35.  Jacob says “They’re Coming.”  I think that he means the O6.  They *were* meant to come back and I think it’s to stop the dark man that has taken over Locke.  That is their purpose.

36.  Elizabeth Mitchell has to be beyond pleased with the way they wrote her character off of the show.  Sure, it sucks that she’s gone but if you are going to go, THAT is the way to do it!

37.  I also was moved with the flash that Lost’s final season is next year.  What!  Can it be true?  I knew that was coming as well but it’s going to be such a bittersweet season.

OK, so who is the leader?  Looks like we’re back to Jack and Locke leading the packs.  Will be veeeery interesting when they hit the “present” to see who does what when new and improved Jack meets up with new and improved Locke.

1.  Too much dead Dan for me tonight.  It’s bad enough they killed him, I didn’t need multiple dead body shots.

2. OK, so I may lose people here but I want Kate gone.  I know why they keep her … because she’s the wrinkle in the plan (always, ugh she drives me crazy) but wow, Sawyer had a real shot at happiness.  Come on Darlton, you can’t just give *someone* happiness on this show?  I could totally see Sawyer and Juliet running off and making a nice life for themselves. Geesh, even in real life once in a while a guy can catch a break.  Guess the island isn’t done with him.

3.  I know why Locke has to kill Jacob.  Locke now believes that he had to be *killed* in order to be set free.  Jacob asked Locke to help him.  Locke’s way to help Jacob is to *kill him* in order to set Jacob free as well.  How will he do it, who know exactly but I have a feeling he needs the whole gang there in order to make it happen.  I really doubt that Locke wanted everyone to meet Jacob.  He needs their help and couldn’t just come out and ask them now could he.

4.  I love it, 30 years later and Locke is back on the beach carrying around a dead boar just like he started at the beginning of this show.  The irony of them on the beach didn’t escape me.

5.   So Richard is an adviser of sorts.  Adviser to who exactly?  I think that Richard plays a similar role that Abbadon played in that he is there to help people get to where they need to go.  Richard helps them stay on course or on the right “record” if you will.

6.   Did you catch Ben at the end tell Richard that he “TRIED” to kill Locke?  Either Ben is denying the truth (which why would he to Richard) or that sneaky little you-know-what is playing Locke right to where he wants him to go.  Not sure where that is yet but remember dear friends that Mr Ben Linus *always* has a plan.

7.   Richard thinks that he saw Jack and the others die back in 1977.  I’m holding on to the idea that someone (Juliet) will somehow move them forward in time just at the right second before the bomb goes off.  So of course Richard thinks that they die.

8.   Compass points them North.  Again with the North.

9.  BRILLIANT writing getting Richard back to the plane right at the exact second that Locke would flash with his injured leg.  I am in awe tonight, ok so most nights, but completely 100% in awe of the writing on this show.  To think that scene through from these various angles took some serious brain power.  Bravo Paul Zbyszewski & Elizabeth Sarnoff.  Bravo to the writers who also led up to this epi.

10.   Oh no not again.  Sawyer getting beat up.  He’s totally going to get back at Radzinsky, I’m sure of it.

11.   And hello, remember in Season One that Sawyer gets beat up by a “genuine Iraqi Soldier.”  He can surely handle a few blogs from a pasty guy living on an island.

12.  Ok, and here’s another flash back.  Sawyer would have completely left Hurley behind just a few short seasons ago.  Now Hurley says that they can’t leave him because Sawyer would never leave them behind.  Oh really?

13.   Best line of the night.  Pierre/Marvin comes in the jungle questioning Hurley, Miles and Jin about where they are going and who they are.  Hurley says, “But we asked you first.”  LOLs

14.   So Locke sends Richard over to help “past” Locke and his injured leg.  Locke knows he has to convince his “past” self to die and come back to the island.  He also knows that his past self needs some medical attention.  Wouldn’t it be cool if you could watch an event in your life and send one of your buddies to help you and convince you to do the right thing?  Another variable perhaps?

15.   Richard comes out from the pond into the tunnel and has fire.  Where did it come from?

16.  OMG, get Kate away from Sawyer.  And how many times must Kate come trying to save the day and ends up muddying the waters instead?  She has turned into Jack.  Always trying to fix things and sometimes things don’t need fixing!
17.  Locke gave his word to Sun that he would help to unite her with Jin and I think he will.  It may be on his terms and on his time but I do think he’ll help.

18.  Yeah, Sayid is back!  He always makes a dramatic entrance.  I guess they’re paying him enough they better bring him back on screen.  Plus he’s such a bad a$$ Jack will probably need him to help with the bomb.

19.  I’m curious where Sawyer drew the map to.  I’m thinking that it’s somewhere that will either hurt or kill Radzinsky.

I was thinking about the choice of being able to take a pivotal moment in your life and change the event.  I’m sure all of us have at least one moment in our life where you wonder, “what if…”  But would you really change it if you could?  Should the Losties mess with their fate?  What if they were meant to die in that crash?  What if Jack manages to change the future and instead of crashing on the island, the plane crashes in the ocean and they die?  What does Jack have to go back to anyway that he’d want to change the crash?  Wouldn’t he be better changing his actions with Sarah, his dad or the drugs?

1.  I don’t think the Mrs Hawking does know what happens next (she tells Penny in the hospital).  Let’s assume that she picks up the journal when she shoots Dan back in 1977.  She has the events up until the time that Dan goes back and then shoots him.  Now she doesn’t know what is going to happen because the journal ends.

2.  Why would Dan think that Jack and the others don’t belong there in 1977?  What does he know or what did he learn back in Ann Arbor that we haven’t learned yet?

3.  I think that when we see Eloise go to Dan playing the piano as a young boy, this isn’t a flashback, if you consider 1977 as the “present.”  I think that we are seeing her after she shoots him on the island and gets the journal.  That is how you would explain that she knows Dan has a destiny to be fulfilled.
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4.  Everyone is in a jumpsuit except Juliet and she’s in a red “death shirt.”  I think that the writers are going to use the overworked plot device that someone is going to have to stay behind and die so that the others may live and return to modern times.  Juliet will be the one.  Think about it.  She loves Sawyer but knows the moment he calls Kate “Freckles” that their life there together is over.  She also still loves Jack.  She can save them both by sacrificing herself to get them back where they belong.  This is my prediction.

5. When Dan has Miles take him to the Orchid station and Pierre/Marvin pulls up, he looks at his watch and says, “right on time.”  OK, I can believe that Dan understands the physics of the island but how can he know the movements of Chang?

6.  And Dan spills the beans to Pierre about Miles knowing it will lead him to send the children off of the island.  How could he know this stuff?  I’m wondering if we are going to see that Dan is the one who made all the calculations under the church where older Mrs Hawkins talks to the Losites.  That is how he figured when the incident would be on the island and that is why he has to get back.

7. OK, the scene where Dan is crying over the news footage of the plane crash totally changes in the middle.  At the beginning Dan’s hair is wet and slicked back.  Then 30 seconds later it’s dry and longer.  Bad editing or does something in time change like it did with the pictures at the lady’s house that Miles “talked” to her dead son?
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8.  There is never much product placement but turns out JJ Abrams is a guest editor for the magazine this month.  The magazine we see is “The Super Power” Issue from August 2003. Issue 11.08.  See a large picture of the cover here.

9.  When Dan approaches Charlotte I wonder if he tells her the same thing about not coming back to the island or if he tries something different this time.  If I were Dan I’d probably try a somewhat different strategy.

10. Dang, Jack sure is a good shot!  Is there anything he can’t do?

11.  If Dan’s plan is to detonate the hydrogen bomb, was he going to let them all die?  I didn’t hear anything in his plan about getting them out of there before he bombs them.  But, we also don’t really know why he wanted to see his mom on the island so badly.  Maybe she will be the catalyst to getting them back to current time.  Maybe in 1977 she sees the journal and knows she has to help the Losties get back to real time.

12.  And I think that Desmond is going to end up being the Variable.  Why would he let them change anything?  I can see him doing anything to preserve his path that leads him back to Penny.

Spot on writers!  Ben would survive.  It happened once and happened again.

I love the new and improved Jack.  Won’t save Ben, puts a shirt on when Juliet walks in on him nude, and listens to Sawyer? Jack the new man of faith.

Kate scored a few points tonight for doing the right thing with Aaron.   She’s on the right track.  We’ll see if she can keep it up or will go back to whiney.

1.  What is the creepy relationship with Roger and Kate?   Ew!

2.  What a cute baby they have for Aaron.

3.  Cassidy is back.  She was a reality check after seeing the softer side of Sawyer.  Yeah, he was a pretty creepy guy back home and did some pretty terrible things.  Guess I wanted to forget who he was but she made some good points – like why Sawyer really jumped out of the helicopter.

4.  Why does Kate trust Cassidy so much?  She told her the whole truth and Cassidy doesn’t seem very surprised by the story.  They left them behind on some crazy island and this doesn’t surprise her.  Is it just me or is Cassidy suspicious?

5.   Now Roger is becoming a concerned father?  I’m wondering what would have happened if Jack would have saved Ben.  What a twist!  Ben may have ended up being a relatively normal guy but because of Jack’s refusal to help he actually contributed to Ben becoming Crazy Ben.  Wow!  And Kate is directly responsible for Ben going to Crazy Town by begging Juliet and Sawyer to help save him.  I love it!

6.   I’m very glad that Jack had the conversation with Kate that he already saved Ben once because Kate begged him.  Is Jack on to something that maybe The Island wants to fix itself.  The Island has the ability to heal and to supposedly prevent people from dying (think Michael in the car crash) so it does pick and chose who lives and dies.

7.  Why would the doctor be in the Looking Glass station for a week?  Seems like he/she would have more use on the mainland.

8. Kate understands what Roger is talking about when he says that a boy needs his mother.  She lets Claire’s mom watch Aaron while she goes back to the island to get Clarie.  Good, noble cause.

9.  I think Hurley is wrong.  I think Ben *does* remember that Sayid is the guy that shot him as a kid.  That is why Ben was so insistent that Sayid was a killer and was confident he would kill to protect his friends.  After all, Sayid would shoot a 12 year old boy to protect his friends, why not dozens of perfect strangers?  Or, Ben doesn’t remember being shot as Richard says if they take him he won’t remember the incident.
10. Juliet knows the Hostiles/Others can help save Ben but she must know what the consequences will be.  She knows this by living with them all of those years.  I would hope that Sawyer will come back and ask Juliet what it all means, but it seems like Hurley and Jack are the only ones asking questions lately.

11.  Ah, the cog in the wheel – the scene at the dock seems to be the cog and all the spikes (stories) of the Losties spread out from there.

12.  I would guess that Ben paid the blonde lady who looked *just* like Claire to take Aaron off by the hand to freak out Kate.  Way too much of a coincidence.

13.  All right, so Ellie and Charles are making the calls for the Hostiles.  Mrs Hawking and Widmore.  Ben must really pull a number on Widmore when he’s older to get Mrs Hawking on his side.  But what on earth must they have to do to Ben to save him.  I’m going to guess it’s something affiliated with the smoke monster considering they are in the Temple and we know who lives there!  Why does he lose his innocence?
14.  I say Ellie and Charles because the guy working with Richard asks him if he should ask them first before they take Ben.

15.  Yes!  Locke is back!  I was missing him.  Now we need to bring back Daniel and Desmond too.  Ben looks genuinely surprised to see Locke.
16.  Clever editing?  they make it look like Ben is talking to the young Danielle.  But he doesn’t look like young Ben.  But maybe it is, maybe we’ll see the scene where Ben takes Alex from her.

One of the things that I love about Lost is that you have to think.  I appreciate that the “powers that be” give us credit for being intelligent and give us information without full explanation.  For instance, at first blush I assumed that this week’s title came from Sawyer’s line to Sayid about Oldham.  But after watching the episode back several times (for this blog, not because I’m obsessed…. ok, yes I am obsessed) I started to realize the duplicity of it’s meaning.  Sayid is to the past what Ben is to the present in so far as he has to kill for what he believes is right for the greater good.

Initial thoughts and comments are here.

1. Isn’t it horrifying cute that Young Ben brings Sayid a chicken sandwich immediately after we see a scene of Sayid killing a chicken with his bare hands as a boy?

2.  I still can’t get over the fact that Ben was living among the DI and Sawyer didn’t mention anything or make a big deal about it.  When Jack showed up wouldn’t you totally be like, “You won’t believe who is here!  But you can’t say anything when you see him.”  I know that Sawyer says that he had no choice, but to not even mention it?
3.  Young Ben is already quite the little sneak.  He keeps coming to Sayid and just starts chatting about Richard.  And, Ben knows that the cameras only have pictures, no sound.  Ben also knows how to break out a prisoner.  So, as much as Sayid may be an influence on the killer in Ben, it seems like Young Ben was already well on his way to being the conniving man he becomes.  Plus, Ben was already working with the Hostiles when Sayid shows up so he’s not quite the innocent we may want to think he is as a young boy.

4.  I was thinking about the O6 and how they had to live a lie back home.  There was no freedom for them because they had to live with the weight of knowing they left all the others behind.  But, things weren’t so easy for those back on the island as they also had to live a lie.  They couldn’t tell the truth either and at least for Juliet, had settled into a life they thought was it for them. So I can understand why Sawyer wanted Sayid to lie and join the *Dharma Party* because their life really wasn’t all that bad for them there in 1977.  It seems a heck of a lot better there than it was for Sawyer back home but they weren’t totally free from guilt either.

5.   I really hate feeling this way, but I just cannot stand where they have taken Kate’s character.  Right now I wish they could have left her behind.  But, I am hoping that there is something positive to come for her and that she can stop crying and whining and go back to being strong and independent.  I know that next week is Kate-centric so here’s the chance.

6.  I’m sure it’s not there, but when Sayid first *senses* Ben behind him then he turns around, I swear you can hear the rattling noise that you hear sometimes when Smokey is sneaking around.  Go back and listen!  Watching this scene back also has new meaning now that I know Sayid shoots Young Ben.
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7. My first question is, how does Oldham get power out in the middle of the jungle?  He’s playing a record in this tent.  My second thought was that it looked a lot like the tent that Locke built when he was going on his magic carpet ride to find out what the island wanted from him.  Lastly, Oldham is not nearly the bad a$$ that Sayid is unless there is more to come from this guy.  A drug laced sugar cube, really?  That’s the best he’s got?
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8. I’m still curious to know what the side affects of the sugar cube are going to be for Sayid.  I know that Boone was chased by Smokey and saw Shannon die from his trip.  Wonder what Sayid might see?
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9.  Sayid is drinking McCutcheon Scotch (with his pinkie up I might add).  This is the same scotch that Desmond bottled, that Widmore said Des wasn’t good enough to drink, and the scotch that Charlie used to get Des drunk.
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10.  Why doe Amy want to kill Sayid so much?  I understand that she’d be mad at the Hostiles, but to just kill him?  Maybe there is more to her that we haven’t considered yet.

11.   Why does Radzinski want to call Ann Arbor?  The DeGroots are there but why would they have any say in this? In a psychology class I took, we learned about an experiment at Stanford University where they took groups of students and made some of them prisoners and some of them guards.  You can read the whole thing here but long story short, the students became so enmeshed in their roles that they had to end the experiment early.  Could that be what’s going on here?  They all could have started from the same place, just split them into two groups and see what happens – one group civil, the other living in the wild.

12.  Why do they have to kill Sayid?  Why can’t they just wait for Richard and send him back?  Maybe the DI isn’t as peaceful as they seem.

13.   New job for Jack!  Firefighter!
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14.  Ben has to know when he sees Sayid on the flight that Sayid is on his way *back* to shoot him.  Back to the island and back in time, I mean.  Ben is so insistent on all of them going back that each one has a chain of events that they each must set in motion.  I don’t think that they are going to save anyone.  For instance, Sayid shoots Ben, he’s not saving his life, he’s just there to keep the record playing on the right song, so to speak.  I’m very interested to see what the role of each of the others will be, including why Ben gets to or *has* to go back to the island.
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15.  When Ben is saved, which he will be, no one saw him in the jungle so it will be easy for him to say Sayid kidnapped then shot him to escape.  But, Ben has to hear the conversation between Sayid and Jin so he also knows that there is more going on here then just Sayid being a Hostile.  Will the other Losties know that Sayid shot him for the greater good?
16.   I hope next week that Sawyer is going to ask Kate if she did the favor him that he had asked her in the helicopter.  Sounds like his daughter will be appearing next week so I’m guessing he will.

17.   Who will end up saving Ben?  My money is on Juliet.  Although, Jack does end up feeling guilty and helping others and he took an oath as a doctor.  But, I could see it being Juliet and that is why Ben is so enamored with her as an adult.

18.   I also think that however the O6 end up returning to present time, that is going to be the big *incident* that has been referred to.  My guess is that Sayid is going to end up running into Daniel.  He will tell him the story.  Dan is going to figure out how to get them back to the present but it will involve something drastic.  But I do hope that we get to see how Radzinski ends up being quarantined down in the hatch and how the numbers came to be.

Up until the end of this episode, I thought this one was a sweeper…. sweeping up all the little crumbs of Sayid’s past and how he came back to the island.  But still another home run for the writers and producers.

1.  The opening scene of Sayid and his brother reminded me of Eko and Yemi.  And we also get to see yet another with daddy issues.

2.   So Ben has been living there with DI and Sawyer and the others didn’t notice?  How?  Maybe they did know but then why wouldn’t they tell Jack, Kate and Hurley that he was there?

3.  Ben hands Sayid a book about using plants to really *see* things… like Oldham used on Sayid so he could see his purpose on the island?  And if this really was Sayid’s purpose will he die now?  Click here to read about the book.  It also reminded me of the wacky paste Locke used to use when he went on his magic carpet rides or sent Boone off into hallucinations.

4.   Ben sending Sayid to kill various people who were supposedly out to hurt his friends reminds me of when Sawyer was sent to kill Duckett in Season One when he thought it was the real Sawyer.  The guy who turned out to be just some guy who owed Hibbs money.  Ben has sent Sayid after these guys for some reason but it’s doubtful it had anything to do with the Losties.

5.   Ben shows up and says to Sayid that Locke was killed by the same people who are watching Hurley which is true since it was BEN that killed him.

6.   Cute, Hurley working in the kitchen.  I would think those jokes get old for Jorge Garcia.  I would have like to have seen Hurley maybe working in the entertainment hall or something more cerebral than the kitchen.

7.   If Oldham is DI’s torturer, wouldn’t he have had something more torturous then a sugar cube?  And what are side effects of the medicine?  Could Sayid have imagined the whole killing Ben episode?

8. Ben’s dad is a real jerk.  He should have killed the dad and spared Ben.

9.   I like getting back to flash backs and flash forwards.  I have come to expect the jumping around rather than a linear story.

10.  The lady who played Ilana has a very terrible accent.  I don’t know if she was trying to hide a real accent to pretend to have an accent, but either way it really took me out of the story.  The fake accent was too distracting.

11.   When Sayid was high on the sugar cube and started laughing, I started to think this is the only time I’ve seen him happy and laughing the whole show.  It was kind of nice to see a different side of him.

12.  I wonder if the DI talks amongst themselves.  If so, would Horrace tell Pierre Chang about what Sayid says about being from the future?  Remember that Pierre believes in time travel (when they are excavating the donkey wheel)?

13.   Ilana appears to be working for Ben, but if Widmore knows they have to go back to the island she could be working for him as well.  We’ve never established who Elsa was working for when she tried to shoot him.

14. If Sayid killing little Ben was real….. then Sayid has just changed the past.  Could be why next week is called “Whatever Happened, Happened,” that was Dan’s response when Sawyer asked him about helping Amy and changing the past.  Or, Ben knew that Sayid was going to kill him and that is why he understood Locke’s sacrifice.  Or, little Ben doesn’t die and either Jack or Juliet is going to have to help save him.

15.  Even though we know why Sayid knocked out Jin, I would think Jin is going to see it as a betrayal.  But I hope they find a way back together at some point.

16.  And from the  sounds of next week, Ben does live and the title makes me think that Daniel will reappear, which is good, I missed him!  The big question will be… is he still wearing the tie?  And, Clementine is in next week’s episode???  That is Sawyer’s daughter!

I liked tonight’s episode but to me it felt like a device to just get us from point A to point B.  Not a lot really happened, but it got us on track for big things to come.  No big surprise that Ben came to Sayid (well, to Sayid it was a surprise) but I’m sure there are really big things to come in that story line.

1.  Why didn’t Sun flash with the other Losties?  I suspect Ben had something to do with that but not sure how he did it yet.

2.  Having Sun in the future and Jin in the past is the perfect way to set them up to do whatever it takes to reunite.  We’ve seen the kinds of things that Jin did when he worked for Sun’s father so it doesn’t seem above him to do bad things when needed.  I’m assuming that Ben and Co. set it up that way because they will need Sun and Jin’s help to reunite all of the Losties.  Like players in a chess game.

3. We can see Sawyer start losing control when Jin takes off to look for Sun and the plane crash.  He seems to have done a good job regaining control of his life as part of the DI, now these 3 show up and start shaking the foundation.

4.  Back a few seasons ago I thought it was going to be Locke’s group versus Jack’s group.  Now I’m wondering if it’s going to end up being Sawyer versus Jack.  Sawyer considers DI his people now and I don’t think he’ll leave easily knowing about the purge.

5.  Interesting to see Radzinksy building the hatch.  Will need to get a screen cap of that.   I’m also very curious how he ends up *trapped* in the hatch.  I’m guessing his fate along with the “quarantine” signs on the hatch doors go along with the *incident* which probably involves the Losties and how they return to current time.

6.  Ben had no intention of going back to the big island.  He totally set up Sun.

7.   Ha!  Jack was tapping on his watch.  They said way back in Season One that watches didn’t work on the island so I wondered why everyone was wearing them.

8.  Jack was looking pretty fine in that tight blue shirt.

9.  And why was Frank still wearing his tie?  He’s just been through a horrific plane crash and he still wears a tie?  What’s up with these people?

10.  Speaking of ties…. will be very interested to see where Daniel has taken off to.  I’m sure they will need him in order to reunite with the present Losties.

11. Jack is a janitor.  Cute that Sawyer set that job up for him.

12.  Locke hasn’t shown up yet on the beach.  It must take some time to wake up the dead.
13. If Sun and Frank are in current time then why is Otherville in such bad shape?  When they left they had still been living there and everything was in good order. However, I remember the first time we saw Otherville and it appeared to be in the the middle of a large crater surrounded by jungle.  *This* Otherville may be something like Jacob’s cabin that appears and disappears.

14.  Sounded like Old Smokey in the trees before Sun and Frank hit the barracks, too.
15.  Why did Radzinsky care so much that a hostile saw the plans for the hatch and where they were building it?

16.  The Whispers are back! And was that not the creepiest image of Christian when he first appeared in the door?

17.   Wow, Sawyer really gives it to Jack straight about how Jack just reacted rather than thinking.  It seemed pretty mean but I can’t say that Sawyer was wrong.  Now, we just have to hope that Jack doesn’t go and mess up whatever Sawyer has planned.

18.  A friend of mine asked a good question – how is it that a newbie on the island gets to bring a prisoner a sandwich?  Ben could not have been there before because Sawyer would have known.  And I want to know how Juliet didn’t notice Ben’s name on the list from the sub.

19. Vincent, where is he??  And Rose and Bernard- do we assume they are dead?