Rewinding Season 5: The Little Prince & This Place Is Death

The Little Prince had two of the strongest time-skipping scenes: Locke seeing the light from the hatch the night Boone died and he banged on it and saw the light Desmond shone from below. And Sawyer witnessing Aaron's birth, with Kate helping Claire.

We also got to see Rousseau and her team arrive on the island and find Jin.

And we got the weird outrigger scene when the Losties find their Zodiac raft gone from the beach. Instead the two outriggers we now know were brought over from Hydra Island by Ilana and Bram's crew are there. And while the Losties paddle away to get to the Orchid (where Locke is now convinced he should turn the wheel himself) they are shot at by somebody. We still don't know who. Crazy options include:

• The losties themselves will eventually time skip to this time after the incident and end up shooting at themselves.
• Ilana and Bram are shooting at them in some scene we have yet to see.
• Jacob's nemesis or his allies are shooting at them.
• Fake Locke is shooting at them with Ben at his side.

Whoever is shooting, their identity is big enough of a reveal to be saved for next season.

There's also a lot of "shipper" stuff going on in this episode. We see some beginning movements of closeness between Sawyer and Juliet when Sawyer talks to her about what he saw in the jungle. Imagine that! Two people on Lost actually talking about what they experienced and how they felt about it! Will wonders never cease!

Off-island at about the same "time" (I think... lol), Kate and Jack have a heart to heart about Aaron aboard Penny's boat. Kate says that she wants to keep Aaron for her own. Jack goes along with it. She goes along with lying about what happened to 815. And this is the significant exchange:

KATE: After everyone we've lost--Michael, Jin, Sawyer... I can't lose him, too.

JACK: Sawyer's not dead.

KATE: No. But he's gone. Good night, Jack.

JACK: Kate... If we're gonna be safe, if we're gonna protect the people that we left behind, tomorrow morning, I'm gonna have to convince everyone to lie. If it's just me, they're never gonna go for it. So I'm gonna turn to you first. Are you with me?

KATE: I have always been with you.

Ok. Right there, she totally sounds like she immediately gives up on Sawyer and professes that it's really Jack that she is "with". Of course, later in the season, we get the psycho babble about her keeping Aaron to get over Sawyer. And then Kate sleeping with Jack because she's "so angry" at him for making her go back to the island. Is it any wonder I, and many others, think the writers are wrecking Kate as a character? Vacillating that much is just ridiculous imo.

Yes, the triangle/square/shape from heck just will not be put down by the writers. They keep flogging it and flogging it, and I can only imagine that they do so because they KNOW it matters to a lot of people. Yet it drives me nuts. JUST PICK ONE KATE! And stick with it. Or rather: writers, let her pick one and stick with it. The way they just HAD to stick her into the Juliet/Sawyer pairing this year and have everyone make evil eyes/googly eyes at each other was ridiculous. But anyway.

On to This Place Is Death. The episode where we got to see Rousseau's buddy Montand have his arm ripped off as the monster tried to drag him into its lair. And then we got to see what Danielle meant when she said her crew got "sick". It seems they came out of Smokey's lair altered in some way which made them willing and able to kill her. It's Jin who stops Danielle from entering just before he flashes out again.

Then, Jin gets dumped into Danielle's confrontation with her husband, Robert:

DANIELLE: Laisse-la! Pose-la! Pose ton arme! [Leave it! Put your gun down!]

ROBERT: Danielle, fais pas ça, c'est moi! [Danielle, don't do this, it's me!]

DANIELLE: T'es pas Robert! T'es changé! Cette machine t'as changé! [You're not Robert, you've changed, that thing has changed you!]

ROBERT: Danielle, je t'en prie. Pose ton arme. Je t'aime, pourquoi tu agis comme ça? [Danielle, please, put down your gun. I love you, why are you acting like this?]

DANIELLE: Parce que t'es pas Robert. T'es malade. Ce monstre t'a rendu malade. [Because you're not Robert, you've changed. That monster changed you.]

ROBERT: Mais il n'y a pas de monstre. C'est un système de sécurité qui garde ce temple, c'est tout. [There is no monster. It's just a security system that guards the temple, that's all.]

ROBERT: Maintenant, pose ton fusil. [Now put down your gun.]

[Danielle hesitates.]

ROBERT: Je t'aime, Danielle. Je ne veux que rien nous arrive. A toi, et à notre bébé. Je t'en supprie - fais pas ça. [I love you, Danielle. I don't want anything to happen to us. To you, or to our baby.]

[Danielle slowly lowers her gun. Suddenly, Robert cocks his gun and fires, but it does not work. Danielle shoots Robert in the head.]

Great scene. I loved this "flashback" to get Rousseau's backstory, which also gives us some things to chew on when it comes to the monster. Getting up close and personal with Smokey seems to change people. Or is it that the people really aren't themselves anymore, but impersonated by Smokey somehow. And further: did something similar happen to young Ben when Alpert takes him into that same area we saw Danielle's crew at, but this time to "heal" him? Did Ben get "infected" then in the same way Danielle's crew was "infected"?

Robert seems to have aquired some new knowledge too: he tells her the monster is just a "security system" tied to the temple. Is that what it is? We still haven't seen the temple itself on the show, but Alpert told Locke some of the Others live there. What is the temple (I know I've asked this many times)? A real temple? Something high tech that "makes" the monster? What? The fact that we haven't seen it yet has to mean that it is a pretty huge reveal.

The other absolutely myth-drenched scene is Locke, falling down the well (which Charlotte somehow knew would be there), breaking his leg and meeting Christian Shephard. A Christian dressed NOT in his funeral suit and white sneakers. A Christian who won't help him up. And a Christian with very specific instructions:

CHRISTIAN SHEPHARD: Hello, John.

LOCKE: [Amazed] You! What are you doing down here?

CHRISTIAN: I'm here to help you the rest of the way.

LOCKE: I... I don't understand.

CHRISTIAN: You came to see me in the cabin. You asked me how to save the island and I told you you had to move it. I said that you had to move it, John.

LOCKE: But Ben said he knew how to do it! He told me that I had to stay here and lead his people.

CHRISTIAN: Since when did listening to him get you anywhere worth a damn? The good news is that you’re here now. You ready to go?

LOCKE: I don't... I don't... I... I don’t know... what to do once I get there.

CHRISTIAN: There's a woman living in Los Angeles. Now once you get all your friends together--and it must be all of them, every one who left--and once you've persuaded them to join you, this woman will tell you exactly how to come back.

LOCKE: Who is she?

CHRISTIAN: Her name is Eloise Hawking.

LOCKE: What if I can only convince some of them to come back?

CHRISTIAN: I believe in you, John. You can do this.

LOCKE: Richard said I was going to die.

CHRISTIAN: Well, I suppose that's why they call it sacrifice.

LOCKE: All right. I'm ready.

CHRISTIAN: Good. Now, on the other side of this column here is a wheel, slipped off its axis. All you have to do is give it a little push.

LOCKE: [Winces in pain as he attempts to stand] Could you help me up?

CHRISTIAN: [Bluntly] No. Sorry. I can't.

Whoever Christian is or is working for at this moment, he knows about Eloise, he knows about the pendulum in LA and he wants the O6 back on the island. He wants Aaron to come back too imo. IF this Christian is Jacob's nemesis, then I think that the plan is this:

• The time skipping has given Nemesis his chance at crafting the loophole. Time traveling Locke has gotten Alpert interested in checking out Locke for possible recruitment and leadership.
• Locke needs to be off the island to die.
• Locke to know about Hawking because she can get him back on the island. And Locke has to die to bring everyone back, because then Nemesis can take Locke's place somehow and get Ben to kill Jacob.

But I'm still not sure about any of this. Why would Nemesis need all the other Losties back on the island? To make sure no one with a connection to the island remains in the outside world? Jacob too seems to want the losties all back on the island. And the huge question: WHAT made time start to skip? Ben turned the wheel and time went wonky. This gave Nemesis the chance he needed to open up the loophole and give instructions to Alpert who gave them to Real Locke who then gave them to Alpert again. Yea. Totally in a little loop of its own there. I really hope we get some sort of explanation of this in S6!

Christian Shephard and Hawking seem to want the same thing. Is that what Jacob wants? Both Ben and Locke are following the orders of these people, yet neither seems fully aware of what is going on. Like Desmond so succintly puts it later:

These people--they're just usin' us. They're playing some kind of game, and we are just the pieces.

This I think, is at the heart of what has been going on throughout S5. Someone is playing a game, and we still don't quite know the rules, the desired outcome or who the is using what playing pieces.

Screencaps thanks to Lostpedia and lost-media.

Rewinding Season 5: Jughead

The main thing I got from this episode has to do with Alpert: he seemed genuinely surprised about the whole time-travel thingie. By all accounts he's been on the island a looong time and he himself doesn't seem to age. Yet the possibility that Locke and the losties are skipping through time seem to utterly bewilder him. Maybe he's faking it? Maybe the way the actors play these scenes doesn't really matter because they haven't been told everything. But Alpert really, truly does not seem to know about time travel in the way that Locke is experiencing.

Does that mean that Alpert didn't know about the donkey wheel? Or didn't know the donkey wheel could cause time skipping? Were the others not aware of the donkey wheel until Dharma found it? Because Ben sure seemed to know about it!

Does Jacob know about the donkey wheel? Who built it anyway?

Now, it is possible that once Alpert had been made aware of time-traveling, that the Others then started looking for reasons for it and eventually, maybe through Dharma, they found the donkey wheel. Still, Alpert's incredulity over the donkey wheel initiated time-skipping intrigues me. Especially since it seems Jacob's nemesis has specifically used the time-wonkiness the wheel create the loophole he needed to kill Jacob. What is going on with all that?

Is it possible that just like the compass, knowledge of time travel and the donkey wheel are in some kind of loop?

• Locke and the losties time skip because of what Ben does to the wheel.
• They end up in the 1950s and the Others become aware of time travel as a possibility.
• This leads to The Others researching the matter, and eventually to Dharma becoming aware of it.
• Then the wheel is uncovered and then Ben knows about it and tells Locke.... and so on.

More mind-bendiness in the episode: When Desmond goes to Oxford searching for Daniel's mother, a lady at the university helps him look on the computer for Faraday. This woman is played by the same actress who also played one of the airline employees checking people on to flight 815. Does she work for Widmore? Was she part of the conspiracy to get the losties on that plane?

Meeting young Widmore in this episode is interesting. He's arrogant, brutal and violent. But Richard totally orders him around.

Also interesting is the exchange with Locke:

LOCKE: I expect you to tell me how to get off the Island.

RICHARD: That's very privileged information. Why would I share it with you?

LOCKE: Because you told me that I had something very important to do once I get there. And because I'm your leader.

RICHARD: You're my leader?

LOCKE: That's what you told me.

RICHARD: Look, I... certainly don't want to contradict myself, but... we have a very specific process for selecting our leadership, and it starts at a v--very, very young age.

LOCKE: All right. All right. What year is it right now?

RICHARD: It's 1954.

LOCKE: All right. May 30, 1956--2 years from now--that's the day I'm born--Tustin, California, and if you don't believe me, I suggest you come and visit me.

Right here we see a lot of things coming together. We understand why Richard went looking for baby Locke, and why he subjected kid Locke to some testing. We also understand why Richard was later somewhat inclined to think that Locke was supposed to be important. Also interesting: leaders are selected starting at a young age. Which means Widmore and Ben as well as Eloise went through this process?

Also, Alpert knows of a way to get off the island. How? Submarine? Or something else?

And this is also in some ways the start of the con, the con perpetrated by Jacob's nemesis. Right here seeds are sown that will eventually lead to Locke becoming the leader of the others and then ending up dead, with Ben as a willing tool to dispose of Jacob.

Screencaps thanks to Lostpedia.

The sickness and the vaccine

I've been re-visiting Season 1 and 2 a lot lately, and wondered more and more about the mysteries that were introduced back then. One mystery that has yet to be explained is the vaccine. Desmond kept injecting himself, then seemed to eventually think it was all some kind of ruse. Yet we later saw Charlie quite convinced that Aaron needed it when he got sick. And after testing it on himself, Aaron was injected.

Ethan also injected Aaron in the womb when he had abducted Claire.

Then there was the whole weird ruse of Claire getting super sick and bleeding and Juliet claiming then that it was because she needed the vaccine. Yet the truth was revealed to be that Claire had been fitted with an implant controlled by The Others and that's what triggered her illness.

But the question remains: What was the vaccine for?

Now, the one "sickness" that has been referred to throughout the show was the sickness Danielle said her crew contracted on the island. We no know that her crew was sucked in by Smokey and somehow altered. After that they looked like themselves yet wanted to kill Danielle.

One sickness, one vaccine?

What if the vaccine actually WAS to prevent this sickness? What if the injections somehow prevents "tampering" by Smokey, or whatever else it was that "infected" Rousseau's people? Is this why Charlie was sent visions to get the vaccine for Aaron? To prevent anyone tampering with him?

Or, was the vaccine somehow related to other dangers of the island, like protection from radiation? Or protection from time-related weirdness?

Anyone else have any thoughts about these issues? I really do hope we get an explanation of some kind for the vaccine, but since it seems to have been mostly forgotten, I am starting to worry that it won't be addressed at all.

Who was injected with the vaccine on the island? As far as we know:

• Aaron
• Charlie
• Desmond
• Kelvin
• Claire

Re-winding Season 5: The Lie

The exchange between Hurley and his mother in this episode is a classic Lost-moment.

HURLEY: We lied, Ma!

CARMEN: What do you mean you lied?

HURLEY: [Voice cracking] All of us--the Oceanic Six, we lied about what happened after the crash.

CARMEN: And what did happen?

HURLEY: Okay. See, we did crash, but it was on this crazy island. And we waited for rescue, and there wasn't any rescue. And there was a smoke monster, and then there were other people on the island. We called them the Others, and they started attacking us. And we found some hatches, and there was a button you had to push every 108 minutes or... well, I was never really clear on that. But... the Others didn't have anything to do with the hatches. That was the DHARMA Initiative. The Others killed them, and now they're trying to kill us. And then we teamed up with the Others because some worse people were coming on a freighter. Desmond's girlfriend's father sent them to kill us. So we stole their helicopter and we flew it to their freighter, but it blew up. And we couldn't go back to the island because it disappeared, so then we crashed into the ocean, and we floated there for a while until a boat came and picked us up. And by then, there were six of us. That part was true. [Whispers] But the re...

[Hurley's voice breaks. He takes a second to regain composure.]

HURLEY: But the rest of the people... who were on the plane? They're still on that island.

[Carmen puts her hand on her son's wrist.]

CARMEN: I believe you. I don't understand you, but I believe you.

HURLEY: A lot of people died, ma. And now this bad stuff is happening because... well, um... [sighs] we shouldn't have lied. [sighs]

It can't be coincidence that many of the classic Lost-moments do seem to involve Hurley, so maybe this is foreshadowing his importance. Jacob sure seemed to treat him as a VIP in the season finale!

We got to meet a young Widmore who turns out to be a ruthless bastard even back then, and we got to see Hawking as well in her pendulum room, making some time for Ben. After killing Locke and finding her, he's been charged with gathering up all the O6. The one reason I can think of him doing her bidding is that it is his only chance to get back to the island. Why does she allow him to help her though? Does she want him back on the island too? To help Jacob's nemesis kill Jacob? Or for some other reason? What exactly is Hawking's allegiance?

• She is working in a Dharma station... seemingly the very station that helped Dharma's founders to find the island (if we believe her later information).
• Ben meets up with Jill at the butcher shop who is taking care of Locke's corpse, and everything here hints at that The Others have a lot of people working for them off the island: is that what Hawking is doing? Working for the Others but off-island? Would she be able to do that even though she left the island and seemingly gave up her leadership there?
• What is her motivation for working so hard to get the O6 back to the island? Is she doing this work for Jacob? For his nemesis? For Daniel somehow?

Hawking seems to really, really want the O6 back on that island.

BEN: I'm having some... difficulties.

SHROUDED WOMAN: Well, you better get busy... [chuckles] because you only have 70 hours.

BEN: No, no, that's not enough time. I need at least--

SHROUDED WOMAN: What you need is irrelevant.

[She turns, revealing her identity.]

MS. HAWKING: 70 hours is what you've got.

BEN: Look, I lost Reyes tonight. What happens if I can't get them all to come back?

MS. HAWKING: Then God help us all.

But if "whatever happened, happened", and nothing can be changed is all true, then why is she so worried? This same question applies to why she was previously so set on convincing Desmond to do what he was supposed to do: not propose to Penny and eventually end up on the island to push the button (and then fail to push it, bringing 815 down).

It seems to me that maybe things CAN be changed, but that Hawking and others (The Others?) believe that change is not a good thing. In Hawking's case she doesn't even want to change her son's fate! Or so it seems... All this has to be part of something larger that will come back to the surface in S6. It just seems that Hawking and Widmore have been manipulating people through various means... kind of like playing pieces. Backgammon anyone?

Screencaps thanks to Lostpedia.

Re-winding Season 5: Because You Left

Interestingly enough, this episode starts pretty much where the season eventually ended, with Faraday and Chang in the Orchid, and my main thoughts in this episode have to do with the Orchid too. At the beginning of the episode we see Pierre Chang there with a dead worker, explaining to the foreman about energy, time travel etc. But at this point, the donkey wheel is still inside the wall, in a chamber they have not yet reached. At other times we've seen both Locke and Ben turn the wheel, so I'm guessing that it was Dharma who dug the wheel out.

• Does this mean The Others and Alpert didn't know about the wheel? Or had they hidden it?
• Ben seemed to know exactly what to do to turn the wheel and what it would do, even though it was sealed up when he and Locke headed into the Orchid. Where did he get all that knowledge? From Dharma?
• In Some Like it Hoth, when we see Miles bring a dead body to The Orchid: wtf were they doing with those dead bodies? Time travel experiments? Chang's purpose with the Orchid seems to have been to explore time travel, so this is what makes the most sense. But how would dead bodies be used? Were they doing something like what we've seen happen on the island: dead people appearing again? Or were they using them in some other way: we did see a polar bear with a dharma collar in Tunisia and it was thousands of years old, buried in the sand! Still haven't had that explained properly to us.

Crazy theory regarding the Orchid: Remember the video with the two bunnies? How freaked out Chang was when they were both there together? The same bunny right there in two "version". This was a result of the experiments at The Orchid. Darlton have said that something similar would explain the Dharma bear in Tunisia that Charlotte found. Does everyone who turns the wheel end up "duplicated" somehow? Would one of them get kicked off the island while the other was "left behind"? Are there now 2 Bens and 2 Lockes? And wth would that mean? Does that play into what happened in the finale?
In this episode we also get to see the very important scene when Alpert helps Locke when he's been shot and also gives him the compass. Of course, we now know that Alpert's message to Locke, that he needs to: leave the island, get those who left to come back and that he has to die to achieve this, was a message not from Richard but from Fake Locke. Mind-twist. From the transcript:

RICHARD: Sorry. The first thing, okay?

[Locke groans.]

RICHARD: You're gonna need to clean out the wound every couple of hours and keep as much weight off the leg as you can, all right? The Island'll do the rest, John, all right?

LOCKE: But I don't--

RICHARD: Second thing--no, no, pay attention. Next time we see each other, I'm not gonna recognize you. All right? You give me this. All right?

[Richard hands Locke something small, something we've seen before.]

LOCKE: What is this?

RICHARD: It's a compass.

LOCKE: What does it do?

RICHARD: It points north, John. Look, I wish I had time to be more sensitive about this because it's a lot to swallow, but you need to know it in order to do what you gotta do. So I'm just gonna say it, okay? [Sighs] The only way to save the Island, John, is to get your people back here--the ones who left.

LOCKE: Jack, Kate... The chopper was headed for the boat. The boat--

RICHARD: No, they're fine, John, and they're already home, so you have to convince them to come back.

LOCKE: How--how am I supposed to do that?

RICHARD: You're gonna have to die, John.

This is what Fake Locke wanted Locke to think. Does that mean it was all a lie? Or could it be that actually both "sides" wanted the O6 back, but for their own reasons? Is this what somehow caused the losties to split up in time when they came back on Ajira 316? Some went where Jacob wanted, some went where the other man wanted them to go?

Also in this episode, we see Daniel go and talk to Desmond while Desmond was still in the hatch. This makes Desmond "remember" the episode in his present, even though he didn't remember it before. Later on, in Jughead, Des goes to Oxford to find Daniel's mom, finds Daniel's abandoned research lab and then asks Widmore where Daniel's mom is: and Widmore tells him where to find her. As we now know, Widmore and Hawking are Daniel's parents. Were Widmore and Hawking working together? Bram told Miles that Widmore was "the wrong side". Which seems to imply that Widmore is NOT working for Jacob at least.

Why did Widmore tell Des about Hawking? Is this all to do with manipulating events so that some desired outcome will occur? Has Widmore always been manipulating Des this way? And what did Daniel mean about Des being "special"?

FARADAY: Yeah... in a way. But listen, that's not important. What is important, Desmond, is what I'm about to say to you. I need you to listen. You're the only person who can help us because, Desmond... the rules... the rules don't apply to you. You're special. You're uniquely and miraculously special.

Does this mean that Desmond can change things while no one else can? And will all the losties who were there when the "incident" happen, now be just as special? I really hope we get to see more of Desmond next season to find out what role his specialness will play.

This episode showed us Sun getting together with Widmore and he pretty much enlisted her to kill Ben. Kind of like Jacob's nemesis enlisted Ben to kill Jacob at the end of the season, though Widmore's "loophole" didn't quite work out since Sun forgot all about killing Ben rather fast. Her storyline this season was pretty much turned into nothing anyway once she got back to the island, except for the great moment when she clonked Ben on the head with an oar of course.

Screencaps thanks to Lostpedia.

Re-visiting S1, again

Continuing my theme of re-visiting old posts with thoughts about even older seasons, I'm going back to last year's post about S1 mysteries. Do we know anything more about these mysteries after S5?

So here is last year's entry, with new information added:

I always figure that the basic mystery of Lost is: What is the island? Sure, there are other mysteries: Dharma, Widmore, Smokey... but in essence, everything comes back to and is grounded in the nature of the island. There is something about the island that makes Smokey possible, that makes time weirdness possible, that made Dharma build their hatches and start their research and makes Widmore want to find it so badly. And to me, season 1 of the show has to be key when it comes to clues, hints and mysteries that are majorly important to figuring out what the island is all about.

Why? Well, I figure that when the show started, tptb didn't know how long they had to tell their story. Maybe they'd only get one season. So it stands to reason that they'd put enough information into the show's beginning that they could have, somehow, cobbled together some kind of ending. Yes, it would probably have been rushed and unsatisfactory and we'd have missed out on Alpert, Ben and Desmond, Juliet, Miles and Daniel... and that's a whole lot to miss! But anyway, S1 has to have some serious goods in it. Which is why I went back and read up on the eps (watching them all will have to wait a while) to refresh my memory as to what came first.

Smokey
Smokey the "monster" (or whatever it may turn out to be) was introduced right from the start in The Pilot. We saw it chase Kate and Charlie and Jack, we saw it kill 815's pilot and generally make noise and misbehave. Since then we've seen a lot more of it, but I'm guessing it will be S6 before we get any big answers here. S5 additions:

• We know Smokey can be "summoned" by pulling the plug in Ben's basement.
• Smokey seems to "judge" people, or at least be able to show them part of their thoughts and past. The ancient Egyptians even built a special chamber where they interacted with Smokey it seems.
• Smokey seemed to assume Alex' form (a dead person whose body was on the island) to interact more directly with Ben. Similar to what the monster did with Eko and Yemi.

The Black Rock
How did the ship get to be way up on an island mountain side? What happened to the people on it? This also ties in with how Yemi's plane could have reached the island. Do Alpert and/or Richard have a connection to The Black Rock? Does Widmore? S5 additions:

• We saw Alpert building a ship in a bottle that was similar to the Black Rock.
• We saw a ship like the Black Rock in the opening scene of the finale with Jacob and his nemesis.

Polar bears
These seem to have gotten their explanation once we saw that the Others had cages for polar bears. But I'm not convinced that totally explains it. Charlotte found a several thousand year old polar bear skeleton in the Tunisian desert wearing a collar with a Dharma symbol. How did that happen? Turning the donkey wheel bumped Ben into the future, not the past. And how did the bears get there anyway? Maybe the island was in a polar region at some point? Season 5 additions: Nada.

Walt's powers
Walt is special, that much the show seems to have confirmed early on, but we've never really gotten an explanation as to what he's capable of doing. The Others interest in him was not just because they can't procreate and therefore would need children, as was shown in the mobisodes, they were doing something to him and what he did in turn freaked them out. We've seen birds fly into windows a lot when Walt is upset. And later there's his whole turning-up-soaking-wet-and-talking-backwards-to-people schtick. And even more recently turning up all grown up to tell Locke to get a move on. Clearly, Walt can appear in places where he is not physically present. Clearly he can affect his environment somehow. Hopefully he'll be back in the cast for next season so we can find out what the heck is really going on there. Season 5 additions:

• Not much.
• Locke talked to Walt off-island and it seems Walt is still having visions or something. He saw Locke surrounded by people who wanted to hurt him. Premonition of UnLocke's fate after Jacob was killed? Perhaps. I really hope Walt comes back somehow next season.

Vincent
After seeing the mobisode "So It Begins", I'm convinced that Vincent may actually feature a lot more in the last two seasons of the show. If he was "communicating" with Christian every time Walt and Michael were looking for him, then what were they communicating about? I want a Vincent flashback ep that shows us everything he's been up to when he was off in the jungle! Season 5 additions:

• Nothing much. Except that Vincent is alive and hanging out with Rose and Bernard.

Dead man walking
Very early on we saw that dead people can be seen by the living on the island. Christian showed himself to Jack in "White Rabbit", seemingly to guide him to water and the caves. Just like we later saw with Yemi, his body disappears but he sure doesn't. Is he a manifestation of Smokey? A zombie? The island somehow projecting itself? The theme of dead people being able to interact with the living and communicating with them seems to run throughout the show and the addition of Miles to the mix this past season makes me think we might finally start to find out what that's all about. Season 5 additions:

• We saw Christian talking to Sun and Lapidus and even adjusting a picture on a wall: very corporeal.
• We saw Christian talking to Locke after he'd fallen down the Donkey Wheel well and in that case, Christian made a point of NOT touching Locke. Was Christian actually Jacob in that particular scene? And did he choose not to touch Locke because he had already touched him, after his fall in the past off the island? Since Jacob's touch seems important, perhaps a second touch does something other than a first touch? Jacob's first touch when it came to Locke seems to have brought him back to life.
• Are there two Christians? One Jacob-related and one Nemesis-related? And what significance does it have that Jack put his shoes on Christian's dead body, and then put Christian's shoes on Locke's dead body when both of those people seemed dead, but are now walking the island?

Adam and Eve
Jack and Kate find the two skeletons at the caves. On the bodies is a pouch with one white and one black stone. According to tptb, once we find out who Adam and Eve are, we'll know that they knew where the story was going right from the start. Some people say that Adam and Eve will turn out to be Desmond and Penny. However, I find it more likely that they are two people we knew from S1. Jack and Kate? My own favourites are Rose and Bernard. Season 5 additions:

• It seems increasingly likely that it is Rose and Bernard, though the specifics of how their bodies end up in the caves are not clear. And what about the stones??? No idea there.

Healing
The island heals Rose's cancer and fixes Locke's legs. The island's "energy" may be responsible in some fashion, but then how come Ben gets a tumor and Jack gets appendicitis? Because the island is "displeased" with them? Just like when it won't let them die, but, you know, the opposite? Is it the island actually, actively healing them (as in: it's acting like a person), or is it more that it's properties and fate and destiny and time somehow make these things happen "naturally"? Ben tells Juliet that Jacob cured her sister's cancer. Is Jacob somehow able of making people sick and healthy? Is he the island? Ugh. Just another one of the mysteries that seems like you have part of it figured out but when you think about it some more, you really don't know anything... Season 5 additions:

• We do know a lot more about Jacob. He did seem to heal or even resurrect John Locke.
• Richard Alpert said he is the way he is because of Jacob (eternal life? or what?).

Whispers
I already wrote about them. Some of them may be the Hostiles/Others communicating but a lot of them have to be something more. Dead people still able to make themselves heard? That's what I'm starting to think after S4 and seeing Miles in action. Season 5 additions:

• Ben warned Danielle Rousseau to stay away from the whispers if she heard them. Does this mean the whispers are "just" the Other's way of communicating somehow? Or maybe related to Smokey? Not sure.

The vaccine
What the heck was the vaccine all about? Ethan was injecting Claire with something. Much later we saw Claire get sick and bleed, and this was somehow triggered on Ben's orders. So was it a vaccine or just part of that ruse? Charlie worked really hard to get Aaron and Claire vaccine in one episode and we know Desmond used it too... We've never gotten a satisfactory explanation about the vaccine and what it actually was supposed to do. Season 5 additions:

• Nothing.
• At all.

Aaron
Claire's psychic told her that her child should not be raised by another/an other. Then said she should give the baby up for adoption in America, basically putting her on flight 815. And in "Raised By Another", Claire has a very weird and possibly prophetic dream about Aaron:

Claire wakes up in the night. A baby's cry is heard. Claire sits up with a confused and concerned expression on her face; she looks down and feels her stomach, noticing that she is not pregnant. She hears a baby cry again and starts off into the jungle in a daze, apparently looking for the source of the crying. Claire sees a light in the jungle and walks toward it, where she encounters Locke sitting at the table at which she received her psychic reading (in her flashback later in this episode); the psychic's electric lamp is also present. As she approaches, Locke is drawing what appear to be the psychic's cards from a deck one by one as he stares down at the table (the first one making the sound of a metal against metal, like a knife being unsheathed); they exchange a few brief words:

CLAIRE: What's happening?
LOCKE: You know what's happening.
CLAIRE: But I don't understand. Why --?
LOCKE: He was your responsibility but you gave him away, Claire. Everyone pays the price now.

As Locke finishes saying this, he looks up at her with a creepy expression on his face and has one black eye and one white eye.

Yep. Something is up with Aaron. Not sure what yet. I guess he has to go back to the island in S5, but I really wonder how they'll make that happen. I just don't see Kate taking a little kid back there. Season 5 additions:

• Aaron is with grandma.
• Kate went back to the island to try to find Claire and reunite her with Aaron.
• That's it.

The numbers
I don't think these will ever be totally explained. The possibly canon explanation of The Valenzetti Equation is probably as much as we'll ever get. Season 5 additions:

• We heard the numbers spoken as Ajira Airways went down.
• We saw the number being entered on the hatch door. Hugo didn't like that.
• Other than that, nothing.

Conclusion
My conclusion is that we really don't know a hell of a lot more about the island than we did in S1. Yes, we know more about what's been going on there, but no real answers about what it really is and why it's so special. Lots of hints (Daniel talking about light refracting oddly, donkey wheels, Dharma, hatches) but nothing concrete that actually explains what it is and how it does what it does. I guess this is because the actual nature of the island is the key to all of Lost, and we won't find out until the very end. Hopefully we will find out then at least! Season 5 additions: Darlton have stated that they won't necessarily explain everything about the island, to avoid a "midichlorian" debacle. I applaud that. I do however hope we get some kind of explanation for the Donkey Wheel, Smokey and Jacob as well as all the rampant Egyptianess. Sometime soon. You know, like next season.

All screencaps thanks to Lostpedia.

Jacob as the constant?

Today's new theory:

I'm starting to think that we will have a Desmond-like situation for all the 1977 losties when S6 rolls around. Their minds will flash into their pasts (after the crash on the island perhaps) and maybe they will be able to change/understand things in a different way then they did the first time around. Since they are at the source of what threw Des "out of time" when the Incident happens, they may experience the same thing he did when the hatch blew up. And that would also mean that Desmond's experience was a kind of set up for what is to come now. Could it be that Jacob made himself their constant by touching them all? So that the time travel they will now experience a la Des will not kill them by nosebleeding them to death?

And then their bodies and "whole selves" will somehow end up with the "now" timeline. One last time-skip after their minds have traveled back to the past? So that they arrive in our now with more info than previously? Will they also be able to tell the future like Des could? I do think that somehow what happened to Des will be what happens to them, if slightly different in some respect.

This would make Desmond's entire "Flashes before your eyes" storyline hang together with the overall storyline of the show in a much better way than it currently does.

Old questions - answered?

Way back in June last year, I posted a bunch of unanswered questions about Lost. Last night I was reading through that list again, and thought it was interesting enough to re-visit.

42 Unanswered Questions, revisited and even answered

1. What is the Smoke Monster? - Well now. We don't know what it is yet, but we know the temple seems to be it's "lair" and we know it can be summoned by pulling that plug in Ben's basement, and that the Egyptians made offerings to it at some point in time. Or knelt down to be judged by it. Or something. It's old anyway.
2. Why can't women who conceive on the island carry the baby to term? - No idea. Is it because the statue is/was Taweret the fertility hippo and when it was damaged the problems started? Or is it because there was a nuclear incident and that's screwing things up? All speculation.
   
3. How come the island is so hard to find? - Because it's always moving, as Mrs Hawking told us in "316".

   ELOISE: [Sighs] All right. I apologize if this is confusing, but... [To Jack, who is still staring at the photo] Let's pay attention, yes? The room we're standing in was constructed years ago over a unique pocket of electromagnetic energy. That energy connects to similar pockets all over the world. The people who built this room, however, were only interested in one.

   SUN: The Island.

   ELOISE: Yes. The island. They'd gathered proof that it existed. They knew it was out there somewhere, but they just couldn't find it. Then a very clever fellow built this pendulum on the theoretical notion that they should stop looking for where the island was supposed to be and start looking for where it was going to be.

   [Pendulum whooshes]

   JACK: What do you mean, "Where it was going to be"?

   ELOISE: Well, this fellow presumed, and correctly, as it turned out, that the Island was always moving. Why do you think you were never rescued? Now while the movements of the Island seem random, this man and his team created a series of equations which tell us, with a high degree of probability, where it is going to be at a certain point... in time. Windows, as it were, that while open, provide a route back. Unfortunately, these windows don't stay open for very long. Yours closes... in 36 hours. [She hands the binder to Jack]

   Exactly why it keeps moving we still don't know.
   
4. Why was it impossible for Desmond to sail off the island but seemingly so easy for the freighter to find its way there? - Presumably the freighter knew where the window was. Just like flight 316. So did they use the pendulum and Eloise too? Don't know that yet.
   
5. What is Widmore's deal with the island? - Answered! He used to be leader and then Ben/the Others kicked him out for having a child off the island and being a bonehead. Or something.
   
6. Is Daniel Faraday time-traveling somehow? - Well, he did this season. And he had used himself in his time travel experiments at Oxford.
   
7. How did the polar bear end up in Tunisia? - Not sure. But it probably has to do with the donkey wheel.
   
8. How come Richard Alpert doesn't seem to age? - Because of Jacob. Not sure what that means. It's kind of like the answer "42" in Hitchhiker's Guide. It's an answer, yet doesn't tell you much!
   
9. How exactly does "the island" prevent people from dying a la Michael? - Hmmm. Does Jacob do it? Fate? Not sure.
   
10. How did the Others get Juliet to the island? The submarine? Seems a long ride from Portland. - Sub. I think. Still not sure about the specifics of submarine travel to the island though!
    
11. Who is Abbadon? - He's dead. He worked for Widmore. His job was to get people where they were supposed to go. Yay
12. Who is Jacob? - He doesn't age. He touched the losties in their past. And he's dead too. Or maybe not. And we still don't really know who or what he is. But at least we know he exists! Or at least existed...
    
13. How come Jacob's cabin is seemingly hard to find? - No idea. And now we're not even sure it was Jacob's.
    
14. What are Walt's special powers and why did the Others say they got "more than they bargained for" with him? - Will we ever know?
    
15. Who are Adam and Eve? - No idea. But I'm betting it is/will be Rose and Bernard.
    
16. What is the Temple? A real temple or a hatch or what? - The outskirts of it seem very temple-like. And some Others live there.
    
17. How did Yemi's plane get to the island? - No idea. Through a window in time/space?
    
18. How did the Black Rock get to the island? - Sailed there. Brought there by Jacob. I think. If it was the ship we saw in The Incident anyway. Still not sure how it ended up on top of the island...
    
19. Is Dr Marvin Candle (or whatever his real name is) still alive? - He was in the 70s! Probably not anymore though...
    
20. Who/what made the food drop we saw in "Lockdown"? - No idea.
    
21. What was the sickness that killed Danielle's crew? Same as what happened to the people on the freighter? Then why didn't Danielle get it? - Answered! They got pulled into the ground/temple by Smokey and came out looking the same yet all killing-crazy and very island-knowledgeable suddenly...
    
22. Why was Juliet branded? What purpose did that serve? Just to make Jack pity her? - Because she was banished I guess. Though we never saw this matter brought up again.
    
23. How exactly does the island make people sick when it seemingly cures some? IE how come Ben and Jack got sick? - No idea. Jacob seemingly has healing powers though... and maybe the electromagnetic energy plays a part.
    
24. What is the story with the four toed statue? - Well. Jacob lives in the foot. Lived I mean. And it was Taweret. So say we all. Even though it still looks like a croc to me!
    
25. What is the meaning of the whispers? - No idea.
    
26. What happened to Claire? - No idea.
    
27. How can Miles talk to dead people? - He just can. And has been able to since he was a little kid.
    
28. Who built the donkey wheel under the Orchid? - No idea. It was there when Dharma investigated anyway.
    
29. What was the vaccine for that Desmond kept injecting himself with? Did it really help protect him from something or was it just a ruse of some kind? - No idea.
    
30. What happened to Kelvin's body? - Taken by Smokey? By Jacob's nemesis? No idea.
    
31. How come Dharma people seemed to be present at both Locke's and Ben's births? (Alpert in Locke's case and Goodspeed in Ben's.) - Hmmm. Well, not sure abour Horace. But Alpert was at Locke's birthplace because Locke had told him to be there while time-traveling.
    
32. What happened to Annie?- No idea.
    
33. Was Charlotte born on the island? - YES!
    
34. What's the origin of Alpert's people, aka The Hostiles? - People brought by Jacob and their decendents?
    
35. How and why did Walt appear on the island, both to Shannon and Locke? - No idea.
    
36. Why did the monster kill Eko? (Other than the fact that the actor wanted off the show...) - Because it felt like it and he wasn't sorry like Ben was? Maybe.
    
37. What was behind Charlie's weird visions of Aaron in danger from "Fire + Water"? - No idea.
    
38. What happened to Christian and Yemi's bodies? - No idea.
    
39. Was the psychic who sent Claire off on the 815 flight a real psychic or a fraud? - No idea.
    
40. What did Ben do to call up the Smoke Monster? - Pulled the plug in his basement.
    
41. Who is Ms Hawking who turned up in Desmond's time-travel flashbacks? - Answered! She is Daniel's mom. Ex-leader of the Others. And one tough cookie with a lot of knowledge about a lot of stuff.
    
42. What's up with the Hurley Bird? - No frikking idea.

Lots of answers! But a lot of them are answers that just lead to more questions. Oh well. Maybe next season all of them will be answered. Even the Walt stuff? Even the Charlie stuff? Perhaps. Hope springs eternal.

Screencaps thanks to lostpedia, lost-media and lost.cubit.net.

My prediction!

So yes, I'm obsessed with Lost. Why do you ask? Sure, it will fade a bit before the last season starts up, only to flare up again when it does.


Anyway. I was thinking about this past season and that tptb probably put in a lot of stuff that will have payoffs somehow next season. One scene I remembered that we have yet to see explained, was from The Little Prince when the time-skipping Losties on the island flashed to a point in time where they found the outrigger canoes at their old beach camp. And an Ajira bottle... Yep, that's right: they were in the same time as FakeLocke and Ilana et al at the end of the season! And they got shot at when they took one of the canoes. Who shot at them? We still haven't found out. Which is weird really, since we've seen the interconnections of other moments in time-skipping time already.

What I wonder is this: what if they're shot at by themselves? What if the Losties in 1977 flash to 2007/present day storywise. And what if they're still at the same place. And what if they run from there to the beach and get a canoe. And for some reason I don't know yet, they fire at the people they see in another canoe?

I could be wrong. Hey, with Lost I'm wrong a lot. But whoever it is that fired/fires on them, I do think it is a big reveal. It will either be themselves or some new group perhaps that we haven't seen yet.

Interesting point about that outrigger chase: at that point, there were three Locke's on the island. Dead Locke, Fake Locke and Time-skipping Locke. And they all existed in a time frame when Fake Locke was intent on going to see Jacob, or had already managed to get him killed.

Screencaps thanks to lost-media.