Special thanks and a shout-out to my favorite local Lost party hosts Sara & Mike for their hospitality last night, as well as the rest of the Motorboat Crew (Jaime & Owen, Sara K, Kat, Eddie & Michal and Greg & Elena)!
BENLiarpants. He totally knows what happened to those left behind on the island.
Sayid was working with and for Ben. Sayid killed the man outside of Hurley's mental institution and then broke him out of there, all of which was probably orchestrated by Ben. So why is he pretending that it was a setback to his plans?
CHARLES WIDMOREMiles said that "it took him like 20 years to find this place the first time." When did Widmore first discover it, and what did he do once he found it? How did he lose it?
CHARLOTTEShe said that she hadn't had a nosebleed since she was little. Another sign that she'd been on the island before?
Were her nosebleed and the Dharma worker's nosebleed beneath the Orchid related? Has Charlotte been somehow exposed to excessive amounts of energy? And why is she the only one who seems to be experiencing it?
CLAIRE
Given that Sawyer mentioned Locke as the sole remaining person from their group left on the island, have they all just assumed that she's dead?
DAN NORTON (Attorney)At first I figured that Ben hired them to scare Kate into fleeing and want to return to the island. But perhaps Abaddon or Widmore were involved; the creepy mute associate with Dan added a rather insidious and almost unnecessary element to the scenario. Gut feeling is that Ben would have threatened her himself or sent one messenger to do the job just as effectively.
Considering that part of her criminal trial deal was that she has to stay in the state, was this a set-up, a test? Administered/sponsored by whom?
DANIEL FARADAYHow did he infiltrate the Dharma workforce? Did he get himself officially recruited by Dharma and follow the proper channels to get to the island, or did he actually travel through time?
Did his presence cause a wrinkle in island time; did he somehow trigger 'the incident' when he was there during the Dharma days?
Did Abaddon choose Faraday for the mission to the island because he knew about Dharma Dan's previous stint there? Has Abaddon seen Faraday's notebook?
I'm pretty sure that his shirt wouldn't fit Sawyer. Oh, and I'm also pretty sure that he didn't give it up because that would mean relinquishing his beloved skinny scientist tie.
Does Faraday know that Locke (or whomever is designated island leader at the time) is the only one who can stop the time shifts?
DESMONDWas there ever really going to be a replacement for Desmond in the Swan hatch with Kelvin? If so, who?
Why is Desmond immune to "the rules" and 'uniquely and miraculously special?'
Have Des & Penny been on her boat for three years?
ETHANAgain, why does Ben send his only surgeon out on dangerous missions?
THE HOSTILES/MILITARY VIOLENCE
Weapons seem to be a good indication of time/era on the island. On the beach, Sawyer & co. were attacked via flaming bow & arrow. Locke was shot by Ethan. The British soldiers almost cut off one of Juliet's hands with a machete.
THE ISLANDLogistically speaking, the people 'inside the radius' did not see or experience the island actually disappear under water (i.e. those on the beach and the Zodiac raft); the Oceanic 6, however, did see just that. Was it some sort of invisible defense shield/mirage that appears outside of the radius when the island moves?
DR. MARVIN CANDLEDo the Dharma Staff know that his real name is Pierre Chang?
What is his exact position within the Dharma Initiative? In addition to being the authoritative figure both in the Barracks and the Orchid, he appears in other station orientation films.
Is he aware of or does he have a relationship with either Richard Alpert or Jacob?
In future Orientation Films, Dr. Candle does not appear to be wearing a wedding band. Is there a Dharma divorce lawyer on the island, or did he arrange for his wife and their baby to leave the island because he knew about the dangers there (not just beneath the Orchid, but the potential for a purge)?
MIKHAIL
Was he a member of that initial military group that occupied the island?
MILESIF Miles is Dr. Candle's son and Daddy is buried on the island...will Miles be able to use his ghostbusting abilities to communicate with him? Was Miles specifically chosen by Abaddon for the mission to the island because he knows that Miles can glean pertinent information from his dearly departed Dharma dad? Remember that Miles said he's 'exactly where I want to be,' which is on that island.
When Miles first met Ben and attempted to blackmail him, he asked 'do you know who I am?' and Ben responded with 'yes.' Does Ben know that Miles is related to Candle?
THE ORCHID & FROZEN DONKEY WHEELThe rock beneath this station resembles the part of the Swan hatch that was cemented off; the part concealing extraordinary amounts of radiation. Who originally built the wheel and contained the energy within the station's walls?
What caused the injuries to the Dharma worker? Proximity to the energy released when they started to bore holes beneath the Orchid?
PENNY WIDMOREHas she been in contact with Daddy Widmore since rescuing Desmond and the O6? Has he been searching for her for 3 years, just as she was for Desmond?
RICHARD ALPERT
Ben doesn't seem to share Alpert's ability to live agelessly on the island while time and people around him shift...but does Alpert ever inform Ben about Locke's time shifts on the island? Does he remember them?
SAYIDIf the men who were waiting to attack him and Hurley were using darts, the intent was to take them both somewhere but not allow them to recognize the journey or locale. So...who wanted them and where WERE they going to take the two of them?
By the way, I love that Sayid was an island bad ass who killed men with his breakdancing feet, and off island he gets shot by his euro fancy con girl and then taken down for a serious nap by a freaking dart.
SUNHow does the world's most recognizable Asian woman roam the airport without so much as a glance? And wouldn't all Oceanic employees (especially in Korea) be highly trained to take special note and treatment of the survivor from their own town and/or country?
I don't believe that Sun really wants to kill Ben, given that they've never actually met or spoken to one another. Yes, they've been in the same general vicinity, but I have a feeling that she's playing her own game with Widmore.
TIME SHIFTS
They do seem to occur when someone is about to alter the course of the future (i.e. when Ethan was about to shoot and kill Locke.).
DID YOU NOTICE...
Bookend statements! In the opening sequence of episode 1, Dr. Candle said "God help us all" when discussing the potential release of energy beneath the Orchid. In the last scene of episode 2, Ms. Hawking responded with "God help us all" when Ben hinted that he wouldn't make her 70 hour deadline to return to the island.
Faraday refers to the island's time shifts as a record skipping...which is exactly what we see in that first scene when Dr. Candle puts the record on.
Oh Kate, you're such a foreshadower. She told Aaron that once Choo Choo the train goes into that tunnel, it never comes back out.
The irony of Widmore saying to Sun, "since you seem to be worried about your plane" was not lost on me. Pun intended.
Parallel Moment Alert! Last season, we saw Ben don some little doctor spectacles and then remove a bullet from Sayid's shoulder. Last night, we saw Alpert don some little doctor spectacles and then remove a bullet from Locke's leg. 
Alpert's response to Locke's inquiry about the purpose of the compass ("it points North") reminded me of the engraved words on Eko's Jesus stick...lift up your eyes and look North.CRAZY THEORY OF THE NIGHT
"Very bad things" started to happen to those left behind on the island because of and when the Oceanic Six left...because Aaron, Hurley, Kate, Jack, Sayid and Sun are their Constants.
----
I will be hopping on a red-eye tomorrow night, during which time I aim to re-watch episode 5.02 ("The Lie") and take notes to post upon my arrival in Atlanta on Saturday.
Have a nice weekend, and thank you for your comments!
Posts
12 comments:
I liked the layout of this post - very nice way of breaking down all that info in the episode!! It's going to be hard to keep all the storylines straight this season.
I wonder what the deal with "North" is?
I just did a recap & analysis of "The Lie" if you want to read that when you watch it again :)
I don't think I've gone 5 minutes today without having a LOST thought of some sort.
I believe the Island dissappeared to those off the Island, because it was no longer at that particular point in time. Either that, or if you believe in the Vile Vortices theory, it moved to a different location. The latter would explain the drug-runner plane appearing after another flash. I'll wait to further this discussion, as Ms. Hawking's Druid Math/event window calculations pertain to the O6's re-entry onto the Island, I feel.
I understood the whole "It took him [Widmore] 20 years to find it the last time" comment to mean he had been looking for it for 20 years before he sent the freighter there, not that Widmore had found it at another point in the past. As far as the British soldiers, I was thinking crazily this morning that maybe they are part of Danielle's crew? I was just feeling like maybe the flaming arrows are a red herring to make us think they're from the distant past, but maybe the soldiers were just using what they had at their disposal while they were on the island, or maybe they discovered that the flaming arrows were good protection against Smokey? Just a thought, who knows. I also assumed that Des and Penny had been living on the boat so they could keep moving to keep Penny safe. I don't think that Widmore would have necessarily told Penny, "Yeah, my old buddy Ben is kind of hell bent on killing you, you might want to lay low." But I think that Des is in no mood to run into Daddy Widmore, so maybe they've just been sailing around and pulling anchor to keep moving. My guess on Desmond being special (jeez, there's a lot of special people in this show) is that he has become unstuck in time previously, while the "Marooned 5" have not necessarily become unstuck in time themselves, but are simply living in a place that has become unstuck in time. They are still experiencing things in a chronological order, but Des has time travelled within his consciousness (as we saw in The Constant). Perhaps because of this he can learn to control his unstuck nature and time travel back to the island to help them.
(Ben) I don't think Ben is orchestrating the stakeouts, ambushes, etc. I think all that is Widmore and Oceanic.
(Widmore) He had to have been involved with Dharma at that time, either running it or opposing it, and when the purge happened and the Others took over, he lost contact with the island.
(Charlotte) I think the nosebleeds have to be related, coming up in the same pair of episodes. Why her and not someone else, though? I think proximity to the source, not lineage, is a determinate.
(Claire) Odd they left her out. I think sometimes the producers forget only a few minutes have passed between seasons, not 6 months.
(Daniel) His working for Dharma has to involve some kind of time travel because he's too young to have worked for them in the 80's. I think at some point he and the group travel back in time to that era, and their infiltration is a whole series of episodes yet to be seen this season.
(Desmond) Hard to believe Desmond just "checked out" for 3 years - he still had friends on the island just like the O6 did. Although having spent all that time in the hatch and away from Penny, who can blame him?
I think time will tell (hah) why Desmond is a "special" person. I think the most likely explanation is his proximity to the failsafe when it all imploded, since it seemed to have given him those "unstuck in time" abilities. I don't really think he's special otherwise, except having fallen in love with the main bad guy's daughter.
(Hostiles) Good call on the flaming arrows - natives? I mean, real drum-beating head-hunting four-toed-statue-worshipping natives from a thousand years ago? That's a good idea.
(The Island) I'm thinking the island moves in time and space - maybe those stars the pendulum was drawing for Mrs. Hawking on the computer indicate recorded emergence locations of the island during one of its "shifts", and the star points indicate movements through time? I still think it appeared under the Black Rock one day, and under the Beechcraft as well - both locations far away from the South Pacific.
(Chang) The worker who ran in to interrupt his filming called him "Dr. Chang" so it seems that's how he's known to Dharma. His reason for using false names in the films and on at least one of the worksuits is unknown. Maybe the people who would be viewing the films would recognize his name, but not the face itself?
I have the feeling he was the highest ranking authority for Dharma while they were in control of the island. He walked freely around the barracks and most everyone seemed to defer to him.
We won't know of his relationship to Alpert or Jacob until we know their true relationships to Dharma. We know Alpert helped Ben with The Purge, but it's possible he and Chang had an ongoing adversarial relationship.
I think the wedding band may be a red herring, or another nod to his changing persona on the films. While it's certainly possible he did arrange for his wife and son to leave the island at some point, I don't think that's any reason to take off the ring.
(Mikhail) Good question. He lived apart from the Others in the communication shack. Who knows who he is/was?
(Miles) I think all those things are correct - he is Chang's son, and was recruited to communicate with his father. I'm not sure Chang's dead though.
(Orchid) Someone long before Dharma built that chamber and stuck the Donkey Wheel in there (it actually looks like a wheel from a ship - The Black Rock?). How past residents would know how to do that, or why, is unknown.
(Penny) While I believe she was dedicated to finding Desmond, I think she has more goals. I think she parallels, but opposes her father, although this relationship needs to be explored more - we haven't seen much of the two of them together onscreen.
(Sayid) Like when Abbadon came to Hurley in the mental institution looking for information, I think they want to interrogate both of them to find out what they know of the island.
(Sun) I think all Oceanic employees work for Widmore and have specific instructions on how to act and treat any of the O6 at any given moment. They allowed Jack to fly and fly and fly and never challenged him.
Sun's motives are hard to figure out. Last season there was a lot given of her animosity toward Jack for leaving Jin behind. Then this week it seems some passive-aggressivity toward Kate about the same thing. Sun says she doesn't blame Kate, but why bring it up for the first time now? She should hate Ben and Widmore for creating the conflict in the first place and should be blaming them for Jin's "death". I think she's playing both ends against the middle.
(Time Shifts) Also when Daniel was telling Desmond about the future, including almost the name of his mother - a name Desmond would surely have recognized at some point as Mrs. Hawking.
Very good questions!
I think Desmond is uniquely different etc... because he was already time shifting... because of the night where he used the fail-safe key. Granted this was before that happened, but Desmond is able to time shift and Faraday met him during one of those shifts... making Desmond - different.
My theory of why they have to return to the island: the "string of time" cannot be altered. If the 6 were on the island in the future and an event occured but then left the island sometime in the past when they should have stayed, then the events of the future will be altered.
"Miles said that "it took him like 20 years to find this place the first time." When did Widmore first discover it, and what did he do once he found it? How did he lose it?"
I caught that too, as well as the other clue to Charolotte being born on the island (because of her comment about the nosebleed)
Actually, I am on board with all your theories.
They made a point of Faraday being gone for 2 hours, could he have snuck into the Orchid then? What dead person helped Miles find and hunt the Boar?
Is Hawking Faraday's mother? I t looks as if Hawking was working down in a Dharma Station below a church.
I also agree, Desmond wasn't uniquely different UNTIL the hatch implosion. That's when he started to jump all over time and see the future.
"Miles said that "it took him like 20 years to find this place the first time."
- what about that quote makes you so sure that he found it once already? I took it a different way when watching it. Can't it also be that Miles was saying that Widmore spent the last 20 years looking for the island (and obviously he/they found it)?
First off, I love the format of this post! Great organization, it made sense when this could easily be very confusing.
Also, I've been thinking that the 06 are constants, too! It's great to read you tihnk the same thing, my husband just looked at me funny when I tried to explain my thoughts on that to him :)
Great posts and comments for last week! So much more for our brains to chew on now.
I just watched this episode again and had a thought... Richard told Locke, after Locke was shot by Ethan, that in order to get Jack, Kate, et all, back to the island he would have to die. Then later Mrs. Hawkins tells Ben he has 72 hours. 3 days. Until what? Locke rises from the dead? Making him some sort of Jesus figure? All those years of church are finally paying off! (The story of Jesus is that he was crucified and then rose from the dead 3 days later.)
Post a Comment