Nicely put NG. I'm much more open to that sort of storyline now. It doesn't quite explain the Dharma Initiative and all of the connections with the mainland but as with Miles, the supernatural is obviously allowed in the Lost universe.

For whatever it's worth, the show's creators have explicitly stated numerous times that the island is not purgatory or limbo. Of course, they also said there would never be any time travel, but I think there's enough interaction between the Island and the "real world" for it to be all but impossible for everyone to be dead.

In the early seasons when we were really limited to events on the island, I would've agreed. Now we have many characters who were once on the island but now aren't (Ellie, Charles, Walt, Desmond), we have many characters who have left and come back (the six, Ben, Michael, Daniel), we have people who have been near it or made contact with it but not been there (Penny). If this entire thing is some limbo and everyone on Oceanic 216 is dead, there are going to be a lot of glaring holes and a lot of fully realized characters who have to be explained away as elaborate delusions.

So I'm thinking the island is evil and they'll all have to destroy it in the last season. I'm basing this off the fact that it killed Echo and let Ben live. Plus they need a big twist and the Island turning out evil is one of the few they haven't written themselves out of.

That would be quite the twist indeed. Guess we'll have to see.

how many more seasons does lost have?

One more after this. This season is 5, it'll wrap up in six.

I haven't posted much in this thread because I am too damn lazy to pay attention to all the minute clues and details (theory stuff). I've been watching Lost since the 1st episode and us fans have had enough gaps of new episodes (writers strike notwithstanding), that I was seriously pissed off with tonights airing.

All the commercial's that were airing for tonights episode were crafted to make it out as if they were going to give us new "insight" into the "true" story of the Oceanic 6.

What bullshit. Why didn't they advertise it as yet another "recap" episode? Oh, that's right, no one would watch. In the grand scope of things, this is nothing, but in the little microcosm of loyal fans to a show, it's just down right deceptive. Any person that has never watched the show would still be completely in the dark about the Lost universe except an extremely dumbed down synopsis of the most recent past.

For those of us that have been fans for some good length of time, it was like a zerbert! Na na, we know you know all of this already, gotcha to watch anyway!!! Good thing I DVR'd it so I could FF through most instead of watching, once I realized what was up. I actually FF to about a half hour and it seemed to be getting pretty current with recent events and I thought "okay, the second half hour will give us the new, present stuff". NOT. GAHH! Just fucking play a re-run so we know what's up, don't try to wrap it in a pretty bow and tell us it's not the same ol shit!

/bitch over

We Tivo'd it, and after about 2 minutes we realized what was up and watched our Tivo'd Lie to Me instead. There was no clue that this was going to be a recap episode. A agree with everything you said, alicat.

Considering how complex this show is compared to, say, Smallville or Law and Order, I think it's fine they have a recap episode now and again. Sure, they were dishonest in their advertising for the episode, but you can't really blame them. Ratings for Lost aren't good, and if things keep up the show will be cancelled. I don't want that and neither do you.

I guess I don't totally know how you guys didn't know that it was a recap episode. It didn't advertise like a new episode to me at all.

Edit after seeing will's post: there is no way Lost will be cancelled before the end of its run. The show's run is inked and done through the end of next season, which is the end of the show. There's not really any reason to freak out about its future.

You guys are crazy. After last week's episode I thought it was painfully clear that last night's episode was gonna be a recap. I remember thinking last week "crap, a recap episode." To me it didn't seem like it was trying to trick anyone in any way.

I'm so mad I'm going to punt the last 5 seasons, skip the rest of this one and never watch again.....

While I wasn't a 100% (I still checked for the first minute) I was pretty sure it was a recap based on phrasing from the week before. Advertising has always been a slimy business, I'm not seeing anything new.

I can't tell if you're serious or sarcastic? If on the off chance you're serious...why? So it was one hour of recap that you thought would be new. Why would that turn you off the entire series?

It was false advertisement, plain and simple. They mislead the fans of the show into believing that we were going to see things from a new perspective like we've never seen before. I have no problem with it being a recap show, I just don't think they needed to lie to get what little fanbase they have left to get them to watch. I liked Stargate SG1's recap episodes better :)

Honestly, it would have taken you less than 15 seconds of watching to realize that this was a recap show. Or it would've taken 15 seconds (like it did for me) to check any of 1000 lost sources online when I heard the advertising tagline which sounded meaningfully different than other "next week on Lost" advertising taglines and found out it was a recap show. Or it would've taken 15 seconds to look on your TV guide and see that the episode was called "Lost: Story of the Oceanic 6". Seriously.

Give me a fucking break. Last week's episode, at the end, it said "LOST returns in TWO WEEKS." How is that for explaining that the next episode is a recap???

Besides, next week is a Faraday episode!!

because people are stupid....that's why....i don't know how anyone didn't know it was a recap...but there are people out there...

What is wrong with Daniel Faraday? I mean seriously, you would think a super intelligent guy would think about what he is doing before walking in the hostile camp with a loaded gun demanding to see his mother and threatening to shoot Richard Alpert in 3 seconds if she doesn't show up. I am not upset what happened to the guy, more annoyed with his and the other Lostie's behavior.

I'm willing to excuse it because:

A) For the first time in a long time, he didn't know what was going to happen.
B) He's was in a near panic because of the imminent "incident".
C) The Others are really scary and vicious. Imagine walking into a biker-gang clubhouse, desperately needing to make an outrageous demand. How exactly would you do that?

I'm sad to see him go but it serves the story. I think the time travel looping is coming to an end and that by the end of this season (if not sooner) everyone will be synced up in present day and moving forward together.

*Wild theory Alert*
Unless a future generation is coming back to meddle with the present, like say all those children who have gone missing.

For as super intelligent as he was, I think this past episode showed very definitively that Daniel was not a stable, balanced fellow. I kind of hope he's not gone for good, because I think he'd be a great candidate for the Island either to restore or to appear as.

But...I do think that his death shows us that the plan to detonate the bomb MUST fail. Daniel's entire life has been about the fact that the past has already happened and can't be changed. Daniel died in 1977, and nothing could ever be done about that. The hatch was built, the incident happened, the plane crashed. None of that can be avoided. I think we're going to be seeing a different way of getting everyone back into the present.

Before he got shot, he talked about how they were the variables that would disprove his mother's statement that destiny couldn't be changed. By his death, she was right so far. Had he set off the bomb, the island would have been gone, the plane would have landed in LA, no one would have ever crossed paths and we'd be watching something else. :p

I rather liked that his Mom ended up shooting him. Now we get to wonder why she still sends him back when she knows he's going to die.

Can't say the episode was too great otherwise, most of the mysteries they revealed I could see coming a mile away.

Am I the only one who... I mean...

Look. A Bad Thing happens in what is going to be a station to research a pocket of energy. Accident. Bad juju. So cancel the scientific mission there--it becomes about containment, cemented-down like Chernobyl. Gotta push a button to keep something really bad from happening again.

Until the day that button DIDN'T get pushed. And then the "Failsafe" key got turned, at which point the whole station imploded... evidently neutralizing the massive pocket of energy?? Because we don't need to push that button anymore. Whatever we were preventing happening with that button either quit being a problem, or once and for all happened, and now we're done with it. So then... why would Dharma build the station at all? Why not just fire the "failsafe", whatever that is, let the sky turn purple for a few seconds, and save a bunch of concrete?

Could it be that the "failsafe" IS the hydrogen bomb? Even so, why not just blow it up, rather than building the whole Swan station and locking a two-man team down there in perpetuity? It'd save them having to come up with a snowman-based joke, and eliminate one supply drop from the route.

---------- Post added at 10:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:30 PM ----------

Yes, but THAT history wasn't written yet. Remember, for our Losties, 1977 is the present, not the past. So, things from the PAST 1977 can't be changed (except, Farraday implies, by way of the variables), but the people who are in their PRESENT in 1977 (because they haven't lived past the "current time" yet) are completely up for grabs.

Eh, couple reasons. By failsafe they don't mean it in the more common usage, more as in, latch ditch effort to neutralize the energy, sure hope it works...
I'm also guessing they thought the failsafe would destroy the island. It was a failsafe to save the world, not protect the island, so I'm guessing they got "lucky" when it didn't destroy everything. That, plus they mention doing experiments to try and use the energy, so I'm sure they didn't want to destroy a very possible font of knowledge and power.

But ya, it's still a little silly.

PS thinking some more, maybe the failsafe was the H-bomb, and we're going to find out it should have destroyed the island when it went off but the island is sentient (Jacob?) and protected itself when it went off. Containing it.

Also, my memory is a little fuzzy, didn't something else happen when the sky turned purple? Could that have been part of the reason the island got unstuck in time (more than once) when Ben moved it? Maybe that failsafe ended up creating that loop. It sure did something similar to Desmond on a smaller scale when he relived his own life in flashes.

I don't think Dharma fully understood the nature of the energy in 1977 and were spooked enough by "the incident" that they simply panicked. Perhaps enough scientists were killed that the workers had to make the call instead.

I look forward to finding out what the fallout of the incident is beyond a big explosion, general destruction and likely sending the survinging '77 Losties back to the present.

I also think the bomb is still safely in the hands of the Others as it was in the 50's. I doubt they would let Dharma get their hands on it.

Good call. Plus it's not clear that the Others even knew about the Swan before Ben was brought there.

They seem to know everything. I'm sure they know about it. Also, I could see them working with Jack and Kate to get the bomb there.

Hey, I love LOST but sometimes you just have to laugh. :)

http://www.tgsa-comic.com/comics/012.jpg

Yeah. I sometimes wonder if the writers feel they need to re-introduce the characters' names every episode, just in case this is anybody out there's first time watching the show...

Heh, I might be the only one that appreciates how much they use names. I've noticed I use peoples' names when talking to them far more than most other people. No idea why.

Another awesome episode tonight and looking up to be a hell of a season-ender. I haven't the slightest idea what I hope happens, but I think it's going to be pretty goddamn cool. I have to, of course, say that I don't care about Sawyer-related love triangles at all, but otherwise it's a damn fine set up

Indeed!

I wonder how they end up off the Submarine as evidenced by the preview footage. Also, I suspect the triangle won't exist past this season. Just a hunch.

Does anyone else think Jack is being a colossal dumbass? And the Others sure do act like a cult. Why else would they be so docile under John's whims?

Jack and John have been colossal dumbasses for a good three seasons now. It's kind of sad that they're so integral to the plot. I seldom care or understand what in the flying fuck they're talking about or why they decide to do anything. I mean, John Locke's great plan now is to kill Jacob? Freaking fantastic. Let's wander aimlessly into the forest to try to kill an amorphous entity who may or not be human (or alive) and can only be seen and found by a "person" who has lived on the island for who only knows how long and doesn't seem to age. I'd sure get right behind that plan. And Jack's plan is to follow the ravings of a mad man and detonate a hydrogen bomb on the island. At this point, I'm going to guess that the bomb detonation is what leads to the "incident" in the first place as opposed to preventing it and just letting Dharma drill, but who knows.

I think that's why I like Ben, Daniel and Desmond episodes so much more these days. Ah well.

Boosh. I was dead on about them working with jack and kate with the bomb.

Fross-I dunno, Jack and John have always seemed to make sense to me. And don't judge John's "I'm going to kill Jacob" comment. We don't know what he really means. He may have just said that to manipulate Ben into doing something. Or he may have suspicions that Jacob is fake/a puppet set up by Richard.

Fresnelly-Hmm. Is it a cult if it really is based off supernatural forces? :D More like an occult/religion mixture

Wild speculation: Jacob asked Locke to help him way back in the season 3 finale. What if Locke's method of help is killing Jacob? Perhaps the cabin is actually a prison for him and death is the only release. Given that Locke and possibly Christian were brought back to life by the island, Jacob just might benefit in the same way. And THEN, AFTER he dies, AFTER he's reborn, we'll see his physical form.

A lot hinges on just what the deal is with Locke, Christian, Alpert, the smoke monster, and Jacob. How do they relate?

And I could easily be wrong about this as well, but I don't think Jack will die. At least not yet. He has to meet his dead father face-to-face first. Then again, they were willing to drop the Libby storyline like it was nothing...

And jeez, Alpert and the Others seem utterly perplexed by the time travel thing. The one time Alpert looked calm and understanding, he was under orders from Locke to help Locke. Had they never before tried to move the island? Or was it only this second-to-latest move done by Ben that screwed up time?

I like how the compass formed a causal circle. It's a cool kind of headache. They did Sayid's return nicely, I thought. Kate works well as the voice of sanity. And I loved Ben's reaction to Locke's plan at the end of the episode.

I think there is virtually no chance of Jack, John, Sawyer or Kate dying for real until either the second to last or last episodes of the show.

I'll note that you didn't include Juliette in that list. ;)

WOAH. I hadn't considered that. I thought Christian was an island-driven figment, like Kate's horse, Hurley's loonybin buddy, etc. But you're right--his coffin was empty after all. He's had a very "I have a purpose now"-like zen certainty about him, on-island. Wow. Hadn't thought about that. Maybe he's literally alive just like Locke is.

I LOVE that. All season now, I've been wondering why Richard seemed like he knew what was going on in THAT moment, and the rest of the time has been all "What's going on, guys??" Now we know.

Compass: I kind of lost track of it. I don't know where it came from originally--is it a chicken-egg? Locke gave it to Richard in the fifties, in the era of the live h-bomb. Richard still had it "three years later", when John flashed there and received it from Richard... so he could flash back and give it to Richard in the fifties?? Do I have it right?

Sayid's return was beautiful. How long has he been stalking them, you think?

That last shot of Ben just reminded me what a BRILLIANT actor Michael Emerson is. Absolutely fucking brilliant.

Maybe I am making this up in my head, but isn't it already confirmed that Christian IS Jacob? When Locke was moving the Island Wheel® and Christian was down there with him, and Locke asked for help, etc. didn't Christian say his name was Jacob? And when Locke went to Jacob's cabin for the first time and Claire was in there, Christian was sitting in Jacob's chair, confirmed. Am I crazy or are they the same person??