3321

I thought I heard somewhere in the episode, most likely during the trial, that Kate was one of the 8 most famous people in America implying that 8 people were brought back/rescued from the Island. Knowing that there are an Oceanic 6 and I wouldn’t consider Aaron one of those since he wasn’t on the manifest that leaves room for 2 people to return who weren’t on the plane. I don’t know if they are counting Aaron but other possible people who weren’t on the plane include Ben, Juliet, the French lady, her daughter Alex and Desmond along with the countless Others who are still somewhere on the island. So IMO there are still 2 more of the Oceanic 6 to be accounted for after Kate, Jack, Hurley and Sayid.

At least this episode seems to have answered the question of who Kate had to get back to in the season finale last year when she was talking to Jack outside of the airport at night. I had thought she meant Sawyer but it looks like she meant Aaron.

3322

I’m pretty sure the lawyer didnot say 8. Jack said 8 survived, and he said two died, which would leave six.

3323

Absolutely. If Miles can really see and/or communicate with dead folks, he’s got to be going batshit insane on that island. We need more exposition into why you would send an archeologist and a ghost buster to look for Ben. It’s obvious now why the science geek is along, but why the other two instead of a military team?

3324

OK - I’m not nearly as caught up with all the details as most here, so dumb questions:

  • whatever happened to all the monsters/black smoke, etc. on the island? They used to be scared to walk through the jungle due to the dinosaurs/monsters chasing them.

  • At one point I thought there were two sets of “others” - are the people that they would see walk by, just their bare feet, noislessly, etc. the same “others” as today?

3325

There is one “monster”. From what we know it is made of smoke and machine. (you can sometimes hear the sound of chains and gears moving). Last season there were two notable appearances, one when it picked up and killed Echo and another when it was stopped by a protective barrier that surrounds the ‘others’ settlement.

BTW how did John & Co. get around the barrier this time? do they still have to climb over it?

  • At one point I thought there were two sets of “others” - are the people that they would see walk by, just their bare feet, noislessly, etc. the same “others” as today?

This one hasn’t been answered really IMO. I think that both sets of ‘others’ are in fact the same but I’m not convinced.

3326

There are definitely more than one group of “Others” on the island: one group is the remnants of Dharma left over after Ben gassed the rest - Juilet, the girls in the underwater station, etc. - and the other is the group that predates Dharma’s arrival. It’s the latter group that may or may not have special weirdo Island powers.

3327

I don’t think Juliet is a Dharma person. I think she was recruited by the guy played by Nestor Carbonell (can’t remember his name), who is definitely an Other.

3328

Well, there definitely are two classes of Others. The first group is the one that predates Dharma’s presence on the island, the ones who swayed Ben into mass killing his own people. This group includes Mr. Ageless, Richard as we’ve come to know him. Then there are those who have joined the others after Ben took over, ones who have come from off of the island to join the group, such as Juliet.

So you’ve got the Pre-Ben Others, and Post-Ben Others.

I would assume that the people in the Looking Glass weren’t ex-Dharmas, but Others. As far as we’ve been led to believe, the only person on the island left over from the Dharma group was Ben himself.

3329

It wasn’t on. There was a scene cut from the third episode I think it was, where Kate & Sayyid are trying to explain what it is, and Miles walks on through it.

— Alan

3330

Yeah, Mach, you’re right.

So are Miles and the other newcomers there to get Ben for gassing the Dharma folks? They appear to be connected to, or at least knowledgeable about, Dharma in some way.

3331

Yes, they’re all just Others. Others basically means the original “hostiles” that killed off the Dharma team with Ben’s help plus the people Ben has recruited since. I guess Danielle is an “other other” since she’s not part of any of those groups, and who knows what Jacob is. The hostiles may or may not be the people who made the 4 toe statue thingy.

The feet people in season two were just the regular Others. There was this subplot about how they pretended to be not as advanced as they really are. At some point Kate found like a “fake native makeup kit with action wig” and then Michael was taken to a fake camp with huts and stuff. But those were still just Others pretending to be natives or something. I don’t remember why, I guess Ben was bored.

Anyway, what I’m saying is that if there are other Others we haven’t seen them yet. Probably. I mean who the fuck knows, next week we could find out that Sawyer built the island and Walt is his alien grandfather.

3332

I personally believe the four are working for Ben. They may not know it, but they are. The conversation Miles had with him seemed coded, especially the way Ben insistently asked: “3.2? Why not 3.3 or 3.5?” Even Ben shooting C.S. Lewis could have been calculated if he knew she was wearing a bulletproof vest.

3333

Madkevin, that’s an interesting thought. Are you positing that Ben controls Dharma, or that Dharma was in no way involved with the hiring of the four?

At this point, it seems fairly certain that Abbadon works for or represents Dharma.

3334

It’s not a formalized theory yet, but either Abbadon is working for Ben (there’s been nothing to suggest he’s actually working for Dharma, has there?), or the four were plants by Ben to get hired by Dharma. Assuming I’m not totally wrong, which I probably am.

And since I’m throwing out zany theories, I thought it was interesting that Farraday and C.S. Lewis were doing what appeared to be a standard test for psychic abilities with the cards, but if you listened closely to that scene at the beginning she asked him not what he thought the cards were, but "What do you remember?" Based on that, and the weird intro scene of Farrady crying at the news story of the crash for no discernable reason, I believe he’s experiencing time backwards. He lives out his life normally, but his memories are of the future. (I imagine this works a little like the memory stuff in Memento.) I like this idea so much that I really hope I’m right.

3335

Okay, that’s a little weird. I think it’s a bit more plausible maybe he has some some of mental issue (ADHD? Mild asperger’s?) that effects his memory, but leaves him a brilliant physicist or something. His memory has improved now that he’s on the island, since the island’s regenerative properties perhaps negate his brain issues? I dunno, that’s my theory.

As for Abbadon, I think it’s more likely he doesn’t work for Ben, at least based on what we’ve seen of these flash-forwards.

Three of our Losties (Jack, Kate, Hurley) are off the island, and lying about the events there, and definitely working against the interest of Abbadon.

Sayid is working for Ben, trying to find someone else mysterious. I’m guessing Abbadon, and the people he works for.

Abbadon clearly wants to know about the island, and the rest of the people from the crash perhaps. He seemed to have no foreknowledge of the true status of 815, because not only did he assert to Naomi that there were no 815 survivors, he also questioned Hurley about “Are they alive?”

Since Ben’s people knew of the plane crash, and he had communication with his group off of the island at least until the Hatch exploded and he started jamming communication, then we know the people he worked with would know the island’s location, and whether or not there was anybody alive on the island.

Abbadon has to be separate from Ben’s group off of the island.

3336

There’s plausible, and then there’s Lost.

But seriously, there’s been way too many weird time references for there not to be more to it. There’s Dez’s weird dream-trip through his subconscious that showed him an alternate history of his life; there’s the anagram hints and the “Brief History Of Time” references; there’s the psychological testing sites, most of which seem to be time related; there’s the experiment with the rocket; there’s the weird aging of certain people like Richard; there’s Black Rock and Adam and Eve; etc. etc.

Plus, there’s the format of the show itself, which has been obsessed with time since the beginning, using the flashback and flash-forward techniques.

By the way, the Valis reference could also be meaningful. There’s two main elements of Dick’s novel that are probably appropriate: Dick’s exegesis at the end of the book talks about how time is essentially an illusion and that we are still living in within 100 years of Christ’s death. The modern world is an illusion caused by the insane half of God (Dick refers to this as the Black Iron Prison); Dick claimed that he once saw these two separate time streams superimposed upon each other like you would superimpose a photograph.

Also in Valis, the main characters go on a quest to find a being who they believe will heal them, who turns out to be an advanced spiritual being living in the body of - ready for it? - a small child.

3337

Isn’t Valis also an attempt to describe the mental breakdown/religious epiphany Dick experienced around the time of writing “A Scanner Darkly”? It even contains fragments form that book, throwing the reader into a time loop. I think showing that book is a nice touch, but they can basically connect it to so many different themes in Lost (religion, insanity, time paradoxes, and let’s not forget Dick’s omnipresent theme, paranoia) that it’s probably meaningless to try to infer anything from it.

I’m still wondering why Hurley apologized to Jack for following Locke, in the basketball court, two episodes ago. Is it because Jack’s ego is a precious flower that’s easily hurt, or is there an unforeseen consequence lurking in the shadows?

3338

I think that Hurley feels that his decision to go with Locke was at least partially responsible for whatever horrible situation arose that makes Jack want to go back to the island. Ultimately, it’ll probably be the reason there’s only the Oceanic 6 and not the Oceanic 50.

3339

Yeah I think it’s close to that, plus the fact that Hurley’s decision and speech convinced most of the others to stay as well.

— Alan

3340

So, I’m interested in the 8 -vs- 6 thing. I expect they wont all just get flown home in that helicoptor; in order for the Oceanic Six to be rescued there must be a transitional location that they get delivered to, and then subsequently “found”. So, 8 people make it to the transitional spot, and then something happens that kills 2 of them? Is that how it sounds coming from Jack’s testimony?