4261

People have spun the wheel before. It’s the “last resort”, remember?

4262

For me that was the line of the show right there.
Though, when I heard him doing his flight introduction “Ladies and gentlemen…” I was “Ha hah, that’s what’s-his-name” then he said his name.

4263

IIRC, didn’t they (Ben’s crew) lost the ability to get on and off the Island when Desmond pushed the failsafe? From then, there was no on and off until Widmore’s people showed up in the freighter.

Ben told Locke that if you turned the wheel you could never come back but I think that was part of the ruse to get Locke to stay, based upon Jacob’s/Christian’s comments on it was supposed to be Locke moving the Island and listening to Ben, along with his already-proven proclivity towards lying.

4264

Jeff mutherflippin’ Fahey

Silverado,
the Lawnmower Man,
Body Parts
Planet Terror
Manticore,
and the mutherflippin’ Joffre Ballet!

4265

So you think that when the Dharma Initiative would get close to finding the island, someone from the original inhabitants would spin the wheel, thus necessitating the pendulum?

4266

“It’s a unique electromagnetic something or other, tied to similar somethings or others around the world.”

Yeah. Nice.

4267

What bugged me the most is that the flight crew didn’t recognize any of the famous Oceanic 6. And certainly didn’t find it odd the entire first class cabin was filled with that same Oceanic 6.

If I were a flight attendant in that situation, there’s no way that plane gets off the ground.

4268

Pretty much.

Well, it has been three years since the Oceanic 6 story. If everybody kept to their story, then there’s nothing else for the news to report. It would be like if Joe The Plumber got on a plane two years from now - who would recognize him?

4269

Desslock?

4270

So you just started watching the show, eh?

4271

Maybe they are each unique in their own way but of a similar class, or they are similar types but this one is unique in its purity or strength? And this uniqueness is what makes the Island such a desirable location, able to do the apparently unique things its capable of? Otherwise the two factions would each go live on their own separate (but not unique) time-traveling self-relocating islands.

4272

From what they’ve given us so far, it would seem that the island bounced around through time and space prior to Dharma’s arrival. You could still get to the island, but it was difficult as you had to calculate the precise coordinates AND time window in which to do it. Hence the pendulum supercomputer room. Once Dharma arrived, it would seem that The Orchid and possibly the original station that Desmond inhabited were somehow linked to keeping the island “fixed” in time/space, so that you only needed to know the right coordinates to come and go as you pleased. There was also a beacon set in place to assist with this. Between the destruction of the original station, the sub and the underwater station which controlled the beacon, the Others lost the ability to leave the island. Then along came Widmore’s freighter with it’s own set of coordinates and beacon…problem solved. Then Ben turned the frozen donkey wheel and apparently knocked it off it’s axis, and all hell broke loose.

Now why exactly the Oceanic 6 need to return to make the time waves stop is still a mystery. You’d think putting the wheel back on straight would have done the trick, but apparently not.

4273

They could come and go because they could be found; that’s why you had to keep pressing the button, to dissipate the EM energy whatever that causes the timeskips. Here’s my current understanding:

Pre-Dharma:

There’s a funky island that skips through time and space, but doesn’t really do any harm, it’s a natural supernatural thing. There may or may not be original inhabitants from long ago with 4 toes.

By sheer luck, a sailing ship makes it to the island. It crashes, end of story. Maybe they messed with the EM thingy, maybe no.

Somebody does some funky math and figures out that somewhere, something like the island exists. Which is a pretty common method in particle physics, so I can buy it for the island as well.

The Dharma initiative is born to find and study the island.

Dharma:

The DI studies the thingy for quite some time, until . . .

They drill too close to it/disturb it. Oh fuck, now the thing is going to go off all crazy. Or . . .

The thing was going off anyway, so . . .

The build the station to dissipate the energy, thus keeping the island in place, thus allowing them to come and go as they please.

Until the natives go to war with the DI. Ben, being the master manipulator, managed to control the natives as well as bringing in people to keep pushing the button, thus keeping the island and the DI happy at the same time.

Then the thing goes off, and Oceanic crashes. Ben installs someone as quickly as possible to start pushing the button so it doesn’t happen again. For a while he’s on his own and everyone gets a bit ragged, but the DI finds them eventually and transport/supplies continue.

Locke doesn’t push the button, Desmond does something or another that lets the island start naturally skipping again. But the DI’s interference have made the skipping too frequent and dangerous now.

And that’s all I’ve figured out. Corrections/expansions welcome.

H.

4274

One other thing that makes me think the Ajira flight will play a more important role than just transport to the island: The guy sitting behind Jack, the short Middle-Eastern looking guy, that’s Said Taghmaoui, an excellent actor who was in Sleeper Cell, Kite Runner and more recently starred opposite Don Chedle in “Traitor”. That guy is not a throwaway extra, he’s got an important role to play somehow.

4275

Yep I said the same thing. He’s definitely coming back.

4276

I love this defense. I’ve seen it a lot from people who absolutely love the show, but I don’t know if you fall into that category.

“You’re complaining about the shitty, nonsensical stuff? The show’s always been full of this bullshit, so why complain now?”

Anyways, I’m sure the die hards have come up with this a million times over, but does anyone else think that Locke’s body is going to be the next “host” for Jacob like Jack’s dad was?

4277

Judging from the scenes…maybe? Probably not, though. The chronologically first scene we have of Christian/Jacob is him telling Vincent to do stuff in the webisode. What we’ve seen of Locke is him “remembering dying.” It could happen that way - and that makes sense - but there will be scriptological tensity.

4278

This is the Lost corollary to the cop show rule that the bad guy is always the best known guest star in the credits…

4279

They went through enough effort pointing out the guy in any case. How was it he was the only dude allowed to sit up with the others?

4280

Something people seem to be forgetting, the station where they had to enter the numbers every 108 minutes blew up long before the island started jumping through time. The island started jumping when Ben turned the switch in the Orchid station, not before. Also after the station blew up there was never another expulsion of energy that happened like when they missed the timer.

I get the feeling the hatch with the timer is never going to be explained, along with the smoke creature.