4901

The “Richard saw the Losties die” bit didn’t seem like much of a reveal to me. What I figure will most likely happen is that they’ll go detonate the bomb and end up back in the future with Locke.

Assuming Richard is aware of the explosion (you’d think that would be hard to miss), he’d just assume they were all killed in the blast.

4902

meh.

Some nice scenes (Miles realizing his Dad wasn’t really a huge dick), but overall the episode felt way too much like filler, especially after the previous episode which was also kind of blah.

I really hope they do more to explain exactly why Ben killed Locke, preserved the body, brought him back, and then acted surprised that he really came back to life and such. The whole nature of the “Others” is just way too muddled right now, and not in a good “this is mysterious” way.

Hopefully this season ends strong but so far it had a strong start but has gotten pretty blah, IMO.

4903

The latest two episode have been magnificent imho. For once they are trying to put the threads together.

But this episode also made me confused. Could someone make a summary of what is going on, leaving out all personal concerns and love stories?

What the hell is the point with the scene where Locke watches Locke and sends Richard? Why Jack and the others were sent back in time (this needs a motive)? What exactly is the whole point of it all if the ultimate goal now seems to blow up the island? And why the Others are so willingly to blow the island, and so the Dharma who spent all the time doing experiments there?

Why Jack convinces Eloise that she could “fix” her mistake killing her son, if blowing up the island would mean erasing the future but not the past? And what about obvious time paradoxes?

4904

I think present-day Locke needed Richard to talk to bullethole Locke so that bullethole Locke would turn the wheel, get off the island, die, bring everyone back, etc. If that failed to happen, would present-day Locke disappear from the island?

Erasing the future ostensibly keeps Future Daniel from coming into the Others’ camp and getting himself shot.

4905

Either time is linear (so you can correct what happens), or absolute (so everything happens the same way in the end).

If time is linear then “reality” is just the newest timeline. The newest timeline is Daniel being shot. This is the only explanation that justifies how Locke can see himself. He sees himself because there’s one timeline, that jumps in time.

The timeline is still one, but it happens to jump back and then take a new direction. But in THIS case, then everyone who dies is dead. The only solution being going back AGAIN and preventing the action.

This would save Daniel (since Eloise only killed a copy of him), but it still contradicts what happens to Locke.

4906

By the way, if we accept that there are copies, then we’ll have a reality with two Sawyer.

There’s the Sawyer who’s escaping with the submarine and the Sawyer who never crashed since they belong to two different timelines.

So either they all die, or it’s a mess.

4907

So I don’t understand the Locke scene (rescuing himself). How can the future Locke even exist to tell Richard to heal himself? There is something missing there.

Essentially what I’m saying is Locke should’ve died from the bullet wound because Richard can’t have helped him because Locke of the future should not exist (becuase Locke of the present should really die).

4908

I found more contradictions.

One theory wants that Ben, Locke and Sun are in the future of an old timeline (we assume the island blows up, the plane doesn’t crash, so they also can’t be walking on it in the future and they are stuck as well as part of a timeline that will be erased). If Jack and company succeed, then we have a timeline reset and the future changed.

BUT.

Sun has a picture with Jack and company among the Dharma. So this means that what we see in the future IS consequence of what we see in the past.

So:
either they won’t succeed in their plan and the island doesn’t blow up.
Or that picture is a fake produced to manipulate Sun.

4909

This is why I dislike time travel stories. It was kinda neat at first, but now it’s just getting tiresome.

4910

Locke knowing exactly when past Locke would show up at the plane…

I’m sorry but, “because the Island told me so” is NOT a valid explanation it’s BULLSHIT.

4911

Time-like loops, pinched off the main reality, existing forever but doomed to repeat the same sequence of events over and over, in a circular pattern. That’s why they’re called ‘loops’. That’s what the Island is, a time-like loop existing apart from and tangential to our reality. It has, however, impinged on our reality at various space-time locations; it is not completely pinched off from our space-time - it exists partially in two (or more, perhaps) realities. Daniel has calculated that exploding the nuclear weapon will remove the impingment and complete the pinching-off-from-our-reality of the Island, so it will no longer mess with airplanes and people from the main time-stream. The Island time-like loop will continue to exist, perhaps, but it will no longer affect our reality. The Oceanic flight will never have crashed, the Losties will not be lost, the factions fighting over the Island will fight over something else, and we, the viewers, will be watching Caprica every week and posting about it here.

HTH.

4912

Well, see, the first thing we need to understand is that either Daniel was wrong, Daniel was lying, or That 70s Gang is going to find some spectacular way to cock up the “Let’s All Blow Up The Island” plan because there’s going to be another season of the show. If their plan succeeds and they unhappen the time loop and everything goes back to the way it was before it was the way it was, there’s not going to be much for them to talk about next year.

Not sure what the problem is with Locke finding stuff out from The Island. That’s the same crap he pulled in the first season and it made him patently awesome. It still makes him patently awesome. Of course The Island didn’t chat him up over tea and tell him that he probably ought to go have somebody fix his leg - he figured it out some other way - but the whole Mystical Vagary thing is kind of his schtick. I definitely prefer this Locke to Man Who Is So Dumb And Pitiful That Even His Hair Has Left Him.

Now, as far as the events falling together thing goes, it would appear that the position the show takes is that time is a single piece and the universe is deterministic. That means that all the things that have happened happened because they had to happen and there’s not that much choice involved. At least, that’s the argument the show is currently making. One of their themes is Destiny vs. Free Will, so I expect that next season they’ll look at the human capacity to shape his own future. Now that I mention it, wasn’t Destiny supposed to be the central theme for this season?

4913

When a hydrogen bomb explodes, there’s a blinding white light, not unlike what happens during time jumps or during season finales. I don’t think they’re changing a single thing.

4914

Daniel said the accident at the Swan (which creates the need to babysit that energy source for a few decades) was 30,000 times greater than the incident that killed the guy at the Orchid construction site, but he thought he could cancel the Swan accident by detonating the hydrogen bomb. Yes? My question is, how much energy would a 1950’s era hydrogen bomb release? Specifically a bomb used for testing, if that matters. If you detonated the bomb in that underground temple-ish chamber, would the energy release measurable above ground be a mere 30,000x greater than the energy of the Orchid incident?

When Daniel said he wanted to detonate a nuke to cancel the energy of the Swan accident I started to wonder if the nuke detonation actually WAS the Swan accident, but then I decided a hydrogen bomb would be much more than 30,000x bigger than the Orchid incident. Then I saw the bomb in that underground chamber and I began to wonder again if the quest to cancel the Swan accident is basically Oedipus with H-bombs and daddy issues instead of knives and…mommy & daddy issues. (I haven’t read Oedipus since college, but I remember it being a story with Terminator-type cruel irony regarding the consequences of trying to engineer your own destiny).

4915

Predicted yield of Jughead: 8 megatons:

I don’t think “30,000” was a precise scientific statement, I think Daniel was searching for a number to make it seem huge.

When Daniel said he wanted to detonate a nuke to cancel the energy of the Swan accident I started to wonder if the nuke detonation actually WAS the Swan accident, but then I decided a hydrogen bomb would be much more than 30,000x bigger than the Orchid incidet.

(I haven’t read Oedipus since college, but I remember it being a story with Terminator-type cruel irony regarding the consequences of trying to engineer your own destiny).

Parents and son attempt to avoid predicted fate, it happens anyway. Very arguable whether their attempts to avoid the fate created it or if the prediction factored their future actions in.

4916

For sure the nuke detonation is “the incident” in question. Whether Daniel knew this before he died or just got mixed up is TBD.

My guess is that Daniel did know, and he did everything he did specifically to get everything to happen the way it does (or did). That doesn’t explain why he seemed so genuinely surprised that his mother killed him, but again, he could be acting to get her to play her part as well.

4917

If he was acting straight up until he popped his clogs, that man was in the wrong line of work.

4918

Then the theme is about them being destined to have the life they had.

Meaning that Kate will be glad, but Jack and Sayid not.

BUT.

Daniel here is like Locke. He is responsible of what happens because he purposefully goes there so that the incident happens the way it happened. It’s like Locke going to Locke and making sure he does what he does.

So, on both fronts, past and future, Locke and Daniel are trying to PRESERVE what happened for some unknown reason.

4919

I just don’t see the writers whiping the slate clean at this point. Everything we’ve seen is that people can’t escape their destiny. They can change the way it happens or the timing (ala Charlie), but God/life/The Island balances the equation eventually and what is going to happen happens anyway.

The Incident is going to happen. Maybe in the original timeline it wasn’t a nuke, but in this timeline it is. But all the consequences of The Incident will be the same, no matter what caused it.

4920

I think that’s the crux of the situation nicely summed up. They both seem to be in possession of some knowledge that forces their hand in favor of preserving the events of the cardinal past as they know them – as it all leads to some event in the future that’s dependent on everything happening the way that it did.

Well, either they’re in possession of that knowledge, or the Island (or some other entity) is, and is leading them about by the nose.

I like the idea that this last season is going to open on the deck of the Black Rock, with Richard and the crew trying to find Solomon’s Gold or some such adventure.